American Comic Book Chronicles: 1945-1949

COMIC BOOK

THE 1940S 1945-1949

Edited by KEITH DALLAS and JOHN WELLS

COMIC BOOK

THE 1940S 1945-1949

Edited by KEITH DALLAS and JOHN WELLS

Dedication

To our recently departed comic book historian colleagues: Bob Beerbohm, Roger Hill, Bill Schelly, Jim Vadeboncouer, and Mike Voiles.

Editors:

Contributing Writers:

Logo Design:

Layout/Design:

Proofreading:

Cover Design:

Publisher:

Keith Dallas and John Wells

Kurt Mitchell and Richard Arndt

(from an outline provided by Bill Schelly)

Bill Walko

David Paul Greenawalt

Kevin Sharp

Jon B. Cooke

John Morrow

Publisher’s Note: Some of the images in this book are of varying quality, since many vintage pages are available only from less-than-ideal microfiche reproductions. In every instance, we used the best images available to us.

Also, some of the comics covered here depict ethnic and racial stereotypes and slurs that were commonplace in the 1940s, but are offensive by today’s standards. In the interest of an accurate documentation of comics history, they are not being censored, so we ask for your understanding, and to keep this context in mind, when viewing them.

TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, North Carolina 27614 www.twomorrows.com • 919-449-0344 email: twomorrow@aol.com

First Printing • August 2024 • Printed in China ISBN 978-1-60549-099-1

American Comic Book Chronicles: 1945-1949 is published by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27614, USA. 919-449-0344. Keith Dallas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. All characters depicted herein are TM and © their respective owners, as noted where they appear. All textual material in this book is © 2024 TwoMorrows Publishing.

Steve Canyon TM and © Estate of Esther Parsons Caniff. Archie, Jughead, Katy Keene, John Goldwater, Suzie TM and © Archie Comic Publications, Inc. Li’l Abner TM and © Capp Enterprises Inc. The Shadow TM and © Condé Nast. Mighty Mouse TM and © CBS Operations, Inc. Baby Huey, Little Lulu, The Lone Ranger TM and © Classic Media, LLC. Little Orphan Annie TM and © Content Agency, LLC. The Atom, Batman, Binky, Black Canary, Blackhawk, Blue Lama, Crime Smasher, Doll Man, Dover and Clover, Flash, Fox and the Crow, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Harlequin, Hawkman, Huntress, Icicle, Johnny Thunder, Jor-El, Justice Society of America, Lois Lane, Nighthawk, Per Degaton, Phantom Lady, Riddler, Robin, Rodeo Rick, Sargon the Sorcerer, Scribbly, Shazam Heroes, Solomon Grundy, Streak the Wonder Dog, Superboy, Superman, Thorn, Tomahawk, Tommy Tomorrow, Vigilante, Wildcat, The Wizard, Wonder Woman, Wyoming Kid TM and © DC Comics. Bambi, Donald Duck, Dumbo, Mickey Mouse, Pinocchio, Uncle Scrooge McDuck TM and © Disney Enterprises Inc. Tarzan TM and © ERB, Inc. Sheena TM and © Galaxy Publishing and Valdoro Entertainment. Blondie, Rip Kirby © King Features Syndicate, Inc., LLC. All Winners Squad, Black Rider, Blonde Phantom, Bucky, Captain America, Ghost Rider, Hedy De Vine, Human Torch, Kid Colt, Millie the Model, Namora, Nellie the Nurse, Sub-Martiner, Sun Girl, Toro, Two-Gun Kid, Venus, Wilbur TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc. Pogo TM and © Okefenokee Glee & Perloo Inc. Peanuts TM and © Peanuts Worldwide LLC. Sad Sack TM and © Sad Sack, Inc. Terry and the Pirates TM and © Tribune Media Services, Inc. Dick Tracy TM and © Tribune Content Agency. Abbie an’ Slats TM and © United Feature Syndicate, Inc. Andy Panda, Oswald the Rabbit, Woody Woodpecker TM and © Walter Lantz Productions, Inc. Bugs Bunny TM and © Warner Bros. Commissioner Dolan, Gerhard Schnobble, P’Gell, Plaster of Paris, Powder Pouf, Saree, Silk Satin, The Spirit, Thorne Strand TM and © Will Eisner Studios Inc. Airboy, Atoman, Atomic Man, Black Cat, Black Diamond, Black Terror, Black Dwarf, Boy Explorers, Bronze Man, Candy, Captain Wings, Challenger, The Claw, Cosmo Cat, Crime Does Not Pay, Dr. Desmond Drew, Dynamic Man, El Kuraan, Firehair, Frankenstein, Gabby Hayes, The Golem, Green Lama, Green Mask, Gunsmoke, The Heap, Hopalong Cassidy, Intellectual Amos, Little Max, Marmaduke Mouse, Monte Hale, Mopsy, Mortie Mouse, Nigel Elliman-Ace of Magic, Ozzie Turner, Raggedy Ann and Andy, Señorita Rio, Sky Girl, Skyman, South

Spencer Spook, Stuntman, Supermouse, Tom Mix, Torchy Todd, Upan Atom, Volto TM and © respective copyright owners.

Sea Girl,

Introductory Note about the Chronological Structure of American Comic Book Chronicles

By Keith Dallas, with the assistance of Ray Botorff, Jr.

The monthly date that appears on a comic book cover doesn’t usually indicate the exact month the comic book arrived at the newsstand or at the comic book store. Since their inception, American periodical publishers—including but not limited to comic book publishers—postdated their issues in order to let vendors know when they should remove unsold copies from their stores. In the 1930s, the discrepancy between a comic book’s cover date and the actual month it reached the newsstand was one month. For instance, Detective Comics #1 is cover dated March 1937 but actually went on sale one month earlier in February. Starting in 1940, comic book publishers hoped to increase each issue’s shelf life by widening the discrepancy between cover date and release date to two months. In 1973, the discrepancy was widened again to three months. The expansion of the Direct Market in the 1980s, though, turned

the cover date system on its head as many Direct Market-exclusive publishers chose not to put cover dates on their comic books while some put cover dates that matched the issue’s release date.

This all creates a perplexing challenge for comic book historians as they consider whether to chronologize comic book history via cover date or release date. The predominant comic book history tradition has been to chronologize via cover date, and American Comic Book Chronicles is following that tradition. This means though that some comic books that were released in the final months of one year won’t be dealt with until the chapter covering the following year. Each chapter, however, will include a yearly timeline that uses a comic book’s release date to position it appropriately among other significant historical, cultural and political events of that year.

Joe Palooka Comics #16 (Jan. 1948). Cover art by Ham Fisher and Moe Leff. See page 200. TM and © respective copyright owners.

All-American Comics #100 (Aug. 1948). Cover art by Alex Toth. See page 163. TM and © DC Comics.

Note on Comic Book Sales and Circulation Data

Determining the exact number of copies a comic book title sold on the newsstand is problematic. The best that one can hope to learn is a close approximation of a comic book’s total sales. This is because the methods used to report sales figures were (and still are) fundamentally flawed. Beginning in 1960, periodical publishers that sold through the mail—which included comic book companies—were required to print circulation data (which eventually included a comic book title’s average print run, average paid circulation, and average returns from the newsstand) in their annual statements of “Ownership, Management and Circulation” in one issue of each of their titles. Prior to 1960, however, circulation data was information conveyed privately from the distributors to the publishers and subsequently reported by some publishers to the Audit Bureau of Circulations for advertisers’ use. Advertisers wanted to know the potential reach one of their ads would have in a comic book, but often the Audit Bureau didn’t break down sales data by individual title, only by individual publisher.

Throughout the 1950s, comic book sales data was printed in distributor newsletters like Box Score of Magazine Sales and resources for advertisers like the N.W. Ayer and Sons guides. Occasionally, though, sales figures would end up in media kits and publisher press statements. And then there was the U. S. Senate Subcommittee, which published a report in 1950 that focused on juvenile delinquency. It included sales figures of individual comic book titles from 1949 (and sometimes from several prior years) that were provided by the comic book publishers themselves. The problem is that since the publishers self-reported this data, its reliability can certainly be questioned. American Comic Book Chronicles then recognizes the flawed nature of newsstand circulation data but is resigned to the fact that it is also the only data available and will consider it a close approximation of a comic book’s total sales numbers.

Casper the Ghost #1 (Sept. 1949). See page 212. TM and © Classic Media LLC.

Captain Marvel Adventures #100 (Sept. 1949). Cover art by C.C. Beck. See page 227.

INTRODUCTION & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Growing Pains

By John Wells

“Attention! If you desire to know any information of any comic magazines ever published, someone in this house will tell you what to know at a price of five cents per question. I will pay you five cents if I cannot answer your question within a month.”

Posted on a residential porch in Washington, D.C. in July 1946, the flyer bearing those words didn’t generate much profit for David Pace Wigransky, who had turned thirteen the month before. Bright and articulate for his age, the teenager gave his few clients—generally boys who often asked “foolish questions”—their money’s worth. His collection boasted a precise 1,240 comic books in mid-1946, a number that had swelled to 5,212 two years later.

That was a lot of comic books. In a bit over a decade, the familiar four-color periodicals had taken the publishing world by storm. The lowbrow offspring of more respectable newspaper strips were coming into their own, playing with layouts and storytelling in ways that the restrictive strip format didn’t allow. Comic books also produced an essentially new genre, cornering the market on the fantastic adventures of costumed superheroes. The exploits of men (and the occasional women) in tights sent sales soaring for participating publishers during World War II.

As this volume details, when the war ended in 1945, the comic book industry faced a steep learning curve ahead. With wartime restrictions of paper supply lifted, publishers—both established and newcomers hoping to make a quick buck—began ramping up production. Growth came with its own set of challenges, not the least of which was the fact that the postwar audience had shifted.

Those who placed their bets on superheroes soon discovered that they were no longer the cash cow they had once been. New genres were pushed to the forefront—funny animals, crime, Westerns, and teen humor were high on the list—while reliable innovators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby pioneered the romance comic and set into motion an eventual “love glut.”

That’s not to say that there wasn’t still plenty of life in the old favorites. Dell’s prestigious line of licensed titles remained a trusted destination for children and parents alike. The publisher enhanced its reputation further in the late 1940s through Walt Kelly’s sublime Pogo, the elevation of Carl Barks’ Donald Duck stories into a brilliant series of longform adventures, and the emergence of John Stanley and Irving Tripp’s inspired comic book version of Little Lulu.

Returning from the Army in late 1945, Will Eisner resumed work on the Spirit section, not merely improving on the

wartime work of his substitutes but surpassing his early 1940s material. Moving on to the end of the 1940s, the feature became a weekly master class in cartooning.

With the prolific writer Otto Binder at the helm (often with lead artist C.C. Beck), Fawcett’s adventures of Captain Marvel and his satellite Marvel Family shifted into their mostpolished period in the postwar years, still boasting strong sales even during a superhero slump. Major players like Superman and Batman notwithstanding, most other costumed characters weren’t as lucky. At National/ DC, it wasn’t for lack of trying. With new editor Julius Schwartz, the extant secondary superhero comics saw a burst of fresh characters and a series peak for the Justice Society of America in All-Star Comics.

Schwartz’s books benefited from contributions by still-raw artists like Carmine Infantino, Joe Kubert, and Alex Toth, all destined for stardom in the coming decades. Elsewhere, the comic book industry profited from a host of illustrators newly discharged from the Army, men like John Severin, Curt Swan, and Wallace Wood. Bringing up the rear were the young upstarts meant for big things. Al Williamson, a mere two years older than Dave Wigransky, was drawing comic books professionally by the age of 17 in 1948.

Wigransky, who also aspired to cartooning but was stylistically more

in tune with 1960s underground artists, also expressed—in a 1948 letter to Dell president George Delacorte— a desire to “write a book on the history of American Comic Magazines during the first half of the twentieth century.” Since Dave hadn’t just read most of them but corresponded with several extant creators, such a book would have been invaluable for future historians.

That tome never came to be, which is to everyone’s misfortune because the specific period covered in this volume—after the World War II explosion and before the seismic 1950s—has remained a spotty era in the vast library of comic book histories. That explains, in part, why this particular volume of American Comic Book Chronicles has been so long in coming.

The challenge of documenting the history of 1945-1949 is, of course, the fact that nearly all of its active players are gone. Therefore, we—and all who love comics—owe a very deep debt to all of the fans-turned-historians who have interviewed creators over the years, getting their irreplaceable stories on the record while they were still with us. Roy Thomas’ Alter Ego alone, with scores of archived interviews conducted by Jim Amash and many others, has been vital to the ongoing oral history of comic books.

Along with Roy, we also extend our greatest thanks to Mike Tiefenbacher, who graciously reviewed much of the manuscript and offered both great insight and fact-checking. Thanks as well to P.C. Hamerlinck, Ken Quattro, Wayne Smith, and Mark Waid for their own help in making this longawaited volume a reality. Regularly consulted as well were indispensable websites such as the Grand Comic Database, Mike’s Amazing World of Comics, Comic Book Plus, Newspapers.com, and the Internet Archive.

Although the volumes in this series have not been released chronologically, the publication of American Comic Book Chronicles 1945-1949 now allows the reader to follow a rich history spanning 1940 through 1999 in an unbroken line of books.

In the pages that follow, amidst the history of various series and publishers, you’ll also find an undercurrent of

opposition to the comic book industry and the emergence of a man who would become Public Enemy #1 to a generation of fans: Dr. Fredric Wertham. Dave Wigransky, as you’ll see on pages 159 and 160, was among the first—and most eloquent—to stand up to the anti-comic crusader but the fight was only beginning. That story continues in American Comic Book Chronicles The 1950s, by Bill Schelly.

Bill, by the way, was originally tapped to write this volume of American Comic Book Chronicles. The Eisner Award-winning historian, whose outstanding work includes biographies of Otto Binder, Joe Kubert, Harvey Kurtzman, and John Stanley, shaped an extensive outline for this five-year period of comic book history, even drawing on Otto Binder’s letters to Clifford Kornoelje (a.k.a. Jack Darrow) from his personal files. Tragically, Bill passed away in 2019 before he could truly begin writing this volume. Using Bill’s outline as a guide, Kurt Mitchell and Richard Arndt then drafted this book’s chapters before Keith Dallas and I ran the manuscript through its final paces, personally researching each section, adding considerable additional content (and context), and prioritizing the readability of the narrative (while ensuring it was aligned with American Comic Book Chronicles’ other volumes).

Throughout it all, we remained inspired by the passions of David Pace Wigransky, which, prior to his death in 1969, expanded in adulthood to encompass some 8,000 record albums and a vast collection devoted to his favorite performer, Al Jolson. His comic book scholarship, happily, remained intact. Writing about notorious publisher Victor Fox for 1962’s Xero #8, Richard Kyle was advised to reach out to Wigransky, who had read all the Fox comics and was able to cheerfully correct errors in the draft. There is no indication that he charged a nickel for the information.

Bibliographical information on David Pace Wigransky comes from The Washington Evening Star (July 19, 1946) and a thread by “sfcityduck” at the cgcomics.com message board.

Victory!

World War Two, the most destructive conflict in human history, was finally winding down. The once-mighty coalition of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and fascist Italy was fragmenting, as the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China, and other members of the alliance known as the United Nations continued their assault on Axis territory. A desperate attempt to turn back the Allied invasion forces at the month-long Battle of the Bulge ended with the ignominious retreat of German troops from France in late January, while to the east the Red Army wrested Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania from Nazi control. In the Pacific theater, the Japanese were being slowly forced out of the occupied territories, sacrificing tens of thousands of fighting men in the Battles of Manila, Corregidor, and Iwo Jima. Allied air forces now ruled the skies, inflicting terrible destruction on military and civilian targets alike. The firebombing of Dresden in February claimed 25,000 lives. A similar attack on Tokyo a month later killed 100,000 and left over a million homeless. If the folks on the Home Front had any qualms about the severity of these raids, they put them aside as word began to leak out of the atrocities uncovered during the liberation of the concentration camps where the Nazis had come uncomfortably close to achieving their genocidal “Final Solution.”

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin met in Yalta on the Crimean peninsula in February to discuss the future, issuing a Declaration of Liberated Europe that promised “the earliest possible establishment through free elections of governments responsive to the will of the people.” Of critical importance to Roosevelt was a pledge obtained from Stalin that the USSR would enter the war against Japan as soon as Germany surrendered, a pledge conservative second-guessers later claimed Stalin used to manipulate the exhausted, fragile president into inadvertently greenlighting the Soviets’ postwar stranglehold on Eastern Europe.

When the Allied leaders conferred at Yalta in February, they could not have known it was their last meeting. By the Potsdam conference in July, Anthony Eden had defeated Winston Churchill at the polls and Harry Truman had succeeded the deceased Franklin Roosevelt. Only Josef Stalin remained of the “Big Three.”

One by one, the Axis dictators fell. On April 28, Benito Mussolini was summarily executed by Italian partisans as he tried to escape with his mistress to Switzerland. Il Duce’s corpse was hung upside down from a lamppost, his former subjects standing in line for a chance to jeer at and spit on the once-feared Fascist leader. Two days later, with Russian troops on the outskirts of Berlin, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in the underground bunker where the mad Führer had been hiding for weeks (though rumors of his survival and escape persisted for decades afterward). But Americans took little joy in the deaths of Mussolini and Hitler, for they were preoccupied with a catastrophic loss of their own.

On April 12, while vacationing at Warm Springs, Georgia, FDR suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. He died that evening. Though his doctors had long feared something like this would happen, it was a shock to the nation that had elected Roosevelt to an unprecedented fourth term just six months before. America had lost more than its head of state, more than its commander-in-chief. FDR redefined the relationship between the governing and the governed, ushering in a new era of federal paternalism through such radical innovations as Social Security and unemployment insurance. To many Americans, it was inconceivable that this political titan, the only president an entire generation had ever known, was gone, that they would never again hear his voice over their radios, that he would not see the country through to final victory. And no one was more shocked and dismayed at this turn of events than his successor, Harry S. Truman. Summoned to the White House without explanation, the new vice-president—Roosevelt’s third— had no idea of what awaited him:

“[T]he long black car turned off Pennsylvania [Avenue], through the northwest gate, and swept up the drive, stopping under the North Portico. The time was 5:25. Two ushers were waiting at the door. They took his hat and escorted him to a small, oak-paneled elevator... that ascended now very slowly to

the second floor. In the private quarters, ... in her dressing room, Mrs. Roosevelt was waiting. [She] stepped forward and gently put her arm on Truman’s shoulder. ‘Harry, the President is dead.’ Truman was unable to speak. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ he said at last. ‘Is there anything we can do for you,’ she said. ‘For you are the one in trouble now’” (McCullough 342).

The new president was nothing like the charismatic, patrician Roosevelt. The son of middle-class farm folk, a captain of artillery during the First World War, Truman had risen through the ranks of one of the most corrupt political machines in the U.S without being personally tainted by the association. As the junior senator from Missouri, he had quickly distinguished himself through hard work and uncompromising integrity. But nobody in the Democratic Party had expected him to actually become president, and few believed he was up to the task. Nonetheless, it was Truman who presided over the celebration of V-E Day in May, Truman who went toe-to-toe with Stalin and new British Prime Minister Anthony Eden at the final Allied conference in Potsdam two months later, and Truman who made the fateful decision to use a new weapon, the end product of the top-secret Manhattan Project, that would not only bring the war to an abrupt and dramatic end but make America the first global superpower. The war officially ended on September 2, 1945 (following the Japanese Empire’s surrender on August 14), but you’d never know it from America’s

comic books. The time lag between production and publication meant that comics cover-dated December went on sale in October and featured content created in July or August. Thus, few comics bearing a 1945 date acknowledged the war’s end. Indeed, many of these comics didn’t acknowledge Germany’s surrender on May 8 either and Nazi villains continued to prowl some lines’ pages for months afterward. It would be well into 1946 before WWII was finally in the comic book industry’s rear-view mirror.

The Best Years of Their Lives

The industry as of January 1, 1945 consisted of eight major publishing houses (those releasing 50 or more issues a year), 15 minor lines (12 to 49 issues), and a score of small companies, with 32 additional publishers joining them by year’s end. More than a thousand comic books were released this year, the raison d’etre of a complex skein of business, personal, and familial relationships among publishers, printers, distributors, and commercial art studios. Looking back from the 21st century, where comic books are a niche product available primarily in specialty stores, it can be difficult to fathom how popular— and profitable—they once were. By ’45, one out of every three periodicals sold in the U.S. was a comic book. Small wonder that so many newcomers were clamoring to jump onboard this gravy train.

As it had been from its birth in the mid-’30s, the industry was located primarily in the New York metropolitan area, with outliers in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, and elsewhere. This reality was obscured at times by publishers whose legal business

TIMELINE: 1945

A compilation of the year’s notable comic book history events alongside some of the year’s most significant popular culture and historical events. (On sale dates are approximations.)

April

Pacific Theater of World War II.

April 12: President Roosevelt dies at the age of 63 of a cerebral hemorrhage while posing for a portrait at a resort in Warm Springs, Georgia. He is succeeded by the vice president, Harry S. Truman.

March 31: Tennessee Williams’ play The Glass Menagerie opens on Broadway after premiering in Chicago the previous year. The drama about a dysfunctional Southern family will win the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play of the year.

May 8: Victory in Europe Day (or V-E Day) is commemorated as the Allies officially accept Germany’s unconditional surrender. In a radio address President Truman announces that the war in Europe has ended.

July 20: Comic book creator Jack Kirby is honorably discharged from the U.S. Army, having earned a Bronze Star and Combat Infantryman Badge for his service during World War II. He reunites with his longtime creative partner, Joe Simon, once the latter is discharged from the United States Coast Guard.

June 7: A backup story written and drawn by Bill Woggon in Archie Comics’ Wilbur Comics #5 introduces Katy Keene, “the Pin-Up Queen.” The object of affection of countless boys, Katy Keene will soon become Archie Comics’ second-most popular property. JANUARY

February 23: Four days after landing on the Japanese-occupied island of Iwo Jima, the U.S. Marines capture Mount Suribachi. A photograph of six Marines raising the U.S. flag on top of the mountain becomes one of the most iconic images of World War II.

address was actually that of their out-of-state printer, a ploy designed to bypass New York City’s stringent tax code. MLJ, Family, Creston, Continental, Orbit, and Four Star, for example, all used 420 DeSoto Avenue in St. Louis, the home of World Color Press, as their legal address, though their executive and editorial offices were all in Manhattan. Another common practice was using different corporate identities for the comics in a publisher’s line to minimize taxes and ensure that the failure of one title couldn’t bring down the rest. Publisher Martin Goodman released 36 titles in 1945 under 31 different names (including one that wouldn’t become the company’s legal name until 1973: Marvel Comics). To compound the confusion, some players in the industry had their fingers in multiple pies, as in the case of Ben Sangor, who not only owned half-interest in Creston and his son-in-law Ned Pines’ Better/Standard/Nedor group but also owned the studio that pack-

aged their contents. Making sense of it all is not for the faint of heart.

The larger publishing houses—Quality, DC, Timely, All-American, Dell— either maintained an “in-house” creative staff or dealt directly with freelance artists and writers. Others contracted with packaging services like Sangor’s to provide part or all of their content. Such art studios created features, fillers, covers, whatever a client needed, the quality of the work frequently dependent on what page rate the client was willing to pay. Sometimes it worked the other way around, with the studio selling small publishing firms on the idea of starting a line of comics. This practice reached its peak in 1945, as services like Funnies, Inc., the Bernard Baily and L.B. Cole studios, and newcomer Jason Comic Art lent their talents to some 30-odd first-time comics publishers, many of them managing to eke out only a single issue before

April 30: As Soviet troops surround Berlin, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler commits suicide by shooting himself in the head in his subterranean bunker. The previous day he had married his longtime companion Eva Braun who also kills herself by ingesting a cyanide capsule.

April 28: One day after being captured, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini is executed by Communist partisans.

to stay in business despite wartime restrictions, some shops were less than particular about who they did business with. It is hard to say if they knew the comics they were creating were printed on black market newsprint but they apparently had plausible deniability. When the federal government began cracking down on the shadiest publishers in February, those responsible for the content on display within those illicit pages escaped any legal consequences.

The temptation to violate the federal government’s Limitation Order L-244, which held existing publishers to 75% of their 1942 usage and denied paper altogether to any publisher not in business in ’42, was considerable. The demand for comic books outweighed the limited supply. As comics historian Will Murray notes in his seminal study “Black Market Comics of the Golden Age”:

“During World War II, comic books sold like never before or

going under. In their desperation

January 27: The Soviet army liberates the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. Between 1940 and 1945, over a million prisoners, mostly Jews, died in the camp, either via gas chambers, starvation, disease or executions.

February 4: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Union Premier Josef Stalin meet in Yalta, Ukraine to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe.

March 3: Courtesy of the Mutual Broadcasting System, Superman meets Batman and Robin for the first time… over the radio waves at least.

1: Allied forces launch “Operation Iceberg” as over 150,000 U.S. soldiers and Marines invade the Japanese island of Okinawa. It is the largest amphibious assault in the

August 2: U.S. President Harry Truman, Soviet Union Premier Josef Stalin and British Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee conclude their two week meeting in Potsdam, Germany to establish Europe’s postwar order. Among other things, the leaders agree to separate Germany into four occupied zones.

July 30: On its way back to the Philippines after delivering components of the first uranium bomb, the naval cruiser U.S.S. Indianapolis is

by a Japanese submarine. Of the 900 crewmen who jump into the shark-infested sea, only 317 survive after being adrift for four days. In the history of the U.S. Navy, it is the greatest loss of life at sea from a single ship.

August 6: The Enola Gay, a U.S. Air Force bomber, drops a uranium bomb (named “Little Boy”) over Hiroshima, Japan. The nuclear detonation destroys the city, killing approximately 140,000 soldiers and civilians.

August 9: Bockscar, a U.S. Air Force bomber, drops a plutonium bomb (named “Fat Man”) over Nagasaki, Japan. The nuclear detonation destroys most of the city, killing approximately 74,000 people, mostly civilians.

August 14: Victory over Japan Day (or V-J Day) is commemorated as President Truman announces that Japan has surrendered unconditionally.

August 17: George Orwell’s novella Animal Farm is published in England. The political allegory satirizes the Soviet Union through a group of farm animals who rebel against their owner to create a free and equal society that turns out to be anything but.

September 2: World War II officially ends.

August 10: The creation of cartoonist Ruth Atkinson, aspiring model

series will become Marvel Comics’ longest-running humor title, lasting until 1973.

since. Kids loved them. Adults read them. Soldiers in battlefields from Europe to the Pacific devoured them. Both Superman and Batman peaked at over 1,600,000 copies [per issue] sold, with Captain Marvel not far behind at 1,300,000 per issue. It was a true Golden Age, for profit-hungry publishers as well as for readers. There was only one problem: Paper” (28).

The availability of newsprint meant the difference between success and ruin for a comics line. The major players, and many of the minor ones, were either divisions of larger publishing houses or had ties to printing or distribution firms, assuring them a steady, albeit reduced, supply of newsprint. Other companies diverted paper meant for their pulp magazines—the popularity of paperback books had bled off a significant portion of the pulp audience— to their better-selling comics. Some turned to proxy publishers, who traded their name and excess paper for a cut of the proceeds. Still, accommodations had to be made. At the beginning of the decade, the standard comic book had been 68 pages (including covers) for a dime. By 1945, only one newsstand comic—Holyoke’s Sparkling Stars—

November: Students of Saints Peter and Paul School in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin perform a comic-book burning after a school-sponsored collection drive amassed over 1500 copies.

November 21: In a story written by Otto Binder and drawn by C.C. Beck and Pete Costanza, the first issue of Fawcett Comics’ The Marvel Family introduces Black Adam, an ancient Egyptian who was corrupted by the powers Shazam bestowed upon him.

December 21: General George Patton, who commanded the U.S. Third Army after the Allied invasion of Normandy, dies at the age of 60 in Heidelberg, Germany, of injuries from an automobile accident.

remained that size. Quality maintained its line at 60 pages, but most of the other houses had settled on 52 pages as the new industry standard. Timely’s monthlies were this standard size, but its quarterlies were a slim 36 pages. The Fawcett and Fox lines offered nothing but 36-pagers.

Precious as those pages were, many publishers willingly sacrificed them to make up some of the revenue lost to restricted print runs. While advertising had been common on the inside and back covers at the start of the decade, interior pages were entirely devoted to creative content

A small sampling of the many 1945-dated comics printed on black market paper in defiance of federal law. TM and © respective copyright owners.

Wilbur and Millie the Model TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

torpedoed

Millie Collins is introduced in the first issue of Millie the Model Comics. The

save for the occasional “house ad” touting the publisher’s other titles. Now, not only were ads becoming routine, many of them took the form of a comic strip. Joining “Captain Tootsie,” produced by the Beck-Costanza Studio for Tootsie Roll, on the newstands this year were “Volto from Mars” (Grape-Nuts cereal), “Adventures of ‘R.C.’ and Quickie” (Royal Crown Cola), and “Thom McAn” (Thom McAn shoes). More followed over the next few years. Promotional comic books like Western Printing’s Omar Book of Comics, a subscription-only premium for a chain of midwestern bakeries, were also becoming increasingly common, and would become more so once restrictions were lifted. Unfortunately, many of these esoteric titles have been casualties of paper drives and the passage of time so that, in some cases, not a single copy has survived down to the present day. Coverage of such ephemera in these pages must, of necessity, be incomplete.

As the war dragged on into the spring, restrictions were tightened once again. Dell, Fiction House, Eastern Color, United Feature, McKay, Ace, Family, and Chesler had no choice but to reduce their comics to 36 pages, while DC, Magazine House, Parents’ Magazine, All-American, Street & Smith, Novelty Press, MLJ, Rural Home, Hillman, and

Crestwood maintained their lines at 52. There was talk around the industry that some publishers were getting preferential treatment. Still, it was hard to complain when entire print runs were selling out regardless of content or quality.

O, Pioneers!

In the beginning was Famous Funnies.

The first modern format comic book distributed through newsstands and other retail outlets, Famous Funnies was by 1945 the longest running title in America. Originally a “one-shot” jointly published in 1934 by Dell Publishing and the Eastern Color Printing Company of Waterbury, Connecticut, the subsequent ongoing series was produced without Dell’s participation. As it had from the beginning, Famous Funnies featured reprints of syndicated strips, notably Philip Nowlan and Richard Calkins’ space opera “Buck Rogers,” the aviation strip “Scorchy Smith,” Russell Stamm’s pseudo-superheroine “Invisible Scarlett O’Neil,” Coulton Waugh’s boys’ adventure series “Dickie Dare,” and a half-dozen others. When the title dropped from 52 to 36 pages with its July issue (#132), several lesser strips were dropped and remained gone when it returned to 52 pages at the end of the year.

In addition to the monthly Famous Funnies, Eastern Color published two bi-monthlies nominally edited by Harold J. Moore but actually assembled under the supervision of art director Stephen A. Douglas. The elder of these titles was Heroic Comics. Originally divided almost equally between newspaper strip reprints and original material, Heroic was now down to only one reprinted strip, Russell Keaton’s “Flying Jenny.” It was dropped following issue #31 (July), a victim of the mandated reduction in pages. Also taking his last bow in that same issue was “Hydroman,” a mysteryman able to transform himself into various forms of water, who dated back to the book’s earliest days. Preceding him into comics limbo were the title’s other costumed crusaders, “Man o’ Metal” and “The Music Master.” They were replaced by two new strips that survived the switch to 36 pages. Charles A. “Chuck” Winter’s “Vitaman, the Boy with the B1 Complex” was a mildly funny farce about a dimwitted, vitamin-gulping, would-be superhero. The boxing strip “The Kid from Brooklyn” starred young artist Hal Every, who reluctantly took up prizefighting to pay for his ailing mother’s medical bills. It was the work of Woodrow “Woody” Gelman, a former animator who would go on to become a major player in the fields of advertising—he created the Popsicle Pete and Bazooka Joe characters—and, in the 1960s, publishing as the guiding spirit behind Nostalgia Press. In addition to such true war stories as “I Seen My Duty and Done It,” “Auf Weidersehn in Berlin,” “The Story of the Japanese G.I.,” and “504 Nazis at One Clip,” every issue of Heroic Comics included a featurette by Charles Bange called “What Do You Know About...?” covering such topics as parachutes, maps, weather forecasting, and the new jet airplanes.

Alternating with Heroic on newsstands, Jingle Jangle Comics was its antithesis in tone and style. Offering a variety of humor and fantasy strips aimed at young children and the adults who read to them, the book’s

Ads disguised as comics became increasingly common this year. This “Volto” ad for Grape-Nuts ran in August-dated issues from several companies, including DC, Fawcett, and Quality. Art by Frank Robbins. TM and © respective copyright owners.

greatest asset was the cartoonist whose feature, “Jingle Jangle Tales,” led off each issue. A veteran illustrator with an impressive resumé spanning three decades, George Carlson was a master of nonsense, filling his pages with quirky characters, bizarre sight gags, non-sequiturs, digressions, and inspired wordplay, all delineated in a style akin to his contemporary Dr. Seuss. Sci-fi legend and lifelong Carlson fan Harlan Ellison described the artist as “what Walt Disney started out to be and never quite made” and “one of the first cartoonists of the absurd” (241-242). Story titles like “The Polka-Dot King and the Cranberry-Plated Crown,” “The ExtraStylish Ostrich and the Sugar-Lined Neck-Tie,” and “The Very Horseless Jockey and the Steamed-Up Steam Engine” only hint at the delights within. Carlson’s other feature, “The Pie-Faced Prince of Pretzleburg,” went on a brief hiatus following the August issue (#16), as did “Hortense the Lovable Brat,” both in response to the drop in page count. Surviving the cut were Dave Tendlar’s “Chauncey Chirp and Johnny Jay,” feisty senior citizen “Aunty Spry,” and “Bingo and Glum in Fairytale Land” (alternately titled “Bingo’s Adventures” and “Bingo’s Frolics”), now drawn by Woody Gelman.

The success of Famous Funnies did not go unnoticed. Two of the largest syndication services decided to

launch their own comics lines featuring their comic strips, their initial offerings hitting newsstands simultaneously in early 1936. Both companies were still going strong in 1945, their sales driven by the proven appeal of the strips they collected.

United Feature Syndicate, Inc. counted among its properties such popular features as Burne Hogarth’s Rococo interpretation of “Tarzan,” Al Capp’s satiric hillbilly saga “Li’l Abner,” and Ernie Bushmiller’s deceptively simplistic kid strip “Nancy.” These characters were the stars of the company’s monthly anthologies, Tip Top Comics and Sparkler Comics, and the quarterly showcase title Comics on Parade, each issue entirely devoted to a single feature. As it had the previous year, United Feature skipped the May issues of Tip Top and Sparkler to stretch its paper supply,

but this proved inadequate after its allocation was once again cut back. Thus, the monthlies were reduced to 36 pages for their July through October issues, with CoP following suit with its September issue (#2, but actually #50).

UFS had begun commissioning original series for the monthlies in 1940, mostly starring superheroes. After Pearl Harbor, all but one of these characters—Bernard Dibble’s humorous “El Bombo,” a super-strong South American Indian—enlisted in the military, their features transitioning to straight war strips without costumes or powers. With the war winding down, this trend began to reverse itself. Tip Top’s “The Triple Terror,” starring comics’ only crimefighting triplets, and Sparkler’s “Spark Man,” both by the team of writer Fred Methot and artist Paul Bernadier, donned their costumes once more following their discharges, though Spark Man’s electrical powers were not restored. (Curiously enough, the

Fans of the newspaper strips distributed by King Features and United Feature could follow their favorites in the pages of the two syndicates’

pre-war, super-powered version appeared in his own all-reprint 36-page one-shot courtesy of proxy publisher Francis M. McQueeny, a comic almost certainly in violation of Limitation Order L-244.) Tip Top’s other original series, Dibble’s “Bill Bumlin,” took the opposite tack, shucking its previous fantasy elements in favor of straight domestic comedy.

The Philadelphia-based David McKay Company was the licensed publisher of comic books featuring such enormously popular King Features Syndicate humor strips as Chic Young’s “Blondie,” Harold Knerr’s “The Katzenjammer Kids,” George McManus’ “Bringing Up Father” (with Maggie and Jiggs), Carl Anderson’s “Henry,” Billy DeBeck’s “Barney Google” (co-starring Snuffy Smith), and “Thimble Theater” featuring Popeye (a mere shadow of itself since the death of creator Elzie Segar), as well as such equally popular adventure series as Hal Foster’s “Prince Valiant,” Alex Raymond and Don Moore’s “Flash Gordon” and “Jungle Jim,” Roy Crane’s “Buz Sawyer,” Lee Falk’s “The Phantom” and “Mandrake the Magician” (drawn by Wilson McCoy and Phil Davis, respectively) and the comic strip incarnations of “The Lone Ranger” and Zane Grey’s “King of the Royal Mounted.” McKay’s three monthlies—King Comics, Ace Comics, and Magic Comics—had little difficulty adapting to their mandated reduction to 36 pages with their July-dated issues, either dropping their lesser features or, in the case of those strips appearing in more than one title, cutting them back to a single book. A fourth comic, the quarterly Feature Book, was a showcase title like United Feature’s Comics on Parade, its 1945 offerings including two issues devoted to Blondie and one each to Mandrake and the Katzies.

The One to Beat

One of the earliest and most successful comic book lines was the offspring of a partnership between two publishing powerhouses. Dell Publishing, one of the earliest magazine companies to embrace the modern comic book format, and Whitman Publishing, a subsidiary of the Wisconsin-based Western Printing & Lithographing, first joined forces in 1938. Dell provided the financing and distribution, Whitman provided the content, and Western provided the printing. By 1945, their output included five monthly titles, three bi-monthlies, and the irregularly published omnibus title Four Color.

The comics were produced out of three separate editorial offices. Alice Neilsen Cobb edited Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories from Western’s Poughkeepsie printing facility, also overseeing those issues of Four Color that spotlighted Disney properties. Eleanor Packer, aided by the line’s art director Carl Buettner, managed Whitman’s Los Angeles offices, where moonlighting animators and story men crafted the contents of Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies, Our Gang Comics, and New Funnies, featuring characters from Disney rivals Warner Brothers, MGM, and Walter Lantz respectively. Coordinating their efforts from New York City was editor-in-chief Oskar Lebeck. His staff put together Animal Comics and the syndicated strip reprint titles Popular Comics, Super Comics, and Red Ryder Comics, as well as providing content for Cobb’s and Packer’s

books. Under the watchful eye of executive Helen Honig Meyer, the Dell comics line stood out from its competitors not only in the sheer volume of popular licensed characters it offered, but in the quality of the stories told and the clean, attractive art illustrating them. Unfortunately for those providing those stories and art, the company rarely allowed its content creators to sign their work, most often due to contractual obligations to licensors who insisted on that anonymity.

Helen Meyer had every reason to trust Oskar Lebeck’s judgment. A former theatrical designer who emigrated from Germany in 1930, Lebeck held himself and everyone who worked for him to high standards, yet he was neither a martinet nor micromanager. Artist Roger Armstrong said of the editor-in-chief:

“[Lebeck] was a fantastic guy, because he was the kind of editor who, when he came out [to Los Angeles], would look at your stuff and say he didn’t like this and he didn’t like that, ‘but we’ll run it. But next time...’ What Oskar would do was give you suggestions on how it could be improved, but he didn’t lay down rigid rules” (Barrier 55).

No title showcased these advantages more clearly than Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories. Dell’s bestselling comic from its debut in the autumn of 1940, WDC&S originally served as a vehicle for reprints of the Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Silly Symphonies newspaper strips distributed by King Features Syndicate. While pages continued to be reserved for the first two, the book now emphasized new material. Each issue led off with a 10-page “Donald Duck” story written and drawn by Carl Barks. A veteran of the Disney Studio’s story department, Barks had a keen grasp of the mechanics of comics storytelling coupled with a vivid visual imagination. Though he tended to reserve his best ideas for the greater length available in Four Color, his stories for Walt Disney’s Comics were no less delightful in the eyes of the readers who knew him only as “the good duck artist.” Most stories revolved around Donald’s war of wills with nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie, but Barks occasionally sent the four off on an adventure, as when they bought a tramp steamer and sailed it to Mexico or encountered a tribe of prehistoric Indians while touring the Grand Canyon. High adventure was on hand in “Mickey Mouse” as well, at least in those strips from the ’30s, with situation comedy the focus of those sequences reprinted from more recent years. Joining “Bucky Bug,” now illustrated by Don Gunn, in the back pages of WDC&S as of the January issue (#52) was a series based on the Oscar-winning 1933 Silly Symphonies short “The Three Little Pigs.” Created by Carl Buettner and Wingate “Chase” Craig, a former animator whose credits included the short-lived Charlie McCarthy syndicated strip, “Li’l Bad Wolf” starred the sweet-natured offspring of the cartoon’s villain, Zeke “Big Bad” Wolf. Despite his father’s best attempts to rear him in his own predatory image, Li’l Wolf preferred playing with the other animals to eating them. The longest-running series in the title not starring a duck or a mouse, “Li’l Bad Wolf” has appeared in nearly every subsequent issue, running well into the 21st century. Disney’s big guns also made their annual appearance in the 1945 edition of Donald and

Mickey Merry Christmas, a giveaway available only at Firestone Tires dealerships.

Just behind Walt Disney’s Comics on Helen Meyer’s sales reports was Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies, featuring the animated characters appearing in theatrical cartoons produced for Warner Brothers by Leon Schlesinger. The comics did not attempt to duplicate the over-the-top slapstick and frenetic pacing of the cartoons, relying instead on the interplay between the characters’ personalities to provide the humor. “Bugs Bunny,” “Porky Pig,” and “Elmer Fudd” regularly guest-starred in each other’s series. (Bugs, in fact, popped up in every “Elmer” episode this year, and in all but three of “Porky.”) “Henery Hawk” also regularly featured guest stars, primarily Beaky Buzzard. Setting a different tone from the rest of the book, “Sniffles and Mary Jane” was a gentle series that sent its leads, a mouse and a little girl who could magically shrink to his size, to such seasonally apropos locales as the Land of Christmas Trees, Valentine Land, and Jack o’ Lantern Land and introduced them to Robin Hood, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and the Sunset Elves, who guard the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. These flights of fancy came courtesy of writer Chase Craig and artist Roger Armstrong, with first George Weiss then Don Gunn stepping in after Armstrong was drafted. Other artists contributing to Looney Tunes this year were cover artist Daniel “Dan” Gormley, Carl Buettner, Vivian “Vivie” Risto, and Thomas “Tom” McKimson, whose long list of animation credits included the original design of Tweety Bird.

New Funnies, one of Dell’s longest-running titles, began life as a forum for reprinted syndicated strips but had since switched to a showcase for characters from cartoons produced by Walter Lantz. To this point, “Andy Panda” had been the book’s star. In theaters, by contrast, he found his cartoons eclipsed in popularity by those starring “Woody Woodpecker,” a reality reflected in the comics when Andy began sharing the cover with Woody as of the November

issue (#105). Andy still commanded the book’s lead-off spot. Artist Dan Gormley put him and housemate Charlie Chicken through their paces, illustrating scripts provided by, among others, John Stanley. A former animator and magazine cartoonist, Stanley both drew and wrote Woody’s series, as well as providing scripts for others. “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit” was a rarity among Dell’s funny animal strips in telling its stories as a serial. This year found Oswald and his pal Toby befriending Timothy the Talking Dog, a vaudeville performer on the run from his abusive master, in a four-part tale (#95-98, January-April), then, after a pair of standalone episodes, moving to a new house in the country. Besieged by termites, they foiled their foes by converting their abode into a houseboat and sailing downriver to new adventures. Other Lantz stars with regular berths in New Funnies were “Homer Pigeon,” drawn by Vivie Risto, and “Li’l Eightball,” a series painful for modern sensibilities to endure due to its egregious use of racist caricatures. Two strips were not part of the Lantz stable. Franklyn “Frank” Thomas’ “Billy and Bonny Bee” fell victim to the title’s mandated reduction in pages, but “Raggedy Ann and Andy” kept its slot. Dell workhorse Gaylord DuBois and artist George Kerr superbly captured the look and tone of Johnny Gruelle’s classic book series, plunging the living rag dolls into perils they inevitably overcame through their unfailing courage and kindness. It provided a welcome break from the slapstick of its companion strips.

Dell’s other two monthlies, Popular Comics and Super Comics, were still largely devoted to newspaper strip reprints, as was the bi-monthly Red Ryder Comics. Popular featured “Terry and the Pirates,” “Gasoline Alley,” “Smilin’ Jack,” “Felix the Cat,” and “The Gumps; Super starred “Dick Tracy,” “Little Orphan Annie,” “Brenda Starr,” “Moon Mullins,” “Winnie Winkle,” and “Harold Teen;” and Red Ryder headlined the title cowboy plus “Captain Easy,” “Alley Oop,” “King of the Royal Mounted,” and “Freckles and His Friends.” Each book also included original material. “Gang

Sales of Dell’s trio of monthly titles featuring popular characters licensed from the major animation studios left other publishing houses green with envy. Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck TM and © Disney Enterprises Inc. Andy Panda TM and © Walter Lantz Productions, Inc. Bugs Bunny TM and © Warner Bros.

Busters,” adapting the radio crime drama, appeared in every issue of Popular. The fictional adventures of famed circus animal trainer “Clyde Beatty,” scripted by Gaylord DuBois, ran in Super Comics. DuBois also wrote the war strip “The Flying Yanks,” which was replaced as of Red Ryder #28 (November) by “Telecomics,” depicting the daily lives of a family living in the future. Sadly, no credits are available for this strange, amusing precursor of The Jetsons. Our Gang Comics, the bi-monthly spotlighting characters licensed from MGM, was triply blessed: it featured the work of Carl Barks, John Stanley, and Walter Crawford “Walt” Kelly, each a master of the medium. It was Kelly who wrote and drew the title strip based on the long-running series of short films, the last of which was released in 1944. He had never felt obliged to reproduce the lowbudget inner city vibe of the shorts, sending his cast on adventures around the world and introducing original characters for Buckwheat, Froggie, Janet, and Red to interact with. This year was no different. Kelly had the gang start their own detective agency, solve the “Indian Treasure Mystery,” and encounter boy scientist Baxter and washed-up vaudevillian Professor Hector Hannibal Horatio Gravy and his trained cats Lancelot the Lion and Tammany the Tiger (a prototype for the later Pogo character). Barks, meanwhile, was producing “Barney Bear and Benny Burro,” two standalone animated characters originally teamed up when the comic’s page count was cut from 68 to 52. Though lacking the subtle characterizations of his “Donald Duck” work, his stories here were no less imaginative or entertaining. Stanley was responsible for two strips, “Tom and Jerry” and “Johnny Mole,” writing and usually drawing both series, sometimes assisted by Dan Gormley. Carl Buettner provided the art for a new series debuting in issue #17 (May-June). “Wuff, the Prairie Dog,” tired of living on the ground, decided to become a squirrel with the usual catastrophically comical outcome. Thereafter, Wuff was consigned to the title’s requisite prose stories, a demotion necessitated by Our Gang’s reduction to 36 pages.

As good as Walt Kelly’s work on “Our Gang” was, it suffered by comparison to what he was doing in Animal Comics Here, he continued to develop the cast of swamp critters populating “Albert and Pogo,” introducing such mainstays of the later syndicated strip as turtle troubadour Churchy LaFemme, crackpot scientist Howland Owl, the perpetually dour Porkypine, and the bombastic hound dog later known as Beauregard Bugleboy, as well as one-shot characters like the skunk Downwind, and medicine show hustler Dr. Legerdemane Z. Presto. Equally prominent were the ongoing adventures of “Uncle Wiggily,” adapted by Gaylord DuBois and H.C. McBride from the popular children’s book series by Howard R. Garis, a surprisingly dark strip with predators not only trying to kill the characters but sometimes succeeding! Dubois was also at the typewriter for “Raggedy Animals,” a “Raggedy Ann” spin-off that was canceled mid-year. Both Kelly and John Stanley contributed to a trio of strips featuring cartoon stars from Famous Studios. Despite their best efforts, “Blackie,” “Cilly Goose,” and “Hector the Henpecked Rooster” were all dropped from the title following the October-November issue (#17), the result of Paramount, the parent company of Famous Studios, letting the license lapse.

Dell released 30 issues of Four Color with a 1945 date, approximately one every 12 days. The anthology title had begun life collecting syndicated strip reprints from the monthlies, and eleven issues continued that tradition this year including issues devoted to “Smokey Stover” (#64), “Smitty” (#65), “The Gumps” (#73), “Little Orphan Annie” (#76), “Felix the Cat” (#77), “Smilin’ Jack” (#80), “Moon Mullins” (#81), “Tillie the Toiler” (#89), and three King Features strips usually found in David McKay titles: “Popeye” (#70), “The Lone Ranger” (#82), and “Flash Gordon” (#84). Movie cowboys Gene Autry and Roy Rogers fixed their brands on five issues, Autry in #66, 75, and 83, Rogers in #63 and 86. Both were scripted by Gaylord DuBois, with art by Tillman “Till” Gooden, Albert Micale, and former Disney animator Jesse Marsh, whose association with Western Publishing would continue until his death in 1966.

Solo appearances by characters from Walt Disney’s Comics, Looney Tunes, and New Funnies had become a staple of Four Color, a way for Helen Meyer to gauge which features might merit their own ongoing titles when wartime restrictions were lifted. Carl Barks contributed a wonderful blend of exotic setting, thrilling adventure, fantasy, and comedy in #62’s “Donald Duck Finds Frozen Gold,” wherein Donald and the boys volunteered to fly penicillin to a plague-stricken Alaskan village, unaware they were also carrying a map to a cache of gold stolen by Foxy Pete and his gang of cutthroats. In a second story, “Mystery of the Swamp,”

Walt Kelly expanded “Albert and Pogo”’s repertory company of swamp critters in the 1945 issues of Animal Comics Pogo TM and © Okefenokee Glee & Perloo Inc.

the gang encountered the Gneezles, gnomish little people living deep within the Everglades. Donald also co-starred in “Three Caballeros” (#71), a new adventure of the characters introduced in the feature film of the same name. In issue #79, Mickey Mouse and Goofy matched wits with a gang of jewel thieves and rescued a kidnapped heiress. Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig co-starred in each other’s solo outings in #66 and 78. In the former, Bugs and Porky volunteered to fly an experimental rocket to Saturn, where they were enslaved by the race of antennaed rabbits who live beneath its surface; in the latter, Porky encountered gangsters after being mistaken for a famous investigative reporter. John Stanley and Lloyd White crafted issue #67’s epic tale of Oswald the Rabbit spending a night in a witch’s castle to free the little people of a subterranean kingdom from a curse. Other New Funnies characters featured in their own issues of Four Color were “Raggedy Ann” (#72) and “Andy Panda” (#85).

The talents of Walt Kelly were front-and-center in a quintet of issues. He provided illustrations for “Mother Goose and Nursery Rhymes Comics” (#68), including an all-new composition, “The Mother Goose Birthday Party.” Two issues of “Fairy Tale Parade” (#69 and 87) included not only such familiar classics as “The Frog Prince” and “The Three Wishes” as interpreted by Arthur Jameson and George Kerr but a pair of Kelly originals, “Tiny Folk and the Giant” and “Tiny Folk and the Dragon.” His work could also be seen in the year’s final two issues (#90 and 91),

writing and drawing the entirety of “Christmas with Mother Goose” and contributing the charming story “Christmas Comes to the Wood Land” to the 1945 edition of “Santa Claus Funnies.” If Dell could be said to have a star artist, Walt Kelly was it... but he was not without stiff competition.

The single most important issue of Four Color released this year was #74, the debut of a character who would enhance the publisher’s bottom line for the next two decades. The creation of Marjorie Henderson Buell, who signed her work Marge, “Little Lulu” began life as a weekly panel cartoon in the back pages of The Saturday Evening Post. The character’s popularity soon led to a long-running ad campaign for Kleenex Tissues, and an ongoing series of animated cartoons from Famous Studios beginning in 1943. David McKay had released five cardboard-covered collections of the panel but this was Lulu’s first appearance in material created specifically for the comic book medium. Oskar Lebeck knew exactly who should handle the new property:

“John Stanley recalled, ‘Oskar handed me the assignment but I’m sure it was due to no special form of brilliance that he thought I’d lend to it. … I just happened to be available at the time,’ … Later Stanley acknowledged, ‘Somehow, it suited me. They insisted I do it.’ Not only was Stanley’s cartooning style right for Little Lulu, he was also one of Lebeck’s best writers. Indeed, Lulu would be more about story than art. Lebeck knew that Stanley’s hard-edged sense of humor and intellect were perfect for a feature coming out of a ‘class’ magazine” (Schelly 45).

Stanley hit the ground running with a trio of hilarious stories, as well as a number of one-page pantomime sequences, introducing the irrepressible Lulu Moppet, her best friend (and frequent nemesis)

Tubby Tompkins, and Alvin, the toddler with the rampant id she babysat. This first issue only hinted at the comedy gold to come, but it was a solid start for what has since been hailed as the perfect mar-

“Good duck artist” Carl Barks displayed the fertility of his imagination in Four Color #62, introducing Donald Duck and his nephews to the swamp-dwelling Gneezles. TM and © Disney Enterprises Inc.

Cartoonist John Stanley wrote and drew the first appearance in comic books of one of the medium’s most beloved characters, the irrepressible Little Lulu. Little Lulu TM and © Classic Media LLC.

riage of character and creator and made “Little Lulu” a cultural touchstone for two generations of comic book readers.

The Liberation of M.C. Gaines

For All-American Comics publisher Maxwell C. Gaines, 1945 represented a new beginning. Since first starting the line in 1939, Gaines—who had played a critical role in the birth of the modern comic book in his days at Eastern Color—had been beholden to other men, first Detective Comics head honcho Harry Donenfeld, who helped finance the start-up, then to DC partner Jacob “Jack” Liebowitz, who received Donenfeld’s share of AllAmerican as a gift. Gaines hadn’t gotten along with either man, so when the opportunity arose in late ’44 to buy out Liebowitz, he leaped at the chance.

Even sharp-eyed comics fans may have missed the clues revealing the break between All-American Comics and its sister company, Detective Comics. TM and © DC Comics.

“[Dr. Marston] wanted me writing as soon as possible. Before he hired me, he’d only been able to have men writers, many of whom didn’t have his background or understand his philosophy [a reference to Marston’s dissatisfaction with Gardner Fox’s handling of the character in All-Star] ... I was able to get that kind of psychology into my stories that reflected his philosophies and beliefs. We both had this huge imagination. We would laugh about the things we would think about when writing those stories. ... It was such a fascinating job” (Arndt 9).

Though his comics continued to be distributed by Independent News, jointly owned by Donenfeld and Paul Sampliner, Gaines was now the sole master of his company’s fate. He and his editor-in-chief Sheldon Mayer had good reason to feel confident. Even without its corporate ties to DC, All-American was still the sixth most prolific comic book publisher in America. It helped that the company’s line-up included three of the most popular superheroes. The newsprint shortage prevented AA from upgrading the bi-monthly anthologies All-American Comics and Flash Comics to the monthly schedule alongside Sensation Comics, but that compromise allowed Gaines and Mayer to keep the entire line at 52 pages save for the 84-page 15¢ Comic Cavalcade and the all-reprint quarterly Mutt & Jeff, which dropped to 44 pages with its Summer issue (#18).

Hummel’s first script appeared in the Spring issue (#12) of the Wonder Woman solo title, a story that pitted the Amazon princess against a cabal of arms dealers calling themselves the Third World War Promoters. Both Marston and Mayer were obviously pleased with her work: she wrote all four 1945 issues of the quarterly, three out of four Comic Cavalcade episodes, and a handful of stories for Sensation. Among the menaces she dreamed up that year were the suave Gentleman Killer, embittered botanist Creeper Jackson and his homicidal

With her series running in three different titles, her regular appearances alongside the Justice Society of America— comics’ first (and at this point only successful) superhero team—in All-Star Comics, and a daily syndicated strip, “Wonder Woman” was unquestionably All-American’s hottest property. One of the feature’s strengths was its consistency. Every Wonder Woman story published in 1945, in comic books and in newspapers, was illustrated by cartoonist Harry G. Peter, aided by his small studio staff. Cocreator William Moulton Marston, no longer able to work at full capacity since contracting polio in August of 1944, sought help with the writing duties for the comic books from his new assistant, a recent graduate of the Katherine Gibbs School to whom Marston had taken a shine while teaching a psychology course there. Originally hired simply to type scripts, 19-year-old Joye Hummel was soon crafting her own, albeit under her mentor’s close supervision. In a 2018 interview, Hummel recalled:

Wonder Woman co-creator William Moulton Marston hired Joye Hummel to ghostwrite for him because she understood his philosophy and crafted imaginative scripts that stayed true to it. Wonder Woman TM and © DC Comics.

Octopus Plants, and the inhuman Seal Men, would-be conquerors of an idyllic matriarchal society hidden away in the Arctic. Hummel’s stories were indeed faithful to Marston’s vision, but she downplayed the scenes of bondage he indulged in and none of her scripts featured Axis villains. Marston made frequent use of such foes, as in Sensation #37 (January) where the German military attacked Paradise Island while its protective barrier was down for repairs. In a later issue, he introduced Countess Draska Nishi, leader of International Spies, Inc. Wonder Woman clashed with the slinky spy queen again in the June Sensation (#42), the first story outside the JSA series written by someone other than Marston or Hummel. Former Fox Publications scripter Robert Kanigher, freelancing once more after being discharged from the Army, wasn’t crazy about the character but he gave it a good try anyway, little suspecting that within three years the fate of the Amazing Amazon would be in his hands.

AA’s other super-stars, “The Flash” and “Green Lantern,” also appeared in an anthology, a solo title, and Comic Cavalcade. The duo were also back on active duty with the Justice Society as of All-Star Comics #24 (Spring). Original writer Gardner F. Fox continued to helm the Fastest Man Alive’s exploits throughout the year, scripting 23 out of 24 solo stories as well as his appearances with the JSA. Artist Everett E. Hibbard received a byline in every episode, whether it featured his art or those of his ghosts Jon Chester “Chet” Kozlak or Martin Naydel. Humor remained a staple of the Crimson Comet’s series, much of it in the form of his sidekicks, The Three Dimwits. Highlights for the year included the super-swift Jay Garrick’s first encounter with The Turtle, billed as “the slowest criminal alive,” and a trip through time to Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest where Flash discovered he was the original Will Scarlet. Flash Comics #66 (October-November) featured the only comic book credit for Robert Bloch, the fantasy and horror writer best remembered today for the novel Psycho. AA story editor Julius Schwartz, who’d represented Bloch during Schwartz’s days as a literary agent, had suggested giving comics a go, pointing to Alfred Bester, Henry Kuttner, and Edmond Hamilton, other respected sci-fi and fantasy authors currently supplementing their incomes by writing for All-American. It was not to be. “[Bloch wrote] a hell of a good story,” the editor recalled in his memoir, “but when I tried to get him to write another, he simply grumbled ‘Once was enough,’ and I never brought it up again” (Schwartz 77). As for Green Lantern, Bester and his compatriots kept the master of the mighty power ring and Doiby Dickles, his cab-driving man Friday, busy against menaces like The Dandy, Blackbeard, The Backwards Man, The Lizard, psychic Albert Zero, the ghost of executed gangster King Shark, and a returning Solomon Grundy. Co-creator Martin “Mart” Nodell illustrated those episodes running in the Green Lantern quarterly, with Paul Reinman and utility player Chet Kozlak handling those running in AllAmerican Comics and Comic Cavalcade

The break with DC was most apparent in the pages of AllStar Comics. Where the “Justice Society of America” roster was once evenly split between AA and DC heroes, now it spotlighted only those characters to which All-American held the trademarks. The return of Flash and the Lantern

to active duty alongside chairman Hawkman, recording secretary Wonder Woman, Dr. Mid-Nite, Johnny Thunder, and The Atom (the JSA strip was the only place the Mighty Mite appeared in 1945) meant the end of the surreal bylaw that required JSAers with their own solo titles to assume honorary membership status. The change came abruptly enough that the art in All-Star #26 (Fall) had to be altered to substitute GL and Flash for DC super-doers Starman and The Spectre. The Justice Society’s greatest accomplishment for the year occurred an issue later. “A Place in the World” threw a spotlight on the rights of the handicapped. The story, in which Wildcat filled in for Atom, earned the series a mention in the World Book Encyclopedia, a feat of which scripter Gardner Fox was justifiably proud.

The monthly Sensation Comics lost a series that had been with the title since the first issue. “The Gay Ghost” made his final bow in the February issue (#38). The swashbuckling “Black Pirate,” now drawn by Alfonso Greene, returned for a two-issue stand (#41-42) before taking a six-month sabbatical. His pages went first to the last hurrah of “The Whip,” followed by a new series, “Picture Stories from Mythology,” a companion to the “Picture Stories from American History” feature that ran in all three anthology books. An educator before entering the comics industry, Gaines scripted these strips himself, with Allen Simon illustrating the history segments and Donald “Don” Cameron the retellings of classical myths. The publisher’s niece Evelyn Gaines wrote two other Sensation strips, “Mr. Terrific” and “Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys,” using the pen name Lynne Evans. Stan Josephs, nee Aschmeier, limned the exploits of the Man of a Thousand Talents, while Frank Harry drew those of the costumed kid gang. The most entertaining of the title’s back-ups was

The Justice Society stood up for the rights of the disabled in this acclaimed story from All-Star Comics #27. TM and © DC Comics.

“Wildcat.” Though the strip had lost some of its noir ambience after cartoonist Joe Gallagher took over the art, it made up for it with a sense of humor, much of it centered on the Feline Fury’s sidekick, gangly hillbilly Stretch Skinner, and his eccentric kinfolk.

Flash Comics’ other star character, “Hawkman,” lost longtime artist “Shelly” Moldoff to the draft. Replacing him was 18-year-old Joseph “Joe” Kubert, an industry veteran despite his youth. Sheldon Mayer, who could be brutal towards artists he felt weren’t doing their best work, was uncharacteristically gentle with Kubert:

“It’s a funny thing—I’ve seen Shelly Mayer verbally rip a guy apart. I’ve seen him take original pages and fling them right across the room because he felt the guy didn’t do a good, quality job. If Shelly wanted to make a point, that’s what he did. For some reason he never did that with me. ... [H]e was kind, and tolerated all this crap from me without any of that kind of abuse” (Schelly 66-67).

Kubert rewarded his editor’s tolerance by giving the Winged Wonder’s adventures an exciting new energy. Though not yet the draftsman Moldoff was, he was an instinctively visual storyteller with a dynamic compositional sense and lively brushwork that brought Gardner Fox’s scripts to electrifying life. In 1945, Hawkman and Hawkgirl faced off against old foe Simple Simon, a French optician turned super-criminal named The Monocle, and

a horde of Chinatown zombies. In the August-September Flash Comics (#66), the Flying Furies met Neptune Perkins, an oceanographer forced by a strange salt deficiency to live in the ocean, an obscure character who gained a new lease on life in the 1980s. Like “Wildcat,” the tongue-incheek adventures of John B. Wentworth and Stan Joseph’s “Johnny Thunder” turned to its hero’s family for its laughs this year, introducing Johnny’s snooty cousin and his bratty kids, as well as love interest Daisy Darling’s niece Angel, who was anything but. Despite the presence of Johnny’s magical servant, The Thunderbolt, the series was the title’s least appealing feature. Wentworth and Frank Harry’s “The Ghost Patrol,” starring a trio of spectral aviators, no longer used the European Theater as a backdrop as of issue #61 (January), but without the war as its focus the strip seemed to be flailing. Mayer put it on hiatus while the kinks were worked out, substituting extra episodes of All-American back-up “Hop Harrigan.”

Flagship title All-American Comics didn’t lose any features in 1945, but several got new looks of one kind or another. Jon L. Blummer’s “Hop Harrigan” diverged from the radio series based on the strip by having its boyish hero and best buddy Tank Tinker discharged from the U.S. Army Air Force and return to civilian life as employees of the All-American Aircraft Company (though episodes somehow ended up running out of order, the duo showing up as civilians, then back in uniform, then being mustered out). “Red, White and Blue,” the title’s longest-running series, found Hawkman co-creator Dennis Neville replacing Joe Gallagher at the drawing board mid-year. John Wentworth continued to script the adventures of the trio of military intelligence agents. The team of Joseph Greene and Stan Josephs produced every installment of “Dr. Mid-Nite,” siccing nogoodniks like The Banshee and The Walking Bomb on the blind mystery-man.

With Wonder Woman, The Flash, and Green Lantern headlining, the oversized Comic Cavalcade had no trouble attracting buyers. Gaines and Mayer counted on that built-in appeal to expose the title’s readers to more high-minded content like “Johnny Everyman,” a series by Jack Schiff and John Daly appearing simultaneously in DC’s World’s Finest Comics. The title character, a globetrotting troubleshooter, left the war zone behind as of the Autumn issue (#12), returning stateside to deliver a powerful message against racism. Issue #10 (Spring) featured “Tomorrow the World,” a tightly condensed adaptation of the Fredric March anti-Nazi movie of the same name, illustrated by E.E. Hibbard. The 10-page story was reprinted as a standalone giveaway distributed to schools and libraries, and promoted an essay contest judged by authors Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Paul Gallico, William Shirer, and Rex Stout offering $1000 in prizes.

That Sheldon Mayer, himself a top-notch cartoonist, was growing weary of his duties as editor and art director became evident when, seemingly on a whim, he both wrote and drew every feature in the Summer issue (#5) of Funny Stuff. Ronald Santi’s “The Three Mousketeers,” “Bulldog Drumhead,” and “Who’s Who in Zooville” and Martin Naydel’s “McSnurtle the Turtle,” starring funny animal super-speedster The Amazing Whatsit, were fine

Though still in his teens, new “Hawkman” artist Joe Kubert gave the exploits of the Flying Fury an exciting vitality. TM and © DC Comics.

strips in their own right but shone even brighter under Mayer, while Saul Kessler’s “Blackie Bear,” the book’s weakest link, never looked better. If these artists resented their boss commandeering their series for an issue, which meant a dip in their incomes, they kept it to themselves.

Mayer was not the only one growing restless. After just six months of going it alone, M.C. Gaines made a startling decision. Believing that the market for superheroes was on the decline and determined to use the medium to educate and uplift, Gaines sold the entire All-American line—and the rights to all its characters—to Donenfeld and Leibowitz for $500,000, retaining only his pet project, Picture Stories from the Bible Mayer, Schwartz, and the rest of the AA staff were given office space at DC’s Lexington Avenue headquarters, where they had settled by the time the December issues were coming off the presses. Seventy years later, it may look like Gaines got the short end of the stick but at the time it was

a smart decision. As his son, William M. “Bill” Gaines, told it:

“[W]hen [my father] had the AA group, he was all set. He had his distribution, he had his paper. During World War II, paper was very important, and paper was allocated on the basis of what you had used or a percentage of it. So when he sold his business to DC, what they were buying, largely, were his paper contracts. They were interested in Wonder Woman, and so forth and so on, but they were more interested in the paper. As luck had it, the war was over six months later... There was plenty of paper, and they didn’t make as good a deal as they could have if they’d waited six months. But that was his good luck and their bad luck” (Decker 56).

Gaines kept his office on Lafayette Street open, hired University of Pittsburgh history professor W.W.D. Sones as his editor, and devoted himself to his new Educational Comics line. Its first offerings were a second collected edition of Picture Stories from the Bible, this one reprinting the New Testament issues of the standardsized comic; the first issue of Picture Stories from American History, reprinting episodes of that series that originally ran in All-American, Flash Comics, Sensation, and Comic Cavalcade, and Desert Dawn, an American Museum of Natural History giveaway starring Bugs Bunny lookalike Johnny Jackrabbit. It was a modest but respectable start for the company that became both celebrated and vilified in the 1950s as the legendary E.C. Comics.

House of Heroes

Even before adding the All-American titles to its roster, Detective Comics, Inc., was a dominant presence on America’s newsstands. With three monthlies, four bi-monthlies, and five quarterlies at the start of 1945, as well as ownership of all rights to

When it came to costumed superheroes, DC literally wrote the book. The popularity of Superman and Batman, and their exposure in other media, earned their corporate owners—but not their creators—a fortune.

All-American editor Sheldon Mayer apologized to his staff and his readers for commandeering Funny Stuff #5 so he could satisfy his “yen to draw funny pictures again.”

Superman and Batman (both generating beaucoup bucks through merchandising and licensed appearances in other media), the publishing house that began in 1934 as Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson’s National Allied Publishing was successful beyond what co-publishers Jack Leibowitz and Harry Donenfeld could have imagined when they first launched their hostile takeover of Wheeler-Nicholson’s operation in ’37. DC—which also published comics this year under the corporate identities of Superman, Inc., World’s Best Comics Co., and Tilsu Publications, Inc.—had initiated the costumed mystery-man craze in 1938 with the Man of Tomorrow’s debut in Action Comics #1. They remained the foremost purveyors of superheroic fantasy with more than a score of such paragons featured across the line. The company’s Editorial Advisory Board of prominent educators, child psychologists, and sociologists kept the less wholesome aspects of the genre in check, ensuring a family-friendly brand of action characterized by bloodless violence, sexless romances, and moral certitude served up in easily digested 8- to 12-page “done-in-ones” under the supervision of editor-in-chief Whitney “Whit” Ellsworth and story editor and art director Jack Schiff. No longer content to let the caped-and-cowled set do all the work, the company had launched a small line of humor titles late in ’43 which doubled in size this year with the addition of two books devoted to animationstyle funny animals, one new, one converted from superhero material. Though never achieving the popularity of Dell’s line-up of ducks, mice, and wabbits, DC’s comic book critters would hold their own in the marketplace for over two decades.

No DC character was more crucial to Harry and Jack’s bottom line than Superman. The Last Son of Krypton not only appeared in the monthly Action Comics, his bi-monthly solo title, the quarterly World’s Finest Comics, and the oneshot giveaway Superman’s Christmas Play Book but also starred in a newspaper strip distributed by the McClure Syndicate, a daily radio series over the Mutual Network, and animated cartoons produced by Famous Studios for Paramount Pictures. With co-creator and head writer Jerome “Jerry” Siegel serving in the Army, most of the scripting chores fell to Donald C. “Don” Cameron (no relation to the Picture Stories from the Bible illustrator of the same name), backed by Alvin Schwartz, Batman co-creator Milton “Bill” Finger, and Joseph Greene. Art for the series continued to be provided primarily by the studio of co-creator Joseph “Joe” Shuster, with contributions from staffers Sam Citron, John Sikela, Pete Riss, and Ira Yarbrough. Cameron’s stories tended to focus on returning villains like The Prankster, The Toyman, con man J. Wilbur Wolfingham, and the extradimensional trickster Mr. Mxyztplk, while occasionally trying out new opponents like The Wizard of Wokit, an immortal sorcerer terrorizing a Balkan town, and The Water Sprite, a corrupt construction contractor posing as the vengeful messenger of Neptune. One of Cameron’s scripts repurposed a Siegel storyline rejected by editorial in which the alien powerhouse was

forced to reveal his dual identity to love interest Lois Lane, with Cameron refashioning this dramatic development as a fantasy subconsciously spun by Clark Kent while staring into a fortune teller’s crystal ball. Schwartz preferred more character-centric plotlines, such as his tale in Superman #32 (January-February) wherein the Action Ace contracted amnesia after volunteering for a scientific experiment, forgetting his Kent identity. Action #83 (April) introduced comic relief characters Hocus and Pocus a.k.a. street performers Doc and Flannelhead who, through a series of misunderstandings, came to believe they had real magical powers. They returned to flummox the Man of Tomorrow further in the September issue (#88) and several more times in the following years. But the most significant event in the character’s world in 1945 occurred not in any of the titles he headlined but in the pages of More Fun Comics #101:

“The success of Fawcett’s Captain Marvel, Jr., and Mary Marvel showed that kids wanted juvenile spin-offs of their heroes. Whitney Ellsworth and Jack Schiff dusted off Jerry Siegel’s Superboy idea from three years before—not a sidekick but Superman himself as a child—but made an essential change. The Boy of Steel wouldn’t be a superprankster but a wholesome young crime fighter. He would live with his farm-bred folks, Ma and Pa Kent, in a small town straight from the Saturday Evening Post. … The editors understood the idea

Curiously, the first appearance of Superboy wasn’t even mentioned on the cover of More Fun Comics #101. TM and © DC Comics.

would sell to eight-year-olds or not at all, and they pointed the series straight at them”“(G. Jones 225).

The first “Superboy” story, based on Siegel’s original script but heavily rewritten by unknown hands, retold his origin with one crucial difference: for the first time, Kryptonians were not superhuman on their home world but only became so on Earth. This is an early example of what later came to be called “retroactive continuity,” the rewriting of a character’s established history, and it didn’t stop there. Originally, Clark didn’t assume his costumed identity until adulthood. Now it was revealed that he’d begun his superheroic career while still a boy growing up in a namelessfor-now rural town. The Superboy seen in these early More Fun episodes was young, not yet a teenager, and his adventures were on a much smaller scale than he faced as an adult. There were no costumed or super-powered villains, no supporting cast (even his adoptive parents appeared only in the origin), nothing to suggest the series was anything other than an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the junior Marvels. What nobody at DC foresaw was that the launch of “Superboy” would be the spark that eventually severed the longstanding relationship between the publishers and creators Siegel and Shuster, costing the latter not only their jobs but all hope of staking a claim to any part of the Superman-fueled money machine that made millionaires of Donenfeld and Liebowitz.

That machine included the Adventures of Superman radio series, which aired its most ambitious serial to date. Spanning 77 installments between September 24, 1945 and January 8, 1946, the story reintroduced a mysterious green meteorite called kryptonite—last seen in 1943—which could weaken and conceivably kill the Man of Steel. As the plot rolled forth, the evil Scarlet Widow stole the lone sample of the element and passed it along to fugitive Nazi scientist Der Teufel. He, in turn, used it to empower Heinrich Milch as the Atom Man and set the radioactive rogue into battle against Superman. Even with Atom Man’s ultimate defeat, the Man of Steel still needed to recover missing chunks of kryptonite from somewhere in Metropolis. For that mission, he enlisted the aid of two new friends from Metropolis whom he’d met in March 1945’s “Mystery of the Waxmen” serial. Their names were Batman and Robin In the final act of the Atom Man/kryptonite opus, Superman entrusted the Dynamic Duo with the secret of his Clark Kent identity.

Though not the revenue generator Superman was, the crime-crushing team of “Batman and Robin” was nearly as popular with readers. Like their star-born compatriot, the Dynamic Duo starred in the monthly Detective Comics, a bi-monthly solo book, World’s Finest, and their own McClure syndicated strip. Not unlike the Big Blue Boy Scout, they had to get by with minimal input from their creators. Most of Bob Kane (nee Robert Kahn) and Bill Finger’s time was devoted to the newspaper strip, though both contributed to the

books this year. Don Cameron once again served as interim head writer, with Finger, Alvin Schwartz, Joseph Greene, and former story editor Mortimer “Mort” Weisinger also providing scripts. In addition to new encounters with old nemeses The Joker and The Penguin, the Masked Manhunter and Boy Wonder met new foes Punch and Judy, The Scuttler, The Blaze, and The Phantom of the Library, none of them memorable enough to warrant a second appearance. One of Cameron’s best scripts found Batman and Robin teaming up with the Three Musketeers courtesy of Professor Carter Nichols’ “time hypnosis” technique, a story immeasurably enhanced by the detailed, stylized art of Richard “Dick” Sprang, arguably the best of Bob Kane’s many ghosts. Sprang drew the majority of Batman’s comic book episodes this year. Other artists included longtime Kane inker Sherril “Jerry” Robinson (who drew every installment of the “Adventures of Alfred” back-up series), Sunday newspaper strip penciller Hardin “Jack” Burnley, and newly discharged Canadian veteran Winslow “Win” Mortimer.

Seated in the number three slot in the hierarchy of DC heroes were The Boy Commandos, who not only held regular berths in Detective and World’s Finest but starred in their own top-selling quarterly. Their creators, Joseph “Joe” Simon and Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg), were away in the service but, at the publishers’ insistence, had prepared as much inventory as they could manage before they left. A handful of covers excepted, this supply had run out. Argentinian artist Louis Cazaneuve stepped in, drawing most of the episodes dated 1945, approximating Kirby’s explosive action and expressive characterizations if not his inventiveness. Writing credits are scant, though

comic Batman artist Dick Sprang enjoyed drawing the Dynamic Duo’s occasional trips through time, as it gave him a chance to use his huge library of historical reference. TM and © DC Comics.

Don Cameron and Joseph “Joe” Samachson are known to have contributed scripts. Brooklyn, Jan, Alfy, Andre, and adult mentor Captain Rip Carter performed their daring missions all across the globe, visiting China, Nepal, and Mexico, sneaking behind enemy lines as part of a circus troupe, and facing their Japanese counterparts, the Commandos from Nippon. The September issue of Detective (#103) was the first installment to reflect Germany’s surrender, while the one in World’s Finest #20 (Winter) was the only DC-published story this year to acknowledge the war’s end. By then, Kirby and Simon had been mustered out, their contract with the company was up, and a change in editorial policy was about to upset what should have been a mutually beneficial apple cart:

“Back in New York, Jack tried to pick back up where he’d left off but couldn’t. Things had changed at DC Comics. The Simon-Kirby features were losing steam—especially, since there was no more war, the one about kids at war. Worse, there was little enthusiasm for letting anyone, even Joe and Jack, be outside suppliers any longer. The editors there now wanted everything to go through them. Jack drew some stories for DC but mostly marked time, waiting for Simon to be discharged from the Coast Guard. When that happened, they decided there was no point in taking up with DC again” (Evanier 714).

Though there was little doubt that “Batman” and “Boy Commandos” were the main draws in Detective Comics, the title’s other three features were in there trying. George Roussos, nicknamed “Inky” for his extensive use of shadow, provided plenty of atmosphere for the electronically charged feats of “Air Wave,” while Howard Sherman illustrated the more mundane doings of two-fisted private detective “Slam Bradley.” Rounding out the book was “Three-Ring Binks,” a humor strip by screwball cartoonist Jack Farr. A former Detective feature, the long-canceled “Speed Saunders,” was briefly resurrected in the pages of one of the era’s most enigmatic black market comics. Cavalier Comics #2, published by Sture Ashburg (no other information is provided in the book’s indicia), offered 36 pages of reprints from the pre-Donenfeld era including “Speed,” “Barry O’Neill,” and “Captain Quick.” The hows and whys of this oddity may never be known.

Sales of Action Comics were driven by Superman’s position as cover feature, but its back-up series also provided value for the buyer’s dime. “Zatara the Master Magician,” now drawn by William F. White, continued to weave his backward-spoken spells over evildoers. Big game hunter “Congo Bill” countered Axis operatives in the world’s jungles, and “Hayfoot Henry,” the travails of a none-too-bright beat cop told entirely in rhyme, entrusted its buffoonery to new artist Thurston Harper, replacing co-creator Stan Kaye mid-year. The best of the secondary strips remained “The Vigilante.” Masked country singer Greg Sanders and boy pal Stuff the Chinatown Kid clashed anew with recurring foes The Dummy, The Fiddler, and Shakes the Underworld Poet, as well as dealing with the well-intentioned Society for Aiding the Criminally Unfortunate, all brought to life by the expressive, shadow-drenched artwork of Morton “Mort” Meskin

DC’s third monthly, Star Spangled Comics, couldn’t boast of any characters appearing in other media but offered up a colorful roster of second-string superheroes. Each issue led off with Simon and Kirby’s “The Newsboy Legion,” now written by Don Cameron and Joe Samachson and drawn by Arthur Cazaneuve (brother and studiomate of Louis), Joe Kubert, and newcomer Douglas “Curt” Swan, a self-taught Army veteran with serious drawing chops. Among the menaces the boys and their costumed mentor, The Guardian, dealt with this year was The Leopard Man, a horror movie star run amok. Samachson also contributed scripts to all four of the book’s other strips, including an episode of “Penniless Palmer,” the private eye comedy drawn by Henry Boltinoff. “Robotman,” and “The Star-Spangled Kid” delivered lots of action, with George “Jimmy” Thompson illoing the mechanical man with the human brain and Jon Small doing the same for the flag-themed Kid and his brawny partner Stripesy. Cameron and Chuck Winter’s globetrotting “Liberty Belle,” the company’s only female super-doer, battled Axis troops and enemy agents in the Philippines, Switzerland, and China. Guest scribe Samachson gave her a new nemesis in Tokyo Rose, the JapaneseAmerican traitor (actually several women) who broadcast anti-war propaganda to troops fighting in the Pacific theater, reimagined here as a costumed mystery-woman.

This cover art for Star Spangled Comics #43 is one of the first professional credits for Curt Swan, the primary “Superman” artist of the 1960s and ’70s. TM and © DC Comics.

Joe Samachson was easily the most prolific writer working at DC this year. The research chemist turned science fiction author not only crafted scripts for the Star Spangled cast as well as “Batman,” “Zatara,” “Vigilante,” “Congo Bill,” “Boy Commandos,” and “The Seven Soldiers of Victory,” but wrote every episode of every feature in the bi-monthlies Adventure Comics and More Fun Comics except for “Superboy,” “The Spectre,” and the humor strips “Dover and Clover” and “Genius Jones.” Adventure cover star “The Sandman,” another former Simon & Kirby strip, continued his crusade against urban crime aided by kid sidekick Sandy Hawkins and the artistry of William “Pen” Shumaker, Gil Kane (a.k.a. Eli Katz), and Marvin Stein. Sandman’s former JSA teammate “Starman” wielded his gravity rod against the usual assortment of gangsters and spies, the same kind of foes taking on the time-displaced “Shining Knight,” whose origin was retold in Adventure #101 (December-January). Over in More Fun, Samachson handled the adventures of “Aquaman” and “The Green Arrow” in partnership with Louis Cazaneuve and Maurice Del Bourgo. He shared the scripting chores on super-speedster “Johnny Quick” with Don Cameron, though it was Mort Meskin’s dynamic art that made JQ’s strip so appealing. Longtime More Fun feature “The Spectre” gave up the ghost following the January-February issue (#101). The unliving spirit of police detective Jim Corrigan did not haunt the pages of a DC title again for 21 years.

The 15¢ quarterly World’s Finest Comics was the only DC comic to lower its page count this year from 80 pages to 76 as of its Autumn issue (#19). “Superman,” “Batman,” and “Boy Commandos” anchored the title, backed by “Green Arrow,” “The Star-Spangled Kid,” “Zatara,” and “Johnny Everyman.” World’s Finest #17 (Spring) had Johnny saluting the nation’s African American fighting men, doing the same for our Nisei troops two issues later, both presentations thankfully free of the demeaning caricatures that were de riguer in comics earlier in the decade. The line’s other superhero quarterly, Leading Comics, showcased the last hurrah of “The Seven Soldiers of Victory,” a team of costumed crusaders that included Green Arrow, The Vigilante, The Star-Spangled Kid, and The Shining Knight, in its Spring issue (#14). This became the last appearance of former Detective cover feature “The Crimson Avenger” until 1972. The Soldiers were ousted from their book as part of DC’s strategy to expand its audience beyond the fans who kept its superheroes in business.

The company’s humor books, All-Funny Comics and Buzzy, were produced in-house under the supervision of assistant editor Bernard “Bernie” Breslauer. Headlining All-Funny were “Genius Jones,” “Dover and Clover,” and “Penniless Palmer,” all series also running as back-ups in superhero titles. Original to the book were Emil Gershwin’s “Sadface Charlie,” Thurston Harper’s “Tinkerman Tad,” and two strips created by other artists but continued

by Jimmy Thompson, the crackpot inventors “Hamilton and Egbert” and the cowboy comedy “Two-Gun Percy.” All of these strips were amusing, but none could hold a candle to “Buzzy,” Alvin Schwartz and George Storm’s answer to “Archie.” Full of over-the-top characters and hilarious slapstick, the teen humor series was one of 1945’s best offerings, particularly after the introduction in Buzzy #3 (Summer) of Alvin, the trumpet-toting title character’s straight-laced rival for the affections of Susie Gruff. The back pages of Buzzy included Tom McNamara’s satiric fantasy “Alix in Folly-Land” in which an apprentice fairy learned the ins and outs of human behavior from his uncle. For its next two comedy titles, DC did something out of character: it turned to an outside source to provide their contents. Benjamin W. “Ben” Sangor was, among other things, Harry Donenfeld’s partner in the small Creston line of comics and the owner of a bi-coastal packaging service. Thus, it was Sangor’s shop that was contracted to produce funny animal comics for DC. As shop foreman James F. “Jim” Davis (no relation to the Garfield creator) told it:

“Whit Ellsworth ... felt that [Detective] should have some books based on cartoons[, but] the only thing that was left was this stuff from Columbia Pictures[, including] The Fox and the Crow. So, he signed some sort of a contract with Columbia Pictures to produce this thing. He was going to employ the guys from Screen Gems Studios who were turning [the cartoons] out, but I already had half of them working for Sangor. So, I complained to Sangor, and he talked it over with Donenfeld, and so I took over the production of The Fox and the Crow” (Vance 19).

This unblinking look at racism in America from the “Johnny Everyman” story in World’s Finest Comics #17 reflected the comic book industry’s postwar change in attitude towards depictions of minorities. TM and © DC Comics.

The “thing” that resulted from Ellsworth’s negotiations with Columbia was the quarterly Real Screen Funnies, retitled Real Screen Comics with its second issue. Its cover feature was the aforementioned “The Fox and the Crow,” based on an ongoing series of animated shorts that began with 1941’s The Fox and the Grapes. As in the cartoons, the strip found gullible Fauntleroy F. Fox playing the perpetual patsy for the conniving Crawford C. Crow. It was a simple premise, yet robust enough that the series ran through 1967, appearing in three different titles with Davis drawing virtually every episode. Also debuting in Real Screen #1 (Spring) were “Flippity and Flop” and “Tito and His Burrito.” The former concerned housecat Flop, a dead ringer for Tom of “Tom and Jerry,” whose plans to snack on canary Flippity were always being foiled by the pet bird’s canine guardian Sam. In the latter, Tito pursued his infatuation with the ever-unreachable Rosita aided by his sympathetic donkey. It was endearing and cute despite the heavy-handed stereotyping of its Mexican characters. All three series endured throughout Real Screen Comics’ 148-issue run, outliving their cinematic incarnations by decades.

Already working at peak capacity, the Sangor shop subcontracted their work for the revamped Leading Comics to a new studio organized by former staffers Otto Feuer Reuben “Rube” Grossman The features they concocted did not enjoy the Real Screen line-up’s longevity but were no less entertaining. The cleverest of the lot was “Nero Fox,” a funny (albeit dated) series about a jazz-loving, saxophone-playing Roman emperor. Historical accuracy was not the strip’s highest priority, as evidenced by the story in issue #16 (Autumn) that saw Egypt invade Rome. The German-born Feuer produced three series for Leading. “Hugo Hornspread” starred a dim-witted moose from the backwoods with uncanny strength, “Pelican Pete” featured an amateur sleuth fighting crime with the many gadgets stored in his pouch, and “Spylot Bones” was a Holmesian bulldog who, aided by companion Dr. Spotsem, solved wacky mysteries (like the theft of London’s fog) from their digs at 221B Faker Street. Grossman drew “King Oscar’s Court,” an amiable comedy about an Arthurian lion and the bumbling knights sharing his Round Table, and may have had a hand in two other shortlived series, “Jumping Juniper” and “Frankie and Fannie Flipper.” None of these characters would last long, but the business relationship between DC, Feuer, and Grossman was to endure for more than 20 years.

Sangorized

The Sangor Studio was actually two shops, one based in New York, the other in Los Angeles. Sharing office space with Ned Pines’ pulp and comics lines, the East Coast group began life in 1941 when Sangor recruited story men and animators from the Floridabased Fleischer Brothers’ studio to create comics on the side. Relocating to Manhattan after new owner Paramount Pictures closed down the Fleischer facility, the shop focused primarily on Pines’ superhero titles. Robert “Bob” Oksner supervised day-to-day operations in his role as Art Director, the same title Jim Davis held in California. The L.A. shop, operating under the name Artists and Writers Associates, rented space from a small studio producing technical animation for the military. Consisting almost entirely of moonlighting personnel from Disney, Lantz, and Warner Brothers, it cranked out hundreds of pages of funny animal material for Pines, Detective, Creston, and others.

Ben Sangor initially organized the Creston Publications Corporation in partnership with father-and-son pulp publishers Andrew and Gerald “Jerry” Albert. They provided the paper and press time; he provided the content. In 1944, Sangor bought out the Alberts with financial assistance from Harry Donenfeld, who thereafter served as a (mostly) silent partner in the company that later evolved into the American Comics Group. Jerry Albert, the original editor of Creston’s comics, was replaced by Richard E. Hughes, the former Leo Rosenbaum, an advertising copywriter who served as both editor and head writer for Ned Pines’ comic books. Most of the material for Giggle Comics and Ha Ha Comics was prepared in the Los Angeles unit managed by Jim Davis, though Hughes was not averse to throwing work from Bob Oksner’s staff into the mix.

When DC decided to expand into funny animal comics, it hired the Sangor Studio to create them. Their first was Real Screen Funnies #1, starring “The Fox and The Crow.” TM and © DC Comics.

Advertised as monthly, both Ha Ha and Giggle skipped issues this year to allow the books to maintain their 52-page lengths. Unlike the Pines funny animal books, which largely eschewed ongoing features, the Creston books ran a mix of recurring characters and one-shots. Appearing in every issue of Giggle were “Superkatt,” a delightful series from Dan Gordon, who signed his work “Dang,” about a delusional feline who believed he had super-powers, and Kenneth “Ken” Hultgren’s “The Duke and the Dope,” starring a con artist fox whose schemes were perpetually undone by his idiot rabbit stooge. Dozens of other series passed through its pages this year but only one, “Spencer Spook,” endured. Created by writer Hubert “Hubie” Karp and artist Kenneth “Ken” Champin, Spencer was an incompetent ghost who desperately wanted to establish a reputation as a first-rate haunter. Appearing intermittently at first, the series would grow in popularity, eventually taking over Giggle, which was retitled Spencer Spook with its March 1955 issue. Leading off each issue of Ha Ha was another Ken Hultgren strip, “Robespierre,” in which a pampered house cat alternately warred with and chummed around with a pair of uncouth alley cats. Hultgren was also at the drawing board for “Izzy and Dizzy,” a series about a pair of bear cubs that ran in all but one issue this year. Eight other strips appeared sporadically in 1945 issues of Ha Ha. Most featured animation-style critters but one, Robert “Bob” Wickersham’s “Pee Wee,” spotlighted the adventures of a little Amerindian boy.

Other artists contributing to the Creston titles in 1945 were Lynn Karp (brother of Hubie), Gilbert “Gil” Turner, Ed Dunn, Carl Wessler, James “Jim” Tyer, Al Pross, Thurston Harper, Manuel “Manny” Perez, Victor Pazmiño, Kerran Wright, Harris Steinbrook, and Donald R. Christensen a.k.a. Don Arr. Writers included Thomas “Tom” Baron, Robert “Bob” Karp (another brother), Jack Cosgriff, and two story men whose work for Hanna-Barbera in the 1960s was crucial to that animation studio’s phenomenal success, Warren Foster and Michael Maltese. But it was the prolific Hubie Karp that Jim Davis singled out for praise when he looked back on their days with Sangor:

“[When Karp was writing, he was] all the way into the wish-world he was writing about; the characters he was dealing with were real, and he was amongst them, talking with them, and laughing with them, and making faces in keeping with what was going on... He storyboarded his stories, and though Hubie was no finished artist, his scrawly sketches defined exactly what was going on[:] the layout, the mood, the expressions of the characters. He was just basically one helluva fine writer” (Vance 21).

Ben Sangor also owned half-interest in the comic line published by his daughter’s husband, Noah L. “Ned” Pines. Pines began his publishing career with the humor magazine College Life while still enrolled at Columbia University, later establishing a pulp empire consisting of more than 30 mystery, Western, and science fiction titles. The partners expanded into comics in late 1939. By 1945, the line consisted of five bi-monthlies and six quarterlies published under four imprints, Better Publications, Standard Magazines, Nedor Publishing, and Great Comics Publishing, the last a corporate identity previously associated with the Roche & Iger studio that the company gained title to under circumstances lost to history. Pines also released one additional title through a proxy publisher, the New Jersey-based Polo Magazine, Inc., and the 160-page, 50¢ one-shot Joe Palooka Visits the Lost City, reprinting a long sequence of the daily syndicated strip. The bi-monthlies remained at 52 pages throughout the year, but all the quarterlies were downsized to 36 pages and one title, Wonder Comics, skipped an issue.

“Spencer Spook” was neither the first nor the most popular ghost to haunt a comic book, but his series ran for over a decade. TM and © respective copyright holder.

Noah L. “Ned” Pines and his father-in-law Benjamin Sangor co-owned the Better, Nedor, Standard, and Great comics lines. Sangor also owned the art studio that provided their content.

Of the four funny animal titles published by Pines and Sangor, only the bi-monthly Coo Coo Comics a banner on every cover proclaimed it “America’s funniest magazine”—featured a recurring series. That was “Supermouse,” comic books’ first funny animal superhero. Created by Kin Platt, the redoubtable rodent was now in the capable hands of Richard Hughes and Don Arr, who pitted Supermouse against The Flubjub, arch-villain of the planet Ootyeba, and his army of booblesnoopers; sent him to the jazz-crazy world of Jitterbugia; and, in issue #19 (September), had their pint-size hero invade Japan. Thirty other strips ran in Coo Coo this year, only Vic Pazmiño’s “Basil the Bold” appearing more than once. Much the same held true for Goofy Comics, Happy Comics, and Barnyard Comics, although a character introduced in Barnyard #5 (May), Jack Bradbury’s “Stanley,” a plow horse averse to work, did reappear later. All of the artists drawing for the Creston books also appeared in the Pines titles, joined by Anton “Tony” Loeb, Irving Dressler, Milton “Milt” Stein, the husband-and-wife duo Bill and Teddie Hudson, and Donald Duck syndicated strip artist Charles “Al” Talliaferro.

Although a handful of funny animal artists worked out of the New York branch of the Sangor Studio, most of the unit’s talent concentrated on Pines’ superheroes, created and primarily scripted by Richard Hughes. As they had since shortly after Pearl Harbor, the company’s mysterymen fought a seemingly endless line of Axis spies and soldiers, many equipped with outlandish but lethal superweaponry, though some later issues saw the good guys facing pulpish menaces like mad scientists and masked criminals. All seven adventure titles were distinguished by the exciting covers executed by Puerto Rican artist Alejandro Schomburg y Rosa, known professionally as Alex Schomburg.

The line’s bestselling title was Exciting Comics starring “The Black Terror” alias pharmacist Bob Barton who, along with teen sidekick Tim, took a chemical concoction that gave him superhuman strength and stamina. The Terror also headlined his own quarterly solo comic and the showcase book America’s Best Comics The ebony-clad powerhouse battled foes like The White Wizard, The Master, The Mask, The Voice, and Dr. Ghoul in addition to the usual Japanese and German cannon fodder. Edvard “Ed” Moritz served as the series’ primary artist. Sharing the back pages of Exciting were “The American Eagle,” who flew with the aid of a special serum; “Crime Crushers,” a tongue-in-cheek detective series by Hughes and Al Camy nee Cammarata; “Kara, the Jungle Princess” by the same team, and the war strips “Sergeant Bill King” and “Crash Carter, Air Cadet.”

Headlining Thrilling Comics were “The Commando Cubs,” Oksner and Hughes’ answer to DC’s Boy Commandos. The kid soldiers commanded the book’s cover and lead-off spot, both of which had previously belonged to “Doc Strange.” The most overtly pulp-flavored of Pines’ costumed heroes, the superhuman scientist and his aides, Virginia and Mike, lost a bit of cachet with a readership whose tastes had changed in the five years since his creation. The same phenomenon touched “The Woman in Red,” comics’ first masked mystery woman, whose series finale ran in the February Thrilling (#46). Hughes and August Froelich’s “The Ghost” used his magical powers to combat Axis troops as well as his arch-enemy, the time traveler Dr. Fenton. “Lucky Lawrence, Leatherneck,” “The Lone Eagle,” and “Jimmy Cole, Boy Sleuth” took turns filling out the back pages.

Startling Comics was unusual in that three of its four main features were illustrated by the same team of Ken Battefield and Everett Raymond Kinstler. The 19-year-old Kinstler, who in later years became a portraitist whose subjects included two sitting presidents, brought deft penwork and a dramatic use of lighting to Battefield’s ordinary but serviceable layouts on “Captain Future,” the electrically powered “Pyroman,” and “The Fighting Yank,” who fought the enemy armed with a bulletproof cloak. Battefield also handled the art in the Yank’s solo title, with finishes by Kinstler and George Gregg. Startling also featured “The Oracle,” a plainclothes super-doer with the power of clairvoyance, and sporadic appearances by “The Four Comrades” and “Don Davis, Espionage Ace.” A new costumed hero debuted in issue #34 (August). Archaeologist Peter Ward discovered an ancient ring in the long-lost tomb of the Egyptian cat god that transformed him into “The Scarab,” a flying superhuman clad in the garments of the priest who previously wore the ring. Scarab next appeared in the December issue of Exciting Comics (#42) but bad art and a too-familiar premise (the strip

“Supermouse” invaded Japan and came face-to-face with Emperor “Beerohito” in the September issue of Coo Coo Comics Supermouse TM and © respective copyright holder.

Pines’ titles were among the few published in 1945 to acknowledge the war’s end. Cover art by Alex Schomburg. TM and © respective copyright holder.

bore a strong resemblance to an earlier, long-since-canceled series, “Son of the Gods”) didn’t bode well for the newcomer’s longevity.

Published under the Great Comics imprint, the quarterly Wonder Comics starred “The Grim Reaper,” a mystery-man who fought behind enemy lines and derived special satisfaction from killing Nazis with his bare hands. The title’s backup series were a lackluster lot. “Spectro the Mind Reader,” “The Supersleuths,” and “Ted Dawson, Soldier of Fortune” had nothing special to commend them, though “Supersleuths” at least had good art by Charles M. Quinlan going for it. Wonder also included a potpourri of funny animal fillers by the West Coast contingent of the Sangor shop.

Quinlan also contributed to Real Life Comics, a bi-monthly that covered much the same territory as Parents’ Magazine Press’ True Comics but with bad art (Quinlan and the occasional story by freelancer Henry C. Kiefer excepted), worse writing, and even less regard for historical accuracy. The book relied heavily on sensationalized accounts of contemporary war heroes, famous freedom fighters of the past, and American pioneers like Marcus Whitman, all heavily sanitized and inevitably reflecting the current war against totalitarianism whether appropriate or not. Real Life was Pines’ worst-selling title but was kept on life support to give the publisher a claim, however tenuous, to respectability.

Though the Pines, DC, and Creston accounts kept the Sangor Studio busy, the boss did not shy away from taking on special orders. Such was the case with Hi-Jinx, a 25¢ 132page one-shot from LaSalle Publishing Co., which owned a string of small newspapers in Illinois. The book was crammed full of original funny animal strips from the crew at Artists and Writers Associates, including Carl Wessler, Tony Loeb, Vic Pazmiño, Don Arr, and Teddie Hudson. The closest thing Hi-Jinx had to a lead feature was Hubie and Lynn Karp’s “The Gopher Boys,” who starred in three out of the title’s 31 stories.

LaSalle was no here-today-gone-tomorrow operation, so it’s possible Hi-Jinx was published in compliance with federal restrictions. This was probably not the case with another new Sangor client. Rural Home Publishing Company, officially based in Chicago, was a shadowy enterprise that commissioned three different packaging services to produce its short-lived comics line. Bob Oksner’s New York staff was responsible for the contents of Cannonball Comics, while Jim Davis’ Los Angeles crew filled the pages of Laffy-Daffy Comics. Both were 52-page monthlies distributed through Donenfeld and Sampliner’s Inde-

pendent News that ran two issues apiece then vanished from newsstands. Cannonball’s lead character was “The Crash Kid,” a.k.a. newspaper copy boy Rusty Adams. The teenage superhero, drawn by Oksner, was given no origin, proving as mysterious to readers as to the various felons he trounced. Backing him up were “Thunderbrand,” a swashbuckler about a dethroned prince raised by pirates; Charles Quinlan’s school sports saga “Hardy of Hillsdale High” scripted by his teenaged son and frequent collaborator Charles Jr.; and “The Crime Crusader,” a private eye strip. Laffy-Daffy featured Hubie Karp and Harris Steinbrook’s “Horace,” tracking the travails of a stray dog, Carl Wessler’s “Snazzy Rabbit,” and Carl Hubbard’s “Bum Bill Bee,” backed by assorted one-shots by Lynn Karp, Thurston Harper, and other Sangor regulars. If Rural Home released any legal comics, it was probably these two titles but, as will be explained later in the chapter, there was ample reason to distrust any such claim.

The Sangor shop was also hired to create a comic similar to Hi-Jinx for another Chicago-based publisher. Chuckle, the Giggly Book of Comic Animals was another 132-pager published by R.B. Leffingwell & Co. Leffingwell had entered the field the previous year with Jeep Comics, which had proven profitable enough to justify further ventures. Like Hi-Jinx, Chuckle featured funny animals from cover to cover, none of which would ever be seen again. That was not the case for “Cookie,” the lead feature of the standardsized Topsy-Turvy Comics. A fun entry in the teen humor sweepstakes starring pint-sized high schooler Cookie O’Toole, his buddies Jitterbuck and Murgatroyd the Brain, his nemesis Zoot, and Angelpuss Witherspoon, the girl they all longed for, “Cookie” was written and drawn by Dan Gordon. Topsy-Turvy didn’t last beyond this first issue (its legality, as with Chuckle, is questionable), but Cookie and his friends lived on, earning his own book at Creston in 1946.

The Sangor Studio was one of several packaging services to provide content for Rural Home Publishing’s comics, most of which were printed on black market newsprint.. TM and © respective copyright holder.

Strange Bedfellows

Chuckle and Topsy-Turvy Comics were only half of R.B. Leffingwell’s output this year. The publisher also released a second issue of Jeep Comics plus Pop-Pop Comics, a funny animal one-shot produced by Jason Comic Art (JCA), a new studio owned by Leon Jason and managed by Jay Morton, who had been instrumental in recruiting talent in the infancy of the Sangor Studio. None of the characters debuting in Pop-Pop were memorable, and none of the stories were signed aside from the JCA logo. Jeep #2 (Spring) presented new installments of the series introduced in the first issue: “Jeep and Peep” who rode into danger in a flying jeep, egghead sleuth “Solid Jackson,” the war strip “Captain Power,” and Alfred “Al” Fago’s fantasy “Superstitious Al-o-ysius.” Like its predecessor, its contents were packaged by the Bernard Baily studio. Like Leffingwell’s other three comics, it was almost certainly in violation of Limitation Order L-244.

Twenty-nine-year-old Baily, the son of Russian immigrants, had been active in the comics industry since the mid-1930s. An early employee of the Eisner & Iger shop, one of the first packaging services, Baily moved on to Detective, where he co-created “The Spectre” and “HourMan.” In 1944, he left DC to form his own studio and small publishing firm. Leffingwell was one of the new venture’s first clients. Another, and the only Baily client whose output for 1945 was indisputably legal, was Crestwood Publishing Co., Inc.

Crestwood was the comic book arm of several interconnected lines of pulp magazines jointly owned by Milton “Mike” Bleier and Theodore “Teddy” Epstein. It had begun in 1940 with a single monthly title, Prize Comics, and had since added the quarterly Headline Comics. Under original editor Maurice “Reese” Rosenfield, the company had shied away from committing to any one packaging service, preferring to either work directly with freelancers or solicit work from several studios (including at various times Eisner-Iger, the Jack Binder shop, and Funnies, Inc.). This changed after Rosenfield was inducted into the Navy. His replacement, Samuel Bierman, chose to streamline operations, contracting with Bernard Baily to produce most of his comics’ content (the art at least, since writing credits for this period are, with a single exception, non-existent). By diverting newsprint earmarked for Crestwood’s pulp line and changing the frequencies of their existing titles— both the monthly Prize and the quarterly Headline became bi-monthlies—Bleier, Epstein, and Bierman not only kept their books at 52 pages but actually expanded their operation, adding three new titles.

Prize Comics, Crestwood’s flagship title, went through some changes with issue #52 (April), the last monthly issue, replacing “Prince Ra,” a superhero from ancient Egypt, with “Sir Prize,” a medieval fantasy with its tongue firmly in cheek. Snappy dialogue, great art by Charles A. Voight, and a delightful sense of absurdity made the new feature a welcome addition to the book’s roster. Another new series debuted the following issue, the Robert Baldwin-illustrated “Zar, King of Beasts,” an animal strip about a lion. Up front, Voight’s boxing saga “Boom Boom Brannigan” and the costumed hero series “Yank and Doodle with The Black Owl,” which had begun as separate series before the costumed twins’ father replaced the original Owl, continued to entertain. But it was “Frankenstein” that made Prize a must-buy for readers in the know. Originally a straight horror series adapting and updating Mary Shelley’s classic novel, creator Richard “Dick” Briefer transformed it over several years into a humor strip aimed at younger children. This metamorphosis was completed with the first issue of the quarterly Frankenstein, wherein Briefer created a new origin for his grotesque but lovable protagonist. Now Franky was the creation of a crackpot scientist who, obsessed with Shelley’s book, decided to create his own murderous monstrosity but wound up with the book’s sweet-

Originally a horror strip, Dick Briefer’s “Frankenstein” had become a full-blown comedy by the time the lovable monster’s solo title launched.

souled star instead. The same issue introduced Mippyville, the all-American small town where the monster and his creepy cohorts took up residence. Often silly and always charming, the revamped series—the only major Crestwood feature not produced out of the Baily shop—remains one of the era’s most fondly remembered.

The last quarterly issue of Headline Comics (#12, Spring) spelled the end of all but two of its features. The title had originally been devoted to boys’ adventure stories, and “Junior Rangers,” a Boy Commandos knock-off nicely illustrated by Henry Kiefer, and “Buck Saunders” kept their feet firmly planted in that genre. Replacing “Tom Morgan,” “Cliff Gordon,” and “Kinker Kincaid” were “Worldbeater and Unghh,” a sci-fi comedy about a time-traveling criminal from the far future and his Neanderthal henchman last seen in Prize #48 (December 1944), and “The Blue Streak,” starring a circus aerialist who donned a mask and tights to avenge the murder of his kid brother. Precisely as trite and unmemorable as that summation implies, the Streak was replaced after three episodes by “Atomic Man.” Fatally ill research scientist Adam Mann gained incredible superhuman powers in a laboratory accident, becoming “a living atomic bomb.” Drawn by Charles Voight, Atomic Man was the first postwar superhero to cash in on America’s fascination with nuclear weaponry. He wouldn’t be the last.

Despite bearing the same name as the previous year’s all-reprint one-shot, Treasure Comics offered new content from cover to cover. The bi-monthly had no mystery-men, drawing instead on history and folklore for its inspiration. “Paul Bunyan” and “Marco Polo” appeared in all four 1945-dated issues, as did “Know Your America,” a non-fiction feature illustrated by 18-year-old Emmanuel “Manny” Stallman. “The Highwayman,” a swashbuckler set in Oliver Cromwell’s England, was replaced after a single episode by “The Arabian Knight,” a colorful series about a daring swordsman in the service of Haroun Al Rashid, caliph of Baghdad. Both strips were handsomely illustrated by Henry Kiefer. Also debuting in Treasure #1 was “Carrot-Top,” a reasonably funny “Archie” wannabe hampered by crude, cartoony art by Lit-Win, about whom very little is known, not even his or her real name.

Howard “Howie” Post. Stubborn, skeptical Alex found his whole worldview challenged after being transported by M’sieu Macaw to Wonderland, where he set out to make various nursery rhymes and fairy tales come true over the objections of its inhabitants. The strip owed more to Eastern Color’s “Bingo’s Frolics in Fairyland” than Lewis Carroll but was nonetheless a fun read. Wonderland’s other series included Post’s “Max the Magician,” Marvin “Marv” Levy’s “Fantastic Ferdy,” and “The Boy Pirate,” by Vincenzo “Vince” Fago, brother of Al and, until recently, editor of Martin Goodman’s Timely Comics.

Even producing four of its five titles, the Crestwood account was apparently not enough by itself to keep the lights on at Bernard Baily’s studio. It is impossible all these decades later to determine which of the small publishers for whom the studio generated content approached Baily and which were approached by Baily. Two things can be noted with certainty. First, despite the contents of each of these comics being copyrighted in their publishers’ names, many of the characters and series continued from title to title, implying that Baily retained the rights to them, leasing them to each new publisher for that one issue only. Second, few of these comics actually appeared on newsstands this year despite bearing a 1945 date:

“In the July, 1946 Writer’s Digest, columnist Harriet Bradfield explains[,] ‘Black market publishers who used more paper during the war than they were allowed to consume had their books confiscated and then were able to buy them back and these books were released at one fell swoop to the stands.’ The War Production Board’s confiscation of black market comic books and the postwar paper crunch of 1945-46 may explain the proliferation of oddball one- and two-shot comic books released in the months following the war. Published by obscure fly-by-night publishers, often with no cover dates or issue numbers, these titles probably represent seized comic books later dumped into distribution channels after paper controls were relinquished by the federal government” (Murray 44).

Crestwood’s other new title was Wonderland Comics, a quarterly that skipped its Winter issue for the sake of paper conservation. Its cover feature was “Alex in Wonderland,” written by story editor Jerry Gale and drawn by

One of the Baily studio’s earliest ventures into this questionable practice was in partnership with Lindsay “L.L.” Baird, who Will Murray characterized as “the most notorious black marketeer in comics” (50). Their first joint venture was Red Band Comics #1, published in late autumn of 1944 through Publicaciones Recreativas, a Mexican company

Crestwood’s “Atomic Man” was the first of a small wave of nuclear-powered superheroes created in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Atomic Man TM and © respective copyright holder.

with a small line of Spanish-language magazines. Red Band #2, cover dated January 1945, simply reprinted the first issue. A third issue dated April featured an all-new line-up of characters headed by “Captain Wizard,” a nameless war veteran falsely accused of murder who was given a magical cloak by the 16th century alchemist Paracelsus and became a “master of mighty magic.” The title’s other superhero was “Impossible Man,” a clever, albeit silly twist on the genre drawn by Baily himself. Other series making their debut here were Charles Voight’s “Teeny McSweeney,” about a 4'6" Marine recruit, “King O’Leary,” starring a two-fisted newspaper editor and his girl photographer sidekick, and “Dr. Mercy” in which a heroic surgeon and his ambulance driver pal solved medical and other mysteries. This turned out to be the last comic published through Publicaciones Recreativas, though a fourth issue of Red Band reprinting the entirety of issue #3 was released, this time credited to Lindsay L. Baird, Inc. Around the time it was printed, Baird was arrested and put on trial for a different line of black market comics produced by Funnies, Inc. Nonetheless, another Baird, Inc. venture titled Meteor Comics came off the presses in the fall. Its 36 pages featured new episodes of “Captain Wizard,” “Teeny McSweeney,” and “Impossible Man.”

Those characters introduced in Red Band Comics #1 were not forgotten, reappearing in a pair of 36-page oneshots, both dated December, published by Carlton Publishing Corp. Merry Comics #1-and-only featured the return of “The Bogeyman,” a shameless rip-off of Will Eisner’s “The Spirit,” backed by “Dr. Mercy,” “King O’Leary,” and “Teeny McSweeney.” Bogeyman’s former bookmates “Satanas,” an evil genius from the planet Pluto, and the parody strip “Captain Milksop” headlined Zoom Comics #1, again backed by “King O’Leary” and “Dr. Mercy.”

The Baily Studio’s most atypical project for 1945 was Bee-29 the Bombardier, a funny animal title packaged for Neal Publishers. The title character was a super-powered bee who patriotically rallied the inhabitants of Beeland to increase honey production to aid the war effort despite the interference of Nazi scientist Dr. Beest and his trained bee-eater. Credits are uncertain for the strip, though it has been tentatively associated with Bill Hudson. Howie Post signed two of the title’s back-up features, “Eeny, Meeny and Moe” and “Frank Furter,” a strange strip predicated on the notion that hot dogs are made out of dachshunds! Bee-29 lasted just one issue, but the heroic hymenopteran lived on in the undated Latest Comics, a one-shot from Palace Promotions. Inc. Baily was no longer involved, however, as Jason Comic Art provided all of Latest’s contents. JCA also produced two issues of Circus Comics, a 36-page funny animal title, for the Chicago-based Farm Women’s Publishing Co. Like Bee-29 and Latest, Circus was printed on black market paper and ended up warehoused by the feds.

Little is known about Cambridge House Publishers, other than it released three comic books packaged by Bernard Baily. Even their indicia listed no address for the company more detailed than “New York City.” Gold Medal Comics and Star-Studded Comics offered 128 pages for a quarter, while Hurricane Comics was a standard 52-pager costing the usual dime.

Star-Studded was further distinguished by its unusual 6.5" by 10.25"

size. Hurricane featured a tongue-incheek book-length fairy tale, “Harry Kane,” wherein a brave but clueless young man and his talking horse faced a dragon and other dangers to win the hand of a beautiful princess. The other books contained a potpourri of mostly forgettable genre strips, though a few showed promise. Robert “Bob” Fujitani drew “Captain Truth,” whose super-powers couldn’t prevent his financially challenged alter ego from getting evicted from his run-down apartment. “Ghost Woman” was just that, the spirit of an accident victim who fought mystic threats with her supernatural abilities. Baily’s own “Captain Combat,” Charles Voight’s “Red Rogue,” and “Commandette,” drawn by Nina Albright, were all run-of-the-mill costumed crusaders, though only the Rogue consciously set out to fight crime. They never got to achieve their potential, however, as the federal government closed down Cambridge House, apparently for good.

It’s hard to accept that Baily Publishing Co., the studio head’s own comics line, would be so brazen as to put his name on a black market product. Possibly the firm was legally allotted a modest supply of newsprint, perhaps in connection with the previous year’s short-lived Illustrated Stories from the Operas. Either way, the highlight of Spook Comics was “Mister Lucifer,” a horror strip with good art by John Giunta about a demon freed in modern times after two millennia of imprisonment. There was nothing special about the title’s other features. Whether their mediocrity or trouble with the War Production Board was responsible, Spook was the last comic released under the Baily Publishing brand.

A pair of strips orphaned by the cancellation of Leffingwell’s Jeep Comics found refuge in the pages of Snappy Comics, a 36-pager from the Cima Publishing Co. Henry Kiefer’s “The Sorcerer and His Apprentice” and “Sergeant Strong,” a military strip retitled “Special Agent #1,” were joined by “Airmale and Stampy,” a stray episode of a superhero series last seen in Prize Comics, and a detective strip, “Beau Brummel,” whose elegantly tailored amateur sleuth patterned himself after the 19th-

Red Band Comics was one of several comic books that landed publisher L.L. Baird in prison for violating wartime paper restrictions. TM and © respective copyright holder.

century British dandy whose name became a synonym for fastidious adherence to fashion. Another undated comic, Gerona Publishing Co.’s K-O Comics introduced a trio of new super-types. “The Duke of Darkness,” nicely illustrated by Samuel “Sam” Cooper, was a lively pastiche of DC’s “Spectre” and Cooper’s own “Mr. Justice.” Slain patrolman Paddy (or Danny) Sullivan returned to the mortal plane as the earthbound Duke. When not thwarting the plans of supernatural schemers like Professor Evil, the Duke “lived” in the police lock-up, from which he regularly escaped to the befuddlement of the police chief. “The Menace” was more down to earth, a costumed mystery-man whose real identity as movie villain Dennis Temple gave the strip its unique Hollywood setting. The screwball adventures of “The Magnificent Epod,” the magically powered last survivor of Atlantis, and his human pal, con man Junius B. Windfall, were drawn by August Froelich. The trio next appeared in Top Spot Comics, followed by the Winter-dated Triple Threat Comics, published by Top Spot Pub. Co and Special Comics, Inc, respectively. The 52-page Triple Threat also ran a new installment of “Beau Brummel.” Two more Jeep refugees, “Captain Power” and “Superstitious Al-o-ysius,” turned up in Great Comics, an unusual book in that individual copies were credited to one of three different publishers, Novack Publishing, Jubilee Comics, and Knockout. The rest of Great’s contents, however, were supplied by Funnies, Inc. and the L.B. Cole studio. Though some sources assert that L.L. Baird was behind all these companies, there is little hard evidence to prove that. Besides, Baird had enough trouble as it was from those black market comic books he could be indisputably tied to. As comics historian Will Murray explains:

“In March, 1945, Baird and his company, Rewl Publications of 500 Fifth Avenue, New York City were charged with the unauthorized use of 306 and a half tons of paper in 1944, specifically in printing the June, July and September issues of Blazing Comics and Blue Circle Comics. These were the first Enwil Associates publications. … Baird faced six counts, each carrying a maximum of one year in jail and a $10,000 fine per violation. He went on trial that June. Summing up the government’s case, Assistant United States Attorney Frederick J. Waters reminded the jury, ‘Newsprint quotas are important because the same material used to make newsprint is also used to pack blood plasma, K rations, vaccines, shell cases and bomb bands.’ On June 18, 1945 Rewl was found guilty of having exceeded its newsprint quota in violation of the Second War Powers Act. A week later, Judge Grover M. Moscowitz sentenced Lindsay L. Baird to 60 days in prison--an extremely light sentence under the circumstances. … But the worst humiliation was yet to come. In his final comment on the matter,... Waters said, ‘The defendant in this case is a contumacious chisler.’ That may be, but Baird was back on the streets by [fall and] back in business” (Murray).

Even as Baird was being tried for his Rewl titles, new issues of Blazing and Blue Circle were being published through

Rural Home Publishing along with a third book, Red Circle Comics. The copyright on these books was held by his Enwil Associates company, hiding from both readers and federal prosecutors the identity of the studio responsible for filling those pages.

No Jacquet Required

Funnies, Inc. was established in the early autumn of 1939 by Lloyd V. Jacquet, then editor and art director of the Centaur comics line, and a handful of freelancers. The studio made its reputation with Marvel Comics #1, the first comic published by Martin Goodman, which went through two print runs and sold nearly a million copies. Much had changed since those heady early days. Not only had Jacquet lost nearly all his founding roster of artists and writers, either to the military or to discontent with his low page rates, but his most important client, Goodman’s Timely Comics, had severed their business relationship in favor of producing its comics in-house. When Jacquet, an Army reservist, was called to active duty, his wife and business partner Grace Jacquet took over day-to-day operations. It was under her stewardship that the shop became involved with Baird and other questionable clients.

