Infinite Marvel Picture Frame books

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Monsters on the Prowl #16

Thomas

Marie Severin

John Severin

Suscha News copy with nice white pages for reading. Marie and John's art really combined well on this title, albeit briefly.

Sgt. Fury #97

Gary Friedrich

Ayers

Mooney

Tough issue to find with a properly registered cover, and I didn't with this copy.

Thor #198

Conway

John Buscema

Colletta

I guess they just felt this was Vinnie's title. The cool thing about Mangog as a villain was the sense that he was powerful enough to threaten Odin himself, and so the entire realm.

Submariner #48

Conway

Colan

Esposito

The multi-part Doom story line continues.

Tomb of Dracula #1

Conway

Colan pencils and inks

Great first ish of one of Marvel's best bronze titles, sporting a Neal Adams cover.

X-Men #75

Reprint book but with an original cover (Sal Buscema?).

Submariner #48

Conway

Colan

Esposito

 

The multi-part Doom story line continues.

 

Another stellar Gil Kane cover. Nice 3D effect, no glasses needed.

Lots of beauties here, Bob. How many moves have these books survived?

Another stellar Gil Kane cover. Nice 3D effect, no glasses needed.

 

Lots of beauties here, Bob. How many moves have these books survived?

None for most of these. I became a regular comic reader and collector as spring of '72 began, with the June cover dates. A few of the March and April books were bought as back issues in the seventies and so moved with me 4 times (NJ to Chicago, Chi to LA, LA to DE, and finally within DE), but most were acquired over the last 20 years of (thankfully) no moving.

Once CGC came into existence and prices for high grade skyrocketed, I preferred to slab and sell my original copies that were NM and better. What I have left of picture frames bought off the rack are the dinged up copies.

X-Men #75

 

Reprint book but with an original cover (Sal Buscema?).

 

GCD says:

Pencils: Gil Kane

Inks: John Romita

Jean Grey's hands definitely looks very Kane-esque to me. And the figures breaking out of the picture frame is very Kane-like too.

X-Men #75

 

Reprint book but with an original cover (Sal Buscema?).

 

Your "readers" are ridiculous. Seriously.

I found this in a stack of Archies bought at Megacon 6 or 7 years ago. Bob-quality reader.

X-Men #75

 

Reprint book but with an original cover (Sal Buscema?).

GCD says:

Pencils: Gil Kane

Inks: John Romita

 

Jean Grey's hands definitely looks very Kane-esque to me. And the figures breaking out of the picture frame is very Kane-like too.

Most probably is Kane, then, but it sure looks like a rush job with the crude shading lines and lack of detail.

X-Men #75

 

Reprint book but with an original cover (Sal Buscema?).

GCD says:

Pencils: Gil Kane

Inks: John Romita

 

Jean Grey's hands definitely looks very Kane-esque to me. And the figures breaking out of the picture frame is very Kane-like too.

 

Most probably is Kane, then, but it sure looks like a rush job with the crude shading lines and lack of detail.

I always assumed this was Kane. Same wacky perspective as MGC 34, and Kane was always able to look sketchy, with very thin lines, esp if he inked himself. Also, he's pretty much the only one to violate the pf to this degree.

Some more Kane X-Men. I think #79 is a pretty great cover. #76 has the classic Gil Kane looking-up-the-guy's-nose angle - probably not his finest work.

Fantastic Four #121

Lee

John Buscema

Sinnott

 

Any appearance by the Silver Surfer was a big occasion. Cool full date stamp on this copy.

 

I was going through the Heritage archives just today looking for a good clean picture frame date stamp, but came up empty. So thanks for posting that!

Interestingly, only 32 current BA comic listings using "picture frame" in the title, and only 27 of them are actual picture frame comics. I guess what is a fun niche here on the boards is ignored outside.

Words and phrases evolve over time. The use of the term "picture fame" in the last several years has gained traction and acceptance, in my view. As sellers, buyers, interest groups (e.g., chat boards), and industry types continue hearing and using the term, standardization will occur. It's just a matter of time.

Interestingly, other phrases and terms have come and gone. I've encountered things like "3-D boxed image", "boxed image covers", and "boxed-in cover scene". I haven't heard or seen them used recently. Doesn't mean they're not out there, though.

