prize comics Archives

The publisher best known today as Prize or the Prize Group was, in reality, a constellation of related publishing companies including Feature Publications, Crestwood Publications, and Headline Publications, all originally owned by Theodore Epstein and Milton Bleier.  The comic book line was named after its original flagship, Prize Comics, an anthology title that launched with[...]

Headline Comics is a relatively late war-era series inspired by the likes of Simon & Kirby Boy Commandos, but quickly transformed into something else.

The legendary creative team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby did some of their most important yet underappreciated work with publisher Prize beginning around late 1946, at first on established titles such as Headline Comics and Prize Comics among others, and eventually including series like Black Magic and the landmark series Young Romance Shortly after[...]

Perhaps the first superhero of the Atomic Age, Charles A. Vought's inventive Atomic Man had a brief run in Prize's Headline Comics.

We've recently covered its overlooked Simon & Kirby material and its historic debut of the first atomic-age hero, but overall, Headline Comics might be one of the most underappreciated series of its era.  This Prize Comics Group series lasted for 77 issues from February 1943 to September-October 1956, comfortably transitioning from the Golden Age, to[...]

Debuting in Headline Comics #16 in 1945 from publisher Prize, Atomic Man was arguably the first superhero of the atomic age.

By early 1945, it had become clear that Prize Comics was a title looking for a new direction.  The covers began to cycle between medieval humor/fantasy Sir Prize, boxing adventurer Boom Boom Brannigan (including a cover by Simon & Kirby), established heroes Black Owl and Yank & Doodle, and even Dick Briefer's Frankenstein finally got[...]

Dick Briefer's Frankenstein has a complicated history in the context of comic book horror.  The debut of Briefer's take on the Frankenstein monster mythos began in Prize Comics #7, December 1940, which has come to be considered an important milestone in the context of comic book horror.  Early on, this version of the character was[...]

Dick Briefer's Frankenstein has a complicated history in the context of comic book horror.  The debut of Briefer's take on the Frankenstein monster mythos began in Prize Comics #7, December 1940, which has come to be considered an important milestone in the context of comic book horror.  Early on, this version of the character was[...]

Running from 1945-1954 from Prize Comics, the series is one of the first horror comics ever printed in America He was so popular that they gave him his own series Listen to how crazy this series sounds: "Like many returning veterans, Frankenstein settled into small-town life, becoming a genial neighbor who "began having delightful adventures[...]