All-American Comics
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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All-American Comics was the flagship title of comic book publisher All-American Publications. It ran for 102 issues from April 1939 to October 1948, at which time it was renamed All-American Western. In 1952, the title was changed again to All-American Men of War, which lasted until the series was cancelled in 1966.
All-American Comics was purchased by National Periodicals (DC Comics) in 1946. Characters created for All-American, including Green Lantern, the Atom, Red Tornado, Doctor Mid-Nite, and Sargon the Sorcerer, became mainstays of the DC comics line. Other publications included the newspaper comic strip reprints and similar original features Hop Harrigan, Toonerville Folks, Scribbly, Mutt and Jeff, and Ripley's Believe It or Not!.
All-American Western would add the character Johnny Thunder to the DC Universe, and All-American Men of War added Johnny Cloud, a Native American World War II P-51 Mustang pilot.
Contributors included writers Robert Kanigher and Hank Chapman, and artists Ross Andru, Alex Toth, Gene Colan, Mort Drucker, Mike Esposito, Jerry Grandenetti, Sheldon Moldoff, Russ Heath, Bernard Krigstein, Joe Kubert, and Irv Novick.
Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein's famous 1962 work Whaam! is based on a Grandenetti comic-book panel on the cover of All-American Men of War #89 (Feb. 1962).
A 1999 one-shot issue was a part of the storyline "Justice Society Returns".
Key issues of All-American include
- All-American Comics #16 (debut of Golden Age Green Lantern)
- All-American Comics #19 (debut of the Golden Age Atom, and last appearance of Gary Concord - The Ultra Man).
These books are very scarce; there are only 80 known copies of #19 in the CGC Census.
