In the seventies, most of the major comic publishers experimented with something they called "treasury sized" comics, which were comic books about 10" by 13" in size. I remember when Jack Kirby heard about plans to publish these, he was initially excited because he loved the idea of big comics. He was a little disappointed that they were only 10-by-13 and even more disappointed when the publishers mainly used them as a means of reprinting old comics drawn for the smaller format. But when they began commissioning original material for the bigger comics…that's when he was the most disappointed. They insisted the books be drawn not on huge sheets like he suggested, but at pretty much the same original art size used for the smaller comics. Jack did two original treasury books — an adaptation of the movie 2001 and a Captain America special — and they were pretty good. But what he really wished was that since they were printing the books at twice the size and selling them for more than twice the price, they'd paid him twice as much, let him draw twice as large and let him put in twice as much.
The format did not last long. A marketing person once told me — I have no idea how true this is — that what did treasury books in was when the industry changed distribution deals in the late seventies. Most comics went from being sent out on a returnable basis, where retailers could ship it back and not pay for it if it went unsold, to non-returnable terms where the retailer was stuck with whatever they got. The treasury format books, I was told, were too often damaged just sitting on a shelf and dealers were hesitant to order them on non-returnable terms. As good a theory as any.
A lot of the treasuries contained very poorly-chosen (and in too many cases, poorly-reproduced) reprints…but there were some wonderful original creations in the format. Marvel and DC co-published an adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, the contents of which were created by Marvel people — Roy Thomas, John Buscema and Tony DeZuniga. It was quite entertaining and I am still boggled at the fact that Buscema drew it from memory, having not seen the movie in over twenty years. This is not humanly possible. I also liked the two Kirby did and a couple of DC entries, like the first (and only) of several announced volumes adapting The Bible (written by Sheldon Mayer), a couple of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer specials (also by Mayer) and the Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali book (written by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams, drawn by Adams). Never cared much for any of the DC-Marvel crossover books. I thought everyone involved in them did better work doing one character or the other solo.
You can view the covers of almost every treasury edition published in the U.S. — and few other oversized comics that maybe weren't officially called "treasuries" — over at a great new site set up by the gifted illustrator, Rob Kelly. It's www.treasurycomics.com and he has every one I know of up there except for Charles Biro's Tops and one or two other Gold Keys that I'll dig up and send him. He even has three Hanna-Barbera specials that I wrote so I did a little interview with Rob about what I recall of them. You can read it via a link on this page.
