Pines, Ned L
Entry updated 21 November 2022. Tagged: Publisher, People.
(1905-1990) US magazine and book publisher who in 1931 founded a group of magazines with Thrilling in the title: Thrilling Detective, Thrilling Love, etc. These became part of the Pines Publications group (which Pines served as president 1929-1961), whose associated companies included Standard Comics, Standard Magazines, Beacon Magazines and Better Publications. In 1936 Pines bought Gernsback's Wonder Stories and retitled it Thrilling Wonder Stories to fit neatly among his other magazines. Among Pines's senior staff members were Leo Margulies and Mort Weisinger. Pines was by no means an sf specialist – of the 44 or so magazines he owned by the end of the 1930s, the huge majority were not sf – but other SF Magazines followed, among them Startling Stories in 1939, Captain Future in 1940, and the reprint magazine Fantastic Story Quarterly in 1950. All of these Pulp magazines had died (like most of their kind) by the mid-1950s, Startling Stories being the last to go (Fall 1955). In 1942 Pines founded the paperback publishing house Popular Library (which did not publish much sf) and put Margulies in charge; the Popular Library logo became a pine tree in 1956, in honour of Pines, who retired in 1971.
Standard Comics also published some Comics titles of sf interest, in particular Fantastic Worlds (1952-1953) and Lost Worlds (1952). Both titles featured one text story per issue and (a common quirk of this imprint) began with issue #5. Authors included Otto Binder and Jerome Bixby. [PN/DRL]
Ned L Pines
born Malden, Massachusetts: 10 December 1905
died Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris: 14 May 1990
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