Warren Comics

Warren Publishing was an American magazine company 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'', ''Help!'', and ''Vampirella''.

Initially based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the company moved by 1965 to New York City.

Publishing history

Founding

Begun by James Warren, Warren Publishing's initial publications were the horror-fantasy--science fiction movie magazine ''Famous Monsters of Filmland'' and ''Monster World'', both edited by Forrest J Ackerman. Warren soon published ''Spacemen'' magazine and in 1960 ''Help!'' magazine, with the first employee of the magazine being Gloria Steinem.The James Warren Interview
''Comic Book Artist'' #4 (Winter 1999).

After introducing what he called "Monster Comics" in ''Monster World'', Warren expanded in 1964 with horror-comics stories in the sister magazines ''Creepy'' and ''Eerie'' – black-and-white publications in a standard magazine format, rather than comic-book size, and selling for 35 cents as opposed to the standard comic-book price of 12 cents. Such a format, Warren explained, averted the restrictions of the Comics Code Authority, the comic-book industry's self-censorship body:

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 ''Psycho'' and other series from Skywald Publications.

Russ Jones was the founding editor of ''Creepy'' in 1964. A year later, Archie Goodwin succeeded him, with Joe Orlando acting as 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 leader in its field. From 1965 to 1966, Warren also published the four-issue '' Blazing Combat'', a war-comics magazine with anti-war themes, controversial at the time.*Additional .

Vampirella and international artists

After 17 issues of ''Creepy'' and 11 of ''Eerie'', Goodwin resigned as editor in 1967. The movement of Warren's operations from Philadelphia to New York City, combined with a change in distributors and a downturn in the market imposed a cash flow problem on Warren, and Goodwin along with all of the artists except for Tom Sutton and Rocke Mastroserio (who soon died) departed the company.Roach, Cooke, p. 90

During the next two-and-a-half years, Warren's publications consisted primarily of reprints from the early issues. During this period, a variety of editors ran the magazines including Bill Parente, Nicola Cuti, and Warren himself. Things started picking up again for Warren in 1969 with the premiere of its third horror magazine, ''Vampirella''. Many of Warren's original artists returned during this period, as would Goodwin for a period of time in 1970 and 1971. After Goodwin's second departure, editors would J.R. Cochran. The art director was Billy Graham.

In 1971, Warren began using artists from the Barcelona studio of Spanish agency Selecciones Illustrada. Over the next few years, Spanish artists would dominate the magazines. Additional Spanish artists from S.I.'s Valencia studio began freelancing for Warren in 1974.

In 1973, new editor Bill DuBay