Warren Publishing
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Warren Publishing is a magazine firm founded by James Warren, who published his first magazines in 1957 and continued in the business for decades. Magazines published by Warren include After Hours, Creepy, Eerie, Famous Monsters of Filmland, Favorite Westerns of Filmland, The Goblin, Help!, Monster World, The Rook, Screen Thrills Illustrated, Spacemen, and Vampirella.
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[edit] Birth of the company
Fantasy films were the focus of Famous Monsters of Filmland and Monster World, edited by Forrest J. Ackerman. After first introducing what he called "Monster Comics" in Monster World, Warren expanded in 1965 with horror-comics stories in what would become a highly popular duo of magazines, Creepy and Eerie. They were created partly in response to the Comics Code Authority, established in 1954 to help ensure comics were suitable for parents. By publishing graphic stories in a magazine format to which the Code did not apply, Warren paved the way for such later graphic-story magazines as the American version of Heavy Metal, Marvel Comics' Epic Illustrated and Warren's own line of magazines.
Russ Jones, the founding editor of Creepy in 1964, detailed the magazine's origins and his lengthy negotiations with Warren in the memoir "Creepy & Eerie" at his website. In 1965, Archie Goodwin joined Warren as the editor of Creepy, and Joe Orlando was a behind-the-scenes story editor. Goodwin, who would become one of comics' foremost and most influential writers, helped to establish the company as a major force in its field.
[edit] Establishing a franchise
Warren's success eventually gave Marvel Comics, DC Comics and Charlton Comics the impetus to re-enter the horror field, leading to a 1970s revival of horror comics.
In 1973, new editor Bill DuBay transformed Warren's magazines to create a uniform style. The following year, Warren Publishing was dissolved and replaced by Warren Communications, a sister company James Warren had founded in 1972.
Louise Jones headed the editorial staff from 1976 to 1980, followed by DuBay's return. As the decade progressed, James Warren's bad health combined with changing tastes and business problems led to the company declaring bankruptcy. In August 1983, Harris Publications acquired company assets at auction, although legal murkiness and a 1998 lawsuit by James Warren resulted in his reacquisition of the rights to Creepy and Eerie, though no new material since has been published.
[edit] Other magazines
Other Warren publications included the short-lived Pantha and the science-fiction magazines The Rook (which published the further adventures of a character that first appeared in Eerie) and 1984 (which changed its name to 1994 after issue #10). An acclaimed anthology of war stories, Blazing Combat, had a brief, four-issue run. Goblin had a briefer 3-issue run.
The Spirit revived the classic Will Eisner character with reprints of the seven-page, Sunday-supplement comic of 1940s and 1950s newspapers. It featured new covers by Eisner and an occasional color reprint. It would later move to Kitchen Sink Press.
[edit] Artists
Illustrators included such established artists as Orlando, Neal Adams, Gene Colan, Frank Frazetta, Roy G. Krenkel, Gray Morrow, Al Williamson and Wally Wood, plus a newer group of talents, including Dan Adkins, Richard Bassford, Roger Brand, Frank Brunner, Rich Buckler, Dave Cockrum, Nicola Cuti, Richard Corben, Al Hewetson, Ken Kelly, Mike Royer, Tom Sutton and Boris Vallejo.
Cover artists for Creepy and Eerie included Adkins, Frazetta, Kelly, Morrow, Sutton, Ken Barr, Vaughn Bodé, Pat Boyette, Ron Cobb, Richard Conway, Jack Davis, H.R. Giger, Basil Gogos, Bill Hughes, Terrance Lindall, Gutenberg Monteiro, Albert Nuetzell, Vic Prezo, Manuel Sanjulian, Vincente Segrelles, Kenneth Smith, and Enrich Torres
[edit] Milestones
The first known interracial kiss in mainstream comics (as opposed to underground comix) occurred in Warren's Creepy #43 (Jan. 1972), in "The Men Who Called Him Monster" by writer Don McGregor and artist Luis Garcia. McGregor would later script color comic books' first known interracial kiss, in an issue of Amazing Adventures, starring Killraven.
[edit] Misc.
The unrelated Warren Publishing of Cornelius, North Carolina publishes literary fiction and nonfiction, medical books, poetry and children's books. Also unrelated is the black-and-white horror magazine publisher Eerie Publications.
