DC Comics, Inc. is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC is an initialism for "Detective Comics", an American comic book series first published in 1937.
Cover art of the first comic book by National Comics Publications, New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine #1 (cover dated February 1935). Unlike comic book magazines series up to that point, characters in this book, such as the Western character Jack Wood, were original creations, and did not originate in comic strips.
Action Comics No. 1, the iconic issue that introduced Superman and helped birth the superhero genre
Image: Maj. Malcolm Wheeler Nicholson LCCN2014713912
Image: Jerry Siegel in Uniform ca 1943 cropped
An American comic book is a thin periodical originating in the United States, on average 32 pages, containing comics. While the form originated in 1933, American comic books first gained popularity after the 1938 publication of Action Comics, which included the debut of the superhero Superman. This was followed by a superhero boom that lasted until the end of World War II. After the war, while superheroes were marginalized, the comic book industry rapidly expanded and genres such as horror, crime, science fiction and romance became popular. The 1950s saw a gradual decline, due to a shift away from print media in the wake of television and the impact of the Comics Code Authority. The late 1950s and the 1960s saw a superhero revival and superheroes remained the dominant character archetype throughout the late 20th century into the 21st century.
German refugee child at N.Y. Children's Colony, 1942, reading a Superman comic book.
The Yellow Kid in McFadden's Flats (1897)
Comic Monthly #1 (Jan. 1922)
Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics (Eastern Color Printing, 1933)
