
Gold Key maintained decent sales numbers throughout the 1960s, due to its offering of many titles based upon popular TV series of the day, as well as numerous titles based on both Walt Disney Studios and Warner Bros. Gold Key featured a number of licensed properties and several original titles, including a number of publications that were spun off from Dell's Four Color series, or were published as stand-alone titles. Like Dell, Gold Key was one of the few major American comic book publishers never to display the Comics Code Authority seal on its covers. They were packaged in plastic bags containing five comics each and were sold at gas stations and various eateries. In 1967, Gold Key reprinted a number of selected issues of their comics under the title Top Comics. They experimented with new formats, including Whitman Comic Book, a black-and-white, 136-page, hardcover series consisting of reprints, and Golden Picture Story Book, a tabloid-sized, 52-page, hardcover containing new material. Within a year, they had reverted to using inked panel borders and oval balloons. Hoping to make their comics more like traditional children's books, they initially eliminated panel line-borders, using just the panel, with its ink and artwork evenly edged, but not bordered by a "container" line.

Gold Key Comics was created in 1962, when its parent, Western Publishing Company, switched to in-house publishing rather than packaging content for branding and distribution by its business partner, Dell Comics. Currently, Gold Key Comics is owned by Gold Key Entertainment LLC, which consists of business partners and comic book enthusiasts Lance Linderman, Adam Brooks, Mike Dynes, and Arnold Guerrero. Also known as Whitman Comics, Gold Key operated this way from 1962 to 1984.

Gold Key Comics was originally an imprint of American company Western Publishing, created for comic books distributed to newsstands. Western Publishing (previous), Robert Willis (previous), Gold Key Entertainment LLC Lance Linderman, Adam Brooks, Mike Dynes, Arnold Guerrero

American comic book publisher Gold Key Comics
