What exactly is a "Comic Book"?

[Robert Beerbohm]

I know, Jeff, Foster Rules, and i had many a pleasant patient conversaton with Bill Blackbeard back in the 1970s, 80s, 90s as his definiton of a comic strip excludes Foster Tarzan & Prince Valiant, Raymond's Flash Gordon, etc cuz no word balloons. I had access to Bill's humongous holdings as The San Francisco Academy of Comic Art cuz i had comic book stores very close for some 22 years - many a short side-trip did i take to beold and sample its wonderous treasures - Bill is a Main Mentor of mine, but i have chosen to be "liberal" about comic strips and comic books, not "conservative" closed minded.

 

Last year's OO thread was all over the place - with some thinking (or at least posting) their personal evidence of a major lack of educated comics history - that, or goat getting was in play

 

It is the delivery format which comes under question (and fire at times) by those closed minded enough to want to exclude once popular formats which had their day, now retired in the south 40 pasture under the large oak tree for shade -

 

My analysis of popular culture has me keep coming back to the Dime Novel format such as the following wherein the 1930s comics creators & publishers grew up and the evolutionary process came to include later stuff like Famous Funnies, Action, etc .

 

 

 

[The Black Hand ®]

The Obadiah card has been played. This thread will soon be locked.

 

I think if everyone behaves in a loving, caring way it won't get locked. As long as we respect each others views it should remain open and as long as we don't mention the Susquatana Hat factory or D&S or TSF or DD it won't..............oops! Darn it! Slowly I turn....step by step....inch by inch...... and then I bring up resto.....pressing......cracking and resubmission scams.........snake oil salesmen.........evolving grading criteria......did I mention resubs?................

[Robert Beerbohm]

and then there was this, which was the single direct inspiration for S-M News to partner with Greater Buffalo Press in Buffalo to later that same year issue NEW FUN then re-fitted with American original comic strips rather than British ones, which people were not buying

 

So says Lloyd jacquet, Major Wheeler-Nicholson's very first employee - all else come after this gent

 

[Theagenes]

I know, Jeff, Foster Rules, and i had many a pleasant patient conversaton with Bill Blackbeard back in the 1970s, 80s, 90s as his definiton of a comic strip excludes Foster Tarzan & Prince Valiant, Raymond's Flash Gordon, etc cuz no word balloons. I had access to Bill's humongous holdings as The San Francisco Academy of Comic Art cuz i had comic book stores very close for some 22 years - many a short side-trip did i take to beold and sample its wonderous treasures - Bill is a Main Mentor of mine, but i have chosen to be "liberal" about comic strips and comic books, not "conservative" closed minded.

 

I do think that there is a difference between "narrative strips" and "world balloon strips" certainly, but I would still consider them both comic strips. Just as Hollywood blockbusters are different from documentaries, but both are still cinema.

 

 

Last year's OO thread was all over the place - with some thinking (or at least posting) their personal evidence of a major lack of educated comics history - that, or goat getting was in play

 

It is the delivery format which comes under question (and fire at times) by those closed minded enough to want to exclude once popular formats which had their day, now retired in the south 40 pasture under the large oak tree for shade -

 

All of the debating in that thread must have had some effect on me though -- afterall, many people would not have even listed the Illustrated Tarzan Book as a possible contender. Maybe you're starting to convert me a little bit.

 

 

My analysis of popular culture has me keep coming back to the Dime Novel format such as the following wherein the 1930s comics creators & publishers grew up and the evolutionary process came to include later stuff like Famous Funnies, Action, etc .

 

Not sure if I mentioned it when you posted these in a previous thread, but these Dime Novels are really, really cool!

[selegue]

I realize that there's no "right answer", but I find this discussion thought-provoking every time it rears its ugly head.

Interesting to see your strong "it's all about format, not content" point of view.

Apparently it doesn't bother you that the "structurally similar" Brother Jonathan loses points for lack of staples (which weren't available at the time) but the modern reprint (if I remember right, square binding without staples) does not.

I don't remember what you call DC Showcase and Archive volumes, Marvel Masterworks and Essentials. Are those comic books?

You do include any "floppy pamphlet" as a comic book, right? DC's Who's Who series, Official Crisis on Infinite Earths Crossover Index, Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe? How about Amazing World of DC Comics and FOOM?

 

Jack

 

 

Jack, As you say there is no right answer and it comes down to personal preference for nomenclature.

 

 

WISHY WASHY! You're not going to tell me that was the most ignorant, misinformed statement you've ever read, huh? Did I take a wrong turn on the way to the CGC boards?

 

The Obadiah post was somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

 

Now you tell me that you're not writing dead seriously about funnybooks. What's this forum coming to?

 

Certainly content matters -- I assumed as a given that were talking about books whose content can be reasonably considered comics or comicstrips. As for what constitutes a comic strip, I like the definition you gave earlier about sequential panels with text accompanying each individual panel. That was poorly paraphased on my part, but I like that, as it's broad enough to include things like OO and the Tarzan dailies, which are basically the same thing, but excludes things like DC's Who's Who or the Buck Rogers Kelloggs premium.

