Status | Defunct |
---|---|
Founded | c. 1937 |
Founder | Louis Silberkleit and Maurice Coyne [1] |
Defunct | 1960 |
Country of origin | U.S. |
Headquarters location | (nominal) Springfield, Massachusetts and Holyoke, Massachusetts (actual) 60 Hudson Street, New York City |
Key people | Robert A. W. Lowndes |
Publication types | Pulp magazines |
Fiction genres | Science fiction, Western, detective stories, crime fiction, mystery fiction, romance fiction, sports fiction |
Imprints | Winford Publications (1934–1940) Northwest Publishing (1935–1940) Chesterfield Publications (1936–1939) Blue Ribbon Magazines [1] (1937–1941) Double Action Magazines [1] (1938–1941) |
Columbia Publications was an American publisher of pulp magazines featuring the genres of science fiction, westerns, detective stories, romance, and sports fiction. The company published such writers as Isaac Asimov, Louis L'Amour, Arthur C. Clarke, Randall Garrett, Edward D. Hoch, and William Tenn; Robert A. W. Lowndes was an important early editor for such writers as Carol Emshwiller, Edward D. Hoch and Kate Wilhelm.
Operating from the mid-1930s to 1960, Columbia's most notable magazines were the science fiction pulps Future Science Fiction , Science Fiction , and Science Fiction Quarterly . Other long-running titles included Double Action Western Magazine, Real Western, Western Action, Famous Western, Today's Love Stories, Super Sports, and Double Action Detective and Mystery Stories. In addition to pulp magazines, the company also published some paperback novels, primarily in the science fiction genre.
Columbia Publications was the most prolific of a number of pulp imprints operated in the 1930s by Louis Silberkleit. Nominally, their offices were in Springfield, Massachusetts and Holyoke, Massachusetts [2] (the addresses of their printers, binders, and mailers for subscriptions), but they were actually produced out of 60 Hudson Street in New York City. [3]
Louis Silberkleit and Maurice Coyne [n 1] (two out of three of the men who later founded MLJ Magazines (Archie Comic Publications)) [4] started publishing pulps in Sept. 1934 with the publisher brand Winford Publications and the title Double Action Western Magazine, soon joined by Real Western. The two men launched the Northwest Publishing imprint in 1935, Chesterfield Publications in 1936, Blue Ribbon Magazines in 1937, and Double Action Magazines in 1938. [3] Silberkleit ran the companies while Coyne acted as a silent partner and business manager.
Meanwhile, Silberkleit and Coyne had started Columbia Publications in late 1937. [6] Columbia's first titles were Western pulps: Western Yarns debuted in January 1938 and Complete Cowboy in January 1939. Beginning with the June 1940 issue, Columbia took over publication of Western Action from Winford Publications. The same happened in November 1940 with Double Action Western Magazine and Real Western.
Editor Charles Hornig was hired in October 1938. [7] [8] [9] He had no office; he worked from home, coming into the office as needed to drop off manuscripts and dummy materials, and pick up typeset materials to proof. [9] He was given broad freedom to select what he wanted to publish; he reported to Silberkleit's chief editor, Abner J. Sundell.
In 1941, Silberkleit essentially consolidated all his pulp publishing companies under the Columbia Publications umbrella. Extant titles Columbia took on that year included Famous Western, Science Fiction , Hooded Detective (started in 1938 under a different title), Future Fiction , Sports Winners and Super Sports. At that point, in mid-1941, Robert A. W. Lowndes came on board, becoming Columbia's lead editor. [10] In late 1941, Silberkleit merged Science Fiction with Future Fiction. [11]
Two years later Columbia cancelled both Future and Science Fiction Quarterly (launched in 1941), deciding to use the limited paper they could acquire for their line of Western and detective titles instead. [12] (The U.S.'s 1941–1942 entry into World War II brought about a paper shortage, which equally effected other pulp publications.) Both magazines, as well as Science Fiction, were revived in the 1950s.
