Jumbo Comics #1 (Sept. 1938), artist(s) unknown.

Fiction House is a American publisher of pulp magazines and comic books that existed from the 1920s to the 1950s. Its comics division was best known for its pinup-style good girl art, as epitomized by the company's most popular character, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. Image File history File links Jumbo1. ... Image File history File links Jumbo1. ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... Pulp magazines, often called simply the pulps, were inexpensive text fiction magazines widely published in the 1920s through the 1950s. ... A comic book is a magazine or book containing the art form of comics. ... A pin-up girl is a woman whose physical attractiveness would entice one to place a picture of her on a wall. ... Rangers Comics #26: “Angels from Hell” Good girl art (GGA) is a type of art (usually drawings or paintings) depicting attractive women. ... Sheena, Queen of the Jungle #18 (Winter 1952-53). ...

History

Jumbo and Jack Kirby

Publisher Thurman T. Scott, whose Fiction House group included the pulp imprints Glen-Kel and Real Adventures Publishing Co., expanded into comic books in the late 1930s when that emerging medium began to seem a viable adjunct to the fading pulps. Receptive to a sales call by Eisner & Iger, one of the prominent "packagers" of that time who produced complete comic books on demand for publishers looking to enter the field, Scott released Jumbo Comics #1 (Sept. 1938). Eisner & Iger was a prominent comic book packager that produced comics on demand for publishers entering the new medium during its late-1930s and 1940s Golden Age. ...

Fiction House star Sheena appeared in that initial issue. Will Eisner and S.M. "Jerry" Iger had created the leggy, leopard-wearing jungle goddess for the British magazine Wags, under the joint pseudonym "W. Morgan Thomas". But their much-imitated "female Tarzan" only became famous when writer "William Thomas" and artist Mort Meskin took over her exploits in Jumbo #1. William Erwin Eisner (March 6, 1917 – January 3, 2005) was an acclaimed American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. ... Wow, What a Magazine! #3 (Sept. ... Morton Meskin (May 1916 - May 1995) was a prolific comic book artist who worked on many recognizable characters through the Golden Age of Comics, well into the Silver Age of Comics. ...

Fiction House's other features in that initial foray included the period adventure "Hawks of the Seas" (continuing a story from Quality Comics' Feature Funnies #12, after Eisner-Iger and Quality had had a falling out), and several now-obscure strips ("Peter Pupp"; "ZX-5 Spies in Action"; "Spencer Steel"; "Inspector Dayton") that nonetheless include future industry legend Jack Kirby's first comic-book work following his debut in Wild Boy Magazine^[1]: the science fiction feature The Diary of Dr. Hayward (under the pseudonym "Curt Davis"), the modern-West crimefighter strip Wilton of the West (as "Fred Sande"), and Part One of the swashbuckling serialization of Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo (as "Jack Curtiss"), each four pages long. Crack Comics #1 (May, 1940), featuring the Clock, previously introduced as the first masked comic book superhero. ... Jack Kirby (August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994) was one of the most influential, recognizable, and prolific artists in American comic books. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... A Swashbuckler is a term that came about in the 16th century and was applied to rough, noisy, boastful swordsman. To swash is to swagger and swing about, making a lot of noise and a buckler is a shield. The stock character Miles Glorioso is a swashbuckler. ... Alexandre Dumas redirects here. ... The Count of Monte Cristo (French: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) is a classic adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas, père. ...

House ad for "The Big 6 of the Comics!" advises, "Look for the Bull's-Eye..... Fiction House Magazines".

Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (530x826, 151 KB) House ad, Fiction House (defunct magazine & comics publisher), 1940s Source: http://64. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (530x826, 151 KB) House ad, Fiction House (defunct magazine & comics publisher), 1940s Source: http://64. ...