 

 

Personally, I find those tough to classify. I don't know the Buck premium, but part of me wants the Who's Who to be a comic book because if you saw one in a line-up with the rest of DC's offerings for the month you'd be hard pressed to pick out the one that doesn't belong. They do make the cut at GCD . There is text accompanying each drawing and vice versa, but they're not "sequential" and don't tell a story.

 

 

If you except that the content is a comic strip, then it is format that matters for me. The term "comic book" as it has come to be understood in modern times is of course a misnomer as it really refers to "comic magazines" but that is where we are at.

 

The modern Italian reprint of OO that I have is a magazine format with staples (perhaps there is also a perfect-bound version?) and therefore is a "comic book" in the modern sense of the term. Likewise for Large Feature 5.

 

 

I'm sure I have the same reprint of OO that you have. I don't remember the staples, but thought it was square-bound like (grab example off the shelf) the Simon and Schuster Pogo reprint series (are those comic books?). If you checked and it's stapled, I'm wrong.

 

 

The Tilt and Brogue edition is a hardback book; though it contents can certainly be considered a comic strip, it does not fit what what is commonly meant by "comic book" today. "Graphic novel" or "comic album" would probably be appropriate, however. The Illustrated Tarzan Book would fall into this catagory as well.

 

The Brother Jonathon version is problematic to be sure. It is very similar in format to modern comic magazines, but it is not a prototype or precursor of the comic magazine. There is no historical or evolutionary link in terms of structure between that Brother Jonathon version and Funnies on Parade or Detective Dan. To think of it in those terms is to take it out of it's historical context. Obadiah was reprinted many times, usually in hardback format -- one reprint, this 1842 Bro. Jonathon version happened to be in the format of the chapbooks of the time, that's all.

 

 

A persuasive argument. There can be evolutionary dead ends. I'm no biologist, but aren't there fossils of some long-lost critter that looked like a platypus? *google* I think it's Castorocauda. Physical similarity doesn't make it a playpus. (But, arguing with myself now, comic books don't have genes. Plenty of mutants, but no genes.)

 

 

Again, there is no right answer, and all of the above is simply my preferred nomenclature, nothing more. There are some who I know would not consider OO or the Tarzan dailies to be a comic strips at all, regardless of format they were published in, but I would disagree with that.

 

Interesting points all.

 

Jack

[selegue]

uh oh....I know where this is leading!

I am sitting on the sidelines this time around

 

No product to fluff, eh?

 

 

 

 

OK, that one gets a precautionary because I don't want this interesting thread to blow up.

 

Jack

[comicdonna]

For me it comes down to format, I suppose.

 

 

This is NOT a comic book:

 

 

 

This is also NOT a comic book, although in a strange coincidence of history it does have a structural similarity to those periodicals that would come to be known as "comic books" a century later (except that it has string instead of staples):

 

 

 

This, however, most definately IS a comic book:

 

[Robert Beerbohm]

Of course there is a difference between "narrative strips" and "world balloon strips" - but both can be contained within any comicbook whether that format be magazine, perfect bound, trade PB, or most all the comicbooks pointed out in the Victorian and Plat Comicbook price indexes found in Overstreet.

 

I would sure hate to think the decade i have out there in re-educating with expanded cosmic comicbook consciousness first myself then the research as presented in that growing section I have created within the pages of the Overstreet Price Guide was for naught

 

That the collective research i have gathered under one roof from many dozens of fellow like minded comicstrip book researchers are also like-minded deluded

 

Or think outside the box, think inclusive, is my working motto in this field after 40 years of study

 

i surely did not know the crazy-minded resistance i would encounter this past decade building that section from whole cloth. Agonzing over the few dozen pictorial representatives to inlcude out of the 1000s of examples i have uncovered and indexed together under one roof.

 

Your cinema def works for me - thanks for sharing a new slant on that scenario

 

I cannot rest until all worship the full spectrum of the Comics Ghods of Yore

 

- let them all be recognized as contributing to the national comics consciousness of America. It took generations to unfold, to develop, each new generation feeding on the myths and legends of the previous ones, that seems more natural to me

 

- nothing is created in a vacuum, except empty headed thinking, methinks

 

I think every one reading this thread should figure out how to score this book:

 

 

These are as much a comic book

 

 

as this is

 

[Earl Davis]

and then there was this, which was the single direct inspiration for S-M News to partner with Greater Buffalo Press in Buffalo to later that same year issue NEW FUN then re-fitted with American original comic strips rather than British ones, which people were not buying

 

So says Lloyd jacquet, Major Wheeler-Nicholson's very first employee - all else come after this gent

 

 

This was a common page composition in many of the UK comic books I read as a child in the 1970’s. Note the text is both incorporated within the panel and underneath. As most UK titles were anthologies you could find strips with just the text underneath, strips with the text within the box and strips with a combination of both.

