American Comics Group

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American Comics Group (ACG) was a small publisher during the Golden and Silver Age of comic books that published several well-remembered characters and titles.

The company got its start in 1941 as the Sangor Shop run by Bill Sangor. Like many early studios, it produced characters and stories for other publishers. Among the ones created by Sangor was The Black Terror, Pyroman, and Fighting Yank for Nedor Comics.

Cover from a reprint comic of Magicman stories

By 1946, they started to publish their own work, soon under the name of American Comics Group. Their titles were typical of the times, including horror, crime, mystery, funny animals, and the like. Almost all stories were written by editor Richard Hughes under a variety of pseudonyms. Their big claim to fame was when they created the character of Herbie (Herbie Popnecker) for their Forbidden Worlds title (in issue #73, Dec. 1958). He would later get his own title and be turned into a "super hero" called the "Fat Fury". ACG would create other super-heroes in 1965 like Magicman starting in Forbidden Worlds #125, Nemesis in Adventures into the Unknown (starting with #154) and John Force, Magic Agent in his own title in 1962, then later in Unknown Worlds.

By 1967, the company had ended publication.

There is an interesting connection with DC Comics. ACG was owned by family members who also owned part of DC Comics, and ACG was distributed by Independent News Co, which also distributed DC.

For some reason, after ACG went under, the rights to the characters languished. Dark Horse Comics tried to do a 12-issue reprint series of Herbie, but only did 2 issues. Then in the late 80s or so, Roger Broughton obtained the rights to the ACG materials, and started doing reprints of Herbie and other characters.

There is a book on ACG: Forbidden Adventures: The History of the American Comics Group by Michael Vance ISBN 0-313-29678-2.