Alter Ego Comic Books - #182

Vol. 3, No. 182

July 2023

Editor

Roy Thomas

Associate Editor

Jim Amash

Design & Layout

Christopher Day

Consulting Editor

John Morrow

FCA Editor

P.C. Hamerlinck

Mark Lewis (Cover Coordinator)

Comic Crypt Editor

Michael T. Gilbert

Editorial Honor Roll

Jerry G. Bails (founder)

Ronn Foss, Biljo White

Mike Friedrich, Bill Schelly

Proofreader

William J. Dowlding

Cover Artist

Jerry Ordway

Cover Colorist

Glenn Whitmore

With Special Thanks to:

Heidi Amash

Pedro Angosto

Bob Bailey

Alberto Becattini

Al Bradford

Gary F. Brown

Mitchell Brown

Bernie Bubnis

Nick Caputo

John Cimino

Shaun Clancy

Comic Book Plus (website)

Pierre Comtois

Bob Cosgrove

Chet Cox

Ray Cuthbert

Jonathan Dhenry

Joseph Eacobacci

Mickey Angel

Estefan, Jr.

Jackie Estrada

Shane Foley

Joe Frank

Stephan A. Friedt

Janet Gilbert

J.T. Go

Grand Comics

Database (website)

Walt Grogan

Rob Hansen

Bill Jones

Sharon Karibian

Jim Kealy

Dave Lazarov

Jim Ludwig

Maranee Landau

McDonald

Jerred Metz

Mark Muller

Rick Norwood

Joe Palmer

Barry Pearl

Larry Rapchak

Al Rodriguez

Randy Sargent

Dave Scroggy

Mitchell Senft

Carl Lani‘Keha

Shinyama

Brian Stewart

Bryan D. Stroud

Tim Stroup

Joel Thingvall

Dann Thomas

Michael Vance

Clifton Wellman

This issue is dedicated to the memory of Kenneth Landau, Lee Goldsmith, Roscoe “Rocky” Fawcett Jr., Tony Tallarico,

57

Daughter Maranee Landau McDonald on her father’s work at ACG and elsewhere— plus Larry Rapchak, and a Kenneth Landau chat with Shaun Clancy.

On Our Cover: Surely one of the finest artists to handle the original Captain Marvel since the heady Golden Age days of C.C. Beck and crew is Jerry Ordway, the magic lightning behind the 1990s Power of Shazam! series. And one of our all-time favorites of his many commissioned pieces starring the World’s Mightiest Mortal is this 2015 panorama of Billy Batson’s grown-up alter ego transporting a distraught Uncle Marvel high above the Earth! Thanks to Jerry for allowing us to use it as this issue’s captivating cover—Tom Ziuko for colors—and to Pedro Angosto across the pond in Spain for first bringing it to our notice! [Shazam heroes TM & © DC Comics; other art © Jerry Ordway.]

Above: Artist Kenneth Landau, as per the title of the section about him listed above, signed nearly all of his work for the American Comics Group and elsewhere—including that done for ACG’s Commander Battle and the Atomic Sub #4-7. Here’s his lead splash page for issue #7, cover-dated Sept. 1955. Writer, alas, unknown. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

UNCLE MARVEL: The UN -Marvelous Marvel!

by Carl Lani’Keha Shinyama

nd of course there was the wonderfully funny Uncle Marvel with a hilarious face and wry personality that could have been traced directly to comedian W.C. Fields.”

Dick Lupoff (in Xero #1, “The Big Red Cheese,” first episode of the series “And All in Color for a Dime”)

CREATION

It is not known why some characters endure or are remembered fondly by fans across multiple generations, but Uncle Dudley seems to be one such character. In the Golden Age, at the height of Captain Marvel’s success, he obviously had a charm that allowed him to appear in more stories than the likes of the Lieutenant Marvels, Cissie Sommerly (Billy Batson’s girlfriend), and Black Adam, despite making limited appearances himself (21 in total).

Few may know that, when Uncle Dudley made his debut in Wow Comics #18 (Oct. 1943), it was as a supporting character in the “Mary Marvel” series. In fact, he would not meet Billy Batson until more than a year later, and he would not meet Freddy Freeman until the year after that.

When Mary Marvel’s co-creator, Otto Binder, worked on Mary’s stories in Wow Comics, he wanted her tales to be distinctive from Billy Batson’s and Freddy Freeman’s, with less emphasis on the super-heroics and more on the human interest side. However, like other authors, Binder had a style of writing, and certain attributes that were always present, no matter the story. He had a penchant for incorporating humor—and its cousin, satire—usually about the flaws of humans, which permeated the adventures of all those who were a part of The Marvel Family, including especially Billy Batson and Captain Marvel.

Uncle Marvel’s Finest Hours

Probably two of the best presentations ever of Uncle Marvel are his proud presence above in the cover lineup for The Marvel Family #1 (Dec. 1945), as penciled by C.C. Beck and inked by Pete Costanza—and the neverbefore-published art at left, in which Shazam-fan Walt Grogan turned Jerry Ordway’s fabulous illustration of Captain Marvel and his “uncle” into a faux splash page, even adding dialogue and splendiferous colors to it! Incidentally, while the cover of issue #1 declared the group mag to be Marvel Family Comics, its official indicia title for all of its 89 issues was The Marvel Family. Thanks to the Grand Comics Database and Walt Grogan, respectively. [Shazam heroes & wizard Shazam TM & © DC Comics; other art on Ordway page © Jerry Ordway.]

“Uncle”!

According to Binder, when describing the proverbial secret ingredient behind the humor in Captain Marvel’s adventures:

“The Captain Marvel and Marvel Family stories aren’t humor in the strictest sense but rather satire and period of life situations and the doings and shortcomings of humans. It is often said that [the tone of the Captain Marvel stories was] ‘whimsical,’ a reflection of life through ‘funny mirrors’ like those at an amusement park. The subject matter is recognizable but distorted by exaggeration, spoofing, or running jokes. The secret of it all was that Cap and Billy were dead serious and never made a joke at all.”

