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ORIGINS of the American Comic Book
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Started by BLBcomics-migration,

424 posts in this topic

Cat-Man_America

Cat-Man_America

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I mentioned in another post about The Shadow being published twice monthly for quite awhile in the 1930's.

 

 

Just to put that fact into perspective tho, it should be noted that many other pulps of different genres were being published more frequently than any of the hero pulps.

 

Argosy, Detective Fiction Weekly, Love Story Magazine, and Western Story Magazine were all published weekly. There are many other examples but those titles come immediately to mind.

 

[font:Times New Roman]That's a valid point. However, each title you've mentioned is an anthology publication devoted to a specific genre of fiction (adventure, detective, romance, western), not a solo character.

 

In comic books, can you think of any similar examples of weekly or even bi-weekly anthologies? [/font] hm

 

No, but I wasn't talking about comics.

 

I just wanted to add some clarity to those unfamiliar with pulps about the breadth of tastes among the pulp readership.

 

[font:Times New Roman]No offense intended. :sorry: Since the primary thread focus is ORIGINS of the American Comic Book I was trying to extend that line of reasoning to speculations about GA comic book marketing.

 

Your clarification about pulps is excellent. Intentionally or not, it sorta underscores the point I was making. Thanks. [/font] (thumbs u

 

 

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Bronty

Bronty

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Those were almost completely ignored by this crowd. I thought to myself "why bother" - they are S.O.S., some might say Stuck On Superman, a more apt wording would be Stuck On Stupid, but I digress....

 

 

:blahblah:

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sacentaur

sacentaur

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Me, I'm just waiting for the stunning revelation (combining two recent threads) about the copy of Obidiah Oldbuck that was found as a part of the San Francisco pedigree collection.

 

I'm so excited, I just can't wait!!!

 

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Theagenes

Theagenes

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Well, it was an interesting discussion while it lasted. :sorry:

 

 

it ain't over; bob will be back, you can bank it.

 

Well, that's problem. It was an interesting discussion... until Bob came back. lol

 

I refuse to defend his condescending, insulting, rambling anymore just for occasional historical tidbit that may or may not even be accurate (who can tell?). Have at it! :ohnoez:

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sacentaur

sacentaur

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Came to GA and find CG broke out all up in heuh!

 

Well, we are being treated to the hobby's own twisted form of Scientology.

 

[font:Times New Roman]nyuk, nyuk, nyuk! What a Travolting development![/font] :kidaround:

 

It's all pun and games until Xenu's magic scepter pokes out an eye!

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Straw-Man

Straw-Man

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Well, it was an interesting discussion while it lasted. :sorry:

 

 

it ain't over; bob will be back, you can bank it.

 

Well, that's problem. It was an interesting discussion... until Bob came back. lol

 

I refuse to defend his condescending, insulting, rambling anymore just for occasional historical tidbit that may or may not even be accurate (who can tell?). Have at it! :ohnoez:

 

you'd be just like him if you had a _____ sq foot warehouse full of comics museums are soccer-hooligan-style fighting over.

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Sqeggs

Sqeggs

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This has been an illuminating thread. Reading it from the outside, I think something of a consensus has been reached on a key question:

 

Was the appearance of Action 1/Superman crucial to the success of comic books?

 

Before reading this thread and without thinking much about it, I would have said "Yes." I now realize the answer is "No." It appears the contributors to this thread agree (although perhaps not David Merryweather).

 

The crucial evidence is the enormous popularity of non-hero comics from the late 1940s through the 1950s. Particularly funny animal (especially Disney), but also -- as Dr. Love has usefully reminded us in another thread -- romance, as well as crime, horror/sci-fi, and teen humor.

 

What the success of these other genres shows is that stories told in comic book style and sold on newsstands for 10 cents turned out to be a popular form of entertainment. It strains credulity to believe that publishers would not have stumbled on this fact even if there had been no Superman, Batman, or Captain America.

 

An interesting question is: Why was the heyday of comic books relatively fleeting? The spread of television is probably a significant part of the answer but, as I mentioned in an earlier post, in discussing the U.S. economy and U.S. culture, never underestimate the importance of the baby boom.

 

[font:Times New Roman]The reason that I'm not in full agreement on this point is that the evidence (from my perspective) points elsewhere, and it is persuasive. hm

 

Admittedly, comic books became a self-perpetuating success at some point and not reliant upon the superhero genre that motivated growth of the market in 1939. That's part of the natural evolution of the comic book publishing industry. IOW, cyclical trends create new markets in a constantly changing demographic, then those new markets become the driving force.

 

Trends are unpredictable, but you can almost always point to a spark that fuels growth of a market and sustains it. Superman was such a spark. Folks can speculate endlessly, but there are plenty of clues connecting the dots to bolster my position. Just look at a cross section of archived photos of newsstands and drugstore magazine racks from the early 40's. It's clear that early-on the superhero genre was a popular, driving force in the success of comics.

 

Superman alone shouldn't be credited with the success of comic books, but Superman's popularity accelerated the growth of comics at a crucial moment in time. Without the superhero genre evolving from this remarkable character it could be argued persuasively that comic books might not have reached that fissionably sustainable level of popularity which results in long term success in the magazine publishing industry.

