I've really enjoyed reading the WWII Marvels...the art is really good in most cases, and the social/historical aspects are great.. you could easily write a very interesting paper analyzing the war time psyche.

Plastic Man and the Spirit are definitely on my list to read someday... I'd got a pretty huge to-read pile though.

I've no idea how well newspaper reprints sold during the extent of the Golden Age, but somewhere I got the impression that once comic books debuted with original material, the reprints were just OK sellers. Remember, back then most people didn't keep either the comic strips or comic books, they were meant to be read and forgotten.

A few years back, some old time collector that had painstakingly clipped and saved the Joker's first story arc in the 1943 Batman newspaper strip listed them on ebay. No one else was bidding. I got them for $19, and they're now proudly framed and displayed on my wall.

I think you meant Little Nemo here. Although Winsor McKay did do significant pioneering work in animation.

But what I love about the Golden Age is that so much of the stuff, especially in the more outlandish sci-fi works, is completely outre. It is as weird, honest and vivid as the imagination of a child. It knew no bounds, was lurid and bright, and might very well have forgotten what it was up to just as the moment of madness past. So there was nothing for it but to make it up all over again. Lovely stuff in the golden age.

You mean McKay didn't work for Pixar??

The same thing is true of the vast majority of Silver Age creators.  If you read interviews with them it was a job.  One they did because it paid the bills. 

I think it was Robert Crumb who, when asked if he ever read superhero comics growing up, responded that he could never read them after their first five or so years.  He felt that it was during a character's earliest days, during a time unencumbered with formula, that the attitude that you could do anything with these guys was clearest.  I'm inclined to agree.  Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster for example, seemed to think nothing of having Lois learn Superman's identity and retain that knowledge by story's end just so they could see what fresh ideas that would create thereafter.  DC of course, didn't agree and so a certain formula started to set in.

Jack Cole's Plastic Man has received quite a bit of praise as well it should - Cole seemed to keep doubling his ideas with every issue rather than run out.  I have the first six Archives and the quality shows no signs of dropping - it's consistently great.

Dick Briefer's Frankenstein was even more bold in that here we have the same writer utilizing the Frankenstein Monster in three separate ways.  In 1940, the character was depicted as a sadist who spared no one save his creator from the most gruesome methods of death.  The only reason Frankenstein himself was spared was so that he might be forced to watch his creation's body count rise.  In 1945, Briefer revamped the title so that it was now a funny, lovable, dopey creature who kept the reader entertained with all sorts of comical and outlandish situations.  Come the early 1950's however and we were now dealing with a Monster who wanted only to be left alone but would murder if backed into a corner or overcome with rage.  Unlike his counterpart of 10 years prior though, this was a sympathetic portrayal of the creature.  The thing is, all three versions work - it's like having Boris Karloff portraying both the Universal Monster and Herman Munster (and then later going over to Hammer to play their version of the creature there).

I don't think those early Superman stories get the credit they deserve - this wasn't a great idea simply paving the way for later great ideas - sometimes the biggest and most famous ideas do get stories of equal calibre.  Clark Kent taking Lois to a screening of one of the Fleischer Superman cartoons he had somehow until now not realised existed and trying to keep her attention diverted from the screen everytime his counterpart switches identities is one of the best superhero stories out there.  So too, would I argue is the first appearance of Mr Mxyztplk for much the same reason - that realisation that superheros don't have to be trapped by reality.  The powerstone tale in which Luthor acquires superstrength; the Archer; a story in which Superman has to rescue an innocent man from the Electric chair in the time it takes for him to walk to death row while whispering all the clues under his breath (this is where superhearing comes in handy) are all examples of tales told at a breakneck pace so that no idea be unused.  Come to think of it, it wasn't until 1948 that DC remembered that, hey, Superman doesn't actually know he's an alien, maybe we should tell that story now - so it wasn't as if the guy was ever truly out of good ideas.