[josemas]

I was looking through some of my recent downloads and noticed that issues #1 & 2 of Sparky Watts were not published by Columbia Comics as listed at the GCD and as cataloged here on Golden Age Comics but were actually published by Eastern Color Printing Company.
Issue #1's indicia notes that it was licensed by Columbia and the Frank J. Markey syndicate to Eastern.  Issue #2's indicia lists it as being licensed by the Frank Jay Markey syndicate and Publication Enterprises.
Issue #3 is simply published by Columbia.
Ads for both company's product are in the first two issues.  Anybody know any of the history behind this?  Were Eastern and Columbia allied in some way early on?

Also I noticed while looking over issue #4 of Sparky Watts that there are two extra stories included at the end that seem to be from an issue of Big Shot.  Anybody know which issues these stories came from and if there was any particular reason for their being included with this issue?

Joe M

[boox909]

JonTheScanner has the expertise in these matters! No, really...I expect that he will know the answer to this mystery given that he uploaded one of the issues you are talking about. 

B.

[JonTheScanner]

Sparky Watts started as a newspaper strip in April 1940 from the Markey syndicate.  It ran for two years until Rogers went off to fight WWII.  The original appearances in Big Shot were reprints form the strip I believe beginning in BS #14.  The first four (?) issues of SW were also reprints.  It's possible that Markey licensed them to two different companies, but I'd guess that it was the war-time paper shortage.  Columbia had the material but no paper allotment to increase the number of comics it published so they arranged for a surrogate.  This was not uncommon during WWII.  For example, Vital published the first two issues of Plastic Man and Spirit for Quality.

I don't know which issues of Big Shot those extra stories are from -- I don't actually have those stories in my scan of Sparky.  There were solo stories from around BS #94 floating around, though, as I recall.

[narfstar]

The two extra stories in SW 4 are mine as is the SW 4. They are from an unk coverless BS

[josemas]

Thanks guys. 

I appreciate the explanations and background info on the Sparky Watts publications.

Joe M