ALL-BAKER COMICS 7 7

[Robot Man]

18 minutes ago, szavisca said:

I'm sure the delay in awareness of Baker and his popularity has everything to do with age.  There was a delay in people recognizing the brilliance of his work because they weren't yet old enough to look past super hero comics.  I mean, I'll admit when I was 20 I wouldn't even give a romance comic a second glance.  I looked at them with scorn... and moved to the next box.  Now that I'm 42 I dig them because the art looks better than what his contemporaries did, and the themes and history behind romance and other genres in general seem cooler to me.

Not knocking super hero comics or trying to imply that Bakers are better, they're just different, and appeal to an older crowd.  And now that the general "crowd" is older... they've really picked up steam.

In retrospect it mighta been fun for the poll voters to also submit their age.  I'd guess it's 45-50.

Going forward I don't see his appeal ever waning.  He was imho the best.  And there will be a continual stream of people coming of age buying into his books.  And these people being 40+ Will have a lot of disposable income.

In that light id think a lot of his stuff may still be underpriced... although I don't have a good grasp on the true rarity which kinda scares me away from a lot of it.  Maybe there's still a ton these still sitting in storage boxes, attics, or even buried in the lcs...because there's still a tendency to overlook them like I used to.

Early in my collecting "career" I discovered ECs. I quickly discovered how cool other genres were. Not that I don't like "men tights" too but there is so many more interesting genres and EC covered them all. I can still say, that romance is still one of my least favorite to read. I love the covers and interior art but they are pretty much "read one and you've read them all" kind of like most superhero stuff.

[Robot Man]

4 minutes ago, szavisca said:

It doesn't to me, doesn't to most people now, but it most certainly did when he was alive.  He's worthy of praise foe how he dealt with it and overcame the obstacle it was when he was alive.

I don't think it was much of an obstacle to him but I don't really know. It appears that he was well liked and respected by his contempories and the public had no idea who he was. He seemed to make a good living and had a great time in his short life. 

[N e r V]

1 hour ago, 29dukedog said:

In the last 15 years or so, Baker's popularity has undergone an expansion second only to that of the universe, a nano second after the big bang.  (Google "cosmos + expansion".)

On eBay in 2003, I won a raw Cinderella Love #28 in about 5.5 at auction.  My winning bid of $168. was then considered so astronomically high, the seller offered to ship the book at no additional cost (he was a big time dealer, too).  He was so stunned, he wanted to know what my high bid was, and I told him; in the last few seconds I just entered $222., as it was fast and easy. 

The underbidder was one of our boardies- he probably knows who he is- and between the two of us, and one other boardie, we are largely responsible for kicking off the trend of paying more and more for Bakers on eBay, starting right around 2003.  (I can't believe I actually used to refer to the OSPG prior to bidding for them!)     
 

 

As someone who has gone in and out of collecting over the years I figured the Matt Baker popularity and prices were the same as the pre code horror or classic covers rage. In general the comics market has gained a lot of "width" to it than it had a couple of decades ago. Not everything has taken off but I could make a long list of books and artists that have gone from minor to major league. 

Matt Baker is certainly one of today's "drivers" for the market.

[N e r V]

13 minutes ago, szavisca said:

It doesn't to me, doesn't to most people now, but it most certainly did when he was alive.  He's worthy of praise foe how he dealt with it and overcame the obstacle it was when he was alive.

His skin colour is noteworthy today because there were so few and he was among the first. I never heard anything really bad about his experience but I imagine for anyone of colour living in that time period it would have been more difficult. Not sure if there has been any stories on if he wanted to stay in the genre he did or had bigger plans that were denied to him based on his skin colour. A lot of good artists did seem to get "stuck" in certain genres in general be that their choice or the publishers varies.

 

I posted this thought of mine a number of years ago on the MarvelMasterworks boards. Had Matt Baker lived is one of the great what ifs? in comics. Probably second to what if? Joe Maneely had lived and stayed at Marvel. I believe if Matt Baker had lived into the 1960's he would have finally left comics and gone on to something better. Either as a commercial artist or professional artist or whatever. I could easily see him working for more progressive publications at the time like Playboy who had already lost a great comic artist in Jack Cole. Can you picture Matt Baker cartoon shorts uncensored at Playboy in the 60's? 

 

The comics lost a hell of a lot more than they know when both Matt Baker and Joe Maneely died young. No one ever got to see the final mature works both would have created in the coming years and we are left with only their great potential incomplete.

