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43-509: Gold Key Comics published a long-running Twilight Zone comic that featured the likeness of Rod Serling introducing both original stories and occasional adaptations of episodes. The comic outlived the television series by nearly 20 years and Serling by nearly a decade. A later revival of Twilight Zone comics was published by Now Comics , spinning off of the 1980s revival of the show. In 2008, The Savannah College of Art & Design and publisher Walker & Company collaborated to produce

86-402: A "pin-up" on the back cover". In June 2001, DIC Entertainment announced they would purchase Golden Books Family Entertainment for US$ 170   million (equivalent to $ 293 million in 2023) and take it out of bankruptcy. However, DIC would pass off the purchase due to high costs and instead Golden Books Family Entertainment was eventually acquired jointly by Classic Media , owner of

129-402: A YouTube interview with Carlos Collects Comics. Gold Key Entertainment is currently working with creators to produce new titles. Several classic Gold Key titles have been archived in high quality Hardcover Collected editions : Beginning with Dark Horse comics in 2007 The Occult Files of Dr. Spektor Black Flame (publisher) Black Flame was an imprint of BL Publishing ,

172-513: A brief chapter acknowledging the 1985 revival series, although no additions or corrections were made to the previously existing text. Martin Grams Jr.'s volume, The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic (2008), covers production information for each episode of the original series in great detail. At 800 pages, it is much longer and more detailed than Zicree's guide, and makes

215-541: A cameo in The Simpsons 300th episode, " Barting Over ". On occasion, the magazine and digest reprinted often-anthologized short stories, introducing a new generation of horror aficionados to classic short stories by veteran writers, such as " The Voice in the Night " by William Hope Hodgson , and "The Bookshop" by Nelson Bond . Numerous novelizations were published based upon episodes of The Twilight Zone. In 2003,

258-556: A point of identifying and correcting Zicree's misstatements and errors. Beginning in 1981 and with T. E. D. Klein as editor, The Twilight Zone Magazine (also known as Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine ) featured horror fiction and to some extent other forms of fantasy and some borderline science fiction . The TZ Magazine reviewed and previewed new movies while publishing articles about The Twilight Zone original and revival ( The Twilight Zone ) television series, among other cultural oddities. The Twilight Zone Magazine

301-502: A series of graphic novel adaptations of episodes from the series that were written by Rod Serling. Beginning in December 2013, comics publisher Dynamite Entertainment ran a multi-issue series, written by J. Michael Straczynski and with art by Guiu Vilanova. Marc Scott Zicree 's episode-by-episode guide of the original series , The Twilight Zone Companion (1982), was published by Bantam Books . Later editions were updated to include

344-419: A trademark registration for a logo identical to the original Gold Key logo. Later that year the trademark registration was purchased by the newly-formed Gold Key Entertainment LLC. Gold Key Entertainment LLC consists of comic book enthusiasts Lance Linderman, Adam Brooks, Mike Dynes, and Arnold Guerrero. Linderman describes trading a copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 to Willis for the rights to Gold Key, in

387-546: A year, they had reverted to using inked panel borders and oval balloons. They experimented with new formats, including Whitman Comic Book , a black-and-white, 136-page, hardcover series consisting of reprints, and Golden Picture Story Book , a tabloid -sized, 52-page, hardcover containing new material. In 1967, Gold Key reprinted a number of selected issues of their comics under the title Top Comics . They were packaged in plastic bags containing five comics each and were sold at gas stations and various eateries. Like Dell, Gold Key

430-770: The Jesse Marsh drawn Tarzan ; and some of the Russ Manning -produced Tarzan series. They started several revivals of characters under Jim Shooter , including Doctor Solar , Magnus , Turok , and Mighty Samson . The Checker Book Publishing Group, in conjunction with Paramount Pictures , began reprinting the Gold Key Star Trek series in 2004. Hermes Press reprinted the three series based on Irwin Allen 's science-fiction TV series, as well as Gold Key's Dark Shadows , My Favorite Martian , and

473-543: The 1960s, due to its offering of many titles based upon popular TV series of the day, as well as numerous titles based on both Walt Disney Studios and Warner Bros. animated properties. It was also the first company to publish comic books based upon the then current NBC TV series Star Trek . While some titles, such as Star Trek and The Twilight Zone , were published for many years, many other licensed titles were characterized by short runs, sometimes publishing no more than one or two issues. Gold Key considered suing over

