Buster Brown 1902 0

[Yellow Kid]

Help!  Can anyone tell me the title of the Buster Brown Sunday comics published on 5/11/1902 and/or 8/24/1902?  Your help would really be appreciated..Thanks!

[pemart1966]

I did some searching - close..but no cigar.  The first one that you're looking for is the second ever BB.

You may want to try this:  http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/nysnp/131.htm  or maybe the NYC library - assuming that you don't get a hit here.  Good luck.

[Yellow Kid]

Thanks for looking.  The NYPL searched their microfilms of the paper but couldn't find BB for those dates.  Sadly, someone with a razor blade probably took the originals before they were filmed.  I am making a table of all of BB's 1902 appearances, and this is all I need to complete it.

[adamstrange]

2 hours ago, Yellow Kid said:

Sadly, someone with a razor blade probably took the originals before they were filmed. 

[Mmehdy]

If Bill Blackbeard was alive...bingo instant answer...his collection was donated to a major university...that is where I would go to.....

[pemart1966]

I don't know how many originals the Outcault family has but there have been a fair number auctioned at HA recently.  It would seem that there was/is a great opportunity to scan these originals in high res and release them in some form.

[Yellow Kid]

I have had a long affiliation with OSU and have donated many wonderful items to them, so I did start there.

A few years ago a good friend and I visited one branch of the Outcault family to help them organize and evaluate their collection and make a photographic record of it.  In the 47th edition of the Comic Book Price Guide, We described our visit in pp. 1198-1201.  It was a wonderful experience.

[pemart1966]

1 hour ago, Yellow Kid said:

I have had a long affiliation with OSU and have donated many wonderful items to them, so I did start there.

A few years ago a good friend and I visited one branch of the Outcault family to help them organize and evaluate their collection and make a photographic record of it.  In the 47th edition of the Comic Book Price Guide, We described our visit in pp. 1198-1201.  It was a wonderful experience.

So we might see a book with photos of all of that original art?

[Yellow Kid]

It would be nice but I don't know if I am up to it given my age and health issues.  At least you will get to see about 60% of it in the Heritage auctions, and maybe even more than that.  

[pemart1966]

1 hour ago, Yellow Kid said:

It would be nice but I don't know if I am up to it given my age and health issues.  At least you will get to see about 60% of it in the Heritage auctions, and maybe even more than that.  

I'm sure that this has been discussed before but darned if I can find it...

1.  How is it that a lot of the Buster Brown art survived but not all of it?

2.  Is the Buster Brown art with one portion of the family or is it scattered amongst family members?

3.  How is it that a lot of the Buster Brown art survived but none of the Pore Lil Mose art?

[Yellow Kid]

When you consider that Buster Brown was in the papers nearly 20 years, that means there were about 1,000 pieces of original Sunday comic art created by RFO.  If 100 pieces still exist, that would only be 10% and a majority of them are from the second half of the run.  I think art from the first five years, for example, is rare.

One generation back, Peter was a graphic artist and the other two brothers felt that most of the family collection should reside with him.  

Pore Li'l Mose had about a two year run so there were only 100 pieces of original Sunday comic art created by RFO.  He appeared prior to Buster Brown at a time when publishers were throwing away original art once it had appeared in the Sunday comics.  This is why early Buster Brown art is rare  Still, I think there are a few piece of PLM art in private collections.  If you take the 10% estimate for Buster Brown art and accept that most of it is post-1910, you can lower that value for PLM art because it is both older and from a different culture.  A better comparison would be the percentage of 1902 Buster Brown art that survived.

There are some senior collectors with great collections of comic books virtually unknown in the hobby.  The same is true for original comic art, memorabilia, etc.  

[pemart1966]

Thanks YK:

1.  The fact that the majority of BB original art known to exist is from the second half of the run - did this coincide with Outcault asking the paper to return his art as of date X?  If not, what accounts for this and how was all of this art saved given the paper's destruction policy?  

2.  Did you do a page count of original art when you were cataloguing for the Outcault family?

3.  Did BB run in any other US papers besides the NY Herald?

 

Edited March 24, 2021 by pemart1966

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

5 hours ago, Yellow Kid said:

Pore Li'l Mose had about a two year run so there were only 100 pieces of original Sunday comic art created by RFO.  He appeared prior to Buster Brown at a time when publishers were throwing away original art once it had appeared in the Sunday comics.  This is why early Buster Brown art is rare  Still, I think there are a few piece of PLM art in private collections.  If you take the 10% estimate for Buster Brown art and accept that most of it is post-1910, you can lower that value for PLM art because it is both older and from a different culture.  A better comparison would be the percentage of 1902 Buster Brown art that survived.

 

Rich, I had never heard of Poor Li'l Mose until you had mentioned it in regard to your Outcault visit. It wasn't long after that I was in a small bookstore in Northeast LA and saw a reproduction strip framed on the wall. It was probably the first I had ever seen and indeed from a different era.

[Yellow Kid]

Buster Brown was one of the first comic characters to appear in the Herald chain from coast to coast.  Technology had finally caught up with the comics enabling the same comic to be published every Sunday in all of the papers.  I have a set of the first 2-3 years of the L. A. Herald and the comics look like they were printed yesterday.

[adamstrange]

30 minutes ago, Yellow Kid said:

I have a set of the first 2-3 years of the L. A. Herald and the comics look like they were printed yesterday.

 

[pemart1966]

34 minutes ago, Yellow Kid said:

Buster Brown was one of the first comic characters to appear in the Herald chain from coast to coast.  Technology had finally caught up with the comics enabling the same comic to be published every Sunday in all of the papers.  I have a set of the first 2-3 years of the L. A. Herald and the comics look like they were printed yesterday.

There you go.  You may want to try the main library in each of the major cities that had the Tribune back in 1902.  One of them's got to have their 1902 newspapers either on fiche or digitally...

[Yellow Kid]

Fortunately a good friend at OSU found the information for me.  You can read the article in the next issue of the Comic Book Price Guide.