quote:Originally posted by Cobalt Kid: Here's one thats kind of related: More Fun Comics, the original DC series was cancelled in 1948-1949. It's believed this is not because of sales but because of what reason?
-------------------- "Suck it, depressos!"--M. Lash
From: The Underbelly of Society | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Well, in 1948 the Dominion of Newfoundland voted to join Canada. This lead to Queen Wilhelmina on the Netherlands to abdicate, supposedly for health reasons. After which the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This coupled with the birth of Ozzy Osbourne lead to a ripple in the space/time continuum. The cancellation of More Fun Comics just had to happen after that.
-------------------- Five billion years from now the Sun will go nova and obliterate the Earth. Don't sweat the small stuff!
From: Boston | Registered: Aug 2003
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Hint: the reason it was cancelled had nothing to do with the content; it's also the reason the title was not restarted for many decades (and indeed has never been).
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I think it’s more a matter of ownership than copyright so I’m going to give it to Krypton Kid (though I realize its splitting hairs).
Here is an excerpt from a private “History of Comics” I’ve been working on, on and off for the last several years:
DC Comics’ beginnings mark one of the worst cases of greedy business screwing someone over. By December 1937, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, the true founder of DC Comics was in huge debt to Harry Donenfeld, who was his printer, distributer and co-owner of one of his two companies, Detective Comics, Inc. The Major had needed to go to Donenfeld and Liebowitz to stay in business because all of his titles (More Fun Comics, Adventure Comics and Detective Comics) were failing, because they were all-new characters without an existing audience. Donenfeld convinced him to stay in business since he was both his printer and distributer, and then became co-owners (as did Jack Liebowitz, his young business partner who did the books).
By now being co-owner plus his printer and distributer, Donenfeld had purposely created a way to squeeze the Major for as much as he could with the intent to put him out of business. Legend has it; Donenfeld encouraged the Major and his wife to go on a long vacation to rest up from dealing with finances. While away, Donenfeld used his and Jack Liebowitz’s shares of ownership of Detective Comics, Inc. to push the company into bankruptcy. A judge named Abe Mennen, one of Donenfeld's "Tammany Hall buddies" (who was politically connected to him via his old mobster connections like Frank Costello) fast-tracked Detective Comics, Inc through bankruptcy so a quick sale of all of its assets could be bought up by Donenfeld's Independent News (the distributer).
The Major returned to learn the offices had been moved and his name would be removed from all statements of ownership and mastheads. He would eventually settle with the powerful Donenfeld striking a deal in which Donenfeld now owned Nicholson Publishing Co. (which was the entity owning the Major’s shares of Detective Comics, Inc.) in return for ten year's royalties on the sales of More Fun Comics, which by stipulation had to stay in print during all that time. By September 1938, Harry Donenfeld is listed as sole owner of Detective Comics, Inc. For a brief of time during this transition (and gradually over the next few years), the consolidated companies would be called Detective Comics, though officially at this point that isn't really correct. It would be because of this, and the later "DC Bullet" that DC eventually became called "DC".
Donenfeld and Liebowitz, along with Paul Sampliner (the co-owner of Independent News) would soon consolidate all of these companies: Nicholson Publishing Co (More Fun Comics and New Adventure Comics), Detective Comics, Inc. (Detective Comics), Independent News (distributer) and Donny Press (printer) into one company. This company would be National Allied Publications, which is one-half of what will become DC Comics (the Superman/Batman half). For decades DC would often be referred to as "National”. As National Allied Publications went from success to success without him, Wheeler-Nicholson "gave up on the world of commerce thereafter and went back to writing war stories and critiques of the American military" in addition to straight "articles on politics and military history"; unfortunately he exits the story of comic books at this point.
More Fun Comics ended exactly 10 years later to the very month, despite at that time being a highly successful title starring “funny” characters and funny animals. Just in case, they didn’t want to pay the Major one single cent more than he was owed.
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
posted
It's bizarre that, given that they pretty much knew the title would be cancelled, they would start a new series (Jimminy and his Magic Book) just a few months before the title ended, and even have a leftover story that had to be printed later in World's Finest. That's the kind of poorly thought out planning I expect of the current DC, not the DC of the 1940s!
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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-------------------- Five billion years from now the Sun will go nova and obliterate the Earth. Don't sweat the small stuff!
From: Boston | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Faulty memory guess - a dictator on Bialya that the Giffen/DeMatteis JLA/JLI went up against a couple of times? (I think he had a brother that replaced him after his death too.)
From: Australia | Registered: Dec 2003
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