Popular Publications

Popular Publications was one of the largest publishers of pulp magazines during its existence, at one point publishing 42 different titles per month. Company titles included detective, adventure, romance, and Western fiction. They were also known for the several 'weird menace' titles. They also published several pulp hero or character pulps.

The company was formed in 1930 by Henry "Harry" Steeger. It was the time of the Great Depression, and Steeger had just read "The Hound of the Baskervilles". Steeger realized that people wanted escapist fiction, allowing them to forget the difficulties of daily life. Steeger wrote "I realised that a great deal of money could be made with that kind of material. It was not long before I was at it, inventing one pulp magazine after another, until my firm had originated over 300 of them."

In 1942 the firm acquired the properties of the Frank A Munsey Co.. In 1949, they picked up the rights to several of Street & Smith's pulps, and there were rumors they might acquire S&S's pulp heroes The Shadow and Doc Savage, which never happened.

Other imprints used included Fictioneers, Inc. (1939-58), All-Fiction Field, Inc. (1942-58), New Publications, Inc. (1936-60), Recreational Reading (1936-60), and Post Periodicals, Inc. (1936-60).

In 1972, the company's rights were sold to Blazing Publications, which in 1988, renamed itself Argosy Communications. Under those names, it published a few comic book version of characters, as well as allowed the reprinting of several of their properties.

Characters

* Captain Combat
* Captain Satan
* Captain V
* Captain Zero (considered the last hero pulp)
* Dr. Yen Sin (a Fu Manchu clone)
* Dusty Ayres and his Battle Birds
* G-8
* Mysterious Wu Fang (a Fu Manchu clone)
* The Octopus/The Scorpion (one-shot villian pulps)
* Operator No. 5
* Secret Six
* The Spider

Titles

* Ace-High Western
* Argosy (acquired after 1942)
* Astonishing Stories
* Battle Aces
* Battle Birds
* Black Mask
* Bulls-Eye Western
* Dare-Devil Aces
* Dime Adventure
* Dime Detective
* Dime Mystery Magazine
* Dime Western Magazine
* Dime Sports
* Dr. Yen Sin
* Dusty Ayres and His Battle Birds
* Fifteen Love Stories
* G-8 and His Battle Aces
* Horror Stories (weird menace)
* Mavericks
* The Octopus
* The Scorpion
* Strange Detective Mysteries
* Super Science Stories
* Terror Tales (weird menace)
* True Adventure
* Western Love Romances
* Wu Fang

External links

* [http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/rbk/faids/popular.html New York Public Library Records on Popular Publications]

References

* Haining, Peter. "The Fantastic Pulps". Vintage Books, a division of Random House. 1975. ISBN 0-394-72109-8