I Am Legend is a science fiction novel written in 1954 by Richard Matheson. it tells the story of Robert Neville the last man alive in Los Angeles, California.

The story takes place between 1976 and 1979. the book opens with the monotony and horror of the daily life of the protagonist, Neville is apparently the only survivor of an apocalypse caused by a pandemic of a bacterium, the symptoms of which are very similar to vampirism.

Much of the story is devoted to Neville’s struggles to understand the plague that has infected everyone around him, and the novel details the progress of his discoveries. Instead of asking the reader to accept a supernatural explanation for vampire phenomena, the author strives to offer scientific basis for such symptoms as aversion to garlic, craving of fresh blood, and resistance to bullets but vulnerability to stakes and sunlight.

Get the book here

get the audio book here

this the original cover of the book

the first film made based on I am Legend was:

Last Man on Earth,

Starring – Vincent Price as Richard Morgan, Franca Bettoia as Ruth Collins,Emma Danieli as Virginia Morgan,Giacomo Rossi-Stuart as Uncle Ben Cortman, Christi Courtland as Kathy Morgan

watch the flick for free here

buy it here

the next film was

The Omega Man

Charlton Heston Robert Neville
Anthony Zerbe Matthias
Rosalind Cash Lisa
Paul Koslo Dutch

get the dvd here

check out the trailer for the 2007 flick here

DC comics releasing stories for the film check out trailer here

before Superman and Batman there was

The Phantom

the very first and true costumed super hero (Crime Fighter)

The Phantom is an adventure comic strip created by Lee Falk. it stars a costumed crimefighter operating in the jungles of Africa. Falk originally envisioned the Phantom’s alias as rich playboy Jimmy Wells, fighting crime by night as the mysterious Phantom, but halfway through his first story, “The Singh Brotherhood”, he moved the Phantom to the jungle. He had tweaked with the idea of calling his hero The Gray Ghost after thinking there were already too many Phantoms in fiction, such as The Phantom Detective and The Phantom of the Opera. But he could ultimately not come up with a name more suiting than The Phantom

Falk’s lifelong fascination with such myths and legends as that of El Cid and King Arthur, and such modern fictional characters as Zorro, Tarzan, and The Jungle Book ’s Mowgli,

Zorro

el Cid

Tarzan

help shape the vision of the ghost who walks.

The story of the Phantom started with a young sailor named Christopher Walker (sometimes called Christopher Standish in certain versions of the story). Christopher was born in 1516 in Portsmouth. His father, also named Christopher Walker, had been a seaman since he was a young boy, and was the cabin boy on Christopher Columbus’s ship Santa María when he sailed to the Americas.

Christopher Jr. became a shipboy on his father’s ship in 1526, of which Christopher Sr. was Captain.

In 1536, when Christopher was 20 years old, he was a part of what was supposed to be his father’s last voyage. On February 17, the ship was attacked by pirates of the Singh Brotherhood in a bay on the coast of Bengalla. The last thing Christopher saw before he fell unconscious and fell to the sea was his father being murdered by the leader of the pirates. Both ships exploded, making Christopher the sole survivor of the attack.

Christopher was washed ashore on a Bengalla beach, seemingly half dead. He was found by pygmies of the Bandar tribe, who nursed him and took care of him.

A time later, Christopher took a walk on the same beach, and found a dead body there, whom he recognized as the pirate who killed his father. He allowed the vultures flying around the body to eat its meat, took up the skull of the killer, raised it above his head, and swore an oath: “I swear to devote my life to the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice, in all their forms! My sons and their sons, shall follow me”.

After learning the language of the Bandar tribe, Christopher found out that they were slaves of the Wasaka, a tribe consisting of what the Bandars called “giants”. The Bandars who had found him was only a small group of people who had managed to escape from the village of the Wasaka. Immediately, Christopher walked into the village of the Wasaka, and asked them to set the Bandars free. He was taken prisoner, and laid before the Demon God of the Wasaka, Uzuki, who was supposed to decide his destiny. Christopher was tied up and laid on an altar made of stone, where vultures surrounded him, the Wasaka allowing them to eat him. Christopher was quickly saved by a group of Bandar before the vultures or the Wasaka could do him any real harm. They managed to escape from the village of the Wasaka unharmed.

