Pre-Golden Age (1933-38) - The Birth of the Modern Comic Book 0

[ciorac]

Purchased from a fellow forumite.

 

 

WOW!! That book rocks! Love to own it someday...

[esquirecomics]

Purchased from a fellow forumite.

 

 

WOW!! That book rocks! Love to own it someday...

 

You're on the list for first dibs!

[action1kid]

What year is that book Mark ?

[esquirecomics]

What year is that book Mark ?

 

April 1937.

[action1kid]

Thank you.

[ciorac]

Purchased from a fellow forumite.

 

 

 

WOW!! That book rocks! Love to own it someday...

 

You're on the list for first dibs!

 

Cool! Thanks!

[CentaurMan]

There were a lot of cool, underrated covers on those early Funny Picture Stories. Here are some issues preceding the one esquire posted:

[innocuous]

Funny how these comics were titled "Funny".

[selegue]

Funny how these comics were titled "Funny".

 

As comical as how comic books are called "comic"?

 

Jack

"Is it comical how he's holding a woman's head, Mr Gaines?"

[innocuous]

True.

 

As I learn more on these boards and my various reading, it is interesting to learn how the early publishers started with "funnies" reprints then quickly moved into other storylines. Then, after 10, 20 or even 100 issues, More Fun, Famous Funnies, etc become known for the primary character, regardless of the comic book name.

[jbcomicbox]

True.

 

As I learn more on these boards and my various reading, it is interesting to learn how the early publishers started with "funnies" reprints then quickly moved into other storylines. Then, after 10, 20 or even 100 issues, More Fun, Famous Funnies, etc become known for the primary character, regardless of the comic book name.

 

 

.....and that is why i generically refer to these things as "comicbooks"...

[BLBcomics-migration]

Jack asked who drew Goofus McVittle in Standard Oil Comics.

 

Here is a blow up from number 1-B, the first issue with this character. All B series appear to be 1934

 

Goofus' artist appears to be by one Walter O'Ehrle from what i can make out of his sig and as reported in my Overstreet modern comics origin article OPG #36 page 404.

 

The A 1933 series first page were all by Fred Opper, one of his last jobs before passing onto the drawing board in the sky. The earliest comic strips i have come across of Opper's date to 1875

 

I have yet to see any copies of a C series, any one know of a C series issue in existence?

 

[selegue]

Thanks!

I've never seen O'Ehrle's name before. Very nice work on this "not-a-comic-book", isn't it?

I don't know anything about a Standard Oil C series. Not surprising since I'd never heard of the A and B series before this thread.

 

Jack

 

Jack asked who drew Goofus McVittle in Standard Oil Comics.

 

Here is a blow up from number 1-B, the first issue with this character. All B series appear to be 1934

 

Goofus' artist appears to be by one Walter O'Ehrle from what i can make out of his sig and as reported in my Overstreet modern comics origin article OPG #36 page 404.

 

The A 1933 series first page were all by Fred Opper, one of his last jobs before passing onto the drawing board in the sky. The earliest comic strips i have come across of Opper's date to 1875

 

I have yet to see any copies of a C series, any one know of a C series issue in existence?

 

[BLBcomics-migration]

There is a wealth of data on the early comics magazines we refer to these days as comicbooks (in those circles "in the know") in my THE AMERICAN COMIC BOOK: 1929-Present (actually just 1975) "The Modern Comics Magazine Supplants The Earlier Formats" with most of the article centering on the intro of periodical comicbooks prior to Superman's debut as the page allocated to tell the story is tight.

 

Gulf's series lasted into 1941

 

Standard Oil's series predating Gulf's, which we discovered via a Dec 1932 rarity off eBay earlier this year which Jon Berk was fortunate to win as i was broke that month, has proven to pre date the Gulf series, the latter well known for decades as it was a prime want list series for legendary comics dealer Bill Thailing (Ohio), and we all looked forward to his massive catalogs back in the 1960s

 

so, finding a possible C series of Standard Oil Comics would be neat-o

 

I am also big on discovering any copies of Gilmore Oil's THE GILMOR CUBS comics giveaways. I was informed of a v4 #2 dated May 1938, but have yet to see what it looks like

 

Or any other oil company comicbook giveaways from the 1930s

 

Robert Beerbohm

www.BLBcomics.com

[ciorac]

There were a lot of cool, underrated covers on those early Funny Picture Stories. Here are some issues preceding the one esquire posted:

 

One of my grail books! Perhaps someday I will acquire one.

