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Fox Feature Syndicate

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Fox Feature Syndicate1 (also known as Fox Comics and Fox Publications) was a comic book publisher during the early Golden Age of comic books. Founded by entreprenuer Victor A. Fox, it produced such titles as Blue Beetle, Fantastic Comics and Mystery Men Comics. It is no relation to [Fox Publications], a Colorado publisher of railroad photography books.

Contents

Background

Victor A. Fox and business associate Bob Farrell launched Fox Feature Syndicate at 480 Lexington Avenue in New York City in the late 1930s. For content, Fox contracted with comics packager Eisner & Iger, one of a handful of companies creating comic books on demand for publishers entering the field. Writer-artist Will Eisner, at Victor Fox's request for a hero to mimic the newly created hit Superman, created Wonderman for Fox's first publication, Wonder Comics #1 (May 1939), signing his work "Willis". Superman owner National Periodical Publications, the company that would evolve into DC Comics, cited copyright infringement and quickly obtained a permanent injunction. Wonderman did not reappear.

After Eisner testified against Fox at trial, Fox dropped the packager and hired his own stable of comic creators, beginning with a New York Times classified ad on Dec. 2, 1939. Joe Simon, a former Eisner-Iger freelancer, became Fox Publications' editor.

As one of the earliest companies in the emerging field, it employed or bought the packaged material of a huge number of Golden Age greats, many at the start of their careers. Lou Fine created The Flame in Wonderworld Comics; Dick Briefer created Rex Dexter of Mars in the eponymous series. George Tuska did his first comics work here with the features "Zanzibar" (Mystery Men Comics #1, Aug. 1939) and "Tom Barry" (Wonderworld Comics #4). Matt Baker, one of the few African-American comic book artists of the Golden Age, revamped — in more than one sense — the newly acquired Quality Comics character Phantom Lady in 1947, creating one of the most memorable and controversial examples of superhero "good girl art''.

Future comics legend Jack Kirby, brought on staff here after feelancing for Eisner-Iger, wrote and drew the syndicated newspaper comic strip The Blue Beetle (starting Jan. 1940), starring a character created by Chuck Cuidera2 in Mystery Men Comics #1 under the pseudonym, "Charles Nicholas", which Kirby retained. (The strip lasted three months.) Kirby created and did one story each of the Fox features "Wing Turner" (Mystery Men #10, May 1940) and "Cosmic Carson" (Science Comics #4, same month).

Throughout the 1940s, Fox produced comics in a typically wide variety of genres, but was best known for superheroes and humor. With the post-war decline in superheroes' popularity, Fox, like other publishers, concentrated on horror and crime comics, including some of the most notorious of the latter. Following the estabishment of Comics Code Authority in the mid-1950s, Fox went out of business, selling the rights to the Blue Beetle to Charlton Comics.

Victor Fox

Born in England, Fox Publications founder Victor A. Fox was a stockbroker for the Allied Capital Corp./Fox Motor and Bank Stocks, Inc./American Common Stocks, Inc., on Park Avenue in New York City when he was indicted on Nov. 27, 1929 for mail fraud and related illegal "boiler room" activities. It appears unrecorded whether this resulted in a conviction.

Fox went on to become an accountant/bookkeeper at the publishing firm that would become DC Comics, where he was privy to sales figures that convinced him to launch his own comic-book company.

Quotes

Jack Kirby: "Victor Fox was a character. He'd look up at the ceiling with a big cigar, this little fellow, very broad, going back and forth with his hands behind his back saying, 'I'm the King of Comics! I'm the King of Comics!' and we would watch him and, of course, smile a little because he was a genuine type."2

Joe Simon on Victor Fox [link]: "He was an accountant for DC Comics. He was doing the sales figures and he liked what he saw. So, he moved downstairs and started his own company.... I happened to get a job; I went over to Fox and became editor there, which was just an impossible job, because ... there were no artists, no writers, no editors, no letterers — nothing there. Everything came out of the Eisner and Iger shop. ... He was a very strange character. He had kind of a British accent; he was like 5'2", told us he was a former ballroom dancer. He was very loud, menacing, and really a scary little guy. He used to say, 'I'm the King of the Comics. I'm the King of the Comics. I'm the King of the Comics.' We couldn't stop him."

Nicky Wright, "Seducers of the Innocent", Comic Book Marketplace #65 [link]: "Competing well in the 'most sexy, sadistic, and violent' category, Victor Fox’s Murder Incorporated and Blue Beetle are noteworthy.... When historians describe sleaze, sex, and violence as Fox’s obsession, they are masters of understatement. His best artists, Jack Kamen and Matt Baker, are much revered and collected for their good girl art. (Of special note is the company’s breasty crime-fighter-in-bedroom-lingerie, Phantom Lady...along with the wild and scantily attired Rulah, Jungle Goddess.)"

Boyd Magers[link]: "Never one to overlook a secondary sale, Fox often repackaged four remaindered (unsold) comics into a 25¢ Giant with a new cover, hence Hoot Gibson's Western Roundup, 132 pages dated 1950. However, since Fox always started their stories on the inside front cover (where other publishers ran an ad), these repackaged comics are always missing the first page of story content. Also, since Fox used remaindered issues, contents will vary from copy to copy of Hoot Gibson's Western Roundup."

Fox characters

Fox titles

References

External links

Footnotes

 

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