[The Australian Panther]

I'm probably going to make a complete fool of myself, but are there any STREET and SMITH books on site? 

Cheers!

[MarkWarner]

'Fraid not they must have had real stickler in the office, everything  we have check is renewed

[SkeleTony]

Excuse me for my ignorance, but as a big Pulp fiction fan (The Shadow, etc.) I thought Street and Smith only published text (with some illustrations) stuff?  Although somewhere I have an issue of "Shadow Comics" in my closet. Was that published by Street & Smith?

[SuperScrounge]

Like a number of publishers, when comics proved to be a big thing they published comics https://www.comics.org/publisher/104/

[SkeleTony]

Thank you SuperScrounge.

[SuperScrounge]

You're welcome.

As for the Shadow several companies have published comics with him since S&S stopped publishing comic.

Archie https://www.comics.org/series/1859/

DC (more than once)
https://www.comics.org/series/2105/
https://www.comics.org/series/3167/
https://www.comics.org/series/3379/
https://www.comics.org/series/3378/
https://www.comics.org/series/3613/
https://www.comics.org/series/3821/
https://www.comics.org/series/3820/

Marvel https://www.comics.org/issue/43890/

Dark Horse
https://www.comics.org/series/4814/
https://www.comics.org/issue/306128/
https://www.comics.org/issue/58044/
https://www.comics.org/series/5367/
https://www.comics.org/series/5368/

Dynamite
https://www.comics.org/series/65134/
https://www.comics.org/series/68865/
https://www.comics.org/series/70551/
https://www.comics.org/series/76904/
https://www.comics.org/series/72253/
https://www.comics.org/series/82553/
https://www.comics.org/issue/1474123/
https://www.comics.org/series/80863/
https://www.comics.org/series/91471/
https://www.comics.org/issue/1430509/
https://www.comics.org/issue/1321473/

and more I didn't feel like looking at.

[paw broon]

Just add to Panther's excellent list, Doc Savage and The Avenger both have had comic book series.

[SkeleTony]

Yes, I am well familiar with all of the Shadow comics (and own most of them except for a bunch of the Dynamite issues) listed. I just did not know or had forgotten about the S&S comic books. IIRC Marvel only published a graphic novel by M.W. Kaluta (with Dennis O'neil?) or something like that. I will go dig the thing out again to check later.

As for Doc Savage I would only add that some very good ones were written by Mark Ellis and published by his Millennium comics company in the 1990s. They were better than the DC comics issues that preceded them.

[positronic1]

For Doc Savage the ones to get are the magazine-format black & white series written by Doug Moench that came out in the mid-1970s. These were all reprinted in a hardcover omnibus collection by Dynamite a few years back. Also notable was a 2-issue team-up with the Shadow done by Dark Horse in the 1990s, and some of the more recent Dynamite Doc Savage miniseries aren't bad, either.

[SkeleTony]

For Doc Savage the ones to get are the magazine-format black & white series written by Doug Moench that came out in the mid-1970s. These were all reprinted in a hardcover omnibus collection by Dynamite a few years back. Also notable was a 2-issue team-up with the Shadow done by Dark Horse in the 1990s, and some of the more recent Dynamite Doc Savage miniseries aren't bad, either.

Thank you for that.  I am not as big a fan of Doc Savage the way I am a HUGE fan of The Shadow but as a pulp fan I do enjoy them very much. The only reason I even know about the Mark Ellis Doc issues is because I am a Justice Machine and Mark Ellis fan. Still, I am going to ebay after I leave here to look for the B&W magazine/Dynamite stories you detailed above (I am pretty certain I already have the Dark Horse Shadow-team up issues you mentioned).

[Robb_K]

'Fraid not they must have had real stickler in the office, everything  we have check is renewed

I could see the company who purchased them renewing their popular titles (The Shadow, Doc Savage, Air Ace, Supersnipe, and their sports-related comics).  But why would they renew 1-issue experiments like S&S' only funny animal comic, "Kids' Zoo Comics 1"  I've been waiting to find that for years.  Now I see why it hasn't been scanned on this website, or on DCM.  But that's ridiculous.  Whoever owns its rights will never issue it.  Because they bought the rights to ALL S&S' publications, are those rights only dealt with as a unit until the end of time (e.g. it wouldn't be less costly for the owner to renew only the books that they think they might plan to publish in the future)?

[Andrew999]

I'm pleased you raised this point as it's something I feel very strongly about - not just that peculiarity in American law where copyright materials had to be re-registered - but the 70-year copyright rule in general.

There are so many creators and so much material that will be lost during that eternal dwell period - and mountains of stuff that would never have been reissued anyway. This should enter the public domain much earlier as orphan material.

I would like to see a sub-clause that says something like - 'if a publisher has not re-published an item in material form withing thirty-five years of a creator's death, then it should enter the public domain.'

I'm prepared to start a campaign based on that kind of approach - write to the government etc. Is it worth the effort do you think?

