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On 5/8/2023 at 11:23 AM, Robot Man said:Rich and I were very different. We were on different political sides, I liked PCH and GGA and he liked Funny animals. He liked Superman and Capt. Marvel, I liked the darker Batman & The Spectre. In high school I played in a rock band and ran around with “hoods” and he was a jock. But we both agreed on our love of the medium and love of the “hunt”. The great equalizer.
I too held different political views from his. However, when he and I were alone, we would sometimes have conversations on highly divisive topics. Although I knew he disagreed fiercely, he would always listen respectfully and with interest to my side and neither of us ever got upset. Eventually, we'd just start talking about comics and art again. In my adult life, I've always made a particular effort to seek out friendships with people that I disagreed with politically and I felt a kinship with Rich in this respect. On rare occasions, as much as he hated it, he would even hint to me that he might have been wrong about something. For all the years that I knew him, he kept a laminated copy of the poem below in clear view beneath the glass surface of his desk. He told me that he had moved it there from his office at the university when he retired as a Professor:
"Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.” -
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On 5/7/2023 at 3:49 PM, mlansdown said:[...] Years ago, when I told Rich that I finally finished my Yellow Kid pinback set, he sounded just as happy as me! Rich was a true icon of the comic collecting world, and I will miss him dearly.
That's so typical Rich: nothing would get him more excited than when someone reached a very difficult milestone. One of my own favorite memories was his reaction when my Excel spreadsheet revealed that the average CGC grade of my Mickey Mouse Magazine run finally had reached 9.00 after half a dozen years of hovering in the 8.90s. Rich was just as big a geek for numbers and statistics as I am and he was the only person I could share my excitement with because I knew he would understand the significance that this eye rolling moment had to me. Not only that, but he assembled a collage of all the covers in my run and mailed me a framed and matted copy of it. His excitement on behalf of others was just as genuine and enthusiastic as when he added a rare find to his own collection.
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Rich was one of my best friends and probably the most amazing human being I've ever met. Over the past 15 years, he and I exchanged over 7,000 emails and I got to visit him and Gayle at least once or twice each year. I had the privilege to spend last Sunday afternoon with them by his bed at the hospital after flying in that morning. Though he was very weak at that point, he was sharp until the very end and managed to raise his eyebrows in his usual infectious smile when he saw me. He and Gayle got to say a very beautiful last goodbye.
Last October, Rich suffered a fall that reduced his mobility and made it more difficult for him to get to his computer. Like others, I noticed a significant slowdown in his communication after that, but he remained his same old self. Just recently, he was very excited about a Yellow Kid pin set that was up for sale at Hake's.
One of the things that may not be widely known about him is just how generous he could be once he got to know and like you. He would always listen very patiently to anything that was going on in my life and then use his incredible analytical skills to offer advice. And his generosity extended so much beyond that.
50YrsCollectingCmcs mentioned the story of how Rich and Leonard found a beautiful Four Color 62 during one of their adventures in the late 1950s. At the time, Rich was the one who found the book in one of the piles in the basement, but Leonard was just as desperate to get it: neither of them had ever seen or read this book before and it had an almost mythical status to them. They ended up trading the next day, on the condition that Leonard would offer the book back to Rich first if he ever were to sell it. As the years turned into decades, they would often talk about this and their many other finds when they got together. In 1977, Rich made a painting of the front cover and mailed it to Leonard as a gentle reminder of his pledge. When Leonard eventually sold his collection, which included the top census copy of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #1 and many other super high grade Disney comics, he kept the FC 62. Shortly before he passed away around 2005(?), he mailed an unannounced package to Rich containing the cover painting as well as the book. Rich then kept it prominently on display in its fortress holder. A couple of years ago, when I got to visit Rich and Gayle again after COVID, Rich took me to his office where, as always, he had prepared a stack of considerate gifts for me. These would either have a practical purpose or an interesting story to them, but they always reflected a unique degree of thoughtfulness. At the bottom of the pile that day were two items: the 1977 painting and the high grade Four Color 62.
RIP. -
On 6/10/2017 at 2:53 AM, OtherEric said:
Do these books exist?
Specifically, has anybody ever seen a copy of (Adventures of) Peter Wheat #65 or #66?
Overstreet and the Fort Mudge Most both claim the series made it to #66. But the GCD doesn't have scans of #65 or #66. The Digital Comic Museum doesn't have scans of #65 or #66. (Admittedly, most of the scans there are of my books.) I've never seen a copy of either issue for sale anywhere. And this lot on Heritage
has 54 of the issues of the series but doesn't have the last two. To be fair, the later issues do seem to be scarcer than the ones near the middle of the run, presumably as bakeries dropped the series. But I'm pretty much ready to declare these books don't exist unless I hear of somebody actually having seen a copy.
