All in Color for a Dime

by Dick Lupoff (Editor), Don Thompson, Harlan Ellison

First edition. A history of the comic book. Illustrated with some in color. Jacket chipped. 263 pages. cloth, dust jacket.. 8vo..

Genres: Comics, History, Nonfiction, Essays, Pop Culture, Comic Book, Reference

255 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

Reviews

[Jill Hutchinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, how I loved my comic books when I was a kid. I had a shelf dedicated to them and would read and trade with all my friends. Looking back, I surely wish I had some of them now since collectors have made certain editions of them very valuable. But they were valuable to me even then for the adventure of the costumed super-heroes and their sidekicks.

This short little book is 50 years old and the articles it contains were written as the Golden Age of Comics had ended and the Silver Age was soon to begin. There are 17 short essays written by men who were involved in the comic book trade from the 1930-1950s and know of what they speak. or rather write.

Some of the characters that lived in the pages of comic books are still with us (Superman, Batman) while others have long since been retired and pretty much forgotten (Captain Marvel, Plastic Man, Daredevil). Characters from the comic strips in newspapers also moved into the books as well as some of radio's favorites such as The Shadow. During WWII, characters arose such as Spy Snatcher, Boy Commandos, and Young Allies but they disappeared at the end of the war.

There is a cult following of serious collectors for those long forgotten heroes and this is just the kind of book that they probably already have. It is also a joy to read if you loved your comic books as a youngster.....but remember, if you read the series called "Classic Comics" which were based on literature rather than super heroes, then you were a wimp.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the dark days before the Internet, genre fans often shared ideas and concepts through fanzines. Beginning with the first issue the Hugo-winning Xero (1960-1963), comics played a central role with the regular column "All in Color for a Dime," featuring an extraordinary cast of rotating writers. Lupoff (who co-edited Xero) and Thompson selected eleven pieces for inclusion in All in Color for a Dime. Highlights from the entertaining book include Ted White on M.C. Gaines, Lupoff covering Captain Marvel, Roy Thomas recounting the Fawcett stable of heroes, Ron Goulart revealing lesser-known, second tier heroes, and Harlan Ellison showcasing George Carlson.

Thanks at least partially to these writings, the popular conception of comic books within the science fiction community began to change from contempt to at least a grudging acknowledgment. Open enjoyment and acceptance of the medium would have to wait another 30 years until the arrival of Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman, et al.

[Wt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was the foundation for my lifelong pursuit of all things comics (especially early fanzines). The stories told and the history behind so many great comic books, companies and creators is something that if done well, can ignite a fire in your soul, and this book did just that!
In fact, I remember buying this for my dad's birthday in the early 70's. Not because he was into comics, but because it fascinated me (especially the pictures). And while I know it was wrong, that book has become one of my prized possessions 40 years later!

[Printable Tire]

(Goodreads is really making it hard to write a review without giving a star rating now, but I don't care!)

Reading an old issue of Alter Ego dovetailed into my borrowing this book from the library. Dunno why it's so therapeutic to read the plot synopsis of old comic books, but it is. In fact, it's probably more enjoyable than trying to read the comics themselves. I also don't know what separates reading this book from just going down a rabbit hole on Wikipedia- I guess sometimes the writing is better, or at least more snide, here.

I think my favorite essay is the one by Bill Blackbeard on Popeye. It's all over the place but has nice nostalgic moments for reminding how hard it used to be to get one's hands on pop culture ephemera:

The central library in every sizable American city maintains a file of back copies of the local papers and often some major out-of-town journals. These vary, depending on the finances available to the library in past decades, from sad, tied monthly bundles of folded papers, yellowed and crumbling and ready to split down the creases when unfolded, through the more usual twenty-pound, bound volumes of papers, to the recent innovation of monthly microfilm reels of entire runs of papers (with available viewing apparatus) on file in a periodical room.

All of this may sound like a bonanza to the comic strip reader and researcher, but it is not. It is very difficult to locate complete runs of Popeye. From 1919, when the strip began, to the mid-thirties, the strip ran almost exclusively in Hearst papers. It takes a great deal of effort to locate a city with a source and, once you do (if you do), you will eventually exceed the patience and good nature of the library clerks.

(I can actually remember as a kid looking up old comic strips in the library on microfilm)

There's also a good essay on Kid Gangs:

Another lighter-side kid gang was composed of Herlock Dolmes, who fancied himself the world's greatest young sleuth and wore a long checkered coat and deerstalker cap; boy inventor Ulysses Q. Wacky; Trouble, a jinxed boy whose real name—which must have been part of the jinx-was Wilferd Berlad; and Roxy Adams, self- styled “girl guerilla.”Leader of the gang was Koppy McFad, alias Supersnipe, "the boy with the most comic books in America."

The only really rotten "essay" is the one by Harlan Ellison. All it is him describing the plot of an absurdist comic, which is about as interesting as somebody describing what happened in a Three Stooges film. Some things are better off experienced.

There were much more, but here are a couple random factoids I discovered over the course of reading this book:
-Popeye originally got his powers by rubbing the head of a Whiffle Hen.
-There were Captain America comics in the 50's and briefly a comic called Captain America's Weird Tales
-There was a crappy 1960s cartoon called Super President
-There was a crappy superhero named Vapo-Man
-Johnny Quick's Speed Equation is 3x2(9yz)4a.

