catman76

I just remembered Myron Fass, not totally comic related, but he published a crazy amount of magazines and comics in the 60s and 70s under the like 20 publishing companies names he would use. It's really fascinating, he was a nut and would do anything for a buck and save money, everything was on the cheapest paper he could get, published anything at all as long as it made a buck. Victor Fox is another guy that always fascinated me, he ran Fox publications in the 40s, he supposedly had ties to the mob and all this criminal stuff, published the most exploitative stuff he could to sell the comics, paid next to nothing, screwed over artists. All those old publishers and how they operated is fascinating to me, comics and pulps and men's magazines and all that was really low, bordering on criminal enterprises. It was all cheap stuff churned out to make a buck and had all these different company names and stuff to avoid taxes and avoid getting busted for stuff they published. I wish there was more information about it all. Same with old exploitation films and roadshowing and all that, these sleazy, exploitative companies doing anything to make a buck and avoid getting busted and everything.

Very cool. I need this. Croydon published a lot of strange one shot and reprint comics in the 40s, wonder if that's the same company. I bet that stuff is reprinted from somewhere else, it has a 30s look to it and it looks like a few other digest type books I have of reprints of other Ripley's like newspaper strips from the 20s and 30s, on animals and weird nature and stuff.

The postal regulations and fees thing was the reason I always heard was why publishers always avoided starting new titles if they could, just continued numbering from another title or starting a title at number 10, all to avoid paying whatever fees they had too for new titles. Ziff Davis did that with all their titles in the 50s and started every title at number 10. Also why comics all had text pages in them, another thing to avoid some postal regulation where the fees were lower if there was a minimum of two all text pages in any magazine, or something like that. I never have been able to find what the exact rules or regulations were or much about it ever.

Publishers used to have many different companies they published under, I don't know the exact reasons but I am sure financial reasons, ways to get around taxes and stuff like that. It seems to have been really common in the 40s and 50s , sometimes from issue to issue the name of the publisher in the indicia will change, even if there's the main publisher name on the front cover. Plus those are Marvel comics and Marvel had so many name changes over the years.

I never have really sold anything, so my regrets are all comics I passed up. Like an antique shop that had a box of early Archie comics for like a buck a piece and I said nah, they will be there still in a week when I am back that way, of course they weren't. Or the time I could have bought almost the entire run of Marvel Ghost Rider for like 40 bucks and I passed. I could have sold them for way more than that, they were hot at the time I think in the 90s. Oh and a Batman #20, I think it's 20, the one with the batmobile bursting out of the cover. I could have got it for 75 bucks, but no that was too much for me at the time. Stupid.

It's a 5

I never thought there was this many underwater covers. First one I thought of was this one....

I keep most in sleeves just for protection against anything, but comics all are better totally free of any plastic and naked to flip through and look at and feel and smell. I could care less about presenting a comic or what it's in. I also have hundreds of comics totally naked stacked neatly in photo boxes and other boxes, which probably horrifies most people, but there's nothing like going through a stack of old comics all free of any plastic and .

Wouldn't surprise me if it happened eventually. Fewer and fewer corporations are in control of everything and the choices you have are getting smaller and smaller. Soon everything there is will be owned and controlled by one corporation.

I have some british comics from the 40s that are reprints of american comics, but they are totally different than the American versions, there's not just a price difference on the cover, they are british printings and almost always in black and white.

5

I love old sunday comics pages and how gigantic they are. It's such a different experience than seeing them reprinted less than half the size in books. Seeing this thread made me want to dig out my stacks of Buck Rogers pages. Next I have to dig out my Krazy Kats.

I could care less what color the pages are, as long as it doesn't crumble in my hands when read it, but even then I will take it. Comics smell better when they are all yellowed anyway.

The cover was drawn by Ellis Chambers and inked by LB Cole I am sure. The entire insides are by Ellis Chambers, who would do these entire issue stories over a weekend while doing speed and pot. His style varies widely, even within the same story, probably depending on what drug he was on at the time. His stuff can be really clean and neat, like lots of his Cosmo Cat stuff and then sometimes totally insane in stuff like these early Toy Towns or Hi-Ho issues

They are full of animators I recognize, a lot of Fleischer/Famous and Terrytoons animators. Jim Tyer, Ray Patin, Lynn karp, Jack Bradbury, Dan Gordon, Dave Tendlar, Manny Perez, Gil Turner, there;s a million of them. Goofy, Coo Coo, Banyard and Happy are full of them from the very first issues. Fleischer studios was right down the street from Nedor's offices and all the animation studios and comic publisher offices were all pretty close together in New York so lots of New York animators made some extra money doing funny animal and humor comics on the side. Most are unsigned or under some made up name, probably cause they did so much for multiple publishers at the same time and to hide it from the animation studios they worked for. I know Jim Tyer did, he was doing funny animal stuff at nedor, fawcett, Timely, ACG, Fox, all at the same time all through out the 40s and 50s. Ellis Chambers was another guy that did an insane amount of stuff for everyone, he created Cosmo Cat and did tons of Fox comics and pretty much every other publisher. His style varies widely, depending on if he was whacked out on heroin or smoking pot at the time. He taught L.B. Cole how to draw in that comic animation cartoony style. Most funny animal covers credited to Cole were really only inked by him, Ellis Chambers drew them.

That's it. They added even more blood for the cover.

This cover was taken from a panel in another comic. I just ran across it recently, but I can't remember what one it was.

Whatever someone is willing to pay for it.

I miss comic conventions like that, no stupid costumes or anything that has nothing to do with comics, just comics piled around to dig through.

I never liked the term collector, I just search for things that I like and catch my eye and just am drawn to for some reason and have them because I enjoy them, they make me feel good, give me a sense of wonder, inspire me etc. To me collector and hoarder are almost the same thing, most collectors need entire runs of a comic or everything with Garfield on it or whatever. Collectors to me are hoarders with just a more defined focus on specific things they hoard, while a hoarder just hoards anything and everything.

With the title I assume you meant just the medium of comics, which will be fine, there's probably more being made now than ever before, the amount of self published comics and comics outside the mainstream superhero marvel/dc stuff is bigger and more diverse than ever. Now the money collector side of it? Who cares.