Founded 1945 · Restored 2024
Public Domain Archive
A History Project & Open Forum
Public Domain · Free to Read · Open to All

The Archive

Two of the four issues are free to read online right now. The other two surface occasionally at auction. All four are in the public domain and belong to everyone.

Finding the Comics
Issue Date How to Read It Status
The Challenger #1
GCD #247718
1945
Undated, no price
Not yet publicly available. Active search underway. Rare
The Challenger #2
GCD #247719
1945–46 Not publicly available. Copies surface at auction. Heritage Auctions July 2023, Auction #40227. At Auction
The Challenger #3
GCD #247716
July 1946 Free online now. ComicBookPlus.com (dlid=62009)
Print reprint: Amazon ISBN 9781532878183
Free Online
The Challenger #4
GCD #247717
Oct–Dec 1946 Free online now. ComicBookPlus.com (dlid=79176) Free Online

Publication Notes · Collector Reference

GCD Publisher ID: 2540 · Indicia publishers: Interfaith Committee of Protestant Digest / Interfaith Committee of Protestant Digest, Inc.
Distributor: T.C. Comics · Address: 1 East 43rd Street, New York NY 17 · Published: 1945–1946
Overstreet 2024: Issue #2 VF 8.0 = $742 · All four issues: public domain under US copyright law
Sources & Further Reading
Grand Comics DB

Grand Comics Database — Complete records for all four issues (#247716–247719).

comics.org/publisher/2540
ComicBook Plus

ComicBookPlus.com — Free online reading of Issues #3 and #4.

comicbookplus.com/?cid=2215
Comics Detective

Ken Quattro — "E.C. Stoner: The Forgotten Trailblazer" (April 2010).

thecomicsdetective.blogspot.com
Tom Christopher

Kenneth Leslie & The Challenger — Most detailed account of the comic's genesis.

tomchristopher.com
Invisible Men

Quattro, Ken — Invisible Men (Yoe Books, 2020). Definitive treatment of Black artists in Golden Age comics.

Invisible Men · Yoe Books, 2020
Dalhousie

Dalhousie University — Kenneth Leslie Fonds — Primary archival source. Open for research.

findingaids.library.dal.ca