Arnold Book Company

Last updated

Arnold Book Company
StatusAcquired by Thorpe & Porter (1958) [1]
Founded1948
FounderArnold L. Miller
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Headquarters location2 Lower James Street
London W1
Key people Mick Anglo
Denis Gifford
Publication types Comics
Fiction genres Horror/suspense, crime, romance
Imprints Prize

Arnold Book Company (ABC) was a British publisher of comic books that operated in the late 1940s and 1950s, most actively from 1950 to 1954. ABC published original titles like the war comic Ace Malloy of the Special Squadron and the science fiction title Space Comics, and reprints of American horror and crime titles (many featuring the work of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby) like Adventures into the Unknown , Black Magic Comics , and Justice Traps the Guilty . British contributors to the company's titles include Mick Anglo and Denis Gifford. [2] Arnold Book Company was closely connected to the fellow British comics publisher L. Miller & Son.

Contents

In the 1950s, Arnold Book Company suffered from backlash for some of its horror comic reprints, leading to the company's closure in 1958. ABC's founder, Arnold L. Miller, later became a filmmaker and film producer, primarily in the nudist and sexploitation genre.

History

The company was founded in 1948 by Arnold Louis Miller, [3] the "Son" in L. Miller & Son, Ltd. a British reprint publisher (founded in 1943) of many American comic books, primarily those of Fawcett Comics. (L. Miller & Son became known later on for the 1954 creation [by British writer/artist Mick Anglo] of Marvelman – a blatant imitation of Fawcett's Captain Marvel.)

Between 1950 and 1952, Mick Anglo produced a number of strips for Arnold Book Company, on stories such as "Captain Valiant" (in Space Comics) and Ace Malloy of the Special Squadron, while concurrently producing Space Commando Comics, featuring "Space Commander Kerry," for L. Miller & Son. [4] In 1954, Anglo created two issues of Captain Universe [5] for ABC, a near-identical character to Captain Marvel and Marvelman. [lower-alpha 1]

Relationship with Thorpe & Porter

In the period 1951 to 1953, the British distributor/publisher Thorpe & Porter (T & P) acquired a number of ABC's reprint titles, including Justice Traps the Guilty , Young Brides, Young Eagle, and Young Love . (When T & P acquired Justice Traps the Guilty , it continued the numbering of the ABC version; with the other titles, T & P restarted the numbering at #1.)

In 1953, Thorpe & Porter seems to have acquired the Arnold Book Company as a separate line; Arnold Book Company appears as an imprint on the T & P titles Justice Traps the Guilty , Kid Colt, Outlaw , Young Brides, and Young Romance from that point until 1958. [6] (T & P later published a second volume of 13 issues of Justice Traps the Guilty.)

Horror comics controversy and closure

Starting around 1950, "lurid American 'crime' and 'horror comics' reached Britain." Titles such as EC Comics' The Haunt of Fear , Tales from the Crypt , and The Vault of Horror first arrived as ballast in ships from the United States, and at first were only available in the "environs of the great ports of Liverpool, Manchester, Belfast and London." EC's comics, which exhibited a gruesome joie de vivre, with grimly ironic fates meted out to many of the stories' protagonists, prompted what in retrospect has been characterised as a moral panic. [7]

In 1952, Arnold Book Company cashed in on the popularity of horror comics with reprints of the (relatively gore-free) Prize Comics title Black Magic Comics , publishing that title into 1954. Around that same time, in 1952 and again in 1954, "using blocks made from imported American matrices," ABC printed British single-issue editions of EC's The Haunt of Fear, Tales from the Crypt, and The Vault of Horror, selling them in "small back-street newsagents." [7] The ensuing outcry was heard in the British press; an article in The Times of April 22, 1955, accused horror comics of deranging young readers, pushing the most susceptible to desecrate local cemeteries. Shortly, at the urging of the Most Reverend Geoffrey Fisher, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Major Gwilym Lloyd George, the Home Secretary and Minister of Welsh Affairs, and the National Union of Teachers, Parliament passed the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act 1955. [8] The act targeted horror comics [8] — especially ABC's EC reprint titles.

As a result of this backlash, Arnold Book Company had mostly shut down its comic book activities after 1954, [9] [10] and was closed down entirely in 1958. [1]

Titles published (selected)

Original titles

Reprint titles

Arnold Miller's later career

After the closure of Arnold Book Company, Arnold Miller moved on to publishing the glamour magazine Photo Studio, [3] and then transitioned to a career in filmmaking, particularly nudist and sexploitation movies. Arnold Miller's father Leonard was against his son's new career, and as a result of their dispute, he ejected Arnold from L. Miller & Son, which became simply L. Miller & Co. [1]

Arnold Miller directed seven films in the period 1959 to 1970, produced several movies with Stanley Long, [14] and worked with Tigon British Film Productions. [3] Films directed by Miller include:

Miller died on April 26, 2014, in Hertfordshire, England. [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miracleman (character)</span> Comic book character

Miracleman, whose civilian name is Michael "Mike" Moran, is a British Golden Age comic book superhero appearing in comic books first published by L. Miller & Son, Ltd. Created by Mick Anglo, the character first appeared in Marvelman #25. The character was subsequently revived in 1982 by Alan Moore and Garry Leach as the lead of Marvelman in the pages of Warrior. After that publication was cancelled, the revival was continued as Miracleman by Eclipse Comics in 1985, with the character renamed accordingly, but went out of print following the company's demise in 1994.

Entertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books, which specialized in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction, dark fantasy, and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series. Initially, EC was owned by Maxwell Gaines and specialized in educational and child-oriented stories. After Max Gaines' death in a boating accident in 1947, his son William Gaines took over the company and began to print more mature stories, delving into the genres of horror, war, fantasy, science-fiction, adventure, and others. Noted for their high quality and shock endings, these stories were also unique in their socially conscious, progressive themes that anticipated the Civil Rights Movement and the dawn of the 1960s counterculture. In 1954–55, censorship pressures prompted it to concentrate on the humor magazine Mad, leading to the company's greatest and most enduring success. Consequently, by 1956, the company ceased publishing all of its comic lines except Mad.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British comics</span> Comics originating in the United Kingdom

A British comic is a periodical published in the United Kingdom that contains comic strips. It is generally referred to as a comic or a comic magazine, and historically as a comic paper.

Michael Anglo was a British comic book writer, editor and artist, as well as an author. He was best known for creating the superhero Marvelman, later known as Miracleman.

<i>Shock SuspenStories</i>

Shock SuspenStories was part of the EC Comics line in the early 1950s. The bi-monthly comic, published by Bill Gaines and edited by Al Feldstein, began with issue 1 in February/March 1952. Over a four-year span, it ran for 18 issues, ending with the December/January 1955 issue.

Quality Communications was a British publishing company founded by Dez Skinn that operated from 1982 to c. 2008. The company's most notable publications were the monthly comics anthology Warrior, which featured early work by writer Alan Moore; and the comics trade magazine Comics International, which Skinn published and edited for 16 years. Quality was involved with comics in both the UK and the U.S., mainly with reprint material from Warrior and repackaging 2000 AD material for the U.S. market.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">L. Miller & Son, Ltd.</span> British publisher

L. Miller & Son, Ltd. was a British publisher of magazines, comic books, pulp fiction and paperback books intended primarily to take advantage of the British ban on importing printed matter. Between 1943 and 1966, the firm published British editions of many American comic books, primarily those of Fawcett Comics and American paperback books, primarily those of Fawcett Publications' Gold Medal Books. The company is best known for the 1954 creation of Marvelman – a blatant imitation of the Golden Age Captain Marvel – after America's Fawcett Publications capitulated to National Periodicals. L. Miller & Son also published a large line of Western comics — many reprints but also some original titles - and both category fiction and non-fiction paperbacks.

<i>Young Marvelman</i> Comic book series

Young Marvelman was a British Golden Age superhero comic book, published by L. Miller & Son in the United Kingdom between 1954 and 1963. The lead character was originally created in 1954 by Mick Anglo as a replacement for Captain Marvel Jr due to Fawcett Publications ending the latter's titles following legal action by DC Comics.

<i>EC Archives</i>

The EC Archives are an ongoing series of American hardcover collections of full-color comic book reprints of EC Comics, published by Russ Cochran and Gemstone Publishing from 2006 to 2008, and then continued by Cochran and Grant Geissman's GC imprint (2011–2012), and finally taken over by Dark Horse in 2013.

<i>Miracleman</i> Superhero comic book series

Miracleman is a superhero comic book series, centred on the character of the same name. Originally created by Mick Anglo and published by L. Miller & Son, Ltd. as Marvelman between 1954 and 1963, the character was revived in 1982 for a revisionist story written by Alan Moore, beginning in the pages of British anthology Warrior. From 1985 the character was renamed Miracleman, and the series was continued by American publisher Eclipse Comics until 1993. Since 2009 the rights to the character have been licensed by Marvel Comics, who have published new material.

Russ Cochran was a publisher of EC Comics reprints, Disney comics, and books on Hopalong Cassidy, Chet Atkins, Les Paul, and vacuum tubes. He was a publisher for over 30 years, after quitting his job as a physics professor.

Denis Gifford was a prolific comic artist and writer, most active in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Gifford's work was largely of humour strips in British comics, often for L. Miller & Son. He was an influential comics historian, particularly of British comics from the 19th century to the 1940s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Young Miracleman</span> Comic book character

Young Miracleman is a fictional British Golden Age comic book superhero, originally created by Mick Anglo for publisher L. Miller & Son in 1954, and debuting in Young Marvelman #25, dated 3 February of that year as a replacement for Fawcett Publications' Captain Marvel Jr., whose civilian name is Richard "Dicky" Dauntless. A comic based on his adventures ran for 345 issues until 1963.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thorpe & Porter</span>

Thorpe & Porter was a British publisher, importer, and distributor of magazines and comic books. At first, the company was known for repackaging American comics and pulp magazines for the UK market. Later on, it became a publisher of original material. The company released more than 160 comics titles in the UK, the most prominent being Classics Illustrated, MAD UK, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes, Larry Harmon's Laurel & Hardy, House of Hammer, and Forbidden Worlds. T & P's most prominent imprints were Top Sellers Ltd. and Brown Watson. Thorpe & Porter operated from 1946 to c. 1979.

