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56-532: Max Gaines , future founder of EC Comics , formed All-American Publications in 1939 after successfully seeking funding from Harry Donenfeld , CEO of both National Allied Publications (publisher of Action Comics and other titles) and sister company Detective Comics (publisher of that namesake comic book ). As Gerard Jones writes of Donenfeld's investment: Harry had agreed on one condition: that [Gaines] take [Detective Comics partner] Jack Liebowitz on as his partner. ... Jack would be tempted to leave and form

112-655: A diabetic whose workday began at 5:30 a.m., was unable to obtain legal counsel or the help of friends to try to secure Crosby's release. Crosby's estranged daughters Barbara and Joan had graduated from Vassar College , and Carol from the Rhode Island School of Design , without having known of their father's whereabouts; son Skip had become a geologist . Crosby had received infrequent visits from his two sisters, and from his cartoonist friend Rube Goldberg . Carolyn, whose failing health had eventually precluded visits, died November 8, 1959. On December 8, 1964, after

168-464: A radio show, three novels, a series of 34 posters for Standard Oil , and the aforesaid movie and a sequel, Sooky . To assist him on the Skippy strip, Crosby hired an old friend, artist Richard Reddy, who continued with him through the end of Crosby's career. In the late 1930s, Crosby began drawing more overtly political and philosophical Skippy strips. Following his third Skippy prose-fiction book,

224-484: A boy cartoonist. All-American Comics lasted 102 issues through October 1948. Also debuting that month was Movie Comics ("A full movie show for 10 cents"), featuring simple adaptations of movies using painted movie stills, as well as cartoonist Ed Wheelan 's popular Minute Movies comics. The first of its six issues through Aug. 1939 adapted no fewer than five films: Son of Frankenstein , Gunga Din , The Great Man Votes , Fisherman's Wharf , and Scouts to

280-404: A client, Procter & Gamble , and suggested to the company a tabloid-sized book of color comic-strip reprints available for five cents and a label or coupon from any Procter & Gamble product. The company, however, rejected the idea. Undaunted, and with Wildenberg's blessing, Gaines produced Funnies on Parade , an eight-page newsprint magazine reprinting several comic strips licensed from

336-403: A competing company if there was nothing to hold him. And it may well have been a way for Harry to keep Gaines under control; since Jack was still drawing a salary and significant bonuses from Detective Comics and [self-distributorship] Independent News , he wouldn't let Gaines take off on his own or act against the interests of the other companies. ... Gaines became the principal and Jack Liebowitz

392-613: A few years, he left to freelance, selling cartoons to World editor John Tennant. In 1916, the George Matthew Adams Service syndicated Crosby's first feature, the daily and Sunday strip The Clancy Kids , earning Crosby a respectable $ 135 a week. While continuing on this first strip, Crosby studied at Manhattan 's Art Students League under such instructors as George Bridgman , Frank DuMond , Joseph Pennell and Max Weber . The painter and League president Gifford Beal , recognizing Crosby's talent, invited him to spend

448-544: A first date to the 1939–40 New York World's Fair . The two were married in May 1940, and they honeymooned in Venice, Florida . About the same time, a California food packer, Joseph Rosefield, began to sell his newly developed hydrogenated peanut butter, which he labeled " Skippy " without Crosby's permission. Years of expensive litigation followed, which Crosby's heirs have continued into the 2000s. His finances dire due to tax claims,

504-659: A motorboat when it was struck by another boat. Gaines and the elder Irwin died in the accident. Max Gaines' 25-year-old son, William Gaines , inherited EC and changed the direction of the company. Although it continued to advertise and sell back issues of the Educational titles, Bill Gaines concentrated on adding new titles to the Entertaining Comics line. He replaced the juvenile humor books with titles pitched to an older audience and strongly influenced by his own love of popular culture. These spanned several genres as he made

560-556: A sports columnist and illustrator at The New York Globe . On the side, he produced comics used as occasional filler for the paper. Eventually fired, he entered an Edison Company contest for the best cartoon on the use of electric light. He won the $ 75 prize and saw his cartoon appear in every newspaper in New York City. The exposure led to a job at the New York World , "at the time the promised land for aspiring cartoonists". After

616-464: A success, and Eastern Color that year produced similar periodicals for Canada Dry soft drinks , Kinney Shoes , Wheatena cereal , Phillips' Dental Magnesia , John Wanamaker Department Stores, and others, with print runs of from 100,000 to 250,000. Later in 1933, Gaines collaborated with Dell Publishing to publish the 36-page one-shot Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics , followed in 1934 by Famous Funnies , which ran for 218 issues and

