CSBG Archive
Scott’s Classic Comics Corner: 1967 – A Year in Review
1967 is known as the year of the Summer of Love. While I do love many comics from that year, I wouldn’t say that it was truly a milestone year. I’ve sifted through the spinner rack selections from a variety of publishers in hopes of determining a theme, but found only that variety was the spice of life and that the reading public had become fickle, as many tiles (and even publishers) came and went.
1967 was a pretty quiet year over at DC, as there were not many milestone events. Most titles kept chugging along, seemingly unaware of the juggernaut that Marvel had become. Deadman made his first appearance in Strange Adventures #205, and the Spectre became the first and only of the re-introduced JSAers to get his own title. A few series were launched including Inferior Five and Bomba the Jungle Boy, but none found lasting success. Blackhawk tried to stay relevant in with the introduction of the three-issue arc converts the team members into the Junk Heap Heroes; which culminated in issue #230. Superman and Flash had their first of many races in Superman #199. This ‘stay the course’ philosophy would change at the beginning of ’68, when Dick Giordano came aboard to edit several titles.
After several years of cranking out one successful new character and/or title after another, Marvel had settled into a comfortable groove in 1967. John Romita was well entrenched at Amazing Spider-Man, John Buscema was aboard at Avengers and Gene Colan was at the beginning of a long run on Daredevil. A few titles were launched, most Not Brand Ecchand the revamped Marvel Super-Heroes, which included the first appearance of Captain Marvel. We saw the last of both Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish, as Marvel was making room for an expanded list of titles. Other notable events include the introduction of the Kingpin, the Abomination and Mike Murdock!
Charlton Comics had a pretty crazy year, but that was par for the course with everyone’s favourite Derby, CT based publisher. There was a lot of high quality output, as was the tail end of Dick Giordano’s tenure as Editor in Chief. Great titles like Captain Atom and Judo Master came to an end. Blue Beetle #1 introduced the world to Steve Ditko’s The Question, and Charlton Premiere premiered and gave the world the great ‘Children of Doom’ story with its 2nd or 3rd issue (depending on how you track crazy Charlton numbering). Sam Glanzman’s well regarded Hercules got started in 1967, as did oddballs such as Grand Prix and All-American Sports.
Dell was still in the picture in 1967, launching a variety of new TV tie in titles including the Monkees and Mission Impossible. They were also continuing their efforts to crack the superhero market with less than stellar titles such as Mighty Heroes and Neutro. For my money, the best title introduced by Dell in 1967 was Flying Saucers, a fun UFO title which only partly made up for the loss of Kona, Monarch of Monster Isle. The writing was on the wall for Dell’s demise.
Gold Key, on the other hand, had a strong 1967. They still had the Edgar Rice Burroughs properties, and Magnus, Robot Fighter and Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom were chugging along. They launched some duds that year, especially The Owl and Tiger Girl, both half hearted attempts to jump aboard the superhero bandwagon. They also had some success with new ventures, including Star Trek and Chip ‘n Dale. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to better appreciate the varied output from Gold Key during this period.
The saddest news of 1967 was surely the demise of American Comics Group (ACG). My guess is that almost no one noticed that it was gone at the time, but when you look at its long publishing history, it’s hard to see its final issues as an important chapter in comic book history. ACG was one of those second tier publishers that managed to stay alive through the 50s and well into the 60s through a strange combination of innovation and comfort food comics. If an ACG could fall, then it was only a matter of time before the Dells, Gold Keys and Charltons would go as well. I find it amusing that the final series launched by ACG was Gasp!; as in ‘last gasp’.
1967 also saw the year of the final flame outs of some short-lived publishers. King Comics emerged when the newspaper syndicate repatriated its properties and got into comic book publishing directly. It wasn’t long before the likes of Popeye and The Phantom were sent off to Charlton for career counseling. A couple of quick ‘fly by night’ operations folded as well. M.F. Enterprises learned that Captain ‘SPLIT!’ Marvel was neither a Superman nor a Spider-man. Lightning Comics, home to Fatman and Super Green Beret lasted only a few months.
Lots of other publishers continued to succeed in their genres, including Archie, Harvey and Warren. Tower Comics were still cranking out fun book, but they would not be in the race much longer. All in all, 1967 was a solid if unspectacular year in funnybooks. Although superhero books continued to dominate the marketplace, the luster of the craze had faded somewhat and the non-Big Two companies had a hard time convincing readers that their knock-offs were worth 12 cents.
For more comic book nonsense, stop by my blog at Seduction of the Indifferent
17 Comments
Dan Bailey
November 10, 2009 at 8:16 am
This happens to be the year that I’d have to rank as nearest & dearest to my heart, of course, because it marked my first steps toward comics fandom. I turned 8 that September, by which time I’d already been introduced to my first 80-Page Giant (Superman #198, in mid-spring, followed a few weeks later by Jimmy Olsen #104 & Lois Lane #77), my first issue of Sgt. Fury (#48, in late summer) & the first title I bought consecutive issues of (Gold Key’s Ripley’s Believe It or Not, starting with #5, in the spring).
I also encountered Earth-2 for the first time (in the form of Flash #173, out that summer) & the Bizarro World as well (Superman #202, another exceptional 80-Page Giant, in early fall).
All that without seeing the truly remarkable Charlton Premiere “Children of Doom” issue till nearly 4 decades later!
