BGuthrie Photos: MD -- Baltimore -- Geppi's Entertainment Museum -- 1. A Story in Four Colors

MD -- Baltimore -- Geppi's Entertainment Museum -- 1. A Story in Four Colors:

Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.

Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon

underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.

Slide Show: Want to see the pictures as a slide show? [Slideshow]

Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]

[1] GEPPI1_150926_001.JPG

[2] GEPPI1_150926_006.JPG

[3] GEPPI1_150926_008.JPG

[4] GEPPI1_150926_011.JPG

[5] GEPPI1_150926_014.JPG

[6]

GEPPI1_150926_018.JPG

[7]

GEPPI1_150926_022.JPG

[8]

GEPPI1_150926_025.JPG

[9]

GEPPI1_150926_028.JPG

[10] GEPPI1_150926_032.JPG

[11]

GEPPI1_150926_039.JPG

[12] GEPPI1_150926_044.JPG

[13] GEPPI1_150926_047.JPG

[14]

GEPPI1_150926_051.JPG

[15]

GEPPI1_150926_055.JPG

[16] GEPPI1_150926_059.JPG

[17] GEPPI1_150926_063.JPG

[18] GEPPI1_150926_067.JPG

[19] GEPPI1_150926_074.JPG

[20] GEPPI1_150926_077.JPG

[21] GEPPI1_150926_080.JPG

[22] GEPPI1_150926_083.JPG

[23] GEPPI1_150926_086.JPG

[24] GEPPI1_150926_092.JPG

[25] GEPPI1_150926_095.JPG

[26] GEPPI1_150926_100.JPG

[27] GEPPI1_150926_103.JPG

[28] GEPPI1_150926_106.JPG

[29] GEPPI1_150926_110.JPG

[30] GEPPI1_150926_113.JPG

[31] GEPPI1_150926_115.JPG

[32] GEPPI1_150926_118.JPG

[33] GEPPI1_150926_120.JPG

[34] GEPPI1_150926_123.JPG

[35] GEPPI1_150926_130.JPG

[36]

GEPPI1_150926_137.JPG

[37]

GEPPI1_150926_142.JPG

[38]

