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The Black Owl is the name of two fictional superhero characters. Both appeared in the Prize Publications title Prize Comics in the 1940s.

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77-536: In 1940, Prize Publications, which was already established as a producer of pulp magazines , began publishing superhero comic books with a new title, Prize Comics . The first issue featured "K the Unknown", whose name was changed to the Black Owl in issue #2 (April 1940). The lead character, like many in superhero comics at the time, was a bored, wealthy sophisticate who fought crime to pass the time. In issues #7-9,

154-553: A professional association . Professional magazines may derive revenue from advertisement placements or advertorials by companies selling products and services to a specific professional audience. Examples include Advertising Age , Automotive News , Broadcast , The Bookseller , and The Stage . Being on the cover of certain magazines is considered an honor or distinction. Examples include Time , Rolling Stone , Vogue and Sports Illustrated . See, for example: See also cover art . The magazine cover indicator

231-487: A 3:1 ratio. Focusing more narrowly, MediaFinder.com found that 93 new magazines were launched during the first six months of 2014, while only 30 closed in that time frame. The category which produced the most new publications was "Regional interest", of which six new magazines were launched, including 12th & Broad and Craft Beer & Brewing . However, two magazines had to change their print schedules. Johnson Publishing 's Jet stopped printing regular issues, making

308-414: A continuation of his Hugo Award-winning ERB-dom which began in 1960. It ran for 75 issues and featured articles about the content and selected fiction from the pulps. It became Pulpdom Online in 2013 and continues quarterly publication. After 2000, several small independent publishers released magazines which published short fiction, either short stories or novel-length presentations, in the tradition of

385-450: A female audience, emphasizing the traditional gender roles of the 19th century. Harper's Bazaar was the first to focus exclusively on couture fashion , fashion accessories and textiles. The inclusion of didactic content about housekeeping may have increased the appeal of the magazine for a broader audience of women and men concerned about the frivolity of a fashion magazine. In the 1920s, new magazines appealed to young German women with

462-424: A few quick dollars could bolster their income with sales to pulps. Additionally, some of the earlier pulps solicited stories from amateurs who were quite happy to see their words in print and could thus be paid token amounts. There were also career pulp writers, capable of turning out huge amounts of prose on a steady basis, often with the aid of dictation to stenographers , machines or typists . Before he became

539-453: A forum for public arguments by scholars and critical observers. The early periodical predecessors to magazines started to evolve to modern definition in the late 1800s. Works slowly became more specialized and the general discussion or cultural periodicals were forced to adapt to a consumer market which yearned for more localization of issues and events. Mass-circulation magazines became much more common after 1900, some with circulations in

616-405: A journal in the technical sense; The Wall Street Journal is actually a newspaper . The word "magazine" derives from Arabic makhāzin ( مخازن ), the broken plural of makhzan ( مخزن ) meaning "depot, storehouse" (originally military storehouse); that comes to English via Middle French magasin and Italian magazzino . In its original sense, the word "magazine" referred to

693-441: A long tradition. One of the earliest satirical magazines was Diyojen which was launched in 1869. There are around 20 satirical magazines; the leading ones are Penguen (70,000 weekly circulation), LeMan (50,000) and Uykusuz . Historical examples include Oğuz Aral 's magazine Gırgır (which reached a circulation of 500,000 in the 1970s) and Marko Paşa (launched 1946). Others include L-Manyak and Lombak . Publishing

770-488: A magazine called Pulp Adventures reprinting old classics. It came out regularly until 2001, and then started up again in 2014. In 1994, Quentin Tarantino directed the film Pulp Fiction . The working title of the film was Black Mask , in homage to the pulp magazine of that name , and it embodied the seedy, violent, often crime-related spirit found in pulp magazines. In 1997 C. Cazadessus Jr. launched Pulpdom ,

