Weird Paper

Here's a Cole that doesn't get seen too often.

No car crashes, no blood, no zombies, no naked devil chicks, no mammon. Just the omnipresent threat of polar bears.

Let's keep this thread going

 

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Sweet fancy Moses!

First Wolverton Spacehawk. And an (uncredited in Overstreet, but most certainly) Everett cover.

 

WP, that is an amazing TARGET. I love that cover (definately an Everett), and the colors on your copy are excellent. The line up inside looks pretty "swell"... Burgos on White Streak, Wolverton on Spacehawk... is there an Everett story inside as well?

 

Congrats!!

Thanks. It does have an Everett interior story. I can't tell you which, because it's now in a slab--the 8.5 in the census. I always scan them before I send them off.

With a powerful swing, he drives the super leeches off...

So that's what I've been lacking--a powerful swing.

Okay, then.

First Wolverton Spacehawk. And an (uncredited in Overstreet, but most certainly) Everett cover.

That is a Maneely masterpiece!

 

The more Maneely work I see, the more I like his stuff.

 

If he hadn't died young, we probably would have seen Spider-Man and Hulk by Maneely at some point, since he was one of Stan Lee's favorites. Fast, prolific and distinctive. Seeing this Astonishing cover, I can imagine that his Spider-Man would have been magnificent (not that Ditko's wasn't).

 

Jack

Maneely on Spider-Man is a fascinating "what if." Perhaps then, Ditko would have wandered over to DC and become the definitive Batman artist of the early 1960s.

Well, it is the Church copy so it should look decent and, in all fairness, I probably got the idea of collecting that issue from you so go ahead, post away.

Awww shucks...

Great stuff. The Air Fighters Vol 2, #2 (first Valkyrie) is one of my all-time favorite comics and one of my all-time favorite covers--the over-the-top word balloon, the composition, the implied cleavage, the chained, beaten Airboy, the great colors; this is the quintessential COMIC BOOK COVER.

Actually, a lot of the early Air Fighters covers were unusual and innovative in their design and content, but that one... it's in a class by itself.

 

 

Aw damn, Adam. There I was feeling pretty good about my copy of this book, and you flash up this thing. Now my copy is afraid to come out. It's stuck itself to the bottom of my safe deposit box, whimpering "I'm hideous, don't look at me."

Henceforth, there will be a rule, known as the Adam Strange rule, which states "any comic you have, Adam Strange has a nicer one. Anyone violating this rule will have to promptly send his copy to AS.

As Mike Myers said to Steven Tyler...

Here's the wraparound dust jacket for Hearst's "Temperance or Prohibition" book from the 1920s.

It's probably the only book to feature a wraparound dust jacket by Winsor McCay. The interior is

illustrated with editorial cartoons by McCay and Opper. Not yet in the guide, but I've sent the info

to BLB. The book can be found every so often without the dj (plain black boards), but is very, very

tough to locate with one.

Perhaps a whole 'nother thread can be started on astonishingly lame post-code horror covers.

 

Another beauty.

 

 

Oh, that's good... really good.

She's being menaced by torsos, yet "fear walks on four feet"

Air Fighters/Airboy

 

Great stuff. The Air Fighters Vol 2, #2 (first Valkyrie) is one of my all-time favorite comics and one of my all-time favorite covers--the over-the-top word balloon, the composition, the implied cleavage, the chained, beaten Airboy, the great colors; this is the quintessential COMIC BOOK COVER.

Actually, a lot of the early Air Fighters covers were unusual and innovative in their design and content, but that one... it's in a class by itself.

Wow.... what a great story! Jack Cole produced a lot of great work. Now I'm tempted to get some.

For anyone who doesn't have it, the 2001 Spiegelman/Kidd book on Cole & Plas is excellent. Reprints of more than just Plastic Man in a plastic binding--the book itself is a work of art.

... and I've seen it in remainder bins lately.

Some great covers there. I especially love the Eerie #2.

I'll second that. The Eerie 2 is a sweet book.

Bill Everett is everywhere.