GEPPI1_150926_145.JPG

[39] GEPPI1_150926_149.JPG

[40] GEPPI1_150926_153.JPG

[41] GEPPI1_150926_156.JPG

[42] GEPPI1_150926_158.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. GEPPI1_150926_018.JPG: Origin Story: "In the beginning, God made comics, and we drew on the walls of caves trying to tell everybody how we captured a mastodon that afternoon." -- Will Eisner Although many people believe that reading words alone -- prose literature -- is a sign of intellectual maturity, the fact is that humans are a visual species, and the blend of words and pictures has always been a natural means of communication that says a great deal about who we are as people. In fact, long before written languages were formalized in any way, at the very dawn of our prehistory, Man explained the world through pictures alone, painting images on cave walls that depicted hunting expeditions or other activities -- the world's first comics. Sequential art used to record history, express cultural beliefs, or tell a story also appears later with Egyptian hieroglyphics -- a language based on pictographic forms rather than letters. In Africa and Asia, wood carvings and painted porcelain portrayed scenes of daily life and historical events, again using sequential art to tell the tale. From stained glass windows to the Bayeux Tapestry, there are countless examples of comic-style storytelling throughout human history, testifying to the power of pictures. When written language did emerge, the two methods were often combined and a medium was born. Printing technology would transform our relationship with words and pictures and inaugurate the era of true comics, but from the very beginning, comics have been a part of our shared cultural heritage, not just as a nation, but as a species.
2. GEPPI1_150926_022.JPG: Pioneer Age: 1500s-1828 Victorian Age: 1828-1883 While it may seem surprising to some that comic books were being published at this time, very early art panels from these eras clearly illustrate the beginnings of the modern comic book as we know it today. The comic strip originated across the ocean hundreds of years before immigrants and importers brought it over to America. Early examples of comic art during the Pioneer Age include A Remarkable Story of How Conchine Marquis d'Ancre Was Shot in Paris April 24 (1617). Buried, Disinterred and Burned, the Burning of Mr. John Rogers from 1646 is the earliest known North American cartoon printed on paper, and the pamphlet Plain Truth from 1747 contains Ben Franklin's earliest known cartoon, Heaven Helps Only Those Who Help Themselves, which depicts the ancient superhero Hercules in one corner. These three examples feature sequential art panels similar to modern comic strips. The Victorian Age began in the United States when the American humor periodical, Brother Jonathan, printed the 40-page, 195-panel graphic novel The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck by Rudolphe Topffer as a special extra dated September 14, 1842. Other innovations during this period included George Cruikshank's The Tooth-Ache in 1849, a sequential story that unfolded accordion-like into a single strip 7 feet 3 inches long. And in the pages of the humor periodical Wild Oats, years before he invested the Brownies, Palmer Cox contributed a series of 24-panel comic strips. By the 1880s, the Victorian Age was coming to an end as the advent of newspaper comic strip reprint books signaled the dawn of the Platinum Age. There is still, however, a lot of overlap between the Victorian and Platinum Ages. The evolution of the American comic strip itself continued in the pages of Puck, Judge, and Life magazines well into the late 1800s.
3. GEPPI1_150926_025.JPG: Platinum Age: 1883-1938 The debut of Palmer Cox's pixie-like Brownies in 1883 also established the form comics would most often take in the Platinum Age -- reprint collections of previously published work. Often featuring cardboard covers and varying sizes, comic books such as Mutt & Jeff, Bringing Up Father, and The Katzenjammer Kids drew from popular newspaper strips for their material. The introduction of Richard F. Outcault's Yellow Kid demonstrated the power and potential of a newspaper strip character to increase sales of newspapers and licensed merchandise, an idea pioneered earlier by the Brownies. This led to the publication of Dillingham & Company's 196-page The Yellow Kid in McFadden's Flats in 1897. But it was the debut of Famous Funnies #1 in May 1934, with reprints of Sunday strips Toonerville Folks, Mutt & Jeff, Hairbreadth Harry, S'Matter Pop, Nipper, Dixie Dugan, Tailspin Tommy, The Nebbs, Joe Palooka and many more, that introduced the monthly newstand magazine format that would become the dominant form of American comic books for decades to come. While the future of comics was being made, other formats often seen as predecessors or cousins of the comic book were also vying for attention, including pulps like Argosy Magazine, Weird Tales, and Spicy Mystery. Pulp periodicals showcased future comic book starts Tarzan, Doc Savage, Conan and The Shadow. Another popular format was Big Little Books, which featured adaptations of newspaper strips but with large, easy-to-read text accompanying single panel illustrations. By the end of the Platinum Age, the comic book format only lacked an iconic figure that would rocket its popularity to new heights, and he was about to arrive from a doomed planet.
4. GEPPI1_150926_028.JPG: A Story in Four Colors "The more minutely you describe, the more you will confine the mind of the reader, and the more you will keep him from the knowledge of the thing described. And so it is necessary to draw and to describe." -- Leonardo da Vinci Words and pictures. It's a simple yet powerful combination. Together they can tell tales of triumph and woe, of far-flung futures and distant pasts. They can feature caped heroes and monstrous villains, or just the people next door dealing with ordinary emotions and relationships. Words and pictures combined to make comics can tell any kind of story. They can entertain and educate. Comics are a unique literary art form, and their story is as exciting and enlightening as any featured within the pages of the comic books you will see here. In this room you will follow the history of comics and sequential art from the dawn of the medium to the early comic books of the 1500s-1800s to the birth of the American comic book industry in the early 1930s and beyond. You'll meet familiar and not-so-familiar faces, learn about some of the creative minds behind the comics, and witness the dark days of the 1950s when a wave of censorship nearly crushed comics out of existence. Today, comic book characters are a part of our daily lives, appearing on television, in film, on countless household and other products, and even on the Internet. But it all begins on a printed page with words and pictures, a dynamic duo mightier than any superhero.
