A question for you Historians...

[HeyMoe]

...or maybe you can steer me in the right direction.

I've always wondered how and where all the historic information in Overstreet came from in relation to titles changing name?

As an example:

How was it discovered, and by whom, that "A Moon, a Girl, Romance" became "Weird Fantasy" with issue #13.

Or "Gunfighter" became "Haunt of Fear" with issue #18.

I've read of how publishers would keep the same numbering of a cancelled title so they wouldn't have to pay the post office to register the new title...but that was decades before fandom was around.

So who did the initial investigation into this?

What issue of Overstreet showed this for the first time?

One more thing:

Why does it note that "Motion Picture Funnies Weekly" may have become Amazing Man?

Where is the info that makes them think that this may have occured?

 

Just curious.

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

In many cases, especially with EC, the creators (including publisher Bill Gaines) were around for Bob Overstreet and others of his generation to ask directly.

 

In other cases, it's conjecture based on likely scenarios pieced together through information given by early creators.

 

When the OPG was first published (1970), almost everyone in comics from the 1930's and up was still alive, and many, if not most, were still working in comics. It would only have been a matter of a few phone calls to find this information out, and many creators did attend national and local conventions of the time as well. Comics in the 70's was still a very niche and fraternal situation; you didn't have unreachable superstars...well, mostly...until the 1980's.

 

The earliest OPG I have handy (#6, 1976) describes the Moon Girl/Weird Fantasy connection from above, as well as Crime Patrol becoming Crypt of Terror, and Gunfighter becoming Haunt of Fear.

 

On top of all of that, having access to the back issues in question was a tremendous help. For example, Roy Thomas tells a story about getting a subscription to All Star Comics, and his first issue was #57, with a cover date of Feb-Mar 1951....and then receiving the next issue, which was All Star Western #58 with a cover date of Apr-May 1951, and wondering what happened to the JSA.

 

It's not too difficult to figure out the switch.

[sckao]

 

In addition, in many cases the indicia is there to indicate a title change.

 

For others, it may also have been mentioned in a letters column:

 

(In regards to Gunfighter changing to Haunt of Fear)

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Haunt_of_Fear

 

In 1950, publisher Gaines and his editor, Al Feldstein, discovered they shared similar tastes in horror and began experimenting with horror tales as features in their existing titles such as Crime Patrol. The first issue of Haunt of Fear was a title change from an EC Western comic book series, Gunfighter and was numbered where Gunfighter dropped off, #15. In the early 1950s, comic book publishers, seeking to save money on second-class postage permits, would frequently change titles of their comics rather than start new ones. The numbering was reset after issue 17, which was explained in the letter column of issue 4: "After publishing issues 15, 16, and 17, the United States Post Office requested that the fourth issue actually be numbered No. 4 rather than No. 18... Well, 'ya can't fight City Hall!'" The EC war comic Two-Fisted Tales took over the numbering, starting with issue 18, and never ended up resetting its numbering.

 

 

[Hello-migration]

History , in general, is written by the winners.

 

Comic book history is written by (the) losers.

 

Also, secretaries can really dish.

[PokerKid]

The mention of Moon Girl reminded about my favorite entry on the Comics Should Be Good Column:

 

 

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: US Postal Laws made for some interesting comic title transitions.

 

STATUS: True

 

My pal MacQuarrie reminded me of this fact recently (it is funny the stuff you have in your brain that you forgot you knew!) in his post here.

 

You see, postal service laws require (or at least they did require at the time) that, whenever a publication begins a new volume, that is reapply for a new postal code for subscriptions, and, naturally, pay a new fee.

 

Magazines generally could afford such a fee, so they were fine with starting a new volume each year.

 

Comic companies, however, did NOT like to pay this fee, so they would not start a new volume, but rather simply change the title of the book to the new feature (as a “#1 issue” did not have the same panache back then) when the book changed features.

 

The most infamous example of this frugality HAS to be EC Comics and their Moon Girl character.

 

Moon Girl began in the late 40s as a new superheroine.

 

 

But this was when the superhero fad was drawing to a close, so EC quickly picked up on the new CRIME comic angle, and changed the name of the book to Moon Girl Fights Crime.

 

 

Two issues later, they decided to make the move to ROMANCE comics, and the best name change ever occured, as Moon Girl Fights Crime became…. A Moon, A Girl…Romance.

 

[goldust40]

The mention of Moon Girl reminded about my favorite entry on the Comics Should Be Good Column:

 

 

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: US Postal Laws made for some interesting comic title transitions.

 

STATUS: True

 

My pal MacQuarrie reminded me of this fact recently (it is funny the stuff you have in your brain that you forgot you knew!) in his post here.

 

You see, postal service laws require (or at least they did require at the time) that, whenever a publication begins a new volume, that is reapply for a new postal code for subscriptions, and, naturally, pay a new fee.

 

Magazines generally could afford such a fee, so they were fine with starting a new volume each year.

 

Comic companies, however, did NOT like to pay this fee, so they would not start a new volume, but rather simply change the title of the book to the new feature (as a “#1 issue” did not have the same panache back then) when the book changed features.

 

The most infamous example of this frugality HAS to be EC Comics and their Moon Girl character.

 

Moon Girl began in the late 40s as a new superheroine.

 

 

But this was when the superhero fad was drawing to a close, so EC quickly picked up on the new CRIME comic angle, and changed the name of the book to Moon Girl Fights Crime.

 

 

Two issues later, they decided to make the move to ROMANCE comics, and the best name change ever occured, as Moon Girl Fights Crime became…. A Moon, A Girl…Romance.

 

 

Agreed, this was really the most bizarre transition in comic titles, and all prior to the book finally becoming Weird Fantasy (for 10 whole issues), then Weird Science-Fantasy, then Incredible Science-Fiction. E.C. really was the barometer of the era, this title especially.

[Unca Ben]

History , in general, is written by the winners.

 

Comic book history is written by (the) losers.

 

Also, secretaries can really dish.

well hello!

[rob_react]

Also, it should be noted that organized comics fandom predates Overstreet by a decade +, so we had people writing about this stuff and corresponding with each other, building bodies of knowledge, long before the OSPG.

 

 

[Mister_Comics]

Overstreet got a lot of information from guys like myself that got in touch with him and corrected his mistakes or sent him info on books that were not listed. In the early days of the PRICE GUIDE a lot of books were still unknown or Bob was just not aware of certain comics. Thats were the comic collecting fans came in and supplied the info. Myself; I gave Bob a lot of info on giveaway promo books and a couple of short run series. Back then it seemed whoever was running the show would listen. Now its not like that. You can send in info and nothing gets changed. And this is from personel experience from over the years. Too bad.