I miss flat colors so much. Digital paint and blend can look good but the industry is so oversaturated with them (pun intended), bold and flat coloring now reads as a great relief for the eyes. Maybe we'll get back there.
Totally agree. I get why colourists love playing with the toys available to them, and there’s a big part of the audience that wants the art to look complex and effortful, but to me comics look best like this. Flat, limited colour, applied thoughtfully
The price tags of that era, what I call “ten and twelve cents round,” are some of my favorite comics. I can send you the interior of that teen age romance comic if you want. I have them all, many multiples.
14:56 Just a slight correction: good call, but "The Outer Limits" only came out in 1963. HOWEVER, "The Twilight Zone" started airing in 1959 and I'm pretty certain that many comics readers and cartoonists had been watching that. Also in 1961 Dell released a "Twilight Zone" comic book that lasted 91 issues - long enough to give a young Frank Miller his first professional comics job. A solid title that also published stuff by Alex Toth, George Evans, Len Wein, Harlan Ellison, etc. 16:53 Since the company names only appear in the indicia, it must be something to do with taxes. For example: if your company only published 2 titles a month, you have to pay this percent of taxes, but if you publish 10 titles a month, the tax percentage is higher. Or maybe something to confuse the debtors, if one of your titles flunks on the newsstands you don't have to sell the whole operation to pay your distributor. Or maybe something to do with the comics scare? If one of your titles was accused of breaking the Comics Code, the lawyers couldn't close your other titles too because they belonged to other company. 17:33 Jack Keller was a western/war guy who started working for Dell in 1942. When Will Eisner left town to draw "Joe Dope" for the Army newspaper during WW2, Lou Fine took over "The Spirit" and Keller assisted him with backgrounds/inking. He started drawing "Kid Colt" for Atlas in 1953 and it became his longest running job: he only left in 1967 (Tony Isabella claims that Keller was the artist who drew the most stories of a single Marvel Comics character, and he's probably right). After leaving Marvel, Keller started working as a car salesman, but he still drew a few pages of "Hot Wheels" for DC (that same comic that had Alex Toth, Vince Coletta, Dick Giordano, etc). He then stopped drawing comics to focus on his work as a salesman (smart guy).
Several months ago, just for fun, I took a month-by-month look at every title that Marvel published in the early years. I expected the number of super-hero titles to gradually grow and the other titles (westerns, romance, etc.) to fade out. I was shocked how long some of those non-superhero titles stuck around. "Millie the Model" was on issue #105 when Fantastic Four #1 came out in November, 1961 and Millie continued all the way to something like issue #207 in 1973. And a lot of the Western titles lasted well into the 70's as well.
Before the 1960s more women read comics than men. Partly because women have always consumed more literature than men, especially when it comes to fiction.
The main reason for the different "fake" publishers was for tax purposes, although . Every once in a while, a few Marvel titles ended up switching publisher in the 40s and 50s. Having something like a Vista Publications or a 20th Century Comic Corp. selling 500k copies a month over two titles was different than having a main publishers moving 4m copies a month. Martin Goodman did have a shell company, Magazine Management Co., but I don't think it actually owned anything outright, only the "subsidiaries." Also, Fantastic Four was an anomaly, because it didn't replace anything, it became Marvel's 17th title. But the "8 bimonthlies" was no longer a thing by 1961. Goodman seemed to have renegotiated his distribution deal with IND twice since 1957, and in 1961 he had 11 titles every month, some of the magazines were already monthly when FF came along.
In Jack Keller's Wikipedia page, Fred Hembeck wrote that, "Jack's art had a pleasing crispness to it, and sorta reminded me of a stripped-down John Severin." Makes me think Keller's art is where Ed is seeing Severin too.
Great stuff guys! I'm looking forward to these. I try pick these (monster era) mags up when I can. The colours are (usually) so rich and deep, they had ink to burn. Can't beat it. I'm a Ditko nut and love Kirby, but let me tell you, I wasn't keen on Don Heck as a kid, but via these mags (and his early Iron Man) I've truly grown to appreciate him, we're gonna see some seriously beautiful Heck as you go along inside these. That was him doing The Inhuman story in Strange Tales there. The 2 Kirby, 1 Heck and 1 Ditko line-up issues are always quality - and, happily, pretty regular. Good to see the romance and cowboy stuff getting a look at too. They're a mystery to most of us.