The first Baird comic released through Rural Home was a new title, Red Circle Comics, its first issue cover-dated January. The book’s longest-lived series, running through all three issues, were “The Prankster,” alias comedian Mike Morgan who fought crime using practical jokes, his

The Bernard Baily studio produced comics for several publishers of dubious legitimacy. Even Spook Comics published by Baily himself, may have been illegal. TM and © respective copyright holders.

features hidden beneath a Greek comedy mask; “Red Riot,” the tale of a lumberjack determined to rise to the top of the logging industry; and “Dinky Dibbs, Detective,” starring a boy sleuth and his pet parrot. “The Judge and the Jury,” by Chu F. Hing, concerned a defense lawyer turned vigilante, the gimmick of having the criminals he targets face a jury of their victims adding interest to an otherwise mundane mystery-man series. It and two Navy-themed strips, “Jack Bradley” and “Fifty Fathom Foster,” were gone following the February issue (#2), replaced by generic detective, college sports, and espionage strips. One new arrival, “El Kuraan,” featured urbane Arabian journalist Jahn El Khan, who returned to his home village to lead his tribesmen against the machinations of a corrupt pasha as the mystery-man called El Kuraan, a.k.a. The Desert Hawk. Wellintentioned but cliché-ridden, the story is amusing to the modern reader for its depiction of an American oil executive as a bastion of integrity clueless about the pasha’s double-dealings. Blue Circle Comics and Blazing Comics, revived with new #1s dated February, continued all of the series that ran in their Rewl incarnations. The cover star of Blazing remained “The Green Turtle,” Chu Hing’s costumed pilot who fought back against his homeland’s Japanese occupiers from a secret mountain base. The book’s other highlights included “The Black Buccaneer,” a pirate strip by Leonard Starr and Gil Kane; “Jun-Gal,” Harold DeLay’s take on the hackneyed “white goddess” trope; and Art Moore’s “Super Drooper and Drip,” the slapstick antics of three bungling incompetents. The eponymous cover star of Blue Circle was a costumed crusader advised by a cabal of reformed crooks. Backing him up were two more superheroes, “The Steel Fist” and “The Toreador.” Great art upped the appeal of DeLay’s undersea fantasy “Maureen Marine” and Jack Warren’s “Slaphappy Grandpappy,” a hilarious sitcom about the title character’s discomfiture with life on the Home Front. Curiously, additional issues of all three titles turned up on newsstands in the early ’50s bearing 1945 dates on their covers, beneath which purchasers found random remaindered copies of other publishers’ comics, including Fox’s Will Rogers Western and Dorothy Lamour. How and why these oddities were released remains a mystery.

Funnies, Inc. produced another L.L. Baird title this year, this one issued through Croydon Publishing Company. The annual Variety Comics managed to cram five strips into its 36 pages. “Captain Justice” continued from the previous year’s issue, as did the detectives “Policewoman Terry Temple,” “Gabby Grayson, Girl Reporter,” and teenager “Marty Moore.” They were joined by “Jongo,” an awful Tarzan rip-off. The low quality of all these series compared to the work on display in the three Rural Home books suggests Croydon paid significantly lower page rates. It is not known if Baird was involved with four other Croydon titles released this year, nor if they too were black market books. Life’s Like That #1, Miss Cairo Jones #1, The Nebbs #1, and World Famous Stories Comics #1 offered reprints of the syndicated newspaper strips from which they took their names.

Consolidated Magazines, Inc., owned by J.A. Ruby (nee Joseph Rubinstein) was another Jacquet client publishing comics on black market newsprint. It released two issues of Lucky Comics and one of Key Comics before the feds caught wise. As with the 1944 issues of these titles, they featured an assortment of mediocre-to-terrible superhero, detective, and humor strips cranked out by such Funnies, Inc. regulars as Chu Hing, Bill Allison, Marv Levy, William Johnson, and Henry Kiefer, whose highly compressed adaptation of the opera Carmen was the highlight of Key #3 (Winter).

The studio took on two other clients of dubious legitimacy this year. Late in the year, it produced Conqueror Comics for the Albrecht Publishing Co. of Chicago. Its lead feature, “The Conqueror,” was a confusing space opera that saw Air Force veterans Bill and John Cotter exploring the universe in their atomic-powered rocketship and discovering a solar system populated by peoples from Earth’s past. It was illustrated by Warren King, later a prize-winning editorial cartoonist for the New York Daily News. So was “Sandy,” the saga of a teenage fur trapper befriended by a she-wolf. “Little Button Nose” was the cloying, pointless story of a little girl and her family moving to the seashore, redeemed only by good art from the otherwise unknown “Red.” The book’s strangest offering was “Needlenose,” about a cop who owed his reputation as a master sleuth

If Arabian mystery-man “El Kuraan” had been Christian instead of Islamic, would he have named himself “The Bible?” TM and © respective copyright holder.

to a pair of elderly gremlins. The cast of Hi-Lite Comics, released by E.R. Ross Publishing, included “Whosis of Whutzis,” the ruler of a South Seas island populated by the descendants of Spanish explorers who, invited to America for a diplomatic conference, got lost in San Francisco, and hitchhiked to Washington with a sympathetic truck driver; Warren King’s “Miss Shady,” a beautiful con artist; and “M’sieu L’Epee” alias Andre, Comte de Dijon, the deceptively foppish captain of the Royal Guard who battled threats to the French throne as the masked title character. Both comics were above-average displays of the shop’s talent. Both were seized by the government before they could reach all but a tiny fraction of the nation’s newsstands.

Not every comic book series to come out of Funnies, Inc. in 1945 was in violation of the law. In fact, the Chicago-based Almanac Publishing’s Navy Heroes was created at the behest of that service’s Office of Public Relations. Its slanted but factual account of the attack on Pearl Harbor was illustrated by Arnold Hicks and scripted by Annapolis instructor Arthur S. Curtis. New Age Publishing Inc., the publishing arm of the leftist American Youth of Democracy, had dabbled in comics the previous year as a way of generating revenue. Editors Leo Rifkin and Leonda Froelich commissioned the studio to create Young Life, an oversized (8.5” x 11”) quarterly self-described as of its second issue as “America’s Most Exciting Teen Age Magazine.” It featured short stories, puzzles, articles about celebrities, and gag cartoons in addition to a pair of comic strips. “Alvin” was yet another teen humor series seeking to capitalize on the popularity of “Archie,” while “Teen Canteen” followed the social lives of a group of wholesome high schoolers. Both series continued when the book was rechristened Teen Life with the Winter issue (#3). Camera Comics, a quarterly from U.S. Camera Publishing, was another dual-purpose comic that devoted 16 of its 52 pages to photography tips and techniques. It was one of the few 1945-dated comics to reflect the end of the war. As of its Fall issue (#6), both “The Grey Comet” and “Sgt. Art Fenton” returned to civilian life,

the latter becoming a pri vate investigator. Other war-themed strips were replaced by the likes of “Bill Brett,” a newsreel cameraman dubbed “the Sherlock of the lens,” “Jim Lane, Insur ance Investigator,” and gutsy magazine shut terbug “Linda Lens.” The shop was also hired to produce a new ongoing series of giveaways for the Brown Shoe Co. A 36-page quarterly, Buster Brown Comic Book featured exciting standalone stories in the pirate, western, and horror genres, all scripted by Hobart Donovan and “hosted” by Smilin’ Ed McConnell, star of radio’s The Buster Brown Show. Missing in action from the comic was the title character, the tiny terror in the Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit created by comic strip pioneer Richard F. Outcault in 1902.

Another of the studio’s clients seemed to be struggling to stay afloat. Only two issues of Charlton Publications’ Yellowjacket Comics were released this year, one dated January, the other December. Why it was put on temporary hiatus is uncertain. When it returned, so did its stars, insect-powered crimefighter “Yellowjacket,” created, drawn, and probably written by Ken Battefield, and “Diana the Huntress,” whose resemblance to Wonder Woman grew more pronounced when the title goddess relocated to America in her first postwar story. A new title joined Yellowjacket on the stands in early autumn. Zoo Funnies, a funny animal book packaged by the studio run by Louis “Lou” Ferstadt, was noticeably inferior to its Dell, All-American, or DC counterparts. “Detecto the Bloodhound,” for example, was a badly paced, poorly drawn Sherlockian farce featuring the clueless bungler Sherlock Sniff, alias Detecto, and his giraffe aide

Billy Longneck. Another strip from the same creator, Herman Browner, was surprisingly dark: the lead character, “Little Leo,” spent the first episode on trial for murder! Despite its shortcomings, Zoo Funnies enjoyed a 15-issue run.

If Charlton itself contributed little to Funnies, Inc.’s bottom line, the company did at least steer another, more prestigious client in the shop’s direction. Charlton founders John Santangelo and Edward “Ed” Levy first met while serving time (for non-violent offenses) in the New Haven, Connecticut county jail. Their jailer was New Haven Sheriff J. Edward Slavin, one of the first law enforcement professionals to advocate for the rehabilitation of juvenile criminals instead of incarceration. His First Offenders Clubs had proven successful enough to earn Slavin a radio series and a movie devoted to his efforts. Recognizing the potential of the comic book medium as an educational tool, Sheriff Slavin approached Levy and

Billed as “America’s Most Exciting Teen-Age Magazine,” Young Life was intended by New Age Publishers to appeal to the same audience as Parents’ similar Calling All Girls TM and © respective copyright holder.

Santangelo about creating a comic for him. They agreed to print the book and recommended the Jacquet studio to fill its pages. The first issue of Courage Comics, inexplicably listed as #77 in its indicia, was packed full of inspirational true stories of ordinary people finding the courage to overcome life’s challenges as drawn by William Johnson, Leo Bachle, Henry Keifer, Bill Allison, and other Funnies, Inc. regulars. The title featured two series, “Lieutenant Chick Courage,” about a PT boat commander’s unsanctioned two-year campaign of harassment, pilfering, and occasional destruction against the Imperial Navy, and “Sheriff Jack,” starring an idealized version of Slavin. Alas, for all its well-intentioned sincerity, its heavyhanded didacticism turned off its intended audience and Courage Comics vanished from the stands following its second issue.

Funnies, Inc. was an appropriate choice for Slavin’s project, given their experience producing similar non-fiction content for Parents’ Magazine Press, the publishing arm of the uber-respectable Parents’ Institute. Its founder, George J. Hecht, had seen the possibilities for education and moral instruction in the medium and launched his line in 1941. Its flagship title was True Comics which was downgraded from a monthly to a quarterly as of issue #43 (Spring), though whether this was dictated by newsprint rationing, diminished sales, both, or neither is up for debate. Edited by Beatrice Lewis and Harold C. Field, True offered the same kind of material in its 1945 issues as it had from the beginning: sanitized portraits of Allied politicians and military commanders, true accounts of heroism

from both the current and past wars, and biographies of such disparate personalities as George Gershwin, Arturo Toscanini, and one-armed soccer star Gonzalo Romero. The title included a handful of ongoing strips, notably “Cavalcade of England,” scripted by Dr. Joseph A. Park, and “Special Agent of the FBI,” sanctioned by no less than FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. The comics section of Calling All Girls featured the same kind of stories focusing on heroic or accomplished women in addition to regular series “Judy Wing,” starring a flight attendant turned pilot, and “The Victory Club,” about a group of wholesome teens doing their part to aid the war effort. Parents’ added a new magazine at year’s end. The bi-monthly Calling All Kids was in the same digest format as Calling All Girls, mixing comics, articles and puzzles aimed at a younger audience. The first issue saw the debuts of “Marco Polo Bear” and Al Pross’s kid strip “Jim and Judy,” as well as standalone stories like “How the Flowers Got Their Colors.” The company also released two issues of Red Goose Comics Selections, a giveaway for a chain of shoe stores reprinting material from its newsstand titles. Despite True’s reduction in frequency and a steady cutting of pages devoted to comics in Calling All Girls, Parents’ Magazine Press had become Funnies, Inc.’s highest paying and most reliable client.

Novelty Press, the comics imprint of the Curtis Publishing Company, purveyors of such respectable slick magazines as The Ladies’ Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post, had been a Jacquet client until 1944 when wartime priorities dictated a cut in the line’s budget. To accommodate this change in direction, new editor-in-chief Robert D. Wheeler and art director Mel Cummin had ended their longstanding arrangement with Funnies, Inc., in favor of dealing directly with freelancers. No longer the publisher’s exclusive packager, the studio apparently maintained some sort of relationship, however ambiguous, with Novelty Press. This nebulous connection is suggested by the sheer volume of material produced for the line by studio fixtures like Bill Allison, Jim Wilcox, Harold DeLay, Ken Battefield, William Johnson, and writer Raymond “Ray” Gill, though creators affiliated with JCA, Chesler, Roche & Iger, and other shops also made significant contributions.

Courage Comics publisher J. Edward Slavin had already seen a fictionalized version of himself in 1939’s First Offenders, so a comic book incarnation seemed perfectly natural to the celebrated lawman. TM and © respective copyright holder.

His role in the D-Day invasion made Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower a household name and earned him an adulatory feature spot in True Comics.

Between these cost-cutting measures and Curtis’ healthy paper allotment, Novelty Press was able to keep its comics at 52 pages throughout the year, though its two monthlies, Target Comics and Blue Bolt, were briefly downgraded to bi-monthlies for a single issue in the spring and skipped their December issues. Nonetheless, the publisher was able to expand the line, adding two new quarterlies, Young King Cole and Frisky Fables, to the schedule alongside the long-running showcase title 4Most.

Like Eastern Color, Novelty Press responded to the declaration of war following Pearl Harbor by enlisting its mystery-men in the military. In the case of the titular star of Target Comics, however, the editors chose to allow “The Target” and his two young associates, The Targeteers, to periodically don their bulletproof costumes for special missions, sometimes individually, sometimes together. That continued throughout 1945, as the trio tackled either enemy troops or Axis spies in every episode. Similar foes menaced cowboy-turned-soldier “Bull’s-Eye Bill” and secret agent and master of disguise “The Chameleon,” including a Japanese actor posing as the prophet Mohomet (Mohammad) returned to Earth to turn the Islamic nations among the Allies against the war effort. Kit Carter, “The Cadet,” also crossed paths with the Axis a time or two amidst the strip’s usual military school-centered drama. Teenage shutterbug “Candid Charlie” found himself in constant trouble courtesy of creator B. Gordon Guth, now also responsible for the creative chores on the hillbilly comedy “Dan’l Flannel.” Milton “Milt” Hammer did a fine job on the kid strip “Speck, Spot & Sis,” even drawing himself into the fun in the February issue (#64), until its creator, Jack Warren, returned late in the year. Two canceled series, “Al T. Tude” and the non-fiction “Stories of the United Nations,” made their last hurrahs in Target #57 (March) and #60 (June) respectively, bumping “Bull’s-Eye Bill” in both cases.

No features went MIA over in Blue Bolt, Novelty Press’ other monthly title, in 1945. Cover star “Dick Cole” somehow managed to avoid any encounters with enemy operatives both here and in 4Most, though the

ever-so-slightly superhuman military school cadet did manage to get himself elected student body president in the March issue (#54). The character from which the comic derived its name took the opposite tack. Originally featuring the electrically powered costumed alter ego of Harvard football star Fred Parrish, “Blue Bolt the American” was now a straight war strip illustrated by Thomas “Tom” Gill, its pilot hero carrying out his duties without costume or powers. Even his secret identity was forgotten, as everyone around

him simply called him Blue Bolt. The only other strip to consistently reference the war was “Krisko and Jasper,” the comedic adventures of two screwball sailors, another series that creator Jack Warren reclaimed from Milt Hammer. The closest thing the title had to a superhero was “Sergeant Spook.” The ghost of a policeman killed in the line of duty, Spook specialized in opposing supernatural threats like The Witch of Black Pond Swamp and the ghost of western outlaw Two-Gun Jack, though he and boy pal Jerry, whose psychic powers let him interact with the spectral cop, did encounter Japanese troops in the October issue (#60). Written by George Kapitan, art duties on the strip passed from John Jordan to Chesler staffer Robert S. Pious early in the year. Pious also illustrated most episodes of “Old Cap Hawkins’ True Tales,” one of which (#57, June-July) somehow managed to omit Hawkins himself. Rounding out the title were two series scripted by Ray Gill (no relation to “Blue Bolt” artist Tom): “Edison Bell” and “Fearless Fellers,” the former starring a boy inventor, the latter a Newsboy Legionesque kid gang. Beautifully drawn by Harold DeLay, “Edison Bell” was also regularly featured in 4Most alongside “The Cadet” “Dick Cole,” and “The Target,” the latter replacing “Candid Charlie” as of issue #17 (Winter).

The eponymous star of a new quarterly, Young King Cole was the cousin of established Novelty Press star Dick and was illustrated by his kinsman’s artist Jim Wilcox. New college grad Kingston “King” Cole, Jr., went to work for his father’s detective agency, where his brilliant mind and athletic prowess helped him overcome the doubts of the other operatives. Four other strips debuted in the first issue (Fall), all spotlighting sleuths of some sort. Two were written by Robert Plate, about whom virtually nothing is known beyond his work in this title. Moonlighting Superman syndicated strip artist Wayne Boring drew “Toni Gayle,” starring a fashion model seeking to avenge her police detective father with the help of ex-con Biff Muggson, while Harvey Fuller drew the humorous “Homer K. Beagle,” an out-of-his-depth private eye who somehow excelled

Judicious use of its newsprint quota allowed Novelty Press to launch two new titles, including its first foray into funny animals. TM and © respective copyright holders.

at his chosen profession despite his inexperience and ineptitude. Comedy of the slapstick kind dominated “Inspector Klooz” produced by an uncredited staffer from Jason Comic Art. A fourth series, Hy Gage’s “Foxy,” was replaced as of the Winter issue (#2) by “Doctor Doom,” illustrated by Nina Albright, wherein the new head of City University’s Crime Detection School regularly proved his interest in crime was more than academic.

Frisky Fables, Novelty Press’ other new quarterly, was the company’s first foray into the funny animal field. Packaged by Jason Comic Art, its only credited contributor was Al Fago, who provided the cover art and several of its features. “Neddy” related the escapades of a naughty bear cub who routinely ignored his mother’s advice to his later regret, while “Icicle Ike” starred a naive little penguin who sought to move to warmer climes. A third Fago strip, “Myrtle and Jocko,” was replaced for one issue by a fourth, “Johnny and Woof,” in which a boy and his talking dog pursued stardom in cartoons. “Tick Tack and Toe” (three kittens), “Dipsy Doodle” (a rabbit) and “Spunky” (a kangaroo joey) also appeared in all three 1945-dated issues. JCA apparently delivered Frisky Fables to the publisher completely assembled, as it was the only Novelty Press title to not include a page of reader mail, a feature that would be common in comic books from the 1960s onward but was exceedingly rare during the war years.

You Can’t Judge a Book By Its Cover

The third packaging service to supply content for Rural Home Publishing was the small shop fronted by Leonard Brandt “L.B.” Cole. A former medical student who enlisted following Pearl Harbor and was wounded at the Battle of Kasserine Pass, Cole was serving as editor and art director for Continental Magazines, Inc., the latest in a string of corporate identities for the line of comics published by

Frank Z. Temerson. Cole was, in fact, a partner in Continental, as was Publishers’ Distribution Corporation president Irving S. Mannheimer, though the owners of record were Temerson’s sister Esther and Ray Hermann, the masculinized professional name of Ruth Rae Hermann. The rationale behind this unusual arrangement is lost to time, but it would lead by year’s end to Hermann establishing her own small line eventually known as Orbit. Whether due to a shortage of cash or of newsprint, there was a five month hiatus between Continental’s last 1944 issues and its first 1945 issues (all cover-dated April). Paper restrictions were almost certainly responsible for two of the company’s three bi-monthlies, Captain Aero Comics and Suspense Comics, becoming quarterlies at year’s end. By doing so, however, Temerson could maintain his titles at 52 pages.

The first new issue of Cat-Man Comics (#27) featured a surprise: an all-new origin for “Cat-Man,” the character’s third. Now David Merrywether was the son of star animal trainer Antoinette Buroteé, murdered when David was five. He grew up in the circus, living with and caring for the show’s big cats, with whom he shared a unique rapport. His kid partner, The Kitten (one of the era’s few female kid sidekicks), was now a foundling originally named Rosetta left in the leopard cage by Antoinette’s deranged killer and later adopted by Merrywether. The following issue saw the duo acquire a new arch-enemy, the master criminal Dr. Macabre, who returned in the two subsequent issues to further bedevil our heroes. Bob Fujitani drew all but one of this year’s episodes. Elsewhere in Cat-Man, “The Deacon and Mickey” faced such menaces as The Zombie Master, The Phantom Fiddler, and a pair of con men who knew about Deacon’s criminal past, while “The Reckoner,” a mystery-man who drove a cab in his civilian identity, abandoned his mask. Two of the title’s other strips, “The Golden Archer,” a swashbuckler set in Robin Hood’s England, and “Little Leaders,” starring Kitten and Mickey, disappeared mid-year, replaced by a string of true crime stories, humor strips, and similar filler material.

All of the major characters in Captain Aero Comics appeared in the three issues (#22-24) released with a ’45 cover date. Aero himself and patriotic heroine “Miss Victory” continued to fight the war throughout, their exploits limned by Rudolph “Rudy” Palais and Nina Albright respectively. Palais was also at the drawing board for “Captain Aero’s Sky Scouts,” starring the costumed pilot’s youthful protégées. Also appearing in every issue were “The Red Cross” (about a superhero, not the humanitarian organization) and a new series, “The Mighty Mite.” Sickly Mickey Mite was chosen by Princess Make-a-Wish as the bearer of a magic ring which could summon the superpowered but invisible Gazooka. John Giunta drew the pilot episode, followed by Anthony “Tony” Di Preta, both illustrating scripts by the otherwise unknown A. Culverwell.

Continental’s third title, Suspense Comics, starred the mysterious “Mr. Nobody,” who narrated stories of the supernatural. Three of his tales ran in each issue beginning with #9 (August), bumping “The Grey Mask and The Dove” from the line-up. The previous issue introduced a new nemesis for “Satan” in the person of policeman Tex Dugan. George

The covers produced by Continental editor and art director L.B. Cole (seen here with publisher Ray Hermann and head writer Jack Grogan) were among the most attention-grabbing ever created.

Appel illustrated. Sexy private eye “Sherry Flippe” was the title’s other recurring feature. Occupying the back pages were various standalone crime dramas drawn by Fujitani, Palais, Maurice Gutwirth, and others, including a handful of inventory stories left over from the Ferstadt shop’s time as Temerson’s packager.

Cole’s arrangement with Temerson allowed him to run his packaging service out of Continental’s 42nd Street offices using the same slate of freelancers who filled the pages of Cat-Man and the other titles. Some of the studio’s clients were legit, some not so much. Among the former was Aviation Press, publishers of Contact, a magazine for airplane enthusiasts. Its comic book counterpart, the 52-page bimonthly Contact Comics, featured a roster of costumed or specially equipped pilots like “The Golden Eagle,” “Tommy Tomahawk,” “Black Venus,” and “The Phantom Flyer,” a masked aviator who flew his custom aircraft, The Sharkplane, through a single issue (#5, March). An issue earlier, Cole himself drew that month’s installment of “Black Venus,” a rare interior art job from an illustrator who usually limited himself to covers. True tales of air battles and heroic military flyers rounded out each issue.

The studio also supplied content for Four Star Publications, Inc., a small company owned by lawyer turned soldier Robert “Bob” Farrell (born Isadore Katz) and managed in his absence by his wife Yvette Farrell, beginning with the March issue (#7) of Captain Flight Comics, its sole title. Taking over from the Harry Chesler shop, Cole and his staff continued the book’s features, sometimes changing

them radically. The eponymous title character continued his unsanctioned war on the Axis powers, downing such scurrilous opponents as Baroness Von Hohen and The Murder Maestro. Captain Flight’s origin was retold in issue #8 (May), while in the following issue he was referred to as Captain Dash throughout one of the installments. Two strips that originated in Chesler titles before transferring to Captain Flight got makeovers. After reprinting the “Kitty Kelly” story from Punch Comics #1, Cole and company turned the pretty Army intelligence operative into a costumed heroine, “Yankee Girl,” for a single episode before returning Kitty to her prewar life as a stewardess. Another Chesler refugee, former Dynamic Comics feature “The Black Cobra,” gained a sidekick, Cobra Kid, a.k.a. his kid brother Bob. “Red Rocket,” which began life as a crudely drawn, silly sci-fi series, was recast as a superhero strip with its second episode. The switch from Chesler to Cole meant a big leap forward in quality, especially in the art, but whether the change paid off in increased sales is no longer known.

The comics Cole put together for Aviation Press and FourStar were published in accord with Limitation Order L-244. This was almost certainly not the case for the three titles the shop created for Rural Home. Mask Comics began as a 52-page bi-monthly, became a quarterly with its second and final issue, and had a different slate of features in each. Issue #1 (February-March) consisted of generic crime stories, retellings of ancient history, the cheesecake-flavored antics of scatterbrained Scottish lass “Bonnie,” and “Driftwood,” in which novelist Norman Prince, ashamed of stealing a plot from a friend, posed as a drifter in the Bowery in search of a more original idea. The contents of issue #2 (Fall) were dominated by a trio of super-types. “The Black Raider” was your basic masked vigilante, “The Collector” was a warmed-over rehash of DC’s “Spectre,” and “Merlin the Boy Magician” was, no surprise, a crimefighting boy magician. Eagle Comics was tailored for the same aviation enthusiasts who kept Contact Comics aloft, as titles like “Gliding to Victory,” “Sharpshooters of the Clouds,” and “Bombs Over Tokyo” demonstrate. The third

L.B. Cole’s striking covers for Contact Comics were sure to catch the eye of aviation buffs. TM and © respective copyright holder.

title, Patches, was unusual in being devoted to a single character from cover to cover. Patches was the teenage scion of a poor but illustrious family who spent his time rescuing old women from house fires, leading his basketball team to the district championship, and struggling to choose between his hometown girlfriend and a glamorous teen starlet. Maurice Whitman and Ezra Jackson drew this wholesome paragon’s virtuous feats from a script by the pseudonymous B. Kerman.

This quartet of comics was the entirety of Cole’s work for Rural Home, but two of its titles wound up continuing under other publishers. Gail Hillson published a second, undated issue of Eagle Comics, adding a few fictional flyers to the book’s menu of aviation-themed features. Rudy Palais wielded the pen and brush for “Lucky Aces,” the saga of four World War I fighter pilots reuniting to take on the Axis. “Barnstorming Barnes and Jenny” were a heand-she team of stunt flyers, their adventures illustrated by Tony Di Preta. Patches also got a new lease on life as the first comic published by Rae Hermann under the corporate identity of Ray R. Herman. The title feature, now drawn by

the team of George Harrison and Theresa “Terry” Woik, had morphed into a teen humor strip with no connection to its Rural Home incarnation. Patches would run for a total of ten issues under Herman, but Eagle was grounded after its single Hillson-published issue.

Another client of questionable legitimacy was Narrative Publishers, a Chicago-based outfit for whom the studio produced four undated issues of Power Comics The first two issues offered the same kind of bland, generic material that characterized the contents of Mask Comics #1. The following two made the connection clearer, as “The Black Raider” and “Merlin the Boy Magician” returned to the newsstands, joined by “Dr. Mephisto” and “Miss Espionage,” Mata Hari’s daughter who, trained to serve the Third Reich, shifted her allegiance to the democracies, one of the few strips published in 1945 that reflected the new mood of postwar uncertainty.

Two additional Chicago area publishers with experience in black market comics solicited an issue apiece from the Cole shop this year. The Spotlight released Gem Comics #1 with an April cover date. Its highlights included Manny Stallman’s “Mr. and Mrs. Lane,” husband-and-wife sleuths in the Thin Man vein; Jack Warren’s “Little Mohee,” a young white girl adopted by Indians who could speak to animals; and “Steve Strong,” two-fisted investigator for the International Geographic Society. Less typical of the studio’s output was Toytown Comics, published by Swapper’s Quarterly and Almanac. Its sole feature was “Mertie Mouse,” the multi-chaptered story of lazy layabout Mertie and his adventures en route to plead with the terrible Storm King for more time to pay his hometown’s delinquent taxes. The most interesting of Mertie’s friends and foes was Bertie Bat, a scary but good-hearted fellow who looked a lot like a funny animal Batman. Partly drawn by Cole himself, with Ellis Chambers pencilling the later chapters, Toytown might have sold well had it not, like Gem Comics and most of the other illicit comics mentioned, been swept up by the government and warehoused until after the war.

What all these comics, legal and otherwise, had in common was the dazzling cover art of L.B. Cole. Whether depicting warplanes in conflict, leering villains, or reluctantly heroic rodents, Cole’s colorful, attention-grabbing cover art jumped out at potential buyers. Nothing else on the newsstands looked like them. Unlike the majority of his contemporaries, Cole was not influenced by other comics artists but by the vibrant poster art he was exposed to in prewar Europe. Still, his covers were as much the product of his pragmatism as of his aesthetic sense. As he would explain years later:

“Being perfectly practical as a businessman and a publisher, for me there was no other motive than to create a poster oriented to newsstand sales. The covers were mostly designed as posters, and when I speak of the poster effect I mean that they should be seen. If they’re not seen, they’re not picked up, and if they’re not picked up, obviously they’re not bought” (Schelly 15-17).

Cole’s poster-like cover designs were like nothing else on the newsstands. TM and © respective copyright holder.

Sales figures are unavailable for all of the comics generated by his studio in 1945, so there is no way of knowing if his cover designs actually boosted circulation. It’s hard to imagine those vivid images not leading browsers to snatch up his comics, even if the interiors seldom lived up to the promise of their covers. Indeed, it is Cole’s art that continues to attract collectors today, collectors who are willing to pay premium prices for comics that would otherwise languish in obscurity.

Old Dogs, Old Tricks

allotment of newsprint. He had burned through his supply quickly the previous year and resorted to proxy publishers and less savory alternatives to keep his comics on the stands and making money, only to see the illicit titles confiscated and warehoused by the government. The lesson didn’t take. Fox began 1945 with three quarterlies, canceled one in late spring, replaced its spot on the schedule with another, and added two more late in the year, all kept to 36 pages to stretch his newsprint quota as far as possible. But he didn’t stop there. He once again turned to a proxy, this time Chicago Nite Life News, Inc., to publish a trio of oversized one-shots, two 196-pagers priced at 50¢ and a 132-pager for half that. Alas for Fox, these were also seized by the feds before they could find their way into the hands of their intended audience.

With a third of the gross from sales of Blue Beetle earmarked for Fox’s creditors, his bestselling book was paradoxically not his most profitable. Fans of the chain mail-clad alter ego of patrolman Dan Garrett who remembered his comics from the pre-bankruptcy era continued to be disappointed in his current incarnation, which retained all the flaws and shortcomings that plagued the book during the time it was published by Holyoke. The Beetle’s powers, equipment, and civilian employment varied from story to story, but even if these elements had stayed consistent, it would not have negated the poor writing and lackluster art found between the book’s covers. Among the menaces he faced this year were Mister Moonface, The Stump and his “animal-men,” and, in a rare two-part story in the Summer and Fall issues (#38-39), the zombie horde commanded by Saturnian criminals Gloat and Saturna. The only back-up series to appear in all four 1945 issues was “Joan Mason, Reporter,” starring the Beetle’s lady love. Other strips appearing in Blue Beetle this year were Al Zere’s sitcom “The Joy Family” and his “Minit [sic] Mystery” one-pagers, along with a single episode of “The O’Brine Twins,” the comedic antics of a pair of perpetually brawling mariners.

Not every publisher who dabbled in the black market was an opportunistic newcomer. Some had long experience in the industry. Such was the case with Victor S. Fox, owner (and officially, if not actually, editor) of Fox Feature Syndicate, Inc. The British-born entrepreneur had a history of playing fast and loose with the law even before launching his comic book line in 1939. Since then, Fox had gone through several editors and packaging services, lost a lawsuit for copyright infringement, launched failed ventures into newspaper syndication and radio, ran contests offering prizes never awarded, canceled his comics, and filed for bankruptcy. The courts eventually allowed him to go back into business in order to service his debts (among his creditors was Holyoke Publishing, his former printer and, for a time, the publisher of Fox’s best-known character). Despite declaring himself “the king of comics” to anyone and everyone within earshot, the publisher had no interest in the medium except as a product to be ground out as quickly and for as little money as possible. Quality was irrelevant to Fox, and it showed.

His financial woes notwithstanding, Fox was entitled under the federal quota system to an

The titular star of Green Mask was ostensibly another survivor from the days before Fox went bankrupt but, despite retaining the name and costume, was a different character. This Mask was teenage Johnny Green, supposedly the son of the original, who spontaneously transformed into the adult hero when he said a certain word. In other words, the Green Mask revival was nothing more than a poorly executed copy of Fawcett’s Captain Marvel. The back pages of the quarterly featured more Al Zere strips: the boxing drama “One-Round Hogan” and the private eye parody “Dick Transom,” as well as episodes of “Joy Family” and “Minit Mystery.” None of these appeared in every issue, nor did the kid strip “Snooky,” Flash Gordon wannabe “Rick Evans,” or the funny animal strips “Pussy Catnip” and “Karrots.”

“One-Round Hogan” and “Joy Family” also turned up in the Spring issue (#14) of The Bouncer. The eponymous star of the book was a statue of the demi-god Antaeus that came to life whenever his 20th-century descendent, sculptor Adam Antaeus, Jr., was in danger. The episode seen in this, the final issue, was part of a series called the “Comics Hall of Fame,” stories in which readers who submitted

Mortie Mouse, star of Toytown Comics, runs into a scary fellow bearing an uncanny resemblance to a certain Caped Crusader. TM and © respective copyright holder.

This rare photograph of Victor Fox doesn’t capture the personality of the larger-than-life publisher.

essays on their favorite hero guest-starred alongside their idol, the only Fox-sponsored contest to date that actually awarded its prizes. There were also three such Hall of Fame stories in Blue Beetle and one in Green Mask, but they must have proved more trouble than they were worth, as the one in Blue Beetle #39 was the last.

Replacing The Bouncer on the schedule was Rocket Kelly, a follow-up to the one-shot issued the previous year through Larkin, Roosevelt, & Larkin. The adventures of Kelly and his sidekick Sgt. Wacky, originally set against the backdrop of the war, had morphed into a space opera, with the duo exploring the cosmos in their rocket plane. Two issues with a 1945 cover date were released. The first introduced “Illuso,” a bargain-basement clone of Spark’s Green Lama, and “Betty Boyd,” a scoop-hungry newspaperwoman. They were replaced the following issue by “Pussy Catnip” and a flag-draped super-patriot illogically named “The Puppeteer.”

It must have been shortly after the decision to cancel The Bouncer was reached that Victor Fox made his deal with Chicago Nite Life News. Their first joint venture was two 196-page anthologies released in early April, Book of All Comics and Ribtickler. The first featured two episodes each of “The Bouncer,” “Joan Mason,” “The Puppeteer,” “Pussy Catnip,” “Karrots,” “The O’Brine Twins,” and all four Al Zere strips, plus single installments of “The Green Mask,” “Rocket Kelly,” the funny animal gangster series “Crime at No. 9,” and a forgettable handful of others. Ribtickler emphasized humor features, divided about equally between funny animal, kid, and family strips with a few aberrations like a “One-Round Hogan” episode thrown in. The book premiered several new series, notably a pair of super-critters named “Marvel Mutt” and “Cosmo Catt.” Most of these newcomers proved to have no staying power, but Cosmo would garner enough reader enthusiasm to earn his own title in 1946. A third Fox-Chicago Nite Life one-shot, the undated and unnumbered All-Great Comics (the second Fox-helmed black market comic to bear that name) served primarily as a dumping ground for stray episodes of “The Green Mask,” “Rocket Kelly,” “The Puppeteer,” and “The Bouncer” but also included reprints

of Frank Godwin’s defunct syndicated strip “Roy Powers” and the debut of a new superhero series, “Jaguar,” in which zookeeper Steve Lane fought crime as Jaguar Man alongside Ebony the black jaguar, with whom he could communicate telepathically.

With paper restrictions easing up late in the year, Fox felt confident enough to launch two additional Fox Feature titles, Krazy Life and a new version of Ribtickler. Both were comedy oriented, mostly funny animal material. Krazy Life’s lead feature was “Loop O’Day,” the slapstick misadventures of a would-be pilot first seen in Book of All Comics, while Ribtickler featured a madcap elf named “Jolly Jingle.” Both comics also included familiar Fox backups like “Pussy Catnip.”

The covers of these new titles were drawn by L.B. Cole, though virtually everything else published by Fox this year was procured through the Lou Ferstadt studio. As had been his custom from his earliest days as a publisher, Victor Fox assigned “house names,” fictitious bylines intended to obscure the identities of the true creators and secure his hold on the associated copyrights and trademarks. Thus “Green Mask” stories were credited to the non-existent Jack Fiske, “Rocket Kelly” to Ted Small, “Joan Mason” to Art Allen, and so on down the line. Despite the diligence of comics scholars, most of these contributors remain anonymous to this day with one notable exception. “The Blue Beetle,” the radio premium Tennessee Jed (based on the western series of the same name), and the covers of all of Fox’s comics except the two drawn by Cole were the work of Elmer Cecil “E.C.” Stoner. One of the first African Americans to enter the industry, Stoner was an experienced commercial artist and a minor participant in the art movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. His work for Fox was not his best—and given the notoriously tight-fisted publisher’s abysmal page rate, why would it be?–but it did lead to a more prestigious gig:

“As with many American Blacks, Stoner was confronted with the challenge of fulfilling society’s expectations of a ‘good American’ in wartime, while also suffering the second-class citizenship that same society bestowed upon him. This conflict … provided the impetus for the Double V campaign that called for victory over the Axis as well as victory over discrimination at home. To that end, Stoner became involved with a comic entitled The Challenger. Published by Interfaith Publications under the auspices of Protestant Digest, the comic was conceived by the liberal theologian Kenneth Leslie in the waning months of WWII as a challenge to the antisemitism and racism still present in America....It would be the first stand-alone effort to publish a comic book featuring minority characters in a positive light” (Quattro 38).

The self-described “magazine pledged to fight race prejudice, discrimination, and all other forms of fascism in North America” lived up to that pledge. Its titular hero, Bill Day, a.k.a. “The Challenger,” was a two-fisted troubleshooter who traveled the country countering the machinations of race-baiters and union-busters in the name of true democracy. The title had no other recurring features,

but its other contents shared Day’s outlook. No punches were pulled. Editor Gerald Richardson saw to that. The Challenger was unapologetically progressive in its racial and social politics, just like its parent publication Protestant Digest. Stoner supplied the art for the cover feature. Other credits, including the scripter of “The Challenger,” are unknown. The 68-page quarterly, which was distributed through churches and parochial schools in addition to the usual retail outlets, lasted four issues.

Another religion-themed comic book series was more conservative in its outlook, carefully avoiding any and all controversies. Timeless Topix was a 16-page monthly published by the Catechetical Guild Educational Society of St. Paul, Minnesota, and available only through Roman Catholic private schools (and thus not published in the summer months). As in past years, 1945’s issues (#23-32) presented wholesome stories of faith and heroism, lives of the saints (minus the graphic violence implicit in their martyrdoms), and similarly irreproachable content.

The Ferstadt studio first became associated with Blue Beetle when the rights to the title were owned by Holyoke Publishing of Springfield, Massachusetts, the printing division of a string of New England newspapers owned by Sherman Bowles. Holyoke first entered the field when it temporarily published Frank Temerson’s Cat-Man Comics and Captain Aero Comics. Its sole remaining title, launched after Holyoke had to return its three books to their original owners, was Sparkling Stars. Only two issues, numbers 8 and 9 (January-February) were released this year, though whether the year-long hiatus that followed was precipitated by the newsprint shortage or mismanagement is unclear. Covers and a quartet of the interior features—the humor strips ”Petey and Pop,” “Riley and the Sergeant,” “Private Plop,” and the prizefighting drama “Boxie Weaver”—were the work of Ferstadt mainstay Morris “Mo” Weiss. Harry Lazarus wrote and drew the title’s lead feature “Ali Baba,” a farcical take on the classic 1,001 Arabian Nights tale told entirely in doggerel, while 20-year-old Carmine Infantino illustrated the war series “Hell’s Angels.” A new series, the so-so sci-fi saga “Pack Pearson, Space Adventurer,” debuted in issue #8 but was replaced the following month by “Bret Barton,” an even more dismal space opera. Despite being the only 68-page comic remaining on the newsstands, Sparkling Stars’ overall lack of quality kept buyers away.

The short-lived Witty Comics was also a product of Ferstadt’s studio. The first issue, nominally published by Irwin W. Rubin but possibly linked to Holyoke, featured reprints from early issues of Fiction House’s line and a handful of original material by Mo Weiss and others. The second was released through Fox’s proxy, Chicago Nite Life News. It offered an array of all-new genre strips, including “Pioneer,” a costumed “defender of the people” with no origin, alter ego, or powers; “Steve Hagen,” a self-described “world-famous antiquarian [and] dabbler in social and political reform”; Captain Easy wannabe “Michael Morgan”; and “Weeny and Pop,” a truly awful humor strip starring a pair of Abbott and Costello knock-offs. Neither issue of Witty Comics was particularly worthwhile, nor did they live up to their title. In short, Witty wasn’t.

Harry “A” Chesler was, like Victor Fox, known for cranking out comic books with little regard for quality, though quality sometimes found its way into his books regardless. Born Aaron Czesler in Lithuania, his had been the first commercial art studio to produce original content for the nascent industry. Not content to generate money for others, Chesler had twice ventured into publishing and twice been forced to either sign his titles over to other houses or close down that side of his business. His second attempt did, however, entitle him to a supply of newsprint so he had tried again in 1944, offering a line of comics consisting primarily of reprints from his previous lines, thereby maximizing his profits by avoiding the expense of paying creators. He had also, again like Fox, turned to proxies to expand his presence in the marketplace. Both strategies were revisited this year.

Now published under the corporate identity of Flying Cadet Publishing Co., Inc., Chesler’s indisputably legal titles, Dynamic Comics and Punch Comics, began the year as 52-page bi-monthlies and ended as 36-page quarterlies. After relying almost entirely on reprints for its January issue (#13), Dynamic began featuring new episodes of its roster of supermen with the following issue, a development that included a noticeable improvement in the art. Puerto Rican artist Ruben Moreira manned the drawing board for “Dynamic Man,” George Tuska took over “Mr. E,” and the illustration duties for “The Echo” were split between Rafael Astarita and Paul Gattuso. Other strips came and went in the back pages, including private eye

African American cartoonist E.C. Stoner was happy to lend his talents to The Challenger, a comic that openly criticized the state of race relations in postwar America. TM and © respective copyright holder.

“Lucky Coyne,” Buck Rogers analog “Dan Hastings,” and patriotic super-teen “Yankee Boy,” who tackled the sinister Reefer King in Dynamic #16 (October). Punch followed a similar course, replacing reprints with fresh material as of its second 1945-dated issue (#13, April), with Gattuso assuming the art on “The Master Key” and Moreira doing the same for “Rocketman.” Joe Beck and Otto Eppers’ screwball comedy “Punch and Cutey” led off every issue. Two new series debuted in issue #13. “Johnny on the Spot” by future Superman artist Alfred “Al” Plastino was a clever cross between the teen humor and amateur detective genres, following the impulsive heroics of girl- and jazz-crazy Johnny Jenkins. “The Gay Desperado” was Jim Collins, who first donned a mask and gaucho’s outfit to clear himself of murder then continued crimefighting for fun.

Spotlight Comics, Chesler’s third legitimate title released under his Our Army, Inc., imprint, included three original series in addition to the usual helping of reprints. Created by editor Dana Dutch and art director Gaspano “Gus” Ricca, “The Black Dwarf” starred former football star Shorty Wilson, a bargain-basement Shadow with a crew of reformed criminals (Dippy, The Human Fly, Nitro, and the luscious Arsenic) aiding him in his crusade. “The Veiled Avenger,” alias Ginny Jones, secretary to the district attorney, was a whip-wielding Lady Luck wannabe hampered by bad art. “Prehistoric Pete” was a witless caveman comedy from the Beck-Eppers team. Failing to sustain a viable readership, Spotlight was canceled with its March issue (#3), but “Black Dwarf” and “Prehistoric Pete” were not forgotten. Our Army also released the third and final issue of the all-reprint Major Victory Comics.

Funnies, Inc. is puzzling, as all the book’s contents were created by the Chesler shop before Funnies, Inc. existed). Finally, the series returned to Flying Cadet as an ongoing quarterly under the name Red Seal Comics, its October issue (#14) featuring new episodes of “The Black Dwarf,” “The Gay Desperado,” “Lucky Coyne,” and “Prehistoric Pete.”

Harry Chesler had come full circle by year’s end, with the three titles that had constituted his ill-fated Dynamic Publications line back in all but name. Whether he could keep them going in the postwar era was another matter.

Three one-shots issued through proxy publishers were actually continuations of another defunct Chesler book, Scoop Comics, as their numbering reveals. Jest Comics #11, released via Educational Publishing Co. (no connection to M.C. Gaines’ similarly named Educational Comics), Kayo Comics #12 from the Massachusetts-based Alto Publications, and Pershing Square Publishing Co.’s Carnival Comics (unnumbered but generally acknowledged as #13) all carried reprints from past Chesler titles, some dating back to the mid-1930s (a note in the indicia of Carnival that the artwork was provided by

A Pair of Profitable Partnerships

One of the comic book industry’s most enduring business relationships was that between Fiction House and its packager, Roche & Iger. The art studio began its existence as a partnership between New York American cartoonist Samuel Maxwell “Jerry” Iger and visionary young artist William Erwin “Will” Eisner. It was Iger who persuaded pulp publisher Thurman T. Scott to expand into comic books, beginning with Jumbo Comics in 1938. Two years later, Will and Jerry went their separate ways. After floundering for a few months, Iger hired a talented young woman named Ruth Roche as his new business manager, executive editor, and head writer. She soon proved so invaluable to the shop that Iger made her a full partner. By 1945, Roche & Iger were providing the majority of the content for Fiction House’s three monthlies and three bi-monthlies.

Fiction House, which published each of its titles under a different corporate name, had an odd editorial structure, at least compared to its competitors. Though still officially in command, Thurman Scott had retired for health reasons, leaving managing editor Jack Byrne in charge of the

Harry Chesler’s comics were not known for featuring great art. Ruben Moreira’s illustrations for “Dynamic Man” were the exceptions that proved the rule. TM and © respective copyright holder.

Despite his name, “The Black Dwarf” was neither black nor a little person, but just another minor-league Shadow clone. TM and © respective copyright holder.

comics line. Each title had its own editor. Claude Lapham was responsible for Jumbo Comics, John C. Mitchell for Jungle Comics, and Jean Press for Rangers Comics. Ruth Atkinson, M.E. Peacock, and Paul Payne began the year editing Wings Comics, Fight Comics, and Planet Comics respectively, but their names disappeared from the indicia in the fall and no editing credit was listed through the December-dated issues. Two books, Jumbo and Fight, listed Jerry Iger as art director, while the other four credited no art director. All six titles ran a mixture of studio-created work, material created in-house by Fiction House staff, and jobs assigned to freelancers. Which did what is difficult to say, for the company used house names for all its strips. That and Roche & Iger’s propensity for using multiple artists on a single story to speed up production makes determining credits impossible at times.

Among those artists was Clarence Matthew (“Matt”) Baker, an African American man who was born in North Carolina in 1921, and grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Due to a heart condition, he was 4-F, so he moved to New York City to study art and look for work. He went to Cooper Union art school, and easily got a job with the S. M. Iger Studio in 1944. Years later, Iger would say of first meeting Baker, “He came to my studio in the early ’40s; handsome and nattily dressed, ‘looking for a job,’ as he put it. His only sample was a color sketch of—naturally—a beautiful gal! On the strength of that and a nod from my associate editor Ruth Roche, he was hired as a background artist. When given his first script, he showed originality and faithfully executed its story line. His drawing was superb. His women were gorgeous!” (Iger). According to comics historian Alberto Becattini, Baker’s first documented work appeared in Jumbo Comics #69 (Nov. 1944).

Jumbo Comics, the publisher’s oldest and highest-selling title, owed much of its success to its cover star, “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.” A shapely strawberry blonde in a leopard-skin one-piece, this female Tarzan inhabited an Africa much like that seen in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels of the jungle lord, which she explored accompanied by her boyfriend, safari guide Bob Reynolds, and their pet ape, Chim. Among the menaces they confronted this year were King Kongo, Nairu the Snake Goddess, The Animal Master, crooks masquerading as Sheena and Bob, and Lanta, queen of the Hidden Land, a thinly disguised analog of ERB’s La of Opar. Art for the jungle queen was supplied by Robert “Bob” Webb, assisted by Matt Baker, who finished the female figures. Aided by Ann Brewster (born Shirley Zwei-

fach), Webb also drew “The Hawk,” a pirate strip created by Will Eisner. Alexander “Alex” Blum, a serious painter making ends meet through comics, illustrated “The Ghost Gallery,” a horror anthology. Two other series were produced by the Roche & Iger staff: “ZX-5,” a spy strip long past its prime, and “Stuart Taylor.” A time travel adventure created by Jack Kirby, “Taylor” was the Jumbo feature sacrificed when the title downsized to 36 pages with the August issue (#78). Rounding out the book was “Sky Girl,” starring beautiful pilot Ginger McGuire. Matt Baker handled the art chores solo, and it was here that he first made his mark as one of comics’ best delineators of feminine pulchritude:

“The evolution of Baker’s style from his early phase to a more personal post-war approach somewhat paralleled the evolution of “Sky Girl.” … With Ginger [mustered out,] the strip now decidedly veered toward comedy. Ever wishing she could go back to her previous pilot status, Ginger did manage to fly again, yet she was more often seen hanging from planes’ wings rather than holding the control stick, in a whole series of predicaments whose ill-concealed purpose was to allow Baker to highlight the girl’s long legs, regularly uncovered by pitiless turbulence to the delight of male readers. Ginger’s legs were the real plus in these stories. Baker drew them from every conceivable angle, in positions that were often ungainly. Deliberately so. In fact, Baker was the first comic artist who had the courage to draw a beautiful pair of legs in an unaesthetic if natural way to increase the general humorous effect. Needless to say, he was hugely successful.” (Becattini 37).

One of the best decisions packager Jerry Iger ever made was hiring Ruth Roche as his business manager and executive editor.

A small taste of the “good girl” art that made Matt Baker, seen here in a 1944 self-portrait, a favorite of Fiction House’s predominately male readership. TM and © respective copyright holder.

“Kaänga,” star of Jungle Comics, wasn’t just reminiscent of Tarzan. He was a full-blown xerox of the character, albeit with blonde hair and a companion named Ann instead of Jane. If his adventures lacked originality, they at least featured good art by, among others, Ruben Moreira. This was less the case with Jungle’s other big name, “Wambi the Jungle Boy,” whose series keenly felt the absence of co-creator Henry Keifer and his skill at delineating wildlife. The art chores on “Camilla,” who had begun her series as queen of an exotic lost kingdom but was now a pale copy of Sheena, shifted hands repeatedly this year until the powers-that-be finally settled on Frances “Fran” Hopper as of the October issue (#70). Hopper also illustrated at least one episode of the Foreign Legion strip “Captain Terry Thunder” and multiple installments of the “Jungle Facts” featurette. Howard L. Larsen was the primary artist on “Tabu,” a super-powered variant of the jungle lord archetype. Though arguably the title’s weakest series, it held on when Jungle went to 36 pages. It was the long-running animal strip, “Simba, King of Beasts,” that came to an end instead.

Fiction House’s third monthly, the aviation-centered Wings Comics, found itself challenged by the end of hostilities, as every one of its six strips was set against the backdrop of the war. Several series— cover feature “Captain Wings,” “Jane Martin,” “Suicide Smith and the Air Commandos,” and “Clipper Kirk”— simply fought on, downing Japanese and German foes through the December issue (#64). Another, “Skull Squad,” had its plug pulled when the book reduced its page count. Only the humorous “Greasemonkey Griffin” acknowledged the armistice, mustering its bumbling hero out of the service in issue #64. Artists contributing to Wings in 1945 included Howard Larsen, Jack Keller, 19-yearold Eugene “Gene” Colan, and British emigre Leopold “Lee” Elias.

Similar problems faced the characters of the bi-monthly Fight Comics. The title’s two spies, “Hooks Devlin, Special Agent” and “Señorita Rio,” an American actress operating undercover in Latin America, found their missions no less dangerous in the postwar world, while “Rip Carson, Chute Trooper” kept right on fighting. Alex Blum drew Hook’s exploits, the Bob Webb-Ann Brewster team handled Rip, and Austrian refugee Lily Reneé lent her considerable talents to “Señorita Rio.” “Tiger Girl,” a jungle strip whose protagonist fought for the innocent and oppressed aided by two Bengal tigers, transitioned mid-year from Blum with Matt Baker drawing the women, to Baker solo. Two series dating back to the first issue, “Kayo

Kirby” and “Shark Brodie,” were casualties of the mandatory page reduction.

Planet Comics was the only comic book on the market devoted exclusively to science fiction, in particular the kind of space opera that dominated the sci-fi pulps and was popularized by Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. There was not a lot of creativity or originality on display within its pages, but some of the line’s best art was. Fran Hopper illustrated the exploits of “Gale Allen,” Lee Elias drew “Space Rangers” teaming former solo stars Reef Ryan and Flint Baker, Lily Reneé depicted “The Lost World,” and Murphy Anderson honed his skills on “Star Pirate.” Another Anderson-drawn feature, the wildly speculative “Life on Other Worlds” fell prey to the page count reduction, while the Greco-Roman god “Mars” found his war against Earth of the far future interrupted—and himself booted out of his own series—by his arch-enemy, “Mysta of the Moon,” whose mind held all the scientific, historical, and cultural knowledge of old Earth. Her strip supplanted his as of the May issue (#36).

New characters were a hallmark of this year’s Rangers Comics, beginning with the February issue (#21) and the debut of “Firehair.” A western illustrated by Lee Elias, it featured Boston blue-blood Princess Smith (renamed Lynn Cabot in issue #24), amnesia-stricken sole survivor of a wagon train massacred by outlaws posing as Indians. Sheltered by Tehama, chief of the Dakotas, she was given the name Firehair. Adding the skills of the tribe’s warriors to her existing skill with guns, she took revenge on the badmen who murdered her father. Aided by her adopted brother Little Ax and her horse DevilEye, Firehair quickly became a figure of dread to the lawless and hope to the oppressed. Premiering two issues later was “Kazanda,” another Fiction House jungle girl, this one the self-declared “queen of the lost continent.” Endowed with mystical powers and accompanied by the tiger Fang, she led a party of shipwrecked Americans through familiar but welldrawn ERB territory. A rarity among the line’s series, it was reformatted and reprinted from the Australian comic book Kazanda the Wild Girl and the Lost Continent by Archie E. Martin and Ted Brodie-Mack. “Kazanda” replaced “The Sea Devil,” one of two Rangers strips dropped this year, the other being “The Phantom Falcons.” Elsewhere in the back pages, “U.S. Rangers” and “Glory Forbes” continued to fight the war, while the Lily Reneé-drawn “The Werewolf Hunter” carried on his one-man campaign against all things supernatural.

Western heroine “Firehair” became the undisputed star of Rangers Comics from her very first appearance. TM and © respective copyright holder.

“Iger turned his attention to [Classic Comics] in the spring of 1945 and began assigning new titles to his shop artists, who were paid salaries rather than per-page rates. Gilberton retained final control under the joint direction of managing editor Harry M. Adler ... and editor William E. Kanter[,] the founder’s son. … Iger’s and Kanter’s relationship would last for the next nine years [and] would cover nearly 100 issues. … Not only the artwork but the adaptations also dramatically improved— gone were the days of unrecognizable variations on themes by [Robert Louis] Stevenson and [Victor] Hugo. The change for the better was due to Ruth A. Roche”“(W. Jones 57).

the additions of

“Firehair,” “Mysta,” and “Kazanda,” every book in the Fiction House line-up except Wings now featured at least two series spotlighting the adventures of a beautiful female protagonist. That the company was targeting an older, primarily male audience was blatantly obvious, as cheesecake dominated both the interior pages and the splendid cover art by Joseph “Joe” Doolin. That the company employed the highest concentration of female artists, writers, and editors in the industry to produce these comics was a paradox lost on its devotees.

Another Roche & Iger client took a noticeably more highminded approach to the medium. Originally released through Elliot Publishing before transitioning to The Gilberton Corporation, a chemicals manufacturer branching out into publishing, Classic Comics was the brainchild of Albert Kanter, who believed the comics medium was particularly well-suited to introducing young readers to the great works of literature. Each issue adapted a single classic book (or, occasionally, several thematically-related short stories). Funnies, Inc. had produced the early Elliot issues before Kanter brought in Louis Zansky as his art director. Zansky oversaw the next two years’ worth of Classic, now written and drawn by Roche & Iger staffers. The title suspended publication in late ’44 after Zansky was drafted. When it resumed with the July 1945 issue (#23), it was with a new editorial team and emphasis:

Four issues were released this year adapting Oliver Twist, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Two Years Before the Mast, and Frankenstein. The latter two were the first scripted by Roche, with art by Bob Webb, and the new emphasis on fidelity to the source material was readily apparent.

Gilberton was unusual in that it kept its back catalog in print and available by mail order, as well as periodically releasing new printings of older issues to newsstands. Albert Kanter accomplished this by bargaining with numerous small publishing or printing firms that traded their excess newsprint allotment for a cut of the sales. It was this practice that led Kanter and the Iger shop to turn out several titles of debatable legality during Classic Comics’ hiatus, one of which, Spitfire Comics #133 (no explanation for the unusual numbering has been unearthed as yet), managed to appear on a few newsstands in the spring of ’45 before being seized and warehoused. Kanter also launched a line of children’s books produced by Roche & Iger to compete with Whitman Publishing’s megasuccessful Little Golden Books line but the venture went belly-up after sales on its 16 released titles failed to live up to expectations.

Roche & Iger’s other clients for the year were mostly legitimate. For the Connecticut-based Golfing, Inc., the studio created four quarterly issues of Crown Comics. The work

Joe Doolin’s cover art for Fiction House made it clear what audience the publisher was trying to appeal to. Sheena TM and © Galaxy Publishing and Valdoro Entertainment.

seen within the pages of Crown was far from the service’s best, using second-tier talent to produce such forgettable strips as “Mickey Magic,” “Clue Kelly,” and “Hopalong Bunny,” a funny animal western. One strip, Clarence Ramon’s “Voodah,” though badly drawn, did have an unusual premise for the time, featuring a black Tarzan-type. Equally dire was Lucky “7” Comic Book, a 52-page one-shot thrown together for Larch Publications, starring such never-seen-before-or-since attractions as Phantom rip-off “The Congo Raider,” private eye strip “Argus, Inc.,” Buck Rogers wannabe “Dash Darwin,” and “Danjoe,” the implausible story of a boxer avenging his own “murder” at the hands of a lookalike cousin featuring bad art and worse dialogue. Considerably better than all of these mediocrities was Children’s Big Book, a 68-pager from the Darene Publishing Co. Written and drawn from cover to cover by David Icove, it featured a mixture of illustrated stories retelling classic fairy tales with a satiric twist and original comics like “Woody Puppet at the Circus” and “Finny and the Wee-Fish-Folk.”

Erroneously linked to Roche & Iger in some sources, Civil Service Publications, Inc., obtained the licenses to reprint several syndicated strips, releasing two issues of Crockett Johnson’s critically acclaimed Barnaby, two of Bert Whitman’s Debbie Dean, and one of Vic Jordan. It also commissioned an all-new title, The Adventures of Alice, a dumbed-down adaptation of the Lewis Carroll classic with a modernized, bobby-soxer Alice and slapdash art.

More Than a Name

One of Eisner & Iger’s earliest clients had been Everett “Busy” Arnold, whose comics line was legally registered as Comic Magazines, Inc., but was better known to its many fans as the Quality Comics Group. Originally organized to reprint the newspaper strips from a trio of minor syndication services, the line soon expanded into original material, prominently featuring superheroes. It was Arnold, together with [Des Moines] Register & Tribune Syndicate executives John and Gardner “Mike” Cowles, who persuaded Eisner to form his own studio, luring away several Iger regulars in the process including star artist Louis K. “Lou” Fine. For a time, Eisner subcontracted a portion of his workload for Quality to Iger but the latter’s often abrasive manner led Arnold to sever the relationship

at the earliest opportunity. When Eisner was drafted, he closed his studio, its personnel thereafter working directly for Quality.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Busy Arnold genuinely liked the comics medium and was determined to get the best work possible out of his talent. To that end, he not only paid his editors, artists, and writers frequent bonuses on top of their salaries but granted them considerable creative freedom. Needless to say, this made him popular with his staff. As longtime Quality artist Vernon “Vern” Henkel recollected:

“Arnold was wonderful to work for. He was very generous. He’d start you at $5 a page, then 10, 12, up to $20 a page when I was working for him. He’d give big bonuses, like $500, every Christmas. One year, I got a thousand-dollar bonus. That was money!” (Amash 48).

Arnold seemed particularly fond of those cartoonists who both wrote and drew their strips. His editor-in-chief

George E. Brenner was one, though his duties left him no time to turn out any work of his own. So were many of Quality’s art staff, including Henkel, Bernard Dibble, Paul Gustavson, Klaus Nordling, Al Stahl, and Jack Cole, each of whom helmed multiple series either for the line’s newsstand titles or the Register and Tribune Syndicate’s weekly The Spirit newspaper insert. Even those artists who worked from others’ scripts, like William “Bill” Quackenbush, and cover artist Al Bryant, drew a minimum of three series each. (Lou Fine, the best draftsman of the lot, drew only the title feature of the Spirit section.) The fact that none of them, Dibble excepted, did work for any other publisher this year is a testimony to Busy’s insistence on treating his creators right.

Not that Arnold was 100% saintly. He had served as an advisor to the federal government in the early days of the war, helping to decide how paper should be allocated. This

Children’s Big Book, released by Darene Publishing, was a different kind of comic from packagers Roche & Iger. TM and © respective copyright holder.

Everett ”Busy” Arnold’s Quality Comics line was prepared to adjust to the new postwar world, as evidenced by the rebranding of Military Comics as Modern Comics TM and © DC Comics.

led some of his rivals to accuse him of using his connec tions to skew the quotas in his favor. They may have been right, for Quality was the only comics line in 1945 to offer potential buyers 60 pages for their dimes. Even so, two of the line’s three monthlies—Feature Comics and Military Comics—skipped their June- and December-dated issues and the twice-yearly all-reprint Spirit title was only 52 pages, so Arnold’s influence may not have reached as far as his accusers believed.

The only monthly that actually released 12 issues this year, Police Comics, was Quality’s most popular book, primarily due to its star character, the shapeshifting “Plastic Man.” Widely considered creator Jack Cole’s magnum opus, the strip was far from the typical super-serious superhero saga but neither was it quite a parody, instead showcas ing Cole’s unique sensibilities, which his biographer Art Spiegelman summed up as “feverish imagination, verve, and a cheerful streak of perverse violence” (14). The vil lains Cole sicced on Plas this year reflected this: Oscar the Owl, a self-declared genius bent on organizing the world’s magic wielders; Thelma Twittle, a naive beauty with the power to make men do her bidding; and Drs. Slicer and Doser, anatomists determined to dissect the stretchable sleuth. Other stories centered on Plas’ sidekick, the incorri gible “reformed” pickpocket Woozy Winks, and introduced Mrs. Murphy, proprietress of Woozy’s boarding house, and her household of eccentric vaudevillians. The title’s other mystery-men, Paul Gustavson’s “The Human Bomb” and “Manhunter,” scripted by Joseph “Joe” Millard and illustrated by Shuster shop alumnus Pete Riss, couldn’t help but come off second best, especially with reprints of The Spirit also showing them up. As in the case of every Quality title, humor strips rounded out Police, notably “Candy,” a teen humor strip by former “Archie” artists Harry Sahle and Virginia “Ginger” Drury that also ran simultaneously as a newspaper strip.

Running a close second to Police in sales and popularity was Military Comics, starring “Blackhawk” and his paramilitary squadron of daring aviators. The strip had lost its definitive artist, Reed Crandall, to the military the previous year, but Al Bryant did a fine job filling his shoes, ably illoing the Blackhawks’ confrontations with foes like The Cult of the Golden Tiger and Golda, a spy known as “the Japanese Mata Hari.” The normally grounded series even dabbled in the supernatural, teaming the black-clad fliers with Kwan Lin, Chinese goddess of mercy, in the May issue (#39). Most of Military’s other series took a more humorous approach. Al Stahl helmed “The Death Patrol,” a strip created by Jack Cole that began as a fatalistic black comedy but had evolved into a slapstick-laden farce. Bernard Dibble’s “Johnny Doughboy” dealt in situations the book’s G.I. readers could relate to, as did “Private Dogtag,” which was passed from Milt Stein to Bart Tumey to Al Stahl. Two straight war strips, “Pacific Patrol” and “Secret War News,” were dropped as of issue #36 (February), replaced by “Ezra,” another exercise in teen humor by the Sahle-Drury team. Debuting the previous issue, “Choo Choo and Cherry” marked the return to Quality of former editor-in-chief Gilbert “Gill” Fox. This new series detailed the trials and tribulations of Choo Choo Lamoe, model and would-be actress, and her roommate, salesgirl Cherry Lane, offering up mild

screwball humor with loads of cheesecake sure to please the title’s primarily male audience. These changes to Military’s contents were indicative of the editors’ awareness that the imminent end to hostilities would require some retooling, an awareness that culminated at year’s end with the book’s rebranding as Modern Comics.

Assistant editor Gwen Hanson oversaw Quality’s oldest title, Feature Comics, the only book to not drop or add a feature this year. Its star was “Doll Man,” a scientist able to shrink to 6” while retaining his full-sized strength, which proved helpful in dealing with nefarious nogoodniks like The Phantom, The Image, The Undertaker, and homicidal rodeo star The Masked Raider. Al Bryant supplied the art for most episodes, with freelancer Dan Zolnerowich picking up the slack. Feature’s other costumed characters, “Rusty Ryan and the Boyville Brigadiers,” continued to fight Japanese troops both before and after the armistice. The war also dominated the aviation strip “Spin Shaw” but was otherwise ignored. Aside from the exploits of crime solving bandleader “Swing Sisson,” now helmed by Vern Henkel, and reprints of Lank Leonard’s “Mickey Finn” newspaper strip, the book’s other series played strictly for laughs. Already scripting “Blimpy,” the sometimes surreal misadventures of a statue of Buddha magically come to life, Al Stahl took over the art assignment from Tony Di Preta as well with the April issue (#87). Bernard Dibble handled the circus strip “Big Top” and the sitcom “Lala Palooza,”

Former “Archie” artist Harry Sahle cuts loose with this elaborate splash panel from Police Comics #40’s “Candy” story. TM and © respective copyright holder.

Gill Fox drew tough kid “Poison Ivy,” and Sidney “Sid” Lazarus continued sending his kid hero “Perky” to such fantasy realms as Toyland, the Land of Poker, Hypo-Kondria, Botania, the Land of Dreams, and Fashionville.

Lazarus was also responsible for “Spunky,” an odd teen humor strip set in the town of Backwash whose lead characters were drawn to resemble much younger children, that premiered in Smash Comics #59 (June), replacing the war-themed mysteryman strip “The Marksman.” Leading off every issue of Smash was “Midnight.” Originally commissioned by Busy Arnold as a deliberate clone of The Spirit (a kind of insurance policy against Eisner, who owned the rights to that character, dying while in uniform), the masked alter ego of radio announcer Dave Clark quickly morphed into something far more original, first under creator Jack Cole, then under successor Paul Gustavson. Midnight was unusual in having four comic relief sidekicks: Gabby the talking monkey, screwball inventor Doc Wackey, bumbling private eye Sniffer Snoop, and Hot Foot, Snoop’s pet polar bear cub. It was the interplay of this quintet’s personalities that gave the series its appeal, particularly in the October issue (#61) when the cast exchanged minds with hilarious results. Gustavson’s creation “The Jester” maintained his war on crime under new artist Pete Riss, who also took on the police strip “Rookie Rankin.” Now drawn by Bill Quackenbush, “Espionage” saw its star, the mysterious Black X, transition from wartime challenges to the moral ambiguity of the postwar world, while Ginger Drury assumed the art chores for “Daffy,” starring a bombastic lady wrestler, from Milt Stein. Rounding out the title were Jack Cole’s “Wun Cloo,” Bernard Dibble’s “Archie O’Toole,” and reprints of the Spirit section’s “Lady Luck.”

Another Spirit back-up joined the National Comics line-up with the first 1945-dated issue (#62) but offered new material instead of reruns. Andre LeBlanc’s “Intellectual Amos,” starring a boy prodigy and his pet goblin, was both genuinely funny and delightfully imaginative. It made a fitting companion piece to the book’s cover feature, “The Barker.” Scripting

responsibilities for the circus-based exploits of Carny Carnahan and his sideshow sidekicks shifted from Joe Millard to artist Klaus Nordling with nary a ripple. The spy series “G-2” and the long-running “Chic Carter,” about a crusading reporter, came to an end

this year, replaced by Dibble’s Nancy knock-off “Lassie,” and “The Whistler,” a new series by “Carter” creator Vern Henkel. This run-of-the-mill mystery-man strip was distinguished solely by its hero’s gimmick: an eerie whistle that struck terror in the hearts of bad guys. Bill Quackenbush drew National’s other costumed crusader, the former super-speedster “Quicksilver,” as well as “Sally O’Neill, Policewoman” as of issue #50 (October). The war and its cessation went almost entirely unmentioned, figuring only in the naval series “Destroyer 171.”

The conflict figured even less prominently in the quarterly Crack Comics. The book’s cover star, “Captain Triumph,” a super-powered gestalt being composed of journalist Lance Gallant and the ghost of his twin brother Michael, faced no Axis-flavored foes this year, nor did twofisted taxi driver “Hack O’Hara” or Klaus Nordling’s cartoonist-sleuth “Pen Miller.” The remainder of the title was entirely devoted to comedy, including Bernard Dibble’s “Beezy” and “Molly the Model,” Jack Cole’s “Slap-Happy Grandpappy,” the racially insensitive “Floogy the Fiji,” and Al Stahl’s metatextual “Inky,” where the artist himself guest-starred in the Autumn issue (#39). The following issue ran the final reprint of “Rube Goldberg’s Side Show,” a syndicated strip discontinued four years earlier that spotlighted the ridiculously, hilariously overcomplicated inventions that made Goldberg a household name in his day.

Quality’s other quarterly, Hit Comics, added three new series this year. Freelancer Ernest “Ernie” Hart contributed “Egbert and the Count,” wherein a gullible chicken repeatedly thwarted the schemes of a vulpine con artist, and “Marmaduke Mouse,” a cute, slapstick-laden strip destined to become the publisher’s most popular funny animal feature. Joining them was “Big Brother,” the adventures of the orphaned Feller Brothers, two-fisted Big and scrappy little Mitie, as they wandered America after fleeing from vengeful gangsters. Pete Riss illustrated for an uncredited scripter. Elsewhere in Hit, scrappy sailors “Bob and Swab” and lady lawyer “Betty Bates” carried on much as they had from the first

Andre LeBlanc’s “Intellectual Amos” jumped from the Spirit weekly to National Comics without a hitch. TM and © respective copyright holder.

issue, while “Her Highness” and her curvaceous cohort Silk’s attempts to go straight were inevitably undone by the octogenarian outlaw’s larcenous impulses. The duo began their four-color existence as opponents of the title’s lead character, “Kid Eternity.” The spectral youth and his guardian, the angelic Mr. Keeper, used the boy’s power to summon figures from history, legend, and fiction to combat menaces like Mr. Silence, an extortionist armed with a sound-cancelling “de-vibrator,” and to end a 300-yearold curse on the family of a Puritan judge who ordered an innocent woman executed for witchcraft.

Released through proxy publisher Vital Publications, Inc., the comic book version of The Spirit reprinted six episodes of the weekly newspaper insert per issue. It was a handy way for those who didn’t live in a city whose papers carried the section to catch up on the doings of the masked detective of the title. Most of the reprints in the two issues published this year featured stories by series creator Will Eisner. The section itself was carrying on as best it could without Eisner, turning to writers like sci-fi veteran Manly Wade Wellman and William “Bill”

Woolfolk, who would enjoy a long, successful career postcomics as a novelist and screenwriter, to supply scripts for Lou Fine to bring to life. Woolfolk later reminisced: “When Will Eisner went into the Army, the writing chores on The Spirit were mainly divided between Wellman, [Joe] Millard, and myself. I enjoyed writing stories for a somewhat more mature audience of newspaper readers... and I enjoyed the friendship of Lou Fine, the artist who had taken over the strip. Lou joined [Fawcett editor] Wendell Crowley and Jack Cole in proclaiming me the ‘Shakespeare of Comics,’ an appellation so far beyond my merits that I’m embarrassed to repeat it” (Hamerlinck 45).

The stories Fine and his collaborators produced were a cut above virtually every other comic on the newsstands, yet they suffered in comparison to Eisner’s material as represented in Police and The Spirit, lacking his signature wit and innovative storytelling. This became crystal clear when the man himself, now back in civvies, returned to his creation with the December 23 issue (#290). Eisner immediately reminded his readers of what they’d been missing with the tale of Horton J. Winklenod, a department store magnate who still believed in Santa Claus, then followed it up with the return of three classic Spirit villains: The Squid, Mr. Fly, and Hush. Klaus Nordling’s “Lady Luck” continued to match her feminine wiles against the underworld in the section’s #2 slot, while “Intellectual Amos,” perhaps deemed too intellectual by the publishers, was replaced as of #264 (June 24) by Al Stahl’s farcical “Flatfoot Burns.” Bernard Dibble’s “Jonesy” appeared on the last page of most issues this year, occasionally ceding his place to advertising.

Borrowing from Peter to Pay Paul

Busy Arnold was one of the few comic book publishers whose company didn’t begin its life as a purveyor of pulp magazines. For four such houses, the decline in pulp sales meant that their comics, originally intended as a sideline, became critical to their financial solvency. It was a no-brainer, therefore, for these businesses to divert paper from their struggling pulp titles to their comics. This strategy also allowed a fifth publisher, not of pulps but of paperbacks, to launch its own comic book line.

M.L.J. Magazines, Inc., jointly owned by Maurice Coyne (the former Morris Cohen), Louis Silberkleit, and John Goldwater (nee Max Goldwasser), first

The debut of Ernie Hart’s “Marmaduke Mouse,” destined to become Quality’s most popular funny animal character. TM and © respective copyright holder.

The master is back: creator Will Eisner returns to the weekly Spirit newspaper insert with a bang, reviving and teaming three classic villains. TM and © Will Eisner Studios Inc.

While no new characters became permanent additions to the

entered the comics field in late 1939. Originally focusing primarily on costumed superheroes, the emphasis gradually changed under the guidance of editor Harry Shorten, a former professional football player, to humor, driven primarily by the popularity of “Archie.” Created by Robert “Bob” Montana, the feature quickly became the definitive teen humor series, earning its own daily radio show and launching scores of imitations, both at MLJ and elsewhere. Archie’s solo title was MLJ’s only bi-monthly, while the line’s longest-running title, Pep Comics, had been downgraded from monthly to quarterly alongside four other books, one headlining one of the publisher’s few remaining mystery-men, the others spotlighting comedy stars. Even with the paper borrowed from the pulp line, three of MLJ’s quarterlies skipped their Winter issues, though doing so allowed the publisher to keep all its offerings at 52 pages.

The key to the success of “Archie” was the chemistry between its cast of high-schoolers: impetuous Archie Andrews, his laconic hamburger-loving best friend Jughead Jones, blonde girl-next-door Betty Cooper, brunette vamp Veronica Lodge, and Archie’s rival for their affections, smarmy egoist Reggie Mantle. Additional humor derived from the teens’ interactions with the adults of Riverdale, particularly no-nonsense teacher Miss Grundy, perpetually apoplectic principal Mr. Weatherbee, and Veronica’s wealthy father. No new characters of any significance were introduced in 1945, the strip concentrating instead on such sources of hilarity as Archie buying a pet monkey, working as the country’s most inept air raid warden, and winding up in drag (not for the first or last

time). A story in Archie Comics #17 (NovemberDecember) included flashbacks to the infancy and childhood of “America’s typical teen,” foreshadowing by eleven years the introduction of the spin-off series “Little Archie.” Every story published this year, in the solo title and in Pep Comics, was drawn by William “Bill” Vigoda, younger brother of The Godfather actor Abe, assisted by Terry Woik, Al McLean, and Stan Borack. Writing credits are unavailable, though editor Shorten was almost certainly among those contributing scripts.

Changes were afoot in the back pages of Archie Comics as “Oscar,” spotlighting the bucktoothed teen’s faithful dog, and Joseph “Joe” Edwards’ “Bumbie the Bee-tective” and “Cubbie the Bear” disappeared following the January-February issue (#12). After a single issue featuring nothing but “Archie” and “Betty and Veronica” (also illustrated by Vigoda), the departed strips were replaced by William “Bill” Woggon’s “Dottie and Ditto,” a series starring a pint-sized cowgirl and her pet parrot moving over from Laugh Comix.

Although “Archie” now commanded the cover and lead-off spot in Pep Comics, the book’s former lead was still going strong. Created by Harry Shorten and Irving “Irv” Novick, comics’ first starspangled hero “The Shield” and his boy pal Dusty no longer found themselves challenged by swastika-sporting super-villains but by ordinary crooks and the occasional costumed ne’er-do-well like The White Ape. Novick also illustrated the introduction in issue #52 (March) of Jonesie, the canine mascot of “Captain Commando and the Boy Soldiers,” an uninspired amalgam of Simon and Kirby’s “Captain America” and “Boy Commandos.” Novick was the go-to guy for superheroic action at MLJ despite being on active duty with the U.S. Army:

“After being drafted in 1943, I was stationed in Mississippi for a year and a half. From there, I was stationed in Fort Knox, Kentucky, for two more years, until 1946. ... [D]uring this time, MLJ would send me work at the Army base. Instead of playing cards like all the other guys did, I sat on my bunk and drew comic books. Sometimes the guys would stop playing cards for a minute or so, come by and look over my shoulder, ask questions, and then go back to playing cards. If any of the guys read my books, I never knew. At the end of each month, I would get this check from MLJ. Somebody from HQ always opened my mail because you could see that it contained a check. Army pay being what it was, everybody on base was trying to borrow money from me. I was very popular, if you know what I mean. Some did borrow money, though I never got paid back. That was the end of that!” (Coates 98-99).

After Novick’s episode, “Captain Commando” began alternating with Don Dean’s hillbilly lawman “Pokey Okey,” but it ran just twice more before the end of the war dictated its cancellation. The Carl Hubbell-drawn “Marco Polo

cast of “Archie,” Jughead’s cousin Mary Lee made a memorable first impression on “America’s typical teen.” TM and © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Loco” was replaced in the June issue (#53) by Bill Woggon’s sitcom “The Twiddles.” Rounding out the book was “Suzie.” The dim-witted blonde bombshell, who drifted from job to job leaving chaos in her wake, proved so popular that the quarterly Laugh Comix was retitled Suzie Comics as of the Spring issue (#49). The following issue introduced Suzie’s bratty niece Angela, and guest-starred publisher John Goldwater (as a theatrical agent). Harry Sahle, Bill Woggon, and Albert “Al” Fagaly contributed art to the strip. The book’s back-up series was “Ginger,” a female Archie drawn, appropriately, by Ginger Drury.

Although debuting simultaneously with the estimable Master Andrews, the teen star of Wilbur Comics nonetheless came across as a second-rate imitation. Though funny in their own right, the antics of Wilbur Wilkin lacked the special alchemy among the strip’s cast that made “Archie” work. That Bill Vigoda drew most installments only seemed to make the differences more glaring. Far more unique was the series that premiered in the Summer issue (#5). “Katy Keene the Pin-Up Queen” was the latest brainchild of Bill Woggon. An amateur model, the teenage Katy considered it her patriotic duty to send photos of herself to her many boyfriends serving overseas. The pix were taken by her kid sister, never referred to as anything other than “Sis,” who constantly schemed to wrangle soda pop, ice cream, and other treats out of the menfolk crowding around Katy. While amusing, these early episodes were clearly missing something. Woggon knew it, and soon would introduce the gimmick that would make “Katy Keene” MLJ’s second most popular property after “Archie.” In the meantime, Woggon made some extra green assembling Kasko Komics, a 28-page giveaway for Kasko Mills of Toledo, Ohio, extolling the virtues of Kasko’s line of livestock feed.

Despite his name, the avian star of Super Duck Comics was not a funny animal superhero, not any more. Created by Al Fagaly, SD (he had no other name) originally wore a

costume and took vitamins that gave him superpowers a la The Black Terror. In the two years since his debut, however, he had shed both outfit and powers without any noticeable effect on his popularity. In the words of blogger David Merrill, “Super Duck spent the next 17 years careening through mid-century American urban life in a pair of lederhosen and a little feathered hat, blowing his top at dumb gags, and battling landlords, beat cops, salesmen, and other prosaic villains” (Castigila 110). Most of his supporting cast had not yet been introduced, though issue #3 (Spring) did feature SD’s Uncle Paddlenose (who, strangely, was not a duck). Backing him up were episodes of “Cubby the Bear,” “Chimpy,” and “Hotfoot the Hobo,” all produced by Herbert W. “Red” Holmdale.

Unlike Super Duck, the eponymous lead of Black Hood Comics was very much a superhero, the only mysteryman besides Shield and Dusty remaining of over two dozen such characters MLJ once featured. The alter ego of patrolman Kip Burland continued to take on both run-ofthe-mill gangsters and costumed crooks like The Crow, The Grand Lama, and returning baddie The Gourmet in stories illustrated by Novick, Sahle, Clement “Clem” Weisbecker, and E.R. Kinstler. Red Holmdale’s “Gloomy Gus,” starring an ever-melancholy ghost, also appeared in every issue.

MLJ may officially have canceled most of its superheroes, but that didn’t stop the company from still making money off them. Three 52-page one-shots credited to Chicago’s Burten Magazine Distributing Co.–Roly-Poly Comics,

in the

He didn’t look much like the real deal, but a certain Mr. Goldwater made an amusing cameo in Suzie Comics #50. TM and © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Debuting

Summer issue (#5) of Wilbur Comics, Bill Woggon’s “Katy Keene” would soon become one of MLJ’s biggest draws. TM and © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Liberty Comics, and Miss Liberty Comics—reprinted Zip Comics #46, Hangman Comics #9, and Shield-Wizard Comics #13 beneath new covers. An assortment of series reprinted from Top Notch Laugh Comics, including “The Black Hood” and “Suzie,” appeared in Pershing Square’s undated Black Swan Comics #1-and-only, the pirates featured on its beautifully rendered cover giving no hint of what actually lurked within. All four titles were illegal, of course, and all ended up confiscated by the feds.

Despite sales of its pulps slipping due to competition from paperbacks, Street & Smith Publications did not have to resort to such trickery for its comics to turn an acceptable profit. Nor did it need to cut the page counts of its two monthlies and three bi-monthlies, all of which remained 52-pagers throughout the year. Under the editorial supervision of William J. DeGrouchy, the quality of Street & Smith’s comics varied wildly, though every title offered at least one feature worth its ten cent price tag.

Street & Smith’s biggest asset was “The Shadow.” The black-cloaked mystery-man had by 1945 been featured in a pulp, a radio series (both still running), a syndicated newspaper strip, three B-movies, and a 15-chapter serial, in addition to the monthly Shadow Comics. Scripted by creator Walter Gibson and illustrated by Charles Coll, former artist of the Myra North strip, two episodes ran in each issue. Most were standalones pitting Shadow and his aides against menaces like The Robot Master, The Pink Lady, Maitre LeMorte a.k.a. The Master of Death, and the crime combines known as The Hydra and The Crystal Skull, though issues #55-57 (October-December) featured a three-part clash with the tag team of Professor Malbona, The Hag, and The Talon. Formerly headlining his own title, “Doc Savage” now held the #2 spot in Shadow Comics Despite the best efforts of artist Al Bare, Doc’s comic book adventures were a mere shadow of his pulp exploits, often contradicting facts and characterizations established

in the magazine version. Another Street & Smith star, private eye “Nick Carter,” dated all the way back to 1886. He appeared in most issues this year, with his son “Chick Carter” substituted in the February-April issues (#4749). Issue #49 also included the debut of “Flatty Foote,” a rotund police detective constantly competing with slimmer, slicker sleuth Peter Prance in humorous cases drawn by the mysterious Ejay. Rounding out the comic were true sports stories, the occasional military bio, and another detective series, “Bing Dalgren” (sometimes Dahlgren), all produced by cartoonist Thornton Fisher.

Super-Magician Comics, the publisher’s other monthly, starred real-life prestidigitator “Blackstone the Magician.” His fictional exploits sent him around the world alongside platonic companion Rhoda Brent using his intellect and skills to expose cults, con men, and others trying to pass off their tricks as genuine magic. Writer Walter Gibson, himself a talented stage magician and a personal friend of Harry Blackstone’s, and artist James Hammon concocted a horde of sinister opponents to challenge Harry and Rhoda with evocative names like The Whispering Ghosts, King Neptune, The River Demons, The Water Wizards, Doctor Zero, Count Cagliostro, and The Lucky Seven. Backing “Blackstone” in every issue except #43 (November) was “The Red Dragon,” a super-powered freedom fighter with a pet Komodo dragon who had briefly starred in his own Street & Smith comic. A lighthearted strip about Florrie, a harried nurse with a nose for trouble, “Lady in White” premiered in the April issue (#36). Credits for the series are lost, though it was undoubtedly a product of Penn Art, a studio organized by DeGrouchy to package all but one of Street & Smith’s comic books.

Walter Gibson, stage magician, creator of The Shadow, and writer of the “Blackstone the Magician” strip. The Shadow TM and © Condé Nast.

The exception, and arguably the company’s best title, was the bi-monthly Supersnipe Comics. The title character, Koppy McFad, was a preadolescent comic book fanatic who fancied himself a superhero, creating mayhem everywhere he went. As depicted by the team of artist George Marcoux and scripter Ed Gruskin, the adventures of “Supersnipe” and his pals—boy inventor Ulysses Q. Wacky, tomboy Roxy “The Girl Guerilla” Adams, and amateur detective Herlock Domes—were delightful excursions into both peril and comedy. Joining the gang in issue #20 (April) was their jinxed classmate Wilfred “Trouble” Burlad. Each issue also included an episode of veteran cartoonist Clare Dwiggin’s imaginative updating of Huckleberry Finn. Elsewhere in the title, “Wing Woo Woo” vanished following the February issue (#19), replaced first by “Earth Man,” a one-shot superhero who flew a rocket ship, then by “Dotty,” a funny series about a trouble-prone 6-year-old written and drawn by Jane Krom Grammer, daughter-in-law of S&S president Allen L. Grammer.

The other bi-monthlies, Air Ace and True Sport Picture Stories, were non-fiction comics superficially resembling those published by Parents’ Magazine Press but decidedly inferior in quality. The former had begun as a showcase for various aviators from Street & Smith’s pulps but now specialized in standalone stories with titles like “Safety in the Air,” “Let’s Take a Trip Through a Thunderhead,” “Your Airport,” and “Ready, Set, Ditch!” Each issue also included a 16-page text section illustrated with photos. The ratio was reversed in True Sport, where the pages devoted to articles outweighed those devoted to comics. Thornton Fisher was foremost among the artists contributing content. It is tempting to suggest both titles benefitted mightily from the skyrocketing wartime demand for comic books but both survived the peace, True Sport running through 1949, so there must have been a receptive audience for what they offered.

Street & Smith was chosen by the U.S. Coast Guard this year to release Adventure Is My Career, a 44-page giveaway drawn (and probably scripted) by Coast Guardsman Joe Simon. Created as a recruitment promotion, the comic gave an overview of the training a cadet at the Coast Guard Academy received.

When pulp magnate A.A. Wyn, the former Aaron Weinstein, began his line of comic books in 1940, he didn’t have much faith in the new medium and didn’t invest much time or money. After Pearl Harbor and the boom in comics sales it triggered, Wyn had changed his mind to the point where he entrusted oversight of the Ace Periodicals line to his wife and business partner Rose Wyn. She and editor-of-record Fred Gardener (born Onofrio Gianculli) did little hands-on work on the company’s five quarterlies, leaving the bulk of the creative work to the L.B. Cole studio, which handled the superhero titles, and the small studio run by Sam Singer, which produced the line’s humor books. Paper restrictions hit Ace hard this year, so much so that even after diverting newsprint from Wyn’s pulps, three of his quarterlies skipped an issue and the entire line was reduced to 36 pages by early summer.

As had been true from its first issue, the star of Super-Mystery Comics was “Magno the Magnetic Man,” created by Robert Turner and Harry Lucey without origin or civilian identity. Magno and identically powered teen sidekick Davey began and ended the year dueling their arch-nemesis The Clown, tackling the Japanese military and new villains The Speck, a wax museum proprietor able to magically bring his displays to life, and Mal Diablos, a Mesoamerican Indian cult, in between. Cole studio mainstay Rudy Palais drew most episodes, both here and in the showcase title Four Favorites, for scripter or scripters unknown. Elsewhere in Super-Mystery, private eye “Mr. Risk” and “The Sword,” a mystery-man armed with the fabled Excalibur, couldn’t seem to keep a regular artist, rotating through Palais, George Gregg, Nina Albright, Leo Bachle, Bob Fujitani, and future “Richie Rich” creator Warren Kremer. Sword and boy pal Lancer traveled through time to Camelot in Super-Mystery #27 (December), the first issue after the book was restored to bi-monthly, but this proved to be their final adventure. A fourth feature, “Paul Revere, Jr.,” was canceled when the title dropped to

A.A. Wyn’s small Ace Periodicals line offered both superhero thrills and funny animal guffaws. TM and © respective copyright holder.

36 pages. Magno’s Four Favorites co-stars were spared this fate, appearing in all four 1945-dated issues. “Lash Lightning,” once the headliner of the canceled Lightning Comics, and his partner Lightning Girl faced off against various weird foes, while the patriotic “Captain Courageous” spent three out of four episodes mixing it up with his evil opposite Captain Nippo. The fourth favorite, “The Unknown Soldier,” also kept the waning war as a backdrop, battling enemy troops and black marketeers. The first ’45 episodes of a handful of both books’ series were illustrated by Lou Ferstadt or his studio staff, reminders that they had been packaging Ace’s adventure titles before the switch to the Cole shop.

Sam Singer began producing the company’s humor titles the previous year, when he had still been part of the Sangor Studio’s New York unit. By the start of 1945, he had gone out on his own and taken the Ace account with him. The three books he packaged—Hap Hazard Comics, Monkeyshine Comics, and Scream Comics—showed no evidence of this switch. Unfortunately, aside from those strips and covers signed by Singer, no writing or art credits are available for any of this material.

As its title implies, Monkeyshine Comics was populated by funny animals. Its star character was “Marmaduke Monk.” Originally depicted as a mischievous child, Marmaduke (or “Marmy,” as he was sometimes billed) had evolved into a “Donald Duck”-style domestic comedy complete with hot-tempered girlfriend and lookalike live-in nephews (Roland and Wilbur in most stories, John and Jim in issue #5). Other Monkeyshine features included “Pete the Peke,” “Tuffy Bear,” “Nutty Squirrel,” and “Funny Bunny and Woo Woo Wolf,” a blatant Bugs Bunny rip-off stunning in its unoriginality. Singer himself contributed “Aesop’s Fables,” straight-faced retellings of the classic tales. Companion book Scream Comics was deceptively titled, featuring cutesy kid strips like “Li’l Dan’l Boone,” “All-Star Al,” and “Andy and His Airplane” rather than the horror strips suggested by the word “scream.” They were alright for what they were, but neither title generated a hit character or, frankly, presented anything memorable.

“Hap Hazard,” by contrast, was both memorable and successful. Originally a semi-dramatic series about a newspaper copy boy eager to become a star reporter, it had morphed over the space of several years into a teen humor series. As written and drawn by Sam Singer, “Hap” was one of the few such strips that could match (and occasionally surpass) “Archie” in delivering big laughs. It didn’t hurt that the feature had a strong supporting cast, including the eponymous title character’s best friend “Zippermouth” and pet pooch “Flophead,” both of whom starred in their own back-up series. From cover to cover, Hap Hazard Comics was Ace’s best comedy title... and maybe its best title, period.

That a popular feature could help a struggling comics line take flight was never made more clear than in the case of Hillman Periodicals. Pulp publisher and noted

fine art collector Alex L. Hillman learned this lesson the hard way, releasing several failed titles between 1940 and ’42 before hiring the perfect editor in former Quality Editor-in-Chief Edward “Ed” Cronin, under whose supervision the company finally found its breakout star. But the paper shortage hit Hillman especially hard, forcing him to cancel Clue Comics and suspend publication of both Air Fighters Comics and Punch and Judy Comics until late in the summer. The struggling line thus saw just four issues on the newsstands bearing a 1945 date, a third of the previous year’s output.

Better times were ahead for Hillman, however, as evidenced by the promotion of Air Fighters Comics from quarterly to monthly at year’s end. Its cover feature was “Airboy,” a costumed teenage pilot who flew the wonder plane Birdie, so-called because its serrated wings flapped like a bird’s. The dauntless young daredevil was so popular, in fact, that the book was rechristened Airboy Comics as of the December issue (#11 according to its indicia but actually #23). The previous issue saw the return of another

1945 saw Air Fighters Comics renamed for its best known character, as well as the poignant return of the monstrous Heap. TM and © respective copyright holder.

memorable character to the “Sky Wolf” strip: The Heap, comic book’s original swamp monster, whose origin was retold. The long-running series “The Black Angel” made its final flight that same issue with Daniel “Dan” Barry providing the artwork, while the title’s other aviators, the armor-clad “Iron Ace” and “The Flying Dutchman” continued their campaigns against a Luftwaffe far more menacing than its decimated real-life counterpart. Tony DiPreta’s “Pvt. Skinny McGinty” provided the only laughs in a title otherwise still focused on a war its audience knew was over.

Hillman’s other series, Punch and Judy Comics, was nothing like Air Fighters, offering a blend of comedy, fantasy, and funny animals squarely aimed at younger readers. The lead feature, the title’s best, starred a mischief-making puppet magically come to life a la Pinocchio and the little girl who tried to keep him on the straight-and-narrow. Former Fleischer story man Orestes Calpini’s contribution to the book was “Starry Eyes,” the sweet, sometimes surreal adventures of a circus bareback rider and her talking pony. The back pages featured more standard fare like “Captain Codfish” by editor Cronin and Tom Golden, “Fatsy McPig,” “Buttons the Rabbit and Officer Hippo,” and “Little Horse-Feathers” by the enigmatic Novo & Stuart. Punch and Judy, too, earned a promotion to monthly with its December issue (#5), another sign that Hillman’s comic line was recovering from the devastating effects of the paper shortage.

Founded in 1941 in response to the success of Simon and Shuster’s Pocket Books line of paperbacks, Avon Publi-

cations, Inc., offered a variety of science fiction, horror, fantasy, and mystery novels that helped spur the decline of the pulp magazines published by Street & Smith, MLJ, and the others. Sibling copublishers Joseph Meyers and Edna Meyers Williams decided to dip their collective toe into the comic book marketplace in 1945, testing the waters with a pair of one-shots. The first was Molly O’Day, packaged by the Harry Chesler studio. Credits are unknown for the title feature, spotlighting a glamorous plainclothes policewoman whose detection skills put her scornful male colleagues to shame. Her stories opened and closed the book, which otherwise consisted of creaky old reprints from Chesler’s defunct comics. Avon’s second offering was of a higher caliber. Based on a children’s radio series, Captain Silver’s Log of the Sea Hound chronicled the seafaring adventures of Silver and his crew—first mate Tex, cabin boy Jerry, cook and radioman Kukai, dog Fletcha—as they raced modern-day pirates to retrieve the treasure chest of the long-sunken Esmeralda, within which was both untold wealth and an ancient Incan book containing forgotten medical secrets. Written and drawn by “Hop Harrigan” creator Jon L. Blummer, the first undated issue sold well enough that a second, dated SeptemberOctober, was released in late summer. It was a modest start for a comics line that, though never prolific, would release some of the most highly regarded comics of the postwar era.

Masters of Their Domains

While many publishers of the 1940s took a hands-off approach to their comics lines, there were others whose involvement was more personal, so much so that their output reflected their personalities and priorities as much or more than those of their editorial and creative staffs. One such executive was Kendall Foster “Ken” Crossen. A writer of sci-fi and detective fiction for both pulps and radio, Crossen had teamed with Fawcett Publications’ star artist Manuel “Mac” Raboy in 1944 to launch Spark Publications. Acting as editor at first, Crossen ceded that position to Joseph Greene with the March issue (#3) of his flagship title, Green Lama. That book sold well enough that Spark was able to add a second title, the 36-page quarterly Golden Lad at the beginning of summer. The newsprint shortage caught up with the line before the year was out, however, necessitating the demotion of Green Lama from a 52-page monthly to 36 pages every three months with issue #6 (August).

Originally created for the pulp magazine Double Detective, the title character of Green Lama—to whom creator Crossen retained the rights—provided a firm foundation on which to build a nascent comics line. Scripted by the

Spark Publications art director Mac Raboy brought his elegant figure work to the wartime exploits of Ken Crossen’s pulp-born hero “The Green Lama.” TM and © respective copyright holder.

publisher himself and redesigned by illustrator Raboy to give the mystic do-gooder a more overtly superheroic look, “The Green Lama” tackled Axis soldiers as well as colorful crooks like Willie the Sleeper, a criminal mastermind planning ahead for a postwar crime wave, and Falstaff, an apparently mad crook stealing seemingly worthless toys, all while establishing a newspaper clipping service in his alter ego of Jethro Dumont. Bruce Elliot, former editor of The Phoenix, a trade magazine for stage magicians, wrote two of the book’s back-up features, the adventure series “Rick Masters” and “Angus MacErc,” a tongue-in-cheek fantasy about a fairy learning the ins and outs of human society illustrated by Batman background man George Roussos. Fellow Bat-artist Jerry Robinson took over the art duties on “The Boy Champions,” a kid gang scripted by Joe Greene, as of the third issue. Completing the book’s roster was Horace L. Gold and Irving “Irv” Tirman’s superhero parody “Lieutenant Hercules,” whose escapades included a trip to Comic Land with Merlin the Magician, where he met Trick Dacy, Little Coughin’ Fanny, and other not-quitefamiliar figures; and a trip through time to the Old West where he teamed up with The Lonely Stranger and Pronto.

That Ken Crossen had full confidence in his new editor was made manifest by the publisher’s new title: four of the five features in Golden Lad were co-created and written by Joe Greene. Three, though nicely executed, played minor variations on familiar themes: “Kid Wizards” was yet another Newsboy Legion knock-off, “Swiftarrow” was a crusading newspaper editor who became a masked archer to clear himself of a bogus murder charge, and “Air Rover” was discharged combat pilot Johnny Hopper, who roamed the world discovering lost cities and hidden kingdoms, like a suboceanic land where women were the warriors and men the domestic servants. But it was the title feature that stood out from the pack, thanks

mainly to its artist. Jerry Robinson had recently opened his own small studio and brought his new business partner with him to Spark. Crossen, Raboy, and Greene considered themselves lucky to have Mort Meskin on board. The talented artist of DC’s “The Vigilante” and “Johnny Quick,” feeling a bit stifled at helming nothing but middle-of-thebook back-ups, welcomed the opportunity to strut his stuff on a cover star for a change. And strut his stuff he did, as comics historian Jim Amash explains:

“Every page was a visual treat as [Meskin] refined his storytelling, which was strengthened by his dramatic compositions and his ever-increasing use of black areas. His application of defined negative space to reinforce his scene staging only heightened his graphic imagery. [His] compositional arrangements of grouped figures in a scene were always compelling, never contrived. … But, good as his drawing was, he never forgot to tell the story first. … Meskin knew how to draw a reader into the story and keep him there until the final panel” (3).

Orphan Tommy Preston was transformed into the superhuman “Golden Lad” by a mystic talisman, a 400-yearold golden heart infused with Aztec magic found among the relics in his grandfather’s antiques store. Granted the powers of super-strength, flight, and invulnerability by the heart, Tommy’s jousts with the underworld played to Meskin’s strengths, making for a fun series in the “Captain Marvel, Jr.” mold, chock full of exciting action, atmospheric backgrounds, and expressive characterizations. Irv Tirman’s humorous “Sandusky and the Senator,” the strip not scripted by Greene, starred a pair of itinerant con men who never failed to be their own worst enemies. It was good. All the book’s features were, but “Golden Lad” and Mort Meskin were its indisputable stars.

An example of the graphic sophistication Mort Meskin gave the adventures of “Golden Lad.” TM and © respective copyright holder.

Magazine House editors Charles Biro and Bob Wood consult cartoonist Dick Briefer on plotting the perfect murder in this tongue-in-cheek sequence from Crime Does Not Pay TM and © respective copyright holder.

Leverett S. “Lev” Gleason was another comics publisher whose personality was reflected in the comic books produced by his company. A pioneer in the industry whose career dated back to the birth of the modern format in 1934, Gleason had gone through several corporate identities prior to Magazine House, Inc., the line’s 1945 incarnation. Described by his great-nephew and biographer Brett Dakin as “progressive, Democratic, [and] anti-fascist” (41), the World War I vet and Army Reservist had put his money where his mouth was, volunteering for active duty in the wake of Pearl Harbor, entrusting his publishing enterprise to business manager Bella Kimelfeld and the editorial team of Charles Biro and Bob Wood (born Robert Silva). Returning to Magazine House after his discharge, Gleason found his trust justified. The line’s three bi-monthlies were selling briskly and its paper quota was sufficient to keep his titles at 52 pages. If he felt any disappointment, it may have been over the failure of the two funny animalthemed quarterlies—Candy Comics and Cryin’ Lion Comics—released through proxy publisher Wm. H. Wise & Co. after just three issues apiece, their last hurrahs appearing on newsstands late in 1944 bearing a Spring ’45 cover date. Magazine House’s bestselling title (and one of the best sellers on the market, period) was Crime Does Not Pay. Offering sensationalized recountings of crimes both famous and obscure akin to today’s “true crime” television programs, CMNP was written and drawn with an older audience in mind than the kids and adolescents who flocked to superhero, teen humor, and funny animal comics. Written primarily by co-editor Wood and his brother Dave, each issue began with the tale of an infamous gangster narrated by the shark-toothed Mr. Crime, who took a perverse glee in seeing his subjects inevitably brought down by the law. In the September issue (#41), readers met his opposite number, the virtuous Officer Common Sense. The title had no other recurring features, relying on standalone stories with titillating titles like “Murder Will Out,” “Blonde Queen of Crime,” “Profit in Corpses,” “The Smile of Death,” and “Case of the Confident Killer.” Artists contributing to Crime Does Not Pay included Dick Briefer, Rudy Palais, Al Fagaly, Jack Alderman, Bob Siege (pen name of Robert Sale) and 19-year-old Norman Maurer.

Aside from designing and drawing the covers, Charles Biro contributed little creatively to Crime Does Not Pay. His attention was focused on Daredevil Comics and Boy Comics. Biro scripted, and frequently illustrated, the lead features of both books. One of the era’s best writers, both “Daredevil” and “Crimebuster” showcased his impeccable story construction, breezy pacing, and cinematic dialogue. Largely overshadowed by his sidekicks, The Little Wise Guys, the boomerang-wielding Daredevil spent

more time playing father figure to Jock, Scarecrow, Pee Wee, and Curly than playing superhero, though he did confront the unique menace of The Night Killer and The Night Butcher, two estranged brothers having a murder contest to see who inherited the family fortune. In the April issue (#32), the Wise Guys faced off against their criminal counterparts, The East Side Clams. Crimebuster, alias teenaged Chuck Chandler, and Squeeks, his trained monkey, spent 1945 opposing a mundane assortment of gangsters and spies, his series keenly feeling the absence of his formidable former foe Iron Jaw, killed off the previous year, but still worth reading thanks to Biro’s enthralling storytelling.

Daredevil Comics bade farewell to a pair of features dating back to Gleason’s earliest days as a comics publisher. “The Claw,” one of comics’ most monstrous arch-villains, finally met a well-deserved death in issue #31 (August), while the demands on his time made by Crestwood’s new Frankenstein title led Dick Briefer to pull the plug on “The Pirate Prince” an issue later (though not before gueststarring Boy Comics’ time-traveling Yankee Longago). They were replaced by “Eggbert,” a not-very-good teen humor strip, and “Roger Wilco,” about a USAAF combat ace asked to go undercover stateside. Elsewhere in the back pages, the husband-and-wife team of Carl and Virginia Hubbell chronicled the doings of well-intentioned street tough “Sniffer” and his pals, The Dirty Dozen, and “Dickie Dean, Boy Inventor” plied his trade courtesy of artists and scripters unknown.

Crimebuster’s co-stars in Boy Comics included “Young Robinhood,” a teen archer fighting crime in the big city alongside his streetwise Merry Men; “Little Dynamite,” a tough-talking urban urchin with the proverbial heart of gold; and “Swoop Storm,” a youthful aviation enthusiast who used his ingenious aeronautical inventions to overpower enemy troops. Drawn by Rudy Palais, “Boy Hero of the Month” (sometimes titled “Real Hero”) retold true tales of uncommon acts of bravery ostensibly submitted by readers. Boy’s best feature apart from “Crimebuster” was “Yankee Longago,” wherein Dick Briefer’s wise-ass chrononaut wreaked havoc on history by teaching Nero

the violin, dropping an apple on Isaac Newton’s head, and unintentionally instigating the mutiny on the Bounty. Released through proxy publisher Newsbrook Publishing Corporation, the 36-page one-shot Dime Comics featured a new adventure of former Gleason star “Silver Streak,” pitting the super-speedster against The Green Dragon, a Chinese sorcerer, in a story limned by Fiction House regular Fran Hopper. But Magazine House’s most unusual output this year was Giant Boy Book of Comics, a 240-page hardcover collection of (probably remaindered) issues of Boy Comics so rare that, were it not for existing pictures of its cover, its very existence might be in question.

Family Comics, Inc. was aptly named. The current incarnation of a line of comics launched in late 1940 with the financial assistance of PDC president Irving Manheimer, it was owned by Alfred Harvey nee Wiernikoff, a former King Features letterer and, briefly, editor of Fox Feature Syndicate. When Harvey entered the military, he entrusted the company to his twin brother, acting editor Leon Harvey, though being stationed stateside Alfred retained the final word on all key decisions. Still, Leon played it safe in Alfred’s absence... or did he? Officially, the Family line-up consisted of two bi-monthly titles and a quarterly, with the latter suspending publication for over a year in response to the company’s reduced paper allotment. Unofficially, the Harveys turned to proxy publishers to release a trio of one-shots, two of which were almost certainly illegal.

The big gun in Family’s arsenal was Green Hornet Comics, adapting the radio series created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker. The masked Hornet and his aide Kato spent most of their six 1945-dated issues battling Japanese baddies like the sinister Baron Sagutai and his equally loathsome son; The Eye, a spy armed with a stolen “audio-visor”; and a saboteur called The Mystic, all illustrated by Jerry Robinson. To accommodate the title’s reduction to 36 pages with issue #25 (July), its back-up features began alternating, with “The Zebra,” “The Twinkle Twins,” and Art Helfant’s goofy “The Mighty Midgets”

appearing in even-numbered issues; “The Spirit of ’76” and “The Blonde Bomber” in the odd-numbered. Bob Powell (born Stanley Pawlowski) drew “Spirit of ’76,” Bob Fujitani handled “Zebra,” and Kathleen “Jill” Elgin provided the art for “Blonde Bomber” and the Twinkles.

Speed Comics, the line’s oldest title, handled its page reduction differently, canceling Ed Wheelan’s “Padlock Homes,” suspending Helfant’s “Biff Bannon,” and confining “Black Cat” to the covers and the requisite prose stories as of the September

issue (#39). Like Linda Turner’s feline alter ego, the comic’s other features fought mostly Axis-related villains, though the electrified “Shock Gibson” encountered cavemen and dinosaurs inhabiting a lost valley and superpatriot “Captain Freedom” tangled with a disfigured gangster called The Hood late in the year. Tragedy struck “The Girl Commandos,” a band of female fliers from various Allied nations, in issue #38 (July) when the fiancé of the Chinese pilot Mei-Ling died at the hands of the Japanese.

Only five issues of Speed were released in 1945. The title skipped its January issue, probably to make room on World Color’s presses for the 36-page Front Page Comic Book Its indicia credited only to Front Page Comic Book Inc., the one-shot introduced a character that was to appear in the Harveys’ comics sporadically over the next 21 years. The personification of Death itself, “The Man in Black” appeared to the living at significant crossroads of their existences, sometimes saving lives, sometimes taking them. Credits for this pilot episode are unavailable, which is a shame as it was well-written and exceptionally well-drawn. (Contrary to some sources, it is not a continuation of the identically named strip appearing in 1944’s Tally-Ho Comics, as a quick comparison of the two makes clear.) Also debuting in Front Page was “Johnny Nebisco,” a hardboiled series about a sarcastic chief of detectives and his playfully antagonistic relationship with the overly officious police commissioner featuring a snappy script and good art by George Roussos. The back pages were filled with generic war stories drawn by Joe Kubert and Lou Ferstadt. “The Man in Black” next appeared in AllNew Comics #11 (Spring 1945) before joining that book’s other recurring characters, “The Boy Heroes” and “The Red Blazer” in limbo.

Jason Comic Art packaged a pair of 52-page humor one-shots for Family, one devoted to funny animals, the other to funny people. Nutty Comics featured a roster of comical critters like “Bozo Bear,” “Sheriff Pop Gunn,” and “Pat Pigeon,” all competently executed, none the slightest bit memorable, while Clown Comic Book offered up bungling sailors “Mopey

This pair of (possibly illegal) one-shots from Family would lead to ongoing (legal) series in 1946. TM and © respective copyright holder.

and Dick,” obtuse private eyes “Snoop and Droop,” and other characters of equal ineptitude. Curiously, the comic’s namesake and mascot, Happy Clown, did not star in his own strip, appearing only on the cover and in the opening splash panels of the others’ stories. The legal status of these comics is unclear, but they may have avoided confiscation by the feds, selling well enough that both would return as fully legit ongoing titles in 1946.

Alfred Harvey was discharged from the Army in the fall, just in time to sign a deal with the McNaught Syndicate to publish a bi-monthly Joe Palooka title reprinting the newspaper adventures of the brawny prizefighter and moral paragon. A companion title, Joe Palooka Fights His Way Back, was a giveaway distributed to military hospitals encouraging wounded veterans to commit themselves to their rehabilitation. It was a sign of things to come, as syndicated strip reprints were to form an important cornerstone of Family’s fortunes in the postwar era.

Newspaper strips, including “Joe Palooka,” were the reason the Columbia Comic Corporation existed. Formed in 1940 as a vehicle for the properties owned by the McNaught and Frank J. Markey syndicates, Columbia achieved modest success with its flagship title Big Shot, featuring a mix of strip reprints, original series, and new episodes of Gordon “Boody” Rogers’ superhero send-up “Sparky Watts,” a canceled McNaught feature that found a new life in comic books. Though officially a monthly, Big Shot skipped its June and December issues to make room on the presses for two issues of Mickey Finn (#6 and 7, both undated), reprinting Lank Leonard’s strip about a mild-mannered beat cop that also ran in Quality’s Feature Comics

In addition to “Sparky Watts,” Big Shot headlined a pair of more conventional mystery-men, “Skyman” and “The Face.” Columbia editor Raymond “Ray” Krank scripted the former, a costumed pilot manning a futuristic plane, introducing such nasties as Drom, a fanatical militarist intent on destroying Japan by triggering all its volcanoes

simultaneously; Japanese scientist Dr. Guni Gatcha; a homicidal prankster called The Impractical Joker; and, postwar, The Last Nazi, a fugitive war criminal. “The Face,” whose adventures were told as a serial, could be hard to follow if the reader missed an issue. Co-creator Martin “Mart” Bailey, now both drawing and writing the series, began the year with Tony Trent, the original man behind the gruesome green fright-mask, escaping from a Japanese POW camp and the apparent death of his friend and successor Bill Soggans. Bill survived, but yielded the Face identity to his superior, Lt. William Bailey who played the role for three issues, as Trent returned stateside and enlisted in the Army. After having no one at all wear the mask in the August issue (#57), Bailey (the artist, not the character) finished the year with a Chinese American officer, General Chin-Ling, taking on the guise. It was riveting, albeit confusing.

When Columbia first set up shop, it lured Detective Comics editor-in-chief Vincent “Vin” Sullivan away by promising him a free hand to develop original properties. Once it became apparent that management was more interested in promoting its licensed properties than shelling out for new material, a disgruntled Sullivan left to form his own publishing house, Magazine Enterprises, taking head writer Gardner Fox, co-creator of Skyman and The Face, and art director Creig Flessel with him. The company got a huge boost early on when first the U.S. Marine Corps, then the Army Air Force commissioned ME to produce comics celebrating those services. The final two issues of the bi-monthly American Air Forces (#3 and 4), hit the stands early in 1945, telling true tales of aerial combat and heroism. Among the title’s highlights was “The AAF Strangles the Wehrmacht,” revealing the critical role the 8th Strategic Air Force played in the Normandy invasion, brought to life by one of Charles M. Quinlan’s career-best art jobs. With his military contracts expired, Sullivan negotiated deals with the Chicago Tribune, Field Enterprises, and Publishers Syndicate services to reprint their newspaper strips. The numberless, undated Keen Teens, which billed itself as “The Comic Magazine for American Girls,” featured “Claire Voyant,” “Dotty Dripple,” “Gertie O’Grady,” “Rocky the Stone-Age Kid,” and a pair of advice columns, “Sugar and Spice” and “The Correct Thing.” Hitting newsstands in mid-October was the first issue of A-1 Comics starring Alfred Andriola’s cerebral police detective “Kerry Drake.” It must have seemed like a huge step backward for Vin Sullivan at the time, but the determined publisher would soon put A-1 to good use as a launching pad for the original material he preferred.

So Many Marvels

In the wake of the initial success of “Superman,” imitations inevitably cropped up on the nation’s newsstands. Most were dealt with quickly, Detective Comics’ Donenfeld and Liebowitz suing the competition for copyright infringement, resulting in the cancellations or radical reworkings of the offending characters. One rival, however, refused to be intimidated. Worse, its superhuman champion had the temerity to frequently outsell the Man of Steel, moving hundreds of thousands, occasionally millions, of comics a month featuring The World’s Mightiest Mortal and his

“Skyman” added “The Feather,” a flying lifeboat, to his fantastic airplane “The Wing” in Big Shot #53. TM and © respective copyright holder.

extended family. This simply caused DC to dig in its collective heels. The lawsuit between the publishing houses dragged on until 1953.

Founded in 1919, Fawcett Publications quickly became a major player in the world of magazines, its roster of titles growing to include such perennially popular periodicals as Woman’s Day, True Confessions, and Mechanix Illustrated. Its line of comic books met comparable success, beginning with Whiz Comics in early 1940. In the intervening five years, the line gradually expanded until it now encompassed eight monthlies. On the surface, 1945 seems to have dealt harshly with Fawcett. All of its titles skipped either their January or June issues with two skipping both, all were demoted to bi-monthlies for two issues in the autumn, and all but one offered only 36 pages for the buyer’s ten cents. But this was actually a strategic move on the publisher’s part to extend its limited supply of newsprint in anticipation of the relaxation of wartime restrictions. The strategy paid off: at year’s end, Fawcett not only returned its existing roster to monthly status but launched four new monthlies and four new quarterlies, doubling its line and making the publisher first out of the gate for the explosive expansion of the comic book marketplace in the postwar era.

Overseeing this expansion was executive editor William “Will” Lieberson. A playwright and theatrical director who had been editing Fawcett’s humor magazines before transferring to the comic book division, Lieberson had an instinctive grasp of what made the medium work, as noted in an essay he wrote for a 1946 issue of Writers’ Digest:

“[Comic book] stories do not differ from straight fiction except that the writer has to learn the trick of telling his story in a picture sequence. It is much the same as movies. The writer must have a mind for pictures. And by pictures we mean colorful and

New readers of “Captain Marvel” could be brought up to speed with this capsule origin summary that ran in every title featuring The World’s Mightiest Mortal. TM and © DC Comics.

imaginative scenes that an artist can draw effectively in his limited area. No matter how exciting a story may sound on paper, if it won’t make for good pictures, it is no good for comics” (17)

For all this emphasis on good pictures, the editor and his assistants—Richard Krause, Mercedes “Mercy” Shull, and Jane Magill, the latter replaced mid-year by Wendell Crowley—valued strong scripting every bit as much. Fortunately for Fawcett, it could count among its assets the writing prowess of Otto Binder, a veteran science fiction author whose credits included the celebrated “Adam Link” stories about a sentient robot. The seemingly tireless Binder wrote the vast majority of the company’s output this year, with only the funny animal material produced by the small studio run by Charles “Chad” Grothkopf eluding his grasp, if not his influence. Prolific he may have been, but Binder was no hack, bringing intelligence, imagination, and good taste to his assignments, though he tended toward self-deprecation when discussing his career later in life:

“My inspiration for stories is a rather pointless question. You don’t find them on street corners or hidden in vases. You have to conjure them up in your own brain. At times, ideas were dry and hard to get and almost obstinately stayed out of reach. Other times the ideas flowed and I’d jot down half a dozen[,] though not all would be eventually usable. Writing is a lonely business and the labor of extracting ideas from your brain is by no means ‘fun’” (Lage 63).

While contributing scripts to virtually every adventure character Fawcett had, Binder’s main focus was on the company’s bread-and-butter property “Captain Marvel,” whose early ’40 debut in Whiz Comics #2 (there was no issue #1) had incurred the wrath of DC. As created by writer William “Bill” Parker and artist Charles Clarence “C.C.” Beck, however, the captain’s resemblance to Superman was superficial at best. The adult alter ego of teenage newscaster Billy Batson, who transformed into Marvel when he invoked the name of the ancient wizard Shazam, the hero’s adventures were rooted in mythology and fantasy rather than science fiction and were far removed in tone and style from the Last Son of Krypton’s exploits.

Readers understood and appreciated the difference, even if Detective’s legal team didn’t.

Binder and main artist Beck began 1945 by continuing two series-within-a-series that had been running for months in the pages of Captain Marvel Adventures. The first five issues of the year (#42-46, January-May) concluded the World’s Mightiest Mortal’s epic 25-chapter clash with the Monster Society of Evil and its leader, the extraterrestrial worm Mr. Mind. Though briefly reforming while suffering from amnesia, the evil annelid was ultimately captured, tried, convicted, executed, stuffed, and put on display in a museum. CMA #42-44 also featured three episodes of loosely connected stories of Cap visiting various American cities where he mingled with real-life local celebrities, including J. Edgar Hoover and boxer Gene Tunney. The Big Red Cheese, as his arch-enemy Sivana nicknamed him, dueled the World’s Maddest Scientist thrice this year, in CMA #48 and 50 and in Whiz Comics #68 (NovemberDecember). Other menaces Billy and Marvel faced this year included Dr. Groon, a killer posing as a gorilla with a human brain; Ivan Swype and his Seven-League Boots; Slick Focus and his Future Camera; and the formidable Marvel Ant. Villains and monsters were not all the strip served up. There was plenty of whimsy on hand, as Captain Marvel visited the extradimensional land of Nowhere, teamed up with that lovable fraud Uncle Marvel, and Billy wielded Cap’s powers after Zeus got his magic lightning bolts confused. The October-November issue of Captain Marvel Adventures (#49) featured the final appearance of Billy Batson’s valet Steamboat, an offensive racial stereotype Will Lieberson was adamant about jettisoning.

One of the strengths of the spin-off series “Captain Marvel, Jr.” and “Mary Marvel” was that they had their own individual looks and feels. Junior’s exploits were darker than his mentor’s, as befit a superhero whose other self, newsboy Freddy Freeman, was crippled

and bedded down in an abandoned tenement. The artwork, too, leaned more toward an atmospheric realism rather than the diagrammatic clarity associated with Beck and his studio. Though the covers of both Master Comics and his solo title continued to feature the spectacular posterlike design work of original artist Mac Raboy, his duties at Spark prevented the meticulous but slow illustrator from contributing more than a handful of stories. Filling his shoes were Bernard “Bud” Thompson, Albert “Al” Carreno, Gene McDonald, and others, frequently using existing Raboy pics of Junior in action cut-and-pasted onto their pages. Among the nogoodniks The World’s Mightiest Boy confronted were modern-day pirate The Shark, The Totem of Terror, Mr. Meteor, The Black King, The Moon Monsters, a Japanese CMJ imposter, old foe Mr. Macabre, and Sivana. Despite the darker tone, whimsy was not entirely absent, as the boy crimecrusher adopted a pet monkey, palled around with Uncle Marvel, and met Rollo, a robot with human emotions, and the Upside-Downies, an entire town of people who walked on their hands and lived their lives, well, upside-down.

The adventures of The World’s Mightiest Girl fell somewhere in between those of Cap and Junior. Billy’s long-lost twin sister, Mary Bromfield enjoyed a more normal existence than the boys, living with her adoptive parents in suburbia. Mary Marvel performed her super-feats with a grace and delicacy the male Marvels lacked. The art for her series in Wow Comics, provided primarily by the studio of John “Jack” Binder, elder brother of Otto, was also intermediate between the simplicity of the Beck approach and the slick illustrative work of Raboy and his imitators. The opposition the Brothers Binder threw at Mary in 1945 included time-displaced pirate Black Patch, artist-turned-sorcerer Leonardo DePinchy, Madame Silk, and the Rock Gnomes. Wow #35 (April) introduced Freckles Marvel, a.k.a. Uncle Marvel’s niece also named Mary, who blackmailed him into letting her pose as another member of the Marvel Family. Long postponed because of

After 25 consecutive episodes, the wicked worm Mr. Mind, leader of the Monster Society, meets his ignominious end. TM and © DC Comics.

The Marvel Family continued to grow this year with the addition of the non-powered Freckles Marvel, niece of Uncle Marvel. TM and © DC Comics.

the wartime restrictions on newsprint usage, Mary Marvel finally received her own monthly solo title. The first issue of Mary Marvel Comics (December) featured the debut of Mary’s nemesis Georgia Sivana, the homely but brilliant daughter of her big brother’s eternal enemy.

Premiering the same month was The Marvel Family, in which Cap, Mary, and Junior teamed up to battle those threats too big for each to handle alone. The first of these threats was the sinister Black Adam, Shazam’s first superhuman champion. Chosen by the wizard in the days of ancient Egypt, Teth-Adam served faithfully until, hopelessly corrupted by the power at his command, he attempted to conquer the world, forcing Shazam to magically exile him to another galaxy. It took him thousands of years, even at super-speed, to return to Earth. Clad in a capeless, black version of the Marvel uniform, Black Adam proved invincible, defying the best efforts of his three successors to bring him to bay until, tricked into uttering the magic word, he returned to his mortal form, aged millennia in a matter of seconds, and crumbled to dust. The first issue also saw Uncle Marvel join the others in caring for an infant left on Billy’s doorstep, an infant they naturally nicknamed Baby Marvel. As funny as it was to see the superhuman trio trying to feed, diaper, and otherwise nurture the tot, readers were no doubt relieved to see Baby M’s mother reclaim him at story’s end.

The one member of the Marvel Family who would never appear in the book of that name was “Hoppy the Marvel Bunny,” star of Fawcett’s Funny Animals. Created, written, and drawn by Chad Grothkopf, the costumed critter’s stories were tailored for a younger audience than the human Marvels but were no less entertaining. The emphasis here was less on super-villains than on trips to exotic locales like Fairy Tale Land and Nursery Rhyme Land or encounters with magical folk like The Keeper of the Winds, the Genie of Aladdin’s Lamp, The Four Seasons, and The Wizard Bunny, Shazam’s funny animal counter-

part. Grothkopf was obviously paying attention to what went on in the other Fawcett titles: in FFA #32 (October-November), Hoppy crossed swords with Captain Black Bunny, who turned out to be a trickster with no real superpowers. Backing up Marvel Bunny were Chad’s “Willie the Worm and Sammy Skunk” and three strips by William “Bill” Brady. “Benny Beaver and Fuzzy Bear” and “Sherlock the Monk and Chuck” were nothing special, but Brady’s funny animal western “Billy the Kid,” starring a gunslinging goat, was clever enough to earn the character his own quarterly solo title. It hit newsstands simultaneously with the first issue of the monthly Hoppy the Marvel Bunny series.

The solo titles of two Whiz Comics stars, suspended during the long paper drought, were revived late in the year, the third issues of their quarterlies bearing a December cover date. Harry Parkhurst illustrated those episodes of the western “Golden Arrow” running in Whiz, with George Tuska handling the solo book. Otto Binder and Bill Woolfolk split the scripting duties for “Ibis the Invincible,” pitting the resurrected Prince Amentep and his enchanted Ibistick against horrific menaces like Tut-Ankor and his army of mummies; The Master of Discord, an extradimensional being of living music; The Jaguar Men; and even Death himself. Former Chesler art director Gaspano “Gus” Ricca was at the drawing board for most issues, backstopped by Kurt Schaffenberger, a veteran of the Binder studio newly returned from serving in the Office of Strategic Services, predecessor of the C.I.A. Captain Marvel’s third Whiz costar, “Spy Smasher,” did not see his solo title revived. The costumed pilot of the futuristic Gyrosub had in fact grown stale, combatting an assortment of interchangeable Axis enemies even after peace was declared. How smoothly Spy Smasher transitioned to the postwar world remained to be seen.

The telepathic and clairvoyant “Radar the International Policeman,” who shared the covers of Master Comics with Captain Marvel, Jr., seemed better positioned to make that transition, his covert operations fitting better in the new reality than Spy Smasher’s flashier deeds of derring-do. Radar’s more grounded exploits tended to seem tame compared to those of Master’s original cover star, “Bulletman.” The Binder Brothers continued the tradition of plaguing

It’s hard to say which was the greater indignity for Black Adam: being defeated by the Marvel Family or being parodied in the “Hoppy the Marvel Bunny” series. TM and © DC Comics.

police scientist Jim Barr and his partner Susan Kent, a.k.a. Bulletgirl, with colorful baddies like The Pied Piper, The Thief of Arts, The Masked Murderer, and the team of Bulletthug and Bulletmoll, a crooked couple who embarked on a crime spree after stealing our heroes’ gravity helmets. Former Fawcett editor-in-chief Rod Reed, now the editor of the jazz magazine Downbeat, still found time to script “Nyoka the Jungle Girl” in Master and in her quarterly solo title, revived after a three-year hiatus. Based on the 1942 Republic Studios serial Perils of Nyoka and told in a similar multi-chaptered fashion, “Nyoka” starred a female Jungle Jim rather than the “Sheena” clone implied by the title, using intelligence and courage rather than raw physical might to emerge triumphant from adventures with evocative titles like “The Voodoo Drums of Death, “Jungle Doom,” and “The Adventure of the Terrible Tiara.”

Like Bulletman, “Mr. Scarlet” began his career as the cover star of his comic before being bumped by a Marvel. Now confined to the back pages of Wow Comics, the crimsonclad crimefighter and boy pal Pinky the Whiz Kid continued to take on nasties like The Elephant, The Smoke King, The Musician of Madness, and the seemingly immortal Incarno. Elsewhere in Wow, “Commando Yank” and “The Phantom Eagle” guest-starred in each other’s strips in the February issue (#33), joining forces to battle a super-Nazi called The Iron Baron. Phantom Eagle spent most episodes palling around with The Phoenix Squadron, a band of teenage Blackhawk wannabes consisting of Hans (Denmark), Hendrik (Holland), Josef (Poland), Nickolas (Greece), Pierre (France), and Sven (Norway), while Commando Yank spent his time behind enemy lines fighting the Nazi regime from within. Axis villains were the focus of both series through the December-dated issue, begging the question of how they would fare with the war over.

In addition to the Marvel Family and other characters created in-house, Fawcett also published two monthly titles headlining licensed characters. Captain Midnight starred radio’s best-known aviator who, in his comic book incarnation, wore a skintight superhero suit that included glider wings allowing him to fly without a plane. Aided by the Secret Squadron, Midnight divided his time between combatting Japanese troops and countering more exotic foes like The Dagger, The Flea, The Bee-Man, his radio nemesis Ivan Shark, and the horrific team of mad Professor Mongrone and Knifer, an executed killer revived by transplanting a gorilla’s brain into his body. Occasionally, Midnight’s

pal Ichabod “Icky” Mudd would commandeer the strip, lightening the mood with another escapade of his Sgt. Twilight persona. Leonard Frank drew most episodes from scripts by Otto Binder, Joe Millard, Bill Woolfolk, Rod Reed, and the book’s editor Richard Krause. Having begun his career prior to America’s entry into the war, Captain Midnight was better prepared than most of his fellow comic book flyboys to return to civilian life.

Based on the syndicated strip by Frank V. Martinek and Leon Baroth, Don Winslow of the Navy found the titular maritime detective and his partner Red Pennington solving mysteries, catching crooks, and countering espionage in and out of the war zone, aiding the Marine Corps and Coast Guard in addition to their naval duties. Carefully researched and scripted by executive editor Will Lieberson and tastefully illustrated by Carl Pfeufer and John Jordan, Don Winslow was easily the most realistic of Fawcett’s comics, eschewing the fantastic inventions and grotesque bad guys that haunted so many military-themed series.

Fawcett added a new licensed title to its line-up at year’s end. George Pal’s Puppetoons, inspired by the series of theatrical shorts directed by stop-motion animation pioneer Pal, featured original stories rather than adaptations, though two of its series, “Jasper and the Scarecrow” and “Rusty,” featured characters from the Puppetoon series. The comic did its best to capture the style of the shorts, sometimes to a fault. The “Jasper” series, both on film and

The autumn of 1945 saw Fawcett double its comic book line, launching eight new titles. TM and © DC Comics.

in newsprint, was problematic, as its lead was an insultingly caricatured Black boy not unlike Walter Lantz’s equally offensive Li’l Eightball. Despite this, the book would run for 18 issues, ending only when the film series, which had grown unacceptably expensive to continue, came to an end.

Even as they produced most of the Marvel Family material for Fawcett, C.C. Beck and his partner Peter “Pete” Costanza took on more work via a new contract. As Fawcett expert P.C. Hamerlinck explains, “In late 1945, now maintaining a staff of 20 artists, the Beck and Costanza Studios were contracted by Clifford Yewdall of Yewdall-Kander Enterprises to package a new comic book series featuring “High School Hero” Vic Verity, where the first-time publisher undoubtedly aspired to capitalize on Archie and the increasing legion of comedic teen knock-offs” (Hamerlinck 72). The opening editorial of the first issue of Vic Verity Magazine explained that the book was “something new in comics. The stories are fiction, but they are based on realities, and told in a dynamic, entertaining way.” Drawn by Beck and scripted by high school teacher Ellis D. Brown, “Vic Verity” was actually a saccharine-sweet teen humor series that couldn’t hold a candle to “Archie.” The book’s back-up series were much more interesting. “Hot-Shot Galvan” was

a living electron who walked readers through the basics of science, while “Tom Travis and the Tiny People” (beautifully illustrated by Beck, Costanza, and David “Dave” Berg) detailed the struggles of a race of insect-sized people to survive in a world too big for them. Would this new style of comic catch on? Only time would tell.

Deluged

The careful planning and cautious conservation of its limited newsprint supply that Fawcett brought to its postwar expansion stood in vivid contrast to the efforts of publisher Martin Goodman. A pulp publisher since 1929, Goodman had a longstanding reputation for crowding the newsstands with cheap imitations of whatever the current hot trend was. His philosophy toward his comic book line—published under some 30 different corporate identities but referred to by historians for convenience’s sake as Timely Comics—was no different. Starting the year with four monthlies and 21 quarterlies, Goodman added an additional 11 titles by December for a total of 113 issues released, three more than its closest rival Dell.

Operating out of a suite of offices in the Empire State Building, Goodman maintained two bullpens of staff artists, one devoted to his superhero titles, the other to his humor books. Divided about equally between the two genres at the start of the year, the publishing house had clearly adjusted its priorities by the time New Year’s Eve rolled around. Gone were USA Comics, Daring Comics, Mystic Comics, and Miss Fury Comics reprinting June “Tarpé” Mills’ comic strip of the same name, all starring mysterymen or -women. Taking their place were more comedyoriented books, most featuring funny animals, but several centered on “career girls,” young women pursuing success and romance in the workplace. Goodman didn’t seem to care what appeared between the covers of his comic books, as long as he could flood the marketplace with product. Interim editor Vince Fago later recalled:

The terrific triumvirate of The Human Torch, Captain America, and The Sub-Mariner kept sales of Martin Goodman’s superhero comics brisk. TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

“Martin Goodman used to lie back in a big chaise lounge, and he’d look at the sales charts every day. … The print runs [for the comics] were 250,000 to 500,000 copies. Sometimes we’d put out five books a week or more. You’d see the numbers come back and could tell Goodman was a millionaire. The comics were what gave him that chaise lounge. In fact, we sold 90% of our print runs, because many of the comics were going to soldiers. … Goodman had a good paper allocation and diverted much of it from his pulps to the comics. That’s how we were able to out-produce much of the competition.”

(Amash 14-15)

Timely’s initial success was built on its superheroes, led by “The Human Torch,” “The Sub-Mariner,” and “Captain America.” This titanic trio continued to dominate the line: the Torch, actually an android, appeared in six different titles, the amphibious Prince Namor in five, Captain America in four, while “The Young Allies,” a kid gang led by teen sidekicks Toro and Bucky, headlined two. Even minor heroes “The Angel,” “The Destroyer,” and “The Whizzer” popped up throughout the line. But costumed mystery-men were not the draw they once were.

Once the company’s bestselling book, any perceived loss of audience interest in Captain America Comics was not due to its content. Created by Simon and Kirby, the star-spangled sentinel’s series retained all the elements that had rocketed it to the top of Goodman’s beloved sales figures: explosive action, breathless pacing, and grotesque villains usually, though less so as the war wound down, working for the Axis powers. Hiding in plain sight as Pvt. Steve Rogers and camp mascot Bucky Barnes, Cap and his kid partner fought fiends like The League of Hate, The Satyre [sic], The Black Hand, The Monster of Keecheebee Swamp, Mr. Lucifer, The Yellow Claw, The Leopard, Crimorto the Crime Dictator, Killer Lupo and his Masked Trio of Death (trained gorillas in human clothing), Colosso, The Cat Woman, and The Masters of Evil, infamous historical figures (including Captain Kidd, Jack the Ripper, Jesse James, Bluebeard, et al.) brought forward in time by the sorcerer Terdu. Plenty of German and Japanese soldiers, sailors, and airmen fell victim to the flashing fists of the flag-draped duo as well, in Cap’s solo title and in the three anthologies—All-Select Comics, All Winners Comics, USA Comics—he headlined. Most of the artwork for “Captain America” in 1945 was handled by former Simon & Kirby staffer Vincent “Vince” Alascia, occasionally spelled by Clem Weisbecker or Al Avison. Scripting credits are rare but include Otto Binder, Bill Woolfolk, and Bill Finger. Alascia also shouldered the art duties on “The Young Allies,” in both their self-titled quarterly and in the companion title Kid Komics. Under the joint leadership of Bucky and Toro, two-fisted teen scrappers Jeff, Tubby, Knuckles, and Whitewash cleaned the clocks of nefarious evildoers like The Mummy of Death, The Shiv, The Corpse, The Witch Doctor, and countless Axis soldiers. Arguably more interesting were the adventures of “Tommy Tyme,” who backed up the Young Allies in both books, as he witnessed

the legendary battle between Hercules and Antaeus, got caught up in the Seven Years’ War, and met The Bloody Countess, a 17th-century Slovenian noblewoman based on real-life murderer Elizabeth Bathory.

Like Captain America Comics, Timely’s “monthly” flagship title Marvel Mystery Comics released only two-thirds of the issues that status promised. “The Human Torch” still claimed the covers and lead-off spot, also holding forth in All Winners, Daring, All-Select, Captain America, and the quarterly Human Torch. One of the most visually arresting superheroes of his time, the Torch and Toro delivered plenty of red-hot action and thrills, as the fiery friends confronted The Mad Violinist, The Madame, The Black Master and his Legion of Black Worshippers, and Snowball, a deranged SFX tech physically intolerant of heat. In addition to the usual mad scientists, modern-day pirates, and enemy combatants, “Sub-Mariner” dealt sympathetically with the readjustment problems of returning servicemen

Alex Schomburg’s wartime covers climaxed with this piece for Marvel Mystery Comics #67, after which the Human Torch turned his attention to domestic terrors. TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

in a rare deviation from the Timely formula. But there was something lacking in the series. Since the departure of creator William Blake “Bill” Everett, his successors had largely ignored Prince Namor’s underwater kingdom and he himself had devolved from a headstrong antihero into just another wisecracking muscleman made distinctive only by his bizarrely triangular head. Both strips lacked a regular creative team, though Allen Simon drew a slim majority of the “Sub-Mariner” stories in Marvel Mystery, his quarterly solo title, Human Torch, Daring, and All Winners.

Backing up the masters of fire and water in Marvel Mystery, as he had from the first issue, was “The Angel.” After a long dry spell of mediocre stories featuring gangsters and Axis troops, the mustachioed mysteryman was once again matched against colorful bizarros like The Noose, The Epicure, yet another Catwoman, and Zehru, High Priest of Zurashnu. “Angel” did double duty as the back-

up strip in Sub-Mariner Comics. The only Timely hero confined to a single title, “The Patriot” was a crusading reporter leading a double life as a bargain-basement Captain America. Most episodes found him beating up the expected German and Japanese cannon fodder, though he did occasionally face more interesting opposition like macrocephalic master safecracker The Cracksman or Dr. Hades and his Cult of the Flaming Death. The fifth and final arrow in Marvel Mystery’s quiver was Madeline Joyce alias “Miss America,” scripted by Otto Binder and drawn by Blue Beetle co-creator Charles Nicholas. Possessing superhuman strength, x-ray vision, and the power of flight, this female Superman had a more interesting rogues’ gallery than many of her contemporaries, including Nazi hypnotist Dr. Von Helstog, beautiful serial killer Miss Bluebeard (a.k.a. Lorelei Ricciardi), a squadron of Japanese “Air Pirates” flying invisible planes, and he-and-she crooks The Fox and The Vixen.

Ironically, after appearances in the January and February issues (#4-5) of Miss America Magazine, the superheroine from which it took its name was unceremoniously dropped from the title, deemed by editor Bessie

H. Little as unsuited for the audience of teenage girls she was targeting. A digest-sized monthly modeled after Parents’ Calling All Girls, the self-declared “Largest Selling TeenAge Magazine—More Than 650,000 Copies!” split its 64 pages between comics and articles about celebrities, dating, and fashion. Replacing Miss A. were “Betty Blair,” whose teenage lead pursued headlines as a cub reporter for The Middletown Clarion, and “Danny,” an attempt at teen humor that fell flat thanks to the title character, an obnoxious jerk who gleefully destroyed other people’s property, flirted with other girls behind girlfriend Judy’s back, and was an all-around pain in the ass. But the real star of Miss America’s comics section was “Patsy Walker.” The vivacious redheaded high-schooler and her supporting cast—best friend Nancy Brown, boyfriend Buzz Baxter, and rival Hedy Wolfe—sidestepped many of the usual teen humor tropes, aiming for a slightly more realistic approach than “Archie” and his imitators.

So popular did Patsy prove that she was given her own solo title, heralding Timely’s expansion into new genres. Illustrated and possibly scripted by Ruth Atkinson for its first few issues, Patsy Walker took time out from its usual adolescent

Usually chasing trends started by others, Timely pioneered a new sub-genre this year, the “career girl” comic. TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

shenanigans to advocate for gender equity in the workplace, a touch of feminism otherwise unheard of in Goodman’s comics of the 1940s. Such realworld issues didn’t figure at all in Georgie Comics a new title debuting in the early spring. This toler able “Archie” wannabe featured teenage Georgie Lawson of Riverside, USA (“a whistle stop between Maine and California”), his parents, his girl Judy, his best pal Monty, and his dog Sparky. Good art by Terrytoons animator Frank Carin neé Carino couldn’t make up for the strip’s unoriginality and poorly paced humor. Nonetheless, the character endured in one form or another until 1952.

Like its superheroes, Timely’s comedy stars anchored multiple titles. Leading the pack were “Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal,” who appeared in eight different titles. Not far behind were “Super Rab bit” (6 titles), “Krazy Krow” (5 titles), and “Tessie the Typist” (3 titles). Tessie, a scatter-brained ste nographer, was the first of the “career girl” strips, the hapless herald of the only genre in which Timely led the way rather than followed. Joining her solo title on the stands in 1945 were the first issues of Nellie the Nurse, which focused more on Nellie Nelson’s love life than her job; Dolly Dill starring a curvaceous private eye; and the series that would come to define the genre, Millie the Model Comics. Created by Ruth Atkinson, smalltown beauty queen Millicent Collins headed for the big city to start a modeling career, finding work at the Hanover Agency and meeting photographer Flicker (later Clicker) Holbrook. Pure humor at this early stage with none of the soap opera elements it acquired later, “Millie” ran uninterrupted until 1973, starred in several secondary and spin-off books, was eventually integrated into the larger “Marvel Universe,” and still occasionally pops up in the company’s current comics. Nellie lasted a respectable 36 issues published over seven years, but Dolly Dill never made it past that first issue.

Goodman’s longest-running humor titles were Joker Comics and Comedy Comics. “Tessie” was among the characters first introduced in Joker, alongside the detective parody “Snoopy and Dr. Nutsy,” the slapstick misadventures of “Squat Car Squad,” the hillbillies-in-the-big-city farce “Eustace Hayseed and Choo Choo,” and Basil Wolverton’s exquisitely nonsensical “Powerhouse Pepper,” hands down Timely’s best humor series. The same roster also populated Gay Comics. Comedy featured mostly funny animals, led off by “Super Rabbit.” Created by Ernie Hart, timid shoeshine boy Waffles used a magic ring to become his superpowered other self. Among the bad guys the heroic hare put away this year were sorcerer Faceless Philbrook and his stooge Goppo the Goblin, Old King Coal [sic], the seductive Lana Schmaltz, and rival comic book hero Super Squirt. Backing him up in Comedy were largely forgettable series like “Waldo Wolf and Ferdy Fox,” “Puffy Pig,” “Widjit Witch,”

and “Percy Penguin and Fizz.” Super Rabbit, and many of his co-stars, could also be found in the pages of AllSurprise, Comic Capers, Ideal Comics, Animated Movie Tunes, and his solo book. The short-lived Comics for Kids also spotlighted the Comedy crowd (minus Super Rabbit) in its two-issue run.

Krazy Komics had been the launching pad for several other successful funny animal strips, including “Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal” and “Krazy Krow,” both of which also had their own titles. Other Krazy features included “Toughy Tomcat and Chester Chipmunk” (who, oddly, appeared on this year’s covers but not in the interiors), “Posty and Lolly,” and father-and-son villains “The Creeper and Crawler,” joined in the Fall issue (#19) by the equally sinister—and equally incompetent—Grandpapa. Silly, Ziggy, Krazy, and the others also held court in Funny Tunes and Silly Tunes

New characters were a rarity during this period, which made the launch of Dopey Duck in his own self-titled

Even Timely’s funny animal superheroes ended up duking it out sooner or later. TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

comic so surprising. The book featured oodles of slapstick mayhem as Dopey, whose temper easily matched Donald’s, warred with mice, crows, and other assorted pests.

With Miss Fury Comics canceled, Terry-Toons Comics remained Timely’s only title featuring licensed properties from other media, as well as its only standard format monthly to actually have 12 issues released (a contractual mandate, no doubt). Divided about equally between characters first seen in the theatrical cartoons produced by the notoriously tight-fisted Paul Terry and original creations, its roster included “Gandy and Sourpuss,” the unusually imaginative “Oscar the Pig,” “The Ginch and E. Claude Pennygrabber,” and “Andy Wolf and Bertie Mouse.” Andy and Bertie, who starred in the one-shot Komic Kartoons, were dropped following Terry-Toons #37 (October), replaced by Terry’s most successful and popular cartoon star, “Mighty Mouse.” The redoubtable rodent’s animated adventures tended toward the formulaic, but his comic book exploits proved far more interesting, especially in the December issue (#39): in a story clearly meant as propaganda, MM shrunk to atomic size and entered the first A-bomb to ensure it worked properly. In other words, without Mighty Mouse, America might not have won the war!

No credits are available for that story, and indeed for virtually all of Timely’s humor titles. This had not been the case in the early days of Comedy Comics, Joker Comics, and Krazy Komics when their features were still in the hands of their creators. By 1945, however, script and art assignments were handed out among the bullpen staff and the occasional freelancer on a strictly first come, first serve basis, an unfortunate necessity if they were to crank out content fast enough to fill the pages of all those comics Martin Goodman wanted crowding his competitors’ product off the shelves. This required a herculean effort on the

part of editor Vince Fago simply to coordinate it all, and may explain why he yielded the editor’s chair so readily when its previous occupant returned from the Army. The 22-year-old cousin of Goodman’s wife Jean, Stanley Martin Lieber had continued to contribute the odd script while in uniform. Now, the young writer, who would one day legally change his name to the pseudonym he adopted for his comics work, was anxious to roll up his sleeves and get back to work. But Stan Lee was appreciative of the effort his substitute had made and encouraged him to stay on:

“When Stan came back, he wanted to make me his assistant. But, once you’ve seen Broadway, you can’t go back to the farm. For several years I had been as important as Stan could ever be. I felt I had transcended my ability as an editor, and I just felt I could never be an assistant to Stan. They owed me a $1000 bonus. When I quit, I lost that bonus. I freelanced for him for a little while, and he was great to work for. But they had a flood of people coming in then, and the place didn’t have an identity anymore” (Amash 21-22).

Fago wasn’t wrong. In his rush to overwhelm the newsstands with his lookalike, readalike line of comic books, Martin Goodman had undercut his editorial and creative staffs’ efforts to give Timely its own unique identity. Even with Stan back at the till, it would take another 15 years for the line to carve a place within the comic book industry that didn’t depend on sheer volume.

“I Am Become Death”

On July 16, 1945, on a stretch of desert not far from Los Alamos, New Mexico, the end product of the Manhattan Project was put to the test. As the project’s top scientists and military personnel looked on from what they hoped

Here he comes to save the day! The first atom bomb detonates without a hitch, thanks to “Mighty Mouse.” Mighty Mouse TM and © CBS Operations, Inc.

was a safe distance, the world’s first atomic explosion was successfully detonated (without, it should be noted, any assistance from Mighty Mouse). After a blinding flash and a deafening roar, an enormous mushroom cloud, lit from within by flashes of lightning, rose into the sky. Below it, the metal scaffolding that held the bomb had been vaporized and the sands below it fused into a lake of sickly green glass. Project director J. Robert Oppenheimer was reminded of a line from the Bhagavad-Gita: “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

President Harry Truman, who had been entirely unaware of the development effort prior to FDR’s death, now had a critical decision to make. Should the two extant bombs, nicknamed “Fat Man” and “Little Boy,” be dropped on Japan, or should the war continue using conventional tactics and weapons? As historian David McCullough explains in his biography of Truman:

“Very possibly there was no one, clearcut moment when [Truman] made up his mind, or announced that he had. Most likely, he never seriously considered not using the bomb. Indeed, to have said no at this point and called everything off would have been so drastic a break with the whole history of the project, not to say the terrific momentum of events that summer, as to have been almost inconceivable. Some critics and historians in years to come would argue that Japan was already finished by this time. … Japan’s defeat, however, was not the issue. It was Japan’s surrender that was so desperately wanted, since every day Japan did not surrender meant the killing continued. … [I]n the three months since Truman took office, American battle casualties in the Pacific were nearly

half the total from three years of war... The nearer victory came, the heavier the price in blood. And whatever the projected toll in American lives in an invasion, it was too high if it could be avoided. … And how could a President, or the others charged with responsibility for the decision, answer to the American people if when the war was over, after the bloodbath of an invasion of Japan, it became known that a weapon sufficient to end the war had been available by midsummer and was not used?” (437-439).

Thus on August 6, “Little Boy” was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, leveling much of the city and snuffing out an estimated 70,000 lives, 90% of them civilians, in an instant. Three days later, “Fat Man” devastated Nagasaki at a cost of an additional 35,000 instantaneous deaths. Japan had no choice. On August 15, Emperor Hirohito himself went on the radio to announce, “Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.”

The Second World War was over; the United States and her Allies had won. Between 70 and 80 million human beings were dead, much of Europe and Eastern Asia lay in ruins, and nobody could be sure what would or should happen next. All eyes turned to America, largely untouched by the war apart from its 300,000 military casualties. Half of the globe saw in her political, economic, technological, and military strength the hope of a better tomorrow. The other half saw an existential threat to its own postwar ambitions. All, though, recognized that this upstart nation not even 200 years old was now, thanks to the A-bomb, the first global superpower.

Mighty Mouse’s entrance into the Atomic Age was followed a year later in a September 1946 theatrical short (“The Electronic Mouse Trap”) where the Mouse of Tomorrow fought atom bomb-powered robots. Mighty Mouse TM and © CBS Operations, Inc.

The Atom Age of Comics

With the war over, the average American wanted the country to go “back to normal.” But the war changed America so profoundly that “normal” had to be redefined. “Going back” to what life was like prior to World War II was no longer possible.

No one learned this better than America’s comic book publishers. Their expectation after the end of the war was that they could turn the calendar back to 1942, before the government had regulated paper allotments. With more paper at their disposal, comic book publishers envisioned a future of unlimited expansion, given the high demand for comics (combined with few returns).

When paper controls were relaxed in August 1945, publishers immediately made plans to ramp up production. But by the time paper allocation officially ended, in March 1946, it was clear that things weren’t quite working out the way the publishers had anticipated. That month, a columnist for the Writer’s Digest reported:

“The end of paper control enormously increased the troubles of magazine publishers. Practically every office I visited in the past weeks has had a sad tale to tell. […] Several of the titan publishers had been bidding for paper mills and paper jobbing houses. Whereby, smaller companies have lost out on sources of paper believed secure [due to the loss of government-sanctioned allocations]. […] As a consequence, many publishers who had announced plans for stepping up frequency of production on many magazines, have beat a hasty retreat” (Bradfield 16).

What happened was simply this: publishers mistakenly thought that unregulated access to paper would allow them to expand quite easily. But getting the paper proved more difficult than anticipated because existing paper mills could only produce so much paper. And what about press time? There was only so much capacity that the printing presses in America could handle. Similarly, there was only so much new material that could be handled by distributors, while newsstands would have to be reconfigured to display an increase in the number of comic books. It was an untenable situation as comics historian Will Murray described it: “Between the scramble for paper, the struggle over presstime, and the flood of new product, disaster loomed. This was a pivotal time for comics. The first magazine glut in U.S. history was brewing” (52).

Because newsstands lacked sufficient space to display all the new material, wholesalers often sent bundles of new comics back, unopened, causing sellthrough rates to plummet. Publishers’ Weekly reported in its June 8, 1946 issue that “comic magazines have been piling up 40 to 60 percent return totals, as against perhaps five percent during the war.” As always, the larger publishers were more able to cope with the flood, whereas the smaller publishers drowned.

The context to this dilemma was the fact that the demand for comics among America’s youth remained enormous. According to comic book historian Mike Benton, “By 1946, comic-book reading was an established habit— some might say addiction—among almost all children of the time. Nine out of every ten children between the ages of eight and 15 read comic books regularly” (Benton 41). They were mostly reading the products of the 10 leading publishers, who accounted for 60 percent of all comic books sold during the year. In order of popularity, they were National Comics, Fawcett Publications, Timely Comics, Dell Publishing, Quality Comics, Pines, Fiction House, Parents’ Magazine, Street & Smith, and Novelty Press.

The first comic books created after the Japanese surrender—reflecting a postwar consciousness by their publishers and creators—didn’t generally turn up on newsstands until January 1946 with March cover dates. Hence, comics with January and February 1946 cover dates were the last comic books actually created during World War II. Sparks’ Atoman (first issue cover dated Feb. 1946) is a prime example of a comic jumping on current events, as it attempted to capitalize on the public’s interest in the newly revealed existence of the atomic bomb.

The Bomb Changes Everything

And how did the existence of such a weapon of mass destruction change how people viewed the world and

its future? Prior to the publication of journalist John Hersey’s harrowing account of the attack on Hiroshima in the August 31, 1946 issue of The New Yorker and its subsequence reprinting as a book on November 1, 1946, the American public had little actual knowledge of just how devasting the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been. And to tell the truth, that public didn’t really care. From August of 1945 to the late summer of 1946 all they knew—or wanted to know—was that the war was over, thanks to good old American know-how (even if refugee scientists fleeing from the fascist dictatorships had been instrumental in achieving that victory), that rationing would end soon, and that good times lay ahead.

America’s comic books published immediately after advent of the A-bomb reflected the public’s initial enthusiasm for the new weapon that ended the war. Indeed, the opening story of Ace Magazines’ Science Comics #1 (Jan. 1946) is titled “The Bomb That Won the War.” (Its cover features an atomic mushroom cloud.) Other comic books considered the prospect of nuclear energy implicit in the bomb’s development. Consider this passage from Parents’ Magazine’s True Comics #47 (March 1946):

“The destructive force of the atomic bomb has been proved. Now scientists are working to channel atomic energy to peacetime uses. They predict that the energy in the atoms of a railway ticket may run a train several times around theworld, the energy in the atoms of a snowball may heat an apartment house fora year, atomic energy may be used to cure cancer and other diseases and finally, that atomic energy, rightfully used, may bring about a new era of enlightenment and progress.”

A similarly optimistic feature appearing in the same month’s issue of Ned Pines’ Real Life Comics had Uncle Sam himself ask:

“What of the future? Shall it be used as a weapon—or shall atomic energy be a boon to the Earth, ushering in a new age of power and plenty in which autos run on fistsized engines and liners ply the Atlantic on the energy of a cup of water? It’s up to us, to the American way—which is peace and the brotherhood of man.”

Jack Sparling illustrated True Comics #47’s historic origin of the atomic bomb. TM and © respective copyright holder.

TIMELINE: 1946

most significant popular culture and historical events. (On sale dates are approximations.)

January 10: The first General Assembly of the United Nations— comprised of 51 nations—convenes in London, England.

January 13: In Chester Gould’s comic strip, Dick Tracy’s two-way wrist radio makes it first appearance. It will become one of the most recognizable icons of the character.

March 4: Alex Raymond’s Rip Kirby debuts as the fastestselling comic strip in King Features history to this date.

April 1: Two massive earthquakes that originated just south of Alaska trigger tsunamis throughout the Pacific Ocean, resulting in the deaths of 170 people and over $26 million in property damage.

March 5: As President Truman’s guest at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivers his “Sinews of Peace” speech in which he describes the Soviet Union’s influence over Eastern Europe as an “iron curtain.”

For most comics publishers, however, the bomb and the postwar harnessing of nuclear energy were simply new and exciting story elements to be exploited. A-bombs figured in the adventures of Captain Midnight, Mighty Mouse, Archie O’Toole, the Fighting Yank, the Phantom Eagle, and Sky Wolf, to name just a few, while the schemes of spies to get their hands on its secrets were foiled by those heroes, as well as various detectives, aviators, and intelligence agents. The quest to master atomic energy was also featured in several strips, sometimes for dramatic purposes (Skyman or Hell’s Angels) and sometimes for comic effect (Frankenstein, Plastic Man), and in one instance—Doc Wackey’s invention of atomic dice in one of Quality’s Midnight tales—both things happened at once. Simply using the word “atomic” was enough for some publishers: Green Publishing released four issues of Atomic Comics while Jay Burtis produced one issue of Atomic Bomb that, titles notwithstanding, had nothing whatsoever to do with nuclear energy in peace or war.

Inevitably, the superhero genre drew on the headlines to power up costumed crusaders old and new. National Comics’ non-super-powered Atom, who’d been confined to adventures alongside the Justice Society of America since his last solo outing in All-American Comics #61 (Oct. 1944), saw his series revived in All-American #70 (Jan.-Feb. 1946) on the cultural cachet of his name alone. Quality’s the

June 10: The first episode of “Clan of the Fiery Cross” airs on the Adventures of Superman radio program. Written by Ben Peter Freeman—and inspired by the work of civil rights activist Stetson Kennedy—the 16-part serial pits Superman against a thinly veiled version of the Ku Klux Klan. The storyline concludes on July 1.

June 3: In Morgan v. Virginia, the United States Supreme Court strikes down a Virginia law that requires racial segregation on commercial interstate buses.

May 2: “The Battle of Alcatraz” begins as inmates of the Alcatraz federal penitentiary in San Francisco Bay attempt to escape by taking nine prison guards hostage. The conflict ends two days later, but not before two of the guards and three of the prisoners are killed.

Human Bomb now found his explosive punches described as “super-atomic,” and Crestwood/Prize’s Atomic Man got a complete redesign in an (unsuccessful) attempt to make him more visually appealing. These characters were joined by a sextet of newcomers, each hoping to cash in on the public’s fascination with the subject.

Spark Publications’ Atoman, created by longtime Batman ghost artist Jerry Robinson as the very first atomic-powered superhero, had been launched super-fast with a Feb. 1946 cover date, and featured atomic energy researcher Barry Dale who, after years of exposure to radiation, found himself endowed with superhuman strength, flight, and other nuclear powers. As Atoman himself explained in his first issue, “My body is so geared as a result of working on radium and uranium that it can explode atoms and give me atomic strength.” Like Spark’s other superheroes, Atoman was a cut above the competition in quality but had only two issues of the comic book bearing his name to make his mark, before, like Spark’s other titles, it vanished from the newsstands.

Debuting the same month, The Atomic Thunderbolt was the eponymous star of the one-and-only comic released by the otherwise unknown Regor Company. Self-described “wharf rat” William Burns, a former merchant mariner, volunteered for the potentially lethal experiment that

A compilation of the year’s notable comic book history events alongside some of the year’s

Rip Kirby TM and © King Features Syndicate.

July 1: As part of “Operation Crossroads,” the United States military detonates an atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands in order to investigate the effect of nuclear weapons on warships. A second detonation occurs underwater on July 25. A third detonation is canceled when the target warships from the second test couldn’t be decontaminated.

July 25: At Club 500 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, entertainers

Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis appear on stage as a comedy team for the first time.

August 31: The latest issue of The New Yorker magazine is entirely devoted to journalist John Hersey’s account of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, and its impact on six survivors. Despite horrifying readers, the issue sells out at the newsstand within hours. In November, Hershey’s article is published as a book.

September 30: In Nuremberg, Germany, an international military tribunal finds 22 Nazi leaders guilty of war crimes. Several of the leaders are sentenced to death, including Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring. On the morning of his execution, though, Göring commits suicide.

November 1: In the first game of the newly formed Basketball Association of America—a precursor of the National Basketball Association—the New York Knickerbockers defeat the Toronto Huskies.

November 21: The Best Years of Our Lives, a drama about World War II veterans readjusting to civilian life, is released to movie theaters. The film will win seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (for William Wyler), Best Actor (for Fredric March), and Best Supporting Actor (for Harold Russell, an actual war veteran who lost both hands during his service).

December 19: In Indochina, Viet Minh troops, under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, assault French occupying forces. The Indochina war will last until 1954.

July 26: President Truman issues Executive Order 9981, which abolishes racial and religious discrimination in the U.S. Armed Forces. The U.S. military has been desegregated.

October 9: Eugene O’Neill’s play The Iceman Cometh premieres on Broadway. The drama— featuring a group of Greenwich Village bar patrons with washed up dreams—becomes a hit, earning the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play of the year.

September 30: National Allied Publications, Inc. and Detective Comics, Inc. merge to become National Comics Publications, Inc.

transformed him into the “invincible and indestructible” Thunderbolt. Exactly how powerful co-creators Robert Peterson and Mort Lawrence intended him to be remains unexplored territory as, despite a good premise with an interesting, PTSD-stricken hero, the strip never got the chance to build a fanbase.

Introduced in Magazine Enterprises’ Tick Tock Tales #4 (April 1946) was the insect-sized “Mighty Atom,” who was really Pete Pixie who transformed into his caped alter ego when he said the phrase “Pick a peck o’ pixies!” Credits are unknown for this cute, and often quite funny, melding of the fairy tale and superhero genres aimed at the preschool set. Also aimed at the same audience was “Atomictot”. Whipped up by Ernie Hart for Quality’s All Humor Comics #2 (Summer 1946), this wildly playful character was a little newsboy “through [whose] veins atomic energy flows.” Atomictot was young but Orbit’s “Upan Atom”, who debuted in Toytown Comics #4 (Oct. 1946), was even younger, an infant who became the costume-less crimefighter whenever he chowed down on his supply of irradiated baby food. But the oddest character to come out of the fad for all things atomic was unquestionably “John Quincy, the Atom,” who debuted in Key Comics #4 (May 1946). His adventures were a broad sci-fi send-up by Marv Levy in which the top-secret Brooklyn Project accidently

December 20: The Frank Capra film It’s a Wonderful Life, starring James Stewart and Donna Reed, premieres in New York City before gaining wider release the next day. The Christmas-themed drama will garner five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture.

December 29: Milton Caniff’s final installment of Terry and the

created a living, sentient atom! Alas, this most bizarre of all heroes went down with the ship when publisher Consolidated Magazines went out of business with issue #5 (Aug. 1946) of the title.

By the end of 1946, only the Atom, the Mighty Atom, Atomictot, and Upan Atom were still standing. Simply evoking atomic energy in one’s mystery-man codename was not enough by itself to retain the attention of a fickle public. Or perhaps the industry’s creative community was entertaining second thoughts about its enthusiastic embrace of the atom bomb. That was certainly the case for writer Otto Binder and artist C.C. Beck. In Captain Marvel Adventures #66 (Oct. 1946), they presented a nightmarish prediction of nuclear Armageddon in “The Atomic War!” The story featured a devastation so complete that only the mighty Captain Marvel himself survived. It all turned out to be a TV special concocted by the captain’s alter ego Billy Batson, but the point was made. The story concluded with a young viewer’s solemn observation that “I guess we’d all better learn to live and get along together… one nation with all other nations and one person with all other persons… so that the terrible atomic war will never occur.” It was a sobering reminder from an unlikely source of what would be at stake when, not if, America’s monopoly on nuclear weaponry came to an end.

Pirates appears in newspapers. His successor, George Wunder, will continue the comic strip through February 25, 1973.

July 5: Named after the July 1 atomic bomb test, the bikini bathing suit makes its debut at a fashion show in Paris, France. The skimpy two-piece outfit quickly becomes a target of debate, fascination, and prudish scorn.

Micheline Bernardini wearing the first bikini, 1946.

Old Trends for New

The war was over, but the comic book industry seemed reluctant to let it go. Stories set during the conflict, often under the “now it can be told” rubric, continued to appear throughout many companies’ lines. Some of this resulted from the necessity of running stories that had been held in inventory which had been created before the A-bomb compelled Japan’s quick and unconditional surrender, but it was occasionally deliberate, a stalling tactic to allow the creators to dream up a new direction for their characters and scripts.

Among the series that continued to fight the war well into 1946 were such titles as The Boy Commandos, Blackhawk, Miss America, Blue Bolt, The Fighting Yank, The Black Terror, Red Dragon Comics, Don Winslow of the Navy, and such characters as Pyroman, Sky Girl, Captain Future, Shock Gibson, The Target, Hell’s Angels, Captain Wings, Spy Smasher, The Face, Phantom Eagle, Liberty Belle, Doc Strange, Spirit of ’76, Commando Yank and Hop Harrigan. Every 1946-dated issue of the monthly Captain Midnight included at least one such wartime tale. Many strips opted to prolong the hostilities by sending their leads after fugitive war criminals, neo-fascist organizations or Japanese soldiers refusing to acknowledge their homeland’s surrender (a trope that would pop up throughout the mass media for decades to come, at least in part because of reports that such people actually existed). Other strips returned to the pre-war usage of fictitious hostile countries like Urania and Balkania as antagonists. No one this year depicted the Soviet Union as a threat.

This perpetuation of the war meant that the Japanese continued to be pictured in American comics as lemonskinned, buck-toothed sadists, but some progress could be discerned on other fronts. While grossly racist caricatures like Young Allies’ Whitewash, New Funnies’ Li’l Eightball, or The Spirit’s Ebony White persisted, African Americans began to be depicted more respectfully and sympathetically, and not just within Interfaith’s consciously progressive The Challenger. When Brooklyn Dodgers’ owner Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson to play in Major League Baseball, thus breaking the color barrier into a previously all-white sports, the decision was lauded in the pages of Detective Comics’ (a.k.a. DC Comics’) Real Fact Comics #2 (May-June 1946). Parents Magazines’ True Comics #48 (April 1946) included a bio of actor and activist Paul Robeson, while their Calling All Boys ran a similarly stereotype-free portrayal of Olympic

Artists C.C. Beck and Pete Costanza visualized the horror of nuclear war in Captain Marvel Adventures #66. TM and © DC Comics.

Baseball star Jackie Robinson, as rendered by Phil Berube for Real Fact Comics #2 TM and © respective copyright holder.

champion Jesse Owens. Non-Japanese Asians didn’t fare quite as well, with characters like Blackhawk’s Chop-Chop, who was never given a real name during the 1940s (the one he had means “hurry up” in anglicized Chinese), Quality’s Wun Cloo and Street & Smith’s Wing Woo Woo perpetuating antiquated stereotypes. However, one new series trod a different path: Timely’s All Select Comics #11 (Fall 1946) featured “The Mysterious Mr. Wu,” an amateur sleuth (much like Boris Karloff’s film role “Mr. Wong,” who appeared in five low-budget films for Monogram from 1938-1940) who bypasses all the usual clichés by dressing in a top hat and tuxedo and speaking in upper-crust English. Baby steps, perhaps, but they were a start.

A significant number of features, particularly those starring military personnel or with premises centered around the war, wound up discontinued this year. The casualties included “Captain Commando and the Boy Soldiers,” “Red, White and Blue,” “The Death Patrol,” “U.S. Rangers,” “Spin Shaw,” “Mike Gibbs, Guerrilla,” “The Flying Dutchman,” “Clipper Kirk,” “Jap-Buster Johnson,” “Destroyer 171,” “Drafty,” “Johnny Doughboy,” “Sergeant Bill King,” “PT Boat,” “Roger Wilco,” “Rip Carson ‘chute Trooper,” “The Girl Commandos,” and “Sky Wolf.” This morbid tally does not include those strips that simply disappeared because their publishers folded.

as plainclothes adventurers. Superheroes were not yet an endangered species—they remained the specialty of such powerhouse companies as Detective Comics/All-American, Timely, Quality, Fawcett, and the Pines group—but their presence in a comic book was no longer a guarantor of robust sales.

Fawcett’s Postwar Position

Other war-centric series shifted gears, either depicting the challenges faced by peacetime military or returning their characters to civilian life: combat pilots went to work for airlines, spies became private detectives, even The Boy Commandos were recruited by an unspecified “international police force” to stay together and preserve the hard-won peace.

Another noticeable trend in 1946 was a decrease in the number of pages devoted to superheroes and masked mystery-men. Over three dozen of such went into involuntary retirement, including the Sandman and Sandy, Catman and the Kitten, The Green Mask, El Kuraan, Dynamic Man and Dynamic Boy, The Human Bomb, Miss Victory, Will o’ the Wisp, The American Eagle and Eaglet, Yankee Boy, The Green Lama, Yellowjacket, The Black Dwarf, The Triple Terror, The Patriot, Captain Valiant, Starman, The Red Cross, The Ghost, Golden Lad, The Destroyer, Rocketman and Rocketgirl, The Oracle, Spark Man, The Key, The Blue Circle, Captain Wizard, The Black Pirate, Atomic Man, The Zebra, Lash Lightning and Lightning Girl, The Whistler, Diana the Huntress, Airmale and Stampy, The Prankster, Swiftarrow, and The Gay Desperado. About half of these losses were due to the collapse of the comics lines that published them, while most of the rest were simply too tired or simply outdated by time and world events, yielding their slots to ascendant genres such as teen humor or funny animals. A few, like Spy Smasher and The Face, survived by abandoning their costumed identities and carrying on

In 1944, the industry’s bestselling title was published by Fawcett. Captain Marvel Adventures sold approximately 14 million copies, or an average of 1.280 million copies for each of the 11 issues that came out that year. In 1945, paper restrictions limited Fawcett to publishing only nine issues of Captain Marvel Adventures. During that year, the title sold a total of 11.5 million copies, a drop of 2.5 million copies, but the per issue sales average was 1.283 million copies, about the same as in 1944. In 1946, though, sales of Captain Marvel Adventures dropped by another 1.5 million copies. This was due in part to Fawcett’s postwar expansion of the title. With paper restrictions lifted, Fawcett’s circulation manager Roscoe Fawcett decreed that Captain Marvel Adventures would be published bi-weekly in 1946. Unfortunately for Fawcett, that move only resulted in smaller circulations for each issue. Sales dropped to an average of 554,000 copies per issue. Fawcett learned a valuable lesson: demand just wasn’t strong enough to support a bi-weekly release schedule. By June, the title returned to its monthly publication frequency.

Fawcett didn’t have the problem that many other publishers had of access to printing presses. While its main offices were in Greenwich, Connecticut and New York City, Fawcett also maintained smaller offices in Hollywood (for its relationships with the movie studios and advertising), Chicago (midwest sales office), and Louisville, Kentucky, the location of its wholly owned subsidiary, the C.T. Dearing Printing Co., the printer of all Fawcett magazines and comics.

Fox’s Green Mask ended its run with issues #5 and #6. TM and © respective copyright holder.

With this luxury, Fawcett was able to increase its output from 77 issues in 1945 to 161 issues the following year. Part of that increase was attributable to Fawcett’s superhero titles becoming monthly-released books. Two Fawcett titles that made their debut at the end of 1945—The Marvel Family and Mary Marvel Comics—became monthlies when their second issues were published with June cover dates. Fawcett also resumed titles that it had previously suspended in 1942 and 1943, most specifically Golden Arrow, Ibis the Invincible, Nyoka the Jungle Girl, and Hopalong Cassidy (which would soon become Fawcett’s second-best selling book). New series included Billy the Kid (not just a Western but a funny animal Western), Lance O’Casey (“The seafaring hero from Whiz Comics”), and Animal Fair, the first issue of which cover featured Hoppy the Marvel Bunny who already had his own eponymous title and starred in Funny Animals. However, Hoppy didn’t appear in any of Animal Fair’s interior stories, either in the first issue or in subsequent issues. Instead, Animal Fair starred such funny animals as Sir Spot, Chippy Chipmunk, The Cub Reporter, Colonel Walrus and Snazzy the Snail, Sloppy the Pig, and Tuck Sedo the Penguin Playboy.

A more generic humor book, Nutty Comics, had its first issue released at the start of the year. Among a plethora of stories, the issue reprinted a couple of Basil Wolverton shorts from 1945. Fawcett, though, never published a second issue of the series, most likely because Harvey Comics was already publishing its own Nutty Comics. Whether

to avoid litigation or dispel reader confusion, Fawcett changed the title of its series to Comic Comics with a new first issue (April 1946). The switch was clearly done under duress as the header of each page of Comic Comics #1 reads “Nutty Comics.” Some of the features found in Nutty Comics #1 also appear in Comic Comics, like Captain Kid (by Al Liederman) and “The Tragedy of Joe Miller.”

The most important new artist to begin working directly for Fawcett at this time was Kurt Schaffenberger. Born in Germany in 1920, Schaffenberger immigrated to America as a child. As a teen, he won a scholarship to the Pratt Institute, a highly regarded art school, and upon graduation, Schaffenberger joined the Jack Binder studio in 1941, where he contributed to several Fawcett titles. Like so many other comic book creators, Schaffenberger served in the military during World War II, and soon after he finished his service, he resumed his comic book work, only to see the Binder studio dissolved. After a brief stay at the Beck-Costanza Studio, Schaffenberger went on to freelance for Fawcett, where his distinctively charming art style seemed tailor made for Captain Marvel stories. Indeed, his output for 1946 includes such Marvel Family titles as Captain Marvel Adventures, Captain Marvel Jr., Master Comics, and Whiz Comics. (Schaffenberger also drew covers and a few stories for Don Fortune Magazine, a new comic book produced by C.C. Beck and Pete Costanza for YewdallKander Enterprises. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Don Fortune was short-lived, a likely casualty of the year’s comic book glut.)

On March 30, 1946, Schaffenberger got married, and he and his wife Dorothy settled in River Edge, New Jersey. That practically made them neighbors with a different Fawcett creator, writer Otto Binder, who lived in nearby Englewood, New Jersey with his wife Ione. Before long, the two married couples became close friends, even going on vacations together.

Binder’s output for 1946 was as prolific as one would expect of him during this decade. Besides contributing to all the Captain Marvel titles, Binder also wrote stories for Fawcett’s Bulletman and Lance O’Casey series. He even contributed to Vic Verity Magazine, the other title Beck and Costanza produced for Yewdall-Kander Enterprises, and along with those two artists, Binder produced the first Captain Marvel Story Book. As its cover implies, the Story Book was part prose novel and part comic book, interspersing text and comic panels to provide two complete multi-chapter Captain Marvel stories (“Captain Marvel on the Planet Pazzoo” and “Captain Marvel and the Trap of Doom”).

But in a September 23, 1946 letter to his longtime correspondent Clifford Kornoelje (whom Binder had met in the Chicago Science Fiction League in the 1930s and was known by his nom de plume of Jack Darrow), Otto Binder didn’t mention the Captain Marvel Story Book. Instead, he focused on the previously mentioned atomic war story in Captain Marvel Adventures #66 as well as his two-page prose story that appeared in the same issue: “Adventure in Space,” the first of many to star “Lieutenant Jon Jarl, of the Space Patrol, the Police of 2261 A.D.”

C.C. Beck’s cover for Captain Marvel Storybook #1. TM and © DC Comics.

According to his inaugural story, Jon Jarl’s duty was to “cruise the space-lanes between Earth and Mars, along the same routes followed by the giant space liners and cargo rockets.” Effectively a “space-western,” “Jon Jarl” gave Binder the opportunity to return to his science fiction pulp roots, employing tropes and story telling devices that weren’t appropriate for superhero yarns. It also gave Binder the opportunity to make a little extra money, especially since Jon Jarl continued in Captain Marvel Adventures for the next seven years, 81 installments in total. Prose stories that appeared in comic books went ignored by most readers who considered them unnecessary fillers. (Truth be told, publishers mainly included short text stories in order to qualify for a cheaper mailing rate with the United States Post Office.) “Jon Jarl,” however, proved the exception. Binder’s (often ingenious) surprise endings kept readers enthralled and eager to read more.

Only the first Jarl story credited Otto Binder as its author. All subsequent Jarl stories were attributed to “Eando” Binder, the pen name Otto used for his science fiction pulp writing, which he had begun in partnership with his brother Earl. (Thus, “E-and-O” Binder.)

Amusingly, Binder essentially signed his own name to “The Prophetic Book” (CMA #57: March 29, 1946). On an expedition in the deep woods, a professor turned up a weathered book entitled “Exploits of Captain Marvel” by “O. Binder.” Every word accurately recounted events up to and including 1946 and public clamor for a glimpse of the volume was at a fever pitch. Finally examining the tome for himself, Cap discovered a copyright date of 1977! A search of the woods revealed the remains of a time-traveler who had brought the book back with him.

Binder also kicked off a new serial— “Cult of the Curse”—in CMA #61 (May 10, 1946) that he hoped kids would greet as enthusiastically as the earlier 25-chapter “Monster Society of Evil” opus from issues #22-46. Its premise was that Billy’s magical benefactor had once been called “Shazamo,” each letter representing a god or hero who shared their abilities with him. The “O” in the equation denoted Oggar the Mighty, whose defiant thirst for power put him on the bad side of the

old wizard and the rest of his pantheon. Exiled and cursed with eternal life, “the World’s Mightiest Immortal” now returned to face the 20th Century champion of Shazam. The clash lasted six chapters, ending in issue #66 with the mythological sorceress Circe added to the mix.

“The Oggar serial was really a flop, to be frank,” Binder declared in 1973. “It was again one of my ideas and it seemed to be great in my mind, but when it came to writing and developing the theme, it just sort of went nowhere and it was quickly killed after six chapters. That was how it worked: For every good idea, there were a couple of so-so ones” (Lage).

Also in the so-so category, perhaps, was Dr. Encyclo. Having spent four decades absorbing “every scientific fact ever printed in books,” he naturally decided to become “king of the underworld” (Captain Marvel Jr. #43: October 1946). It didn’t work. Binder had him try again in Wow Comics #56 and Mary Marvel #18 during 1947.

Far more successful (if derivative) was Sivana, Jr., arriving from the planet Venus in the Binder-scripted CMA #52 (January 16, 1946) to join his wicked father in terrorizing humanity. Unlike the bald elder Sivana, Junior had a full head of hair. Having paid his respects to the World’s Mightiest Mortal in his

Introduced in Captain Marvel Adventures #52, Sivana. Jr. had been preceded by a blond brother named Magnificus in 1941’s Whiz Comics #15. TM and © DC Comics.

Captain Marvel Adventures #61 splash by C.C. Beck. TM and © DC Comics.

debut, the new kid subsequently spent most of his time fighting his logical teen opposite in Captain Marvel, Jr. and Master Comics. The match was inevitable since the elder Sivana’s daughter, Georgia, had just shown up in Mary Marvel at the end of 1945.

Older sister Beautia, prominent in the supporting cast early in the 1940s, was on hand to welcome her kid brother home but was clearly the odd woman out in the postwar era. After helping Billy and Cap thwart her father’s latest scheme in CMA #58 (April 13, 1946), she faded into the ether. Binder filled the void, in a sense, with a smart blonde named Joan Jameson, introduced in CMA #67 (November 1946) as Billy and Cap’s new secretary.

Fellow writer William Woolfolk made his own contributions to the cast, notably a little old lady/crime lord called Aunt Minerva. In CMA #59 (April 26, 1946), she set out to wed Uncle Marvel, convinced she’d be marrying into an imagined Marvel Family fortune. When that didn’t pan out, she returned in CMA #66 with an eye on Cap himself. Minerva missed out on a prospect who would have considered her a younger woman. Woolfolk tales in Captain Marvel Jr. #37-39 (April-June 1946) introduced the impossibly old Graybeard, newly released from jail after serving a 99-year sentence in full. Like Dr. Encyclo, he’d spent decades reading (in the prison library) and intended to use that knowledge to resume life as a criminal.

In an age when most Americans had yet to upgrade from radio, Woolfolk made sure Billy Batson’s employer was ahead of the curve. “Station WHIZ Goes Television” (CMA #54: February 15, 1946) also caused Captain Marvel to incite countless lovestruck women when he was prodded into singing on live TV and became a “new crooning

sensation.” Eventually, in 1952’s CMA #131, Binder ushered in another advancement when Station Whiz got atomic power!

Despite Binder’s enthusiasm for the Marvel Family and Jon Jarl, his personal letters made clear that he felt he was not as busy as he wanted to be. During the war, he had written extensively for Timely, Pines, and the Canadian publisher Anglo-American. But now Anglo-American, due to changes in the way paper could flow after the war, began producing their editorial material in Canada, closing that market to Binder. His work for other publishers like Timely was also drying up, with the return of former GI’s. The flood of young writers and artists back to New York City looking to get back into comics was creating a shortage of assignments, even for a seasoned pro like Binder.

Woolfolk was also feeling the pinch. In a latein-life interview, the writer remembered a conversation he had with Will Lieberson, Fawcett’s editor-in-chief, sometime in 1946: “Will came to me and said he knew I was working not only for Quality, but for other people, also. And he said, ‘It’s very tight for writers and we don’t have enough assignments. Can you cut down on the number of stories you do?’ And I said, ‘Sure, I’d be glad to.’ So, in effect, I left Fawcett at that time” (Schelly 110).

Goodman’s Company of Copycats

In 1945, Martin Goodman published more issues than Fawcett (Goodman’s 113 to Fawcett’s 77). Now in 1946, Goodman, like most other comic book publishers, wanted to increase production. With his pulp line (e.g., Marvel Tales, Uncanny Tales, Mystery Tales, et al.) rapidly failing, Goodman sensibly moved his pulp resources to the comic book side of his business, and with Stan Lee back in the building as his editor and art director, the sky was the limit. But as Marvel Comics expert Dr. Michael Vassallo told American Comic Book Chronicles, Goodman’s comic book operation was drastically different than what it was when Lee left it for military service: “When Stan Lee arrived back at Timely in the Fall of 1945, he found a company that had changed a great deal. No longer were superhero titles the rulers of the newsstands. The vast majority of comic books were now humor titles. Funny animal titles were everywhere! But the latest rage was teen humor, all based on the enormous success of Goodman’s rival and former mentor, Louis Silberkleit’s Archie Andrews.”

Post World War II, Goodman’s comic books ran the gamut of genres (superhero, funny animal, teen humor, “career girl”), which really didn’t impress Lee who admitted years later that “we were a company of copycats” (Lee 64). Nonetheless, Lee rolled up his sleeves and got to work. He soon learned that Goodman was publishing so many titles that managing them all would require all of his time and attention. In fact, being Goodman’s editor and art director essentially kept Lee away from his typewriter until mid-

Captain Marvel’s turn as a TV star in CMA #54 recalled the wild reaction of bobbysoxers to singer Frank Sinatra a few years earlier. TM and © DC Comics.

1947. He wrote virtually no comic books for the first 18 months following his military service, instead spending the majority of his time supervising a team of sub-editors. His focus was on originating new titles and suggesting plots for stories. He could do this with incredible facility. Other writers then produced the scripts, working with the sub-editors. Lee came up with ideas and solved problems with such ease that some of the artists working in Goodman’s bullpen felt he was a little too “nonchalant” in his demeanor. “There were a few people who didn’t take being edited very easily,” recalled artist Al Jaffee, “and they would grumble about this ‘young whippersnapper’ kind of thing, ‘wet behind the ears, and what does he know? […]’ that kind of thing. Because [Lee] solved problems very quickly, they felt he was cavalier about things. Not a lot of people felt that way, but there were a few” (Fingeroth 29).

The bullpen took in many returning veterans who had begun in comics before their military hitches. The crew included Mike Sekowsky, Ed Winiarski, Violet Barclay, Don Rico, Allen Bellman, Chris Rule, George Klein, Gary Keller, Syd Shores, Vince Alascia, Frank Giacoia, Dave Gantz, Robert Solomon, and Art Simek, nearly all of whom had contributed to Martin Goodman’s comic books before joining the military. One artist who didn’t was Gene Colan. Part of the Army Air Forces, the native New Yorker was stationed in the Philippines as part of an occupation force after Japan’s surrender. When he returned to the States in 1946, he sought work as a comic book artist. He had previously drawn for Fiction House, but now Colan looked elsewhere. He brought his samples to Timely Comics and met with editor Al Sulman. After looking over Colan’s work, Sulman took the 20-year-old artist into Stan Lee’s office. According to Colan, “[Lee] told me to sit down, and he said, ‘So you want a job, eh?’ […]. I said, ‘Yep,’ and he said, ‘Well, you’ve got one. You can start Monday.’ I was on staff” (Thomas). Little did Lee know that he hired an artist whose career would ultimately span seven decades, producing some of the most celebrated comic books in the history of the medium with a uniquely distinctive art style that rightly earned Colan the highest of accolades.

artistic talent at a very young age, Kurtzman graduated early from New York City’s High School of Music and Art and soon began producing superhero stories for Ace Magazines as part of Lou Ferstadt’s studio in the early 1940s. After being drafted in 1943, Kurtzman remained in the States, spending his time illustrating material for military camp newspapers and newsletters. This allowed him to progress his artistry further and develop his own style. Upon his discharge, Kurtzman discovered he could no longer rely on studio shops to provide him with work. If he wanted a job as a comic book artist, he needed to apply directly to the publishers.

Another future Hall of Fame creator that Lee hired in 1946 was a cartoonist only a couple of years older than Colan. His name was Harvey Kurtzman. Demonstrating

One of the publishers he approached was Timely Comics where Stan Lee offered him work writing and drawing one-page humor strips that Lee titled “Hey Look!” As Kurtzman told fellow artist Gil Kane years later, Lee gave him creative carte blanche over the filler strips: “With ‘Hey Look!’ I had a radical amount of control. Stan Lee would buy pages from me sight unseen. I’d come in with a page and he’d take it. It was unlike anything I’d done before where people would say, ‘Do this, do that, do the other thing.’ I think the more freedom you have, the more power you have, the more creative you can be.” Despite “Hey Look!” being “filler material,” it earned the respect of Timely’s other bullpen artists. In an interview for American Comic Book Chronicles, Al Jaffee recalled, “When I was working at Timely Comics, I was in a room with a bunch of other cartoonists: Mike Sekowsky, Ed Winiarski, Dave Gantz and a couple of others. Whenever we heard Harvey Kurtzman was delivering a ‘Hey Look!,’ we all jumped up and ran in to look at it. That’s how impressed we were with this young kid who was bringing these unusual things in, because we were all locked into very standard comics. I think we had a room full of pretty bright guys, and proof of it was we had an interest in what Harvey Kurtzman was bringing in. Kurtzman was nobody, this unassuming young guy delivering one page of nonsense. It wasn’t as if he was another Ken Bald or one of those hot shot guys coming in from the outside. But we all loved what Harvey was doing!”

An early sample of Harvey Kurtzman’s “Hey Look!” from Joker Comics #23 (June 1946). TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

The first two “Hey Look!” pages appeared in Joker Comics #23 (June 1946). (While not the first two “Hey Look!” pages that Kurtzman produced, they were the first to be printed.) The issue’s other stories featured “Powerhouse Pepper” (by Basil Wolverton), “Tessie the Typist,” “Ruffy Ropes,” “Squat Car Squad,” “Little Vinegar,” and “Snoopy and Dr. Nutzy.” Also appearing in the issue was a house ad that announced, “Now YOU can be the editor!” along with a “coupon” that tasked readers with listing Joker Comics’ best (and worst) characters along with an explanation of changes they would make to the title. According to the ad, readers who mailed in “one of the 50 neatest and most interesting coupons” would be rewarded with a “crisp new one dollar bill.” Adele Hasan was one of Martin Goodman’s staffers responsible for sorting through the reader responses. She was also a big fan of Kurtzman’s work, and as the story goes, Hasan didn’t like the fact that Timely’s readers didn’t share the same enthusiasm for “Hey Look!” that she had. So she “stuffed the ballot box” so that “Hey Look!” became the readers’ favorite feature in Joker Comics (Kitchen 30). Oblivious to how the poll was rigged, Stan Lee saw the results and

presumed (wrongly) that Kurtzman had become one of Timely’s most popular creators. That prompted Lee to give Kurtzman more assignments, most notably a funny animal series titled “Pigtales” that appeared in Goodman’s funny animal titles like Comedy Comics and All Surprise Comics. All the while, Kurtzman continued churning out “Hey Look!” All told, Kurtzman produced 150 installments of “Hey Look!” that appeared in print between 1946 and 1949. What he produced after that became the true foundation of his artistic legacy.

After spending about a year living and drawing in his old bedroom at home in the Bronx, Kurtzman began approaching people to share studio space with him. After a couple of abortive attempts through 1946, at the year’s end he’d managed to recruit two acquaintances he knew from the High School of Music and Art: Charles Stern and Will Elder. They found a space over an Italian restaurant, and the Charles William Harvey Studio was born.

As for Adele Hasan, she left Timely at the end of the summer in order to attend college. By that point, she and Kurtzman had started dating, spurred by their affectionate interactions whenever he came to Timely’s offices to drop off work. Even while she was in college, they remained in frequent contact. Before long, she dropped out, and in September 1948, she and Kurtzman got married.

Too Little, Too Late for the All Winners Squad

In 1945, Martin Goodman began paring down his superhero offerings by cancelling Daring Comics, Mystic Comics, and U.S.A. Comics. This trend continued into 1946 as with its eleventh issue, Kid Komics ditched its Bucky and Toro leads and replaced them with such derivative funny animal characters as Krazy Krow, Silly Seal, Zippy Pig, Speedy and Sappy Rabbit, and Oscar Pig. (This genre shift only lasted one issue as with its twelfth issue (April 1947), Kid Komics became Rusty Comics featuring “America’s Funniest Female!”).

Similarly, with its eleventh issue (Fall 1946), All Select Comics—which had been starring Captain America, Bucky, the Human Torch, Toro, and the Sub-Mariner—cover featured a new character: a statuesque woman wearing a domino mask and a long red evening gown. She was “The Blonde Phantom,” the alter ego of Louise Grant, a secretary for private detective Mark Mason. When her boss needed some clandestine help to solve his cases, Louise became the mysterious Blonde Phantom, ever ready to use her long legs to kick her adversaries in the jaw. For more lethal encounters, she carried a .45 caliber pistol (which she kept hidden somewhere in her gown).

The Blonde Phantom was created by editor Al Sulman, at the request of Stan Lee, and while at first glance, the character looks like a deliberate takeoff of Quality Comics’ Phantom Lady, Sulman insists the Blonde Phantom was inspired by a different crimefighting heroine:

The Blonde Phantom stepped into the spotlight on Syd Shores’ cover for All-Select #11 TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

A house ad from All Winners #19. TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

“Wonder Woman was popular, so Stan [Lee] thought we should have a heroine, too. So, I created […] ‘The Blonde Phantom,’ and I wrote those strips myself” (Amash 50). Evidently, Goodman had enough confidence in the new character’s potential to change All Select Comics to Blonde Phantom Comics with the very next issue (#13, Winter 1946). From there, her presence in Goodman’s lineup would only expand.

But just as Goodman was methodically reducing and converting his superhero titles, he made a curious move: he grouped his most popular superheroes into a team. Nearly six years after the debut of the original comic book superhero team, the Justice Society of America, Goodman finally presented his own super-powered group in All Winners Comics #19 (Fall 1946). The All Winners Squad consisted of Captain America, the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, Miss America, the Whizzer, Bucky, and Toro. It was certainly an “all-star” cast, but late in his life, Stan Lee confessed that he remembered very little about the team, to the point where he believed his boss was the person responsible for its creation: “I suspect that [Timely’s publisher] Martin Goodman was the guy behind the All Winners Squad. It’s not the type of title I’d have made up. I think he simply must have said to me one day, ‘I wanna do a book featuring the Torch, Toro, CA, etc.—and let’s call it The All Winners Squad.’ In which case I woulda just gotten the stuff together and sent it out” (Thomas).

While Cap’s impassioned speech reflected the tenor of the times, it had a negligible impact on readers. As comic book historian Roy Thomas explains, “Five years earlier, the Squad would probably have made All Winners a top seller for Timely, worthy of competing with the JSA over at DC, and with Captain Marvel and his Shazam-powered family at Fawcett. But in 1946 very few readers noticed. To be fair, they hardly had a chance to notice. One issue (#19) came out with no fanfare, no house ads, no nothing […] It was a classic case of both too little and too late” (Thomas). Indeed, unlike the Justice Society, the All Winners Squad’s glory was very short-lived.

Two Houses, One Roof

The person Lee tapped to write the All Winners Squad’s inaugural adventure was Batman co-creator Bill Finger. While Finger never wrote a JSA story for DC Comics, he clearly understood that team’s story format as he imported it to the All Winners Squad: “The Crime of the Ages” spanned seven chapters (totaling 43 pages) with each adult Squad member receiving their own chapter before the team reassembled for the story’s conclusion. As principally drawn by Syd Shores, the story’s plot involves a villain named Isbisa who sends the Squad on a wild goose chase to give him the opportunity to steal an atomic bomb and with it become “dictator of the world.” Fortunately, the Squad regroups and stops Isbisa before he can accomplish his goal. In the story’s final panel, Captain America declares, “Dictators! We’ve had enough of them! Atomic Power must be used for peace, not wars! It must be used to make life better for all people! The coming atomic age is not for one man—it is for the common man—for all mankind!”

For Detective Comics, the year started with its owners— Harry Donenfeld, Jack Liebowitz, and Paul Sampliner—in possession of All-American Comics, which had been sold to them by M.C. Gaines in September 1945. Although the two companies were now under one roof, for the next year, they continued to be edited as separate entities. For instance, Sheldon Mayer continued to oversee the editorial staff for All-American Comics, which included Julius Schwartz and a new assistant editor hire, Robert Kanigher, who was replacing Ted Udall. Elsewhere in the building, Whitney Ellsworth continued as the editorial head of the Detective Comics titles. Sol Harrison was one of the few employees who worked for both lines, serving as production manager for both All-American and Detective Comics. It wasn’t until September 30, 1946 that the two companies formally merged into National Comics Publications, which was the company’s official name for the next 15 years.

The All Winners Squad’s first case climaxed with the unmasking of Isbisa as unassuming secretary Meke, as illustrated by Syd Shores. TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Detective Comics had weathered World War II without a great deal of difficulty, and, with the addition of the All-American characters, was now poised to assert even greater dominance in the postwar years. Owning the magazine distributor company Independent News helped assure the best possible newsstand space, and the majority of National’s titles was being printed by the Bridgeport Herald Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Good access to paper allowed National to (1) hold the line at 52 pages in all but a few titles, and (2) increase the publication frequency of a good portion of its line. Titles that had been published as quarterlies (like All-Flash, All-Star Comics, Boy Commandos, Comic Cavalcade, Green Lantern, Leading Comics, Real Screen Comics, Wonder Woman, World’s Finest) were now being released every other month, and titles that had become bi-monthlies at the end of 1945 (i.e., Adventure Comics, All-American Comics, Flash Comics, More Fun Comics) were now appearing every month. One of National’s funny animal titles, Funny Stuff, even got upgraded from a quarterly to a monthly in 1946.

In September, Action Comics became the fourth National comic book to reach its 100th issue (after Detective, More Fun, and Adventure). The Superman story in that issue, as written by Alvin Schwartz and drawn by Ira Yarbrough, featured Inspector Hawkins, a brilliant Scotland Yard detective who was convinced Clark Kent was really Superman. Lois Lane’s own suspicions were already a part of the Man of Steel’s lore but this was still largely uncharted territory. Hawkins spends the entirety of the 12-page story trying (and failing) to prove it. “The Sleuth Who Never Failed,” then, became the template for many Superman stories published over the next several decades that centered on someone (usually Lois) trying (and again, failing) to prove that Clark Kent and Superman are the same person.

issue’s cover and its content, with the story’s title prominently displayed on the cover. This started occurring as early as Action #49 (June 1942) with “The Wizard of Chance,” but such story promotion became ubiquitous by 1946. Perhaps the coordination between Jerry Siegel, the Shuster studio, and story editor Mort Weisinger made it difficult to match the cover and the interior story, or perhaps sometimes covers were drawn before scripts were written. By the decade’s end, however, just about every cover promoted a specific story within the issue. It was a way of intriguing browsing consumers with more than merely a reminder of the star of the book. Future Superman scribe Jim Shooter would recall that in the 1960s, National’s policy was to have an artist draw two splash pages, with the “better” one becoming the cover and the “lesser” one becoming the story’s introductory splash page (Arndt 9). Perhaps that policy had its origins in the 1940s.

The most consistent story trend in the postwar Superman books continued to be humor. National even acknowledged the trend with the cover to Action #97 (June 1946) that declared the issue to be “another zany Superman adventure.” To be more specific, the comedy of many Superman stories this year relied on the Man of Steel being mocked, humiliated, exasperated, or confounded. Hence, “The Laughing Stock of Metropolis!” in Action #95 (April 1946) features the return of the Prankster. Shortly thereafter, the insufferable Mr. Mxyzptlk teamed up with Lois Lane’s equally insufferable niece, Susie Thompkins, in Superman #40 (May-June 1946). The two pests then appeared in their own Action stories later in the year: Susie in issue #98 (July 1946) and Mr. Mxyzptlk in issue #102 (Nov. 1946), with the imp turning our hero into a genie in a lamp.

The Wayne Boring-drawn cover to Action Comics #100 faithfully encapsulates the Superman story presented in the issue and as such, demonstrated a new trend in the postwar years. Instead of merely displaying the lead character in an intriguing or heroic way, the covers of Action Comics (as well as Superman) would more often than not “announce” the issue’s interior Superman story. In other words, a direct connection was being made between an

Two stories that bucked the comedy trend were distinctly based in the new Atomic Age. In “The Battle of the Atoms” from Superman #38 (Jan.-Feb. 1946), Luthor employed atomic energy that not only began to melt the Daily Planet presses but the building itself. The climax had the villain tossing a small atomic bomb at the Man of Steel to negligible effect. The splash page enthusiastically declared, “Due to wartime censorship restrictions on subjects dealing with atomic experiments, […] this story wasn’t previously released to the public.”

First seen on Wayne Boring’s cover for Action Comics #100, Inspector Hawkins continued his obsession with discovering Superman’s secret identity in two 1950s stories. TM and © DC Comics.

The statement was no lie as FBI agents had shown up at the company offices after an April 1945 Superman newspaper story began featuring a cyclotron. Questioning Whitney Ellsworth and Jack Schiff, the agents insisted the cyclotron be removed from the story. The Luthor comic book story was put on hold at the same time. “We really should have suspected what was happening,” Schiff later recalled. “This was a possible leak” (Schiff A-65).

Later in the year, Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye’s eye-catching cover for Action Comics #101 (Oct. 1946) shows Superman filming an atomic bomb blast with a blurb that reads, “In this issue! Superman Covers Atom Bomb Test!” The story, “Crime Paradise!,” drawn by Win Mortimer, is actually a sort of precursor to the Red Kryptonite stories of later years. In this instance, the Man of Steel begins to act irrationally. It turns out he has been given an ancient drug that causes him to refuse to save a drowning man, turn a skyscraper upside down, et al. Confused, Superman flies over the Pacific Ocean and runs into a U.S. Navy atomic bomb test. (On July 1, about six weeks before the publication of Action Comics #101, the U.S. had conducted a nuclear bomb test near Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.) The force of the huge blast clears his head. He then returns to Metropolis and sets all things right. But unlike Captain Marvel’s horrific atomic war story in CMA #66, this Superman story’s atomic “theme”—likely also timed for the one-year anniversary of the HiroshimaNagasaki bombings (both comic books were cover-dated October 1946)—was genuinely tangential to the story.

Superman Battles the Ku Klux Klan

Like comics, the radio program The Adventures of Superman was at a creative crossroads with the end of the war. It could no longer depend on Superman facing the German or Japanese villains of the war years to fuel storylines. In fact, the radio program was in much more imminent trouble in that regard because, unlike comics, which came out monthly at best and could be excused to some extent for having some books and storylines still set during the war, the radio show aired daily, and its producers and writers had to keep up with the changing times.

At this point The Adventures of Superman was drawing four million listeners over 200 radio stations. In those days, most programs were backed by one major commercial sponsor, who had a great deal of control over the creative direction of that program. In the case of The Adventures of Superman, that sponsor was the Michigan-based Kellogg’s, the cereal company, whose advertising agency was Kenyon and Eckhardt. K&E’s vice president, William B. Lewis, thought that instead of battling leftover Nazis, Superman should take on contemporary social issues, including fascism and anti-Semitism, while endorsing good citizenship and the beneficial uses of tolerance, fair play and acceptance of different religions and races. As he put it, “We’re not in the business of education…We’re selling corn flakes. But we’d like to do both. We sure would like to do both” (Bowers 116).

The sponsor and the radio program’s writing staff turned to Josette Frank, a well-known researcher for the Child Study Association of America, for advice and as a contact person for various organizations that would be receptive to the show’s intention and help promote the idea of a radio show combining action and adventure with social commentary. The risk, of course, of this approach was that the entertainment/ action aspect of the Superman radio show might be overwhelmed by the social message or, vice versa, the seriousness of the social message might be muted by Superman’s heroics. Something else that had to be considered was the likelihood of portions of the audience, perhaps major portions in some parts of the country, supporting what the program was opposing, and therefore tuning out in protest. It would take a special kind of script writer to juggle both concerns so that The Adventures of Superman would be balanced, not between social commentary and fascist beliefs, but between the show’s entertainment and educational needs. They found such a writer in Ben Peter Freeman.

The first hint of this new push for social relevance came on February 5, 1946, when the opening narration for the show was rewritten as “Yes, it’s Superman. Strange visitor from another planet, who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Superman, defender of law and order, champion of equal rights, valiant, courageous fighter against the forces of hate and prejudice!”

The explosive cover of Action Comics #101 was drawn by Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye. TM and © DC Comics.

Freeman’s first story for the program was “The Hate Mongers Organization” in which teenage arsonists, inspired by the hate speech of racist and religious bigot Frank Hill, began torching the stores and synagogues of religions they don’t like, as well as beating witnesses (particularly a Catholic boy) of their deeds. Clark Kent explains to Jimmy Olsen, “Their game is to stir up hatred among all of us—to get the Catholic to hate the Jew and the Jew to hate the Protestant, and the Protestant to hate the Catholic. It’s a dirty, vicious circle, and like Hitler and his Nazi killers, they plan to step in and pick up the marbles while we’re busy hating one another and cutting each other’s throats.” Jimmy goes undercover and gets quite close to Hill himself but is soon unmasked by a prominent member of the community, a closet racist who knows Olsen is a newspaper reporter. Jimmy is captured, taken to a Metropolis bridge and thrown into the river to drown. Fortunately, Superman comes to his rescue. After the murderous gang of fascists are rounded up, it’s discovered that Frank Hill is actually Franz Hiller, a former Nazi spy whose grand plan is to establish a fascist dictatorship in the U.S.

During this initial storyline the program’s ratings went through the roof, making The Adventures of Superman the most listened to children’s radio show in the country. The success of “The Hate Mongers Organization” helped convince the radio producers and sponsors that they were on the right path. But what should the next destination on this path be?

Enter civil rights activist Stetson Kennedy. Unable to serve in the military due to a bad back, Kennedy spent the war years writing arti cles that railed against the Ku Klux Klan’s influence in the South. As historian Rick Bowers explains, “Kennedy figured that battling the Klan and homegrown Nazi organi zations was a worthy contribu tion to the cause of democracy, particularly since so many of his friends had shipped off for duty abroad” (Bowers 107). In 1943, Kennedy furthered his crusade by moving from Florida to Atlanta, Georgia, which at the time was “the spiritual home of the mod ern KKK and a perceived safe haven for other extremist groups. It was a perfect perch for [Kennedy to be] watching his adversaries and reporting on their activities” (Bowers 107).

Kennedy decided the best way to expose the Klan, whom he correctly believed were on the verge of a major comeback

following the war, was to go undercover and infiltrate the Klan itself, using, like Superman, a secret identity. The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, a Jewish-founded organization that promoted and defended the rights of all peoples, provided him with a false ID that established him as a traveling encyclopedia salesman named John S. Perkins. Kennedy was also aided in his mission by the NonSectarian Anti-Nazi League (ANL) (Bowers 108). As John S. Perkins, Kennedy began to subscribe to dozens of hate sheets put out by various white supremacist groups, but he was especially focused on the Klan and their supporters in Atlanta, including Georgia’s then-governor, Eugene Talmadge. Kennedy went so far as to purchase a Klan robe and hood and befriend other Klan members. This was, on Kennedy’s part, a dangerous subterfuge. If exposed, he stood a good chance of being murdered and the likelihood of him having any support from rank-and-file law enforcement in the deep South was slim. (Indeed, one of Kennedy’s more alarming findings while undercover was the strong involvement of Atlanta police officers in the Klan organization.)

Kennedy’s “insider” knowledge of the Klan resulted in a series of articles that were published by a variety of newspapers and magazines around the country (like The New York Post and The Nation). Kennedy’s writings, which included a 364-page book titled Southern Exposure that was published in 1946, documented the Klan’s violent acts and practices, its grand scheme to infiltrate and rob government stockpiles for weapons, and even its more mundane habit of raising money via ham dinners put on by the Klan members’ wives. Otherwise, Kennedy’s findings ended up at the Anti-Defamation League, and when people involved with Superman radio show approached the League for information they could use for their program, they were handed a veritable treasure trove of material.

With genuine Klan information in hand, Freeman wrote a 16-part radio play entitled “Clan of the Fiery Cross,” with its first episode airing June 10, 1946. Since the Ku Klux Klan was a legal organization in many states, the program avoided mentioning it directly, referring, instead, to the fictitious “Clan of the Fiery Cross.” The story also didn’t cast African Americans as the victims of this “Clan.” (Many Americans believed the Klan only persecuted blacks and Jews, but in reality, the white supremacist group practically targeted all ethnic minorities including Asians,

Catholics of any nationality, and any immigrant group that didn’t speak English, either not particularly well or at all.) Instead, the victims in “Clan of the Fiery Cross” were a Chinese American boy and his family. Freeman’s script allowed for no crude use of dialects; every character (regardless of ethnicity) had to speak clear “American” English. Neither Southern drawls nor pidgin-English were to be used to stereotype either villains or victims. This was to be Superman’s take on tolerance and the damage to the people and the country itself because of racial, religious and ethnic hatred. The story even restrained Superman’s powers somewhat in order to let everyday citizens shine as heroes as well. Despite all the changes, it didn’t take a keen listener to fathom that the storyline’s villains were thinly veiled versions of the KKK. The Klan’s actual costumes, rhetoric, mode of operation and intent were behind every move and statement of the “Clan”.

The story arc’s script goes to great lengths to show people from all corners of life having the conscience to oppose the Clan. For instance, besides publishing an editorial that condemns the Clan, Perry White also offers a $1000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the Clan members who kidnapped and injured Tommy. The Daily Planet editor declares, “They can’t scare me with their mumbo jumbo and burning crosses. I just hope this country realizes the threat posed by these lunatics in nightshirts” (Bowers 136). In retaliation, the Clan kidnap Perry and Jimmy as a prelude to killing them as an object lesson for other whites. Chuck, who has become disillusioned by his uncle’s increasingly violent turn, turns to Clark Kent and Lois Lane and provides the information needed for Superman to save Perry and Jimmy.

“Clan of the Fiery Cross” centers around Tommy Lee, a second-generation Chinese American and the star pitcher for the non-sectarian Unity House baseball team, which is managed by Jimmy Olsen. Tommy is well liked by his teammates, with the exception of Chuck Riggs, the team’s second-best pitcher, who is bitterly angry that Tommy has replaced him as the lead pitcher. After being accidentally beaned, Chuck accuses Tommy of deliberately hitting him. To stop an impeding fistfight between the two, Jimmy sends Chuck home.

The story arc’s main villain is then introduced: Chuck’s uncle, Matt Riggs. When Matt learns of what happened on the baseball diamond, he tries to exploit Chuck’s anger, enticing him to join the secret organization he is the Grand Scorpion of, the Clan of the Fiery Cross. Like the KKK, the Clan wore white robes, but their sewn-on emblem consisted of a scorpion on a pale blue background rather than the KKK’s signature white cross on red emblem.

Tommy’s father is a scientist whose new home is the envy of some of his co-workers. (The show delivering the message here that one doesn’t have to be a Clan member to be a bigot.) He becomes targeted by the Clan, who sets a cross on fire on his lawn in an effort to force him out of Metropolis. Clark and Jimmy are among those who arrive to help the Lees put out the flames in front of their home.

The Clan doesn’t stop there, however. The Clan’s action committee kidnaps Tommy, with plans to tar and feather him, but Tommy escapes (breaking his arm in the process) and runs for his life. Leaping into a river to get away from the pursuing Clansmen, he nearly drowns but Superman rescues him.

As a reminder that racial bigotry is also big business, the story then introduces the money man behind the Clan: Mr. Wilson, the Grand Imperial mogul and Supreme Nation Leader of the Clan of the Fiery Cross, who doesn’t give a fig for hate speech except in how it allows him to make money from the Clan members. Matt Riggs believes that Wilson will be delighted with the steps Matt’s chapter has undertaken to destroy the Lees and those who support them, but Wilson is furious because the publicity of Riggs’s criminal activities has cut into the money-gathering recruitment drives and fundraising that Wilson is actually interested in. Wilson then mocks Riggs for his racist beliefs: “Is it possible that you actually believe all that stuff about getting rid of foreigners—that one race, one religion, one color hokum? You’ve become drunk on the slop we put up for the suckers” (Bowers 138). Enraged, Riggs kills Wilson. Now believing that all doors are closing on him, Riggs realizes he needs to eliminate the three people who can testify against him: Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, and his nephew Chuck, who has betrayed both him and the Clan. Fortuitously, all three of Riggs’s enemies will be attending the championship baseball game. (Because of Tommy’s broken arm, Chuck has been reinstated as the team’s lead pitcher.) Riggs takes up a sniper position on a roof overlooking the field where he can shoot all three individuals. Superman, though, spots him and captures him. The ballgame is concluded with Chuck and Tommy now friends.

Ratings for The Adventures of Superman soared even higher after the “Cult of the Fiery Cross” concluded on July 1, 1946. News organizations and social reform organizations flooded the airways and press outlets with enormous praise for the broadcast. Obviously, none of that praise came from the Ku Klux Klan. On the contrary, the KKK’s New Jersey section bombarded Robert Maxwell, the

The cover story of Superman #39 (March-April 1946) involved the Man of Steel with his own radio program and concluded with a plug for the show. TM and © DC Comics.

producer of The Adventures of Superman, with death threats. With New Jersey Klan members located just across the Hudson River from the Mutual radio studio where episodes of The Adventures of Superman were being produced, their threats had to be taken seriously. The Klan was particularly incensed (and frankly worried) about the utterance, sprinkled throughout the serial’s 16-day broadcast, of secret Klan code words that they used to mask their illegal activities. It clearly meant that someone who attended Klan proceedings was supplying accurate information about their goings-on. If it was that easy to infiltrate the Klan, then their activities, in both crime and fundraising, were at risk. And if a children’s show could mock them by depicting them as bumbling clods and greedy men more in love with money than their stated ideals, how could that affect the perspective of influential media outlets and the rank-and-file Americans who were on the cusp of supporting the Klan? Which way would they now turn?

In April 1947, the ADL announced the KKK’s infiltrator was Stetson Kennedy. (Presumably, Kennedy consented to being outed.) According to reports, the Klan, who still didn’t know what Kennedy looked like, had offered a contract hit on him. If so, that hit was never carried out. Stetson died in 2011 at the ripe old age of 94.

Although National Comics never published an adaptation of “Clan of the Fiery Cross” at any time during the late 1940s, it admirably condemned racism and promoted understanding through its Jack Schiff-scripted “Johnny Everyman” feature in Comic Cavalcade and World’s Finest between 1944 and 1947. “Prepared in cooperation with the East and West Association,” the series was likely launched when the group’s co-founder and a Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck took a seat on the comics publisher’s Editorial Advisory Board. Episodes of “Johnny Everyman” bluntly called out racism against Americans who were black or Jewish or of Asian descent while advocating greater understanding of different cultures. In October 2019, 73 years after “Clan of the Fiery Cross” was broadcast, DC

Comics published the first issue of Superman Smashes the Klan, a threeissue series written by Gene Luen Yang (a Chinese American), drawn by Gurihiru (a Japanese illustration team) and inspired by the radio serial. It would go on to win multiple prestigious industry awards: two Harveys (for Best Children or Young Adult Book and the Mike Wieringo Spirit Award) and two Eisners (Best Publication for Kids and Best Adaptation from Another Medium).

The End of the Batman Syndicated Strip(s)

Represented by the McClure Syndicate, the Batman daily newspaper strip began on October 25, 1943, and its Sunday strip started November 7, 1943. Almost exactly three years later, though, both strips were dropped. The last Sunday appeared on October 27, 1946, and the last daily strip on November 2, 1946. Comics historian Joe Desris, among others, have come

up with numerous reasons for the short lifespan of the Dynamic Duo in newspaper syndication.

First, the competition for newspaper space was fierce, and McClure was a small syndicate, compared to King Features, NEA Service and the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate. In 1945, McClure offered a modest ten features compared to King’s 148, NEA’s 86 and the Tribune’s 83.

Second, the Batman strip was clearly aimed at kids, whereas most newspaper strips were geared toward adults, since it was adults who selected and purchased the paper. And kids themselves may have been disappointed by the occasional extended sequence where the Caped Crusaders appeared out of costume.

Third, the artwork provided by Bob Kane on the dailies was crude and cartoony. While the same could be said for other newspaper strips, Kane’s ham-fisted, and often downright poor, draftsmanship wasn’t compensated for in other areas. (For example, any complaints readers had about Dick Tracy’s art style were mitigated by Chester Gould’s superior design elements.)

Jack Burnley’s art on the Sunday strip was comparatively first rate. Like most Sunday features of the period, however, it was locked into uniform panel sizes so that newspapers could reconfigure it to run as a half-page strip or a full tabloid page. The lack of splash pages and larger panels lessened the impact of the newspaper strip’s action scenes.

In any event, the last year of the Sunday strip offered strong material, including a February 10-March 10 sequence (scripted by Alvin Schwartz) wherein the Penguin’s Aunt Miranda revealed the villain’s real name for the first time: Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot.

Released in 2019, Superman Smashes the Klan was inspired by the storyline aired on Superman radio show in 1946. TM and © DC Comics.

The last Batman daily strip (Nov. 2, 1946) was written by Bill Finger with art by Bob Kane and Charles Paris. TM and © DC Comics.

A thrilling Sunday story running from June 23 to August 18 presented a reconceived origin of Two-Face. In this account, the disfigured villain was a vain actor named Harvey Apollo whose larger-than-life dual crimes climaxed during the robbery of a drive-in movie. Unlike the comic books’ happy ending, writer Bill Finger had the strip’s version of Two-Face accidentally hang himself, his corpse lit by a movie projector splashing “The End” on the screen behind him.

To observers, the end of the Batman syndicated strip must have seemed like a set-back for Bob Kane, because being a newspaper cartoonist was a dream come true for him, as it was for many comic book artists during this era. Batman had been a success at every turn, but now Kane had to accept that it had failed as a newspaper strip.

And with the strip canceled, one would think that Kane would have redirected his time and efforts to the Batman comic books. He didn’t. He continued to rely on ghost writers and artists (like Don Cameron, Bill Finger, Alvin Schwartz, Paul Cooper, Win Mortimer, Howard Sherman, and Dick Sprang, among others) to produce the tales Kane was contracted to provide to National. Indeed, Kane provided little artwork for the Batman comic books in the later years of the 1940s (and almost none in the decades afterwards). In 1946, Kane seemed more focused on a different matter.

In September, shortly before the Batman newspaper strip ended, Kane was lionized in National’s Real Fact Comics #5 (Nov.-Dec. 1946) via its cover-featured “True Story of

Batman and Robin.” The five-page interior story explained how Batman—and everything associated with the character (e.g., his utility belt, the Batmobile, the Batcave, Robin, Batman’s villains, etc.)—sprang fully formed from the fertile imagination of Bob Kane. The story was a near total fabrication as it neglected to take into account (or even mention) the contributions of other writers and artists, most notably Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson, who assisted Kane in the creation of Batman and his supporting cast. Illustrated by Win Mortimer, the farcical tale was jointly scripted by Mort Weisinger, Jack Schiff, and Bernie Breslauer.

Curiously enough, one person not involved with “The True Story of Batman and Robin” was Bob Kane himself. Given this, one has to wonder why National would bother publishing a story that positioned Kane as Batman’s sole creator. Presumably, something was happening behind the scenes. It was in 1946 that Kane became aware that two of National’s most important creators had become so resentful of the publisher that a lawsuit seemed inevitable. Recognizing an opportunity, Kane sought to use this brewing feud to secure himself a better standing with National. How matters ultimately played out would be revealed in 1947.

When not being deployed to shore up Bob Kane’s mythology, Real Fact Comics (its first issue cover dated MarchApril 1946) was a title that editor Jack Schiff was proud of. “Murray [Boltinoff], Mort [Weisinger], and I were the team responsible for Real Fact Comics,” he recalled. “It was done as a package deal for DC. We spent a lot of time together, writing, editing, and rewriting each other’s material until we had just what we wanted. It was our pet baby for about three or four years. We put our top artists, such as Howard Sherman, Fred Ray and Dick Sprang on the features which ranged all over the fields of history, science, adventure, magic—you name it! We featured famous personalities, current and old, as well as some excellent departments I loved” (Schiff A65-A66).

The final Batman Sunday strip (Oct. 27, 1946) was scripted by Alvin Schwartz and drawn by Jack Burnley and Charles Paris. TM and © DC Comics.

Bob Kane (as drawn by Win Mortimer) from Real Fact Comics #5. TM and © DC Comics.

More Fun Comics Gets More Fun

In 1946, National added more humor and funny animal titles to a lineup which already boasted All Funny Comics, Buzzy, Funny Stuff, Leading Comics, Mutt & Jeff, and Real Screen Comics. The first two months of the year brought the debut issues of both Animal Antics and Funny Folks The lead feature of the former was Presto Pete, a magician’s rabbit who gets so tired of being pulled out of a hat that he decides to become a magician himself. Hilarity ensues when Presto’s magic doesn’t go as planned. The most endearing character of Funny Folks would turn out to be Nutsy Squirrel. Written by Woody Gelman and drawn by Irving Dressler, Nutsy Squirrel’s adventures were true to his name: zany and unpredictable (with lots of nuts).

At the same time that Animal Antics and Funny Folks launched, National’s longest running title, More Fun Comics which had already been cover featuring Henry Boltinoff’s comedy duo “Dover and Clover” since issue #98 (July-Aug. 1944), usually with some of the title’s other stars, —became entirely focused on humor with issue #108 (March 1946). That issue’s cover declared, “More Fun Comics is loaded with More Fun Than Ever!” The series now included not only “Dover and Clover” but also Stan Kaye’s “Genius Jones” and “Cunnel Custard,” Tom McNamara’s “Gas House Gang,” and Jack Farr’s “Cabbie Casey,” among other features.

The superheroes previously starring in More Fun (i.e., Green Arrow, Superboy, Johnny Quick, and Aquaman) had to be moved to a different title. Their new home became Adventure Comics, starting with issue #103 (April 1946). They joined the Shining Knight, who had been appearing in Adventure since issue #66 (Sept. 1941). Despite being Adventure Comics mainstays for longer than the Shining Knight, Starman and Sandman (along with the latter’s sidekick, Sandy) were removed from the title and thrown into comic book limbo, not to be seen again until the mid-1960s.

Green Arrow, also appearing in each issue of World’s Finest Comics, was beginning to add a bit of variety to his arsenal. Among the items he pulled from his quiver in 1946-dated issues were a Dynamite Arrow (More Fun #107), a phosphorescent Tracer Arrow (WFC #20), a Boomerang Arrow (Adventure #108), and Flaming Arrows (Adventure #111). He and Speedy also picked up a major nemesis, an acrobatic clown called Bull’s-Eye (WFC #24: Sept.-Oct. 1946) who made a dozen appearances between 1946 and 1954.

The Boy Commandos acquired an arch-foe of their own in issue #15 (May-June 1946) of their eponymous title. The color-themed Crazy Quilt appeared in four issues of the group’s book, but it was a fifth appearance in a 1951 Robin solo story (Star Spangled Comics #123) that forever linked the villain to the Batman rogues’ gallery and led to regular appearances of the character decades later. Similarly, the Blue Snowman (secretly the female Byrna Brilyant) from Sensation Comics #59 (Nov. 1946) was a minor presence among Wonder Woman’s 1940s adversaries but made a modest comeback in the 21st Century. Hawkman’s encounter with the bird people in the hidden land of Feithera (Flash Comics #71: May 1946) similarly became an important element in the 1980s Infinity, Inc. title.

Conversely, there were details in other 1946 stories that were never revisited. Courtesy of writer John Wentworth and artist Joe Kubert, Sargon the Sorcerer acquired a comical, overweight sidekick named Maximillian O’Leary in All-American Comics #70 (Jan.-Feb. 1946). The so-called “sorcerer’s apprentice” followed Sargon to his new regular home in Sensation Comics #52, but Max never experienced the Bronze Age revival that his mentor did. Likewise, Shocko, the son of Johnny Thunder’s Thunderbolt (Flash Comics #73), was effectively shunned after 1946 save for a brief 21st century cameo. And no one ever spoke again of Wildcat pal Stretch Skinner’s superhero alias of Tomcat (Sensation Comics #49) or of Hop Harrigan’s own costumed persona, the Black Lamp (All-American Comics #78).

Hop did enjoy a last moment in the spotlight, the cover of All-American #77 promoting the fact that Jon Blummer’s long-running aviator hero was starring in a movie serial whose first chapter premiered on March 28, 1946. William Bakewell played the title character with Sumner Getchell as his mechanic and friend Tank Tinker.

In the comics, Hop returned to civilian life, although his first story in a 1946 issue of All-American (#70) slapped a “war is over” framing sequence around a tale obviously prepared while the fighting was still on. Elsewhere, a Curt Swan/Steve Brodie-illustrated story in Detective

Henry Boltinoff’s cover for More Fun Comics #108. TM and © DC Comics.

Comics #110 (April 1945) saw the Boy Commandos fly to the United States following the end of the war… minus one member. Jan Haasan decided to return to his native Holland to join his grandfather.

Although honorably discharged from the Army in 1943, Alan Scott, a.k.a. the Green Lantern, had since drifted around as a jack of all trades in the radio business. In Alfred Bester and Martin Nodell’s GL #20 (June-July 1946), a false accusation got him fired before Green Lantern caught the true villains…and wrecked the WXYZ studio. Alan arrived, repaired the equipment, wrote copy for a news program, and worked in the sound booth and as emcee on a new variety show. The station manager not only rehired Alan but declared him “too valuable to lose. From now on, you can hold every job in the place if you want to! You can do anything you want around here-because you can do anything! Hear that? Any job you want!” And that’s how Alan Scott became general manager of the radio station, a position he held well into his Silver and Bronze Age appearances.

As far as the group that Green Lantern was a member of, the Justice Society of America, their most notable adventure of the year occurred in All-Star Comics #30 (Aug.-Sept. 1946), in which Brain Wave (his first appearance since 1943’s All-Star #17) drives the team mad via dreams. The imagination of the story’s writer, Gardner Fox, is on full display as the various heroes confront some vivid nightmares. For instance, in his chapter, the Atom, having been soaked by water, suddenly turns giant and reaches up to pull a light-bulb-style chain that dangles from a dark cloud: “I’ll turn on the sunlight and that’ll absorb the water in me.” In an earlier chapter, Dr. MidNite kills his tormentor germs merely by his accidental touch. His tale ends with him sobbing, “A disease! That’s what I am—not a man—not a human being—nothing but a living sickness!”

Fox’s long tenure on All-Star Comics was coming to an end, but as 1947 would show, he would produce some of his best Justice Society stories before he left.

Dell’s Rising Stars

While lesser comic book publishers struggled during the comics glut of 1946, Dell Publishing sailed through with seemingly few problems. It didn’t have to worry about securing press time since it owned (courtesy of its partnership with Western Printing & Lithographing) a giant printing plant in Poughkeepsie, New York. Even Western’s closest competitor, National Comics, didn’t have its own printing plant. Dell also had an enviable relationship with American News Corporation, the 800-pound gorilla of distributors, which guaranteed space for Dell’s titles on the best newsstands across the country.

Now with paper restrictions lifted, Dell boosted its output from 112 issues published in 1945 to 133 in 1946. Included in this increased production were two new titles. “Raggedy Ann and Andy” graduated from their slot in New Funnies to earn their own eponymous monthly title (first issue cover dated June 1946). The living dolls’ new adventures were illustrated by George Kerr and (possibly) writ-

ten by Gaylord Dubois. Among Raggedy Ann and Andy’s regular back-up features were Dan Noonan’s “Egbert Elephant,” Walt Kelly’s “Animal Mother Goose” tales, and Frank Thomas’s “Billy and Bonny Bee.”

Dell’s other new title starred the singing cowboy, Gene Autry. The movie star had been featured in seven issues of Four Color from 1944 to 1946, most recently in issue #100 (March 1946), prompting Dell to give Autry his own series again with a new first issue (cover dated MayJune 1946). This would be the second official Gene Autry Comics series, following Fawcett’s ten issue run that started in 1941 and was continued by Dell for a couple of issues in 1943 and 1944. Handling the title’s art chores was the same man who drew three of Autry’s Four Color appearances, Jesse Marsh.

The other features appearing in Four Color in 1946 were the usual array of popular licensed characters, from both newspapers and film: Winnie Winkle, Dick Tracy, Terry and the Pirates, Tillie the Toiler, Little Orphan Annie, Donald Duck, Captain Easy, Porky Pig, Popeye, Mickey Mouse, Felix the Cat, Bugs Bunny, and Andy Panda. Roy Rogers appeared in four issues of Four Color this year while the Lone Ranger appeared in three.

Although not evident on Martin Naydel’s cover, the Justice Society fought the Brain Wave anew in All-Star Comics #30. TM and © DC Comics.

A prolific contributor to the latter two titles, Gaylord Dubois was challenged in 1946 by his editor Oskar Lebeck to shake off the repetitive nature of his Western scripts. Asking for advice, the writer was cheerily told, “Go west, young man, go west! Find the best bargain you can in a used travel trailer, and we’ll advance you the money.” The astonished Dubois did as he was told.

He traveled with his wife Mary through Texas and the American southwest, continuing to write scripts during the 18,000-mile excursion. By the time they returned home to Westport, New York, biographer Irvin Ziemann wrote, the couple’s “heads and notebooks were filled with invaluable material for Gaylord’s Western comics. The money they had earned by writing during the long trip not only repaid the advance for the travel trailer and all their other expenses but also left them with a good financial cushion” (Ziemann 62).

The first great Four Color issue of the year also was its first issue of the year. Issue #92 (Jan. 1946) presents a fantastic adaptation of Disney’s 1940 film Pinocchio, which itself was adapted from Carlo Collodi’s 1883 novel. At 35 pages, Four Color’s adaptation is quite abridged, yet it still manages to hit all the film’s high points, thanks to the skillful work

of writer Chase Craig and artist Walt Kelly. The latter also wrote and drew the issue’s second story, “The Wonderful Mis-Adventures of Donocchio,” which starts with Donald Duck wishing he was Pinocchio. Like in the film, the Blue Fairy grants Donald his wish… which the tempestuous duck soon regrets. As “Donocchio,” Donald relives all of Pinocchio’s perils, eventually wishing that he was himself once again. He then wakes up from what may (or may not) have been a dream.

Walt Kelly’s contribu tions to Dell Comics this year were plentiful. Besides providing cov ers for Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, he wrote and drew stories for multiple issues of Animal Comics, Our Gang Comics, and Raggedy Ann and Andy His work also graced eight issues of Four Color: #102 (Oswald the Rabbit), #103 (Easter with Mother Goose), #104 (Fairy Tale Parade), #105 (Albert the Alligator and Pogo Possum), #114 (another Fairy Tale Parade), #126 (Christmas with Mother Goose), and #128 (Santa Claus Funnies), along with the aforementioned Pinocchio issue.

Of these, Four Color #114 (July 1946) particularly stands out. The fantasyfocused issue includes not only Walt Kelly’s eight-page “Goblin Glen,” but also Arthur Jameson’s 14-page “The Sleeping Giant” and Morris Gollub’s ten-page “Leonora the Beautiful.”

As impressive as these features are, the issue’s pièce de resistance is a 16-page adaptation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s late 18th century ballad, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”

As future comic book creator Tony Isabella explains in his book 1000 Comic Books You Must Read, “no one has yet identified the creator of this issue’s non-Disney version of ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,’ but the beautifully drawn, brilliantly written story is easily among the best ‘young

readers’ comic books of the [1940s]” (Isabella 35).

In other issues of Four Color this year, Carl Barks continued his rapid development as a writer-artist. Issue #108 (May 1946) presented Barks’s only long Donald Duck story for the year, the 28-page “Terror of the River” in which Donald and his nephews accidentally buy a river boat in an auction. (Donald’s sneezes are mistaken for bids.) With the boat, the quartet sail down the Ohio River, only to encounter a giant serpent. By story’s end, this serpent is revealed to be an elaborately disguised submarine, used by its captain to terrify boaters. In the issue’s second story, “The Firebug,” a concussed Donald turns into an insensible pyromaniac, lighting small fires all over the place. He’s mistaken for a genuine arsonist and Barks’s original ending of the story had him thrown in jail for burning down the courthouse. However, Dell removed that ending and added two new panels by artist Carl Buettner which had the duck awaken from his injury to discover that the entire story had all been a dream.

Barks’s understanding of the comic book medium was growing quickly.

Walt Kelly’s cover for Four Color #92. TM and © Disney Enterprises Inc.

Gene Autry hit the trail in an ongoing Dell title in 1946. TM and © Gene Autry.

He was learning the difference between film and comics and how storytelling that worked effectively in the former didn’t necessarily work in the latter. In a later interview, he stated, “You could draw just so much violent action in a comic book before it got tiresome. [Mickey Mouse cartoonist] Floyd Gottfredson put his finger on it one time when I was talking with him, sometime in the 1940s. He said, ‘In the strip, the reader can hold it up, and he looks at it for a long, long time, but when it’s on the screen, he sees it for a twenty-fourth of a second, and it’s gone.’ … I remembered what he had told me, and I toned down my action a little bit after having talked with him” (Barrier 35).

John Stanley needed even less time than Carl Barks to gain mastery of comic book storytelling. Although contributing to such Dell titles as Animal Comics, New Funnies (renamed Walter Lantz New Funnies with issue #109 – March 1946), and Our Gang Comics, Stanley’s main task for Dell this year was writing and drawing “Little Lulu” stories. In 1946, Little Lulu appeared in five issues of Four Color, all of them handled by Stanley: #97 (Feb. 1946), #110 (June 1946), #115 (Aug. 1946), #120 (Oct. 1946) and #131 (Dec. 1946). It was the most appearances of any character in Four Color this year, totaling 260 pages.

Whether he knew it or not, Stanley was carving out his legacy via Little Lulu, and some of the character’s most memorable stories were printed this year. For instance, “Lulu in Distress: a Tragedy” from Four Color #110 (June 1946) has Lulu delivering her very first fairy tale story for her terrible little neighbor, Alvin. The story also introduced the Poor Little Orphan Girl (always drawn as Lulu in the stories).

“Lulu Fights Back with a Club,” from Four Color #115 (Aug. 1946), presents a “Men Only” club that meets in a treehouse. It’s the prototype for the later Feller’s Club, which meets in the “No Girls Allowed” clubhouse (which is on the ground). In this story, in retaliation for the boys ignoring her desire to be in their club, Lulu starts a “girls club” called the Raiders. Tubby dresses as a girl to infiltrate it and find out what’s going on there.

Finally, in “Little Lulu and the Three Bears,” from Four Color #131 (Dec. 1946), Alvin asks Lulu for a story about the Three Bears and Lulu begins to tell him the story of “Goldilocks,” where she is once again playing the lead character. She gets so involved with herself as Goldilocks that she forgets to say anything whatsoever about the Three Bears.

More Quality Comics For Your Dimes

With several of his creators returning home from military service (most notably Reed Crandall, Gil Fox, and Paul Gustavson), the publisher of Quality Comics, E.M. “Busy” Arnold had big plans for 1946. He hired three new assistant editors (June Andrus, Jesse Rogers and Dan Savage), and with their help, Arnold nearly doubled his comic book production, releasing 95 issues during the year. (Quality produced 58 issues in 1945.)

There had been no solo books published by Quality in 1945 (except for two issues of The Spirit), but now that he could get his hands on more paper, Arnold resurrected Blackhawk, Doll Man, and Plastic Man, resuming their numbering from where each series had left off in 1943 or 1944.

Kid Eternity, on the other hand, was awarded his own series. The first issue (Spring 1946) boasted stories written by William Woolfolk and drawn by Quality workhorse Al Bryant. Each of these heroes also continued to headline an anthology book: Doll Man in Feature Comics, Plastic Man in Police Comics, Blackhawk in Modern Comics, and Kid Eternity in Hit Comics

The publisher’s second tier heroes, however, were becoming more and more scarce. The Human Bomb, for instance, saw his five-year-old series end in Police Comics #58 (Sept. 1946). His creator, Paul Gustavson, carried on without him in issue #59, now producing a comedy strip about Honeybun, an embattled husband perpetually in conflict with his mother-in-law.

Jack Cole’s Plastic Man had no worries about being replaced. When not grappling in Police with the likes of the Granite Lady (#51), twin versions of Dr. Erudite (#53), Sleepy Eyes (#54), the Yes Man (#55), Martian invader Mr. Misfit (#57), the botanical baddie Green Terror (#58), and Mr. Happiness (#59), Plas was taking on more deranged villains in his revived eponymous comic book. Starting with Plastic Man #3 (Spring 1946) Plas’s roly poly sidekick Woozy Winks now starred in his own feature. In his first solo tale, written and drawn by Cole, Woozy clashes with a fragrant felon named Smelly Pitts.

Carl Buettner’s cover for Four Color #108 adorned a 28-page Donald Duck adventure by Carl Barks TM and © Disney Enterprises Inc.

Doll Man’s girlfriend Martha Roberts also received a solo story of her own in Doll Man #10 (Autumn 1946) but, unlike Woozy, her feature didn’t catch on. One further Martha adventure ran in issue #13 but the character otherwise remained strictly a member of Doll Man’s supporting cast (in tales usually drawn by Dan Zolnerowich). The miniature hero spent the year fighting both old foes like the Undertaker (Feature Comics #91, #94) and new ones like the Peacock (Feature #95, #97). The Mighty Mite also encountered two different tribes of doll-sized humans, one on the island of the mysterious Dr. Vargo (Doll Man #8) and the other in the swamps of distant Siratuba (Feature #101).

The Doll Man feature that did catch on first appeared in issue #8 (Spring 1946). “Torchy” starred Torchy Todd, a good-natured blonde bombshell with a penchant for situations that reduced her to wearing only her underwear or lingerie. The feature was an early example of the “good girl” genre whose depictions of scantily dressed women would become more and more prevalent over the next few years. “Torchy” was at the forefront of this new trend, but it actually debuted a couple of years earlier when its creator, cartoonist Bill Ward, was stationed in Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn during the war.

Torchy appeared as a comic strip in the Army base newspaper, where its risqué episodes were a sure hit with its serviceman readers. Soon, Torchy was appearing in other base newspapers around the world. Once released from his military service and back in the States, Ward was asked by Busy Arnold to create a new back series for Modern Comics to replace the war-oriented (and therefore, obsolete) “Death Patrol” feature. Ward offered “Torchy” (Markstein).

Written and drawn by Al Stahl, the final installment of “Death Patrol” appeared in Modern Comics #52 (Aug. 1946). The following issue, “Torchy” became a regular Modern Comics feature, but interestingly enough, “Torchy” made its Quality Comics debut months earlier, in Doll Man #8 (Spring 1946). In fact, for the rest of the decade, Ward’s creation was featured almost as often in Doll Man as in the title headlined by the Blackhawks.

Unlike “Death Patrol,” the Blackhawks managed a smooth transition to the postwar period, their aviation-

themed exploits arguably reaching new heights now that that the war was over. Near the beginning of the year, the Blackhawks traveled to the mountainous Zorania in Modern Comics #49 (May 1946) and contended with a mystery woman intent on executing the war criminals that the black-garbed pilots wanted alive. Known only as Fear, she made the first of six return engagements in Blackhawk #13 (Winter 1946) where she asked the team to help her combat King Murder of Costa Marca. In contrast to Fear, Blackhawk #11’s exotic Tigress was strictly bad news, the front woman for a group of American fugitives who were playing jungle natives for suckers. Modern Comics #48 (April 1946) revealed for the first time each Blackhawk member’s home country. The group’s comic relief (and offensive Asian stereotype) Chop-Chop received his own solo feature beginning in Blackhawk #10 (Spring 1946).

Quality editor-in-chief George E. Brenner also supervised the launch of several humor quarterlies this year. The first issues of All Humor Comics, Egbert and Marmaduke Mouse all

Al Bryant’s cover for Doll Man #10. TM and © DC Comics.

Bill Ward’s Torchy rode into town in Doll Man #8. TM and © respective copyright holder.

appeared on newsstands with Spring 1946 cover dates. The first issue of The Barker, on the other hand, debuted later in the year, with a Fall 1946 cover date. Already headlin ing National Comics, the Barker (a.k.a. Carnie Calahan) led a recurring supporting cast of circus sideshow freaks that included fat lady Lena, strongman Tiny Tim, the dwarf ish Major Midge, and Spudo the Spider Man (who earned his own on-going feature starting with The Barker #1, the only member of the supporting cast to have this honor).

The Postwar Spirit

By the time Will Eisner returned to civilian life in late 1945, he had sold his remaining interest in certain Quality titles to Busy Arnold, and Arnold (per their initial agreement) had relinquished any interest in The Spirit The only financial connection between them at this point were the fees Eisner collected for the continuing Spirit reprints in Police Comics and The Spirit solo book.

After four years drawing The Spirit newspaper strip, Lou Fine decided to go into commercial art, so Eisner’s first order of business after leasing studio space at 37 Wall Street was hiring a staff to enhance his work. He brought in artists John Spranger, Alex Kotzky and Bob Palmer to help with his penciling. Their job was to tighten up Eisner’s layouts, drawing in their best pseudo-Eisner style. The back-up features in The Spirit 16-page insert— “Lady Luck” by Klaus Nording, “Flatfoot Burns” by Al Stahl and “Jonesy” by Bernard Dribble—would remain the same for the moment.

After officially returning to The Spirit at the end of December 1945, Eisner began 1946 with the introduction of Hildie, a German war orphan who’s smuggled from Europe to Central City along with Seggie and Kurt, two much nastier children than one usually sees in comics. Seggie sets up a criminal gang, enlisting American kids whose parents have been either in the military or too busy working for the war effort to keep a proper eye on them. To combat Siggie’s influences on the American kids, the Spirit enlists maimed veterans who explain that their parents’ perceived neglect is not from lack of caring but because they’ve been fighting for their children’s right to grow up in a world where they can experience freedom rather than bloodshed.

writers as O. Henry and Guy de Maupassant (among others), Eisner arrived at a better understanding of the short story format and awoke in him the realization that The Spirit could be more than a mere adventure strip.

This story—along with the two that appeared at the end of 1945—is an excellent return to form, a look back at both Eisner’s, and the Spirit’s, past together, a nod towards Eisner’s military work, and a hint of the future to come. Frankly, though, if The Spirit had been canceled before Eisner’s return, it would not be celebrated as one of the crowning achievements of comic art. This is because Eisner hadn’t reached his creative maturity in the early years, and because the Lou Fine years were, truthfully, neither particularly innovative nor memorable, in any sense of the word. Like many others who served during World War II, Eisner was changed by the experience. Not only had he created humorous yet informational comics for military purposes, he was able to get away from the steady grind of illustrating the weekly adventures of Denny Colt and, in his spare time, took the opportunity to read as many short stories as he could. Through the work of such master

So when Eisner left the service, he already had ideas that would elevate The Spirit into something really special, unlike anything that had been seen in comics up to this point. The difference between his own early work, the pedestrian work of Lou Fine and Fine’s writers (e.g., Manly Wade Wellman, William Woolfolk and Joe Millard), and Eisner’s postwar skills was immediately apparent. To be fair, though, the work of the war years’ creators was not only above the quality of most of the other cop/private eye series running in various comic strips but had been good enough to keep The Spirit section alive long enough for Eisner to return to it.

The fourth installment with Eisner “back in the saddle” was a re-telling of the origin of the Spirit, appearing on January 13, 1946. In terms of dialogue and plot points, it’s much like the first origin which appeared on June 2, 1940, but a comparison between the way each story is told, panel-to-panel, the way action is portrayed, and especially the character work, reveals Eisner’s growth as a visual storyteller. For starters, the new origin had a large opening panel with “The Spirit” name carved out of solid rock.

Commissioner Dolan recapped the origin of the Spirit on January 13, 1946. TM and © Will Eisner Studios Inc.

Commissioner Dolan, the narrator of this story, stands on part of it. The original origin had no such splash panel, and no narrator.

