Comic Favorites, Inc.'s first publication was Feature Funnies, which began primarily with color reprints of hit strips from all three co-owning syndicates (including Joe Palooka, Mickey Finn, and Dixie Dugan [all three from McNaught]) alongside a small number of original features.[2] The original material came from various sources, including the company's in-house staff and/or freelancers (from the first issue)[3] and the Eisner & Iger shop (from issue #3).[4]
A frequent point of confusion is whether and how comic packaging shop Harry "A" Chesler was involved with the company's early days. Several sources[5][6] list Chesler as the publisher of Feature Funnies, but the only primary source to mention Chesler is an interview with Arnold in which he describes purchasing content from the shop for Military Comics and Police Comics,[7] neither of which began until 1941. An interview with Will Eisner quoted in The Quality Companion indicates that Arnold was not always an owner of Comic Favorites, Inc., but the authors of that reference were unable to find any corroborating evidence amidst a large volume of evidence to the contrary.[8]
In 1939, Arnold and the owners of the Register & Tribune Syndicate's parent company, brothers John Cowles, Sr. and Gardner Cowles, Jr., bought out the McNaught and Markey interests. Arnold became 50% owner of the newly formed Comic Magazines, Inc., the corporate entity that would publish the Quality Comics line. That year Quality released Smash Comics #1 (Aug. 1939), the company's first comic book with exclusively new material.
Initially buying features from Eisner & Iger, a prominent "packager" that produced comics on demand for publishers entering the new medium, Quality introduced such superheroes as Plastic Man and Kid Eternity, and non-superhero characters including the aviator hero Blackhawk. Quality also published comic-book reprints of Will Eisner's "The Spirit", the seven-page lead feature in a weekly 16-page, tabloid-sized, newsprint comic book, known colloquially as "The Spirit Section", distributed through Sunday newspapers.
Crack Comics #5 (Sept. 1940), first use of the "Quality Comic Group" logo (to right of "COMICS"). Cover art by Gill Fox.
The name Quality Comics debuted on the cover of Crack Comics #5 (Sept. 1940; see at right). "Seemingly never an official publishing title," the Connecticut Historical Society noted, "the Quality Comics Group is a trademarked name (presumably taking its name from Stamford's nickname of 'the Quality City') encompassing Comic Favorites Inc., E.M. Arnold Publications, Smash Comics, and any other imprints owned by Arnold".[9] A 1954 federal document[10] noted that the Quality Romance Group, owned by Everett M. and Claire C. Arnold, with an office at 347 Madison Avenue, in New York City, published two titles as Arnold Publications, Inc., two titles as Comic Favorites, Inc., and 14 titles as Comic Magazines, Inc.
By the mid-1950s, with television and paperback books drawing readers away from comic books in general and superheroes in particular, interest in Quality's characters had declined considerably. After a foray into other genres such as war, humor, romance and horror, the company ceased operations with comics cover-dated December 1956.
There has been much confusion over whether the original Quality Comics and/or the characters they published are in public domain. The original copyrights for Quality's publications have never been renewed by either Arnold or DC (as no such renewal is on file with the Library of Congress), leaving those original stories in the public domain. The trademarks to the characters, and to the titles of the various comic book series, however, were sold to DC in late 1956, which has periodically published stories with them in order to keep their claims alive.[11]
Over the decades, DC revived other Quality characters. Plastic Man has starred in several short-lived series starting in 1966,[12] as well as a Saturday morning cartoon from 1979–1981.[13] The character went on to become a member of the Justice League in the 1990s.
According to DC canon, the Quality characters, before the 1985-1986 DC revamping event called Crisis on Infinite Earths, existed on two separate realities in the DC Multiverse: Earth-Quality and Earth-X.[14] While Earth-Quality followed much the same history as the main Earths, Earth-X was radically different from most Earths, in that World War II continued there until 1973, enabling the Freedom Fighters to continue their fight against the Nazis. Crisis on Infinite Earths #11 established a new "Post-Crisis" continuity in which the Quality and other DC characters have instead always lived on the single, unified DC Earth.
New, successor versions of the characters Black Condor and The Ray were introduced in 1992. Both were recruited into the Justice League. The new Ray had his own 1994–1996 series and occasionally appears as a reserve Justice League member. Yet another version of the Ray was introduced in 2011.
Some Quality Comics titles, including Blackhawk and Plastic Man, have been reprinted by DC, while lesser-known ones have been reprinted by AC Comics.
Blackhawk is the eponymous fictional character of the long-running comic book series Blackhawk first published by Quality Comics and later by DC Comics. Primarily created by Chuck Cuidera with input from both Bob Powell and Will Eisner, the Blackhawk characters first appeared in Military Comics #1.
John Buscema was an American comic book artist and one of the mainstays of Marvel Comics during its 1960s and 1970s ascendancy into an industry leader and its subsequent expansion to a major pop-culture conglomerate. His younger brother Sal Buscema is also a comic book artist.
Doll Man is a superhero first appearing in American comic books from the Golden Age of Comics, originally published by Quality Comics and currently part of the DC Comics universe of characters. Doll Man was created by cartoonist Will Eisner and first appeared in a four-page story entitled "Meet the Doll Man" in Feature Comics #27. He was Quality's first super-powered character.
John Victor Romita was an American comic book artist best known for his work on Marvel Comics' The Amazing Spider-Man and for co-creating characters including Mary Jane Watson, the Punisher, Kingpin, Wolverine, and Luke Cage. Romita was the father of John Romita Jr., also a comic book artist, and the husband of Virginia Romita, who was for many years Marvel's traffic manager.
