Early life and Pinewald Benjamin W. Sangor was born in
Russia to the United States, where he was naturalized an American citizen in 1914 On October 1, 1925, a Benjamin Sanger (with an "e") married Etta Weidenfeld at the Hotel Martinique in
Manhattan,
New York City, though it is unclear if this is the same Sangor and if so, whether he had been married previously — since by 1940, his grown daughter Jacquelyn Sanger (as her last name is spelled in
The New York Times) of Chicago had married
pulp magazine publisher
Ned Pines, founder of
Standard Comics. At some point, Sangor had a wife named Francis. to develop the resort community of
Pinewald, New Jersey, on
Barnegat Bay. This included the development of an 18-hole golf course and the
Spanish Renaissance-style Royal Pine Hotel, built by the Sangor Hotel Corporation. About 8,000 lots were sold between 1928 and 1929. — although "Help Wanted"
classified ads that same month give a company address of 187 Joralemon Street in
Brooklyn in relation to an event to help "German-speaking men and women interested in improving their money-making possibilities." In January 1930, B.W. Sangor & Co. was sued in the Appellate Term of the New York Supreme Court over a claim that the company had breached state insurance law because of a clause giving the widow of a purchaser a clear deed. At some point during this
Great Depression era, the company went bankrupt, whose company principal had been Sangor's general manager two years earlier. On November 2, the two were convicted after a three-week jury trial in Ocean County Common Pleas Court and each sentenced to one to three years in prison and a $1,000 fine. They appealed their convictions in 1936, and their sentences in 1937, but eventually surrendered themselves on January 31, 1938, to serve time at the state prison in
Trenton, New Jersey. Sangor also was an organizer of the Prudence Bondholders Protective Association, which underwent
bankruptcy reorganization in 1935.
Comics and the "Sangor Shop" In 1930, before his legal travails, Sangor had begun a decade of publishing racy magazines for men. and the Editorial Art Syndicate. Sangor saw his studio produce comic books and features for Pines' imprint Standard Comics and its subsidiaries
Better Comics and
Nedor Comics; and for
National Comics, the primary company that would evolve into modern-day
DC Comics. Among the creative personnel at various times who produced content for the Sangor Shop were
John Celardo,
Dan Gordon,
Graham Ingels,
Jack Katz,
Bob Oskner, and
Art Saaf. Sangor closed the studio in 1948.
American Comics Group Five years earlier, in 1943, Sangor had formed
American Comics Group, with the editorial address 45 West 45th Street in Manhattan, to publish comics during the 1940s boom period known as the
Golden Age of Comic Books.
Harry Donenfeld — publisher of
DC Comics precursor National Comics and a friend with whom he often played
gin rummy — helped capitalize the new venture. and Michel Publications (both listed as at 420 DeSoto Ave.,
St. Louis 7, Missouri), and Best Syndicated Features (at the editorial address), before eventually using ACG as the umbrella brand sometime after the war. By at least 1947, B & I Publishing was producing comics including
The Kilroys #1 (June 1947). Sangor appeared before Senator
Estes Kefauver's 1950-51
United States Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce, which among other topics looked into possible violations of postal law by
crime comics publishers. "Perhaps leery of how much information he gave to the committee," wrote historian Michael Vance, "Sangor claimed that ACG was not a publisher at all, but rather an advertising representative for four different comic-book publishers: Creston, Michel, B & I, and Best Syndicated Features." An October 1, 1952 "Statement of the Ownership, Management, and Circulation" published in ACG's
Forbidden Worlds #15 gave that comic's publisher's name as "Preferred Publications, Inc., 8 Lord St.,
Buffalo, New York" and the owners as Preferred Publications and "B. W. Sangor, 7 West 81st Street, New York, N. Y." The editor was listed as "Richard E. Hughes, 120 West 183rd St., New York, N. Y." and the business manager as "Frederick H. Iger, 50 Beverly Road,
Great Neck, Great Neck,
L. I., N. Y." ==References==