First up, let me say I am deeply indebted to Jon B. Cooke and the folks who conducted and compiled the interviews and articles in The Comic Book Artist, issues 9 and 12, from 2000. Those provided a ton of information about the beginnings and operation of the company, from their beginnings selling magazines of song lyrics to the final end, in the early 1980s. I highly recommend you seek those issues out, if you are interested in Charlton and its history and the creative people involved. Sometimes I use Wikipedia articles as a guide, helping keep track of titles and timelines; but, some are better than others. The Charlton entry is almost entirely taken from these two magazines.
Charlton Comics, part of Charlton Publications, is a story of an immigrant who goes from rags to riches, via good, honest hard work; or so the founders would have you believe. The truth is that, yes, an immigrant went from modest means to wealth; but, not entirely honestly. The story begins in the 1930s, as John Santangelo Sr., a bricklayer from Italy, was working on a job near Derby, CT. He met a young woman (a teenager, according to his son Charles) and fell for her. She was a music fan and tried to keep track of the lyrics to popular songs, so that she could sing along. While courting her, he asked if he could bring her anything from New York and she asked for magazines with the song lyrics in them. Santangelo scoured newsstands; but found that most music-related magazines were about singers and musicians, while sheet music publishers controlled the printing of those items. Sometimes they had the lyrics for pop songs; but, not always. He bought some of these and presented them to his girl; but then took her typewritten sheets of music and talked to a printer about getting copies made (in the years before Xerox). With the costs involved, it made as much economic sense to print a thousand copies as 50, so that's what he had done. He then took the sheets, folded in half, put a 10-cent price tag on them and took them around to different shops, persuading them to sell them on consignment, splitting the money in half for any sold copies. When Santangelo checked back, they had sold out within a couple of days and the store owners wanted more. Thus began a sideline of publishing music lyrics. There was just one problem, though. Santangelo never asked for permission to reproduce the song lyrics from the music publishing companies or recording companies.
Santangelo soon found himself on the wrong end of copyright law and ended up being sentenced to jail for one year and one day. Unfortunately, the interviews don't really examine the court proceedings, so I don't know why a civil law violation ended up with a criminal sentence (contempt? Some other statute?); but, Santangelo was off to jail, while his wife was left with their son, on the outside. While there in prison, Santangelo made a connection, with disbarred lawyer Ed Levy. Levy had been convicted for a billing fraud scandal in Waterbury, CT. These two men became friendly and talked about Santangelo's business, which had proved profitable. When they were released, they decided to go into business together, this time seeking permission from the copyright holders. They set up the T.W.O. Charles Company (two Charles, as both had sons named Charles), which evolved into Charlton. They began producing legitimate song lyric magazines, expanding the lyric sheets with photos and articles about the songs and artists. Their top titles were Hit Parader and Song Hits.
Charlton focused on their music magazines for years; but, soon saw that other areas of magazine publishing could be profitable. However, they got in the game late, in 1945. Their first titles were packaged for them by Loyd Jacquet's Funnies, Inc, which had also packaged material for the first issue of Marvel Comics, featuring the debuts of the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner, for Timely. Charlton's first comics were Yellowjacket, Zoo Funnies, Jack in the Box and TNT Comics.
Charlton used several different names to publish these books, similar to how other publishers handled new titles (including Martin Goodman, and the folks at DC). They were small potatoes in the field; adding just a few titles, like Tim McCoy, Cowboy Western and Pictorial Love Stories. Charlton would soldier on like this for a few years, never challenging anyone even for the middle slot, let alone the top.
In 1951, Charlton decided to bring their comic business in house and hired editor Al Fago (brother of Timely editor Vince Fago)away from Funnies , Inc, to produce the material. Fago brought along a few people, including a young artist, named Richard Giordano. You may know him better as Dick Giordano. Joining them were such folks as Sam Glanzman, Sal Trapani, Bill Molno, and Rocke Mastroserio. They began to expand their line, adding horror, which resulted in the comic The Thing.
This comic would become notorious for gory stories (as would Charlton's other horror titles) and would also serve as the launching point for Steve Ditko's association with the company, with issue #12.
Charlton, like many publishers, would end a comic and then pick up the numbering, under a new title. The reasoning for this was related to Second Class mailing privileges. It cost more money to apply for those rates for a new title, than it did to rename a magazine and carry on its registration with the postal service. Many publishers did this, which is why you often see weird numberings for comic series (DC's Tarzan comic picked up the numbering from Gold Key); but, Charlton became notorious for this: Yellowjacket became Jack in the Box, Zoo Funnies became Tim McCoy, which then turned into Pictorial Love Stories. This practice carried on for years at Charlton and would drive collectors mad, as they would be searching for non-existent comics. It also didn't help that Charlton didn't always include numbering on the cover!
