Vintage Pop

This a rough draft of a post for Get Rich Slowly.

Every week, I receive more questions about Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs). These are great tools to help the average American save for retirement. Most of the time I’m able to route people to one of my previous articles on the subject:

But one question comes up over and over: which is best, a Roth IRA or a traditional IRA? The answer is: “It depends.” There are several subtle differences between the two that affect those near (or in) retirement. (Investopedia has a good summary of the differences.) For most Get Rich Slowly readers, the three most important considerations are these:

1. Contribution limits for Roth IRAs and Traditional IRAs are identical. In 2008, you may contribute $5,000 a year to your account. If you are 50 or older, you may contribute an additional $1,000.
2. Roth IRAs have income limits; traditional IRAs do not. For the 2008 tax year, single filers must make less than $101,000 to qualify for a full Roth IRA contribution. Joint filers must earn less than $159,000. (This limit is actually tied to your Modified Adjusted Gross Income.)
3. Both types of IRA are tax-advantaged, but in different ways. You’re usually able to fund a traditional IRA with pre-tax dollars — you pay taxes when you withdraw the money. (If you or your spouse has a retirement plan through an employer, the traditional IRA may have income limits.) The money you put into a Roth IRA has already been taxed, therefore you’re able to withdraw it tax-free.

So if you qualify for both, which one is best? In general, the rule of thumb is that you should choose a Roth IRA if you suspect your retirement tax rate will be equal to (or greater than) your current tax rate. If you think your tax rate will decrease during retirement, then you should choose a traditional IRA.

If you want more than just a rule of thumb, check out the Roth IRA vs. Traditional IRA calculator from CCH Incorporated.

I like this calculator because it makes all of its assumptions explicit. The main page defines all the parameters the tool uses: expected rate of return, current tax rate, retirement tax rate, etc. If you want to know more about the behind-the-scenes calculations, click the “view report” button to get a thorough report.

While this calculator is fun to play with, it doesn’t solve the fundamental problem: nobody knows what tax rates will be like in the future. If you make very little now, you can guess your tax rate will probably be higher in retirement. If you make a lot, your tax rate is likely to be lower. But what about the rest of us?

I asked Dylan Ross of Swan Financial Planning for his advice.

Most people will not be withdrawing their entire IRA in a single tax year.  It’s entirely possible that some years will have higher rates than present and some years will be lower.  This is why I think it makes sense to try to have tax-free (Roth) and tax-deferred savings, so I can have option in the future.  If I want to save some of my tax-free when I’m retired because tax rates are at a low and I suspect will eventually rise, I’ll pull from my traditional IRA.  If tax rates are super high, I’ll tap the Roth.  

I’m an advocate of diversifying the tax treatment of my retirement savings, but in the end, when you have a choice, putting it all in the Roth is usually the better move.

So which is better? It depends. Your circumstances determine which makes the most sense. If the choice is not clear to you, you should probably consult a qualified professional, such as an accountant or a certified financial planner.

(If you’re more interested in 401(k)s than IRAs, JLP at All Financial Matters recently shared a comparison between the Roth 401(k) and a traditional 401(k).)

ICv2 reports that IDW plans to reprint Harold Grey’s Little Orphan Annie.

Dean Mullaney, who is editing the new reprint edition of Milton Caniff’s classic Terry & the Pirates comic strip for IDW, has informed ICv2 that his next project with IDW will be a similar reprinting of Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie.  [...]
 
With Dick Tracy, the recently announced Terry & the Pirates and now Little Orphan Annie, the rights to all of which were acquired from Tribune Media Services, IDW will have the “crown jewels” of the world famous Chicago Tribune comics section, making the California-based company a major player in what has become a new golden age of comic strip reprints.
 
Mullaney told ICv2 that he intends to publish Little Orphan Annie in a similar hardcover format to the one he is using for Terry & the Pirates with the Sunday pages reprinted in full color, though in the case of Little Orphan Annie each volume will contain an entire complete storyline rather than the 2-years-per volume format he is employing for Terry & the Pirates.

All of these comic strip reprints are going to put the pinch on my budget, that’s for sure. I’ve already decided to reduce (and nearly eliminate) my comic book purchases. Comic strips are just more interesting, and with such a rich selection coming, I want to be able to afford my collection.

[ICv2 News: IDW to publish Little Orphan Annie]

All the hip kids are pointing to Shorpy, a new old kind of photo blog. According to the site:

Shorpy.com is a photo blog about what life a hundred years ago was like: How people looked and what they did for a living, back when not having a job usually meant not eating. We’re starting with a collection of photographs taken in the early 1900s by Lewis Wickes Hine as part of a decade-long field survey for the National Child Labor Committee, which lobbied Congress to end the practice.