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672-475: A tie." The popular strip at one point guaranteed Crosby $ 2,350 a week, an enormous sum at the time. Crosby published a Skippy novel and other books; there were Skippy dolls, toys and comic books. The comic was adapted as the 1931 movie Skippy by Paramount Pictures . A hit, it won director Norman Taurog the Academy Award for Best Director, and boosted the career of young star Jackie Cooper , who played

728-474: A transition from romance ( Modern Love ) and Westerns ( Gunslingers ) to science fiction ( Weird Science ), horror ( Tales from the Crypt ), and satire ( Harvey Kurtzman 's Mad ). In 1985, Max Gaines was posthumously named as one of the honorees by DC Comics in the company's 50th anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great . Percy Crosby Percy Lee Crosby (December 8, 1891 – December 8, 1964)

784-470: A violent episode in February 1939, Crosby left for Florida for two weeks. When he returned, repentant, his family had decamped, and his wife had filed for divorce. He never again saw his children, then aged five to nine. A devastated Crosby moved back to Manhattan and eventually entered Presbyterian Hospital for an extended stay for exhaustion and an infection. There he met nurse Carolyn Soper, whom he took on

840-488: Is considered the first true American comic book. After he quit Eastern Color, he joined McClure Newspaper Syndicate as company manager, and eventually partnered with Dell Comics to produce three of the comic books The Funnies , Popular Comics and The Comics whereas Dell financed Gaines of its three comic book titles, until Dell became associated with Western Publishing in 1938. In 1938, Gaines and Jack Liebowitz began publishing comics with original material under

896-562: The New York Sun . Although he had voted for Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 U.S. Presidential election, Crosby opposed Roosevelt's controversial Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937 . Crosby's vitriolic editorials called the president "crazed for power", and referred to Roosevelt's Fireside Chats as "talking from the Moscow room of the Spite House". He also fired editorial broadsides at

952-589: The McNaught Syndicate and the McClure Syndicate . These included such popular strips as cartoonist Al Smith 's Mutt and Jeff , Ham Fisher 's Joe Palooka , and Percy Crosby 's Skippy . This periodical, however, was neither sold nor available on newsstands , but rather sent free as a promotional item to consumers who mailed in coupons clipped from Procter & Gamble soap and toiletries products. Ten-thousand copies were made. The promotion proved

1008-491: The gangster Al Capone . When the Internal Revenue Service brought a tax claim against Crosby and his corporation Skippy, Inc., for more than $ 67,000 in 1937, Crosby—who fought the decision for years, ultimately unsuccessfully—claimed it was in retaliation for his political writing. The previous year, Crosby had begun drinking again, and his behavior became increasingly erratic. His marriage suffered, and after

1064-651: The torch singer and stage- musical actress Libby Holman and became friends with such actresses as Colleen Moore , Elsie James and Marilyn Miller . But during this time, making the rounds of speakeasies and night clubs , Crosby began developing an alcohol addiction . Crosby was a member of several private clubs—the Players Club , the Salamagundi Club , the Dutch Treat Club and the Coffee House Club at

1120-881: The Atom, the Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkman, and the National characters Doctor Fate , Hour-Man (as it was then spelled), the Spectre , and the Sandman — creating comics' first intercompany crossover , with characters from different companies interacting — although National's Sandman, Spectre and Hour-Man had previously appeared in solo adventures in All Star Comics #1 (Summer 1940). With Gaines as editor, assisted by Sheldon Mayer , All-American Publications launched its flagship series All-American Comics with an April 1939 premiere. Like many comics of

1176-607: The Feelings of a Small Boy , The Local Boy , Back o' the Flats , The Little Girl Who Moved Away and Send a Poor Child to the Farm , featuring children, particularly from the slums. One such series, Always Belittlin' , presaged Skippy with its star, a child with a striped shawl and a bonnet with a black pop-pom, whose thoughts consisted of the text's daily aphorism. This series and two others, Bugville and Bug Lugs , would eventually run as

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1232-520: The Hotel Seymour, where he lived, dining with George Abbott , Jerome Kern , Ring Lardner , John Barrymore , Rube Goldberg , Heywood Broun and Frank Crowninshield . After nights at these clubs, he sometimes would awaken with no recollection of the previous evening. Regardless, Crosby continued to explore numerous creative realms, writing Skippy prose vignettes for Life that led to a Skippy novel for G. P. Putnam's Sons . He fell in love with

