ORIGINS of the American Comic Book 0

[Theagenes]

Well, that does make more sense. And the new technology is an important point. Was that really due to Töppfer though and not Cruikshank or one of the other famous engravers? If so that is really significant and interesting.

 

I do think you're on to something with the dime novel format to comic magazine format, though of course dime novels weren't the only magazines that combined saddle-stitched binding, slick covers, and pulp interiors. Here's a well-known example that I happen to have handy:

 

 

But your larger point is well-taken. Gaines was just taking a smaller size comic tabloid and slapping on a slick magazine cover with staples like the dime novels and other publications.

 

I also, think a case could be made that it was Superman 1 (and the big PR push in the summer of 39 with the World's Fair, etc.) and not Action 1 that started the superhero comic boom, and thus it is may be more historically signifcant.

[BLBcomics-migration]

Bob what is the 450 AD example? Do you have an image? It sounds pretty cool.

 

Obadiah Oldbuck remains more important than Superman.

 

After seven years, you've got to admire his dedication to his position, as untenable as it is.

 

Or perhaps he found that long lost bottle of pain killers, and the former demetia has set back in

 

Please see clarification post re Olduck related to Action #1 was "periodicals" as previous post typed up in a bit of haste as a pile of "new stuff" scans were posting to Auctiva.com and then I had to begin posting in to eBay store. Already sold a couple of these "new" vintage treasures. Posting here in CGC Land is a hobby distraction from main task of connecting collectors to my humble wares.

 

Ummm, just to set record very straight, pain killers were reluctantly in use 2006-2009 while i had disingegrating bone on bone hip joints. Hundreds of bone frags broke off digging in to meat. Pain was truly mind numbing...

 

Post surgery Oct 2009 thru about Feb 2010 as well whilst doing the healing trip.

 

After that, not one taken ever again. Ever. I value my brain.

 

I am very much in tune with my body these days, working out in a local fitness gym, no wheel chairs < crutches < canes. Am slowly easing back in to jogging even which places some impact in to the hip joint area, still not over-doing in that dept, am in better shape now than I had been in 20 years. Weight now a trim 150 pounds, no High Fructose Corn Syrup and/or trans-fats for this body. HFCS i think to be the most evil drug ever invented by man.

 

Could theoretically begin setting up at shows again, but I see 'the future" which is internet based world wide. I see shows these days of daZe as simply feeding troughs to score to place out on the internet inside.

 

 

[Straw-Man]

Bob what is the 450 BCE example? Do you have an image? It sounds pretty cool.

 

Boot, in answer to your question, yes I can read the the translation and follow along more or less, but only because I've taken a number of graduate level classes on Egyptian religion, language, art, and history as well as considerable independent research (my MA thesis was on the cult of Isis in the Roman Empire). It's not really a straightforward prose-style narrative, though it does describe the journey of the deceased (in this case the scribe Ani) through the afterlife. This is depicted with a sequence of scenes or vignettes, so it is sequential art. But it also includes spells and incantations that Ani must say at certain stages in the process.

 

I would have to go in to the Plat list archives, type in some key word search trips, re-find the 450 AD word balloon example(s) some one posted there about a decade ago now, then post. Will try to get to it next day or so.

 

The examples were drawn on a wall dating to late Roman Empire period. The words were there with lines drawn around them with a pointed end pointing at who ever was speaking. The wheel is constantly re-invented, what is "new" is most always quite old, is how I see most "innovations" some generations seek to present.

 

Anyway, the comic strip comic books have been around a ga-zillion years now. Obadiah Oldbuck remains more important than Superman. A collector dealer friend pointed out to me last night that I think he said it was on a recent Comic Connect auction which had a Flash Comics #1 sell for approx $70K that a number of Silver Age comics sold for more. The price of some thing has zero to do with its "importance" as an aercheological artifact. But that is all in the eye of the beholder and what one might deem "important" - just an opine from this dinosaur comic book dealer collector working in a hobby which got way out of hand a very long time ago now.

 

 

Ah, AD, not BC. I missread. I'll see if I can track it down.

 

 

Bob, on your second paragraph, I would very much agree that a higher monetary value does not necessarily equate with greater historical significance. I would also suggest, however, that being older or even first does not necessarily equate with greater historical significance either.

 

So I would disagree with your statement that OO is more "important" than Superman, simply because Superman has had a far greater impact on popular culture than OO.

 

OO is important and much more important than the character has been given credit for. And you should be given credit for bringing attention to that importance. But that importance is not due to one American bootleg version in 1842, but rather to the fact that it was one of Töpffer's more important comic strip works and due to his influence on the later European comic strip artists like Wilhelm Busch. You can trace a direct line from Töpffer to the Katzenjammer Kids, so there is no doubt he was an important pioneer. But to say OO is more historical significant than Superman is really over-reaching.

