Daily Planet was a promotional page appearing in DC Comics publications from 1976 to 1981. The Daily Planet contained previews of upcoming stories, as well as recurring features like "The Answer Man", where DC writer/editor Bob Rozakis would answer questions sent in by readers, and a comic strip by cartoonist Fred Hembeck which poked fun at DC characters. Edited by Rozakis, the Daily Planet was set in the format of a page from the fictional Metropolis newspaper where Clark Kent worked.
The Daily Planet first appeared in House of Secrets #141, cover-dated May 1976. The volume numbers started at 76, to correspond with the debut year 1976. Each week a new issue of the Planet appeared in select issues of DC's lineup. As time went on, new material and features were added, including puzzles, crosswords, and trivia.
Beginning in 1980, the Daily Planet was rotated with its sister publication, the Feature Page, which often featured an expanded "Answer Man" column and "DC Profiles" of company creators. In 1981, the Planet was moved exclusively to DC Dollar Comics The Superman Family and World's Finest Comics . With only seven issues produced in 1981, the Daily Planet feature was discontinued after the December 1981 issue (DC cover date March 1982). The "Direct Currents" section was continued sporadically on some comics' letters pages.
212 editions of the Daily Planet were produced from 1976 to 1981.
In 1983, DC instituted a monthly column much more in the vein of Marvel's "Bullpen Bulletins". Titled "Meanwhile...", it was written by DC Executive Editor Dick Giordano for most of its history, which ran into the early 1990s. Unlike "Bullpen Bulletins", which was characterized by an ironic, over-hyped tone, Giordano's columns "were written in a relatively sober, absolutely friendly voice, like a friend of your father's you particularly liked and didn't mind sitting down to listen to". [1] Giordano closed each "Meanwhile..." column with the characteristic words, "Thank you and good afternoon".
As the "Meanwhile..." column started to peter out, it was succeeded by a similar page called "DCI with Johnny DC". The Johnny DC column featured miscellaneous DC news items, often spotlighting certain books or creators, and also included a partial checklist of current DC titles.
Writer Kurt Busiek :
But where the 'Bullpen Bulletins' talked about what the [Marvel Comics] staff was doing, and teased new projects in the works and such, the Daily Planet was a mock newspaper front page that ran in all the books, that had two or three 'articles' about books that'd be out on the stands the following week, plus a full checklist of what would be out next week, a list of what was on the stands this week, a cartoon by Fred Hembeck or a Q&A column with Bob 'The Answer Man' Rozakis, that sort of thing. And every week, I'd read those articles and that checklist, and I'd think, 'Huh, Batman meets Scalphunter in the next Brave & Bold . Do I want to buy that?' And, well, no, I didn't, not in that case — but at least I was more aware of what was coming out, and I thought about buying books I'd never even have looked at otherwise. That page probably sold me a lot of DC Comics over the years, and it made me aware of DC as a line, everything from Superman to Weird War Tales , from Justice League to Jonah Hex . [2]
The Daily Planet is a fictional newspaper appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly in association with Superman. The newspaper was first mentioned in Action Comics #23. The Daily Planet building's distinguishing feature is the enormous globe that sits on top of the building.
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.
Mark Eugene Gruenwald was an American comic book writer, editor, and occasional penciler known for his long association with Marvel Comics.
Kurt Busiek is an American comic book writer. His work includes the Marvels limited series, his own series titled Astro City, and a four-year run on The Avengers.
Johnny DC is a character that DC Comics has used at various times as a mascot for its lines of comic books, and occasionally as a metafictional character who comments on the comics in which he appears.
Vincenzo Colletta was an American comic book artist and art director best known as one of Jack Kirby's frequent inkers during the 1950s-1960s period called the Silver Age of comic books. This included some significant early issues of Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four, and a long, celebrated run on the character Thor in Journey into Mystery and The Mighty Thor.
Frank Giacoia was an American comics artist known primarily as an inker. He sometimes worked under the name Frank Ray, and to a lesser extent Phil Zupa, and the single moniker Espoia, the latter used for collaborations with fellow inker Mike Esposito.
"Bullpen Bulletins" was the news and information page that appeared in most regular monthly comic books from Marvel Comics. In various incarnations since its inception in 1965 until its demise in 2001, it included items such as previews of upcoming Marvel publications, news about and profiles of Marvel staff members, occasional references to real-world trends and events, and perhaps most famously, "Stan's Soapbox", a monthly column written by Stan Lee.
Robert "Bob" Rozakis is an American comic book writer and editor known mainly for his work in the 1970s and 1980s at DC Comics, as the writer of 'Mazing Man and in his capacity as DC's "Answer Man".
Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man: The Battle of the Century is a comic book jointly published by Marvel Comics and DC Comics in March 1976. It was the second co-publishing effort between DC Comics and Marvel Comics following their collaboration on MGM's Marvelous Wizard of Oz, and the first modern superhero intercompany crossover.
The origin of Superman is the story that relates Superman's arrival on Earth and the beginnings of his career as a superhero. The story has been through many revisions through decades of publication in comic books and radio, television and film adaptations.
Fred Hembeck is an American cartoonist best known for his parodies of characters from major American comic book publishers. His work has frequently been published by the firms whose characters he spoofs. His characters are always drawn with curlicues at the elbows and knees. He often portrays himself as a character in his own work, in the role of "interviewer" of various comic book characters. Interviewer Daniel Best has said of his work, "If you take your comic books seriously, and think that those characters are real, then you're probably not a fan of Hembeck."
Marvel Age was the title of a promotional comic book-sized magazine from Marvel Comics published from 1983 to 1994. Basically a comic-length edition of the Bullpen Bulletins page, Marvel Age contained previews of upcoming Marvel comics, as well as interviews with comics professionals and other features, including occasional original comic strips. It is also notable for early work by Marvel writers such as Peter David and Kurt Busiek.
A comic book letter column is a section of an American comic book where readers' letters to the publisher appear. Comic book letter columns are also commonly referred to as letter columns, letter pages, letters of comment (LOCs), or simply letters to the editor. Letter columns appeared early on in the history of comic books themselves, and their growing prevalence — particularly beginning in the 1960s — helped create and legitimatize comics fandom. As the forum developed, the volume and tenor of letters became a reliable gauge of overall reader response to developments in the comics themselves. Letter columns remained a regular feature of most comic books until the early years of the 21st century, when they began being phased out in favor of the growing prevalence of email and Internet forums. Despite this, the 2010s saw a renaissance of comic book letter columns, and many comics titles still print them.
A letterhack is a fan who is regularly published in magazine and American comic book letter columns.
Secrets of Haunted House was a horror-suspense comics anthology series published by American company DC Comics from 1975 to 1978 and 1979 to 1982.
Alex Saviuk is an American comics artist primarily known for his work on the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man.
Janice Race is an American former comic book editor best known for her work at DC Comics in the 1980s.
The Amazing World of DC Comics was DC Comics' self-produced fan magazine of the mid-1970s. Running 17 issues, the fanzine featured DC characters and their creators, and was exclusively available through mail order. Primarily text articles, with occasional strips and comics features, Amazing World offered a great deal of insight into Bronze Age DC corporate and creative culture.