O.K. before we get started let me say I was asked to do this & have given it a lot of thought & can tell it is a lot of information to cover but I will do my best to share what I know.
Let me give most of you an eye opener. There are over 40 titles in the database that have cars as the focus of the book. When I say that I am counting all the Speed Racer titles as 1 & the Hot Rods and Racing Cars from all contries as 1. So to be honest I do not know how many there are. I can however tell you there are more missing & I find more all the time.
I am a car nut & have been collecting car comics (as a collection) for the past 10yrs, but have read them since the 70's. The titles I read then is where I started. I started with 3 car titles & 1 motorcycle title. These 4 titles totaled over 300 issues.
Since then I have added more titles to the database as I find them & to my collection when I can. I know that there are over 1,000 books in the database now. I think that CCL has more then any other site on the web. If not I am working on it!
My thought was to go by 5yr blocks but then I thought I might leave things out, then I thought I could go by title, or I could go by topic. So before I start covering the history of them I need some feed back on how you would like me to do it.
In my first part I will cover up to the 59's.
UPDATE:
When I did this section I strted with the oldest books I knew of but since then I found a title that is alot older then the ones I knew. It's not from the U.S. but I am doing a topic that covers the world & I have included titles that are not U.S. already. I have only seen the issues shown & the info I have is
The Triumph (U.K.)
1st issue October 18th 1924
last issue May 25th 1940
End ststs: Ran 16 yrs total of 814 issues
It incorporated 'The Boy's Friend' and 'Gem' comics before being merged into 'Champion' in 1940.
You may notice it has more issues the the one I call #1 and that is because it is not all about cars and if it was I feel that it being a weekly publication woul put it in a different group. I don't know how many issues had stories about cars, or on the cover so if you have any info please share.
In the 40's cars were not the topic of any series but once in a while you would see them as a major part of rhe story as in these
1945
and
Nov 1946
1947
1948
And there were more throught the years & I will insert them during the years they came out.
There was a comic book given away at the 1950 Indy 500. The comic was distributed by Perfect Circle Piston Rings. Covers the history of the Indy 500 beginning in 1911, including a two-page spread featuring pictures of all the previous Indy 500 race winners from 1911 to 1949. It was only 16 pages long and done on low quality paper. As far as I know this wad the first comic devoted to cars. It was also the first of many give away comis from car related interest. Today this is a rare comic to find in high quality shape and a quick look today found an issue selling for $95.00
here is one from Dell in 1951.
Now in 1951 there was the first comic about cars and the lives around them. It was titled Hot Rods and Racing Cars
This title is the second largest run of the car comics going from 1951-1973 and a total of 120 issues.
Now you will find this title in the land down under but the fact is they are not the same at all! Here is the cover for the #1 issue there
These books are only colored on the cover and the paper was a low grade newspaper type. So just like the Indy book finding them in high quality condition is hard and I don't think that there were as many copies printed to start with, helping the price of these (or at least what I find them at) from $12 - $25. The content is not only black & white but normaly only contains 1 or 2 stories from the U.S. version. What happened was that Charlton sold rights to publish a number of titles to a company there & they used any stories they wanted to under those titles. The one thing I have found is that the first story is from the title series. It is not how we would do things but there is one thing that a collector might look at and like, that is the cover art. The cover for this #1 issue was never used in the U.S..
However look at these covers
This is #18 in the U.S.
thia is the #5 from there. They are not the same but close enough. Now as far as dates it is hard to tell those from there due to the fact that if you find them they are mainly only the year. This was done to help with sales. Readers werte lead to think that they were getting the current stories and by not having the month in them there was no rush on distribution.
So just to show the two countries covers for the same issue #'s and show some you might not see anywhere else.
Our #7
Theirs
Our #11
Theirs
Our #12
Theirs
Our #13
Theirs
Now this was not the only title during that time there was also Hot Rod Comics
like the title named before this one it too was sold down under
but it was also sold in the U.K.
They all use the same cover art and you need to look close to tell them apart. Now here is something I have no answer for & maybe someone could tell mewhy, but thereare 7 issues in the U.S, and 7 issues in the U.K. but not down under. I have scans of issues #1
& #2 that are the same as the other two contries, I do not have one for #3 and the one for #4 is the same as the cover for #7 in the other countries.
U.S.
U.K.
Australian Editio
That is not all of the titles that crossed the water there was also Hot Rods and Speedways
U.S. #1
U.S. #2
U.K. #4
I do not own any of these ftom the U.K but if you look on the left side of the cover it says all in color. Why did this title get that attention?
Maybe this title is the reason?
Compare this to the one below from the U.S., the only change are the colors.
And to answer the question, No this is all black and white inside.
Here is another title from down under that has nothing to do with the U.S. title of the same name.
Now I will show you some of the giveaway books that came out during the 50's.
Now here is one of my favorities.
There was only the 3 issues in the series but a lot more car comics by Archie.
Here is the first issue of the largest run of any car comic titles, CARtoons which ended in 1991 with 186 issues.
This title was created by two of the best artist of car comics, Pete Millar, and Carl Kohler.
Pete Millar was a weekend warrior at the dragstrips in southern California and was an easy going guy who was always looking on the positive side and if there wasn't one then he tried to make light of it with humor. Through his years of racing he became friends with many of the now famous racers such as Don "Big Daddy" Garlits, Tommy "T.V." Ivo, Don "Dyno" Nicholson, to name a few.
Carl Kohler was another cartoonist that Pete knew & respected and was asked to work with him on the title. However he only worked on the first issue then left over a dispute with Peterson executive Ken Bayless about the arrival of the check they were to recive, but Millar stayed with the magazine as an editor and contributor. He did four issues at home, and then worked on magazine-sized issues until the 11th, published in 1963.
I could do a large story on Pete Millar and what he did for car comis and could do the same for CARtoons!
With 186 issues it is the #1 of all car comics. Here is how the others stack up.
Top 10 series based on number of issues.
CARtoons 186
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 120
Drag Cartoons 79
(4 publishers & Best of Issues)
All Speed Racer titles 69
Hot Rod Cartoons 61
Teenage Hotrodders/Top Eliminator/Drag N' Wheels 59*
Dragstrip Hotrodders/World of Wheels 32
Hotrod Racers/Grand Prix 31*
All Nascar title combined 27
Racin'toons 15
*Title change only, the numbering continues as well as characters.
I put these together since they were done by the same publisher and on the front of the second title they have informed readers of the former title and the numbers continue where the old one stopped.
I know that it's not right to list the Speed Racer & Nasscar as a top series when I add all their titles but it would have been harder to show the top 10 if you went wth the number of issues per title.
