#Irwin Donenfeld

[inhousearchive]

A DC Comics house-ad running throughout titles with a cover date of June 1966, featuring their infamous go-go checks -- likely the work of editorial director Irwin Donenfeld.

[brevoorthistoryofcomics]

WC: ADVENTURE COMICS #295

WC: ADVENTURE COMICS #295

Much as with its sister title ACTION COMICS, ADVENTURE COMICS had adjusted to shrinking page counts by reducing the number of features that it ran from three to two. That second feature position eventually wound up handed over to the Legion of Super Heroes, who promptly took over the entire magazine. But before that, it seems as though there was a bit of a struggle in landing on a back-up that…

[ladythatsmyskull]

Popularly attributed to Carmine Infantino there famously used to be a list of all the cover art elements that DC Comics sales used to track that the company believed resulted in an uptick in sales for their titles.

Among those items were a gorilla on the cover, a large purple area, questions that engaged the reader etc. There may be some truth to it based on DC's collected data.

Originally compiled by Irwin Donenfeld the letter, typed up by Tom Breevort in the above image and the history detailed in his newsletter, was the subject of much comic book lore for decades and may even be true.

Eventually Mark Waid arranged for a cover containing all the legendary elements to be created by Bill Wray for 1989s Secret Origins #40, a fun in-joke for fans.

[batbaffle]

re: selina and being removed from comics you should read this

https://www.cbr.com/catwoman-banned-comics-code-authority/#:~:text=Among%20the%20sinful%20and%20morally,and%20shelved%20until%20the%201960s.

so basically catwoman was basically stripped from the comics for over a decade due to cca + dc’s own censorship. in this period of time bruce would get “nicer” love interests or literal knockoffs with less moral agency to replace her and you can tell that the censorship really only ended by the end of the 1970s, when she was officially brought back.

huh, interesting. thanks for sharing <3

selina was pretty screwed between the "no sexy women" rules and "no moral ambiguity" rules. the CCA-approved catwoman reprint mentioned in that article had zero romance and zero moral ambiguity though, unlike most other catwoman stories. selina was written as a one-dimensional criminal working with other one-dimensional criminals, with their only goal being "ruin batman's reputation". good thing the 1971 CCA changes lightened up on that.

it's kinda wild that barbara debuted (DC #359, Jan 1967) directly after selina was brought back (SGFLL #70, Nov 1966). that happened because of the TV show though. also, i love how schwartz immediately scrapped kathy and vicki as bruce's love interests when he took over as editor in 1964.

irwin donenfeld: guys, youve gotta get batman's popularity back up

julie schwartz & carmine infantino: say no more *brings about the silver age*

[kevinsworldofcomics-blog]

Ah, DC’s go-go checks... 

As a kid, I didn’t I know the full story behind them: editor Irwin Donenfeld going with a tactic from the Pop Art/mod craze of the mid-1960s in order to make DC’s comics “pop” on the newsstand. All I knew was a) they looked cool, and b) they made the kind of comics I was looking for easy to spot.

To reiterate a point I’ve made before on here: outside of the key issues, no one seemed to care about Silver Age comics when I started my hunt (the early 1980s). Back issues bins were STUFFED with 1960s books — DC, Marvel, Charlton, etc — most priced in the $1-$2 range; the hard part was whittling down a massive pile to fit the allowance budget I had.

Thus, the advantage of the checks — you could see them right away along the top of a row of comics & go directly there. But then came the suspense... what would be waiting under that banner? 

These pretty much fell into the following categories for me:

“Yessss!”

“Don’t know much about the character(s), or don’t usually buy the series, but this looks intriguing.”

“Huh?”

“Ew, it’s a trap!!!”

[popculturespread]

Adam Strange is a science fiction superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by editor Julius Schwartz with a costume designed by Murphy Anderson, he first appeared in Showcase #17 (November 1958). In 1957, DC Comics editorial director Irwin Donenfeld held a meeting with editors Jack Schiff and Julius Schwartz in his office, asking them each to create a new science fiction hero: one from the present, and one from the future. Given first pick, Schiff chose to create one from the future (Space Ranger). However, Schwartz was happy with the pick, feeling that readers would more readily identify with a hero from the present. He conceived the idea of an Earth man repeatedly traveling to a planet in the Alpha Centauri star system using a Zeta-beam altered by space radiation, and named his character Adam after the first man on Earth according to the Abrahamic faiths, since Adam Strange was the first Earthman on another planet.

[comicmix]

Mike Gold: Suicide Squad, John Ostrander, and My Damn Good Luck

Mike Gold: Suicide Squad, John Ostrander, and My Damn Good Luck

Are you tired of all the comics-related movies this summer? I didn’t think so, but I do understand why some of the movie critics are. These poor bastards see a couple hundred movies each year, they have little choice over which ones they must review and after a couple years, the daily smell of hot popcorn must become cloying. Still, a couple of these writers have become complete assholes about…

[billyhogan]

Superman Fan Podcast Episode #116: Happy Birthday, Irwin Donenfeld!

Superman Fan Podcast Episode #116: Happy Birthday, Irwin Donenfeld!

Download Episode 116!

Irwin Donenfeld was born on March 1, 1926, and died on November 29, 2004 (which would have been one day after my late mother’s 66th birthday). His parents were DC Comics co-founder Harry Donenfeld and Gussie Donenfeld. Irwin and his wife had six children: Rita Lynn (a real estate…

[brevoorthistoryofcomics]

WC: BATMAN #167

This particular issue of BATMAN was the only one I got in my Windfall Comics purchase of 1988 that featured editor Julie Schwartz’s “New Look” revamp version of Batman and Robin. After years under former editor Jack Schiff and with sales dwindling, irwin Donenfeld shifted the Caped Crusader over to Schwartz’s editorial control. Even at that time, Julie was considered the super hero revamp kind,…