Here's an early example of the term "boxed image" from April 2004. Ran across this guy's website through eBay back in the day. One of the first on the web discussing the books.

https://web.archive.org/web/20040407020558/http://www.agraphicstateofmind.com/boxed_image_covers.html

And here's another from 2006 using "box cover format". You might recognize the author. Although he has the production duration wrong, he pretty much corroborates other known particulars such as the reason for doing the design and who was involved.

Mark Evanier on Marvel's Eary '70s Box Cover Format

posted February 20, 2006

http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/briefings/letters/4300/

As I recall, the switch to the boxed cover format came about at the point when Marvel pulled ahead of DC in sales. When a paper/printing increase forced both companies to raise prices from 15 cents, DC went to a 25-cent format offering 48-page comics, about a third of which were reprints. Marvel went that way for a month or two, then switched back to 32-page comics for 20 cents and they darn near put DC out of business. Readers hated the 25-cent package. I don't think anyone has ever had any success with a format that mixed new stories with reprints, nor did readers of the time ever favor a more expensive comic over a cheaper, regardless of how many pages you got for your money. When you add to that the fact that the 20-cent package allowed Marvel to kick a little more money towards the retailers and wholesalers, you have Marvel pretty much controlling the newsstands.

Someone at Marvel -- Charles Goodman, I suspect -- decided it was therefore a good time to try and make their comics more distinct from the DC product. It was the same way DC had tried those Godawful "go-go checks" to make sure consumers didn't mistake the competition's books for theirs, and it was equally successful. Marvel started the box format with the issues cover dated November, 1971 (or thereabouts) and dropped the idea ten months later.

The other factor then was that Stan Lee was then getting busier with concerns other than the day-to-day comic book output and with Marvel adding new titles, he was spending an awful lot of his time supervising covers. So he warmed to the border idea as a way of simplifying cover design. To further expedite the process, Marvel also made a deal with Gil Kane to draw most of them. (You or I might think that if you're afraid of readers confusing your books with DC product, you shouldn't have all the covers done by a guy who'd recently done so much work for DC and still had stuff coming out from them. But Marvel editorial policies have rarely been all that logical.)

As I said, the format lasted ten months, which suggests to me that they dumped out of it as soon as they got in some solid sales figures on the second month of those books.

This might interest you. Back in '96, someone over at DC or MAD got the idea that MAD might sell better if its covers revived the old border format that had been used on the early magazine issues. To test it, a number of issues were printed two ways. Part of the press run had a yellow decorative border around the cover; the rest of the press run used the same cover art but without the border. The "no border" versions sold better and that settled that.

To amend the comment above by Mark Evanier concerning picture frame production length, which was actually 15 months not 10, the below table is posted for clarification.

It is pretty interesting to hear Evanier's take on using Gil Kane. In my mind, his glory days at DC had been long over, and only the most die-hard of long-term fans buying books would have remembered his SA DC work. Great post.

I just found two more boxes with pf's in them.

I know where the Fury came from (Great store, if you're ever in the Boston area), but no idea where I picked up the MTAs

Found another one of these, I'm guessing from a Wizard Chicago show

And these two came from the aforementioned self-proclaimed Beanie Baby magnate who banned me from his store for buying too many books.

Two things strike me as I look through these boxes. One, there's a certain satisfaction to having hunted these down the old-fashioned way, rumaging through 1000's of long-boxes during my variant hunt.

The other is just how ridicuously difficult it is to find them in truly HG. I thought I had done pretty well for myself, but there are very few books I've posted that I'm not somewhat disappointed in. Once again, the late SA and later BA books I picked up at the same time are all much nicer, and while these might have great eye appeal, all have one or two issues.

Two things strike me as I look through these boxes. One, there's a certain satisfaction to having hunted these down the old-fashioned way, rumaging through 1000's of long-boxes during my variant hunt.

 

The other is just how ridicuously difficult it is to find them in truly HG. I thought I had done pretty well for myself, but there are very few books I've posted that I'm not somewhat disappointed in. Once again, the late SA and later BA books I picked up at the same time are all much nicer, and while these might have great eye appeal, all have one or two issues.

The methodology of searching for books in boxes and buying them regularly off the newsstands is the most challenging and rewarding for me. My original collecting experience started as a kid in the late 70s a few years after the PF era. I remember how impossible it was to find high grade PFs back then. I agree with the point Barton made earlier about these early '70s books being tougher to find in higher grade than the those from the late 60s. Your Where Monsters Dwell 14 is a really nice copy of what might very well be the toughest PF horror book of them all.