Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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Right now, my thoughts are all-consumed by the looming prospect of England vs Germany in Euro 2020 2021 but that won't prevent me from launching the latest edition of the feature the whole internet's talking about.
It's the one where the first person to comment sets the topic for discussion in the comments section below.
Will it be you?
You never know.
Thinking about it, you do know. It's me who doesn't know. However, I couldn't resist the chance to quote the last line of my favourite Bucks Fizz song.
If there are any other lines from Bucks Fizz songs I get an irresistible urge to quote, I shall, of course, be sure to announce it.
Posts
24 comments:
What is the oldest comic in your collection? (Optional follow-up question : how much did you pay for it?)
b.t.
And yes, i will answer my own question, but I need to verify the actual issue number first…
b.t.
My heartfelt congratulations to England on beating Germany! Well done!
Thanks, Charlie. It was a bit of a snooze-fest but at least it wasn't the usual demoralising failure.
Bt, thanks for the topic. At the moment, I don't think I have anything really old - or valuable - in my possession. I think the oldest I've got is 1968's Amazing Spider-Man annual which I paid a mighty £1.50 for.
Oldest comic in my collection is HUMAN TORCH #7 from 1942. Think I paid $300 for it, over ten years ago — by far, the most I’ve ever paid for a single comic. It’s not anywhere near ‘Minty’ but it’s in surprisingly nice shape overall, not missing any pages, both covers intact and attached, no scribbles or chips or other obvious flaws. This was at a point where I’d pretty much filled in most of the holes I wanted in my Silver/Bronze Age Marvel Collection, exçept for the earliest Silver Age stuff — those low-number issues of FF, Spidey, Avengers, etc were already super-expensive and I decided I could easily make do with reprints. But hunting for back issues that I couldn’t find at comic shops here in town was a big part of Comic-Con experience, so I was I was also going through a phase where I was reading a lot of Golden Age reprints, charmed by their place in history as much as the actual contents. So that year when I went to SDCC, I put aside a good chunk of my Back Issue Budget toward getting a WW II vintage Timely mag, if I could find one that I liked, that was in my price range. HT #7 fit the bill, with two Torch stories by Burgos, a Subby story (NOT by Everett, alas) and one of those insane Schomburg covers, at a price that didn’t completely annihilate my budget.
I have a few Golden Age books that were much less expensive, that I frankly enjoy MORE — scattered issues of SMASH, CRACK, AIR FIGHTERS, BLACKHAWK , a cover-less DAREDEVIL, etc — but I don’t regret the purchase. It satisfied my craving, and fortunately, without leading to me wanting to buy more Timely books from the same period. I’m never gonna own a CAPTAIN AMERICA or SUB-MARINER from that era, and I’m totally okay with that.
Steve, I know you’re a bit frugal when it comes to spending money on back issues, so I’m REALLY curious to hear what your oldest comic is…
b.t.
I'm not really a collector but I do have a beaten up copy of FF Annual #2 somewhere up in the attic that I bought for £2 in the 1990s, probably from a Virgin megastore.
Mickey Mouse/Disney comic, & TV Comic. 1976 perhaps? Annuals - Beezer 1972. Not very old! Didn't pay, as I was an infant!
Phillip
Sorry - Just realized, I've got Hotspur Annual 1968 & Lion Annual 1969! Got them for pence at a school sale in 1978 (?)
Phillip
Bt, I refer you to my answer above.
Dangermash, that's a genuinely awesome annual.
Phillip, I believe I've still got an old Beano annual from either 1971 or 1972.
Gents!
Did I congratulate you yet for the victory of Germany? It took 55 years but you did! Never, Never, Never Give Up!
My oldest comic is a Captain Aero #7 from 1942, as far as I can tell. I have a long box of golden agers. I just really dig the covers and if it is WW2 / Patriotic all the better.
