In case
anyone was wondering about absence of posts over the last couple of weeks, the
reason is that I was away travelling overseas. By coincidence, my travels
included two major comics cities of America so I thought I might very well spend some of my free time there doing what people
don’t normally do and try to see some of the buildings that used to house major
publishers of comic books in the USA. Today Google Street View offers
anyone who cares a possibility to see everything online but I thought taking a
glance first-hand would be more fun. In an ideal World some smart tour operator
might put together a special tour for the niche market of comic book fans. And
get a dozen or so nutters a year to sign up…
My first
stop was in the fine city of New York that was home to more comic book
publishers than any other place in the world. I saw a few places there.
Here is the
front entrance and a couple of pictures of 330 West 42nd Street that housed executive
offices of Marvel Comics in the very early days of the company from
October 1939 until Summer 1942:
Ace Comics (renowned
as the publisher of Ace Comics #11 with
the first appearance of The Phantom, the
first-ever costumed hero that led to the Golden Age of superheroes in comics,
and publisher of titles like Baffling
Mysteries, Super-Mystery Comics, Web of Mystery, etc., etc.) had their editorial
and executive offices at 23 West 47th Street between August 1947 and June 1956.
The building sits in the middle of what is now (and what has probably always been) the Diamond District in Midtown
a few steps from Times Square:
Between
1946 and July 1954 the famous Entertaining Comics, commonly known
as EC
Comics (publisher of Crime
Suspenstories, Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, Weird Fantasy, Mad
magazine, etc.), had their editorial and executive offices at 225 Lafayette St.
at the intersection with Spring, bordering Little Italy. I remember reading somewhere
that the company was on the 7th floor. There is a subway station directly under the
building and the posh corner entrance is to a 24-hour pharmacy. Chic interior
of the pharmacy makes one think it used to be a lobby of a bank or maybe a small
railway station hall. Today the building houses luxury $ 13,000 per month condominiums, some advertisements with photos
can be found on the web if you google the address. Here are some pictures of
the building that I took during my self-guided “tour”:
145 East 32nd Street became the second and permanent New York City home to Warren
Publishing (Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella,
etc.) when the company relocated from Philadelphia in the sixties:
My next
post will include images of some important locations of the underground comix scene
in San Francisco during the early seventies. I hope to resume my Shiver and Shake series soon
afterwards.