Since Mary Bromfield was a serious and straight character like her brother Billy, she was not an ideal vehicle for Binder’s brand of satire. But since The Marvel Family lived in a surreal world, there was still a limitless well that Binder could tap into. It was a world of talking alien worms, crocodile men, and wizards, a world where Captain Marvel riding a chariot of pigs could—and did—happen.

The humor could easily come from anywhere—or anyone. Enter: Uncle Marvel.

Even Binder himself was not entirely sure the idea for the Uncle Marvel character was originally his. Indeed, he allowed that

the idea may have been Fawcett editor Wendell Crowley’s, since the two of them used to regularly brainstorm ideas in plotting sessions.

Regardless, it was Otto Binder who developed Uncle Marvel, a.k.a. Uncle Dudley, as a character.

CONCEPT

As per many characters in the Fawcett library, it’s reasonable to assume that Uncle Dudley was inspired by a real person or persons.

It is widely accepted that Uncle Dudley was based on the comedian W.C. Fields. The character as drawn bore an uncanny resemblance to the actor/comedian, and had a similarly blustery persona, for which Fields was known.

Interestingly, C.C. Beck, Captain Marvel’s co-creator and chief artist, when recounting in 1983 how the Captain Marvel characters were generally based on real people, claimed that Uncle Dudley was based on Otto Binder’s brother, “Mary Marvel” artist Jack Binder. Perhaps Mr. Beck meant personality-wise, since Jack Binder did not resemble Uncle Dudley much at all in 1943, the year that Uncle Marvel made his debut. [FCA EDITOR’S NOTE: However, it must be said that, in Jack Binder’s later years, he did somewhat resemble Dudley.]

Either way, it is clear that he was meant to be a grandiloquent yet lovable fraud who pretended to have the powers of a Marvel, perfect for the aforementioned brand of satire that Binder loved to write. Uncle Dudley was human and fallible in a way that Billy Batson and Mary Marvel were not, a fact supported by the way he interprets the “SHAZAM” acronym:

S - Superiority

H - Hugeness

A - All Powerful

Z - Zealousness

A - All Right

M - Mighty

To Uncle Dudley, an unimportant, aging, bald, and overweight man who compensated for it all through ostentatious boastfulness, the famous magic acronym that Billy Batson said out loud to transform into Captain Marvel might as well have meant those things. Which is probably the whole idea. Bumbling Uncle Dudley has all of the wrong notions about who the Marvels are—seeing them as a power fantasy through the lens of his own shortcomings—but sympathetically so. We can all relate to wishing we were more fantastic than we are.

Uncle Dudley would virtually always succeed (or fail, depending on how one sees it) through impossible luck or sheer mishaps, yet always took credit for his success… while he routinely made excuses for why he was less than Marvel-ous, oblivious to the fact that the Marvels knew that he was not actually a Marvel— or their real uncle.

Concept aside, there was the matter of making the character work in The Marvel Family. It is one thing to have the concept of Uncle Dudley as an imposter; it is another to make the character fit in and be accepted by the Marvels as an actual member of The Marvel Family, a group of virtuous paragons. For that to happen,

Uncle Dudley/Uncle Marvel’s debut appeared in Wow Comics #18 (Oct. 1943). Script: Otto Binder; art: The Jack Binder Studio. [Shazam heroes TM & © DC Comics.]

there had to be something about the character that would make true Marvels accept him.

Binder was obviously aware of this. Uncle Dudley had to be a character who, despite his pretense of being a real Marvel, deep down had the spirit of one. That is, he was ultimately a good man. His first story was about an imposter who, thanks to his true nature as a good person, came to be accepted and welcomed into a new family—at least by Mary Marvel.

“We Had Faces Then!”

(Left:) The great 1930s movie comedian W.C. Fields once said, “It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.” A quote that could not be more appropriate for Uncle Dudley, who saw himself as a Marvel.

(Below left:) Brothers Jack [standing] and Otto Binder in Chestertown, New York, in 1973. During this particular era, two decades after Fawcett’s Marvel Family went out of business, Ye FCA Editor believes that Jack did indeed begin to resemble Uncle Marvel just a bit. Photo from Comic Crusader #15, courtesy of Al Bradford & Bob Cosgrove. Join us in a future FCA for a celebration of Martin L. Greim’s superb fanzine and its entire run, recently-released as a 535-page Omnibus.

(Below:) Jack Binder’s cover for Wow Comics #35 (April 1945) spotlights not only Mary and Uncle Marvel, but also Mr. Scarlet & Pinky, Commando Yank, Phantom Eagle, and Freckles (not in her Marvel outfit), and Mary Batson as a separate entity. [Shazam heroes, Mr. Scarlet & Pinky, Commando Yank, & Freckles TM & © DC Comics.]

The Fabulous FAWCETT FAMILY

Part I – Featuring ROSCOE “ROCKY” FAWCETT, JR.

Interview Conducted by Shaun Clancy

Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: In 1997, Golden Age super-fan Shaun Clancy’s diligent detective work resulted in him acquiring—and placing in my hungry hands—the contact information for Roscoe K. Fawcett, former VP/Circulation Manager of Fawcett Publications and the last living and youngest of Wilford “Captain Billy” Fawcett’s four sons. It was Roscoe who had convinced his brothers to enter the growing comicbook field with the concept of a young boy who gained the ability to turn into a larger-than-life hero. I enjoyed a memorable Saturday afternoon in October ’97 with Mr. Fawcett at his home in Nisswa, Minnesota (just minutes away from Captain Billy’s legendary Breezy Point Resort—the lodge later renamed The Fawcett House), resulting in the published interview “The Fawcetts Could Do It As Well,

(Above:) Roscoe “Rocky” Fawcett, Jr., at far left, with his brothers on Christmas Day 1947 at their home in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, with “about a hundred presents under the tree!”

