ORIGINS of the American Comic Book 0

[MrBedrock]

[font:Times New Roman]I concur on this viewpoint, the caveat being that some things have had a much greater influence on that development than others. Some connections are tenuous at best and others are virtual dead-ends.

 

which really doesn't say anything

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gershon_Legman

 

[font:Times New Roman]While Love and Death is a fascinating read, Legman's scholarship is debatable although that isn't quite the word that comes to mind given his prurient interest in the erotic. [/font]

 

I referenced Love & Death only to ID the man to some of those (not you) who might not recognize who he is. His 'scholarship' (I agree with your assessment BTW, and one can draw a line to LG's L&D article to Wertham's later SOTI) as such in L&D has no relation to the article in a years earlier magazine wherein Legman discusses early 1800s comic books. It is quite long.

 

Some where in my computer files I have a transcription of this fascinating Legman article which became the foundational basis for searching out 1800s comic books when we began the work to add in 1800s comic books in to what was then still a "Platinum" price index section of OPG. I transcribed it back in 1999

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]I applaud this if for no other reason than the Platinum expansion of the Guide into the history of Victorian illustration art provides a deeper understanding of the genealogy of the comic family tree.

 

That said, I'm resistant to making too many direct connections to the theoretical origins of comics in a guide that also has as it's main criteria establishing a baseline for investment values. Some of the branches of the family tree are dead-ends and have little to do with the evolution of comics as we know them today.

 

From a collecting standpoint Platinum books have less market potential to comic collectors because the interest is going to be narrower and much more specialized. My [/font]

 

In all actuality I agree with you regarding the "investment" aspects of these earlier comic books and extend that thought to the 20th century comic books as well. I think many a comic book bringing in "record" prices to be 4th Stage Tulip Mania ie the "bigger fool" theory. At some point the reality of "gravity" is going to snap back on what people think of as their "investments" in the current rarified high end comic book market.

 

One can already "see" a lot of 40s comic books garnering less interest than in days of yore as the "custome base" simply is dying off for many of the 40s comics.

 

I vehemently disagree re OPB not being a proper vehicle to have initially presented the data then being uncovered more than a decade ago now. The "origins" of the comic book as presented in OPG for some 15 years now were vetted by a world wide group of comics collector scholar friends of mine.

 

What ended up in OPG and which has evolved over the years there, in many a case "older" presented data being force dropped out due to space constraints - those last few years I still had interest in building in OPG they held my sections to an aggrecate of 72 pages -

The late Gabriel Laderman NYC had a HUGE holdings in 18th & 19th century American humor pubs, thousands of examples, of which his comics stuff was a more minor sub-set. I gleaned a couple hundred out of his collection alone

 

I, also, once upon a time, tied in the Sunday Color-printed comics sections which cranked up in the 1890s, however, use of comic strips as a selling point in that sort of periodical actually dates back to the 1850s and was wide spread by the early 1870s with such pubs as Wild Oats among many others. One can check out how far I got in indexing Wild Oats for the Vict section of Overstreet.

 

[font:Times New Roman]Again, the minutiae isn't what collectors find persuasive. Arguable facts tend to supersede tenuous theoretical connections if a strong enough foundation is laid.

 

The success of the Yellow Kid and the development of Sunday color comic strips though Buster Brown, Little Nemo et. al., has a direct connection to the evolution of comic books. Obediah Oldbuck's contribution is much less obvious except as historical anecdote and from a marketing standpoint it's a tough sell. [/font]

 

Huh? You are simply wrong and make no sense. Comic Strips in Books and periodicals in all their varied myriad formats have been evolving in the USA since 1842. Yellow Kid is not a comic strip - simply a large single panel ilustration to an accompanying text by Townsend - until its last half dozen apperances and presents nothing which is not already "invented". Simple Fact.

 

Color? "Daily" newspaper comic strips now become not part of your equation. One must simply throw out all of the Cupples & Leon black and white comic books from 1919-1933; or to bring it in to more "modern" times, stuff like Zap Comics, Slow Death, on in to Cerebus, Elfquest, etc etc etc?

 

All I have presented here are a few thumb nail sketches.

 

You keep bringing up concepts of "....marketing standpoint it's a tough sell..." which makes me wonder your intent of replying to the snippets I presented in the first place. All three of the history articles as I worked on them inside Overstreet covering 1840s-1880s, 1880s-1930s and "Origins of the Modern Comic Book" have zero hints of marketing same for bucks.

[font:Times New Roman]The early origins of the word balloon are relevant, but far less important than it's wide-spread use. It's origins are quaint, but it's implementation later on as part of a package that included sequential art and color was in response to a need of the expanding medium.[/font]

 

Huh? The above statement makes no sense other than fulfilling a need by you to think refutation is important. What you wrote here makes no sense.

Here is a colored in title page to America's first home grown stand alone comic book dating from 1849:

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]Bob, that's interesting, but not ground-breaking, IMO. That could just as easily be a label on a mid-19th century tuna can. To get any context the entire book needs to be seen and evaluated.[/font]

 

OK, have your tuna can fun. It is a long sequential art story. I agree, it needs to be reprinted and placed out for others to read.

 

Here now are some American home grown examples of early comic strips. First up is the cover to Elton's Comic Almanac for 1853.

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]Interesting and quaint, but again, it doesn't provide any gosh-wow revelation for comic book origins. IOW, another tenuous connection.[/font]

 

and two pages of a longer comic strip story contained therein.

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]In desperation Bill Gaines tried to revive this in his Picto-Fiction line. Alas, the results were less than spectacular and suggest a failed branch of the comic evolutionary tree.[/font]

 

Huh? Bill Gaines? Either sarcasm on your part or simply lack of seeing very many - if any, I suspect - comic strips from the 1800s. There are 1000s of comic strips in 100s of pubs from the 1800s.

Now, here are just a few of the hundreds of comic strips inside Wild Oats, an irreverant magazine akin to a National Lampoon of its day. This seminal weekly periodical, akin to a weekly Sunday newspaper, is incredibly rare. I have exactly three issues in my collection after more than a decade of fruitless searching. There are broken runs in a few institutions of higher learning. Not one of these places I found has even a near complete run. Lost is dust bowls of history, way too long over-looked by almost every comics historian seeking to impart "truth" as it were. I indexed what is in Overstreet about a decade ago now.

 

This first example is by Frank Bellew Sr whom we aptly named "Father of the American comic strip starting in the first Victorian article in OPG #32 2002. Forget Richard Outcault and/or Yellow Kid being the first of ANYTHING.