1288-856: The Rescue . The next two comics were Mutt & Jeff , which ran 103 issues from Summer 1939 - June 1958; and the company's superhero debut, Flash Comics #1 (Jan. 1940), which introduced the super-speedster title character, created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Harry Lampert , as well as the Golden Age Hawkman and future Hawkgirl, by Fox and artist Dennis Neville , and Johnny Thunder , by scripter John Wentworth and artist Stan Aschmeier, among other features. The Golden Age Green Lantern, from Batman writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell , debuted in All-American Comics #16 (July 1940), followed by

1344-410: The area, "Ridgelawn". The couple would have four children: son Percy Jr., nicknamed Skippy, the eldest, and daughters Barbara, Joan, and Carol, who were, respectively two, three and four years younger. During this time, Crosby patented a firearm that incorporated a pistol in the stock of a rifle. With his wife and an agent handling his business affairs, Crosby oversaw a Skippy empire that included

1400-496: The author Marc Connelly , the humorist Robert Benchley , The New Yorker editor Harold Ross , Life magazine editor and future Pulitzer Prize -winning playwright Robert E. Sherwood , and the cartoonists and painters George McManus , H. T. Webster and Guy Hoff. Crosby's marriage to Gertrude Volz had become strained during the 1920s, and after a few years of legal separation the two were divorced in 1927. She received custody of Patricia, their only child. Crosby later dated

1456-480: The cartoonist being unable to find employment. His wife Carolyn returned to work as a nurse and dietitian . Efforts to revive Skippy went nowhere. In December 1948, Crosby was committed to the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital after attempting suicide following the death of his mother. In January 1949, he was transferred to the mental ward at Kings Park Veterans' Hospital , in Kings Park, New York , where he

1512-455: The copyright, a rarity for strip artists of the time. The strip focused on Skippy Skinner, a young boy living in the city. Usually wearing an enormous collar and tie and a floppy checked hat, he was an odd mix of mischief and melancholy who might equally be found stealing from the corner fruit stand, failing to master skates or baseball, complaining about the adult world, or staring sadly at an old relative's grave: "And only last year she gave me

1568-407: The divorce settlement, legal fees, and alimony , Crosby sold Ridgelawn for a fraction of its value; his 1,500-acre (6.1 km ) farm and other Virginia real-estate were awarded to his second wife. His beloved strip Skippy suffered; as his biographer, Jerry Robinson , wrote: The occasional diatribes in the Skippy strip became more frequent, more surreal. Some days were almost solid dialogue. In

1624-445: The essay collection Skippy Rambles , Crosby began using his writing as primarily a vehicle for his beliefs. His 1931 memoir A Cartoonist's Philosophy was found to be too polemical for eight publishers, and Crosby published it himself, in a money-losing venture; his future books were all privately published under his own name or Freedom Press, which he founded in 1936. Life dropped him when Crosby agreed to do humorous cartoons only if

1680-599: The following month's All-American Comics #64 and the hyphenless All Star Comics #24. Liebowitz later merged his and Donenfeld's companies into National Comics Publications by September 30, 1946. During All-American's existence, much cross-promotion took place between the two editorially independent companies, so much so that the first appearance of the Justice Society of America , in All Star Comics #3 (Winter 1940/41), included in its roster All-American characters

1736-580: The following year, serving for a time as a jiujitsu instructor, he and Volz eloped and were married at the training camp in Plattsburgh, New York , on July 7, 1917. While in training, Crosby created a daily comic panel, That Rookie from the Thirteenth Squad , for the McClure Syndicate , writing and drawing it from the front in France while serving as a first lieutenant in the 77th Division, AEF. The comic

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1792-417: The foundation of his own new company, EC. As Jones describes, Gaines saw the end of the superhero fad coming and wanted to get into something more durable, like children's books and magazines. ... In 1944, he decided he'd had enough. He let Jack Liebowitz buy him out with a loan from Harry.... Liebowitz promptly orchestra the merger of All American Comics and Detective Comics into National Comics , of which he

1848-504: The line with humor and talking animal books such as Land of the Lost , Animal Fables , and Ed Wheelan 's Fat and Slat . Some of these books carried a slightly revised publisher logo which changed the "Educational" in EC to display the Entertaining Comics insignia. On August 20, 1947, at Lake Placid, New York , Gaines, his friend Sam Irwin, and the latter's 8-year-old son William Irwin were aboard

1904-782: The list. A minor editor put his oar in and suggested Tiny Tim . I bristled with [sic] such uncalled-for interference, and... the thought flashed through my mind: '[The title] had to be Skippy and nothing else!'" Following a full-page house ad in the March 15, 1923, issue, Skippy premiered in Life and quickly became a success. It became a syndicated comic strip two years later, initially by Johnson Features, Central Press Association and Editors Features Service, before publisher William Randolph Hearst signed Crosby to his King Features Syndicate . King distributed its first daily Skippy on October 7, 1926, and its first Sunday on April 1, 1929. Crosby retained