 

I ever realised some people counted certain types of physical format as true comics until the Internet came along. As the UK never really had a single dormant format I guess I never had that single dominant image of how the physical format ought to look.

 

For me the more interesting question about whether something is a comic lies at the boundaries of what is a comic strip and what is a picture story (Stuff like The Cat in the Hat or Beatrix Potter). It’s something I have never heard clearly articulated where the boundary between the two lies.

 

Earl.

 

[Robert Beerbohm]

Here is an old column i unearthed which ran in CBEM about a decade ago, This single piece from 1946 set me on my quest for Obadiah, which took me about two years to accomplish.

 

 

COMICS REALITY #11 Copyright 1998. All Rights Reserved.

by Robert Beerbohm

 

"The First Comic Books In America"

 

I have been busier than I would care to imagine the past few months

finding and reselling old comics to make a living. The continuing

inevitable turndown in the scope of comics sales has made me keep my

nose closer to the grind stone as I concentrate on acquiring certain

older comics which I know still enjoy wide collector appeal. Like

other parts of the USA economy, "longer hours for less pay" is where

much of the populace is at in the late 1990s. Sales are good but take

more hands-on work.

 

This means I have also been having to go to more shows like the

travelling comic book dealer of the early 1970s I once was prior to 22

years of running comic book stores. Takes time away from working on my

book.

 

Like CBEM editor David has noticed having to go out of town to all

those myriad meetings which has forced him to clamp down on his

deadline for CBEM material, I have steadily found my time to be at more

and more of a premium. There is also the aspect that much of my comics

history research the past few months has centered on extremely early

pre 1915 comic books dating to the first known American comic book in

1846 (yes!) which I will be showing repros of in my forth coming book,

Comic Book Store Wars.

 

Further back yet I have been exploring things like when the first word

balloon appeared in American single panel comics (try like circa 1764)

with the first actual American comics cartoon on paper known to exist

appearing as early as 1747.

 

 

At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Love Library holdings, I

finally tracked down a complete bound set of of a zine containing "The

First Comic Books In America: Revisions And Reflections," by Gershon

Legman, published in the January 1946 issue of a small-size zine named

American Notes & Queries (NY:NY) in one of their sub-basements, wiped

the cobwebs off, was lucky to be able to check out for 3 weeks the

complete 4 volume set (1941-1950) and have transcribed some of the

comics references.

 

Beginning with the earliest question, originally posed by none other

than August Derleth, in 1941, an e-mail-like "thread" of comics

history was slowly discussed by various early comics fans extending

thru the zine's demise in 1950. What follows a few preliminary letters

is the complete text of an absolutely extraordinary letter by LOVE AND

DEATH (1949) author Gershon Legman tying a lot of concepts together.

All { } and [ ] are Legman's but for those of mine noted beginning with

an "RB".

 

Legman appears to have been personally in possession of much of the

1800s material he references and lord only knows where his archives

ended up when he passed away. One must keep in mind that there was

very little prior historical reference work to double-check facts. I

welcome scholarly feedback on this post if you have the time &

inclination.

 

****************************************

 

AMERICAN NOTES AND QUERIES #1 was April 1941

 

*************AN&Q July 1941***************

 

A. D. CONDO. Does anyone know anything of the whereabouts of A. D.

Condo, creator of the comic strip "Everett True"?

 

August Derleth

 

*********AN&Q Aug 1941*********

 

LITTLE NEMO IN SLUMBERLAND. I am at the moment much interested in all

information concerning comics - in fact I am preparing a book on the

subject.

 

Winsor McCay (d. 1934) created "Little Nemo in Slumberland" sometimes

called "In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" in 1904. It was syndicated by

the New York HERALD TRIBUNE from 1905 until about 1911 or 1912, when

King Features took it over an ran it as "In the Land of Wonderful

Dreams" until 1915. It was again syndicated by the HERALD TRIBUNE in

August, 1924, under its original title, and survived until August (?),

1927.

 

Most libraries, et al., remove the comics from the regular newspaper

files before binding, and comics bound separately are not plentiful. A

complete file of this series would represent not more than 676 full

pages. Of this my own copies - from the New York HERALD TRIBUNE, the

Chicago RECORD-HERALD (after May, 1918, the Chicago HERALD AND

EXAMINER), the Boston POST, etc. - total about half. I am particularly

anxious to fill out the 1909-1912 sequence. Have your readers any

suggestions?

 

August Derleth

 

*********AN&Q Sept 1941*********

 

<< LITTLE NEMO IN SLUMBERLAND (1:70 Aug '41). "Little Nemo," it would

seem, still has a following. Rand McNally has just issued a ten cent

LITTLE NEMO IN SLUMBERLAND (Chicago, 1941).

 

McCay's DREAMS OF A RAREBIT FIEND may, in its way, have been as popular

as LITTLE NEMO. The New York Public Library's copy of this tale of the

rueful rarebit roue' is signed "Silas," contains sixty one-page

episodes, and was published (c. 1905) by Stokes and the New York

EVENING TELEGRAM. For a kind of highly imaginative and innocuous

horror, parts of it are, I think, every bit as good as the best of Walt

Disney.

