CSotD: Looking back
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Gocomics has just launched "Origins of the Sunday Comics," and I guess the best way to explain it is to reprint their explanation:
This series will present the earliest offerings—from 1895 to 1915—of the
famous and lesser-known cartoonists who where there when comics were
born—over 150 creations from more then 50 superb artists, most
reproduced here for the first time in over 100 years. Based on the new
book from Sunday Press: "Society is Nix, Gleeful Anarchy at the Dawn of the American Comic Strip" — a 152-page volume reprinting these Sundays in their original broadsheet size. … Sunday Press Presents will feature more classic comic strips at GoComics. Coming soon: "The Complete Little Nemo in Slumberland."
This is particularly good news for me, because I love this stuff, but the full-size print volumes are a bit beyond my budget. If you, by contrast, are in a position to pop a C-note for a book, I hope you'll follow the link and support their efforts, and even moreso if you use this link, which would help support mine, too, though this not-quite-released volume isn't at Amazon yet.
Let me just note that, while I can't afford the books, I can certainly afford $11.88 for a Gocomics subscription.
If, on the other hand, you're not simply strapped for cash but a genuine cheapskate, you can subscribe to Gocomics for free.
Just as you can stand and listen to a street musician for as long as you like without ever being required to toss a quarter into his guitar case. Your applause is all the thanks he needs!
And anyway — your pop-up blocker aside — while subscribing spares you the advertising, this old-but-not-yet-vintage Kevin and Kell points out that there are wonderful profits to be made by giving people free access and paying for it with on-line ads.
King Features doesn't have that much faith in pop-ups, though, and, while you can find a lot of their current offerings for free at various spots around the web, and their archivist blogs on a free site, you have to pony up (gasp!) $19.99 a year to access their offerings of vintage strips:
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith
(Someone is going to point out that paying to look at these vintage strips won't help the artists. Quite right. Just as paying admission at the Art Institute of Chicago won't put a nickel in Mary Cassatt's pocket or buy a cup of coffee for Edward Hopper. And that guy on the street is going to play his music whether you toss a quarter in his guitar case or not. Mox nix. Somebody will keep it all going.)
(I'm pretty sure.)
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