Bio:Rose Wyn
| This is an ISFDB biography page for Rose Wyn. It is intended to contain a relatively brief, neutrally-written, biographical sketch of Rose Wyn. Bibliographic comments and notes about the work of Rose Wyn should be placed on Author:Rose Wyn.
Please observe our policy and guidelines on biographies when editing this page. For more on this and other header templates, see Header templates. |
|---|
Rose Schiffman was born in 1902 in Russia, one of 8 children of Meyer & Dora Schiffman, of Jewish ancestry. The family moved to the U.S. in 1905 and settled in New York City, where Meyer worked as a salesman for a printing company, later starting his own printing business, Schiffman & Sons, at 64 East Eighth Street, near Broadway in Greenwich Village. By June of 1922 Rose Schiffman had completed her sophomore year at college and began working as a bookkeeper at the family printing business, now "Schiffman Brothers" (after the death of the father). On February 19, 1926 Rose married Aaron A. Wyn, more often listed as "A. A. Wyn".
Sources now disagree on the sequence of events. Either:
- In 1929, A. A. Wyn took over the pulp magazine company "Magazine Publishers", changing its name to "Ace Magazines", but also used the name "Periodical House".
- A. A. Wyn began working at "Magazine Publishers" about 1929, is an Associate Editor in 1930, an Editor in 1931, and then Publisher in 1932.
Either way, Rose Wyn begins working with him at this company, probably in 1932, but by 1933 at the latest. By the fall of 1933, she is an editor for Periodical House. Following the trend of adventure magazines such as "The Shadow" (1931), "Doc Savage" (1933), and "Phantom Detective" (1933), Rose brainstormed with writer Paul Chadwick to create a hero in this line. The result was "Secret Agent X", a composite of those three heroes just mentioned. The first issue of the pulp magazine "Secret Agent X" appeared in late 1933 (with a cover date of Feb. 1934), and continued for 41 issues up to March 1939. "For Secret Agent X, Rose Wyn decided to pit him against villains who were maestros of unbridled horror", initiating a sub-genre later known as "weird menace". Although ostensibly in the crime genre, the Secret Agent X stories were situated at the more far-fetched end of the spectrum, with a number of science fiction elements such as futuristic weapons and mad scientists.
Rose Wyn was the co-owner (1940-1956) and editor (1944-1951) of Ace Comics with her husband as an extension of their pulp publishing enterprises, Periodical House and Magazine Publishers. Included among the titles she supervised were Complete Love, Glamorous Romances, Love At First Sight, Ten Story Love, Love Experiences, Real Love, and The Beyond.
--
Sources:
1. ^ From PulpArtists.com.
2. ^ From Wikipedia's article on A. A. Wyn's "Magazine Publishers", 2014-12-29.
3. ^ Will Murray's Pulp Classics #4.
4. ^ From Wikipedia's article on Secret Agent X, 2014-12-29.
5. ^ Women in Comics.
{{Note|6]] BipComics