Comics have been around for a long time and there is no shortage of fascinating stories in the history of the medium. This column looks back at select events that occurred during the calendar month from years long gone. Here are a few from Februarys past.
February 1936 (cover date)
When Dell released “Popular Comics” with a February cover date in 1936, it joined Eastern Color and National Allied Publications as the third comic publisher. Like Eastern Color’s successful “Famous Funnies”, “Popular Comics” was an anthology of newspaper reprints. It collected Sunday comic strips from the McClure Syndicate, including “Little Orphan Annie”, “Terry & the Pirates”, and “Gasoline Alley”. The first issue was also the comic book debut of Dick Tracy. The reprints were packaged by Max Gaines with editing and pasting help from teenage cartoonist Sheldon Mayer. To produce the four color comic book, Gaines combined two two-color presses. This made “Popular Comics” colors brighter and better than those found in its competitor, “Famous Funnies”.
Dell was successful enough with this book to expand their comic line with “The Funnies” in October 1936, followed by three more titles in 1937. As the reprint material gradually shifted into the new titles, “Popular Comics” began to feature new content with original superheroes like Captain Midnight. In 1945, the comic transitioned into funny animal stories. The series concluded at issue 145 in the third quarter of 1948.
(This comic should not be confused with Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s failed effort by the same name from 1934.)
February 17, 1953
The early 50s were not a good time for the comic industry. At that point, it was common knowledge that comics was detrimental to a child’s welfare and reading too many of them would invariably lead to a life of crime (if the bright colors didn’t blind them first). Naturally, politicians sought to protect society from this clear and present danger.
The New York state legislature had been trying to regulate comic content since 1884 when it outlawed “story papers” that used “pictures and stories of deeds of bloodshed, lust, or crime.” The targeted materials may not have been real comics like we know them, but they were an early forerunner. The law stood for 64 years until the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional.
They tried again in March 1949 with the creation of the Joint Legislative Committee to Study the Publication of Comics. Funded with $15,000, this was the first time a state legislature studied comic books systematically. They came up with a bill that called for a new division of the State Department of Education that would review unpublished comic material and grant publishing permits for the ones they approved. If a publisher wanted to print an unapproved comic, they had to submit a copy to their county district attorney a month before its sale date. The bill passed the state senate, but Governor Thomas Dewey vetoed it for being too vague. A similar bill was introduced on February 14, 1952, but was also vetoed by Dewey.
Finally, on February 17, 1953, Assemblyman Joseph F Carlino introduced a bill aimed at curbing indecent comic content in a free market fashion – he targeted tie-in sale tactics by distributors. Under his plan, distributors would no longer be allowed to ship pre-bundled comics of their choosing to newsstands. Instead, dealers would be able to order only the titles they wanted to sell and theoretically reduce the demand and availability of crime comics. It took time for Carlino’s peers to fine tune the bill, but Dewey eventually signed it into law in 1954.
February 1977 (cover date)
After decades of being National Periodical Publications, the company officially adopted the name DC Comics in late 1976, which it had been informally using for a long time anyway. Publisher Jenette Kahn felt the logo should be updated as well. Even though there were plenty of letterers experienced in logo design at her disposal, Kahn went with Milton Glaser, the man behind “I Heart New York”. He developed several options over the course of a few weeks for a rumored $25,000. They chose to go with the conservative DC Bullet, which was a modified version of their previous logo. It debuted on comics cover dated February 1977 and remained in place until August 2005.
