Archive.org’s Comic Books and Graphic Novels Archive presents 14,000+ items. Note that this collection may be sorted by date, and downloaded in several ebook formats. Many of the Manga comics are fairly recent and suitable for mature audiences only. This collection includes Amazing Story magazines from the 1930s forward and Walt Disney comic books from the 1940s forward.
Please note that Disney enforces its copy rights vigorously and will probably prosecute anyone who reproduces these comics without permission. The claim that they are copyright free is probably wishful thinking and not at all certain.
World Catalog's Search Engine at WorldCat.org provides another great way to find free ebooks, comic books, graphic novels and old magazines online. It's basically a library catalog, but it has some powerful features. For example, it offers a Genre Search function and it includes a subgenre page for searching on Comics and Graphic Novels here. It's also a fantastic tool for finding old magazines archived in the deep web.
To find free digital magazine content online, follow these steps:
- Go to the main search engine at WorldCat.org here
- Type into the Search engine the title of the comic, fanzine, graphic novel or dime novel series that you want to find and hit ENTER. For example, try "Photoplay magazine" (a 1920s movie fanzine). I'm using Photoplay as an example because you will definitely get good results.
- Using the filter boxes in the left-hand column, look under the heading Format and find the filter that says "Journal, magazine" (to find this option you may have to click on the link that says "Show More" options).
- Check the filter box next to eJournal. This will filter out all results except eJournals. Hit ENTER.
- If you are in luck, there will be several results, and each result will be followed by an eJournal icon. Using Photoplay as an example, the very top result says "Photoplay" followed by an eJournal icon, which indicates that Photoplay is indeed available as a digitized eJournal.
- Click on the top hyperlink to call up the magazine's eJournal page, in this case the Photoplay eJournal page.
- Is the magazine available as a free eJournal? Look at the results. What you hope to see is a graybar that says "Find A Copy Online" followed by some hyperlinks to websites that offer the magazine for free. In the case of Photoplay, there are several hyperlinks, four to Google and one at the bottom to "HathiTrust Digital Library, Full View."
- Click the link that looks best to you, and you will be taken to a website, in this case HathiTrust, where one finds a list of all the back issues of Photoplay available at college libraries around the world. For Photoplay, we find hyperlinks to the University of Minnesota libraries, which offer digital copies of Photoplay for free. They can be viewed easily through Hathi's online magazine reader.
- Want to download the magazine? Hah! Hathi doesn't allow downloads unless you pony up some money. You can read online for free, but they don't allow downloading.
- Go to Archive.org's main search engine, and guess what? Yup. They offer many, many back issues of Photoplay magazine for free, available for download in several formats.
- Conclusion: You may as well try Archive.org first. It's got tons of hidden magazines. They are buried under a poorly organized heap, but once you find them they are very definitely free.
- If the Internet Archive (Archive.org) fails you, then it's time to turn to WorldCat.org, which makes a great fall back. It will steer you to magazines at Google Books and many other free college archives. It's a convenient, one-stop shop for finding free eJournals, comic books, graphic novels and old fanzines.
Dime Novel Collections Online
The American Women’s Dime Novel Project provides a list of dime novel archives in the United States. Great place to start!
Bowling Green State University's Nickel Weeklies Collection offers 1,299 issues online. BGSU also offers a digital collection of 300+ Vintage Paperback Covers guaranteed to make you laugh or cringe. These paperbacks of the 1950s to 1970s certainly look very pulpy indeed.
The Dime Novels and Penny Dreadfuls website at Stanford includes a Dime Novel Timeline.
The Library of Congress - Dime Novels collection holds nearly 40,000 dime novels, including both books and more than 280 serial magazines. Unfortunately, most are not online - they're on microfilm. To find digital content, your best bet is to go to their main search engine here and simply load a title from the Dime Novel Series A-Z List below. You might get lucky.
Newberry Library (Chicago) offers a small collection of 100 Dime novels which may be found by using its online catalog search engine here. Please refer to the Dime Novel Series A-Z List below to find titles, then cut and paste them into the search engine.
