Hi Gang,
Mike Feldmen and Frank Motler have an interesting exchange on the matter of addresses in the indicia of a comic:
From the following Yahoo group:
http://tinyurl.com/cgj7mwFrank Motler wrote:
So here you have two companies (my view) operating over several
years each having mail delivered elsewhere (on your say so) as they
were in hoc to printer (over these several years).
Yet comics were a profitable sideline for ancillary concerns (if
not actual publisher).
Why isn't this common knowledge if as you sign off "it's no big
mystery."
Have you done any reaseach to effect that Holyoke were never in
these addresses or is it just part of your romanticized view.
Yes, Delaware was used as an address, severally. However this was
for porn mags of 1920s & 1930s, for porn mags. Armer & Donenfeld,
Shade Publishing all used the enlightened locale. It came back into
use in 1970s, same product.
However, Holyoke were kiddie comics, operating out of a quoted New
York. I see no connection at all. Other than spurious.
When you write, i picture hoods in pin stripe suits, flappers, cars
w/ running boards, illegal drinking dives, bootlegging, tommy guns
being fired on the move.
I dunno Frank. None of this is really that conspiratorial,or
criminal. I base much of what I say on what people who were there
have said. A few in direct answers to my direct questions.
There were bonafide comic publishing companies that had offices at
their given addresses, staff, receptionists, editors, production
people, etc.
But there were also many what we call today 'virtual' companies. No
real operating location, just one or more individuals putting it all
together to bring some product to market.
One or more investors could line up material from a packager, cut a
deal between a printer and a paper broker with a contract from a
distributor. Distributor pays a 25% advance of estimated sales, and
takes care of the printing and paper. Whatever is netted after all
the bills and fees are paid, is profit distributed among the investors.
Commonly the distributor or printer acted directly as a publisher.
Avoidance of tax, possible creditors, etc. by using deflected
addresses and corporate entities is endemic to the pulp and comic
publishing world of the 20s onward. It may have been evasive but in
most cases it was legal.
Even fairly legitimate Martin Goodman had 50 or more corporate
entities for the express purpose of keeping each below a higher
taxation level thresholds.
Someone like Bowles didn't want his name attached to comic books,
trashy pulps, girlie mags, and whatever else he bankrolled and
printed. So we see a variety of ploys using names of staffers, dummy
companies, mail drops, subsidiary printing facilities, etc.
If one were to check out other types of businesses, past and present,
they'd often find a maze of seemingly separate but in actuality
interconnected operations with overlapping ownerships.
We see it when backtracking all those comic books produced 60-70 years
ago, and are confounded by it all.
-Mike Feldman
