ORIGINS of the American Comic Book 0

[adamstrange]

That 1965 number is a little skewed. Of the 52 humor titles I bet 40 of them were Richie Rich spin-offs.

 

Richie Rich dominance was a phenomenon of the early 70s.

 

Here's Harvey in summer 1965

http://www.dcindexes.com/features/timemachine.php?site=harvey&type=cover&month=6&year=1965&sort=alpha

Another joke crushed by reality.

 

 

Actually, without looking them up again, probably a dozen each were Harvey or Archie titles.

 

Although, to be fair, of the 29 super-hero titles that month, 12 had either Superman or Batman in them!

 

I did love Richie Rich when I was a wee thing in the early 70s.

 

Me too

 

There was even a Super-Richie for a brief period of time. http://www.dcindexes.com/features/database.php?site=harvey&pagetype=comic&id=106643

[BLBcomics-migration]

[BLBcomics-migration]

[BLBcomics-migration]

[BLBcomics-migration]

[BLBcomics-migration]

[BLBcomics-migration]

[adamstrange]

That 1965 number is a little skewed. Of the 52 humor titles I bet 40 of them were Richie Rich spin-offs.

 

Richie Rich dominance was a phenomenon of the early 70s.

 

Here's Harvey in summer 1965

http://www.dcindexes.com/features/timemachine.php?site=harvey&type=cover&month=6&year=1965&sort=alpha

Another joke crushed by reality.

 

In days of yore I would be Adam Joke Crusher, scourge of clowns and jesters throughout Europe

[BLBcomics-migration]

[BLBcomics-migration]

[BLBcomics-migration]

[BLBcomics-migration]

[BLBcomics-migration]

[BLBcomics-migration]

[BLBcomics-migration]

[BLBcomics-migration]

[BLBcomics-migration]

[BLBcomics-migration]

[Theagenes]

See, this was all you had you to say:

 

"But back to my original statement, most all you bring up is already covered in OPG. The interested party is also directed to Comic Art #3, Summer, 2003, published by Tod Hignite, now of Heritage Auction House,

 

containing an article called "Topffer in America"

by Doug Wheeler, Robert L. Beerbohm and Leonardo De Sa.

 

Next posts coming up I took it upon myselfto scan the pages of said article. I trust they come out well enough to read here, as it has dawned on me that NO ONE reading this thread has this issue done a decade ago now. Otherwise, most all the queries directed at this writer would not have been asked in the first place."

 

Because you're right, this is the context I was looking for. I had read your CBM pieces and the OPG essay (though it's been years admittedly), but not this article. This article does a much better job of explaining why these Platinum books matter and how they connect to the later newspaper strips of the late 1890s and early 1900s. Thank you for scanning and posting this.

 

Again nobody questions Töpffer's influence in the history of comics art. My only doubts were as to how influential the 1842 American version was over here. The fact that it was mentioned in the Atlantic article twenty years later and reprinted on several occasions does indicate that it wasn't just a isolated curiosity that nobody saw and was quickly forgotten. This is the kind of evidence that helps validate your conclusions -- not hyberbolic statements designed to provoke superhero collectors.

 

Again, i appreciate you scanning and posting this article because it really is much more informative the OPG essay and I hope that some of the people in this thread will actually read it and give it some consideration.

[BLBcomics-migration]

See, this was all you had you to say:

 

"But back to my original statement, most all you bring up is already covered in OPG. The interested party is also directed to Comic Art #3, Summer, 2003, published by Tod Hignite, now of Heritage Auction House,

 

containing an article called "Topffer in America"

by Doug Wheeler, Robert L. Beerbohm and Leonardo De Sa.

 

Next posts coming up I took it upon myself to scan the pages of said article. I trust they come out well enough to read here, as it has dawned on me that NO ONE reading this thread has this issue done a decade ago now. Otherwise, most all the queries directed at this writer would not have been asked in the first place."

 

Because you're right, this is the context I was looking for. I had read your CBM pieces and the OPG essay (though it's been years admittedly), but not this article. This article does a much better job of explaining why these Platinum books matter and how they connect to the later newspaper strips of the late 1890s and early 1900s. Thank you for scanning and posting this.

