The Mad Irishman

Welp, helps if I actually read the full post - apologies! Other than Untold I can’t think of any other series that fits the bill. 

On 12/21/2021 at 12:56 PM, whetteon said:

Anyone own the original artwork to the 1st issue? I could give ya a cold $20 for it!

One of my pride and joys! First time Pete uses his powers in USM 1 

I also have a page from the second issue and a couple from #4 - still one of my favorite series! 

7 hours ago, PeterPark said:

This is so cool...do you know anything about it? I can't find one anywhere online...

I got my copy at my LCS back in late 87 or really early 88, they were store giveaways. 

I don't remember seeing this listed for that much in one of the price guides, but I do remember seeing it listed for a crazy amount around the early-mid 90's. It was one of the mail-order dealers that advertised in the monthly comics, can't remember which one. I just remember seeing this issue for something like $70, which blew me away. I'll keep an eye open for the ad while I'm reading through my floppies. 

The three-page introduction of Kaine from Web of Spider-Man 119.

8 hours ago, Dinosaur jr. said:

Interesting. I never new about this.  So the ad in More Fun 51 came out in the previous issue in which Spectre was introduced in a story.

The Detective 27 ad in Action 12 came out the same publishing month as Detective 27, May 1939.

Did Action 12 hit the stands Detective 27?

Action 12 hit the stands a week prior to Detective 27.

14 minutes ago, OtherEric said:

I suspect it was because More Fun #51 was self evidently earlier than More Fun #52.  It's only relatively recently that people have tracked down on sale dates, and even then you can argue it varied from location to location. "On sale at the same time" isn't nearly as impressive as a month earlier.

Fantastic point - makes sense. Still baffles me a little bit, but I’m glad the Tec ad has gotten more attention over the past few years. I think its a fun bit of comic history that was overlooked for decades.

40 minutes ago, N e r V said:

Ah, ok. Overstreet as far as I know has it  simply as a ad appearance these days.

Overstreet was/is full of so much misinformation I’m surprised they even updated it.

Action #1 has its own ad, Marvel #1 has one in the pulps. All are a cool part of comics history.,,

Great point - Overstreet has had its fair share of errors over the years. I knew about the Action 1 ad, but the Marvel 1 ad is something I’d never heard before. Any idea which pulp it’s in? I’d love to check that out.

27 minutes ago, N e r V said:

Never heard of the Spectre ad being more well known???

I should’ve been more specific, sorry. The first Oversteet guide I had was from 1987 and the More Fun 51 ad was called out as the first appearance of the Spectre. The listing for Action 12 has no call out for Batman/Detective 27. In fact it appears that the Batman ad wasn’t called out in the Overstreet guide until the early 2000s. So, I assumed the More Fun ad was better known with casual collectors for years since the Tec ad was not mentioned in the guides. I consider myself a pretty knowledgeable fan (I’ve collected for over 30 years) and I didn’t even know of the Tec ad until it was casually mentioned in Wizard magazine in the late 90s/early 2000s. So, I’m hoping to gain the insight of some golden age collectors to see how these books have been viewed throughout the years. For the record, I don’t consider either one a first appearance but I find it really strange that MF was considered a first while Action 12 wasn’t.

Hey everyone, I figure this is the best forum to discuss these in-house ads. As a kid, I loved reading through the OSPG and learning about books that I had little to no chance of physically seeing back in the pre-internet days. For many many years I thought that MF51 was the first appearance of the Spectre - it wasn't until I saw an image online that I realized how different the ad was from the finished product. I was even more mystified when I saw that the ad for Detective Comics 27 in Action 12 was a unique image and very similar to the Spectre ad. Given their similarities, does anyone have some insight why the Spectre ad got so much recognition when the similar ad of a much more popular character was virtually ignored for decades? I'm attaching an image of both for comparison. Thanks all!

17 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Things that are the same:

Both ads are "the last panel on the page."

Neither ad is connected to the preceding story in any way.

 

Things that are different:

The ad in Action Comics #12 is for Detective Comics #27, a different publication.

The ad in More Fun #51 is an ad for More Fun #52, the same publication.

The ad for More Fun #52 is entirely hand drawn (and almost certainly by Bailey, as with the preceding story.)

The ad for Detective #27 is mostly typset, and probably not drawn by Shuster (or whoever drew the preceding story.)

The Action #12 page is a standard 8 panel layout.

The More Fun #51 page is a hand drawn, variable panel layout.

 

Did any of those similarities or differences have an influence on why they are so designated? Probably.

More Fun #51 is one of the very, very few exceptions in comic collecting history.