[29dukedog]

11 minutes ago, N e r V said:

I could easily see him working for more progressive publications at the time like Playboy who had already lost a great comic artist in Jack Cole. Can you picture Matt Baker cartoon shorts uncensored at Playboy in the 60's? 

Absolutely!  He would've been a natural for a gig like that.  He was already moving into men's magazine illustrations towards the end of his life, anyway...  

[29dukedog]

(More bewbs for szavisca.)        

[comicnoir]

My sister had a small collection of romance comics. While I bought Spider-man and X-men, I would sneak into her room and read her comics, which I found titallating.

I liked looking at drawings of girls. I stop thinking of comics and start entering my so called adult life and somewhere down the line started collecting back issues of  Marvels and DC's etc. I heard about Baker and the infamous cover to PL 17 and decided to look for examples of his work which led me to his St. John's output. Not easy to find, I began picking them up haphazardly, until I saw the prices starting to rise. 

I first saw the cover to Seven Seas 4 in a book on GGA. The book had a Baker section. I went bananas and had to find a copy. Took 5 years. That was 10 years ago. First saw CL 25 in the cover gallery to Romance Without Tears. Went bananas. Had to get one. Took a long time. Kind of miss those days of discovery.

Edited September 28, 2017 by comicnoir

[Robot Man]

Is that Michelle Nolan's book? I haven't seen her in quite some time. Is she still around and into comics? She would probably all over this thread.

[29dukedog]

The 10th edition of Overstreet (1980) has a color photo of CL 25.  It's a mid grade copy with a distinctive arrival date penned at the top of the cover.  In 2004, I briefly corresponded with a collector who, it turned out, owned that same copy.  He was willing to sell it to me, but the price was steep (at the time) and I'd just acquired my first copy, the one that eventually graded at 7.5.  I sure wish now that I'd bought it.  Besides its historic provenance, it was the first copy I ever laid eyes on.  

[Sqeggs]

1 hour ago, Robot Man said:

Is that Michelle Nolan's book? I haven't seen her in quite some time. Is she still around and into comics? She would probably all over this thread.

Isn't her book Love on the Racks? I think she does sometimes show up at cons, but I don't believe she's on the boards.

 

Edited September 27, 2017 by Sqeggs
Typo

[Sqeggs]

I think there are three key reasons (I'll probably think of more later!) for Baker's relative obscurity until recently (although my guess is that a poll of people who post mainly in CG would find a majority still haven't heard of him):

1.  He died before the Silver Age kicked off with FF 1 and AF 15, so he had no chance to work for Marvel where he would instantly have become known to fandom. (I realize that he did a few stories for Atlas in the 1950s, but they were back-of-the-book stuff and, frankly, not that great -- either because he was already feeling the effects of his illness or for some other reason.)

2.  His best work was in romance books that almost nobody in fandom collected.

3.  He died before modern fandom started, so he wasn't around to be interviewed for the early fanzines or to show up at the early cons.

[Sqeggs]

17 hours ago, Dr. Love said:

Done and done, boys, done and done.  Had to go with the SS6 followed by you know what.  If only I had a spare 25 large

 

Great new avatar! 

[1950's war comics]

6 hours ago, 29dukedog said:

In the last 15 years or so, Baker's popularity has undergone an expansion second only to that of the universe, a nano second after the big bang.  (Google "cosmos + expansion".)

On eBay in 2003, I won a raw Cinderella Love #28 in about 5.5 at auction.  My winning bid of $168. was then considered so astronomically high, the seller offered to ship the book at no additional cost (he was a big time dealer, too).  He was so stunned, he wanted to know what my high bid was, and I told him; in the last few seconds I just entered $222., as it was fast and easy. 

The underbidder was one of our boardies- he probably knows who he is- and between the two of us, and one other boardie, we are largely responsible for kicking off the trend of paying more and more for Bakers on eBay, starting right around 2003.  (I can't believe I actually used to refer to the OSPG prior to bidding for them!)     
 

I will admit that you GA Baker guys were partly instrumental in my taking an interest in Baker and then noticing his masterful style did the rest !....

i had never even heard of him five years ago and being a war comics collector i nearly shunned romance..... 

but now i can really appreciate his great artwork and hope to pick off an occasional low grade copy here and there

[PopKulture]

7 hours ago, Robot Man said:

By the way, Matt Baker seems to be the king of the boards these days and deservedly so. There are 3 threads here on the first page everyday alone. 

