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50-634: Magazine Management , the magazine and comic-book publishing parent of Marvel Comics at the time, released a number of magazine-format comics in the 1970s, primarily from 1973 to 1977, in the market dominated by Warren Publishing . The line of mostly black-and-white anthology magazines predominantly featured horror , sword and sorcery , and science fiction . The magazines did not carry the Marvel name, but were produced by Marvel staffers and freelancers, and featured characters regularly found in Marvel comic books, as well as some creator-owned material. In addition to

100-459: A flawed humanity in which they bickered, worried about money and behaved more like everyday people than noble archetypes. That series became the first major success of what would become Marvel Comics . The newly naturalistic comics changed the industry. Lee, Kirby, such artists as Steve Ditko , Don Heck , Dick Ayers , John Romita Sr. , Gene Colan , and John Buscema , and eventually writers including Roy Thomas and Archie Goodwin , ushered in

150-832: A hipper, more monied crowd. Magazine Management's publications included such men's adventure magazines as For Men Only , Male and Stag , edited during the 1950s by Noah Sarlat. As well, there were such ephemera as a one-shot black-and-white " nudie cutie " comic, The Adventures of Pussycat (Oct. 1968), that reprinted some stories of the sexy, tongue-in-cheek secret-agent strip that ran in some of his men's magazines. Marvel Comics writers Stan Lee , Larry Lieber and Ernie Hart , and artists Wally Wood , Al Hartley , Jim Mooney , and Bill Everett and " good girl art " cartoonist Bill Ward contributed. Martin Goodman (publisher) Martin Goodman (also Morris Goodman ; born Moe Goodman ; January 18, 1908 – June 6, 1992 )

200-609: A new lineup of content, Magazine Management released the new titles Dracula Lives! , Vampire Tales , and Monsters Unleashed , as well as Monster Madness , a humorous fumetti magazine (all published under the Marvel Monster Group brand); Tales of the Zombie ; the prose digest Haunt of Horror ; and the satirical-comics magazine Crazy . Editor Wolfman said, "We used to farm the books out to Harry Chester Studios [sic] and whatever they pasted up, they pasted up. I formed

250-474: A number of horror stories from Marvel's 1950s predecessor Atlas Comics that originally were published before the 1954 introduction of the Comics Code. Lead editors for the magazine group were Roy Thomas , Marv Wolfman , and later Archie Goodwin and John Warner . Tony Isabella , Don McGregor , and David Anthony Kraft also spent stints editing magazine titles. Writer Doug Moench contributed heavily to

300-422: A paperback line. Goodman used the name Red Circle Books for the first seven titles plus an additional two later. Most were novels, but there was a smattering of mostly sports-oriented nonfiction. Goodman eventually developed two lines, the 25¢ Lion and the 35¢ Lion Library. The August 5, 1957 issue of Publishers Weekly contained a notice on page 32 of the proposed sale of Lion Books to New American Library , but

350-589: A position Lee would hold for decades. With the post-war lessening of interest in superheroes, Goodman established a pattern of directing Lee to follow a variety of genres as the market seemed to trend, such as romance in 1948, horror in 1951, Westerns in 1955 and Kaiju monsters in 1958. He could be highly derivative In this regard, such as ordering the title character of Patsy Walker, America's #1 Teenager to have similar crosshatching in her hair as that of Archie Comics ' popular Archie Andrews . The name "Timely Comics" went into disuse after Goodman began using

400-702: A string of hit characters, including Spider-Man , Iron Man , the Hulk , Daredevil , and the X-Men . In fall 1968, Goodman sold Magazine Management to the Perfect Film & Chemical Corporation . Goodman remained as publisher until 1972, which included supporting Lee's decision to disregard the Comics Code Authority 's disallowance of an anti-drug themed story-arc featured in The Amazing Spider-Man requested by

450-518: A very particular style ('man triumphant') that was not their own. This was not the style with which editor Bruce Jay Friedman felt most comfortable, and when editing publications for Martin Goodman he unsuccessfully tried to talk him out of running advertisements for trusses, an ad signalling the magazine's target audience: blue-collar yahoos. It would be years before he could raise his head at industry cocktail parties, when his acclaimed examples of 'black-humor fiction' were seen as appropriate material for

