Golden Age of Comic Fandom

[garthgantu]

Has anyone else read "The Golden Age of Comic Fandom" by Bill Schelly? An amazing account of the earliest comic book fanatics, collectors, historians, etc.

Among the things I discovered in the book:

- Roy Thomas, Archie Goodwin, Julie Schwartz, Berni Wrightson, Jim Starlin, Frank Brunner, even Stephen King, all got their starts writing and/or illustrating for fanzines.

 

- The first "comic convention" took place in Detroit and attracted all of 75 fans.

 

- The Justic League of America was created mostly at the insistence of fans like Roy Thomas and Jerry Bails. They and other fans were instrumental in helping DC choose which GA superheroes to 'revive' for the SA.

 

- There was a significantly larger "pedigree" collection extant before Chuckles "discovered" the Church collection... it totalled 27,000 Golden Age comics, and was owned by a kid named Billy Placzek (sp? don't have the book handy at the moment) in NYC. After NYC conventions, Placzek would host visits to his attic from rabid fans. He was given the collection by a family friend in the mid-sixties...!

 

- Seuling, Rogofsky and other large, long-time dealers almost all began their 'careers' by publishing and distributing their own fanzines.

 

*This is a must-read book* for several reasons, not least of which it will remind you why people began collecting comics in the first place, and illustrate the rabid enthusiasm of these people, back before comics had any real value beyond the paper they were printed on.

 

**On a related note, has anyone read "Tales To Astonish," a new book about Stan Jack and the early days of Marvel? I've seen one quick review of the book, and am thinking of getting it...

[Silver Surfer]

 

 

**On a related note, has anyone read "Tales To Astonish," a new book about Stan Jack and the early days of Marvel? I've seen one quick review of the book, and am thinking of getting it...

 

I have it, started to read it then put it down but I plan to finish it shortly.

[valiantman]

Placzek would host visits to his attic...

Placzek is my grandfather.

 

 

 

(Just kidding, obviously, but how long until the name "Placzek" is used

in the "found this in my grandpa's attic" regular Ebay scam?)

[garthgantu]

Placzek would host visits to his attic...

Placzek is my grandfather.

 

 

 

(Just kidding, obviously, but how long until the name "Placzek" is used

in the "found this in my grandpa's attic" regular Ebay scam?)

 

Not a bad idea for a truly evil scam, Valiant I'm guessing that "Billy" either sold off his collection piecemeal, to support a narcotic addiction, or still has the books and the world of comicdom has essentially forgotten about him and his collection... But the pictures of his and other collections, taken from early newspaper articles about comic book collecting ("some fans have been known to pay as much as $100 for a single comic" read one of the captions) are worth the price of admission all by themselves.

 

There are numerous anecdotes in the book about early sales of collections and keys... stories of the earliest comic dealers, who were all used bookstore owners, buying GA books for a penny each, including Action 1, 'Tec 27, etc. Pretty wild stuff.

 

That, and seeing the earliest works of R. Crumb, Starlin, Wrightson et al. in these mimeographed fanzines...very cool.

[s-man]

Sounds like an interesting book! Price??

 

btw --

 

The Justic League of America

 

Justic?

[garthgantu]

Just for the record, that may be my first typo on these boards... I'm meticulous in my grammar and spelling most of the time.

 

As for price, I received the book as a gift...Amazon lists the book as out of stock, but does list three used copies starting around $13...

 

I believe the book was first published in the mid-1990s, with perhaps a second printing in '98 ? It's not totally up-to-date, but then again there hasn't been much of "historical value" in the fandom arena for a long time...at least, as far as I know.

 

They devote a fair amount of space to the origin of Overstreet's price guide, and also acknowledge a couple of earlier price guides - significantly smaller in scope and more focused on indexing various comic book titles/issues...

[tilleycs]

Another online resource for finding books is www.bookfinder.com . I've been able to find several books using that site.