847-506: A member of the trade (and likelihood of buying, for example, likelihood of having corporate purchasing authority, as determined from job title). This allows a high level of certainty that advertisements will be received by the advertiser's target audience, and it avoids wasted printing and distribution expenses. This latter model was widely used before the rise of the World Wide Web and is still employed by some titles. For example, in

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924-485: A monthly record of current events along with entertaining stories, poems, and pictures. The first periodicals to branch out from news were Harper's and The Atlantic , which focused on fostering the arts. Both Harper's and The Atlantic persist to this day, with Harper's being a cultural magazine and The Atlantic focusing mainly on world events. Early publications of Harper's even held famous works such as early publications of Moby Dick or famous events such as

1001-643: A new understanding of church-state relationships and the source of political authority. The Moniteur Ottoman was a gazette written in French and first published in 1831 on the order of Mahmud II . It was the first official gazette of the Ottoman Empire , edited by Alexandre Blacque at the expense of the Sublime Porte . Its name perhaps referred to the French newspaper Le Moniteur Universel . It

1078-435: A novelist, Upton Sinclair was turning out at least 8,000 words per day seven days a week for the pulps, keeping two stenographers fully employed. Pulps would often have their authors use multiple pen names so that they could use multiple stories by the same person in one issue, or use a given author's stories in three or more successive issues, while still appearing to have varied content. One advantage pulps provided to authors

1155-454: A package that provided affordable entertainment to young working-class people. In six years, Argosy went from a few thousand copies per month to over half a million. Street & Smith , a dime novel and boys' weekly publisher, was next on the market. Seeing Argosy ' s success, they launched The Popular Magazine in 1903, which they billed as the "biggest magazine in the world" by virtue of its being two pages (the interior sides of

1232-503: A rescuing hero . Cover art played a major part in the marketing of pulp magazines. The early pulp magazines could boast covers by some distinguished American artists; The Popular Magazine had covers by N. C. Wyeth , and Edgar Franklin Wittmack contributed cover art to Argosy and Short Stories . Later, many artists specialized in creating covers mainly for the pulps; a number of the most successful cover artists became as popular as

1309-529: A sensuous image and advertisements for the appropriate clothes and accessories they would want to purchase. The glossy pages of Die Dame and Das Blatt der Hausfrau displayed the "Neue Frauen", "New Girl" – what Americans called the flapper. This ideal young woman was chic, financially independent, and an eager consumer of the latest fashions. Magazines kept her up to date on fashion, arts, sports, and modern technology such as automobiles and telephones. The first women's magazine targeted toward wives and mothers

1386-670: A similar format to American pulp magazines, in that it was printed on rough pulp paper and heavily illustrated. During the Second World War , paper shortages had a serious impact on pulp production, starting a steady rise in costs and the decline of the pulps. Following the model of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1941, some magazines began to switch to digest size : smaller, sometimes thicker magazines. In 1949, Street & Smith closed most of their pulp magazines in order to move upmarket and produce slicks . Competition from comic-books and paperback novels further eroded

1463-419: A storage space or device. In the case of written publication, it refers to a collection of written articles . This explains why magazine publications share the term with storage units for military equipment such as gunpowder , artillery and firearm magazines , and in French and Russian (adopted from French as магазин ), retailers such as department stores . Print magazines can be distributed through

1540-428: A team, with Rick and Dick essentially being his sidekicks. In 1947, Walt suffered a bullet wound and found himself reconsidering being an active superhero; from that point on, he simply served as an adviser to Yank & Doodle. Pulp magazine Pulp magazines (also referred to as " the pulps ") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 until around 1955. The term "pulp" derives from

1617-696: Is The Scots Magazine , which was first published in 1739, though multiple changes in ownership and gaps in publication totalling over 90 years weaken that claim. Lloyd's List was founded in Edward Lloyd's England coffee shop in 1734; and though its online platform is still updated daily it has not been published as a magazine since 2013 after 274 years. Under the Ancien Régime , the most prominent magazines were Mercure de France , Journal des sçavans , founded in 1665 for scientists, and Gazette de France , founded in 1631. Jean Loret