Color processes. It's like you're looking at Technicolor vs the more realistic colors of contemporary films, but in reverse. The colors back then seemed more in tune with superheroes. It's like the books these days are trying to give the color palette for a Busby musical spectacular but the content is superheroes...
Met Jack Keller a couple times in the late 90's, he didn't do a ton of Marvel work, and it was mostly , if not all westerns that i remember. He did do a lot of Hot Rod and racing comics for different publishers like Charlton, including Hot Wheels comics. Real nice guy, always seemed surprised people were interested in his old work and happy to talk.
It’d be a big investment but you guys should look at some of the Taschen marvel hardcover collections, some of the best reprint quality of classic marvel books
Also on Keller: Comics writer and historian Tony Isabella wrote that Keller ...drew more Kid Colt stories than any other artist and may hold the record for drawing the most stories of any Marvel character. Keller also drew (and sometimes wrote) hot-rod comics for Charlton. ... Keller was never the most exciting of comics artists, but he was a first-rate storyteller whose people moved naturally and whose backgrounds centered them in reality. He never distracted readers from the story; he pulled them into it.
This is fun. What app/program are you using? And where do you get the scanned comics? Would rather have the scanned comics (with all the ads!) than the Masterworks treatment.
That's Chunky Comic Reader on ipadOS/iOS. Looks like its still available on the app store but the developer website is 404'd and the last update was in 2020. I also use it and it is a fantastic reader. You'll need to venture into the sketchier parts of the internet for old scans like these though.
Fascinating and fun video. It's clear Ditko and Kirby were humming artistically and just needed longer stories to really start blowing people away, and it was a treat to see that bizarre romance comic. Excellent coloring throughout, I wonder if it was comparable to other companies or if Marvel stands out for its color?
Agree. For context it would be interesting to see an episode of what DC and other companies were publishing in that important month when FF#1 came out.
Interesting to see all these books considering Stan was about to quit writing and Joan suggested doing a book that he wanted to do, which was FF. the other books caught Stan at the height of his boredom. Lol
I don't know if you guys an episode on it, but the third installment of "Death Of Power" came out last August. This time, it's about the death of Power's friends by the hand of Lex Bludd. You know, someone like Batcop just to name a few.
I would love for marvel to publish a collection of some of these romance and western comics and such. I love comics but im burnt out on superhero stuff. Reading manga has made me love other genres that I normally wouldnt care about.
Great piece to start but I wish you had spent a little time talking about the Dr. Droom character in Amazing Adventures #6 that predated Dr. Strange and was later introduced into the Marvel universe as Dr. Druid. He appeared in Amazing Adventures #1-4 too. You should cover some of the other Marvel monsters that predate FF #1 but they introduced into the Marvel universe like Fin Fang Foom at some point.
Concerning the multiple companies, perhaps each of the publishing entities got an advance from the distributor and having multiple entries allowed them to take multiple advances -OR- having multiple entities allowed them financial protection. If one title was a money loser and didn’t recoup its advance, they would still get cash flow from the better selling titles because they were under different contract with different companies.
My Stan Lee story is in early 1966 as a young artist of 12 years old I sent some drawings to Marvel comics, one was of a character named Black Panther. I received an answer as a blue postcard saying Nice work but we can't accept solicitations, 'nuff said! Stan Lee. A few months later a new character named Black Panther appeared. My mom's second husband later threw out my stuff including the post card. Yeah he was a dick.
Bought the August 1961 omni and that is excellent, still great seeing them as they were originally printed. Enjoyed many of the stories I don't think any comic was dropped this time around (from a previous month) or converted into FF 1, all the issues for that month seem to be continuing from April 61, May 61 etc. The only change was Amazing Adventures that ended up becoming Amazing Adult Fantasy etc. The release of issues seemed a little messy with Rawhide Kid 25 not appearing that month so perhaps FF 1 got that slot. Love Romances 97 seems to be delayed a lot and Rawhide Kid gets in the next month with FF 2 and then there was nothing for a month and then a love romances is back in again. Some months seemed to have most of the issues, some a lot less. Looking back the only comics removed, and that was many months earlier, being Pearl and Two Gun Kid. Always baffled by the different companies, guess he just wanted to keep things in separate compartments so he could ditch them if sales dropped or legal issues held up the comics of a particular company or for distribution reasons ?? Really no idea, there are a number of books on the early history of Marvel, surely someone must have come up with a theory why he split them in that way. I don't know if other companies split their comics over multiple sub companies in the same way or perhaps that was just his approach, especially since he had multiple other titles such as pulp titles etc as well as the comics
More than just a tax dodge, it was also in case a magazine title gets sued and any potential payoff or change would affect all the titles in the publisher's lineup. Publishers constantly were stealing from each other, and lawsuits would fly around stipulating that one publisher didn't like how close a title or character infringed. Ironic though...since they all stole from one another.
