Four Color
Four Color, also known as Four Color Comics and Dell Four Color, was an American comic book anthology series published by Dell Comics between 1939 and 1962. The title is a reference to the four basic colors used when printing comic books (cyan, magenta, yellow and black at the time). The first 25 issues (1939–1942) are known as "series 1". In mid-1942, the numbering started over again, and "series 2" began. After the first hundred issues of the second series, Dell stopped putting the "Four Color Comics" designation on the books, but they continued the numbering system for twenty years.
| Four Color | |
|---|---|
One of the earlier issues of Four Color (#9 from October 1942), featuring Walt Disney's Donald Duck in Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold (Four Color title below the price) | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Dell Comics |
| Schedule | Various |
| Format | Ongoing series |
| Publication date | July–September 1939 – April–June 1962 |
| No. of issues | 1,354 |
More than 1,000 issues were published, usually with multiple titles released every month. An exact accounting of the actual number of unique issues produced is difficult because occasional issue numbers were skipped and a number of reprint issues were also included. Nonetheless, the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide lists well over 1,000 individual issues, ending with #1354. Comics historian Alberto Becattini cites 1332 issues. It currently holds the record for most issues produced of an American comic book title; its nearest rival, DC's Action Comics, reached the 1,000-issue milestone in 2018.
Four Color published many of the first licensed Disney comics; about 20 percent of the Four Color issues were devoted to Disney characters.