Operating from the mid-1930s to 1960, Columbia's most notable magazines were the science fiction pulps Future Science Fiction, Science Fiction, and Science Fiction Quarterly. Other long-running titles included Double Action Western Magazine, Real Western, Western Action, Famous Western, Today's Love Stories, Super Sports, and Double Action Detective and Mystery Stories. In addition to pulp magazines, the company also published some paperback novels, primarily in the science fiction genre.
Columbia Publications was the most prolific of a number of pulp imprints operated in the 1930s by Louis Silberkleit. Nominally, their offices were in Springfield, Massachusetts and Holyoke, Massachusetts[2] (the addresses of their printers, binders, and mailers for subscriptions), but they were actually produced out of 60 Hudson Street in New York City.[3]
History
Louis Silberkleit and Maurice Coyne[n 1] (two out of three of the men who later founded MLJ Magazines (Archie Comic Publications))[4] started publishing pulps in Sept. 1934 with the publisher brand Winford Publications and the title Double Action Western Magazine, soon joined by Real Western. The two men launched the Northwest Publishing imprint in 1935, Chesterfield Publications in 1936, Blue Ribbon Magazines in 1937, and Double Action Magazines in 1938.[3] Silberkleit ran the companies while Coyne acted as a silent partner and business manager.
Meanwhile, Silberkleit and Coyne had started Columbia Publications in late 1937.[6] Columbia's first titles were Western pulps: Western Yarns debuted in January 1938 and Complete Cowboy in January 1939. Beginning with the June 1940 issue, Columbia took over publication of Western Action from Winford Publications. The same happened in November 1940 with Double Action Western Magazine and Real Western.
Editor Charles Hornig was hired in October 1938.[7][8][9] He had no office; he worked from home, coming into the office as needed to drop off manuscripts and dummy materials, and pick up typeset materials to proof.[9] He was given broad freedom to select what he wanted to publish; he reported to Silberkleit's chief editor, Abner J. Sundell.
In 1941, Silberkleit essentially consolidated all his pulp publishing companies under the Columbia Publications umbrella. Extant titles Columbia took on that year included Famous Western, Science Fiction, Hooded Detective (started in 1938 under a different title), Future Fiction, Sports Winners and Super Sports. At that point, in mid-1941, Robert A. W. Lowndes came on board, becoming Columbia's lead editor.[10] In late 1941, Silberkleit merged Science Fiction with Future Fiction.[11]
Two years later Columbia cancelled both Future and Science Fiction Quarterly (launched in 1941), deciding to use the limited paper they could acquire for their line of Western and detective titles instead.[12] (The U.S.'s 1941–1942 entry into World War II brought about a paper shortage, which equally effected other pulp publications.) Both magazines, as well as Science Fiction, were revived in the 1950s.
In addition to pulp magazines, Columbia published a few paperback books, most notably Noel Loomis' City of Glass (1955) (a "Double Action Pocketbook"; originally published in 1942 as a shorter piece in Standard Magazines' Startling Stories) and the five-issue series Science Fiction Classics (1942), which included novellas by Earl Binder and Otto Binder writing as "John Coleridge," and John Russell Fearn writing as "Dennis Clive".
As television supplanted magazines as the dominant form of mass entertainment in the 1950s, the pulps suffered from slumping sales. In February 1960, when Columbia's distributor refused to carry any more of the company's titles, that signaled the end of Columbia Publications.[4][13]
Silberkleit, Coyne, and fellow Archie founder John L. Goldwater immediately founded Belmont Books, a low-rent paperback publisher devoted to science fiction, horror, and mystery titles.[14]
In its early years, Belmont published a number of science fiction anthologies that featured content from Science Fiction, Future Fiction, Science Fiction Quarterly, and Dynamic Science Fiction, all of which had been published by Columbia Publications.
Gerald G. Swan reprints
British publisher Gerald G. Swan (1902–1980)[15] published 16 issues of Swan American Magazine from 1946 to 1950, the contents of which were culled from Columbia Publications titles. The Swan issues focused on Western and detective titles, with a couple of science fiction-themed issues thrown in. Five individual issues of Swan American Magazine were devoted to material reprinted from Columbia's Famous Western, two to Western Yarns, and two to Complete Cowboy.
In 1960, Swan also published three issues of Weird and Occult Library, which mostly featured old stories from Columbia's science fiction pulps.