Here’s an example of the sorts of images Shorpy shares:

There’s lots to like in this photo: the newsboys in dirty woolen suits, the stacks of newspapers, the boy with one leg, the bank building in the background. Shorpy is an excellent site. I look forward to more!

The comics section used to be one of the most important pieces of the newspaper. The comics were filled with fun, humor, and adventure. Comics sold papers.

More recently, the comics have become something papers carry grudgingly. They’re often dull and unfunny. They’ve been shrunk to postage stamp size. The life has gone out of them.

Fortunately for fans, there seems to be an ever-increasing demand for reprints of the great comic strips of the past century. Fantagraphics’ Complete Peanuts project ignited the fire, and subsequent collections have fanned the flames. Peter Maresca’s Little Nemo project, So Many Splendid Sundays stands as the pinnacle of the recent revival. (Though I admit to being a huge fan of the Gasoline Alley reprint project, Walt and Skeezix. This is an amazing strip deserving of wider appreciation.)

I intend to cover comic strips often at Vintage Pop, and hope to eventually produce a list of what I call the Indispensable Comic Strip Reprint Library. For now, here’s a list of current and upcoming reprint projects.

• The Complete Peanuts (Fantagraphics) — vol. 7 of 25 ships in May
• Popeye (Fantagraphics) — vol. 1 of 6 out now
• Walt and Skeezix, which reprints Gasoline Alley (Drawn and Quarterly) — vol. 3 ships in June
• The Complete Dick Tracy (IDW Publishing) — vol. 2 ships in April
• The Complete Terry and the Pirates (IDW Publishing) — vol. 1 of 6 coming in July
• Forever Nuts: The Early Years of Mutt & Jeff (NBM Publishing) — ships in July
• Krazy & Ignatz, which reprints Krazy Kat (Fantagraphics) — vol. 8 of 15 just released
• Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon (Checker Books) — all seven volumes have been released
• Hank Ketcham’s Complete Dennis the Menace (Fantagraphics) — vol. 3 available now
• So Many Splendid Sundays reprints selected Little Nemo strips (Sunday Press Books) — rumor has it that a second volume is in the works
• Mary Perkins on Stage (Classic Comics Press) — vol. 2 out now
• Steve Canyon (Checker Books) — vol. 7 (1953) out now

There are also many minor projects underway. I just discovered Spec Productions the other day, and have already compiled a very expensive wish list. Gulp. (Their Buck Rogers Sundays books is going to be mine, and soon!)

For a comic strip collector, we are living in an age with an embarrassment of riches. I’ve recently decided to abandon collecting comic book compilations to focus solely on comic strip compilations. They’re so much more enjoyable.

One of my goals is to see every Academy Award nominee for Best Picture. I mean all of them. From day one. For now, though, I’m content with just catching up on the winners. To that end, I recently watched Grand Hotel for the first time.

Grand Hotel, from 1932, won the fifth Academy Award for Best Picture. This Irving Thalberg production was based on on a play by Vicki Baum.

The film is filled with early Hollywood stars, including:

• Greta Garbo as washed-up ballerina Grusinskaya. I’ve never seen Garbo in anything else — she stopped making films in 1941. Her style is very much of the silent era. She over-emotes to a fault. Her hamminess is almost laughable by modern standards.
• Joan Crawford, who has a very natural, affecting style here. “She was a slut,” my wife told me as we watched the film. My wife is a Bette Davis loyalist, though. Davis and Crawford loathed each other.
• Wallace Beery, another new actor for me, despite the fact that he appeared in 230 films. Most of these (nearly 200) were silent, though, and not readily available to modern viewers. Ironically, he didn’t win Best Actor for this film (he wasn’t nominated), but he won for The Champ, another film this same year. (The Champ was also nominated for Best Picture.)
• Lionel Barrymore does a fine job as Otto Kringelein, a man with no time to live, but who seems to be a magnet for money. “Do you recognize him?” Kris asked as we watched. “No. Should I?” I asked. “It’s Mr. Potter,” she said. “No way!” I said, but it’s true. This elevated L.B.’s performance in my eyes. I’d love to see more of his work.
• John Barrymore, Lionel’s brother, does a good job as a ne’er-do-well.

Grand Hotel is a place, in the words of one character, where “nothing ever happens”. Except that in the case of the film, there’s a lot going on. A Russian ballerina, Grusinskaya, is beginning to fall from public favor, and the mental stress is getting to her (and her entourage). A suave baron is actually a small-time crook. A factory-owner is trying to land a big deal at the same time he woos a new stenographer. And a dying man, once employed by the factory-owner, is living his last few days in luxury. The characters collide with one another in all the usual ways.

