BLBcomics-migration

I agree to a point, though for my part I don't think I'm being especially contentious. David MerryWeather and Ciorac and I have differing viewpoints (and I don't think we're always arguing on the same topics), but I have no hard feelings toward them because of it... in fact I think this is one of the best threads in GA for some time. I think there is clear animosity toward Bob Beerbohm by some, but it seems it has to do with stuff outside what he is really presenting here, and that is unfortunate because his timelines and data are quite fascinating (and for the most part indisputable). People may disagree with his opinions or conclusions drawn, but even these aren't hysterically out of bounds, as presented, and his information is quite interesting and revealing. And all historians eventually draw conclusions from their research that spark debate and criticism. I love comics, but I love historical fact even more. In fact, I treasure accuracy. Myths are often oversimplifications and shortcuts... the truth is far more complicated and therefore far more interesting. Too often today we see history shredded by media and politicians who have a vested interest in altering the historical record. If we can't at least have truth in something that should be as inoccuous as pop culture, then the world is indeed a sadder place. I have learned a number of things on this thread I never knew before. I can impart a few tidbits here and there of which a few others may be unaware. Opinions, if based on fact and not emotion, should all be worthy of consideration and honest debate, and if derived honestly, should be above ridicule even if disagreed with. Despite a couple of moments, I think for the most part this thread achieves that. Bob, I have a lot of respect and appreciation for the research you have done, but your posting style makes it very difficult to tease out the interesting factual nuggets from the stream-of-consciouness wall-of-texts posts filled with non-sequitor anecdotes and appeals to authority that, while interesting, are ones we have all heard before. This is pretty savvy and knowledgeable crowd. The reason they aren't convinced by the arguments you're making isn't because they are unaware of your research or haven't read your essays in OPG and CBM -- it's because you haven't made a convincing argument. You like to call yourself a "comic book archaeologist." Well, as someone who is an actual archaeologist and who also does academic work on popular culture, let me tell you what I would like to see in order to be convinced. In archaeology, the artifacts themselves rarely have any intrinsic value -- what matters is context. So far you haven't given us any context with which we can judge your statement that the 1842 Obadiah Oldbuck "launched the American comic book industry." Just pointing to it's existence isn't enough. So how do you know that this book had any significance at all? What is your evidence for that? Töpffer was important and influential as an artist in Europe, sure. But how do you know that this US bootleg of one of his books had any impact over here at all? Do you know how many copies were printed? Where was it sold and distributed? How many people would have actually seen it? Was it reprinted? If so when and how many editions did it go through? You said it was sold in NY up until 1904 -- did you mean it was continually in print until 1904 or that there was a reprint of it in 1904 with no other editions in between? That's a big difference. You said this 1842 edition had a direct influence on the creation of Jeremiah Saddlebags and the other US books from the 1850s. What is your evidence for this? Do you have any secondary sources that refer to this 1842 edition? Are there any reviews of it or mentions of it in trade publications from the 1800s? How about advertisements? Do any of the later comic strip creators from the late 1800s and early 1900s discuss it anywhere (I'm sure Töpffer in general gets mentioned, but what about this 1842 edition in particular)? Bob, these are the kinds of contextual questions that need to be answered before anyone can judge just how important this particular book is. I suspect you have answers to some of these questions, but if no one has seen them outside of a highly-specialized email listserv, then you can't expect people to just accept your conclusions with no evidence. I'm not trying to pick on you. I am truly interested in this subject and I simply want to see formulate your arguments in way that allows us to truly weigh their merit. Regarding the first part of your missive, I have thousands of friends in the comics world. Any one who has been at some thing pretty much full time 40+ years is bound to also pick up some baggage along the way. Nuff said there. Almost every question you posed above are all answered in the Victorian articles as they evolved over time in Overstreet. During the early to mid 00s on the yahoo Plat list there was, still is for that matter, a world wide "team" of interested comics scholars wherein we fleshed out placing the artifacts from all over the world in to context. I find it almost amusing that comics scholars in Italy's Alfredo Castellli, Alberto Bacatinni, France's Thierry Groensteen, Jean-Pierre Mercier, Thierry Smolderen, England's Paul Gravett, elsewhere in Europe like Sweden's Fred Stromburg, as well as American ones like David Kunzle, the late Bill Blackbeard, many others, "get it," or in Bill's case, "got it" before passing on. whereas people seemingly financially vested in simply "the spawn of MC Gaines" do not, or refuse to. CONTEXT is all laid out in the unfolding Victorian era OPG articles using the price index which immediately folllows as reference. Some have already voiced some of these posts of mine are some what lengthy. There are thousands of comic strips in hundreds of publications from the 1800s. There are some 45,000 archived posts made there since 1999. which any one is free to scroll thru to learn the world wide impact of comic strips and books going back centuries. When the 1842 Obadiah Oldbuck was first announced circa OPG #32, there were comic book dealers, shall we say, upset, because they had solf FamousFunnies #1 to "investers" for thousands of dollars who all of a sudden wanted refunds. That blow back did come my way for a spell. It is what is is, I lose zero sleep over such silly antics. By 2006 they held the sections I worked on many hundreds of hours to 72 pages. The last years I was enthused before the hip joint thing took over and I lost pretty much half a decade of my life, I had to cajole the Gemstone powers that be in to squeezing more pages as more and more data was being unearthed. Towards "the end" when my section I was laying out the pages on peaked at the aforementioned 72 pages, Jeff Vaughn went to Geppi and they went so far as to drop a few of their internal "house" adverts much to their credit. So, when the amount of data went well over 72 pages, in order to fit in some thing "new" recently rediscovered, some thing which had beein the the articles had to be ejected. Visual aid for the text was dropped slowly I have also typed the above before quite a few times. In order to get the bigger more complete picture as presented in Overstreet one simply has to acquire one each of OPG #27 thru #39. Since that number I have not added to the Victorian and/or Plat lexicon there at all. I was otherwise occupied healing from surgeries and regaining "life". The Gemstone people have picked the visual aid in OPG #41 and #42. I lost interest when supplanted by Marvel cover price variants as seemingly more important. with the #40 anniversary OPG they wanted to run a special 31 page article by Jon McClure on mainly Marvel, but also other companies, cover price "variants" so the texts of both the Vict and Plat articles were completely dropped. I was offered a bone to expand the Origins of the Modern Comic Book piece which i did do. #40 contains the best version I compiled on the "modern" comic book origins. Seems like OPG is trying an end run to secure the copyrights on the Vict and Plat price index data I worked so hard compiling for free. Then again, while I was seekign surgeries and then healing, I was not the most cogent pebble on the beach. Let me take just a few of your queries and answer them: 1) re OO inspiring Saddlebags. That is all fleshed out in the Plat list archives. We examined both, one can see the Read Bros copying aspects of Oldbuck. 2) regarding your wanting to see a time line of reprints, all one needs to do there is scope out the Victorian Price Index I oversaw compilation of. All known reprints of ANY 1800s comic book are all laid out there. I see little need to rejurgitate such data here. I assume this "savy" crowd has the basic "tools of the trade" at their disposal. If not, well, then one has no business even worrying about reading this thread at all. I am not going to reprint the Victorian price index here. Suffice to say using just the one example of Obadiah Oldbuck, there are quite a few reprints done between 1842 until I see no more mention of that comic book as being in print after a NY Times 1904 article on it still being for sale. One also might keep in mind that by 1904 it was 60 years old. Compared to later technology advances, of course the art of "newer" cartoonists at the turn of the 20th century would look "better" 3) I took the trouble to show three comic strips earlier here in this thread from WILD OATS, a very rare, almost forgotten weekly newspaper which began running MANY sequential comic strips beginning in 1870. Those were almost completely ignored by this crowd. I thought to myself "why bother" - they are S.O.S., some might say Stuck On Superman, a more apt wording would be Stuck On Stupid, but I digress.... Other daily, weekly and/or monthly periodical newspapers carrying fully developed sequential comic art long before the Yellow Kid include The Lantern 1852-53 Yankee Notions 1852-1875 The Home Circle 1854-1856 Frank Leslie's Budget of Fun 1859-1878 The Daily Graphic 1873-1889 The Illustrated Weekly 1876 The Illustrated San Francisco Wasp 1876-1941 Texas Siftings 1881-1887 and many more. The examples here re-typed out of OPG's V index 4) In the Overstreet V article i showed catalogs having OO for sale from Wilson & Co as well as later D i c k & Fitgerald reprints. D&F seem to take over in the 1860s for Wilson, as well as Garrett, another NYC based 1850s comic book publisher. By the 1890s it is just Fitzgerald left, who seems to disappear in the early 20th century. Some thing no one seems to have bothered to investigate yet 5) I have 1842 bound volumes of Brother Jonathan weekly newspaper. It is discussed for sale in there. I also have Bro Jon stand alone catalogs of wares dating as early as 1853 with OO and other comic books for sale. But back to my original statement, most all you bring up is already covered in OPG. The interested party is also directed to Comic Art #3, Summer, 2003, published by Tod Hignite, now of Heritage Auction House, containing an article called "Topffer in America" by Doug Wheeler, Robert L. Beerbohm and Leonardo De Sa. Next posts coming up I took it upon myselfto scan the pages of said article. I trust they come out well enough to read here, as it has dawned on me that NO ONE reading this thread has this issue done a decade ago now. Otherwise, most all the queries directed at this writer would not have been asked in the first place.

