Old is "New" Again

Back in 1936 when people still had to wrassle dinosaurs for transportation, DC Comics had just launched their second ever ongoing comic book. Back then, their policy was "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." And so the anthology comic known as New Comics came into being.



I'm just going to do a quick overview of what makes this comic tick. This will get us both back into the swing of things since I haven't talked about Golden Age comics in quite a while. New Comics was an anthology style comic that aimed to publish exactly what you would think: new comics. There was no discrimination on genre, style, or content. Whatever they had lying around was stuffed into its pages, as long as it was new, new, new. Does that sound familiar?

Yes, this new comic had the exact same mission statement as their other ongoing currently running at that time: More Fun Comics; at least at first. Over the course of the year the editors began to realize that they could increase their sales through specialization. Kids were more willing to spend that hard earned dime on a magazine if they already had an idea on what they were going to get.

And so after a few issues the comic's pages were increasingly filled with down to earth humor stories like "Cal n' Alec" and "Cap'n Spiniker"; as well as kid-approved cartoon animal stories such as "Dickie Duck". The art style and tone of these stories were much more cartoonish and akin to what you would find on Saturday morning television or newspaper funnies, as it were.

Of course there were exceptions, but for the most part, New Comics became the comic for younger children, where all the dashing adventures and espionage stories were relegated to More Fun Comics for the older children. It was a formula that worked and they stuck to this rule for quite a while, strangely even after New Comics became New Adventure Comics.

This comic was a big seller for DC. This was mostly due to two people. Yes, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster graced the pages of this comic as well. The writing staff for DC usually wrote at least one story for all of the comics in those early days. Their contribution to New Comics was known as Federal Men, and it became instantly popular.

The main character, Ace G-Man Steve Carson, became an early spokesperson for DC Comics, and started the Junior Federal Men Club both in real life and in the comics. But the power-house team of Siegel & Shuster weren't the only greats that worked on that first year of New Comics. Sheldon Mayer also provided many stories for the first few issues before his tragic break with the company. You can read more about that here. A personal favorite I had of Sheldon Mayer's in these early days was called J. Worthington Blimp. It only lasted a few issues and it was a simple little comic about the adventures of a portly man traveling across country on a bicycle; but the writing was delightful and the characterization made me take these people into my heart. It's easy to tell that this man would go on to write Sugar and Spike, one of the most-loved children's comics of the Silver Age.

Other than that, it was rather by the numbers that first year. Much the same as anything else DC was putting out at that time. It wasn't until the next year that things truly became interesting. They decided to take this idea of specialization even further and create the first ever American comic devoted to a single theme. The industry would never be the same. Stay tuned for my review of Detective Comics #1. No...not that one. The old one.






Until next time comics fans, stay golden.