Boy, am I getting sick of putting that on my blog. Hence, I will not be predicting the outcomes of Tuesday’s elections. It is, however, my policy to fess up when I’ve blundered and it seems I have on the Hillman piece. An alert reader informs us (taken from several emails):
A lot of the publications you say are Hillman's were actually published by Arthur Bernhard and Morris Latzen, under their various imprints. They overlapped to some extent with Lev Gleason and were carried by national distributor, PDC.
Skye, Our Guide, et al - were Arthur Bernhardt and Morris/Maurice Latzen. They had worked together at Eastern News, a national distributor which went broke in 1932. Co-owner of Eastern, Paul Sampliner, with his mother's investment, partnered with Harry Donenfeld to create IND and later DC Comics. Goodman, Silberkleit, Berhardt, Frank Armer, were all veterans of Eastern, and became the progenitors of the US comics biz.
In the 30s, Bernhard and Latzen produced New Age type magazines, astrology, pop-psychology, etc. They launched SILVER STREAK COMICS in 1939, but sold it within a year. They went into True Crime mags heavily in 1940-1. After the war they were the prime purveyors in the sleazy paperback revolution, operating under many imprints, like Hanro, Cameo, Carnival, etc.
Hillman EXPOSE DETECTIVE starts Jan 1942 and ends in 1949. Bernhard revives the dormant name for his Skye in 1956.
Hillman did publish a CRIME CONFESSIONS - but stopped it in 1943 when paper rationing kicked in. Revived after WWII maybe running as late as 1957. Picked up by Bernhard or he again reuses a dormant name.
Skye and Hillman otherwise unconnected.
I thank our reader for his timely heads up. These magazines can be scatty to track, even with the best resources. On the topic of Courtland Young (The Laughing Wallflower), the same reader was able to sort out who was issuing the Breezy knock offs during the transition from Young to Phil Painter.
Those REAL BREEZY mags and similar titles like that SNAPPY, REAL BEDTIME TALES, REAL BOUDOIR TALES, etc - were quickie knockoffs for the under-the-counter market. Ellis book has the details. Forget now, but probably some printer with paper and time on his hands. Beyond the flagrant use of trademarked titles, the Best company name is just a random choice generic handle. It should be obvious if Pines and Margulies at Standard/Thrilling wanted to do an indictable porn mag they wouldn't use a company name that was on their newsstand product.
Also, the Kansas city mob utilizing fallow trucks, drivers, paper sources, moved into newspaper and periodical distribution in the post-Prohibition period. Phil Painter and toothless KC crooked lawyer Wm Temerson (Ultem and Continental Comics) were dispatched to NYC to make sure the presses and trucks ran on time. Front men on a network with deep connections to the Teamsters, Sherman Bowles' comic printing presses in Springfield Mass, among others.
This same reader also thinks I’m full of beans on Centaur and Hillman’s sale of publications to Martin Goodman, but that is another retraction for another day, (I am not convinced that I am wrong. Yet.)) As it is, I will be incorporating this new information into the re-plates of both pieces in a few weeks.
“Why don’t I do it now?” you say. Because I am about to be yanked for the next three weeks—forced to relocate to a home that is not my own, far away from my ref materials and home computer and Jpegs and stuff. Poor me. I will be trapped—TRAPPED!—in a four star hotel, having every one of my non work needs met for me by persons better than myself, squired around in large rented cars, eating out every night—THE TOIL!
I hope to keep up with the blog, but without my refs and such, the general subject may change. I still intend to do the Pulp Basics piece, but after that I am going to have to wing it. If worse comes to worst, I will post another story.
So be warned.
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