Golden Age reprints/collected editions

[CromagnonMan]

There is a LOT of Golden Age reprint material out there, by several publishers. The most notable being IDW, Dark Horse, Titan, Hermes Press, Dark Horse and Fantagraphics. It seems to vary quite a bit in quality, however the price doesnt!

I thought this thread would be helpful for people looking to maybe purchase some of these books, and to help provide information about contents and quality of the book in question.

Here are some thoughts about the books i own:

Miss Fury (IDW HC) - My favourite G.A. reprint book i own- Brilliant book, mostly in colour. Nicely oversized. The reproduciton is excellent and the colouring is very authentic to newspaper print and not too garish. One negative is the book skips Miss Fury's earlier adventures, but contains all the post-war stuff. IDW said there is a potential for another volume with the early stuff, depending on sales of this volume. No further news as yet.

Kirby & Simon's Young Romance (Fantagraphics HC) - Another nice book, with excellent reproduction and colours. Standard size. Low price so excellent value.


Johnny Hazard, Brenda Starr Reporter (Hermes Press HCs) - Im covering both these together as they are similar. They are very small books, printed in a 'widescreen' format if this makes sense, but only about half the height of a regular book. Also, 95% in black and white, and the repro quality is not as good as some of the other books mentioned. Expensive too. Not really recommended unless you can get them cheap.

Spirit Archives (DC Comics HC) - These are top quality reprints. Excellent repro and colours. Standard size. Recommended.

Crime Does Not Pay Archives (Dark Horse) - Top quality repro and colours. No credits or contents page however. Standard size.

Kirby and Simon Library (Titan books) - There is currently a Superheroes volume, as well as a Crime volume. Forthcoming is a Science fiction volume. Seem to be good quality reprints and colours. Standard size.

I may add some more info and opinions at a later date. If anyone wants to correct me about anything, feel free to post!

Also if you would like to add your own GA reprint book reviews, please do!

[CromagnonMan]

Crime Does Not Pay Archives vol 1

Publisher: Dark Horse
Size: standard
Matte paper
Colour
279 pages

Collects: Crime Does Not Pay(1942) #1-4

I suppose the main draw to this series is the lurid crime covers. The cover of the book is taken from issue #3, which features a well-dressed ('30's gangster chic) man laughing as he is pushing a womans head onto a gas stove. He kind of looks like a commie to me, which may be intentional, as normal americans wouldnt do this kind of thing! The covers are well reproduced, however as the book is standard size they do look quite small, and taking into account the title banner and cover captions etc, takes away from the pure enjoyment of the cover art.

The main reason for reading this book would be for the 'real-life' crime stories, 8 to 12 page 'life' stories based on infamous or notorious gangsters. Lepke(?), Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, 'Legs' Diamond and Dutch Schultz all have individual features. The secondary stories would be the biographies of famous western 'anti-heroes' such as 'Wild Bill' Hickock, Pancho Villa, Billy the Kid and Belle Starr. The stories making up the rest of the volume could loosely be called 'filler' ranging from downright pointless and unreadable to somewhat entertaining. And of course, each issue has a text story, which i didnt read. In issue #3, we are introduced to an EC-style 'presenter', a ghoul called Mr. Crime, who claims to be the teacher of many of the criminals in the stories. The stories are characterised by the villains always receiving whats coming to them, with the moral being of course, Crime Does Not Pay! Crime Does Not Pay!

Overall a good volume. Recommended if you like reading comics from this era. As usual with these books, the content is wildly inconsistent, and attempts to comprehensively collect all the original stories , rather than an edited 'best-of'. Hence, some people may feel they are paying for some stories which they wouldnt want to.

I have rated the book according to reproduction quality, the usual story and art, rated according to the standards of the era rather than in comparison to more modern, "better" comics, consistency of content, and the 'pulp' factor, which i loosely determine to be how the stories reflect that era and the overall 'pulp' feel of the book.

The overall reproduction quality is excellent, and the book gets bonus points for including the original covers, back page ads and a contents/credits page for the individual stories.

