quality comics Archives

1950 was a turning point of sorts for publisher Quality Comics.  Everett "Busy" Arnold bought out his longtime partners in the business John Cowles, Sr and Gardner Cowles, Jr not too long after the comic book industry had shifted from a focus on superheroes to a variety of other material.  Long-running Golden Age titles like Smash[...]

Considered one of the most historically important bodies of work in American comic book history, The Spirit was created by Will Eisner as a masked adventurer whose exploits ranged from detective stories and drama to horror, romance, and even comedy.  The character debuted as a feature in the tabloid-sized newspaper insert (subsequently popularly called "Spirit[...]

The first woman to be part of the Blackhawk team, the character in Military Comics #20 is widely regarded as the Golden Age Lady Blackhawk.

The experimental "strato-balloon" voyage that gave the Ray his powers was inspired by real scientific experiments to study cosmic rays.

Quality Comics was reportedly reluctant to publish a comic book version of The Spirit at first because the character was creator-owned by Will Eisner If something happened to Eisner during WWII, the thinking apparently went, the character could not be continued by someone else Jack Cole, best remembered for his creation of Plastic Man, was[...]

Lady Luck's comic book cover debut by Reed Crandall on Quality's Smash Comics is surprisingly tough to come by in any condition.

The character debuted from publisher Comic Magazine Company, who sold it to Quality Comics, where he appeared in the Crack Comics series The Clock was created by George Brenner and first appeared in Funny Pages #v1#6 and Funny Picture Stories #1, both cover-dated November 1936 Brenner's creation predated well-known early superheroes such as Batman and[...]

Fine was an artist that even other comic book greats admired, and while his cover work for publishers Fox Feature Syndicate, Fiction House and Quality Comics is highly regarded by collectors, his interior story artwork is sometimes overlooked The early Black Condor stories in Crack Comics were as much fantasy stories as they were about[...]

But such origin stories changed with the times.  Fifteen years later, a completely different explanation of the name made the rounds, and these were certainly not the only theories.  It's unlikely that the 1830 era version of the matter is correct — even though it has largely come to be the accepted history in recent[...]

In 1949, historic Golden Age Quality Comics title Smash Comics was taken over by the long-running character Lady Luck.

But such origin stories changed with the times.  Fifteen years later, a completely different explanation of the name made the rounds, and these were certainly not the only theories.  It's unlikely that the 1830 era version of the matter is correct — even though it has largely come to be the accepted history in recent[...]

The series only lasted for five issues, but you can get four of the issues from Quality Comics' Lady Luck series up for auction in this today's session of the 2021 August 1-2 Sunday & Monday Comic Books Select Auction #122131 from Heritage Auctions. Lady Luck #88 (Quality, 1950) The character has a typical and somewhat Batman-like origin story:[...]

The new CW Seed animated series shows us other characters that started in the Quality Comics line before being bought out by National Periodical Publications (Now DC Comics) The Ray, Phantom Lady, Black Condor and Doll Man were all staples of the publishing company along with titles like Blackhawks, Plastic Man, Alias the Spider and G.I[...]

Among many accomplishments in the Golden Age, Arnold launched publisher Quality Comics whose titles featured many characters that comic book fans are still familiar with today: The Ray, Blackhawk, Plastic Man, Kid Eternity, Uncle Sam, Doll Man, and others Arnold sold most of the Quality Comics properties to DC Comics in 1956. In his book Paterno,[...]