Nickels and Dimes is the splash page for the Northern Illinois University - Albert Johannsen Collection. The Albert Johannsen Collection includes more than 50,000 dime novels in downloadable PDF format. Try their Browse and Search Page here. To read, just click the hyperlinked title you want. This opens the novel in a spiffy online reader. If you want to download the cover or the entire novel as a PDF, look in the online reader's upper left-hand corner for the Internet Archive hyperlink. Click the link and you will be taken to sharing page where the item may be downloaded as a PDF or shared to Facebook, Twitter, Google or Reddit. NIU also offers a downloadable "Text Corpus" (a single 135 MB zipped file containing the text for 1,609 dime novels) for anyone who wants to do text mining.
Nineteenth Century Girls’ Series
Stanford University's Dime Novels and Penny Dreadfuls Collection offers more than 8,000 titles.
- Use their Search and Browse Page here
- Explore their Dime Novel Timeline here
Syracuse University - Street & Smith Dime Collection
University of Minnesota - Hess Collection has a substantial collection of dime novels.
University of South Florida's Dime Novel Collection offers more than 30 series and subseries online. For an overview, use their Browse Page here. Each series is represented with a thumbnail cover. To navigate the many issues of a single series, look for the tiny radio + button to the right of the cover and click it for a drop-down menu of all issues available. To read a specific issue, click the blue hyperlinked Issue Number and Date you want. The novel then opens in a truly excellent online reader. Using the toolbar at the top of the reader, click on the PDF button in order to download the entire magazine.
Dime Novel Series A to Z List
Dime Novels available at the Newberry Library and Online
Alice Wilde, the Raftsman’s Daughter: A Forest Romance, by Metta V. Victor. Beadle’s Dime Novels, No. 4. New York: Irwin P. Beadle and Company, 1860. Call Number: *Ruggles 320 no. 4.
Collection of Weeklies, 1900-1907. New York: Street & Smith, 1900-1907. Fourteen items. Titles include Do and Dare, New Nick Carter Weekly, Tip Top Weekly, Wild West Weekly, and Work and Win. Call Number: sc1712. [See Wild West Weekly covers here].
Beadle’s Dime Speaker Series. New York: M. J. Ivers & Company, [1887-1900]. Call Number: Y9968.082. Newberry has numbers 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11-13, 20, and 24.
Big Foot, the Guide; or, The Surveyors: A Tale of the Carolina Settlements, by W. J. Hamilton (i.e. C. D. Clark). Beadle’s American Library, No. 75. London: G. Routledge, [186-?]. Call Number: Ayer 439 B36 1861 v. 8.
The Boy Scouts: or, The Hunt of the Pottawatomies, by Mahlon A. Brown (i.e. Edward S. Ellis). Beadle’s Frontier Series, No. 66. Cleveland: A. Westbrook, 1909. Call Number: Ayer 438.B34 no. 66.
Buckskin Bill; or, The White Demon of the Woods, by Guy Greenwood. Beadle’s Dime Novels, No. 206. New York: Beadle and Company, [1870]. Call Number: Ayer 438 G69 1870.
Bullet head; or, The Indian Trailer, by Latham C. Carleton (i.e. Edward S. Ellis). Beadle’s Frontier Series, No. 78. Cleveland: A. Westbrook, 1909. Call Number: Ayer 439 B3 1909 v. 5.
Chip, the Cave-Child, by Mary A. Dennison. Beadle’s Dime Novels, No. 6. New York: Irwin P. Beadle and Company, 1860. Call Number: *Ruggles 320 no. 6.
Frank Merriwell’s All-Star Opponents; or, Battling the Best in Baseball, by Robert McDowell. Tip Top Weekly, No. 851. Fall River, MA: E. T. LeBlanc, 1978 (Reproduces story originally issued in 1912). Call Number: PS374 D5 D55 v. 47, no. 4.
The Golden Belt, or, the Carib’s Pledge, by Colin Barker. Beadle’s Dime Novels, No. 5. New York: Irwin P. Beadle and Company, 1860. Call Number: *Ruggles 320 no. 5.
Hawk-eye the Hunter, by Frederick Whittaker. Beadle’s Frontier Series, No. 4. Cleveland: A. Westbrook, 1908. Call Number: Ayer 439 B3 1909 v. 1
The Hunted Life; A Story of Startling Adventures in the Far West, by Colonel Walter B. Dunlap (i.e. Sylvanus Cobb). Beadle’s Sixpenny Tales, No. 1. London: Beadle and Co., [1862]. Call Number: Ayer 439 C653 1862.
The Hunters; or, Life on the Mountain and Prairie, by Latham C. Carleton (i.e. Edward S. Ellis). Beadle’s Ten Cent Novels, No. 1. New York: I. P. Beadle & Co., [1863]. Call Number: Ayer 438 E39 1863.
