MBFan

That button looks brand new! But then, it was probably never in the hands of the public. The Tel Pic folks were apparently good at putting a promo package together but ran into a glitch when it came to actually publishing the book. Since seeing the Alter Ego article, I've wished that the Baker family would find a way to publish everything they have from the project, and all the other Matt Baker material they hold, for that matter. I can't help but get awestruck when someone pops up with something I've never seen before, especially when it involves the great Matt Baker and an unpublished project. Thanks for the post.

Nice one! It's got a great Lee Elias-drawn Firehair story inside.

That was a smart way for the shop owner to keep EC books and the like out of the hands of young children. I bet if he thought you were too young for an EC book, he's say so and not hand one to you.

Guest of honor and fandom legend Bill Schelly (seated) chatting with another fandom legend, Steve Fears. I don't know the guy's at the next table over, but he was displaying pages from "Robin Dies at Dawn" including the splash page ... awesome! The guy next to Bill Schelly is Ike Wilson, who represented the late Batman artist D ick Sprang during his final years. Ike helped arrange commissions with Mr. Sprang and also sold copies of Golden Age Batman & Detective Comics from D ick's personal files. (I've been lucky enough to acquire 5 of them.) Check out some rare pieces Ike Wilson has on display at the Comic Art Fans site http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerydetail.asp?gcat=48725 and the excellent Facebook page he maintains in honor of Mr. Sprang. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1475023896087607/

I believe that illo is on page 61 of The Art of Glamour.

Congrats on the PR 14. I don't think I've ever seen that cover!

Note that Supergirl's skirt is red in the house ad, like the Supergirl on the cover of Superman #123.

The scan that I found only had a blurred face for Wertham. I added the red ink. damn brother and here I thought there was another gruesome panel I needed to get... Anyone else have a Jungle 104? Is it blurred or clear in the panel above? Looks like the black ink didn't lay down properly on that part of the page when your copy was printed. The line below the panel "CAMILLA APPEARS IN JUNGLE COMICS" is dark and well-defined on mine. What about yours?

By the time they printed my copy of Jungle 104, they must have been running low on red ink.

My thought is that Baker abandoned the art before it was finished, in favor of the cover that was actually used for Wartime Romances #17. Details were probably added after-the-fact by someone other than Matt Baker himself.

And what's up with using the name "Matt" in the word balloon on an old piece of Matt Baker's art? That surely wasn't an accident.

I think that's right: Roussos with the cover and Sprang with interior art on 108. You are right. Roussos typically gets cover credit for #108, but interestingly the image of the Batplane over the Bat Signal and the image of Batman & Robin standing next to each other both appear in separate panels in the Sprang story inside. Good catch. You know, I think there was more collaboration -- and pasting in swipes or tracings -- than we sometimes think when we cleanly attribute covers or interior art to a single artist. I've seen interviews with artists who say things like "I did the backgrounds on many of the covers in this or that run." For instance, I think Raboy needed a lot of help to make his deadlines at Fawcett. Ike Wilson told me that DC would often share with Sprang what the cover was going to look like, asking him to incorporate the scene in his story.

Ike Wilson represented Mr. Sprang during his final years, arranging art commissions and marketing some of his possessions, including the copies of books he kept in his big file cabinet in Arizona. I guess they were all originally sold during the 90's. I acquired a total of 5 Sprang file copies from a local Oklahoma person earlier this year. All came with Certificates of Authenticity, but for peace of mind, I took them to Ike Wilson's table at OAFCon October 25, and he said, "Yes, those were D ick Sprang's books." Ike has some great stuff displayed at http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryDetail.asp?GCat=48725 including a tracing Mr. Sprang kept on hand of his original design of the Riddler.

I think that's right: Roussos with the cover and Sprang with interior art on 108. You are right. Roussos typically gets cover credit for #108, but interestingly the image of the Batplane over the Bat Signal and the image of Batman & Robin standing next to each other both appear in separate panels in the D ick Sprang story inside.

