Creation In 1939, with the emerging
medium of comic books proving hugely popular, and the first
superheroes setting the trend,
pulp-magazine publisher
Martin Goodman founded Timely Publications, basing it at his existing company in the
McGraw-Hill Building at 330 West
42nd Street in New York City. Goodman – whose official titles were editor, managing editor, and
business manager, with Abraham Goodman officially listed as publisher with
Ben Thompson beginning a five-issue adaptation of the story "King of Fang and Claw" by Bob Byrd in Goodman's pulp magazine
Ka-Zar #1 (Oct. 1936); the non-continuing-character story "Jungle Terror", featuring adventurer Ken Masters, drawn and possibly written by
Art Pinajian under the quirky pseudonym "Tohm Dixon" or "Tomm Dixon" (with the published signature smudged); "Now I'll Tell One", five single-panel, black-and-white gag cartoons by
Fred Schwab, on the inside front cover; and a two-page prose story by
Ray Gill, "Burning Rubber", about
auto racing. A painted cover by veteran science-fiction pulp artist
Frank R. Paul featured the Human Torch, looking much different from the interior story. '' #1 (Oct. 1939), the first comic book from
Marvel predecessor Timely Comics. Cover art by
Frank R. Paul. That initial comic, cover-dated October 1939, quickly sold out 80,000 copies, prompting Goodman to produce a second printing, cover-dated November 1939. The latter is identical except for a black bar over the October date in the inside-front-cover indicia, and the November date added at the end. With newfound success, Goodman began assembling an in-house staff, hiring Funnies, Inc. writer-artist
Joe Simon as editor. Simon brought along his collaborator, artist
Jack Kirby, followed by artist
Syd Shores. Goodman then formed Timely Comics, Inc., beginning with comics cover-dated April 1941 or Spring 1941. There is evidence that "Red Circle Comics", a name that would be used for an
unrelated imprint of
Archie Comics in the 1970s and 1980s – may have been a term in use as Goodman prepared to publish his first comic book. Historian
Les Daniels, referring to Goodman's pulp-magazine line, describes the name
Red Circle as "a halfhearted attempt to establish an identity for what was usually described loosely as 'the Goodman group' [made] when a new logo was adopted: a red disk surrounded by a black ring that bore the phrase 'A Red Circle Magazine.' But it appeared only intermittently, when someone remembered to put it on [a pulp magazine's] cover. Historian
Jess Nevins, conversely, writes that, "Timely Publications [was how] Goodman's group [of companies] had become known; before this, it was known as 'Red Circle' because of the logo that Goodman had put on his pulp magazines...." The
Grand Comics Database identifies 23 issues of Goodman comic books from 1944 to 1959 with Red Circle, Inc. branding, and a single 1948 issue under Red Circle Magazines Corp.
Golden Age of Comic Books Marvel Comics was rechristened
Marvel Mystery Comics with issue #2 (Dec. 1939); the magazine would continue under that title through #92 (June 1949) before becoming
Marvel Tales through #159 (Aug. 1957). Timely began publishing additional series, beginning with
Daring Mystery Comics #1 (Jan. 1940),
Mystic Comics #1 (March 1940),
Red Raven Comics #1 (Aug. 1940),
The Human Torch #2 (premiering Fall 1940 with no
cover date and having taken over the numbering from the unsuccessful
Red Raven), and
Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941). Going on sale in December 1940, a year before the bombing of
Pearl Harbor and already showing the hero punching
Hitler, that first issue sold nearly one million copies. In 1942, Goodman moved his publisher operations to the 14th floor of the
Empire State Building, where it remained until 1951.