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516-456: The 1970s, the entire comics industry experienced a downswing and Gold Key was among the hardest hit. Its editorial policies had not kept pace with the changing times, and suffered an erosion of its base of sales among children, who instead of buying comic books, could now watch cartoons and other entertainment on television for free. It is also alleged by Carmine Infantino that in the mid to late 1960s, DC Comics attempted to pressure Gold Key from

559-529: The 1990s to launch Valiant Comics ' fictional universe. Dark Horse Comics (and later, Dynamite Entertainment ) have published reprints, including several in hardcover collections, of such original Gold Key titles as Magnus, Robot Fighter ; Doctor Solar ; Mighty Samson ; M.A.R.S. Patrol ; Turok: Son of Stone ; The Occult Files of Doctor Spektor ; Dagar the Invincible ; Boris Karloff's Tales of Mystery ; Space Family Robinson ; Flash Gordon ;

602-679: The Dell Comics era mostly continued into the Gold Key era. In the mid-1960s, a number of artists were recruited by the newly formed Disney Studio Program and thereafter divided their output between the Disney Program and Western. Writer/artist Russ Manning and editor Chase Craig launched the Magnus, Robot Fighter science-fiction series in 1963. Jack Sparling co-created the superhero Tiger Girl with Jerry Siegel in 1968, drew

645-406: The Gold Key imprint at that time as the comics could no longer be found on the newsstands, but in department, variety, and grocery stores. Our new management assumed that comics could be treated like coloring books or puzzles. That proved an ill-fated decision. The following years were characterized by delays and erratic distribution. Eventually, arrangements were made to distribute these releases to

688-521: The Invincible , and Tragg and the Sky Gods . Also in the 1970s, writer Bob Gregory started drawing stories, mostly for Daisy and Donald . Artist/writer Frank Miller had his first published comic book artwork in The Twilight Zone for Gold Key in 1978. Diana Gabaldon began her career writing for Gold Key, initially sending a query that stated, "I’ve been reading your comics for

731-547: The Phantom. Bongo Comics published a parody of Gold Key in Radioactive Man #106 (volume 2 #6, Nov. 2002) with script/layout by Batton Lash and finished art by Mike DeCarlo that Tony Isabella dubbed "a nigh-flawless facsimile of the Gold Key comics published by Western in the early 1960s...from the painting with tasteful come-on copy on the front cover to the same painting, sans logo or other type, presented as

774-455: The TV series. Editor Chase Craig stated that Gold Key would launch titles with Hanna-Barbera characters with direct adaptations of episodes of the program because "[t]he studio had approval rights and the people there could get pointlessly picky about the material ... but they rarely bothered looking at any issue after the first few. Therefore, it simplified the procedure to do the first and maybe

817-466: The Whitman logo, as well as that of Marvel Comics, with its diamond (before the direct market even arrived). Former DC Comics executive Paul Levitz stated, "[The] Western program was enormous — even well into the 1970s, they were taking very large numbers of DC titles for distribution (I recall 50,000+ copies offhand)." In 1979, Western ceased to be an independent company when Mattel Inc. purchased

860-436: The catalog of United Productions of America , and book publisher Random House in a bankruptcy auction for the lower $ 84.4   million (equivalent to $ 145.2 million in 2023) on August 16, 2001. In turn, Random House, and Classic Media gained ownership of Golden Books' entertainment catalog (including the family entertainment catalog of Broadway Video which includes the pre-1974 library of Rankin/Bass Productions and

903-430: The comics business through sheer volume of output. Among the original titles launched by Gold Key in the 1970s were Baby Snoots and Wacky Witch . By 1977, many of the company's series had been cancelled and the surviving titles featured more reprinted material, although Gold Key was able to obtain the rights to publish a comic book series based upon Buck Rogers in the 25th Century between 1979 and 1981. It also lost

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946-418: The comics for which he wrote were The Flintstones , Uncle Scrooge , Daffy Duck , Bugs Bunny , The Three Stooges , and Woody Woodpecker . Leo Dorfman , creator of Ghosts for DC Comics , also produced supernatural stories for Gold Key's similarly themed Twilight Zone , Ripley's Believe it or Not , Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery , and Grimm's Ghost Stories . One of Gold Key's editors at

