More mystery Centaurs 2 2

[buttock]

Recently I shared my discovery of a previously unknown Centaur, which was likely one of several CMO giveaways.

 

A while back I was digging through some old digests I bought over a decade ago and I came across one that struck me as familiar appearing. I looked at the cover and noticed it was signed "Glanz", i.e. Lew Glanzman. I opened it up and noticed that many of the illustrations were by Martin Filchock and Lew Glanzman, then checked the indicia and it was published in 1941 by Comic Corporation of America (CCA) -- which was the publisher of the Centaur line at that time.

 

To clarify things from a background perspective, I think it's worthwhile to go over the history of the Centaur family of publishers.

 

1936 -- Comics Magazine Co started publishing Comics Magazine/Funny Pages, Funny Picture Stories, Detective Picture Stories, Western Picture Stories, etc.

 

1937 -- Chesler starts the "Star-" books, later acquired by Ultem

 

1937 -- Ultem acquires Comics Magazine Co's lines

 

1938 -- Ultem goes under, selling some properties (e.g. The Clock) to Quality, and the rest to Hardie/Kelly/Gardner who repackage them into Centaur, which is where the bulk of the hero/sci-fi books came.

 

Centaur lasted from 1938 until 1940, with the flagship titles being Amazing Man, Amazing Mystery Funnies, and Funny Pages. However, the indicia of AMF 1 (8/38) lists "Centaur Publications, Inc" as the publisher, and the indicia of A-Man (9/39) lists "Comic Corporation of America" as the publisher. (For reference sake, Funny Pages switched from Ultem to Centaur pubs with v2 n6 in 3/38). The Arrow was the only Centaur title to last beyond the demise of Centaur and with issue 3 the publisher switched from Centaur to CCA (which, incidentally, may explain why #3 is scarcer).

 

CCA titles, on the other hand, ran from 1939-1942.

 

One thing you may notice when looking at how the titles changed over time is that Centaur tended to focus on super-hero & sci-fi, while CCA became patriotic & war themed (Man of War, World Famous Heroes, Stars & Stripes, Liberty Scouts).

 

PreHero ( Jeff) made a nice point previously regarding the common held theory that the Centaur line died largely due to poor distribution, but that doesn't seem to hold true as Centaurs have been present in most all of the large pedigrees from all over the country.

 

This book I've found (I can't say I've discovered it because it was known, just not widely), and subsequent digging I've done may shed a little light on what went on at the end of the Centaur line.

 

Here's a scan of the book, "Khaki Wacky".

 

 

 

 

[buttock]

The Library of Congress archives list Khaki Wacky, along with 9 other titles, as being published by CCA in 1941-42. Those titles are:

 

Blackout

Cheers

Jeeps

Keep 'Em Laughing

Khaki Humor

Khaki Wacky

Puzzle Fun

Smiles

What's Cookin'

Yoo Hoo

 

So far I've managed to come across a copy of Blackout, Jeeps, Khaki Humor, and Puzzle Fun. As best as I can gather, these were all one-shots. I believe that 3 of the remaining titles were one-shots also, and that Yoo Hoo and What's Cookin' may have run several years as this link has scans of Yoo Hoo issue 26 and What's Cookin' #12.

[buttock]

"Puzzle Fun" is very similar to "Uncle Joe's Funnies", which was published by Centaur in 1938. It's a collection of cartoons (many by Paul Gustavson), riddles, crosswords, and various puzzles. It also has the same strange dimensions, being midway between a digest and comic book in size.

[buttock]

The other three are along a similar vein of the Khaki Wacky.

 

Jeeps is a collection of cartoons drawn by Filchock, Glanzman, and various artists from military publications across the country; as well as riddles, jokes, etc. It is digest-sized.

 

Black-out is also digest-sized, with the same type of content, but the content is more focused on blackouts that were feared to occur during the war.

 

Khaki Humor is the same content, but magazine-sized. On the first page it lays out the rationale for a publication of this sort, trying to boister the troops' morale, spread the patriotism, etc.

 

Glanzman served in the military and drew for the Air Force magazine, but I can't find dates. He was born in 1922, which would put him at prime serving age for WWII. His brother Sam is perhaps most famous for USS Stevens, his serial about his time in the war.

 

Filchock served in the war as well, and drew cartoons for the military publications.

 

Based on all of this, I'd speculate that Centaur may have gone under not due to distribution problems, but more as a result of a) not having a character that had taken off like Superman, Capt Marvel, etc., and b) a shift in direction by the publishers and artists (Filchock & Glanzman primarily) to capitalize on the military personnel and wartime fever.

