| Parent company | Magazine Management |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1971 |
| Defunct | c. 1981 |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Headquarters location | New York City, New York |
| Key people | Archie Goodwin, Don McGregor, Doug Moench, Gerry Conway, Marv Wolfman, Roy Thomas, Steve Gerber |
| Publication types | Black-and-white comics magazines |
| Fiction genres | Horror, fantasy, martial arts |
| Imprints | Marvel Monster Group, Marvel Magazine Group |
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 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 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 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 the short-lived Skywald Publications line of black-and-white horror magazines before returning to Marvel, served as production manager here as well. [1]
Initially, the only company brand on the magazines was the "three C's" Curtis Circulation Company logo [2] (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; 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. [3] 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 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 [4] 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, 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 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. [5]
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 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 the first production staff, hired the first layout people, paste-up people." [6]
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 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 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 the newsstands — which had nothing to do with Warren's or Skywald’s solid readership base. [7]
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 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 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, 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 the staff." [6]
Marvin Arthur Wolfman is an American comic book and novelization writer. He worked on Marvel Comics's The Tomb of Dracula, for which he and artist Gene Colan created the vampire-slayer Blade, and DC Comics's The New Teen Titans and the Crisis on Infinite Earths limited series with George Pérez.
The Tomb of Dracula is an American horror comic book series published by Marvel Comics from April 1972 to August 1979. The 70-issue series featured a group of vampire hunters who fought Count Dracula and other supernatural menaces. On rare occasions, Dracula would work with these vampire hunters against a common threat or battle other supernatural threats on his own, but more often than not, he was the antagonist rather than protagonist. In addition to his supernatural battles in this series, Marvel's Dracula often served as a supervillain to other characters in the Marvel Universe, battling the likes of Blade the Vampire Slayer, Spider-Man, the Werewolf, the X-Men, Howard the Duck, and the licensed Robert E. Howard character Solomon Kane.
Keith Pollard is an American comic book artist. Originally from the Detroit area, Pollard is best known for his simultaneous work on the Marvel Comics titles The Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and Thor in the late 1970s–early 1980s.
Douglas Moench is an American comic book writer notable for his Batman work and as the creator of Moon Knight, Deathlok, Black Mask, Harvey Bullock, Electric Warrior, and Six from Sirius. He is also known for his critically acclaimed eight-year run on Master of Kung Fu.
Vampire Tales was an American black-and-white horror comics magazine published by Magazine Management, a corporate sibling of Marvel Comics. The series ran 11 issues and one annual publication from 1973 to 1975, and featuring vampires as both protagonists and antagonists.
Marvel Spotlight is a comic book anthology series published by Marvel Comics as a try-out book. It stood out from Marvel's other try-out books in that most of the featured characters made their first appearance in the series. The series originally ran for 33 issues from November 1971 to April 1977. A second volume ran for 11 issues from July 1979 to March 1981.
Archie Goodwin was an American comic book writer, editor, and artist. He worked on a number of comic strips in addition to comic books, and is known for his Warren and Marvel Comics work. For Warren he was chief writer and editor of landmark horror anthology titles Creepy and Eerie between 1964 and 1967. At Marvel, he served as the company's editor-in-chief from 1976 to the end of 1977. In the 1980s, he edited the publisher's anthology magazine Epic Illustrated and its Epic Comics imprint. He is also known for his work on Star Wars in both comic books and newspaper strips. He is regularly cited as the "best-loved comic book editor, ever."
The Bronze Age of Comic Books is an informal name for a period in the history of American superhero comic books, usually said to run from 1970 to 1985. It follows the Silver Age of Comic Books and is followed by the Modern Age of Comic Books.
Skywald Publications was an American publisher of black-and-white comics magazines, primarily the horror anthologies Nightmare, Psycho, and Scream. It also published a small line of comic books and other genre magazines. Skywald's original comics were similar in appearance and quality to rival black-and-white publisher Warren Publishing, and even employed many of the same creators. Skwyald operated from 1970 to 1975.
Thomas F. Sutton was an American comic book artist who sometimes used the pseudonyms Sean Todd and Dementia. He is best known for his contributions to Marvel Comics and Warren Publishing's line of black-and-white horror-comics magazines, particularly as the first story-artist of the popular character Vampirella.
The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu was an American black-and-white martial arts comics magazine published by Magazine Management, a corporate sibling of Marvel Comics. A total of 33 issues were published from 1974 to 1977, plus one special edition. Additionally, a color Marvel comic titled simply Deadly Hands of Kung Fu was published as a 2014 miniseries.
The Academy of Comic Book Arts (ACBA) was an American professional organization of the 1970s that was designed to be the comic book industry analog of such groups as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Composed of comic-book professionals and initially formed as an honorary society focused on discussing the comic-book craft and hosting an annual awards banquet, the ACBA evolved into an advocacy organization focused on creators' rights.
Pablo Marcos Ortega, known professionally as Pablo Marcos, is a comic book artist and commercial illustrator best known as one of his home country Peru's leading cartoonists, and for his work on such popular American comics characters as Batman and Conan the Barbarian, particularly during the 1970s. His signature character was Marvel Comics' the Zombie, for which Marcos drew all but one story in the black-and-white horror-comics magazine Tales of the Zombie (1973–1975).
Chamber of Darkness is a horror/fantasy anthology comic book published by the American company Marvel Comics. Under this and a subsequent name, it ran from 1969 to 1974. It featured work by creators such as writer-editor Stan Lee, writers Gerry Conway, Archie Goodwin, and Roy Thomas, and artists John Buscema, Johnny Craig, Jack Kirby, Tom Sutton, Barry Windsor-Smith, and Bernie Wrightson. Stories were generally hosted by either of the characters Digger, a gravedigger, or Headstone P. Gravely, in undertaker garb, or by one of the artists or writers.
Notable events of 1974 in comics.
Notable events of 1975 in comics.
Bob Larkin is an American comics artist primarily known for his painted covers for Marvel Comics' magazine-format titles Marvel Magazines in the 1970s and early 1980s and for his 32 painted covers on the Bantam Books paperback reissues series of the Doc Savage pulp novels.
Dracula Lives! was an American black-and-white horror comics magazine published by Magazine Management, a corporate sibling of Marvel Comics. The series ran 13 issues and one Super Annual from 1973 to 1975, and starred the Marvel version of the literary vampire Dracula.
Celso L. "Sonny" Trinidad was a Filipino comics artist who worked in the Filipino and American comic book industries. In the U.S., he is mostly known for his work for Marvel Comics in the mid–1970s.
Steve Gan is a Chinese-born Filipino comics artist. He is best known for co-creating Panday with Carlo J. Caparas and Marvel Comics' Star-Lord and Skull the Slayer.
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