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Tower Publications
Tower Publications was an American publisher based in New York City that operated from 1958 to 1982. Originally known for their Midwood Books line of erotic men's fiction, it also published science fiction and fantasy under its Tower Books line and published comic books in the late 1960s under its Tower Comics imprint. In the early 1970s, Tower acquired paperback publisher Belmont Books, forming the Belmont Tower line. Archie Comics' cofounder Louis Silberkleit was a silent partner in Tower's ownership; longtime Archie editor Harry Shorten was a major figure with Tower in all its iterations.Feldman, Michael"The Secret Origin of Tower Comics,"in ''The Thunder Agents Companion'' by Jon B. Cooke (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2005), p. 85.Shorten entry
''Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928-1999''. Accessed Feb. 25, 2017.
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New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive with a respective county. The city is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the United States by both population and urban area. New York is a global center of finance and commerce, culture, technology, entertainment and media, academics, and scientific output, the arts and fashion, and, as home to the headquarters of the United Nations, international diplomacy. With an estimated population in 2024 of 8,478,072 distributed over , the city is the most densely populated major city in the United States. New York City has more than double the population of Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city.
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Samm Schwartz
Samm Schwartz (October 15, 1920 – November 13, 1997)Social Security Death Index, for SS# 073-14-0718. was an American comic artist best known for his work in MLJ and Archie Comics, specifically on the character Jughead Jones. Biography Schwartz was born in Brooklyn, where he took art instruction at the Pratt Institute. After working as an apprentice at a New York fashion studio and a part-time male model, he joined MLJ in 1942, shortly after the creation of Archie. Schwartz, who pencilled, inked, and lettered much of his own work, specialized in stories featuring Jughead, and was the lead artist on the '' Jughead'' solo title through much of the 1950s and early 1960s. His colleague and friend Joe Edwards recalled that it was Schwartz's work that turned the character from a second banana to a star: "He ''made'' Jughead! . . . He put in personality and that's what makes the haracterslive." One of the most popular ''Jughead'' supporting characters, Big Ethel, was designe ...
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Gardner Fox
Gardner Francis Cooper Fox (May 20, 1911 – December 24, 1986) was an American writer known best for creating numerous comic book characters for DC Comics. He is estimated to have written more than 4,000 comics stories, including 1,500 for DC Comics. Fox was also a science fiction author and wrote many novels and short stories. Fox is known as the co-creator of DC Comics heroes Barbara Gordon, the original Flash, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Doctor Fate, Zatanna and the original Sandman, and was the writer who first teamed several of those and other heroes as the Justice Society of America, and later recreated the team as the Justice League of America. Fox introduced the concept of the Multiverse to DC Comics in the 1961 story " Flash of Two Worlds!". Early life and career Gardner Cooper Fox was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Julia Veronica (Gardner) and Leon Francis Fox, an engineer. Unlike many of his contemporaries in the comic book field, such as Jack Kirby and Je ...
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Fantasy (genre)
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, which later became fantasy literature, fantasy literature and drama. From the twentieth century onward, it has expanded into various media, including film, television, graphic novels, manga, animation, and video games. The expression ''fantastic literature'' is often used for this genre by Anglophone literary critics. An archaic spelling for the term is ''phantasy''. Fantasy is generally distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror fiction, horror by an absence of scientific or macabre themes, although these can occur in fantasy. In popular culture, the fantasy genre predominantly features settings that reflect the actual Earth, but with some sense of otherness. Characteristics Many works of fantasy use magic (paranorma ...
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Roger Brand
Roger Brand (January 5, 1943 – November 23, 1985) was an People of the United States, American cartoonist who created stories for both mainstream and Underground comix, underground comic books. His work showed a fascination with Horror comics, horror and Erotic comics, eroticism, often combining the two. Biography Early life and education Born in New Mexico, Brand grand grew up in El Sobrante, Contra Costa County, California, El Sobrante, California, where he was friends with cartoonist Joel Beck. Brand and Beck were classmates at De Anza High School, and they remained lifelong friends. Comics Some of Brand's earliest comics work appeared in the early 1960s in the University of California, Berkeley's ''California Pelican (magazine), California Pelican'' humor magazine, alongside drawings by Beck. In 1966, Brand and his wife Michele Brand, Michele moved from Oakland, California, to New York City, specifically to break into the comics business. Brand began as an assistant to ...
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Russ Jones
Russ Jones (born July 16, 1942 in Ontario) is a Canadians, Canadian novelist, illustrator, and magazine editor, active in the publishing and entertainment industries over a half-century, best known as the creator of the magazine ''Creepy (magazine), Creepy'' for Warren Publishing. As the founding editor of ''Creepy'' in 1963, he is notable for a significant milestone in comics history by proving there was a readership eager to read graphic stories in a black-and-white magazine format rather than in a color comic book.Richardson, Peter"Russ Jones, Woody and the Genesis of Creepy" Cloud 109 (July 6, 2010). During the mid-1960s, Jones also pioneered the presentation of original comics formatted directly for paperback books, such as ''Christopher Lee's Treasury of Terror'' (Pyramid, 1966). Comics and graphic novels While in the United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps, Jones worked on ''Leatherneck Magazine, Leatherneck'' magazine. Arriving in New York, he teamed with Wally Wood an ...
