Who started DC Comics?
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Entrepreneur Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson founded National Allied Publications in autumn 1934. The company debuted with the tabloid-sized "" #1 with a cover date of February 1935. The company's second title, "New Comics" #1 (Dec. 1935), appeared in a size close to what would become comic books' standard during the period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books, with slightly larger dimensions than today's. That title evolved into "Adventure Comics", which continued through issue #503 in 1983, becoming one of the longest-running comic-book series. In 2009 DC revived "Adventure Comics" with its original numbering. In 1935, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the future creators of Superman, created Doctor Occult, who is the earliest DC Comics character to still be in the DC Universe.
DC Comics
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Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson (January 7, 1890 – 1965) was an American pulp magazine writer and entrepreneur who pioneered the American comic book, publishing the first such periodical consisting solely of original material rather than reprints of newspaper comic strips. Long after his departure from the comic book company he founded, Wheeler-Nicholson's National Allied Publications would evolve into DC Comics, one of the U.S.'s two largest comic book publishers along with rival Marvel Comics.
Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson
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Despite the official names "National Comics" and "National Periodical Publications", the company began branding itself as "Superman-DC" as early as 1940, and the company became known colloquially as DC Comics for years before the official adoption of that name in 1977.
The company began to move aggressively against what it saw as copyright-violating imitations from other companies, such as Fox Comics' Wonder Man, which (according to court testimony) Fox started as a copy of Superman. This extended to DC suing Fawcett Comics over Captain Marvel, at the time comics' top-selling character (see "National Comics Publications, Inc. v. Fawcett Publications, Inc."). Faced with declining sales and the prospect of bankruptcy if it lost, Fawcett capitulated in 1953 and ceased publishing comics. Years later, Fawcett sold the rights for Captain Marvel to DC—which in 1972 revived Captain Marvel in the new title "Shazam!" featuring artwork by his creator, C. C. Beck. In the meantime, the abandoned trademark had been seized by Marvel Comics in 1967, with the creation of their Captain Marvel, forbidding the DC comic itself to be called that. While Captain Marvel did not recapture his old popularity, he later appeared in a Saturday morning live action TV adaptation and gained a prominent place in the mainstream continuity DC calls the DC Universe.
DC Comics
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In the United States, pulp magazines such as Harry Donenfeld's "Spicy Detective" featured comics on heroines who lose their clothing, such as Adolphe Barreaux's "Sally the Sleuth" which debuted in 1934. Many of the early comic publishers got their start in the pulps with Donenfeld for instance going on to found DC Comics. Fiction House similarly started as a pulp magazine publisher, but in 1938, released "Jumbo Comics" featuring Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, the first of many scantily clad jungle girls. Fiction House comics routinely featured attractive women on the covers, a trend which later became referred to as 'good girl art.' In 1941, Quality Comics put out "Police Comics" featuring Phantom Lady, a scantily clad crime fighter. Fox Feature Syndicate eventually began publishing Phantom Lady where she was drawn by Matt Baker, one of the most famous 'good girl' artists. Milton Caniff started producing the comic strip "Male Call" in 1943, and Bill Ward came out with "Torchy" in 1944 featuring sexy heroines.
Adult comics
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In March 1989, Warner Communications merged with Time Inc., making DC Comics a subsidiary of Time Warner. In June, the first Tim Burton directed Batman movie was released, and DC began publishing its hardcover series of DC Archive Editions, collections of many of their early, key comics series, featuring rare and expensive stories unseen by many modern fans. Restoration for many of the Archive Editions was handled by Rick Keene with colour restoration by DC's long-time resident colourist, Bob LeRose. These collections attempted to retroactively credit many of the writers and artists who had worked without much recognition for DC during the early period of comics when individual credits were few and far between.
DC Comics
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Most of Charlton's superhero characters were acquired in 1983 by DC Comics, where former Charlton editor Dick Giordano was then managing editor. These "Action Hero" characters were originally to be used in the landmark "Watchmen" miniseries written by Alan Moore, but DC then chose to save the characters for other uses. Moore instead developed new characters loosely based on them. The Charlton characters were incorporated into DC's main superhero line, starting in the epic "Crisis on Infinite Earths" miniseries of 1985.
