Obadiah Oldbuck vs. Superman

[FFB]

Let's take a step back for a minute and look at what we've been arguing about.

 

We're trying to define a very abstract entity with very discrete terms. We're actually trying to say that the presence or absence of word balloons or staples can or cannot define what a comic book is or isn't. This is STUPID.

 

In medicine and law there are often definitions like this that - although impossible to create - are nevertheless laid out for the sake of a trial or study. I'm sure some of our lawyers could pull out many examples, but I'll throw out sepsis. Sepsis is an overwhelming inflammatory response to an infection that has neither a start or end of where it is defined. However, if you want to do a clinical trial of a therapy, you have to try to define it for inclusion or exclusion in the study. In the real world when you're dealing with sepsis; you know it when you see it. In fact, there's a saying that we all hear, "Sepsis is like pornography. I can't define it, but I know it when I see it."

 

We all snicker and laugh about how unreasonable it is to try to define something that exists on a continuum rather than having clear cutoffs to a definition.

 

Yet here we are, trying to say that something is or isn't a comic book based on the presence or absence of word balloons and staples. That is absolutely moronic.

 

Bob Beerbohm, for all his labors, is failing to see the line between this "academic" comic book (which is really only a worthwhile definition when you're trying to use it for something unrelated to comics as an item) and the "real world" comic book that kids buy.

 

What this all boils down to is that when it comes to comics, you can't define one, but you know it when you see it.

 

If you showed OO to any 12 year old, they wouldn't call it a comic book - and that's an infinitely more valid definition than any we've managed to come up with.

 

You raise a good point. I'm going to order that Italian reprint of OO and show it to a bunch of convention-goers at the next Con that I attend. I'll keep track of their responses and see whether mainstream collectors consider it to be "a comic book" or "something else, but definitely not a comic book."

[Earl Davis]

I also think that the fact that there is no Mile High Comics centerfold ad to show kids what their comics are "worth" has a negative impact on getting casual readers to become collectors. I know the Mile High Comics ads had a big impact on me and my friends when I was in elementary school. That and the 16 page "Marvel Guide to Collecting Comics" insert in ASM#234 were the main things that made me realize that there was more to comics than just reading them and shoving them in a drawer.

 

Now that brings back some memories. I had forgotten that I tried to value my small collection from those Mile High ads when I was a kid.

 

Earl.

 

I bet you thought you had a million dollar collection on your hands.

 

I still do. I now value them using Wizard

[Earl Davis]

How’s this type of definition for trying to be both inclusive and exclusive at the same time, where ‘Comics’ are the main classification and Comic Book is one of it’s sub classifications.

 

I collect comics. The types of comics I collect include

 

Comic Magazines (i.e. SSOC)

Comic Books (i.e. ASM)

Comic Albums (i.e. Tintin)

Comic Digests (i.e. Archie Digests)

Comic Treasuries (i.e. Superman vs. Spider-man)

Newspaper Comics (i.e. New York Sunday Comic Supplement)

Hardcover Comics (i.e. Absolute Watchmen)

Soft cover Comics (i.e. Y The Last Man TPB’s)

Strip Book Comics (I.e. Andy Capp)

Collected Editions Comics (i.e. Peanuts Collections)

Picture Strip Comics (I.e. Obadiah Oldbuck, Prince Valiant)

Silent Comics (i.e. that ruddy G.I Joe issue)

 

Types of Comics I don’t collect

 

Single Panel comic art (Cartoons)

Photo Comics

Sequential Comics with only 1 ‘panel’ per page.

 

Earl.

[comicdonna]

Personally, I think there needs to be an accepted definition of what is a "comic book"

 

Well this leads to ... how could this happen, or what it would it take for this to happen?

 

Based on all of the varying view points and opinions brought up on this post alone, what event or article or situation could trigger EVERYONE universally getting on the same page within the industry, so that 5 or 10 years from now as an example, when this issue comes up again, each of us would say "that was already resolved back in 2007"....

Why don't you take a poll.

Is OO a Comic Book?

Is OO the first comic book?

Is OO a comic Strip?

[selegue]

How’s this type of definition for trying to be both inclusive and exclusive at the same time, where ‘Comics’ are the main classification and Comic Book is one of it’s sub classifications.

 

I collect comics. The types of comics I collect include

 

Comic Magazines (i.e. SSOC)

Comic Books (i.e. ASM)

...

Hardcover Comics (i.e. Absolute Watchmen)

...