"The big 6 of the comics"

Jumbo proved a hit, and Fiction House would go on to publish Jungle Comics; the aviation-themed Wings Comics; the science fiction title Planet Comics; Rangers Comics; and Fight Comics during the early 1940s — most of these series taking their titles and themes from the Fiction House pulps. Fiction House referred to these titles in its regular house ads as "The Big Six," but the company also published several other titles, among them the Western-themed Indians and Firehair, jungle titles Sheena, Queen of the Jungle and Wambi, and five issues of Eisner's The Spirit. Aviation refers to flying using aircraft, machines designed by humans for atmospheric flight. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Planet Comics was a science fiction comic-book imprint by Fiction House Publishing that existed from 1944 until 1951. ... A typical archetype, the cowboy, in the Wild West. ... The Spirit (real name Denny Colt) is a fictional American masked crime-fighter, created by Will Eisner in 1940, who starred in a Sunday-newspaper comic-book insert. ...

Quickly developing its own staff, Fiction House employed either in-house or on a freelance basis such talented artists as Meskin, Matt Baker (the first prominent African-American artist in comics), Nick Cardy, George Evans, Bob Powell, and the British Lee Elias, as well as such rare female comics artists as Ruth Atkinson, Fran Hopper, Lilly Renée, and Marcia Snyder. Phantom Lady #17 (April 1948). ... An African American (also Afro-American, Black American) is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ... Nick Cardy (born Nicholas Viscardi, circa 1921), a. ... There have been a number of prominent people named George Evans: For the American congressman, see George Evans (politician) For the Australian explorer, see George Evans (explorer) For the Sergeant-Major of The Manchester Regiment awarded the Victoria Cross in World War I, see George Evans (VC) For the comic... Bob Powell (born Stanley Pawlowski or Stanley Pulowski [sources differ], 1917; died 1967) is an American comic book artist known for his work during the 1940s Golden Age of comic books, including the features Sheena, Queen of the Jungle and Mr. ... Lee Elias (Born May 21, 1920, died April 8, 1998 is an American comics artist. ... Ruth Atkinson Ford née Ruth Atkinson and a. ...

Trina Robbins, in The Great Women Superheroes (Kitchen Sink Press, 1996, ISBN 0-87816-481-2), wrote: Trina Robbins (born 1938) is an American comics artist and writer. ...

"[M]ost of [Fiction House's] pulp-style action stories either starred or featured strong, beautiful, competent heroines. They were war nurses, aviatrixes, girl detectives, counterspies, and animal skin-clad jungle queens, and they were in command. Guns blazing, daggers unsheathed, sword in hand, they leaped across the pages, ready to take on any villain. And they did not need rescuing."

Despite such pre-feminist pedigree, Fiction House found itself targeted in psychiatrist Dr. Frederic Wertham's famous book Seduction of the Innocent (1954), which in part blamed comic books for an increase in juvenile delinquency. Aside from the ostensible effects of gory horror in comic books, Wertham cast blame on the sexy, pneumatic heroines of Fiction House, Fox Comics and other companies. A subsequent, wide-ranging investigation by the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, coupled with outcry by parents, a downturn in comics sales, the demise of the pulps, and the rise of television and paperback novels competing for readers and leisure time, Fiction House faced an increasingy difficult business environment, and soon closed shop. Feminism is a social theory and political movement primarily informed and motivated by the experience of women. ... Psychiatry is a branch of medicine that studies and treats mental and emotional disorders (see mental illness). ... Dr. Fredric Wertham (March 20, 1895–November 29, 1981) was a German-American psychiatrist and crusading author who protested the purportedly harmful effects of mass media—comic books in particular—on the development of children. ... First U.S. printing, 1954 First U.K. printing, 1954 Seduction of the Innocent was a book by Dr. Fredric Wertham published in 1954, that warned that comic books were a bad form of popular literature and a serious cause of juvenile delinquency. ... Juvenile delinquency refers to criminal acts performed by juveniles. ... Horror fiction is, broadly, fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle, or horrify the reader. ... Fox Feature Syndicate (a. ... The Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency was convened during the early 1950s to investigate the influence on youth by violence and sex in mass media and, in particular, comic books. ... Categories: Stub | Books ...

