BangZoom Posted December 29, 2011 Author Share Posted December 29, 2011 My daughter purchased a nice book for me. I picked up a copy of the USA book recently and enjoyed it so much, I put the All Winners on my Christmas list. That's a phenomenal looking book, BB. The hobby sure has changed since we were kids. I remember when the history of comics was mostly unexplored and very few books had ever been published about the subject. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted December 29, 2011 Author Share Posted December 29, 2011 My first glimpse of Superboy #1 and Superman #1 was inside the pages of Superboy #100 (October 1962). A year later, on the occasion of Superman's 25th anniversary, DC reproduced a couple more famous first issue covers. Superman Annual #7 (1963) Interestingly, DC didn't use any of those occasions to show-off Superman's very first appearance in Action #1. To get my first peek at that cover, I bought a grainy black and white photo of it from Jerry Bails who, at that time (circa 1964), was offering photographs of Golden Age comics at $1 each. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larryw7 Posted December 30, 2011 Share Posted December 30, 2011 Great Christmas presents! When I was a kid, some of my favorite Christmas gifts were comic related, such as the Superman/Batman/Shazam! and Wonder Woman hardcover anthologies. These books were a wonderful introduction to the Golden Age of comics. This year I received the Mail Order Mysteries book referenced above, and it looks to be a real fun read. I also got the Haunt of Fear EC Archives volume one from Russ Cochran, which I can't wait to start digging into. Seasons greetings to all members and lurkers of our boards! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BB-Gun Posted December 30, 2011 Share Posted December 30, 2011 (edited) My first glimpse of Superboy #1 and Superman #1 was inside the pages of Superboy #100 (October 1962). A year later, on the occasion of Superman's 25th anniversary, DC reproduced a couple more famous first issue covers. Superman Annual #7 (1963) Interestingly, DC didn't use any of those occasions to show-off Superman's very first appearance in Action #1. To get my first peek at that cover, I bought a grainy black and white photo of it from Jerry Bails who, at that time (circa 1964), was offering photographs of Golden Age comics at $1 each. I remember buying all of those Superman and Batman annuals but I thought some of the covers were reprinted earlier than 1963. I will have to dig through my silver age collection to find them. A friend of mine also cut out the covers to save separately. I ended up with his collection of mini-covers and also purchased quite a few of those photos from Jerry Bails. I still have an album with photos of All Hero, More Fun, Adventure and Star Spangled comics. I'll pull them out for a picture if I can find them. The only microfilm that I purchased from Jerry was for Batman 1-5 which I read at the Eastern MIchigan University library in Ypsilanti back in 1965-66. It was a good read. Jerry also copied a lot of the early golden age stories for collectors. I still have the Green Lantern and Flash origin stories in fuzzy black and white. What else do you have in those memory cells? bb Edited December 30, 2011 by BB-Gun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted December 31, 2011 Author Share Posted December 31, 2011 I remember buying all of those Superman and Batman annuals but I thought some of the covers were reprinted earlier than 1963. I will have to dig through my silver age collection to find them. A friend of mine also cut out the covers to save separately. I ended up with his collection of mini-covers and also purchased quite a few of those photos from Jerry Bails. I still have an album with photos of All Hero, More Fun, Adventure and Star Spangled comics. I'll pull them out for a picture if I can find them. The only microfilm that I purchased from Jerry was for Batman 1-5 which I read at the Eastern MIchigan University library in Ypsilanti back in 1965-66. It was a good read. Jerry also copied a lot of the early golden age stories for collectors. I still have the Green Lantern and Flash origin stories in fuzzy black and white. What else do you have in those memory cells? bb Any idea when DC first reprinted the image of Action #1? I'd also be interested in learning what other DC comics reproduced historic covers from the past. I'm aware of the celebratory covers of Batman #100 and Superman #100. Were there other issues that did anything similar? BB, if you can find any of your old Jerry Bails photographs I'd love to see a photo of them in your album. Can you remember where Jerry advertised them for sale? Was it in The Comic Reader? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BB-Gun Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 I remember buying all of those Superman and Batman annuals but I thought some of the covers were reprinted earlier than 1963. I will have to dig through my silver age collection to find them. A friend of mine also cut out the covers to save separately. I ended up with his collection of mini-covers and also purchased quite a few of those photos from Jerry Bails. I still have an album with photos of All Hero, More Fun, Adventure and Star Spangled comics. I'll pull them out for a picture if I can find them. The only microfilm that I purchased from Jerry was for Batman 1-5 which I read at the Eastern MIchigan University library in Ypsilanti back in 1965-66. It was a good read. Jerry also copied a lot of the early golden age stories for collectors. I still have the Green Lantern and Flash origin stories in fuzzy black and white. What else do you have in those memory cells? bb Any idea when DC first reprinted the image of Action #1? I'd also be interested in learning what other DC comics reproduced historic covers from the past. I'm aware of the celebratory covers of Batman #100 and Superman #100. Were there other issues that did anything similar? BB, if you can find any of your old Jerry Bails photographs I'd love to see a photo of them in your album. Can you remember where Jerry advertised them for sale? Was it in The Comic Reader? I'll have to dig through my closet and find my old photo album which contained Jerry's photographs. I don't remember where they were listed. Jerry may have sent out a mailer. He often sent additional information to collectors who were members. Below are the back covers for Superman annuals 1 and 7. The Superman 1 cover was on the back of annual 1 (1960) and in the interior of annual 7. I also noticed that the Jerry's cover photographs were used by Glen Johnson who printed TCR #38. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moondog Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 Happy, healthy New Year, BZ, to you and your family! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrooge Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 Same to BZ and you Gary :thumbsup: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted January 1, 2012 Author Share Posted January 1, 2012 Happy New Year, guys. I hope this is a wonderful year for all of us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted January 1, 2012 Author Share Posted January 1, 2012 Here are a couple of scans to get the year started. Pep Stories (November 1934) La Paree Stories (May 1930) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted January 1, 2012 Author Share Posted January 1, 2012 Below are the back covers for Superman annuals 1 and 7. The Superman 1 cover was on the back of annual 1 (1960) and in the interior of annual 7. I also noticed that the Jerry's cover photographs were used by Glen Johnson who printed TCR #38. I remember Glen. He was the second or third fan I corresponded with after I discovered comic fandom in 1963. I think he was a teacher at an Indian reservation in New Mexico at the time. Thanks for jolting my memory about the back cover of the first Superman annual. I acquired that issue many years after it was published. In 1960 I was still exclusively a reader of Dell comics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrooge Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 I remember Glen. He was the second or third fan I corresponded with after I discovered comic fandom in 1963. I think he was a teacher at an Indian reservation in New Mexico at the time. Good memory. Yes, he was. He mentioned it IIRC in his interview by Bill Schelly in Alter Ego # 52. This is another reason why I love this thread, it sends me back to my Alter Ego stack and I'll pull that issue out to skim through it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BB-Gun Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 (edited) Below are the back covers for Superman annuals 1 and 7. The Superman 1 cover was on the back of annual 1 (1960) and in the interior of annual 7. I also noticed that the Jerry's cover photographs were used by Glen Johnson who printed TCR #38. I remember Glen. He was the second or third fan I corresponded with after I discovered comic fandom in 1963. I think he was a teacher at an Indian reservation in New Mexico at the time. Thanks for jolting my memory about the back cover of the first Superman annual. I acquired that issue many years after it was published. In 1960 I was still exclusively a reader of Dell comics. Jerry had ads for photographs in the Comic Reader 22 and 36. I found an additional ad in the box which may be from a letter to Academy members or part of RBCC 29. I am not sure where I first saw the Action 1 image but Batman annual 5 had a photo of the first Batman issue and Dectective 27 on the back. Edited January 2, 2012 by BB-Gun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BB-Gun Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 And a late entry into the Christmas gift discussion...We took my grandson to the Brandywine museum to see the annual model train exhibit. and I noticed they had one of the original paintings that defined the appearance of Santa for our generation. Old Kris by NC Wyeth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted January 2, 2012 Author Share Posted January 2, 2012 We took my grandson to the Brandywine museum to see the annual model train exhibit. I'm jealous. A visit to the museum during the holidays sounds delightful. Link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted January 2, 2012 Author Share Posted January 2, 2012 Old Kris by NC Wyeth I wonder if there is more than one copy of this painting or did N.C. Wyeth paint over some details at a later date. Last month Mr Door Tree posted a couple of Wyeth's published Santa Claus illustrations on his blog. I noticed that the version of St Nick used on the cover of Country Gentleman magazine was dressed in much fancier garb than what appears in the painting at the Brandywine Museum. Compare the belt and pocket flap in the two images. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BB-Gun Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 (edited) It looks like someone, perhaps NC, added a few fancy bits to the original picture. It is still pretty nice and large size in the museum. The museum is small compared to the New York Metropolitan Museum or Philadelphia Art Museum, but it has a large number of paintings by Andrew and N.C. Wyeth and Howard Pyle that were used in childrens books. They also have paintings by Horace Pippin who lived in West Chester and Orange County New York. A few years ago, they had a collection of Maurice Sendak drawings on display. I wish they had the Schomburg paintings used for the Winston scifi series but who knows where those ended up. And the train collection, which is on display thru Jan 8, is especially nice. Thanks for the link BZ. Edited January 2, 2012 by BB-Gun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cat-Man_America Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 It looks like someone, perhaps NC, added a few fancy bits to the original picture. It is still pretty nice and large size in the museum. The museum is small compared to the New York Metropolitan Museum or Philadelphia Art Museum, but it has a large number of paintings by Andrew and N.C. Wyeth and Howard Pyle that were used in childrens books. They also have paintings by Horace Pippin who lived in West Chester and Orange County New York. A few years ago, they had a collection of Maurice Sendak drawings on display. I wish they had the Schomburg paintings used for the Winston scifi series but who knows where those ended up. And the train collection, which is on display thru Jan 8, is especially nice. Thanks for the link BZ. Hey, did someone mention Schomburg paintings? (thanks, BB-Gun!) Sorry about the plexi-glass reflections. This recent acquisition does appear to be a perfect fit for the GA, art and holiday discussion. I'm still doing the Goodie Room dance... I would've enjoyed viewing the Schomburg paintings in the Winston scifi series exhibit, but alas missed it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Calhoun Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 The Schomburg is great, and I'm gratified to hear that dealing with Sir Theo was a positive experience. Happy New Year to Cat and All !!! Pat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted January 2, 2012 Author Share Posted January 2, 2012 That painting is spectacular, Cat. Did Schomburg do many recreations? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