500-466: The Hindenburg disaster . In 1939, with the emerging medium of comic books proving hugely popular, and the first superheroes setting the trend, Goodman contracted with newly formed comic book packager Funnies, Inc. to supply material for a test comic book, Marvel Comics #1, cover-dated October 1939 and published by his newly formed Timely Publications . It featured the first appearances of

550-560: The Marvel Premiere title, saw the light of publishing day in The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #10. Masters of Terror and Doc Savage did manage two and eight issues respectively. The line would never again consist at one time of more titles than could be counted on the fingers of one hand. 1977 saw the debut of Rampaging Hulk (which later changed its title to The Hulk! , which ran through 1981). Starting with 1981 cover dates,

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600-632: The Great Depression , living in hobo camps. Circa late 1929, future Archie Comics co-founder Louis Silberkleit , then circulation manager at the magazine distribution company Eastern Distributing Corporation , hired Goodman for his department, assigning him clients that included publisher Hugo Gernsback . Goodman later became circulation manager himself, but the company went bankrupt in October 1932. Goodman then joined Silberkleit and other investors as part owner of Mutual Magazine Distributors, and

650-515: The US Department of Health, Education and Welfare , which discredited the censor. Two years later he founded a new comics company, Seaboard Periodicals , which published under a new Atlas Comics imprint and is known to collectors as " Atlas/Seaboard Comics ". It shut down the following year. Perfect Film & Chemical renamed itself Cadence Industries in 1973, the first of many post-Goodman changes, mergers, and acquisitions that led to what became

700-502: The science fiction magazine Marvel Science Stories and the jungle-adventure title Ka-Zar , starring its Tarzan-like namesake. These were published under a variety of names, all owned by Goodman and sometimes marked as " Red Circle ". In 1937, returning from his honeymoon in Europe, Goodman and his wife had tickets on the Hindenburg , but were unable to secure seats together, so they took alternative transportation instead, avoiding

750-557: The 1930s with pulp magazines published under a variety of shell companies , Magazine Management existed as of at least 1947. By the early 1960s, the company occupied the second floor at 60th Street and Madison Avenue . It published men's-adventure magazines with such writers as Bruce Jay Friedman , David Markson , Mario Puzo , Martin Cruz Smith , Mickey Spillane , and Ernest Tidyman ; film magazines with writers including Rona Barrett ; and humor publications, among other types. By

800-413: The 21st-century corporation Marvel Entertainment Group . Goodman's Magazine Management Company also published such men's adventure magazines as Bachelor , For Men Only , Male , Stag and Swank , edited during the 1950s by Noah Sarlat. As well, there was such ephemera as a one-shot black-and-white "nudie cutie" comic, The Adventures of Pussycat (Oct. 1968), that reprinted some stories of

850-541: The American Comic Book Revolution . Bloomsbury. ... worked for Independent News [partly founded by Eastern Distributing founder Paul Sampliner] alongside future [Archie Comics] publishers and rivals John Goldwater and Louis Silberkleit [as well as with] Frank Armer, who helped distribute Harry Donenfeld 's Detective Comics . In 1932, Goodman and Silberkleit left Independent News, borrowed money, and formed Western Fiction Publishing, where they published

900-443: The [ Comics Magazine Association of America ] over it. Nor did he really want to get into magazine-format comics; and [Marvel editor-in-chief] Stan [Lee] really did. So Goodman looked for an excuse to cancel it. Although Goodman had sold Magazine Management in 1968, he remained as the publisher. But Goodman left in 1972, the same year the company's new owners revived the magazine line. In addition to reviving Savage Tales , now with

950-406: The black-and-white comics magazine market with 11 ongoing titles. Al Hewetson , editor of rival comics-magazine publisher Skywald Publications , which went defunct in 1975, blamed his company's demise on ...Marvel's distributor. Our issues were selling well, and some sold out. Such returns as we received were shipped overseas, mainly to England, where they sold out completely... When Marvel entered

1000-423: The company launched Savage Tales , which debuted in the spring — and was immediately canceled. Roy Thomas , a Marvel writer-editor who became the company's editor-in-chief in 1972, recalled that: ...there were several things that led to Savage Tales being canceled after that first issue. [Publisher] Martin Goodman had never really wanted to do a non-Code comic, probably because he didn't want any trouble with

1050-423: The first of many changes, mergers, and acquisitions that led to what became the 21st century corporation Marvel Entertainment . As writer Dorothy Gallagher reminisced in 1998, At Magazine Management, magazines were produced the way Detroit produced cars. I worked on the fan-magazine line. On the other side of a five-foot partition was the romance-magazine line. And across a corridor were the financial staples of