Christopher later learned about an ancient Bandar legend about a man coming from the ocean to save them from their slavery. He made a costume inspired by the look of the Demon God of the Wasaka, and went to the Wasaka village again, this time with a small army of Bandar armed with their newly discovered extremely poisoned arrows, capable of killing a man in a few seconds. The Wasaka, shocked at seeing what many of them thought was their Demon God come alive, were fought down, and the Bandars were finally set free, after centuries in slavery. This resulted in a dedicated friendship between Christopher and the Bandars, which would be brought on to the generations to come after them.

The Bandars showed Christopher to a cave, which resembled the look of a human skull. Christopher later carved it out to make it look even more like a skull. This Skull Cave became his home.

Wearing the costume based on the Demon God, Christopher became the first of what would later be known as the Phantom. When he died, his son took over for him; when the 2nd Phantom died, his son took over. So it would go on through the centuries, causing people to believe that the Phantom was immortal, giving him nicknames as “The Ghost Who Walks” and “The Man Who Cannot Die”.

unlike other costumed heroes the phantom did grow old and die, and was replaced by his son and so on. this is very different then the mordern comic superhero who has the ability to live forever.

also the simulatries of the Batman and the Phantom are quite close right down to the costume that strikes fear into the hearts of their enimies. the cave, the skull cave and the bat cave. also the fact that their fathers where killed and they seek to avange the deaths

Lee Falk once said that ,

the phantom was suppose to be in a red costume

but due to a printing error he was turned purple.

Throughout the publishing history of the Phantom however, various comic book publishers have taken tremendous licence regarding the color of his uniform. For example, the color was red in France, Italy, Spain and Brazil, almost a bluish-silver during the early years in Scandinavia and a yellowish-brown in New Zealand.

this next section was taken from the kings feature site

Before Batman, before The Shadow, before The Green Hornet, before The Lone Ranger, the comics’ first masked mystery-man hero had long since been striking fear into the dark hearts of the wicked.

Indeed, by the time the world-famous adventures of The Phantom were first recorded in print more than six decades ago, the grim champion of justice had already been around for nearly 400 years.

Such is the riveting, myth-freighted legend of The Phantom — “The Ghost Who Walks,” “The Man Who Cannot Die,” “The Guardian of the Eastern Dark.” In the beginning he had been a half-drowned sailor, flung ashore on the terrible, blood-drenched Bengalla coast after pirates burned his ship and slaughtered his mates. The gentle Bandar pygmies, taking him to be a sea god of ancient prophecy, nursed him back to fitness and became his everlasting friends — as the castaway faced his destiny, donned costume and mask and was reborn as the first of the Phantoms, scourge of predators everywhere.

“I swear to devote my life to the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty and injustice!” he cried as he formally took “The Oath of the Skull” by firelight. “And my sons and their sons shall follow me!”

And in time there was a son. In time that son begat another, and thereafter that son begat again. After a while, there arose a dynasty of Phantoms, one after another, born into the legend then reared and rigorously drilled in the disciplines and the duties.

Through the generations these eerily identical jungle lords have prowled an evil world in the cloaks of many identities, and none today but the Bandar and a handful of other secret souls know that all are not one and the same.

The modern Phantom is the 21st of the line. Since Feb. 17, 1936, he has been the law in his dangerous part of the world, a one-man police force, a silent avenger who appears and vanishes like lightning. His home is the fearsome “Skull Cave,” deep in the heart of his jungle. His only intimates have been the faithful Bandar, his great white horse Hero, his savage gray wolf Devil, and his lovely American sweetheart Diana Palmer. Even the men of the Jungle Patrol, the paramilitary peacekeeping squad an ancestor had organized some years ago, have never seen the face of their mysterious commander in chief.

From thieves and smugglers to cut-throat harbor rats to crazed dictators seeking to enslave free men, all have met the Phantom over 60 thrilling years, and all have tasted his wrath. Always changing with the whirlwind times around him, he has increasingly come to function as something of a United Nations troubleshooter-at-large, a shadowy trench-coated figure slipping in and out of modern Third World political intrigue.

