Charlton Comics was an American comic-book publishing company that existed from 1945 to 1986, having begun under a different name: T. W. O. Charles Company, in 1940. It was based in Derby, Connecticut. The comic-book line was a division of Charlton Publications, which published magazines (most notably song-lyric magazines), puzzle books, and briefly, books, under the imprints Monarch and Gold Star. It had its own distribution company, Capital Distribution.[1]
Charlton Comics published a wide variety of genres, including crime, science fiction, Western, horror, war, and romance comics, as well as talking animal and superhero titles. The company was known for its low-budget practices, often using unpublished material acquired from defunct companies and paying comics creators among the lowest rates in the industry. Charlton was also the last of the American comics publishers still operating to raise its cover prices from 10 to 12 cents in 1962.
It was unique among comic-book companies in that it controlled all areas of publishing – from editorial to printing to distribution – rather than working with outside printers and distributors, as did most other publishers. It did so under one roof at its Derby headquarters.[2]
The company was formed by John Santangelo Sr. and Ed Levy in 1940 as T. W. O. Charles Company, named after the co-founders' two sons, both named Charles, and became Charlton Publications in 1945.
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 successful 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, where his wife and he 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 Big Song Magazine. Santangelo and Levy opened a printing plant in Waterbury the following year, and in 1940, founded the T.W.O. Charles Company, eventually moving its headquarters to Derby.[3] Charlton purchased the company Song Lyrics, Inc., which published Song Hits magazine and was owned by Lyle Engel in 1949.[4]
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.
The company used a second-hand press originally used for printing cereal boxes.[5] These large presses were very costly to both stop and start, which only happened twice a year when they had to be cleaned, and so they started publishing comics as a mean to keep the presses going.[6] After the entry into the comic business, 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.[2]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.
In 1951, when Al Fago began as an in-house editor, Charlton hired a staff of artists who included its future managing editor, Dick Giordano. Others (staff or freelance) who eventually worked with Charlton 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 same year the company created an in-house comics department, where comics would make up 25% of Charlton.[7]
The company began a wide expansion of its comics line, which included 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,[2] 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.[8] 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 bimonthly 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 comic world's first monthly romance title[9] (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 10 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.
On August 19, 1955, the company was hit hard by a flood. The water was rising so fast that vital office records was all that could be saved. $300,000 in paper inventory, plates, mats and original comics artwork were lost, including the artwork the company had bought from Fawcett Comics, in addition to printing presses and typesetting machines. Several issues of comics were destroyed, and some titles abandoned completely.[11][12] Due to the shutdown following the flood, the comics were outsourced to outside presses for some months.[13]
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, Zaza the Mystic, and Nature Boy (the latter with artist Mastroserio).[14]
Charlton threw itself into the resurgent horror comics genre during this period with such titles as Ghostly Tales, The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves, and Ghost Manor. It also created a pair of identical horror-movie magazines: Horror Monsters (1961–1964) and Mad Monsters (1961–1965). Additionally, Charlton produced comics based on monsters featured in motion pictures such as Konga, Gorgo and Reptilicus.
Charlton continued its commitment to romance comics with such new titles as Career Girl Romances, Hollywood Romances (later to change its name to For Lovers Only), and Time for Love.
