In June 1953, an organization calling itself The Committee on Evaluation of Comic Books, which claimed to have 84 "trained reviewers," evaluated 418 comic book titles which were then available on the newsstands of America. These reviewers placed the output of American comic book publishers into one of four categories: no objection, some objection, objectionable, […]
For those of us who like a little sports in our geekdom, something really awesome just happened. I am from Cleveland, Ohio. When I tell people this at conventions and such reporting for this site, it is usually met with "I'm sorry." We take it in stride, we love our city, and we love our […]
103 years ago this November, the Bolshevik Party, lead by Vladimir Lenin, successfully carried out a coup later known as the October Revolution and effectively transformed Russian into a new soviet republic. While this is the famed political upset that led to the notable Anastasia mythos, it also birthed an entire regime of communist loyalists. […]
Control and fear go hand in hand, and with the Cold War defining an entire generation's worldview from the mid-1940s through the early 1990s, the idea of the "red scare" bled into nearly every aspect of society. "Better dead than red" became a slogan during the Cold War, with the color being the metaphorical representation […]
During a cool summer morning on August 6th, 1945, six-year-old Keiji Nakazawa waiting for his summer school to start, similar to millions of children the world over at that time. Started by a blue flash, the young boy was shielded by the rubble of his school collapsing around him. In his home, a mere half-mile […]
Jack T. Chick is generally not one of the first names brought up when comic fans discuss the greats of the industry…but this cartoonist and publisher is, in fact, one of the most controversial figures in comic book history that you may not have heard of. Born on April 13th, 1924, Jack Chick lived a […]
TMNT #1 is a holy grail comic of epic proportions. All of the elements are there: huge property, scarcity, and demand that will never die. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird put the indie comic scene on the map when they released the issue on their own Mirage Comics label in 1984, and now one of […]
Looking for some comic history to watch tonight? AT 9:oo PM ET, Steve Geppi of the Geppi Family Enterprises will be talking with Comic Book Historians' Alex Grand and Jim Thompson. The trio will discuss Geppi's long and influential career in comics, and will likely include the formation of Diamond Comics and the Geppi Entertainment […]
Wu Zhang Xing, the publisher of the longest-running Chinese comic strip in the world, has passed away at age 98. As reported by The Star Online, he was at the head of a Hong Kong publishing empire for over 50 years. Lao Fu Zi, or Old Master Q, is the longest-running Chinese comic strip in […]
Thanos creator Jim Starlin seems…less than thrilled that the Trump Campaign tonight. It all started earlier today when the Twitter account @TrumpWarRoom tweeted out a video of the President as Thanos "snapping" away various Democratic leaders who today brought articles of impeachment against him. You can see that tweet below: House Democrats can push their […]
On June 28, 1945 a B-25D Mitchell medium bomber collided with the Empire State Building. Lt. Col. William Smith was piloting a routine transport mission from Bedford, Massachusetts to Newark, New Jersey. It was an extremely foggy morning, and Smith received a warning from Laguardia Airport (then called NY Municipal Airport), "We're unable to see […]
Superman as created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster is without doubt one of the most popular and successful fictional characters of all time. People around the world recognize the iconic costume, know about his super powers and weakness to Kryptonite, and have seen or read his now-familiar origin story. He is the prototypical superhero, […]
Startling Comics #49 is an example of something I love about the vintage comic book market: no matter how long you've been collecting them, vintage comics will still surprise you. There's always that special cover tucked away in the middle of some forgotten title run that you haven't noticed before, that fresh connection to some […]
Collectors like boundaries. We like to know when things start, and when they stop. Knowing such things is an important requirement, because otherwise… well, you can't just collect all the comic books, can you? Because even monetary demands aside, then pretty soon you'd have to have a warehouse to put all that vintage paper in […]
A tale of the Multiverse: it's pretty impossible to remember this in the era of always-on superhero content, but there was once a world where major superheroes vanished without a trace. No warning, no explanation, you just went to the newsstand one week and instead of a new issue of The Flash or Green Lantern, there […]
Confession: I finally got around to watching the Justice League film recently and… absolutely loved it. I think I liked it way more than most people because I'm a comics history nerd, and like all of Zack Snyder's DC Comics films, Justice League is filled to the brim with comics history easter eggs. I haven't […]
We've covered a lot of chart-busting sales of the first appearance of Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy #15 during the first decade of Bleeding Cool. It is perhaps the most liquid single vintage comic issue across the entire range of grades in all of the comic book collecting hobby. Spider-Man himself is seemingly immune to the […]
As a collector of vintage comics, other old paper, and original art myself, I've often said that there's a lot that even a very good scan can't tell you about the historical paper object in question. The quality and nature of the ink, the texture of the paper, and often even the smell of the […]
After making original comic art auction history just last month with the $5.4 million sale of Frank Frazetta's cover painting for Eerie #23, the famous "Egyptian Queen" painting, Heritage Auctions has one heck of a follow-up on their hands with this week's European Comic Art Signature Auction. The headline piece of the auction, Hergé's very […]
Reading through Craig Yoe's excellent and surprising The Unknown Anti-War Comics is a sharp reminder of the shifting political realities of that era of history. If you love comics history or the wider scope of American history, examining the material of this book will surprise you. And whether you did or didn't live through that era […]
