Eastern Color
| Comic publisher and printer | |
| Industry | Comics |
| Founded | 1928, 1933 as a publisher |
| Founder | William B. Pape |
| Headquarters | Waterbury, Connecticut |
The Eastern Color Printing Company was a company that published comic books, beginning in 1933. At first it was only newspaper comic strip reprints, but later on original material was published. Eastern Color Printing was incorporated in 1928, and soon became successful by printing color newspaper sections for several New England and New York papers. Eastern is most notable for its production of Funnies on Parade and Famous Funnies, two publications that gave birth to the American comic book industry.
Eastern published its own comic books until the mid-1950s, and continued to print comic books for other publishers until 1973. Eastern Color Printing struggled financially from the 1970s to 2002, when the business closed, a victim of changing printing technologies.
In March 1924, a newspaper in Waterbury, Connecticut purchased a Goss International single-width press to use in printing Sunday color newspaper comics sections. The Knickerbocker Press of Albany, New York, and the Springfield Republican of Springfield, Massachusetts, approached the Republican about using the press to print their own color comics supplements. The Springfield Union soon afterward did as well. The Eastern Color Printing Company, incorporated in August 1928 with William B. Pape as its vice president and principal executive officer, acquired the press and replaced it with a Goss four-deck press. The company acquired additional presses in 1929 and 1931. During this time period, Eastern, headquartered at 61 Leavenworth Street in Waterbury, established itself in the pulp magazine industry by being one of the few firms to print color covers for the pulps.
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