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ORIGINS of the American Comic Book
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AmericanNews1921-02-01.jpg

 

Inside this American News Trade Journal v3 #2 Feb 1921 is the below advert for EmBee Publishing's large size comic books. George McManus and Rudolph Block Jr were 50-50 partners in this publishing effort making George McManus an early "self" publisher of his own comic strip Bringing Up Father.

 

Note the top caption says over 2.5 million copies had been sold referencing the (un-named) Cupples & Leon black and white series. Based on the date of this issue, only the first three BUF issues had been published by then which saw multiple reprintings of #1 #2 #3. They are very common.

 

AmericanNews-1921-02-13.jpg

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Note the top caption says over 2.5 million copies had been sold referencing the (un-named) Cupples & Leon black and white series. Based on the date of this issue, only the first three BUF issues had been published by then which saw multiple reprintings of #1 #2 #3. They are very common.

 

For the sake of argument, let's just assume the issues sold at roughly the same numbers... that's sales of 800,000+ for each book. Then keep in mind the US population then was less than half of what it is today.

 

In order for a contemporary comic issue to be as popular as "Bringing Up Father" was in the 1920s, a comic issue today would have to sell approx. 2 million copies! Pretty amazing.

 

 

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Note the top caption says over 2.5 million copies had been sold referencing the (un-named) Cupples & Leon black and white series. Based on the date of this issue, only the first three BUF issues had been published by then which saw multiple reprintings of #1 #2 #3. They are very common.

 

For the sake of argument, let's just assume the issues sold at roughly the same numbers... that's sales of 800,000+ for each book. Then keep in mind the US population then was less than half of what it is today.

 

In order for a contemporary comic issue to be as popular as "Bringing Up Father" was in the 1920s, a comic issue today would have to sell approx. 2 million copies! Pretty amazing.

 

 

It is amazing and validates that Americans were receptive in a big way to the art form. You can't make a linear correlation though as there wasn't nearly the choices being offered by competitors at that time that 20 years later there would be. Still, even in the 40s in the wake of so many comic titles being published, Captain Marvel was a seven figure seller. More impressive to me.

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It's a neat book, and I agree, historically significant. I have 3 copies at present... a solid 3.0 copy with white pages, and 2 other copies each missing a couple of pages IIRC. Of course, I've had them for years... unfortunately significance and saleability are two differet things! Show people Spider-man or Superman and they ooh and ahh... show them Buster Brown and they look at you like you're crazy! :grin:

 

Well, as a kid I knew who Buster Brown was, at least I knew it was important, and I am a kid of the 1980s (late 1970s). But again, I am italian, we have had many privileges! :D

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It is amazing and validates that Americans were receptive in a big way to the art form. You can't make a linear correlation though as there wasn't nearly the choices being offered by competitors at that time that 20 years later there would be. Still, even in the 40s in the wake of so many comic titles being published, Captain Marvel was a seven figure seller. More impressive to me.

 

Well Bill, if by "competitors" you were thinking about other media (like cinema) I would not compare it to reading material, they are two different things.

 

One of our main comics publication, the leading Disney title "Topolino" used to peak over a million copies (and more) in the 1970s, and this just in Italy and with the fierce competition represented by many other comics, 1970s TV anime (we have had almost each and every series, unlike the USA) and videogames.

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It is amazing and validates that Americans were receptive in a big way to the art form. You can't make a linear correlation though as there wasn't nearly the choices being offered by competitors at that time that 20 years later there would be. Still, even in the 40s in the wake of so many comic titles being published, Captain Marvel was a seven figure seller. More impressive to me.

 

Well Bill, if by "competitors" you were thinking about other media (like cinema) I would not compare it to reading material, they are two different things.

 

One of our main comics publication, the leading Disney title "Topolino" used to peak over a million copies (and more) in the 1970s, and this just in Italy and with the fierce competition represented by many other comics, 1970s TV anime (we have had almost each and every series, unlike the USA) and videogames.

 

No, I meant by other comics. In the 1920s there weren't nearly as many "comic like" books being printed as there would be in the 1940s. So for a title to sell 800,000 copies is impressive, but not as impressive as Captain Marvel selling 1,000,000 copies when he had to battle for rack space against dozens and dozens of other comics

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It is amazing and validates that Americans were receptive in a big way to the art form. You can't make a linear correlation though as there wasn't nearly the choices being offered by competitors at that time that 20 years later there would be. Still, even in the 40s in the wake of so many comic titles being published, Captain Marvel was a seven figure seller. More impressive to me.

