Prize Comics #14
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freePrize Comics #14 (v2#2, approximately August 1941) was part of one of the most character-dense anthology titles of the Golden Age, published by Feature Publications (also known as Crestwood Publications) under publishers Teddy Epstein and Mike Bleier — not 'Frank Johnson Publications,' which was a wholly unrelated Australian publisher that did not begin operations until July 1941. The series as a whole holds a secure place in comics history as the home of what scholars including Don Markstein have called 'America's first ongoing comic book series to fall squarely within the horror genre,' Dick Briefer's Frankenstein feature, which had launched in issue #7. By issue #14, the anthology was also sustaining Yank and Doodle (who debuted the prior issue, #13), the Green Lama, Dr. Frost, and the Black Owl — giving the title one of the densest rosters of continuing characters at any single smaller publisher of the era. Its significance lies less in a single landmark event and more in its steady week-to-week work of building a coherent shared superhero and horror universe at a publisher operating entirely outside the Timely/DC duopoly.
Prize Comics #14 is an anthology featuring multiple stories. "The Black Owl" depicts the superhero saving characters named Yank and Doodle from a burning plane by catching their parachutes. "Doctor Frost" shows the villain attempting to sink a mercy ship carrying medical supplies and food to Europe by sending a submarined doctor to sabotage it with a torpedo, part of a larger plan to invade New York and the United States. Another story follows characters named Joan and Denny dealing with an unearthly monster in a graveyard, with supernatural forces seemingly driving the creature away. "Twist Turner, Master Acrobat" features the title character seeking membership in the exclusive 99 Club and traveling to the Midwest in his private plane to undertake tasks for the club, including landing at a farm where he encounters a stranded flier in need of help.
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Prize Comics launched in March 1940 under Feature Publications Inc., a company run by Teddy Epstein and Mike Bleier that had previously operated as a pulp magazine house. The title used a rotating stable of freelance artists and writers, with Jack Kirby and Joe Simon contributing Black Owl stories in the early run. By the time issue #14 reached stands in mid-1941, the book had settled into a reliable monthly cadence with a general manager named Maurice Rosenfeld overseeing production. The indicia consistently listed the publisher as Feature Publications Inc., a fact confirmed across multiple GCD entries, and the series would eventually transition editorial packaging to Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for its later, better-remembered Prize Group phase.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Prize Comics #14 corresponds to volume 2, number 2 (v2#2) in the GCD's internal series numbering for the Prize Comics (Prize, 1940 series) — the series used a volume-and-number indicia alongside a sequential count.
- The publisher of record is Feature Publications Inc. (also operating as Crestwood Publications), run by Teddy Epstein and Mike Bleier — NOT 'Frank Johnson Publications,' which was an entirely separate and unrelated Australian comics publisher.
- By issue #14 (~August 1941), the anthology carried ongoing stories featuring the Black Owl, Dick Briefer's Frankenstein, the Green Lama (Jethro Dumont), Dr. Frost, Power Nelson, Twist Turner, and the recently introduced Yank and Doodle.
- Yank and Doodle (Dick and Rick Walters, twin teenage heroes, and their father Walt Walters, the future Black Owl II) made their first appearance in the immediately preceding issue #13 (v2#1, on-sale June 25, 1941), making #14 among the earliest issues to carry those characters as an ongoing feature.
- Dick Briefer's 'New Adventures of Frankenstein' — which had debuted in Prize Comics #7 (December 1940) — was by this point considered by comics historians to be the first ongoing horror series in American comics, making every issue in this run part of that landmark strip's early continuous publication history.
- The Green Lama feature in this period was written by Ken Crossen and drawn by Mac Raboy; the character had first appeared in comics in Prize Comics #7, having originated in the pulp magazine Double Detective in April 1940.
- The series was published monthly at a cover price of ten cents, consistent with the standard Golden Age newsstand format.
- Prize Comics' Black Owl stories from the early run (issues #7 onward) were later reprinted in The Complete Jack Kirby (Pure Imagination, 1997) and The Simon and Kirby Library: Superheroes (Titan, October 2010), giving these issues a documented modern reprint history.
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