Ace Comics

Ace Comics is a comic book series published by David McKay Publications during and just prior to the Golden Age era of comics. The first issue, written by Alex Raymond with Jungle Jim, Blondie, and Felix, debuted on April 1937. It introduced one of the first costumed heroes ever to be featured in a comic book in Ace Comics No. 11 in February 17, 1936 with Lee Falk's The Phantom. This brought an end to the Pre-Golden Age and led up to the Golden Age of comics along with the creation of Joe Shuster's and Jerry Siegal's Superman from Action Comics No. 1. The Ace Comics series continually introduce new characters such as Brick Bradford and the Lone Ranger until the series was canceled with Ace Comics #151 in 1949.

Major Features

The Phantom

The Phantom, created by Lee Falk, featured a crime-fighting hero who donned a mask and purple body suit to battle evil. It is recognized as one of the first comics series ever to include a costumed hero. Ironically, The Phantom was originally envisioned grey but became purple because of a newspaper printing error.

Blondie

Blondie featured Blondie Boopadoop and her boyfriend (later husband) Dagwood Bumstead. The comic's storylines revolved around their life in suburbia. Other characters were introduced over time, such as their neighbors, their children, and their dog Daisy.

Felix

Felix, a black cat with large white eyes, originated as a cartoon in silent films. It has since become a highly recognizable character worldwide, ranked along with Disney's Mickey Mouse and Shigeru Miyamoto's Mario. Felix was one of the first animated characters to attract audiences to the movies solely to watch the cartoons.

Ripley's Believe It or Not!

"Ripley's Believe It or Not!" was created by Robert Ripley and was a cartoon panel that described objects and events that were so strange and unusual that they seemed unbelievable to the reader. The series began with tales of amazing sports feats and later branched out into other genres.

Jungle Jim

Jungle Jim is an American newspaper comic strip first published January 7, 1934, by writer Don Moore and artist Alex Raymond, which starred the jungle adventurer for which it was named. It was primarily focused on jungle themes such as pirates and slave traders, but developed wartime themes during World War II.

The Captain and the Kids

The Captain and the Kids was a comic series created by Rudolph Dirks which is extremely similar to that of his previous comic, the Katzenjammer Kids. The series, featuring brothers who rebelled against authority, was inspired by "Max and Moritz", a famous children's story of the 1860s by the German Wilhelm Busch.

Prince Valiant

Prince Valiant is a comic book series created by Hal Foster. The series usually featured stories based on mythology, particularly those related to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. However, in 1942 the series began to change its focus from magical themes to more realistic ones.

Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger is a comic based on a television and radio series of the same name. The hero of the stories was a masked cowboy from the Old West, along with his Native American sidekick, Tonto.

Brick Bradford

Brick Bradford was a science fiction comic series created William Ritt and artist Clarence Gray. The series featured dinosaurs, intergalactic villains, robots, subatomic worlds, and a time machine.