![The Complete Calvin & Hobbes [ Review ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0DGKnKMo0GQ/mqdefault.jpg)
I miss flat colors so much. Digital paint and blend can look good but the industry is so oversaturated with them (pun intended), bold and flat coloring now reads as a great relief for the eyes. Maybe we'll get back there.
I agree especially for my poor eyes
Totally agree. I get why colourists love playing with the toys available to them, and there’s a big part of the audience that wants the art to look complex and effortful, but to me comics look best like this. Flat, limited colour, applied thoughtfully
Guys I watched out of order but WOW another HOME RUN with these Marvel History Eps! Damn I’m loving them!
The price tags of that era, what I call “ten and twelve cents round,” are some of my favorite comics.
I can send you the interior of that teen age romance comic if you want. I have them all, many multiples.
14:56 Just a slight correction: good call, but "The Outer Limits" only came out in 1963. HOWEVER, "The Twilight Zone" started airing in 1959 and I'm pretty certain that many comics readers and cartoonists had been watching that. Also in 1961 Dell released a "Twilight Zone" comic book that lasted 91 issues - long enough to give a young Frank Miller his first professional comics job. A solid title that also published stuff by Alex Toth, George Evans, Len Wein, Harlan Ellison, etc.
16:53 Since the company names only appear in the indicia, it must be something to do with taxes. For example: if your company only published 2 titles a month, you have to pay this percent of taxes, but if you publish 10 titles a month, the tax percentage is higher. Or maybe something to confuse the debtors, if one of your titles flunks on the newsstands you don't have to sell the whole operation to pay your distributor. Or maybe something to do with the comics scare? If one of your titles was accused of breaking the Comics Code, the lawyers couldn't close your other titles too because they belonged to other company.
17:33 Jack Keller was a western/war guy who started working for Dell in 1942. When Will Eisner left town to draw "Joe Dope" for the Army newspaper during WW2, Lou Fine took over "The Spirit" and Keller assisted him with backgrounds/inking. He started drawing "Kid Colt" for Atlas in 1953 and it became his longest running job: he only left in 1967 (Tony Isabella claims that Keller was the artist who drew the most stories of a single Marvel Comics character, and he's probably right). After leaving Marvel, Keller started working as a car salesman, but he still drew a few pages of "Hot Wheels" for DC (that same comic that had Alex Toth, Vince Coletta, Dick Giordano, etc). He then stopped drawing comics to focus on his work as a salesman (smart guy).
Classic comics and plethora of genre titles. The comic book industry isn’t the same anymore sadly.😢
By the way Happy New Year ❤
Several months ago, just for fun, I took a month-by-month look at every title that Marvel published in the early years. I expected the number of super-hero titles to gradually grow and the other titles (westerns, romance, etc.) to fade out. I was shocked how long some of those non-superhero titles stuck around. "Millie the Model" was on issue #105 when Fantastic Four #1 came out in November, 1961 and Millie continued all the way to something like issue #207 in 1973. And a lot of the Western titles lasted well into the 70's as well.
Before the 1960s more women read comics than men. Partly because women have always consumed more literature than men, especially when it comes to fiction.
I love the "unrefinment" of some of these comics way more than a lot of the "refined" ones..! Very cool new series.
Awesome! This is gonna be a great series!
For 2024, I welcome this new video series. I’m also a fan of the flat colors. Thanks gents! Happy New Year🎉
The main reason for the different "fake" publishers was for tax purposes, although . Every once in a while, a few Marvel titles ended up switching publisher in the 40s and 50s. Having something like a Vista Publications or a 20th Century Comic Corp. selling 500k copies a month over two titles was different than having a main publishers moving 4m copies a month. Martin Goodman did have a shell company, Magazine Management Co., but I don't think it actually owned anything outright, only the "subsidiaries." Also, Fantastic Four was an anomaly, because it didn't replace anything, it became Marvel's 17th title. But the "8 bimonthlies" was no longer a thing by 1961. Goodman seemed to have renegotiated his distribution deal with IND twice since 1957, and in 1961 he had 11 titles every month, some of the magazines were already monthly when FF came along.
I think the "Forever Is A Long Long Time" artist is Don Heck - it looks a lot like his Rawhide Kid stuff.
Journey Into Mystery 69 was the first appearance of the "MC" logo, and was published in May of '61.
In Jack Keller's Wikipedia page, Fred Hembeck wrote that, "Jack's art had a pleasing crispness to it, and sorta reminded me of a stripped-down John Severin." Makes me think Keller's art is where Ed is seeing Severin too.
Jack Keller also did the art Charlton's Hot Rod comics.
The Kirby Romance comic through Male comics looks like Vinnie Colletta inking
Great stuff guys! I'm looking forward to these. I try pick these (monster era) mags up when I can. The colours are (usually) so rich and deep, they had ink to burn. Can't beat it. I'm a Ditko nut and love Kirby, but let me tell you, I wasn't keen on Don Heck as a kid, but via these mags (and his early Iron Man) I've truly grown to appreciate him, we're gonna see some seriously beautiful Heck as you go along inside these. That was him doing The Inhuman story in Strange Tales there. The 2 Kirby, 1 Heck and 1 Ditko line-up issues are always quality - and, happily, pretty regular. Good to see the romance and cowboy stuff getting a look at too. They're a mystery to most of us.
Color processes. It's like you're looking at Technicolor vs the more realistic colors of contemporary films, but in reverse. The colors back then seemed more in tune with superheroes. It's like the books these days are trying to give the color palette for a Busby musical spectacular but the content is superheroes...
Oh this is some good shit guys, very much looking forward to the next episode!
Excellent episode!
Please continue this!
Dr. Droom is the future avenger Dr Druid
that was great, i'll be watching the next one
Met Jack Keller a couple times in the late 90's, he didn't do a ton of Marvel work, and it was mostly , if not all westerns that i remember. He did do a lot of Hot Rod and racing comics for different publishers like Charlton, including Hot Wheels comics. Real nice guy, always seemed surprised people were interested in his old work and happy to talk.
Sserpo was recently brought back to the fold in Marvel's prose novel, Tyrant Skies featuring Dr. Doom. It's a solid read!
It’d be a big investment but you guys should look at some of the Taschen marvel hardcover collections, some of the best reprint quality of classic marvel books
Great idea for a series. Looking forward to seeing how this develops.
my 1st ep on this channel thanks 😘
Also on Keller:
Comics writer and historian Tony Isabella wrote that Keller
...drew more Kid Colt stories than any other artist and may hold the record for drawing the most stories of any Marvel character. Keller also drew (and sometimes wrote) hot-rod comics for Charlton. ... Keller was never the most exciting of comics artists, but he was a first-rate storyteller whose people moved naturally and whose backgrounds centered them in reality. He never distracted readers from the story; he pulled them into it.
What site/app is this with scans of original newsprint?
Looks like Chunky Comic Reader on the iPad
It's an app called "Chunky" for the iPad
I want to know too!
Love this new venture! Thanks Gentlemen! Have you looked at Bachalo and Kelly’s STEAMPUNK from back in the Cliffhanger days?
Hit the magnifying glass on the front page, son.
th-cam.com/video/HgxwMzOvxZM/w-d-xo.html
This is fun. What app/program are you using? And where do you get the scanned comics? Would rather have the scanned comics (with all the ads!) than the Masterworks treatment.
I’d like to know the app too please
same! I hate the colors from the reprints.
That's Chunky Comic Reader on ipadOS/iOS. Looks like its still available on the app store but the developer website is 404'd and the last update was in 2020. I also use it and it is a fantastic reader. You'll need to venture into the sketchier parts of the internet for old scans like these though.
I want to know too!
