Key Publications

Stanley P. Morse's[1] Key Publications, based variously at 1775 Broadway,[2] 280 Madison Avenue,[3] 175 Fifth Avenue,[4] and 261 Fifth Avenue[5] in New York City, New York, published comic books from 1951 to 1956.[6] 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.[7]

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.[1]

During the 1950s boom in horror comics, Morse "produced several acutely vile horror comics", wrote one historian,[8] and "some of the grossest and most vile" of the time, concurred another.[1] 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."[8]

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).[9][10] 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.[11]

Source:[6]

Aragon

Mister Mystery #13, (September–October 1953), art by Bernard Baily.

• Battle Fire #1-4, #6 (April 1955 - May 1956; no issue #5)
• Mister Mystery (see Media, below)
• Mutiny #1-3 (Oct. 1954 - Feb. 1955)
• Navy Task Force #1-6, #8 (Dec. 1954 - April 1956; no issue #7)
• Weird Tales of the Future (see Key, below)

Key Publications / Medal Comics

Weird Chills #1, (July 1954), art by Bernard Baily.

• Flying Aces #1-5 (July 1955 - May 1956; Medal Comics imprint, #3-5)
• Hector Comics #1-3 (Nov. 1953 - March 1954)
• Navy Patrol #1-4 (May-Nov. 1955; Medal Comics imprint, #4)
• Peter Cottontail #1-2 (Jan.-March 1954)
• Peter Cottontail Three Dimensional Comics #1 (Feb. 1954)
• Prize Mystery #1-3 (May-Sept. 1955)
• Silver Kid Western #1-5 (Oct. 1954 - July 1955)
• Tender Romance #1-2 (Dec. 1953 - Feb. 1954) / Ideal Romance #3-8 (April 1954 - Feb. 1955) / Diary Confessions #9-12, #14 (May 1955 - April 1956; no issue #13; Medal Comics imprint, #14)
• Weird Chills #1-3 (July-Nov. 1954)
• Weird Tales of the Future #1-8 (March 1952 - July 1953; S. P. M. #1-2, 4 at least; Aragon #6 at least)