Baseball Comics and eight unusual baseball cards.

Speaking of dinged corners, the same principle holds true around here for comic books. Play with 'em. Read 'em. Ding 'em. About twelve years ago (yes, yikes, we were babies) when we lived in Washington, DC, we attended a Smithsonian lecture by comic artist Will Eisner. Afterwards we talked with him, and he was truly a gentleman. Gracious, polite, a wonderful conversationalist.

Anyway, in early 1949, Mr. Eisner started up a comic book company but printed only two books before closing it down. One was Baseball Comics. In 1991, Kitchen Sink Press reprinted the rare original Baseball Comics in full color, on strong paper stock.

With the help of writer Jules Feiffer and artists Tex Blaisdell and Jerry Grandenetti, Eisner produced 'Rube Rooky' and a real-life 1926 wacky story about the Dodgers' Babe Herman. Eisner had N.Y. Daily News sportswriter Hy Turkin predict the 'Top Rookies of 1949' in the original comic.

Kitchen Sink bound into the centerfold four newly-designed removable baseball cards of the 1949 rookies, drawn by Kings in Disguise artist Dan Burr featuring Alvin Dark, Richie Ashburn, Gene Woodling, and Eisner's fictional Rube Rooky character. These four baseball cards were not available elsewhere, so it's likely they are worth a bit more than the comic itself.

When Eisner closed down his little comic book company in 1949, he, Feiffer and Blaisdell had already created another real-life story for the second issue that told a final day A.L. Pennant-deciding game in 1907 featuring Ty Cobb, Sam Crawford, Connie Mack and Eddie Plank.

In 1992, Kitchen Sink reprinted the story in Baseball Comics #2 as originally intended, and with a bonus: 4 cardstock baseball cards of Cobb, Crawford, Mack and Plank by artist Dan Burr, to be found no where else. Featured also in this issue was an Uncle Sam/Opening Day cover by Ray Gotto, and a story about small town baseball, 'The Devil and Wal-Mart' by writers John Wooley and Jim Millaway and underground cartoonist Rand (Harold Hedd) Holmes.

Photos and facts courtesy WillEisner.com.