 

Frank Bellew Sr was hugely prolific doing many many hundreds of comic strips beginning in the early 1850s. This nice example dates circa 1873, I feel lazy right now, am devoting too much time here as it is from what I have to get accomplished today for my "real" life and am not looking for the exact issue number. Maybe later. but please scope out the detail in this wonderful art

 

 

Now here is an example by Livingston Hopkins who also did wonderful comic strip work. This example dates to circa the same year 1873 or so. Hopkins moved to Australia some time later and became that country's premiere political cartoonist according to some history books I gleaned info about him.

 

 

and this last example for today is by one Palmer Cox who some years later went on to create The Brownies. Outcault patterned a lot of his activities with Yellow Kid, but especially Buster Brown, on what Cox was doing with the Brownies.

 

But prior to The Brownies Palmer Cox was doing detailed sequential comic strips. This example dates from 1875. This is a double page spread. He created many double page spread comic strips for Wild Oats

 

 

The American comic strip prior to Outcault creating Yellow Kid has thousands of examples in hundreds of publications. I would think those who cling to their myths simply have not seen very many yet.

 

For good measure am tossing in the cover to the 1908 The Three Funmakers which is the first "anthology" comic book published with more than a single character strip. This comic book is fairly scarce these days. I love it.

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]Very impressed by the depth and scholarship of your work even though I differ with you somewhat about it's direct relationship with comics as we know them today.[/font]

 

 

I presented just a very few of what i have as examples here. So you "differ" in what way? The three presented are very much sequential comic strips as "we" know them today. Brings to mind on one level the format used by Hal Foster in Prince Valiant from 1937 onwards, a "comic strip," never using word balloons. And the one presented with out words at all, also sequential comics.

 

Obviously, I did not address all of your "points" as some of your statements simply make no sense to even begin to attempt to understand actual intent on your part of where you came up with what you have here. My apologies.....

I have no point to make, or have any rebuttal for the points made above.

I am just quoting for those who like to scroll.

[BLBcomics-migration]

Bob, I’m glad to see you posting and to hear Kate’s situation appears somewhat more stable!

 

If it happens those two 1943 Topix I tried to buy from you resurface send me a message (you should also still have my first email message).

 

About this post's topic, among those studying the origins' of comics literature there is Fabio Gadducci, do you know him? He and Matteo Stefanelli are (I think) part of an international network of people which take into examination many european periodicals as well.

 

hello, Thanks for the kind words re Katy. It has been a long four months since this SJS thing erupted on her. She is making good progress after haf a dozen stays in hospital since mid December.

 

yes, re Topix, i lose an item here and there in my warehouse. I need a 40 hour work day to accomplish all I set out to get done.

 

I do not think I know Matteo (though i might) as I first met Fabio along with Lucca Boschi at my first Lucca Italy comics festival in Oct 1999 where I had been invited as a guest under auspices of Alfredo Castelli to present the 1842 Obadiah Oldbuck USA edition to Euro comics scholars who did not know it existed.

 

My talk was translated simultaneously in to Italian, French and Spanish. The three guys listed also brought about the thousand copy reprint which debuted at a 2003 Naples Italy comics festival. It was and remains refreshing to talk about the origins of comic strip books with nary a mention of "how much is it worth" marketing concepts one gets from too many USA people.

[Cat-Man_America]

I have no point to make, or have any rebuttal for the points made above.

I am just quoting for those who like to scroll.

 

[Timely]

[font:Times New Roman]I concur on this viewpoint, the caveat being that some things have had a much greater influence on that development than others. Some connections are tenuous at best and others are virtual dead-ends.

 

which really doesn't say anything

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gershon_Legman

 

[font:Times New Roman]While Love and Death is a fascinating read, Legman's scholarship is debatable although that isn't quite the word that comes to mind given his prurient interest in the erotic. [/font]

 

I referenced Love & Death only to ID the man to some of those (not you) who might not recognize who he is. His 'scholarship' (I agree with your assessment BTW, and one can draw a line to LG's L&D article to Wertham's later SOTI) as such in L&D has no relation to the article in a years earlier magazine wherein Legman discusses early 1800s comic books. It is quite long.

 

Some where in my computer files I have a transcription of this fascinating Legman article which became the foundational basis for searching out 1800s comic books when we began the work to add in 1800s comic books in to what was then still a "Platinum" price index section of OPG. I transcribed it back in 1999

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]I applaud this if for no other reason than the Platinum expansion of the Guide into the history of Victorian illustration art provides a deeper understanding of the genealogy of the comic family tree.

 

That said, I'm resistant to making too many direct connections to the theoretical origins of comics in a guide that also has as it's main criteria establishing a baseline for investment values. Some of the branches of the family tree are dead-ends and have little to do with the evolution of comics as we know them today.

 

From a collecting standpoint Platinum books have less market potential to comic collectors because the interest is going to be narrower and much more specialized. My [/font]

 

In all actuality I agree with you regarding the "investment" aspects of these earlier comic books and extend that thought to the 20th century comic books as well. I think many a comic book bringing in "record" prices to be 4th Stage Tulip Mania ie the "bigger fool" theory. At some point the reality of "gravity" is going to snap back on what people think of as their "investments" in the current rarified high end comic book market.

 

One can already "see" a lot of 40s comic books garnering less interest than in days of yore as the "custome base" simply is dying off for many of the 40s comics.

 

I vehemently disagree re OPB not being a proper vehicle to have initially presented the data then being uncovered more than a decade ago now. The "origins" of the comic book as presented in OPG for some 15 years now were vetted by a world wide group of comics collector scholar friends of mine.

 

What ended up in OPG and which has evolved over the years there, in many a case "older" presented data being force dropped out due to space constraints - those last few years I still had interest in building in OPG they held my sections to an aggrecate of 72 pages -

The late Gabriel Laderman NYC had a HUGE holdings in 18th & 19th century American humor pubs, thousands of examples, of which his comics stuff was a more minor sub-set. I gleaned a couple hundred out of his collection alone

 

I, also, once upon a time, tied in the Sunday Color-printed comics sections which cranked up in the 1890s, however, use of comic strips as a selling point in that sort of periodical actually dates back to the 1850s and was wide spread by the early 1870s with such pubs as Wild Oats among many others. One can check out how far I got in indexing Wild Oats for the Vict section of Overstreet.

 

[font:Times New Roman]Again, the minutiae isn't what collectors find persuasive. Arguable facts tend to supersede tenuous theoretical connections if a strong enough foundation is laid.

