DC Comics: Blue Group, Red Group, Teen Group
jonh...@mac.com
Circulation in Schaumberg, IL to obtain circulation figures for DC and
Marvel comics. Prior to 1977, DC Comics posted figures for titles
belonging to collections called Red Group, Blue Group and Teen Group,
as well as the combined total. I wanted share my findings about these
groupings.
First of all, there every attempt appears to be made so that the
circulation figures for the Red Group and Blue Group were intended to
be as near the same as possible. The motivation seems to be for
selling advertising space. To be able to charge the same amount for
space in either one, DC had to make sure that no group was less
attractive than the other. When necessarily, load balancing would take
place by moving a title from one group to the other so as to ensure
that this happens.
Furthermore, every attempt seems to be made to ensure that no group was
more likely to feature a popular hero than the other. So if Superman
is in the Red Group, Action Comics was placed into the Blue Group.
Likewise Batman and Detective Comics were separated...as are Lois Lane
and Jimmy Olsen, etc. When new titles were added, this same philosophy
was held. So in 1972 when DC obtained the rights to print the Tarzan
line of characters, Tarzan was placed in the Blue Group, whereas Korak
Son of Tarzan was placed in the Red Group.
The exception to this was the Teen Group, consisting mainly of Love
comics. This group's circulation figures nowhere resembled Red and
Blue, but this was okay since it presumably was promoted to completely
different advertisers. ABC data was not collected for the Teen Group
until 1970, and continued until 1974. In 1975, this group had been
disbanded and the remaining titles Young Love and Young Romance were
moved to the Red and Blue Group, respectively.
I obtained Red/Blue Group data from 1967-1976, and Teen Group data from
1970-1974. From 1977 onward, DC data was for all titles combined.
Below is a list of all the titles for each group from this time period:
BLUE GROUP:
Action Comics, All Star Comics, Anthro, Aquaman, Atom/Hawkman, Batman,
BatLash, Beowulf, Blackhawk, BlackMagic, DC Special, DC Super Stars,
Demon, Flash, Four Star Spectacular, Freedom Fighters, From Beyond the
Unknown, GI War Tales, Hawk & the Dove, House of Mystery, House of
Secrets, Hot Wheels, Johnny Thunder, Justice Inc, Justice League of
America, Kung Fu Fighter, Kobra, Leave It to Binky, Lois Lane, Legion
of Super-Heroes, New Gods, Our Fighting Forces, Omac, Plop, Ragman,
Rima the Jungle Girl, Sandman, Superboy, Supergirl, Sugar & Spike,
Showcase, Sherlock Holmes, Secret of Haunted House, Spectre, Secret
Society of Super-Villians, Star Spangled War Stories, Stalker,
Starfire, Super-Team Family, Strange Adventures, Strange Sports
Stories, Swing with Scooter, Swamp Thing, Tarzan, Tales of Ghost
Castle, Tomahawk, Trigger Twins, Tales of the Unexpected, Weird Mystery
Tales, Weird Worlds, Wonder Woman.
RED GROUP:
Adventure Comics, Angel & Ape, All Star Western, Brave & the Bold,
Binky's Buddies, Blitzkreig, Black Magic, Bob Hope, Bomba, Boy
Commandos, Brother Power the Geek, Captain Action, Captain Storm,
Challengers of the Unknown, Champion Sports, Claw the Unconquored,
Creeper, Date with Debbi, Debbi's Dates, Detective Comics, Doom Patrol,
First Issue Special, Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion, Four Star Battle
Tales, Forever People, Fox & the Crow, Ghosts, GI Combat, Green
Lantern, Hercules Unbound, Inferior 5, Isis, Jerry Lewis, Jimmy Olsen,
Joker, Kamandi, Korak Son of Tarzan, Laurel & Hardy, Meet Angel,
Metamorpho, Metal Men, Mr Miracle, Our Army at War, Phantom Stranger,
Plastic Man, Prez, Secret Six, Secrets of Sinister House, Sea Devils,
Shazam!, Secret Origins, Stanley & His Monsters, Super DC Giant,
Super-Friends, Super-Heroes Battle Super-Gorillas, Superman, Superman
Family, Sword Sorcery, Three Mousketeers, Tor, Teen Titans, Wanted,
Warlord, Windy & Willy, Witching Hour, Weird War Tales, Weird Western
Tales, Welcome Back Kotter, World's Finest.
