BangZoom Posted April 15, 2009 Author Share Posted April 15, 2009 Here's another table I don't believe I've posted yet. Surveying boys and girls in 7th an 8th grade in 1941 / 1942, the authors of this study in The Journal of Educational Psychology discovered the students' comic strip preference. I'm shocked that Smilin' Jack and Dic k Tracy were #'s 1 & 2 in popularity. Also, I'd never have guessed that Captain and the Kids and Blondie would rank 3 and 4 among boys. I'm not surprised. I have always liked Tracy and still collect the comics and related items today. And as for Blondie....... I would have guessed that Flash Gordon and Superman would rank higher than they did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrooge Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 I would have guessed that Flash Gordon and Superman would rank higher than they did. They do when the question are strictly related to comics and not newspaper strips. It is quite the surprise that the adventure strips that are now the most highly praised didn't rate high or at all in these surveys. If anyone ever wondered why one of Goodman's longest running comic / mag was Miss America, one only needs to look at this 1948 survey to see that it would have been his only point of pride at rubbing elbows with much more mainstream and high-class publications - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrooge Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 Btw, in an earlier study, the same "surprise" is revealed and confirmed: Smilin' Jack is sitting atop the rankings. At least Flash Gordon scored higher but couldn't that rascal Jack. Note: This particular study is dated 1940 but the research was run in 1939 and Disney had released a ton of promo for Snow White, including comic format story books, hence the high rank achieved in this survey. Toots & Casper - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted April 15, 2009 Author Share Posted April 15, 2009 McMurtry wote an autobiography, "Books: A Memoir," that recounted his life as a bookseller and collector. I read it and enjoyed it immensely. I was just thinking last night that there's not enough story tellers in the hobby willing to put their adventures down into words. That book looks interesting and I'll go get a copy. There's an entire sub-genre of books that have been published about the lives of book collectors that you may enjoy. Even though I don't collect the same books as they do, I find accounts of their lives fascinating reading. Here are a couple of books written by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone that I'd recommend: Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World From Library Journal The Goldstones are expatriate urbanites who fled jobs on Wall Street to live and write in the Berkshires. With a sense of adventure and fresh beginnings, they relate how they revived their life together and discovered the wonders of old books. Soon they were visiting used and rare book shops and auctions in the remote towns in the region, as well as in Boston, New York, and even as far away as Chicago. Along the way, the reader learns about the lore and minutiae of old books. As the authors flirt with collecting modern first editions, readers are treated to some of the fascinating stories of modern literature and get the insider's view of the arcane ways experts identify a first edition and decide what makes a book valuable. Readers also meet intriguing book sellers and collectors and others who inhabit the world of books. Link Slightly Chipped: Footnotes in Booklore Amazon.com Review Who would have guessed that an innocent search for an inexpensive edition of War and Peace could lead to an all-consuming obsession? Nancy and Lawrence Goldstone's romance with rare books arose from just such a search and led them to a world they had never encountered before: the world of antiquarian books. They quickly found themselves infatuated with this quaint and curious world, and scoured the East Coast in search of first editions and rare books. This search, and the curious people they met along the way, is chronicled in their book Used and Rare. Their second book, Slightly Chipped, continues this exploration, taking us on tours of book fairs, libraries, and auctions. No longer the wide-eyed innocents, the Goldstones delve a little deeper into the book world: they explore facets such as fine printing and literary movements, pour over Bram Stoker's notes for Dracula, and puzzle over the incredible markup of hypermoderns. Link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrooge Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 In another study by some of the same authors, the same surveys were administered to african-american children from Evanston, IL and compared to white children's results. In the main, there are no distinguishable differences in taste. The only difference found was in the number of comics read, which was higher for african-american children and the study attributes this (rightly or wrongly) to the lack of other reading material - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamstrange Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 McMurtry wote an autobiography, "Books: A Memoir," that recounted his life as a bookseller and collector. I read it and enjoyed it immensely. I was