In addition to pulp magazines, Columbia published a few paperback books, most notably Noel Loomis' City of Glass (1955) (a "Double Action Pocketbook"; originally published in 1942 as a shorter piece in Standard Magazines' Startling Stories ) and the five-issue series Science Fiction Classics (1942), which included novellas by Earl Binder and Otto Binder writing as "John Coleridge," and John Russell Fearn writing as "Dennis Clive".
As television supplanted magazines as the dominant form of mass entertainment in the 1950s, the pulps suffered from slumping sales. In February 1960, when Columbia's distributor refused to carry any more of the company's titles, that signaled the end of Columbia Publications. [4] [13]
Silberkleit, Coyne, and fellow Archie founder John L. Goldwater immediately founded Belmont Books, a low-rent paperback publisher devoted to science fiction, horror, and mystery titles. [14] In its early years, Belmont published a number of science fiction anthologies that featured content from Science Fiction, Future Fiction, Science Fiction Quarterly , and Dynamic Science Fiction , all of which had been published by Columbia Publications.
British publisher Gerald G. Swan (1902–1980) [15] published 16 issues of Swan American Magazine from 1946 to 1950, the contents of which were culled from Columbia Publications titles. The Swan issues focused on Western and detective titles, with a couple of science fiction-themed issues thrown in. Five individual issues of Swan American Magazine were devoted to material reprinted from Columbia's Famous Western, two to Western Yarns, and two to Complete Cowboy.
Swan American Magazines issues:
In 1960, Swan also published three issues of Weird and Occult Library, which mostly featured old stories from Columbia's science fiction pulps.
Title | Genre | Imprint | 1st pub. date | last pub. date | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Action-Packed Western | Western | Chesterfield Columbia | 1937 October 1954 July | 1939 December 1958 May | published by Chesterfield in the 1930s and Columbia in the 1950s |
Adventure Yarns | Adventure | Columbia | 1938 August | 1938 December | |
Air Action | Adventure | Double Action | 1938 December | 1940 September | later known as Sky Raiders |
All Sports Magazine | Sports | Columbia | 1939 October 1948 November | 1944/1945 Winter 1951 September | |
Blue Ribbon Sports | Sports | Blue Ribbon | 1937 December | 1940 October | |
Blue Ribbon Western | Western | Blue Ribbon Double Action Columbia | 1937 July | 1950 April/May | published by Blue Ribbon from July 1937–(Jan.) 1940, by Double Action from (Feb.) 1940–Sept. 1940, then picked up by Columbia |
Complete Cowboy | Western | Columbia | 1939 January | 1950 April/May | later known as Complete Cowboy Novel Magazine |
Complete Northwest Novel Magazine | Adventure | Northwest | 1935 September | 1940 April | later called Complete Northwest Magazine and then Complete Northwest |
Cowboy Romances | Western | Blue Ribbon | 1937 August | 1938 July | |
Cowboy Short Stories | Western | Blue Ribbon | 1938? October | 1940 September | |
Detective and Murder Mysteries | Detective | Blue Ribbon Columbia | 1939 (March) | 1941 February | published by Blue Ribbon from Mar.–Nov. 1939, then continued by Columbia |
Detective Yarns | Detective | Blue Ribbon Columbia | 1938 June | 1957 July | later known successively as Black Hood Detective, Hooded Detective, Crack Detective, Crack Detective Stories, Famous Detective, Famous Detective Stories, and Crack Detective and Mystery Stories |
Double Action Detective Stories | Detective | Columbia | 1954 | 1960 | later known as Double Action Detective and Mystery Stories |
Double-Action Gang Magazine | Detective | Winford | 1936 May | 1939 July | later known as True Gangster Stories |
Double Action Western Magazine | Western | Winford Columbia | 1934 September | 1960 May | published by Winford from Sept. 1934–Nov. 1939 |
Dynamic Science Fiction | Science fiction | Columbia | 1952 December | 1954 January | |
Famous Western | Western | Blue Ribbon Double Action Columbia | 1937 May | 1960 | published by Blue Ribbon from 1937–Apr. 1940, by Double Action from July 1940–Spring 1941, then picked up by Columbia |
