I finished reading American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1940s: 1940-1944 (2019) by Kurt F. Mitchell with Roy Thomas (the latter credited as “Consultant”) on Saturday.
The American Comic Book Chronicles series is published by TwoMorrows Publishing and is their in depth year-by-year survey of the entire publishing history of American comic books. Released out of order, the first volume out was the 1960-1964 volume in 2012, followed by the 1980s (2013), 1950s (2013), 1965-1969 (2014), 1970s (2014), 1990s (2018), and 1940-1944 (2019).
The second half of the 1940s (which has been delayed several times due to various reasons) should be out in 2022 hopefully. And there are also plans for volumes on the 1930s and 2000s.
This volume is broken down into the following chapters: Chapter One: 1940 - Rise of the Supermen, Chapter Two: 1941 - Countdown to Cataclysm, Chapter Three: 1942 - Comic Books Go To War, Chapter Four: 1943 - Relax: Read Comics, and Chapter Five: 1944 - The Paper Chase.
For those not into comics history, this book probably would come across as an overwhelming amount of unfamiliar names (both of individuals and of publishing companies), unheard of comics characters and titles, and dates.
For comics history buffs like myself, however, this is a real “must have” reference work. The author (Mitchell) breaks down each year by publisher in business at the time, detailing the titles they released and the individual character features running in those titles and who wrote and drew them (where known). He also goes into the behind the scenes goings ons at the various publishing houses: how they started, how certain key artists and writers ended up there, and how the more popular characters were created. And he also reports how external factors like World War II, paper rationing, and early anti-comics opinion among some influential circles impacted the comics industry. (For example: With the war dragging on, the U.S. government put paper quotas on publishers of magazines, driving nearly all of the comic book publishers to lower their individual issue page counts from 68 pages (the average length in 1940) to 52 pages in 1944, and forcing many monthly titled to have to skip a month here and there as well as the dropping of many lesser back up features.)
Of course, the big publishers (Detective Comics (DC), All-American Comics, Timely Publications (Marvel), Fawcett Publications (the makers of Captain Marvel comics), Dell/Western (publishers of many licensed titles like Disney and Warner Bros), M.L.J. Magazines (the makers of Archie comics as well as its own range of superheroes), Gilberton Company (Classics Illustrated), and Quality Comics Group) are given a lot of attention. But so are mostly forgotten (today) lesser publishers like Ace Magazines, Better Publications/Standard Magazines/Nedor Publications, Centaur Publications, Charlton Publishing (just starting out), Columbia Comic Corporation, Comic House/Magazine House, Crestwood Publications, David McKay Company, Dynamic Publications, Eastern Color Printing Company, Fiction House, Fox Publications, Funnies, Inc. (one of several packaging shops creating comics stories for other publishers to release), Great Comics Publishing, Harvey Comics, Helnit Publishing/Et-Es-Go Mgazines/Continental Magazines, King Features Syndicate, Magazine Enterprises, Majestic Studios, Novelty Press, Parents’ Magazine Press, Register and Tribune Syndicate, Roche & Iger, S.M. Iger Studio, Spark Publications, Street & Smith Publications, United Features Syndicate, Wm. H. Wise & Co., and Worth Publishing.
Way too many names of individuals (comic book publishers, editors, writers, artists, etc.) for me to list them here. Suffice it to say that even the most obscure are reported on here, as are the many comic book characters that appeared in print from 1940 to 1944 (which has to literally be hundreds if not thousands thanks to the then standard format of six to eight short features per standard comic book issue plus the tendency for publishers to copy the success of their peers. Thus, endless Captain America, Tarzan, Sheena Queen of the Jungle, and masked “mystery men” knock offs, as well as the still popular in 1940-1942 or so non superhero adventure strips featuring fighter pilots, jungle adventurers, detectives, cowboys, etc.
And then you have the increase in popularity of humor titles (both teen humor like “Archie” and funny animal humor titles) around 1943 and 1944, to the point where you start to see some formerly superhero centric titles either being dropped for humor ones or converted into them (a foreshadowing of the disappearance for the most part of superhero comics in the late 1940s and early to mid 1950s).
It took me four months of off and on reading to make my way through American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1940s: 1940-1944 because every chapter is just crammed full of information. It’s not the most “readable” of material but it’s still very interesting for those into the subject matter.
I look forward to moving on to the next volume (which, as I mentioned above, is the 1950s volume since the 1945-1949 volume isn’t out yet). I’ll probably have to take a bit if a break before jumping into that one, though, as I’m sure it will also be a long (yet interesting) read.
I gave this five out of five stars on GoodReads.
David Young
