[OtherEric]

They're best known for their Little Nemo collections but I don't like Little Nemo enough to shell out the price for those books.  It was a beautiful strip but I've always appreciated the craft more than actually enjoyed it; the big collection of the strip Taschen did a few years ago is enough for me.

What I did get with some Christmas money was their edition of "Queer Visitors From the Marvelous Land of Oz".  This is, if anything, a bit more of a specialist project; neither of the series is exactly a classic in the way Nemo is.  But I was just awed by the book; it goes somewhere beyond huge at 18 x 16 inches.  It's hard to tell if it's a coffee table book or just a coffee table!  I was wondering if anybody else had seen any of their other collections and what they thought of them; there are several strips I would LOVE to see in this format.  We really don't know what the comics used to look like when they were full page.  I can't recommend the Oz book to anybody other than hardcore Oz fans; despite one of the strips being written by Baum himself and the other being drawn by Denslow they never really make it past OK at best.  (If there are any other hardcore Oz fans like me out there; go buy this book NOW.  Skip food if necessary.  )

Oh, and I noticed JVJ's name in the credits under special thanks.  Not sure what he did on it, but everybody involved deserves praise.  It's the most impressive collection of comics I've ever personally seen; even if the material is a bit special interest.

[JVJ]

My name's there, Eric,
because the publisher, Peter Maresca, lives 2 miles from me and consults with me regularly regarding scanning and color-correction techniques. In the first volume of his Little Nemo series, he adapted my on-line biography of McCay for the introductory material.

In fact, he is supposed to be in Paris SOMEWHERE right now. You just reminded me that I should call him. Bye!

ps. You're right, it's a gorgeous book.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[Yoc]

Sounds interesting!
I really should find a local bookstore... if there are any.
The big box sellers have driven most out of business.

[Captain Audio]

What I did get with some Christmas money was their edition of "Queer Visitors From the Marvelous Land of Oz".  This is, if anything, a bit more of a specialist project;

Gay Australian Tourists?

Just kidding of course.

Yearly broadcasts of "The Wizard of Oz" was a great tradition here in the US, we've always enjoyed introducing kids to the old film.

From 1959 to 1991, it was an annual television tradition - only one TV showing per year - and through these showings, it became one of the most famous films ever made.[3] At least one source has claimed that it is the most watched film of all time.[4] During the 1960s, telecasts of the film quickly became a much anticipated family event in the United States, drawing extremely large audiences annually for many years.[5] The film became as much of a family ritual during those years as the program which, between 1959 and 1968, usually followed the Oz telecast at that time, The Ed Sullivan Show . This was due not only to what many feel is the excellence of the film, but also to the fact that between 1956 and 1980, television was virtually the only means by which families in the U.S. were able to see it, unless they attended the MGM Children's Matinee in 1970.[3][6]

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&ved=0CAcQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FThe_Wizard_of_Oz_on_television&ei=HRFpS8TQFMuXtgf21KXUBg&usg=AFQjCNGIWhgFrQZcy4XLCbYHip4gA9hBDQ

[OtherEric]

Yearly broadcasts of "The Wizard of Oz" was a great tradition here in the US, we've always enjoyed introducing kids to the old film.

Oh, yes.  I loved the movie when I was very little; and after one showing when I probably four or five my parents told me there was a book and several others besides.  So the next time we went to the library we found some and I've been a fan of the books ever since.  I actually have almost all the famous forty in early hardcover editions now, including about 15 first edition first states.  None of the Baum Oz books are 1st/ 1st, just Thompson and Neill.  I do have a beautiful 1st/ 1st of Baum's Queen Zixi of Ix from 1907, though.

The problem with the Sunday Press books is sticker shock; the Oz collection lists at $75 and the Nemo books are even more.  But Amazon has a good discount on it; and that's the sort of thing gift cards are for.  It's also exactly the opposite of the sort of thing we can do here- you could in theory scan the pages if you had them; but the impact of the book is getting them at full size for the first time in over a century.

I would dearly love a collection of Pogo, or just about any of the classic Sunday adventure strips, in this format.  Which is something I found interesting in their choice of one of their books being the Oz material- it's not something most comic collectors are interested in or even aware of, as far as I can tell.