 

H. N.

 

*********AN&Q March 1942********

 

COMICS BEFORE 1925. I should like some information as to where I might

find copies of some of the comic books issued by a variety of publishers

before 1925: Clare Victor Dwiggens' SCHOOL DAYS (N.Y., 1919), which I am

anxious to own myself; Saalfield Mager's (sic) HAWKSHAW THE DETECTIVE;

BUSTER BROWN, issued by Cupples & Leon, publishers of George McManus'

BRINGING UP FATHER series; LITTLE SAMMY SNEZE, issued by Stokes, and

Clare A. Brigg' O. MAN!

 

I am also hunting stray bits of anecdote about many of the earlier

cartoonists, specifically, Briggs, Dirks, Dwig, Herriman, McManus,

Outcault, and Sterrett.

 

August Derleth

 

[RB: please note that Mr Derleth is referring to the above as "comic

books".]

 

*********AN&Q April 1942*********

 

<< COMICS BEFORE 1925 (1:185). Clare Brigg's OH, MAN! was published by

P. F. Volland Company, Chicago, in 1919. It contained a "breezy

foreward by Franklin P. Adams." Some years later it was remaindered,

and is now probably only available secondhand.

 

W. L. Werner

 

[RB here: There then seems to be a comics content gap as we fight

World War Two and everybody seemed to be getting drafted or enlisted.]

 

*********AN&Q May 1944**********

 

<

Herriman, who died on April 25, will yield Mr. Derleth some rather

good material. He was the creator of "Krazy Kat" comic strip and

notoriously silent on his own affairs. Yet several interesting

snatches emerge - his journey to New York in search of a fortune, his

painting of canvasses for Coney Island concessionaires, his adventures

as a "talker for a snake-eaters act." A few facts about Krazy Kat's

unsuccessful predecessors as well as the locale of the sketches

(assumed to be Coconino County, Arizona) are mentioned.

 

Y. A.

 

*********AN&Q July 1945**********

 

<< COMIC BEFORE 1925 (4:110 et al). TIME (July 16, 1945) stated that

the American Antiquarian Society had discovered a comic strip

antedating by at least thirty years Richard Outcault's "YELLOW KID,"

long regarded as the original in this field.

 

The newly-found character was FERDINAND FLIPPER, and he appeared in the

New York weekly, BROTHER JONATHAN, between 1858 and 1863. The strip,

according to TIME, was evidently the work of several cartoonists whose

names are not known.

 

W. H. P.

 

*********AN&Q August 1945**********

 

THE FIRST COMIC BOOKS . Unfortunately, the TIME article, quoted on page

62 of the July, 1945, issue of AN&Q, was inaccurate. FREDINAND FLIPPER

was not a comic strip but a comic book. And it was published by - not in

- BROTHER JONATHAN.

 

Nor was it, however, the only known one of its kinds. There are, to

our knowledge, three contemporaries or predecessors:

 

1. THE COLLEGE EXPERIENCES OF ICHBOD ACADEMICUS, illustrated by

William T. Peters, [New Haven, 1847].

2. A similar Harvard picture book beginning with THE FIRST MATIN BELL

DOTH REMIND THE FRESHMEN, etc

3. THE ADVENTURES OF MR. OBADIAH OLDBUCK (N.Y, 1843-45?]).

 

We would be glad to hear of any additions to this little bibliography.

 

Clifford K. Shipton

American Antiquarian Society

 

************************************

******Gershon Legman AN&Q Jan 1946*********

************************************

 

THE FIRST COMIC BOOKS IN AMERICA:

REVISIONS AND REFLECTIONS {AN&Q Jan 1946}

 

The usual statement on the early history of the comics in America runs

about like this:

 

"The first comics didn't appear in the United States until the latter

half of the 19th century. Richard F. Outcault, a former draftsman for

ELECTRICAL WORLD, created a little roughneck character from the slums

and called him THE YELLOW KID." --Martin Sheridan, COMICS AND THEIR

CREATORS, Boston, 1942, revised 1944, pp. 16-17.

 

Numerous variations have been rung on this theme, and perhaps the most

absurd of them is this excerpt from "Judaism in the 'Comics' Corrupting

our Native Tongue," an anonymous article of 1924:

 

"The 'comic strip' and the Sunday 'comics,' which are devoured so

voraciously by children throughout the land, are peculiar to America.

Before 1890, they are unknown. They have made their appearance since

the Jews came here in large masses . . . They [the Jews and the

'Romanists'] would apparently convert Sunday into a day for the

children to absorb the blatant vulgarities, evil suggestions and

language corruption of the 'comics.'" --THE AMERICAN STANDARD, New

York, Vol. 1, 1924, #8, page 7.