But never far from the Phantom’s stage are the great emperors and brigands of yore, in the shining tales of his 20 heroic forebears, recounted in the epic Phantom Chronicles. In more than 60 years of daily newspaper stories and 58 years of Sunday-only yarns, “Phantom” creator Lee Falk has meticulously fleshed out the most minute details of a fabulous dynastic pageant, illuminating the lives of the Phantoms of old whose blood courses through the veins of the modern Ghost Who Walks. Many of them have swashbuckled their way through the famous newspaper comic strip in grand flashback sequences — one early Phantom is known to have married Christopher Columbus’ granddaughter; another is known to have married Shakespeare’s niece; still another took a Mongol princess as his bride.

The fifth Phantom crossed swords with the pirate Blackbeard in the early 1600s. The 13th Phantom traveled to the young United States and fought alongside Jean Lafitte in the War of 1812. The 16th appears to have put in some time as a Wild West cowboy.

And succession is assured.

The current Phantom and Diana Palmer were wed in 1977, and today their scrappy young son, Kit, is in training to someday take the sacred “Oath of the Skull” and become the 22nd Phantom. (Phantom 2040, the futuristic television series that in 1994 spun off from Lee Falk’s classic comic-strip legend, posits a 24th Phantom, apparently Kit’s grandson.)

Lee Falk

Leon “Lee” Falk, is the creator of two of the most successful and longest-running action-adventure strips in the history of comic art: “Mandrake the Magician” and “The Phantom.” He began his career that resulted in the creation of these two classic fantasy comics as a 19-year-old college student. “Mandrake the Magician” was the first action-adventure strip in which magic was the main theme.

Lee Falk was born April 12, 1911, in St. Louis, Mo. On his first trip out of his native Midwest, a dapper Falk arrived unannounced at the offices of William Randolph Hearst’s King Features Syndicate in New York City in 1934. He had with him a comic-strip dramatization of a hypnotist who used his powers to right wrongs by combating criminals and enemies of his country. It was the platinum Era of Comics, and the myriad young men who appeared at King Features with their work were told to leave their comics for review. But Falk used his movie-star good looks and deep, theatrical voice to persuade the receptionist to allow him to see the top comics editor.

It was a year of explosive growth for the comics business as the familiar gag-a-day funnies gave way to popular new action strips for an eager audience. “Mandrake the Magician” arrived in the same exciting era that witnessed the births of “Flash Gordon,” “Jungle Jim,” “Secret Agent X-9″ and “Terry and The Pirates.” Today, the tuxedoed, mustached magician remains one of the most famous characters in the comic-strip medium, his adventures appearing in more than 125 newspapers worldwide.

Falk still had two years of college to complete when “Mandrake” went into syndication. To allow time for studies, he collaborated with Phil Davis, a commercial artist who lived in St. Louis. Davis drew the strip until he died in 1965. Falk found working with an artist agreeable and decided to continue under that situation. Fred Fredericks has drawn “Mandrake” since 1965.

Falk’s mysterious magician was immediately a worldwide sensation. Mandrake, who always uses his legendary powers of hypnotism and illusion to combat crime, has worked his debonair magic to find a place in the hearts of comic strip buffs everywhere. “Mandrake” is also the first comic strip with a racially integrated cast of crime-fighters. Mandrake’s partner in adventure is the gigantic Lothar, one of the few African-American heroes to appear regularly in the comics. Mandrake is also aided by his girlfriend, the lovely and exotic Princess Narda.

Just two years later, Falk developed still another blockbuster. “The Phantom” made its debut in newspaper comics pages on Feb. 17, 1936. Falk combined his love of epic poetry, fairy tales and stories of chivalry to create the riveting, myth-freighted legend of the first costumed super hero, ‘The Phantom,” also known as “The Ghost Who Walks,” “The Man Who Cannot Die” and “The Guardian of the Eastern Dark.”