 

Types of Comics I don’t collect

 

Single Panel comic art (Cartoons)

...

Sequential Comics with only 1 ‘panel’ per page.

 

Thought-provoking post, Earl.

 

A borderline case for your classifications and "what you don't collect" is perhaps

 

Maximum Fantastic Four

 

How does it fit in your system? Does the transformation from multi-panel to single-panel format make it "not comics" or something you're not interested in?

(To tell the truth, it doesn't seem very interesting to me. If you're going to lavish that much attention on a comic book, make it one with more polished artwork!)

 

Jack

[Theagenes]

But, I am forced to agree with you that there needs to be a definition of what is truly a comic book.

 

Does there really "need" to be?

 

Besides the impact it may have on Showcase from an investment standpoint as to owning the first American "comic book", I am not clear on what impact the definition has other than from an academic historical aspect, which I enjoy discussing and reading about very much.

 

I don't think it will ever be possible to get all fans and collectors to agree on definitions, nor is it really necessary. I do, however, think it's important for scholars and historians to agree on a consistent terminology for reasons of clarity. It can artificial, anachronistic, whatever -- as long as it's consistent. I do think that there needs to be aome all-encompassing umbrella term for comicstrips in printed form. "Comic book" is somewhat problematic as we've seen so maybe Earl's suggestion of "Comics" would be preferable. But, I agree that it is only really necessary for academic reasons.

[BLBcomics-migration]

 

Here is the first advert for Obadiah Oldbuck which ran in Brother Jonathan Sept 17 1842 on page 90, first known advert offering The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck for sale. Priced at one shilling each (which was 12.5 cents USA) or ten for a dollar, as one can ascertain from reading the words. The first OO is dated Sept 14, 1842

 

 

Here is the same comic book being offered up for sale in a Brother Jonathan catalog circa 1853 I own at 25 cents per copy

 

- this catalog has 7 comic books for sale in it along with all kinds of other printed material

 

- There is another comic book offered for sale on this same page - at 12.5 cents per copy

 

The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck is America's first stand alone comic book -

[BLBcomics-migration]

in the first advert, note it says OO is a "graphic narration"

 

they says these "comic books" from back then are Stories Told In Pictures

 

I am using modern day terminology to "nomenclate" earlier versions of the same thing as in modern days

[BLBcomics-migration]

Text of the first page or so from the Victorian Comics Era history lesson in Overstreet #36 2006

 

This Victorian Era section is devoted to comic strips and books published during the years the United States expanded across the North American continent, fought a Civil War, shifted from an agrarian to an industrial society, "welcomed" waves of immigrants, and struggled over race, class, religion, temperance, and suffrage - and all of it depicted and satirized by generations of mostly now long-forgotten cartoonists. The social attitudes, beliefs, and conventions of 19th century America, the good as well as the bad, are to be found in abundance. Perhaps the first question to pop into most readers' minds will be, "What, beyond the happenstance of publication date, are Victorian Era comics?"

 

There has been a long slow-motion evolution of the comic strip. The aspect that we believe most distinguishes Victorian Era comic strips from those of later eras was the extremely rare use of word balloons within sequential (multi-picture) comic stories. When word balloons were used, it was nearly always within single-panel cartoons. On the occasions when they appeared inside a strip, with very few exceptions, the ballooned dialogue was inconsequential. Nineteenth-century comics tended to place both narration and dialogue beneath comic panels rather than within the panel's borders. Many of these comics are to the word balloon-strewn post-Yellow Kid comics of the 20th Century as silent movies are to the later "talkies." Just as sound changed how stories were structured on film, so too did comic strips change when the words were moved from beneath panels to inside them, and dialogue rather than narration drove the story in conjunction with the pictures.

 

The Victorian Era of comic books began on different dates in different nations, depending on when the first publication of a sequential comic book on their soil is known to have occurred. For the U.S. this happened when the American literary periodical Brother Jonathan printed the 40-page, 195-panel graphic novel The Adventures of Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck as a special extra dated September 14, 1842. Almost six decades later, America's Victorian comics came to their end, replaced by the onslaught of Platinum Age books reprinting newspaper strips from Bennett, Hearst, and Pulitzer Sunday comic sections, among many others.

 

 

here is an early usage of the term "comics" to denote what we are talking about here.

