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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jun 19, 2015 17:58:31 GMT -5
Yes, those little 2 pagers in early-sixties-and-before comics that were written to get magazine postage rates. I'm still trying for a complete set of Marvel Masterworks, and since the Golden and Atlas age Stories reprint them, I've been reading a lot of them. Some notes: 1) They aren't, generally, very good. (At least at Marvel.) Still, I can't imagine paying 35-40 + bucks for a comic and NOT reading every word, so I keep plowing through 'em. Were they better at any other company? Has anyone read any of these 2 page fillers and said "Man! That was a GREAT story!" 2) Still, if you write text pages you should take credit for them! At least Stan Lee and Mickey Spillane signed their work, and THEY seem to have done okay. While I suspect the dudes who wrote the text pieces and didn't sign them didn't do so well. (I know, I know...This was probably more an editorial decision. Stan Lee got to sign his because he was the boss and Spillane might have been a draw even way back in '41.) 3) There were A LOT of reprints in the '50s era stories. Only a couple percent of the "Atlas Era" Marvel books have been Masterworked, and I know I've read that damn story about the bridge and the microfilm AT LEAST three times. - although they did change the title and correct some typos. 4) I vastly prefer text stories that feature the main character in the book - Anthologies get a pass, but it's nice to have a Two Page Human Torch story in Human Torch as opposed to The Hidden Cold of Crackleback Cabin or whatever. My favorite was from USA Comics which featured all the superheroes from this anthology meeting up as a team! 5) Teen Titans # 30 has a 2 page Kid Flash text feature. This is the only Silver Age book I've ever read where one of the main characters showed up in a text story. Is this totally unprecedented, or were their more of these in "late" period non-anthology books? |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 19, 2015 18:49:59 GMT -5
I agree with you 100%...the few I've seen in Masterworks that actually relate to the character are actually kinda fun, but the others are generally at about 7 grade writing class level.
I always assumed they just had a big pile of them in the office, and chose at random what to include in a given comic... probably there's no writing credit because no one really knew who the writer was.
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Post by dcindexer on Jun 19, 2015 21:43:31 GMT -5
I've read quite a few of the Golden Age DC text pieces. The ones from the All-American group were generally better than those in DC mags. Hop Harrigan (AA's pilot hero) was featured in many of them. One such Hop Harrigan story in All-Star #8 is actually the second time Superman and Batman appeared together in the same story. (The first being All-Star #7.) I think Evelyn Gaines wrote the majority of the AA stories or at least a fairly good number of them.
I've tried reading some from other eras too. The late 1950s stories are nearly unreadable in quality.
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zilch
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Post by zilch on Jun 19, 2015 21:59:28 GMT -5
I've read quite a few of the Golden Age DC text pieces. The ones from the All-American group were generally better than those in DC mags. Hop Harrigan (AA's pilot hero) was featured in many of them. One such Hop Harrigan story in All-Star #8 is actually the second time Superman and Batman appeared together in the same story. (The first being All-Star #7.) I think Evelyn Gaines wrote the majority of the AA stories or at least a fairly good number of them. I've tried reading some from other eras too. The late 1950s stories are nearly unreadable in quality. Gaines was probably the only person other than Blummer to write Hop Harrigan in the GA. Besides the JSA/Hop team-up in All-Star Comics #8, we also get a Hop/Flash team-up and a Hop/GL team-up. Johnny Thunder was also in a couple of these two pagers. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Jun 20, 2015 7:00:20 GMT -5
A large majority of the text stories/articles in DC Comics of the '50s and early '60s were written by Jack Miller under a variety of pseudonyms (basically, if the writer's initials are JM, it's Miller). The most interesting ones, in my opinion, are those written by George Kashdan for early issues of House of Secrets that expertly and at times sarcastically debunk various claims for the supernatural (i.e., spiritualism, haunted houses, etc). This is an unusual approach for "mystery" comics of the period, which generally cover such topics with a lot less (if any) skepticism.
Cei-U!
I summon the cold, hard facts!
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on Jun 20, 2015 15:55:34 GMT -5
I generally can't abide those things. Of interest to me, though, are the ones in Boy Comics and Daredevil, as they featured the other title's main character. So Boy Comics usually had a Daredevil text story, while Daredevil often had a Crimebuster text story. As a result, since I haven't been collecting Daredevil, there are a whole bunch of Crimebuster text stories I haven't read yet. I should probably check them out online at some point. I suspect Charles Biro wrote them all, as he seemed to write everything for the company, and those were his pet characters.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jun 21, 2015 14:25:15 GMT -5
I've read quite a few of the Golden Age DC text pieces. The ones from the All-American group were generally better than those in DC mags. Hop Harrigan (AA's pilot hero) was featured in many of them. One such Hop Harrigan story in All-Star #8 is actually the second time Superman and Batman appeared together in the same story. (The first being All-Star #7.) I think Evelyn Gaines wrote the majority of the AA stories or at least a fairly good number of them. I've tried reading some from other eras too. The late 1950s stories are nearly unreadable in quality. See, the Hop Harrigan and Boy Comics strips sound cool. I'd probably buy a standalone collection of either of 'em. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2015 14:49:50 GMT -5
I'm puzzled by this subject matter and being a comic book reader nearly 40 years; can anyone here can provide me a sample text stories in image form? ... I'm curious and you can quote me if anyone here can find one!
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jun 21, 2015 15:27:14 GMT -5
Ferinstance...  of a From the most important text story of all time - Stan Lee's first published (in a) comic work, from 1941. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2015 16:22:05 GMT -5
Thanks Reptisaurus! ... Now, I see what you are talking about and I've seen very few of these things in the past.
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Post by Cei-U! on Jun 21, 2015 20:06:47 GMT -5
The introduction of the letters page killed the 2-page text story. Also FYI, most of the text stories in Silver Age Marvel titles are reprints from Atlas-era comics, which is why you have Joe Maneely spot illos appearing years after his tragic death.
Cei-U!
I summon the eyestrain!
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Post by chadwilliam on Jun 21, 2015 22:42:50 GMT -5
Ferinstance... of a From the most important text story of all time - Stan Lee's first published (in a) comic work, from 1941.
I think this one has actually had art added to it recently - as part of Marvel's 75th anniversary celebration perhaps?
Interestingly, considering how highly regarded he is, Alan Moore has a few stories that thus far, exist only as text pieces in Annuals printed in the UK.
There's a Superman four page tale that I don't believe has ever made it to North America from 1985
home.insightbb.com/~fourcolorheros2/freeread/SupermanUK1985.pdf
and a Batman piece released at around the same time entitled The Gun which I can't locate a transcript of online.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jun 22, 2015 17:17:55 GMT -5
Not the 75th anniversary collection - I stole the image from a Brian Cronin piece from 2011. And it was more common than not for Marvel text stories in the early '40s to have illustrations... although this practice tapered off over the decade.
I'd heard of the Alan Moore Superman story before, but never the Batman one. I figure someone woulda reprinted that at some point!
I wonder how many unreprinted Alan Moore stories there are. He's got a story in a copy of Puma Blues I grabbed out of the 50 cent bins... has he done more work for various indy anthlogies? I wouldn't be surprised.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jun 23, 2015 7:47:37 GMT -5
I almost always used to skip over the text stories, my only exceptions being the Mickey Mouse stories in Walt Disney's Comics & Stories (though they were NEVER any good), and the few text stories Warren Publishing briefly experimented with in the 1970s (in fact, I reviewed two for my Doug Moench thread here and here). |
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