Vintage Paper

In 1865 the world was introduced to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The titular Alice and her friends in Wonderland would go on a myriad of adventures throughout the entirety of the series, which delighted both the young and young at heart. It should come as no surprise that these stories would inspire all kinds […]

Lakeside Library Vol 3 #66, published by Donnelley, Loyd & Co in 1880, appears to be the first periodical on the national American newsstand to feature a manned space mission — illustrated and in detail.  The quarto-sized illustrated story paper serialized Jules Verne's Round the Moon, the 1870 sequel to the 1865 touchstone From the […]

La Mujer Murcielago / The Batwoman, a Mexican sci-fi/adventure movie from 1968, is a B Movie joy. The Batwoman (portrayed by Maura Monti) is a beautiful and rich vigilante, who also is a master at every sport and wrestles. René Cardona took advantage of Batmania and combined it with the world of Lucha Libre to create a fun, unique, […]

If you're a fan of classic Disney movies or the parks, there's one name you probably know well; Mary Blair. The iconic artist brought many of Disney's visions to life with the use of breathtaking colors and dynamic shapes. Blair drew concept art for several classic Disney films, including Peter Pan, Dumbo, Fantasia, Lady and […]

Are you looking to grow your Jungle Girl comic book collection, but don't want to spend a fortune? Tonight's Heritage Auction Sunday Night Auction has a few that won't break the bank! Starting with this perfect Jumbo Comics #88 from Fiction House. Featuring a dynamic Sheena, Queen of the Jungle cover, the viewer's eye is […]

Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever an old book can—looking for an affordable key in the Silver Age pool? Look no further than this Amazing Spider-Man #1 GCC Conserved label 7.0 with off-white to white pages on Heritage. This is a beautiful example of the first solo book in the Spider-Man series. This issue retells the story of Spider-Man's […]

Last week ComicConnect held its 42nd Event Auction, kicking off its 2020 season. This auction featured comic books, video games, and original art. Hopeful owners from across the globe flocked to the site to try their luck on the item of their dreams. Some of the most elite collectors in comics bid on beautiful pre-code […]

Happy Days #1, Oct 20, 1894 is the first issue of a 1563 issue weekly series running from 1894-1924.  Happy Days is an illustrated fiction story paper rather than a comic book, but it's still something we're very familiar with in the modern day.  It's a publisher's attempt to satisfy retailer demand and the changing […]

At Her Mercy! Or; The Dearborn Avenue Mystery in Saturday Night Vol. 19 #31, April 8, 1882, is the first chapter of a well-crafted detective mystery. It happens to include a rather interesting science fiction element that looks like a 19th Century version of The Sandman due to the use of gas and a gas-mask […]

Only a small handful of scientific achievements have captured the world's imagination like the achievement of the first powered, heavier-than-air flight by the Wright Brothers, Wilbur and Orville Wright.  The race towards this goal by inventors around the world was reflected in and anticipated by newsstand fiction throughout the 1890s.  And after those initial historic […]

Frank Leslie's Boys and Girls Weekly #795, Jan 14, 1882, features Toto on the back cover, nearly 18 years before L. Frank Baum wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  This story cuts across all sorts of history that interests me, and I have to say that when I started this matter shortly after I acquired […]

In 1786, due to the after-effects of the Revolutionary War, a struggling economy, and a rudimentary financial system in the young new country,  many farmers and other citizens of Massachusetts were near financial ruin. Taxes were levied by the state of Massachusetts, which simply could not be paid, and authorities were making foreclosures and arrests […]

Taken as a whole, Leslie's happens to be my favorite periodical in American history. Over the length of its run from its beginnings as Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper to the magazine-formatted and name-shortened Leslies, the weekly chronicled some defining moments in the history of the United States. Leslies had reporters in the field during the […]

This issue of the New York Herald, September 9, 1894, Sunday Color Section features a political cartoon by Charles G. Bush from the earliest era of America's color newspaper sections.  The color Inter Ocean Illustrated Supplement had launched in 1892. In the subsequent two years, the techniques and artistry of the form in color on […]

A recent installment of The Issue featured The Daily Graphic No. 283 January 31, 1874, and referenced an 1889 article that discussed story paper circulation in that era.  A "story paper" is simply an illustrated weekly periodical that features fiction, in what we think of as a newspaper format.  The serials featured in story papers […]

I've long wondered if American periodical publishers Frederick Gleason and Lev Gleason were related. The parallels between the lives of the two men are compelling: Both lived in the same area for a time. Both were pioneering periodical publishers in their day. And both often employed their publishing apparatus in the service of their radical […]

A man becomes ostracized by the scientifically-advanced, cape-wearing, chest-symbol-wearing leadership of his planet. Sent to Earth, the man is known as "The Messenger" and nobody likes his message, as it includes scenes of destruction and dire warnings about the future of civilization. Newspapers also call the Messenger a "Strange Visitor from Another Planet". Am I […]

The Golden Age of comics has a lot of subcategories underneath it. Over the past few days, Bleeding Cool readers have seen pre-code horror, good girl art, jungle girl, teen humor, and patriotic heroes. But there's one I have yet to touch on — bondage. Yes, bondage covers are also coveted by fans of this […]

Pre-code horror is one of the best things about the Golden Age of comics. The covers are terrifying, the stories horrifying, and overall they're entirely satisfying. This pre-code beauty from Atlas Comics — the same publisher that brought us Captain America — is one of the best covers from this era, but where can you […]

Browsing through the selection of patriotic WWII-era Superman-related comics available in Session 5 of Comic Connect's Event Auction 42, which ends May 22, reminds me of some of my very favorite little-known Superman-related history. Generally speaking, I think we have the notion that "The Superman" was a vague, Nietzschean concept barely remembered by the early […]