[Yoc]

Great story MD.
Feel free to tell any other brushes with greatness or whatever stories.
Behind the scene stuff is always interesting.

It's like that Amazing Fantasy 15 original artwork that showed up at the Library of Cong.
Seeing all the changes made to the story was a hoot.  You have seen that right?

-Yoc

[OtherEric]

It's like that Amazing Fantasy 15 original artwork that showed up at the Library of Cong.
Seeing all the changes made to the story was a hoot.  You have seen that right?

-Yoc

Heard about it, haven't seen it.  I'm beyond grateful to whoever donated it, though.  That's one of the most important comics ever; just that the art survives intact is amazing.  That I, as a citizen of the USA, "own" a share of it through the library of congress is miraculous.

Does the artwork for any book of comparable importance survive?  I assume Mad #1 does, and that's arguably in the same league.  But I've never heard of surviving art for anything else of that importance.

[Yoc]

Well, you are in for a Treat with this link Eric!

Amazing Fantasy 15 Original art comparison report

http://tinyurl.com/medf4e

[John C]

Reading that, two things come to mind.

First, I'm going to have trouble getting "give to the stripper" out of my head.  I don't know who Bill is, but I still hope Spidey got him a dance.  (Yes, I know...)

Also, the burglar looks like Archie Andrews.  Coincidence?  Maybe, but check out his scheme in Pep #30 before answering and tell me where the money comes from.  In context, I can only think of two possibilities, and mugging could definitely lead to burglary.

[phabox]

Another couple of books that I caught round about 1967 worth a mention were  a couple of giant-size Harvey reprints, though at that time being just a kid I did'nt realise how old the material was.

I Think that I enjoyed Fighting American the most as with its way out baddies it was not too unlike the Batman show that I was then hooked on .

  I knew enough to recognize Jack Kirby from his Marvel Comics work but who the hell was this 'Joe Simon' guy ?

With some shame I have to admit that the other comic, The Spirit_002 went RIGHT over my ten year old head at that time, so much so that I passed on the chance to pick up issue one even at its original (UK) cover price.

Some ten years later after reading books by Les Daniels, Ron Goulart and most of all Jim Steranko I was ready for Eisner which was just about the time the Warren Magazine came along...

-Nigel

[Brainster]

I was introduced to the GA with the JLA/JSA crossover around JLA 55-56 or so; the one with the adult Robin on the cover.  The first real GA story that I can recall reading was the Star Sapphire story in Flash Annual #1, which I picked up in a trade around 1970.  Around the same time, I first read Feiffer's The Great Comic Book Superheroes, which, I'm ashamed to admit, under-impressed me greatly at the time.  To me, the GA art looked amateurish.  It wasn't until DC started really unlocking their GA vault with stories like the original Two-Face saga, or the Grade A Robberies that I began to realize that Batman had some really high-quality stories and art.  IIRC, I bought a couple GA Batman issues in 1971 or so at the NY Con; #18, #31 and #71.  Around the same time I bought a set of about 10 Detective issues from Passaic Book Center; most of those were GA although a few were post-code.

[Yoc]

Those JLA crossovers and The Great Comic Book Superheroes really seem to have influenced a lot of people here eh?
Funny I never saw The Great Comic Book Superheroes until after I was already a fan from other sources and I never got to the crossover books until a couple years ago!

-Yoc

[moondood]

I forgot to mention those great oversized DC reprints from the 70's--they went a long way in whetting my GA appetite!  Action 1, Detective 27, Batman 1, Sensation 1, Flash 1, etc.  I got to see all those wonderful back-up features that I'd otherwise never see!  Mr. Terrific and Little Boy Blue, et al.   The Whiz comics 1 (2) and the other Shazam oversized issues made me a Captain Marvel (and Fawcett in general) fan for life.  I just reread a bunch and it was like a blast from the past.  Really fun stuff...not gritty or "real"--no angst, no morality plays other than "don't be evil, kids!" 

Moondood

[Yoc]

Ha!
I remember seeing those giant reprints and Ali vs Superman at the public library.  Holy cow were they huge!
I own the Sensation reprint - I made a doghouse out of it it was so big!

[kentel]

As I am french, my exposure to the GA comics was rather different than the ones I read here ; first of all, because most of them were not translated into french. And the reason why they were not, is because there was already a french-belgian school of comics which was very productive and which represented a big market. But during my childhood I used to read the "Journal de Mickey" (among other comics magazines).