 

Nevertheless, the comic strip is not originally an American art-form,

and Outcault's comic-stories in the NEW YORK WORLD in 1894 ("THE YELLOW

KID" was not his first) were half a century later than the first

comics appearing in the United States, and an unknown number of

centuries later than the first that appeared at all.

 

The history of the comic strip has not yet been traced.

 

[RB here: Twenty five years later we were blessed with Dave Kunzle's

THE EARLY COMIC STRIP: Narrative Strips and Picture Stories in the

European Broadsheet from c.1450 to 1825 (1971,UC Berkeley) and 20 years

after that (1990) Mr Kunzle's THE HISTORY OF THE COMIC STRIP: The 19th

Century was published. The depth is amazing though the coverage of

American comics is almost non-existent. However, no true comics fan

would want to be without both of these essential texts. I heartily

recommend Lionel English's recent authorized $39 reprints to everyone

who doesn't have these op gems to contact Lionel at

lenglish@mail.sdsu.edu ]

 

Its descent can be roughly seen in the bison-drawings of the cave

dwellers; the hieroglyphic writing of Egypt (in which the cartouche,

or conversation-balloon, first appears); the architectural friezes of

Babylonia, Central America, and Indonesia; the ceramic decorations of

Greece; the silver-chasing Roman arms and armor; the wall graffiti of

Pompeii; the hunting tapestries of the Middle Ages; the playing-cards

and fortune-telling Tarot of the Renaissance; the horizontal scrolls

(makimono) of Japan; and the crowded canvasses of the Flemish peasant

painters, particularly Pieter Breughel, the Elder.

 

Its popularity as a folk-art waited until the habit of reading

supplanted listening in the transmission of folk-tale fantasy, in the

early 19th century in western Europe.

 

Combined with the growing popularity of political caricature and

satirical almanacs, there was at hand the AUDIENCE, the MATERIAL, the

METHOD, and the VEHICLE for the fantasy-story told in a cycle of

drawings.

 

For as far as the impact on the experiencing mind is concerned it

makes little difference whether it is the djinni of the Arabian Nights,

the Roland and Arthur of legend, the Tyl and Robin Hood of ballad and

jest, the fairy-tale witches of Basile's "Pentamerone (even in the

watered-down versions of Grimm and Anderson), or the virile,

three-color exploits of Superprig in the 60th Century, brandishing a

ray-gat in each mitt.

 

Clifford K. Shipman has drawn attention (AN&Q 5:71) to several early

American comic books, FERDINAND FLIPPER, ICHABOD ACADEMICUS and others.

The earliest of these, THE ADVENTURES OF MR. OBADIAH OLDBUCK, is not

an American original but a piracy of a Swiss album of 1837, a fact

already noted by William Murrell in 1933:

 

"Under the classification: 'Early American Humor' in booksellers'

catalogues, one occasionally meets with THE ADVENTURES OF BACHELOR

BUTTERFLY and OBADIAH OLDBUCK IN SEARCH OF A BRIDE, 1846.

 

"These album-like little volumes each contain some two hundred

excellent comic illustrations, and the texts printed at the bottom of

every page illuminate the antics of the hero. But these drawings were

the work of the famous Swiss, Rodolphe Toepffer [sic], and the items

classified as 'Early American Humor' were pirated editions with English

texts. True there is no indication of this in the albums, and only

those familiar with Toeppfer's (sic) work would raise a questioning

eyebrow." --William Murrell, "A History Of American Graphic Humor", New

York, Vol. 1, 1933, pp. 164-65.

 

According to the NEW YORK TIMES (Sept 3, 1904), the first American

reprint of Topffer was issued as a supplement to BROTHER JONATHAN (New

York, Sept. 14, 1842).

 

The & Fitzgerald reprints, which followed, can be gotten out of

the way most conveniently by listing Topffer's original works and what

appear to be their American piracies.

 

Topffer, Rodolphe (1799-1846):

 

-- LE DOCTEUR FESTUS (1829, published 1840)

-- HISTOIRE DE MONSIEUR JABOT (Geneve, 1833)

-- HISTOIRE DE MONSIEUR CREPIN (Geneve, 1837)

-- HISTOIRE DE MONSIEUR VIEUX-BOIS (Geneve, 1837)

-- HISTOIRE DE MONSIEUR PENCIL (Geneve, 1840)

-- HISTOIRE D'ALBERT (Geneve, 1845)

-- MONSIEUR CRYPTOGAME (1845)

(in L'ILLUSTRATION, 1845, redrawn by "Cham"

[Amedee de Noe], published separately 1846-1847.)

-- COLLECTION DES HISTOIRES EN ESTAMPES (Geneve, 1846-47)

6 vol., reprinted as Komische Bilderromane (Esslingen, 1899).

 

Three of the illustrations from M. VIEUX-BOIS (appear) later in

OBADIAH OLDBUCK, are reproduced by Ernst Schur in KUNST UND KUNSTLER

(Berlin, Vol. 7,1909, pp. 502-503, 506), but several (other) sequences

do not appear in OLDBUCK, suggesting that one or all of the American

piracies may be abridged.

