Hillman Periodicals, Inc., was an American

magazine A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...

and

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

publishing Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

company founded in 1938 by Alex L. Hillman, a former

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...

publisher. It is best known for its

true confession ''True Confession'' is a 1937 American screwball comedy film directed by Wesley Ruggles and starring Carole Lombard, Fred MacMurray, and John Barrymore. It was based on the 1934 play ''Mon Crime'', written by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil. I ...

and

true crime True crime is a nonfiction literary, podcast, and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people associated with and affected by criminal events. The crimes most commonly include murder; about 40 pe ...

magazines; for the long-running general-interest magazine ''

Pageant Pageant may refer to: * Procession or ceremony in elaborate costume * Beauty pageant, or beauty contest * Latter Day Saint plays and pageants, run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or by members local to the area of the pageant * ...

''; and for comic books including ''Air Fighters Comics'' and its successor ''Airboy Comics'', which launched the popular characters

Airboy Airboy is a fictional aviator hero of an American comic book series initially published by Hillman Periodicals during the World War II-era time period fans and historians call the Golden Age of comic books. He was created by writers Charles Bi ...

and The Heap.

Company history

Founding

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Hillman competed with

Bernarr Macfadden Bernarr Macfadden (born Bernard Adolphus McFadden, August 16, 1868 – October 12, 1955) was an American proponent of physical culture, a combination of bodybuilding with nutritional and health theories. He founded the long-running magazine pu ...

and

Fawcett Publications Fawcett Publications was an American publishing company founded in 1919 in Robbinsdale, Minnesota by Wilford Fawcett, Wilford Hamilton "Captain Billy" Fawcett (1885–1940). It kicked off with the publication of the bawdy humor magazine ''Captai ...

by publishing comics, true confessions magazines (''Real Story'', ''Real Confessions'', ''Real Romances'') and crime magazines (''Crime Detective'', ''Real Detective'', ''Crime Confessions''). In 1948 Hillman began publishing paperback books. There were several series of abridged mystery and western novels published in the larger 'digest' size. The long-running Hillman paperbacks first appeared in 1948 and lasted until 1961.

''Pageant'' and Airboy

In 1944, Hillman launched a

digest-sized Digest size is a magazine size, smaller than a conventional or "journal size" magazine but larger than a standard paperback book, approximately , but can also be and , similar to the size of a DVD case. These sizes have evolved from the printin ...

, general-interest, "slick" (glossy paper) magazine, ''

'', with an initial print run of 500,000 copies. To obtain the paper during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

wartime rationing, Hillman ended his detective magazines and comics, which together brought in a $250,000 annual profit. He returned to comics in 1946, resuming some titles from the earlier series. Like most comic book publishers during the period fans and historians called the

Golden Age of comic books The Golden Age of Comic Books describes an era of American comic books from 1938 to 1956. During this time, modern comic books were first published and rapidly increased in popularity. The superhero archetype was created and many well-known char ...

, Hillman's titles included costumed superheroes. As trends in the comic book market changed, the focus shifted more to

crime fiction Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, ...

detective A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads th ...

stories, making Hillman one of the earliest

crime comics Crime comics is a genre of American comic books and format of crime fiction. The genre was originally popular in the late 1940s and early 1950s and is marked by a moralistic editorial tone and graphic depictions of violence and criminal activity ...

publishers (''Crime Detective Comics'', ''Real Clue Crime Stories''), and

Westerns The Western is a genre set in the American frontier and commonly associated with folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada. It is commonly referred ...

(''Dead-Eye Western Comics'' and ''Western Fighters''). During this time, Hillman often utilized the talents of

Captain America Captain America is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by cartoonists Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, the character First appearance, first appeared in ''#Golden Age, Captain America Comics'' #1 (cover ...

creators

Joe Simon Joseph Henry Simon (October 11, 1913 – December 14, 2011) was an American comic book writer, artist, editor, and publisher. Simon created or co-created many important characters in the 1930s–1940s Golden Age of Comic Books and served as the ...

and

Jack Kirby Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg; August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994) was an American comic book artist, writer and editor, widely regarded as one of the medium's major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. He gr ...

. Hillman's most notable character, however, continuing in new stories by another publisher,

Eclipse Comics Eclipse Comics was an American comic book publisher, one of several independent publishers during the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1978, it published the first graphic novel intended for the newly created comic book specialty store market. It was ...

, in the 1980s, was the

Charles Biro Charles Biro (May 12, 1911 – March 4, 1972) was an American comic book creator and cartoonist. He is today chiefly known for creating the comic book characters Airboy and Steel Sterling, and for his work at Lev Gleason Publications on '' Dared ...

Dick Wood Malcolm Richard Wood (February 29, 1936 – April 4, 2015) was an American football quarterback and coach who played college football at Auburn and professionally in the American Football League (AFL). After his player career ended, Wood served ...

and Al Camy-created

aviator An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...

-adventurer

in ''Air Fighters Comics'' and its successor, ''Airboy Comics''.