The second major change is how Eisner moved his “camera” closer to the action. Both versions essentially employ a nine-panel page grid, but the first origin’s perspective is from a greater remove. In the new origin, the character work is “plussed” because facial expressions can be seen more clearly, although not to the extent of true “closeups.” Clearly, facial expressions had become more important to Eisner, and the character movements and moments are much more fluid as a result.

With the new origin, Eisner fine-tuned elements of the Spirit’s mythos. For instance, Denny Colt’s father was now established as a “famed criminologist of the late nineties” whose son “followed in his footsteps.” Also revealed is that Colt, besides relying on the proceeds of rewards for catching criminals, has inherited money from his father (“the money Dad left me”), which makes questions about how he’s financially supporting himself moot. Also changed is the African American cabbie who drives Dolan to Wildwood Cemetery for his narration. The cabbie is now Ebony White, who gets involved in the final action sequence. “I think I’ll remain dead,” Colt tells Dolan and White. “As the Spirit, I can operate without red tape or politics! Many criminals who operate just beyond the law can only be apprehended by someone who is unencumbered by the law itself!” This revamped origin serves as an introduction to a new era of Spirit stories, which many consider the heyday of the feature.

Two major Spirit trends arose in 1946: the increasing emphasis on humor (in which Ebony frequently played a major part) and Eisner’s variations on Milton Caniff’s original femme fatale Dragon Lady. Regarding the latter, Silk Satin returned on January 20, 1946 in a story that also stars Hildie. Silk Satin had started out as something of a thief, then, during the early days of the war, became a British agent, aiding in the Allied effort against Hitler, while also becoming the closest thing to a possible love interest for the Spirit among the slinky femme fatales who crossed his path. After the war, the beautiful brunette becomes employed as an international agent/troubleshooter for the insurance company Croyd’s of Glasgow (Eisner’s take-off on the famous Lloyd’s of London insurance company).

The story’s splash page is a stunning close-up of Silk Satin’s face backed by lightning and a windswept tree in the foreground, and the revelation that Hildie (who had been staying with Ellen and the Commissioner) is

Satin’s actual daughter (as a somewhat embarrassed Satin explains it, “What are you all staring at? It happens in the best of families!”) is a superb twist. As it turns out, her husband was not only wealthy from being a peanut king in American business (shades of the Wienie King from Preston Sturges’ classic film The Palm Beach Story) but also a member of the Bund—the American Fascist party. When the war started, Satin left him, but he sent his daughter to Cologne, Germany on Hitler’s orders and Satin’s been searching for her for the past seven years. Her concern for Hildie pushes Silk Satin to leave behind her previous life of crime.

Satin shows how tough she is by gunning down a couple of hoods who are attempting to kidnap Hildie and the two are finally reunited. Satin’s closing words to Ellen are classic Spirit: “Thanks, Ellen … you’re OK! Don’t be jealous of the Spirit and me—but from one woman to another—just keep your hooks in him!”

Silk Satin’s reappearance ushered such dangerous gals as Orcha Chornya, Nylon Rose, Gurka Fyfe, Dulcet Tone, Olga Bustle (a takeoff on busty actress Jane Russell), and a parade of others. Eisner’s rebuilding work on The Spirit in 1946 was a revelation, and a needed shot in the arm that kept the feature going.

The strip required Eisner to write 52 stories per year, which amounted to 364 pages per year. Writing all these stories alone (and coming up with something fresh each week) was difficult enough, but Eisner was also designing splash panels, laying out the strip, and inking a great deal of it, too. No doubt, The Spirit was an arduous task, but Eisner’s innovative storytelling—especially under the pressure of ongoing weekly deadlines—is the reason why it is considered among the finest—if not the finest—comics ever created. Put another way, the caliber of Eisner’s work had no equal, and its influence on young comics aspirants is incalculable. Eisner did have his small but talented staff to rely upon, once the story and layouts were done. Letterer Abe Kanegson contributed a great deal to the feature, and story ideas sometimes came from Eisner’s secretary, Marilyn Mercer. There was also a 17-year-old kid named Jules Feiffer who showed up in 1946, and as time went on, began contributing story ideas, and eventually took over the majority of the writing of The Spirit as the decade came to a close.

Today, it’s easy to point to Ebony White, Denny Colt’s teenage assistant, as an example of racism on the part of

Silk Satin, from the January 20, 1946 Spirit Section. TM and © Will Eisner Studios Inc.

Will Eisner. This character was a linchpin in the postwar Spirit, with numerous stories centered around him. Eisner always denied that he himself was racist, or that Ebony was anything less than a fully fleshed out and important character. To back his claim, Eisner said he received many more complaints for his treatment of Ebony from whites than from the African American community. Certainly, there is no evidence of protests like the ones that caused Fawcett to drop the character of Steamboat from the Captain Marvel stories. All the characters in The Spirit are cartoonish, exaggerated versions of real people. It should also be noted that, with the exception of Ebony himself, none of the other African Americans that Eis ner put into the strip were drawn in a racist fashion, even when they are supporting a comical situation alongside Ebony. Eisner did send the boy to school partway through the year to clean up much of his ste reotyped dialect, which was a positive step. Still, by today’s standards, there’s no question that Ebony’s minstrel-show visual portrayal reflected the racism that was prevalent in the media during the early-tomid 1940s, and which was thankfully on its way out in the postwar period.

Another Spirit development in 1946 was the introduction (or re-introduction) of numerous members of the hero’s rogues’ gallery. Algernon Tidewater, a.k.a. “Peppermint Stick Smith,” returned to The Spirit for the first time since 1941. In “Welcome Home, Ebony” (May 12, 1946), the football helmet-wearing boy was renamed “P.S.” New rogues included Mr. Carrion and his buzzard pet, Julia (“Introducing Mr. Carrion” from the April 21, 1946 section) and P’Gell. Making her debut on Oct. 6, 1946 (“Meet P’Gell”), the femme fatale utters the immortal lines “My name is P’Gell …and this is not a story for little boys!” while reclining on a couch with a low-cut red dress. The voluptuous seductress would plague the Spirit for many years to come as would the Octopus, a villain who would become Spirit’s “Moriarty.” First appearing on Nov. 17, 1946, the Octopus was a criminal mastermind and master of disguise whose face was never shown. Finally, McDool, a fellow Croyd’s of Glasgow insurance agent who often worked with Silk Satin, debuted with the Dec. 15, 1946 section.

considerably) older group than typical comic book readers. If Fiction House comics lost the eight-to-eleven-year-old prepubescent readers, they doubtless made up for it by appealing to grown men.

With its Nov. 10, 1946 edition, The Spirit section was cut in half, from 16 pages to eight. As a result, both Lady Luck and Flatfoot Burns lost their solo spots, although Lady Luck would regain hers in regular comic books in 1949.

The Many Clients of Roche & Iger

For an obvious reason, Fiction House wasn’t hurt by the public’s waning interest in superheroes: none of their six titles (Fight Comics, Jumbo Comics, Jungle Comics, Planet Comics, Rangers Comics and Wings Comics) featured superheroes. The publisher relied, instead, on the allure of the female form as one of the most noticeable aspects of Fiction House comics was an attractive woman on the cover of virtually every issue. This probably was a carryover from Fiction House president T. T. Scott’s pulp magazines, which regularly used sex to sell to their customers, a slightly (or

Given this sales strategy, it bears repeating that Fiction House paradoxically employed more women and used more female freelancers than any other comic book company. At least some of them might not have found work in comics during the war years except for the shortage of male talent during World War II, but these women produced stories every bit as exciting as the ones produced by their male counterparts. They also provided an authenticity to the portrayals of distaff heroes.

Fiction House’s penchant for employing female editors, artists, and writers during the war years’ manpower shortage continued intact after the war ended and the company made room in its comics’ pages for those male talents returning to work following their discharge from the military. Rangers editor Jean Pross, staff art director Ruth Atkinson, and artists Fran Hopper, Ann Brewster and Marcia Snyder continued to be assigned all the work they could handle. Another female artist, Lily Renée, who managed to leave Nazi-occupied Austria in 1939 to come to the United States (after a brief stop in England), proved to be one of Fiction House’s best artists, man or woman.

The October 6, 1946 Spirit Section introduced P’Gell. TM and © Will Eisner Studios Inc.

Her excellent design sense was matched by her well-choreographed action scenes. Equally notable was her fashion sense and ability to design the clothes that her heroines wore. But despite her talent, she often wasn’t treated well by her colleagues. As she recollected in a 2009 interview, the enlightened attitudes of studio packager Jerry Iger, publisher Malcolm Reiss and Fiction House’s managing editor Jack Byrne weren’t always shared by those further down the line, sometimes creating a hostile work environment:

“[I was] totally miserable because the men thought of nothing but sex, and they were always making innuendos [,] which made me very uncomfortable… I got used to it, but in the beginning it was awful… [Later], other things happened, because some [of the artists] didn’t like that I made good money… It wasn’t[sexism. The male artists] didn’t mind that I was there at first, but once you get in competition with someone, the attitudes change” (Amash 8-13).

Those who worked in the Fiction House bullpen didn’t receive a page rate; they were paid a monthly salary, generally starting in the $20 to $25 range, depending on their experience. From there, salaries would gradually go up, potentially including a Christmas bonus.

Even though it utilized its own in-house staff, as well as the occasional freelancer, Fiction House still greatly relied on Ruth Roche and Jerry Iger’s studio for material. Other publishers did as well, including a new client that Iger had a checkered past with: Victor Fox, the owner of Fox Feature Syndicates, Inc. (a.k.a. Fox Comics).

The end of wartime paper restrictions brought some much-needed good news for Fox: he no longer had to connive with other publishers to get his comic books printed. Unfortunately for Fox, the bad news was that he now had to contend with a glut on the newsstands. Nonetheless, Fox managed to publish 41 comics across 15 titles over the course of 1946. Most of these were funny animal books, like Jo-Jo Comics and Zoot Comics, two 32-page funny animal quarterlies. (The latter was expanded to 48 pages for one issue with Zoot Comics #4, Nov.-Dec. 1946.)

Fox clearly believed his funny animal superhero, Cosmo Cat (who debuted in Ribtickler #1 as “Cosmo Catt”), was a hit with readers as Cosmo now starred in the All Top Comics quarterly, his own bi-monthly eponymous title (Cosmo Cat #1 had a July-Aug. 1946 cover date), and Nuttylife which would become Wotalife Comics with issue #3 (Aug.-Sept. 1946). Cosmo even appeared on the cover of Zoot Comics #2 although in a way that bore little resemblance to the Cosmo that appeared in these other titles. (Yet another sign of Victor Fox’s indifference to brand consistency or quality control.)

The other funny animal that Fox invested in was Li’l Pan, a faun who is the son of Pan, the Greek god of music (among other things). Li’l Pan uses his magic horn to produce some “real good jive” and entertain the masses. After appearing as a backup feature in Wotalife Comics, Zoot Comics, and All Top Comics, Li’l Pan received his own series late in the year (taking over the numbering of the canceled Rocket Kelly). In L’il Pan #6 (Dec. 1946), the title character travels the world to find the Pipes of Pan that had been lost by his father. At one point in the story, a good-natured but dullwitted buzzard flies Li’l Pan and his friend Petey from India to the Bikini Atoll and deposits them at ground zero, just in time for the first U.S. nuclear bomb test. The start of Li’l Pan #7 reveals that the detonation has propelled Pan and Petey to Greenland where they resume their search for the pipes. (They ultimately find them in Brooklyn at, of all places, a baseball stadium.) Li’l Pan only lasted one more issue after that, and the title character only made a handful of appearances in other Fox titles in 1947.

That, at least, was more than could be said for The Green Mask. One of Fox’s earliest superheroes, the Green Mask was now an uninspired imitation of Fawcett’s Captain Marvel with teenager Johnny Green angrily shouting “EEEOW!” to transform himself into his superpowered persona. The final two issues of Green Mask (#5 and #6) were published in June and August 1946 and then the title character wasn’t seen again until decades later when he had fallen into public domain.

Providing the covers for the Green Mask’s final two Fox issues was E.C. Stoner. Now in his late forties, the classically trained African American illustrator also contributed to Fox’s Blue Beetle series, drawing covers and stories

for the three issues published in 1946: #41, #42, and #44. (Curiously, the series skipped over issue #43.) In a backup story, Blue Beetle #42 introduces “Bronze Man,” a.k.a. Major Randy Ronald, a missing-in-action World War II combat pilot who “has been disfigured beyond recognition and is now masquerading as that mysterious figure who flashes out of nowhere to challenge any force threatening the peace he sacrificed so much to help win.” Cleverly, the story only shows the protagonist’s full face when he’s Bronze Man. While posing as a civilian, the protagonist has his face turned away from the reader. Despite the story’s description, Bronze Man doesn’t appear to be wearing a “bronze mask,” or any mask, for that matter. Regardless, what’s notable about “Bronze Man” is that it features the work of another African American artist: Alvin “A.C.” Hollingsworth (credited in the story as “Alec Hope”). Born and raised in Harlem and a graduate of the High School of Music & Art (where he was a classmate of Joe Kubert), Hollingsworth was only 18 years old when he drew the first appearance of “Bronze Man,” and while the character would only make two more appearances (in Blue Beetle #44 and Jo-Jo Comics #7), the artist would work in the comic book industry well into the 1950s, mainly contributing to Fox and Fiction House but also occasionally to Fawcett and even one story for Marvel Comics.

Besides content for Fiction House and Fox, the Roche & Iger studio continued to produce Classic Comics for Gilberton. The 1946 issues (#27-32) adapted Donn Byrne’s The Adventures of Marco Polo, Jules Verne’s Michael Strogoff, Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper, Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone, Sir Walter Scott’s The Black Arrow, and Richard Doddridge Blackmore’s Lorna Doone, the last standing out from the crowd thanks to a tasteful script by Ruth Roche and stunning romantic/adventure art by Matt Baker Arnold Hicks, Don Rico and Homer Fleming also lent their artistic talents, illustrating scripts by Roche, Jack Bass, Dan Levin, Emmanuel Demby, Pat Adam and Tom Scott. Not content with providing material for other publishers, Jerry Iger had long harbored hopes of owning his own line of comic books. He had tried once before with the shortlived Great Comics Publishing (the same company later acquired by Ned Pines and Ben Sangor under undocumented circumstances). In 1946 Roche & Iger took a hesitant step toward reviving that dream with the release of Bobby Comics #1. Issued under the corporate identity of Universal Phoenix Features Syndicate with a May cover date, the 52-page book was built around the title feature, a

In 1946, George Evans was working for Fiction House as their “cleaner,” which meant he was on staff as the last person to work on the original art page: cleaning pencil lines, drawing panel borders, inking in blacks where needed, and occasionally inking backgrounds and other bits for the bullpen’s main artists. In the fall of that year Fiction House editor Claude Lapham decided to give Evans the chance to draw some features for the books on his own. Replacing him as a cleaner was an 18-year-old kid from Brooklyn named Frank Frazetta

By this point, Frazetta had already contributed to a few comic books for other publishers (most specifically inking an eightpage story for Tally-Ho Comics and drawing a few pages for Prize’s Treasure Comics) but working at Fiction House was a good fit for him, as the company’s near-trademark cheesecake girl art mixed with straight action was right up his alley. Frazetta was fast at completing the cleaner work, and after finishing it, he would sit at his desk in the bullpen and draw figures and thumbnail comic pages in his notebooks or work on a private comic effort, entitled “The Panther Legend.” Examples of art from that young effort make clear that, like a lot of artists of that time period, Frazetta was heavily influenced by the work of Milton Caniff.

The speed at which Frazetta completed his assigned work and the amount of time he spent doing his own projects greatly irritated Lapham. As George Evans recalled in a June 23, 1978 letter to Robert R. Barrett, “[Frazetta would] finish everything they had to do so fast that he made [the rest of] us all look like loafers. Then he’d get out a little notebook, and whip out page, after page, after page of stuff better than any of the ‘staff artists’, but the big shots didn’t believe he could do that in anything but those notebooks—and objected to that, apparently, though he did his other work, too” (Barrett 39).

Lapham did give Frazetta a chance to draw a seven-page “Space Rangers” story for Planet Comics. The young artist attempted to mimic Bob Lubbers’ style, but the artwork was judged inadequate for the story, so he was replaced by Frank Doyle. Three pages of Frazetta’s effort were printed in the December 2015 issue of the EC Fan-Addict Fanzine. As the pages show, Frazetta’s work is not terrible… but it’s not yet professional either.

Frazetta didn’t stay long at Fiction House. Sometime in either March or April 1947, he moved on to Standard/Nedor/Better where he refined his work into his own style. Much of his contributions for that second company was in the funny animal vein, which he turned out to be quite good at. Later, he worked for many smaller companies and some quite big ones, including E.C. (where he drew one complete story and assisted Al Williamson on some others) and DC (mainly “Shining Knight” for Adventure Comics), spent years ghosting Al Capp’s Li’l Abner, graduated to painting covers for various Tarzan books, Ballantine Books’ E.C. reprints, and Jim Warren’s horror titles Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella, as well as stunning war covers for the short-lived Blazing Combat.

From there, he became arguably the most widely known and acclaimed fantasy, horror and science fiction book cover artist of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.

Fox’s Bronze Man featured the work of African American artist, A.C. Hollingsworth. TM and © respective copyright holder.

kid comics strip that the veteran packager had been trying to get into newspapers since the late 1930s. Teaming his boy hero with a grizzled old mariner named Capt’n Patch, Iger sent the duo to the moon where, after a page and a half of scientifically accurate lunar facts, they encounter stranded superhero “Mighty Man,” whom they help back to Earth. The story ends with the suggestion that the adventure was all concocted by Bobby’s imagination. The rest of Bobby Comics consists of forgettable funny animal and humor strips produced by members of Iger’s studio, with only Ed Newman (sometimes billed as Newman Edwards) and Ray Osrin receiving credit.

Unfortunately for Iger, Bobby Comics turned out to be another disappointment, lasting only that one issue. However, as a house ad on Bobby’s inside front cover made clear, Universal Phoenix Features had another title on the newsstands: Seven Seas Comics. As the title implied, the new series featured strips centered on adventures at sea. The lead story, “Captain Cutlass,” stars Rodney Yorke who, falsely accused of piracy, reluctantly becomes the real thing. “Sheena” artist Bob Webb drew this Captain Blood-inspired swashbuckler from a script by pulp scribe Manning Lee Stokes, who would write paperback adventure series—including many of the Nick Carter, Killmaster books—in the 1960s and ’70s under a variety of aliases. Stokes was also at the typewriter for two other scripts: “Harbor Patrol” followed Sgt. Steve Badger and his partner Squeaky as they fought crime along a big city’s waterfront,

while “South Sea Girl” concerned the adventures of Alani, beautiful monarch of the mysterious Vanishing Islands. Bob Hebberd illustrated the former, while the latter proved tailor-made for the talents of Matt Baker.

Universal Phoenix released two issues of Seven Seas Comics in 1946 (cover dated April and July) before going on hiatus through the end of the year. The title would return to newsstands in 1947… but with a different publisher.

The story behind another new Roche & Iger client is ambiguous, to say the least. At first glance, Green Publishing seemed to be one more purveyor of black market comics. Its first two titles, Liberty Comics and Roly-Poly Comics, were continuations of titles published in 1945 by Burten Magazine Distributing. What connection, if any, the two Chicago-area companies had with each other is unclear. Like its predecessor, the first two Green issues of Liberty Comics contained reprints of assorted strips from MLJ’s Top-Notch Comics, while the latter two ran inventory material intended for L.L. Baird’s Red Circle Comics beneath a cover starring The Black Hood who, at this point, just lost his own title to Archie Andrews & crew. Green also launched a third title. The debut issue of Atomic Comics (cover dated Jan. 1946) reprinted canceled DC/National features such as “Radio Squad” and “Barry O’Neil,” which suggests a possible connection to another law-flouting publisher, the enigmatic Sture Asburg, which had released the one-shot Cavalier Comics featuring different episodes of the same two defunct series in the previous year. The remaining three issues of Atomic Comics (#2-4) offered a mix of old Iger-owned strips like “Prop Powers” and “Zero, Ghost Detective” combined with new series. The best of the new efforts was “Lucky Wings,” starring a daring aviatrix, written by Iger and drawn by Bob Webb. This bid to legitimize Green failed, however, as all three titles were canceled by mid-summer.

The Creators of Captain America Return from the War

While an officer in the Combat Art Corps, a section of the Coast Guard’s Public Information Division, Joe Simon had become friends with comic book publisher Alfred Harvey, serving in the army as a lieutenant. After the two were demobilized, Harvey had a proposition for Simon as the latter explained decades later in his autobiography: “He wanted [the Simon and Kirby team] to come to work for Harvey Comics after the war. Jack and I would develop new properties for him, and Harvey would split the profits with us right down the middle, 50-50” (Simon 141). Harvey’s proposal was fortuitous timing for the creative pair as their contract with National had expired, reducing them to freelancers. Granted, they were freelancers with an incomparable track record. Virtually everything Simon and Kirby produced up to this point had been a hit. For that reason, Harvey’s overture to them was a smart business decision, especially since the publisher planned to expand his line in the post-paper shortage marketplace. No better way to do that than recruit the best talent in the industry. Simon and Kirby, on the other hand, were gratified by the terms of Harvey’s offer. As Simon explained, “Jack and I had become pretty disil-

House ad for Seven Seas Comics from Bobby Comics #1. TM and © respective copyright holder.

lusioned by the habits of people who would take everything away from you, put the copyrights in their own names, and not deliver on the royalties or fudge them up. Alfred [Harvey] was my friend [but] friendship aside, it was a good business opportunity. So Jack and I agreed” (Simon 147).

For Harvey’s Family Comics Inc., Simon and Kirby created a costumed hero title and a kid-gang title, two of their specialties. Their most famous costumed hero, Captain America, fought Nazis but in the aftermath of the Axis defeat, their new hero had to fight villainy of a more mundane sort. Hence, Stuntman is Fred Drake, a circus acrobat who has to solve the murder of his two partners. In doing so, Drake bumps (literally) into Don Daring, “movie star and amateur detective.” Because the two men look identical, Daring enlists Drake to be his movie stunt double (i.e., his “stuntman”). As Daring’s doppelgänger, Drake finds himself in an ideal position to track down would-be thieves and murderers and confront them as Stuntman.

The first page of Stuntman #1 (cover date April-May 1946) declares it a “Special Souvenir Issue,” directing readers to “save this issue of Stuntman comics… it will be a valuable souvenir someday.” Similarly, the cover to the first issue of Boy Explorers Comics (cover date May-June 1946) labels itself as “Simon-Kirby’s new smash-action kid strip! The greatest collection of thrilling features ever jam-packed into one comic magazine.” The title’s lead feature, the Boy Explorers, stars a bluff old sailor named Commodore Sindbad (“the last of the Yankee clipper captains”) out to fool an elderly harpy named Princess Latima who wants him for her husband. Before her arrival, he travels to the Blue Hills Orphanage where the harried superintendent, Prunella Axehandle, is more than happy to let him adopt four rambunctious boys: Gas-House (the laconic joker), Smiley (the handsome one), Gadget (the scientific genius) and Mister Zero (a boy still in diapers). Sindbad’s ruse here was to convince Latima that he’s already a family man. Unfortunately for the Commodore, Princess Latima is not deceived. She’s also not amused as

she threatens to kill Sindbad unless he can accomplish a seemingly impossible feat: “You must duplicate the seven feats of Sindu San… or meet my executioner!” The boys are eager to help the Commodore in this effort, so they join him on the good ship Dauntless to tackle the first of the seven challenges. “Boy Explorers” has a highly humorous, slapstick bent, as did the title’s backup features: “Danny Dixon, Cadet,” “Duke of Broadway,” “Calamity Jane,” and “Soapy Sam.”

Simon considered these two new titles “the best material we had ever produced, with the return of the double-page spreads the likes of which hadn’t been seen since our work on Captain America.” But quality wasn’t going to be enough to survive in a glutted comic book marketplace, and Simon himself knew it: “Even before the first issue of Stuntman reached the printer, we had a feeling that no matter how brilliant it was, we were doomed to failure. Stuntman fell victim to the glut that followed the war. The instinct [of newsstand distributors] was to stick with established hits like Superman or Captain Marvel. So many of the newer titles were returned in unopened bundles, never having seen the light of day” (Simon 150-1). In the end, only two issues of Stuntman and one issue of Boy Explorers Comics were released to the newsstand. Stuntman #3 and Boy Explorers #2 were mailed only to subscribers as black-and-white photostats. Remaining “Boy Explorers” stories went into the back pages of Harvey’s Terry and the Pirates Comics #3 and #4, published in 1947. (Terry and the Pirates

Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s two new titles for publisher Alfred Harvey proved short-lived. TM and © respective copyright holder.

Comics took over the numbering of Boy Explorers Comics.) Although Joe Simon would remain friends with Alfred Harvey and enter into other publishing arrangements with him down the road, no other work was done for Harvey’s firm at this time.

Harvey continued to publish the six titles that saw print the previous year (i.e., All-New Comics, Clown Comics, Green Hornet Comics, Joe Palooka, Nutty Comics Comics). However, Harvey clearly intended to expand his line even beyond the two Simon-Kirby titles as house ads promoted such series as Bruce Gentry Comics Comics, Flyin’ Fool Comics, Rags Rabbit Com ics, and Strange Story Comics (featuring the mysterious “Man in Black”). One advertised series, Boy Heroes Comics, bears a striking resemblance to Boy Explorer Comics Simon and Kirby’s work, Boy Heroes Comics features four boy protago nists (Punchy, Prince, Trigger, and Corny), but this series billed them as “the toughest, smartest kid fighting team in the world!” Neither Boy Heroes Comics nor any of the other advertised titles were published by Harvey in 1946. Instead, the other new series that Harvey launched had a first issue cover drawn by Joe Simon. Otherwise, Simon had nothing to do with the title or its lead character who (according to a cover blurb) was “the darling of comics since 1941.” She was Black Cat, a.k.a. Linda Turner, “Hollywood’s Glamorous Detective Star.” After appearing regularly over the previous five years in several Harvey comic books (mainly Speed Comics), the motorcycle-riding hero now headlined her own series: Black Cat Comics. Curiously, the tales presented in the first issue (June-July 1946) read like inventory stories that finally got printed as they present World War II-focused conflicts. For instance, in the lead story, Black Cat is impersonated by a Nazi spy. The issue’s other stories (most of which don’t feature Black Cat) either take place during World War II or present villains who serve one of the Axis forces. Black Cat Comics #2, however, was more “up to date” as Black Cat fought domestic criminals like The Rook, a kingpin determined to learn who Black Cat really is. Black Cat Comics would become one of Harvey’s mainstay titles, lasting until the late 1950s.

Inc. as the title’s publisher.) The logo soon appeared on Joe Palooka Comics #5 (JulyAug. 1946) was the first issue of that series to bear the Harvey seal. Its top cover banner also boasted “over 1,000,000 copies each issue.” Even allowing for the likelihood that this referred to passalong readership among kids rather than literal sale figures, it was still an impressive statement. Joe creator Ham Fisher (significantly assisted by artist Moe Leff) was a master of self-promotion, regularly featuring real-life figures in his boxing hero’s newspaper strip. Joe had met President Truman in the January 8, 1946 daily and the inside front cover of Palooka #5 included a photo of Fisher himself in the Oval Office with the Chief Executive.

One of the most popular comic strips in the United Palooka was more than stunts thanks to Fisher’s skill at building anticipation on a daily basis. Prizefighter Joe was as admirable and morally upright as they came, all the better to fight a succession of thoroughly evil Nazis during World War II, culminating with a suspenseful serial in late 1945 that teased the possible survival of Adolph Hitler. The 1946-dated issues of the comic book reprinted some of those adventures, dating back to 1942, but it presented its editors with a dilemma in the postwar world. The covers

In other Harvey news, with its 30th issue (May-June 1946), Green Hornet Comics was the first comic book to bear the “Harvey Publications” logo on its cover. (The indicia still listed Family Comics,

Detail from the cover of Black Cat #1. TM and © respective copyright holder.

generally featured generic stateside action scenes and situations to draw readers in and no one seems to have complained that Joe and friends were still fighting World War II inside. Even so, issue #5 featured Sunday sequences from 1945 that involved Palooka in stateside adventures.

Joe Palooka, like Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates and Frank King’s Gasoline Alley among other widely read newspaper strips, had reached dramatic heights during the war years through an immediacy that resonated with readers. On the other hand, the popularity of the comparatively remote science fiction adventures of Flash Gordon dimmed a bit during the same era. Flash’s creator had inspired a plethora of budding comic artists in the 1930s, but everything changed after he went to war.

The Return of Alex Raymond

When his nearly two-year stint in the Marines came to an end in 1945, Alex Raymond naively assumed he’d resume work on Flash Gordon. He was informed, however, that his replacement, Austin Briggs, was under contract with King Features to draw the comic strip until July 1948. Vowing to take his considerable talents to a rival syndicate, Raymond paused when King proposed he create a new feature for them. It included, historian Brian Walker wrote, “ownership rights, a sixty-forty split of profits, a significant signing bonus, and a promise to rehire him to continue Flash Gordon after Briggs’s tenure ended in 1948 if the new venture didn’t succeed” (Walker 13).

With input from King Features General Manager Ward Greene, Raymond traded in the kid-friendly Flash for a more urbane, adult leading man named Remington “Rip” Kirby. A former Marine like Raymond, he had a doctoral degree, played piano, dated knockout society model Honey Dorian, smoked a pipe, and wore glasses. He also had a butler, a former safecracker known as Desmond. None of those details prevented Kirby from getting down and dirty with the hoods he fought. He was an ex-All-American athlete who was great with his fists.

Premiering on March 4, 1946, the strip was an immediate smash. “Rip Kirby was the fastest-selling strip in syndicate history,” Brian Walker detailed, “with seventy-five clients after eight weeks and one hundred fifty subscribers in six months. By the end of 1948, the list had increased to more than three hundred newspapers” (Walker 21).

No other comic strip launches of 1946 equaled Kirby’s initial success, but others would make names for themselves. Ed Dodd’s Mark Trail, a drama featuring an outdoor writer, began on April 5 while George Baker revived his World War II soldier everyman Sad Sack as a civilian, starting on May 5. The kid strip Priscilla’s Pop, by Ed Vermeer, premiered on July 7, becoming a staple in many smaller markets for decades.

Returning after over three years in the Army, Bob Montana was reunited with his signature teen hero creation Archie by way of a daily newspaper strip that kicked off on February 4, 1946. The first week followed the transfer of Veronica Lodge to Riverdale High, much to the awe of Archie and amusement of Jughead. By the time a Sunday strip was added on October 13, the rest of the series cast—including Betty, Reggie, Mr. Weatherbee, and Miss Grundy— was well-established. Distributed for its first decade by the secondtier McClure Syndicate, Archie’s client list began to swell after 1956 when King Features took over. It would ultimately become the longest-running newspaper strip based on a comic book.

Without invoking the name of his earlier signature feature Flash Gordon, King Features used the power of Alex Raymond’s name and quality of his art to sell Rip Kirby. TM and © King Features Syndicate.

Promotional art featuring Rip Kirby and his girlfriend Honey Dorian. TM and © King Features Syndicate.

In those aforementioned comic books, the former MLJ rebranded each of its titles as “An Archie Magazine” starting with issues dated March 1946. Black Hood Comics, the last of the publisher’s superhero titles, turned into the Archie-headlined Laugh Comics with issue #20 (Fall 1946) and it wouldn’t be long before Pep Comics handed eviction notices to its last costumed characters. Captain Commando ended his own run there in issue #56.

Although not a superhero strip, Bill Woggon’s Dotty and Ditto also ended its Pep tenure with issue #58 (Sept. 1946). The charming final installment found young Dotty dreaming about most of the publisher’s characters, including the Shield, Super Duck, Suzie, Wilbur, the Twiddles, and, of course, Archie and Jughead.

End of the Lines

Third time was supposed to be the charm for Harry “A” Chesler. The pioneering packager had twice failed to make a go of self-publishing. Surely this time, with a government-sanctioned supply of paper and a trio of quarterlies to his name, Chesler would succeed. Anticipating a postwar expansion, he brought all his titles together under a new corporate identity: Harry “A” Chesler, Jr. Publications, Inc. (why Harry Jr., who otherwise had nothing to do with the family business, was credited as owner remains

an open question). But the studio head was infamous for paying parsimonious page rates and demanding quantity over quality from his creative staff. Dynamic Comics, Punch Comics, and Red Seal Comics all offered up similar menus of dull, derivative superheroes, creaky old detective, aviation, and space opera leftovers from Chesler’s 1930s comics, and a few humorous features and fillers, little of it of sufficient creativity or craftsmanship to lure a potential buyer away from its noticeably better competition. There was good art to be found occasionally in his books, thanks to talents like George Tuska, Ruben Moreira, and Al Plastino, but not enough to keep customers coming back for more. Dynamic #20, Punch #19, and Red Seal #18, all dated October, were the last issues released in the United States, though they continued north of the border for a few more issues under the aegis of the Canadian-owned Superior Publications. His shop would continue packaging content for others through 1953, but this was the end of Chesler’s career as a publisher. Instead of third time being the charm, it was three strikes and being out.

Another publisher whose career in comic books had progressed in fits and starts threw in the towel this year. Pulp publisher Frank Temerson, who’d been dabbling in comics off and on since 1937, pulled the plug on his Continental Magazines line over the summer. All three of his quarterlies remained 52-pagers, so access to newsprint was likely not the problem. With scripts and artwork supplied by the small staff studio of Continental co-owner L.B. Cole—and bright poster-like covers by Cole himself—the books’ content probably wasn’t either. Temerson may have simply found his return on investment insufficient to warrant continuing Catman Comics, Captain Aero Comics, and Suspense Comics. Nominal publisher Rae Hermann and editor Ray Willner nevertheless continued to tinker with the books until the bitter end, retooling “Captain Aero” from paramilitary aviator to a costumed hero who flew a rocketship and battled Moon Men, and introducing new features like “Dr. Sleuth” and “Madam Nobody.” But it was all for naught. Suspense #12 (September) was the last Temerson comic book to ever see print.

Only 26 years old, Rae Hermann had risen from assisting Lone Ranger and Green Hornet creator George W. Trendle to writing for earlier incarnations of Temerson’s comics to titular co-owner of Continental in just six short years. Now, in partnership with travel writer Marjorie May, the niece of World Color Press owner Russell Messing, Hermann was ready to advance her career out of Temerson’s shadow with the small line of comics she’d launched the previous year. All three of her quarterly titles had begun their existences as black market comics released through fly-by-night publishers but were now legit, thanks to Hermann’s claim to a portion of Continental’s paper allotment. Though the Orbit Publications logo appeared on the covers of her books, their indicia listed three different companies as the publisher of record. The title feature of Patches was a teen humor strip that held up to comparison with “Archie” thanks to funny scripting by an unknown hand and attractive art by the team of George Harrison and Terry Woik (who married fellow comics artist Zoltan Szenics this year). The duo also drew the spin-off strip “Sandy and Spiderlegs.” “Junior Hall of Fame” told the true stories

L.B. Cole’s cover for Catman Comics #31. TM and © respective copyright holder.

of outstanding American youth as illustrated by Maurice Del Bourgo, who also provided the art for the July issue (#3)’s surprise feature “Sunday Mornings and Always,” an essay on the evils of racial and ethnic prejudice written by none other than crooner and teen heartthrob Frank Sinatra. Two issues later, another prose piece, “The Kid from Brooklyn,” told the life story of entertainer Danny Kaye. Similar celebrity bios also appeared regularly in Taffy Comics as of its November issue (#5). Previous issues had spotlighted funny animal super-doer “Wiggles the Wonderworm” in book-length adventures but the title was completely overhauled with the fifth issue into a teen humor title. “Taffy” featured Taffy Tucker, a disaster-prone freshman at Bonnybrook High School, and her efforts to fit into her new surroundings. Both written and drawn by Orbit’s new art director, recently discharged Army veteran Mortimer “Mort” Leav, with the assistance of Terry Szenics and Richard Burdick, “Taffy” was arguably the best drawn teen humor strip of the postwar era. Leav also handled the book’s back-up series, “Molly Muddle,” starring another Bonnybrook student infamous for butting into other people’s business. Ousted Taffy star Wiggles found a new home in the pages of Toytown Comics alongside original Toytown star “Mertie Mouse,” “Upan Atom,” and “Rufus De Bree,” in which a timid streetsweeper and his pal Mac, an ice deliveryman, find themselves mistaken for a knight and his squire after being literally blown to Kingdom Kum, a fantasy realm whose monarch sends the duo off on a dangerous quest.

The pair of comic books published by J.A. Ruby’s Consolidated Magazines, Key Comics and Lucky Comics, did not have the same fortune as Rae Hermann’s titles. Canceled with their August issues (#5 for both), neither comic offered a series that captured the attention of enough readers to keep the line going despite the best efforts of top Funnies, Inc. artists like Bill Allison, Marv Levy, Jack Warren, and Henry Keifer. Drab mystery-men strips like “The Key,” “The Ring of Darius,” and “Will o’ the Wisp” (whose

teen heroine gained actual super-powers under new artist Gerald Altman) and colorless back-up series such as “Dick Dash, Boy Adventurer” and private eye “Lucky Starr” bear the brunt of the blame for this lack of interest. There were some worthwhile offerings—Keifer’s highly condensed opera adaptations; Levy’s outre “John Quincy, the Atom”; Warren’s “Junior,” a kid strip reminiscent of Skippy, the classic Percy Crosby syndicated strip on which Warren once assisted—but they were few and far between. Ultimately, Consolidated didn’t have what it took to survive in the new postwar comics marketplace.

Two specialty titles that did well as long as Limitation Order L-244 was in effect discovered that the hobbyists who constituted their core audience were not sufficient to keep them viable after restrictions were lifted. Aviation Press and its packager, the L.B. Cole shop, found themselves hard-pressed to keep Contact Comics relevant without the war to serve as backdrop for its various pilot heroes. They tried: “The Golden Eagle” pursued war criminal The Ace of Blades, “Tommy Tomahawk” and his all-Amerindian squadron went to work for the United Nations, and “Black Venus” took on gangsters preying on wounded vets. All three series were scrapped anyway following Contact #11 (March). Four months later, the final issue of Contact hit the stands with an all-new line-up of features like “The Sky Rangers” and “The Air Kids,” but the decision to terminate the title had already been made. The transition to the postwar world came a bit easier for the Chicago-based U.S. Camera Publishing. The series running

Van Johnson’s text article in Taffy Comics #5 earned the actor a spot on the cover. TM and © respective copyright holder.

Upan Atom, from Toytown Comics #4. TM and © respective copyright holder.

in Camera Comics weren’t as firmly rooted in the hostilities—only “The Grey Comet” handled the switchover awkwardly—and shutterbugs “Art Fenton,” “Linda Lens,” “Kid Click,” and “Jim Lane, Insurance Investigator” kept their cameras clicking through the final issue (#9, Summer). Both books were likely hampered by devoting big chunks of their pages to non-fiction prose-and-photo sections that no doubt appealed to flight and photography enthusiasts but turned off the average reader.

Titles and lines of various degrees of legitimacy also felt the postwar squeeze. Convicted black marketeer L.L. Baird released two final comics through his Croydon Publishing front before folding up his tent for good. The third and final, undated issue of the annual Variety Comics, packaged by Funnies, Inc., saw the last installments of “Captain Valiant,” “Gabby Grayson,” “Terry Temple,” “Jungo,” and “Marty Moore,” as well as the only appearance of “Hi Hilton,” a promising strip about a former big league pitcher, wounded in the war, who found new purpose as a coach. The one-shot Captain Wizard Comics featured the title character’s swan song, as well as those of “Impossible Man,” “The Sorcerer and His Apprentice” (retitled “Little Joe Djerk”), and other series generated by the Bernard Baily shop. It included the pilot episodes of two more strips, “The Kid Next Door” and “The Spook,” the Howie Post drawn story of comic book artist Dan Goonface who, desperate for inspiration, donned a cape and hit the streets.

Also yielding to the realities of the marketplace was The Challenger, the 68 page socially and racially progressive quarterly from the Interfaith Committee of Protestant Digest. Its cancellation after its fourth issue (Oct.-Nov.Dec.) may have been due to distribution problems or the series may simply have been too ahead of its time. It was edited by Gerard Richardson, who must not have been able to pay much in the way of rates as most of the art in the comic book’s four issues is abysmal, with one exception: Joe Kubert’s work on “The Golem” in The Challenger #3 (July-Aug.-Sept. 1946). For Joe Kubert, the money offered to draw the story was likely less important than the story’s subject matter, which engaged him deeply. Kubert had grown up hearing about the plight of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis—including his own European relatives—and became aware of the horrors of the Holocaust as the news of Hitler’s death camps was disseminated in postwar Amer-

ica. Though not a highly religious man, Joe deeply felt his Jewish roots and wanted to help spread awareness of the depredations of fascism. Written by The Challenger’s chief writer, Robert Bernstein, “The Golem” was, at 18 pages, the longest story Joe Kubert had drawn in comic books thus far. More significantly, it was the first with a pronounced social and political message. Bernstein’s script dramatized the Jewish legend of an artificially formed man who saved the Jews from their oppressors. This was Kubert’s chance to deal with the plight of his own ancestors, and he must have also enjoyed certain similarities to his favorite movie, Frankenstein. Kubert’s artwork is assured and well-modulated. By this time, just a year after taking over “Hawkman,” he filled panels with better-defined action and character expression that fit the words and storytelling requirements. “The Golem” is one of the early highlights of Kubert’s still-young career.

Like The Challenger, Teen Life, the 56-page digest-sized comic released by New Age Publishers, vanished from newsstands following its undated fourth issue, but perhaps the most unfortunate victim of the postwar comic book marketplace shake-up was the small line of comic books from Spark Publications. Publisher Ken Crossen, art director Mac Raboy, and editor/ head writer Joseph Greene had dedicated themselves to turning out a quality product. Without question, they succeeded as Green Lama, Golden Lad, and newcomer Atoman all featured crisp scripting and top-notch artwork. After paper restrictions were lifted, the books’ page counts were bumped up to 52, allowing for additional strips to be added, admittedly not all as wellcrafted as the existing features.

Scripted by creator Crossen and illustrated by Raboy, “The Green Lama” deserved his place on the cover and in the lead position of the comic that bore his name, though Bruce Elliot and Jerry Robinson’s “Boy Champions” gave the cloaked mystic a run for his money, at least art wise. Joining “Angus MacErc” and the satirical “Lt. Hercules” in the book’s back pages as of the March issue (#8) was “Sea Rover,” in which Naval reservist Skipper Smith and his teenage first mate Billy Jason set sail in the title sloop to seek adventure.

“Golden Lad,” written by Greene and drawn by Robinson’s studiomate Mort Meskin, found its youthful lead facing villains like The Dreamer and The Minstrel. Two back-up

Joe Kubert’s splash page for “The Golem” from The Challenger #3. TM and © respective copyright holder.

series, “Kid Wizards” and “Swift Arrow,” were dropped following issue #4 (April). They were replaced by Al Leiderman’s “Sam Stupor, Sleuth,” a bumbling “zoot-suited bloodhound of justice” whose antics were only occasionally funny; he-and-she crimefighters “Shaman and Flame,” a.k.a. radio executive Don Wickett and his secretary Sandy; and “Golden Girl,” a spin-off of the title feature starring Peggy Shane, a classmate of Tommy “Golden Lad” Preston, who became a superheroine after picking up a fragment of the Aztec Heart of Gold. One Golden Lad feature, Irv Tirman’s “Sandusky and the Senator,” headlined Comic Land, a one-shot released through alternate corporate identity Fact and Fiction Publications bearing a March publication date.

Spark added a third ongoing title, Atoman, at the start of the year. The nuclear-powered hero was accompanied in his premiere issue by a blatantly fictionalized account of famed lawman and gunslinger “Wild Bill Hickok,” the Meskin-illustrated “Kid Crusaders,” and “Marvin the Great,” a light-hearted parody wherein meek Marvin Smith becomes a costumed crusader after being gifted with superhuman strength by the war god Mars. All three were gone by the next issue, their slots filled by “Magga the Magnificent,” a solo outing for Green Lama’s female counterpart, tough-as-nails private eye “Johnny Mason,” and stray episodes of “Boy Champions” and “Sam Stupor.”

Not everything Spark produced was top-drawer material but enough of it was that the line should’ve been able to compete in the crowded marketplace, but it was not to be as Mac Raboy expert Roger Hill explains:

aficionados who valued quality writing and superlative art in their comic books.

Running in Place

For some comic book publishers, the challenge of competing with the larger publishing houses for paper and press time sometimes meant settling for the status quo. One major publisher and six minor ones followed this path, neither adding nor cancelling any titles this year. For some, it was sound business strategy, a chance to make up revenue lost to rationing before committing to any expansion. For others, it was a matter of simply staying alive in a changing industry where survival was uncertain.

“[T]rouble was in the air, and Raboy, Meskin, and others probably saw it coming even before it arrived. By January 1946 the curtains were beginning to close on Crossen’s publishing venture. The Green Lama and Golden Lad series had failed to gain the momentum necessary to keep them financially afloat. Crossen put on a big dinner party for all the company’s employees, writers and artists—and at the end of the evening announced he was going out of business. He filed bankruptcy shortly thereafter and left town owing people money” (Hill 14).

Green Lama #8, Golden Lad #5, and Atoman #2 were the final issues of those titles. Robinson and Meskin soon found new outlets for their talents, Joe Greene returned to freelancing fulltime, and Mac Raboy was selected by King Features to replace the departing Austin Briggs on Flash Gordon, as prestigious a gig as any cartoonist could hope for. Still, the collapse of Spark was a great loss for those

During the war, publishing partners Ned Pines and Ben Sangor tried every trick in the book to keep their line of comics going full steam ahead: juggling frequencies and page counts, claiming a defunct company’s paper allotment, using proxies both legal and otherwise. With such chicanery no longer necessary, the duo decided it was time to clean up their act. While their three oldest titles remained with the imprints they began with— Exciting Comics and Startling Comics with Better Publications, Thrilling Comics with Standard Magazines—all their other books, previously released either through Nedor Publishing or through a proxy, were divvied up between two new corporate identities. Superhero titles America’s Best Comics, Wonder Comics, Black Terror, and Fighting Yank listed Visual Editions, Inc. as their publisher of record, as did the non-fiction Real Life Comics and It Really Happened. Funny animal books Coo Coo Comics, Happy Comics, Goofy Comics, and Barnyard Comics were credited to Animated Cartoons, Inc. (a misnomer, as none of the characters therein actually appeared on film).

Editor Richard Hughes may have sensed that the demand for costumed supermen was on the decline, as lesser members of that oddest of fraternities began to disappear from the pages of Pines’ comics. “The Black Terror” was secure in his position as cover star and lead feature of Exciting Comics, but several of his co-stars were not as fortunate. “The Scarab” held on until the June issue (#48), “The American Eagle” until two issues later. Their final episodes ran in Black Terror #20 (October 1947) and Fighting Yank #18 (Nov. 1946) respectively. Another strip, the Al Camy-illustrated serial “Kara the Jungle Princess” departed Exciting following #49 (July), but not before confusing the daylights out of its readers by running episodes out of sequence (the story only makes sense if read in this order: #49, 44-46, 43, and 47-48). The war strip “Sergeant Bill King,” drawn by Maurice Gutwirth, concluded in issue #50. It and “American Eagle” were replaced by “Miss Masque,” alias socialite Diana Adams, a Lady Luck clone, and “Roger Dodger,”

Jerry Robinson’s cover for the debut issue of Atoman, a series that only lasted two issues. TM and © respective copyright holder.

another “Archie” knock-off starring average teen Roger, best friend Jeep, girlfriend Mabel-Sugar, and romantic rival Ramon. Roger was the first professional credit for Henry Allen “Al” Hartley, son of the U.S. Congressman who co-sponsored the Taft-Hartley Act and, a decade or two later, a mainstay at Marvel, Archie, and Spire Christian Comics. While all this commotion was going on in the back of the book, the Terror and Tim were clashing with Japanese troops as late as the May issue (#47). Many of the postwar stories here, as well as in his solo title and America’s Best, found Black Terror dealing with ordinary crooks and hoodlums, though foes like The Patriotic Americans, a fascist group of fraudulent veterans, and criminal scientist Dr. Inch occasionally broke the monotony. Not enough, perhaps. Sales of Exciting were apparently down, justifying both the turnover in content and the title’s demotion to bi-monthly with the November issue (#52).

Exciting’s sister titles, the bi-monthly Thrilling Comics and Startling Comics, followed a similar pattern, their superhero cover stars still fighting the war well into the spring and several long-running strips ending to make room for new ones “The Fighting Yank” and the electrically powered “Pyroman,” who took turns appearing on the covers of Startling, trod this same path, dropping Axis-related opposition by early summer in favor of menaces like The Grey Destroyers, The Claw, The Unseen, The Hood, The Four, and

The Tyrant King and his “voltogun”-wielding henchmen. Their co-stars “Captain Future” and “The Oracle” were dropped from the roster following the July issue (#40). Oracle was gone for good, but Future would return in 1947 for a last stand in America’s Best #22 (June). Taking their place in the back pages were “Front Page Peggy,” starring a reporter willing to risk life and limb for that big story, and “Trouble-Shooter,” the pulp-flavored exploits of private eye Galahad Grant, illustrated by East Coast art director Bob Oksner. Over in Thrilling, “Doc Strange” reclaimed the cover and lead position from “The Commando Cubs,” who took a two-issue sabbatical from the title to make room for the premiere of “The Cavalier,” a modern-day swashbuckler by Richard Hughes and Sam Cooper Curio shop owner Rance Raleigh became the masked swordsman whenever the portrait of the Duc de Chantray hanging in his shop changed expression to warn him of danger. The series apparently fell flat with readers, however, as it did not reappear until a 1948 issue of Fighting Yank. “The Ghost” took his final bow in Thrilling #52 (February), ceding his pages to “The Phantom Detective,” one of Pines’ oldest and most popular pulp heroes (and also the first hero to be alerted by police via a searchlight signal on top of a skyscraper, several years before Batman appropriated the idea). E.E. Hibbard of “The Flash” fame drew the first episode of playboy Richard Curtis Van Loan’s masked alter ego before handing off the art chores to Edmond Good. Two other features, “Jimmy Cole, Boy Sleuth,” and “The Lone Eagle,” were replaced as of the October issue (#56) by Art Gates’ “Looie Lazybones,” a comedy whose premise was telegraphed by the title, and “Princess Pantha,” a circus animal trainer who went native after surviving the massacre of an African expedition by hostile tribesmen, becoming a champion of all jungle denizens threatened by danger. Chesler Studio veteran Ralph Mayo was at the drawing board for this latest variant on the white goddess trope.

After a final 36-page issue released under the Great Comics imprint, Wonder Comics disappeared from the shelves for eight months, returning as a 52-page bi-monthly with issue #8 (Oct.). The book’s star, “The Grim Reaper,” was now home from Europe and taking on criminals with the same relentlessness with which he previously dealt with Nazis, albeit without the lethality wartime justified. Joining “Spectro the Mind Reader,” and “The Supersleuths” in the back pages were two new series, the tongue-in-cheek “Jill Trent, Science Sleuth” and college athlete turned cub reporter “Bart Bradley.” Jill’s exploits were drawn by Al Camy, Bart’s by Bob Oksner who also lent his skills to the return of “Brad Spencer, Wonderman” in the December issue (#9).

It Really Happened, previously published via proxy Wm. H. Wise & Co., reappeared on the stands for the first time since 1944 with its October issue (#5). As before, it ran content similar to its sister title, Real Life Comics. The only noticeable difference from previous years was a gradual de-emphasis on stories centered on the war. These comics were less than enthralling, being both negligently researched—one story credited Jack the Ripper with 50 kills rather than the usual six—and badly drawn, save for the regular contributions of Charles M. Quinlan. Nonetheless, Real Life sold well enough to justify making it

a monthly as of issue #27 (Jan.), though it did skip its October issue.

A majority of the superhero and non-fiction material was scripted by Richard Hughes, “one of the [1940s’] most prolific and influential … writers” and regarded by his staff as “among the kindest, most considerate and professional editors in the business of comic books” (Vance 50, 47). The balance of the writing was provided by Jerry Albert, Stanley Kaufmann, and Patricia Highsmith, later the author of such bestselling suspense novels as Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley. In addition to Quinlan, Camy, Mayo, Gates, Gutwirth, Cooper, Good, and Hartley, contributing artists included Ken Battefield, Ed Moritz, Michael “Mike” Suchorsky, Leo Morey, Lin Streeter, August Froelich, Leonard Sansone, and cover specialist Alex Schomburg, all working under the supervision of Bob Oksner.

Oksner had sold a Sunday-only newspaper strip, Miss Cairo Jones, to the Associated Newspapers/Bell syndicate the previous year. Its popularity posed a problem that was resolved through an unusual business arrangement:

“[T]he syndicate wanted me to do dailies as well as the Sunday page, which I wanted to do. By doing the dailies, I couldn’t do much freelance work, so I made a deal with Sangor where I could use the office I had there, and whatever I could do freelance, I would do. And that was our deal until the strip died and I left them. … I really had no respect for [Pines’ comic book line]. I look upon them as a third-rate [operation], and I guess they were” (Amash 9).

Fair or not, Oksner’s assessment of the Pines line should be understood as relevant only to those books prepared in New York. The four funny animal titles produced by Artists and Writers Associates, the Los Angeles branch of the Sangor studio overseen by West Coast art director Jim Davis, were quality products. Crafted by animation studio veterans, these titles had traditionally avoided recurring characters but that was beginning to change. It was still rare for a series to appear in every issue—only Coo Coo’s “Supermouse” could claim episodes in double digits this year—but more and more strips began popping up on a regular basis.

Scripted by Richard Hughes, his only significant contribution to the humor line aside from his editorial role, “Supermouse” deserved his status as star of the monthly Coo Coo Comics. The lionhearted rodent’s adventures offered an entertaining blend of comedy and superhero action, and even occasionally took on a serious subject, as when Supermouse went back to school to earn his high school diploma in the September issue (#29). Two issues earlier, the strip’s art chores were assumed by animator Allan “Al” Hubbard, later celebrated for his work on Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories in the ’50s and ’60s. Periodically joining the Mouse of Tomorrow in the back pages of Coo Coo were the likes of “Bruno Bear,” “Chadwick Crow,” “Daffy and Dilly,” “Fritz,” “Tuffy,” “Gilbert,” as well as one-shot stories of more than 40 other critters. Of particular significance was the introduction of “Spunky the Pronto Kid” in issue #22 (February), a fun western by Jack Bradbury that teamed

the title character with Stanley, a talking horse who also appeared solo this year in five issues of Happy Comics (#12-16). The pairing must have struck a chord with readers, as the duo would go on to headline their own title three years later. Despite the quality of its content, sales of Coo Coo cooled enough by the fall that the book became a bimonthly with its November issue (#30).

Alternating on newsstands, the bimonthlies Happy Comics and Goofy Comics also began to regularly feature series alongside the usual potpourri of one-and-done stories, though the two titles approached them differently. Goofy tended to promote existing strips like Ken Hultgren’s “Uncle Pigly,” Bradbury’s “Bagshaw Bear,” and Hubie Karp and Curt Perkins’ “Gooligan” to recurring status, while Happy opted to launch new series. Joining “Stanley” in its pages this year were “Francois Feline, Esquire,” a comedy of manners concerning a former vaudevillian adjusting to his new middle-class existence as a housecat; Karp and Hubbard’s “Scamper,” spotlighting a war of wills between the title squirrel and the dimwitted dog determined to catch him; Don Arr’s (i.e., Don R. Cristensen’s) “Potter Otter,” starring a well-meaning but clumsy goof who screws up everything he tries; and “Little Billy Bear,” a family sitcom about an impetuous cub and his father by the team of artist Harris Steinbrook and writer Tom Baron. Other cartoonists contributing to the two books included Carl Wessler, Tony Loeb, Thurston Harper, Gil Turner, Manny Perez, Lynn Karp, Ed Dunn, Ken Champin, and cover artist Vic Pazmiño.

Joining the Pines humor line-up late in the year was Barnyard Comics, a bi-monthly previously published through the New Jersey-based Polo Magazine, Inc. It, too, looked like it would be concentrating on recurring characters, though only Jack Bradbury’s “Pansy the Chimp” appeared in both 1946-dated issues (#8-9, October-December). With the returns of Barnyard, Wonder Comics, and It Really Happened to their roster, Ned Pines and Ben Sangor, now completely above board, could relax, secure in their position as the industry’s fifth most prolific comic book house.

Pulp titan Street & Smith had made it through the war without cutting the frequencies of the five titles constituting its comic book line, averaging around three million copies sold per month at its peak. But plummeting sales in the first few months of peace led publisher

Barnyard Comics #8 cover artist Victor Pazmiño had a career in comics dating back to Dell’s The Funnies in 1929. TM and © respective copyright holder.

Allan Grammar and editor William DeGrouchy to make a severe miscalculation:

“Shifting priorities at Street & Smith allowed for what would have seemed unthinkable only a few years earlier: letting Walter Gibson go. The story of Gibson’s ignominious firing from writing The Shadow pulp and comicbook [sic] has been widely told. The exact details are no longer known, but one guesses it had something to do with a proposed decrease in Gibson’s rate of reimbursement for his writing. Rapidly declining sales in both the comicbook and pulp lines would’ve necessitated it” (Carlson-Ghost 30).

Gibson himself remembered it differently:

“The only reason I had to quit … involved Blackstone the Magician. That’s what made [his comic] so successful, because he plugged it [in his] shows; he was tied in with it. But then, in their stupidity, [Street & Smith] said they had all rights to any comics... Well, that was all right with The Shadow and other things, but it wasn’t all right with SuperMagician. So I just told them they couldn’t. … Blackstone was letting them use [his name and likeness] without any payment [but] reserved the rights to do whatever he wanted with his own name. That was when we started Blackstone, Master Magician for Vital” (Murray 44).

The loss of Blackstone and Gibson would ultimately kill SuperMagician Comics, but the prolific writer had completed so many scripts that the title was able to get through 1946 with, appropriately, a little sleight-of-hand: white-haired Harry Blackstone became black-haired Nigel Elliman, “famous fictional magician,” and his assistant Rhoda Brent became Lorna Doane. This new duo continued the work of their predecessors, traveling the world solving supposedly impossible crimes, and exposing fraudulent cults and mystics between theatrical engagements. Joined in later issues by Nigel’s valet Ling Foo, “Elliman, Ace of Magic” and Lorna foiled the schemes of such ne’er-do-wells as the Voodoo Wizards of the Everglades, Chardo the Invisible Monster, and Nozama, Bird Queen of Shangri-La. Blackstone was also swapped out for Elliman in the book’s “how-to” features. In the back pages, the uncredited talents behind the hospital sitcom “Lady in White” took a swipe at the book’s newly departed star by having titular nurse Flossie

pursued by a lusty prestidigitator named Whitestone. “Red Dragon,” meanwhile, transitioned from battling the Japanese military to taking on more fantastical opponents like werewolves and animated earthen statues, reaching an apogee of sorts in a multi-chapter story in which the Dragon and his companions discovered a suboceanic city inhabited by merpeople who worshipped Cthulhu, going on to battle the Lovecraftian elder god (depicted here as a giant green worm) and his undead army of history’s most infamous warlords. Whatever merit the series had was undercut by the abysmally crude art of Louis Gulick. Super-Magician’s demotion to a bi-monthly with issue #6, actually #54, (October-November) was a sign of its flagging popularity. It would last only two more issues.

Shadow Comics weathered the loss of Walter Gibson, creator of the title character, a little better, thanks to a backlog of finished scripts. Gibson and artist Charles Coll continued the cloaked sleuth’s clash with The Talon and The Hag in issues #59-60, 62, and 68. Other foes included The Blur, Judge Lawless, The Black Swami, and The Cloud Master. Bruce Elliot, his commitment to Spark ending when that company folded, was brought in to replace Gibson on both the pulp and comic versions of “The Shadow.” He did all right at first by adapting two of Gibson’s pulp stories, then demonstrated his unsuitability by giving the hero a kid sidekick, Shadow Jr., a.k.a. Donald Jordan, in the November issue (#68). “Doc Savage” spent the January through April issues (#58-61) countering the machinations of The Elders of Evil and the October through December issues (#67-69) taking on The Skull and his Black Room Society, briefly redonning his abandoned superhero costume in one episode. Rounding out the title was private eye “Nick Carter,” who was joined by his teenaged son Chick in two installments and replaced by him altogether in two others, probably as an unofficial tie-in to the 15-chapter Chick Carter, Detective serial released by Columbia Pictures over the summer.

Street & Smith’s most consistently entertaining title remained Supersnipe Comics, where writer Ed Gruskin and artist George Marcoux crafted ever more outrageous scenarios in which to drop “the boy with the most comic books in the world” and his elementary school entourage. The book lost its longest-running back-up series when 72-year-old Clare Dwiggins chose to retire his “Huckleberry Finn” strip following the September-October issue (#29). After a one-issue revival of “Wing Woo Woo,”

With the loss of Blackstone, Super-Magician Comics began starring an obvious imitator, Nigel Elliman, Ace of Magic. TM and © respective copyright holder.

the slot was filled by a “Hemlock Domes” solo story one month and a funny animal strip, “Benny Bear,” the next. Jane Krom Grammar’s kid strip “Dotty” yielded its pages in issue #25 (January-February) to an atypically serious “Roxy Adams, Girl Guerrilla” story in which Marcoux and Gruskin turned a spotlight on the issue of child abuse. Supersnipe’s excellence was finally rewarded when the title became a monthly with the November issue (#30).

Air Ace and True Sport Picture Stories managed to hang on despite having no recurring characters and devoting 16 pages out of every issue to a prose-and-photo section. This might not have been a problem had either book featured sharp writing and/or attractive art but both, unfortunately, settled for mediocrity. Sales continued to drop. The publisher kept them on life support anyway, perhaps hoping they would attract additional readers once the industry’s postwar turmoil had sorted itself out.

As for Gibson and Blackstone, they did indeed take their business to Vital Publications. The publishing arm of printer Wm. C. Popper & Co., Vital had previously served as proxy for Quality’s Plastic Man and Spirit solo titles. Blackstone Master Magician Comics was its first venture into establishing its own line. The 52-page bi-monthly was essentially Super-Magician reborn, each issue including two long adventures of Harry and Rhoda interspersed with “how-to” tips on performing sleight-of-hand magic. Handling the artwork for this new incarnation was E.C. Stoner. Vital must’ve been paying generous page rates, as Stoner’s work here towers over what he was producing for Fox, with better draftsmanship and more carefully considered page and panel compositions. Without the name Street & Smith behind it, however, Blackstone Master Magician Comics struggled to find distribution, folding after a mere three issues. A second new Vital title, Jim Ray’s Aviation Sketchbook, was a victim of bad timing, as the same decline in postwar interest in the subject that took down Contact Comics claimed this book too. It only lasted two issues. Vital would continue to release comics through 1958, specializing in 3.5” x 7” giveaways for cereal companies and gas stations, but Blackstone #3 (July-August) was their last standard-sized newsstand comic. This failure did not discourage Blackstone or Gibson, the two prestidigitating pals trying again the following year.

A long-struggling comics line was restored to full health in 1946. Not only did Hillman Publishing keep its monthlies, Airboy Comics and Punch and Judy Comics, more-orless on schedule (both books skipped their April issues) but it was able to resurrect the bi-monthly Clue Comics, suspended for lack of newsprint the previous year. Despite a publisher who had little respect for the medium and even less for those who created it—one staffer summed up Alex Hillman as “a fat, cigar-smoking tightwad” (Amash 5)— revenue from the trio of titles overseen by editor Ed Cronin was diverted to Hillman’s more prestigious slick magazines to keep them in the black.

Far and away Hillman’s most profitable property was “Airboy.” The teen aviator was so popular that Air Fighters Comics had been rechristened Airboy Comics as of its December 1945 issue. Scripted primarily by editor Cronin, backstopped by Dick Wood and Warren Kuhn, and illus-

trated by Dan Barry, Carmine Infantino, newcomer Bernard Sachs, and definitive artist Fred Kida, the postwar adventures of Airboy and his wonder plane Birdie included a pair of team-ups with foe-turned-friend Valkyrie (one was a rematch against arch-enemy Misery); a confrontation with The Town Criers, a society of anti-aviation Luddites; a return to the monastery where he was raised to protect the brothers from rapacious mobsters; and a reunion with his long-lost (and presumed dead) father. The talents handling “Sky Wolf” toyed with the idea of modifying the strip by eliminating the flier’s distinctive wolf’s-head hood for two episodes but eventually decided the series had its day, bringing it to a close with the November issue (#33) following four superlative art jobs by Alden McWilliams. Two other holdovers from the Air Fighters era, “The Iron Ace” and “The Flying Dutchman,” were also on their last legs, the Dutchman flying his last mission in issue #32 (October), while the armor-clad Ace appeared sporadically through early 1947. A new series, “The Flying Fool,” replaced the former. It featured freelance troubleshooter Link Thorne, who used his skills as a pilot to help those threatened by menaces like the sinister Smoke King. But the most important change in Airboy Comics this year was the return of tragic-but-terrifying swamp monster The Heap, first in a “Sky Wolf” story which brought the

In 1946, Harry Blackstone performed his magic for a new publisher, Vital Publications. TM and © respective copyright holder.

creature to America, then in its own series, where young Rickie Wood befriended the ambulatory pile of rotting vegetation. Writing credits are uncertain for the early installments. The Grand Comics Database credits William Woolfolk (though he made no mention of it in interviews) and Patricia Highsmith.

Credits are also spotty for Hillman’s other monthly, Punch and Judy Comics, which not only skipped its April issue but skipped its numbering, too, jumping from issue #8 (March) to #10 (May). Some sources cite Bill Hudson as a possible artist for the title feature but nobody seems to have identified the writer who put the living puppet Punch and his little neighbor Judy through their paces. The episode in the August issue (#13) bordered on the metatextual as Punch, unhappy with the way he was being drawn, invaded Hillman’s offices and demanded that editor Cronin hire better artists! Orsetes Calpini continued his fine work on “Fatsy McPig” and the circus-themed “Starry Eyes” uninterrupted, but other back-up series underwent some alterations. When writer/artist Ben Solomon took over “Buttons the Rabbit and Officer Hippo,” he dropped the ever-scheming Buttons in favor of Dumb Bunny, a character more innocent but no less exasperating. Bill Brady’s “Little Horsefeather,” about a young Native American boy, was retitled “Horsefeather and Pantywaist” when a new, unidentified

creator took over with Punch and Judy #17 (December), which elevated Horsefeather’s best friend to equal billing while redesigning him as chubby and bespectacled.

Fred Kida was pulled away from “Airboy” this year so he could help launch the new cover feature for the Clue Comics revival. “Gun Master” was Dumas Poe, a direct descendent of the man who discovered gunpowder, who swore to use his mastery of weapons against those who used guns for evil, in particular a femme fatale named Velvet. The new strip stood head and shoulders above its Clue Comics superheroic companions, the bizarre “Micro-Face,” Tony DiPreta’s tongue-in-cheek “Super Manny,” and the unintentionally absurd “Nightmare and Sleepy.” All four series appeared in the two 1946-dated issues of Clue (#10-11, October-December).

Hillman would gradually increase his firm’s output in the coming years, but in a cautious, well-planned way that exemplified the publisher’s personality, and that of his talented editor.

The Philadelphia-based David McKay Company was one of the most conservative comics publishing houses, content to let the King Features Syndicate newspaper strips it reprinted—including “Blondie,” “Prince Valiant,” “Flash Gordon,” “The Katzenjammer Kids,” “The Phantom,” “Thimble Theater,” “Mandrake the Magician,” and “The Lone Ranger”—buoy sales of its three monthlies. McKay was also the sole house to return to the 52-page standard with the February issues of King Comics, Ace Comics, and Magic Comics (#s 118, 107, and 79 respectively) only to revert back to the 36-page format for the remainder of the year. Editor Ruth Plumly Thompson, better remembered today for succeeding L. Frank Baum as author of the Oz book series, did take an uncharacteristic chance with the quarterly Feature Book. The first two issues, as usual, were devoted to collections of “Mandrake” and “Blondie.” The Autumn and Winter issues (#48-49), on the other hand, offered book-length adaptations of mystery novels, issue #48 adapting Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon (artist Rodlow Zwillard made sure the characters bore no resemblance to the cast of the classic 1941 film, thus sidestepping any copyright problems), while issue #49 adapted the 1934 Erle Stanley Gardner novel The Case of the Lucky Legs starring Perry Mason, with former “Shadow” artist Vernon Greene illustrating. In its own way, the Columbia Comic Corporation was as conservative as McKay. Jointly owned by the McAdam and Markey syndicates, its executives made no effort to expand the company’s tiny line after paper restrictions were relaxed. Just eleven issues of the monthly Big Shot (#62-72) were released with a 1946 cover date, along with two issues (#5-6) of the all-reprint Mickey Finn. Editor Tom DeAngelo and art director Mart Bailey were less wary of making adjustments to Big Shot’s original series to better reflect the postwar zeitgeist. The most sweeping change was made to “The Face.” Wrapping up the long running storyline set in the Pacific theater in which the Face identity was passed from person to person, cocreator Bailey destroyed the gruesome mask from which the vigilante took his name in the January issue (#62). Thereafter he focused on the series’ original lead, chang-

Cover to Hillman’s Punch and Judy Comics #10 (May 1946). TM and © respective copyright holder.

ing the title to “Tony Trent.” The radio commentator turned military officer did not immediately return to crimefighting, dealing instead with the problems facing servicemen as they returned to civilian life and with his fiancée Babs who, learning she had a fatal illness, broke off their engagement without explanation. Trent’s costar since the title’s first issue, “Skyman,” made a much smoother transition back to normalcy, aided immeasurably by the return of original artist Ogden Whitney with issue #67 (July). It was Whitney at the drawing board for a multi-issue saga in which the costumed aviator built an atomic-powered rocketship and, accompanied by girlfriend Fawn and reporter Alec Benson, flew to the moon, where the trio discovered Adolf Hitler alive and well. The exploits of Boody Rogers’ pseudo-superman “Sparky Watts,” now written and drawn by editor DeAngelo, were considerably more sedate, as he was hired to change places with his lookalike, vitamin entrepreneur Spencer Strongheart, and butch up the millionaire milquetoast’s public image. The remainder of Big Shot was reserved for reprints of “Joe Palooka,” “Dixie Dugan,” “Charlie Chan,” “Bo,” and “Captain Yank,” a military strip replaced as of the March issue (#64) by “Cranberry Boggs,” Don Dean’s Li’l Abner knock-off set in New England.

Sparkling Stars, the sole title released by Holyoke Publishing, returned to newsstands after a full year’s absence with its February issue (#10). During that interim, the printer turned publisher ended its business relationship with the Lou Ferstadt studio, opting to work directly with a wider choice of talents, some continuing their assignments from the Ferstadt era, others having past or present ties to Chesler, Funnies, Inc., and other shops. Two of the three strips that ran throughout the 11 1946-dated issues, “Ali Baba” and “Speed Spaulding, Star Athlete,” continued as before, but the third underwent a necessary overhaul. In issue #16 (August), the three pilot heroes of “Hell’s Angels,” mustered out of the service, bought a cattle ranch and, using it as their home base, launched their own air freight service. This brought them into conflict with Fritz Neron, “chief spy in America of defeated Axis powers,” who appeared in every subsequent episode this year. Artist Carmine Infantino left the series following the May issue (#13), with Walter Johnson and Howard Larsen filling in until Sol Brodsky took over the assignment. The back pages of Sparkling Stars saw a considerable amount of change, beginning with Herman Browner swapping out his private eye strip “Ted Hart, Detective” for the nearly identical “Detective Click Hunt” as of issue #12 (April), the main difference being that Click was a policeman. An issue later, “Zaro, Jungle Magician” was replaced by Robert Peterson’s “Jungo the Man-Beast.” This was not a continuation of the Croydon character of the same name, but a new feature starring film actor Phil Grant who, contracting amnesia while on location in the Congo, believed he was the jungle lord he was playing. He continued adventuring after regaining his memory, stumbling across the usual hidden valley populated by cavemen and dinosaurs, even bringing one dino back to civilization as a pet. Mo Weiss’s champion prizefighter “Boxie Weaver” hung up his gloves following the September issue (#17)

to make room for a Chuck Winter teen humor strip, “Jit Jones.” The final issue of the year introduced “Fangs the Wolf Boy,” in which scientist Rand Reed, conducting biological weaponry research in the jungles of South America, was saved from fascist spies by the title character, an American-born Mowgli. Sid Greene illustrated.

If Holyoke’s bigwigs hoped these moves would yield a higher quality product, they were quickly dashed. Even at 68 pages for a dime, Sparkling Stars remained a poor investment for comic book fans.

Long Timers, First Timers, and One Timers

The glut of comic books flooding newsstands following the lifting of paper quotas doomed a number of tyro publishers, each of whom released only one issue before giving up the ghost. As was true so often with these obscurities, quality was rarely a factor in their truncated lifespans.

The Regor Company of Mount Vernon, New York, was the publisher of The Atomic Thunderbolt. In addition to its nuclear-powered namesake, the title featured several other strips by “Thunderbolt” scripter Robert Peterson and/ or artist Mort Lawrence. The duo’s “Willy Wanderlust and Boitram” concerned a mysterious stranger sending the title

As of 1946, the pilot heroes of Holyoke’s Sparkling Stars were no longer fighting the war but running their own air freight service. TM and © respective copyright holder.

schoolboys back to the Stone Age to teach them a lesson about playing hookey. Peterson flew solo on “Mr. Murdo,” a bland and boring cape-wearing sleuth, and “Natural History Facts.” The book’s final offering was “Rigor and Mortis,” an Art Helfant romp about a pair of wacky alchemists that included a cameo by Atomic Thunderbolt.

The Bernard Baily shop crafted the contents of the first (and only) issue of Slapstick Comics for Comic Magazine Distributors. Slapstick did indeed define the book’s cover feature. “Firetop,” written and drawn by Munson Paddock in a loose, exaggerated style miles removed from his constipated “straight” work, focused on the attempts of plainclothesman Rick O’Shea to bring the Dick Tracy-like criminal of the title and his moll Crepe Suzette to justice. Howie Post contributed “Mutton Jeff,” a funny animal farce about a sheep in wolf’s clothing, and “Stone Age Stan,” a prehistoric sitcom about a milquetoast caveman and his overbearing wife that was a precursor of both The Flintstones and Post’s own Anthro. Rounding out Slapstick was “Ten-Gallon Terwilliger,” the usual rube-in-the-bigcity shenanigans with a surprise twist, and “Laundryman,” the antics of a discontented laundryman turned amateur detective and his racist caricature of a sidekick. No one took credit for these lesser offerings.

The undated, unnumbered Atomic Bomb was another Baily-packaged newcomer, this one of dubious legitimacy. The 32-pager, almost certainly printed on black market newsprint, filled its pages with the final appearances of “Beau Brummel,” “Captain Milksop,” “Teeny McSweeney,” and other series that had hopped from publisher to publisher, each in violation of federal regulations, throughout the previous year. Jay Burtis was the publisher of record.

In contrast to the others, Medal of Honor Comics, published by A.S. Curtis Feature Syndicate, was intended from its inception to be a one-shot. Sub-titled “True Tales of The Nation’s Highest Award for Valor,” it outlined the origin of the Congressional Medal of Honor and recounted the feats of battlefield heroism that earned a half-dozen American servicemen the titular award. Publisher Curtis, the Annapolis instructor who had scripted the previous

year’s Navy Heroes, provided the words here as well for an unidentified slate of illustrators.

With a first issue debuting with a December cover date, Foxy Fagan Comics would enjoy a longer life than any of the titles mentioned above, thanks in no small part to its impeccable pedigree. Nominally published by the Dearfield Publishing Company of Chicago, it was actually a joint venture of Oscar-winning animation director Joseph “Joe” Barbera, co-creator of “Tom and Jerry,” and MGM animator Harvey Eisenberg. No wonder the lead series, a funny duel of wits (with both sides unarmed) between a chicken-hungry fox and a dimwitted farm dog, reads like the storyboard of an unproduced cartoon skillfully reinterpreted for the printed page. The title’s back-up series, “Pete and Tweet” and “Little Buck,” demonstrated equal craftsmanship but lacked the manic hilarity of “Foxy Fagan,” reportedly scripted by Barbera himself. Foxy Fagan Comics would run for seven quarterly issues before ending in the summer of 1948, less a victim of competition on the newsstands than of the demands of their day jobs on Eisenberg and Barbera. It was an unfortunate loss for fans of first-rate funny animal comics.

Another Chicago-based publisher, Able Manufacturing Co. released eight undated issues of Super-Dooper Comics in 1946, though it is unclear if they were released one at a time or dumped into distribution all at once. Either way, Super-Dooper bore a strong resemblance to the various Green Publishing titles, reprinting creaky old Chesler material from Harry Sr.’s mid-1930s titles, including early episodes of “The Clock” in the first four issues and random selections from Harvey’s Family Comics (e.g., “Shock Gibson,” “Black Cat,” et al) in the latter four.

Jing-Pals Comics, published by the Victory Magazine Corp., has proven to be a true conundrum for comics historians. Although four issues of Jing-Pals are known to have been released, none of those bearing a 1946 date have surfaced over the intervening decades, leaving their contents a complete mystery. Judging by issue #3 (August 1947), the title seems to have featured humor strips packaged by Jason Comic Art and

may have had some sort of business ties to Holyoke, its printer.

Dayton, Ohio publisher George A. Pflaum didn’t have to worry about the postwar newsstand glut for his title, Treasure Chest of Fun and Facts (commonly referred to as simply Treasure Chest). That’s because it wasn’t sold on newsstands or in corner candy stores. Instead, the Catholic-themed series was offered exclusively in parochial schools, its print run determined by student subscriptions. Published bi-weekly when school was in session and monthly during the summer, Treasure Chest had a 496 issue run, starting in 1946 and ending in 1972. Its first issue (March 12, 1946) had such religious features as “God’s Gift Is Lent” but also the first in its long-running “Chuck White” series. Created by Captain Frank Moss, “Chuck White” begins with Chuck and his father moving to a new city (Steeltown) where Chuck becomes innocently involved when his friends steal a car. The series depicted certain “controversial” matters such as racially integrated friendships. Chuck wasn’t a stick figure mouthing pious platitudes; he was a troubled youth walking the line between going “good” or “bad.” Hence, the feature was more nuanced, especially in its early days, than one might think. It was scripted by Jay Griffin (as Griffin Jay) with signed artwork by Earl Lonsbury (who, in 1948, would draw the first issue of Crime Smasher for Fawcett). In later years, Treasure Chest boasted contributions from such talented artists as Murphy Anderson, Reed Crandall, Graham Ingels and Joe Sinnott.

Magazine House Lev Gleason Publications

While performing his military service, publisher Lev Gleason left his company in the competent care of business manager Bella Kimelfeld and the editorial team of Charles Biro and Bob Wood. They didn’t disappoint him as his titles were collectively averaging two million copies sold per month. But now that he was a civilian once more, Gleason chose to make a bold move as explained by his biographer Brett Dakin: “Lev decided to form a new business that would bring together all the titles that he was publishing. It was time to put his imprimatur on each title in the most explicit way possible. So he gave the new company his own name” (Dakin 40). In other words, the company formerly known as Magazine House was now Lev Gleason Publications

cover of issue #43 (Jan. 1946). The issue’s stories matched the cover’s salacious image with titles like “The Bookkeeping Bandit!,” “Case of the Love Sick Clown,” “Ghouls’ Gold,” “The Case of the Impossible Suicide” and “Doctor of Evil.” All supposedly, although likely not, based on true crimes. This was the case issue after issue after issue.

With Crime Does Not Pay, Lev Gleason had a hit on his hands, and he knew it. In fact, it wouldn’t be long before he would be crowing about how many people he believed were reading his book.

Despite publishing only three ongoing titles (Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, and Daredevil Comics), Lev Gleason was one of the top ten comic book publishers in terms of sales. (A fourth Gleason title, Silver Streak Comics, ended this year with issue #23-Nov. 1946.) Biro and Wood obviously knew how to create comic books that people wanted to read and aiding their efforts (most specifically on Boy Comics and Daredevil Comics) was workhorse artist Norman Maurer

Of the three books, there was one clear-cut “top dog” in Gleason’s kennel: Crime Does Not Pay. Reportedly selling over 800,000 copies per issue (making it one of the industry’s very best sellers), the series offered eye-opening violence, such as the stabbed dead man appearing on the

That story would play out in 1947. As far as 1946 goes, in the latter part of the year, the newsstand’s glut finally worked its way out. While that certainly relieved everyone remaining, the comic book industry’s other big concern remained: the reading public’s interest in superheroes was clearly waning. A genre that nearly every publisher exploited could no longer be relied upon. Millions of Americans had developed the “comic book habit,” but if they no longer wanted superheroes, what did they want? What would be the next big trend be?

Publishers scratched their heads in search of an answer. Lev Gleason wasn’t one of them. He already knew the answer.

Charles Biro’s cover for Crime Does Not Pay #43 was inspired by the conclusion of 1931’s The Public Enemy, where the bound corpse of James Cagney’s character was propped against a door. TM and © respective copyright holder.

The Cold War Within and Without

As expected, the international recovery from World War II was arduous and protracted. Nearly two years after the end of the conflict, several countries contended with major economic crises, and the typically prosperous nations (like Great Britain) were too burdened with their own problems to assist. Greece and Turkey were in particularly bad shape, with the former dealing with a civil war that pitted the ruling monarchy against communist insurgents and the latter fending off the Soviet Union’s attempts to control the Turkish Straits. Only one country seemed poised to help: the United States of America. However, a significant portion of American citizens (and politicians) wanted the country to return to its traditional isolationist tendencies. They felt that with the war over, and tyrants like Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini removed from power, America could once again distance itself from the matters outside its borders. In the new world order, however, isolationism was a luxury that the United States could no longer afford. Indeed, America’s self-interests now necessitated its involvement in the world’s problems, with Greece and Turkey becoming perfect cases in point. Left on their own, both countries would likely succumb and become occupied by, if not satellites of, the Soviet Union. From there, the Soviets could reach further into Europe. Even the staunchest isolationist would have found that a disconcerting if not terrifying prospect.

Therefore, on March 12, 1947, President Truman delivered a speech to a joint session of Congress which in part stated, “it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” Truman went on to declare that America “must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.” Truman then requested—and Congress subsequently provided—$400 million in aid to Greece and Turkey. More importantly, though, Truman’s speech became the foundation of a new foreign policy known as “The Truman Doctrine.” Its subtext was clear: the United States would serve as a check against the Soviet Union’s attempts to expand its influence around the world. With that, a new era dawned. The “Cold War” had begun, cementing the United States’ status as a global superpower, and its days of isolationism permanently in the past.

The Cold War created an ideological shift within America. With the Soviet Union now perceived as America’s main

adversary, “communism” became synonymous with “Un-American.”

On March 21, 1947, President Truman issued Executive Order 9835 which required all federal employees be screened for “loyalty.” The purpose of this “Loyalty Order” was to identify, and weed out, all civil-service workers who were affiliated with, or sympathetic to, any “totalitarian, fascist, communist or subversive” organization. Likewise, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Un-American Activities ramped up its investigations into communist infiltrations of American institutions, particularly in the film entertainment industry. On November 24, 1947, ten suspected communist screenwriters and directors appeared before the Committee and were cited for contempt of Congress when they refused to testify as to whether or not they were communist. The very next day, various studio executives, under the aegis of the Association of Motion Picture Producers, fired all ten writers and directors from their studio contracts.

This launched what would become known as the “Witch-Hunt” that raced through the film industry, causing havoc for both real and suspected communists. In short order, hundreds of actors, screenwriters, directors, musicians, and production crew members, accused of communist sympathies by their industry colleagues, were blacklisted by studio production heads even though the vast majority of the accused had committed no crime. The Hollywood Witch-Hunt was shortly followed by “McCarthyism,” which carried the same practice over to universities and the military.

Ironically, this took place as the country was celebrating its liberty with a cross-country tour of the Freedom Train, a locomotive that was a virtual museum of important U.S. documents. Al Capp’s Li’l Abner devoted the first three weeks of September 1947 to the Train, elevating the Constitution’s freedoms while savagely mocking politicians who abused their power. Pittsburgh Press editor Edward Towner Leech believed that the cartoonist was depicting the Senate as “an assortment of boobs and undesirables” and refused to publish

the final week of dailies. “We don’t think it is good editing or sound citizenship to picture the Senate as an assemblage of freaks and crooks,” he declared in a September 17 editorial. “There already are too many efforts to weaken faith in American institutions” (Leech 16).

No doubt, America was undergoing a dramatic and tumultuous transition, affecting every citizen, institution, and business, including the comic book industry.

The G.I. Bill Artists

After the surrender of the Axis powers in 1945, and the massive demobilization of Allied troops in 1945 and 1946, American boys were returned to civilian life in droves. This was singularly dramatized in William Wyler’s Academy Award-winning film The Best Years of Our Lives, released November 21, 1946, and starring Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright and double-amputee Harold Russell, who also won a Best Supporting Actor award for the first of only three films he would ever act in. The Best Years of Our Lives made it clear that readjustment to civilian life would be difficult for most soldiers.

To ease that transition, Congress passed the Serviceman’s Readjust ment Act of 1944, which was most commonly known as the “G.I. Bill.” It provided services for virtually all returning veterans. Among its most popular benefits were the payment of tuition and living expenses to attend high school, college or voca tional schools, the provision of lowcost mortgages and business loans, and a year of unemployment com pensation. Veterans didn’t have to pay any income tax on G.I. benefits, since these benefits weren’t consid ered earned income.

Roughly half a million ex-service men returned to civilian life in New York City alone in 1946, including a flood of young, aspiring artists, many of whom sought a career in comic illustration and needed art education to accomplish this. To fill this need, syndicated Tarzan artist Burne Hogarth and Silas Rhodes co-founded the Car toonists and Illustrators School in 1947 with the support of the

Veterans Administration where Rhodes worked. (The school itself was an expansion of Hogarth’s Manhattan Academy of Newspaper Art.) C&I offered a two-year course to prepare students for a career in cartooning and commercial art and its first instructors were Hogarth, Marvin Stein and Harry Fisk. Some members of the inaugural class of 35 students included Dick Cavalli (Winthrop), Jerry Marcus (Trudy) and Bob Weber (Moose). Another of the early students was a precocious, skinny chain smoker named Wallace Wood.

Seeking New Directions

A comic book with far reaching significance for the comics industry in 1947 was actually released at the end of 1946. Lev Gleason’s Crime Does Not Pay #50 (on sale December 30, 1946 but with a March 1947 cover date) hit newsstands with a banner above the title shouting “MORE THAN 5,000,000 READERS!” It was the boldest of claims, but everyone in the comics industry knew it couldn’t be true. In fact, it was common knowledge that only a few comics were selling over one million copies a month. Rather than boasting about the sales of Crime Does Not Pay, the “More Than 5,000,000 Readers”

TIMELINE: 1947

A compilation of the year’s notable comic book history events alongside some of the year’s most significant popular culture and historical events. (On sale dates are approximations.)

January 13: The first installment of the daily Steve Canyon comic strip appears in newspapers. Written, drawn, and owned by famed Terry and the Pirates creator Milton Caniff, the adventure strip will run until 1988.

January 15: The mutilated remains of 22-year-old aspiring actress Elizabeth Short are found in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. The body of “Black Dahlia” (as she becomes posthumously known) is drained of blood and severed at the waist. Her murder remains one of the most famous unsolved crimes in American history as well as the basis for numerous films and novels.

March 12: In an address to Congress, President Truman announces his foreign policy (“The Truman Doctrine”) to aid nations threatened by Soviet expansion. The Cold War has begun.

March 21: President Truman issues Executive Order 9835 (a.k.a. the “Loyalty Order”) which sought to root out any federal employee who was affiliated with or sympathetic to any “totalitarian, fascist, communist or subversive” organization.

April 6: The first Tony awards— recognizing excellence in Broadway theater—are presented at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.

banner was making a claim to the comic book’s reach. In other words, publisher Gleason was estimating the title’s total readership by figuring that any bought issue would be read by six or more readers besides the buyer. It was certainly true that any comic book sold in 1946 would likely have been read by the purchaser’s friends, traded to other comics fans, or deposited in the waiting rooms of barbers and doctors. Still, the idea that every comic sold would be read by seven people seemed a bit much, and Gleason really had no idea of the actual number of readers of each issue. What Gleason hoped was that casual browsers would take the banner to mean that Crime Does Not Pay was actually selling 5,000,000 copies of each issue, prompting them to “jump on the bandwagon” and buy their own copy. In that regard, Gleason was right. The actual sales figures in 1946 for the bi-monthly Crime Does Not Pay were an average of 811,806 copies an issue, but in 1947 that average climbed to 863,591 copies as the title went monthly starting with issue #51 (May 1947). Sales for Crime Does Not Pay peaked in 1948 with an average of 993,620 copies (Gleason 136). Little wonder, then, that with issue #58 (Dec. 1947), the cover banner above the Crime Does Not Pay title no longer read “Over 5,000,000 Readers Monthly!” It now read “Over 6,000,000 Readers Monthly!”

Gleason’s hyperbolism aside, for an industry looking for new trends that would suit the reading tastes of postwar

June 8, Charles Schulz’s L’il Folks, the precursor to Peanuts, begins running in the St. Paul Pioneer Press as a one-panel joke strip.

April 15: Wearing No. 42 for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American to play in a regular season Major League Baseball game.

Black Canary makes her debut appearance as a supporting character in a Johnny Thunder story in Flash Comics #86.

May 8: The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) convenes in Hollywood to investigate alleged Communist influence in the film industry.

May 2: Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston dies at the age of 53 of cancer.

April 16: In Galveston Bay, Texas, a fire on board a French vessel detonates its cargo of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, killing nearly 600 people and devastating nearby Texas City. Thousands of city residents are left homeless as a result.

June 27: A jury finds the board members of the Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, which includes comic book publisher Lev Gleason, guilty of contempt of Congress for refusing to provide documents to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Gleason subsequently receives a suspended sentence of three months along with a $500 fine.

America—especially as the war years’ superhero titles continued their sales slide and the humor/funny animal titles that were replacing some of the superhero titles were performing, at best, satisfactorily—the clear success of Crime Does Not Pay made publishers take notice, prompting a few of them to dip their toes into the crime comics waters. Timely published Official True Crime Cases #24 in June (with a Fall 1947 cover date) before changing the book’s title to All-True Crime with issue #26 (Feb. 1948). Ace’s Super-Mystery Comics dropped its long-standing stars, the superpowered crimefighter Magno the Magnetic Man and his kid sidekick Davey, in favor of the detective duo “Bert and Sue” whose stories were illustrated by Ken Battefield and the underrated Warren Kremer. Then there was Vin Sullivan’s Magazine Enterprises, which mainly published funny animal and humor comics like Tick Tock Tales and Koko and Kola, suddenly turning up with the sleazy looking The Killers #1 featuring “Killers Three!” on its L.B. Coleillustrated cover. Sometime in 1947, Plastic Man creator Jack Cole took a job with Magazine Village to edit, write and draw a comic titled True Crime Comics.

It should come as no surprise that the creative duo of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby knew way before 1947 that “crime was in the air” and decided to give it a try. First, they converted Hillman’s Clue Comics (which had been featuring an anti-gun crusader named the Gun Master) into a hard-

June 11: Created by Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino, the

Steve Canyon TM and © Estate of Esther Parsons Caniff. Peanuts TM and © Peanuts Worldwide LLC.

July 8: In New Mexico, the Roswell Daily Record reports the Roswell Army Air Field has captured a flying saucer. Although military officials later clarify the debris was merely a high-altitude weather balloon, many people believe a

from another planet has crash-landed in Roswell and that the U.S. military has captured its extra-terrestrial occupants.

“The Roswell Incident” becomes the fodder for UFO conspiracy theories for decades to come.

July: Joe Simon and Jack Kirby ignite a major new trend in

with the release of

October 5: President Truman delivers the first televised White House address, asking Americans to refrain from eating meat on Tuesdays and poultry on Thursday in order to help stockpile grain for starving Europeans.

August 20: E.C. Comics publisher and former founder of All-American Publications, Max Gaines dies at the age of 52 in a boat accident.

September 26: Captain Marvel Adventures #79 introduces Mr. Tawny, a talking tiger who befriends Captain Marvel and will become one of the superhero’s most popular supporting characters for the remainder of his Fawcett run.

August 15: After 200 years of British rule, India gains its independence. The subcontinent formerly ruled by Great Britain has been partitioned into two self-ruling nations: India and Pakistan.

hitting crime comic with the issue cover dated March 1947 (recognized as either issue #13 of volume one or issue #1 of volume two). Their eight page “King of the Bank Robbers” focused on George Leonidas Leslie, an actual leader of a gang of bank robbers who operated in Philadelphia, New York City, and Baltimore in the 1860s and 1870s. Within three issues, Clue Comics became Real Clue Crime Stories (June 1947), and the book would run for over 70 issues as such, finally ending in May 1953.

Then Simon & Kirby launched a second crime series by converting the Crestwood/Prize title Headline Comics from a comic book “for the American boy” to a book billed as “All True Famous Detective Cases.” Headline Comics #23 (March-April 1947) features a cover by the Simon and Kirby team (or by Kirby and members of their studio). The two creators would produce this title for the rest of the decade, adding a substantial body of “true crime” stories to their credit. Unlike the crime stories published by Lev Gleason, many (but not all) of the Simon & Kirby crime tales were factual—a rarity in the crime genre of the 1940s-1950s, as Gleason and others who claimed such factual research in their crime stories were usually not concerned with facts at all.

The two new crime comics by Simon & Kirby did well, so they produced another Crestwood crime series: Justice

October 14: Over Muroc Army Air Field in California, Air Force test pilot Charles “Chuck” Yeager attains airspeed of almost 700 mph while flying the experimental Bell X-1 rocket plane. It is the first time a man breaks the sound barrier.

November 24: In a near unanimous vote, the U.S. House of Representatives cite “The Hollywood Ten” (a group of Hollywood screenwriters and directors which include Ring Lardner Jr. and Dalton Trumbo) for contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate in its investigation of alleged Communist influence in the film industry.

November 29: The United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution that partitions Palestine between Arab and Jewish regions. The State of Israel has been created.

December 3: Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire—starring Marlon Brando, Jessica Tandy, and Kim Hunter— opens on Broadway. The drama about a beleaguered Southern belle who moves to New Orleans to live with her sister and brother-inlaw will earn the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play of the year as well as a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Traps the Guilty. The cover of its first issue (Oct.-Nov. 1947) features a murderer, sitting in the electric chair, being taunted by the jailors preparing his execution. With that, Simon and Kirby put superheroes behind them as they prospected for gold in new genres that would appeal to the returning G.I.s, and other, older groups of readers who didn’t want the simplistic, colorful heroes any longer.

Since the Comic House/Gleason titles were distributed by Independent News, the true sales figures of Crime Does Not Pay were available to Harry Donenfeld at National Comics Publications (a.k.a. DC Comics), and through him, Jack Liebowitz, and likely the editors working at National, including Mort Weisinger, Julius Schwartz and Editorial Director Whitney Ellsworth, among others. The fact that a comic book about crime could sell almost as well as the industry’s most popular titles may not have come as a great surprise to anyone perusing the growing selection of provocative, pungent, and often sordid paperbacks available in candy shops and drug stores. Ellsworth’s dilemma, though, was figuring out how to exploit the genre in a way that was still within the bounds of good taste that was National’s touchstone.

His solution would be published with a December 1947-January 1948 cover date, signaling the tidal wave of crime comics that would flood the market in 1948.

spacecraft

comic books

Prize’s Young Romance #1.

The Death of M.C. Gaines

Usually, the advent of a sea change in comics is occasioned by shifting public taste, the debut of a new, dynamic character which catches the public’s fancy, or new creators willing to charge into previously forbidden, or simply nontraditional, territory. Rarely is it occasioned by the death of a successful publisher. Yet that is exactly what happened due to the death of E.C. Comics publisher Maxwell Charles Gaines in the summer of 1947.

Lake Placid, a small town in the Adirondack Mountains of Essex County, New York, is also a resort for the wealthy and has been and is a winter sports destination. In that latter capacity Lake Placid is still best known since it was the site for the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympic games. However, in the summer of 1947 it was a sleepy lake resort, offering the usual variety of water sports, namely swimming, boating, and water-skiing. Gaines owned one of Lake Placid’s large, beachfront homes. Comic book profits, both from being the founder and publisher of All-American Publications, which had published some of the best remembered and long-lasting superheroes of the 1940s, and from the sale of that company to Detective Comics, Inc. in September 1945 had paid for that house as well as the brand new 24-foot Chris-Craft motorboat that he kept in his adjacent boathouse.

On Wednesday, August 20, 1947, the 52-year-old Gaines was enjoying a summer vacation outing with some family and old friends. The group included his wife Jessie, his daughter Elaine and her friend Janet Lehrich. Accompanying them were their longtime friend Samuel Irwin, his wife Helen, daughter Mary and

eight-year-old son William (Billy). Not in attendance was Gaines’s 25-year-old son, William (Bill), as the two were not getting along. On that summer day, Elaine and Janet decided they would try to swim to a nearby island that was a mile distant and asked Gaines if he would accompany them with his motorboat in case they got fatigued and couldn’t make it. Shortly after noon, Gaines waited in the boat as Sam and Billy climbed aboard. Elaine and Janet made it to the island without assistance. After about a half-hour, they began their swim back. As before, Gaines followed. They were about halfway across when Max and Sam saw a 38-foot Cabin Cruiser heading straight for them. That boat was owned by former New York Supreme Court judge Joseph Proskauer, but he wasn’t on board at the time. Instead, the judge’s boat was being piloted by his daughter, Frances Cohen, who couldn’t see past the bow because it was tipped too high. Moments later, the Cabin Cruiser plowed through Gaines’s motorboat, killing both him and Sam Irwin.

For years the comics press reported that Gaines saved young Billy Irwin. A newspaper article at the time recounted, “Eyewitnesses said that when Gaines saw the speed boat bearing down on his craft, he attempted to veer but a crash was inevitable. A moment before the crash, eyewitnesses said Gaines pushed Billy Irwin to the bottom of the boat. This action was credited with saving the youngster’s life.” But in an interview conducted by Roger Hill shortly before Irwin’s passing in January 2014, the man didn’t remember the event that way: “It happened so quickly. I was always told that my father did that, but I’m not sure. I’m really not clear on that” (Hill 31). The eyewitnesses must have been the two boys who were nearby on a small boat and pulled Billy Irwin, who was unconscious but wearing a life jacket, out of the water. Sam Irwin’s body was recovered around 9:00 pm that evening. Gaines’s body wasn’t found until the next day. Mrs. Cohen was only slightly injured. Although she was found negligent, a grand jury elected not to indict her with any crime.

Although theirs had been a difficult relationship for years, the death of his father devastated Bill Gaines. His mother, Jessie Gaines, was now a widow who owned a comic book company. By that point, E.C. Comics had been appearing on the newsstands for a little over a year with a small slate of funny animal books (like Animal Fables, Dandy Comics, and Tiny Tot Comics) and “Picture Stories from…” educational titles (e.g., Picture Stories from American History, Picture Stories from Science, Picture Stories from World History, et al). Unfortunately, the sales reports from Macfadden, E.C.’s distributor, were bad. As Bill Gaines later told The Comics Journal, “[E.C.] was doing very poorly at the time, because all these educational and relatively nicetype books that he was trying to publish weren’t taking” (Decker 56). In other words, Max Gaines had misjudged the tastes of a postwar America.

Max Gaines in his editorial office and at home with his wife Jessie.

Nonetheless, Jessie Gaines wanted to honor her late husband by continuing his endeavors, so she asked Bill, who had been studying at New York University to become a chemistry teacher, to take the helm of E.C. Comics. Gaines reportedly responded, “How the hell can I run a business when I couldn’t even make it as the old man’s stockroom boy?” (Jacobs 61). Eventually, though, he complied with his mother’s request. At some point after her husband’s death, Jessie gave her son half of the stock in the various corporations making up E.C. She became president and treasurer. Bill was vice president, and his sister Elaine was secretary (in name only). Reluctantly, then, Gaines began to visit the E.C. office at 225 Lafayette St. in Manhattan, to sign the checks for assigned work from freelancers that continued to arrive. A man named Ivan Klapper helped review the material and send it to the printer (Jacobs 63).

Max Gaines clearly instigated Moon Girl and the Prince #1 (Fall 1947), written by William Woolfolk and drawn by Sheldon Moldoff. Having sold all rights to Wonder Woman, Gaines moved quickly on development of his own version once the character’s co-creator William Marston died in May. Structurally, the lead story sometimes blatantly echoed Wonder Woman’s All-Star Comics #8 debut, as in a text-heavy sequence wherein Moon Girl’s queen mother related the family history to her daughter. “People at DC were bitching about it,” Moldoff later recalled of the reaction by WW’s publisher (Thomas 11).

Residing in a hidden kingdom in Samarkand, the moonstone-empowered princess was part of a line of women who could not be defeated in battle. She was also forbidden to marry unless her prospective lover could surpass her strength. Her attraction to the powerful Prince Mengu (“a true son of Hercules”), therefore, could not be consummated because Moon Girl outmatched him. Following him to the United States, the heroine took the alias of Claire Lune and began teaching at the same school as her wouldbe lover.

Other comics already in the E.C. pipeline would continue to appear throughout 1947 and into early 1948. Besides the funny animal and educational titles, E.C. also published Land of the Lost Comics, licensed from the Mutual Radio show and edited by Irving Kapper, written by Isabel Manning Hewson and illustrated by Olive Bailey. Most of the writers and artists of the rest of the titles are unknown and appeared to have been supplied by various comic shops of the period, although the wife-husband team of Ruth Geller (writer) and Barton Geller (artist) worked on Tiny Tots Comics, while Ed Wheelan, whose artwork may have been an early inspiration for future underground cartoonist Robert Crumb, provided script and art for Fat and Slat, a title that closely copied Gaines’ earlier All-American title Mutt and Jeff. Blackstone—featuring real-life magician Harry

Blackstone—was a one-issue-only crime comic published in late December 1947. The covers to Moon Girl and the Prince #1 and Blackstone #1 appear to be Johnny Craig’s first work for E.C.

Due to the quarterly publishing schedule of most of these titles, it is likely that Max Gaines either published and edited (or partially published and edited) most of E.C.’s 1947 output. Bill Gaines likely made the decision to make five of these titles bi-monthly toward the end of the year in an effort either to double the income from the titles or use up the inventory (or both) while he looked for comics that would catch the public’s fancy.

E.C. also continued the Reddy Kilowatt 16-page educational comics which had begun in 1946, supervised by David Gaines, Max Gaines’ brother and Bill Gaines’ uncle. One each of these “house” titles appeared in both 1946 and 1947, with the writer of issue #2 listed as Gardner Fox. The artists for both issues and the writer for issue #1 are unknown.

As 1947 ended, Bill Gaines looked at the sinking titles of his dead father’s company and concluded that a change of course was needed. The sooner the better. He looked around at the comics that were selling and began plotting a new course for E.C. Comics. Over the next seven years, that new course would change and redefine the history of comics.

Bill and Hazel Gaines in a 1940s photo.

This cover for Moon Girl and the Prince #1 is among Johnny Craig’s earliest works for E.C. Comics. TM and © respective copyright owners.

Superheroes Fight On

Change was in the air, but several publishers—most notably National, Fawcett, Timely and Quality—were still producing superhero comics that continued to sell, albeit not as well as during the war years. Many of the other companies’ costumed heroes had started to fall away either in cancellation or because the companies that published them had simply gone out of business, largely (the major publishers told themselves) because those other publishers’ comics were shoddy work to begin with and deserved extinction. The remaining companies were betting that quality, as they saw it, would win out.

The good news on the superhero front for National (DC) Comics was that the Justice Society of America stories in All-Star Comics had taken a sharp upturn in quality in 1947. As writer and Justice Society fan Roy Thomas put it “All-Star #33 heralds a renascence in the fortunes of the Justice Society that would lead to arguably the best year-and-a-half in the group’s ten-year Golden Age history” (Thomas 131). In a story written by Gardner Fox, All-Star #33 (Feb.-March 1947) brought back Alfred Bester and Paul Reinman’s creepy creation Solomon Grundy, who had risen from a swamp to battle Green Lantern in All-American Comics #61 (Oct. 1944). Julius Schwartz, who was editing All-American Comics under Sheldon Mayer’s supervision, was probably the one who assigned Fox the job of bringing Grundy back as a villain for the Justice Society of America. Irwin Hasen, back from military service, created the now-iconic cover for this issue. The story itself sidesteps a glaring problem, one that nearly all zombie stories have in common—namely, how can a lumbering Frankensteinian foe such as Grundy terrorize a wide swath of towns and countryside in a very short time?

Nonetheless, the story is a stunning example of increasing dread and downright fear on the part of the heroes as each Justice Society member meets and is defeated by Grundy on their own. Although Grundy, as a zombie, wasn’t drawn with Hulk-like muscles as he would be in the 1960s and later, the combination of his tattered garb, white bloodless skin color and Boris Karloff-like appearance was unnerving. Despite what many assume, Grundy’s resemblance to Karloff was not taken from the actor’s most famous role as the Frankenstein Monster but rather from Karloff’s appearance as Morgan the Butler in the 1932 film The Old Dark House, said appearance also giving Charles Addams his Lurch the Butler for his Addams Family cartoons and the much later TV series. Solomon Grundy was frankly one of the more chilling villains in comic book history up to that point. Ultimately, the only way to vanquish the monster after he ripped through the entire Justice Society was to send him to the moon, an elegant notion for the time period, which Green Lantern manages to accomplish by story’s end.

Gardner Fox’s next JSA script, which would turn out to be his last in the Golden Age, was one of his best. In All-Star #34 (April-May 1947) the JSA confront the Wizard, a villain who believes that no man is truly honest (a thought-provoking ideology which is beyond the capacity of Solomon Grundy). As the Wizard tells the team:

“You really sound honest! But of course there is no such thing as real honesty! The only people who don’t steal are those who are afraid of being caught—but that doesn’t make them honest. They’re just stupid! But you, gentlemen, are not stupid! So I assume you are laying the groundwork for a final colossal crime!”

Irwin Hasen’s string of covers for All-Star Comics #33-37…

The Wizard then creates tests of honesty for each member of the JSA. In the end, the villain is well and truly shocked that his theory regarding the nature of honesty was wrong. As beguiling as the JSA was, being the first and best team of superheroes in the comics of the 1940s, it has to be said that the artists assigned to draw their adventures left much to be desired. Editor Sheldon Mayer had a great feel and superb taste for art in humor comics, but his judgment in selecting artists for the superhero titles under his sway was less impressive. Case in point, Joe Gallagher, Martin Naydel and Stan Aschmeier produced subpar work, making the reading of many of the World War II-era All-Star issues tough going for modern fans. True, Mayer had also brought in Joe Kubert, a comics veteran with nearly ten years of experience yet only 20 years old at the start of 1947. Kubert’s artistry was leagues ahead of his other colleagues on the book. In fact, his work was so sophisticated compared to the aforementioned artists that it seemed like it was coming from another dimension.

Thankfully, with its 1947 issues, Kubert’s contributions to All-Star Comics were combined with work from such artists as Irwin Hasen (who was smartly tasked with drawing the bookend chapters of each JSA story), Lee Elias (appropriately assigned to the chapters featuring The Flash), Paul Reinman (whose artistry was tops for its time), and Frank Harry (who had drawn for Ace, Fawcett, Fiction House and Quality). All in all, then, All-Star Comics’ artistic appearance was much improved.

diabolical foes: Per Degaton, a deranged scientist who steals his mentor’s time machine to go back in time to change the result of a key historic battle. If Degaton succeeded, mankind would lose all the technological and medical advances of the twentieth century—the knowledge of which Degaton would now control, effectively giving him dominion over the world. After finding ways to escape traps without the use of modern technology, the JSA travel back in time to help the Greeks defeat the Persians in the Battle of Arbela. In this version, the Persians are being helped by Degaton’s men armed with machine guns. The JSA’s success in joining the Greeks and defeating the Persians earns them the thanks of Alexander the Great. Back in the present, with history restored, the JSA have completely forgotten the mission, until they read of it on a metal shield with Macedonian writing. Time travel stories are often convoluted, and this story could have been hopelessly confusing, but Broome’s crisp writing and staging, and his respect for the reader’s intelligence, made it all work.

By the end of the year, the title’s editorial reins had been passed on to Julius Schwartz, who opted to make Broome All-Star Comics’ on going writer. The final 19 issues of the series were all written by Broome. Prior to this appointment, though, three issues of All-Star Comics (#36-38) were written by Schwartz’s office mate and fellow editor, Robert Kanigher. Truth be told, Schwartz and Kanigher didn’t get along all that well, although they shared an office for some 20 years. Schwartz was a strong-minded but quiet individual, while Kanigher was egotistical and outspoken, often showing great disdain for the artists that he worked with. (One of the few artists Kanigher held in high regard was Joe Kubert, and it bears stating that Kanigher served as a

Starting with issue #35 (June-July 1947), the writing on the series received a boost, too, with the addition of John Broome. The story in that issue, “The Day That Dropped Out of Time,” introduces one of the Justice Society’s most …culminated with the debut of the Injustice Society of the World. TM and © DC Comics.

mentor of sorts to younger writers.) Regardless of his personal feelings, Schwartz recognized that Kanigher was not only a good editor but an extremely talented writer who could be relied on for a good story at any time.

“5 Drowned Men” in All-Star #36 (Aug.-Sept. 1947) was— at least in part—written by Kanigher. That’s according to what Julius Schwartz told comic book historian Jerry Bails in the 1960s. In an interview for American Comic Book Chronicles, All-Star expert Roy Thomas explains further: “Julie was certain that Kanigher was tasked with writing (or possibly re-writing) that issue’s Flash chapter because it involved skiing, a favorite activity of Kanigher’s. For the rest, Jerry and I are convinced that ’5 Drowned Men’ is probably a rewritten version of one of the four scripts that Gardner Fox wrote for All-Star Comics but were never officially published. Jerry’s theory, which holds up under my scrutiny, is that someone—perhaps Kanigher, perhaps not— rewrote the Atom and Johnny Thunder chapters to star Batman and Superman, respectively.”

By themselves, Batman and Superman’s guest appearances make All-Star #36 a unique issue in the series. The two heroes had only appeared once before in the title (All-Star Comics #10, April/May 1942), and, although they were the cover-featured stars of World’s Finest Comics, that title presented them in separate tales. Their appearance in AllStar #36, then, became the first time that Superman and Batman shared any real action together in a comic book story. No official explanation has been given as to what prompted this momentous occasion, but one theory is that AllStar #36 was intended to serve as an acknowledgement that Detective Comics and All-American Comics had re-merged. After all, this was the first issue of All-Star that guest-starred DC heroes since Starman, the Spectre, and Doctor Fate were jettisoned when Gaines split All-American from DC in late 1944.

Lantern, Atom, Dr. Mid-Nite, Johnny Thunder, and Wonder Woman) and six villains (The Wizard, Per Degaton, The Gambler, The Thinker, Brain Wave, and Vandal Savage), Kanigher manages to keep everything straight, moving things forward with sharp, well-written captions and scenes that display the kind of page composition that is more reminiscent of comics from the Silver Age rather than the Golden Age.

The story’s theme echoes out of World War II: who will take over the world? The forces of good or the forces of evil? As the Injustice Society asserts, “Justice is overrated! It is evil that should be praised! For evil is mighty and in the end it will prevail!” Each member of the JSA then is drawn to a different part of the country to confront one of the villains. This 38-page extravaganza was drawn by a Hall of Fame aggregation of artists, including Irwin Hasen (providing the story’s opening, closing, and Green Lantern chapters as well as the issue’s cover), Joe Kubert (the Hawkman chapter representing Kubert’s last work on the title), Carmine Infantino & John Belfi (collaborating on the Flash chapter), and Alex Toth (responsible for both the Atom and Dr. Mid-Nite chapters). The readers got to deliver their answer to the JSA story’s central question on the last page, when members of the Junior Justice Society of America, a boys’ fan club that debuted in 1942 but had been dormant since 1945 (when All-Star Comics transferred from All-American to DC Comics), arrive to pummel the last member of the Injustice Society, the Wizard.

Regardless, if the credits for the script for All-Star #36 remain in doubt, they are not for the following issue, which was definitely written in its entirety by Kanigher. “The Injustice Society of the World!,” the story in All-Star #37, ranks as perhaps the finest JSA tale of all. Despite juggling a cast of seven heroes (Hawkman, Flash, Green

Kanigher’s third consecutive JSA story appeared in All-Star Comics #38 (Dec. 1947-Jan. 1948). Behind an Alex Toth cover the issue presents “History’s Crime Wave!” Five separate murders have been committed and for each death a different character from history has been blamed for the crime by the suspects who are actually being tried for the crimes. The Justice Society investigates and in turn are also murdered! Johnny Thunder, near death, sends his partner Black Canary back to the Justice Society headquarters to let Wonder Woman know the score. Diana retrieves the JSA’s corpses and revives them with the help of the Amazonian Purple Ray. The rejuvenated superheroes rush back to find their killers at a wax museum but are astounded to find those killers all figures of wax. In the end, it turns out that the mighty Justice Society had almost met their doom due to a wax museum guard who felt the wax figures had been insulted by the JSA and thus, by extension, the Justice Society had also insulted him! Black Canary figures out what’s really going on and saves

Alex Toth’s cover for All-Star Comics #38. TM and © DC Comics.

the day for the heroes. Toth, the team of Infantino and Frank Giacoia, and Bob Oksner provide the art for a story that presents Black Canary’s first appearance with the Justice Society.

As far as Black Canary’s first appearance in a National comic book goes, that happened earlier in the year in Flash Comics #86 (Aug. 1947). Created by Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino, the Black Canary was introduced as a supporting character in the Johnny Thunder backup feature. She appeared initially as an outlaw hero who robbed crooks, apparently to fund her anti-crime mission. After an accidental meeting with J.T. (in fact, every single one of her five team-ups with Johnny Thunder had them meeting by coincidence), she cons the generally clueless Johnny to help her out by getting her diamond-shaped mask out of a crook’s safe. The mask actually doesn’t belong to her. Instead, it’s a special mask selected by gangster Socks Slade for people to wear to gain entrance to his first social party. Although the Canary appeared to Johnny without a mask to begin with, she will wear the diamond-shaped mask throughout her first two adventures before abandoning it forever.

Black Canary’s debut in Flash Comics #86 was one of Carmine Infantino’s first assignments for National. When he received the script for the story, he asked Kanigher if the new heroine should be designed in any specific way. According to Infantino, Kanigher told him, “What’s your fantasy of a good-looking girl? That’s what I want” (Amash 31). What Infantino provided was a Veronica Lakelookalike wearing a Black Cat-inspired ensemble: bolero jacket, bustier bodysuit, fishnet stockings, choker, and pirate boots.

For the rest of 1947, Black Canary teamed-up with Johnny Thunder in each issue of Flash Comics, with the exception of issue #89 (Nov. 1947). Meanwhile, Kanigher was at work creating other colorful characters. With Joe Kubert, he introduced the Ghost, a purported specter in top hat, tails, and a monocle who fought Hawkman in Flash #88 (Oct. 1947) and made return engagements in issues #90,

#92, and #103. Kanigher and Kubert united again to unveil the Thorn in issue #89 (Nov. 1947), a Flash villainess who had a split personality and was also law-abiding botanist Rose Canton. She returned in issue #96. Finally, Kanigher and artist Lee Elias rolled out the evil Star Sapphire and the Fiddler in separate stories in All-Flash #32 (Dec. 1947-Jan. 1948), the last issue of the title.

Elsewhere, John Broome and Irwin Hasen joined forces to create Crusher Crock, a.k.a. Green Lantern’s newest adversary in All-American Comics #85 (May 1947). He returned as the Sportsmaster in Green Lantern #28 (Oct.-Nov. 1947) with further appearances in All Star Comics #41 and AllAmerican #98. Meanwhile, the prolific Kanigher teamed up with Hasen to introduce the Harlequin and the Icicle in, respectively, All-American #89 (Sept. 1947) and #90 (Oct. 1947). Each was destined for comebacks but the Harlequin—who was simultaneously a foe and potential romantic interest for GL—was a particularly major presence over the next year with further spotlights in All-American #91, #93-95, All Star Comics #41, and Green Lantern #29, #31, and #34.

Fresh Faces of ’47: The Black Canary, the Ghost, and the Thorn. TM and © DC Comics.

Irwin Hasen covers introducing the Harlequin and the Icicle. TM and © DC Comics.

Two more costumed females emerged in Sensation Comics #68 (Aug. 1947). The enchanted Blue Lama fought Sargon the Sorcerer in a Paul Reinman-illustrated adventure, coming back for return bouts in issues #70-72 and #74. Meanwhile, the Huntress targeted Wildcat as the world’s most dangerous game in a story drawn by Mort Meskin. She returned for more clashes with the two-fisted crimebuster in issues #69, #71, #73, #75, and #76. A few issues later in Sensation #72 (Dec. 1947), Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys were joined by a girl of their own in a Frank Harry-illustrated yarn. Horrified that the trio seemed to have gone bad, a girl named Janie put on a costume and red wig to solve the mystery. Little Miss Redhead returned three times in issues #75, #77, and #82.

Of course, the Justice Society’s other female member was Wonder Woman. Her co-creator, William Moulton Marston, had been stricken with polio in late 1944, the results of which left him bed ridden and unable to walk. Prior to his illness, Marston used his own studio in New York City (he didn’t have an office at National Comics) where an entire Wonder Woman comic would be assembled before being passed on to editor Sheldon Mayer. Once he was released from the hospital, however, he never left his home in Rye, a town north of New York City. As his assistant writer, Joye Hummel, explained years later, “Once he got out of the hospital, he would never go back to New York. He wouldn’t let anyone see him crippled” (Arndt 12). From that point on, Hummel traveled to and from Marston’s home to collect and type his hand-written scripts, then deliver both them and her own Wonder Woman scripts first to H. G. Peter to illustrate and then to Shelly Mayer to edit. Marston and Hummel wrote all

their Wonder Woman stories under the house name Charles Moulton—taken from Max C. Gaines’ middle name—Charles—and Marston’s middle name—Moulton.

The pain that Marston suffered due to polio was compounded by cancer which was diagnosed in September 1946. That cancer led to his death on May 2, 1947. Marston was 53 years old. As Hummel describes it, “I don’t believe [Marston] was ever actually told that he had cancer. He and I worked on ‘Wonder Woman’ stories right up until the time he died” (Arndt 29).

Following Marston’s death, Hummel was supposed to take over writing the majority of the Wonder Woman stories for both the character’s own title, Sensation Comics, and Comic Cavalcade. However, in August 1947 she married a widower with a four-year-old daughter. When Hummel, now Joye Hummel Murchison, prepared to go to New York to begin her expanded duties on the comic, the young girl, not understanding that Murchison’s leaving for work was not the same as her mother’s leaving when she passed away, became quite distressed. Hummel Murchison made the decision to quit her writing career and stay home to raise her new family. According to Murchison, it was a decision that her editor did not take well:

“When I met with Sheldon Mayer in New York, he asked if I was ready to go back to work, because he thought I was there to discuss a new story. I told him that I was at least three months ahead and that I could not do this anymore. I thought I could, but I couldn’t. I thought he was going to have a heart attack. […] I just told him that I couldn’t do the stories anymore. I resigned. He told me that I’d be sorry, but I told him that I didn’t think so” (Arndt 29).