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1100-505: The first production staff, hired the first layout people, paste-up people." 1974 saw the debut of The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu , Monsters of the Movies , Planet of the Apes , Savage Sword of Conan , and Marvel's short-lived entree into underground comix , Comix Book . Initially, the magazines' page-counts varied among 68, 76, and 84 pages. By late 1974, Magazine Management was flooding

1150-407: The game with countless [black-and-white horror] titles gutting [ sic ] the newsstand, their distributor was so powerful they denied Skywald access to all but the very largest newsstands, so our presence was minimal and fans and readers simply couldn't find us. ... [We] had a business lunch with our distributor in the fall of '74 and we were given very specific information about the state of affairs on

1200-512: The globe logo of the newsstand-distribution company he owned, Atlas, starting with the covers of comic books dated November 1951. This united a line put out by the same publisher, staff and freelancers through 59 shell companies, from Animirth Comics to Zenith Publications. Throughout the 1950s, the company formerly known as Timely was called Atlas Comics . Goodman, whose business strategy involved using several corporate names for various publishing ventures, sometimes attempted branding his line with

1250-604: The hit characters the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner , and quickly sold out 80,000 copies. Goodman produced a second printing, cover-dated November 1939, that then sold an approximate 800,000 copies. With a hit on his hands, Goodman began assembling an in-house staff, hiring Funnies, Inc. writer-artist Joe Simon as editor , and Timely's first official employee. Goodman then formed Timely Comics, Inc., beginning with comics cover-dated April 1941 or Spring 1941. Timely Comics became

1300-480: The late 1960s, its men's-adventure magazines such as Stag and Male had begun evolving into men's magazines , with pictorials about dancers and swimsuit models replaced by bikinis and discreet nude shots, with gradually fewer fiction stories, and eventually into pornographic magazines . One division of the company was the Marvel Comics Group . As one-time Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas recalled, "I

1350-502: The line bore the name Marvel Magazine Group on such new titles as the Howard the Duck magazine as well as on such surviving titles as Savage Sword of Conan — the longest-lived magazine title, which lasted 235 issues through 1995. Upon the line's demise, former editor Wolfman asserted that "Marvel never gave their full commitment to it, that was the problem. No one wanted to commit themselves to

1400-513: The logo " Red Circle ," which comics historian Les Daniels calls "a halfhearted attempt to establish an identity for what was usually described loosely as 'the Goodman group' ... a red disk surrounded by a black ring that bore the phrase 'A Red Circle Magazine.' But it appeared only intermittently, when someone remembered to put it on [a pulp magazine's] cover. Historian Jess Nevins , conversely, writes that, "Timely Publications [was how] Goodman's group [of companies] had become known; before this, it

1450-434: The magazines, including to the entire runs of Planet of the Apes , Rampaging Hulk , and Doc Savage , while also writing for virtually every other title in the line. The magazines featured fully painted covers by illustrators including Earl Norem , Bob Larkin , Ken Barr , Luis Dominguez , Neal Adams , Frank Brunner , Boris Vallejo , and Joe Jusko . Marvel production manager Sol Brodsky , who in 1970 had helped launch

1500-521: The many horror titles, magazines in this group included Savage Sword of Conan , The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu , Marvel Preview , and Planet of the Apes . The magazine format did not fall under the purview of the comics industry's self-censorship Comics Code Authority , allowing the titles to feature stronger content than mainstream color comic books, such as moderate profanity, partial nudity, and more graphic violence. In addition to original content, many issues included reprinted material, including

1550-442: The mid-1950s to mid-1960s. In addition to men's adventure magazines and Humorama , Goodman also published many other magazines covering a plethora of topics including several male-oriented glossy 5" × 7" digests in the early to mid-1950s (e.g. Focus , Photo , and Eye ) prior to the development of Humorama , as well as many romance, film and television, sports and other general interest magazines spanning several decades. Goodman

List of comics magazines published by Magazine Management in the 1970s - Misplaced Pages Continue

1600-513: The name of his very first pulp, and the name of his first publishing company." Birth year also appears as 1910 at "Reading Room Index to the Comic Art Collection, 'Goo' to 'Goodman' " . Michigan State University Libraries Special Collections Division. Archived from the original on September 9, 2010. Birthdate is given as January 8 , likely a typographical error, at Ro, Ronin (2004). Tales to Astonish: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and