 

Obadiah Oldbuck remains more important than Superman.

 

After seven years, you've got to admire his dedication to his position, as untenable as it is.

 

and showcase4 is already gutted; no $ need to hew that line any longer.

[MrBedrock]

I value my brain.

 

It is very important. Use it properly (thumbs u

[Cat-Man_America]

I value my brain.

 

It is very important. Use it properly (thumbs u

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]I value Bedrock's brain. It has proven phenomenal even in a low oxygen, high altitude environment.

 

Alas, I've given up on mine, but it has moments.[/font]

[Straw-Man]

I value my brain.

 

It is very important. Use it properly (thumbs u

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]I value Bedrock's brain. It has proven phenomenal even in a low oxygen, high altitude environment.

 

Alas, I've given up on mine, but it has moments.[/font]

 

no cat! i value your brain---at about $2.17.

[BLBcomics-migration]

Well, that does make more sense. And the new technology is an important point. Was that really due to Töppfer though and not Cruikshank or one of the other famous engravers? If so that is really significant and interesting.

 

I do think you're on to something with the dime novel format to comic magazine format, though of course dime novels weren't the only magazines that combined saddle-stitched binding, slick covers, and pulp interiors.

 

But your larger point is well-taken. Gaines was just taking a smaller size comic tabloid and slapping on a slick magazine cover with staples like the dime novels and other publications.

 

I also, think a case could be made that it was Superman 1 (and the big PR push in the summer of 39 with the World's Fair, etc.) and not Action 1 that started the superhero comic boom, and thus it is may be more historically signifcant.

 

Yes, due to my brain being more engaged these days working on turning over vintage comic books & related graphics material, I can easily see where one could run with the foolishness of comparing characters, hands down, Superman "wins" any sort of contest world wide regarding that note. Again, an opine. Other countries might beg to differ with their national "icons" as it were.

 

Tis the lithography technology being developed in the 1820s by German printers which is what I meant to impart. By the 1840s photo type lithography was being introduced. That also took a few decades to evolve into being able to print quality. Thanks for the heads up so i could clarify

 

Regarding Superman #1, well, it was reprinted three times selling out a million copies there abouts summer of 1939. The super hero gold rush hits stands end of the eyar.

 

re Max Gaines and "myth" inside Eastern Color in 1933

Here are a few "late stage" type Dime Novels which are slick covers, two side staples and pulp paper interiors. "Dime" novels originated so they say crica 1860/61.

 

I have been pointing out the "Dime" Novel format connection off & on in my Overstreet Price Guide articles since my first one written Oct 1996 which was included in Overstreet #27 Spring 1997. There were hundreds of titles. Some astute funny book collector might even recognize 'recycled' titles with the last two pictured here now:

 

NICK CARTER WEEKLY #645, May 8, 1909

 

BRAVE AND BOLD WEEKLY #243, August 17, 1907

 

RED RAVEN LIBRARY #36, Sept 16, 1905

[Cat-Man_America]

I value my brain.

 

It is very important. Use it properly (thumbs u

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]I value Bedrock's brain. It has proven phenomenal even in a low oxygen, high altitude environment.

 

Alas, I've given up on mine, but it has moments.[/font]

 

no cat! i value your brain---at about $2.17.

 

[font:Times New Roman]Over in Gen'ral those jokers told me it was worth at least tree fiddy.[/font]

[BLBcomics-migration]

so, any one look at the Dime Novels i posted a day or so back and have any thoughts re "inspiration" of the "origin" of the modern comic book?

[Cat-Man_America]

so, any one look at the Dime Novels i posted a day or so back and have any thoughts re "inspiration" of the "origin" of the modern comic book?

 

[font:Times New Roman]My views probably won't align with yours, but I think your knowledge of comic history and passion for the hobby is exceptional. I'm not coming at this from a curmudgeonly historian's perspective nor am I suggesting that you're doing this, but my POV is that of a collector/dealer viewing history through the lens of popular culture. Your perspective is a little tougher to define, but I'm not taking issue with your opinions or how informed those views are.

 

It's an easy trap to fall into an advocacy role like a disciple of Carl Sagan or James Burke molding historical facts and clever suppositions into a comic book version of Cosmos or Connections. Alas, I have no ambition to develop a viable theory for the evolution of comics all the way back to the Stone Age. There are just too many conflicting perspectives and tenuous links. Besides, I can be verbose without going that far back!

 

According to Niven's Seventh Law "Any fool can predict the past." M'thinks this is an especially good rule to follow when debating the origins of comics because history provides enough circumstantial evidence to hypothesize from several different angles without reaching any hard and fast conclusions.

