A few years ago, I ran a piece on the first book-length comic book story ever produced. You can take a look at that page here: https://tombrevoort.com/2022/03/19/the-first-book-length-comic-book-story/ But as it turns out, I had overlooked something. Prior to ALL-FLASH COMICS #2, there had been at least one earlier book-length story produced. And it saw print … Continue reading The First Book Length Comic Book Story Redux
The end of the Golden Age of Comics wasn't especially kind to super heroes. Whereas once they'd been the primary drivers of sales of the colorful magazines, in the postwar period, their appeal among readers dwindled, and other genres such as teen humor, westers, romance, war, crime and horror began to be those that primarily … Continue reading When Captain America Wasn’t In Captain America
There is always one firm whose comic book output during the era we think of today as the Golden age of Comics stands head and shoulders above all others and which is held in teh utmost regard by those readers who encountered it in their formative years--not that there are many of those still around … Continue reading The First Crypt of Terror Story
While the early days of Marvel Comics were explosive and ultimately game-changing for the field, on a conceptual level they were not always quite as revolutionary as they sometimes seemed. A lot of the appeal of the line came down to the manner in which familiar ideas were executed, rather than the ideas themselves being … Continue reading The First Watcher
YELLOW CLAW was one of the strangest series published by Marvel, then Atlas, in the 1950s. it feels like a throwback to an earlier time, an era when "yellow peril" adventure stories about Dr. Fu Manchu and his many knock-offs were big business in the pulp magazines of the day. Having done a little bit … Continue reading The First Marvel Mutants
In the early 1940s when war raged across the globe, comic book sales were at an all-time high, thanks in large part to them being one of the few entertainment mediums that were available to entertain children. Sure, there were radio programs broadcast in the afternoon, and the Saturday Morning Matinee at the theater that … Continue reading The First Spider Woman
I had a couple of people rise to the occasion and come back to me with examples of even earlier comic book letters pages than the one that we looked at last week. https://tombrevoort.com/2023/10/21/the-first-comic-book-letters-page/ So I wanted to give these some space here as well, to make sure the record was straight. Comic book historian … Continue reading The First Comic Book Letters Page Redux
Scanned by the Authentic History Center If you were a comic book reader at any time throughout the 1960s through the 1990s, each issue of whatever title you happened to be reading carrying a letters page in which members of the readership could write in and share their opinions about the stories they were consuming … Continue reading The First Comic Book Letters Page
By 1949, the sun was setting for most of the great super heroes of the Golden Age of Comics. In the postwar period, public tastes had shifted to other genres and subject matter in terms of what was popular in the comic book medium. In particular, horror, crime, western, teen humor and romance comics had … Continue reading The Last Bulletman Story
After Superman had opened the floodgates and showed publishers that there was money to be made in comic books by putting out the adventures of costumed heroes, Fawcett jumped into the field with both feet. They were an established publisher already, and so had staff and connections in place to produce and distribute their new … Continue reading The First Bulletman Story
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