[Brad · Rating 4 out of 5]

I second Chuck's thoughts on this. I read it a long time ago, before I was even aware that Steranko had anything out. It gave me an appreciation for the reprints that were common at the time.

[Chuck · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book started a life long love affair with Comics and pop culture. It's really a collection of essays about Golden Age comics characters from some of the industry's most recognizable names of the day.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

YES YES YES
the book that got me interest in comics history

[Phillip Fuller · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is for the hardcore fan of the golden age of comics but if you are not one it will be boring. The essays in this book are by adults who grew up in the golden age period of the 1940s whose love of them is fueled by nostalgia. In the comic book buyers guide I used to read before it folded there is time in a childhood when media you consume is regarded as golden memories and brings a warm feeling of nostalgia. It is nostalgia that informs this book as the essayists recall superman, comic strip inspired movie serials, the original captain marvel, and other characters of their youth. To a non fan you will cringe at the racial stereotypes, the primitive artwork, and outdated references.

[C. John Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is not a history of the comic book in the strictest sense of the term. It is rather a collection of essays each of which deals with a particular topic with each essay being written by a different author (all of them well-known, at least to SF and/or comic fans). Most of the essays deal with comic books as such, however there are two that don't. One deals with the Thimble Theatre comic strip, which is where Popeye initially appeared. That essay leaves this person wanting to read at least one specific storyline. The second one deals with those movie serials which were based on comic strips.
The other essays cover a wide variety of topics including Planet Comics, The Justice Society of America, Timely's heroes and Captain Marvel among others. A special delight is Ron Goulart's article on some of the lesser known super-heroes of the Golden Age. The title of the book is from a series of essays that originally appeared in the fanzine Xero. However, as the editors make clear, this book is not a simple reprinting of those essays. Where an essay was retained it has been re-written by the author, other essays were not retained for various reasons, and new ones have been added. If you have an interest in comics in general or particularly in the Golden Age (the 1940s) then you should find this book worthwhile. I have reread it several times (in fact my copy is falling apart) and never cease to find it informative and entertaining.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this back in the mid 1970s. It’s considered something of a classic. When a friend ran across this copy and thought it looked like something I’d like, I decided to give it another read 45 years later.
The perspective is very interesting. Published in 1970, it’s a series of short essays on the wonders of comic’s Golden Age of the 30s and 40s. These writers, all boys during the Golden Age, ooh and ahh over their faves, but have little good to say about the Silver Age of the 1960s. Pretty amusing from the perspective of 2020.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent early survey of comics history and fandom with nostalgic articles from some of the pioneers of the genre.

[Rob Neyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who knew "Popeye" was such a brilliant strip????

[Desmond Killian · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite essay in this collection had to be Bill Blackbeard's The First (Arf, Arf!) Superhero of Them All, a tribute to E.C. Segar's original Popeye strip, Thimble Theatre. "He is no paranoid daydream, but a realistic, complex, often wrong but determined man of action who suffers continual agonies of decision, who pursues what he believes to be right far beyond the bounds of cop-interpreted law and order, who has to fight his way to comprehensibility through the warp and woof of an English language that is often almost too much for him." Beautiful stuff.

Most of the other essays are vague recollections of 30s/40s/50s war/superhero/kid gang comics. The best of this crop is Don Thompson's OK Axis, Here We Come! in which Thompson recounts how baffling the Timely proto-Marvel World War II offerings were. "In the course of that battle in Human Torch #5, an army of British soldiers drowned, Gibraltar was captured by Namor, the Italian army was wiped out, Africa was flooded, the polar ice cap was melted sending glaciers over Europe and North America, a tidal wave hit New York City but was stopped by a stream of lava which turned it to steam (not a great improvement), and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was shown reading a copy of Marvel Mystery Comics."

A Swell Bunch of Guys by Jim Harmon isn't quite as good as either of the above essays, but it does have one noteworthy quote. "'They would,' the Flash agrees, 'but since we're all here, somebody's got to look after things and protect people...' As anybody who reads comic books must know, that somebody certainly wouldn't be the police."

Goodreads uses the cover of the hardcover edition for this listing but I've got the paperback. It has an insert with full-color illustrations of some of the old-timey comics mentioned in this volume. All in all this made for a really informative look back at early comic book fandom.

[Mark Schlatter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is in my collection of comics scholarship books, and I plan to keep it, even though it's much more a work of appreciation than a work of criticism. For the most part, the book features fans and authors with good writing skills remembering the comics of the 1930's, 40's, and 50's with a great deal of personal observation. (Mind you, for some of these topics, say Fiction House comics or the "boy gang" genre, the current reader will have little enough exposure that personal observations serve the exposition well.)

One major issue is that, having been written in the 1960's in the absence of the internet, well-stocked comic book stores, and copious reprints, the authors spend a great amount of time on synopsis: what happened to what characters in what issues. It was necessary at the time (how else could you know what was in those pamphlets?), but it makes for somewhat boring reading now.

If you want to dip into the anthology, I suggest the essays by Ted White (which summarizes well the advent of Superman and Batman) and Dick Lupoff (which is a wonderful appreciation of the original Captain Marvel and a good historical account of his popularity).