Charlton Comics was, in the words of comics scribe Tony Isabella, “the low-rent district of the comics industry.” Comic books were never more then a sideline for Charlton Publishing; a way to keep the expensive printing presses from sitting idle in-between runs of much more profitable magazines, such as Hit Parader and Song Hits.  Most the forty-one year publishing history of Charlton Comics was devoted to a steady production of derivative and unremarkable genre comic books.    

In 1923, a 24-year-old John Santangelo left Italy to immigrate to the United States.  Initially, he made his living as a bricklayer and masonry contractor. Then, in 1934, he came up with the idea of printing and selling the lyrics to the popular songs of the day. Soon he was making hundreds of dollars of supplemental income.  According to the official history of the company, Santangelo was blissfully unaware that he was breaking copyright laws until his activities came to the attention of American Society of Composers, Authors and Producers. He was convicted of copyright infringement and sentenced to a year in the New Haven County jail. In jail he met white-collar criminal and former attorney Edward Levy. Levy recognized a good idea, and they formed a partnership to legally publish song lyric magazines. And because they both had infant sons named Charles, they christened their new venture Charlton Publishing. Their first publication was Hit Parader magazine in 1935, and it was published continuously until Charlton Publishing closed shop in 1991.

Charlton added comic books to its publishing line-up in 1945 with Zoo Funnies.  Funny animal, western, and romance books were the core of Charlton’s early comics publishing efforts, but they also followed the industry trends of the late 40s and early 50s with their own derivative crime (Racket Squad in Action), horror (The Thing), and science fiction (Space Adventures) comic books.  For the next ten years Charlton was just one of the many small, unremarkable comic book publishers. Charlton Comics did not begin to thrive until the rest of the industry was in decline.  

The comic book industry slump of the mid to late 1950s, brought on by distribution problems, parental concerns and competition from television, was a time of expansion for Charlton Comics. As other publishers went out of business or curtailed their production, Charlton aggressively acquired both characters and creators. Charlton Publishing had a number of advantages that helped it weather the hard times. Not only was there continued high demand for Charlton’s non-comics magazines, but Charlton Publishing was unique in that it was completely self-contained. Comic book scripts were written, pages were drawn, plates engraved and printed, and bundles of comic books were loaded on to trucks for distribution all out of the same huge building in Derby, Connecticut (although in later years comic book production was moved to a smaller nearby building). 

In the mid-1950s, Charlton acquired titles, mostly romance, western and horror, from a number of defunct publishers, including Fawcett Publications, Superior Comics, and Simon & Kirby’s Crestwood/Mainline Comics. The most significant acquisition was the Blue Beetle character from Fox Features Syndicate. Not that Charlton had much initial success with the character. After a brief run in Space Adventures in 1954, the Blue Beetle had his own title for four issues, three of which were reprints of Fox material. However, ownership of the name allowed Charlton to create an original Blue Beetle character as part of their 1960s emphasis on action heroes.