This week I’m going to start a new feature, every week I get some books ready to post on our eBay’s no reserve auctions. I have a quick look for completeness etc and I’m noting some pretty cool splash pages. Every week I’ll note take some pics of books I’ve looked through that week. Lets hope I find some good ones, I know I found some treasures this week and I’ve save them for the end.
Frank Miller from Wolverine #2, 1982, a fantastic two page splash superbly executed and full of tension and motion.
This Rudy Palais splash from 1954’s Startling Terror Tales #11 outshines the L.B. Cole cover, nasty.
Andy Kubert does a great job introducing the Flashpoint event in this splash from 2011’s Flashpoint #1.
Pin Up Pete is the new poster boy for this Making a Splash column. I was checking completeness on a couple of Monty Hall of the U.S. Marines Comics, #3 and #4 if I remember correctly, that I’m throwing up on eBay and to my pleasant surprise I found the Pin Up Pete feature by Jack Sparling at the back of the books. These are great and show the folly of grading books like this, if its a 9.2 then grade it but leave the lower grade ones raw so we can all enjoy great features like Pin Up Pete.
She says “I’ll go out with you if you hit .350” but he’s a sucker for inside curves! Too good.
Keep your balls away from the bushes Pete.
Sailors! Nothing but trouble.
Wow. I’m not sure if I have ever seen a more shameless plug for your ebay sales than this post. Maybe you should have just called the post “For Sales Sake.”
Sparling is an artist everyone ignores…except he did some fine work early in the fifties, as you show here. If I have my facts right, and I just checked Grand Comics Database…the one-shot 1952 Pin-Up Pete title was all reprints of these stories and pin-up pages from Monte Hall issues, and one issue of Tell It To The Marines. Another Toby title.
But with Pin-Up yiu get a cool new cover. The reprinted work Walter is showing is buried deep in those otherwise bland-looking issues. And price-wise, still relativel undiscovered territory. I doubt there are many 9.2 issues out there…or any even near this. These were comics that were read, and passed around, particularly by servicemen and young lads, not many got carefully put away and preserved, I bet. My copies are VG+ at best, and my Pin-Up Pete is a mere FN-…which is good enough for me.
One caveat, printing sucked on these, you can catch that in Walter’s examples. Toby suffered quality control problems, like Fox, Charlton, and even Fawcett at times in the pre-code early fifties. DC and Atlas didn’t have the same issues. Different printers, I imagine. Later on, everything except Charlton was supposedly done at World Color in Sparta, by the sixties and early seventies.
And what a great Palais, he did some fantastic work. That’s up there with his best. Prolific guy, he was everywhere from the early forties…he did Dollman , alongside Reed Crandall in the earliest issues; early Fiction House titles like Fight and Planet; fun stuff in later Prize Comics before it became Prize Western.. His covers and stories for Super-Mystery are currently getting crazed prices. He did both great work and pedestrian work for Crime Does Not Pay from nearly their start.
And the rauchier pre-code crime he did is today the most collected, like Walter’s great example. He worked in the notorious and now-expensive Suspense Comics as well as Terrific, from Continental, alongside L.B. Cole and behind those key Schomburg covers. He was everywhere, often saving otherwise pedestrian issues with a terrific story.
Chris, you’re on to me, and I thought I subtly snuck it in. Hey, I may need you to bid these up….
Bud, I saw the one shot reprint when researching but I think I’d rather have the original Monty Hall’s. I did not know Palais was that prolofic and high profile, my lack of knowledge on the Golden Age is evident here but it’s nice to learn more about him, thanks for sharing more on him.
Those Pinup Pete splashes are great! Chris… Walt is simply trying to get comics in peoples hands in an attempt to expand out the proliferation of our hobby! How was that for a shameless endorsement in an attempt get a discount in Hamilton someday when we can cross our borders again eh?
Gerald! You are absolutely right. I totally forgot that Walt offers deep discounts on his loyal comicbookdaily followers. So Walt, now that I’ve ratted you out …. Ummm… How much are those books going for… Lol
Its like when I was a kid and I thought there really could have been some accident to make me into a superhero!
Every time I discover a little bite mark from an insect, I immediately jokingly touch my fingertips to the wall, which my girlfriend knows it’s just me checking to see if they stick and that I’ve developed spider powers.
I would look glum, and she would just look at me and say, “you’re nuts!”
Not really on-topic but I couldn’t find any other category to put in and seeing as we’re talking old comics. Just in case you’ve never seen this video from 50 years ago.
https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/canadas-first-comic-book-store
Klaus, great video. I’ve seen it before but it’s worth re-watching.
All the old golden and silver age comics sitting in boxes not bagged or boarded just boggles the mind. The prices seem cheap but considering the lower wages, they were still pretty pricey.
I posted that video and wrote about it 2011: https://www.comicbookdaily.com/championing_comics/progressive-shops/canadas-first-comic-shop/
All things old on the internet are new again when we (re)discover it!
Scott: I would like to see other older videos like that, American, Canadian, or otherwise, from “the good old days”, when collecting was not so monetary, but for the simple love of collecting.
I buy golden age at cheap prices because I’m willing to own them, regardless if they’re beat up, with pages missing; as long as they look reasonable. I have a number of books that still look pretty good when bagged and boarded, even in fair or less condition.