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COMICS
Fiction House is an American publisher of pulp magazines and comic books that existed from the 1920s to the 1950s. Its comics division was best known for its pinup-style good girl art, as epitomized by the company's most popular character, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.
Publisher Thurman T. Scott, whose Fiction House group included the pulp imprints Glen-Kel and Real Adventures Publishing Co., expanded into comic books in the late 1930s when that emerging medium began to seem a viable adjunct to the fading pulps. Receptive to a sales call by Eisner & Iger, one of the prominent "packagers" of that time who produced complete comic books on demand for publishers looking to enter the field, Scott released Jumbo Comics #1 (Sept. 1938).
Fiction House star Sheena appeared in that initial issue. Will Eisner and S.M. "Jerry" Iger had created the leggy, leopard-wearing jungle goddess for the British magazine Wags, under the joint pseudonym "W. Morgan Thomas".
Fiction House's other features in that initial foray included the period adventure "Hawks of the Seas" (continuing a story from Quality Comics' Feature Funnies #12, after Eisner-Iger and Quality had had a falling out), and several now-obscure strips ("Peter Pupp"; "ZX-5 Spies in Action"; "Spencer Steel"; "Inspector Dayton") that nonetheless include future industry legend Jack Kirby's first comic-book work following his debut in Wild Boy Magazine:[1] the science fiction feature The Diary of Dr. Hayward (under the pseudonym "Curt Davis"), the modern-West crimefighter strip Wilton of the West (as "Fred Sande"), and Part One of the swashbuckling serialization of Alexandre Dumas, père's The Count of Monte Cristo (as "Jack Curtiss"), each four pages long.
- Cowgirl Romances
- Fight Comics
- Firehair
- Ghost
- Indians
- Jumbo Comics
- Jungle Comics
- Ka'a'nga, Jungle King
- Man O'Mars
- Movie Comics
- Planet Comics
- Rangers Comics
- Sheena, Queen of the Jungle
- The Spirit (five issues, 1952-54)
- Wambi
- Wings Comics
MORE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiction_House
For many years the backbone of the Fiction House line was the six titles illustrated in the mid-Forties advertisement at left - Wings Comics, Jumbo Comics, Jungle Comics, Rangers Comics, Planet Comics and Fight Comics. Occasionally the publisher would change these advertisements to become the Big 7 or Big 8 as short-lived new titles like Movie Comics or Toyland Comics were added to the Fiction House catalogue. These publications did not catch on and are largely unknown, except to avid specialists. Consequently, they are not generally popular with collectors today.
MORE: http://terrororstralis.com/sheena/comics/FH-covers1.htm
http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/writ3030/Rangers.html
MORE: http://terrororstralis.com/sheena/other-FH/FH-covers4-other-FH.htm
In his introductory essay in The Golden Age Sheena Queen of the Jungle, published by AC Comics, Bill Black explains that when he was a kid his favorite comic heroes were super-heroes and masked cowboys, like The Durango Kid and Captain Marvel. The guy who lived behind him liked Sheena, and he could never understand why. Black realized later that the reason was that the other kid was a few years older than he was. The cocktail of hormones racing through the blood of that teenage boy equipped him for a much more sophisticated appreciation of the delights of Fiction House comics. A cursory examination of the cover montages presented on this page should illuminate the point for the uninitiated. In Jungle Comics Ka'a'nga's mate, Ann, had an amazing capacity for finding herself in every kind of bondage situation; Rangers Comics offered the feisty pioneer gal Firehair; and Planet Comics presented all manner of exotic space babes.
MORE: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~pwgr4/Comics/FH-intro.htm
The pin-up gained popularity during WWII when pics of Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth accompanied GI's who were shipped overseas. The photos were a reminder of what they were fighting for. Comic books also played a part in keeping troops entertained. Certain publishers like Fiction House, specialized in pin-up style artwork in all their titles. Wings Comics, Rangers Comics and Fight Comics all had more leg art than battle art. Then, too, certain genre such as jungle stories where females wore minimal clothing, lent itself to the leg art mold. Of these, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle got top billing during the 1940's. Sheena starred in Fiction House's Jumbo Comics which also featured the zany exploits of a beautiful red head, Ginger McGuire, who's feature was named Sky Girl. In every episode would-be fly gal Ginger took to the air as did her skirt... revealing as much of her long-legged lovliness as superb "good girl" artist Matt Baker could get away with! Bob Lubbers drew Senorita Rio for Fiction House, the sexy American spy who operated in Central and South America.
MORE: http://www.mutoworld.com/Definition.htm
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