5. GEPPI1_150926_039.JPG: Big Little Books: First published in 1932, Bib Little Books were even more popular than other comic books during their heyday. Whitman Publishing Co. was the first to establish the format -- short, stubby hardcover and softcover books costing just 10 to 15 cent and featuring adaptations of newspaper strips with large, easy-to-read text accompanying single panel illustrations often taken from the strips themselves. Soon other companies were publishing books in a wide range of similar styles. Throughout the '30s and '40s, Big Little Books reigned supreme until finally, comics surpassed them and never looked back. Whitman's Big Little book line was launched with The Adventures of Dick Tracy and was quickly followed by books featuring Mickey Mouse, Little Orphan Annie, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and many more. As the books proliferated, they adapted radio and film stories as well as original material in addition to newspaper strip reprints. For just a dime, kids could read about the exploits of their favorite characters in a format fit for their pocket both physically and financially. Sadly, the post-war years weren't kind to the Big Little Books or their competitors as television proved a more enticing entertainment option for children. The media that had provided most of the inspiration for the content of Big Little Books -- newspapers and radio -- also waned in influence. Short-term revivals, sometimes adding features like "Flip-it" pictures in the page corners, failed to recapture their early success. By the early 1980s, Big Little Books had all but vanished. In the 1990s, however, Chronicle Books released a short series of familiar TV and film tie-in hardcovers, Mighty Chronicles, featuring adaptations of the Star Wars movies and the Hercules and Xena television series. These new Big Little Books were designed to look almost identical to their 1930s ancestors inside and out, but instead of a 10-cent cover price, the new books cost 10 dollars each. Such is progress.
6. GEPPI1_150926_051.JPG: Atom Age: 1946-1956 With the decline in sales suffered by superhero comics after the end of World War II, comic book publishers turned to genres like crime, horror, science fiction, and romance to save the day. Topping one another with increasingly intense artwork and stories, the comics of this era featured such horrific tableaux as hangings, decapitations, electrocutions, drug use, and torture; women were often the victims. Soon enough, the industry drew unwanted attention for the severity of its content. These comics attracted the likes of Dr. Frederic Wertham, whose book Seduction of the Innocent laid the blame for America's "adolescent bandits" entirely at the feet of the comic book industry. With public outcry growing across the nation, fuelled by fear-mongering articles in Woman's Day, Saturday Review, Parent's, and local newspapers, Senator Estes Kefauver and his Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency began to investigate the comic book industry. William Gaines, publisher of the notorious EC Comics line -- the source for much of Wertham's argument against comics with series like Tales From the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Crime SuspenStories, and Weird Science-Fantasy -- testified before the committee. In the end, the comic book publishers themselves took action rather than watch their business collapse. The Comics Code Authority was established in 1954 to regulate the content of all comics published with its cover seal. Oddly enough, just about everything EC Comics published was now forbidden by the Code apart from their humor magazine, MAD, and the gory excesses of the era came sharply to an end. Other comic categories like Disney, funny animal, western, movie, TV, and teenaged titles had flourished during this period as well, but this ten-year Age would prove to be only a short respite before the superheroes returned to reclaim their throne.
7. GEPPI1_150926_055.JPG: A Terrifying Tale: EC on Trial: Gather around, kiddies! It's time for a ghoulish tale of monsters, murder, and mayhem -- the shocking story of... EC Comics! Originally founded as Educational (later Entertainment) Comics, EC made its mark when publisher William Gaines collaborated with artists Al Feldstein, Johnny Craig, Johnny Severin, Wally Wood and Bill Elder to introduce new comics with crime and romance stories. The "New Trend" EC titles debuted in 1950, blending socio-political commentary with provocative, often violent subject matter. Their biggest success was in horror and sci-fi, with anthologies like Tales From the Crypt, Vault of Horror and Weird Science-Fantasy. Mixing gory artwork with macabre tales hosted by the likes of the Crypt Keeper and the Old Witch, the new EC was a sensation in every sense of the word. But EC fell victim to a witch-hunt in 1954 when American public opinion turned against comics thanks to the efforts of Dr. Frederic Wertham and Senator Estes Kefauver. Targeting comics as a major cause of juvenile delinquency, a Senate subcommittee condemned EC and inspired the other comic book publishers to create their own internal censorship code to prevent further investigation -- the Comics Code Authority. The Code sealed EC's fate. EC introduced a "New Direction" set of titles in 1955 like Impact, MD, and Psychoanalysis, but the end was near. EC's one remaining success -- a humor series called MAD -- escaped the Code by transforming into a magazine still published today. During their short-lived reign, EC Comics pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable and demonstrated the potential of the comics medium to provoke thought and tackle heavier subject matter with tongue planted firmly in cheek. To coin a cliche, comics would never be the same again. Another dead-time story, kiddies?