(Right:) The 1942 Fawcett one-shot comicbook Holiday Comics repackaged the contents of remaindered copies of Captain Marvel Adventures #15, Jungle Girl [Nyoka] #1, and Whiz Comics #34 just in time to entice Christmas shoppers. The cover is a montage of various artists’ work, including C.C. Beck, Harry Anderson, Pete Costanza, and Alex Blum. [Shazam hero, Spy Smasher, Ibis the Invincible, Golden Arrow, & Lance O’Casey TM & © DC Comics; Nyoka the Jungle Girl TM & © AC Comics.]

(Below:) Shaun Clancy, on left, and Roscoe “Rocky” Fawcett, Jr., on October 24, 2013. Photo courtesy of Shaun Clancy.

Across The Ages

or Better, Than Anybody”—

later reprinted in the 2001 TwoMorrows book Fawcett Companion Roscoe K. Fawcett passed away on 12-23-99. Fast forward to 2011 and Shaun Clancy had located one of Roscoe’s sons, Roscoe “Rocky” Fawcett, Jr. [1936-2018], who was enthusiastic to talk about his father and his family, as well as Fawcett Publications, and to share rare photographs from the Fawcett family album. The following interview was conducted by Shaun over the phone on 3-28-2011. Shaun later visited Rocky at his home in Lyons Falls, New York,

and subsequent conversations were done via e-mail correspondence. Next issue’s Part 2 of “The Fabulous Fawcett Family” will feature the life of Captain Billy and his escapades as a publisher. —P.C. Hamerlinck

SHAUN CLANCY: Did you work at Fawcett Publications yourself?

ROCKY FAWCETT: I only worked there for a few summers. My cousin, Jack Fawcett, also worked there for a couple of summers. But none of us Fawcett sons of the four Fawcett brothers were involved with Fawcett Publications. They made a pact, my dad and his brothers, that no one [in our generation] would really be associated with the company except summer jobs for some of the kids. The main reason for that was that my dad and his brothers saw that certain family members could never work at Fawcett and were merely waiting around to reap the rewards of the business. That’s the way it was back in those early days.

SC: What years would you have been working there during the summers?

FAWCETT: 1958 through 1960.

SC: Long after the comicbooks were gone.

FAWCETT: Exactly.

SC: Did you ever meet your grandfather, Wilford “Captain Billy” Fawcett?

FAWCETT: I never met him that I remember. I was born in 1936 and he died in 1940.

SC: Besides his three brothers, didn’t your dad also have a sister?

FAWCETT: Yes, her name was Miriam. Let me bring you up to speed on the way things were. Wilfred “Buzz” Fawcett was the oldest brother. The next oldest brother was Roger, then Gordon, and then my dad, Roscoe. Around 1965 Roger, Gordon, and my dad sort of “retired” Buzz because he wasn’t very good at business— but they still kept him on salary and he retained his stock holdings and all that jazz. Miriam was the only girl in the family. She was never really involved with Fawcett Publications, but she still held the same stock and shares as her siblings.

SC: Did you ever meet any of the celebrities that the Fawcett brothers associated with?

FAWCETT: Let me read you something that my brother Steve sent to me when my dad died in 1999. I received a teacup with a note that said, “Dear brother Rocky: Enclosed is one of the three demitasse cups and saucers that survived the 1959 fire at Breezy Point Resort. Dad and Elizabeth had them on display in their dining room. I thought each brother should be in possession of a piece of the family heritage. Perhaps your cup touched the lips of Sinclair Lewis, Carole Lombard, Clark Gable, Jack Dempsey, Tom Mix, or Dolores del Rio. Merry Christmas! Love, Steve.”

SC: That’s a great story! Have you stayed in contact with other Fawcett relatives?

FAWCETT: We’re not a tight family, but I’ve remained very close friends over all these years with my cousin, Jack Fawcett—Roger Fawcett’s son. We’re probably the two closest of all the Fawcetts.

SC: Did your dad bring comicbooks home from work?

FAWCETT: Let me tell you something: I was a member of Christ Church in Greenwich, Connecticut, and my voice was terrible, but they let me into the choir because I brought comicbooks to the choir members. [both laugh] That’s why they let me in!

SC: Was your school the same way?

FAWCETT: No, the school didn’t care too much for comicbooks!

Rocky was too young to remember meeting his grandfather—but it happened! Here, Captain Billy Fawcett holds baby Roscoe “Rocky” Fawcett, Jr., in 1937.

Turning On The Fawcett(s)

Fawcett family photo from 1942 taken in Greenwich, CT. (L to r:) Gordon, Miriam (her legal name, but she went by Marion), W.H. (Buzz), Roscoe, Claire (their mother), and Roger.

When The Father Of “Rocky” Met Dempsey

SC: Did you meet Editorial Director Ralph Daigh?

FAWCETT: Yes, Ralph was like part of our family. Fawcett Publications was a company that didn’t care about making money. Fawcett was in business to take care of family, and that was from day one. My grandfather, Captain Billy Fawcett, owned a resort in Northern Minnesota called Breezy Point, and he’d have many celebrities stay at his place.

SC: What can you tell me about the CBS purchase of Fawcett Publications for fifty million dollars in January of 1977?

FAWCETT: CBS knew about radio and television, but they knew nothing about the magazine business. They had previously hired a guy from Fawcett to stay on after the sale, and they soon let him go. My cousin Jack Fawcett was a lawyer for Fawcett Publications when it was sold to CBS, so he’d know much more about the sale than I would. And maybe my mom, who’s now 97, would know some details about it. My dad left her when I was about 15, but he really left before that, probably when I was about 12. From when I was between 11 to 14 years old, I used to travel with him. He had his own plane. He was VP and Circulation Manager at Fawcett. His job was mainly entertaining the wholesalers in different towns across the United States in order to try and get Fawcett a better position on the magazine racks.

