Four Color #1256

Name: Four Color #1256
Brand: Dell
Availability: InStock

Feb 1962 · Dell · 0.15 USD

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“Meeting Kona”

★ 1st appearance — Kona

About this Issue

Four Color #1256 marks the debut of Kona, Monarch of Monster Isle — a Cro-Magnon caveman protecting a stranded modern family on a dinosaur-filled Pacific island — making it one of the few genuinely original characters Dell created entirely in-house during the early 1960s. The issue arrived at a decisive moment for the publisher: faced with losing its lucrative licensed properties to Western Publishing's newly formed Gold Key imprint, Dell launched a wave of company-owned concepts, and Kona proved to be among the most durable of that creative push, earning a self-titled run that stretched to 21 issues across five years. Artist Sam Glanzman's interior work set the book apart from Dell's typically tame lineup, conjuring surreal, ferocious creatures that felt more like fever-dream horror than the publisher's usual funny-animal fare. The series also demonstrated that the Four Color try-out format could still launch viable original franchises right at the tail end of Dell's run as one of the dominant forces in American comics.

artist, inker, letterer Sam Glanzman · cover Tom Beecham

ComicBooks.com Value

Our Model is In Beta

Raw (VG) $23

CGC 8.0 · 1 in census $173

CGC 7.5 none in existence

CGC 7.0 · 2 in census $114

CGC 6.5 · 1 in census $97*

CGC 6.0 none in existence

CGC 5.5 · 1 in census $69

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CGC 5.0 · 1 in census $68*

* estimate — limited direct-sales data at this grade

Our model’s value — refined as new sales data arrives · CGC census counts shown where available

This exact issue on ebay

CGC 4 $100 1 listing Raw — VG $21 1 listing Raw — GD $9.1 1 listing

Raw / ungraded ▾ $24.99–$124 3 listings

Raw / ungraded $24.99 Raw / ungraded $29.99 Raw / ungraded $123.5

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History

Kona was created during a transitional crisis at Dell: when Western Publishing decided to spin off Gold Key Comics and reclaim its Disney, Hanna-Barbera, and Warner Bros. licenses, Dell editor L. B. Cole oversaw a push to develop company-owned titles from scratch. The series was plotted by Don Segall, with interior art scripted and drawn by Sam Glanzman — a war-comics veteran who had served in the Pacific aboard the USS Stevens and brought that firsthand naturalism to prehistoric creature work. The painted cover for this debut issue has been attributed to Tom Beecham (confirmed via cartoonist Scott Shaw's research), though early indexers had tentatively credited Vic Prezio; the Amazon PS Artbooks edition credits Prezio, so a small dispute among sources persists. The issue was copyrighted by Dell in 1961 and carries a February 1962 on-sale date per Library of Congress records, with the series then transitioning immediately to its own numbered title starting at issue #2.

Trivia · 8 facts

First appearance of Kona, Monarch of Monster Isle — a Cro-Magnon caveman who becomes protector of a stranded modern family on a prehistoric Pacific island.
Interior art scripted and drawn by Sam Glanzman; story plotted by Don Segall — the creative team that would carry the title through its early, most acclaimed issues.
The painted cover has been attributed to Tom Beecham (per Scott Shaw/Grand Comics Database research), though some sources list Vic Prezio; this remains a minor point of bibliographic dispute.
Dell copyrighted the issue in 1961; it went on sale January 31, 1962, with a February cover date — among the very last installments of the long-running Four Color anthology series.
The issue runs 36 pages in full color and was one of the few Four Color issues cover-priced at 15 cents rather than the then-standard 12 cents.
The series it launched ran continuously under its own title (numbered #2–#21) from June 1962 through the final issue dated June 1964, later issues scripted by Paul S. Newman.
Kona was one of Dell's most successful original creations of the early 1960s, notable for containing no reprints throughout its entire original run.
The issue has been reprinted in PS Artbooks' Silver Age Classics: Kona Monarch of Monster Isle Vol. 1 (October 2020), as well as in a Gwandanaland Comics collection (2020) and a digital edition on Amazon/ComiXology.