National Comics was a major comic book company.
History
From the 1940s until 1960, Entertaining Comics had a virtual monopoly on the comic book industry, which following the emergence of the Minutemen stopped focusing on superhero comics and instead focused on swashbuckling pirate stories.
This all changed with the seminal release of Tales of the Black Freighter from upstart National Comics, praised for its mature (some would say macabre) storytelling, which many critics felt drastically elevated the art form and ushered in a new age for the medium.
National Comics rose to become a major competitor to Entertaining Comics. By 1985, National Comics had been rebranded as DC Comics.[1]
References
Trivia
- National Comics rising in 1960 to challenge the dominance of Entertaining Comics mirrors the beginning of the "Silver Age of Comic Books", which in real life happened in the 1960s, but with the roles reversed: instead it was Marvel Comics which rose in the 1960s to challenge the dominance of DC Comics. In the Watchmen universe, DC Comics itself is the more "gritty, outsider" publisher compared to Entertaining Comics.
