The DFC

The DFC
Cover of the first issue
Publication information
Publisher	David Fickling Books
Schedule	Weekly
Format	Comics anthology
Publication date	May 2008 to March 2009
Number of issues	43

The DFC was a weekly British children's anthology comic, published by David Fickling Books (an imprint of Random House). The first issue was published at the end of May 2008. The title stood for "David Fickling Comic". Its successor, The Phoenix, launched on 7 January 2012.

Unlike the vast majority of comics in the current market, The DFC was funded entirely by subscriptions, without any commercial advertising. It was fully coloured on all 36 pages.

David Fickling announced the comic two and a half years before the launch and at the time was quoted as saying, "I'm not really interested in reviving comics, I'm much more interested in restoring them to where they should be."

Some stories were previewed in, and formed the main part of, The Guardian Comic. The comic, part of the Saturday Guardian's "family" section, premiered strips on a rotating basis that were later featured in The DFC itself.

It folded with issue 43, when Random House decided that "economic conditions ... were too tough for a slow build".

At the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair, David Fickling Books announced a new imprint, The DFC Library, to publish collected editions of strips from The DFC. The first titles published were Kate Brown's Spider Moon, Dave Shelton's Good Dog, Bad Dog, and Ben Haggarty and Adam Brockbank's Mezolith in Spring 2010.Neill Cameron's Mo-Bot High, The Etherington Brothers' Monkey Nuts: The Diamond Egg of Wonders and Sarah McIntyre's Vern and Lettuce followed in Winter 2010, with John and Patrice Aggs' The Boss, James Turner's Super Animal Adventure Squad, and The Etherington Brothers Baggage, an original graphic novel that had not previously been serialised in The DFC, completing the lineup in 2011.