TEEN GROUP:
Falling in Love, Girl's Love Stories, Girls Romances, Heart Throbs,
Secret Hearts, Young Love, Young Romance.
CHANGES:
After 1974, the Teen Group was disbanded, and Young Love was moved to
the Red Group while Young Romance moved to the Blue Group. In the
first half of 1975, Justice League and Swamp Thing were moved from the
Blue Group to the Red Group, while Shazam! and World's Finest were
moved from the Red Group to the Blue Group. In the second half of
1975, Young Romance was moved from the Blue Group to the Red Group.
More soon,
Jonathan
Ian Payn
<jonh...@mac.com> wrote
> I obtained Red/Blue Group data from 1967-1976, and Teen Group data from
> 1970-1974. From 1977 onward, DC data was for all titles combined.
> Below is a list of all the titles for each group from this time period:
>
> BLUE GROUP:
> Action Comics...Wonder Woman.
>
> RED GROUP:
> Adventure Comics...World's Finest.
>
> TEEN GROUP:
> Falling in Love, Girl's Love Stories, Girls Romances, Heart Throbs,
> Secret Hearts, Young Love, Young Romance.
++++That's very interesting (and a hell of a lot of titles!). If I had to
guess, I'd say of all of them we weren't going to see a revival of Welcome
Back, Cotter any day soon...
Jack Bohn
>Furthermore, every attempt seems to be made to ensure that no group was
>more likely to feature a popular hero than the other. So if Superman
>is in the Red Group, Action Comics was placed into the Blue Group.
The true origin of Superman/Red, Superman/Blue?
--
-Jack
Bob Hughes
>
>The exception to this was the Teen Group, consisting mainly of Love
>comics. This group's circulation figures nowhere resembled Red and
>Blue, but this was okay since it presumably was promoted to completely
>different advertisers. ABC data was not collected for the Teen Group
>until 1970, and continued until 1974. In 1975, this group had been
>disbanded and the remaining titles Young Love and Young Romance were
>moved to the Red and Blue Group, respectively.
>
Prior to 1969 DC's romance comics didn't carry advertising, so their
circulation is probably not included in any of the groups you
mentioned.
Bob Hughes
Who's Whose at DC Comics? Creator Credits and art samples from DC's Golden and Silver Age Comics, especially Superman and Batman profiled at:
http://www.supermanartists.comics.org/superart.htm
"Information is not knowledge; knowledge is not wisdom; wisdom is not truth; truth is not beauty; beauty is not love; love is not music. Music is best."
Frank Zappa
Al Turniansky
BOBH...@TTLC.NET wrote on 4/1/05 9:55 PM:
> On 30 Mar 2005 22:20:49 -0800, jonh...@mac.com wrote:
>
>>
>> The exception to this was the Teen Group, consisting mainly of Love
>> comics. This group's circulation figures nowhere resembled Red and
>> Blue, but this was okay since it presumably was promoted to completely
>> different advertisers. ABC data was not collected for the Teen Group
>> until 1970, and continued until 1974. In 1975, this group had been
>> disbanded and the remaining titles Young Love and Young Romance were
>> moved to the Red and Blue Group, respectively.
>>
> Prior to 1969 DC's romance comics didn't carry advertising, so their
> circulation is probably not included in any of the groups you
> mentioned.
No advertising? How did they make money on them?
(I'm serious here. How did they make money on them? Especially since, with
no ads, they would need a higher volume of story pages that would have to be
paid for rather than generating income as ad pages would do. And before
1969, the retail price was still 12 or 15 cents. Not a lot of wiggle room
there.)
Bob Hughes
Dunno, Dell Comics never had ads in the fifties either. Sometimes
they had ads on the back cover.
Either they paid the artists less....
Or they used lots of house ads to fill the space so they wouldn't have
to pay for story pages- the DC romance titles had house ads.
Or sell through was so high they didn't need ads.
Up through the late sixties- DC romance comics were technically
published by a company called Arleigh. Even though the address was
the same and they were produced in National's offices. Originally
"owned" by varous kids and in-laws of National's owners, by 1961 when
National went public, Arleigh became a wholly owned subsidiary.
The corporate side of comics is weird.