“The Phantom” became a lodestar for what has become practically an industry built around supernatural men and women. King Features distributes “The Phantom” today to more than 500 newspapers. It is translated into 15 languages. Ray Moore was the original artist for “The Phantom.” From 1947 to 1961, Wilson McCoy drew the strip. Sy Barry took over in 1962 and continued drawing “The Phantom” until he retired in 1994. Since then, George Olesen has been the artist for “The Phantom.”

“The Phantom” was an instant international hit, inspiring comic-book collections around the world from Italy to Australia even before the first comic-book version appeared in the United States in 1938. Falk often recounted with deep satisfaction the fact that his Phantom character provided inspiration to the resistance fighters in Norway during World War II. Particularly in Scandinavia as well as in Australia, the Phantom continues to inspire countless devoted fans today, having achieved widespread popularity through fan clubs, strong publishing and licensed merchandise sales and Web sites.

Falk likened creating a comic strip to writing a play: “I think the art of writing a comic strip is closer to the theater and to film technique than any other writing I know. When I create stories for ‘Mandrake’ and ‘Phantom,’ I write a complete scenario for the artist in which I detail the description of the scene, the action and the costumes. If new characters are being introduced, I write their descriptions along with the dialogue for each panel. With such a scenario in front of him, a cameraman could take this and shoot it or a comic artist can take the scenario and draw it.”

Hollywood came calling for the first time in 1942 when Columbia Pictures Corp. filmed Falk’s “Mandrake the Magician.” By 1944, “The Phantom” was one of the world’s top action heroes, and Columbia Pictures Corp. released a cliffhanger serial. In 1986, “The Phantom” emerged as a King Features Entertainment television property in an animated series titled “Defenders of the Earth.” The series starred three more of King Features’ famous comic-strip characters: Flash Gordon, Prince Valiant and Mandrake the Magician. In 1994, Hearst Entertainment produced “Phantom 2040,” an animate series set in a grim world nearly 50 years in the future. In 1996, Paramount Pictures released a new theatrical version of “The Phantom,” starring Billy Zane it the title role.

Lee Falk was a graduate of the University of Illinois. He spent four years writing copy and directing radio shows for an advertising agency in St. Louis. Once he was comfortably situated as the producer of two of the most sensationally successful features in daily newspapers, Falk took to globetrotting. For many years the adventures of both “The Phantom” and “Mandrake” were as often as not set to paper in hotel rooms in one of the world’s great capitals.

The inexhaustible stories continued to come one after another even as World War II intervened. Immediately after Pearl Harbor was attacked, the patriotic Falk took on duties in secret intelligence operations with the Office of War Information and became chief of its radio foreign language division. In 1944, Falk enlisted in the United States Army.

And the stories continued still as, after the war, Falk increasingly turned to playwrighting and theatrical production. For many years, he was the owner of summer theaters in Massachusetts and a winter theater in Nassau, the Bahamas. The Paul Robeson-Uta Hagen production of “Othello” was first presented in this country at Falk’s Cambridge Summer Theater. Falk produced more than 300 plays, presenting such talents as Ethel Waters, Sylvia Sydney, Chico Marx, Marlon Brando and Ezio Pinza. Of these productions, he directed about 100, featuring stars such as Dame May Whitty in “Night Must Fall,” Ann Corio and Karl Malden in “Sailor Beware,” and Charlton Heston in “Bell, Book and Candle.”

Falk also wrote nearly a dozen plays and two musicals, “Happy Dollar” and “Mandrake the Magician and the Enchantress.”

Up until the time of his death, the expert storyteller still roamed every corner of the globe and continued to mastermind the daily and Sunday newspaper adventures of both “The Phantom” and “Mandrake the Magician.”

“Lee lived a life as spectacular as those of the characters he created,” Jay Kennedy, King Features editor in chief, said. “He was a central figure behind the emergence of adventure comic strips in the 1930s. The popularity of that genre extended to comic books as well. Fans of his strip, in particular, and comic book fans everywhere owe Lee Falk a debt of gratitude.”

the rise of the new medium of the “comic book” coincided with the end of the roaring 20’s. the day that would change the world as it was known!

