Darwination

Wow, the last time I went looking (long ago), I could barely find 'em. That number 2 that's been framed is nice and flat with even browning, lovely.

Not mine, but I saw it in the upcoming Kump Adventure/Jungle Auction at HA and thought of this thread October 1929

Nice, Catrick, what's the date on that one? Even though it's Atlas I don't seem to have any. Seven pages of Betty is a whole lot of Betty She was totally a regular model in the TAM Humorama digests. I was thinking Brief might have run in multiple formats like some of these Atlas did, but MyComicShop is showing all digest (I thought maybe it had run as a pocket magazine or shifted to full sized, too). Of course, I have seen this particular issue fetch crazy prices (as any MM cover does, even if she is looking extra hot here): -an aside and not a small magazine, but rather an oversized magazine, up at auction (not mine) on eBay right now, Norma Jean Dougherty The one up right now is not as nice as this copy. Totally charming cover.

I saw this and thought of the Sports Almanac in the second film. It seems to be just a prop and not an actual publication like this Fantastic.

I'd already looked, Randall, in a copy I'd considered and was under the impression there were multiple different pressings. Don't know how the numbers work, though.

No cover! I'll be curious to see what it fetches in that shape. Likely the bidders will be a different crowd than the ones chasing the Spicy and Saucy in the last auction ><

There are a number of mystery artists in the girlie pulps, but I suspect this artist may be the most pondered, both because of the quality of this first cover and also because of the distinctive symbol signature. Speculation abounds that these may be the work of other moonlighting artists, but I haven't seen a theory yet I like. Not my copy -

Ok, paperback people, school me here. I'm looking at that James Bama cover and am thinking I want it. I start looking around at eBay copies and at Flickr and realize pretty quickly that there's a lot of differences in how this painting looks from publisher to publisher and even edition to edition. It's not the original paperback printing. Even the original paperback printing followed a first hardcover edition. Then am I just hunting the first edition with the cover I like? But then I look at these editions, and they are so different. Here's the original art (with nice model reference) that Steve has up at Flickr: Almost photorealistic - few like Bama are able to achieve such detail. Amazing. But then I look at the copies available, how different the original looks than the printing in many cases. And I get that even the same printing is going to look different depending on condition, whether you are looking at a scan or a photo, how that photo or scan has been processed, etc, but here we go, Bantam 1963 Bantam 1965 via Steve Bantam 1967 1970 Corgi verion from Boy de Haas at Flickr I think de Haas here probably has his black levels jacked a bit, but I'm feeling that a lot of that black is in the printing in the first place. You're losing a lot of detail, but some might prefer the darker look. Do collectors tend to go for the first edition in an oft-reprinted book like this, or are they hunting particular pressings?

LMAO, Waiting for Willy. Willy can only hope.

There was True Weird as well. I found more dupes of True Strange and a dupe of one of these True Weird today, I think it must be some sort of illness. Strange and Weird, but True.

Love the colors of that sunset and her walking fingertips. The Stork imprint, though? What a turnoff - who needs to be reminded of the consequences of impetuous hot lovin'?

I'm so clueless on these paperbacks - I see a good one and wonder if it's pricey. Robert Maguire. Looking on eBay---this one, not so much. Looks like the grading is schizo on the paperbacks, too. What's my copy? G/VG? The main thing I notice with these is the spine creasing. The other is that the pages binding starts to go pretty quickly. Because, you know, people read them. In my mind, paperbacks are a perfect way to read a novel. The pages are the just the right size so you move quickly through a book, and pbs are light and not cumbersome. You can pretty much hold it up and read with one hand. Versus fat hardcovers or two column pulp magazine pages. On the other hand, you can read a hardcover a couple times without making a scratch. It's the main reason I've ever bought them - so I can get at an out of print book. A big fear is they can be abridged, but a little digging usually turns that info up. The Maguire is good, but a later edition is even better. From James Bama:

