One of the first books I had that discussed comics in anything resembling a historical context was The Encyclopedia of Collectibles, Children's Books to Comics. It was part of a Time-Life series from the late 1970s; I've seen a couple other volumes but this was the only one that held any interest for me. It only had 13 pages devoted to comics, and most of those were filled with imagery, but it was still the only thing I had back in the day that looked at comics comprehensively, talking about them as a medium specifically and noting both comic strips and comic books in equal measure.

It was, for a long time, the most significant source I had about comic strips. I came to learn of other, more detailed books' existences, but my interest back then was in comic books, particularly superheroes, particularly Marvel, particularly the Fantastic Four. I put my resources towards learning about those in order of narrowest interest to widest, so I didn't really start looking at comic strips with a serious eye until I was well into my 20s, if not early 30s.

But one piece from The Encyclopedia that stood out for me was a photo of "Al Capp's Dogpatch Band" in the sidebar on toys based on comic properties. The gadget was a wind-up toy from the mid-1940s featuring characters from Capp's strip, Li'l Abner. The image struck me for two reasons. First, I had never actually seen Li'l Abner anywhere before. It wasn't carried in our local newspapers at the time, and the book didn't show any instances of the strip itself anywhere. I was largely at a loss for what the strip was about. While I was familiar with the Shmoo via some Saturday morning cartoons, that had almost no relation to the strip where the character originated.

The second thing that stood out for me was the complexity of the mechanics. Even though I only had a still picture to look at, it wasn't hard to figure out what the basic movements of the figures were. I realized, even as a kid, that the engineering to tie all of that movement to a single gear was an impressive feat. It was only recently that it occurred to me that someone might have posted a video of the toy in action, and I could finally see how it operated. It turned out to be even more impressive than I imagined, with some clever use of deliberately loose joints to facilitate even more movement. And seeing (in the above photo) that it came partially disassembled makes it even more impressive still! I can't find out who designed this, but it's a brilliant piece of mechanical engineering and I can't imagine Capp not being absolutely delighted with it!

There's an old adage that says, "Do what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life." It gets brought up, in some form, with regards to comics pretty regularly with the thought being that comic creators love their work so much and put so much of themselves into it, that it can't seem like work.

That's a load of crap, of course, though.

Generally, yes, comic creators love what they do. They have to because, by and large, anything resembling financial rewards are hardly guaranteed and even basic external validation ("Hey, I like your comic!") is very hit or miss. So in order to do comics without those guarantees, to come back day after day after day... yes, you need to love what you do.

Problem 1: Regardless of how amazingly talented a creator you are, it doesn't always come easy. Every creator struggles at some level with certain things and has to put in some hard work to do them. You ever hear of an artist who hates drawing cars? Or coming up with new costume designs? What about writers who have a tin ear for dialogue? Or have trouble juggling a story with more than 3-4 main characters? Sometimes, even for those people who make it look effortless, they do put in a lot of work.

Problem 2: You can't just do that one thing you love. Let's say you're a comics creator. You have this brilliant story written out, and you're talented enough to draw it yourself. So you spend months working on it and you absolutely love every second of it. But then what? That, by itself, doesn't make you any money. You've got something you can sell, but now you have to go out and sell it. Maybe that's tabling at conventions. Maybe that's running a Kickstarter. Maybe that's running it as a webcomic and selling POD t-shirts online. The point is that, while the story creation itself might not seem like work, there are other aspects that will seem like it. Even if you're working for a company that does the selling for you (Marvel or DC or something) you then have to deal with editors and the general bureaucracy of those organizations. There is bound to be some aspect that you're not as good at, and requires additional effort. Work.

Will Eisner was an amazing talent who could write, draw, promote, sell, publish... He could seemingly do everything. But did he love every aspect of that? Did he love talking with newspaper lawyers and arguing about why he wanted to hold onto the Spirit copyright even though pretty much no other comics creator did that? Did he love having to give grand jury testimony about projects he worked on for other publishers? Did he love having his studio shaken down by what was essentially a mob? I think I can pretty safely guess "no" for all of those. However much he enjoyed making comics, there were aspects of it that he almost certainly did not like in the least.

