There have been Black and White DC titles of course - I'm thinking of Jack Kirby's Spirit World and In The Days Of The Mob. But what if DC had looked at a continuing line of black and white comics in the early-mid '70s?
I think Batman, The Shadow and Sgt Rock would have been good subjects. Perhaps DC's darker super-heroes like The Spectre and Deadman too. Or an anthology title (Detective Comics?) with Black Orchid, The Creeper, The Joker and The Demon?
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...I recently bought one of the THE SHADOW twofer pulp novel reissues and it had , in the " liner notes " portions , a piece by Michael Uslan that said that when the color title was going DC had it in mind to start an " R-rated " (probably hyperbole , that last part) B&W Shadow title as part of a B&W magazine line to compete with Marvel's !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kirby would definitely have led the way. I think The King might have considered doing his entire Fourth World saga that way, and maybe not tie it in with Superman, Jimmy Olsen, etc.
Could you imagine a Mister Miracle, New Gods, and Forever People story in each issue?
I could definitely see DC doing a horror mag this way, probably with a Swamp Thing lead story each issue.
Maybe DC's mid-70s attempt at a sword and sorcery line would have succeeded in this format, but these and any other guesses on my part are alas, just pure speculation and wishful thinking. *sigh* :(
I think those are all good choices, Dandy, among the ones I would have picked myself (assuming DC would have taken the more adult oriented tack Marvel did with it's (non-code-appreoved) magazine line). Maybe that Phantom Stranger, too.
Phantom Stranger was actually the other one I was thinking of, but I had to run an errand and hurried the end of that post. Also perhaps something with Adam Strange and, as Lee suggests, Swamp Thing and the sword and sorcery line.
And Kirby's New Gods would have been ideal, good call.
DC's stab at the sword-and-sorcery stuff --Claw, Stalker -- didn't quite take, but those might have worked in the format. And wouldn't it have been cool to have Joe Kubert's Tarzan that way?
So we have a list of ...
Characters that could carry a whole book
Batman, Shadow, Sgt. Rock, Tarzan
DC 'dark hero' anthology
(any combination of Spectre, Deadman, Demon, Black Orchid, Creeper etc. Perhaps Doom Patrol, Metamorpho, Eclipso?)
Mystery titles
House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Ghosts, Unexpected, Witching Hour etc
What about Jonah Hex, Weird War Tales, Young Love, Plop?
In magazine format, Plop! could have taken on Mad, since it wasn't owned by AOL-Time Warner-DC back then.
I would add that I'm not sure when Marvel started Cracked!, thus not including it in my first sentence.
If you'll pardon a correction, DC was bought by the company that already owned Mad at the end of the 60s, so they did have the same corporate owner in the 70s.
Really?
I didn't think Warner Brothers gained any control over DC until much later.
Correction noted Luke.
A western anthology would work with Jonah Hex, Scalphunter, El Diablo, Hawk-Son of Tomahawk and others.
As for artists, definitely Kubert, Toth and Anderson, perhaps doing pulpish versions of Golden Age characters like Doctor Mid-Nite, Wildcat, Zatara and even Hawkman!
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