 

What is more applicable to the discussion of comic book origins is what happened in American culture immediately prior to Superman's first appearance in Action Comics that provided the impetus for super-heroes and comic books in general to succeed on a massive scale.

 

FTR, I don't consider dime novels to be the precursor of the earliest comic books. They are however, the precursor of sensational adventure pulps that became cheap popular literature for teens and adults in the 20's & 30's. Pulps did inspire future comic book creators and influence the type of stories told, but that's not the same as predicting the actual outcome or what the end product would look like. It doesn't require a leap of faith to draw this conclusion. The evidence is quite clear.

 

In my opinion, comic books owe their origin to the success of weekly newspaper comic strips which became popular in the 1890's and evolved over the first decade of the twentieth century. Without the development of Sunday newspaper comic strips, the evolution in inexpensive color printing and the invention of word balloons the comic book, if it developed, would've been entirely different.

 

The only thing missing from the invention and eventual success of the comic book was gathering the weekly comic strips together sequentially or in anthological form into a stapled pamphlet and selling them independently. There were collections of some of the more popular strips reprinted in a bound form and sold in heavy card-stock covers long before the advent of the comic book, but those early experiments never achieved anything like the mass popularity of comics as we know them today.

 

I'm not saying that comic books arrived on the scene as an entirely new product that had no foundation in what came before, but there are just too many attempts at exploiting illustration art that didn't catch on with the public to establish a direct link to comics. My

 

BTW, the relatively short-lived Big Little Book is a classic example of a failed evolutionary off-shoot from the comic strip along the path to the eventual success of comic books. [/font]

[Aman619]

Wow. What an excellent post! I agree completely that one can make only guesses and stabs at forming a direct line from one eras cheap entertainment to the next one. The business of business is making money, and publishers for a millennia have tried whatever they could devise in order to make a buck with the technology available to them. End of story.

 

 

[Theagenes]

That was a great post Cat. In fairness to Bob though, he was just saying the physical format (not content) of the dime novel (side-stapled, slick cover, pulp interior) was the pre-cursor to the physical format of the modern Famous Funnies-style comic book (as opposed to the earlier comic tabloids (like 1929 The Funnies) or the Cupples & Leon hc comic strip collections.

 

Bob, I think that this was a great observation and when you first posted it several years ago I was intrigued enough to go pick up a couple of similar dime novels myself. Dime novels were certainly some of the first publications to use the combination of side-stapling, slick covers, and pulp interiors.

 

But, my point in posting the issue of The Ring was to show that by the early 30s when Gaines was inspired to turn a comic tabloid into a comic magazine, dime novels were hardly the only publications using that format. There were plenty of staples+slick cover+pulp interior magazines on the stands alongside the true slicks (stapled with all slick paper) and pulps (slick cover with pulp interior but square-bound). So while dime novels may have been the earliest to use that format they were not necessarily what gave Gaines the idea---it was a common magazine format by that point.

 

 

[MrBedrock]

Whoever made the first piece of pulp paper also should be credited (along with the first cave painter, the inventor of the staple, Obidiah Oldbuck, dime novels, the Yellow Kid, comic strips, pulps, big little books etc.) for being an important early influence on the development of the comic book.

[BLBcomics-migration]

First off, am always unsure to whom I am addressing replies what with the use of alias monikers on these boards (as well as eBay, etc) as I simply "know" too many thousands of people over the course of 45 years doing this comics gig. Minor caveat point in that many a time I read thru a series of posts, reply to ALL of them at the same time, then some one thinks one of my thoughts is directed at them when many a time it is not. That said, on ward....

 

Theagenes is correct. I was only drawing a (to me) direct correlation between "late model" Dime Novels in format to the direct format mode of what Eastern Color and George Delacorte as partners devised with their second attempt at entering a comic periodical business and no other. He is equally correct there were plenty of other magazines being issued back then with identical type format presentation. My point remains I think Max Gaines' story of folding down a newspaper Sunday section to arrive at the Funnies On Parade/Famous Funnies format some seem to equate with being a "comic book" to be so much myth so he could stand out in the media hype of this supposed "new" invention of format. That is simply silly on the face of it

 

Both the afore-mentioned publisher/printers were equal partners in Famous Funnies in 1934 as they were equal partners in The Funnies large tabloid size comics magazine which debuted in December 1928.