Don't get me wrong -- if you love making comics, it's a fantastic job to have. Just like if you love making music, being in a rock band is awesome. But making comics is not just making comics. It's hustling to get the word out about your work; it's driving to strange cities and sleeping in a crap hotel (or on a friend's sofa) so you can sell a few hundred dollars worth of books at each of your "local" cons; it's cold-calling comic shops and asking if they'll stock some of your books; it's sending digital review copies to anyone you might think would review it; it's making sure the online sales you get are shipped out on time; it's developing your elevator pitch and practicing it until you're blue in the face; it's dealing with whoever is hosting your website; it's...

It's more than doing what you love.

Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...

Kleefeld on Comics: Seriously -- Can We Get a Wellness Check for Tatsuya Ishida
https://ift.tt/gow7FM6

Kleefeld on Comics: Allied's Komic Kamera
https://ift.tt/sSYTiW0

Kleefeld on Comics: Allied MFG Co
https://ift.tt/mcgd518

Kleefeld on Comics: FF Covers Credit
https://ift.tt/cTmhOfS

Kleefeld on Comics: The History of Mr. Tuberculus
https://ift.tt/z1xKRVl

Today I'm looking at The History of Mr. Tuberculus by Lobrichon. I think it's worth noting primarily because so many comic fans think the history of comic books starts with Famous Funnies in 1933 with perhaps an occasional nod to the first appearance of the Yellow Kid in 1894. But this book dates to 1856, and bears most of the hallmarks commonly attributed to comics. (Perhaps the only one missing, in fact, is the word balloon which certainly isn't a requirement to be considered comics.)

Anyway, several years ago, Robert Beerbohm posted a few images from the 68-page book he was selling, which I'm reproducing below with rough translations.

The History of Mr. Tuberculus by Lobrichon

He was named a corresponding member of the Clysomanie Company. And he had a brilliant marriage.

But he falls into the water; fortunately nature has provided for everything. He contracted the bad habit of poking his nose into everything.

He started to worry about the consequences of his stupidity. He makes a resolution to change his life and adopt the latest fashion.

He gives up and goes in search of a new world. But he is stopped by the rain.

However, to be careful, he returned to change down. And pick up a handkerchief.

The young Tuberculus indulges in the pleasure of the hunt, but he feels bored to some embarrassment. The fishing seems to him most advantageous.

And it shows the path of your glory. But the young Tuberculus discovers that it is easier to descend than to ascend.

Moral: He who puts a stop to the fury of sparrows, also knows how parents entertain kids.

There is record of a Timoléon Marie Lobrichon being born in Cornod, France on April 26, 1831. He received his formal training at the Beaux-Arts Academie with François Edouard Picot (1786-1868) and his gallery debut was at the Paris Salon of 1859.

Lobrichon became one of the most sought after and celebrated painters for portraits of children. He was able to capture the character and personality of each child. This gift carried over to all his portraiture; rather than being just a portrait, Lobrichon created a story which involved the character’s personality. In 1884, he illustrated the very popular book The Song of A Child by Jean Aicard. With the 1856 publication date for Mr. Tuberculus, that would've made Lobrichon 25 at the time.

The Mr. Tuberculus comic is a wonderful treasure and I would love to see the full thing scanned and placed online for the historical record. Because I know I sure as heck can't afford to buy it myself!

Marvel announced yesterday they'll be publishing a book collecting over 700 covers of Fantastic Four as part of the 65th anniversary of that title. They're going with the descriptive, if unimaginative, title Fantastic Four: 65 Years of the World’s Greatest Comic Covers!

This won't be the first time Marvel's celebrated an FF anniversary with a cover collection. The "Director's Cut" edition of Fantastic Four #500 from back in 2003 ran a multi-page 'collage' of all of the covers up until that point. And, if you look at the credits of that issue, you'll find my name as the person who provided them. So it's got me wondering if they'll use my scans for this new issue as well.

It would be pretty cool if they did, but I suspect they won't. When I provided the scans back in 2003, that was prior to Marvel's digital program. The so-called "golden age of reprints" was just getting underway, so much of their library hadn't seen print since it had first been published; the original production art would've been long since gotten rid of and new scans of everything wouldn't have been made yet. They would've only had scans for maybe whatever had been re-published traditionally via, say, their Masterworks books, but that would've only covered maybe the first 60 issues of the title. I had been running a major FF fan site for several years at that point, and had talked with editor Tom Brevoort more than a couple times, so he thought to reach out to me to get a hold of the remaining cover scans fairly quickly. They weren't professional-grade scans but, if you look at the issue, they're reprinted as thumbnails, so even a poor quality scan would've been 'hidden' by the small size.

