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Fawcett Publications, was a Golden Age publisher best known for creating Captain Marvel.

History

"Captain Billy" Fawcett was crime reporter in Minneapolis and captain during World War I. After the war, he started his own publishing company and created Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, a magazine with jokes, gags and cartoons. Despite being seen as gaudy and immoral by some, the books were very popular in the 1920s. They quickly expanded into magazines, and sold millions monthly of True Confessions, Battle Stories, Dynamic Detective, Family Circle and others, each marketed at different crowds.

After the captain's death in 1940s, his four sons continued the company and branched out into comics, creating the division Fawcett Comics. They published Whiz Comics (Volume 1) and its star, Captain Marvel. The title was popular and outsold Superman during the 1940s, but National Comics Publications took legal action against them over copyright infringement. The trial was eventually decided in 1951 in favor of National Comics Publications, leading to the comics division of Fawcett being shut down. They sold some of its non-superhero comics to Charlton Comics and focused on magazines and books.

Fawcett Books was sold Ballantine Books in 1970. DC Comics, the successor of National Comics Publications, entered in a licensing agreement with Fawcett for Captain Marvel in 1971. The rest of the company was acquired by CBS in 1977. DC acquired the rights of the characters they had licensed outright in 1991. The remains of Fawcett Publications changed hands a few more times, with its most recent owner being Hearst Communications.


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