ORIGINS of the American Comic Book 0

[vaillant]

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.

 

I think Bill’s discourse is solid, but I also think we have a point here, and it’s not about "modern".

 

Although it is undeniable comics are chiefly a product of US culture, I think that the most misleading thing occurs because of the format.

Americans have grown accustomed to think mostly in "comic book" format, while – as comics sterted to bloom in Europe as a publishing phenomenon – this did not necessarily happened in this form.

 

To make an example from what I know, which is – my country, in Italy comics bloomed in the newspaper/tabloid sized (or larger) format, as this one was the format which people thought comics would better suited, and presented.

There was also a formative element: italian educators liked the idea of having journals aimed to the youth, and to children, to be in the same formats of "serious" publications aimed to adults.

This caused the fact that the true revolution, which in the USA happened within the comic book format, here it happened as a generation of readers (born in the early 1920s) was thunderstruck by Flash Gordon on the pages of "L’Avventuroso" (in 1934). This had pretty much the same impact on our own industry which Action Comics #1 have had on the US one:

 

This means that different industries, in different countries, produced markedly different results. This is not to say that we still have journal-sized publications ruling the market, but it means we did and do not have the comic book format as a dominating form.

 

What is even more interesting is that we have had comic-book sized publications as early as 1935, but the format did not take root as much as it did in the USA.

This is an issue of "Nel Regno di Topolino" which represented the very first italian Disney story (first appeared serialized in the journal-sized title "Paperino"):

 

 

It is interesting to note, however, that that title had an alternation of issues, some of which were comic book sized, while others in landscape comic book format, such as the very first issue, from 1935:

http://coa.inducks.org/issue.php?c=it%2FNRT+++1

 

Another aspect, which IMO is not negligible, is the fact that super-heroes as a genre never emerged with excessive prominence in Italy, up to the intuition of Stan Lee & co. in the "silver age" (although Superman and Batman’s 1950 stories were indeed published but – again – some were magazine sized, and some pocket sized.

 

This series was magazine-sized:

 

 

then it eventually became even pocket-sized:

 

 

(more information here:http://comics-made-in-usa.blogspot.it/2009/03/superman-storia-editoriale-italiana.html)

 

This comic from 1947 (originally serialized in 1945), for example, is comic book sized, but it has a landscape format:

 

[vaillant]

...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?

 

[ciorac]

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.

 

Good stuff Bob. Waugh's The Comics, was a very eye oepning book for me when I first discovered at the library in 1973 or 74. Inconistencies aside, he made me aware of comic history I had no idea even existed. Ten or so years later I started actively seeking out examples from the periods he referenced and added them to my collection.

 

Tons more information has come out since then, of course. And it has added to the tapestry that makes comics such and amazing historical journey and an incredibly fun hobby to be a part of.

 

I'm not really a grade collector, So I nab the best I can find, sometimes it means settling for a very low grade copy. That's fine by me though. Superheroes are only a portion of what I collect. The maority of the comics in my collection are NOT superheroes.

 

That doesn't sway me from the belief though that, value aside, the advent of the superhero (particularly the arrival of Superman) was the catalyst and economic engine to drive comics into the millions of sales per month that really created the industry as a whole. Hence, their importance is inarguable to a large degree.

[ciorac]

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.

 

Very interesting information. I would like to read that Gaines' article.

 

Do you think OO inspired him to create Famous Funnies? Or the lure of money when he saw how much money was being made by newspaper comic strips?

 

All ancestors are influential in the long term evolution, but that doesn't qualify them as being catalysts. I can't, and won't, believe OO or anything before him qualifies as a catalyst to Famous Funnies, Funnies on Parade et al.

[BLBcomics-migration]

The Summer 1942 Gaines article in PRINT had a sequel as well an issue or so later which explained how comics are created, production concepts, etc. IIRC both were scanned by some one and placed on the net some time ago, possible to google them. I have complete run of PRINT from #1 on for some 20 issues or so.

 

Here is an URL to both articles.

 

http://imprint.printmag.com/color/rare-vintage-articles-about-comics-and-the-comic-book-industry/

 

When you click on to Narrative Illustration, go to bottom of page 29.

 

Gaines mentions Topffer as being published in 1860. Gaines was also a consumate self promoter. After much research in to the origins of comic strips and books, one discovers there were a lot more persons involved in the creation of what begat Superman than simply M.C. Gaines. This is akin to Stan Lee taking full credit for the creation of the Marvel Universe in the 60s.

