I bought recent/current issues of ACTION COMICS and DETECTIVE COMICS at my OCS recent times I was there IIRC , #27 and #28 respectively . What in a sense is the " meaning " of these titles now ?????
They are , of course , the original titles that the Super-guy and the Bat-dude were featured in , in the Golden Age ! Even Platinum , I suppose , in that 'TEC existed before Superman started , and I suppose you could say that ACT' was planned BEFORE the GA started , it being Big Blue's terrific initial success that fired the gun on the GA .
DC , always seen as more tradition-bound , has kept them going , as one of the multiple Batty and Blue ongoings going at any particular time .
Once they had the distinction of bearing ultra-high issue numbers , but they do that no more post-N52 . (Well , at least until the Thousand draws closer ! <WINK>) I once had a friend , who worked at a 2nd hand bookstore in Chattanooga , ask me " What's the difference between Action Comics with Superman and the other ones anyway ? "
I answered , " DC keeps the numbering and title from the original Golden Age title - back when it was a large-sized multi-character anthology - for tradition's sake , likewise with Detective . "
I suppose in both cases the " eponymous " single-character title is the general best-seller , and considered the " top dawg ' - no ?????????
ACTION and DETECTIVE both have 2 extra story pages , 22 rather than 20 , and decidedly slicker-stock covers , ~ and cost $3.99 rather than $2.99 for that upscaling !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Aside from that , especially minus the anchor-weight (If you follow the " the kids/fans today are put off by high issue numbers " therom .) or boost (If you follow the Leibowitzs' often-repeated Silver Age theory of cover/issue numbers .) of higher issue numbers...
What's different about them ??????? Are they the more " for hardcore/dedicated fans " titles , for those who like lots of Metropolis or Gotham goodness ??? Frankly , I'd think that , not only would the emonymouses tend to outsell them , but whatever " new " title within the franchises at any given time tend to reflect the latest concept/storyline of the characters/is , perhaps , the latest " hot " creators' one , - and , of course , has started , recently , from #1 - might tend to sell better . So , are 'Tec and Act' more the " meat and potatoes "/" corned beef hash "/" blue plate-department store basement cafeteria " manifestations of the Bat- and Super-guys ?????????
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...During the GA , Marvel had only one consistently successful hero anthology title , IIRC...MARVEL COMICS , to give what was later called MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS its first-issue title .
Did any other companies have multiple successful such , during the GA ?
Fawcett had THE Captain's WHIZ , and , at least after being given over to Marvel Family characters as the lead , MASTER and WOW did well...Quality had Plastic Man and the reprinted Spirit in POLICE , and if something being called " Police " doesn't make it too specialized to count as a " general hero title " I suppose we do have to count Blackhawk's MILITARY home
Most superhero comics in the Golden Age were anthologies, so just about any successful superhero book fits your criteria. In addition to Action and Detective, DC also had More Fun and Adventure. All-American had All-American, Flash Comics and Sensation. All-Star Comics was essentially an anthology, with opening and closing chapters with the whole team. MLJ had Pep Comics, Blue Ribbon and Jackpot. As you noted, Fawcett had a number of superhero anthologies, not all of which were Marvel Family characters -- Whiz, Master, Marvel Family, etc. At Quality, as you said, there was Police Comics and Smash Comics. Hillman had Air Fighters. Lev Gleason had Silver Streak, Daredevil and Boy Comics. Fiction House's "Big 6" were anthologies, although I'm not sure which you'd consider "superhero": Fight Comics, Jumbo Comics, Jungle Comics, Planet Comics, Ranger Comics and Wings Comics. Virtually all of Timely's output (except, notably, Captain America) had at least two of their "Big Three" in it, so All-Winners, Daring, Mystic and U.S.A. Comics were all superhero anthologies (although not all of them successful). You could even count a lot of books named for individuals to be anthologies, because they were: All-Flash, Captain Marvel Adventures, Bullet Comics, Airboy, Captain Midnight, Human Torch, Sub-Mariner and more.
US comics started with anthology titles with miscellaneous features, modelled after comics like Famous Funnies with a miscellaneous collection of newspaper strip reprints. Sometimes they mixed new features and strip reprints.(1) I think these kinds of titles largely passed from the scene coming into the 50s, although themed anthologies remained common.(2) 50s comics also got smaller, leaving less room for such a variety of features.
Detective Comics was the first US themed anthology - all detective/police stories. The introduction of the Crimson Avenger and Batman into it arguably moved it away from that plan, though they were crime-fighting costumed heroes, in the pulp and Green Hornet tradition.
Until the 60s Action Comics and Detective Comics always had at least two features about characters other than Superman behind the lead feature. In the 60s this went down to one, and sometimes closely related to the lead feature. E.g. "Supergirl" in Action Comics; it was introduced in the first quarter of 1959, but shared the back pages with "Congorilla" until the start of 1960. "Batgirl" replaced "Elongated Man" in the back of Detective Comics at the very end of 1968; in the period when "Elongated Man" was the back-up the comic sometimes had book length stories teaming Batman and Elongated Man.
Murray Boltinoff, who took over the editing of Action Comics from Mort Weisinger in 1970, initially ran a second Superman or Superman-related story (not counting reprints), but also ran "Metamorpho" at the tail end of his time on the title. Julie Schwartz, who replaced him, initially ran rotating back-up series about unrelated characters ("The Human Target", "Green Arrow" and "The Atom"), and two of these each in #425 and #426.
(1) Even Detective Comics reprinted "Fu Manchu" strips for a year, from #17.
(2) Themed anthologies in turn divide into two types, those with a slate of features and maybe a single non-series story (e.g. Jungle Comics, Planet Comics, some westerns), and those with all non-series contents (e.g. many romance and horror comics, EC's 50s titles). The latter began to appear in, I think, the later 40s.
