American Comics Group
Encyclopedia
American Comics Group (ACG) was a New York City-based comic book
publisher which operated during the Golden
and Silver Age of comic books
. ACG published one of the first horror comics
titles, Adventures into the Unknown
. Another of ACG's claims to fame was the character of Herbie Popnecker
, who starred for a time in Forbidden Worlds
. Herbie would later get his own title and be turned into a "superhero" called "The Fat Fury".
Founded by Benjamin W. Sangor (1889-c. 1953), ACG was owned or co-owned by Fred Iger
from 1948 to 1967. Iger also owned part of DC Comics
. Iger's father-in-law, Harry Donenfeld
, founder of National Allied Publications (later known as DC Comics), was also a co-owner in the early 1960s (though Donenfeld was severely incapacitated and out of the business after an accident in 1962). ACG was distributed by Independent News Company, which also distributed (and was part of the same company as) DC.
began to produce a short-lived prepackaged comics supplement for newspapers. In 1939, the Sangor Shop (as it was informally known) began producing comics for Sangor's son-in-law Ned L. Pines
. The Sangor Shop produced the characters and stories of The Black Terror
, Pyroman
, and Fighting Yank
for Pines' Nedor Comics
and produced most of the comics for Pines until 1945.
. This was the first of a trilogy of notable ACG horror/supernatural titles, also including Forbidden Worlds
(1951–1967) and Unknown Worlds (1960–1967). A distinctive trait of ACG's horror comics and supernatural stories was that ghosts were invariably colored light green.
In 1949, ACG began publishing two long-running romance
titles, Romantic Adventures (later changed to My Romantic Adventures), and Lovelorn (later changed to Confessions of the Lovelorn). Both titles lasted into the 1960s.
The company survived the 1954 Senate subcommittee hearings on the dangers of comic books, even retaining their somewhat diluted horror title Adventures into the Unknown. But 1955 was a tough year for ACG, as the four long-running humor titles Cookie, Giggle Comics
, Ha Ha Comics, and The Kilroys were cancelled.
Almost all stories after 1957 were written by editor Richard E. Hughes under a variety of pseudonyms. Besides the Fat Fury, other ACG Silver Age superheroes included Magicman (starting in Forbidden Worlds #125), Nemesis in Adventures into the Unknown (starting with #154), and John Force, Magic Agent, in his own title in 1962, then later in Unknown Worlds (#35, 36, 48, 50, 52, 56), with a few stories in Forbidden Worlds (#124, 145) and Adventures into the Unknown (#153, 157).
, Tupperware
, and the United States Air Force
.
obtained the rights to the ACG materials from Fred Iger, and started doing reprints of Herbie and other characters under his various (Avalon, Sword-in-the-Stone, A+, ACG, Charlton) imprints. Broughton also licensed Herbie to Dark Horse Comics
for a 12-issue reprint series, but only two issues were published. In 2008, Dark Horse produced several archive reprints of ACG superhero stories. This includes reprinting all the Herbie stories in three volumes, and single-volume reprints of Nemesis and Magicman.
TV series, called "The Crooked Frame", which is about the cancellation of a comic, opens with someone looking through the black-and-white original artwork for covers of a number of ACG comics.
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
publisher which operated during the Golden
Golden Age of Comic Books
The Golden Age of Comic Books was a period in the history of American comic books, generally thought of as lasting from the late 1930s until the late 1940s or early 1950s...
and Silver Age of comic books
Silver Age of Comic Books
The Silver Age of Comic Books was a period of artistic advancement and commercial success in mainstream American comic books, predominantly those in the superhero genre. Following the Golden Age of Comic Books and an interregnum in the early to mid-1950s, the Silver Age is considered to cover the...
. ACG published one of the first horror comics
Horror comics
Horror comics are comic books, graphic novels, black-and-white comics magazines, and manga focusing on horror fiction. Horror comic books reached a peak in the late 1940s through the mid-1950s, when concern over content and the imposition of the self-censorship Comics Code Authority contributed to...
titles, Adventures into the Unknown
Adventures Into the Unknown
Adventures Into the Unknown was a horror and supernatural comic series from the Golden Age of Comic Books. The title was released in the fall of 1948 by B&I Publishing and enjoyed a run of 174 issues for nearly two decades, ceasing publication in August 1967...
. Another of ACG's claims to fame was the character of Herbie Popnecker
Herbie Popnecker
Herbie Popnecker is a fictional character, who first appeared in Forbidden Worlds #73 in December 1958, published by American Comics Group. He was created by Richard E. Hughes "Shane O'Shea") and Ogden Whitney...
, who starred for a time in Forbidden Worlds
Forbidden Worlds
Forbidden Worlds was a fantasy comic from the American Comics Group, which won the 1964 Alley Award for Best Regularly Published Fantasy Comic. It published 145 issues between July/Aug. 1951 to Aug. 1967.- Publication history :...
. Herbie would later get his own title and be turned into a "superhero" called "The Fat Fury".
Founded by Benjamin W. Sangor (1889-c. 1953), ACG was owned or co-owned by Fred Iger
Fred Iger
Frederick H. Iger was an American comic book publisher, associated for many years with the media figure Harry Donenfeld. Iger was an owner of American Comics Group from 1943 to 1967, and co-owner of National Periodical Publications...
from 1948 to 1967. Iger also owned part of DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
. Iger's father-in-law, Harry Donenfeld
Harry Donenfeld
Harry Donenfeld was an American publisher who is known primarily for being the owner of National Allied Publications, which distributed Detective Comics and Action Comics, the originator publications for the superhero characters Batman and Superman...
, founder of National Allied Publications (later known as DC Comics), was also a co-owner in the early 1960s (though Donenfeld was severely incapacitated and out of the business after an accident in 1962). ACG was distributed by Independent News Company, which also distributed (and was part of the same company as) DC.
Origins
The company evolved out of a company owned by Sangor. In the mid-1930s, Sangor and Richard E. HughesRichard E. Hughes
Richard E. Hughes was an editor of the American Comics Group during its entire history from 1943 to 1967. He also authored most of their stories from 1957 to 1967, under a variety of pseudonyms. His best-known character was Herbie Popnecker, created under the pseudonym "Shane O'Shea", with artist...
began to produce a short-lived prepackaged comics supplement for newspapers. In 1939, the Sangor Shop (as it was informally known) began producing comics for Sangor's son-in-law Ned L. Pines
Ned Pines
Ned L. Pines was a New York publisher. He died in Paris, and lived in Paris, Manhattan and East Hampton NY. He was married to the former Maxine Firestone, has two daughters, two stepsons, and one granddaughter....
. The Sangor Shop produced the characters and stories of The Black Terror
Black Terror
The Black Terror is a fictional comic book superhero who originally appeared in Exciting Comics #9, published by Nedor Comics in January 1941. Some Black Terror stories were written by Patricia Highsmith before she became an acclaimed novelist...
, Pyroman
Pyroman
Pyroman is a fictional superhero that appeared in comic books published by Nedor Comics. His first appearance was in Startling Comics #18 , with art by Jack Binder. His character was latter revived by both AC Comics, and Alan Moore for America's Best Comics.-Nedor Comics:Pyroman was the secret...
, and Fighting Yank
Fighting Yank
-Publication history:The initial comic-book character called Fighting Yank first appeared in Nedor Comics' Startling Comics #10 , during the period fans and historians call the Golden Age of comic books. He was created by writer Richard E. Hughes and artist Jon L. Blummer...
for Pines' Nedor Comics
Nedor Comics
Nedor Publishing was a comic book imprint of publisher Ned Pines, who also published pulp magazines under a variety of company names that he also used for the comics...
and produced most of the comics for Pines until 1945.
Independent publishing
In 1943, ACG started to publish their own work (under such publisher names as B&I Publishing, Michel Publications and Regis Publishing). They acquired the St. Louis, Missouri-based comics publisher Creston Publications in 1943, making Creston into an ACG imprint. By 1948, they were publishing comics under the name of American Comics Group. Their titles were typical of the times, including horror, crime, mystery, romance, funny animals, and the like. In 1948, they began publishing the long-running horror title Adventures into the UnknownAdventures Into the Unknown
Adventures Into the Unknown was a horror and supernatural comic series from the Golden Age of Comic Books. The title was released in the fall of 1948 by B&I Publishing and enjoyed a run of 174 issues for nearly two decades, ceasing publication in August 1967...
. This was the first of a trilogy of notable ACG horror/supernatural titles, also including Forbidden Worlds
Forbidden Worlds
Forbidden Worlds was a fantasy comic from the American Comics Group, which won the 1964 Alley Award for Best Regularly Published Fantasy Comic. It published 145 issues between July/Aug. 1951 to Aug. 1967.- Publication history :...
(1951–1967) and Unknown Worlds (1960–1967). A distinctive trait of ACG's horror comics and supernatural stories was that ghosts were invariably colored light green.
In 1949, ACG began publishing two long-running romance
Romance comics
Romance comics is a comics genre depicting romantic love and its attendant complications such as jealousy, marriage, divorce, betrayal, and heartache. The term is generally associated with an American comic books genre published through the first three decades of the Cold War...
titles, Romantic Adventures (later changed to My Romantic Adventures), and Lovelorn (later changed to Confessions of the Lovelorn). Both titles lasted into the 1960s.
The company survived the 1954 Senate subcommittee hearings on the dangers of comic books, even retaining their somewhat diluted horror title Adventures into the Unknown. But 1955 was a tough year for ACG, as the four long-running humor titles Cookie, Giggle Comics
Giggle Comics
Giggle Comics is an American comics anthology. It was originally published by Creston Publications, which became an imprint of American Comics Group in 1943. Giggle Comics had many stories with funny animals, mirroring a wider trend....