 

The success of the Yellow Kid and the development of Sunday color comic strips though Buster Brown, Little Nemo et. al., has a direct connection to the evolution of comic books. Obediah Oldbuck's contribution is much less obvious except as historical anecdote and from a marketing standpoint it's a tough sell. [/font]

 

Huh? You are simply wrong and make no sense. Comic Strips in Books and periodicals in all their varied myriad formats have been evolving in the USA since 1842. Yellow Kid is not a comic strip - simply a large single panel ilustration to an accompanying text by Townsend - until its last half dozen apperances and presents nothing which is not already "invented". Simple Fact.

 

Color? "Daily" newspaper comic strips now become not part of your equation. One must simply throw out all of the Cupples & Leon black and white comic books from 1919-1933; or to bring it in to more "modern" times, stuff like Zap Comics, Slow Death, on in to Cerebus, Elfquest, etc etc etc?

 

All I have presented here are a few thumb nail sketches.

 

You keep bringing up concepts of "....marketing standpoint it's a tough sell..." which makes me wonder your intent of replying to the snippets I presented in the first place. All three of the history articles as I worked on them inside Overstreet covering 1840s-1880s, 1880s-1930s and "Origins of the Modern Comic Book" have zero hints of marketing same for bucks.

[font:Times New Roman]The early origins of the word balloon are relevant, but far less important than it's wide-spread use. It's origins are quaint, but it's implementation later on as part of a package that included sequential art and color was in response to a need of the expanding medium.[/font]

 

Huh? The above statement makes no sense other than fulfilling a need by you to think refutation is important. What you wrote here makes no sense.

Here is a colored in title page to America's first home grown stand alone comic book dating from 1849:

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]Bob, that's interesting, but not ground-breaking, IMO. That could just as easily be a label on a mid-19th century tuna can. To get any context the entire book needs to be seen and evaluated.[/font]

 

OK, have your tuna can fun. It is a long sequential art story. I agree, it needs to be reprinted and placed out for others to read.

 

Here now are some American home grown examples of early comic strips. First up is the cover to Elton's Comic Almanac for 1853.

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]Interesting and quaint, but again, it doesn't provide any gosh-wow revelation for comic book origins. IOW, another tenuous connection.[/font]

 

and two pages of a longer comic strip story contained therein.

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]In desperation Bill Gaines tried to revive this in his Picto-Fiction line. Alas, the results were less than spectacular and suggest a failed branch of the comic evolutionary tree.[/font]

 

Huh? Bill Gaines? Either sarcasm on your part or simply lack of seeing very many - if any, I suspect - comic strips from the 1800s. There are 1000s of comic strips in 100s of pubs from the 1800s.

Now, here are just a few of the hundreds of comic strips inside Wild Oats, an irreverant magazine akin to a National Lampoon of its day. This seminal weekly periodical, akin to a weekly Sunday newspaper, is incredibly rare. I have exactly three issues in my collection after more than a decade of fruitless searching. There are broken runs in a few institutions of higher learning. Not one of these places I found has even a near complete run. Lost is dust bowls of history, way too long over-looked by almost every comics historian seeking to impart "truth" as it were. I indexed what is in Overstreet about a decade ago now.

 

This first example is by Frank Bellew Sr whom we aptly named "Father of the American comic strip starting in the first Victorian article in OPG #32 2002. Forget Richard Outcault and/or Yellow Kid being the first of ANYTHING.

 

Frank Bellew Sr was hugely prolific doing many many hundreds of comic strips beginning in the early 1850s. This nice example dates circa 1873, I feel lazy right now, am devoting too much time here as it is from what I have to get accomplished today for my "real" life and am not looking for the exact issue number. Maybe later. but please scope out the detail in this wonderful art

 

 

Now here is an example by Livingston Hopkins who also did wonderful comic strip work. This example dates to circa the same year 1873 or so. Hopkins moved to Australia some time later and became that country's premiere political cartoonist according to some history books I gleaned info about him.

 

 

and this last example for today is by one Palmer Cox who some years later went on to create The Brownies. Outcault patterned a lot of his activities with Yellow Kid, but especially Buster Brown, on what Cox was doing with the Brownies.

 

But prior to The Brownies Palmer Cox was doing detailed sequential comic strips. This example dates from 1875. This is a double page spread. He created many double page spread comic strips for Wild Oats

 

 

The American comic strip prior to Outcault creating Yellow Kid has thousands of examples in hundreds of publications. I would think those who cling to their myths simply have not seen very many yet.

 

For good measure am tossing in the cover to the 1908 The Three Funmakers which is the first "anthology" comic book published with more than a single character strip. This comic book is fairly scarce these days. I love it.

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]Very impressed by the depth and scholarship of your work even though I differ with you somewhat about it's direct relationship with comics as we know them today.[/font]

 

 

I presented just a very few of what i have as examples here. So you "differ" in what way? The three presented are very much sequential comic strips as "we" know them today. Brings to mind on one level the format used by Hal Foster in Prince Valiant from 1937 onwards, a "comic strip," never using word balloons. And the one presented with out words at all, also sequential comics.

 

Obviously, I did not address all of your "points" as some of your statements simply make no sense to even begin to attempt to understand actual intent on your part of where you came up with what you have here. My apologies.....

I have no point to make, or have any rebuttal for the points made above.

I am just quoting for those who like to scroll.

 

I like Skrulls!

[BLBcomics-migration]

Here is a page from American News Trade Journal v3 #2 Feb 1921 page 13

from my archive complete run ANTJ #1 in 1919 thru ANC's demise in 1957.

 

 

as well as an advert for "state of the art" wire display racks as of 1939.

Note Wonder Comics #1 Fox next to Action Comics #11

 

[vaillant]

Bob, I’m glad to see you posting and to hear Kate’s situation appears somewhat more stable!

 

If it happens those two 1943 Topix I tried to buy from you resurface send me a message (you should also still have my first email message).

 

About this post's topic, among those studying the origins' of comics literature there is Fabio Gadducci, do you know him? He and Matteo Stefanelli are (I think) part of an international network of people which take into examination many european periodicals as well.

 

hello, Thanks for the kind words re Katy. It has been a long four months since this SJS thing erupted on her. She is making good progress after haf a dozen stays in hospital since mid December.

 

yes, re Topix, i lose an item here and there in my warehouse. I need a 40 hour work day to accomplish all I set out to get done.

