I've come across something and think it may be a way to determine an early print. Please take a look at all your copies of this and tell me if you find any that doesn't have the "MRS. QUIVER" as the last page. If anyone has a first print, I would be especially interested in hearing from you on this.
Thanks,
P.S. I think Kennedy got much of this one wrong.
Nobody have a 1st print? or one that doesn't have the MRS. QUIVER" page as the last?
you mean MRS. QUIVER" at the last black-white page?
Yes, most of my copies have "MRS. QUIVER" as the interior last page (but not the interior cover), but not all...
I don't have ANY copies at all of Big Ass #1. Since I hold out for first printings, I haven't tried to buy any unless they had the white R.Crumb box on the cover...and I haven't been successful in buying one WITH the white box.
Suspicions confirmed, BA #1 1st and 2nd prints do not have the pages in the same order as the rest. JK's 5th? print is actually the 2nd print.
Just remember, according to AHKUMULATE, the white box (while rare) is not the first. Don't ask me what is, since BRuce won't tell anyone.
Weist stated to a collector that the 5th print was actually a variant or a 1st print. Since I don't have a white box one in hand yet, I can't compare them, so won't state that yet, but will state that a 1st and possible 2nd (or variant of 1st) can be identified by the last interior page.
The White box still goes for a premium whenever it is for sale, so if it's not a first, I'd like to know what is.
Ask Bruce
I sent Bruce an e-mail a week ago, still have not received a response.
lots of luck
Well, since some collectors out there wish to keep the info. secret and others like me like to share the info., I will be posting shortly a lot of updated info. regarding the printings of BA #1. Lots of interesting info. coming shortly but for now, I'm convinced (barring new info.) that the white Crumb box version IS the 1st print.
BA #1 (1st or 2nd print?) White R. Crumb Box with glossy thick stock cover and pages out of order (All Meat Comics last), pants green/brown shoes. (Believed to be the 1st print by J. David Moriaty)
BA #1 (2nd or 1st print?) Red R. Crumb Box with glossy thin stock cover and pages out of order (All Meat Comics last), pants green/brown shoes.
BA #1 (3rd print) Red R. Crumb Box with glossy thin stock cover and pages now in order (All Meat Comics last), pants green/brown shoes.
BA #1 (4th print) Red R. Crumb Box with glossy thin stock cover and pages still in order (All Meat Comics last), pants green/green shoes.
BA #1 (5th or 6th print?) Red R. Crumb Box continues on all later printings, glossy think stock cover and pages order changed (Mrs. Quiver last) and continues through all later printings, pants greenish brown/brown shoes (Probable JK brown/brown). Staple placement variant "A" & "B".
BA #1 (6th or 5th print?) glossy thin stock cover, pants green/green shoes. Staple placement variant "A" & "B".
BA #1 (7th print?) matte cover stock, pants green/green shoes.
BA #1 (8th print?) matte cover stock, pants greenish brown/brown shoes.
BA #1 (9th print) .75 cent cover, pants greenish brown/brown shoes.
BA #1 (10th print) .75 cent cover by Industrial Reality / Keith Green, pants greenish brown/brown shoes.
BA #1 (11th print) $1.00
BA #1 (12th print) $2.50 pants green/green shoes
BA #1 (13th print) $3.95
But someone who may know more stated about the 1st print cover of BA #1 "was done on a one-up of the ROP DD cover printer, and it has a red box". Unless someone wants to explain what a one-up is (as opposed to a four-up) and how to distinguish something printed on the Davidson Duolith cover printer?
If anyone that had this info. and selfishly didn't share it can now bite me, I'm now the first to officially document it and your secret is no longer secret. :01_wtf:
50, you do quite the service and I salute you, sir! .....so is this Bruce guy of previous posts the one you elude to that can bite you? Hard to believe there is someone out there more tenacious than yourself when it comes down to being the "Point Master". Thanks for sharing, as I now believe I have a 2nd that I always thought was a 5th based on Kennedy, at least I'll be pulling it out to check, when I get home this evening.....Oh, and which pages are out of order, the last few or the whole book....it might be something Kennedy mentions but I don't have my guide handy and it's been awhile since I've investigated this book.
