Golden Age reprints/collected editions

[emb021]

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

The Miss Fury collection is Sunday strips only.

Books that reprint only daily strips are horizontal in format. Examples are Johnny Hazard, Brenda Star, Buck Rogers, Phantom, Mickey Mouse, etc. Books that reprint only Sunday strips are vertical (tall) in format. Examples are Miss Fury, Flash Gordon/Jungle Jim, Buck Rogers Sundays, Captain Easy, etc.

Books that mix daily and sundays could go either way. Examples of horizontal versions include Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, Terry & the Pirates, Bloom County, Steve Canyon, etc. Examples of the vertical (tall) format include Li'l Abner, Buzz Sawyer, etc.

Its a big debate among comic strip collections when it comes to a collection that mixes dailies and Sundays whether a horizontal or a vertical format is best. This is because it usually means they have either shrunk the dailies OR the Sundays to make them fit, OR left lots of wasted white space. I don't think there is a consensus. Different collections have done it differently.

In fact, the Buz Sawyer collection isn't really a vertical format. The book is mainly square, and has mostly dailies, but the handful of Sundays were handled by having them on pages that were folded over. Even then, people complained, saying the dailies were shrunk, etc.


The terms "golden age", "silver age", etc, came from and was applied to comic books. Golden Age is 1930s into the 40s and early 50s. Silver Age is mid 50s to around 1970. Then Bronze Age from 1970 to 1985. Usually the term modern age is used from 1985 to present.

Again, these terms are used with comic BOOKS, not comic strips. The heyday of the classic comic strips was from the 1930s thru the 1950s, there is no agreed upon term.

Many people who collect comic books have no interest in comic strips. And vice versa. Yes, there are people (like me) who like both. Because the collectors of these are often in different worlds, you need to understand the differences between the two. Otherwise you will confuse some people.

For instance, a collection of daily newspaper strips will be in black and white. This is to be expected. But many comic BOOK people don't care for black and white, and may be turned off by this. So you have to make it clear that the collection is on of daily (or Sunday) newspaper strips, and not comic books.

This is not about being "pedantic", but trying to help others out.

[benday-dot]

Three more from Vanguard Productions:

White Indian by Frank Frazetta
Johnny Comet also by Frazetta (and featuring the great 50's comic strips, in widescreen or landscape fashion)

If you like Frazetta line work, this stuff is highly recommended.

A humour volume of Frazetta's work (called Funny Stuff) is due next month or so (you never know with these things) from IDW.

Also from Vanguard is Wally Wood's Strange World's of Science Fiction. A lot of this material is early Wood and looks a little rough, but it does include the very rare Avon stuff he did before his golden EC period. You can really chart the improvement on Wood's work in this volume.

[berk]

I posted this in the upcoming books of interest thread, but maybe it should go here:

Anyone have an opinion on whether the soon to be released Flash Gordon book from Titan are the best ones to look for? Hard to get a handle on all the different collections that have been done over the years. Link:

Flash Gordon: On the Planet Mongo: The Complete Flash Gordon Library (Vol. 1)

[CromagnonMan]

I posted this in the upcoming books of interest thread, but maybe it should go here:

Anyone have an opinion on whether the soon to be released Flash Gordon book from Titan are the best ones to look for? Hard to get a handle on all the different collections that have been done over the years. Link:

Flash Gordon: On the Planet Mongo: The Complete Flash Gordon Library (Vol. 1)

i have no idea, but it looks good! its going to be the "complete" flash gordon so its probably definitive. but judging from the comments on this thread youll see im no expert on these matters

[emb021]

There are now 2 Flash Gordon collections being published now.

IDW is doing a large size one of the Alex Raymond period, with BOTH Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim, which was the FG 'topper' strip (ie, it was a strip included above the other).

Titan is doing the other Flash Gordon reprint. I have no idea if they are just focusing on the Alex Raymond period or going beyond it.

These are the 5 or 6 such collections of the Alex Raymond Flash Gordon stuff. I have books from 2 other publishers. I have no idea which one(s) are the best.

[CromagnonMan]

Weird Science [EC Archives] Vol. 1

Publisher: Gemstone
Size: oversize
Thick glossy-ish paper, like the Marvel Omnibus and Masterworks
Colour
211 pages

Collects: Weird Science (1950) #1-6

I know this an old book, but i just read it, and really liked it. I had previously read the Crime Suspenstories volume, and hadnt enjoyed that one all that much, but it just may have been the wrong choice to start reading EC. Reading this sci-fi volume has convinced me to go back and re-read the Crime volume later. Anyway, onto the review.

The reproduction is nice, although it wont be to everyones taste. I think its fair to say that the book will look nothing like the original EC comics. Its similar in look to the Marvel reprint style in the Omnibus and Masterworks line, thick expensive glossy paper and bright colours, although still nice and probably much cleaner -looking than the originals.

