[dwilt]

One of a relative handful of "experiments" with comics that sold for a nickel (Fawcett and Harvey both did this in the Forties). In this case, they saved money by reducing the physical size to 5 x 7.5 inches.

Link to the book: Do-Do 3

[Robb_K]

One of a relative handful of "experiments" with comics that sold for a nickel (Fawcett and Harvey both did this in the Forties). In this case, they saved money by reducing the physical size to 5 x 7.5 inches.

And they also reduced the standard number of panels from Dell/Western's  4-tier and 8 panels,  and from the traditional 3-tier and 6 panels, to 2-tier and 4 panels; thus saving significant production cost, by producing less panels of artwork, and using less paper per page, and colouring less paper per page. 

But Nation-Wide's M.O. was different from that of the regular commercial publishers who tested publishing 5¢ comic book lines, in that, even their 5¢ books were really promotional tools, as "semi-giveaway" "premiums", in that they were purchased by commercial clients from the producer, Nationwide Comics, and then offered in their stores to parents with children, for a "token price", in situations where the commercial businesses chose to offer the 5¢ copies, rather than Nationwide's custom-made cost-free giveaway copies of exactly the same issues.

The U.S. marketplace eventually showed that kids were, for the most part, not satisfied with only half-sized books, with small pages to view, or with only half the panels, blown up in size in a standard-sized book.  the latter format, used in The UK, with only coloured book covers, and all black-and white interior pages, sold decently enough to support lots of long-running series and publishers.  And in Europe, Canada, Australia, and Latin America, the amount and percent of black and white interior pages was a key determining factor in keeping production costs down, to allow publishers to publish their comic book series.

[paw broon]

Interesting look at different formats/prices.  Robb, as you note, British comics could be b&w with colour covers but many had a mix inside of colour often not full colour, and b&w.  But some titles - Micky Mouse, Eagle, had good quality colour pages mixed with b&w, and were very, very popular. It was most often the smaller titles, which tried to look like American comics, that were all b&w interiors.  Formats differed greatly and there was no real standard size in British and European comics.  Don't you just love all those odd formats???
Actually, Australian comics were produced, early on, in differing formats, landscape, portrait,  2 versions of callender.

I'm currently trying to find where a square comic or strip featuring Stirling Moss, drawn by Ian Kennedy, appeared.  Its proving a real problem.

[Robb_K]

Yes, I forgot to mention the 1 and 2-colour process that was used on many European comics,black ink, with only red, green purple, gold, etc., or 2 colours with black ink.  There were many Dutch comics with that format.  I hated when B&W pages alternated with colour, every other page, especially on Dutch "Donald Duck".  That always made it hard for me to "get lost in the story".  In over 70 years of reading them, I never adjusted to the jarring of changing back and forth.