What is coming in to focus re your position(s) is you seem to be discussing only right NOW present tense. I have been exploring the gamut of comics history now, you did pose a question, "...When have superheroes, in one form or another been irrelevant since their inception? Never...." well, one can easily stipulate super heroes were never "irrelevant" however, how important in over all comic book sales for huge stretches of time: 1) 1945-1962 2) 1969-1977 are two stretches of time where they were definitely in a sub-set minority re over all sales of all comic books then on the stands. 1945-1962 one can glean from the definite documented aercheological evidence 1969-1977 I "lived' thru especially from 1972 onwards as a full time comic book chain store co-owner trying to keep the rent & employees paid, acquire new product, etc I can cheerfully stipulate we would have STARVED to death being dependent upon super hero titles for cash flow sustenance till Austin, Bryne, Clairmont X-men began to bring a renewed focus in 1977 to reading well-done super hero comics. Fact. The Direct Market did not break the 5% of total sales in the comic book market until the early 1980s. FACT. So, to sum up, am I to "see" that you have ONLY truly been talking about NOW in this thread about the "evolution" of the the comic book? if so, i humbly apologize for not "seeing" via impersonal limited-consciousness E-Mail what you have been discussing. I would take it further: all what you said in this (and probably earlier) email(s) is what is keeping the venerated two staple side-stitched comic "book" magazine ALIVE for at least a while longer because with out the movies, with out the massive accompanying merchandising, the super hero comic book standing on its own "two feet" might not even exist here in 2013. - -

yes, no argument there per se. Ever. Regarding super-heroes originated in comics, however, super hero in comics dates back further than most are aware of here. if one was to grab hold of an Overstreet for the past decade, turn to the Platinum article, i have OPG #42 handy, turn in that one to page 352, one will see at the top of the page Hugo Hercules 1902-03 by one J. Koerner from the Chicago Tribune. The sample strip printed in OPG for some years now has super heroic Hugo Hercules throwing a burning two story house some distance in to Lake Michigan thereby solving the "fire" though one might wonder about what happens to the people clearly hanging out of the house's windows - on another note as I think of it: Philip Wylie sued Donenfeld, Siegel & Shuster, et al for plaigerism re his 1930 novel Gladiator being direct "inspiration" for Superman. Interesting tidbit to explore is Wylie's main super heroic character in Gladiator is also named "Hugo." Wylie was a young kid growing up in Chicago when the 1902 comic strip Hugo Hercules had its run in the Chicago Tribune. Super heroic characters in comics have other earlier appearances in comics as well - before we get to Superman in Action Comics #1 As far as Siegel and Shuster creating Superman goes, I might humbly direct interested souls towards "The Big Bang Theory of Comic Book History" in the much lamented ceased publication zine Comic Book Marketplace #50, August, 1997 as well as Comics Buyer's Guide #1029 and an earlier issue of CBM the number eludes me both dated in 1996 which each contain an article of mine titled "The First Superman Cover" about my research in to this puppy http://www.ebay.com/itm/FIRST-SUPERMAN-1-1933-SIEGEL-AND-SHUSTER-COVER-DONE-ORIGINAL-ART-/230958252728?pt=US_Comic_Books&hash=item35c62f42b8 I used to have the original art to back when I was a "silly" (ie aka s t u p i d) teenager still in high school. I had sent this article to both Don Thompson at CBG (who published EVERY missive I ever sent him for what that is worth) and Gary Carter at CBM. Each published two thirds of it, and by some stroke of "luck" each left out a different third of it. One has to score both to read it in its entirety. Both cited spacial concerns at the time. Inside CBM #50 one will discover that a MAIN influence among many other very non-comics inspiration on Siegel & Shuster were publications by Hugo (there is that name again - Gernsback. In the Action #1 story one can see, if one compares, panels copied directly off Gernsback's Science and Invention magazine covers. Exploding planet Krypton, the rocket carrying Baby Kal-El to Earth, others. So, yes, super hero in comics begins in 1902. Origins of Superman extend far and away outside of comic books or comic strips.

