Anyone hear of Helicon Spring 1969 Robert Crumb 0

[whitenoise]

Hi Everyone,

I'm new to the comic collecting world via finding a box of old comics in the attic.  Everyone's information here has been really helpful so far but I found what I think might be a comic book  .  It was with the other comic books but is filled with drawings and poems and paragraphs.  It has the title Helicon Spring 69, illustrated by Robert Crumb on the front and back. There was a folded poster of drawings inside. I posted pictures of it below.  I can only find a few references of it anywhere, such as some auction sites.  Does anyone know what this is? Is this even considered a comic book?

[comicwiz]

Can you post more photos of the other pages with poetry/pics? Be careful when handling/photographing it as it is a rare and quite valuable book. Should be 6" x 9" 112-pager, and yours appears to have the poster which is a plus. 

Edited September 13, 2019 by comicwiz

[Dick Pontoon]

Wowser.

[whitenoise]

I honestly thought it was garbage at first, some of the poems and stories don't make any sense, to me at least.  You guys got me nervous, I took a few more pictures trying to be careful

 

[comicwiz]

Thanks! So to answer your questions, it is a book called Helicon V6 #3 published by Long Island University in 1969 that collects poetry. Yours appears to be in fine to very fine condition, although I'm just going by the pics you shared - to give a more accurate grade I would have to see the book in person. I'm assuming no pages are loose, with the exception of the poster, which as I've mentioned is a plus to have with this book. Whether it's a comic book, I think you already know the answer to that question. In the few listings where I've seen these, it's been marketed as a book that Jay Kennedy missed in his Underground Comix Price Guide from 1982, however the truth is it wasn't missed, Jay simply didn't see it as a comic. It first became known when a Robert Crumb Checklist was published in 1981 by Don Fiene, and is regarded more as a Crumb-related book. For instance, I own a Charles Bukowski publication that is adorned by Crumb's art, I don't regard that as a comic, but I think it's pretty darn neat as I happen to like some of Bukowski's work, particularly his poetry, and I collect Crumb's comic work.

Incidentally, one of the people responsible for publishing Crumb's first comic work was a beat poet, Charles Plymell. Charles Plymell operated the WWI-era Multilith hand-cranked printing press that printed Zap Comix #1, and in a conversation with Don Donahue many years ago (well before his passing, and considered the Granddaddy of Underground Comix) he didn't see why Charles was so interested in claiming a stake in the printing of that comic since he was a well-known poet in his own right. Personally, I think it's cool, and he played an important part in paving the way of the counter-culture era, so I can't blame anyone being hyped about their involvement. And Charles was remaining steadfast in recounting his involvement mostly to ensure people weren't counterfeiting copies since he was there and knew what to look for to establish an authentic copy (which frankly, I never saw any proof of any counterfeiting having happened), since first printings had skyrocketed in value. I recount this to show that even amongst the handful of early creators and pavers of the Underground comix movement, there's debate about who did what, and their place or importance, so imagine trying to figure out what each one thought about the importance of the book or artwork they worked on which eventually got published.

In a roundabout way, I say this to show that while this isn't a comic per se, a Crumb collector might still consider it an important book to have in order to round out their Crumb collection. On the flipside, as a Crumb collector myself, I gravitate to his comic and comic art, and would consider adding this to my collection if the price was right. I was the underbidder on that 2011 listing, and didn't want to pay more than $150 for it,and probably still wouldn't pay much more than that since I don't collect poetry, I collect his art. As a footnote, that copy missing the poster was also a factor in not wanting to step-up and pay as much as it went for. All said, this is a rare publication, and while I am unsure how many were printed, it is not believed to have been distributed outside of New York.  In the condition it appears to be in from the photos, and because it has the poster, I would estimate between $600-$800, and if two collectors wanted it badly, certainly it wouldn't be out of the question for it to go over $1K at a well-publicized auction. Below are screenshots of past sales - I regard the Heritage listing as an outlier, frankly there is no way on earth we will see a repeatable sale of this book anywhere near that stratosphere. For context, it was marketed by Heritage as coming from the Eric Sack collection, and a lot of odd-format and non-comix related stuff from that collection went for crazy money at that time. Haven't seen anything sell anywhere close to the way that auction moved the needle on Underground Comix since. Hope that helps, and congrats on finding the book!

[whitenoise]

Thank you for that history, your knowledge is truly amazing.  It's interesting how people and politics play a role in every aspect of history.  The sheer lack on information on the book in general was what piqued my curiosity.  I even tried to look up the authors of the short stories and poems inside and there is almost no information on any of them.  I can't say I'm particularly interested in selling it.  I'm probably going to print this page out with your description and hopefully one day pass it on to my children as a piece of history.

As a side note, if your interested where this came from.  After thinking about it, I'm fairly certain a got this and a few other comics about 15 years ago.  My friend had bought a warehouse in NYC where he was planning on opening a business.  The warehouse he purchased was full of comic books and as part of the agreement he was responsible for removing them.  The day he was taking them out, he invited me and a few friends down there to see if there was anything of interest we wanted.  I couldn't make it that day (I know, priorities ) and he grabbed a shoe box full of comics for me anyway.  I'm fairly certain this was in that box and got combined with the others from my uncle who had passed away. 

I've identified everything else in the box, this was probably the most interesting find (I know I'll have to replace the polypropylene bags in 2 years, should have bought the mylar bags!):