Future Science Fiction | Science fiction | Blue Ribbon Double Action Columbia | 1939 1950 May | 1943 July 1960 April | Published by Blue Ribbon as Future Fiction Nov. 1939–Aug. 1941, then continued by Double Action as Future Combined with Science Fiction from Oct. 1941–Aug. 1942, and then Columbia |
Gay Love Stories | Romance | Columbia | 1943 April | 1960 Summer | title refers to "gay" in the sense "lighthearted and carefree" |
Ideal Love | Romance | Columbia | 1941 April | 1960 February | later known as Ideal Love Stories |
Intimate Confessions | Romance | Blue Ribbon | 1937 September | 1938 November | |
Mystery Novels and Short Stories | Detective | Double Action | 1939 September | 1941 September | |
Personal Confessions | Romance | Blue Ribbon | 1938 March | 1938 November | |
Real Western | Western | Winford Columbia | 1935 January | 1960 April | published by Winford from Jan. 1935–Sept. 1939; later known as Real Western Stories |
Real Western Romances | Western | Columbia | 1949 December | 1960 December | later known as Western Romances |
Romantic Love Secrets | Romance | Blue Ribbon Double Action Columbia | 1938 July | 1959 September | published beginning in July 1933 by Graham Publications as Romantic Love Secrets Magazine; later known as Romantic Love (Double Action) and Today's Love Stories (Columbia) |
Science Fiction | Science fiction | Blue Ribbon Double Action Columbia | 1939 March 1955 January | 1941 September 1960 May | published by Double Action from Mar. 1940–Jan. 1941, then merged with Future Fiction under the title Future Combined with Science Fiction |
Science Fiction Quarterly | Science fiction | Double Action Columbia | 1940 Summer 1951 May | 1943 Spring 1958 February | |
Sky Raiders | Adventure | Columbia | 1942 December | 1944 Summer | |
Smashing Detective Stories | Detective | Columbia | 1951 March | 1958 February | later known as Fast Action Detective and Mystery Stories |
Smashing Novels Magazine | Adventure | Winford Chesterfield Columbia | 1936 May | 1939 December | published under Winford Publications from May 1936–Apr. 1939, then title changed to Adventure Novel and picked up by Chesterfield from Feb. 1937–Jan. 1938, then picked up by Columbia and title changed to Adventure Novels and Short Stories |
Smashing Western | Western | Chesterfield | 1936 September | 1939 October | |
Sports Fiction | Sports | Blue Ribbon Columbia | 1938 April | 1951 September | |
Sports Winners | Sports | Blue Ribbon Double Action Columbia | 1938 April | 1952 April | published by Double Action from June 1940–Jan. 1941 |
Super Sports | Sports | Blue Ribbon Columbia | 1939 March | 1957 | published by Blue Ribbon from Mar. 1939–Oct. 1941 |
Ten Story Gang | Detective | Winford Double Action | 1938 August | 1940 September | published by Double Action as Gangland Detective Stories from Nov. 1939–Sept. 1940 |
Undercover Detective | Detective | Double Action | 1938 December | 1939 April | |
Western Action Novels Magazine | Western | Winford Columbia | 1936 March | 1960 April | published by Winford from Mar. 1936–Feb. 1940, then by Columbia as Western Action |
Western Love Story Magazine | Western | Blue Ribbon | 1938 May | 1938 December | |
Western Yarns | Western | Columbia | 1938 January | 1944 Spring | |
Archie Comic Publications, Inc., is an American comic book publisher headquartered in Pelham, New York. The company's many titles feature the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Jughead Jones, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle, Sabrina Spellman, Josie and the Pussycats and Katy Keene. The company is also known for its long-running Sonic the Hedgehog comic series, which it published from 1992 until 2016.
Planet Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published by Fiction House between 1939 and 1955. It featured interplanetary adventures, both in space and on some other planets, and was initially focused on a young readership. Malcolm Reiss was editor or editor-in-chief for all of its 71 issues. Planet Stories was launched at the same time as Planet Comics, the success of which probably helped to fund the early issues of Planet Stories. Planet Stories did not pay well enough to regularly attract the leading science fiction writers of the day, but occasionally obtained work from well-known authors, including Isaac Asimov and Clifford D. Simak. In 1952 Planet Stories published Philip K. Dick's first sale, and printed four more of his stories over the next three years.
