Atomic Mouse
Charlton, 1953 Series
Published in English (United States) United States
Publication Dates: March 1953 - February 1963
Number of Issues Published: 52 (#1 - #52)
Color: Color
Dimensions: Standard Silver Age US
Paper Stock: Newsprint
Binding: Saddle-stitched (except #26, which is Squarebound)
Publishing Format: Was Ongoing
Publication Type: magazine
Pages 36 Indicia Frequency: Bi-Monthly
Authors:
Script: Al Fago
Pencils: Al Fago (signed)
Inks: Al Fago (signed)
Colors: ?
Note:
Overstreet has listed #53-54, but there is no evidence they actually exist.
Atomic Mouse may have been a funny animal, but he was the most successful superhero Charlton Comics ever published. His … 54 issues, which came out between March, 1953 and June, 1963, put him way ahead of Thunderbolt, Nature Boy, E-Man (even counting post-Charlton appearances), Captain Atom (same) and even The Blue Beetle (a surprisingly long-lived character, but only for other publishers). Not one of those guys was ever in print continuously for over ten years, like Atomic Mouse was.
He was Charlton's first funny animal superhero, but far from the last. A year later the company inherited Hoppy the Magic Bunny (formerly Marvel Bunny) when Fawcett settled the Superman/Captain Marvel lawsuit with DC, and got out of the comics business. Then there were Atomic Rabbit, Atomic Bunny (who were sort of, at least, two different guys), Atom the Cat, etc. In later years, the publisher even took a turn with Thunderbunny. But as a creation of Al Fago, whose Frisky Fables had entertained young readers for years, Atomic Mouse is probably the best remembered.
Atomic Mouse got his super powers by ingesting U-235 pills, provided by Professor Invento — a double no-no by today's standards, involving both drugs and radiation. But at the time they seemed innocent enough; and they did enable him to protect the citizens of Mouseville from the evil Count Gatto and his inept sidekick, Shadow (no relation).
Like Li'l Genius, Timmy the Timid Ghost and his other contemporaries at Charlton, Atomic Mouse ran his course and disappeared, leaving no cartoons, Little Golden Books, big little books or other paraphernalia in his wake. With those other '50s Charlton characters, he was revived in reprint form during the mid-1980s; but that, too, ran its course and went away. Now, the publisher itself is no more.
Unexpectedly, tho, Atomic Mouse has been re-revived anyway. In 2001, Shanda Fantasy Arts brought out a black and white comic featuring a mixture of reprints by Fago and new stories by Mike Curtis, Charles Ettinger and other modern practitioners of the funny animal arts. In this version, he was a comic book character within the comic book, transported into comic book "reality" through judicious application of comic book science, to protect the city of Rodentia from all that may threaten it.
Placing the old material next to the new makes a striking contrast. For one thing, in the old stories, the title character has the proportions of a funny animal (large head in relation to the rest of his body), while the new ones show him built like a superhero (smaller than average head). Still, there he is — Atomic Mouse, of all the unlikely characters, having brand-new adventures in the 21st century.
Maybe there's still hope for Super Rabbit, Fearless Fly, The Terrific Whatzit and Wiggles the Wonderworm.
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www.toonopedia.com]
The Charlton Comics Story Part 05
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| Bullseye logo, used from Sept./Oct. 1973 |
Final years
By the 1980s, Charlton was in decline. The comic book industry was in a sales slump, struggling to reinvent a profitable distribution and retail system. Charlton's licensed titles lapsed, its aging presses were deteriorating towards uselessness, and the company did not have the resources to replace them. In 1981, there was yet another attempt at new material, with a comic book version of Charlton Bullseye serving as a new-talent showcase that actively solicited submissions by comic book fans,and an attempt at new Ditko-produced titles. A number of 1970s-era titles were also reprinted under the Modern Comics imprint and sold in bagged sets in department stores (in much the same way Gold Key Comics were published under the Whitman Comics branding around the same time). None of these measures worked, however, and in 1984 Charlton Comics suspended publication.
In 1985, a final attempt at a revival was spearheaded by new editor T. C. Ford with a direct-market Charlton Bullseye Special.But later that same year, Charlton Comics went out of business;Charlton Publications followed suit in 1991, and its building and press were demolished in 1999.
Editor Robin Snyder oversaw the sale of some properties to their creators, though the bulk of the rights was purchased by Canadian entrepreneur Roger Broughton. He would produce several reprint titles under the company name of Avalon Communications and its imprint America's Comics Group (ACG for short, Broughton having also purchased the rights to the defunct American Comics Group properties), and announced plans to restart Charlton Comics. This did not occur beyond its publishing a number of reprints and changing his company name to Charlton Media Group
Most of Charlton's superhero characters were acquired in 1983 by DC Comics, where former Charlton editor Dick Giordano was then managing editor. These "Action Hero" characters were originally to be used in the landmark Watchmen miniseries written by Alan Moore, but DC then chose to save the characters for other uses. Moore instead developed new characters loosely based on them. The Charlton characters were incorporated into DC's main superhero line, starting in the epic Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries of 1985.
Fan revivals
In 2000,
Charlton Spotlight, a fanzine devoted to Charlton, began publication.
The Charlton Arrow launched in 2014 from Charlton Neo and published through Mort Todd's Comicfix, the comic includes stories featuring Charlton characters and titles not owned by DC. In May 2017, AC Comics announced that they had entered into an agreement to bring print versions of Charlton Neo's comics to the direct sales comic shop market, starting with Charlton Arrow #1 in September.
THE END