Comics on Parade #1 (1)
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeComics on Parade #1 stands as one of the earliest syndicate-driven comic-book anthologies of the Golden Age, arriving in April 1938 at the very moment the medium was crystallizing into its modern form. It delivered the first-ever comic-book reprinting of Hal Foster's landmark Tarzan newspaper strips — the strips widely credited as the founding text of the adventure comic genre — meaning that John Clayton (Tarzan) reached comic-book readers here nearly a decade before he received a dedicated comic-book title. Beyond Tarzan, the issue also gathered Al Capp's Li'l Abner, Raeburn Van Buren's Abbie and Slats, and more than two dozen other United Feature properties under one cover, making it a snapshot of the dominant newspaper-strip culture that the nascent comic-book industry was still learning to adapt and surpass.
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United Feature Syndicate launched its in-house comic-book line in 1936, beginning with Tip Top Comics; Comics on Parade followed in April 1938 as a companion title designed to showcase a broader roster of the syndicate's strip properties. The issue's massive contributor list — including Foster, Capp, Ernie Bushmiller, Rudolph Dirks, Bill Conselman, and Raeburn Van Buren, among roughly twenty others — reflects the anthology's assembly-line editorial model: colorized Sunday and daily newspaper reprints were gathered, paginated, and sold on newsstands for ten cents, with no new material created specifically for the comic book. The series proved durable, running 104 issues all the way through February 1955.
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- Published April 1938 by United Feature Syndicate; the series ran for 104 issues through February 1955.
- Contains the first comic-book reprinting of Hal Foster's original Tarzan daily newspaper strips — the strips, which debuted January 7, 1929, are considered the founding example of the adventure comic genre.
- John Clayton (Tarzan) — the birth name of Edgar Rice Burroughs's jungle hero and the character indexed in this issue — is depicted here via colorized reprints of the earliest Foster strips, which adapt the original 1912 Burroughs novel.
- Also includes the debut comic-book appearances (in reprint form) of Al Capp's Li'l Abner and Raeburn Van Buren's Abbie and Slats; in the Abbie and Slats story, country spinster Abbie meets her orphaned cousin Aubrey for the first time.
- Hal Foster, who drew the Tarzan material reprinted here, would go on to create Prince Valiant in 1937 — making his Tarzan work the foundational chapter of one of the medium's great artistic careers.
- The issue is 64 pages, full color, and features a cover depicting a parade-float assembly of classic 1930s comic-strip characters from across the United Feature roster.
- The issue also includes an illustrated celebrity biography of film star James Cagney, a common editorial feature in 1930s anthology comics.
- United Feature's comic-book division, active from 1936 to 1954, produced three titles exceeding 100 issues: Tip Top Comics (188 issues), Sparkler Comics (120 issues), and Comics on Parade (104 issues).
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