...I am concentrating , in this " back to the past " section , on GA titles which , at least up-front/in the star position , featured " real " super-heroes , caped & costumed & masked dudes and dudettes , so (despite the presence of " almost " Sheena , Queen of the Jungle) I am not counting Fiction House...and I am not counting WDC&S , at times the best-selling standard comic book EVER !!!!!!!!! Or other animated , Western anthologies , strip reprint-concentrating ones .
Just " our " characters .
Several titles of the 30s/40s initially had no superhero in the lead, acquired one, and then moved to a slate of mostly superhero features. Some anthology titles (that is, ones not named after their lead feature) ran two or more stories featuring their lead feature at some point. The examples I know of are Star Spangled Comics (which initially ran two "Star-Spangled Kid" stories in every issue), Whiz Comics (which ran two "Captain Marvel" stories for a period in the second half of the 40s), and Boy Comics (which had three "Crimebuster" stories and a different fourth feature for a period in the early 50s).
It's difficult to pin down exactly which characters count as superheroes. We often don't count magicians, but they aren't all that clearly distinguishable from them. Likewise ghost heroes. Dr. Fate was a magician, and the Spectre a ghost hero, and both were members of the JSA.(1) Common Golden Age types of superhero, broadly understood, consequently include superpowered guys (Superman, the Human Torch, Robotman, Amazing Man) and gals (Wonder Woman), costumed crimefighters (Batman, Wildcat, Lady Luck), patriotic heroes (Captain America, Americommando), magicians (Zatara, arguably Dr Occult), ghost heroes (Mr Justice, the Ghost Patrol, Sgt Spook), and costumed aviators (Captain Midnight [from radio], Airboy, Captain X, Iron Ace). I can also think of masked western heroes,(2) SF superheroes (Blue Bolt before he moved to the surface world, the Red Comet, the Magician from Mars, arguably Spacehawk), superpowered guys who didn't wear costumes (Dick Cole), weird superpowered protagonists (Speed Centaur, the Eye, Fantomah, Snowman), heroes who didn't wear costumes but did adopt disguises (the Spider Widow, Madame Fatal), other crimefighters who stand in the tradition of superheroes although they had neither powers nor superhero costumes (the Vagabond, Beau Brummel), comedic characters with powers (Johnny Thunder, Sparky Watts), and superhero spoofs (Captain Milksop, Impossible Man).
(1) To be fair, the Spectre had a variety of superpowers (unlike Sgt. Spook), and Dr Fate wore a skin-tight costume (unlike Zatara).
(2) There are a plethora of these, but most of the notable ones who leap to my mind are from the 50s or later. "Ghost Rider" started in the late 40s. The original character of this type was the Lone Ranger (from radio), who despite his mask didn't maintain an alternative identity. The distinction of masked western heroes with double identities from western heroes who weren't masked but wore disguises, such as Johnny Thunder and Straight Arrow [who originated on the radio]), seems arbitrary to me. And if Johnny Thunder and Straight Arrow count, what about the Trigger Twins? Zorro-types like the Red Gaucho, and whip-using heroes like Quality's the Whip (from Crack Western), might also be mentioned here. Also Fawcett's Golden Arrow.
...I am very unhappy that an earlier , fully written out , reply that should have I think gone above Luke's fine second posr , SID NOT GO UP ! <SOB>
It furthermore commented on the Golden Age ~ Rather than re-typing it , I will return (Except to note one thing which wasn't in the lost post - That Fawcett's WHIZ was , apparently , the only anthology of the 64-page era to have every one of its regular features , as featured in the first issue , achieve a title of their own ! A real " Class of Success " .) to the ? of 'TEC and ACT' in this millenium...........in the next post that I write .
Face Forward , Pilgrim !!!!!!!!!!!
Most of the initial Whiz Comics slate of features were tried in their own titles at some point, but not "Scoop Smith" or "Dan Dare".
"Spy Smasher" started out in a cartoony style, and the feature's initial shtick was that it never showed Spy Smasher himself clearly. I really liked those stories when I read them a few years ago. My recollection is just ahead of the Captain Marvel/Spy Smasher team-up it switched to showing Spy Smasher clearly and using what I think was supposed to be a Will Eisner/Lou Fine style. The result was I stopped enjoying it.
...Well , IIRC , that is what the ALL IN COLOR FOR A DIME feature covering the topic said , Luke !
Gawrsshh , so old-school fandom information sources WEREN'T always accurate ?
Where'd you read those SS stories ?????
I think was supposed to be a Will Eisner/Lou Fine style. The result was I stopped enjoying it.
I read the stories in the versions of the issues at the Digital Comic Museum or Comic Book Plus.
Very many sites host stories: I often link to stories at Pappy's Golden Age Blogzine or Four Color Shadows, and did this above. Those in charge of the Digital Comic Museum and Comic Book Plus work to keep under-copyright issues out of their archives. The latter two sources sometimes run stories that might be under copyright, so one has to decide which stories one might read.
In my long post I neglected to distinguish between the dopey Ceu-U Johnny Thunder ("Cei-U, Cei-Me,/ Cei it together/That's the way it should be...") and the western version (whose horse was named "Black Lightning".
...Again . I'll speak about the this-millennium ACTION and DETECTIVE here .
At least under the present pricing structure , are they more profitable per-copy to DC than the eponymous titles are ? Of course , to an extent , maybe DC would justify the higher ACT' and 'TEC price by saying that they keep the self-titleds at the lower end of the price scale consistently , as " titles for the general market " (At least until a few years back , both Marvel and DC kept , of their " bread and butter " characters , at least one title at the lowest present price point...$2.25 when most were $2.99 , at the end , IIRC .)...
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