I. W. Publications

I.W. Publications's Human Fly #10 (1963), reprinting material from Fox Feature Syndicate's Blue Beetle
Parent company	I.W. Enterprises
Status	defunct, 1964
Founded	1958
Founder	Israel Waldman
Country of origin	United States of America
Headquarters location	New York City
Publication types	Comic books
Fiction genres	Adventure, Talking Animal, Crime, Humor, Romance, Science Fiction, Superhero, Teen humor, Western
Imprints	Super Comics

I.W. Publications (also known as Super Comics) was a short-lived comic book publisher in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The company was part of I.W. Enterprises, and named for the company's owner, Israel Waldman. I.W. Publications was notable for publishing unauthorized reprints of other publishers' properties. Usually these companies were already out of business — but not always.

I.W. Publications published comics in a wide variety of genres, including crime, science fiction, Western, horror, war and romance comics, as well as cartoon animal and superhero titles. The company was known for its low-budget products: most of I.W.'s comics were sold in grocery and discount stores,^[1][2] often in "three comics for a quarter" plastic bags.^[3] The numbering of most of the company's titles is misleading, often not starting at issue #1 and skipping issue numbers. The company produced 118 separate titles, but only 332 individual issues — many titles only published a single issue.

The company published one comic book with original material: Marty Mouse #1 (1958), featuring talking animal stories by Vincent Fago, among others.^[4]

Some I.W./Super Comics titles used original cover art: illustrators included Jack Abel, Ross Andru, Sol Brodsky, Carl Burgos, Mike Esposito, and John Severin, with lettering by Ben Oda.

History

Following the publication of Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent and the 1954 comic book hearings of the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, many comic book publishers closed down shop in the years 1954–1956. Other than I.W., no new publishers debuted in 1958. Comics historian Don Markstein explained the company's methods:

Waldman was able to sell them cheaply because in many cases, he was able to supply the letterpress plates they were printed from, and thus avoid paying for new ones. How a man who gives little evidence of being interested in comics before emerging as an extremely low-end publisher, came to have such production materials is simply that he bought out defunct publishers' storage facilities, purchasing physical materials only and ignoring intellectual property rights. In many cases, he dealt with Eastern Color Printing, which did most of America's comics, for materials their publishers had left behind when they went out of business.^[5]

The company started publishing in 1958, with comics originally published by Avon Comics, Fiction House, Magazine Enterprises, and others. Many of these comics had the tagline "A Top Quality Comics." After releasing a great quantity of comics in 1958, the company went on hiatus until 1963, when it again released a number of comics up into 1964. The latter half of the company's existence, it published comics under the Super Comics name. Many of these titles were reprints of Toby Press, Avon, Magazine Enterprises, and Quality Comics. Many of these titles had the tagline "Super Comics Seal of Quality."

I.W. Publications went out of business in 1964. Waldman would later be involved with the short-lived black-and-white comics magazines publisher Skywald Publications in the 1970s.^[3]

Publishers whose work was reprinted in I.W. Publications comics

Titles

Notes

References