No sooner than I received it, did I open and read the WHEATIES GIVEAWAY MINI COMIC: DONALD DUCK AND THE INCA IDOL (1951)...
But, before I tell you exactly what that was, please READ THIS POST for a tiny bit of build up!
Okay, let's go...
While reading it, and turning a page more than halfway through, I encountered some very slight resistance... as if some "sticky remnant from ages past" were holding the pages together at the upper-right corner.
Unfortunately, this is not uncommon with older comics for which you are not the "original owner". So, I applied a normal amount of non-damaging pressure to the page-turning, and it opened as expected. ...And with no "sticky remnant residue" to be seen! YAY!
However, it was on the very next page-turn that the heart-stoppage would occur!
The pages wouldn't turn open - not because of some "sticky remnant from ages past" - but because they had not been "machine-cut" to form separate pages as part of the printing process!!!
DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?
It means that NO ONE has ever read this issue before - because FOUR PAGES were rendered unviewable for not having been cut apart!
While you're applying jumper-cables to your chest, I'll repeat it again...
NO
ONE HAS EVER READ THIS ISSUE BEFORE - BECAUSE FOUR PAGES WERE RENDERED
UNVIEWABLE FOR NOT HAVING BEEN CUT APART!
Further, it means that between 1951 and 2021... I AM THE ONLY ONE TO HAVE EVER READ THIS PARTICULAR ISSUE!
Of course, in order to be the first and only one to have ever read this artifact from 1951, I had to perform the cuts that were not made in the production process of 70 (!) years ago! ...And, by my not-so-steady-hand, this comic will henceforth never receive a grade of Near-Mint to Mint... (Note the more jagged cuts at the top of the images, to see where the pages were never cut in 1951!)
Any true fan and collector (who also values the READING of comic books) will understand the thrill!
One has to wonder exactly how this book remained in such a virgin state given its publication so many years before price-guides and high-grade condition began to be worshiped! And, if I find the notion of the many "ghosts" in my collection (and yours) to be fascinating, just imagine how I feel about this!
Two final, unrelated notes before we go...
10 comments:
So before you were even born...before you were even a twinkle in your parents' eyes (sorry, I've just always wanted to have the opportunity to use that phrase!)...this particular comic was printed and insufficiently cut JUST FOR YOU! For a future lover of comic books who would appreciate this gift kept under wraps for no one but him, for seventy years! I can just hear the mystical voice: "One day, there will come a boy, then a man, who will love comics with an educated love, a lifelong love, who will have a generous heart and a sense of humor with no hint of unkindness, and only for this boy are you destined, only by this man will you be read in your entirety. He will spread the news of reading you far and wide, by means no one presently on this earth can even imagine. He will read your every page and you will know that at long last you have come to your true home." Nice to know that, once in a great while, even a small and unassuming and not-perfectly-made comic can find its Destiny!
That is UTTERLY AMAZING, Elaine!
Although, given *my* parents, I was probably more of a sty than a “twinkle”! Now, Grandma Millie would be another story entirely.
Then again, if I had a truly happy and idyllic childhood, I probably would never have retreated into comics at a very young age… and there’d be no “life’s-study-work” to draw from, years of fanzine writing, a sizable body of “Translation and Dialogue” work with related text articles, some of the most detailed indexes at the Grand Comics Database … and NO BLOG for me to write any of this stuff! Let alone the friends (like you) I've made through this Blog! …I sincerely think it all turned out for the best!
The “journeys” that comic books take over their existence has long fascinated me, and your wonderful and imaginative passage taps perfectly into that!
Finally, just remember that, while its “destiny” may have been found, it’s individual journey is far from over… at least if *I* have anything to say about it! Once I’m gone, they will (by my decree) be put back into circulation (Translation: Sold to dealers!) so that others may enjoy them. …Hard to believe but THAT DOES NOT ALWAYS HAPPEN when longtime collectors “turn their final page”!
Lest I end on an unintended note of morbidity, there’s a part of me that is well and truly tickled at the prospect of “being a ‘ghost’ in other peoples’ collections”! …As such, I’ll always have something good to read – and a lot of “ghostly company”!
We know that Donald’s “Legendary Super-Pickax” is not THE “Legendary Super-Pickax” because that object of lore (and derision) was destroyed by an all-too powerful swing back in Scrooge’s gold-mining days.
...But, who's to say it didn't have offspring, Deb?
Little "pick-picks"? Ya know like "a pick-pick here, and a pick-pick there... Here a pick, there a pick... Everywhere a pick-pick"
Besides, can anything that's "Legendary AND Super" ever truly be destroyed?! Especially so in the hearts and minds of those it touched, leaving a bounty of blandness behind in its wake?