989-500: The company. The new management stopped selling returnable comics at newsstands, preferring the nonreturnable bagged comics sold at toy stores. In a 1993 interview, Del Connell, the managing editor at Western's West Coast office in the late 1970s, recalled, ...the Western comics line was killed by distribution. Perhaps you know that by early 1980 our comics were only being distributed in bagged sets of three. The Whitman label replaced

1032-559: The distributor for a refund, but the bagged comics were not. To discourage unscrupulous dealers from opening the plastic bags and returning the nonreturnable issues, Western published the newsstand versions under the Gold Key Comics label, and put the Whitman Comics logo on the bagged versions, although otherwise the issues were identical. Western, at one point, also distributed bagged comics from its rival DC Comics under

1075-652: The emerging collector market, containing classic stories of the Disney characters by Carl Barks and Floyd Gottfredson ( Best of Walt Disney's Comics ). In the late 1970s, somewhat higher-grade reprints of various licensed characters were also aimed at new venues ( Dynabrites ), plus Starstream , a four-issue series adapting classic science fiction stories by authors such as Isaac Asimov and John W. Campbell . Golden Press released trade paperback reprint collections such as Walt Disney Christmas Parade , Bugs Bunny Comics-Go-Round , and Star Trek: The Enterprise Logs . In

1118-469: The first Twilight Zone novel was published, entitled The Twilight Zone Book 1: Harvest Moon , which was written by John J. Miller. Two sequels were later published. The first sequel was entitled The Twilight Zone Book 2: A Gathering of Shadows which was written by Russell Davis. The second sequel was entitled The Twilight Zone Book 3: Deep in the Dark written by John Helfers. In 2004, Black Flame released

1161-572: The five novelizations based on 2 episodes each from the 2002 series . Five authors, Jay Russell, Pat Cadigan, Paul Woods, K. C. Winters and Christa Faust, adapted the episodes. Several volumes of original short stories were published under The Twilight Zone brand, the first of which was edited by Rod Serling , himself. Gold Key Comics Gold Key Comics was an imprint of American company Western Publishing , created for comic books distributed to newsstands. Also known as Whitman Comics , Gold Key operated from 1962 to 1984. Gold Key Comics

1204-481: The last 25 years, and they’ve been getting worse and worse. I’m not sure if I could do better myself, but I’d like to try." Editor Del Connell provided a script sample and bought her second submission. According to former Western Publishing writer Mark Evanier , during the mid-1960s, comedy writer Jerry Belson , whose writing partner at the time was Garry Marshall , also did scripts for Gold Key while writing for leading TV sitcoms like The Dick Van Dyke Show . Among

1247-437: The late 1970s, the distribution of comic books on spinners and racks at newsstands, drug stores, and supermarkets continued, but Western Publishing also sold packages of three comics in a plastic bag to toy and department stores, gas stations, airports, and bus/train stations, "as well as other outlets that weren't conducive to conventional comic racks". The newsstand comics were returnable; the dealer could return unsold copies to

1290-426: The library of Total Television ), as well as production, licensing, and merchandising rights for Golden Books' characters and the Gold Key Comics catalogs, while Random House gained Golden Books' book publishing properties. Random House had previously acquired Dell Publishing through a series of mergers since 1976, effectively reuniting the remnants Gold Key Comics and Dell Comics . On July 23, 2012, Classic Media

1333-504: The nascent national network of comic-book stores. Western also prepared a prospectus in the early 1980s for a deluxe Carl Barks reprint project aimed at the collector market that was never published. In December 1983, a struggling Mattel sold Western Publishing to real-estate investor Richard A. Bernstein. Bernstein closed Western's comic-book publishing division in 1984. Three of Gold Key's original characters, Magnus, Robot Fighter , Doctor Solar , and Turok, Son of Stone , were used in

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1376-552: The publishing arm of Games Workshop and a sister imprint to the Black Library and Solaris Books . Black Flame was devoted to publishing cult fiction in the fields of science fiction , fantasy , and horror . On 25 April 2008 Black Flame officially closed down . The rights to Black Flame's 2000 AD titles have been bought by Rebellion Developments and were made available in eBook format in November 2009 . However,

