Marvel Comics Cover Gallery - 1957

THERE USED TO BE A REALLY USEFUL WEBSITE, a few years ago, called Silver Age Marvel Comics Cover Index (SAMCCI). You could scroll through and see all - well, most of - the covers for a given month. I think you can still find the site via Wayback Machine, but the owner never completed the index, so not all the covers were there.

So, I thought I'd have a crack at presenting Marvel's Silver Age Marvel covers in a similar format, though I've cheated a little and plan to present each month as a single composite image, partly because it's easier for me and partly because of the technical limitations here on Blogspot.

The last Atlas-distributed comic and the first (unbranded) Marvel comic distributed by Independent News were cover-dated for the month of October 1957, on sale 15 July 1957.

I figured a good place to start would be 1957, which was the last year Martin Goodman's comics were released by his Atlas distribution company. As has been well-documented here, Goodman screwed the pooch when he got greedy and tried to chisel a few extra dollars by folding his Atlas company and switching the American News Company. ANC went out of business the following month, leaving Marty with no way to get his magazines to the stands so he had to beg Independent News (owned by DC Comics and operated by Goodman's golfing acquaintance Jack Liebowitz) to distribute his books

DC limited Marvel's output initially to eight titles a month, and the Atlas line was instantly slashed to 16 bi-monthly titles. Editor Stan Lee had to stop commissioning new material until the massive backlog was used up, throwing many Marvel artists and writers out of work. Several key Atlas regulars, like Gene Colan, John Romita, John Buscema, Joe Sinnott and Vince Colletta started working for other companies and it took Stan years to lure them back to Marvel.

But slowly, Lee began to rebuild the lineup, introducing superheroes in 1961 and, by 1965, rehiring most of the artists he'd lost in that 1957 disaster.

To give you an idea of the huge fall from grace suffered by Magazine Management's comics group because of Goodman's folly, here's a month-by-month round up of all the titles Atlas was publishing in its final year of operation. By comparision to the beginning of the year, October looks very sad indeed.

JANUARY 1957

The Atlas titles cover-dated for the first month of 1957 included several examples of each of the common genres. Martin Goodman was never one for leading the field, so he favoured a mix of westerns (9), mystery (10), war (8), romance (3), teen humour (4), and a Casper the Friendy Ghost ripoff, Homer (1).

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There were 35 Atlas comic titles published in January of that year. Navy Action must've been quite successful, because Goodman debuted Navy Tales. And if Two-Gun Western was doing okay, why not go four better and add Six-Gun Western to the lineup? Kid Slade, was a continuation of the numbering from Matt Slade Gunfighter - I'm not clear if it's the same character or if Martin Goodman just wanted "Kid" in the title. 

It's worth noting that the mystery titles (Astonishing, Journey into Mystery, Journey into Unknown Worlds, Marvel Tales, Mystery Tales, Mystic, Strange Tales and Uncanny Tales) and the "girls" titles (Love Romances, Millie the Model, Patsy and Hedy), along with Kid Colt Outlaw, were mostly monthly during this period.

One aspect of the covers of Goodman's comics I'd mentioned in the very first post of this blog was that the colours used were often muted, lots of greys and browns with the occasional splash of red. At the time, I'd speculated that this might be because with the early 1960s superhero titles, Goodman was trying to avoid the bold primaries used by DC so as to fly under Liebowitz's radar. But after looking at all these Atlas titles, I just think that was the house style.

FEBRUARY 1957

No new titles in February, but 44 old ones ... some older than others. This month there were eight westerns, 14 mystery, six war, five romance, five teen humour, two jungle girls, two crime, alonEO Claims Kwledgeg with Melvin the Monster and The Yellow Claw.

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Quite a few copycat titles here. World of Mystery and World of Suspense (there was World of Fantasy in odd months, too). A lot of western "Kids". Strange Stories of Suspense, Strange Tales of Suspense and Strange Tales of the Unusual. Tales of the Marines is a continuation of the numbering from Devil-Dog Dugan, which makes it technically a first issue. Martin Goodman firmly believed that a title with a strong buzzword ("Suspense", "Tales", and "Strange" were three of his favourites) and attention-grabbing cover art was what sold a comic. I'm not sure he ever opened one of his own books.

