The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics
Originally uploaded by Ape Lad.
I found this on abebooks.com for around $10, including shipping. It is amazingly beautiful in several respects:
First of all, it's huge. I should have included a nickel for scale in this photo, cuz it's about 14 inches high.
There are over 300 pages packed full of vintage comics up through about the 50's. Sometimes entire story arcs are included.
Elzie Segar, George Herriman, Fontaine Fox, George Herriman, John Held Jr, Frank King, George Herriman, George Storm, Bud Fisher, George Herriman (did I mention him already?).
The reproduction quality is beautiful. I've not seen anything like it, and I have read lots of books about old comics over the years (the first book I ever checked out of a public library was about Rube Goldberg. I was 6.)
Each page is a reminder of what is so very wrong with the comics pages nowadays. Well maybe not so much the last dozen pages or so. There's a bit of modern stuff, but nothing past 1978 when this was published.
So, to borrow a line from Krusty the Klown, if you find a better enormous book about comics from the early 20th century with amazing content and beautiful reproduction quality, YOU BUY IT!