 

Obvious from the article, he saw and knew of Topffer, who died in his mid 40s after producing seven comic strip sequential art books, but Gaines simply did not know the extent of Topffer's prolific output from 1828 thru 1845, the year of his death.

 

I have a 1904 New York Times article which specifically stipulates Topffer's Obadiah Oldbuck and Bachelor Butterfly were still in print for sale in New York City. These would have been D i c k & Fitzgerald reprints. I have mentioned this in the Overstreet Victorian article for some years now.

 

When I brought up Dime Novels at the beginning of this thread, it was only to point out the "format" of the dearly beloved comic magazine "book" which it seems like some wish to cling to the concept being birthed via some sort of immaculate conception with a precursor being the proliferation of comic strips out of New York City starting with yellow kid in the mid 1890s.

 

re Waugh's The Comics: His "origin" of Yellow Kid was entirely made up out of Waugh's brain and has almost no basis in true reality. One can read Bill Blackbeard's research on this in his 1995 Yellow Kid book Dennis Kitchen published.

 

That said, once Waugh gets in to more "contemporary" comics concepts he is a wonderful read. I, too, believed ALL of what Waugh wrote for many years until I began examining primary source artifacts ie actually handling the original Sunday pages both in my own collection as well as at Bill Blackbeard's Academy of Comic Art in San Francisco. His place was about a mile from one of my San Fran comic book stores I had before Best of Two World's 1986 warehouse flood forced an implosion. Bill was a very close friend, I was the one who discovered he had died when I was going to visit with him again in the nursing home he died in.

 

 

[vaillant]

That doesn't sway me from the belief though that, value aside, the advent of the superhero (particularly the arrival of Superman) was the catalyst and economic engine to drive comics into the millions of sales per month that really created the industry as a whole. Hence, their importance is inarguable to a large degree.

 

That’s what I implied with my post: changes are cultural in nature, so they differ from country to country. Superman, important as it is, never had the same impact in Italy, and most of the golden age comic book production (which is huge, I am considering it as a whole) remains unpublished in Italy. And that is very peculiar for our country which basically absorbed any given comic production worldwide, besides its own amazing school of talents (starting as early as the early 1930s as well).

 

For example, what you say about Superman for the US market in Italy goes for "Topolino", the italian leading Disney magazine, which broke the tradition of journal-sized comics and dared to go pocket-size in 1949. We are going to celebrate issue 3000 and the title peaked to over a million copies for Italy only many times (especially in the 1970s) – at the same time when the average american kid barely knows who Mickey Mouse is but is familiar with Sonic (which graphically owes pretty much to the early animation, to Mickey Mouse and to Astro Boy as well).

[BLBcomics-migration]

Bill, and whomever else might be reading this:

 

I beg to differ on a couple levels, to wit:

 

While I agree super hero comics began parlaying an industry as such in 1938, I have the final sales numbers of the first 17 Action Comics. They do not set any world's records as such till we get to Superman #1 summer of 1939. That book, however, goes thru three printings selling around a million copies.

 

That said, and a lot of super hero stuff does try to duplicate Superman Magic, by the end of World War Two, 1945, the super hero genre is dying, within a year or two later, tis basicly dead. So, the "peak years" for this supposed vaunted "Golden Age" of comics with super hero as soem sort of apex of the industry was some five years.

 

So, some how, for the next 15 years, the comics industry ignites a major A"glut" by 1952 with hardly nary a super hero in the crowd. Superman sells cuz he has a TV show by 1953, Batman and Wonder Woman hang in there, please name ANY successful super hero in the 1950s, please

 

In the mean time in the 50s Dell has WDCS peaking out at 4.3 million per issue, Looney Tunes is seling 3 million per month (which is why those are so common); things like Tarzan, Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers et al are selling between a million and a million and a half per month. Richie Rich is the most prolific title of all time.

