The Comics Rack

It Was Big, All-American and A Comic Book

   With the publication of DC Comics Rarities Vol. 1, some confusion has arisen over The Big All-American Comic Book: mainly at to why it had that particular title and mix of characters. Well, fret no more fellow ponderer, because there is a story to be told here and, like many stories from the history of comics, it can get a bit confusing, so take a deep breath and hang on tight.
   The first comic books produced in the US were reprints of newspaper strips that were first given away as premiums and later sold. As the popularity of the new medium grew, some publishers began to produce original material, since the rights to the most popular strips were already spoken for. One of these publishers was Major Malcom Wheeler-Nicholson, who released New Fun Comics in 1935 and enjoyed enough success that he was able to expand to 3 titles by 1936. Unfortunately, while the good Major's sales were good, they weren't that good and he soon found himself on a slow slide towards bankruptcy.
   At this point, Harry Donenfeld, a pulp magazine publisher who had also printed the Major's comic books began to advance money to the Major to keep the enterprise afloat. When that didn't turn the tide, Donenfeld bought out the rights to Wheeler-Nicholson's titles and characters and took over the comic book operations himself. Donenfeld was able to turn the titles around and, within a year, introduced the first themed comic to newsstands, Detective Comics. Donenfeld also used his new title to name his company and soon DC comics were seen on newsstands from coast to coast. Eventually, Donenfeld wanted to expand his line and he approached M. C. Gaines to establish a new line of comics.
   Max Charles Gaines had entered the comic business as a salesman for the early reprint comics (according to one story, it was Gaines who placed a ten cent sticker on a batch of comics and proved that comic books could be sold), who had branched out on his own and had packaged a number of comics for various promotions. Of course, Donenfeld didn't just pick Gaines' name out of thin air. Gaines and Donenfeld had already established a relationship. Gaines had helped Donenfeld out in 1939 when he sent Donenfeld the Superman newspaper strip for consideration as a comic feature (y'all remember Action Comics #1?).
   The deal that was finally worked out established separate staffs and offices for both DC and All-American. Each company retained ownership of its characters and ran house ads promoting each other's books, but there was no cross-over between the characters of the companies (which is why Superman and Batman weren't part of the JSA). There was also a 50/50 split in profits and all books were published under the DC logo. The end result of this partnership created the largest comic group of its time and insured the success of both lines.
   So, how does The Big All-American Comic Book fit into all this? My guess is that is was a sort of a last hurrah for Gaines. Due to numerous disagreements between Gaines and DC, Gaines ended up selling All-American to DC in 1944; the same year TBAACB was published. TBAACB was twice as thick as the normal comic book of the time, 132 pages, and it really isn't a stretch to suggest that Gaines put the book together to use up any inventory of stories that may have been produced while he ran the company (another possibility is that DC put the book together after Gaines left to use up inventory, but this theory doesn't seem as logical). Whatever the reason, TBAACB featured all the All-American characters in one giant comic at the (then) outrageous price of 25 cents. Within a matter of months, DC changed its name to National Periodical Publications, kept the DC in its logo, and Superman and Batman began to show up with the JSA.
   And what of M. C. Gaines? Gaines took the money from his sale and established a new comic company called Fables Publishing Company, which most likely would have been forgotten, had not Max been killed in a boating accident. The duties of running the line fell to his son Bill, who turned things on their ear and gave us EC Comics.
NOTE: A review of TBAACB, can be found as part of the review of DC Rarities Vol. 1.