As I mentioned, I was not impressed with Garbo. She’s like a parody of the silent-screen star here, vamping for the camera. I did like Crawford, though, who had a natural style and a vivacious personality. I found the film, as a whole, entertaining, but rather pedestrian. I did love the gorgeous art deco architecture. The sets are worth the price of admission!

My wife, a Warner Brothers fan, didn’t like this film, which is an MGM production. In the era of studio films, each house had its own style and reputation. I’m not clear on exactly what these reputations were, but I hope to learn as time goes on.

When I began to write this review, there was a seven-minute clip of the film at YouTube. That’s gone now. But this trailer for Grand Hotel is still around:

Grumblebee, one of my Metafilter cohorts, recently posted this recollection:

When I was a kid, my dad, who grew up in London, during the Blitz, used to play this old record: a song called “The Laughing Policeman.” It always put a smile on my face.

According to Wikipedia, it was written in 1922 by Charles Jolly, who wrote "numerous other laughing songs (The Laughing Major, Curate, Steeplechaser, Typist, Lover, etc)." If you want to hear the happiest policeman ever, here’s the mp3.

The song has inspired cartoonists, mystery novelists, filmmakers, a more-recent recording (mp3), and, inevitably, some scary people on youtube. Speaking of youtube, this is how I remember the song:

I’ve never heard this song before, but it sounds very typical of the comedy records of the early twenties. I can imagine Billy Murray recording a version of it. Metafilter user Massless added more about the song’s origins:

The song’s origins might be more interesting that at first glance. Here’s a recording on wax cylinder of The Laughing Song (mp3) via the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project. According to them it’s from a wax series made somewhere between 1896-1901. It features George W. Johnson, the first popular African-American recording artist who also recorded other laughing songs (mp3). If I’m hearing this correctly The Laughing Song and The Laughing Policeman are the same music and melody, though the song’s subject and lyrics changed significantly at some point as "a fat and jolly red-faced man" was sung as "here comes a dandy darky" instead.

The Library of Congress (via the rare book collection at Duke University) includes original images of the sheet music for The Laughing Song. It was published in 1894 nearly 30 years before the recording of The Laughing Policeman and Penrose(Lolly) does not appear to be credited.

The earlier song seems to bubble on bitter tones, Johnson’s 2nd verse is darkly suggestive to me: They said his mother was a Princess, his father was a Prince/And he’d been the apple of their eye if he had not been a quince/But he’ll be the King of Africa/In the sweet by and bye/And when I heard them say it why I laughed until I cried.

Fascinating stuff.

[Metafilter: The Laughing Policeman]

Ephemera, a blog “exploring the world of old paper, recently published an an interview with Linda and Stan Zielinski, the authors of the Children’s Picturebook Price Guide. According to Amazon:

[This book] provides values for nearly 23,000 books, covering over 700 children’s book illustrators dating from 1929 to 2006. For owners of picturebooks, the price guide is an essential tool to identify and assess their value.

This interview is fascinating, touching as it does upon two of my hobbies: collecting and books. There are several nuggets of good info here. I particularly like this bit:

We tend to focus on the first edition of children’s picturebook which have been met with success in the general children’s book market. This success manifests itself by staying in print for decades, and large number of sales of the book over time. In other words, books that stand the test of time with the children, across generations.

There are many examples: All of the Dr. Suess books, which have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide. The Caldecott Medal winning books, which was initially awarded in 1938, stay in print, and have been read by generations. Madeline, first published in 1939, has never been out of print. Ferdinand, 1936. Wanda Gag’s Millions of Cats, is the earliest example of a picturebook that has stayed in print since its first publication, which was 1928.

There are very few things created in the 30s, 40s, or 50s, remaining unchanged, that would be enjoyed by today’s generation. Superman and Batman were created in the 1930s, and their franchises still run strong. However, it’s not the comic books of the 1930s that is appealing to today’s 8-to-14 year olds–the superheroes have been updated for the modern era. Not so for picturebooks from decades ago.

Millions of Cats is the first book I can remember my mother reading to me. I love it as much today as I did when I was a boy.

My wife and I both love children’s books. Picture books are especially fun. We’re not collectors, but that’s only because we have other hobbies.

[ephemera: Interview with the authors of the Children's Picturebook Price Guide]

After months of hemming and hawing, I’m ready to take this site live. I’ve moved the “sandbox” entries that were here to another location, have written a couple of posts for the coming weeks, and will now beging the work of choosing and modifying a template for this site. Over then next few weeks I’ll add content as time allows.