1650-447: The newsstands — which had nothing to do with Warren's or Skywald’s solid readership base. Despite this victory, in 1975 the Marvel magazine line was revamped. All the horror titles were canceled (although several would then get an all-reprint, extra-thick "Annual" #1). The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu , Planet of the Apes , Savage Sword of Conan , and Crazy continued, and quite a few new titles were announced, promoted, and listed in

1700-428: The only obvious relation to Marvel being the publisher's name, Magazine Management , a name that the four-color comics stopped using in 1973 but was retained for the black-and-white magazines. Nonetheless, Marvel characters appeared regularly in the magazine line, and many of the magazine titles were featured in the four-color comics' house advertisements. The Curtis imprint was reduced to "CC" in 1975. The magazine line

1750-419: The organization, the men's magazines — Stag , For Men Only , Male — for which, at one time or another, Mario Puzo , Bruce Jay Friedman , David Markson , Mickey Spillane and Martin Cruz Smith wrote, until they became too exalted and rich to do it anymore. I'm almost forgetting the comic-book line, where Stan Lee [co-]created Spider-Man , known to every connoisseur of classic comics. ... [Th]e decor

1800-464: The regular subscription ads, but almost none were released as ongoing publications. Marvel Super Action and Marvel Movie Premiere became one-shots, while Sherlock Holmes and Star-Lord surfaced in the Marvel Preview anthology. Some of the material intended for a self-titled magazine for the martial-arts superhero Iron Fist , whose four-color feature was at this time still appearing under

1850-608: The sale was never completed. The "Summer 1957 Book Index" in the May 27, 1957 issue included 30 titles to be published by Lion between May and September of 1957, but Goodman ceased publication with the April 1957 titles. Most of the forecast titles eventually appeared between 1957 and 1959 as paperbacks from other publishers, including Signet , Pyramid Books , and Zenith Books. Authors that Lion published included such notables as Robert Bloch , David Goodis and Jim Thompson . The first Lion editor

1900-968: The sexy, tongue-in-cheek secret-agent strip that ran in some of his men's magazines. Marvel/Atlas writers Stan Lee , Larry Lieber and Ernie Hart and artists Wally Wood , Al Hartley , Jim Mooney and Bill Everett and " good girl art " cartoonist Bill Ward contributed. By the late 1960s, these titles had begun evolving into erotic magazines, with pictorials about dancers and swimsuit models replaced by bikinis and discreet nude shots, with gradually fewer fiction stories. Another division, Humorama , published digest-sized magazines of girlie cartoons by Ward, Bill Wenzel and Archie Comics great Dan De Carlo , as well as black-and-white photos of pin-up models including Bettie Page , Eve Meyer , stripper Lili St. Cyr and actresses Joi Lansing , Tina Louise , Irish McCalla , Julie Newmar and others. Titles included Breezy , Gaze , Gee-Whiz , Joker , Stare , and Snappy . They were published from at least

1950-407: The short-lived Skywald Publications line of black-and-white horror magazines before returning to Marvel, served as production manager here as well. Initially, the only company brand on the magazines was the "three C's" Curtis Circulation Company logo (Curtis being Marvel's distributor and an affiliated company). The Marvel Comics brand and logo did not always appear on the cover or in the indicia;

2000-783: The staff." Magazine Management Founded by Martin Goodman , who had begun his career in the 1930s with pulp magazines published under a variety of shell companies , Magazine Management served as an early employer of such staff writers as Rona Barrett , Bruce Jay Friedman , David Markson , Mario Puzo , Martin Cruz Smith , Mickey Spillane , and Ernest Tidyman . Subsidiaries of Magazine Management included Humorama , which published digest-sized magazines of girlie cartoons; and Marvel Comics. The company also published black-and-white comics magazines such as Vampire Tales , Savage Tales , and Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction that utilized primarily Marvel writers and artists. Founded by Martin Goodman , who had begun his career in