In 1965, Charlton revived the Captain Atom character in Strange Suspense Stories numbers 75, 76, and 77, reprinting the Steve Ditko-illustrated stories that had originally appeared in Space Adventures in the early 1960s. Retitling the comic, Captain Atom Volume 2 #78 (cover dated Dec. 1965), Charlton began publishing newly created stories by Ditko of the superhero. In 1967, Ditko stopped working at Marvel and returned to Charlton full-time. After his celebrated stint at Marvel, he had grown disenchanted with that company and his Spider-Man collaborator, writer-editor Stan Lee. Having the hugely popular Ditko back helped prompt Charlton editor Giordano to introduce the company's "Action Hero" superhero line, with characters including Captain Atom, Ditko's the Question, Gill and artist Pat Boyette's The Peacemaker, Gill and company art directorFrank McLaughlin's Judomaster, Pete Morisi's Peter Cannon... Thunderbolt, and Ditko's new "Ted Kord" version of the Blue Beetle.[17] Because Giordano had a personal dislike for superheroes and wanted to keep them in a pulplike realm of relative believability, all the characters in his Action Hero line, except for Captain Atom, were ordinary humans which used their skills and talents instead of superpowers.[18][19][20] The company also developed a reputation as a place for new talent to break into comics; examples include Jim Aparo, Dennis O'Neil and Sam Grainger. As well, Charlton in the late 1960s published some of the first manga in America, in Ghost Manor and other titles (thanks to artist Sanho Kim), and artist Wayne Howard became the industry's first known cover-credited series creator, with the horror-anthology Midnight Tales blurbing "Created by Wayne Howard" on each issue—"a declaration perhaps unique in the industry at the time".[21]
Charlton dabbled occasionally in adaptations of live-action TV comedies. The most successful was My Little Margie, based on the 1952-55 network series starring Gale Storm; the Charlton version ran for a full 10 years (1954-64, 54 issues) and inspired two spinoffs, My Little Margie's Boy Friends (1955–58, 11 issues) and My Little Margie's Fashions (1959, five issues). Abbott and Costello, debuting in 1968, was based on the syndicated Abbott and Costello animated cartoon series of 1967-68 and ran for 22 issues. Hee Haw, a remarkably faithful rendition of the then-current CBS-TV series, bowed in 1970 but ran for only seven issues. Both the Abbott and Costello and Hee Haw comics were discontinued in the summer of 1971, although Charlton's Hee Haw was revamped for general audiences as a 50-cent magazine, printed in black-and-white with cast photos and jokes supplemented by advertising. The last of the comedy vehicles was The Partridge Family, based on the then-current ABC-TVsitcom; launched in 1971, the comic book ran for 21 issues until it was cancelled in 1973.
Bronze Age
Nicola Cuti made creative improvements to Charlton's line in the early 1970s, which had been referred to as comics' Bronze Age, during which he worked as assistant editor under George Wildman, who was occupied primarily with administrative duties. Cuti brought Mike Zeck, among others, into Charlton's roster of artists, and his writing enlivened the Ghostly titles, now including Ghostly Haunts. Other Bronze Age Charlton horror titles included Haunted, Midnight Tales, and Scary Tales.
In 1973, Charlton debuted the gothic romance title Haunted Love, but this same period saw the mass cancellation of almost all of Charlton's vast stable of traditional romance titles, including such long-running series as; Sweethearts, Romantic Secrets, Romantic Story, I Love You, Teen-Age Love, Just Married, and Teen Confessions, all of which dated from the 1950s.
Bullseye logo, used from Sept./Oct. 1973
In the mid-1970s, a brief resurgence of talent occurred, energized by Cuti, artist Joe Staton, and the "CPL Gang" – a group of writer/artist comics fans including John Byrne, Roger Stern, Bob Layton, and Roger Slifer, who had all worked on the fanzine Contemporary Pictorial Literature. Charlton began publishing such new titles as E-Man, Midnight Tales, and Doomsday + 1. The CPL Gang also produced an in-house fanzine called Charlton Bullseye, which published, among other things, commissioned but previously unpublished material; including the company's last Captain Atom story. Also during this period, most of Charlton's titles began sporting painted covers.
Early in 1975, Cuti, already writing freelance for the company in addition to his staff duties, quit to write freelance exclusively for Charlton when its line expanded to include black-and-white magazines in addition to the King Features and Hanna-Barbera franchised titles. He was replaced by Bill Pearson, who became assistant editor after promoting Don Newton as the new Phantom artist and writing scripts for that title.
