Sarg

The most famous misattributed cover is Phantom Lady #17 which is NOT by Matt Baker. The misattribution is so entrenched now that it would take an act of Congress to change it. The actual artist is unknown, but Al Feldstein might have been involved with the pencils or inks. It sure looks like him, but he did not remember doing any Phantom Lady covers.

That Hand of Fate cover is such a swipe of Tales From the Crypt #20...not in artwork, but the idea and dialogue are almost exactly the same!

This also demolishes the popular idea that comic book collecting started in the '60s. It actually started in the '30s, but it took awhile before they could find one another and begin trading and selling. Wigransky seems pretty advanced in his collecting (and his thinking about comics) by 1948 when he wrote the response to Wertham. The most remarkable thing to me is that he was already seeking original art by that time.

Fascinating story with a pretty depressing ending. He died at age 36 on October 5, 1969. i'm not clear on why he died in Washington DC but was buried in Mississippi. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/195958792/sidney-david-wigransky

Just a pet peeve, but does anyone else dislike how the Comics Code stamp intrudes into the logo of so many SA comics? Either it should have been smaller, or the logo should have been reduced. Too much clutter.

yeah, Kamen should be in the running too.

Very nice! Could we see some interior art?

According to the book Matt Baker: The Art of Glamour, regarding the cover to Zago #4, "Jim Vadeboncoeur Jr. thinks this is not Baker, but an Iger Studio artist swiping him." In my opinion, it is Baker on pencils, but somebody else on inks, and the inker did a pretty lousy job. Look at the girl's toes. This is what makes it so difficult sometimes to identify Baker art from the '40s. It can vary a lot depending on the inker. And sometimes there would be three artists (Baker doing the main figures in pencil, somebody else doing the background, and then a third person inking).

I sure wish somebody could figure out who drew this cover. Doolin, Whitman, Baker? Somebody else? The jungle chief sure looks like one of Doolin's creations, but then, his face is more Baker-like...

We're seeing some of the greatest covers of the GA in this thread. Thank heavens most collectors prefer muscle-bound men in tights doing magic tricks over sexy jungle girls. May the prices continue to stay low on these books.

I never made a connection between the Yellow Kid and the "Me Worry?" kid (who later became "Alfred E. Neuman"), but this image has me wondering.

Who's the artist?

The only thing better than a pic of a vintage newsstand, is a pic of a vintage newsstand in color!

Ah, the Joe Setty pedigree!

That's one of Flessel's greatest. I'm not sure that people today understand that the bad guy on the cover is an escaped convict. Only convicts wore striped shirts like that. That's something that would have been immediately known to a reader in 1938, but it's been a few generations now since convicts wore stripes. Without that context, you might think the bad guy is wearing a Ralph Lauren Polo sweater! The bad guy has a skull and crossbones attached to his bracelet, a marvelous detail I hadn't noticed before.

Everybody's seen the classic cover to Astonishing #30, but few have actually read "The Eyes," including me. Enjoyable, but I thought the ending was kind of lame.

That's what I think. Considering how striking the lettering is on the horror covers, I'm surprised it never came up in any Feldstein interviews I read. I guess people just take lettering for granted, but I don't! Ben Oda's brilliant lettering for Mad's story titles was one of the first things I noticed about them.

Sure wish somebody would reprint Moon Girl ... in color, too!

Was Feldstein doing the title logos for the horror books? Or Ben Oda? I never got that clear. The lettering in "Terror" is brilliant.