<i>Marvelman</i> Comic book series

Marvelman was a British Golden Age superhero comic book, published by L. Miller & Son in the United Kingdom between 1954 and 1963. The lead character was originally created by Mick Anglo as a replacement for Captain Marvel due to Fawcett Publications ending the latter's titles following legal action by DC Comics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Captain Miracle</span> Comics character

Captain Miracle is a fictional British Silver Age comic book superhero. The character was originally created by Mick Anglo for his own Anglo Features imprint, using material planned for Marvelman - itself a reworking of Fawcett Publications' Captain Marvel. The character first appeared in Captain Miracle #1, published in October 1960.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miracle Man (superhero)</span> Comics character

Miracle Man is a fictional British Silver Age comic book superhero. The character was originally created by Mick Anglo for Barcelona-based Spanish publisher Editorial Ferma in 1958 as Superhombre, running for 68 issues. In 1965 Anglo repurposed the character as Miracle Man for Thorpe & Porter, who released the monthly Miracle Man via their Top Sellers imprint between 1965 and 1966, running for 13 issues. While Miracle Man has a wide number of similarities with Anglo's earlier creation Marvelman, the strips were not redrawn versions of that character's adventures, although many covered similar themes.

<i>Marvelman Family</i> Comic book series

Marvelman Family was a British Silver Age superhero comic book, featuring eponymous team consisting of the characters Marvelman, Young Marvelman and Kid Marvelman. The title was created in 1956 by Mick Anglo for publisher L. Miller & Son as a companion title for the company's Marvelman and Young Marvelman magazines.

The comic book character Marvelman has been the subject of several legal issues, even after being renamed as Miracleman in 1985. The character and its derivatives were created by Mick Anglo in 1954 at the request of publisher Len Miller. The copyright has been retained by Anglo ever since, and by Anglo's estate, since his death in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Captain Universe (British comics)</span> British comic book character

Captain Universe is a fictional British superhero who appeared in comic books published by Arnold Book Company in 1954. The character was created by Mick Anglo; like his other creations of the era Captain Universe was heavily influenced by Fawcett Publications' Captain Marvel.

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Captain Universe uses a magic word, "Galap", to gain superhuman powers, just as Captain Marvel's "Shazam" and Marvelman's "Kimota."

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 (French) Depelley, Jean. "Miller & Son (2ème et dernière partie)," BDZoom.com (March 18, 2014).
  2. ↑ Darlington, Andrew (October 1995). "Daredevils of the Stratosphere" (PDF). The Mentor (88): 10. Retrieved 24 July 2012.
  3. 1 2 3 Fowler, William. "Miller, Arnold Louis (1922-) Biography". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 21 December 2020.
  4. ↑ Holland, Steve, "Who's Who in British Comics", Comics World #43, Aceville Publications Ltd. (September–October 1995).
  5. ↑ "Captain Universe". the International Catalogue of Superheroes. Retrieved 31 March 2010.
  6. ↑ "Thorpe & Porter : Arnold Book Co. (Indicia / Colophon Publisher)," Grand Comics Database. Retrieved Dec. 21, 2020.
  7. 1 2 Sringhall, John (July 1994). "Horror Comics: The Nasties of the 1950s". History Today . 44 (7). Archived from the original on 4 May 2012.
  8. 1 2 "22 February 1955 → Commons Sitting → Orders of the Day". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) . 22 February 1955. Retrieved 23 October 2010.
  9. ↑ Barker, Martin. A Haunt of Fears (London: Pluto Press, 1984), pp. 15, 146.
  10. ↑ Lent, John A., editor. Pulp Demons: International Dimensions of the Postwar Anti-Comics Campaign (Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1999), pp. 73, 86.
  11. ↑ "Archive for the 'Arnold Book Company' Category: Space Comics". The Magic Robot: A Digital Scrapbook. Retrieved 20 February 2012.
  12. ↑ Gifford, Denis (1985). Complete Catalogue of British Comics. Exeter, England: Webb & Bower. p. 197. ISBN   0-86350-079-X.
  13. ↑ "Arnold Book Company : Prize (Brand Groups)," Grand Comics Database. Retrieved Dec. 21, 2020.
  14. ↑ Morse, Erik. "The sex files: a history of erotic films from slo-mo frolics to romping stags: The British once took their titillation from heavily censored softcore films. Forty are now in the BFI’s new erotic archive," The Guardian (12 Jan 2017).
  15. ↑ "Arnold L. Miller (1922–1914)". Internet Movie Database . Retrieved 8 March 2023.

Sources consulted

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.