A Comic Book Scrapbook

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Really interesting material. Thanks for putting it together and posting it.

The movie stars in the fan mags look like (from left to right): Carole Lombard, Edward G. Robinson, Tyrone Power -- not sure who the actress is with TP. Not sure who the actress is (if she is an actress) on the cover of Look.

[font:Times New Roman]1939 Harlem newsstand

Why are these pictures of this Harlem newsstand so fascinating to me? Look at the comics and the closeup pictures and read my explanation below.

The comics in the stand are:

single series 6 Jim Hardy

Tip Top 39

Feature 22

Keen Detective Funnies v2 #7

The Funnies 32

All-American 4

Action 14

More Fun 45

Famous Funnies 59

King Comics 39

Crackajack Funnies 13

If you take a close look at the newsdealer, he is holding and counting a stack of new DC comics because that back cover is a Johnson Smith ad that appears on DC comics with the cover date of July 1939. The previous month's back cover was a Spencer Fireworks ad. The DC comics that came out that month are Action 14, All-American 4, Adventure 40, Detective 29, More Fun 45 and Movie Comics 4. Which of these comics are in his hands? There could be a fortune in his hands. So this is a photo of new comic day in 1939 at the very moment a newsdealer is about to put out or just finished putting out new comics.

A closer look:

Adventure 40 back cover

The Action 14 was only on this newsstand for a few days according to the on sale date of June 2nd as seen in this DC house ad for Action 14.

The movie stars on the covers are Carole Lombard on Silver Screen, Tyrone Power on Screen Romances, Tyrone Power & Alice Faye on Motion Picture and Paulette Goddard on Look. Goddard was married four times including marriages to Charlie Chaplin and Burgess Meredith.

The date of these photos is Thursday June 8, 1939. One clue is the sign for the Annual dance on June 26, 1939 and the tabloid headlines about the death of the wife of Esquire artist E. Simms Campbell dates the pictures.

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Above post just made those pictures so much more fantastic. Thank you kindly!

Here are a couple of interesting pictures.

This is a picture of children of mill workers in Holyoke Massachusetts.

Can you identify the comic in the boy's hand?

These women are holding sketches of early comic strip characters. I can identify most of them and I think I know number 5 but numbers 1 & 6 have me stumped for a while.

Can some early comic strip experts identify them all? I believe the photo is from the 1920s.

#1 might be from Moon Mullins and #6 looks like Jeff from Mutt and Jeff

The comic the kid is holding is The Comics #1 (first Tom Mix).

I could only get a few of the other photo (pretty sure I'm right).

#2= Krazy Kat

#4= Barney Google

#7= Andy Gump (The Gumps)

#8= Walt Wallet (Gasoline Alley)

Interested to see who the others are.

[font:Times New Roman]1939 Harlem newsstand

 

Why are these pictures of this Harlem newsstand so fascinating to me? Look at the comics and the closeup pictures and read my explanation below.

 

The comics in the stand are:

single series 6 Jim Hardy

Tip Top 39

Feature 22

Keen Detective Funnies v2 #7

The Funnies 32

All-American 4

Action 14

More Fun 45

Famous Funnies 59

King Comics 39

Crackajack Funnies 13

 

 

If you take a close look at the newsdealer, he is holding and counting a stack of new DC comics because that back cover is a Johnson Smith ad that appears on DC comics with the cover date of July 1939. The previous month's back cover was a Spencer Fireworks ad. The DC comics that came out that month are Action 14, All-American 4, Adventure 40, Detective 29, More Fun 45 and Movie Comics 4. Which of these comics are in his hands? There could be a fortune in his hands. So this is a photo of new comic day in 1939 at the very moment a newsdealer is about to put out or just finished putting out new comics.

 

 

A closer look:

 

Adventure 40 back cover

 

The Action 14 was only on this newsstand for a few days according to the on sale date of June 2nd as seen in this DC house ad for Action 14.

 

The movie stars on the covers are Carole Lombard on Silver Screen, Tyrone Power on Screen Romances, Tyrone Power & Alice Faye on Motion Picture and Paulette Goddard on Look. Goddard was married four times including marriages to Charlie Chaplin and Burgess Meredith.

 

The date of these photos is Thursday June 8, 1939. One clue is the sign for the Annual dance on June 26, 1939 and the tabloid headlines about the death of the wife of Esquire artist E. Simms Campbell dates the pictures.

