Crack Comics is an anthology comic book series published by Quality Comics during the Golden Age of Comic Books. It featured such characters as The Clock, Black Condor, Captain Triumph, Alias the Spider, Madame Fatal, Jane Arden, Molly the Model, and Red Torpedo. The title "crack" referred to "being at the top of one's form", like a "crack sharpshooter". Notable contributors to Crack Comics included Alfred Andriola, George Brenner, Gill Fox, Jack Cole, Paul Gustavson, Klaus Nordling, and Art Pinajian. Quality Comics published 62 issues of Crack Comics from 1940 to 1949; the title was temporarily revived in 2011, when the Next Issue Project published issue "#63".

Publication history

Crack Comics started off as a monthly anthology of 68 pages, often with as many as 15 features. At first edited by Ed Cronin, much of its material was originally "packaged" by the Eisner and Iger Studio. "The Clock", as well as such newspaper strip reprints as "Rube Goldberg's Side Show", "Jane Arden", and "Ned Brant", moved over from Quality's Feature Comics. The first use of the publisher name "Quality Comic Group" was on the cover of Crack Comics #5 (Sept. 1940). With issue #26 (Nov. 1942), at the height of World War II, the title dropped down to a bi-monthly schedule due to wartime paper shortages; with issue #33 (Spring 1944) it became quarterly, also reducing its page-count to 60. It was around this time that publisher Arnold dropped Eisner & Iger as a "packager" and began producing much of the material in-house. The syndicated newspaper strip reprints "Jane Arden" and "Ned Brant" disappeared during this period, as well as such recurring features as "Black Condor", "Don Q", and "Snappy". Cartoonist George Brenner became editor of Crack Comics with issue #31 (Oct. 1943) (Cronin having left the post in Feb. 1942), a few issues before Brenner's character The Clock stopped appearing in the book's pages. Beginning with issue #42 (May 1946) the title went back to a bimonthly schedule, which it maintained until its cancellation with issue #62 (during this time, the title also gradually reduced its page-count from 60 to 52 to 36). Brenner stayed on as editor almost to the end, leaving the post after issue #61 (July 1949).

Crack Western and Jonesy

As comics readers' tastes changed in the years following World War II, Quality publisher Arnold responded. Starting with issue #63 (Nov. 1949), Crack became a Western comic, changing its name to Crack Western. This format lasted 22 issues until #84 (May 1953), when the title changed again, to Jonesy. Jonesy published one issue with the old numbering system and then restarted (from #2), publishing until issue #8 (Oct. 1954), when it was cancelled for good.

Next Issue Project

Following the demise of Crack Comics and later the publisher itself, many of Quality Comics' characters lapsed into the public domain. In November 2011, as part of editor Erik Larsen's "Next Issue Project", Image Comics published Crack Comics "#63", containing the following stories:

Recurring features

Other characters of note who appeared in Crack Comics included Batch Bachelor, Biff Banks, Black Shark, Dewey Drip, Kiki Kelly, and Yankee Guerilla.