Mainline Publications

Mainline Publications, also called Mainline Comics, was a short-lived, 1950s American comic book publisher established and owned by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon.

Foundation

With the 1950s backlash against comics, led by the psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, and propagated during the televised debates about comics leading to juvenile delinquency, as part of the Kefauver hearings, several publishing houses folded. This caused a problem for the printers. As Joe Simon detailed, "Comic book publishers were dropping out of the business in wholesale numbers. The printers grew frantic. It was a necessity of their business that the presses keep running. When the presses were silent, printing companies still had to pay overhead, so they were more than willing to back a new comics organization if it showed promise." Reissued (Vanguard Productions, 2003) . Page numbers refer to 1990 edition.

To serve as business manager for their Mainline Publications, Inc., they brought in Crestwood Publications office manager Nevin Fidler, who knew the mechanics of distributors and other necessary vendors, offering him a piece of the company. While keeping their hand in at Crestwood to fulfill their contract, Simon and Kirby invested their savings in their new company, working with veteran paper and printing broker George Dougherty, Jr.Beerbohm, Robert Lee
"The Mainline Story"
''Jack Kirby Collector'' #25, August 1999. Accessed March 26, 2008

The two had long wanted to self-publish, and they further wished to create comics for the adults of the 1950s who had read comics as children in the 1940s.

As Simon recalled,

They set up shop in late 1953 or early 1954, subletting space from their friend Al Harvey's Harvey Publications at 1860 Broadway. Mainline published four titles: the Western ''Bullseye: Western Scout''; the war comic ''Foxhole'', since EC Comics and Atlas Comics were having success with war comics, but Mainline's was promoted as being "written and drawn by actual veterans"; ''In Love'', as their earlier romance comic '' Young Love'' was still being widely imitated; and the crime comic ''Police Trap'', which claimed to be based on genuine accounts by law-enforcement officials.

Controversy

Despite Mainline's dissimilarity to the beleaguered EC and other companies then under constant attack, copies of ''Bullseye'' and ''Foxhole'' were reportedly used as exhibits by Wertham in the Senate hearings against comics, and seen by millions through the hearings' nationwide television coverage.

In an attempt to save on the cost of original artwork for a story in Crestwood's '' Young Love'', Simon recycled an earlier Crestwood story by providing a new story and title to fit the existing art. This was spotted by a Crestwood employee, and legal advice taken over possible repercussions. Crestwood "took up the matter with their attorney hoinformed Crestwood that there was nothing in the contract that specified what kind of book we were obliged to turn in — as long as we turned in a book on schedule. That didn't satisfy the publishers, who naturally turned more hostile. They continued to hold off paying us while we grew increasingly desperate." In response, Simon and Kirby arranged in November 1954 to audit Crestwood, leading to a meeting between, on one side, Simon, Kirby, their accountant Bernard Gwirtzman and the attorney Gwirtzman chose, Morris Eisenstein; and on the other Crestwood publishers Teddy Epstein and Paul Bleier as well as general manager M. R. Reese.

Eisenstein demanded monies owed his clients by "Crestwood, Feature Publications, and Headline Publications, among others," entailing "advances, royalties, and other monies for ''Fighting American'', ''Young Brides'', ''Black Magic'', ''Young Love'', and ''Young Romance''." Epstein countered that all monies had been paid, and no royalties withheld, so Gwirtzman clarified that the claimed funds derived largely from overseas sales, and that over the previous seven years the total was around $130,000. Crestwood's attorney responded that the company could not pay that much, and, were it to go to court, "would simply close down." Offered a $10,000 settlement and the recently delayed payments, Simon and Kirby returned to working on Mainline, but under increasingly strained circumstances. Even the Simon/Kirby relationship was now fraught, the two "barely peakingwhile working in the same room."

Collapse

With the continuing attacks by Wertham, Senator Estes Kefauver, and others, publishers continued to fold "and the number of comics published dropped from 650 to 250." Carmine Infantino, a friend of Kirby's who worked for National Comics, the future DC Comics, recalled that National publisher Jack Liebowitz

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