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Golden Age Comic Strips
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69 posts in this topic

Just finished Walt and Skeezix 1933-1934. Absolutely wonderful. Have now purchased as many others in the series as are available at near original price. The cloth binding of the different volumes is quite nice; you do read books with their dust wrappers carefully set aside, don’t you? Of course you do. I’m now starting with the earliest one, when Walt finds Skeezix on his front doorstep. It’s almost as good as the later storylines. A cautionary note for you all: if you find reprints that you enjoy, don’t hesitate to pick up the rest In the series, if you can afford them. It is very unpleasant to bite the bullet and pay three or four times list price, once they are no longer in print. Of course, you will still have to deal with the spouse, if, like me, you have promised not to install more bookshelves to accommodate them. Luckily, I have an office with lots of as yet “undecorated” walls. Like many of you, I enjoy the Foster Prince Valiant books, Terry and the Pirates, Peanuts, Raymond’s Flash Gordon and Mac Raboy’s  work on Flash, as well. Reprints can be an expensive pursuit, but collecting the original newsprint is seldom an option; still missing around forty of Raboy’s run on Flash Gordon, for example. Well, here’s to good reading. 

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4 minutes ago, Scrooge said:

Yes … but chasing OOP volumes hurts. I buy what I am interested in as they come out.

Here's a pic of some of my reprints from last year? -

1526432074_LOACShelfie.thumb.jpg.60d8cae3b37c7c7a7dabe89d7005fff6.jpg

A year!Wow!

A lot of enjoyment on those shelves :cloud9:

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9 hours ago, Scrooge said:

Yes … but chasing OOP volumes hurts. I buy what I am interested in as they come out.

Here's a pic of some of my reprints from last year? -

1526432074_LOACShelfie.thumb.jpg.60d8cae3b37c7c7a7dabe89d7005fff6.jpg

The last decade or so has been the golden age of strip reprints. There is so much quality material.

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I've finished Volume 1 of Prince Valiant and found it to be filled with great storytelling and, as I'm sure everyone here already knows, absolutely amazing artwork. I can see why Foster said it would take him nearly 50 hours to complete each strip!

I bought the first four volumes from Amazon and, knowing the books were big and heavy, they made sure to protect with with zero packing - literally just dumping them in an oversized carton and taping it shut. The corners are banged up but not so bad that I'll bother with a return. I think for any future volumes I will order direct from Fantagraphics and cross my fingers that they will protect the volumes better than America's greatest shipper...

Image result for fantagraphics prince valiant volume 1

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Little Nemo in Slumberland (1905)

Krazy Kat (1913)

Thimble Theatre (1919)

Felix the Cat (1923)

Jane Arden (1928)

Buck Rogers (1929)

Tarzan (1929)

Tintin (1929)

Mickey Mouse (1930)

DickTracy (1931)

Flash Gordon (1934)

The Phantom (1936)

Brenda Starr, Reporter (1940)

Lady Luck (1940)

The Spirit (1940)

Peanuts (1950)

Edited by Electricmastro
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I think DC Comics Spirit Archives are superb. From the color of the paper to the reproduction values, only Fantagraphic’s Prince Valiant is as enjoyable, for me. I don’t care for the non-Eisner war time strips, but early or late, if it has the touch of Eisner, it’s  brilliant. Of course, one has to have the EC hard covers, especially if you don’t have a “reading copy” set like Robot Man. Still, something seems a bit “off” about them. One day I will retrieve my comics from storage and investigate this further. Ok, guilty secret time; I have to admit that I am way behind in actually reading the collections on my shelves. About to start Gasoline Alley The Complete Sundays vol. 2, tonight. Golden Age of reprints, indeed. 

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55 minutes ago, ageofsilver said:

I think DC Comics Spirit Archives are superb. From the color of the paper to the reproduction values, only Fantagraphic’s Prince Valiant is as enjoyable, for me. I don’t care for the non-Eisner war time strips, but early or late, if it has the touch of Eisner, it’s  brilliant. Of course, one has to have the EC hard covers, especially if you don’t have a “reading copy” set like Robot Man. Still, something seems a bit “off” about them. One day I will retrieve my comics from storage and investigate this further. Ok, guilty secret time; I have to admit that I am way behind in actually reading the collections on my shelves. About to start Gasoline Alley The Complete Sundays vol. 2, tonight. Golden Age of reprints, indeed. 

The Spirit Archives are one of two contenders for the very best of the Archive/Masterworks style reprints without a doubt.  The other contender is Fantagraphics' Carl Barks library, which is also a perfect product.  Frankly, I don't think you are a true GA reader if you don't have the Prince Valiant (Fantagraphics), Spirit Archives, and Barks (Fantagraphics) collections.  They set the standard.  The IDW Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim is a close fourth.  And the Sunday Press McCay books are also fantastic.