just thinking last night that there's not enough story tellers in the hobby willing to put their adventures down into words. That book looks interesting and I'll go get a copy. There's an entire sub-genre of books that have been published about the lives of book collectors that you may enjoy. Even though I don't collect the same books as they do, I find accounts of their lives fascinating reading. Here are a couple of books written by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone that I'd recommend: Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World From Library Journal The Goldstones are expatriate urbanites who fled jobs on Wall Street to live and write in the Berkshires. With a sense of adventure and fresh beginnings, they relate how they revived their life together and discovered the wonders of old books. Soon they were visiting used and rare book shops and auctions in the remote towns in the region, as well as in Boston, New York, and even as far away as Chicago. Along the way, the reader learns about the lore and minutiae of old books. As the authors flirt with collecting modern first editions, readers are treated to some of the fascinating stories of modern literature and get the insider's view of the arcane ways experts identify a first edition and decide what makes a book valuable. Readers also meet intriguing book sellers and collectors and others who inhabit the world of books. Link Slightly Chipped: Footnotes in Booklore Amazon.com Review Who would have guessed that an innocent search for an inexpensive edition of War and Peace could lead to an all-consuming obsession? Nancy and Lawrence Goldstone's romance with rare books arose from just such a search and led them to a world they had never encountered before: the world of antiquarian books. They quickly found themselves infatuated with this quaint and curious world, and scoured the East Coast in search of first editions and rare books. This search, and the curious people they met along the way, is chronicled in their book Used and Rare. Their second book, Slightly Chipped, continues this exploration, taking us on tours of book fairs, libraries, and auctions. No longer the wide-eyed innocents, the Goldstones delve a little deeper into the book world: they explore facets such as fine printing and literary movements, pour over Bram Stoker's notes for Dracula, and puzzle over the incredible markup of hypermoderns. Link I've read both of those and passed them on to members of my family. (thumbs u Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrooge Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 A little more hardcore is this 1941 study of the vocabulary in early DC comics. First, the study counts the words in the comics and they come out at about 10,000 each. Not difficult to do when you have 64+ page to a comic (Try that count on a Bendis comics and tell me you are not gipped). Second, the study analyzes the complexity of the vocabulary by checking the words against this Thorndike's List of 20,000. The first 1,000 are the most common words and so on. Each comic book offers about 1,000 words beyond the first 1,000. In a further table, it is shown that those additional 1,000 words are not common across all comic books so that more comic book reading exposes a child to more vocabulary (Scrooge's note: the more I have been reading DC comics of that period recently, the more I have been struck by the higher quality of the stories + plot + writing "quality" / literacy as much as that word can be applied to comic books of the period. I suspect that if the study had concentrated on other publishers ** ahem - Timely ** the results would have been different) Finally, the reading level of individual stories was established. It is funny to see the Crimson Avenger referenced here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PokerKid Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 I would have guessed that Flash Gordon and Superman would rank higher than they did. They do when the question are strictly related to comics and not newspaper strips. It is quite the surprise that the adventure strips that are now the most highly praised didn't rate high or at all in these surveys. If anyone ever wondered why one of Goodman's longest running comic / mag was Miss America, one only needs to look at this 1948 survey to see that it would have been his only point of pride at rubbing elbows with much more mainstream and high-class publications - Obviously, this must have been taken before Hey Pal came on the scene!!! Incredible and fascinating research. I'd love to see someone make that kind of effort on comics, magazines and the Internet today. I think the 10,000 words per comic is staggering and more than I ever would have guessed. (Makes sense, once pointed out.) Thank you for the incredible information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted April 15, 2009 Author Share Posted April 15, 2009 Comic books weren't very popular among that group of kids, were they? They tied for last place in the ranking. ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted April 15, 2009 Author Share Posted April 15, 2009 Btw, in an earlier study, the same "surprise" is revealed and confirmed: Smilin' Jack is sitting atop the rankings. Smilin' Jack was a heck of a lot more popular among boys and girls than I ever would have guessed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted April 15, 2009 Author Share Posted April 15, 2009 In another study by some of the same authors, the same surveys were administered to african-american children from Evanston, IL and compared to white children's results. In the main, there are no distinguishable differences in taste. The only difference found was in the number of comics read, which was higher for african-american children and the study attributes this (rightly or wrongly) to the lack of other reading material - Did the study delve into the reading preferences of kids who lived in urban communities vs rural environments; or various economic groups? It would be interesting to see if there were any significant differences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted April 15, 2009 Author Share Posted April 15, 2009 Currently reading Doc Savage's Mad Mesa from 1939. Early in the book the villains try to kill Doc and his aides by throwing them in a burning coal field, i.e., an underground coal layer on fire. The incident takes place in Ohio. Turns out such events are relatively common and the fire can last for ages. A little far afield from funny books I guess ... but if we keep on bumping the thread, maybe BZ will post more of his pristine Doc pulps Maybe even Mad Mesa ... I don't have a copy of the Mad Mesa story but here is a Doc Savage from 1939. I'm a big fan of the 1939 New York World's Fair so the locale of the cover story is of special interest to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrooge Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 Did the study delve into the reading preferences of kids who lived in urban communities vs rural environments; or various economic groups? It would be interesting to see if there were any significant differences. Not this one but one of the others I pulled info from does compare rural versus urban kids. Can't quite recall that much difference. Plus with the limited amount of data they had, I don't know that anything would hold water statistically. I'll pull it up and report on it soon. (thumbs u Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrooge Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 Thank you, sir. Do you any other books from the same collection of the guy who I am guessing stamped his books went he actually finished reading them? Which in this case is over a year after publication. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BB-Gun Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 Currently reading Doc Savage's Mad Mesa from 1939. Early in the book the villains try to kill Doc and his aides by throwing them in a burning coal field, i.e., an underground coal layer on fire. The incident takes place in Ohio. Turns out such events are relatively common and the fire can last for ages. A little far afield from funny books I guess ... but if we keep on bumping the thread, maybe BZ will post more of his pristine Doc pulps Maybe even Mad Mesa ... I don't have a copy of the Mad Mesa story but here is a Doc Savage from 1939. I'm a big fan of the 1939 New York World's Fair so the locale of the cover story is of special interest to me. BZ, Love the World's Fair issue of Doc Savage. I don't think I have any Doc pulps but that issue should be near the top of the list when I start buying. bb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detroit MIke Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 I'm a big fan of items with the 1939 World's Fair too. I've never seen that cover before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BB-Gun Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 Somebody mentioned that Rangers is one of the less desirable Fiction House titles. I kind of wonder how that could be true since it has Dr. Drew. It is like getting Detective 31 in every issue. While at the Jewish museum and looking at a Schomburg painting, someone mentioned to me that he liked Jerry Grandenetti better than the other artists at the exhibit. I don't know if I would go that far but I regret selling any of those Ranger comics with his art. BZ, Do you have any originals that you could share? Scans from GA.UK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamstrange Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 Grandenetti's work on Dr. Drew is fun but artistically it's very derivative of Eisner rather than being truly original to Grandetti. On the other hand, I'm a huge fan of his covers for DC War comics from the 1950s and early 60s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted April 17, 2009 Author Share Posted April 17, 2009 Do you any other books from the same collection of the guy who I am guessing stamped his books went he actually finished reading them? Which in this case is over a year after publication. I have a bunch from the same collection. In most cases the original owner stamped the pulp covers only with the cat imprint and no dates. However, there are a few magazines with the "Fini" stamp. You'll notice that the owner read these particular issues more promptly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted April 17, 2009 Author Share Posted April 17, 2009 On this cover he also used his "Member of Doc Savage Club" rubber stamp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
