Heritage's Next Event Auction has started posting books ! 31 31

[LDarkseid1]

On 7/22/2024 at 6:07 AM, tth2 said:

Did they?  I don't remember magazines with serial stories in the 1960s or 1970s.  My impression is that they just got replaced by paperbacks and TV.

I'm not 100% sure to be honest, just found this site and it seemed to say that. https://www.pulpmags.org/contexts/essays/golden-age-of-pulps.html

[tth2]

On 7/22/2024 at 9:37 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

I have to profess ignorance here. How many of the stories in pulps were of the serial variety (as opposed stand-alone short stories)? I know that Buck Rogers and The Shadow, for instance, were recurring characters, but I don't know the extent to which the storylines continued from one issue to the next.

Good question.  I'm certainly far from an expert.  I primarily know pulps from Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard.  The former wrote book-length stories that were first serialized in pulps before being compiled in a book.  The latter wrote short stories that stood alone.

Thinking about it further, I've read a bunch of SF pulp standalone short stories that were compiled by Isaac Asimov, so maybe the predominant format was standalone short stories.  Having said that, the original Foundation trilogy by Asimov were initially published as 8 short stories and novellas in Astounding between May 1942 and January 1950.  So apparently the "short stories" in a pulp could be pretty long!   

[Darwination]

Serials were far more common in the early pulps than later ones, a tradition carried from their weekly newspaper forbears.  There were lots of serials in mags like The Popular Magazine or All-Story and Argosy.  Pulp collectors traditionally have enjoyed chasing down all the parts of a serial for an ERB story and whatnot, but it can be a daunting task.  Later pulps have far fewer serials.  The immediate successor to the pulps in the late 40s and into the 50s are most often considered the digest magazines.  The SF digests reprinted many of the stories from earlier pulps as well as stories from new authors and were often the first place that still-living collectors encountered these stories (not to mention they were a cheap way to find stories and novels that hadn't been reprinted yet).  Crime digests like Manhunt kept alive the detective/hardboiled tradition, and western and romance pulps were the varieties that lasted the longest in the original pulp format. 

Really, like TTH alludes to, a lot of the fiction that was in the pulps moved to the paperbacks.  Available at the newsstand, fun covers, and they fit in your pocket for a quarter - some publishers caught on very quick that this is where the fiction market was headed and went all-in.

While I don't think you'd ascribe an "age" to certain pulps, most pulp collectors view pulps from the 20s and 30s as far more scarce and valuable than pulps from the 40s and early 50s.  Some of the oddball, short run, low circulation pulps from the 20s or early 30s are next to impossible to lay hands on in *any* condition.

I've seen a many, many copies of this first Buck Rogers but never one that looked like this.  It's going to be a good marker for condition scarcity (and hopefully more of these come out of the woodwork, not that I'll be able to afford them).

Here's an article on the evolution of pulp (and a bit of discussion on what is and what isn't pulp, always a dicey subject) I wrote for pulpmags.org, the site that Darkseid linked up there:

https://www.pulpmags.org/contexts/essays/what-is-pulp-anyway.html

 

Edited July 22 by Darwination

[WolverineX]

On 7/22/2024 at 6:32 PM, Darwination said:

Serials were far more common in the early pulps than later ones, a tradition carried from their weekly newspaper forbears.  There were lots of serials in mags like The Popular Magazine or All-Story and Argosy.  Pulp collectors traditionally have enjoyed chasing down all the parts of a serial for an ERB story and whatnot, but it can be a daunting task.  Later pulps have far fewer serials.  The immediate successor to the pulps in the late 40s and into the 50s are most often considered the digest magazines.  The SF digests reprinted many of the stories from earlier pulps as well as stories from new authors and were often the first place that still-living collectors encountered these stories (not to mention they were a cheap way to find stories and novels that hadn't been reprinted yet).  Crime digests like Manhunt kept alive the detective/hardboiled tradition, and western and romance pulps were the varieties that lasted the longest in the original pulp format. 

Really, like TTH alludes to, a lot of the fiction that was in the pulps moved to the paperbacks.  Available at the newsstand, fun covers, and they fit in your pocket for a quarter - some publishers caught on very quick that this is where the fiction market was headed and went all-in.

While I don't think you'd ascribe an "age" to certain pulps, most pulp collectors view pulps from the 20s and 30s as far more scarce and valuable than pulps from the 40s and early 50s.  Some of the oddball, short run, low circulation pulps from the 20s or early 30s are next to impossible to lay hands on in *any* condition.

I've seen a many, many copies of this first Buck Rogers but never one that looked like this.  It's going to be a good marker for condition scarcity (and hopefully more of these come out of the woodwork, not that I'll be able to afford them).

Here's an article on the evolution of pulp (and a bit of discussion on what is and what isn't pulp, always a dicey subject) I wrote for pulpmags.org, the site that Darkseid linked up there:

https://www.pulpmags.org/contexts/essays/what-is-pulp-anyway.html

 

which pulp is your avatar from?  dang

[Darwination]

It's a paperback.  High literature   The artist is Paul Rader.

