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Color pictures are much better! In 2014, someone spent about a year doing research on all of the magazines to get the right colors to colorize this original black and white 1942 Southington Connecticut newsstand photo. I'm not sure about the clothing or floor colors but the Kodakchrome colors look very nice. http://paintedback.blogspot.com/2014/10/may-23-30-1942-southington-connecticut.html

Shredded Banksy artwork sold for $1.4 million. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/arts/design/winning-bidder-for-shredded-banksy-painting-says-shell-keep-it.html You could at least drink that wine.

Gladys Parker was the artist that drew Mopsy and there was some discussion that Parker based Mopsy on herself. Here's a picture of Parker from August 1950. What do you think?

Comics on sale around the same time...

cosmic aeroplane

Could it be this book from McFarland ($29.95)?

Bought a book from Adam. Good communication, good packaging & fast shipping. I would be happy to deal with him again.

I will take the Patsy Walker 20. PM coming

I believe Ekgren is still alive and living in Sweden. Born in 1918, he would be 100 years old in June! Would that make him the oldest living comic book artist? He acknowledged his existence in a letter in 2010. http://thecomicsdetective.blogspot.com/2010/05/letter-from-william-ekgren.html

Thanks for expanding the list valiantman. It appears your census data is not up to date since I find 251 copies of Batman 1 and you have 228 copies and you are missing a few publishers like Timely. The list has so many Batman and Superman books that other books like Mighty Midget Comics, Four Color 596 (Turok) and Ghost Rider 1 really stand out from the list.

Individual pages are not included in the census because they do not have a number grade. Incomplete copies would be counted if those copies have a number grade and possibly included in the qualifed count. One would need to check the notes for those copies. For example here is the census for Batman 1.

Since there is a thread on fewest copies in the CGC census, I've wondered what Golden Age issues had the most graded copies in the CGC census and if any conclusions could be made from the data. How about a list? I made the pre-code GA cutoff date as before January 1955 so only issues dated before the inception of the Comics Code make the list. I've compiled a top 50 list of pre-code GA books but the census does not account for duplicate copies that have not been removed for resubmission or graded copies from other companies. I believe those numbers to be small and would not affect the census data greatly. I've included a small list of other gold, silver and bronze age books for comparison. From the top 50 list, Batman & Superman books dominate. I believe the census numbers are indicative of 3 main factors: availability, value and popularity. Many golden age books had print runs from hundreds of thousands to a million per issue and would have have a higher survival rate and a few books were warehouse finds resulting in higher census numbers. Books that have a high value or have the potential for a higher resale value after slabbing would get slabbed. Books with popular characters such Batman or Superman have a higher likelihood of being saved over some generic Tip Top or Popular comic. Some observations: I guess MAD 1 had tremendous sales and many people liked and kept the issue. Batman 1 hits the trifecta for being popular, valuable and having many copies survive. Uncle Scrooge seems to be a popular funny animal character based on 3 appearances on the list. A warehouse find of Four Color 386 could partially account for the census numbers. Only 3 books from the crime or horror genre appear on the list (Crime Suspenstories 22, Shock Suspenstories 6 and Thing 16). Shock Suspenstories 6 has a classic cover and Crime Suspenstories 22 has a classic cover and is historically significant. Thing 16 also has a classic cover but its census number may be due to it being a warehouse find. The rank of Superman 76 seems to be due to recent acceptance that it is a key book because of the first appearance of the Superman-Batman team-up. Compare the numbers of Superman 76 with Detective 225 which was established long ago in the Price Guide as a key book. Also note that 31 of 50 books on the list are from the years 1940 to 1942 which had tremendous print runs of hundreds of thousands to a million copies per issue. Only one issue of Action Comics (#23) makes the list even though many copies of the title were printed. Almost all slabbed copies will eventually be on the market someday. Feel free to update the list since I may have missed some books. I hope you find this list interesting and maybe some of you might use this list to wager a few bar bets and win. Any other thoughts or conclusions?