 

[BLBcomics-migration]

Bill.

You voiced some concerns at the end on the now defunct OO vs Superman thread (now last month) and i headed back east to Big Apple and MidOhio to attempt setting up at a couple more shows before year's end, maybe a mistake on my part as the arthritis in my hip joints takes its toll

 

It seemed to me you came at Arnold Blumberg a bit harsh for no good reason, and i felt compelled to point out certain truths as i see them.

 

Arnold's name for YEARS appeared on the frontis mast head of Overstreet PG as Editor until this year's edition due to his transfer to Geppi's Entertainment Museum. He was intimatley involved in developing the 3 comics history articles with me from an editing slant, and the pieces are so much the better looking and read better for his efforts.

 

You respond in a hyper-defensive mode, you should maybe watch that a bit, as you dish it out harshly (calling me "lamebrain", among other things, fer instance, on that now locked up thread, for no good reason) yet get all "aw gee whiz" when called on the carpet

 

PonsCon is around the corner, eh? Am i still on the list?

 

Robert Beerbohm

www.BLBcomics.com

[ciorac]

Since I can't have the FPS, and these came in today, I will have to settle for them for now.

 

 

[ciorac]

Bill.

You voiced some concerns at the end on the now defunct OO vs Superman thread (now last month) and i headed back east to Big Apple and MidOhio to attempt setting up at a couple more shows before year's end, maybe a mistake on my part as the arthritis in my hip joints takes its toll

 

It seemed to me you came at Arnold Blumberg a bit harsh for no good reason, and i felt compelled to point out certain truths as i see them.

 

Arnold's name for YEARS appeared on the frontis mast head of Overstreet PG as Editor until this year's edition due to his transfer to Geppi's Entertainment Museum. He was intimatley involved in developing the 3 comics history articles with me from an editing slant, and the pieces are so much the better looking and read better for his efforts.

 

You respond in a hyper-defensive mode, you should maybe watch that a bit, as you dish it out harshly (calling me "lamebrain", among other things, fer instance, on that now locked up thread, for no good reason) yet get all "aw gee whiz" when called on the carpet

 

PonsCon is around the corner, eh? Am i still on the list?

 

Robert Beerbohm

www.BLBcomics.com

 

Welcome back Bob! Hope you had a fun and profitable trip.

 

I had never heard of Arnold. I've looked back at the OPG's and see where he came on board around the time I stopped contributing to the OPG. He seems like a very knowledgeable guy. His first post in the OO thread was to chastise us and say were were immature, childish, and a few other choice names. I simply pointed out to him he was acting like the pot calling the kettle black. Nothing more. I bear him no ill will whatsover.

 

Hope the hip starts feeling better.

[BLBcomics-migration]

here is a scarce 1932 Opper comic book:

 

[BLBcomics-migration]

Here is an excerpt from my long running article in Overstreet concerning the Origin of the Modern Comic Book. This is from the latest published version in #36 2006 edition. I will begin a revamp in about a week. If any of you think the info is wrong in this portion, please voice those concerns and i will examine your evidence.

 

____________________________________________________

SNIP

 

Brand new research conducted late in December 2005 has discovered the existence of a no number introduction issue of Standard Oil Comics dated to December 1932. Evidently it was Rockefeller’s Standard Oil which decided before Gulf Oil to entice customers with a comics giveaway.

