Golden Age Comic Books

[Widebrim]

As far as I can tell, there is no other thread devoted to comics books of the Golden Age (c.1938-1956), so let's start one. Post photos of your favorite (or even least favorite!) comics, as well as discuss the history, artists, writers, characters, trends, and storylines of comic books. There is much excellent art, history, and even sociology to be found in Golden Age comics, and they are useful tools in the study of the American past. Action Comics, Sub-Mariner, Jo-Jo, House of Mystery, Superman, Buck Jones, Captain Marvel, Donald Duck, Captain America, Detective Comics, Shock Suspenstories, Batman...the list goes on and on. And all the companies, from DC, Marvel Atlas, Marvel Timely, E.C., Archie Comics, and Fawcett, to Avon, Harvey, Dell, Fox Features, St. John Publishing, Lev Gleason, and Charlton had something to offer.

After a bit of mental debating, I chose the following comic book cover to open the thread. It is a Popped Wheat give-away from 1947 (Sig. Feuchtwanger, N.Y.), which contains reprints of 1940 Dick Tracy stories and art. The strip was orginally published by Famous Artists Syndicate, Chicago, and was copyrighted by the Chicago Tribune. Dick Tracy was certainly a mid-century icon, not just in comics, but in radio and motion pictures as well, so I think he makes a good comic cover #1.

And the back cover:

 

[Bruce Wayne]

 

[Widebrim]

^^Bruce Wayne, I wouldn't expect anything less from you! :eusa_clap

 

[MPicciotto]

One day last July. While en route to Geneseo, NY for the big air show there. Some of our living history/reenacting troupe stopped at an antique mall in PA. There I found a Harry A. Chesler "Digest" comic called 'Private Bill'. That's where it all started...

Every one of these is "Digest Size", from the same publisher, and targeted towards Servicemen. The humor is adult in content, but not usually too risque. I have a few others that just arrived. I also need take photos of some other digest ones that I have like "Army Laughs" But my latest drool factors are a Contact #5 and #6 that just arrived. Lower grade copies, but they are my copies! They are L.B. Cole covers and just some really great artwork. For those that don't know Contact Comics were aviation themed with a mix of fictional stories and real, also War era. Sorry for the pic quality. No functioning scanner at this time.

Matt

 

[Doctor Strange]

This thread cries out for this link:

http://www.samuelsdesign.com/comics/

Great scans of lots of cool covers!

 

[LizzieMaine]

I have always dearly loved the Marvel Family. (Not the Stan Lee crowd, the *real* Marvel Family.)

This is my all time favorite comic book cover. You have to be a woman to fully appreciate it.

 

[Fletch]

Oh my. You watch your metaphors there Miss Liz. Unless you're just talking about baking. Things do tend to rise, don't they.

MPicciotto, that Cole fella must have studied the work of Basil Wolverton. Something about the fine dot work and clean drafting.

 

[Fletch]

watching the detectives...

My contribution here is strictly ripped off Googie Images. The pre-Batman Detective Comics are both too valuable and too uninteresting for their insides ever to be reprinted, but damn! they had some exciting covers. Like pulp cartoons, if ever there was such a thing.

What's all this then? Creig Flessel, #4, June, 1937.

rrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrr *KAPWEENG* *KAPWEENG*. Creig Flessel, #16, June, 1938.

Never bring a gun to a fistfight. Leo O'Mealia, #20, October, 1938.

These guys knew from clothes. Fred Guardineer, #25, March, 1939.

Captain Fruitboots vs. The Masked Bad Hat. (unsigned) #34, December, 1939.

Beginning with January, 1940, all Detective covers featured Batman.

 

[Widebrim]

I have always dearly loved the Marvel Family. (Not the Stan Lee crowd, the *real* Marvel Family.)

This is my all time favorite comic book cover. You have to be a woman to fully appreciate it.

I am a Marvel fan too, LM, all of their titles. And that is surely a cover that only a woman (or male baker) can fully relate to...I especially like C.C. Beck's artwork in the Marvel stories.

 

[Widebrim]

My contribution here is strictly ripped off Googie Images. The pre-Batman Detective Comics are both too valuable and too uninteresting for their insides ever to be reprinted, but damn! they had some exciting covers. Like pulp cartoons, if ever there was such a thing.

Detective Comics had some great covers. I wonder how much 9.2 examples are worth...will have to look them up later.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Never bring a gun to a fistfight. Leo O'Mealia, #20, October, 1938.

