Comic books, being a literal nickel-and-dime business, had tight margins of profitability. For subscription purposes, each title had to be registered with the Post Office to obtain Second Class Mailing privileges. When sales were disappointing, it was smarter to alter the name and format and maintain the same series numbering, rather than pay the Post Office the fee for a new magazine. At EC, their
Wonder Woman (or
Sun Girl) knockoff started with the title
Moon Girl and the Prince, was shortened to simply
Moon Girl for five issues. When Lev Gleason's
Crime Does Not Pay was all the rage, EC's mag became
Moon Girl Fights Crime for two issues.
Once that failed, the book entered an entirely new genre as
A Moon...A Girl...Romance, which ultimately ground to a halt after four issues.
Once EC stopped playing "Follow the Leader" and led the industry by pioneering the horror comics, other publishers followed suit by playing the same name game. An issue of
Captain Marvel Adventures suddenly bannered such stories as "Horror Stalks the Battlefield", "The Mongol Blood Drinkers", "Weird Terror in the Swamps", and "The Hand of Horror." That's "Horror" mentioned twice, just in case a young reader didn't get the message. Fawcett left the Captain Marvel business due to losing its copyright infringement battle with DC, and because their publisher didn't want to pursue joining the new horror landscape. (Did you know there was a
Captain America's Weird Tales?)
Here, Myron Fass's
Lunatickle (itself a humor magazine that was a copy of
Mad) makes fun of this syndrome in an article written by comedy writer Jack Mendelsohn, a cartoonist and contributor to
Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and
The Carol Burnett Show, and drawn by Lee Elias (who worked at DC on such features as "Green Arrow" and "Ultra the Multi-Alien"). Here's some of Elias's previous work:
To belabor the point,
Black Cat began as the chronicles of a super hero adventurer and judo expert. For a time, she was pushed to become "Hollywood's Glamorous Western Star," and her book became
Black Cat Western. "The Darling of Comics" soon went back to her crime-fighting, judo-flipping self, until the horror comics craze encouraged a title emendation to
Black Cat Mystery, then simply
Black Cat again, relegating her to the sidelines and then out of the magazine entirely. She got back in only as
Black Cat Western, then one issue as
Black Cat Mystery, only to enjoy a final change to
Black Cat Mystic (with covers by Jack Kirby).