 

it was published in 1891

[BLBcomics-migration]

 

here is an six panel wordless comic strip from 1617

- there are many more examples in David Kunzle's

first volume of his monumental A History of the Comic Strip

[ShoNuff-migration]

Here is the same comic book being offered up for sale in a Brother Jonathan catalog circa 1853 I own at 25 cents per copy

 

- this catalog has 7 comic books for sale in it along with all kinds of other printed material

 

- There is another comic book offered for sale on this same page - at 12.5 cents per copy

 

The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck is America's first stand alone comic book

Looks to me like the add simply says it's a book of pictures. At no time does it call this book of pictures a comic book. Therefore, Obadiah Oldbuck is not America's first comic book.

[ShoNuff-migration]

in the first advert, note it says OO is a "graphic narration"

 

they says these "comic books" from back then are Stories Told In Pictures

 

I am using modern day terminology to "nomenclate" earlier versions of the same thing as in modern days

They are "books of pictures". This does not make them comic books...and they clearly aren't.

[BLBcomics-migration]

[BLBcomics-migration]

Let's take a step back for a minute and look at what we've been arguing about.

 

We're trying to define a very abstract entity with very discrete terms. We're actually trying to say that the presence or absence of word balloons or staples can or cannot define what a comic book is or isn't. This is STUPID.

 

In medicine and law there are often definitions like this that - although impossible to create - are nevertheless laid out for the sake of a trial or study. I'm sure some of our lawyers could pull out many examples, but I'll throw out sepsis. Sepsis is an overwhelming inflammatory response to an infection that has neither a start or end of where it is defined. However, if you want to do a clinical trial of a therapy, you have to try to define it for inclusion or exclusion in the study. In the real world when you're dealing with sepsis; you know it when you see it. In fact, there's a saying that we all hear, "Sepsis is like pornography. I can't define it, but I know it when I see it."

 

We all snicker and laugh about how unreasonable it is to try to define something that exists on a continuum rather than having clear cutoffs to a definition.

 

Yet here we are, trying to say that something is or isn't a comic book based on the presence or absence of word balloons and staples. That is absolutely moronic.

 

Bob Beerbohm, for all his labors, is failing to see the line between this "academic" comic book (which is really only a worthwhile definition when you're trying to use it for something unrelated to comics as an item) and the "real world" comic book that kids buy.

 

What this all boils down to is that when it comes to comics, you can't define one, but you know it when you see it.

 

If you showed OO to any 12 year old, they wouldn't call it a comic book - and that's an infinitely more valid definition than any we've managed to come up with.

 

You raise a good point. I'm going to order that Italian reprint of OO and show it to a bunch of convention-goers at the next Con that I attend. I'll keep track of their responses and see whether mainstream collectors consider it to be "a comic book" or "something else, but definitely not a comic book."

 

What "kids" buy comic books any more?

 

Not on my flavor of Planet Earth, not any more, sad to see and say.

 

It does not matter how many kids one stops on a street and asks about comic books - most will say they do not read them nor care to

 

Now, i agree, the history articles in Overstreet covering Victorian, Platinum Era and Origins of "Modern" Comic Books is an attempt at academic scholarship

 

I do agree with you that it is rather a bit on the dumb side to be arguing staples, word balloons and what something is "worth" to define what is or is not a comic book. There are no clear cut definitions as to what a "comic book" is or is not - and there never will be.

 

Especially not with this crowd of consummate comics experts such as Li'l sho'nuff

[ShoNuff-migration]

 

 

[BLBcomics-migration]

 

[ShoNuff-migration]

Especially not with this crowd of consummate comics experts such as Li'l sho'nuff

I know a comic book when I see one. And I know it shouldn't be based on someones desire to sell $3,000 books for $20,000 a pop.

[BLBcomics-migration]

Especially not with this crowd of consummate comics experts such as Li'l sho'nuff

I know a comic book when I see one. And I know it shouldn't be based on someones desire to sell $3,000 books for $20,000 a pop.

 

you do not know anything other than to prove what a boor you are

 

and a liar

[ShoNuff-migration]

you do not know anything other than to prove what a boor you are

 

and a liar

I also know enough to know when I'm talking to an old fashioned snake oil salesman. So, how much are you charging for a bottle these days?

[rodan57]

Would part of the definition of a comic book need to include its intended audience?

 

At the risk of greatly over simplifying, comic strips in newspapers were read by adult and child alike. Comic books seemed to be the reading choice of children, as reprint books changed to all original material in the thirties. They were constructed to attract the young mind in cover, content and construction.

 

Who was the audience of OO? Was the work a social satire, a comedy of manners? Was it proper reading in polite circles, or was it frowned upon as being uncouth?