BOOK SALES

In my feverish attempt to lay hands on every comics-related publication in the known universe, I often mistakenly acquire more than one copy of a single title. That is usually the case with the books I list here at Rancid Raves from time-to-time. I’m not really in the bookstore business. But when I’ve acquired duplicate copies, I offer them for sale to the first-taker at ridiculously low prices. When not duplicate copies from my collection, the books tend to be review copies or contributors' copies (sent to me in multiples, but I need only one for my archives). Most of these, in other words, are new books, often not even read—unless otherwise noted. The Rare books, on the other hand, tend to be second owner tomes. Generally speaking, the prices are about half the original price for the "recent" publications; the Old and Rare, however, are priced accordingly.

Shipping. For one book, the Media Mail p&h is $3; add $1 for each additional book. (Overseas, it’s $20 for the first book, plus $3 for each additional book.) Magazine shipping costs are different; see that section. If you’re interested in making a purchase, drop down below (to the very end) where you’ll find my e-mail (or go to the website’s front page), jot me a note, and I’ll give you ordering instructions and hold the book(s) for you for two weeks, pending receipt of your check.

All are paperback publications unless otherwise noted.

SECTIONS OF THE LIST

There are three sections of this list, each corresponding to the time the books therein were offered for sale:

SECTION 1

Books Added Since September 2010 (i.e, THE MOST RECENT BOOKS)

SECTION 2

Books Added in September 2010, Since the Last Sale in November 2009

SECTION 3

The November 2009 List (what’s left of it)

**************************************

SECTION 1: THE MOST RECENT BOOKS

I have only a handful of additions, so I’m not categorizing them; just a simple list.

Shameless Art, 112 9x12-inch pages in bare color; a spectacular collection of pin-up and paperback book cover art by all your favorites—George Petty, Gil Elvgren (lots), Andrew Loomis, Enoch Bolles (quite a few, and he’s not been reprinted much, so this is rare material), Earl Bergey, Mabel Rollins Harris, Rolf Armstrong, Art Frahm, Bill Randall, Earl Moran, Bradshaw Crandell, Peter Driben, Robert McGinnis, James Avati, and a few more (alas, no MacPerson or Ballentine); each painting a full page; Underwood Books, hardcover, $8 (half price).

Chic Young’s Blondie: The Complete Daily Comic Strips from 1930-33, 275-plus 8x11-inch landscape pages, b/w (a little color in the introductory pages); takes the saga through the troubled courtship (Dagwood’s rich parents don’t want him to marry a goldigger, which is how they see the seemingly dingy Blondie) and Dagwood’s celebrated hunger strike to win their acquiescence and then their marriage; see how Dagwood’s hair developed, where that button in the middle of his shirt came from, how did his eyes get so big, and other mysteries solved; IDW’s typically ritzy production, hardcover, $25 (half price).

The Best of Simon and Kirby, 240 9x12-inch pages in action-packed color, showcasing representative works by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, starting in the 1940s—superheroes: Sandman, Captain America, Stuntman, Fighting American; sf: Solar Patrol, Blue Bolt; war: Boy Commandos; birth of romance: from Western Love No. 1 and Young Romance No. 22; crime: from Headline Comics and Justice Traps the Guilty; western: from Boys’ Ranch and Bullseye; horror: from Black Magic; and sick humor: from Sick and From Here to Insanity. Nothing more recent than 1966; Titan Books, hardcover, $20 (half price).

Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand’s masterpiece adapted as a graphic novel by Peter David and Kyle Baker for Papercutz’s Classics Illustrated, 64 6.5x9-inch pages, full color; a faithful retelling albeit in Baker’s somewhat exuberant style (nice though); with biographical and critical appreciation essays at the end; $6

RARE: Out of the Red, essays about sports by the legendary Red Smith; 1950, 306 6x9-inch pages, mostly text, but the reason for owning this is that it includes numerous illustrations by the great sports cartoonist, Willard Mullin, whose work has never been systematically collected; hardback, $5 for Mullin.

Not Comics but Delicious: Nature’s Temple: Meditations of John Muir; a paperback, $2

***************************************

SECTION 2:

Books Added in September 2010 (Since November 2009)

GRAPHIC NOVELS & Comic Book Reprints

Coward, superb graphic novel by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips; 120 7x10-inch pages; color, paperback; $4

George Sprott (98 12x14-inch pages, two colors; hardcover, Drawn & Quarterly, 2009) by Seth, his latest graphic novel; $10

Magazine

Comics Revue, No. 17: Modesty Blaise in “Adam and Eve,” illustrated by John Burns, the best after Jim Holdaway; $2           

Comic Strip Reprints

Classic Cowboy Cartoons: Vol. 1, by J.R. Williams; 150 6x8-inch pages; b/w, paperback; $3

Nick Cardy: Comic Strips by Sean Menard with Nick Cardy; 146 8x11-inch landscape pages; b/w, paperback; $8

Betsy and Me by Jack Cole; 120 5x8-inch landscape pages; b/w, paperback with introduction by RCHarvey; the only complete reprinting of the comic strip Cole so longed to produce and which, having sold it into syndication, he committed suicide; $6

Miscellaneous

Rumpelstiltskin with illustrations by the incomparable Edward Gorey; a tiny but exquisite paperback in two colors; $3

*****************************

SECTION 3

Books First Offered in November 2009

Newspaper Comic Strip Reprints

Catch of the Day (128 8x9-inch pages, b/w; 2004 paperback) by Jim Toomey; the 8^th collection of Sherman’s Lagoon strips about a shark and his deep sea denizens that appear in about 200 newspapers; $5

Lio: Happiness Is a Squishy Cephalopod (128 8x9-inch pages, b/w and Sunday strips in color; paperback) by Mark Tatulli, perhaps the first Andrews McMeel compilation of this strip that chronicles the misguided nefarious and usually macabre doings of a small boy with a strange imagination; $5