I also might add to every one choosing to read this thread that per Irwin Donenfeld, during the 18 or so hours I interviewed him on tape in his home town over a few years post many a NYC comicon I used to set up at, this son of the original Superman publisher, who told me as a 12 year old in 1938 he read the original Superman art going in to Action Comics #1 onwards, the original Batman art going in to Detective Comics #27 (among many others BTW), groomed to be publisher by his father Harry, and, indeed was National Periodical Publications publisher from 1953, the advent year of the Superman TV show which kept Supermam ALIVE, thru 1968 when Jack Liebowitz machinations forced him out, stated in no uncertain terms, George Delacorte aka DELL COMICS, was OVER 50% of the comic book business all by himself for many years. Main years of Dell Dominance was 1945 once paper shortage allocations began lifting thru 1960 when that firm made a silly mistake raising their cover prices from a dime to 15 cents thereby plummeting their paid sold circulations. Delacorte made a near fatal mistake regarding his previous once thriving comics business. Irwin stated to me in no uncertain terms as we explored this concept over the course of many questions on my part in taped interviews his father as well as himself ALWAYS viewed George Delacorte as their absolute MAIN comic book publisher competitor. Delacorte began publishing and distributing via American News in 1921. He was publishing comic books in the 1920s. Research this, please. He was 50-50 partners with Eastern Color with The Funnies comics periodical, the FIRST news stand regularly published original material comics title beginning in 1928 as well as 50-50 partners again with Eastern with the news stand advent of Famous Funnies beginning in 1934. Please some one name Delecorte's impact in to the super heroic title genre? Ever. please......

That is all you came away with from my last post? One can "imagine" all one wants to if one chooses to, but, Bill, that statement is simply silly on the face of it, simply by examining the published evidence of well over a century of comic book production. Bob, you are the one lacking in imagination. You are so busy connecting the dots that you can't see the forest for the trees. So to speak. Fast forward it 100 years. What will be remembered then? You don't reply to the facts and direct observations in my posts, so why should I return the favor. You keep calling me, or my position silly, that may be true about me, but not my position. Stop thinking I am blinded by superhero bias. My collection is only about 25% superhero so that argument doesn't hold water. You and I are contemporaries for the most part, so we have observed the market for roughly the same amount of time. Thus equally qualified to comment on it. I thought I had been replying to your posts, your observations. pardon me if I have not, in your eyes. email conversation is prone for misinterpretations as well as not seeing said trees for said forest of words. ie your observations which i evidently have not addressed. I admit up front there is a stretch in the middle of this thread I have not bothered to delve in to even reading. too much peanut gallery troll activity to waste valuable time upon. that said, what facts have you presented I did not expressly reply to? That said, please do not think I am biased against super heroic type comic books. I love em, anything good in any genre. There is "bias" and there is examination of "facts" Facts stipulate 1) come 1939, super heroic was a major factor driving comic book sales till WW2 ends as they begin dropping like flies in DDT come 1945 with most gone and the genre a pale shell of itself no later than 1949 when Quality, Timely others give up that ghost 2) from 1945, when the genre begins dying big time, up thru 1962, which is a year I peg because there is finally a major number of super heroic type titles hitting the stands, a period of 17 years, super hero is forgotten re the vast majority of comic book sales. 3) Post Batman TV show, fueled by all the media hype of said Batman TV show, the super heroic glut sees another implosion which stretches in to the beginnings of another revival after the Byrne X-mens begin making an impact in comics reading consciousness. That is another ten year decade 4) One can not speculate logically what will be remembered 100 years from now inasmuch as one might wish to. The only solid foundation upon which to examine this comics business that is what has already been published and examine that evidence. I am also not speculating on the relative knowledge and wisdom any one individual might have on their knowledge (or lack there of) turning in to wisdom on the subject of comics and their very long history as a cultural force in a great many countries. Of course you are qualified to make commentary on the subject. Never hinted you did not. However, I might also have a lot more primary research material on the subject than most folks which goes out far beyond the actual comic books themselves these days of daZe. 5) That said, were/are super heroioc type comic books important? sure they were, for short stretches of time. no doubt about it. Were they the MAIN force in comics all this time? Nope.

That is all you came away with from my last post? One can "imagine" all one wants to if one chooses to, but, Bill, that statement is simply silly on the face of it, simply by examining the published evidence of well over a century of comic book production.

