The "Magic" of Books

I have a confession. 

For a long time I've been haunted by a gift. And before you start trying to recall what you got me for the Holidays, I want to ease your worry and assure you that it's not a material possession I fear, but a being possessed! And that being...is me. 

Kra-ka-da-booooooooom!

A couple years ago I was bitten by a demonic book and given an extraordinary power. If I focus all of my energies on a damage, unsalable book, I can change said book into a more pleasing item. Allow me to demonstrate:

Amazing, right? Hmph. You don't know anything about "curses." That's right, curse. I mean, if you were given a magic power and the only thing you could do with it was change old, ratty books into things that you could blog about, what would you call that? Laughable? That's what they called my "gift" last year at the 2011 International Wizard/Warlock Meet-Up and Rummage Sale. There are people there that can telepathically communicate with animals. I can change books into things. No, scratch that. I can turn books into pieces of ephemera and ONLY if I blog about them. It's such a tease, and it impresses no one. 

No one. 

Hmph. Well, anyway...

The Erlanger Theatre exists no more but for a long time served as Buffalo's only professional theatre. Everything I'd be able to tell you about it's history has already been told (and done so much better) here, so, go ahead, I'll wait if you want to read up on it and come back. Done? Pretty interesting, eh? Especially that part about Erlanger being abducted by aliens. 

The playbill I found is from November 1931, and it features Maude Adams & Otis Skinner in "The Merchant of Venice." It's full of great, local ads and it even has articles (that relate to products) like "Is Plastic Surgery New?," "Are You Hat Conscious?," and "Murdocke of London Says--." There's also a little promo in the back that announces the Ziegfeld Follies as a coming attraction. 

My Prices Are So Low...It's Criminal!

"Alright, ya dope, tell me where all the deals are before I plugs ya!"

Guns and shoes, shoes and guns. They go together like toast and jam. Honestly, I can't think of a way to ask Mom for a new pair of kicks without glorifying firearms. Maybe it's my country upbringing?

I believe this paper gun, at one time, had a paper trigger which caused a paper George Washington (I am really not kidding right now) to pop out of the barrel and make a snapping sound. Jeezy Creeze, this is far too funny. "Unamerican?! Son, I'll have you know I load my gun with bullets resembling our first President!" What could be more patriotic than that? Wait, wait, don't think about it. Your brain will start screaming that it's finally had enough. The answer is: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Little boys love guns and George Washington. That's all you need to know.

Don't Spend It All In One Place

"Ah, man. Are these the new hundreds? Lame."

Money, Money, Money, Mah-nay! Mah-naaaaaay!

Yeah, relax. This treasury note is worth about as much as The Death of Superman Comic (zing! nerd joke). It's a reproduction note that's made to look old. If it was real it wouldn't have those margins...and say "copy" at the bottom right. That's fairly glaring.

Still, I got a little excited when I found it. It was tucked away inside an older Civil War book (which, I'm positive, added to said excitement) and when you're used to finding news clippings, subscription cards, and Borders bookmarks, anything with a slight variance can send even the most even keeled of men into an unabashed frenzy. Can anyone say "easily excitable?" I can't. I don't know the meaning of the words.

What's interesting about this reproduction is that there was supposedly a need to make the reproduction. Is it possible that the want to collect Virginia Treasury Notes became so great that it warranted the printing of cheap look-a-likes? It's doubtful. If I had to guess, I'd say that this note (and others like it) was sold off the impulse rack at the local Civil War gift shop. It's an item that's aimed at a certain group and not mass marketed to the general population. Your local big box chain will only sell these if they're printed on a pencil. Similarly, you may also find these at Historical Societies, coin shops, and on the interwebs.

Or in old books, I suppose.

A Little Bit of Non-Fiction Relating To That Which Is Considered Pulp Fiction

"Two Complete Science-Adventure Books." Why waste time being unnecessarily vague when you can tell people exactly what they're getting within the title? Do you like Science? How about Adventure? Well, you should check out this title.

Pulps are wonderful finds for a number of different reasons; pulp art is, in my humblest of opinions, one of the main reasons why these publications remain so popular. Like penny dreadfuls (great name, right? LOVE it!), dime novels, and pre-code comic books, these periodicals were not made to be kept. For ten to twenty-five cents you could purchase, read, and then dispose of said magazine before the elements did it for you. Pulps were so named because of the quality of paper they were printed on. They tanned very easily, came shoddily cut, and went brittle within a couple of years.
     Many of the stories used had been or were also printed elsewhere. The Time Machine (Hey, wasn't that a muh-muh-movie?) was published almost fifty years before this pulp hit the newsstands, so the text was already more common than, say, the artwork. Each time a publishing company circulated a story, they employed an artist to paint a new cover for it. Spice it up, you know? It's so much easier to sell the same story over and over and over if you supplement it with new imagery. Comic book fans have fallen prey to this hundreds of times. Why do you think they reprint the same comic book a dozen times--the same month it comes out--with a dozen different cover images? Because they're jerks. Greedy jerks. Because it's easier to sell multiples of the same thing when the art is different. And they've got to do something because they've ruined their own collector's market by flooding said market with overpriced garbage.

Vintage Pulps, even in Fair or Poor condition, fascinate me because they're not supposed to still exist. They were made to be thrown away, and that makes them truly collectible.

Side Note: Stay tuned for my newest comic book creation: Penny Dreadful. A comic book that will never feature multiple covers for the same issue.