SC: Let’s go over some of the names on the Statement of Ownership I sent to you, which was originally published in

Fawcett’s George Pal’s Puppetoons #2 comicbook.

(Above & top right:) Roscoe “Rocky” Fawcett, Jr., on Oct. 24, 2013, holding the ancient teacup his brother sent him from Captain Billy’s legendary lodge at the famed Breezy Point Resort. That august structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and was later renamed The Fawcett House. 2013 photo by Shaun Clancy. (Right:) One of the many celebrities who may well have wielded that teacup, as Steve Fawcett wrote, was the far-famed onetime world heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey, seen here with his friend Roscoe.

There’s Still Time For Heroes An Interview with Golden

Age Writer LEE GOLDSMITH

by Mickey Angel Estefan, Jr.

A/E EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: This interview with the late DC scripter Lee Goldsmith was conducted on Sept. 1, 2015, and is © Mickey Angel Estefan, Jr. It previously appeared on the Gay League website on 8-1-15, operated by Joe Palmer, whose help with this piece we gratefully acknowledge. See end of article for more information.

Off a main interstate in Cutler Bay, Florida, through a couple of long neighborhood streets and a roundabout, you end up at the security house entrance of East Ridge at Cutler Bay, a 76-acre retirement village tucked away like a secret magical hamlet.

The security guard at the entrance asked the purpose of my visit, to which I replied, “I am here for Super-hero Saturday!” The event was in honor of Golden Age comicbook scribe and World War II veteran Lee Goldsmith, a resident of the community who at age 92 had apparently become a town celeb and had recently made it known in a Miami Herald interview that he was gay.

The guard instructed me to park my car in a designated lot for visitors and to wait on a bus that would take me into the community. I had thought I would be able to just drive in, and I pondered how carefully the little village was protected.

Another security staff member, a middle-aged man with a short-sleeve work shirt and security patch, lifted a police tape and moved a traffic cone so I could park in the almost-full visitor parking. He directed me to a small van that would take me into the secluded neighborhood. As I boarded the bus, a young boy about 11 years old sat in the driver seat. With amusement I asked, “Are you driving?” to which he replied, “I wish!” I imagined his fantasy of tearing through this quiet nook with 20-miles-per-hour street signs on every block and corner.

The guard in the lot turned out to be the actual driver and, I presumed, the kid’s father. After confirming I was heading to the event, we set forth to the village’s community center. As we drove through at the most prudent of speeds, we passed by row upon row of pretty garden homes and villas, in light sunny colors, with manicured lawns—with not a soul on the street or sidewalk. This almost make-believe town was a mishmash of Pleasantville meets Smallville meets Riverdale. For a moment, though, the beauty and isolation and lack of human sightings made me wonder if I hadn’t stepped into Stepford, Connecticut—but instead of Stepford Wives, Stepford Seniors. And I thought to myself, “No one knows I am here and I don’t know how to get back to my car.”

When we arrived to the community center I was instructed to simply “go through those double white doors and make a left.” Now I knew for sure I was going to disappear. I grabbed my bag and camera and thanked the father and son as I stepped off and followed the directions. I entered the building, made a left, and followed a small

Lee Goldsmith

signs prints of comics covers at an event held at the East Ridge Retirement Community in Cutler Bay, Florida, in 2015, when he was 92. Though he had actual comics yarns in most of those issues, in a few (such as Flash Comics #102) he was represented only by two-page text stories. Photo taken by Mickey Angel Estefan, Jr. (See the obituary/tribute to Lee Goldsmith in A/E #178.)

Howard Purcell penciled and Bob Oksner inked the Goldsmith-scripted Gambler story in Green Lantern #27 (Aug.-Sept. 1947). Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. [TM & © DC Comics.]

hallway that opened into a cacophony of sights and sounds of banquet tables; super-hero décor; kids running around; a face painter; a cotton candy machine; catering tables with food; and staff and residents dressed like comicbook characters. I felt like Dorothy Gale stepping out of my tornado-blown house into a world of MGM color.

I was greeted by a woman in a Spider-Man webbed shirt, who immediately gave me a pencil and a raffle ticket. I thought for sure someone would ask me who I was and why I was there, a complete stranger to the village. But they welcomed me without question. I took a seat at a banquet table to fill out my ticket. All around me were either staff or residents’ familiar members dressed up in costumes. There was a Supergirl, a Batgirl, about two dozen children of all ages, and at least one resident of the retirement community dressed as Wonder Woman with a sign at her waist stating “RETIRED.”

When I returned my ticket, I advised Spider-Woman that I was here to write a story and would it be okay for me to take pictures? Overhearing the conversation, Rick Drew, the village’s Director of Sales, attired in a Spider-Man shirt and baseball cap, asked me, “Well, have you met Lee yet?” I hadn’t, and he quickly walked me over to a table at the far end of the room where Lee, surrounded by friends, was sitting. “Lee, this man is here to write a story about you.” And just like that I was in business.

Lee Goldsmith sat in his wheelchair wearing a Dickies black short-sleeved shirt with its East Ridge name tag pinned over his shirt pocket. Behind his thin-rimmed glasses were kind bright eyes matched by a huge smile as I introduced myself and shook his hand. While I sat down, a woman had also come by to greet him and kissed him on the forehead. He turned to me and said, “You

didn’t give me one of those.” So I stood up and kissed him on the head. When in Rome….

He asked me what I would like to talk about, and I answered, “How does it feel to be the Super-hero of the Day?”