 

Well Bill, if by "competitors" you were thinking about other media (like cinema) I would not compare it to reading material, they are two different things.

 

One of our main comics publication, the leading Disney title "Topolino" used to peak over a million copies (and more) in the 1970s, and this just in Italy and with the fierce competition represented by many other comics, 1970s TV anime (we have had almost each and every series, unlike the USA) and videogames.

 

not to mention that Topolino is WEEKLY. A million PER WEEK is awfully impressive!

 

Especially in a country with a population of what, 60 million or so? at the time.

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I believe the record holder for a U.S. comic is Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, which sold 3 million per month in the early 1950s.

 

Actually, the sales records I have stipulate WD C&S topped out at 4.3 million per issue. Looney Tunes topped out at 3 million per. Please keep in mind back in the day the majority of Dell's sales came from subscriptions. They had a super "deal" package of a year's worth of ten monthly issues for ten bucks.

 

Lots of grandma's who saw lists like the Catechetical Guild page I posted yesterday read that stuff - and bought LOTS of Dell subscriptions for their grandkids.....

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FriendsMcGee1964-01_zps67f6fd76.jpg

 

Back in 1971 while still a student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln at an early Thanksgiving Creationcon in New York City I used to fly in for on a regular basis an older gent was wandering around looking tired and lost. He had some very old newspaper Sunday sections rolled up tucked under this armpit.

 

I called out to him, asking him if he wished to take a load off, rest on a chair behind my table. He said sure, sat down, we proceeded to converse. I asked him what he was doing at this comics show as he looked to be in his 80s. I was struck such an older guy was at such a comics show.

 

He replied he had seen a TV newscast on this thing called a comic book convention which said to "bring your #1 comic books in to sell for big bucks" something to that effect. So there he came in with his #1 comics, but he sid no one wanted to buy them.

 

i replied, what do you have? I would be interested....

 

So, he unfolds his roll of vintage news print and I was treated to seeing the first Yellow Kid, first Katzenjammer Kids, first Happy Hooligan, first Little Nemo, etc etc - I no longer remember the others in the stack right this sec.

 

He also had a few original newspaper dailies with him for sale. On the spot I paid his asking price of $50 each for a 1915 George Herriman Baron Bean, a 1935 Noel Sickles Scorchy Smith, a 1927 Walt McDougall Radio Buggs. They were my very first early newspaper strip original art pieces. Comics Heaven knew no bounds back in those days of daZe.

 

I was blown away as we made arrangements for me to come out to his house that night which was in a town called Upper Gloustcher (sp) New Jersey across the water from Philadelphia, PA. Dealer room closed at 7 PM, i then had my very first adventure with Grand Central Station, figuring out a train to Philly, then a bus across the river in to New Jersey, then a cab to his house, which turned out to be a huge three story run-down type mansion on top of a small hill as I remember it.

 

I knocked on the door, it was 10 PM by this point, Ernie ushered me in, saying he had almost given up on my showing up - and he proceeded to begin my education in to early comics in America. He was very impressed a young 19 year old such as myself was interested in comics as early as he as showing me.

 

Before we both knew it, the sun was coming up, it was 7 AM or so, I am exclaiming I need to get back to NYC to guard my table of comics, we part company, me vowing to making it back to this veritable Comics Mecca.

 

On my way out the door, again saying how he was so impressed a "youngster" such as myself enjoyed the older stuff as much as the then "newer" comics, gave me Yellow Kid Sunday strips #1 #2 #4 - his TRIPLICATES - as a gift, saying to me to keep the spirit of this earlier comics heritage alive as he did not know how much longer he was going to last.

 

Ernie McGee had been born in 1884, had begun "serious" comics collecting in 1914 age 20, how his comics collecting passions had alienated him from his former wife as well as two daughters. More on Ernie & his collecting coming up shortly if people are interested (or not) as he was the earliest comics collector I ever met, and I have talked with many thousands of "old timers" no longer with us

 

below is the photo spread on Ernie collecting comics from a General Motors magazine titled Friends from 1964 with its cover pictured above. There are others on his collecting yet to sort out amongst my research files.

