d that comic strips could be reduced in size and still remain legible. Widenberg worked out a deal with the McNaught and McClure Syndicate to reprint several of their more popular comic strips, including Mutt and Jeff and Joe Palooka, in this new format (essentially, the modern day American comic book). Gaines then made an arrangement with Proctor and Gamble to provide them with comic books to use as premiums. Ten thousand copies of Funnies on Parade: a Carnival of Comics were printed for Proctor and Gamble. And all 10,000 copies went almost immediately. Fresh with the success of the Proctor and Gamble promotion, M. C. Gaines persuaded Eastern Color that there was a good deal of money to be made in providing comic books to manufacturers as promotional items. And Gaines proved to be right. He was soon selling 100,000 to 250,000 copies of comic books to such companies as Milk-O-Malt and Kinney Shoes Stores.
The success of comic books as promotional items convinced M. C. Gaines that people might actually be willing to pay for comic books. As an experiment he took some of the books intended as premiums and distributed them to newstands to be sold at 10 cents apiece. Gaines' assumption that people would actually buy comic books proved correct; every copy he had distributed to newstands had sold. With proof that the comic book was a marketable commodity, Eastern Color then turned to George Delacorte (the man who had published The Funnies) to publish Famous Funnies, the first regularly published comic magazine. Famous Funnies started in 1934 and ran until 1955. It was not long before other publishers entered the field and soon comic books were to be found on newstands everywhere.
Not only was M. C. Gaines largely responsible for the modern American comic book, he was also responsible for the first comic book dedicated solely to one character. Gaines struck a deal with the producers of the radio show Skippy to print a comic book based on the character. The comic book, Skippy's Own Book of Comics, was given away as a promotional item to customers who bought Phillps Toothpaste.
From the Eastern Color Printing Company, M. C. Gaines would move on to the McClure Syndicate, the same company which had given Widenberg and Gaines permission to reprint their comic strips in Funnies on Parade. There he would again make comic book history. It was in 1938 that Harry Donenfeld, publisher of National Comics, was about to launch a new comic book to be called Action Comics. In need of comic strips for his new magazine, Donenfeld approached Gaines to see if he had anything which Action Comics could use. Among the comic strips which the McClure Syndicate had rejected was one by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster called Superman. Gaines did not particularly care for the comic strip, but his assistant Sheldon Mayer thought otherwise. Since the McClure Syndicate would not publish Superman, Mayer persuaded Gaines to recommend the strip to Donenfeld. Donenfeld then showed Superman to National editor Vince Sullivan, who thought that it would be successful with children because it had a lot of action. Siegel and Shuster were paid ten dollars a page by Donenfeld for the first Superman story. Having tried to sell the character to a number of newspaper syndicates and failed, they sold the character outright to National for $300. Fortunately for Donenfeld, but perhaps unfortunately for Siegel and Shuster, Superman proved to be a phenomenal success. M. C. Gaines and his assistant Sheldon Mayer were then responsible for directing National to its most successful character of all time and what many consider to be the world's first superhero.
Of course, M. C. Gaines' association with National Comics. would not end with Superman. In 1939 Jack Leibowitz, Harry Donenfeld's partner at National, wanted the company to publish more magazines; however, Donenfeld felt that National was already publishing enough comic books. Leibowitz then formed a partnership with M. C. Gaines to create All-American Comics Inc., a publisher which could rightfully be called Nationa