...I wish I could "wake" from this fever dream!
Given the post you used to “build up” to this one, I was half-expecting you to have once again come across the signature of the mysterious “Edith.” Of course, the odds of having two books acquired at different times from (possibly) different sources that were owned at one point by the same person and were both signed by said person must be exceedingly small indeed.
In any case, wow! What an amazing find. I can’t believe nobody bothered to cut those pages until now. Could it be that no one noticed there was a problem? Whatever the reason, these things happen, I guess. Congratulations. I’m glad that comic book finally got a chance to be enjoyed in full. It must have felt almost like discovering… an Inca Idol! Or, in keeping with another theme of this post, like unleashing the 13 ghosts of Scooby-Doo (though with far more pleasant consequences). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUfNBHigR90
Sergio:
Another book from “Edith” would have been “heart stopping” too – but only a little less so because you’d figure that if her name was written on ONE book, it was likely to have happened with any other books of hers that survived. Of course, the MOST amazing thing is that it DID survive – and what a journey it must have had to avoid all the previously-listed perils, find its way to New York Comic Con 2013, and take its place in my collection.
More miraculous to me is that the Donald Duck cereal giveaway comic somehow never managed to be read by any number of breakfast-eating kids along the way!
There was no “collector’s mentality” at the time – and, even if there WERE a tiny bit of it in the air, it would have been devoted to “actual” newsstand comic books and not free premiums like this. That's one reason why they're so rare!
Consider that, if it was never read by any of the aforementioned “breakfast-eating kids”, why wouldn’t it have simply been thrown away as an unwanted item? If you didn’t care enough about Donald Duck to actually READ the thing, why would you have kept it at all? In those days, lots of great comics that WERE read (and enjoyed) were ultimately discarded and destroyed, so why would this one have survived… especially in its virgin state?
THAT is why the journey of old comics, and the ghosts of their past, is so fascinating to me!
Your Scooby-Doo reference now has me thinking that, when I open one of my old comic boxes, am I releasing “more than 13 ghosts” upon the world? Maybe not, because the ghosts are pretty comfy just where they are!
HERE is Sergio’s Scooby link for your viewing (and ghosting) pleasure!
"Your Scooby-Doo reference now has me thinking that, when I open one of my old comic boxes, am I releasing “more than 13 ghosts” upon the world?"
Even if you are, you can rest assured that they are "friendly ghosts" like Casper, Spencer Spook, or Homer the Happy Ghost (or, circling back to Scooby-Doo, the Boo Brothers).
To be honest, I'm not sure I understand your supposition that the book had never been read before. If I'm understanding your post correctly, four pages, located about 3/4 of the way thru the book, were never read because they were never cut apart. So why do you suppose that the book was never read at all? Obviously, those four defective pages were never read, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the rest of the book wasn’t read.
I could see how someone, particularly a child, might have read the book, not noticed the issue with the four pages, and assumed that they’d read the book in its entirety. Of course, I’m not familiar with this story but it certainly seems plausible that someone (again, particularly a young reader) could have skipped over the uncut pages and assumed that that was simply how the story went.
On the other hand, maybe I’m missing something…
Perhaps it was undistributed stock that was left over in some warehouse that eventually found its way to the public, or maybe the kid who owned it previously had more than one copy of this book, so they didn’t read this one?
Sergio:
You write: “Even if you are [releasing “more than 13 ghosts” upon the world], you can rest assured that they are "friendly ghosts" like Casper, Spencer Spook, or Homer the Happy Ghost (or, circling back to Scooby-Doo, the Boo Brothers).”
Yes, I suppose they WOULD be friendly, happy, or dare I add "genial" ghosts, because my comics are so well cared for!
I don’t think you’re “missing something”, other than maybe I’m regarding every little child to be like I was. Even at my youngest aware-ages, I would have noticed a significant “skip” in the story, though I wouldn’t have been able to articulate it as such. Still, I would know that something was fishy. Story being the most important thing to me – then, as now.
Perhaps it is *my* leap to assume a similar awareness and attention to detail in other young children. Then again, they were probably better at sports than I was! :-)
It just makes sense to me that, if four pages of the story were completely inaccessible, then the story could not have actually read. “Paged-through” or scanned maybe… but not READ, as I define the word.
Deb:
You write: “Perhaps it was undistributed stock that was left over in some warehouse that eventually found its way to the public, or maybe the kid who owned it previously had more than one copy of this book, so they didn’t read this one?”
I think those are two PERFECT theories as to why this book existed as it had until 2021! Particularly the warehouse stock – eventually sold in bulk to a comic dealer (or several dealers along the way), before finally making its way individually to Lone Star Comics – and then directly to me!
I just find stuff like this to be fascinating!
Post a Comment