tb

Wow!!! I love the early sci-fi exciting covers. Tough books to find

 

Here's his little buddy, two issues later. The colors are unbelievable.

 

I know people really start digging this run once the Black Terror appears, and I don't blame them, but the mini-run before #6 (when the inking on the covers gets too heavy) really floats my boat.

 

Those covers are awesome. Personally, I am far more interested in the experimental pre-hero issues and understand what you mean. Seeing the Church copies is like watching a beautiful piece of art - that pair ought to be at the Smithsonian.

What impressed me the most in the footage is again how superior IMO Snow White still is

 

Are you still working in the field, tb?

I was just watching Snow White again a few days ago. The more I learn about the history of animation, the more impressive it seems to get.

I no longer make a living in the animation field (used to work for Pixar R&D) but still follow the latest research from journals and conferences. I am glad Disney holds patents since I know many researchers who otherwise would not hesitate to produce poorly done 3d recreations of famous 2d sequences. Fortunately, many of the top people at Disney/Pixar truely love 2d animation and they would never allow any 3d recreation - at least not without 10 times the investment it took to produce "Snow White".

Here's an interesting montage showcasing how Disney got inspiration for some sequences from ... Disney. About 3 minutes long. Watch to the end as several sequences are shown. I was pointed to it by Evanier's newsfromme.com blog -

Very cool, thanks Scrooge.

It won't be long before the technology to convert traditional 2d animation to 3d animation templates will be available. That's going to raise some interesting questions related to ethics and copyrights.

Fantastic book! Thanks for posting it.

Great duck pickups, Andrew!

 

There's something very funny about just seeing the rear end of one of the nephew ducks on the cover of #139. I'm surprised some editor didn't strike that down....

The requirements to the covers were very constraining. The figures were to be as big as possible and seen from the front, and their heads were to be as large as possible relative to the body (larger than in the interior stories). You can often tell how Barks was struggling to satisfy all the conditions and this is a good example. Frequently, his drafts would be rejected and he would go through several iterations before they were accepted.

A few months ago, after the Scrooge exhibit at GEM ended, Steve Geppi was looking to sell the original art for the whole story through Jerry Weist. I hope it will get split up, like "The Beauty Expert" was, so 28(?) collectors each will get the chance to own a page at a favorable price. I've always avoided these late pages because they are really not that rare - at least not if Geppi would be a little nicer about sharing with the rest of us.

The book below belongs to a friend of mine. I've been comparing it to my own 9.2 copy since I have something that he wants and know he would agree to a trade. Both books are gorgous with almost identical eye appeal. The biggest difference is that the 9.2 has very minor technical flaws, including a stress line at the spine.

The conclusion I've come to has surprised me somewhat: I just don't think there's enough difference to justify the price difference (FMV is probably 2x, I would think). Yes, when I look at the two books next to each other I can tell the difference, but if I were to look at either of them in isolation (and without the CGC label) I don't think there would any measurable difference in how I would perceive them. It's a tough call, of course, and I might still change my mind.

In any case, I love this cover - it's really something to see it in such a nice condition.

Edit: here's a scan of the 9.2 for comparison (sorry for the quality, I don't have the book out right now). Although they look different in the pictures (which were made by different scanners), the colors are virtually identical - looks like they might have come from the same stack of file copies.

Thanks everyone. This book was been a quest of mine for awhile. Tim's copy, now my copy, is stunning. I look forward to its arrvial.

Yes, I think you'll receive it on the NEXT April 1.

 

For everyone who's expressed their concern about my situation here or in PMs, thank you very much, and apologies for stringing you along.

Dang, I was already celebrating the thought of another crisis related fire sale.

I deliberately keep a low profile and only a handful of collectors and dealers have met me in person. At the SDCC in 2007, the only convention I've ever been to, I asked a dealer if he had any exceptional Golden Age Disney comics. He was clearly sizing me up. He looked at my badge and replied "So you're from XXX, huh?", where XXX is a small town known for having some of the highest real estate values in the US. I ended that conversation quickly and walked away with a smile.

GAfan, I won WDCS 3, 4, and 10 in the same auction along with a few other books. I am currently talking with the buyer of the 27 9.6, who is a good friend of mine, and hoping I can make a trade for that. You did exceptionally well with your purchases - I doubt we'll ever see prices this low again: you can count the times someone has offered a complete run of high grade WDCS on a severely amputated set of fingers.

Congratulations, GAfan, that's a fantastic copy and you sure got it at a friendly price.

Starting with #32 he is writing them as well. #31 was a -script he was given, that he changed a bit. The editors liked his changes so much they gave him the writing job with #32, the 1st one he wrote & drew.