 

I mentioned in another post about The Shadow being published twice monthly for quite awhile in the 1930's. Well, in comics it was Captain Marvel. For awhile this superhero was so popular that it justified bi-weekly publication! That's phenomenal. How many other comic book titles, regardless of genre, were doing that at any time along the comic continuum?

 

Without the superhero we wouldn't have had the popular animated cartoons, radio programs and syndicated strips, nor the serials, television series and eventually big-budget motion pictures. All of these things helped fuel the interest in comics and vice versa, allowing comic books to remain financially solvent and branch out during times when sales of one genre or another dipped.

 

My point is that costumed heroes are integral to the success of comics, not that other types of comics didn't arise as the genre evolved and expanded to reach new markets. As I stated, comic book success is cyclical due to a constantly aging demographic with broad tastes and interests. What is popular is the current trend. The same is true in genre marketing of books today.

 

One final point here. Imagine this: Without Superman, there would've been no Captain America, no Spiderman, no Spirit section, no Sandman (vintage or modern), no *spooning* Tick to parody the genre! Comic books might've gone the way of BLBs and pulps.

Regardless of sales and marketing trends, the long-underwear guys still rule! :headbang:

 

The bottom line: Enormous popularity of other non-hero comics notwithstanding, I'm not persuaded that the comic book industry would've succeeded, much less become as popular as it has periodically (pun intended) without the superhero. My 2c 10c[/font]

 

It's an interesting argument and you may well be right. Since we can't rerun history to see what would have happened had Action 1 and its successors not be published, we'll never know for sure.

 

Still, given that we know that:

 

1. Comics still flourished even after superheroes went into eclipse post-1945, and

2. Publishers were experimenting with non-hero books pre-Action 1,

 

it seems implausible to me that the romance, funny animal, teen humor, sic-fi/horror, and so on genres would not have been sufficient to make comic books a publishing success from the 1940s through the 1960s.

 

Where we would be today is another matter, of course. Comic books would likely have gone the way of pulps and BLBs and the comic collecting hobby may never have gotten off the ground.

 

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Bronty

Bronty

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^ thats my take also. And for that reason I think you can make the argument that ff1 was the most important book ever published. Before I get flamed I'm not sure if I subscribe to it myself but you can make a pretty reasonable argument for it as the momentum from early marvel has been the wind thats kept this ship sailing for 50 years now

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Sqeggs

Sqeggs

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as annoying as this whole debate is and as unlikely (frankly Bob) as it was that you were a "reluctant dragon in this passion play" (50k tends to erase reluctance) who cares if Steve paid too much or didn't pay too much. It happens every day, we are all big boys and it is upon us to know and understand what we are buying. As long as Bob didn't lie about what it was he was selling, overpaying is Steve's problem alone and Bob got a nice sale. Even if Bob convinced it was Steve that OO was the first american comic book, well maybe it is, maybe it isn't, that's the subject of debate and it was on Steve to satisfy himself on that front.

 

As long as he was honest I say good for Bob on a nice sale.

 

+1 to this.

 

Once you buy comics for investment purposes, you are taking your chances, as with any other investment. I remember people saying Chuck R was ripping people off by charging multiples of guide for Church books. Obviously, with hindsight, those prices were great bargains. But who knew? If the high end of the hobby had fizzled out, as -- believe it or not -- some people thought it might, the buyers of those books would have lost money.

 

You pays your money, you takes your choice.

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Bookery

Bookery

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^ thats my take also. And for that reason I think you can make the argument that ff1 was the most important book ever published. Before I get flamed I'm not sure if I subscribe to it myself but you can make a pretty reasonable argument for it as the momentum from early marvel has been the wind thats kept this ship sailing for 50 years now

 

Now you're just being coy... is this an argument for Famous Funnies, Fantastic Four, Four Favorites, Famous Feature, Family Funnies, Fantastic Fears, Fightin' Five, Fearless Fagan, Foxy Fagan, Fast Fiction, Feature Funnies, Fighting Fronts, Film Funnies, Flippity & Flop, Frankie Fuddle, Freedom Fighters, Frisky Fables, Frontier Fighters, Funny Fables, Funny Films, Funny Folks, Funny Frolics, Funny Funnies or Fury of Firestorm?

 

Slightly different arguments can be made depending upon the answer....

 

 

 

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MrBedrock

MrBedrock

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^ thats my take also. And for that reason I think you can make the argument that ff1 was the most important book ever published. Before I get flamed I'm not sure if I subscribe to it myself but you can make a pretty reasonable argument for it as the momentum from early marvel has been the wind thats kept this ship sailing for 50 years now

 

Now you're just being coy... is this an argument for Famous Funnies, Fantastic Four, Four Favorites, Famous Feature, Family Funnies, Fantastic Fears, Fightin' Five, Fearless Fagan, Foxy Fagan, Fast Fiction, Feature Funnies, Fighting Fronts, Film Funnies, Flippity & Flop, Frankie Fuddle, Freedom Fighters, Frisky Fables, Frontier Fighters, Funny Fables, Funny Films, Funny Folks, Funny Frolics, Funny Funnies or Fury of Firestorm?

 

Slightly different arguments can be made depending upon the answer....

 

 

Someone has opened an Overstreet lately hm

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