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It was ironic that, at he height of the depression, one second-string publishing house would find itself suddenly riding a tide of success. That is exactly what happened to Dixie Publications, however. Started in 1924 by brothers William Robert and Joseph Douglas Carruthers, they had been running on a shoestring and dodging creditors for years when the stock marked crashed, ruing countless other businesses. Billy Bob and JD, as they were affectionately known, were the publishers (and chief contributors, if the facts are to known) of two regional magazines: Dixie Hunter and Dixie Fisherman. These were actually more like pulp magazines than their modern counterparts, containing fiction stories of hunting and fishing, along with real accounts of adventures in the wild. They had tips on hunting and fishing also, and a readers' column which printed letters and recipes for wild game. Their circulation seldom numbered more than a few thousand in the ‘20s, and all other magazines they tried failed after one or two issues.
That changed after the stock market crash. Many other publishers went out of business, or cut back on circulation as a cost-saving measure. In addition, many distributors found themselves either out of business or abandoning low-profit areas to concentrate on those areas where they could make money. Dixie Publications and its distributor, Deep South News, Suddenly found themselves in a market that was being utilized by fewer and fewer other magazine companies. Borrowing money form one of their uncles, they paid their printer, Victoria-based Peachtree Printing, to run an extra five thousand copies each of their two stand-bys and their latest attempt at opening a new market Dixie Ghost Stories. Compared to other companies, this was a very minor increase, but to the two Carruthers boys, this was a daring move. It paid off.
February 1929 was the first month that any of Dixie Publications magazines sold out, and it was Dixie Ghost Stories that did it. The other two magazines did better also, and while they didn’t sell out, they sold quite well. They delayed paying back their uncle for a month, and printed even more Ghost Stories the next month. It sold out again.
By 1930, Dixie Ghost Stories was the biggest-selling magazine along the entire southern tier of states. In addition, Dixie Mystery had joined the other magazines, and was doing well. The two brothers were looking for other markets to tap into when Street and Smith created the single-character adventure series genre. DP, as it was being called, jumped on the bandwagon with a magazine called Voodoin, the adventures of a New Orleans based ghost-hunter who had originally appeared in a few short stories in Dixie Ghost. Problems arose almost immediately, as it was discovered that the author, Clara Marie Scott who wrote under the name Scot Merriweather, couldn’t handle novel-length stories with any skill, nor could she grind out a story a month. She refused to sign the rights to her character over to DP or let others “ghost write” for her, so an interesting compromise was reached. The Voodoin would appear in a story of some length or another usually five times a year. In between, the character acted as master of ceremonies and introduced other stories the stories that appeared in his magazine. These were usually stories that had been deemed almost, but not quite, good enough for Dixie Ghost. The format proved successful, and the magazine lasted until Miss Scott’s death in 1972. With her death, her family sold the rights to another publisher, and has been continued as a “men’s adventure” paperback series.
Dixie Mystery was soon joined by Dixie Detective, Dixie Darling (a movie star magazine), Gulf Patrol, The Mountaineer, (tales of the Coast Guard and a kind of southern/western adventure magazine), and the short-lived Dixie Fantasy. These did well at first, but by this time, the depression was lessening and more and more northern magazines were finding their ways into the southern newsstands. Billy Bob and JD decided to enter into the comic book field.
Dixie Comics #1 is one of the rarest comics in the world, partially because it had such a narrow regional distribution, partially because the presses broke down before the entire print run could be completed. It sold well enough that a second issue would be published, then a third, and so on. It numbers now well over five hundred issues, and, while unable to compete against northern comic books, it still sells well.
In 1941, DP did something that has been both a boon and a curse to it. In the July issue of Dixie Ghost ran a version of the story about Josiah Thomas and his reincarnation as Gravedigger. The story was a big hit, and DP began to publish a pulp series about Azalea City’s Spectral Avenger. It sold well at first, then slowly petered out. Again, a disaster changed things for the company: World War II. DP’s requirement for paper was much smaller than those of a lot of northern publishers, and what they lost by rationing was hardly noticed. Soon, they had cancelled all the pulps except The Voodoin (Dixie Hunter and Dixie Fisherman had become “slicks” in 1940), and turned Dixie Mystery, Dixie Detective, and Dixie Ghost into comics. Dixie Comics introduced Omni-Man, the Man for the Future, while Dixie Detective spotlighted The Lynx, a sly slippery vigilante. Both continue to this day, still in their original homes, and in their own comics and various spin-offs. It was over in Dixie Ghost that things really happened, though: Gravedigger became the lead feature. Dixie Ghost became one of the most popular comics in the South. Gravedigger eventually got his own title, and outsold even the new Omni-Man. They couldn’t tell what was going on, exactly, so they did their own research: they went to the corner newsstand, and watched to see who bought the comics. What surprised them was the number of black people buying Gravedigger. Not just kids, adults too. They hadn’t realized that they had created the first black comic-book hero. Also, Gravedigger fought the same kind of villains as other comic book heroes. This meant that his enemies were almost always white, unless they were Japanese.
Gravedigger lasted through World War II, and beyond. Around the late ‘40s, though, a change in format was instituted. Like The Voodoin before him, Gravedigger began to star in fewer and fewer stories, and became the host that introduced other stories of weird menace and horror. This ended when The Senate hearing on comics and juvenile delinquency nearly destroyed the comic industry in the mid-1950s.
DP was now publisher of an empire of southern-based magazines, including Dixie Living and Southern Breeze, and barely felt the loss of Dixie Ghost. The Voodoin was now a digest-sized magazine, and they contented themselves with publishing Dixie Comics, Dixie Detective, and the various spin-offs. It wasn’t until the 1970s that they revitalized their comics line by licensing various real heroes, such as Captain Alabama and Fire Ant.
Dixie Publications never did as well, comparatively, as some of the other publishers, like Dell or Street and Smith. Their rates were never more than ½¢ per word during the entire pulp era. Their circulation never rose above a hundred thousand for any one book, except for the Gravedigger comic in the 1950s, and the other comics based on southern super-heroes years later. They did however, meet the needs of the region during trying times for this country, and the south in general.
Headlines: ACTimes 050107.htm
Local News: Stuck Inside of Mobile
Statewide Report: Captain Alabama
The Arts: Books on or about Azalea City
Sports: The Sports Scene
The Media: Azalea City Television and Radio
Weather: Hurricane Heather
In Times Past: Prologue
Inhuman Interest Story: Wolfwitch
Special Report: Resurrection Day