Thanks for the scan, PF. I always loved reading the stories in the first edition. Sadly, my own copy is in a CGC holder so I have to do with the reprints.

The "Collected Works" shows a memo that Dorothy Strebe from Disney's publications department sent to Barks in November 1942. I don't want to scan it for copyright reasons but here's what it says:

"Dear Carl,

Here is a 10-page story for Donald Duck. Hope that you like it....you are to stage it, of course...and if you see that it can be strengthened, or that it deviates from Donald either in narration or action, please make the improvements.

Do you suppose you can have this completed, in two weeks... by the 23rd. The price has gone up: it is not $12.50 per page instead of $10.00 per page.

Please let me know right away, will you?

Golly, I didn't know you had left...

Sincerely,

Title lettering should be merely:

Walt Disney Presents Donald Duck

or

Donald Duck by Walt Disney

--or whichever lettering fits into the design of your opening panel".

Disney also had their contraption, the Multi-plane camera that helped them add

depth to their animations. I love this stuff.

 

The digital equivalent of this idea has been widely used in CG animation. Not to add visual interest but to cut cost by breaking a complex 3d scene into multiple layers that can be edited independently and rendered in parallel. In the end, all the layers are collapsed into the final 2d frame, just like Disney did back then.

Thanks, bangzoom, these heuristic approaches to combining motion and perspective are really fun to see. It is remarkable how their relationship to modern CG animation mirrors how the phenomenological experiments by early renaissance painters relate to the invention of the linear perspective in the 15th century. You can almost sense the allnighters that the animators at Fleischer must have pulled trying to recreate these complex effects without a formal understanding of the underlying math.

It blows to have to do it, but buying the house I am living in is more important. I have had the ducks before, after a spell of gladstones, I'll have them again! I just put most of the early ones up, I still have 200 ducks that I didn't list

Definitely a lot more important things than comics. One related thought is that I've found the European "Collected Works" edition to be a perfect complement to my high grade collection. All the Barks stories are beautifully presented and I've enjoyed them far more than the previous libraries from Another Rainbow and Gladstone. I wasn't excited about the b/w reprints and the quality of the new books is just so far superior to the softcover albums. As far as I know, the limited edition sets sold out very quickly across Europe and the success abroad makes it seem more likely that there will be a US edition. If I were looking to invest in a second-hand AR or Gladstone edition right now, I would wait a bit.

At first look it may seem out of place in the duck thread, but it was the back cover I was after. This is (as far as I know) the only Barks work that made its debut in Australian comic. (The gag got bumped for an ad in the US edtition.) There were more Australian issues of Lil Bad Wolf than ran in the US, so they were cobbled together with various odds and ends, and this one-pager somehow ended up in this 1961 comic.

 

Nifty bit of trivia!

Yes, thanks AJD. I remember reading in Michael Barrier's biography about this being the first printing of the "bridle gag" worldwide, but I have never seen the comic before. If US and European collectors were to become aware of its importance and, not least, existence, I could see this becoming a popular curiosity kind of like the 1949 WDCS mailer with the unpublished cover. I wish I had not seen it, though, because now I really want one myself.

The final book to arrive today. It is a good day

 

Wonderful books as always, WBC. I had actually never seen a CGC 9.6 Dell comic until a few weeks ago when a couple of WDCS (158 and 161) arrived. I have to say that these books are unreal in person and seeing them changed my understanding of your focus. Congratulations.

When Trooper posted this one early in the thread, I was amazed by how clever, timeless, controversial, and funny it was. Among all the covers people have shared so far, this one ranks way above the rest in my book. If any cover ever were to deserve the status of "classic" from nothing more than a brilliant idea, this would be it.

Edit: That "Frisky Fables" looks brand new, Mr. Strange. If it had been someone else who posted it, I would have asked them to repost it in the Modern forum instead.

Great covers. Note that on the golf cover (WDCS 140?), Donald's eyes are red as opposed to the originally published cover. Barks deliberate left the pupils empty with a note to the editor that they should be filled in red to express rage. For some reason, they ignored his wish and made them solid black.

I'm not a completist per se but I'm going to keep chipping away at the #1-50 run as time and budget allow.

Welcome to the club.

Congratulations, everyone. Nice to see how many people like these books. One thing I've been thinking for a while is how nice it would be if those of you with raw books would post a picture of an interior page from time to time. There's so much good stuff hidden inside.

I don't want to steal esquirecomics' photos from the thread below, but about 2/3 through his report from GEM's opening there's a picture of a Four Color 9 in a glass case. This must be the Crescent City copy that ciorac and Yellow Kid have posted smaller photos of.

I thought I would remind everyone of one of the BEST contributions to comic books in quite some time. I hope it stays around!!!!

