I still feel many of you are trying to impose the standards and values (both of business and of comic-book enjoyment) of today (or of your youths) onto those of the mid-1950s. I don't think you're putting the nature of reading comics into the correct social, cultural and historical contexts.

I do agree with the point that National had more distrubution points through a better system. Story length, though, was not really different between the Atlas and the DC stories of the time. The art was still fairly crude (but fun, in many ways) in both (with some notable exceptions on both sides). Super-folk were still not the major sellers of the time (in part because of the advent of TV and movies -- think Disney and Dell -- upon kids buying comics). And, perhaps a point many of us forget: comics were seen by most people (and consumers) as disposable entertainment, left at the barbershop or the neighbor's house, rather than a collectable or piece of art.

patrick