Company type | Distributor |
---|---|
Industry | Comics, magazines |
Founded | 1932 |
Founder | Harry Donenfeld Paul Sampliner |
Defunct | 1970 |
Headquarters | New York City, U.S. |
Key people | Irving Donenfeld, Jack Liebowitz, Irwin Donenfeld |
Parent | National Periodical Publications |
Independent News Co. was a magazine and comic book distribution business owned by National Periodical Publications, the parent company of DC Comics. Independent News distributed all DC publications, as well as those of a few rival publishers, such as Marvel Comics from 1957 to 1969, in addition to pulp and popular magazines. The company was founded in 1932 and operated until 1970.
In 1929, as a favor to an old client, pulp magazine publisher Harry Donenfeld gave work to the client's son, Jack Liebowitz. [1] Donenfeld and Liebowitz had little in common, but Liebowitz soon emerged as a man who could run finances. [2] Whereas Donenfeld would promise the world to clients without understanding the economic realities, Liebowitz was bookish and ensured bills were paid on time and helped create respectability in the firm. Soon the two men were spoken of as a partnership.
When Liebowitz first worked for Donenfeld, the latter's empire was little more than a publishing house for "sex pulp" and art nudie magazines distributed by Eastern News, a company run by Charles Dreyfus and Paul Sampliner. In 1931, Eastern News faced bankruptcy and could no longer pay its publishers; the company owed Donenfeld alone $30,000. A compromise was called for, and Donenfeld, not wanting to find himself hamstrung by a distributor again, approached Sampliner with the idea of creating the Independent News Company, a publishing house with its own distribution system. [3]
With Sampliner running the distribution end, [4] Donenfeld as salesman, Harry's youngest brother Irving (not to be mistaken for Harry's son: Irwin Donenfeld [5] ) as head printer, and Liebowitz running the finances, they launched Independent News in 1932. [6] The Donenfeld brothers had begun as printers, and they continued printing the company's magazine and comic book covers even after branching into distribution. [7]
Now Donenfeld was a distributor as well as a publisher, and was now no longer reliant on others to run his business. As a publisher, Donenfeld had managed to dodge creditors and break deals, but as a distributor, he came to rely more on Liebowitz to ensure that the company ran smoothly. Liebowitz ensured bills were paid on time and began to build trust with clients that Donenfeld's enterprises had never experienced. [8]
In 1935, writer/entrepreneur Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson approached Independent News in a bid to relaunch his comic book New Fun , having lost his previous backers due to poor sales and debts. Donenfeld accepted to distribute the comic but with a heavy loss of rights for Wheeler-Nicholson. Wheeler-Nicholson produced two more titles to be handled by Independent News, New Comics and Detective Comics (which would later see the first appearance of Batman), now under the banner of Detective Comics Inc., in which Wheeler-Nicholson was forced to take Donenfeld and Liebowitz as partners. In 1938, Donenfeld sued Wheeler-Nicholson for nonpayment and Detective Comics Inc. went into bankruptcy. Not too surprisingly Donenfeld bought up the company and Wheeler-Nicholson's National Allied Publications in their entirety as part of the action. [9]
The fourth publication under National Allied Publications would be Action Comics (1938). Issue #1 introduced the superhero, Superman, created by artist Joe Shuster and writer Jerry Siegel, and the character's popularity created incredible profits; not only in comic book sales, but also in merchandising such as toys, costumes and even a radio show. At the end of 1941 Donenfeld's comic businesses took in $2.6 million. [10]
Max Gaines, future founder of EC Comics, formed All-American Publications in 1938 after successfully seeking funding from Harry Donenfeld., [11] As Gerard Jones writes of Donenfeld's investment:
Harry had agreed on one condition: that [Gaines] take [Detective Comics partner] Jack Liebowitz on as his partner. ... Jack would be tempted to leave and form a competing company if there was nothing to hold him. And it may well have been a way for Harry to keep Gaines under control; since Jack was still drawing a salary and significant bonuses from Detective Comics and [self-distributorship] Independent News, he wouldn't let Gaines take off on his own or act against the interests of the other companies. ... Gaines became the principal and Jack Liebowitz the minority owner of All-American [Publications]. [12]
In 1946, Gaines let Liebowitz buy him out, keeping only Picture Stories from the Bible as the foundation of his own new company, EC Comics. "Liebowitz promptly orchestrated the merger of All-American and Detective Comics into National Comics.... Next he took charge of organizing National Comics, Independent News, and their affiliated firms into a single corporate entity, National Periodical Publications". [13]
The biggest magazine distribution company of this era was American News Company, which had a virtual monopoly on all comics except DC's. From 1952 to 1957 Atlas Comics publisher Martin Goodman distributed his company's comics to newsstands through his self-owned distributor, Atlas. He then switched to American News — which shortly afterward lost a Justice Department lawsuit and discontinued its business. [14] Atlas was left without distribution and was forced to turn to its biggest rival, National (DC) Comics which imposed draconian restrictions on Goodman's company. As then-Atlas editor Stan Lee recalled in a 1988 interview:
... [We had been] turning out 40, 50, 60 books a month, maybe more, and ... suddenly we went ... to either eight or 12 books a month, which was all Independent News Distributors would accept from us. [15]
American Comics Group, another comic book publisher from the era (also with ties to Harry Donenfeld), was distributed by Independent News, as were such popular magazines as Playboy and Family Circle . [4]
Jack Liebowitz stayed with Independent News until 1965, eventually becoming a co-owner. [16] Irwin Donenfeld, who was DC's editorial director in the 1960s, was also a vice president of Independent News. [17]
In 1966, Independent News expanded its operations to the United Kingdom by acquiring the bankrupt British publisher/distributor Thorpe & Porter. [18] With this purchase, Independent News became the sole distributor of American comics in the U.K., handling not only DC's output but also those of a few rival publishers, such as Marvel (until 1969), in addition to pulp and popular magazines. [18]
In 1967, National Periodical Publications (including Independent News) was purchased by Kinney National Company, which later purchased Warner Bros.-Seven Arts and became Warner Communications. [19] The Donenfelds and their "crew" were out, and new management came in. By 1970, Independent News was defunct, absorbed into a larger and changing distribution business. Independent News' last president was Harold Chamberlin, who served from 1968 to 1970. Chamblerin went on to become president of Warner Publishing from 1970 to 1979. [20] As Warner Publishing Services, the company was named by DC Comics as one of the honorees in the company's 50th-anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great . [21]
DC Comics, Inc. is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC is an initialism for "Detective Comics", an American comic book series first published in 1937.
