Comic Book Collecting

[Hepcat]

Another strip that I really enjoyed was Archie which the London Free Press only started carrying in 1965(?):





I've not collected any of the comic magazines featuring Archie Andrews and company though. Quite simply with runs numbering in the hundreds extending back into the 1940's collecting even a single title is far too daunting a prospect.

Pep Comics 1 (January 1940) - 411 (March 1987)
Laugh Comics 20 (Fall 1946) - 400 (April 1987)
Archie (Comics) 1 (Winter 1942-43) - 666 (July 2015)
(Archie's Pal) Jughead 1 (1949) - 352 (June 1987)
Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica 1 (1950) - 347 (April 1987)
Archie's Pals 'n' Gals 1 (1952) - 224 (September 1991)

Moreover in comparison to most other comics, Archies weren't collected and saved. Finding copies from before 1975 or so that haven't been read to death is nearly impossible.

[Rex fury]

So here's another reason to collect comics, aside from what they're worth. It's a rainy day up here in the great northwest. Not having much to do I went to my local antique mall which has a small comic book section- the closest thing to a comic book store within 70 miles of where I live. There, for less than a hundred bucks, I picked up a stack of really cool comics. I got several Dell Lone Rangers,  a few Lash Larues (I've never read this title before) , a Captain Marvel Presents The Terrible Five ( the story is worse than the tittle- lol) two Forbidden Worlds,  and a bunch of 70's Marvel Comics .

Once I arrived back at home I had a nice afternoon, returning to those days of "yester- year" with cowboys, superheroes and monsters. Not a bad day for comic collecting!
RF

[geezer butler]

You guys remember these over-sized, DC Marvel crossover, treasury editions? Great stories too.

2020-06-10_12-12-09 by geezer2014, on Flickr

2020-06-10_12-12-32 by geezer2014, on Flickr

2020-06-10_12-12-02 by geezer2014, on Flickr

2020-06-10_12-11-51 by geezer2014, on Flickr

2020-06-10_12-11-30 by geezer2014, on Flickr

2020-06-10_12-11-41 by geezer2014, on Flickr

[Rex fury]

You bet Geezer! Great stuff those old treasury editions. I've still got my signed copy of the first Spidey edition that Stan and John R. Autographed. My biggest regret with them is that I see people trying to pass off the DC editions as original comics. Oh well...
One of my favorite Marvel editions is Captain America's Bicentennial Battles. I really like the pages that Barry Smith inked over Kirby. Wish there was more of the two of them working together.

As an aside, is anyone wishing Howard the Duck would make a second run at the presidency? Get down America! Lol
RF

[Doh!]

I had a few of those myself, including the one that reproduced Superman No. 1 (or was it Action No. 1?). When my dad saw it at the time he said, "Hmm. I had this as a kid." I jumped to feet and said, "WHERE IS IT NOW? CAN I SEE IT??" He replied that he probably read it, then either traded it or tossed it. And that, my friends, is why I'm not a millionaire today...

On a different note, I have some EC Comics repros, including the hardbound set of Vault of Horror that came out in the 80s. I also have a stray Crime SuspenStories hardcover so just lent it to a much younger co-worker whom has never even heard of EC. He seemed immediately hooked, so I encouraged him to invest in some newer reprints for himself. Amazon is loaded with them.

[geezer butler]

I picked this up for $3 yesterday. These were great. 

2020-06-18_11-07-45 by geezer2014, on Flickr

2020-06-18_02-10-00 by geezer2014, on Flickr

2020-06-18_02-09-51 by geezer2014, on Flickr

2020-06-18_02-09-43 by geezer2014, on Flickr

2020-06-18_02-09-33 by geezer2014, on Flickr

[Doh!]

Geezer, I'm pretty sure I had that exact issue as a kid!

[Rex fury]

Great find Geezer!
I love those old catalogs; I use to wait anxiously for the Marvelmania ones to arrive in the mail.
RF

[Hepcat]

Not I. I always chaffed to see Marvel, Marvel and more Marvel comics lining the walls of comic shops throghout the 1970's and 1980's. I'd look through every new Overstreet Price Guide and think "Yeah, I'd happily scoop up a run of Green Lantern, Flash, Mystery in Space, Challengers of the Unknown, Adventures of the Fly, etc. comics at that price but where are they?"

And as far as licensed toys were concerned back in the 1960's, finding anything outside Superman, Batman and Marvel characters was like pulling teeth.

[Rex fury]

Hep, I know you're  not a big Marvel fan and I get it, but I'd encourage you take a look at some of the Marvelmania stuff. They only lasted from '69 to '71, but at the time it was the only place you could see Ditko's unused Amazing Fantasy 15 cover, artist biographies, etc.  While only four of the eight posters Jack Kirby drew for the club were published at the time,  they still represent some excellent Kirby art. I had the best conversation with Marie Severin as she signed her biography sheet drawn for that purpose.

Speaking of odd character licensing, anybody out there have the Radio Comics character bendies  that came out....God knows when? I only saw the Fly and the Shield for sale one time back in the late 70's and I wish I'd bought them. While I've collected those comics, I'd love to know how many other kids actually followed those characters  and if there's other licensed Radio Comics merchandise?
RF

[Hepcat]

Hep, I know you're  not a big Marvel fan and I get it, but I'd encourage you take a look at some of the Marvelmania stuff.

It's not the Marvel comics with which I have a problem. I'd love to add a bunch of 1960's Fantastic Four and Amazing Spider-Man comics to my collection. Price is of course the stumbling block.