Titles published
Title
Genre
Imprint
1st pub. date
last pub. date
Notes
Action-Packed Western
Western
Chesterfield Columbia
1937 October 1954 July
1939 December 1958 May
published by Chesterfield in the 1930s and Columbia in the 1950s
Adventure Yarns
Adventure
Columbia
1938 August
1938 December
Air Action
Adventure
Double Action
1938 December
1940 September
later known as Sky Raiders
All Sports Magazine
Sports
Columbia
1939 October 1948 November
1944/1945 Winter 1951 September
Blue Ribbon Sports
Sports
Blue Ribbon
1937 December
1940 October
Blue Ribbon Western
Western
Blue Ribbon Double Action Columbia
1937 July
1950 April/May
published by Blue Ribbon from July 1937–(Jan.) 1940, by Double Action from (Feb.) 1940–Sept. 1940, then picked up by Columbia
Complete Cowboy
Western
Columbia
1939 January
1950 April/May
later known as Complete Cowboy Novel Magazine
Complete Northwest Novel Magazine
Adventure
Northwest
1935 September
1940 April
later called Complete Northwest Magazine and then Complete Northwest
Cowboy Romances
Western
Blue Ribbon
1937 August
1938 July
Cowboy Short Stories
Western
Blue Ribbon
1938? October
1940 September
Detective and Murder Mysteries
Detective
Blue Ribbon Columbia
1939 (March)
1941 February
published by Blue Ribbon from Mar.–Nov. 1939, then continued by Columbia
Detective Yarns
Detective
Blue Ribbon Columbia
1938 June
1957 July
later known successively as Black Hood Detective, Hooded Detective, Crack Detective, Crack Detective Stories, Famous Detective, Famous Detective Stories, and Crack Detective and Mystery Stories
Double Action Detective Stories
Detective
Columbia
1954
1960
later known as Double Action Detective and Mystery Stories
title refers to "gay" in the sense "lighthearted and carefree"
Ideal Love
Romance
Columbia
1941 April
1960 February
later known as Ideal Love Stories
Intimate Confessions
Romance
Blue Ribbon
1937 September
1938 November
Mystery Novels and Short Stories
Detective
Double Action
1939 September
1941 September
Personal Confessions
Romance
Blue Ribbon
1938 March
1938 November
Real Western
Western
Winford Columbia
1935 January
1960 April
published by Winford from Jan. 1935–Sept. 1939; later known as Real Western Stories
Real Western Romances
Western
Columbia
1949 December
1960 December
later known as Western Romances
Romantic Love Secrets
Romance
Blue Ribbon Double Action Columbia
1938 July
1959 September
published beginning in July 1933 by Graham Publications as Romantic Love Secrets Magazine; later known as Romantic Love (Double Action) and Today's Love Stories (Columbia)
later known as Fast Action Detective and Mystery Stories
Smashing Novels Magazine
Adventure
Winford Chesterfield Columbia
1936 May
1939 December
published under Winford Publications from May 1936–Apr. 1939, then title changed to Adventure Novel and picked up by Chesterfield from Feb. 1937–Jan. 1938, then picked up by Columbia and title changed to Adventure Novels and Short Stories
Smashing Western
Western
Chesterfield
1936 September
1939 October
Sports Fiction
Sports
Blue Ribbon Columbia
1938 April
1951 September
Sports Winners
Sports
Blue Ribbon Double Action Columbia
1938 April
1952 April
published by Double Action from June 1940–Jan. 1941
Super Sports
Sports
Blue Ribbon Columbia
1939 March
1957
published by Blue Ribbon from Mar. 1939–Oct. 1941
Ten Story Gang
Detective
Winford Double Action
1938 August
1940 September
published by Double Action as Gangland Detective Stories from Nov. 1939–Sept. 1940
Undercover Detective
Detective
Double Action
1938 December
1939 April
Western Action Novels Magazine
Western
Winford Columbia
1936 March
1960 April
published by Winford from Mar. 1936–Feb. 1940, then by Columbia as Western Action
Western Love Story Magazine
Western
Blue Ribbon
1938 May
1938 December
Western Yarns
Western
Columbia
1938 January
1944 Spring
Further reading
Lowndes, Robert A. W. "The Columbia Pulps," The Pulp Era No. 67 (May–August 1967), edited by Lynn A. Hickman
Notes
^A 2003 account by journalist and later Archie Comics publicist Rik Offenberger, writing about the formation of Archie, maintains that, "In the early 1930s Louis Silberkleit, Martin Goodman, and Maurice Coyne started Columbia Publications" – a company unrelated to the later Columbia Comics, which began in 1940. "Goodman soon left that company and it was owned solely by Louis Silberkleit and Maurice Coyne. Columbia was one of the last pulp companies, putting out its last pulp in the late 50s..."[4] Bell and Vassallo's 2013 book disputes that Goodman was involved in Columbia Publications, saying, "[T]here is no evidence that Columbia Publications existed before Goodman and SIlberkleit parted company in 1934." The authors add: "Sources contributing to the myth: the late Jerry Bails's Who's Who of American Comics, the late Les Daniels in Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics, and David Saunders in Illustration Magazine #14, Summer 2005."[5]
References
Notes
^ abcSilberklet entry, Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928–1999. Retrieved February 27, 2017.
^Ashley, Mike; Thompson, Raymond H. (1985). "Science Fiction". In Tymn, Marshall B.; Ashley, Mike. Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines. Westport CT: Greenwood Press. pp. 511–519. ISBN0-313-21221-X.
^Ashley, Mike (2000). The Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines From the Beginning to 1950. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. ISBN0-85323-865-0, p. 260.
^Davin, Eric Leif (1999). Pioneers of Wonder: Conversations with the Founders of Science Fiction. Amherst NY: Prometheus Books. ISBN1-57392-702-3, p. 102.