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1694-421: Is a periodical publication , generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content . They are generally financed by advertising , purchase price , prepaid subscriptions , or by a combination of the three. In the technical sense a journal has continuous pagination throughout a volume. Thus, Bloomberg Businessweek , which starts each issue anew with page one,

1771-521: Is a collection of "pulp fiction" stories written by such current well-known authors as Stephen King , Nick Hornby , Aimee Bender and Dave Eggers . Explaining his vision for the project, Chabon wrote in the introduction, "I think that we have forgotten how much fun reading a short story can be, and I hope that if nothing else, this treasury goes some small distance toward reminding us of that lost but fundamental truth." The Scottish publisher DC Thomson publishes "My Weekly Compact Novel" every week. It

1848-479: Is a magazine, but the Journal of Business Communication , which continues the same sequence of pagination throughout the coterminous year, is a journal. Some professional or trade publications are also peer-reviewed , for example the Journal of Accountancy . Non-peer-reviewed academic or professional publications are generally professional magazines . That a publication calls itself a journal does not make it

1925-478: Is literally a pulp novel, though it does not fall into the hard-edged genre most associated with pulp fiction. From 2006 through 2019, Anthony Tollin's imprint Sanctum Books has reprinted all 182 Doc Savage pulp novels, all 24 of Paul Ernst's Avenger novels, the 14 Whisperer novels from the original pulp series and all but three novels of the entire run of The Shadow (most of his publications featuring two novels in one book). Magazine A magazine

2002-718: The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle . The Pennsylvania Magazine , edited by Thomas Paine , ran only for a short time but was a very influential publication during the Revolutionary War . The final issue containing the text of the Declaration of Independence was published in 1776. In the mid-19th century, monthly magazines gained popularity. They were general interest to begin, containing some news, vignettes, poems, history, political events, and social discussion. Unlike newspapers, they were more of

2079-527: The Nobel Prize in Literature , worked as an editor for Adventure , writing filler paragraphs (brief facts or amusing anecdotes designed to fill small gaps in page layout), advertising copy and a few stories. The term pulp fiction is often used for massmarket paperbacks since the 1950s. The Browne Popular Culture Library News noted: Many of the paperback houses that contributed to the decline of

2156-469: The army and fought in World War II . Before leaving, he passed on the costume and identity of the Black Owl to Walt Walters. Whatever became of Danville after the war is not yet known. Walt Walters was already indirectly connected to superheroing; his twin sons, Rick and Dick, were the costumed heroes Yank & Doodle. After Walt took up the mantle of the Black Owl in 1943, he and his sons worked as

2233-410: The mail , through sales by newsstands , bookstores , or other vendors, or through free distribution at selected pick-up locations. Electronic distribution methods can include social media , email , news aggregators , and visibility of a publication's website and search engine results. The traditional subscription business models for distribution fall into three main categories: In this model,

2310-448: The wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed, due to their cheap nature. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". The typical pulp magazine had 128 pages; it was 7 inches (18 cm) wide by 10 inches (25 cm) high, and 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) thick, with ragged, untrimmed edges. Pulps were the successors to the penny dreadfuls , dime novels , and short-fiction magazines of

2387-692: The 1920s–1940s, the most successful pulps sold up to one million copies per issue. In 1934, Frank Gruber said there were some 150 pulp titles. The most successful pulp magazines were Argosy , Adventure , Blue Book and Short Stories , collectively described by some pulp historians as "The Big Four". Among the best-known other titles of this period were Amazing Stories , Black Mask , Dime Detective , Flying Aces , Horror Stories , Love Story Magazine , Marvel Tales , Oriental Stories , Planet Stories , Spicy Detective , Startling Stories , Thrilling Wonder Stories , Unknown , Weird Tales and Western Story Magazine . During