 

There are at least 14 issues each of at least a 1933 A and a 1934 B series of a four page tabloid-size full color comics giveaway titled Standard Oil Comics. The A issues all contain Fred Opper's Si & Mirandi, an older couple who interact with perennial favorites, Happy Hooligan & Maud the Mule, drawn by the grand old master himself, Frederick Opper, who had been a professional cartoonist for over 60 years by this time. This new “no number” 1932 precursor instructed readers to listen to the Si & Miandi radio show, come in regularly to Standard Oil stations and pick up Standard Oil Comics.

 

The 1934 B series front Goofus “He’s From The Big City” McVittle by Walter O’Ehrle, set in humorous farming scenarios. Interior strips include Pesty And His Pop & Smiling Slim by Sid Hicks. Considering the concept of Gulf Funny Weekly has been well known for decades while Standard Oil Comics remains virtually unknown, what we now know is Gulf copied Standard in almost all respects.

 

Gulf Oil Company also liked the idea and hired a few artists to create an original comic called Gulf Comic Weekly. Their first issue was dated April 1933 and was 10 1/2" x 15". Gulf copied Standard Oil by advertising their giveaway nationally on the radio beginning April 30th. Its first artists were Stan Schendel doing The Uncovered Wagon, Victor doing Curly and the Kids, and Svess on a strip named Smileage. All were full page, full color comic strips. Wildenberg promptly had Eastern print this four page comic, making it probably the first tabloid newsprint comic published for American distribution outside of a newspaper in the 20th Century. Wildenberg and Gulf were astonished when the tabloids were grabbed up as fast as Gulf service stations could offer them. Distribution shot up to 3,000,000 copies a week after Gulf changed the name to Gulf Funny Weekly with its 5th issue. It remained a tabloid until early 1939 & ran for 422 issues until May 23, 1941.

 

Recent research has also turned up "new" rediscovered comics material from other oil companies from this same time span of 1933-34. Perhaps spurred by the runaway success of first Standard Oil Comics, then Gulf Funny Weekly, these other oil companies found they had to compete with licensed comic strip material of their own in order to remain profitable.

Beginning with the March-April 1934 issue of Shell Globe (V4 #2), characters from Bud Fisher (Mutt & Jeff) and Fontaine Fox (Toonerville Folks) were licensed to sell gas & oil for this company. 52,000 eight foot standees were made for Fisher's Mutt and Jeff and Fox's Powerful Katrinka and The Skipper for placement around 13,000 Shell gas stations. Augmenting them was an army of 250,000 miniature figures of the same characters. In addition, more than 1,000,000 play masks were given away to children along with more than 285,000 window stickers. If that wasn't enough, hundreds of thousands of 3x5 foot posters featuring these characters were released in conjunction with twenty-four sheet outdoor billboards. Radio announcements of this promotion began running April 7th, 1934. It is presently unknown if Shell had a comics tabloid created to give away to customers.

 

In addition, new research has uncovered the Gilmore Oil Company issuing an eight page giveaway titled The Gilmore Cub. It appears to have carried “Starnge As It Seems” among other cartoon features by John Hix. At least one issue, v4 #2, May, 1938, is known to exist.

The authors of this essay are actively soliciting help in uncovering more information regarding these and potentially other oil comics giveaways.

 

With the 1933 newsstand appearance of Humor's Detective Dan, Adventures of Detective Ace King, Bob Scully, Two Fisted Hick Detective, and possibly the still unrediscovered, but definitely advertised, Happy Mulligan, these little understood original-material comic books from Humor were the direct inspiration for Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster to transform their fanzine’s evil character The Superman from Science Fiction #3 (January 1933) into a comic strip that would stand as a watershed heroic mark in American pop culture. The stage was set for a new frontier. The idea for creating an actual comic book as we know it today, however, did not occur to Wildenberg until later in 1933, when he said he was idly folding a newspaper in halves, then in quarters. As he looked at the twice-folded paper, it occurred to him that it was a convenient book size (actually it was late stage “Dime Novel” size, which companies like Street & Smith were pumping out). The format had its heyday from the 1880s through the 1910s, having been invented by the firm of Beadle and Adam in 1860 in more of a digest format. According to a 1942 article by Max Gaines (née Ginzberg), another contributing factor in the development of the format was an inspection of a promotional folder published by the Ledger Syndicate, in which four-color Sunday comic pages were printed in 7"x9".