Makes me wonder who the most popular GA artist of all time would be? Some, like Kirby seem to go in and out of fashion in time. Years ago, hardly anybody talked about Baker. That's when I was quietly scooping up his work.

My favorite would be Schomburg. Closely followed by Baker and most of the EC artists. 

But that is a topic for another time. 

I was thinking along these same lines, Robot Man!

Baker does seem to be near the top of the class now, along with Schomburg, Fine, and L.B. Cole. Kirby suffers from being ubiquitous, I think, probably unfairly so. Raboy seems to have cooled, but remains one of the all-time greats, as does Eisner, the quirky Wolverton, Barks, Walt Kelly, Everett, among others. And that EC stable, as you mention: Wood, Williamson, Frazetta, Evans, Kamen...

So, SO much great comic art out there to appreciate...  

[Sqeggs]

1 hour ago, 1950's war comics said:

I will admit that you GA Baker guys were partly instrumental in my taking an interest in Baker and then noticing his masterful style did the rest !....

i had never even heard of him five years ago and being a war comics collector i nearly shunned romance..... 

but now i can really appreciate his great artwork and hope to pick off an occasional low grade copy here and there

Of course, he did some Fightin' Marine covers and the hybrid war/romance Canteen Kate stories.  

[comicnoir]

4 hours ago, Robot Man said:

Is that Michelle Nolan's book? I haven't seen her in quite some time. Is she still around and into comics? She would probably all over this thread.

Romance Without Tears is by John Benson. I saw Michelle Nolan at WizardWorld in Chicago this year.

[Dr. Love]

11 hours ago, szavisca said:

In that light id think a lot of his stuff may still be underpriced... although I don't have a good grasp on the true rarity which kinda scares me away from a lot of it.  Maybe there's still a ton these still sitting in storage boxes, attics, or even buried in the lcs...because there's still a tendency to overlook them like I used to.

Generally scarce, my friend, so buy with confidence.  Remember - only girls bought the romance, and they didn't save their books, but threw them away on the path to maturity and adulthood.  Unlike ourselves, of course!

In terms of evaluating unknown supply, yes there are more out there, but not appreciably more, and not in particularly good shape.  Ebay reflects most of that from day to day.  In terms of peds, only Church and Crippen went for the St. John romance.  Church had 77 books (out of 177 more or less), average grade 6.4, and that's with Chuck's inflated grading, you can adjust that down to 6.0 or less.  Almost all of the later Crippens (after the early D's) went through HA - 44 St. John's there.  They've been absorbed, but the Church is still sitting in someone's one box - Verzyl?  Someone ask him.

No, the greatest impact on the market could come from those reading this thread.  "Us" has several hundred, maybe up to 1000 between everybody here, including Michelle Nolan.  Not a lot, really - enough to effect pricing if they all got sold at one time, but of course that's impossible.  And we are mostly a buy and hold crowd.

 

 

Edited September 28, 2017 by Dr. Love

[Dr. Love]

Both black and gay - talk about stacking the deck.  But his talent was powerful and obvious, and the man was quiet and easygoing and very likable.  And Matt liked everybody, except perhaps Colletta.  Now that's an interesting combination.

[N e r V]

1 hour ago, Dr. Love said:

Both black and gay - talk about stacking the deck.  But his talent was powerful and obvious, and the man was quiet and easygoing and very likable.  And Matt liked everybody, except perhaps Colletta.  Now that's an interesting combination.

Not to derail this thread but from everything I read of Matt Bakers sexual status as being gay is still clearly unconfirmed and divided depending on whom you talk to. I know Ray Osrin and his widow (and others) say he definitely wasn't. His half brother on his never being married said  “His theory was: ‘Why make one woman miserable when you can make so many happy?” 

Yes you can find others that have suggested otherwise but I'm not comfortable attaching a sexual status in either direction to him or anyone else. It's just not right.

Edited September 28, 2017 by N e r V

[Dr. Love]

yeh, it's fine, I'll do it, based on Frank Giusto's interview with Shaun Clancy, pg 128-129.  I raise it not as a gossipy type thing, to me that would be poor taste and I would agree with you, but in the context of a conversation about Baker's career and the obstacles he faced, to suggest it has no bearing is off the mark.  IMHO, of course!  It's a testament to his talent that neither race nor sexual orientation stigmatized him in a pretty homogenous white male hetero occupation.