Funny animals, and people The superheroes were the products of what Timely referred to as the "adventure" bullpen. The company also developed an "animator" bullpen creating such movie tie-in and original
talking animal comics as
Terrytoons Comics,
Mighty Mouse,
All Surprise Comics,
Super Rabbit Comics,
Funny Frolics, and
Funny Tunes, renamed
Animated Funny Comic-Tunes. Former
Fleischer Studios animator Fago, who joined Timely in 1942, headed this group, which consisted through the years of such writer/artists as Hart, Gantz, Klein, Platt, Rule, Sekowsky,
Frank Carin (né Carino),
Bob Deschamps,
Chad Grothkopf,
Pauline Loth,
Jim Mooney,
Moss Worthman a.k.a. Moe Worth, and future
Mad magazine cartoonists
Dave Berg and
Al Jaffee. Features from this department include "Dinky" and "Frenchy Rabbit" in
Terrytoons Comics; "Floop and Skilly Boo" in
Comedy Comics; "Posty the Pelican Postman" in
Krazy Komics and other titles; "Krazy Krow" in that character's eponymous comic; "Tubby an' Tack", in various comics; and the most popular of these features, Jaffee's "
Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal" and Hart's "
Super Rabbit", the cover stars of many different titles. Timely also published one of humor
cartoonist Basil Wolverton's best-known features,
Powerhouse Pepper. The first issue, cover-dated January 1943, bore no number, and
protagonist Pepper looked different from his more familiar visualization (when the series returned for four issues, May–Nov. 1948) as the bullet-headed naif in the striped turtleneck sweater. Additionally, Timely in 1944 and 1945 initiated a sitcom selection of titles aimed at female readers:
Millie the Model,
Tessie the Typist and
Nellie the Nurse. The company continued to pursue female readers later in the decade with such superheroines as
Sun Girl; the Sub-Mariner spin-off
Namora; and
Venus, the
Roman goddess of love, posing as a human reporter.
Patsy Walker,
Millie the Model,
Tessie the Typist and other Timely humor titles also included
Harvey Kurtzman's "Hey Look!" one-pagers in several issues. Future
Comic Book Hall of Fame artist
Gene Colan, a Marvel mainstay from 1946 on, recalled that, "The atmosphere at Timely was very good, very funny. ... [I worked in] a big art room and there were about 20 artists in there, all stacked up.
Syd [Shores] was in the last row on my side, and there was another row on the other side.
Dan DeCarlo was there, several other people –
Vince Alascia was an inker;
Rudy LaPick sat right behind me," with
Mike Sekowsky "in another room". Yet after the wartime boom years – when superheroes had been new and inspirational, and comics provided cheap entertainment for millions of children, soldiers and others – the post-war era found superheroes falling out of fashion. Television and
mass market paperback books began competing for reader's
leisure time. Goodman began turning to a wider variety of
genres than ever, emphasizing
horror,
Westerns, teen humor,
crime and war comics, and introducing female heroes to try to attract girls and young women to read comics. In 1946, for instance, the superhero title
All Select Comics was changed to
Blonde Phantom Comics, and now starred a masked secretary who fought crime in an
evening gown. That same year,
Kid Komics eliminated its stars and became
Kid Movie Comics.
All Winners Comics became
All Teen Comics in January 1947. Timely eliminated virtually all its staff positions in 1948.
Time after Timely The precise end-point of the Golden Age of comics is vague, but for Timely, at least, it appears to have ended with the cancellation of
Captain America Comics at issue #75 (Feb. 1950) – by which time the series had already been ''
Captain America's Weird Tales for two issues, with the finale featuring merely anthological horror/suspense tales and no superheroes. Sub-Mariner Comics
and Human Torch Comics'' had already ended with #32 (June 1949) and #35 (March 1949) respectively, and the company's flagship title,
Marvel Mystery Comics, starring the Angel, ended that same month with #92, becoming the
horror anthology
Marvel Tales beginning with issue #93 (Aug. 1949). Goodman began using the globe logo of the
Atlas News Company, the newsstand-distribution company he owned, on comics cover-dated Nov. 1951. . In 2015, Marvel registered the
trademark "Timely Comics". The following year, Marvel announced that Timely Comics would be the name of a new imprint of low-priced reprint comics.
Marvel branding Publisher Martin Goodman's business strategy involved having his various magazines and comic books published by a number of companies all operating out of the same office and with the same staff. This brand extended to the company's short-lived editorial advisory board in 1948 in an effort to compete with other publishers like
DC Comics and
Fawcett Comics, and used the moniker Marvel Comic Group in its editorials. ==Timely characters and creators==