Feldstein refuted that interpretation in an interview, claiming that Gaines only saved them for legal reasons, thinking he would need them if he got sued, got in postal trouble, etc. But there's no doubt Gaines had great pride in EC comics, and probably would have stayed in the comic business had Wertham and the Comics Code not intervened. Just listen to the transcript of the 1972 EC convention, where he dominates all conversations and has razor-sharp recall of nearly everything. No doubt Al Feldstein was correct to a point, but while Gaines may have saved the issues just as proof of publication "file copies," in case postal authorities inquired as to mailing permits, etc. -- that wasn't the only reason. If it were, then he didn't need to be as meticulous with them as he was, selecting the nicest copies he could find, and carefully packaging them up. Just throwing them roughly in a file cabinet/folder system would've accomplished the same purpose. So I would say that he definitely felt a pride in his product, and not a little bit of OCD as he carefully socked them away. The other aspect of saving perfect copies of the EC books, that makes me disagree with Feldstein, is that Gaines clearly recalled his father (Max) having literally stacks of Action #1, bundled up around their home, that were ultimately discarded. Not a stretch to imagine that a grown-up William recalled that and decided that he might like to save some of his "babies" for posterity. He didn't need to select the nicest copies he could find -- when they were new, they were all nice copies. Have you read "The Mad World of William M. Gaines"? He was the king of OCD. He bought/kept multiple copies of everything. Gaines would have had no reason to think there was anything special about Action #1 during 1950-55. He certainly did later, but not then. So I don't think "future collectible status" had anything to do with Gaines's file copies. It was a combination of legal fears and off the charts OCD.

Feldstein refuted that interpretation in an interview, claiming that Gaines only saved them for legal reasons, thinking he would need them if he got sued, got in postal trouble, etc. But there's no doubt Gaines had great pride in EC comics, and probably would have stayed in the comic business had Wertham and the Comics Code not intervened. Just listen to the transcript of the 1972 EC convention, where he dominates all conversations and has razor-sharp recall of nearly everything. No doubt Al Feldstein was correct to a point, but while Gaines may have saved the issues just as proof of publication "file copies," in case postal authorities inquired as to mailing permits, etc. -- that wasn't the only reason. If it were, then he didn't need to be as meticulous with them as he was, selecting the nicest copies he could find, and carefully packaging them up. Just throwing them roughly in a file cabinet/folder system would've accomplished the same purpose. So I would say that he definitely felt a pride in his product, and not a little bit of OCD as he carefully socked them away. Also a pity that there happened to be no (or perhaps just one) copies of VOH #12 (1) put aside. The story I've heard on these boards was that Gaines had to buy/trade for that one on the open market, as perhaps any copies he has originally set aside had been lost/given away/discarded? Would be nice to know the answer to that one. I'll always remember the VOH #21 GFC #2 (!) that I saw raw at Ed Jaster's office in the late 90's in Chicago. Couldn't afford it, but wish I had, I recall the price was about $500. Someone out there has that sweet copy now, probably has been slabbed, but perhaps not. Pity there were no Gaines copies saved of the annuals! The other aspect of saving perfect copies of the EC books, that makes me disagree with Feldstein, is that Gaines clearly recalled his father (Max) having literally stacks of Action #1, bundled up around their home, that were ultimately discarded. Not a stretch to imagine that a grown-up William recalled that and decided that he might like to save some of his "babies" for posterity. I'd always read that it was EC staffer Jerry DeFuccio, not Bill Gaines, who was entrusted with the task of wrapping up twelve copies of each new EC as it was published, and storing it away with the others. As the story goes, the File Copies resided at the EC/Mad offices until 1962, at which time they were taken by Bill and stored in the closet of his own New York apartment. In 1989, when the packages containing multiple copies of each individual issue were opened by Bob Overstreet and Russ Cochran, it was discovered that many of these "packs of 12" had been broken into, and carefully resealed. Since Bill knew this couldn't have happened while the books occupied his closet, it had to have happened at the EC/Mad offices, prior to 1962. Ah ha! Another dimension of the story, of which I wasn't aware. Thanks 29dukedog! Perhaps Jerry was the one with OCD then; still, Gaines took good care of them while in his possession (not casually throwing them around, keeping out of moisture, etc.) I wonder who at the EC offices delved into the "stash", only taking a few copies here and there? It seems a rather random grab from various issues. I would think that if anyone wanted a copy of a current or recent-ish issue and they were an EC staffer, probably they would have been allowed a complimentary copy (though perhaps not a huge stack, etc.) So that aspect of the story may remain lost in time. Of course, the "raid" probably could have happened after EC the comics publisher was done after 1955, but before 1962 -- perhaps by a staffer who wanted a then otherwise unobtainable copy of whatever EC comics they could dig into. And then sealing the packages back up to make it seem undisturbed. Even back then EC books were seen as "special" by a devoted fan base/fandom, so I'd suppose it was done with profit in mind. Wouldn't seem like a lot of profit? But maybe for the time, it was. That would explain why only 1 copy of Vault 12 survived -- but you would think Gaines would have noticed how thin that wrapper was long before Cochran cleaned out his closet. I'm not sure how many 9.2 copies of Vault 12 are out there, but perhaps most of them are Gaines File Copies incognito.