 

FriendsMcGee1964-02_zpsca29c47d.jpg

FriendsMcGee1964-03_zps3c162d62.jpg

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Some interesting stats for the U.S.:

 

April 1950:

 

Number of people 5 to 13: 22.2 million

14 to 17: 8.4 million

18 to 24: 16.1 million

 

April 1955:

 

5 to 13: 28.1 million

14 to 17: 9.2 million

18 to 24: 15.1 million

 

The baby boom in action! As I mentioned earlier in this thread (I think it was), leaving aside other factors, the changing age structure of the U.S. population was an important factor causing publishers to increase production of funny animal books.

 

If we assume that 13 was an upper age limit for readers of WDC&S (although I still love those Barks stories!) and LT, then a pretty good fraction of that age group was reading those books.

 

In 2010, there were about 41 million people in the U.S. between 5 and 14. I wonder what percentage has ever read a comic?

 

Barney, Sesame Street, kid-oriented video games, and so on target that age group. But so far as I can tell, comic publishers largely ignore it. Times having changed, they may be right to do so, but it makes you wonder.

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using that thought pattern statistics then there is the comparison Bill Pmade of 1921 re the first three Bringing Up Father comic books selling 2.5 million copies and mid 1940s sales of Captain Marvel being a million per. America's population grew tremendousluy due to immigration in the 20s and 30s. Sales figures factoring in population growth is something methinks Bill did not take in to account. I know I did not last night till you posted this tid bit.

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"He also had a few original newspaper dailies with him for sale. On the spot I paid his asking price of $50 each for a 1915 George Herriman Baron Bean, a 1935 Noel Sickles Scorchy Smith, a 1927 Walt McDougall Radio Buggs. They were my very first early newspaper strip original art pieces."

 

Great story. So this was the original art for these strips (not the printed newspapers)? Did he tell you how he came by the OA -- or is that to be told in the next episode?

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Oh yes, i see i spaced typing in original "art." not newspaper tear sheets doh!

 

Ernie Mcgee KNEW all these old timers. He began collecting in 1914 age 20. His original art he got from the cartoonists. He knew George Herriman as just one example.

 

I have uncovered my McGee file of over 400 letters he sent other early collectors wherin he explains all sorts of arcane comics lore. Am scanning a few of them right now to post. The first one to be posted in on the 1959 Comic Art in America by Stephen Becker book - letter written circa 1963.

Edited by BLBcomics
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For some reason the below post deleted during a typo edit which accounts for the "blank" a few clicks back, so i repost:

 

FriendsMcGee1964-01_zps67f6fd76.jpg

 

Back in 1971 while still a student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln at an early Thanksgiving Creationcon in New York City I used to fly in for on a regular basis an older gent was wandering around looking tired and lost. He had some very old newspaper Sunday sections rolled up tucked under this armpit.

 

I called out to him, asking him if he wished to take a load off, rest on a chair behind my table. He said sure, sat down, we proceeded to converse. I asked him what he was doing at this comics show as he looked to be in his 80s. I was struck such an older guy was at such a comics show.

 

He replied he had seen a TV newscast on this thing called a comic book convention which said to "bring your #1 comic books in to sell for big bucks" something to that effect. So there he came in with his #1 comics, but he sid no one wanted to buy them.

 

i replied, what do you have? I would be interested....

 

So, he unfolds his roll of vintage news print and I was treated to seeing the first Yellow Kid, first Katzenjammer Kids, first Happy Hooligan, first Little Nemo, etc etc - I no longer remember the others in the stack right this sec.

 

He also had a few original newspaper dailies with him for sale. On the spot I paid his asking price of $50 each for a 1915 George Herriman Baron Bean, a 1935 Noel Sickles Scorchy Smith, a 1927 Walt McDougall Radio Buggs. They were my very first early newspaper strip original art pieces. Comics Heaven knew no bounds back in those days of daZe.

 

I was blown away as we made arrangements for me to come out to his house that night which was in a town called Upper Gloustcher (sp) New Jersey across the river from Philly PA. Dealer room closed at 7 PM, i then had my very first adventure with Grand Central Station, figuring out a train to Philly, then a bus across the river in to New Jersey, then a cab to his house, which turned out to be a huge three story run-down type mansion on top of a small hill as I remember it.

 

I knocked on the door, it was 10 PM by this point, Ernie ushered me in, saying he had almost given up on my showing up - and he proceeded to begin my education in to early comics in America. He was very impressed a young 19 year old such as myself was interested in comics as early as he as showing me.