Clarence Matthew Baker was an American comic book artist and illustrator, best known for drawing early comics heroines such as the costumed crimefighter Phantom Lady, and romance comics. Active in the 1940s and 1950s Golden Age of comic books, he is one of the first known African-American artists to find success in the comic-book industry. He also penciled St. John Publications' digest-sized "picture novel" It Rhymes with Lust (1950), the first graphic novel despite that term not having been coined at the time.
Michael Sekowsky was an American comics artist known as the penciler for DC Comics' Justice League of America during most of the 1960s, and as the regular writer and artist on Wonder Woman during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Paul Gustavson was a Finnish-American comic-book writer and artist. His most notable creations during the Golden Age of Comic Books were The Human Bomb for Quality Comics, and the Angel, who debuted in Marvel Comics #1, the first publication of Marvel Comics forerunner Timely Comics. The Angel would star in more than 100 stories in the 1940s. The Human Bomb would later be acquired by DC Comics and make sporadic appearances as late as 2005.
Everett M. Arnold, also known as Busy Arnold, was an American publisher and an early comic-book entrepreneur whose company Quality Comics published during the 1930s and 1940s period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books. He was also instrumental in the publishing arrangement that led to Will Eisner's newspaper Sunday-supplement comics series The Spirit.
Smash Comics is the title of an American Golden Age comic book anthology series, published by Quality Comics for 85 issues between 1939 and 1949. It became the series Lady Luck for #86-90.
Feature Comics, originally Feature Funnies, was an American comic book anthology series published by Quality Comics from 1939 until 1950, that featured short stories in the humor genre and later the superhero genre.
The Heap is the name of several fictional comic book muck-monsters, the original of which first appeared in Hillman Periodicals' Air Fighters Comics #3, during the period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books. The Heap was comics' first swamp monster.
Alexander Anthony Blum was a Hungarian-American comic book artist best remembered for his contributions in the 1940s and 1950s to the long-running comic book series Classics Illustrated.
Jack Katz is an American comic book artist and writer, painter and art teacher known for his graphic novel The First Kingdom, a 24-issue epic he began during the era of underground comix.
Audrey Anthony Blum was an American comic book writer active during the 1930s and 1940s "Golden Age of Comic Books", known for her work with Quality Comics and other publishers and as one of the first female comics professionals in what was then an almost entirely male industry.
Eisner & Iger was a comic book packager that produced comics on demand for publishers entering the new medium during the late-1930s and 1940s, a period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books. Founded by Will Eisner and Jerry Iger, many of comic books' most significant creators, including Jack Kirby, entered the field through its doors. Eisner & Iger existed from 1936 to 1939.
Michael Gold is an American comics writer, editor and publisher, known for his work as the former media coordinator for the defense for the Chicago Conspiracy Trial, Group Editor and Director of Editorial Development at DC Comics, co-founder of First Comics, and the co-founder and director of communication National Runaway Switchboard as well as a disk jockey in Chicago in the 1970s.
Lawrence Malcolm Nadle was a comic book editor and writer who was known for his work for DC Comics' romance comics, celebrity comics, and other humor-centric titles. Todd Klein has noted that Nadle's career in comics began "around 1943-44", as an editor for All-American Publications. Initially working as assistant for Sheldon Mayer on comic book titles like Mutt & Jeff, Funny Stuff, Funny Folks, and Leave It to Binky, he became one of the two editors for its humor titles along with Bernie Breslauer, he was promoted to full editor on all humor titles in 1949 following Breslauer's illness and remained there until his death in 1963. He also took over the romance books shortly before his death in 1963.
Military Comics, later Modern Comics, was a comic book anthology title published by Quality Comics during the Golden Age of Comic Books from 1941 until 1950. The first issue of Military Comics is notable for featuring the debut of Blackhawk, Blue Tracer, and Miss America.
↑ Benton, Mike (1989). The Comic Book in America, Updated Edition. Dallas, TX: Taylor Publishing Company. p.142. ISBN0-87833-835-7.
↑ Beerbohm, Robert Lee; Richard D. Olson (2006). Robert M. Overstreet (ed.). The Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide (37thed.). New York, NY: Gemstone Publishing. p.386. ISBN978-0-375-72108-3.
↑ Steranko, Jim (1972). The Steranko History of Comics 2. Reading, PA: Supergraphics. pp.92–93.
↑ As new periodical titles were subject to an expensive registration fee by the U.S. Postal Service to receive a second-class mail permit, Golden Age comic book publishers frequently continued the numbering of old titles on new ones, hence one comic book title "becoming" another with completely unrelated content.
↑ Per Andrews, Henry, at Quality Comics: Comic Favorites, Inc. (Indicia Publisher) at the Grand Comics Database: "Contrary to what is often reported, there is no evidence that Harry 'A' Chesler was ever an owner of this company or in any way a 'pre-Quality' publisher. He is not mentioned anywhere in Feature Funnies #1 or #2, and the earliest available statement of ownership (from #16) lists Everett M. Arnold, Frank J. Markey, Henry P. Martin, Jr. and Frank J. Murphy as co-owners."
↑ Such renumbering occurred when the U.S. Postal Service discovered a new title distributed under old numbering; the publisher was then forced to not only pay the registration fee, but also to list the correct issue number.
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