Superman is important, yes. But I disagree with much of the rest. As comics are now dominated by super-hero creators and collectors, there is a continual effort to re-write history in their favor. But the facts don't support the super-hype. Comics were thriving and expanding constantly since their latest-format incarnation in 1933. Superman simply led to the explosion of a new genre within the comic book. That doesn't mean comic books weren't thriving, and wouldn't thrive, without it. Take any given genre away from the motion picture... the gangster film, the romance, the western, the musical... film history would be very different, surely, but cinema would have thrived nonetheless. As has been pointed out, Action comics didn't have all that much impact on comics sales overall, though it certainly was an important title for the DC/National house. But the comparative scarcity today of early Action issues compared to contemporaneous issues of King Comics, Famous Funnies, Feature Comics, Tip Top, Sparkler, Popular, etc., shows that even a year or more into Action, its sales still lagged many other titles. Superman #1 was a major leap in sales figures, and certainly began a scramble for copycat concepts. But this seems like an anomaly at the time that bears more scrutiny... what was there about this issue that suddenly brought such massive interest in this character... the design?, the marketing?... it would be fascinating to know. Even for all that, it was primarily 3 comics publishers that took super-heroes to heart... DC/All-American, Fawcett, and Quality. Others dabbled in and out of them, as they did with many genres. Even powerhouse Dell tried some original characters briefly, but soon gave up on them. And as has been pointed out, the first wave of super-heroes began falling by the wayside as soon as WW2 ended. And even during this hey-day, after Superman #1s success, the character quickly dropped in popularity behind Captain Marvel and other Fawcett titles. If there was any one truly major source for comics success in the 1940s it would have to lie at the footsteps of Dell in general, and probably Walt Disney in particular. I think it is safe to assume that the creation or non-creation of a Superman would have had no effect whatsoever on Disney's decision to go big into comics, as they did with every crossover medium opportunity they came across. After that, the often-overlooked juggernaut of Classic Illustrated was a dominant force in comics through the 1960s, as were Archie, western, and other humor characters. Super-heroes fared rather poorly even in the '40s against these other genres, and were almost obliterated in the 1950s. The comeback of the super-hero in the 1960s is, fairly obviously, a comeback by default, as TV had replaced most other genres by offering a free alternative to comics. The budget and technological constraints of the medium at the time made competing with super-heroes impossible, and so they (along with Archie and Harvey) continued to thrive into the 1970s and beyond, though "thriving" in the 60s, 70s, 80s, etc., meant surviving with publication numbers far below any previously seen in the industry. Superman is to super-hero comics what "Little Caesar" was to the gangster film. The character's importance is huge. But mythology has tended to turn "huge import" into "all import", and history simply doesn't support that. [font:Times New Roman] Wow! I can't imagine disagreeing more with your ultimate conclusion. I'm not sure who is trying to rewrite comic history, but something certainly seems askew. Maybe this just needs a bit of fine tuning. I mean no disrespect in contesting your POV, but to dismissively suggest that comics are currently dominated by superheroes ...even though costumed characters have been a driving force in comics since the SA reboot of the genre... or just because creators and/or collectors like it more simply ignores the realities of the market and what fuels interest in superheroes. Ironically, you did mention gangster movies in the allegorical sense, and television, as a theoretical substitute for comics, but failed to grasp the importance of media as a driving force in both instances. Alas, the value of film and television media in perpetuating interest in costumed heros can't be understated. I suppose Timely just dabbled in superheroes and never took them to heart. Is that why you ignored them or did Cap suddenly develop halitosis? With the exception of the long-running Plastic Man and to a lesser extend Doll-Man, Quality was always a dabbler in the superhero genre, Busy Arnold gradually moving away from costumed characters even before the end of the war, and there's plenty of research to back that up. Bob is laboring under the presumption that I'm coming around to his POV simply because I agree with his point about superheroes fading after WWII. I was agreeing with his observation, which was a good one, but not his overarching premise. Alas, I don't concur with his view of the comic continuum any more than I concur with your conclusions about the relevance of superheroes in the success of comics over the past 75 years. What both you and Bob seem to be overlooking in the evolution of comics is how war derailed the logical development of the super hero genre. WWII had a decisive impact on the implementation of costumed characters as a rallying tool (nationalistic propaganda) and I'd argue that the timing of our involvement in the war may have inadvertently stiffled the evolution of super-villains and serialized stories. The end of the war forced comic publishers to scramble. Sales figures for superheroes slumped as publishers struggled to make them interesting corralling masked robbers and thugs. After four years of patriotic costumed characters battling legions of nazi goons and samurai sword wielding Japanese warriors, the challenge of crime fighting must've seemed rather ho-hum to many readers. Alas, finding worthy adversaries to combat after Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo must've been a tough act to follow. It wouldn't be until the revival of costumed heroes in the late 50's and early 60's that super villains and more complex serialized story-lines would reestablish super heroes as the dominant driving force in comics. Another point of contention: I'm of the opinion that the success of Superman #1 was already determined before the first stand-alone costumed superhero book it's still just a reprint book. I would not trust any quoted DC's sales figures for Action. That book was selling very well long before the decision to release a stand-alone Superman comic. In fact, there had already been a court case fought over copyright infringement with Fox. DC wouldn't have made such an effort to defend the uniqueness of it's intellectual property against imitation without having a foregone conclusion as to the value of that property. I suspect DC juggled the sales figures of Action (co-mingling Action sales with the sales of titles that were losing money) to conceal the success of it's lead character and dissuade copycats (similar to what Timely's publisher Martin Goodman would do several years later to conceal the success of Captain America). Do I have evidence that DC actually did this? No, but it's a sound supposition based on common sense and a solid grasp of marketing strategies. The Little Caesar analogy is interesting and you have a point, but perhaps not the one you thought you were making. There were gangster stars in the silent era (George Bancroft), but they aren't remembered as fondly as Raft, Cagney and Robinson. In retrospect, the transitional films of the silent era are very much like comics before Superman. Earlier comics were popular enough, but not revered as much as the colorful costumed characters which followed because they lack the kind of pizzazz that would take the industry to the next level and sustain it through feast, famine and diversional trends. Given the amount of time I've worked on this it will probably be as irrelevant as paper comics by the time it posts, but we can agree on at least one more point: I'm totally happy with the huge import of superheroes. AFAIC, the mythology is just icing on the cake. [/font] (thumbs u Some observations on some of what you wrote, not all, and in no particular order: 1) I am not laboring under any presumptions from any one coming around to "my" point of view. This is a view held by a LOT of world class comics historians, many of whom constantly contact me to obtain my humble opines & thoughts on what ever it is they are researching. Some how I am now in the acknowledgments of over 200 books on comics. I have done my own research into origins and evolutions of comic strip books in conjunction with many researcher friends, most of whom have neverbeen on these CGC boards. I have come to my own conclusions based on preponderance of evidence developed. Every one is entitled to their own opines, but not their own facts, so the saying goes. Am not tooting a horn here, though I am sure some will choose to see such, more power to you, knock yourself out. 2) I got my "final" sales figures on Action Comics 1 thru 17 plus the frst few Superman comics sales figures from one Mike Uslan back in the mid 1990s during my first major primary data quest, might have heard of him. He got the data going thru DC archives, back when he was a DC woodchuck intern along with Paul Levitz, another old friend from whom I was buying Comic Reader wholesale from him. Mike had foresight to buy movie rights to Batman and some other National Periodical Publications aka DC Comics back in the 1970s. Got those rights for dirt at the time in retrospect, but I digress..... 3) Donenfeld had zero idea Superman was pulling in readers to Action until later looking at #1, #7, #10, the #15 onwards. I have a question as I am too lazy to look at files, etc. What issue of Action was on sale when Superman #1 was issued? 4) Reasons for the "super" heroic comics fighting Nazis and Japanese on the covers and inside is much of the print of those issues were beign shipped directly into US Armed forces PX outlets. There was a "captive" audience of some 12 million men in need of light entertainment propaganda. with the discharge of all those millions of military men, along with the ending of the war, interest in super heroic type comic books plummeted like a brick in water 5) Donenfeld had no idea of the top out sell thru potential of Superman #1. half a million the first print run. A couple more print runs later, it tops out at just under a million. 6) No doubt about it, Superman caused quite a stir beginning in 1939. There was a short lived fad in superheroics , but that was also directly fueled by World War Two. 7) Martin Goodman was publishing a LOT of stuff besides his small corral of super hero comics. For example, he also quickly got in to the teen romance humor field early on once Archie began taking off. Patsy Walker seems to have been outselling Millie the Model back then based on comparing how hard each title number is to score these days which has seen a reversal of collecting popularity I have witnessed. Goodman also was publishing a proliferating stable of funny animal comics as was National once they launched Real Screen Comics 8) Arnold was also much larger in to super hero than Plastic Man and/or Doll Man. One leaves out the "super" team of Blackhawk in Military as well as own title, Kid Eternity in Hit as well as own title, Capt Triumph in Crack who got to 1949 before turning western, Midnight in Smash when title ends #85 in 1949 as well - am probably leaving some one out, that was without research Gerber's absolutelly essential photo journal guide to covers and dates published of each title. In as much as his Reilly collection "info" is a farce, most of the rest of his labors of love developing his two volume set remains the pinnacle research tool develving in to all of this stuff. At least more me it is. Faster than researching on google even - 9) there is an excellent argument to be made that if World War Two had not come along, many of the super heroic types would not have been developed at all. It would be fun to sit down and make up two lists: a) super heroics types who were not hyper patroitic many replete with flag emblems b) those who were strictly created to appeal to patriots entering and/or already in the military such as Captain America who took on Hitler the first ish. 10) It remains an indisputable fact that some how comic books THRIVED big time from 1945 thru 1962 with out hardly ANY super heroic types. Fact that for what 17 years there super heroic type comic books were like a pimple on the butt of the comic book business. The all time best selling on-going comic book title issue in, issue out was and remains Walt Disney's Comics and Stories which peaked out at over 4 million an issue for some years. Single issues sold to that many individuals and/or families Looney Tunes sold over 3 million an issue for years as well. They remain common as dirt in the comics collecting world and most likely are over-priced in OPG. - Discount oddity blips like the Jim Lee X-men #1 slick comic book which sold five different covers in to a speculator market. Or that 1991 'death' of Superman which was a 7.5 million in all formats marketing success. Warner's pushed two things that season: Death of Supes and the Madonna Sex book. 11) In spite of the success of comic books per se, for many decades until TV pulled away consciousness and attention span, newspaper comics were being read and unfolding story lines followed by over 80% of the entire USA population. I am too lazy right this sec to look up exact figures I have per marketing studies I have collected original primary source artifacts for. These number percents hold from the 20s thru in to the 50s. Strips like Pogo influenced Presidential politics After that, interest in continuity in newspaper strips waned as comic strips like Peanuts took hold. Doonesbury back in its hey-day being an exception to that rule in the 70s 12) every one is cheerfully entitled to their own opines, like I have stated many times previously. But not their own facts. Maybe i should pose a query here then: If not a "comic book" what is one supposed to call The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck first printing published by Wilson & Co in 1842? One would HAVE to see what Topffer's creation looks like in its first printing state before being able to make a logical informed naming of this popular culture artifact which launched the comic book business in America Topffer's comic strip book creations also launched comic strip book businesses with their own original material in at least six other countries around the same time according to the world wide consortium of comics scholars who gathered together in the "Plat" yahoogroups.com list I started up in 1999 originally as an off-shoot of the "comics scholars" e-list which is currently housed out of the University of Florida under the auspices of a long time friend of mine, Prof Don Ault. I first met Don the first month we opened that first Comics & Comix location near UC-Berkeley back in August 1972. He was teaching a upper level English course on Carl Barks that year I tried to get in to audit as a non-student. The class was full, no room, much to my long time regret. Don also presented a lecture at Berkeleycon 73 from whence the Reilly collection surfaced. small world.......

