November 1935 brought National Allied Publications’ second title, New Comics #1 – not to be confused with “New Fun Comics”, which was renamed to “More Fun Comics” in its next issue. New Comics featured several adventure strips like “The Strange Adventures of Mr. Weed” (a strip about an eccentric historian who does a bit of […]
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It’s September 1935 and here we are, the birth of the DC Universe. With this panel Doctor Occult becomes the first character to exist in the DC Comics universe, though obviously there was no such concept of a shared universe / continuity at the time. The strip debuted in New Fun Comics #6 by National […]
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New Fun Comics #2 continued to publish new comics including several adventure stories. The Magic Crystal of History appears to be the first instance of time travel in a comic book story. I hope they made it out of Ancient Egypt ok!
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Before 1935, comic books were an unprofitable experiment by one company: Eastern Color. Starting in January 1935, this experiment becomes an industry as a new company enters the arena with New Fun Comics #1 by National Allied Publications. New Fun Comics was black and white and contained things like funny animal strips and western stories […]
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Famous Funnies #6 (December 1934) marks the first time that consecutive comic strips were reprinted together in a comic book for better reading. This is a panel from a 4-page section of square-jawed Detective “Dan Dunn“, Secret Operative 48, one of many hat-wearing detectives of the era (the most famous being Dick Tracy).
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Before Lois Lane, there was Jane Arden, the original “spunky girl reporter”. This is a reprint from Famous Funnies #5, November 1934 by Eastern Color (still the only comic book game in town at this point).
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On to September 1934, and Eastern Color is still the only comic book game in town. Mutt and Jeff were another popular comic strip back in the day that started in 1907. One-reel silent shorts were produced in 1911-1913. I wonder if this means that Mutt and Jeff were technically the very first film adaptation […]
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Comic books were started by a company called Eastern Color Printing Company whose publisher, Max Gaines (father of Mad Magazine founder William Gaines!), decided to collect reprints of comic strips from the newspapers (often called “funnies”) and put them into book form. The first such comic book sold was called Famous Funnies #1, in June […]
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