List of magazines released by Marvel Comics in the 1970s

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. Marvel's attempt at entering the comics-magazine field dominated by Warren Publishing, the new 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, Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, Marvel Preview, and Planet of the Apes.

The magazine format did not fall under the purview of the Comics Code, allowing the titles to feature stronger content — such as moderate profanity, partial nudity, and more graphic violence — than Marvel's mainstream color comic books. 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. Initially, the magazines' page-counts varied between 68, 76, and 84 pages.

Writer Doug Moench contributed heavily to the magazines, including to the entire runs of Planet of the Apes, Rampaging Hulk (continuing on the title when it changed its name to The Hulk!), and Doc Savage, while also writing for virtually every other title in the line. Marvel production manager Sol Brodsky, who in 1970 had helped launch Skywald Publications' line of black-and-white horror magazines before returning to Marvel, served in that role here as well.[1] 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.

In addition to original content, many issues included reprinted material, including a number of stories originally published before the 1954 introduction of the Comics Code. Production values were considered poor, especially in comparison to Warren and Skywald's black-and-white magazines.[2]

Curtis brand

Initially, the only company brand on the magazines was the "three C's" Curtis Circulation Company logo[3] (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.[4] 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.

History

The magazine line was Marvel's second attempt, following the two-issue superhero entry The Spectacular Spider-Man in 1968, at entering the comics-magazine field dominated by Warren Publishing and smaller publishers like Eerie Publications and Skywald Publications. The first title was Savage Tales, which debuted in 1971 and was immediately cancelled. Roy Thomas, a Marvel writer-editor who become the company's editor-in-chief in 1972, recalled that:

...there were several things that led to Savage Tales being cancelled after that first issue. [Publisher] Martin Goodman had never really wanted to do a non-[Comics] 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]

Goodman left Marvel in 1972, the same year the company's new owners revived the magazine line. In addition to 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 Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, Monsters of the Movies, Planet of the Apes, Savage Sword of Conan — and Marvel's short-lived, misguided entree into underground comix, Comix Book.

By late 1974, Marvel had flooded the black-and-white comics magazine market with eleven regular titles, succeeding in driving rival Skywald out of business. Skywald editor Editor Al Hewetson 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 cancelled (although several would then get an all-reprint, extra-thick "Annual" #1). 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 martial arts/superhero hybrid Iron Fist, whose four-color feature was at this time still appearing under the Marvel Premiere title, saw the light of publishing day in 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!, lasting until 1981). Starting with 1981 cover-date, Marvel finally put its own name, as "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-born 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]

Titles published

Ongoing series (by initial publication date)

1971

1972

1973

1974

1975

1977

1979

One-shots

See also

References

  1. ↑ Arndt, Richard J. "A 2005 Interview with Tony Isabella!" Enjolrasworld.com: Marvel’s Black & White Horror Magazines Checklist. Accessed May 4, 2013.
  2. ↑ Arndt, Richard J. "Marvel’s Black & White Horror Magazines Checklist," Enjolrasworld.com. Accessed May 4, 2013.
  3. ↑ Welles, Chris (10 Feb 1969). "Post-Mortem". New York Magazine. pp. 32–36. Retrieved 5 August 2011.
  4. ↑ The "three C's" logo was also used for some of Magazine Management publisher Martin Goodman's men's humor cartoon magazines such as Best Cartoons, Cartoons & Gags, Cartoon Laughs, Popular Cartoons, and Popular Jokes during the 1970s. Most of these magazines contained single-panel cartoons, but many of them also contained short "Pussycat" stories by Jim Mooney and others. Other so-called Curtis magazines included the Sensuous Streaker one-shot and Nostalgia Illustrated, which lasted for nearly a year. None of these magazines were advertised in Marvel comic books.
  5. ↑ Roy Thomas interview, Alter Ego #81 (Oct. 2008), p. 21
  6. 1 2 Sanderson, Peter and Peter B. Gillis "Comics Feature Interviews Marv Wolfman" Comics Feature #12/13 (September/October 1981) p. 44
  7. ↑ Arndt, Richard J. (December 2, 2010). "The Complete Skywald Checklist [including] A 2003 Interview With Archaic Al Hewetson!". EnjolrasWorld.com. Archived from the original on July 16, 2011. Additional WebCitation archive, June 15, 2010.
  8. ↑ Monster Madness listing at the GCD
  9. ↑ "Marvel Bullpen Bulletins," Marvel comics cover-dated December 1974.
  10. ↑ Kracalik, Al. "Monsters of the Movies: The True Story – How to Make a Monster Magazine... Or Maybe Not!" Scary Monster Magazine No. 36 (Sept. 2000), pp.18–23.
  11. ↑ Warner, John (June 1975). "Editorial". Deadliest Heroes of Kung Fu 1 (1): 2.

External links

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