Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Comics Journal Library Vol. 1 Jack Kirby by Milo George Fiction House. Fiction House is an 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. Contents. History. Jumbo Comics #1 (Sept 1938). Cover artist(s) unknown. Fight Stories Vol. 2, #4 (Sept 1929). Cover art by F. R. Glass. Detective Book Magazine Vol. 5, #10 (Winter 1948) Jumbo and Jack Kirby. Fiction House began in the 1920s as a pulp-magazine publisher of primarily aviation, Western and sports pulps. By the 1930s, it had expended into detective mysteries. [1] Publisher Thurman T. Scott, whose Fiction House group included the pulp-magazine 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). [2] Fiction House star Sheena, Queen of the Jungle 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 , [3] under the joint pseudonym "W. Morgan Thomas". [4] 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"). [5] These include three by future industry legend Jack Kirby, representing his first comic-book work following his debut in Wild Boy Magazine : [6] 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, père's The Count of Monte Cristo (as "Jack Curtiss"), each four pages long. "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 . [7] Quickly developing its own staff under editor Joe Cunningham followed by Jack Burden, [8] Fiction House employed either in-house or on a freelance basis such 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, Lily Renée, and Marcia Snyder. Feminist comics historian Trina Robbins, wrote that. most 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. [9] Despite such pre-feminist pedigree, Fiction House found itself targeted in psychiatrist Dr. Fredric Wertham's 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 increasingly difficult business environment, and soon closed shop. Feasts For The Dogs And Birds – This Week’s Links. I’ll keep this week’s intro brief, mostly as I’m writing it while suffering under some exciting side-effects from Charles Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, which, incidentally, do not in any way add positively to the experience of finally cracking into Kentaro Miura’s magnum opus, Berserk, let me tell you. That particular endeavour will have to wait, but This Week’s Links, below, cannot, and urgently request your full and immediate attention! Spying with my little eye… This week’s news. • The Daily Cartoonist report on The New York Daily News’ editorial cartoonist, Bill Bramhall, being accused of racism, following publication of a cartoon attacking New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang - the cartoon having been altered for print publication, following earlier complaints levelled against its online version, and the usual “where does the line get drawn, metaphorically speaking” argument got roused from hibernation for another little trot around, just as a treat. • Causing the shenanigans meter to make a high-pitched keening noise before failing entirely and issuing forth acrid black smoke, BOOM! Studios this week waded into the furore surrounding Disney’s alleged failure to pay royalties to various creators - Fleen rounds up the many ways in which this is best embodied by the Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man meme. You know the one. • Koyama Provides announced the latest recipient of their grant program, awarding $1,000 to Noel Freibert, which “will aid in the production costs of Halloween Baptism , the comic book follow up to 2020's Halloween Confession .” • In memoriam, remembering those that the comics community lost recently, as here at TCJ Alex Grand has an obituary for writer and editor David Anthony Kraft who passed away last week, aged 68, an archive TCJ interview with whom can also be read here; Penelope Green writes for The New York Times on the life and work of Kathleen Andrews, instrumental executive at the Andrews McNeel Syndicate, who died on April 16th, aged 84; and Publisher’s Weekly shared the news that Dan Frank, editorial director at Pantheon since 1996, passed away this week, aged 67 - James Fallows has an obituary for The Atlantic . Nothing but buzzer beaters… This week’s reviews. • Matt Seneca reviews the towering darkness of Barry Windsor-Smith’s Monsters - “Despite the deep focus his artwork strives for, Windsor- Smith feels less intent on presenting the specifics of his narrative than its tone - one most often sumptuously gloomy. How Monsters hangs together as a plot, I think, is less important than the feeling passed on to its readers as they push slowly through hundreds of densely gridded, intricately drafted, balloon laden pages. I myself found it an overpowering experience of simultaneous disquiet and awe.” • Brian Nicholson reviews the dissonant juxtapositions of Leomi Sadler’s Tummy Bugs - “This collection is oriented around the cute stuff, although cute is a relative term, and here the notion seems invoked with some irony. It’s a colorful thing, but the colors clash and overwhelm one another until they cancel each other out, like candy and fruit dissolving into stomach acids. Sadler enjoys an acrid palette.” • Alex Curtis reviews the embarrassing caricatures of Rick Rememder and Bengal’s Death or Glory: Prestige Edition . • Ryan Perry reviews the refreshing escapology of Brandon Easton, Fico Ossio, et al’s Mister Miracle: The Source of Freedom #1 . • Justin Harrison reviews the compelling eeriness of Jeremy Holt and George Schall’s Made in Korea #1 . • David Brooke reviews the thoughtful politics of Eve L. Ewing, Kim Jacinto, Simone Di Meo et al’s Champions Volume 1: Outlawed . • Avery Kaplan reviews the singular balance of Jeremy Holt and George Schall’s Made in Korea #1 . • Ricardo Serrano Denis reviews the exemplary experience of Z2 Comics' True War Stories, edited by Alex de Campi and Khai Krumbhaar. Broken Frontier. • Bruno Savill de Jong reviews the sprawling tapestry of Mannie Murphy’s I Never Promised You a Rose Garden . • Rebecca Burke reviews the unflinching detail of Didier Kassaï and Marc Ellison’s A House Without Windows . • Andy Oliver reviews the crisp scene-setting of Bethany Hall and Mia Ryder’s Brat Soup #1 . • John Trigonis reviews the confused pacing of Declan Shalvey, Rory McConville, Joe Palmer, et al’s Time Before Time #1 . • Lindsay Pereira reviews the intriguing dread of Adam Smith and Matt Fox's The Down River People. Four Color Apocalypse. Ryan C has reviews of: - The slapstick minimalism of Drew Lerman’s Schtick . - The off-kilter heart of Josh Frankel’s Grim Nutrition . - The powerful nihilism of Carlos Gonzales’ Scab County . - A pair of zines from Billy Mavreas - the inquisitive teasing of BVA and the practical rewards of drop . The Guardian. Rachel Cooke reviews the controlled emotions of Lee Lai’s Stone Fruit . The Library Journal. • Martha Cornog reviews the heartbreaking triumph of Rebecca Hall and Hugo Martínez’ Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts . • Tom Batten reviews: - The perfect pathos of Simon Hanselmann's Crisis Zone. - The careful poignancy of Guy Delisle's Factory Summers. - The brutal rawness of R. Kikuo Johnson's No One Else. - The claustrophobic excellence of Fido Nesti's adaptation of George Orwell's 1984.