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| #01 |
Numbers of Issues Published:
Series 1 #01 - #04 (July 1964 - Feb 1965)
Pages: 36 Indicia Frequency: Four times yearly
Series 1 #01 - #04 (July 1964 - Feb 1965)
Pages: 36 Indicia Frequency: Four times yearly
Series 2 #38 - #47 (July 1965 - Feb 1967) Formerly U.S. Air Force Comics
Pages: 36 Indicia Frequency: bi-monthly
Color: Color
Color: Color
Dimensions: Standard Silver Age US
Paper Stock: Newsprint
Binding: Saddle-stitched
Publishing Format:Was Ongoing
Publication Type: magazine
Authors:
Script: Joe Gill? |
Pencils: Dick Giordano?, Bill Fraccio, Charles Nicholas, Sam Glanzman,
Inks: Pat Masulli?; Sam Glanzman, Dick Giordano, Tony Tallarico
Series 1 #01 -#04 (July 1964 - Feb 1965)
Pencils: Dick Giordano?, Bill Fraccio, Charles Nicholas, Sam Glanzman,
Inks: Pat Masulli?; Sam Glanzman, Dick Giordano, Tony Tallarico
Series 1 #01 -#04 (July 1964 - Feb 1965)
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| #03 |
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| #02 |
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| #04 |
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| #42 |
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| #38 |
In 1931, Italian immigrant John Santangelo, Sr., a bricklayer who had started a construction business in White Plains, New York, five years earlier, began what became a highly successfully business publishing song-lyric magazines out of nearby Yonkers, New York. Operating in violation of copyright laws, however, he was sentenced in 1934 to a year and a day at New Haven County Jail in New Haven, Connecticut, near Derby, Connecticut where he and his wife by then lived. In jail, he met Waterbury, Connecticut, attorney Ed Levy, with whom he began legitimate publishing in 1935, acquiring permissions to reproduce lyrics in such magazines as Hit Parade and Song Hits. Santangelo and Levy opened a printing plant in Waterbury the following year, and in 1940 founded the T.W.O. Charles Company, named after each of the co-founders' sons, both named Charles, eventually moving its headquarters to Derby.
The company's first comic book was Yellowjacket, an anthology of superhero and horror stories launched September 1944 under the imprint Frank Comunale Publications, with Ed Levy listed as publisher.Zoo Funnies was published under the imprint Children Comics Publishing; Jack in the Box, under Frank Comunale; and TNT Comics, under Charles Publishing Co.. Another imprint was Frank Publications.
Following the adoption of the Charlton Comics name in 1946,[2] the company over the next five years acquired material from freelance editor and comics packager Al Fago (brother of former Timely Comics editor Vincent Fago). Charlton additionally published Merry Comics, Cowboy Western, the Western title Tim McCoy, and Pictorial Love Stories.
In 1951, when Al Fago began as an in-house editor, Charlton hired a staff of artists that included its future managing editor, Dick Giordano. Others, either on staff or freelance, eventually included Vince Alascia, Jon D'Agostino, Sam Glanzman, Rocco "Rocke" Mastroserio, Bill Molno, Charles Nicholas and Sal Trapani. The primary writer was the remarkably prolific Joe Gill.
The company began a wide expansion of its comics line, which would include notoriously gory[citation needed] horror comics (the principal title being Steve Ditko's The Thing!). In 1954–55, it acquired a stable of comic book properties from the defunct Superior Comics, Mainline Publications, St. John Publications, and most significantly, Fawcett Publications, which was shutting down its Fawcett Comics division. Charlton continued publishing two of Fawcett's horror books—This Magazine Is Haunted and Strange Suspense Stories—initially using unpublished material from Fawcett's inventory. Artistic chores were then handed to Ditko, whose moody, individualistic touch came to dominate Charlton's supernatural line. Beset by the circulation slump that swept the industry towards the end of the 1950s,[citation needed] Haunted struggled for another two years, published bi-monthly until May 1958. Strange Suspense Stories ran longer, lasting well into the 1960s before giving up the ghost in 1965.
Charlton published a wide line of romance titles, particularly after it acquired the Fawcett line, which included the romance comics Sweethearts, Romantic Secrets, and Romantic Story. Sweethearts was the comics world's first monthly romance title[5] (debuting in 1948), and Charlton continued publishing it until 1973. Charlton had launched its first original romance title in 1951, True Life Secrets, but that series only lasted until 1956. Charlton also picked up a number of Western titles from the defunct Fawcett Comics line, including Gabby Hayes Western, Lash LaRue Western, Monte Hale Western, Rocky Lane Western. Six-Gun Heroes, Tex Ritter Western, Tom Mix Western, and Western Hero.
Al Fago left in the mid-1950s, and was succeeded by his assistant, Pat Masulli, who remained in the position for ten years. Masulli oversaw a plethora of new romance titles, including the long-running
I Love You, Sweetheart Diary, Brides in Love, My Secret Life, and Just Married; and the teen-oriented romance comics Teen-Age Love, Teen Confessions, and Teen-Age Confidential Confessions.
Superheroes were a minor part of the company. At the beginning, Charlton's main characters were Yellowjacket, not to be confused with the later Marvel character, and Diana the Huntress. In the mid-1950s, Charlton briefly published a Blue Beetle title with new and reprinted stories, and in 1956, several short-lived titles written by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, such as Mr. Muscles and Nature Boy (the latter with artist Mastroserio), and the Joe Gill-created Zaza the Mystic.
(To be continued...)
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