I don't know the answer to your question, but my own impression is that Overstreet had at least some standard regarding requirements to documentation for books like these.
For many years, I have tried to trace down the rarest Disney comics in existence. One particular book, the Florida Power version of "Donald Duck Tells About Kites", bothered me as it was the only one in Overstreet that I had neither seen for sale nor heard of anyone owning. In the early 2000s, Arnold Blumberg asked for feedback to improve the accuracy of the guide. He made changes based on some of my input, but the listing of the Florida copy of the kites giveaway stayed against my recommendation.
Eventually, after the restructuring at Gemstone around 2009, a bunch of Overstreet's notes on esoteric material were listed for sale on eBay. Among them was a xerox of the front cover of the Florida version. Later on, I learned about the whereabouts of the known copies, which indeed do exist with 100% certainty.
Anyway, based on the above, my best guess is that those books exist.
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I am relieved to report that the missing parcel arrived today, May 8, 4 1/2 month after it was originally mailed. Thanks to everyone who kept an eye out for the books.
- HRCostigan, walclark and Supernerd
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14 hours ago, Moondog said:
I'm with you, Bob. Jon was always there with information to anyone who asked. A true gentleman and a collector of extraordinary taste. It's sad on one hand but exciting on another. Best of luck, Jon!!!
Jon is among the handful or so collectors that I admire the most. His eloquent thoughts on collecting have had a huge impact on my own approach to the hobby. It's not even the scope and quality of his collection that has impressed me most. The best example is his efforts towards reaching out to Golden Age artists and paying them to do recreations. I've never seen him talk much about this, but to me it is the single most beautiful, in the most literal sense of the word, collection I've ever seen anyone put together. Best of luck with the sale, Jon, and I hope that we'll hear from you from time to time.
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On December 21st last year, a registered and insured USPS package was mailed to my address in Las Vegas. The package is now officially lost and subject to an insurance claim.
Two of the lost books are easily recognizable, even if they have been removed from the CGC holder:
* Walt Disney's Comics and Stories 6, Recil Macon, name written prominently on front cover
* Mickey Mouse Magazine Series 1 #4, 1933, exceptionally rare book in any grade that is close to unique in CGC 8.0
There were other CGC graded books in the package (including Mickey Mouse Magazine Series 2 #1, 1933, CGC 9.0), but these two are easiest to remember.
My financial loss should be covered by insurance, but I would appreciate if other collectors could watch out for the books in case they were stolen. The USPS lost track of the package at my local post office where it was held while I was out the country.
Thanks :).
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That certainly makes sense-- I would love to buy your correspondent a cup of coffee and hear the many stories that he could tell about Western.
I wonder why my Racine file copy from April, 1938 has the Mickey logo but the file copy from January, 1940 does not. I was curious enough to look thru my own copies and also did a quick review of the images on the Heritage website. The earliest Mickey logo I could find was V.I #12 Sept 1936, and the latest was V.3 #12 Sept 1938. While my review is admittedly unscientific, I wonder if the logo was added for a specific time and then discontinued. Also, whether it's possible the logo was added to the Racine copies instead of the Poughkeepsies. This might explain why the earlier file copy has it and the later one does not.
pooroldman,
I have forwarded your message....unfortunately, he/she did not give me their name and they were speaking from memory from over 40 years ago. It appears he/she may not have been a Western employee for long before being bought by Mattel but was responsible to review current and past contracts for compliance.
Looking at the timeline for Western's expansion, the Poughkeepsie facility was established in 1934. The deal to establish K.K. Publishing was in 1933 for the Disney related material. My theory is initial demand for MMM could be handled at a single facility. When demand increased, the other facility was necessary to meet production. The reporting requirements to ABC may have created the need to report circulation numbers, in aggregate, but the contract may have required the logo to be added to differentiate facilities.
I would bet file copies would be sent from each facility to a central location, some with the logo, and some without.
Thanks a lot for the information, rookster, this is news to me. To support pooroldman's observation, the earliest variant issue, I have seen, is also from late V1. What is known from reliable sources is that Hal Horne left after V1#5 despite Kay Kamen and Walt and Roy Disney trying hard to keep him. Further, Horne suffered heavy losses from his involvement in the magazine ($50,000 if I remember correctly?).
From my own observations, the paper quality of the next few issues is dramatically lower, making these the most difficult of the entire run to find in collectible condition. What I have been guessing so far is that those issues reflect a period of flux as Kay Kamen may have been trying to salvage the title, eventually leading to some kind of change that resulted in 1. the variant edition and 2. significantly better production quality, from around V1#12. The input from your source would actually fit very nicely with that theory.