So if the military themed joke books and Humorama sorts of pubs are digests, I guess that makes a whole crop of other earlier joke magazines going back to the early 20s digests, too? C Can't believe I don't own any Calgary Eye Opener to throw in here, that's a great one, will post some from my files, not mine, though -

That cover is absolutely ridiculous

This IS NOT an undgeround, but I came across it climbing through boxes today, perfect

Thanks, Jack. The covers are mostly repaired via a somewhat painstaking process with a clone stamp/brush in photoshop. There's also an whole array of tools I use in color adjustment or different layer pattern and color fills to de-age a cover or even just give it a little extra zing for a digital presentation. I don't spend as long as a dude at the museum in a physical restoration, but it can get pretty deep, especially if I'm working with a highly damaged item (which you end up having to do for scarce or expensive pubs). Working from something minty shortens things a bit And just having nice copies of something to look at can help me get the colors to where they need to be if I'm working from a faded copy. When you get a cover treatment just how you're happy with, it's a great feeling. As far as general scan tutorials go - which mostly regard the processing of images for cover to cover scans - I did some so far back that they are likely obsolete. There are a number of "comic scanning guides" out there in the wild that do a good job of covering the basics. In the pulpscans group at io they also have a number of nice tutorials on processing images even if that's mainly for working with a lot of text (pulps). I did a long tutorial just last weekend in the pulpscans group that likely bored anybody that actually read it to death where I took a pulp apart to scan it and then showed a process for making a salvageable copy afterwards. It would likely give the collectors here a goddamned heart attack I have been blessed with lots of help over the years. Some more like interns (I teamed up with a lot of younger kids in my earlier days just to spread the love of scanning and some vintage comics) and some like partners or even teachers (McCoy having helped me with an innumerable number of scans). A lot of the time it's just me, though. I'm hardly the most prolific scanner I know these days. One pal does a magazine a day. Pulps, slicks, dime novels, sweats, you name it (but no comics, ha). It can be an obsession. I left the hobby for a long time and am now playing catch up with some of these fierce newcomers, which I love. Automation certainly can be a helpful tool, but even the best with automation (not me) have to be meticulous proofers to make sure everything looks right. Honestly, it's been quite liberating just to post my raw covers here minus any photoshop work, these mags are beautiful just the way they are

Yeah, the Marilyn cover is slightly disturbing 😳 The original sold for under 2 grand at Heritage a couple of years ago, so maybe a humble collector like myself really could 'take it' - though I would likely need to hang in a room where my wife wouldn't have to look at funky Marilyn too often The Elvis is my fave followed by the James Dean. I wrote just a bit on Weider (who features prominently in that three part Netflix doc on Arnold Schwarzenegger) on a blog post from earlier this year on True Weird, the predecessor to True Strange, at: http://darwinscans.blogspot.com/2023/07/true-weird-may-1956.html?m=1

I'm going to go ahead and stick these here since it's an active thread and seems to have a lot of material. I considered the sweat mags thread, but I don't know if these are exactly that. I've been sorting through 40 boxes today (almost there, good lord, fun tho) and separating books out into type and genre, etc. First time I've ever done a comprehensive sort. I always take cover scans of magazines and pulps (wish I'd done it for all comics and newspapers and tabloids and paperbacks, too) as they come in, so I can see my collection that way, but it's another thing altogether to sort the slicks from the pulps from the modern mags, pulps into genres or titles, etc. I showed off this set (have some dupes,too, not sure if these are all scans of my best copies) to my wife. She sat there with a look of horror at my wonder with these covers. Thomas Beecham, True Strange 1-7. I think I saw the original of one of these cover's original painting sell in the last couple years for like a grand, no love from the art world!

Holy cow, I thought maybe the the ones that ended up 3 and 4 might take the top spot unexpectedly but, um, nope. I guess it's the condition that got the sharks all riled up. Looks like the Norm Saunders covers are the hottest ticket right now for the Saucy/Spicy collectors. A wild bunch

A favorite Bergey, really incredible.