Magazine Management
Template:OldInfobox company Magazine Manage-
ment Co., Inc. was an American publishing company
lasting from at least 1947 to the early 1970s, known
for mens-adventure magazines, risque mens magazines,
humor, romance, puzzle, celebrity/lm and other types of
magazines, and later adding comic books and black-and-
white comics magazines to the mix. It was the parent
company of Marvel Comics.
Founded by Martin Goodman, who had begun his career
in the 1930s with pulp magazines published under a va- 2 Culture
riety of shell companies, Magazine Management served
as an early employer of such sta writers as Rona Bar- As writer Dorothy Gallagher reminisced in 1998,
rett, Bruce Jay Friedman, David Markson, Mario Puzo,
Martin Cruz Smith, Mickey Spillane, and Ernest Tidy-
man.
Subsidiaries of Magazine Management included
Humorama, which published digest-sized magazines of
girlie cartoons, Marvel Comics, and black-and-white
comics magazines such as Vampire Tales, Savage Tales,
and Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction.
1 History
Founded by Martin Goodman, who had begun his ca-
reer in the 1930s with pulp magazines published under
a variety of shell companies, Magazine Management ex-
isted as of at least 1947.[1] By the early 1960s, the com-
pany occupied the second oor at 60th Street and Madi-
son Avenue.[2] It published mens-adventure magazines
with such writers as Bruce Jay Friedman, David Mark-
son, Mario Puzo, Martin Cruz Smith, Mickey Spillane,
and Ernest Tidyman; lm magazines with writers includ-
ing Rona Barrett, and humor publications, among other
[3]
types. By the late 1960s, its mens-adventure magazines
such Stag and Male had begun evolving into mens maga-
Author Adam Parfrey, in his book about mens adventure
zines, with pictorials about dancers and swimsuit models
magazines, described how,
replaced by bikinis and discreet nude shots, with gradu-
ally fewer ction stories, and eventually into pornographic
magazines.
One division of the company was the Marvel Comics
Group. As one-time Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas
recalled, I was startled to learn in '65 that Marvel
was just part of a parent company called Magazine
Management.[3]
In late 1968, Goodman sold all his publishing busi-
nesses to the Perfect Film and Chemical Corporation,
which made the subsidiary Magazine Management Com-
1
pany the parent company of all the acquired Goodman
concerns. Goodman remained as publisher until 1972.
Perfect Film and Chemical renamed itself Cadence In-
dustries and renamed Magazine Management as Marvel
Comics Group in 1973, the rst of many changes, merg-
ers, and acquisitions that led to what became the 21st cen-
tury corporation Marvel Entertainment.[4][5]
At Magazine Management, magazines
were produced the way Detroit produced cars.
I worked on the fan-magazine line. On the
other side of a ve-foot partition was the
romance-magazine line. And across a corri-
dor were the nancial staples of the organiza-
tion, the mens magazines Stag, For Men
Only, Male for which, at one time or an-
other, Mario Puzo, Bruce Jay Friedman, David
Markson, Mickey Spillane and Martin Cruz
Smith wrote, until they became too exalted and
rich to do it anymore. I'm almost forgetting the
comic-book line, where Stan Lee [co-]created
Spider-Man, known to every connoisseur of
classic comics. ... [Th]e decor was insurance-
company blah: grayish white walls and foam-
tile ceilings, overhead uorescent xtures, gray
metal desks. Except for the executive oces,
which faced Madison Avenue and had carpets
and windows, the space was divided into jerry-
built bull pens with head-high partitions. Edi-
tors got a glassed-in area in each bullpen.[2]
Most scribes laboring for Martin Good-
mans Magazine Management rm and other
repositories of adventure magazines spoke of
feeling like well-compensated slaves of a very
particular style ('man triumphant') that was not
their own. This was not the style with which
editor Bruce Jay Friedman felt most comfort-
able, and when editing publications for Martin
Goodman he unsuccessfully tried to talk him
out of running advertisements for trusses, an
2 3 TITLES PUBLISHED

ad signalling the magazines target audience:

blue-collar yahoos. It would be years before he
could raise his head at industry cocktail parties,
when his acclaimed examples of 'black-humor
ction' were seen as appropriate material for a
hipper, more monied crowd.[6]

3 Titles published

3.1 Humor magazines

Best Cartoons from the Editors of Male & Stag, Mag-
azine Managementpublished at least from 1973 to
1975)[7]
Breezy
Cartoon Caperspublished at least from vol. 4, #2
(1969) to vol. 10, #3 (1975)[7]
Cartoon Laughsconrmed extant: vol 12, #3
(1973)[7]