 

I do not think I know Matteo (though i might) as I first met Fabio along with Lucca Boschi at my first Lucca Italy comics festival in Oct 1999 where I had been invited as a guest under auspices of Alfredo Castelli to present the 1842 Obadiah Oldbuck USA edition to Euro comics scholars who did not know it existed.

 

My talk was translated simultaneously in to Italian, French and Spanish. The three guys listed also brought about the thousand copy reprint which debuted at a 2003 Naples Italy comics festival. It was and remains refreshing to talk about the origins of comic strip books with nary a mention of "how much is it worth" marketing concepts one gets from too many USA people.

Hi Bob, don’t worry about those Topix if you can’t find them, I just remind you here and there, just in case…

If they surface, good, otherwise it was probably meant to be this way…

 

Fabio has a great attitude, IMO. At the end of last year he cow-wrote a book with my other friend Leonardo Gori and Sergio Lama which chronicles, with great documentation never sourced before, the history of italian comics publishers under fascism. But honestly, there are plenty of people interested merely in market value of collectibles even here…

 

I have no point to make, or have any rebuttal for the points made above.

I am just quoting for those who like to scroll.

 

[adamstrange]

Fantastic advertising piece! (thumbs u

 

[BLBcomics-migration]

I have plenty more in the files, however,

As trolls seem wont to take over, life be too short,

hasta la veeesta, babies, till next time down the road.

 

Slab dem books, talk spine bends and "market" reports,

those who feel compelled to stress either 9.8 9.6 9.4....

...end stage TULIP MANIA is descending upon the funny book world.

 

History sez so.

[MrBedrock]

...end stage TULIP MANIA is descending upon the funny book world.

 

History sez so.

Sounds like it's time to lower those eBay store prices, eh Bob?

[Straw-Man]

the precipitous fall caused by the mania doesn't affect wares that are museum-quality pieces--i.e. the cap't midnight i tried to get.

[BOOT]

Fantastic advertising piece! (thumbs u

 

 

That is great!

 

One interesting thing about the discussion of the importance of early comic books is the way people define the issue differently. Sometimes people talk at cross-purposes.

 

To me, the issue is about the art - the process of telling stories with sequential pictures (and also usually words.) In that respect, of course the earlier comics are important.

 

It's surprising how many people are fixated on the physical format. If an early comic is not the exact size/page count/binding/color process of what they knew, they are ready to dismiss it. The size, shape, and binding of a comic book aren't as important as what's on the pages.

 

The market value of a comic book is also only incidental to its historical value. Some seem hesitant to acknowledge the importance of the early comics because they don't think they could possibly be as valuable as Golden Age comics.

 

The potential collector market for an early comic shouldn't really help determine its place in history, either. That there is not currently as large a market for early comics as there is for early superhero comics should have no bearing on whether we acknowledge their place in history.

 

For years an ancient settlement near Clovis, New Mexico had been considered the earliest human settlement in North America. New discoveries of possible earlier settlements have been challenged by some archaeologists who continued to say "Clovis is the oldest!" They have been described as acting as "defenders of the faith".

 

Perhaps the fact that some people seem threatened by expanding the horizons of comic book history is a phenomenon like the "Clovis Barrier" in archaeology.

 

Keep an open mind! Some of the early comics are great reads and things of beauty!

[BOOT]

Here is a colored in title page to America's first home grown stand alone comic book dating from 1849:

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]Bob, that's interesting, but not ground-breaking, IMO. That could just as easily be a label on a mid-19th century tuna can. To get any context the entire book needs to be seen and evaluated.[/font]

 

It ain't no can of tuna.

 

This was reprinted in an edition of 390 copies in 1950. This full-color facsimile edition is not too pricey and not too hard to find.

 

Joseph Henry Jackson, literary editor of the San Francisco Chronicle from 1930 to 1955, wrote an introduction to the reprint. From his introduction:

 

 

Of the American comic books on the subject of the gold rush, the best known, although it is relatively scarce, is this Journey to the Gold Diggins, undertaken by one Jeremiah Saddlebags, reported in pictures by the brothers James A. and Donald F. Read, and published in both New York and Cincinnati in 1849.

 

(He describes the careers of the Reads...)

 

Of their work, however, there remains this history of the energetic little Jeremiah Saddlebags, the prototype–at least in the mind of the comic illustrator of the time in America– of the Argonaut who risked the hard journey to the gold fields, found that is was all a good deal more difficult than he had thought, avoided death by a hair's-breadth time and again, and came home poorer than he went. It is the best of the American comic books on this theme. It, and the others like it, established a fashion which was reflected in the dozens of Almanacs that stemmed from the original Davy Crockett affair and spread even into California...

 

Jeremiah and his adventures reflect so precisely the rough-and-tumble humor of their time, and interpret so beautifully the attitude toward the gold rush which was to crystallize and become a firm part of the Great American Saga, that the Reads and their creation well deserve to be rescued–as they are here for the first time–from the shadowy realm of collectors' and libraries' shelves.

 

 

Journey to the Gold Diggins is featured in an exhibit on the Gold Rush by the California State Library. (See link V. Gold Mania Satirized).

 

If someone wants to argue that this is not a comic book, or that it has no historical imporance, well...

 

Some sample pages below...

[ciorac]

Fantastic advertising piece! (thumbs u

 

 

That is great!

 

One interesting thing about the discussion of the importance of early comic books is the way people define the issue differently. Sometimes people talk at cross-purposes.

 

To me, the issue is about the art - the process of telling stories with sequential pictures (and also usually words.) In that respect, of course the earlier comics are important.

 

It's surprising how many people are fixated on the physical format. If an early comic is not the exact size/page count/binding/color process of what they knew, they are ready to dismiss it. The size, shape, and binding of a comic book aren't as important as what's on the pages.

 

The market value of a comic book is also only incidental to its historical value. Some seem hesitant to acknowledge the importance of the early comics because they don't think they could possibly be as valuable as Golden Age comics.

 

The potential collector market for an early comic shouldn't really help determine its place in history, either. That there is not currently as large a market for early comics as there is for early superhero comics should have no bearing on whether we acknowledge their place in history.

 

For years an ancient settlement near Clovis, New Mexico had been considered the earliest human settlement in North America. New discoveries of possible earlier settlements have been challenged by some archaeologists who continued to say "Clovis is the oldest!" They have been described as acting as "defenders of the faith".

 

Perhaps the fact that some people seem threatened by expanding the horizons of comic book history is a phenomenon like the "Clovis Barrier" in archaeology.

 

Keep an open mind! Some of the early comics are great reads and things of beauty!