Indeed, for the rest of her life, Joye Hummel Murchison never regretted her resignation. After being a stayat-home mom during her children’s early years, she re-entered the work force at the age of 40, first as a secretary and then as a stockbroker.

The splash page debuts of the Blue Lama and the Huntress. TM and © DC Comics.

H.G. Peter’s cover for Wonder Woman #23. TM and © DC Comics.

For 1947, it is known that Hummel wrote stories appearing in Wonder Woman #22 (Jan.-Feb. 1947), #25 (Sept.-Oct. 1947), and #26 (Nov.-Dec. 1947); Sensation Comics #64-65 (AprilMay 1947) and #71-72 (Nov.Dec. 1947); and Comic Cavalcade #18 (Dec. 1946-Jan. 1947) and #23 (Oct.-Nov. 1947). The rest of the stories were either by Marston, likely the entire first half of the year as well as some in the second half, or by Marston and Hummel Murchison’s replace ment, Robert Kanigher, who also became the de facto editor of the Wonder Woman titles.

Kanigher is usually credited with creating the childhood version of Wonder Woman—Wonder Girl in Wonder Woman #23 (May-June 1947), although that credit has been disputed by Jill Lepore in her 2014 book The Secret History of Wonder Woman. Lepore maintains that the story in question, “Wonder Woman and the Coming of the Kangas!,” was actually one of the last stories written by Marston. This child version of Wonder Woman wasn’t called Wonder Girl, however, until Wonder Woman #105 (April 1958) in a story written by Kanigher. In the 1947 tale, Queen Hippolyte shows a home movie of Princess Diana at seven years old to the Holliday Girls, a group of sorority girls attending Holliday College for Women. The leader of this group is Etta Candy, Wonder Woman’s best friend in the “Man’s World” who had made her debut in Sensation Comics #2 (Feb. 1942).

would become a fixture in the Batcave’s trophy room (as seen initially in “The 1000 Secrets of the Batcave” from Batman #48). Both of these “Batcave” stories were written by Bill Finger, whose penchant for oversized props became a regular part of the Batman mythos.

Kanigher, who would write the Wonder Woman stories for the next 20 years, did have a feel for writing strong female protagonists, such as Black Canary, Wonder Woman and the Harlequin. However, he jettisoned most of the feminist philosophy that Marston had written into the Wonder Woman series from day one. Under Kanigher’s authorship, Wonder Woman became a much more conventional superheroine.

One could argue that in 1947, the Batman books relied on convention as the Caped Crusader’s well-established villains made frequent appearances during the year. For instance, the Joker appeared not only in Batman #40 (April-May 1947) but Detective Comics #124 (June 1947) and #128 (Oct. 1947) as well. Meanwhile, female nemesis Catwoman returned in Detective Comics #122 (April 1947) and Batman #42 (Aug.-Sept. 1947). The Penguin made no less than four appearances, in Batman #38 (Dec. 1946-Jan. 1947) and #43 (Oct.-Nov. 1947) as well as Detective Comics #120 (Feb. 1947) and #126 (Aug. 1947).

The year also spawned an excellent and important Batman tale in “The Penny Plunderers!” which appeared in World’s Finest #30 (Sept. 1947). Drawn by Jack Burnley and Bob Kane, the story introduced the giant penny prop which

The best Bat-story of the year, however, was “The Box!” from Detective Comics #130 (Dec. 1947). Written by Bill Finger and illustrated by Bob Kane and Charles Paris, this was likely the title’s grimmest story in years. “The Box!” is narrated by the Box itself, an item resting in the Batcave’s trophy room, telling the story of the Diamond King, whose son had been murdered at the hand of gangsters. The Diamond King uses the box in question to pass from one of those criminals to the next, with the results being sudden death for each murderer. The ending leaves Batman knowing that the real perpetrator of the murders of the gangster will never pay for his crime. This grim little tale has all the creepiness of a dark Will Eisner Spirit story. Based on the date that it likely appeared on newsstands, it was also a pretty decent Halloween tale.

By 1947, National needed a solid replacement for the lead feature in the Star Spangled Comics anthology. The Guardian and the Newsboy Legion had been the cover feature headliners since 1942, but after the end of the war, Simon & Kirby went on to other ventures for other companies. National’s powers-that-were decided to give the book a dose of the Dynamic Duo’s sales figures.

The success of Superboy over in Adventure Comics had shown that a juvenile superhero lead could carry an anthology title, especially if it was closely tied in with one of National’s top sellers. What could be more logical than to try a similar youthful angle from another of the publisher’s top titles? So Robin was given a solo spot starting in Star Spangled Comics #65 (Feb. 1947). This venture wasn’t

Batman splash pages from World’s Finest Comics TM and © DC Comics.

quite as rock solid as Superboy’s adventures, and it was clear from the cover, illoed by Win Mortimer, that Robin’s mentor Batman (shown only in shadow) wouldn’t be too far away if he was needed. Superboy, of course, could never have an adult Superman for support, but Robin could and eventually did have a hard time getting out from under Batman’s shadow.

The first story—“The Teen-Age Terrors!”—has Robin telling Alfred about an adventure he had dealing with boys from the Boyville Reform School who continue to commit crime. As it turned out, the children were being manipulated by adults. True to the idea of a solo series, Batman leaves Robin to his own devices on the covers throughout 1947. Although the writers of these initial stories are unknown, most of the stories were penciled by Win Mortimer and inked by Charles Paris. However, Jim Mooney, Curt Swan and Dick Sprang also provided the art for a story or two. One of the best covers of Robin’s run appeared on issue #70 (July 1947). Advertising the story “The Clocks of Doom!,” the cover features Robin and his adversary squaring off against each other while sitting on the hands of a giant clock.

While Robin became the superhero headliner of Star Spangled Comics, the title’s longstanding supporting superheroes were being gradually replaced with more standard adventurers. For instance, starting with issue #69 (June 1947) Liberty Belle was replaced with “Tomahawk.” Taking place before the American Revolution, “Tomahawk” stars a frontier settler named Tom Hawk who gets captured by Native Americans in Kentucky. After saving the Native American chief, Black Thunder, from a rampaging moose, Hawk is granted his freedom. As a sign of his gratitude, Black Thunder also offers to teach Hawk “the Indian ways.” Hawk accepts, and before long, the Native Americans refer to him as “Tomahawk.” Upon leaving the Native American tribe, Tomahawk uses the skills he’s learned to prevail over whatever dangers await him on the American frontier. Written by Joe Samachson and drawn by Edmond Good, Tomahawk’s 10-page first appearance

not only recounts the title character’s origin but also shows how he befriends a young orphan named Dan Hunter, who becomes Tomahawk’s sidekick/ surrogate son.

The debut of Tomahawk was the most noteworthy non-superhero news of the year for National. Indeed, a house ad touting the new series aggressively linked the feature to DC’s “dynamic duo,” referring to Tom and Dan as “Batman and Robin in buckskin.” Tomahawk’s adventures would appear in Star Spangled until 1951, but he also began appearing from time to time in World’s Finest, starting in 1948, before earning a regular slot in that title in 1953 and lasting there until 1959. In addition to those two titles, he would get his own series in 1950, which ran until 1972. Tomahawk had a long run for a non-superhero character whose historical adventures really didn’t fit into the war genre, the western genre or the sciencefiction genre (although he occasionally found himself battling dinosaurs, giant gorillas, mutated lizards and giant tree men in addition to British redcoats and various Indian tribes).

While Tomahawk embraced the past, Tommy Tomorrow embraced the future in Real Fact Comics #6 (Jan.-Feb. 1947), jointly written by Jack Schiff, George Kashdan, and Bernie Breslauer with art by Howard Sherman and Virgil Finlay. Over the course of four pages, “Columbus of Space” optimistically envisioned Tommy entering Rocket College in 1954 and setting foot on Mars in 1960. As an afterthought, Colonel Tomorrow went to the moon in 1967 when he returned in issue #8. Two further install ments in 1948 brought Tommy to Venus (RFC #13) and involved him in a 1988 crisis where an errant comet threatened the sun (RFC #16). It was not immediately apparent, but Tommy Tomorrow had a future with National Comics in more ways than one.

As expected, in 1947, National’s flagship character, Superman, was featured in all 12 issues of Action Comics, where postwar silliness continued to rule the day. The

Win Mortimer covers for Star-Spangled Comics #65 and #70. TM and © DC Comics.

Edmond Good’s splash page for Star-Spangled #69’s Tomahawk debut. TM and © DC Comics.

only real supervillains to oppose the Man of Steel this year were the Prankster in issues #104 (Jan. 1947) and #109 (June 1947) and Mr. Mxyztplk in issue #112 (Sept. 1947). Not exactly heavy hitters in his (or anyone’s) rogues’ gallery. Zatara the Magician, Congo Bill, the Vigilante, and a humor character named Hayfoot Henry were the back-up features in Action for the year, as they had been since 1944.

Interestingly enough, the Vigilante momentarily hit the big time when he starred in a 15-chapter Columbia movie serial that began on May 22, 1947, and starred Ralph Byrd (who previously played the big screen Dick Tracy). As a promotion for theatergoers, National produced a 32-page (with covers) Action Comics Free Souvenir Edition. Drawn by Mort Meskin and George Roussos, the story featured a rare pairing of Vig’s two sidekicks Pop Gunn and Stuff in the same story. Betty Winslow, Vig’s film love interest, also appeared in the tale. The film project was also coverfeatured in Real Fact Comics #10’s “How a Movie Serial is Made,” on sale in July 1947.

National published six issues of Superman in 1947, but the three stories of Superman in each issue weren’t much different than those in Action. The 1940s’ Toyman, as interchangeable a villain with the Prankster as you could get, appeared in issue #44 (Jan.-Feb. 1947) and issue #47 (JulyAug. 1947). Mr. Mxyztplk pops back in issue #46 (May-June 1947) while Luthor appears in issue #48 (Sept.-Oct. 1947).

In World’s Finest Comics the Man of Steel again tangled with the Prankster in issue #26 (Jan.-Feb. 1947) and Luthor in issue #28 (May-June 1947). Batman, of course, was the co-feature here—although neither Superman nor Batman were teaming up together. They just appeared in solo tales in the same comic. Green Arrow, the Boy Commandos and Zatara provided the back-up series for World’s Finest. Frankly, anything that was happening in either Superman, Action Comics or World’s Finest Comics was completely overshadowed by the news that Superman’s creators, writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, were no longer

producing any new stories starring the Man of Steel. And that’s because they were suing National Comics.

Siegel and Shuster’s 1947 Superman Lawsuit

On March 1, 1938, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster made what many have called the worst business decision of all time: they accepted an offer from Jack Liebowitz—then part owner of Detective Comics, Inc.—to sell the first story and all the rights to their Superman character for $130. In hindsight, the decision was disastrous, but at the time Siegel and Shuster were worried that Superman would never be published by anyone. Their pitch had been rejected by all the newspaper syndicates as well as many other publishers. As Siegel and Shuster saw it, Detective Comics—soon to be National Comics—was their last chance for publication, so they signed away the rights to their creation.

It wasn’t the first time the creative duo relinquished one of their creations to their publisher. Indeed, Siegel and Shuster had previously signed away concepts like Henri Duval, Radio Squad, and Federal Men to National when it was owned by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. And they were hardly the only comic creators to do this. In fact, very few creators retained any part of their creations. William Moulton Marston, for Wonder Woman, and Will Eisner, for the Spirit, were among the few who did. Otherwise, the publishers’ standard procedure was to stipulate ownership of any property they were going to publish.

Several months after they sold Superman (and several months after the character’s first appearance in Action Comics #1), Siegel and Shuster signed a ten-year contract with National that assured the pair would remain employed by the publisher. This contract was then modified in December 1939 to the extent that Siegel and Shuster would be paid “5% of the net proceeds to be derived from commercial exploitation of SUPERMAN other than from magazine and book publication and newspaper syndication.” Soon thereafter, Superman was converted into a popular radio show and series of cartoons, but according to one court document, the majority of money that Siegel and Shuster earned between 1938 and 1947 resulted from comic book publication and newspaper syndication.

In that ten-year period, National paid Siegel and Shuster a combined total of $400,000 (Tye 119). Adjusted for inflation, that amount is equivalent to over five million dollars in the early 21st century. A percentage of the money that was earned went to the studio of artists that Shuster employed to keep up with the demands of producing artwork for three Superman comic books and a newspaper strip, along with promotional art for the same. (Shuster also had to pay the rent for that Cleveland-situated studio.) Regardless, Siegel and Shuster were making good money throughout the 1940s, just not the veritable riches that National was making from their creation.

In 1944, while stationed in Hawaii as part of his military service, Siegel received a letter from Shuster. It informed him that National had pressured the artist into drawing a feature starring Superboy, which debuted in More Fun Comics #101 (Jan.-Feb. 1945). The title went on sale November 18, 1944. The story was based on an old Siegel script found in Whitney Ellsworth’s files and was going to

Tommy Tomorrow bursts forth in Real Fact Comics #6. TM and © DC Comics.

be published without the Siegel and Shuster credit which appeared on every Superman story (even the ones that they didn’t produce). Shuster apologized for providing art for the Superboy story, but he felt he couldn’t say no to Ellsworth, and he had to keep the artists in his shop busy.

Siegel was incensed. Not only was National using one of his shelved scripts, but he wasn’t even being acknowledged for it. (Curiously, starting with the character’s third appearance –in More Fun Comics #103– Superboy stories were credited as “By Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.”) At the same time, Siegel realized that National had never bought the copyright to the younger version of Superman. From Siegel’s perspective, this created an opportunity to sue National, but he would have to bide his time since he was still serving in the Army.

Siegel received his military discharge on January 21, 1946, right before the eighth Superboy story appeared in Adventure Comics #103. Upon his return, Siegel resumed working on the Superman newspaper strip as well as the three comics featuring Superman (i.e., Action Comics, Superman, and World’s Finest). However, Siegel was not writing the Superboy stories in Adventure Comics even though, again, those stories were credited as “by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.”

Upon returning from service, Siegel tried to regain creative control over Superman. He told Whitney Ellsworth that he was greatly displeased with the quality of the current Superman material—both

As the Siegel and Shuster lawsuit neared its end, a licensed Superbabe doll was released for the Christmas season and promoted in an October 1947-January 1948 Superman Sunday strip story where the Man of Steel was transformed into a tot. TM and © DC Comics.

in “continuity and art”—and that the feature had been “greatly harmed” by this drop in quality. To rectify matters, Siegel, along with Shuster, wanted to be responsible for producing all Superman material, stopping National from buying scripts from uncredited ghostwriters. According to Siegel, Ellsworth told him, “Not a chance.” Ellsworth denied saying this, though, contending instead that he assured the Superman creators that National would accept all “satisfactory” work produced by the pair.

Evidently, National’s editors didn’t find many of Siegel’s postwar scripts to be satisfactory. In 1942, National published 75 stories that were written by Siegel, most of them featuring Superman but others starred Star-Spangled Kid, Robotman, the Spectre, and the heroic trio Red, White, and Blue. In anticipation of being drafted, Siegel was churning out as much material as possible. Some of that material carried over into 1943, the year Siegel was conscripted into the Army, as National published 26 of his stories. But in 1946, with Siegel back in the fold, National only published six of his stories, all of them featuring Superman. In January 1947, matters seemingly reached a breaking point with Siegel after Ellsworth had rejected six of his script synopses. Starting on January 23, Siegel began sending Jack Liebowitz a series of letters, barraging him with a litany of grievances, invectives, and recriminations. Besides complaining about the rejection of his stories by National’s editors, Siegel’s letters also insisted on a monetary “bonus.” One letter referred to a new feature that Siegel and Shuster had created, a costumed crimefighter named “Funnyman,” that the creative duo pitched to National’s consideration. In a postscript, Siegel asked, “Why do you want to legally consider Funnyman? Why not brazenly take it, as you did Superboy?” In a February 3 dated letter, Liebowitz replied, “This is a very serious attitude for you to take, not to say an insulting and possibly libelous one. Superboy is merely an extension of the basic Superman theme, and deals with the same character at an earlier age […]. The powers and costume and physical attributes of Superboy are identical with those of Superman because Superboy is Superman, which, by the terms of our contract with you and Shuster, is the property of National Comics Publications, Inc. Likewise, any character, major or minor, appearing in the Superman feature is the property of National Comics.”

Shortly after the receipt of Liebowitz’s letter, Siegel and Shuster made their move. In March, they sued National Comics Publications for the return of the rights to both Superman and Superboy, as well as a “just share” of all profits that National and its partners (which included Independent News, the McClure Newspaper Syndicate,

and even Superman artist Wayne Boring) had made off the character, presumably whether by comics, the newspaper strip, radio or merchandising. Their main argument was that the $130 they received from Detective Comics, Inc. in 1938 secured only the publication rights to Superman’s first story in Action Comics #1, not the ownership of the character.

Given Superman’s popularity, Siegel and Shuster’s lawsuit gained considerable attention, earning mention in newspapers all over the world. One person squarely siding with the two creators was Al Capp, the cartoonist who produced Li’l Abner, a comic strip that was just as well-known as Superman at the time. Indeed, as far as Capp was concerned, he was in the same situation that Siegel and Shuster were in: sharing profits of Li’l Abner with the United Feature Syndicate that he felt belonged almost entirely to him. Following Siegel and Shuster’s lead, Capp filed suit against the syndicate on July 10, 1947, seeking $14 million in damages and compensation as well as the full rights to Li’l Abner (Schumacher 131). Later in the year, Capp even parodied National’s ownership of Superman in three consecutive Sunday installments of Li’l Abner (October 12, 19, and 26) by referencing a fictional comic strip titled “Jack Jawbreaker.” The eponymous crimefighter is a disembodied arm that moves via the aid of an embedded propeller. In the story played out over the course of the three Li’l Abner installments, “Jack Jawbreaker” becomes a huge hit with the public, but Rockwell P. Squeezeblood, the head of the “Squeezeblood Comic Strip Syndicate” (and an obvious stand-in for Jack Liebowitz) not only takes credit for the creation of “Jack Jawbreaker” but also makes sure to diminish the earnings of Jawbreaker’s true creators (obvious caricatures of Siegel and Shuster) through dishonest, “but perfectly legal,” distribution arrangements.

the publisher to calculate the income derived from the publication of Superboy to give Siegel and Shuster the opportunity to prove their damages. (Young also believed Siegel and Shuster’s claim that National was understating their net proceeds with regards to “all commercial exploitation of Superman beyond books, magazines, and newspapers,” like merchandising, radio adaptations, etc.)

On April 12, 1948, Young definitively declared that National owned Superman but Siegel and Shuster owned Superboy and ordered the publisher to document all proceeds made from Superman and Superboy. Ultimately, though, the parties settled out-of-court, with National paying Siegel and Shuster $94,013.16 for the rights to Superboy. On May 21, 1948, the judge wrote that “it is…declared and adjudged that defendant National Comics Publications, Inc. is the sole and exclusive owner and has the sole and exclusive right to the use of the title Superboy.”

Once their lawyers took their shares, Siegel and Shuster each grossed $29,000 from the settlement, a significantly smaller amount than what they hoped to yield when they initiated the lawsuit (Tye 119). To make matters worse, Siegel and Shuster were now essentially unemployed. The lawsuit voided their contract with National, so they could no longer enjoy the income earned from writing and drawing the ongoing adventures of Superman. The pair were now freelancers, and their uber-profitable creation was entirely owned by their former employer.

Siegel expressed his appreciation of the Jawbreaker strips in a letter he sent to Capp on October 27. He also expressed exasperation at how long their case against National was taking: “Right now Joe and I are going not so quietly nuts, due to our opponent’s stalling tactics in turning in their final brief.” The trial—which included testimonies from Wayne Boring, Whitney Ellsworth, and National editor Jack Schiff, among others—had concluded in June, but National kept requesting extensions to submit their final brief.

As it turned out, Siegel and Shuster didn’t have to wait much longer. On November 21, 1947, New York State Supreme Court Judge J. Addison Young denied Siegel and Shuster’s claim to Superman, ruling that Detective Comics, Inc. had rightfully purchased the character in 1938. At the same time, Young rejected National’s assertion that Superman and Superboy are the same character and ordered

With Siegel and Shuster gone, the Superman stories appearing in Action Comics, Superman, and World’s Finest were produced by a plethora of talent, including writers Don Cameron, Bill Finger, Edmond Hamilton, and Alvin Schwartz; and artists Wayne Boring, Al Plastino, Win Mortimer, John Sikela, and Ira Yarbrough. The Superman newspaper strip was in the hands of Schwartz and Boring.

A peripheral beneficiary of Siegel and Shuster’s lawsuit against National was Batman co-creator Bob Kane. Siegel and Shuster had actually tried to convince Kane to be a fellow plaintiff in their lawsuit, but the latter declined, opting instead to use the uncertainty of the lawsuit to his advantage: Kane renegotiated his 1939 contract with the publisher. The new contract confirmed National’s ownership of the Batman copyright but now paid Kane the extraordinary rate of $500 per page to produce Batman stories for National (Cooke 20). Some Batman artists such as Dick Sprang and Win Mortimer worked directly for National and would not be involved in this deal, but given Kane’s artistic limitations, he now needed a regular ghost artist for himself

In the October 13, 1947 Li’l Abner strip, analogues of Siegel and Shuster signed away their rights to “Jack Jawbreaker.” Li’l Abner TM and © Capp Enterprises Inc.

He turned to a talented cartoonist he had met in Miami the previous year, Lew Sayre Schwartz (no relation to either Alvin or Julius Schwartz). Simply put, over the next seven years, Schwartz became Kane’s workhorse, drawing 20 stories a year (about 240 pages). But neither Kane nor Schwartz let anyone know about their work arrangement. According to Schwartz, Kane “was so afraid to give anybody else any credit. […] Bob was scared to death that [Batman] would be taken away if he acknowledged people that were helping him or even drawing the strip” (Cooke 17). For his part, Schwartz didn’t want to be associated with Batman because “at that particular time [comic books were] beneath my status… or my objectives” (Cooke 21).

Kane paid Schwartz $100 a page out of the $500 per page he earned from National, leaving himself with yearly salary of $96,000 in 1947 dollars or the equivalent of $902,400 in the early 21st century. What Kane may have paid Bill Finger for scripts during a year is unknown.

Horizons Unlimited

The prospect of owning one’s own creation loomed large in the most-publicized launch of the year, albeit in newspaper strips rather than comic books. Since its premiere in 1934, Terry and the Pirates had become one of the most popular, critically acclaimed comic strips in the United States. Its creator Milton Caniff had a well-earned reputation as a master of the form and a major influence on an

entire generation of budding artists. For all his acclaim, Caniff knew that the Chicago Tribune owned Terry lock, stock, and barrel. If he died, his wife would be entitled to no residuals when he was replaced.

Aware that there was no chance of wresting Terry away from its corporate owner, Caniff was receptive when millionaire Marshall Field III approached him in 1944 about creating a new strip for his recently launched Chicago Sun newspaper. Cartoonists like Dick Tracy’s Chester Gould and Little Orphan Annie’s Harold Gray, perhaps fearing that lightning wouldn’t strike twice, had declined Field’s overtures but Terry’s papa was all in. “I told him [I wanted] full ownership and full editorial control,” Caniff recalled. “[Field] said, ‘Very good—have a drink,’ and that was all there was to it” (Jensen 6).

Lacking the clout to market such a significant property, Field Enterprises’ Chicago Sun Syndicate sub-contracted Hearst powerhouse King Features to sell the new strip on the scale it warranted. The trade-off, historian R.C. Harvey wrote, was that “King could give all Hearst papers preferential treatment: in any city where a Hearst paper was published, except the Chicago Sun’s bailiwick, the Hearst paper would have first rights to the strip without paying a fee” (Harvey 474-475).

The sticking point was that Caniff remained under contract with the Chicago Tribune for two years. Anything he created prior to October 1946 belonged to the Tribune. Despite a mutual agreement to keep the deal a secret, Walter Winchell leaked the news in a syndicated column on January 1, 1945. The columnist further declared falsely that the cartoonist was leaving Terry because of disputes with conservative Tribune execs over its political content. A furious Caniff demanded and received a retraction, but it was too late to prevent the news from spreading (Harvey 478).

Time magazine declared the news akin to “Henry Ford quitting his motor company and setting up shop in competition across the street.” In a testament to Caniff’s popularity, some 125 newspapers signed contracts to carry the new feature within months of the announcement, purely on the strength of the cartoonist’s track record. For his part, Caniff threw himself into Terry, determined to make its final two years count. “It was kind of a challenge in that everybody was expecting me to let down,” he observed. “For that reason alone, I was anxious to do it better than I had done ever before. Some of the best things…some of the best characters didn’t appear until after the die was cast” (Jensen 7).

Published on December 29, 1946, Caniff’s final Terry found its nominal hero sharing a bittersweet farewell with Jane Allen on an airport tarmac before walking— shoulders slumped—past a New Year’s Eve poster: “Ring out the old, ring in the new.” Caniff’s successor, George Wunder, picked up the baton a day later.

Caniff had invested so much time in Terry’s finale that he blew his first deadline for the Sun. Along with developing the new strip, the cartoonist engaged in a huge publicity campaign, all in the name of ensuring that Steve Canyon came out of the gate roaring. The

Milton Caniff’s final Terry and the Pirates strip (December 29, 1946). TM and © Tribune Media Services, Inc.

cartoonist made an appearance on a New York NBC television affiliate a few weeks beforehand, complete with former Miss Utah Carol Ohmart playing new femme fatale Copper Calhoon. It was proudly decreed as the first time a new comics feature had ever been previewed on film in advance of publication. Caniff also made the cover of Time the week the strip debuted.

Reflecting the experiences of many real-life soldiers, Steve Canyon intended to draw on the hero’s wartime pilot expertise to create his own air transport service. Horizons Unlimited was staffed with five other veterans while an American-Samoan woman named Feeta-Feeta functioned as secretary for the operation (complete with the requisite crush on the boss). Also reflecting those who’d tried the same thing, Steve and company barely made enough money to keep the lights on.

Since Terry had aged from a youngster to adulthood, fans had never quite stopped seeing him as a boy. “Steve Canyon’s been around,” Caniff told Editor & Publisher’s Helen Staunton in November 1946. “I couldn’t have Terry smoke, or even fall in love really without showing everything that led up to it. But this guy might have

been in love a dozen times” (Harvey 533-534).

Now signed to more than 200 newspapers, Steve Canyon premiered on January 13, 1947. Ever the showman, Caniff engaged in delayed gratification by devoting the entire week to the efforts of a man trying to hire the unseen Canyon as a client for his wealthy boss Copper Calhoon. The unveiling was saved for the first Sunday strip (January 19), prolonged even there with multiple reaction shots from characters greeting the nominal hero until he entered his office.

Steve Canyon was still very much in a formative state moving through 1947. The entire Horizons Unlimited crew gradually faded in prominence while grizzled prospector-turned-oil millionaire Happy Easter became an early comedic sidekick for Steve. On the heels of Copper Calhoon, a bevy of beautiful women began their trek through the strip as 1947 progressed, among them the evil Madame Lynx and the noble Dr. Deen Wilderness. On May 11, Caniff was recognized by the National Cartoonists Society for his Terry work as its first Cartoonist of the Year.

Dick Tracy creator Chester Gould was honored later in 1947 with a rather different monument. On May 30,

’s odd couple

Plenty and Gravel Gertie became the parents of an angelic daughter who immediately captivated readers across the country. Among those fans was William McDuffie, toy department manager of Gimbels in New York City. At his urging, Ideal Toys went into production with a Sparkle Plenty doll that retailed for $5.98 and sold 10,000 units within five days of its July 29 release. The cumulative sales of every other doll in the industry couldn’t match what Sparkle’s doll sold by itself in 1947 (Kersten 264).

The incredible influence of comic strips remained indisputable in 1947.

Tracy

B.O.

The first Steve Canyon Sunday strip (January 19, 1947) is sandwiched between character designs by Milton Caniff and the cover of January 13’s Time Magazine TM and © Estate of Esther Parsons Caniff.

Fawcett Publications

According to comic book historian Mike Benton, “The comic-book industry was still going strong in 1947. There were 198 comic book titles published, an increase of over twenty-five percent from the previous year. […] There was, however, a sense of unease among comic book makers. Circulation figures on almost all the superhero titles were falling. Captain Marvel, a good bellwether of the superhero market, had a drop-off [in 1947] of nearly a million from its annual circulation of the previous year, and a whopping two-and-a-half-million from the year before that” (43). That’s a staggering drop for, what had been up to that point, the comic book industry’s bestseller. In 1947 Captain Marvel Adventures sold 9,024,563 copies, which, divided by the 11 issues published that year, meant that Fawcett Publications’ superstar was selling on average 820,414 copies per issue. Despite the drop in circulation, Captain Marvel Adventures still sold better than Lev Gleason’s Crime Does Not Pay (which sold 8,635,910 copies for the year).

Fawcett’s other superhero titles were experiencing a similar drop in circulation. Still, the quality of the stories featuring the Marvel family in 1947 were better than ever. That’s because Fawcett gave writer Otto Binder as much work as he wanted. In short, Binder was writing virtually all the Marvel family stories in their seven titles (Captain Marvel Adventures, Captain Marvel Jr., The Marvel Family, Mary Marvel, Master Comics, Whiz Comics, and Wow Comics), all of which were published 11 times a year, skipping cover date January. In a letter to Clifford Kornoelje, Binder listed his Captain Marvel output as of Feb. 16, 1947: 208 Captain Marvel stories, 114 Mary Marvel stories, 93 Capt. Marvel, Jr. stories, and 13 Marvel Family stories (in its new title). “So, the ‘Marvel Family’, all in all,” Binder wrote, “has been my main bread and butter for the past five years. As for the total comics I’ve written, I’ve made no count yet, but the number of stories must run to something like 1,500. In five years of writing the comics, I made five times as much money, as writing ten years in the pulps. Sad but true.”

That “bread and butter” resulted in the Binders buying a lovely colonial-style home in Englewood, New Jersey in 1944. However, the ongoing slump in the sales of superhero books may have prompted Binder to hedge his bets and seek work from other companies as well. While he continued to receive the occasional assignment from Timely Comics, Binder also set his sights on National Comics. He couldn’t help but wonder, though, if the publisher of Superman comics would really hire the main writer of Captain Marvel comics, given that National was suing Fawcett because it considered Captain Marvel an illegal copy of Superman.

Time would tell.

With the exception of a handful of stories for Timely Comics (mainly Captain America tales), nearly the entirety of Binder’s comic book work that appeared in 1947 was published by Fawcett. Despite the extraordinary number of Captain Marvel stories that Binder was writing, the quality of his work remained quite high, matching the consistency of the artwork provided by the C.C. Beck-Pete

Costanza shop and the other talented artists employed by Fawcett.

One of the best stories Fawcett published in 1947 was “The Adventure in Time!” in Captain Marvel Adventures #71 (April 1947) where Captain Marvel is given an award in four different cites at the same time. In order to attend all four ceremonies, Captain Marvel enlists the aid of the Lieutenant Marvels, three men also named Billy Batson who gain superpowers only when all three of them, along with the good Captain, simultaneously shout “Shazam!” The trio made their debut in Whiz Comics #21 (Sept. 1941) where they are given nicknames (i.e., “Tall Billy,” “Hill Billy” and “Fat Billy”) to distinguish one from the other. In what would turn out to be the Lieutenant Marvels’ final appearance in a Fawcett comic book, the World’s Mightiest Mortals thwart a scheme by Doctor Sivana to ruin the celebrations. Over the course of the 12-page story, Otto Binder, as the accomplished science fiction writer that he was, explores the nature and mystery of time.

A few months later, Captain Marvel Adventures #74 (July 1947) presented “The Fate of the World,” a tale reminiscent of the Jack Benny film The Horn Blows at Midnight, which was released two years earlier, and was constantly being kidded about by the star on his radio show for being a massive flop. In this story, the Elder Gods at the Rock of Eternity decide the Earth is a failed experiment and vote to destroy it at midnight, unless Captain Marvel can convince their

The Lieutenant Marvels made their final appearance in Captain Marvel Adventures #71 TM and © DC Comics.

emissary Roroy that they’re wrong. “Holy Moley!” the Captain exclaims. “This is the biggest job of my whole career! If I fail, the world will end at midnight!” As he and Roroy stroll away from the subway station, they find a young woman sitting on a park bench, crying: “My husband, Jim, can’t find a job! And we haven’t got any money! Now he’s going to be a criminal with Rakey Johnson’s mob!” Jim then purchases a life insurance policy with all the money he has left: “I won’t need money—where I’m going. And this policy will see to it that Mary Anne has everything she needs!” Cap and Roroy foil a robbery led by Rakey Johnson, but then discover that Jim was armed only with a wooden gun. “I didn’t care!” he says, “I didn’t want to live, but I couldn’t be a criminal again either! I figured the insurance money would take care of Mary Anne...after I was gone! And I love her more than my own life!” The two are reconciled, with Jim pledging to make a new life, permanently giving up his criminal ways. This causes Roroy to consider, “They have faith in the future! Can I have less? They shall start their new life--and so will your world!” At that moment, the clocks strike midnight. The story ends in the next panel with a caption declaring, “There was a vote held on the Rock of Eternity. You know what the result was. After all, we are still here!”

Another notable story, this time written by William Woolfolk, appeared in Captain Marvel Adventures #78 (Nov. 1947). The issue’s lead 15-page story introduces an atomic robot, dubbed Mr. Atom, that was created by a scientist named Dr. Langley. Mr. Atom springs full blown into the world, wielding tremendous power. At first it seems he might use his power for good, but then, he has his evil epiphany: “I was not destined for an inglorious serfdom! I am not weak, like ordinary mortals! To rule over men...Yes! That is my destiny!” He appears before the United Nations’ General Assembly to announce his plan to rule the world by force. When Cap finally overpowers Mr. Atom, he imprisons the robot in a thick-walled lead cell, from which he cannot escape. Still, Mr. Atom broadcasts a threat to the world: “You, who have made me your prisoner, beware lest I return and destroy my keepers! Beware!” In the story’s final panel, Billy Batson, at Station WHIZ, concludes, “I hope you all take his meaning to your hearts! For Mr. Atom is a menace that the world cannot safely ignore!” It didn’t take a keen reader to grasp the story’s warning

about atom bombs. Mr. Atom would indeed return in future stories, but he was a character of limited potential, at least in story possibilities.

The same could definitely not be said for the character introduced in Captain Marvel Adventures #79 (Dec. 1947). Mr. Tawny was a talking tiger created by the Binder-Beck team, and he would appear in 26 adventures over the next six years, a sure sign of his popularity among readers. Mr. Tawny’s first story explained how the talking tiger grew tired of living in the jungle, so he stows aboard a ship in order to “see civilization” for himself. Once he reaches America, Mr. Tawny is initially (and understandably) mistaken for a dangerous, wild tiger. Upon seeing him, Billy Batson transforms into Captain Marvel to knock him out so the authorities can bring him to a zoo. Not content to live in a cage, Mr. Tawny quickly escapes, eventually making his way to a men’s clothing store where he dons slacks, a collared shirt, a tie, and jacket. When Captain Marvel (literally) bumps into him again, the World’s Mightiest Mortal finally sees Mr. Tawny for the debonair, loquacious man that he is. The talking tiger is offered a job at a museum, but the story ends with Billy Batson rhetorically asking, “How is it that a tiger can talk in the first place?” The answer would have to wait for Mr. Tawny’s next appearance.

Most editors would have balked at the idea of using a talking tiger in a superhero yarn, but Wendell Crowley loved the idea. More often than not, Mr. Tawny was the star of those stories he appeared in, with Captain Marvel generally playing an incidental role. Binder tended to write Mr. Tawny as a burlesque of himself, which he tackled with

Panels from Captain Marvel Adventures #74’s “The Fate of the World. TM and © DC Comics.

Mr. Tawny makes his debut in Captain Marvel Adventures #79. TM and © DC Comics.

great relish as evidenced by stories where Mr. Tawny goes on a diet, takes a personality test, wins a million dollars, etc. Binder, as he’d done in his Adam Link science fiction stories a decade earlier, also found in Mr. Tawny the opportunity to comment on societal prejudice, with Captain Marvel often defending his decidedly “different” friend from abuse. The message that everyone, no matter who they are, should be accepted as an equal in society was one that Binder and crew felt very comfortable delivering.

The appeal of Mr. Tawny (provided with the full name of “Tawky Tawny” in 1949 thanks to a solicited reader suggestion) lies equally in Beck’s inspired character design and his cartoonish art. Captain Marvel and family had always lived on the borderline of mainstream superhero land and the humor and whimsy mostly expressed in the funny animal comics. As such, readers easily accepted the idea that a talking tiger existed in Captain Marvel’s world, especially since they had already been exposed to the villainous Mister Mind who was a worm (an alien worm, mind you, but a worm nonetheless).

Tawny became the latest addition to Captain Marvel’s supporting cast, which was more than could be said for Captain Marvel, Jr. Up until 1947, he had no supporting cast. Recognizing that problem, Otto Binder set out to fix it in in Captain Marvel Jr. #52 (Aug. 1947). In that issue’s lead story (“Captain Marvel Jr. Finds a Home”) Freddy Freeman moves into Mrs. Wagner’s Boarding House where he lives for the remainder of the Fawcett run. Along with Mrs. Wagner, the new series regulars include beat cop Jim Bellows, gas station owner Red O’Riley, and fire chief Sam Bond. Artist Bud Thompson contributed to all eleven Captain Marvel Jr. issues with a 1947 cover date, carrying on Mac Raboy’s legacy on the title with several vividly dramatic yet elegantly illustrated covers.

Thompson also contributed to Fawcett’s biggest extrava-

ganza of the year. In Marvel Family #10 (April 1947), the Sivana family (Dr. Sivana and his two children, Georgia and Junior) travel to both the past and the future to retrieve rare radioactive elements that will power a machine that will create a protective shell around the Earth, blocking the lightning that transforms Billy Batson, Mary Batson, and Freddy Freeman into their super-powered Marvel counterparts. As Dr. Sivana declares, “With the Marvel Family out of the way, we can easily conquer the Earth and become the rightful rulers of the universe!” With their magic words disabled, Billy, Mary, and Freddy must figure out a way to stop the Sivanas. The issue eschewed the typical Marvel Family format of a few unconnected tales. Instead, Marvel Family #10 presented one fivechapter, 38-page story that involved Fawcett’s entire roster of talent: Otto Binder, C.C. Beck, Pete Costanza, Jack Binder, and Bud Thompson. The issue also followed National’s All-Star Comics model, with each artist assigned to the chapter that featured the character they drew in other Fawcett titles. For Otto’s older brother, Jack Binder, that meant drawing the chapter devoted to Mary Marvel, his ongoing assign ment at Fawcett. Indeed, nearly the entirety of Jack Binder’s comic book work

with a 1947 cover date appeared in Mary Marvel. He often drew multiple stories for each issue, like the three he produced for Mary Marvel #9 (March 1947) including “The Trojan Horse Mystery.” In that story, Mary Marvel teams up with Pinky—the youthful costumed crimefighting partner of Mr. Scarlet—to take down a gang of robbers who hide inside a Trojan Horse. Mr. Scarlet and Pinky regularly appeared in Mary Marvel’s other title, Wow Comics, and were actually

C.C. Beck penciled the cover and Captain Marvel chapter of Marvel Family #10’s Atlantean opus while Jack Binder and Bud Thompson respectively drew the Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel, Jr. chapters. TM and © DC Comics.

the cover feature of that title when it launched in 1940. Starting with issue #9 (Jan. 1943), Mary Marvel became Wow Comics’ cover feature. That honor lasted until issue #59 (Oct. 1947). In another sure sign of the public’s waning interest in superheroes, Mary Marvel wasn’t just removed from Wow Comics’ covers; she was removed entirely from the book, replaced with “Ozzie,” a.k.a. Ozzie Turner, a klutzy high school student (and obvious Archie Andrews knockoff) who was obsessed with blonde beauty Babs. By the end of the year, Fawcett launched a standalone Ozzie and Babs title (first issue cover dated Dec. 1947). Meanwhile, “Mr. Scarlet and Pinky” remained one of Wow Comics’ backup features… for now.

A Timely Transition

Martin Goodman succeeded as a comic book publisher because he identified and exploited trends. In 1947, though, the only obvious trend in the comic book industry was the decline of the superhero genre. Arguably, then, the most noteworthy move Goodman made this year was the reduction of the publication frequency of his superhero titles. Both Captain America Comics and Marvel Mystery Comics were published bi-monthly instead of monthly. (By the end of the year, Captain America Comics was even further reduced to a quarterly.) Human Torch and SubMariner Comics remained 36-page

quarterlies but only three issues of the latter appeared during the year. (Sub-Mariner’s Summer 1947 issue was followed by its Winter 1947 issue, released six months apart.) Goodman still provided his fair share of humor and funny animal titles, like Joker Comics, Krazy Comics, Silly Tunes, Super Rabbit Comics, Wacky Duck, and two Mighty Mouse books: the monthly Terry-Toons Comics and the quarterly Mighty Mouse Comics. (When Goodman’s licensing deal with Terrytoons ended, the numbering of both Mighty Mouse titles was resumed by another publisher later in the year.)

What Goodman really put stock in throughout 1947 were humor titles that centered on either “career girls” or teens: Cindy Comics, Frankie Comics, Georgie Comics, Jeanie Comics, Junior Miss, Margie Comics, Millie the Model, Miss America (which still did not feature the superheroine of the same name), Nellie the Nurse, Oscar Comics, Patsy Walker Comics, Rusty Comics, Tessie the Typist, Willie Comics, and Gay Comics (starring Millie the Model, Nellie the Nurse, and Tessie the Typist). Goodman further expanded his humor lineup by converting two of his superhero books into humor titles. With its twentieth issue (Jan. 1947), All Winners Comics became All Teen Comics (renamed Teen Comics with issue #21). The quarterly anthology title headlined characters featured in Goodman’s other teen humor books, most specifically Cindy, Georgie, Margie, Patsy Walker, and Willie.

After first appearing in All Winners Comics #19 (Fall 1946), The All Winners Squad (composed of Captain America, the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, Miss America, the Whizzer, Bucky, and Toro) had its second—and last—Golden Age adventure when, for one issue, it took over the numbering of the BuckyToro team-up book, Young Allies All Winners Comics #21 (Winter 1947) presents a 43-page story, written by

Otto Binder and drawn by Syd Shores and Allen Bellman, in which the Squad grapples with the Future Man, a man from the future (as his name indicates) who travels to the 20th century to wipe out humanity in order to allow his people to emigrate to Earth. Despite Future Man enlisting the aid of such menaces as Madame Death and an army of mummies, the All Winners Squad saves the world. However, the team wouldn’t be seen again in comics for decades to come.

With issue #22, All Winners Comics (or Young Allies, as it was) became yet another Goodman career girl humor book, Hedy De Vine Comics. The titular character is “America’s most glamorous movie queen,” a young, statuesque blonde actress who has to navigate the perils and pitfalls of Hollywood with the help of her (often overwhelmed and exasperated) manager/agent, Gabby. Whoever handled the scripting duties on the series remains unknown, but Ed Winiarski and Vic Dowd have been identified as contributing artists.

Following her 1946 debut, the Blonde Phantom not only enjoyed her own

In Wow Comics #59 Mary Marvel was replaced with the non-superheroic Ozzie Turner TM and © respective copyright owner.

Hedy De Vine Comics took over the numbering of All Winners Comics (which took over the numbering of Young Allies). TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

quarterly title, but she also began to be prominently featured on covers of other titles in which she appeared. Case in point, the cover to Marvel Mystery Comics #84 (Oct. 1947) has her in front of the title’s more long-standing stars: Captain America, the Human Torch, and the SubMariner. Other female characters (both new and existing) began dominating Goodman’s superhero covers. For instance, the cover to Marvel Mystery Comics #82 (May 1947) announces “The Coming of Namora!” as a bathing suit-clad woman leaps out of the water while the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner look on. Inside the issue, a 12-page story introduces Aquaria Nautica Neptunia as the Sub-Mariner’s cousin and sole survivor of their underseas kingdom that was wiped out by a gang of surface world thugs searching for pearls. When Namor vows to avenge the deaths, Aquaria joins him as she is both strong and “can swim faster than an arrow.” She changes her name to “Namora,” which in Atlantean means “Avenging Daughter” (just as “Namor” means “Avenging Son”). The pair pursue and eventually apprehend the criminals, turning them over to the police. Afterwards, Namor’s human news reporter friend, Betty Dean, welcomes Namora into her home, and as the story ends, the narrator directs the readers to “follow famed Sub-Mariner and his new femme

friend as they swim into more thrilling adventure!” For the rest of the 1940s and into the 1950s Namora would appear regularly in Sub-Mariner stories, whether in his own title or elsewhere.

Captain America would have to wait until 1948 before gaining a female crimefighting partner. In 1947, though, the character struggled through one forgettable formulaic story after another. The principal problem, of course, was that Captain America’s entire raison d’etre had been pulled out from under him once World War II ended. A superhero who punched Hitler on the cover of his first comic book seemingly had no reason to keep fighting now that the Axis powers had been vanquished. Instead of Nazis, Cap and Bucky were now battling such pedestrian new villains as the Human Fly, Rocky Rhoads, Hatchetface, the Black Baron, Zagana, the Mad Musician, Rip Van Winkle, Mr. Polly, Sparkles Labelle, King Leer, and the Acrobat. Cap’s greatest foe, the Red Skull, was featured in Captain America Comics #61 (March 1947), his first appearance since 1944, but it was hardly an illustrious return. No longer an agent of evil devoted to the Nazi cause, the Red Skull presented in this issue is a “sworn enemy of society” who breaks three convicts out of prison to help him steal a shipment of penicillin that he can resell for a profit. The mundanity of that plot matched the new status quo for Captain America’s alter ego, Steve Rogers: he had become a psychology teacher at the New York City-based Lee School, where Bucky was a student.

The name of the school was an obvious nod to Stan Lee. Firmly ensconced in Martin Goodman’s company as editor, art director, and head writer, Lee wasn’t actually editing Captain America Comics at this time, and not often writing it. He was mainly overseeing the job that sub-editor Don Rico was doing. It’s unknown who wrote each and every Captain America story in 1947. For the stories whose writers can be identified, the ones produced by William Woolfolk distinguish themselves, even more so than the ones written by Otto Binder. Cap’s artists this year were most likely Vince Alascia, Al Avison, Ken Bald, Mort Leav, and Syd Shores.

Stan Lee’s Secrets

In 1947, Stan Lee was in a comfortable, even enviable, situation. He was 24 years old, gainfully employed, and living a bachelor’s life in Manhattan. (He rented a top floor apartment on East 94th Street.) As someone who grew up poor during the Great Depression, Lee couldn’t help but be gratified with his lifestyle. At the same time, Lee was a bit embarrassed with how he paid for that lifestyle. In his mind, working in the comic book industry was inconsequential, even childish. As he told an interviewer decades later, “In those days, very few grown-ups wanted to do comics” (Barr 23). For years, Lee told people at social gatherings and parties that he wrote children’s stories rather than comic books because he didn’t want people to look down on him.

Imagine Lee’s surprise, then, when the prestigious Writer’s Digest magazine asked him to write an article about the comic book industry. “I couldn’t believe it,” Lee said retrospectively, “I was so proud!” (Barr 21). Lee’s article,

The Blonde Phantom stands in front of her male colleagues on this cover to Marvel Mystery Comics #84. TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

“There’s Money In Comics!,” ended up being the lead feature of Writer’s Digest’s November 1947 issue. (Lee’s headshot even appears on the cover.) Lee begins his article by portraying professional comic book writing as a flourishing, rewarding vocation: “There are 92 comic magazines appearing on the stands every single month—and each magazine uses an average of five stories. It’s a big field, it’s a well-paying field, and it’s an interesting field. If you haven’t

tried to crack the comics yet, now’s the time to start.” (Given how Lee truly felt, one can only wonder if his encouragement to give comic book writing a shot was as much directed to himself as to the people reading his article.) Lee then goes on to describe a standard comic book script page (with panel descriptions appearing on the left and dialogue appearing on the right) as well as the “Five Elements of a Good Comic Script” (i.e., “Interesting Beginning,” “Smooth Continuity,” “Good Dialogue,” “Suspense Throughout,” “A Satisfactory Ending”). Lee then stresses “DON’T WRITE DOWN TO YOUR READERS! It is common knowledge that a large portion of comic magazine readers are adults, and the rest of the readers who may be kids are generally pretty sharp characters.” The article ends with tips on how to write story synopses and pitch them to comic book editors.

Simultaneous to the publication of “There’s Money In Comics!,” Lee was offering a 96 page book titled Secrets Behind The Comics. At the cost of a dollar, Secrets expanded on ideas included in the Writer’s Digest article but for a much younger audience, specifically the kids who read comic books. It explained how comic books were produced, from their conception to their completion, using illustrations and “secrets” told in Lee’s signature, avuncular hyperbolism (e.g., “Are you beginning to realize now why ‘Secrets Behind the Comics’ has been

called the most complete book about comic magazines ever published… as well as the most exciting?”). By book’s end, Lee offered to evaluate his readers’ writing samples, artwork, or lettering for a dollar. Since Lee published Secrets on his own (and not under the aegis of Timely Comics), he directed readers to mail their samples to his Manhattan apartment. Much to Lee’s surprise, he received hundreds of submissions, and he made sure to respond to every one: “I didn’t realize how much work that would be!” (Barr 23).

Secrets Behind the Comics was promoted in the classified ad sections in Timely comic books. From a comic book history perspective, the book is notable for a couple of reasons. First, as Lee divulges his “secrets,” he also identifies the people who were working on Timely comic books during the mid-1940s, from artists like Ken Bald, Violet Barclay, Frank Carin, Vic Dowd, Al Jaffee, Kin Platt, Mike Sekowsky, Syd Shores, Morris Weiss, Ed Winiarski, and Basil Wolverton; to writers like Ed Jurist and Alan Sulman; and even letterer Mario Acquaviva. As previously noted, most comic books of this era didn’t list the writers, artists, letterers, and colorists who produced each issue, so the great majority of professionals worked anonymously. Secrets Behind the Comics, therefore, is a rare—almost isolated—recognition of some of the comic book creators working in the 1940s. As Lee put it years later, “I thought it would be nice to give each of the guys who worked for us a little

Illustrated by Ken Bald, this excerpt from Stan Lee’s Secrets Behind the Comics avoided identifying Joe Simon and Jack Kirby as the creators of Captain America. TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Stan Lee, Writer’s Digest cover boy and pipe model.

publicity” (Barr 19). Unfortunately, Lee’s honorable intentions here are offset by the other, more troubling, legacy of Secrets Behind the Comics, namely that it asserts that the person who created Captain America was none other than the character’s publisher, Martin Goodman. It’s a blatant falsehood, made even more egregious by the fact that Lee knew very well who created Timely’s flagship superhero. After all, he was responsible for assisting them when he started working at Timely, but neither Joe Simon nor Jack Kirby is mentioned in Secrets Behind the Comics. Comic book historian (and future Marvel Comics editor) Tom Brevoort speculates that Lee’s misattribution may have been “an attempt to help convince Goodman to allow Lee to go ahead with publishing the book” (Brevoort). Even though Secrets Behind the Comics was self-published by Lee, it still references a plethora of Martin Goodman-published comic books, and for that reason, perhaps, Lee felt obligated to curry favor with his boss. Another theory has been offered by comic book historian Mike Tiefenbacher. In an interview for American Comic Book Chronicles, Tiefenbacher surmises that Goodman feared that Siegel and Shuster’s lawsuit against National would embolden Simon and Kirby to sue him. Goodman then enlisted Lee’s assistance as a countermeasure against that possibility.

The Sad End To Al Bryant’s Career

Regardless of Lee’s actual reasons, his fabrication about the creation of Captain America made the otherwise innocuous Secrets Behind the Comics an infamous document.

By the end of the year, Lee had his mind on other matters. One of his cousins set him up on a blind date with a hat model named Betty. When Lee arrived at the agency, a woman opened the door, and Lee was immediately smitten. Her name wasn’t Betty though. Instead, it was Joan Boocock, a different hat model. As Lee explains, “I took one look at her — and she was the girl I had been drawing all my life. And then I heard the English accent. And I’m a nut for English accents! She said, ‘May I help you?’ And I took a look at her, and I think I said something crazy like, ‘I love you.’ I don’t remember exactly. But anyway, I took her to lunch” (Lewis). Two weeks later, Lee proposed, so she went to Reno, Nevada to annul her 1943 marriage to a U.S. serviceman. Lee then traveled to Reno, and on December 5, 1947, they got married. The two remained devoted to each other for the rest of their lives.

Unfortunately, Al Bryant, the prolific artist for Quality Comics, wasn’t experiencing the same marital bliss. According to Quality Comics editor Al Grenet, Bryant “had a lot of problems with his wife” (Kooiman 58). Bryant was also a workhorse, drawing a lot of covers and pages month after month after month. This unrelenting output, in combination with his domestic turmoil, resulted in a nervous breakdown. One night on his way home from work, Bryant tried to kill himself by driving his car into an abutment on the Grand Central Parkway. He survived but was committed to Pilgrim’s State Hospital on Long Island, New York for mental health treatment. At some point, Bryant got transferred to a veterans’ hospital in Chester County, Pennsylvania, but before that move, he made an unexpected visit to Quality’s offices. As Grenet recalled, “He was all messed-up and dirty-looking. He must have hitchhiked over. [Quality Comics publisher Busy] Arnold gave him $20. Bryant asked for a job, so Arnold gave him a [cover] to work on, but Bryant started drawing things that made no sense. I said to Arnold, ‘Maybe he escaped? Maybe he wasn’t released?’ Arnold called the police, and sure enough, that’s what had happened. The police were there in five minutes and took him away. We never saw him again” (Kooiman 59). Bryant’s true release from the hospital came in 1955, but he didn’t resume working in comics. Instead, he moved south where he spent the rest of his life as a technical illustrator and draftsman for various clients, including the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.

With a few notable exceptions, the final comic book work that Bryant produced was published in 1947. As a testament to Bryant’s prolific output, his 1947 credits involved most of Quality’s line: Blackhawk, Crack Comics, Doll Man, Feature Comics, Hit Comics, Kid Eternity, National Comics, and Police Comics. Clearly, then, Bryant’s departure created a tremendous void at Quality. Because of all the covers and pages he produced, his art style gave Quality its distinctive identity, arguably more than any other artist in the publisher’s stable. Nonetheless, one (or more) of Quality’s artists would now have to fill the void.

Sadly, Bryant just missed the opportunity to draw a key moment in Doll Man’s history. The tiny hero’s girlfriend Martha Roberts had known his Darrell Dane secret identity when the series premiered in 1939 but that detail was soon ignored. A Bill Woolfolk-scripted subplot in Feature Comics #109-111 (April-June 1947) focused on Darrell’s discomfort at keeping the secret and Martha’s increased suspicions. Al Bryant drew the first two installments, but another artist (possibly Dan Zolnerowich) illustrated the payoff where Martha caught Doll Man transforming into his civilian identity. Darrell was relieved and Martha declared that “the truth only makes me feel closer to you.”

A 1940s photo of Stan and Joan Lee.

Doll Man’s secret revealed, from Feature Comics #111. TM and © DC Comics.

TheSpirit Cast Expands

Upon finishing his service in the U.S. Navy, Jerry Grandenetti attended the Pratt Institute courtesy of the G.I. Bill. Soon, he began looking for a job as a comic book artist: “I went around, and comic books were relatively new at that time, to Quality Comics. ‘Busy’ Arnold, who was the publisher then, wasn’t looking for anybody new but was nice enough to send me to, of all people, Will Eisner who was looking for an assistant. I was lucky to get started there” (Fears). With Grandenetti co-inking the pencils of Will Eisner, The Spirit weekly Sunday comic insert reached new heights. The you-never-know-what’s-gonna-happen-next aspects of the storytelling—within which Eisner mixed a delirious brew of straight crime stories, good and bad girl art, film noir shading, offbeat angles and panels, incredible splash pages, deadly and divine femme fatales, Charles Dickens-type character names, humor, fantasy, science fiction, satire, social commentary, and sentimentality—often made for a dizzying display of master craftsmanship. And from this point on, it was only going to get better.

The Spirit began 1947 with the introduction of Saree, a teenage boarding school girl with a sweet, charming appearance and a heart for crime. Saree is so amorally wicked that throughout her first story she’s planning to murder her new stepmother. Unfortunately for Saree, her target is none other than P’Gell, the Parisian bad girl/black widow who is an equal match for Saree’s innate evil. Much to the Spirit’s amusement, P’Gell is in line to become the head mistress of Saree’s boarding school. Matters turn further deadly, though, as P’Gell is blackmailed and her most recent husband apparently has a murder contract out on him. The January 19 insert includes a remarkable fullpage cutaway of the three floors of the boarding school (and a good chunk of the basement), displaying the story’s entire cast of characters, including Inchly the Third, Saree’s teen boyfriend.

The P’Gell/Saree team appeared in a series of adventures throughout the year (May 18, May 25, Aug. 3, and Nov. 23), becoming a delightful mini-series within the series. Probably the best Saree story of the year was “Saree Falls in Love” (May 18). The title page alone—with Saree dressed

in typical teenage garb of the times, gazing into the framed picture of her one true love, and her head, legs and arms draped in dramatic akimbo fashion over her bed—made for a fantastic setup for the rest of this very funny story. One of the funniest segments takes only two panels, as Saree attempts to vamp, a la P’Gell, some greasy thugs in a garage only to have the hoods immediately kick the underage minx into a closet containing a bound Spirit, whom she informs she can’t untie “like a good girl” because she is “on the road to ruin and [must] develop criminal tendencies.” The Spirit’s own effort to vamp Saree immediately thereafter succeeds for only a few seconds before the hoods foil their escape. The story’s humor continues later with Saree’s glee, both in words and body language, at being used as a hostage by the hoods when Dolan and crew surround the garage.

The Saree/P’Gell saga culminates in “Christmas Spirit of 1947: Joy” (Dec. 21) where, oddly enough, the Spirit and his law-abiding supporting cast invite the two criminal femme fatales to Christmas dinner.

Two new supporting characters made their debut in 1947. The August 3 insert (“Competition”) introduced Officer Klink, a young, blonde go-getter of a cop while earlier in the year Silken Floss first appeared in the March 2 insert (“A Granule of Time”) before becoming a full-fledged costar one week later (in “Silken Floss, M.D.”). Floss is a full-bodied bespectacled good girl physician who plays a pivotal role in “Blinded,” a four-part arc that ran from August 24 to September 14. That story started in dramatic fashion when a no-holds-barred battle between the Spirit and the Octopus ends with the latter apparently dead and the former blinded by a grenade blast. The supporting cast steps in to assist the Spirit until Carrion shows up in the concluding chapter, “Into the Light,” to try to kill the lovely Dr. Floss. A blinded Spirit finds himself on equal terms with Carrion, who is rendered equally blind by a thick fog.

Three other stories display Eisner’s effort, all involving Ebony White, to create a hit song spin-off from The Spirit The set-up came in “Bebop” (April 20), a story that Eisner would later admit he was embarrassed by, due to its

These 1947 Spirit Sections from May 18, May 25, August 3, and November 23 reflect some of the newspapers that carried the weekly comic book: The Philadelphia Bulletin, the Chicago Sun, and the Newark Star-Ledger TM and © Will Eisner Studios Inc.

stereotypical and, at times, condescending images of black jazz musicians (Schreiner, “Stage Settings: Coping with History’s Accusing Stare”). That story was immediately followed by the amusing April 27 insert, which provided the music and lyrics of the song “Ev’ry Little Bug” with said lyrics by Eisner (but credited to Ebony White) and music by Bill Harr, a friend of Eisner’s who was trying to break into the music business and not finding much success at it. Eisner tried to give Harr a break by publishing the song in The Spirit These two stories were then followed by “Picnic” (Aug. 17), in which Ebony warbles the song while riding in a car on the way to a picnic.

Sometime during this process, Bill Harr and Eisner lost contact with each other. The song’s appearance in The Spirit never actually resulted in a record release, but according to those who’ve heard the jazz tune, it is quite a bouncy little number. Although the song was never again the centerpiece of a Spirit story, characters in the book could be seen muttering the refrain in off moments for months to come.

“The Fortune” (May 11) provided a good parody story with excellent accompanying artwork. The plot was based on any number of stories taken from both radio and film in which a paranoid woman is left alone in a big house with a thunderstorm raging outside while being stalked by a crazy relative. The story is both funny and (due entirely to the moody artwork) a bit scary. The fact that the heroine’s paranoia has a basis in fact anchors the story as she

resorts to any number of lethal means to defend her home again. Sadly, all of her deadly methods of defense injure the Spirit, not her would-be killer.

“No Spirit Story Today” (June 8) is one of Eisner’s “meta” stories, where the Spirit recognizes that he’s a character in a comic book. As Eisner goes (or perhaps does not go) on vacation, the Spirit and Ebony are left to cobble together a coherent story from a handful of pages that Eisner has left on his drawing board to beat the weekly newspaper deadline. Eisner later admitted that this story “almost without a doubt started with ‘I don’t have a story today’” and the fact you can’t be late with a newspaper deadline. Eisner also remarked that “I always made [the deadline] one way or another, but I felt the pressure. The only thing that saved me [while under that relentless pressure] was the fact that I had other things that I was doing. That saved my sanity” (Schreiner, “Stage Settings: The Beginning of a Roll”).

A pair of delightful fairy tale adaptations also appeared during the year. The first, “The Spirit’s Favorite Fairy Tales for Juvenile Delinquents: Hanzul und Gretel” (July 13) mocked the anti-comic movement that blamed 1940s’ juvenile delinquency on crime-filled, violent comics. Eisner’s tale clearly pointed out that stories aimed at children which featured crime and violence had been around a whole lot longer than the anti-comics folks liked to admit. Those original fairy tales had also been used as cautionary stories, to draw children away from a life of crime—the exact opposite of what the anti-comics folks were claiming was happening in 1947. The second story, also dealing with modern day juvenile delinquency (Oct. 5), spoofed the story of Cinderella.

Speaking of spoofs, Eisner provided one of Al Capp’s Li’l Abner in the form of “Li’l Adam” (July 20) (Jules Feiffer had a hand in the pencils for this insert) and another of Orson Welles (here named “Awesome Bells”) in “UFO” (Sept. 28) which tells the real story behind Welles’ famed Halloween radio broadcast of H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds Eisner also spoofed himself as the criminal Slippery Eall, who starred in a couple of stories late in the year: “Slipper Eall” (Nov. 30) and “Snow” (Dec. 14).

The lovely and often tragically depicted English agent Silk Satin made two appearances: the first in the initial Saree story (Jan. 12) and then again in the excellent “Mr. McDool” (Oct. 12), where she was deported from the U.S. after failing to find an American husband, in a storyline that would be resolved the following year. Her stories always seemed a step up from an already excellent batch of Spirit stories.

All in all, 1947 was a pretty good year for the Spirit, and for the reader as well.

Dell’s Four Color Variety

Dell Publishing released 157 issues over the course of 1947, outproduced only by National (211 issues) and Fawcett (159 issues). Four Color alone accounted for 48 of those issues and featured such disparate characters as Little Lulu, Tillie the Toiler, Dick Tracy, Felix the Cat, the Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Andy Panda, Woody Woodpecker, Oswald the Rabbit, Popeye, Little Orphan Annie, Charlie

To achieve the foggy effects of this May 11, 1947 Spirit splash, Will Eisner used a Croquil board and lightly ran a grease pencil over its embossed surface

McCarthy, and Flash Gordon, among others. Some of these characters, like Mickey Mouse and Little Lulu, appeared in at least three issues of Four Color this year. (Roy Rogers had the most appearances with six.) Most, however, only appeared in one issue.

One of the Mickey Mouse stories, from Four Color #157 (July 1947), featured a nicely done adaptation by Harvey Eisenberg of the short film Mickey and the Beanstalk which had just been released in the animated Disney feature film Fun and Fancy Free. Meanwhile, fabled illustrator Walt Kelly contributed to three issues of Four Color this year: “Easter with Mother Goose” (in issue #140 - March 1947), “Albert the Alligator and Pogo” (in issue #148 - May 1947), and “Christmas with Mother Goose” (in issue #172 - Nov. 1947). All three 52-page issues were entirely written and drawn by Kelly, an impressive feat given Kelly’s contributions to other Dell titles throughout the year: Raggedy Ann and Andy, Our Gang Comics, and Animal Comics (which ended with issue #30 - Dec. 1947).

Two other 1947 Four Color features broke new ground for both Dell and its readers.

New Tales of Tarzan

Forget Kaänga, Ka-Zar, or any other popular comic book jungle hero for the moment. The real jungle lord, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan, had been a part of comic books since the early 1940s, in such books as Sparkler and Tip Top Comics, which had reprinted stories from his newspaper comic strip. The Tarzan films that most movie goers remember were the MGM-produced ones that starred Johnny Weissmuller. That series began with Tarzan the Ape Man in 1932, ran at MGM for eleven years and continued, after switching to RKO, with Tarzan Triumphs in 1943. None of the films followed Burroughs’ books too closely, which didn’t stop moviegoers from coming back for more jungle adventures. About the time that Dell was negotiating with Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB) Inc. to produce brand-new Tarzan comic books, an aging Weissmuller hung up his loincloth. Tarzan and the Mermaids, released in 1948, was the last Tarzan film to feature Weissmuller. (Interestingly enough, Weissmuller traded one jungle film series for another as his next role was “Jungle Jim,” another comic strip character who had been drawn by Alex Raymond.)

Tarzan may have inspired as many imitations in pulp fiction, film and, especially comics, as Superman did. His comics clones include the aforementioned Ka-Zar, Kaänga, and Jungle Jim, as well as Jo-Jo the Congo King, Bomba, George of the Jungle, and Bwana Beast, among many others. And that’s only a short list of his male imitations. Female clones would include Sheena, Queen of the jungle, another co-creation of Will Eisner’s, whose initial appearance in 1938 launched a flood of young, pretty, white girls, clad largely in leopard-skin outfits, who would spend their time swinging through the jungles for the next 50 years. Burroughs even created his own female imitation of Tarzan—Nyoka the Jungle Girl, who debuted in the pulp magazine Blue Book (May 1931).

Once Dell acquired the license from ERB Inc., it gave Tarzan a “try-out” in Four Color. (This was standard operating pro-

cedure for Dell regarding new characters under its control.) Four Color #134 (Feb. 1947) presented the 50-page story “Tarzan and the Devil Ogre” while issue #161 (Aug. 1947) provided two stories: the 30-page “Tarzan and the Fires of Tohr” and the 18-page “Tarzan and the Black Panther.” These were all original, non-ERB-adapted stories, written by Robert P. Thompson and drawn by Jesse Marsh. The self-taught artist previously worked for Walt Disney Productions as an animator, doing breakdowns on Pinocchio and Fantasia and story art for Pluto shorts, among numerous other projects. Marsh was still on staff at Disney when Carl Buettner, an art editor at Whitman Publishing, recruited him to Dell. Marsh became one of the many moonlighting animation artists who went to Western Publishing’s Beverly Hills office to supplement their income, especially during forced layoffs among Disney’s animation staff. Marsh apparently dabbled in comic books before a period of military service from 1942 to 1945, but the real starting point of his comics career is usually considered to be Four Color #66 (March or April 1945), a Gene Autry issue with the story “Trail of Terror.” Marsh would work on other Gene Autry stories in the Singing Cowboy’s eponymous title as well as Johnny Mack Brown, another western comic based on a Hollywood actor, but his work on the adventures of Tarzan—perhaps because of the character’s enduring popularity—is what sealed Marsh’s reputation as one of comics’ most extraordinary artists.

Jesse Marsh’s cover for Four Color #134. Tarzan TM and © ERB, Inc.

Decades later, Russ Manning, who would become a legendary Tarzan artist in his own right, offered this assessment of Marsh’s earliest work:

“Aside from the fine avoidance of unnecessary detail, the artwork is rather rough and crude, and the characters are not too appealing; but the style is reminiscent of no one else. The handling of black areas and wrinkles is somewhat in the Sickles/ Caniff tradition, but there is no copying at all from these two masters. The storytelling is straightforward and clear, without any attempt at unusual angles, attention-getting closeups or any pyrotechniques whatever.

Here, then, in his very first comic books, [Marsh] showed the major traits that have been his ever since: absolute originality of drawing style, smooth consistent storytelling, and an all-too-rare simplicity. […]” (Manning 14).

Evidently, Marsh’s work on the two Tarzan Four Color oneshots satisfied Dell (and sold well enough) that Marsh was given the jungle lord’s assignment on an ongoing basis. Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan #1 (January-February 1948), which featured the story “Tarzan and the White Savages of Vari,” by the Thompson-Marsh team, likely saw print at the end of 1947. From then on, the Tarzan scripts were written by Gaylord DuBois, one of the most prolific writers in the comic book field, and the issues were produced on a regular, bi-monthly basis. Tarzan would become one of Dell/Western’s top sellers.

Our Favorite Uncle

The year’s other new Dell feature would become just as popular—and have just as much of a lasting legacy—as Tarzan. It came from the brilliantly talented Carl Barks whose Disney stories had become increasingly sophisticated and masterful, even though his storytelling was still in its developmental phase. In 1947, “the good duck artist” produced a dozen more Donald Duck 10-pagers in Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories (#76–87) and three more long tales in Walt Disney’s Donald Duck (Four Color #147, 159 and 178). One can’t really say that all of this work was leading up to the introduction of an important new character in the ducks’ lives, yet it’s undeniable that the year ended with exactly that.

Donald Duck’s parsimonious uncle, Uncle Scrooge, made his debut in the 20-page tale “Christmas on Bear Mountain” in Four Color #178 (December 1947). Appropriate for a Christmas story, Uncle Scrooge’s name deliberately evokes Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. According to Barks, Scrooge McDuck was modeled after both Ebenezer Scrooge and the wealthy Uncle Bim from The Gumps comic strip (Laqua). In an interview decades later, Barks explained how he created the character: “I just needed a rich uncle for the story I was going to do. I thought of this situation of Donald having to do with Christmas, and Donald getting involved with a bear up in the mountains. Somebody had to own this cabin he was going to, so I invented Uncle Scrooge as the owner of the cabin” (Willits 17).

True to his Dickensian inspiration, Scrooge McDuck is a nasty piece of work in his introductory story. Just for laughs, he invites Donald and his grandnephews, who are broke, to stay in his well-stocked lodge on Bear Mountain. He wants to see if Donald is brave. “Everybody hates me and I hate everybody,” he says, “but I could learn to like a brave man—if there is such a thing.” In the end, after Donald and his nephews have had numerous slapstick encounters with a bear cub and the cub’s gigantic mother, Scrooge exclaims to his chauffeur, “James, I have just seen the bravest ducks in the world! And my nephew is the bravest of them all!” Scrooge then turns to his nephew and proclaims, “It is with great pleasure, Donald, that I have decided to give you a present – one befitting a man of your rugged quality!” For all his trouble, Donald is given a pet bear.

As far as Barks could tell, Scrooge McDuck didn’t generate any fan reaction, or at least no one clamored for his return. Nonetheless, Barks saw that the character “filled a gap” as someone who could assist Donald Duck (Willits 17). Barks’ problem, though, was how he formulated the character: “Scrooge in ‘Christmas on Bear Mountain’ was only my first idea of a rich, old uncle. I had made him too old and too weak. I discovered later on that I had to make him more active. I could not make an old guy like that do the things I wanted him to do” (Laqua). In other words, the Scrooge McDuck in “Bear Mountain” was just a prototype for what he would eventually become. Scrooge’s character would

Donald Duck’s miserly Uncle Scrooge debuts in Four Color #178, courtesy of Carl Barks. TM and © Disney Enterprises Inc.

be fully developed in subsequent stories, but his second and third appearances didn’t come until “The Old Castle’s Secret” in Four Color #189 (June 1948), and “Foxy’s Relations” in Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories #98 (Nov. 1948). After that, Scrooge would become one of Barks’ (and fandom’s) favorite recurring characters in the Donald Duck stories, receiving his own solo series in 1953.

The Start of St. John Publishing

Brought up in the middle-class Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Archer St. John attended St. Albans, an Episcopal high school, where his mother hoped he’d become a man of the cloth. Instead, he developed a yen for editing and publishing. With his brother Robert, he started a shoestring newspaper that published exposés of Al Capone’s activities. Evidently, their work got the mobster’s attention because one day in 1925 Capone’s goons kidnapped St. John in order to prevent the publication of a “special election issue.” By the 1930s, St. John had abandoned his journalistic endeavors, moving to Darien, Connecticut where he became a marketing and publishing executive at Lionel Trains, working on their in-house magazine, Model Builder, while also handling the company’s ad campaigns and the yearly catalogs (Quattro). St. John included, from time to time, one-page comics features in the magazine, which would have likely put him in touch with comic professionals in the New York area.

Archer St. John’s history in the early 1940s is unclear. Not much is known as to what, exactly, he did during World War II, but he didn’t seem to serve in the military. He is thought to have traveled to Chunking, China for the Office of War Information (OWI), the official department of war propaganda, shortly before the Japanese surrender. During the war, St. John was involved in various magazines, including Flying Cadet, which was aimed at male teenagers interested in aviation. Some of the magazines featured comic strip content, and St. John may have partnered with Harry “A” Chesler, who was returning to comics at the time, in a deal pertaining to paper allocations. It’s possible St. John edited some of the Chesler publications while Chesler was in the military from 1942 to 1943, during a time when St. John was still working for Lionel.

When his mother passed away in 1945, Arthur St. John inherited $400,000. With that money, he started a comic book company. Like most other comic book publishers, St. John Publishing had its offices in Manhattan (at 545 Fifth Avenue). As time would tell, though, Archer St. John wasn’t like most other comic book publishers. He was a decidedly different type of person than the often rough-and-tumble entrepreneurs who grew the industry in the 1930s and 1940s. As comic book historian John Benson wrote, “Archer

St. John is remembered fondly by those who worked for him as a gentlemanly, kindly man who dressed well and had a warm demeanor. His son Michael [...] said, ‘My father bent over backward trying to be kind and good to people and I think a lot of people appreciated his largess and benefited in many ways from him’” (87).

St. John decided to get his feet wet in the comic book field by publishing reprints of a handful of United Feature Syndicate newspaper strips. Comics Revue (first issue cover dated June 1947) lasted five issues and featured (in successive issues) Charlie Plumb’s Ella Cinders, William Laas and Jack Sparling’s Hap Hopper, Bernie Dibble’s Iron Vic, and Gus Arriola’s Gordo. (Ella Cinders appeared in both issue #1 and issue #4.) Similarly, Treasury of Comics (first issue also cover dated June 1947) presented Al Capp’s Abbie an’ Slats, Dick Moores’ Jim Hardy, and Bernard Dibble’s Bill Bumlin. It should be noted that United Features already had its own comic book line (e.g. Comics on Parade, Sparkler Comics, and Tip Top Comics) but didn’t add any new titles in 1947, so the syndicate may have been willing to license these properties since it had no intentions of reprinting them. Later in the year, St. John expanded his newspaper reprints outside of the United Feature Syndicate. Pageant of Comics (first issue cover dated Sept. 1947) featured Gladys Parker’s Mopsy which was being distributed by Associated Newspaper.

But then St. John acquired the license that really put his company on the comic book publishing map. In 1947, Terrytoons animators went on strike to secure better pay. The work stoppage lasted eight months, and in that time, Martin Goodman’s license with Terrytoons either expired or was voided due to the strike (Quattro). In either case, Goodman opted to produce new funny animal titles featuring characters he owned rather than renew the license of another company’s characters. That left the door open for Archer St. John to negotiate his own licensing deal with Terrytoons.

The first issue of St. John Publishing’s Terry-Toons Comics (#60, Sept. 1947) continued the numbering of the discontinued Timely series and appeared on newsstands only two months after Timely’s final issue. With Mighty Mouse featured on the cover, and such recognizable animated characters like Heckle and Jeckle appearing inside, Terry-Toons Comics was exactly the kind of comic St. John needed to stand out in a crowded marketplace. What’s more, The Terrytoons licensing venture made freelancers aware that a new company was looking for stories and artwork. St. John would need them because even though he only published 14 1947-cover dated issues across four titles, his output would double in 1948, and he would soon become one of the most important “second tier” comic book companies.

All-NegroComics by Ken

The creators of All-Negro Comics (June 1947) lived and worked in the Philadelphia area and their entire comic book output appeared in that one comic. Most notably, it was the first Black-owned and totally created comic book.

All-Negro Comics

Quattro

#1 was the brainchild of Orrin Evans, a longtime newspaperman and one of the first Blacks to work as a reporter on a white newspaper. When the paper he was working for closed, he and several other of its former employees came up with a plan to publish their own comic. To produce it, Evans looked to local artists and writers.

Several of them came from nearby colleges, including his brother George, who contributed “Lion Man,” the story of a young Black American scientist who fought evil in Africa. William H. Smith and Leonard Cooper were the other two students hired by Evans. Smith, who would go on to a long commercial art career, produced “Sugarfoot,” a humor feature. Cooper had two features in All-Negro. One was “Dew Dollies,” a tale starring Black fairies, and “Hep Chicks on Parade,” an E. Simms Campbell-like page of cartoons containing stylish Black women.

John T. Terrell was the most experienced artist on AllNegro. He had been drawing cartoons professionally since 1934, including work that appeared in Judge magazine. In 1940, he created a cartoon for the New York Amsterdam News, a leading Black newspaper, called “Adventures of Tiger Ragg.” His main income, however, came from his work as the safety officer at the Philadelphia Naval Yard, where part of his job included creating safety posters to educate the workers. For All-Negro Comics, Terrell drew the cover and the lead feature, “Ace Harlem,” a tough, gritty detective story. He also contributed “Li’l Eggie,” a one-page take on the “henpecked husband” trope.

Even though the art and stories for All-Negro Comics #2 were completed, the second issue never appeared, due to Evans’ inability to acquire the necessary paper to print it.

Ken Quattro is the author of Invisible Men: Black Artists of The Golden Age of Comics (Yoe Books, 2020) from which the above has been abridged with his permission.

Black Creators (and Heroes)

The 1940s were a period of transition regarding the rights and acceptance of Black Americans and other minority groups in the United States. Black Americans had long been held down by Jim Crow laws in the south, as well as segregation in the north, even as they found good jobs in Detroit in the automobile industry. Ironically, it was World War II that forced American society to recognize the value of not only women in the workplace (e.g., “Rosie the Riveter”) but of Black Americans. The war made clear that every segment of American society was needed to assure victory over the Axis.

The comics industry was one place where there was more acceptance of writers and artists of color, largely because readers had no idea if the comics they were reading were the products of white, brown, red or Asian Americans nor, for that matter, whether such artists and writers were male or female. On the other hand, the comic strips of the day were credited, and people of color weren’t likely to work on a newspaper strip for a syndicate. (The same went for women who were restricted to producing material for a girl audience with Tarpe Mills’ Miss Fury being a notable and glaring exception.) Even in comics, many Jewish creators (like Bob Kane, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, etc.) changed their names to disguise their Jewish ethnicity.

After Pearl Harbor, however, the draft opened up many jobs in comics as male artists and writers were drafted

The cover to the first issue of Negro Heroes featured George Washington Carver, Charles French, and Matthew Henson. TM and © respective copyright owner.

into the service. The publishers turned to teenagers (e.g., Joe Kubert, Alex Toth, Carmine Infantino, among many others) as well as women and artists too old to enlist or be drafted to keep churning out the stories. It also allowed for some Black artists to make their mark. For instance, by 1947, Matt Baker’s work at Iger Studio was being recognized as some of the best art in the industry. One of Baker’s contemporaries, Robert S. Pious, had been contributing to comic books since 1940 when he was assigned to draw the “Kalthar” feature in Archie’s Zip Comics. In 1947, Pious’ work could be found in both Premium’s Blue Bolt and Victory’s X-Venture, and he continued to draw comic stories for years afterward.

After World War II, the National Urban League—a nonpartisan civil rights organization based in New York City that advocated on behalf of Black Americans and against racial discrimination in the United States—got permission from The Parents’ Institute to reprint Black American-focused stories that had originally appeared in True Comics (and other titles) from 1943 to 1947 in the comic book Negro Heroes. The first issue, dated 1947, reprinted eight stories, including “George Washington Carver: Wizard of Science” from True #28 (April 1943), “Beloved Teacher,” a five-pager from Calling All Girls #38 (April 1945), and “Paul Robeson,” a four-pager about the famous vocalist from True #48 (April 1946). The second issue of Negro Heroes, dated 1948, reprinted stories about Jackie Robinson, Booker T. Washington, Sadie T. M. Alexander and Sugarchile Robinson.

After the war, progress was being made in advancing the cause of racial equality through the use of such comics.

Teen Humor / Young Romance

Humorous comics about teenagers were one of the discernable trends of the late 1940s, although the publisher that basically started that trend, Archie Comics Publications, only released 30 1947-cover dated issues among six titles: Archie Comics, Laugh Comics, Pep Comics, Super Duck, Suzie Comics, and Wilbur Comics. Of those, only Archie, Laugh, and Pep featured the gang from Riverdale High School, and in two of those titles, Archie, Veronica, Betty, Jughead and company had to share space with other features. Pep Comics (upgraded to a bi-monthly release schedule this year) cover featured Archie but interior stories also starred Katy Keene, Willy the Wise Guy, Gloomy Gus, L’il Jinx, and the patriotic superhero the Shield. Pep Comics #60 (March 1947) included the last appearance of the Black Hood until the 1960s. Laugh Comics, which had taken over the numbering of the Black Hood’s own title, Black Hood Comics, with issue #20 (Fall 1946), showcased most of the publisher’s offerings, not only Archie but also Suzie, Wilbur, and once again, Katy Keene.

The industry’s most productive publisher, National Comics Publications, added a teen humor title to its catalog

by licensing the radio show A Date With Judy which had been on the air since 1941. National may have believed an established property was the easiest way to attract readers to the teen humor genre, but it’s also possible that they were aware that MGM Studios was adapting the radio show into a movie that was subsequently released in July 1948 and starred Jane Powell and Elizabeth Taylor. National likely hoped to use the publicity of that to their comic’s advantage. A Date With Judy #1 (Oct-Nov. 1947) was drawn by Graham Place and told the slapstick misadventures of high schooler Judy Foster and her boyfriend Oogie Pringle. It was an immediate and long-lasting success, continuing until 1960. Along with Buzzy (which had been in print since 1944), A Date With Judy gave National a piece of the teenage genre action.

Hillman Periodicals joined the teen party with help from Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Having already converted Hillman’s Clue Comics into Real Clue Comics, the creative duo now produced My Date Comics for the publisher (first issue cover dated July 1947). Kirby drew

With issue #20 Black Hood Comics became Laugh Comics TM and © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

National’s A Date With Judy was based on a radio show that was soon being adapted into a movie. TM and © respective copyright owner.

the opening story in each issue, which featured the farcical tales of teenagers Swifty Chase and Sunny Daye. With these stories, Kirby replicated the Archie formula as closely as possible while still retaining his distinctive style. However, Swifty was more on the ball than Archie, given that the former was a boy inventor and had somehow built a super-car, which figured into most of the stories.

The backup stories in this 52-page comic were drawn by such artists as Dan Barry, Jack Keller, Mike Suchorsky, and Jerry Robinson, among others. Despite the talent on hand, My Date lasted only four issues, failing to click with readers. Perhaps these stories (or the genre) weren’t a good fit for Simon and Kirby.

Or perhaps the title was discontinued because the creative pair had come up with a new type of comic book, one that would start a new trend in the industry. As Jack Kirby explained in an interview decades later,

“I began the romance field in comics […] It was an accident. It began with Joe Simon and me doing some work for [Ed] Cronin […] We did a book for them called My Date Comics. It was about teenage romances. While we were doing this

comic […], it suddenly dawned on me what this fellow Cronin was sitting on. He was sitting on True Stories for comics, a kind of thing that hadn’t been done in comics. It was a logical step to take, from teenage romances to serious romance. It was a virgin market. It was hitting the mother lode. I feel that there should’ve have been romance comics, and I’m glad I did the first one” (Dorf 68).

In his autobiography, Joe Simon described their collaboration a bit differently:

“Ever since I had returned from military service, it bothered me that there weren’t any comics specifically for older girls […] Sure, there were titles like Archie Comics, but those were humor books for both boys and girls. There were plenty of funny animal books too, like Mickey Mouse and even Punch and Judy. If you saw a girl with a comic book, then that would be the kind of thing she’d be reading. But there wasn’t anything specifically for teenage girls and even older. So, I went to Jack [Kirby] with the idea of doing a romance title. He thought it was a great idea” (Simon 163-4).

Regardless of who came up with the idea first, the romance comic book was intuitive for its time. Both Joe Simon and Jack Kirby were well aware of the “true love” pulp magazines of earlier years—such as Street & Smith’s Love Story Magazine, one of the most popular titles in the genre—because they had seen them on the racks next to their favorite pulps like Amazing Stories. But by the 1940s, pulps were being supplanted on newsstands by comic books, which became the multitude’s literature of choice. Indeed, Love Story Magazine ended its 26-year run with its February 1947 issue. Shortly thereafter, Simon & Kirby launched Young Romance with Crestwood Publications (where they were also producing Headline Comics under the Prize Comics banner).

It would be a mistake, though, to assume that Simon and Kirby simply continued Love Story Magazine in a comic book format. For one thing, Love Story Magazine had been edited by the middle-aged Daisy Bacon, and both she and the title had gotten out of touch with what young women—who had gained a greater sense of themselves as capable individuals due to their efforts during the war—were looking for in a romance title. Rather than follow in Daisy Bacon’s footsteps, Simon and Kirby conceptualized Young Romance as a comic book that would be more than an adaptation of the anachronistic, sappy love pulps. They looked at the book as something entirely new in the romance fiction field.

The cover to Young Romance #1 (Sept.-Oct. 1947) made two significant claims. The blurb under the title reads, “Designed for the more adult readers of comics.” Farther below that is the assertion that the title offered “All True Love Stories.” The latter bit certainly wasn’t the case, any more so than the majority of crime comics which claimed that their stories were all true. The stories provided in Young Romance were dreamed up in story conferences between Joe Simon, Jack Kirby and often Simon’s brother-in-law Jack Oleck, who

The provocative love triangle on Jack Kirby’s cover for Young Romance #1 was unrelated to any of the interior stories. TM and © respective copyright owner.

wrote many of the scripts. Still, the tagline stating that Young Romance was for “the more adult readers” did prove accurate.

Kirby had been around gangsters and street crime enough to know that crime touched the lives of women as well as men. Almost instinctively, the creative pair brought a certain amount of crime and sensationalism to their new project. The first story in Young Romance is entitled “I Was a Pickup!” As the story begins, innocent 17-year-old Toni Benson is picked up by a popular boy from high school. Crime elements emerge when the underaged couple enter a gangster-run roadhouse that allows illegal gambling. The story’s twist comes when the police raid the place. After being abandoned by her date, Toni is rescued by Stanley, a young gangster who, over the course of the story, proves to be a decent human being who’s had some bad breaks in life. “I’m not really a bad guy,” he explains. “My parents were poor—and I had to fight all the way to—well, just to keep living, I guess.” This character development—somewhat sophisticated for a comic book of its time—leads to a happy ending, with Toni and Stanley reuniting after he abandoned his lawbreaking lifestyle to become an honest working man.

Not every story in Young Romance #1 is as hard-hitting or ground-breaking as its lead. In “The Farmer’s Wife,” an eight-pager drawn by Bill Draut, a young woman marries an older man who wants to be a farmer. She pushes him into taking a desk job, but finally accepts that the marriage won’t work if her husband isn’t doing the kind of work he loves (i.e., farming). Two stories, “Misguided Heart” and

“Summer Song” are new re-tellings of the familiar plot of a young woman who aspires above her class, only to find true love with the boy next door. Only in the second-tolast story of the issue is there anything as different as the opening tale. In “The Plight of the Suspicious Bridegroom,” drawn once again by Bill Draut, a malicious apartment building elevator operator tells his passenger about his penchant of breaking up engagements by planting seeds of suspicion and jealously in each future groom’s mind. The end of the story reveals that his passenger is Frank, his latest “victim,” who punches the operator in the nose for his meddling. What makes this story especially interesting is that it is seen through Frank’s perspective, with his eye sockets framing many of the panels. Crime films such as The Lady in the Lake and Dark Passage, as well as crime comics such as Will Eisner’s Spirit, had used this point-ofview technique where the-hero-is-the-camera as an interesting way to draw the reader into the story, but using it in a romance comic was certainly a unique idea.

Young Romance #2, also published in 1947, presents two stories that exhibit Simon and Kirby’s creativity and skillfulness, particularly impressive considering they were tackling a new genre. The first story, “Boy Crazy,” features

A selection of splash pages from Young Romance #1. TM and © respective copyright owner.

a narcissistic little 17-year-old wench named Suzi Burnette, who is being raised by her 35-year-old Aunt Martha. Suzi is jealous of Martha, who not only is trying hard to keep the teenager from gaining a bad reputation for Suzi’s love-’em-and-leave-’em dating habits, but commits the unforgivable sin, at least as Suzi believes, of appearing to be much younger in age than she really is, thus attracting men that Suzi would like to date. When Martha meets a 30-year-old writer, Suzi is attracted to him and proceeds to steal him from her aunt. Martha sees the writer as her last chance to have a youthful relationship, apparently because she’s spent much of her youth raising Suzi instead of dating. Suzi gets the older gent to propose to her, breaking her aunt’s heart, but when the writer has to go on a sabbatical to finish his latest book by the deadline, lonely Suzi reverts back to looking for male companionship with the closest available boy. In an effort to impress her, the latest in a long line of boys leaps off a cliff into the bay and drowns. Suzi attempts to save him but the resulting publicity convinces her fiancée to dump her, as he believes he’ll never be able to satisfy her roving eye. Suzi is devastated, especially when Martha urges her to follow him, which Suzi refuses to do. The story ends with Suzi declaring “that’s the story of my foolish campaign against my aunt—I never thought my victory would turn into a lifelong defeat.”

The other Simon and Kirby tale from Young Romance #2, “Her Tragic Love,” features a young woman named Marjorie who’s having an affair with Sam, who is engaged

to another woman. Her older sister, Kate, tries to dissuade her from continuing the relationship, although her motives might not be purely altruistic. Because of his love for Marjorie, Sam decides to break it off with his fiancée, but when he arrives at her apartment to do so, he is greeted by the police, who tell him his fiancée is dead from cyanide poisoning and he’s their main suspect. During interrogation the police let him know that they are aware that he bought the cyanide as only his fingerprints were found on the cyanide bottle. With this circumstantial evidence, Sam is convicted of murder and condemned to die by the electric chair. Marjorie wants to tell the police that Sam couldn’t have killed his fiancée because he had been with her on the night the fiancée died, but Kate argues that would only convince the police that Sam had motive to commit murder.

Time passes and Marjorie and Kate decide to visit Sam just before his execution. The previously youthful-looking Sam has aged noticeably during his prison term. His hair is now gray and thin. Disconsolate over Sam’s fate, Marjorie informs him that when he dies, she intends to kill herself as “nothing can separate us—not even eternity!” Half an hour before his execution, Sam is saved when a tenant who is renting his old fiancée’s apartment discovers her suicide note in “an obscure part of the room in which [Sam’s fiancée] died!” Knowing that Marjorie will be unaware of the stay of execution, Sam speeds to her home to stop her from committing suicide. He arrives too late as at the stroke of midnight, Marjorie leaps out of her apartment window to

Letterer Ben Oda was an integral part of the Young Romance team, as these pages from issue #2 prove. TM and © respective copyright owner.

her death. In the story’s final panels, Kate explains how Marjorie’s suicide crushed Sam’s spirit (“He died that night, too!”). Even a year after Marjorie’s death, Sam confines himself to a dark room where Kate attends to him on a daily basis. She does so because she hopes (against hope) that her presence will revive him. As it turns out, she loves Sam too.

As evidenced, the Simon & Kirby tales in these early issues don’t just deal in romance but feature a strong crime element. The women don’t tend to be very nice, especially the younger ones, and the men tend to be quite foolish in how they perceive those women, or perhaps they are simply love-struck, which may, in the end, be the same thing.

Simon and Kirby’s agreement with Crestwood regarding Young Romance was the same as the one they had regarding Headline Comics: 50% of the profits with Simon and Kirby retaining ownership of the title and its contents. It was an unorthodox deal that could have gone very wrong. “Actually, it was a stupid business deal— at least for us,” Simon later wrote. “Because the deal was that we would supply the entire package, and incur all of the costs. That meant that we take the first hit if it lost money. Of course, we were confident that it was a great package. But like I said, no one had ever done anything like this. A title could be terrific and still sink like a rock” (Simon 165).

The first issue of Young Romance reportedly sold approximately 500,000 copies, which was good but not great. Being the only romance comic book on the stands meant it took a while for young women to find it amid a sea of humor comics about young women. Only two bi-monthly issues appeared in 1947, but thereafter, sales rapidly increased. By the end of 1948, circulation had nearly doubled. Despite this performance, Young Romance seemed to have initially flown under the radar of other publishers who were actively looking for a new trend. It would take more than a year before Young Romance had any direct competition. By then, Simon and Kirby’s title had established itself on the newsstands and was the leader in the genre.

Avon Calling

Avon Publications, Inc., run by the brother and sister team of Joseph Meyers and Edna Meyers Williams, published two comic books in 1945 and then laid low until 1947 when it released several new titles that ran the gamut of genres.

For starters, Eerie Comics #1 (January 1947) can lay claim to being the first true horror comic book to see print. With a menacing cover by Bob Fugitani, the issue provided seven grue some stories. The standout was “The Man-Eating Liz ards!,” a nine-page tale— written by Henry Kuttner and beautifully drawn by Joe Kubert—where two pilots who are engaged in charting an aerial exploration are forced to land their plane due to inclement weather, only to discover their “port in the storm” is occupied by giant, predatory lizards. Although its indicia declared Eerie Comics to be a quarterly, the first issue proved to be a one shot, a sign perhaps that the marketplace wasn’t ready for horror comics. That sentiment would change within a few years, and as such, Avon would return the title to ongoing status beginning in 1951, starting over at issue #1.

Released the same month as Eerie Comics #1, the first issue of Cow Puncher Comics was (as its title suggests) a Western, a genre that wasn’t particularly popular but was “coming around the mountain,” as it were. Avon would reprint most of the stories

within this first issue in several of its titles in the 1950s, including “SplitSecond Stand In!,” a nine page story about a cowpoke named Alabam who comes to the town of Broken Creek to avenge his uncle, becoming the sheriff as a result. This would be a routine cowboy tale if it didn’t happen to be another story drawn by Joe Kubert. Alabam took over the lead spot in Cow Puncher Comics #2 (Sept. 1947), then vanished. Kubert, on the other hand, remained quite visible, doing some of his best work for Avon in the coming years, both in the Western and horror genres.

Later in the year, Avon released The Saint Comics (first issue cover dated Aug. 1947) which starred Simon Templar (a.k.a. “The Saint”), a debonair British adventurer created by Leslie Charteris in 1928 for a series of novels and short stories. This was followed by Penny (first issue cover dated Dec. 1947), which reprinted cartoonist Harry Haenigsen’s humorous comic strip about a charming (yet quirky) teenaged school girl. Similarly, Peter Rabbit Comics (first issue also cover dated Dec. 1947) reprinted Harrison Cady’s Peter Rabbit comic strip that was being syndicated by the New York Herald Tribune.

Avon was establishing its eclectic line of comic books in fits and starts, but it was also employing very talented artists. Within a few years, then, Avon

would solidify itself as a small yet important publisher.

Matt Baker’s Enchanting South Sea Girl

Civil Service Publications, Inc., which also issued comics under the name Pentagon Publishing Co., entered the field in 1945 with a handful of titles reprinting syndicated newspaper strips as well as the all-new Adventures of Alice. In 1946, two additional issues of Alice by the same team of artist George O. Muhlfield and writers Fred Bordes and Serge Sabarsky were released, one adapting and updating

Through the Looking Glass, the other concocting an original exploit of its bobbysoxer heroine. Civil Service/ Pentagon also published a third collection of Crockett Johnson’s beloved strip Barnaby, three issues of Jack Sparling’s Claire Voyant, and single issues of Flyin’ Jenny, Stony Craig, and Hank, Coulton Waugh’s short-lived strip about the problems of a veteran returning to civilian life.

None of these books, though, sold well enough to keep the line in the black. So, publisher Jerry Finkelstein reorganized his outfit under the name Leader Enterprises. Arguably, Leader’s most notable title in 1947 was Seven Seas Comics, formerly published by Ruth Roche & Jerry Iger’s Universal Phoenix Features Syndicate. Roche and Iger remained at the helm of this seafaring-focused title. Indeed, nearly all of Seven Seas’ contributors from 1946 remained on board, particularly artists Bob Webb and Bob Hebberd and writer Manning Lee Stokes (using the house pseudonym of “Thorne Stevenson”). New talent on the title included future E.C. artists Al Feldstein and Jack Kamen.

With the third issue, the lead feature of Seven Seas Comics switched from Captain Cutlass to Alani, “the South Sea Girl.” Decently scripted by Stokes, the Alani tales were particularly memorable for one reason: the stunning artwork of Matt Baker. Everything that Baker poured into Sky Girl and his jungle ladies are here in abundance, and apart from the cover for issue #3, which seems to have been drawn years earlier, Baker’s Seven Seas covers are true masterpieces of allurement. The black-haired Alani defends her island against all comers, whether they be smugglers, arms dealers, slavers, spies or simply denizens of the deep. And she does it all wearing hoop earrings and a twopiece red sarong.

Baker had the uncanny ability to not only draw a beautiful woman, which many artists had the ability to do, but to make that beautiful woman enthralling, sometimes with only the slightest tilt of her head, the sideways glance of her eyes, or the way Baker made said lady’s hair seem to rise up and glow on the covers. And he performed this marvelous feat over and

The Peter Rabbit comic strip ran from 1920 to 1957 although Harrison Cady retired from the feature in 1948. TM and © respective copyright owner.

Joe Kubert drew this splash page from Cow Puncher Comics #1. TM and © respective copyright owner.

over again, from his early work on Sheena to his latter days doing illustrations for mystery and men’s magazines. The exotic jungle girls, aviators, dancers, South Sea maidens, girls next door, literary legends and gun molls seem like individuals, caught in a moment of time. They are not just lewd or sexualized women. They are the epitome of enchantment, done in an exceedingly rare if not unprecedented manner. Tarpe Mills and Lily Renée drew graceful women who move, recline and rest, but Baker could draw them not only as graceful but clumsy as all hell without the loss of their innate beauty.

He drew his ladies tough and commanding, worried and uncertain, happy and laughing, terrified, shaken and pissed off. None of his men, no matter how well he drew them, held up to the masterful approach he took with women. Simply put, Matt Baker was a gay man who could convey the idealized version of the female form. Perhaps not the way women actually look, but the way they should, with all their outer and inner beauty showing strong and clear and expressed in the simplest signs of movement and character.

Compared to Seven Seas, Leader Enterprises’ other comics were unimpressive. For example, Slick Chick Comics, which debuted in 1947, suggests the kind of lurid underground comic book that would be published decades later. In reality, it was just another humor book, filled with artists from the Iger Studio who could do that kind of work.

Jerry Iger apparently still had had some connection to Phantom Lady, a heroine whose adventures the studio produced for Quality Comics from 1941 to 1943. Now published by Fox Feature Syndicate and continuing the numbering of Wotalife Comics, Phantom Lady #13 (Aug. 1947) changed the character’s color scheme from yellow and green to blue and red. Fox’s version wore a plunging deepcut blue halter-top, that was attached to her belt to allow that neckline to be fastened to her waist and keep her out of jail. The costume was completed by blue shorts with slits up the side. Illustrated by Matt Baker, the stories and covers were unabashed cheesecake.

Coulton Waugh and the Second Crusade Against Comics

The anti-comics crusade of the early 1950s brought the wrath of the U.S. Congress and forced comic book publishers to establish the Comics Code Office in 1954 to oversee and regulate their own publications. But this crusade didn’t come from nowhere. It wasn’t even the first anticomics crusade. It was actually the third.

Matt Baker’s covers for South Seas Comics #4-6. TM and © respective copyright owner.

The first one began on May 8, 1940, only seven years after Max Gaines published his first comic book and five years after the actual start of the comic book industry. A review of comic books appeared in the Chicago Daily News, written by its Literary Editor (and children’s book author) Sterling North. His scathing commentary was prompted by his dismay at seeing how much time his sons spent reading comics (Hajdu 39-45). Subsequently reprinted by dozens of newspapers around the country, North’s article described comics as a wasteland of crudely drawn, badly printed, and brightly colored garbage that included “sex-horror serials” that he felt were destroying children’s interest in reading actual books, making them “impatient with better, quieter stories” (particularly, one suspects, his own quieter stories).

He also seemed very angry about the amount of money that comics were bringing in. In 1940, most children’s novels sold primarily to schools or public libraries, not to the general public. That often limited the sales of many books to around 5,000 copies, although North himself claimed sales of 30,000 copies for at least one of his novels. The notion that comics were selling hundreds of thousands of copies a month, were generating income four times greater than the entire intake of traditional children’s literature, and, worst of all, were being sold directly to children instead of schools, libraries, and parents seemed to infuriate him. North’s specific criticisms would become very familiar refrains in the years to come. North thought parents

were not watching their children’s reading habits closely enough. He remarked on the extreme violence that he found in comics and on the possibility that it could make children more violent. He disliked the political stance of comics, which he perceived to be left-wing, especially with regards to superheroes, whose very existence as selfrighteous, self-appointed vigilantes seemed to imply that the solidly conservative police forces in the country were either not enough, or not doing enough, to control crime.

North’s complaints got noticed, although at this point politicians didn’t feel the pressure to embrace them. This first run of anti-comics editorializing came neither from parents nor from national, state, or local authorities, but from academia. Teachers, librarians, and writers expressed their concerns about the new phenomenon of comic books, a form of entertainment that many simply did not understand. Some of this concern, especially from librarians, came from an educational belief popular in the 1920s and early 1930s that an excessive amount of fantasy, whether found in books, movies, etc., was not good for children, since it failed (according to the theory) to prepare the child for actual life. If parents wanted their children to become responsible, productive adults, then indulging their desires for fantasy stories or fairy tales past a very early age was a waste of valuable learning time. Comic books, both by their very nature and by their extreme popularity with children, were considered to be both childish and a major deterrence to reading “good,” realistic literature.

Adults were also confused by the fact that comic books, in and of themselves, were largely a new medium and were not the same thing as the widely popular newspaper comics strips, even though comic books had and still were reprinting an enormous amount of such strips in these early years. Comic strips tended to be more urbane and were usually better drawn and written. Comic books were brash, enthusiastic, and, most importantly for the child, “cool”—long before the word “cool” was cool. There was something special happening in comic books that adults just didn’t get but kids did. The tinge and smell of forbidden fruit wafted up from every dust particle created by turning the page.

Adults are used to knowing, from their own experiences when they were young, that there are things their kids will be crazy about that the parents will never really get (and, as far as the kids are concerned, shouldn’t get). But in 1940, this kind of understanding hadn’t yet developed. Most items, particularly in media, were not marketed for a child to purchase but for parents to buy for their children. This gave parents a chance to keep a close eye on and control over what the child was getting, especially regarding reading material. Comic books were largely bypassing that parental control, since they could be purchased by any kid with a grubby dime.

Academic studies were conducted to gauge whether reading comic books caused children to read fewer “real” books. The conclusion, which surprised many, was that comics seemed to have no adverse effect on reading habits at all. Kids who read a large number of books before buying comics still read a lot of books. They just read a lot of comics in addition to books. Kids who weren’t major readers of

Matt Baker’s cover for Phantom Lady #13, whose numbering continued from Wotalife Comics TM and © DC Comics.

books still weren’t major readers of books, but they, too, often read a great many comics. Comics didn’t seem to affect the reading of traditional books at all, although they certainly seemed to promote reading of a sort. This fact perplexed even the researchers themselves. More than one appeared to doubt the result of their own studies, simply because of the widespread adult bias against comic books.

Regardless, the advent of World War II ended the first anti-comics crusade. With the entirety of American society focused on the war effort, parents, teachers and librarians had a lot more to worry about than the purported effects comic books had on children. It was only after the war ended that the second anti-comics crusade began. Ironically, one of its central figures was, of all people, a comics artist. British-born Coulton Waugh was a painter, a teacher, and a cartographer, but most significantly, he was also a cartoonist. In 1934, Waugh took over the production of the Dickie Dare newspaper strip when Milton Caniff left it to create Terry and the Pirates. Waugh produced Dickie until 1944, at which point he handed it off to his wife and assistant so he could work on a different strip, Hank, which utilized a distinctive art and lettering style. Given his considerable talent and experience, Waugh was eminently qualified to evaluate the comic book format with an informed perspective.

And that’s exactly what he did with his 1947 seminal study The Comics. The book was the first of its kind: a comprehensive history and analysis of both comic strips and comic books, starting with the newspaper strips of the late 1800s (e.g., The Yellow Kid, The Katzenjammer Kids, etc.) and proceeding all the way to contemporaneous comic books. Once the book turns its attention to the latter, Waugh, at first, seems to echo Sterling North’s condemnation of the medium. Waugh asserts, “comic books are ugly; it is hard to find anything to admire about their appearance. The paper—it’s like using sand in cooking. And the drawing: it’s true that these artists are capable in a certain sense; the figures are usually well located in depth, they get across action…but there is a soulless emp-

tiness to them, an outrageous vulgarity; and if you do find some that seem, at least, funny and gay, there’s the color. Ouch!” (333). However, as Waugh’s commentary continues, he begins to change his tune. He starts to sing the praises of educational titles, like Parents’ Institute’s True Comics, and others that delivered messages against racism and anti-Semitism. He also singles out educative comic books commissioned by the U.S. government during the war. By the end of his book, then, Waugh’s sentiment about comic books has done an about-face. No longer focused on the vulgar crudeness of the comic books currently on the newsstands, Waugh contemplates the format’s future importance: “Quite possibly, comic books may emerge as the most natural, the most influential form of teaching known to man” (351).

The average American parent, though, wasn’t interested in speculating about the future usefulness of the comic book. They were concerned about their present day social problems, either real or imagined. One of those was juvenile delinquency, which had begun attracting public notice during the war years, when such films as Val Lewton’s heavily censored Youth Runs Wild began depicting teenagers’ use and abuse of an increasing amount of free, unsupervised time. This free time came

about for various reasons, including an exploding teen population (even before the postwar baby boom, one quarter of the U.S. population was between the ages of one and 18), a lack of parental oversight (fathers were serving in the military and mothers were working in the war factories, so both were largely absentee parents), combined with the 1930s-1940s surging national population move from rural areas, where chores and work for teens were commonplace, to urban centers where teens often had far less family work to do and far more money in hand.

After the war, the public’s concern about teen lawlessness only grew, as laws enacted to tighten social controls on teenagers caused crime statistics on them to soar (Hadju 84). Parents, courts, and law enforcement searched for both explanations and easy fixes for this new problem. Comics became a popular scapegoat, so popular in fact that Will Eisner felt the need to devote two 1947 Spirit stories (the previously mentioned “The Spirit’s Favorite Fairy Tales for Juvenile Delinquents: Hanzul und Gretel” on July 13 and “The Spirit’s Favorite Fairy Tales for Juvenile Delinquents: Cinderella” on October 4) to debunking the growing belief that reading comic books directly led to juvenile delinquency. One of Eisner’s points was that if all it took to turn someone to a life of crime was a comic book story, then that person was probably already inclined to commit crime. Eisner made a compelling point, but he wasn’t a professor or a member of the clergy so he didn’t have the college degree or religious title that would have given his opinion a certifiable stamp of authority.

In 1948, the American public would be introduced to someone whose anticomics rhetoric carried the weight of legitimacy precisely because he was a doctor of psychiatry. He was exactly the kind of authoritative figure the opponents of comic books needed for their crusade. Year after year, his influence grew and in the process, he became, arguably, the most notorious figure in the history of comic books.

His name was Dr. Fredric Wertham.

The cover of Coulton Waugh’s The Comics featured some of the nation’s most famous newspaper strip characters. TM and © respective copyright owner.

Cowboys, Criminals, and Lovers

“We are met here today to take a step which we believe will benefit ourselves, our community, and our country. Believing that comic books are mentally, physically, and morally injurious to boys and girls, we propose to burn those in our possession. We also pledge ourselves to try not to read any more.”

A group of students, clearly coached for the occasion, expressed their approval in one voice and watched as eighth-grade spokesman David Mace struck a match to a copy of Superman and tossed it into a huge pile of comic books that was soon a blazing bonfire. A popular, influential child, Mace had been targeted by teacher Mabel Riddel as an ideal subject to lead an anti-comics drive among his fellow students in Spencer, West Virginia. According to a reporter on the scene of the October 26, 1948 stunt, cracks in the other children’s solidarity were evident that day as many wept as their four-color treasures went up in flames (Hajdu 116-117).

There was much to worry about in 1948, from Communist encroachment in China and Czechoslovakia to President Truman’s institution of a new peacetime military draft. For the kids of America, however, the attack on their comic books felt much more personal.

Criticism of comic books as a medium had occurred as early as 1940 but postwar arguments went further than merely scoffing at them as a distraction from worthwhile reading material. Detractors now blamed them for the so-called rise in juvenile delinquency. Time magazine documented “copycat” crimes committed by young readers of these comic books. As comic book historian Mike Benton wrote, “The crime comics supposedly were implicated in several juvenile crimes, including a burglary, a hanging, and a murder by poisoning” (Benton 45). An ABC radio broadcast entitled “What’s Wrong with Comics?” led to formations of comic book watchdog groups across the country. In Cincinnati, a self-important “Committee on the Evaluation of Comics” enlisted 35 volunteers to regularly review recent issues and hold them up to a code devised by members. The November 28, 1948 edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer reported on one such meeting where “only 14 books in the collection of 118 comics were rated as unobjectionable by the critics.”

Unlike other genres, actual crime comics faced another hurdle. Many states, particularly New York where almost the entire comics industry was based, had laws prohibiting exploitive true-fact crime magazines, largely due to fears that such magazines encouraged rather than deterred crime. Unsurprisingly, when reports of children either killing others or committing suicide were linked to comics, authorities attempted to transfer and enforce onto comics the pre-existing laws that dealt with real-life crime magazines, especially since the comics claimed the stories they published were based on real crimes. (In reality, though, that claim was usually wildly inaccurate.) Crime comics then became especially vulnerable to these laws.

The Bad Doctor

One man in particular fanned the flames of this outrage: Dr. Fredric Wertham, the senior psychiatrist for the New York Department of Hospitals. Born March 20, 1895 in Nuremberg, Germany, Wertham immigrated to the United States in the early 1920s and was appointed the senior psychiatrist at New York City’s Bellevue Mental Hygiene Clinic in 1932. As his reputation grew, Wertham wrote a few influential books related to his field, notably Brain as an Organ (1934) and Dark Legend: A Study in Murder (1941). All this was preparation for Wertham opening the Lafargue Clinic, a psychiatric clinic for African Americans, in Harlem, New York, in 1946. Lafargue became the psychiatrist’s base of operations for the next decade, but in 1947, Wertham also opened in New York City the Quaker Emergency Service Readjustment Center for sexually maladjusted individuals.

In a remarkable display of tunnel vision, Dr. Wertham perceived practically the entire medium as “crime comics.” In his mind, the cautionary tale of Machine Gun Kelly was no different than Mickey Mouse’s battles with Pegleg Pete. Whether in Westerns, romance, or funny animals, the presence of a good vs. evil theme signified a comic book as a corrupting influence.

Wertham entered the fray courtesy of writer Judith Crist in a Collier’s article entitled “Horror in the Nursery” (March 27, 1948). She essentially adapted Wertham’s anti-comics views (and so-called research) into an article geared toward parents and decency groups. He could have had no better launch pad to a widespread audience. The Collier’s article disingenuously begins by stating, “There are books of wellknown comics which make life better by making it merrier. There are others which make it clear […] that crime never pays. With such there is no quarrel. The books deplored here are those which attempt to make violence, sadism, and crime attractive, which ignore common morals, which appeal chiefly to the worst in human nature.” This sounded quite reasonable, until one examined the actual extent of Dr. Wertham’s anticomics views.

Wertham was, to all appearances in 1948, a liberal, well respected 53-year-old doctor whose concern for youth— especially inner city, underprivileged youth of color— caused him to crusade against the violence he believed was rampant in “children’s literature” (i.e., comic books) then found on newsstands. Almost every kid read them, while most educated adults did not. With wartime restrictions on paper eliminated, new comic titles were proliferating and crowding the newsstands. In addition, though superhero titles were beginning to lose the consumers’ interest, the crime genre, which Lev Gleason and Charles Biro had pioneered in 1942 with Crime Does Not Pay, was rapidly increasing in popularity. This was partly because the stories themselves were quite exciting and, at times, well done, and partly because their creators, many of them newly returned from the war, found that real life and the more “grown-up” stories available in the crime genre were more interesting to write and draw than the banal silliness which many superhero comics had been mired in during the postwar years.

At this time, Wertham stated that he got into the fight against comics “not as a psychiatrist, but as a voice for the thousands of troubled parents who, like myself, are concerned primarily with their children’s welfare.” Supposedly his research was to find “not what harm comic books do, but objectively what effect they have on children. So far we have determined that the effect is definitely and completely harmful” (Crist 22).

From there, the article moved into what would become a familiar Wertham litany of examples of the “negative influence” of comic books on the children whom he studied, mostly those at-risk youths from the Lafargue Clinic. Decades later, comics scholar Carol Tilley examined Wertham’s sealed research files and determined that his examples were replete with mismatched and even false information which, if known at the time, would have invalidated most of Wertham’s claims. But such were his credentials as the head of a major children’s psychiatric clinic that no one questioned the legitimacy of Wertham’s assertions. After all, it was clear to anyone looking that many of the crime comic books were replete with violence, despicable characters, sexual innuendo, and situations meant to thrill under the “crime never pays” shield.

On March 19, 1948, just before “Horror in the Nursery” was published, Wertham presided over a symposium titled “The Psychopathology of Comic Books.” Likely a promo event tied into the Collier’s article, the symposium was held at the New York Academy of Medicine where Wertham

Dr. Fredric Wertham in a photo by Gordon Parks, circa 1954.

TIMELINE: 1948

A compilation of the year’s notable comic book history events alongside some of the year’s most significant popular culture and historical events. (On sale dates are approximations.)

January 4: Superman

Kirk

January 30: Mahatma Ghandi, the 78-year-old Indian leader who opposed British imperialism, is assassinated by a fellow Hindu who felt Ghandi had betrayed the Hindu cause. At the time, Ghandi was on a hunger strike to protest bloodshed between Hindus and Muslims. Ghandi’s peaceful means of political resistance will inspire future Civil Rights leaders around the world.

JANUARY FEBRUARY

January 30: The Winter Olympics—the first Olympics since 1936—opens in St. Moritz, Switzerland. As a reflection of post-World War II sentiment, Germany and Japan are not invited to participate.

March 9: After seven years of posturing and legal maneuvering, National Comics’ lawsuit against Fawcett Publications—in which the former claimed that the latter’s Captain Marvel was an infringement of its copyright of its Superman character—finally goes to trial. It ends on March 31, but a decision isn’t made until 1950.

March 31: The U.S. Congress passes the Foreign Assistance Act (a.k.a. “The Marshall Plan”) to help European nations recover from World War II. Over the next four years the U.S. provides over $13 billion to 17 European nations.

May 10: Psychiatrist Nicholas Dallis and artists Marvin Bradley and Frank Edgington launch Rex Morgan, M.D., whose mix of medicine and melodrama makes it one of the post-war era’s most influential newspaper strips.

March 27: In its latest issue, Collier’s magazine includes a Judith Crist-written article titled “Horror in the Nursery” that explains the link between the reading of comic books and juvenile delinquency. A prominent voice in the article is psychiatrist Dr. Fredric Wertham who earlier in the month details his findings at a symposium at the New York Academy of Medicine.

May 14: As British rule in Palestine comes to an end, the independent state of Israel is proclaimed in Tel Aviv with David Ben-Gurion serving as the nation’s first prime minister. Hours after its independence has been announced, Israel is attacked by forces from neighboring Arab nations: Transjordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon.

and several other self-appointed experts on the subject revealed the findings of their research, all condemning crime comic books. A transcript and summary of the discussion that followed was subsequently published in the American Journal of Psychotherapy

Several members of the comics industry were present at the symposium, although they were allotted little time to make remarks. One of Martin Goodman’s editors, Harold Straubing, was the only pro-comics attendee who was quoted at any length in the report. He said, “Whether the responsibility for delinquency rests with the comic book influences is doubtful, because we are exposed to so much crime, violence, conflicting ideas and social problems in life and other mediums of expression.” Charles Biro, on the other hand, “stated vigorously that comic books are getting better.” Two other creators in Martin Goodman’s employ, Alden Getz and Harvey Kurtzman “suggested that comic books should be improved and made educational.” Wertham refused to

June 8: One of the first shows to be broadcast on television, the Texaco Star Theater debuts on the NBC network. Hosted by comedian Milton Berle, the comedy-variety show becomes a phenomenal success, lasting until 1956.

June 10: Comic book publisher Lev Gleason debates Dr. Fredric Wertham live on WCBS radio regarding the benefits of comic book reading.

June 26: Two days after Communist forces cut off all land and water routes between West Germany and West Berlin, American, British, and French air forces begin dropping supplies into the beleaguered city. The Berlin Airlift allows two million West Berliners to survive the Soviet blockade.

let the comic book professionals in attendance do more than append a brief comment to the record. In May of 1948, Wertham also presented his anti-comics views in an article for The Saturday Review of Literature.

Soon national attention was directed at the supposed crime comics/juvenile delinquency problem, and for a time, anti-comics hysteria seemed to be building. Parents and teachers, who at one time had encouraged comic book reading, were now denouncing it. In more than 50 different cities, the police got into the act and tried to restrict the sale of “bad” comic books to kids. One month after Wertham’s symposium, the April issue of Time magazine included a story about Detroit Police Commissioner Harry S. Toy, who examined all the comic books available in his community and stated they were “loaded with communist teachings, sex, and racial discrimination.” A grassroots campaign led by religious leaders, newspaper editors, teachers, and children themselves urged school children to go from house to house in their communities,

Detroit Police Commissioner Harry S. Toy’s anti-comics crusade was lightly mocked with April 1948 headlines like “Police Ordered to Read Comic Books.” Photo by Tony Linck.

comes to life on the silver screen when

Alyn portrays the Man of Steel in the first chapter of a Columbia movie serial.

Superman TM and © DC Comics.

July 29: The Summer Olympics open in London, England. As with the Winter Olympics, Germany and Japan are not invited to participate. The games are dominated by the United States whose athletes win the most medals, including the first gold medal won by an African American woman: Alice Coachman in the high jump.

July 26: President Truman issues Executive Order 9981 which abolishes racial segregation in the U.S. armed forces and civil services.

August 10: Candid Microphone, a practical joke reality show involving hidden cameras and microphones, debuts on the ABC television network. Created, produced, and hosted by Allen Funt, the show changes its name to Candid Camera when it moves to NBC in 1949.

October 4: Walt Kelly’s Pogo makes its debut as a newspaper strip, running exclusively in the New York Star until May 1949 when it earns national syndication.

October 11: Funnyman, a comic strip by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster about a clownish superhero, makes its debut in newspapers but is soon dropped when it fails to find an audience.

August 31: The eager-toplease creature known as the Shmoo emerges in Al Capp’s Li’l Abner comic strip, quickly becoming a cultural phenomenon.

