TIMELINE: 1940 A compilation of the year’s notable comic book history events alongside some of the year’s most significant popular culture and historical events. (On sale dates are approximations.) January 8 – The first installment of the daily Blue Beetle comic strip—written and drawn by Jack Kirby as “Charles Nicholas”— appears in the Boston Evening Transcript. No other newspaper is known to have carried the strip which is cancelled in November.
JANUARY
June 2: Denny Colt, a.k.a. “The Spirit,” debuts as the main feature of a 16-page comic insert for Sunday newspapers. Created, written, and drawn by Will Eisner, the masked crimefighter will become one of the most legendary characters in comic book history.
April 25: The first issue of DC’s Batman quarterly introduces two of the Caped Crusader’s most famous villains: the Joker and Catwoman (originally named “the Cat”). Both stories are written by Bill Finger and drawn by Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson.
February 7: Walt Disney’s second full-length animated film, Pinocchio, makes its debut in a New York City movie theater before being distributed nationwide two weeks later. March 2: Warner Bros. cartoon character Elmer Fudd debuts in the Merrie Melodies animated short Elmer’s Candid Camera.
FEBRUARY
MARCH
May 10: As Germany prepares to invade France, Neville Chamberlain resigns as prime minister of the United Kingdom. He is replaced by Winston Churchill.
APRIL
March 5: Detective Comics #38 introduces Batman’s sidekick, Robin, the Boy Wonder, in a story written by Bill Finger and drawn by Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson.
M AY May 21: All-American Comics #16 introduces the Green Lantern in a story written by Bill Finger and drawn by Mart Nodell. May 17: Marvel Mystery Comics #9 features the first battle between the title’s two star characters, the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner, in a 22 page story written and drawn by Carl Burgos and Bill Everett.
February 22: Action Comics #23 introduces Luthor, soon to become Superman’s most famous arch-enemy, in a story produced by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster. February 12: The Adventures of Superman, starring Bud Collyer and Joan Alexander as the voices of Superman/Clark Kent and Lois Lane, debuts on New York City’s WOR before going national six months later. The syndicated radio serial will remain on the air until 1951.
May 15: Two brothers, Richard and Maurice McDonald, open their first McDonald’s restaurant in San Bernardino, California.
Batman, Robin and Superman TM and © DC Comics. Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd TM and © Warner Bros.
June 22: Six weeks after being invaded and suffering over 92,000 military casualties, France surrenders to Germany.
JUNE
June 4: Great Britain completes “Operation Dynamo,” an evacuation of over 330,000 Allied soldiers from Dunkirk, France, back across the English Channel via a hodgepodge fleet of over 800 military and civilian vessels. Winston Churchill describes the operation as “a miracle.”
don during the Blitz brought the war radio. By the end of the 1930s there The War of the Worlds had created into American living rooms with an were radios in 28,700,000 homes pockets of panic up and down the immediacy motion pictures could not offering a daily smorgasbord of news, Eastern Seaboard, a testament to the provide. Orson Welles and the Merinformation, and entertainment. Like power—and potential abuse—of the cury Theater of the Air’s October 30, film, radio was a national medium. airwaves. 1938, dramatization of H. G. Wells’ The Lone Ranger, Amos ‘n’ Andy, Despite the revenue lost The Green Hornet, Baby to movies and radio, Snooks, Fibber Magee print was by no means and Molly, Ma Perkins, dead. There were over Captain Midnight, 1,800 daily newspapers Henry Aldrich, and in the United States, other characters born most of which included on radio became cula page of black-andtural touchstones, their white comics on weekcatchphrases and theme days and an entire color music recognized from section devoted to them coast to coast. Radio on Sundays. The comic made stars out of Bob strip had been an AmerHope, Jack Benny, Bud ican obsession since its Abbott and Lou Costello, birth during the “yelFred Allen, Edgar Berlow journalism” circulagen and Charlie McCartion wars of the 1890s. thy, Kate Smith, Gene Papers might occasionAutry, and newsman ally commission a local Edward R. Murrow, cartoonist to create a Comic books added visuals to radio-born characters readers previously whose live broadcasts strip for them, but by knew only as disembodied voices. Green Hornet TM and © The Green Hornet, Inc. from the rooftops of Lon10