[OtherEric]

Thanks for these; we're down to only needing 4 issues of All-Top now.  VERY impressive!

[archiver_USA]

Uploaded to the FTP site today:
AllTopComics_006.cbr [Fox]
AllTopComics_007.cbr [Fox] (July issue)
MartinKane_004.cbr [Fox] (#1)
MartinKane_002.cbr [Fox]

All c2c from paper.

[darkmark]

Woo!  Looking forward to those. ;-)

[OtherEric]

And they're all uploaded now, and it appears I managed to add a category for "Martin Kane" without destroying the whole system, knock wood...

Thanks again, archiver.  Impressive books as always.

[Yoc]

Thanks Archiver - I certainly enjoy all the scans you've been sending our way.
Keep on scannin'!


-Yoc

[darwination]

Thanks Archiver, you rock!

[archiver_USA]

Uploaded to the FTP site today:
MysteryMenComics_005.cbr [Fox]
MysteryMenComics_010.cbr [Fox]
MysteryMenComics_015.cbr [Fox]

All c2c from paper.

[Yoc]

Oh Baby!
(Partridge Family singing...) "Archiver - I think I love you...."


Behind the nice Joe Simon cover of Mystery Men 10 there are some notable artists doing early works - Simon and Kirby on Wing Turner, Dick Briefer on Rex Dexter drawing a unique alien and far out space ship, Klaus Nordling on Lt. Drake (looking so privative at this point I wouldn't have hired him) and an appearance by best forgotten GA hero - The Moth by Jim Mooney!  Mooney is on to another non-starter hero The Lynx in #15.  A historically interesting collection of artists but don't expect great things - the book as a whole looks like it was done fast and cheap.  Typical Fox.

You can also find early Bob (S.R) Powell doing D-13 and George Tuska on Zanzibar and more Briefer in all three books.

[John C]

It's possible that nobody else will care, or that those who do consider it obvious, but it's worth pointing out that this should make three out of the four Moth stories.  The Moth was specifically created to compete with Batman and is, I believe, the first (to put it generously) Batman pastiche that drew the ire of National/DC.  Mooney has said that he even used that alleged similarity to get a job drawing Batman.  So for a variety of reasons, I at least find the strip historically interesting and always get a kick out of finding another installment.

Of course, the observant might notice that the Green Mask and the Lynx are FAR more similar to Batman in many ways, and yet nobody at DC ever made a peep about 'em.

[Yoc]

All true John and check out 'the sign of the Blue Beetle' on the second page of his story in MMC10.  Gee, that sounds familiar too.  But I'm going to guess Batman was far from the first to pull that stunt anyways.  I wonder, was the Bat Signal all original?  Anyone?

[JVJ]

Oh Baby!
(Partridge Family singing...) "Archiver - I think I love you...."


Behind the nice Joe Simon cover of Mystery Men 10 there are some notable artists doing early works - Simon and Kirby on Wing Turner, Dick Briefer on Rex Dexter drawing a unique alien and far out space ship, Klaus Nordling on Lt. Drake (looking so privative at this point I wouldn't have hired him) and an appearance by best forgotten GA hero - The Moth by Jim Mooney!  Mooney is on to another non-starter hero The Lynx in #15.  A historically interesting collection of artists but don't expect great things - the book as a whole looks like it was done fast and cheap.  Typical Fox.

You can also find early Bob (S.R) Powell doing D-13 and George Tuska on Zanzibar and more Briefer in all three books.

I love those early Fox comics. Not so much because of what they aren't, but what they are. They're mostly Iger Shop work and by #10, Eisner has departed and taken S.R. Bob Powell with him to Quality and The Spirit sections. Likely that some material was from Funnies, Inc. too.

There are a LOT of misidentifications in the GCD, so allow me to set a few things straight.

I feel like I've been assigned the job of raining on parades. Here are the actual IDs:

Cover: possibly Simon. I'm not very familiar with Simon pencils as they were not very consistent at this period. I won't challenge the credit, but I can't confirm it either.

Blue Beetle: Actually IS by Charles Nicholas (aka Charles Wojtowski).

Wing Turner: Definitely Kirby and Simon.

Rex Dexter: great Dick Briefer!

The Green Mask: This is L. Bing, the same artist who did MANY Raggedy Ann and Andy comics and lots of stories in Fairy Tale Parade, too. One of only two KNOWN superhero efforts, the other was at Timely.

Billy Bounce: I don't know for certain, but it's most likely Fred Schwab. I'm horrible at comic styles. Sorry.

