Charlton Comics was an American comic book publishing company that existed from 1946 to 1986, having begun under a different name in 1944. It was based in Derby, Connecticut.
A division of Charlton Publications, which published song-lyric magazines and, briefly, books (under the Monarch name), and had its own distribution company (Capital Distribution), Charlton Comics published a wide variety of genres including crime, science fiction, Western, horror, war, and romance comics, as well as funny animal, and superhero series. The company was known for its low-budget practices, often using unpublished material acquired from defunct companies and paying comics creators among the lowest rates in the industry.
The company was formed by John Santangelo, Sr and Ed Levy in 1940 as T.W.O. Charles Company, named after the two publishers’ sons, both named Charles, and became Charlton Publications in 1945. The name Charlton Comics first appeared on Marvels of Science #1 (March 1946).
Early years
Charlton Publications' first comic books were published under other imprints. Its first title was Yellowjacket, an anthology of superhero and horror stories published beginning September 1944 under the imprint Frank Comunale Publications, with Ed Levy listed as publisher. Next was Zoo Funnies, under the imprint Children Comics Publishing; Jack in the Box, under Frank Comunale; and TNT Comics, under Charles Publishing Co.. Another imprint, Frank Publications, was also used.
Following the adoption of the Charlton Comics name in 1946, the company over the next five years acquired material from freelance editor and comics packager Al Fago (brother of former Timely Comics editor Vincent Fago), Charlton additionally published Merry Comics, Cowboy Western, the Western title Tim McCoy, and Pictorial Love Stories. In 1951, Fago was brought in as in-house editor, and Charlton hired a staff of artists including its future managing editor, Dick Giordano. Others, either on staff or freelance, would eventually include Vince Alascia, Jon D'Agostino, Sam Glanzman, Rocco "Rocke" Mastroserio, Bill Molno, Charles Nicholas, and Sal Trapani. The primary writer was the remarkably prolific Joe Gill.
The company began a wide expansion of its comics line, which would include notoriously gory horror comics, and from 1954-55 acquired a stable of comic-book properties from the defunct Superior Comics, Mainline Publications, St. John Publications, and most significantly, Fawcett Publications, which was shutting down its Fawcett Comics division. Captain Marvel, at the time the subject of a legal battle between Fawcett and DC Comics, was not part of that deal. Fago left in the mid-1950s, and was succeeded by his assistant, Pat Masulli, who remained in the position for 10 years.
Superheroes were a minor part of the company. At the beginning, Charlton's main characters were Yellowjacket, not to be confused with the later Marvel character, and Diana the Huntress. In the mid-1950s, Charlton published a short-lived Blue Beetle title with new and reprinted stories, and in 1956, several short-lived titles written by Jerry Siegel, such as Mr. Muscles and Nature Boy, and the Joe Gill created Zaza the Mystic.
The Silver Age
The company's most noteworthy period was the Silver Age of comic books, which had begun with DC Comics' successful revival of superheroes in 1956. In 1960, Charlton's science fiction anthology title Space Adventures introduced Captain Atom by Gill and the soon-to-be-legendary co-creator of Marvel Comics' Spider-Man, Steve Ditko. Captain Atom would eventually become a stalwart of the DC stable, as would Blue Beetle, the old Fox Comics superhero revived by Gill and artists Bill Fraccio and Tony Tallarico as a campy, comedic character in Blue Beetle #1 (June 1964).
Charlton also had middling success with Son of Vulcan, its answer to Marvel's Thor, in Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds#46 (May 1965). Much less successful was another Space Adventures superhero, Mercury Man, star of two stories in 1962.
In 1966, prodigal son Ditko returned after his celebrated stint at Marvel, having grown disenchanted with that company and his Spider-Man collaborator, writer-editor Stan Lee. Having the hugely popular Ditko back helped prompt Charlton editor Giordano to introduce the company's "Action Hero" superhero line the following year, with characters including Captain Atom; Ditko's The Question; Gill and artist Pat Boyette's The Peacemaker; Gill and company art director Frank McLaughlin's Judomaster; Pete Morisi's Peter Cannon ... Thunderbolt; and Ditko's new "Ted Kord" version of the Blue Beetle. The company also developed a reputation as a place for new talent to break into comics; examples include Jim Aparo, John Byrne, Dennis O'Neil and Sam Grainger. As well, Charlton in the early 1970s reprinted some of the first manga in America, in Ghost Manor and other titles.