To me, the most burning question is why Kamen (or perhaps even the Disneys?) chose to continue, and seemingly even invest(?), in a title that seemed doomed for failure with the resignation of Horne. V2 was an explosion of bold initiatives: first (and only) 100 page issue, first color Sunday reprints, several cover layout changes, first covers promoting/leveraging Silly Symphony characters, and so on. I wish more was known about who (Kamen and/or Disney?) and why all this effort was put into a failing magazine at a time when Kamen must have been overloaded and some Disney childrens' books already had reached circulations of several million copies. Clearly, these decisions turned out to be extremely smart and profitable, but they can't have been easy back in those critical months of the summer of 1936. Someone at Disney must have had the foresight to understand the potential of the comic book format.
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Obviously these gems are very scarce, but as the era is referenced and therefore considered to have existed, it should be worthy of some discussion. Someone who participates here may even have an original they wish to share with the group. I feel it is an interesting period as one can see the experimentation and then trends beginning to emerge that eventually culminate in the beginning of the Golden Age.
Does anyone else feel the same way?
Definitely. I would very much welcome a Platinum forum, even if it gets very low traffic. My main motivation is that there is far too much talk about prices and values for my taste in the Gold forum: all those threads have less than zero interest for me and they are the reason I have largely stopped reading the CGC boards. On the other hand, I have a strong impression that platinum collectors generally are far more interested in history. Thus, such a forum would likely be a very convenient filter for the kind of posts that I find interesting.
I don't think t it will happen, but at least I wanted to say that you are not alone.
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It's kind of ironic that Splash Mountain--of course, one of the most popular rides in DL and WDW--is based on a movie Disney won't let us see.
Not to mention Disneyland's anthem.
Every time I take my nephews and nieces to Disney World, they keep asking _lots_ of questions about why the movie was banned. They are from Denmark and it is always a great opportunity for a teachable moment about American history and culture.
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Sometimes eliminating or reducing the amount of "sharpening" done will fix the problem or you can try a different piece of software to perform the reduction. I believe I've had situations where my default approach to editing pics in Photoshop produced moire while the process invoked through Phototbucket did not.
Amazing book, RHG! One you don't see every day for sure.
A low-tech way of eliminating the aliasing is to smoothen/blur the original image before downsizing. That's basically what fancy image processing software does under the hood.
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This might be strange to some of you, but I'm excited to get this book
I've seen a few over the years but never owned one ..... until now 1935!!! 
Through my conversations with Yellow Kid, whom I had the pleasure of visiting again last week, I've come to realize how important a year 1935 was for Disney publications. Hal Horne invested a lot of his own money in the third Mickey Mouse Magazine with the support of Walt and Roy Disney and Kay Kaymen. A very deliberate decision must have been made, most likely to the credit of Kamen, to put more emphasis on and improve the quality of the children's books and magazines. On that background, I've earned new respect for this particular book, the first devoted to a key character, as it coincides with the exact time of a very important new direction that proved to be hugely important for Disney. The 1936 "Donald Duck" is really a handsome volume, and I think the transition between these two books marks a very important historical event.
I've never liked the term "key issue" when talking about the history of comics as I see that process mostly as a slow evolution of trial and error iterations. Even books like Action 1 and Detective 27 were far from brilliant strokes of genius that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. In terms of Disney books, however, I think that this book, as part of a sweeping change that is reflected in publications from a brief window of time starting around the summer of 1935, marks a change of an importance that I had not fully appreciated until recently. It's still an evolutionary change, but it is about as close to a revolutionary one as I can think of.
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Today, I am more optimistic about the future of comic book collecting than I was 10 years ago. Somehow, the ideas that are embedded in the ink printed on that old paper seem to be transcending the gap to the digital generation far better than I had feared. In fact, I think it is fair to say that comic book characters play a more dominating role in popular culture today than literature does. Even more importantly, comic book characters are ideally suited for interactive/immersive digital media and, with the emergence of virtual reality in consumer electronics, we have only scratched the surface of an immense unexplored potential. This trend will continue to raise awareness of the original first appearances of popular characters, not only in the Western world, but across the world where computer games and immersive 3d movies will have a reach that comic books never could compete with. If vintage comic books had been printed on vellum or papyrus, my guess is that there would still continue to be a growing demand for those featuring well known characters. Not because of what they look like or how they were constructed, but because people will want to own rare and desirable items that represent the coolest, most brilliant ideas, anyone has come up with.
