I have a question that feels a little taboo, but I have to ask… in the video game industry, it’s not uncommon to have to recover lost assets by downloading pirated versions. Have a you have ever had to recover a lost comic from a pirated version online?
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There’s a link to his recent DC Daily appearance in the description of this topic!
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And it was so much fun!
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I’m glad you mentioned the other holdings. I think a lot of people forget that a number of our great characters have come from Fawcett, Quality and Charlton, etc…
We have a lot more holes in our collection of those titles - but we have inherited from those various companies Bound Copies of much of that Material. Our set of Blackhawk is all together on the shelf and starts with the ones Quality comics put together for themselves and continues through the issues we produced
Our Ditko Blue Beetle issues at Charlton are the ones Bound by Charlton.
Unfortunately I can’t really answer on the Americomics question. But personally 'Id love to see those in print as Well.
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I can only imagine and hope for a recurring, maybe monthly (since I’m sure Mr Le Clear is busy) DC daily segment.
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Thank you for that fine compliment. I would love to tell those stories - but someday in the future after we’ve acquired all of our comics I don’t want to do anything that might drive up our acquisition costs until we’ve gotten all the comics we’re missing.
But I can say that I once bought a comic we needed and only later discovered that I had bought a copy that once belonged to Dick Sprang. So sometimes there are happy acquisition accidents.
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Smelling several hundred thousand comic books at the same time and being able to touch and experience history everyday.
It’s an amazingly lucky thing to be paid to learn. But it’s a very scary thing to need to need to know everything.
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I can say that as kid from the Bronze Age – so many of the incredible DC Horror comics covers that I love today, absolutely terrified me and sent me away into the next aisle. But my first ever comic was a copy of Kamandi #16 – which started my love for both Kirby and Comics. But the John Byrne Superman stories and Frank Miller’s Ronin were things I loved from the first word to the end. And I may be the only one I know who really thought Action Comics Weekly was awesome – maybe it’s the old comic book heart I have, but an Anthology series like that was an incredible primer for me into the DC Universe and gave me something to look forward to every week at the store.
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Those stories of happy acquisition accidents are hidden historical gems, in and of themselves. I hope one day they can be shared, but I understand the need to keep a lid on things while still hunting to fill out the collection.
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Oh, not at all! I’m right there with you even though some people at my LCS never heard of it.
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I’m very touched by that question. Because I think there’s a lot more of a creative heart and eye needed to do the job effectively than most people realized. But I view myself as a Historian first.
I think an Archivist has to be a passionate defender and curator of their collection. These characters, comics and creators need someone to tell their stories - we can’t let them down.
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I wish I could give you a better answer as there are lots of factors. But i can say that with any reprint (Digital or Print) a lot can depend on what the shape of our files are for a particular issue or what newly restored files are becoming available.
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I have been fortunate enough to be able to make some suggestions that have gotten in. And I am particularly proud that I was able to edit and get back into print our first ever comic New Fun for the first time in 85 years - and as part of a resurrected Famous First Edition Line. Anything else I do after this will be pure gravy.
But the only AD I can think of right now isn’t really terrible - but during World War 2 Baby Ruth ads had a recipe for cookies on nearly every back cover. I have been thinking for a long time that I need to make those WW2 Baby Ruth Cookies.
But most adds are the best kind of Nostalgia - I couldn’t buy a comic for over a year that didn’t have “Deeds Not Words” / the Chuck Norris movie Megaforce add on them. It makes me think of buying comics everytime.
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No true say in what gets reprinted – but as a proselytizer of what’s great in our vault and a champion of our old comics I definitely have been able to influence company attitudes about some of our material.
With the theatrical film, Shazam now has the highest profile he’s had in decades – I hope the recognition will make people curious enough to seek out and request more of his material. Because they are among the finest set of comics ever produced and even today feel almost too good to be real. Anyone who has ever toured the DC Vault with me has heard me sing the praises of the great Mary Marvel.
The original and still primary source of our collection of these original stories come from Fawcett and came over to us when we finally purchased the character. I consider myself one of the luckiest people in the world to have read Otto Binder’s The Monster Society of Evil for the first time from a Fawcett Editorial copy (probably Rod Reed’s).
We also have HOPPY comics
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Boy that sound good, I sure would’ve like to try them. Fun fact: Baby Ruth was NOT name after a famous baseball player, in fact it was name after President Grover Cleveland’s daughter name Ruth who sadly die at a young age, and the candy bar is name after her.
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I share your implied hopes here and the ghost of former DC editor and writer Bob Kanigher appreciates your question. We produced a lot of comics in both of these genres and they are amazing and people should be able to read them. They represent an incredible body of yet to be reprinted comic art from DC
The good news is that we have copies of all our War (Including Bound Volumes of the original Blackhawk run at Quality Comics) and our Western comics. The vast majority of those issues haven’t been Digitized yet – but they should be in condition for us to be able to do so. I’m a huge fan of the war comics work of Joe Kubert and Russ Heath and the Westerns (and anything by) Alex Toth. And we started our first ever comic in 1935 with an original Western strip “Jack Woods” on the cover – so Western comics are a huge part of both comic book and DC tradition.
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That’s actually Barry Bostwick doing his best Chuck Norris impersonation, but it is a memorable ad.
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I really hope DC makes restoring the Marvel Family comics a priority, especially with Shazam 2 coming soon!
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