{"id":2677,"date":"2018-09-04T14:51:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-04T21:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comic-con.org\/toucan\/?p=2677"},"modified":"2024-01-09T14:54:11","modified_gmt":"2024-01-09T22:54:11","slug":"maggies-world-064-it-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comic-con.org\/toucan\/maggies-world-064-it-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"Maggie\u2019s World 064: It Begins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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MAGGIE’S WORLD BY MAGGIE THOMPSON<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maggie\u2019s World 064: It Begins<\/h1>\n\n\n
Maggie Thompson<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"HD<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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A Social Media Challenge<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Facebook friend Steven Carroll passed on to me one of those tasks, sent to him by someone else. He invited me to post \u201c10 comic books that made an impact on you the first time you saw them and still enjoy reading today. Only one cover per title\/series. Post the cover, no need to explain why, and then nominate a new person each day to do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me make it clear: I don\u2019t do these things. By which I mean I never dump these projects on others. On the other hand, I thought the job itself might teach me something. So I responded with my 10. Posting them in chronological order, they were Raggedy Ann + Andy<\/em> #8 (January 1947); Animal Comics<\/em> #25 (February 1947); Dell Four Color<\/em> #139 (Little Lulu) (March 1947); Dell Four Color <\/em>(Walt Disney\u2019s Donald Duck in The Old Castle\u2019s Secret) #189 (June 1947); Tarzan<\/em> #39 (December 1952); Mad<\/em> #9 (February 1954); Incredible Science Fiction<\/em> #30 (July 1955); The Cartoon History of the Universe<\/em> #1 (September 1978); Sandman <\/em>#1 (January 1989); and Bone<\/em> #1 (July 1991).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I was surprised that the exploration raised questions for me, beginning with a question to which I thought I\u2019d already had the answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Did You Start to Read Comics?<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a photo of me reading Marvel\u2019s Comic Capers<\/em> #6 (Fall 1946). I\u2019d have been 3. (How convenient is it that comics carry publication dates?) And I have a memory of Mom\u2019s liking a character name from a Punch-and-Judy-associated series published around then: either Fawcett\u2019s George Pal\u2019s Puppetoons<\/em> or Hillman\u2019s Punch and Judy Comics<\/em>. (The name, recalling it 70 years later, was \u201cSylvester Buttery Barth.\u201d I think he was a villain, but details of those comics remain largely unavailable, and he doesn\u2019t turn up in an online search.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any case, of course, when I use the word \u201creading,\u201d I mean that I was (age 3!) looking at the pictures. But until I did this research, I\u2019d almost always said that my interests in comics began when I was 5. In any case \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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More than 70 years after I bought them, I still own these copies, bought with my weekly allowance. I know these are my originals, because Mom indexed them.\u00a0Easter with Mother Goose<\/em>\u00a0#103 (April 1946) \u00a9 2018 Oskar Lebeck.\u00a0Raggedy Ann + Andy<\/em>\u00a0#8 (January 1947) \u00a9 2018 Simon & Schuster, Inc.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
When Did You Start to Collect<\/em> Comics?<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Comics I still own (sometimes via replacements) are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1946<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
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  • April, Dell Four Color<\/em> #103, \u201cEaster with Mother Goose.\u201d I was 3. I still have the copy I bought from the newsstand with my weekly dime allowance.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • July, Dell Four Color<\/em> #114, \u201cFairy Tale Parade.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • December, Dell Four Color<\/em> #128, \u201cSanta Claus Funnies.\u201d I was 4.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
    1947<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
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    • January, Raggedy Ann + Andy<\/em> #8.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • February, Animal Comics<\/em> #25<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • May, Dell Four Color<\/em> #148 (\u201cAlbert the Alligator and Pogo Possum\u201d)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