 

While I appreciate the thought which went in to the post of DavidMerryWeather (aka "Cat?"), I also once upon a time subscribed to much of what he posted as that is what I also thought I knew to be proper historial context as "taught" in the earlier USA-centric comics history books such as The Comics by Coulton Waugh 1947, Stephen Becker's Comic Art in America 1959 and most all of the 1960s and 70s comics history books which proliferated. One can pin point to when the myth of the Yellowo Kid being first of anything was created in these history books. Maybe later I will post that time line.

 

However, after much more extended research once the 1842 Obadiah Oldbuck was shoved in to my consciousness in 1997 upon reading a 1946 article on 1800s comic books by one Gershom Legman (yes, the 1949 Love & Death guy), I have expanded my horizon consciousness to realize that what I thought I once knew re "origins" of comic strip "books" was simply wrong. I tracked down my first copy of the first edition of Oldbuck by 1999, then took it to comics shows all over the USA as well as Lucca, Italy by Oct 1999 and Angouleme, France Jan 2000.

 

Then in 2001 John Snyder, late of Gemstone, invited me to break out and create a "Victorian" section in Overstreet for the 2002 edition out of what had been growing in the Platinum Section we had beene expanding. I consulted with Richard Olson PhD, my then co-writer for the Plat stuff, and invited in Doug Wheeler in to the Victorian secrtion, who had a growing collection of 1800s comics material. We went to work indexing. I traveled around the country setting up at comics shows, then spending lots of time researching university & other "public" holdings of material in the days immediately after many of these shows, all at my own personal expense.

 

The late Gabriel Laderman NYC had a HUGE holdings in 18th & 19th century American humor pubs, thousands of examples, of which his comics stuff was a more minor sub-set. I gleaned a couple hundred out of his collection alone

 

I, also, once upon a time, tied in the Sunday Color-printed comics sections which cranked up in the 1890s, however, use of comic strips as a selling point in that sort of periodical actually dates back to the 1850s and was wide spread by the early 1870s with such pubs as Wild Oats among many others. One can check out how far I got in indexing Wild Oats for the Vict section of Overstreet.

 

Word balloons keep getting brought up as some sort of factor regarding comic strips of the 1890s arriving at Sunday newspaper sections. That is a myth easily killed, but will not belabor the point in as much as I belabor the point CGC is NOT to be considered as some sort of "expert" in the "Tom" Reilly collection parameters, but I digress

 

This is titled Finn's Comic Almanac published for 1835. Note well defined word balloons. Word balloons well defined date well in to the mid 1700s and earlier, but I leave it to others who are interested to hunt down easily found examples

 

 

Here is a colored in title page to America's first home grown stand alone comic book dating from 1849:

 

 

Here now are some American home grown examples of early comic strips. First up is the cover to Elton's Comic Almanac for 1853.

 

 

and two pages of a longer comic strip story contained therein.

 

 

Now, here are just a few of the hundreds of comic strips inside Wild Oats, an irreverant magazine akin to a National Lampoon of its day. This seminal weekly periodical, akin to a weekly Sunday newspaper, is incredibly rare. I have exactly three issues in my collection after more than a decade of fruitless searching. There are broken runs in a few institutions of higher learning. Not one of these places I found has even a near complete run. Lost is dust bowls of history, way too long over-looked by almost every comics historian seeking to impart "truth" as it were. I indexed what is in Overstreet about a decade ago now.

 

This first example is by Frank Bellew Sr whom we aptly named "Father of the American comic strip starting in the first Victorian article in OPG #32 2002. Forget Richard Outcault and/or Yellow Kid being the first of ANYTHING.

 

Frank Bellew Sr was hugely prolific doing many many hundreds of comic strips beginning in the early 1850s. This nice example dates circa 1873, I feel lazy right now, am devoting too much time here as it is from what I have to get accomplished today for my "real" life and am not looking for the exact issue number. Maybe later. but please scope out the detail in this wonderful art

 

 

Now here is an example by Livingston Hopkins who also did wonderful comic strip work. This example dates to circa the same year 1873 or so. Hopkins moved to Australia some time later and became that country's premiere political cartoonist according to some history books I gleaned info about him.

 

 

and this last example for today is by one Palmer Cox who some years later went on to create The Brownies. Outcault patterned a lot of his activities with Yellow Kid, but especially Buster Brown, on what Cox was doing with the Brownies.

 

But prior to The Brownies Palmer Cox was doing detailed sequential comic strips. This example dates from 1875. This is a double page spread. He created many double page spread comic strips for Wild Oats

 

 

The American comic strip prior to Outcault creating Yellow Kid has thousands of examples in hundreds of publications. I would think those who cling to their myths simply have not seen very many yet.

 

For good measure am tossing in the cover to the 1908 The Three Funmakers which is the first "anthology" comic book published with more than a single character strip. This comic book is fairly scarce these days. I love it.

