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It is a truth universally acknowledged that apes on comics sell comics. This is a fundamental cornerstone of comics going all the way back to the ‘50s. It first emerged under one of the colossal giants of the medium Julius Schwartz, the man who served as editor of DC Comics during its Silver age through the ‘50s and ‘60s. Schwartz claimed to have data showing a bump in sales of comics when a gorilla was featured on the cover, data that was so convincing it actually shaped all of DC’s output for a time.
There were legitimately strict rules and limits on the whole idea of putting apes on comics, treating the phenomena as a finite resource to be carefully exploited to avoid oversaturation of the ape-based marketplace. Given that those 2 decades have defined the shape of comics to this very day, apes on comics remains a popular tradition to this day. With The Flash finally bringing Gorilla City to the small screen I figured now would be a perfect time to dive into the great legacy of apes on comics in possibly their finest moment: JLApe.
