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How do I get info on...

Started by Apotheosis,

17 posts in this topic

Apotheosis

Apotheosis

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Posted

... what titles Fiction House did? Since getting interested in GA stuff I have found that Fiction House did some titles that I really like such as Wings Comics and Planet Comics. Thinking about it I decided it might be fun to do what Timely is doing and try to collect every issue from a publisher instead of just one title (It will give me something to focus on for the next 30 or so years). The question is... how do I get info on what all the produced? Do I just thumb through Overstreet and look for FH titles or is there somewhere else I can go? Any help would be appreciated.

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rob_react

rob_react

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Fiction House books are awesome. Planet Comics is easily one of the coolest GA titles.

 

As for a checklist... If you had the electronic version of the OS Guide you could just search for every "fiction house" reference in the price section of the guide. If I still had mine I'd do it just for fun. It wouldn't take as long as searching for every reference to "Adams" which I did when I did a price survey of Neal Adams books.

 

Unfortunately I no longer have mine. You can only install it on one machine and the machine I installed mine on has been wiped and donated to charity.

 

Failing that, I'm sure there's an already produced checklist somewhere.

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ecfanman

ecfanman

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There's quite a few Fiction House titles. The main ones from the 1940's were Jumbo, Jungle, Fight, Planet, Wings and Rangers. Sheena and Wambi also started in the early 1940's. All of the other titles are late 1940's or early 1950's.

 

The list of titles is:

 

Apache

Cowgirl Romances

Fight Comics

Firehair

First Christmas (3-D)

Ghosts

Indians

Jet Aces

Jumbo Comics

Jungle Comics

Kaanga

Knockout Adventures

Long Bow

Man o' Mars

Monster Comics

Movie Comics

Pioneer West Romances

Planet Comics

Rangers

Sheena

Spirit

3-D Circus

3-D Sheena

Toyland

Wambi

War Birds

Wings

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rjpb

rjpb

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That Man O' Mars cover rocks!

 

Fiction house has more than their fair share of great covers, but expect to pay over guide for some of the more amazing ones like Fight 31, Rangers 14 and Wings 90 to name a few - and pretty much the entire Planet run often sells for over guide. Still, compared to alot of Superhero titles they are still cheap, and usually have excellent interior art as well. Also FH books show up on Ebay with surprising regularity.

 

I have a question for you FH collectors out there. Is it my imagination, or do FH books show up with faded covers more frequently than books by other publishers?

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Scrooge

Scrooge

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Well, someone might confirm that but it is my understanding (and maybe my imagination) that many FH never had gloss originally or at least were not shiny and that might lead into your "faded" comment. I sure know that none of my FHs (Jet Aces, Indians, Firehair, Wambi, Ghost, Long Bow, Ka'a'nga and Fight - all from 52) have any gloss. Anyone can confirm or correct me? I'd like to have others' opinions as well.

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dgillock

dgillock

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Hey Scrooge.

I have a fairly large number of Fiction Houses, so I thought I'd comment in reply to your post.

 

The earliest FH I own is a copy of Wings #3 and it definitely has some cover gloss. The same can be said of my copy of Jumbo #49 (1943). The cover stock on these early FH is interesting- very heavy and stiff. Looking at "middle period" FH's, the weight of the cover stock is a little less, but the level of gloss still remains about the same. Looking at my FHs from the '45 to '47 period, I'd say they have as much gloss as most comics of the period, and more the some. Finally, looking at my "late period" FH's (early '50s), the gloss remains pretty consistent, though the cover stock seems noticeable thinner to me than the 1940's books- much closer to you're average Atomic cover, though still thicker then some companies.

 

I think that the additional weight of the typical cover stock on 40's FHs is probably why the covers get such a bad rap. This stock was less flexible to start of with and seems prone to becoming brittle. Maybe it just didn't generally hold up as well of time and that's why many people notice a "lack of gloss". Or maybe the inks were unstable and have a habit of becoming dull over time. I have some very nice FHs in my collection and some of them are as bright and glossy as any books I've seen from their respective periods.

 

As a side note, one thing I find helpful in detecting the origianl gloss level on GA books is to look at the inside of the covers. They've taken less wear over the years, so they are generally closer to the orignal state.

 

And while we are posting cover scans:

jumbo_99.jpg

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