Indian Jim, a Tale of the Minnesota Massacre. Beadle’s Frontier Series, No.25. Cleveland: A. Westbrook Company, 1908. Call Number: Ayer 438 B34 no. 25.
The Indian Queen’s Revenge, by Ned Buntline (i.e. Edward Zane Carroll Judson). Beadle’s Frontier Series, No. 56. Cleveland: A. Westbrook, 1909. Call Number: Ayer 438 B34 no. 56.
The Indian Spirit; or, Perils of the Border, a Story of Indian Warfare, by Arthur L. Meserve. Beadle’s Frontier Series, No. 79. Cleveland: A. Westbrook, 1909. Call Number: Ayer 438 B34 no. 79.
The King’s Man: A Tale of South Carolina in Revolutionary Times, by Augustine Duganne. Beadle’s American Library, No. 32. London: Beadle and Co., [1863]. Call Number: Ayer 439 D780 1863.
Legends of the Missouri and Mississippi. Beadle’s Sixpenny Tales, Nos. 9-11. London: E. F. Beadle and Co., [1862-1863]. Call Number: Ayer 438 H785 1862.
The Life and Times of Christopher Carson, the Rocky Mountain Scout and Guide, by Edward S. Ellis. Beadle’s Dime Biographical Library, No. 3. New York: Beadle and Company, [1861]. Call Number: Ayer 247 C15 E4 1861.
Mabel Meredith; or, Hates and Loves, by the author of “Madge Wylde”. Beadle’s American Library, No. 29. London: E. F. Beadle & Co., [1864]. Call Number: Case Y255 M032.
Mad Anthony’s Captain, by Ned Buntline (i.e Edward Zane Carroll Judson). Beadle’s Frontier Series, No. 38. Cleveland: A. Westbrook, 1908. Call Number: Ayer 438 B34 no. 38.
The Madman of the Oconto: or, The Queen of the Cave, by J. C. Chase. Beadle’s Frontier Series, No. 51. Cleveland: A. Westbrook, 1909. Call Number: Ayer 439 B3 1909 v. 2.
Mahaska, the Indian Princess: A Tale of the Six Nations, by Ann S. Stephens. Beadle’s American Library, No. 37. London: G. Routledge, [186-?]. Call Number: Ayer 439 B36 1861 v. 7.
Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter, by Ann S. Stephens. Beadle’s American Library, No. 1. New York: Irwin P. Beadle and Company, 1860. Call Number: *Ruggles 320 No. 1. Considered to be the very first dime novel.
Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter, by Ann S. Stephens. Beadle’s American Library, No. 4. London: Beadle [1861?]. Call Number: Ayer 439 B36 1861 v. 2.
Massasoit’s Daughter: Or, The French Captives: A Romance of Aboriginal New England, by A. J. H. Duganne. Beadle’s American Library, No. 6. London: G. Routledge, [186-?]. Call Number: Ayer 439 B36 1861 v. 3.
Men of the Time: Being Biographies of Generals, by Orville James Victor. Beadle’s Dime Series. New York: Beadle and Company, [1862-1863]. Call Number: U01.94.
The Moose-Hunter; or, Life in the Maine Woods, by John Neal. Beadle’s Dime Novels, No. 72. New York: Beadle and Company, [1864]. Call Number: Case 3A 2694.
Myra, the Child of Adoption: A Romance of Real Life, by Ann S. Stephens. Beadle’s Dime Novels, No. 3. New York: Irwin P. Beadle and Company, 1860. Call Number: *Ruggles 320 no. 3.
Nathan Todd; or, The Fate of the Soiux Captive, by Edward S. Ellis. Beadle’s American Library, No. 9. London: G. Routledge, [186-?]. Call Number: Ayer 439 B36 1861 v. 4.
The New House That Jack Built, by L. Whitehead. Beadle’s Dime Series. New York: Beadle and Company, 1865. Call Number: Y274.973.
A New York Boy Among the Indians, by George L. Aiken. Beadle’s Frontier Series, No. 29. Cleveland: A. Westbrook, 1908. Call Number: Ayer 438 B34 no. 29.
Old Nick of the Swamp, by Ned Buntline (i.e. Edward Zane Carroll Judson). Beadle’s Frontier Series, No. 40. Cleveland: A. Westbrook, 1908. Call Number: Ayer 438 B34 no. 40.
