For those of you interested in pre-war comics Wonderfully Vulgar is an excellent website to visit. It is a virtual exhibition put together by Kevin Carpenter using some of the 5000+ comics housed in the Library (BIS) of the University of Oldenburg in Germany.
There are many scans of comics on the site of comics from 1873 - 1939, both of front covers and inside pages, plus a few extra items too. One of those extra items is the incredibly rare advertising flyer for The Kinema Comic from 1920, which was set up as a sister publication to Film Fun in hope to take in all the readers interested in film stars in comics and put off other companies setting up rival comics.
Also up there is the Big Budget Summer Number from 11th July 1903. Often publishers would produce special editions of their comics at certain points of the year, summer being one of those. Of course, they would later evolve into summer specials which were seperate publications from the weekly comics.
Another nice piece is the 1890 Grand Xmas Number of Comic Cuts, the first Christmas edition of the paper. Alfred Harmsworth managed to double the page count to sixteen but still keep the comic at the halfpenny both him and his papers were famous for.
And finally, here's a square edition of Comic Life. It is such a strange shape because of the paper restrictions caused by the First World War but would return back to its normal size on 14th April 1917.
As always, click on the above images to view them in full size.
It's nice that such a collection like this is so readily available online, and for free! To read them at the British Library is a bit of a hassle and it's unknown whether they all survive outside of these collections. Be sure to visit the website and look around:
http://www.wonderfullyvulgar.de
4 comments:
Nice to see you you expanding your horizons to take in the older comics, George. You probably won't get as many hits on these kind of posts, but as long as you're enjoying doing them, that's what counts.
Thanks for the useful link to very old comics...04 55
Yes, I enjoy learning about them but I don't have many so I'll probably be returning to more recent times soon.
Good stuff George.As these old papers become harder to find and as a new generation only recognises the digital format., it is good to be reminded of the very creative origins of the comics medium. As a lifelong fan, born in the 1950's, I am not locked into any period and find great comics from every era and many countries.We all started with Marvel , DC and the many UK titles but there is so much more out there to find and enjoy.Keep up the good work.
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