Amalgamated Press/IPC/Fleetway Confusion

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Dunder Ed
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Amalgamated Press/IPC/Fleetway Confusion

Post by Dunder Ed »

I am hoping someone can clear this up for me. I am having a load of confusion on the dates of Amalgamated Press' history. On the wiki page for Amalgamated Press, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalgamated_Press, it says that it was founded in 1901, but on the same page it says it published Illustrated Chips and Comic Cuts in the 1890s. So 1st question when did Amalgamated Press really start? This page goes on to say that it became Fleetway publishers in 1959, but the wiki pages for the Lion Comic and Tiger Comic, which were founded in 1952 and 1954 respectively, claim these were created by Fleetway publishers. How can this be? When did Fleetway become IPC? What other publishers did AP/Fleetway/IPC buy or have merge with them.

Thanks for your help in advance.

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Digifiend
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Re: Amalgamated Press/IPC/Fleetway Confusion

Post by Digifiend »

"gathering his many publishing ventures together under one banner" - well that answers the Chips and Comic Cuts question, AP was formed by a merger of their publisher and other companies owned by the same person. If anyone could check the indicia of a pre-1901 issue, then that mistake on Wikipedia can be fixed, though to be fair, the reference they're citing makes the same mistake of referring to them as AP before 1901.

Wikipedia actually says that Lion was published by Fleetway, a subsidiary of IPC. It doesn't say that Fleetway was the creator, so yeah, that needs to be clarified. Was it and Tiger under the IPC brand before 1959?

felneymike
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Re: Amalgamated Press/IPC/Fleetway Confusion

Post by felneymike »

Back in the day, publishers would simply be named after the manager, or simply be "published by the proprietors," and the address given. I think "Amalgamated Press" was originally known as Harmsworth Publishing, after the founder, Alfred Harmsworth (who also founded the Daily Mirror and Daily Mail... though they're pretty different from one another, these days!).

It appears, for simplicity, that people just use Amalgamated Press to refer to his pre-1901 comics and story papers, too.

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Dunder Ed
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Re: Amalgamated Press/IPC/Fleetway Confusion

Post by Dunder Ed »

Thanks for the help. It seems the wiki pages need updating.

Lew Stringer
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Re: Amalgamated Press/IPC/Fleetway Confusion

Post by Lew Stringer »

Digifiend wrote:"gathering his many publishing ventures together under one banner" - well that answers the Chips and Comic Cuts question, AP was formed by a merger of their publisher and other companies owned by the same person. If anyone could check the indicia of a pre-1901 issue, then that mistake on Wikipedia can be fixed, though to be fair, the reference they're citing makes the same mistake of referring to them as AP before 1901.

Wikipedia actually says that Lion was published by Fleetway, a subsidiary of IPC. It doesn't say that Fleetway was the creator, so yeah, that needs to be clarified. Was it and Tiger under the IPC brand before 1959?
IPC didn't exist until 1963 and, although they owned Fleetway and Odhams from '63, IPC didn't have their company name on the comics until the start of 1969 when IPC Magazines Ltd was established. The publishers of Lion and Tiger would have been Amalgamated Press initially, then Fleetway from 1959 to December 1968, then IPC from Jan 1969.

IPC haven't had anything to do with comics for a long time of course, with the comics division having been published by Egmont since the nineties.

Here's a bit more info to help:
http://www.timeincuk.com/about/history/

Edited: Typo corrected.
Last edited by Lew Stringer on 21 Mar 2015, 11:56, edited 1 time in total.

Kashgar
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Re: Amalgamated Press/IPC/Fleetway Confusion

Post by Kashgar »

Lew is quite right All the Amalgamated Press titles became Fleetway titles either in the last week of August or the first week of September 1959 depending on their publishing schedule. And, similiarly the Fleetway titles in turn became IPC titles with issues dated either 4th Jan or 11th Jan 1969.

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stevezodiac
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Re: Amalgamated Press/IPC/Fleetway Confusion

Post by stevezodiac »

All fans of Power Comics which were published by Odhams saw the five titles become one (Smash) and may have noticed the IPC indica at the bottom of the front cover. According to Denis Gifford's British Comics and Story Paper Price Guide 1982 Comic Cuts and Illustrated Chips started out being published by Harmsworth. You can read about Alfred Harmsworth on wikipeadia.

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