DC Comics

DC Comics, Inc. (or simply DC) is an American comic book company. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery., which itself is owned by Time Warner. Its first well-known comics were such as Action Comics, Detective Comics, All Star Comics, and Sensation Comics. They introduced three well-known superheroes: Superman (1938), Batman (1939), and Wonder Woman (1941). DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies. It is best well-known for making "superhero" comic books. Their first comic under the DC banner was published in 1937, and is very famous in the modern art subject Graphics.

Most of its publications take place within the fictional DC Universe and feature iconic superheroes such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Shazam, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Cyborg, Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, Supergirl, the Atom, and Blue Beetle; as well as fictional teams including the Justice League, the Justice League Dark, the Legion of Super-Heroes, the Suicide Squad, the Justice Society of America, the Young Justice, and the Teen Titans. The universe also features well-known supervillains such as Lex Luthor, the Joker, Catwoman, the Scarecrow, the Penguin, Cheetah, Black Adam, the Riddler, Captain Cold, Brainiac, Bizarro, Gorilla Grodd, General Zod, Sinestro, Black Manta, Darkseid, Ra's al Ghul, Doomsday, Harley Quinn, and Bane. The company has published non-DC Universe-related material, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Fables and many titles under their alternative imprint Vertigo and now DC Black Label.

The initials "DC" came from the company's popular series Detective Comics, which featured Batman. DC had its headquarters at 1700 Broadway, Midtown Manhattan, New York City. DC Entertainment moved its headquarters to Burbank, California in April 2015.

Its top rival is Marvel Comics (the publisher of Spider-Man and Hulk) which was acquired in 2009 by The Walt Disney Company, WarnerMedia's main competitor. They shared approximately 70% of the American comic book market in 2017, though this number may give a distorted view since graphic novels are excluded. With the sales of all books included, DC is the second biggest publisher, after Viz Media, and Marvel is third.

DC Comics has adapted its characters to different forms of media, including action figures, animated and live-action movies, animated and live-action television series, and video games, which have made them even more popular.

History

Origins

The corporation is an amalgamation of several companies. National Allied Publications was founded by Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson in 1934 to publish New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine #1 (Feb. 1935), later known as More Fun. The first American comic book with only original material rather than comic strip reprints, it was a tabloid-sized, 10-inch by 15-inch, 36-page magazine with a card-stock, non-glossy cover. Issue #6 (Oct. 1935) was the comic-book debut of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the future creators of Superman, who began their careers with the musketeer swashbuckler "Henri Duval" and, under the pseudonyms "Leger and Reuths", the supernatural-crimefighter adventure "Doctor Occult".

Wheeler-Nicholson added a second magazine, New Comics in December 1935. It was close to what would become the standard size of Golden Age comic books, with slightly larger dimensions than today's. That title evolved into Adventure Comics, which continued until issue #503 in 1983. It was one of the longest-running comic-book series.

His third and final title was Detective Comics, advertised with a cover illustration dated Dec. 1936, but eventually premiered three months late, with a March 1937 cover date. The themed anthology series would become a sensation with the introduction of Batman in issue #27 (May 1939). By then Wheeler-Nicholson was gone. In 1937, in debt to the printing-plant owner and magazine distributor Harry Donenfeld — who was as well a pulp magazine publisher and a principal in the magazine distributorship Independent News — Wheeler-Nicholson was compelled to take Donenfeld on as a partner to publish Detective #1. Detective Comics, Inc. was formed, with Wheeler-Nicholson and Jack S. Liebowitz, Donenfeld's accountant, listed as owners.

Shortly afterward came the fourth title, National Allied Publications' Action Comics, which introduced Superman. Editor Vin Sullivan chose to run the feature after Sheldon Mayer rescued it from the slush pile).

National Allied Publications and Detective Comics, Inc., merged to form National Comics. In 1944 it absorbed Max (Charlie) Gaines' and Liebowitz's All-American Publications. Liebowitz merged National Comics, Independent News, and related firms into National Periodical Publications, the direct precursor of DC. Later Gaines was bought out and left to form Educational Comics, Inc., better known as EC. National Periodical Publications became publicly traded on the stock market in 1961.

Despite the official names National Comics and National Periodical Publications, the logo "Superman-DC" was used throughout the line, and the company was known as DC Comics for years before the official adoption of that name.

Golden Age

Wheeler-Nicholson's company pioneered the American comic book. The company was also the first to feature superheroes, beginning with Action Comics #1 in 1938. When the sales of the title were strong and market research confirmed that the character, Superman, was the major reason, a period called the Golden Age of comic books began. The company introduced other popular characters: Batman, and Wonder Woman, and the first superhero team, the Justice Society of America.