 

According to a 1949 interview with Wildenberg, he thought "why not a comic book? It would have 32 or 64 pages and make a fine item for concerns which distribute premiums." All they did at Eastern Color that one fateful day is fold a tabloid newspaper format down to “dime novel” size running full color throughout on most of the comic strips, then staple it, and they hit upon their winning formula.

 

But they did not yet know this...as we will find out.

 

Working for Eastern Color at this same time were quite a few future legends of the comics business, such as Max Gaines, Lev Gleason and a fellow named Harold Moore (all sales staff directly underneath the supervision of Wilden-berg), Sol Harrison as a color separator, and George Dougherty Sr. as a printer.

 

Janosik, Wildenberg, Gaines, Gleason and crew obtained publishing rights to certain Associated, Bell, Fisher, McNaught and Public Ledger Syndicate comics, had an artist make up a few dummies by hand. The sales staff then walked them around to their biggest prospects. Wildenberg received a telegram from Proctor & Gamble for an order of a million copies for a 32-page color comic magazine called Funnies on Parade. The entire print run was given away in just a few weeks in the Spring of 1933. Most copies no longer exist and it is now hard to find. All of them worked on the Funnies on Parade project. Morris Margolis was brought in from Charlton in Derby, Connecticut to solve binding problems centered on getting the pages in proper numerical sequence on that last fold to "modern" comic book size. Most of them were infected with the comics bug for most of the rest of their lives.

 

The success of Funnies on Parade quickly led to Eastern publishing additional giveaway books in the same format by late 1933, including the 32-page Famous Funnies A Carnival of Comics, the 100-page A Century of Comics and the 52-page Skippy's Own Book of Comics.

The latter became the first "new" format comic book about a single character. Out of all the comic strips on the market in 1933, Eastern Color’s growing comics market as devised by Harry Wildenberg, M.C. Gaines and Lev Gleason chose the Percy Crosby creation in Skippy’s Own Book of Comics to be its first standalone title. This first solo effort in their new 52-page newsprint Funnies On Parade format had an initial print run of half a million, as did their 100-pager.

 

The idea that anyone would pay for them seemed fantastic to Wildenberg, so Max Gaines stickered ten cents on several dozen of the latest premium, Famous Funnies A Carnival of Comics, as a test, and talked a couple newsstands into participating in this experiment. The copies sold out over the weekend and newsies asked for more.

 

Eastern sales staffers then approached Woolworth's. The late Oscar Fitz-Alan Douglas, sales brains of Woolworth, showed some interest, but after several months of deliberation decided the book would not give enough value for ten cents. Kress, Kresge, McCrory, and several other dime stores turned them down even more abruptly. Wildenberg next went to George Hecht, editor of Parents Magazine, and tried to persuade him to run a comic supplement or publish a "higher level" comic magazine. Hecht also frowned on the idea.

 

In Wildenberg's 1949 interview, he noted that "even the comic syndicates couldn't see it. 'Who's going to read old comics?' they asked." With the failures of EmBee’s Comic Monthly (1922) and Dell’s The Funnies (1929) still fresh in some minds, no one could see why children would pay ten cents for a comic magazine when they could get all they wanted for free in a Sunday newspaper. But Wildenberg had become convinced that children as well as grown-ups were not getting all the comics they wanted in the Sunday papers; otherwise, Standard Oil Comics, Gulf Comic Weekly and the premium comics would not have met with such success. Wildenberg said, "I decided that if boys and girls were willing to work for premium coupons to obtain comic books, they might be willing to pay ten cents on the newsstands." This conviction was also strengthened by Max Gaines' ten cent sticker experiment.

