The Press: So Young to Die

Like everything else, the cost of putting out magazines had skyrocketed in the first two postwar years—and so had magazine mortality. Several big "X" (for experimental) projects had been quietly stowed away on the back of the shelf, and a good many marginal titles had been quietly junked by their publishers. Last week, adless, pocket-sized Pageant, one of the likelier-looking war babies, was dying in its handsome crib.

Publisher Alex L. Hillman started it in November 1944, to add a touch of prestige to his profitable, hurdy-gaudy string (comic books, Real Romances, Crime Detective, etc.). Pageant went out for good bylines, good...