How did Triple Threat Comics get the Croydon Publishing title for in the publisher groupings?
The indicia said at Holyoke, Mass by Special Action Comics, Inc?
I just like to learn these things.
Thanks
In a perfect world it would be as easy as archiver_USA makes it sound. EVERYTHING he says is right, but the conclusion he draws (Special Action Comics = Charlton) is probably not. Here's why I think that:
I believe that just as Holyoke was originally a printer, so was the company at 49 E Hawkins St in Derby Conn. Triple Threat was published in 1945 - a period of wartime paper shortages and not too many Charlton (or pre-Charlton) comic books. The company that would become Charlton's (TCTWBC) first title, Yellowjacket, began in 1944 with artwork supplied by the Lloyd Jacquet Funnies Inc. shop. It was followed in 1945 by Zoo Funnies. TCTWBC was started, it seems, to take advantage of the wartime demand for comic books. To attribute an overriding plan or corporate structure to The Frank Communale company is possible ONLY in retrospect. There were dozens of other "publishers" who were doing exactly the same thing.
And that "thing" was scouring the countryside looking for someone (anyone) with a paper allocation with which they could print a comic book and take advantage of the demand. Printers had paper allowances, as did many small publications. If you think for a second, you'll figure out the origins of Swappers Quarterly, Farm Women's Publishing, Rural Home, etc. With the advent of WWII, these magazines folded and entrepeneurs like Comunale and Levy, Bernard Baily and others went to out of the way places (like Derby Connecticut and even Central America) to print their forays into the lucrative field of comic books.
Bernard Baily published Triple-Threat. It features characters owned by his shop (Duke of Darkness, Epod, Beau Brummel, etc.). It was "published" at 49 E. Hawkins st because the printer there was the source of the paper allocation that Baily used to print it. Just as it was the source of TCTWBC's paper for Yellowjacket. Normally, a shared address would indicate a common editorial function, but in 1944 and 1945, that simply wasn't so.
So, there is no overriding reason to lump Triple Threat into the Croydon camp other than our very human need to organize and name thing. Almost every book that Baily published had a different publisher (IF it even had one listed). There is a continuity and connection that is indicated by the contents and the artists and the history of the Baily Shop (that is currently being researched by Ken Quattro). This is NOT to imply that every comic to which Bernard Baily's shop contributed to was published by him. The is patently not true. BUT, there ARE a lot of titles that originated at this time from the Baily Shop that have NO connection to publishers previous or contemporary. They cry out to be organized into a lump of "Produced and Published by Bernard Baily on paper rations he got from somewhere."
And for reasons unbeknownst to me, one of those "paper companies", Croydon, was chosen to indicate that grouping. Just as BIP Comics site lists various "publishers of record" for Charlton, Croydon (if you're going to buy into the Baily groupings overall name) needs to have Special Action listed under it. The coincidence of the 49 E. Hawkins address is not so startling if you understand the economic impetus that brought both Baily and TCTWBC to the same place during 1945. And the copyright of Triple Threat is just as likely to indicate the winter of 1944/45 as that of 1945/46. If it's the former, then it's even LESS likely that three issues into their foray into comics, TCTWBC would hire Baily to produce a one-shot title featuring characters that had already appeared elsewhere and were going nowhere.
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Topic: Publisher Groupings on the Download Site. (Read 42536 times)
