Robb, you have a wealth of knowledge about obscure publishers. Do you know anything about Nation-Wide Comics, the Chicago company that published digest-sized 5-cent comics including Captain Atom, Lucky Star, and Mazie? I know that Mazie outlasted the adventure titles and morphed into a standard 32-page 10-center along with spinoff titles Stevie, Mortie, and Flat-Top. I also know that Harvey picked up Mazie and published a few issues related to her world. That's all I know. Who were they?
Unfortunately, I don't know very much about Nation-Wide Comics, especially what would be the most interesting information about them to all of us, which would be exactly who their key players were (owners, editors, in-house artists(if any), and the comics art and editorial packaging studios that supplied their content. Unfortunately, I doubt that much if anything has been written on it. Unfortunately, The American Comic Book Chronicles' 1950s Volume says a lot less than I'm telling you here. So, I doubt that much research has been done on Nation-Wide, or there are no longer any records of that firm's operations existing, and no one left with knowledge of that publisher's operation.
All I know about their comics line is that they operated from 1950-1954, from an office at 737 Michigan Avenue, in Downtown Chicago (The Loop), on an area of that business street, where several book and magazine publishers had offices. It seems that their parent company, Magazine Publishers Corporation, was a small magazine publisher, who decided to open a line of comic books around the end of 1949. They started in early 1950, with Captain Atom (Superhero), Lucky Star (Western), Do-Do (Funny Animal/Circus), and Mazie (Teen Humour), in 1950, running through 1951, and added "Cavalier Comics"(Adventure) in early 1952, and Mazie spinoffs, Flat-Top, Stevie, and Mortie, near the end of 1952, lasting throughout 1953-54. The first 4 miniature, 5 cent lines ran 7 issues, each. At first, they experimented, using a smaller size (5 inches wide and 7&1/4 inches tall) with only 4 panels per page, and selling for only 5 cents.
But their later, starting near the end of 1952, their Teen Humour issues (including an upgraded Mazie) became full-sized, and sold for 10 cents. CB+ lists Nation-Wide Publishing as having produced 14 different comic book series, which issued a total of 64 different issues. But I know of only the 8 series I listed above, totalling 43 issues. The other 6 titles, and 21 issues MAY be an error, also counting in Magazine Publishers' Corp magazines, or some non-fiction educational or promotional series that have not yet been identified and documented in GCD, and not yet been scanned and uploaded to CB+ or DCM.
I can't tell from their artwork, which comic book packaging studio provided their artwork and daily production editorial staff. But, based on their Funny Animal line's (Do-Do(The Circus Clown))'s art, which was clearly drawn by Frank Carin, I'd venture a guess that Carin worked as a freelance artist for them.
I'd bet that Nation-Wide, being so small, had no regular in-house staff artists, and all their artwork and major editing work was done by a packaging studio, and Nationwide had only a "Chief Editor" overseeing the packager's daily project editor's submitted work for final approval and direction. Nationwide may have had one-in-house editorial artist, and used a couple freelance storywriters.
I guess that you, and other more realistic-style Golden Age comic book fans will need to look at the art and story writing styles of Nation-Wide's books, to make guesses at which artists and packaging studios did their work. I'm guessing that GCD's credits for those books are only guesses, rather than confirmed data based on documentation from the time of production. Jack Davis signed some pages in "Lucky Star" issues. So, he is confirmed. GCD has David Gantz listed as having drawn most of Nation-Wide's Teen Humour title's stories GCD has Frank Carin also listed for drawing "Lucky Star" stories, at times, both WITH and WITHOUT question marks. And the artwork on "Captain Atom" appears to be from the same hand as is listed as by Frank Carin. So, IF the credits WITHOUT question marks are actually documented, we can assume that Carin also worked for Nation-Wide. But Carin was the in-house artist for all Avon Periodicals' Funny Animal lines during Nation-Wide's entire run. And the style of the artwork in Lucky Star's stories credited to him looks like it COULD possibly be his work.
So, it might possibly be that Jack Davis, Frank Carin, and David Gantz all worked as freelancers, directly dealing with Nationwide, rather than a packaging studio, IF Nation-Wide's in-house, Chief Editor had a background as a previous Chief Editor of another comic book publisher. But, my best guess is that Nation-Wide was a tiny 2-3 man operation, with a tiny office, and farmed out all their work to a packaging studio. So, it would behoove us to do some research to see if Frank Carin, Jack Davis, and David Lantz all worked for the same comic book packaging studio between 1950 and 1954. I guess that Gantz and Davis could have come through a packaging studio, while Carin probably just moonlighted with Nation-Wide from his in-house Avon position as Art Director at Avon. Or, perhaps, Nation-Wide contracted with Avon, to provide their comic book packaging, and then, in addition to Carin, Jack Davis and David Gantz worked for Nation-Wide through Avon. Unfortunately, I've never seen an artist list for Avon Periodicals.
Do any of you know if Jack Davis and David Gantz worked as in-house or freelance artists directly for Avon, or if Avon contracted with a comic book packaging studio during 1950-1954?