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2464-535: The 1950s. Pulp magazines often contained a wide variety of genre fiction , including, but not limited to: The American Old West was a mainstay genre of early turn of the 20th-century novels as well as later pulp magazines, and lasted longest of all the traditional pulps. In many ways, the later men's adventure ("the sweats") was the replacement of pulps. Many classic science fiction and crime novels were originally serialized in pulp magazines such as Weird Tales , Amazing Stories , and Black Mask . While

2541-585: The 19th century. Although many respected writers wrote for pulps, the magazines were best known for their lurid, exploitative , and sensational subject matter, even though this was but a small part of what existed in the pulps. Digest magazines and men's adventure magazines were also regarded as pulps. Modern superhero comic books are sometimes considered descendants of "hero pulps"; pulp magazines often featured illustrated novel-length stories of heroic characters, such as Flash Gordon , The Shadow , Doc Savage , and The Phantom Detective . The pulps gave rise to

2618-527: The Amazon Queen by E.A. Guest, their first contribution to a "New Pulp Era", featuring the hallmarks of pulp fiction for contemporary mature readers: violence, horror and sex. E.A. Guest was likened to a blend of pulp era icon Talbot Mundy and Stephen King by real-life explorer David Hatcher Childress. In 2002, the tenth issue of McSweeney's Quarterly was guest edited by Michael Chabon . Published as McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales , it

2695-487: The Black Owl and Yank & Doodle were included in a two-page layout of Golden Age character sketches. In the one-shot Project Superpowers: Chapter Two Prelude , it was stated that the three of them would appear in the second volume of this comic title, and that the Black Owl (which one is not yet known) would be transformed into a living black hole . In 1940, Doug Danville, being a bored and wealthy playboy, decided to add meaning to his seemingly pointless life by fighting

2772-477: The Black Owl stories were written and drawn by legends-to-be Joe Simon and Jack Kirby . This was Kirby's first superhero feature. In issue #24 (Oct. 1942), the Black Owl was part of a large, one-time crossover story called "Utter Failure!!" in which a group of heroes, including Yank & Doodle , Doctor Frost and the Green Lama , fought together against Frankenstein's monster . In issue #34 (Sept. 1943),

2849-540: The Bourbon kings, but all eight ultimately urged support for the new government, putting their appeals in terms of preserving civil order. They often discussed the relationship between church and state. Generally, they urged priests to focus on spiritual matters and not engage in politics. Historian M. Patricia Dougherty says this process created a distance between the Church and the new monarch and enabled Catholics to develop

2926-631: The United Kingdom, a number of computer-industry magazines use this model, including Computer Weekly and Computing , and in finance, Waters Magazine . For the global media industry, an example would be VideoAge International . The earliest example of magazines was Erbauliche Monaths Unterredungen , a literary and philosophy magazine, which was launched in 1663 in Germany. The Gentleman's Magazine , first published in 1741 in London

3003-501: The United States. In 2019, People Magazine ranked second behind ESPN Magazine in total reach with a reported reach of 98.51 million. Professional magazines, also called trade magazines , or business-to-business magazines are targeted to readers employed in particular industries. These magazines typically cover industry trends and news of interest to professionals in the industry. Subscriptions often come with membership in

3080-653: The annual pulp magazine convention that had begun in 1972. The magazine, devoted to the history and legacy of the pulp magazines, has published each year since. It now appears in connection with PulpFest , the summer pulp convention that grew out of and replaced Pulpcon. The Pulpster was originally edited by Tony Davis and is currently edited by William Lampkin, who also runs the website ThePulp.Net. Contributors have included Don Hutchison, Robert Sampson, Will Murray , Al Tonik, Nick Carr, Mike Resnick , Hugh B. Cave , Joseph Wrzos, Jessica Amanda Salmonson , Chet Williamson , and many others. In 1992, Rich W. Harvey came out with

3157-428: The art was black lines on the paper's background, but Finlay and a few others did some work that was primarily white lines against large dark areas. Another way pulps kept costs down was by paying authors less than other markets; thus many eminent authors started out in the pulps before they were successful enough to sell to better-paying markets, and similarly, well-known authors whose careers were slumping or who wanted