... and here are a few pages from the book. As far as who he influenced, I'm sure it was widespread--from McCay to Crumb with many stops in between. That background cross-hatching is sure reminiscent of a certain Flash Gordon artist...

The Nye book says 1894 with no reprinting info. Thanks for the tip on Samantha- I'll keep an eye out!

I've got to find my Nye, but I'm sure it's a different binding.

Here's the Samantha at Saratoga cover and title page. There were other books in the series not illustrated by Opper, but I think there were some others that were. This one has roughly 100 illustrations with about a third of the being full page. His style is less cartoony than it would become.

The Bill Nye is a great book. Another good one to look for in antique malls or the basements of dusty, old bookstores. I don't recognize the binding on that one. What is the year? The one I've always seen has the embossed cover.

PS. If you dig the Nye, Opper also illustrated some of the Samantha books--a little earlier than the Nye, I think. One that comes to mind is Samantha at Saratoga. I'll post a picture when I get home tonight if I get the chance.

Outcault! Opper! Great stuff! I'd love to get a copy of Pore Lil' Mose, it always seems to go pretty high (even in poor condition), and some people buy the book just to seperate the pages and individually frame them! Great for decorators, but just try to sell an individual page to a collector afterwards... not worth it.

 

The problem with Pore Lil' Mose is that the book is collected by many different collectors not just comic collectors. This book is of interest to people who collect Black Americana memorabilia. For over 30 years numerous copies have been cut up and destroyed. It is not uncommon to find single pages of this book framed and for sale at antique shops. Needless to say high grade examples of the book are very scarce. About 12 years ago I saw a antique dealer pay $1,000 for a coverless copy which he was going to seperate and sell page by page.

I actually found my copy at the Antiquarian book show in LA back in Feb, 2000. Every couple of years (usually) a childrens' book dealer will have a copy. It wasn't cheap, unless you compare it to the price in the guide, which I think is too high. I had a dealer tag, so I was able to buy it at a discount. It's still the most I ever paid for a Plat, but I don't envision myself buying any of the Mickey books, or BLB's 15K Little Sammy Sneeze, so it will probably be the most I ever pay for a Plat.

If you ever get a chance to peruse a copy, I recommend it. The color printing is phenomenal.

This just in! One of my holy grails from the Strange Adventure runs. Bought this as a VG; I think it's a tad better than that, don't you?

 

Easter Island Man never quite made it in the superhero world did he? I guess being able to enlarge your head to 50x its actual size just didn't intimidate the evil-doers. You think he at least could have made it in the Legion of Substitute Heroes.

My favorite Plat book.

Best thing: 100 cartoons by Opper at his best.

Next best thing: Teddy Roosevelt as a little kid on a hobby horse.

A fringe Timely, but a Timely nonetheless.

Ten pages of Wolverton, plus some Kurzman make this a fun read.

Being a long-time fan of Fox comics, I'd like to toss out a couple questions to the collective body of great knowledge out there. Adam Strange, you might remember I used to obsess over Fox's paper stock inconsistencies.

At some point, between the thicker superhero books, and the good girl stuff, Fox started printing some books with the cheaper, non-glossy cover stock. What's the earliest known comic with this cover stock?

I realize that some titles might have one issue with a glossy cover, and the next with the flat stock, etc. Are there any cases of a particular issue existing in both states? My Blue Beetle 52 has glossy cover stock, but I've been told someone else has one with a flat paper cover. If both states exist for a particular book, might that then affect the desirability of the book where all else is equal?

Considering the degree of analysis and scholarship that exists in this hobby (particularly among collectors of older material), I'm wondering if there already exists a listing of Fox books with respect to their cover stock.

I'll hang up and listen.

Here's a pretty funky non-superhero cover that doesn't get much play.

Church copy

Not the Action 1 of Platinum comics, but maybe the Batman 1.

Nicer than it looks in the scan--tight binding, white pages and some of the mmmmost beautiful printing you'll see.

Here's a rare one. Found it for $35 in a used bookstore (chain). At the time, Overstreet listed only one known copy. I've seen it pop up a couple of times since then.