Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the six hundred and seventy-first week where we examine comic book legends and whether they are true or false.

As always, there will be three different posts for each legend this week!

COMIC LEGEND:

A paper shortage led to a year-long delay on the final issues of a number of DC Comics titles

STATUS:

True

A while back, I did a TV Legends Revealed about how Johnny Carson once joked on The Tonight Show about how there was a lack of toilet paper and his joke shockingly CREATED a toilet paper shortage in the country!

Carson's comments were echoing a very real fact that there HAD been some shortages of paper in the United States. It wasn't to the extent where people wouldn't be able to get them in stores, but it WAS a real problem due to the fact there were a lot of strikes by paper mills in Canada. Canadian paper mills delivered most of the paper for newspapers and comic books in the early 1970s.

The end result was that it obviously got more expensive for comic book companies to make comic books and thus, the lower-selling comic book titles might now no longer be turning a profit. So DC Comics decided to abruptly cancel four of their lowest-selling titles in late 1973. Those titles were Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane, Secret Origin, Supergirl and Weird Worlds....

The problem with abruptly canceling a comic book series, however, is that obviously comic books work ahead of schedule, so there were already FOLLOWING issues of all of those titles in the works. DC just didn't think it was much of a priority to publish them now, since the books were canceled anyways.

However, in late 1974, after the strikes were all settled and the prices went back to normal, DC released the final issues of all of those titles, which caused some particularly humorous stuff like Supergirl tying in with a title, Prez, that had been canceled in the meantime....

Funny stuff. Thanks to the great John Wells for the information!


Check out some legends from Legends Revealed:

Was The Simpsons’ Famous Opening Credits Created to Save on Animation Time?

How Did Bambi Lead to the Creation of Smokey the Bear?

Did Barbie Once Come With a Weight Loss Advice Book That Simply Read “Don’t Eat”?

Was Judy Garland Paid Less for the Wizard of Oz Than the Dog Who Played Toto?


Check back Saturday for part 2 of this week's legends!

And remember, if you have a legend that you're curious about, drop me a line at either brianc@cbr.com or cronb01@aol.com!