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Is it from a wedding album of photos for which my comment was clearly applied to?

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Wise words!

No, but your postulation was that it wouldn't be photos alone that would 'disqualify' a photo album as being a comic book, rather, just that "If any photos are included just to include them rather than tell a story, or if they are out of sequence with no narrative-intentions in doing so, then I wouldn't describe it as a comic book."

In this case, it is a drawing, very similar to, and featuring the same people, as the earlier, sequential drawings of the book. But this is clearly out of sequence, not part of the story. If one criterion for being a comic book that the drawings (or pictures) are solely sequential, then that issue of the FF is arguably not a comic book by virtue of featuring that pin-up.

What about flashbacks? Letter pages? Ads? Covers?? Do all of these disqualify a comic book because there are not part of the linear story?


I think not. Nor does JB's Trek: New Visions use of photos vs. drawings do so. They're comics. They're filed in with all my other comics in comic book boxes. Are my wife's photo albums comic books? Probably not. Though, there is at least one featuring us dressed up as superheroes...

My specific argument about whether the specific wedding album of photos could be considered a comic book cannot be extended in the way you are doing. 

One is something where the pictures are not expressly there to tell a story, where the default is to include pictures to generally document an event. Inclusion of photos that are not expressly part of a narrative therefore serve to undermine the already shaky case of the album being a comic book to the point that it cannot be considered a comic book.

With the issue of FF we know that every panel is put in place to tell a narrative. The inclusion of one bonus pin-up doesn't undermine that sufficiently to make it not a comic book. If there were 20 pin-ups and 2 pages of story, then it would be less of a comic book.

 

And JB's effort wasn't derivative: it was perfectly in character with the best FF efforts of the 60's and timeless as well. A natural successor to the FF's founding team 10 years later.

I've often wondered what would have come of JB tackling MOS from the 1930's / 1940's perspective. With Superman being hounded by the law for the first year of the book as he established his bona fides as a "good guy" and taking up social causes, battling crooked politicians, gangsters, all the while his powers growing as he went up against tougher and tougher opponents.

In the first place, JB should have been allowed to ink his own pencils!

Sorry to digress or cause thread drift but random thoughts do percolate!

The earliest illustrated narratives I remember seeing were newspaper comic strips. At age four I couldn't read but I could tell the difference between Beetle Baily and Blondie.

The earliest superhero I remember seeing was Aquaman: I still couldn't read but recognized this guy "talked" to fish.

Next superhero was Superman and, naturally, I thought he was a "fish guy" too on account of the fish drawings he had on his chest. I still remember the a-ha! experience of having those fish resolve instantly into an "S" when I was six. People kept explaining to me he was "Superman" but I didn't see the "S" on his chest the way I say the bat on Batman.

I believe that I must have stopped focusing on the yellow for just one second and THEN saw the RED "S". The fact the "S"  was red and the framing shield was also red must have made me think it was all a background for the yellow fish.