[Captain Audio]

Due to storm damage to the old homestead and complete destruction of a couple of storage sheds we lost hundreds of great old childrens books some dating to the 18th century.
I have run across a few in relic condition while rebuilding half the house, some with the great artwork intact.
Next time I sort through these I'll start scanning the illustrated pages.

I have had some success in manipulating scans of old damaged photos, I can give these illustrations a cleaning up.
I just now found that my free host site has deleted my account as expired. Perhaps I didn't use it often enough. I'll have to find another host site, or buy a full membership on the old one.

If I can figure out how to build a readable file, perhaps in PDF I could mail it or upload it somehow when finished.
A wide variety of such classic artwork should be of interest, I'll of course try to determine if any is still under copyright.

[Yoc]

I like www.mediafire.com myself.
Our files are simple jpg files compacted into a single zip file and renamed '.cbz' before uploading here.

I bet OtherEric would be willing to help if you get to the point of sharing some of your scans.
-Yoc

[JVJ]

The problem with the Sunday Press books is sticker shock; the Oz collection lists at $75 and the Nemo books are even more.  But Amazon has a good discount on it; and that's the sort of thing gift cards are for.  It's also exactly the opposite of the sort of thing we can do here- you could in theory scan the pages if you had them; but the impact of the book is getting them at full size for the first time in over a century.

$75 is 25 comic books, Eric, which really isn't all that much when you look at it that way. The whole idea of Sunday Press is to present the strips at the size they were originally printed.

I would dearly love a collection of Pogo, or just about any of the classic Sunday adventure strips, in this format.  Which is something I found interesting in their choice of one of their books being the Oz material- it's not something most comic collectors are interested in or even aware of, as far as I can tell.

I don't believe that Pogo was ever published either full-page or at this size, and Peter is much more interested in very early comic series that were done when newspapers were huge. Most other adventure strips have already been reprinted enough times to make the "grand format" redundant. You may remember the Manuscript Press editions of Prince Valiant which were this size, but were even more expensive and commercial failures even though all the comic collectors thought that they were fabulous.

And comic collectors are NOT the intended audience of Sunday Press books. Their aim is a bit higher. The first Little Nemo book was the FIRST cartoon book to ever be sold in the bookshop of the Louvre Museum. That's the market he's after. Collectors are notoriously (and I say this proudly) cheap. Serious publishers can easily go broke (and I speak from experience here, too) trying to sell only to them.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[OtherEric]

I wasn't faulting the price; it's excellent value for what you get.  But even if you read about the dimensions, it's hard to understand what you're actually getting until you hold it in your hands.  It's hard to believe the book is really that big!

I didn't know about the Manuscript Press editions of Prince Valiant, they sound wonderful.  And I love the idea of a cartoon book being sold at the Louvre.  It's easy to forget the comic collectors aren't the only people with interest in the material any more, if we ever were.

[Captain Audio]

Glad you mentioned Pogo.
I had thought I'd have a hard time finding my Pogo collection but I simply turned my head and there it was at eye level in a stack of books I'd set aside to sort out.

Its the Simon Schuster Fireside edition "Ten everloving Blue-eyed years with Pogo" , all B&W strips from the first ten years and with commentary by Walt Kelly.

I'll be giving it a good reading now.

[OtherEric]

If you like Pogo, I would call your attention to our run of Animal Comics on this site.  Kelly renewed all the other Pogo material, but the original series in Animal Comics is in the public domain and we have the complete run.

I just hope they finally find the last of the material and release the collections of the comic strip soon; they've had a lot of trouble finding sources for the Sunday strips that would go in the first book.

[John C]

Regarding Pogo, there were also two books (PDF, and post-Golden Age) in amongst the government pamphlets that someone unearthed last year.  If you can track that thread down, they're not stories in the conventional sense, but they are pretty nice.

Also, regarding the children's books, groups like the Internet Archive would surely be thrilled to see uploads of even severely damaged books, if a way can be found to scan them without smelling up your house.  Especially with older material, it's rare enough that every bit counts to someone.