ARE THESE COMIC BOOKS: What Do You Think?

[ashrael]

I guess they are comics, but I wouldn't collect them.

[Robert Beerbohm]

Maybe it's just me, but I consider those books with comics in the interior. To me a true comic book is folded and stapled with a paper cover or a paper with gloss cover.

 

I guess I'm a naysayer too, because I'd go along with this. And I don't see a compelling reason to force them into the comic book definition, because they are absolutely cool on their own...just a different format. For me the hardback stock is even more problematic in calling this a comic book (as the term has come to be defined) than the size & binding shifts we were wrestling with in earlier threads.

 

I'm not much swayed by the "Tall Comic Book" blurbs on the fronts, and in a sense it's kinda funny that they felt compelled to say that! I'd guess it was either a way to try to pump up sales by tying these books into the WWII-era comic boom, and/or just a literal way of describing the contents ("a book with comics in it").

 

I notice there's no price on the cover. What was the price, and does it appear on the inside front or back covers?

 

Very cool books; I'd love to own one. (thumbs u

 

 

nice points, however..............................

 

I do not think Whitman felt compelled to say Tall "Comic Book" on the covers back in teh 1940s, cuz when you think about it, every DC house ad i have seen from the 1940s tell the reader that Action, Superman, Detective, Batman, etc are Comic Magazines

 

I am not forcing the myriad formats comic strips have come in over the past century and a half into any sort of definition. I am taking in input from the list here as i have begun work on revamping the history articles and price indexes i contribute to Overstreet every year.

 

I already have in my own mind what i want to say, am merely seeking to see if some one can sway some of my words as they will appear in the Next Guide

 

Whitman BKBs were 10¢ apiece back in the day, same price as comics magazines in the 40s

 

[Robert Beerbohm]

Bob, on a side note, your posting of those cool dime novels in the other thread prompted me to go out and find a couple of my own. Got these off ebay last week:

 

 

 

 

I see what you mean about the binding - basically these are the beginning of what we think of as the modern magazine format - slick covers with saddle-stitched, stapled pulp pages on the interior. Any idea what the first of this type of publication was? When did staples first come into use?

 

Jeff

 

yo Jeff, you have a couple high grades there, compared to some i have in my own collection of dime novels. I will try to get mor eof mine scanned & posted here this week end

 

Yes, one can easily see the same exact physical format as later comics magazines people want to call comic books.

 

Am still researching myself when staples first came into play in the magazine business - basicly have yet to look it up.

[Silver Surfer]

Are pulps considered comic books?

[bronzilla]

I thought big little books where text on on page and on the opposite page one panel picture. These Scream comic. Kinda cool items.

[Theagenes]

Are pulps considered comic books?

 

I don't think Bob was suggesting that pulps and dime novels are comic books, just that the structure (not content) of the modern Famous Funnies-style comic magazine has its origins in dime novels.

[Point Five]

I thought big little books where text on on page and on the opposite page one panel picture. These Scream comic.

 

I don't know about "scream". I'd describe it as a gentle whisper.

[Scrooge]

I thought big little books where text on on page and on the opposite page one panel picture. These Scream comic.

 

I don't know about "scream". I'd describe it as a gentle whisper.

 

How wrong you are. These are comic books.

[Robert Beerbohm]

Are pulps considered comic books?

 

of course not - my personal definition incorporates the concept that the delivery venue (books or magazines) to the public contain a preponderance of sequential comic strips

 

The GCD uses a 50 % rule whether or not to index it into the system there

 

 

[Robert Beerbohm]

Are pulps considered comic books?

 

I don't think Bob was suggesting that pulps and dime novels are comic books, just that the structure (not content) of the modern Famous Funnies-style comic magazine has its origins in dime novels.

 

jeff hits the nailon the proverbial head here, batting it out of the ball park

 

yes, indeed, pulp magazines and dime novel magazines are not comic books

 

there ain't any comic strips in the main in any of them.

 

'Course, the SPICY pulps Donenfeld contained comic strips in the back of each pulp pre-dating what Major Wheeler-Nicholson began publishing in 1935

 

Tis format structure i have been referring to, and i apologize if i was not clear on the concept

[Robert Beerbohm]

Here are the back covers

 

 

Personnally I prefer to use "graphic novel" as the broader, more inclusive term for any kind of publication that contains comic strip material. "Comic book" I prefer to use specifically for the saddle-stiched, stapled comic magazine format. There are problems with this, of course, but I think it is closest to the general usage of the terms by most people today. Bob, I know you use "comic book" as the broader term, and that's fine. So these would fall into the category of graphic novels according to my definition or comic books according to your definition. (thumbs u

 

Jeff

 

Graphic Novels are Comic Books - also

 

to me

 

I think the folded over side stapled versions should be called what they are: magazines

 

 

 

[MrBedrock]

Am still researching myself

 

That could take a lifetime!

[Robert Beerbohm]

Touché, Mr Bedrock

 

It has so far to date!