No doubt it’s true for virtually everybody’s 7th & 8th years (or so I devoutly hope, anyway), but I can say without reservation that for a budding comics reader, in 1967 :”to be young was very heaven”!
Brian
November 10, 2009 at 8:51 am
The Star Trek stuff is great. You can find collected editions of that run now. On the Mission: Impossible cover, is that Cinnamon? I can’t seem to enlarge the image.
Cool article, it’s neat to relive a year I wasn’t born in.
Cheers,
B
Chris Simpson
November 10, 2009 at 10:26 am
It’s neat to relive the year I was born in!
Jeremy A. Patteron
November 10, 2009 at 11:06 am
!967 also saw the demise of Patsy & Hedy (#110), the last of the Patsy books of the SA. The end of Modeling with Millie (#54), & the debut of the NEW Millie (#154)!
J.A.P.
Mary Warner
November 10, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Wasn’t there a revived King Comics in the early 1980s? I acquired a few issues somewhow back then. They seemed to be aimed at very young kids.
And there was ANOTHER Captain Marvel back then? The same year the Marvel version debuted? I thought they only reason Marvel got to use the name is because nobody else had used it in several years.
Matt Bird
November 10, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Yup, that’s Cinnamon. Zen Tiger, aka the Cross-eyed cyclops, posted the entire M:I comic series for download a while ago: http://cosseyedcyclops.blogspot.com/search/label/Mission%20Impossible. It’s okay. Worth checking out if you’re a big M:I fan, like myself.
Scott
November 10, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Dan – I’m glad to hear that ’67 was such a good year (I was -5 myself). That Bizarro 80 pager was likely one of the highlights of the decade.
Jeremy – I made a not of the new Millie – but somehow forgot to mention it.
Mary – you may be thinking of some comics that were distributed to schools in the late 70s (I believe that was the time frame). They featured King Syndicate characters with altered dialogue and captions to help build the reader’s vocabulary – there were also some excercises in the back. I’ve got a couple of Phantom versions of it – but they are at home so I don’t have any more info handy on them from the indica. My copies are stamped with the name of a school east of Toronto. These would make a good future feature, though.
The M.L. Enterprises verions of Captain Marvel is quite infamous – check out the backstory:
http://www.toonopedia.com/capmarv0.htm
buttler
November 10, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Great roundup, but I can’t find it in me to call a year that saw the last of Hedy Wolfe a good year. (Although considering what happened to Buzz Baxter, I guess Hedy got off easy.)
onion3000
November 10, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Re: The Terrible Five cover…
‘THE VILLIANS ARE COMING!’ suggests sloppy editing.
‘THE WORST BAD GUYS IN COMICDOM’ suggests why the comics failed.
buttler
November 10, 2009 at 4:02 pm
This sounds like a job for the immortal Ambush Bug foe Villian the Villain.
Dan Felty
November 10, 2009 at 7:02 pm
This is what I like to see! This sort of context make the comics so much more interesting!
benday-dot
November 10, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Charlton wears the crown I’d say. Although, I have a great fondness for those twilight issues of Tales to Astonish and Tales of Suspense in 1967. And thanks for the Kona mention Scott!
Mary Warner
November 10, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Those were definitely the King Features comics I was thinking of. My brothers got ahold of a few issues in the early eighties, but I’m not sure where. We had Beetle Bailey, and Popeye, and Hi and Lois, as well as a couple of issues featuring characters I never heard of. I know there was once Prince Valient story in one of the issues, and one had a Henry story, but he spoke in it, and I thought that just seemed wrong.
They did have the excercises in the back, just like you mentioned, and they seemed to feel the need to define every word that might be even slightly unusual. (In the Prince Valient story– ‘KNIGHT= What soldiers were called in the olden days’.)
Bill Reed
November 10, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Super Green Beret! Now there’s a property that’s begging for a comeback.
andyh40
November 11, 2009 at 5:47 am
Once again, a great post Scott. 1967 was also the year that I got into collecting comics…mostly DC Batman and Detective comics. the next year, I would really start ramping up and branching out with Spiderman over at Marvel.
Scott
November 11, 2009 at 9:20 am
Thanks for the kinds words everyone – great discussion.
I’m always glad (and jealous) to hear of people who were buying comics in the 60s. If I take Dan’s notion of 7th and 8th years – that puts me circa 1980. Not a bad year at all, but perhaps not ’67 or ’53.
Mary – I meant to check out my promotional Phantoms last night but totally forgot. You are right about those definition. I think that the word ‘snare’ was defined in one of mine – as in ‘to trap’. My copies have masking tape over the price. I’m not sure what’s up with that – if these were ever actually sold or if the new contents were wrapped in old covers.
Craig – Kona always warrants a mention. I don’t see those line drawn covers very often. I wonder if they are more scarce.
Scott
November 12, 2009 at 7:03 am
OK – for the sake of completing a tagential discussion (aren’t they always the best kind), I checked the indica on the Phantom freebie I mentioned. It is copyrighted 1977 to King Features distributed through something called the Supplementary Reading Program. The cover story is “Adventures of the Girl Phantom” reprinting from Phantom #20 in 1967 (different cover, though). There is also a Mandrake back-up (presumably from the late 60s version as well. I have a second issue with the Phantom but couldn’t find it last night.
I said that there was masking tape over the price. That was wrong. There is actually no price, and the tape is over the CCA stamp.
These would make for an interesting bit one day.