Welcome back to Multiversity’s history column, where I’ve spent the last two and a half years chronicling the peaks, valleys, and unusual landmarks from the comic industry’s past. Half the time the columns are themed around the month (a column posted in June contains events that occurred in June), the other half they’re dedicated to a specific year. By my count, I’ve covered 154 individual events. Imagine my surprise when, as I began prepping today’s column on 1961, I realized I had never covered anything from that year until this month. Let’s fix that.
The Fall of Dell
It was a time of great transition for the comics industry. Historians will tell you the Silver Age of Superheroes began in March 1956, but that’s only evident with hindsight – it took years for the movement to build momentum and it had several false starts. Even with Flash, Green Lantern, and the Justice League of America rising in popularity, the Silver Age might’ve been only a footnote if the reigning giant hadn’t destroyed itself.
Dell Comics had been publishing “Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories” for decades. It had a following; it had clout. When it refused the Comics Code Authority during the height of the anti-comics crusade, distributors and retailers looked the other way and sold them anyway. When other publishers lost sales and went out of business, Dell thrived. Dell thought itself invincible, that it could do no wrong. Dell felt the pride that comes before the fall.
When comics first appeared in the 1930s, they were 96 pages long and sold for $0.10, which was standard for most magazines at the time. When those magazines encountered inflation and paper shortages over the years, their natural response was to raise their price. Comic books, which were primarily aimed at children, had legitimate fears about driving away readers with price increases, so they chose to hold their price steady and reduce their content. For production reasons that aren’t important here, comics were reduced by 16 pages at time. Often times before dropping actual page count, companies would replace story pages with ads or cheaper content.
As 1961 neared, comics had dropped to 32 pages and sometimes had as little as 17 pages of story – further reduction was impractical and everyone in the industry knew a price increase was coming. Dell, feeling unshakable confidence as the industry leader, decided to go first and raised its prices to $0.15 early in the year. Sales took a devastating and irreversible loss. When other publishers finally gave in to market pressure several months later, their price increases were only to $0.12. Dell suddenly found itself in a very vulnerable position. Its readers were not so loyal after all, and they didn’t return when Dell lowered cover prices to the new twelve cent standard.
Management’s response was sudden and drastic. They cut ties with Western, their packager since the 1930s, and brought comic production in house. They also dropped some of their expensive licenses to focus on their most profitable comics. Both of these actions backfired when Western created the Gold Key imprint, picked up the licenses Dell dropped, and became a strong new competitor. Sales of “Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories” fell 50% from two million at the start of the year to one million by the end, and fell another 50% to half a million by the end of 1962. By that time, Dell gave up on its former best selling title and it moved to Gold Key.
Dell limped along until 1973.
Rise of Fandom
By 1961, the first generation of comic readers had become adults. Most of them had given up the medium during the bland CCA-approved late 1950s, but a few were still around to be excited by the return of classic characters like Flash and Green Lantern with “realistic” science fiction twists. When DC editor Julius Schwartz began publishing full addresses for fans in letter columns in February with ”The Brave and the Bold” #35, it allowed fans to connect with one another directly and begin forming a community.
Through their letters to one another, some fans began to recognize specific shared interests and knowledge gaps. In March, Jerry Bails and Roy Thomas founded the first fanzine devoted to comics, “Alter-Ego”, to provide a central place for readers to identify key issues, dates, and titles. The natural response to this information was a need for a market place where those keys and other back issues could be bought and sold, so Bails launched “The Comicollector,” the first comics adzine shortly thereafter.
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Bails wasn’t involved in all the new fanzines, though. Also in the Spring of 1961, Don and Maggie Thompson created the fanzine “Comic Art” where they reviewed and critiqued new or recent titles. Their work on that limited circulation project solidified their position in fandom and led directly (but slowly) their editorship of the long-running “Comics Buyer’s Guide” in 1983.
In December 1961, GB Love entered the field with the “Rocket’s Blast” newsletter. It was more crude than most, but notable for its reliable publication. All of the 1960s fanzines were money-losing labors of love, which meant few endured past a third issue. Many fans who tried to place ads got frustrated when a ‘zine stopped before their ad appeared. “Rocket’s Blast” stood out for its longevity and regular frequency, which made it an important success story with circulation approaching 2,000 (advertising in Marvel comics helped, too). In 1964, it merged with the adzine “Comicollector” to become “Rocket’s Blast Comicolletor” and it persisted until 1983.
By the end of 1961, there were about 500 active members of comic fandom. Through correspondence, they had begun creating hobby related jargon, like using the term “Golden Age” to describe the superhero boom that started in 1938 and ran to 1951 or so. They were also starting to recognize comics as collectibles instead of “old books” and some mail order dealers were starting to charge more than cover price for them.
One of those retailers, 18 year old Robert Bell, wanted a way to protect his comics and started cutting up plastic dry clear bags, then folding and taping them to make a sleeve that would hold a comic. When he mailed books to buyers, he left them in the bags for added protection. Word soon got out and he started getting requests for bundles of “Bell Bags” so fans could store their new comics. Bell contacted a manufacturer with his specifications and soon had 10,000 industrial-made comic bags, all made with a proper fit.
Another 1961 innovation that fans thought would be revolutionary in comic protection was 3M’s new product – Scotch Magic Transparent Tape. I assume that last sentence put a horrified and/or incredulous expression on your face, but obviously early fandom hadn’t quite worked out all their kinks just yet. As shown in the image below, many of them saw the transparent tape as a way to reinforce the spines and centerfolds of their comics to ensure they’d still be in good condition if they ever decided to sell them later. It wasn’t until later that everyone realized 3M’s claims that the tape was “ageless” was false, but by then the tape was virtually impossible to remove without causing damage to the underlying paper. Cue several fan debates on whether or not tape is a defect, usually informed solely by how many taped books the fan owned.
The final piece of the fandom puzzle in 1961 was the formation of the Academy of Comic Book Arts and Sciences, founded by Jerry Bails. This organization’s main mission was to establish a code a fair practice for selling and trading comic books, including efforts at a standard grading system (this was pre-Overstreet). They also gave out the first annual fan awards in comics, dubbed the Alley Award after the first newspaper superhero strip, Alley Oop. The 1961 awards were given out in 1962, and DC won in all categories. That first year, the Academy had about 92 members. By 1963, it had been rebranded as the Academy of Comic Book Fans and Collectors. It continued to award Alleys, but by then the mail order system had been mostly standardized and the ongoing purpose of the Academy was somewhat murky.
Superboy Interrupted
The original live-action Superman show ended in 1959 with the death of George Reeves, but it had been popular and producer Whitney Ellsworth attempted to pursue a spin-off in the form of Adventures of Superboy. It was envisioned as a lighthearted drama set in Smallville starring Superboy and Lana Lang. A pilot was made in 1961 with Johnny Rockwell and Bunny Henning, but the network didn’t pick it up and plans for the rest of the 13-episode season were scrapped. The twenty-five minute un-aired pilot is sometimes available, before Warner Bros inevitably pulls it down, on various video-sharing sites.
