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40 years of Edgar Church/Mile High copies
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338 posts in this topic

5 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

I seem to remember reading that in Chuck's account of the find. 

I thought Chuck was referring mostly to the absence of Ducks.  In terms of Dell titles that I collect, the Tarzans and Lone Rangers were there. 

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16 minutes ago, tth2 said:
6 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

I seem to remember reading that in Chuck's account of the find. 

I thought Chuck was referring mostly to the absence of Ducks.  In terms of Dell titles that I collect, the Tarzans and Lone Rangers were there. 

I went back to Rob's Church Database and pulled out the Four Color properly out of the list [they are listed by feature name, not as being part of the FC series consistently so you have to separate them out individually].

The quick numbers come to:

# of Dells in that advertised list: 1,540

# of Four Colors (both series): 272 (or 17%) breaking down somewhat like: 9 from the First series, 37 from the first 100 of Second Series,  29 in the 100's, etc.

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10 minutes ago, Scrooge said:

I went back to Rob's Church Database and pulled out the Four Color properly out of the list [they are listed by feature name, not as being part of the FC series consistently so you have to separate them out individually].

The quick numbers come to:

# of Dells in that advertised list: 1,540

# of Four Colors (both series): 272 (or 17%) breaking down somewhat like: 9 from the First series, 37 from the first 100 of Second Series,  29 in the 100's, etc.

where would one find this "database" you speak of ? please and thanks

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13 hours ago, Scrooge said:

I went back to Rob's Church Database and pulled out the Four Color properly out of the list [they are listed by feature name, not as being part of the FC series consistently so you have to separate them out individually].

The quick numbers come to:

# of Dells in that advertised list: 1,540

# of Four Colors (both series): 272 (or 17%) breaking down somewhat like: 9 from the First series, 37 from the first 100 of Second Series,  29 in the 100's, etc.

 

14 hours ago, tth2 said:

I thought Chuck was referring mostly to the absence of Ducks.  In terms of Dell titles that I collect, the Tarzans and Lone Rangers were there. 

Interesting.  I wonder if most of the Dell FC (non-Duck) funny animal books were grouped together with the Ducks and went into the trash with them? I suppose we'll never know. 

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On 9/11/2017 at 7:23 AM, Sqeggs said:

Very nice.  Edgar didn't have many Four Colors, did he?  Or were they dumped by his family before Chuck bought the collection?

I tend to think Edgar didn't buy many Dells or Funny Animal books. If he had, they probably would have been mixed in randomly in the piles as Chuck told me he found them. I suspect what the family might have pitched first were random magazines and maybe pulps.

Don't you just wish Chuck had taken a few pictures of the collection in it's undisturbed state? Must have been like going into King Tut's tomb... If you ever bump into him some where, ask him about it. He loves to talk about it and has a real good relection about the experience.

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1 hour ago, Robot Man said:

I tend to think Edgar didn't buy many Dells or Funny Animal books. If he had, they probably would have been mixed in randomly in the piles as Chuck told me he found them. I suspect what the family might have pitched first were random magazines and maybe pulps.

Don't you just wish Chuck had taken a few pictures of the collection in it's undisturbed state? Must have been like going into King Tut's tomb... If you ever bump into him some where, ask him about it. He loves to talk about it and has a real good relection about the experience.

I looked again at Chuck's account.  Here's the relevant part:

In the many discussions I've had with people about the contents of that second room, the general conclusion that we've reached is that the room contained Church's collection of humor comics. We've extrapolated this conclusion from the fact that there are some very unusual holes in the runs of super-hero comics that were in the walk-in closet from which I obtained the Golden Age. At the same time, there were a tantalizing samplings of humor comics, such as LOONEY TUNES #1, ANIMAL COMICS #1, and all the LITTLE LULU Four Color issues, mixed in with the super-hero comics. If Church was buying all the comics being printed, where were all the humor comics? Wouldn't it make sense that if Church was roughly sorting his super-hero/adventure comics into one room, while his humor books went into the second, that a few books would get put into the wrong closet? That would explain why a few of the super-hero books were missing from otherwise complete runs, and why a few humor books were mixed in with the super-heroes. Sadly, I think the most likely scenario is that all the humor comics were sent to the dump prior to my arrival. If that was the case, then the collection of Golden Age that everyone acknowledges as the best ever discovered in the history of the hobby, was actually half destroyed prior to my arrival.

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3 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

I looked again at Chuck's account.  Here's the relevant part:

In the many discussions I've had with people about the contents of that second room, the general conclusion that we've reached is that the room contained Church's collection of humor comics. We've extrapolated this conclusion from the fact that there are some very unusual holes in the runs of super-hero comics that were in the walk-in closet from which I obtained the Golden Age. At the same time, there were a tantalizing samplings of humor comics, such as LOONEY TUNES #1, ANIMAL COMICS #1, and all the LITTLE LULU Four Color issues, mixed in with the super-hero comics. If Church was buying all the comics being printed, where were all the humor comics? Wouldn't it make sense that if Church was roughly sorting his super-hero/adventure comics into one room, while his humor books went into the second, that a few books would get put into the wrong closet? That would explain why a few of the super-hero books were missing from otherwise complete runs, and why a few humor books were mixed in with the super-heroes. Sadly, I think the most likely scenario is that all the humor comics were sent to the dump prior to my arrival. If that was the case, then the collection of Golden Age that everyone acknowledges as the best ever discovered in the history of the hobby, was actually half destroyed prior to my arrival.

It kind of makes sense..... especially if, as has been assumed, that the books were at least partially intended as a reference library(... gone wild). If Edgar entertained ideas of ever working in the medium, it would have been prudent to separate the humor from the dramatic. Some people have wondered if the funny stuff may have been given away.... but if that were true, I would think coded humor books would have surfaced by now.... so likely they hit the dump. GOD BLESS...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)(thumbsu

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2 hours ago, jimjum12 said:

It kind of makes sense..... especially if, as has been assumed, that the books were at least partially intended as a reference library(... gone wild). If Edgar entertained ideas of ever working in the medium, it would have been prudent to separate the humor from the dramatic. Some people have wondered if the funny stuff may have been given away.... but if that were true, I would think coded humor books would have surfaced by now.... so likely they hit the dump. GOD BLESS...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)(thumbsu

Nothing against humor fans (I'm one of them), but if a large part of them ended up in the dump, at least I'm glad they started in the other closet...

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I like to think that unlike the vast majority of the comics which were likely never read by Edgar, he actually liked to read the Duck books and therefore had them sitting around in the upstairs, which unfortunately also made them more accessible to his family members when they did their initial "clean-up".

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