Mister Boffo: Unclear on the Concept (96 8x8-inch pages, b/w; paperback) by Joe Martin, 1989; $3

Political Cartoon Collections

The Best Political Cartoons of the Year: 2007 Edition (288 8x10-inch pages, b/w; paperback) edited by Daryl Cagle (liberal) and Brian Fairrington (conservative); the best cartoons from November 2005 through October 2006, including cartoons about the infamous Danish Cartoon Controversy; this is the best of the two annual collections of editoons and includes hundreds of cartoons; $8

The Best Political Cartoons of the Year: 2008 Edition (288 8x10-inch pages, b/w, paperback) edited by Daryl Cagle (liberal) and Brian Fairrington (conservative); the best cartoons from November 2006 through October 2007. More of the above; $8.

Herblock: A Cartoonist’s Life (416 7x10-inch pages, b/w; paperback), the autobiography of Herbert Block, one of America’s most celebrated political cartoonists, with 250 cartoons; $7.

Gag Cartoon Reprint

Graphic Novels

Kings in Disguise (192 8x10-inch pages, b/w; paperback) by James Vance and Dan Burr, the classic tale of a cross-country quest among hoboes in the Depression 1930s; $6.

Mona Street, 3 64 9x12-page paperbacks, “The Secret Books of Glamour, Glamour International Production”; all erotic comics by Frollo, all in Italian; the attraction is the artwork, exquisite drawings, many reproducing pencil sketches; each volume, priced individually at $5 each,  is different, and the listing here distinguishes one from the other by citing the title of the first story in each:

1991: Entra in Scena Mona Street; mostly pencils but some inked b/w; $5

1991: Tith Massages, some pin-ups in color; mostly inked b/w; $5

1995 (ostensibly “volume 3"): Lezioni di Igiene, some pin-ups in color; otherwise, stories half-and-half, pencils and inks; $5

Picture Books

The Women of Manara (84 9x13-inch pages, color; hardcover, Heavy Metal, 1995) by Milo Manara, erotic pin-up pix; $7

Calendar Girl: Sweet & Sexy Pin-ups of the Postwar Era (146 10x13-inch pages, color throughout; hardcover, Collectors Press, 2003) edited and annotated by Max Allan Collins, who has mustered here pages of calendar cuties from the late 1940s and early 1950s by Elvgreen, Moran, Mac Pherson, Munson, Elliot, Moore, Chriaka, and more; $17

Erotica: An Illustrated Anthology of Sexual Art and Literature (164 9x11-inch pages, color and b/w; paperback, Carroll & Graf, 1992) by Charlotte Hill and William Wallace; copiously illustrated text; $7

Books with No Pictures At All (or Very Few)

Russ Meyer: The Life and Films (136 pages, b/w photos but mostly text; paperback, McFarland Classics, 1990) by David K. Frasier, short biography and long filmography; $4

Rare and Therefore Wonderful

Verdun Belle and Some Others (122 6x9-inch pages, b/w; hardcover, Grosset & Dunlap), dog stories by Alexander Woollcott illustrated by Edwina; 1928, some pages showing tan at the edges, which makes it all the more rare (originally published, same year, by Coward-McCann under the title Two Gentlemen and a Lady); $15

The Collective Unconscience of Odd Bodkins (112 0x12-inch pages, b/w; Glide Publications, 1973) by Dan O’Neill, an early manifestation of the underground genius in this collection of his famed newspaper strip; $6.

Lady Loverly's Chatter by Mart Reb, a tiny (4x5") jewel of a mildly amusing, mildly risque novel, but its chief attraction, and the thing that inspires the price, are Fritz Willis' delicate pen-and-ink drawings of nekid ladies that illustrate the tale; pages turning brown but not yet brittle; with dust jacket nearly entact; hardcover, $30

Research and Miscellaneous

All-Star Companion (208 8.5x11-inch pages, b/w; paperback) edited by Roy Thomas, the world’s champion All-Star fan, who has collected here a vast history of the series, plus some rare and seldom-if-ever seen artwork; from TwoMorrows, $10.

Erotic Comics: A Graphic History from Tijuana Bibles to Underground Comix (196 10x10-inch pages, color; hardback, Harry N. Abrams) by Tim Pilcher with Gene Kannenberg, Jr. and a Foreword by Aline Komisky Crumb; the subtitle says it all, perhaps, although I could add that the early chapters, after beginning with “prehistory” of erotic art and the Romans and Japanese, go on through Aubrey Beardsley, the birth of pin-ups and WWII comics, then on to Playboy and its imitators, “Bondage Babes,” under-the-counter stuff and undergrounds, ending with overseas comics; chapters are often divided by cartoonist (4 pages by Dan DeCarlo followed by 4 pages of Bill Wenzel, 4 pages of Jack Cole followed by 4 of Bill Ward, f’instance); a $30 book originally, but here you can get it for $14

The Image of America in Caricature and Cartoon (236 8.5x9.5-inch pages, b/w some color; paperback), an extensively annotated catalog of an exhibition that started at the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art in Fort Worth and traveled around the country in the mid-1970s; text by Ron Tyler, who is otherwise unidentified but the history and notations seem authoritative and informed; $9

History

The World Through a Monocle: The New Yorker at Midcentury by Mary F. Corey is an examination of the magazine and its influence in the years immediately after WWII and before its founding editor, Harold Ross, died; hardcover, $5

*****************

RC_Harvey@Q.com

Drop me a note, telling me which books you are interested in, and I’ll tell you whether they're still available and give you ordering instructions and hold the book(s) for you for two weeks, pending receipt of your check.

To find out about Harv's books, click here.