Ratings
Reproduction ------------A
Art -------------B
Story---------------B
Consistency--------C
'pulp' factor--------A+


Some scans from the actual book.

[benday-dot]

Great books and great reviews CM.

I have all of those except Brenda Starr and my Spirit Archives collection is very incomplete, partly making up for it with a pretty good selection of the Kitchen Sink books from a generation earlier.

The hardcovers I would recommend, but missing from your list, are Toth:Genius Isolated from IDW. It is a hell of a fine book, and represents the first salvo in a trilogy. Also, from Fantagraphics: the Ditko library of volumes reprinting the Charlton comics of the 50's, the similar Bill Everett book and the Simon and Kirby "Young Romance volume.

Also from IDW... all the Craig Yoe series of books are very good (and affordable). There are two horror volumes so far, books on 3D comics, Jetta, Archie, Milt Gross as well as others


If you are counting paperbacks, the list of great GA books multiplies.. most of the best stuff coming from Fantagraphics: Setting the Standards (Toth), the 2 Fletcher Hanks books, Boody Rogers, The Horror, The Horror! and several others.

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

I have Dick Briefer's Frankenstein from IDW. I read about these comics back in the 70s in The Comic Book Book and I was very curious about them. It's great to get a chance to read them at an affordable price. These are the kind of comics I love.

[CromagnonMan]

Miss Fury HC

Publisher: IDW
Size: oversized
Matte paper
Colour
229 pages

Collects: Tarpe Mills' Miss Fury newspaper strips from April 1944-August 1949

As i have said earlier, this book is probably my favourite Golden age reprint book. I love it because the quality is head and shoulders above most of the others. The paper is top quality, and the art and colour reproduction is outstanding. A handful of the later strips are in black and white, but most are in colour. It is also brilliantly oversized. Each strip has its own page, so no cramming content in like some of the reprints do, which really lets the strip to shine. I also really like the characters and storytelling in the book. It has connecting plotlines and recurring characters throughout the strip, kind of like a soap opera. I suppose the strip is based around Miss Fury (real name Marla Drake) but really she is not the star of the book. The real stars are the variety of supporting characters, from Erica von Kampf , the Nazi moll, Albino Jo (the man with the tiger eyes), to the villains like 'Whiffy' and General Bruno. The plots mostly revolve around the people surrounding Miss Fury rather than Miss Fury herself. And she hardly ever wears the costume! This book is not a superhero book at all, but more of a crime book or soap opera.

There are various plot lines, the highlights for me being the one about the Nazi loot smuggling operation being masterminded by 'Whiffy' (an effeminate fop of a gangster with a penchant for strong perfume or aftershave) and his gang, all out of the ladies clothes shop that Marla Drake is working in for her friend, Mme. Suzanne. The strip was written by Tarpe Mills, a female writer and artist who formerly used to work as a fashion illustrator, and it shows. The books has quite a fixation on the women and fashion of the time. Its gorgeuos to look at! All the stories are of a consistently high quality and hugely enjoyable to read.

The book starts in April 1944, so excludes everything prior to that. The strip actually began in 1941, but for some reason IDW chose to publish this stuff first. Maybe they thought it superior? The book ends in Aug 1949, the strip actually continued for a little while longer but for some reason IDW chose to end the volume here. IDW have said they may publish further volumes depending on the success of this one, but there has been no further news as yet.
Also included is Tarpe Mills unfinished/unpublished graphic novel about Albino Jo, which she was working on up until her death in the 1980's. An interesting addition.
An excellent introduction is provided by Trina Robbins.

Overall a superbly presented version of an excellent strip.

Ratings
Reproduction ------------A+
Art -------------A
Story---------------A
Consistency--------A
'pulp' factor--------A

[CromagnonMan]

Great books and great reviews CM.

If you are counting paperbacks, the list of great GA books multiplies.. most of the best stuff coming from Fantagraphics: Setting the Standards (Toth), the 2 Fletcher Hanks books, Boody Rogers, The Horror, The Horror! and several others.

