In fall of 1939, Four Color Comics by Dell Publishing would start. The first issue would feature the famous Dick Tracy and the series would continue from there. It used very famous characters from movies, TV shows, cartoons and comic strips. At its peak it during the 1950's new Four Color books was coming out twice a week. Four Color Volume 1 would last 25 issues, and in 1942 the numbering restarted with volume 2, #1 stretched 1354 issues! I should add that sometimes the issues would skip a number. The title ended in 1962 when Western Printing and Lithographing Co., decided to cut out Dell and publish themselves through the name of Gold Key. They would later publish under the name of Whitman which was known for coloring books.

          Lloyd Jacquet was an editor for Wheeler-Nicholson’s National Allied Publications and later Centaur Publications. In 1939 he resigned from the company and with Jack Binder started comic "shop" with a crew of artists that worked for Centaur. They called this shop Funnies Inc. Among the artists were Art Director Bill Everett, Carl Burgos, Paul Gustavson, Tom Dixon, Raymond Gill, Al Anders, and Ben Thompson. The "shop" made comics like a factory made cars. Artists took turns doing Layouts, Pencils on the main figures, pencils on secondary figures, inks on the main figures, inks on secondary figures, then they would be lettered with the script.

          Funnies Inc. salesman Frank Torpey convinced Sci-Fi pulp publisher Martin Goodman to publish comics with Funnies Inc. doing the material. Out came Marvel Comics #1 (Oct.-Nov. 1939) the company’s first book. Inside had a number of heroes, the longest lasting one would be Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner. He was created by Bill Everett. This character would first be done for a giveaway comic that never got off the ground. It was supposed to get people to go to the movies during the depression. It was called Motion Pictures Funnies Weekly; most of the work in that comic is humor except for the Sub-Mariner story which is said to be very violent in comparison. Namor (Roman spelled backwards) was a cross breed with a Human father and Atlantian princess. Thus he was able to breathe both air and water, but he grew up under water and was the prince of Atlantis. Unique to Atlantians Namor had super strength and could fly. Sometimes he would emulate "powers" of a fish, like becoming Electric as an Eel. He was the first anti-hero often fighting the forces of law and order for a higher purpose. We humans had been dumping garbage and exploding bombs in his backyard and he wasn’t happy about it. His stories were sometimes about him getting revenge against the surface world. Come WWII he would join forces with the Allied Powers and fight the Nazi’s. The character still appears in Marvel Comic’s today and gets a dedicated series from time to time.

          The hero to appear on the cover of Marvel Comics #1 was The Human Torch. He was created by Carl Burgos. Despite the "Human" name the Human Torch was an android who looked and acted human. His could burst into flame, fly and shoot and control flame from his body. This character would also be continually used by Marvel. He would be later redone as a teenager, and then brought back as the original character. Other heroes to appear in here are the Angel and Ka-Zar. Angel had wings and flew, Ka-Zar was a jungle man like Tarzan. Both names and ideas behind them would later be used for new characters but that’s where the similarity ends. Among the early writers for Marvel Comics would be Mickey Spillane who would go on to sell millions of Mike Hammer books.

          Marvel Comics would do something new with issues #8 - 10 (1940) of Marvel Mystery Comics. They would have the two main characters, Namor and the Torch, fight against each other. It was the classic battle of fire vs. water. Namor of course played the bad guy and the two fought to a stalemate with neither side winning. They would do it again in issue #5 (1941) and #8 (1942) of the Human Torch series. The #5 issue is interesting in because the story took the entire comic, which was unique because virtually all comics at this time used a number of short stories in them. The 60 page story was done in a few days with a slew of writers and artists all working in Bill Everett’s apartment, taking turns working pretty much 24 hours a day to get it done.

Behind the Scenes - Hey! That’s not Funny!
         Martin Goodman decided to try and do comic books without the use of Funnies Inc. He got their top creators to work directly for him and also hired others like Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Lloyd Jacquet said Martin eventually made his pipsqueak cousin in law the editor and cut his shop out. Jacquet became very bitter towards Martin Goodman as a result. Oh, and as for the pipsqueaks name? Stanley Lieber, better known as Stan Lee.

          In November of 1939 Blue Ribbon Comics made the debut of a new company called MLJ Magazines. MLJ stood for the first initial of the three partners running it, Maurice Coyne (M), Louis Silberkleit (L) and John Goldwater (J). While this comic isn’t all that significant the company would become one of the few to survive over the years. You will read more about them as time goes along.

Did You Know? - Owner of Timely Comics and part owner of MLJ magazines had worked together previously. Both Martin Goodman and Louis Silberkleit worked for Hugo Gernsbeck doing pulp novels. Both of them would end up becoming pulp novel publishers before getting into comics. In fact, the vast majority of the early comic book publishers did pulp books (and some 'under the counter' Girlie Magazines) for years and decided to give this new thing called comics a try. Little did these two know it would become the only part of their multi-facet corporations to survive 60 years later.

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