 

 

Also, the Big Little Book was first introduced Xmas 1932. There are some one thousand or thereabout examples of BLBs published over the years even in to the 60s and 70s. To call it a failure of sorts is misleading I think. Was the format as successful as the comic "magazine" book some of you guys get slabbed in plastic? of course not, but the format was far from being a failure.

 

 

[Cat-Man_America]

Whoever made the first piece of pulp paper also should be credited (along with the first cave painter, the inventor of the staple, Obidiah Oldbuck, dime novels, the Yellow Kid, comic strips, pulps, big little books etc.) for being an important early influence on the development of the comic book.

 

[font:Times New Roman]I concur on this viewpoint, the caveat being that some things have had a much greater influence on that development than others. Some connections are tenuous at best and others are virtual dead-ends.

 

Which reminds me, I need to pick your mind about something, professor Bedrock. My wife and I are guests at the upcoming Comicpalooza. When asked for suggestions I kinda recommended you for a panel idea I had and they sorta liked the idea. [/font]

 

I'll PM you later on this.

 

First off, am always unsure to whom I am addressing replies what with the use of alias monikers on these boards (as well as eBay, etc) as I simply "know" too many thousands of people over the course of 45 years doing this comics gig. Minor caveat point in that many a time I read thru a series of posts, reply to ALL of them at the same time, then some one thinks one of my thoughts is directed at them when many a time it is not. That said, on ward....

 

While I appreciate the thought which went in to the post of DavidMerryWeather (aka "Cat?") and I also once upon a time subscribed to much of what you posted as that is what I also thought I knew to be proper historial context as "taught" in the earlier USA-centric comics history books such as The Comics by Coulton Waugh 1947, Stephen Becker's Comic Art in America 1959 and most all of the 1960s comics history books which proliferated.

 

[font:Times New Roman]I don't want to keep you in suspenders, Bob. Alas, we're contemporaries, and I'm pretty sure you know me. My David Merryweather nom deplume is a reversal on the secret identity concept, as David Merryweather is Cat-Man, and I'm really Cat (my middle name) and have been known in the collecting and art community as such for over 45 years. It's a homage to one of the great lesser known GA costumed heroes with a touch of irony. [/font]

 

However, after much more extended research once the 1842 Obadiah Oldbuck was shoved in to my consciousness in 1997 upon reading a 1946 article on 1800s comic books by one Gershom Legman (yes, the 1949 Love & Death guy), I have expanded my horizon consciousness to realize that what I thought I once knew re "origins" of comic strip "books" was simply wrong. I tracked down my first copy of the first edition of Oldbuck by 1999, then took it to comics shows all over the USA as well as Lucca, Italy by Oct 1999 and Angouleme, France Jan 2000.

 

[font:Times New Roman]I'm familiar with Gershom Legman's scholarly opinions. In fact, I sold one of the rare original paperback editions of Love & Death to a fellow boardie at a HoustonCon reunion, just last year. [/font]

 

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

 

[font:Times New Roman]While Love and Death is a fascinating read, Legman's scholarship is debatable although that isn't quite the word that comes to mind given his prurient interest in the erotic. [/font]

 

Then in 2001 John Snyder, late of Gemstone, invited me to break out and create a "Victorian" section in Overstreet for the 2002 edition out of what had been growing in the Platinum Section we had beene expanding. I consulted with Richard Olson PhD, my then co-writer for the Plat stuff, and invited in Doug Wheeler in to the Victorian secrtion, who had a growing collection of 1800s comics material. We went to work indexing. I traveled around the country setting up at comics shows, then spending lots of time researching university & other "public" holdings of material in the days immediately after many of these shows, all at my own personal expense.

 

[font:Times New Roman]I applaud this if for no other reason than the Platinum expansion of the Guide into the history of Victorian illustration art provides a deeper understanding of the genealogy of the comic family tree.

 

That said, I'm resistant to making too many direct connections to the theoretical origins of comics in a guide that also has as it's main criteria establishing a baseline for investment values. Some of the branches of the family tree are dead-ends and have little to do with the evolution of comics as we know them today.

 

From a collecting standpoint Platinum books have less market potential to comic collectors because the interest is going to be narrower and much more specialized. My [/font]

 

The late Gabriel Laderman NYC had a HUGE holdings in 18th & 19th century American humor pubs, thousands of examples, of which his comics stuff was a more minor sub-set. I gleaned a couple hundred out of his collection alone

 

I, also, once upon a time, tied in the Sunday Color-printed comics sections which cranked up in the 1890s, however, use of comic strips as a selling point in that sort of periodical actually dates back to the 1850s and was wide spread by the early 1870s with such pubs as Wild Oats among many others. One can check out how far I got in indexing Wild Oats for the Vict section of Overstreet.

