Newsstand Period 1922 - 1955

Will Eisner           In 1939 Will Eisner would have Iger buy out his half of the comic shop. Will left to join the Quality Comics Group and do a weekly comic to be a part of newspapers. The newspapers wanted one specifically to compete against the comic books. It began in June of 1940, the main feature was Eisner's The Spirit. Also in the booklet were back up stories of Eisner's Lady Luck and Bob Powell's Mr. Mystic. One of the reasons Will was hired because of his speed. The newspapers wanted a 16 page comic every week, with The Spirit taking 8 of those pages. A "good" artist could do a page a day. While Eisner was a fast artist, he did have assistants helping him out. Oddly, the newspapers wanted specifically a Superhero comic book, Eisner gave them the Spirit instead. With the exception of the mask (which Eisner hated drawing) the character wasn’t super powered. He was a normal detective thought to be dead and he would let the world continue to believe that. By being "dead" he could operate outside the law in fighting crime. That said he often visited the police station with the chief knowing who he was.


1944 - Spirit #1 - Click
for Bigger Image in a New Page       Eisner's work in The Spirit would teach other artists about the different ways to draw comics. This is particularly important as comic books were regularly put down as a medium for children and illiterates. Most felt they were not worth any serious examination to how and why the medium works. And this was by the comic artists, writers and publishers! Eisner was pretty much alone at this time in thinking comics could (and should) be something more than crudely drawn, factory produced, brainless material grinded out for the kids to read. Not only did he think that, he *showed* us that it could be something different with the Spirit. Being in the newspapers the work would be aimed at adult audiences. Eisner was also able to keep the rights to the character, which would keep the character in print in comic books long after the newspaper series ended. With this comic Eisner would experiment with layout, design, storytelling techniques and as a result would keep the booklet popular for 12 years. Among the other publishers to print the Spirit would be Quality, Fiction House, Harvey Comics, Warren Publishing, Kitchen Sink and DC Comics. The characters first appearance in normal comic books would be in Quality’s Police Comics #11 (September 1942). The Spirit would get a dedicated comic from Quality Comics in 1944 (shown here). It would go 22 issues ending in 1950.


1940 - Wings Comics #1 - Click
for Bigger Image in a New Page           Wings Comics #1 came out from Fiction House in September 1940. It would be devoted to Aviation stories. The comics were good for their attention to details, which helped make the comic successful with Aviation fans. This series would have a variety of reoccurring characters but none that would be stable throughout the entire series run. The features that would be most popular include Suicide Smith, Jane Martin, Clipper Kirk, Grease Monkey Griffin, The Skull Squad, Captain Wings and Phantom Falcons. The comic would go 124 issues ending in 1954.



Wings Comics #1 is in the public domain and you can download and read it by clicking here. (32.1 MB - Scanned Microfiche)

1940 - Red Ryder #1 - Click
for Bigger Image in a New Page           Red Ryder from Hawley Publications also came out in September 1940. It would be the first successful western newsstand comic book. Red Ryder was a comic strip done by Fred Harman, the same artist would end up also drawing and doing covers for this series. With issue #3 it would be taken over by Dell Publishing Co and after 151 issues it would be added into their 4 Color Comics Series. The success of this title and others westerns would convince other publishers to do westerns once the superhero books fell out of flavor.



1940 - Sport Comics #1          Street and Smith would produce Sport Comics #1 in September of 1940. This genre of true sport comics would be tried by many publishers, often devoted to a popular athlete. This issue was main feature was baseball star Lou Gehrig. But putting the thrill of a live sport into a comic just did not translate very well. Virtually all sport related comics had very limited runs.



1940 - Walt Disney Comics and Stories #1 - Click
for Bigger Image in a New Page           Walt Disney's Comics & Stories came out in October 1940 and was unquestionable the worlds most widely read comic book of it’s time, if not ever. The publisher was Western Printing and Lithography who first signed a deal with Dell Comics (1-263), then published it themselves through a company called Gold Key (263-473), then Whitman (another branch of Western Printing) took over (474-510). Then another publisher named Gladstone (511-547) picked up the title. In 1990 Disney decided to self publish the title themselves (548-585) then gave the rights back to Gladstone (586- 634). The comic stopped for some time but Gladstone got the rights again as of 2002. The comic is still selling very well in Europe. It would originally start with comic strip reprints of Donald Duck by Al Taliaferro and Mickey Mouse by Floyd Gottfredson. With issue #24 they started doing new stories of Donald Duck. Then another duck artist came along and helped the title, more about him later.



<-- Last Page

Buy comic books and more at MyComicShop

Next Page -->