Feldstein refuted that interpretation in an interview, claiming that Gaines only saved them for legal reasons, thinking he would need them if he got sued, got in postal trouble, etc. But there's no doubt Gaines had great pride in EC comics, and probably would have stayed in the comic business had Wertham and the Comics Code not intervened. Just listen to the transcript of the 1972 EC convention, where he dominates all conversations and has razor-sharp recall of nearly everything. No doubt Al Feldstein was correct to a point, but while Gaines may have saved the issues just as proof of publication "file copies," in case postal authorities inquired as to mailing permits, etc. -- that wasn't the only reason. If it were, then he didn't need to be as meticulous with them as he was, selecting the nicest copies he could find, and carefully packaging them up. Just throwing them roughly in a file cabinet/folder system would've accomplished the same purpose. So I would say that he definitely felt a pride in his product, and not a little bit of OCD as he carefully socked them away. Also a pity that there happened to be no (or perhaps just one) copies of VOH #12 (1) put aside. The story I've heard on these boards was that Gaines had to buy/trade for that one on the open market, as perhaps any copies he has originally set aside had been lost/given away/discarded? Would be nice to know the answer to that one. I'll always remember the VOH #21 GFC #2 (!) that I saw raw at Ed Jaster's office in the late 90's in Chicago. Couldn't afford it, but wish I had, I recall the price was about $500. Someone out there has that sweet copy now, probably has been slabbed, but perhaps not. Pity there were no Gaines copies saved of the annuals! The other aspect of saving perfect copies of the EC books, that makes me disagree with Feldstein, is that Gaines clearly recalled his father (Max) having literally stacks of Action #1, bundled up around their home, that were ultimately discarded. Not a stretch to imagine that a grown-up William recalled that and decided that he might like to save some of his "babies" for posterity. I'd always read that it was EC staffer Jerry DeFuccio, not Bill Gaines, who was entrusted with the task of wrapping up twelve copies of each new EC as it was published, and storing it away with the others. As the story goes, the File Copies resided at the EC/Mad offices until 1962, at which time they were taken by Bill and stored in the closet of his own New York apartment. In 1989, when the packages containing multiple copies of each individual issue were opened by Bob Overstreet and Russ Cochran, it was discovered that many of these "packs of 12" had been broken into, and carefully resealed. Since Bill knew this couldn't have happened while the books occupied his closet, it had to have happened at the EC/Mad offices, prior to 1962. The plot thickens! That would explain why the numbers were so inconsistent. It suggests Gaines really did keep 12 of each, but "mice" found their way into the packages to extract some of the hidden cheese.

Loving the George Evans art in this thread, plus great coloring on those pages.

Feldstein refuted that interpretation in an interview, claiming that Gaines only saved them for legal reasons, thinking he would need them if he got sued, got in postal trouble, etc. But there's no doubt Gaines had great pride in EC comics, and probably would have stayed in the comic business had Wertham and the Comics Code not intervened. Just listen to the transcript of the 1972 EC convention, where he dominates all conversations and has razor-sharp recall of nearly everything.

Thanks for the list. It's good to know exactly what he had. It also busts the myth that Gaines kept 12 of each issue. He was actually pretty inconsistent, keeping 9 one month, 10 the next, 12 the next, and so on.