The Journal de Mickey was the unique occasion to read GA comics in french. Apart from all the Disney stuff, which I confess I enjoyed (and still do), we could regularly read Flash Gordon, Mandrake, The Phantom and others. I keep a vivid impression of these incredibly imaginative comics universes. Alex Raymond is one of the best comics creators I ever read: not only because he was an art virtuoso, but also because of the esthetic value of his works. Besides, he considered himself comics as an art, which few did at his time. I discovered recently in a book several sketches he drew for Flash Gordon, that was really impressive : the talent, the modernity, the imagination; everything.

Le Journal de Mickey was issued every week, but we had also a monthly magazine named "Strange" where you could find only superheroes-like comics. I did not read them until recently, as my parents didn't want to buy them to me (it looks too violent or something like that). But, to be specific, Strange was not a GA superheroes magazine; most of the comics there were realized in the 80's. When I discovered later Siegel and Shuster's Superman, I found it much more interesting.

As I began to be more confident in english, I discovered that Flash Gordon, Mandrake and the Phantom were not all the american GA comics : there was a huge mine to dig in. I even discovered the incredible comics of Winsor McCay (I don't know which age of the comics this is). I'am still digging, and from what I can read here, there is very much to dig.

A few weeks ago I wondered: may be they even have a GA forum, who knows... And when I discovered this one I realized I knew nothing about GA comics...Great forum !

Gilles

[Ed Love]

My first exposure almost had to be either Roy Thomas' Invaders, a JLA-JSA crossover, or some reprints in all of the One-Dollar 100 page books that was always coming out. It's hard to remember the details these days.

When I was up in DC researching copyrights and such I discovered an interesting bit of trivia. Jules Feiffer's book of GA superheroes and myself share the same birthday! So, I guess it was fate.

[Yoc]

Thanks for sharing guys!
There's something to be learned by Everyone kentel so no worries.

[OtherEric]

Windsor McCay would probably qualify as Platinum age if you had to stick a name to it; newspaper strips are really their own creature in terms of 'ages'.  Beautiful stuff, at least to look at.  The writing, not so much.

[Powder Solvang]

I remember JLA 38. When I visited my cousins one day in the 1960's they had this comic and a lot of our play time was spent pretending to be JSA characters. I was particularly impressed with Doctor Fate who could clean Superman's clock! 
And then there were the DC 80 Page Giants and Marvel Super Heroes reprint comics.
Why did Batman have a different costume logo in the giants than the one in his regular comics?   
What was Captain America doing with a kid sidekick? 
Who was this Human Torch? He certainly wasn't the same as the one in the Fantastic Four! 
It wasn't until later that I learned the answers.

[JVJ]

Windsor McCay would probably qualify as Platinum age if you had to stick a name to it; newspaper strips are really their own creature in terms of 'ages'.  Beautiful stuff, at least to look at.  The writing, not so much.

You know what ALWAYS bothered me about Winsor McCay's art, Eric?
The lettering is/was simply atrocious. How could someone that GOOD at art be so inept (or cavalier?) at the comparatively simpler task of lettering?

And you're absolutely right that newspaper strips are a totally separate beast from comic books. Something that a lot of people find odd (well, one of the MANY things, actually) about me is that I have virtually NO interest in newspaper comic strips. I can read and enjoy a Flash Gordon comic book, but the newspaper strips, no matter who was drawing them, leave me cold.

It is a puzzlement.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[narfstar]

I don't find that strange Jim. You have said you are a fan of the art. There is a much different appearance and flow to comics than newspaper strips. I would say you are not a fan of the comics that were made from newspaper reprints either. They are more static in nature. Being more a story fan it does not bother me as much. Although the blocky nature of newspaper comics is not very appealing to me and actually distracting. I prefer books with newspaper reprints over reprint comics for that reason.

[OtherEric]

Off on a bit of a tangent, it should be VERY interesting to see Wednesday Comics next week.  The idea of Sunday Funnies style superheroes is a neat idea.  No idea how well it will work, but I love that they're trying it.

[JVJ]

I don't find that strange Jim. You have said you are a fan of the art. There is a much different appearance and flow to comics than newspaper strips. I would say you are not a fan of the comics that were made from newspaper reprints either. They are more static in nature. Being more a story fan it does not bother me as much. Although the blocky nature of newspaper comics is not very appealing to me and actually distracting. I prefer books with newspaper reprints over reprint comics for that reason.