My fav WW 2 cover that I have though has got to be Boy Commandoes #8 from December 1944. It really conveys the sun is setting on the Japanese empire... That a very battered Japanese soldier is surrendering, waving the white flag, with a setting Japanese sun behind him is rather descriptive and emotive. I got it slabbed and in a bag b/c I really wanted to read it, lol, in addition to ogling it.
I imagine I paid anywhere from $20 to $40. I refuse to spend big on comics and over the years just cherry pick golden agers off ebay for under $20 which does happen time to time.
But like b.t. alluded to, the really great golden agers rolled out of Quality Comics (Plastic Man, Spirit, Blackhawk), Fawcett (Cpt Marvels), Lev Gleason (Daredevil, Boy). They just seemed to have a mastery of the medium the big 2 didn't necessarily have.
The thing is, too, that a lot of the really great Golden Age stuff was NEVER going to be reprinted, at least not in a form that represented them in anything like their original state. Bill Black (Americomics) reprinted some good Public Domain stuff in black and white, but the art was rarely shot from b/w stats, usually Theakstonized and/or traced and re-inked, and with grey tones applied so that he could copyright them as ‘new’ works. (And they weren’t cheap neither.) DC and Marvel both Theakstonized and re-drew most of their Golden Age reprints too. Sometimes the results looked pretty nice — but sometimes, YIKES, not so much!
And in any case, even with the two majors and Dark Horse reprinting some GA material, plus ‘boutique’ outfits like Americomics and ACG, and the occasional one-shot like Fantagraphics’ ‘SUPERMEN’ anthology, it still left thousands of amazing comics moldering unseen in their bags and long boxes. If one really wanted to see some of those great old Midnight strips by Jack Cole or Captain Triumph by Reed Crandall or Black Condor by Lou Fine, buying an old beat-up original was pretty much your only option.
Nowadays — GLORY BE! — there are several different sites like Comicbookplus that have good scans of lots and lots of P.D. Golden Age comics available for streaming or download. Nothing beats holding an actual floppy old comic in one’s hands — but they take up space, they fall apart, and they’re flipping EXPENSIVE, so I’m super-grateful to have the digital scans literally at my fingertips.
b.t.
My oldest comic is a copy of the 1959 Beano annual my youngest niece got me for my 60th birthday (1959 was the year I was born). The oldest comic I bought for myself was the 1961 Beano annual about 20 years ago for £5. My oldest US comic is World's Finest issue 161 from 1966 that I got for whatever comics cost in 1966 😄
McScotty:
I’m impressed that you still own a comic you got in 1966! One of the first comics I can remember owning was BATMAN 193, an 80-Page Giant from 1967. It went missing a long time ago (pretty sure Mom tossed it at some point). I bought another copy of it many years later, and though it was slightly beat up (cocked spine, Scotch tape fix on the cover etc.) and therefore not very expensive, I’m sure it cost a bit more than the original cover price of 25 cents :)
I acquired a box of about 50 comics from a neighborhood friend in 1973 — he’d gotten them from a cousin, i think, and passed them on to me (he either outgrew them or just wasn’t into comics in general). I still own most of them. None of them were real ‘key’ issues that have skyrocketed in price in the years since. ALL STAR WESTERN #11 (second appearance of Jonah Hex) would probably be a little pricey today, but the cover on my copy got detached at some point, so it’s a ‘Reader’ at best. There was a copy of SILVER SURFER #6 that pretty much just fell apart over the years, that I later replaced (fortunately before the prices of early Bronze Age books went sky high).
I still have the copies of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #129 (first Punisher) and GIANT-SIZE X-MEN #1 that I bought off the spinner rack but neither of them is in the best shape. I never did own INCREDIBLE HULK 180 and 181 (first Wolverine). I was regularly buying that book at the time but those two issues just didn’t show up for sale at any of my usual haunts. By the time our first local Comic Shop opened in ‘77, those two issues were already going for more money than I wanted to pay. They were probably only priced at three or four bucks each but that seemed like a lot of money at the time. I’d pay three dollars for a Barry Smith CONAN or a Starlin CAPTAIN MARVEL or a Brunner DR. STRANGE — but a Herb Trimpe comic? Not likely! I just wanted to complete the run. I later saw a copy for sale in the late 80s — probably around 50 bucks by then — and realized I’d missed my opportunity. And of course they go for CRAZY money now. Oh well.
b.t.