Thanks for the Kudos, it's much appreciated
Bruce is "unofficially" (as I guess there is no official) the Ug collector with the biggest collection on Earth as far as I've heard. He's been collecting Ug's for decades and is still doing so, but a bit of a recluse I think. I've e-mailed him a few times without response except for once or twice for very brief responses (the one I recall is asking if he received the package of comix from Dan Florian as he hadn't left feedback in a while regarding it, his response was something like "yes, the package and Dan is top notch and I'm a bit slow with leaving feedback." or something similar. But questions about comics in general or information he might have have gone without response. I believe he's joined this forum, but hasn't posted here so I believe he does lurk around the board to read...
The Kennedy doesn't state anything about pages (only 28) and their order. He also had the 2nd and 3rd print listed only as the 5th print, which makes his 3rd print actually a 4th print and I haven't seen any brown/brown JK 2nd prints and think they may have just been green green variants. Also, he really didn't know the printing as he put ? next to the printings.
The pages out of order are the first page of All Meat Comics coming before the Mrs.Quiver 1 page. The Mrs. Quiver should come on the page before the 3 page All Meat Comics story as in the 3rd and 4th prints. The order on the 5th print and later has the Mrs. Quiver on the last page.
I think Bruce has posted, under tree something. This was a while back however, when I was calling him the Good Doctor from the Midwest.
That was the CPG forum, I copied all his info. and now know why he knew so much. Didn't know he and JK had a falling out long before JK died.
So, 50, the last 4 pages of my copy, not including inside back cover or back cover, are All Meat title page, Mrs. Quiver, all-meat page 2, all-meat 'the end'. The box on my cover is R.Crumb in red. Can you verify then, that my copy is either a 2nd or a 1st per your criteria? As I have no other copy to compare cover stock with, but I have other thin stock covered comics, this one feels a tad thicker, but I could be mis-feeling.....any opinion?
Sounds like it's a 2nd print to me.
Please post a scan of the front and back cover.
I'll scan it next chance I get, as I'm now at work, and may not be able to get to it until sometime tomorrow, but just out of curiosity, is there a specific point on the cover you are looking for, since the key point is the out of order pages on the interior.....you holding back a perhaps relevant piece of info per the cover of this classic, oh wondrous 50????? Eh?
Just trying to figure out if there is an obvious way to tell the difference between a one-up DD and four-up cover...
Well, here are scans of the front cover and rear cover of the Big Ass as promised. Under harsher light, they don't appear that different from the previous scans, but I'll leave it to your eagle eye, 50.....
They're dark, but upon initial inspection it looks like that same as my printing.
Well, it's an old second hand scanner....whadyagonnado?
Note the early printings had the girls face on the lower back cover red.
How does her face look on later printings? BTW, The darkness in my scan is on second glance a pretty accurate depiction of how the book looks when held, could your scanner be brightening the book somehow? I think the dots on the bowtie stick out as slightly more florescent on your scan, and less on mine. It was the point that kept jumping out at me before I scanned it. This really is a toughie when you get down to it, and it seems weird that between 1st and 2nd printing they wouldn't have changed the plates to fix the stories in the rear however Mrs. Quiver may fall. Having MQ as page 2 of All Meat makes no sense even to an acid-head....so why only change the background color of the FC signature without changing the printing plates inside...Could it be some kind of 'state' issue, rather than 'printing' issue or is there another flaw in the interior that hasn't been noticed, that somehow might have been changed before the rear page placement was noticed? This is one fucked-up, nutzoid piece of bidness, indeed!
I don't think it's a different state. The paper with the white box is thick, the rest of the prints aren't. That with the white box and different staple placement to me makes it almost definitely a different printings. That's why I think the white box version is a 1st print, even though I heard that Bruce stated that the 1st print has a red box (Weist sold a copy of the red box print to a collector stating it was a 1st print, but he probably got his info. from Bruce?), but like I said if I don't know how to differentiate between a cover printed on a one-up DD vs. a four-up I won't know for sure. The face gets less brick red and more flesh tone on later printings (I think after they changed the Mrs. Quiver to the last page).
