- DC or Detective Comics was founded
in May of 1934 but it wasn't officially
named DC Comics until 1977,
so what was it called for all
of the time in between?
And why did it take them so long
to change it?
I mean Detective Comics, Batman, it was
right there the whole time, come on DC.
Get it together.
If you are on this channel
you probably know a little bit
about DC Comics and it's 80 plus years
of history producing original comic stories
of super guys and bat persons.
But you may not know the history
behind the scenes at DC and it's many other names.
- Hey hold on.
I'm the guy who talks about comic book
names around here.
You go back to tackling your misconceptions.
How long has it been since you tackled an
actual misconception, by the way?
- It's just the name of the show okay.
I like puns.
- I know, I know, so do I.
But so long as we're talking about names
I feel like I could help out a little bit.
- I'll allow it but honestly how much could
there be to this story?
- I mean we have to go back right
to the beginning of comic books,
so like 82 years.
And that's a lot to cover so let's get to it.
What would be known as DC Comics was founded
by a daring entrepeneur and pulp writer
by the name of Malcolm Wheeler Nicholson
under the name National Allied Publications.
He founded the company with a new vision
to create all new original material
instead of reprinting past comic strips,
which is what the very first line
of comic books ever did.
With this new fangled idea of his
he began to produce comic books
for the next three years.
In this time he published America's first
all original comic book, New Fun.
This was a big deal because up to this point
all comic book publications had been reprints
of comic book strips found in the funny section
in various syndicated newspapers.
He followed that with New Comics
and finally Detective Comics.
But the journey was not easy.
In order to publish Detective Comics,
Malcolm had to take on an experienced
publishing partner named Harry Donenfeld.
- Now here's where it gets fun.
In 1937 Malcolm and Donenfeld,
along with accountant Jack Liebowitz,
founded Detective Comics Inc.
but the relationship didn't last long,
as comics historian Gerard Jones explains
in his book Men of Tomorrow,
the year after their partnership
Donenfeld arranged for Malcolm and his wife
to go on a cruise to think up some ideas
on how to work past their financial decline
only to return home to discover the locks
to his office had been changed and he had been
sued by his partner for non payment resulting
in the loss of his company.
After all of that nonsense Malcolm called it quits
on the entire comics industry.
- And that's four years of history.
Alrighty, only 78 more.
Shortly after, all ownership
of National Allied Publications,
NAP for short, and Detective Comics Incorporated
transferred to Donenfeld and his partner Liebowitz.
NAP was merged with Detective Comics
whose named was pushed into the background
as a subsidiary of the new company.
They also removed the Allied from NAP
to become simply National Publications
or sometimes National Comics.
You're about to see a pattern in this next bit.
- In enters the official father
of the American Comic Book,
Max Gaines.
Which just sounds like the name
of a silver aged, body building super hero.
Now Gaines was called the father
of the American Comic because even though
Malcolm Wheeler Nicholson created the first
all original American comic,
Gaines is actually the man credited with creating
the first American comic book period
with 1933's Famous Funnies
a carnival of comics.
Though this comic book was exclusively
reprints of newspaper funnies
it served to prepare us for what we would see
as the modern comic book format.
After this venture, Gaines formed his own
comic book publication company in 1938
and found funding with none other
than Donenfeld himself.
This new company, All-American Comics
became a sister company to National Publication
with Gaines as the primary shareholder
and Liebowitz as a minor partner.
- Shortly after All-American Comics introduced
some of our most beloved titles, such as
The Flash, Wonder Woman, The Green Lantern,
and many other golden age favorites.
All-American prequently lent a lot of these
characters to National Publications in exchange
for the ability to use some of National's characters,
even releasing some titles under the unofficial
DC logo to help said titles ride on the success
of Batman's popularity in Detective Comics.
This whole transaction was not done
by accident, however.
Donenfeld had made Liebowitz a partner
in All-American Comics, leaving Gaines
stuck with National and unable to work
with other publishers.
I can't feel too bad about this though.
Gaines was widely reported as a loud,
angry, and aggressive man with reports from his
own son William, that he would viciously
beat him with a belt while shouting,
"You will never amount to anything!"