Wonder Stories was an early American science fiction magazine which was published under several titles from 1929 to 1955. It was founded by Hugo Gernsback in 1929 after he had lost control of his first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, when his media company Experimenter Publishing went bankrupt. Within a few months of the bankruptcy, Gernsback launched three new magazines: Air Wonder Stories, Science Wonder Stories, and Science Wonder Quarterly.
Fiction House was an American publisher of pulp magazines and comic books that existed from the 1920s to the 1950s. It was founded by John B. "Jack" Kelly and John W. Glenister. By the late 1930s, the publisher was Thurman T. Scott. Its comics division was best known for its pinup-style good girl art, as epitomized by the company's most popular character, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.
Martin Goodman 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 be become Marvel Comics, one of the United States' two largest comic book publishers along with rival DC Comics.
Science Fiction Quarterly was an American pulp science fiction magazine that was published from 1940 to 1943 and again from 1951 to 1958. Charles Hornig served as editor for the first two issues; Robert A. W. Lowndes edited the remainder. Science Fiction Quarterly was launched by publisher Louis Silberkleit during a boom in science fiction magazines at the end of the 1930s. Silberkleit launched two other science fiction titles at about the same time: all three ceased publication before the end of World War II, falling prey to slow sales and paper shortages. In 1950 and 1951, as the market improved, Silberkleit relaunched Future Fiction and Science Fiction Quarterly. By the time Science Fiction Quarterly ceased publication in 1958, it was the last surviving science fiction pulp magazine, all other survivors having changed to different formats.
John Leonard Goldwater co-founded MLJ Comics, and served as editor and co-publisher for many years. In the mid-1950s he was a key proponent and custodian of the comic book censorship guidelines known as the Comics Code Authority.
Belmont Books, also known as Belmont Productions, was an American publisher of genre fiction paperback originals founded in 1960. It specialized in science fiction, horror and fantasy, with titles appearing from 1961 through 1971. The company published books by such notable authors as Philip K. Dick, Philip José Farmer, Lin Carter, Robert Bloch, Frank Belknap Long, and Gardner Fox. Belmont was owned by the same company that owned Archie Comics.
Future Science Fiction and Science Fiction Stories were two American science fiction magazines that were published under various names between 1939 and 1943 and again from 1950 to 1960. Both publications were edited by Charles Hornig for the first few issues; Robert W. Lowndes took over in late 1941 and remained editor until the end. The initial launch of the magazines came as part of a boom in science fiction pulp magazine publishing at the end of the 1930s. In 1941 the two magazines were combined into one, titled Future Fiction combined with Science Fiction, but in 1943 wartime paper shortages ended the magazine's run, as Louis Silberkleit, the publisher, decided to focus his resources on his mystery and western magazine titles. In 1950, with the market improving again, Silberkleit relaunched Future Fiction, still in the pulp format. In the mid-1950s he also relaunched Science Fiction, this time under the title Science Fiction Stories. Silberkleit kept both magazines on very slim budgets throughout the 1950s. In 1960 both titles ceased publication when their distributor suddenly dropped all of Silberkleit's titles.
Fantastic Novels was an American science fiction and fantasy pulp magazine published by the Munsey Company of New York from 1940 to 1941, and again by Popular Publications, also of New York, from 1948 to 1951. It was a companion to Famous Fantastic Mysteries. Like that magazine, it mostly reprinted science fiction and fantasy classics from earlier decades, such as novels by A. Merritt, George Allan England, and Victor Rousseau, though it occasionally published reprints of more recent work, such as Earth's Last Citadel, by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore.
Dynamic Science Fiction was an American pulp magazine which published six issues from December 1952 to January 1954. It was a companion to Future Science Fiction, and like that magazine was edited by Robert W. Lowndes and published by Columbia Publications. Stories that appeared in its pages include "The Duplicated Man" by Lowndes and James Blish, and "The Possessed" by Arthur C. Clarke. It was launched at the end of the pulp era, and when publisher Louis Silberkleit converted Future to a digest format in 1954, he decided not to do the same with Dynamic, simply cancelling the magazine.
