Pied Piper Comics
Founded1986 (1986)[1]
FounderMark L. Hamlin and Roger McKenzie[1]
Defunct1988 (1988)
Headquarters location(editorial office): Wheeling, West Virginia
(business office): Wyoming, Michigan
Key peopleDavid Campiti
Publication typesComics
Fiction genresSuperheroes

Pied Piper Comics was a short-lived American comic book publishing company that operated from 1986 to 1988. The company was founded by Mark L. Hamlin and Roger McKenzie,[1] with writer/editor David Campiti playing a major role.[1]

Origins

According to David Campiti, Pied Piper's origins were tied to two other publishers with which he was associated at the time: Amazing (full name: Amazing Publishing Company)[2] and Wonder Comics, both of which were financed by comics distributor Scott Mitchell Rosenberg and a small group of investors.[1] The plan was that Campiti would package comics for all three publishers through his studio Campiti and Associates,[3] with Pied Piper handling "special projects such as posters and graphic novels; black-and-white [comics] were Amazing's domain, and Wonder Color would product strictly color comics."[1]

Hamlin previously worked as a sales and marketing representative for Comico: The Comic Company;[4] Pied Piper Comics was a play on Hamlin's name and the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. McKenzie was a comics writer most well-known for his prior work for Marvel Comics.

Overview

Hamlin, McKenzie, and Campiti shared the title of Publisher of Pied Piper Comics, with Campiti also holding the title of Editor-in-Chief. Hamlin was Financial Manager and McKenzie was Managing Editor.[5] The company's business offices were in Wyoming, Michigan, while its editorial offices were in Camptiti's hometown of Wheeling, West Virginia.[5]

Campiti personally edited most of the publisher's comics as well as writing a number of titles.[6]

Pied Piper temporarily acquired David Lawrence & Ron Lim's Ex-Mutants after the title began with two publishers associated with Campiti and financial backer Rosenberg: Eternity Comics and Amazing.[7] Campiti left Rosenberg's various ventures in 1987, taking Lawrence & Lim's Ex-Mutants with him to Pied Piper. The company also published Lawrence & Lim's The New Humans.[5]

Demise

Pied Piper collapsed in 1988, with a number of titles, such as Hero Alliance and Power Factor, being continued by Campiti's own publishing venture, Innovation Publishing; while Ex-Mutants and The New Humans both returned to Eternity (which at that point was an imprint of another Rosenberg operation, Malibu Comics).[8]

Titles

  • Beast Warriors of Shaolin:
    • Pied Piper Graphic Album #1 (1986)
    • vol. 1, #1–3 (1987)
  • Ex-Mutants:
    • Lawrence & Lim's Ex-Mutants vol. 1, #6–8 (1987) — acquired from Amazing; later acquired by Eternity Comics
    • Lawrence & Lim's Ex-Mutants Microseries: Erin #1 (1987)
  • Lawrence & Lim's The New Humans #1–3 (1987) — later acquired by Eternity Comics
  • Hero Alliance: End of the Golden Age (1986), Pied Piper Graphic Album #1 — collected material from Sirius Comics, later acquired by Wonder Comics, and then Innovation Publishing
  • Mr. Doom (1987)
  • Phigments #2 (1987) — series acquired from Amazing Comics
  • Power Factor #2 (1987) — series acquired from Wonder Comics, then continued by Innovation Publishing

References

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Distributor Finances Five Publishers". The Comics Journal. No. 115. April 1987. pp. 12–13. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
  2. ↑ Amazing at the Grand Comics Database
  3. ↑ "Campiti and Associates entry". Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928–1999. Retrieved Dec 25, 2021.
  4. ↑ "Mark Hamlin: A Rap with a Sales Rep". Comics Interview. No. 10. Fictioneer Books. Jun 1984.
  5. 1 2 3 David Lawrence (w). "An Explanation" Lawrence & Lim's THE NEW HUMANS, vol. 1, no. 1 (July 1987). Pied Piper Comics.
  6. ↑ "Dave Campiti entry]". Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928–1999. Retrieved Dec 25, 2021.
  7. ↑ Groth, Gary (July 1987). "Black and White and Dead All Over". The Comics Journal. No. 116. pp. 10–14.
  8. ↑ Vaughn, J.C. (2015). "Dinosaurs for Hire: Tom Mason interview..." Overstreet Comic Book Marketplace Yearbook 2015-2016. Diamond Comic Distributors. Retrieved March 16, 2023. Of his four original secret companies, Amazing and Wonder were run out of West Virginia by David Campiti, and Imperial and Eternity were run from Brooklyn by Brian Marshall. Imperial, Amazing, and Wonder were closed down, and Campiti went on to his own company, Pied Piper (and later Innovation). Ex-Mutants had been created by David Lawrence and Ron Lim, and was published by Campiti through the Amazing imprint. But they lost control of the title in a bizarre dispute with Scott that I could never figure out – this had all happened just before I signed on to Malibu. The end result was that Scott ended up with Ex-Mutants being published through Eternity.... Eternity still had some books that were selling well, but Scott wanted to move its operations to the West Coast so we inherited the Eternity books that were in the pipeline. That included Ex-Mutants.

Sources

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