 

[font:Times New Roman]Again, the minutiae isn't what collectors find persuasive. Arguable facts tend to supersede tenuous theoretical connections if a strong enough foundation is laid.

 

The success of the Yellow Kid and the development of Sunday color comic strips though Buster Brown, Little Nemo et. al., has a direct connection to the evolution of comic books. Obediah Oldbuck's contribution is much less obvious except as historical anecdote and from a marketing standpoint it's a tough sell. [/font]

 

 

Word balloons keep getting brought up as some sort of factor regarding comic strips of the 1890s arriving at Sunday newspaper sections. That is a myth easily killed, but will not belabor the point in as much as I belabor the point CGC is NOT to be considered as some sort of "expert" in the "Tom" Reilly collection parameters, but I digress

 

This is titled Finn's Comic Almanac published for 1835. Note well defined word balloons. Word balloons well defined date well in to the mid 1700s and earlier, but I leave it to others who are interested to hunt down easily found examples

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]The early origins of the word balloon are relevant, but far less important than it's wide-spread use. It's origins are quaint, but it's implementation later on as part of a package that included sequential art and color was in response to a need of the expanding medium.[/font]

 

Here is a colored in title page to America's first home grown stand alone comic book dating from 1849:

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]Bob, that's interesting, but not ground-breaking, IMO. That could just as easily be a label on a mid-19th century tuna can. To get any context the entire book needs to be seen and evaluated.[/font]

 

Here now are some American home grown examples of early comic strips. First up is the cover to Elton's Comic Almanac for 1853.

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]Interesting and quaint, but again, it doesn't provide any gosh-wow revelation for comic book origins. IOW, another tenuous connection.[/font]

 

and two pages of a longer comic strip story contained therein.

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]In desperation Bill Gaines tried to revive this in his Picto-Fiction line. Alas, the results were less than spectacular and suggest a failed branch of the comic evolutionary tree.[/font]

 

Now, here are just a few of the hundreds of comic strips inside Wild Oats, an irreverant magazine akin to a National Lampoon of its day. This seminal weekly periodical, akin to a weekly Sunday newspaper, is incredibly rare. I have exactly three issues in my collection after more than a decade of fruitless searching. There are broken runs in a few institutions of higher learning. Not one of these places I found has even a near complete run. Lost is dust bowls of history, way too long over-looked by almost every comics historian seeking to impart "truth" as it were. I indexed what is in Overstreet about a decade ago now.

 

This first example is by Frank Bellew Sr whom we aptly named "Father of the American comic strip starting in the first Victorian article in OPG #32 2002. Forget Richard Outcault and/or Yellow Kid being the first of ANYTHING.

 

Frank Bellew Sr was hugely prolific doing many many hundreds of comic strips beginning in the early 1850s. This nice example dates circa 1873, I feel lazy right now, am devoting too much time here as it is from what I have to get accomplished today for my "real" life and am not looking for the exact issue number. Maybe later. but please scope out the detail in this wonderful art

 

 

Now here is an example by Livingston Hopkins who also did wonderful comic strip work. This example dates to circa the same year 1873 or so. Hopkins moved to Australia some time later and became that country's premiere political cartoonist according to some history books I gleaned info about him.

 

 

and this last example for today is by one Palmer Cox who some years later went on to create The Brownies. Outcault patterned a lot of his activities with Yellow Kid, but especially Buster Brown, on what Cox was doing with the Brownies.

 

But prior to The Brownies Palmer Cox was doing detailed sequential comic strips. This example dates from 1875. This is a double page spread. He created many double page spread comic strips for Wild Oats

 

 

The American comic strip prior to Outcault creating Yellow Kid has thousands of examples in hundreds of publications. I would think those who cling to their myths simply have not seen very many yet.

 

For good measure am tossing in the cover to the 1908 The Three Funmakers which is the first "anthology" comic book published with more than a single character strip. This comic book is fairly scarce these days. I love it.

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]Very impressed by the depth and scholarship of your work even though I differ with you somewhat about it's direct relationship with comics as we know them today.[/font]

 

Also, the Big Little Book was first introduced Xmas 1932. There are some one thousand or thereabout examples of BLBs published over the years even in to the 60s and 70s. To call it a failure of sorts is misleading I think. Was the format as successful as the comic "magazine" book some of you guys get slabbed in plastic? of course not, but the format was far from being a failure.

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]Sorry Bob, but I just can't wrap my head around this. If the BLB were not a failure by contemporary standards it would either still be around or have evolved into something more appealing that respected it's origins.

