Tue Oct 30, 2007 1:58PM9 comments ›
Tue Oct 30, 2007 — by Mike Gold
The Big Little Book Time Machine
Journey With Us Now...
I'll admit: I've got a thing for self-published fan projects. Nothing shows fannish commitment better than these books, and over the years a wealth of encyclopedic information about our culture has been gathered in such efforts.
Once upon a time, there was a whole category of comic books that measured just a couple inches wide but were about a full inch thick. Actually, they weren't really comic books – they were illustrated fiction. But many, if not most, featured comics characters such as Popeye, Dick Tracy, and Flash Gordon – complete with illustrations often by the creators and their studios. They were called Big Little Books – BLBs – and were highly collectible. And so they remain.
A fan named Larry Lowery has self-published a fantastic reference book on BLBs, with great cover repros and every detail you can imagine. The 400 page compendium lists all the Whitman BLBs and peripherals related to Big Little Books from 1932 through 1980, as well as similar publications by Dell, Saalfield, Lynn, 5-Star, and such. It's a great reference book for serious collectors with photos of every BLB. Check it out here.
Thanks to our pal Dean Mullaney for the lead.
Jump to comments (9) 
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Comments (9)
Jon M (2:18 PM on Thu Nov 1, 2007)
There must have been a revival of BLB in the 60's. I remember having a Fantastic Four BLB and a Man From U.N.C.L.E. one. In color, no less.
Brian Alvey (6:14 PM on Fri Nov 2, 2007)
I remember reading small paperbacks as a kid in the 70s that sound similar to these: 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea; Robinson Crusoe; The Count of Monte Cristo; Huckleberry Finn; The Hound of the Baskervilles; and The Three Musketeers.
I could have sworn they were called "Big Little Books", but I didn't see them listed on his site. Maybe they weren't called that after all.
Now I'm obsessed with finding them. The 20,000 Leagues map was cool!
MARK WHEATLEY (7:45 PM on Fri Nov 2, 2007)
I'm going to take a wild leap and say that you are describing books that were published by NOW AGE BOOKS an imprint of Pendulum Press, Inc. These books are NOT Big Little Books. These books were essentially a modern incarnation of Classics Illustrated produced by Vincent Fago and using the Philippine artists who made an impact on the comic book industry in the 1970s. I collect the work of Alex Niño and I have several of his books from that series (remaindered just in the past few years for $1.00 or less). But the NOW AGE BOOKS were smaller than standard comic books. But they are NOT Big Little Books.
Brian Alvey (12:05 AM on Sat Nov 3, 2007)
Thanks. I just checked those Now Age Books out and they were interesting, but not the same ones I was thinking of.
Mine were maybe 4 inches by 4 inches and around an inch thick, paperback, color covers and black and white inside with decent-sized type. Not a ton of illustrations, but one every few pages or at least every chapter. And that 20,000 Leagues map!
If I can recall more titles it might help me narrow the search down, but sadly it's going to be the usual 8 or 10 classic stories.
Maybe if I sleep on it my brain will retrieve the actual publisher's name from when I was 7 or 8. ;-)
MARK WHEATLEY (6:59 AM on Sat Nov 3, 2007)
Okay - that DOES sound BLB - like.
Marilee J. Layman (4:49 PM on Sat Nov 3, 2007)
If you tell me what years you were seven or eight, and if the books were new then, I'l ask this on rasfw, which is the place to find answers on SFF books.
Brian Alvey (6:06 PM on Sat Nov 3, 2007)
This would have been late 70s, early 80s. I could have been more like 10 or 12. I remember using them for book reports, but we'd had the books for a few years by then. I'll try to nail down better dates by asking my mom. ;-) Thanks!
Marilee J. Layman (4:03 PM on Sun Nov 4, 2007)
Okay, the first answer was in less than an hour and the others since then:
On Sun, 04 Nov 2007 15:36:27 GMT, Kent wrote:
>P. Taine wrote:
>> On Sun, 04 Nov 2007 05:20:41 -0800, T Guy wrote:
>>
>>> (Konrad Gaertner:
>>>
>>>> These sound like the Big Little Books (or their competitor Little
>>>> Big Books).
>>> That was my first thought... then it occurred to me that MJL was
>>> unlikely to have not heard of BLBs and, more tellingly, BLBs were
>>> hardbacks with a colour illo opposite every text page.
>> Weren't those the ones with flip-the-page animations one one outer corner?
>
>Some of the paperback version from the late 70s certainly did have corner
>animations.
So it sounds like they're either Big Little Books or Little Big Books.
Marilee J. Layman (4:41 PM on Sat Nov 3, 2007)
Ah, Classics Illustrated, the only comics my brother and I were allowed to read!