MBFan

Just bought a book from Mike, and he packed it like a pro. The box came from the other side of the world looking like it had just been shipped down the street!

Definitely Baker. No doubt!

The best checklist I've found is not online, but in the book Matt Baker The Art of Glamour. (Overstreet has traditionally contained many errors when it comes to Baker, with work attributed to him that is not his, and vice-versa. Maybe the new edition is better.)

Sorry, but it doesn't look like Baker at all to me. He would never draw a wonky-looking woman like that gal in green.

I love it!

Totally with you on that! The splash page of the Mitzi story is particularly great, and Baker's depiction of Mitzi is HOT. The Art of Glamour says Baker did "pencils only", but the finishing is so good I think he might have done his own inking. On a side bar, the Mitzi of Hollywood story in Movie #4 was recycled with new dialogue in Cowgirl Romances #10.

That's a beauty!

Looks like you're on your way!

Just got a new old stock HP 8300 on eBay myself. All you need is the power cable to plug into the wall and a USB cable to plug into the computer. I downloaded and paid for Vuescan, which several people have mentioned as being a great program. It is. I was making easy, excellent CGC slab scans within seconds of installation.

It is indeed a Golden Age of Comic Strip and Comic Book reprints. Also of note are: Popeye series from Fantagraphics Little Sammy Sneeze by Winsor McKay from Sunday Press. Great hardcover collection of rare McKay strips. Complete Dreams Of The Rarebit Fiend, also by McKay, from Ulrich Merkl. An amazing hardcover book - expensive, but the best collection of one of the best strips ever. Ditto the Popeye books. The Sundays are okay, some good stuff there, but the dailys, oh, the dailys! Rock solid adventure, incredible continuity, Elsie Segar doing fantastic art, all mixed with laugh-out-loud humor. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED The EC Segar Popeye stuff is hilarious! You don't know Popeye if you haven't read the strips by his creator. The humor is timeless. I loaned one of the volumes to my 23-year-old son and later heard him laughing out loud in his room.

Don't wonder anymore. Girl on the Torture Wheel circa 1934 Excerpt: Claudia was wearing no brassiere. Her cupped breasts rode proudly on her chest. Jerry came out of his momentary transfixion, leaped across to Claudia and buried his face in the warm-scented, velvety valley. His lips brushed in savage hunger. His breath came in hot gasps. The body out there on the wheel was that of Maxine LeSoir! Jerry stood looking at her a moment, then charged. The bodies met, clung, throbbed. He lifted her, carried her to a plush-covered sofa on one side of the room. His burning hands caressed her body that was leaping to meet his. “I’ve waited a long time to find a man like you,” Claudia panted. “And you’ve found the woman.” Jerry couldn’t talk. With him, actions spoke louder, more forcefully, than words. Powerful stuff! "Laye slumped to the floor, out. He was as cold as a girl who listens to her mama."

Now that it's in the slab, the tear at the bottom right is wider.

If anyone is wondering who got that copy of Giant Comics Editions #15, it's now for sale here on the boards. http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=9148768&gonew=1#UNREAD

I don't think it means the cover is by Baker- just that it's based on a Baker panel, and that's why it looks so much like his work. Why would Baker do a cover based on an obscure panel he'd done two years earlier? He could certainly come up with something better than that. The GCD guesses that the cover is by D. Giordano. I'm with the dog on this one.

Thanks for letting me sit here and gawk! Those are some great Baker covers.

Well, the winning bidder has a lot of feedback and the price doesn't seem out of line for a very tough book -- only three copies on the census, with none higher than 5.0. Still there doesn't seem to have been enough time for the book to have been received and returned. Something else seems to have scotched the deal. It looks as though the book has sustained a rather large tear along the spine at the top of the front cover! Wonder how that happened? I'm sure that explains it. I can hazard a guess that in preparing the book for mailing, the seller somehow tore it and the buyer then declined to complete the transaction. Something awful must have happened. Note that the photo in the new listing also shows new damage on the cover around "Teen-Age".

Since the movie Creature of the Black Lagoon was released on March 5, 1954, and Amazing Ghost Stories #14 has an October 1954 cover date (and was probably on stands as of August), Baker must have drawn this cover right after the movie came out.

If you had sold them to me instead of listing them, you could have just brought them all to Tulsa this weekend. You really made it hard on yourself.

Darn it, Dale! I guess you won't have any Baker books for me when you come to Wizard World Tulsa next week.

Fantastic! Every one is impressive. Perhaps the creases at the right on the cover of DS 25 kept it down to a 6.0. Unless there are some hidden defects, there doesn't appear to be much else wrong with that book.

With so many great posts here, Tim doesn't really need my recommendation, but I echo all that has been said!

I think both the cowboy and the horse on the cover have the Baker wild-eyed look seen elsewhere, but the simplicity makes me think that Matt probably knocked it out quickly while breezing through the office one day. This book is another example of St. John experimenting with the comic book format. At 10 cents each, he was probably keeping costs low and didn't spring for a fully-detailed cover.

Haven't seen that one before, so I did some poking around. Grand Comics Database has it listed with the cover and a majority of the stories as being by Matt Baker. http://www.comics.org/issue/319820/ Interesting. First one I've seen. Added: Just looking at the checklist in The Art of Glamour and they don't list it. Wow. Never have seen this one before! I believe that is Baker. At a minimum, he contributed some pencils to that cover in my opinion. I finally got a copy of this item, and although I agree that Matt Baker's hand is apparent in the cover art, I do not believe he does any art inside. See my pics below. The girl in the last one looks like a distorted version of a Baker girl, as if someone was doing a poor job of copying him. What do you think?

Impressive! Looks like you're at the top of the census for both PR 5 & 10.

I got a good deal on a nice book from Mike. He shipped fast and communicated well. Truly a pleasure.