THE KING OF ALL TIME

Normally, when you say "pre-code comics", people naturally expect the contents to be somewhat lurid or raunchy. This not the case with the majority of titles published by Fawcett. In fact, almost the opposite is true. Fawcett decided early on to make their stories suitable for all ages. The "seal of approval" was only added to the comics to help the lagging sales that affected all comics when the industry was becoming a social anathema near the end of the golden age.[1]
Unfortunately, it couldn't save them. Not only were they going against the parents and teachers, they were also being attacked from within the industry. Despite it being a frivolous lawsuit, the legal fees involved in their case against National Comics (DC) made it unprofitable to continue publishing the Marvel Family's adventures. Their solution? Settle the case out of court and stop publishing comics altogether.[2]
This was truly an injustice to Fawcett, but also to the comics fans, as you can clearly tell by this story from the next-to-last issue published. The stories were getting longer and more dramatic, without losing their sense of imagination and wonder. There's no doubt in my mind that the Marvels would have dominated the silver age just as they had during the golden age. We'll never know.

from MARVEL FAMILY #88, October 1953

EDIT:Since this story got deleted by my image hosting service, I recommend you read this over at DIGITAL COMIC MUSEUM where you'll find it in it's entirety

[1]Read more about that here

[2]More on that here

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NIOK THE ELEPHANT

This story of Niok the elephant is adapted from the short French film of the same name. If it hadn't been aired on an episode of the classic Sunday night series WALT DISNEY PRESENTS, most Americans probably would've never seen or heard of it. Be that as it may, someone over at Western must've taken a liking to it because it was used as a filler story at least four times in different 100 page Disney comics.
This is it's first printing, by Carl Fallberg and Jesse Marsh,

from SILLY SYMPHONIES #8, 1958












Got some little ones running around? Print this out and make an activity for them. Who knows, but it might keep them busy for awhile.


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PATSY WALKER: ALL GROWN UP

I'm not exactly sure why, or who thought it was a good idea, but when Atlas Comics officially became Marvel Comics, Patsy changed from a teen humor to soap opera styled romance series. The result of this is just about what you'd expect; after twenty years running as a popular series, it ended up getting cancelled. It just proves the point that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
Just speculating here, but if they had stuck to the formula, you'd see Patsy comics at the grocery store checkout instead of Betty and Veronica.
This melodrama is by Stan Lee and Sol Brodsky.

from PATSY AND HEDY #99, April 1965



TIP: just click on the first page, then use the "next" button to read the whole story
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