Comic Book Implosion: An Oral History of DC Comics Circa 1978

I started collecting comics in 1979, and I remember the first comic books I purchased were 40 cents each.  I soon discovered there were a few $1 anthology titles from DC Comics (such as Superman Family, Detective Comics starring the Batman Family, Adventure Comics, World's Finest, among others), and I was excited to see comics with more pages and story.  In 1980, the regular line of DC Comics' 40 cent titles suddenly increased in price, going up to 50 cents - but with that 10-cent increase came eight extra pages of story and art, offering some unique back-up features that, quite frankly, I found more exciting than the actual main titles!  Wonder Woman offered a back-up featuring the Huntress, a character new to me that I immediately fell in love with and has since become my favorite comic character of all time; DC Comics Presents offered a back up asking the question, "Whatever Happened To ...?" that introduced me to a number of characters I had never heard of before!  The Flash had Firestorm added to its comic; The Super Friends had alternating stories of the Wonder Twins and the Global Guardians; and so many others in the numerous regular titles being published at the time.  I was in awe, having never seen an idea I thought to be so innovative!  Of course, years later, as an adult collector, I discovered that this was not the first time DC did this.  It seems back in 1978, DC expanded its books with an increased price and increased page count - an attempt that allegedly failed, resulting in what fans have called for decades the "DC Implosion."  I've only known what I've read and heard through the years about this so-called Implosion; heck, I even purchased copies of copies of the two Cancelled Comics Cavalcade that gave fans black-and-white reproductions of the various stories and comics that were supposed to be published in 1978, but ended up in desk drawers, unpublished, due to the Implosion.  But now, TwoMorrows Publishing has given fans a look back at that year (and the years surrounding it), to provide a more in-depth look at what really happened to DC Comics at that time...

Comic Book Implosion (Expanded Edition) is written by Keith Dallas and John Wells.  The original edition was published back in 2018, but this expanded edition came out this year, and I was quick to purchase a copy.  Dallas and Wells do not just give readers a narrative discourse on what transpired over those several years of ups and downs at DC Comics; no, instead, after a brief introduction and prologue that set the stage, they break down the saga into three sections:  the pre-explosion years (1976-78), the actual explosion (1978), and the implosion (1978-80).  In each of these sections, the authors provide a chronological look at what took place through the eyes of creators, editors, publishers, fans, and other various sources.  Each section is filled with quotes from fanzines, journals, magazines, interviews, books, and other various sources that allow the reader to follow along the journey - from the build-up to that big explosion, when DC wanted to try something different and expand the page-count to coincide with the necessary increase in price ... to the actual explosion itself, when many titles suddenly jumped from 32 pages to 40 pages, with the price increasing from 35 cents to 50 cents ... to the sudden implosion just three months after it began, with more than just the page count being cut at the comic company.  Rather than a simple narrative, readers hear it directly from the mouths of those involved:  Carmine Infantino, Jenette Kahn, Paul Levitz, Mike Gold, Tony Isabella, Steve Englehart, Bob Rozakis, Martin Pasko, Roy Thomas, Jim Shooter, Al Milgron, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Larry Hama, Len Wein, Jack C. Harris, Walter Simonson, and many others, including Mike Tiefenbacher, then editor of The Comic Reader fanzine.  I absolutely love this method of relaying the tale, as it allows those involved to relate it from their own perspective and experiences as it happened, and it also allows the readers to draw their own conclusions.

This book offers a lot of insight into not just the explosion/implosion, but it reveals considerable information about the publishing of comics themselves.  I learned quite a bit about why the prices increased in the way that they did, and how the sales of the books themselves did not always dictate a book's frequency or cancellation.  I never knew that at one point, the companies were limited in the number of books they could publish, which resulted in some titles being bi-monthly, so that they could still offer a large variety, alternating some of the books every other month so they could stay within the limit.  I also never realized the corporate ownership of DC played a big part of the implosion, that it was not necessarily to do with the sales themselves being low.  I was also surprised to learn that characters such as Bucky O'Hare and Ms. Mystic were originally considered by DC for publication, but after the implosion and the large layoff of creators, those characters went with their creators and eventually saw publication with independent comic companies.  Even Mike Grell's Starslayer, which I never even thought about the fact that it was basically a space-take on his Warlord character already being published by DC.

I also love the fact that Dallas and Wells intersperse some breaks in-between all of the quotes, offering up listings of the titles published in each year - from early 1976 offering up 47 different titles, to early 1977 increasing to 51 titles, to early 1978 (just before the explosion) with a slight decrease to 49 titles, to the summer 1978 explosion line-up that gave readers only 43 titles, but most of them with additional back-up stories that filled the additional eight pages (and listing nine titles that were cancelled or never saw publication at all), to the early 1979, post-implosion list of only 26 titles being published - talk about a huge cut!  And last, but not least, they provide a list of the titles being published in 1980, when DC once again increased the price from 40 cents up to 50 cents, offering eight additional pages of story and art (but not increasing the page count; rather, they reduced the ads inside to accommodate the new back-up stories), which, at the time, was a total of 30 titles.  This was shortly after I started reading comics, so I can still remember that excitement of seeing these additional pages (although not necessarily thrilled with the additional 10 cents I had to pay for each comic).

Another great thing the authors do in this book is provide a section towards the end devoted solely to indexing the Cancelled Comic Cavalcade (the two-issue, never-published collection of all the stories and art that were cut when the implosion took place).  Not only do they provide details about each issue and story of all the comics that were cut, but they also provide some of the unpublished pages of art.  There are also some preliminary cover art pages that show what some of the comic covers would have looked like had the 40-page comics not been cut (such as Wonder Woman 250, which would have had an ad in he bottom right corner for the extra "Tales of the Amazons" story, and Flash 268, which would have had a blurb about the Kid Flash back-up story planned for that issue).  There is also considerable information about the delays in the Superman: The Movie special magazine that had to be postponed every time the movie got pushed back; and also, the Superman vs. Muhammad Ali super-size comic, and the troubles that special faced.  And then, at the end of the book, Dallas and Wells provide readers with a chronological list of all titles cancelled by DC and Marvel both, from 1976 through 1980, and it is a bit jaw-dropping to see just how many wonderful books were cut during that brief period.

This book truly is a wealth of information, even if you are not at all interested in the DC Implosion.  There are tidbits about the Whitman reprints, information about the adaptation of Star Wars (which DC passed on!!!!), the controversy over Black Lightning in the comics vs. Black Vulcan in the Super Friends cartoon, details about DC's Direct Currents newsletter, the ongoing competition between DC and Marvel, how other smaller companies were affected by DC and Marvel and the price increases, and so, so, SO much more!  After having read this book, I have an entirely new take on DC Comics' history and understand now just how much the comics industry has suffered as a whole due to corporate ownership by people who truly have no appreciation for what the comic book medium is able to offer its fans.  I think we all owe a huge debt to Keith Dallas and John Wells for compiling all of these interviews, blurbs, quotes, commentaries, press releases, and other documented sources and organizing them in a logical order - the amount of time and research this much have taken is awe-inspiring - kudos to them both!

RATING:  10 of the most exciting super-heroes in comics out of 10 for giving readers the most detailed, most well-researched, and most informative history out there of one of the comic industries' biggest, and most infamous, "events"