Chen Chang: Cecelia Munson is an Iger house name first applied to work by Munson Paddock and carried on long after Paddock had left the shop. This is after Paddock has left and is not by him. The only SUGGESTIONS I might have are Pierce Rice pencils and Chas. Nicholas inks, but I'm REACHING for those. Really, this is

T. Drake: Klaus Nordling, certainly.

The Moth: Most definitely NOT one of the Jim Mooney episodes. I have no suggestion to replace that ID, but one can see signed Mooney at Ace at this time and there is no comparison, stylistically. This reminds me of some old pulp illustrator trying to make the switch to comic books and not having much success.

Hemlock Shomes: Fred Schwab

D-13: This is most likely NOT by Powell. He's gone (I told you once before that I view comic books history by MONTHS not by AGES - this is an example of what that means.) Powell left Iger with Eisner in December of 1939, so it's unlikely that his artwork would be still be appearing in books dated May of 1940 - possible, but unlikely. I'll leave it at that.

Captain Savage: Looks a little like Arturo Cazeneuve to me, but I honestly don't know. It's not C.A. Winter.

Zanzibar: despite the familiar name attached, this isn't by George Tuska. It's another example of Iger Shop latching on to names and turning them into house names. My best guess is R.S. Pious, who went on to do lots of Novelty strips, imitating Tuska (in places).

A fun book.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[Yoc]

Thanks Jim,
boy sure sounds to me like Narfstar here needs to get you hooked up as an editor of the GCD site.
Now I checked some of the names on the Bails site too and I thought it was confirming the Tuska and Powell periods but perhaps I read it wrong.  I defer to you whole heartedly on such matters.

And yes I LOVE the early Fox books and I'm shocked our scanners haven't asked for more!  I finished working on your offer lists marking what was still needed and there's a lot of Fox, Centaur and Novelty that I'd love to see one day. 

-Yoc

[JVJ]

I AM "hooked up" to the GCD, Yoc,
and have editorial privileges to the extent that I can add or correct just about anything and submit it for review. The PROBLEM is that the GCD is simply too slow whenever I find time to use it. I'd LOVE to just add these types of corrections, but most of the time after one or two story updates the site hangs and it takes 5-10 MINUTES to accept the update and return me to the editing screen. I don't need that kind of frustration in my life.

As for the WW: you probably DID read the WW right, but you have to remember that ONE story appearing in Mystery Men by Bob Powell will generate a WW entry for "1940" - which, in this case, is misleading, yet accurate. AND, it must also be understood that the WW hasn't really been updated in three or four years (a LOT of it much longer ago than that), and that it never was infallible. Just before he died, Jerry and Hames and I were going around and around about Munson Paddock and L. Bing, whom Jerry wanted to eliminate as a person and ascribe his/her stories to Paddock. Sadly, despite the fact that we all eventually agreed that they were two different people, the WW still reflects Jerry's doubts.

Plus, we continue to learn more as time goes on and we have no way of submitting that info to the WW.

If you'd like to see our (Hames, Henry Steele, and my) efforts on the GCD, take a look at any Fiction House entries up to around 1946. We've done lots more FH, but anything with story titles consisting of the first eight words of the text in quotes has been updated by us.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[Yoc]

Hi Jim,
Ahhhhhh, so YOU are the guys I should be thanking!  I love the use of opening lines to identify stories!  When no title is given it's the best way for readers to know which coverless issue they might have!  So THANKS GUYS!   

Nice to know the GCD site has given you editing privileges Jim.  Now it seems to me Narf was saying he's using an application that will let him edit more than one book at a time and send them all to the site in one click when he's done.  That sounds a lot easier than doing it manually.  I leave it to Narf to sort out with you.  He's the inside guy.  I'm just an user.

It's a real shame that Who's Who wasn't handed down to someone/group to continue the work.  As times pass it will become less and less reliable as new facts come to life.  While part of me can understand wanting it preserved it as is... but if Jerry was actively updating it I'd have thought he would want it to continue to do so even after he was gone...  *sigh*, who's to say I guess.  If it were me I'd sure have wanted it that way but that's just me.  From all that I've heard about Mr Bails he was a class act and a huge loss to the hobby when he passed.

-Yoc

[narfstar]

GCD updated for MM 10

[narfstar]

I have found signed work that info should have been added to WW but could not be.

[JVJ]

You're welcome, Yoc,
I actually started using the quotes way back in my very first approach to a computer-based index (which was about 1986, if memory serves [which it generally DOESN'T!]). I needed some way to ascertain which stories in those Baily Shop comics from 1944-46 were reprints and I chose the quote method. Of course it doesn't always work. Sometimes the reprints are rewrites as well, but it was better than nothing AND it let you identify a coverless comic - which, given the limits on how much I was willing to PAY for a comic, was a necessity.