August 15: The Korean peninsula becomes split at the 38th parallel when the southern half is established as the Republic of Korea. Three weeks later, the northern half of the peninsula is declared the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

July 1: The Association of Comic Magazines Publishers adopts a “Publishers Code” which forbids, among other things, the portrayal of crime that might “throw sympathy against the law” as well as the “ridicule or attack on any religious or racial group.”

September 5: The latest installment of The Spirit newspaper strip features Gerhard Shnobble, a lonely man who jumps off a skyscraper, only to discover he can fly. He drops to the ground dead after being hit by stray gunfire from a rooftop battle between the Spirit and some gangsters. “The Story of Gerhard Shnobble” will become considered one of the best Spirit stories in the strip’s history.

collect all the comics that they could find (crime or otherwise) and incinerate them in public bonfires.

Prominent among comics’ defenders was Al Capp, who delivered a one-two punch with the Sunday editions of his Abbie an’ Slats and Li’l Abner newspaper strips for August 1 and 8, 1948, respectively. In the former (drawn by Raeburn Van Buren), a Wertham parody named Frederick Muttontop returned to his hometown of Crabtree Corners to fire up the locals about the evils of comics. Afterward, he was reminded that “the fine literature [he] read as a child” consisted of lurid dime novels. “It’s worse than anything kids see today,” he sputtered, “but it never did me any harm.”

A week later, Abner—deprived of his favorite “comical strip” Fearless Fosdick—reminded a group of protesting Dogpatch mothers about the violence in classic literature. “Those grand old authors—Poe, Shakespeare, Mark Twain, and Mother Goose—is all bad fo’chillun,” one woman gasped. “Sometimes I think those psy-cho-logists is jest trying t’make a soft dollar by writin’ articles frightenin’ us.” Late in 1948, this particular strip was reprinted in Harvey’s Li’l Abner #68 and #69 as “Li’l Abner Fights for His Rights.”

The most eloquent defense of comics in 1948 may have come from a 14-year-old boy in Washington, D.C. Infuriated by the anti-comics propaganda of Wertham and fellow

November 2: Despite the Chicago Daily Tribune’s premature headline that announces “Dewey Defeats Truman,” Harry Truman is reelected President of the United States, beating his Republican challenger, New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey.

October 28: Action Comics back-up Congo Bill headlines the latest Columbia movie serial.

October 26: Led by an eighth grader who declared comic books are “mentally, physically, and morally injurious to boys and girls,” students in Spencer, West Virginia burn over 2000 comic books that had been collected during a school-sponsored drive. The comic book burning is reported by the Associated Press, spurring other burnings across the nation.

December 30: Based on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, Kiss Me, Kate opens on Broadway. Written by Bella and Samuel Spewack with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, the musical will win multiple Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Author, and Best Original Score.

zealot John Mason Brown that he read in separate editions of The Saturday Review, teenager David Pace Wigransky wrote a restrained, articulate rebuttal. “The brothers Cain and Abel lived in a world of ideal tranquility,” he wrote, “a world that had never known violence or crime, a world completely devoid of comic books. How then does Dr. Fredric Wertham account for this brutal fratricide told within the pages of the Bible, the only book in the history of man more widely read and more widely attacked than American comic books?” (Wigransky 19).

“Dr. Wertham,” Wigransky furthered stated, “cites some two-dozen gruesome and horrible cases of juvenile delinquency from his files. These crimes were committed recently by weak-minded children and adolescents, who, Dr. Wertham implies, would never have considered crime had not they been comic-book readers. In none of these cases was it proved that reading comic books was the cause of the delinquency. A good many of the delinquents mentioned happened to be readers of comic magazines just as are 69,999,975 perfectly healthy, happy, normal American boys and girls, men and women, who also read the comics. It is just as ridiculous to suppose that the 69,999, 975 people are law-abiding citizens just because they are comic book readers as it is to suppose that twenty-five others are depraved criminals due to the same reading habits” (Wigransky 19).

Impressed with the entirety of the wellreasoned letter, the editors of Saturday Review reached out to the teenager, requesting a photograph and asking more questions. Revealing that his personal comic book collection included 5,212 issues, the teenager also had this to say: “Unlike other critics of comics, I possess a first-hand knowledge of them, and unlike even those critics who argue in their favor, I can say that I was once an average normal comic book fan and reader, during the war and before it. Therefore I feel that I am more qualified than people like John Mason Brown and Dr. Wertham in criticizing them” (Wigransky 19).

Published in the July 24 issue of The Saturday Review, the teenager’s commentary—like Wertham’s earlier criticism—was picked up by the wire services and quoted in newspapers around the country. Late that autumn, in Martin Goodman-published issues dated February 1949, a full-page editorial—likely written by Stan Lee— addressed the anti-comics furor and quoted Wigransky’s spirited defense.

The tipping point against anti-comics hysteria may have been the comic book burnings, both the aforementioned incident in October and another in Binghamton, New York on December 10. That was a bridge too far for many observers and all too similar to the Nazi book-burnings of the 1930s. These events also started with children stationed front and center for photographs as the kiddies themselves did the dirty deed of the burnings, while parents, educators and clergy stood firmly in the background.

The First Comics Code

In anticipation of the coming storm, a group called the Association of Comics Magazine Publishers (ACMP) was formed in May 1947. With Dell Publishing founder George T. Delacorte, Jr. as its president, ACMP included publishers E.C. Comics, Famous Funnies, Hillman, Lev Gleason, and Orbit, as well as distributors Frank Armer and Irving Manheimer, among others. Henry E. Schultz—a Manhattan attorney on the board of Queens College and a member of the New York City Board of Higher Education—became ACMP’s executive director. He spoke about the conditions that prompted the group’s formation in the December 1949 issue of the Journal of Educational Sociology:

“In towns, villages, and municipalities throughout the country, law makers were goaded and prodded into action, and many did their best to please and appease the angry torment which had been

unleashed. Laws and ordinances, committees on legislation, censors, indeed every device to bedevil and confuse dealers, wholesalers, and publishers of comics, were created and enacted—books were banned, and finally, to cap the climax, mass burnings of comic books were publicly held in several communities” (Schultz 216).

In an attempt to deter external regulation, in 1948 ACMP established a code of decency for comic books. Any publisher that followed this code could carry the ACMP seal as a stamp of approval. The code reads as follows:

“The Association of Comics Magazine Publishers, realizing its responsibility to the millions of readers of comics magazines and to the public generally, urges its members and others to publish comics magazines containing only good, wholesome entertainment or education, and in no event include in any magazine comics that may in any way lower the moral standards of those who read them. In particular:

1. Sexy, wanton comics should not be published. No drawing should show a female indecently or unduly exposed, and in no event more nude than in a bathing suit commonly worn in the United States of America.

2. Crime should not be presented in such a way as to throw sympathy against the law and justice or to inspire others with the desire for imitation. No comics shall show the details and methods of a crime committed by a youth. Policemen, judges, Government officials, and respected institutions should not be portrayed as stupid or ineffective, or represented in such a way as to weaken respect for established authority.

3. No scenes of sadistic torture should be shown.

4. Vulgar and obscene language should never be used. Slang should be kept to a minimum and used only when essential to the story.

5. Divorce should not be treated humorously nor represented as glamorous or alluring.

6. Ridicule or attack on any religious or racial group is never permissible.”

Despite the thought put into it, ACMP’s code had little chance of success, strictly based on participation.

In a 1948 letter to Dell president George Delacorte, teenager David Wigransky mentioned his postgraduation plans to “write a book on the history of American comic book magazines during the first half of the 20th Century.” That dream was never realized.

Simply put, the larger comic book publishers had no intention of going in league with their smaller competitors. National, Dell, Fawcett, Quality, and Martin Goodman’s imprints had internal codes of their own. Therefore, they had nothing to gain by associating them selves with the minor publishers in the industry. In fact, as they saw it, their gain would be allow ing societal pressure to force these smaller outfits out of busi ness, clearing news stands for their own more “respectable” comic books.

For an article appearing in the August 8, 1948 edition of the Louisville Courier-Journal, William G. Simpson, who headed Fawcett’s printing company, described the ACMP as “a ‘bid for publicity’ to appease the recent upsurge of public opinion against the comics.” The article also provided the perspectives of Louisville newsstand dealers, including one who felt the problem with comic books wasn’t its perceived salacious material but its actual redundant offerings: “Comics are a racket! You get one or two good Westerns, and then what happens? The market is flooded with dubious Westerns” (Mark 4).

The dealer’s mention of Westerns is telling because 1948 proved to be a watershed year as far as that genre was concerned. As comic book historian Mike Benton explains, “Fueled by the declining readership of superhero comics and by the rising popularity of the Saturday morning “B” western heroes, western comic books soon became the most popular comic-book genre on the newsstands” (Benton 188).

Fawcett’s Hopalong Cassidy was a perfect case in point. The fictional cowboy hero created by author Clarence E. Mulford was a beloved icon for a generation of boys, thanks to the long-running movie series starring actor Bill Boyd who also gave voice to the character for a Mutual Broadcasting System radio show that began in 1948. As a result, the annual circulation of Fawcett’s Hopalong Cassidy comic book doubled from four million to over eight million copies between 1947 and 1948 (Benton 43). As a quarterly in 1946, Hopalong Cassidy sold an average of 293,000 copies

per issue. In 1947, Fawcett began releasing the series as a monthly, and sales increased to an average of 361,000 copies per issue. In 1948, that figure nearly doubled to 715,000 copies per issue.

By the end of 1948, Fawcett was offering nearly half a dozen Western titles, like one dedicated to the actor who played Hopalong Cassidy’s humorous elderly sidekick during the 1930s: Gabby Hayes. The cover to the first issue of Gabby Hayes Western (Nov. 1948) announces “Now! For the First Time—In His Own Magazine! The Most Garrulous Galoot Ever to Straddle a Saddle.” On the other hand, Tom Mix Western (first issue cover dated Jan. 1948) took its title from the famous film actor who had passed away in 1940 after appearing in 291 films, most of which were produced during the silent film era. The statuesque Monte Hale was both a Western movie actor and a country music singer. Fawcett’s Monte Hale Western took over the numbering of the solo Mary Marvel title starting with issue #29 (Oct. 1948). Similarly, Real Western Hero replaced Mary Marvel’s previous title, Wow Comics, with issue #70 (Sept. 1948) to star all four licensed cowboys: Hopalong Cassidy, Gabby Hayes, Monte Hale, and Tom Mix. Along with this quartet, Real Western also featured a Native American hero, Young Falcon, who starred in a serial where he endeavored to recover a totem following the slaughter of his tribe.

Fawcett Comics’ real western heroes. TM and © respective copyright owner.

Mighty Martin’s Westerns

Fawcett’s competitors took notice, and before long, as the Louisville dealer described, the market became oversaturated with Western-themed comic books. Per usual, Martin Goodman was one of the publishers responsible for the flood.

Unsurprisingly, Goodman didn’t try to license Western stars from the movies. He’d have to have paid a licensing fee for each one, and the best ones had already been snapped up. Instead, he tasked his editor, Stan Lee, with creating an entirely new Western line and rolling it out over the course of 1948.

The publisher’s first true Western character, named the Masked Raider, had appeared years earlier in Marvel Mystery Comics #2-12 (Oct. 1939-Oct. 1940), created, written and illustrated by Al Anders, but that cowboy had gained little traction in a title dominated by superheroes, detectives and jungle lords, and was soon forgotten. Likewise, Annie Oakley—loosely based on the real-life sharpshooter and launched in early 1948—was a lightweight humor title that didn’t meet Goodman’s requirements.

Goodman’s first ongoing traditional Western title, then, was Two-Gun Kid, which hit the stands at the end of January (cover date April 1948). The title character was blond-haired Clay Harder, who wore an all-black suit, a broad-brimmed hat and two overlapping gun belts with two long-barreled six-shooters nestled within. Initially penciled by Syd Shores, at least some of the scripts were written by William Woolfolk. His title initially lasted just 10 issues, but his stories were continued in the anthology title Wild Western. Premiering just a few weeks after Two-Gun #1, Wild Western also featured Arizona Annie and Tex Taylor.

Stan Lee’s penchant for Western heroes named “kid” continued with the introduction of Kid Colt (the first issue of his eponymous title cover dated Aug. 1948), who has the distinction of being the longest-running cowboy star in American comic book publishing. Blaine Colt, who had killed his father’s murderer in a fair gun battle, became a fugitive from the law for that killing and sought to restore his reputation by helping others. Kid Colt lasted 31 years from 1948 through 1979, although most of the stories published from 1966 to 1979 were reprints. Syd

Shores, Mike Sekowsky, Bill Walsh, Pete Tumlinson, Russ Heath, and others drew the early years of the feature but Jack Keller—starting in 1953—was the artist most associated with the character.

Tex Morgan (Aug. 1948) rode into town soon after, followed by Blaze Carson (Sept. 1948), and Tex Taylor (Sept. 1948). A newly launched superhero anthology All Winners abruptly recreated itself as All Western Winners with issue #2 (Winter 1948), presenting itself as a triple feature with Kid Colt, Two-Gun, and the brand-new Black Rider. Illustrated by Syd Shores, the Rider was Mathew Masters, a pacifistic doctor who took a masked alter ego to fight criminals rather than draw attention to himself and expose his secret past as a reformed outlaw.

National Rides the Range

Even before the release of the first issue of its rival’s Two-Gun Kid, National Comics Publications had launched its flagship title in the cowboy genre with Western Comics (first issue cover-dated JanuaryFebruary 1948, a full two months before Goodman’s title). The series fell under the editorial auspices of Jack Schiff, who coordinated the work of assistant editors Murray Boltinoff (handling the art) and George Kashdan (handling the stories).

Western Comics featured a quartet of cowboy heroes, the most recognizable being the Vigilante. Secretly a singing cowboy and radio star named Greg Sanders, Vig not only continued to hold down a monthly slot in Action Comics but also had recently been featured in a 1947 movie serial. Illustrated by Mort Meskin, Vig and his teen sidekick Stuff the Chinatown Kid fought a 1940s namesake of Jesse James in their inaugural Western outing. In a concession to the title he was appearing in, the Vigilante exchanged his trademark motorcycle for a horse as of issue #3, where the action shifted to the 19th century Old West.

However, after issue #4, the Vigilante was removed entirely from Western Comics. In an interview decades later, George Kashdan offered a possible reason why: “Jack Schiff disapproved of that character. He hated the idea of making vigilantism sound romantic” (Amash 43). The Vigilante did remain in Action Comics (where two further Old West adventures ran in issues #122 and #130), until his series finally ended in 1954’s Action #198.

A trio of Western covers by Syd Shores. TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

The Wyoming Kid, created by Jack Schiff and Howard Sherman, became Western’s cover feature effective with issue #2, holding that spot—with one exception—into 1953. Originally identified as Johnny Jones in issue #1, the kid was retroactively given an origin in Western #8 (March-April 1949). That issue revealed that he was Bill Polk, a former sheepherder wandering the West on his horse Racer, looking for the varmint who murdered his father. Immediately popular with fans, the Wyoming Kid appeared in all 85 issues of Western Comics, running long enough to acquire a new origin in issue #65 (Sept.-Oct. 1957).

Also featured in Western #1 was the Ed Smalle-illustrated Cowboy Marshal, about a U.S. Marshal named Jim Sawyer who was featured on the opening cover and remained a regular feature through issue #42 in 1953. The last featured hero was Rodeo Rick—drawn by Howie Post—who encountered no shortage of badmen while traveling the rodeo circuit through issue #69 in 1958.

Replacing Vigilante in Western #5 (Sept.-Oct. 1948) was the Nighthawk,

created by Joe Millard and Charles Paris. Otherwise known as a traveling fix-it man named Hannibal Hawkes, Nighthawk wore a domino mask and black shirt emblazoned with a white hawk emblem. He returned in Western #7, beginning an unbroken run that ended in 1959 with issue #76.

Elsewhere, another National Western hero with a secret identity premiered in All-American Comics #100 (August 1948) as its new headliner. He was Johnny Thunder, a completely different character than the comical hero whose eight-year run in Flash Comics had recently ended with issue #91 (January 1948). With guidance from editor Julius Schwartz, writer Robert Kanigher and artist Alex Toth started from scratch to detail the secret life of mild-mannered blond schoolteacher John Tane. In moments of crisis, the young man blackened his hair, changed his speech patterns, and assumed the persona of Johnny

Thunder astride his white horse Black Lightnin’ (so named for a jagged black patch of fur). Most stories found Johnny assisting Mesa City’s sheriff, a.k.a. John Tane’s dad, who never failed to deride his supposedly pacifistic son.

It should be noted that Johnny Thunder was the first in a now very long line of DC Golden Age characters whose names became re-used for entirely different characters, often having no real connection to the original except for the name. Suffice

The quartet of features in Western Comics #1 was adjusted in issue #5 when Nighthawk replaced the Vigilante. TM and © DC Comics.

to say, the handsome, intelligent Western Johnny Thunder had no link beyond the name to the clumsy and often oafish superhero Johnny Thunder.

Johnny’s ascendance relegated former star Green Lantern to the back of the book. With its 103rd issue, the book’s title was changed to All-American Western. Green Lantern and all the other non-Western features were gone, leaving room for Johnny Thunder to headline the title. New features included “Overland Coach,” which followed the exploits of female stagecoach owner Tony “Antoinette” Barrett, and “Minstrel Maverick,” where balladeer Hank “Harmony” Hayes found his guitar as useful as a weapon as strumming melodies. Foley of the Fighting 5th starred Dan Foley as a new West Point graduate stationed at Fort Desolation with the Fifth Cavalry. Julius Schwartz used writers and artists who were part of his regular crew of freelancers: Gardner Fox, Robert Kanigher and John Broome on the stories; and Irwin Hasen, Frank Giacoia, Joe Kubert, Alex Toth and John Giunta on the artwork.

All-American Western #103 presented “Overland Coach,” Minstrel Maverick, Foley of the Fighting 5th and headliner Johnny Thunder beneath Alex Toth and Frank Giacoia’s cover. TM and © DC Comics.

Southwest, complete with a wisecracking blonde secretary named Nan. With artwork provided by Alex Toth and Frank Giacoia, Dale Evans Comics became a fan-favorite title specifically because of these backup stories.

Western Comics by Other Publishers

The last Western title added by National in 1948 starred Roy Rogers’ wife, Dale Evans. Dell had the license for her husband’s adventures, but Evans was also a movie star to American’s youth, especially girls, so Whitney Ellsworth decided to give a title based on her adventures a try.

Dale’s four-color adventures included many scripts from Ryerson Johnson, a prolific writer for the pulps, including a number of Doc Savage stories under the Kenneth Robeson pseudonym. In the absence of Roy Rogers, Johnson created the wheelchair-bound Uncle Six as a regular cast member for Dale to interact with. “He had a skill for Westernsounding dialogue and colorful side characters,” George Kashdan recalled of Johnson. “Some of his stories were a little too adult,” Kashdan conceded. “Very often, one of my jobs, when I first started there, was to trim it down for kids. He often required some heavy editing” (Amash 42-43).

Also featured in each issue of Dale Evans Comics was the Joe Millard-written Sierra Smith. The title character was a private eye situated in the present-day American

By 1948, Victor Fox—the “king of the comics”—had gotten his financial affairs sufficiently in order to make another big push as a comics publisher. It would not, in the final analysis, match the books that Fox published in the early 1940s, but one couldn’t avoid them on the newsstands. With the advent of each new trend, Fox would spew out several, often more than a half dozen, brand new titles to exploit it. The fact that most of the Fox material published in 1948 was substandard—sometimes approaching subliterate—obviously didn’t matter to him. Typical of Fox’s product, the Western line included a title with buxom females on display: Women Outlaws. The other Fox Western titles published in 1948 (some of them continuing the numbering of other non-Western books) were Western Thrillers, Western True Crime, Western Killers, and Western Outlaws

Standard Comics had licensed the United Features Syndicate newspaper strip Broncho Bill by Harry O’Neill in 1947 and published the December 1947-dated first issue (#5) a bit ahead of the trend. Rafael Astarita and Art Saaf drew

new splash pages for the title’s strip reprints while Ralph Mayo contributed original covers.

Also appearing in 1948 were Avon’s Cow Puncher Comics (with Joe Kubert’s Alabam), Fiction House’s Ranger Comics (including the female Firehair), Hillman’s Western Fighters, Charlton’s Cowboy Western Comics and Tim McCoy (another real-life movie hero), St. John’s The Texan, Lev Gleason’s Desperado, ME’s Tim Holt (yet another real-life movie hero), ACG’s Blazing West and Ace’s Western Adventures. Crestwood converted the crime/fantasy/superhero anthology Prize Comics to Prize Comics Western with issue #69 (May-June 1948).

Fawcett in Transition and in Court

Even Fawcett Publications’ vaunted Marvel Family couldn’t entirely resist the new trend. The cover of Mary Marvel #28 (ironically, the final issue before the title was converted to Monte Hale Western) shows the title character as a cowgirl. Meanwhile, Captain Marvel visited Boy’s Ranch in Whiz Comics #103 (Nov. 1948) while Captain Marvel, Jr. fought resurrected outlaws of the Old West (CMJ #64) and played “Ride ‘em cowboy” astride the so-called “world’s mightiest horse” (Master Comics #96).

Despite losing her eponymous title, Mary continued to appear in each issue of Marvel Family, both in team

and regular solo stories. A memorable episode in MF #28 (Oct. 1948) found the World’s Mightiest Girl in the midst of a war between anthropomorphic cats and dogs on a distant asteroid. Seeking help for his sister, Billy Batson dispatched Hoppy the Marvel Bunny to Mary’s side. Fawcett’s funny animals typically didn’t mingle with their human counterparts, making this crossover a delightful surprise.

The individual Marvels regularly matched wits with their respective Sivana Family counterparts during 1948 while Captain Marvel himself had return engagements with Mister Atom (Captain Marvel Adventures #80, #88) and Aunt Minerva (CMA #82) and well as his new friend Mr. Tawny (CMA #82, #86, #88, #90). Captain Marvel Adventures #85 (June 1948) devoted the entire issue to the Freedom Train, the reallife locomotive that traveled the entire nation between 1947 and 1948. Packed with key United States historical documents and exhibits, the Freedom Train was toured by countless Americans and was meant to spur a renewed appreciation of democracy.

Cap also recalled his own foundation over the course of the year, starting with Sivana’s ill-fated attempt to change the World’s Mightiest Mortal’s origin in CMA #80 (Jan. 1948). Digging deep into his first appearance in Whiz Comics, CMA #88 (Sept. 1948) reunited Billy Batson with his Uncle Ebenezer, the scoundrel who had stolen the boy’s inheritance and tossed him out into the street back in 1940. Elsewhere, a meta story in Whiz #100 (Aug. 1948) had Captain Marvel hosting a celebration of his centennial in the comic book.

Regular Whiz back-ups Golden Arrow and Ibis the Invincible weren’t invited to the party, but each appeared in one-shot comic books of their own earlier in 1948, continuing the numbering from their runs a few years earlier. Former Whiz costar Spy Smasher also returned under

his postwar name for Crime Smasher #1 (Summer 1948) before entering comic book limbo. Another Whiz alum Lance O’Casey, unseen since his short-lived eponymous title ended in 1946, also returned for a fourth and final issue. Surprisingly, the character then sailed back into a regular spot in Whiz #103 and appeared in most issues until the book ended in 1953.

The origins of Whiz Comics also came under scrutiny in the courtroom that year. After seven years of posturing and legal maneuvering, National Comics’ lawsuit against Fawcett Publications—in which the former claimed that the latter’s Captain Marvel was an infringement of its copyright of its Superman character—finally went to trial on March 9, 1948. By the time it ended on March 31, roughly 249 exhibits had been presented by National and some 142 from Fawcett. The testimony of over 20 witnesses filled 1,795 pages alone. It would be 1950, however, before the outcome was known.

Until then, it remained business as usual in the offices of Fawcett and National. The production of comic books never ceased.

Earl Lonsbury’s cover for Crime Smasher #1. TM and © DC Comics.

Jack Binder’s cover for Mary Marvel #28, the last issue. TM and © DC Comics.

Sheldon Mayer’s Teen Work

When All-American Comics was bought by National, M. C. Gaines’ editor Sheldon Mayer had remained the editorial director of the former All-American titles, such as All-Star Comics, while Whitney Ellsworth remained the editorial director of the National titles. With every passing year, however, Mayer became increasingly frustrated with the hierarchy and minutiae of management, longing for the days when he was just drawing cartoons. And then Mayer reached his breaking point. “I was editing some scripts one day,” Mayer later recalled, “when I heard two artists talking outside my office. ‘Hey, that’s a beautiful cover you have there. Have you shown it to the old man yet?’ ‘No,’ the other replied, ‘I’m going to show it to him now.’ Then I heard a knock on my door. I was 31 years old, and the artist was 47. That was the day I decided to quit” (Tollin 8).

National President Jack Liebowitz was aghast but, unable to dissuade Mayer, he offered him an impressive salary deal as a cartoonist. Liebowitz hoped that Mayer would revive his signature creation Scribbly as part of his new work, but the outgoing editor actually owned the character that dated back to 1936 and his debut in Dell’s Popular Comics #6. As part of his exit package, then, Mayer sold Scribbly to National, receiving a lifetime pension and insurance in exchange (Amash 14).

Before Mayer could leave, Liebowitz stipulated one final editorial assignment for him: create a new teen humor title that tapped the burgeoning postwar genre then represented in the National line by Buzzy and the licensed A Date With Judy. Mayer tackled the task in a unique way: he immersed himself (and his wife) in all things juvenile. “I began to seriously research teenagers, their values, lingo, etc. of that period,” Mayer detailed in 1974. “My wife and I spent a lot of time with the teenage offspring of our friends, even accepting an invitation to a formal high school prom. We went along with the kids and did everything they did—within reason—and got home exhausted at 7 a.m. Sorrel collapsed in the bedroom, and I made a ham and egg breakfast for a group of ‘em who followed us home. It was a marvelous night, and we still talk about it” (Tollin 8).

The product of Mayer’s immersion in the teenage world was Leave It to Binky (first issue cover dated Jan.-Feb. 1948). Freckled teenager Binky Biggs was joined in his antics by his parents, bratty kid brother Little Allergy, older sister Lucy, girlfriend Peggy Baxter, rival Sherwood Baxter, and a dog named Dopey. Bob Oksner, whose newspaper strip Miss Cairo Jones had ended on April 27, 1947, was assigned to draw the new series. Scripter Hal Seeger came to the feature with credits that included animation for the Fleischer Studios in the early 1940s and a growing résumé as a screenwriter and animation producer. Humor editor Larry Nadle oversaw the book once it launched.

“I wrote some of it,” Mayer recalled, “designed many of the characters personally, and spent a lot of time at Bob’s studio, drawing some of it right alongside of him. But when we had the final penciled artwork in the office, we all felt the dialogue still wasn’t right. Remembering the lingo I’d picked up on my jaunts with my new high school senior friends, I rewrote the dialogue on the whole 48 pages with Oksner, Seeger, and Nadle listening and laughing as

Leave It to Binky #1’s inside front cover offered a quick rundown of the series cast, illustrated by Bob Oksner. TM and © DC Comics.

Sheldon Mayer’s enthusiastic house ad for Scribbly #1. TM and © DC Comics.

we made the changes. Right then all four of us knew we had a hit…even before it was inked. Oksner’s beautiful girl drawings were a contribution I never could have made had I drawn Binky myself. And a very large part of Binky’s subsequent success was directly due to his drawing skill” (Tollin 8-9).

Mayer then satisfied Liebowitz’s request for a Scribbly comic book, but rather than resume where he had left the character in 1944, Mayer started from scratch, retaining only Scribbly’s mom and kid brother (renamed Littul Snoony) from the earlier supporting cast. In his first eponymous issue (cover date Aug.-Sept. 1948), Scribbly, as a 14-year-old cartoonist, fails to get his foot in the door at Rational Comics and winds up instead at the Morning Bugle as a copyboy. The series was delightfully written and drawn but not at all what readers were expecting. Poor sales figures dictated a shift from Scribbly’s cartooning aspirations to more traditional boy/girl interaction with girlfriend Clover Cooley, introduced in issue #3. “Scribbly was wrong for the teenage market at the time,” Mayer conceded. “It was actually nostalgia, not formula teenage stuff. I got a lot of mail from an enthusiastic but small group of fledgling cartoonists” (Tollin 9). The book ultimately ran 15 issues before it was canceled in 1951.

The Rise of Julius Schwartz

With Sheldon Mayer’s retirement, Whitney Ellsworth became editorial director of the entire National line, some 29 titles, working with an editorial staff that included: Mort Weisinger (on Action Comics and Superman); Jack Schiff (on Batman, Detective Comics, and World’s Finest Comics, and with associate editors Bernie Breslauer and Murray Boltinoff on Adventure Comics, Boy Commandos, Buzzy, A Date with Judy, Gang Busters, Mr. District Attorney, Real Fact, Star Spangled Comics, and Western Comics); Larry Nadle (on Funny Folks, Funny Stuff, and Leave it to Binky, Mutt and Jeff, and Scribbly); Bernie Breslauer (on Animal Antics, Leading Comics, and Real Screen Comics); Robert Kanigher (on Comic Cavalcade, Sensation

Comics, and Wonder Woman). National’s remaining titles (All-American Comics, All-Star Comics, Flash Comics, and Green Lantern) were edited by Julius Schwartz. (Comic Cavalcade was co-edited by Kanigher and Schwartz.)

In the post-Mayer era, “Julie” Schwartz came more into his own. It was under his editorship that the Robert KanigherCarmine Infantino creation Black Canary was given her own back-up series. Little did readers know when Black Canary first appeared in Johnny Thunder’s six-page strip in Flash Comics #86 (Aug. 1947) that she would soon become his replacement. It happened in issue #92 (Feb. 1948) where Black Canary—sans Johnny Thunder—helps her private eye boyfriend Larry Lance (making his debut in this story) discover why trucks keep disappearing on a local turnpike. “The Huntress of the Highway!” establishes not only that Black Canary’s alter ego, Dinah Drake, owns a flower shop but also that she is a natural brunette who dons a blonde wig when going into action. Producing the story were the character’s creators—Kanigher and Infantino—and they would remain at the helm of the feature for its duration. Their complementary work was far superior than was common for a back-up series, by any comic book publisher, National or otherwise.

Elsewhere, the heroine’s former partner Johnny Thunder effectively left the Justice Society of America following a

While pitching a new character to Rational Comics in issue #1 of his comic book, Scribbly unwittingly meets cartoonist Red Rigley, creator of Terrificman. TM and © DC Comics.

Black Canary burst into her own series in Flash Comics #92. Cover art by Carmine Infantino. TM and © DC Comics.

final appearance in “The Invasion of Fairyland” in All-Star Comics #39 (Feb.-Mar. 1948). Illustrated by Irwin Hasen, the 38-pager was notable as the only JSA adventure of its original run to be entirely penciled and inked by a single artist. As the new regular writer on the feature, John Broome quickly made it apparent that great things were in store for newcomer Black Canary. Following her first guest appearance in issue #38, she made a prominent follow-up in issue #40.

That story, “The Plight of a Nation!,” was also a reaction of sorts to the escalating anti-comics movement. Released the same month that the medium was being raked over the coals in Collier’s “Horror in the Nursery” article, the cover of All-Star #40 screamed, “The Justice Society of America Tackles the Problem of Juvenile Delinquency!” Therein, the Junior Justice Society of America, a collection of young JSA fans, confronted a kid gang called the Crimson Claw. Sadly for the general public’s opinion of juvenile delinquents, both groups soon square off in a fistfight on the public streets, which likely

went a long way in proving the public’s point. It probably doesn’t help that when the JSA arrive to cool down the heated emotions, the Atom appears to approve of how the junior JSA is handling the situation, saying that the kid organization that uses the JSA’s name is “whaling the tar out of [the Claw members]!” The Flash reminds everybody that public brawls aren’t helping the situation (or their own reputation).

In a local school auditorium, Wonder Woman uses a Magic Sphere to show the Claws their future ten years down the road, where members of the gang are being sentenced to death for their crimes. To avoid that fate, the Claws take the pledge to treat people on their own street and elsewhere with respect. It’s a fairly good—if somewhat preachy— public service-type story, but one doubts that it convinced many actual street gang kids who may have read this issue to change their ways.

Black Canary became a full-fledged member of the Justice Society in issue #41 (June-July 1948), when the JSA battled the second version of the Injustice Society of the World. Aside from the Wizard (in his final 1940s appearance), the new ISW’s roster boasted of the Sportsmaster and the Icicle (both foes of Green Lantern), the Fiddler (a Flash adversary), and the Huntress (nemesis of former JSA member Wildcat). The Harlequin, ostensibly a criminal from the pages of Green Lantern, was secretly an agent of good and discreetly helped defeat the band of villains from within.

The covers of All-Star Comics #39-41, respectively illustrated by Irwin Hasen, Carmine Infantino & Frank Giacoia, and Alex Toth. TM and © DC Comics.

Flash Comics #98 showcased new looks for Hawkman (by Joe Kubert) and the Atom (by Carmine Infantino and Frank Giacoia). TM and © DC Comics.

A few months later, Green Lantern #34 officially revealed that she was Agent H-9 of the FBI, posing as a crook to infiltrate the underworld.

With Black Canary on the team, the JSA had a consistent roster for the duration of its original run with Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Flash, the Atom, Dr. Mid-Nite, and Wonder Woman filling out the remaining slots on the board. The group closed out the year with a trip to Hollywood, where they captured the villainous Evil Star and mingled with celebrities like Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Jimmy Stewart, among others.

Hawkman lost his beaked and winged helmet with All-Star #42 (Aug.-Sept. 1948), as well as over at his own solo series with Flash Comics #98 (Aug. 1948), receiving a generic yellow cowl with a red hawk emblem displayed on the forehead. National had been trying to simplify his helmet for some time, possibly because Joe Kubert, and perhaps other artists, had complained how hard that helmet was to draw from different angles. There were actually a significant number of changes done to the original helmet in that effort, before it was chucked altogether and the much-tamer generic cowl appeared.

All-Star #42 and Flash #98 also introduced a new look for the Atom, the changes including a cowl with a fin instead of a blue full-face mask. Without explanation, the Mighty Mite also acquired super-strength, first demonstrated in All-Star #41.

The storm clouds were coming for most of the members’ solo adventures as the superhero genre titles continued to sag in sales. By the end of the year, Dr. Mid-Nite had lost his solo feature in All-American Comics when its format was changed to a Western title, while Green Lantern also lost his second feature slot there, leaving him only his own title for solo adventures. That was good news compared to the Flash, whose All-Flash solo title had been canceled, but Green Lantern found that retaining his own book came with a compromise. Starting in Green Lantern #30 (Jan.Feb. 1948), in a story written by Robert Kanigher and illustrated by Alex Toth, the hero gained a canine companion in the form of a German Shepherd named Streak the Wonder Dog. Over the course of the year, Streak began to become gradually more prominent, cumulating in him taking over the cover position from the book’s hero in Green Lantern #34 (Sept.-Oct. 1948). Green Lantern had been appearing in three separate stories in each issue of his title but beginning with this issue Streak got his own solo spot, dropping Green Lantern stories down to two each issue. Streak even got a second slot in the title when a filler series titled “Streak Presents the Wonder Dog of the Month” debuted in the same issue.

Seeing the handwriting on the wall, Schwartz was one editor who wouldn’t particularly miss the superheroes. Along with transitioning to Western titles, he would eventually embrace other genres, such as crime and science fiction, with equal alacrity, and bringing along the same core of talented artisans who worked with him on superhero stories. Schwartz was an editor for all seasons, remaining imperturbable throughout.

The End of an Amazonian Era

Further evidence of the shifting tastes of National’s readers was the makeover of Comic Cavalcade. Since its inception in 1942, the title had featured Wonder Woman, the Flash, and Green Lantern as tentpoles in a thick 15¢ package that also included numerous other features. Effective with issue #30 (Dec. 1948/Jan. 1949), though, the format abruptly shifted to a funny animal showcase with the Fox and the Crow, the Dodo and the Frog, the Raccoon Kids, and Nutsy Squirrel, among others in its line-up.

Elsewhere, Sensation Comics began evicting its costumed characters. Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys ended with issue #82, replaced by the “Wonder Women of History” filler. Sargon the Sorcerer was dropped an issue later, with one final story diverted

After the debut of Streak in Green Lantern #30, GL soon learned it was a dog’s life. Cover art by Alex Toth. TM and © DC Comics.

Animation stars Fox and the Crow were the leaders of the band marching into the new Comic Cavalcade #30 on Rube Grossman’s cover. TM and © DC Comics.

to Green Lantern #37 in 1949. In his place, effective with Sensation #84 (Dec. 1948), was Lady Danger, the nickname of bored-debutante-turned-crime-reporter Valerie Vaughn. Illustrated by Bob Oksner, the series was written by the book’s new editor Robert Kanigher

The star of Sensation was still unequivocally Wonder Woman, uniformly illustrated by H.G. Peter here and in her self-titled book. Standouts of the year included “When Treachery Wore a Green Shirt” in Sensation #81 (Sept. 1948). Directly condemning the anti-foreigner element in the United States, the Amazing Amazon defied the demagogue Dr. Frenzi as he urged his followers to “give America back to Americans.”

The writer of the story was Joye Hummel Murchison. She had left National circa September 1947, but you’d never know it from her 1948 credits. She wrote nine of the 12 Wonder Woman stories in Sensation, eight stories in Wonder Woman and one in Comic Cavalcade. Her last story, “The Girl Who Wanted to be an Amazon” appeared in Sensation #85 (Jan. 1949).

The best of her 1948 stories was also one of the longest. Clocking in at 36 pages, “Villainy Incorporated” in Wonder Woman #28 (March-April 1948) revolved around the Amazonian prison on Transfor mation Island. The jail was not intended for punish ment but for the rehabilita tion of the prisoners within. The story begins with Won der Woman delivering Eviless and her Saturnian women to the prison of the Amazons, but Eviless escapes and gains con trol of Wonder Woman’s lasso. She then frees her fellow Saturnians and all the other prison- ers, including Giganta, Queen Clea, Dr. Poison, Hypnota, Zara and the Cheetah. She organizes the lot of them into Villainy Incorporated and they overthrow Paradise Island, using golden girdles to capture and control Queen Hippolyte and the Amazons. Eviless summons Wonder Woman, planning on killing both her and the captive Queen Hippolyte. However, the Amazing Amazon is freed by genuinely rehabilitated Transformation Island prisoners and together they subdue most of the escaped prisoners. Pursuing Giganta, Zara, Hypnota and Queen Clea to Man’s World with Hippolyte’s jewels, the Amazon Princess is captured once more. Etta Candy, Steve Trevor and the Holliday Girls come to her rescue and the last members of Villainy Incorporated are returned to Transformation Island. This story was a great opportunity to see many of Wonder Woman’s 1940s Rogues’ Gallery in action together.

really signaled the end of the original Wonder Woman. By the end of the year, all of the editorial and writing staff that had given her life and promoted or allowed her a fierce, if more than a little off beat, feminist background were gone. Marston and Gaines were both dead, Mayer had quit his editorial position in early 1948 and Hummel Murchison had left months before that to raise her new stepdaughter and, eventually, her own children. Robert Kanigher, who later described the character as “the grotesque inhuman original Wonder Woman” (Daniels 102-103) would shepherd the superheroine for the next twenty years, keeping her book alive when nearly every other superhero was being canceled but also stamping out nearly everything that the original creators had incorporated into the character – especially any sense of feminism.

New Beginnings for Superman

The end of Hummel Murchison’s original stories, following the death of her mentor, William Moulton Marston,

Regardless of the change in writers, every Wonder Woman story continued to be officially credited to the pseudonymous “Charles Moulton” even as every Batman tale was allegedly “by Bob Kane.” The same no longer held true for Superman. Effective with Action Comics #119 (dated April 1948 but on sale in February), his stories no longer featured any credits whatsoever and certainly none for his creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. As soon as a judge dismissed the duo’s legal claim to the Man of Steel in November 1947, National’s execs ordered that their names

“Not a sissy in the lot!” H.G. Peter’s rendition of Villainy Incorporated from Wonder Woman #28. TM and © DC Comics.

be scrubbed from every subsequent splash page.

Although the Superman lawsuit wasn’t completely settled until May 21, 1948, the National team was eager to capitalize on a long-awaited milestone in the Man of Steel’s existence. The release of chapter one of the 15-part Superman serial on January 4, 1948 was much ballyhooed and eagerly anticipated by kids not just in America but in the international markets.

The key roles were played by Kirk Alyn (Superman), Noel Neill (Lois Lane), Pierre Watkin (Perry White), Tommy Bond (Jimmy Olsen), and Carol Forman (Spider Lady). Alyn wasn’t credited in the opening sequences to accommodate Columbia’s claim that it couldn’t get an actor to fill the role, so they had “hired Superman himself.” The project was directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet and Thomas Carr. (The latter went on to write and direct many of the episodes of the Adventures of Superman TV show.) Kids didn’t seem to mind that animation was used to show Superman flying, although movie serial authorities Don Glut and Jim Harmon identified this as the weakest aspect of the serial. Effective flying techniques had been used in 1941’s Adven-

tures of Captain Marvel, but Columbia’s lower budgets were insufficient to match it. This is a shame since Superman was a good serial in most other respects. The film also included Kryptonite in its story. The element that could weaken Superman had previously only been used in the Superman radio show (where it was introduced in a June 1943 episode).

One reason for the film serial’s enormous success was its particularly vivid, well-developed secondary roles. Few serials ever bothered to make subsidiary characters of interest. For example, Linda Page in Batman (1943) was a superficial character who never “came to life” on the screen. But Lois and Jimmy, and even Perry, were fullblooded dramatic characters who could carry extended sequences on their own.

Inevitably, the Superman feature completely eclipsed the other National-based serial of the year: Congo Bill (premiering October 28 with Don McGuire in the title role). The first feature to depict Superman in live action was one of the most financially successful serials ever filmed, earning an estimated $350,000. It was reserved in first-run theaters that had never before booked a serial and launched the career of Noel Neill. A sequel was a foregone conclusion, although serials were already being hurt by the advent of television. Not playing favorites in print, Superman’s adventures during 1948 included a grudging stint as movie stuntman (Action Comics #120), appearances on television to foil the Chameleon (Action #126), and a guestshot on radio’s “Truth or Consequences” with real-life host Ralph Edwards (Action #127).

Anticipating new readers being drawn to the comics, editor Mort Weisinger wasted little time in developing a story that would simultaneously establish the basics of the character while also commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Man of Steel’s premiere in 1938’s Action Comics #1. The end result was “The Origin of Superman,” published in May 1948’s Superman #53 (cover-dated July-August).

In the formative Siegel and Shuster newspaper strip samples that predated the comic book, the scientist Jor-L had built a small spacecraft as a prototype for a virtual

Tommy Bond, Noel Neill, and Kirk Alyn brought the Daily Planet’s foremost reporters to life in 1948’s Superman serial. TM and © DC Comics.

Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye’s cover for Superman #53’s gala 10th anniversary celebration. TM and © DC Comics.

ark with which the people of the doomed planet Krypton could evacuate to Earth. When the planet’s end came sooner than expected, Jor-L and his wife Lora rushed their baby son Kal-L to the small vessel and fired him into the cosmos. On Earth, “a passing motorist” found the baby and dropped him off at an orphanage. The tot’s Kryptonian physiology made him mightier than any Earthling and he grew up to be Superman.

The entire sequence was compressed to a single page in Action #1, dropping any references to Krypton, Jor-L, Lora, and Kal-L. That held true in an expanded two-page version in Superman #1 (1939), an update notable for mentioning Krypton by name and having the baby discovered and adopted by a couple named Kent (only Mary was named). In this account, the death of Clark Kent’s foster parents inspired him to use his great power for good.

The Krypton sequence was finally published in January 1939, but only in the nationally syndicated Superman newspaper strip and not in comic books. By 1941, Jerry Siegel was further embellishing the origin by way of a script—plugged in the June 21, 1941 Saturday Evening Post—that backdated Clark Kent’s heroics to a career as Superboy. National’s Jack Liebowitz said no.

In the meantime, George Lowther—a writer for the Superman radio series—wrote a prose novel (“The Adventures of Superman”) that was published in Autumn 1942. This account amended the Kryptonian names to Jor-el, Lara, and Kal-el along with adding a crucial element. Jor-el

had made a futile effort to convince the planet’s Council of One Hundred of Krypton’s impending doom…but they dismissed his fears as mistaken. Lowther also expanded considerably on Clark Kent’s youth in an unnamed farming community. He christened the Kents Eben and Sarah, using Eben’s fatal heart attack as a catalyst. At his father’s bedside, 17-year-old Clark listened as Pa Kent recalled finding him in the rocket and advised him to hide his great abilities behind the guise of Superman.

By 1944, Jack Liebowitz had changed his mind about Superboy. With Siegel away in the Army, a revised version of his 1941 script was illustrated by Joe Shuster for More Fun Comics #101. The revised Jor-El and Lara names appeared here as did the Council’s rejection of warnings about Krypton’s demise. It’s unknown whether Siegel developed these details first or whether they were added after the fact to reflect Lowther’s novel.

Siegel (apparently) followed with an expanded origin that ran from November 25, 1945 to January 20, 1946 in the Superman Sunday newspaper strip. Illustrated by Wayne Boring, the sequence added the crucial detail that Krypton had an unstable uranium core that was building to an imminent catastrophic atomic blast. The Kents’ discovery of the superbaby was immediately followed by the disintegration of his Kryptonian rocket in a fiery burst. Soon after, Pa Kent told Ma that “we’ll call him Clark, for your family.” Later, the teenager’s adoptive parents encouraged him to use his powers for good, a caption adding that the Kents

Bill Finger, Wayne Boring, and Stan Kaye codified the Man of Steel’s history in Superman #53’s landmark origin retelling. TM and © DC Comics.

didn’t die until later when their son was an adult. The balance of the story followed Clark to the Daily Planet, beginning with a revised version of the lynch mob sequence from 1939’s Superman #1

The Lowther novel was clearly the principal source used for the aforementioned 1948 serial, which included the Kryptonian Roz-an and referred to the Kents as Eben and Sarah. The serial also revealed that Ma Kent had rewoven the thread from the baby’s indestructible blankets into the costume worn by Superman.

Weisinger and writer Bill Finger drew on all of the preceding material to pen Superman #53’s cover story. Although the tale broke little new ground, it was accessible in a way the earlier versions were not and expertly paced. “The Origin of Superman” stood as the definitive account of the Man of Steel’s beginnings for the next dozen years.

The comic book format enabled artist Wayne Boring opportunities to breathe, resulting in far more dynamic visuals than his first version in the 1945 Sunday strips. Vignettes of the Superman-to-be discovering his powers in various childhood incidents—tossed off in a single cramped panel in the Sunday strip—received a full page here. Originally one of Joe Shuster’s assistants, Boring had come into his own over the course of the 1940s. “The Origin of Superman” cemented his place as the defining artist on the character for the next decade.

Curiously, the name Kal-El was not used in Finger’s text nor in any other comic book until 1957’s Superman #113. Likewise, Ma and Pa Kent had no surnames in Superman #53. The origin ultimately revealed that Ma had died, fol lowed later on by Pa. Recalling the Lowther novel, Clark’s dad implored him to use his great powers for the better ment of mankind as Superman. The conclusion was a visual homage to the last two panels of Superman #1’s origin, this time including the rationale for Clark’s immi nent life choices: “A job as a reporter on a big newspa per will keep me in touch with those who may need my help. I’ll wear glasses, pretend to be timid…but when I’m needed, I’ll wear this costume, and the world will know of… Superman!”

Despite its consolidation of previous accounts, the story conspicuously ignored Superboy despite the fact that the Boy of Steel was nearly four years into his ongoing series. Just two months before Superman #53, in fact, Bill Finger (with artists Al Wenzel and George Roussos) documented how two budding teen reporters had spent a week interning at the Daily Planet and revealed “How Clark Kent Met Lois Lane” (Adventure Comics #128). It was the Boy of Steel’s feature that would add much to the lore of Superman’s origins—not the least of which were Ma and Pa Kent’s first names—during the 1950s, material that would eventually be absorbed into the official canon.

The rest of the 1948 Superman issues maintained a strong comedy element, reflected in appearances by lightweight recurring villains J. Wilbur Wolfingham (Action #116), Mr. Mxyztplk (Superman #51), and the Prankster (Superman #50, #52, and #55). Elsewhere, Luthor returned in Action #125 as the mastermind behind a hoax involving the legendary Nostradamus. The mythological Atlas was seemingly revived in Action

#121 to give Superman a run for his money but things were not what they appeared.

Action Comics #124 (Sept. 1948), drawn by Al Plastino, presented a standout adventure entitled “A Superman of Doom!” Caught in an atomic bomb blast, Superman became so radioactive that he couldn’t be near any living person. Taking advantage of the situation, crooks went on a spree. The Man of Steel solved the problem by creating and wearing a lead suit to protect the criminals from himself as he stopped them, until his radioactivity could be cured. The concept of Superman wearing a speciallydesigned lead suit was revisited in many later stories, both in comics and animation.

By the end of the year, editor Mort Weisinger began a slow shift away from the usual humor tales, adding science fiction to the stories now largely illustrated by Wayne Boring, Al Plastino and, on the comic strip, Win Mortimer.

With Superman #55’s “Richest Man in the World” (Nov.Dec. 1948), William Woolfolk became the only 1940s-1950s writer to simultaneously write Captain Marvel and Superman stories. The achievement came about by submitting his Superman tales under the name of his wife Dorothy Roubicek Woolfolk.

Adventure Comics #128 backdated the first meeting of Clark Kent and Lois Lane to their teens. Art by Al Wenzel and George Roussos. TM and © DC Comics.

Otto Binder Finds Work at National

Woolfolk’s fellow Captain Marvel writer Otto Binder was a bit of a visionary when it came to the potential of comic books. In a letter to Clifford Kornoelje dated Feb. 14, 1948, Binder wrote of a visit from Ossie Train, noted science fiction editor: “He came here trying to convince me I should write more prose stories. Before he had left, I almost had him convinced there was a future in publishing comics books! Seriously, that’s not at all a pipe dream. I’m thinking not of present-day wild and woolly comics, but a really well-written and top-notch presentation of fantasy stories in picture form. Maybe someday it will come to pass, big thick hard-cover books with 300 or so pages of comics, presenting a science-fiction story of high caliber. Want a puff on my opium pipe?” A follow-up letter to Kornoelje dated March 23, 1948 let his friend know of the big news: “Did I mention that I’m writing for Mort [Weisinger] now, at the Superman outfit?”

Fate had dealt Binder a winning hand. Two members of National’s editorial staff—Mort Weisinger and Julius Schwartz—were his close friends. In 1942, Weisinger had moved from Standard Publications pulps (Thrilling Wonder Stories, etc.) to National Comics, and, as has been previously described, Schwartz was persuaded by Alfred Bester to give up his Solar Sales Agency to become an assistant editor at DC. It seems that Binder had lost touch with Julie and Mort in the frantic creative years during World War II, but with the war over, he wanted to reach out to them again to see if there was any work at National for him. Binder worried that National’s lawsuit against Fawcett would negate his chances of working for the former. After all, Binder was writing the bulk of the Fawcett stories starring Captain Marvel. Then again, he was merely a freelancer with no ownership stake in either the World’s Mightiest Mortal or Fawcett Publications.

One nervous phone call later, Binder got his answer. It’s not known if Weisinger and Schwartz consulted ahead of time with Jack Liebowitz, but the editors let Binder know that National would indeed love to benefit from his talent… just not on its lead features, Superman or Batman. What National needed was someone who could reliably write many of the secondary features. This suited Binder fine. In late 1947, he began writing scripts that would begin appearing (mostly) in early 1948. He initially penned Hawkman scripts for Flash Comics and followed that up with Johnny Quick and Green Arrow stories for Adventure Comics and Robotman stories for Detective Comics. Futuristic astronaut Tommy Tomorrow (featured intermittently in Real Fact Comics since issue #6) was retooled as a more traditional comics adventurer when he received an ongoing feature beginning in Action Comics #127 (Dec. 1948) with art by Curt Swan and John Fischetti. Later, Binder added the Shining Knight, Captain Compass and others to his repertoire.

In Star Spangled Comics #82 (July 1948), Binder created the Star-Spangled Kid’s sister, Merry, the Girl of 1,000 Gimmicks, the latest in National’s then wave of females in male-dominated strips. With issue #87 (Dec. 1948) she’d pushed her brother out of the solo slot he’d held in Star Spangled since issue #1.

Also departing Star Spangled were Penniless Palmer (with issue #84) and the Jimmy Thompson-illustrated Robotman (with issue #83), the latter replaced by a nautical detective named Captain Compass (also drawn by Thompson). Fans of Robotman—a fixture in Star Spangled since issue #7 (1942)—didn’t have to shed any tears. He immediately replaced Air Wave in Detective Comics #138, where Binder and Jimmy Thompson recapped the hero’s origin for readers unfamiliar with him.

Batman:New Origin & Developments

With Batman as its headliner, Detective Comics couldn’t help but have a larger readership than Star Spangled Comics even with the latter using Robin the Boy Wonder as its cover feature. Detective #140 (Oct. 1948) proved particularly memorable, its Bill Finger/Dick Sprang Batman adventure introducing a new villain called the Riddler. It was already a staple in popular fiction to name characters after some trait, but Finger put a twist on the idea by having young Edward Nigma inspired by his name to take his life’s path. Discovering that “E. Nigma” corresponded to a synonym for puzzle, the future villain fixated on solving any challenge—cheating to do so—until boredom led him to become a Gotham City costumed crook.

Detective Comics #140 introduced the Riddler. Art by Win Mortimer. TM and © DC Comics.

Employing props like a sky-high lighted billboard and a gargantuan jigsaw puzzle, the Riddler delighted in taunting Batman and Robin with clues to his crimes. Nigma seemed to drown at the end of his first appearance but returned in issue #142 for a rematch. After that, the Riddler cooled his heels in prison until 1965 before being revived in Batman #171 as a precursor to much greater notoriety as a featured character on the 1966 Batman TV series.

The Mad Hatter, introduced in Batman #49 (Oct.-Nov. 1948), was less impressive, simply a derivative version of Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland eccentric. Bill Finger had much more success when he reconceived the villain in 1957.

The Hatter wasn’t really the point of the story, though. Rather, it was Vicki Vale, a vivacious redheaded reporter for Gotham’s Picture Magazine. During the course of the Mad Hatter story (illustrated by Bob Kane, Lew Sayre Schwartz, and Charles Paris), she documented evidence that Bruce Wayne and Batman were one and the same. The Caped Crusader successfully refuted her photos, but Vicki was left unconvinced.

Decades later, Bob Kane professed to have created Vicki himself, basing her on a young Marilyn Monroe. Like many of Kane’s claims, it sounds too good to be true. Similarly, it’s been speculated that Vicki was created for the 1949 Batman and Robin serial and inserted into the comics beforehand. Given the fact that Batman #49 was being produced nearly a year before the serial’s release, this also seems unlikely.

Regardless, Vicki stuck around. Like Superman’s Lois Lane, she was now entangled in the comics as a pest, assistant, or love interest, depending on the requirements of a given story. Dropped in 1964 when Julius Schwartz modernized the feature, Vicki made a handful of cameos over the next 17 years before rejoining the supporting cast in late 1981.

Established members of the Batman’s rogues’ gallery also showed up during 1948, notably the Catwoman (Batman #45, #47), the Joker (Batman #46, Detective #137-138), the Penguin (Detective #134, World’s Finest #35), and Robin’s nemesis, the Clock (Star Spangled #79). Bill Finger also revived Two-Face for Batman #50 (Dec. 1948Jan. 1949) without undoing the happy ending he’d given the character in 1943. Instead, a new Two-Face tried to pass himself off as the original Harvey Dent (referred to as Harvey Kent in his earlier appearances).

Professor Carter Nichols remained a presence in the supporting cast, employing hypnosis to send Batman and Robin back in time on four occasions in 1948. They met Frankenstein writer Mary Shelley in one adventure (Detective #135) and encountered a Joker lookalike called the Crier in another tale set in ancient Baghdad (Batman #49). In a meta story

by Don Cameron and Dick Sprang (Batman #46), the Dynamic Duo’s visit to 1499 A.D. inspired Leonardo da Vinci to produce drawings of a bat-winged device that Bob Kane claimed as one of his inspirations for Batman.

The origin of Batman was revisited by Bill Finger himself (with art by Bob Kane and Charles Paris) in Batman #47 (June-July 1948). Likely a corporate-mandated companion piece to Superman #53, “The Origin of the Batman” went on sale three weeks earlier and was clearly intended as a definitive retelling in its own right. Unlike Superman, however, the simple revenge scenario that Finger wrote for Detective Comics #33 required no padding. He did, however, name the doomed Thomas Wayne’s wife—Martha— and revised the circumstances of her death. Adhering to National’s internal code of standards, Bruce’s mother was no longer shot. Rather, a caption explained, “that single bullet [that struck Thomas] really killed two people, for Martha Wayne’s weak heart stopped from the sudden shock.” The change remained in canon through every origin retelling until 1971.

Years of efforts to unmask Batman began with the debut of Vicki Vale in Batman #49. TM and © DC Comics.

Batman #47. Art by Bob Kane and Charles Paris. TM and © DC Comics.

Finger used most of the 13-page story to address the matter of identifying and apprehending the “mystery killer” of Bruce’s parents. Standing before his parents’ graves, Bruce had sworn to bring their killer to justice. In the course of investigating a crime involving the smuggling of “hot crooks” across state lines, Batman reacted to a photo of the man behind the operation, whose name he’d learned was Joe Chill: “That face…after all these years…it’s he! The face of the man who killed my parents!”

Confronting Chill in his office, the Gotham Gladiator insisted “Bruce Wayne can still identify you! You were that killer!” When Chill called his bluff, Batman starkly tore off his cowl: “I know because I am the son of the man you murdered! I am Bruce Wayne!” Conceding he had no proof, the grim avenger vowed to stalk him relentlessly until he did.

In a state of shock, Chill babbled to some gunsels that he was responsible for killing Batman’s father. Hysterical over Chill’s confession that he had unleashed the Caped Crusader on the underworld, the criminals gunned him down before realizing they’d never asked who Batman actually was. So closed the file on the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne.

The cover-featured “The 1,000 Secrets of the Batcave!” in Batman #48 (Aug.-Sept. 1948)—by Bill Finger and Jim Mooney—made an excellent adjunct to the new origin story in the previous issue. Evolving over the course of the 1940s, Batman’s private lair evolved from a modest hall of trophies to a series of underground rooms to the repurposed subterranean cavern seen here in 1948. A crosssection view of the Batcave—previously seen in Batman #32—was showcased both on the cover and inside, much to the delight of countless readers.

The premise had a prison escapee named Wolf Brando stumbling upon the hidden headquarters. As he moved through the cave, readers virtually toured Batman and Robin’s secret lair. In addition to the elements shown on the blueprint, the trophy room appeared in all its glory, colorfully adorned by remnants of past cases like a giant green dinosaur (Batman #35) and a giant Lincoln Penny (World’s Finest Comics #30).

Moving to “the outer section of the Batcave” revealed an underground stream with a gondola on it, which allowed the Dynamic Duo to follow the fleeing Brando, who died after falling into a deadly whirlpool in the stream. Enhancing the story was Finger’s penchant for giant props, which gave the cave color and visual excitement. The penny and dinosaur would be used as “Batcave shorthand” for years to come.

National Turns To Crime

Aware of the success of Lev Gleason’s Crime Does Not Pay, National found a “respectable” way to get into the crime comics: by licensing two new series based on radio dramas, each edited by Jack Schiff.

An electrifying moment from Batman #47. Art by Bob Kane and Charles Paris. TM and © DC Comics.

The Batcave exposed! Cover art for Batman #148 by Win Mortimer. TM and © DC Comics.

Dating back to January 15, 1936, the Gang Busters radio show billed itself as “the only national program that brings you authentic police case histories.” National’s 52-page first issue (Dec. 1947-Jan. 1948) featured a cover by Howard Sherman, who also provided interior art along with Dan Barry, Stookie Allen, Ed Moore, E. E. Hibbard and George Roussos. Contrib uting writers included France Herron, Bill Fin ger, Dave Wood and Alvin Schwartz, among others.

National’s other new crime title, Mr. District Attorney, ran on both NBC and ABC radio from April 3, 1939 to June 13, 1952, simultaneously spawning four motion pictures—three in 1941-1942 and a final, fourth one, released on February 20, 1947. (The show would later have two stints on television, during the 1951-1952 and 1954-1955 seasons.) Mr. District Attorney was inspired by the exploits of New York governor Thomas E. Dewey when he was a crusading district attorney in his younger years. Artwork for issue #1 (Jan.-Feb. 1948) was largely supplied by Ed Dobrotka, who remained the lead artist for most of the year. Only one of the three initial stories (“The Million-Dollar Racket”) was credited to a writer—Ed Herron.

Both Gang Busters and Mr. District Attorney sold about 550,000 copies per issue in 1948 and 1949—on par for most of the comics National published at this time.

The Dell Expansion

By 1947, Dell Comics had settled into a slate of titles that had continued unchanged since the wartime cancelation of Crackajack Funnies and Fairy Tales Parade in 1942 and 1944 respectively. The one-shot Four Color series—which averaged out to nearly weekly issues over each year throughout the decade, with no regular assigned features—provided most of Dell’s excitement each year. Four Color included quarterly appearances by the likes of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Woody Woodpecker and Andy Panda along with the true one-shots.

But rather than continue with the status quo, Dell adjusted its lineup in 1948 in a major way. In 1947, Dell was publishing six monthlies (Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Comics, Our Gang with Tom and Jerry, Raggedy Ann and Andy, Red Ryder Comics, Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, and Walter Lantz New Funnies), three bi-monthlies (Animal Comics, Gene Autry Comics, and Popular Comics) and one quarterly, (Super Comics). The last two, all

newspaper reprints of Chicago Tribune-New York News and King Features strips, had been demoted from monthly frequency in 1946, which gave a hint of what was about to happen.

In 1948 Animal Comics, Popular Comics, Raggedy Ann and Andy, and Super Comics disappeared from newsstands, but that wasn’t a sign of Dell’s decline. In fact, it was quite the opposite. The total number of issues produced by Dell in 1948 increased by 33% over the previous year, while the number of regularly scheduled titles doubled from 1947. Dell was making its move to increase its newsstand presence, and its market share would, within a few short years, lift it to the top of the comics industry.

In the scheme of things, Dell Comics was doing well enough in the postwar years, turning out high-selling comics that kids, if not teens, loved. Its Disney comics were Dell’s best sellers, but Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories would, for the time being at least, be the only Disney-themed comic Dell regularly published. While 1948 would not be the year that Dell turned up its Disney quotient, the schedule for the year had multiple surprises in it nonetheless.

Roy Rogers Comics (first issue cover dated Jan. 1948) hit the ground running on a monthly schedule, featuring photo covers and stories by Gaylord DuBois with artwork by Al Micale. The Lone Ranger (first issue also cover dated Jan.

The first issues of DC’s crime comics of ’48. TM and © DC Comics.

1948) reprinted stories on a bi-monthly basis from the King Features Syndicate newspaper strip with art by Charles Flanders. These series, added to Red Ryder Comics and Gene Autry Comics (which became a monthly with issue #11), made Dell a force to be reckoned with in the cowboy arena. Securing some of the most coveted licensed properties in the genre, Dell’s Westerns were, undoubtedly, among some of the best sellers of the year.

Dell’s 1948 expansion also included Dick Tracy Monthly, the bi-monthly Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan, and quarterly titles like Carl Anderson’s Henry, Smilin’ Jack and the bi-monthly Marge’s Little Lulu, all debuting with January cover dates. Despite “graduating” from Four Color rotation, most of them went from 52 page issues in Four Color to 36 pages in their own titles. This was less a cost-cutting tactic than a necessity, because paper supplies hadn’t yet—even in early 1948—caught up to postwar demands.

Mute boy Henry, usually drawn without a mouth, communicated by using pantomime in his comic strip. In all 65 issues of Dell’s adaptation, however, Henry spoke perfectly well, illustrated by John Liney. The artist, who also ghosted the daily newspaper strip, was already a longtime assistant to the feature’s ailing creator Carl Anderson.

Sales of Marge’s Little Lulu were especially strong, although editor Oskar Lebeck didn’t show its scripter, John Stanley, any sales figures. Stanley learned the comics were well-received in other ways: “They were nice to me, down there [at the office]. The editors used

to buy me drinks and that sort of thing. You get the idea that you’re doing all right” (Schelly 63). In fact, Lulu would go on to become one of Dell’s top sellers all through the 1950s, behind only the comics featuring the Disney characters.

The opening story in Little Lulu #1 (Jan. 1948) demonstrated that Stanley was prepared to stretch reality in Lulu’s world. In “Mountain Climbing,” Lulu and Tubby climb up the side of a city apartment building until they reach the top. The idea was that there are just the right brick extrusions for them to get hand and footholds. As they climb higher, the absurdity of the situation grows, creating a tension that is perfectly counterpointed by comedic moments when they step through an apartment window for a drink of water, or for Tubby to make a phone call. Naturally, the people living in those apartments can’t believe what they’re seeing.

Little Lulu #1 also introduced a new, ongoing feature titled “Lulus Diry”, which featured Lulu’s unvarnished, and often misspelled, thoughts in diary form. When she saw it, the character’s creator, Marjorie Buell, asked for changes before going to press. She “didn’t like some of the wording I used,” Stanley recalled, “like cutting [the ends of] words off. I don’t remember [exactly] what her criticism was, but I corrected it. It was a job, and you went along with it. But, for the rest of it, she never criticized anything I

A trio of 1948 Dell first issues. Dick Tracy TM and © Tribune Content Agency. The Lone Ranger TM and © Classic Media, LLC.

The first issues of Henry and Little Lulu, respectively drawn by John Liney and the team of Charles Hedinger and Irving Tripp. Henry TM and © respective copyright owner. Little Lulu TM and © Classic Media LLC.

did” (Schelly 64). His finished artwork accompanying these text pages had a loose, engaging quality meant to simulate the drawings of a child.

Little Lulu #3 (May 1948) featured “In the Doghouse,” which revolved around a filthy Lulu coming home and her mother pretending not to know who this dirty little girl is. Ordering her to take a bath, Mrs. Moppet leaves to visit a friend. When Lulu finishes her bath, she has to answer the phone wearing only a towel to receive a message for her mother. Instead of taking the time to get dressed, she marches down the block wrapped in the towel to tell her mother the information only to discover that mom has gone dressshopping with her friend. A determined Lulu then heads to the store, still wearing only the towel, until a small dog yanks it from her. She ends up naked in the weeds on the side of a field where an old scarecrow stands guard. She grabs the scarecrow’s old dirty red shirt to cover herself and proceeds to the dress store, unaware of how grubby she is once more. Mom is mortified when a totally disheveled Lulu arrives and, once again, pretends not to know Lulu as she and her friend scurry from the store without buying

anything. Lulu, believing her mother really doesn’t want to know who she was when she was filthy, looks for a new home— something like an orphan or old ladies’ home—but finally ends up at the local A.S.P.C.A.’s dog kennel. When her mother tracks her down, Lulu is frolicking with the dogs in their cages. She is once again forced to take a bath and does so while ironically singing the well-known tune about all the nice things little girls are made of.

Issue #5 (Sept.-Oct. 1948) presents “The Rocking Horse” where Lulu visits a haunted house, trips and knocks herself out. She has a harrowing dream where she wakes up in a room with a rocking horse. When she climbs on the horse, it flies her out the window and high up into the air. In a very funny pre-Twilight Zone sequence, she and the rocking horse fly alongside an airliner when a passenger looks out the window and yells, “Stop the plane! There’s a little girl outside!” The story veers from comedy delight to fairly horrific before Lulu awakens and discovers she had been dream ing. The ending finds her clutching a rocking horse tail in her hand… yet the rocking horse is nowhere to be found.

Stanley had the rare ability to spin a long (yet captivating) story around largely mundane but nonetheless funny details. Over its first six issues, Little Lulu had its lead character spinning her own unique versions of fairy tales, tall tales and nursery rhymes to her young, destructive neighbor Alvin. On the other hand, Lulu’s adventures with Tubby made it abundantly clear that the pair were a comic book comedy duo on the level of filmdom’s Laurel and Hardy. The heavy set and somewhat obvious Romeo—simultaneously kid clever and adult dumb (and, with food, quite greedy), as many children are, but loyal

as all get out to Lulu, except when it came to the “No Girls Allowed” club— was a great character for Lulu to take the air out of his chauvinistic opinions. He also made a great bumbling detective, among other occupations he tried out. Tubby also had his own solo story in each issue. In fact, he would eventually get his own title, just as good as Little Lulu

Stanley, like the famed Crockett Johnson or Dr. Seuss, managed to spin tales that not only entertained children but the adults who often read such stories to children who didn’t yet know how to read. Stanley even added a paper doll cut-out page on the back cover of issues.

Dell cut the number of issues of Four Color by nearly a third, but most of that was covered by many of the cut features getting their own books. No fewer than 10 new 36-page titles launched out of Four Color during the year, but what remained was still choice.

For instance, Four Color #179 (Jan. 1948) featured a fun story dealing with Uncle Wiggily, taken from the early twentieth-century novels and stories by Howard R. Garis. New stories based on current newspaper

Walt Kelly’s cover for Four Color #179. Uncle Wiggily TM and © respective copyright owner.

Irving Tripp’s quirky art defined the look of the Little Lulu comic book. Initially inking over Charles Hedinger, Tripp soon drew the feature solo. Little Lulu TM and © Classic Media LLC.

strips continued to appear, with the likes of baseball hero Ozark Ike, working girl Tillie the Toiler and science fiction’s Flash Gordon (the latter two’s issues being written and illustrated by Aquaman co-creator Paul Norris) either continuing to appear or making their first comic book appearances here. The first of the Flash Gordon tales presented one of the earliest flying saucer stories in comics history.

Outside the Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies book, Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny continued to have their own titles within Four Color, as did Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, who appeared multiple times during the year in solo issues as well as in Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories. Woody Woodpecker and Andy Panda followed the same road in headlining titles within Four Color while they continued to show up in Walter Lantz New Funnies. Tom & Jerry also got a single Four Color issue while appearing in Our Gang Comics with Tom & Jerry, a title they were soon to take over completely.

Besides Donald and Mickey, the other Disney material that Four Color provided this year was a delightful adaptation in issue #186 (April 1948) of the 1941 animated film Bambi, which featured very appealing art by Morris Gollub, from a script by Chase Craig. Also this year, Walt Kelly delivered two fairy tale issues with Easter with Mother Goose in Four Color #185 (March 1948) and Christmas with Mother Goose in Four Color #201 (Nov. 1948). Kelly also wrote and drew the pixie tale The Brownies in issue #192 (Aug. 1948) and delivered another one-off Christmas tale for the anthology Santa Claus Funnies in issue #205 (Dec. 1948).

Edgar Bergen’s wooden dummy Charlie McCarthy had a single-issue effort appearing in Four Color #196 (Sept. 1948), with art by Harvey Eisenberg, while Zane Gray’s

Morris Gollub illustrated Four Color #186’s Bambi adaptation while Walt Kelly produced seasonal issues for FC #185 and #201. TM and © Disney Enterprises Inc.

Carl Barks’ 1948 Donald Duck adventures expanded the feature’s mythology, notably in “The Old Castle’s Secret” (Four Color #189). Reintroducing Uncle Scrooge, the story traced his bloodline to Scotland and established him as “the last of the Clan McDuck.”

Enterprises Inc.

1906 Western novel Spirit of the Border received an adaptation by Gaylord Du Bois with an unknown artist for issue #197 (Sept. 1948).

The new Little Orphan Annie Dell quarterly opened with a 1944 newspaper strip continuity before jumping back to 1940 for issue #2. The feature’s lone Four Color issue (#206: Dec. 1948) also ran early 1940s content.

The best Four Color issues for the year were the aforementioned Bambi adaptation and the excellent Donald Duck story from issue #199 (Oct. 1948)—“Sheriff of Bullet Valley”—with art and story by Carl Barks. In this 32-page story, Donald joins the Western genre when he becomes the sheriff of a Western town and is tasked with bringing in a gang of high-tech rustlers, led by one Blacksnake McQuirt. Despite the barrage of bullets (and their own pratfalls), Donald and his nephews manage to clean up Bullet Valley. Barks’s other two full-length Donald Duck stories were published in Four Color #189 (June 1948) with “The Old Castle’s Secret,” featuring the second appearance of Uncle Scrooge, and Donald’s annual Christmas issue in Four Color #203 (Dec. 1948). Four Color #189 also featured Barks’ first finished cover for any comic book.

Marvel’s Female Heroes

Just as Martin Goodman jumped onto the Western genre bandwagon, he also ventured into crime comics. Joining Justice Comics and Official True Crime Cases Comics (which became All True Crime Cases Comics with its 26th issue) were Crimefighters, Complete Mystery, Crime Exposed, and Lawbreakers Always Lose (an obvious copy of Lev Gleason’s Crime Does Not Pay). The publisher also dipped his toes in the romance genre with My Romance.

As a result, Goodman nearly doubled the number of titles he published, from 29 in 1947 to over 50 in 1948. A significant percentage of these were teen humor or “career girl” books, with a stunning 22 titles fitting into one or the other category. Despite this preference, Goodman seemingly gave his floundering superhero titles a lifeline by increasing their publication frequency in 1948. That lifeline came with a catch: the superheroes would now be co-starring in their own books with a female lead.

For instance, in 1947 only three issues of Sub-Mariner Comics were released. (The title’s page count had also been reduced to 36 pages.) In 1948, SubMariner became a bimonthly once again, but Namor now had to

share his stories with his cousin, Namora. In fact, Namora had a bigger presence on the Sub-Mariner covers than Sub-Mariner himself. Namor’s appearance on the cover of issue #29 (Dec. 1948) consists only of his hand and forearm. Little surprise, then, that Namora soon received her own title (first issue cover dated Aug. 1948). Contributing to that series was the Sub-Mariner’s creator, Bill Everett, having returned to the comic book industry after spending some time with his new wife and daughter following his discharge from the U.S. Army. At this point, Everett was only providing 10 to 12 pages of material for each issue of Sub-Mariner, with other artists like Ken Bald, Al Gabriele, Bob Powell, and Syd Shores picking up the slack.

Some of Everett’s new Sub-Mariner stories wound up in The Human Torch. Like Sub-Mariner Comics, Human Torch became a bi-monthly again in 1948, but with issue #32 (Sept. 1948), the series dropped the fiery superhero’s longtime sidekick, Toro. Without any explanation, he was replaced with a new character named Sun Girl Making her debut a week earlier in the first issue of her eponymous title, Sun Girl was secretly Mary Mitchell, the Human Torch’s personal secretary. Clad in a yellow/blueblack costume, the blonde heroine had no super-powers but did sport a sunbeam ray device on her wrist, a surprisingly versatile weapon that she used to blind a giant monster rampaging through New York City in Sun Girl #1 (Aug. 1948).

Namora didn’t just star in her own comic in 1948 but also pushed the Sub-Mariner off the cover of his own. TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc..

Namora, Cap gaining a new female partner was clearly a marketing ploy by Goodman and Lee to convince female buyers to pick up the previously male-oriented titles and help swell their circulation while not alienating the steady boy readers.

Not to be forgotten among the female crimefighters that Goodman published is The Blonde Phantom, who not only retained her own bimonthly title but also this year appeared in various issues of Blackstone the Magician, Marvel Mystery Comics, Namora, Sun Girl, and All Winners #1 (right before it became All Western Winners).

Sun Girl didn’t just appear in her own title and The Human Torch. In 1948 alone, she also showed up in Marvel Mystery Comics, Sub-Mariner Comics, and Captain America Comics

Speaking of the shield-slinging superhero, his own bimonthly title at least had a higher page count than his superheroic compatriots (48 compared to 36). Unfortunately, his longtime sidekick, Bucky, fared just as poorly as Toro did that year. On the cover of Captain America Comics #65 (Jan. 1948), Cap backhands Bucky to defend the honor of a vixen in a red dress: “Beat it, small fry! You’ve cramped my style for too long! I’m on my own from now on!” The interior story reveals that Cap’s assault is just a ruse, and the issue ends with the pair reunited as a crimefighting team. The reunion didn’t even last another issue as Captain America Comics #66 (April 1948) has Bucky seriously wounded by gunfire. As he recovers, Cap reveals his secret identity to Steve Rogers’s girlfriend, Betty Ross, in order to train her to become Bucky’s replacement as Golden Girl. She remained at Cap’s side for the next two years, even after Bucky returned in issue #71 (Jan. 1949).

Like the replacement of Toro by Sun Girl and Namor sharing his book with

And then there was Venus. Debuting in the first issue of her eponymous title (Aug. 1948), Venus was the immortal goddess who came to Earth from the planet Venus because she missed the love of a mortal man as she had in the heyday of the gods walking on Earth. She took no secret identity, freely representing herself as the goddess Venus to the man she chose to love, publisher Whitney Hammond, though he never really believed her divinity. Immediately smitten nonetheless, Hammond offered her the editorship of Beauty magazine, which she accepted, eventually successfully writing multiple high-selling cover articles, much to the chagrin of the ambitious Della Mason, who

Ken Bald drew the cover of Sun Girl #1, published immediately before her appearance in Human Torch #32. TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

As the Golden Girl swept into Captain America #66, the Blonde Phantom left her companion features in the background on the cover of All Winners #1. TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

wanted the editorial job herself as well as the love of Whitney, who declined both. Meanwhile, Apollo carried a torch for Venus back on Mount Olympus (making multiple trips to Earth himself), while staff photographer Marvin Klee, considered a shlub by Della, yearned for her hand. On Earth, Venus was mortal, though she could command the will of any man, as well as being able to instantly travel back to Mount Olympus, where she consulted with Jupiter to help her overcome adversity. She also had the aid of fellow gods Mercury, Neptune... and Thor (more than a dozen years before his modern Marvel incarnation). Standing in for Pluto (possibly because of the Disney pup) was Thor’s fellow Norse god Loki (and in one story, Satan himself) as ruler of the underworld (called Hades in the Satan story, despite that being a Greek name), without any worries about the mix of different pantheons.

When in her natural garb, Venus functioned as a superhero, though never while she was Earthbound. Multiple stories featured many of the gods assuming the identities of members of the cast, including Venus herself. (Venus was also able to consult with her Ladies in Waiting—historical beauties including Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Salome, DuBarry, Isolde and Circe, who advised her on beauty and romantic matters.) More fantasy than straight superhero stories throughout the entire run, the stakes shifted from office-based romantic quadrangles to more substantial adventure tales fairly early on, eventually featuring stories with deaths in them.

The first dozen issues or so were likely written by one quite capable author yet to be attributed. Among the confirmed artists on the Venus stories were Ken Bald, Werner Roth, Bill Everett, George Klein, Pete Tumlinson, and Chris Rule.

If Martin Goodman and Stan Lee were hoping, as Al Sulman said, to create a Wonder Woman of their own, they failed. None of these five female heroes—Blonde Phantom, Golden Girl, Namora, Sun Girl, or Venus—broke through into real popularity. Indeed, Namora and Sun Girl were both canceled after only three issues while the final issue of Blonde Phantom Comics (#22) was released in December 1948 (with a March 1949 cover date). (Interestingly

enough, Venus lasted the longest; her series didn’t end until issue #19 with an April 1952 cover date.)

Their superhero “brethren” wouldn’t last much longer either. Like Blonde Phantom Comics, Human Torch was halted in December 1948 (with issue #35) while the final issues of Sub-Mariner Comics (#32) and Captain America Comics (#75) were respectively published in March and November 1949.

By the end of 1948, then, Martin Goodman took the occasion to rebrand his line. His former Timely name had been effectively abandoned in 1944, surviving only in the indicia of Terry-Toons Comics—and, more recently, Cindy Comics and a few others—as their nominal publisher. In late 1946 and early 1947, the line’s covers had briefly sported a peel-back “Marvel Magazine” logo and Goodman began employing a variation of that on issues that began to go on sale in the fall of 1948 (cover dated February 1949).

The “Marvel Comic Group” was referenced in a syndicated factoid that ran in multiple newspapers during July and August 1948, referencing a survey that Goodman had commissioned from Richard Manville Research. A poll of nearly 2000 kids in 34 cities indicated the percentages of ages that read comic books: eight-to-10-year-olds (96%), 11-to-13-year-olds (95.5%), 14-to-16-year-olds (90%), and 17-to-20-year-olds (61.4%). Those numbers suggested comic books enjoyed a considerable older audience, one that few publishers had begun to focus on.

Despite Venus’ constantly evolving direction, publisher/love interest Whitney Hammond remained part of the feature to its end. TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

The Reluctant Publisher

After the death of his father on August 20, 1947, Bill Gaines became the reluctant steward of M.C. Gaines’s failing comic book company, E.C. Comics. Putting aside his plans of becoming a chemistry teacher for the time being, Bill Gaines decided to do what he could to rescue the company. He informed the freelancers who were producing the failed titles of 1947 that no further issues would be published. He then quickly arranged to put out comics in genres that either were already popular, or that appeared to have potential. To save money on second class postal rates, he chose to continue the numbering from the canceled titles onto the new titles. Therefore, with issue #5 (Summer 1948), Fat and Slat became Gunfighter. With issue #3 (Spring 1948), Happy Houlihans became Saddle Justice. And with issue #6 (Spring 1948), International Comics became International Crime Patrol (and then simply Crime Patrol with issue #7). The only title Gaines retained from the previous year was Moon Girl, and the only title launched with a first issue was War Against Crime! (Spring 1948).

Because of these changes, E.C.’s output actually shrank from 13 titles to five and from 40 issues to 20. The red ink had been stemmed. But following the marketplace, like every other publisher was doing, was hardly a

recipe for great success for the little company. “We put out love books and crime books and westerns,” Bill Gaines recalled years later. “All very mediocre, very mediocre stuff. [It was] what we thought was selling. We were like the smallest, crummiest outfit in the field at that point. It was just a way of keeping the business going. We just imitated. I had absolutely no interest in these titles because love books and western books and true crime books have absolutely no interest for me” (Decker 56).

Unsurprisingly, E.C.’s distributor, MacFadden, wasn’t happy with the poor sales of M. C. Gaines’s titles in 1947. MacFadden thought it had made a deal with a man who was a comic book genius, a “father” of the medium, and the former publisher of high-selling books at All-American Comics. Since it’s known that Charlie Gaines was beginning a relationship with the much lower-tier distributor Leader News (at least as a trial), it seems clear that his business relationship with MacFadden was already on shaky ground before his death. Bill Gaines was able to continue using MacFadden at first, but he probably had no choice but to eventually switch to Leader News, most likely when his contract with MacFadden expired. Regardless, all E.C. titles were switched to Leader News by the fall of 1948. This would have major ramifications for the publisher in the coming years. For one thing, Leader News paid lower rates for comic book sales than the better distributors.

Just as he was learning about the vicissitudes of comic book distribution, Bill Gaines was greatly helped by two men in 1948. The first was Sol Cohen, serving as both editor and trafficker of pages to the printer. He would be with Gaines for less than a year before leaving to concentrate on editing comics for Avon full time.

The other was writer and artist Al Feldstein. A graduate of New York’s High School of Music and Art, Feldstein worked freelance in the comic book industry during the war when

he remained stateside serving in the Army Air Forces. Once the war ended, he contributed to both Ace Comics and Fox (mainly for the latter), developing his craft as he went. At Ace he produced informational and teen humor comics, including stories for Hap Hazard and Adventures of Homer Cobb. For various Fox titles, Feldstein was writing the scripts (attributed, at least initially, to his wife) and providing the art, including Meet Corliss Archer, Sunny, and Junior, the last of whose blonde hairstyle looked a lot like Hap Hazard’s red-headed hairstyle, which he had drawn for Ace only a couple of months before. Feldstein had occasionally signed his name (or Fox signed it) as “Bill Brown” or “Jed Duncan.” The wellendowed young ladies featured in these titles were clearly inspired by Matt Baker as much as they were by Archie’s Betty and Veronica and were very much the kind of cheesecake artwork that Victor Fox liked to publish.

It was Sol Cohen who recruited Feldstein to E.C., and the 22-year-old creator was more than happy to move on from Victor Fox’s outfit as he was privately convinced that Fox was some sort of gangster. At E.C., Feldstein started producing exactly the sort of work he’d been providing for Fox: teen humor featuring

Graham Ingels’ cover for Gunfighter #7. TM and © respective copyright owner.

Johnny Craig’s stark cover for War Against Crime #1. TM and © respective copyright owner.

very pretty girls for a planned comic entitled Going Steady with Peggy However, that project was abandoned in the pencil stage as the teen humor market had collapsed. Gaines and Cohen met with Feldstein to break the news. It was the first time that Feldstein met Gaines, and in response to the title’s cancellation, Feldstein said, “If the teenage market’s dying, let’s tear up my contract.” Feldstein had basically burned his bridges by going with E.C., so he told the two men “it would be easier to pay me for something you can publish than if it isn’t going to sell. Let me come to work for you, and see what happens” (Geissman 77). Impressed by the young artist’s mettle, Gaines accommodated him. Feldstein subsequently began working from scripts by Ivan Klapper and Gardner Fox, for Saddle Justice, Gunfighter, Crime Patrol, and War Against Crime! Within two months he was writing his own stories again. Before long, Feldstein and Gaines became close friends.

Feldstein was hardly the only creator about to build a long-lasting relationship with E.C. Another was artist Graham Ingels, who began in the field in 1943 as an illustrator for Fiction House. Ingels added E.C. to his roster of clients in 1948 when he contributed several stories to Gunfighter, Saddle Justice, and War Against Crime! He would found his true métier with E.C.’s famed horror comics of the 1950s, but Ingels was an important artist at the company in these “pre-Trend” days as well.

Johnny Craig, on the other hand, started drawing for E.C. in 1947, but in 1948, he ramped up his production for the company, providing covers for both of the Western titles as well as interior stories for each of the three Gunfighter issues published during the year. He even cocreated the Buckskin Kid with writer Gardner Fox for that title. He is most remembered at this time as the cover artist on both Crime Patrol and War Against Crime!

E.C. released four issues of each title during the year, and Craig’s work was easily the best attraction in each issue, although his art was not yet at the level it would be in a few years. He soon graduated to writing his own stories in the crime titles as well.

E.C. also released four quarterly issues of Moon Girl this year: #2 (Winter 1947-1948) through #5 (Fall 1948). The first two issues were 52-page efforts with Sheldon Moldoff continuing the Moon Girl tales, scripted by either Dorothy Rubichek or Gardner Fox with back-up material from Ed Wheelan, including left-over stories of Fat and Slat, and a Gardner Fox/Johnny Craig western tale that appeared in issue #3.

The title was reduced to what was now E.C.’s standard 36-page size with issue #4 (Summer 1948) with two Moon Girl tales and a “Fat and Slat” filler by Wheelan. Both issue #4 (Summer 1948)—with the seven-page “Vampire of the Bayous!,” written by Dick Kraus and illustrated by Sheldon Moldoff—and issue #5 (Fall 1948)—with the five-

page “Zombie Terror!,” written by Kraus and illustrated by Johnny Craig—signaled E.C.’s early move toward horror as those stories were originally intended for an aborted E.C. title to be put together by Moldoff.

Moldoff’s effort to jumpstart the horror genre came about sometime after M.C. Gaines’s death, when he opined to Bill Gaines that the next comics trend just might be horror comics. Moldoff suggested a deal with Gaines where the latter would publish and the former would produce, for a percentage, two horror comics. In March of 1948 he went off to create those two titles: Tales of the Supernatural, which had a largely finished first issue, featuring four stories and a text piece, and This Magazine Is Haunted, which, at this point, was simply a title. Besides the two stories that appeared in Moon Girl, there was also the eight-page “The Werewolf’s Curse!,” which appeared in Crime Patrol #11 (April-May 1949) and the six-page “The Hanged Man’s Revenge,” which appeared in Crime Patrol #12 (June-July 1949). Both stories were, again, written by Dick Kraus but this time with artwork by Howard Larsen. The text piece, “Out of the Grave” ended up in Moon Girl #7 (May-June 1949).

The original art for Johnny Craig’s “Zombie Terror” (Moon Girl #5), via James Halperin’s gallery at comicartfans.com. TM and © respective copyright owner.

Gaines bought Tales of the Supernatural and its contents but didn’t put it into production right away. The stories began appearing in those E.C. titles mentioned above, apparently without Moldoff’s knowledge. Moldoff claimed that he didn’t hear anything about his horror titles for quite some time, until Gaines’s own horror stories began to appear in late 1949. When he went into the E.C. offices to see what had happened to his proposals, Gaines informed him that he hadn’t wanted to pay percentages on the two titles, which Gaines apparently contractually wouldn’t have to do if Moldoff’s two horror comics were set aside and the stories appeared separately in other E.C. titles. This meeting was, according to Moldoff, the last time that he saw Bill Gaines. He left E.C., following the cancellation of Moon Girl with issue #9 (Summer 1949) and the title This Magazine Is Haunted, which Moldoff retained, was sold to Fawcett, likely because the writer of the horror stories for Tales of the Supernatural—Dick Kraus—was an editor there. This Magazine Is Haunted finally appeared in 1951, before moving to Charlton after Fawcett dropped their comic book line.

However, Moldoff’s timelines don’t really match up as two of the horror tales he’d commissioned appeared in mid-1948 in Moon Girl where he was drawing the lead character. Presumably, he would have known his horror stories were being published outside his proposed titles

when that actually started to happen. In fact, both of those horror tales had appeared only a few months or less after Moldoff could have delivered the completed pages of Tales of the Supernatural in February 1948

It’s possible that Moldoff’s memories of exactly what happened and when it happened were clouded by the passage of the more than 50 years between the events in question and the interview in which he related his memories. It’s also possible that he expected Tales of the Supernatural to be one of E.C.’s new horror comics, even as late as the fall or winter of 1949, even though all of his stories for the first issue had already been used elsewhere.

In other news, E.C. also continued its educational comics for various businesses. This year’s sole effort was the 16-page The KO Punch! (Jan. 1948), produced by David Gaines, Max Gaines’ brother, for The Venereal Disease Educational Giveaway, apparently intended for doctor’s offices and medical clinics. The book featured a splash page by Al Feldstein, while the rest of the book was illustrated by George Roussos. This is one of the few E.C. comics produced by its major artists that has not been reprinted.

The Spirit of ’48!

While 1947 had been a very good year for Will Eisner’s The Spirit, 1948 turned out to be a banner one. Beside welcome reappearances by the Spirit’s rogues’ gallery, including multiple appearances by the Octopus (Jan. 25/ Feb. 1/Aug. 1/Oct. 31/Dec. 5), P’Gell (May 23), Silk Satin and her daughter, Hildie (May 30) and Carrion (Aug. 1), Eisner added a batch of great new characters, and he started the year off with a bang.

A two-part story—“The Name is ‘Powder” (Jan. 4) and “The Fallen Sparrow” (Jan. 11)—introduced not only a new femme fatale, but a pair of young, star-crossed lovers struggling to work (and if that didn’t work out for them, steal) their way out of poverty. Powder Pouf believed she had the very young Bleaker Moore tied around her finger, only to discover that his love for Sparrow Fallon had given him a means to get away from her and start over. This excellent extended story received an equally good twopart follow-up a few months later, with “The Wedding” (May 2) and “The Job” (May 9) when Bleaker and Sparrow managed to get married and make a living with all the odds seemingly stacked against them. The latter story is also significant as weekly section background artist Jerry Grandenetti took a break from The Spirit to work on his Eisner-influenced supernatural serial “Dr. Drew” for Fiction House. He was replaced by Andre LeBlanc.

Humorous Spirit stories include Jan. 18th’s “Just One Word Made Me a Man,” which spoofed the Charles Atlas ads that ran at that time (and for decades longer) in comic books. One month later, the hallowed baseball poem “Casey at the Bat” was parodied in “Merry Andrew” (Feb. 15). “The Torch” was a very funny meta-story in which a tight, taut arson story was constantly being interrupted by inane commercials for “Goople’s Cream,” supposedly inserted to make The Spirit Section more commercially appealing. Nat King Cole’s big hit “Nature Boy,” written by eden ahbez, was spoofed on July 4th in “Cromlech Was a Nature Boy.”

Al Feldstein drew the cover/splash page of “The KO Punch,” a custom comic meant to educate readers about venereal disease. TM and © respective copyright owner.

Commissioner Dolan fell in love in “The Springtime of Dolan” (July 11). “Tooty Compote” (Oct. 3), co-written by Jules Feiffer in the second of three tales he co-wrote with Eisner this year, parodied writer Truman Capote, whose first novel was published this year.

“Life Below” (Feb. 22) was the first genuine classic of the year, as the Spirit chased the murderous Worm into the sewers beneath Central City. The icy, snow-drenched scenes above ground contrasted nicely with the damp, dark sewer tunnels flooded with icy water from the melting snow above. While tracking the Worm, the Spirit discovered an underground society living deep down in the sewers. The capture was complicated when a fresh snowstorm sealed both Worm and the Spirit below for five days, until the city’s snowplows allowed the Spirit to push up a manhole cover and emerge back into the light of day, reeking of the sewer but triumphant.

“Wild Rice” featured a young, wild rich girl who was smothered by what society expected of her. She abandoned her new husband and took up with a cheap hood in his life of crime. While with him, she displayed an unhealthy liking for the domestic violence the hood used on her. However, when she found out that he’d sent a ransom note to her father, she split with him. The Spirit, along with the police, arrived and took down the gang but Wild Rice herself was shot to death by an angry member of the gang, who believed she should receive the “same pie as us!”

As expected, Ebony White appeared in a number of Spirit stories, usually comical in nature, that revolved around him. The best of the bunch was “Barkarolle” where Ebony’s dog, Roger, comes across a Fagen-like thief named Sven Galli, who trains a canine version of the Charles Dickens’ character Fagin’s street gang to do his thieving for him.

When Jerry Grandenetti returned to the strip, he abandoned his Eisner-inspired approach in favor of an art style that would remain distinctively his own for the next few decades. Grandenetti drew two adaptations of 19th century horror stories: “The Thing” by Ambrose Bierce (July 25) and “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe (Aug. 22). These five-page adaptations were written by Eisner and completely illustrated by Grandenetti, with two bookend Spirit pages, written and illustrated by Eisner alone. Since the two stories separating the two adaptations featured the Spirit on summer vacation, one suspects that these horror stories were done to allow Eisner to take a summer vacation as well.

One of the best single Spirit stories ever, “The Story of Gerhard Shnobble” (Sept. 5) told the tale of a lonely little man, who no one really noticed, who discovered that he could fly while attempting suicide by jumping off a skyscraper. Or, perhaps, he’d only rediscovered it, as he’d had the ability to fly as a child, but it was spanked out of his memory by parents afraid he’d be considered a “strange creature.” Overjoyed by his re-found ability, he soared across the Central City skyline, until he crossed the path of a rooftop battle that the Spirit (in a cameo) was having with gangsters. One of the gangsters fired a number of shots at the Spirit, all of which missed him, but killed Gerhard Shnobble. As he plummeted to the ground, readers were advised “Do not weep for Shnobble…rather shed a tear for all mankind…for not one person in the entire crowd that watched his body being carted away… knew or even suspected that on this day Gerhard Shnobble had flown.”

“Lorelei Rox” was another femme fatale story, this time based on the ancient Greek myth of singing sirens. Lorelei Rox had come to the U.S. as a non-speaking war bride wedded to one “Blacky” Marquett, joining his freight semis’ hijacking gang, by luring the drivers to their dooms with her weird, untranslatable songs. She nearly killed the Spirit as well but he escaped his death by knocking himself out in battle.

Good and sexy as Lorelei Rox was, she was completely overshadowed by what may be the greatest one-shot appearance of a female villainess in comic book history. “Plaster of Paris” (Nov. 7) featured the Spirit assisting the French police Inspector Guillotine in

Although Powder Pouf was the ostensible focus of 1948’s first Spirit story, Will Eisner’s interests lay in the development of her conflicted, more three-dimensional pawn Bleaker Moore. TM and © Will Eisner Studios Inc.

Will Eisner regarded “Gerhard Schnobble” as a breakthrough in his career, a tale that allowed him to make a personal statement and reveal some of himself while also demonstrating that the Spirit need not be involved in any meaningful way to produce a great story. TM and © Will Eisner Studios Inc.

tracking down Don Macabre. The Spirit discovered that the Inspector’s fiancée, the slinky nightclub singer known as Plaster of Paris was in reality in cahoots with Don Macabre and, further, that she was a stone-cold assassin to boot. Plaster only appeared in that one single story, but her presence was so strong that her story was one of the most reprinted of the Spirit Sections from this decade.

Other interesting tales this year include “Mrs. Paraffin” (March 7); “War Brides” (March 14); “The Inheritance” (Apr. 11), with a great splash page spotlight on Ellen Dolan; “The Last Hand” (May 16), providing a terrifying portrait of an old lady serial killer; “Assignment: Paris” (May 23) where the Spirit enlisted P’Gell to help him track down one of her ex-husbands, apparently one of the few who didn’t die while married to her; and “Two Lives” (Dec. 12), depicting the trials and tribulations of two identical men: one an escaped convict and the other a henpecked husband, who swapped identities.In addition, “The Halloween Spirit of 1948” (Oct. 31) featured the return of Witch Hazel who finds herself teamed up with the Octopus. The end of the year presented the annual Spirit Christmas story: “The Christmas Spirit of 1948” (Dec. 19).

Beyond the adventures of the Spirit, however, Eisner had also been trying to sell a new syndicated newspaper strip for a number of years: a male version of Little Orphan Annie or Little Annie Rooney titled Nubbin The title character was a small shoeshine boy who had the same general shape as P.S., the Spirit’s peppermint-sucking silent boy Nubbin wore a huge, patched sweatshirt, pants that were clearly too big for him, and a gray crowned cloth cap, often called a whoopee hat, which was exactly the same type of hat that Archie’s buddy Jughead is famous for wearing. It was a popular, and probably cheap, hat for city kids of the 1930s and 1940s and was made from a man’s worn-out felt

fedora hat, with the brim cut into zig-zags and the hat section worn inside out and upside down. Nubbin also carried around a huge shoeshine box that was nearly as big as he was.

Eisner had no luck in selling the Nubbin strip in 1946, so he tried again to sell it in either 1947 or 1948 as a second Spirit-styled Sunday section insert, but instead of the smaller comic book format the Spirit section had, Nubbin would have been a tabloid-sized insert. Unfortunately, that effort went nowhere as well, so Eisner came up with the idea of publishing his own line of comic books under the brand name “A Will Eisner Publication.”

The line would include five titles: Kewpies, Baseball Comics, Pirate Comics, Bullet Hole Western, and The Adventures of Nubbin the Shoeshine Boy.

Only two of these titles actually saw print (with 1949 cover dates). Nubbin wasn’t one of them. Its first issue was only partially done before Eisner had second thoughts about the project The completed contents of the Nubbin comic book were a cover and a six-page Nubbin lead story entitled “The Strange, Ghastly Affair of the Half-Dead Mr. Lox,” written and illustrated by Eisner.

The second story planned for the premier issue, “Sand Blue,” was only penciled and partially inked by Eisner. (A clear indication that Eisner’s thoughts about the comic book changed as he was actually drawing the issue.) This second story would also have included Nubbin but really starred Eisner’s own Spirit clone: John Law, Detective A police detective working for the Crossroads City Police Department, John Law looked very much like Denny Colt, the man behind the Spirit’s domino mask, except for two features. Instead of Commissioner Dolan, Law was the one smoking the pipe and, instead of a mask, he had an eye patch over his left eye.

With The Adventures of Nubbin the Shoeshine Boy stopped mid-effort, Eisner worked up a dummy one-sheet for a proposed John Law, Detective newspaper insert (much like The Spirit Section). When it didn’t get picked up by the syndicates, Eisner quickly revised that one-sheet into the splash page for the lead-off 11-page story for John Law’s own comic book. It was the “Sand Blue” back-up story originally slated for The Adventures of Nubbin the Shoeshine Boy but now titled “Sand Saref.” The new title was inspired by the lettering font term “sans serif,” a style of gothic lettering that does not have extending features, called serifs, on the end of lettering strokes. In direct terms it means “without serifs,” but in effect, it means “sanding off the rough edges,” which certainly applies to the “Sand Saref” story.

Eisner visually based the tragic Plaster of Paris on noir actress Lizabeth Scott, star of such films as 1947’s Dead Reckoning, Desert Fury, and I Walk Alone TM and © Will Eisner Studios Inc.

Eisner was able to complete the first issue of John Law, Detective, but whether that comic book would actually get printed remained to be seen.

Pogo and the Funny Pages

Thanks to a special arrangement with Dell/Western Publishing, cartoonist Walt Kelly retained ownership of Pogo and his cast of anthropomorphic swamp-dwelling characters that first appeared in 1942. In 1948, the newly launched New York Star newspaper hired Kelly as an art director, ostensibly to produce political cartoons for its editorial page. Kelly, instead, seized the opportunity to turn his creation into a newspaper comic strip. Pogo made its debut on October 4, 1948. Its run in the New York Star was short-lived, only because the newspaper folded in late January 1949. At that point, the Post-Hall Syndicate, a national comic strip distributor, placed Pogo in newspapers across the country, starting on May 16, 1949, increasing Kelly’s readership immensely. Pogo ran continuously for the remainder of Kelly’s life and even for a short run after Kelly’s death in 1973. The final Pogo strip appeared on July 20, 1975.

As monumental as the debut of the Pogo strip was, the most enduring newspaper strip launch of 1948 was actually Rex Morgan, M.D., which debuted on May 10. Mixing medical drama with romantic conflicts, the feature was illustrated by Marvin Bradley and Frank Edgington and written by Dr. Nicholas Dallis. A practicing psychiatrist, Dallis initially opted to keep his two lives separate and scripted Rex under the pseudonym “Dal Curtis.”

Meanwhile, Al Capp struck gold in his Li’l Abner daily strip with the introduction of the Shmoo on August 31. The armless, bowling pin-shaped white creatures bore whiskers, reproduced asexually and could transform their flesh into any type of food a human might desire… out of the goodness of their hearts. Corporate leaders reacted with horror when their own products went unsold as consumers devoured the Shmoo who were free for the taking.

The creatures took the country by storm, garnering nearly 100 distinct licensed products within a year that included a best-selling paperback collection of the sequence. Thanks to the cartoonist’s successful 1947 battle with his syndicate over the rights to Abner, Capp Enterprises negotiated those deals directly, collectively adding up to $25,000,000 in sales.

It was the sort of deal that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster could only dream of. After legal fees, they came away from the Superman lawsuit with $29,000 apiece. Two months later, Siegel’s wife Bella sued for divorce. Biographer Larry Tye wrote that she “got her freedom, custody of their son, all the household furnishings, and 60 percent of their gross assets, which included the house in University Heights, $98,000 in cash and bonds, and a year-old Chrysler. Jerry got the remaining 40 percent, along with his typewriter and Dictaphone” (Tye 121).

On October 14, 1948, a week after the divorce was finalized, Siegel married his old flame, Joanne Carter. Three days earlier, his and Shuster’s Funnyman newspaper strip made its nationwide debut. Featuring a clown-like superhero otherwise known as comedian Larry Davis, it was less a new beginning than a last chance. The duo had first tried the feature as a comic book for Magazine Enterprises, its first issue dated January 1948, but that incarnation was canceled after six issues. The comic strip fared little better. It ended in mid-story a year later on October 7, 1949, Funnyman himself replaced by a character named Reggie Van Twerp.

The Time Is Right For Romance

Some other newspaper strip characters were enjoying happier fates in 1948. Ham Fisher’s boxing hero Joe Palooka was reunited with his long-lost fiancée Ann Howe in a June sequence in his eponymous feature while the title character of Roy Crane’s Buz Sawyer wed Christy Jameson on December 13. The massive public interest in the culmination of such long-standing newsprint courtships was a strong sign that audiences would also support comic books with heroines who overcame great obstacles to find true love. If male publishers seemed slow to pick up on that, it may have been a matter of limited budget after pushing Westerns and crime comics… or simple disbelief that girls would buy comics in large quantities if the subject matter appealed to them. If that sounds a little sexist, well, it was 1948, and these were uncharted waters for the comic book industry.

The two creators charting the romance genre waters were, of course, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. The same month that Hillman published the fourth—and final—issue of Simon and Kirby’s My Date Comics, Crestwood released the third issue of the creative duo’s Young Romance (Jan. 1948). The lead story of the latter, “Marriage Contract,” stars Kitty, a 16-year-old high school student desperate to escape the slums (presented by Kirby as a claustrophobic, grimy, and

The first Pogo daily strip (October 4, 1948) and most of its early run in the New York Star were recycled with new art by Walt Kelly once the feature began national syndication in 1949.

ing the postwar Allied occupation of Germany, fräulein Annaliese Hohn falls in love with an American sergeant named Jack Hamilton, whose upright compassion and respect for her dignity thrills her. Jack, however, breaks things off once he realizes how much his lover still believes in Hitler’s message and mission. Enticed into joining an anti-U.S. terrorist group, Annaliese is forced to choose between ideology and love as the story surged toward its conclusion: “I knew, now, what Jack had been trying to tell me: that one cannot harbor love and hate in the

same heart… that one must love EVERYBODY in order to love at all.” It was an unconventional love story with a highly unusual ending that foreshadowed, with a gender reversal, the ending of 1949’s The Third Man. It was also arguably the best story, out of a number of good ones, to appear in Young Romance during 1948.

despairing environment). The sole bright spot in Kitty’s life is her lawyer boyfriend, Eddie, but the girl’s vile father soils even that by bartering his daughter’s hand in marriage to one of his work colleagues, Mike, in exchange for a 15% stake in Mike’s new business (hence, the “marriage contract”). After Kitty’s younger brother, Johnny, falls into a life of crime and gets arrested, Eddie defends the boy in juvenile court, delivering an impassioned speech: “I ask another chance not only for Johnny but for ALL the under privileged kids like him!” Duly moved, the judge gives Johnny a suspended sentence, sparing him from time in jail. Having witnessed Eddie’s altruism, Kitty approaches him and declares, “It isn’t only Johnny you freed—it was ME! I’M FREE—free of everything but my love for you!”

In the same issue was “His Best Friend’s Sweetheart!” Soldier Jim had asked his 4-F best friend, Ted Rush, to keep an eye on his girlfriend, Ruth, while he was in the service. Instead, Ted does everything in his power to steal Ruth away. When Jim returns from the war, Ted hands him a traveling salesman job in his firm, only so he can keep up his pursuit of Ruth. Once Jim gets wise to his friend’s scheme, the two rivals come to blows. Literally caught in the middle, Ruth gets a black eye out of the deal…as well as Jim’s hand. “His Best Friend’s Sweetheart!” was far more conventional than Simon and Kirby’s other romance stories but, for that very reason, was much easier to copy by other creators looking for an easy template.

The following issue, Young Romance #4 (March-April 1948), featured the audacious “Fraulein Sweetheart.” Dur-

They weren’t all winners, however. The Bill Draut-illustrated “Guilty!” (also appearing in Young Romance #4) detailed the romance of cop’s daughter Dotty and her hoodlum boyfriend Johnny. Throughout the story’s eight pages, the girl stands by her louse of a lover before ultimately refusing to be his alibi in a fur heist. Johnny—not the brightest bulb in the box—rises from his seat in open court to condemn her for telling the truth. Johnny gets five

Simon and Kirby’s cover for Young Romance #3 and a splash page from within. TM and © respective copyright owner.

Bill Draut’s splash page for “Guilty” (Young Romance #4). TM and © respective copyright owner.

years, and Dotty spends the time pining for him. Apparently, they don’t stay in contact during his incarceration because when Johnny is released, Dotty isn’t sure if he will return for love or vengeance. Spoiler: he returns for love. In the story’s last panel, Johnny appears at her door with a bouquet of roses. Even with “Guilty,” however, Young Romance’s ratio of good stories to bad was heavily in the favor of the good.

While there are Young Romance stories that have become romance comics clichés, they really weren’t clichés, at least not in comics, when Simon and Kirby were first doing them. And a fair number of the stories they came up with were genuinely original and still hold up years later. “I Fell in Love with My Star Pupil!” (Young Romance #5: May-June) revolved around small town nastiness when a young female teacher fell in love with an adult student she was tutoring. “Disgrace” (Young Romance #6: JulyAug.) centered around a woman, her man, the woman’s brother, and prize fighting, where her man and her brother were scheduled to oppose each other in the ring. “War Bride” (Young Romance #7: Sept.-Oct.) was a complex story—complete with a violent dream sequence— wherein French immigrant Jadine found herself torn between three suitors in the postwar world.

“I Stole for Love!” (Young Romance #7) and “Love or Pity?” (Young Romance #8: Nov.-Dec.) intertwined romance with crime segments: embezzlement and card sharking, specifically. It’s possible that some of the Young Romance stories were originally intended to appear in Justice Traps the

Guilty or one of Simon and Kirby’s other crime comics. A story’s switch to Young Romance was made once Simon and Kirby realized the story’s details weren’t suitable for the more sensationalized crime genre.

One shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that Young Romance was all Simon and Kirby, though. While the duo—along with Jack Oleck—likely wrote most of the content, there were other artists who did skillful work for the title. The cover and the lengthy lead-off story was always Simon and Kirby at this point, and they may have done one shorter story for an issue as well, but the rest of the stories were illustrated by the likes of Bill Draut, Jerry Robinson, and Mort Meskin.

As the year started for Young Romance, its print order had tripled from its first issue to its second. That kind of success was sure to attract industry-wide notice, practically guaranteeing a new comic genre trend. Martin Goodman was the first to cash in with My Romance (first issue cover dated Sept. 1948). Its title and page count (52 pages instead of Marvel’s usual 36) marked it as a clear copycat of the 52-page Young Romance.

The stories in My Romance were much lighter in tone than the often grim and decidedly more serious stories appearing in Young Romance, even when dealing with a potentially heavy subject, such as racism. The writers for the 1948 issues, as well as most of the artists, are unknown, although Christopher Rule and Ken Bald contributed to the artwork.

My Romance was followed closely by Victor Fox’s My Life: True Stories in Pictures which started with issue #4 (Sept. 1948), taking over the numbering of the sexy teen humor/ radio adaptation title Meet Corliss Archer. True to Fox Comics’ tradition, the two issues of My Life that were released in 1948 featured covers with women wearing only negligees and heels, likely drawn by the Iger shop.

My Life followed the Young Romance story template although the Simon and Kirby stories were much better told and drawn. Most of the women in the Fox stories skewed young. Whether teenagers or of legal age, they invariably fell in love with older men. In the two 1948-

Simon and Kirby’s “Disgrace” (Young Romance #6). TM and © respective copyright owner.

The 1948 emergence of love comics included My Romance #1 (Marvel), My Life: True Stories in Pictures #4 (Fox), and Sweethearts #68 (Fawcett). TM and © respective copyright owners.

dated issues, the women were entangled in some type of legal trouble—underage drinking, a vehicular hit-andrun, domestic violence, bank robbery, buying stolen goods, blackmail, etc.—so much so that the title was really more of a crime/romance mash-up.

Fawcett came next with Sweethearts #68 (Oct. 1948), taking over the numbering from the defunct superhero title Captain Midnight. Sweethearts was different in both format and frequency than the previous three titles, as it featured photo covers instead of illustrated ones and debuted as a monthly 52-page comic right out of the starting gate. It enjoyed a healthy life, running monthly until its last two issues and ending with issue #121 (May 1953), at a time when Fawcett was shutting down its comic book division.

Still, the release of these four titles in 1948 only hinted at the explosion of romance titles coming in 1949. The bur-

geoning romance genre also provided ample opportunity for publishers who were cultivating an audience of older males. Well-endowed women, often posed suggestively and underdressed, were a staple on covers from companies like Fox and Fiction House.

Fox’s Phantom Lady #17 (April 1948) is a textbook example. As the Matt Baker-drawn cover makes abundantly clear, Phantom Lady isn’t wearing a bra, and the nipple of her left breast is poking through the material covering it. The cover also suggests bondage as Phantom Lady uncoils a hawser-type rope from around her body as a knife-wielding man approaches.

In his anti-comics manifesto Seduction of the Innocent (1954), Frederic Wertham made a point to include that specific cover as an example of comics “specializing in highly accentuated and protruding breasts in practically every illustration. Adolescent boys call these ‘headlight comics.’” Like much of Wertham’s text, though, there’s no evidence that such a crass expression ever enjoyed any sort of usage in the 1940s. The fact that it’s recalled at all is because of Robert Overstreet’s references to it in his 1970s Comic Book Price Guide that noted issues cited in Seduction of the Innocent. Inevitably, any comic book of the era featuring a wellendowed woman—whether Betty and Veronica or Phantom Lady—was retroactively branded a “headlight comic” in one circle or another.

“I doubt this was actual 1940s slang,” former Comic Reader editor Mike Tiefenbacher told American Comic Book Chronicles, “and that anyone outside the tiny group of cherry-picked examples Wertham claimed to have interviewed was actually using the word. It’s a tacky and weird thing for any kid to have come up with on his own based on car or bicycle lights. If anybody ever used the word, it’s more likely to have been derived from photographs which highlighted the presence of the thick, stiff white cotton bras of the era showing through beneath dark sweaters or tights, which is hardly anything you’d have seen portrayed in comic books. Sure, boys love breasts and will always love breasts, but that didn’t mean every publisher and cartoonist who drew idealized women on covers was attempting to drag it all down to a pornographic level.”

Legendary comics distributor and bookseller Bud Plant added, “Terry Stroud and Dave Alexander, when partners in the American Comic Book Company in the 1970s, coined the term ‘esoteric comics’ to detail this phenom…the wild covers, decapitation stories, sexy stuff, offbeat craziness…much of which is now detailed in the Guide and highly sought after. Before they pointed it out, and raised prices on that stuff, many of us paid little attention to weird titles from minor companies, particularly pre-Code crime and horror, but even teen stuff and most particularly, ‘headlight’ covers. That term was not around when I started collecting in 1965” (Durajlija).

Matt Baker’s cover for Phantom Lady #17 has become iconic… or infamous, depending on the audience. Phantom Lady TM and © DC Comics.

A New Generation of Comic Book Artists

Generally speaking, the first generation of comic book artists were born shortly before the United States entered World War I. Charles Biro was born in 1911. Jack Cole in 1914. Irv Novick, Bob Powell and Mort Meskin were all born in 1916. When they were growing up, there were no comic books as we know them today. At that point, there weren’t even adventure comic strips appearing in the newspapers. Syndicated funnies existed, but when it came to “serious” fare, this generation of young artists looked to the illustrators of the 1920s, their own childhood influences. They were inspired by the work of such magazine illustrators as J. Allen St. John, N. C. Wyeth, Joseph Clement Coll, James Montgomery Flagg, and J. C. Leyendecker.

Then, during the war years, a group of very young artists found a welcome spot in comics, generally because of openings caused by the military draft. These artists began the elevation of comic art and eventually became some of the medium’s biggest stars, men like Gene Colan, Frank Frazetta, Frank Giacoia, Russ Heath, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Warren Kremer, Bernard Krigstein, Joe Kubert, Harvey Kurtzman and Alex Toth. After the war, they were joined by a new generation of young, eager comic book artists, some of whom, returning from military service, didn’t feel too good about those artists who hadn’t served. They respected the work of the medium’s pioneers, but unlike many of their predecessors who wanted to use comic books as a springboard to the much more prestigious syndicated newspaper strips, they weren’t ashamed to work in comic books. Three of the most important of these newbies were Wallace Wood, Al Williamson and Joe Maneely.

Wallace Wood

While looking for more work, Wood met John Severin in a publisher’s waiting room and showed him his portfolio. Recognizing Wood’s talent, Severin referred him to the Charles William Harvey Studio, where cartoonists Charles Stern, Will Elder and Harvey Kurtzman worked, as well as Severin himself. Wood recalled, “I was really impressed with John and how nice he was to me. Harvey was kind of nasty—‘Why are you letting a kid hang around here?’ But they each did me an original and wished me luck and gave me a couple of lessons.” Kurtzman and the others saw the potential in Wood’s artwork and told him that Will Eisner was looking for a background artist for The Spirit. Wood hustled over to Eisner’s studio and landed the job (Barlow 27). Wood’s first solo comic book story was the 10-page “The Tip Off Woman” in Fox Comics’ Women Outlaws #4 (Jan. 1949), on sale in late 1948. Before long, he was producing science fiction stories for E.C. and Avon, work that would earn him his first major recognition. From there, Wally Wood would become one of the most celebrated comic book artists of all time.

Al Williamson

Alfonso Williamson was born on March 21, 1931 in New York City, although he spent much of his childhood in Bogotá, Columbia before moving back to America in 1943. After the war, Williamson began taking art classes at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School (where he met Wally Wood). Eventually, the school’s co-owner, Burne Hogarth, tapped Williamson to pencil the syndicated Tarzan comic strip. Prior to this assignment, Williamson drew some spot illustrations for “The World’s Ugliest Horse” in Eastern Color’s Famous Funnies #166 (May 1948) as well as a two-page Boy Scout story in New Heroic Comics #51 (Nov. 1948).

Born Wallace Allan Wood in Menahga, Minnesota on June 17, 1927, Wood graduated from high school in 1944, enlisted in the U.S. Merchant Marine and, post war, served in the U.S. Army’s 11th Airborne Division. Discharged at the age of 20, Wood began studying art at the Minneapolis School of Art. However, by summer 1948, Wood had moved to New York City where he enrolled in the Cartoonists and Illustrators School. Soon thereafter, he started his comic book career… as a letterer: “The first professional job was lettering for Fox romance comics in 1948. [This lasted] about a year. I also started doing backgrounds, then inking. Most of it was the romance stuff. For complete pages, it was $5 a page [...] Twice a week, I would ink ten pages in one day” (Dorf 18).

In 1949, Williamson got the opportunity to visit his artistic idol, Alex Raymond of Flash Gordon fame. Soon thereafter, Williamson produced Westerns and science fiction stories for such companies as American Comics Group (AGC), Avon Publications, Fawcett Comics, and Standard Comics. This was his journeyman period, which led up to his celebrated 1950s work at E.C. Comics. Williamson had a penchant for working in collaboration with other artists, such as Roy G. Krenkel who often helped with his backgrounds, and sometimes Frank Frazetta. Unlike Wallace Wood, Al Williamson’s art style had a slight illustrative feel, with a great deal of subtle shading and naturalistic lighting effects. Somehow, despite the inferior printing in comic books, his work stood out, and Williamson would never have difficulty remaining employed in the industry for the rest of his life.

“Thin Ice” (New Heroic Comics #51) represented one of the first published comics stories by Al Williamson. TM and © respective copyright owner.

Joe Maneely

Joseph Maneely was born on February 18, 1926 and raised in Philadelphia. At the age of 16, Maneely enlisted in the U. S. Navy, but when his artistic talent were recognized, his three years of duty was served producing various forms of art and cartooning for the ship newspapers. After the war, he used the G. I. Bill to study art in Philadelphia, and following a stint working for the Philadelphia Bulletin, he entered the comic book field.

His first professional work appeared in 1948 in comics published by Street & Smith. He began by penciling and inking the crime story “The Ragged Stranger” in Top Secrets #4 (Aug. 1948), as well as “Death by the Sword” in Red Dragon #4 (Aug. 1948). From there, he churned out stories for other S&S features: “Butterfingers,” “Nick Carter,” “Public Defender,” and the humorous “Supersnipe,” among others. Maneely was fast, and that energy transferred to the action on the page. It was as if Maneely was a born comic book artist. By the decade’s end, he had formed a studio with artist Peggy Zangerie and a friend named George Ward, who

would become Walt Kelly’s assistant on Pogo. Maneely’s first published story for Martin Goodman’s line was “The Kansas Massacre of 1864” in Western Outlaws and Sheriffs #60 (Dec. 1949). From there, he became a star artist for the Goodman/Atlas comics of the 1950s as well as Stan Lee’s favorite among his freelancers during that decade.

