FANTASTIC FOUR #13

I haven't added a significant book to my Fantastic Four collection in a while. Today I nabbed a copy of issue #13. This was a book I'd been searching for in the right grade at the right price for some time. I finally got lucky and got one from a back issue dealer here in North Carolina.

This book is a nice pickup for several reasons. It features the first appearance of one of Jack Kirby's major creations, The Watcher. And fortunately for me, and for some reason which I cannot fathom, the Watcher's first appearance has not unduly affected the book's price (as yet). If they ever put him in a film, the "value"of the book will insanely go through the roof. But for now I was safe and got it for a very reasonable price.

Another thing I quite like about this issue of the comic is that it was inked by Steve Ditko. Ditko did not ink very many of Kirby's stories, so it's always a treat to see the results when it did happen. I especially like his interpretation of Ben Grimm as the Thing, which is so different from that of most other artists who inked Kirby's pencils.

All in all, I was extremely happy with this addition to my collection!

My copy of FANTASTIC FOUR #13.

Some New Golden Age Comics

As I've talked about in the past, my main passion as far as collecting comics are Silver Age titles. Specifically those containing art and stories by Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby. But sometimes I'll land some Golden Age titles for my collection. Especially if the contents are of especially high quality of art and fiction.

And the quality doesn't get any higher than titles from the late EC Comics. At its head was William C. Gaines, whose mission it obviously must have been to publish the finest art in comics at that time. The names of the men and women he employed to work for him have become legend. So I look for EC books to add to my collection when I can find them at the right price.

So it was this week. The latest old comics to arrive as Casa Smith.

CRIME SUSPENSTORIES #2. Back in my youth, I had an extensive EC collection. But most of those were horror and science-fiction titles. I never had many copies of this title, and most of those were later issues.

CRIME SUSPENSTORIES #5. A great, dramatic cover from Johnny Craig.

Another image of high drama from Craig. When the Silver Age rolled around, he worked for a time at Marvel Comics, mainly as an inker.

Beater

In the local parlance of comic collecting, the term "beater" refers to a comic book that is in extremely low grade that you are willing to add to your collection for various reasons. Usually, the reason is that you're having a hard time locating the issue in any condition at all, and you're going to let this one serve as a place-holder until you can locate a copy in acceptable and higher grade.

One of my oldest Charlotte friends (Tom Smith--no relation) is actually a customer on my mail route. We have the same tastes in old comics with a couple of shared passions: Silver Age Jack Kirby comics and Golden Age Carl Barks comics. He had recently upgraded his copy of Four Color #189 and, since I don't have a copy, he sold me his old, low-grade copy for what he paid for it in 2000! I was more than happy to get the book for about the price of lunch!

So, now I have a "beater" copy of the book in my collection. I'd been trying to buy one for some time. And I doubt I'll ever bother to upgrade it. This one is fine for me.

My low-grade copy of Four Color #189, starring Donald Duck and the nephews!

Comics and Cats!

I'm way too tired and too busy to post much! No essays and no fiction excerpts! Sorry! Maybe in the next few days.

In the meantime, I picked up a nifty book for my collection. And here's a shot of our cat, Lilly, taking advantage of the nice warm bed after Carole got up to get ready for work. Lilly's no dummy!

As usual lately, I got a great deal on this book. I've been told that this issue contains the first professional comics work by John Romita, Sr.! I'm not sure, so I'll have to research it.

Lilly using the TV remote for a pillow! She's not particular!

Writer at Work

I did not go hiking today. Instead I have stayed home and worked on novels. This is going to be the pattern for a while.

One of Jack Kirby's monster creations. Kirby excelled at this type of thing. Sometimes I think that Kirby and Ditko were in a friendly competition to see which of them could concoct the most creative monsters. Fin Fang Foom went on to later become an offbeat, if somewhat integral part o the Marvel Universe. In effect, the character was made canonical by later creators at Marvel Comics. Ol' Foomy was always popular with the readers and so he was added to the Marvel villain hierarchy. But of course Kirby earned nothing from the profits generated by the character's use.

Another One Down!

Another minor collecting milestone as I labor to finish my collection of FANTASTIC FOUR by Jack Kirby. Now that I have this issue, #80, I have all of them from #68 through #102. I only have to pick up five or six issues to complete my run from #21 through #102.

Sometimes when I look at building the collection an issue or two at a time, I am reminded of my days as a comic book dealer when I would buy and sell wonderful rare comics at a rapid clip. In my earlier days as a comics dealer, I would barely notice issues of Fantastic Four over #25. They were that common in my stock of back issues that I didn't consider anything higher than #25 worth a second glance.

Now, as a civilian, things have changed. For one, I get a much bigger kick out of the books now than I ever did when I looked at them mainly as only a commodity to be bought and moved out as quickly as possible for a profit.

How things change.

This was a neat, if goofy story. Once again, Kirby refuses to create any new commercial properties for the thieves who employed him. The villain in this issue initially seems to be a god come back to exact vengeance, but turns out to be a Soviet-built robot out to cause trouble for the dirty capitalists. The FF set that straight! This story was actually a lot of fun to read. As robots go, this one was pretty darned tough, even beating the crap out of Ben! In the end, Wyatt Wingfoot and Reed Richards team up to take the big monstrosity down with skill and brains rather than brawn.

