Wings Comics

Last updated
Wings Comics
WingsComics01.jpg
Wings Comics #1 (Sept 1940). Cover artist(s) unknown.
Publication information
Publisher Fiction House
Scheduleongoing monthly
Formatstandard
Genre Adventure anthology
Publication dateSept. 1940–Summer 1954
No. of issues124
Creative team
Artist(s) Murphy Anderson, Ruth Atkinson, Alex Blum, John Celardo, Gene Colan, George Evans, Tom Gill, Alvin Hollingsworth, Howard Larsen, Klaus Nordling, Lily Renée, Art Saaf, George Tuska
Editor(s) Jerry Iger

Wings Comics was an aviation-themed anthology comic book published by Fiction House from 1940 to 1954. Wings Comics was one of Fiction House's "Big 6" comics titles (which also included Jumbo Comics , Jungle Comics , Planet Comics , Fight Comics , and Rangers Comics ).

Contents

Overview

Fiction House started out as a pulp magazine publisher, with one of their more popular titles being Wings (which ultimately ran 133 issues [11+ volumes], from January 1928 to Spring 1953). Wings Comics, which was produced by the Eisner and Iger Studio, took its title and themes from the pulp title.

The title initially targeted "flight enthusiasts, with articles about the history of flight and aerobatics, such as wing walking." [1] With the U.S entry into World War II, Wings Comics began emphasizing "patriotic war stories," [1] similar to those of Captain Midnight and Quality Comics' Blackhawk. [1] With the end of the war, Wings Comics returned its focus to historical stories, "real-life heroes of aviation," [1] and text pieces on model aircraft.

Long-running recurring features in Wings Comics were "Jane Martin" and "Suicide Smith."

Publication history

Wings Comics started out as a 68-page-monthly, eventually settling on 52 pages per issue until issue #106. The title went to 36 pages for the duration of its run; also becoming quarterly with issue #110 (Winter 1949).

Ultimately, Fiction House published 124 issues of Wings Comics from September 1940 to Summer 1954.

Contributors

During the 1940s, John Celardo was an assistant art director and a major contributor to the Fiction House line, notably for Wings Comics.

Art Saaf produced covers for issues #7, 15, 19-57, and 98.

Pioneering female cartoonist Lily Renée worked on the "Jane Martin" feature in 1943–1944. Similarly, Ruth Atkinson's first confirmed, signed work is the single-page "Wing Tips" featurette in issue #42 (Feb. 1944). Atkinson continued to pencil and ink that featurette, as well as "Clipper Kirk" and "Suicide Smith."

Long-time Superman inker Murphy Anderson's first confirmed credit is the two-and-two-thirds-page nonfiction aviation featurette "Jet Propulsion" in Wings Comics #48 (cover-dated Aug. 1944), and his first fiction feature was an eight-page "Suicide Smith" story in issue #50 (Oct. 1944). [2]

Gene Colan's first illustration work was in 1944 for Wings Comics ("[J]ust a summertime job before I went into the service"). [3] This led to Colan's the one-page "Wing Tips" non-fiction filler "P-51B Mustang" (issue #52, Dec. 1944). [4] His first comics story was a seven-page "Clipper Kirk" feature in the following month's issue. [5]

Pioneering black cartoonist Alvin Hollingsworth produced "Suicide Smith" at least sporadically from 1946 to 1950.

Howard Larsen, George Evans, Tom Gill, [6] George Tuska, and Klaus Nordling (under the pseudonym "Clyde North") were also Wing Comics contributors.

