 | |
| Genre | Superhero, war, humor, romance, horror |
|---|---|
| Predecessor | Comic Favorites, Inc. |
| Founded | 1937 |
| Founder | Everett M. "Busy" Arnold |
| Defunct | December 1956 |
| Headquarters | New York City, U.S. |
Key people | Eisner & Iger |
| Products | Comic books |
| Parent | Comic Magazines, Inc. |
Quality Comics was anAmerican comic bookpublishing company which operated from 1937 to 1956 and was a creative, influential force in what historians and fans call theGolden Age of Comic Books.
Notable, long-running titles published by Quality includeBlackhawk,Feature Comics,G.I. Combat,Heart Throbs,Military Comics/Modern Comics,Plastic Man,Police Comics,Smash Comics, andThe Spirit. While most of their titles were published by a company namedComic Magazines, from 1940 onwards all publications bore a logo that included the word "Quality". Notable creators associated with the company includedJack Cole,Reed Crandall,Will Eisner,Lou Fine,Gill Fox,Paul Gustavson,Bob Powell, andWally Wood.
Quality Comics was founded byEverett M. Arnold, a printer who saw the rapidly rising popularity of the comic bookmedium in the late 1930s. Deducing thatDepression-era audiences wanted established quality and familiarcomic strips for their hard-earned dimes, in 1937 the enterprising Arnold formed Comic Favorites, Inc. (in collaboration with three newspapersyndicates: theMcNaught Syndicate, theFrank J. Markey Syndicate, and Iowa'sRegister and Tribune Syndicate).[1]
Comic Favorites, Inc.'s first publication wasFeature Funnies, which began primarily with color reprints of hit strips from all three co-owning syndicates (includingJoe Palooka,Mickey Finn, andDixie 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 freelancers (from the first issue)[3] and theEisner & Iger shop (from issue #3).[4]
A frequent point of confusion is whether and how comic packaging shopHarry "A" Chesler was involved with the company's early days. Several sources[5][6] list Chesler as the publisher ofFeature Funnies, but the only primary source to mention Chesler is an interview with Arnold in which he describes purchasing content from the shop forMilitary Comics andPolice Comics,[7] neither of which began until 1941. An interview with Will Eisner quoted inThe Quality Companion indicates that Arnold did not always own 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, brothersJohn Cowles Sr. andGardner 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 releasedSmash Comics #1 (Aug. 1939), the company's first comic book with exclusively new material.
Initially buying features fromEisner & Iger, a prominent "packager" that produced comics on demand forpublishers entering the new medium, Quality introduced suchsuperheroes asPlastic Man andKid Eternity, and non-superhero characters including theaviator heroBlackhawk. Quality also published comic-book reprints ofWill 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 Sundaynewspapers.
The name Quality Comics debuted on the cover ofCrack 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, withtelevision andpaperback 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 aswar,humor,romance andhorror, the company ceased operations with comics cover-dated December 1956.
Many of Quality's character and title trademarks were sold toNational Comics Publications (nowDC Comics), which chose to keep only four series running:Blackhawk,G.I. Combat,Heart Throbs (each for another 100 or more issues), andRobin Hood Tales (for 8 issues).
There has been much confusion over whether the original Quality Comics and their characters are inpublic domain. The original copyrights for Quality's publications were never renewed, leaving them in the public domain. The trademarks to the characters were sold to DC, which has periodically published stories with them to renew copyright.[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 aSaturday morning cartoon from 1979–1981.[13] The character went on to become a member of theJustice League in the 1990s.
According to DC canon, the Quality characters, before the 1985-1986 DC revamping event calledCrisis on Infinite Earths, existed on two separate realities in theDC Multiverse:Earth-Quality andEarth-X.[14] While Earth-Quality followed much the same history as the main Earths, Earth-X was radically different from most Earths, in thatWorld War II continued there until 1973, enabling theFreedom Fighters to continue their fight against the Nazis. Following the Crisis, the Quality characters are transported to the main universe.
New, successor versions of the charactersBlack Condor andThe 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, includingBlackhawk andPlastic Man, have been reprinted by DC, while lesser-known ones have been reprinted byAC Comics.
Quality published comics from 1939 to 1956.[17]
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