 

This - and I can’t stress this enough - does not come close to answering my question. All you provided was a condescending description of pages I posted AND stated I owned. You ignored my prior post that pointed out an inaccurate answer you provided while still finding a way to respond in a manner that, frankly, doesn’t surprise me one bit. I knew I should have just kept you on ignore. Back you go. ANYWAYS...I’ll move this to the golden age forum to get a new perspective. 

On 7/6/2019 at 2:28 PM, The Mad Irishman said:

Now that I'm back home, here are the full pages I mentioned for More Fun 51 and Action Comics 12. Please take a look and judge for yourself - thanks!

 

So, I’m guessing this might be better asked in the golden age forum, but does anyone else have some insight into this discrepancy?

I've gotten the OA bug over the last couple of years - here are my key pages...Web of Spider-Man 119, pg 13 with the very first panel of Kaine. Next up, Detective Comics 524 - if we can claim that the black suit Spidey first appeared in the three books that came out the same month, then I'm gonna say this page is the first appearance of Jason Todd! Even if it's technically his second appearance, this is the first time we learn his name. Finally, a page from Sword of Azrael 1. LOVED this book as a kid, really happy to have a page from it. Runner up - Flash 62, page 2, the first of Mark Waid's incredible run. 

Now that I'm back home, here are the full pages I mentioned for More Fun 51 and Action Comics 12. Please take a look and judge for yourself - thanks!

12 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Because...and I cannot stress this enough...no one cared about ads and previews. The ad for More Fun #51 is the "final panel" of the story. The ad for Batman is not.

I respectfully disagree. The MF  51 ad is not part of the buccaneer story; the previous panel ends the story (and even states “end”). The ad in Action 12 is exactly the same - the story is ended on the prior panel. I’ve added pics for comparison...sorry for the quality, I’m out of town and don’t have access to my copies so I grabbed the Action 12 from one of the posts in the golden age forum.

1 hour ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Robert Overstreet was very aware of the Batman ad in Action Comics #12. 

More Fun #51 is the exception because of the nature of the "ad": it is the last panel of the Buccaneer story.

I’m very lucky in that I have both MF51 and Action 12 - both ads are incredibly similar in that they promote character appearances in upcoming books. If Overstreet was aware of the Action ad, why wasn’t it notated until fairly recently? For a character as popular as Batman, and for how similar the ads are I would imagine it would have been notated much earlier.

18 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

And yet, Overstreet has never called Action Comics #12 the first appearance of Batman (though it predates Detective #27) nor More Fun #31 the first appearance of Superman (though it predates Action #1.)

Action Comics #12 and More Fun #31 were both published. Overstreet was well aware that those books contained ads that predated Detective #27 and Action #1..

The reason the definition in Overstreet doesn't mention anything about "needing to occur in a story" is because no one challenged that understanding, even though there were examples going back 40 years.

Using inference, we can properly conclude that, since Overstreet was well aware of the ads in these and countless other comics, and did not identify them as "first appearances", he therefore never intended for his "first appearance anywhere" definition to cover ads and/or previews, and only applied to appearances in stories.

I'm not so sure that Overstreet was aware of the Tec 27 ad - the Spectre appearance in MF51 was called out in the first Overstreet I bought (the 1987 edition, I'm sure if must have been listed in previous editions as well). I read that thing from cover to cover as a kid, and I thought that MF51 was THE Spectre book to get. Years later, thanks to the magic of the internet, I was able to see the actual image, and...yikes. But, I digress - the Spectre appearance was called out in the guide, but the Batman preview wasn't. In fact, I don't believe it was added to the guide until the 2000's. Even then, it only lists it as an ad for Tec 27. Personally, I'd love for the label/guide to update it in a similar manner as MF 51. Something along the lines of "Batman appears in one panel ad for Detective Comics 27". I imagine that if a relatively obscure character like the Spectre warranted a callout in the guide, the Batman ad would have as well, unless I'm missing something.

41 minutes ago, Jeffro™ said:

I'm not sure what we're all disagreeing with here. Sure, the collecting medium is different (sports cards vs. comic books) but I don't think it's such a bad analogy. Not perfect but it gets the point across for me. 

Sports cards - XRC (cards that were released in Topps year end extended sets and not part of a regular set) and minor league cards = Not true rookie cards (but often the first card to feature a player). 

Comic books - Comic characters that appear in a preview book before the true first app (example, the aforementioned Darkhawk appearance in Marvel Age 97) = Not a true first appearance (but the first time the character appeared.)