By 1976, however, most of these titles had been cancelled,[22] and most of the company's remaining titles went on hiatus during the period January to August 1977. Much of the new talent took the opportunity to move on to Marvel and DC.
Final years
By the 1980s, Charlton was in decline. The comic-book industry was in a sales slump, struggling to reinvent a profitable distribution and retail system. Charlton's licensed titles lapsed, its aging presses were deteriorating towards uselessness, and the company did not have the resources to replace them. In 1981, yet another attempt was made at new material, with a comic-book version of Charlton Bullseye serving as a new-talent showcase that actively solicited submissions by comic-book fans,[23] and an attempt at new Ditko-produced titles. A number of 1970s-era titles were also reprinted under the Modern Comics imprint and sold in bagged sets in department stores (in much the same way Gold Key Comics were published under the Whitman Comics moniker around the same time). None of these measures worked, and in 1984, Charlton Comics suspended publication.[24]
In 1985, a final attempt at a revival was spearheaded by new editor T. C. Ford with a direct-to-market Charlton Bullseye Special.[25][26] Later that same year, though, Charlton Comics went out of business;[27] Charlton Publications followed suit in 1991, and its building and presses were demolished in 1999.
Editor Robin Snyder oversaw the sale of some properties to their creators, though most of the rights were purchased by Canadian entrepreneurRoger Broughton.[28] He produced several reprint titles under the company name of Avalon Communications and its imprint America's Comics Group (ACG for short, Broughton having also purchased the rights to the defunct American Comics Group properties), and announced plans to restart Charlton Comics. This did not occur beyond its publishing a number of reprints and changing his company name to Charlton Media Group.[29]
Most of Charlton's line of action heroes were acquired in 1983 for $5000 a character by Paul Levitz at DC Comics, as a gift to managing editor and former Charlton editor Dick Giordano.[30] These "Action Hero" characters were proposed to be used in the landmark Watchmenminiseries written by Alan Moore, but DC then chose to save the characters for other uses. Moore instead developed new characters loosely based on them.[2] The Charlton characters were incorporated into DC's main superhero line, starting in the epic Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries of 1985.
Charlton's original strength, doing everything in-house, like art, lettering, editorial, printing, packaging and distribution, had helped them survive when America's largest distributor, American News Company, closed its doors.[31] But this gradually turned into a weakness as their old equipment was stuck in the past, while other companies used more modern equipment that was faster, had higher quality and was more efficient, which contributed to their decline and fall.[32]
In 2014, comics writers Mort Todd, Paul Kupperberg, and Roger McKenzie founded a revival imprint named Charlton Neo, which relied heavily on crowdfunding, and printed stories featuring Charlton characters and titles not owned by DC.[33] In May 2017, AC Comics announced that they had entered into an agreement to bring print versions of Charlton Neo's comics to the direct-sales comic shop market, starting with Charlton Arrow #1 in September.[34]The Charlton Arrow, an anthology series featuring many Charlton characters, was the company's main product and only title sold in stores, but the company ran a number of other titles through mail-order and digital sales.[35] In January 2018, citing poor sales and "a variety of financial calamities,"[36] Todd launched a GoFundMe campaign to "help save" the company.[citation needed]
Stephen John Ditko was an American comic book writer best known for being the co-creator of Marvel superhero Spider-Man and creator of Doctor Strange. He also made notable contributions to the character of Iron Man, introducing the character's red and yellow design.
The Silver Age of Comic Books was a period of artistic advancement and widespread commercial success in mainstream American comic books, predominantly those featuring the superhero archetype. Following the Golden Age of Comic Books, the Silver Age is considered to cover the period from 1956 to 1970, and was succeeded by the Bronze Age.
Blue Beetle is the name of three superheroes appearing in a number of American comic books published by a variety of companies since 1939. The most recent of the companies to own rights to Blue Beetle is DC Comics, which bought the rights to the character in 1983, using the name for three distinct characters over the years.