 

Not until we get to at least 1960 does "interest" in super hero begin to revive in terms of actual sales. Not until a year later in mid 1961 does Goodman began telling his comic guys to try a JLA type pirate

 

Tying in the "ages" of comic books to super hero aka Gold Silver Bronze and the most stupid one of all "Copper" is simply silly,

 

The true "Golden Age" of Comics sequential story telling which appealed to a much wider audience was in the newspapers 1929-1930s with something like Puck the Comics Weekly, or its competition in other newspapers, something i collect in complete Sunday sections these days, hard to do since so many sections were cut apart in to single pages. I much prefer having my complete run of Foster Tarzan full pages or my near complete run of Prince Valiant in full pages, or reading Segar Popeye aka Thimble Theater to 90% of the comic "book" output.

 

any hoot, yes, I agree, super hero ran wagon for half a decade, 40-45, the genre ultimately lucky World War Two came along on one ironic level. Think about it, most of those superhero comics went in to Armed forces PX outlets to be sold to soldiers. Tis one reason why they tend to be so scarce in America now, much of certain print runs went over seas to the teenagers doing the actual fighting.

 

just got back from Kansas City Planet Comicon, scored a pile of vintage, am now getting on with scanning and posting new acquisitions in to eBay store.........

[Cat-Man_America]

Bill, and whomever else might be reading this:

 

I beg to differ on a couple levels, to wit:

 

While I agree super hero comics began parlaying an industry as such in 1938, I have the final sales numbers of the first 17 Action Comics. They do not set any world's records as such till we get to Superman #1 summer of 1939. That book, however, goes thru three printings selling around a million copies.

 

That said, and a lot of super hero stuff does try to duplicate Superman Magic, by the end of World War Two, 1945, the super hero genre is dying, within a year or two later, tis basicly dead. So, the "peak years" for this supposed vaunted "Golden Age" of comics with super hero as soem sort of apex of the industry was some five years.

 

So, some how, for the next 15 years, the comics industry ignites a major A"glut" by 1952 with hardly nary a super hero in the crowd. Superman sells cuz he has a TV show by 1953, Batman and Wonder Woman hang in there, please name ANY successful super hero in the 1950s, please

 

In the mean time in the 50s Dell has WDCS peaking out at 4.3 million per issue, Looney Tunes is seling 3 million per month (which is why those are so common); things like Tarzan, Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers et al are selling between a million and a million and a half per month. Richie Rich is the most prolific title of all time.

 

Not until we get to at least 1960 does "interest" in super hero begin to revive in terms of actual sales. Not until a year later in mid 1961 does Goodman began telling his comic guys to try a JLA type pirate

 

Tying in the "ages" of comic books to super hero aka Gold Silver Bronze and the most stupid one of all "Copper" is simply silly,

 

The true "Golden Age" of Comics sequential story telling which appealed to a much wider audience was in the newspapers 1929-1930s with something like Puck the Comics Weekly, or its competition in other newspapers, something i collect in complete Sunday sections these days, hard to do since so many sections were cut apart in to single pages. I much prefer having my complete run of Foster Tarzan full pages or my near complete run of Prince Valiant in full pages, or reading Segar Popeye aka Thimble Theater to 90% of the comic "book" output.

 

any hoot, yes, I agree, super hero ran wagon for half a decade, 40-45, the genre ultimately lucky World War Two came along on one ironic level. Think about it, most of those superhero comics went in to Armed forces PX outlets to be sold to soldiers. Tis one reason why they tend to be so scarce in America now, much of certain print runs went over seas to the teenagers doing the actual fighting.

 

just got back from Kansas City Planet Comicon, scored a pile of vintage, am now getting on with scanning and posting new acquisitions in to eBay store.........

 

[font:Times New Roman]Your point about superheroes fading after WWII is well taken, but there were a few survivors.

 

Here's one that stretched success all the way to the Comics Code and slightly beyond:[/font]

 

 

[MrBedrock]

Tying in the "ages" of comic books to super hero aka Gold Silver Bronze and the most stupid one of all "Copper" is simply silly,

 

There is a logic to it. Most comic book collectors collect superhero comics. Superhero comic collectors designated those "ages" and their definitions in relation to the aspects of comic history that apply to what they collect. They are now the accepted definitions because of the dominance of superhero comics in the collectible marketplace. Dell collectors have their own designations of eras applicable to their field of interest. Horror collectors have their own designations of eras applicable to their field of interest. Newspaper strip collectors have their own designations of eras applicable to their field of interest. Just as you have your own designations of eras applicable to your field of interest, i.e. Victorian Age, Platinum Age etc. We could also say that the having the history of comic books specifically descended from some random publication from the "Victorian Age" of the early 1800s is simply silly...but we superhero collectors are much too refined to use such demeaning generalities.