Charlton soon expanded again, thanks to Frederick Wertham and the comic book witch hunts. The Catholic League of Decency, Frederic Wertham and several other organizations and people launched crusades and articles attacking comics for promoting juvenile delinquency, violence, and illiteracy (by keeping kids from reading more "wholesome" and "educational" reading material). It was all bunk and newspaper strips had gone through this cultural crusading a generation before; but, these groups got enough local governments stirred up that they began enacting laws that restricted types of comics from being sold, specifically targeting crime and horror comics, though superheroes were thrown into the mix. Sen. Estes Kefauver held hearings to determine if the Federal government should get involved in legislating the industry. The government stayed out, while the industry caved and created the Comics Code Authority, which self-regulated comics. It was used to drive out publishers like EC and Lev Gleason, who had made big money in horror and crime (respectively). despite equally grisly horror comics, Charlton emerged unscathed and would reap a windfall from the publishers who fell into financial difficulty, as a result of the hysteria. They picked up unpublished material and titles from such companies as Superior, St. John, and Mainline (Simon & Kirby's company) and would also gain quite a bit of material from Fawcett, who closed up shop after settling the lawsuit launched by DC (over Captain Marvel) and with the general downturn in the industry. Charlton ended up bagging several funny animal comics and western titles from Fawcett, including Nyoka and Lash Larue. This gave them plenty of new material, from humor, to westerns, to sci-fi, to romance, all of it without having to pay anyone to produce it. They published these comics and continued them, using their numbering, in some cases, to launch new titles of their own.
Meanwhile, John Santangelo and Ed Levy decided that the best way to run their company was to bring every aspect of production and distribution under one roof. The published their magazines as Charlton Publications, their comics as Charlton Comics, and distributed them via Capital Distribution (not to be confused with the later Direct Market distributor). They soon set up their own printing plant, buying up an old press in Pennsylvania and moving it to a new facility in Derby, CT. Soon, they had everything, literally, under one roof.
The photo above shows the Derby facilities. The magazine and comic office were in one part of the building, distribution in another, and the presses in another. Trucks would be at one end, while the art desks and color separation were at the other. The comics and magazines would be put together in those offices, go to the printing presses, then onto the trucks and off to the vendors. In fact, the comic business really existed to provide enough work to keep the printing presses going. Printing is an expensive process to start and stop. To make money at it, work needs to be constantly fed to the presses. The Charlton music magazines, as well as crossword puzzle magazines, were the bread and butter of the company. However, they alone didn't create enough work to keep the presses moving and cover the cost of overhead. The comics provided the needed work. However, the owners never looked upon the comics as anything other than material to keep the presses going. As Dick Giordano said, they had the technical set-up to challenge DC for leadership of the industry, as they could create comics, print them and distribute them, for less than the cost for DC to have outside presses and distribution (though owned by DC heads Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz). However, they had no interest in controlling the industry. Like Western Printing and Lithography (who published comics via Dell; and, later, Gold Key/Whitman), comics were a sideline to provide work to their printing division, which was there primarily to produce other material (Little Golden Books and puzzles, for Western). The end result was Charlton did everything on the cheap, with their comics.
Charlton was notorious for having some of the lowest rates in the business. Joe Gill said writing rates would be around $4 per page, while the art might be $20; but, that was soon dropped to $13. However, as Charlton churned out a lot of material, they could promise volume to their key people (Gill, Ditko, Giordano and a few others). Many of their people held regular jobs and did comics as a sideline. Pat Morisi had been working in comics; but, the hysteria had reduced his income. He took the police exam and passed, becoming a police officer in the New York area. He still picked up art jobs on the side; but, had to sign them PAM (Pete A Morisi), to hide the fact that he was moonlighting, from the police department.
In 1955, after Hurricane Diane tore up the East Coast, heavy rains produced by the storm created massive flooding. One of the victims of this was Charlton's Derby plant. Water reached as high as 18 feet, forcing some, including artist Maurice White, to be evacuated from the plant via helicopter. A contemporary newspiece claims that Charlton rallied the troops, cleaned up the place, and had it going in 10 days. The truth was that they farmed out printing to other printers (especially for the more profitable magazines) and spent months cleaning, repairing and rebuilding the printing and related operations. Meanwhile, John Santangelo went ot the staff and said they would have to cut rates, to stay in business. Writers were cut to $2 per page, while artists were knocked down to $6.50! According to Joe Gill and Dick Giordano, it took years to climb back to the $13 range and never really got anywhere near DC and Marvel rates; but, valued staff were promised specific volumes of work to keep them going. Meanwhile, Santangelo got a financial windfall, in the form of government money to rebuild. How much do you want to bet he hug onto as much of that as he could?