 

Boot. My mind is wide open. I love and collect comics from the Victorian, Platinum, Golden, Silver, and even Bronze ages. I love them all. And I appreciate the history of them all very much.

 

But no amount of discussion or ancient cave paintings telling sequential stories will alter the fact that the modern comic book started in the early 1930s.

 

Sure, there are lots of ancestors to that seminal event, and even some links in a chain that led to it. That's fantastic and very interesting.

 

But cave carving paintings, dime novels, Obadiah Oldbuck, or any of those made a direct impact on Max Gaines and his contemporaries to create the modern American comic book that we all know, love, cherish, and rabidly collect today.

 

It is incontrovertible evidence that has been long established, that Gaines started the unbroken chain of events that still exists today. I'm quite certain he never beheld Obadiah before realizing that newspaper comic strips were popular and could be folded, stapled, mass produced and sold.

 

 

[BLBcomics-migration]

 

One interesting thing about the discussion of the importance of early comic books is the way people define the issue differently. Sometimes people talk at cross-purposes.

 

To me, the issue is about the art - the process of telling stories with sequential pictures (and also usually words.) In that respect, of course the earlier comics are important.

 

It's surprising how many people are fixated on the physical format. If an early comic is not the exact size/page count/binding/color process of what they knew, they are ready to dismiss it. The size, shape, and binding of a comic book aren't as important as what's on the pages.

 

The market value of a comic book is also only incidental to its historical value. Some seem hesitant to acknowledge the importance of the early comics because they don't think they could possibly be as valuable as Golden Age comics.

 

The potential collector market for an early comic shouldn't really help determine its place in history, either. That there is not currently as large a market for early comics as there is for early superhero comics should have no bearing on whether we acknowledge their place in history.

 

For years an ancient settlement near Clovis, New Mexico had been considered the earliest human settlement in North America. New discoveries of possible earlier settlements have been challenged by some archaeologists who continued to say "Clovis is the oldest!" They have been described as acting as "defenders of the faith".

 

Perhaps the fact that some people seem threatened by expanding the horizons of comic book history is a phenomenon like the "Clovis Barrier" in archaeology.

 

Keep an open mind! Some of the early comics are great reads and things of beauty!

 

Boot. My mind is wide open. I love and collect comics from the Victorian, Platinum, Golden, Silver, and even Bronze ages. I love them all. And I appreciate the history of them all very much.

 

But no amount of discussion or ancient cave paintings telling sequential stories will alter the fact that the modern comic book started in the early 1930s.

 

Sure, there are lots of ancestors to that seminal event, and even some links in a chain that led to it. That's fantastic and very interesting.

 

But cave carving paintings, dime novels, Obadiah Oldbuck, or any of those made a direct impact on Max Gaines and his contemporaries to create the modern American comic book that we all know, love, cherish, and rabidly collect today.

 

It is incontrovertible evidence that has been long established, that Gaines started the unbroken chain of events that still exists today. I'm quite certain he never beheld Obadiah before realizing that newspaper comic strips were popular and could be folded, stapled, mass produced and sold.

 

 

"...incontrovertible..." - Gaines was a salesman. A fellow named Wildenburg was his boss. A person named George Janosik was W's boss. Janosik was head of Eastern Color who partnered with George Delacorte to produce the first seven issues of Famous Funnies in 1934 as well as earlier partners on The Funnies which debuted Dec 1928. Lev Gleason was a salesman on the same level as Gaines at the time. There are many layers to this onion to peel away, not just a Gaines picture. A more complete "best' picture on this resides in Overstreet #40's Origin of the Modern Comic Book article. There is an evolution to this article in the preceding dozen or so Overstreets.

 

For any one to say the regular sequential comics featuring in the monthly type humor magazines by the 1870s 1880s coming in to the 1890s did not play the major role in developing and instilling the concept on in to the daily news paper publishers that people were paying money to read the comics are being simply silly.

 

This is why Pulitzer, then Hearst, then Bennett, et al picked up on bringing this sort of sequential humor to their respective newspapers.

 

Some one brought up Yellow Kid - again - which is also silly if one examines the printed evidence. The first sequential comic strips predating YK in Pulitzer's NY World were by Mark Fenderson in 1894 almost a year and a half before the very first single panel YK who was printed blue the first few, as well as Fenderson collaborating with Walt McDougall, and even Outcault had sequential strips in NY World a full year before he introduced Hogan's Alley

 

Dime Novels were brought up by me soley as the imitated format, nothing else which others decided to manufacture fantasies about

[Cat-Man_America]

[font:Times New Roman]Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more...

 

I concur on this viewpoint, the caveat being that some things have had a much greater influence on that development than others. Some connections are tenuous at best and others are virtual dead-ends.

 

which really doesn't say anything

 

Actually it does. To put this more succinctly, trying to produce a complete picture from a jigsaw puzzle with too many pieces is as difficult as when there are too few.

 

 

 

In all actuality I agree with you regarding the "investment" aspects of these earlier comic books and extend that thought to the 20th century comic books as well. I think many a comic book bringing in "record" prices to be 4th Stage Tulip Mania ie the "bigger fool" theory. At some point the reality of "gravity" is going to snap back on what people think of as their "investments" in the current rarified high end comic book market.

 

I appreciate that you agree with me on at least one point. I mean no disrespect when I tell you that we don't appear to share common ground on the conclusions you've reached.

 

One can already "see" a lot of 40s comic books garnering less interest than in days of yore as the "custome base" simply is dying off for many of the 40s comics.

 

Some garner less interest, others, more. Many books are still realizing astronomical sums in high grade. It's worth noting that the spread in grade values is changing, but that's a topic for another thread.

 

IMO, the base is actually expanding as younger collectors of SA, BA, etc., with more discretionary income seek out books which represent the origins of comics. New GA collectors contribute posts to this board every day. Some of this interest may be media driven, but that too is deserving of a separate thread.[/font]

 

I vehemently disagree re OPB not being a proper vehicle to have initially presented the data then being uncovered more than a decade ago now. The "origins" of the comic book as presented in OPG for some 15 years now were vetted by a world wide group of comics collector scholar friends of mine.

 

[font:Times New Roman]I never stated that the OPG was the wrong vehicle to present historical data nor did I intend to leave that impression. There are bound to be conflicting views even among comic collector scholars, even those who consider themselves friends.

 

My point was that when there are conflicting opinions the problem is rarely in the raw data, but how that data is either interpreted or misinterpreted to establish overly ambitious values in the marketplace.