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3234-518: The authors featured on the interior pages. Among the most famous pulp artists were Walter M. Baumhofer , Earle K. Bergey , Margaret Brundage , Edd Cartier , Virgil Finlay , Frank R. Paul , Norman Saunders , Emmett Watson , Nick Eggenhofer , (who specialized in Western illustrations), Hugh J. Ward , George Rozen , and Rudolph Belarski . Covers were important enough to sales that sometimes they would be designed first; authors would then be shown

3311-487: The cover art and asked to write a story to match. Later pulps began to feature interior illustrations, depicting elements of the stories. The drawings were printed in black ink on the same cream-colored paper used for the text, and had to use specific techniques to avoid blotting on the coarse texture of the cheap pulp. Thus, fine lines and heavy detail were usually not an option. Shading was by crosshatching or pointillism , and even that had to be limited and coarse. Usually

3388-426: The cover price rose to 15 cents and 30 pages were added to each issue; along with establishing a stable of authors for each magazine, this change proved successful and circulation began to approach that of Argosy . Street and Smith's next innovation was the introduction of specialized genre pulps, with each magazine focusing on a particular genre, such as detective stories, romance, etc. At their peak of popularity in

3465-475: The criminal element hand to hand. Originally calling himself "K the Unknown", he quickly changed his identity to that of the Black Owl. His original outfit was a tuxedo and an owl mask, but he soon switched to a blue and red costume. According to Jess Nevins' Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes , "his Rogues Gallery includes ordinary criminals, Axis agents, the Whistler, the femme fatale Madame Mystery,

3542-448: The direct precursors of pulp fiction. The first "pulp" was Frank Munsey 's revamped Argosy magazine of 1896, with about 135,000 words (192 pages) per issue, on pulp paper with untrimmed edges, and no illustrations, even on the cover. The steam-powered printing press had been in widespread use for some time, enabling the boom in dime novels; prior to Munsey, however, no one had combined cheap printing, cheap paper and cheap authors in

3619-748: The economic hardships of the Great Depression , pulps provided affordable content to the masses, and were one of the primary forms of entertainment, along with film and radio . Although pulp magazines were primarily an American phenomenon, there were also a number of British pulp magazines published between the Edwardian era and World War II . Notable UK pulps included The Pall Mall Magazine , The Novel Magazine , Cassell's Magazine , The Story-Teller , The Sovereign Magazine , Hutchinson's Adventure-Story and Hutchinson's Mystery-Story . The German fantasy magazine Der Orchideengarten had

3696-466: The end of the "pulp era"; by that date, many of the famous pulps of the previous generation, including Black Mask, The Shadow , Doc Savage , and Weird Tales , were defunct (though some of those titles have been revived in various formats in the decades since). Almost all of the few remaining former pulp magazines are science fiction or mystery magazines, now in formats similar to " digest size ", such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact , though

3773-570: The front and back cover) longer than Argosy . Due to differences in page layout however, the magazine had substantially less text than Argosy . The Popular Magazine did introduce color covers to pulp publishing, and the magazine began to take off when in 1905 the publishers acquired the rights to serialize Ayesha (1905), by H. Rider Haggard , a sequel to his popular novel She (1887). Haggard's Lost World genre influenced several key pulp writers, including Edgar Rice Burroughs , Robert E. Howard , Talbot Mundy and Abraham Merritt . In 1907,

3850-971: The genre–Ace, Dell, Avon, among others–were actually started by pulp magazine publishers. They had the presses, the expertise, and the newsstand distribution networks which made the success of the mass-market paperback possible. These pulp-oriented paperback houses mined the old magazines for reprints. This kept pulp literature, if not pulp magazines, alive. The Return of the Continental Op reprints material first published in Black Mask ; Five Sinister Characters contains stories first published in Dime Detective ; and The Pocket Book of Science Fiction collects material from Thrilling Wonder Stories , Astounding Science Fiction and Amazing Stories . But note that mass market paperbacks are not pulps. In 1991, The Pulpster debuted at that year's Pulpcon ,

