King Comics #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeKing Comics #1, published by David McKay in the spring of 1936, stands as one of the earliest comic book anthologies to bring the cream of King Features Syndicate's newspaper strip talent into a single bound edition — making Flash Gordon, Popeye, Mandrake the Magician, Brick Bradford, and Henry available to comic book readers for the first time in that format. The anthology model it established, collecting full-color Sunday reprints under one cover, helped legitimize the comic book as a mass-market periodical distinct from newspaper funny pages. Flash Gordon's debut in this format carries particular downstream significance: Alex Raymond's visual design directly shaped the look of Superman, Batman, and Hawkman as superhero comics crystallized in the years that followed. The series ran 155 issues through 1949, making it one of the longer-lived anthology titles of the pre-Code era.
A young American adventurer called Viking battles Nazi invaders during a potential German invasion of Britain. Viking must locate a secret firing key that will enable Nazi forces to launch an invasion, leading him through combat with German soldiers, a pursuit across the British coast, and ultimately to a lighthouse where he confronts Nazi operatives seeking the same weapon.
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David McKay Publications, a Philadelphia book house already active since the late nineteenth century, moved into comics by licensing the output of King Features Syndicate — one of the country's dominant newspaper strip syndicates. The editorial helm of King Comics was held by Ruth Plumly Thompson, sometimes credited under the pen name 'Jo King,' who oversaw a roster of contributors that included Alex Raymond, Don Moore, Lee Falk, Phil Davis, Carl Anderson, E. C. Segar, George McManus, and Otto Soglow, among many others. The covers across the run were largely the work of Joe Musial, with the debut cover featuring Popeye in a gorilla-themed scene that set the playful anthology tone. McKay essentially ceased publishing comics by 1950, but by then King Comics had already served as the primary vehicle carrying these King Features properties to comic book readers for nearly fourteen years.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published by David McKay Company, cover-dated April 1936 (GoCollect records the on-sale date as March 31, 1936); the series ran through issue #155, concluding in 1949.
- First appearance of Flash Gordon in a standard comic book format — reprinting Alex Raymond and Don Moore's King Features Sunday strips from 1935.
- First comic book appearance of Popeye (with supporting cast including Olive Oyl, J. Wellington Wimpy, and Swee'pea), reprinted from E. C. Segar's Thimble Theatre Sunday pages.
- First comic book appearance of Mandrake the Magician (Lee Falk and Phil Davis) and Brick Bradford (William Ritt and Clarence Gray) in standard comic book format.
- Henry — Carl Anderson's mute, bald boy pantomime strip, syndicated by King Features from December 1934 — appears via reprinted Sunday pages, making this one of his earliest comic book appearances.
- The cover was illustrated by Joe Musial, depicting Popeye in a gorilla encounter scene; Musial provided covers across the long run of the title.
- Edited throughout its run by Ruth Plumly Thompson (also credited as 'Jo King'), overseeing a contributor list that spanned virtually every major King Features creative talent of the period.
- Flash Gordon's visual DNA — as reprinted here — demonstrably influenced the costume and design of Superman (per Siegel and Shuster's own acknowledgment) and Batman's first-appearance cover pose, underscoring the strip's outsized role in shaping Golden Age superhero aesthetics.
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