Recurring features

"Clipper Kirk" — ran issues #1–70 (1940–1946); contributors included Art Saaf, Ruth Atkinson, and Gene Colan

"Greasemonkey Griffin" — ran issues #1–96 (1940–1948); contributors included Alex Blum

"Jane Martin" — espionage feature starring a female pilot working in the male-dominated aviation industry, which ran throughout the title's entire run. Drawn by female artists Lily Renée from issues #31 to 48 (March 1943–Aug. 1944) [7] and Fran Hopper from issue #67 to issue #84 (March 1946–August 1947). George Tuska was also a contributor; [8] scripts for the feature are credited to the possibly pseudonymous "F.E. Lincoln." [7]

"Jet Propulsion" — featurette

"Parachute Patrol" — ran issues #1–23; artists included Henry C. Kiefer

"Suicide Smith and the Air Commanders" — title's other most enduring feature; contributors included Ruth Atkinson, Alvin Hollingsworth, Murphy Anderson, and Jack Keller. [9] "Suicide Smith" also appeared in Fiction House's Jungle Comics and Rangers Comics .

"Wing Tips" — nonfiction airplane profile featurette produced by, among others, Ruth Atkinson and Gene Colan

"Yank Aces of World War II" — biographical feature; contributors included Fran Hopper [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gene Colan</span> American comic artist (1926–2011)

Eugene Jules Colan was an American comic book artist best known for his work for Marvel Comics, where his signature titles include the superhero series Daredevil, the cult-hit satiric series Howard the Duck, and The Tomb of Dracula, considered one of comics' classic horror series. He co-created the Falcon, the first African-American superhero in mainstream comics; Carol Danvers, who would become Ms. Marvel and Captain Marvel; and the non-costumed, supernatural vampire hunter Blade.

<i>Marvel Mystery Comics</i> American comic book series

Marvel Mystery Comics is an American comic book series published during the 1930s–1940s period known to fans and historians as the Golden Age of Comic Books. It was the first publication of Marvel Comics' predecessor, Timely Comics, a division of Timely Publications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Abel</span> American comic book artist

Jack Abel was an American comic book artist best known as an inker for leading publishers DC Comics and Marvel Comics. He was DC's primary inker on the Superman titles in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and inked penciler Herb Trimpe's introduction of the popular superhero Wolverine in The Incredible Hulk #181. He sometimes used the pseudonym Gary Michaels.

<i>Marvel Super-Heroes</i> (comics) Comic book published by Marvel Comics

Marvel Super-Heroes is the name of several comic book series and specials published by Marvel Comics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fiction House</span> American publisher of magazines and comics

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.

<i>Savage Tales</i> Three different American comics series

Savage Tales is the title of three American comics series. Two were black-and-white comics-magazine anthologies published by Marvel Comics, and the other a color comic book anthology published by Dynamite Entertainment.

Ruth Atkinson Ford, née Ruth Atkinson and a.k.a. R. Atkinson, was an American cartoonist and pioneering female comic book writer-artist who created the long-running Marvel Comics character Millie the Model and co-created Patsy Walker.

<i>Eclipse</i> (magazine) Comics anthology magazine

Eclipse, The Magazine was a black-and-white comics anthology magazine published bi-monthly by Eclipse Comics from 1981 to 1983. It was the company's first ongoing title, Eclipse having previously published graphic novels, and was designed as a competitor to the likes of Epic Illustrated and Heavy Metal.

<i>Planet Comics</i>

Planet Comics was a science fiction comic book title published by Fiction House from January 1940 to Winter 1953. It was the first comic book dedicated wholly to science fiction. Like most of Fiction House's early comics titles, Planet Comics was a spinoff of a pulp magazine, in this case Planet Stories. Like the magazine before it, Planet Comics features space operatic tales of muscular, heroic space adventurers who are quick with their "ray pistols" and always running into gorgeous women who need rescuing from bug-eyed space aliens or fiendish interstellar bad guys.

<i>Tower of Shadows</i>

Tower of Shadows is a horror/fantasy anthology comic book published by the American company Marvel Comics under this and a subsequent name from 1969 to 1975. It featured work by writer-artists Neal Adams, Jim Steranko, Johnny Craig, and Wally Wood, writer-editor Stan Lee, and artists John Buscema, Gene Colan, Tom Sutton, Barry Windsor-Smith, and Bernie Wrightson.

