What were the 7 most popular public domain goldenage characters out of all the comic books from the 30s to 1955? The most popular mentioned at the top of the list.
I suppose Captain Marvel led the charge, aye?
Of course by public domain we understand that to mean those characters presently permitted on site here. Thus the Marvel/DC/others crowd are not considered on the ballot.
Thanks
An interesting question Rez!
In terms of what is available from GA-UK as comic books, I would posit that along with primary Marvel Family members, that Quality gives us a number of popular characters such as Marmaduke Mouse, Plastic Man, along with Blackhawk & co.
Btw, I think Archie counts as a golden age character (Pep Comics) so...
B.
That's the very confusing problem when certain publishers only keep renewing their copyrights for portions of a series run, or of a particular character's issues in the same or different series. Can I assume then, that Archie hasn't kept up their rights to Archie stories in Pep and Jackpot Comics?
So, then Archie is probably the most popular currently PD character, at least if we don't determine "popularity" by sale of current PD books only. But, then, we must consider that 1940s sales have nothing to do with current people younger than 70 or so, who can read them on a public website. So, before we can answer this question, we have to define what "popular" means with regard to this question, and then all agree that that definition makes sense.
It's even more confusing that they didn't keep up their copyrights to Super Duck before 1954 (which, by the way, are all the best stories and best artwork of that series. They kept the rights to the poorly thought out, poorly crafted stories, an weak artwork, which makes no sense. And they are reprinting almost none of those later stories. So, completists/historians like me will NEVER get to read them. So why are they keeping them from the public. Why didn't Archie/MLJ keep the rights to Archie storied in his earlier publications, the same way Marvel is with ALL their past products? They're never going to reprint all their 1941-1954 funny animal stories. Why do they make sure we can't read them? Disney and Warner Brothers are the same. They don't want anyone to get the slightest pleasure from their products without paying for that privilege.
I think it makes more sense to ask which character whose comic books and/or newspaper or magazine comic strips are allowed on this website sold the most comic books during The Golden Age of Comics (1938-1955)? - and we DON'T tie the definition to only the individual books that are allowed on this site.