The Great Depression is associated with the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday. The depression had devastating effects in both the industrialized countries and those which exported raw materials. International trade declined sharply, as did personal incomes, tax revenues, prices and profits. Cities all around the world were hit hard, especially those dependent on heavy industry.

The premium:

Free Comics became popular in the early 1930’s. This was mainly due tothegreat depression. It also kept the publishing presses running during very hard times. Shutting down and starting up the printing presses cost time and money and the presses did everything they could to keep them going.

image of a printing press circa 1905

Thousands of different comics were given away as companies used popular comic strips for advertising purposes. The pioneers of this trend is given to Sam Gold and Kay Kamen. Among the most well known giveaways are Kelloggs Buck Rogers and Ovaltine’s Little Orphan Annie.

side note:
Walt Disney got into comic books too. The earliest of these was Mickey Mouse Book. Done in 1930 – 31, published by Bibo & Lang. These were 9″x12“, 20 pages long and stapled together. Despite the title of “book” this was in fact a magazine, inside it had a variety of songs, games and stories. There were later printings of this book but some lyrics were edited, advertising was inserted and christmas card was a part of the front cover.

The Adventures of Mickey Mouse is considered to be the first “true” Mickey Mouse comic book. It came out in 1931, is 32 pages long and 5 -1/2″ x 8 1/2″. It was published by David McKay Co. with a print run of 50,000 copies. There were both hardcover and softcover versions of this book. A second book came out after the Mickey Mouse cartoons and the characters within were made similar to the cartoons.

Mickey Mouse Comic #1 also came out in 1931. It reprints the Mickey Mouse comic strips done by Floyd Gottfredson from 1930 to 1931. It measures 10″x 9 3/4” is 52 pages long with a cardboard cover. The series lasted 4 issues with later reprintings. It was also published by David McKay Co.

David McKay Company, 1933.

Whitman Publishing Co., 1937There were two different Mickey Mouse Magazines done in 1933. The first in January published by Kamen-Blair. It was distributed by daries and local theaters. It lasted until issue #9, the first few issues had a 5 cent cover price, the later ones did not. The second was also give aways done through different Dairie companies. It had two volumes, the both going 12 issues. Both magazines were done by Walt Disney Productions and they ended in 1935.

In the summer of the same year A new Mickey Mouse Magazine was done by publisher K. K. Publishing AKA Western Publishing Co.. Like the previous incarnation, this magazine would run 12 issues, then restart back at #1 with another volume. This continued for 5 years, with #12 volume 4 converted to a more traditional comic book format. It turned 68 pages and shrank to normal comic book size. It then went under a title change to Walt Disney Comics & Stories.

In 1933, Detective Dan, Secret Op. 48 was the first comic, sold on the newsstands, with original material in it. Done by Norman Marsh this comic had a 3 color, cardboard cover. Inside was black and white. Sold for 10cents, dimensions were 10×13″. It had 36 pages and was only a one shot published by Humor Publishers Corp.,

The Detective Dan character was a Dick Tracy clone, and didn’t last very long. There was some other appearances by him though. One in The Adventures of Detective Ace King. Also done in 1933. There are some minor differences between the two books, among them a paper cover and pages 9 1/2 x12″.

the comic book was in for a rude awakining and a new look and vision thanks to two men

to be continued

Their site

this was their program booklet

we paid 20 bucks a pop just to be there on saturday. if you have never gone to a comic book convention ever in life then the big apple con is a great starter convention. we started going to big apple comics convention when they first started back when it was held in 1996 in the basement of St. George’s Church in Manhattan by Michael Carbonaro

the set up is shown in the pamphlet

this is Legendary comic creator Joe Simon (co creator of Captain America) back at the big apple con 2006

a booth at the con 2006

The convention is known for its eclectic variety of guests, including many celebrities of comic books, classic TV, movies, animation, pro wrestling, and other forms of pop culture. Some notable guests include Steven Segal, Carrie Fisher, Val Kilmer, Kevin Smith, Frank Miller, Adam West, George A. Romero, Neal Adams, Peter Mayhew, David Prowse, Bill Plympton, Roddy Piper, and many more. It also holds panel discussions and a costume contest hosted by “Captain Zorikh.”

