Could there possibly be any unknown Golden Age comics? 0

[Happy Noodle Boy]

I'm brand new here and this is my first post, and I apologize if it's a dumb question.

I've collected comics in a haphazard way for my whole life, starting in the 1970s, and to me the golden age stuff was a vast undiscovered country. So many companies, so many titles. For myself I was mostly a Marvel zombie, but as I've grown older I've become more and more intrigued by golden age comics, specifically the lesser known stuff from the smaller companies. And that got me to thinking: there was just so much stuff published during the golden age, and so much of it has been lost to time--is it possible that there might be a golden age comic book out there, maybe a one-off that didn't sell many copies, that no one has ever heard of before? An unknown series, or maybe just an unknown issue of a series? Is it possible that someone might discover some old comic in an attic someday that no one has ever seen?    

 

[Yorick]

Welcome to these boards!

I like to believe that there may be some.  I still come across books I've never seen before, but I don't have a Gerber Photo Journal to reference...  One of my favorite ways to burn time is looking at the scans on GrandComicsDatabase.

[Robot Man]

Yes, without a doubt. Especially if you consider variants, giveaways and stuff that might still be put away in files. Giveaway comics for instance is a bottomless pit. I see new stuff all the time and the vast majority is un-documented.

And, welcome to the boards. Always good to see new posters here. 

[Sqeggs]

On 11/9/2018 at 1:55 PM, Mark Warren said:

I'm brand new here and this is my first post, and I apologize if it's a dumb question.

I've collected comics in a haphazard way for my whole life, starting in the 1970s, and to me the golden age stuff was a vast undiscovered country. So many companies, so many titles. For myself I was mostly a Marvel zombie, but as I've grown older I've become more and more intrigued by golden age comics, specifically the lesser known stuff from the smaller companies. And that got me to thinking: there was just so much stuff published during the golden age, and so much of it has been lost to time--is it possible that there might be a golden age comic book out there, maybe a one-off that didn't sell many copies, that no one has ever heard of before? An unknown series, or maybe just an unknown issue of a series? Is it possible that someone might discover some old comic in an attic someday that no one has ever seen?    

 

Welcome to the boards!  Lot of great discussion of Golden Age books here.  Best you can find anywhere, imo.

As @Robot Man mentioned, if you include promos, there may well be some previously unknown GA books out there.  The auction houses list promos fairly often that have "not listed in Overstreet" in the description.  

For superhero books, after all these years there may not be any unknown ones, at least that were published in the U.S., unless you count oddball items like remaindered books that were sold with new paper covers stapled to them. 

[OtherEric]

I figure once you start including promos and variants, there is roughly zero chance that there AREN'T unknown GA books out there.  For example, I found this book about 9 years ago.  When I did, Overstreet said the series only ran to #30.  The Fort Mudge Most claimed it ran to #36.  Since then we've found issues as late as #65 and we're really not sure that's the last issue.  In fact, we suspect it's probably #66 but nobody has seen a copy that we know of. 

Welcome to the boards, by the way!

[sfcityduck]

"New" GA comics that everyone thought were a myth have popped up in recent times, the Double Action 1 (ashcan) being the most obvious example.

(I've also had the pleasure of finding comics people knew existed but just never, and I mean that literally, saw: The Nightingale - the only "good comic" according to Wertham; and the original Four Immigrants graphic novel).    

There are comics that are known to have been printed, but which were seized by the government back in the 40s and destroyed because they were printed in violation of paper publication restrictions.  I would not be surprised if some of those supposedly destroyed comics still exist in a government archive.  My recollection is that they may have been Rural Home publications (Blue Circle maybe?).  I have seen newspapers articles from back then on the incident.

Edited to add:  Read this:

 

 

Edited November 16, 2018 by sfcityduck

[thehumantorch]

Welcome to the boards Mark.  Not a dumb question at all.  I'd agree with the very smart posters above me, there's very likely GA books we've never seen. 

Especially if you include books published in countries outside the United States.  Consider this thread on Canadian books

 

[fett]

There are quite a few collectors that always look for comics that supposedly don't exist Keep looking. I personally think the best chances lie in the pre-code comics from the early to mid 1950s, since so many were thrown away in the great 50s witchhunt.  Publishers like Charlton and Stanley Morse kept very spotty records and I remember when I first started buying older comics that both Overstreet and the Grand Comics Database had alot of question marks regarding several of the series and what issues existed for each publisher, which really made me focus on them. IW Enterprises reprint books from the late 1950s and early 1960s is another good example. Just a few years ago I found a variant that was not listed in Overstreet or at GCD. I just happened across a different cover at Lone Star Comics, and noticed it didn't match the cover shown at GCD. (Little Eva #10) . I've been told a tale that collector/comics historian Michelle Nolan discovered a preciously unknown Fox romance comic back in the late 90s that was not known to exist, My Secret Life #27.  Here is a link to an old website that I used to reference back in the day that made me start looking for comics that don't exist.

 

http://www.bipcomics.com/showcase/whitespaces.php

Edited November 16, 2018 by fett

[Happy Noodle Boy]

Thanks for all the informative replies, guys! They really have my curiosity piqued. I'm gonna go do some research now...

[DanCooper]

I always felt the Overstreet guide should have had a section or page in it where they would update books added (outside of current books), deleted and maybe descriptions/designations revised from the previous year's guide. Maybe have a cutoff year (i.e pre-1970 or something along those lines)

It would be helpful to gauge newly "found" older books better and information.

Edited November 16, 2018 by DanCooper

[Electricmastro]

Given how rather poorly comic book companies documented their material or disappeared altogether with no real interesting in them until many years later, I suspect that there weren’t just published issues that no modern day person would know about unless they saw a photo of it or something, but also completed issues that weren’t published at all. For example, it’s unclear if Harvey published Strange Story #1 in 1946:

https://www.comics.org/issue/264784/