Here is a kid in Kansas checking out the plastic model kits probably before Christmas in 1964. On shelf near his head are some Weird-Ohs kits. Does this picture bring back memories?

Atomic #1 cover swipes from 3 different comics: Planet 34, Jungle 65 & Fight 39.

Here is the pic in color. This first appeared in the paper New York World on Sept 6 1896. It was reprinted in the book R. F. Outcault’s The Yellow Kid: A Centennial Celebration of the Kid Who Started the Comics. Northampton, Mass.: Kitchen Sink Press, 1995

If anyone is wondering about the phrase "Oh, nerts!", nerts is American slang from the 1930s that represents a colloquial or euphemistic pronunciation of nuts. The phrase used on the cover is probably the guy's response to his date's lack of romantic feelings toward him as compared to all the other couples at the drive-in. Ernest Hemingway used the phrase "Oh, nerts to you" in his book To Have and Have Not in 1937.

There were no takers when the book was first offered on these boards for $200 on November 21, 2010. It did not sell even after a 10% discount. The desirability has changed since then.

Those United We Stand magazines were part of a July 1942 national campaign by the Treasury Department and the National Publishers Association to promote national unity, rally support for the war and celebrate Independence Day. The slogan United We Stand was adopted. For magazine publishers, displaying the flag was a way to prove their loyalty and value for the war effort. For the US government, the campaign was an opportunity to sell bonds and boost morale. The magazines brought home a message of patriotism and ideals worth fighting for. The Smithsonian Museum website has an extensive history and display of the campaign and magazine covers. http://amhistory.si.edu/1942/home.html A neurologist, Dr Steve Lomazow, started collecting in 1972 and was devoted to collecting the first issues or volumes of every major American magazine. One of his collections is the July 1942 United We Stand magazine collection comprising about 500 magazines including comics. His United We Stand collection is more complete than the Smithsonian collection. Check out his website and the videos of his United We Stand collection. His collection display is amazing. https://www.americanmagazinecollection.com/

Hi The website is up and there are 6 objects so far. They plan to have a new piece on an object every week throughout 2018. I don't know when the piece on Okajima will be ready but it is still in progress and when I last spoke with the project director a few months ago, she was still gathering background information. They have done a fantastic job in making ordinary objects fascinating with all that background information in a historical and sad period in American history. https://50objects.org/

Very nice metallic cover! Do you have the non-metallic cover variant? According to the GCD database, the title was originally to be "Love Letters" but Quality Comics secured right to the title first, but Harvey was evidently not aware until the comic had been printed. Harvey's solution was to overprint the masthead on the existing comics with silver ink to obscure "Letters" and then added "Lessons" in red ink on top of the silver. Notice the heart cutout for the issue number, Harvey logo and 10 cent cutout.

There is a possibility that this pulp was once owned by Edmond Hamilton & Leigh Brackett who were married to each other and were notable science fiction authors. Brackett also worked as a screenwriter for films such as The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo, Hatari, El Dorado and the Empire Strikes Back and several others. They lived in California and Ohio. Very cool pulp in nice shape!

EyD is the Mexican distributor logo for EXPORTER AND DISTRIBUTOR OF EDITIONS S.A.

This is a biography for Jackie Ormes. https://www.press.umich.edu/150236/jackie_ormes

Here's my theory about the dot since I believe the dot was always there initially on the cover printing plate. The dot would be a small raised point on the metal printing plate and over time and after tens of thousands of printings, the dot could have worn off or broken off resulting in no dot printing. I surmise that copies with the dot came first and copies without the dot were printed later in the initial print run or in later printing if there was a second print run. The missing dot was not noticed or was not a big enough difference to be worth fixing the printing plate. Here's an example of a cover printing plate.

Cool vintage video! So now I know the source of that picture. I think the Tarzan book is Sparkler 16 based on the "-ber" date in the corner.