[1] In 1953, Dell claimed to be the world's largest comics publisher, selling 26 million copies each month.

[2] Its first title was The Funnies (1929), described by the Library of Congress as "a short-lived newspaper tabloid insert" rather than a comic book.

[7][8] It was distributed through the Woolworth's department store chain, though it is unclear whether it was sold or given away; the cover displays no price, but Goulart refers, either metaphorically or literally, to the publisher "sticking a ten-cent pricetag [sic] on the comic books".

[12][13] Gaines would leave McClure, and by extension, Dell in 1939, in order to set up All-American Publications with a distribution/partnership agreement at DC.

While this diverged from the regular practice in the medium of one company handling finance and production and outsourcing distribution, it was a highly successful enterprise with titles selling in the millions.

[15] Dell Comics was best known for its licensed material, most notably the animated characters from Walt Disney Productions, Warner Bros., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Walter Lantz Studio, along with many movie and television properties such as the Lone Ranger, Tarzan, Felix the Cat, Howdy Doody, Yogi Bear and other Hanna-Barbera characters.

It often served as a try-out title (much like DC's Showcase) and thus the launching pad for many long-running series, a number of which (such as The Twilight Zone) were continued not by Dell, but Gold Key Comics, the competing company formed when Western ended its partnership (see below).

Responding to pressure from the African-American community, the character Lil' Eightball (who appeared in a handful of Walter Lantz cartoons in the late 1930s and in those initial appearances constituted what animation and comics historian Michael Barrier described as being a "grotesquely stereotypical black boy") was discontinued as one of the featured characters in the Lantz anthology comic book New Funnies; the last appearance of the character was in the August 1947 issue.

The association had been formed to pre-empt government intervention in the face of mounting public criticism of comic books.

[22][23] In 1961, Dell issued two atypical, comic-book like paperbacks without coloring, with cardboard covers and heavier-weight paper than standard comics, and selling for one dollar when most comic books were 12 cents: the 116-page The Flintstones on the Rocks[24] and the 117-page Huck & Yogi Jamboree[25][26] One historian describes the latter as "a collection of drawings with text (there’s not a word balloon to be found).

Dell Comics continued for another 11 years with licensed television and motion picture adaptations (including Mission: Impossible, Ben Casey, Burke's Law, Doctor Kildare, Beach Blanket Bingo) and a few generally poorly received original titles.

In August 2016, InDELLible Comics was formed in tribute to the public domain characters orphaned by Dell.