 

Except for OLDBUCK the relation of these originals to the following

( & Fitzgerald) reprints is not known to me, but owners of copies

will be able to determine this very easily by comparison:

 

-- THE ADVENTURES OF MR. OBADIAH OLDBUCK. Wherein are set forth his

unconquerable passion for his lady-love, his utterable despair on

losing her, his five attempts at suicide and his surprising exploits in

search of the beloved object. Also, his final success. New York:

& Fitzgerald, publishers, 18 Ann Street (1846?) 80 p. oblong 8vo

 

The rest are quoted from & Fitzgerald's catalogue for 1878. The

alternative titles are not necessarily those appearing on the printed

works; OLDBUCK - title page as above - is advertised this:

 

"THE MISHAPS AND ADVENTURES OF OBADIAH OLDBUCK. Wherein are set forth

the crosses, chagrins, calamities, checks, chills, the changes,

circumgyrations, by which his courtship was attended. Showing also

the issue of his suit, and his espousal to his Lady love [&c.]"

 

-- THE LAUGHABLE ADVENTURES OF MESSRS. BROWN, JONES AND ROBINSON

Showing where they went, and how they went, what they did, and how they

did it. ("Illustrated with nearly 200 thrillingly comic engravings."

[A later catalogue adds "By Richard Doyle."]

 

-- THE COURTSHIP OF CHEVALIER SLY-FOX WYKOFF Showing his

heart-rending, astounding and most wonderful love adventures with Fanny

Elssler and Miss Gambol. [N.B. "Elssler - German for "the Alsatian."]

 

-- THE STRANGE AND WONDERFUL ADVENTURES OF BATCHELOR BUTTERFLY [sic].

Showing how his passion for natural history completely eradicated the

tender passion implanted in his breast -also, detailing his

extraordinary travels, both by sea and land. ("The book is printed on

fine plate paper in the neatest manner, and is the cheapest pictorial

work ever issued in America. Price: 30 cts.") [The pirates apparently

had no shame.]

 

-- THE COMIC ADVENTURES OF DAVID DUFFICKS

("Illustrated with over 100 funny engravings.")

 

-- THE EXTRAORDINARY AND MIRTH-PROVOKING ADVENTURES BY SEA AND LAND,

OF OSCAR SHANGHAI (All told in a series of nearly 200 of the most

risible, quizzible, provoking, peculiar, saucy and spicy cuts ever

gathered within the leaves of any one book . . . Price 25 cts.") [This

in spite of the Comstock Law of 1872.]

 

I do not know what the first comic strip, sheet or book by an

American-born artist may have been. The original Swiss editions are

very limited and it seems likely that & Fitzgerald used the

1846-47 collected edition, which would date these reprints four years

later than the BROTHER JONATHAN Topffer of 1842.

 

It is possible that comic BOOKS in America took their inspiration from

Toppfer, but in only a quick glance at Murrell's HISTORY OF AMERICAN

GRAPHIC HUMOR one comes across a number of American artists who were,

in the 1830s and earlier, producing material that may properly

designated "comics."

 

William Charle's TOM THE PIPER'S SON (reissued: Salem 1814) and Edward

Clay's satirical "This Is The House That Jack Built" (1837) [Murrell

1:82-3, 149] obviously stem from the 18th-century children's horn-books

of the TRAGICAL DEATH OF AN APPLE PIE type ("A apple-pye, B bit it, C

cut it" etc). The anonymous "Illustrations Of Masonry" (Boston ca.

1826) and Frank Bellew's eight "Trials Of A Witness" (in THE LANTERN,

ceased publication in 1853) [Murrell, 10:100-101, 183] are evident

reprises of the older static frieze-drawings.

 

Lear and the comic historians in England led directly into the comic

story in pictures, as in the mid-century humor magazines of England and

the continent; and John Camden Hotten, just before his death in 1873,

published in London a complete comic book, THE FOOLS PARADISE, colored

illustrations and all.

 

A sequel, FURTHER ADVENTURES IN FOOLS PARADISE, was issued by his

successors, Chatto & Windus; both were largely reprints of the great

German comic artist, Wilhelm Busch, from FLIEGENDE BLATTER, 1859, ff. A

decade before it was taken into the American newspaper in 1894, the

comic story in pictures had been accepted as completely natural by a

number of American artists -- A.B. Frost (STUFF AND NONSENSE. NY.,

1884-88), E.W. Kemble and probably others.

 

The groundwork for the comic book in America was laid when the comic

almanacs, beginning with Charles Ellms' AMERICAN COMIC ALMANAC (Boston

1831), created a demand for humorous drawings in pamphlets rather than

broadsides. The illustrations of jokes and scenes of static humor --

the cartoon as opposed to the caricature -- continued in the tradition

of book illustration, while the caricature became strictly a feature of

the newspapers and magazines which later took over the cartoon as

well.

 

The comic -- involving continued action through a series of drawings

-- combined the reduplicative frieze-motif, the nursery-tale and

horn-book presentation, the comic almanac format, and the emergent

European protracted story form (as in Topffer's work) into the comic

book.

