Unseen Sheldon Mayer SCRIBBLY cover

So, interesting auction item, already out of my price range, and probably headed to much more.  This is a Sheldon Mayer cover to his SCRIBBLY series, which ran for 15 issues from 1948 to 1952 (the character himself dates back to 1936), but not one of the 15 covers that ran on the book.  According to the description, it was intended for #13 in 1950, but labelled as written off in 1951.

That alone makes it one of the most interesting bits of original art I've seen in a while. SCRIBBLY is a great little comic, really should have been reprinted by this point, so it's great to see a "new" page from it out of the blue.

But there's more...

Also with the original art from circa 1950 is this full sized re-creation from the 1980s by Sheldon Mayer.  A real delight, especially looking at some of the changes Mayer made, having Scribbly drawing the girls (which more fits in with the theme of the series), with the broken pencils in the sand.

Well, that's pretty cool.  Now how much would you pay. But there's more...

Very faint on the artwork is a note, unknown author, which has some notes about changing this into a cover for another DC teen book of the era, BUZZY.  It's not all legible (if you happen to buy it, let me know if more of it is readable).

What I can make out is:

"[illegible] Leave B.G. [background] For sky Also Buzzy and Susie are okay in position. Show other girls [illegible] In B.G. looking towards Buzzy and Susie smiling flirtatiously(?) and some just smiling (not as Sheldon interpreted(?) them)"

(see update for more)

Well, that's pretty interesting.  I wonder if...

Yep, BUZZY #33, artist unknown, from September-October 1950.  Which happens to be the same date as SCRIBBLY #13.  And which happens to be one of the issues of BUZZY to feature a Scribbly back-up story by Mayer (SCRIBBLY has a one year hiatus between #13 and #14, during which time DC's comics shrank from 52 pages to 36 pages, and a bunch of Scribbly short stories ran as back-ups in other DC teen titles). 

Well, that's quite enough...

Wait, did I mention the pages are "From the Harlan Ellison Collection"?  Well, that's kind of interesting.  Ellison was a prominent fantasy writer in a number of fields, with his hand in comics at several points, from as far back as a letter in a 1947 DC comic, plotting a 1954 EC comic by Al Williamson and many more activities as both a fan and a professional until his passing in 2018. His collection was legendary, to the point that Paul Chadwick made it the centerpiece of a Concrete story appearing in DARK HORSE PRESENTS #66 [1992], "Byrdland's Secret", where a barely-at-all disguised version of Ellison, "Dwayne Byrd" ("Cordwainer Bird" was a pen-name Ellison occasionally used for writing work he felt was compromised enough to take his name off).  Might be my favourite Concrete story, certainly the one that pops into my head most often, for a very specific reason.

In the story, Concrete and his friend Larry are invited to the home of Byrd, who was one of the writers on a movie that Concrete had worked on in a previous story (which was itself based on the 1987 MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE film), ostensibly inviting Concrete to help decide if he should remove his name from the movie (presumably using a pseudonym like "Harlequin Ellis"), but obviously just wanting to meet Concrete.  

Byrd's house has an impressive collection, including a massive comic book collection which, ever since I read it, was how I imagined my dream comic collection storage system if I ever had stupid money (hasn't happened yet...).  Just something about rolling banks of shelves... I don't know why, shelving on tracks with hand cranks has always appealed to me.

Anyway, Byrd's house is obviously based on a Chadwick visit to Ellison's house, so even if it didn't make the panels, the Mayer cover and recreation are probably in there somewhere.  I am curious about the history of it, whether Ellison acquired the art and commissioned the recreation himself, or it it went through other hands before reaching him.

Well, anyway, I found it all interesting And not to be a cliché, but Christmas is always coming, and I do have at least one birthday every year, plus I'm sure there has to be a Blogger's Day or something...

Update with some new info here

Drew Ford, R.I.P.

Sad to note the sudden passing of Drew Ford at age 48.  There's a fundraiser right now to help the family through this difficult time.

I became aware of Ford when, from 2015 to 2017, he ran a comic book division for Dover Publications. This was an imprint remarkably aligned to my tastes, as you can see from that gallery of books up top, and moreover dedicated to delivering a quality product in cooperation with the creators, unlike most re-publishers of classic comics.  That PUMA BLUES book has a new 40-page coda by Zulli and Murphy.  That WANDERING STAR book has Teri Wood's original mini-comic version, plus numerous colour covers and prints. ATTU has a whole third unpublished book by Sam Glanzman.  PALEO has several stories never before printed by Jim Lawson, including two written by Stephen R. Bissette (who also provides detailed historical notes for several of the books).  I've written before about my "paper moratorium", where I avoid getting newly published comics with some exceptions for about the last decade. Well, for those years, these were most of the exceptions.  All gorgeous books, and I was tempted by many more that they published.

Never was quite sure why the line folded so quickly.  Certainly wasn't the quality of the work or the production.  Anyway, after that Ford founded his own It's Alive Press, continuing to bring some classic work back into print.