Charlton Comics Part 2

Good day everyone. When we left our last column, we had come up to end of the Atomic Age at Charlton, which was an era of acquisitions for the partners in creating their staple of characters. They had begun to expand into various genres that make up the variety of the hobby we love, and they had begun to collect the talent that they would be known for.

Before we go any farther, we need to discuss Dick Giordano's contribution to the company. Originally hired as a freelance artist in 1952, by the mid-sixties he was promoted to executive editor, replacing the very successful (for a middle of the road comic publisher) Pat Masulli. Before his promotion he had done just about every job you can think off on the artistic creative side on such titles as Fightin' Army, Annie Oakley, Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid. He was also the primary cover artist (a sample is above The Green Planet issue 1 from 1962) during his employment with the company. He was responsible for bringing Steve Dikto, Jim Aparo, Denny O'Neill and Steve Skeats to the company. In later years (once the company had dissolved and he didn't need to worry about burning bridges anymore) he described the company in not so glowing terms, calling it disappointing and comparing Charlton to a weed. But, there was no mistaking that while at Charlton, he left a large mark. (Editor's note: in an interview he did shortly before his death, Aparo noted that Giordano as the only reason he gave comics a shot over advertising because of the strength of his personality because it sure wasn't the money.)

Giordano was responsible for Charlton deciding to give the super-hero craze a shot. After acquiring such luminaries as Blue Beetle, and seeing the success that other companies were having with the revival of super-heroes. Blue Beetle was first in 1956, but didn't do very well at first, so after only four issues (three of which were unused stories purchased from Fox when they bought the rights to the character), he was cancelled for the time. However, is Space Adventures #33 (March 1960), writer Joe Gill and artist/co-writer Steve Ditko (yes, him) created a new hero that would help the company stay afloat for a few more years, Captain Atom. (Although many people have not heard of this character, he has had a larger influence on pop culture overall by being the inspiration for the spoof hero Radioactive Man from the very long running TV show, The Simpsons.) The Character Son of Vulcan also debuted in 1965, which along with Blue Beetle (published from 1964 to 1968) and Captain Atom, became the three biggest Charlton heroes for this time.

1967 also brought the creation of another of Charlton's best known characters. Steve Ditko, after leaving Charlton to go to Marvel Comics earlier in the decade (where we helped co-create some infamous arachnid-based character), left Marvel unexpectedly for unknown reasons. Giordano quickly drew his talents back into the fold, and Ditko, after doing some work on Captain Atom, created the Question.The Question was a different kind of super-hero, one that worked in the dark and whose moral codes were based on Objectivism, a philosophy that Ditko was passionate about. Because the motivations for the character were different, the Question gained a small but significant following. Ditko worked for the company until 1969.

By 1967, Charlton had managed to have their output reach almost 40 titles. Although the super-hero line were all cancelled by 1968 due to declining readership for those particular ones, their war and licensed comics (including recent addition for the King Syndicate, such as Popeye, Beetle Bailey, Blondie, and the Phantom - issue 31 (cover by Aparo) shown above.) The company's best selling title was Rocky and Bullwinkle. But the end of the Silver Age meant the end of an era at the company. Dick Giordano, disillusioned by the meager pay and benefits he was collecting for his efforts, moved to National Periodical (DC). By 1970 he had taken the vast majority of the freelancers and artists that were supplying Charlton. Charlton had to reinvent itself as the comics industry entered the Bronze Age.

George Wildman was hired to replace Giordano as Editor in Chief, but his talents lay in business as opposed to the artistic side, and his hiring of Nicola Cuti as his editorial assistant turned out to be one of the best decisions he made during his time at Charlton. Cuti began his career here by contributing to the burgeoning horror and fantasy tiles that were beginning to proliferate due to the relaxation of certain strict standards of the Comics Code Authority. He was a very busy man, churning out 200 scripts for this genre alone, and managing to find the talent to draw it as well (Wildman had also convinced Ditko to return to supplying art to Charlton after his split with DC in late 1970, and his collaborations with Cuti remain some of the best work ever seen in this period.) Cuti was responsible for giving John Byrne his first job in comics (Doomsday +1, while he was still attending art school in Alberta). Before leaving the company in 1976, Cuti helped Joe Stanton create what became the biggest cult hit for the company in the 1970's, E-Man.

Inspired by Plastic-Man, E-Man was a sentient being created out of energy in a nova explosion.The book had a whimsical, almost naive-feeling in contrast to the super-hero output from the other companies at the time (especially, Batman and the X-Men). Although the title only lasted ten issues (a 1973 paper-mill strike in Canada made getting paper difficult for periodicals in general while it lasted, and there as a six-month gap as a result between issues 2 and 3), it continued at other publishers starting in 1983 and became known as a cult book. The 10 issue run of the Charlton era have become some of the company's most sought after books by panelologists. 

The 1970s were hard on the company. Their press has getting real old and the quality of the books, which was never very good to begin with, really began to suffer. In order to stay afloat the company as a whole went on hiatus from January to August 1977. The talent left, never to return.

The 1980s brought a decline across the entire comic book industry. New deals for artist royalties, coupled with the cost of everything going up and declining readership, made the price increases which began the 1970s at 15 cents to 95 cents by 1984. Advertising revenue was down and the number of newsstands carrying books was dwindling as the direct market began to take over comic sales in North America. Worse for Charlton, their 1977 temporary shutdown had the unintended effect of having many of their licensed titles having their contracts revoked and moving to Gold Key/Western. Charlton had to try different ideas to try to keep afloat, such as repacking books with Gold Key to sell in department stores, and 1970s reprints. But soon, all that as left of the company was the war and horror titles, both of which  had their titles at other companies cancelled (Sgt. Rock held on at DC until 1986, and Marvel had the only success with The 'Nam, and both companies cancelled all of their horror type books by 1983.) Nothing was working, and Charlton suspended all operations by 1984.

Although technically the company as still alive, they never published again. DC bought all their superhero properties in 1985 (this is how DC finally ended up owning the rights to Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family; 30 years too late in my opinion) and Alan Moore used the characters as an inspiration for his Watchmen title. DC also used the Question, Blue Beetle and Captain Atom in Crisis on Infinite Earths. They also became large characters in the new Post-Crisis era at DC. Therefore, the company still has a part of today's legacies. Some of their other properties fell into public domain and have had new adventures made about them as well.

In conclusion, although there are a lot of Charlton books still out there, the quality of the print was so bad that mint copies or near-mint copies are almost not known to exist. Charlton also moved and renamed titles a lot so keeping track of them all can be almost as hard as keeping track of all the new Marvel titles. But, overall, a lot of the stories are of good to high quality, and I recommend everyone should give one or two a read. As a company, Charlton stands as a testament to what a smaller company can do if they can have the "right breaks" fall on them for a while.

Ottawa News and Notes - it will be back to business as usual at Legends, Myths and Heroes for the boys have returned from a successful jaunt to Toronto for FanExpo.

Today (Sunday, September 8, 2018) is the monthly Capital Trades Show at the Jim. Hope to see you there.

Next time, a Random Book that My Son Picks, followed by a surprise.