The DC Comics romance series Secret Hearts would become one of the publisher's most successful and well-known romance titles, lasting 153 issues 1949-1971. But surprisingly, the series might just as easily have become another forgotten moment of 1950s romance comic book history. The title was canceled with issue #6 at the height of the romance […]
Leonard Brandt Cole, or L.B. Cole, was a comic book artist, editor, and publisher, known for his covers that emphasised primary colours over black backgrounds. Creating comics and covers for a variety of publishers in the thirties and forties, he also worked as an editor for Holyoke. This saw him found Great Comics, his own […]
Kaänga was a Tarzan-alike character who starred in the Golden Age anthology comic series Jungle Comics, published by Fiction House from 1941 and created by Alex Blum. A runaway orphan raised in the jungle by apes, he returned to "civilisation" where he fell in love with one Ann Mason, who retaught him English. However, finding […]
Secrets of True Love #1 is the last of the once-great St. John romance line, and the last St. John comic book cover attributed to Matt Baker by a very wide margin. Somewhat famously, it also seems to be a different take on his cover for Wartime Romances #17 from 1953. Part of the end-game St. […]
The character of Kenneth Hale, Gorilla-Man, first appeared in Men's Adventures #26 in 1954 by Robert Q. Sale. From the time when Marvel was known as Atlas, it started as a war comic, then horror, and the last two issues featured the original Human Torch. This particular story saw Kenneth Hale as a man plagued […]
Men Of War is the name of a war comics anthology focussing on American soldiers fighting in World War II that has been published in a number of formats and fashions over the decades by DC Comics. The original series, All-American Men of War, ran monthly for ten years from 1956 to 1966 and featured […]
Men Of War is the name of a war comics anthology focussing on American soldiers fighting in World War II that has been published in a number of formats and fashions over the decades by DC Comics. The original series, All-American Men of War, ran monthly for ten years from 1956 to 1966 and featured […]
Crackajack Funnies was a comic book anthology published by Dell in the thirties and forties and which is probably best known for introducing superheroic comic book character, The Owl by Frank Thomas, running from Crackajack Funnies #25. A rare example of the superhero form from Dell, who mostly specialised in licensed properties, The Owl's invention […]
Some folk look at the Riverdale TV series from Netflix and are appalled at its mature themes, sex death and rock'n'roll. And then you look at a cover from Black Hood #17 from Archie Comics complete with a woman in a tight red dress, bound and gagged with metal chains. And Heritage Auction has a […]
Pep Comics was a comic book anthology published by MLJ Comics – later known as Archie Comics – and ran from 1939 to 1987. While it is best known as the comic book series that introduced Archie Andrews, Betty, Veronica, Jughead and the town of Riverdale to America, that only came along a couple of […]
Heritage Auctions is selling a couple different issues of the Daredevil comic book published by Lev Gleason back in 1944 and 1945, and currently has bids of $2. Lots of room to grow before it goes under the hammer, especially for comics of some vintage. The issue #27 in particular here is sought after by […]
All-American Comics was the flagship title of All-American Publications, one of the many forerunners of what would become DC Comics, running from 1939 to 1948, and debuted characters such as Green Lantern, Solomon Grundy, the Atom, the Red Tornado, Doctor Mid-Nite, and Sargon the Sorcerer. All-American Publications was purchased by National Periodicals in 1946 and […]
National Comics was an anthology comic book series published by Quality Comics, from 1940 for nine years and is best known for Will Eisner's Uncle Sam character that appeared in the first issue, as well as later introducing Wonder Boy, The Barker, and Quicksilver. All were eventually taken in by DC Comics, and Alex Ross […]
Nyoka the Jungle Girl first appeared in the 1941 cinema serial Jungle Girl, starring Frances Gifford, then picked up in comic book stories. Based on the short story The Land of Hidden Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs, later expanded into the lost world novel Jungle Girl, Nyoka had very little in common with the original, […]
This is where so much of it all began. Creepy Magazine, launched by Warren in 1964 as a black-and-white newsstand publication in a magazine format to evade the strictures of the Comics Code Authority, with sister publications Eerie and Vampirella, a horror anthology with stories introduced by the magazine's host, Uncle Creepy. Created by Russ […]
Blackhawk is the star of the long-running war comic book series first published by Quality Comics in 1941 and later by DC Comics. Created by Chuck Cuidera with Bob Powell and Will Eisner, Blackhawk and the rest of the team first appeared in Military Comics #1 before later getting their own title in 1944 with […]
Kid Eternity first appeared in Hit Comics #25, created by Otto Binder and Sheldon Moldoff, and published by Quality Comics in 1942, featured on the cover of subsequent issues and gained his own series in 1946. His antagonists, Her Highness and Silk also got their own strip in Hit Comics #29 through #57. Kid Eternity […]
Shazam! America's Greatest Comics was an anthology comic published by Fawcett in 1943 and featuring Fawcett's most popular characters, who were already appearing in other comics. With 50% more pages (and fifty per cent more expensive), America's Greatest Comics lasted for eight issues but included many Fawcett characters, with Captain Marvel – now known as […]
Bulletman first appeared in Nickel Comics #1, published by Fawcett Comics in 1940, created by Bill Parker and Jon Smalle. At five cents, the comic book was half the price of usual comic books at the time; at thirty-two pages, it was half the length and came out twice a month rather than once. It […]
Marvel Premiere #47 by David Michelinie, Bob Layton and John Byrne is quite the comic book of first appearances, especially for anyone following the Ant-Man movies with an eye to Young Avengers movies to come. Scott Lang, these days played by Paul Rudd, first appeared in Avengers #181 in 1979, but then took on the […]