Showgirls is a bit of a puzzle. The Overstreet Guide says that the title is a continuation of Sherry the Showgirl, but the timings and the cover dates don't support that. Showgirls 4 was published in place of Sherry the Showgirl 4 (which doesn't exist). The title continued two months later as Sherry the Showgirl 5. Then in June Showgirls 1 came out, the same month as Sherry the Showgirl 6.

MARCH 1957

The odd numbered months seemed to have far fewer Atlas titles. Coincidence or plan? Who can say? March offered comic readers 33 comics - three "Battle" titles to choose from, out of seven war comics. There was also eight westerns, three romance, four teen humour, ten mystery and Homer the Casper Copycat.

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The teen humour books are a weird bunch. Falling somewhere between the existing Atlas romance titles and Archie comics, it's difficult to see who the audience for this was. The Millie cover gags seem to be aimed more at a male audience than a female one. Whereas the Patsy Walker cover gags have a little less leering about them.

APRIL 1957

On sale around Christmas 1956 and New Year 1957, there were 45 titles cover-dated for April, the largest monthly output during those end days for Atlas. Of these, eight were war titles, nine were westerns. There were also five romance titles, five teen humour, 13 mystery, two crime, two jungle girl and The Yellow Claw.

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Caught 5 would be the last issue, a sign that crime comics had run their course. Marines at War was a title change for Tales of the Marines - maybe Goodman forgot that he liked to have "Tales" in a comic title.

MAY 1957

On offer during the January of 1957, were 34 Atlas titles cover-dated for May. The western comics were leading the charge at ten books, followed by the mystery mags with nine titles. Then six war books, five teen humour books, three romance mags, and Homer the Potential Lawsuit.

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Western Trails was a new title, featuring Ringo Kid. It's hard to say whether Ringo Kid was doing well and Goodman wanted more of him on the stands or if Atlas just had some inventory material Goodman wanted to use up. The consecutive job numbers on the strips in issue 1 tend to favour the former.

JUNE 1957

On sale in February, the June cover-dated Atlas titles gave us four new titles - The Adventures of Homer Ghost, Commando Adventures, The Kid from Texas, and Showgirls. This is kind of unusual, because Martin Goodman would have had to register the new titles with the US Post Office for subscription reasons, which cost money. This is why he had historically changed one title to another, rather than starting any new comics on the roster from issue 1.

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The June genres included nine western books, eight war titles, eight mystery mags, four romance titles, five teen humour comics, two jungle girls, one crime book, plus that second Homer Ghost title and Melvin the Monster, a copy of Hank Ketcham's Dennis the Menace newspaper strip, if slightly more mean-spirited. Jann of the Jungle was cancelled this month.

JULY 1957

Going on sale around the end of March and beginning of April, the 34 July issues allowed for 12 western books, seven war titles, six mystery titles, four romance mags, four teen humour comics, and Melvin the flippin' Monster.

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This month's output of the Atlas range gave the first indications that all was not well with Martin Goodman's company. The first sign was that several titles came to a halt, including Adventures into Mystery, Combat Casey, GI Tales, Kid Slade Gunfighter, Navy Tales, Six-Gun Western, Wild Western, World of Mystery and World of Suspense. Melvin the Monster would also see its last issue, just one month after the previous bi-monthly one, as though Goodman was trying to clear the decks before the boom was lowered. But that was nothing compared to the following month.

AUGUST 1957

This would be pretty much the last opportunity for Goodman to publish as much Atlas inventory material as he could, so August's output consisted of a mammoth 42 titles, almost matching April's record. Mostly going on sale in late April to early May, we were given ten mystery titles, nine war comics, nine western mags, six teen humour books, five romance titles, and two comics featuring Homer the Ghost.

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The majority of the month's output would be last issues, as might be expected, including Astonishing, Battle Action, Battlefront, Combat Kelly, Commando Adventures, Frontier Western, Journey into Unknown Worlds, Kid from Texas, Lorna the Jungle Girl, Lovers, Marines at War, Marvel Tales (once the company's flagship title), Mystery Tales, Mystic, Mystical Tales, Navy Action, Showgirls, Sherry the Showgirl, Stories of Romance, Strange Stories of Suspense, Strange Tales of the Unusual, Western Gunfighters, Western Kid, and Western Outlaws.

Journey into Mystery went on hiatus for a year, Hedy Wolfe was the first and last issue, as was the The Romances of Nurse Helen Grant. All in all, a bit of a publishing bloodbath.