This year has been the year of heroes …….. tv show that is! so actress hayden panettiere the cheerleader from heroes was on hand to take flicks and sign pic, if you spent 30 dollars to get it.

watch out shes got body guards!

loads of celebrities.

in the long run with the price of gas going up, so to is the price of a good comic book convention. go for the comics , go for the stars, go for the full grown adults dressed in colorful costumes. Just go and lose yourself in the fun!

Victorian age,platinum age books

Rodolphe Topffer, Winsor Mccay, R. F Outcault and many other greats!

get the book here

get the book here

get the book here

get the book here

get the book here

get the book here

get the book here

if you can afford it get it here

get it here

get it here

get it here

get it here

get it here

get it here

always look online and compare prices. these are only some of the great collections out there.

also if you live in NY go to

Cosmic Comics located on 10 E23rd St., New York City, NY 10010

store site

Forbidden Planet located on 840 Broadway, New York,link

and store site

FLOWER PRINCESS AND ROCK PRINCESS

Ohkuninushi, the lord of the land, decided to give his land to the highest goddess, Amateras. Amateras sent a god Hononinigi to reign the land and he became the ancestor of Japanese emperors. Hononinigi fell in love with a beautiful princess, Konohanano-Sakuya-Hime and asked her father Ohyamatsumi for their marriage. Ohyamatsumi sent Konohana’s sister Iwanaga-Hime along with Konohana to make both of them his wives. However, Hononinigi didn’t like Iwanaga because she was so ugly. She was sent back to her father Ohyamatsumi and he got so angry. “I sent my two daughters to you because Konoyaha would bring you prosperity and Iwanaga would have brought you enernal life but you rejected Iwanaga. You and your descendents lost the chance to live forever.” This is why gods (and emperors) die on our land.

Konohana, a flower princess was the symbol of prosperity and Iwanaga, a rock princess represented eternal life.
Konohanano-Sakuya-Hime
“Konohana” means flowers on the tree and “Sakuya” means bloom (and “Hime” is princess). The name represents what she is.

Iwanaga-Hime
“Iwa” means rock and “naga (nagai)” means long

this is the site the above is from

the history of the Comic Book

part 1 continues

The Platinum Age 1897 – 1938

Early 1897 a book called The Yellow Kid in McFadden’s Flats came out. This “comic” book was 196 pages long, square bound, black and white, 50 cents and 5 ½” x 7 ½”. It was published by G. W. Dillingham Company with permission from Hearst, the newspaper that had Hogan’s Alley at the time.

It was a part of a series that Dillingham did on American Authors, only he took special liberties with this one and created what is today known as a comic book. In fact this book coined the phrase “Comic Book” as it’s written on the back cover. Inside we get an origin of sorts as it reprints the earliest Yellow Kid’s appearances. There is some text within by E. W. Townsend explaining Outcault and the Kid. This comic book starts what is now called the Platinum Age of Comics.

In 1899 a Funny Folks comic book came out, taking a close first stab at a format for many Platinum Age comic books. The book was hardcover, 16 ½” wide by 12″ tall. Funny Folks was created by F. M. Howarth, but published by E. P. Dutton. It was a black and white collection of reprints from the Puck magazine.

In 1901 The Blackberries came out and is the first known full color comic book. It used a format of 9″ x 12″ and was a hardcover book.

Then the most often used format of 17″ wide x 11 tall” began being used by a number of comic books. Among them The Katzenjammer Kids, Little Nemo and Happy Hooligan. After the Yellow Kid, Outcault would create many other strips and characters. One of them also ended up in comic book form. That was Buster Brown, published in 1902 by Cupples & Leon. Thanks to the merchandising success of Buster Brown, many companies made Buster Brown comics as premiums to sell their stuff. Most of these comics were full color, but with only reprinted Sunday comics on one side of the page. They were large volumes and were priced at 50 cents. This format lasted over a decade.

click here for yellow kid site

In 1910 Mutt & Jeff created a new format, reprinting daily strips in black and white. The book was still a hardcover, but was 15″ wide x 5″ tall. It was published by Ball and they did 5 volumes of Mutt & Jeff books.