1960-513: The magazine agreed to publish his political work as well; the rival magazine Judge obliged. Of the nine books and pamphlets published from 1932 on, only Sports Drawings (1933) and the poetry collection Rays (1937) were not political or philosophical. Speeches, articles and cartoons would appear as paid ads in the Washington Herald , the Washington Post , The New York Times and

2016-509: The minority owner of All-American [Publications]. While All-American, at 225 Lafayette Street in Manhattan , was physically separated from DC's office space uptown at 480 Lexington Avenue , it used the informal "DC" logo on most of its covers for distribution and marketing reasons. In 1944, Gaines sold his share of the company to Liebowitz by June 1945, keeping only Picture Stories from the Bible as

2072-754: The name " All-American Publications ". At the time, Liebowitz was the co-owner with Harry Donenfeld of National Allied Publications , the precursor company to DC Comics , and Donenfeld financed Gaines' creation of All-American. All-American published several superhero/adventure anthologies such as All-American Comics and Flash Comics , as well as other titles. For a time, All-American and National shared marketing and promotional efforts as well as characters. Several of National's characters ( Starman , Doctor Fate , The Spectre ) appeared alongside All-American's Green Lantern , Wonder Woman , and Hawkman in that company's successful All Star Comics . Gaines' relationship with Donenfeld and National waxed and waned over

2128-528: The original Atom, created by Bill O'Connor and penciler Ben Flinton, in All-American #19 (Nov. 1940). Wonder Woman was introduced in a nine-page story in All Star Comics #8 (Dec./Jan. 1941/1942), the product of psychologist William Moulton Marston (under the pseudonym Charles Moulton ) and Max Charles Gaines, and drawn by artist Harry G. Peter . Max Gaines Maxwell Charles Gaines (born Max Ginzberg , September 21, 1894 – August 20, 1947 )

2184-471: The past, Crosby had been able to move from one discipline to another—painting, writing, cartooning, and politics. Now, under extreme mental stress, the boundaries became blurred, and one intruded into the other to the detriment of all. … [A]fter long negotiations, Crosby and King Features were unable to agree on a new contract. On December 8, 1945, Crosby's fifty-fourth birthday, Skippy , aged twenty, died. In his later years, Crosby's alcoholism contributed to

2240-467: The secretary assigned to him, Vassar graduate Agnes Dale Locke, and the two were married on April 4, 1929. While on vacation in Europe, Crosby stopped drinking alcohol, becoming a teetotaler for the next seven years. Weathering the stock market crash of that fall, Crosby and his wife moved to McLean, Virginia , where Crosby bought an estate called "The Beeches". They later moved to an even larger estate in

2296-448: The series Picture Stories from the Bible . He authored one of the earliest essays on comic books, a 1942 pamphlet titled Narrative Illustration, The Story of the Comics. After Gaines' death in 1947, Educational Comics was taken over by his son Bill Gaines , who transformed the company (now known as EC Comics ) into a pioneer of horror, science fiction, and satirical comics. Max Ginzberg

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2352-532: The strip as "America's most important contribution to humor of the century". Percy Crosby was born in Brooklyn , New York , prior to the 1898 incorporation of the five boroughs of New York City . He grew up in Richmond Hill , in what would be the borough of Queens but at the time was considered part of Long Island . His father, Thomas Francis Crosby, the son of Catholic immigrants from County Louth, Ireland ,

2408-718: The summer in Cape Cod , where Crosby made the acquaintance of Edwin Dickinson , Edward Hopper , Eugene O'Neill and other habitues of the Provincetown, Massachusetts artists colony. Back in New York, he fell in love with fellow League student Gertrude Volz, the artist-sculptor daughter of a well-to-do real-estate broker. After being commissioned a second lieutenant in the Officer Reserve Corps in 1916 and being called to active service

2464-494: The supplemental topper feature accompanying the Skippy Sunday strip. Crosby concurrently became a prolific contributor to Life , where several of his cartoons featured a child named Timmy, who became the prototype for Skippy Skinner when Crosby pitched art director Frank Casey about a regular feature. As Crosby recalled, "I drew up three pages and thought of forty-four names (among them Beanie and Jumper )— Skippy last on

2520-424: The time, All-American debuted with a mix of newspaper comic strips , reprinted in color, and a smattering of original, comic-strip-like features. Among the strips were three hits of the era: Mutt and Jeff , by Al Smith ghosting for strip creator Bud Fisher ; Skippy , by Percy Crosby ; and Toonerville Folks by Fontaine Fox . New content included Scribbly , a semiautobiographical Mayer feature about

