NEW FUN COMICS #1 1936 Facsimile Edition

For the 90th anniversary, celebrate DC's very first comic ever published! Written by Malcohm Wheeler-Nicholson, Adolphe Barreaux, Bert Salg, Ken Fitch, Jack Warren, Joe Archibald, Lyman Anderson, Robert Weinstein, Eugene Koscik and Tom McNamara. Art by Lyman Anderson, Dick Loeder, Charles Flanders, John Lindermayer, Adolph Schus, Lawrence Lariar, Adolphe Barreaux, Henry Kiefer, Bert Salg, Clem Gretter, Jack Warren, Joe Archibald, Robert Weinstein, Eugene Koscik and Tom McNamara. Whether you love tales of mystery and suspense, daring westerns, outer-space adventure, or funny animals, this book has it all! A brand-new era for the comics industry began right here with the very first ongoing title made up entirely of all new stories, new art -- New Fun! Published at the start of 1935, New Fun Comics #1 made history as the first comic book made up of new stories instead of reprints of newspaper comic strips. Cowboys, gunfighters, space heroes, adventurers and soldiers of fortune populated these pages, each of which is a separate one-page installment in the style of Sunday newspaper comics, but twice normal comic book size -- reproduced that huge size, in hardcover. This was first intended to be done as part of DC's long-ago First Editions series and at the time, back in the seventies, Jerry Bails wrote a wonderful introduction to it. But due to the fact this included installments of Oswald the Rabbit -- his first appearance in comics -- now a Disney property, DC decided to shelve it. So here is Bails' intro for the first time...and the cool little Oswald strips, which run below some of the pages. For this edition, Roy Thomas has put together an extremely detailed and informative examination of the entire issue, and of each and every creator who was involved here...which is quite a list. And Wheeler-Nicholson's granddaughter, Nikki,here puts together a fine look at the Major, who was the creator of what we now know as DC Comics. She also provides two highly detailed pages with biographies of EVERY contributor. It was Wheeler-Nicholson's experiences, first as a soldier and adventurer, then as a writer in the pulps, that led him to creating this. He had the foresight to create a comic with entirely new material that would kick off the era of new comic book material. In fact, he was the first publisher to hire Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, running their Radio Squad, Spy and Doctor Occult in subsequent issues of this title as well as Detective Comics and New Comics. We all know how Batman came along in Detective. New Comics would become New Adventure, and finally Adventure Comics, home to The Sandman, Starman, and finally Superboy! And of course, Siegel and Shuster kicked off the entire superhero business with Superman in Action Comics #1, 1938. All because of the Major and his vision. Additional creators involved with this special issue: editor Lloyd Jacquet, Dick Loederer, Lyman Anderson (Inspector Wade), Adolphe Barreaux, Charles Flanders (Lone Ranger), H.C, Kiefer (a prolific artist of the Golden Age), Bert Salg (who went on to produce children's books), Clem Gretta, Ken Fitch, Jack Warren, and a host of others. Many of these creators went on to prolific careers in comics, advertising, newspaper strips, book illustration, and other areas. Tabloid-sized, black and white comic book reprinted oversized, as it first appeared. Besides the newly recolored cover, it reproduces the original cover exactly as it looked on an original 1935 copy (which is listed in Overstreet at $27,000 in Fine condition. Better copies are considered non-existant. Bonus ads for the original First Editions series, an afterword by DC Archives manager, Benjamin Le Clear, and more!