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Bill Pearson (American Writer)
William Pearson (born July 27, 1938), known professionally as Bill Pearson, is an American novelist, publisher, editor, artist, comic book scripter and letterer, notable as the editor-publisher of his own graphic novel, graphic story publication, ''witzend''. Biography Early years Born in Belle Fourche, South Dakota, Pearson was employed in 1957 as a technical illustrator at the Ziff Davis publishing firm and began night classes at the School of Visual Arts, including an anatomy course taught by Burne Hogarth. Work as a technical illustrator for the Underwood Typewriter Company in 1959 was followed by two years as a mechanical draftsman at Motorola in Phoenix, Arizona. While serving in the military at Fort Polk in Louisiana during the early 1960s, he met artist Ed Paschke. Working together in Fort Polk's Training Aids Department, they provided illustrations for publications, signs, targets and manuals to explain weapons and procedures to incoming troops. The two remained lif ...
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Larry Ivie
Larry Ivie (1936–2014) was an American comics artist, writer, and Comic book collecting, collector who was active in comics fandom in the middle part of the 20th century, described by comics historian Bill Schelly as "the closest thing to an authority on comics that was available in the 1950s." Biography Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to biologist Wilton Ivie and his wife Aleen, he moved to New York City in the mid 1950s to attend the School of Visual Arts, and with a large personal library of comic books and correspondence via fanzines became a prominent part of New York comics fan culture. He also made amateur films of superheroes, influencing the amateur films of Donald F. Glut and appearing in two of his films. He provided painted covers and other editorial material for early issues of ''Castle of Frankenstein'' magazine, then self-published the seven issues of his own newsstand magazine ''Monsters and Heroes'', for which he drew comic stories of his own superhero Altron B ...
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Steve Skeates
Stephen Skeates (; January 29, 1943 – March 30, 2023) was an American comic book creator known for his work on such titles as ''Aquaman'', ''Hawk and Dove'', ''T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents'', and ''Plop!'' He also wrote under the pseudonyms Chester P. Hazel and Warren Savin. Early life Stephen Skeates was born in Rochester, New York, on January 29, 1943. He and his parents lived in the attic of his maternal grandmother's Fairport, New York, Fairport home until he was four and a half, at which time they and his baby brother moved into a two-story home that his father and uncle had built. His parents tended to describe him as "a dreamer" because he preferred to play alone rather than interact with other children. He enjoyed reading comic books, preferring cartoon animal antics to the superhero titles. From an early age, he wanted to become a writer, but he found that ambition hampered by the fact that he read very slowly. So, in junior high school and later at Fairport High School, he was ...
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Len Brown (comics)
Len Brown (born October 7, 1941) is an American writer, editor, radio personality and comic book scripter, best known as the co-creator of '' T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents'' and ''Mars Attacks''. Born in Brooklyn, Brown began working in the Product Development Department of Topps Chewing Gum shortly after he graduated from high school. As a creative editor, working with department head Woody Gelman, Brown developed ideas for both sports and non-sports cards, a position which put him in contact with leading comic book artists, who illustrated Topps humor cards. During his 41 years at Topps, Brown contributed to such series as Civil War News, Garbage Pail Kids and Wacky Packages. ''Mars Attacks'' In 1962, inspired by Wally Wood's cover for EC Comics' ''Weird Science'' #16, Brown pitched the idea of ''Mars Attacks'' to Gelman. Gelman and Brown devised the storyline of a Martian invasion. They recruited Wood to visualize situations in rough sketches and hired Bob Powell to pencil the project ...
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Richard Bassford
Richard Bassford (born 1936) is an American illustrator who has worked in both advertising and comic books. Born in Manhattan, Bassford lived from age three in the Queens neighborhoods of Maspeth, Corona and Whitestone until his marriage in 1961, when he moved to Flushing. In 1975, Bassford settled in Cold Spring, New York. Comic books As a teenager, he took particular note of comic books drawn by Wally Wood, who became a major influence. In Manhattan, Bassford studied at the School of Industrial Art (which later became the High School of Art and Design), and he entered the commercial art field in the early 1950s with magazine gag cartoons and packaging art for toy boxes. His pen-and-ink illustrations were published in the magazine ''Amateur Art & Camera'' in 1954. Bassford's first work in comics came in 1957 with "What Happened on the Mountain!" for Atlas Comics' ''World of Mystery'', reprinted in Atlas' ''World of Fantasy'' #13 (August 1958). At the Wally Wood Studio, ...
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Steve Ditko
Stephen John Ditko. Page contains two reproductions from school yearbooks. A 1943 Garfield Junior High School yearbook excerpt lists "Stephen Ditko". A 1945 Johnstown High School yearbook excerpt lists "Stephen J. Ditko" under extracurricular activities: "Vocational Course. Ambition: Undecided". (; November 2, 1927) was an American comics artist, comic book artist best known for being the co-creator of Marvel Comics, Marvel superheroes Spider-Man and Doctor Strange. He also made notable contributions to the character of Iron Man, introducing the character's signature red and yellow design. Ditko studied under Batman artist Jerry Robinson at the Cartoonist and Illustrators School in New York City. He began his professional career in 1953, working in the studio of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, beginning as an inker and coming under the influence of artist Mort Meskin. During this time, he began his long association with Charlton Comics, where he did work in the genres of science fictio ...
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