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That's an interesting contrast to comic books which, by the broader public in the mid 1950s, must have been considered just about the least educational medium available to children.
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Those are some beautiful copies, sqeggs.
Looking at the last cover, it seems somewhat of a paradox how Barks often used valuable collectible stamps in his work, yet, today, comic books have been playing a much bigger role in popular culture for the past generation.
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[..]So I thought I'd go back to my roots with Australian copies of Comics & Stories for the higher Dell numbers. Here's our #190, which has the cover of Dell #256.
[...]
Cool project. And you really notice the difference between the Barks/Kelly covers and all the rest.
You need an Australian turtle now, mate. One that can count to more than 100.
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Thanks for the heads-up. I'll have to see if I can track down a copy.I love these!Speaking of cool things, be sure to check the just released Donald Duck #5 (from IDW): after 46 years (my own age) the first apperance and origin of Paperinik (the Duck Avenger) is presented for the first time to the english-speaking population (and in USA).
Many of those stories were well written and the character was quite popular back home when I was a teenager. Thanks, Italy, for the Duck Avenger, even if no one else here has a clue who he is...
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My favorite Mickey Mouse!
It would have been amazing if Gottfredson had been able to draw this story for the comic book format. It has so many memorable drawings and sequences that just cry out for what would undoubtedly have been classic splash panels. I can just envision Gottfredson working late hours by his desk, trying to outdo himself with each of the brilliant assassination scenes. You only get a masterpiece of this scale from someone who is not only supremely talented, but also truly passionate about their work.
I got to inspect a CGC 9.2 copy of Four Color 16 during an inspection in Dallas and it was one of the most memorable Golden Age Disney books, I have ever seen.
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Just got a great deal on these 3. They're low quality, but I couldn't pass up the deal.
# 2 is missing the CF. Anyone have one?
WDC&S 2 3 &4
Congratulations, those issues are such an important part of comic book history and it is always nice to see new copies. You just might be lucky and find a coverless copy on eBay.
My own guess is that the last Mickey Mouse Magazine is slightly less common than the first 4 issues of WDC&S. The circulation started growing exponentially from month to month at this time after it had been stagnant in the years leading up to 1940. The issues between V5#12 and WDC&S 4 are relatively uncommon as far as Disney comics go, but they are nowhere near what I'd call scarce or rare. Of the 5 issues, my best guess is that WDC&S 1 could be the most common as kids would have been more likely to like it and keep it safe.
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The bidding for the FC 263 was cut off prematurely when the auction ended at midnight.
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My favorite ugliest cover of the GA.....nah......the plain ugliest. Period.
Tough call, but I'd give that award to Man of War 1 with Red Raven 1 as an honorable mention. The owl on the Funny Pages is really not that bad.
Seriously, that's a great book!
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As many of you know, I have a passion for tracking down GA artists (many long gone) and have commissions done. Done by Filchock at 95, I had him remove the word balloons. Some of the earliest of the GA.
Tough part was to find him. (NO PROBLEM AGREEING TO DO IT. HE WAS PYCHED.
Thank you so much for having the foresight to make this consignment happen, jbcomicbox!
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I have 7 unslabbed issues of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories between #12-27. Most are subscription copies stamped with Recil's address. The first few issues have no writing, but all the later issues show him experimenting writing his name. He also completed the subscription coupon on several issues with his full address so it looks as if he liked this title.
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Nice to see that you're still around. We tend to throw superlatives around to an extent where they can't really be used meaningfully any longer, but your registry set is truly one of the top accomplishments by a board member that I have seen.
I agree with you completely regarding the relative scarcity of PG&E vs. SCE. Even before your find, I used to see the latter for sale more frequently. Around 10 years ago, staff members working on the guide asked for input on the board and I believe that I made them aware of this issue. They did follow a couple of my other suggestions, but not this one.
I've seen a few over the years but never owned one ..... until now 
Jon Berk has passed.
in Golden Age Comic Books
Posted
I was deeply saddened to hear this. Jon was one of the people that I always admired most in the hobby.
It was nice to read through all the great comments. Among his many accomplishments, the one that I feel is most overlooked is the effort he put into consigning recreations. I can imagine being in his shoes back in the 1990s and recreate the thinking process that led up to his decision to devote all that time, effort, and money to finding and meeting Golden Age artists towards the end of their lives. I couldn't imagine a more beautiful way to not only give back to these artists, but also let them give him something uniquely meaningful in return. Meeting Jon in person and experiencing his passion for their life's work must have been just as wonderful for them as the experience was for him. Jon was truly one of a kind and he had a profound impact on my own approach to collecting.
RIP.