Jimmy Thompson David McKay Request

[colescomics]

This is a longshot, but worth a try. My friend and fellow comics scholar, Frank Young, and I are researching the work of Jimmy Thompson - most notable for his long stint on DC's "Robotman" feature. Before DC, Thompson worked at David McKay. We have just recently heard from Ron Goulart that he recalls seeing an actual photo of Jimmy Thompson. His exact words: "I used to have an issue of King Comics or one of the other McKay's and it had a picture of Thompson judging a contest involving one of his Indian pages. "

This would very likely be a 1939 issue of King Comics. We don't know the issue number.

This is BIG NEWS to us, since this is the first and only such photo of this important Golden Age artist that is currently known. Biographical data about Thompson is very very limited, so getting a scan of this page, with Thompson's photo, would be a huge help to us.

Now my humble request: Is there anyone out there who might be able to email me a scan of this page? There are not many King or Magic comics scanned, mainly because the books are mostly strip reprints, which are of limited interest. So scans are awfully hard to come by.

Many Thanks,
Paul Tumey
Cole's Comics
Comic Book Attic
paultumey@gmail.com

[Yoc]

Don't have any help but I sure hope someone here can.  I'd love to see a photo as well.

[josemas]

On a related note I have a question. 

I imagine that most of the McKay books are not on the site here because they mainly consist of strip reprints and even if they are PD there are the underlying copyrights on the strips that come into play.

My question then is if those various McKay books are PD could the non reprint material be collected here?

I'm specifically thinking of the original material that Jimmy Thompson did for those books.  Could it be collected in an archive form and posted in the collections and archives section?

Curious

Joe

[OtherEric]

Not sure if the King Comics issues are PD or not.  If they are and we can pull the new material I would LOVE to the some of the material from the books, myself.  Although my big interest would be the Ruth Plumley Thompson material; I'm a huge Oz fan!

[John C]

I don't have any objection, myself, as long as we check them (and as long as the material is available, of course).  When we get into anthology-land like this (as opposed to a normal in-house anthology title) is that the pieces are "contributions to periodicals," which requires checking them as if they were books.  Not impossible, but I want to make sure to mention it so it's not completely forgotten if/when the time comes.

[Yoc]

If John is willing to check them for us before adding them to the site I don't mind.
Think a bit before agreeing John. 

[narfstar]

I have several ACE COMICS where at least some of the strips would be pd. They are from the end of the run. I know Phantom and Blondie are big NO but Katzen Kids, Brick Bradford, Teddy and Sitting Bull, and Jungle Jim are probably OK

[John C]

Think a bit before agreeing John. 

Just make sure that, whoever scans them, please check (and maybe supply) any indicia or table of contents, so we can confirm there's no copyright.  And if someone can check the strips to make sure they're not reprints (which I have no way of knowing), that'd be a big help, too.

Basically, what we're looking for is a copyright statement regarding the story either on the first page (hopefully near a byline) or at the front of the book.  If it's not there and there's no copyright on the book, then there's no copyright on the contribution...again, provided it's original.

If there is a copyright statement, then it's just a look-up in the right year's CCE like always, except that it's on the "book" side, where it's alphabetized by the copyright holder's name.  So it's critical that, if there's anything resembling copyright information in the book, we can see it.

[narfstar]

Since mine are from coverless copies there is no indicia. I had to dig to find out which issues they were but did get that figured out. Were Katz Kids strips renewed? From being hugely popular the strip disappeared. I find it hard to read.

[Yoc]

As I said, I'm Ok with a David McKay section but Only if John and Aussie are clearing each upload as safe for DCM.  Obviously we would have to be sharing incomplete scans removing the non-PD material but we've already been doing that for Famous Funnies and the Buck Rodgers material as well as Green Hornet Comics minus the GH stories.
So it all falls on uploaders Including ifc or indicias when they upload and be Sure it hasn't got a modern reprint inside anywhere.  It's been known to happen.

I sure hope Paul can find his Jimmy Thompson photo, his work on Robotman was just great!

[colescomics]

Thanks to a very kind collector, I got a photo of this page. Here it is!

http://www.presentationtree.com/King26jt.jpg

As far as a David McKay PD section goes, wow that would be so valuable. Please share any scans of any pages you can, folks.Of particular interest would be the inside front and back covers, which had Ruth Plumy Thompson (the author who continued the Oz books, and who discovered Marge Henderson, creator of Little Lulu) writing, Marge Buell Henderson's (Little Lulu creator) illustrations, the "Sis Sez" pages, and especially, especially the Jimmy Thompson series: Redmen (King Comics) and Indian Lore (Magic Comics). And house ads.

In our research, we are discovering that McKay was a very important and largely unknown part of comic book history. These guys were very experienced publishers who reached back to the 1880's, and published all sorts of important books in American literature and pop culture. They were based in Philadelphia, and so had a totally different approach to comics than the fledgling, mod-connected New York based publishers.

So any David McKay material that could be shared would be a great help to comics folks.

Look for our upcoming article on Jimmy Thompson coming soon in Alter Ego!