Richard Joseph Giordano was an American comics artist and editor whose career included introducing Charlton Comics' "Action Heroes" stable of superheroes and serving as executive editor of DC Comics.
An American comic book is a thin periodical originating in the United States, on average 32 pages, containing comics. While the form originated in 1933, American comic books first gained popularity after the 1938 publication of Action Comics, which included the debut of the superhero Superman. This was followed by a superhero boom that lasted until the end of World War II. After the war, while superheroes were marginalized, the comic book industry rapidly expanded and genres such as horror, crime, science fiction and romance became popular. The 1950s saw a gradual decline, due to a shift away from print media in the wake of television and the impact of the Comics Code Authority. The late 1950s and the 1960s saw a superhero revival and superheroes remained the dominant character archetype throughout the late 20th century into the 21st century.
Fawcett Comics, a division of Fawcett Publications, was one of several successful comic book publishers during the Golden Age of Comic Books in the 1940s. Its most popular character was Captain Marvel, the alter ego of radio reporter Billy Batson, who transformed into the hero whenever he said the magic word "Shazam!".
The Bronze Age of Comic Books is an informal name for a period in the history of American superhero comic books, usually said to run from 1970 to 1985. It follows the Silver Age of Comic Books and is followed by the Modern Age of Comic Books.
National Comics Publications v. Fawcett Publications, 191 F.2d 594. was a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in a twelve-year legal battle between National Comics and the Fawcett Comics division of Fawcett Publications, concerning Fawcett's Captain Marvel character being an infringement on the copyright of National's Superman comic book character. The litigation is notable as one of the longest-running legal battles in comic book publication history.
E-Man is a comic-book character, a superhero created by writer Nicola Cuti and artist Joe Staton for the American company Charlton Comics in 1973. Although the character's original series was short-lived, the lightly humorous hero has become a cult classic occasionally revived by different independent comics publishers. The character was originally owned by Charlton but was eventually transferred to its creators.
Joseph P. Gill was an American magazine writer and highly prolific comic book scripter. Most of his work was for Charlton Comics, where he co-created the superheroes Captain Atom, Peacemaker, and Judomaster, among others. Comics historians consider Gill a top contender as the comic-book field's most prolific writer. Per historian and columnist Mark Evanier, Gill "wrote a staggering number of comics. There are a half-dozen guys in his category. If someone came back and said he was the most prolific ever, no one would be surprised."
L. Miller & Son, Ltd. was a British publisher of magazines, comic books, pulp fiction and paperback books intended primarily to take advantage of the British ban on importing printed matter. Between 1943 and 1966, the firm published British editions of many American comic books, primarily those of Fawcett Comics and American paperback books, primarily those of Fawcett Publications' Gold Medal Books. The company is best known for the 1954 creation of Marvelman – a blatant imitation of the Golden Age Captain Marvel – after America's Fawcett Publications capitulated to National Periodicals. L. Miller & Son also published a large line of Western comics — many reprints but also some original titles - and both category fiction and non-fiction paperbacks.
Francis X. McLaughlin was an American comics artist who co-created the comic book character Judomaster, drew the comic strip Gil Thorp, and assisted on such strips as Brenda Starr, Reporter and The Heart of Juliet Jones. He also wrote and illustrated books about cartooning and comic art.
Rocco A. "Rocke" Mastroserio was an American comic book artist best known as a penciler and inker for Charlton Comics. He sometimes signed his work "Rocke M.," "RM," "Rocke," or "RAM."
This Magazine is Haunted is a horror comic that was originally published by Fawcett between 1951 and 1953. Running 14 issues, it was the first of Fawcett's supernatural line; a string of titles which included Beware! Terror Tales, Worlds of Fear, Strange Suspense Stories, and Unknown Worlds.