, Ha Ha Comics, and The Kilroys were cancelled.
Almost all stories after 1957 were written by editor Richard E. Hughes under a variety of pseudonyms. Besides the Fat Fury, other ACG Silver Age superheroes included Magicman (starting in Forbidden Worlds #125), Nemesis in Adventures into the Unknown (starting with #154), and John Force, Magic Agent, in his own title in 1962, then later in Unknown Worlds (#35, 36, 48, 50, 52, 56), with a few stories in Forbidden Worlds (#124, 145) and Adventures into the Unknown (#153, 157).
Closure and dissolution
By 1967, the company had ended publication, except for their commercial comics division, Custom Comics (established in 1950), which lasted until the early 1980s doing work for a variety of clients such as Montgomery WardMontgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward is an online retailer that carries the same name as the former American department store chain, founded as the world's #1 mail order business in 1872 by Aaron Montgomery Ward, and which went out of business in 2001...
, Tupperware
Tupperware
Tupperware is the name of a home products line that includes preparation, storage, containment, and serving products for the kitchen and home, which were first introduced to the public in 1946....
, and the United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
.
Roger Broughton
In the 1980s or so, Canadian entrepreneur Roger BroughtonRoger Broughton
Charlton Media Group is a Montreal-based publisher owned and operated by Canadian entrepreneur Roger Broughton. CMG has published Charlton Comics and American Comics Group reprint comics, under several names, including Sword in Stone, A+, and America's Comics Group.- History :Long-time comics...
obtained the rights to the ACG materials from Fred Iger, and started doing reprints of Herbie and other characters under his various (Avalon, Sword-in-the-Stone, A+, ACG, Charlton) imprints. Broughton also licensed Herbie to Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...
for a 12-issue reprint series, but only two issues were published. In 2008, Dark Horse produced several archive reprints of ACG superhero stories. This includes reprinting all the Herbie stories in three volumes, and single-volume reprints of Nemesis and Magicman.
Notable titles published
- Adventures into the UnknownAdventures Into the UnknownAdventures Into the Unknown was a horror and supernatural comic series from the Golden Age of Comic Books. The title was released in the fall of 1948 by B&I Publishing and enjoyed a run of 174 issues for nearly two decades, ceasing publication in August 1967...
(174 issues, Fall 1948 - Aug. 1967) - Cookie (55 issues, Apr. 1946 - Sept. 1955)
- Forbidden WorldsForbidden WorldsForbidden Worlds was a fantasy comic from the American Comics Group, which won the 1964 Alley Award for Best Regularly Published Fantasy Comic. It published 145 issues between July/Aug. 1951 to Aug. 1967.- Publication history :...
(145 issues, July/Aug. 1951 - Aug. 1967) - Giggle ComicsGiggle ComicsGiggle Comics is an American comics anthology. It was originally published by Creston Publications, which became an imprint of American Comics Group in 1943. Giggle Comics had many stories with funny animals, mirroring a wider trend....
(99 issues, Oct. 1943 - Jan. 1955) — acquired from Creston Publications - Ha Ha Comics (99 issues, Oct. 1943 - Dec. 1954/Jan. 1955)
- HerbieHerbie PopneckerHerbie Popnecker is a fictional character, who first appeared in Forbidden Worlds #73 in December 1958, published by American Comics Group. He was created by Richard E. Hughes "Shane O'Shea") and Ogden Whitney...
(23 issues, Apr./May 1964 - Feb. 1967) - The Kilroys (54 issues, June/July 1947 - June/July 1955)
- Lovelorn (later changed to Confessions of the Lovelorn) (114 issues, Aug./Sept. 1949 - June/July 1960)
- Romantic Adventures (later changed to My Romantic Adventures) (138 issues, Mar./Apr. 1949 – Mar. 1964)
- Soldiers of Fortune (12 issues, Mar./Apr. 1951 - Jan./Feb. 1953) — acquired from Creston Publications
- Unknown Worlds (57 issues, Aug. 1960 - Aug. 1967)
- Wrangler Great Moments in Rodeo (50 issues, 1955 - 1966)
In other media
The July 29, 1952, episode of the SuspenseSuspense (US TV series)
Suspense is an American television anthology series that ran on CBS Television from 1949 to 1954. It was adapted from the radio program of the same name which ran from 1942 to 1962. Like many early television programs, the show was broadcast live from New York City...
TV series, called "The Crooked Frame", which is about the cancellation of a comic, opens with someone looking through the black-and-white original artwork for covers of a number of ACG comics.
External links
- ACG page at Toonopedia
- Herbie page at Toonopedia
- ACG page at International Catalog of Superheroes
- American Comics Group page by Ramon Schenk
- Grand Comics Database ACG title cover galleries: