OtherEric

And, fresh out of the mail today, my second pulp with Lovecraft in it:

Front cover is loose, back cover is missing, but the book itself is otherwise nice page quality and structure. And the list of items where I wanted at least a sample in my collection it ticks off is pretty impressive:

a) I now have a Brundage cover in my collection.

b) I now have a Robert E. Howard story in my collection.

c) I now have a H. P. Lovecraft story in Weird Tales in my collection.

Then, as just plain bonuses, it's also got a 2nd story by Lovecraft, ghost-written for Hazel Heald, and a Hyperborea story by Clark Ashton Smith, before we even get out of the Mythos. I might wish for the Howard story to have been one of his famous characters rather than a random little story, but otherwise it's hard to imagine a better representative issue of the 30's Weird Tales to have in my collection.

As others have said, this is more "what are my favorites currently in the bucket", but here's some of my favorites:

(I know it's a hair on the wrong side of the GA line, but I can't not include it

.)

(Others have mixed in a few pulps, so I will too)

Of course, now that I have the June issue I need to start looking for a February...

Did I mention this is my first pulp with a Lovecraft story at all?

Normally, I wouldn't bother posting this, since sacentaur just showed a copy that's been quoted and reshown several times the past couple weeks.

But this isn't just another pulp. This... this is a grail book. And unlike a lot of my pulps, this one is in extremely nice shape:

The stress lines along the spine are far less obtrusive on the actual book in hand.

A couple of the photos from the seller, to show the condition of the spine and the page quality:

Grail acquired. What more need I say?

All kidding aside, the stories are probably the reason a lot of the Looney Tunes comics aren't hotly contested, the first fifty one issues of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies excluded(though 'The Frozen Kingdom' issue in the Four Color run used to be touted by a long time dealer whose name escapes me in his sales catalogs as "a story as good as any Barks story") indisputable icons that they are.

But come to think of it within the Disney canon itself, Mickey may be the King of the kingdom in most collectible areas, but in the comic book market he is no match for Donald, again due to the Barks stories(and art of course).

As far as I'm concerned, there are two main reasons to collect Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies: The early Walt Kelly stories, and Mary Jane & Sniffles. The Kelly material is minor in his body of work, but still interesting and charming. Mary Jane & Sniffles is the one consistently excellent feature in LT&MM, with amazingly fun stories; Roger Armstrong's art was good on the early issues and Al Hubbard was even better when he took over. Only about 50 issues to go including the Dell Giants to complete my set; although I don't know if I'll ever get issues 1-4. (And my Four Color 402 is in desperate need of an upgrade, both of the MJ & S issues of Four Color are extremely hard to find.)

A quick question for the pulp experts out there: What pulps have covers illustrating Lovecraft stories? Is it just the Feb and June Astoundings, or are there others? As far as I know, for some reason he never got the cover art on Weird Tales.

 

 

March, April, and May/June/July 1924 Weird Tales ghostwriting for Houdini.

Ooh, good catch on the May/June/July 1924 issue. Did Lovecraft do the ghostwriting for Houdini on the March and April issues, though? I don't recall ever seeing that attributed to him... which doesn't mean it wasn't his work.

And Redfury's sig line shows why Lovecraft only got the cover once on Weird Tales, despite being one of their superstars... his stories just don't lend themselves to images of scantily clad females.

A quick question for the pulp experts out there: What pulps have covers illustrating Lovecraft stories? Is it just the Feb and June Astoundings, or are there others? As far as I know, for some reason he never got the cover art on Weird Tales.

Wow. After 45 years of hunting there were still 3 missing ? That goes to show how tough some of these Atlas books can be. Jim V is someone I would love to have lunch with someday. I've often seen his credits and bylines on www.atlastales.com ......GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

He used to say he had never paid more than $20 for a comic so that makes his achievement all the more remarkable.

 

He is one of a handful of top indexers in the volume of story and creator credits that he has identified and that have been used by Overstreet, GCD, Atlas Tales etc.

I think he said he paid more for one book... his Mad #1 was $40 or $50. But still!

Over the past few years, he's also been loaning public domain books to scanners for the DCM & CBP; there are thousands of books that are scanned because he let people borrow them.

here's Ray Bradbury's first published pro work in Super Science 11/41.

Nice one. I've only got a couple of the 1st run of Super Science, but that one is pretty high on my want list. I'm not sure I've ever even seen one for sale.

One of these days I should finish off the 2nd run of Super Science, I think I'm only missing 3 issues from that end.

Hi guys

 

My first GA book! Not as pretty as Boba's but the difference is this ones MINE!

 

And this thread needed a bump!

 

Any idea what happened to the lower right corner? I'm assuming that's what caused such a sharp looking book to grade so low.

Just in general, I love books like that when I hit them... Sharp books with one minor flaw that drops the cost way down but are otherwise great. I've got a Venus 11 with about a 3 inch tear in the back cover that would probably otherwise be a 7.0 or so... that I paid a 2.0 price for.

My other two pickups from last week, and one that showed in the mail today:

Clearly just readers, but they were $18 the pair. I'm quite good with that price for John Carter stories, I think... Now I just need to find the June 1941 issue, I've got the other four issues with JC stories from that year.

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In addition to the cover story, this one has "The Million Year Picnic" from The Martian Chronicles. I think I now have every major story from that that first appeared in the sci-fi magazines. (I'm missing a couple of the super-short chapters in pulps and all the longer stories that showed in the slicks.) I've never read the cover story, really looking forward to seeing what happened when Brackett couldn't finish a story and handed it to Bradbury to complete.

And a couple more of my pick-ups:

Cover's a bit beat-up even by my standards, but page quality is good and there's some good reading in this one; in addition to the cover story there's a Bradbury and a Sturgeon story

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Well, you can see the contents on this one. The Heinlein story is, of course better known as Magic, Inc. But I prefer the original title, myself.

Planets are a great run to collect,

Wood has art in three Planet pulps 1/53,9/53 and sum 54 all three are great and of course done at the height of his EC days.

I'll have to look for the other two issues. Just in general I'm getting really close to the threshold on Planet Stories from "Let's grab a few issues" to "I'm trying to put together the run".

You gotta crack that one Steve. The Frazetta story is breathtaking!

http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?dlid=10778

If you can't stand to crack it- or for everybody else- I was able to scan JVJ's copy of this a few years ago, along with the 25 and 27. Frazetta's work is absolutely stunning on these.

I wasn't at San Diego, but as far as pulps go I had a pretty good weekend. Here's the first half of my finds, I'll share the others in a day or two:

This one has Ray Bradbury's "Mars Is Heaven", from the Martian Chronicles and one of his best known stories.

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I already had a copy of this one in even worse shape; it's noteworthy for the Fredric Brown (they spell it right inside, at least) story and the only story John D. MacDonald did for Planet.

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The dealer had this marked as an early Philip K. story. (Insert brief filter rant here.) Which is correct, as far as it goes. It actually has his first ever published story.

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This one isn't as impressive on the writing front, although it does have a John Jakes story for those who like his stuff. The impressive bit is who drew an illustration for the Jakes story. Sorry about the scan quality, it was as flat as I could get it without risking damage to the book.

I know Wally did a fair number of illos for the digests, Galaxy in particular; but this is the only time I've seen him in a full-size pulp.

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And that's the Planets I got this weekend.

Many thanks to Hap Hazard for helping to facilitate this purchase at SDCC:

 

That is one sweet looking book! Gratz on getting it.

here's some scans of mostly new purchases

Some amazing pickups there, Hap!

Got this in the mail today:

Not only does it have an amazing cover, stories include "A Child is Crying" by John D. MacDonald, "Knock" by Fredric Brown, and "The Off Season" (one of the Martian Chronicles) by Ray Bradbury. Not to mention half a dozen Virgil Finlay illustrations. Very happy to add this one to the collection.

Some recent pick-ups

 

Nice Astounding with the first Foundation story by Asimov!

Thank you! It is really hard to find, especially in grade

No kidding. My copy is one of the very few pulps where I broke down and went for a semi-brittle copy; I'm still looking for an upgrade. According to the dealer, it was one of Van Vogt's file copies. It lacked any provenance, however, so they didn't jump the price... which, oddly, makes me think it's more likely that it really was. If you're going to lie about something like that it's to try and make more money; if it's just thrown out as an interesting fact there's a better chance it's true, I think.

Some recent pick-ups

Nice Astounding with the first Foundation story by Asimov!

Walked into a local shop today- not one that normally has pulps- and walked out with this and a slightly thinner wallet:

What the heck, I'll show off one of mine:

And, the highlight, despite being the only one that's not a first edition (it is the 1st paperback, though):