 

 

What ended up in OPG and which has evolved over the years there, in many a case "older" presented data being force dropped out due to space constraints - those last few years I still had interest in building in OPG they held my sections to an aggrecate of 72 pages -

 

The late Gabriel Laderman NYC had a HUGE holdings in 18th & 19th century American humor pubs, thousands of examples, of which his comics stuff was a more minor sub-set. I gleaned a couple hundred out of his collection alone

 

I, also, once upon a time, tied in the Sunday Color-printed comics sections which cranked up in the 1890s, however, use of comic strips as a selling point in that sort of periodical actually dates back to the 1850s and was wide spread by the early 1870s with such pubs as Wild Oats among many others. One can check out how far I got in indexing Wild Oats for the Vict section of Overstreet.

 

Duly noted. I have a great deal of reverence for the history of Platinum era books and early attempts at comic illustration, I'm just not as willing to make the leap to connecting those early efforts to the blossoming of GA and beyond.

 

[font:Times New Roman]Again, the minutiae isn't what collectors find persuasive. Arguable facts tend to supersede tenuous theoretical connections if a strong enough foundation is laid.

 

The success of the Yellow Kid and the development of Sunday color comic strips though Buster Brown, Little Nemo et. al., has a direct connection to the evolution of comic books. Obediah Oldbuck's contribution is much less obvious except as historical anecdote and from a marketing standpoint it's a tough sell. [/font]

 

Huh? You are simply wrong and make no sense. Comic Strips in Books and periodicals in all their varied myriad formats have been evolving in the USA since 1842. Yellow Kid is not a comic strip - simply a large single panel ilustration to an accompanying text by Townsend - until its last half dozen apperances and presents nothing which is not already "invented". Simple Fact.

 

Color? "Daily" newspaper comic strips now become not part of your equation. One must simply throw out all of the Cupples & Leon black and white comic books from 1919-1933; or to bring it in to more "modern" times, stuff like Zap Comics, Slow Death, on in to Cerebus, Elfquest, etc etc etc?

 

All I have presented here are a few thumb nail sketches.

 

You keep bringing up concepts of "....marketing standpoint it's a tough sell..." which makes me wonder your intent of replying to the snippets I presented in the first place. All three of the history articles as I worked on them inside Overstreet covering 1840s-1880s, 1880s-1930s and "Origins of the Modern Comic Book" have zero hints of marketing same for bucks.

 

Reread what I said:

 

1. The Yellow Kid was not described as a strip. It is however a stepping stone in the evolution of the comic strip.

 

2. Color is an essential element in that evolution. I'm not throwing out Cupples and Leon, but they may want to relocate to a less colorful neighborhood without stapled glossy paper covers. The irony is that Cupples and Leon publications are books, true comic books actually aren't.

 

3. I'm not suggesting anything so crass as that your historical data is being used as a marketing tool through OPG. The articles you've researched are indeed informative and well written. My primary point of contention is in regard to the conclusions collectors take away and how that relates to the actual marketplace.[/font]

 

[font:Times New Roman]The early origins of the word balloon are relevant, but far less important than it's wide-spread use. It's origins are quaint, but it's implementation later on as part of a package that included sequential art and color was in response to a need of the expanding medium.

 

Huh? The above statement makes no sense other than fulfilling a need by you to think refutation is important. What you wrote here makes no sense.

 

Here is a colored in title page to America's first home grown stand alone comic book dating from 1849:

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]Bob, that's interesting, but not ground-breaking, IMO. That could just as easily be a label on a mid-19th century tuna can. To get any context the entire book needs to be seen and evaluated.[/font]

 

[font:Times New Roman]OK, have your tuna can fun. It is a long sequential art story. I agree, it needs to be reprinted and placed out for others to read.

 

Here now are some American home grown examples of early comic strips. First up is the cover to Elton's Comic Almanac for 1853.[/font]

 

Interesting and quaint, but again, it doesn't provide any gosh-wow revelation for comic book origins. IOW, another tenuous connection.[/font]

 

and two pages of a longer comic strip story contained therein.

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]In desperation Bill Gaines tried to revive this in his Picto-Fiction line. Alas, the results were less than spectacular and suggest a failed branch of the comic evolutionary tree.[/font]

 

Huh? Bill Gaines? Either sarcasm on your part or simply lack of seeing very many - if any, I suspect - comic strips from the 1800s. There are 1000s of comic strips in 100s of pubs from the 1800s.

 

[font:Times New Roman]Sarcastic! Me??? Never! ...OK, that's not entirely true, but in this case I'm quite serious. Look at any of the short run of EC Picto-Fiction magazines and try to convince me that Bill Gaines wasn't blending story and B&W art in a similar manner. It failed to catch on in Victorian times or the mid-50's. Just another dead-end branch on the comic genealogy tree.

 

FTR, I'm very familiar with the history and directions comic art has taken along the way, I'm just not in full accord with your POV on the lineage and I say that without any disrespect for the work you've done.

 

Now, here are just a few of the hundreds of comic strips inside Wild Oats, an irreverant magazine akin to a National Lampoon of its day. This seminal weekly periodical, akin to a weekly Sunday newspaper, is incredibly rare. I have exactly three issues in my collection after more than a decade of fruitless searching. There are broken runs in a few institutions of higher learning. Not one of these places I found has even a near complete run. Lost is dust bowls of history, way too long over-looked by almost every comics historian seeking to impart "truth" as it were. I indexed what is in Overstreet about a decade ago now.

 

This first example is by Frank Bellew Sr whom we aptly named "Father of the American comic strip starting in the first Victorian article in OPG #32 2002. Forget Richard Outcault and/or Yellow Kid being the first of ANYTHING.

 

Frank Bellew Sr was hugely prolific doing many many hundreds of comic strips beginning in the early 1850s. This nice example dates circa 1873, I feel lazy right now, am devoting too much time here as it is from what I have to get accomplished today for my "real" life and am not looking for the exact issue number. Maybe later. but please scope out the detail in this wonderful art

 

 

Now here is an example by Livingston Hopkins who also did wonderful comic strip work. This example dates to circa the same year 1873 or so. Hopkins moved to Australia some time later and became that country's premiere political cartoonist according to some history books I gleaned info about him.

 

 

and this last example for today is by one Palmer Cox who some years later went on to create The Brownies. Outcault patterned a lot of his activities with Yellow Kid, but especially Buster Brown, on what Cox was doing with the Brownies.

