Arkadin

Just picked up these early Terry and the Pirates - what a classic adventure strip! 1935/01/13 - strip #6

I know we all love Kubert round these parts. I've picked up some of his Tales of the Green Berets newspaper strips - as always, great artwork from the master. Tales of the Green Berets 1966:

Just noticed this - Frazetta swiped his own Tomahawk splash from Star Spangled #113 for one of his 1960's ERB paperback covers. Guess you can't blame him, it's a cool image!

Like BB-Gun, I like the postwar tabloid size Spirit sections. Here are a few from the early 50's: The 1951 "Rife" magazine parody has some beautiful pinups of classic Eisner femme fatales: The tabloid Spirits are BIG. Here's a shot of one with a regular Dell comic book for comparison.

For me, this evokes reading "All in Color for a Dime" as a kid - the Boy Commandos 24 was included in the glossy color cover gallery in the middle of the book.Those were the first Golden Age covers I'd ever seen! By the way, congratulations on your latest grades Marty.

Here's my latest Dennis the Menace. And it is indeed Golden Age - 1954 to be exact. According to (former?) boardie, and DTM expert ComicBookGuy, #3 is the second toughest issue to get - so I'm stoked to have this one. Dennis the Menace 3

There's Nazi's the cover? Didn't even notice that.. j/k I thought it was kinda funny myself how they could have Nazi bondage branding on one side and then a cute little child starlet on the other... Yikes, that's no child starlet - that's Fanny Brice as Baby Snooks. Dang, she's scarier than The Skull. I hope Doc Savage kicks her butt inside that issue!

Hejji is another rare strip. Appearing for only 3 months in 1935, it was Dr. Seuss' only comic strip. I picked up a near-complete run of the strip on Heritage last year (missing only the first and last strip). The previous owner had put them in "slabs" made out of thick plastic sheets with foam core backings - and Heritage left them that way. In addition to the Hejji's, the auction lot also included a complete 1935 Puck comic section and a Babe Ruth ad, also in home-made "slabs." When I took these "slabs" apart (to put them in mylars), I discovered that the Puck section contained another Hejji inside in great condition. The Babe Ruth ad didn't interest me much. But when I removed it from it's "slab" and turned it over... on the other side was the first Hejji strip! Why it had been "slabbed" with the Hejji on the inside is certainly a mystery - but now I just need the last strip.

In any grade, that is a beautiful cover. Congrats. (thumbs u

And very remeniscent of the 1941 Fleischer Superman cartoon, The Mechanical Monsters.

Beautiful NM- copy you got there - with a great Enemy Ace story inside, should you decide to do a crack'n'read. You have to admit, the cover makes you want to know what happens next to poor Enemy Pooch! Schatziiiiiii....!!

Very nice Captain Easy, BB! That title seems to have inspired many of the next generation of comic creators. Another influential strip - a precursor to Peanuts - was Percy Crosby's Skippy. Skippy was probably the first comic to become a hit movie, way back in 1931. The Skippy film starred Jackie Cooper (much later to play Perry White in Superman) and won the Oscar for Best Director. Here's a full page 1930's Skippy from my collection.

Gasoline Alley had a number of fantasy Sunday strips, like this one from 1930 with Walt and Skeezix entering a world of crazy modern art!

When it comes to beautiful full page Sunday comics, Frank King's great Gasoline Alley can't be beat in my book. Famously, Uncle Walt and Skeezix aged during the strip's decades-long run - but for us comic fans, they'll live forever. Here's a 1931 Sunday with an incredible King layout.

This is a wonderful idea for a thread - thanks BB-Gun. Really looking forward to seeing what folks have to share here. I'll start with a Peanuts Sunday from 1952.

Since seeing this post, I've become a rabid Steig collector. His cartoons are great - and I also like his advertising work from the 40's and 50's. Here are a couple of Kellogg's newspaper ads from 1947, featuring his famous "Small Fry" - maybe the closest Steig ever got to doing a real comic strip!

The only ones I've seen are from the:Philadelphia Bulletin, Philadelphia Record and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Lucky Philly readers back in the day!

Spirit tabs. Not Spirit sections, mind you - though they're wonderful. Spirit tabs are - pure and simple - the most beautiful, luxuriously huge comic books ever. Post war Spirit's are the best art and stories anyway - but at 11 x 15 inches they are comic nirvana and sweet sensory overload that you can practically feel yourself diving headfirst into. Of course, you can't see that just looking at the scans below - to really appreciate how gorgeous a Spirit tab is, you have to hold one in your hands. You have to lay on the floor (preferably on a Sunday morning) with one spread out in front of you and drink in every oversize panel of the Spirit's latest comedy / fairy tale / comic noir adventure. My latest Spirit tabs, both from 1951.

Me like-um! Very sharp book Marty.

When ya comin' back Red Ryder? This character sure became an American institution in the 40's and 50's - but seems mostly forgotten now. Except, of course, as that rifle Ralphie wants so badly in "A Christmas Story." Red Ryder Comics #101 1951 Dell File Copy

Larry Ivie's Monsters and Heroes was the kind of monster mag kids in the 60's would have made themselves if they'd had the means. Lots of neato monster pictures, fun photos from comic conventions of the day, and of course, a rad comic strip, "Altron Boy." Picked up six issues this week, all in nice shape.

Just in, a nice copy of Spunky #1, from 1949. This is a terrific book bursting with artwork by the great funny animal artist Jack Bradbury. And if that weren't enough, there are some Frazetta text illo's too. If anyone's interested, there's a cool Jack Bradbury website with lots of comics, original art and letters that provide some fascinating insight into the production background of this very Spunky book in 1948, and the comic industry in general. Spunky #1

This cover seems years ahead of its time - I suppose it's the way the artist suggests real weightlessness with Junior's pose. If a kid could fly, that's just how he'd look "braking" in mid-air, ready to throw a punch. It "reads" as completely natural, yet completely fantastic. Can't think of anything remotely like this in other comics of the time. What an amazing imagination Raboy must have had to bring a kid's dreams to life so vividly!

I seem to remember seeing this photo in an article about comic conventions in an old monster magazine (Monsters and Heroes? Castle of Frankenstein?). So it might be from the late 1960's, and the kid's in costume for the convention.

I'm reading Harrison High by John Farris. The original black Dell paperback edition - great 50's cover art on this one! The book is actually pretty good, too.