I love those coogi sweaters
Cool, really enjoyed this and looking forward to the next instalment
Fascinating and fun video. It's clear Ditko and Kirby were humming artistically and just needed longer stories to really start blowing people away, and it was a treat to see that bizarre romance comic. Excellent coloring throughout, I wonder if it was comparable to other companies or if Marvel stands out for its color?
Agree. For context it would be interesting to see an episode of what DC and other companies were publishing in that important month when FF#1 came out.
@@Beanophilus yes we definitely need an August 1961 DC video just for comparison
The Grand Comics Database agrees with your assessment of Stan Goldberg on color and Artie Simek on letters.
Norm MacDonald Fantastic Four bit: th-cam.com/video/rSMg_GWiBt0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=Q44xcOM9U9Fw2QkR
Great new series! I'm on board!
I love this idea. Maybe it would be to much to do. But what about doing a similar series with dc along side perhaps alternating.
Interesting to see all these books considering Stan was about to quit writing and Joan suggested doing a book that he wanted to do, which was FF. the other books caught Stan at the height of his boredom. Lol
Kayfabe
I don't know if you guys an episode on it, but the third installment of "Death Of Power" came out last August. This time, it's about the death of Power's friends by the hand of Lex Bludd. You know, someone like Batcop just to name a few.
I would love for marvel to publish a collection of some of these romance and western comics and such. I love comics but im burnt out on superhero stuff. Reading manga has made me love other genres that I normally wouldnt care about.
Great job guys!
Love this series already!
Great episode, guys!
Great piece to start but I wish you had spent a little time talking about the Dr. Droom character in Amazing Adventures #6 that predated Dr. Strange and was later introduced into the Marvel universe as Dr. Druid. He appeared in Amazing Adventures #1-4 too. You should cover some of the other Marvel monsters that predate FF #1 but they introduced into the Marvel universe like Fin Fang Foom at some point.
Concerning the multiple companies, perhaps each of the publishing entities got an advance from the distributor and having multiple entries allowed them to take multiple advances -OR- having multiple entities allowed them financial protection. If one title was a money loser and didn’t recoup its advance, they would still get cash flow from the better selling titles because they were under different contract with different companies.
My Stan Lee story is in early 1966 as a young artist of 12 years old I sent some drawings to Marvel comics, one was of a character named Black Panther. I received an answer as a blue postcard saying Nice work but we can't accept solicitations, 'nuff said! Stan Lee. A few months later a new character named Black Panther appeared. My mom's second husband later threw out my stuff including the post card. Yeah he was a dick.
Bought the August 1961 omni and that is excellent, still great seeing them as they were originally printed. Enjoyed many of the stories
I don't think any comic was dropped this time around (from a previous month) or converted into FF 1, all the issues for that month seem to be continuing from April 61, May 61 etc. The only change was Amazing Adventures that ended up becoming Amazing Adult Fantasy etc. The release of issues seemed a little messy with Rawhide Kid 25 not appearing that month so perhaps FF 1 got that slot. Love Romances 97 seems to be delayed a lot and Rawhide Kid gets in the next month with FF 2 and then there was nothing for a month and then a love romances is back in again. Some months seemed to have most of the issues, some a lot less. Looking back the only comics removed, and that was many months earlier, being Pearl and Two Gun Kid.
Always baffled by the different companies, guess he just wanted to keep things in separate compartments so he could ditch them if sales dropped or legal issues held up the comics of a particular company or for distribution reasons ?? Really no idea, there are a number of books on the early history of Marvel, surely someone must have come up with a theory why he split them in that way. I don't know if other companies split their comics over multiple sub companies in the same way or perhaps that was just his approach, especially since he had multiple other titles such as pulp titles etc as well as the comics
More than just a tax dodge, it was also in case a magazine title gets sued and any potential payoff or change would affect all the titles in the publisher's lineup. Publishers constantly were stealing from each other, and lawsuits would fly around stipulating that one publisher didn't like how close a title or character infringed. Ironic though...since they all stole from one another.
what is the name of site they are looking at comics on?
Great episode. Does anyone know what comic book database they are looking at?
I want to know too!
Fellas. What tablet are you using/what app? I think perhaps I need to start using digital.
Can someone tell me the app they are using?
Also what is the app your are using to veiw these?
It's called "Chunky". Gotta find your own stuff to put on it though.
🔥💙🔥