The ALL Schomburg all-the-time thread... 15 15

[LDarkseid1]

On 12/23/2023 at 9:35 PM, pmpknface said:

I wanna hit up your LCS! This is my favorite Subby cover! Congrats!

House of Secrets in Burbank, CA. They get stuff like this once in a while. Well one time they got a massive collection in.

[Darwination]

Somebody picked up a super colorful copy of this one as soon as it hit the bay this morning

[Robot Man]

Pennsylvania meet The Big Apple

[LadyDeath]

First purchase of 2024.

[pickycollector]

Totally unexpected find today 

[Point Five]

On 1/20/2024 at 7:02 PM, pickycollector said:

Totally unexpected find today 

Wow. Convention? Antique store? Do tell!

 

[KCOComics]

On 1/20/2024 at 7:02 PM, pickycollector said:

Totally unexpected find today 

Yes, I would love to hear this story! 

 

The colors look fantastic, congrats on the find! 

[Ameri]

Got this one the other day. He drew many covers for this magazine from 1941-1949 

[ft88]

[ft88]

[LadyDeath]

Recent ComicLink win.  

Classic shark attack cover. Wanted this for a long time.

[Tri-Color Brian]

 

[Point Five]

On 2/1/2024 at 9:06 PM, Tri-Color Brian said:

 

Wow!  

[Point Five]

And here's one from the Point Five archives. These early Schomburg covers are wonderful, and quite different in style from his classic mid-to-late-40s covers.
 

[Tri-Color Brian]

I recently re-scanned this book because I didn't know what I was doing the first time I scanned it.  I still had to put it in photoshop to get the colors accurate though...

 

[mwotka]

Question for all you Schomburg experts.  I have been looking at Brick Bradford 6, and I am wondering if it is really a Schomburg cover?  It does not appear signed, GCD does not attribute it to him (they attribute regular artist Clarence Gray), and the earliest CGC slabs don't list his name.  What evidence is there he did it, besides having a Schomburg-esque look to the art, which a lot of late 40s books had by that time.  And if he did, why not the other issues, which all have a similar look and style?  I own one and it is a great cover, but still think we should accurately represent what is out there.  Seems more like a wish it is Schomburg than reality.  Welcome anyone's thoughts.  Image attached is not my copy, did not have a pic handy.

[adamstrange]

On 2/10/2024 at 12:17 PM, mwotka said:

Question for all you Schomburg experts.  I have been looking at Brick Bradford 6, and I am wondering if it is really a Schomburg cover?  It does not appear signed, GCD does not attribute it to him (they attribute regular artist Clarence Gray), and the earliest CGC slabs don't list his name.  What evidence is there he did it, besides having a Schomburg-esque look to the art, which a lot of late 40s books had by that time.  And if he did, why not the other issues, which all have a similar look and style?  I own one and it is a great cover, but still think we should accurately represent what is out there.  Seems more like a wish it is Schomburg than reality.  Welcome anyone's thoughts.  Image attached is not my copy, did not have a pic handy.

Creator attribution, absent direct evidence like signed art or ledgers from the publisher, is more art than science.

Assigning a particular creator based on artistic similarity is a common method that originated in the fine art and antiquities world long before it was applied to comics.  It is not foolproof and reasonable people can disagree.

Let me address some of the questions I saw in your post.

1.  Why does GCD assign pencils to Gray?  They indicate that the art attribution is because it is "signed", which is not true.  Brick Bradford is a syndicated newspaper strip written by Ritt with art by Gray,and so they are given credit for that on the cover using machine lettering.  Their names may be on the cover as a courtesy or, more likely, as part of the licensing arrangement with the syndicate.

2.  Why did CGC not attribute to Schomburg in early days?  Thousands of comics were published without creator credits, and it has taken decades for dedicated fans to research, debate, and document their findings.  Disseminating those attributions to the wider community took longer as there is no formal authority that is the custodian for comic creator credits.  Jerry Bails Who's Who, Overstreet, GCD and others have all played a part and have been leveraged by CGC, but CGC has also utilized the Boards and members of the community as sources.

3.  Why is this attributed to Schomburg but other similar ones, of which there are many, aren't?  Schomburg's covers for Nedor/Standard were rarely signed during WWII, yet he was their primary cover artist for superheroes and Real Life comics.  After WWII, he mostly signed his airbrush covers but with a nom de plume, "Xela".  These WWII hero books and the airbrush covers were intensely sought after by the collector community and, unsurprisingly, they were first to be researched and attributed to Schomburg. 

The post WWII expansion by Standard into teen and syndicated strips was of much less interest and received much less attention from indexers/fan attributors.  Also, Alex was drawing established characters and tried to reasonably match their creator's style, making it harder to see which ones were his.  The upshot is that many stylistically similar Standard covers were drawn by Alex and eventually the attributions will be accepted by the wider comics community.

I have been confident going back to the 90s that Alex was the artist for the Brick Bradford cover, but I was hardly alone in that.  I seem to be pretty good at artist identification for reasons that I don't understand, but I think a google image search of Gray's art will easily show a significant discrepancy with the cover.  The figures of the guy and gal in Brick Bradford are very typical of Schomburg, as are their poses, and those are so strongly similar that I have no doubt it is by Schomburg.

Schomburg was interviewed by fans in the 70s and 80s, so it's possible that we have direct references by him to this cover or that his personal records include this piece, but I can't cite any particular source for that off the top of my head.

Edited February 10 by adamstrange

[adamstrange]

On 2/10/2024 at 12:17 PM, mwotka said:

Question for all you Schomburg experts.  I have been looking at Brick Bradford 6, and I am wondering if it is really a Schomburg cover?  It does not appear signed, GCD does not attribute it to him (they attribute regular artist Clarence Gray), and the earliest CGC slabs don't list his name.  What evidence is there he did it, besides having a Schomburg-esque look to the art, which a lot of late 40s books had by that time.  And if he did, why not the other issues, which all have a similar look and style?  I own one and it is a great cover, but still think we should accurately represent what is out there.  Seems more like a wish it is Schomburg than reality.  Welcome anyone's thoughts.  Image attached is not my copy, did not have a pic handy.

TL DR;  The cover is credited to Alex in the biography Chroma, which was written by Jon Gustafson with the participation of Alex.

[mwotka]

On 2/10/2024 at 1:50 PM, adamstrange said:

TL DR;  The cover is credited to Alex in the biography Chroma, which was written by Jon Gustafson with the participation of Alex.

This was better than your first answer, lol.  I never said it wasn't him, just wondered how it was established, and didn't see any prior comments on the subject on here.  It is obvious looking at the strip art that Gray was not the cover artist.  I didn't think to pull out my copy of Chroma but there it is.  Why not attribute the other Brick covers to Alex, it looks pretty obvious they are the same artist (at least 5 and 7).  I guess there is a little less certainty than the 6 due to it being in Chroma.   

[adamstrange]

On 2/10/2024 at 3:22 PM, mwotka said:

Why not attribute the other Brick covers to Alex, it looks pretty obvious they are the same artist (at least 5 and 7).  I guess there is a little less certainty than the 6 due to it being in Chroma.   

5,6,7 are all by Schomburg.  The 5 and 7 aren't attributed because no one cares enough about the covers or the books to make a big deal out of it.

You are free to petition Overstreet and CGC.  You can join GCD to enter your remarks.  Without that, it probably will be years before Alex is fully credited.