CSBG Archive
Scott’s Classic Comics Corner: Digesting the Bronze Age Pt. 2
My good friend Craig’s (benday-dot) comments about the squished-up feel to the artwork of many digest serves as a nice segueway to my overview of the next 3 books. While only one is a true digest format book, they serve as an example of a different approach to laying out the artwork for a smaller sized book.
I’m not certain exactly when in 1972 DC’s Tarzan Digest was published (there’s a house add for the 3rd issue of DC’s Korak series), but it was definitely at the very early dawn of the transition from Gold Key to DC. It might have been about the time of the 6th or 7th DC issues of the Tarzan series. It’s an interesting artifact, as DC would not publish a digest-sized book for years to come. My gut feeling is that it’s a book that had been planned for Gold Key’s Golden Comics Digest series, but re-packaged by DC. The reasons behind my thinking are twofold. First, as recently as March, 1970, Gold Key had published a digest featuring Tarzan (2 of the first 9 issues of Golden Comics Digest were Tarzan-themed). Secondly, aside from a Joe Kubert cover, some Kubert title pages and a house ad, the book is entirely comprised of Sunday newspaper strip reprints with Russ Manning art. For readers only familiar with the Kubert take on Tarzan, Manning’s clean and economical artwork must have been a real surprise. I’m a Manning guy, so this book is a blast – especially since it includes an adaptation of Tarzan and the Ant-Men, one of the more entertaining Tarzan tales. Compare this book with the digests put out by DC in the late 70s and early 80s. Rather than merely shrinking the page to fit the format, the layout has been rearranged so that there are fewer panels per page and this allows this reader to better appreciate the artwork. Perhaps this was easier to do working from the Sunday strips – I dunno, I’m no Jack Adler. This one is simply great – a must-have for Tarzan fans and a real oddity from early 70s DC.
The Pocket Book format is kind of a kissing cousin to digests. I have only owned a handful of these over the years – as I was once stupidly snobbish about b&w reprints. The two Marvel books I current own are a Spidey volume featuring Marvel Team-Up reprints, IIRC and this collection of late 60s Avengers stories entitled Stan Lee Presents The Avengers: Origin of the Vision. As a child, the Vision was my favorite Avenger (probably because he was the one featured in the box at the top left corner of the cover). This little package includes two Vision-centric stories (from Avengers #57 and #58) as well as the oft-reprinted but always entertaining Lady Liberators in Vermont story from Avengers #88). First, let me start with the Earl Norem cover. Holy crap, is it ever gorgeous. He did so many beautiful cover during this era (see Moon Knight #6) that I’m always surprised when I don’t see him show up on lists of all-time great cover artists. As for the insides, I really feel that this is a better way to present the story than the simple ‘make it smaller’ approach to digests. John Buscema’s artwork needs to be ‘big’ to be fully appreciated, and this works quite nicely. The trade-off, of course, is a much lower number of actual story pages. I don’t see this one around much – but it’s definitely worth tracking down.
Remember Swamp Thing-mania of 1982? No, neither do I. With the release of the Swamp Thing movie, DC tried a bit of cross-promoting (through TOR books) with this pocket book sized collection of Swamp Thing tales from the original series. I don’t recall DC using this format at any other time, but I happily stand to be corrected. This actually has more of TPB feel to it, as we get a nice little introduction by Michael Uslan, who reminisces about pitching a ‘comics as English Lit’ class to his higher ups at Indiana University. This book reprints the first three issues of the Wein/Wrightson series (which had been very recently reprinted in DC Special Series and would be reprinted as Roots of the Swamp Thing just a few years later). DC sure has gotten some good mileage out of these stories – but they were obviously trying to attract a different crowd with a book in this format. Much like the Avengers book, the reworked pages really help to showcase Berni Wrightson’s gorgeous artwork. It’s quite well done. It just would not translate well in a true digest format. Swamp Thing completists should obviously start trying to find this one.
So that’s my quick look at the world of teeny tiny comics. Well, not mini-comics – that’s a whole other can of worms. Please feel free to stop by my blog Seduction of the Indifferent
20 Comments
jazzbo
April 16, 2009 at 10:04 am
As a kid I had a couple of digests that were standard Mass Market Paperback sized books, and reprinted the first few issues of Fantastic Four and SPider-Man in color. Those books were done like the black and white ones above, where there were fewer panels on the page. I wish I still had them, but I read them so much as a kid they literally fell apart. Definitely the beginning of my love for comic books right there.
jazzbo
April 16, 2009 at 10:12 am
What do you know, I was able to find links to these 2 books. I love the cover to the Fantastic Four one.
http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Comics:Pocket_Book_Series_Vol_1_Fantastic_Four_1
http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Comics:Pocket_Book_Series_Vol_1_Amazing_Spider-Man_2
jazzbo
April 16, 2009 at 10:14 am
Great, they did go through. And now I look like a moron.
Graeme Burk
April 16, 2009 at 11:07 am
DC published a whole load pocket books in the late ’70s– I have a JLA one featuring stories from the Elliot S! Maggin era. There were also ones featuring Superman, Batman. They also did a pocket book adaptations of the World of Krypton and Untold Legends of the Batman minis, even a pocket book version of Action Comics 500.
I also own the Swamp Thing one, which was my first introduction to the character.
Graeme Burk
April 16, 2009 at 11:10 am
I had those too, but I didn’t think they cut the artwork to fit like the black and white versions– it was reduced down to size. (then again it’s been 30 years since I read them so maybe you’re right) I loved those– it was my first real sustained exposure to the Marvel Universe. The Fantastic Four and Spider-Man volumes in particular were wonderful.