 

But prior to The Brownies Palmer Cox was doing detailed sequential comic strips. This example dates from 1875. This is a double page spread. He created many double page spread comic strips for Wild Oats

 

 

The American comic strip prior to Outcault creating Yellow Kid has thousands of examples in hundreds of publications. I would think those who cling to their myths simply have not seen very many yet.

 

For good measure am tossing in the cover to the 1908 The Three Funmakers which is the first "anthology" comic book published with more than a single character strip. This comic book is fairly scarce these days. I love it.

 

 

Very impressed by the depth and scholarship of your work even though I differ with you about it's direct relationship with comics as we know them today.[/font]

 

 

I presented just a very few of what i have as examples here. So you "differ" in what way? The three presented are very much sequential comic strips as "we" know them today. Brings to mind on one level the format used by Hal Foster in Prince Valiant from 1937 onwards, a "comic strip," never using word balloons. And the one presented with out words at all, also sequential comics.

 

Obviously, I did not address all of your "points" as some of your statements simply make no sense to even begin to attempt to understand actual intent on your part of where you came up with what you have here. My apologies.....

 

[font:Times New Roman]On some levels we seem to be communicating well and on others we're apparently on a different wavelength. Most of the difference in theory may be semantics, but in the marketplace of ideas as well as the marketplace where collectibles are sold, semantics matter.

 

To better flesh out this chicken/egg debate with a totally unrelated conundrum of scientific thought:

 

Ask yourself, should we draw the line for origin of our species at neanderthal or somewhere else? Did Man evolve along a continuum or from a singular successful branch? Perhaps the evolutionary change was earlier, perhaps later or maybe from something not fully understood.

 

Questions such as these are difficult to answer conclusively because the evidence evolves and shifts around. This holds true for the origin of comics as well. That is why I'm not prepared to fully accept labored connections between illustrated Victorian periodicals and the comic book as it has evolved over the past 70 years. My long-winded [/font]

[ciorac]

 

One interesting thing about the discussion of the importance of early comic books is the way people define the issue differently. Sometimes people talk at cross-purposes.

 

To me, the issue is about the art - the process of telling stories with sequential pictures (and also usually words.) In that respect, of course the earlier comics are important.

 

It's surprising how many people are fixated on the physical format. If an early comic is not the exact size/page count/binding/color process of what they knew, they are ready to dismiss it. The size, shape, and binding of a comic book aren't as important as what's on the pages.

 

The market value of a comic book is also only incidental to its historical value. Some seem hesitant to acknowledge the importance of the early comics because they don't think they could possibly be as valuable as Golden Age comics.

 

The potential collector market for an early comic shouldn't really help determine its place in history, either. That there is not currently as large a market for early comics as there is for early superhero comics should have no bearing on whether we acknowledge their place in history.

 

For years an ancient settlement near Clovis, New Mexico had been considered the earliest human settlement in North America. New discoveries of possible earlier settlements have been challenged by some archaeologists who continued to say "Clovis is the oldest!" They have been described as acting as "defenders of the faith".

 

Perhaps the fact that some people seem threatened by expanding the horizons of comic book history is a phenomenon like the "Clovis Barrier" in archaeology.

 

Keep an open mind! Some of the early comics are great reads and things of beauty!

 

Boot. My mind is wide open. I love and collect comics from the Victorian, Platinum, Golden, Silver, and even Bronze ages. I love them all. And I appreciate the history of them all very much.

 

But no amount of discussion or ancient cave paintings telling sequential stories will alter the fact that the modern comic book started in the early 1930s.

 

Sure, there are lots of ancestors to that seminal event, and even some links in a chain that led to it. That's fantastic and very interesting.

 

But cave carving paintings, dime novels, Obadiah Oldbuck, or any of those made a direct impact on Max Gaines and his contemporaries to create the modern American comic book that we all know, love, cherish, and rabidly collect today.

 

It is incontrovertible evidence that has been long established, that Gaines started the unbroken chain of events that still exists today. I'm quite certain he never beheld Obadiah before realizing that newspaper comic strips were popular and could be folded, stapled, mass produced and sold.

 

 

"...incontrovertible..." - Gaines was a salesman. A fellow named Wildenburg was his boss. A person named George Janosik was W's boss. Janosik was head of Eastern Color who partnered with George Delacorte to produce the first seven issues of Famous Funnies in 1934 as well as earlier partners on The Funnies which debuted Dec 1928. Lev Gleason was a salesman on the same level as Gaines at the time. There are many layers to this onion to peel away, not just a Gaines picture. A more complete "best' picture on this resides in Overstreet #40's Origin of the Modern Comic Book article. There is an evolution to this article in the preceding dozen or so Overstreets.

 

For any one to say the regular sequential comics featuring in the monthly type humor magazines by the 1870s 1880s coming in to the 1890s did not play the major role in developing and instilling the concept on in to the daily news paper publishers that people were paying money to read the comics are being simply silly.

 

This is why Pulitzer, then Hearst, then Bennett, et al picked up on bringing this sort of sequential humor to their respective newspapers.

 

Some one brought up Yellow Kid - again - which is also silly if one examines the printed evidence. The first sequential comic strips predating YK in Pulitzer's NY World were by Mark Fenderson in 1894 almost a year and a half before the very first single panel YK who was printed blue the first few, as well as Fenderson collaborating with Walt McDougall, and even Outcault had sequential strips in NY World a full year before he introduced Hogan's Alley

 

Dime Novels were brought up by me soley as the imitated format, nothing else which others decided to manufacture fantasies about

 

I did say Gaines "and his contemporaries", not giving Gaines sole credit.

 

But I guess me, and nearly everyone but you and Bob, are silly. So be it. You want to connect 19th century magazines to the modern American comic published by Eastern Color. Have at it. I don't subscribe to that theory. The gaps are too wide to make a direct connection. Comic strips, in my view, are the father of the American comic book.

[BLBcomics-migration]

[font:Times New Roman]Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more...

 

[font:Times New Roman]On some levels we're apparently communicating well and others not. Most of our differences in theory may be semantics, but in the marketplace of ideas as well as the marketplace where collectibles are sold, semantics matter.

 

My long-winded [/font]

 

Just a few thoughts as there was no attempt on my part to present some all-inclusive evolution of comics. My original "plan" was to present some neat graphics a few at a time, not some definitive time line so we shall see if I sustain interest long enough to share some really neat stuff.

 

When the earlier comics were first being investigated, indexed out for the first time, I sounded and believed much like you still seem to in your posts

 

then I re-discovered, indexed, read, these thousands of comic strips in the hundreds of pubs I have mentioned a few times and probabaly by sheer process of osmosis I altered my tune but by bit to see "the light" after so many "jigsaw puzzle" pieces fell in to place.

