pooroldman

Feature Book #26, Prince Valiant by Hal Foster. #26 consists of strip reprints, but the cover is original art by Hal Foster. The cover is generally considered to be Foster's only original artwork in comic books. This is the Lost Valley copy. Even though I said I only collect the oversized editions I made an exception for this book: --It's the Lost Valley copy and really a pretty book; --Like many of you I grew up reading Prince Valiant in the Sunday comics, and this book brings back memories of those days; --It's Hal Foster-- many of the comic book artists that were contemporaries or that came after list him as a significant influence on their work: Ditko, Frazetta, Barks and more; --It's Hal Foster! Thank you all for journeying with me through the first 26 Feature Books. Please post your Feature Books here and keep the thread going!

Feature Book #25, Flash Gordon on the Planet Mongo. This is the first Flash Gordon comic, although not the first appearance of Flash Gordon in comics. I've found this to be a tough book to find in any condition. Gerber lists it as a 7. I suspect that this was a popular comic to collect in the early days of comic fandom and many copies reside in older collections. It is the final oversized Feature Book-- starting with #26 the size was reduced to standard Golden Age comic size; the covers and pages were slick paper instead of coarse paper; and the interiors were in color. My collecting interests for Feature Book only extend to the oversized issues-- the series continues on for 57 numbered issues. Most continue the format of newspaper strip reprints although there is some original material as well. Perhaps someone else collects the later issues and can share those copies here. I did promise a bonus after I completed the oversized issues, so here it is...

Feature Book #24, The Lone Ranger Rides Again. Another Gerber "white space" book, Gerber 8. This may be the toughest of the numbered Feature Books to find. There's only one graded copy on the CGC Census, and that copy is the only one that Heritage has ever auctioned. My copy came from eBay a long time ago. Although it may look ok in the photo, it has a spine split from the top of the cover to the bottom staple.

Feature Book #23, Mandrake the Magician in Teiba Castle. Despite the edge chipping and corner creasing, this is about a VG+ since the spine is intact and both the cover and centerfold are attached.

The Phantom Under the Sea, Feature Book #22. A Gerber 7. This came from the same seller as Feature Book #21. As with the prior book, great colors and condition. After I purchased this book I contacted the seller with the hope that this might be the beginning of a wonderful Golden Age collection. No such luck; the seller advised that these two books were all she had to sell.

Feature Book #21, The Lone Ranger. This is a Gerber "white space" book. He calls this an 8 and that seems pretty accurate. I purchased this book in the early days of eBay. That's when blurry, tiny pictures were the norm and you never quite knew what to expect. Nine times out of ten you were disappointed when the comic arrived. Not this time. The colors on this book are as good as I've seen on any Feature Book. There's a minimal amount of wear around the edges and the page quality is great.

Feature Book #20. This is generally considered to be the first Phantom cover and the first comic book dedicated exclusively to The Phantom, although The Phantom's first appearance was in Ace Comics #11. This is a low grade copy that I acquired from Heritage some years ago. Gerber calls this a 6, but in my experience this is a much more difficult book to find.

Thank you for starting this thread. Six more of the oversized issues to go, including two Gerber “white space” books plus a special bonus at the end.

Feature Book #19, Mandrake the Magician. Like Feature Book #18 a reasonably good copy, but this one has a spine split from the bottom edge up to the staple and the top edge down to the staple. If you own a Feature Book with an intact spine hang on to it as they're tough to find and it may be awhile before you're able find another. This copy was purchased off eBay about 20 years ago.

Feature Book #18, Mandrake the Magician. This is a good example of common defects in Feature Books. Despite a nice cover and white/off-white pages, the cover is detached and the spine is split from the bottom to the first staple.

An example of Feature Book #17 contents:

Feature Book #17, Gang Busters. Like Feature Book #16, #17 is a departure from the previous format of strip reprints. By way of background, all of the oversized Feature Books except #16 & #17 contain characters licensed by King Features. With Red Eagle #16 David McKay decided, for whatever reason, to branch out into non King Feature characters. As mentioned above, Red Eagle was original material by Jimmy Thompson, and some have characterized that book as the first graphic novel. Whether that's true or not is open to debate, but if you're not familar with the contents it at least gives you an idea of what the inside looks like. Feature Book #17 goes in a different direction. The contents is best described as illustrated text, or even a quasi-pulp. The illustrations were done by Jimmy Thompson while the author of the text is unknown. As the cover states, it was "adopted from the popular radio program"-- there was no Gang Busters comic strip or other Gang Busters comic book (at least at that time; DC later had a Gang Busters series for a number of years). My copy came from Silveracre Comics in England. Gerber calls this a 7, and in higher grades its even tougher than that. It took me years to find this copy, which is probably VG/F.