 

The buggy whip was successful while everyone had a carriage in their Victorian garage and horses to pull it. Today, ...not so much. [/font]

 

 

 

[adamstrange]

In fact, I sold one of the rare original paperback editions of Love & Death to a fellow boardie at a HoustonCon reunion, just last year.

 

[adamstrange]

Almost 100 years after OO, here's what the newsstand looked like at the time of Action 1. (Credit is due to a Boardie for this but I don't remember who.)

 

[vaillant]

Bob, I’m glad to see you posting and to hear Kate’s situation appears somewhat more stable!

 

If it happens those two 1943 Topix I tried to buy from you resurface send me a message (you should also still have my first email message).

 

About this post's topic, among those studying the origins' of comics literature there is Fabio Gadducci, do you know him? He and Matteo Stefanelli are (I think) part of an international network of people which take into examination many european periodicals as well.

[MrBedrock]

[font:Times New Roman] My wife and I are guests at the upcoming Comicpalooza.

 

[/font]

Cool (thumbs u

[BLBcomics-migration]

[font:Times New Roman]I concur on this viewpoint, the caveat being that some things have had a much greater influence on that development than others. Some connections are tenuous at best and others are virtual dead-ends.

 

which really doesn't say anything

 

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

 

[font:Times New Roman]While Love and Death is a fascinating read, Legman's scholarship is debatable although that isn't quite the word that comes to mind given his prurient interest in the erotic. [/font]

 

I referenced Love & Death only to ID the man to some of those (not you) who might not recognize who he is. His 'scholarship' (I agree with your assessment BTW, and one can draw a line to LG's L&D article to Wertham's later SOTI) as such in L&D has no relation to the article in a years earlier magazine wherein Legman discusses early 1800s comic books. It is quite long.

 

Some where in my computer files I have a transcription of this fascinating Legman article which became the foundational basis for searching out 1800s comic books when we began the work to add in 1800s comic books in to what was then still a "Platinum" price index section of OPG. I transcribed it back in 1999

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]I applaud this if for no other reason than the Platinum expansion of the Guide into the history of Victorian illustration art provides a deeper understanding of the genealogy of the comic family tree.

 

That said, I'm resistant to making too many direct connections to the theoretical origins of comics in a guide that also has as it's main criteria establishing a baseline for investment values. Some of the branches of the family tree are dead-ends and have little to do with the evolution of comics as we know them today.

 

From a collecting standpoint Platinum books have less market potential to comic collectors because the interest is going to be narrower and much more specialized. My [/font]

 

In all actuality I agree with you regarding the "investment" aspects of these earlier comic books and extend that thought to the 20th century comic books as well. I think many a comic book bringing in "record" prices to be 4th Stage Tulip Mania ie the "bigger fool" theory. At some point the reality of "gravity" is going to snap back on what people think of as their "investments" in the current rarified high end comic book market.

 

One can already "see" a lot of 40s comic books garnering less interest than in days of yore as the "custome base" simply is dying off for many of the 40s comics.

 

I vehemently disagree re OPB not being a proper vehicle to have initially presented the data then being uncovered more than a decade ago now. The "origins" of the comic book as presented in OPG for some 15 years now were vetted by a world wide group of comics collector scholar friends of mine.

 

What ended up in OPG and which has evolved over the years there, in many a case "older" presented data being force dropped out due to space constraints - those last few years I still had interest in building in OPG they held my sections to an aggrecate of 72 pages -

The late Gabriel Laderman NYC had a HUGE holdings in 18th & 19th century American humor pubs, thousands of examples, of which his comics stuff was a more minor sub-set. I gleaned a couple hundred out of his collection alone

 

I, also, once upon a time, tied in the Sunday Color-printed comics sections which cranked up in the 1890s, however, use of comic strips as a selling point in that sort of periodical actually dates back to the 1850s and was wide spread by the early 1870s with such pubs as Wild Oats among many others. One can check out how far I got in indexing Wild Oats for the Vict section of Overstreet.

 

[font:Times New Roman]Again, the minutiae isn't what collectors find persuasive. Arguable facts tend to supersede tenuous theoretical connections if a strong enough foundation is laid.

 

The success of the Yellow Kid and the development of Sunday color comic strips though Buster Brown, Little Nemo et. al., has a direct connection to the evolution of comic books. Obediah Oldbuck's contribution is much less obvious except as historical anecdote and from a marketing standpoint it's a tough sell. [/font]

 

Huh? You are simply wrong and make no sense. Comic Strips in Books and periodicals in all their varied myriad formats have been evolving in the USA since 1842. Yellow Kid is not a comic strip - simply a large single panel ilustration to an accompanying text by Townsend - until its last half dozen apperances and presents nothing which is not already "invented". Simple Fact.

