Curtis Magazines

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Curtis Magazines was a short lived imprint of Marvel Comics that existed from 1971 to 1975. The imprint published 68-page black and white magazines that did not carry the Comics Code Authority seal on them. Its name was derived from Marvel's distributor, Curtis Circulation, whose logo appeared on the magazines. The Marvel brand and logo did not appear anywhere on the cover or indicia, the only relation to the company being the publisher's name, Magazine Management, a name that the company stopped using in 1973 but was retained for the black and white magazines.

Marvel took advantage of this format to produce stories for a more mature audience, featuring mild profanity, partial nudity and more realistic violence. Most titles were anthologies, many of them featuring creator-owned material alongside regular Marvel characters. Sword and sorcery, science fiction, horror and crime fiction were the most prominent themes.

Titles published by the imprint included Savage Sword of Conan, Deadly Hands of Kung Fu and Dracula Lives, among others. Some of the titles continued to be published when the imprint was retired, in 1975. Savage Sword of Conan, in particular, was the longest-lived Curtis title, lasting a total of 235 issues until 1994.