[TupennyConan]

I love it when people who aren't into comics call them magazines! Just makes me chuckle!!

[Hoohah]

Just for some clarity, credited as the first dime novel is “Maleaska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter,” by Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, dated June 9, 1860, which appeared in Beadle & Adams Beadle’s Dime Novels series. (I'm pretty sure it was stapled).

 

That's a wild story, btw. Her husband is killed by natives, her white son is taken away and raised by white folks and taught to hate "Indians". When he finds out his mother is one he kills himself! Make a good comic.

 

Joe

[Robert Beerbohm]

oh, i have some firmly held views of what constitutes a comic book and what does not.

 

much of this Comics Philosophy is imbedded in the three comics history articles i compile for OPG, as some of you may have noticed - and to all who have thanked me for the decade's worth of unfolding research i have chosen to share with ya'll, i say thanks back as your encouragement helps me fit this jig saw puzzle together.

 

I do not paid for the material used or all the hundreds of hours yearly invested into expanding this fascinating era of popular culture, and we own the copyright on that section since its inception. That is the only way i work.

 

The very first one i did in OPG #27 1997 version compiled back in the last three months of 1996 included a scetion on how Dime Novels, following in the foot steps of the Popular Story Papers, were direct inspiration into the evolution of the comic (book) magazine format.

 

For me, examining the original artifacts is the ONLY way to conduct proper research rather than guessing and blindly accepting creation myths from earlier comics histories, many of which simply quoted from earlier incarnations which created some of these creation myths out of political whole cloth

 

I think i am going to re-insert that section this year again as they play in with the Comic Almanacks which begin in this country in 1831. By 1844 the art on the covers are sporting word balloons and by 1848 rudimentary comic strips begin in DAVY CROCKETT'S ALMANAC #14

 

By 1849 the Gold Rush created an audience for America's first original comicbook, JOURNEY TO THE GOLD DIGGINGS BY JERAMIAH SADDLEBAGS written & drawn by the Read Brothers, who got their comic book published to help finance their trip to California

 

By the Civil War, as that first Dime Novel was published, it was in conjunction with expanded Second Class periodical Post Office laws which caused publishers to shrink those huge Story Papers down into what Maleaska represented

 

- same stuff into a new format, same rudimentary basic format as a Famous Funnies.

 

- or the first printing Obadiah Oldbuck earlier in 1842

 

me no chuckle re comics history, as there are so many myths, misconceeptions, and outright errors in our collective history - some of us care, not obsessed with it, as working the comics business takes precedent re time

 

There was no magic light bulb which caused MC Gaines to simply fold over a Sunday section, go "Eureka", get a bunch printed up, placed a 10¢ sticker on some copies one week end, they all sell out and a couple months later Famous Funnies appears on the national news stand distribution system

 

Yet that is what Coulton Waugh wrote about his buddy Charlie Gaines

 

Similar to Sam Moskowitz in his SF bio book MASTERS OF TOMORROW 1965 Chapter on Mort Weisinger is titled SUPERMAN - as if Weisinger created Superman

 

There were agendas in motion back in the day when comic (book) magazines sold one in three of all periodicals sold in America - when billions were sold, pre TV, internet, a different era

 

 

 

[Theagenes]

January 1903. I've started the first one.

 

I guess I am more interested in their literary merits than their collectibility. Let us know if they are any good!

 

Well, I finished reading the #4 over the weekend, "The Boy Balloonists, or Among Weird Polar People." Not exactly Joyce, but not bad actually for pulp writing. It was your basic Lost World/Polar Civilization/Hollow Earth type story, a sub-genre which I have to confess I very much enjoy. Three men in a runaway ballon end up floating over the north pole and crash land in region free of ice with plants and fresh water and the inevitible lost civilization. Has some of the basic plot devices you would expect - two races of polar people, one group that's friendly and one another group that's not, which leads to conflict; there's romance (innocent of course) with a local polar chick, etc. Finally, the guys find a local source of natural gas which the use to refill their balloon and escape. Not a bad yarn if you enjoy turn of the century speculative fiction (and I certainly do). (thumbs u

[adamstrange]

January 1903. I've started the first one.

 

I guess I am more interested in their literary merits than their collectibility. Let us know if they are any good!

 

Well, I finished reading the #4 over the weekend, "The Boy Balloonists, or Among Weird Polar People." Not exactly Joyce, but not bad actually for pulp writing. It was your basic Lost World/Polar Civilization/Hollow Earth type story, a sub-genre which I have to confess I very much enjoy. Three men in a runaway ballon end up floating over the north pole and crash land in region free of ice with plants and fresh water and the inevitible lost civilization. Has some of the basic plot devices you would expect - two races of polar people, one group that's friendly and one another group that's not, which leads to conflict; there's romance (innocent of course) with a local polar chick, etc. Finally, the guys find a local source of natural gas which the use to refill their balloon and escape. Not a bad yarn if you enjoy turn of the century speculative fiction (and I certainly do). (thumbs u

 

Sounds like good clean fun to me!