Will Eisner - Michael Schumacher [15]
Still, his contribution to comics was noteworthy. His comic book, New Fun, a thirty-six-page magazine featuring all new material, initially appeared in 1934 and ran for six issues until a lack of interest forced it out of existence. Wheeler-Nicholson wasn’t concerned with the comic book’s value as a periodical; instead, he hoped that the syndicates would look at his books’ contents and sign the comics they liked for regular inclusion in newspapers. It wasn’t a bad idea, and it might have worked if he’d had quality work to offer. As it was, he operated on a shoestring budget, picking up newspaper strips that nobody wanted and advertising for submissions from up-and-comers looking for a chance to break into comics and willing to take next to nothing to do so. Aesthetically, the books weren’t much—the Major couldn’t afford color except for the covers, and the contributions tended to be amateurish—but New Fun served as a marker, evidence of the possibilities for a well-financed publisher willing to take a chance on original material. Wheeler-Nicholson lost two editors because he couldn’t afford to pay them, but he was just sly and charming enough to talk his creditors and contributors into floating him long enough for another issue.
The challenge with comic books, as with all other forms of publication, was in the printing and distribution. Wheeler-Nicholson had connections with McCall’s magazine until his luck and money disappeared. Other comic book producers boasted of connections that reduced financial risk. Maxwell C. Gaines, a salesman for the Eastern Color Printing Company and, later, founder of the formidable EC Comics company, and Eastern’s sales manager, Harry Wildenberg, had teamed up in 1933 to publish Funnies on Parade, a collection of reprints designed as radio show giveaways for such sponsors as Wheatena and Canada Dry. Their access to Eastern’s printing press during the third shift, when the presses were quiet, made publication possible. The comic books were free to customers until the two decided to test a paying market by affixing a ten-cent price sticker on the cover and selling them on newsstands. To their surprise, a lot of people were willing to pay for reprints of comics they’d already read.
New titles, produced by both big companies like Dell and fly-by-night operators, surfaced in the wake of Wheeler-Nicholson’s New Fun. Sales figures, although not overwhelming, moved upward, to the quarter-of-a-million-copy range—enough to encourage aspiring publishers like John Henle to take a flier on issuing a magazine like the ill-fated Wow.
Bill Eisner had watched the birth and growth of the comic book business, and as he sat up in the Bronx, pondering what he would do after the failure of Wow, What a Magazine!, he reasoned that there had to be a way for him to capitalize on the popularity of this new entertainment medium. He was confident of his ability, which, he judged correctly, was equal to or better than what he was seeing on the newsstands. All he had to do was find the proper entrée into the business.
And that realization—that it was a business—provided his answer. For years, he’d listened to his mother harp about how art never paid off and how he needed to pursue a career with a need for his services; he’d worked hard at developing as an artist, with the hope that somebody out there would appreciate his talent and reward it with steady work. But artists could be found anywhere and everywhere, so to be needed, Eisner suddenly concluded, he’d have to become a businessman. He would