In 1955 there was a massive comic book implosion. The industry went from a high of 650 titles in 1954 to 300 in 1955. This happened due to a combination of factors. First, because of the new Comics Code publishers that heavily relied on crime, horror and/or scantly clad women would have to adapt. Some of them were unable to quickly produce something new that would get the readers attention. Other publishers with a variety of comics had to cancel some of their crime and horror titles and replaced some of them with humor, romance and western comics. There were still some horror titles around but they were watered down and focused more on sci-fi / weird tales with a lot of suspense. For the most part the new titles were more of the same of what was already on the stands and readers didn’t take to them.

          Some people also believe the growing popularity of Television hurt comics as well. From 1952 onwards the newsstand industry saw a decline in sales. Also in 1952 the US Department of Justice would file an anti-trust case against American News Co, a national distributor of magazines of all types. The problem the government had was American News was a distribution company and they owned Union News, the largest US newsstand retailer. Union News wouldn’t sell anybody’s magazine unless it was exclusively distributed by their owner American News. As a result American News would get many major national magazines and prevent their competitors’ from distributing them.

          Then In 1955, due to legal pressure from the government, Union News agreed to handle magazines from all distributors. In the same year American News would shrink from a national distributor to a regional distributor. This hurt the comic industry quite a bit as American News handled about 300 comic titles and now those titles would only be sold in parts of the United States. Publishers would have to scramble to find a new national distributor. Within all this upheaval national distributors, wholesalers and major retailers like Union News were cherry picking the most popular titles and many small to mid sized publishers went under. Some publishers simply sold their popular titles to other publishers and got out of the industry. By 1958 at least 13 comic publishers had gone out of business, for the most part it was the big publishers with guaranteed distribution that would survive.

          Magazine Management Inc. (Atlas/Marvel), National (DC) Comics and Charlton Comics already had their own distribution companies so they were safe. Dell Publications was safe as they were the highest selling and kid friendliest line in comics, but they created their own distribution company anyway. Harvey Comics owner(s) were very friendly with distributor PDC owner and they were safe with their very kid friendly line lead by Richie Rich and Casper. Archie Comics and Classic Illustrated were able to find distribution as their titles were both popular and kid friendly. ACG also managed to survive as they had a relationship with DC comics had distribution through them. It would be a while before any new publishers were able to challenge these companies.

          As a result of the implosion many comic artists had a hard time making ends meet. Some found with every new job they took they had to take a cut in pay. There was also a negative stigma attached to comic books, often creators would lie to their friends saying they did something other than drawing comic books. Others left the industry entirely, some of those that left came back when the industry improved.

To Be Continued...

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