In about March of 1966, DC comics added go-go checks across the top edge of the Superman issue for that month.
The practice was continued until issue #199, a race between Supes and Flash, just prior to the 200th issue about Nov.-Dec. 1967.... lasting about two years.
What was the real story behind these gaudy patterns? Why was it done, and why did it end?
Inquiring minds want to know...test your knowledge of DC trivia. Do YOU know the answer to this one?
Replies
I know I am in the minority, but I have always loved those go-go checks.
I think they achieved the goal, because they stand out to this day in bins. It's easy to find that period because the Go-Go Checks are easy to spot. Sadly, I don't need any of those comics, so they don't do me any good any more.
I know a guy who started reading comics in the early 1950s, and he considers the advent of the Go-Go Checks to signal the end of the SA. I think by the time the Checks came off, things were starting to head downhill, but they still had a ways to go before things ended. I think his perspective is based on his own experience of growing up and growing out of comics, which he figures is universal but isn't, at least to that time sequence.
-- MSA
I did too, but I think it had a lot to do with the special brand of nostalgia I have from when I first read American comics. When DC stopped using them they seemed less 'furnished' somehow. I liked the busy covers, particularly on World's Finest which incorporated the checks, the WF the Superman, Batman and Robin The Boy Wonder logo altogether. When they took them away it was like someone had removed the shades from the light bulbs somehow.
It's positively screams 'silver age' to me now.
Travis Herrick said:
I had thought that Marvel PopArt Productions lasted for three months exactly, however, I had since discovered that it appeared for different lengths of time, depending on the title. Example; The logo appeared on four issues of the FF, but only two in other titles.FF #46
George Poague said:
Hi, Robin. Welcome to the Captain Comics Message Board. We're glad you're here!
Robin Olsen said:
And, Dandy, I think I missed your arrival a couple of months ago but we're glad you're here, too! It's always great to have new people participating.
"Go-Go" checks came from "Go-Go' dancers. In 1966 when the checks usage began a very famous "Go-Go Dancer" was Lada Edmund, Jr. on the Hullabaloo tv program. Someone must have liked her because a few years later her name and likeness appear on the splash page of Bat Lash number 7.
It was an easy way to identify DC comics when you were in a store. Marvel had their Marvel Comics Group banner at the top of their comics, but the other publishers only had a logo in the upper left hand corner, so a kid had to have some knowledge about those logos and what they meant to pick out their favourite publisher. The Go-Go checks were a non-verbal identifier that made the DCs stand out from everything else. And I loved them.
Checkers were used to identify other things, too (like taxi cabs or flags). There's an Elongated Man story in DETECTIVE, drawn by Murphy Anderson, where Ralph and Sue go to swinging London (which was viewed as like the centre of the swinging '60s pop world at the time)--and as I recall there's many checks in that story. Plus there was the Spellbinder who incorporated checks into his costume that one time that he faced off against Batman in DETECTIVE.