Editing Western Publishing (section)

===1930s===

During the [[Great Depression]] between 1929 and 1933, Western introduced new products: The Whitman jigsaw puzzle became very popular during this period as did a new series of books called [[Big Little Books]]. Brought out in 1932, the 10-cent Big Little Books became very popular with people looking for inexpensive entertainment. The first Big Little Book was ''The Adventures of Dick Tracy.''<ref name="Antique" /> Western won exclusive book rights to all [[The Walt Disney Company|Walt Disney]] [[Brand licensing|licensed characters]] in 1933, and in 1934 established an eastern printing plant at the former [[Fiat]] factory site in [[Poughkeepsie, New York|Poughkeepsie]], New York.<ref name="WPGHistory" />

The printing plant allowed a close relationship to develop with the publishers [[Dell Publishing]] Company and [[Simon & Schuster]], Inc. From 1938 to 1962 Dell Publishing and Western produced [[Dell Comics|color comic books]] featuring many of Western's licensed characters. In 1938, the first joint effort between Western and Simon & Schuster, ''A Children's History,'' was published.<ref name="WPGHistory" /> In the 1930s, Western formed the [[Artists and Writers Guild]] Inc., located in New York City, to develop new children's books. Western expanded to the West Coast in the early 1940s, opening an office in Beverly Hills to make it easier to do business with studios that owned the characters the company licensed.<ref name="Antique" />