Gardner Francis Cooper Fox was an American writer known best for creating numerous comic book characters for DC Comics. He is estimated to have written more than 4,000 comics stories, including 1,500 for DC Comics. Fox was also a science fiction author and wrote many novels and short stories.
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, is a fictional American comic book jungle girl heroine, originally published primarily by Fiction House during the Golden Age of Comic Books. She was the first female comic book character with her own title, with her 1941 premiere issue preceding Wonder Woman #1. Sheena inspired a wealth of similar comic book jungle queens. She was predated in literature by Rima, the Jungle Girl, introduced in the 1904 William Henry Hudson novel Green Mansions.
Fawcett Comics, a division of Fawcett Publications, was one of several successful comic book publishers during the Golden Age of Comic Books in the 1940s. Its most popular character was Captain Marvel, the alter ego of radio reporter Billy Batson, who transformed into the hero whenever he said the magic word "Shazam!".
Planet Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published by Fiction House between 1939 and 1955. It featured interplanetary adventures, both in space and on some other planets, and was initially focused on a young readership. Malcolm Reiss was editor or editor-in-chief for all of its 71 issues. Planet Stories was launched at the same time as Planet Comics, the success of which probably helped to fund the early issues of Planet Stories. Planet Stories did not pay well enough to regularly attract the leading science fiction writers of the day, but occasionally obtained work from well-known authors, including Isaac Asimov and Clifford D. Simak. In 1952 Planet Stories published Philip K. Dick's first sale, and printed four more of his stories over the next three years.
Clarence Matthew Baker was an American comic book artist and illustrator, best known for drawing early comics heroines such as the costumed crimefighter Phantom Lady, and romance comics. Active in the 1940s and 1950s Golden Age of comic books, he is one of the first known African-American artists to find success in the comic-book industry. He also penciled St. John Publications' digest-sized "picture novel" It Rhymes with Lust (1950), the first graphic novel despite that term not having been coined at the time.
George Tuska, who early in his career used a variety of pen names including Carl Larson, was an American comic book and newspaper comic strip artist best known for his 1940s work on various Captain Marvel titles and the crime fiction series Crime Does Not Pay and for his 1960s work illustrating Iron Man and other Marvel Comics characters. He also drew the DC Comics newspaper comic strip The World's Greatest Superheroes from 1978–1982.
Atlas Comics was the 1950s comic-book publishing label that evolved into Marvel Comics. Magazine and paperback novel publisher Martin Goodman, whose business strategy involved having a multitude of corporate entities, used Atlas as the umbrella name for his comic-book division during this time. Atlas evolved out of Goodman's 1940s comic-book division, Timely Comics, and was located on the 14th floor of the Empire State Building. This company is distinct from the 1970s comic-book company, also founded by Goodman, that is known as Atlas/Seaboard Comics.
Thrilling Publications, also known as Beacon Magazines (1936–37), Better Publications (1937–43) and Standard Magazines (1943–55), was a pulp magazine publisher run by Ned Pines, publishing such titles as Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories.
Tarzanesque is a term created by Frenchman Francis Lacassin used to describe characters in comic books inspired by Tarzan. A tarzanesque character resembles Tarzan in his physical resourcefulness, within a line of action that includes an adventurous life in the jungle, the gift of understanding and being understood by animals, contact with lost civilizations and courage combined with the ability to deal with nature. The creation of such characters may have been propitiated by the success that Tarzan had achieved since his appearance in literature in 1912, culminating with the release of daily comic strips in 1929, which paved the way for a genre that combined the allure of the unknown environment, the need for the archetypal characteristics of the hero and the popularity of access.
Avon Publications is one of the leading publishers of romance fiction. At Avon's initial stages, it was an American paperback book and comic book publisher. The shift in content occurred in the early 1970s with multiple Avon romance titles reaching and maintaining spots in bestseller lists, demonstrating the market and potential profits in romance publication. As of 2010, Avon is an imprint of HarperCollins.
Ace Magazines was a comic book and pulp-magazine publishing company headed by Aaron A. Wyn and his wife Rose Wyn. The Wyns had been publishing pulp fiction under the Periodical House and A. A. Wyn's Magazine Publishers names since 1928, and published comics between 1940 and the end of 1956.
A jungle girl is an archetype or stock character, often used in popular fiction, of a female adventurer, superhero or even a damsel in distress living in a jungle or rainforest setting. A prehistoric depiction is a cave girl.
Arthur Saaf was an American comics artist from the Golden Age of Comics who also worked in television. He commonly went by Art or Artie.
Ronald Turner was a British illustrator and comic book artist.
Toby Press was an American comic-book company that published from 1949 to 1955. Founded by Elliott Caplin, brother of cartoonist Al Capp and himself an established comic strip writer, the company published reprints of Capp's Li'l Abner strip; licensed-character comics starring such film and animated cartoon properties as John Wayne and Felix the Cat; and original conceptions, including romance, war, Western, and adventure comics. Some of its comics were published under the imprint Minoan. Some covers bore the logo ANC, standing for American News Company, at the time the country's largest newsstand distributor.
Ruth Ann Roche was a writer and editor in the Golden Age of Comic Books. She was also the business partner of Jerry Iger.
Two Complete Science-Adventure Books was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published by Fiction House, which lasted for eleven issues between 1950 and 1954 as a companion to Planet Stories. Each issue carried two novels or long novellas. It was initially intended to carry only reprints, but soon began to publish original stories. Contributors included Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Poul Anderson, John Brunner, and James Blish. The magazine folded in 1954, almost at the end of the pulp era.
Alden Spurr McWilliams generally credited as Al McWilliams and A. McWilliams, was an American comics artist who co-created the first African-American lead character of a comic strip. He won the National Cartoonists Society's 1978 award for Comic Book: Story.
Jumbo Comics was an adventure anthology comic book published by Fiction House from 1938 to 1953. Jumbo Comics was Fiction House's first comics title; the publisher had previously specialized in pulp magazines. The lead feature for Jumbo Comics' entire run was Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.
Thorpe & Porter was a British publisher, importer, and distributor of magazines and comic books. At first, the company was known for repackaging American comics and pulp magazines for the UK market. Later on, it became a publisher of original material. The company released more than 160 comics titles in the UK, the most prominent being Classics Illustrated, MAD UK, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes, Larry Harmon's Laurel & Hardy, House of Hammer, and Forbidden Worlds. T & P's most prominent imprints were Top Sellers Ltd. and Brown Watson. Thorpe & Porter operated from 1946 to c. 1979.