More Comics

I do collect other comics besides Silver Age Marvels by Kirby and Ditko. Today I landed a super-high grade copy of UNUSUAL TALES #25. Of course the reason I really wanted it is that it has art by Steve Ditko. He did the cover, plus the interior cover story. One exceptional thing about this copy is that it's in immaculate condition. It was sold to me as being in "Fine +" condition. Well, it is better than fine condition. A whole lot better--pretty close to near mint. I'm not into the practice of slabbing comics, but I might have to do that with this particular book.

I don't think Dikto ever really stopped working for Charlton until they went out of business. Even during the times when he was toiling away for Marvel and DC he was still producing creditable work for Charlton, although they paid much lower rates. It's been said he did the work for them because they gave him more editorial latitude. It could be. Hard to say.

I also got an acceptable copy of FANTASTIC FOUR #70. For some reason I had a hard time locating this book.

This is another of the generic villains that Kirby was willing to deliver up to his employers at Marvel. He was going to withhold the best stuff for his own projects from here on in. So instead of something like Doctor Doom or Black Bolt, the readers of the Fantastic Four got the Mad Thinker and one of his androids. In this case, the android was a big, green, faceless galoot. Pretty cool as such constructs go, but not something Goodman and Lee would likely be able to market for tons of money.

Counter-Revolutionaries

In the old days I used to collect original comic art. After a while I got out of that hobby and sold off all of my artwork. It was a weird business. So much artwork was basically stolen from the artists, mainly by the publishers. A few people--notably Neal Adams--tried to do something about all of that stolen art, but eventually even he had to surrender and call it a day.

Sometimes even other comic book artists would steal from their fellows.

I used to know of a certain inker (who will here remain nameless) who would lightbox pencilled pages that he liked and ink them and turn them in as the originals to the publisher (one of the big two). The pencil artists he'd been hired to ink--as far as I heard--never suspected a thing (the inker was pretty good at supplanting the originals without anyone noticing). The upshot? Said inker had original un-inked pencil pages by some of the best in the business that he would use to trade and sell without the initial artists ever knowing what was going on.

I discovered this when I bought some pages from this inker, thinking I was getting artwork done by a certain well-known pencil artist. The pencil art was, of course, still in the possession of said inker, who later sold the raw, un-inked pencils for a considerable sum.

Just one of the reasons I got out of comic art collecting.

Since I sold this piece a couple of weeks ago, I have only a few pages of art remaining. I bought this one from an agent dealing directly with the artist (Willam Van Horn--to my way of thinking the best Disney comics artist around these days).

LITTLE LULU and TUBBY ANNUAL #2.

Well, I lucked out and nabbed the second LITTLE LULU & TUBBY ANNUAL. Now I've got them both.

Front cover. Stories all written and illustrated by John Stanley.

Back cover. From the days when the back cover had to have gag art, too.

FANTASTIC FOUR #22 and #23

Another couple of bits of my childhood arrives in my collection. This time it's very nice copies of FANTASTIC FOUR #22 and #23. Written and penciled by Jack Kirby, they have inks by George Roussos who, for some reason, also worked under the pseudonym of George Bell. Roussos/Bell was a fine inker and had a wonderful reputation in the comics industry. But when I was a kid he was not my favorite inker, especially on Kirby's pencils. But he was a good comic artist whose work among Kirby inkers is highly regarded.

When you look at the comics from this period at Marvel, you can easily see that it was the artists who were actually writing the books (and not the editor who was taking credit for writing). For instance, some artist/writers were very good storytellers. Kirby and Ditko of course were the best, and their stories, while sometimes very silly, were typically far more coherent and imaginative than those of the lower tier artist/writers. If you read a story from Dick Ayers, it was going to be much more child-like and simple than something from the imagination of Kirby. Just compare stories created at the same time by the two artists to see the huge difference in writing abilities. Lee didn't seem to know what to do when he was tinkering with the dialog in an Ayers yarn, but easily understood what he should do when modifying the captions and word balloons for a Kirby adventure.

My very nice condition copy of FF #23

My equally nice copy of #22.

Typical back cover ad on a Marvel book from this period.

YOW!

I love comics. I grew up with--quite literally--hundreds of thousands of them at my fingertips. My parents owned a number of used bookstores and they dealt in old comics. So they always had them stored by the roomful in warehouses, storage areas, closets, etc.

No wonder that I became a dealer in collectibles when I found myself with all of that stuff. I spent the better part of my adult life traveling around buying and selling old comics. Over the years, I lost track of how many copies of things like The Amazing Spider-Man #1 that I bought and sold.

But that was the thing. Comics--even the ones that I genuinely loved--were never something that I felt able to keep. I was running a business and there were always bills to be paid. So I would move the better stuff as fast as I could buy it. I rarely had the hard-to-find issues of things like Spider-Man and Fantastic Four more than a few weeks before some collector would purchase them.

Now, though, I find myself with a certain amount of disposable income and the ability to buy old comics as a hobby. It's where I always should have been. I'm closing in on a complete set of the Steve Ditko issues of The Amazing Spider-Man. Only three to go.

Yep, they knew how to make comics in those days.

(Gonna be gone for a few days. We're off to the beach for some relaxation.)