Then in 1919, Publisher Cupples & Leon used a different format. They were 10″ by 10″ with 4 panels per page, each page. They were black and white, 52 pages for 25 cents. Titles and characters used for these books was Mutt & Jeff and Bringing up Father.

not all comic books of this era were fictional. the popularity of film brought new ways to show off the usefulness of the comic book

this story uses the most popular film star of the silent era Charlie Chaplin.

In 1922 the first monthly comic book came out. It was cover dated January and had a price of 10 cents. They were done in 8 ½ by 9 format. The title was Comics Monthly and lasted 12 issues. Each issue was devoted to a popular comic strip character that was syndicated by King Features. Polly and her Pals., Mike & Ike by Rube Goldberg. S’Matter Pop? , Barney Google, Tillie the Toiler, Indoor Sports, Little Jimmy. Toots and Casper, Foolish Questions, Barney Google and Spark Plug. These were all reprints of 1921 daily black and white strips.

In 1926 Little Orphan Annie and Smitty comics came out in a 7 by 9 format, published by Cupples and Leon. They were printed in both soft cover and Hardcover with dust jackets. They were very popular with a 60 cents price.

In 1929 Dell Publishing took a crack at a regular Comic Book. The comic was called The Funnies and was done in a big tabloid-sized format. They were 16 pages and sold for 10 cents. It was distributed by the newsstands along with newspapers. Unlike Comic Monthly, this book was done 4 colors and had original comic strips instead of reprints. A new issue came out every Saturday, but it lost money. Issues #3 to #21 were 30 cents each. The price changed to 5 cents with issue #22 and lasted the final issue with #36.

Almost all “comic” books of this period are reprints of older comic strips

Lets look at a reprinted book from little jimmy circa 1935

unlike comic books that we see nowadays, the platinum age books are stitch bound and appear to look more like a childrens book (hardcover,usually more than 100 pages)

the images above is a big little book (5-3/4″ x 4-1/4″ 160 pages)
very similar to the picture books from earlier in the century.

the third image is from little jimmy strip circa 1-20 – 1931

Side Note:

The Give Away: The American Tobacco Company decided to introduce baseball advertising cards into their tobacco products with the issue of White Border Set in 1909. The cards were included in packs of cigarettes and produced over a three-year period until the ATC was dissolved. The most famous, and most expensive card for the grade, is the Honus Wagner card from this set

This prompted other companies to seek out other types of give aways, this help boost the popularity of the Comic Book

the platinum age of comics had no costume crime fighters!

not the kinda costumes we know of in this age of spandex bliss

to be continued

Saturday, December 1st 2007 is the shooting day for poker face

I hope all turns out right

wish us luck

thanks for all the support

Part 1: before the flood:

there is much debate over the exact place and time that comics as we know it today started.

In recent years a discorvery proving that comic books may have started well before the Yellow Kid. This new age of comics is being referred to as the “Victorian Age” for the time being

Today the earliest known comic book is called The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck. Originally published in several languages in Europe in 1837, among them an English version designed for Britain in 1841. A year later it was reprinted in New York on Sept. 14, 1842 for Americans, making it the first comic book printed in America. Odadiah Oldbuck is 40 pages long and measured 8 ½” x 11″. The book was side stitched, and inside there were 6 to 12 panels per page. No word balloons, but there is text under the panels to describe the story. A copy of it was discovered in Oakland, California in 1998.

The comic was done by Switzerland’s Rudolphe Töpffer, who has been considered in Europe (and starting to become here in America) as the creator of the picture story.

side note: A picture story can range from a comic style book to a childrens pop up book. it does not always have to be told cronlogically or Sequential
(Sequential ART is the art form of the mordern comic book)

Rodolphe Töpffer

(31/1/1799 – 8/6/1846, Switzerland)

Rodolphe Töpffer was the son of painter Wolfgang Adam Töpffer, a German emigrant who had settled in Geneva, Switzerland. Unfortunately, due to an eye defect, Rodolphe was initially unable to pursue a career in the visual arts like his father. Instead, he devoted himself to literature, writing short texts such as ‘My Uncle’s Library’, ‘Nouvelles genevoises’ and, especially, ‘Voyages en zig-zag’, accounts of his walking trips in Switzerland. Töpffer studied in Paris and became a teacher, working in several schools in Geneva, and becoming titular professor of rhetoric at the Geneva Academy of Belles-Lettres. In 1825, he founded a boarding school for boys.

