Fiction House

In the 1920s pulps were hot sellers at the newsstands. Printed on cheap, wood pulp paper with ragged, untrimmed edges pulps sold for ten cents an issue. By contrast, glossy magazines with better production values sold for twenty-five cents an issue.

Fiction House was founded in 1927 by J.W. Glenister and John B. “Jack” Kelly to take advantage of the strong pulp magazine market. Their first title was Action Stories but their line quickly expanded to include Detective Classics, Football Stories, Fight Stories, and Air Stories, the first aviation themed pulp magazine.

In 1938, Jerry Iger and Will Eisner approached Fiction House hoping to find a new client for their comic book packaging firm. Fiction House agreed to a test run and Iger and Eisner delivered the material needed to put out Jumbo Comics #1.

At first, Jumbo Comics didn't sell well and had Fiction House been any other publisher the title would have folded. However, with the might of their pulp empire to back them, Fiction House was determined to become a leader in the comic book field. Jumbo Comics was originally printed as an oversized book with a black and white interior but by issue nine they switched to full color illustrations in order to compete with other companies. With issue ten, Jumbo Comics became a standard sized comic books. More importantly, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, became the obvious star character of the book. The original white jungle goddess, Sheena would become Fiction House's biggest star.

In the 1940s Fiction House marketed their big six comics aggressively: Jungle Comics, Wings Comics, Ranger Comics, Fight Comics, and Planet Comics (the home of Futura). In addition, Fiction House was putting out character led comics like Sheena, Firehair, and Wambi, one of the few jungle heroes who wasn't a displaced white person.

Over the years, Fiction House had a very diverse group of freelancers working for them including Matt Baker, the first prominent African-American artist in comics, Nick Cardy, Bob Powell and female artists such as Ruth Atkinson and Marcia Snyder.

Fiction House relied heavily on good girl art to sell their pulps and their comics. However, they also created a number of strong female protagonists such as Sheena, Firehair, Mysta of the Moon and Futura. The skimpy outfits and sexualized poses of the characters attracted the attention of Fredric Wertham and Fiction House was specifically targeted in his book, Seduction of the Innocent.

By the mid-1950s pulp sales were all but non-existent and the public outcry over “indecency” in comic books was hurting the comic market as well. A company that relied on sex to sell books, such as Fiction House, could not survive. Their last title was Jungle Comics #163, sold in the summer of 1954.