[jimbo_7071]

On 7/22/2024 at 3:15 PM, adamstrange said:

Shadow stories were one and done, with some villains returning for another round.  Buck Rogers was a syndicated newspaper strip with stories that stretched across weeks.

I'm familiar with the strip, but was his first appearance in this pulp in a strip reprint, or were there also text stories?

@Darwination, feel free to answer. The question is for anyone who knows the answer.

Edited July 23 by jimbo_7071

[PopKulture]

On 7/22/2024 at 9:07 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

I'm familiar with the strip, but was his first appearance in this pulp in a strip reprint, or were there also text stories?

@Darwination, feel free to answer. The question is for anyone who knows the answer.

The basic mythology was fleshed out in the Amazing Stories ish pictured previously, but the character as we all know him came alive in the comic strips - first a daily strip and later a Sunday page - about a year after the Armageddon 2419 AD story. 

Edited July 23 by PopKulture

[PopKulture]

Here are a few examples of Buck Rogers Sunday pages from 1931. You can see the obvious shift in the strip from doom and gloom to sci-fi and adventure.

 

[PopKulture]

Here’s another Buck page from 1933 with the facing page featuring a Foster Tarzan (and a nice Tailspin Tommy on the reverse).

 

[jimbo_7071]

On 7/24/2024 at 1:14 PM, PopKulture said:

Here’s another Buck page from 1933 with the facing page featuring a Foster Tarzan (and a nice Tailspin Tommy on the reverse).

 

That one's gorgeous. Do you know whether the original art exists for many of these? (I'm asking out of curiosity only because I wouldn't have the budget.)

[PopKulture]

On 7/24/2024 at 2:22 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

That one's gorgeous. Do you know whether the original art exists for many of these? (I'm asking out of curiosity only because I wouldn't have the budget.)

Anecdotally, I’ve seen a lot more Tarzan originals than early Buck Rogers. I’m sure a search of the old Cochran art catalogs or the Heritage archives would shed more light on the survival rate. Myself, I was priced out of the art market when I was younger and even more so now that I’m older! 

[PopKulture]

On 7/24/2024 at 2:22 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

That one's gorgeous. Do you know whether the original art exists for many of these? (I'm asking out of curiosity only because I wouldn't have the budget.)

Those pages are from the Des Moines Register which featured Buck Rogers pages opposite Tarzan frequently from about 1933 to 35, when Tarzan was abruptly ended and Flash Gordon started (albeit, not with the inaugural strip). The color saturation of those mid-30s sections is really strong, as are a few others like the Denver Post and the Detroit News. The earlier examples I posted are also from Des Moines Register sections, but they weren’t as vibrant before 1932 or so (but still wonderful to behold in their original form!). 

Edited July 24 by PopKulture

[Darwination]

On 7/24/2024 at 12:14 PM, PopKulture said:

Here’s another Buck page from 1933 with the facing page featuring a Foster Tarzan (and a nice Tailspin Tommy on the reverse).

 

 

Very cool, PK!  What a treat it must have been to open up the Sunday comics section and see these great comics. 

I've never really hunted strips, but they're amazingly cool.  I got my hands on a full comics section just this week from The Columbus Sunday Star.  The comics section wrapped a crazy tabloid style paper usually with nudes on the back page.  I can imagine that strips would be fun to collect but probably oh so difficult.  I gather most of the time they get sold as individual pages?  The right Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon or Little Nemo in Slumberland would look amazing framed on the wall. Here's a pic of the Flash Gordon:

[tth2]

On 7/25/2024 at 4:20 AM, PopKulture said:

On 7/25/2024 at 3:22 AM, jimbo_7071 said:

That one's gorgeous. Do you know whether the original art exists for many of these? (I'm asking out of curiosity only because I wouldn't have the budget.)

Anecdotally, I’ve seen a lot more Tarzan originals than early Buck Rogers. I’m sure a search of the old Cochran art catalogs or the Heritage archives would shed more light on the survival rate. Myself, I was priced out of the art market when I was younger and even more so now that I’m older! 

Correct, Foster Tarzan (and Prince Valiant) OA comes up relatively often, usually at least one per Heritage Signature Auction.  Buck Rogers OA comes up much less often, and usually from later dates.  I've only seen a few from the early 1930s and never one from 1929, the first year of the strip.  

[PopKulture]

On 7/24/2024 at 5:24 PM, Darwination said:

I can imagine that strips would be fun to collect but probably oh so difficult.  I gather most of the time they get sold as individual pages?  The right Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon or Little Nemo in Slumberland would look amazing framed on the wall.

A lot of dealers indeed have individual pages for sale, but since packing and shipping such a large and delicate artifact is half the battle, I believe most collectors search out lots, often ten to twenty pages. Sometimes they’re consecutive pages, while other times they’re a collection of more random dates. For the serialized strips like Flash, Prince Valiant, (Richard) Tracy, etc. where continuity might matter more, I have seen dealers offer complete years (or half-years). Myself, I just like to have a few examples of each of the seminal strips as well as the obscure ones. I know almost all the key strips from Nemo to Terry have been reprinted, but as you allude, there’s just something very tactile and satisfying about thumbing through and experiencing the originals. 