[Bunky Brian]

Thank U Mr Butt ock

 

nice time line, and interesting facts about our favorite publisher,

 

B

[jbcomicbox]

Thank U Mr Butt ock

 

nice time line, and interesting facts about our favorite publisher,

 

B

 

I am impressed with the info and books. I am stil not sure why they went under, look at Fox........I attach a couple of recreations I had Glanzman and Filchock do (The Funny Pages was Filchock's first cover) He did these for me when he was 95!

 

Glanzman became a famous illustrator......I did not know that they overlapped time wise.....

 

Nice info. Does the LOC have a website that you got info for?

 

jb

[Point Five]

 

I don't think the cover artist stayed up all night on this one.

 

 

[Forbush-Man]

 

I don't think the cover artist stayed up all night on this one.

 

 

Maybe the same artist as on the cover of Western Picture Stories #4.

[Bo_Hogg]

This is really cool stuff guys! Stuff that I love!!!!!

[adamstrange]

Great little background summary! (thumbs u

[buttock]

 

Nice info. Does the LOC have a website that you got info for?

 

jb

 

I think the site I linked is a .doc version of the LOC archives. Some of the archives are available on google, but they're harder to search as they're often scanned in in .pdf format and the searches don't work nearly as well. If you try ctrl+f in the link I gave you can search for any words or phrases you like and it will generally find them.

[Scrooge]

 

I don't think the cover artist stayed up all night on this one.

 

 

Maybe the same artist as on the cover of Western Picture Stories #4.

 

Buresch is clearly riffing on Roy Crane in that cover ... so, yes, maybe he didn't spend much time either.

 

Gotta give it for the cover of Blackout. The joke is there but to actually run it as they did. Kudos.

 

And, thanks Buttock for the info :thumbsup:

[PreHero]

Thanks for posting the background, digest info and scans. Was not aware of these titles or books till you uncovered them.

 

Seems Centaur struggled along as CCA for a while after they published their last superhero comic in Jan1942 with CMO giveaways and these mags for GIs. Very cool.

[markseifert]

Buttock -- I know this is an old thread but I was catching up on some casual late night research and stumbled across your post which I'd missed at the time. Interesting note about the editorial differences between the CCA and Centaur Publications books, which is something I hadn't thought much about before. Good stuff.

 

Something else interesting I came across awhile back that rounds out some of the overall Centaur timeline:

 

Comic Magazine Co. co-founder William H. Cook declared personal bankruptcy in Feb 1937 -- note that that's just as they completed their expansion from one to four titles. So it's hard not to make the cause/effect connection there and presume that he was for whatever reason personally on the hook for some of the company's bills due to the expansion (and being clear, this is of course a different event from Centaur Publications' 1940 bankruptcy).

 

And of course, the Ultem acquisition/merger is just a few months later, and when you combine that with the Cook bankruptcy and the publication schedule leading up to it, you start to get a picture of how things played out during this period.

 

It's also interesting to note that Cook seems to have been the only "loser" out of the whole situation.

 

Mahon went on to help Jacquet start Funnies Inc.

 

Samuel Fried, also listed as in the statement of ownership on some of the Comic Magazine Co books, was an attorney who went on to represent many major publishers of the day, most notably he makes an appearance in DC v Bruns (the Superman / Wonder Man lawsuit). Some feel he was acting as a proxy for distributor Kable to bankroll the Comic Magazine Co's line, but I think this is far from certain.

 

Busy Arnold used Comics Magazine Co's talent (contacts William H. Cook handed over to him, per Arnold himself in the old Steranko comic history books), AND their Cleveland printer to start Quality.

 

Cook... was never heard from in comics again...?

 

 

To clarify things from a background perspective, I think it's worthwhile to go over the history of the Centaur family of publishers.

 

1936 -- Comics Magazine Co started publishing Comics Magazine/Funny Pages, Funny Picture Stories, Detective Picture Stories, Western Picture Stories, etc.

 

1937 -- Chesler starts the "Star-" books, later acquired by Ultem

 

1937 -- Ultem acquires Comics Magazine Co's lines

 

1938 -- Ultem goes under, selling some properties (e.g. The Clock) to Quality, and the rest to Hardie/Kelly/Gardner who repackage them into Centaur, which is where the bulk of the hero/sci-fi books came.

 

Centaur lasted from 1938 until 1940, with the flagship titles being Amazing Man, Amazing Mystery Funnies, and Funny Pages. However, the indicia of AMF 1 (8/38) lists "Centaur Publications, Inc" as the publisher, and the indicia of A-Man (9/39) lists "Comic Corporation of America" as the publisher. (For reference sake, Funny Pages switched from Ultem to Centaur pubs with v2 n6 in 3/38). The Arrow was the only Centaur title to last beyond the demise of Centaur and with issue 3 the publisher switched from Centaur to CCA (which, incidentally, may explain why #3 is scarcer).

