Fiction house anyone? 26 26

[cheetah]

That is an interesting observation about variation within a pedigree. It would seem to discount such factor as heat or sunlight being the cause. The difference in the look of some of these books that have good red hues compared to those that don't is dramatic. It runs through all of the FH titles?

[adamstrange]

That is an interesting observation about variation within a pedigree. It would seem to discount such factor as heat or sunlight being the cause. The difference in the look of some of these books that have good red hues compared to those that don't is dramatic. It runs through all of the FH titles?

 

Yes, it runs through all the titles, as my observation is that publishers, as a general rule, had the books of any particular month all printed the same way. This makes sense from a business perspective as you would be trying to minimize your printing bill for what are just about the cheapest periodicals around. So while ink quality and cover stock varied over time, at any one point in time for their entire line it would be printed the same way. I'm a collector of multiple genre's so would tend to notice things like this.

 

With FH, their initial books had colors and gloss that are quite strong and comparable to their competitors. Then they got cheap and had lousy color, then good color, then lousy color and finally ending with excellent colors like the sample below. I've not mapped out when each of these time periods down to the month (i'm not a run collector) but it wouldn't be hard to come up with a timeline using the Gerber Guide and a visit to big Comic Con.

 

[kelholt]

Nice group of planets.

 

(thumbs u

 

You are correct, with FH it seems the brightness of the colors comes and goes throughout the runs. Certain books are almost never seen with a "fresh and bright" cover while others like the ones you have shown just pop off the page.

 

For example, with Planet comics it seems to be strong with issues up to 10, but have seen many light books for 12-19, but around 20-25 strong colors then down and back up with strong coloring starting in 33-39.

 

Long story short, Adam I think you are spot on.

[Forbush-Man]

I had the opportunity to go through quite a few Fiction House books last SD-Con while I visited A-1 Comics. In some cases they had as many as 3 copies of the same issue. It was amazing how much the inks & colors varied in those books. In some cases it was shocking to see one book just totally pop out in front of the others by a mile. I was quite happy to have the pick of the litter.....too bad there weren't many Planet Comics available.

[cheetah]

Don't want to sound like a total noob on GA but I am assuming that print runs in the 1940's were done at print shops around the nation and that there are copies of pretty much every issue with good color still around. Are there any issues that are known to only have faded copies?

[Scrooge]

[..] but I am assuming that print runs in the 1940's were done at print shops around the nation [..]

 

Actually, no. Every publisher used a single printer and one single printing facility for the entire run instead of a network of printers so if there was an issue in a run, all books would be affected. Meaning that if the printer bought crummy inks, then all the books are printing with those low quality inks. This is not the case as we've seen before where a batch within a run is printed without one color plate or a case of a late print in a batch were reds were low while other colors were not, something we've also seen. From AStrange's post, his belief is that over time the quality of the inks purchased varied hence the roller coaster in quality for Fiction House books. Gifflefunk should be able to help us figure out if the printer for FH was used by any other company and then we potentially could check if the printer used the same quality ink for FH as other companies to see if the decision originated from FH or from the printer itself. That sounds like a fun project.

[Scrooge]

Ohhh .. and as an aside, in Jones's book, he hints that early on Goodman bought and brought his paper from Canada to his US printer so he had a reason for sending trucks across the border and would more than likely allow for more than newssprint to transit in those cargos ... True or not. I don't know but it sure spices up early comic book history.

[cheetah]

Were these books just distributed regionally? Seems pretty inefficient during WWII to print something in New York and then ship it to Los Angeles.

 

I know these are really ignorant questions but a guy's got to start learning somewhere!

[seank]

In addition to poor quality ink or inking, red is also the first color to be affected by sunlight and fading.

[Mutie Fan]

Were these books just distributed regionally? Seems pretty inefficient during WWII to print something in New York and then ship it to Los Angeles.

 

I know these are really ignorant questions but a guy's got to start learning somewhere!

 

I think these are good questions, I want to know too. (thumbs u

[adamstrange]

Were these books just distributed regionally? Seems pretty inefficient during WWII to print something in New York and then ship it to Los Angeles.

 

I know these are really ignorant questions but a guy's got to start learning somewhere!

 

The questions you've asked aren't generally addressed as the historians tend to focus on the creative side of comics. I'm very interested in the printing processes as that directly impacted the product we collect.

 

My guess is that they did print in one location and then distribute nationally. It would probably have been too difficult to coordinate the printing with multiple plants across the country back in the GA. The SA comics from DC/Marvel were printed out of Sparta, IL, iirc.

[Scrooge]

Were these books just distributed regionally? Seems pretty inefficient during WWII to print something in New York and then ship it to Los Angeles.