3927-924: The hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Some passed the million-mark in the 1920s. It was an age of mass media . Because of the rapid expansion of national advertising, the cover price fell sharply to about 10 cents. One cause was the heavy coverage of corruption in politics, local government and big business, especially by Muckrakers. They were journalists who wrote for popular magazines to expose social and political sins and shortcomings. They relied on their own investigative journalism reporting; muckrakers often worked to expose social ills and corporate and political corruption . Muckraking magazines–notably McClure's –took on corporate monopolies and crooked political machines while raising public awareness of chronic urban poverty, unsafe working conditions, and social issues such as child labor . The journalists who specialized in exposing waste, corruption, and scandal operated at

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4004-485: The identity of the Black Owl was passed on from Doug Danville to Walt Walters, a character who was already established as the father of Yank & Doodle ; the two series were merged. In issue #64 (June 1947), the father was sidelined by means of a bullet, and the focus was almost entirely on Yank & Doodle. In Superhero Comics of the Golden Age , Mike Benton says that making a connection between these two features

4081-399: The laying of the world's first transatlantic telegraph cable ; however, the majority of early content was trickle down from British events. The development of the magazines stimulated an increase in literary criticism and political debate, moving towards more opinionated pieces from the objective newspapers. The increased time between prints and the greater amount of space to write provided

4158-473: The magazine is sold to readers for a price, either on a per-issue basis or by subscription, where an annual fee or monthly price is paid and issues are sent by post to readers. Paid circulation allows for defined readership statistics. This means that there is no cover price and issues are given away, for example in street dispensers, airline, or included with other products or publications. Because this model involves giving issues away to unspecific populations,

4235-682: The majority of pulp magazines were anthology titles featuring many different authors, characters and settings, some of the most enduring magazines were those that featured a single recurring character. These were often referred to as "hero pulps" because the recurring character was almost always a larger-than-life hero in the mold of Doc Savage or The Shadow . Popular pulp characters that headlined in their own magazines: Popular pulp characters who appeared in anthology titles such as All-Story or Weird Tales : Pulp covers were printed in color on higher-quality (slick) paper. They were famous for their half-dressed damsels in distress , usually awaiting

4312-547: The middle and working classes. Periodicals were censored by the central government in Paris . They were not totally quiescent politically—often they criticized Church abuses and bureaucratic ineptitude. They supported the monarchy and they played at most a small role in stimulating the revolution. During the Revolution, new periodicals played central roles as propaganda organs for various factions. Jean-Paul Marat (1743–1793)

4389-598: The most durable revival of Weird Tales began in pulp format, though published on good-quality paper. The old format is still in use for some lengthy serials, like the German science fiction weekly Perry Rhodan (over 3,000 issues as of 2019). Over the course of their evolution, there were a huge number of pulp magazine titles; Harry Steeger of Popular Publications claimed that his company alone had published over 300, and at their peak they were publishing 42 titles per month. Many titles of course survived only briefly. While

4466-519: The most popular titles were monthly, many were bimonthly and some were quarterly. The collapse of the pulp industry changed the landscape of publishing because pulps were the single largest sales outlet for short stories. Combined with the decrease in slick magazine fiction markets, writers trying to support themselves by creating fiction switched to novels and book-length anthologies of shorter pieces. Some ex-pulp writers like Hugh B. Cave and Robert Leslie Bellem had moved on to writing for television by

4543-661: The murderous Reaper, Chief Skullface (a white man posing as a legendary Native American), the jolly evil prankster the Laughing Head, and the superhumanly strong and clever circus dwarf the Terrible Midge, who hates everything big". At one point during his career, the Black Owl fought alongside The Green Lama , Yank & Doodle , and several other heroes to defeat Frankenstein's monster . Finally, after more than three years of crimefighting, Danville decided to do something even more meaningful with his life; he joined