 

Color? "Daily" newspaper comic strips now become not part of your equation. One must simply throw out all of the Cupples & Leon black and white comic books from 1919-1933; or to bring it in to more "modern" times, stuff like Zap Comics, Slow Death, on in to Cerebus, Elfquest, etc etc etc?

 

All I have presented here are a few thumb nail sketches.

 

You keep bringing up concepts of "....marketing standpoint it's a tough sell..." which makes me wonder your intent of replying to the snippets I presented in the first place. All three of the history articles as I worked on them inside Overstreet covering 1840s-1880s, 1880s-1930s and "Origins of the Modern Comic Book" have zero hints of marketing same for bucks.

[font:Times New Roman]The early origins of the word balloon are relevant, but far less important than it's wide-spread use. It's origins are quaint, but it's implementation later on as part of a package that included sequential art and color was in response to a need of the expanding medium.[/font]

 

Huh? The above statement makes no sense other than fulfilling a need by you to think refutation is important. What you wrote here makes no sense.

Here is a colored in title page to America's first home grown stand alone comic book dating from 1849:

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]Bob, that's interesting, but not ground-breaking, IMO. That could just as easily be a label on a mid-19th century tuna can. To get any context the entire book needs to be seen and evaluated.[/font]

 

OK, have your tuna can fun. It is a long sequential art story. I agree, it needs to be reprinted and placed out for others to read.

 

Here now are some American home grown examples of early comic strips. First up is the cover to Elton's Comic Almanac for 1853.

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]Interesting and quaint, but again, it doesn't provide any gosh-wow revelation for comic book origins. IOW, another tenuous connection.[/font]

 

and two pages of a longer comic strip story contained therein.

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]In desperation Bill Gaines tried to revive this in his Picto-Fiction line. Alas, the results were less than spectacular and suggest a failed branch of the comic evolutionary tree.[/font]

 

Huh? Bill Gaines? Either sarcasm on your part or simply lack of seeing very many - if any, I suspect - comic strips from the 1800s. There are 1000s of comic strips in 100s of pubs from the 1800s.

Now, here are just a few of the hundreds of comic strips inside Wild Oats, an irreverant magazine akin to a National Lampoon of its day. This seminal weekly periodical, akin to a weekly Sunday newspaper, is incredibly rare. I have exactly three issues in my collection after more than a decade of fruitless searching. There are broken runs in a few institutions of higher learning. Not one of these places I found has even a near complete run. Lost is dust bowls of history, way too long over-looked by almost every comics historian seeking to impart "truth" as it were. I indexed what is in Overstreet about a decade ago now.

 

This first example is by Frank Bellew Sr whom we aptly named "Father of the American comic strip starting in the first Victorian article in OPG #32 2002. Forget Richard Outcault and/or Yellow Kid being the first of ANYTHING.

 

Frank Bellew Sr was hugely prolific doing many many hundreds of comic strips beginning in the early 1850s. This nice example dates circa 1873, I feel lazy right now, am devoting too much time here as it is from what I have to get accomplished today for my "real" life and am not looking for the exact issue number. Maybe later. but please scope out the detail in this wonderful art

 

 

Now here is an example by Livingston Hopkins who also did wonderful comic strip work. This example dates to circa the same year 1873 or so. Hopkins moved to Australia some time later and became that country's premiere political cartoonist according to some history books I gleaned info about him.

 

 

and this last example for today is by one Palmer Cox who some years later went on to create The Brownies. Outcault patterned a lot of his activities with Yellow Kid, but especially Buster Brown, on what Cox was doing with the Brownies.

 

But prior to The Brownies Palmer Cox was doing detailed sequential comic strips. This example dates from 1875. This is a double page spread. He created many double page spread comic strips for Wild Oats

 

 

The American comic strip prior to Outcault creating Yellow Kid has thousands of examples in hundreds of publications. I would think those who cling to their myths simply have not seen very many yet.

 

For good measure am tossing in the cover to the 1908 The Three Funmakers which is the first "anthology" comic book published with more than a single character strip. This comic book is fairly scarce these days. I love it.

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]Very impressed by the depth and scholarship of your work even though I differ with you somewhat about it's direct relationship with comics as we know them today.[/font]

 

 

I presented just a very few of what i have as examples here. So you "differ" in what way? The three presented are very much sequential comic strips as "we" know them today. Brings to mind on one level the format used by Hal Foster in Prince Valiant from 1937 onwards, a "comic strip," never using word balloons. And the one presented with out words at all, also sequential comics.

 

Obviously, I did not address all of your "points" as some of your statements simply make no sense to even begin to attempt to understand actual intent on your part of where you came up with what you have here. My apologies.....