Yet by the end of 1967, Charlton's superhero titles had been cancelled, and licensed properties had become the company's staples. Charlton's comics featured cartoon characters from Hanna-Barbera and King Features Syndicate, and such prime time television shows as Emergency!, The Six Million Dollar Man, and Space: 1999.
In the mid-'70s, there was a brief resurgence of talent, under the editorship of George Wildman, energized by writer and later editor Nicola Cuti, artist Joe Staton, and the "CPL Gang" — a group of writer/artist comics fans including Byrne, Roger Stern, Bob Layton, and Roger Slifer, who had all worked on the fanzine CPL (Contemporary Pictorial Literature). Charlton began publishing such new titles as E-Man, Midnight Tales, and Doomsday+1. The CPL Gang also produced an in-house fanzine called Charlton Bullseye which published, among other things, such commissioned but previously unpublished material as the company's last Captain Atom story. Also during this period, most of Charlton's titles began sporting painted covers. By 1978, however, most of these titles had been canceled, and the new talent had moved on, primarily to Marvel.
War Comics
During their Silver Age, Charlton began publishing war comics enthusiastically supportive of the U.S. military, even while the Vietnam War served as the focal point for the burgeoning anti-war movement. Many titles lasted into the 1980s.
Notable titles included
- Attack! (55 issues, as well as several other similarly titled comics such as issues of Army Attack and Attack at Sea.)[1]
- Battlefield Action (74 issues from 1957-1984)[2]
- Fightin' Air Force Fightin' Air Force (51 issues from 1956-1966)[3]
- Fightin' Army[4], (157 issues from 1956-1984)[5]
- Fightin' Marines (163 issues from 1955-1984)[6]
- Fightin' Navy (60 issues from 1956-1984)[7]
- World at War (49 issues from 1975-1983)[8]
A small number of recurring characters (including Shotgun Harker and the Chicken, The Iron Corporal and Willy Schultz) were used in some stories, but the majority of Charlton war titles were anthologies generally depicting U.S. soldiers, sailors, marines or airmen in various 20th Century conflicts with different characters appearing from issue to issue.
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Final years
By the 1980s, Charlton was in serious decline. The comic-book industry was in a sales slump, struggling to reinvent a profitable distribution and retail system. Charlton's licensed titles lapsed, its aging press was deteriorating towards uselessness, and the company did not have the resources to replace it. There was yet another attempt at new material, with a comic-book version of Charlton Bullseye serving as a new-talent showcase that actively solicited submissions by comic book fans, and an attempt at new Ditko-produced titles. A number of 1970s-era titles were also reprinted under the Modern Comics imprint and sold in bagged sets in department stores (in much the same way Gold Key Comics were published under the Whitman Comics branding around the same time). But in 1986, Charlton Comics went out of business; Charlton Publications followed suit in 1991, and its building and press were demolished in 1999.
Editor Robin Snyder oversaw the sale of some properties to their creators, though the bulk of the rights was purchased by Canadian entrepreneur Roger Broughton. He would produce several reprint titles under the company name of ACG (having also purchased the rights to the old American Comics Group properties), and announced plans to restart Charlton Comics. This had yet to occur as of the mid-2000s, beyond a few reprints.
Charlton's most enduring legacy is its superhero characters, most of which were acquired in 1983 by DC Comics, where Giordano was then managing editor. These "Action Hero" characters were originally going to be used in the landmark Watchmen limited series written by Alan Moore, but DC then chose to save the characters for other uses; Moore instead developed new characters loosely based on them. The Charlton characters were incorporated into DC's main superhero line, where some of them enjoyed renewed popularity, most notably Blue Beetle, Captain Atom and The Question, who had languished in obscurity for years before being reintroduced in DC's epic Crisis on Infinite Earths limited series. Charlton's longest-running character, the funny animal superhero Atomic Mouse, was licensed by the furry comic company Shanda Fantasy Arts in 2001.
References
- Don Markstein's Toonopedia: Charlton
- International Catalogue of Superheroes: Charlton
- Charlton Spotlight
- Comic Book Artist #9 (August 2000): The Charlton Comics Story: 1945-1968 (offline)
- "The Charlton Empire: A Brief History of the Derby, Connecticut Publisher" (from above issue)
- Interview: Jim Aparo (from above issue)
- Comic Book Artist #12 (March 2001): The Charlton Comics Story: 1972-1983 (offline)
- Interview: Joe Staton (from above issue)
- Interview: John Byrne (from above issue)
- Interview: Roger Stern (from above issue)
- The Connecticut Historical Society: "Charlton Comics: A Brief History"