“Well, this is all kind of funny. I haven’t written a comicbook for over forty years.” As a matter of fact, the body of work Goldsmith is probably most known for is as lyricist and book writer for musicals such as Come Back, Little Sheba, a 1974 musical adaptation of the 1950 play; and his collaborations with composer Roger Anderson: Shine! (1983), Chaplin (1993), and the most recent one about the life of Abraham Lincoln, Abe, the Lincoln Musical (2009).

An interesting story from his early stage years involved his work on Sextet (1974), a musical with six characters about straight and gay couplings which starred Dixie Carter. Estelle Getty of Golden Girls fame had seen Goldsmith’s name on the marquee of the Bijou Theatre in New York and had demanded to see Lee. Getty was Goldsmith’s fiancée before the war, an engagement Goldsmith broke off after realizing he was gay after some experiences in the Army. They had lunch and remained close friends until her death.

Goldsmith is a little surprised at comic fandom or that people would even care so many years later about stories he wrote so long

From Canyon City To Big Town Goldsmith scripted these tales for All Star Western #86 (Dec. 1955-Jan. 1956) and Big Town #15 (May-June 1952). The former was illustrated by Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, the latter (a license from a long-popular radio series) by Jack Lehti & Bob Landers. Thanks to Jim Ludwig & Mark Muller, respectively. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Something For The Girls

in it the rest of the trip without anyone ever finding him.

He arrived in New York with “no job, no skills, and no college degree.” He had done some writing in high school and the Army, and encountered a “friend of a friend of a friend,” who turned out to be the wife of an editor at National Comics—the predecessor in 1944 of National Periodical Publications, which would much later officially become DC Comics.

ago. As a matter of fact, back in the ’40s, extra copies of what we now consider Golden Age comic treasures were thrown into the incinerator, a fact that would make comicbook collectors cringe in horror.

In the 1940s, many writers in the comicbook industry weren’t fans of the medium trying to break in, but everyday Joes needing a job. Goldsmith had served in the Pacific arena of World War II, fighting “on our side,” he pointed out just to be clear. He told me “the only job for a man in the time of war is to survive. That was all one could do in a war. Survive.” It was the only solemn remark he had made all day in an afternoon otherwise full of quick-witted quips.

“The year was 1492. I am kidding, it was 1493,” he told the audience as he began his tale. Goldsmith returned stateside to San Francisco and made his way back to New York by train over four days and three nights. In his boxcar there was a door next to his seat, which he opened to find a luxurious state room with its own private bathroom. He entered the room and rode

Goldsmith had never even read a comicbook before the day he sat down with the editor, who gave him the following synopsis for a comicbook script: “Flash is on a deserted island, tied to a tree, with no one to help him. How does he escape?” Goldsmith came back with a script and was hired on the spot. [A/E EDITOR’S

Come Back Little Sheba

for

Scripts by Lee Goldsmith. There were probably more boys who read Wonder Woman #40 (March-April 1950) than picked up a copy of Girls’ Love Stories #94 (April 1963)—but the enthusiastic female fans of romance comics made up for the dearth of young males. The WW art is by H.G. Peter; that of the love yarn was officially credited to Mike Peppe, although at least one analyzer for the Grand Comics Database thought that John Romita might have ghosted the pencils. Thanks to Jim Ludwig. [TM & © DC Comics.]

A poster

the 1974 Broadway musical version of William Inge’s drama Come Back Little Sheba, for which Lee Goldsmith wrote the “book” and lyrics. It starred Donna McKechnie, who a year later would be the featured dancer in the smash hit A Chorus Line. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

CHRIS WELKIN, PLANETEER The Rapturous Return Of A Forgotten, But Classic Science-Fiction Comic Strip

A Personal Perspective by Roy Thomas

While I yield to few in my admiration for Milt Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates, Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes, and Scott Adams’ Dilbert, there are a few other newspaper comic strips that have also had a special hold on my affections over the past eight-plus decades of my life, a mix of humor and adventure offerings:

There’s Pogo, of course—one of the great comic strips by any sane standard of judgment…

Krazy Kat by George Herriman—ditto…

King Aroo, Jack Kent’s whimsical early response to Walt Kelly’s Okefenokee antics, with enough quiet genius of its own that it deserves to be much better remembered today…

Alley Oop, which under V.T. Hamlin was a nigh-perfect combination of laughs and excitement (the more so for a lover of history)…

…and Chris Welkin, Planeteer.

Huh? Chris Who?

Even most of the comic strip aficionados who’ve been made aware of Kent’s mini-masterpiece King Aroo by IDW’s two exquisite volumes a few years back will probably draw a blank at the mention of Chris Welkin, Planeteer.

Welkin was a daily, and later Sunday, comic strip from the NEA (Newspaper Enterprise Association) that debuted in late 1951, after illustrated ads had appeared for a day or two previously in Cape Girardeau’s Southeast Missourian, whose comics section I devoured

six days a week, there then being no Sunday edition of that paper.

The new Space Age/science-fiction strip was written by Russ Winterbotham, who’d authored a smattering of pulp-mag SF (and the Big Little Book Maximo, the Amazing Superman) a decade earlier…

…and was drawn by Art Sansom, who would later find success with the daily strip The Born Loser, which is still being produced by his son Chip.

Let The Welkin Ring!

(Above:) A Nov. 3, 1951, ad for the forthcoming Chris Welkin, Planeteer comic strip heralded the creation of writer Russ Winterbotham and artist Art Sansom, pictured at left. The notice appeared in many newspapers, including the Boston Traveler. The photo is from the Escanaba Daily Press 12-20-51. Thanks to Rick Norwood & Art Lortie. [TM & © the respective copyright holders.]

Incidentally, the word “welkin” means “sky”—and the “Chris” apparently came from a combination of Christopher Columbus and St. Christopher, patron saint of travelers.

