Fun Comics #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFun Comics #1 (1980, Paragon Publications) marks one of the earliest formal publications from Bill Black's imprint — the company that would soon evolve into AC Comics — and establishes the editorial DNA that would define the publisher for decades: reverent reprinting of public-domain Golden Age material alongside new original stories built around retro-styled heroes. Its debut of Commando D and Captain Paragon laid the groundwork for the AC Universe, and its inclusion of a Golden Age Phantom Lady story (Sandra Knight) is historically significant because that character's in-continuity transformation into the mystic hero Nightveil, first set in motion through this very series, would make her a founding pillar of Femforce — one of comics' first all-female superhero teams. For collectors and historians, the issue documents the very early direct-market independent era, when a small Florida publisher was quietly preserving heroes that the major companies had entirely abandoned.
"Love Death" kicks off in Fun Comics #1 (1980), a 2.50 USD comic that introduces Page Connors, a figure from a lost pre-historical Earth whose civilization fell to a war with the Cat-Men. After escaping into a sacred book, he’s awakened millennia later to confront Tygra, the warrior who once led the invasion. Written and illustrated by Bill Black, with full art and inks by the same, the story unfolds with a stark, mythic tone, grounded in the mystery of a forgotten past and the weight of ancient vengeance.
In a forgotten age, Page Connors was a guardian of a lost civilization, caught in a war with the feline warriors known as the Cat-Men that ended in ruin. After the cataclysm, he sealed himself within a sacred book, only to awaken millennia later in the modern world, where he now faces Tygra, a relentless survivor of the very conflict that erased his people.
In "Play of Death!" from Fun Comics #1 (1980), Jack stumbles into a bank heist gone wrong and is framed for the guard’s death. With help from the clever Sing-Song, Fury sets out to uncover the truth—using deception to expose the real culprit in a tale of frontier justice and hidden motives.
Jo and her friend win a vacation to Mexico after a soap jingle contest, but their trip takes a twist when Atoman’s pals are tricked into smuggling drugs across the Gulf.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Fun Comics #1 was produced by Bill Black under his Paragon Publications imprint — the precursor to Americomics and ultimately AC Comics — and published in 1980. Black served as editor, writer, and artist, with Gardner Fox contributing story material and Dick Ayers contributing art; Bob McLeod supplied the back cover. The issue appeared in a digest-adjacent format (roughly 8.5" x 7"), 32 black-and-white pages, and was sold primarily through the nascent direct-market specialty shop channel rather than newsstands, consistent with AC's early positioning as an independent. The series title was later retitled 'Bill Black's Fun Comics' beginning with issue #2, which was published under Paragon in 1981.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published 1980 by Paragon Publications (Bill Black's imprint, later renamed Americomics and then AC Comics); one of the company's earliest formal publications.
- Edited, written, and drawn primarily by Bill Black, with story contributions by Gardner Fox and art by Dick Ayers; back cover by Bob McLeod.
- Black-and-white, 32 pages, approximately 8.5" x 7" digest format — sold through the direct-market specialty shop channel.
- Introduces retro-styled original heroes Commando D and Captain Paragon, characters whose development continued across the subsequent issues of the series and eventually fed into the broader AC/Femforce universe.
- Features a story starring the Golden Age Phantom Lady (Sandra Knight), a public-domain Quality Comics heroine created by the Eisner & Iger Studio and originally debuted in Police Comics #1 (August 1941) — one of the earliest female superheroes in American comics.
- Includes a reprint of a Haunted Horseman story from the 1950s, when that character was published under the name Ghost Rider — representative of AC's core mission of recovering lapsed-copyright Golden Age and early Silver Age material.
- Also features an appreciation of Simon & Kirby by publisher Bill Black, establishing the editorial voice of Golden Age scholarship that would recur throughout the AC line.
- The Phantom Lady appearing in this series continuity is the direct narrative predecessor to Nightveil (first called Nightfall), who became a founding member of Femforce — AC's flagship all-female superhero team launched in 1985.
Cast · 21 characters
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Nightveil #5 (1986), Bill Black's Fun Comics #1 (1999)
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