It will also detail what comics reprinted Atlas within Australia and also where to track down the unpublished in America Atlas stories by Bandia Romereo, Walter Simonson and Howard Nostrand. The relevant copyright and contact details will follow the main text. If you want a copy of this article with more images, then you can download it via our main web-site. The images include all the covers to the comics, plus some images from the unpublished stories. The above link will take you another link for the pdf file, but, if you're really lazy, here's that link too! Goodman was previously the publisher, and founder, of Marvel Comics, originally known as Timely Comics, followed by Atlas and then, finally, in the late s, Marvel Comics.
Goodman and his son, had been bought out of Marvel for a substantial sum by Cadence, but wanted to keep publishing comics, thus Atlas was formed reverting back to the pre-Marvel brand name. Alan Kupperberg was also hired, initially as a letterer, and was promised the chance to contribute to the art and editing, but the company folded before this could happen. Martin Goodman wanted a company that could compete with Marvel and felt that the best way to do this was to steal concepts.
Chaykin clashed with Rovin, resulting in Chaykin leaving the company to be followed by Larry Hama, who was both writing and drawing Wulf The Barbarian, and who had also clashed with Rovin over direction[2]. Other creators complained of late payments and broken promises, resulting in the company being wound up in late The Goodmans left comic books for good after this debacle, and Lieber was re-hired at Marvel in a gesture of largess. Other creators also returned to Marvel, and DC, without penalty, and some creators, such as Chaykin and Rich Buckler, took their characters with them, adjusted them slightly and continued their stories at other publishers.
The art and stories that Atlas printed were slapdash at best. Despite an amazing array of talent, some issues were poorly drawn or written. However there were some true gems. The Destructor also featured Ditko, this time inked by Wally Wood. Alex Toth and Russ Heath turned in sterling war stories, Archie Goodwin and Walter Simonson showed why they were perfectly in tune with each other, Howard Nostrand drew Targitt, adding to the appeal.
Some, such as Frank Thorne, Ernie Colon and the Spanish artist, Romero, did the best jobs they could with mediocre material. The art woes at Atlas are best summed up by issue three of The Brute. Penciled by Alan Weiss, the story suffers underneath Jack Abels heavy inking. In an email correspondence, Weiss confirmed that the issue in question was his only job for Atlas. Originally Weiss had been asking to draw an issue of Ironjaw, but had been assigned The Brute as a fill-in artist, with a promise of being allowed to draw Ironjaw in the near future.
Faced with a tighter than usual deadline, Weiss enlisted the talents of Jim Starlin and Frank Brunner, both of whom assisted him with the art for the last few pages. Sadly this combination is hidden by some very heavy inks, although Weiss has since said, looking back, he was "was less displeased than I thought I would be"[3]. Some publishers opted for a combination of the two, but there were those publishers who found it more cost effective to concentrate solely on reprinting material sourced cheaply from the USA and Europe, with a focus in the s on Spanish publishers.
Publishers such as KG Murray also entered the super-hero market in the s and published reprints of popular DC material[4] in the form of Superman, Batman, the Justice League and others. Short lived publishers, such as Newton Comics, focused on Marvel, as did Horwitz, a magazine and book publisher that branched out into comic books in the s. KG Murray had branched out into the field of horror and non-super hero material in the early s and via its Kenmure imprint had decided to produce straight reprints[5] of Warren magazines such as Vampirella, Creepy and Eerie.
Murray also began to branch out further by deciding to publish Spanish and European material in the form of horror and western stories. The latter had formerly been a strong focus along with war titles for Horwitz, and later Yaffa, via its Page imprint, who acquired rights and material from Horwitz and merely reprinted their comics, renumbered, but with the same covers and inside stories. Into this market came Gredown. Relatively little is known about Gredown and its origins in comparison to other Australian comic book companies such as KG Murray and Newton Comics.
This appears to be due to both the lack of recording and interest in preserving the history at the time. However in an eerie parallel with Atlas, it appears that Gredown, a Sydney based publisher, came into being when Greg Murray, son of Kenneth G. Established to compete with KG Murray, Gredown appears to have started publishing shortly after the buy out in late with tabloid style magazines[10] complete with painted covers before branching out into fully blown horror comics, with the first appearing to have been the debut issue of Pit Of Evil[11].
Gredown then appears to have ceased publishing in the early to mid s, with a likely ending date of Greg Murray would have brought contacts, staff and an intimate knowledge of sourcing comic book material with him from KG Murray.
Atlas/Seaboard Comics
As such it would have been simple for him to begin to acquire the rights to publish American companies such as Charlton, Atlas, Skywald and Eerie Publications via Transworld Feature Syndicate Inc. Transworld would have supplied Gredown with material from the American publishers that it represented, and with the recent demise of Atlas, some of that material clearly included stats[13] of unpublished stories that otherwise came under the Atlas banner, with at least three otherwise unpublished Atlas stories being published in Australia for the first, and only, time.
