New Fun #2
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeNew Fun #2 (cover-dated March 1935, on sale February 8, 1935) is the second-ever publication from the company that would become DC Comics, and it arrived just weeks after Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson's landmark New Fun #1 had introduced the concept of an all-original-material comic book to American readers — a format break that permanently redirected the medium away from newspaper-strip reprints. The issue introduced 'Little Linda' by Whitney Ellsworth, who would go on to become DC's own editorial director and a central architect of the Golden Age, making this his creative debut in the very publisher he would help define. The Tom Mix 'Ralston Straight Shooters' feature — technically an advertorial — documents how early comics were already serving as convergence points for cross-media celebrity brands, linking film stardom, radio programming, and cereal promotions inside a single publication. As the second chapter in a six-issue run that begat More Fun Comics, New Fun #2 is a direct link in the chain of publication history stretching from National Allied Publications all the way to the modern DC universe.
In the 1935 adventure tale "null," Bobby and Binks find themselves mysteriously transported to ancient Egypt, where they witness the monumental construction of the pyramids. Captured by the High Priest, they face the dreaded Test of Death—only to be rescued at the last moment by Pharaoh Cheops and his warriors.
In the scorching desert, Wing races to rescue a group of Legionnaires, clinging to a fraying rope tied to his plane’s wing as he pulls a Bedouin leader from his galloping horse—both suspended in a desperate, airborne struggle.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson founded National Allied Publications in 1934 and began assembling New Fun from a modest office in New York's Hathaway Building, working several months ahead of the cover date with a small editorial team. Lloyd Jacquet served as editor of the series, with art direction by Dick Loederer, a former animator for Van Beuren-RKO, who also contributed illustrations and logo designs to the magazine. Whitney Ellsworth had joined the company in late 1934 as assistant editor and contributed original strip work alongside his editorial duties, with his debut feature 'Little Linda' premiering in this very issue. According to family accounts, Wheeler-Nicholson and his team operated on extremely tight production schedules, planning issues three to four months in advance even as the young company was financially strained.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover date: March 1935; actual on-sale date: February 8, 1935 — the second-ever issue published by the company that became DC Comics.
- First appearance of 'Little Linda,' an adventure strip created and drawn by Whitney Ellsworth, who would later rise to become DC's editorial director and oversee Superman, Batman, and other flagship titles across decades.
- The Tom Mix 'Ralston Straight Shooters' feature is not a narrative comic strip but an advertorial for the Ralston Purina Company; readers who mailed in a cereal box top received a T-M Bar Brand branding iron premium.
- Tom Mix himself — already a Hollywood Western megastar with hundreds of films and a popular radio show launched in 1933 — never appeared in person on his radio series; his likeness and name were licensed to Ralston Purina for promotional materials including these comic-format ads.
- The issue continues multiple ongoing serials that debuted in #1, including 'Jack Woods,' 'Sandra of the Secret Service,' 'Barry O'Neill,' 'Magic Crystal of History,' and 'Wing Brady,' each presented as installment chapters in the newspaper-strip tradition.
- This is the final issue for two features: 'Cap'n Erik' by Robert Weinstein and 'Jigger and Ginger' by Adolph Schus — both left on cliffhangers but were not continued, reflecting the experimental, rapidly evolving line-up of these earliest DC publications.
- Henry Kiefer signed his 'Wing Brady' installment under the pseudonym 'de Kerosett,' his wife's maiden name — an early example of pseudonymous bylines in the proto-DC era.
- The entire six-issue New Fun run (of which this is #2) was published in an oversized tabloid format (approximately 10 by 15 inches) before the series transitioned to the smaller standard comic-book format as More Fun Comics.
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Reprints
Reprinted in The Big Book of Fun Comics #1 (1935), DC Comics Before Superman: Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson's Pulp Comics #[nn] (2018)
Key issues in New Fun
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