2050-726: The umbrella name for the several paper corporations that comprised Goodman's comic-book division, which in ensuing decades would evolve into Marvel Comics . In 1941, Timely published its third major character, the patriotic superhero Captain America by Simon and artist Jack Kirby . The success of Captain America #1 (March 1941) led to an expansion of staff, with Simon bringing freelancer Kirby on staff and subsequently hiring inker Syd Shores "to be Timely's third employee." Simon and Kirby departed Timely after 10 issues of Captain America , and Goodman appointed his wife’s cousin, Stan Lee , already there as an editorial assistant, as Timely's editor,

List of comics magazines published by Magazine Management in the 1970s - Misplaced Pages Continue

2100-544: Was Arnold Hano . In mid-1961, following rival DC Comics ' successful revival of superheroes a few years earlier, Goodman assigned his comics editor, Stan Lee , to follow the trend again. He said, "Stan, we gotta put out a bunch of heroes. You know, there's a market for it." Lee's wife suggested that Lee experiment with stories he preferred, since he was planning on changing careers and had nothing to lose. In response, Lee and artist Jack Kirby created The Fantastic Four #1 ( cover-dated Nov. 1961), giving their superheroes

2150-407: Was Marvel's second attempt at entering the black-and-white comics magazines market: in 1968, Marvel had experimented with the format with the two-issue superhero entry The Spectacular Spider-Man and the one-shot The Adventures of Pussycat . In 1971, attempting to compete in a market dominated by Warren Publishing and smaller publishers like Eerie Publications and Skywald Publications ,

2200-461: Was an American publisher of pulp magazines , digest sized magazines, paperback books , men's adventure magazines , and comic books , who founded the comics magazine company Timely Comics in 1939. Timely Comics would go on to become Marvel Comics , one of the United States' two largest comic book publishers along with rival DC Comics . Moe Goodman, who would later adopt the name Martin,

2250-582: Was insurance-company blah: grayish white walls and foam-tile ceilings, overhead fluorescent fixtures, gray metal desks. Except for the executive offices, which faced Madison Avenue and had carpets and windows, the space was divided into jerrybuilt bull pens with head-high partitions. Editors got a glassed-in area in each bullpen. Author Adam Parfrey , in his book about men's adventure magazines, described how, Most scribes laboring for Martin Goodman's Magazine Management firm and other repositories of adventure magazines spoke of feeling like well-compensated slaves of

2300-507: Was known as 'Red Circle' because of the logo that Goodman had put on his pulp magazines. ... " The Grand Comics Database identifies 21 Goodman comic books from 1944 to 1959 with Red Circle, Inc. branding, and one 1948 comic under Red Circle Magazines Corp. As the market for pulp magazines waned, Goodman, in addition to comic books, transitioned to conventional magazines—published through a concern dubbed Magazine Management Company at least as far back as 1947 —and in 1949 founded Lion Books,

2350-652: Was married to Jean Davis, with whom he had three children. He died on June 6, 1992, at his home in Palm Beach, Florida , aged 84. Launched pre-1970 1970s and later Birth year given as 1910, Brooklyn, in Daniels, Les (1991). Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics' . Harry N. Abrams . p. 17. ISBN   0-8109-3821-9 . Bell, Vassallo note (p. 290), "Daniels's book gets several facts [about Goodman] wrong, including Goodman's date of birth,

2400-673: Was named editor of Silberkleit's new sister company, the publisher Newsstand Publications Inc., at 53 Park Place, also known as 60 Murray Street, in Manhattan . Goodman's first publication was the Newsstand Publications pulp magazine Western Supernovel Magazine , premiering with cover-date May 1933. After the first issue he renamed it Complete Western Book Magazine , beginning with cover-date July 1933. Goodman's pulp magazines included All Star Adventure Fiction , Complete Western Book , Mystery Tales , Real Sports , Star Detective ,

2450-490: Was startled to learn in '65 that Marvel was just part of a parent company called Magazine Management." In late 1968, Goodman sold all his publishing businesses to the Perfect Film and Chemical Corporation , which made the subsidiary Magazine Management Company the parent company of all the acquired Goodman concerns. Goodman remained as publisher until 1972. Perfect Film and Chemical renamed itself Cadence Industries and renamed Magazine Management as Marvel Comics Group in 1973,

2500-460: Was the oldest son of 17 recorded children of Isaac Goodman (b. 1872) and Anna Gleichenhaus (b. 1875). His parents were Jewish immigrants who had met in the United States after separately moving from their native Vilna , Lithuania , then part of Russian Empire . The family lived at different homes in the New York City borough of Brooklyn . As a young man, Moe traveled around the country during

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