The war years mark the end of the wild years of experimentation and the beginning of comics that focused on one type of strip, with superheroes predominating even though almost all comics had multiple heroes in any one issue. Dan himself eventually began to resemble Flash, with blonde hair and a red uniform that showed off his muscles.ĭid I mention imitating? This "ray gun" panel is straight out of a western. Zarkov, Gloria is similar to Dale Arden and Eutopas is similar to Ming. There's a Public Domain wiki too:ĭan was one of the earliest Flash Gordon imitations. Where does the ray gun pop up next? In Star Comics #4, June 1937, in a strip called "Dan Hastings," created by Clem Gretter. Like half the illustrating world, he attended the Art Institute of Chicago and then worked for newspapers and pulps before the comics grabbed him. Joseph Clemens Gretter (1904-1988) also had a long history in early comics. I can't find a word of biography for Fitch (1903-1965), although he's credited with dozens of comic stories over a fairly long period. The many-armed beast (oddly, with a different number of arms on each side) must have seemed too spectacular to be passed up.ĭiligent Comic historians somehow have teased out the fact that "Don Drake" was written by Ken Fitch and illustrated by Clem Gretter. A good half of the comics remained devoted to the silly funnies aimed at much younger kids a horror beastie on the cover seems totally out of place. It was in full color, for one thing, indicating that the first two diseased-looking b&w issues sold spectacularly. Nothing about that issue makes sense to modern eyes. New Fun printed a full comic strip page on its cover, and "Don Drake" earned it with issue #3. Give a one-gun salute to "Don Drake on the Planet Saro." The second issue, March 1935, drops readers into the action. Neither had rays guns in that first issue, although the Super-Police, set in the year 2023, had a television in the form of a "photo-light wave" and guided their airplane by putting the "cosmic ray full on!!"īut one page is barely enough for a set-up. And there were two science-fiction strips aimed more at adults, "Super-Police" and "Don Drake of the Planet Saro." "Buckskin Jim" and "Jack Andrews, All-American Boy" were for their teen siblings. So was "Pelion and Ossa," a name in tribute to someone's wasted classical education. "Ivanhoe" sat next to silly "Judge Perkins." "Caveman Capers," "After School" and Buddy and Beezil" were for tiny tots. Like a newspaper, its contents aimed at every age group. The early years of comics were a whirl of businesses throwing out stuff to see what worked.) Nineteen one-page strips surrounded thirteen text pages com of stories and articles. (It started using color with issue #3, changed it's name and size to More Fun with issue #7 and More Fun Comics in what we now think of as comic book size, though it was still a bit bigger, with issue #9. It resembled a 15" x 10 1/2" tabloid newspaper with color covers and black and white interiors. New Fun #1 is considered a comic book because of its history, not its looks. Another historic detail: it was the first publication of the comics company later known as DC Comics. One year into their history and comics were already deep into the chasm of imitating what the other guy does. So of course the all-original black-and-white comic named New Fun debuted less than a year later with the February 1935 issue. Color was expensive and so were the reprint fees for top comics.īut what was the alternative? Who would pay money to buy the second-rate funnies? And who wanted original comics? The only thing that could possibly be worse were original comics in black-and-white. What? Well, the comics were taken from the Sunday papers and reprinted in full color. It sold like crazy - and also lost enormous amounts of money. Having them in permanent form was a wonder. Unless you were a fanatic with scissors, you never saw your favorites ever again. They got delivered in the morning and tossed out at night. Newspapers were the ultimate in ephemera. The idea had been tried before and failed, but it was too good not to make a comeback. The funnies in it were famous because they were reprints of newspaper comic strips. The first ongoing comic book is, like almost every first, up for nitpicking but most people agree it was Famous Funnies in 1934.
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