Excitement! This incomplete, spineless beauty arrived today…

… a beauty truthfully listed as "COMPLETELY LOOSE. MISSING PAGES NO SPINE NO REAR COVER FRONT COVER AND 24 PAGES ONLY," exclusive to the Superman Day at the 1940 World's Fair and featuring the iconic Jack Burnley cover, the first featuring Batman, Robin, and Superman together because, as a writer who fancies himself something of a pop culture historian, holding a piece of history is everything; if I had the chance to buy a margin of a handwritten page of one of Montaigne's essays, I'd take it, whether it was the complete essay or not.

Befuddlement! The 24 pages consist only of the issue's Superman tale, by Jerry Siegel and Jack Burnley (first two pages above) - or so I thought: there was an inexplicable change in art, still featuring Superman, that wasn't in the digital version, as well as an ad for the 1939 Fair...

(Nevermind that that Superman story was only ten pages, not 24…)

Excitement! Opened it up again and found why there were 24 pages: someone, for reasons as yet unknown, had taken the 1939 Superman tale, SUPERMAN AT THE WORLD'S FAIR, by Siegel and Shuster, from NEW YORK WORLD'S FAIR COMICS No.1 and glued the first page of it to the advertisement page after the 1940 Superman story to combine both 39 and 40 in one, handmade trade paperback.

Both 1939 and 1940 are complete – and so this handmade hybrid of comics history has finished its long journey to its new home upon the Superman shelf in The Paintshop:

Please watch your step so you don’t step on my my jaw, still upon the floor…