Dates and Places

11 Comments

1. I love lists.
   It looks like we had a healthy representation of Canadians of all ages and a truly Allied coalition working the homefront.
   I’d be interested in also hearing more about the documents related to the paper shortage issue and Rotary Litho’s relationship with Bell and the government.

   I was going through the archive website myself yesterday but I looks like its much more interesting from your end.
   Perhaps you can encourage them to make the collection more available to the general public.

2. Great job Ivan.And I couldn’t agree more about the feel of the original art on the skin!

3. When I looked at the Cy Bell text document collection last April, it was clear that Cy was fighting for more paper every inch of the way. I have recorded most of these and will probably discuss them in a future post.
   I think that one way to make the collection more accessible is to put together an art sized, high-quality reprint book of the highlights of this collection with annotation and biographic information so that collectors could tap into it at their leisure, A book like that would be a handsome addition to the shelves of any collector of Canadian comics and Canadiana in general. I’m exploring what is involved in terms of copyright.

4. The look of the ladies supervising the Special Collections area were not approving. I was told that the original art was meant to be horizontal and never picked up. I did everything quickly and got my wife to take the pic and then apologized to them afterward.

5. Indeed, you were fortunate enough to be able to even handle those gorgeous splash pages. The archivists did make an exception for you. When Will Pascal came by my home to interview me for the Lost Heroes movie, he indicated that he was not allowed to handle any of the Bell Features items at LAC. BTW, did you get to see if the Nelvana compendium cover art during your visit Ivan?

6. I’d don’t know what happened with Will Pascoe, Stephen, but there is no restriction on handling the original art. There may be on handling the more fragile Bell comics themselves. I don’t know. I didn’t have the time to request to see them this time, that may be for a future trip. I think I was mistaken in assuming that the original for the Dingle Nelvana compendium cover was at the archives. When I read the online description more closely it’s just a reference to the actual comic book and a full colour transparency that is in the collection. So no grand prize, Stephen.

7. Yes. It must have been the Bell Features comic books in particular, and not the Original Art, that were not allowed to be handled. Thanks for the update Ivan.

8. Ivan: Are there any original art in the collection for any of the later Canadian Golden Age reprints?
   If there is not I would think its time to assume that the answer is they might reside with Michael Hirsh, Patrick Loubert as picks of the litter before they made their gracious donations to the National Gallery of Canada or they were gifted to the artists who’s art was highlighted in each book.

   Have you had any detailed interviews with the Patrick and Michael that you are saving for a later blog or perhaps a Fan Expo guest appearance?
   Inquiring Canadian Collectors want to know.

9. Jim, there are some of the contest pages for some of the post-WECA books as well as a couple of ad-type pages that are post-WECA. I did ask Michael Hirsh at the Doug Wright Awards whether he and Patrick had held back any pieces from their deal with the Archives and he said no.
   When I look at what was reproduced in their book, The Great Canadian Comic Books, I wonder if they used the original art or the comic books as the basis of their reproduction? The pages from Wow Comics 1 in their book are from the comic. They reproduced Hillborough Triumph stuff in the book and there is none in the archive original art collection. They reproduce pages from Thunderfist, Invisible Commando, Nitro, The Brain, Capt. Wonder, etc. that are not in the Archives collection. Did they use the comic books as their source or did they have the original art pages. The quality of the reproductions in their book makes me think that they used the comic books, now that I have seen examples of the originals.

10. But you know what, Stephen. I have seen pictures of Rachel Richey from her time as an intern at the Archives handling the books freely. The next time I go up, I want to take a look at the books them selves and find out.

11. Now that sounds like a plan Ivan. I would be curious myself.

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