The Post-est With The Most-est!

by Michael T. Gilbert

We at the Comic Crypt have something very special for you! Back in 1951, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper began publishing a series of mini-biographies devoted to each of the creators of the comic strips that appeared in its Sunday edition. Is that a cool idea or what? There were at least 24 in all. We’re proud to reprint some here, starting on the preceding page with a fantastic foursome and continuing here with…

Ham Fisher & Al Capp

After a test run in 1928, Hammond Edward Fisher’s strip about boxer Joe Palooka officially debuted on April 19, 1930. Joe Palooka quickly gained popularity, and Fisher soon hired “ghosts”

to do most of the work. One of these assistants was Al Capp, who eventually left Fisher to create his own strip, Li’l Abner (launched on August 13, 1934). Fisher later accused Capp of stealing the idea from a Palooka hillbilly sequence Al had worked on, and a bitter rivalry ensued. That feud ended on December 27, 1955, when Fisher, age 55, committed suicide after being thrown out of the National Cartoonist Society. (He’d been caught clumsily altering Li’l Abner photostats to make them seem pornographic!)

Capp continued to draw Abner until he ended the strip on November 13, 1977, a result of falling circulation and the creator’s declining health. Seventy-year-old Capp died November 5, 1979, a lonely and bitter man. We’re printing both biographies on the same page—just because they’d absolutely hate it!

By the way, Capp’s brother Elliott Caplin (Al’s birth surname) created the Toby Press comicbook line, producing 28 issues of Al Capp’s Li’l Abner comics and some Abner spin-offs such as Shmoo Comics (as well as other titles like John Wayne Adventures) from 1949 to 1955.

An Introduction To Kenneth Landau

by Maranee Landau McDonald

Kenneth Landau was a comicbook artist who worked for several New York comics publishers from 1951 until 1967, American Comics Group (ACG) being the longest. Both before and after this period, he also served as a full-time layout animation artist who worked for every major animation studio at the time, such as Hanna-Barbera, DePatie-Freleng, and Disney, from 1941 to 1988. He sometimes did both comicbooks and animation at the same time, but his heart was always in comicbooks and comic strips.

Ken’s personality was unlike that of most nerdy cartoonists. He was a fun-loving jokester who smoked, drank, and gambled on the horse races. Always the life of the party at whichever studio he was doing work for, Ken would often blow off steam by changing the

funny innocent cartoons he was working on into sexual scenarios just to get a laugh out of his fellow artists.

Prior to his first professional work, Ken was constantly working on comic strips and making stories of his own. He would show his parents and friends his drawings. They knew how talented he was, and he hadn’t even gone to art school yet. He was precise, and creative. He loved working at Disney, but what he really wanted was his very own comicbook or comic strip. He dreamed of being as successful as his mentor and idol, Alex Raymond, creator of Flash Gordon. In their voluminous correspondence, Ken often asked Raymond how he could succeed with his own syndicated comicbook or newspaper comic strip.

Ken began working at Disney in 1941, when he was just 15 years old. His father, Otto Landau, was then a first-string violinist for the Disney Orchestra and got him the job. Ken had the opportunity to work as an extra, or “inbetweener” as they were called, on the 1942 film Bambi, doing the raindrops for the “April Showers” scene. Fascinated by the world of cartoons and animation, he dropped out of high school in his senior year and continued working on Bambi, then went on to contribute to other Disney projects as he was needed, including cartoon shorts featuring Goofy, Pluto, et al.

Ken was hired often because he was good at copying anything he was told to. He had a particular style but could conform to whatever was needed at the time. He could copy any cartoon so well, most could hardly tell if he had done them or they were the original artist’s work.

Once Ken had started working at Disney, he saw how many other cartoonists there were doing what he was doing. While others quit their jobs, Ken stayed on. It was a learning experience and he knew he had to keep moving forward. His style and perfection with drawing came naturally, and the Disney crew saw that.

As I talked to people in the animation field who had worked with

The Children’s Crusade

A page from an amateur comicbook drawn by 10-year-old Landau. The full legend on the mag’s cardboard cover reads: “An Adventure of King Richard the Lionhearted – Picturized by Ken Landau – Jan. ’41.” Clearly, the lad was already well on his way. Thanks to MLM. [© Estate of Kenneth Landau.]

Inbetween The Devil & The Deep Blue Sea

A photo from an unidentified vintage newspaper of Landau and two fellow inbetweeners, at one animation studio or another. The original caption reads: “Inbetweeners such as George Camata, Dan Bessie, and Ken Landau may draw approximately 50% of all the sketches of every cartoon, following the characterization set by the more experienced animators.” Thanks to MLM. [© the respective copyright holders.]

They Call Them “The Greatest Generation”

him and knew him well, I was told there were more cartoonists who did this kind of work than anyone knew. Mark Evanier, a top comedy writer also noted for his work in comicbooks and on the comic strip Garfield, told me it wasn’t uncommon for studios back then to hire many artists to do these jobs for two to four weeks, then get laid off… with some artists being added at the end of a job. For instance, Tom and Jerry and Scooby-Doo, on which my father worked as well, sometimes had as many as 40 artists working on them at any given time. It wasn’t uncommon for the names of animators who had worked on a given cartoon to wind up on the cutting-room floor… yet some guys who were just hired to do two or three days would get credit. It was the luck of the draw, and no one ever knew if their names would end up in the credits or not.

I wonder if this would be why my father was so frustrated at times to be in this business at all. Seems like so much glamor, but it really wasn’t. It was a lot of hard work and he was good at what he did,

yet others that were not as good made it bigger.

He brought humor and change into the studios, but he also had a “alternative” side, and he spent four years working under a pseudonym doing comic pornographic books with the titles Cuthbert Crotchpheasant, How to Make Sexy Doodles in 32 Easy Pages, and Dudley Studley, all under the name “Vern Kent.”

