Cancelled Comic Cavalcade
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Cancelled Comic Cavalcade is a publication reproduced in the offices of DC Comics in very limited quantity following the "DC Implosion" in 1978 that features material originally intended for series that were abruptly cancelled. Because of its scarcity and its significance to the history of the publisher, original copies are highly sought by collectors, and it is widely bootlegged.[citation needed]
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[edit] History
In 1978, rather than raising the prices of their books by five cents in response to inflation, DC increased prices from 35 cents all the way to 50 cents, but substantially increased the number of story pages in each issue. This was promoted - along with the launch of new series - as the "DC Explosion". However, executives at Warner Publishing (which had purchased DC two years earlier) responded to poor sales figures (worsened in part by bad weather and shipping delays the previous winter) and instructed DC to immediately reduce their output to twenty titles of 32 pages each, priced at 40 cents. Industry observers quickly dubbed this the "DC Implosion".
These abrupt cancellations left a substantial amount of finished and nearly-finished material that would not be published. Ostensibly to secure the company's copyright in the material, DC staff members "published" some of these stories along with earlier inventoried stories in black and white on the office photocopier, in two volumes. A total of 35 copies of each volume were produced, and distributed to the creators of the material, to the U.S. copyright office, and to Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide as proof of their existence. The title is a play on the DCs 1950s superhero (and later, funny animal) series Comic Cavalcade.
Contents ranged from completed stories to incomplete artwork. Although color covers were created, the interior pages (having been reproduced on a photocopier in the days prior to widespread use of color photocopy technology) were black and white.
[edit] Contents
Cancelled Comics Cavalcade contained the following material:
[edit] Issue #1
- Black Lightning #12 (later printed in World's Finest Comics #260), cover to #13
- Claw the Unconquered #13 and #14
- The Deserter #1
- Doorway to Nightmare #6 (later printed in Unexpected)
- Firestorm #6 (later adapted as back-up stories in The Flash)
- The Green Team #2 and #3
[edit] Issue #2
- Kamandi #60 and #61 (OMAC strip would appear in Warlord #37 and 38)
- Prez #5
- Shade, the Changing Man #9 (The Odd Man story would appear in Detective Comics #487)
- Showcase #105 (featuring Deadman, later mostly printed in Adventure Comics#464), #106 (the Creeper)
- Secret Society of Super-Villains #16, #17
- Steel #6, later reprinted with edits in All-Star Squadron
- The Vixen #1
- covers for Army at War #2, Battle Classics #3, Demand Classics #1 and #2, Mister Miracle #26, Ragman #6, Weird Mystery #25 and #26, Western Classics #1 and #2
