The Golden Age of Comic Strip Reprints 0

[adamstrange]

That's quite a stack!

 

What is your usual source for purchasing the books/TPBs?

[Scrooge]

My strategy is to keep up with it!

 

So, I order monthly from DCBService. Typically when a new collection comes out, the first volume would be 50% off. Subsequent volumes are typically 35% off. For example, last month's solicit of Volume 9 of the Mickey Mouse HC was $22.75 on pre-order versus list price of $35.

 

I read modern comics so I place an order anyway and they ship together.

 

If I waited then I would fall behind and never have the volumes I'd like to have. It also means I have fallen woefully behind on reading but so be it.

 

Other times, I'd hit LCS's half off sales on trades. The strip reprints tend to sit at stores so I add random ones that way: non-Raymond Flash Gordon, Buz Sawyer, etc ...

 

For older reprint materials, typically I like to hit ABEbooks or even MyComicShop or, yes, MileHighComics. I generally have luck finding older stuff at reasonable prices.

 

[adamstrange]

Thanks. I mostly shop at Amazon (Prime 2 day shipping ) and Cons so this was helpful.

[MBFan]

Thought this was the best forum to have a continued (?) discussion of what I consider to be the Golden Age of Comic Strip Reprints.

It is indeed a Golden Age of Comic Strip and Comic Book reprints.

 

Also of note are:

 

Popeye series from Fantagraphics

Little Sammy Sneeze by Winsor McKay from Sunday Press. Great hardcover collection of rare McKay strips.

Complete Dreams Of The Rarebit Fiend, also by McKay, from Ulrich Merkl. An amazing hardcover book - expensive, but the best collection of one of the best strips ever.

 

Ditto the Popeye books. The Sundays are okay, some good stuff there, but the dailys, oh, the dailys!

 

Rock solid adventure, incredible continuity, Elsie Segar doing fantastic art, all mixed with laugh-out-loud humor. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

 

The EC Segar Popeye stuff is hilarious! You don't know Popeye if you haven't read the strips by his creator. The humor is timeless. I loaned one of the volumes to my 23-year-old son and later heard him laughing out loud in his room.

[Scrooge]

It's been too long since this has been updated.

In anticipation of the next volume coming out later this year, I just finished Classic Comics Press' Volume 2 of the reprinting of The Cisco Kid by Salinas.

When we talked about the first volume, AStrange mentioned that the reprinting left out too many of the lines visible in the original. Since this volume was produced from a combination of syndicate proofs and clippings, the variation is much more clear and I better understood his comment. To get a clear sense of what Salinas' line look like, I suggest anyone visits CAF and take a look at the examples posted there and take a look at Salinas' '40's work. It's all mostly there but his mastery of staging and angling and setting is so much stronger in Cisco Kid than his work just 10 years prior that it's fun to compare.

The stories are still lighthearted. There is less fun made of Pancho so that's a bonus. Their role as a frontier duo of good Samaritans is engaging as the variety comes from the varied set of folks they are helping out. Don't look for the meaning of life here but go along for the ride.

Before posting two strips, let me point out that Charles @ Classic Comics Press has recently made some announcement / confirmation with both Lance and Casey Ruggles by Warren Tufts being collected (there are multiple short lived attempts out there for both the strips so I'm happy to see complete collections in the works), along with the second volume of Rusty Riley by Frank Godwin. Check them out!

 

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

Thanks for bringing this thread back Scrooge. With comic prices being so high I'm always looking for a cost effective way to enjoy comics and have found that the 1940's Dell strip reprint comics are always a good way to enjoy the hobby.  As an example this Little Orphan Annie was only $40. on Comic Link and was quickly de-slabbed for reading. This led to some other comic strip reprint books to enjoy the Adventures of LOA! 

I also recently read the biography of George Herriman which was absolutely fascinating. One of his contemporaries, Swinnerton was a well known cartoonist in the thirties whom they mentioned while we were on a tour of Hearst Castle this summer. When I told the guide I had just read about him in a book she seemed shocked and said no one knew who he was anymore; I don't think she did either!

I still need to get back into my Popeye volumes; those are fantastical! Yuk yuk yuk!

Edited September 4, 2017 by 40YrsCollctngCmcs

[Scrooge]

To close the year, I finished reading the recent Cartoon County by Cullen Murphy -

 

Cullen Murphy, son of John Cullen Murphy artist for Big Ben Bolt and Prince Valiant, recounts his family history, centering on his father's work as a cartoonist and illustrator. He takes the opportunity to recall living among many other cartoonists in Fairfield County, CT in the early '50's, 60's and 70's. This book is unlike any other on comic strip history since it's not a history of the strips (though some of that comes into play, particularly interesting is the story on how Cullen Murphy took over the scripting of Prince Valiant over from Hal Foster, thereby working with his dad) nor a discourse of their artistic qualities (though that question is raised) but a love letter to the period, his dad (who saved every scrap of paper he ever touched such that the documentation and memorabilia in the book is fantastically illustrating the stories shared) and ultimately the vocation of the comic strip artist. The writing is engaging (don't look for historically grounded dates and timelines, Murphy seems a little loose with some dates and sequences, merging people at Johnstone and Cushing as if they were there at the same time which they weren't) and offers an insight into these men like never before seen: Murphy was in on the actually lives of these men and remembers them from family gatherings, NCS parties, events & functions, illnesses, ... He is ultimately a gracious tour guide into his childhood and the fraternity of comic strip artists we are all familiar with.