Here is the section of Gaines' narrative as he discusses the evolution of the newspaper comic strip. It sounds like an historical retrospective written a decade after he had enjoyed much success in pioneering comic books in America. Not a contemporary piece written about HIS direct influences. If you read the entire article in context this will become clear. He is an ancestor of yours in many ways Bob. He started researching the history of the medium and wrote this paper. Also using it as a platform to get publicity for his new line of EC comics It was your post earlier in this thread, and in an older thread, where you state categorically that Obadiah was more important to the evolution of comic books than Superman. Those kinds of wild, unsupportable, statements tend to cast a shadow of doubt on your overall credibility. If you wrote it just stir the pot, fine. But if you truly believe that, that is a horse of a different color. Do you think you would have been able to make a living selling comic books lo these 40+ years had superheroes not spawned the true golden age of comics, that eventully led to the silver and modern ages? I doubt that Katzenjammer Kids and Oldbucks of the world would have led to your accumulating 1,000,000 comics at one point in your life Fair enough? SUPER HEROIC COMIC BOOKS Yes, I know I would have been making a living buying, selling, trading, comic books all these decades with or with out super "heroic" type comics. I live in a mercantiling comics world and related graphics-oriented material that includes super heroic types, but am not dependent upon them. There is a HUGE world of comic books outside the narrow confines of the heroic ones. Co-opening my first store in August 1972, in a SF Bay Area world of Crumb's Zap Comics along with Griffin, Spain, Robert Wiliams, Moscoso along with Gilbert Shelton's Freak Bros, Corben, Irons, Sheridan et al doing comic books like Slow Death, Skull, etc, Art Spiegelman, and a host of others involved with the "comix" aspect of what went in to the corporate name I came up with: Comics & Comix to call our chain store operation, throughout the 70s, a comic book store would have DIED on the vine trying to be dependent upon "super" heroes. Mad, National Lampoon, others of the satire variety, these were good sellers for us Peanuts, Pogo, Doonesbury, later on Garfield, many orhers, comic "books" which brought in "civilians" in to our then new world of comics Better sellers then than virtually any "super" hero included Wrightson's Swamp Thing (#1 came out as we were opening up), Smith's Conan, among others of that sort. The late 60s thru the end of the Nixon era are a huge proliferation of "horror" comics being popular sellers of us. Tomb of Dracula by Gene Colan comes to mind among others. Super Heroes? then, of course, there was the Howard the Duck phenom anomoly in 76 which was the very first speculative title almost entirely "controlled" by comic book dealers which saw a $3 retail its first week, mainly due to hype. It came out during the months that year I was not a comic book dealer for a living, having gone back to college, not re-opening with a solo store until November 1976. One does not see a move back towards selling larger numbers of "super" heroes until Byrne, Austin and Clairmont begin doing X-Men with #108 in mid 1977. Even then it took six months before I began pre-ordering 10,000 an issue and upped it even further as we got in to the #120s and #130s. For a while there Byrne X-mens ruled the planet. Prior to #108 X-men as a seller was non noticable on any sort of blip. Then Miller comes along with Daredevil in 158, sales do not begin to spike until 168, but it took till about 171 for most comic book sellers to notice, hey, people really like it. By #174 I was pre-ordering 8,000 at issue up thru #181 when i cut it back a bit not knowing how Miller would take the book I have already pointed out with a few pre Superman examples, am not going to include any more in this thread right now, no need, that there were comic books selling in the Multi-MILLIONS prior to Superman #1 hitting the stands in 1939. Action Comics was not setting any world's records prior to Superman #1. That is a fact. MAX GAINES Bill, my friend, you seem to dodge the concept you stated earlier that Gaines did not know of Topffer. That is what I interpreted, please correct if I am wrong on that note. That said, have you read, or at least know of, Harry Wildenberg's 1949 Commonweal article/interview on aspects of the evolution of the Eastern Color incursions in to mercantiling comics in what is obvious to many who have done a lot of research in to the time lines of what is the "dime novel" format? the original first editor of Famous Funnies Steve Douglas had a two page article in a 60s RBCC wherein he states a lot of 'facts" used by later historians. Have you read this either? Do you know it exists? Calling Max Gaines a solo type inventer of "comic books" is like calling Stan Lee a solo inventer of the 60s Marvel Universe. Both concepts are simply....wrong. MOST IMPORTANT COMIC BOOKS Yes, I have developed a time list of what I consider the most important comic books for their influence on getting "product" to market and be read: 1842 1) The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, Wilson & Co, NYC, first comic book in America. I have primary research documents which prove it is maintained steady in print and for sale in the New York City area until at least 1904. 1849 2) Journey to the Gold Diggins by Jeremiah Saddlebags, the Read Bros, first original USA comic book. It has two distinct printings. It is directly influenced by the Wilson & Co two Topffer comic books as are the many 1850s comic books and strips in periodicals I have handled, read, and in some cases even own. The 1860s and 1870s see comic strips enter "news" papers long before the short lived Yellow Kid blip of 1985-1898. 1903 3) Buster Brown and His Resolutions, Outcault, first "nationally distributed" comic book via Sears Roebuck catalog which then saw a huge number of this comic book format published for the next 20 years for most major newspaper comic strips. Quite a few publishers enter the comic book market as a result. 1938 4) Action Comics #1 intros Superman which saw huge numbers of super heroic comic books published for an approx five year period once Superman #1 1939 is noticed by distributors and retailers which, in turn, caused other publishers to begin to take notice. But with the advent of the end of World War Two, the "super" hero in most all instances dies, almost completely supplanted by other genres which thrive to the point by 1952 there is a HUGE glut of some THREE BILLION PLUS comic books printed that year awash in America with almost nary a "super" heroic title amongst this glut which is turn is causing a lot of concerned citizens to be talking about this "obsession" over 90% of all children are having with comic books 1952 5) Mad Comics #1, Kurtzman, EC, later on Bill Gaines keeps it all to himself till he sells his company circa 1958. Once Warners absorbs it, he goes to work for them as well. This comic book heavily influences many succeeding generations of comics creators. I entered this title in to my short list upon urgings by friends Jay Lynch, Art Spiegelman, and other comics creators who had some convincing arguments to make on Kurtzman and Mad. 1968 6) Zap Comics #1 creates a whole new aspect centering on creator owned, royalty paying comic books while also at the same time spawing a new "underground" method of distributing "alternative" comic books from which spawns the Direct Market which later on in the mid 70s sees DC, Marvel, et al enter this "new" aspect of the comics world. The Code comics enter this "new" method because they are dying on the ID vine. Fact. So, what are you arguing about other than to be for the sake of arguing? Do I do my research on the evolution of comics in order to simply try to sell comic books? I, along with every one else involved, some 40+ friends of mine, contributed their knowledge and wisdom which went in to what started as a 15 page section in Overstreet #27 peaking with #38 39 40 as a 72 page section I was editing and laying out picking all the visual aid and being pushed (and, I hasten to add, resisting) to raise prices on stuff, basicly for free. Around 2005 I had estimated my direct costs conducting the research I have done that preceding decade all over the country before I encountered now healed medical problems in 2006 at well over $30,000 at a few thousand (plus) a year. OK, I have a query for you in response to innuendo: is it a crime to say "...buy a book from bob if you see something you like which in turn supports his research..." in to this field?