3.2 Mens-adventure and erotic magazines

Male vol. 26, #3 (March 1976)
Magazine Managements publications included such
mens adventure magazines as For Men Only, Male and Male Home Companion
Stag, edited during the 1950s by Noah Sarlat. As well,
there was such ephemera as a one-shot black-and-white Stag[2] at least 314 issues published February
nudie cutie comic, The Adventures of Pussycat (Oct. 1942 Feb. 1976
1968), that reprinted some stories of the sexy, tongue-
in-cheek secret-agent strip that ran in some of his mens Published by Ocial Communica-
magazines. Marvel Comics writers Stan Lee, Larry tions Inc. (1951), Ocial Maga-
Lieber and Ernie Hart, and artists Wally Wood, Al Hart- zines (Feb. 1952 March 1958),
ley, Jim Mooney, and Bill Everett and "good girl art" Atlas (July 1958 Oct. 1968),
cartoonist Bill Ward contributed.[8] Magazine Management (Dec. 1970
to end) [14]
3.2.1 Launched pre-1970
Stag Annual at least 18 issues published 1964
Action Life ran 16 issues, Atlas Magazines [9] 1975

Complete Man published June 1965? to April Published by Atlas (19641968),

1967?, Atlas Magazines/Diamond[10] Magazine Management (1970
1975)[15]
For Men Only[2][11] conrmed at least from vol. 4,
#11 (Dec. 1957) through at least vol. 26, #3 (March
Swank
1976)

Published by Canam Publishers at

least 1957), Newsstand Publica- 3.2.2 1970s and later
tions Inc. (at least 19661967),
FILM International covering R- through X-rated
Perfect Film Inc. (at least 1968),
movies[11]
Magazine Management Co. Inc.
(at least 1970) [12]
3.3 Other magazines
Male[2] published at least vol. 1, #2 (July 1950)
through 1977[13] Celebrityextant in at least 1977
 3

[7] Michigan State University Libraries: Reading Room In-

dex to the Comic Art Collection

[8] Evanier, Mark (June 15, 2005). The Marvel Age of Huge
Breasts. P.O.V. Online (column). Archived from the
original on July 23, 2010.

[9] Action Life at the Magazine Data File. WebCitation

archive.

[10] Complete Man at The FictionMags Index. WebCitation

archive.

[11] Sexy Magazines: Title List: F. Time Warp Collectibles.

Archived from the original on February 11, 2012. Addi-
tional WebCitation archive on July 24, 2010.

[12] For Men Only at The FictionMags Index. WebCitation

archive.

[13] First Copyright Renewals for Periodicals, University of

Pennsylvania Library. WebCitation archive.

[14] Stag (1950) at the Magazine Data File. WebCitation

archive.

[15] Stag Annual at the Magazine Data File. WebCitation

archive.

[16] Slide, Anthony (2010). Inside the Hollywood Fan Maga-

zine. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. p. 237.
ISBN 978-1-60473-413-3.
1977 issue of Celebrity
[17] Slide, p. 243

Modern Movies [16]

Movie World

Screen Stars [17]

4 References
[1] Bell, Blake; Vassallo, Michael J. (2013). The Secret His-
tory of Marvel Comics. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books. p.
39. ISBN 978-1606995525.

[2] Gallagher, Dorothy (May 31, 1998). Adventures in the

Mag Trade. The New York Times. Archived from the
original on April 17, 2009.

[3] Stan the Man & Roy the Boy: A Conversation Between
Stan Lee and Roy Thomas. Comic Book Artist (2). Sum-
mer 1998. Archived from the original on November 14,
2009.

[4] Nadel, Nick. The Strange Business History of Marvel

Comics. Comics Alliance. AOL. Retrieved 4 May 2011.

[5] Rhoades, Shirrel (2008). A Complete History of American

Comic Books. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing. p.
103.

[6] Parfrey, Adam. Its A Mans World: Mens Adventure Mag-

azines, the Postwar Pulps (ISBN 0-922915-81-4)
4 5 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

5 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

5.1 Text
Magazine Management Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magazine_Management?oldid=765256751 Contributors: Bearcat,
DocWatson42, Tenebrae, Malcolma, SmackBot, Wakuran, Lentower, Stoshmaster, Johnpacklambert, Spshu, Hugo999, Pikabruce, Maver-
icstud1, Cold Phoenix, UnCatBot, Lightbot, Yobot, SD3107E, Hyju, John of Reading, GoingBatty, SporkBot, Helpful Pixie Bot, Phnom-
Pencil, Annunziato, Golf, Dongord, GreenC bot, Bender the Bot, Iadmc and Anonymous: 3

5.2 Images
File:CelebrityMag-LyndaCarter.gif Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2d/CelebrityMag-LyndaCarter.gif License:
? Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:Male_vol26n3-1976.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dd/Male_vol26n3-1976.jpg License: ? Contributors:
? Original artist: ?

5.3 Content license

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0