At that time, Charlton was producing sci-fi, horror, funny animals (including Al Fago's Atomic Mouse) westerns, and romance.
Among the material Charlton had acquired were the rights to the old Fox superhero, the Blue Beetle. They published some reprints in Space Adventures #13 and then decided to revive the title.
The 4 issues were unspectacular and the title was quickly shelved. Following standard operating procedure, the numbering was picked up for a new comic, from Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel.
These two comics provided some of the goofiest "superhero" comics you will ever find and were quickly killed. Siegel wasn't done yet, and he next created Nature Boy, with art by John Buscema.
Buscema's art only appears in the first issue, but what a first issue.
(read the whole story at
Rip Dagger's Dojo, a great place for Charlton-related material)
Rocke Mastroserio did most of the art on the rest of the stories and the book morphed into The Li'l Rascal Twins, with issue 6.
(it had picked up its initial numbering from Danny Blaze, a comic about a firefighter).
Siegel was involved with one more comic, which Joe Gill would flesh out and Rocke Mastroserio would draw: Zaza the Mystic
(numbering carried over from Charlie Chan, which was a Crestwood acquisition, and the book would be turned into the second volume of This Magazine is Haunted, with issue 12)
The comic features a gypsy fortuneteller and Joe Gill said Ed Levy had had his fortune told at a restaurant by a woman named Zsa Zsa (not the Gabor sister) and thought it would make a great series. This was the result, which Gill mistakenly said ran a couple of years (couple of issues, was the correct length) and which he said was awful (well, you wrote it!)
That was pretty much Charlton from the 40s through the 50s. They churned out genre material through that 15 year period, some good, plenty bad, all to keep the presses going. With the low rates, they weren't exactly getting the best work out there, apart from people like Ditko, who put everything into every story. However, many people continued to work for them because they enjoyed it there. Dick Giordano describes ping-pong games with Ditko and Ditko bringing candy to the women in the color separation department. Comics were an uncertain business and Charlton's editors mostly let people get on with the work, without interference, while bigger companies involved much massaging of editor's egos to get work, if they would even see you. DC was pretty much a closed shop. They would call a creator up if they wanted work from them. otherwise, you didn't speak to them. Atlas had severely cut back and that threw many artists in Charlton's direction. Some money was better than none. The EC collapse had done the same, as well as the other 50s casualties. The good ones stayed until something better came along, like John Severin. Others stayed because they didn't have to play office politics. Some worked both sides of the fence. Jack Abel did some work for Charlton, while working primarily for DC, because Robert Kanigher took two months off in the summer and just put his books on hold, telling his artists to fend for themselves (no wonder he was so well loved by his people). Abel would pick up enough work to keep him going, until he went back to DC.
While all of this went on, the magazine line was making the real money. Charlton even published a girlie magazine, Peep Show.
This was more in the line of the Robert Harris magazines; burlesque dancers and corny jokes; but little or no actual nudity. The would later print and distribute a real, hardcore magazine: Hustler.
Over the years, Charlton was dogged by rumors of having mob ties. Those that worked there, particularly Giordano, deny this. The Mob was known to be involved in printing and distribution operations, going back at least to the pulp days. As such, they were often silent partners in comic book publishing and distribution. Many of the magazine distribution companies employed coercive techniques, though more product bundling than outright extortion. If you wanted the popular magazines, you ad to take X number of lesser titles. There were stories of immigrants working at the Derby plant, brought over by Santangelo. They lived in company housing, which was paid for out of their salaries, as well as the initial costs of bringing them over. Basically, indentured servitude. Again, shady practices; but, not necessarily Mob. However, there was a legitimate mob connection, at least with Charlton Publications. Morris Levy, a shady entrepreneur who was a key figure in the early music industry and involved in the payola scandals (with DJs like Alan Freed and Murray "The K" Kaufman) was a consultant to Charlton's music magazine publishing. Levy (no relation to Ed is known) had big contacts in the business and was probably instrumental in getting the printing rights to song lyrics, as well as other access for features. he was also notorious for attaching his name to song copyrights and syphoning off royalties. He was investigated by the FBI for years, before finally being convicted in 1986 for extortion. Levy had connections to the Genovese Family, as well as other crime families and figures. It was not unknown for mobsters to use printing plants to produce pornography and counterfeit money, though there is no evidence that such things happened at Charlton, though rumors persist. Kind of hard not to suspect criminal activity in a company founded by two men, who became friends in jail.
Next, we will take a look at Charlton's expansion in the 60s and the start of their Action Hero line.