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Author: Gaines, Maxwell Charles
Title: GOOD TRIUMPHS OVER EVIL! More About the Comics [No Number]
Place Published:
Publisher:E.C. Comics
Date Published: 1943
Description: CGC certified: F/VF (7.0). Grader's notes: "Light bends to cover; light foxing to cover." White pages. Provenance: The DC UNIVERSE COLLECTION.

GPAnalysis: Only one reported sale in any grade: a 6.0 sold for $482 in 3/21.

Overstreet: "Rare. nn — A pamphlet, sequel to Narrative Illustration. NOTE: Print, A Quarterly Journal of the Graphic Arts Vol. 3 No. 3 (64 pg. square bound) features 1st printing of Good Triumphs Over Evil! A VG copy sold for $350 in 2005." CGC Census: 5 graded copies (5 Universal, none Restored); this is the 3rd highest-graded. Gerber's Photo-Journal Guide Scarcity Index: Not listed.

Credits: M.C. Gaines.How the Magic is Made: All-American Comics-cum-EC founder Max Gaines, apparently pleased with the response to his previous piece of comics boosterism, Narrative Illustration: The Story of Comics, followed it up with another think piece promoting funnybooks, an entertainment medium which he considered "to be just as important as vitamins in the daily diets of American boys and girls."

This time around, Gaines focuses on the process of creating comic books, "behind each issue of which lies more than one thousand hours of creative time and productive effort, or approximately half a year of forty-hour working weeks." Gaines describes the various steps involved in manufacturing these gaudy newsprint pamphlets, from editorial conferences ("in which a dozen ideas are killed that one may survive"), to scripting, editing and rewriting ("the writing of a single thirteen-page lead feature... may consume more than a week of the author's creative time"), to penciling ("There is nothing simple or slap-dash about the artwork in today's carefully edited comic magazine"), to "lettering in the balloons and other text.... a time-consuming operation of hand work, substantially slower than setting type by hand," to inking, engraving, coloring, presswork, binding, and distribution.

Max Gaines was a clear and lucid writer, and his excellent descriptions are accompanied by photos of a Wonder Woman splash page in various stages of completion; staffers at an engraving plant applying color separations to acetate films; a four-color rotary press cranking out funnybooks "at the rate of 14,000 per hour"; and a lady operating a "special machine" designed to "fold, stitch, trim, and count the completed comic magazines ready to put into cartons, carried on a conveyor, ready for shipping." Anyone interested in the mechanics of how Golden Age comics were put together and marketed will find this offprint fascinating, and fans accustomed to thinking of Max Gaines as a feckless rube who blew his chance to publish Superman may find themselves surprised by the depths of his devotion to the medium he helped to create.****************************************
The DC UNIVERSE COLLECTION comprises over 40,000 comic books, encompassing every single DC comic published for retail sale from 1934 to 2014. The collection was amassed by British music producer Ian Levine over the course of several decades, and it's been hailed as the single greatest collecting accomplishment in comic book history. This collection served as the basis for former DC Comics president Paul Levitz's monumental book 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking, published by Taschen in 2017. PBA is proud to present this epic collection in a series of themed sales, including The DC UNIVERSE COLLECTION Part 3: The GOLDEN AGE, coming this summer. To join the DC Universe Collection notifications list, contact pba@pbagalleries.com.

Enjoying PBA's DC Universe Collection: Pre-Hero, Ashcans and Oddities sale? A very small number of softcover and limited edition hardcover auction catalogues are available for purchase. The catalogues are fully illustrated, thoroughly researched, and make excellent reference works for DC diehards. To order a copy, or to inquire about consignment opportunities, contact Ivan Briggs, PBA's Director of Comics: ivan@pbagalleries.com.