Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: golden age

John Quincy Atom, Will O' The Wisp & More in Key Comics, at Auction

Short-lived Key Comics from Consolidated Magazine had an eclectic mix of features, including the story of an atom that decided to smash back.

The short-lived title Key Comics from Consolidated Magazines gets its name from the lead feature The Key, which stars a character named Dr. Jeffery Quick. Quick possesses a key that contains great power, which a Native American tribe of Oklahoma entrusted to him to do good in the world.  The title is rounded out with an eclectic mix of titles, including Will O' the Wisp, about a woman who possesses a willow branch that grants her a variety of supernatural abilities.  An interesting and obscure series, there are a number of issues of Key Comics up for auction in the 2024 June 2-4 Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Comic Books Select Auction #122423 at Heritage Auctions.

Perhaps the strangest feature in this weird mix of features was introduced in Key Comics #4.  John Quincy Atom leans completely into "power from atomic accidents" trope (though not too much of a trope yet in late 1945, to be fair) to humorous effect.  In the story, an apparently sinister rival of the Manhattan Project called the Brooklyn Project is using its atom smasher when one of the atoms gains sentience and decides to smash back.

Very little is yet known about Consolidated Magazines, who also published Lucky Comics and a couple other even more obscure titles, operated primarily in 1944-1945, and was owned by Joseph A. Rubinstein and Jacob M. Kornfeld. Funnies, Inc. legend Lloyd Jacquet was also listed as an owner during the later part of the company's operations, and the indicia of both Key Comics and Lucky Comics indicate that Funnies Inc provided the material for those titles.

Kornfeld was apparently a lawyer with his hands in a number of unrelated businesses, while Rubenstein was likely also the editor of this small, short-lived comic book line using the name "J.A. Ruby", and also is of no relation to well-known comic book artist and inker Joe Rubenstein. Joseph A. Rubinstein may also have been a New York City playwright at this time. The publisher is… probably… unrelated to the Consolidated Magazines which published pulp-adjacent titles like Blue Book, Red Book, and Green Book in the 1920s and the likes of Peppy Stories and Paris Nights in the 1930s.  Like many publishers who quickly jumped in and out of comics in the 1944-1945 in a likely bid to leverage paper access just as the comic book business was booming, little is known about the company behind the scenes.

An obscure and charmingly weird artefact of the Golden Age, there are a number of issues of Key Comics up for auction in the 2024 June 2-4 Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Comic Books Select Auction #122423 at Heritage Auctions.

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