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Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson
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Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson (1890-1968) was an American pulp magazine writer and entrepreneur who pioneered the American comic book, publishing the first such periodical consisting solely of original material rather than reprints of newspaper comic strips. His comic book company, National Allied Publications, would evolve into DC Comics, one of the world's two largest comic book publishers, though long after its founder had left it.
He was a 2008 Judges' Choice inductee into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.
ler-Nicholson "was born into an iconoclastic, intellectual household in Portland, Oregon" in 1890.
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Encyclopedia
Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson (1890-1968) was an American pulp magazine writer and entrepreneur who pioneered the American comic book, publishing the first such periodical consisting solely of original material rather than reprints of newspaper comic strips. His comic book company, National Allied Publications, would evolve into DC Comics, one of the world's two largest comic book publishers, though long after its founder had left it.
He was a 2008 Judges' Choice inductee into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.
Biography
Early life and career
Wheeler-Nicholson "was born into an iconoclastic, intellectual household in Portland, Oregon" in 1890. In their Portland home, his family entertained such guests as Theodore Roosevelt and Rudyard Kipling.
A former U.S. Cavalry officer, and "at one point the youngest major in the Army," Wheeler-Nicholson served in diverse outposts including Japan and Russia. By his own account, he "chased bandits on the Mexican border, fought fevers and played polo in the Philippines, led a battlation of infantry against the Bolsheviki in Siberia, helped straighten out the affairs of the army in France [and] commanded the headquarters cavalry of the American force in the Rhine". In 1924, amid accusations by the major against senior officers, countercharges, hearings, and lawsuit threats, Wheeler-Nicholson left the service. Having already written non-fiction about military topics, he began writing short stories for the pulps. The major soon became a cover name, penning military and historical adventure fiction for such magazines as Adventure and Argosy.
New Fun
In 1929, he founded Wheeler-Nicholson, Inc. to syndicate a daily comic-strip adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island, with art by N. Brewster Morse. In the fall of 1934, having seen the emergence of Famous Funnies (1933) and other oversize magazines reprinting comic strips, Wheeler-Nicholson "formed his own comics publishing company, National Allied Publications." While contemporary comics "consisted... of reprints of old syndicate material", Wheeler-Nicholson found that the "rights to all the popular strips... had been sewn up". While some existing publications eventually included small amounts of original material, generally as filler, Wheeler-Nicholson's premiere comic — New Fun #1 (Feb. 1935) — became the first comic book containing all-original material.
A tabloid-sized, 10-inch by 15-inch, 36-page magazine with a card-stock, non-glossy cover, New Fun #1 was an anthology of "humor and adventure strips, many of which [Wheeler-Nicholson] wrote himself." The features included the funny animal comic "Pelion and Ossa" and the college-set "Jigger and Ginger", mixed with such dramatic fare as the Western strip "Jack Woods" and the "yellow peril" adventure "Barry O'Neill", featuring a Fu Manchu-styled villain, Fang Gow. While all-original material was a risky venture, the book sold well enough that National Allied Publishing continued to fill books "with new strips every month."
The first four issues were edited by future Funnies, Inc. founder Lloyd Jacquet, the fifth by Wheeler-Nicholson himself. Issue #6 (Oct. 1935) brought the comic-book debuts of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the future creators of Superman, who began their careers with the musketeer swashbuckler "Henri Duval" (doing the first two installments before turning it over to others) and, under the pseudonyms "Leger and Reuths", the supernatural-crimefighter adventure Doctor Occult. They would remain on the latter title through issue #32 (June 1938), following the magazine's retitling as More Fun (issues #7-8, Jan.-Feb. 1936), and More Fun Comics (#9-on).
Wheeler-Nicholson added a second magazine, New Comics, which premiered with a Dec. 1935 cover date and at close to what would become the standard size of Golden Age comic books, with slightly larger dimensions than today's. The title became New Adventure Comics with issue #12, and finally Adventure Comics with #32. Continuing for many decades, until issue #503 in 1983, it would become one of the longest-running comic books.