In light of this spectacular success, the company began to aggressively move against imitators for copyright violations by other companies. Among these was Fox Publications, whose character Wonderman was a copy of Superman. The company sued Fawcett Comics for their top-selling character, Captain Marvel, for copying Superman. This started a years-long court battle that ended in 1955. Fawcett capitulated and ceased publication of their comics.

When the superhero genre faded in the late 1940s, the company focused on science fiction, Westerns, humor, and romance. They avoided the crime and horror trends of the time. A handful of the most popular superhero titles (most notably Action Comics and Detective Comics, the two longest-running titles) continued publication.

Silver Age

In the mid-1950s, editorial director Irwin Donenfeld and publisher Liebowitz decided that, even though they weren't publishing superheroes much anymore, the trademarks needed to be maintained. They directed editor Julius Schwartz to come up with a new Flash story to be printed as a one-shot in issue #4 (Oct. 1956) of the experimental title Showcase. Instead of reviving the old character, Schwartz had writers Gardner Fox and Robert Kanigher, penciler Carmine Infantino, and inker Joe Kubert update the concept. The Flash's civilian identity, costume, and origin were all changed for a modern audience. Much to the publishers' surprise the issue sold, and more stories were scheduled. The new treatment was popular. It soon led to the similar revamping of Green Lantern, and the introduction of an updating of the Justice Society of America superhero team as the modern all-star team Justice League of America. Showcase #4 heralded what is commonly referred to as the Silver Age of comic books.

National's other characters were spruced up. Mort Weisinger oversaw the Superman family of titles and introduced many new characters, such as Supergirl, Bizarro and Brainiac. Jack Schiff was less successful with Batman, introducing Batwoman, Bat-Girl, and Bat-Mite. He tried to modernize the strip with science fiction elements. Eventually, the book was given to Julius Schwartz who brought in a new look and an emphasis on Batman as a detective. Meanwhile, editor Robert Kanigher successfully reimagined Wonder Woman as a title aimed at young girls. There was a whole family of Wonder Woman characters having fantastic adventures in a mythological context.

The Batman TV show sparked a tremendous increase in comic sales, but afterward, sales began to decline. In 1967, Batman artist Carmine Infantino became the company's editorial director. Faced with declining sales, in part because of the growing popularity of Marvel Comics, he attempted to remedy the situation with new titles and characters. He recruited major talents such as Steve Ditko and promising newcomers such as Neal Adams. DC Comics went from being writer driven to artist driven. All the new editors hired were artists: Joe Kubert, Dick Giordano, Mike Sekowsky, and Jack Kirby.

The new editors tried to capture the youth market by only using writers under the age of thirty. The new employees had little experience in the industry. Some new talent such as Dennis O'Neil, who worked on Green Lantern and Batman, became industry lights. The period was plagued by short-lived series that started strong but petered out rapidly. The new comics, aimed at the fan market, failed to sell. One theory as to the cause of this is that local comic distributors, who did not want to handle the low-profit items anyway, were simply giving the books to speculators who were stockpiling them for the back issue market. Thus, the more popular a book, the lower its sales. In addition, the talent involved often tended to leave established titles after a few issues. They had little incentive to stay with their creations since they were largely paid per page regardless of the sales performance of their books.

In 1970, Jack Kirby defected from Marvel to create his most artistically ambitious creation, The Fourth World titles. He attempted to create an original sophisticated sub-imprint that could appeal to a loyal fan audience. Sales did not meet management's expectations, and the venture was prematurely cancelled, although the characters and concepts would become integral to the DC Multiverse. Kirby went on to create the successful series Kamandi, when he was directed by the publisher to come up with something resembling Planet of the Apes.

Captain Marvel was revived in the 1970s as an initially licensed property under the title, Shazam!. It could not recapture its old popularity, although a Saturday morning live action television adaptation was popular and the character would retain a noted place in the DC Universe.

Late 1970s and 1980s

1977–2005, aka the "DC Bullet" (first era logo).

Kinney National Company, a company that provided parking and cleaning services, bought National in 1967 and film studio Warner Bros.-Seven Arts in 1969. Kinney then spun off its non-entertainment assets in 1972. It renamed itself Warner Communications, putting National under Warner's leadership. The new corporate management replaced Infantino with Jenette Kahn, a former children's magazine publisher, in January 1976. National was renamed DC Comics, Inc.