Girls' Romances was a romance comic anthology published by DC Comics in the United States. Debuting with a Feb.,/Mar. 1950 cover-date, it ran for 160 issues, ending with the Oct. 1971 issue.

<i>Astonishing Tales</i> Comic book series published by Marvel Comics

Astonishing Tales is an American anthology comic book series originally published by Marvel Comics from 1970 to 1976. Its sister publication was Amazing Adventures.

<i>Worlds Unknown</i> 1970s science fiction comic book

Worlds Unknown was a science-fiction comic book published by American company Marvel Comics in the 1970s, which adapted classic short stories of that genre, including works by Frederik Pohl, Harry Bates, and Theodore Sturgeon.

<i>Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction</i>

Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction was a 1970s American black-and-white, science fiction comics magazine published by Marvel Comics' parent company, Magazine Management.

<i>Menace</i> (Atlas Comics)

Menace was a 1953 to 1954 American crime/horror anthology comic book series published by Atlas Comics, the 1950s precursor of Marvel Comics. It is best known for the first appearance of the supernatural Marvel character the Zombie, in a standalone story that became the basis for the 1970s black-and-white comics magazine Tales of the Zombie. As well, a standalone story in the final issue introduced a robot character that was revived decades later as the Human-Robot, a.k.a. M-11, the Human-Robot.

Eisner & Iger was a comic book packager that produced comics on demand for publishers entering the new medium during the late-1930s and 1940s, a period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books. Founded by Will Eisner and Jerry Iger, many of comic books' most significant creators, including Jack Kirby, entered the field through its doors. Eisner & Iger existed from 1936 to 1939.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lily Renée</span> Austrian-born American artist (1921–2022)

Lily Renée Phillips, often credited as L. Renée, Lily Renée, or Reney, was an Austrian-born American artist best known as one of the earliest women in the comic-book industry, beginning in the 1940s period known as the Golden Age of Comics. She escaped from Nazi-occupied Vienna to England and later New York City, whereupon she found work as a penciller and inker at the comics publisher Fiction House, working on such features as "Jane Martin", "The Werewolf Hunter", "The Lost World" and "Señorita Rio".

Fran Hopper, née Frances R. Deitrick, was an American comic-book artist active during the 1930s–1940s period known as the Golden Age of Comic Books. One of the earliest women in the field, she drew primarily for the publisher Fiction House on features, including "Jane Martin", "Glory Forbes", "Camilla", "Mysta of the Moon", and "Gale Allen and Her All Girl Squadron".

<i>Heart Throbs</i>

Heart Throbs was a romance comic published by Quality Comics and DC Comics from 1949 to 1972. Quality published the book from 1949–1957, when it was acquired by DC. Most issues featured a number of short comics stories, as well advice columns, text pieces, and filler. The long-running feature "3 Girls—Their Lives—Their Loves", drawn by Jay Scott Pike and inked by Russ Jones, ran in Heart Throbs from 1966–1970.

References

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Wings Comics," Fury Comics. Accessed July 8, 2018.
  2. Murphy Anderson at the Grand Comics Database
  3. "Gene Colan". (interview), Adelaide Comics and Books. 2003. Archived from the original on February 15, 2011.
  4. Wings Comics #42, Dec. 1944 at the Grand Comics Database
  5. Wings Comics #53 (Jan. 1945) at the Grand Comics Database
  6. Tom Gill at the Grand Comics Database
  7. 1 2 Lily Renée at the Grand Comics Database.
  8. George Tuska at the Grand Comics Database
  9. Vassallo, Michael J. (2003). "Jack Keller Remembered". Comicartville.com. Archived from the original on May 19, 2011.
  10. Fran Hopper at the Grand Comics Database. Page 1 archived and Page 2 archived from the originals on December 14, 2017.

Sources consulted