 

Geppi's Entertainment Museum Opening Night Photos

Is there any genre left where you don't have something mindblowingly gorgeous?

As I understand it, Geppi bought most or all of the Crescent City books from Bill. He has slabbed some over the past few years, highlighted by the WDCS #1 that graded out as a 9.4 and sold in the last Heritage auction for over $100K. It has been in the Census for several years, as are other books that have been slabbed. The FC #9 in the picture has also been slabbed (9.4) and was also sold in the last Heritage auction.

tth2: are you sure the FC 9 from the last auction was the CC? I was comparing the two and the CC clearly looks to be printed more off-center than the Heritage copy to me.

It would not be outside the realm of possibility that Geppi took the CC books and his file copies and assembled what was his "A" run. The $64,000 question is whether what`s been offered on Heritage represents the A run.

One thing that scares me a bit is that Geppi outbid me for a #12 that graded CGC 9.0 in 2003 (I outbid him on #6 and 10 which also graded 9.0). He resold the #12 6 months later, indicating that he surely must have had a nicer copy. The new copy on Heritage is only a 7.5 which makes me think that at least not all the books are "A" copies.

I would be willing to bet that there are more than a few CC books in the current Heritage auction, as many of the WDCSs are not file copies. The CC WDCS #2 in Yellow Kid`s picture is NOT the WDCS #2 in the current auction, but perhaps the #3 is the #3 in the current auction?

As far as I can tell, the CC copies of 2 and 3 have not been certified yet. It is hard to tell but the CC #3 appears to have some marks that I don't see on the Heritage copy. The CGC grade (8.0) is also radically different from what everyone who saw the CC recall.

---

Yellow Kid: I really appreciate you posting this photo. I've been wondering about what the CC #3 looked like ever since I first read about the collection 10 years ago. This is my favorite cover in the entire run.

 

So, on this book from .5, is this Beak Bondage?

 

Should someone email CGC and ask them to put this on any future notes?

 

EXACTLY, but I was thinking Overstreet notes.

 

Bondage cover, injury to the eye motif, beak abuse, lingerie panels...

 

See, it fits right in. Who's got Bob Overstreet's ear?

 

Jack

 

I laughed out loud at that one Jack Thanks! Everytime I read beak abuse cover in future iterations of the guide I will chuckle.

 

I'll include it with my report to Bob for next years' guide. Make me a comprehensive list will you?

Yes, that's got to be my favorite post ever in the Duck thread .

Who knows? Without better information into what lurks in Geppi's vaults (which I note that he's not obligated to disclose), there are a few possible scenarios:

 

[...]

 

The point is that like most things in life, it's a calculated gamble. At the end of the day, all you have to do is ask yourself 2 questions:

 

1. How badly do I want the book?

 

2. What is the most I'm willing to pay for the book?

 

And then bid and let the chips fall where they may. Don't fall victim to "paralysis by over-analysis".

I agree with all you say. What I fear has been missing is a realistic understanding of the known supply and associated risks among the collectors that have started in the last 10 years. The run that is listed at Heritage is clearly exceptional, but there is some risk that it is not as exceptional as you would be led to believe without detailed knowledge of the market in the 70s and early 80s. I may be bidding on some of the books myself, but I am factoring in this risk in my bids. My main concern is the long term stability of the market for these books: I would like to continue to have a stable supply for many years to come. A couple of years ago, I posted my concern for the record prices that were being paid for higher grades, especially a lot of the so-so material from the Crippen collection. A bubble is not healthy in any context and I am concerned to see books like the WDCS 43, which sold for $8,300 in 2007, relisted so quickly. Honestly, I can't see it selling for more than a tiny fraction of that today. Still, results like this may create an inflated and unrealistic picture of what these books are worth. Steadily growing prices would be much healthier long term.

One funny aspect of this, which Transplant alluded to, is that the staff at Gemstone is reading these boards and could very easily post a statement from Geppi or Snyder if they wanted to share their knowledge. They are certainly not required to do so, but I don't see how anyone could disagree that this has relevance for someone who might be thinking about bidding into 6 figures for the February run at Heritage. The apparently deliberate reluctance to provide transparency constitutes a further risk that is affecting my own bids. Consequently, I doubt I will win anything this time. If Geppi would share his knowledge about how rare these books really are, I would absolutely, no question, bid higher.

Just for the record, I am not trying to scare anyone away by spreading rumors. The warehouse finds I am referring to are coming from multiple reliable sources and several extremely knowledgeable collectors have told me that they've avoided high grade Dells because of the risks ("Timely" has said so on the boards, for example). For some reason, this seems to be a strangely hot potato among both collectors and dealers and very few people want to talk about it publicly.