DC attempted to compete with Marvel by dramatically increasing its output, a move the company called the "DC Explosion". This included a series featuring new characters, such as Firestorm and Shade, the Changing Man, and several non-superhero titles. Afterwards Warner pulled the plug and dramatically cut back on titles, firing many staffers in what industry watchers dubbed "the DC Implosion".

Seeking new ways to boost market share, the new management of publisher Kahn, vice-president Paul Levitz, and managing editor Dick Giordano addressed the issue of talent instability. DC began to offer royalties. It created the publishing concept of the limited series that allowed flexible arrangements for storylines that could be successful without the pressure of immediately following them up.

These policy changes immediately paid off with the success of The New Teen Titans by writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez, two popular talents with a history of success. Their superhero team comic, like Marvel's X-Men, earned significant sales in part due to the stability of the team, who kept with the title for years. The team took advantage of the limited-series option to create a spin-off title, Tales of the New Teen Titans, to present the origins of their original characters.

This successful revitalization of a minor title led the editorship to look at doing the same to their entire line of comics. The result was the limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths. This allowed the company to dismiss some of the "baggage" of its history, and revise major characters such as Superman and Wonder Woman. DC did not leave its history behind completely. In 1989, they began publication of the DC Archive Editions, a series created to collect their early, rare issues into a permanent hardback format.

Meanwhile, British writer Alan Moore had re-energized the minor horror series Swamp Thing/Saga of the Swamp Thing, and his highly acclaimed work sparked a comic book equivalent of rock's British Invasion. British talents, including Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison, came to work for the company. The resulting influx of sophisticated horror and dark fantasy material led not only to DC abandoning the Comics Code, but also to the later establishment in 1993 of the Vertigo imprint for mature readers.

Acclaimed limited series such as Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller and Alan Moore's Watchmen, drew attention to changes at DC. This new creative freedom and the attendant publicity allowed DC to seriously challenge the dominance of Marvel.

The late 1980s also saw the dying out of many successful DC war genre titles, including series that had been in print since the 1960s. These titles, all with over 100 issues and none of which survived past 1985, included Sgt. Rock, G.I. Combat, The Unknown Soldier, and Weird War Tales.

1990s

The comics industry experienced a brief boom in the early 1990s, thanks to a combination of speculative purchasing of books as collectibles and several storylines that gained attention from the mainstream media. DC's extended storylines in which Superman was killed and Batman was crippled, resulted in dramatically increased sales, but the increases were temporary.

DC's Piranha Press and other imprints in the 1990s were introduced to facilitate diversification and specialized marketing of its product line. They increased the use of nontraditional contractual arrangements, including creator-owned work and licensing material from other companies. They also increased the publication of trade paperbacks, including both collections of serial comics and original graphic novels.

The Vertigo line was aimed at an older and more literary audience. Its main superhero line still held. DC entered into a publishing agreement with Milestone Media, which gave the company a line of comics featuring a more culturally and racially diverse range of superhero characters. Although the Milestone Line ceased publication, it yielded the popular animated series Static Shock. Paradox Press was established to publish material that would be considered "mainstream" in the book trade - including the large-format Big Book of... series, and crime fiction such as Road to Perdition - but paradoxically remained a niche in the comics industry. DC purchased Wildstorm Comics from Jim Lee and maintained it as a separate imprint with its style and audience. They added the Wildstorm imprint America's Best Comics, created by Alan Moore, including the titles Tom Strong and Promethea.

2000s

In March 2003, DC acquired publishing and merchandising rights to the long-running fantasy series Elfquest, previously self-published by creators Wendy and Richard Pini under the WaRP Graphics banner. The following year, DC established the CMX imprint to reprint translated manga and temporarily acquired the North American publishing rights to graphic novels from European publishers 2000 AD and Humanoids. It also rebranded its younger-audience titles with the mascot Jonni DC.

Starting in 2004, DC began laying the groundwork for a "sequel" to Crisis on Infinite Earths. In 2005, the company published several limited series establishing increasing conflicts between the heroes of the DCU, with events climaxing in the limited series Infinite Crisis. Afterward, DC's ongoing series jumped one year forward in their story continuity, with DC publishing a weekly series, 52, that would gradually fill in the gap.