Stan Lee did a lot of things right at Marvel in the 1960's. He had the knack for making it seem as if the reader was missing out on something if he wasn't picking up other Marvel comics as well as the one he was reading.

First of all the heroes were all based in New York City, a real life place with real life neighbourhoods, e.g. the Bowery, Yancy Street, etc. As a result, they were constantly X-over into each others' titles and you had to read more than one title if you wanted the complete picture of what was happening to your favourite hero. Stan Lee also left unresolved storylines dangling basically right from the start, e.g. the Thing or the Human Torch would walk out of the Fantastic Four in a fit of pique at the conclusion of a tale or the villain of the next Spider-Man tale would be looking in on the action in the last couple of pages of a Spider-Man story.

Stan Lee thus made it difficult to read just one Marvel comic.

Secondly, Marvel comics delivered more action than did DC's. While the competent man hero in DC comics typically thought his way out of perils and got the better of villains by outwitting them, Marvel comics offered slugfest after slugfest. Hero versus villain, hero against hero, whatever, page after page of slugging it out. And your typical eleven year old comic reader loved slugfests! Young boys are always wondering "Who would win a fight between...?"

Finally, Stan Lee made the young reader want to be part of it all. He addressed the reader directly in stories. He constantly mentioned by name other staff members at Marvel Comics right down to his personal secretary. Then there were the references to "Real Frantic Ones" and the opportunity to become a member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society. The young readers who wanted to be part of it all were thus successfully brought into the fold.

My problem is with the sub-sector of comic fans collectively known as Marvel zombies, i.e. the ones whose collecting interests revolve strictly around Marvel comics excluding all else. They're actually the ones who made it so difficult for me to find any non-Marvel titles in comic shops in the 1970s and 1980s. Comic shop owners very rationally stocked what fans demanded and since most comic fans were Marvel zombies, well Hepcat was out of luck.

Speaking of odd character licensing, anybody out there have the Radio Comics character bendies  that came out....God knows when? I only saw the Fly and the Shield for sale one time back in the late 70's and I wish I'd bought them. While I've collected those comics, I'd love to know how many other kids actually followed those characters  and if there's other licensed Radio Comics merchandise?

There's very little Radio Comics merchandise, other than a Ben Cooper Fly costume:





And from my own collection this Transogram board game with a great theme and nifty graphics but that's annoyingly ill executed:







Pictured on the box top are the Fly, Captain Flag, the Shield, Black Hood and Flygirl. They all look fine, but why was Captain Flag, who had a grand total of only one additional appearance in comics since Blue Ribbon Comics ceased publication in 1942, chosen instead of the Jaguar who not only had his own comic in the early sixties but had ongoing appearances in Pep and Laugh? And why was his name given an extra "g" on the character list at the bottom of the box? Worse yet, who were the Hood, Mr. Fox, Mr. Jag and Mr. Steel?



Now Archie had characters named Black Hood, the Fox, the Jaguar and Steel Sterling but not the the Hood, Mr. Fox, Mr. Jag and Mr. Steel. The people at Transogram were very careless indeed when they brought this game to market.

[Hepcat]

Another newspaper strip that influenced my taste in comics for life was the Li'l Abner strip which was not within my memory even carried in the London Free Press. Nonetheless I was aware of Li'l Abner somehow perhaps through either the Detroit Free Press or the Detroit News since we visited my uncle's family in Detroit once or twice per year when I was a kid. In any event I was certainly aware of his existence by the time the 1959 Li'l Abner movie came to London:

While I don't remember when and where I discovered the Li'l Abner or Terry and the Pirates strips, I clearly remember discovering the Scamp strip in the Weekend Toronto Star on a visit in 1961(?):



The Scamp strip first appeared on 31 October 1955 with 15 January 1956 being the date of the first "Sunday" colour strip. It ran until 25 June 1988. Scamp was also the title feature of Dell Four Color Comics #703, 777, 806 and 833 in 1956 and 1957 before graduating to his own Dell title #5-16 which ran from May 1958 to February 1961 followed by Four Color 1204 later in 1961.

Sadly I still don't have a single issue of Scamp in my collection. I do have these three wild Chip 'n' Dale comics though:

25 File copy



27



29

[marsattacks666]

Chip 'n' Dale. So cute.😊

[BountyHunter]

Here are scans of my first five issues of Marvel's Conan.











Conan is an excellent series which ran 275 issues, 12 Annuals, and 5 Giant-Size issues. I finally completed my run around 5 years ago after working on it since I started collecting in the 1975. Written by "Rascally" Roy "The Boy" Thomas adapted from and inspired by the great Robert E. Howard, drawn by Barry Smith (pre Windsor  ) and later "Big" John Buscema, the first decade of Marvel's Conan is a real joy for Sword & Sorcery Fans. It's generally accepted that Conan kicked off the Bronze Age of Comics, though there is the inevitable debate concerning this, however everyone at least agrees that Conan #1 is one of the books which started the Bronze Age in 1970. Conan's popularity also spawned the magazine Savage Sword Of Conan which ran 235 issues and 1 Annual, and was a big part of the mag Savage Tales, and a few issues of Marvel Treasury Edition. Later on other volumes of Conan were published including some good work by Dark Horse Comics.

Nice!! I'm super jealous of this!!

[BigShadow]

Just grabbed my first Golden Age Wonder Woman books this week.
Untitled by Joe Pav, on Flickr
Untitled by Joe Pav, on Flickr
Untitled by Joe Pav, on Flickr