8. GEPPI1_150926_137.JPG: Promotional Comics: Special purpose comics, giveaways, premiums -- whatever you call them, there has always been a category of comic books published specifically to promote an idea, a product, a person or even other comics. Often offered for free with action figures or even other comics. Often offered for free with action figures or video games, or as mail-away premiums with proofs or purchase from a particular product, these comics serve a practical purpose. Premium comics have swayed elections (The Story of Harry Truman, 1948), solicited for charities (Donald Duck and the Red Feather, 1948), discouraged kids from smoking (Captain America Meets the Asthma Monster, 1987), pleaded for social justice (Consumer Comics, 1975), discussed the environment (Our Spaceship Earth, 1947), taught history (Louisiana Purchase, 1953), explained computers (Superman Radio Shack Giveaway, 1980), hammered Communism (How Stalin Hopes to Destroy America, 1951), fought discrimination (Mammy Yokum & the Great Dogpatch Mystery, 1956), encouraged literacy (Linus Gets a Library Card, 1960), recruited for the armed forces (Li'l Abner Joins the Navy, 1950), and explained birth control (Escape from Fear, 1950, later revised). As early as the April 1933 issue of Fortune Magazine, the business world recognized the power of comics to communicate as well as entertain, noting that over $1 million dollars was spent in 1932 for advertising space in newspapers adjacent to the funny pages. In the years to come, promotional comics of all types would become a mainstay of the industry, pairing superheroes, funny animals and other characters with social, political, and cultural topics from banking to drug addiction. As long as consumers are enticed by a free gift, premium comics will remain a useful promotional tool as well as another weapon in the war against misconceptions about the true power of the comics medium.
9. GEPPI1_150926_142.JPG: Bronze Age: 1970-1984 With age comes wisdom. Now entering their fourth decade, American comic book superheroes were showing a new maturity with stories that reflected more socially relevant themes and a willingness to push boundaries. But first, the legacy of the 1950s censorship of comics -- the Comics Code Authority -- had to change with the times. The first major assault on the Code occurred when Marvel released an Amazing Spider-Man story about drug addiction without the Code's approval. Only a few months later, DC followed with its own anti-drug story in Green Lantern, but this time the seal was present. Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76, written by Denny O'Neil, featured a story in which racial issues were dealt with bluntly, and soon superheroes were battling for justice against cultural threats equally as challenging as those posed by monsters and madmen. Marvel's universe was expanding rapidly. 1975 saw the reintroduction of Marvel's X-Men, with new hero Wolverine. The Punisher was a vigilante who fought evil with bullets instead of fanciful powers. Luke Cage was an African-American hero who offered his abilities for hire. And in an ancient land of swords and sorcery, Conan the Barbarian wandered the land seeking adventure. Other debuts included Swamp Thing, Micronauts, The Defenders, and the return of the original Captain Marvel in Shazam #1 (1973). Independent publishers like Mirage, Pacific, Comico, Eclipse, and Warp premiered Cerebus, Elfquest, Sabre and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. By the early 1980s, the Direct Market and comic shops around the country led to another explosion of publishers and titles in a variety of genres, but always with superheroes leading the way to store shelves.
10. GEPPI1_150926_145.JPG: Copper Age: 1984-1992 As American comic books entered their fifth decade, the mainstream media was starting to realize just how much comic books had influenced our country's culture. Superheroic icons like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, and the Hulk had already made the leap to television and film; audiences knew who these characters were even if they had never read a comic book before. The notion of comics as literature took greater hold through the maxi-series Watchmen, Frank Miller's gritty reinterpretation of Batman in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986) -- both taking a look at the superhero genre with more mature eyes while giving birth to the "grim 'n' gritty" label -- and the Pulitzer Prize-winning two-part graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman that told a tale of the Holocaust with mice and cats standing in for human characters. Another indication that comics and their readers were growing up was the release of DC's 12-issue Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-86), an epic tale designed to clean house after decades of continuity had built up in the publisher's extensive superhero universe. Wiping the slate clean and reintroducing classic heroes like Superman and Batman with new origin stories, DC was acknowledging that the superhero genre was aging and took steps to reinvigorate its characters. Marvel also teamed up its entire superhero pantheon in the 1984 12-issue epic, Marvel Super-Heroes: The Secret Wars, which introduced a new black costume for Spider-Man. While the heroes dealt with their cosmic crises, a variety of independent publishers continued to offer their own blend of superheroes and genre-busting stories, sometimes in stark black and white. Dark Horse, First, Eclipse, Comico, and Mirage gave us titles like Fish Police, Grendel, Grimjack, E-Man, Nexus, Rocketeer, Miracleman, and Jon Sable, Freelance.
Multi Column: Number of columns of thumbnails to appear per page (normally defaults to 3): [1 col] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]
Wikipedia Description: Geppi's Entertainment Museum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Geppi's Entertainment Museum is a 16,000-square-foot (1,500 m2) privately owned pop culture museum located at historic Camden Station at Camden Yards in Baltimore, Maryland. The museum chronicles the history of pop culture in America from the 17th century to today as made popular in newspapers, magazines, comic books, movies, television, radio and video games. It features a large and varied collection of nearly 6,0000 pop culture artifacts, including magazines, movie posters, toys, buttons, badges, cereal boxes, trading cards, dolls, figurines - and memorabilia of every conceivable category!. Geppi’s Entertainment Museum is located in downtown Baltimore's historic Camden Station at Camden Yards, directly above the Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards and adjacent to Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