1419-552: The rest of the Black Flame titles remain out of print. Black Flame published novels from licensed properties: New Line Cinema and Rebellion Developments , owners of 2000 AD comic. They also revived the Dark Future cyberpunk series, created by Games Workshop (with both new books and reprints). The books are typically “further adventures” using the pre-established characters, but in the case of New Line there are also

1462-517: The rights to publish Star Trek -based comic books to Marvel Comics just prior to the revival of the franchise via Star Trek: The Motion Picture , with the final Gold Key-published Star Trek title being issued in March, 1979. In this period, Gold Key experimented with digests with some success. In a similar manner, to explore new markets in the mid-1970s, it produced a four-volume series, with somewhat better production values and printing aimed at

1505-577: The second issue as an adaptation. They couldn't very well complain that a plot taken from the show was inappropriate". Over the years, Gold Key lost several properties, including the King Features Syndicate characters ( Popeye , Flash Gordon , The Phantom , etc.), to Charlton Comics in 1966, numerous, but not all, Hanna-Barbera characters also to Charlton Comics in 1970, and Star Trek to Marvel Comics in 1979. The stable of writers and artists built up by Western Publishing during

1548-477: The similarly themed television series Lost in Space for its resemblance to the preexisting Space Family Robinson , but decided their business relationship with CBS and Irwin Allen was more important than any monetary reward resulting from such a suit; as a result, the Gold Key series adopted the branding Space Family Robinson Lost in Space with issue #15 (Jan. 1966), though its narrative had no connection to

1591-444: The time told Mark Evanier, "Leo writes stories and then he decides whether he's going to sell them to DC [for Ghosts ] or to us. He tells us that if they come out good, they go to us and if they don't, they go to DC. I assume he tells DC the opposite." Editor Frank Tedeschi , who left in 1973 for a job in book publishing, helped bring in such new comics professionals as Walt Simonson , Gerry Boudreau, and John David Warner. During

1634-784: The toyline tie-in Microbots one-shot , and illustrated comic book adaptations of the television series Family Affair and Adam-12 . Dan Spiegle worked on Space Family Robinson , The Green Hornet , The Invaders , Korak, Son of Tarzan , Brothers of the Spear , and many of Gold Key's mystery/occult titles. Among the other creators at Gold Key were writers Donald F. Glut , Len Wein , Bob Ogle , John David Warner , Steve Skeates , and Mark Evanier ; and artists Cliff Voorhees , Joe Messerli , Carol Lay , Jesse Santos , and Mike Royer . Glut created and wrote several series including The Occult Files of Dr. Spektor , Dagar

1677-564: Was acquired by DreamWorks Animation for $ 155   million (equivalent to $ 206 million in 2023) and renamed DreamWorks Classics . On July 1, 2013, Random House merged with the Penguin Group , forming a new company called Penguin Random House . In April 2016, the acquisition of DreamWorks Animation (owner of DreamWorks Classics) by NBCUniversal was announced. In 2021, comics creator and hacker Robert Willis obtained

1720-422: Was created in 1962, when its parent, Western Publishing Company , switched to in-house publishing rather than packaging content for branding and distribution by its business partner, Dell Comics . Hoping to make their comics more like traditional children's books, they initially eliminated panel line-borders, using just the panel, with its ink and artwork evenly edged, but not bordered by a "container" line. Within

1763-468: Was initially successful; by 1983 it was selling 125,000 issues a month, outselling magazines like Analog . Under Klein's editorship, the magazine published several noted writers, including Harlan Ellison , Stephen King , Pamela Sargent , and Peter Straub . In late 1985, Michael Blaine succeeded Klein as editor. From March 1986 until its last issue of June 1989 the editor was Tappan King , who also edited its "twisted sister" publication, Night Cry . It

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1806-521: Was one of the few major American comic book publishers never to display the Comics Code Authority seal on its covers, trading instead on the reputation of its child-friendly stories. Gold Key featured a number of licensed properties and several original titles, including a number of publications that were spun off from Dell's Four Color series, or were published as stand-alone titles. Gold Key maintained decent sales numbers throughout

1849-452: Was the most reliable market for much of the best short horror in that period and appealed to audiences for the likes of Fangoria and Starlog , as well as for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Whispers . Like Omni Magazine , which it also somewhat resembled, it was published by a company better-known for "skin" magazines, Gallery 's Montcalm Publishing. The all-fiction digest-sized companion, Night Cry , makes

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