Töpffer has earned most fame for his “histoires en images”, picture-stories which are considered the first in the comics genre. He created six titles, ‘Histoire de M. Jabot’ (1833), ‘Monsieur Crépin’ (1837), ‘Les Amours de M. Vieuxbois’ (1839), ‘Monsieur Pencil’ (1840), ‘Le Docteur Festus’ (1840), ‘Histoire d’Albert’ (1845) and ‘Histoire de M. Cryptogame’ (1845). After Töpffer’s death in 1846, were posthumously anthologized in the series of volumes titled ‘Histoires en Estampes’. A story left unfinished by Töpffer was ‘Brutus Calicot’, the manuscript of which is kept at the University Library in Geneva. Another publication by Töpffer is ‘Essais d’autographie’ (1842). Töpffer’s picture-stories have been an influence on many of the early “comic” artists, such as Christophe, Wilhelm Busch and Cham. His ‘M. Vieuxbois’, translated as ‘Obadiah Oldbuck’, was the first comic book ever published in America, in 1842

Rudolphe Töpffer created several (7 is known) graphic novel style books that were extremely successful and reprinted in many different languages, several of them had English versions in America in 1846. The books remained in print in America until 1877.

There are an unknown amount of Victorian Age Comic Books, this era of comic book history is still being discovered, researched and recorded. .

An influential illustrated book to come out in this period was called The Brownies: Their Book. The Brownies feature wasn’t really a comic book per say. They were created by Palmer Cox and originally part of a children’s magazine called St. Nicholas. The Brownies first appeared in the magazine in 1883 in a story called The Brownies’ Ride. The Brownies were heavily merchandised and one of the products they put out was book featuring their illustrations with a text story beside the pictures. The Brownies: Their Book was first published in 1887 and several other books involving the same characters followed afterwards. It is likely to be the first North American Comic to be internationally successful.

Besides St. Nicholas, there were other magazines using picture stories of sorts and they were getting popular. Among the magazines were Harper’s, Puck, Judge, Life and Truth. Newspapers began to recognize their growing popularity and added a Sunday Comics feature to cash in. The newspapers couldn’t get the popular artists and their characters because the Magazines already had them signed up. But a Puck staff member, Roy L. McCardell told Morrill Goddard, the Sunday editor of The New York World (then largest newspaper) that he knew someone who could provide something.

That someone was Richard F. Outcault. He did a picture of street children in the June 2^nd, 1894 edition of Truth. the above text was taken from history of comics

The Yellow Kid

Mickey Dugan, better known as The Yellow Kid, was the lead character in Hogan’s Alley, the first comic strip and the first to be printed in color in mass production. The Yellow Kid was a bald, snaggle-toothed child with a goofy grin in a yellow nightshirt who hung around in an alley filled with equally odd characters.

The strip was drawn by artist Richard F. Outcault. It first appeared on a few occasions in Truth magazine 1894–1895 in black and white print, but gained immense popularity in New York City in 1895 when it debuted in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World as a black and white cartoon on 17 February 1895 and subsequently as a color cartoon on 5 May 1895

what made the yellow kid stand out was,The device of using word balloons to contain character dialogue in comic strips was used in The Yellow Kid, though the kid himself usually communicated through statements that appeared printed on his shirt. He rarely spoke. His language was a ragged, peculiar ghetto argot.

The creator of the Yellow kid was, Richard Felton Outcault (January 14, 1863-September 25, 1928)

An American comic strip scriptwriter, sketcher and painter. considered the inventor of the modern comic strip. He was born in Lancaster, Ohio and died in Flushing, New York.