[Robb_K]

I'm pleased you raised this point as it's something I feel very strongly about - not just that peculiarity in American law where copyright materials had to be re-registered - but the 70-year copyright rule in general.

There are so many creators and so much material that will be lost during that eternal dwell period - and mountains of stuff that would never have been reissued anyway. This should enter the public domain much earlier as orphan material.

I would like to see a sub-clause that says something like - 'if a publisher has not re-published an item in material form withing thirty-five years of a creator's death, then it should enter the public domain.'

I'm prepared to start a campaign based on that kind of approach - write to the government etc. Is it worth the effort do you think?

I agree with you 100%.  It would be an absolute crime to allow all that good work and potential insight into different societies' way of thinking during past times, to be lost for posterity. 

[SuperScrounge]

Reduce the length of time period.

With Europe's 70 years and the US's 95 years after the death of the creator we are now in a situation where most, if not all, works are protected longer after the death of the creator than they were before their death.

Insane, absolutely insane.

[Robb_K]

Reduce the length of time period.

With Europe's 70 years and the US's 95 years after the death of the creator we are now in a situation where most, if not all, works are protected longer after the death of the creator than they were before their death.

Insane, absolutely insane.

If EVERYTHING goes right, and I live to 105, and I still can see well enough to distinguish panel art, and read text, as I am nostalgic for the 1940s and 1950s, I will NEVER be able to read ANY of the major cartoon characters (Disney, Fleischer/Famous, WB, MGM, Walter Lantz, Colpix, Harvey) comic book stories as PD  items.  Same for the most popular comic strips.  I have to depend upon them being printed in nostalgia-based hardbound series, which are very expensive, and often such are NEVER reprinted due to not having enough market to make a profit trying to sell such a deluxe, expensive library to an ever-shrinking, limited audience.  The original copyright laws were made to protect the creator's rights to earn a living from his work.  They were later extended to allow his/her children to benefit from his/her work.  Now they are benefiting corporations which most often have a VERY thin remaining connection to the creator, or even his/her family.

I am a comic book stories creator, and yet, I don't think the fruit of my own work should be given to anyone past my own children.  Grandchildren should be able to fend for themselves, or get help from wise investments the children got from the creators' talent.

[Andrew999]

I absolutely agree with both of you. The Berne Convention says 50 years which on the whole seems fair (though I still believe that if a work is not republished within 25 years, it should become an orphan work and enter the public domain)

Fifty years still applies in Canada but that is likely to become seventy years in two years time due to the new trade agreement between the US and Canada

The push to seventy years at the start of this century came almost entirely from corporations wanting to secure rights over commercially viable works - whilst lumping in all the non-commercially viable works alongside them.

As a first step, I've written to the UK government to at least identify the correct channels to approach them for a review. I'll keep you informed of progress - though I suspect it will be slow.

[Robb_K]

Street & Smith started their comic book lines in 1940, and gave it up (apparently not able to compete with the already-established publishers in the popular genres), in 1949.  But they never seemed to give it a proper chance to succeed.  I find it distressing, as a big "Funny Animal" fan, and secondarily, as a cartoony-art style, human-figure comedy comic book fan, that they tried only ONE funny animal comic line, and not even ONE other comedy comic book, - and that one funny animal line only lasted ONE ISSUE!!!   

I guess they didn't have their hearts in it on the nuts and bolts level.  One of the top brass saw how quickly the burgeoning comic book industry was expanding (selling like hotcakes), and decided his firm should get in on the easy profits.  But, apparently, the company didn't have the right people in-house to make it work, nor did they hire the right people to get the job done. 

The only series that lasted more than 20 issues were "The Shadow" - 1941-49 - 101 issues; "Supersnipe" 1942-49 - 44 issues; Super-Magician 1941-47 - 55 issues; and  "True Sport Picture Stories" 1942- 49 - 46 issues.

Not surprisingly, they did well with their mainstay, sports.  And they did fairly well with related "action series", including 2 20-issues soldier/combat series during World War II.  Only "Supersnipe", their Sports series, and "The Shadow" (with the continuing great radio following) made it all the way to 1949.  "Doc Savage" only made it to 20 issues from 1940 to 1943.  I wonder why?  They did so very well with "Doc Savage" Pulp books.  They could have adapted all of them in serial form in the comics.  I wonder why they cut the comic book series out so quickly?

Actually, the single children's funny animal book, "Kid Zoo Comics", from 1948, had good quality artwork, drawn by one-time animator, Vince Fago.  And it also had a well-written, funny, and heavily action-based lead story.  The other stories were also well drawn, but didn't have any plots.  They were clearly written for little kids by people who didn't know what little kids would like, and weren't cleverly funny - not really funny in ANY way.  It's too bad they didn't really give it a real try. 

[Electricmastro]

Favorite artists who worked for Street and Smith:

Elmer Stoner

Jack Farr

Bob McCay

Jack Binder

Vernon Greene

August Froehlich

Al Bare

James Hammon

Charles Coll

John Meditz

Harry Hoffman

Bob Powell