Question on Brave and Bold 28- How Many Pages?

[RockMyAmadeus]

Isn't a saddle stitched book usually stapled?

 

Yes. That's what "saddle-stitched" means...the folded book sits on an apparatus, like a saddle sitting on a horse, and is then stapled. "Stitched" in this case means "stapled."

 

And standard books from 1953-on have 32 pages, or 16 leaves. Front cover, 8 leaves, staples, 8 leaves, back cover.

 

How many around here, besides myself, would have loved to have recognized this when they first started buying back issues?

 

I have a few books missing a page, almost always a pin-up page. I used to even go through the books, counting the story pages, but not the actual page count of the book itself.

 

"Hey great, it's all here, I'll take it." Only to later discern the remains of a neatly torn page barely peeking out from the gutter.

 

Final note (which means nothing at all, really): all of the books I used to buy mail order from Bell, Rogofsky, et al; in the sixties - early seventies had all their pages.

 

It was books I bought later from brick and mortar stores or eBay that have missing page(s).

Some books are NOTORIOUS for having missing pages...

 

X-Men #9, for example, which is so very easy to miss the Marvel Girl pinup, because it's the last page...

 

Ugh!

 

Batman #181 with the centerfold pinup...so, so many....

[RockMyAmadeus]

A wrap is 4 pages. I think by leaf he means half a wrap.

 

That is correct. A wrap is two leaves, and four pages.

 

A "leaf" is the easiest to understand, because it is a physical "page" you can put your hands on.

[Unca Ben]

A wrap is 4 pages. I think by leaf he means half a wrap.

 

That is correct. A wrap is two leaves, and four pages.

 

A "leaf" is the easiest to understand, because it is a physical "page" you can put your hands on.

 

I remember us having this talk just a few months ago, I think it was.

It makes sense; eg: "leafing through a book."

[Tempus Fugit]

Isn't a saddle stitched book usually stapled?

 

Yes. That's what "saddle-stitched" means...the folded book sits on an apparatus, like a saddle sitting on a horse, and is then stapled. "Stitched" in this case means "stapled."

 

And standard books from 1953-on have 32 pages, or 16 leaves. Front cover, 8 leaves, staples, 8 leaves, back cover.

 

How many around here, besides myself, would have loved to have recognized this when they first started buying back issues?

 

I have a few books missing a page, almost always a pin-up page. I used to even go through the books, counting the story pages, but not the actual page count of the book itself.

 

"Hey great, it's all here, I'll take it." Only to later discern the remains of a neatly torn page barely peeking out from the gutter.

 

Final note (which means nothing at all, really): all of the books I used to buy mail order from Bell, Rogofsky, et al; in the sixties - early seventies had all their pages.

 

It was books I bought later from brick and mortar stores or eBay that have missing page(s).

Some books are NOTORIOUS for having missing pages...

 

X-Men #9, for example, which is so very easy to miss the Marvel Girl pinup, because it's the last page...

 

Ugh!

 

Batman #181 with the centerfold pinup...so, so many....

 

...early FF issues

[FineCollector]

Isn't a saddle stitched book usually stapled?

 

Yes. That's what "saddle-stitched" means...the folded book sits on an apparatus, like a saddle sitting on a horse, and is then stapled. "Stitched" in this case means "stapled."

 

And standard books from 1953-on have 32 pages, or 16 leaves. Front cover, 8 leaves, staples, 8 leaves, back cover.

 

 

Only 8 leaves. Each is four pages. No? The staples bind the leaves to the cover

 

No. A leaf has two pages, one on each side. Like the guy said you're thinking wraps.

 

1 wrap = 2 leafs

 

*scratches head* where'd I get the word folio for a wrap?

[Brandon Shepherd]

I love this place, I learn something new everyday.

[Bookery]

Nearly all silver-age and bronze- age comics are 36-pages (including covers), unless they are specifically designed and marketed as "giants" (which can be 100pp, 80pp, 68pp, 52pp).

 

Earlier comics are trickier, but as a general rule of thumb most golden-age books 1933-1943 are 68-pages. Paper-shortages late in the war made a number of publishers switch to the odd 60-page format (usually 1944-1946), before most titles settled on 52-pages. By the late '40s many companies... especially smaller publishers... switched to 36-pages. DC had a strange 44-page format for a brief time in the early1950s. But from 1955-on the 36-page format became pretty standard for everybody.

 

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

Nearly all silver-age and bronze- age comics are 36-pages (including covers), unless they are specifically designed and marketed as "giants" (which can be 100pp, 80pp, 68pp, 52pp).

 

Earlier comics are trickier, but as a general rule of thumb most golden-age books 1933-1943 are 68-pages. Paper-shortages late in the war made a number of publishers switch to the odd 60-page format (usually 1944-1946), before most titles settled on 52-pages. By the late '40s many companies... especially smaller publishers... switched to 36-pages. DC had a strange 44-page format for a brief time in the early1950s. But from 1955-on the 36-page format became pretty standard for everybody.

 

 

DC did many strange things in the 40's and early 50's. as you mention. For example...Detective #85 is one of those "4 leaf missing" books, resulting in 56 pages, 28 leaves, rather than 64/32 (68/34 including covers.)

 

Batman #86 is the same way...four of the wraps are cut in "half", with only the gutter strip remaining on the back half of four of the wraps. There are 12 full leaves before the centerfold staples, but only 8 after. If one didn't know this, one might think that there were pages actually cut out.

 

 

[Unca Ben]

 

*scratches head* where'd I get the word folio for a wrap?

 

That's a fine question.

In the sense that you're using folio, it is interchageable with the word wrap.

 

Mebbe (and yeah I had to look this up) because the word folio has several meanings in books and printing it could be ambiguous in conversations like this.

 

Folio - "a sheet of paper folded once" or "a leaf especially of a manuscript or book".

 

So in saying a comic is missing one folio, it might mean an entire wrap or just one leaf.

[jools&jim]

 

Without getting too deeply into the arcana of printing terminology (recto & verso anyone?), the easiest way to think of it for "standard" (i.e., non-giant sized) Silver and Bronze Age comic books is that there are 8 pages (1 page = 2 "sides") on either side of the staples (as viewed from the centerfold).

 

It's also helpful to ignore the printed page numbers altogether and count the actual sheets of paper. It's possible for a book to have a complete story, but still be missing an un-numbered page or pages (such as a pinup, as RMA pointed out, but also ad pages, lettercols, etc.).

 

 

[SpideyFein]

I love this place, I learn something new everyday.

Most def. We've all heard leaves/wraps/staples/saddle stitches, but this was Production of the Comic 101. Very informative guys. (thumbs u

[kav]

Brandon I'm curious why you picked those 4 books for your sigline

It inspired me to buy that Action 375 btw