As for why they didn't catch the page order error, who knows but I haven't found anything anywhere that states the page order error was noticed by any collectors until I posted it here a few days ago, so it looks like it was either kept secret by those who knew for almost 40 years (unlikely), or I was the first to discover it AND document it outside the printers after the "2nd" print. Haven't found anywhere where the corrected version vs. the later version was noticed either, and that's odd. You can speculate as well...
Never having had another issue as a point of reference, I always read the Mrs. Quiver interlude, as just that...kind of like an interruption in a Monty Python skit. I thought MQ was somehow part of All-Meat and not a separate story.....probably because I first read Big Ass after I had become used to the Python method of disconnected humor, and assumed undergrounders were playing along with the same types of 'stream of narrative' and Crumb was ahead of the pack. Delusional thinking, perhaps, but a sign of the time as well....and I was 13-14 years old, so what did I know? Amazing, though, that nobody seem to proofread this issue or make any kind of stink....I mean look at Zap 2 Head First, and how that got noted and destroyed almost immediately, and it's totally readable no matter how it looks....just the first corrected mistake that comes to mind. Could the printer's/publishers of Big Ass have left this in on purpose because they just thought it was funnier somehow.....just speculating out loud!
You would have thought JK would have noted the 3 different page orders a decade after it came out also? This wasn't like an obscure Ug title either...
Exactly...was everybody on drugs or something?????
Updated info. we've learned on 05 June 2008.
BA #1 (1st print) Red R. Crumb Box with glossy thin stock cover and pages out of order (All Meat Comics last), pants green/brown shoes.
BA #1 (2nd print) White R. Crumb Box with glossy thick stock cover and pages out of order (All Meat Comics last), pants green/brown shoes.
BA #1 (3rd print) Red R. Crumb Box with glossy thin stock cover and pages now in order (All Meat Comics last), pants green/brown shoes.
BA #1 (4th print) Red R. Crumb Box with glossy thin stock cover and pages still in order (All Meat Comics last), pants green/green shoes.
BA #1 (5th or 6th print?) Red R. Crumb Box continues on all later printings, glossy think stock cover and pages order changed (Mrs. Quiver last) and continues through all later printings, pants greenish brown/brown shoes (Probable JK brown/brown). Staple placement variant "A" & "B".
BA #1 (6th or 5th print?) glossy thin stock cover, pants green/green shoes. Staple placement variant "A" & "B".
BA #1 (7th print?) matte cover stock, pants green/green shoes.
BA #1 (8th print?) matte cover stock, pants greenish brown/brown shoes.
BA #1 (9th print) .75 cent cover, pants greenish brown/brown shoes.
BA #1 (10th print) .75 cent cover by Industrial Reality / Keith Green, pants greenish brown/brown shoes.
BA #1 (11th print) $1.00
BA #1 (12th print) $2.50 pants green/green shoes
BA #1 (13th print) $3.95
How did you come to the conclusion about the order of the 1st and 2nd printings? Why wouldn't the white box cover be assumed to be the first, if red box was continued on the subsequent printings? Somehow white....red...red..red makes more sense then red...white...red...red...red. Did you glean some new info? Do dish please...though it does appear that the scans I posted earlier mean I now have a 1st printing according to you. I just want to know why....dammit!
Because I have the original uncut press sheets, and the red box is on the Davidson single, the white box appears on the Ebco reprint.
jdave
Quote from: wpbooks on June 06, 2008, 12:52:14 PM
How did you come to the conclusion about the order of the 1st and 2nd printings? Why wouldn't the white box cover be assumed to be the first, if red box was continued on the subsequent printings? Somehow white....red...red..red makes more sense then red...white...red...red...red. Did you glean some new info? Do dish please...though it does appear that the scans I posted earlier mean I now have a 1st printing according to you. I just want to know why....dammit!
J. David Moriaty has been posting in the Big Ass #2 thread, if anyone knows he would...
Quote from: human on June 06, 2008, 01:05:24 PM
Because I have the original uncut press sheets, and the red box is on the Davidson single, the white box appears on the Ebco reprint.
jdave
So, now I'd like to know, since you were there, did you guys put these points in to actually differentiate the printings on purpose, or were all these details just overlooked mistakes that got past you....and I'm talking about in general, not just the Big Ass #1?