 

Again nobody questions Töpffer's influence in the history of comics art. My only doubts were as to how influential the 1842 American version was over here. The fact that it was mentioned in the Atlantic article twenty years later and reprinted on several occasions does indicate that it wasn't just a isolated curiosity that nobody saw and was quickly forgotten. This is the kind of evidence that helps validate your conclusions -- not hyberbolic statements designed to provoke superhero collectors.

 

Again, i appreciate you scanning and posting this article because it really is much more informative the OPG essay and I hope that some of the people in this thread will actually read it and give it some consideration.

 

Yo Theagenes,

 

The OPG "essay" has to be read EACH year of Overstreet from #32 2002 which is the first year for the Victorian section finally to be broken away from the "Platinum" era article and price index as we had finally accumulated enough enteries to make a viabable section stand on its own two feet.

 

Once OPG said no more room in the inn some years ago, I had to eject otherwise necessary data and visual aid to make room for "new" necessary data and visualaid then having been recently re-discovered. Hard painful choices. Semi-demoralized me wanting to continue working on those sections I have been fronting for over 15 years now with able contributions from some 40+ comics scholar friends all acknowledged at the beginning of the Vict and Plat price index sections.

 

I hesitated long and hard on scanning this Comic Art #3 piece now a decade old, I am not the only copyright holder on this article, but the narrow-sighted peanut gallery chorus was slowly gaining momentum for what ever reasons only they have inside their skewed views of the American comic book industry now over 170 years old.

 

Also, i only have three copies left of this Comic Art #3 and had to hunt one down amongst the vintage 45,000 items in my 4000 square foot warehouse which I located this morning. Did not want to bring it up with just mere words, rather, let its scholarly archeological work contained therein speak (read) for itself

 

Just about every query you brought up, and then some, are answered in this piece. Regarding reprints of Obadiah Oldbuck over the decades of the 1800s - and there are quite a few - one only has to scroll thru the Overstreet and said consciousness is instantly raised. I see no point in wasting time rejurgitating that data here.

 

Quite honestly, left to me own devices on my thread here, I would have been unfolding all this stuff over the short term of time allowed from confronting the medical pit which my family is digging out of. Others may have their perspectives and choices in interpretation of motive. For me, I work the comics business as well as researching the medium full time seven days of daZe a week.

 

Except for my "lost" half a decade for which I am now trying to make up for lost time. My ebay feedback sez I am doing a good job at it, too. My last eBay negatives were from a liar who stole some lobby cards I had accidently mailed him last summer and refused to return them when the midwest here was experiencing mind numbing heat wave reaching 116 degrees for some six straight weeks. People were dying around here from that sort of heat. Crops all burned up form the drought. I had dehydrated something fierce. My long time priimary care doctor here in Fremont is Jeff Rapp Jr, a well known collecor who has Action #1, Tec 27, Marvel #1 and tons of other "big" books. He can cheerfully attest to the fact I was in bad shape last summer till the heart wave broke.

 

And I was also still in "gimp" stage trying to "graduate" from crutches to just canes post surgery. Now, thank the Comic Ghods, I am off the canes at last as well, even working out at the local gym a few times a week.

 

I ask for no "mercy" offers on any of my wares which usually translates in to "low ball" - rather, if I have decent material a person honestly likes, please consider making a purchase.

 

Those purchases helps me heal Katy as well as funds my delviing back in to the huge piles of primary research files as I have begun work on my history book(s) again this past year after too long a hiatus.

 

It might behoove Tod Hignite to REPRINT this #3 issue of Comic Art

 

which went quickly out of print back in 2003.

 

The issue also contains a wonderful visit inside Chris Ware's studio, methinks that is why it sold out so quickly. Surely not for this investigation into "Topffer in America"

 

Around the time Comic Art #3 was issued I let Chris Ware borrow my legendary silver briefcase then containing a tremendous amount of these 1800s artifacts including my then thre original 1842 copies of Obadiah Oldbuck amongst many many other early comic art original artifact treasures for which he surprised me by drawing me as Obadiah which I share here from my CAF

 

http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=753184

 

 

I let Chris borrow the briefcase Saturday of the 2003 Chicago Comicon.

 

I picked it up at his house that Monday morning following the show. His wife thanked me profusely for letting Chris borrow the briefcase as he evidently had been experiencing "creator's block" at the time and evidently can be quite a pill to be around when undergoing same. He surely was energized Monday for sure.