Edited July 25 by PopKulture

[Telegan]

On 7/19/2024 at 12:36 PM, newshane said:

My apologies if this has been discussed elsewhere, but have you seen what's coming in September? 

I nearly exploded with wonder at the fact it even exists! 

I'd sell the farm for it, but I'm not sure it would be enough! 

What's the story behind this timeless artifact? 

 

 

I just noticed a 6.0 coming up for sale in a ComicLink auction next month.  But with a normal arm.

[jimbo_7071]

On 7/25/2024 at 5:10 PM, PopKulture said:

A lot of dealers indeed have individual pages for sale, but since packing and shipping such a large and delicate artifact is half the battle, I believe most collectors search out lots, often ten to twenty pages. Sometimes they’re consecutive pages, while other times they’re a collection of more random dates. For the serialized strips like Flash, Prince Valiant, (Richard) Tracy, etc. where continuity might matter more, I have seen dealers offer complete years (or half-years). Myself, I just like to have a few examples of each of the seminal strips as well as the obscure ones. I know almost all the key strips from Nemo to Terry have been reprinted, but as you allude, there’s just something very tactile and satisfying about thumbing through and experiencing the originals. 

Did these serialized strips continue from Sunday edition to Sunday edition, or were there B&W strips in the daily newspapers that continued the stories? I ask because when I was a kid, in the 80s, I seem to recall that there were strips that you had to read every day to follow the story. Dick Tracy might have been one of them; that strip was still running. (It still carried Chester Gould's name, but I'm sure someone else was doing it.)

[PopKulture]

On 7/26/2024 at 6:13 AM, jimbo_7071 said:

Did these serialized strips continue from Sunday edition to Sunday edition, or were there B&W strips in the daily newspapers that continued the stories? I ask because when I was a kid, in the 80s, I seem to recall that there were strips that you had to read every day to follow the story. Dick Tracy might have been one of them; that strip was still running. (It still carried Chester Gould's name, but I'm sure someone else was doing it.)

Because they lack the color 'pop' of the Sundays, I've dabbled very little with dailies. A few strips continued the storylines in indispensable daily strips while most were like crossover events in comics, in that you can read an Avengers or ASM annual and get the gist versus buying every crossover series book. Some strips that had both dailies and Sundays ran completely different storylines altogether. Some of the classics featured only a Sunday page (like Prince Valiant and Flash Gordon) and fewer still had a daily version but no Sunday page (Rip Kirby - alas, Raymond fans).

If you read Tracy in the 80's (like me), most likely it was Dick Locher art (or the tail end of Rick Fletcher's run). While not to the level of Spider-man or Batman, still, what a rogue's gallery!  

[jimbo_7071]

On 7/27/2024 at 2:27 AM, PopKulture said:

Because they lack the color 'pop' of the Sundays, I've dabbled very little with dailies. A few strips continued the storylines in indispensable daily strips while most were like crossover events in comics, in that you can read an Avengers or ASM annual and get the gist versus buying every crossover series book. Some strips that had both dailies and Sundays ran completely different storylines altogether. Some of the classics featured only a Sunday page (like Prince Valiant and Flash Gordon) and fewer still had a daily version but no Sunday page (Rip Kirby - alas, Raymond fans).

If you read Tracy in the 80's (like me), most likely it was Dick Locher art (or the tail end of Rick Fletcher's run). While not to the level of Spider-man or Batman, still, what a rogue's gallery!  

Thanks. That's very good info. Some of the strips I'd like to read some day in their entirety are Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, and Frank Godwin's Connie.

[tth2]

On 7/27/2024 at 2:27 PM, PopKulture said:

A few strips continued the storylines in indispensable daily strips while most were like crossover events in comics, in that you can read an Avengers or ASM annual and get the gist versus buying every crossover series book. Some strips that had both dailies and Sundays ran completely different storylines altogether. Some of the classics featured only a Sunday page (like Prince Valiant and Flash Gordon) and fewer still had a daily version but no Sunday page (Rip Kirby - alas, Raymond fans).

For a period in the mid-1930s, Alex Raymond was doing a daily strip (Secret Agent X-9) with no Sunday and a Sunday strip (Flash Gordon) with no daily.

The mid- to late-1930s were truly the Golden Age of comic strips.  Imagine opening the paper and being able to read Secret Agent X-9 and Flash Gordon by Alex Raymond, Tarzan first by Hal Foster and then by Burne Hogarth, Prince Valiant by Foster from 1937 onwards, Terry & the Pirates, Buck Rogers, Li'l Abner, Blondie (when it was good), D.i.c.k. Tracy, Little Orphan Annie (when it was good), Gasoline Alley, The Phantom, etc. etc.