Welcome To The New
Dell Comics Club!

Around the middle of 1950, Dell Publishing Company introduced their Dell Comics Club as a means of attracting new and continuing subscribers to their series of comic books. To become a member of the club all you had to do was buy a one-year subscription to any of their comic book titles. Then, in addition to the comic books, you would receive an official membership certificate in the Dell Comics Club along with a group portrait of the principal Dell Comics characters:

However, conspicuously absent from the group portrait (and from the membership certificate as well) were all of the Disney characters (Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Goofy, etc.) On the other hand, conspicuously present were several cowboys instead! (Yes, I know that they were all legitimate Dell characters. But personally, I've never thought of cowboys and other such "real life" characters as being so funny or "comical" that they should be featured in something called "comic" books!)

The Dell Comics Club continued to exist for about the next nine years (until around the Spring of 1959). After that time, Dell no longer mentioned the club in any of their subscription ads. In 1962, Dell's partnership with Western Printing came to an end as Western started its own comic book line, Gold Key Comics. In 1973, Dell finally gave up and ceased publishing comic books entirely.

But the spirit of the Dell Comics Club lives on! Those of us who have been collecting Dell comic books since the 1950s are keeping it alive. And if you too are a collector of Dell Comics, you are invited to join us. (Yeah, we'll let you in even if you collect only the cowboy comics! :-)   The New Dell Comics Club is completely FREE of charge. There's nothing you have to buy, and there are no dues of any kind. (Click here to join).

In addition, we present our version of the Dell group portrait - the way it should have been done in the first place:*

(Once again, only the principal Dell Comics characters are shown. An attempt to display all of the characters would have made it look too much like a "Where's Waldo" picture!)

*(Also, Joan Appleton has found an ad for Dell Comics which appeared
in a 1952 issue of either Life magazine or The Saturday Evening
Post. The ad does include some of the Disney characters.)

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