- As the relationship with Donenfeld began
to turn sour Gaines removed DC's unofficial logo
from his publications and no longer
used National characters.
Finally in 1944 Gaines accepted an offer
from Donenfeld to buy out his share
of All-American Comics and he went his own way
later opening his own publication company
called EC Comics or Educational Comics
but we'll get back to that.
This move left Donenfeld as the owner of all three
companies which he merged into one called
National Comics Publications or NCP for short.
- And there we have it, the company that will
eventually change it's name to DC Comics is now
formed from three sister companies into one.
And this will happen in the 1940's.
Hard part's done.
Despite all the name swapping NCP
had been branding itself as Superman DC
since 1940.
Ironically, NCP protected it's titles
and character names fiercely by pursuing
lawsuits for copy write infringement
as rival companies experienced success.
An example of this can be seen in Scott's
episode explaining who owns the rights
to Captain and Marvel.
You can check that out right after this.
- An important thing to note here
super hero comics in the industry as a whole
flourish during it's golden age.
During World War two the comics were
as much propaganda as entertainment.
Promoting the soliders overseas as super men,
encouraging Americans at home to keep up
the war effort, even shipping comic titles
overseas that were specifically geared towards
soliders for the purpose of boosting morale.
After the war ended in 1945 soliders returning home
continued buying comics out of habit
and the industry received a temporary boost
in sales, but that did not last long.
As these super hero comics struggled
for a voice without a depression or a war
to give them direction.
Presumably Americans just got tired
of all the fighting.
They didn't need their entertainment
to constantly remind them of that stress.
They needed to take a break.
- In response companies began cancelling a large
number of their costume hero titles
and tried their hand at other publications,
such as All Star Western, House of Mystery and
many other titles I don't have the time to list.
But if we go back to EC on August 20th 1947
Max Gaines the man who helped us create
NCP Comics with his all star comics contribution
was killed in a motor boating accident.
With his death the company transferred to his son
William Gaines, or Bill for short.
You remember, the kid who would never
amount to anything?
At that time Educational Comics had making
its name publishing comic book adaptations
of bible stories.
But it wasn't long after that change in ownership
that Bill Gaines decided to go a different direction
with the company and rebranded EC
as Entertaining Comics.
With this change in name EC started
to produce comics that ranged from science fiction
to satire, but Bill really found his niche
when he pioneered the genre of horror comics
with books like Tales from the Crypt.
He found a lot of success in these new titles
and was off and running for a time.
- In 1954 the infamous attack on comics
came about and NCP, EC along with many other
publishers came into accusations
of corrupting America's youth forcing
many comics publishers out of business.
The book that started the movement
Doctor Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent
asserted that the violence, drug use, and crimes
seen in comic books had and would continue
to promote similar behaviors in young readers
who would look to imitate these stories.
I made a whole video about it right here.
EC and more specifically it's horror comics
came under some of the strongest accusations.
Bill himself was demonized in the public eye
for his testimony at a hearing with the Senate
subcommittee for juvenile delinquency
where he unapologetically defended his belief
that there was no way that his comics
blood, violence, and monsters considered
were corrupting the youth.
Instead taking the stance that everything he had printed
was in good taste and meant for people
of sound mind for the purpose of affordable
entertainment.
The Comics Code Authority or CCA, was founded
that same year and Gaines had refused to take part
in this for a time as he had already cancelled
his horror comics and considered it
ridiculous that he would need approval
for his new line of clean realistic stories.
The backlash from distributors drove him
to bankruptcy and by the time he had accepted
the Comics Code Authority no one would sell his comic.
Now because of this EC shut down all of their
comic book titles except for one,
which had made the transition into
a particular magazine.
But more on that in a future video.
Years later in 1960 Gaines sold
to Kinney Parking Company, remember that name.
- Now the Comics Code Authority is important to us
because after this NCP felt they had to change
everything.
This change started with the 1956 release
of Showcase Number Four which had premiered
a new version of the previously published
super hero, The Flash.
This new character Barry Allen was given powers
through a lab accident and after discovering
that he now had super speed took on the name
of his favorite comic book super hero
ushering in what is known as the silver age of comics.