Is it possible that you all were book collectors and felt that what you were printing was akin to book publishing and that there might be collectors or enthusiasts in the future who might be curious as what constitutes a first printing vs. later printings, editions, etc. I know that your primary objective was to print, distribute and sell product, but most publishers of books have a way of designating first and subsequent printings and I guess I'm just wondering how much if any of this data was thought out in advance if at all. Thanks for posting to this forum, as well, as you've made my day now that my BA1 has gone from a Kennedy 5th or so to a bonifide 1st. I'm loving your input....now I have to drag out my FB1 and check it for your details.
So here is the scan of the front and back cover of Big Ass #1 (1st print) from J. David Moriaty.
J. David, do you remember what the page order was in the first print? I also cannot tell from the scan whether this was a glossy thick or thin stock cover. Thanks!
Glossy 70# C2S. What's confusing y'all is at one time we scored an entire skid of matte finish cover, what a deal! The artists didn't like it, the ink was glossy but the paper was not and they wanted everything to look like letterpress EC's.
We started Rip Off Press by throwing in $35 apiece as a down payment on a $1000.00 used press (the Printer's Exchange said we got credit cause all 4 were college graduates; what they meant was college grads wouldn't know a piece of junk when they saw it); we raised another $50 among the 4 of us for film, ink and plates. (add a zero to get today's money; $35 was my share of the apartment, bills paid)
So why all the mistakes? We were learning to print on equipment never designed to do that kind of printing. We were investing every dime back into the company, which went from a loft to a 10,000 sqft building publishing and distributing 85 titles of millions of books worldwide in just 5 years, all with bootstrap capitalism, no rich mothers, no trust funds, no venture capitalists, no IPOs. You think we had time to organize?
Do you remember whether the page orders were correct in the first print & the errors later or vice versa? You should put together something in writing about this whole undeground comix thing before the swiss cheese develops more holes. BTW we all appreciate you sharing your knowledge here at the forum.
Wouldn't J. Dave be the guy to ask about the Motor City Comic #1 (1st print) with the Bob Sidebottoms insert, Dr_S? Also, We've seen copies of Motor City Comics #1 with and without the yellow layer on on the road on the cover, any info. on this?
http://headcomix.info/forum/index.php/topic,689.0.html
QuoteWe started Rip Off Press by throwing in $35 apiece as a down payment on a $1000.00 used press (the Printer's Exchange said we got credit cause all 4 were college graduates; what they meant was college grads wouldn't know a piece of junk when they saw it); we raised another $50 among the 4 of us for film, ink and plates. (add a zero to get today's money; $35 was my share of the apartment, bills paid)
Don't lie to
me Dave.
I don't know what yer trying to pull,
Maybe you're trying to scam the IRS.
But you can't fool
me.You wasn't as poor as yer pretending,
I got yer ski-matics right here:
Ah...
You know i was just making a joke, right?
JDave?...
Looked like a joke to me.(https://headcomix.info/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg463.imageshack.us%2Fimg463%2F6357%2Fhuh4lc.gif&hash=4380adc86ae5f3c03f073ce727d32ed7da144087)
Quote from: Sir Real on June 19, 2008, 09:13:16 PM
Looked like a joke to me.(https://headcomix.info/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg463.imageshack.us%2Fimg463%2F6357%2Fhuh4lc.gif&hash=4380adc86ae5f3c03f073ce727d32ed7da144087)
I also noticed ProJunior hasn't been back since he made this post:
QuoteQuote from: Sir Real on June 06, 2008, 01:13:03 PM
It ain't bragging if it's truth.
No, that's not what I meant. For one thing, nobody really KNOWS if it's the truth or not. Secondly, I figured that the members of this list had by now outgrown their macho posturing phase. Guess not all have.
-Projr.
Dang. My macho posturing phrase worked too well.
Quote from: Comix Junky on June 19, 2008, 08:33:23 PM
Ah...
You know i was just making a joke, right?
JDave?...
I don't think he was offended, I just don't think this is his thing. He probably sees this a a bit of a waist of time and unnecessary and has better things to do, or that's the impression I got from his e-mails. I appreciate what he has informed us of so far though...