 

I am puzzled at what you mean by " ... during WWII ..." You seem, but do not express clearly, to think that it would be difficult to distribute nationally back in the '40's from a central location. I'd argue that it probably was easier for 2 reasons:

 

1) the national distributors had strong established networks for distribution because they carried so much news and magazine products that their distribution costs were low once spread over so much material, i.e., on a "per issue" basis, the cost was small enough to turn an easy profit per magazine (including comics) and

 

2) the rail system as we know it is only a shadow of its former self. Rail must have provided a very useful, efficient and geographically widespread way to get material cross country until local shippers loaded them on trucks.

 

Once you combine the two, printing in one location and distributing nationally seems like the best economical way to do business for the publisher since the distributor did the heavy lifting to get the product on the stands.

 

Also, recall that it was not uncommon for publisher to also be distributors. Heck, Charlton went even one further by being all 3: publisher, printer and distributor. Talk about keeping most of the profit pie

[seank]

Were these books just distributed regionally? Seems pretty inefficient during WWII to print something in New York and then ship it to Los Angeles.

 

I am puzzled at what you mean by " ... during WWII ..." You seem, but do not express clearly, to think that it would be difficult to distribute nationally back in the '40's from a central location. I'd argue that it probably was easier for 2 reasons:

 

1) the national distributors had strong established networks for distribution because they carried so much news and magazine products that their distribution costs were low once spread over so much material, i.e., on a "per issue" basis, the cost was small enough to turn an easy profit per magazine (including comics) and

 

2) the rail system as we know it is only a shadow of its former self. Rail must have provided a very useful, efficient and geographically widespread way to get material cross country until local shippers loaded them on trucks.

 

Once you combine the two, printing in one location and distributing nationally seems like the best economical way to do business for the publisher since the distributor did the heavy lifting to get the product on the stands.

 

Also, recall that it was not uncommon for publisher to also be distributors. Heck, Charlton went even one further by being all 3: publisher, printer and distributor. Talk about keeping most of the profit pie

 

Consider also that we didn't have instant communication then like we have now. You couldn't zap a PDF file across the country in seconds. The original art went to the printer who made plates which were then put on the press. Printing in one location then sending the books out via an established distribution system was probably more efficient at that time.

[seank]

Two new acquisitions, cross posted in the cigar thread. I'm down to 15 more for the 68-130 run.

 

 

[Scrooge]

Consider also that we didn't have instant communication then like we have now. You couldn't zap a PDF file across the country in seconds. The original art went to the printer who made plates which were then put on the press. Printing in one location then sending the books out via an established distribution system was probably more efficient at that time.

 

Yup. Was also thinking about the fact that they would only create one set of plates in one location. All in all, there are plenty of arguments for one central printing location.

 

Love the Jumbos

[Mutie Fan]

Nice looking copies!

[cheetah]

Were these books just distributed regionally? Seems pretty inefficient during WWII to print something in New York and then ship it to Los Angeles.

 

I am puzzled at what you mean by " ... during WWII ..." You seem, but do not express clearly, to think that it would be difficult to distribute nationally back in the '40's from a central location. I'd argue that it probably was easier for 2 reasons:

 

1) the national distributors had strong established networks for distribution because they carried so much news and magazine products that their distribution costs were low once spread over so much material, i.e., on a "per issue" basis, the cost was small enough to turn an easy profit per magazine (including comics) and

 

2) the rail system as we know it is only a shadow of its former self. Rail must have provided a very useful, efficient and geographically widespread way to get material cross country until local shippers loaded them on trucks.

 

Once you combine the two, printing in one location and distributing nationally seems like the best economical way to do business for the publisher since the distributor did the heavy lifting to get the product on the stands.

 

Also, recall that it was not uncommon for publisher to also be distributors. Heck, Charlton went even one further by being all 3: publisher, printer and distributor. Talk about keeping most of the profit pie

 

World War II = WWII, just a time reference for a period when resources were scarce. I admit I've got no idea how the printing industry operated during that period. Seems interesting, though, and I'd think it would have had a significant influence on comic distribution and availability at the time. The railroad makes a lot of sense and puts some good perspective on the whole issue.

 

I guess this generally means that there probably are issues where color quality is poor throughout. Makes it more interesting to see if you can find well-colored copies of all the issues.

[RickHigh]

Picked this book up at a local mini con today! The dealer that I got this book from had three copies. He said that they were tucked into a SA collection that he bought a while back.

 

[Forbush-Man]

Picked this book up at a local mini con today! The dealer that I got this book from had three copies. He said that they were tucked into a SA collection that he bought a while back.

 

 

Wow! Way to go! Colors are beautiful. Did the other two copies look as nice?

[Forbush-Man]

Two new acquisitions, cross posted in the cigar thread. I'm down to 15 more for the 68-130 run.

 

 

 

 

How did I miss these two books? Nice pick up, seank.