I'm amazed by this one -- Leo O'Mealia was the sports cartoonist for the Daily News in New York for ages, sort of a Ted Williams to Willard Mullin's Joe DiMaggio -- they fought for forty years over who really created the "Brooklyn Bum". But I'd never heard of him ever doing comics -- to say nothing of drawing in such a rootin' tootin' style. Fascinating.

 

[Fletch]

More O'Mealia at DC

He did story art too, including Andy Handy and Fu Manchu. He seems to have left DC in 1939.

 

[Widebrim]

One day last July. While en route to Geneseo, NY for the big air show there. Some of our living history/reenacting troupe stopped at an antique mall in PA. There I found a Harry A. Chesler "Digest" comic called 'Private Bill'. That's where it all started...

Every one of these is "Digest Size", from the same publisher, and targeted towards Servicemen. The humor is adult in content, but not usually too risque.
Matt

Interesting that the Yankee Comics are digest size, considering that Chesler did publish a "normal-sized" comic by the same name in '41-'42. When I can, I'll upload a military humor digest size title that I have, and of which I have never seen another copy.

 

[Widebrim]

This thread cries out for this link:

http://www.samuelsdesign.com/comics/

Great scans of lots of cool covers!

Good link, DS!

 

[MPicciotto]

Interesting that the Yankee Comics are digest size, considering that Chesler did publish a "normal-sized" comic by the same name in '41-'42. When I can, I'll upload a military humor digest size title that I have, and which I have never seen another copy.

Chesler's numbering system would give an accountant nightmares.:rage: He published Yankee 1,2,3 then did a completely different comic by the same name for 4-7 then returned to the original Yankee story lines with a completely different title of only one issue and numbered 8!!

I've located evidence, reference or actually own 8 different titles published by Chesler in Digest format. Yankee being unique in as you said he published a "normal-sized" comic of that name.

To everyone else keep them coming! I love Golden Age comic art. And if you haven't figured out many of the cover artist are collectible themselves regardless of the name or story line of the comic. L.B. Cole comes to mind as one example.

Matt

 

[Widebrim]

Matt, here's the mini-digest that I wrote about. It was put out by Crestwood Publishing, and is VOL. 1, NO. 1, dated December, 1941.

And, yes, they could get a bit racy...

 

[feltfan]

This is my all time favorite comic book cover. You have to be a woman to fully appreciate it.

Hey, or a home brewer or a baker...

My vote is for Jack Cole's Plastic Man and Will Eisner's The Spirit:

There is, of course, a connection- Cole worked on The Spirit...

Let's not discuss the later abuses of both characters or that movie
I will never see. The heart of these characters was their creators
(and to some extent Eisner's studio).

 

[The Wolf]

I'm a Captain Marvel fan also. Unfortunately a lot of people think he is called Shazam.
Cap Marvel did so well in the 1940s that National (DC) Comics sued them saying people were buying it because they thought they were buying Superman. It was even reprinted in the U. K. However when DC won and Captain Marvel wasn't being printed anymore the U.K. company put out a virtual copy of it called Marvel Man.
Later Timely comics became Marvel Comics so when the new Marvel Man was going to be printed in the U.S. they changed the name to Miracle Man. Then DC started using Captain Marvel in their comics, often along with Superman.:eusa_doh: Even though they were too similar to each to be on the newstands together.:rage: They called the comic Shazam (after the magic word he said) because they couldn't use Marvel in the title.

Sincerely,
The Wolf

 

[Widebrim]

Hey, or a home brewer or a baker...

My vote is for Jack Cole's Plastic Man and Will Eisner's The Spirit:


There is, of course, a connection- Cole worked on The Spirit...

Let's not discuss the later abuses of both characters or that movie
I will never see. The heart of these characters was their creators
(and to some extent Eisner's studio).

Both Eisner and Cole contributed immensely to comic book art and storyline.

 

[The Wolf]

True, they are two of the greats.
I have the book Jack Cole and Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to Their Limits.
http://www.amazon.com/Jack-Cole-Plastic-Man-Stretched/dp/0811831795
I highly recommend it.
I preferred Plastic Man when he was the straight man to all the ridiculous things going around him, even the things he was doing, like Leslie Nielson.
In modern comics and cartoons he tends to be more like Jim Carrey.

Sincerely,
The Wolf