And so I'm back (from outer space) to share more comics goodness with you, dear readers. Some of you have been asking for less themes and more randomness, so, as always, I shall bow to the whim of the people. Today: a feature you may have seen on some of your back issues. Is it truly a reason to love comics? Find out inside.
5/3/07
123. Go-go checks
We've seen the go-go checkerboard pop up before in this column--thanks to gorilla witches, zoot suits, witch doctors, Jerry Lewis, Mike Sekowsky, and the like--but it hasn't gotten its own spotlight before!
What is the dreaded secret origin of these fascinating go-go checks? A classic Oddball Comics column tells us:
Those "Go-Go Checks" on the covers of many mid-1960s DC comic books were the creation of onetime DC Editorial Director Irwin Donenfeld. In an interview published in TwoMorrows' COMIC BOOK ARTIST, Donenfeld explains,
"In those days, comics were on the newsstands with vertical slots for the magazines. I wanted to have something that showed DC Comics were different than anything else. So I worked it out with Sol Harrison and out that checkerboard across the top. So wherever these magazines were displayed, you could always see a DC comic from way back. It was to distinguish us from anybody else."
Comic Book Spinner Rack tells us what the go-go checks are and where we can find them:
Known as Go-Go Checks, the checkerboard pattern that ran across the top of every issue for a year and a half was not simply a reflection of the era's pop-art movement. Since some newsstand racks displayed comics vertically, revealing only the upper portion of a book, the pattern was intended to make DC's comics stand out and thus, theoretically, increase sales. "What a ridiculous thing," Carmine Infantino declared. "It was the stupidest idea we ever heard because the books were bad in those days and that just showed people right off what not to buy." But Donenfeld disagreed: "I was trying to find a way of making DC Comics pop out on the newsstand. It wasn't a bad idea; it just didn't work the way I wanted it to. It didn't add anything, but I thought it might." In fact, total sales for the entire DC line during this period were at their peak for the 1960s, sales for Batman-related titles increased dramatically, and DC was outselling all of its competitors. The checks were most likely cancelled as a waste of precious cover space, and interestingly, sales did begin to stall about a year later.
Here's a go-go check checklist, courtesy of the Spinner Rack:
Action Comics #333-352
Adventure Comics #341-358
Adventures of Bob Hope #98-106
Adventures of Jerry Lewis #93-101
All-American Men of War #114-117
Aquaman #26-34
Atom #24-32
Batman #179-193
Blackhawk #218-234
Brave and the Bold #64-72
Capt. Storm #12-18
Challengers of the Unknown #49-57
Detective Comics #348-365
Doom Patrol #102-112
Falling In Love #82-92
Flash #159-171
Fox and the Crow #96-104
G.I. Combat #117-124
Girls' Love Stories #117-128
Girls' Romances #115-126
Green Lantern #43-54
Hawkman #13-20
Heart Throbs #100-108
House of Mystery #157-168
House of Secrets #77-80
Inferior Five #1-3
Justice League of America #43-54
Metal Men #18-26
Metamorpho #5-13
Mystery in Space #106-110
Our Army at War #165-183
Our Fighting Forces #98-108
Plastic Man #1-5
Sea Devils #28-35
Secret Hearts #110-120
Showcase #61-69
Star Spangled War Stories #126-133
Strange Adventures #185-202
Sugar and Spike #64-71
Superboy #127-140
Superman #185-198
Superman's Girl-Friend Lois Lane #63-75
Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #91-103
Swing with Scooter #1-7
Tales of the Unexpected #94-101
Teen Titans #2-10
Tomahawk #103-111
Wonder Woman #161-171
World's Finest Comics #156-167
Young Love #54-62
Young Romance #141-148
And here's a collection of some of my favorite go-go check-endorsed covers:
Are go-go checks really so great as to be a reason to love comics? Clearly, I think so. They're total comics kitsch-- a masthead for books that held crazy stories and wild ideas. If you dig up a comic with the checkerboard pattern at the top, you've found a damn fun comic.
The go-go checks have appeared here and there since their primary era faded. Usually, it's in a throwback to the old days, like this Radioactive Man cover from Bongo. The people bringing the checks back must be looking back on them not as a silly footnote in comics history, but as a little slice of fun from good days gone by. That's how I choose to see them, too. How about you?