4620-590: The new Western format — including Yank, Doodle, and the Black Owl — was discarded. The three characters have since fallen into the public domain . In 2008, the online superhero fiction site Metahuman Press debuted the series Living Legends which featured the first Black Owl as part of its cast. The second Black Owl appeared briefly in Fantastic Comics #24, the first issue of the Next Issue Project . In issue #6 of Project Superpowers ,

4697-433: The pulp magazines of the early 20th century. These included Blood 'N Thunder , High Adventure and a short-lived magazine which revived the title Argosy . These specialist publications, printed in limited press runs, were pointedly not printed on the brittle, high-acid wood pulp paper of the old publications and were not mass market publications targeted at a wide audience. In 2004, Lost Continent Library published Secret of

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4774-539: The pulps' market share, but it has been suggested the widespread expansion of television also drew away the readership of the pulps. In a more affluent post-war America, the price gap compared to slick magazines was far less significant. In the 1950s, men's adventure magazines also began to draw some former pulp readers. The 1957 liquidation of the American News Company , then the primary distributor of pulp magazines, has sometimes been taken as marking

4851-417: The state and local level, like Ray Stannard Baker , George Creel , and Brand Whitlock . Others, including Lincoln Steffens , exposed political corruption in many large cities; Ida Tarbell went after John D. Rockefeller 's Standard Oil Company . Samuel Hopkins Adams in 1905 showed the fraud involved in many patent medicines, Upton Sinclair 's 1906 novel The Jungle gave a horrid portrayal of how meat

4928-568: The statistics only entail the number of issues distributed, and not who reads them. This is the model used by many trade magazines (industry-based periodicals) distributed only to qualifying readers, often for free and determined by some form of survey. Because of costs (e.g., printing and postage) associated with the medium of print, publishers may not distribute free copies to everyone who requests one (unqualified leads); instead, they operate under controlled circulation, deciding who may receive free subscriptions based on each person's qualification as

5005-464: The term pulp fiction in reference to run-of-the-mill, low-quality literature. Successors of pulps include paperback books, such as hardboiled detective stories and erotic fiction . Before pulp magazines, Newgate novels (1840s-1860s) fictionalized the exploits of real-life criminals. Later, British sensation novels gained peak popularity in the 1860s-1870s. Sensation novels focused on shocking stories that reflected modern-day anxieties, and were

5082-847: The transition to digital format, though still printing an annual print edition. Ladies' Home Journal stopped their monthly schedule and home delivery for subscribers to become a quarterly newsstand-only special interest publication. According to statistics from the end of 2013, subscription levels for 22 of the top 25 magazines declined from 2012 to 2013, with just Time , Glamour and ESPN The Magazine gaining numbers. However, by 2024, some titles, notably outdoors magazines, appeared to be growing in popularity. The "seven sisters" of American women's magazines are Ladies' Home Journal , Good Housekeeping , McCall's , Woman's Day , Redbook , Family Circle and Better Homes and Gardens . Some magazines, among them Godey's Lady's Book and Harper's Bazaar , were intended exclusively for

5159-461: The views of their readership and thereby were major elements in the changing political culture. For example, there were eight Catholic periodicals in 1830 in Paris. None were officially owned or sponsored by the Church and they reflected a range of opinion among educated Catholics about current issues, such as the 1830 July Revolution that overthrew the Bourbon monarchy. Several were strong supporters of

5236-615: Was a clever move: "By making the Black Owl the father of Yank and Doodle, the editors found a logical way to combine their best heroes into one popular feature with intriguing results. For the first year after assuming the mantle of the Black Owl, Walt Walters never told his sons his secret identity. After they learn their father is the Black Owl ( Prize Comics , September 1944), the boys and dad are just one happy crime-fighting family — a healthy outlet for any father-son or sibling rivalry". With issue #69 (April 1948), Prize Comics became Prize Comics Western , and everything that didn't fit