[Cat-Man_America]

Tying in the "ages" of comic books to super hero aka Gold Silver Bronze and the most stupid one of all "Copper" is simply silly,

 

There is a logic to it. Most comic book collectors collect superhero comics. Superhero comic collectors designated those "ages" and their definitions in relation to the aspects of comic history that apply to what they collect. They are now the accepted definitions because of the dominance of superhero comics in the collectible marketplace. Dell collectors have their own designations of eras applicable to their field of interest. Horror collectors have their own designations of eras applicable to their field of interest. Newspaper strip collectors have their own designations of eras applicable to their field of interest. Just as you have your own designations of eras applicable to your field of interest, i.e. Victorian Age, Platinum Age etc. We could also say that the having the history of comic books specifically descended from some random publication from the "Victorian Age" of the early 1800s is simply silly...but we superhero collectors are much too refined to use such demeaning generalities.

 

 

[vaillant]

I think there’s been a constant misunderstanding here, and I tried to highlight it, but with little response it seems…

 

One thing is considering the history of comics, another one is to consider the history of a particular form of their publication, as comic books are for your market.

No one would understand you if you talk about comic books abroad, since it basically remains a "format", while you can talk of comics on any level with people from each and every country (well, those which have had an indigenous comics tradition, at least, or a notable publishing history, like Scandinavia for example, where Phantom is a big character).

 

So I don’t seem to get Bob Beerbohm was implying that the comic book specifically descended from 1800s publications, but comics surely do.

[MrBedrock]

So I don’t seem to get Bob Beerbohm was implying that the comic book specifically descended from 1800s publications, but comics surely do.

Bob's title of this thread is "ORIGINS of the American Comic Book".

I don't know what else he could be implying.

[vaillant]

How does "comic book" sound in english? Does it make the comics as a whole come to your mind, or does it evocate "comics" in general, comics as a medium?

You are right as to me it calls to mind a specific image, that of the average sized comic book, portrait format, but not being a native englishmperson I was just wondering…

 

I did not read Bob’s series of articles, anyway, so I was just trying to figure out where the dialogue was missing here…

[MrBedrock]

In the states I think most people in the general public refer to strip sections of the paper as comics and comic books as that, comic books. In the old days the comic strip section of the Sunday papers was called the funnies so folks like my parents called comic books funnybooks.

[vaillant]

Yes, I was aware of "the funnies" term, most of the english terms have been widely used by italian critics and writers as well.

 

Up to the 1960s-1970s (where a left-wing cultural area dominated comics criticism in Italy), "fumetti" (our term for comics) in general were constantly called "comics": "comics" was used a synonymous for "fumetti". Curiously, "bande dessinée" and "manga" (to quote the equivalent terms for two cultures where comics were prominent and have had/have a huge presence and local production) weren’t generally used a synonyous for "fumetti" and I think this is a good indicator of how much "comics" are identified as their beginnings as a genuine american product.

 

As for my perception of an italian which truly grew up reading comics but – given my age – without a bias towards a specific position on their origin, I can tell you that I feel a prodund difference on how the newspaper syndicated strips and comic books were approached. This difference did not exist to such an extent in Italy, but surely the influence of classic strips, like Flash Gordon have been bigger than those of the bulk of the comic books production.

 

Raymond has been the main influence on pioneering authors like our Kurt Caesar in Italy or Edgar P. Jacobs in France (see "The Rayon U", which predates Blake & Mortimer), but since Golden Age superheroes de facto did not appear until 1947, it was like "they weren’t there". A similar thing has happened to japanese comics, as they bloomed in the post-war japan in their modern form, and Osamu Tezuka was heavily influenced by 1920s and 1930s animation and by Geo McManus but not by comic books. Even the fact that Marvel comics never broke so hugely there is an indication of a different sensibility.

 

"Spirit" is a very peculiar character as in fact it’s an "hybrid" between newspaper strip and comic book. Not exactly, but reading also Eisner’s intent at the time, you see what I mean.

Edited April 8, 2013 by vaillant

[vaillant]

Two samples from Italian comics from the wartime period, 1942 and 1945 respectively.

Authors are my beloved Sebastiano Craveri and Raffaele Paparella (among the very first stories depicting german SS soldiers after the liberation, and that is actually a "kid gang").