Post World War II, comic book publishers were practically overrun by applicants seeking work, and there was tremendous competition amongst those applicants to secure assignments or even an apartment in New York, where the comics industry was centered. There was open resentment from veterans who felt they were aced out of jobs by someone who hadn’t served in the military. “There was very little housing and the jobs, they were all taken,” Joe Orlando recalled. “Wally Wood and I felt we’d been screwed. Every time we went for a job, some son of a bitch who hadn’t been in the army was there first. Our point of view was the jobs were all taken by 4-Fs. We had an anger against the 4-Fs for staying home and taking our jobs and marrying our women…we were all the same. We were all GI’s. We were all angry. We’d been screwed. Or we thought we had” (Duin 141). Still, talent would out. Some of the best who had their first

work in comic books published in the 1940s after the war included Dick Ayers, John Buscema, Dan DeCarlo, Will Elder, Ramona Fradon, Joe Giella, Stan Goldberg, Joe Orlando, John Severin, Curt Swan, and Doug Wildey.

Crime Comics Come on Strong

As impressive as the growth of Western comics was in 1948, it paled in comparison to the veritable boom of a different genre: crime. In 1947, only a handful of crime comic books were being published. One year later, the genre exploded to its peak when 38 crime comics hit the newsstands, representing 15 percent of all comic book titles published during the year. Truth be told, nearly every publisher was riding on the coattails of Lev Gleason’s Crime Does Not Pay, whose covers, starting with issue #58 (Dec. 1947), claimed “Over 6,000,000 Readers Monthly!” That, at least, was the claim. The reality is that Crime Does Not Pay’s paid circulation averaged 993,620 copies per issue in 1948, up from its already impressive average of 863,591 in 1947.

From that success, Crime Does Not Pay’s editors, Charles Biro and Bob Wood, then managed to convince the typically riskaverse Gleason to put a second

Charles Biro’s cover for Crime Does Not Pay #63. TM and © respective copyright owner.

An early page in Crime and Punishment #1 purported to feature letters from repentant criminals. TM and © respective copyright owner.

crime comic book in his lineup. Crime and Punishment (first issue cover dated April 1948) hit the ground running with a monthly schedule. The 52-page book was virtually identical to its “running mate,” although it had a different Crime Host. “Common Sense” was a ghostly police officer who pointed out the moral lessons of each lead story. As he explains to the reader in the second issue, “Yes, I’m a dead cop, but I’m alive to the menace of the criminal. Whether you call me ghost, spook, or spirit, it doesn’t matter, as long as you believe my stories! […] I know a million cases, and every one proves the futility of jealousy, greed, and hate— the ingredients of crime! I will reveal each terrible story before your astonished eyes! If everyone believes me, perhaps there will be no need for cops to die one day!” Crime and Punishment #1 reveals the origin of Common Sense. In the 17-page “Crimson Story of Vannie Higgins,” rookie cop John O’Shay is killed in the line of duty, but when he arrives at the gates of Heaven, O’Shay forgoes eternal bliss in order to return to Earth as a spectral patrolman, determined to convince the readers that “crime does not pay!” Preceding this story in Crime and Punishment #1 are two text pages. The first shows letters from readers who extol the virtues of Crime Does Not Pay (“Dear Sir—So many children in my school agree that ‘Crime Does Not Pay’ is the best comic there is! It helps keep children on the right track.”). The second text page reproduces letters from remorseful convicted criminals (“I’m serving five years for robbery and assault in the Texas prison. If I had read Crime Does Not Pay sooner, I would not be here today. Please print this if you can—it might keep some other boys out of prison.”). Whether any of the printed letters were genuinely written by readers, law-abiding or not, is a matter of debate. Regardless, Lev Gleason used the letters to counteract the incendiary anti-comics views of Dr. Wertham, Judith Crist, and the like. On June 10, 1948, Lev Gleason even debated Dr. Wertham live on WCBS radio, arguing not only the benefits of comic book reading but also that censorship was “un-American and un-democratic!” (Dakin 93). Soon after this debate, Gleason changed the cover banner of Crime Does Not Pay. Starting with issue #68 (Oct. 1948), the title no longer boasted “Over 6,000,000 Readers Monthly!” It now was “A Force For Good in the Community.” (The same banner appeared on Crime and Punishment, starting with issue #8, and Daredevil Comics, starting with issue #51 (both cover dated Nov. 1948).)

The cover to Daredevil Comics #51 also displays the term “Illustories” as a way to elevate its contents from being merely “comic book stories.” The term soon appeared on every Lev Gleason title, not only Crime Does Not Pay and Crime and Punishment, but Boy Comics and Desperado too. As Biro explained to readers, “[The illustory] now takes its place alongside the theatre, movies, radio and television. It is not unlike the dramatic arts; its contact is both visual and literary. The new visual journalism is as American as hot-dogs and chewing gum. It is a development of our times, the beginning of a trend” (Benton 41). Evidently, Biro’s “new visual journalism” was heavily laden with word balloons. Throughout its war years, Crime Does Not Pay had captions on its covers, but seldom word balloons. As a result, those covers relied on visual impact to attract the reader. But in 1946, balloons began appearing with

increasing frequency, and by 1948, there were routinely three or four balloons on every cover. If Biro and Wood were trying to convey a sense of the comic within, then they succeeded, because the guts of these issues are also extremely text heavy. It wouldn’t be until Al Feldstein’s stories for E.C. horror comics of the 1950s before Biro found a competitor for word count per panel.

One needn’t worry about such verbosity in a comic book published by Victor Fox. His derivative clone of Crime Does Not Pay, Murder Incorporated (first issue cover dated Jan. 1948) included the cover blurb “Living Proof That Crime Never Pays” (shortened to just “Crime Never Pays” with issue #3). Unsurprisingly, Murder Incorporated was as poorly written (and poorly drawn) as the rest of Fox’s line and included a gratuitous body count, gunplay with blood spurting across the victims’ bodies, and women in low-cut, revealing dresses.

Nearly equaling the violence of Fox’s books, the crime titles by newcomer D. S. Publishing were better drawn and produced, not only in comparison to Fox but to other fly-by-night firms who attempted to exploit this genre. D. S. Publishing was a one-man outfit, owned and edited

John Forte’s cover for Murder Incorporated #1.

by Richard Davis. It began publishing song sheets early in the decade before moving into the true crime genre with the magazine Select Detective in 1946. In late 1947, D. S. got into comic books, publishing one issue of Jeff Jordan, U.S. Agent and then launching a line of crime comic books which added significantly to the number of violent publications on the newsstands at the time. None of the D.S. titles managed to make it to double digits as far as the number of issues that were released and all were launched in early-to-mid 1948, including Exposed (nine issues), Gangsters Can’t Win (nine issues), Outlaws (nine issues), Pay-Off (five issues), Public Enemies (nine issues), Select Detective (three issues), Underworld (nine issues) and Whodunit (three issues). The D. S. books were among the better crime comics to be published this year, yet by the end of 1950, Richard Davis disbanded the company.

Murder, Morphine and Me

Misdated 1947 but on sale in March 1948, Magazine Village’s True Crime Comics #2 presented, arguably, the most infamous crime story to appear in a comic book: the luridly titled “Murder, Morphine and Me!” This 14-page story of drug addiction and murder was drawn (and likely written and edited) as if in a fever dream by Jack Cole, originator (and, at the time, still chief artist and writer) of Plastic Man. The notoriety of this story was not only due to

its shocking imagery but also because it was prominently referenced in Fredric Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent. The story’s “needle to the eye” panel became a touchstone for critics decrying the tasteless brutality of crime comics. To their point, “Murder, Morphine, and Me” wasn’t that much different than the crime stories being produced by other publishers.

Cole was only intensely involved with True Crime Comics for its first two issues (numbered #2 and #3), which both appeared in 1948. Issue #3 presented one of the most famous crime comics covers ever published. Again drawn by Cole, the cover shows a gang moll shooting around an informer who’s being blasted in the back in a gang-related shootout. The machine gun bullets killing the informer spell out the word “Rat” as they rip through his body and exit out through his blood-smeared white shirt.

True Crime Comics’ remaining four issues were edited by either Abner Sundell or John Guinta. A leftover cover by Cole appears on issue #5 and a reprinted story from issue #2 is included in the sixth and final issue (numbered as Vol. 2, #1).

Nearly all publishers had some sort of crime comic book. Even Dell Comics had its first crime comic of sorts, with the publication of Dick Tracy Monthly (first issue cover dated Jan. 1948).

Jack Cole’s vivid cover and splash page from True Crime Comics #2. TM and © respective copyright owner.

Simon & Kirby’s Prize Crime Tales

Over at Prize/Crestwood, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby continued to put out hard-hitting crime stories with their Justice Traps the Guilty and Headline Comics series. Both 52-page titles followed the Young Romance format: each issue beginning with a long Simon & Kirby story (between 11 and 15 pages), and then the remainder of the issue was illustrated by other artists, which included, again, Bill Draut, Jerry Robinson, and Mort Meskin.

Justice Traps the Guilty #2 (Jan. 1948), however, had two longer Simon & Kirby tales. The first, “Gun Moll!,” was, ironically, a compassionate and uplifting tale as one Cherry Romaine overhears a gangster trying to entice a young lady into joining him in his criminal activities. When the gangster leaves, Cherry dissuades the young woman from a life of crime, using her life story as an object lesson. Her reputation unfairly tarnished after her date was slain in a nightclub shooting, Cherry fell under the sway of a gangster who convinced her to use the tourist cabins she oversaw as a staging ground for robberies. The situation continued to escalate until Cherry was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. As Cherry finishes her story, her young listener vows to stay on the path of righteousness, declaring, “I’ll know what to tell that crook when I see him! I’m staying honest and free!” Watching the young lady leave, Cherry thinks, “Nice going, Cherry Romaine—your first day out of prison and you’ve straightened out another kid about to go wrong! Now for one more cup of coffee and a fresh start for yourself!”

The second issue’s other Simon & Kirby effort, the 12-page “True Life Story of Alvin Karpis,” documents the infamous real-life gangster, from his 1907 birth to his joining up with Ma Barker’s equally infamous gang through his arrest in 1936 by J. Edgar Hoover—the only time Hoover ever personally arrested a gangster. The story played fast and loose with dates and facts but was a crowd-pleaser nonetheless. Oddly enough, Kirby penciled the then-young Hoover in such a manner as to resemble what Kirby himself looked like in 1948.

Elsewhere in the issue, the uncredited “Murdering Bender Family” tells the tale of a family of serial killers who murdered a number of patrons at their Kansas inn circa 1871. The Bloody Benders’ mode of killing, accurately portrayed in the comics, was to seat their victim in front of a curtain that separated the dining area from the kitchen. Then either the father or brother would club the unsuspecting diner on the head. Once deceased, the victim was then dropped into the cellar via a trap door. As the story goes, the Benders’ downfall begins once enough of their victims have been reported missing. The Benders try to flee west but a deputized posse catches up to them, surrounds their wagon, and shoots them dead. The story ends with an editor’s note that declares, “There have been several versions on how the Benders met their end… but this is the story generally accepted as true by historians.” In reality, what ultimately happened to the Benders remains unknown.

Other highlights from Justice Traps the Guilty this year include the rest home crime drama “So Many Ways to Die,” illustrated by Bill Draut, from issue #3 (March-April 1948) and the Simon & Kirby tale “Queen of the Speed-Ball

John Severin

John Powers Severin was born on December 26, 1921 in Jersey City, New Jersey and raised on Long Island, New York. When Severin turned 13, his family moved to Brooklyn where he attended New York City’s High School of Music and Art. While there, Severin developed his obsession with getting the details of what he was drawing right, whether it was uniforms, weapons, riding gear, Conestoga wagons, biplanes, etc. Basically, he wanted to depict everything totally accurately.

He entered the Army Air Force in 1942, but during training, he was tested as color blind. This disqualified him as a pilot, so he was transferred over to the Airborne, where his unit saw service in the Pacific Theatre (Biga 39-40). Upon returning to civilian life in 1946, he used the G.I. Bill to finance art lessons at the School for Art Studies, which catered to former servicemen. His enrollment didn’t last long. In 1947, he dropped out of school to accept an offer to join the Charles William Harvey Studio (a.k.a. Charles Stern, Will Elder and Harvey Kurtzman). His first commercial artwork was design oriented, largely for use on candy boxes. His first printed work in comics appeared in the latter half of 1948, possibly starting with a cover for Martin Goodman’s Justice #5 (Sept. 1948) and “My Hobby…Murder!” in Lawbreakers Always Lose #3 (Aug. 1948). Also of note were Headline Comics #32 and “Grinning Hole in the Wall” in Prize/Crestwood’s Prize Comics Western #72 (Nov.-Dec. 1948).

From there, Severin became one of the industry’s most prolific artists. Arguably, his most celebrated work appeared in war titles published by E.C. Comics and Marvel Comics, but Severin was also made his mark in humor. He was one of the founding cartoonists for Harvey Kurtzman’s MAD, and his work also appeared in every issue of Cracked magazine from its launch in 1958 to 1985. In fact, only eight issues out of Cracked’s 365 issues don’t have Severin art in them.

Disliking superheroes, Severin did very little work with them, although he was an excellent inker on such titles as Sgt. Fury, The Incredible Hulk, and on his sister Marie’s pencils for Marvel Comics’ adaptations of Robert E. Howard’s pulp character Kull.

Severin’s career lasted over 60 years, ending mere months before he passed away in 2012 of prostate cancer. He was 90 years old.

Mob!” from issue #4 (May-June 1948), about a completely unrepentant female getaway driver. Issue #5 (July-Aug. 1948) features art by Jerry Robinson and Mort Meskin on “Murder Special Delivery” as well as S&K’s boxing-themed “Fight Fix,” an early example of an arrest caused by “bugging” the criminal’s room with a microphone. Justice Traps the Guilty #6’s “Capture of One-Eye” was distinguished by its unusual art pairing. Jack Kirby penciled and inked a part of the title page while Al Feldstein drew the rest of the story. Finally, issue #7 (Nov.-Dec. 1948) included comics’ take on the most famous grave-robbing case in history with “Burke and Hare, The True Story of an Unholy Partnership,” illustrated by R. Louis Golden.

Headline Comics also boasted some good tales in its six bimonthly issues dated 1948. The Simon & Kirby story “I Worked for the Fence!” from issue #28 (Feb.-March 1948) follows a pretty gal who is involved in crime and anxious to engage in murder. Fusing the hot Western and crime genres, Simon & Kirby’s “Bullet-Proof Bad Man” (HC #30: June-July 1948) recounts the story of corrupt lawman—and Devil lookalike—Jim Miller, whose concealed steel corset vest created the mystique that he couldn’t be killed. Acting on a petty grudge, Miller tackled one young cowboy, knifed him to death and, off-panel, scalped him! Headline Comics #31 (Aug.-Sept. 1948) presents an A.C. Hollingsworth-illustrated look at the real-life Cattle Annie and Little Breeches, “the Female Furies of the Old West.” Issue #32’s “Clue of the Horoscope” is considered the first comic story drawn by John Severin, his pencils inked by Will Elder (Vadeboncoeur 36).

Simon and Kirby’s cover and two interior pages from Justice Traps the Guilty #2. TM and © respective copyright owner.

The Birth of Horror Comics

With the declining interest in superheroes, comic book publishers were essentially throwing everything at the wall to see what “stuck” with readers, particularly with ex-G.I.s and adolescent girls. Crime, Western, and romance stories showed initial promise, but surprisingly, publishers seemed reluctant to embrace a different genre: horror. As previously mentioned, Sheldon Moldoff recognized the allure of the horror genre, and Avon Publications did release Eerie #1 in 1947. Their examples, though, were anomalous to the industry’s prevailing aversion to horror (and tellingly, Avon didn’t follow up Eerie #1 with a second issue). This aversion flew in the face of the popularity of such radio shows as Inner Sanctum which had been scaring audiences since the early 1940s. Given this, someone in the comic book business was bound to take the plunge and produce an on going horror comic book. Ironically, the first person who did was hardly optimistic about the future of comic books. He was the editor of the American Comics Group: Richard Hughes. In 1947, Hughes was so despondent that he wrote a friend, “I intend to keep you informed on the conditions in the comics field. Most of the comics today are losing propositions. The reason for it is the overflooding of the market with comic books. Only those [comics] survive [that] are tops. The rest, sooner or later, must fold” (Vance 23). Evidently, ACG’s publisher Ben Sangor must have felt his titles—which included a variety of funny animal and teen humor titles like Cookie, Giggle Comics, Ha Ha Comics, and Hi-Jinx—weren’t “tops” as in early 1948 he temporarily halted production on them, feeling simultaneously threatened by the country’s growing interest in television and satisfied that his backlog of material would keep his line on the newsstands for months if not years to come (Vance 23).

classical authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Horace Walpole and many others have done much to keep alive: the tradition of the “ghost” story… and to this day, tales of the mysterious unknown still grip our imaginations! This despite the fact that there are no such things as ghosts! There never were… there never will be! Yet, since stories of the supernatural will live forever, we invite you to enjoy the following “Adventures into the Unknown!”

The interior stories then run the gamut of horror offerings. The lead-off werewolf story was written by Frank Belknap Long (a respected science fiction and horror writer and early contributor to H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulu mythos) and drawn by Edvard Moritz (who also drew the issue’s cover).

The issue’s other stories involve ghosts, voodoo, cursed relics, a haunted house, and a seven-page adaptation of Horace Walpole’s 1764 gothic novel The Castle of Otranto (also written by Long with art by Al Ulmer).

Amid this turmoil and uncertainty, Hughes produced a completely different comic book for ACG: Adventures into the Unknown. The 52-page first issue (Fall 1948) begins with a message to its readers:

Superstition is ignorance. It’s a part of the dark ages from which man emerged centuries ago but great

While effectively frightening, all of the stories are presented in a fairly bloodless manner. The visuals—as provided by artists Moritz, Ulmer, Fred Guardineer, Max Elkan, and King Ward—are far less disturbing than what could be found in some of the crime comic books produced by other publishers.

Hughes (and presumably Sangor) must have felt ACG had a potential hit on its hands as Adventures into the Unknown

Ed Moritz drew the cover for the landmark Adventures Into the Unknown #1, whose logo was designed by Ed Hamilton. TM and © respective copyright owner.

was immediately upgraded from a quarterly to a bi-monthly. What Hughes and Sangor couldn’t have known was that Adventures into the Unknown would become ACG’s longest-running title (of any genre), ending in 1967 after 174 issues, and that it would inspire a slew of imitators. Indeed, the success of Adventures into the Unknown encouraged Bill Gaines to devote part of his E.C. Comics line to horror with series that would become some of the most famous (and most infamous) of the entire industry.

Meanwhile, St. John Publishing expanded from the handful of titles it had published in 1947 to 18 titles in 1948, spanning funny animals, crime, Westerns, kid humor, and licensed properties. Continuing the numbering from where Martin Goodman ended it in 1947, Mighty Mouse #5 (Spring 1948) resumed the comics adventures of the Terry-Toons superhero while movie comedians Abbott and Costello were adapted to comics for the first time. Effective with Abbott and Costello Comics #2 (April 1948), John Graham scripted the comic book and Lily Renée drew it.

St. John produced a plethora of comic strip characters in their own comics books in 1948, notably Abbie an’ Slats, Ella Cinders, Elmo, Gordo, Jane Arden, Jim Hardy, Little Annie Rooney, and Vic Flint. The titles that weren’t oneshots rarely reached third issues. The

notable exception was Gladys Parker’s sprightly Mopsy, which featured the misadventures of an independent young woman and represented one of the rare comics features written and drawn by a woman. Its first issue (Feb. 1948) reprinted both Sunday strips and daily panels with Parker herself writing original stories for the book. Compared to the sparse dialogue of the Sundays, Mopsy was a chatterbox in the new material and won enough fans to enjoy a 19-issue run through 1953.

Adding to St. John’s girl power was Little Audrey (first issue cover dated April 1948). Sporting three distinctive pigtails (each tied with a ribbon), the brown-haired youngster had been created for Paramount’s Famous Studio’s animation arm as a replacement for the Little Lulu property it had recently lost. Audrey premiered as a character in December 1947’s “Santa Surprise” and headlined her first short in July 1948’s “Butterscotch and Soda.” Little Audrey’s real success, though, proved to be as a comic book character, an existence that lasted a few decades longer than St. John itself once Harvey took over the license in 1952.

red-hot Steve Canyon (first issue cover dated Feb. 1948), reprinting its earliest installments from 1947.

Speaking of Harvey Comics, it published nine titles in 1948, with Black Cat the lone entry that wasn’t based on a newspaper strip. Buford Tune’s domestic comedy strip Dotty Dripple began a successful run at Harvey with issue #3 (Dec. 1948), continuing the numbering from Magazine Enterprises’ brief run in 1946. Also joining the fold was Milton Caniff’s

Finally, the popular Joe Palooka book earned an ongoing spin-off entitled Humphrey Comics (first issue cover dated Oct. 1948). Introduced in the Palooka comic strip on July 28, 1946, Humphrey Pennyworth was a genial smalltown blacksmith with untapped potential as a prizefighter. Supported by Joe and his manager Knobby Walsh, Humphrey virtually took over the feature’s Sunday strip for months and his origin was reprinted in Joe Palooka Comics #1517 prior to the spin-off’s premiere. Archie Comics continued to publish the same six titles it had during the previous year (Archie Comics, Pep Comics, Laugh Comics, Super Duck Comics, Suzie Comics, and Wilbur Comics) with Archie and the gang appearing in the first three. If there

Art Bartsch’s cover for Mighty Mouse Comics #5. TM and © CBS Operations, Inc.

Launched in 1937, Gladys Parker’s Mopsy newspaper feature died with its creator in 1966. TM and © respective copyright owner.

was any question that superheroes were out at the publisher, Pep #66 (March 1948) silenced those doubters. With that issue, the Shield G-Man Club was officially retired—the starspangled hero needed to focus on his FBI commitments—and “Archie Club News” was rolled out as its replacement. The reader-participation feature would endure for decades. (Pep #66 is also noteworthy for featuring the first Jughead solo story. Greater things were ahead for him, too.)

Among the year’s unique publications is The Story of Harry S. Truman As its title suggests, the 16-page comic book (published by the Democratic National Committee and offered free of charge) recounts President Truman’s life, from his childhood, through his military service during World War I, to the challenges he faced as the President of the United States. The comic book’s final panel declares, “This is the story of Harry S. Truman, a fighting President, and his program to build a better America. This is the story that every voter should… Remember In November!” On Tuesday, November 2, 1948, Truman won the Presidential election, despite poor polling (and the Chicago Daily Tribune declaring “Dewey Defeats Truman” as a banner headline).

And then there was Is This Tomorrow, published “as a public service” by the Catechetical Guild Educational Society. The 52-page comic book fear-

mongered the possibility of a communist America via a story in which the assassination of both the President and VicePresident leads to a communist takeover of the U.S. government, resulting in the deprivation of all Americans’ civil liberties. As comic book historian Ken Quattro explains, “this comic very effectively played upon every fear Americans had about the Soviets.” Is This Tomorrow was actually first published in 1947 but serialized in 1948 in three consecutive issues of The Catholic Digest after the comic book received greater scrutiny and commentary. For instance, the socialist newspaper The Daily Worker condemned it as an “inflammatory fascist booklet,” and Detroit Police Commissioner Harry S. Toy ordered copies to be seized. (Obviously, Toy didn’t read the issue – either carefully or at all – as he mistook it for communist propaganda rather than for what it really was: anti-communist propaganda.) The Catholic Digest serials

attribute the story’s script to F. Robert Edman and Francis McGrade. As far as artwork goes, Is This Tomorrow was clearly drawn by several, mostly unknown, artists. One of the artists who was known was famed Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz.

An Expanding Industry

Never before had so many comic books been published than in 1948, nor had there been as much variety in genres. The number of individual issues went from 1,612 in 1947 to 2,022 in 1948, representing an almost 20 percent increase. Fears that the medium would die on the vine after the end of World War II proved to be entirely unjustified, thanks primarily to the rise of new subject matter that catered to postwar tastes and demographics.

But many questions were being asked at the end of 1948. One of the most important was this: how long could the good times last?

TM and © respective copyright owner.

The Story of Harry S Truman was illustrated by M.W. Ater. TM and © respective copyright owner.

The first Jughead solo story, drawn by Bill Vigoda, ran in Pep Comics #66. TM and © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Al Capp’s defense of comic books continued on well past this August 8, 1948 Li’l Abner comic strip. In the February 6, 1949 Boston Globe, he took issue with “the irresponsible type of newspaper editor who uses headlines like ‘Comic Strip Addict Steals Church Funds’ [or] ‘Young Comic Strip Reader Murders Pal.’ The new fashion of labeling all juvenile delinquents as comic strip readers is as phony as if all kids who won

Sunday School prizes were labeled as comic strip readers, as if all kids who perform deeds of heroism were headlined as comic strip addicts. Practically all kids read comic books. To mention their reading of comic books only when kids are mentioned in some disgraceful connection is a shabby and shameful way of hopping on the anti-comic bandwagon.

Li’l Abner TM and © Capp Enterprises Inc.

The August 1, 1948 Abbie an’ Slats strip (by Al Capp and Raeburn Van Buren) and the January 16, 1949 installment of Little Orphan Annie (by Harold Gray) each weighed in on the anti-comics movement and drew complaints from readers. Capp’s August strips prompted a lengthy screed against comic books by future Pulitzer Prize winner John Ed Pearce in the August 25, 1949

Louisville Courier-Journal. “I have picked up the funnies expecting Li’l Abner, Abbie an’ Slats, et al., only to find propaganda for comics,” he began. “This has made me a little sore. On Sunday morning, I want Li’l Abner, not a goofy argument that comic books are better than Edgar Allan Poe.”

Abbie an’ Slats TM and © United Feature Syndicate, Inc. Little Orphan Annie TM and © Content Agency, LLC

1949

Love Conquers All, Even Superheroes

When Joe Simon and Jack Kirby created the first romance comic book—Young Romance in 1947, they had hit upon a gold vein that had as yet been untapped. Other publishers didn’t join the “romance comic book gold rush” for about six months, and even then, most seemed hesitant about doing so. This delay gave Simon and Kirby time to set up a studio—in space located at 1790 Broadway, Manhattan, where Crestwood had its editorial offices—and get production moving on other titles. This included a second Prize romance comic book: Young Love (first issue cover dated February-March 1949).

Young Love followed the modus operandi of its “older sister” publication with stories that sometimes dealt with more sophisticated subject matter than their soon-to-be competitors. One need look no further than the lead story in its first issue: “The Man I Loved Was a Woman Hater!” which starred an uncommonly independent-minded young woman who remained undaunted by the forceful rejection of a man who had saved her from drowning but then seemed to want nothing more to do with her. He was a painter who needed to concentrate on his work and had been burned in a prior relationship.

Then, by way of contrast, there was “The Plumber and Me!,” illustrated by Bill Draut (who illustrated all of the stories in this first issue, except for the lead tale by Simon & Kirby). “The Plumber and Me!” is a story of a girl who wants to be part of the bohemian art scene in the city, only to realize that the man with a prosaic occupation who proposes marriage to her offered balance in her life. “Now my life is complete,” she thinks, after marrying the plumber. “I have my home, and my baby and my husband… My art is just a hobby. I have learned no one can live in just half a world! But I would have gone on all my life, in an empty brittle, cynical circle, if my Pete hadn’t come along … and loved me enough to stick around and help me come to my senses!” This could be seen as just one more voice pushing women into the subordinate role of wife and mother, the likes of which ran rampant in the postwar media, but the idea of balance between two different worlds meant the story’s resolution was actually not quite so simple.

After the first issue, Young Love began running photo covers, as did Young Romance starting with its thirteenth

issue (Sept. 1949). It was a successful gambit, and probably saved Simon and Kirby some money, as the covers were bought out of a catalog of stock photography. And the money that the creative duo were making on their romance books was considerable. As Joe Simon claimed in an interview decades later, “Young Romance and Young Love are by far the most profitable ventures [that Jack and I worked on]! For over ten years, they sold two million copies a month, and with high percentage figures. Of course, everybody was copying them, but there’s something about the first titles.

If they’re pretty good, they’ll outlast all the others, and nobody seemed to approach them in sales. Young Romance and Young Love were the leading magazines in sales in Hawaii, for instance, leading Life magazine and everything else!” (Seuling 7). According to Simon, both he and Kirby were taking home $1,000 a week, which in the early twenty-first century would equate to an annual salary of $520,000.

At this point in time, Simon and Kirby were very close. They both bought houses in Mineola, New York, and lived just a block or two from each other. They commuted to the office together and practically raised their families together.

Why Romance?

At the beginning of 1949, there were exactly six romance comic books being published: Simon & Kirby’s Young Romance and Young Love from Prize/ Crestwood, Marvel’s Miss America Magazine and Young Romance knockoff My Romance (soon to be renamed My Own Romance with issue #4—March 1949), Fawcett’s monthly Sweethearts, and Fox’s sordid My Life.

Soon thereafter, the newsstands began filling up with love comics. By March, the number of romance titles had

Effective with issue #2, Young Love’s cover switched from Simon and Kirby line art to photos of glamourous models. Bill Draut drew “The Plumber and Me” for issue #1. TM and © respective copyright owner.

TIMELINE: 1949

daytime soap opera, These Are My Children, is broadcast live from the NBC station in Chicago.

April 4: Twelve nations—the United States, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Portugal— sign the North Atlantic Treaty which provides mutual defense against any attack. NATO has been formed.

February 7: New York Yankees centerfielder Joe DiMaggio signs a new contract that pays him $100,000 a year, becoming the first baseball player to earn a six-figure salary.

February 10: Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman opens on Broadway with Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman. The tragedy about a failed traveling salesman will win multiple Tony Awards, including Best Play, as well as a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

April 7: South Pacific, a musical composed by Richard Rodgers with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein, opens on Broadway. With its hit song “Some Enchanted Evening,” South Pacific becomes Rodgers and Hammerstein’s second longestrunning musical.

increased to 11. By April, to 16. By June, nine publishers were collectively producing 21 romance comic books. And by year’s end 118 romance titles (depending on one’s definition of romance), comprising 256 separate issues, were crowding the newsstands, released by a stunning 22 different publishers. By this point, the sales of romance comics accounted for 25% of all comic book sales.

Still, the question remains, “Why?” Why would comic book readers suddenly become so interested in romance stories

May 12: The Soviet Union ends its blockade of West Berlin.

June 8: George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is published in London. The political dystopia imagines a future world in which a totalitarian state suppresses independent thought and subjects all its citizens to constant surveillance.

May 23: The Federal Republic of Germany is formed from the three territories formerly occupied by the United States, Great Britain, and France. The country will become more commonly known as “West Germany.”

May 26: The Dynamic Duo return to the screen in The New Adventures of Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder movie serial as stars Robert Lowery and Johnny Duncan begin a 15-chapter battle with the Wizard.

May 27: Robert Ripley, the cartoonist who created the Ripley’s Believe It or Not newspaper feature, dies at the age of 58 of a heart attack.

June 24: The first episode of Hopalong Cassidy airs on the NBC network. Starring William Boyd, the program is the first television Western.

that it necessitated a glut of romance comic books? In her book Love on the Racks romance comics authority Michelle Nolan provided an answer: “If there is a rational answer, it’s that it was just time for love. Teenage American girls— for it was they who read the majority of romance comics— were ready for romance. No young miss could possibly avoid spotting love on the racks when it was that freely available. And more love begat even more love. There was money to be made in comic book romance, and nearly everyone who was anyone in the industry—with the

A compilation of the year’s notable comic book history events alongside some of the year’s most significant popular culture and historical events. (On sale dates are approximations.)

January 31: The debut episode of television’s first

retells his origin.

July 27: The de Havilland Comet, the world’s first jet engine-powered airliner, makes its first test flight, lasting 31 minutes.

August 29: The Soviet Union conducts its first atomic bomb test in Kazakhstan, becoming the second nation to own a nuclear weapon.

August 30: Nearly a year after Pogo makes its debut as a newspaper strip, Dell releases the first issue of Pogo with all new stories by its creator, Walt Kelly.

September 15: The Lone Ranger, starring Clayton Moore in the title role and Jay Silverheels as Tonto, debuts on the ABC television network. As ABC’s first successful program, The Lone Ranger will remain on the air until 1957.

September 21: After defeating Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces (which subsequently fled to the island of Taiwan), Chinese Communists, led by Mao Tse-Tung, establish the People’s Republic of China.

September 6: Twentyeight-year-old army veteran Howard Unruh shoots and kills 13 of his Camden, New Jersey neighbors during a morning walk. After his arrest, Unruh is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and is committed to an insane asylum where he remains for the rest of his life.

noteworthy exception of chaste Dell Publishing—plunged into the romance game” (43-44).

Marvel Romance

Prior to 1949, Martin Goodman was already publishing many titles calculated to appeal to teenage girls, but he didn’t jump into the actual “romance” field until My Romance #1 (Sept. 1948) with art by the usual Marvel Comics staff. Within several months, Marvel became the most prolific publisher of romance comic books with such

October 7: The Socialist Unity Party of Germany establishes the German Democratic Republic in the territory formerly occupied by the Soviet Union. Outside of Communist countries, the GDR will be referred to as “East Germany.”

titles as Love Romances, Lovers, Junior Miss, Love Tales, My Love, Best Love, Molly Manton’s Romances, Our Love, Actual Romances, among numerous others. Many of the romance titles directly replaced superhero comics. For instance, with issue #36 (May 1949), Human Torch was transformed into Love Tales. That same month, Blonde Phantom became Lovers. Sub-Mariner Comics lasted a few months longer before sinking into Best Love with issue #33 (Aug. 1949). Ideal, which had originally been billed as a “classical comic” (with such subject matters as Antony

July 1: Captain Marvel Adventures celebrates its 100th issue with a 33 page story by Otto Binder, C.C. Beck and Pete Costanza that not only pits the World’s Mightiest Mortal against his arch-enemy, Dr. Sivana, but also

October 27: The first Archie Annual goes on sale, kicking off a decades-long run.

November 25: Written by Johnny Marks and sung by Gene Autry, “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” appears on Billboard’s pop singles chart, eventually climbing to the top spot during Christmas week.

December 20: Clark Kent marries Lois Lane in the Superman newspaper strip. The nuptials last until February 1952 when the marriage is explained away as a dream.

August 8: Comic strip hero Alley Oop lands on the moon as cartoonist V.T. Hamlin accurately predicts that such a milestone will be televised live with limited commercial interruptions.

Archie TM and © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

and Cleopatra and Joan of Arc) became Love Romances with its sixth issue (May 1949) but not before a one-issue stint as Ideal Love and Romance.

What a contrast: In 1949, Simon and Kirby (at Prize/ Crestwood) put out four romance titles (having added Real West Romances and Western Love to their roster), while Marvel put out at least twenty-seven different romance comics that same year. The exact number is arguable because some titles straddled two genres, such as teenage girl humor/romance or Western/romance. Obviously, Martin Goodman liked what he saw in his sales reports to keep churning out more romance books.

Still, Marvel’s romance comics never equaled the kind of sales that were being generated by the company’s two big female stars of their working girl genre, Patsy Walker and Millie the Model, possibly because none of Marvel’s romance titles had recurring characters who were searching for love and with whom the young readers could identify. Patsy Walker was initially the bigger star of the two, with the cover of her 17th issue (July 1948) announcing “5,000,000 READERS!!!” (echoing Lev Gleason’s cover banner for Crime Does Not Pay). Millie the Model did well enough, but she shot to real stardom when Lee decided to move a young artist named Dan DeCarlo from his Jeanie stories over to Millie. DeCarlo would go

on to become one of the most important Marvel artists of the 1950s.

Dan DeCarlo was born in 1919 in New Rochelle, New York, and attended Manhattan’s Art Students League in the late 1930s and early 1940s before being drafted into the U.S. Army. Like many talented comics artists in the military, DeCarlo was tapped as a draftsman and painter, as well as drawing a weekly strip titled 418th Scandal Sheet. In Europe, he met his future wife, Josie, and was back in America looking to break into comics in 1947 when he answered an advertisement and landed a job at Marvel. As he later said, “The first book that they gave me was Jeanie, a young teenager […] They used to call me ‘The Jeanie Machine’ because that was all Stan used to give me was Jeanie, Jeanie, Jeanie. Then he took me off Jeanie and he gave me Millie the Model. That was a big break for me. It wasn’t doing too well and somehow when I got on, it became quite successful” (Carter). DeCarlo stayed on Millie the Model for 10 more years, starting with issue #17 (April 1949) and continuing to issue #94 (Jan. 1960). He would later switch over to Archie Publications and become even better known for his work on various Archie titles and for co-creating Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Josie and the Pussycats, and Cherry Blossom.

Even More Romance

After Marvel, the next company to jump into romance with both feet was Fox Comics, which was trying hard to make a go of it in the postwar marketplace. It began with My Life #4 (Sept. 1948), then Fox added My Story True Romances in Pictures #5 (May 1949) and a whole host of others in the second half of 1949, most with titles beginning with the word “My” (e.g., My Desire, My Love Affair, My Love Life, My Love Memoirs, My Love Secret, My Love Story, My Secret Affair, My True Love, et al.), apparently with the

Dan DeCarlo’s cover for Millie the Model #18. TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

My, My, My! …Experience #19, …Secret Story #27, and …Story: True Romances in Pictures #5. TM and © respective copyright owner.

goal of branding the Fox Comics line. A final count would approach 30 different titles, which were generally, like the publisher’s crime and western titles, the worst written and drawn on the stands. As at Marvel, many of the Fox romance titles replaced most of its remaining superhero, jungle adventure, teen humor and various Western and crime titles (the latter two created during the previous 1947-1948 genre booms). Fox obtained much of the work seen in the romance titles from the S. M. Iger Studio, but also from starving artists, like Wally Wood, who were willing to work for some of the lowest rates in the business.

Quality Comics jumped in with Heart Throbs #1 (Aug. 1949), both the best-titled and longest lasting of their romance titles. That first issue led off with a story titled “Spoiled Brat.” Like most of the romance stories from Quality Comics, the Bill Ward-illustrated effort is pretty much par for the course for the genre, in this case being girl meets boy, girl loses boy but then girl wins boy’s heart in the end. The actual plot involves a bored spoiled socialite named Mona, who takes a voyage to the Caribbean with her parents and her best friend. She is instantly infatuated with a new crewman, but she’s so used to getting her way that all of her attempts to make him interested in her are boorish and condescending, so the sailor man rejects her completely. When a hurricane hits, the crew and passengers believe they’ll have to take to the lifeboats but while preparing to do so, Mona’s would-be beau is injured. She stays with him to take care of him until the storm is over, and when the ship (which neither sank nor was abandoned) docks, they proclaim their love for each other, while mentioning that they’ll have to “live on a seaman’s pay.” (Somehow the fact that she has a rich daddy doesn’t make that prospect seem likely.)

Quality then added at least 11 more romance titles in rapid succession, including Love Confessions, Love Diary (changed with issue #2 to Diary Loves probably because Love Diary was already being published by Orbit), Flaming Love, Hollywood Diary, Hollywood Secrets, Love Letters, Range Romances, and Secret Loves, among others As might be expected from Quality, these titles were also generally

well-done. Like most romance titles, then and later, they relied heavily on a “happily-ever-after” endings, but that didn’t stop Quality from providing decent stories within that set-up, along with top-notch art.

Quality had quite a number of “girls in lingerie” scenes in these titles. Fittingly, then, Torchy, the ditsy lingerieclad girl-about-town who had been appearing regularly in Modern Comics and Doll Man, got her own short-lived quasi-romance/lingerie/fashion Quality title (first issue cover dated Nov. 1949).

Quality was the first publisher to venture into college-age romance with Campus Loves (first issue cover dated Dec. 1949). The first issue’s lead story, “Love’s Victory,” was silly fluff, graced with Bill Ward artwork. A young lady is allowed to enter the college her father attended, after the college drops its allmale status. Still, she notices her father seems rather sad about her attendance there. She soon learns her father was thrown out of his alma mater when he was attending the college after he was accused of committing arson on campus. It turns out the real culprit was his

Bill Ward’s cover and opening page for Heart Throbs #1. TM and © respective copyright owner.

Gill Fox drew the cover of Torchy #1, featuring the ditzy creation of Bill Ward. TM and © respective copyright owner.

daughter’s current boyfriend’s dad, setting up all kinds of complications for the young couple. Things turn out right for them when the boyfriend’s dad finally does the right thing and confesses to the decades-old crime.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, National Comics dabbled in romance by adding to its licensed A Date with Judy (introduced in 1947) such titles as Girls’ Love Stories and Secret Hearts, following the lead of other publishers by strictly using photo covers. There was nothing whatsoever edgy about National’s approach to romance. It was all about tear-stained love triangles and other variations of the most basic types of romance plots. But the work that appeared in them was generally superior. They were largely written (and soon edited) by Robert Kanigher, and the early issues had stories drawn by Alex Toth, Everett Raymond Kinstler and Carmine Infantino, among others.

The Western-themed Romance Trail was distinguished by a Toth-penciled lead feature called “Harmony Ranch.” Its proprietor was white-haired Molly Adams, a dead ringer for the newspaper strip’s Mary Worth and just as prone to inserting herself into the romantic quandaries of young people.

Starting with Sensation Comics #94 (Nov.-Dec. 1949), Infantino also penciled another new series called “Dr. Pat.” The title character was Patricia Windsor, and her profession was a surprising departure in an era when women were typical portrayed as nurses rather than doctors. Editor Robert Kanigher wrote the feature and the entirety of the issue, bumping Lady Danger, Streak the Wonder Dog and “Wonder Women of History” in favor of a cover-to-cover romance theme. Along with Dr. Pat, the new strips in the title were “Romance, Inc.” (with counselor Ann Martin) and the fact-based “Headline Heroines.”

Uncomfortably, the new look also impacted the book’s star. The cover for issue #94 showed Wonder Woman being carried across a stream by Steve Trevor, a scene that was as demeaning to the Amazon princess as it was absurd. The interior stories were in the same vein, emphasizing Steve’s desire to wed the heroine and expose her secret identity. Kanigher eventually scaled back such antics to a degree, but they never entirely went away on his watch.

Curiously, National seemed leery of having its romance titles identified with the company name, and, with the exception of Sensation Comics, its 1949 romance titles weren’t identified with the National/DC Comics bullet after the first issue.

Fawcett had produced its first romance title with Sweethearts #68 (dated October 1948), which must have sold well because they quickly added 10 more titles, two more of them monthly, including Cowboy Love, Exciting Romances, Life Story, Love Memories, Romantic Secrets, Romantic Story, Romantic Western, Sweetheart Diary, True Stories of Romance, and True Confidences, indicating a great confidence in this genre.

As if this major company involvement wasn’t enough, virtually every smaller publisher threw

A mid-1949 ad promoted Quality’s new romance line with the covers of Love Letters #1, Secret Loves #1, Hollywood Secrets #1, Heart Throbs #2, and Love Confessions #1. TM and © respective copyright owner.

Romance Trail #1 welcomed readers to Harmony Ranch. Art by Alex Toth and Frank Giacoia. TM and © DC Comics.

Theda and Emerson Hall’s photos for DC’s romance comics sometimes featured Hollywood bit players like Barbara Bates and Ray Montgomery for the cover of Secret Hearts #1. TM and © DC Comics.

their hats into the romance ring as well, including Harvey (First Love Illustrated, First Romance Magazine, True Love Problems and Advice Illustrated, Hi-School Romance, Love Lessons, Love Stories of Mary Worth, and Sweet Love), ACG (Romantic Adventures and Lovelorn), Ace (Real Love, Glorious Love, Western Love Trails, All Romances, Love at First Sight, Love Experiences, Real Life Secrets (changed mid-year to Real Secrets), and Revealing Romances), Avon (Complete Romance, Frontier Romances, and Romantic Love), Standard (Popular Romance and Thrilling Romance), Lev Gleason (Lovers’ Lane), Archie (Darling Romance and Darling Love), E.C. (Modern Love, A Moon, a Girl… Romance, and Saddle Romances), Charlton (Pictorial Love Stories), Hillman (Mr. Anthony’s Love Clinic and Romantic Confessions) and St. John (Teen-Age Romances, Teen-Age Diary Secrets, Pictorial Confessions, Hollywood Confessions, Adventures in Romance, and Romance and Confession Stories). Not to mention the tiny publishers who only managed a single title or two.

As 1949 drew to a close, one could see this “love glut” was simply unsustainable. Yes, there were plenty of girls out there with dimes to spend on comic books, but the problem was that with minor variations, all these comics looked nearly identical, especially with the widespread use of photo covers. Distinguishing oneself in this cluttered field proved a near impossible task. One of the companies that managed to do so was St. John Publishing.

The Dana Dutch Touch

Teen-Age Romances was St. John’s first romance comic book (and it would also become St. John’s longest running in the genre). The first issue (Jan. 1949) featured a cover by Matt Baker, whose well-known ability to draw women was perfect for romance comics. Two other artists of importance—Lily Renée and Ruth Atkinson—appeared in this initial landmark issue and St. John’s romance line as a whole was edited by Marion McDermott, then in her mid20s. Given these female contributors, one might presume that the St. John romance comics were more authentically written from the woman’s point of view. That might indeed have been the case if not for the fact that the lion’s share of the scripts were written by a man named Dana Dutch

Born in 1912, Dana Erskine Dutch had aspired to a career in journalism after graduating from Columbia University but wound up in comics instead. Following a stint in the Harry ‘A’ Chesler shop as writer and editor, he wound up at St. John Publishing. Once there, he put a much-needed progressive spin on the traditional romance story.

Most romance stories, even at this early stage, featured either “weepers”—stories in which the young woman cries a great deal because either she’s with the wrong guy, the right guy doesn’t understand her or she doesn’t understand him, or she’s got too many boyfriends and can’t make a decision—or the young lady becomes a star in either Hollywood or Broadway but rejects it all for the boy in her hometown. And in such stories the right boy or man is nearly always the more conventional of her choices—not the conflicted artist, not the brooding rebel, not the guy who may force her to think outside the box, but the most traditional option. The ending of many of these tales delivered the “woman-belongs-in-the-home” message that was pushed so relentlessly to young women in the postwar years (and subsequently perpetuated for decades afterwards).

Dutch’s stories were nothing like that as romance comics expert John Benson explains, “Strange as it may seem, since the readership was mainly girls, the heroines of other romance comics were likely to be dull, passive, and rather stupid. But Dutch’s protagonists were lively, active young women who, though often naïve and inexperienced, had character, a sense of self-worth, and a great deal of common sense. This is a core Dutch message: ‘You’ve got to learn by experience,’ as Mom says in “Was I Too Young for Love?” (Teen-Age Romances #1). When her high school daughter takes off after her boyfriend on an overnight trip without permission, Mom doesn’t worry much, because her daughter has a strong moral code, even if she is a teenager. Dana’s attitude was that the foolish or outrageous acts committed by youngsters are a normal part of growing up. But the most revolutionary part of this message is that it doesn’t matter if you’re never caught! It’s what you learn from the experience that counts” (7-8).

Dutch’s male characters were as complex as his female ones. Outside of the Simon & Kirby romance tales, men and boys in romance comic books were almost always handsome, stock characters. Dutch’s male characters,

Shifting its emphasis to romance with issue #94, Sensation Comics adopted a new logo and had Wonder Woman trade in her boots for sandals. TM and © DC Comics.

though, were not the stereotypical jock or go-getter. They tended not to be the “rich boy” or the one driving the best car. They, as well as the girl they were pursuing, demonstrated a depth of motivation and behavior that was unusual for romance characters. The male in a Dana Dutch story was always able to do more than simply get irritated with the girl or ignore her entirely in a romantic situation.

Some of the quality 1949 stories attributed to Dana Dutch include the Chuck Miller-illustrated “Loneliness Made Me a Pickup” from Blue Ribbon Comics #2 (a.k.a. Diary Secrets, April 1949), which revolves around a young lady who alienates other girls in her headlong ambition to have a long-term boyfriend, as well as the Matt Baker-penciled “I Set a Trap for a Wolf—But Snared Myself Instead!” from Blue Ribbon Comics #4 (a.k.a. Teen-Age Diary Secrets, June 1949).

Of the 16 new titles that St. John launched in 1949, most were not romance titles. Besides a new Western title (Western Bandit Trails), St. John also published some new licensed properties (Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, and Casper the Ghost). Timed to follow the release of the Friendly Ghost’s third theatrical cartoon in May 1949, Casper also presented a new character as its secondary feature. The giant duckling Baby Huey later starred in his first theatrical short in 1950. Following a spotty five-issue run, Casper (and Baby Huey) enjoyed far greater success when they moved to Harvey Comics in 1952.

St. John’s rapid expansion, recognizable licenses, and capable storytelling would suggest a company poised to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the biggest comic book publishers. Alas, that didn’t prove to be the case as John Benson explains, “Although [St. John] published about 100 titles [from 1947 to 1957], only 22 lasted more than

10 issues. Titles were often published irregularly, having hiatuses of months or even years [between issues]. The company expanded steadily until late 1949, when there was a reversal of fortune, probably caused by a general overexpansion of the market. The company did not recover for nearly two and one-half years” (107).

St. John and Joe Kubert

Having worked in the comic book industry for nearly 10 years, 22-year-old Joe Kubert was, without a doubt, a seasoned professional by 1949. His “Hawkman” assignment for National’s Flash Comics had been a superb training ground, and now that he had found his personal style, Kubert was ready to be more than just an artist. He had developed a wide range of industry contacts and colleagues whose talents were making them the hot newcomers in the field. With them in tow, Kubert was ready to test his creative muscles and exercise independence from the sheltered family life that had been his cocoon. He decided to approach St. John to see if the publisher would entertain an arrangement where he provided completed, fully packaged comic books. As Kubert said in an interview decades later, “It was just an opportunity to have a little bit more freedom with what it was I wanted to do, and to make a couple of extra bucks. And to give opportunities to guys who I would work with and let them have the same taste of freedom that I was having” (Schelly 87).

Kubert rented an apartment on Park Avenue in Manhattan to use as an art studio for himself and several industry colleagues, including best friend Norman Maurer, as well as John Giunta, John Belfi and Howie Post, whose work he hoped to use in the books that he would package for St. John and other publishers. Also sharing part of the studio at various times in 1949 and 1950 were Stan Drake, Carmine Infantino, Hy Rosen, and Alex Toth.

The Three Stooges #1 (Feb. 1949), drawn by Norman Maurer, was probably the first of the Kubert packages published by St. John. The only other documented Kubertpackaged books appearing in 1949 were Hollywood Confessions #1 and #2 (cover dated October and December,

A Matt Baker-penciled splash from Blue Ribbon Comics #4. TM and © respective copyright owner.

An excerpt from Baby Huey’s debut in Casper the Ghost #1. TM and © Classic Media LLC.

respectively). A third issue of that title was not published due to the glut and sudden cessation of much of the romance genre. The stories for that third issue were used in other titles over the next year or two.

Kubert’s initial deal with St. John was operational until early in 1950 at which point Kubert was drafted into the U.S. Army. In addition to his work for St. John, Kubert also continued drawing for National, moving from the canceled superhero serials to Westerns, with the most prominent of such being the cavalry saga “Foley of the Fighting 5th” for All-American Western.

Novelty Sale

In 1949, Curtis Publishing let it be known that the Novelty Press comics line was for sale. Because of the heavy criticism comics were receiving, Curtis didn’t want its popular magazines (which included Ladies’ Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post) tainted by association. (Ironically, Curtis’s own Ladies’ Home Journal was one of the first publications to attack comics.)

Reputation concerns aside, Novelty comics also weren’t doing especially well in the marketplace. Novelty/ Premium’s titles were a nondescript

lot: Four-Most, Blue Bolt, Dick Cole, Frisky Fables, Guns Against Gangsters, Humdinger, Target Comics, and Young King Cole. Sales were sluggish, and the line was dying on the vine.

By coincidence, two men who knew each other showed up at the Novelty Press office on the same day to bid on Premium’s assets. One was L.B. Cole. The other was Jerry Kramer, a New York University college professor who had written a popular book on tax law. What interested Cole and Kramer was the comic division’s inventory of completed stories. That inventory consisted of perhaps as many as 15,000 pages that had filled the 330 issues in Novelty’s decade in the business. Such a backlog, if it could be purchased for a bargain price, would be a tremendous boon to a small startup publishing enterprise with limited resources. Reprints of those stories could fill a lot of pages.

“My friend Jerry Kramer … was interested in entering the publishing field,” Cole recounted. “‘Len,’ Jerry said, ‘why should we bid against each other? Let’s buy it together.’ Curtis sold us its comic group, $150,000 worth of art, editorial, plates, and mats for $12,000. So, for six big ones I was in business, and that was the beginning of Star Publications” (Boatner A59). Along with the inventory came ownership of Blue Bolt and the other Premium creative properties.

Star Publications’ first office was at 286 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan. Cole and Kramer’s joint endeavor began by continuing most of the Premium/ Novelty titles: Blue Bolt Comics, Criminals on the Run, Dick Cole, FourMost Boys Comics, and Frisky Fables With issue #106 (Oct./Nov. 1949), Target Comics was renamed Target Western Romances in an attempt to capitalize on the explosion of interest in Western and romance comics. It lasted only two issues before becoming Flaming Western Romances for one issue, and then ceased publication. But a more traditional romance entry, True-To-Life Romances, began with issue #8 (Nov.-Dec. 1949), taking over the numbering from the canceled crime comic Guns Against Gangsters. This romance title lasted 23 issues and became Star’s longest-running title without a name change.

Three Stooges writer-artist Norm Maurer had a direct connection to the famous comedy trio: he was married to Moe Howard’s daughter, Joan. TM and © respective copyright owner.

L.B. Cole’s cover for the first issue of True-to-Life Romances TM and © respective copyright owner.

Archie at Decade’s End

The advent of romance comics didn’t diminish the popularity of teenage humor comics. Archie Comic Publications, despite the outsize success of its titles featuring Archie Andrews, had been a rather small company in terms of titles published for much of the latter half of the 1940s. The red-headed teenager anchored Archie Comics, Laugh, and Pep himself, with Super Duck, Suzie Comics, and Wilbur Comics filling out the balance of the publisher’s regular titles.

The core romantic triangle still positioned sweet blonde Betty Cooper as an underdog, viewed by Archie more as a sister than as a girlfriend. The scenario was often mined for comedy, as when Archie’s mom convinced her son to ask Betty out in “The Great Lover” (by Ray Gill and Bill Vigoda) from Archie Comics #36 (Jan.-Feb. 1949). Issue #39 found Betty hoping to snuggle with her red-headed crush when she invited him over to her house, cold from lack of coal.

Rivalry didn’t stop Betty and Veronica from co-starring in their own feature, but they lost their regular slots in both Laugh and Pep during the year after issues #34 (Aug. 1949) and #74 (July 1949), respectively. Their dual series would eventually return, though, first in an ongoing series that premiered in 1950.

In the short term, the rising star in the Riverdale pantheon was Jughead Jones. Archie’s pal already boasted a regular strip in Pep and moved in to claim slots in Archie Comics (with issue #40) and Laugh (with issue #75, in B&V’s old space) before the summer was over. A recurring bit in these early stories involved unlikely athlete Jughead being drafted into boxing (Archie #40), baseball (Laugh #35), wrestling (Pep #76), and track (Archie Annual #1).

Jug was also attracting stellar creators. George Frese, a major contributing artist to the publisher during the 1950s, made his debut on the Jughead tales in Archie #40 and Pep #75. Meanwhile, Samm Schwartz—who began working for Archie in 1948—drew his first Jughead story in Pep #76, signing its splash page by way of a movie poster that read “directed by Samm.” Schwartz, more than any other illustrator, virtually defined Jughead as his principal artist into the 1980s. He, along with Frese, were at the helm when Archie’s Pal, Jughead #1 went on sale in November 1949.

The Riverdale background characters continued to develop, drawing on Bob Montana’s Archie newspaper strip for inspiration. Science teacher Professor Flutesnoot made his debut in the April 22, 1949 daily, followed by visually similar characters named Beeker (Laugh #33) and Burns (Archie #41) in the comic books. The latter even used part of the Flutesnoot name on a mailing label. Meanwhile, class brain Dilton Doily—first seen in the Feb. 16, 1948 strip—had appeared as “Dilbert” in Archie #34 (Sept.-Oct. 1948) and “Dilbert Doiley” in late 1949’s Archie Annual #1. The Dilton name was finally used in Pep #78 (March 1950).

Less memorable was Hooky Hogan. A recurring truant in Montana’s strip since September 1946, he made his initial comic book appearance in Archie Comics #41. Further newspaper strip plots, albeit without new characters, were recycled for stories in Archie #40 and Laugh #35.

Far from Riverdale, Katy Keene creator Bill Woggon took his fashion model heroine to the West Coast in 1949. During a 1948 California vacation, the cartoonist had become so enchanted with Santa Barbara that he promptly moved himself and his family there. Beginning in Laugh #35, Katy and her sibling Sis followed suit. Invited to take a screen test in Hollywood, Katy jumped at the offer. Continuing through tales in Suzie #71-72, Wilbur #26-27, and Pep #76, the serial wrapped up in Laugh #36 with the Keene sisters and Katy’s boyfriend K.O. Kelly now permanent residents of California. Woggon invited readers to send fashion designs to a new Hollywood address.

The publisher hoped that girls would also rush to Darling Romance and Darling Love, its two new 52-page romance titles launched in the summer of 1949. Sporting photo

Excerpt from Archie #36’s “The Great Lover,” illustrated by Ray Gill and Bill Vigoda. TM and © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Jughead got punchy in this George Frese-illustrated panel from Archie #40 TM and © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

covers, the first two issues of the former featured models Kevin Daley and Louise Venier while the latter showcased Patricia Ann McElroy and Lola Lynn. Both magazines were published, not under the Archie imprint but as “A Darling Magazine.” (According to their indicia, both titles were published by “Close-Up” with the same mailing address that Archie Comic Publications provided.) This begs the question as to why so many comic book publishers, including National and Fawcett, hid their involvement in publishing their home-grown romance titles. National continued this practice for well into the 1960s.

Wonder Woman Carries On

Editor Robert Kanigher’s makeover of Sensation Comics as a virtual romance comic didn’t extend to Wonder Woman He did tacitly acknowledge that signature H.G. Peter’s art style was dated by removing him as cover artist. Arthur Peddy took over the Sensation covers effective with issue #94 while Irwin Hasen did the same on WW as of issue #39 (on sale in November 1949).

Julius Schwartz, Kanigher’s officemate, wrote the book’s “Wonder Women of History” feature with artist Paul Reinman. Schwartz, formerly an agent for numerous science fiction authors, theoretically may have instigated a script by H.L. Gold—future editor of Galaxy Science Fiction—that ran in WW #35 (“The Nine Lives Club”).

Two years after William Moulton Marston’s death, a script attributed to him finally ran in WW #36 (JulyAug. 1949). “The Girl Who Saved Paradise Island” details how the ancient Amazons

had rescued infant girls left for dead by the Spartans and relocated them to the planet Infanta, a world where they would mature but not physically change much beyond the toddler stage. One such child—Astra—became their queen. In a parallel development, Mars the God of War had relocated abandoned Spartan boys to the world and indoctrinated them as soldiers violently opposed to women. The tale culminated with a clash between Mars’ forces and the females of Paradise Island and Infanta.

Lee Goldsmith, far better known at this time for his comic book writing rather than his later acclaimed Broadway musicals work, provided “The Girl from Yesterday!” for issue #38 (Nov-Dec. 1949). The story followed a college student named Ursula Keating whose Aunt Abigail compelled her to adhere to the mores and fashionsof the 1890s. Abigail’s behavior was rooted in the day she was jilted on her wedding day by her fiancé, a man that Wonder Woman recognized as a notorious thief. Shaken from her fantasies of what might

Katy Keene showcased the latest reader fashions (as rendered by Bill Woggon) in these panels from Pep #77.

Irwin Hasen and Bernard Sachs’ cover for Wonder Woman #39 featured a more modern look for the heroine than the H.G. Peter art within. TM and © DC Comics..

have been, Abigail rejoined the world and freed her niece to do the same.

By the end of 1949, Wonder Woman was one of the few costumed heroines still appearing regularly. Merry, Girl of 1,000 Gimmicks said farewell with Star Spangled Comics #90 (March 1949) while Fox’s Phantom Lady lost her title after issue #23 (April 1949) when it became a romance comic. The cancellation of America’s Best Comics with issue #31 (July 1949) ended the career of Miss Masque. Marvel Mystery Comics #91 (April 1949) published the final appearances—for the time being—of Blonde Phantom, Namora, and Sun Girl. Joining them in limbo were Golden Girl (after Captain America Comics #73—July 1949), Fawcett’s Bulletgirl (with the discontinuation of Bulletman in Master Comics #106—Aug. 1949), and E.C.’s Moon Girl (following A Moon, A Girl…Romance #9— Sept.-Oct. 1949).

Mary Marvel—both in team and solo action—forged on in Fawcett’s Marvel Family. Black Canary now appeared only with the Justice Society in All-Star Comics. Along with Lady Luck, who took over the numbering of Smash Comics with issue #89 (Dec. 1949), Wonder Woman, Marvel’s Venus, and Harvey’s Black Cat were the only heroines with their own titles as 1950 neared.

Love and Kryptonite

Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye’s cover of Superman #57 (March-April 1949) teased another costumed heroine with what appeared to be Lois Lane in a Superwoman costume. In fact, the image extrapolated on the issue’s “Every Man a Superman” story, wherein a scientist’s experiment catapulted the Man of Steel precisely a millennium into the future. In the year 2949, as the title decreed, everyone had superpowers.

Those citizens included Lois 4XR, a lookalike for a certain girl reporter. In the ruins of Metropolis (said to have been destroyed by a comet in 1970), Superman found evidence suggesting that he and the 20th Century Lois had wed in 1949. That, in turn, convinced him that the 30th Century Lois was their descendant. Back in his own time period, the Metropolis Marvel soon found out he’d misread the report of the supposed nuptials.

Romance was still in the air in another Boring/Kayeillustrated tale in Superman #58. Acting on a doctor’s advice, Lois tried to break her obsession with the Man of Steel by starting a romance with Clark Kent. The relationship became serious enough that Clark cranked up their rivalry as reporters, fueling Lois’ fighting spirit enough to get her to call things off.

The Superman daily newspaper strip took a very different tack. In a story that began on September 5, 1949, Clark drifted off to sleep while on a date with a rather disinterested Lois. Shaken awake, he was stunned when she not only greeted him warmly but agreed to marry him. Among those distressed by the news was the evil Luthor, who feared that Lois would no longer have value as leverage against Superman if she was someone else’s wife.

Skeptics were given pause by this report in the October 24 issue of Time: “Writer Whit Ellsworth and artist Wayne Boring will marry [Clark Kent] off to his longtime sweetheart, Lois Lane. In the normal course of time (‘even Superman can’t hurry some things’) Lois will present him with a Superbaby. The new challenge: ‘Can Superman cope with modern man’s most intimate problem—namely, marriage?’”

Despite the indication up front that this was all a dream on Superman’s part, the wedding of Clark Kent and Lois Lane went off without a hitch on December 20. The publicity and additional papers picking up the strip likely made all involved see the value in prolonging the new direction. One can speculate that the news even motivated Chester Gould to finally move forward with the courtship of his own famous comic strip crimefighter. In the December 25 Dick Tracy Sunday strip, its star announced that he’d just married Tess Trueheart after an 18-year engagement! Along with Joe Palooka, who wed Ann Howe on June 28, that made three comic strip action heroes who were off the market by the end of ’49.

For all the mileage that National Comics got out of the stunt, the marriage was reflected in neither the comic books nor even the Sunday strip, which featured stories unconnected to the dailies. Ultimately, a February 1952 sequence had Clark belatedly awaken and discover that the previous 29 months had all been a dream.

Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye’s cover for Superman #57 was the latest tease of a Superwoman without going so far as to introduce an ongoing female counterpart. TM and © DC Comics.

Superman #61 (Nov.-Dec. 1949), on the other hand, had a massive, enduring impact on the series’ mythology.

“Superman’s Return to Krypton,” scripted by Bill Finger and drawn by Al Plastino, presented the tale of a con man named Dan Rivers who was swindling people as phony mystic Swami Riva. Rivers was as shocked as anyone when his power made Superman as weak as a kitten in his presence. The Man of Steel deduced that it was a crimson jewel in Swami Riva’s turban that was affecting him.

Tracing the origins of the stone to a meteorite, Superman historically used his power to follow it back in time to a planet called Krypton. Transformed into a phantom, the Man of Steel watching ghostly images play out, reading the lips of figures like the scientist Jor-El and witnessing the world’s ultimate destruction. (The hero evidently had an innate comprehension of the alien language.) Superman returned to Earth, stunned by the newfound knowledge that he was the last survivor of Krypton.

Fans of the Adventures of Superman radio show were familiar with kryptonite, which had figured into the occasional serial since 1943 as well as the 1948 movie serial. Despite an abortive 1940 script by Jerry Siegel about the deadly “K-Metal,” the radioactive specimen had never appeared in comics. Superman #61 rectified that oversight, and, despite its purported rarity, kryptonite soon became a go-to tool for villains to use against the

Metropolis Marvel. Variously rendered as red, white, and brown in early appearances, it was ultimately presented as green in 1951’s Action Comics #161, bringing it in line with the radio series’ original description.

Appropriately, Luthor was the first to leap on kryptonite’s potential, developing a synthetic version in Action #141 (Feb. 1950). In issues dated 1949, the evil scientist popped up in Action #131 as well as joined Toyman and the Prankster for a one-panel cameo in Superman #60. The latter also included a full Toyman story while the Prankster was featured in issues #56 and #61. Lightweight rogues remained in ascendence with other old favorites Mr. Mxyztplk and J. Wilbur Wolfingham starring in Superman #59 and World’s Finest Comics #43, respectively.

Humorous antagonists had their limits, though. An Oct. 10-Nov. 21, 1948 Sunday continuity had featured an annoying three-year-old girl genius named Smartypants as a foil for the Man of Steel. Timed to go on sale in the midst of the sequence, Superman #56 (dated Jan.-Feb. 1949, but on sale in early Nov. 1948) cover-featured Smartypants in the hope that the Alvin Schwartz/Wayne Boring creation would click with readers. She did not.

More notable was Superman #58’s “Case of the Second Superman,” whose plot involved an infant from Earth who was inadvertently rocketed to another planet and became a costumed hero as an adult. A detail in the story found Superman bringing his counterpart Regor to his

Al Plastino’s splash for the Man of Steel’s historic discovery of his Kryptonian origins (Superman #61). TM and © DC Comics.

Superman meets Regor in Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye’s Superman #56. The Earthborn alien hero returned for a surprise cameo in 2019’s The Green Lantern #9. TM and © DC Comics.

polar “Fortress of Solitude,” a name that was lifted from a 1938 Doc Savage pulp novel. Superman had periodically been shown to have a personal lair, but this specific name had never been used in comics…and wasn’t again until it was revived in 1958’s Action Comics #241. Similarly, the super-hard substance Supermanium—introduced in World’s Finest #41 (July-Aug. 1949)—wasn’t used again in any meaningful way until the early 1960s.

Four years after his debut, Superboy received his own 52page title in 1949, a companion to his monthly Adventure Comics feature and a title whose Supercachet made it the lone successful superhero launch of the year. John Sikela and Ed Dobrotka were the title’s principal penciler/inker team, grounding the series in the style of originator Joe Shuster.

The visuals for a story in issue #5, however, pointed toward the future with the addition of Curt Swan as a back-up penciler on the feature. A contributor to National properties such as the Newsboy Legion, Boy Commandos, and Tommy Tomorrow, Swan had drawn only a single Superman-related tale up to this point (1948’s Superman #51), but Superboy was where he began to make his mark. The naturalism and humanity of his art eventually made him one of the franchise’s definitive illustrators.

Only Superman appeared on Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye’s cover for Superboy #1 (March-April 1949), introducing the issue’s contents to a group of boys. Once readers got past the introductory story, with a presentday framing sequence built around flashbacks, the action shifted strictly to the past. At times, though, attentive readers may have wondered if they truly were reading tales that took place in the past.

A cover-featured contest in issue #4 invited kids to write about “Why I Like Superboy” and the winners—Doris Faris and Fred Leeds— joined the Boy of Steel in an adventure in issue #7 without any sign of time travel.

Superboy #5 (Nov.-Dec. 1949) presented the first heroine to call herself Supergirl. Strictly non-powered, she was otherwise known as Lucy, the queen of a tiny kingdom named Borgonia.

With an ongoing title added to the mix, the series was no longer able to dance around basic points of identification. The Boy of Steel’s hometown had largely been nameless or even—as in Superboy #1—identified as Metropolis, but issue #2 formally christened it Smallville. Located in the relative vicinity of Superman’s East Coast home, its landmarks and vistas changed with the demands of a given story, but one venue became a constant. Late 1949’s Superboy #6 introduced the Kent General Store, firmly establishing the workplace of Clark Kent’s adoptive parents for decades to come. The same month, Adventure Comics #149 declared Pa Kent’s first name to be Jonathan with Ma being identified as “Marthe”—later Martha—in Superboy #12 (Jan.-Feb. 1951).

The Adventures of Batman and Robin

Unlike the success being enjoyed by the Boy of Steel, his youthful counterpart Robin seemed to be struggling just a bit as the lead in Star-Spangled Comics. Starting with issue #88 (Jan. 1949), Batman was brought in as a prominent co-star on the covers—and interiors—to attract the kids who were bypassing the Boy Wonder on his own. Robin only had one cover

The familiar image of Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye’s Superman introduced kids to Superboy #1 while issue #2 established the Boy of Steel’s home as Smallville. TM and © DC Comics.

Jim Mooney’s cover for Star Spangled Comics #92. TM and © DC Comics.

without the Caped Crusader in 1949 (SSC #95) before losing the spot altogether to the Western-esque Tomahawk as of issue #96. The Boy Wonder remained an important calling card for the book, however, and a slug at the top of each subsequent issue touted his solo strip.

The cover of issue #92 (May 1949) depicted the Dynamic Duo bursting out of a movie screen while challenging readers to guess the identity of “Movie Hero No. 1.” The answer was Eddie Beaugard, a movie hero and role model whom Batman and Robin helped live up to his reputation. The real point of the cover, however, had been to promote Columbia Pictures’ imminent new movie serial.

Premiering on May 26, 1949, The New Adventures of Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder was a sequel to the 1943 chapter play with Robert Lowery and 25-year-old Johnny Duncan cast to play the title characters. A decade older than his predecessor Douglas Croft—who was just 16 when he played Robin—Duncan was required to wear tights that concealed his hairy legs.

The effects of the serial’s budgetary restrictions were evident throughout, from Batman’s awkward cowl to the vehicle he drove: a 1949 Mercury parked in the street in front of Bruce Wayne’s home. Supported by Jane Adams (as Vicki Vale) and Lyle Talbot (as Commissioner Gordon), the bargain basement Dynamic Duo fought a villain called the Wizard for 15 episodes. Played by Leonard Penn, the bad guy used a fairly generic ray (similar to the Reducer Ray in 1948’s Superman serial) to control machines such as cars.

Young readers could still count on Batman and Robin’s comic books to deliver top-flight entertainment in 1949. Perennial menace the Joker made four appearances during the year (Batman #52, #53, #55 and Detective Comics #149) while the

Penguin waddled through twice (Batman #51 and #56) and the Clock fought Robin for the fourth and final time (Star Spangled #97). Several other contenders for the Batman rogues’ gallery also emerged— the Pied Piper (Detective #143), the Thinker (Batman #52), Tiger Shark (Detective #147), Professor Zero (Detective #148), Mr. Napoleon (Star Spangled #94), Midas (Star Spangled #95), the Goblin (Detective #152), the Gong (Batman #55), and El Papagayo (Batman #56)— but none warranted return engagements.

Prominent among the series’ supporting cast was Professor Carter Nichols, who used his hypnotic technique twice in 1949 to send Batman and Robin on time travels to meet Vikings in 990 A.D. (Batman #52), and Marco Polo and Kublai Khan in 1275 A.D. (World’s Finest #42). Meanwhile, photographer/ snoop Vicki Vale figured into three adventures (Batman #52, #56 and Detective #152) and earned an invitation to Bruce Wayne’s birthday dinner in Star Spangled #91. The festivities in the latter were preceded by Robin challenging Batman to capture him as an inspired birthday gift.

A tentative attempt to give Robin a supporting cast member of his own took place in Star Spangled #96 with the introduction of boy inventor Horace. After a follow-up appearance (renamed “Harold”) in issue #105, though, he never appeared again.

Exits and Entrances

National’s other major youth-centric adventure series was fading fast. A massive hit from creators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby when it was launched during World War II, the Boy Commandos had struggled mightily to adapt to a postwar world. World’s Finest Comics #41 (July-Aug. 1949) and Detective Comics #150 (Aug. 1949) brought an end to the feature in those two titles, and Boy Commandos #35 (Sept.-Oct. 1949) saw feverish efforts to halt the spiral.

Movie poster for the 1949 Batman and Robin serial. TM and © DC Comics.

A Bob Kane/Lew Sayre Schwartz/Charles Paris splash from Batman #52. TTM and © DC Comics.

In writer France Herron and penciler Carmine Infantino’s lead story, the Commandos’ signature member Brooklyn was disfigured in a car accident, requiring him to have plastic surgery and relearn to speak. The handsome, well-spoken character who emerged had been drained of all his predecessor’s personality. Continuing the shakeup, Herron’s second tale in the issue (penciled by Gil Kane) found charter member Andre called away to France to take charge of his late uncle’s farm. His replacement was Percy Clearweather, who’d guest-starred in a few earlier issues.

A teen scientist, Percy quickly made a huge contribution to the team in issue #36 with his development of a flying car called the Atomobile. It not only traversed the globe quickly but even brought the team

to Mars! None of the changes were enough, though. Boy Commandos #36 (Nov.-Dec. 1949) was the final issue.

The Commandos’ departure from Detective Comics was followed two issues later by Slam Bradley’s exit in issue #152. A regular in the book since issue #1 in 1937, Slam had outlasted scores of better known National-DC characters to say nothing of his own creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. By 1949, though, his feature was moribund and something more contemporary was called for.

In Slam’s place was “Impossible—But True!” (Detective #153—Nov. 1949), the name of a popular TV series where Roy Raymond and his assistant Karen Duncan regularly investigated—and debunked—outlandish cases submitted by viewers. Ruben Moreira drew the pilot before Dan Barry took over the art with issue #154. Moreira returned with Detective #175, becoming the signature artist on the feature—later renamed “Roy Raymond, TV Detective”—through its final installment in issue #292 (June 1961).

The Commandos’ own replacement in Detective beginning in issue #151 (Sept. 1949)—was a direct reflection of the Western craze impacting comics. Although subordinate to headliner Batman, “Pow-Wow Smith, Indian Lawman” was deemed important enough to have his name featured at the top of every cover well into 1953. Created by writer Don Cameron and penciler Carmine Infantino, the character was actually named Ohiyesa— “The Winner” in his native Sioux—but he tolerated white men referring to him as “Pow-Wow.” Solving crimes in Red Deer Valley, the Native American hero eventually moved to Western Comics in 1954, becoming its cover feature but also relocating from the present-day to the 19th Century Old West.

The arrival of the Atomobile in Boy Commandos #36 signaled the end of the title. TM and © DC Comics.

The premieres of Roy Raymond and Pow-Wow Smith refreshed Detective Comics’ lineup for a new decade. Respective art by Ruben Moreira (DC #153) and Carmine Infantino (DC #151). TM and © DC Comics.

The 1949 incarnation of Western Comics was doing fine, well enough to warrant its Wyoming Kid headliner getting a secondary spot in World’s Finest. Filling the vacancy left by the Boy Commandos, he joined Superman, Batman, and Robin on the cover of his appearance there (WFC #42). The superheroes also traded on the popularity of Westerns in their own books via covers and stories for Action Comics #134, Star Spangled Comics #90, and Batman #56.

With Western, All-American Western, the new Romance Trail, and the licensed Dale Evans Comics all in place, Whitney Ellsworth made plans for another title. “He was going out to Hollywood to line up a cowboy star for a cowboy comic book,” Julius Schwartz recalled.

“He came back [and we said,] ‘Who’d ya get, who’d ya get?’

“‘Boys, I got us Jimmy Wakely!’

“‘Jimmy who?’”

Schwartz soon found out when Ellsworth assigned him to edit a comic book about the singing cowboy. “The one thing I had to do was get the best darn artist I could think of who was working for us to do the book. And he agreed to do it, and that was Alex Toth” (Witterstaetter 43).

Despite the fact that the real-life Wakely was transitioning from movies to a music career in 1949, the stories had him playing himself and getting into adventures on the sets of whatever film he was shooting. Supplementing Jimmy’s adventures in each issue was a Carmine Infantino-penciled feature. The red-haired “Kit Colby, Girl Sheriff” laid down the law in the Old West town of Moon Bow.

Along with his singing cowboy, Whitney Ellsworth also inked deals for two other celebrity-based comics. The Adventures of Alan Ladd followed the formula of Jimmy Wakely and had the popular 1940s screen actor essentially play himself, albeit in often much darker, more noir

adventures than those in the Western comic book. Ruben Moreira was the prominent artist on the title but Joe Certa, Dan Barry, Sy Barry, and Jack Sparling also contributed art for issue #1 (Oct.-Nov. 1949). The secondary feature in the book was “Untold Tales of Filmland,” narrated by fictional Hollywood reporter Kay Kildare. Nick Cardy drew the first installment.

The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet (first issue cover dated Oct.-Nov. 1949) appropriately went for laughs in its adaptation of the five-year-old radio show that moved to ABC shortly after the comic book premiered. Written by Cal Howard and drawn by Owen Fitzgerald, the comic featured Ozzie and Harriet Nelson with sons David and Ricky, all playing fictionalized versions of themselves as they did on radio. Family dog Nick also got the spotlight in short stories for each issue.

The cover of World’s Finest #42 was an artistic jam session featuring Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye (Superman), Howard Sherman (Wyoming Kid), and Win Mortimer (Batman and Robin). TM and © DC Comics.

Meet the Nelsons: Harriet, Ozzie, David, Ricky, and Nick the Dog. TM and © DC Comics.

The cover and Alex Toth/Joe Giella title page of Jimmy Wakely #1. TM and © DC Comics.

Continuing the celebrity experience was Miss Beverly Hills of Hollywood (first issue cover dated MarchApril 1949), a humor book about a budding actress, her kid sister Janie, and boyfriend Will Shire. As nice as Bob Oksner’s art was, the attraction that National was hoping for lay in its real-life celebrity guest-stars. Each issue, Beverly ran into the likes of Alan Ladd (#1) or Eve Arden (#2) while “The Road to Stardom” series presented comics biographies

of such luminaries as Wanda Hendrix (#1), William Holden (#2), Dorothy Lamour (#3), and Burt Lancaster (#4). Even Bob Hope met Beverly in issue #5, just three months before the first issue of his own longrunning comic book premiered (dated Feb.-Mar. 1950).

In the real world, Cleveland Indians co-owner Hope—in a team jersey— posed with Superman (alias Kirk Alyn) as part of the cross-country 1949 Movie Star World Series. The baseball games—meant to benefit California’s non-profit City of Hope Medical Center—included a stop at Chicago’s Wrigley Field on July 9, 1949, and an incident that Alyn would never forget.

Calling for a pinch hitter at one point, Garry Moore (of “To Tell the Truth”) announced the arrival of Superman to the field. The scenario called for Alyn to hit a rigged baseball that would self-destruct when it connected with the superhero’s bat. In trying to steer clear of converging newsreel cameramen, however, the mighty Superman struck out. Hysterical laughter from the stands shut down the game for five minutes while umpire William “Hopalong Cassidy” Boyd and the team managers made up a rule on the fly that would allow the Man of Steel to try again.

Meanwhile, Alyn later recounted, “I recalled Babe Ruth’s brilliant solution to a similar dilemma. He had a strike-out streak, and the fans

were howling with dismay at the latest. He had raised his arms dramatically in the direction of the bleachers, pointed to a spot far over the fence and beyond the horizon, then proceeded to knock the ball precisely where he pointed. Jeers immediately turned to cheers, so I decided to give it a try.

“Summoning all the dramatic effect of the Superman uniform, I followed the Babe’s famous gesture, and as the fans quieted to see what was going to happen next, the pitch came, I whacked the ball, and it shattered with a most satisfying splat. Up went the roar again, but this time there was a difference” (Alyn 26-27).

In the offices of National Comics, no one was laughing. “They claimed his image was being ruined,” Alyn declared. “With the help of studio officials, we finally got the whole thing straightened out, and the tour went on. But with no more strikeouts” (Alyn 28).

Several other real-life personalities had no qualms about National Comics ruining their image. Batman welcomed famed bandleader Kay Kyser in Detective Comics #144, the Boy Commandos teamed up with Dale Evans in issue #32 of their own title, and Superman met actress Ann Blyth in a tie-in to her recent film, “Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid” (Action Comics #130).

Bob Oksner’s art adorned the cover and interiors of Miss Beverly Hills #1 as well as this house ad for issue #4. TM and © DC Comics.

The “S” did not stand for Hope.

Miss Beverly Hills’ covers were soon peppered with black and white celebrity headshots. During 1949, Alan Ladd, Dale Evans, Gang Busters, Girls’ Love Stories, Jimmy Wakely, Ozzie & Harriet, Romance Trail, and Secret Hearts all deployed photo covers regularly, often using vivid color images provided by famed “photographers to the stars” Theda and Emerson Hall.

None of National’s 1948-1949 titles featuring real celebrities—regardless of how subjective the reality— lasted very long. The same fate befell the well-intentioned Real Fact Comics, which was canceled with issue #21 (July-Aug. 1949). “We got rave letters, and it engendered prestige,” editor Jack Schiff reflected, “but when it fell below an 80-percent sale of a 250,000-300,000 run, it was discontinued. In those days, most sales were phenomenal. By comparison, Real Fact was doing poorly” (Schiff A-66).

A month after that final edition, Schiff moved on to another passion project. A strong advocate for social justice, he had taken pride in the Johnny Everyman series he wrote a few years earlier for Comic Cavalcade and World’s Finest. Working on behalf of the National Social Welfare Assembly, he and artist John Daly produced an eight-page story in that vein for World’s Finest #39 (March-April 1949). It was soon reprinted as a standalone giveaway comic titled Make Way For Youth

With comic books under fire as an unsavory influence, DC’s executives saw content of that sort putting a good face forward for the industry. National Comics public relations man Vernon Pope reached out to the NSWA, ultimately leading to a partnership to produce monthly public service announcements featuring various DC characters

(Anderson). The initial page (“Superman On Safety First”) ran in National’s August 1949-dated issues and implored children to obey safety rules. In the second, Peter Porkchops teamed up with Smokey the Bear to talk about fire prevention.

The NSWA developed the initial topics and messages they wanted to convey before passing things on to Jack Schiff. “I wrote those at home the whole time they were run,” he recalled, “and they were drawn by various artists—Ruben Moreira, Sheldon Moldoff, Bernard Baily, Win Mortimer, and others. According to the Assembly, each of these pages reached an estimated readership of 40,000,000 children and adults through the 36 titles we published. They were reprinted by the thousands in 23 languages in 64 countries. This project was pretty costly for DC” (Schiff A-67). Schiff proved so crucial to the operation that he was virtually irreplaceable. When he retired in 1967, the PSAs ended with him.

Fading All Stars

By early 1949, many of National’s superheroes were marched to the chopping block. Flash Comics was canceled with issue #104 (Feb. 1949), ending the Golden Age solo stories of not only Jay Garrick’s Flash but also Hawkman, the Atom, Black Canary, and the Ghost Patrol. Green Lantern, who’d already been shoved off the covers of his self-titled comic by Streak the Wonder Dog, lost his solo venue altogether when it was canceled with Green Lantern #38 (May-June 1949). Wildcat was the next to fall, effective with Sensation Comics #91 (July 1949), his spot filled by leftover Streak adventures in the next three issues.

It should be noted that leftover unpublished stories of many of these characters had a “kill” stamp, dated Sept. 30, 1949, placed on all of their pages, indicating that National had no inclination in ever bringing these superheroes back (Thomas 4-16). Some of those stories would finally see print 20 years later. Those that didn’t were lost either partially or completely, chopped up in the 1960s on the orders of DC Comics editorial staff members. In 1949, it was clear that the superhero trend, which had been dominant since 1938, was over.

Those National superheroes, outside of headliners Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman and the related Superboy and Robin, who survived the purge didn’t do so because they were necessarily wellremembered or respected

Jack Schiff’s first DC PSAs were illustrated by Win Mortimer & Stan Kaye (Superman) and Otto Feuer (Peter Porkchops). TM and © DC Comics.

but rather by the fact that their particular titles weren’t canceled. Those secondary survivors at the end of 1949 included Congo Bill, Tommy Tomorrow, the Vigilante, and Zatara (in Action Comics); Aquaman, Green Arrow, and Johnny Quick (in Adventure Comics); and Robotman (in Detective Comics). Green Arrow and Zatara also held on tight to a secondary home in World’s Finest Comics.

The Justice Society of America gave refuge to a few of National’s superheroes whose individual strips had been canceled in late 1948-early 1949. Six bi-monthly All-Star Comics issues appeared during the year, all with a firm lineup that consisted of the Atom, Black Canary, Dr. MidNite, the Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman and Wonder Woman. The extended story length in each issue was 32 pages, with the exception of issue #44, which featured 33 pages of story and art. Irwin Hasen and Bob Oksner drew the cover for issue #45 (Feb.-Mar. 1949) while the team of Arthur Peddy and Bernard Sachs accounted for the cover art for issues #46-50.

John Broome wrote all the issues. The interior art for issues #45-48 was often by two artistic teams. Hasen and Oksner provided the introductory and exit chapters, while Peddy and Sachs produced a 10 or 12-page middle section, but that division of labor wasn’t absolute. For instance, the Peddy and Sachs team illustrated the entirety of issues #49 and #50.

Relocated to the previously unmentioned Civic City as of issue #45 (Feb.-March 1949), the JSA started out the year with back-to-back stories of ordinary crooks empowered by outside sources. In All-Star #45, the villains gained power from using weapons charged with the energy of nova stars, while the criminal gang in issue #46 could render themselves invisible.

However, the second story (“The Adventure of the Invisible Band!”) featured a unique (and entertaining) story wrapped around the events involving the Society and the Invisible Band. Mamie Campion, the Justice Society’s new cleaning lady, had stumbled upon some discarded notes left by Dr. Mid-Nite as to who the members of the Invisible Band may actually be. She gave the notes to her nephew Elmer Doolittle, a member of an amateur detective club. Elmer set out to find the crooks and, in the process, screwed up every effort of the JSA to take down the gang.

A Western/superhero mash-up took place in issue #47 (June-July 1949) when the Justice Society battled a criminal who claimed to be the original Billy the Kid, unaged from his 19th Century exploits and now leading a modern-day bandit gang.

All-Star #48 (Aug.-Sept. 1949) presented the best JSA story of the year. “The Strange Lives of Edmund Blake!” cleverly mixed the world of dreams and a bizarre form of timetravel. When an apparently dying and deeply depressed child named Edmund Blake mentioned that his heroes were the Justice Society, the team was invited to visit him, an occasion that echoed that of many modern-day sport figures and actors who made visits to dying children in an effort to make their last days special. While the visit perked up Edmund, he entered a coma soon afterward. Wonder Woman attempted to help him recover by using her Magic Sphere to allow the Justice Society to enter Edmund’s dreams where they could encourage him while in his coma to fight against his illness.

While in his dreams, the Society showed Edmund scenes of three future events, taking place in 1954, 1958 and 1960, where Edmund’s survival of the current crisis played a crucial role. In the future time dreams, he assisted various members of the Justice Society against villains and disastrous events. By the end of the third venture into the future, Edmund realized that he was seeing dreams. He awoke and used the Magic Sphere, which Wonder Woman had left

penciled by either Irwin Hasen or Arthur Peddy.

in his hospital room, to discover that the JSA was having some trouble with an emergency they had been called to. When the hospital staff ignored his pleas, Edmund fled the hospital and went to their aid against the X-Criminal Band. He was captured but his effort gave the JSA the time they needed to free themselves. Afterward, Edmund was made an Honorary Member of the JSA.

All-Star #49 (Oct.Nov. 1949) had probably the best Peddy/Sachs cover of the year, featuring the Flash and Wonder Woman jackhammering and chiseling a warning on a cliff face to the future inhabitants of Earth about the danger of periodic visits from the Fire People, who steal radium when the great orbit of the comet they live on returns to our solar system. It was another of Broome’s well-executed science fiction ideas.

All-Star #50 (Dec. 1949-Jan. 1950) has another interesting idea in “The Prophecy of Peril!” While attending his tenth college graduation anniversary in May 1949, Jay (Flash) Garrick discovered that one of his old classmates was the super-villain Mr. Alpha, employing the knowledge he gained in college to commit foolproof crimes a decade later.

Whatever the status of its costumed characters, National experienced, like nearly all comic book companies during the year, a notable increase in production. All told, National published 40 titles, eight more than the previous year’s record of 32, with 233 separate issues, an increase of 18 over the previous year.

Marvel Ends its Superhero Stories

At Marvel Comics, the postwar superhero downturn was precipitous. As previously explained, Sub-Mariner Comics was canceled with issue #32 (June 1949). Two months after losing his own title, the Human Torch was fully extinguished in Marvel Mystery Comics #92, the title reborn as a horror series called Marvel Tales with issue #93 (Aug. 1949). Captain America went the same route with issue #74 (Oct. 1949), its title changed to Captain America’s Weird Tales and carrying on without him for the final issue #75.

With National continuing to publish Superman and Batman, why did Martin Goodman give up the ghost on

superheroes? The answer is not complicated. More than any other publisher, Martin Goodman held no allegiance to any character or genre. His publishing philosophy was simply to recognize what was selling and copy it. Therefore, Goodman saw no value in keeping his superheroic triumvirate going when their sales drifted low enough. Why absorb losses just to keep them going? They were expendable, better swept out of the way to make room for three more romance comics!

Most of the superhero tales that Marvel published during the year resembled what the company had been publishing in the genre since the end of the war. Stories that were competently drawn with scripts that rarely ventured into anything more than stock situations. However, the last appearance of Captain America, in Captain America’s Weird Tales #74 (Oct. 1949), was a six-pager that actually was different.

The story reveals that the Red Skull apparently did die in the watery depths below the dam he’d fallen into back in Captain America Comics #61 (March 1947). Now residing in “the Lower Regions Beyond the Grave” (i.e., Hell), the Red Skull writes Captain America’s name into a “volume of the Dead,” which mystically pulls the hero into the lower regions. Upset that Cap hadn’t actually died, the “Master Judge of the Lower Depths” (essentially a stand-in for

Martin Nodell’s chilling covers for Marvel Tales #93 and Captain America’s Weird Tales #74 TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Satan) decides to lock the two archenemies into combat. If Cap wins, he will have earned the right to return to the land of the living. If he loses, he’ll “never see the light of the mortal world again” (as the Red Skull tells him). Wielding the Grim Reaper’s scythe, the Red Skull attacks, but Cap counters by knocking him into the flaming pits of Hell, ending the conflict. Cap is subsequently released from the lower regions where he awakens in a lounge chair, assuming the battle was just a dream. In the story’s final panel, though, Cap looks at his hand to see a torn piece of the Red Skull’s clothes. And with that, Captain America’s Golden Age adventures came to an end.

As far as where Goodman wanted to take his publishing endeavors next, he opted against adding licensed characters to his lineup. Having been through that with Terrytoons, Goodman apparently believed that he could make as much money putting forth his own knock-off copies of wellknown characters, where he would have the right to make any sort of changes that he wished, without interference from the copyright holders. Standard licensing agreements between the copyright holder and the comic book company impose controls on the publisher, requiring them to work “on model” with the original characters and remain true to the spirit of the comic strips or films they are based on. This was not the kind of restriction that Goodman seemed willing to accept at the time.

Instead, he chose to copy other companies’ winners. In order to make Archie knockoff Georgie closer to the mark, he instructed Stan Lee to have his artists put Archie-like crosshatching on the back of Georgie’s head. Rather than licensing the newly available Blondie comic strip, Goodman told Lee to make a concerted attempt to convert his Rusty character into an imitation of Blondie. Rusty had been given her own title with issue #12 (April 1947), taking over the numbering of Kid Movie Komics, and received a big push by the company, when she was also utilized as a backup feature in a raft of titles in 1947 and 1948, including Gay Comics, Joker Comics, Lana, Margie Comics, Millie the Model, Nellie the Nurse, Oscar Comics, and Tessie the Typist. The character had been a feature in the general mold of Blondie, with the fetching red-headed

Rusty married to Dagwood-like Johnny, where the two had two kids, including a daughter named Little Aspirin. Now Goodman wanted the look of the feature, especially Rusty herself, to be recast as a red-headed Blondie lookalike. The title went on hiatus for six months to give Lee time to retool it. But who should draw it?

At this time, Harvey Kurtzman’s “Hey Look!” filler feature was winding down at Marvel. One of the last segments, which appeared in Lana #2 (Oct. 1948), showed Kurtzman’s ability to emulate the styles of other cartoonists, in this case Will Eisner, Chester Gould, Al Capp and Chic Young. Kurtzman needed work, so Lee gave him a chance at the new Rusty assignment. Reluctantly, Kurtzman took it (Schelly 125). While Al Jaffee drew the lead story for Rusty #20 (May 1949), the first issue of the reboot, a five-page back-up story in the same issue, “Her Peaceful Night Out,” was apparently the first Rusty story drawn by Kurtzman. With Rusty #21, Kurtzman became the series’ lead artist.

Kurtzman did several Rusty stories—reportedly about 60 pages in total—although only a few of them have been identified as his, and those that have been are actually in a style that was more Kurtzman than Chic Young, the Blondie artist whose style Kurtzman was supposed to mimic. This angered Goodman to such an extent that he marched into Lee’s office, handed him the latest Rusty comic book, and exclaimed, “That’s not Blondie and Dagwood!” Kurtzman was promptly fired. The artist later recalled, “That was the lowest period of my life, not because of Stan, but because of the Martin Goodman mentality. Goodman treated artists like chairs and tables. I mean, you were just a piece of equipment” (Schelly 127). Following the firing, Kurtzman became desperate for work. He had no way of knowing that his fortunes were about to change, and he would soon embark on one of the most fertile periods of his entire career. But his summer in 1949 pounding the New York City pavement was hell.

Shortly after Kurtzman was fired, big changes came to the way Martin Goodman operated his comic book company. Through the end of the 1940s, Stan Lee had presided over an in-house bullpen of salaried artists that was so big that several of them often had no work to do. To keep everyone occupied, Lee would assign staff writers and artists stories that would just be deposited into an inventory closet for future use. In truth, much of the material wasn’t of the

This page from Rusty #20 demonstrates the blatant mimicry of Chic Young’s “Blondie” feature, right down to the living room furniture. TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

best quality, but Lee didn’t have the heart not to pay the artists for it. Sometime in late 1949, though, Goodman discovered the closet full of unpublished pages, thousands of dollars’ worth of material collecting dust (Howe 28).

The idea of paying the staff to produce pages that may never be published outraged Goodman. He subsequently read Lee the riot act, told him to lay off nearly all of the in-house bullpen, and just publish the inventoried stories rather than produce new material. For the remainder of the year, a dejected Lee called artists, one by one, into his office to inform them they were fired. By early 1950, hardly anyone (except Lee) remained employed (Howe 28).

This change in Goodman’s operation would eventually cause a drop in the number of Marvel issues published in 1950. It was short-lived though as the following year Goodman produced even more issues than before. Most of the former staff artists and writers eventually received regular assignments from Lee as freelancers. However, Goodman found the wholesale firing of staff to be an easy way to temporarily cut costs and would resort to that move several more times in the next decade.

Fawcett’s Jackie Robinson Story

Fawcett Publications’ Captain Marvel Adventures was still one of the bestselling comic books in the business, although it had dropped from an average of nearly 1.3 million copies an issue in 1945 to 820,000 copies per issue in 1947. In 1949, the average would tumble even further to about 580,000 copies per issue, a 44% drop in circulation in four years, and the title was no longer Fawcett’s top book. That position was taken by Hopalong Cassidy, which sold about 800,000 copies per issue in 1949.

Yet despite the drop in sales (and the overall cooling of the superhero genre), Fawcett showed continued confidence in the Marvel Family heroes. The Marvel Family was the second-best superhero seller for the publisher, averaging sales of 354,000 copies per issue that year. Then came

Captain Marvel, Jr. which was selling 280,000 copies per issue, Whiz Comics, the one that started it all, was at 272,000 per issue, and Master Comics was at 224,000. The latter’s Bulletman series ended with issue #106 (Aug. 1949), leaving Whiz’s Ibis the Invincible as the lone nonMarvel Family superhero still being published by Fawcett.

Amidst these sobering developments, Captain Marvel Adventures celebrated its 100th issue in July. (It wasn’t the norm in the 1940s for publishers to shower accolades on a comic book reaching its 100th issue, making Fawcett’s decision to do so unique for its time.) “The Plot Against the Universe” was a four-part, 33-page extravaganza, written by Otto Binder and illustrated by C.C. Beck and Pete Constanza, which not only featured Captain Marvel and his arch-foe Dr. Sivana, but also retold Captain Marvel’s origin, and guest-starred the always welcome Tawky Tawny. Sivana’s latest scheme had him going directly after the Wizard Shazam with Captain Marvel stuck in the middle.

Along with 11 ongoing romance comics, the publisher expanded its lineup of licensed cowboys with the debuts of Rocky Lane Western #1 (June 1949) and Lash Larue Western #1 (Summer 1949). Fawcett’s most remarkable licensed comic book, however, was Jackie Robinson #1, on sale in September 1949. Two years earlier, Robinson had become the first African American to play Major League Baseball and his prowess quickly made him a beloved

Fawcett’s flesh-and-blood heroes, as seen on the covers of Rocky Lane Western #1, Lash Larue Western #1, and Jackie Robinson #1. TM and © respective copyright holders.

celebrity. Securing lawyer Martin Stone as his agent, the Brooklyn Dodger soon wound up with a comic book deal. Stone also represented Gabby Hayes, so it was logical to approach the same publisher who produced the Western funnyman’s comic. Timed to go on sale around the same time as the 1949 World Series (between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees), the four-color biography was illustrated by Clem Weisbecker and John Jordan and scripted by baseball writer Charles Dexter. The racial struggles that Robinson faced were toned down for the comic book, but the basics of his story came across.

Sales on the one-shot were strong enough to compel Fawcett to produce other books that featured famous African American athletes. Fawcett would release them in 1950 and would include Don Newcombe, Joe Louis, Larry Doby, and Roy Campanella (along with the ongoing Negro Romance). All told, Fawcett published six issues of Jackie Robinson between 1949 and 1952.

Rise of the Ghost Rider

Dick Ayers, who was one of the first students at Burne Hogarth’s Cartoonists and Illustrators School, had entered comics as an assistant for Joe Shuster on Magazine Enterprises’ Funnyman #2 (March 1948) and graduated by the end of that year to doing full pencils and inks on the licensed Jimmy Durante Comics. It was in 1949 though that he made his mark when he was assigned to other Westerns published by Magazine Enterprises, first in Cowboys and Indians #23 (July 1949) and more importantly in the licensed Tim Holt #7 (July 1949). That’s where Ayers began drawing the “Calico Kid” feature, whose title character was a timid, bespectacled peddler who doffed his glasses to fight injustice as a dynamic— if unnamed hero. Introduced in issue #6, the feature was generally undistinguished and a prime candidate for a makeover.

That makeover came in Tim Holt #11 (Nov. 1949), when the evil Bart Lasher captured the Kid and recognized him as federal marshal Rex Fury. Tossing Fury and his Chinese sidekick SingSong into a whirlpool, Lasher presumed they were dead. Imagine his surprise a few weeks later when the glowing specter of Rex Fury, astride a white horse, came riding toward him. The terrified Lasher wound up impaled on a broken wagon wheel, never learning that Fury was still flesh and blood. He had used his neardeath experience to start a new life as the Ghost Rider.

Publisher Vin Sullivan and writer Raymond Krank took their inspiration from a massive hit song of 1949. Originally written and recorded by Stan Jones, “Riders in the Sky (A Cowboy Legend)” was taken to number one by Vaughn Monroe by summer amidst other versions by the likes of Burl Ives, Peggy Lee, and Bing Crosby.

As designed by Dick Ayers, the Ghost Rider wore a full white face mask that matched the color of his hat, cape, clothes and boots. He rode a white horse named Spectre and both the horse and his costume were covered with phosphorus so that they glowed in the dark. The cape was phosphorescent on one side and black on the other. The black side was used to cover his hands or his body, so he could appear to bad men as just a glowing head or a pair of glowing hands. Even his guns glowed in the dark. Along with his twin six-shooters, the Ghost Rider also used a black lariat or a black bullwhip, both of which were impossible to see in the dark, so that it often appeared that he could snatch weapons or items from his prey without being near them. While his human foes did tend to be pretty ruthless men, the Ghost Rider also fought werewolves, vampires and other denizens of the darkness.

With his second appearance of 1949, the Ghost Rider gained Gardner Fox as his writer and his dark, and occasionally quite terrifying adventures, would continue, in both other titles and in his own comic, until 1955.

The Spirit in 1949

The Ghost Rider’s origin recalled, in some ways, the birth of Will Eisner’s Spirit nearly a decade earlier. By 1949, the feature was at a creative peak courtesy of Eisner’s team, and it boasted an estimated weekly audience of 5,000,000 readers. The Spirit’s continuing original appearances were assured, and Eisner made the most of the title’s popularity. This was when Eisner took the “grabber” splash pages of each Spirit section to heights that demonstrated a freewheeling creativity rarely found in comics, either in newspaper strips or comic books.

Eisner’s work in 1949 began with a mini-shocker as, in a fit of jealousy, the Spirit proposes to Ellen Dolan (Jan. 2, 1949). The proposal doesn’t stick but just the thought that Eisner considered it was intriguing.

The Spirit’s sidekick, Ebony White, had some good humor tales centered around him early in the year, beginning with “The Explorer” (Jan. 16, 1949). Sickened with the Spirit and Ellen’s romantic

escapades of the previous couple of weeks, Ebony takes off for the peace and quiet of the North Pole, where he encounters a pretty young Eskimo girl who gives him a few lessons in romance as well. Ebony had a second good story with “The Big Sneeze Caper” (Feb. 6, 1949) which parodies the detective stories that Ebony saw in the movies and heard on the radio and contrasts them with his own detective experiences with the Spirit, in a case involving a baby kidnapped from Ebony while he was babysitting.

The femme fatales kept coming as well—some old friends and enemies of the Spirit, others brand new. Among the latter was Thorne Strand, distinguished by the single black streak running through her white hair. She made her debut in a two-part tale beginning with “Thorne Strand and the Spirit” (Jan. 23, 1949) and followed by “A Slow Ship to Shanghai” (Jan. 30, 1949). Thorne was a bit different from the Spirit’s usual female adversaries. While she was certainly attractive, she was not as drop-dead gorgeous as most of the dangerous ladies that the Spirit found himself in opposition to.

A somewhat more conventionallooking femme fatale, albeit more cosmic in nature, surfaced in “The Visitor” (Feb. 13, 1949). Miss Cosmek a bank teller, is missing and presumed dead in an explosion during a bank robbery. While investigating the case, the Spirit notices some odd coincidences between Miss Cosmek and her next-door neighbor, Mr. Nimbus. As it turns out, both Cosmek and Nimbus are agents from the planet Mars, sent to Earth as spies for an upcoming invasion. With her cover blown, Cosmek professes she likes Earth far more than Mars. In an effort to eliminate Mr. Nimbus, she is badly injured, and her subsequent confession is considered to be from a woman completely out of her mind. The story ends with Nimbus, having eliminated the weak link that Miss Cosmek had become, flying out the window of his apartment, via jet pack, to the waiting emptiness of space.

Silk Satin also returned in perhaps the best and most tragic story she would appear in during the Spirit’s original run. “Satin” (June 12, 1949)

has Satin married since her last appearance in the series to Kurt Van Breck, an international importer. She’d left her life as a secret agent and moved with him to the Caribbean island of Puerto Que. Kurt, though, has been accused of murdering a British diplomat, prompting Satin to seek the Spirit’s help in proving her husband didn’t commit the crime. Actually, Satin isn’t entirely sure of Kurt’s innocence, but he had been a good father to Hildie, Satin’s daughter, so she doesn’t want the only real father her daughter had ever known to be convicted as a murderer.

Kurt’s first appearance in the story has him canoodling with another woman, an incident that Hildie witnesses, so the reader knows from the word go that he is a cad. Both Satin and Hildie try to spare the other from their knowledge of Kurt’s true nature in an O. Henrytype storyline. A hurricane arrives and Hildie gets caught outside in the midst of it. In a moment of decency Kurt races to save the girl, convincing the Spirit that he really loves both Hildie and Satin. The three find Hildie stranded at the bottom of a cliff, about to be engulfed by the hurricaneinduced rising tide. Kurt saves Hildie’s life at the cost of his own. The ending displays a beautiful dynamic formed between the Spirit, Satin and Hildie—three people whose love for each other is deep but whose fates will never align.

A multi-part drama began with the July 10th story, “Lilly Lotus,” when the Spirit, discontented with his life and possibly more affected by the recent events of “Satin” than one might think, leaves Central City to wander the tropics for the next month. Dolan and Ebony personally attempt to find him but are unsuccessful. Ellen hires a private investigator to locate him with similar results. Meanwhile, legends of a masked man roaming through the islands begin to circulate. “The Ball Game” (July 31, 1949) revolves around a baseball team for whom Sammy is the manager, even though he’s just a kid. After this story, Sammy joins the

Spirit’s island adventures until “The Return” (Aug. 14, 1949) when the Spirit, with Sammy in tow, returns to his home in Central City.

Sammy was intended to replace Ebony White, as criticism of the latter character’s visual appearance had been causing Eisner qualms since his return from the service in 1945. Eisner didn’t consider redesigning Ebony’s appearance a viable option since, by 1949, the character had been around for nine years. This was a shame, as the new, white sidekick Sammy proved to be not nearly as interesting as Ebony, even when placed into the same types of stories that the latter had once starred in. Ironically, Eisner’s desire to eliminate the perceived insulting appearance of Ebony resulted in a thoroughly interesting black character being “whitewashed” into a good but notas-interesting white character. Going forward, Sammy became a regular part of the Spirit’s family, while Ebony would only make rare appearances until the Spirit’s last adventure of the original run in 1952.

Despite the fact that the Spirit makes only a brief—yet pivotal—cameo in the tale, “Ten Minutes” (Sept. 11, 1949) is not only one of the best Spirit stories ever, but one of the best comic stories ever. Local boy Freddy feels trapped and stifled by his life in a Central City neighborhood that is slowly going to seed. As Freddy leaves his tenement home, the narrator explains that the 10 minutes it will take to read the story are also the last ten minutes of

Freddy’s life. Written by Eisner and Jules Feiffer and fully illustrated by Eisner, the story follows Freddy to the local candy store. A pocket watch appears in the first panel on pages two through seven, showing the passing of the 10 minutes. All kinds of business take place in the edges around Freddy’s last minutes. On the first page, a little girl plays a bouncing ball game while she recites a rhyme that proceeds through the entire alphabet. On another page, boys gleefully digest (without buying) the latest “true horror romances” on sale in the candy store. Max, the overweight owner of the store, sweats profusely as he conducts his business in the late summer heat.

As the shop empties out for a couple of minutes, Freddy takes the opportunity to rob Max, a man he has known all his life and when Max resists, Freddy murders him. As customers continue to come in the shop, Freddy is forced to take over for Max, whose corpse is lying hidden behind the counter. A pretty girl offers to wipe a spot off Freddy’s face (unaware that it’s blood). She sees Max’s corpse and screams, prompting Freddy to go on the run. Seven minutes have elapsed since the story began.

In mere moments, Freddy’s identity as Max’s killer is known to the neighborhood locals, who immediately join the search for him. Freddy takes refuge in a local bar until the initial crowd looking for him has passed him by. He races past his home, where the little girl has only gotten to the letter R in her alphabet game. On page six, Dolan and the Spirit make their first appearance in the story. As minutes eight and nine pass, the pair race to

The October 9, 1949 Spirit Section featured one of Will Eisner’s most famous portraits of the title character. TM and © Will Eisner Studios Inc.

the scene of the murder, after asking directions from an extremely nervous Freddy. Surmising that this nervous man is his suspect, the Spirit follows him into the subway. A desperate Freddy belts him with the pistol he used to murder Max, then in his panic to get away, gets his fingers caught in the closing doors of a departing subway train and is fatally pulled into a subway pillar. Total time elapsed: 10 minutes. As the Spirit and Dolan leave the subway, they pass a woman and her late-for-his-date boyfriend, who responds to her complaints, “Ten minutes late…what’s ten minutes in a man’s life?”

“Ten Minutes” has become one of the most reprinted Spirit stories, recognized for both its compelling concept and its incisive storytelling. Perhaps because “Ten Minutes” is regarded as one of the best Spirit stories, its writers Eisner and Jules Feiffer disagreed as to its authorial roots. It bears noting that in 1949 Feiffer’s contributions to Spirit dramatically increased. In 1948, Feiffer had only cowritten three stories with Eisner, but this year he co-wrote a total of 26, half of the yearly output, and wrote another 20 on his own. (In addition, Feiffer’s one-page humor strip “Clifford” completed the now eight-page Sunday Spirit Section.) With regards to “Ten Minutes,” Feiffer said, “That [story] was mine. That was simply an autobiographical fantasy based on my Bronx upbringing” (Feiffer 22). Eisner, though, disagreed, contending, “The philosophy [of the story] is essentially mine, as differentiated from Feiffer. Feiffer […] doesn’t think in terms of that kind of philosophical concept, like the ten minutes in a man’s life. You look at the body of my work, you’ll see I always

seem to build on that theme” (Thompson). Regardless of who came up with its idea, the story is an example of the heights the collaboration between two such enormous talents could achieve. Along with 1948’s “The Story of Gerhard Shnobble,” “Ten Minutes” demonstrates the high quality of the stories that Eisner and his team were producing in the postwar period.

That high quality continued with “Fox at Bay” (Oct. 23, 1949), a prophetic sniper-as-mass-murderer tale, published decades before such events became sadly common. Reynard, based on the ancient children’s story “Reynard the Fox,” begins murdering innocent civilians in order to chronicle what happens when a “perfectly sane man” suddenly becomes a mass murderer. Reynard completely fails to realize that he is definitely not a “perfectly sane man” at all. The Spirit attempts to bring him down but is wounded in the legs by submachine gun bullets when an enraged police officer disobeys orders and fires at Reynard. Even wounded, the Spirit nearly manages to put Reynard out of business, but it is Dolan who finally kills the madman and saves the Spirit. As a result of being wounded in this episode, the Spirit is on crutches for over a month, until the Dec. 4, 1949 Spirit Section

During the interim, Ellen and Silk Satin (in her second appearance of 1949) try to keep the Spirit’s legs from being amputated due to his wounds (in “Surgery”—Nov. 13, 1949). The recovering Spirit then goes after “The Embezzler,” a Feiffer-written and Eisner-illustrated tale, which concerns an accountant who employs a man named Quadrant J. Stet, who is slowly going blind and must have

Wounded in an earlier adventure, the Spirit spent several subsequent episodes on crutches as in this page from November 13, 1949. TM and © Will Eisner Studios Inc.

Eisner referenced the recent spate of comic book burnings on this page from Feb. 27, 1949. TM and © Will Eisner Studios Inc.

an operation quickly to save his eyesight. When Stet discovers that he is being blamed for the crimes of his employer, he confronts the man. The ensuing cat-and-mouse game in the dark is a tour-de-force for Eisner’s special effects and use of blacks.

In another one of Eisner’s (or in this case, possibly Feiffer’s) Dickensian appellations, Stet’s first name is the same term used for a quarter of a circle, which is how diminished the character’s eyesight became. His last name is publishing slang for “Let it stand,” a term that tied in with the Spirit’s final generous gesture for the unfortunate Mr. Stet.

The year’s satire quota was wellmet by the likes of “The Deadly Comic Book” (Feb. 27, 1949) where a timid music teacher is slowly being driven insane by a comic book he rescues from an anti-comic book bonfire burning. Both death and taxes are mocked in “Death, Taxes and ... the Spirit” (March 13, 1949).

“Lovely Looie” (April 10, 1949) targets the silly, overwrought drama of professional wrestling while the excellent “Young Dr. Ebony” (May 29, 1949) lampoons radio soap operas. “Lurid Love” (Sept. 18, 1949) spoofs the rapidly vanishing romance pulps and overwhelming onslaught on the newsstands of the romance comics that were derived from them. “Elect Miss Rhinemaiden of 1950!” (Oct. 30, 1949) jabs at beer advertising, wrapped around the annual Halloween tale featuring Hazel P. Macbeth.

Other good stories include “Foul Play” (March 27, 1949), the exotic, and extremely sandy and sweaty, tale of “Hamid Jebru” (May 8, 1949), the excellent and tense “Black Alley” (June 5, 1949), and the clever take on the children’s book-style of “The Spirit’s Reader: The Story of Rat-Tat the Toy Machine Gun” (Sept. 4, 1949).

“The Return of Vino Red” (Sept. 25, 1949) is a solo Eisner effort based somewhat on the circumstances surrounding the deportation of mobster Lucky Luciano from the U.S. to Sicily in 1946 and his attempted return to the U.S. in 1947.

Elsewhere, Eisner offered two titles for his own short-lived comic book publishing venture, Will Eisner Productions. (Both titles were cover branded “A Will Eisner Publication.”)

Kewpies #1 (Spring 1949), a comic book adaptation of the popular dolls created in 1909 by Rose O’Neill, was written by J. L. Kaye and illustrated by Lee J. Ames. Besides the two Kewpies tales in that first and only issue, which were accompanied by a two-page Kewpie land map, there were also three back-up strips: a twopage “Clifford” tale by Jules Feiffer, a six-page “Pito” story by Andre LeBlanc and a five-page “Scootles’ Story Book” effort.

Baseball Comics #1 (Spring 1949) was primarily an Eisner-illustrated sports comic, with possible assistance from Tex Blaisdell. It featured a pair of stories starring ball player Rube Rooky and a baseball short by Jules Feiffer and Jerry Grandinetti.

Sales were apparently dismal, and two flops were enough for Eisner. He jettisoned plans to follow up those titles, cancelling the entirely completed first issue of John Law, Detective. Its seven-page lead story “Sand Blue” was expanded into a twopart Spirit story published on January 8 and 15, 1950, its title character renamed Sand Saref. In that form, the story of the doomed romance between the Spirit and his childhood sweetheart became a favorite of fans.

A second lost John Law adventure (“Rat Gutt”) was recycled with a character called Ratt Trapp for the January 29 Spirit Section. Other repurposed tales—“The Half-Dead Mr. Lox” and shorts meant for Baseball Comics #2 and Kewpies #2—ran on February 19, May 7, and May 28, 1950, respectively. Decades later, comic book historian cat yronwode discovered the original John Law pages in Eisner’s files, leading to the eventual disclosure of their complex history as part of Eclipse Comics’ belated publication of John Law, Detective #1 in 1983.

Back in 1949, though, Eisner started an entirely new comics-based company named American Visuals, that would focus on commercial and educational ventures. It wasn’t until the onset of the Korean War in 1950 that that company finally got some traction, however.

Rose O’Neill’s Kewpies cartoons first appeared in the December 1909 Ladies’ Home Journal. TM and © Will Eisner Studios Inc.

A story intended for the unpublished Baseball Comics #2 was later repurposed for the May 28, 1950 Spirit Section. TM and © Will Eisner Studios Inc.

Dell Comics Are Good Comics

Like nearly all the major comic book publishers in 1949, Dell had a pretty good year. True, they were the only major company not to jump on the romance wagon, but, in the end, that didn’t hurt them (and may have proved to be a wise move given the glut in romance books).

Although Dell only published one more title than it had the year before (Pogo Possum), it released 30 more issues in 1949 than in the previous year. That number can be attributed to Four Color, which added enough issues with new characters (new to Dell, at least) to look as robust as it had in 1947, before spinning off a dozen or more features to their own titles.

Four Color’s Disney issues this year were exceptional, starting off with a solo effort featuring Brer Rabbit in issue #208 (Jan. 1949). Mickey Mouse appeared in issue #214 (Feb. 1949), which reprinted an early story from Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #1 (Oct. 1940), along with a couple of one-page fillers, then Mickey showed up a couple more times, with original stories in issue #231 (June 1949) with “Mickey Mouse and the Rajah’s Treasure” (the best of the three good mouse issues) and issue #248 (Oct. 1949) with “Mickey Mouse and the Black Sorcerer.” At this time Mickey was still an adventurer with a great deal of pluck, before he, like Goofy, settled into a suburban father figure, both in the comics and in the films. Carl Barks continued to produce wonders with Four Color’s 32-page Donald Duck stories. “Lost in the Andes” (FC #223—April 1949) was Donald’s best story of the year as he finds that seeming Incan blocks are actually square eggs. He and his nephews travel to South America and discover a lost Incan civilization that speaks with a decided Southern accent and whose square-bodied chickens are the ones laying the square eggs! This story has since been reprinted well over 70 times worldwide.

Some months later, “Voodoo Hoodoo” (FC #238—Aug. 1949) finds a zombie finishing a 70-year mission to deliver a voodoo doll and curse to Uncle Scrooge. Failing to take his target’s aging into account, the creature misidentifies Scrooge’s nephew as the recipient and curses Donald instead. With Bombie the Zombie and his nephews by his side, Donald travels to Africa to ask the equally ancient witch doctor there to negate the curse, which will shrink its victim to the size of a rat. As expected, hilarity ensues.

Finally, there was “Luck of the North” (FC #256—Dec. 1949). Tricking the annoying Gladstone Gander into taking a potentially lethal trip to Alaska, a guilt-ridden Donald goes after him with Huey, Dewey, and Louie in tow.

The Three Little Pigs, along with the Big Bad Wolf had a solo issue with Four Color #218 (March 1949) while Thumper starred in issue #247 (Sept. 1949). The Seven Dwarfs teamed up with an old Donald Duck buddy, Yellow Beak the parrot, to search for pirates’ gold in Four Color #227 (May 1949). The Wicked Witch and Snow White made an appearance as well. Dumbo got an issue to himself, devoted to fantasy motifs, with

Cover artists on Disney editions of Four Color included Dick Moores (Brer Rabbit: FC #208), Tony Strobl (Three Little Pigs: FC #213), Carl Barks (Donald Duck: FC #256, #238), Bill Wright (Mickey Mouse: FC #231, 248), and Carl Buettner (Dumbo: FC #234 and Pinocchio: FC #252). TM and © Disney Enterprises Inc.

Four Color #234 (July 1949). Four Color #252 (Nov. 1949), on the other hand, presented yet another adaptation of the 1940 film Pinocchio, this time with art attributed to Tony Pabian.

