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This is the last installment of this version of our Wanted section. We will be rebooting it with a new format starting in Vol. 2 - Issue # 1 (our 13th issue in the series!). This month we are covering Prize Publications, which somehow got overlooked in the preceding months! Also, we will be doing a company profile of probably the two best-known comic book publishers ever! National Periodical Publications/All American Comics/DC Comics Inc., and Timely Comics & Magazines/Atlas Publishing, known today as Marvel Comics Inc. Let us start with... Prize Publications Prize Publications under the ownership of Mike Blier and Teddy Epstein produced a small line of above-average comic books. They produced two superhero comics, plus a number of one-shot titles to cash in on the superhero craze of the 1940s. As the decade came to a close, those two magazines, Prize Comics and Headline Comics, would dump their heroes for western, horror, and romance characters, changing their names to reflect the new direction the company was going in. In the 1950s, Prize put out its last superhero title, The Fighting American, one of the all-time great comics by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. The title lasted 7 issues before ceasing publication. Not long afterwards in 1956, Prize Publications ceased all its titles and sold off the company to DC (then National Periodical Publications), who absorbed their romance titles and continued to publish them well into the 1960s. Here are the characters that we are seeking information on. Characters that we need text and visual information on: Bingo Characters that we need text information on: Dr. Frost Characters we do have information on: Airmale
Here we delve into the best-known comic book company in the world. DC Comics In the beginning, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson started the company under the name National Allied Publications. In 1936, Wheeler-Nicholson formed a partnership with Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz called Detective Comics Inc. By the end of 1937, Donenfeld bought the Major out. M. C. Gaines joined the company in 1938 to package an independent line of comic books under the name All-American Publications. In 1946,Gaines sold his interest in A.A. to Donenfeld and all the names were consolidated under National Comics Publishing, with the familiar DC logo appearing on all of the line’s books. By 1961,the name became National Periodical Publications, and finally in 1977, just DC Comics Inc. DC is now owned by that media giant Time Warner Communications Company as a subsidiary holding and is still publishing the adventures of some of the world’s greatest heroes! While we have a fairly complete listing for DC, there are still a few characters we need information on. Characters that we need text and visual information on: Lando Man of Magic Characters that we need visual information on: Guardian Angel (Hop Harrigan) These are the characters we do have information on. Since there were so many one-shot characters, we will include an asterisk (*) by those characters who only appeared once. These are the characters that appeared between 1936 through 1960. If we have missed anyone, let us know. Adam Strange Of note is one special comic, All-Star Comics # 15. In this issue, the girlfriends of the male members of the Justice Society of America assume the identities of their male counterparts/boyfriends. We have listed some of them under code-names that were not used in the story. To avoid confusion the seven characters that appeared in that story are as follows: Atom / Atoma (Mary James) And in a Golden Age Flash story, the Flash retires only to have his girlfriend take over his roll to force him out of retirement to battle the Fiddler. So here is... Lady Flash / Flash 1.5 (Joan Williams) We hope this clarifies what we've done here as there is no clear-cut way to identify these characters.
In our final company profile we take a look at the most prolific and eventually one of the most successful comic book companies ever, Marvel Comics Inc. In the beginning, Martin Goodman, a publisher of pulp magazines in the 1930s, was convinced by newsstand sales and the Funnies Inc. art shop salespeople that comic books would be the next big rage. Goodman, never one to pass up an opportunity (or a bandwagon) jumped into the fray with his first title: Marvel Comics #1, named after one of his pulp magazines. He called his comic book publishing arm Timely Comics ...and the rest was history. Timely had many ups and downs over the years, but by the end of the 1940s most of the superhero/mystery-men strips were replaced by funny animals, westerns, romance comics, and just about every conceivable genre. By the mid-1950s, Timely, now known as Atlas (In fact, there were 59 different publishing that the company went by during this period.), tried their superheroes once again only to meet with failure. It was on to sci-fi, horror, monster, and teen titles as well as every other genre, except superheroes, for the rest of the 1950s. In the early 1960's, Goodman saw the success that National Periodical Publications was having with its revived superhero line (which started slowly in 1956 with the revamping of a new Flash and gathered momentum over the next few years.) In 1960, DC created a team-comic called the Justice League of America, reminiscent of their earlier, successful Justice Society of America, which featured its most popular superhero characters. Inspired by this success Goodman returned to superhero comics, with a twist provided by Stan Lee (his cousin-in-law) and artist Jack Kirby, with the Fantastic Four. The FF was an instant hit! With its success Goodman’s company, now known as Marvel, ushered in the "Marvel Age of Comics" in the 1960s. Marvel gave DC a run for is money as the number-one comic book publisher in the United States (Of note, DC was distributing all of Marvel's titles during most of the 1960s,thus limiting Marvel's output.) and eventually becoming the number-one comic book publisher in the world. Today, Marvel is still in business and still rivals DC Comics for the top spot in comics. Before we get down to business, we should note have tried very hard to be liberal in whom we include as bona fide good guys and gals, since Timely/Atlas certainly strains traditional definitions of hero and villain. However, we feel that the following list is a fair and broad one while keeping within the criteria and spirit of what we've offered in past lists. As usual, your thoughts and comments are welcomed. Now down to business! Characters that we need text and visual information on: American Ace Characters that we need visual information on: Dynaman Characters that we need text information on: Captain Daring (two versions) Characters we do have information on: American Avenger Finally, we would like to acknowledge that there are many sites and print media devoted to Marvel, Timely, and Atlas comics that have loads of information on these characters. Often some of this information is contradictory or inaccurate. We also acknowledge that there are a great many sites and print media out there that are indispensable with their wealth of accurate information. We found that no one site, book, or article has ALL the RIGHT information. So, since we seek to collate and verify the data gathered from the sources that have dissected the subject of these many characters, it is our fervent hope that you, our readers, will aid us in our quest for true and complete information on this subject. Your help, aid, and guidance are most welcome. With your help we can complete these publishers’ stables of characters. If we have omitted anyone on the above lists, please let us know who, what, when, and where, and we will add them to the companies’ listings.
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