Al Turniansky
BOBH...@TTLC.NET wrote on 4/2/05 8:29 AM:
I didn't know that. (I have tens of thousands of comics collected over the
last forty years (the vast majority being DC's), and yet there is not a
single romance comic among them...)
> Or sell through was so high they didn't need ads.
That I doubt. If sell through was *that* high, they would've converted their
whole line to romance comics!
> Up through the late sixties- DC romance comics were technically
> published by a company called Arleigh. Even though the address was
> the same and they were produced in National's offices. Originally
> "owned" by varous kids and in-laws of National's owners, by 1961 when
> National went public, Arleigh became a wholly owned subsidiary.
AHA! When DC was privately owned, "Arleigh", obstensibly a separate company
(although obvoiusly in name only) is in a situation where it's likely to
lose money (at least, not in an optimal position to make money). Sounds like
they were really using the romance comics business as a tax shelter. (Keep
in mind that the top personal income rate in the USA at that time was 90%,
and so tax shelters were not only commonplace, they were practically
necessary!)
Kevrob
>
> AHA! When DC was privately owned, "Arleigh", obstensibly a separate
company
> (although obvoiusly in name only) is in a situation where it's likely
to
> lose money (at least, not in an optimal position to make money).
Sounds like
> they were really using the romance comics business as a tax shelter.
(Keep
> in mind that the top personal income rate in the USA at that time was
90%,
> and so tax shelters were not only commonplace, they were practically
> necessary!)
The Donenfelds and Liebowitz had more than one of these
"sister companies" over the years. See:
http://www.supermanartists.comics.org/dchistory/dcsother-pulps.htm
There are several pages of info. They're image-heavy, and load
slowly for dial-up users, but are very cool.
I expect that the several corporations were useful during WWII in
order to finesse paper rationing.
D&L were pikers compared to the mare's nest of shell corporations
Martin Goodman set up to publish the various Red Circle/Marvel/Timely/
Atlas pulps and comics. If one book's sales tanked, its debts to its
printer and distributor would be compartmentalized, so the whole
ship wouldn't sink.
I expect setting up side operations in the names of relatives had
several benefits. First, it gave Joe Nephew a "job" and an a/l/l/o/
w/a/n/c/e/....salary. That's with pre-tax dollars, which, in an era
of a much higher top tax rates, counted for something. Distribution
was handled by Independent, so that was more cash flow for the
partners.
Notice that the "real DCs" had the trademarkable characters, and bore
the expenses of paying for licensed characters, while the side
companies tended to publish knockoffs and anthologies without
continuing characters. I suspect they paid lower page rates, too.
Kevin
kev...@my-deja.com
> Al Turniansky wrote:
>
> >
> > AHA! When DC was privately owned, "Arleigh", obstensibly a separate
> company
> > (although obvoiusly in name only) is in a situation where it's
likely
> to
> > lose money (at least, not in an optimal position to make money).
> Sounds like
> > they were really using the romance comics business as a tax
shelter.
> (Keep
> > in mind that the top personal income rate in the USA at that time
was
> 90%,
> > and so tax shelters were not only commonplace, they were
practically
> > necessary!)
>
It occurred to me that another reason for the D&L partnership to have
other imprints with official owners other than themselves would be to
avoid any sniffing around the comics publishing and distribution system
by any Justice Department anti-trust lawyers. DC and Independent News
were, in effect, a vertically integrated operation, akin to the movie
studios who owned production, distribution and theatres. DC/IND didn't
own newsstands, as far as I know, so comics wasn't AS integrated, but
IND was in position to favor its sister companies over those of the
competition. If, as Bob Hughes wonderful site reveals, Leader News
was "in the family" the percentage of slots in the nation's comics
racks controlled by the DC combine was impressive. Big houses like
Dell/Western and Fawcett controlled their own distribution, too, and
when Fawcett left the field the remaining houses with a distro arm
were even stronger relative to groups such as Quality, EC or Atlas.
In reference to DC's Arleigh line of romance comics, they were just
following the innovators, Simon & Kirby, who invented the genre for
Crestwood/Prize. S&K's Mainline imprint sold a heck of a lot of
comics until the distributor it shared with EC, Leader, went belly-up.
http://www.twomorrows.com/kirby/articles/25mainline.html
A cynical person might suspect the D&L team of crashing Leader to make
sure EC wouldn't survive the changes imposed by the Code.
Kevin