World Fair Color Printing World Color Press was founded in 1903 by the owners of the
St. Louis Star under the name '''World's Fair Color Printing'''. The wholly owned subsidiary was created to handle color printing for the upcoming 1904 St. Louis
World's Fair, the
Louisiana Purchase Exposition, and was expected to disband at the World Fair's conclusion. Instead, the company name was shortened to World Color Printing and continued as a commercial printer, focusing on a new business: the color "
funnies" section of the Sunday
newspaper.
Comics World Color's first foray into comics was
syndicating George Herriman's ''Major Ozone's Fresh Air Crusade
from January 2, 1904, to November 19, 1906. During this period, World Color also distributed the Herriman strips Grandma's Girl—Likewise Bud Smith'', which he combined from two earlier strips, and a two-tiered children's strip, ''Rosy Posy—Mama's Girl''. Robert Grable and Roswell Messing, Sr., two
St. Louis Star senior employees, purchased the company in 1922. As the popularity of the Sunday color comic section increased, the funnies quickly evolved into an American institution, and metropolitan papers increasingly began featuring comic supplements. As the first major printer of color sections, World Color Press was often the first choice for printing these sections, and by the early 1930s, the company had printing contracts with newspapers nationwide. In the early 1930s, realizing the sales potential of the comics medium, company management attempted to maximize profits by reprinting the funnies in magazine format, thereby creating one of the first prototypes of the
comic book. While the initial comic books were simply collections of previously published editions of the Sunday comic strips, by 1936 they contained original material. World Color made the most of the idea and quickly emerged as the leading printer in this new field. To keep up with ever-increasing demand, the company began construction of a satellite printing plant in
Sparta, Illinois. Opened in 1948, the Sparta plant was the most technologically advanced plant in the industry devoted solely to the printing of comic magazines. Within five years World Color Press became the largest producer of comic magazines in the industry. Comic book sales boomed during
World War II and the postwar period, and throughout this period, World Color was the nation's leading comic book printer. (Comics were the most popular form of newsstand magazine.) In 1956, the company installed one of the first web-
offset presses in its Sparta plant. This innovative printing process, in which rolls or "webs" of paper are fed through rubber-blanketed cylinders, producing tens of thousands of impressions an hour, helped lead the industry into the modern era of print technology. By the early 1970s, World Color purchased more equipment and expanded its plants, becoming the largest player in the comic and newsstand special-interest publication market. June 18, 1977, was declared "World Color Press Day": a comic book about the history and process of printing color comics was produced by the
Joe Kubert School of Cartoon Art; it was called,
Magazineland USA: Sparta, Effingham, Salem, Illinois. By the early 1980s World Color Press printed most American comic books, including those of the industry giants
Marvel and
DC. World Color's dominance in the field led to a 1984 lawsuit by Illinois-based
First Comics, accusing them of anti-competitive practices. The suit was resolved in the spring of 1988. In 1985, DC Comics named World Color Press as one of the honorees in the company's 50th anniversary publication
Fifty Who Made DC Great.
Diversification and growth The development of the web-press in the 1950s enabled World Color to further diversify into the relatively new product lines of web-printed newsstand and special interest magazines. Equally important to the company's growth during the 1950s was its development of the "pool shipping" concept, a distribution method in which publications from different customers going to the same destination were shipped together, reducing freight costs and increasing the timeliness of deliveries. By establishing the first major pool shipping network to newsstands, the company was able to expand its customer base by offering the lowest distribution costs in the industry. World Color computerized many aspects of its business in the 1960s, providing the company with more efficient production and distribution capabilities, as well as the ability to perform more complicated printing procedures and reproduce more complex data. In 1969, World Color started construction of a web-offset facility in
Effingham, Illinois, approximately 120 miles northeast of Sparta. The new plant was designed to produce magazines printed on coated paper with extensive use of
four-color printing. Success in this arena led to a 1971 expansion of the Effingham plant that nearly doubled its original size. The 1971 addition increased the company's ability to produce large-circulation monthly magazines printed on letter-press equipment. Responding to a need to increase the company's flexibility in scheduling presses, in 1970, the company standardized the make and type of its presses. This change was expected to result in paper savings, more consistent quality, and schedule flexibility. Though it was a short-term risk, the strategy paid off with its clients, enabling the company to become a stronger competitor in the four-color, high-quality magazine market. In 1975, the company expanded its gravure division by constructing a plant between Effingham and Sparta. Further expansions in client-base led to the 1980 construction of another new plant in
Des Plaines, Illinois. By the beginning of the 1980s, the company had emerged as the leader in the printing and distribution of consumer publications, with sales of more than $371 million. During the 1980s, World Color added seven state-of-the-art printing facilities, strategically located throughout the United States, strengthening the company's reputation for providing low distribution costs. In 1985, World Color Press was listed as the fourth largest printer in North America, with sales totaling $544 million. During this period, World Color expanded its operations into a number of specialty services: catalog printing contracts generated more than a fifth of total revenues in 1993, and represented the company's fastest growing division. == Business acquisitions and mergers ==