Alan Class Comics was a British comics publishing company that operated between 1959 and 1989. The company produced anthology titles, reprinting comics stories from many U.S. publishers of the 1940s to 1960s in a black and white digest size format for a UK audience. During the 1960s and 1970s, these reprints were the main medium through which British children were introduced to American monster and mystery comics, as well as most non-DC or Marvel superheroes.
Space Adventures is an American science-fiction anthology comic book series that was published sporadically by Charlton Comics from 1952 to 1979. Its initial iteration included some of the earliest work of industry notables Steve Ditko, Dick Giordano, and Tony Tallarico, and at least one story by EC Comics mainstay Bernard Krigstein.
Fightin' Navy is a bimonthly war comic that was published by Charlton Comics from 1956–1966, and then again from 1983–1984. Telling fictional stories of the United States Navy, it was a sister title of the other Charlton war comics Fightin' Army, Fightin' Air Force, and Fightin' Marines.
Patrick J. Masulli was an American comic book creator. During the Silver Age of Comic Books, he was the executive editor of Charlton Comics from 1955–1966. Besides editing over thirty titles in ten years, Masulli co-created the Charlton characters Sarge Steel and the Son of Vulcan.
Strange Suspense Stories is a comic book that was published in two volumes by Fawcett Comics and Charlton Comics in the 1950s and 1960s. Starting out as a horror/suspense title, the first volume gradually moved toward eerie fantasy and weird science fiction, before ending as a vehicle for the superhero Captain Atom. The title's second volume was more in the horror/suspense vein. Altogether, 72 issues of Strange Suspense Stories were published.
Blue Beetle is a long running comic book series featuring the superhero of the same name. Throughout its publication, the series has had three main characters who have each assumed the mantle of the Blue Beetle: Dan Garret, Ted Kord and Jaime Reyes. The series has been canceled and relaunched several times: its first volume was published by Fox Feature Syndicate and Holyoke Publishing, with subsequent volumes published by Charlton Comics and then DC Comics. Since 1986, the series and its characters have been integrated into the shared DC Universe.
References
↑ Eury, Michael. Dick Giordano: Changing Comics, One Day at a Time (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2003), p. 42.
↑ Bails, Jerry. "SIEGEL, JERRY". Who's Who of American Comic Books 1928–1999. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
↑ McAvennie, Michael (2010). "1960s". In Dolan, Hannah (ed.). DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle. Dorling Kindersley. p.99. ISBN978-0-7566-6742-9. Captain Atom was born in a tale by artist Steve Ditko and writer Joe Gill.
↑ McAvennie "1960s" in Dolan, p. 123: "After Ted Kord assumed the scarab as Blue Beetle in a back-up feature of Captain Atom #83, writer/artist Steve Ditko and co-writer 'D.C. Glanzman' (who was actually Ditko) launched the Blue Beetle into his own series."
↑ Cooke, Jon B., "Lest We Forget: Celebrating Four that Got Away": Comic Book Artist #12 (March 2001), p. 112
↑ "Charlton Has Suspended Publication Indefinitely", The Nostalgia Journal #29, October 1976, p. 14.
↑ "Charlton to Publish Aspiring Pro's Work for Free," The Comics Journal #59 (Oct. 1980), p. 14.
↑ "Charlton Comics Suspends Publication," The Comics Journal #94 (Oct. 1984), p. 18.
↑ "From the Ashes: Charlton and Harvey to Resume Publishing This Spring," The Comics Journal #97 (Apr. 1985), pp. 15–16.
↑ "Charlton Back from the Dead," The Comics Journal #101 (Sept. 1985), pp. 22–23.
↑ "Charlton Goes Down for the Count," The Comics Journal #103 (Sept. 1985), pp. 10–11.
↑ "Charlton Rights Sold," The Comics Journal #122 (June 1988), p. 26.
↑ Irving, Christopher. "Charlton Twilight & Afterlife: the Final Days of Charlton Publications and Beyond," Comic Book Artist #12 (Mar. 2001), p104-108.
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