National Allied Magazines: 1935

Comics Reviewed:
New Fun Comics, Vol. 1: #1-6
New Comics, Vol. 1: #1


When pulp fiction author Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson scrounged up the funds to put together National Allied Magazines in 1935, I doubt he imagined the giant beast it would one day become. He simply wanted to find a way around the fees required in reprinting newspaper funnies, and so he came up with the idea for the first comic magazine of completely original content. And the rest is history.

I am of course talking about DC Comics. In these early days, before the dawn of the Golden Age, not much can be said about the work being put out. There were no super-heroes, so things were decidedly different than they are now. Nicholson basically just grabbed whatever comics he could find at the cheapest price and published them all under one banner. New Fun Comics was born.

Throughout 1935, six issues of New Fun Comics hit the shelves. These were large anthology books that looked more like a magazine than a comic, and the page count only grew as it became more popular. By the end of the year each issue was roughly 45 pages, packed to the brim with 1-2 page stories of pretty much every genre imaginable. And for only 10 cents!

As far as content is concerned, it was mostly generic funny page fare of the time: slice of life humor stories, westerns, space adventures, and spy tales were the norm. Pretty much everything a growing American boy needs! I really found myself enjoying a few of the stories in these early comics, if not for one thing that unfortunately was also indicative of the time...casual racism.

Yes, DC and Marvel are no exception in terms of tales involving "big-lipped African savages" and "sneaky chinamen spies". Forgive my wording, but there are quite a few mutterings of "chinks" and other such words littering the pages. I was quite appalled, but I understand that its a product of the times and can't really count off just for that.

Really, the only problem I had with the stories themselves was the repetition of it all. Like I said, all the stories can be pretty much summed up by the genre they belong to and none of the writers strayed very far from the status quo. If you've read one story about a federal agent fighting an evil chinese gang leader, you've read them all. The serial nature of the stories adds to this problem, with many of the characters getting continuously captured and escaping from their antagonists ad nauseum. It was fairly obvious the writers were making the stories up issue to issue.

As far as the art is concerned, it is quite sub-par, even for the time period. It does improve drastically as the year progresses however, especially when the books start to add color. It's all very obviously "newspaper strip" art though. This of course all starts to change at the very end of the year. That's right, the popularity of the comic allowed Wheeler-Nicholson to bring out another book.

In December of 1935, National Allied Magazines launched the first issue of New Comics. Taking an "if it ain't broke" view on things, the idea behind New Comics is identical to its predecessor. Essentially they were the same book, double shipped every month. With this came the hiring of two people you just might know. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster!

I was delighted to find their work in the pages of New Fun Comics #6. It wasn't Superman yet, but it was a start. They created a comic about a detective who investigates supernatural happenings named Dr. Occult. This is monumental for various reasons: this is the first character that would actually play a part in events for a long time coming. He is technically the first super-hero (when he gains a magical sword and dons a cape, but that's next year), and he appeared in DC Comics for quite some time.

His sister, Rose Psychic, was even spotted in this year's DC Universe Presents #1, so there is a chance he survived the New 52 reboot. More importantly, it was one of the first times where a story was tackled by a creative team, rather than the art and writing duties being taken care of by the same person. This specialization really showed in Shuster's art, and the higher-ups took notice. Siegel and Shuster were given more and more space in these books in the months to come.

Things were definitely looking up, but these comics are still in the dark ages as far as I'm concerned. I said before, I really enjoyed a few of them, such as Sandra of the Secret Service, a spy tale featuring one of the first female protagonists in comics (though she is still relegated to damsel for most of the stories), as well as Don Drake on the Planet Saro. Clearly a poor man's Buck Rogers, but entertaining nonetheless.

There is some good to be found in these issues, but they are way too few and far between, and bogged down by the creative laziness and prejudice that was rampant in comics of this era. It improved as the year went on with the addition of more pages, color art, and recognizing talent like Siegel and Shuster, but it's too little too late. Sorry to say it, but there is no gold to be found in these issues.

Story: 4/10
Art: 2/10

Tune in next time, where I'll delve a little deeper into the actual stories in the pages of New Fun Comics and New Comics, and analyze just how these stories and characters fit into the DC Multiverse!