Obadiah Oldbuck vs. Superman

[Scrooge]

These are among the many Plat books i have posted to the REVEL IN HISTORY - POST YOUR PLAT BOOKS HERE! thread. Why is it you think some do not consider even these to be "comic books"? The concept "why not" continues to elude and baffle me

 

Bob,

 

a lot has been posted in this thread and I must confess not having had the time to read all the posted comments so I am not in the best position to formulate an informed and coherent reply to your query (but considering other elements posting in this thread, I shouldn't feel too bad about it).

 

I am also torn about how to classify some of the books you've posted above. I do believe the reticence to your research's finding from a large cohort of the collecting community stems from the paradigm shift you're forcing us to consider. Please, remember that most of us grew up in a time where a comic book (as thought about here in the US) was a well defined entity. After all, for anyone to truly remember consciously a time before comic book existed should have been born let's say 15 years prior to Famous Funnies or about 1918 which puts that group close to their 90s! Compare that to the average age of the GA collector on these boards: give or take a few years, it's mid-30's. By the time we came around, a comic book has always been a 12 ¢ monthly magazine distributed to newsstands with original content.

 

Here are some of the easy obstacles to surmount. The newsstands distribution system is simply a reflection of how the industry piggy-backed the already established institutional inner-working of the early comic book publishers who already had other products piped through their distributors.

 

Some of the many already well established "comic-book" are mere reprints of syndicated material and as such the original content requirement is waived.

 

The main contention then falls into where to draw the line and differentiate between an illustrated story and a comic book. Ah, are the fates unsmiling on us! Yes, we are saddled with an unfortunate name to the object of our collecting madness: comic book. I think we should focus our next line of enquiry as to who decided or how it was decided we'd call those comic books. I feel that resistance would be lessened were we to use another term. Entrenchment stems from a sad mis-labeling.

 

I hadn't given much sense to what were the earliest comic books until I went to a Honoré Daumier exhibit where it hit me that his work, in particular for Le Charivari, was definitely a precursor to the comic book as we understand it. However, I believe that it’s in his intent that I have to disqualify his work as true comic book work. Daumier’s intent was satire and expressed that through his work. The episodic nature of some of his caricature was not built as a consistent cohesive narrative as I define comic to be. I have not read OO and cannot attest of his intent and episodic nature. I did check out upon your recommendation the huge volume by (help me out here Bob) with countless illustrated example of early European comic work. I didn’t dare check it out of the library for fear of toppling down the stairs, but in time I certainly will give it a thorough look through.

[esquirecomics]

Good comments Scrooge.

[BLBcomics-migration]

 

THE HISTORY OF THE COMIC STRIP The Nineteenth Century By David Kunzle PhD 1990 University of Calif Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles

 

- front cover traces the origins of the comic strip in books and other venues beginning in "1827, the year Rodolphe Töpffer drafted his first comic strip/picture story, to the start of a new epoch in 1896, when the first continuing comic characters were created in an American newspaper (YK) and in a British children's weekly, "according to Kunzle's Introduction.

 

 

back cover to THE HISTORY OF THE COMIC STRIP The Nineteenth century is an advert for Kunzle's Volume One covering 1450 to 1825, shortly after Gutenberg invented moveable type for books to right before Töpffer's innovations

 

I cannot stress enough that any serious scholar of the origins of the comics needs both of these for your library. Both of these are long out of print. Lionel English of the GCD works in the UC system in San Diego and got permission to do high quality xeroxes of each available for $39 each plus shipping.

 

My Vol One is one of these as i never found an original yet as it was published in 1971 thereabouts.

 

I will find out the current ordering info and post it here soon

[BLBcomics-migration]

Thanks for the commentary, Scrooge and Aman, it has got me to thinking - and i will throw out that any one can respond.

 

So, the upshot of calling what i posted "comic books" stems from that is what 'we" call the comics magazine folded over wraparound stapled floppy pamphlets

 

- and the origin of when that name transfer occurred is lost in the mists of time - so far.

 

I think we call them ALL (including Signet MAD comics paperback reprints) comic books, and create sub-sets underneath that.

 

for starters, we could call the "modern" format comic books by their rightful name used by the people who created, published and distributed them back in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s: comics magazines

 

As late as the mid-1950s, they were called comics magazines

 

Or their other name was "funny books"

 

is that were it comes from:

 

comics magazines + funny books = comic books

 

Witness the CMAA, otherwise known as Comics Magazine Association of America aka The Comics Code, established in late 1954

 

It ain't called CBAA

[Timulty]

Exactly, technically there is no "Book" to a comic book. It is comic magazine. But I am still of the opinion that the periodical nature is a hallmark of it. A one-shot doesn't really represent what a comic "Book" is.

[Aman619]

Thanks for the commentary, Scrooge and Aman, it has got me to thinking - and i will throw out that any one can respond.

 

So, the upshot of calling what i posted "comic books" stems from that is what 'we" call the comics magazine folded over wraparound stapled floppy pamphlets

 

- and the origin of when that name transfer occurred is lost in the mists of time - so far.

 

I think we call them ALL (including Signet MAD comics paperback reprints) comic books, and create sub-sets underneath that.

 

for starters, we could call the "modern" format comic books by their rightful name used by the people who created, published and distributed them back in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s: comics magazines

 

As late as the mid-1950s, they were called comics magazines

 

Or their other name was "funny books"

 

is that were it comes from:

 

comics magazines + funny books = comic books

 

Witness the CMAA, otherwise known as Comics Magazine Association of America aka The Comics Code, established in late 1954

 

It ain't called CBAA

 

pretty interesting distinction: the publishers of what we always call comic books didnt even call them that!