Thanks Benday-dot! I have no problem with adding info about paperbacks. The more info the better-The purpose of the thread is to collect info about Golden age 40's / 50's reprint books in general, so as long as the material they reprint are prior to 1960-ish its fine!

I plan on reviewing more books as i acquire/read them. The thread title should probably do with changing to 'Golden age reprint book review thread' or something.

[dan bailey]

I very rarely buy archives-type compendiums, purely because of cost, but the fact that right now I could get Crime Does Not Pay vols. 1 & (the forthcoming) 2 for something like $22 each with a Books-a-Million online coupon has me seriously considering the possibility. A couple of days ago my copy of the paperback Blackjacked & Pistol-Whipped: A Crime Does Not Pay Primer arrived from Amazon, & I've been enjoying the hell out of it. I've read probably about 2/3rds of the stories so far.

[dan bailey]

Aaaaaaaand I just pulled that trigger. I hope CroMagnon Man is happy ... & feels appropriately guilty.

[emb021]

There is a LOT of Golden Age reprint material out there, by several publishers. The most notable being IDW, Dark Horse, Titan, Hermes Press, Dark Horse and Fantagraphics. It seems to vary quite a bit in quality, however the price doesnt!

Johnny Hazard, Brenda Starr Reporter (Hermes Press HCs) - Im covering both these together as they are similar. They are very small books, printed in a 'widescreen' format if this makes sense, but only about half the height of a regular book. Also, 95% in black and white, and the repro quality is not as good as some of the other books mentioned. Expensive too. Not really recommended unless you can get them cheap.
[/B]

There is a reason these books are in "widescreen" format and in black/white. They are reprints of daily newspaper strips!! This is the standard size for such collections. Similar would be the reprints of Phantom and Buck Rogers dailies from Hermes, the Mickey Mouse dailies from FBI, and many of the IDW strip reprints.

And usually when one speaks of "the golden age", they are speaking of comic books, not comic strips.

[Slam_Bradley]

There is a reason these books are in "widescreen" format and in black/white. They are reprints of daily newspaper strips!! This is the standard size for such collections. Similar would be the reprints of Phantom and Buck Rogers dailies from Hermes, the Mickey Mouse dailies from FBI, and many of the IDW strip reprints.

And usually when one speaks of "the golden age", they are speaking of comic books, not comic strips.

While it's not as wide-spread it's not particularly unusual to refer to a "Golden Age" of comic strips that runs from roughly the mid 20s to the start of the down-sizing of strips and Sunday sections in the 50s.

No need to be pedantic in a friendly thread.

[CromagnonMan]

thanks for the comments. i appreciate the Hermes books are reprints of newspaper strips, but so is Miss Fury, and that has full page strips

I think Miss Fury was Sundays strips only, whereas those others were dailies. Being dailies, i suppose you can forgive the more rushed look. But this is the kind of info this thread is for so good job

i havnt read either of the Hermes books i have yet maybe ill give tham a shot next, never know they may be a pleasant surprise.

also thanks for the correction re: the golden age. its all 40's and 50's material, so i apologise if have used the incorrect terminology

[CromagnonMan]

Aaaaaaaand I just pulled that trigger. I hope CroMagnon Man is happy ... & feels appropriately guilty.

well i hope you like them. at least 50% of the material in vol.1 is good. and you can always sell it for an excessive price when it goes OOP.

[dan bailey]

I'd be shocked if I didn't, as much as I've dug the contents of Blackjacked & Pistol-Whipped.

[Rasputin9977]

I have that Miss Fury one. Pure Imagination released the first half in 2007 but its all in B&W. If you want to read what happened prior to the collection that IDW put together, see if you can find a copy. Awesome stuff.

[Romero]

Thanks to my awesome library system, I have been able to enjoy the first two volumes of the Ditko books from Fantagraphics and that Dick Briefer Frankenstein book, all of which are great. There's tons more I haven't gotten to yet.