Steve Cottle

Steve Cottle, Jr. (b. May, 1980), dedicated to the preservation of vintage comic strips, is also known as Mr. ilovecomix. In 2008, he founded the I Love Comix Archive and began to recruit vintage comic strip collectors as contributors, noting, "This is a collaborative effort to save and digitize old newspaper comics."
By filling in the gaps in runs of strips with a variety of contributors, the I Love Comix Archive already stands as the major online database displaying both familiar and obscure newspaper comic strips of the 20th century. Cottle is constantly adding comic strips, and by 2011, he had acquired more than 130,000 images, including Sunday strips, daily strips and newspaper clippings with biographical information about cartoonists, plus 300+ ads featuring comic strips.
A resident of Birmingham, Alabama, Cottle stated his mission in March 2009:
:I have opened up the ilovecomix archive site to anyone who wants to add their newspaper images to the archive. The archive was designed to help save our collection for others to view it and provide a very nice image hosting site.
Vintage variety
On June 4, 2009, Cottle moved his Archive to SmugMug, a paid digital photo sharing site. To cover the costs of SmugMug, Cottle asks for donations. This site enables Cottle to display the comic strips in slide shows, full resolution, original publication date information and a variety of sizes: small, medium, large, XL, X2, X3, original. The functions make it possible to read one daily strip after another in quick succession (as fast as one second or less) by simply positioning the cursor on one button and clicking when ready.
On December 26, 2011, SmugMug pulled the plug on the archive and removed everything from the web, stating:
:Our legal adviser is telling us the "comics" on your site are not falling under the 'Fair Use' in Section 13 of Smugmug's terms of service. Although SmugMug has no obligation to screen, edit or monitor any of the User Content posted on the Site, SmugMug reserves the right, and has absolute discretion, to remove, screen or edit any User Content hosted on the Site at any time and for any reason without notice. You are solely responsible for creating backup copies of and replacing any User Content you host on the Site at your sole cost and expense.
As of March 1, 2012, Cottle moved the Archive to Zenfolio, another paid digital photo sharing site. To cover the costs of Zenfolio, Cottle still asks for donations. Cottle stated, "Zenfolio is not as good as Smugmug, but it is now the best thing available at this time."
Cottle also aims to bring comic strip collectors together, as he noted:
:I started the site in 2009 and it has now grown so big now that I am currently trying to recruit vintage comic collectors to help me with the project. I love vintage comics, and I want all of the old comics to be preserved for future generations to love vintage newspaper comics. I also want to eventually add bio info on the strips as well as on the artists.
Cottle determined that strips in the Archive would have a cut-off point at 1990 since strips after that time are still publicly available. The Archives' Gallery is arranged with alphabetical sub-categories. The "C" sub-category, for example, begins with The Captain and the Kids and Captain Midnight. Color strips in the Gallery include:
*Alley Oop
*Barney Google
*Boots and Her Buddies
*Buck Rogers
*The Bungle Family
*Dick Tracy
*Flash Gordon
*Freckles and His Friends
*Fritzi Ritz
*Gasoline Alley
*Li'l Abner
*Little Nemo
*Moon Mullins
*Pogo
*'
*Tarzan
*Terry and the Pirates
*Tillie the Toiler
*Toots and Casper
*Winnie Winkle
*The Yellow Kid

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