Oonomoo, the Huron, by Edward S. Ellis. Beadle’s New Dime Novels, no. 534 (n.s. no. 213). New York: Beadle and Adams, [1862]. Call Number: Ayer 439 E4 1862.
The Privateer’s Cruise and the Bride of Pomfret Hall, by Harry Cavendish. Beadle’s Dime Novels, No. 2. New York: Irwin P. Beadle and Company, 1860. Call Number: *Ruggles 320 no. 2.
The Riflemen of the Miami, by Edward S. Ellis. Beadle’s American Library, No. 18. London: G. Routledge, [186?]. Call Number: Ayer 439 B36 1861 v. 5.
The Scout of Long Island, by R. L. Wheeler. Beadle’s Frontier Series, No. 75. Cleveland: A. Westbrook, 1909. Call Number: Ayer 439 B3 1909 v. 4.
The Scout of Tippecanoe, by R. L. Wheeler. Beadle’s Frontier Series, No. 64. Cleveland: A. Westbrook, 1909. Call Number: Ayer 439 B3 1909 v. 3.
Seth Jones: or, The Captives of the Frontier, by Edward S. Ellis. Beadle’s American Library, No. 1. London: G. Routledge, [186?]. Call Number: Ayer 439 B36 1861 v. 1.
The Shadow Scout; or, Screaming Moses of the Fishkill Mountains, by Ned Buntline (i.e. Edward Zane Carroll Judson). Beadle’s Frontier Series, No. 41. Cleveland: A. Westbrook, 1908. Call Number: Ayer 438 B34 no. 41.
The Shawnee’s Foe; or, The Hunter of the Juniata, by W. J. Hamilton (i.e. Charles Dunning Clark). Beadle’s Frontier Series, No. 1. Cleveland: A. Westbrook, 1908. Call Number: Ayer 438 B34 no. 1.
Single Eye: A Story of King Phillip’s War, by Warren St. John. Beadle’s American Library, No. 28. London: Beadle, [186-?]. Call Number: Ayer 439 B36 1861 v. 6.
Snow Bird; or, The Trapper’s Child, by Edward Willett. Beadle’s Dime Novels, No. 159. New York: Beadle and Company, [1868]. Call Number: Ayer 438 W705 1868.
Texan Joe, or, Army Life on the Frontiers, by Latham C. Carlton (i.e. Edward S. Ellis). Munro’s Ten Cent Novels, No. 124. New York: George Munro, 1868. Call Number: Ayer 438.C2 1868.
Tiger-Eye, by Ned Buntline (i.e. Edward Zane Carroll Judson). Beadle’s Frontier Series, No. 53. Cleveland: A. Westbrook, 1909. Call Number: Ayer 438 B34 no. 53.
The Trapper’s Bride; or, Love and War, A Tale of the Texan Revolution, by W. J. Hamilton (i.e. Charles Dunning Clark). Beadle’s Frontier Series, No. 62. Cleveland: A. Westbrook, 1909. Call Number: Ayer 438 B34 no. 62.
The True Life of Bill the Kid, by Don Jenardo (i.e John Woodruff Lewis). Five Cent Wide Awake Library, No. 451. New York: F. Tousey, 1881. Call Number: folio Graff 2475.
Wapawkaneta; or, The Ranger of the Oneida, by Frederick Whittaker. Beadle’s Frontier Series, No. 10. Cleveland: A. Westbrook Company, 1908. Call Number: Ayer 438 B34 no. 10.
The White Wizard; or, The Great Prophet of the Seminoles, by Ned Buntline (i.e. Edward Zane Carroll Judson). Beadle’s Sixpenny Tales, No. 6. London: Beadle and Co., [1862]. Call Number: Ayer 439 J93 1862.
Pulp Magazine Collections Online
Archive.org’s “Pulp Magazine Archive” lists more than 4,900 items, including many examples of cover art from such popular pulp magazines as:
- Amazing Stories
- The Black Mask
- Captain Billy's Whiz Bang
- Dime Mystery
- Hush-Hush
- If,
- I Confess
- Romance
- Screenland
- True Detective. and
- Weird Tales
Archive.org provides full-text HD copies of the originals, which are searchable by date and downloadable for free in several e-book reader formats. When downloaded as PDFs, all images are zoomable and clippable offline.
