Fox Feature Syndicate
| Industry | Entertainment |
|---|---|
| Fate | closed |
| Headquarters | Massachusetts |
| Key people | Victor S. Fox |
| Products | comic books |
Fox Feature Syndicate[1] (also known as Fox Comics and Fox Publications) was a comic book publisher from early in the period known to fans and historians as the Golden Age of Comic Books. Founded by entrepreneur Victor S. Fox, it produced such titles as Blue Beetle, Fantastic Comics and Mystery Men Comics.
It is unrelated to the company Fox Publications, a Colorado publisher of railroad photography books.
Contents |
[edit] Background
Victor S. Fox and business associate Bob Farrell launched Fox Feature Syndicate at 480 Lexington Avenue in New York City in the late 1930s. For content, Fox contracted with comics packager Eisner & Iger, one of a handful of companies creating comic books on demand for publishers entering the field. Writer-artist Will Eisner, at Victor Fox's request for a hero to mimic the newly created hit Superman, created the superhero Wonder Man for Fox's first publication, Wonder Comics #1 (May 1939), signing his work "Willis". Eisner said in interviews throughout his later life that he had protested the derivative nature of the character and story, and that when subpoenaed after National Periodical Publications, the company that would evolve into DC Comics, sued Fox, alleging Wonder Man was an illegal copy of Superman, Eisner testified that this was so, undermining Fox's case;[2] Eisner even depicts himself doing so in his semi-autobiographical graphic novel The Dreamer.[3] However, a transcript of the proceeding, uncovered by comics historian Ken Quattro in 2010, indicates Eisner in fact supported Fox and claimed Wonder Man as an original Eisner creation.[4]
After losing at trial, Victor Fox dropped Eisner & Iger and hired his own stable of comic creators, beginning with a New York Times classified ad on Dec. 2, 1939. Joe Simon, a former Eisner & Iger freelancer, became Fox Publications' editor.
As one of the earliest companies in the emerging field, it employed or bought the packaged material of a huge number of Golden Age greats, many at the start of their careers. Lou Fine created the superhero The Flame in Wonderworld Comics; Dick Briefer created Rex Dexter of Mars in the eponymous series. George Tuska did his first comics work here with the features "Zanzibar" (Mystery Men Comics #1, Aug. 1939) and "Tom Barry" (Wonderworld Comics #4). Fletcher Hanks wrote and drew Stardust the Super Wizard in Fantastic Comics in 1939 and 1940. Matt Baker, one of the few African-American comic book artists of the Golden Age, revamped — in more than one sense — the newly acquired Quality Comics character Phantom Lady' in 1947, creating one of the most memorable and controversial examples of superhero "good girl art".
Future comics legend Jack Kirby, brought on staff here after freelancing for Eisner & Iger, wrote and drew the syndicated newspaper comic strip The Blue Beetle (starting Jan. 1940), starring a character created by Charles Nicholas Wojtkowski in Mystery Men Comics #1 (Aug. 1939). Kirby retained the house name "Charles Nicholas" for the comic strip, which lasted three months. Kirby, additionally, created and did one story each of the Fox features "Wing Turner" (Mystery Men #10, May 1940) and "Cosmic Carson" (Science Comics #4, same month).
Throughout the 1940s, Fox produced comics in a typically wide variety of genres, but was best known for superheroes and humor. With the post-war decline in superheroes' popularity, Fox, like other publishers, concentrated on horror and crime comics, including some of the most notorious of the latter. Following the establishment of Comics Code Authority in the mid-1950s, Fox went out of business, selling the rights to the Blue Beetle to Charlton Comics.
[edit] Victor Fox
Born April 13, 1893 in Nottingham, England, Fox Publications founder Victor S. Fox was a stockbroker for the Allied Capital Corp./Fox Motor and Bank Stocks, Inc./American Common Stocks, Inc.,[citation needed] on Park Avenue in New York City when he was indicted[citation needed] on Nov. 27, 1929 for mail fraud and related illegal "boiler room" activities. It appears unrecorded whether this resulted in a conviction.
Historian Jon Berk has written that Fox went on to become an accountant/bookkeeper at the publishing firm that would become DC Comics, where he was privy to sales figures that convinced him to launch his own comic-book company.[5] Fellow historian Gerard Jones, writing in his book Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book, was unable to find documentation of this.[6]
[edit] Quotes
Jack Kirby: "Victor Fox was a character. He'd look up at the ceiling with a big cigar, this little fellow, very broad, going back and forth with his hands behind his back saying, 'I'm the King of Comics! I'm the King of Comics!' and we would watch him and, of course, smile a little because he was a genuine type".[7]
Joe Simon on Victor Fox : "He was an accountant for DC Comics. He was doing the sales figures and he liked what he saw. So, he moved downstairs and started his own company.... I happened to get a job; I went over to Fox and became editor there, which was just an impossible job, because ... there were no artists, no writers, no editors, no letterers — nothing there. Everything came out of the Eisner and Iger shop. ... He was a very strange character. He had kind of a British accent; he was like 5'2", told us he was a former ballroom dancer. He was very loud, menacing, and really a scary little guy. He used to say, 'I'm the King of the Comics. I'm the King of the Comics. I'm the King of the Comics.' We couldn't stop him".[8]
Joe Simon The man was insane, absolutely insane. He would go off on a speech like, “I’m the King of the Comics, and I’m not playing school here with chalk on the blackboard, I’ve got millions of dollars tied up in this business!…The man was mad.” He was a “short, round, nattily dressed man in his late forties, with a rasping voice that would shrill to frightening crescendos when he was excited. And he was excited often.”
