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Thanks for the info, mmehdy. I look forward to the video. ---- On the subject of Barks art, and otherwise totally unrelated, at least two counterfeit Four Color covers have surfaced over the past year. I really hate to get dragged into stuff like this, but, since someone appears to have lost $5,000 on the latest, I felt that I had to say something publicly. You can see one of them below. Note that I have no reason to believe that the seller didn't sell it in good faith. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Carl-Barks-Original-Art-/111168715858?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19e22bfc52 The original art for this cover is indeed known to exist, but Steve Geppi had Barks color it in the mid 1990s. It is shown briefly about 10 seconds into the YouTube video below. Bruce Hamilton had Barks color another original cover in the same style; I bought the latter from Heritage in 2006.

To this day I get a kick whenever I spot a comic book featured in an old movie or TV show. My last couple of sightings were discovered in two episodes of 77 Sunset Strip which is available for viewing on the Warner Bros Archive channel. A make believe title was prominently displayed in several scenes of "Eyewitness" which originally aired on February 13, 1959. The show featured a very young Jay North as the star. And what appears to be a Bugs Bunny or Porky Pig comic can be seen in "The Missing Daddy Caper." This episode was originally broadcast November 11th 1961. Those are fun, thanks for sharing. I had one of those surprise moments recently when I watched "Funny Face".

That's an amazingly beautiful Large Feature. Many of these have really neat covers and are, along with the Feature Books, among my own overlooked favorites.

Thanks for the fun article. In 1953, those floats sure were harbingers of change for Anaheim. It is interesting that no photos of them seem to exist. Unrelated, I've been stuck in a hotel room with a cold and have enjoyed watching the new Donald and Mickey cartoons on the Disney Channel. When the first "Evil Mickey" computer game came out, I remember reading about how Disney was planning to revive the early, "mean" Mickey and they seem to have been pretty successful at that. It's nice to watch these new cartoons, which really are pretty entertaining, and realize that a new generation of kids are getting a positive introduction to the characters.

As far as I can tell, this is the earliest children's book in the census to receive a 9.6. The only "comic books" prior to 1938 to get this grade are two Church "New Adventure" from late 1937. There are a handful of 9.6 Mickey Mouse Magazines from 1937 (all of which I have posted in the past) and some digest sized giveaways prior to that. Anyway, just nice to see any early book like this survive. Especially since the cover artwork is pretty neat.

So many nice covers, but this has to be my favorite so far.

Fun group. The Patsy Walker stands out as a particularly beautiful book to me.

Cheetah, I am really enjoying this thread. Your own remarks about the quality, scarcity, etc. along with your anecdotes are priceless. It's so obvious that you are doing this because you genuinely appreciate the runs and want to share them with us for all the right reasons. Btw., I took a look at the census population for Planet this morning and was very surprised how few copies have been graded. This makes your projects even more challenging than I had thought.

+1!

With a little patience and willingness to bid on multiple different issues, chances are you could get a nice Barks Four Color considerably below GPA. If you want the most beautiful book you can get within your budget, I'd go for a WDCS around issue 140-170. There are some fantastic Barks covers from that time that, with a little luck, may be within reach in CGC 9.4-9.6. I've seen a lot of nice Disney comics over the years yet still get blown away by how pretty these books can be.

Yes, very pretty books indeed. I recall a copy of FC 194 selling for ~$4K as one of the more bizarre results of the Disney comics bubble a few years ago.

Beautiful copy. Is it from the Bill Craig collection? I think it is very cool to know that most of his books were bought at Collector's Book Store over 40 years ago and have stayed with the same owner since then. It is clear from looking at the scans how eye appeal was just as important as the technical grade back then: to see big keys in super high grade together with beautiful later issues like this makes an interesting statement about the culture among collectors then and now. BC did not have to worry at all about restoration, pressing, numerical grades, and so much other filtering that I consider whenever I evaluate a comic today. He could walk in to the CBS and select what he wanted in person from a stack of unbagged comics, and he obviously had a very good eye. The gaps in his runs are also interesting as they reflect how hit and miss it must have been to build consistent high grade runs even under the most optimal circumstances back then.

Congratulations, AJD. It's always great to see international editions and these are very cool indeed. It's also fun that there's a way to tell the Australian version from the New Zealand one.

Is there a story or provenance behind the fc 29 bound volume? The only individual comic bound volumes that I've seen belonged to Malcolm Willits. Those are highly desirable to some collectors due to their role in early comics fandom.

I don't think that is Mr Merryweather. He always has a alcoholic drink in his hand and the person in that photo doesn't so clearly they are not the same person. Exactly. That imposter isn't even giving the thumbs up. It would have been natural to hold the drink in his left hand while flipping the coin with his right(?).

Congratulations. That book will always be a joy to open. Just for fun, I checked cgcdata for the Disney books with most CGC submissions. Their top 2,000 list has, as far as I could find, 3 Disney books: 281. Donald Duck Adventures-Free Comic Book Day (2003), 700 submissions ... 1,526. Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge 219 (1987), 205 submissions ... 1,621. Four Color 386 (1952), 193 submissions

As usual, those pictures are really interesting to study, Scrooge. Thanks a lot for sharing your collection with us.

There were a lot of great Kelly covers right around that time. Here's another one.

It's fun to see the covers together. Congratulations and thanks for sharing the shot.

Not the best cover, but hard to find this pretty. Btw., thanks for posting the two splash panels together, BitterOldMan. I can imagine Barks' frustration when he was told to cut 11 pages out of "Trick or Treat", including the first splash, after he had gone the extra mile to frame the story so cleverly. His intent was clearly to have the story transition from the gloomy establishing shot to an uplifting ending, and that was completely ruined with the second version of the first splash.

While going through the story recently, I noticed that Barks did something pretty brilliant with the beginning that I never saw before. Note how Witch Hazel entered the story from the upper right and "through" the moon in the original, censored splash panel. In the matching splash at the end, she exits the same place and in the same smooth curve, but from the lower left. I wonder if it might have been this elegant idea of mirrored opening and closing splashes that made Barks draw the original panel without the Ducks(?).

I've had the pleasure of talking with both Malcolm Willits and John Spicer about their meetings with Barks. I met twice with John back in 2001, and he told me that their visit took place early in the summer of 1960. John and his brother, Bill, brought along a friend who had no particular interest in Barks. To add a personal touch to the history, the pictures below show items that Barks signed for Spicer and Willits during those visits. Willits had Barks sign a number of items, including the bound volume below.

That's awesome. Great to see it recognized when someone puts time and effort into writing a quality paper. Do you have a link?

The saturation on those is incredible.

The nephews look great with fake eye lashes. Good call, Shirley! FC 62 is my favorite comic book of all time. I got to hold a CGC 9.2 in my hands a while back, and I was tempted when Frank from Metropolis browsed through the white pages of a gorgeous file copy for me at SDCC a few years ago.