Seaboard Comics

Seaboard Periodicals

The Scorpion #1 (Feb. 1975). Cover art by Howard Chaykin
Industry	Publishing
Founded	June 1974
Defunct	1975
Headquarters	717 Fifth Avenue Manhattan, New York City
Key people	Martin Goodman Charles Goodman Larry Lieber Jeff Rovin
Products	Comic Books
Website	atlasarchives.com

Atlas/Seaboard is the term comic book historians and collectors use to refer to the 1970s line of comics published as Atlas Comics by the American company Seaboard Periodicals, to differentiate from the 1950s' Atlas Comics, a predecessor of Marvel Comics. Seaboard was located on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City.

Marvel Comics founder and Magazine Management publisher Martin Goodman left Marvel in 1972, having sold the company in 1968. He created Seaboard Periodicals, which opened its office on June 24, 1974 to compete in a field then dominated by Marvel and DC Comics. Goodman hired Warren Publishing veteran Jeff Rovin to edit the color comic-book line, and writer-artist Larry Lieber, brother of Marvel editor-in-chief Stan Lee, as editor of Atlas' black-and-white comics magazines.

Rovin said in 1987 he became involved after answering an ad in The New York Times.

I was working for [Warren Publishing founder] Jim Warren, running his mail-order division, Captain Company, and just starting to edit [the black-and-white horror-comics magazine] Creepy [and] I'd edited comics for DC and Skywald.... Several weeks after answering the ad, I receive a call from Martin Goodman.... I was one of several people Martin interviewed, and I got the job because I'd had experience not only in comics but in mail order, the latter of which was to contribute significantly to Seaboard's cash flow. Sharing editorial duties on the comics was writer artist Larry Lieber, whom Martin had long wanted to transplant from under the shadow of Larry's brother.... Larry ended up handling about a quarter of Atlas' output—primarily the police, Western [and] war [comics], and color anthologies of horror stories.