 

CCA titles, on the other hand, ran from 1939-1942.

 

One thing you may notice when looking at how the titles changed over time is that Centaur tended to focus on super-hero & sci-fi, while CCA became patriotic & war themed (Man of War, World Famous Heroes, Stars & Stripes, Liberty Scouts).

 

PreHero ( Jeff) made a nice point previously regarding the common held theory that the Centaur line died largely due to poor distribution, but that doesn't seem to hold true as Centaurs have been present in most all of the large pedigrees from all over the country.

 

This book I've found (I can't say I've discovered it because it was known, just not widely), and subsequent digging I've done may shed a little light on what went on at the end of the Centaur line.

 

Here's a scan of the book, "Khaki Wacky".

 

 

 

 

[buttock]

Buttock -- I know this is an old thread but I was catching up on some casual late night research and stumbled across your post which I'd missed at the time. Interesting note about the editorial differences between the CCA and Centaur Publications books, which is something I hadn't thought much about before. Good stuff.

 

Something else interesting I came across awhile back that rounds out some of the overall Centaur timeline:

 

Comic Magazine Co. co-founder William H. Cook declared personal bankruptcy in Feb 1937 -- note that that's just as they completed their expansion from one to four titles. So it's hard not to make the cause/effect connection there and presume that he was for whatever reason personally on the hook for some of the company's bills due to the expansion (and being clear, this is of course a different event from Centaur Publications' 1940 bankruptcy).

 

And of course, the Ultem acquisition/merger is just a few months later, and when you combine that with the Cook bankruptcy and the publication schedule leading up to it, you start to get a picture of how things played out during this period.

 

It's also interesting to note that Cook seems to have been the only "loser" out of the whole situation.

 

Mahon went on to help Jacquet start Funnies Inc.

 

Samuel Fried, also listed as in the statement of ownership on some of the Comic Magazine Co books, was an attorney who went on to represent many major publishers of the day, most notably he makes an appearance in DC v Bruns (the Superman / Wonder Man lawsuit). Some feel he was acting as a proxy for distributor Kable to bankroll the Comic Magazine Co's line, but I think this is far from certain.

 

Busy Arnold used Comics Magazine Co's talent (contacts William H. Cook handed over to him, per Arnold himself in the old Steranko comic history books), AND their Cleveland printer to start Quality.

 

Cook... was never heard from in comics again...?

 

 

To clarify things from a background perspective, I think it's worthwhile to go over the history of the Centaur family of publishers.

 

1936 -- Comics Magazine Co started publishing Comics Magazine/Funny Pages, Funny Picture Stories, Detective Picture Stories, Western Picture Stories, etc.

 

1937 -- Chesler starts the "Star-" books, later acquired by Ultem

 

1937 -- Ultem acquires Comics Magazine Co's lines

 

1938 -- Ultem goes under, selling some properties (e.g. The Clock) to Quality, and the rest to Hardie/Kelly/Gardner who repackage them into Centaur, which is where the bulk of the hero/sci-fi books came.

 

Centaur lasted from 1938 until 1940, with the flagship titles being Amazing Man, Amazing Mystery Funnies, and Funny Pages. However, the indicia of AMF 1 (8/38) lists "Centaur Publications, Inc" as the publisher, and the indicia of A-Man (9/39) lists "Comic Corporation of America" as the publisher. (For reference sake, Funny Pages switched from Ultem to Centaur pubs with v2 n6 in 3/38). The Arrow was the only Centaur title to last beyond the demise of Centaur and with issue 3 the publisher switched from Centaur to CCA (which, incidentally, may explain why #3 is scarcer).

 

CCA titles, on the other hand, ran from 1939-1942.

 

One thing you may notice when looking at how the titles changed over time is that Centaur tended to focus on super-hero & sci-fi, while CCA became patriotic & war themed (Man of War, World Famous Heroes, Stars & Stripes, Liberty Scouts).

 

PreHero ( Jeff) made a nice point previously regarding the common held theory that the Centaur line died largely due to poor distribution, but that doesn't seem to hold true as Centaurs have been present in most all of the large pedigrees from all over the country.

 

This book I've found (I can't say I've discovered it because it was known, just not widely), and subsequent digging I've done may shed a little light on what went on at the end of the Centaur line.

 

Here's a scan of the book, "Khaki Wacky".

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the update! Makes perfect sense that the expansion may have bankrupted Cook. This type of financial uncertainty makes it easy to understand why "shops" like the Eisner/Iger collaboration were appealing to artists.

[Jus10]

Cool stuff!!! I have two of these books, in my much larger golden age comic book collection, but never knew too much about them! I thought these might have been give away to soldiers on-away-duty or something.......
Here's the 2 issues I have