Four Color (1960’s)

Four Color, also known as Four Color Comics and One Shots, was a long-running American comic book anthology series published by Dell Comics between 1939 and 1968. The title is a reference to the four basic colors used when printing comic books (cyan, magenta, yellow and black at the time).

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. It currently holds the record for most issues produced of an American comic book; its nearest rivals, Action Comics and Detective Comics, ended their initial runs in 2011 at 904 issues and 881 issues, respectively. The first 25 issues are known as “series 1”; after they were published, the numbering began again and “series 2” began. Four Color published many of the first comics featuring characters licensed from Walt Disney.

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