This week I have a special bonus-size column. Many of you know that a while back I authored Gemstone Publishing’s guide to Big Little Books, The Big Big Little Book Book: An Overstreet Photo-Journal Guide. One of the men who offered invaluable support and insight into the history of those little tomes is none other than Larry Lowery, President of the Big Little Book Club. Lowery is an award-winning professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of multiple articles and books, but to the pop culture collecting world, Lowery is well known and has a renowned authority on the history of Big Little Books. His new book, The Golden Age of Big Little Books, 1932-1938, chronicles perhaps the most important era for that format. I talked with Lowery about the book for Scoop and this column:
Scoop: Where did your passion for Big Little Books begin?
Lowery: The passion came over me twice. When I was about 6 or 7 in the 1930s, I received my first BLB, Mickey Mouse in the BlaggardCastle. The story line and captioned pictures were so great I went after other MM BLBs and in doing so discovered other interesting characters. My stash built to about 50 books. Kids in the neighborhood would borrow my books and some were into trading BLBs. The passion was dormant from high school to the summer of 1980 when I attended a book fair. At one table, 32 BLBs were sitting face up and I was surprised that none of them were seen by me when I was a kid. I asked the seller how many BLBs were ever published. The seller did not know, so I bought the 32 books for about $2 each and began to seek an answer. I asked every seller of BLBs that I could find and discovered that the history and knowledge about them had been lost. Since I am a researcher, I decided to reconstruct the history and identify as many details about the books as I could - so my new passion involved interviewing old timers who had worked at Whitman, examining the remains of tattered Whitman archives, and so on. This second passion has not died down.
Scoop: Tell us a bit about your website biglittlebooks.com and ongoing research into the format.
Lowery: In the late 1990s I designed a website to provide information to others who might be interested in BLBs. It is a website to be informational and fun to explore. For example, there are gems to be discovered - quite a few BLBs were derived from radio programs - each of those BLBs are highlighted in a listing of all BLBs, and if a viewer clicks on a highlighted title, the BLB will show up with a radio beside it. The radio can be turned on and the viewer can listen to the intro to the radio program. The website includes information on all the competing publishers with similar books and includes info on how to grade and preserve/protect BLBs. A section of the site lists hundreds of BLBs for sale, a list that is upgraded every two months. The site is kept up to date with current discoveries related to the books.
Scoop: What does your new book have to offer?
Lowery: The Golden Age of Big Little Books, 1932-1938 is a complete reference guide for collectors, researchers and nostalgic old-timers who remember the books. All the Whitman BLB covers are presented full size and in full color. Each title is described in detail - author, artist, variations in printings, publisher's number and information about the content and development for each book. Publishers competing with Whitman are included: Dell, Engel-van Wiseman, Goldsmith, Lynn, McLoughlin, Saalfield and World Syndicate. All the Whitman peripherals - puzzles, premiums, cards, box sets, Big Big Books, Nickel Books - are pictured and described in detail. An introduction tells the history of Western and Whitman Publishing Companies and demonstrates how to collect, grade and preserve the books. An appendix provides a complete listing of all BLBs and related items from 1932 through 2007.
Scoop: What led you to begin work on this specific book?
Lowery: The book came about because of the massive amount of researched information that I had gathered from 1980 to the present time. I thought that the information should not be lost and one of the best ways to preserve knowledge is to put it in a book. At first I was going to do a book on all the BLBs, but the quantity of info was too much, so I decided to start with the earliest ones, which are actually the most interesting from an historical perspective because it was a time of experimentation with different formats being tried and many spin-offs being created for radio premiums, store giveaways, puzzles, etc.
Scoop: Were there any new discoveries during the compilation of this book?
Lowery: Yes! I've learned that when a book is finished, new things get discovered that you wish you had put into the book. My book is self-published (the books are printed one-at-a-time) so that I can correct, make changes, and add new information continually. Some of the discoveries made while the book was at press are: detailed information about the authors of the Joe Louis andTwo-Gun Montana BLBs; archival info about the Tarzan reprint in the DellFamous Features Stories comic; new titles of foreign editions in Brazil and Argentina.
Scoop: Were there any obstacles?