In addition to American publishers, Gredown also secured the rights to reprint English language material produced by Spanish comic art agencies, such as Selecionnes Illustradas and Creaciones Editoriales. SI managed to bypass Bruguera by syndicating Spanish drawn material into markets such as Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and to markets as far as South Africa and South America, and eventually broke into the lucrative American market in the early s, by dealing directly with publishers such as Warren and Skywald.
The direct contact with Spanish based agencies and publishers resulted in a wide range of diverse Spanish drawn material such as Peter Hypnos, Hombre, 5 And The Infinite and Prickerix The Gaul to name but four being published in the English language for the first time in Australia. The result of this direct dealing means that there was material published in Gredown that could be considered to be original and not reprints. Once Gredown began to publish comic books it flooded the market. Other issues would feature an unofficial theme, such as Crypt Of Creatures and Creepy Tales being almost totally made up of Steve Ditko Charlton material, along with other themed issues.
Other issues were similarly themed, suggesting that someone with knowledge of comic books, possibly other than Belbin, was responsible for assembling the contents of the titles with the stories not merely being selected at random. At the start of their publishing tenure, Gredown began to publish numbered, sequential titles. As the title count increased, more one-shot, stand alone titles were produced. Gredown provided value for money by printing at least 64 pages per issue, in a magazine format.
This was achieved by printing straight from the stats provided by the art agencies and forgoing any form of colour. As some of the older material had already been formatted into black and white by publishers such as Eerie Publications, the bulk of the work had already been done. The numbering of issues gave the line a sense of continuity, however by the time the s rolled around and numbering ceased, confusion began to reign. At the same time there was a definite shift in the target audience for the comics as Gredown began to saturate regional and remote markets in the form of newsagents, truck stops, shops and service stations in country areas.
The reasons for this shift are largely unknown, again due to the lack of records and solid information, but it could be argued that the shift was to ensure that Gredowns were the prominent item on the shelf. While Yaffa had decreased their comic size from magazine format to small, digest sized issues[17], possibly in an attempt to both cut costs and ensure that their stock would always be at the front of the shelves; Murray had increased the size of their own comics to magazine to combat Gredown. By removing, or limiting, product from suburban and city outlets, Gredown clearly attempted to extend their publishing life.
However this made collecting Gredowns near impossible as some issues may not have ever made it to certain areas, which accounts for the scarcity value of a lot of the latter issues. Adding to the collectability of the comics is the fact that, by their very nature, they were designed to be disposed of after reading. Gredowns were printed on medium to poor paper stock and easily fell apart and sustained damage. Copies in mint or very fine condition are a premium and, sadly, comic book collecting was a limited hobby at best in Australia when Gredown was active, and most, if not all, serious collectors focused their attentions on American and older Australian comics with original, non reprint, material.
Gredowns generally were not a factor for collectors. Thus it may never be possible to have a complete collection of the entire output of Gredown, until the entire line has been accounted for, but there are a series of good starting points; however with limited material and solid information, even attempting to identify what Gredown released is difficult to establish.
Atlas Comics (1950s)
Gredown ceased publication, again for reasons unknown, in the early to mid s. This is confirmed by anecdotal evidence[18] along with period advertisements and photographs on both Gredown comics and other publications. For a publisher that remained in business for an estimated ten years, Gredown left a lasting legacy as a lot of the material that they published has yet to see print again in any other market. This is due to licensing and copyright issues, along with a perceived lack of interest.
Some of the original material printed by Gredown, particularly in the case of the three possibly four otherwise unpublished Atlas stories, have yet to see print in any other market or publication in the world. Three of these stories were published in Australia. As the title was cancelled after the third issue, this story was shelved and presumably sent to Gredown at the same time as the other Bog Beast stories.
This story was printed not once, but at least twice by Gredown, in two separate comics. The second and third unpublished Atlas stories are better known.
Both stories were written by Gabe Levy, the first story being drawn by Howard Nostrand and the second by Walter Simonson. This trilogy was documented by Simonson himself in an on-line interview about his fantasy work. Mine was the third chapter of an ongoing series written by Gabe. The first two were also completed as I remember seeing them in the office. I do have a set of photostats around somewhere, through the courtesy of Jeff Rovin who got them to me on what I think was his last day in the Seaboard offices.
Published and reprinted circa The Brute reprints the following Atlas stories: Published and reprinted circa Ironjaw reprints the following Atlas stories: Ironjaw 4 Requiem For A Werewolf! Tales Of Evil 2 Ironjaw 1 only reprinted the splash page to the first story, as the end page for the book. Buck and the other funny animal characters briefly returned in the early s when Marvel published the five-issue reprint title Li'l Pals "Fun-Filled Animal Antics!
