Tailspin Tommy - Comic Books and Reprints

Comic Books and Reprints

Stephen Slesinger Inc. published a series of 30 Tailspin Tommy Adventures in eight-page booklet form as a promotion with Big Thrill Chewing Gum. In 1936, C.J.H. Publications put out two issues of Tailspin Tommy Adventure Magazine. The magazines published adaptations of comic strip stories. Publication apparently ceased because the rights to the character had not been properly secured. After taking over the syndication, United Features published two Tailspin Tommy comic books, one in 1940 and one in 1946. Tailspin Tommy also saw reprints in Dell Comics' The Funnies and Popular Comics.

In 1934, Tailspin Tommy was among the strips reprinted in the first modern comic book, Famous Funnies, published by Max Gaines at Eastern Color Printing. That same year, Slesinger began publishing a series of Tailspin Tommy books in its Big Little Book line. Except where noted, these adaptations of the comic strip were ghostwritten by Gaylord Du Bois and illustrated by Hal Forrest:

• Tailspin Tommy in The Famous Pay-Roll Mystery, 1933
• Tailspin Tommy - The Dirigible Flight to the North Pole, 1934
• Tailspin Tommy - Hunting for Pirate Gold, 1935
• Tailspin Tommy and the Island in the Sky, 1936
• Tailspin Tommy and the Hooded Flyer, 1937
• Tailspin Tommy and the Sky Bandits, 1938
• Tailspin Tommy in The Great Air Mystery (starring Noah Beery), 1938 (based on the screenplay of the serial)
• Tailspin Tommy and the Lost Transport, 1940
• Tailspin Tommy, The Weasel, and His Skywayman, 1941

A novel by Mark Stevens, Tailspin Tommy: The Mystery of the Midnight Patrol, was published in 1936.