Vintage Paper is about old comics and more: whether you're interested in the Platinum Age, the Golden Age, the Silver, Bronze, or Copper Ages — or the history behind it all — Bleeding Cool has you covered on that. Featuring articles and research from some of the best experts in the field for comics, pulps, dime novels, and much more.
Recently, in our series on pulp publishing history, we've discussed the origins of the Daily Story Publishing Company, their launch of 10 Story Book, and the backing of Chicago business partnership Stumer, Rosenthal & Eckstein during the title's first year and a half. We've also detailed how the partnership split from Daily Story Publishing Company […]
Blue Book is considered a foundational early pulp title with contributors that eventually included the likes of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Zane Grey, Robert A. Heinlein, Agatha Christie, and countless others. Still regarded as an important pulp series by collectors and historians today, the Blue Book title was launched in 1905 by its publisher in the wake of the earlier […]
According to a 1906 overview of the history of fiction-focused periodical publishing in Chicago, the rise of Chicago-based literary story papers such as the Chicago Ledger and the Saturday Blade was fueled in part by the rise of mail-order catalog-based retail giants in that city and their advertising needs. Famous names like Sears, Roebuck and […]
The article Horror on the Newsstands by Bruce Henry in the April 1938 issue of the American Mercury appears to be the first known usage of the term shudder pulp, at least by inference. Henry begins the article by staking out the territory he's going to be talking about here, at a time when horror pulps […]
L.B. Cole and Jerome A. Kramer launched Star Publications in 1949 before the Pre-Code Horror era had become a boom. It's clear from looking at the first three years of Star Publications title launches that horror wasn't really on their radar. And of course, the inventory they acquired from Curtis/Novelty Publications contained very little real […]
The concept of legendary artist Sheldon Moldoff, This Magazine is Haunted was publisher Fawcett's debut entry into comic book horror. The title lasted for 14 issues there from 1951 to 1953 and was sold by Fawcett to Charlton in 1953 along with much of the rest of their non-Captain Marvel comic book line. Legendary creator […]
Lasting for for 21 issues 1951-1955, Strange Mysteries was a successful Pre-Code Horror title by any standard. Its publisher Superior Publications was a Canadian company that reprinted a wide range of material from U.S. publishers but also created original material for distribution in both the U.S. and Canada. Strange Mysteries was one of these original […]
Charles Biro and Bob Wood's exceedingly brief late 1942 stint at Hillman Periodicals is an interesting historical oddity. The pair had been editors and contributors at publisher Lev Gleason for nearly a year by that time, and had three issues of Crime Does Not Pay under their belts. Hillman, as the publisher of true crime magazines […]
You can almost tell a 1954 comic book edited and/or published by William K. Friedman just by glancing at the cover art. We've come back to Friedman's 1954 moves often in our discussions about the final months of the Pre-Code era. This was the peak moral panic year for comic books, and most publishers spent […]
As the first horror-only comic book, 1947's Eerie Comics #1 from publisher Avon is widely considered the true beginning of the Pre-Code Horror era. Perhaps Avon's Joseph Meyers was inspired to this by editor Donald A. Wolheim's pitch for the Avon Fantasy Reader pulp digest, which would launch a month later and contain plenty of […]
According to one comics industry legend as related in Blab! #6 (among other places) it was Charles Biro who was the originator and driving force behind the Crime Does Not Pay concept, laying out the idea for his Lev Gleason co-editor Bob Wood in a Broadway bar. If that's true, the title was a long time […]
Legendary creator Bill Everett contributed nearly 100 covers to the Marvel/Atlas Pre-Code era, most of them highly sought-after by collectors today, and his cover for Venus #19 is considered the best of the bunch, and one of the best Pre-Code Horror covers ever created. The story behind the cover, also written and drawn by Everett, […]
Our recent post about the 1950 Ace Magazines release Challenge of the Unknown #6 reminded me of the unusual nature of that one-issue title. Looking at it in the context of horror comics history, it is Ace's "proper" debut into Pre-Code Horror, after dabbling in the horror genre in Super-Mystery Comics and Four Favorites a […]
In our recent discussion on Harry Anderson's zombie cover for Marvel Tales #124, which hit newsstands in March 1954, we talked about how this was the month that Marvel publisher Martin Goodman began to make the changes that would allow Marvel to survive the comic book moral panic era that was hitting its peak at […]
Best remembered for his co-creation of Iron Man, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and other Marvel characters, his long Silver Age run penciling Avengers, and his inks over Jack Kirby's work, Don Heck also penciled (or penciled and inked) nearly 300 covers over the course of his career. These include a number of memorable and important covers. The […]
It wasn't obvious at the time, but March 1954 marked a turning point in the Marvel comic book line. Harry Anderson's zombie cover on Marvel Tales #124 hit newsstands that month, along with two other zombie covers (Journey into Unknown Worlds #28, Uncanny Tales #21). However, these would be the last time zombies (or werewolves, skeletons, and vampires, […]
We've discussed underappreciated artist Gus Ricca several times here in recent years, but it's also worth pointing out that he played a formative role in shaping the direction that comic book horror would subsequently take. The late-1940s horror boom, and what collectors consider the Pre-Code era hadn't started yet when Ricca was creating some absolutely […]
Best remembered as one of the early entrants in the American paperback market in the wake of Pocket Books' successful launch in 1939, the roots of Avon Publications trace an interesting path through the history of the cheap mass market collected and reprint edition format in America, with the company eventually branching out into comic […]
Launched in 1949, Marvel's Man Comics was a title without a clear identity, at least in the beginning. The series began as a general adventure title that occasionally strayed into crime territory. That all changed with the onset of the Korean War, with the title becoming a war comic book for Man Comics #9-25. The […]
With a little over 25 known credits in the comic book industry from 1951 to 1955, Vince Napoli is not the first name that comes to mind when it comes to Pre-Code Horror comic book art. But Napoli is considered an important pulp illustrator of the 1930s through the early 1950s. Best remembered for his […]