 

 

[BOOT]

Very interesting information. I would like to read that Gaines' article.

 

Do you think OO inspired him to create Famous Funnies? Or the lure of money when he saw how much money was being made by newspaper comic strips?

 

All ancestors are influential in the long term evolution, but that doesn't qualify them as being catalysts. I can't, and won't, believe OO or anything before him qualifies as a catalyst to Famous Funnies, Funnies on Parade et al.

 

I'm not sure what point we're discussing now...

 

Thought we were discussing chronology rather than causality...

 

I don't think OO was a direct catalyst for Funnies on Parade anymore than Funnies on Parade is a direct catalyst for last month's issue of Fantastic Four.

 

Looking back at the long tapestry of comic history, with the diverging and reconvening paths that the art form has taken, I think it's important and informative to examine each link. I don't understand the need to try to minimize the importance of early comic books because they may not have actually been on M.C. Gaines' desk.

 

BTW, I agree, Gaines' motivation was probably financial. I have another interesting article by Gaines from the 1935 issue of PM - Production Management, about the use of comics in advertising. He discusses how comic strip advertisements in newspapers had been successful. There are several sample color comic strip advertisements reproduced with the article.

 

Gaines knew about the strong appeal of comics. In the article he discusses how comics were the most read and appreciated part of the newspapers. He discusses how some publishers were wondering if they could increase the frequency of comic strip publication to get more readers, but how other publishers thought there could be a limit to how many comics readers would actually pay to read.

 

An update at the bottom of the article's first page mentions that Puck had begun publishing a weekly comic paper...

 

One puzzling thing is that the article was published in the January, 1935 issue, yet there is no mention of 1933's Famous Funnies or Funnies on Parade.

 

Yet another item to put on the list to scan and post!

 

 

[BOOT]

Two samples from Italian comics from the wartime period, 1942 and 1945 respectively.

Authors are my beloved Sebastiano Craveri and Raffaele Paparella (among the very first stories depicting german SS soldiers after the liberation, and that is actually a "kid gang").

Those are really gorgeous, vaillant. Thanks for posting!

[ciorac]

Very interesting information. I would like to read that Gaines' article.

 

Do you think OO inspired him to create Famous Funnies? Or the lure of money when he saw how much money was being made by newspaper comic strips?

 

All ancestors are influential in the long term evolution, but that doesn't qualify them as being catalysts. I can't, and won't, believe OO or anything before him qualifies as a catalyst to Famous Funnies, Funnies on Parade et al.

 

I'm not sure what point we're discussing now...

 

Thought we were discussing chronology rather than causality...

 

I don't think OO was a direct catalyst for Funnies on Parade anymore than Funnies on Parade is a direct catalyst for last month's issue of Fantastic Four.

 

Looking back at the long tapestry of comic history, with the diverging and reconvening paths that the art form has taken, I think it's important and informative to examine each link. I don't understand the need to try to minimize the importance of early comic books because they may not have actually been on M.C. Gaines' desk.

 

BTW, I agree, Gaines' motivation was probably financial. I have another interesting article by Gaines from the 1935 issue of PM - Production Management, about the use of comics in advertising. He discusses how comic strip advertisements in newspapers had been successful. There are several sample color comic strip advertisements reproduced with the article.

 

Gaines knew about the strong appeal of comics. In the article he discusses how comics were the most read and appreciated part of the newspapers. He discusses how some publishers were wondering if they could increase the frequency of comic strip publication to get more readers, but how other publishers thought there could be a limit to how many comics readers would actually pay to read.

 

An update at the bottom of the article's first page mentions that Puck had begun publishing a weekly comic paper...

 

One puzzling thing is that the article was published in the January, 1935 issue, yet there is no mention of 1933's Famous Funnies or Funnies on Parade.

 

Yet another item to put on the list to scan and post!

 

 

I think we are discussing both, since we are discussing in a thread entitled "Origins of the American Comic Book". Both chronology and causality are relevant to that topic.

 

Most of us take umbrage when the OP mentions, or asserts, that the anecdotal appearance of Olbuck 100 years before comic books truly hits the stands as being the most important moment in both chronolgy and causality, it strains our minds to the point of incredulity that someone could hold such a preposterous belief. Then have the temerity to call us silly for not holding a similar view.

[MrBedrock]

GA comic collectors use some big words.