Background

The museum is owned by Stephen A. Geppi, President and CEO of Diamond Comics Distributors, and The majority of the artifacts come from Geppi's private collection. In 2007, Geppi's daughter Melissa "Missy" Geppi-Bowersox became the Executive Vice-President of the Geppi’s Entertainment Museum; in 2012, Melissa Geppi-Bowersox was promoted to President.

The museum's founding curator was Dr. Arnold T. Blumberg, former editor at Gemstone Publishing. In 2011 Andy Hershberger was promoted to Associate Curator/Registrar, and has since worked with Melissa Geppi-Bowersox in the creation of a curatorial advisory committee.

In 2012, the museum store was renamed Geppi's Comic World (formerly: Flashbacks) in honor of Geppi’s former comic chain. Zachary Winland is the current manager of Geppi's Comic World.

Exhibits

The museum is composed of several galleries devoted to different eras of pop culture, as well as a temporary exhibit space for rotating exhibits. The standing galleries are:

* A Story in Four Colors displays a large collection of comic books to the Golden Age to the Modern Er ...More...
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.) I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (MD -- Baltimore -- Geppi's Entertainment Museum) directly related to this one: [Display ALL photos on one page]:
- 2022_MD_Geppis: MD -- Baltimore -- Geppi's Entertainment Museum (6 photos from 2022)
- 2015_MD_Geppis_Frank_Cho: MD -- Baltimore -- Geppi's Entertainment Museum -- Artist Spotlight: Frank Cho (21 photos from 2015)
- 2015_MD_Geppis_9_Eisner: MD -- Baltimore -- Geppi's Entertainment Museum -- Special Edition: 75 Spirited Years: Will Eisner & The Spirit (86 photos from 2015)
- 2015_MD_Geppis_0_Misc: MD -- Baltimore -- Geppi's Entertainment Museum -- Miscellaneous (5 photos from 2015)
- 2013_MD_Geppis_Tour_131215: MD -- Baltimore -- Geppi's Entertainment Museum -- Member Tour w/Steve Geppi (78 photos from 2013)
- 2013_MD_Geppis_9_Milestones: MD -- Baltimore -- Geppi's Entertainment Museum -- Special Edition: Milestones: African Americans in Comics, Pop Culture and Beyond (61 photos from 2013)
- 2013_MD_Geppis_9_Colorforms: MD -- Baltimore -- Geppi's Entertainment Museum -- Special Edition: Colorforms (19 photos from 2013)
- 2013_MD_Geppis_8_Global: MD -- Baltimore -- Geppi's Entertainment Museum -- 8. Going Global 1991-Today (39 photos from 2013)
- 2013_MD_Geppis_7_Expanding: MD -- Baltimore -- Geppi's Entertainment Museum -- 7. Expanding Universe 1971-1990 (52 photos from 2013)
- 2013_MD_Geppis_6_Revolution: MD -- Baltimore -- Geppi's Entertainment Museum -- 6. Revolution 1961-1970 (74 photos from 2013)
- ...More (List all 16 pages)...
Same Subject: Click on this link to see coverage of items having the same subject: [Museums (Other)]
2015 photos: I retired from the US Census Bureau in god-forsaken Suitland, Maryland on my 58th birthday in May. Yee ha! Trips this year: a quick trip to Florida. two Civil War Trust conferences (Raleigh, NC and Richmond, VA), and my 10th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including Los Angeles). Ego Strokes: Carolyn Cerbin used a Kevin Costner photo in her USA Today article. Miss DC pictures were used a few times in the Washington Post. Equipment this year: I mostly used my Fuji XS-1 camera but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000. Number of photos taken this year: just over 550,000.
Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
Limiting Text: You can turn off all of this text by clicking this link: [Thumbnails Only]
Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].