Thursday, July 30, 2009

"Where Did Groovy Age Comicbooks Come From, Groove?"

Today's comicbooks are printed in lots of different places in lots of different formats. Back during the Groovy Age, most of the major publishers--namely Marvel, DC, Archie, and Harvey--used good old fashioned newsprint and the services of World Color Press. (We'll talk about Charlton and the others when you get older...) World Color Press was so important to the publishing industry that June 18, 1977, was declared "World Color Press Day". Joe Kubert and the students at his aptly named Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art were tapped to create a (-n extremely rare) comicbook tribute called Magazineland, USA to help celebrate the occasion.

"Okay, so World Color Press is where comics came from, but how were they made, Groove?" My, but you're a precocious li'l Groove-ophile today, aren't you? Okay, if you think you're ready for it, here's how World Color Press made your favorite Marvel, DC, Archie, and Harvey comics way back in the Groovy Age...


Pretty far-out, huh? But hey, Ol' Groove doesn't do things half-way, ya know! Here, via YouTube and thanks to DynaPubs, is actual film footage taken on that fateful day at World Color's main plant in Sparta, Ill! Not only can you see first-hand how comics were made, but there's even a little "mini-interview" with the late Phil Seuling, one of the founding fathers of the direct-sales market! Man, do I dig up the stuff for ya or what? Watch, listen, learn, and enjoy, baby!

4 comments:

  1. Wow! Not only have you found something else I've never seen but now it's something I'd never heard of either! Amazing!

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  2. Fantastic! I had never seen this either.

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  3. More than anything else, I love digging up stuff few have seen. I kinda see this blog as a "clearing house" for groovy stuff. Your one-stop place for the Groovy Age!

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  4. Hey Groove, this brought back a ton of memories, I grew up close to Salem and Effingham, and took a tour many years ago,I remember getting this in our local newspaper, I haven't thought of this in years, thank for the memories.

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Special thanks to Mike's Amazing World of Comics and Grand Comics Database for being such fantastic resources for covers, dates, creator info, etc. Thou art treasures true!


Note to "The Man": All images are presumed copyright by the respective copyright holders and are presented here as fair use under applicable laws, man! If you hold the copyright to a work I've posted and would like me to remove it, just drop me an e-mail and it's gone, baby, gone.


All other commentary and insanity copyright GroovyAge, Ltd.

As for the rest of ya, the purpose of this blog is to (re)introduce you to the great comics of the 1970s. If you like what you see, do what I do--go to a comics shop, bookstore, e-Bay or whatever and BUY YOUR OWN!