Stanley Morse
| Status | defunct 1956 |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1951 |
| Founder | Stanley P. Morse |
| Country of origin | United States of America |
| Headquarters location | New York City, New York |
| Publication types | Comic books |
| Fiction genres | Horror, War, Mystery, Western, Crime, Science fiction, Adventure |
| Imprints | Aragon Magazines Gillmor Magazines Medal Comics Media Publications S. P. M. Publications Stanmor Publications Timor Publications |
Key Publications was an American comic-book company founded by Stanley P. Morse that published under the imprints Aragon Magazines, Gillmor Magazines, Medal Comics, Media Publications, S. P. M. Publications, Stanmor Publications, and Timor Publications.
Stanley P. Morse's Key Publications, based variously at 1775 Broadway, 280 Madison Avenue, 175 Fifth Avenue, and 261 Fifth Avenue in New York City, New York, published comic books from 1951 to 1956. The first, a horror anthology titled Mister Mystery, under the Media Publications imprint, ran 19 issues cover-dated September 1951 to October 1954, and featured much early work by the art team of Ross Andru and Mike Esposito.
Wrote historian Lawrence Watt-Evans,
His titles often changed publishers from one issue to the next as he dodged creditors or changed partners, and would sometimes have cover art taken from a story from a different issue as deadlines were missed. If he came up a story short, he would simply reprint something. If he couldn't get an artist for a particular slot, he'd have his editor cut up and rearrange the art from an old story to make a new one.
During the 1950s boom in horror comics, Morse "produced several acutely vile horror comics", wrote one historian, and "some of the grossest and most vile" of the time, concurred another. Interviewed for a 2008 book on 1950s horror comics, Morse said, "You did what you had to do — what moved 'em off the racks. ... I don't know what the hell I published. I never knew. I never read the things. I never cared."
Artist Steve Ditko, the future co-creator of Spider-Man, began his professional comics career at Key in early 1953, illustrating writer Bruce Hamilton's science-fiction story "Stretching Things" for Key's Stanmor Publications, which sold the story to Ajax/Farrell, where it finally found publication in Fantastic Fears #5 (Feb. 1954). Ditko's first published work was his second professional story, the six-page "Paper Romance" in Daring Love #1 (Oct. 1953), published by Key's Gillmor Magazines.
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