Of course, that was over two decades ago now. Marvel has since released every single issue digitally, which means that they've professionally scanned and cleaned up not only the covers but all the interiors as well. So I suspect they'll just use the cleaned up versions from those releases. Since they're doing a full book of covers, I expect they'll be considerably larger than the thumbnails used in #500 and they'll want to rely on the best sources available. Otherwise, a book of thumbnails the size of the ones they used in #500 would only be five pages!

On the off chance they happen to use my old scans, there should be a pretty easy 'tell.' All of the scans I provided were from my personal collection, and several of the issues had been signed by the creators. In the instances where a creator signed the cover, you could still see their signature in the reproduction in #500. But only if you know what to look for -- again, they're all thumbnails, so the signatures barely even register as a dark squiggle. I can go through my collection again now, and see what issues I have signed, but I honestly don't recall which ones I would've had signed back then. I'm pretty certain I had a few issues signed by Len Wein, and I think Marv Wolfman and Paul Ryan. Maaaaaybe Keith Pollard? I think all the other creator signatures I have on FF issues came later.

In any event, if you look at their new covers issue and there happen to be a few scans that include creator signatures, that's where they came from!

Yesterday, I mentioned some unusual dealings with the Allied MFG. This is only a comic-adjecent story at best, but I do find the events infinitely fascinating and it makes me wonder about the legality of the licensing deals involved.

What would become known as the Komic Kamera was patented by 18-year-old Harold B. Shapiro in 1934. His invention wasn't entirely novel, and his patent application even states that it's basically just a modification of an invention patented by Harry Zimmerman the year before. The reason how/why Shapiro was able to find and re-engineer the device so quickly was because Zimmerman was an employee of Allied MFG Co... which was owned by Benjamin Shapiro, Harold's father. It was Benjamin who brokered the licensing deals needed to create film strips based on comic characters like Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, Krazy Kat, and others. It seems as if the agreements were larger than just the film strips as Allied made other toys based on some of the characters, one of the other more popular ones being The Playstone Funnies Kasting Kit which allowed kids to create three-dimensional molded figures. In fact, many of Allied's products around this time featured licensed characters.

But, of note here is that because Allied used Harold's design instead of Zimmerman's, the royalties could stay within the family. (Indeed, Harold was still living at home with his parents, Benjamin and Louise.) There's no proof of any wrong-doing here, but it does strike me as a little sketchy at best.

Cut to a few years later, a couple days after Christmas 1936. Benjamin's wife Louise opened their apartment's front door, expecting a visiting friend, when two masked men barged in, held Benjamin and Louise at gunpoint (with Harold sleeping in the other room), and stole $6000 worth of cash and jewlery. (That'd be a little over $100,000 today.) The Shapiros were one of the more well-off families in the building, so targeting them over, say, the neighbors makes sense. But knowing who they were, which apartment they were in, and seemingly that Louise would likely just open the door expecting a friend at the time also seems a bit sketchy, as if they had some inside information.

Not known to the police at this time, Louise had actually been the victim of virtually the exact same crime exactly six years earlier. Right around Christmas 1930, two men barged into her and Benjamin's apartment and stole $7500 in jewelry and cash. Harold would only have been 14 at the time, and Benjamin seemed to conveniently not be home.

A couple days after the 1936 burglary, a couple of cops came across a pair of questionable-looking guys about a mile up the road from the Shapiro's place. As the police approached to question them, one not-subtly tried hiding a small package behind a lamppost. When the police checked it, they found the stolen jewelry, and they promptly arrested the two men.

Once at the station, one of the men, Robert Lewison, confessed to the robbery. In fact, he sang like a songbird and noted the inside man who actually plotted the whole thing was by-now-21-year-old Harold Shapiro! Lewison also identified his partner in the burglary, and the other man who was arrested was considered an accomplice, though he wasn't at the scene himself.

It turns out Harold had met all three at a local boxing gym. Once they learned where he lived, they pressured him for information on who best to rob and how, since there were a number of wealthier families in the area. Harold offered up his own parents, and they spent over a week planning the operation. Harold openly confessed both to the police and in court.

