Dating the Federal DC's: The logo story

Federal Comics used six distinct logos on their DC reprints between 1983-86:

Murray the Cat/Federal logo

March-June 1983

A transitional logo amending the pre-existing Murray the Cat design.

Many issues were actually cover-dated March-April or April-May 1983. Some also replicated the CCA stamp.

Federal Comics FC (red and blue) logo

July 1983-January 1984

The first fully-fledged Federal Comics logo

Federal Comics FC (black and white) logo

January-March 1984

A distinct short-lived variation on the FC logo

Australian Edition DC logo

March 1984-April 1984

DC replaces FC in the circle, and Australian Edition replaces Federal Comics in the outer ring

Australian Edition DC logo and Federal Comics corner tag

May 1984-June 1985

DC bullet

July 1985-March 1986

Australian Edition tagged alongside the standard DC logo

Clearly the logo story outlined here begins earlier, not just with the Murray variations but with Planet Comics and the Colour Comics Pty. Ltd. branding, but for the moment we are just concerned with the Federal Comics period.

With most of these changes there is a transitional month in which both logos appear. I've noted above the ones which cross over in my data - January 1984 and March 1984 - but I wouldn't be surprised to find crossover instances in June-July 1983 and June-July 1985.

The DC bullet logo appears in random colours - blue, red and black being the most common, but I've seen a pink one, and there may be other others. I doubt there's an underlying pattern to them.

The above images are placeholder samples pending clear high-resolutions samples of each without the masthead intruding.

Obviously the Federal Marvel editions have a different logo story.