Today in Comics History, January 7: Happy birthday, Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson!

Born on this date in 1890: Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, founder of National Allied Publications, which would later become DC Comics. Ah ha! So he's the one to blame for Infinite Crisis and the New 52!


from Fifty Who Made DC Great one-shot (DC, 1985)

from DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes (Bulfinch, October 1995), by Les Daniels
(Click picture to Major-size)
Wheeler-Nicholson is portrayed in a Shadow comic (thinly disguised as "Major Walton Carter-Tennyson"), when he comes to Kent Allard Lamont Cranston for help when he's targeted by the competition's goons.


from "Black and White and Red All Over" in The Shadow (2015 series) #100 one-shot (Dynamite, June 2015); script, pencils, and inks by Howard Chaykin; colors by Jesus Aburtov; letters by Ken Bruzenak
You'd guess that since he's a crimefighter, Lamont would've held comic books in high regard, no?


Nothing goin' on here that a little brute force, some spooky smoke, and the echoing voice of Orson Welles wouldn't cure, right?


But in the end it all works out, because everybody thinks comics are just that great!


Happy birthday, Major! (salutes him, looks through his pockets for copies of New Fun #1)