Dell also ramped up the licensing of comic strips from the newspaper syndicates, featuring either reprinted stories from the strips or original stories based on the syndicated newspaper dailies. This year’s crop featured the likes of Harold Teen (FC #209), Tippie and Cap Stubbs (FC #210, #242), Doctor Bobbs (FC #212), Tillie the Toiler (FC #213, #237), Uncle Wiggily (FC #221), Little Iodine (FC #224, #257), Smokey Stover (FC #229), Tiny Tim (FC #235), Dick’s Adventures (FC #245), Flash Gordon (FC #247), and Hubert (FC #251). Popeye tot Swee’pea starred in an issue (FC #219) shorty after Sparkle Plenty, whose 1947 birth in Dick Tracy was excerpted and combined with a 1948 sequence (FC #215).

Warner Brothers’ Bugs Bunny received three issues (FC #217, 233, 250) as did Porky Pig (FC #226, 241, 260). The Walter Lantz characters all made appearances in the book, with Andy Panda getting three issues (FC #216, 240, 258) to Woody Woodpecker’s two (FC #232, 249) and Oswald the Rabbit’s one (FC #225). Meanwhile, Walt Kelly delivered a quartet of charming issues: Easter With Mother Goose (FC #220), The Brownies (FC #244), Christmas with Mother Goose (FC #253), and Santa Claus Funnies (FC #254).

There were five Zane Grey Western stories adapted this year into comic form for Four Color: issues #222, 230, 236, 246, and 255. The motion picture character Little Beaver, from the Red Ryder films and comics, got a oneissue showcase (in FC #211) while issue #228’s “The Mark of Zorro” was the first of seven Four Colors to adapt the novels of Johnston McCulley.

Four Color #239’s completely original “Adventure Bound” was Gaylord DuBois and Bill Ely’s variation on Treasure Island, with the pirate Redbeard kidnapping Paul Clark, his stowaway eight-year-old brother Nat, and Maria Rosaria, all passengers on the Boston Belle. Unusually, the story is told in Hal Foster-style panel form.

The big news for the Disney characters was the 132-page Walt Disney’s Christmas Parade, priced at 25 cents and released in October 1949 The highlight of the mammoth issue was Carl Barks’ 24-page “Letter to Santa,” which featured Donald and Uncle Scrooge in a battle royale over gifting Huey, Dewey and Louie. Realizing on Christmas Eve that he’d never mailed the boys’ letter to Santa, Donald begs Scrooge for the cash to buy the steam shovel they requested. Uncle and nephew engage in a fabulous money bagbashing battle that is worth the price of the comic on its own. After finally giving Donald the money, Uncle Scrooge is appalled to realize that Santa will get the credit, something the old duck can’t abide.

A trio of Walter Lantz issues of Four Color with pencils by Dick Hall on Andy Panda (FC #258) and art by Dan Gormley on the others (FC #225, #249). TM and © Walter Lantz Productions, Inc.

Walt Kelly and Carl Buettner drew the wraparound cover— partially seen here—for Walt Disney’s Christmas Parade #1. TM and © Disney Enterprises Inc.

Hostilities—and considerable property damage—resume as the ducks fight one another with full-size steam shovels that they ultimately destroy. Their efforts to dress up as Saint Nick and apologize to the boys go similarly awry. All is saved at the last minute when Santa himself arrives with the proper toy steam shovels that Huey, Dewey, and Louie actually want. It’s worth noting that during the story, Scrooge estimates his fortune in 1949 as 11 octillion (a 1 followed by 27 zeroes) dollars.

Further Christmas stories starred the Seven Dwarfs, Bambi and Thumper, and a short prose version of Sterling North’s So Dear to My Heart (a hybrid live-action/animated Disney film from late 1948), as well as nonseasonal stories with the Flying Mouse, Pluto, Mickey Mouse and Goofy, Cinderella (a short illustrated prose preview version of the 1950 film), Dumbo, Cookie Land, and the Li’l Bad Wolf. Various puzzles, Christmas Hints, and Christmas history segments were interspersed throughout.

This fat issue launched a Christmas tradition for Dell, carried on in

later decades as an annual event at Gold Key and Gladstone. In 1950, Dell expanded the festivities with Bugs Bunny Christmas Funnies spotlighting the Warner Bros. characters.

Dell also produced two giveaway comics— Donald and Mickey’s Merry Christmas and Adventures of MGM’s Lassie, premiums for, respectively, Firestone Tires and Red Heart Dog Food.

Dell spun off Charlie McCarthy from Four Color with a MarchApril 1949 cover date for its first issue. Based on Edgar Bergen’s wooden puppet, made famous in radio and film, the comic was well done, with fine art by Harvey Eisenberg. Bergen’s other famous puppet, Mortimer Snerd, served as a sidekick for the snarky Charlie, whose monocle made him look somewhat like Mr. Peanut in comic book form. The book proved to be a reasonable success.

Super Comics, populated by reprinted newspaper strips from the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate, ended its 11year run with issue #121 (Feb.Mar. 1949). Gasoline Alley, Terry and the Pirates, Brenda Starr, Moon Mullins, Tiny Tim, Little Orphan Annie, Harold Teen Little Joe, Smokey Stover, and Sweeney and Son (plus the non-strip Clyde Beatty feature) simultaneously lost their sole comic book venue. As 1949 continued, three other CT/NYNS-based titles (licensed through Famous Artists Syndicate) were canceled. Smitty and Winnie Winkle each ended with their seventh issues while Smokey Stover made it to eight. Dick Tracy, Super’s one-time cover star, survived through Dick Tracy Monthly #24 (Dec. 1949) before the title continued at Harvey in 1950.

Our Gang Comics with Tom & Jerry was transformed with issue #60 (July 1949) into Tom & Jerry Comics. MGM hadn’t produced an Our Gang film in five years so it was entirely logical for the comics to switch focus to the Academy Award-winning cat and mouse. The final Walt Kellyproduced “Our Gang” episode ran in issue #57.

Kelly didn’t lack for work, having successfully launched his character Pogo and his friends Albert Alligator, Howland Owl and others from the Okefenokee Swamp into a nationally syndicated newspaper strip the previous year. He continued to hedge his bets by launching a new 52-page quarterly comic of the characters for Dell as well (first issue cover dated Oct.-Dec. 1949). Kelly wrote all the stories with his assistant, George Ward, helping with the artwork. Dell’s practice of licensing newspaper strips and providing them with successful comic book series provided a track record that was far better than any other publisher. As a comic book, Pogo Possum proved to be as successful as the syndicated strip and would run with original stories through 1954.

Walt Kelly’s Pogo Possum #1. TM and © Okefenokee Glee & Perloo Inc.

Later used as a part of a 1950s “pledge to parents,” the phrase “Dell Comics are good comics” first appeared in 1949 subscription ads.

Although Kelly was busy with his own property, he still came around the Dell offices when the creative crew had their convivial Friday lunch meetings at the Penthouse Club. Fellow artist Dan Noonan recalled:

“We’d often stay and talk until late in the afternoon. The bull sessions sometimes lasted almost all day. There was a lot of ego deflating. Anybody who’d get to taking themselves too seriously was in for trouble, because laying in the woods were people like John Stanley and Walt Kelly. And even they’d get it once in a while, too” (Spicer).

John Stanley was particularly fond of Kelly, admitting years later, “Walt and I painted the town many times. He was a very enjoyable guy to be with” (Schelly 66). With regards to 1949, Stanley continued his writing, cover art and interior page layouts work on Little Lulu, with finished art by Irving Tripp. Little Lulu had become a 52page monthly with its January 1949 issue.

Stanley was also writing scripts for Raggedy Ann and Andy, starting with issue #32 (Jan. 1949). The title was aimed at readers between six and nine years old, yet Stanley delivered a delightfully dark change of pace for the licensed dolls’ adventures. His contributions only lasted until issue #38 (July 1949) but were closer to horror stories, a la the Brothers Grimm, than the gentle but toothless fantasies the two children’s dolls had previously appeared in for the title. All of Stanley’s Raggedy Ann and Andy stories were untitled. His first story revolves around Ann and Andy visiting a dark cave in the woods, where

one-eyed “wobblies” (who were never actually seen) live. The wobblies are creatures who would get you if they could. They returned in issue #37 (June 1949) for an even darker tale where the wobblies—unseen except for their eyes—tear apart a fellow wobbly (again, this rending is unseen on the actual page). Andy has dressed the doomed creature in his own clothes to punish him for stealing his hat when it had blown into the cave. The suggestiveness of the scenes anticipated Stanley’s later full-on 1962 horror story “The Monster of Dread End.”

Other adventures found the two doll heroes buried alive by pirates, transformed into a lamb and a pig before they outsmart a “Bad Witch” (recalling the “Hansel and Gretel” fairy tale), and entering an ancient castle with endless rooms, where an old man has been held captive for hundreds of years. A deeply disturbing story in Raggedy Ann and Andy #36 (May 1949) depicts the deaths of the lead characters, victims of poisonous mushrooms eaten at a picnic. Sprouting angel wings, their souls ascend toward Heaven. En route, playful cupids pull their wings off and the doll children fall back to Earth just in time to re-inhabit their bodies, revived thanks to an antidote to the poison. Stanley’s dark takes on these characters didn’t work in 1949, and the title only continued for one more issue after Stanley’s departure. It was a valiant effort to chart a new course for the faltering licensed title.

Stanley also launched his own creation in Raggedy Ann and Andy #32: “Peterkin Pottle.” This character stole the cover position from Raggedy Ann and Andy for issues #32-38 (with John Stanley himself providing the covers). Peterkin Pottle is largely a child version of James Thurber’s classic daydreamer Walter Mitty. He is a bespectacled, stout, dull, antisocial boy who, to escape the torments generated by his school classmates, spends much of his time in class daydreaming of being in grand adventures, in such varied roles as a lion-tamer, a Native American warrior, a pirate, and so on. The stories, of course, are satire and generally well done, but the portly Peterkin is visually as pale as a vampire and not nearly as physically active as Little Lulu’s pal Tubby, who wears his weight as

John Stanley’s cover for Raggedy Ann and Andy #32 introduced Peterkin Pottle. Inside, he wrote a darker-than-usual tale about the one-eyed wobblies. TM and © respective copyright owner.

a sign of pride. Such attributes may have put off the average child reading these adventures as the feature was dropped after Raggedy Ann and Andy #38 (July 1949).

Little Lulu itself had a very good year, with several classic stories. “Detective Story” from issue #7 (Jan. 1949) spoofs crime comics and detective movies as Lulu is hired by Tubby to be his sleuthing assistant. Like any Tubby venture, it is rife with confusion for Tubby himself, while Lulu rolls with the notion. They are involved with real criminals and a crime that is actually taking place, just not in the way they suspect. A sequence where Lulu wears Tubby’s disguise-kit mustache is an understated comical note as no one blinks an eye at the decidedly odd young lady’s appearance.

In Little Lulu #8’s (Feb. 1949) standout “Beautiful Lulu,” the title character overhears the boys in their clubhouse talking about which girls in the neighborhood are pretty. When her name comes up, they declare her the ugliest girl in the neighborhood, amid much laughter. Convincing the crying girl to come out from under her bed, Mom gives Lulu a dynamic makeover, turning her into the local Lana Turner of the pre-teen set. Even Alvin begins following her around like a love-struck Romeo. Before long, all the boys are in a massive fistfight over Lulu, except for Alvin, who keeps his eyes on the prize of “Lovely Lulu.” When Lulu decides that boys are too silly to keep being “beautiful” for them, she scrubs off the makeup, puts up her hair in her own preferred way and goes outdoors to see how the boys react. Alvin scowls and kicks her in the shin. The rest of the boys seem relieved by the return of the old Lulu and quickly begin a game of leapfrog.

An indignant Lulu punchs each one of the boys before announcing, “I resign!” With each boy suffering from a black eye, they resolve that no girl can ever again become a member of the club.

“Tubby Meets a Ghost” (LL #9—March 1949) has Lulu’s counterpart trailing a neighbor’s lost cat to the local graveyard. Questioned by an elderly gentleman in a long white gown, Tubby accepts his offer to help with the search. Soon convinced the old man is a genuine ghost, Tubby races home, flings the cat at the neighbor’s head, races up to his bedroom and blockades his door. Meanwhile, back at the cemetery the graveyard’s caretaker adjusts his white nightgown and slides into bed, completely puzzled over the boy’s bizarre behavior.

“Housekeeper Wanted” (LL #11—May 1949) explains why the boys’ anti-girl club exists. Finally invited to join the Fellers Club, Lulu is subjected to an elaborate initiation, mostly involving theft, vandalism or personal injury. Surpassing the boys’ expectations without getting arrested or maimed, she is told that her position in the club is to be the vice president in charge of housekeeping.

“The Prince in the Pool” (LL #11) finds Lulu and Alvin watching a snoozefest romance flick. In the middle of the film, a bored and grumpy Alvin convinces Lulu to tell him a story. This one involves a poor girl named Daphne. How poor is she? So poor they won’t allow her to live in the poorhouse. So poor she doesn’t qualify for the doghouse. So poor her toothbrush has only one bristle! While seeking shelter in the woods, the weary Daphne finds a small pool to cool her feet. A green monster at the bottom catches her and she fears he’ll eat her. Luckily, he is a vegetarian, and only craves leaves. In return for her freedom, Daphne agrees to rake up the leaves in the woods and toss them in the pond for the monster to eat. When the hungry monster begs her to check and see if there are any more, she can find only one lone leaf high in a tree. After a threeday climb, she finally plucks the solitary leaf. Pursued by an old witch, Daphne delivers her sprig. Consuming the leaf, the monster becomes a handsome prince who reveals that the witch has cursed him to be a creature until he’s eaten all the leaves. Daphne proposes the prince show his gratitude by marrying her… at which point Alvin tells Lulu to shut up because the romance movie has ended, and the cartoons are now coming on.

A sequence from Little Lulu #11’s “The Prince and the Pool,” by John Stanley and Irving Tripp. TM and © Classic Media, LLC.

Other memorable tales include the tale of “The Deep Dark River” that Lulu recounts to Alvin while he has the measles (LL #17) and a supernatural story about a ghost that takes up residence in the girl’s dollhouse (LL #15). A sweet Christmas episode in LL #18 (Dec. 1949) finds Lulu befriending a poor girl whose mother has recently died. Intent on giving her new friend one of her old dolls, Lulu finds that she has too much sentimental attachment to it. Instead, she gives the girl the brand-new doll she had received for the holidays.

Religious Comics

Like Dell’s products, George A. Pflaum’s twice-a-month Catholic comic Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact remained a successful venture. (For some unknown reason, the title changed from “Facts” to “Fact” in late 1948.) Joe Maneely and Frank Borth were among its growing body of artistic contributors as the 1949-1950 school year began. Young readers got a rare glimpse behind the scenes in Vol. 5, No. 8 (Dec. 13, 1949) where a two-page feature depicted the unnamed staff preparing the holiday issue in sweltering August heat, pausing to wish readers a Merry Christmas. Charlton, under the name Catholic Publications, Inc., published seven issues of Catholic Comics before that title was canceled with issue #29 (July 1949). Catechetical Guild published 12 issues of Topix and a one-shot title, Life of Christ. They also published three giveaway titles: Labor Is a Partner, New Men of Battle and The Truth Behind the Trial of Cardinal Mindszenty.

In Elgin, Illinois, David C. Cook Publishing had been producing newsletters for church Sunday schools, but its editor Iva Hoth believed they had become irrelevant to children. She proposed creating a weekly 12-page comic book, with short stories not only dealing with Biblical themes but also adapting classic literature. The nondenominational Sunday Pix premiered on May 1, 1949, its features including the first part of a comics serialization of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Gold Bug.”

As Sunday Pix came into its own in the 1950s, its audience was estimated at over one million Sunday school students. Tullus, a Roman from 1 A.D. who was first seen in a 1943 Cook newsletter comic strip, became a popular recurring feature, starting in 1952. Al Stenzel wrote and drew the series, assisted by Irv Novick and others.

On October 3, 1954, Pix kicked off an ambitious attempt to adapt the entire Bible in comics form (“Our Bible in Pictures”) with script by

Rev. David S. Piper and art by Joseph Tillotson. Having completed the project, editors commissioned a redrawn version by Andre LeBlanc that began on October 4, 1959. LeBlanc’s rendition (continuing into the early 1960s) became an evergreen for Pix, its short chapters reprinted in rotation for decades in the magazine itself as well as being collected in paperbacks as The Picture Bible

Quality Will Out

Quality Comics expanded its output in 1949, publishing 29 titles and a total of 130 issues, a sharp increase over 1948’s 17 titles and 98 issues. Most of the expansion was in the romance genre, with 10 new titles of love.

The bad news was the line-wide reduction in page count, most titles dropping from 48 to 32 pages with their April or May-dated editions. Consequently, a number of secondary strips in the anthology books ended their runs. Casualties included “Beezy Bumble,” “Floogy the Fiji” (both following Crack Comics #59), “Perky,” “Roscoe” (as of Feature Comics #132), “Blimpy” (after Feature #133), “Her Highness,” “Peachy” (following Hit Comics #57), “Big Brother” (after Hit #58), “Choo Choo,” “Private Dogtag” (following Modern Comics #83), “Anthrop,” “Granny Gumshoe” (after National Comics #70), “Batch Bachelor,” and “Citronella” (following Smash Comics #81). Paul Gustavson’s “Honeybun” survived the purge, leaving Police Comics but relocating to National as of issue #71

Harry Anderson penciled the Frontier Marshal tale in Crack Western #63, whose cover was drawn by Paul Gustavson. TM and © respective copyright holder.

(April 1949). “Captain Triumph,” “Hack O’Hara,” “Batch Bachelor,” “Beezy Bumble,” and “Molly the Model” belatedly left Crack Comics en masse following issue #62 (Sept. 1949). Taking a cue from National, the book switched genres.

The cover feature of Crack Western #63 (Nov. 1949) was Paul Gustavson’s “Arizona Ames,” whose cowboy hero abruptly changed his name to “Raines” as of issue #66. Presumably, famed Western author Zane Grey, whose books included Arizona Ames (1932), made his opinion known. Other regulars in the rebranded book included “Two-Gun Lil” by Joe Millard and Charles Sultan. Lil Peters was motivated, per her origin, by her father’s murder. Elsewhere, Harry Anderson drew the opening installment of “Bob Allen, Frontier Marshal” while Reed Crandall illustrated “Dead Canyon Days.”

Smash’s line-up belatedly took a hit when it was retitled Lady Luck with issue #86 (Dec. 1949).

Behind a cover by Gill Fox was an all-new 11page lead tale, two eight-page adventures, and a spin-off strip featuring Count DiChange. Klaus Nordling wrote and drew them all. Left in limbo were former Smash costumed crimefighters Midnight, Jester, and Black X, plus the humor duo Daffy and Deke.

Also falling prey to the superhero malaise of the period, Quicksilver—after alternating with Steve Wood for a few issues—hung up his costume with National #73 (Aug. 1949), long after his superspeed powers had faded away. More conspicuous was the passing of Kid Eternity, the cover star of Hit Comics since late 1942. He was unceremoniously replaced by 19th Century riverboat pilot Jeb Rivers—illustrated by Reed Crandall as of Hit #61 (Nov. 1949). Adding insult to injury, Kid Eternity’s eponymous solo book was also canceled with issue #18 (Nov. 1949), its numbering carrying over to a book of “swashbuckling pirate yarns” titled Buccaneers effective with its Jan. 1950-dated edition.

Doll Man fared better, despite his eviction from Feature Comics just shy of his 10th anniversary in the title. While “Hollywood’s daredevil sensation” Stunt Man Stetson took his spot as of Feature #140 (Nov. 1949), Doll Man clung tight to his solo book with no disruption in its schedule. Elsewhere in Feature, Rusty Ryan—a costumed hero at his peak—was also dropped after eight years, replaced in issue #136 (July 1949) by “Rims,” a Harry Sahle-created teen humor strip.

After alternating issues at the start of the year, Manhunter and Spirit reprint tales from the war years (by Woolfolk and Fine rather than Eisner) each stuck around as regulars in Police Comics moving into 1950. The Spirit’s own comic book continued to reprint tales from the newspaper feature, finally beginning to tap the rich vein of postwar 1946 content with issue #18 (Nov. 1949).

Looking toward the 1950s, “Plastic Man” and “Blackhawk” were indisputably Quality’s strongest adventure features, each of them handily headlining anthology books (Police and Modern, respectively) as well as their eponymous titles. Reed Crandall stopped penciling the “Blackhawk” tales in Modern after issue #88 (Aug. 1949), replaced by John Forte or Gene Colan beneath the regular inks of Chuck Cuidera. Crandall continued to pencil and ink the covers throughout the year, with the exception of issue #92 which featured complete art by Cuidera.

The health of Quality’s humor books was inconsistent, but the publisher was confident enough to launch Harry Sahle’s Hickory #1 (Oct. 1949), billed as “America’s funniest hillbilly.” Marmaduke Mouse, All-Humor Comics and The Barker were each promoted from quarterly to bi-monthly frequency during 1949. The decision was evidently premature for the latter two titles, each of which ended with their Dec. 1949-dated editions (issues #17 and #15, respectively). The Barker’s National Comics was canceled the same month with issue #75, taking its other features (“Sally O’Neil”, “Steve Wood”, “Honeybun”, and “Lassie”) along with it.

Quality likely anticipated filling the gaps in its lineup with more romance titles, which had proliferated since mid-

The covers for Hit Comics #61 and Lady Luck #86, respectively drawn by Reed Crandall and Gill Fox. TM and © respective copyright holder.

Harry Sahle’s cover for Hickory #1. TM and © respective copyright owner.

1949. As previously mentioned, Heart Throbs #1 (Aug. 1949) kicked off Quality’s new romance releases which then continued with Love Confessions, Love Diary (each dated Sept.), Hollywood Secrets (Oct.), Flaming Love, Love Letters, Range Romances Secret Loves (Nov.), Campus Loves, and Hollywood Diary (Dec.).

The flood of romance titles might well have fallen under the heading of “too much, too soon,” but it wasn’t because Quality wasn’t trying. When known, the art lineup was impressive, with Bill Ward apparently doing a lead nine-page story for each of the standard romance titles, as well as full art for Torchy and numerous “Blackhawk” stories. Other artists contributing art here included Paul Gustavson (also scripts), Pete Riss, Alice Kirkpatrick, Sam Citron, Arthur Peddy, and Sid Greene. The only identified writer, besides Gustavson, was Joe Millard. Due to the boom in 1949 and bust in 1950, most of these romance titles never made it past five or six issues. Heart Throbs made it to eight issues (it was revived in 1952 with issue #9), possibly benefiting from early sales before the market was saturated.

Prize Westerns

Prize/Crestwood published 11 titles in 1949, totaling 47 issues. Most were holdovers from 1948 but three were new launches—one a straight romance title (Joe Simon & Jack Kirby’s aforementioned Young Love), while the other two were Western/romance hybrids.

Real West Romances (first issue cover dated April-May 1949) featured photo covers for its entire run. Interior art was provided by numerous Simon & Kirby and Prize stablemates, including Carmine Infantino, Bill Draut, Leonard Starr, Art Peddy, Bernard Sachs, Vic Donohue, John Severin, John Belfi, Doug Wildey, Will Elder, Bruno Premiani, and Mort Meskin.

Joe Simon produced a solo story for Real West Romances #2 (July 1949), while Simon & Kirby art appeared in issues #3-5. With the exception of issue #5’s Kirby-written and penciled “MailOrder Romance” (Dec. 1949-Jan. 1950) with likely inks by S&K, the stories seem less pure Simon & Kirby than

Kirby fixing substandard pages. “Our Love Wore Six-Guns” (Aug.-Sept. 1949) and “The Perfect Cowboy!” (Oct.-Nov. 1949) have at least one or more artists besides Simon or Kirby involved with the stories.

Western Love, on the other hand, debuted with a July-August 1949 cover date, also boasting photo covers and the same artistic mix. Simon and Kirby weren’t credited as editors until issue #3 although Kirby had a three-page penciled and inked story in issue #1 and a nine-page penciled effort in issue #2 (Sept.-Oct. 1949). He didn’t draw any of the stories for issue #3 but wrote four of the six interior stories, with art by the likes of Bruno Premiani, Vic Donohue, John Severin, Will Elder, and George Roussos.

The cover of Real West Romances #1 opposite a Simon and Kirby splash from issue #5. TM and © respective copyright owner.

Western Love #1’s cover featured Randolph Scott and Nancy Olson, stars of the movie Canadian Pacific TM and © respective copyright owner.

Penciler John Severin and inker Will Elder were now paired regularly in Prize Comics Western on the superhero-garbed Black Bull (starting in 1948’s issue #72) and the Lazo Kid (as of issue #75). Harvey Kurtzman also contributed to the finishes for issue #74’s Black Bull installment, “Prairie Schooner Ahoy!” (March-April 1949). Kurtzman’s inks were particularly noticeable on page one, while Elder’s were most apparent on page six. It’s possible that the other pages may have had another inker entirely as they don’t really look like either Kurtzman or Elder. Severin was sure both of them were the two inkers on that story—Kurtzman working off Elder’s inks, clarifying and outlining them (Vadeboncoeur 43).

Simon & Kirby’s two crime comics for Prize continued as steady titles, settling into a long successful run. Justice Traps the Guilty featured a particularly strong showing of artists during the year. Bernie Krigstein illustrated two stories for the title—the entertaining “Eugene Vidocq… First Great Detective,” who was a real-life early criminalist (and an actual criminal before that), in Justice Traps the Guilty #8 (Jan.-Feb. 1949) and the even better “Conning the Confidence Man!” in issue #10 (June-July 1949). Krigstein’s art always perked up when he was happy with a script and “Confidence Man” certainly shows that he liked the story. In addition to Krigstein, other quality work appeared from the likes of Bill Draut, John Belfi, Manny Stallman, Will Elder, Bruno Premiani, Lee Elias, Dick Briefer, Rudy Palais,

Bernard Baily, and Bill Fraccio. There was even a Western crime tale penciled by John Severin and inked by Belfi. Photo covers began replacing the Simon & Kirby pencil & ink work with issue #12 (Oct. 1949).

Headline Comics also went to photo covers, beginning with issue #36 (July-Aug. 1949). In addition to stock photos, several covers featured Simon and Kirby posing themselves, most notably on issue #37 (Sept.-Oct. 1949) which depicted Kirby as a burglar and Simon as the cop holding the gun on him. Many of the same artists appeared in Headline, but there were some who appeared only in this title, including Leonard Starr, Vic Donohue, Dick Rockwell, and Myron Fass. John Severin and Will Elder drew “Double Cross” for issue #34 (Feb.-Mar. 1949), with Severin returning for a solo job on “No Escape” in issue #38 (Nov.-Dec. 1949).

Frankenstein #17 (Jan.-Feb. 1949) brought an end to Dick Briefer’s delightful humor version of the famed monster. This last humor issue was as good as earlier ones, although its cover looked a bit more horrific than usual, with a barefoot madman threatening the monster by aiming a massive broken-off clock hand directly at the monster’s crotch. Following a three-year hiatus, Frankenstein returned in 1952 amidst the growing horror trend. Therein, Briefer returned the monster to his true, and more traditional, horror roots.

Fox’s Doomed Run

Fox Comics published a stunning 36 titles in 1949— totaling 136 issues—but signs of desperation were popping up everywhere. Its seedy Western titles were apparently a huge failure as they were all transformed into romance titles. Western Killers became the longwinded My True Love Thrilling Confessions Stories with issue #65 (July 1949) while Western Outlaws turned into My Secret Life with issue #22 (July 1949). Western True Crime begat My Confession with issue #7 (Aug. 1949), its inaugural cover graced with a leggy blonde. Interior contents included a story drawn by Wally Wood. Two more Wood stories appeared in issue #8 (Oct. 1949), before the title was slightly altered again into My Confessions (plural) with issue #9 (Dec. 1949). My Past Thrilling Confession #7

Time ran out for Frankenstein on Dick Briefer’s cover for the final issue (#17). TM and © respective copyright owner.

Jack Kirby and Joe Simon circa 1949, with fellow shop members Bill Draut, Marvin Stein, and (seated) Ben Oda.

(Aug. 1949) —formerly Western Thrillers—features a cover presenting another well-endowed blonde. Looking away from her dead-eyed boyfriend, she declares, “No, I could never love you.”

My Experience #19 (Sept. 1949)—previously All Top Comics—presents the provocative cover scenario of a husband storming off when his wife claims to have a headache. In her hand, concealed from her husband’s view, is a note from “Fred” requesting a meeting “at the usual place.”

Phantom Lady—Fox’s last superhero title—transitioned into the pirate comic Captain Kidd for two issues (dated June and Aug. 1949) before following the trend and becoming My Secret Story with issue #26 (Oct. 1949). The cover to issue #27 (Dec. 1949) presents a glamorous young lady with the vaguely suggestive word balloon: “I’ll think it over.”

Jungle royalty Zago, Jungle Prince and Zegra each lost their titles, which respectively continued as My Story True Romances in Pictures #5 (May 1949) and My Love Life #6 (June 1949). My Love Life #9’s cover art seems like a copy of Matt Baker’s artwork for the 1946 Classics Illustrated adaptation of Lorna Doone. The Desert Hawk Dagar and his beautiful girlfriend Ayesha, one of Fox’s longest running series, were replaced by My Love Secrets with issue #24 (June 1949.)

These weren’t, of course, Fox’s only romance titles of the year. Fox also launched five other new romance titles—My Love Affair, Women in Love, My Great Love, My Love Story and My Secret Affair.

Fox also started combining four deliberately overprinted coverless comics into a 132-page bundle of a giant comic, selling for a quarter. Fox released no less than 15 of these jumbo titles during the year— eight of them romance collections, six of them spotlighting crime, and one with a jungle theme. Since the original covers were excluded from the volumes, many stories were incomplete. Fox had routinely printed stories with the opening page on the inside front cover sans color.

By year’s end only romance and crime comics were still on Fox’s publishing docket. Victor Fox’s various businesses, including the Fox Feature Syndicate, were in serious financial trouble by that time and he would cease publishing comics in mid-1950.

Fiction House Update

Fiction House’s characters continued to fight Nazis well after the end of the war. It wasn’t until 1947 that they began to have a new international go-to enemy. With the advent of the Cold War, the fascist villains gave way to communists.

Some of the reasons for that shift were decided by international events such as Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United States signing the North Atlantic Treaty in April 1949, establishing the North

American Treaty Organization (NATO). That same month, after the Soviets refused to participate in a Europeanled rebuild of Germany, the U.S., Great Britain, and France agreed to join their zones of occupation into the independent country of West Germany. Later, in August 1949, the victory of the communist forces, led by Mao TseTung, in the Chinese civil war was accompanied by both the collapse of the Nationalist forces, led by President Chiang Kai-shek, on the mainland and their following flight to the island of Taiwan. Subsequently, the Chinese communists established the People’s Republic of China. Also in August, the first Soviet atomic device was detonated in Kazakhstan. Then in October, the Soviet Union, in retaliation for the creation of West Germany, proclaimed its zone of occupation in Germany the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Outside of communist countries, the GDR was commonly known as East Germany.

Against that backdrop, Fiction House’s comics became ardently anti-communist, one of the first to do so amidst rival publishers that tended to be mostly apolitical.

A Bob Lubbers-illustrated page from Wings Comics #101. TM and © respective copyright owner.

Captain Wings kicked off the year in Wings Comics #101 (Jan. 1949) by fighting anti-fascists who might be communists. As rendered by Bob Lubbers, the international aviator hero was effectively a full-time antiterrorist fighter in 1949, constantly struggling to keep the Cold War from turning hot.

News that the Soviets now had the A-Bomb informed Wings #101’s “Phantom Falcon” tale, where Metropolis (no, not that one) was threatened with an atomic blast. Frank Fermonetti drew the Falcon’s feature, joined on the book by other artistic regulars Kurt Caesar (“King of the Congo”), John Celardo (“Suicide Smith”), and George Evans (“Jane Martin”).

Over in Fight Comics, Senorita Rio was dealing with everything from a debilitating “atomic cloud” (issue #60) to fugitive Nazis in South America (issues #61 and #62). A highlight was issue #65’s “Affair of the Liquid Gold” (Dec. 1949), visually evocative of the Eisner Studio. It boasted an excellent splash page drawing of Senorita Rio, which was often used in ads for reprints in later decades.

Far from the Cold War, Fiction House’s jungle heroes and heroines swung into action in monthly anthology titles. Sheena, Queen of the Jungle

continued to headline the monthly Jumbo Comics, illustrated by the underrated Robert Webb. In many of his scenes, Sheena literally steps out of the panel, an innovative suggestion of motion. Webb’s panel borders often resemble wavy rope or jungle vines –in one panel a great ape holds the panel border in his fist as if it is a thin transparent tree! – suggesting a jungle that is cut off from the action in the panel. Other panel lines feature lightning bolts or slanting diagonal lines similar to those used between words to indicate both separation and linkage. The device is both clever and functional.

Sheena, Queen of the Jungle #5 (Summer 1949) arrived a year after its fourth issue. Still wary about the heroine’s solo book, Fiction House waited seven months before publishing issue #6 late in the year. With a publication history similar to Sheena, Henry Kiefer’s

Wambi, Jungle Boy also resurfaced for a fifth issue in 1949 (cover dated Fall). Now 36 pages rather than 52, it returned six months later and ran for another three years as a quarterly.

Jungle Comics’ headliner got its own companion title with the debut of Kaänga Comics #1 (Spring 1949),

A striking portrait of Senorita Rio from Fight Comics #65. TM and © respective copyright owner.

a 48-page package with a cover by John Celardo. Nine months passed before issue #2 was published and Kaänga settled into a quarterly schedule.

Planet Comics, Fiction House’s space opera effort, maintained its bimonthly frequency, its artistic lineup shifting a bit as 1949 moved along. A promising Graham Ingels’ rendition of monsters in “Auro, Lord of Jupiter” showed a debt to Basil Wolverton’s early efforts. Meanwhile, in issue #59 (March 1949), Leonard Starr and Frank Fermonetti signed on as the respective artists on “Star Pirate” and “Space Rangers.” An issue later, Charles Winter took over “Mysta of the Moon,” replacing Matt Baker and Ray Osrin.

Following those artistic changes, the book was cut from 52 pages to 36 pages with issue #62 (Sept. 1949) and moved from a bi-monthly to a quarterly with the next issue. Sadly, this meant that most of the 1949 serials were gone after Planet #64 (Spring 1950).

The big news in Rangers Comics was the debut in issue #47 (June 1949) of “The Secret Files of Dr. Drew,” a supernatural thriller starring paranormal investigator Dr. Desmond Drew. The premise of the series was formulated by Will Eisner who then passed it on to two

of his assistants: writer Marilyn Mercer and artist Jerry Grandenetti. The latter drew the series through issue #56 (Dec. 1950) in the same Eisner style he’d been mimicking on The Spirit. Later, Grandenetti illustrated Dr. Drew stories in his own distinctive art style, resulting in one of the most intriguingly spooky series of the 1950s.

Tight, well-written and well-drawn, the four Dr. Drew stories of 1949 were vivid and atmospheric, as demonstrated by the opening narration in the very first story, “The Strange Case of the Absent Floor”:

“It’s a long, weary climb to the old house atop Bone Hill on the outskirts of town … but once you are there, if he favors you, the famous doctor will dip into his files and recall for you one of his experiences in the eerie world that lies somewhere between reality and infinity. If you are made of stern stuff, you will retain your sanity…some of his guests have, you know.”

That passage anticipated the opening lines of various seasons of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone, and Dr. Drew’s appearance and adventures were later echoed by Charlton’s horror host, Dr. M.T. Graves, from The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves.

John Celardo’s cover for Kaänga #1. TM and © respective copyright owner.

The Jerry Grandenetti-illustrated debut of Dr. Drew from Rangers Comics #47. TM and © respective copyright owner.

Comics historian Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. believes that Eisner himself ghosted some of the early Dr. Drew stories. While Eisner never admitted to doing so, Grandenetti did confirm to another comic book historian, Michael T. Gilbert, that his boss helped him out by inking (at least part of) “The Strange Case of the Absent Floor” (Gilbert 10).

That first Dr. Drew story deals with an old murder mystery and a mysterious 13th floor that is sometimes there and sometimes not. (Most skyscrapers, particularly in the first half of the 20th century, did not have a 13th floor for superstitious reasons.)

Mercer and Grandenetti followed up their impressive introductory tale with an even better story in the next issue. “The Philosopher’s Stone” (Rangers #48—Aug. 1949) revolves around the legendary object said to have mystic powers, as well as the real-life Count de Saint-Germain, whom legend said may have lived at least 2000 years.

publishing romance comics in 1949. Three existing titles were rebooted into either straight romances or Western romances, starting with teen humor Hap Hazard Comics, which was transformed early in the year into Real Love. Then Western Adventures became Western Love Trails with issue #7 (Nov. 1949). Finally, the teen girl book Dotty had its cover title changed three times over the course of issues #40-42: from Dotty to Glamorous Romances featuring Dotty and then to simply Glamorous Romances. An additional five titles were all-new romance comics. With Ace devoting over half of its lineup to romance, it was particularly hard-hit when the bottom fell out of the romance boom the following year.

Two months later, “The Witch’s Doll!” (in Rangers #49— Oct. 1949) features two life-like dolls that have the power to drain the life-force from the victims they are based on. Although not a voodoo tale, the dolls—who don’t resemble any ethnic mythos—are said to have originated in Africa.

“The Devil’s Watch!” (Rangers #50— Dec. 1949) details an unfulfilled bargain between Satan and a 19th Century composer named Paolo Vincenti. The deal grants Vincenti “fame and power” until he has completed 30 sonatas. Dying after he had composed only 29, Vicenti leaves the deal in limbo until the Devil eyes 20th Century musician Paul Vincent. Channeling the elder composer’s spirit, the 1949 artist is unwittingly completing the final sonata and imperiling his soul in the process. Drew’s frantic efforts to stop the young composer, set in the backstage caverns of a concert hall, make for a captivating story.

Publisher Round-Up

Ace Magazines, also known as Ace Books, Inc. (and not to be confused with Ace Comics, a title put out by the publisher David McKay) published 13 titles during the year. Like Marvel, Fox and St. John, Ace plunged wholeheartedly into

Trending genres that proved successful for other publishers were less so for Ace. Teen humor breathed its last with Ernie Comics #25 (March 1949) and Vicky Comics #5 (June 1949) while funny animals were kaput after Monkeyshine Comics #27 (July 1949). By year’s end the eight romance comics and a single remaining crime comic, Crime Must Pay the Penalty—with decent artwork by Rudy Palais, Warren Kremer, Ken Battefield and others—were all that remained of Ace’s output.

Gilberton published 11 new adaptations of literary classics this year. All of the covers for the 1949 issues were pen & ink efforts, although many of these titles were reissued in the mid-1950s and 1960s with new painted covers. The 1949 covers were considerably more action packed than the later painted covers which were more conservative and much quieter in their approach.

Novels adapted in 1949 included:

Victor Hugo’s The Toilers of the Sea (CI #56: Feb. 1949), script by Harry Miller, art by August Froehlich;

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha (CI #57: Mar. 1949), art by Alex Blum; James Fenimore Cooper’s The Prairie (CI #58: Apr. 1949), art by Rudy (credited as Rudolph) Pallais;

Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (CI #59: May 1949), script by Harry Miller, art by Henry Kiefer;

Representing Fiction House’s “Big 6” in this house ad were Wings #101, Jumbo #119, Fight #60, Jungle #109, Rangers #45, and Planet #58. TM and © respective copyright owner.

The header on Dotty #39 set the stage for the title to be formally renamed Glamorous Romances with issue #41. TM and © respective copyright owner.

Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty (CI #60: June 1949), art by August Froehlich;

William Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White (CI #61: July 1949), script by John O’Rourke, art by Alex Blum;

Bret Hart’s Western Stories (CI #62: Aug. 1949), art by Henry Kiefer;

Edward Everett Hale’s The Man Without a Country (CI #63: Sept. 1949), script by John O’Rourke, art by Henry Kiefer;

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (CI #64: Oct. 1949), script by Ken Fitch, art by Alex Blum;

Franke Thorne’s Benjamin Franklin (CI #65: Nov. 1949), script by Adelaide Lee, art by Alex Blum, Robert Hebberd and Gus Schrotter; and, finally, Charles Reade’s The Cloister on the Hearth (CI #66: Dec. 1949), script by Leslie Katz, art by Henry Kiefer.

The August Froehlich adaptations in issues #56 and #60 were probably the two best of the year. Alex Blum’s work on The Song of Hiawatha and Treasure Island appeared somewhat old-fashioned by 1949 but the softness of the coloring worked extremely well on both adaptations, particularly on The Song of Hiawatha.

Creston/ACG put out nine titles for the year, comprising 49 issues. New to ACG in 1949 were Romantic Adventures (first issue cover dated March-April 1949), Lovelorn (first issue cover dated Aug.-Sept. 1949), and Funny Films (first issue cover dated Sept.-Oct. 1949). Spy and Counterspy (first issue cover dated Aug.-Sept. 1949) was renamed SpyHunters with issue #3.

Hillman’s 1949 output was similar in number to Creston/ ACG’s: 56 issues spread out over nine titles (and four genres): two crime comics (Real Clue Crime Stories and Crime Detective Comics), two Westerns (Western Fighters and Dead-Eye Western Comics), two sports titles (All Sports Comics (retitled All-Time Sports Comics with issue #4 and Joe College) and two romance titles: Romanic Confessions and Mr. Anthony’s Love Clinic. Joining them was Hillman’s most popular title, Airboy.

One of the very best Airboy stories started in issue #58 (Dec. 1948) and concluded in issue #59 (Jan. 1949). In “Airboy and the Rats” the title character discovers that a collection of rats are far more intelligent than anyone could have imagined. Rendered in terrifying detail by Ernest Schroeder, the rats declare war on mankind and proceed to eat every human in sight. Despite his youth, Airboy is the voice of reason and reassurance throughout the conflict.

Among the 23 issues published by Avon Periodicals in 1949 were a plethora of new titles. Slave Girl ended after two issues early in the year but Campus Romance, Frontier Romances, Going Steady With Betty, Romantic Love, and Wild Bill Hickok all lasted into 1950. Complete Romance turned out to be a one-shot while Penny, based on Harry Haenigsen’s comic strip, ended with issue #6 (Sept.Oct. 1949).

D.S. Publishing shut down seven of its titles, five of them crime comics, and two of them Westerns. Curiously, it then launched a single licensed title. Elsie the Cow Comics, based on the famed mascot of the Borden Dairy Company, lasted a mere three issues, the first dated Oct.-Nov. 1949.

Parents’ Magazine Press published nine titles in 1949, totaling 32 issues, but only one—the long running True Comics—limped its way into 1950. The publisher canceled

August Froehlich illustrated the covers for Classics Illustrated #56 and #60 while Henry Kiefer drew issue #65’s Benjamin Franklin edition. TM and © respective copyright owner.

McCombs published two titles—Crown Comics and Love Problems and Advice, Illustrated —before the company was bought out. Love Problems continued as a Harvey title in 1950.

the anthology Calling All Kids with issue #26 (Aug. 1949), Western title Tex Granger with issue #24 (Sept. 1949), the crime comics Special Agent with issue #8 (Sept. 1949) and the children’s title Polly (formerly Polly Pigtails) with issue #43 (Oct.-Nov. 1949). Polly, in turn, became Girls’ Fun and Fashion Magazine for issues #44-48 in 1950.

Parents shifted its priorities to its new digest line beginning in 1950 with Children’s Digest, followed by Polly Pigtails, Calling All Girls, and Humpty Dumpty Magazine for Children. The strips “Tizzie”, “Penny” and “Twinkles”, and, no doubt, others, saw a second life in the digests, which were mostly text stories.

Orbit’s Wanted Comics and The Westerner Comics were joined by an ongoing romance entry, Love Diary, its first issue dated July 1949. Cross Publications would only publish three titles in its entire existence, but it scored a long-running hit with The Perfect Crime, which featured Doug Wildey and Bob Powell artwork in issue #1 (Oct. 1949). The crime title ultimately ran 33 issues, ending in 1953. Dearfield Publishing published four issues of “Red” Rabbit Comics, produced by rising animation stars Joe Barbera and Harvey Eisenberg.

Youthful/ Western Comics, Inc. published five issues of the Western title Gunsmoke, a series that had nothing to do with the famed radio/TV show. Instead, “Gunsmoke” was the name of the series’ title character, a typical fictional cowboy. Far more interesting was the protagonist of one of Gunsmoke’s secondary features, an adventurer named “The Masked Marvel.” Wearing a yellow shirt, blue cape, red gloves and boots, and, most vividly, a green skull mask, the Masked Marvel is secretly timid, indolent, bespectacled Chet Fairchild, son of millionaire oilman Colonel Fairchild. As the Masked Marvel, Chet brandishes a pair of six-shooters to fight injustice wherever he sees it. In other words, the Masked Marvel was both a wannabe Zorro and a costumed crimefighter starring in a Western. Providing the artwork for “The Masked Marvel” (as well as for Gunsmoke’s main feature and its covers) was Graham Ingels.

Dan Zolnerowich drew the cover of Airboy #58 while Ernest Schroeder illustrated the interior story, bringing Airboy’s war with the rats to life. TM and © respective copyright owner.

Spy and Counterspy #1 starred secret agent Jonathan Kent (no relation to Superman) while Gunsmoke #1 featured the title character of Graham Ingels’ cover. TM and © respective copyright owner.

The Black Terror’s End

As far as production was concerned, Standard Comics was only slightly behind Quality Comics. In 1949, Standard released 119 issues from 39 titles which ran the gamut of genres: more than half of the line were funny animal, teen humor or straight humor titles. The rest included a few Westerns and multiple newspaper strips in their own licensed titles, notably Alley Oop, Boots and Her Buddies, Brick Bradford, Broncho Bill, Buz Sawyer (and its Rosco Sweeney Sunday companion), Captain Easy, Etta Kett, Freckles and His Friends, Jiggs and Maggie (stars of Bringing Up Father), Johnny Hazard, Jungle Jim, Little Miss Muffet, Ozark Ike, Teena, Tim Tyler, Tommy of the Big Top, and Tuffy.

Added to these were three romance titles—Popular Romance, Thrilling Romances and the Western/romance blend Western Hearts—which all debuted in the latter half of 1949. They replaced three titles that used to be Ned Pines’ best-sellers: America’s Best Comics, The Black Terror, and Exciting Comics. All three titles were casualties of the public’s waning interest in superheroes as all three titles featured the superpowered crimefighter, the Black Terror (In a sign of the times, the Black Terror no longer appeared on the covers of Exciting Comics, although the series still ran a banner that read “Featuring The Black Terror, Nemesis of Crime.”)

The Black Terror was the first to be canceled (with issue #27—June 1949), followed almost immediately by America’s Best Comics (with issue #31—July 1949), with Exciting Comics lasting a few more months before its demise (with issue #69—Sept. 1949).

Joining the Black Terror in comic book oblivion were fellow costumed crimefighters Pyroman, Miss Masque, and the Fighting Yank (whose eponymous title was canceled with issue #29—Aug. 1949).

At least these superheroes’ final adventures were illustrated by some of the best in the business, by talents like George Tuska, Jerry Robinson, Mort Meskin, and Ruben Moreira. Alex Schomburg provided covers for all series until their ends.

Big Changes to Harvey’s Lineup

Romance inevitably filtered into Harvey Comics, which entered the fray with First Love Illustrated #1 (Feb. 1949). It was soon followed by the ongoing First Romance Magazine, Hi-School Romance, Love Lessons, Love Problems and Advice, and Sweet Love.

The Mary Worth comic strip, which had been reworked as a soap opera, joined the trend as the Harvey title Love Stories of Mary Worth. Dubbing the white-haired widow as a “famous newspaper love advisor,” issue #1 (Sept. 1949) reprinted a 1946 continuity by Allen Saunders and Ken Ernst. Mary, incidentally, made her first Harvey appearance in Here’s How America’s Cartoonists Help to Sell U.S. Savings Bonds, a 16-page public service giveaway that featured pleas to buy bonds from more than 30 comic strip features.

Licensed newspaper strip titles were the cornerstone of the Harvey line in 1949, including Dotty Dripple, Kerry Drake, Terry and the Pirates, and Joe Palooka, the last popular enough to support two spin-offs: Humphrey Comics and Little Max Comics. The latter debuted with an issue dated October 1949 and starred a mute orphan who’d been a recurring player in the Palooka strip since 1938. The Li’l Abner title ended with issue #69 (Feb.

The Black Terror said goodbye with the cancellations of his titular comic book and America’s Best Comics. Cover art by Alex Schomburg. TM and © respective copyright holder.

Western Hearts #1’s cover featured screen stars Whip Wilson and Reno Browne. TM and © respective copyright owner.

1949), when the feature’s creator Al Capp reclaimed the rights for his new comic book imprint.

Also ending in 1949 was Green Hornet Comics, issue #47 (Sept. 1949) capping a seven-year run at Harvey. Filling the void that same month was the first issue of Sad Sack Comics. Created by George Baker, the character had risen to popularity as a down-on-his-luck soldier during World War II in Yank Magazine. Gambling that his born loser persona would translate to civilian life, Baker relaunched it as a Sunday strip on May 5, 1946. Both it and the new comic book were modest successes, but Baker didn’t truly strike gold until he had Sad Sack re-enlist in the Army in 1951. The new status quo was first reflected in issue #22 (Feb. 1953), setting the stage for a plethora of spin-off Sad Sack military titles in the 1960s and 1970s.

Nestled in Sad Sack #1 was a two-page filler by Vic Herman that introduced a girl named Li’l Dot. Appropriately outfitted with a dress and hair bow covered with dots, she appeared in issues of Sad Sack and Little Max over the next few years. As Little Dot, she was awarded her own comic book in 1953 with a visual and conceptual makeover that emphasized her obsession with dots.

Back in 1949, Harvey tentatively explored other genres, including sports in the anthology Babe Ruth Sports Comics (first issue cover dated April 1949). Elsewhere, the publisher’s resident heroine tested the waters of another trend when her title became Black Cat Western with issue #16 (March 1949). The change of venue barely lasted the year before Linda Turner was back in Hollywood.

Black Cat artist Lee Elias also drew the first and only issue of Bobby Shelby Comics, a Harvey-produced premium for the Shelby Cycle Company and

heavily advertised by merchants selling Shelby bicycles in 1949.

Outside the purview of Harvey, Walt Kelly produced two dozen well regarded giveaway comics for Peter Wheat Bread and Bakers: the 16-page Adventures of Peter Wheat #9-21 and the 4-page Peter Wheat News #10-21. Meanwhile, Buster Brown Shoe Co. put out four issues of the 32-page Buster Brown Comic Book, whose impressive artists included Dan Barry, Mort Meskin, Ray Willner, Max Elkan, and Emil Gershwin. The most ubiquitous giveaways continued to be the Dell-produced Boys’ and Girls’ March of Comics, individually branded with the name of whatever business was offering them. Four years into production of the premiums, 1949 editions featured Felix the Cat, Popeye, Oswald the Rabbit, Gene Autry, Andy Panda & Woody Woodpecker, Donald Duck, Porky Pig, Henry, Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Tom & Jerry, Roy Rogers, and Santa Claus.

Comic Strip Circus

Eastern Color’s Famous Funnies, which had been reprinting newspaper comics since 1934, proudly marked its 15th anniversary on the cover of issue #180 (July 1949) as “the first and oldest comic book.” Famous Funnies’ line-up at that point consisted of Buck Rogers, Bobby Sox, Dickie Dare, Napoleon, Oaky Doaks, Scorchy Smith and Steve Roper and Chief Wahoo. Other than the reality-based New Heroic Comics, Eastern’s original titles fared less well. Juke Box Comics #6 (Jan. 1949), Sugar Bowl Comics #5 (Jan. 1949), and Jingle Jangle Comics #42 (Dec. 1949) marked the end of the road for those three books.

Time ran out for Columbia’s Big Shot anthology in 1949, too. It celebrated its 100th issue (April 1949) with Dixie Dugan and Mickey Finn

George Baker’s Sad Sack Comics #1. TM and © Sad Sack, Inc.

Harvey’s 1949 releases included Babe Ruth Sports #1, Black Cat Western #16, Bobby Shelby #1, and Little Max #1. TM and © respective copyright owner.

(both newspaper strip stars) on hand for cake along with other regulars Brass Knuckles, Skyman, Sparky Watts, and Tony Trent. Four issues later, the book was canceled, and the publisher went out of business. Other final Columbia issues in ’49 were Skyman #4, Sparky Watts #10, Dixie Dugan #13, and Mickey Finn #15.

Street & Smith followed suit. Its monthly sales shrank from 1,139,476 copies in 1945 to 438,254 copies in 1948, which meant its individual titles were selling below 100,000 copies per issue the same time as other companies’ titles were selling four or five times as many copies. This dismal reality prompted Street & Smith to announce in June 1949 that it was quitting both its lines of pulps and comics while blaming the rise of television. Final issues were Red Dragon Comics #7, Top Secrets #10, True Sport Picture Stories #50, Buffalo Bill Picture Stories #2, Shadow Comics #101, and Supersnipe Comics #49.

Joining Columbia and S&S was David McKay, whose own comic strip-based line extended back to 1935. The six titles McKay published in 1949 were dominated by the King Features Syndicate stable, among them The Phantom, Secret Agent X-9, Jungle Jim, Mandrake, the Magician, Buz Sawyer, The Little King and Thimble Theater featuring Popeye. When David McKay closed up shop at the end of the year, it wrapped its run with Ace Comics #151, Blondie Comics #15, Feature Book #57, The Katzenjammer Kids #11, King Comics #155, and Magic Comics #123. A scramble was soon underway to relocate the King comic book rights to other publishers.

Rival comic strip syndicate United Features was still going strong, with Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy (plus boyfriend Sluggo and aunt Fritzi Ritz) the overwhelming cover attraction on Comics On Parade, Sparkle

Comics, Sparkler Comics, Tip Top Comics, and Tip Topper Comics In second place was the Captain and the Kids, who also enjoyed two issues of their eponymous title in 1949. Behind the covers, other strip reprints included such features as Abbie an’ Slats, Broncho Bill, Curly Kayoe, Doc Syke, Ella Cinders, Ferd’nand, Strange as It Seems, and Tarzan.

United Features published a smattering of Li’l Abner, too, but the primary comic book home of Al Capp’s popular newspaper strip was the newly founded Toby Press, an outgrowth of Capp’s earlier lawsuit against United, which resulted in a new contract in the fall of 1948. It “was a trilateral agreement covering the artist, the syndicate and [Capp] Enterprises. Under the arrangement, the Enterprises [got] an agent’s share on commercial enterprises in connection with the Li’l Abner strip” (McMaster 36). Capp had long resented the fact that he received a tiny fraction of the profits of Harvey’s comic book reprints. Hence, he created Toby Press to churn out the publications himself. Brother Elliott Caplin, formerly an editor with Parents magazine, was its publisher.

Al Capp’s Li’l Abner #70 (May 1949) continued the numbering from Harvey and was soon surrounded by satellite books Al Capp’s Dogpatch Comics and Al Capp’s Shmoo Comics. Toby also scored a coup, snagging the comic book rights to one of Hollywood’s best known cowboy stars. John Wayne Adventure Comics #1 went on sale in October, with a cover date of Dec. 1949-Jan. 1950. The initial announcement in early June noted that all of the actor’s profits was earmarked for a trust fund for his four children. An October follow-up piece added that Wayne was guaranteed a minimum of $10,000 a year. The deal evidently satisfied all involved as the title ran for nearly six years and 31 issues.

Even though merchandising and comic strips had gone hand in

Stephen Douglas’ cover for issue #180 of the long-running Famous Funnies TM and © respective copyright owner.

Big Shot couldn’t let its centennial pass without a celebration. . TM and © respective copyright owner.

hand since the turn of the century, news of Toby Press and Capp Enterprises infuriated Buffalo Evening News editor A.H. Kirchhofer. “A newspaper is entitled to the exclusive use of a feature,” he declared. “To dilute interest in it, as has been done in this commercial promotion, certainly cannot be good for either the newspaper or the artist in the long run” (Brown 52). Alas for Mr. Kirchhofer, that ship had long since sailed.

Capp’s efforts to extend his success to others in his field, however, were a failure. In 1949, he lobbied the National Cartoonists Society—of which he was a member—to use its influence to challenge the newspaper industry’s workfor-hire system that kept ownership and greater profits of comic strips out of the hands of their creators. An NCS committee ultimately concluded, historian Brian Walker wrote, “that the Society could not realistically become a trade union because it did not have the clout to shut down the comics business by going on strike” (Walker 26).

Crime Comics Under Siege

By the end of the year, crime comics were hitting their saturation point and sales were beginning to slip. Still, Lev Gleason’s two 52-page representatives, Crime Does Not Pay and Crime and Punishment, and the Simon & Kirby titles over at Prize/Crestwood, remained the genre’s benchmarks, providing stories far more sophisticated and accomplished than their competition.

Despite the prestige and popularity of his work, Gleason editor Charles Biro wasn’t content with the status quo. He wanted to elevate the comic book format to even loftier heights. He wanted comic books to be as well respected as theater, cinema, and the nascent television rather than disregarded as a disposable form of entertainment primarily consumed by children. What Biro conceived in 1949, then, was, arguably, the industry’s most ambitious comic book project to date. As comic book historian Michael T. Gilbert explains, “Charles Biro envisioned a truly adult comic book, comparable to an issue of Life or Look magazine. A comic that an adult riding a bus or train could read without embarrassment” (Gilbert 7). Biro’s new comic book was titled Tops, a 68-page oversized comic book that retailed for a quarter. The new series involved many of the same professionals that had been contributing to Biro’s two crime titles: Tony DiPreta, Bob Fujitani, Fred Guardineer, Fred Kida, Claude Moore, and

John Wayne reads the Sunday comics to his children in a photo from Dec. 20, 1942.

Charles Biro’s cover for Tops #1. TM and © respective copyright owner.

George Tuska. Add to them such talents as Edd Ashe, Al Bare, Reed Crandall, and Bob Lubbers, among others. (Detective novelist Dashiell Hammett even contributed a short prose story.)

To be clear, though, Tops wasn’t an oversize version of Crime Does Not Pay. Besides crime stories, the new series presented human interest stories, editorials, biographies, humor pieces, and tales of romance. This diverse material was intended to make Tops attractive to both male and female readers.

Tops #1 had a cover date of July 1949, yet despite its impressive roster of contributors and wide range of offerings, the sell-through rate was abysmal. According to Biro, only 27% of the first issue’s print run was purchased (Gilbert 9). (In order break even, the issue needed to sell 55% of its print run.) After Tops #2 was released (with a Sept. 1949 cover date), Gleason quickly pulled the plug on the endeavor.

Years later, Biro contended that Tops didn’t succeed principally because Gleason didn’t give him the support he needed (or requested):

“[With Tops,] My hope was to increase our staff and get an appropriate budget for art, editorial and production costs, including 4-color-process covers (paintings), and the finest printing and paper. Instead, we were told that we could proceed only with the usual comic book item costs. Imagine, production of Tops for the price of a Boy or a Daredevil comic! That’s why it was produced with Benday-like cover art, on newsprint paper, and standard comic book cover stock” (Gilbert 8-9).

Top’s poor production value (relative, at least, to Life or Look magazine) may indeed account for the reading public’s rejection of it. On the other hand, Biro’s vision may have just been too ahead of its time. Regardless, Michael T. Gilbert describes Tops most aptly: “It was, perhaps, the most audacious failure in comic book history” (7).

With regards to Gleason’s less ambitious (but far more profitable) titles, Daredevil Comics continued with the “Little Wise Guys” edging Daredevil out of his own title. It was especially clear on the covers, where the kids were now the main attractions with Daredevil confined to the title logo. Daredevil did, however, continue to appear in the actual stories, although there too, he was losing ground. By the end of the year, Daredevil became the presenter of the Little Wise Guys’ adventures, no longer even playing a secondary role in the stories. Even those token appearances would be gone by the end of 1950. Biro and artist Norman Maurer continued their regular art chores on the title, with Biro pasting his own character drawings over Maurer’s already penciled heads for the main characters. Meanwhile, the teenage protagonist of Boy Comics, Crimebuster, temporarily lost his name, strictly addressed only as “C.B.” for a little over a year (starting with issue #44—Feb. 1949).

Desperado was essentially a Western crime comic, structured as Gleason’s two crime titles were, with scripts and artwork by the same creative teams. With issue #9 (March 1949), the book was renamed Black Diamond Western with its lead story (anywhere between 12 and 19 pages) turned over to a Lone Ranger-esque hero called Black Diamond. William Overgard provided the art. Black Diamond Western was released monthly until issue #16 (Oct. 1949), at which point it went bi-monthly.

Lovers’ Lane (first issue cover dated Oct. 1949) kicked off a five-year run as a romance anthology with stories featuring artwork by the Gleason regulars of the time. The material was pretty good if not ground-breaking. In a wellintended (but ineffectual) nod to the anti-comics crowd, a cover advisory on each issue cautioned “Not intended for children.”

Reed Crandall illustrated the interior story referenced on Charles Biro’s cover for Tops #2. TM and © respective copyright owner.

Fox had tried something similar in early 1948, slapping “For Adults Only” on the first two issues of its Murder Incorporated title. “Victor Fox was blowing smoke,” one-time Fox contributor Pete Morisi declared. “He never really meant any comics for adults. He never meant a word he said. That shows you how nervous the people in the industry were—if Victor Fox [was] covering his behind, it had to be getting serious out there, and it was” (Hajdu 155).

In early 1949, Parents magazine published the findings of the Cincinnati Committee on the Evaluation of Comic Books, an organization founded in May 1948 shortly after the local Reverend Murrell preached a fiery sermon against comics. The stated position of the committee was not “to have the sale of unfavorable comics prohibited but rather to get to the source by obtaining cooperation of publishers in omitting obscenity, vulgarity, profanity, sadistic implications and situations that glamourize criminals” (Miller). Comic book historian Mike Benton added that “This [report] stated that seventy percent of all comic books contained objectionable material—from scenes of sadistic torture to suggestive and salacious actions” (47).

In Rumson, New Jersey, a Cub Scout leader announced plans for an over-the-top comic book drive/bonfire in January 1949. The event received so much publicity—not all of it good—that it attracted the attention of the Cub Scouts’ national representatives. Backpedaling, the Rumson campaign’s leaders announced that the collected comics would be donated to the Salvation Army instead (Hajdu 148).

the offending issues would be submitted to the county district attorney. On February 23, the Senate voted 49-6 to approve the bill. Metaphorically holding their noses, editorial writers at The New York Times and The Nation put aside their distaste for comic books to condemn this development. “Comic books are an opening wedge,” the latter observed. “If they can be ‘purified’—that is, controlled—newspapers, periodicals, books, films, and everything else will follow.” Thankfully, New York governor Thomas Dewey concurred and vetoed the bill on April 19 (Hajdu 148-150).

Also in January, tentative plans were made to forbid the sale of any comics not approved by the Association of Comics Magazine Publishers new standards code from Army PXs. Since most publishers had ignored said code, a cry soon went up. On January 29, the U.S. military changed its mind. It would be preferable, Major General E.B. Parker was quoted by the Associated Press, if “the publishers exercise selfcensorship.”

In the state of New York, an extraordinary bill proposed creating a division of the State Department of Education that vetted individual comic books before publication. If accepted, publishers would be issued a permit. If denied,

Cartoonist Harold Gray took the anti-comics protests to their logical conclusion in a Little Orphan Annie sequence. A January 16 prologue introduced anticomics crusader Prissy Putsch, whom one character dismissed as “silly but […] harmless.”

“So were the good Pilgrims of Plymouth colony…at first,” her husband replied, “but they hanged folks as witches ‘fore they were through.”

When Prissy returned on February 17, she started by shredding all the offensive magazines in a local shop before galvanizing a mob of locals into storming the foremost repository of violence in town: the local library. Stoking a bonfire outside, Prissy screeched, “Free our land from the sin of violence in deed or printed word! Burn the books!” Annie and other children tried shaming the mob

Charles Biro’s covers for Boy Comics #44 and Crime and Punishment #19. TM and © respective copyright owner.

A Lev Gleason house ad promoted the imminent arrival of the Black Diamond. TM and © respective copyright owner.

with the chant “Hitler Helpers” but to no avail. A spark from the blaze set the library afire and it burned to the ground on February 26.

The story generated a massive amount of hate mail for Gray, one person referring to herself as “a Prissy Putsch admirer.” A Chicago woman vowed, “We intend to keep on burning the books, for eventually this project will mean that our ‘young Americans’ will turn to more worthwhile things.”

Countering the criticism was Al Capp, who sent an unabashed fan letter to his fellow cartoonist. Noting that comics were being targeted because they were the easiest, least organized prey, Capp noted that “if you insist that the do-gooders include radio and movies in the sanctimonious ‘crusade,’ the whole thing falls apart of its own weight” (Heer 6-8).

Simmering in the background was Dr. Fredric Wertham, whose latest book went on sale in May 1949. The Show of Violence was both a case study of real-life 1930s murder cases and a platform for the doctor to expound on his theories about flaws in the legal system. The third chapter detailed Wertham’s interaction with the notorious serial killer Albert Fish, as he tried to determine if he was sane enough to stand trial. The account and the positive reaction to the book further elevated his reputation as a psychiatrist and lent great credence to his current and later comments on comic books.

Seeking a New Trend

The next stage of the war against comics would begin in the offices of E.C. Comics, where fuel for a new fire would soon be generated. But in 1949, publisher Bill Gaines and editor-writer-artist Al Feldstein were just trying to figure out what to do next. At this

point Gaines himself wasn’t much engaged in the books story wise, but just publishing six titles—Crime Patrol, Gunfighter, Modern Love, Moon Girl, Saddle Justice and War Against Crime—kept him busy, and gradually increased his appreciation of comic art.

E.C.’s stable of creators was gradually rounding out. Besides Feldstein, there was Johnny Craig who continued to draw the covers for both Crime Patrol and War Against Crime. Craig had been E.C.’s second major “find.” Turning 23 in 1949, Craig had a stint as art assistant at All-American Comics and a tour in the Merchant Marine under his belt before he began drawing for E.C. in 1947. From the outset, Craig’s covers for Gaines’ Western and crime comics were attractive and well-designed. He also drew interior stories for those titles, and gradually began writing his own scripts. Like Feldstein before him, Craig’s proficiency as a writerartist helped him stand out at E.C. In 1949, Feldstein (script and inks) and Craig (pencils) even collaborated on a history of the infamous Lucretia Borgia in Crime Patrol #13 (Aug.Sept. 1949).

Craig’s clean, composed artwork in Crime Patrol and War Against Crime was a cut above most of the other artists contributing to those titles. Feldstein’s crime work was a bit slower to develop, but he too showed gradual improvement, a standout being “The Law’s Revenge!” (War Against Crime #5), narrated by, of all things, a prison’s electric chair.

Then there was Graham Ingels, E.C.’s first major “find.” In 1949, Ingels was extending his reach beyond Westerns with Crime Patrol #12 (June-July 1949) and War Against Crime #5 (Feb.March 1949), demonstrating an untapped knack for horror in the process. “Curse of the Pharaoh” (War Against Crime #5) was

The February 24, 1949 edition of Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie newspaper strip bluntly compared the American crop of book-burners to Nazis. TM and © Content Agency, LLC..

Generally speaking, E.C.’s 1949 lineup—represented here by Gunfighter #5, War Against Crime #5, Moon Girl #7, Crime Patrol #10, and Saddle Justice #4—had no “sure-fire winners.” TM and © respective copyright owner.

shot directly from Ingels’ pencils in an experiment by Gaines to see if very tight pencils would show up well enough on the printed page to eliminate the need for inkers. The going rate for pencils at E.C. was $13 a page. At the same time, inkers earned $10 a page. Gaines wanted to buy full, tight printable pencils for $18 a page, thereby saving the company $5 per page. Unfortunately, the result was underwhelming and soon abandoned.

Midway through the year, Saddle Justice switched from a straight Western title to a Western/romance hybrid retitled Saddle Romances, beginning with issue #9 (Nov.-Dec. 1949). Moon Girl was also converted into a romance title, retitled A Moon, a Girl… Romance, with issue #9 (Sept.-Oct. 1949) and its former star sent to limbo.

The change wouldn’t last though as by the end of the year, every E.C. title except Modern Love was on the verge of cancellation. Again, Gaines was trying to figure out a definitive direction for the company that had been foisted upon him.

Having Feldstein around to talk to and bounce ideas off proved to be a godsend. Simply put, Gaines found Feldstein’s energy contagious. As they considered ideas for titles that would truly engage them, the pair discussed their mutual love of scary radio shows such as Suspense, Inner Sanctum, The Whistler, The Mysterious Traveler and Lights Out. They especially liked the programs that had a “horror host” who would welcome the listener to the show and introduce the story, sometimes very tongue-in-cheek, other times with complete seriousness.

Sheldon Moldoff’s previous horror proposals—his selfproduced Tales of the Supernatural and This Magazine Is Haunted—hadn’t lit Gaines’ fire, at least in part due to his reluctance to pay Moldoff royalties for the two titles on top of production expenses (i.e. scripts, artwork, lettering, etc.). Gaines realized it would be more affordable to produce his own books and avoid royalty payments altogether.

Expense aside, though, Moldoff was on to something. And Feldstein had dabbled in the genre as artist on the horror story “The Creekmore Curse” for ACG’s Adventures into the Unknown #3 (Feb.–March 1949). So Gaines and Feldstein decided to publish a unique

Silver proof of Johnny Craig’s cover for War Against Crime #9. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions. TM and © respective copyright owner.

sort of horror story in Crime Patrol #15 (on sale August 18 but with a Dec. 1949 cover date) as an “experimental tryout.” Written and drawn by Feldstein, that story begins with a creepy, white-haired host speaking directly to the reader:

“Heh, heh! Welcome … Welcome, dear reader! I am the Keeper of the Crypt of Terror! Come in! Heh, heh … come in … and I will tell you a story guaranteed to make your blood freeze in your veins … a story that will make your hair stand on end … This tale, from my collection, is called… ‘Return from the Grave!’

Gaines and Feldstein didn’t know it at the time, but “Return from the Grave” would become a basic template for the revenge stories that were to become the E.C. horror comics’ stock in trade. The story revolves around two men, Dickson and Carter, who are business partners

with another man named Glass. As the story begins, Dickson and Carter discuss how they’ve been swindling Glass out of the firm’s profits. Glass then appears to be killed in an accident, but Dickson and Carter soon receive a note from the dead man promising vengeance. It is all a plot by Glass, still very much alive, to teach them a lesson, but Dickson and Carter’s terror is so great that they kill themselves to avoid the “dead” man’s revenge. The tale ends with a sign off from the soon-tobe-officially-named Crypt Keeper, inviting the reader back for another story in the near future.

Readers didn’t have to wait long for that tale. In fact, it appeared one month later in War Against Crime #10 (on sale September 20 but also with a Dec. 1949 cover date). “Buried Alive” was once again written and drawn by Feldstein, but the story’s host was not the Crypt Keeper but a similar looking lunatic named the Vault Keeper.

Thanks to these hauntingly sinister narrators, E.C. Comics was rising from its deathbed, prepared to unleash a new trend on an unsuspecting industry as the calendar turned over to a new decade.

Fatefully, a new hire was on hand to help usher it in. After being laid off by Marvel in the spring of 1949, Harvey Kurtzman had been calling on publishers looking for work. He made some progress, gaining inking jobs for Prize Comics Western on two John Severin-penciled tales, doing humor work for Varsity magazine, and also working on four children’s books for Kunen Publishers, with writer René Goscinny. When Kurtzman came to E.C., Gaines and Feldstein examined his portfolio and initially determined he wasn’t the kind of artist they needed since they didn’t publish humor comic books. Still, they loved his “Hey Look!” shorts. Gaines recalled:

“We chuckled at the first few, and by the end of this mess we were … just dying, our stomachs ached with laughter. So, we agreed we had to get this talent. But how—he didn’t fit at all into what we were doing. But we tried to make him fit” (Schelly 135).

As it so happened, Bill Gaines’ uncle, David Gaines, had been in the E.C. office that day because he had obtained a government grant to produce a comic story for Columbia University about the dangers and prevention of syphilis,

Enter the Crypt Keeper. Al Feldstein’s original art from Crime Patrol #15, courtesy of Heritage Auctions. TM and © respective copyright owner.

and he needed his nephew’s help finding an artist. Bill handed his uncle’s business card to Kurtzman.

The story was titled “Lucky Fights It Through.” The 16-page strip paid just $10 a page, much less than Kurtzman had been getting at Marvel, but the artist correctly recognized that it was both an opportunity and a test for him to show Bill Gaines what he could do with serious material.

The story related in those 16 pages might seem ludicrous to modern ears. It stars a young cowboy who discovers the likely reason why he is experiencing pain in his lower regions when he listens to a Country-Western tune about venereal disease being sung around a campfire. This may seem to be a silly way to introduce the subject of the effects, diagnosis, and treatment of syphilis, but in the 1940s comics were viewed as a viable educational tool. Taking into account the poor reading skills of many servicemen, songs had relayed the same information during World War II. In 1949, famed folk singer Woody Guthrie wrote at least a dozen or more such tunes, such as “VD Blues,” “VD Day,” “VD Waltz,” etc., for the U.S. Public Health Service.

Kurtzman put his all into the assignment, winning Gaines and Feldstein’s admiration for his strong “straight” work on the giveaway. Great things lay ahead for the 25-year-old as the 1950s beckoned.

Harvey Kurtzman’s arrival at the E.C. offices was an indirect result of the anti-comic book movement. Among the form’s scholarly defenders was Dr. Harvey Zorbaugh, a 52-year-old Professor of Educational Sociology at New York University. Zorbaugh was generally sympathetic to the comics industry and recognized the potential of the comic art medium. He had already acted as an advisor to Fawcett Comics and E.C. Comics.

suggested that Kurtzman contact Educational Comics, which was soon to become Entertaining Comics.

The Industry by the End of the 1940s

What probably caught Kurtzman’s eye was an article by Harvey Zorbaugh and Mildred Gilman titled “What can You do about Comic Books?” in Family Circle magazine (Feb. 1949). In the article, the authors defended comics. Countering Dr. Fredric Wertham’s anti-comics views, Zorbaugh maintained not only were there plenty of good comics, but that comics themselves hadn’t been shown to directly cause harm to children. He concluded comic books could be an appropriate form of “entertainment, release, or aid to education” (Shelley 129).

Kurtzman met with Dr. Zorbaugh at NYU to discuss the educational potential of comics. It was Zorbaugh who

In terms of pure numbers, E.C.’s contribution to newsstand racks in 1949 was relatively small, only 31 discrete issues. The comic book industry’s postwar explosion of titles, however, was going strong that year. The 2133 comic book issues that cluttered the newsstands were rushed out by the publishers at a breakneck pace, expanding the comic book business by 25 percent and to an all-time high. The big 10 publishers included Marvel, which surpassed National for the first time as the top publisher of the year in terms of issues published, with 264. National published 233 issues, followed by Dell (224), Fawcett (193), Fox (136), Quality (130), Standard (119), St. John (80), Harvey (79), and Fiction House (57). Forty-three separate companies published titles during the year.

Meet the Vault Keeper. Al Feldstein’s original art from War Against Crime #10, courtesy of Heritage Auctions. TM and © respective copyright owner.

The amount of expansion between 1945 and 1949 was eyeopening. The number of issues National published had expanded by 60%, which is low compared to Dell (100%), Quality and Standard (each 200%), Fawcett and Marvel (each 250%), and Fox (a whopping 770%, most of that growth occurring in 1948-1949). St. John hadn’t existed in 1945 but since its debut in 1947, it had increased the number of issues published per year from 15 to 80 in 1949. Harvey had shown similar expansion, increasing from 14 issues published in 1945 to 77 issues in 1949. Fiction House seemed to be the only major comic book publisher not expanding its lineup.

All told, about twice as many issues from comics publishers appeared in 1949 as had appeared in 1945. An average of 43 new comics appeared each week in 1949.

During the decade, all the publishers coped with inflation, the rising cost of paper, etc. by decreasing their page counts from 64 pages per issue to 52 pages to 36 pages by the end of 1949 (with some exceptions). They could cut no further and still produce a 10-cent comic book. But the others in the chain, such as the distributors, wholesalers and retailers were making less and less profit per comic book because the value of 10 cents to them was shrinking. And, as their profits in the medium shrank, so did their interest in promoting it. Better to support the magazines that had acknowledged inflation and acted accordingly. Life, which sold for a dime in 1940, retailed for 20 cents as the 1940s ended.

Then too, the venues where comics were for sale were shifting from independent corner candy stores to drug stores in shopping strips that served the diaspora of young families as they moved to the suburbs to find safe and affordable neighborhoods to raise and educate their children. And, as venues closed, fewer locations were emerging to fill the gap.

caused by lack of an audience, but by nearly every publisher leaping into the field, producing dozens of similar titles that the good-sized female audience could neither absorb nor maintain. This was the same thing that happened to crime and, to some extent, Westerns, although neither had the stunning glut of title after title choking the pipeline of sales as romance did. Marvel alone put out more than two dozen romance titles. Several publishers bet their entire existence on the genre.

Romance simply overwhelmed the market and choked the newsstand space for comics, whether old or new.

The other unresolved issue was the sale of content for everyone from young children to young adults side-by-side on the same racks. It didn’t matter in the case of romance and Western comic books, but it became more and more unworkable to both the stores and the publishers dealing with more provocative material. As watchdog observers objected, the strong-selling new adult genres of crime and horror were in jeopardy. The “For Adults Only” cover label was sporadic (and didn’t satisfy the critics anyway).

The huge glut on the newsstands, of course, couldn’t be maintained. Although it took 10 years for the superhero trend to wane, about four years each for the funny animal and the Archie Andrews’ teen humor trends to slow, crime began to hit its saturation point after only three years, Westerns continued to be steady sellers for a decade but the licensed cowboy trend that started it all only lasted for eight years. The romance boom lasted just a year.

This wasn’t necessary due to reader indifference. Comic books have proven to be their own worst enemies in terms of killing the golden goose. The romance bust wasn’t

Ironically, such objections were less prevalent when comics were translated to other mediums. When the Adventures of Superman radio show moved from Mutual Broadcasting to ABC on October 29, 1949, it was pointedly retooled as an adultoriented crime show. A headline in October 27’s Radio Daily declared it was “not for tots.”

An article in May 18, 1949’s Variety referred to a flurry of radio cross-pollination as a “Comic Book Field Invasion.”

Along with noting National’s extant Gang Busters and Mr. District Attorney, the article promoted that month’s new adaptation of CBS’ Casey, Crime Photographer. “Marvel Comics Group has set up a subsidiary, Broadcast Features, which is publishing Casey and is now negotiating for Portia Faces Life, [an] NBC Soaper and other books to be based on Elaine Carrington’s stable of daytime serials.”

Debuting with a 500,000 print run, Casey flopped after four issues and killed any chance for comics featuring Portia, et al. Marvel did go ahead with a title based on CBS’ crime show Suspense, the comic surviving 29 issues thanks to a quick shift to science fiction. Also mentioned in the Variety piece were upcoming comics based on ABC’s TV puppet Howdy Doody (premiering from Dell in December 1949) and CBS’ long-running kids show Let’s Pretend (via D.S. Publishing in 1950 for a brief three issues).

Lucky Fights It Through featured Harvey Kurtzman’s first work for E.C. TM and © respective copyright owner.

The wave of comics based on theatrical performers—live and animated—continued unabated. Toby’s John Wayne kicked off with a print run “in excess of one-half million” (Showmen’s Trade Review, Sept. 9) while plans were afoot for copies of Fawcett’s Lash LaRue—available at “special prices for theatre exhibitors”—to be used as premiums following showings of the cowboy star’s movies (Showmen’s Trade Review, Jan. 9).

National’s Miss Beverly Hills of Hollywood, its quasi-fan magazine for Paramount Pictures, was purported in March 1949 as having “some million readers” and attracting “4,000 letters” (Konecoff 10). However unlikely that may be given the title’s ultimately short run, it nonetheless convinced Paramount to authorize comics starring Alan Ladd and Bob Hope (“Paramount Comics” 17). Comic books may have been embattled, but film studios and press agents were well aware there was gold in those four-color pages.

An October 5, 1949 newspaper column made that abundantly clear. Columnist William A. Caldwell, writing about a New Jersey parent’s objections to comic books, suggested that the fight was already lost. “We wonder if Mr. Zellweger knows, when he starts fighting the comics’ infiltration of his home and his kids’ clabbered little brains, the size of his adversary. Few parents do” (Caldwell 36).

As evidence, Caldwell produced the Audit Bureau of Circulations’ top-selling magazines as of June 1948 (exempting ad-free publications like Readers Digest). “Six of the top 10 magazines in the United States,” he declared, “are comic books or combinations of comic books.”

Reader’s Digest, 8,000,000 (self-reported)

Life, 5,446,089

Fawcett Comics (cumulative titles), 4,754,217

Ladies Home Journal, 4,522, 474

Marvel Comics (cumulative titles), 4,440,993

National Comics “Red Group” (cumulative titles), 4,233,813

National Comics “Blue Group” (cumulative titles), 4,203,690

Saturday Evening Post, 3,923,606

Harvey Comics (cumulative titles), 3,911,218

Archie Comics (cumulative titles), 3,819,950

Absent from the list were Dell’s cumulative sales, which would undoubtedly have been massive in their own right. That said, stacking a comics publisher’s entire output against single magazines isn’t a fair comparison.

“You may as well concede that the comics have you just about where they want you,” Caldwell declared. “That is, in a minority which will dwindle as the generations die which had a queer reverence for books and which thought language was given us for the communication of ideas, that art and its craftsmanships were given us for the transmission of great ideas. Go ahead, Mr. Zellweger; reform the comics—reform Russia, reform Mount Everest, reform the Atlantic Ocean.”

Al Capp launched into a more straightforward defense of comics in a 1949 letter to the Boston Globe. “Comic books,” he wrote, “are read by kids as an escape from rotten housing conditions, from miserable family life necessitated by inadequate incomes, from the misery of overcrowded schools, from the inertia caused by malnutrition, which, in turn, is caused by the prohibitive prices of decent food for low-income families. Those who yap and yammer and spend the public’s money in a crusade against the nearly wholly harmless comic book would do more good and be much more honest men if their energies and the money of taxpayers in a real effort to get at the roots of juvenile delinquency. That would take guts. This ‘comic book crusade’ and ‘comic book censorship’ takes nothing but ignorance of the facts, artificially created hysteria and the taxpayers’ hard-earned money” (Capp 11).

No matter how spirited and rational the argument, the reformers were not backing down. With the 1950s on the horizon, the battle for the comic book industry was only beginning.

On the heels of the Kent-Lane nuptials, Dick Tracy and Tess Trueheart surprised their friends on December 25, 1949 with the news that they’d be seeing in the 1950s as husband and wife. Story and art by Chester Gould. TM and © Tribune Content Agency.

Following their December 20, 1949 marriage in the Superman newspaper strip (detailed on page 216), Clark Kent and Lois Lane had high hopes for a new beginning in the 1950s. Art by Win Mortimer. TM and © DC Comics.

American Comic Book Chronicles: 1945-1949 Works Cited

Chapter 1: 1945: Victory!

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Chapter 2: 1946: The Atom Age of Comics

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Isabella, Tony. 1000 Comic Books You Must Read. Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2009.

Kitchen, Denis and Paul Buhle. The Art of Harvey Kurtzman: The Mad Genius of Comics. New York, NY: Abrams ComicsArt, 2009.

Lage, Matt. “We Were More or Less Inspired.” The Fawcett Companion Raleigh, NC: TwoMorrows Publishing, 2001: 59-64.

Lee, Stan and George Mair. Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee. New York, NY: Atria Books, 2002.

Markstein, Donald D. “Torchy.” Don Markstein’s Toonopedia. 8 Sept. 2023. <www.toonopedia. com/torchy.htm>.

Murray, Will. “Black Market Comics of the Golden Age.” Comic Book Marketplace (No. 108). Dec. 2003: 28-45,50-53.

—. “Walter Gibson Remembers Street & Smith’s Comics.” Alter Ego (No. 176). July 2022: 42-46.

Schelly, Bill. Words of Wonder: The Life and Times of Otto Binder Seattle, WA: Hamster Press, 2003. Schiff, Jack and Gene Reed. “Reminiscences of a Comic Book Editor.” The Comic Book Price Guide (No. 13). 1983: A64-A70. Simon, Joe. Joe Simon: My Life in Comics. London, UK: Titan Books, 2011.

Thomas, Roy. “‘So You Want A Job, Eh?’ - The Gene Colan Interview.” Alter Ego (No. 6). Autumn 2000. <http://twomorrows.com/ alterego/articles/06colan.html>.

—. “They Were Winners, Every One!” Timely Comics Presents: All Winners Comics. Dec. 1999. Vance, Michael. “Forbidden Adventures: The History of The American Comics Group.” Alter Ego (No. 61). August 2006: 3-73.

Walker, Brian. “The War Made a Realist Out of Me.” Rip Kirby, Volume One. Oct. 2009: 13-21. Ziemann, Irvin H. “Gaylord DuBois: Chapter One, concluded.” The Comics Buyer’s Guide (#830). Oct. 13, 1989: 62-64.

Chapter 3: 1947: The Cold War Within and Without

Amash, Jim and Eric NolenWeathington. Carmine Infantino: Penciler, Publisher, Provocateur Raleigh, NC: TwoMorrows Publishing, 2010.

Arndt, Richard J. “The First Amazon: Joye Hummel Murchison Kelly—Wonder Woman’s Mid1940s Ghost Writer.” Alter Ego (No. 157). March 2019: 3-33.

Barr, Mike W. “When Those Who Can, Teach.” Alter Ego (No. 6). Autumn 2000: 21-25.

Benson, John and Dana Dutch. Romance Without Tears. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Books, 2003. Benton, Mike. The Comic Book In America: An Illustrated History Dallas, TX: Taylor Publishing Co., 1989.

Brevoort, Tom. “Secrets Behind the Comics 4.” The Tom Brevoort Experience. 4 April 2021. <https:// tombrevoort.com/2021/04/04/ secrets-behind-the-comics-4/>. Cooke, Jon. “Batman, Dr. Strangelove, And Everything In Between: A Talk with Lew Sayre Schwartz.” Alter Ego (No. 51). Aug. 2005: 3-30.

Decker, Dwight and Gary Groth. “An Interview with Bill Gaines.” The Comics Journal (No. 81). May 1983: 53-84.

Dorf, Shel and Rich Rubenfeld. “We Create Images, and They Just Continue On.” The Jack Kirby Collector (No. 36). Summer 2002: 66-69.

Fears, Stephen. “The Jerry Grandenetti Interview.” Jergrand.com. 28 June 2023. <https://web.archive.org/ web/20080514174207/http:// www.jergrand.com/interview. php>.

Gleason, Leverett S. “To Hon. Estes Kefauver.” Juvenile Delinquency: A Compilation of Information and Suggestions Submitted to the Special Senate Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce Relative to the Incidence of Juvenile Delinquency in the United States and the Possible Influence Thereon of So-called Crime Comic Books During the Period 1945 to 1950. United States Government Printing Office, 1950.

Hajdu, David. The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America. New York, NY: Picador, 2009.

Harvey, R.C. Meanwhile…A Biography of Milton Caniff. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Books, 2007 Hill, Roger. “Bill Irwin Interview: June 15, 2013.” EC Fan-Addict Fanzine. Dec. 2015: 24-34. Jacobs, Frank. The Mad World of M.

C. Gaines. Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart, Inc., 1972.

Jensen, Chris. “Setting the Stage.” Steve Canyon Magazine (No. 1). Jan. 1983: 4-15.

Kersten, Jeff. “Of Pink Shirts & Power Struggles.” The Complete Dick Tracy (No. 11). Jan. 2011: 256265.

Kooiman, Mike and Jim Amash. The Quality Companion. Raleigh, NC: TwoMorrows Publishing, 2011. Laqua, Charsten. “Carl Barks— The Author.” Carl Barks—His Work and His Life. 12 June 2007. <https://web.archive.org/ web/20080118150023/http:// moneybin.at.infoseek.co.jp/ biography.html>.

Leech, Edward Towner. “Li’l Abner vs. the Editor.” Pittsburgh Press Sept. 17, 1947: 16.

Lepore, Jill. The Secret History of Wonder Woman. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 2014.

Lewis, Andy. “Joan Lee, Wife of Marvel Comics Legend Stan Lee, Dies at 95.” HollywoodReporter. com. 6 July 2017. <https://www. hollywoodreporter.com/movies/ movie-news/joan-lee-dead-wifemarvel-comics-legend-stan-leewas-95-1018951/>.

Manning, Russ. “Model-T to T-Bird.” Batmania (No. 1). July 1964: 13-18.

Quattro, Ken. “Arthur St. John and the Little Company That Could.” Comicartville.com. 30 June 2023. <https://web.archive. org/web/20150711043727/ http://www.comicartville.com/ archerstjohn.htm>.

Schreiner, Dave. “Stage Settings: Coping with History’s Accusing Stare.” The Spirit (No. 17). March 1986.

—. “Stage Settings: The Beginning of a Roll.” The Spirit (No. 20). June 1986.

Schumacher, Michael and Denis Kitchen. Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary. New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2013.

Simon, Joe. Joe Simon: My Life in Comics. London, UK: Titan Books, 2011.

Thomas, Roy. “A Moon…A Bat…A Hawk: A Candid Conversation with Sheldon Moldoff.” Alter Ego (No. 4). Spring 2000: 4-14.

—. “Interlude #7: RENAISSANCE and REBIRTH: The JSA at High Tide.” The All-Star Companion (second printing). Raleigh, NC: TwoMorrows Publishing, 2004. Tye, Larry. Superman: The HighFlying History of America’s Most Enduring Hero. New York, NY: Random House, 2013. Waugh, Coulton. The Comics. New York, NY: Macmillan, 1947. Willits, Malcom, and Don and Maggie Thompson. “The Duck Man.” The Duckburg Times (No. 10). March 1981: 11-20.

Chapter 4: 1948: Cowboys, Criminals, and Lovers

Amash, Jim. “A Conversation With Shelly Mayer.” Alter Ego (No. 21). Feb. 2003: 12-14.

—. “Sales Don’t Tell You Everything.” Alter Ego (No. 94). June 2010: 42-61.

Barlow, Ron. “Wallace Wood.” EC Lives! 1972: 27.

Benton, Mike. The Comic Book In America: An Illustrated History Dallas, TX: Taylor Publishing Co., 1989.

—. Crime Comics: The Illustrated History. Dallas, TX: Taylor Publishing Co., 1993.

Biga, Greg and Jon B. Cooke. John Severin: Two-Fisted Comic Book Artist. Raleigh, NC: TwoMorrows Publishing, 2021.

Crist, Judith. “Horror in the Nursery.” Collier’s. 27 March 1948: 22-23, 95-97.

Dakin, Brett. American Daredevil: Comics, Communism, and the Battles of Lev Gleason. Toronto, ON: Chapterhouse Publishing, Inc., 2020.

Daniels, Les. Wonder Woman: The Complete History. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books LLC, 2000.

Decker, Dwight and Gary Groth. “An Interview with Bill Gaines.” The Comics Journal (No. 81). May 1983: 53-84.

Dorf, Shel. “An Interview with Woody.” Comic Book Artist (No. 14). July 2001: 18-20.

Duin, Steve and Mike Richardson. Comics: Between the Panels Milwaukie, Oregon: Dark Horse Comics, Inc.: 1998.

Durajlija, Walter. “Treasure Hunt.” Comic Book Daily. 30 June 2020. <https://www.comicbookdaily. com/collecting-community/timeto-collect/collect/>.

Geissman, Grant. “Feldstein.” Tales of Terror!: The E.C. Companion Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Books/ Gemstone Publishing, 2000.

Hajdu, David. The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America. New York, NY: Picador, 2009.

Mark, Eve. “The Comics Ain’t.” The Louisville Courier-Journal. 8 Aug. 1948: 4 (Section 3).

Schelly, Bill. John Stanley: Giving Life to Little Lulu. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Press, 2017.

Schultz, Henry E. “Censorship or Self Regulation.” Journal of Educational Sociology (Vol. 23, No. 4). Dec. 1949: 215-224.

Tilley, Carol. “Seducing the Innocent: Fredric Wertham and the Falsifications that Helped Condemn Comics.” Information & Culture: A Journal of History. (Vol. 47, No. 4). 2012: 383-413.

Tollin, Anthony. “Origins of the Golden Age: Sheldon Mayer.” The Amazing World of DC Comics (No.

5). March-April 1975: 2-11.

Tye, Larry. Superman: The HighFlying History of America’s Most Enduring Hero. New York, NY: Random House, 2013. Vadeboncoeur, Jim Jr. “The Early Years: An Interview with John Severin.” Squa Tront (No. 11). Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Books, 2005.

Vance, Michael. “Forbidden Adventures: The History of The American Comics Group.” Alter Ego (No. 61). August 2006: 3-73.

Wigransky, David Pace. “Cain Before Comics.” The Saturday Review of Literature. 24 July 1948: 19-20.

Chapter 5: 1949: Love Conquers All, Even Superheroes

—. “Grist For the Showmanship Mill.” Showmen’s Trade Review. 1 Jan. 1949: 11.

—. “Grist For the Showmanship Mill.” Showmen’s Trade Review. 24 Sept. 1949: 21.

—. “Paramount Comics.” Showmen’s Trade Review. 1 Oct. 1949: 17.

Alyn, Kirk. A Job For Superman. Los Angeles, CA: Kirk Alyn, 1971.

Anderson, Linnea M. “National Social Welfare Assembly Comics Project.” VCU Libraries Social Welfare History Project. 18 May 2017. <https://socialwelfare. library.vcu.edu/organizations/ national-social-welfare-assemblycomics-project/>.

Benson, John Confessions, Romances, Secrets and Temptation. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Press, 2007.

—. Romance Without Tears. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Press, 2003. Benton, Mike. Crime Comics: The Illustrated History. Dallas, TX: Taylor Publishing Co., 1993. Boatner, E.B. “L.B. Cole: The Man Behind the Mask.” The Comic Book Price Guide (No. 11). 1981: A55-A72.

Brown, Robert U. “Shop Talk at Thirty.” Editor & Publisher. 30 July 1949: 52.

Caldwell, William A. “Simcon Stylites.” The Bergen (NJ) Evening Record. 5 Oct. 1949: 36.

Capp, Al. “Al Capp Takes Up the Cudgel Against Comic Book Crusaders.” The Boston Globe. 6 Feb. 1949: 11.

Carter, R. J. “Interview: Dan DeCarlo: Archie, Josie and Dan.” The Trades. 1 Jan. 2002. <https://web.archive. org/web/20110527004200/http:// www.the-trades.com/article. php?id=1645>.

Feiffer, Jules. “Jules Feiffer Talks About the Spirit.” Panels (No. 1). Summer 1979: 22-27.

Gilbert, Michael T. “Introduction: The Secret Files of Dr. Drew!” Mr. Monster Presents: The Secret Files

of Dr. Drew. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Books, 2014: 7-14. —. “Introduction.” Tops: The Complete Collection of Charles Biro’s Visionary 1949 Comic Book Series. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Books, Inc., 2022.

Hajdu, David. The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America. New York, NY: Picador, 2009.

Heer, Jeet. “Annie Versus the Book Burners and Hitler Helpers.” The Complete Little Orphan Annie, Volume Fourteen: Sunshine and Shadow. San Diego, CA: IDW, 2017: 5-9.

Howe, Sean. Marvel Comics: The Untold Story. New York, NY: Harper Collins, 2012.

Konecoff, Mel. “Comic Corner.” The Exhibitor. 9 March 1949: 10.

McMaster, Jane. “Li’l Abner Sideline is Shmoopendous.” Editor & Publisher. 16 July 1949: 36.

Miller, Mildred. “Talk About Women.” Cincinnati Enquirer. 31 Oct., 1948.

Nolan, Michelle. Love on the Racks: A History of American Romance Comics. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2008.

Schelly, Bill. Harvey Kurtzman: The Man Who Created MAD and Revolutionized Humor in America Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Press, 2015.

—. John Stanley: Giving Life to Little Lulu. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Press, 2017.

—. Man of Rock: A Biography of Joe Kubert. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Press, 2008.

Schiff, Jack and Gene Reed. “Reminiscences of a Comic Book Editor.” The Comic Book Price Guide (No. 13). 1983: A64-A70.

Seuling, Phil. “Power Luncheon— Joe Simon, Stan Lee, Frank Robbins & Roy Thomas at a Mid-’70s Seulingcon.” Alter Ego (No. 13). March 2002: 4-10.

Spicer, Bill and Vincent Davis. “Interview with Dan Noonan.” Graphic Story Magazine (No. 9). Summer 1968.

Thomas, Roy. “Written Off 9-30-49, Part II: Reconstructing Reinman.” Alter Ego (No. 12). Jan. 2002: 4-16. Thompson, Maggie. “Will Eisner’s Gleeful Guide to Astrology.” Golden Age of Comics (No. 2). 1982: 31-46.

Vadeboncoeur, Jr., Jim. “The Early Years: An Interview with John Severin.” Squa Tront (No. 11). Spring 2005.

Walker, Brian. “The Postwar Years.” The Comics Since 1945. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2002: 17-26.

Witterstaetter, Renee. “Julius Schwartz.” David Anthony Kraft’s Comics Interview (No. 88). 1990: 31-47.

Airboy 56-57, 111-112, 246-247

Alascia, Vince 67, 81, 138 Alyn, Kirk 171, 222

All-American Comics 18-21, 77, 83-84, 124, 166

American Comic Group (ACG) 26, 165, 193, 199200, 211, 246, 255

Anderson, Murphy 46, 115 Aquaman 25, 90, 224

Archie Comics 10, 12, 5254, 80, 103-104, 147, 200201, 208, 211, 214-215

Arnold, Everett “Busy” 4851, 93-95, 140-141

Arr, Don 27-29, 109

Atkinson, Ruth 68-69, 97, 211

Autry, Gene 16, 91-92, 178, 249

Avison, Al 67, 138

Avon Publications 57, 151152, 165, 193, 199, 211, 246

Ayers, Dick 194, 228

Baily, Bernard 10, 30-33, 106, 114, 241

Bald, Ken 81, 138-139, 181, 183, 191

Baker, Matt 45-46, 99-100, 152-153, 184, 192, 211-212, 244

Barks, Carl 14, 16, 92-93, 144-145, 181, 233

Barry, Dan 57, 111, 148, 177, 220-221, 249

Batman 10-11, 21, 23-25, 88-89, 127-129, 131-132, 174-176, 218-219, 221, 223

Battefield, Ken 28, 35-36, 109, 118, 245

Beck, C.C. 11-12, 62-63, 66, 75-76, 134, 136, 227

Bellman, Allen 81, 137

Bester, Alfred 91, 122

Binder, Jack 63, 65, 136

Binder, Otto 11, 62-65, 67-68, 75, 78-80, 134-138, 174, 227

Biro, Charles 58-59, 115, 157, 158, 193, 194-195, 251-252

Black Canary 118, 124-125, 167-169, 216, 223-224

Blackhawk (Quality) 48, 77, 93-94, 239

Blackstone, Harry 54, 110111, 121

Blue Beetle 41-43, 98-99

American Comic Book Chronicles: 1945-1949 Index

Boltinoff, Murray 89-90, 162, 167

Boring, Wayne 37, 84-85, 130-131, 172-173, 216-218, 221

Brenner, George E 48, 94

Breslauer, Bernie 25, 89, 129, 167

Briefer, Dick 30, 58-59, 241

Broome, John 123, 125, 164, 168, 224

Buck Rogers 12, 249

Buettner, Carl 14-16, 9293, 143

Bugs Bunny 15, 17, 142, 180, 234, 235, 249

Burnley, Jack 23, 88, 127

Buscema, John 194

Bryant, Al 48-49, 93-94, 140

Byrne, Jack 44, 98

Cameron, Don 22-25, 89, 131, 175, 220

Camy, Al 28, 107-109

Caniff, Milton 75, 96, 99, 103, 118, 132-133, 155, 200

Capp, Al 13, 117, 131, 142, 145, 159, 189, 249, 250-251, 254, 259

Captain America 66-67, 82-83, 134, 137-140, 182, 225-226

Captain Marvel (Shazam) 10, 61-65, 75-80, 119, 134137, 165, 174, 227

Cardy, Nick 221

Casper the Friendly Ghost 212

Cazaneuve, Arthur 24

Cazaneuve, Louis 23, 25

Charlton Publications 35, 165, 186, 211, 238

Chesler, Harry “A” 12, 4344, 57, 104, 113, 145

Colan, Gene 46, 81, 193, 239

Cole, Jack 48-50, 93, 118, 193, 196

Cole, L.B. 10, 33, 38-42, 55, 104-105, 118, 213

Coll, Charles 54, 110

Continental Magazines, Inc. 38-39, 104

Costanza, Pete 11, 12, 66, 76, 134, 136, 227

Craig, Chase 14-15, 92, 180

Craig, Johnny 121, 185, 254

Crandall, Reed 49, 93, 115, 239, 252

Creston Publications 10, 25-29, 119, 246

Crestwood Publication Co. 12, 30-31, 74, 148-151, 165, 189-190, 197-198, 204, 208, 240-241, 251

Crime Does Not Pay 58-59, 115, 117-118, 134, 157, 176, 181, 194, 251

Cronin, Ed 56-57, 111-112, 148

Crossen, Ken 57-58, 106107

Crowley, Wendell 62

David McKay Company 14, 17, 112

DC Comics 12, 18-19, 2126, 74, 76-77, 83-91, 119, 122-132, 134, 147, 161, 162164, 165-166-177, 210, 213, 215-225, 257-258

DeCarlo, Dan 194, 208

Dell Publishing 12, 14-17, 91-93, 142-144, 160, 161, 177-181, 189, 196, 233-238, 258-259

Dick Tracy 15, 133, 142, 178, 196, 216, 235

Doc Savage 54, 218

Doolin, Joe 47

Donald Duck 14, 16-17, 9293, 142, 144-145, 180-181, 233-235, 249

Donenfeld, Harry 18, 2122, 26, 29, 61, 83, 119

Draut, Bill 149, 190-191, 197-198, 204, 240-241

DuBois, Gaylord 15-16, 9192, 144, 177, 181, 234

Dutch, Dana 211-212

E.C. Comics 21, 120-121, 160, 184-186, 193, 195, 200, 211, 216, 254-257

Eisner, Will 44-45, 48, 51, 95-97, 129, 141-142, 155, 186-189, 193, 228-232, 244-245

Elder, Will 82, 193-194, 197, 198, 240-241

Elias, Lee 46, 123, 125, 241, 249

Ellsworth, Whitney 22, 25-26, 83, 85, 119, 130-131, 164, 166-167, 216, 221 Evans, Dale 164, 222

Everett, Bill 68, 181, 183

Fagaly, Al 53, 59 Fago, Al 30, 38 Fago, Vince 31, 67, 70

Fawcett Publications 11, 61-66, 77-80, 134-137, 161, 165, 174, 186, 192, 193, 210, 216, 227-228, 258-259

Feiffer, Jules 96, 142, 187, 230-232

Feldstein, Al 152, 184-186, 195, 198, 254-257

Ferstadt, Lou 35, 42-43, 56, 60, 81, 113

Fiction House 12, 44-47, 97-99, 165, 186, 192, 242245, 258

Fine, Lou 48, 51, 95, 239 Finger, Bill 22-23, 67, 83, 89, 127, 131-132, 173-177, 217

Flash (DC Comics) 19-20, 124-125, 168-169, 223-224

Flash Gordon 14, 16, 103, 107, 112, 143, 180, 193, 234 Flessel, Creig 61 Foster, Hal 14

Four Color 14, 16, 91-93, 142-145, 177, 233-234

Fox Feature Syndicate 11, 41-42, 98, 153, 164, 192, 193, 195, 208-209, 216, 241-242, 253, 258 Fox, Gill 49-50, 93, 209, 239

Fox, Gardner 18-19, 61, 121-124, 164, 185, 228

Fox, Victor S. 41-42, 98, 164, 184, 191, 195 Fradon, Ramona 194 Frazetta, Frank 99, 193 Frese, George 214 Fujitani, Bob 32, 38-39, 55, 60, 151, 251

Gaines, Max 18-21, 83, 119-121, 124, 153, 166, 170

Gaines, William 21, 120121, 184-186, 200, 254-257 Giacoia, Frank 81, 125, 164, 193 Gibson, Walter 54, 110 Giella, Joe 194

Gilberton Corporation 47, 99, 245-246

Giunta, John 32, 38, 164, 196, 212

Gleason, Lev 59, 115, 117-119, 157, 160, 165, 194-195, 211, 251-252 Goldberg, Stan 194 Goodman, Martin 10, 33, 66, 70, 80-83, 137, 139-140, 145, 161-162, 181-183, 191, 197, 200, 207-208, 225-227

Grandenetti, Jerry 141, 186-187, 232, 244-245

Green Arrow 25, 90, 129, 174, 224

Greene, Joseph 20, 22-23, 57-58, 106-107

Green Lantern 19-20, 91, 122, 124-125, 164, 168-169, 223-224

Grothkopf, Chad 62, 64 Guardineer, Fred 199, 251 Gustavson, Paul 48-50, 93, 238-240

Hamilton, Edmond 19, 131 Harrison, Sol 83

Harvey, Alfred 60-61, 100-102

Harvey Publications 78, 100-103, 200, 211, 212, 216, 235, 247, 248-249, 258

Harvey, Leon 60

Hasen, Irwin 122-125, 164, 168, 215, 224

Hawkman 19-20, 124-125, 168-169, 174, 223-224

Hecht, George J. 36

Hermann, Ruth Rae 38, 40, 104-105

Hibbard, E. Everett 19-20, 108, 177

Hillman, Alex L. 56, 111112

Hillman Periodicals 12, 5657, 111-112, 118-119, 147148, 160, 165, 189, 211, 246 Hogarth, Burne 13, 117, 193

Hollingsworth, A.C. 99

Holyoke Publishing 11, 43, 113-114

Hopper, Fran 60, 97

Hughes, Richard E. 26, 28, 107-109, 199-200

Human Torch 66-67, 8283, 137-138, 181-182, 207 Hummel-Murchison, Joye 18-19, 126-127, 170

Ingels, Graham 115, 185, 244, 247, 254

Iger, Jerry 44-45, 47-48, 97-100, 152-153, 209 Infantino, Carmine 43, 111, 113, 118, 124-125, 147, 167, 193, 210, 212, 220-221, 240

Jacquet, Lloyd V. 33-34, 36 Jaffee, Al 81, 139, 226

Joe Palooka 27, 61, 102103, 113, 189, 200, 216, 248 Johnson, Ryerson 164

Justice Society of America 19, 83, 91, 122-125, 168169, 216, 224-225

Kamen, Jack 152

Kane, Bob 23, 88-89, 127, 131-132, 146, 170, 175

Kane, Gil 25, 34, 146, 193, 220

Kanigher, Robert 19, 83, 118, 123-125, 127, 163-164, 167, 169-170, 210, 215

Kashdan, George 129, 162, 164

Katy Keene 10, 147, 214215

Kaye, Stan 85, 90, 216-218, 221

Kelly, Walt 16-17, 91-92, 143, 179-180, 189, 234, 235236, 249

Kerr, George 15, 17, 91

Kida, Fred 111-112, 251

Kiefer, Henry C. 29, 31-32, 34, 36, 46, 243, 245-246

Kimelfeld, Bella 59, 115 King Features Syndicate 14, 103, 112, 132, 177-178, 250

Kinstler, Everett Raymond 28, 210

Kirby, Jack 10, 23-25, 45, 67, 100-101, 118-119, 127, 139-140, 146, 147-151, 189191, 197-198, 204-205, 208, 219, 240-241, 251

Kramer, Jerry 213

Kremer, Warren 55, 118, 193, 245

Krigstein, Bernard 193, 241

Kubert, Joe 20, 24, 60, 90, 99, 106, 123-125, 147, 151152, 164, 165, 169, 193, 212-213

Kurtzman, Harvey 81-82, 158, 193, 197, 226, 241, 256-257

Leav, Mort 105

Lebeck, Oskar 14, 17, 92, 178 Lee, Stan 70, 80-83, 138140, 146, 160, 162, 182-183, 194, 226-227

Lieberson, Will 62-63, 65, 80

Liebowitz, Jack 18, 21-22, 61, 83, 119, 129-131, 166, 172, 174

Li’l Abner 13, 117, 130-131, 142, 189, 202, 248-249, 250

Little Lulu 17, 93, 142-143, 178-179, 236-238

Little Orphan Annie 15, 16, 143, 181, 203, 235, 253-254

Lone Ranger 16, 112, 142, 177-178

Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies 14-16, 177, 180

Magazine House, Inc. 5960, 115

Mandrake the Magician 14, 250

Maneely, Joe 193-194, 238

Marsh, Jesse 16, 91, 143144

Marston, William Moulton 18-19, 118, 121, 126-127, 129, 170, 215

Marvel Comics 11, 66-70, 77, 80-83, 118, 134, 137139, 162, 181-183, 194, 197, 207-208, 216, 225-227, 257-258

Maurer, Norman 59, 115, 212, 252

Mayer, Sheldon 18-21, 83, 122-123, 126, 166-167, 170

Mercer, Marilyn 96, 244245

Meskin, Mort 24-25, 58, 106-107, 126, 129, 162, 191, 193, 197-198, 240, 248, 249

Meyer, Helen Honig 14-16

Mickey Mouse 14, 17, 142143, 180, 233, 235, 249

Mighty Mouse 70-71, 74, 137, 145, 200

Millard, Joe 48, 65, 95, 163-164, 239-240

M.L.J. Magazines, Inc. See Archie Comics

Moldoff, Sheldon 20, 121, 185-186, 255

Montana, Bob 103, 214

Mooney, Jim 128, 176

Moreira, Ruben 43, 46, 104, 220-221, 248

Mortimer, Win 23, 85, 89, 128, 131, 173, 221

National Comics

See DC Comics

Naydel, Martin 19-20, 123

Nodell, Martin 19, 91

Nordling, Klaus 48, 50-51, 95, 239

Novelty Press 36-38, 213

Novick, Irv 52, 193, 238

Oleck, Jack 148, 191

Oksner, Bob 26, 28-29, 108-109, 125, 166-167, 170, 222, 224

Orbit Publications 10, 38, 75, 104-105, 160, 209, 247

Orlando, Joe 194

Palais, Rudy 38-40, 55, 59, 241, 245

Paris, Charles 127-128, 163, 175

Plastic Man (Quality) 49, 111, 239

Plastino, Al 44, 104, 131, 173, 217

Parents’ Magazine Press 36, 73, 76, 246-247

Peddy, Arthur 215, 224, 260

Peter, Harry G. 18, 126, 170

Pines, Ned 10, 26-29, 73, 77, 107-109, 248

Phantom 14, 250

Pogo 16, 92, 143, 189, 194, 233, 235

Popeye 14, 16, 143, 234, 249, 250

Post, Howard 31-32, 106, 114, 163, 212

Powell, Bob 60, 181, 193, 247

Quackenbush, Bill 48, 50 Quality Comics 11, 48-51, 61, 74-75, 77, 93-95, 140141, 153, 161, 209-210, 238240, 258

Quinlan, Charles M. 29, 61, 108-109

Raboy, Mac 57-58, 63, 106107, 136

Raymond, Alex 14, 103, 143, 193

Reinman, Paul 19, 122-123, 126, 215

Reneé, Lily 46, 97-98, 153, 200, 211

Riss, Pete 48, 50, 240

Robin (The Boy Wonder) 10, 21, 23, 127-128, 174176, 218-219, 221, 223

Robinson, Jerry 23, 58, 60, 74, 89, 106, 148, 191, 197198, 248

Roche, Ruth 44-45, 47-48, 97-100, 152

Rogers, Roy 16, 142-143, 164, 177-178, 249

Roussos, George 24, 58, 60, 129, 173, 177, 186, 240

Sachs, Bernard 111, 224, 240

Sahle, Harry 49, 53, 239

Samachson, Joe 23-25, 128

Sampliner, Paul 18, 83

Sangor, Ben 10, 25, 27-29, 107-109, 199-200

Schaffenberger, Kurt 64, 78

Schiff, Jack 22, 85, 88-89, 129, 131, 162-163, 167, 176, 223

Schomburg, Alex 28, 109, 248

Schwartz, Alvin 22-23, 25, 84, 88-89, 131, 177, 217

Schwartz, Julius 19, 21, 83, 119, 122-124, 163-164, 167, 169, 174-175, 215, 221

Schwartz, Samm 214

Sekowsky, Mike 81, 139, 162

Severin, John 193-194, 197, 198, 240-241, 256

Shadow (Walter Gibson) 54, 110

Sherman, Howard 24, 89, 129, 163, 177, 221

Shores, Syd 81-83, 137139, 162, 181

Shuster, Joe 22-23, 84, 129-131, 170-173, 189, 218, 220, 228

Siegel, Jerry 22-23, 84, 129131, 170-172, 189, 220

Sikela, John 22, 131, 218

Simek, Art 81

Simon, Joe 10, 23-25, 55, 67, 100-102, 118-119, 127, 139-140, 147-151, 189-191, 197-198, 204-205, 208, 219, 240-241, 251

Sprang, Dick 23, 89, 128, 131, 174-175

Spark Publications 57-58, 74, 106-107

Spirit (Will Eisner) 48-51, 76, 93, 95-97, 111, 141-142, 155, 186-189, 193, 228-232, 239

St. John Publishing 145, 165, 200, 211-212, 258 Stahl, Al 48, 50-51, 94-95

Stallman, Manny 31, 40, 241

Standard Magazines 2729, 99, 107, 164, 193, 211, 248, 258

Stanley, John 15-17, 93, 178-179, 236-237

Stern, Charles 82, 193, 197 Steve Canyon 118, 132133, 200

Stokes, Manning Lee 100, 152

Stoner, E.C. 42, 98-99, 111 Street & Smith Publications 12, 54-55, 77, 109-111, 194, 250 Sub-Mariner 66-68, 82-83, 137-138, 207

Sullivan, Vin 61, 118, 228 Sulman, Al 81-83, 139, 183 Superboy 22-23, 90, 127128, 130-131, 173, 218, 223

Superman 10-11, 21-23, 25, 84-88, 128-131, 170-73, 216-218, 221-223

Swan, Curt 24, 90, 128, 174, 194, 218

Tarzan 13, 143-144, 178, 193, 250

Temerson, Frank Z. 38-39, 104

Terry and the Pirates 15, 75, 91, 101, 103, 132, 235, 248

Timely Comics

See Marvel Comics

Toth, Alex 124-125, 147, 163-164, 169, 193, 210, 212, 221

Tripp, Irving 178-179, 236-237

Tuska, George 43, 64, 104, 248, 252

Uncle Scrooge McDuck 144-145, 181, 233-235

United Feature Syndicate, Inc. 13, 145, 250

Universal Phoenix Features Syndicate 99-100

Vigoda, Bill 52-53, 214

Voight, Charles 30-32

Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories 14-15, 92, 109, 144-145, 180, 233

Ward, Bill 94, 209, 240 Waugh, Colton 12, 152-155

Wayne, John 250-251

Webb, Bob 45-47, 100, 152, 243

Weisinger, Mort 23, 84, 89, 119, 167, 171, 173-174

Wellman, Manly Wade 51, 95

Wertham, Fredric 155, 157-160, 192, 195, 196, 254, 257

Wheelan, Ed 60, 121, 185 Whitney, Ogden 113 Wigransky, David Pace 6-7, 159-160

Wildey, Doug 194, 240, 247

Williamson, Al 193

Winiarski, Ed 81, 137, 139

Woggon, Bill 52-53, 104, 214

Wolverton, Basil 69, 78, 82, 139

Wonder Woman 18-20, 84, 90, 121, 124, 126-127, 168-170, 210-211, 215-216, 223-224

Wood, Bob 58-59, 115, 194-195

Wood, Wallace 117, 193194, 209, 241

Woolfolk, William 51, 64-65, 67, 80, 93, 95, 112, 121, 135, 138, 140, 162, 173, 239

Yarbrough, Ira 22, 84, 131 Zolnerowich, Dan 49, 94, 140, 247

ZOWIE!

Traces the history of the superhero genre from early films, through the 1960s TV SUPERHERO CRAZE, and its pop culture influence ever since!

(192-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 (Digital Edition) $15.95

ISBN: 978-1-60549-125-7

IT ROSE

FROM THE TOMB

An all-new examination of the 20th Century’s best horror comics, from the 1940s to the ’70s, by PETER NORMANTON!

(192-page paperback with COLOR) $31.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99

ISBN: 978-1-60549-123-3

TEAM-UP COMPANION

MICHAEL EURY examines team-up comic books of the Silver and Bronze Ages of Comics in a lushly illustrated selection of informative essays, special features, and trivia-loaded issue-by-issue indexes!

(256-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99

ISBN: 978-1-60549-112-7

BRITMANIA

Relives the 1960s BRITISH INVASION of American pop culture: movies, TV, toys, games, trading cards, lunch boxes, comics, and, of course, the music!

(192-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99

MARVEL COMICS IN THE EARLY 1960s

New reviews of Marvel Comics’ early 1961-1965 output (Astonish, Suspense, Strange Tales), when gunfighters traveled the West and monsters roamed the Earth!

CLIFFHANGER!

CHRISTOPHER IRVING explores the superhero serials (1941-1952) of Superman, Captain America, Spy Smasher, Captain Marvel, and others, and the comic creators and film-makers who brought them to life!

WORKING WITH DITKO

JACK C. HARRIS recalls collaborating with STEVE DITKO on The Creeper, Shade, Demon, Wonder Woman, The Fly, & more, plus Ditko’s unused Batman design!

(128-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $24.95 (Digital Edition) $13.99

ISBN: 978-1-60549-122-6

ISBN: 978-1-60549-115-8 BEST OF SIMON & KIRBY’S MAINLINE COMICS

Collects JOE SIMON & JACK KIRBY’s 1954-56 series BULLSEYE (the complete run), plus all the Kirby FOXHOLE, POLICE TRAP, and IN LOVE stories, fully restored!

(262-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $49.95

ISBN: 978-1-60549-118-9

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES

FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER SERIES documents each decade of comics history! 8 Volumes covering the 1940s-1990s

Presents JACK KIRBY and STAN LEE’s own words to examine the complicated relationship of the creators of the Marvel Universe!

(176-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $26.95 (Digital Edition) $12.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-094-6

JOHN SEVERIN TWO-FISTED COMIC ARTIST

Biography of the EC, MARVEL and MAD mainstay, co-creator of American Eagle, and 40+ year CRACKED

(224-page SOFTCOVER) $29.95 (Digital Edition) $12.99

ISBN: 978-1-60549-126-4

JACK KIRBY’S DINGBAT LOVE

The final complete, unpublished Jack Kirby stories in existence: Two unused 1970s DC DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET tales, plus TRUE-LIFE DIVORCE & SOUL LOVE mags!

(176-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99

ISBN: 978-1-60549-091-5

ALTER EGO COLLECTORS' ITEM CLASSICS

Compiles the sold-out DITKO, KIRBY, and LEE issues, plus new material on each!

(256-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $35.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99

ISBN: 978-1-60549-116-5

(160-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99

ISBN: 978-1-60549-119-6

AMERICAN TV COMICS (1940s-1980s)

History of over 300 TV shows and 2000+ comic book adaptations, from well-known series (STAR TREK, PARTRIDGE FAMILY, THE MUNSTERS) to lesser-known shows.

(192-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $29.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99

ISBN: 978-1-60549-107-3

MAC RABOY Master of the Comics

Documents the life and career of the master Golden Age artist of Captain Marvel Jr. and other classic characters!

(160-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99

ISBN: 978-1-60549-090-8