I have had a bunch of them over the years, and still have Legion and Wonder Woman volumes I found in a used bookstore a decade or so back. When I was a kid, the ones I had I got mostly through Scholastic book fairs held at the schools I attended in various places I lived. Once or twice a school year, reps from Scholastic would show up and set up tables and tables of paperback books aimed at school age readers for sale (notices were sent out a month or so in advance to parents so kids could bring money and contests were set up so kids could win free books). I was surprised the first time I found those for sale and there were more than I had money for-so I had to pick and choose. I remember the first I got was a World's Finest paperback and then a Marvel Team-Up one (when you can't afford much you try to get the most heroes for your dollar ).

I think this was a way to move comics into the book trade rather than the newsstands, a way to get additional revenue from inventory stories rather than new ones. This was well before the days of trade paperbacks, but I think it was just after Origins of Marvel comics and Son of Origins had hit the bookstores (and I think books like Shazam from the 40s to the 70s and Superman from the 30s to the 70s), which did fairly well, so this may have been an attempt to offer less expensive mass market books to try to capitalize on those inroads made into the book trade. Since comics were still aimed at kids, a more affordable product might sell better to them than the big books like those volumes. That's my conjecture though, I don't know anything for certain. I'm guessing they stopped because they didn't sell as well as hoped for.

I do know between the few I had and the many my friends had, it was my first extended exposure to what would have been classic comics at the time. I had Son of Origins, but my first reading of Lee/Kirby FF and Ditko Spidey and the first 6 issues of Hulk came from those paperback volumes friends had.


-M

I had that X-Men one. It is weird they decided to do this instead of regular TPB's. They weren't really cheaper either, considering an entire book was reprinting a single issue. It made me think of what few TPB's and graphic novels were in the tiny graphic novel section of Waldenbooks when I was a kid. All I remember was the section was tiny. Two shelves on the corner of a tiny bookcase. The top one would have all been newspaper strip collections. Garfield and Far Side and Doonesbury. The bottom shelf was graphic novels, and all I can really remember was Elfquest and one other fantasy OGN with a Centaur on the cover. I wish I could remember the title of that one, I'd scoop it up today. Been wanting to read it since I was a child. I also remember seeing Killing Joke around, but I don't think it was on that shelf. Msybe behind the counter because of the adult nature. I am oretty sure Elfquest and that other fantasy comic had adult scenes as well, but probably less instant appeal to children because no Joker on the cover. I do remember seeing The Killing Joke and immediately wanting it.

Yeah, that's true, but when I bought that X-Men book it was definitely the mid to late 80's. I imagine I got it in a school book bazaar where comics were uncommon so I grabbed the only one I could find. Either that or my grandma found it on a bookshelf somewhere and got it for me. It was brand new when I got it. But that doesn't mean much. I got a late 70's edition of King Smurf brand new in the early 80's as well. Sat on the shelf for over half a decade. It was clearance when I got it.

But that King Smurf book from the 70's was a true graphic novel as well.

Now that I think of it, I believe I have a crumb graphic novel from the 60's or 70's reprinting Zap or Arcade or something.

Just pulled it up, Head Comix, mine's a second print from 1968. It's a traditional TPB/GN. About magazine sized, square bound card stock softcover. Quarter inch thick. 64 pages. Has an ISBN and was definitely for the bookstore market. Published by Viking Press

Not really strips though. Several page long stories in standard standard comic book format. Most from Zap Comix. It's a lot of Mr. Natural and Fritz The Cat stuff. There's maybe six pages that look like they could have been newspaper strips, but all of them would have been large Sunday style strips, not three panel gags. It's far more comparable to the contents of a comic book than of a strip collection.

They don't look like strips to me, and it stated they were reprinted from Zap Comix. It listed a few other sources as well, but I'd say over half the book is made up of stories several pages long and quite obviously not strips. More like contributions to Heavy Metal Magazine. Also, of the other sources listed, almost none of them appear to be newspapers. They do list the "East Village Other" which is probably where the six pages of actual strips came from. They also mention "All New Zap Comix", Cavalier Magazine, Help! Magazine, Yarrowstalks, and the Underground Review. The Fritz The Cat story is ten pages long. It's not daily strips spliced together either, it's a comic story from a comic book. Some of the Mr Natural contributions are single page stories, but if they're strips, they were ran as full page or half page strips, like a large Calvin & Hobbes Sunday page. 16 panels long, four rows. I'd tend to just call that a single page story, of which you'll find plenty in Heavy Metal Magazine, or any number of anthologies. Not a finishing gag every three panels as something that was obviously serialized over the course of a week like my Mickey strips are. And on top of that, those Mr. Natural one pagers are on either end of a six page story that definitely came from a comic book, so it's easy to assume the rest did too. 2-4 page stories far outnumber the single pagers as well.

Story reprints from comic books, so a TPB