fate distribution company closed successor magazine management co. inc. marvel comics founded november 1951 defunct october 1957 headquarters manhattan new york city key people martin goodman products comic books magazines subsidiaries numerous website www.atlastales.com atlas comics is the 1950s comic book publishing company that evolved into marvel comics . magazine and paperback novel publisher martin goodman whose business strategy involved having a multitude of corporate entities used atlas as the umbrella name for his comic book division during this time . atlas evolved out of goodman s 1940s comic book division timely comics and was located on the 14th floor of the empire state building . this company is distinct from the 1970s comic book company also founded by goodman that is known as atlas seaboard comics . contents 1 history 1.1 after the golden age 1.2 trend following 1.3 humor and miscellanea 1.4 layoffs 1.5 pre superhero marvel 2 atlas titles by type 2.1 crime 2.2 drama 2.3 espionage 2.4 funny animal and other children s comics 2.5 horror fantasy science fiction 2.6 humor satire 2.7 humor sitcom 2.8 jungle 2.9 medieval adventure 2.10 romance 2.11 sports 2.12 superheroes 2.13 war 2.14 western 2.15 misc . 3 in other media 4 references 5 further reading 6 external links history edit after the golden age edit young men 25 feb. 1954 cover art by carl burgos . 1 note the atlas globe in the top left corner . atlas comics grew out of timely comics the company that magazine and paperback novel publisher martin goodman founded in 1939 and which had reached the peak of its popularity during the war years with its star characters the human torch the sub mariner and captain america . 2 the early to mid 1950s found comic books falling out of fashion due to competition from television and other media . 3 timely largely stopped producing superhero comics with the cancellation of captain america comics at issue 75 cover dated feb. 1950 by which time the series had already been titled captain america s weird tales for two issues with the finale featuring only anthological suspense stories and no superheroes . 4 the company s flagship title marvel mystery comics starring the human torch had already ended its run with 92 in june 1949 5 as had sub mariner comics with 32 the same month 6 and the human torch with 35 in march 1949 . 7 timely made one more attempt at superheroes with the publication of marvel boy 1 2 dec. 1950 feb. 1951 8 7 which was retitled astonishing with issue 3 april 1951 and continued the marvel boy feature through 6 oct. 1951 . 9 10 in the absence of superheroes goodman s comic book line expanded into a wide variety of genres producing horror westerns humor funny animal drama crime war jungle romance espionage medieval adventure bible stories and sports comics . as did other publishers atlas also offered comics about models and career women . goodman began using the logo of the atlas news company the newsstand distribution company he owned on comics cover dated november 1951 even though another company kable news continued to distribute his comics through the august 1952 issues with its k logo and the logo of the independent distributors union appearing alongside the atlas globe . 11 the atlas logo united a line put out by the same publisher staff and freelancers through 59 shell companies from animirth comics to zenith publications . 12 logo treatment on a 1954 comic book page giving atlas as the comics brand . atlas attempted to revive superheroes in young men 24 28 dec. 1953 june 1954 with the human torch art by syd shores and dick ayers variously the sub mariner drawn and most stories written by bill everett and captain america writer stan lee artist john romita sr. . the short lived revival also included restarts of sub mariner comics issues 33 42 april 1954 oct. 1955 13 and captain america 76 78 may sept. 1954 . 14 all three superheroes also appeared in the final two issues of men s adventures 27 28 may july 1954 . 15 trend following edit the pre comics code astonishing 30 feb. 1954 cover art by joe maneely . goodman s publishing strategy for atlas involved what he saw as the proven route of following popular trends in tv and movies westerns and war dramas prevailing for a time drive in movie monsters another time and even other comic books particularly the ec horror line . 16 17 as marvel atlas editor in chief stan lee told comic book historian les daniels goodman would notice what was selling and we d put out a lot of books of that type . commented daniels the short term results were lucrative ; but while other publishers took the long view and kept their stables of heroes solid goodman let his slide . 18 while atlas had some horror titles such as marvel tales as far back as 1949 the company increased its output dramatically in the wake of ec s success . lee recalled i t was usually based on how the competition was doing . when we found that ec s horror books were doing well for instance we published a lot of horror books . 17 until the early 1960s when lee would help revolutionize comic books with the advent of the fantastic four and spider man atlas was content to flood newsstands with profitable cheaply produced product often despite itself beautifully rendered by talented if low paid artists . 19 the atlas bullpen had at least five staff writers officially called editors besides lee hank chapman paul s. newman don rico carl wessler and in the teen humor division future mad magazine cartoonist al jaffee . daniel keyes future author of flowers for algernon was an editor beginning 1952 . 