2576-426: The title role. From 1928 to 1937, Crosby produced 3,650 Skippy strips, ten books of fiction, political and philosophical essays, drawings and cartoons, as well as numerous pamphlets, while also mounting a dozen exhibitions in New York City, Washington, D.C. , London , Paris and Rome of his oils, watercolors and other paintings and drawings. With its success, he befriended a pantheon of famed creators, including

2632-668: The worst from his son and was rarely disappointed." Gaines continually reinforced this belief by venting his frustrations on the boy, beating him savagely with a leather belt while shouting, "You'll never amount to anything!". Gaines had been a teacher, an elementary school principal, a munitions factory worker, and a haberdasher. In 1933 he had begun a new job as a salesperson at Eastern Color Printing , which printed Sunday newspaper comic strips. Deducing that packaging such strips together could create promotional publications, Gaines contacted Harry L. Wildenberg , Eastern's sales manager and his direct superior. The two needed promotional ideas for

2688-554: The years. By the early 1940s, the All-American titles were branded separately and no longer featured National-owned characters. In 1944, Donenfeld bought out Gaines and merged National and All-American into a single company. Gaines used the proceeds from the sale of All-American to establish another comics line, Educational Comics. EC Comics continued All-American's Picture Stories from the Bible and added new titles such as Picture Stories from American History . Gaines soon expanded

2744-526: Was 17, he sold a drawing to Life for $ 6. After delivering sandwiches and working as a magazine salesman, he found a position as an editorial cartoonist for the Socialist newspaper the New York Daily Call . There he published his first two comic strips, Biff and The Extreme Brothers—Laff and Sy , but readers became outraged at frivolity in the paper and the strips were pulled. Crosby next became

2800-582: Was an American author , illustrator and cartoonist best known for his comic strip Skippy . Adapted into movies , a novel and a radio show , Crosby's creation was commemorated on a 1997 U.S. Postal Service stamp . An inspiration for Charles Schulz 's Peanuts , the strip is regarded by comics historian Maurice Horn as a "classic... which innovated a number of sophisticated and refined touches used later by Charles Schulz and Bill Watterson ." Humorist Corey Ford , writing in Vanity Fair , praised

2856-592: Was an American publisher and a pioneering figure in the creation of the modern comic book . In 1933, Gaines devised the first four-color, saddle-stitched newsprint pamphlet ( Funnies on Parade ), a precursor to the color-comics format that became the standard for the American comic book industry. He was co-publisher of All-American Publications , a seminal comic-book company that introduced such enduring fictional characters as Green Lantern , Wonder Woman , and Hawkman . He went on to found Educational Comics , producing

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2912-432: Was an amateur painter who ran an art supply business. His mother Frances (née Greene), known as Fanny, was of English and Scottish descent. Percy had two younger sisters, Ethel and Gladys. Crosby quit high school during his sophomore year to take a job as an art department office boy at editor Theodore Dreiser 's magazine The Delineator . He was quickly promoted to artist, but the job ended after one issue. When he

2968-468: Was born in New York City to a Jewish family. Maxwell Charles Gaines was described as a "hard-nosed, pain-wracked, loud aggressive man". At age four, Gaines had leaned out too far from a second story window and fell to the ground, catching his leg on a picket fence. The leg would give him pain and discomfort for the rest of his life, aggravating his disposition. As an adult he developed a vicious temper, and according to his son, William M. Gaines , "expected

3024-534: Was collected into his first two books, That Rookie of the Thirteenth Squad (1917) and Between Shots (1919). While at the Argonne front, Crosby was struck by shrapnel in the eye, suffering no permanent damage, and earned the Purple Heart . Following the war, he resumed his studies and syndicated a series of panel cartoons from 1921 to 1925. These covered a variety of subjects, with some series, such as Who Cares for

3080-400: Was declared a paranoid schizophrenic . His confinement was authorized by Arthur Soper, an uncle of Crosby's wife. Though he would spend the last 16 years of his life institutionalized, Crosby continued to produce artwork and manuscripts, though no work was published and it is uncertain how much was sent to publishers by the hospital staff, through whom all mail had to be vetted. Carolyn,

3136-513: Was the junior partner, vice president, and publisher. Next he took charge of organizing National Comics, Independent News, and their affiliated firms into a single corporate entity, National Periodical Publications ". At the end of 1944, but shortly before the merger, Gaines first rebranded All-American with its own logo, beginning with books cover-dated February 1945: All-Flash #17, Sensation Comics #38, Flash Comics #62, Green Lantern #14, Funny Stuff #3, and Mutt & Jeff #16, and

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