Four Color

Four Color, also known as Four Color Comics and Dell Four Color, is 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 100 issues of the second series, Dell stopped putting the "Four Color Comic" designation on the books, but they continued the numbering system for 20 years. 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.

Four Color published many of the first licensed Disney comics; about 20% of the Four Color issues were devoted to Disney characters.

Many of the early Four Color issues were reprints of newspaper comic strips; the first series included Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Terry and the Pirates, among others. and a Dumbo adaptation was the focus of issue #17.

The comic strip reprints continued well into the 1942 second series. Of the first 10 issues, eight are strip reprints, including Little Joe, Harold Teen, Alley Oop, and Flash Gordon. The first two original stories in the second series are issue #5, Raggedy Ann and Andy, and issue #9, Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold. The series continued strip reprints of Dick Tracy until issue #163 (Sept 1947), Little Orphan Annie until issue #206 (Dec 1948) and Harold Teen until issue #209 (Jan 1949).

At one point in 1951, some issues of Four Color were double-numbered, reflecting the issuances for particular characters; thus issues 318 and 328, featuring Donald Duck, carried the notation "nos. 1–2" on the cover underneath the Four Color series number. Indeed, beginning in the early 1950s, it became more prevalent than previously for Four Color titles, if they proved popular enough, to become ongoing, independent series. In some cases, the issue numbering of these spin-offs took into account any previous Four Color issues (albeit sometimes miscounting the one-shots; Donald Duck started with #26 despite the publication of 29 Four Color issues with the character preceding it).

Only issues published between circa 1940 and 1946 actually carried the title Four Color Comic on the cover.

Four Color ended its run around the same time Dell's partnership with Western Publishing came to an end. Western subsequently formed a competing company, Gold Key Comics, and took over a number of licenses previously held by Dell. This included numerous titles featured under the Four Color banner that were then continued as ongoing series under Gold Key; this included most of the Disney and Hanna-Barbera properties.

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