National Periodicals

In 1934 Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson founded National Allied Publications, which notably published the first American comic with no newspaper strip reprints, Fun: The Big Comic Magazine (debuting February 1935), later followed by New Comics later the same year. By 1937, Wheeler-Nicholson had financial problems, and so formed a new company, Detective Comics, Inc. with a partner, Harry Donenfeld, to publish his third title, Detective Comics (though on the ownership documents Donenfeld's place was taken by his accountant Jack Liebowitz). The two companies later merged to become National Comics, which in turn was renamed National Periodical Publications. Donenfeld eventually forced Wheeler-Nicholson out of the company,

In 1946 National joined with All-American Publications (which had been founded in 1938 by Max Gaines and Donenfeld's accountant / partner, Jack Liebowitz, with funding assistance from Donenfeld); though the overall company continued to be officially called National Periodical Publications as late as 1961, all the titles carried a DC (Detective Comics) logo, and so in much the same way as the Atlas distribution logo had Timely titles in the 1950s colloquially known as Atlas Comics, fans of National began referring to it as DC Comics, a name they eventually officially adopted.

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