Spider-Man #24, picked up at a school fete around 1971ish for 5 cents. Not in top condition, and gotten worse since, but at the time speculation was furthest from my mind.
B.t. and Charlie- your Golden agers are impressive! Always admired those but have never acquired one (although once upon a time I did have an original Spirit Section by Eisner from the later 40s, sadly it's long gone). And it's cool that you still have many of those boxed comics, B.T. ! So many of us have had comics, parted with them, reacquired them, and so on, and so on...
As for my oldest comic: Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #89 from 1948. A pretty nice copy, purchased at a flea market a couple years ago. 25 dollars, this particular both had a huge selection of 40s/early 50s Disney books, all at that price. Some were rough, but this book was cherry. Has a Barks story, and a fun Donald Duck cover by Walt Kelly.
B Smith:
A nickel for SPIDEY 24 in ANY condition is a great deal, I’d say, even in 1971. Crazy to think that comic was ‘only’ six years old at the time. These days, a six-year old book seems practically brand-new.
I loved those old book sales at school. Never found any comics at ours, just a few sci-fi digests, a Scholastic Books Edgar Allan Poe collection (all long gone now) and a paperback novelization of HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER (which I still have), all for probably a nickel or dime apiece.
Redartz:
That’s a nice flea market find. I know you love your Ducks :)
b.t.
Red, B and McScotty, thanks for your comments. We didn't have any comics sales at our school but I do remember the display case by the main doors always had a copy of Jim Steranko's History of Comics in it, available for purchase. Why did I never buy it?
Charlie, you did indeed congratulate us.
b.t I gave my copy of World's Finest 161 to my cousin around the time I bought it (1966/7) to read and his mum (my Aunt) put it safely away as they were moving house and it got lost in the commotion. My cousin came across it again in the late 1980s when he was moving to his own house and gave me it back hence the reason I still have it .
You guys had comic book / book sales of used books? We only had the so-called book fairs with new books. Charlie Brown paperbacks were on my list along with books on Formula 1 racing probably inspired by Speed Racer and Thunderbirds! Charlie had a limited scope of interest!
Charlie:
We RARELY had used book sales at school. Happened maybe two or three times in all of grades seven through twelve, that I recall. Unlike the book fairs which happened like clockwork, yearly. I got the Airmont editions of FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA through the book fair one year, a Fu Manchu paperback at another, David Gerrolds’ novelization of BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES at still another.
I remember there being little ‘pop-up’ style used book stalls in the parking lots of supermarkets occasionally, in support of various churches, libraries and whatnot. Readers Digest Condensed Books, TONS of Romance paperbacks, etc. I picked up a couple James Bond hardcovers for a quarter apiece at one of ‘em. Mom was all, ‘I probably shouldn’t let you read these’ and after perusing a particularly filthy scene in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, featuring an oiled-up nude dancer and a black leather chair shaped like a human hand, I think it’s safe to say Mom’s instincts were spot-on :)
b.t.
You have a favourite Bucks Fizz song Steve...?
Did you know the same geezer who did the lyrics for Land Of Make Believe also wrote for King Crimson in the early 70s?
"Blood rack barbed wire
Politicians funeral pyre
Innocence raped by napalm fire
Twenty first century schizoid man"
You can see the similarity...
-sean
Phillip, check your Lion annual for Karl The Viking or Maroc The Mighty stories - in the 60s they were mostly written by Michael Moorcock...
-sean
Sean - Thanks for the tip!
Phillip
I do indeed have a favourite Bucks Fizz song, Sean. I didn't know that about the lyrics for Land of Make Believe.
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