Staff artist Stan Goldberg recalled in , "I was in the Bullpen with a lot of well-known artists who worked up there at that time. There was John Severin. There was the all-time great Joe Maneely We all worked together, all the colorists and correction guys, the letterers and artists. We had a great time". From to late , Goodman distributed Atlas' comics to newsstands through his self-owned distributor, the Atlas News Company. As comic-book historian Gerard Jones explains, the company in Its biggest client, George Delacorte , announced he would seek a new distributor for his Dell Comics and paperbacks.
The owners of American News estimated the effect that would have on their income.
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Then they looked at the value of the New Jersey real estate where their headquarters sat. They liquidated the company and sold the land. The Atlas globe remained on the covers, however, until American News went out of business in June I remember saying to him, 'Gee, why did you do that? I thought that we had a good distribution company.
It has to do with finance. During this retrenchment, according to a fabled industry story, Goodman discovered a closet-full of unused, but paid-for, art, leading him to have virtually the entire staff fired while he used up the inventory. In the interview noted above, Lee, one of the few able to give a firsthand account, told a seemingly self-contradictory version of the downsizing:. It would never have happened just because he opened a closet door.
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But I think that I may have been in a little trouble when that happened. We had bought a lot of strips that I didn't think were really all that good, but I paid the artists and writers for them anyway, and I kinda hid them in the closet! And Martin found them and I think he wasn't too happy. If I wasn't satisfied with the work, I wasn't supposed to have paid, but I was never sure it was really the artist's or the writer's fault. But when the job was finished I didn't think that it was anything that I wanted to use. I felt that we could use it in inventory — put it out in other books.
Martin, probably rightly so, was a little annoyed because it was his money I was spending. In a interview, Joe Sinnott , one of the company's top artists for more than 50 years, recalled Lee citing the inventory issue as a primary cause. He may have called back some of the other artists later, but that's what happened with me. Goodman's men's magazines and paperback books were still successful — the comics, except in the early Golden Age, were a relatively small part of the business — and Goodman considered shutting the division down.
The details of his decision not to do so are murky. Artist Jack Kirby — who after his amicable split with creative partner Joe Simon a few years earlier and after losing a lawsuit to a DC Comics editor was having difficulty finding sufficient work — recalled that in late ,. I came in [to the Marvel offices] and they were moving out the furniture, they were taking desks out — and I needed the work!
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Stan Lee is sitting on a chair crying. He didn't know what to do, he's sitting on a chair crying — he was still just out of his adolescence [Note: I says, 'Go in to Martin and tell him to stop moving the furniture out, and I'll see that the books make money'. The interviewer, The Comics Journal publisher Gary Groth , later wrote of this interview in general, "Some of Kirby's more extreme statements I never remember being there when people were moving out the furniture.
If they ever moved the furniture, they did it during the weekend when everybody was home. Jack tended toward hyperbole, just like the time he was quoted as saying that he came in and I was crying and I said, 'Please save the company! I was very happy that Jack was there and I loved working with him, but I never cried to him. Kirby had previously returned, in late , to freelance on five issues cover-dated December and February , [49] but did not stay.
While career necessity led Kirby back to publisher Goodman, whom he had left acrimoniously in , Kirby nonetheless helped elevate simple science fiction and giant-monster stories with what comics historian Charles Hatfield called "a vital jab in the ribs by [his] outlandish artistry.
This was followed by one or two twist-ending thrillers or sci-fi tales drawn by Don Heck , Paul Reinman , or Joe Sinnott , all capped by an often-surreal, sometimes self-reflexive Lee-Ditko short. Lee in described these "short, five-page filler strips that Steve and I did together", originally "placed in any of our comics that had a few extra pages to fill", as "odd fantasy tales that I'd dream up with O. He'd take those skeleton outlines I had given him and turn them into classic little works of art that ended up being far cooler than I had any right to expect.
It didn't pick up until , and even then it didn't go up all that much — a couple of bucks a page. Although for several months in and Timely's titles bore a circular logo labeled "Marvel Comic", the first modern comic books so labeled were the science fiction anthology Journey into Mystery 69 and the teen humor title Patsy Walker 95 both June , which each showed an "MC" box on its cover. In titles numbered from or into the various All Winners Comics , additional clarifying information is supplied.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Atlas Comics Former type. Retrieved November 16, The Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved 30 December Atlas [wireframe globe] Brand ". Retrieved January 3, The Atlas globe also remained in use through the September issues, plus one of the two issues cover-dated October , while [American News Corporation] had taken over distribution as of November The Comic Book History of Comics.
Archived from the original on May 24, Of more interest today is the artwork in these comics. Goodman did not pay well but As a result, just about everyone who worked in the New York comic book talent pool passed through his titles and some of the better artists — men like Bill Everett, Joe Maneely, Russ Heath and Dan DeCarlo — did an awful lot of pages.
Algernon, Charlie, and I: A Writer's Journey 1st ed. Retrieved 24 November Joe was always Stan's favorite artist.