Marvel Science Stories was an American pulp magazine that ran for a total of fifteen issues in two separate runs, both edited by Robert O. Erisman. The publisher for the first run was Postal Publications, and the second run was published by Western Publishing; both companies were owned by Abraham and Martin Goodman. The first issue was dated August 1938, and carried stories with more sexual content than was usual for the genre, including several stories by Henry Kuttner, under his own name and also under pseudonyms. Reaction was generally negative, with one reader referring to Kuttner's story "The Time Trap" as "trash". This was the first of several titles featuring the word "Marvel", and Marvel Comics came from the same stable in the following year.
Out of This World Adventures was an American pulp magazine which published two issues, in July and December 1950. It included several pages of comics as well as science fiction stories. It was edited by Donald A. Wollheim and published by Avon. Sales were weak, and after two issues Avon decided to cancel it.
10 Story Fantasy was a science fiction and fantasy pulp magazine which was launched in 1951. The market for pulp magazines was already declining by that time, and the magazine only lasted a single issue. The stories were of generally good quality, and included work by many well-known writers, such as John Wyndham, A.E. van Vogt and Fritz Leiber. The most famous story it published was Arthur C. Clarke's "Sentinel from Eternity", which later became part of the basis of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Louis Horace Silberkleit was an American publisher of magazines, books, and comic books; together with Maurice Coyne and John L. Goldwater, he co-founded MLJ Magazines, and served as its publisher for many years.
Science-fiction and fantasy magazines began to be published in the United States in the 1920s. Stories with science-fiction themes had been appearing for decades in pulp magazines such as Argosy, but there were no magazines that specialized in a single genre until 1915, when Street & Smith, one of the major pulp publishers, brought out Detective Story Magazine. The first magazine to focus solely on fantasy and horror was Weird Tales, which was launched in 1923, and established itself as the leading weird fiction magazine over the next two decades; writers such as H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard became regular contributors. In 1926 Weird Tales was joined by Amazing Stories, published by Hugo Gernsback; Amazing printed only science fiction, and no fantasy. Gernsback included a letter column in Amazing Stories, and this led to the creation of organized science-fiction fandom, as fans contacted each other using the addresses published with the letters. Gernsback wanted the fiction he printed to be scientifically accurate, and educational, as well as entertaining, but found it difficult to obtain stories that met his goals; he printed "The Moon Pool" by Abraham Merritt in 1927, despite it being completely unscientific. Gernsback lost control of Amazing Stories in 1929, but quickly started several new magazines. Wonder Stories, one of Gernsback's titles, was edited by David Lasser, who worked to improve the quality of the fiction he received. Another early competitor was Astounding Stories of Super-Science, which appeared in 1930, edited by Harry Bates, but Bates printed only the most basic adventure stories with minimal scientific content, and little of the material from his era is now remembered.
Harry Shorten (1914–1991) was an American writer, editor, and book publisher best known for the syndicated gag cartoon There Oughta Be a Law!, as well as his work with Archie Comics, and his long association with Archie's publishers Louis Silberkleit and John L. Goldwater. From the late 1950s until his 1982 retirement, Shorten was a book publisher, overseeing such companies as Leisure Books, Midwood Books, Midwood-Tower Publications, Belmont Tower, and Roband Publications.
Tower Publications was an American publisher based in New York City that operated from 1958 to 1982. Originally known for their Midwood Books line of erotic men's fiction, it also published science fiction and fantasy under its Tower Books line and published comic books in the late 1960s under its Tower Comics imprint. In the early 1970s, Tower acquired paperback publisher Belmont Books, forming the Belmont Tower line. Archie Comics' cofounder Louis Silberkleit was a silent partner in Tower's ownership; longtime Archie editor Harry Shorten was a major figure with Tower in all its iterations.
Maurice Coyne was an American publisher of magazines, books, and comic books; together with Louis Silberkleit and John L. Goldwater, he co-founded the company that became known as Archie Comics. With Silberkleit and Goldwater, Coyne also published pulp magazines as part of Columbia Publications, and paperback originals with Belmont Books.
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.