Interestingly, while Benjamin and Louise did initially assist the police and filed charges against the three "thugs", they repeatedly and actively opted not to press charges against Harold. He was ultimately only indicted by the State Attorney. It was at this point where Benjamin and Louise stopped. They stopped helping the police altogether, they openly ignored the judge's orders to appear in court for any of the four men, they routinely took vacations from their Chicago home to New York and Biloxi during court dates... It got to the point where the Assistant State's Attorney had to threaten conspiracy charges against Benjamin and Louise!

The couple basically used every stalling technique imagineable -- including Louise suddenly falling ill on court days -- and it eventually paid off. Nothing was ever brought to trial, and all four men escaped any jail time. Of course, all of this distracted them from running the actual business and Allied eventually folded in the late '30s. But Benjamin created a new company, Acme Plastic Toys, just a couple years later doing basically the same thing. Somewhat more surprisng, though... Harold, now in his mid-20s, was made vice-president. Indeed, within a few more years, Benjamin and Louise retired to Miami while Harold ran the business. Even after Acme was bought out by Thomas MFG Corp after World War II, Harold stayed on until his early retirement.

Benjamin's nearly over-the-top efforts to avoid even implicating his son -- coupled with the unsolved 1930 burglary -- make me wonder if he in fact was the real mastermind behind both crimes. Did he stage the 1930 burglary to turn a nice profit to help him launch Allied? Did he later relay that story to Harold, who wanted to emulate his father? Was Benjamin protecting Harold so his 1930 crime wouln't get discovered? Or did he actually directly instruct Harold, thinking he could get away with it a second time? If Benjamin and/or Harold were willing to go to such lengths against their own family, what kind of shady behavior was involved in brokering those character licensing deals? I think there's a LOT of questions here that seem to have been swept under the rug back in the day.

Benjamin lived to the age of 86, dying in 1982, while Harold lasted until 1998, passing away at 82.

The image here is a "Komic Kamera" from the Allied MFG Co. circa 1934. Looking through the eyepiece on one end, you could see an enlargement of a filmstrip backlit from a hole on the opposite end. The knob on the front cranked the filmstrip forward one frame at a time. It essentially acted liked a ViewMaster but without the stereoscopics to produce the 3D effect.

Judging by the images on the unit itself, it was mostly used to present comic strips. (The back side features Krazy Kat, Dagwood Bumstead and other poorly drawn versions of comic strips characters popular around that time.) The only strip example I've seen featured illustrations; I'm guessing the black and white linework was cheaper to produce in this format than photos and/or color? You swap the film out like you would with a camera of that period, and you could purchase new film strips with other characters/stories for (from the one advertisement I found) five cents.

Now, here's the interesting bit. The one strip that I've seen up for auction was NOT in fact a popular Sunday strip character, but parodies of popular celebrities of the time. Here's the title image...

The story, from what I can tell, is basically just a sex romp with no appreciable differences from a Tiajuana Bible! There's some pretty lewd imagery and a variety of celebrity appearances like Jimmy Durante and Samuel Goldwyn (of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer fame). The story is a little over 30 frames long, so substantially more detailed that a typical Tiajuana Bible, and the art at least in this particular one seems of considerably higher quality.

The steroescope was around long before ViewMaster came into being -- the earliest ones date back to the 1830s! But ViewMasters' big revolution was in using them to present stories instead of just scenic images. I argued back here that this made those reels comics. But evidently, ViewMaster wasn't the company to come up with the idea in the first place. These people were doing comics and comics porn decades before!

And what I find really amazing is that these ever existed. Compared to a Tiajuana Bible, these must have been incredibly highly priced just to cover the basic costs. That ad I mentioned cited a retail price of 39¢ -- about the equivalent of eight bucks today. Eight dollars for what's essentially a viewer for a six-page comic book, plus another dollar for every additional six pages. I was always under the impression that smut from that era was produced as cheaply as possible because it was all under the table. Evidently, though, there were several socio-economic levels in that particular black market!

One other interesting addendum to this: the Allied MFG Co. folded before World War II. The company's owner was robbed of several thousand dollars by his own adult son in a mob-style hit. The subsequent legal fees and general distraction of the scandal seem to have contributed to the company's downfall. But I'll post more on that tomorrow!