 

Before we both knew it, the sun was coming up, it was 7 AM or so, I am exclaiming I need to get back to NYC to guard my table of comics, we part company, me vowing to making it back to this veritable Comics Mecca.

 

On my way out the door, again saying how he was so impressed a "youngster" such as myself enjoyed the older stuff as much as the then "newer" comics, gave me Yellow Kid Sunday strips #1 #2 #4 - his TRIPLICATES - as a gift, saying to me to keep the spirit of this earlier comics heritage alive as he did not know how much longer he was going to last.

 

Ernie McGee had been born in 1884, had begun "serious" comics collecting in 1914 age 20, how his comics collecting passions had alienated him from his former wife as well as two daughters. More on Ernie & his collecting coming up shortly if people are interested (or not) as he was the earliest comics collector I ever met, and I have talked with many thousands of "old timers" no longer with us

 

below is the photo spread on Ernie collecting comics from a General Motors magazine titled Friends from 1964 with its cover pictured above. There are others on his collecting yet to sort out amongst my research files.

 

FriendsMcGee1964-02_zpsca29c47d.jpg

FriendsMcGee1964-03_zps3c162d62.jpg

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McGeeLetter-001_zps8f5152db.jpg

 

McGeeLetter-002_zpsa06cee84.jpg

 

Here is the first of what will be a number of letters written by Ernie McGee 1884-1976 beginning in the late 1950s thru to almost 1970 to a couple of other early comics collectors.

 

Ernie McGee was the earliest comics collector I ever was honored to have met and gotten to know who imparted to me (and others) a vast treasure trove of comics lore.

 

After Ernie died in 1976 when a house fire destroyed part of his beloved collection which caused a heart attack, it was his pains-takingly gathered complete Yellow Kid Sunday page run which first went to noted NYC collector Jack Herbert who then bequethed the run to Bill Blackbeard's San Francisco Academy of Comic Art which became the Yellow Kid book Bill compiled published by Dennis Kitchen in 1995.

 

In this letter Ernie makes his views on Comic Art in America by Stephen Becker (1959) known it is full of mistakes. I remember when I visited Ernie at his house in the early 70s several time he voiced the same views Becker's book had serious errors. He was full of anger Becker's seminal comics history book had gotten so much wrong in the first five chapters which Ernie supplied virtually ALL the visual aid for as well as the text for.

 

History took an unfortunate cruel twist in that Mark Fenderson, NOT Richard Outcault, should have been credited with the FIRST comic strip in New York World coupled with Walt McDougall jamming with Fenderson being the SECOND newspaper comic strip with Outcault being in the least THIRD cartoonist doing comics in the NY World beginning in 1894.

 

What Ernie did not know then, but which came out later via Becker's kids whom I had tracked down adn talked with a decade or so ago is their father had become literally deathly ill. Their mother finished the book in order to get the second half of the Simon & Shuster advance in order to pay the rent, buy food, etc. Hers was the desperate act of a mother taking care of her kids, proper history be damned, simply turn the project in to get paid is where she was coming from.

 

So many comics history books of the 1960s onwards simply quoted out of Becker (along with Waugh's The Comics 1947) without actually doing any primary hands on research. Becker's wife completely misinterpreted the notes her husband had made further augmenting the myth of the Yellow Kid being first of anything other than a "super star" Pulitzer, Hearst, then Bennett, fought over in the late 1890s.

 

More on seminal collector Ernie McGee as I have time. There is some mind blowing stuff to be scanned yet which just might blow your comics collector mind. Some of this stuff i have not looked at for over a decade. It is almost "new" all over again to me as well at this stage of my life. And I humbly thank those of you ordering comics from my eBay store, voicing support for Katy to get healed soon, as some of my time is freeing up to dig and sort further in to my research archives.

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McGeeLetter-003_zpse9183a63.jpg

 

Here is an interesting letter to "Joe" dated 1962 with Ernie McGee discussing when a number of the great comics creators died. He writes he went to the funerals of some of them as early as 1940 which by that year Ernie was 56 years old.

 

By the time I first met him in 1971 he was 87.

 

Born in 1884, Ernie began serious collecting of comics in 1914 he told me when he was 20.

 

Ernie died of a heart attack in 1976 when part of his house caught fire, destroying part of his collection he had so carefully put together and maintained for so many decades. His knowledge of the earlier comics and their creators was second to no one on the planet.

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