[/font]

I thought I would revive this post now that Comic-con is over. My old image hosting site went kaput.

Comic-con has gotten too big for my tastes. It reminds me a of a favorite restaurant that you rave about to your friends and family. You don’t understand why it isn’t more popular but one day there is a great review of the place in the paper or on a website. Suddenly it gets so popular that you can’t even get a reservation. Sadly you move on and try to find another place. That’s how I feel about Comic-con. Luckily I’ve been there and done that.

[font:Book Antiqua]

1973 San Diego Comic-con

Comic-con has evolved from a modest comic book enthusiast event into a monster-sized pop culture event over the years. While we await for reports from this year’s Comic-con, let us take a wistful look back 40 years ago to 1973 and see how much has changed. Fortunately this Comic-con was well documented with many photos taken by one of Comic-con’s founders Shel Dorf. Some of you may have seen these pictures from Memories and maybe a few of you were even there.

Shel Dorf

The event was held on August 15-19 at the Sheraton Hotel at Harbor Island and attendance was about 1000. Some of the special guests were Neal Adams, Jack Kirby, June Foray, Carmine Infantino, Bob Clampett, Ralph Bakshi, AE van Vogt, Walter Koenig and Ray Bradbury. Four-day passes cost the princely sum of $7.50 and dealer tables cost $40.

Pictures of the dealers tables:

dealer Jim Buser in front

dealer David Alexander

dealers Larry Bigman, Irving Bigman & Mrs Bigman

dealers Jay & Helen Knowles

dealer Summer Hamilton

dealer William Caron with what appears to be Neal Adams original art pages

Table with original art by Hal Foster (Prince Valiant), Frazetta (Johnny Comet), Burne Hogarth?(Tarzan), George Herriman?(Krazy Kat), Bernie Wrightson, Al Capp (Lil Abner), Donald Duck (Barks?) and a Mickey Mouse strip.

Barks paintings, Conan and EC comics for sale

Mitch Mehdy was a celebrity for paying $1801.26 for a copy of Action #1 in May 1973 when many people believed at that time it was an outrageous amount for a comic book. Here he is a few months later sitting next to and hanging out with Neal Adams.

crowd shot at one of the panels

Neal Adams sketching and holding court with fans. I would consider Adams to be a living legend since he will be at Comic-con again this year.

Outside with Kirby, Adams, Mike Friedrich and Bernie Lansky

special guests Carmine Infantino, June Foray and Shel Dorf at the Cabrillo National Monument

A panel with June Foray, Milt Gray, Bob Clampett and unknown.

A few attendees in Star Trek costumes

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In the 1970s, nostalgia became popular as people started looking inward and into the past. The interest in nostalgia was a possible reaction to rapid social change, social upheaval and daily exposure to the Vietnam war in the 1960s as a way to look for a simpler or more carefree period from earlier generations.

It may be hard to imagine for some of the younger people here that the "hardcore comic book culture" in the early days was considered out of the mainstream culture and it was considered part of the counterculture along with freaks, geeks and weirdos.

1974 seems to be a banner convention year because many of the conventions such as San Diego Comic-con, Houstoncon, Dallascon, New York Comic Art Convention and Detroit Triple Fan Fair and others have been documented. Here is a fascinating look back at the hobby in 1974. A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reporter Sol Littman interviews comic fans at Cosmicon on January 25, 1974 at York University in Toronto Canada. The reporter searches for answers to the question "What are they like, those comic book fans?” and views comics fans as strange curiosities but allows them to explain themselves. If this video piece were to be done now, the hobby and comics fans would be treated with condescension, baited with leading questions for ridicule and portrayed as freaks or weirdos. It seems strange and somewhat condescending that such a question would be asked today where one would have to explain their interest in comics and justify their existence. In a few decades, the tables have turned and today we might consider someone to be weird or part of the counterculture who is unaware of superheroes or have not heard about comic collecting.

You will notice piles of unbagged and unboxed comics on tables, prices written inside the first page, the availability of key books and the popularity of the underground comics. One fan was allowed to explain the appreciation of comics as a serious art form. Also interesting is a female perspective that is critical of the portrayal of female comic characters as sex objects or mere damsels in distress. Female comic characters are more complex and almost half of the readers are female today but the male dominated comic industry is still mainly from a male perspective.

It was great to see nice copies of many key books such as Action 1, a near mint Batman 1, Capt America 1 and Walt Disney Comics & Stories 1. I wonder if that young kid still has his Superboy 1 that he said he would keep as long as he lives?