Oh, you cam across my friend Andy Konkykru's web site for the word balloon history which comes out of an earlier version. He has been a long time member of my Plat list I began back in 1999. A lot of his listings were supplied by various Plat list members over the years including your's truly Here is a newer updated version of his ever evolving comics origins history site. I urge every one who reads my post here to go to his site and learn a few things. http://konkykru.com/earlycomics.chronological.html

Mutt and Jeff comic book sales for Bud Fisher, who owned the copyright on his creation and licensed it out as he saw fit, were aided and abetted by traveling shows like this one, the Panama one pictured here a 1913 version traveling the by-ways of America. The songs in these shows were also for sale as sheet music, in the days before records, hit songs were played on pianos in many a household. The sheet music sold in the millions and also remain fairly common to locate for a collection. Later on animated cartoons, early silent movie reels, and such also provided more sales vehicle consciousness for the comic books. Around this time there were actually six of these vaudeville shows traveling at the same time. M&J also entered animated cartoons, silent movies, etc early on. All through this Mutt and Jeff comic books were selling very well, in the millions. M&J's Cupples & Leon series also ran a successful run from 1919 thru 1933 before becoming a premiere main star attratction in Funnies On Parade on in to Famous Funnies before heading over to Donenfeld's growing Superman empire where it stayed until long after Bud Fisher's death in 1954. Bud Fisher was America's first millionaire comics cartoonist.

The first three Mutt and Jeff comic books published in annual editions 1910 1911 1912 sold in the millions of copies. This is why they are among the most common comic books of their era. #4 and #5 are infinitely harder to find. Annual comic books? Why, I would swear DC copied Mutt and Jeff when they issued that first Superman Annual #1 in 1960 fifty years later. This statement makes as much sense as the lost soul(s) thinking I have been claiming Oldbuck directly inspired the creation of Superman by Max Gaines Tis the simple existence of, much less the format of, the 1842 Obadiah Oldbuck which launched American comic book industry now over 170 years old as of September last year. That is an indisputable fact of life, get used to it, one and all. Has nothing to do with marketing or theoretical "worth" of any comic book ever published. There is an indisputable time line of comic strip books, as well as in periodicals of all shapes, sizes, formats

Busch did hundreds of sequential comic strips reprinted widely around the world while he lived in Germany. He was translated in to many languages. In Wild Oats beginning in #3 1970 i discovered when conducting research at LOC and New York Historial Society as the Victorian section was being constructed that Busch inaugurates sequential comic strips in this periodical. Dozens of other comic strip art creators make sequential comic strips therein as well Within a few years in that seminal periodical chock full of sequential comic art strips Fred Opper was doing sequential comic strips in it beginning in 1875 a full 25 years before he introduced Happy Hooligan in 1900. By then he was beginning to be an old man of the comic strip celebrity "club" That same year also saw Palmer Cox, later of Brownies fame, from whom Outcault claims he was totally inspired by, also doing the first many double page sequential comic strips with just one example presented by me here. I have dozens of other examples in my research files.

No one in this camp has stated Oldbuck inspired Superman. Certainly not me. however, Bill was earlier pontificating Gaines had not seen Topffer. As I have known for a very long time re that 1942 Print article Gaines supposedly wrote himself, he hisself states otherwise. The concept of making comic books begins in America in 1842. By 1849 the first original home grown one comes along. In the 1850s more than half a dozen more comic books are published in America as well as quite a few large tabloid size (akin to 70s Treasury size) periodicals began running sequential comic strips. It was this going on which garnered tehe attention span of NYC based larger circulation "news" papers I showed a scant three well drawn examples from Wild Oats weekly newspaper (like a Sunday special the "other" newspapers owned by Pulitzer, then Hearst, then Gordon Bennett, publisher of Outcault's Buster Brown, McCay's Little Nemo as well as his more obscure attempts at building wide sperad success with character identification , among many other well known classics, then a flood gate, picked up on being copy cats on. I could scan and show HUNDREDS of equally cool sequential comic strips just from Wild Oats alone much less the other graphic humor periodicals from the 19th century. These three suffice as the mere examples they were intended as. Here is my absolute favorite comic book cover of all time which dates from December 1905 Christmas season. I simply love the work of Winsor McCay and some some to still cling to outmoded easily disproved micro views of what constitutes being able to call something a "comic book" was is and remains silly.

