Popular Publications

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Popular Publications was the largest publisher of pulp magazines during its existence, at one point publishing 42 different titles per month. Company titles included detective, adventure, romance, and Western fiction. They were also known for the several 'weird menace' titles. They also published several pulp hero or character pulps.

The company was formed in 1930 by Henry "Harry" Steeger. It was the time of the Great Depression, and Steeger had just read The Hound of the Baskervilles. Steeger realized that people wanted escapist fiction, allowing them to forget the difficulties of daily life. Steeger wrote "I realised that a great deal of money could be made with that kind of material. It was not long before I was at it, inventing one pulp magazine after another, until my firm had originated over 300 of them."

In 1942 the firm acquired the properties of the Frank A Munsey Co.. In 1949, they picked up the rights to several of Street & Smith's pulps, and there were rumors they might acquire S&S's pulp heroes The Shadow and Doc Savage, which never happened.

Other imprints used included Fictioneers, Inc. (1939-58), All-Fiction Field, Inc. (1942-58), New Publications, Inc. (1936-60), Recreational Reading (1936-60), and Post Periodicals, Inc. (1936-60).

In 1972, the company's rights were sold to Blazing Publications, which in 1988, renamed itself Argosy Communications. Under those names, it published a few comic book version of characters, as well as allowed the reprinting of several of their properties.