 

Apparently 1946 is its American centennial.

 

Gershon Legman

 

*****NEXT LETTER AN&Q April 1946*****

 

<

(5:148) that the history of the comic strip has not been fully traced.

 

Besides the Egyptian forms he cites there is the pictorial

representation of a sequence of acts found in medieval art, where, e.g.,

within one pictorial unit are portrayals of a man on the scaffold an

the same man beheaded.

 

A longer sequence, depicting a complete narrative - from the first

meeting of the "actors" on through the significant episodes to the

final murder (or execution) - can be seen in the thirty chapter

headings in John Reynolds' THE TRIUMPH OF GOD'S REVENGE AGAINST THE

CRYINGE AND EXCREIBLE SINNE OF . . . MURTHER (4th ed., London, 1663).

 

There are twelve scenes in the first heading; eight on the second,

third and fourth; and fourteen in the twenty-fourth. The resemblance

to a comic strip in form (but not matter) is striking. I have not seen

the earlier editions of this book.

 

Archer Taylor

 

*********************

 

AN&Q's March 1950 issue had this definition of the term fanzine:

 

"FANZINES": fantasy magazines, or magazines for fantasy fans; term

cited in an article on California writers in the NEW YORK TIMES

MAGAZINE, May 7, 1950.

 

**********************

 

One must embrace the concept that just maybe the comic book came

first, then the comic strip in newspapers, followed by the re-emergence

of the comic book evolving into the four color saddle stitched format we

recognize today. There is much research still to be accomplished.

 

Now this type of stuff just might bore some of you silly but is highly

essential to the first chapter of my forthcoming history book. What

is getting irrefutably proven is the simple fact that comic books in

America begin almost a century before the 1933 debut of FAMOUS

FUNNIES.

 

I have kept meaning to get another column together for some time now.

I have no way of gauging if the CBEM readership even cares about the

contents of my previous columns on how the direct market evolved. The

feedback has been fairly meager compared to the feedback I get by

posting the same material to a smaller crowd involved with comics

scholarship like the Grand Comicbook Database [

http://www.nostromo.no/gcd/ for information on how to join this

serious body of comics research.]

 

There is an aspect many of these "newer" comics fans could help me out

with and, conversely, the comic book store field itself once my book

is published. When the comic book store trip exploded in size in the

1980s, many of your readers must have been reading comics at least that

early. I seek people's first comic book store experience(s) as to what

made them want to come back - on a positive note - not all the downer

stuff CBG prints as to comic book store "turn offs" such as not pulling

every comic book they pre-order because many times the store itself got

shorted.

 

One cannot make people give feedback what they think, nor do I want to

ask over & over as that would seem like begging. I have enough

research projects going on with serious comics scholars for the earlier

aspects of my book to keep me more than busy. Most of your readership

is "newer" to the field and must not know too much of earlier times

gone past.

 

This comic book store phenom I helped found more than 25 years ago is

still in jeopardy after the abusive excesses of the late 1980s and

needs to be "reinvented" once again.

 

Can each of you readers email me what you first liked about the comic

book stores you first discovered. A paragraph or two. The negative

aspects of carpet bagger comic book dealers out for a quick buck is

well documented and I have more than enough on that note.

 

Feed me "positive vibes" for my book and I will use the best of them

coupled with credit in the acknowledgment section.

 

Robert Beerbohm

(who gives thanks to Jay Maeder for pointing me down the AN&Q path)

COMIC BOOK STORE WARS - a forth coming history book Grand Comics

Database http://www.nostromo.no/gcd/

COMICS REALITY, Part 12, May 1999 Robert L. Beerbohm

Robert@BLBcomics.com

 

[Editor's Note: Robert Beerbohm has been selling comic books for over

30 years. He has been a student of the art form since 1956. In 1972,

along with Bud Plant and John Barrett, he helped found the first comic

book store chain operation in the country. He not only lived through

the development of the Direct Sales Market, he helped shape it. More

recently, he has devoted thousands of hours to primary research in

preparation for his soon-to-be-published book, COMIC BOOK STORE WARS,

a 600-page history of 100 years of the comics business. He welcomes

feedback and is happy to learn of any errors or omissions.]

 

 

[Earl Davis]

If we limit our definition of a comic book to the dominant physical format of our own generation we risk our 20th century 'comic books' to one day be de-classified as newer formats come to dominate.

 

To my nephew and niece and maybe many other under 16’s with no knowledge of 20th century a modern mass-market comic books now look like this…

 

 

And not this old format that used to dominate back in the old 20th century like this...

 

 

Is a modern 14 year old saying a 20th century Millie the Model is not a comic book because it looks physically different to the new dominant 21st century format any different than a 20th century generation fan discounting a Victorian age book for being of an outdated format?

 

Earl.

 

[Theagenes]

If we limit our definition of a comic book to the dominant physical format of our own generation we risk our 20th century 'comic books' to one day be de-classified as newer formats come to dominate.