After being drafted into the Army at age 18, he created a comic strip for the Army newspaper called Lucky, a self-image portrayal of funny Army life. He got married at age 19 to a cadet nurse he met at the USO, as he played boogie woogie on the piano.

He created multiple comic strips that were never published. In the beginning of his career, he took odd jobs drawing for advertisements for Bullocks and other catalogs, as well as working full time at McDonnell-Douglas making airplane parts. After six years of doing this while drawing nonstop to try to sell one of his comic strips, he went to New York to begin a career as a comicbook artist in 1951.

In 1952 he started work for the American Comic Group publishers. The best-known comicbooks he worked on were Adventures into the Unknown, Forbidden Worlds, and Commander Battle and the Atomic Sub. He is still talked about and admired to this day by people of all ages on many comicbook-era website blogs.

(Left:) Ken Landau in uniform during the Second World War. (Right:) The young married couple after the war—Ken and Arra Marie Landau. Courtesy of MLM.

“The Horror—The Horror!”

(Left:) The earliest horror story drawn by Kenneth Landau that we’ve unearthed to date—or rather, “Comic Crypt” keeper Michael T. Gilbert unearthed it for us—is this effort from Timely/Marvel’s Adventures into Terror #171 (March 1953). It’s one of only two known tales he illustrated for Timely. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

(Right:) Before long, he was turning out the bulk of his comics work for ACG, as per this splash from Adventures into the Unknown #49 (Nov. 1953). Writers of both tales unidentified. Thanks to MTG for this one, too. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

“He Wanted To Get Into Comics”

An Interview with Maranee Landau McDonald

Conducted & Transcribed by Richard

J. Arndt

A/E

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: This short interview took place on August 13, 2022. Because of Ms. McDonald’s own remarks, printed on the immediately preceding pages, we’ve chosen to print mostly just those aspects of the interview that are not duplicatory of what came before.

RICHARD ARNDT: Thanks for taking the time to do this interview, Maranee.

MARANEE McDONALD: I’m excited to do this. My dad and I loved to watch Saturday morning cartoons—a number of which he worked on. My dad was not like most cartoonists. I was told that he was a partying, smoking, drinking, gambling, outgoing guy. He was that way in everything. My mother was not as outgoing, and she would just go, “Oh, you two!” when we were watching the Saturday morning toons.

When he and my mom passed away, I went to their home in Las Vegas, which was a massive place, over 8000 feet of living space, and in every room there’d be stacks and boxes, not just of his artwork, but of hundreds of comics, contracts, his personal neverpublished efforts at comic strips, which he not only drew but wrote, and Disney, Hanna-Barbera, and other animation studios’ work. I really had a hard time getting a grasp on it. There was just so much. I’d get anxiety attacks just at the idea of dealing with all of it or even opening another box.

While going through the boxes, I discovered a photo of a dog, drawn by my father at age fourteen, and on the back there’s a notation that says “Christmas, 1940.”

Later, when I was researching the book I’m writing on my father, I located a childhood friend of his to interview. While we were talking, that friend said, “You know there was a drawing of a dog that your dad made for his parents for Christmas, and [the dog] was looking to the side…” I said “Bill, I have [that drawing] right here.” He told me he’d asked my dad how long it took him to draw and my dad said “Not very long, maybe ten minutes at the most.” This drawing was obviously done long before he’d attended any kind of art classes. My dad was a natural-born talent.

RA: You can see why Disney gave him a job at age fifteen, if this was what he was capable of. This is a really nice drawing for a fourteen-year-old. I learned, when I interviewed animator Willie Ito, that there were two levels of employment in animation: full-time employment, and “for the duration of the project” employment. Which version was generally your dad’s employment?

McDONALD: The second one. Once Bambi was done, Dad was laid off until Disney had another project that Dad could hire on for. Dad would get so angry that he had to pay union dues to keep in

good standing when he was laid off. He was also very opinionated But that’s what also made him so particular about his art. If the Smurf he was drawing wasn’t exactly right, Dad would throw the drawing in the trash and start over. Every line, every detail of every woman, every shadowing of the face had to be just so. He was very specific. But that animation practice of laying you off whenever a project was over led to him doing other projects outside animation, including comics. A lot of his comic strip projects were done in

Choking In The Clutch

This Landau-drawn story appeared in ACG’s The Clutching Hand #1 (July 1954)… which turned out to be the only issue. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Part III

“Interplanetary Episode”

by Larry Rapchak

A/E EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: This article was originally printed in two parts on Larry Rapchak’s online blog “bare-bones e-zine,” which was found online by Maranee Landau MacDonald and included with the materials related to her father that she forwarded to me in 2022. I contacted the writer, who graciously gave Alter Ego permission to reprint it, with some abridging for reasons of space. Both versions are © Larry Rapchak.

In retrospect, I am very thankful that I never encountered any EC comics when I was a kid. I was way too impressionable, and would have probably ended up in kiddie therapy had I come across Ingels, Davis, Craig, etc., from the early ’50s. Luckily, I was too young to have seen them firsthand, for by the time I reached comicbook age, things were well into the Comics Code era. My parents were not really disposed towards filling my 9-year-old mind with monsters, aliens, etc.; but for some unknown reason, they began bringing home comics—3 per week, every Friday morning—in late 1959. Harmless stuff: House of Mystery, World’s Finest, Challengers of the Unknown… standard DC fare. Occasionally a pre-super-hero Marvel—the great Kirby Giant Monster cover stories with the brilliant Ditko fantasy in the back. And I handled it all with no problem.

