Strange Science

Virgil Finlay's masterful illustrations, done for pulp magazines, the medium with the cheapest of cheap printing, are reproduced with love and care in VIRGIL FINLAY'S STRANGE SCIENCE.

These are examples from the out-of-print hardcover edition.

VIRGIL FINLAY'S STRANGE SCIENCE, Underwood-Miller, Publisher. 1992. Copyright © 1992 Lail Finlay Hernandez

This is Little Lulu

Dell repackaged LITTLE LULU comics as a 25-cent paperback book in 1956. It combined old Lulu cartoons by Marjorie Henderson Buell, "Marge," and reprinted stories by John Stanley, drawn by Irving Tripp. Lulu was popular as a pantomime comic panel in the SATURDAY EVENING POST, but the comic book, which gave her voice, was popular for many years after Buell had effectively ended her association with the character. Buell later sold the copyrights of Little Lulu to the publisher, but this book is copyright in her name.

I've scanned some of the Marge cartoons from the book, as well as some of the Stanley/Tripp material. It's a shame the comic book team wasn't credited, but that was the comic book business of the era, mostly anonymous.

Buell and Stanley both died in 1993; Tripp died in 2009.

THIS IS LITTLE LULU, Dell Publishing, 1956. Copyright © 1956 Marjorie Henderson Buell

International Book of Comics

THE INTERNATIONAL BOOK OF COMICS should probably be more properly named THE ANGLO-AMERICAN BOOK OF COMICS, since its focus is on the history of British and American comics (no bande dessinée or manga, for instance).

Denis Gifford is the author. Gifford, an artist and writer, authored several books on popular culture. Born in 1927, he died in 2000. These chapters are a short excerpt from the handsome, large-sized edition, published in 1984.

THE INTERNATIONAL BOOK OF COMICS Copyright © 1984 The Hamlyn Publishing Group Limited