      I own them, because they kicked off my own comic-book collecting. I\u2019d bought other comics\u2014but these are the ones I kept. My mother taught me that, if I didn\u2019t buy what I liked\u2014or didn\u2019t then hold onto them\u2014I wouldn\u2019t be able to find a copy of that issue at the library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      I had to keep comics, take care of them, and store them where I could find them to read them again and again. And she helped. This was in a day when few thought of protecting fragile comics in plastic bags. In fact, the Internet says plastic food-storage bags weren\u2019t introduced until 1957, so they weren\u2019t even available to protect comics in the Golden Age. Kids reading and trading comics just kept them in drawers or stacked on shelves. (Why are Near Mint Golden Age comics so rare? Because the only ones that survived in that shape weren\u2019t handled or read or left out in the open. But I digress.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      How do I know that Four Color<\/em> #103 is the copy I bought? Because another facet of collecting is keeping track of the accumulation. And Mom did so before I could read and write. She kept an inventory of what I had\u2014noted on the top of the first inside page of each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Mom even made \u201cbooks\u201d of some of my comics by cutting matting board into protective covers, making spines out of The Borden Chemical Company\u2019s \u201cMystik Brand Self-Stik Plastic Coated Cloth Tape,\u201d and then rubber-banding each issue onto that spine. That way, I could read a series in sequence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \"\"
      Shudder! Mom encouraged my collecting, but I had to buy a replacement years later, because it scared me.\u00a0Dell Four Color<\/em>\u00a0#189 (\u201cWalt Disney\u2019s Donald Duck in the Old Castle\u2019s Secret,\u201d June 1948) \u00a9 2018 Disney Enterprises, Inc. And ik!\u00a0Black Cat Mystery Comics<\/em>\u00a0#53 (December 1954) \u00a9 2018 Lorne-Harvey Publications, Inc.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      As Time Goes On \u2026<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

      Comics change, stories change, tastes change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      A funny-animal story involving an invisible sword-wielding skeleton freaked me out when I was 5. Nevertheless, as I grew older, I became fascinated with scary science fiction and fantasy stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      As time went on, satiric comic books became A Thing, and some of the best storytelling came from a company telling stand-alone short stories. The quality of the E.C. line produced its own fandom, before the later, more generally focused, comics fandom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \"\"
      E.C. kept many of us interested in comics, as we grew older and looked for entertainment aimed at older readers. My E.C. collection began with\u00a0Mad<\/em>\u00a0#9 (February 1954) And then I discovered its science-fiction stories.\u00a0Incredible Science Fiction<\/em>\u00a0#30 (July 1955) \u00a9 2018 E.C. Publications, Inc.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

      In fact, E.C. seemed to pride itself, not only on providing a wide variety of artistic styles, but also on encouraging its artists to sign their work. Whereas some other publishers encouraged a \u201chouse style\u201d of similar art, E.C. pointed out the distinctions of its artists\u2019 varying approaches. Heck, some Dell series back in the day credited a creator who had had nothing to do with writing or drawing the stories, while the artists were tasked with copying the originator\u2019s style. Mom thought Johnny Gruelle had written and drawn the \u201cRaggedy Ann\u201d story in that January 1947 issue; Gruelle had died in 1938, and she\u2019d never heard of actual artist George Kerr. Such writer-artists as Carl Barks and John Stanley didn\u2019t get to sign their stories. But by the 1960s, fans began to identify their favorite anonymous creators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      And some of us began to take each other further behind the scenes in the theater of comic books, comic strips, animated cartoons, magazine cartoons, and the like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      How Did It Begin for You?<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

      Were you captivated by what you found in the grocery-store checkout lane? Did you go from newsstand to newsstand to find the latest issues? Were comics shops your door to the art form?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Now, beginning comics readers can<\/em> go to libraries to catch up on stories from earlier issues\u2014and even from earlier decades!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      They\u2019ll find classic comics stories alongside a wonderful supply of new tales. Keen, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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      Maggie\u2019s World by Maggie Thompson appears the first Tuesday of every month here on <\/em>Toucan!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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      Written by<\/p>\n\n\n

      Maggie Thompson<\/div>\n\n\n

      Published<\/p>\n\n\n