Four Color #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFour Color #1 (Dell, 1939) is the opening chapter of what became the longest-running American comic book series by issue count — a run of 1,354 issues stretching from 1939 to 1962 that no other domestic title has matched. By devoting the debut issue entirely to Chester Gould's Dick Tracy, Dell signaled a bold editorial philosophy: each issue would spotlight a single licensed character rather than mixing unrelated strips, a one-shot structure that would later function as Dell's primary try-out engine for potential ongoing titles. The issue also represents the moment Dell stepped into a post-Superman comic-book boom by repackaging a proven newspaper-strip property in full color, demonstrating how syndicated characters could anchor a sustained, branded comic-book line. As the first link in the Four Color chain, it is the foundation from which characters as varied as Donald Duck, Little Orphan Annie, Tarzan, Little Lulu, and Flash Gordon would eventually reach dedicated Dell titles of their own.
ComicBooks.com Value
Show all 19 grades ▾
Find on ebay
Read it digitally
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
Dell Comics launched the series in the summer/fall of 1939, with GoCollect recording an on-sale date of August 31, 1939 and QualityComix placing its publication in September 1939. The content is drawn entirely from Chester Gould's Dick Tracy newspaper strip, which had debuted in the Detroit Mirror on October 4, 1931, and was distributed by the Chicago Tribune–New York News Syndicate — meaning Dell needed a syndicate license, not original creative production, to fill the book's pages. This reprint-first approach was deliberate: as Grokipedia notes, the early issues of Four Color leaned on established strip characters to minimize production risk during the late-1930s industry surge. The issue carries no explicit number on its cover — collectors and cataloguers retroactively designate it '#1' — and Dell would not consistently place 'Four Color Comics' branding on covers until later in the run, with that designation eventually dropping off after issue #101 of the second series.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published by Dell Comics; on-sale date documented as August 31 / September 1939 — the debut of the entire Four Color series.
- Features reprints of Chester Gould's Dick Tracy newspaper comic strip, originally syndicated by the Chicago Tribune–New York News Syndicate beginning October 4, 1931.
- Dick Tracy's first comic-book appearance had actually come earlier, in 1936 in Dell's Popular Comics #1, and his first solo comic-book title was the David McKay Dick Tracy Feature Book (May 1937) — making Four Color #1 an early but not absolute first for the character in print.
- The issue carries no issue number on its cover; the '#1' designation is a collector/cataloguer convention applied retroactively.
- Four Color Series 1 ran for 25 issues (1939–1942) before Dell restarted numbering with Series 2 in mid-1942; the combined run reached 1,354 issues, the most of any American comic-book title by issue count.
- The series operated as individual one-shots, each devoted to a different licensed property — a then-unusual format that Dell would later use explicitly as a try-out showcase for characters such as Tarzan and Little Lulu before they earned their own ongoing titles.
- Tracy appeared in seven additional Four Color issues throughout the 1940s, with the series continuing Dick Tracy strip reprints all the way through Four Color (Series 2) #163 in September 1947.
- The first Four Color comic and the last (Series 2, #1354, April–June 1962, based on TV series Calvin and the Colonel) together bookend 23 years of Dell's licensed-property strategy.
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Action! Mystery! Thrills! Comic Book Covers of the Golden Age: 1933-45 #[nn] (2011)
Key issues in Four Color
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.