Cosmicon only lasted 3 years however other Canadian comic conventions have taken its place. It’s a very nice time capsule from the past.

Really interesting stuff, thanks for posting.

Terrific. I was not there, although I'm in Toronto, but heard much about it. I even recognize one of the dealers.

[font:Times New Roman]

In the 1970s, nostalgia became popular as people started looking inward and into the past. The interest in nostalgia was a possible reaction to rapid social change, social upheaval and daily exposure to the Vietnam war in the 1960s as a way to look for a simpler or more carefree period from earlier generations.

 

It may be hard to imagine for some of the younger people here that the "hardcore comic book culture" in the early days was considered out of the mainstream culture and it was considered part of the counterculture along with freaks, geeks and weirdos.

 

1974 seems to be a banner convention year because many of the conventions such as San Diego Comic-con, Houstoncon, Dallascon, New York Comic Art Convention and Detroit Triple Fan Fair and others have been documented. Here is a fascinating look back at the hobby in 1974. A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reporter Sol Littman interviews comic fans at Cosmicon on January 25, 1974 at York University in Toronto Canada. The reporter searches for answers to the question "What are they like, those comic book fans?” and views comics fans as strange curiosities but allows them to explain themselves. If this video piece were to be done now, the hobby and comics fans would be treated with condescension, baited with leading questions for ridicule and portrayed as freaks or weirdos. It seems strange and somewhat condescending that such a question would be asked today where one would have to explain their interest in comics and justify their existence. In a few decades, the tables have turned and today we might consider someone to be weird or part of the counterculture who is unaware of superheroes or have not heard about comic collecting.

 

 

You will notice piles of unbagged and unboxed comics on tables, prices written inside the first page, the availability of key books and the popularity of the underground comics. One fan was allowed to explain the appreciation of comics as a serious art form. Also interesting is a female perspective that is critical of the portrayal of female comic characters as sex objects or mere damsels in distress. Female comic characters are more complex and almost half of the readers are female today but the male dominated comic industry is still mainly from a male perspective.

 

It was great to see nice copies of many key books such as Action 1, a near mint Batman 1, Capt America 1 and Walt Disney Comics & Stories 1.

I wonder if that young kid still has his Superboy 1 that he said he would keep as long as he lives?

 

Cosmicon only lasted 3 years however other Canadian comic conventions have taken its place. It’s a very nice time capsule from the past.

[font:Courier New][/font][/font]

Fascinating time capsule; thanks for sharing. Having attended both Houstonian and Dallascon in '74, this does bring back memories.

I thought I would revive this post now that Comic-con is over. My old image hosting site went kaput.

Comic-con has gotten too big for my tastes. It reminds me a of a favorite restaurant that you rave about to your friends and family. You don’t understand why it isn’t more popular but one day there is a great review of the place in the paper or on a website. Suddenly it gets so popular that you can’t even get a reservation. Sadly you move on and try to find another place. That’s how I feel about Comic-con. Luckily I’ve been there and done that.

 

[font:Book Antiqua]

1973 San Diego Comic-con

 

Comic-con has evolved from a modest comic book enthusiast event into a monster-sized pop culture event over the years. While we await for reports from this year’s Comic-con, let us take a wistful look back 40 years ago to 1973 and see how much has changed. Fortunately this Comic-con was well documented with many photos taken by one of Comic-con’s founders Shel Dorf. Some of you may have seen these pictures from Memories and maybe a few of you were even there.

 

Shel Dorf

 

The event was held on August 15-19 at the Sheraton Hotel at Harbor Island and attendance was about 1000. Some of the special guests were Neal Adams, Jack Kirby, June Foray, Carmine Infantino, Bob Clampett, Ralph Bakshi, AE van Vogt, Walter Koenig and Ray Bradbury. Four-day passes cost the princely sum of $7.50 and dealer tables cost $40.

 

Pictures of the dealers tables:

 

 

 

dealer Jim Buser in front

 

dealer David Alexander

 

dealers Larry Bigman, Irving Bigman & Mrs Bigman

 

dealers Jay & Helen Knowles

 

dealer Summer Hamilton

 

dealer William Caron with what appears to be Neal Adams original art pages

 

Table with original art by Hal Foster (Prince Valiant), Frazetta (Johnny Comet), Burne Hogarth?(Tarzan), George Herriman?(Krazy Kat), Bernie Wrightson, Al Capp (Lil Abner), Donald Duck (Barks?) and a Mickey Mouse strip.