In both cases, the XRC or minor league cards is not the true rookie card and not the card that collectors focus on when desiring to own the true hobby accepted rookie card.
Similarly, the preview comic that just happens to feature a character before it appears in a sequential comic book is not a true first appearance and not the comic that collectors focus on when desiring to own the true hobby accepted first appearance or first full appearance.

The difference now is that there seems to be a (growing?) fringe element of huckster and opportunist trying to make a buck on the unwary and ignorant by trying to pawn off a preview book as the true first appearance of a character. 

 

 

 

This is a much better explanation of what I was trying to say! I despise the sellers that try to say these appearances are anything other than what they are - previews. I have no illusions that anything other than Spawn 1 is his first appearance, or Batman in Tec 27, ect. But, I love collecting oddball "pre"appearances that are, by and large, much more difficult to track down than the traditional 1st app. 

On 8/10/2018 at 4:56 PM, Mecha_Fantastic said:

Sigh. Things couldn't look worse for this book. Just..... such a shame. Such a shame. 

 

https://www.newsarama.com/41226-youngblood-14-cancelled-spinning-off-into-image-comics-event.html

I want to be mad, but I should’ve known better. What’s that story about the scorpion and the frog...? 🧐

13 minutes ago, fastballspecial said:

This illustrates the difference between card collectors and comic book collectors. 

I disagree with Lazyboy from time to time, but he is spot on here. Even the biggest comic book sellers
will tell you the same thing.

 

I’m both, actually. And, as I’ve said, this is how I view these types of comics. As a collector I want the first time a player appeared on a card, or a comic character appears in print. Again, this is my perception of collecting the things I love and how I correlate them. Nothing more, nothing less.

56 minutes ago, Lazyboy said:

Analogy fail.

Comics are a storytelling medium. Sports cards are just licensed attempts to cash in on the popularity of real people.

Disagree, since I said that "I think" of them as pre-rookie cards. You have a different view, cool. 

21 minutes ago, shadroch said:

I'm blanking on XRC. Please explain? Are you talking about Jordan's card in the 1985 Nike set?

Kind of, yeah - XRC = extended rookie cards. Used to be used for the Topps and Fleer extended sets that came out after the season. Any rookies in these sets weren't considered "true" rookie cards since they weren't available in packs, only sold as sets. 

28 minutes ago, seanfingh said:

I think XRC is the perfect way to think about these "pre-first" appearances!

XRCs 

On 6/16/2019 at 8:10 PM, zhamlau said:

Marvel Age is listed as being out the month earlier, so it clearly came first. What’s more it’s not just an advertisement it’s the actual first 6 pages of the story.  

 

I can get the argument about motion picture funnies not having wide distribution (not sure if we really know how it was distributed) It’s the 1985 star Michael Jordan XRC argument. I’m not a huge fan of that one personally but by making rules like that it strengths collecting so I get it. Where this argument losses steam I think is San Diego comic con issue 2, which cgc treats as the first appearance of Hellboy even though it wasn’t nationally distributed , and for many years cgc treated John Byrne Nextmen 21 as the first appearance.

 

With all this being said I think the general rule is collectors treat MA97 like the premier book to have for DH because it came out first, but following the rules written down in OS years back you accept DH1 as first appearance.

I think this on some level is like “rookie cards” in baseball. You can appear in a licensed set and have it be your first card, and up until about 10 years ago it would be considered your “RC” designated rookie card...But now based on the new rules the card guides have written, true rookie cards can’t come until you played in a major league game and only count for base cards made that year you first appear.

Anyway, thanks for input on this. Something interesting to think about.

 

These types of appearances are one of my main collecting focuses, and I've thought of them in terms of rookie cards, too. When I was a kid, I wanted the first card a player appeared on which would usually be a minor league card. Definitely not the accepted rookie card, but I loved 'em all the same. I think of these ads/preview appearances/ect the same way. 

It's still surprising to me how inconsistent our hobby is with defining a first appearance - for example, I finally bought some key Goon books for my PC. The ad in Avatar Illustrated is just that - an ad, but undeniably one of the first initial appearances of the Goon in print. The one that confuses me, though, is the designation of Dreamwalker 0 as a "preview". It's four pages long, and an original story. The comparison that comes to mind is Milk and Cheese...the accepted first appearance is in Greed 6, and for a while the next appearance in Cerebus Biweekly 20 was considered the first. These one pagers were then reprinted in Milk and Cheese 1, so...why is Dreamwalker considered a preview and Greed is a first? I know it's a very specific example, and that what is states on the CGC label isn't gospel, but still....