| Parent company | Egmont Publishing |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1890 |
| Founder | Alfred Harmsworth |
| Country of origin | England |
| Headquarters location | Fleetway House |
| Publication types | comic magazines |
| Fiction genres | Science fiction, humor, adventure |
Fleetway, also known as Fleetway Publications and Fleetway Editions, was a UK publishing company which mainly produced comic magazines.[1] For a time owned by IPC Media, they are now a division of Egmont Publishing.
Fleetway began life as Amalgamated Press (AP), owned by Alfred Harmsworth, which was based in Fleetway House in London's Farringdon Street. Amalgamated Press entered the comic magazine market in 1890 with Comic Cuts and Illustrated Chips.[1] It also published serialized story papers (in for example The Thriller magazine) which published stories by Edwy Searles Brooks, among others.
In 1959 the name of the company was changed from Amalgamated Press to Fleetway Publications. In 1968, Fleetway Publications was merged with (among others) George Newnes Publishers and Odhams Press to form IPC, the International Publishing Corporation.[2] The name Fleetway was used to identify one of the comics publishing arms of IPC, although other comics were published by other IPC subsidiaries (including Odhams Press and IPC Magazines Ltd).
In 1987, some of IPC's comics characters and titles were consolidated into its Fleetway division, and sold to a company owned by Robert Maxwell. Egmont UK bought Fleetway from Maxwell in 1991, merging it with their own comics publishing operation, London Editions, to form Fleetway Editions; but the name "Fleetway" ceased to appear on their comics some time after 2002.[1]
Egmont currently owns all comics characters and titles created by IPC's subsidiaries after January 1, 1970, (with the exception of the 2000 AD stable, which Egmont sold off and which is now owned by Rebellion Developments), together with 26 specified characters which appeared in Buster; while IPC currently retains its other comics characters and titles, including Sexton Blake, The Steel Claw, and Battler Britton[3] (but not Dan Dare, which was sold separately and is now owned by the Dan Dare Corporation).