Fight Stories Vol. 2, #4 (Sept. 1929). Cover art by F. R. Glass

Image File history File linksMetadata FightStories_pulp_v2n4. ... Image File history File linksMetadata FightStories_pulp_v2n4. ...

List of Fiction House pulps

This list is incomplete

• Aces (estimated 100 issues, December 1928 - Spring 1939)
• Action Novels
• Action Stories
• Air Stories (estimated 50 issues, August 1927 - Winter 1939)
• All Adventure Action Novels
• All-American Football Magazine
• Baseball Stories (estimated 50 issues, Spring 1938 - Spring 1954)
• Basketball Stories (one known issue, Winter 1937)
• Black Aces (7 issues, January 1932 - July 1932)
• Bull's-Eye Detective
• Bull's-Eye Sports (estimated 8 issues, Winter 1938 - Fall 1939)
• Bull's-Eye Western Stories
• Civil War Stories (one known issue, Spring 1940)
• Detective Book Magazine (65 issues, April 1930 - Winter 1952/53)
• Detective Classics (22 issues, November 1929 - September 1931)
• Fight Stories

Detective Book Magazine Vol. 5, #10 (Winter 1948)

• Football Action
• Football Stories (estimated 35 issues, Fall 1937 - Fall 1953)
• Frontier Stories
• Frontier Stories of the Pioneer Days
• George Bruce's Aces (Glen-Kel)
• George Bruce's Air Novels
• Jungle Stories (59 issues)
• Lariat Story Magazine
• North-West Stories
• North-West Romances
• Planet Stories (71 issues)
• Soldier Stories
• True Adventures
• Two Complete Detective Books (Real Adventure)
• Two Western Books
• Two Western Romances
• Wings

Image File history File linksMetadata DetectiveBook_pulp_v5n10. ... Image File history File linksMetadata DetectiveBook_pulp_v5n10. ...

List of Fiction House comic books

• Cowgirl Romances
• Fight Comics
• Firehair
• Ghost
• Indians
• Jumbo Comics
• Jungle Comics
• Ka'a'nga, Jungle King
• Man O'Mars
• Movie Comics
• Planet Comics
• Rangers Comics
• Sheena, Queen of the Jungle
• The Spirit (five issues, 1952-54)
• Wambi
• Wings Comics

Planet Comics was a science fiction comic-book imprint by Fiction House Publishing that existed from 1944 until 1951. ...

Footnotes

References

• The Connecticut Historical Society: "Fiction House: History and Influences" by Andrew Goldstein
• Ken Pierce Books: "Good Girl Art in the Comics: Sheena, Miss Fury, etc."
• AC Comics: Good Girl Art
• Don Markstein's Toonopedia: Sheena, Queen of the Jungle
• Don Markstein's Toonopedia: Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle
• The Jack Kirby Museum
• Wildwood Cemetery: The Spirit — Database Publishers
• The Grand Comics Database
• Michigan State University Libraries Special Collections: Reading Room Index to the Comic Art Collection
• Galactic Central
• Mystery Magazine Web, Vol. 2, #1 (Summer 2004)

Further reading

• Comic Book Marketplace Volume 2, #57 (March 1998): "Fiction House Pulps!" by Christian K. Berger, pp. 34-37, 44
• Comic Book Marketplace Volume 2, #60 (June 1998): "Fiction House Sci-Fi" (cover gallery) pp. 40-43
• Comic Book Marketplace Volume 2, #72 Oct. 1999): Letter from Bill Black on Australian versions of Fiction House comics, pp. 8-9
• Fiction House: A Golden Age Index compiled by Henry Steele (San Francisco, A. Dellinges, 1978)
• Fiction House: A Golden Age Index of Planet Comics (San Francisco: A. Dellinges, 1978)
• Ron Goulart's Comics History Magazine #4 (Summer 1997): "The History of Good Girl Art", Part 2, pp. 3-5

External links

• Kamikaze Images: Wings Comics # 72 (Aug. 1946)