The Secret History Of Marvel Comics: Jack Kirby and the Moonlighting Artists at Martin: Jack Kirby and the Moonlighting Artists at Martin Goodman's Empire - Hardcover

...The Secret History of Marvel Comics is part archeology, part luxurious art book and something else besides: a history of dodgy publishing practices in the 20th century. --Daniel Kalder"

The Secret History of Marvel Comics: Jack Kirby and the Moonlighting Artists at Martin Goodman's Empire digs back to the 1930s when Marvel Comics wasn't just a comic-book producing company. Marvel was but a small part of owner Martin Goodman's publishing empire, which had begun years before he published his first comic book. Goodman mostly published lurid and sensationalist story books (known as pulps) and magazines, featuring sexually charged detective and romance short fiction and celebrity gossip scandal sheets. Artists like Jack Kirby, who was producing Captain America for eight-year-olds, were dipping their toes in both ponds. The Secret History of Marvel Comics tells this parallel story of 1930s/40s Marvel Comics sharing offices with those Goodman publications not quite fit for children.