Yeah, you're right, narf,
The constraints put on newspaper strips often leech the life out of the flow of the story. And, no, I don't particularly like, nor collect, comics ONLY reprinting such strips. Another aspect of the reprints is that they generally leave out the repetition that is inherent in the medium, and, as such, you never get to see all the art that was done. So a "reprint" is usually a "reformatting" and a selective sampling of the original.

I LOVE Noel Sickels' art, but for the life of me I couldn't read more than 50 pages of the new book reprinting Scorchy Smith. The "stories" were repulsively repetitious and, quite frankly, boring.

Viva le comics!

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[Tarzanofthecats]

Like Darkmark, I think the early Justice League /JSA crossover in 21-22 was also my first real exposure to the Golden Age heroes. I had started buying JLA with the mid teens. I was just getting hooked on the Superman mythos then. Then along came the 80pg Giants that also had some GA reprints. I found them pretty fascinating but it wasn't until fairly recently that I really started exploring the depth of the GA thanks to the net.

The first Golden Age comic I got was in the mid 60's I bought a used 1950 Superman which was my pride and joy despite it's not so great condition.

I was a mild fan of the Blackhawks (something about "sacre bleu" tickled me) and was aware they were a holdover from the Golden Age even as a little kid. The Golden Age of comics always had this odd mystique to me - like it really was another age long ago. I didn't have access to any real comic shops and they simply were never seen.

[narfstar]

When you consider not only did the JLA bring about the Fantastic Four which issued in the Marvel era but it sparked the interest in a bygone era in most of us. Viva la JLA

[darkmark]

And it wasn't until I read ALL-STAR that I learned who Snapper Carr really was...the Earth-One equivalent of Johnny Thunder!

[DOC]

The first Golden Age stories I ever read was the reprints in Superman 80 Page Giant_183 followed by Fantasy Masterpieces/Marvel Super-Heroes and loads of IW/ Super Comics books, though at the time I did'nt always realise how old some of those stories were.
-Nigel

This is somewhat my exposure to GA stories as well but when I got Steranko's History of Comics Vol 1, I was really hooked and just started absorbing all I could. My first fanzin of GA comics was Futura #9.

Don't know what the actual first GA comic I had, may have been Blue Bolt Vol1 #9, the last Simon and Kirby issue. Yep great memories.

[bminor]

"All in Color for a Dime", back in the early 70's, a great book on comics history. Checked it out of our local library then and actually purchased a copy a couple of years ago online.
"The Great Comic Book Heroes" by Jules Pfeifer, also from the early 70's, reprints from the golden age.
These two gave me a brief background in my early teens about the golden age.
I also bought any comic that had a golden age reprint in it. The DC 100 page giants where a treasure trove to me. I vividly remember some early Batman reprints from his earliest stories in Detective. The Wildcat, Captain Marvel, Early Superman, Kid Eternity. Those 100 page Giants were absolutely marvelous, and still are to me.
DC also had two other reprint books in the early 70's "Wanted - the World most dangerous villains" sometimes they had some really early golden age stuff. The other title was Secret Origins, some of those origin stories came from way, way back there.
I remember back in about 1972 or so, I was about fourteen, and DC had these full page ads for the first of the gigantic comic line that they started to produce then. Action #1 was the first and I think Shazam was the second. Me and some neighborhood buddies went on a fourteen mile bike trip from our home in Anoka, MN to Elk River. We stopped at the drug store in Elk River and there was the gigantic Shazam comic, it was way cool. Of course I bought it and brought it home, where it still resides in the box with all the other gigantic comics that were produced by the big two back then.
I can stand up right now, walk over, open that box, pick that book up and transport myself back to that sunny summer day when we road our bikes along the Mississippi River and I claimed my prize.
You know, in many respects, many of the comics that I have are time capsules. Able to transport me back to a earlier more innocent time.
The stories and art are great, that is part of the equation, but when and where many of them were traded for, bought, found or given are locked away in my mind, just waiting to journeyed to again.
I like to share my collection with my children, ( I "gasp" let my kids read my comics!) I like to think that they are rather lucky to have access them.
My twenty-one year old will start laughing when we talk of Uncle Scrooge and his uncountable millions.
My kids and I have shared a lot.

[rez]

You know, in many respects, many of the comics that I have are time capsules. Able to transport me back to a earlier more innocent time.

Ain't that the truth.
When the nephews were growing up I made sure they had plenty of access to silverage books.
They now prefer silverage over modern comics. Those silver age had a charm all their own.

[darkmark]

That's the absolute truth.  At the time of the Silver Age, we still had a basic Christian (or Judeo-Christian) morality and that infused the books of that era.  Wish we had that now.