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On 10/6/2019 at 9:34 PM, Scrooge said:

Yes … but chasing OOP volumes hurts. I buy what I am interested in as they come out.

Here's a pic of some of my reprints from last year? -

1526432074_LOACShelfie.thumb.jpg.60d8cae3b37c7c7a7dabe89d7005fff6.jpg

You are way more organized than me.  I have to get my comic room done some day.  Organized chaos in that corner:

image.thumb.png.46ba97838d4ea21a7a284a41e8dba61c.png

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41 minutes ago, sfcityduck said:

You are way more organized than me

It takes time. Last time I reorganized the shelves, it took me 3 days over Christmas holiday. With the spate of new EC archives that have come out since the pic above, I am due to shift things around again to regroup them on the one shelf. Not sure where the Yoe reprints will go (shrug) Maybe with the Spirit and other GA DC and Marvel archives … if there is room. Same issue with the Tracy and the Annie, too many volumes now for them to be on the same shelf. The LOAC Essentials, not seen above, create their own challenge.

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1 hour ago, adamstrange said:

It wouldn't have taken so long if I didn't have these to organize as well. :blush:

Yeah ... you are way more motivated than me.  I have my collected editions spread out around my house in racks, bookcases in various rooms (many behind doors), and in a small office.  It's not ideal, and here's more of the clutter:

IMG_0606.thumb.jpg.cb9effa20a899f0458c7f9e45abcffc4.jpg

IMG_0608.thumb.jpg.e2b534630036c0343630315bf77c37f3.jpg

IMG_0609.thumb.jpg.1dbe5e2e959f58c415deff0669712d43.jpg

 

 

IMG_0610.jpg

And then I have many other racks and bookcases filled with SF and Art books and boxes of books stored away (as well as all my comics in deep storage).  My kid heads to college in less than a year, and then it will be time to make a proper comic room.  In the meantime, I just keep buying racks to store stuff:

IMG_0607.thumb.jpg.096ab29631dd390acb5251fee74ace2c.jpg

Edited by sfcityduck
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3 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

Yeah ... you are way more motivated than me.  I have my collected editions spread out around my house in racks, bookcases in various rooms (many behind doors), and in a small office.  It's not ideal, and here's more of the clutter:

More a matter of necessity.  Too many piles of books were cluttering the floor in various rooms.  I also organized my non-comic related books on a separate set of bookcases.

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On 10/9/2019 at 8:26 AM, sfcityduck said:

Yeah ... you are way more motivated than me.  I have my collected editions spread out around my house in racks, bookcases in various rooms (many behind doors), and in a small office.  It's not ideal, and here's more of the clutter:

 

IMG_0608.thumb.jpg.e2b534630036c0343630315bf77c37f3.jpg

 

 

 

IMG_0610.jpg

And then I have many other racks and bookcases filled with SF and Art books and boxes of books stored away (as well as all my comics in deep storage).  My kid heads to college in less than a year, and then it will be time to make a proper comic room.  In the meantime, I just keep buying racks to store stuff:

IMG_0607.thumb.jpg.096ab29631dd390acb5251fee74ace2c.jpg

Looks pretty organized to me! I also like the Guard Cat. Now you just need to teach him/her to play foosball.

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1 hour ago, Black_Adam said:

Looks pretty organized to me! I also like the Guard Cat. Now you just need to teach him/her to play foosball.

Have two guard cats.  And they do bat the foosball around on the foosball table.  But, its not that organized, and I'm not picturing the stuff thrown in boxes or closets.  Partially pictured behind the foosball table are two set of double doors (like French doors opening towards each other) concealing floor to ceiling shelving.

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I just picked up 2 bound volumes of comic strips from 1944-45, in French from here in Quebec.  The newspaper is Le Patriot...I'm still researching them.  One is all Bat-Man and the other is all Superman (and both names have been Francisified!  ;) ).  

Each volume has about 120 pages and the back of the pages have tons of interesting stuff as well. I think I'll be posting these up for sale soon though.  Here are a couple pages:

EDIT:  Just realized they changed Bruce Wayne's name to Paul Demers!

strip 1.jpeg

strip 2.jpeg

Edited by davidpg
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On 10/9/2019 at 11:26 AM, sfcityduck said:

 

IMG_0608.thumb.jpg.e2b534630036c0343630315bf77c37f3.jpg

This is great! And there are so many classic series in sight that I didn't even know were collected like this, including those Dell Tarzan and Flash Gordon books, as well as Casper, Richie Rich, and others. I guess I need to pay more attention to some of these wonderful editions. Happy reading!! :cloud9:

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