Marvel Comics was founded as Timely Publications in 1939, and is now the largest comic company in the world. It was founded by Martin Goodman, a pulp-magazine publisher whose first publication was a Western pulp in 1933. Expanding into the emerging and by then already highly popular new medium of comic books, Goodman began his new line at his existing company at 330 West 42nd Street, New York City, New York. His official titles were editor, managing editor, and business manager, with Abraham Goodman officially listed as publisher.[1]
Timely's first publication was Marvel Comics #1 (Oct. 1939), containing the first appearance of Carl Burgos' android superhero, the Human Torch, and the first generally available appearance of Bill Everett's anti-hero Namor the Sub-Mariner, among other features. The contents of that sales blockbuster[2] were supplied by an outside packager, Funnies, Inc., but by the following year Timely had a staff in place. With the second issue the series title changed to Marvel Mystery Comics.
The company's first true editor, writer-artist Joe Simon, teamed with soon-to-be industry legend Jack Kirby to create one of the first patriotically themed superheroes, Captain America, in Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941). It, too, proved a major sales hit, with a circulation of nearly one million.[2]
While no other Timely character would be as successful as these "big three", some notable heroes — many continuing to appear in modern-day retcon appearances and flashbacks — include the Whizzer, Miss America, the Destroyer, the original Vision, and Paul Gustavson's Angel. Timely also published one of humor cartoonist Basil Wolverton's best-known features, "Powerhouse Pepper",[3][4] as well as a children's funny animal line whose most popular characters were Super Rabbit and the duo Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal.
Goodman hired a teenaged relative, Stanley Lieber, as a general office assistant in 1939. When editor Simon left the company in late 1941, Goodman made Lieber — by then writing pseudonymously as "Stan Lee" — interim editor of the comics line, a position Lee kept for decades except for three years during World War II military service.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Comics
0 Comments:
Post a Comment