5313-541: Was a very expensive industry in colonial times. Paper and printer's ink were taxed imported goods and their quality was inconsistent. Interstate tariffs and a poor road system hindered distribution, even on a regional scale. Many magazines were launched, most failing within a few editions, but publishers kept trying. Benjamin Franklin is said to have envisioned one of the first magazines of the American colonies in 1741,

5390-456: Was issued weekly. Takvim-i vekayi was published a few months later, intended as a translation of the Moniteur into Ottoman Turkish . After having been edited by former Consul for Denmark " M. Franceschi ", and later on by " Hassuna de Ghiez ", it was lastly edited by Lucien Rouet. However, facing the hostility of embassies, it was closed in the 1840s. Satirical magazines of Turkey have

5467-470: Was one of France's first journalists. He disseminated the weekly news of music, dance and Parisian society from 1650 until 1665 in verse, in what he called a gazette burlesque , assembled in three volumes of La Muse historique (1650, 1660, 1665). The French press lagged a generation behind the British, for they catered to the needs of the aristocracy, while the newer British counterparts were oriented toward

5544-615: Was packed, and, also in 1906, David Graham Phillips unleashed a blistering indictment of the U.S. Senate. Roosevelt gave these journalists their nickname when he complained that they were not being helpful by raking up all the muck. According to the Research Department of Statista , closures of magazines outnumbered launches in North America during 2009. Although both figures declined during 2010–2015, launches outnumbered closures in each of those years, sometimes by

5621-613: Was published in 1852. Through the use of advice columns, advertisements , and various publications related to parenting , women's magazines have influenced views of motherhood and child-rearing. Mass-marketed women's magazines have shaped and transformed cultural values related to parenting practices. As such, magazines targeting women and parenthood have exerted power and influence over ideas about motherhood and child-rearing. Religious groups have used magazines for spreading and communicating religious doctrine for over 100 years. Jehovah's Witnesses ' primary magazine, The Watchtower ,

5698-454: Was started by Charles Taze Russell in July 1879 under the title Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence . The public edition of the magazine is one of the most widely distributed magazines in the world, with an average printing of approximately 36 million per issue. Magazines publishing stories and photos of high-profile individuals and celebrities have long been a popular format in

5775-851: Was that they paid upon acceptance for material instead of on publication. Since a story might be accepted months or even years before publication, to a working writer this was a crucial difference in cash flow . Some pulp editors became known for cultivating good fiction and interesting features in their magazines. Preeminent pulp magazine editors included Arthur Sullivant Hoffman ( Adventure ), Robert H. Davis ( All-Story Weekly ), Harry E. Maule ( Short Stories ), Donald Kennicott ( Blue Book ), Joseph Shaw ( Black Mask ), Farnsworth Wright ( Weird Tales , Oriental Stories ), John W. Campbell ( Astounding Science Fiction , Unknown ) and Daisy Bacon ( Love Story Magazine , Detective Story Magazine ). Well-known authors who wrote for pulps include: Sinclair Lewis , first American winner of

5852-456: Was the first general-interest magazine. Edward Cave , who edited The Gentleman's Magazine under the pen name "Sylvanus Urban", was the first to use the term "magazine", on the analogy of a military storehouse, the quote being: "a monthly collection, to treasure up as in a magazine". Founded by Herbert Ingram in 1842, The Illustrated London News was the first illustrated weekly news magazine. The oldest consumer magazine still in print

5929-493: Was the most prominent editor. His L'Ami du peuple advocated vigorously for the rights of the lower classes against the enemies of the people Marat hated; it closed when he was assassinated. After 1800 Napoleon reimposed strict censorship. Magazines flourished after Napoleon left in 1815. Most were based in Paris and most emphasized literature, poetry and stories. They served religious, cultural and political communities. In times of political crisis they expressed and helped shape

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