[Scrooge]

Reading about Cullen Murphy inspired me to delve back into Prince Valiant by Foster. I picked up the story in 1954 - 1955 with trips to Ireland, Camelot, Misty Isles, the Holy Lands and back north via the eastern route. Enormous pleasure to read these strips. As always, Foster is a master at everything (?) but I particularly enjoy his vistas. Here are some sample tiers from the period -

 

[Scrooge]

Though not directly related to reprints, I don't think this post fits nicely elsewhere.

After two unfruitful attempts at starting Funnybooks - The improbable glories of the best American comic books by Michael Barrier, I was able to finally finish the book.

I believe 40yearscollecting mentioned somewhere else he had read the book but I haven't heard much about it otherwise. It's already been 3 years since the book came out.

It's the kind of studies that the field needs desperately but I feel it's the kind of books that few can write. I recently posted elsewhere about the bio of Kurtzman by Bill Schelly which was a great read but Schelly had the advantage of, at the time of writing, to still have access to important people in Kurtzman's life and career. The principals in Barrier's books are long gone and we have to thank Barrier long-standing interest in the issue and animation for this book to have become a reality. As such, it's a fantastic treat for anyone interested in comics and those of us who love Dell and Western Publishing comic books.

The strengths of the book compared to other is that it is as much an in-depth story of the publisher as it is a book of criticism of the stories they published. Barrier does a competent job of switching the focus from the publisher at large to the three artists whose careers he spends most time focusing on: Barks, Kelly and Stanley. Whereas analyses of these three authors' work appeared elsewhere, Barrier is able to revisit these issues with competent writing that doesn't get too bogged down in its seriousness. What was more interesting to me were the insights into the context in which their work was produced as it related to the editorial policies, the publishing schedules, the relationship with the licencors, etc. It's this dual aspect of the book that makes it a relative page turner. There are 30 pages of footnotes, a testament to the diligence Barrier applied in unearthing valuable material to understand hidden forces at work in the output of the company.

I find this book all the more important that it covers at length two aspects of the hobby that elicit relatively little interest: funny animal books and the late '40's. Mostly, articles have focused either on the Super-Hero age of the early '40's or the Horror books and the Code era of the mid-'50's. This left little room for the late '40's to be covered. I believe that the stable of artists was still in flux and some artists came and went through the industry too quickly to leave a mark or to become "lifers" or they worked in obscurity in genres typically not of interest to most collectors. This book lifts some of the veil and is a welcome source of information typically not written about.

The weakness of the book is that, at times, the critical analysis drifts into serious analysis that might leave the reader asking for better clarity in the meaning of Barrier's criticism or leave the reader wondering if Barrier assigns too much meaning through his textual analysis. However, the main weakness, which will limit the potential audience of this book, is that anyone without an already good grasp of the output of the company and its writers / artists won't be able to get the most out of the content of the book. I know that this is not intended for casual readers but there is an unstated assumption of significant familiarity with the comic books covered in the book. Not an issue for me as a Dell collector but it could be for others.

The wealth of information and the depth of coverage far outweighs the weaknesses and I'd recommend the book to anyone interested in Dell and Western Publishing comic books. It does not read as easily as Bill Schelly's biographies or the reminiscence of Cullen Murphy but it's well worth the time invested in reading it.

After all, who could argue against an author who states: " [Jesse Marsh’s] speed could take its toll at times, as in panels where Tarzan’s anatomy looks not quite right [..] but such flaws are subsumed in pages whose elements are unusually cohesive. There is rarely if ever any reason to be confused about what is happening, or why it is happening, because Marsh was a visual storyteller [..]” Page 217.

[Scrooge]

I recently rejoined Comics Kingdom (which has more continuity strips than Go Comics offers) and have been enjoying my daily dose of classic Popeye, Heart of Juliet Jones, Big Ben Bolt, Buz Sawyer, Rip Kirby, and, yes, Johnny Hazard among others -

I recently read the final volume of On Stage. It came out a couple of years ago but I didn't feel like ending the completed reprint series until recently. The art had taken a turn to the more simple and I cannot tell you how many panels are only in silhouette in that final volume (too many even if one wants to be charitable) but if you take abstraction of that fact, the stories remained interesting though Mary was no longer always at their center but was a by-stander observing other theater people's lives. Still worth reading though the earlier strips are noticeably better.

Other recent reads: LOAC The Gumps -1929 (the saga of Mary Gold), Connie Sundays, also 1929 when she is still a flapper, Big Ben Bolt (early years), Modesty Blaise, etc.

What is everyone reading?

[sfcityduck]

45 minutes ago, Scrooge said:

What is everyone reading?