strip Pogo — Maneely formed an art studio at Philadelphia's Flo-Mar Building, at 3160 Kensington Avenue, Room 501. Atlas Comics Maneely then found work at publisher Martin Goodman's Marvel Comics predecessor, Timely Comics, as it was transitioning to its 1950s incarnation as Atlas Comics. His first published story there was the eight-page Western story "The Kansas Massacre of 1864" in Western Outlaws And Sheriffs #60 (Dec. 1949). However, historian Michael J. Vassallo, dating stories by Atlas' published job-numbers, suggests the first Atlas story to which Maneely contributed was the later-published "The Mystery of the Valley of Giants" in Black Rider #8 (March 1950), an 18-page story drawn by many uncredited artists, including Syd Shores; Maneely's work appears on page three, with some additional minor inking on five other pages. Maneely soon hit his stride at Atlas, for which he freelanced before going on staff "in about 1955". Until 1953, when Maneely and his family moved to the Flushing neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens, he traveled from Philadelphia to New York three times weekly to pick up scripts. In either 1954 or 1955, the family moved to suburban New Shrewsbury, New Jersey (later renamed Tinton Falls). With speed to match his style, he became a favorite of editor-in-chief Stan Lee, who assigned Maneely covers and stories throughout virtually the entire range of Atlas comics. With superheroes experiencing a lull in popularity, Maneely drew Westerns, war, horror, humor, romance, science fiction, spy, crime, and even period-adventure stories — that last most notably with the medieval series Black Knight, co-created by Maneely and writer and editor-in-chief Lee, and first reprinted in 1960s Marvel Comics at the behest of editor Roy Thomas, who as a teen had "devoured the Black Knight comic, and became an immediate fan." Marvel artist Herb Trimpe said fellow artist Marie Severin, who had worked with Maneely at Atlas, had described "his pencils [as] almost nonexistent; they were like rough, lightly done layouts with no features on the faces ... It was just like ovals and sticks and stuff, and he inked from that. He drew when he inked. That's when he did the work, in the inking!" Stan Lee confirmed that "Joe almost inked without penciling." Columnist and historian Fred Hembeck said, "While we may've heard of the pivotal day a young [John] Romita spent with the tragically doomed yet immensely talented artist Joe Maneely,