Some comic books are art objects and some are evidence. This one is evidence.
In pencil, across the upper left field of the cover, a child named Herbie wrote his name. Just below it, in a different hand, someone later marked what appears to be a price — "$7.50" or "7050," depending on how you read the smudge — likely the moment Herbie's copy left Herbie's possession and entered a second life as merchandise. The cover, by Fawcett's bullpen, catches the Flying Detective duo mid-leap above a horizon of smoke and falling ordnance: the era's anxieties translated into pulp imagery so direct it almost reads as illustration of a headline.
The Mighty Midget Comics were Samuel E. Lowe & Co.'s pocket-sized wartime line, produced under Fawcett license and circulated through retailers like The Big Store Co., whose merchant overprint and War Bonds stamp remain on the rear cover. Thirty-four pages inside. The book is, in the language of the grading scale, a low-grade reading copy — chipping along the spine-side margin, paper loss at the bottom of the spine, a tape repair on the rear. But provenance evidence on a 1942 premium giveaway is the inverse of damage: it is the record of the book having done its job.
For the collector who values the human history of an object over its sealed perfection. Estimated raw FAIR to GD.
Complete, unrestored, original wraps.
Part of a trio of Mighty Midget #11 issues from the same wartime giveaway run — see also the Captain Marvel Jr. and Ibis the Invincible copies.
Some comic books are art objects and some are evidence. This one is evidence.
In pencil, across the upper left field of the cover, a child named Herbie wrote his name. Just below it, in a different hand, someone later marked what appears to be a price — "$7.50" or "7050," depending on how you read the smudge — likely the moment Herbie's copy left Herbie's possession and entered a second life as merchandise. The cover, by Fawcett's bullpen, catches the Flying Detective duo mid-leap above a horizon of smoke and falling ordnance: the era's anxieties translated into pulp imagery so direct it almost reads as illustration of a headline.
The Mighty Midget Comics were Samuel E. Lowe & Co.'s pocket-sized wartime line, produced under Fawcett license and circulated through retailers like The Big Store Co., whose merchant overprint and War Bonds stamp remain on the rear cover. Thirty-four pages inside. The book is, in the language of the grading scale, a low-grade reading copy — chipping along the spine-side margin, paper loss at the bottom of the spine, a tape repair on the rear. But provenance evidence on a 1942 premium giveaway is the inverse of damage: it is the record of the book having done its job.
For the collector who values the human history of an object over its sealed perfection. Estimated raw FAIR to GD.
Complete, unrestored, original wraps.
Part of a trio of Mighty Midget #11 issues from the same wartime giveaway run — see also the Captain Marvel Jr. and Ibis the Invincible copies.
