Crack Comics is an anthology comic book series published by Quality Comics during the Golden Age of Comic Books . It featured such characters as The Clock , Black Condor , Captain Triumph , Alias the Spider , Madame Fatal , Jane Arden , Molly the Model, and Red Torpedo . The title "crack" referred to "being at the top of one's form", like a "crack sharpshooter ".
22-546: Notable contributors to Crack Comics included Alfred Andriola , George Brenner , Gill Fox , Jack Cole , Paul Gustavson , Klaus Nordling , and Art Pinajian . Quality Comics published 62 issues of Crack Comics from 1940 to 1949; the title was temporarily revived in 2011, when the Next Issue Project published issue "#63". Crack Comics started off as a monthly anthology of 68 pages, often with as many as 15 features. At first edited by Ed Cronin, much of its material
44-439: A district attorney's investigator, Drake became a municipal police officer when Sandy Burns, his secretary and fiancee, was murdered by Trinket and Bulldozer. As both a DA's man and a city cop, he battled a series of flamboyant villains, including Bottleneck, Mother Whistler and No-Face. Ghost-written by Saunders from its inception until the early 1970s after Andriola accepted an award for Saunders' writing without giving him credit,
66-780: A magazine, the McNaught Magazine , which failed. He then, in 1910, started the Central Press Association syndication service, with offices in Cleveland, Ohio . In 1920, McNitt founded the Central Press Association of New York City. (Although both services had the same name, they were separate operations.) In 1922, McNitt and Charles V. McAdam (1892–1985) absorbed the operations of the New York City Central Press Association and co-founded
88-404: A new comics publishing company, Columbia Comics , which would carry both new comics and reprints of McNaught syndicated comics like Joe Palooka . The company existed until 1949 and is best remembered for their publication Big Shot Comics . The syndicate continued columns and strips which were already successful when acquired, but it also was active in creating and suggesting new content, from
110-518: A promotional item to consumers who mailed in coupons clipped from Procter & Gamble soap and toiletries products. The company printed 10,000 copies, and it was a great success. In 1937, the McNaught Syndicate partnered with Frank J. Markey (formerly a McNaught executive) and the Register and Tribune Syndicate , as well as with entrepreneur Everett M. "Busy" Arnold , to provide material to
132-539: The McNaught Syndicate, with headquarters in The New York Times building. Will Rogers ' weekly column started in 1922 in 25 newspapers. By 1926, his daily column ran in 92 newspapers, and it reached 400 papers three years later, making him one of the best paid and most read columnists of the United States at the time. From 1925 until 1951, Charles Benedict Driscoll was one of the editors and contributors for
154-601: The Pirates and Scorchy Smith . His first strip was Charlie Chan (1938–1942), an adaptation of the popular detective novels for the McNaught Syndicate . For five months in 1943 he drew a minor superhero, Captain Triumph , for Quality Comics ' Crack Comics . For a year he drew the strip Dan Dunn with writer Allen Saunders . Dunn ended on October 3, 1943, and the next day their Kerry Drake debuted. Originally
176-475: The Will Rogers columns to comic strips like Don Dean's Cranberry Boggs . In one case, McNitt supported a crossover between the comic strips Joe Palooka and Dixie Dugan , a feat which was commented upon by Editor & Publisher . Their last success came with the comic strip Heathcliff , which they syndicated from the start in 1973 until the late 1980s. Heathcliff appeared in some 1,000 newspapers, and
198-590: The burgeoning comic book industry. For this reason, from 1937 until 1939, many of the syndicate's comic strips were reprinted in the comic book anthology Feature Funnies (published by Arnold). In 1939, Cowles Media Company (the Register and Tribune Syndicate's corporate owner) and Arnold bought out the McNaught and Markey interests. In 1939, the syndicate hired Vin Sullivan , then editor of Action Comics , to start
220-543: The concept of "comic books" was getting off the ground, Eastern Color Printing published Funnies on Parade , which reprinted in color several comic strips licensed from the McNaught Syndicate, the Ledger Syndicate , Associated Newspapers , and the Bell Syndicate , including Ham Fisher 's Joe Palooka . Eastern Color neither sold this periodical nor made it available on newsstands , but rather sent it out free as
242-520: The post in Feb. 1942), a few issues before Brenner's character The Clock stopped appearing in the book's pages. Beginning with issue #42 (May 1946) the title went back to a bimonthly schedule, which it maintained until its cancellation with issue #62 (during this time, the title also gradually reduced its page-count from 60 to 52 to 36). Brenner stayed on as editor almost to the end, leaving the post after issue #61 (July 1949). As comics readers' tastes changed in