Superman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, and debuted in the comic book Action Comics #1. Superman has been adapted to a number of other media, which includes radio serials, novels, films, television shows, theater, and video games.
Joseph Shuster, was a Canadian-American comic book artist best known for co-creating the DC Comics character Superman, with Jerry Siegel, in Action Comics #1.
Maxwell Charles Gaines was an American publisher and a pioneering figure in the creation of the modern comic book.
Jerome Siegel was an American comic book writer. He is the co-creator of Superman, in collaboration with his friend Joe Shuster, published by DC Comics. They also created Doctor Occult, who was later featured in The Books of Magic. Siegel and Shuster were inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1993. With Bernard Baily, Siegel also co-created the long-running DC character The Spectre. Siegel created ten of the earliest members of the Legion of Super-Heroes, one of DC's most popular team books, which is set in the 30th Century. Siegel also used pseudonyms including Joe Carter and Jerry Ess.
Detective Comics is an American comic book series published by Detective Comics, later shortened to DC Comics. The first volume, published from 1937 to 2011, is best known for introducing the superhero Batman in Detective Comics #27.
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.
Irwin Donenfeld was an American comic book publishing executive for DC Comics. Donenfeld co-owned the firm from 1948 to 1967, holding the positions of Editorial Director (1952–1957) and Executive Vice President. He was the son of Harry Donenfeld, co-founder of the company.
National Comics Publications was an American comic book publishing company. It was the direct predecessor of modern-day DC Comics.
Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson 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. Historian and author David Hajdu credits Wheeler-Nicholson as "the link between the pulps and what we know of as comics today." He launched the magazine comics company National Allied Publications in 1935, which would evolve to become DC Comics, one of the United States' two largest comic book publishers along with rival Marvel Comics. He was a 2008 Judges' Choice inductee into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.
Martin Goodman was an American publisher of pulp magazines, digest sized magazines, paperback books, men's adventure magazines, and comic books, who founded the comics magazine company Timely Comics in 1939. Timely Comics would go on to become Marvel Comics, one of the United States' two largest comic book publishers along with rival DC Comics.
All-American Publications, Inc. was one of two American comic book companies that merged to form the modern-day DC Comics, one of the two largest publishers of comic books in the United States. Superheroes created for All-American include the original Atom, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, and Wonder Woman, all in the 1940s' Golden Age of Comic Books.
Harry Donenfeld was an American publisher. He is known primarily for being the co-owner with Jack Liebowitz of National Periodical Publications. Donenfeld was also a founder of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
American News Company (ANC) was a magazine, newspaper, book, and comic book distribution company founded in 1864 by Sinclair Tousey, which dominated the distribution market in the last quarter of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. The company's abrupt 1957 demise caused a huge shakeup in the publishing industry, forcing many magazine, comic book, and paperback publishers out of business.
John Leonard Goldwater co-founded MLJ Comics, and served as editor and co-publisher for many years. In the mid-1950s he was a key proponent and custodian of the comic book censorship guidelines known as the Comics Code Authority.
Jacob S. Liebowitz was an American accountant and publisher. He is known primarily for being the co-owner with Harry Donenfeld of National Periodical Publications.
New Media Distribution/Irjax Enterprises was a comic book distributor and publisher active from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. In 1978, the company's legal actions against the dominant distributor of the era, Sea Gate Distributors, widened the field for the direct market to expand. In 1982, when Irjax's distribution arm went out of business, its processing centers and warehouses formed the basis for Diamond Comics Distributors, the now-dominant comics distributor.
Frederick Hillel Iger was an American comic book publisher, associated for many years with the media figure Harry Donenfeld. Iger was an owner of American Comics Group from 1943 to 1967, and co-owner of National Periodical Publications from 1948–1961.
National Comics Publications and All-American Publications, two precursors to DC Comics, were formed publishing American comic books such as superhero comics starting in the 1930s. Primary Comic book anthology titles created by the company was More Fun Comics, Adventure Comics, Detective Comics, Action Comics, All-American Comics and Superman. Other companies like Quality Comics and Fawcett Comics would later be merged into DC. Quality started by introducing comic books like Feature Comics and Smash Comics.
Thorpe & Porter was a British publisher, importer, and distributor of magazines and comic books. At first, the company was known for repackaging American comics and pulp magazines for the UK market. Later on, it became a publisher of original material. The company released more than 160 comics titles in the UK, the most prominent being Classics Illustrated, MAD UK, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes, Larry Harmon's Laurel & Hardy, House of Hammer, and Forbidden Worlds. T & P's most prominent imprints were Top Sellers Ltd. and Brown Watson. Thorpe & Porter operated from 1946 to c. 1979.