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Comic Book Success Stories

However, opportunity was everywhere, for the entrepreneurial. The Gross Domestic Product would recover from a minor dip in 1946 and by 1950, the GDP was up more than 30% over its 1945 levels. Advertising in comic books had proven itself as a viable channel and many publishers had built an active demand for advertising space in their books. During the war years, comic books had seen many circulation successes. With the anticipated prosperity that would come from rebuilding, marketers were eager to reach younger consumers and offered many new and exciting products to readers.

Street & Smith took advantage of an existing product with proven market appeal by developing a comic book based on The Shadow. The Shadow had begun on radio as the narrator on a show promoting Street & Smith's Detective Story Magazine. The character, with his chilling laugh, proved to be popular enough to flesh out as the title character in a quarterly pulp magazine. Walter Gibson was hired to breathe life into the one-dimensional narrator character, and a marketing goldmine was created for Street & Smith. As a comic book character, The Shadow lasted into the 1990's. In 1994 the movies used the franchise as the title character of a feature film.

Airboy Comics from Hillman Periodicals was another successful franchise, though not on the scale of The Shadow. Airboy, the title character of the book, first appeared in the second issue of Airfighters Comics, an anthology book centered on aviation. The first issue of Airfighters in 1941 had bombed, and all characters from that inaugural issue were quickly forgotten. Airboy's creation by Charles Biro in the second issue of Airfighters marked the beginning of a comic book character who would outlast many of the more popular "superheroes" who dominated the newsstands in 1942. The character of Airboy continued his adventures into post-war America until May of 1953. The character was revived by Eclipse Comics in the 1980's.

Airboy was a mix of aviator and superhero. His special plane and unique costume were given to him by Brother Francis Martier, a monk and inventor of Airboy's plane, "Birdy." He began fighting the Nazi and Japanese during WWII, and his direct participation in the War effort, albeit as an independent operator never surrendering his costume for a military uniform, won him many fans. Many of Airboy's adventures, as well as those who shared space in Airfighters, were direct and violent confrontation of the Nazi war machine. After the war, Airboy's aviation background positioned to explore America's newest fascinations, science and outer space.

Many of Airboy's later stories used outer space or had "mad scientists" and rogue inventors as plot devices, reflecting the nation's fear and fascination with the awesome potential of science and technology. An awesome power had forced itself into America's consciousness with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Science and technology represented both a savior and a threat to America in 1946.

Fawcett's publishing empire began in Minneapolis in 1919 when Wilford H. Fawcett published a self-produced, mimeographed collection of jokes and stories entitled Captain Billy's Whiz Bang. Soon circulation for the joke book reached 500,000 and led to the production of several successful magazines including, Screen Play, Mechanix Illustrated, True Confessions, and many other titles based on popular themes and interests. 3

After National Periodical's runaway success with Superman in Action Comics in 1938, Fawcett sought to develop a "Superman" character of its own to cash in on this exploding market. By 1940, Fawcett had created Captain Marvel, the story of a young homeless newsboy who is given the ability to become a powerful superhero after following a dark stranger underground to meet Shazam, a wise, white robed character whose name is an acronym of heroes past. Shazam gives the newsboy, Billy Batson, watched since birth by Shazam, the ability to become a full-grown super powerful hero just by uttering the name Shazam.

Fawcett's entry into the golden age superhero comic book market quickly became among the most popular books available. The first issue of Whiz comics, introducing Captain Marvel, sold over 500,000 copies. By the middle of the decade, Captain Marvel had received a self-titled comic book, Captain Marvel's Adventures, which had a circulation that reached 1.3 million copies per month.

Captain Marvel's circulation numbers exceeded National's Superman title and the rivalry between the companies led National to sue Fawcett for plagiarism. The suit was litigated for years and in 1950, as the popularity of superhero comics had waned significantly, Fawcett agreed to give up publishing the series.

Lev Gleason's entries into comic book publishing never quite reached the level of success of Fawcett or National, although he bragged that his hit tiltle, Crime Does Not Pay, peaked at 6 million readers monthly at the it's height. Gleason's Comic House was innovative and very successful in its own unique way. Unlike the books of other more "respected" publishers, Gleason's comics never pretended to appeal to highbrow readers.

Gleason's comics were known for several traits. First they were well-written and illustrated, relying on artist/editor Charles Biro to produce consistently good work. Work from Lev Gleason also showed a social conscience, taking on many of the troubling social issues of the day such as juvenile delinquency and race relations. They also reflected a growing liberal attitude in America by expressing the idea that delinquency was the result social forces, and if the negative social forces, and not the necessarily the fault of the individual. Make no mistake, though, in every Gleason publication, unrepentant evil lead to personal destruction and death for the evildoer. Crime did not pay in the end.

Note the top line on the cover of the issue of Daredevil on display. Every issue of Daredevil proclaimed its heroes, and itself, to be a "Force for Good in the Community." Gleason's studios took their social consciousness to heart, giving the writers and artists who worked on their comics a level of pay and ownership unheard of throughout most of the comic book industry.

In Silver Streak Comics, the Daredevil stories took up the fight against the Nazi and Japanese war machines. Daredevil's earliest foe was The Claw, a caricature Asian with fangs and claws, and an ability to grow to many stories high. The Daredevil character was pitted against this Asian menace in his early stories.

After his battles with The Claw, Daredevil too on an even greater menace, and a very real one to Americans, in a story entitled Daredevil Battles Hitler. The front cover of this issue of Daredevil's own magazine showed a photo illustration of a panicked Adolph Hitler. 4

As WWII ended, the Nazi fighting Daredevil had less impact on the book that bore his name. By this time the main focus of the book was a group of boys that daredevil had taken under his wing. The boys, introduced into the strip by Charles Biro in October of 1942, become the subjects of most of the stories. Daredevil would only appear in a minor role, if at all.

Ironically, another genre developed by Gleason's studio was true crime stories and their violent depiction. Gleason started publishing a book titled Crime Does Not Pay in June 1942, after re-titling the failing Silver Streak Comics. The public's interest in superhero comic books began to decline after WWII and the audience began to age. Many readers found themselves turning to these more "adult" comics, i.e. titles containing much more violence and sexual innuendo than the typical superhero comic. Crime Does Not Pay was perfectly positioned to take advantage of this trend, and after WWII the book's circulation began to grow quickly.

Imitators were quick to notice Gleason's success and they offered even more violent and titillating books. Although the books inevitably demonstrated that evil leads to defeat, destruction and death, they just as inevitably focused more closely on the money, lavish and lurid lifestyles, sex and violence that accompanied the criminal's rise and fall. Eventually, the subject matter of these books made them an easy target for the moral crusaders like Dr. Frederic Wertham, who attacked comics for transgressions that seem laughable when compared to much of the content of today's mass culture. Still, the current "cultural decency" debate has roots in these early skirmishes over the content of comic books.

More Links

Shadow

The Shadow in Pulp Magazines

Fan Radio History site for the Shadow

Plot Summaries from Pulps, The Shadow

The Shadow in Comic Books

History of The Shadow

Fawcett

The Fawcett Comics Family of Heroes

The Marvel Family

Lev Gleason

Lev Gleason Family of Heros

Who was the original Daredevil?

Footnotes

4 The Illustrated History: Superhero Comics of the Golden Age, Mike Benton, Taylor Publishing Company, 1992 p.93-94