General Category > Comic Related Discussion
Coming Soon: Fox Giants
OtherEric:
I've seen at least one issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly that's 3 coverless pulps bound together. This one, in particular, is quite definitely legit; it has three sequential issues and a new cover that accurately reflects the three issues inside.
A quick glance at is shows that it's 2 1/2 inches thick and has "Skeleton Men of Jupiter" by Edgar Rice Burroughs inside. It's a neat item to have.
Bob Hughes:
Some publishers did take whole copy returns. Goodman used to ship his returns over to Europe as ballast and sell them in England.
I've also heard (can't remember where) that Gold Key would take returns from the East Coast and redistribute them to the west coast. (One of the reasons Gold Key books didn't have dates on the covers).
John C:
My disorganized chiming in:
Poztron, those bagged books are still around. Last month, I was at a local outlet mall, and there were Marvel-and-DC three-packs at one of the toy store outlets. I don't remember what the books were, but I was shocked that something strayed from under the Diamond thumb.
Also, when talking about digital sales, I think it was last year or so that Apple was busted for not paying independent musicians their royalties. So there's precedent already, and not just for the shady fly-by-night companies.
DocWertham, I think the real key to figuring out what Fred really held in his hands, rather than market (since demographics is a more modern concept), would be the date of his research (if known) and how obvious each issue is. He, likely, neither knew nor cared about the rebinding practices. Maybe someone more academic than I am could say for sure, but my impression is that your bibliography contains the book you FOUND information in, not the earliest place it COULD be found.
Jim and Darkmark, the Golden Age-ish backstory on the Fox franchise is actually weirder than we might imagine. The flagship station, WNYW, was previously the flagship station (of two, to be fair, but that's still a network!) of the DuMont Television Network.
I'll let you go look that up yourselves, because I can't do it justice right now. However, just like Fox pioneered a lot of ideas that "infected" modern television, DuMont had more than a small hand in designing the pre-Fox landscape with a budget that would mortify even the creators of web content, today...
OtherEric:
I know a lot of the discount comic packs I see are clearly dealers dumping inventory, rather than a publisher having anything to do with it. That may not be the only source, though.
Both Almanac of Crime and Women Outlaws- the two possible sources of the Cattle Kate story- had Fox Feature Syndicate in the indica, which was in the SOTI bibliographical note. So no help there, but not a bad idea; since not all Fox books are copyright Fox.
I've always thought DuMont was rather highly regarded as far as those things go. Quite possibly because most of their shows no longer exist and the memory cheats, but there you go.
paw broon:
Can't tell you anything re. Fox Giants but, as stuff being sent to Britain (not England), was mentioned, we used to find in wee local newsagents in the 60's re- bound copies of DC comics. Thickish volumes with the same cover being used around different contents. Before 1959 the only way to find original American comics was if you lived close to an American base. And because we had the Commonwealth, there were shops which had Australian comics which had been shipped in as ballast.
In Italy, you still find plastic wrapped bundles of mixed old Italian comics in newsagents. And in Spain up 'till recently wrapped bags were on the shelves. Don't know how legitimate all that stuff was but you've started me thinking. You probably didn't need all that but there you are, anyway. Took me back a bit, remembering that excitement of pitching up at a shop and finding something odd or different to spend pocket money on.
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