Feature Book #16. Cover art by Jimmy Thompson. This book is unique in that it's the only Feature Book that consists totally of original art (Feature Book #17 is unique, too, but I'll discuss that next). This book also featured a contest (that's what the "$100.00 in prizes" is about on the cover). The beautiful black and white centerfold by Thompson could be colored and sent in for a chance to win a prize "without harming the book in any way". As if it isn't hard enough for present-day collectors to deal with missing centerfolds from age, many must have been submitted to the contest as well. My copy is relatively low grade, and I've been searching for a better copy for quite some time now....

Well, I’m back and ready to continue my progression through the oversized Feature Books. Before I continue with the next entry, Feature Books #16, I’d like to write a little about its author and artist, Jimmy Thompson. Thompson worked for many of the major comic book companies during the 1940s; however, his name isn’t nearly as well-known as some of his contemporaries. That’s a shame, because Thompson was a talented writer and artist. Thompson was born in Toronto in 1907 and began work as a cartoonist in 1925. In 1937 he moved to the United States where his work first appeared in King Comics and Famous Funnies. Native Americans were the subject of many of these stories. In 1938 his interest in this subject motivated him to journey to the Crow Reservation in Montana. He was apparently accepted and well-received there. Also in 1938 Thompson wrote, drew and inked Feature Book #16. This book presents life from a Native American perspective, an uncommon approach at the time. All of the material is original—a departure from the previous Feature Book strip reprint format During WWII Thompson worked primarily on superheros, including Robotman, Captain America and The Human Torch. Thompson returned to live with the Crow for the final time in 1949. He died the same year in Montana at the age of 41. This is a very, very abbreviated history of Jimmy Thompson. I’ve made no attempt to detail his fine work for other publishers such as Timely, DC, and Fawcett. I’ll leave that to others. If you want a taste of Thompson’s other work and a much more detained history, try this excellent article by David Saunders: https://pulpartists.com/Thompson.html Otherwise, on to Feature Book #16….

Beautiful raw copies. Do these all come out of the same collection?

Feature Book #15, Barney Baxter in the Air. Another Lost Valley copy. I’m going to be away for several weeks so I won’t be posting books for awhile. The next book, #16, is unique in the series and I’ll have a little more of a write up on that book and its talented writer-author when I post my copy.

Feature Book #14. Lots of Popeyes in the early Feature Books.

Feature Book #13. I purchased this from Harley some years ago. This is a good example of how nice the colors can look on a higher grade copy.

Feature Book #12, Blondie. Gerber calls this an 8, and I think that's accurate. Not many out there, and all of the ones I've found except this one have been low grade:

Feature Book #11. A Gerber 7, the colors on this one present pretty well. One more in a long line of books acquired from eBay when such things were a lot easier than today....

If you haven't seen this collection of Mickey Mouse Magazines that TB posted in the Golden Age forum some years back, take a look-- it's a real treat:

Feature Book #10, Popeye and Susan. This isn't a particularly difficult book to find, but I've been searching for a long time to improve my copy. It seems that the Feature Book Popeyes may have been popular at the time, so popular that they were read and reread to the point that nice copies are scarce:

Feature Book #9, Dick Tracy and the Famon Boys. Another eBay purchase from long ago. A good example except for the corner chip in the right upper cover:

Thank you all for your words of encouragement. With that I'll continue on with my postings. As those of you who collect older comics are well-aware, finding collectible grade books can be a challenge. Because of their construction with thick paper covers and manila pages Feature Books can be even more so. Spine splits are very common. It's not unusual to see examples with the spines completely split, even in an otherwise presentable copy. Page quality. Unusual to find off-white pages, probably the only white pages are the Edgar Church copies. Most pages are cream-tan and many are brittle. Cover quality. Many covers are brittle and have pieces missing. Detached centerfolds. The heavy manila-type paper tends to be brittle, and as a result centerfolds tend to detach. Missing centerfolds. In addition to the usual issue of centerfolds coming losing and being separated from the book, Feature Book #16 (Red Eagle) contains a beautiful double page centerfold that was meant to be colored and entered into a contest. Color loss to spine. I've never seen a Feature Book that didn't have some color loss to the spine, even pedigree and file copies.. Detached cover. For the same reason that staples tend to pull out of the centerfolds they also tend to detach from the cover. The cover is a quite heavy paper, almost a cardboard. Tears around the staples are also very common. Restoration. These books have been around for a long time and have had a lot of opportunities for both professional and amateur restoration. Especially look for sealed spine splits and glued covers and centerfolds. Tape repair is very common. Low grade examples (good 2.0 and below) can be found for most issues, especially if they have detached covers, completely split spines and brittle pages. Collectible copies are probably anything in VG or higher with supple pages and attached centerfolds and covers.

I'm starting to slide out of the Platinum Age and into the Golden Age with these books, I hope nobody minds-- doesn't make a lot of sense to stop here and start a new thread in Golden Age. I haven't gotten any comments so far-- are you getting bored with these? I'd love to hear from anybody else who's odd enough to want to collect these. Feature Book #8. Another Gerber 8, and this one is certainly more difficult to find than Feature Book #7. This is the best copy I've found so far; about a VG+ with tape on the spine.