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#1733093660398264-675: The strip It's Me, Dilly from 1957 to 1960. Kerry Drake was canceled after Andriola died in 1983. He contributed to the book, Ever Since Adam and Eve: A Pictorial Narrative of the Battle of the Sexes in Original Drawings by 86 Famous Cartoonists (McGraw Hill, 1955). Andriola received the National Cartoonists Society 's Silver T-square Award in 1970 and their Reuben Award in 1971. McNaught Syndicate The McNaught Syndicate
286-455: The strip gradually became a soap opera strip focusing on Drake's home life with his wife Mindy and their quadruplets, as Drake's younger brother Lefty, a private eye, took over more of the adventure plots. Andriola was assisted (and ghosted) by artists Hy Eisman , Fran Matera , Jerry Robinson and Sururi Gumen , the last of whom shared credit with Andriola starting in 1976. Using the pseudonym Alfred James, he collaborated with Mel Casson on
308-427: The syndicate. Writers syndicated by McNaught in those first years included Paul Gallico , Dale Carnegie , Walter Winchell and Irvin S. Cobb . By the early 1930s, the McNaught Syndicate had a stable which included columnists O. O. McIntyre and Al Smith and at one time even syndicated a letter by Albert Einstein . Other successes included columns by Dale Carnegie and Dear Abby by Abigail Van Buren . At
330-521: The time of McNitt's death in 1964, the syndicate was still led by McAdam, providing contents to 1,000 newspapers. By 1987, McNaught had only 24 features left, making it the tenth largest comic strip syndicate in the United States at that time. The syndicate eventually folded in September 1989. One of the first syndicated artists was Rube Goldberg . McNaught's line-up of comic strips included Mickey Finn and Dixie Dugan . Ham Fisher 's Joe Palooka
352-595: The title dropped down to a bi-monthly schedule due to wartime paper shortages; with issue #33 (Spring 1944) it became quarterly, also reducing its page-count to 60. It was around this time that publisher Arnold dropped Eisner & Iger as a "packager" and began producing much of the material in-house. The syndicated newspaper strip reprints " Jane Arden " and "Ned Brant" disappeared during this period, as well as such recurring features as " Black Condor ", "Don Q", and "Snappy". Cartoonist George Brenner became editor of Crack Comics with issue #31 (Oct. 1943) (Cronin having left
374-408: The years following World War II, Quality publisher Arnold responded. Starting with issue #63 (Nov. 1949), Crack became a Western comic , changing its name to Crack Western . This format lasted 22 issues until #84 (May 1953), when the title changed again, to Jonesy . Jonesy published one issue with the old numbering system and then restarted (from #2), publishing until issue #8 (Oct. 1954), when it
396-576: Was an American cartoonist best known for the comic strip Kerry Drake , for which he won a Reuben Award in 1970. His work sometimes appeared under the pseudonym Alfred James . Andriola was born in New York City and grew up in Rutherford, New Jersey . He studied at Cooper Union and Columbia University , intending to becoming a writer. Instead, following a fan letter he wrote to Milton Caniff , he became his assistant, working with him on Terry and
418-461: Was an American newspaper syndicate founded in 1922. It was established by Virgil Venice McNitt (who gave it his name) and Charles V. McAdam. Its best known contents were the columns by Will Rogers and O. O. McIntyre , the Dear Abby letters section and comic strips, including Joe Palooka and Heathcliff . It folded in September 1989. Virgil McNitt (1881–1964) first tried his hand at publishing
440-421: Was at first rejected by McNitt, but Fisher was hired as a salesman for the syndicate, offering McNaught's features to newspapers. After having sold his comic to 20 newspapers, McNitt had to change his opinion and added Joe Palooka to the syndicate, becoming one of the big successes for it. By the mid-1930s, McNaught's stable of cartoonists included Fisher, John H. Striebel , and Gus Mager . In 1933, just as
462-612: Was cancelled for good. Following the demise of Crack Comics and later the publisher itself, many of Quality Comics' characters lapsed into the public domain . In November 2011, as part of editor Erik Larsen 's " Next Issue Project ", Image Comics published Crack Comics "#63", containing the following stories: Other characters of note who appeared in Crack Comics included Batch Bachelor, Biff Banks, Black Shark, Dewey Drip, Kiki Kelly, and Yankee Guerilla. Alfred Andriola Alfred James Andriola (May 24, 1912 – March 29, 1983)
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#1733093660398484-450: Was originally "packaged" by the Eisner and Iger Studio . " The Clock ", as well as such newspaper strip reprints as " Rube Goldberg 's Side Show", " Jane Arden ", and "Ned Brant", moved over from Quality's Feature Comics . The first use of the publisher name "Quality Comic Group" was on the cover of Crack Comics #5 (Sept. 1940). With issue #26 (Nov. 1942), at the height of World War II ,
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