I loved the overall concept of this book, and enjoyed reading it a lot. I had actually heard some of the stories before, whether they had become urban myths or had been copied at some point im not sure, but id certainly encountered them. I think its safe to say that when you hear the likes of Spielberg and George Lucas raving about EC, this kind of stuff is what theyre referring to. There is some dazzling artwork, by Feldstein and some by Wally Wood and other styles who i recognise but im not sure who theyre by.

You can see what an influence these stories have been on future generations of comic creators. Stan Lee must've been thinking about these comics when coming up with the science-based inspiration for Marvel's silver age concepts and characters perhaps.. The science in this book is pretty convincing (to a non-science buff like myself) i dont know if Al Feldstein did a lot of research or whether its a load of old crock, but you can certainly believe it (if you want to!). Some of the letters pages replies are written as though the editors are martians, which made me think of how 2000AD used the same trick later.

These stories are all about bad things befalling stupid people, hardly any of them ever have a good ending, mostly people getting what they deserve for either being evil or stupid. There is a lot of dark humour and satire in these stories. Most of the stories revolve about atomic experiments gone awry, time travel gone wrong and space exploration (again, gone wrong!). The book gets a 'B' for consistency as i thought some of the stories hadn't aged that well, but the majority i liked.

Overall, great comics, but not reproduced in a way that will please everybody. But it did open at least my own eyes to the merits of EC.

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

[carloshll726]

If you've read Project Superpowers from Dynamite Entertainment and Image Comics' Next Issue Project then you've heard of the hero known as Samson. I hope to someday see a collected edition of all the Samson stories from Fantastic Comics (1939 series). That'd be a pretty hot seller, too. Because Fantastic is very rare. I remember that Heritage Auctions has some near mint copies of FC CGCed; they're very expensive.

[berk]

There are now 2 Flash Gordon collections being published now.

IDW is doing a large size one of the Alex Raymond period, with BOTH Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim, which was the FG 'topper' strip (ie, it was a strip included above the other).

Titan is doing the other Flash Gordon reprint. I have no idea if they are just focusing on the Alex Raymond period or going beyond it.

These are the 5 or 6 such collections of the Alex Raymond Flash Gordon stuff. I have books from 2 other publishers. I have no idea which one(s) are the best.

Not too interested in Jungle Jim, so I thnk I will have a lok at the IDW one first. I have the 2nd and 3rd in an an older series of collections published by Kitchen Sink, probably long out of print by now.

[CromagnonMan]

If you've read Project Superpowers from Dynamite Entertainment and Image Comics' Next Issue Project then you've heard of the hero known as Samson. I hope to someday see a collected edition of all the Samson stories from Fantastic Comics (1939 series). That'd be a pretty hot seller, too. Because Fantastic is very rare. I remember that Heritage Auctions has some near mint copies of FC CGC'd; they're very expensive.

Probably, as they seem to be doing everything at some point.

[carloshll726]

Excellent... I wonder which company is going to reprint them.

[Chad]

I just picked up Dick Briefer's Frankenstein published by IDW in 2010. In collecting three remarkably different interpretations of a single character, this book also manages to provide an overview of the changes comics went through during the Golden Age due to changing tastes. The first 24 pages of stories feature Briefer's earliest work on the monster who he depicts as a grotesque, sadistic creature who enjoys killing merely because it serves as a means of tormenting his maker. There's quite a lot of Mary Shelley in Briefer's interpretation of the monster and Frankenstein and he borrows bits here and there from the Universal pictures themselves which he adapts to then current time and setting (instead of throwing Victor Frankenstein from atop a windmill, here the Monster tosses him from the peak of the Statue of Liberty where, like in the first film, Frankenstein is permitted to live by falling on an outreaching arm of the structure). At the same time, these stories divert significantly from Shelley's novel and the films as Briefer incorporates such elements as a half-man/half-crocodile for the monster to battle; a gangster for him to team-up with; and a creative sadism that results in such scenes as the one which Dr Frankenstein realises that the wax figures of the corpses assembled to recreate the carnage his creation inflicted upon the world aren't wax figures at all. The Monster itself is almost never without a twisted smile that is pretty chilling considering the fact that Briefer manages to give him a face akin to that of a braindamaged puppy.

The next 52 pages focus on an era which followed less than five years after the previous one began, yet you'd never tell that these tales were produced by the same man. Actually, there is one significant clue - the placement of the monster's nose on his forehead in each iteration of the character. Other than that, there is no physical similairties between these characters or stories except for the high quality Briefer utilizes in creating them. The Monster should for all intents and purposes be a malicious, unrepentant embodiment of evil, but something goes wrong and his creator - here a cartoonish cross between Hugo Strange and Dr Savana - unintentionally imparts onto him a kind, gentle nature. There's elements of MAD, Jack Cole,the humour found in Rocky and Bullwinkle, and hints of the Addams Family and the Munsters - all before those things had ever been created (Jack Cole excepted).

