About Us
The American media and entertainment company DC Comics was widely regarded as one of the “big two” publishers in the comic industry. Among the company’s comic-based properties were some of the most enduring and recognizable characters in 20th- and 21st-century popular culture. DC’s headquarters are in New York City; its parent company, DC Entertainment, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Time Warner Inc.
Pulp-magazine writer Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson founded National Allied Publications in 1934. The following year the company published New Fun—the first comic book to feature entirely new material rather than reprints of newspaper strips. In need of cash, Wheeler-Nicholson partnered with magazine distributors Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz and founded Detective Comics, Inc., in 1937. Wheeler-Nicholson was unable to repay his debts to Donenfeld and Liebowitz, and he was soon forced out of the company. A series of mergers in the 1940s led to the creation of a new company called National Periodical Publications (NPP). In 1969 NPP was purchased by Kinney National Company, which in turn was bought by Warner Brothers–Seven Arts. For much of its history, the company was colloquially known as DC Comics, but it did not officially adopt that name until 1977.
In 1938 DC published the first Superman story in Action Comics no. 1. The massive commercial success of that character was responsible for creating the costumed superhero genre, which has been a mainstay for the comic-book industry ever since. DC introduced many superheroes throughout the so-called Golden Age of comics, most notably Batman (1939) and Wonder Woman (1941).