Will Eisner “Fox was a very, very shifty, fast-footed business man who would create fictitious names because he was always afraid of being sued.”
Al Feldstein Fox was “coarsely gruff,”, “with horn rimmed glasses and a permanent cigar clamped between his teeth.” “He was the personification of a typical exploiting comic book publisher of his day - grinding out shameless imitations of successful titles and trends, and treating his artists and editors like dirt.”
Nicky Wright: "Competing well in the 'most sexy, sadistic, and violent' category, Victor Fox’s Murder Incorporated and Blue Beetle are noteworthy.... When historians describe sleaze, sex, and violence as Fox’s obsession, they are masters of understatement. His best artists, Jack Kamen and Matt Baker, are much revered and collected for their good girl art. (Of special note is the company’s breasty crime-fighter-in-bedroom-lingerie, Phantom Lady...along with the wild and scantily attired Rulah, Jungle Goddess.)"[9]
Boyd Magers: "Never one to overlook a secondary sale, Fox often repackaged four remaindered (unsold) comics into a 25¢ Giant with a new cover, hence Hoot Gibson's Western Roundup, 132 pages dated 1950. However, since Fox always started their stories on the inside front cover (where other publishers ran an ad), these repackaged comics are always missing the first page of story content. Also, since Fox used remaindered issues, contents will vary from copy to copy of Hoot Gibson's Western Roundup."[10]
[edit] Fox characters
- The Banshee
- Birdman
- The Blackbird
- Black Fury & Kid Fury
- Black Lion
- Blue Beetle (later sold to Charlton Comics, who later sold to DC Comics)
- The Bouncer
- Bronze Man
- Captain V
- Dagar, the Desert Hawk
- The Dart & Ace, the Bat Boy
- Dynamite Thor
- The Eagle & Buddy (Steven Woods, who as an adult takes on the name Blue Eagle)
- Electro (later known as Dynamo)
- The Flame
- The Gorilla with the Human Brain
- Green Mask
- Illuso
- The Jaguar/Jaguar Man
- Jo-Jo, Congo King
- Lunar the Moon Man
- The Lynx
- Marga the Panther Woman
- Miss X
- The Moth/Mothman
- Nightbird
- Phantom Lady (obtained from Quality Comics via Iger Studios)
- The Purple Tigress
- Rani-Bey
- The Rapier
- The Raven
- Rulah, Jungle Goddess
- Samson
- Spider Queen (later appeared in Marvel Comics's Invaders series)[11]
- Stardust the Super Wizard
- Tangi
- Tegra, Jungle Empress
- Thor
- The Topper
- Tumbler
- U.S. Jones
- V-Man
- Wonder Man
- The Wraith
- Yarko the Great, Master Magician
- Zago, Jungle Prince
[edit] Fox titles
[edit] Gallery of Fox Feature Syndicate covers
[edit] References
- ^ Per the Fox Feature Syndicate entry at the Michigan State University Libraries' Reading Room Index to the Comic Art Collection (WebCitation archive), the company name used "Feature" singular rather than "Features" plural: "Fox Feature Syndicate — American comics publisher or publishers, sometimes informally called 'Fox Comics.' The corporate names 'Fox Feature Syndicate' and 'Fox Publications' both appear, with the latter consistently having an address in the state of Massachusetts".
- ^ Andelman, Bob. Will Eisner: A Spirited Life (M Press: Milwaukie, Oregon, 2005) ISBN 1-59582-011-6A, pp. 44–45
- ^ The Dreamer: A Graphic Novella Set During the Dawn of Comic Books (DC Comics : New York City, 1986 edition) ISBN 9781563896781. Reissued by W. W. Norton & Company : New York City, London, 2008. ISBN 978-0393328080, p. 42
- ^ Quattro, Ken. "DC vs. Victor Fox: The Testimony of Will Eisner", The Comics Detective, July 1, 2010. WebCitation archive.
- ^ Berk, Jon. "The Weird, Wonder(ous) World of Victor Fox's Fantastic Mystery Men", Part II, Comicartville Library, 2004. WebCitation archive, Part I and Part II.
- ^ Jones, Gerard. Men Of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book (2004) ISBN 0-465-03656-2
- ^ Jack Kirby interview, The Comics Journal #134 (Feb. 1990), reprinted in The Comics Journal Library, Volume One: Jack Kirby (2002) ISBN 1-56097-466-4, p. 25
- ^ Jack Kirby Collector #25 (Aug. 1999): "More Than Your Average Joe: Excerpts from Joe Simon's panels at the 1998 Comicon International: San Diego"
- ^ Comic Book Marketplace #65, "Seducers of the Innocent"
- ^ The Old Corral: Hoot Gibson
- ^ Per the Spider Queen entry in The Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe: "Created by Elsa Lesau (believed to be a pseudonym for Louis and Arturo Cazeneuve) for Fox Features [sic] Syndicate; adapted for the Marvel [Comics] Universe by Roy Thomas, Dave Hoover, and Brian Garvey. Roy Thomas had originally intended [the flashback, World War II supervillian team] Battle-Axis to consist of minor wartime heroes of Timely Comics (predecessor of Marvel), but [editor] Mark Gruenwald nixed that idea, and super-heroes from now-defunct wartime publishers were used instead...."
[edit] External links
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Fox Feature Syndicate |
- Fox Feature Syndicate at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
- Comicartville Library: The Fox 1939-1942 Comic Covers
- Fox at the Grand Comics Database
- "Connecticut Talent". Connecticut Historical Society. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070927212433/www.chs.org/comics/creators.htm.
- Wildwood Cemetery: The Spirit Database. WebCitation archive.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