SEPTEMBER 1957

By comparison, the Atlas output for this month was pretty sorry-looking. Compared to April's year-high of 45 titles and the previous month's 42, May/June's September cover-dated output was a slender 25 comics. This broke down to eight western mags, four war books, four romance titles, four teen humour comics, a crime titles and a trio of odd number 1s - A Date With Patsy, Marvin Mouse and Black Rider, which I'm guessing were already in the pipeline before it all went pear-shaped with American News Company.

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The Black Rider book contained three Jack Kirby stories, two of which have an "L" job number and one having an "M" job number, suggesting that these were drawn at different points during Kirby's brief 1956 period working for Atlas before going to DC for a couple of years. Seeing that the end was closing in, Goodman likely cobbled this together and included it with the final Atlas titles, if only to get the inventory material off the ledgers.

On the other hand, A Date With Patsy looks like an attempt to use up inventory material from Patsy and Her Pals. And for some weird reason, Goodman changed the title of Melvin the Monster to Dexter the Demon, re-lettering all the interior strips in the process. My guess would be that Hank Ketcham, or perhaps the syndicate, sent Goodman a cease-and-desist letter, and this was his way of dodging the bullet and getting the last few inventory strips out of the red column.

OCTOBER 1957

The last three Atlas titles appeared during July of 1957, along with the first comic distributed by the DC-owned Independent News, Patsy Walker. I'm not aware of any of Goodman's comics carrying an American News identifier on the cover.

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Cartoon Kids looks like an opportunity to gather up the last few cartoony inventory items. Dippy Duck had been intended as an ongoing title and had been trailed in the previous month's Marvin Mouse with sample story carrying a line of (Stan Lee) hand-written text along the foot of final page saying, "Don't miss Dippy's further adventures in his own magazine: 'Dippy Duck!' Now on sale!"

I'm at a loss to explain Nellie the Nurse. Cast in the same mould as the Millie the Model and My Girl Pearl comics of the period, it just seems to be a slightly tamer version of the Bill Ward cartoons from men's magazines, and doesn't travel very well. "Martin Goodman always thought there was something inherently sexy about nurses," Stan Lee said to Roy Thomas in an interview for Comic Book Artist 2, Summer 1998. "I could never get inside his thinking there."

NOVEMBER 1957

This was the first tranche of titles that would be distributed by Independent News. Because DC's Jack Liebowitz didn't want Goodman to try to crowd DC comics off the stands by sheer weight of titles, he limited the former Atlas line to just eight titles a month. Even then Goodman gamed the system by publishing 16 bi-monthly comics. What was more interesting was the selection of titles Goodman decided to keep on his roster. It's almost certain that he would have picked the best-sellers, but would have balanced that by ensuring that he also had a good spread of genres.

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For November, Goodman kept two romance books, two westerns (Kid Colt seemed to be his character of choice), two teen titles, a war comic and a kiddy title. This mix and number of titles would be the limit of the line for a few years to come.

DECEMBER 1957

When you compare the other bi-monthly titles Goodman decide to publish, you see a bit of a pattern. If nothing else, Goodman knew circulation, so it will not be a coincidence that he paired genres together in the same month. My instinct would have been to publish the two bi-monthly romance titles in alternating months, but Marty chose to publish two romance titles one month then two war comics the next. So I reckon Goodman knew that the two titles in each genre would support each other by being on the stands the same month.

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So in December, we got two mystery comics, two westerns, two teen humour and two war.

Looking at the line as a whole, it meant that Goodman's 16 bi-monthly titles broke down to four westerns, four teen titles, three war books, two mystery, two romance comics and Homer the Happy Copyright Infringement.

Over the next couple of years, Goodman would be forced to cancel an existing title if he wanted to try a new book. This meant a big gamble as he'd have to sure that the replacement comic could "catch on" and sell more copies, or at least make a better sell-through figure, than the title it was replacing. No more just chucking mud at the wall to see what stuck.

I plan to do cover galleries for the remaining years of Marvel's Silver Age, so you'll be able to see how the 16 title rule slowly relaxed as it became clear that Marvel's sell-through numbers were better than DC's and it would have been business suicide for Liebowitz to stick rigidly to limiting Goodman's comic output.

Next: Moonlighting with Steve Ditko