Chapter 10. Steve, the End of Gold Key Comics, & the Star Guider

Idon’t recall exactly when I started reading comic books. I do, however, fondly remember two of my favorites before I discovered super-hero comics: Little Lulu and Donald Duck. Both of these titles were published by Dell Comics. Most of the early comic books my older brother and I read were published by Dell. Besides these two, the rest of what we bought were books based on television shows we watched, most notably the Westerns such as The Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry.

When I started buying Action Comics, Adventure Comics, Batman, and Detective Comics, to follow the adventures of Superman and Batman, my childhood budget just could not keep up with continuing to buy the Dell titles. I justified this switch by convincing myself that such humor comics were “just for kids,” while the DC super-heroes were much more sophisticated.

So while the Dell Comics was still sharing the spinner racks with DC, I pretty much ignored them. Then, one day, in 1962, Dell Comics disappeared and were replaced by Gold Key Comics. At first, I just thought Dell had changed their name and their look. This was not the case.

What I learned later was that Western Publishing Company, in an attempt to make their comic books resemble established children’s books, switched to their own in-house publishing. Previously, they had been merely packaging content for distribution by Dell Comics, their business partner. Now, Western Publishing was printing its own comic books under the Gold Key banner.

In the 1970s, Gold Key struggled during 75 Steve, the End of Gold Key Comics, & the Star Guider