 

George Janosik, the president of Eastern Color, then called on George Delacorte to form another 50-50 joint venture to publish and market a comic book "magazine" for retail sales as they did with The Funnies just a few years previously, but this time American News turned them down cold. The magazine monopoly remembered the abortive The Funnies from just a few years before. After much discussion on how to proceed, Delacorte finally agreed to publish it and a partnership was formed. Feeling cautious, they printed 40,000 copies for distribution to a few chain stores who agreed to try it out. Known today as Famous Funnies Series One, it clocks in at 68 pages, with half its pages coming from reprints of the reprints in Funnies on Parade and half from Famous Funnies A Carnival of Comics. It is the scarcest issue.

 

With 68 full-color pages at only ten cents a piece, it sold out in thirty days with not a single returned copy. Delacorte refused to print a second edition. "Advertisers won't use it," he complained. "They say it's not dignified enough." The profit, however, was approximately $2,000. This particular edition is the rarest of all these early Eastern comic book experiments.

In early 1934, while riding the train, another Eastern Color employee named Harold A. Moore read an account from a prominent New York newspaper that indicated they owed much of their circulation success to their comics section. Mr. Moore went back to Harry Gold, President of American News, with the article in hand. He succeeded in acquiring a print order for 250,000 copies for a proposed monthly comics magazine. In May 1934, Famous Funnies #1 (with a July cover date) hit the newsstands with Steven O. Douglass as its only editor (even though Harold Moore was listed as such in #1) until it ceased publication some twenty years later. It was a 64-page version of the 32-page giveaways, and more importantly, it still sold for a dime! The first issue lost $4,150.60. Ninety percent of the copies sold out and a second issue dated September debuted in July. From then on, the comic book was published monthly. Famous Funnies also began carrying original material, apparently as early as the second issue. With #3, Buck Rogers took center stage and stayed there for the next twenty years, with covers by Frank Frazetta towards the end of the run–some of his best comics work ever.

 

Delacorte got cold feet and sold back his interest to Eastern, even though the seventh issue cleared a profit of $2,664.25. Wildenberg emphasized that Eastern could make a manufacturer's profit by printing its own books as well as the publishing profits once it was distributed. Every issue showed greater sales than the preceding one, until within a year, close to a million 64-page books were being sold monthly at ten cents apiece; Eastern received the lion's share of the receipts, and soon found it was netting $30,000 per issue. The comic syndicates received $640 ($10 a page) for publishing rights. Original material could be obtained from budding professionals for just $5 a page. According to Will Eisner in R. C. Harvey's The Art of the Comic Book, the prices then paid for original material had a long range effect of keeping creator wages low for years.

 

Initially, Eastern's experiment was eyed with skepticism by the publishing world, but within a year or so after Famous Funnies was nonchalantly placed on sale alongside slicker magazines like Atlantic Monthly or Harper's, at least five other competitors tried this brand new format.

However, one other abortive periodical comics experiment was launched cover dated a full two months before the highly successful newsstand Famous Funnies format would have an important influence on a chain of events which led ultimately to Superman being published.

Comic Cuts #1, May 19, 1934, debuted published by H.L. Baker Co., Inc., 195 Main St, Buffalo, New York with editorial and execuitive offices at 381 Fourth St, NYC, same address as ULTEM (Centaur) would use just a couple years later - this address housed a number of publishers fighting to exist during the Great Depression. The indica says H. L. Baker was President & Treasurer and J. D. Geller was Vice President and Sec-retary. It lasted nine issues with the final one cover-dated July 28. It appears Jake Geller, Windsor, Ontario, Canada, acquired American rights to a number of comic strips from the publisher Amalgamated Press, publisher of Comic Cuts in England. He partnered in the publishing with H. L. Baker and they acquired the backing of S-M News Co., Inc. as their distributor. Most distributors back then functioned on many important levels. It was common practice for the distributor back then to front the funds to pay the paper company and the printer, collecting the revenue from the 900 I.D. distributors located around the country after months of on-sale time, then paying the publisher.