 

Barks paintings, Conan and EC comics for sale

 

Mitch Mehdy was a celebrity for paying $1801.26 for a copy of Action #1 in May 1973 when many people believed at that time it was an outrageous amount for a comic book. Here he is a few months later sitting next to and hanging out with Neal Adams.

 

crowd shot at one of the panels

 

Neal Adams sketching and holding court with fans. I would consider Adams to be a living legend since he will be at Comic-con again this year.

 

Outside with Kirby, Adams, Mike Friedrich and Bernie Lansky

 

special guests Carmine Infantino, June Foray and Shel Dorf at the Cabrillo National Monument

 

A panel with June Foray, Milt Gray, Bob Clampett and unknown.

 

A few attendees in Star Trek costumes

[/font]

 

Wow, thanks for posting these. Great days gone by... My first was 1974. Other than two I had to miss, I went to every one up until 3 years ago. Great seeing the Bigmans and David T Alexander looking like one of the Allman Bros. It probably seems hard for people to believe nowdays that you could just walk up the Kirby, Eisner or Adams poolside at the El Cortez and get an autograph or sketch just for asking. My first exposure to piles and piles of GA comics just sitting on tables. I remember going with a few friends and sleeping in the film room. One of my buddies probably over spent at the time on a Flash #1 in real nice shape for $100. Good times people. MUCH better than bidding by your self on a cell phone in a Heritage or Ebay auction....

David T. Alexander was walking around the show this past weekend, buying up items for his ebay store.

Was Terry Stroud set up? Him and Bud Plant are the only two still left that have set up at every one I believe. Beerbong was another until he got himself booted a few years ago.

[font:Times New Roman]

In the 1970s, nostalgia became popular as people started looking inward and into the past. The interest in nostalgia was a possible reaction to rapid social change, social upheaval and daily exposure to the Vietnam war in the 1960s as a way to look for a simpler or more carefree period from earlier generations.

 

It may be hard to imagine for some of the younger people here that the "hardcore comic book culture" in the early days was considered out of the mainstream culture and it was considered part of the counterculture along with freaks, geeks and weirdos.

 

1974 seems to be a banner convention year because many of the conventions such as San Diego Comic-con, Houstoncon, Dallascon, New York Comic Art Convention and Detroit Triple Fan Fair and others have been documented. Here is a fascinating look back at the hobby in 1974. A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reporter Sol Littman interviews comic fans at Cosmicon on January 25, 1974 at York University in Toronto Canada. The reporter searches for answers to the question "What are they like, those comic book fans?” and views comics fans as strange curiosities but allows them to explain themselves. If this video piece were to be done now, the hobby and comics fans would be treated with condescension, baited with leading questions for ridicule and portrayed as freaks or weirdos. It seems strange and somewhat condescending that such a question would be asked today where one would have to explain their interest in comics and justify their existence. In a few decades, the tables have turned and today we might consider someone to be weird or part of the counterculture who is unaware of superheroes or have not heard about comic collecting.

 

 

You will notice piles of unbagged and unboxed comics on tables, prices written inside the first page, the availability of key books and the popularity of the underground comics. One fan was allowed to explain the appreciation of comics as a serious art form. Also interesting is a female perspective that is critical of the portrayal of female comic characters as sex objects or mere damsels in distress. Female comic characters are more complex and almost half of the readers are female today but the male dominated comic industry is still mainly from a male perspective.

 

It was great to see nice copies of many key books such as Action 1, a near mint Batman 1, Capt America 1 and Walt Disney Comics & Stories 1.

I wonder if that young kid still has his Superboy 1 that he said he would keep as long as he lives?

 

Cosmicon only lasted 3 years however other Canadian comic conventions have taken its place. It’s a very nice time capsule from the past.

[font:Courier New][/font][/font]

Was Terry Stroud set up? Him and Bud Plant are the only two still left that have set up at every one I believe. Beerbong was another until he got himself booted a few years ago.

Yes, Terry Stroud was there.

Funny you mention Beerbohm, Terry was livid because he told me that BLB bounced a check to him and then accused him of stealing a book.

It just never ends with that complete schmuck.

Sounds interesting but I don't know what I am looking at?

Specifically, I'd be interested in learning more about those French Comics and what & when was published in Canada in French