National Allied Publications
In 1929, as a favor to an old client, Julius Liebowitz, Donenfeld gave work to Julius' son, Jack.[15] Jack and Harry had little in common, but Jack soon emerged as a man who could run finances.[16] Whereas Harry would promise the world to clients without understanding the economic realities, Jack was bookish and ensured bills were paid on time and helped create respectability in the firm. Soon the two men were spoken of as a partnership. With the financial backing of Paul Sampliner, Irving Donenfeld as head printer, Harry as salesman and Jack Liebowitz running the finances they launched the Independent News Company in 1932.[17] Now Donenfeld was a distributor as well as a publisher and was now no longer reliant on others to run his business.
In 1935, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson approached Independent News in a bid to relaunch his comic book New Fun, having lost his previous backers due to poor sales and debts. Donenfeld accepted to distribute the comic but with a heavy loss of rights for Wheeler-Nicholson. The major produced two more titles to be handled by Independent News, New Comics and Detective Comics (which would later see the first appearance of Batman), now under the banner of Detective Comics Inc., in which Wheeler-Nicholson was forced to take Donenfeld and Liebowitz as partners. In 1938, Donenfeld sued Wheeler-Nicholson for nonpayment and Detective Comics Inc. went into bankruptcy. Donenfeld then bought up the company and Wheeler-Nicholson's National Allied Publications in their entirety as part of the action.[18]
The fourth publication under National Allied Publications would be Action Comics (1938). Issue #1 introduced the superhero, Superman, created by artist Joe Shuster and writer Jerry Siegel. Donenfeld was initially repelled by the seemingly ridiculous fantasy of the character and ordered it never appear on the cover again. However, the property proved tremendously popular and profitable enough to change his mind by issue 7 to make "Superman" the title's feature. As such, Donenfeld enjoyed not only healthy comic book sales, but also in merchandising such as toys, costumes and even a radio show featuring the character.[19] At the end of 1941 Donenfeld's comic businesses took in $2.6 million. Shuster and Siegel had sold the rights for the character to National Allied Publications, so as Donenfeld became rich, they continued on flat employee fees. Legal actions between the creative pair and National Allied Publications for compensation would continue for decades to come, but Donenfeld allowed Liebowitz to handle this side of his empire.[20]