Lowery: Some. The current owner of Western/Whitman archives sold off many researchable items and the correspondence archives have deteriorated through lack of care. Early obstacles in the 1980s tended to be the tracking down of authors (e.g. Margaret Sutton, Gaylord du Bois), artists (Henry Vallely), and others (Samuel Lowe's surviving family members) and interviewing them. Much knowledge was gained by talking with people who actually worked as free-lancers at Whitman.
Scoop: Do you think the BLB format could still be a viable one today or has its time past?
Lowery: There is something intriguing about those thick, stubby, little books. Smaller, similar books sell well today, but the BLB size is probably a thing of the past. They are very expensive to produce and the modern stories lack the characterizations that were developing in the 30s - Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon - and the tie-ins to movies and radio. Today's BLBs, like the Chronicle Books series that contain current movie-related stories, have lost the joy of reading about something. The old BLBs, even the badly written ones, always had a fun aspect to them.
Scoop: Why do you think the format continues to have such a nostalgic pull for so many people?
Lowery: The first BLB in 1932 was not the first in the BLB format. What happened in 1932 is that Whitman began to license comic characters, most notably Mickey Mouse, and initiated a distribution through the five-and-dime stores. Each book was a substantial amount of reading for just 10¢. The widespread distribution preceded true comic books, so for a youngster at that time, these books were the thing to get. Anyone who lived in this pre-comic book time never forgot the feel of the books, their format, or their content. I've been told by many people that they learned how to read better from these books than from school books. And many famous people (Andy Rooney, Hugh Hefner, John Updike) have written about the influence of the BLBs upon their lives. Even Johnny (B.C.) Hart, Charles (Peanuts) Schulz, and Patrick (Mutts) McDonnell have included BLB humor in their comic strips. Movies sometimes include BLBs in scenes to convey a time period, and at the premier of The Road to Perdition, a BLB version of the movie was given away. There is something about the books that cannot be explained, but nearly everyone who has handled or read one, never forgets that experience.
Scoop: Do you have any future plans for additional research and/or book projects?
Lowery: Many people who have read my current book have been pressing me to do a Silver Age research-based book. There is enough material to do a second book, but the first one took me many years to write (I did all my own formatting, editing, etc.), so I am not ready to take on another lengthy task. At the moment I am content to let the Big Little Book Club's newsletter convey new knowledge about the books.
Scoop: What is your favorite BLB ever?
Lowery: I have two favorites. Of course, my first Mickey Mouse in the Blaggard Castle is one of them. The other is the last book I needed to complete my collection; it was Nancy and Sluggo. The book is not rare, but for some reason it took several years before it crossed my path. It was a great feeling to complete the collection! I guess it makes sense that the first and last books would be my favorites.
The Golden Age of Big Little Books, 1932-1938 is a hardcover, dust-jacketed book, 9" x 12" and 532 pages in length. It sells for $140 plus $7 for shipping in the U.S. and $20 for shipping outside the U.S. Available through the Big Little Book Club, P.O. Box 1242, Danville, CA94526.
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ONE DAY LEFT! Don’t forget to check out our Special Edition exhibit, The Force is With Us: 30 Years of Star Wars, which runs until TOMORROW, Saturday, September 15. Showcasing collectibles from the entire Star Wars saga with special attention to the one movie that started it all on that mythic day in 1977, the exhibit draws from the collection of Thomas G. Atkinson, Director of the StarToysMuseum. From action figures and play sets to posters and inflatable lightsabers, it’s all here. After Saturday, it will only be a memory from a long, long time ago, so check it out now before it becomes galactic history!
Star Wars® is a registered name wholly owned by Lucasfilm Ltd. The Force™ is a trademarked term wholly owned by Lucasfilm Ltd. The words Star Wars® and The Force™ appear within the GEM exhibit’s title by expressed permission of Lucasfilm Ltd. Lucasfilm Ltd. neither authorizes nor has an association with the exhibit, whose goal is to illustrate to the public, through a display of products and collectibles, the impact the Star Wars® saga has had on popular culture.
Visit Geppi’s EntertainmentMuseum online at geppismuseum.com
or in person at
301 W. Camden St.
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