Here is a repeat visual aid preciously ignored posted for regarding sales numbers on comic books before the supposed giant splash of Action Comics #1 reinventing the comic book sales wise. This page stating [font:Arial Black]"...2.5 million copies sold without the slightest effort.[/font].." is from the Feb 1921 issue from my complete archive of American News Trade Journal 1919-1957 which is just one tool I utilize to trace the concepts of comic books in America. At this point Cupples and Leon had published no more than three of their Bringing Up Father series in this format. Here is a scarce 1919 British edition as distribution on comic books beginning as early as 1905 went international in to the British Empire as well as French editions in their language. and I aplogize for the cut off nature of BUF #2 Brit as well as #3 #4 #5 as my larger scanner is not presently accessible. The advert above of George McManus entering self-publishing with Trouble With Bringing Up Father as a reprint comic book of color Sunday strips prompted Cupples and Leon later in 1921 to issue #4 and #5 of more daily srtips as well as publish one or two a year for another 12 years. McManus was half owner of Embee Publishing with his abortive Comic Monthly running 12 issues Jan-Dec 1922, which never seemed to have gotten distribution traction for reasons I am still puzzling thru. Similar to Kurtzman, Elder et al years later trying to get their self-published Humbug to market. Again, apologies the tops and bottoms are cut off of #4 and #5. My smaller scanner is not large enough The McManus BUF C&L series ran 1919-1933 selling many millions of copies many of the numbers being reprinted to fulfill unmet demand like Superman #1 having three separate printings and/or Zap Comics seeing many editions. The Bringing Up Father series next to their Mutt & Jeff being the most common survivors. Not too shabby for black and white daily strip reprints most every one had already read akin to people buying Peanuts or Calvin & Hobbes comic books years later. No doubt about it Superman #1 was noticed sales wise by other publishers. There is also no doubt the previous issues of Action Comics were not causing hardly any ripples in publisher consciousness except for Victor Fox causing him to rent office space in the same building as Donenfeld.

Topffer's comic srtip books he created in Geneva Switzerland beginning in 1828 utilizing the then brand-new technological advance we came to call lithography, in its earliest days "stone" lithography where one drew the words and pictures together on stone printing "plates" led directly to comc strip books in at least six countries, so "we" identified over on the PlatinumAgeComics list I created on yahoogroups back in 1999. One question i have regarding a statement you made earlier re Gaines and Topffer, which you have no acknowledged, is the 1942 Gaines Print article, URL provided up above in a post i made yesterday, which has Gaines writing about Topffer. I am not jumping A < B from Topffer to Famous Funnies (many comics scholars refuse to place all "invention" of that particular FF solely to Gaines much like many refuse to place "invention" of a later FF soley with Stan Lee). That is silly. There is a definate time line evolution. All mass produced comic books begins with Topffer having his comic books printed with the earliest forms of lithography. I have rewritten quite a few times the same line which disspells that thought pattern you make (which I did not make): there are thosusands of comic strips in hundreds of publications in 1800s USA for a period of 60 years before Yellow Kid, much less 90 years before 30s FF.

Bill, and whomever else might be reading this: I beg to differ on a couple levels, to wit: While I agree super hero comics began parlaying an industry as such in 1938, I have the final sales numbers of the first 17 Action Comics. They do not set any world's records as such till we get to Superman #1 summer of 1939. That book, however, goes thru three printings selling around a million copies. That said, and a lot of super hero stuff does try to duplicate Superman Magic, by the end of World War Two, 1945, the super hero genre is dying, within a year or two later, tis basicly dead. So, the "peak years" for this supposed vaunted "Golden Age" of comics with super hero as soem sort of apex of the industry was some five years. So, some how, for the next 15 years, the comics industry ignites a major A"glut" by 1952 with hardly nary a super hero in the crowd. Superman sells cuz he has a TV show by 1953, Batman and Wonder Woman hang in there, please name ANY successful super hero in the 1950s, please In the mean time in the 50s Dell has WDCS peaking out at 4.3 million per issue, Looney Tunes is seling 3 million per month (which is why those are so common); things like Tarzan, Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers et al are selling between a million and a million and a half per month. Richie Rich is the most prolific title of all time. Not until we get to at least 1960 does "interest" in super hero begin to revive in terms of actual sales. Not until a year later in mid 1961 does Goodman began telling his comic guys to try a JLA type pirate Tying in the "ages" of comic books to super hero aka Gold Silver Bronze and the most stupid one of all "Copper" is simply silly, The true "Golden Age" of Comics sequential story telling which appealed to a much wider audience was in the newspapers 1929-1930s with something like Puck the Comics Weekly, or its competition in other newspapers, something i collect in complete Sunday sections these days, hard to do since so many sections were cut apart in to single pages. I much prefer having my complete run of Foster Tarzan full pages or my near complete run of Prince Valiant in full pages, or reading Segar Popeye aka Thimble Theater to 90% of the comic "book" output. any hoot, yes, I agree, super hero ran wagon for half a decade, 40-45, the genre ultimately lucky World War Two came along on one ironic level. Think about it, most of those superhero comics went in to Armed forces PX outlets to be sold to soldiers. Tis one reason why they tend to be so scarce in America now, much of certain print runs went over seas to the teenagers doing the actual fighting. just got back from Kansas City Planet Comicon, scored a pile of vintage, am now getting on with scanning and posting new acquisitions in to eBay store.........

The Summer 1942 Gaines article in PRINT had a sequel as well an issue or so later which explained how comics are created, production concepts, etc. IIRC both were scanned by some one and placed on the net some time ago, possible to google them. I have complete run of PRINT from #1 on for some 20 issues or so. Here is an URL to both articles. http://imprint.printmag.com/color/rare-vintage-articles-about-comics-and-the-comic-book-industry/ When you click on to Narrative Illustration, go to bottom of page 29. Gaines mentions Topffer as being published in 1860. Gaines was also a consumate self promoter. After much research in to the origins of comic strips and books, one discovers there were a lot more persons involved in the creation of what begat Superman than simply M.C. Gaines. This is akin to Stan Lee taking full credit for the creation of the Marvel Universe in the 60s. Obvious from the article, he saw and knew of Topffer, who died in his mid 40s after producing seven comic strip sequential art books, but Gaines simply did not know the extent of Topffer's prolific output from 1828 thru 1845, the year of his death. I have a 1904 New York Times article which specifically stipulates Topffer's Obadiah Oldbuck and Bachelor Butterfly were still in print for sale in New York City. These would have been D i c k & Fitzgerald reprints. I have mentioned this in the Overstreet Victorian article for some years now. When I brought up Dime Novels at the beginning of this thread, it was only to point out the "format" of the dearly beloved comic magazine "book" which it seems like some wish to cling to the concept being birthed via some sort of immaculate conception with a precursor being the proliferation of comic strips out of New York City starting with yellow kid in the mid 1890s. re Waugh's The Comics: His "origin" of Yellow Kid was entirely made up out of Waugh's brain and has almost no basis in true reality. One can read Bill Blackbeard's research on this in his 1995 Yellow Kid book Dennis Kitchen published. That said, once Waugh gets in to more "contemporary" comics concepts he is a wonderful read. I, too, believed ALL of what Waugh wrote for many years until I began examining primary source artifacts ie actually handling the original Sunday pages both in my own collection as well as at Bill Blackbeard's Academy of Comic Art in San Francisco. His place was about a mile from one of my San Fran comic book stores I had before Best of Two World's 1986 warehouse flood forced an implosion. Bill was a very close friend, I was the one who discovered he had died when I was going to visit with him again in the nursing home he died in.