20 other writers generally freelance included robert bernstein . 21 the artists some freelance some on staff included such veterans as human torch creator carl burgos 22 and sub mariner creator bill everett . 23 the next generation included the prolific and much admired joe maneely who before his death just prior to marvel s 1960s breakthrough was the company s leading artist 24 providing many covers and doing work in all genres most notably on westerns and on the medieval adventure the black knight . others included russ heath 25 gene colan 26 and the fledgling highly individualistic steve ditko . 27 atlas most prominent western titles citation needed many reprinted in the 1970s were ringo kid with art by maneely fred kida and john severin ; artist doug wildey s the outlaw kid ; artist jack keller s kid colt outlaw ; the anthology gunsmoke western starring kid colt ; and black rider drawn by maneely syd shores and others . 28 the atlas versions of two prominent 1960s marvel western characters the rawhide kid and the two gun kid were different and historically undistinguished iterations . citation needed humor and miscellanea edit sergeant barney barker 1 cover art by john severin . atlas also published various children s and teen humor titles including dan decarlo s homer the happy ghost a la casper the friendly ghost homer hooper a la archie andrews and the joe maneely drawn melvin the monster a la dennis the menace . sergeant barney barker drawn by john severin was atlas answer to sgt. bilko . 29 one of the most long running titles was millie the model which began as a timely comics humor book in 1945 and ran into the 1970s lasting for 207 issues and launching spinoffs along the way . created by writer artist ruth atkinson 30 it later became the training ground for cartoonist decarlo the future creator of josie and the pussycats sabrina the teenage witch and other archie comics characters and the artist who established archie s modern look . 30 31 decarlo wrote and drew millie for 10 years . 32 the high school series patsy walker co created by atkinson and writer otto binder in 1944 33 featured art by al hartley al jaffee morris weiss and others ran until 1967 34 and spun off three titles . patsy herself would be integrated into marvel universe continuity years later as the supernatural superheroine hellcat . 35 atlas funny animal books featured cartoonist ed winiarski s trouble prone buck duck maneely s mentally suspect dippy duck and howie post s the monkey and the bear . buck and the other funny animal characters briefly returned in the early 1970s when marvel published the five issue reprint title li l pals fun filled animal antics . 36 miscellaneous titles included the espionage series yellow claw with maneely severin and jack kirby art ; the native american hero red warrior with art by tom gill ; 37 the tom corbett space cadet like space squadron written and drawn by future marvel production executive sol brodsky ; 38 and sports action initially featuring true life stories about the likes of george gipp and jackie robinson and later on fictional features of as one cover headline put it rugged tales of danger and red hot action . 39 staff artist stan goldberg recalled in 2005 i was in the bullpen with a lot of well known artists who worked up there at that time . ... the guys ... who actually worked nine to five and put in a regular day and not the freelance guys who d come in a drop off their work ... were almost a hall of fame group of people . there was john severin . bill everett . carl burgos . there was the all time great joe maneely ... . we all worked together all the colorists and correction guys the letterers and artists . ... we had a great time . 40 layoffs edit from 1952 to late 1956 goodman distributed atlas comics to newsstands through his self owned distributor the atlas news company . he shut down atlas news company in 1956 and began newsstand distribution through american news company 11 41 the nation s largest distributor and a virtual monopoly which shortly afterward lost a justice department lawsuit and discontinued its business . as comic book historian gerard jones explains the company in 1956 ... had been found guilty of restraint of trade and ordered to divest itself of the newsstands it owned . its biggest client george delacorte announced he would seek a new distributor for his dell comics and paperbacks . the owners of american news estimated the effect that would have on their income . then they looked at the value of the new jersey real estate where their headquarters sat . they liquidated the company and sold the land . the company ... vanished without a trace in the suburban growth of the 1950s . 42 page needed the atlas globe remained on the covers however until american news went out of business in june 1957 . 43 with no other options goodman turned to the distributor independent news owned by rival national periodical publications the future dc comics which agreed to distribute him on constrained terms that allowed only eight titles per month . 44 the last comic to bear the atlas globe on the cover was the funny animal comic dippy duck 1 45 and the first to bear the new ind. distributors mark was patsy walker 73 both cover dated october 1957 . 46 stan lee in a 1988 interview recalled that goodman ... had gone with the american news company . i remember saying to him gee why did you do that i thought that we had a good distribution company . his answer was like oh stan you wouldn t understand . it has to do with finance . i didn t really give a damn and i went back to doing the comics . later we