 

So if "comic books" is a "contraction" of 'comics magazines' and 'funny books' and was coined in the 50s about the current products (pamphlets we have all called comics all OUR lives), it could be inferred that the term 'comic books' was NEVER intended to include or describe all the earlier hardcover and softcover collections of comic strips. In my mind this fully explains the trouble we have in incliding OO and the rest under the "comic book" umbrella.

 

They are clearly related... and are on the same timeline of "words and picture stories" as opposed to text-only works. Just call them something else and there's no problem! tadaaa!

[ShoNuff-migration]

 

Based on all the information, evidence and opinion presented so far in here, there is only one thing that can be said with absolute certainty...Obadiah Oldbuck is most definitely not a comic book.

 

[esquirecomics]

Based on all the information, evidence and opinion presented so far in here, there is only one thing that can be said with absolute certainty...Obadiah Oldbuck is most definitely not a comic book.

 

[Shield]

Based on all the information, evidence and opinion presented so far in here, there is only one thing that can be said with absolute certainty...Obadiah Oldbuck is most definitely not a comic book.

 

[ShoNuff-migration]

 

Revisionist history puts me to sleep as well.

 

It's sad how the truth and "doing what's right" often take a back seat when greed takes over in the pursuit of the next big payoff.

 

[ShoNuff-migration]

Based on all the information, evidence and opinion presented so far in here, there is only one thing that can be said with absolute certainty...Obadiah Oldbuck is most definitely not a comic book.

 

 

[esquirecomics]

 

Revisionist history puts me to sleep as well.

 

It's sad how the truth and "doing what's right" often take a back seat when greed takes over in the pursuit of the next big payoff.

 

Yea, that really applies to me. You got me. I'm on Steve and Bob's payroll.

[FFB]

Ignore the shill and maybe he'll go away.

[showcase4]

It's sad how the truth and "doing what's right" often take a back seat when greed takes over in the pursuit of the next big payoff.

 

Yea, that really applies to me. You got me. I'm on Steve and Bob's payroll.

 

Hey Mark,

Bob and I would like to see you in our office Tuesday morning. We may be making some staffing changes, as business has been a little slow the 3rd quarter.

[ShoNuff-migration]

 

Revisionist history puts me to sleep as well.

 

It's sad how the truth and "doing what's right" often take a back seat when greed takes over in the pursuit of the next big payoff.

 

Yea, that really applies to me. You got me. I'm on Steve and Bob's payroll.

Who said it applies to you? You were obviously indicating that Bob's attempts to revise history by calling Obadiah Oldbuck a comic in order to make some big bucks was putting you to sleep. And I was just saying it does the same thing to me.

[ShoNuff-migration]

Ignore the shill and maybe he'll go away.

I don't think esquirecomics is a shill. A bit misguided perhaps, but also an Overstreet advisor and a valuable member of the comic collecting community.

[showcase4]

Bob's attempts to revise history by calling Obadiah Oldbuck a comic in order to make some big bucks

 

[esquirecomics]

 

Revisionist history puts me to sleep as well.

 

It's sad how the truth and "doing what's right" often take a back seat when greed takes over in the pursuit of the next big payoff.

 

Yea, that really applies to me. You got me. I'm on Steve and Bob's payroll.

Who said it applies to you? You were obviously indicating that Bob's attempts to revise history by calling Obadiah Oldbuck a comic in order to make some big bucks was putting you to sleep. And I was just saying it does the same thing to me.

 

That's not what I was saying at all.

 

I was saying I (and I bet I can speak for quite a number of people on this one) was of seeing you post the same conclusionary statement over and over again for the mere sake of saying it. At least add to the academic debate by substantively challenging any new points that were recently posted. Otherwise

[esquirecomics]

It's sad how the truth and "doing what's right" often take a back seat when greed takes over in the pursuit of the next big payoff.

 

Yea, that really applies to me. You got me. I'm on Steve and Bob's payroll.

 

Hey Mark,

Bob and I would like to see you in our office Tuesday morning. We may be making some staffing changes, as business has been a little slow the 3rd quarter.

 

No problem. But don't forget the retainer check this time!

[ShoNuff-migration]

 

Revisionist history puts me to sleep as well.

 

It's sad how the truth and "doing what's right" often take a back seat when greed takes over in the pursuit of the next big payoff.

 

Yea, that really applies to me. You got me. I'm on Steve and Bob's payroll.

Who said it applies to you? You were obviously indicating that Bob's attempts to revise history by calling Obadiah Oldbuck a comic in order to make some big bucks was putting you to sleep. And I was just saying it does the same thing to me.

 

That's not what I was saying at all.

 

I was saying I (and I bet I can speak for quite a number of people on this one) was of seeing you post the same conclusionary statement over and over again for the mere sake of saying it.

 

So...then you endorse Bob's attempts to revise history by calling Obadiah Oldbuck a comic in order to make some big bucks? I must say, this has caused me to reconsider my last post regarding your standing in the comic collecting community.

 

 

At least add to the academic debate by substantively challenging any new points that were recently posted. Otherwise

 

Thanks for the advice, Dad. I'll take it under consideration (for cripes sake...would somebody please turn the lights on in here so we can at least have some fun watching the lawyers scatter?)

 

P.S. Obadiah Oldbuck is definitely not a comic book.