I actually ran into some opposition on the GCD over removing "invented" story titles and replacing them with the quotes, but it all resolved itself and (I think) everyone's happy with the result.

As I told John Benson last week, I don't enjoy the fact that he's relying on ME to be the one who decides (probably for posterity) who drew what in the Harvey Horror comics. Jerry Bails WAS a class act and a demon for authenticity - witness the minutiae we were discussing shortly before his death. It was important to him to get everything as accurate as possibly. That's NOT an easy task nor responsibility to pass on (NO pun intended) to someone else and not one that someone worthy of the job would take lightly. I wouldn't want it!

It is also not a position that will be easy to fill. I'm certain that Jerry tried to set up a successor, and the fact that the WW IS still up and running is a tribute to his efforts and foresight, but coordinating the revisions and updating the data is a massive task. Jerry had a select group of people whom he trusted with providing data and I'm sure that group would be/will be willing to continue with the WW under a different stewardship. Maybe no one ever got the nod for the position and now everyone's worried that the responsibility for CHOOSING someone is too great. I don't know. But, knowing Jerry, he would want it to be a person, not a group.

Ray Botrof told me about using a spreadsheet approach to the data and then letting someone at the GCD do the entering en masse. But, as he even noted, it works a lot better for NEW entries than for updating current ones. And EVERYTHING we're updating already has SOME of the data in it. Is there something ELSE, narf, that will let me make modifications off-line? I really WANT to spread this information (witness the data cards that I HOPE are getting scanned or transcribed with my comics), but I want the process to be easy and fast. I hate it when the tools get in the way of the job ... ever notice how much time postal workers spend WAITING for their darn computerized systems to get to the next screen? It's frustrating to watch and it causes unnecessary delays and lines. I hope they can fix the GCD interface so we can do OUR jobs faster and easier.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[JVJ]

I have found signed work that info should have been added to WW but could not be.

I can't begin to tell you how much we've learned with the GCD Fiction House project, narf. I, too, wish that we had some mechanism to insert the new knowledge into the WW database. Alas, we don't. Sigh...

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[narfstar]

Jim I actually think the UD tool works great for updating also. You can download the issue you want. It is a tab delimited text file. Open it with excel and make the changes then upload it. If it times out (which of course it sometimes does) it is no big deal because it is in the background while you do whatever else you want.  I uploaded 130 sequences of Haunted Tales au reprints for someone else without problems.

Jim I also have a lot of coverless that need indentified so I like the quote method.

[JVJ]

Jim I actually think the UD tool works great for updating also. You can download the issue you want. It is a tab delimited text file. Open it with excel and make the changes then upload it. If it times out (which of course it sometimes does) it is no big deal because it is in the background while you do whatever else you want.  I uploaded 130 sequences of Haunted Tales au reprints for someone else without problems.

Jim I also have a lot of coverless that need indentified so I like the quote method.

Great, narf!
Now WHAT is the UD tool and how do I access it?

Do I need to have Excel or can I just do it in a text file?

Thanks for the tip!

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[archiver_USA]

Uploaded to the FTP site today:
MysteryMenComics_018.cbr [Fox]
MysteryMenComics_019.cbr [Fox]
MysteryMenComics_020.cbr [Fox]

All c2c from paper.

[John C]

All true John and check out 'the sign of the Blue Beetle' on the second page of his story in MMC10.  Gee, that sounds familiar too.  But I'm going to guess Batman was far from the first to pull that stunt anyways.  I wonder, was the Bat Signal all original?  Anyone?

I don't recall if there was a specific source to the Bat-Signal, but I believe that the "Sign of the Beetle" was actually a Green Hornet thing--you'll note that his first appearance is, after all, almost identical to the Green Hornet.

In the Beetle's case, the sign takes different forms from issue to issue, from calling cards to fake beetles to the flashlight.  In other words, he stole from every Pulp character, not just a select few...

[archiver_USA]

Just so this doesn't get lost in the cross-talk:

Uploaded to the FTP site today:
MysteryMenComics_018.cbr [Fox]
MysteryMenComics_019.cbr [Fox]
MysteryMenComics_020.cbr [Fox]

All c2c from paper.

[darkmark]

Thanks, archiver.

[OtherEric]

These are ready for download now.  Once again, thank you, archiver.  (Just double-checking amid all the fox books you've been uploading:  You don't have any Phantom Lady issues we need, do you?)