Beschreibung:

PRINT: A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE GRAPHIC ARTS. Volume III, Number 2 Author: [Gaines, M.C.] Place: Woodstock, VT Publisher: William Edwin Rudge Date: Summer, 1942 Description: vii, [1], 1-87 pp., plus unpaginated inserts. Pictorial wrappers. Illustrated in duotone and color. 8vo (7¼"x10"). First printing. Good/VG condition, dampsoiling to edges of wrappers and some pages (including EC inserts), 1½" tape repair to bottom spine, light wear to tips, page edges toned. First appearance of M.C. Gaines' "Narrative Illustration: The Story of the Comics" Print: A Quarterly Journal of the Graphic Arts was an academic journal dedicated to the promotion and advancement of the printers' arts, both fine and commercial. In addition to articles dealing with a range of print-related topics, each issue is interleaved with actual print samples from different sources. This uncommon issue contains the first appearance of M.C. Gaines' "Narrative Illustration: The Story of the Comics," which was published as a standalone piece shortly after the release of this journal. The article comprises 15 pages of text with black & white illustrations, as well as two full-color insert examples on newsprint of comic book stories published by Gaines ("The Minute Man Answers the Call" and "The Story of Jonah and the Whale"). The feature concludes with a B&W reproduction of the cover of All-American's Wonder Woman #1 (Summer, 1942), released contemporaneously with this journal, making this almost certainly the first non-comic book appearance of the character ("The new book is devoted entirely to hitherto unpublished episodes in the career of a daring, death-defying heroine named Wonder Woman.") Comic books were a fairly new innovation at the time of this journal's release, and Gaines is eager to advance the fledgling medium's reputation by claiming lofty antecedents for the artform ("It seems that Little Orphan Annie isn't an orphan after all. Her ancestors include the Sumerian army men whose exploits are celebrated in tablets long buried under desert sands, and Nile women of far-off centuries whose daily lives are enshrined in ancient picture tale.") Gaines goes on to invoke Japanese Kôzanji scrolls of the 11th century and the caricatures of Hogarth, Daumier, and Doré before pivoting to Rodolphe Toepffler's "Max und Moritz" and thence to Outcault's Yellow Kid and his four-color progeny. Perhaps responding to Sterling North's seminal anti-comics article "A National Disgrace" (Chicago Daily News, May 8, 1940) and Paul Witty's "Those Troublesome Comics" (National Parent-Teacher magazine, January, 1942), Gaines addresses the incipient charges that would eventually prove to be the comics industry's undoing by offering the following bit of fol-de-rol: "The comics may be said to offer the same type of mental catharsis to its readers that Aristotle claimed was an attribute of the drama.... Well-balanced children are not upset by even the more horrible scenes in the comics as long as the reason for the threat of torture is clear and the issues are well stated." Gaines concludes his panegyric with an admission of the propaganda and mass-manipulation potential of comic books ("Their method of approach has been recognized and adapted to purposes of propaganda and advertising"), and admits to aesthetic shortfalls while optimistically positing future greatness for the medium—a promise that his son would fulfill, ironically, by violating his father's publishing strictures ("Perhaps the next chapter in their history will record how beauty, in layout and design, was heightened without estranging the people who loved them as they were.") A limited edition of 100 softcover and 15 hardcover catalogues are available. Over 200 pages, fully illustrated. Fun reference, great keepsake. Softcovers $40, dust-jacketed hardcover with limitation plate $200. To order, contact ivan@pbagalleries.com or visit: https://www.pbagalleries.com/content/comics/. R. Crumb says, "I found [PBA's catalogue]