The final 47 pages of this volume collect the stories EC would have done if they had gotten there first. Though a threat to mankind like Briefer's first take on the monster, this creature is a sympathetic being at the mercy and whims of an easily panicked and stupid human race. Though Briefer expresses his dislike for this period via the insightful 15 page essay which opens the book, his opinion doesn't reflect his efforts. Rather than simply reuse his earlier model and stories for this version of the Monster, Briefer once again creates such a new look and template for the series that he might as well be starting from scratch - which actually, is exactly what he's doing.

The Stories:

1. "Untitled" Prize Comics 7 (1940)
2. "Untitled" Prize Comics 8 (1941)
3. "Untitled" Prize Comics 9 (1941)
4. "Frankenstein's Creation" from Frankenstein 1 (1945)
5. "Frankenstein's Wife" from Frankenstein 1 (1945)
6. "Frankenstein and the Mananimals" from Frankenstein 1 (1945)
7. "Blooperman" from Frankenstein 8 (1947)
8. "The Girl with the Bewitching Eyes" from Frankenstein 15 (1948)
9. "The Tomb of the Living Dead" from Frankenstein 20 (1952)
10. "Friendly Enemies!" from Frankenstein 24 (1953)
11. "The She-Monster!" from Frankenstein 28 (1954)
12. "The Monster of Frankenstein" from Frankenstein 31 (1954)

[CromagnonMan]

i have this Frankenstein book still to read. i think i will be more of a fan of the initial horror incarnation than the humourous one, but who knows?

[Chad]

i have this Frankenstein book still to read. i think i will be more of a fan of the initial horror incarnation than the humourous one, but who knows?

I don't really know how long that first incarnation lasted - the collection contains the first three tales and it would be nice to see how/if they resolved the Monster vs. Creator theme that played out in those issues. The second horror run has also been collected elsewhere - in The Monster of Frankenstein via Idea Men Productions. Unlike the above volume, this one is in black and white.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Monster-Fr.../dp/1419640178

[Chad]

SUPERMEN: THE FIRST WAVE OF COMIC BOOK HEROES 1936-1941 published by Fantagraphics, 2009

A beautiful full color assortment of, well, comic book heroes from 1936-1941. The Clock, The Flame, Daredevil, The Face, Stardust, Skyman, Sub-Zero, Silver Streak, The Comet, Blue Bolt and more. There's an energy contained within these stories that just seemed to disappear from comics while they were still in their infancy. That energy stems from the fact that while these stories define what comics are, they're too amorphous to be trapped by the conventions that would soon dictate the narrative of a tale and the characters within. When The Comet is brainwashed into robbing banks for one of his enemies, he actually murders policemen and innocent bystanders and in so doing realises that his career as a hero has passed the point of no return. The Face is a revolting looking character who any other publisher would've instantly recognized as having the makings of a classic villain - instead he's one of 1940's most unusual good guys. The Claw is also a freakish looking monster but is the villain of his piece - Daredevil is almost introduced as a nice bonus. Stardust likes to mete out unusual and horrific punishments; "Murder by Proxy" features a fun tale involving The Clock a year before Superman's debut; and Sub-Zero makes me wonder why more heroes weren't introduced with a freeze based power over the next two decades. We also get a nice glimpse of what Siegel and Shuster were up to in 1936 in a black and white two page Dr Mystic sequence; Basil Wolverton offers a look at what how comics could have looked in his Spacehawk chronicle; Lou Fine's artwork on The Flame makes it seem as if he'd been doing this kind of work for years by this point having created a story that has been refined to perfection; Jack Cole's previously mentioned Comet tale doesn't quite look like the work of the artist he would soon become (who makes an appearance later on in the book as both writer and artist for that Daredevil vs the Claw tale); Jow Simon, Jack Kirby, and Bill Everett are also recognizable in the stories they offer in this volume as well.

A really great book that there should be more of - a worthy companion piece to something like Jules Feiffer's The Comicbook Heroes.

[Ed Love]

Re: Briefer's Frankenstein: I looked at that in the store. It skipped a phase, where it ventures into the superhero phase, making the Monster's adversary not his creator but a hero named Bulldog Denny which culminated with all the characters of Prize Comics teaming up to defeat him.

Re: Supermen: As a book of a sampling of reprints of the Golden Age, an enjoyable book. But I found the title misleading and the text in it a bit pretentious and un-enlightening. Likewise, the book is not really a good overview of historically significant characters, moments, or representations of the various companies. There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to the selections. For example, most of the patriotic heroes debuted before Pearl Harbor, but the closest we have to one here is Skyman who at least sports the colors though not the right theme. I gave a slightly more detailed look at it when it came out: http://hero-goggles.blogspot.com/200...act-redux.html