Quality Comics History Unearthed!

This is one of those magical diamond dream posts, for me anyways. In a blog post by Ken Quattro at the Comics Detective, the author went further into the Will Eisner archives at the Ohio State University's Cartoon Research Library. This is where Bob Andelman found gems used in his biography of Will Eisner, A Spirited Life.

I never even considered that there might be more letters in their archive, but Quattro found a treasure trove of correspondence that gives us a transparent look at the relationships between Busy Arnold, Will Eisner, and Jerry Iger.

One thing these letters clear up is which comics Eisner was contracted to produce for Quality, namely Military Comics, and Uncle Sam Quarterly. (Eisner and Iger seem to have split the duties for producing Hit and National.) I had guessed that about Uncle Sam. If you read the earliest issues, it's a classic Eisner show of experimentation. These issues are greatly overlooked when people speak of Eisner as a format-buster. Long before The Spirit really hit its stride, this book was doing some surprising things.

It also removes some doubt about the artists on some of the features, especially those coming from Iger. Iger's material almost always had pen names on the bylines, and some of these artists are difficult to identify. (But I am doing that currently, I'll be blogging my index and findings as soon as I feel justified.)

Quality: The First Statement of Ownership

Another minute thing that was not available when I was writing the Quality Companion, was their first Statement of Ownership filing, now availble from the DCM in Feature Funnies #4 (Jan. 1938).

The statement, which was required by law to run in periodicals, cites Edward Cronin as Editor and Ann L. Horgan as Business Manager, a name that has heretofore not popped up. I'm not sure whether she worked for Busy Arnold or one of the other partners.

The five entities listed as owners coincide with those listed in sources of record (including Jim Steranko's History of the Comics) were:

• Comic Favorites, Inc. According to Steranko, this was the name of the parent corporation. It was represented by:
• Frank J. Murphy (treasurer of the McNaught Syndicate; I discovered this proof here,  Smallwood, James M. and Steven K. Grager, eds. Will Rogers' Daily Telegrams.  Oklahoma State University Press, Stillwater, Oklahoma. 1978.)
• Frank J. Markey, affiliated with McNaught and also ran his own small syndicate.
  
• Henry P. Martin, Jr., (representing the Des Moines Rigister & Tribune), and
• Everett M. Arnold.

The Rarest Quality Comics Collectible?

Whoa, I'm reviewing all the non-super-hero stuff by Quality now and doing a fair amount of art spotting too. I just came across this solicitation in "Archie O'Toole" from Smash Comics #8 (Mar. 1940) which tells kids to send in for a free coloring map to Archie's kingdom, Pyromania!

Howdy, Friends..... I want to thank you all for following me and my adventures... and to show my appreciation, I'm going to give away free, a map of Pyromania which you can color yourself. Just write me c/o Smash Comics, Gurley Building,Stamford, Conn., — with five cents to cover the mailing and handling...

Quality Comics Indicia: Early indicators

When I was writing the book, no copy of Quality's first issue, Feature Funnies #1 (Oct. 1937), was available to me. Well it still isn't available, but a gracious collector, Todd Warren, has hooked me up with another collector who was willing to take a solid picture of its indicia! (Incidentally, I just provided my coverless paper scan of issue #2 to the DCM. Now to get my issue of Uncle Sam Quarterly uploaded!)

Indicia from Feature Funnies #1 (Oct. 1937)

There is something curious about the indicia in the first line, where it inexplicably reads "VOL. 9." This seems too deliberate to be a typo. Volume numbers were used regularly by periodicals of the time and reliably counted the years of publication. This would have meant that whatever "predecessor" would have begun in 1929.

What's interesting is that this year is the same in which George Delacorte launched Dell's The Funnies. That book actually continued in publication through 1939 and there are no similarities in the content between it and Feature Funnies (in fact, some of the strips in Dell's book later moved into National's). Famous Funnies by Eastern Color ran from 1934–1955.

The same volume designation appears in Feature Funnies #2. This opens up a whole lot of questions, especially because of something Will Eisner said, which nags me to this day. Eisner stated,

Feature Funnies #1 and Police Comics #1 for sale on ebay

I stumbled across two key Quality Comics on ebay today. The first was

October 1937

Quality Comics' very first issue, Feature Funnies #1. This issue had no super-heroes. They wouldn't start trickling in until Busy Arnold launched his second title, Smash Comics, in 1939. Instead, this issue was filled almost entirely with reprints from the three syndicates with whom he had partnered. The CGC graded price of $1,250 on this book seems in line, but I'm no expert! I recently bought Feature Funnies #2 in a coverless condition. It was not $1000. (In fact I gotta get that scanned—there's no high res version at the DCM...)

The second book on ebay is Police Comics #1 (Aug. 1941) the legendary first appearance of Plastic Man and Phantom Lady (also the Human Bomb and Firebrand).

The asking price here is $1549 but it lacks a hard grade. The seller has many Golden Age books for sale, so one might presume that he is savvy about the condition vs. price. He mentions that it WOULD be Fine if not for some damage. I don't buy these sorts of things often, but is it really the buyer's job to suss out the real grade on a comic being sold by an experienced collector?

The Quality Implosion

A Graphic Look at Trends in Publishing

While researching the Companion, I found it necessary to make certain charts to help me identify trends in the publishing history. I did this for many different sets of data, like the anthology issues, the individual features, and in this instance the series themselves. This also helped me read all the comics in a chronological fashion: month-by-month instead of title-by-title.

Click to view in a new window.