Also in 2005, DC launched an "All-Star" line, featuring some of DC's best-known characters and existing in an alternate universe without the long and convoluted continuity of the DCU. All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder launched in July 2005 (one month after the release of DC's highly successful cinematic rebirth with Batman Begins), with All-Star Superman beginning in November 2005. All-Star Wonder Woman and All-Star Batgirl were announced in 2006, with the release of Superman Returns in movie theaters. Adam Hughes, who was initially announced as the writer/artist on All-Star Wonder Woman in 2006, explained at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International that that project was "in the freezer" for the time being, due to the difficulty involved in both writing and illustrating himself.

DC Comics in other media

Over the years, DC Comics' parent company Warner Brothers has produced a variety of live-action and animated feature movies, live-action and animated television series, direct-to-video releases, television movies, action figures, documentary movies, and video games based on its characters which have made them even more popular.

Logo history

DC's first logo appeared on the March 1940 issues of their titles. The letters "DC" stood for Detective Comics, the name the company used at the time. The logo was small and did not have a background. It simply said, "A DC Publication".

The November 1941, DC titles introduced an updated DC logo. This version was almost twice the size of the first one and also was the first version with a white background. The name of Superman was added to "A DC Publication", effectively acknowledging both Superman (star of "Action Comics") and Batman (star of "Detective Comics"). This logo was also the first version to occupy the top left corner of the cover, where the logo has usually been ever since. The company referred to itself in its advertising as "Superman-DC".

In November 1949, the logo was modified, incorporating the company's current name (National Comics Publications) into the logo. This logo would also serve as the round body of Johnny DC, DC's mascot in the 1960s.

In October 1970, the circular logo was briefly retired in favor of a simple "DC" in a rectangle with the name of the title, or the star of the book (many issues of Action Comics said "DC Superman"). An image of the lead character either appeared above or below the rectangle. For books that did not have a single star, such as House of Mystery or Justice League of America, the title and "DC" appeared in a stylized logo, such as a bat for House of Mystery. This use of characters as logos helped to establish the likenesses as trademarks.

DC's "100 Page Super-Spectacular" titles and later 100-page and "Giant" issues published from 1972 to 1974 featured a logo that was exclusive to these editions, the letters "DC" in a simple sans serif typeface, in a circle. (A variant had the letters in a square.)

The July 1972 DC titles featured a new circular logo. The letters "DC" were in a block-like typeface that would remain through later logo revisions until 2005. The title of the book usually appeared inside the circle, either above or below the letters.

In December 1973, the logo was modified, by surrounding the letters "DC" with the words "The Line of Super-Stars" and the star motif that would continue in later logos. This logo was placed in the top center of the cover from August 1975 to October 1976.

When Jenette Kahn became DC's publisher in late 1976, she commissioned graphic designer Milton Glaser to design a new logo. Popularly referred to as the "DC bullet", the logo first appeared on the February 1977 DC titles. Although it varied in size and color and was at times cropped by the edges of the cover, or briefly rotated 45 degrees, it remained essentially unchanged for nearly three decades.

In July 1987, DC released variant editions of Justice League #3 and The Fury of Firestorm #61 with a new DC logo. It featured a picture of Superman in a circle surrounded by the words "SUPERMAN COMICS." These variant covers were released to newsstands in certain markets as a marketing test to see if using Superman would boost sales.

On May 8, 2005, a new logo was unveiled. In addition to comics, it was designed for DC properties in other media, such as Batman Begins, Smallville, Justice League Unlimited, collectibles, and other merchandise. The logo, which some have dubbed the "DC spin", was designed by Josh Beatman of Brainchild Studios.

A new logo was introduced in 2012, shortly after the start of the publication of The New 52. This logo was dubbed the "DC Peel", as its design features the letter "D" overlapping the letter "C", but seemingly peeling off downwards. The letter was usually blue and the "C" was often switched between black and white, for better contrast. The logo was often used along with the "DC Comics TM" slogan on the bottom.

As part of the DC Rebirth effort, DC created a new logo in partnership with design company Pentagram. The minimalist approach of the new logo was inspired by the DC Logo used in the 70's, to keep the consistency of the "DC Rebirth" titles and their effort to retain some of the company's legacy.

Imprints

Current

DC Black Label
DC Horror
DC Graphic Novels for Kids
DC Graphic Novels for Young Adults
Hill House Comics
Milestone Media

Defunct

All-Star
Amalgam Comics
America's Best Comics
CMX
DC Archive Editions
DC Focus
DC Ink
DC Zoom
Elseworlds
Helix
Impact
Jinxworld
Johnny DC
Minx
Paradox Press
Piranha Press
Tangent Comics
Vertigo
WildStorm Productions
Wonder Comics
Young Animal
Zuda