 

I beg to differ with your statement re "...too many pieces...." because it is the very nature of preponderance of such evidence - ie reading the material - which would convince any one there was a very vibrant comic strip book & periodical "business" back before the mid 20th century onwards history books ever got a proper handle on.

 

Now, not going in any particular order from your statements, but let us take one re Cupples & Leon. There were the 10x10 B&W comic books which began 1919 thru 1933. C&L also published large size full color comic books.

 

The B&W C&L Bringing Up Father comic books refered to in the ad i already ran say over 2.5 million of them had been sold as of 1921 which means just the first half dozen or so BUF C&L books. These were the early attempts at printing up collections of daily strips, obviously, and those were also very popular in their own right. The first few were reprinted many times

 

I have many other such visual aid I am contemplating scanning and placing on the net, but probably will not here as there seems to be conscious attempt on some to bury serious discussion posts with inanity. Reasons are their own, I actually do not care. Life is too short and there are other venues to persue serious discourse than here.

 

Color is simply one aspect of a comic book. A comic "book" comes in many varied formats. we have a difference in interpretation of terms, so the concept becomes moot. That concept as you state knocks out seminal comics such as Robert Crumb introducing Zap Comics among others......

 

Was I going for some "knock out" punch as some probably chose to interpret? Nope. I have stacks of files - many many feet worth - which need to be scanned yet. The scant few examples were just that : examples. I was working on more examples to present when all this drama erupted. Am not in to the drama. Have not been so in a while

 

What I have noted regarding the origin articles as they evolved over the years in OPG is no one has ever been able to knock any serious holes in the evolution of all the jigsaw puzzles pieces from the 1840s onwards.

 

Anyway, been working my eBay store world wide as usual, am now tired, time to go home, get back up tomorrow, do it all over again. Regarding a peanut gallery spectator stating I should lower my eBay store prices, well, I take offers all day long on many an item. Some I stick to what i want.

 

I also do not believe in the BS on 9.8 9.6 books as I think it physically impossible to ascertain differences at that level without the use of electron microscopes. Hence, the Tulip mania referenced does not apply to many a funny book out for sale by most people.

 

There is a certain Japanese prison camp in the USA escape cover i had already informed some one else who piped in I was decided on keeping. It is not in my eBay store. I think that particular book to be stupidly too cheap in "Guide" and for the chump change involved, would rather place it in a frame on the wall for a spell.

Now i have digressed, but then again, the flow of this thread has been damaged already. Caio

[BLBcomics-migration]

Bill, you wrote, ".... is incontrovertible evidence that has been long established, that Gaines started the unbroken chain of events that still exists today. I'm quite certain he never beheld Obadiah before realizing that newspaper comic strips were popular and could be folded, stapled, mass produced and sold....."

 

Ever see the comics history "history" time line Gaines wrote in Print magazine back in 1942 there abouts? Details later on, too late tonight to type out.

 

But up above you wrote "...Gaines started the unbroken chain of events..." which is what I replied to. I did not connect the two sentences as you did in your mind,

 

People still want to connect Yellow Kid and what happened in newspaper strips beginning in 1890s to Eastern Color some 30/40 years later.

 

i say the "inspiration" for placing comic strips in daily newspapers of which same newspapers ran Sunday thick editions have their direct time line origins with what I have already stated re earlier publications. All one has to do is "see" the material to make the connection.

 

Guys like Waugh made stuff up out of whole cloth re Yellow Kid etc in his 1947 The Comics.

 

Becker's 1959 Comic Art in America was written by his wife when Stephen was literally on a death bed and she wanted the second half of the advance from SImon & Schuster.

 

So, yes, when you state "....Comic strips, in my view, are the father of the American comic book. ...." you are totally agreeing with me. Comic strips were running in newspapers, other periodicals, in America decades before a few NYC daily type newspapers took notice. They took notice BECAUSE comic strips were pushing up circulations.

 

[buttock]

I'd like to publicly acknowledge my regret for clicking on this thread.

[BOOT]

Boot. My mind is wide open. I love and collect comics from the Victorian, Platinum, Golden, Silver, and even Bronze ages. I love them all. And I appreciate the history of them all very much.

 

But no amount of discussion or ancient cave paintings telling sequential stories will alter the fact that the modern comic book started in the early 1930s.

 

Sure, there are lots of ancestors to that seminal event, and even some links in a chain that led to it. That's fantastic and very interesting.

 

But cave carving paintings, dime novels, Obadiah Oldbuck, or any of those made a direct impact on Max Gaines and his contemporaries to create the modern American comic book that we all know, love, cherish, and rabidly collect today.

 

It is incontrovertible evidence that has been long established, that Gaines started the unbroken chain of events that still exists today. I'm quite certain he never beheld Obadiah before realizing that newspaper comic strips were popular and could be folded, stapled, mass produced and sold.

 

 

Thank you, sir, for your fine comment. Like you, I love 'em all!

 

When you add the qualifier "modern" comic book, you limit the scope of consideration. You'll get no argument from me, that under those terms, Funnies on Parade was the first "modern" comic book.

 

I just wonder about the value of such limitation...

 

By the way, I wouldn't be so certain that Gaines never beheld Obadiah. Gaines had an article published in the Summer, 1942 issue of PRINT Magazine called "Narrative Illustration - The Story of the Comics". It is a fantastic overview of the history of how words and pictures have been used to tell stories.

 

Gaines shows himself to be incredibly well versed in comic history. On page 30, he specifically mentions "Les Amours de M. Vieux-Bois, by Rodolphe Toepffer, 1860" also known as the Histoire de M. Vieux Bois, published in English as... The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck.

 

I'll repeat that...

 

M.C. Gaines himself, one of the creators of the modern comic book, in an article for the Summer, 1942 issue of PRINT - The Quarterly Journal of the Graphic Arts, cites the original version of The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck as an influence on modern comic books.

 

That issue of PRINT is a real joy to behold. In addition to Gaines' article, there are two full color inserts - one of an E.C. giveaway comic to promote War Bonds, and another of a "Picture Stories From The Bible" story.

 

Gaines concludes his article talking about a new book "devoted entirely to the hitherto unpublished episodes in the career of a daring, death-defying heroine named Wonder Woman", along with a preview of the cover of Wonder Woman #1.

 

If I get some time, I'll scan and post the whole article in a separate thread.