The Old 23 - DC Comics for August 1952

It's week four of our journey into DC's past. Previously I looked at DC's offerings for August 1982, August 1972, and August 1962. This week I'm heading over to the DC Database Wiki to look at August 1952:

• Action Comics #171 (super-hero)
• Adventure Comics #179 (super-hero)
• The Adventures of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis #1 (humor)
• The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #4 (adventure)
• Batman #72 (super-hero)
• Comic Cavalcade #52 (funny animal)
• Detective Comics #186 (super-hero)
• Flippity and Flop #5 (funny animal)
• Gang Busters #29 (crime)
• Girls' Love Stories #18 (romance)
• Here's Howie #4 (humor)
• Hollywood Funny Folks #48 (funny animal)
• The House of Mystery #5 (horror/mystery)
• Mystery in Space #9 (sci-fi)
• Our Army at War #1 (war)
• Peter Porkchops #17 (funny animal)
• Real Screen Comics #53 (funny animal)
• Sensation Mystery #110 (horror/mystery)
• Star-Spangled War Stories #131 (war)
• Strange Adventures #23 (sci-fi)
• Superboy #21 (super-hero)
• Superman #77 (super-hero)
• Tomahawk #12 (western)

That's 6 super-hero titles, 5 funny animal, 2 humor, 2 horror/mystery, 2 sci-fi, 2 war, 1 adventure, 1 crime, 1 romance, and 1 western; for a total of 23 comics published by DC that month.

We should note here that at the time, many of DC's titles were on a bi-monthly, quarterly, or other schedule. So titles like A Date with Judy, The Adventures of Bob Hope,  All-American Western, All-Star Western, Big Town, Dale Evans Comics, Fox and the Crow, Funny Stuff, Leading Screen Comics, Leave It to Binky, Movietown's Animal Antics, Mr. District Attorney, Secret Hearts, Wonder Woman, and World's Finest didn't have an August cover-date issue in 1952.

All titles were 10¢—90¢ in 2014 dollars—for around thirty pages of story (except for Batman, which was extra-sized but the same 10¢ price!) (Inflation figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator.)

In August 2014, DC published a whopping 76 different titles! 60 super-hero titles, 8 horror/mystery, 5 fantasy, 1 science fiction, 1 war, and 1 western. Many are $2.99 for 20 pages of comics; some are $3.99 for 22 pages of comics, a few are $4.99 for 35-38 pages of comics.

(Of course, today's DC comics have higher quality production—coloring, paper quality, etc.—and creators tend to be which may or may not be worth the extra cost to you.)

Tune in next week, when we finish our journey through time and travel to 1992!