OtherEric

My one and only precode issue of Action: There are far worse covers to have as the lone example in the collection!

Terry, who was back to back with Harley if I recall correctly.

All the Bill Everett issues of Venus are just stunning, but the 17 may be the high point in terms of the interiors. The cover is pretty impressive too, but it's not quite as amazing as the 18 or 19. Even if I want the originals (and have over half of them now) the 2nd Venus Masterworks can not show up soon enough for me. Just crazy good Bill Everett artwork.

Not exactly a beautiful copy with the corner damage, but at least now I can finally say I have an issue of Marvel Mystery; and since this is the issue with Venus I'm doubly happy with it: Torch, Subby, Cap, Venus, and Blonde Phantom. That's one hell of a line-up for a single book.

A couple books I got at ECCC last weekend: Not a great copy, but even if it's not quite as hard to get as the 18 or 19 it's still pretty tricky, and other than the cover it's in pretty good shape, unlike my 18. The problem is I still need to find a 19 (and 11 others, but the 19 will probably be the hardest...) Wasn't sure if this one fits more in Atlas or Timely, it's somewhat on the edge:

And here's a couple more Kelly books I picked up recently (the 244 actually just showed up today): One oddity on the 244: It has Kelly's name, very faintly, right under the logo, as well at at the bottom. It was clearly not quite perfectly removed from its more prominent spot.

OK, so this is clearly a placeholder. But since I got it (and issues 2-5) for just over $50 after shipping, I'm quite happy with it for the moment: The later issues are better, and $10 an issue? Perfectly happy at that price, even in that condition.

One of the handful I have from the double digit era: Always thought this one was a fun cover design.

I'm actually trying to put together a complete run of John D. MacDonald's science-fiction stories. He did a total of 53, a handful of which are under the pseudonyms of John Wade Farrell and Peter Reed; all but one of those are because he did more than one story in the issue so there's only about 45 issues to actually get. (Plus, in theory, the first editions of 2 of his 3 SF novels; one appeared in a pulp originally, one was later reprinted in a pulp, and the 3rd was from the 60's and never had a magazine appearance that I know of.) 4 to go, not counting first edition non-magazine versions of the novels. His SF work has a distinctive voice; the best way I can describe it is hard-boiled. It brings a sensibility I normally associate with detective stories to Science Fiction; much more character driven than the normal Hard Science or Science Fantasy stuff you see. It doesn't really feel like what happened in the 80's when people tried it and called it Cyberpunk, though. Fun stuff.

This one came in a few days ago: And, since I posted it over in the Gerber 7 thread rather than here, I might as well show it off again since it's related to the one above: Both low grade, but neither are what I would call easy to find...

Let's head inside.... I have two copies of this book (one in a Fox Giant) and scans of a third, all 3 had horrible registration. The version at the DCM is based in part on my scans and took a very long time for somebody to fix the registration on.

More or less :

Beautiful! I would love to fill in the rest of that particular run; other than the first two all I've got is the last one rebound:

I can agree with that phrasing. Kelly wrote almost everything he drew, the only exception that comes to mind off the top of my head is the Pinocchio adaptation. I'm sure there are others, though. It's worth noting that Western/ Dell clearly viewed Kelly as one of their star creators. Kelly got a byline on a lot of comics, including on the cover of most of his Mother Goose issues.

And here's some St. John to keep us on track: Perhaps not the best $20 (for the pair) I've ever spent; but definitely somewhere up there on the list...

I would take great issue with that; even if it's true that Barks is better (and I dislike absolutist statements like that in general) there's nothing simple about it. I think much of the issue is Kelly's best work was either not in comic books or rather scarcer. Pogo never hit its peak in the comic books; the earlier stuff mostly in Animal Comics is clearly him working though a rough draft of sorts that let him explode fully onto the wider stage of the Comic strip. Whereas the later Pogo Possum comic books running concurrently with the newspaper strip was always clearly secondary to the strip. Our Gang, while wonderful in its own way, didn't let Kelly bring in the fantastic elements that were in many ways his greatest strength. His Mother Goose stuff for the most part wasn't actually comics as we normally think of them. Which leaves what I consider Kelly's two greatest comic book works- Fairy Tale Parade and Peter Wheat. Fairy Tale Parade was relatively early, and only ran 14 issues with Kelly stories; it's absolutely beautiful and well written. Peter Wheat is absolutely extraordinary; I cannot praise it enough and issue 26 in particular is one of the best comic books I've ever seen. But it always had low distribution through bakeries and is mind-bogglingly rare. With all that said, I will give you this: when comparing their best known works in comic books (deliberately excluding the Pogo strips), Barks writing was on average better. Although I would say both of them were so far ahead of the average writers of 40's comics as to be nearly in another category altogether.

I'm really not sure why Kelly is not as popular as Barks; I would say he is easily as respected but there aren't as many people trying to track down the books. Now that I made the "mistake" of sharing the Peter Wheat issues I've been able to get copies of, the price of the issues I'm missing have gotten pretty crazy on occasion...

For the small part of it (one essay) that was mine, you are quite welcome. For the rest, I'll relay both of your thanks to Thom. Glad you enjoyed it!

And here's a Walt Kelly book I didn't win. But not for lack of trying; the final price surprised me and I was expecting it to be high: http://www.ebay.com/itm/141041167558 By the way, today (the 25th) would have been Kelly's centennial! Here's a tribute a friend put together for the occasion: http://whirledofkelly.blogspot.com/2013/08/birthday-greetings-to-mr-kelly.html

Just got this in the mail today; and I figure more Sheldon Mayer around here is always a good thing:

If you only have one, that's an excellent choice, MM!

Now, of course, I just need to polish off the rest of the Operator #5 series. 33 down, 15 to go...

So some of the issues are beat up. But I've wanted to put together a complete run of these for decades, ever since I heard about the storyline in Steranko's History. And today I completed the set: I give you: The Purple Invasion!

Planet Stories are always fun, and this one has the first Eric John Stark story by Leigh Brackett.