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Western Publishing has a long history with comic books. Like Nintendo, they did playing cards, but branched out to Big Little Books in the 1930s.

While not considered comic books for both physical and content reasons, these are heavily illustrated stories.

Comic book fans often focus on writers and artists, but it takes a lot to make a comic book, including printing presses. Western established a press north of NYC, which opened doors for relations with Dell Publishing.

Dell and Western would establish a long partnership for a quarter of a century. Dell financed and distributed the comics, while Western printed them.

#comics #history Dell licensed characters, and had a reputation for being wholesome. As such, they didn't want to be sucked into the turmoil of EC comics and Wertham and Seduction of the Innocent.

Dell took out ad sayings Mothers Can Relax

If you aren't familiar with Seduction of the Innocent, check out my pinned tweet.

Supposedly Dell even pressured companies that they licensed characters from to put pressure on the publisher of Seduction of the Innocent.

Thats hardball business

The Seduction of the Innocent impacted the industry, but Dell and Western did not bend.

If you look at this cover, what's missing?

The Stamp of the Comics Code Authority.

Dell would not join, but retailers were fine with that.

In 1961, the Dell / Western partnership tried something new. For $1, you got 100+ pages of black and white cartoons, bound with a hard cover.

Comic book? Graphic novel? Paperback?

I wonder what prompted this, especially given Dell's relationship with Western Publishing?

1962 saw Western split from Dell, and went on their own as Gold Key. I'm not sure of the split of who created what before, but it seems Gold Key kept a lot of Dell staff.

The early Gold Key have this regimented look, lacking inked panel borders, maybe to harmonize the look to their children's Golden Press, which were massively popular. Western opened new presses, including one in Maryland.

Claim: According to this source, when Western went public in 1960 it was the *largest creator and producer of comic books*

web.archive.org/web/2012072405…

For me, when I think Gold Key, I think Star Trek.

Kinda wacky Star Trek, at that

Notice the interior page, with that uninked square panel look

Mikes Amazing World of Comics describes the difficulties Gold Key had on the newsstands in the 1970s from extremely high rates of returns from the retailer to the publisher.

mikesamazingworld.com/mikes/index.ph…

Why was Western / Gold Key hit especially hard?

Western was licensing characters from others, like Hanna-Barbara, while DC and Marvel were licensing *out* their own characters like Superman and that #Spiderman fellow

Gold Key did develop some of their own characters, but we didn't get Saturday Morning Magnus or very special episode of Doctor Solar After School programs.

Even today, when that Green Lantern merchandise ended up in the bargain bins after the movie, DC pulled the animated cartoon, and none of the GLs showed up in the Arrowverse*

*that we know of, John Diggle fans

So Gold Key went to sell comics not on the spinner racks, but in pre-packaged 3 packs in retail stores, like pharmacies.

These Whitman 3 packs were *non returnable*, like the beginnings of a direct market

Why the change from "Gold Key" to "Whitman"?

To stop any attempt to return via the newsstand for credit. Whitman was already used in retail stores for things like coloring books.