Bill, you wrote, ".... is incontrovertible evidence that has been long established, that Gaines started the unbroken chain of events that still exists today. I'm quite certain he never beheld Obadiah before realizing that newspaper comic strips were popular and could be folded, stapled, mass produced and sold....." Ever see the comics history "history" time line Gaines wrote in Print magazine back in 1942 there abouts? Details later on, too late tonight to type out. But up above you wrote "...Gaines started the unbroken chain of events..." which is what I replied to. I did not connect the two sentences as you did in your mind, People still want to connect Yellow Kid and what happened in newspaper strips beginning in 1890s to Eastern Color some 30/40 years later. i say the "inspiration" for placing comic strips in daily newspapers of which same newspapers ran Sunday thick editions have their direct time line origins with what I have already stated re earlier publications. All one has to do is "see" the material to make the connection. Guys like Waugh made stuff up out of whole cloth re Yellow Kid etc in his 1947 The Comics. Becker's 1959 Comic Art in America was written by his wife when Stephen was literally on a death bed and she wanted the second half of the advance from SImon & Schuster. So, yes, when you state "....Comic strips, in my view, are the father of the American comic book. ...." you are totally agreeing with me. Comic strips were running in newspapers, other periodicals, in America decades before a few NYC daily type newspapers took notice. They took notice BECAUSE comic strips were pushing up circulations.

Just a few thoughts as there was no attempt on my part to present some all-inclusive evolution of comics. My original "plan" was to present some neat graphics a few at a time, not some definitive time line so we shall see if I sustain interest long enough to share some really neat stuff. When the earlier comics were first being investigated, indexed out for the first time, I sounded and believed much like you still seem to in your posts then I re-discovered, indexed, read, these thousands of comic strips in the hundreds of pubs I have mentioned a few times and probabaly by sheer process of osmosis I altered my tune but by bit to see "the light" after so many "jigsaw puzzle" pieces fell in to place. I beg to differ with your statement re "...too many pieces...." because it is the very nature of preponderance of such evidence - ie reading the material - which would convince any one there was a very vibrant comic strip book & periodical "business" back before the mid 20th century onwards history books ever got a proper handle on. Now, not going in any particular order from your statements, but let us take one re Cupples & Leon. There were the 10x10 B&W comic books which began 1919 thru 1933. C&L also published large size full color comic books. The B&W C&L Bringing Up Father comic books refered to in the ad i already ran say over 2.5 million of them had been sold as of 1921 which means just the first half dozen or so BUF C&L books. These were the early attempts at printing up collections of daily strips, obviously, and those were also very popular in their own right. The first few were reprinted many times I have many other such visual aid I am contemplating scanning and placing on the net, but probably will not here as there seems to be conscious attempt on some to bury serious discussion posts with inanity. Reasons are their own, I actually do not care. Life is too short and there are other venues to persue serious discourse than here. Color is simply one aspect of a comic book. A comic "book" comes in many varied formats. we have a difference in interpretation of terms, so the concept becomes moot. That concept as you state knocks out seminal comics such as Robert Crumb introducing Zap Comics among others...... Was I going for some "knock out" punch as some probably chose to interpret? Nope. I have stacks of files - many many feet worth - which need to be scanned yet. The scant few examples were just that : examples. I was working on more examples to present when all this drama erupted. Am not in to the drama. Have not been so in a while What I have noted regarding the origin articles as they evolved over the years in OPG is no one has ever been able to knock any serious holes in the evolution of all the jigsaw puzzles pieces from the 1840s onwards. Anyway, been working my eBay store world wide as usual, am now tired, time to go home, get back up tomorrow, do it all over again. Regarding a peanut gallery spectator stating I should lower my eBay store prices, well, I take offers all day long on many an item. Some I stick to what i want. I also do not believe in the BS on 9.8 9.6 books as I think it physically impossible to ascertain differences at that level without the use of electron microscopes. Hence, the Tulip mania referenced does not apply to many a funny book out for sale by most people. There is a certain Japanese prison camp in the USA escape cover i had already informed some one else who piped in I was decided on keeping. It is not in my eBay store. I think that particular book to be stupidly too cheap in "Guide" and for the chump change involved, would rather place it in a frame on the wall for a spell. Now i have digressed, but then again, the flow of this thread has been damaged already. Caio

Boot. My mind is wide open. I love and collect comics from the Victorian, Platinum, Golden, Silver, and even Bronze ages. I love them all. And I appreciate the history of them all very much. But no amount of discussion or ancient cave paintings telling sequential stories will alter the fact that the modern comic book started in the early 1930s. Sure, there are lots of ancestors to that seminal event, and even some links in a chain that led to it. That's fantastic and very interesting. But cave carving paintings, dime novels, Obadiah Oldbuck, or any of those made a direct impact on Max Gaines and his contemporaries to create the modern American comic book that we all know, love, cherish, and rabidly collect today. It is incontrovertible evidence that has been long established, that Gaines started the unbroken chain of events that still exists today. I'm quite certain he never beheld Obadiah before realizing that newspaper comic strips were popular and could be folded, stapled, mass produced and sold. "...incontrovertible..." - Gaines was a salesman. A fellow named Wildenburg was his boss. A person named George Janosik was W's boss. Janosik was head of Eastern Color who partnered with George Delacorte to produce the first seven issues of Famous Funnies in 1934 as well as earlier partners on The Funnies which debuted Dec 1928. Lev Gleason was a salesman on the same level as Gaines at the time. There are many layers to this onion to peel away, not just a Gaines picture. A more complete "best' picture on this resides in Overstreet #40's Origin of the Modern Comic Book article. There is an evolution to this article in the preceding dozen or so Overstreets. For any one to say the regular sequential comics featuring in the monthly type humor magazines by the 1870s 1880s coming in to the 1890s did not play the major role in developing and instilling the concept on in to the daily news paper publishers that people were paying money to read the comics are being simply silly. This is why Pulitzer, then Hearst, then Bennett, et al picked up on bringing this sort of sequential humor to their respective newspapers. Some one brought up Yellow Kid - again - which is also silly if one examines the printed evidence. The first sequential comic strips predating YK in Pulitzer's NY World were by Mark Fenderson in 1894 almost a year and a half before the very first single panel YK who was printed blue the first few, as well as Fenderson collaborating with Walt McDougall, and even Outcault had sequential strips in NY World a full year before he introduced Hogan's Alley Dime Novels were brought up by me soley as the imitated format, nothing else which others decided to manufacture fantasies about

I have plenty more in the files, however, As trolls seem wont to take over, life be too short, hasta la veeesta, babies, till next time down the road. Slab dem books, talk spine bends and "market" reports, those who feel compelled to stress either 9.8 9.6 9.4.... ...end stage TULIP MANIA is descending upon the funny book world. History sez so.

Here is a page from American News Trade Journal v3 #2 Feb 1921 page 13 from my archive complete run ANTJ #1 in 1919 thru ANC's demise in 1957. as well as an advert for "state of the art" wire display racks as of 1939. Note Wonder Comics #1 Fox next to Action Comics #11