Later years

Hillman ceased publishing comic books in 1953, while continuing to launch such new magazines as ''Homeland'', and '' People Today'', while also distributing ''

The Freeman ''The Freeman'' (formerly published as ''The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty'' or ''Ideas on Liberty'') was an American libertarian magazine, formerly published by the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). It was founded in 1950 by John Chamberl ...

'', a journal of right-wing opinion. Amid a 1953 battle for control of directors and editors, publisher Hillman announced his resignation as the ''Freeman'' treasurer because "it has been almost impossible for the past six months to run the magazine". The following year, Hillman said he was thinking about launching a "

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

" morning newspaper in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, but nothing came of it. Hillman periodicals also had a publication named ''Flight'', edited by Norton Wood. (Wood had previously served as managing editor of a highly classified monthly report on air weapons prepared by

McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referenc ...

under contract with the

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...

. Wood had been a member of the editorial staff of ''This Week Magazine'' and of the U.S. Camera Publishing Co.) ''Flight'' contained stories of the tremendous revolution going on in the skies - the transition within a decade from air travel as men had understood it for two generations to an entire new era of flight at supersonic speeds and fantastic altitudes, of strange new shapes in aircraft design, of combat planes without pilots, and rocket voyages into outer space. ''Flight'' chronicled the revolution in the skies with lines of defense of the "

H-Bomb A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...

" with futuristic drawings by Matt Greene artistically depicting a U.S. coastal city under coordinated attack by Russian bombers and submarines, and giant "inner tube" satellite space stations with depictions proposed by

Wernher von Braun Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun ( , ; 23 March 191216 June 1977) was a German and American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was a member of the Nazi Party and Allgemeine SS, as well as the leading figure in the develop ...

orbits in space flight. Hillman sold ''Pageant'' to

Macfadden Communications Group Macfadden Communications Group is a publisher of business magazines. It has a historical link with a company started in 1898 by Bernarr Macfadden that was one of the largest magazine publishers of the twentieth century. History Macfadden Pub ...

in April 1961, and the magazine continued until 1977.

Alex L. Hillman

Publisher Alex L. Hillman was a noted art collector who initially developed an interest in the field when he was a book publisher, commissioning artists to illustrate new editions of

classic literature A classic is a book accepted as being exemplary or particularly noteworthy. What makes a book "classic" is a concern that has occurred to various authors ranging from Italo Calvino to Mark Twain and the related questions of "Why Read the Cla ...

. He was married to Rita Hillman. He began his collection with such American painters as

Raphael Soyer Raphael Zalman Soyer (December 25, 1899 – November 4, 1987) was a Russian-born American painter, draftsman, and printmaker. Soyer was referred to as an American scene painter. He is identified as a Social Realist because of his interest in men ...

and

Preston Dickinson William Preston Dickinson (September 9, 1889 – November 25, 1930) was an American modern artist, best known for his paintings of industrial subjects in the Precisionist style. Biography William Preston Dickinson was born on September 9, 1 ...

, and expanded it to include

impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

and other painters. He eventually established the Alex Hillman Family Foundation, a private foundation in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, to oversee the collection.

Comic book titles published

Source:Hillman
at the

Grand Comics Database The Grand Comics Database (GCD) is an Internet-based project to build a database of comic book information through user contributions. The GCD project catalogues information on creator credits, story details, reprints, and other information useful ...

. *''Air Fighters Comics'' (1941 series) *''

Comics'' (1945 series - continues from ''Air Fighters'') *''All Sports Comics'' (1948 series continues from ''Real Sports'') *''All-Time Sports Comics'' (1949 series continues from ''All Sports'') *''Clue Comics'' (1943 series) *''Crime Detective Comics'' (1948 series) *''Crime Must Stop'' (1952 series) *''Dead-Eye Western Comics'' (1948 series) *''Frogman Comics'' (1952 series

*''Hot Rod and Speedway Comics'' (1952 series) *''Joe College (1949 series) *''Miracle Comics'' (1940 series) *''Monster Crime Comics'' (1952 series) *''Mr. Anthony's Love Clinic'' (1949 series) *''

My Date Comics ''My Date Comics'' was a short-lived comics series that ran from July 1947 to January 1948. The title was the first in the "romance humor" genre. It was a collaboration between Joe Simon and Jack Kirby Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg; Aug ...

'' (1947 series) *''Pirates Comics'' (1950 series) *'' Punch and Judy Comics'' (1944 series) *''Real Clue Crime Stories'' (1947 series continues from ''Clue Comics'') *''Real Sports Comics'' (1948 series) *''Rocket Comics'' (1940 series) *''Romantic Confessions'' (1949 series) *''Top Secret'' (1952 series) *''Victory Comics'' (1941 series) *''Western Fighters'' (1948 series)

References

External links

* {{Authority control Defunct comics and manga publishing companies Magazine publishing companies of the United States Publishing companies established in 1938