A couple of recent acquisitions, both of which are Batman artist Mr. Sprang file copies. (The forum software won't let me post his first name, like it's dirty or something.)

I recognize that one from http://digitalcomicmuseum.com and http://comicbookplus.com. Thanks for sharing the scans!

David was one of the originators of ridiculous overpricing on everything. He's certainly aggressive, but I think these prices are beyond his normal levels. I think he's responding to some of the other recent lisings. I can't see these books selling near these prices ... but I may have said that before! I didn't know his name until now, but DTA came on my radar in a negative way in late June of this year, when I noticed that he (TopNotch) purchased a copy of Journey Into Fear #1 from a boardie on Misc. Sales thread for about $27...and then listed it on his site for $145.

The cover for Diary Secrets #19 is in the same vein, depicting an obviously older man hitting on the teen-looking refreshment vendor at a ballgame. The guy to the left wearing a t-shirt looks like he's more in her age bracket.

From the looks of some of the covers, St. John should have been honest and titled a series "Jail Bait Romances".

What could cause a stench so bad that it doesn't leave the comic? Bodily fluids, perhaps? One of the fun, and sometimes scary, things about collecting is you never know what happened to old books before you got them. I imagine if someone kept their Golden Age collection in their outhouse back in the 40's, that would a cause a smell that you might never be able to kill. I think this is why CGC grades severely against stains. WHO KNOWS what caused any given stain? It could be something as simple as getting rained on...or as putrid as a leaky baby diaper that was laid on the book at some time. The book I deodorized had a kerosene type smell, but there were no stains, so it possibly had just been in a basement in the vicinity of a kerosene heater, or something like that. If you've given the cat litter/baking soda process a few months with no improvement, it's almost like the smell is PART of the book. If there are no visible signs like stains, mold or mildew, maybe the inks are deteriorating and giving off a weird smell. Just making a random guess.

Here's a vote for baking soda. I bought a comic via eBay a few months ago that had a horrible smell, like kerosene, but worse. At WalMart I purchased an under bed storage box with lid, a wire "folding stacking shelf" and the cheapest baking soda they had. Without folding the legs out, the shelf fit perfectly in the box. I spread out 2 boxes of baking soda in the bottom of the box, opened the stinky book and laid it on the shelf. Then I put the lid on and left it alone for awhile. Over the course of a couple of months, I occasionally took the shelf out, stirred the baking soda to expose fresh particles, turned a few pages in the book, put the shelf & book back in, and sealed it up again. I'm happy to report that the book smells MUCH better than before, and the stink has transferred to the baking soda. The book now has only a hint of the old smell; so little that it no longer calls attention to itself by smell alone.

Getting a larger mailbox is not an option in my neighborhood, due to a local ordinance. Seriously, some people on the forum must have hateful postal employees in their area, or they've done something to tick off their carrier. I have NEVER received a bent package, as long as it says DO NOT BEND on it. And, since I always write PLEASE (key word) DO NOT BEND on every package I send out, I have never received a report that any outgoing package has ever been bent before arriving at its destination. I'm firmly in the "PLEASE DO NOT BEND" camp, because I've had 100 percent success with it.

Haven't purchased any slabbed books from them, but what I've bought have always been packed tight for no slippage. Must be a new packer at Metropolis, because anyone should know that a loop of brown paper is too loose to keep a heavy slab from shifting.

Whenever I make an eBay purchase from someone who doesn't have a TON of past comic book sales and positive feedback specifically mentioning their quality of packing, I always send a message via the eBay system immediately after making payment, suggesting how my purchase should be packed for maximum protection. My instructions are based on the info from this thread. No sellers have taken offense so far. Also, I always ask even experienced sellers to write "PLEASE DO NOT BEND" on the package, and I explain that, if nothing else, it's a reminder to my mailman to bring it to my door and not try to cram it in the mailbox. This has greatly lowered my incidence of damaged books.