List of comics magazines published by Magazine Management in the 1970s

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Magazine Management
Marvel Magazine Group

creator-owned material. In addition to the many horror titles, magazines in this group included Savage Sword of Conan, The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, Marvel Preview, and Planet of the Apes
.

Overview

The magazine format did not fall under the purview of the comics industry's self-censorship Comics Code Authority, allowing the titles to feature stronger content than mainstream color comic books, such as moderate profanity, partial nudity, and more graphic violence. In addition to original content, many issues included reprinted material, including a number of horror stories from Marvel's 1950s predecessor Atlas Comics that originally were published before the 1954 introduction of the Comics Code.

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.

Writer Doug Moench contributed heavily to the magazines, including to the entire runs of Planet of the Apes, Rampaging Hulk, and Doc Savage, while also writing for virtually every other title in the line. 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. Marvel production manager Sol Brodsky, who in 1970 had helped launch the short-lived Skywald Publications line of black-and-white horror magazines before returning to Marvel, served as production manager here as well.[1]

Curtis brand

Initially, the only company brand on the magazines was the "three C's" Curtis Circulation Company logo[2] (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.[3] 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.

Publication history

Antecedents

The magazine line was Marvel's second attempt at entering the black-and-white comics magazines market: in 1968, Marvel had experimented with the format with the two-issue

The Adventures of Pussycat
.

Savage Tales

In 1971, attempting to compete in a market dominated by Warren Publishing and smaller publishers like Eerie Publications and Skywald Publications, the company launched Savage Tales, which debuted in the spring — and was immediately canceled. Roy Thomas, a Marvel writer-editor who became the company's editor-in-chief in 1972, recalled that:

...there were several things that led to Savage Tales being canceled after that first issue. [Publisher]

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]

1972 launch, Marvel Monster Group

Although Goodman had sold

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 The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, Monsters of the Movies, Planet of the Apes, Savage Sword of Conan, and Marvel's short-lived entree into underground comix, Comix Book.

Initially, the magazines' page-counts varied among 68, 76, and 84 pages.

Crushing Skywald

By late 1974, Magazine Management was flooding the black-and-white comics magazine market with 11 ongoing titles. Al Hewetson, editor of rival comics-magazine publisher Skywald Publications, which went defunct in 1975, 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]

1975 revamp

Despite this victory, in 1975 the Marvel magazine line was revamped. All the horror titles were canceled (although several would then get an all-reprint, extra-thick "Annual" #1).

Iron Fist, whose four-color feature was at this time still appearing under the Marvel Premiere title, saw the light of publishing day in The 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!, which ran through 1981).

1981: Marvel Magazine Group, demise

Starting with 1981 cover dates, the line bore the name 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 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

  • Savage Tales (1971, 1973–1975) — starred such sword-and-sorcery characters as Conan, Kull, and John Jakes' barbarian creation, Brak.[8] Edited by Stan Lee (issue #1) Roy Thomas (#2–6), Gerry Conway (#7–11), Marv Wolfman (#11), and Archie Goodwin (#11).

1972

  • Monster Madness, the first title in the Marvel Monster Group, presented black-and-white stills with humorous word balloons added by Stan Lee. The title ran three issues, from 1972-1973.[9] Goodman had published a similar magazine, Monsters Unlimited, in the 1960s, and Magazine Management later released one issue of a political satire magazine in the same format, The Wit and Wisdom of Watergate, although that magazine had no apparent connection to Marvel Comics.[10]

1973

1974

"Monsters of the Movies" redirects here. For other uses, see Monster movie (disambiguation).
  • Comix Book (1974–1975) — canceled after three issues; revived for two more issues in 1976 by Kitchen Sink Press.[17] Edited in both incarnations by Denis Kitchen.
  • The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu (1974–1977) — published in response to the mid-1970s "Chopsocky" movie craze, this series ran for 33 issues and one special.[18] Edited by Roy Thomas (issues #1 & 2), Tony Isabella (#3–6), Don McGregor (#7, 8, 10, 11, 16), David Anthony Kraft (#9 & 10), Archie Goodwin (#12–15, 18–25), and John Warner (#26–33).[19]
  • Monsters of the Movies (1974–1975) — covering classic and contemporary horror movies, Monsters of the Movies included interviews, articles and photo features. The magazine was an attempt to cash in on the success of
    Ralph Macchio, appeared the following year in the pages of Marvel Preview #8: The Legion of Monsters (1976) (one of Marvel's final stabs at launching a magazine starring horror characters), and seemed to blame the West Coasters for the failure, and left ill feelings among them in its wake, especially as Macchio was not even on Marvel's staff during the events he described.[21]
  • Planet of the Apes (1974–1977) — published 29 issues[22] with adaptations of all five then-extant Apes movies, plus original stories set in the Ape Universe, and articles about the making of the movies and the short-lived TV series. Edited by Roy Thomas, Tony Isabella, Marv Wolfman, and Don McGregor. Marvel reprinted in color the first two film adaptations in the newsstand-distributed comic book Adventures On The Planet Of The Apes over eleven issues in 1975. Stories from the magazine were also reprinted in England by Marvel UK in a weekly title of 123 issues from 1974–1977.
  • The Savage Sword of Conan (1974–1980; 1980–1995) — Published 235 issues[23]
    but did not have the Marvel name on its cover until 1980, where it continued to have it until the title's cancellation in 1995.

