Things I Can’t Throw Out: Mass Market Paperpack Reprints Of Classic Comics And Humor Magazines
16 Comments Published August 12th, 2008 in Treasure
Nowadays, there’s a thriving industry devoted to archiving the best of twentieth century periodicals. If it’s not being sold on DVD, it’s been issued hardbound on acid-free paper. If nothing else, there’s always the share bloggers. But when I was a kid, you could only read ABOUT the great comics. You might be able to piece together Harvey Kurtzman’s non-MAD/Little Annie Fannie career from third-party sources, but you’d never actually get to see of it without doling out some seriously hefty coin.
Sure, Peanuts never went out of print, and back then Pogo trade paperbacks weren’t yet impossible to find. And the occasional fan publisher would bring out the odd EC reprint or coffee table book devoted to classic newspaper strips. But for me, the real gold came from second hand book stores (remember those?) or rummage sales. I remember when I was twelve years old, finding a coverless copy of Kurtzman’s “Trump” Number 2 from 1957, for probably no more than a dime (ten comics for a dollar, no doubt). The following year, when I became a Kurtzman fanatic, I was astounded to realize what I had. The same goes for the odd paperbacks I’d pick up during a dull summer vacation day, or inherit from older friends and family. Years later, I’d realize that the poorly printed black and white paperback of sci-fi comic stories was actually reprints from EC’s “Weird Science!”
The days when you could find these kinds of old mass market paperbacks by accident in the back of a thrift store are pretty much gone. Reading them is out of the question. These things are so old, it makes my hands dirty just to get near them. Some of ‘em are so brittle I can’t even open one without the spine shattering and the pages turning to powder right before my eyes. But I can scan the covers and share them with the rest of you. Meanwhile, I’ll be pre-ordering my hardbound reissue of Kurtzman’s “Humbug,” set for release this fall. And if someone doesn’t hurry up and release reprints of “Trump” and “Help!,” I may be tempted to share them myself.
Apparently Dark Horse is going to be putting out Trump, which is pretty rad. IIRC, it was at least supposed to come out the same time as Fanta’s Humbug set, but I’m guessing it got pushed back, as it’s no longer up on Amazon…
Last I heard, the “Trump” volume was cancelled. As I recall, “Playboy” decided they wanted to reserve the right to release it themselves, which is something that may never happen.
There is nothing better in the whole world that a box of old Mad Magazine paperbacks.
Bliss.
I grew up lucky enough to be within walking distance of Bookmans here in Tucson. So many of my fondest early reading memories are tied to cheap pocket books I found packing the shelves there. Right up there with the EC Mad, Sci-Fi, and Horror reprints (never was lucky enough to find any other Kurtzman stuff) were those glorious movie tie-in novelizations that were so common in the 70’s. I still have a decent collection including paperbacks for Superfly (with pictures), Grizzly, Zardoz, Cleopatra Jones and Every Which Way but Loose. I now work at Bookmans and it breaks my heart seeing how the collectibles mentality coupled with the internet have effectively killed the chances of finding any of this stuff on a store shelf anymore. On the rare occasions when someone brings in some cool 70’s era paperbacks it’s a miracle if they’re not falling apart and it’s like pulling teeth trying to get the book buyers to even make an offer. I really miss the sense of discovery and wonder that used to go hand in hand with shopping for used books.
I know how it feels to no longer see the great old stuff. June 22nd, 1963 was the greatest day of my life (I’m 59). I had run out of stuff to read, so I hiked down to the nearby Goodwill to see what they had. Somebody had unloaded a science fiction collection dating back to 1947!! I made three trips with a cardboard box to get them. A week later the Mountain View library gave me 106 sf mags and 9 books! The best week evarrrr!!
The closest I ever came to experiencing that thrill was when I found all of Frank Miller’s first series of “Daredevil” comics from the early 80s at a swap meet. At the time, they were highly prized, but got ‘em for ten cents apiece!
In contrast, the first original EC comic I ever bought was a “Haunt OF Fear,” which I lust over for months as it hung on the wall of my local comics store. Finally, I broke down and paid ten bucks for it. This was 1974, so that would have been a lot of money for me.
Sure enough, in less than a year, Russ Cochoran reprinted the damn thing!
Great set of paperbacks. I have/had most of them, but “Fun and Games” is my fave. I still have that one!
Marble River
Good heavens, I have at least 14 of those! You bet I’ll never get rid of them (though in the past I let some things get away, like a paperback of Al Jaffee’s “Tall Tales” and a copy of “Larry Gore’s Thing”). I stood in my favorite book store and saw a guy go home with a copy of “Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book” for 75 cents! I wanted to cry, but I had no beef coming, as he had taken the initiative to go sift through the annex and find it.
Derrick, I spend hours over several weeks driving to a university library where they had a bound set of fragile, flaking PM tabloids that they were getting set to move to a remote storage site. I copied out all the Dr. Seuss political cartoons, wincing whenever a brittle page tore accidentally. I ended up with a damn near complete set of them. Then a couple of years later, they all came out in a book.
Thanks goodness I’ve still got my reprints of “Goodman Beaver” and “The Jungle Book,” so I never had to read my originals!
Speaking of which, here’s hoping for the complete “Help!” some day!
Alas, though: I somehow doubt my “College Parodies” anthology will ever be supplanted…
Good stuff. But, lest we collapse into ourselves in sadness, I must say that our culture has not been entirely picked over; there is still a lot of weird, random, beautiful stuff out there, and a very great deal of it can be got for very cheap (or free – thanks, Internet!). So let us be thankful the Kurtzmans of today are keeping themselves busy.
It’s true.
Last winter, for instance, I was vacationing in the Florida Keys of all places, and I found a clean copy of Dave Pell’s “”Mah-Na-Mah-Na” album, for fifty cents.
I once willed a particular copy of “Help!” to appear in the Bookman’s on Tucson Blvd. Being then in the throes of Monty Python mania, and having learned of a John Cleese/Terry Gilliam collaboration in the magazine (a photo-story concerning a man falling in love with a doll), I approached the cardboard box of “Help!”-like magazines kept off to the side and, though sheer dint of mental concentration, caused the magazine (in quite good condition) to appear. I believe I paid one dollar for it.
I think I have that issue as well.
“Christopher’s Punctured Romance” has been posted to numerous blogs.
In fact, I saw it just this week:
http://undeadfilmcritic.blogspot.com/2008/08/christophers-punctured-romance.html
I had a copy of HK’s Fun & Games when i was a kid — probably before I had even read “MAD” — and it twisted me permanently!
As far as bargains, I’ve picked up everything else on your bottom row, except for the Executive Comic Book*, for between $3 and $8 apiece over the years. Same goes for the Roger Price book and a volume of humor edited by HK’s right-hand man Bernard Shir-Clif. I was especially happy with the tight, pristine Jungle Book I found, as I had heard that it had been printed with poor glue and high-quality copies were especially rare.
That’s what I had heard, anyhow.
– mnw aka kwl aka ndj aka etc.
*(What is in this, anyway? Is it all Goodman Beaver reprints from HELP! or what?)
Yes, “The Executive’s Comic Book” is all Goodman Beaver reprints. What makes it unique is that it actually reprints the long-suppressed “Goodman Goes Playboy” story. The offending Archie parodies were modified in an attempt to placate Archie’s lawyers, but to no avail. This story was actually left out of the 1984 Kitchen Sink “Goodman Beaver” anthology.
Happily, you can download a PDF of it from The Comic Journal’s site:
http://tcj.com/journalista/?p=600