DC continued to completely overhaul their classics
such as the Green Lantern, Hawk Man,
and updated versions of Batman, Superman,
and Wonder Woman.
Bringing super hero comics back into popularity.
Five years later in 1961 Donenfeld passed on
and his son Erwin Donenfeld took over for NCP
and the name of the company changed once more
to National Periodical Publications,
now NPP for short.
- The next big change for NPP came in 1969
when they were purchased by Kinney National
and Entertainment Company who also
bought Warner Brothers that same year
and if you remember Bill Gaines' company
nine years prior.
This is why all DC movies are released through
Warner Brothers, unlike Marvel Comics
who were at the time forced to license
some of their intellectual properties to different
film studios over the years.
Shortly after Kinney National was involved
in a price fixing scandal and separated its
entertainment fixtures from its non entertainment
fixtures to become Warner Communications
and National Kinney Corporation respectively.
Through these ownership transitions NPP
kept her name though still branded the unofficial
name of DC or DC Comics.
- And enters Jeanette Conn.
- Conn!
- With the success of three magazine launches
and a Harvard degree under her belt
she was made NPP's editor in 1976.
History had it's eyes on her.
Right away in an effort to revitalize the company,
Conn revamped NPP in 1977 by finally
giving it the name it had been asking for all along
DC Comics.
This revamp also came with an official new logo
and a pay structure that granted royalties
to artists and creators.
And there you go, DC Comics is now official
and Conn's hard work served to pioneer
the modern comic book company from creator
compensation to release schedules
and everything in between.
She was swiftly made president of DC Comics
and Editor in Chief and went down in history
as the first lady of comics.
- Now for quick notes on the current meaning
of DC Comics, for quite some time it was
a branding tool for the company in order
to ride the success of the Detective Comics title
but it's taken on a life and meaning of its own.
Much like the SATs the acronym used to mean
something but now it's just a name.
So yes DC still technically stands for Detective Comics
but this has been meaningless for quite some time
as the company has gained popularity it no
longer needs to promote itself based off
the success of that one title.
It is completely acceptable to say DC Comics
even though some folks might annoyingly
point out that it's redundant since you're
effectively saying Detective Comics Comics.
It's not really redundant because it's not really
an acronym anymore.
- It's a long and interesting history but we got there.
Now we didn't cover the full 82 years but after
the name change some big acquisitions
and brand changes happened.
Here are a few honorable mentions.
The creation of the Vertigo comic line
which debuted as a DC Comics imprint in 1989.
DC created Vertigo to publish more mature
titles for their adult audience.
DC Comics also acquired the WildStorm Universe
in 1999 which originally had been founded
by none other than acclaimed comic book artist
Jim Lee.
And of course the recent the new 52 reboot
where they attempted to rebrand the Universe
to make it appealing to new readers.
- (Scott) There's tons more info we couldn't fit into
this video but we've got some books
that you might want to check out
in the description below including Ron Goulart's
Great History of American Comics
and Gerard Jones' Men of Tomorrow
Geeks, gangsters and the birth of the comic book
which were great tools for a large portion
of this research.
I for one can't wait to tackle Marvel's history next.
Question.
What do you think of the name DC Comics?
Do you still think it's redundant?
Do any of it's previous names sound better to you?
- If you had to create a new name for DC Comics,
what would it be?
Let us know in the comments.
Thanks again for hanging out with us.
DK you do a show about names and comics,
that's somewhat less confusing than this video.
It's called Alter Ego, right?
- Yes and we have a new episode coming out
on Friday right here on Nerd Sync
about the Winter Solider,
but you lovely nerds can actually watch it
early by clicking this annotation
or the super secret link in the description.
- (Scott) Do I make a cameo in that video?
- (DK) Nope.
- (Scott) Fantastic.
You can also click right here to watch
that video about who owns the name
Captain Marvel.
It's a fun one and involves a wacky character
who can detach his arms and legs,
if memory serves, I don't know, it was
like over a year ago.
If this was your first time hanging out with us
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every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
that explore the history, science, art,
and philosophy behind your favorite comic book
super heroes.
My name is Scott.
- (DK) And I'm DK reminding you to read
between the panels.
- (Scott) And grow smarter through comics.
See ya.