 

In late 1934, army officer/diplomat turned pulp writer turned publisher Major Wheeler-Nicholson (1890-1968) formed the under-funded National Allied Publishing which introduced New Fun #1 (Feb 1935) at almost tabloid-size. New Fun was also distributed by S-M News. It is entirely possible Wheeler-Nicholson somehow convinced them he could produce a superior “home-grown” package as the imported strips were not selling well. New Fun was basically the same as Comic Cuts while also containing all original USA material such as carried in The Funnies (1929-30) from Dell/Eastern. With New Fun, what S-M News offered was more familiar American home grown. Coulton Waugh speculated in his 1947 history book The Comics on page 342: "...The Major had gone back to the 1929 idea of The Funnies, for the contents of New Fun were original material. (It should be recorded here that original art work had appeared in a one-color book called Detective Dan..."

 

However, Lloyd Jacquet, a person definitely in a position to know better, wrote as Chapter One of a proposed “History of the Comic Book” in 1957, “When Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson set up his card table and chair in an eleventh floor office of the Hatha-way Building in New York that Fall of 1934, these most modest beginnings sparked off what can rightly be called the ‘comic book era.’ When he came back to the U.S. after his last stay abroad, he looked over the American newsstand, and thought that the European juvenile weekly papers, with their picture-story continuities, their colorful illustrations, and their low price would appeal to the American boys and girls in the same way. He knew that those European publications were made up of new material, specially drawn and produced for each little magazine. He also knew that the American presentation of such material would have to be different, and merely importing, or translating European produced features for republication here was not the answer. This was about the time I joined with him in his project. It was still embryonic, but beginning to take form under Nicholson's direction. We were in the depression then, & it was not too difficult to secure writers and artists - but it was a task to instruct them as to exactly what was wanted. We finally rounded up a small but gifted group of creative people, and we produced our first issue of a monthly magazine composed of original features and material, and which was called, simply, “FUN.”

 

Around this same time in late 1934,  M.C. Gaines left  Eastern Color moving over to the McClure Newspaper Syndicate to become their manager of their Color Printing Department He immediately went to work convincing clients to issue promotional comics. Also, long-time comics publisher Whitman brought out the first original material movie adaptation, Tim McCoy Police Car 17, in the tabloid New Fun format with stiff card covers. A few years before, they had introduced the new comics formats known as the Big Little Book and the Big Big Book. The BLB and BBB formats would go toe-to-toe with Eastern's creation throughout the 1930s, but Eastern would win out with their new comics magazine format.

 

The very last 10" x 10" comic books pioneered by Cupples & Leon were published by the David McKay Publishing Company around mid-1935. Around this same time the Major published his 2nd comic book in which the editorial mentions amongst other exciting stories they were going to be showcasing the adventures of “hero supermen of the days to come.”

 

By late 1935, Max Gaines (with his youthful assistant Sheldon Mayer) reached a business agreement with George Delacorte (who was re-entering the comic book business a third time) and McClure Syndicate (a growing newspaper comic strip enterprise) to be come editor of reprint newspaper comic strips in Popular Comics.

 

Also by late ‘35, Lev Gleason, another pioneer who participated in mercantiling Funnies on Parade and the early Famous Funnies, had become the first editor of United Feature's own Tip Top Comics with its first issue cover dated April 1936. In 1939 he would begin publishing his own titles starting with Silver Streak, created by the comics genius, Jack Cole, best known for Plastic Man. Gleason later created the crime comic book as a separate popular genre by 1942 with Crime Does Not Pay with a long run until 1955.

 

Wheeler-Nicholson introduced the concept of the "annual” into this new format with Big Book of Fun Comics #1 cover dated March 1936. It featured reprints from his earlier efforts in New Fun #1-5 as he struggled to make a go of it.

 

SNIP

 

_______________________________

 

I do notice that i credit publisher Lev Gleason with the creation of the crime genre. That may be a misnomer of sorts, as what do you-all think re Detective Picture Stories (Dec 1936) then Detective Comics (Mar 1937) as the "crime" genre intro. Crime Does Not Pay was concerned more so with "crime", i think, than the more far-ranging earlier titles.

 

Robert Beerbohm