1975

1977

  • The Hulk! (1978–1981) — edited for its first nine issues[31] by John Warner (issues #1–4), Roger Slifer (#5–7), and David Anthony Kraft (#8 & 9); then continued with issue #10 as The Hulk![32] (in "MarvelColor"), and then became an official Marvel title for its last three issues. As The Hulk! (from 1978–1981), it was edited by David Anthony Kraft (#10), Rick Marschall (#11–18), and Lynn Graeme (#19–27). Backups features included "Bloodstone", :Man-Thing", and "Shanna the She-Devil
    ".

1979

One-shots

See also

References

  1. ^ Arndt, Richard J. "Marvel's Black & White Horror Magazines Checklist: A 2005 Interview with Tony Isabella!". Enjolrasworld.com. Archived from the original on January 22, 2013. Retrieved May 4, 2013. (Scroll down to interview.)
  2. ^ Welles, Chris (February 10, 1969). "Post-Mortem". New York Magazine. pp. 32–36. Retrieved August 5, 2011.
  3. 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.
  4. ISBN 978-1-84576-324-4
    .
  5. ^ Roy Thomas interview, Alter Ego #81 (October 2008), p. 21
  6. ^ a b Sanderson, Peter; Gillis, Peter B. (September–October 1981). "Comics Feature Interviews Marv Wolfman". Comics Feature (12/13). Rockville, Maryland: New Media/Irjax: 44.
  7. ^ Arndt, Richard J. (December 2, 2010). "The Complete Skywald Checklist: A 2003 Interview With Archaic Al Hewetson!". EnjolrasWorld.com. Archived from the original on June 30, 2012. (Scroll down to interview.)
  8. ISBN 978-1603602334
    .
  9. ^ a b Overstreet, p. 882
  10. ^ Monster Madness at the Grand Comics Database.
  11. ^ Overstreet, p. 592
  12. ^ Overstreet, pp. 749–750
  13. ^ Overstreet, p. 647
  14. ^ Weiland, Jonah (September 30, 2004). "30 Years of Horror: Editor Beazley talks the return of Stoker's Dracula". Comic Book Resources. Archived from the original on February 17, 2014.
  15. ^ Overstreet, p. 1071
  16. ^ Overstreet, p. 1128
  17. ^ Overstreet, p. 583
  18. ^ Overstreet, pp. 619–620
  19. ^ DeAngelo, Daniel (July 2018). "Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: A History of Marvel's The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu Magazine". Back Issue! (105). Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing: 28–35.
  20. ^ "Marvel Bullpen Bulletins," Marvel comics cover-dated December 1974.
  21. ^ 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.
  22. ^ Overstreet, p. 931
  23. ^ Overstreet, p. 979
  24. ^ Overstreet, p. 639
  25. ^ Overstreet, p. 731
  26. ^ Overstreet, p. 815
  27. ^ Overstreet, p. 857
  28. ^ Overstreet, p. 513
  29. ^ Overstreet, p. 866
  30. ^ Overstreet, p. 1122
  31. ^ Overstreet, p. 950
  32. ^ Overstreet, p. 766
  33. ^ Overstreet, p. 1096
  34. ^ Overstreet, p. 619
  35. ^ Warner, John (June 1975). "Editorial". Deadliest Heroes of Kung Fu. 1 (1): 2.
  36. ^ Overstreet, p. 824
  37. ^ Overstreet, p. 855
  38. ^ Friedt, Stephan (July 2016). "Marvel at the Movies: The House of Ideas' Hollywood Adaptations of the 1970s and 1980s". Back Issue! (89). Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing: 59–60.
  39. ^ Overstreet, p. 859

External links

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