Four Color
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- This article is about the comic book series; a separate article is available about the four color theorem.
Four Color, also known as Four Color Comics, was an extremely prolific American comic book anthology series published by Dell Comics between 1939 and 1962. In total, approximately 1,375 issues were published, usually with multiple titles released every month. The first 25 issues are known as "series 1"; after they were published, the numbering began again and "series 2" began. An exact accounting of the actual number of unique issues produced is difficult because occasional issue numbers were skipped, although the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide nonetheless lists well over 1,000 individual issues. It currently holds the record for most issues produced of an American comic book; its nearest rivals, Action Comics and Detective Comics, both still publishing monthly issues after more than 65 years, only recently passed their 800th issues.
Unlike most comic book series of the day, which were either devoted to one character, or were anthologies with collections of stories starring the cartoon characters of a particular studio, Four Color instead devoted each individual issue to different characters. One issue might feature a popular cartoon character, while the next might be an adaptation of a popular movie or TV series. Thus the phrase "one shot" which was used in the publisher's code in the first interior page of the first story. For example issue 223 (1949) was denoted DDOS 223 which translates as Donald Duck One-Shot #223. Most Four Color titles featured licensed properties; relatively few original characters were created for the line. The first Four Color comic featured comic strip and movie serial hero Dick Tracy; the last (issue number 1,354, series 2) was based upon the TV series Calvin and the Colonel.
Many Four Color titles, if they proved popular enough, would often spin-off ongoing, independent series of their own, usually published by Dell or Gold Key Comics, and the issue numbering of these spin-offs often took into account any previous Four Color issues. Four Color also published many of the first comics featuring characters licensed from Walt Disney.
Identifying Four Color comics can be a challenge, as only issues published between c.1940 and 1946 actually carried the title Four Color Comics on the cover.
Documenting the extent of the Four Color series was among the bibliographic tasks undertaken in the early 60s by emerging comic book fandom. Uber-fans Donald and Maggie Thompson took the lead in this endeavor and in 1968 finally issued "A Listing of Dell Special Series Comic Books (and a Few Others)" as Bibliographic Supplement no. 1 to their legendary fanzine Comic Art. In its 35 pages it listed not only individual titles of comic books published in the Color/Four Color series but those in these series: Black and White, Large Feature, United Feature Single Series, Comics on Parade, McKay Feature Books, Stories by Famous Authors Illustrated, and Classics Illustrated (Classic Comics).
The title is a reference to the four basic colors used when printing comic books: cyan, magenta, yellow and black.
