Martin Luther King Jr In 1956 Comic Book!

Today the USPS is closed...  And also several other companies because of the holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., (MLK).  

Currently there is a lot of discussion, and people searching for the new Barrack Obama comics that have been issued during the presidential campaign, and also in a recent Amazing Spider-Man Comic Book.

Well, MLK also has been featured in several comics during the past decades... 

The comic book pictured at the top of this blog post was published in 1956 by The Fellowship of Reconciliation. To my knowledge that is the oldest comic book with MLK on the cover.

This comic book had an English printing of 250,000 copies, and a Spanish version of 125,000 copies. They were used for teaching tools about the civil rights movement.

There was a second comic book biography of Dr. King that was printed by Golden Legacy Comics in the 1970s. That would be issue #13 for those looking for it!

Later there was a TPB, (Trade Paper Back), on King by Ho Che Anderson. I have seen copies of this on eBay.

We do not have these publications in stock, as the 1956 printing is very rare now. As this blog post is published, there are only two of the above shown comic book listed on eBay, with the lowest priced one starting at $99.00 on an auction format!

We do however have African-American Superhero comics in our eBay Premium Store as those have been published since the 1960's: Black Panther, Black Goliath, Black Lightning, Luke Cage Hero For Hire / Power Man, and more.

Comics are a great introduction to get young people to read (more), and also sometimes a good start for someone to start collecting. Just be aware of the 'collectibles' that have been peddled during the years, as usually those 'collectibles' are printed in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, and don't become true collectible of any value. Remember the X-Men #1s of the 1990s, or Shazam #1s. or Dazzler #1s, etc., etc.?!

Rates Effective January 18th, 2009!

Our shipper, the USPS, has changed its' rates for international shipping today, January 18th, 2009... And unfortunately we here at MISM must do the same.  Here are the new rates effective immediately:

An Ongoing Web Novel By Jemiah Jefferson!

I last blogged about this 'wovel' on December 2nd, 2008... After Jemiah Jefferson informed me that her newest creative work was being published in a 'wovel' format. 

'Wovel'?  Yes, a 'wovel' !

One of the newest publishers, Underland Press, placed an 'extra' on their web site, a "Wovel" (short for "web novel"); which is written in weekly installments, (currently by Jemiah!) and, at the end of each weekly chapter, the readers get to vote on the direction that the story takes!

The url to the wovel is provided here: underlandpress.com/wovel.cfm 

(Note: The eBay version of our Blog does not allow 'hot links' to non eBay pages. If you are reading this blog post in that version, please copy and paste the url in another window of your browser and add the www. in front of the domain name if necessary for your browser.)

So for those that didn't get to read my first blog post, I'm sure some of you are asking... "what happens to the 'wovel'?".

Now With Several Pages Online To View!

  Doug Millison, (as seen at left), sent me several messages and links for this upcoming publication...  He also gave me a little background to the project that I want to share with you today before you take a look at the online pages.  

Doug's current project is what he calls an urban, contemporary adaptation of Kipling's "The Jungle Book".

He says it is a "simple concept: instead of the jungle in India, it's the urban jungle of mean South Dallas streets; instead of jungle animals helping Mowgli after Shere Khan kills his parents, it's urban animals helping Little Mo after the gangster Sherikano kills his parents".

I viewed all of the pages online to get a better idea of what Doug, Steve and Sryla are attempting to do before the book is actually printed. This book is being created in a graphic novel hybrid format.  The format is called a "prose+comics scrapbook novel", where the protagonist, Little Mo, tells his story in both prose and comic book narrative, in the context of his personal scrapbook.

Please note before taking a look at the online pages, that in the "Concrete Jungle Book Preview" the scrapbook pages are actual "placeholders".

Additionally the comic book style pages are more or less in the final stages, (although word balloons and lettering are not finished).  Some of the prose narrative has been revised (however with no substantial changes to the story).

Now that I have set out the fact that this work is not yet ready for publication, here is the link to the online pages:

TheConcreteJungleBook.com

(Note: Our eBay version of our Blog does not allow 'hot links' to non eBay pages. If you are reading this blog post in that version, please copy and paste the url in another window of your browser and add the www. in front of the domanin name if necessary for your browser. Then just look for the 'Click Here' for the Free Preview on the page your browser is directed to.)

Here are my thoughts on this project after viewing the 32 pages at the preview:

I've been around for a while, and have read and or collected many formats of comics / graphic novels / underground comix / etc.

However this project as it currently stands reminds me of 'Big Little Books' but in a full sized format.  'Big Little Books' were a forerunner to comics, with a page of text and then the opposite page was a picture or drawing that illustrated a scene in the story. That format was revived in the 1960's for a while, but the miniature size they were printed in were not conducive for marketing.

Thus this format of a "prose+comics scrapbook novel" was not totally foreign to me.  As a matter of fact the scrapbook style of the preview was readable and enjoyable even tho I did not see the full story. As seen on page 5 of the preview, there are several chapters to this story.

The artwork on page 25 was one of the most vivid scenes in the comic art pages of this scrapbook. I liked the style of the art by Sryla Tip in these preview comic book pages.

This creation is a good example of hybridized media that is coming to print at this time...  a form of mixed-media combining scrapbooking, graphic art, and prose storytelling all in one creation.

Issues One Thru Three Reviewed!

  Dale Wilson sent me the first three published comics of this series...  Dale, as seen to the immediate top left, is the publisher and also writer of several stories in this series from DWAP Productions.