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On Target

When the prestigious Curtis Publishing Company, publishers of the Saturday Evening Post, entered the exploding comic book industry in 1940, they did so under the name of Novelty Press. Their first comic book, issued in February 1940, was titled Target Comics.

Only months before the initial publication of Target Comics, Carl Burgos, working for Funnies, Inc. had created the Human Torch as part of a package sold to Martin Goodman, owner of Timely Comics, who featured the character on the initial cover of Marvel Comics in October of 1939.2 The character that Burgos created lives on today in the comic books, 65 years later. Burgos built on that success with a hero named the White Streak who appeared in Novelty Press's first Target Comic.