Sarg

Because it strongly resembles Al's style, and he was working for Iger at the time. Yes, he denied drawing a PL cover, but I don't believe anyone actually showed the PL 17 cover to him, because they already "knew" it was Baker. It's also possible that it was actually drawn as a splash page, but re-used as a cover.

This cover, also, is not by Baker. The actual artist is unknown.

Regarding artist attribution (again), in my opinion: #17 is definitely not by Baker. It's not his style at all. It strongly resembles Al Feldstein -- but the latter had no recollection of drawing a PL cover. I think it is probably Feldstein. #18 is probably by Jack Kamen, since the small figures look like him, and the design is similar to a cover Kamen drew for Brenda Starr. But Kamen didn't draw Sandra's face this way. Feldstein-esque inking. #13 is Matt Baker pencils. #20 is possibly Baker pencils. #23 is definitely Kamen pencils and inks.

Exactly. And I'd like to see books graded in the past with a similar defect, and the grade it was given. If they were consistently lower than 8.5, why the inconsistency? And if we can demonstrate inconsistent grading, what is the purpose of having a grading standard?

Can someone clarify something? In the discussion, Brian said that when he finds collections, the DCs are usually intact but the Timelys are long gone. But he didn't give an explanation for this strange phenomenon. Why would that be so?

Nothin' better than a Fiction House cover with no ink fade.

Maybe we can have two grades moving forward, the actual grade and the "Promise" grade.

I don't know why "The Shadow Out of Time" is not rated as highly as "The Call of Cthulhu." I think it's superior to the latter.

Good idea, and sound advice. I'm completely turned off by "pedigree" collections, the obscene grade inflation, and the Hollywood hype, myself. I'll stick with 3.0 copies with no writing, thanks.

This appears to be the only book in "The Promise Collection" without writing on the cover.

Very fine, and an actual Baker cover, though drawn a year or two before publication date -- which explains why it looks primitive compared to Baker's masterpieces on #4 and #6.

That's great to know. I'm going to prioritize collecting Fiction House 3.0s with no color degradation. Thank goodness for completely arbitrary grading standards!

That sounds fascinating -- a supermarket that served as a library? Any more details on that?

I guess CGC and others have never counted ink fading as a factor in a book's grade, which is somewhat surprising. The Fiction House books that are properly inked are FAR superior to the more common (?) faded ones, as the above example shows clearly. So this is another area where a book graded 5.0 could actually be superior to one graded 9.0.

Agreed. Writing on the cover degrades the original printing just as much as chips, tears, and tape, even when it is a "pedigree" collection. I will never understand why graders pretend this is not the case; but I will happily take books they grade 5.0 with no writing over books graded 9.0 with writing.

That's an apples to oranges comparison, though. Writing on the cover of a comic by some anonymous distributor is unrelated to a writer of a book signing the copy, usually at a fan's request. A distributor scribbling on a cover is no different than a random stranger scribbling on the cover. It was not part of the manufacturing process. If a tiny chip on the edge reduces the grade by a point, writing should also, by any measure -- if not more.

PL 17 certainly looks very Feldstein-esque. But he had no recollection of drawing a PL cover. I don't think anyone actually showed him #17 and asked him point blank, however. "Artists unknown -- Feldstein may have been involved somehow, though he doesn't remember" is not the most satisfying artist attribution.

I see they're still mis-crediting Phantom Lady 17's cover to Baker, even though it looks nothing like he ever drew.

Thanks. But what about books that are not pedigrees? Does writing on the cover then impact the grade in a negative way? It seems rather arbitrary. Personally, I'd rather have a 7.5 book with no writing than a 9.2 book with writing, but to each his own.

I've never understood why writing on the cover is not considered a more prominent defect. How can a book with writing grade at 9.6?

Actually, Lovecraft's reputation improved substantially in the 1940s. His first mass market hardcover collection Best Supernatural Stories (World Publishing) went through four printings from 1945-1950 and sold over 73,000 copies. He also began appearing in widely-distributed anthologies in the US such as Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (Modern Library, 1944). In the 1950s, he was translated into French and Spanish. The rest is history.

Good observation! I guess "Cthulhu" didn't climb to the top of the Lovecraft oeuvre until the paperback reprints of the '60s.

Amazing find. Thanks for posting.

I think it was established in one of the threads that Weird Tales was factory trimmed starting in 1930.

I have a single-sheet flyer listing all of Girasol's reproductions available as of 2015. I don't know if they ever put out a catalog. They reprinted Weird Tales #1-40, and ALL the Howard Conan issues. Plus various others -- a total of 66 issues. Certainly all the most important ones.