[builderboy]

We have long had a catagory for Dell....

I thought at some point in the past we had a category for Gold Key...

And we have a bunch of books in our pile o' books to be sorted that GCD lists as Whitman. They go on to state that "Whitman at various times published with K.K., Dell, and later under Gold Key."

The books in question are Crackajack Funnies. Some have a Dell notation in the file name, but I don't think that's right.

Should we set up a section for Whitman/Gold Key, or what?  Is this a PD issue?

[bchat]

From what I've gathered, "Whitman" was just an imprint of Western Publishing (aka Gold Key) used to sell comic books (including DC & Marvel's comics) to various outlets, so I don't see why a "Whitman" category would be neccessary as it was more a part of a distribution system rather than a comic book publisher.

Crackajack Funnies ended in 1942 and Gold Key didn't get started until 1962, with "Whitman" starting-up after that.

[josemas]

We have long had a catagory for Dell....

I thought at some point in the past we had a category for Gold Key...

And we have a bunch of books in our pile o' books to be sorted that GCD lists as Whitman. They go on to state that "Whitman at various times published with K.K., Dell, and later under Gold Key."

The books in question are Crackajack Funnies. Some have a Dell notation in the file name, but I don't think that's right.

Should we set up a section for Whitman/Gold Key, or what?  Is this a PD issue?

Western Publishing produced the comic books distributed by Dell up until 1962 at which point Western and Dell split. Western then distributed their comics (almost all of the titles that had been previously distributed by Dell plus some new titles like Magnus, Dr. Solar, Space Family Robinson, etc...) under the Gold Key banner up to the late 1970s at which point they switched to the Whitman banner and their distribution methods (Whitman Publishing was a subsidiary of Western which had previously put out many of their Big Little Books, coloring books and various other kid books).  Western stopped publishing comics entirely sometime in the mid 1980s.   K.K. Pubs was another subsidiary of Western which, IIRC, had some connection with the Disney product that Western licensed. This is the "in a nutshell" version of Western's comic book publishing.

Dell, after it split from Western, started up its own comics production group in 1962 and began licensing new titles (mostly TV shows and a few movies) and produced new titles in a variety of genres such as Combat, Nukla, Brainboy, Kona, Toka, Naza, Thirteen Going on Eighteen, Ponytail, and Ghost Stories.  They discontinued comic book publishing in the early-mid 1970s.

If GAC had a category for Gold Key it would have to be in the Silver Age section.  That's assuming that any comics published under the Gold Key banner are PD otherwise there would be no point in having such a category.

Crackajack Funnies was published only during the Golden Age thus making it fall under the era of Western's distribution by Dell.

Best

Joe

[builderboy]

This is all good information, but, back to the Crackajack issue, the books have no Dell branding, and the indicia publisher is K.K. Publications.  GCD lists KK as Whitman/Western outlet, but are KK and Dell are not the same, are they?

GCD indicates that Whitman had three indicia publishers: KK, Western Publishing, and Whitman Publishing.

Of all the titles listed under the three publishers, less than a handful are GA, making me wonder if its worth the effort, but it seems that the Crackajack title is clearly not a Dell title.

[narfstar]

So many things go back to Overstreet and fan classifications. Western was the actual publisher with the others under them. But Dell has been labeled as the publisher by fans for so long it is better to keep it for fans to find. We could change it to Dell/Western

[jrvandore]

Western published prior to the deal with Dell (Crackajack) and independently of Dell during the deal (March of Comics).  To really muddy the water, during the deal with Dell, they published independently of Dell BUT put the Dell label on those comics!

I see the point in differentiating at the GCD where they/we are trying to record history specifically.  Here, I think it would just cause more confusion than it is worth.

[narfstar]

Master publisher Dell works fine here. The other "brands" can be listed.