Author Name:

Author Description Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson was honored with a posthumous Eisner Award at San Diego Comic Con in 2008 for his contributions to the comic book industry. He was the founder of DC Comics, was the first publisher to see the sketch of Superman, hired Siegel and Shuster and was the first publisher to use all original scripts and art in comic books.<br /><br />“The Major” as he was known was born near Greeneville, Tennessee on January 7, 1890 and spent his childhood there and in the Pacific Northwest. <br /><br />His army career was full of adventure. In 1912 he served under General Pershing on the Mexican border chasing bandits and revolutionaries among them Pancho Villa while commanding Troop K of the historic African-American Buffalo Soldiers. By 1915 he was in the Philippines breaking world records for machine gun readiness and in his off-duty moments winning polo cups. During WWI he was in Military Intelligence and in 1917 was in Siberia attached to the Japanese Embassy. He saw first hand the cruelty of the Cossacks towards the local peasantry as well as the nuances of the constantly changing alliances between the Chinese and Japanese, the Cossack chiefs and Bolshevik Revolutionaries. These real life experiences would later appear in adventure stories and in his non-fiction articles and books.<br /><br />Enter the roaring twenties and the Major is posted to Paris. There he met Elsa Karolina Bjorkbom, a Swedish woman of aristocratic background. After a fairytale proposal in the Eiffel Tower they were married in the Kaiser’s Chapel in Koblentz, Germany. <br /><br />After a dramatic ending to his military career--a court martial and assassination attempt--apparently as the result of his refusal to give in to racist policies of his superior officers, Wheeler-Nicholson began writing adventure stories in 1922. Over his lifetime he wrote at least 160 short stories, novels and serials not including reprints and appearances in foreign countries. In addition there are several novels in hardback and paperback and works under 3 known pseudonyms. But wait there’s more—comic scripts and non-fiction.<br /><br />The Major’s first venture as a writer of comic scripts and a publisher was in 1925 working with colleagues like screenwriter N. Brewster Morse and artist Oscar Hitt. Robert Louis Stevenson scholars note Wheeler-Nicholson as the first person to publish Stevenson in comic strip form and comic book format. <br /><br />Wheeler-Nicholson was a popular writer and in 1928 he was able to move the family to France so that Elsa could be closer to her family. He continued writing for the pulps while living in Paris and an ancient chateau in Vic sur Aisnes. Unfortunately the Great Depression caught up with the Wheeler-Nicholsons and they were forced to return to New York in May of 1930. It was harder and harder to make money writing for the pulps and support a family of seven so what did the Major decide to do in the midst of the Depression? Why—start a comic book publishing company with the unique idea of using all original art and scripts instead of reprints from newspapers. <br /><br />Surprisingly it turned out to be a very good idea but somebody else ended up making the money. Even worse others have been credited with his ideas and hard work. In fact, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson began the company that is still with us some 76 years later as DC Comics. Wheeler-Nicholson’s original comic book Fun Comics arrived on the newsstands in 1934. Based on his writing for the pulps it was his idea that these original scripts should be full of adventure and action and he wrote many of the scripts.

Current Image: Filenames must be full path to file or a URL, or put none to remove author image
Filename and URL need to end with .jpg/.jpeg/.png/.webp

Find Images