Dan Bailey
April 16, 2009 at 12:00 pm
As it happens, DC came out with a color digest 3 or 4 years ago collecting, I believe, the entirety of Wrightson’s run on Swamp Thing. They did the same with some earlyish Sgt Rock strips about the same time.
I snagged both more because I love the format (I’ve got all but 2 of the DC Special Blue Ribbon Digests & all but about a dozen of the superhero Best of DCs … ordered #8 from Lone Star just yesterday, in fact) than anything else. Much better repro than the ’70s & ’80s stuff, not surprisingly, thanks I’m sure not only to improved technology but nicer paper (which of course made for more expensive products — I’m thinking they listed for $8.95 or so).
Dan Bailey
April 16, 2009 at 12:04 pm
>>I’m thinking they listed for $8.95 or so).
Make that $9.99 — I just checked.
Stephen
April 16, 2009 at 12:22 pm
D’oh! Beaten to the Untold Legend of the Batman TOR pocket book point. I still have that, actually. Bought it through a Scholastic book club thingy, if memory serves.
Anonymous
April 16, 2009 at 1:28 pm
I’m pretty sure that there was also a version of the Untold Legend of the Batman book was also packaged with a cassette tape with a ‘radio show’ version of the story to play along while you read.
Matt Lazorwitz
April 16, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Yes indeed, there was the radio play version of Untold Tales. They released it and a similar version of the Byrne “Man of Steel” They were a lot of fun, actually. I know they’re still in my collection somewhere.
benday-dot
April 16, 2009 at 6:08 pm
That’s the first peak I’ve ever had inside that Tarzan digest, or any digest from that era of DC. That is some lovely stuff. Thanks for showcasing it Scott. I recall after I first got my copy of the Harvey digest (whose actual tiitle I think is Shocking Tales) reprinting several of the old Alarming Tales stories (including that wacky pseudo cubist story by Kirby, the Fourth Dimension is a Many Splattered Thing) thinking… this is fantastic to see this stuff so cheaply, but if only it wasn’t so constrained by the small panels. Now that thoughtfully restructured Tarzan digest… that’s surely the way to go.
Rob M
April 16, 2009 at 7:09 pm
There were more of the mass market paperback reprints: At least two volumes of O’Neill/Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow, published in 1971, each with two stories, and at least paperbacks of Thomas/Smith Conan, published in 1978, each reprinting three issues. Like the Avengers and Swamp Thing paperbacks, the artwork was sliced and diced to fit the size, with only two or three panels per page. The GL/GA paperbacks were black and white, but the Conan volumes were in color. GL/GA was published by Paperback Library, and Conan was published by Ace.
I also remember one or more paperback reprints of some Golden Age Batman stories published in around 1967, coinciding with the Bat-craze started by the Adam West tv show, but my memory of those is pretty dim.
Dale Houston
April 16, 2009 at 7:17 pm
DC also reprinted the first couple issues of The New Teen Titans in b & w PB form.
jazzbo
April 16, 2009 at 8:01 pm
I have the first cassette of the Untold Legend of Batman audio program. It’s laughably bad, but so much fun to listen to.
Dan Bailey
April 16, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Rob –
There must’ve been at least 3 of those late-’60s Batman PBs, because my copy of “Batman vs the Joker” has a big “No. 3″ in the top left corner. I’m assuming the other one I’ve got, simply titled “Batman,” was No. 1 .. it has no such designation. (There’s also a prose novel, “Batman vs the 3 Villains of Doom.” I’ve got it, & it doesn’t bear a “No. 2,” but I’m assuming it might as well because it’s Signet #D2940. “Batman” is #D29439, & “Batman vs the Joker” is D2969.)
A Superman PB I have from the same era (first printing May 1966), consisting of b&w Wayne Boring stories, lists “Batman vs the Penguin,” which I gather was No. 4 in the above series, since it’s numbered D2970.
The only other PBs I know of are the New Teen Titans (October 1982) that Dale mentions; a similar, earlier (copyright 1877) b&w Superboy & the Legion of Super-Heroes; a color Spider-Woman PB (Sept 1979) printing Marvel Spotlight 32 & Spider-Woman #s 1-8; & a b&w X-Men (March 1982) that features Giant-Size X-Men #1, as well as a subsequent story drawn by Byrne.
booksteve
April 16, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Wasn’t there a Laurel and Hardy Digest scheduled around the same time the Tarzan one came out? I remember absolutely loving my first exposure to Russ Manning in that Digest! I’m surprised I no longer have it.
Edo Bosnar
April 17, 2009 at 2:58 am
Jazzbo, Graeme, those mass market-size reprints published by Marvel are the ones I mentioned in the comments to Scott’s part 1 a few days ago. The pages are shrunken down to size, so I don’t think there are fewer panels per page – which is why I’ve seen these volumes criticized at various other forums for being too compressed or whatnot. This is a view I don’t share, I love these and really like the format, and like I said before, I almost wore my original copies to shreds when I was a little kid (my personal favorites were the two Dr. Strange volumes – these more than anything else gave me an appreciation for Ditko’s art. My only criticism would be that, frustratingly, they are two stories short of containing the entire Ditko run).
Incidentally, a few years ago I found and bought several of these in decent condition at a pretty reasonable price from an online comics dealer.
C. Adams
April 17, 2009 at 10:37 am
That Teen Titans book got me into reading comics and into reading in general in the 3rd or 4th grade. It was a gateway drug as it were…
C. Adams
April 17, 2009 at 10:38 am
i got it at a book fair. Marvel and DC should take note of that. Book Fairs are great places to get your foot in the door if you want to get your characters out there.
Dan Felty
May 20, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Don’t forget all the awesome MAD books! I’ve got tons of those–every time we went to my grandparents, I would stop at the Imperial flea market to spend a dollar on a MAD paperback.