Despite Wheeler-Nicholson's optimism, however, finding a place in the market was difficult. Newsstands were reluctant to stock a magazine of untested new material from an unknown publisher, particularly as other companies' comics titles were perceived as being "successful because they featured characters everyone knew and loved." Returns were high, and cash-flow difficulties made the interval between issues unpredictable. Artist Creig Flessel recalled that at the company's office on Fourth Avenue, "The major flashed in and out of the place, doing battles with the printers, the banks, and other enemies of the struggling comics".
Later career
Wheeler-Nicholson suffered from continual financial crises, both in his personal and professional lives. "Dick Woods" artist Lyman Anderson, whose Manhattan apartment Wheeler-Nicholson used as a rent-free pied-à-terre, said, "His wife would call [from home on Long Island] and be in tears...and say she didn't have money and the milkman was going to cut off the milk for the kids. I'd send out 10 bucks, just because she needed it".
The third and final title published under his aegis would be Detective Comics, advertised with a cover illustration dated Dec. 1936, but eventually premiering three months late, with a March 1937 cover date.
Detective Comics would become a sensation with the introduction of Batman in issue #27 (May 1939). By then, however, Wheeler-Nicholson was gone. In 1937, in debt to printing-plant owner and magazine distributor Harry Donenfeld — who was as well a pulp-magazine publisher and a principal in the magazine distributorship Independent News — Wheeler-Nicholson was compelled to take Donenfeld on as a partner in order to publish Detective #1. Detective Comics, Inc. was formed, with Wheeler-Nicholson and Jack S. Liebowitz, Donenfeld's accountant, listed as owners.
The major remained for a year, but cash-flow problems continued. In DC Comics' fiftieth anniversary publication, Fifty Who Made DC Great, the depression is cited as "forc[ing] Wheeler-Nicholson to sell his publishing business to Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz in 1937." Comics historian Gerard Jones describes the events somewhat differently:
As National Allied Publications went from strength to strength without him, Wheeler-Nicholson "gave up on the world of commerce thereafter and went back to writing war stories and critiques of the American military" in addition to straight "articles on politics and military history."
Action Comics and National Periodical Publications
Shortly afterward came the launch of what would have been his fourth title, National Allied Publications' Action Comics, the premiere of which introduced Superman (a character with which he was not directly involved; editor Vin Sullivan chose to run the feature after Sheldon Mayer rescued it from the slush pile). Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson had become, in some ways, the Pete Best of comics.
National Allied Publications and Detective Comics, Inc., soon merged to form National Comics, which in 1944 absorbed an affiliated concern, All-American Publications. Liebowitz then consolidated National Comics, Independent News, and related firms into National Periodical Publications, the direct precursor of DC.
Family
Actress Dana Wheeler-Nicholson (sometimes credited as Dana Wheeler Nicholson), who has appeared in movies including Fletch and Tombstone and in the casts of such TV series as Beverly Hills Buntz and All My Children, is his granddaughter.
Other works
- Book: Wheeler-Nicholson, Maj. Malcolm, Are We Winning the Hard Way? (Crowell Publishing, 1934)
- Book: Wheeler-Nicholson, Maj. Malcolm, Battle Shield of the Republic (Macmillan, 1940)
- Book: Wheeler-Nicholson, Maj. Malcolm, America Can Win (Macmillan, 1941)
Quotes
Business Week: "Siegel and Shuster submitted some material to comic book publisher Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, a bizarre figure given to wearing a French officer's cloak and a beaver cap. They also sent the first 13 pages of what would become Superman. Their material ended up in the slush pile. After Wheeler-Nicholson went bankrupt, Donenfeld and Liebowitz snapped up his properties. Deciding they needed another comic, an editor slapped together Action Comics. That included Superman, which was fished out of the heap".
Golden Age comics creator Sheldon Mayer on Wheeler-Nicholoson: "Not only the first man to publish comic books but also the first to stiff an artist for his check".
Footnotes
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