 

To my nephew and niece and maybe many other under 16’s with no knowledge of 20th century a modern mass-market comic books now look like this…

 

 

And not this old format that used to dominate back in the old 20th century like this...

 

 

Is a modern 14 year old saying a 20th century Millie the Model is not a comic book because it looks physically different to the new dominant 21st century format any different than a 20th century generation fan discounting a Victorian age book for being of an outdated format?

 

Earl.

 

But Earl, you could make the arguement that our calling 19th century books "comic books" would be the same as your niece or nephew calling Action comics "early manga."

[PUNYHUMAN]

What is a comic book?? Whatever that Bob Beerbohm guy says it is!!

That's my story & I'm sticking with it.

But seriously Bob , I agree with you more & more. The more i read on these boards. I thought & still do I knew quite a bit about Golden Age & Silver , etc. still learning though, but you have definately turned my head around on Platinum . I've seen you post things I've never seen in 20 years collecting strait. & I first started collecting back in late 1965/66 into the early 70's . Picked up again in the late 80's . Been collecting since . The verdict is still out for me , but I have a open mind & I see it more & more your way of thinking.. Very thought provoking thread. Thanks for the enlightment.

[Robert Beerbohm]

Hey, i only stick to the facts which led me down the path to Comics Nirvana, knowing that the Comics Ghods i worship are all inclusive

 

- and it took me a few decades to get to this State of Comics Bliss

 

- once i investigated and found myself reading, err, researching, thousands of comic strips from the 1800s - what else could i do, but report my findings over the past decade in Overstreet and on innumerable threads such as this one

 

- We should all not be Comics Bigots,

 

as the Famous One said, "Open Your Mind, And Your...xxx...Will Follow"

[Robert Beerbohm]

here are some more favorite comic books I own:

 

 

every bit as much comic books as these newer favorites of mine:

 

[Detroit MIke]

The last new, real comic book I saw was back in 1964.

 

 

c'mon, i'm positive i saw a couple in the seventies. boy, don't you miss the days when comics were colored without computers?

[showcase4]

OK,OK.......I'll contribute one post, and one post only to this thread. The most memorable moment for me on the Oldbuck vs. Superman thread of last year (similar topic ), had nothing to do with Superman or Oldbuck.

 

At one point in the heated debate, there was a list of 'comic books' dating back to 1842 (Oldbuck). The list focused on various 'comic books' from different years that "could" have been deemed the "1st comic book", and it was focused on a timeline from 1842 ( Oldbuck) - 1934 (Famous Funnies #1). When this list went back to 1897 - The Yellow Kid in McFadden's Flats......virtually all forumites stopped at this book, stating that it was definately a "comic book", with a big drop off in votes for other books on the list that were older.

 

why was this memorbale????...... because The Yellow Kid in McFadden's Flats has virtually non of the charactersitics that most people claimed were neccessary 'ingredients' for a "comic book" to be a "comic book"......McFadden's Flats has:

 

a square bound spine - no staples

single panel art with - no word balloons

no - sequential panels

 

 

.............which led me to the conclusion that if the goal is to look for 100% agreement, we must look here....(see image #3)

Steve

[Robert Beerbohm]

i love great music from every decade - and taught my oldest daughter Kati to love the cream as well - she is just at home with most any 20th century decade's music as with the 21st century stuff being tried out today.

 

That is one profound statement of the human condition -

 

Yellow Kid was not a comic strip for more than 95% of its run - just the last few were/are - even Bill Blackbeard agrees with that

 

YK in McFaddens is not a comic book - it is a book with a famous comic strip character inhabiting its pages as EW Townsendwas fairly famous as a writer back then. The art was incidental (in the time frame we are speaking of) - oh, it was important, but more important, back then in the USA< the prose was still considered more so.

 

Just like this example i alreayd posted:

 

 

Note it says Dashiell Hammett - that punk (at the time) upstart Alex Raymond had yet to make a name for himself - not until he presented the near-nekked Witch Queen in his Flash Gordon (also not viewed by some as a comic strip, but not by me - it is a definitely a comic strip in my book) did they truly take notice of Mr Raymond, methinks

 

YK In McFadden's Flats is no more inside my personal definition of a comic than say this other wnderous mag i have a sample of which ran six issues and for which RF Outcault created 12 YK paintings for:

 

 

YK in McFadden's Flats is an important publishing milestone, and deserves many accolades, but being a comic book is not one of them

 

[Earl Davis]

Agree most Yellow Kid is not comic strips.

 

I sometimes used to call myself a 'comic book collector'. I now try 'comic strip collector’ to avoid the physical format debate about whether what I collect is a comic book or not.

 

For those interested Checker Books are reprinting some sweet Plat era art. They have a Little Nemo book out soon and are reprinting Little Morse in a Yellow Kid collection towards the end of the year.

 

Earl.

 

[Earl Davis]

Is this a comic?....

 

 

Hmmmmm...