Patsy Walker & other humor characters presided over a changing of the guard after WW2, as All Winners Comics transformed into All Teen Comics.
The changing fortunes of the comic book industry after WWII could sometimes be abrupt. Throughout the war years, Marvel’s All Winners Comics had been a title that had featured the company’s top superhero stars in Captain America, Human Torch, and Sub-Mariner. But in mid-1946, the title was renamed All Teen Comics, becoming a series that featured some of the publisher’s growing line of teen humor stars like Patsy Walker. After a quick name change to simply Teen Comics, the title lasted three years in this form, transforming again in 1950 into science fiction/horror title Journey into Unknown Worlds. It’s a little more complicated than that, but we’ll get to that when we talk about Hedy De Vine.
April 1947, the month that Teen Comics #22, hit newsstands, provides a fascinating snapshot into this moment in Marvel history. The company released only one serious superhero comic book title in Marvel Mystery Comics #82 that month. Everything other Marvel release for the month was some form of humor title, with the additional exception of Miss America Magazine. That title was a magazine-format series aimed at teenage girls, that also included some comics. The magazine series had introduced Patsy Walker and still included a Miss America comic feature at this time. Patsy had quickly gotten a title of her own as well, as had every other star of Teen Comics, including Georgie, Willie, and Margie. An interesting look at an underappreciated moment of Marvel comic book history, the highest graded copy of Teen Comics #22 Mile High Pedigree (Marvel, 1947) CGC NM 9.4 White pages is up for auction in the 2023 April 20 Timeless Good Girl Art Comics Featuring Dan DeCarlo Showcase Auction #40221 at Heritage Auctions.
As a comic book from the fabled Edgar Church / Mile High pedigree, this copy of Teen Comics #22 is particularly noteworthy. The Edgar Church / Mile High comic book pedigree is a collection of almost 15,000 comic books 1937 to 1957 amassed by Denver, Colorado commercial illustrator Edgar Church. The collection, much of which has been preserved in incredible high grade, has become the stuff of legend since it was discovered by longtime retailer Chuck Rozanski (also known as Bettie Pages) and began to hit the collector market in the late 1970s. The Church copy of Action Comics #1 is widely considered the most valuable comic book on the planet, and the collection as a whole set the standard for the sale of high-grade Golden Age comic books for decades. Likewise, copies of key or otherwise important comic books from the Edgar Church pedigree have often been held in private collections, unseen by the market at large, for years or decades. Marvel comic books from the collection don’t hit the public market very often, which makes this Teen Comics #22 Mile High Pedigree (Marvel, 1947) CGC NM 9.4 White pages a particularly desirable gem in the 2023 April 20 Timeless Good Girl Art Comics Featuring Dan DeCarlo Showcase Auction #40221 at Heritage Auctions.
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