Charlton Comics
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Letterer and logo designer Ira Schnapp defined the DC Comics look for nearly thirty years. Starting in 1940, he designed or refined such iconic logos as "Action Comics", "Superman", "The Flash", and "Justice League of America", while also creating the distinctive appearance of DC's house ads and promotions. (Schnapp also designed the Comics Code Authority seal, which was a fixture on comic book covers from all major companies for over forty years.)
Letterer
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Seeking new ways to boost market share, the new team of publisher Kahn, vice president Paul Levitz, and managing editor Giordano addressed the issue of talent instability. To that end—and following the example of Atlas/Seaboard Comics and such independent companies as Eclipse Comics—DC began to offer royalties in place of the industry-standard work-for-hire agreement in which creators worked for a flat fee and signed away all rights, giving talent a financial incentive tied to the success of their work. In addition, emulating the era's new television form, the miniseries while addressing the matter of an excessive number of ongoing titles fizzling out within a few issues of their start, DC created the industry concept of the comic book limited series. This publishing format allowed for the deliberate creation of finite storylines within a more flexible publishing format that could showcase creations without forcing the talent into unsustainable open-ended commitments.
DC Comics
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In 1967, Batman artist Infantino (who had designed popular Silver Age characters Batgirl and the Phantom Stranger) rose from art director to become DC's editorial director. With the growing popularity of upstart rival Marvel Comics threatening to topple DC from its longtime number-one position in the comics industry, he attempted to infuse the company with more focus towards marketing new and existing titles and characters with more adult sensibilities towards an emerging older age group of superhero comic book fans that grew out of Marvel's efforts to market their superhero line to college-aged adults. He also recruited major talents such as ex-Marvel artist and Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko and promising newcomers Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil and replaced some existing DC editors with artist-editors, including Joe Kubert and Dick Giordano, to give DC's output a more artistic critical eye.
DC Comics
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After the release of "", DC Comics became the "Star Trek" comic licensee, publishing stories from 1984 set in the movie era (see "Star Trek DC comics"). In 1988, the series ended when Paramount withdrew its license at the advice of Richard Arnold following a series of disputes between Arnold and DC Comics, specifically with the comic's main author, Peter David. After a year's hiatus DC's second "Star Trek" series was launched with an adaptation of "". Original stories took place in the large gap between "Star Trek V" and "", but did not continue from the previous series, so storylines from that series were either ignored or rewritten. Although more limited in scope than the first series due to restrictions from Paramount – which included a prohibition by Richard Arnold against the creation and use of original and non-series-related ongoing characters in the comic stories – and the controversial removal of Peter David as head writer, the series still lasted 80 issues. Howard Weinstein, who like David was also a "Star Trek" novelist, took over writing the comic with issue No. 20, and used the opportunity to flesh-out some of the changes between "Star Trek V" and "VI", such as Sulu's promotion to captain of the "Excelsior".
Star Trek spin-off fiction
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In December 2013, DC Comics announced the series would launch in May 2014, with Keith Giffen, Brian Azzarello, Dan Jurgens, and Jeff Lemire writing. The series would start with a #0 issue, released on Free Comic Book Day on May 3, 2014, with issue 1 releasing later in the month. Artists on the series include Ethan Van Sciver, drawing the zero issue, along with Jesus Merino, Aaron Lopresti and Jurgens, as well as others who will be added as the series goes from one issue to the next. Lemire stated the series is "an exploration of DC's past, present and its future," with the writers trying "to explore the nature of what a hero is." It was also revealed that Ryan Sook would provide the covers, as well as character designs, for the series.
The New 52: Futures End
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In autumn 1934, having seen the emergence of "Famous Funnies" (1933) and other oversize magazines reprinting comic strips, Wheeler-Nicholson formed the comics publishing company National Allied Publications. While contemporary comics "consisted ... of reprints of old syndicate material", Wheeler-Nicholson found that the "rights to all the popular strips ... had been sewn up". While some existing publications had included small amounts of original material, generally as filler, and while Dell Publishing had put out a proto-comic book of all original strips, "The Funnies", in 1929, Wheeler-Nicholson's premiere comic – "New Fun" #1 (Feb. 1935) – became the first comic book containing all-original material. As author Nicky Wright wrote,
Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson