Posted in: Comics, Vintage Paper | Tagged: bender, futurama, Promise Collection

The Promise Collection 1948: Justice and the World of Tomorrow

With criticism against the comic book industry ramping up during the final months of 1947, the industry began to fire back: "The main contention of the principal critic of the comics, a so-called psychiatrist, is that, according to his findings, juvenile delinquents have been reading comic magazines, he therefore concludes that the youngsters became delinquent because they read comic magazines," publisher Lev Gleason declared in a radio address in early 1948. Gleason's comic book output was well familiar to the young man who was assembled the Promise Collection, as he had been reading Crime Does Not Pay, Daredevil Comics, and Boy Comics for years by this time. And Gleason's fiery address — which obviously singles out Fredric Wertham — makes it clear that he was well aware that he was among the primary targets of industry critics.

"I think this is preposterous," Gleason continued. "The influences on children which bring them to the commission of had deeds are many and complex. Here's how these 'reformers' come by their conclusions. The psychiatrist talks to a boy who has committed a crime. 'Do you read comics?' he asks. Yes,' says the boy. 'I read comics.' 'Ah ha,' says the reformer, 'now we have it.' The boy committed the crime because he read comics. But suppose we question the same boy and ask him if he eats cereal for breakfast each morning. The boy answers 'yes.' We could just as reasonably conclude that he committed the crime because he ate cereal.

"Of course, the average youngster eats cereal. The average youngster goes to the movies, listens to the radio, goes to church and Sunday School, reads comic magazines, plays baseball. And the average American child is not a delinquent. Delinquent children number only a fraction of one percent. What's all the shouting for anyway? Juvenile delinquency is sharply on the decline. In New York City the number of children arrested for crime has been cut almost in half, in the past 15 years, that is, since comic magazines became popular. It is the good influence of comic magazines that has brought this about!

"I cannot for the life of me understand where, except in the minds of a few radical thinking psychiatrists, the idea originated that children must not read about crime. Our whole Western civilization is based upon the idea that we learn to avoid what is wrong in life by being aware  of what is good and what is bad. The Bible is testimonial to that… Comics are a good, sound force in American life. There are more than 280 different comic magazines now being published and this huge industry is becoming as much a part of the American way of life as the movies, the radio, football and baseball."

Welcome to Part 16 of the Promise Collection series, which is meant to serve as liner notes of sorts for the comic books in the collection. The Promise Collection is a set of nearly 5,000 comic books, 95% of which are blisteringly high grade, that were published from 1939 to 1952 and purchased by one young comic book fan.  The name of the Promise Collection was inspired by the reason that it was saved and kept in such amazing condition since that time. An avid comic book fan named Junie and his older brother Robert went to war in Korea.  Robert Promised Junie that he would take care of his brother's beloved comic book collection should anything happen to him. Junie was killed during the Korean War, and Robert kept his promise.  There are more details about that background in a previous post regarding this incredible collection of comic books.  And over the course of a few dozen articles in this new series of posts, we will also be revealing the complete listing of the collection.  You can always catch up with posts about this collection at this link, which will become a hub of sorts regarding these comic books over time.

January Through March 1948 in the Promise Collection

Lev Gleason had very good reason to try to get out in front of the growing anti-comics crusade of this period.  While there were signs that the superhero market was softening, Gleason's business seems to have been booming. One of Junie's regular superhero titles, All-Flash, had been canceled at the end of 1947. According to Audit Bureau of Circulation numbers, another popular Promise Collection title Captain Marvel Adventures was down as much as 40% throughout 1947 vs its war-era peak. Meanwhile, Gleason had moved Crime Does Not Pay to monthly by mid-year and had begun proclaiming "More Than 5,000,000 Readers Monthly!" in unmissable, large type above the title itself.

That number requires some unpacking. There's widespread misunderstanding about circulation data of this period because publishers who proclaimed millions of readers often factored the idea that kids passed comics around to their friends into the equation.  The number of titles that really did surpass one million in paid circulation is likely smaller than is generally believed over this time frame.  Superman peaked at nearly 1.8M, and Captain Marvel Adventures peaked at around 1.4M in 1946, for example. There is no ABC data for Gleason's line, but presuming that he established that three people read every copy of CDNP, that would still give us an eye-popping 1.6M in paid circulation.  Obviously, that's just a guess — but while we don't really know what CDNP's circulation was in late 1947, the rest of the comic book industry seems to have had a pretty good idea.  The Promise Collection contains an astonishing 11 new crime comic book title #1's which were launched within the first three months of 1948 alone:

• Authentic Police Cases #1
• Crime Detective Comics #1
• Dick Tracy Monthly #1
• Exposed #1
• Mr. District Attorney #1
• Murder Incorporated #1
• Outlaws #1
• Public Enemies #1
• Real Clue Crime Stories #1
• Underworld #1
• March of Crime #1

Futurama's Bender and the Startling Comics Mystery

Of course, crime was not the only genre that the comic book industry was moving into by early 1948. Good Girl-oriented titles were still on the rise, and some segments of the industry were moving into horror in earnest by this period.  While there's not too much horror in the Promise Collection, such moves to figure out what worked in the post-War world occasionally created the type of accidental magic that makes comic book collecting so interesting.

Startling Comics #49 is an example of something I love about the vintage comic book market: no matter how long you've been collecting them, vintage comics will still surprise you. There's always that special cover tucked away in the middle of some forgotten title run that you haven't noticed before, that fresh connection to some film or television series, or that forgotten artist you've never heard of waiting to be rediscovered. After 80+ years of riding the tides of American pop culture, sometimes even the most obscure characters and titles of decades past wash ashore on the modern media landscape and leave a bigger impression than their original creators would have imagined.

An obscure Marvel/Atlas comic from 1956 like Mystery Tales #40 can show up out of nowhere on the TV series Lost, prompting us all to revisit not just that issue but the entire Mystery Tales series.  And a classic but obscure Alex Schomburg cover painting for the Standard/Nedor-published Startling Comics #49 can go absolutely crazy on the vintage market because the robot on the cover looks for all the world like it's the original version of Bender from the television series Futurama. Or at least a prototype.

To my knowledge, Matt Groening has never addressed this matter. But in 1999, he told the New York Times:

For starters, there was Bender's head. The hard-drinking and nihilistic robot started out with a squarish one, on the assumption that most robot heads would look that way in the year 3000. But then, Mr. Groening said, Bender's was rounded to underscore the fact that he is a misfit, a round peg in a square hole.

"We initially gave him antennas where he would have ears, but we decided it was more effective to make him more streamlined," Mr. Groening said. "He's not streamlined as a personality, and that's part of what makes him funny."

It is also what helps make Bender believable as a machine who can still be a companion of sorts. He knows no guilt, constantly feels sorry for himself and can bend metal.

And yet, it didn't take fans too long to wonder about the coincidence.  Then, in Futurama Season 5, Episode 1, a more "primitive bending unit", a primitive version of Bender essentially, appeared which matches the particular details of the look of the Startling Comics #49 robot even more closely.

It's not too hard to imagine how such an influence might have come about during the design of the Futurama series.  The name itself comes from the Futurama exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair — an important moment for the comic book and pulp publishers of the era, some of whom created tie-in titles to take advantage of the excitement surrounding the Fair.  For example, the long-running DC Comics title World's Finest essentially started its run as New York World's Fair Comics.  Similarly, Standard/Nedor editor Mort Weisinger (later a longtime DC Comics editor) was inspired to create the character Captain Future during the Fair. There were both pulp and comic book versions of Captain Future, and the comic book version was used as a regular feature in the Startling Comics title.  Futurama and the 1939 New York World's Fair marketed the experience to visitors as "The World of Tomorrow", and Captain Future was promoted in Startling Comics as "The Man of Tomorrow".

All of these elements appear to have come together to influence the design of Bender at some fundamental level.  Serious vintage comics fans believe there's a connection, at least — and based on the above, I tend to agree.  And while publishers like Ned Pines were simply attempting to navigate the perilous waters of public sentiment in this moment of time, further developments in 1948 will also provide us with some surprising hooks into the history of the comic books of that year.

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