But on Friday, January 29, 1960, I hit a wall. A free day from my Catholic school’s 3rd-grade regimen, my siblings and I were looking forward to a fun, relaxing

Still More CreepyCrawlies From The Cosmos

How could Landau’s interstellar tale of terror possibly compete with this one on sale at the same time: Sheldon Moldoff’s cover for Detective Comics #277 (March 1960)? Well, actually, the chances are that Batman and Robin actually pulled in considerably more coinage… but they didn’t make nearly as great an impact on young Larry Rapchak! Thanks to the Grand

Database. [TM & © DC Comics.]

three-day weekend. My mother made her usual Friday morning trip to the local Kroger’s, where she randomly chose three comics from the store’s carousel. I remember sitting at the kitchen table, TV on, preparing to eat lunch, as my brother and sister and I passed the new comics around for a quick look. One of the new trio was Detective Comics #277 (the silly “The Jigsaw Creature from Outer Space”), a second one I can’t remember, and a third title that was new to us: ACG’s Forbidden Worlds #86, with a not-too-interesting Schaffenberger cover showing an army machine-gunner fighting off a flying saucer against a bright yellow sky. I paged through it quickly… standard stuff of the day: friendly aliens who help humans, a tale of a nerdy guy who goes back to prehistoric times and becomes a hero, etc…. and then I came face to face with the splash panel of the issue’s final story, and without really realizing why, I froze. The image I beheld is printed at the top of this page.

Years later I discovered that the creator of this bizarre image was named Kenneth Landau, a seemingly run-ofthe-mill guy from the early-’50s pre-Code era whose rather

He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands! Landau’s splash page for “Interplanetary Episode” from ACG’s Forbidden Worlds #86 (March-April 1960)—minus his signature. There turned out to be a weird backstory to this tale of doom. Read on! Scripter, alas, unknown. Thanks to Jim Kealy. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Comics

Interview With KEN LANDAU

Conducted & Transcribed by Shaun Clancy

Movies Are Beastlier Than Ever!

magazine called Alter Ego. They do research on comicbooks.

LANDAU: Oh, for God’s sake! [laughs]

SC: I’ve been looking for you for, believe it or not, almost ten years.

LANDAU: You gotta be kidding me!

SC: I am not kidding you. You’re the biggest mystery in comics right now.

LANDAU: [laughs uproariously] Get outta here!

SC: I am not kidding you! And you wanna know why? It’s because your name is associated with [actor] Martin Landau. People think Martin Landau was really you!

LANDAU: Oh, for God’s sakes! Well, my name’s Lan-DAW! It’s not pronounced Lan-DOW. I’m German-French, and it’s Ken Lan-DAW! [both laugh] I don’t know. It makes no damn difference. I’m 86 years old, so what the hell difference does it make?

EDITOR’S NOTE: This telephone interview, which is presented virtually in its entirety, took place in April 2012, three months before Kenneth Landau passed away….

SHAUN CLANCY: Hi, I’m looking for Ken Landau, please?

KEN LANDAU: Yeah, speaking.

SC: The Ken Landau I’m looking for used to be an artist in the ’40s and ’50s. Would that have been you?

LANDAU: That’s me. Who’s this?

SC: This is Shaun Clancy up in Seattle, and I write for a comicbook

may never have

Ho!”

comicbook,

A young Ken Landau seems to relish seeing the monster emerge from a movie screen on this splash page from ACG’s Out of the Night #14 (April 1954). Thanks to Sharon Karibian & Maranee Landau McDonald. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

“Landau

Actor Martin Landau

drawn a

as was rumored for years in fandom—but his likeness appeared in a few, as witness Joe Staton’s cover for Charlton’s adaptation of his TV series Space 1999 #1 (Nov. 1975). Thanks to the GCD. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

SC: You’re gonna be very surprised to hear that the American Comics Group has quite a bit of people still with us, and that’s including Norman Fruman, Fred Iger, Zeke Seligsohn… He was Isaac, actually, at that time. Still several people left from the American Comics Group!

LANDAU: Well, I’ll be damned. I thought we were all dead except me, and I wonder about me. [both laugh]

SC: Your artwork is just outstanding.

LANDAU: Oh, come on!

SC: I am not kidding you. I collect it myself! I have many—

LANDAU: Thank you very much. I appreciate it!

SC: Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about how you got into comics?

LANDAU: Yeah, sure. Let me adjust this phone.

SC: So, is American Comics Group the first comics company you worked for?

LANDAU: Ah, good Lord. That’s goin’ back. The first one, I think… I think it was called Standard…. Wait a minute, wait a minute. I gotta go back… Not Standard. I worked for Standard a little, but there was one before that. I’m tryin’ to think of it.

Boy Meets Girl… Boy Loves Girl…

Then What?

Landau drew the story above not for Lev Gleason’s (and Biro & Wood’s) romance series Boy Meets Girl, as Shaun Clancy suggests, but rather for its successor Boy Loves Girl, which picked up the earlier title’s numbering with #25. “Party Girl” appeared in Boy Loves Girl #39 (Oct. 1953); writer unknown. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. However, while “Party Girl” was one of the earliest love yarns Landau illustrated, it was not the first to see print—as seen by the image from Lovers’ Lane #23 (April 1952) back on p. 60 of this issue. Other early sob-sister entries, not shown, were a yarn done for Comic Media’s Dear Lonely Hearts #1 (Aug. ’53) and ACG’s Lovelorn #42 (also Oct. ’53). And if you think Ye Editor had fun researching this caption in the Grand Comics Database, you’ve got another think coming! [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Kenneth Landau may have had fun drawing these romantic epics, though— or at least the scenery was nice in his studio at the time of this photo of him and what daughter Maranee calls his “model sheets.”

SC: Was it Victor Fox?

LANDAU: No, no. Lord, I’m tryin’ to think of the damn name of it. Was it… Biro/Wood?

SC: Oh, yes. Charles Biro and [Bob] Wood.

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS PREVIEW, CLICK THE LINK TO ORDER THIS ISSUE IN PRINT OR DIGITAL FORMAT!

LANDAU: They had “love/ romance” comics, too, didn’t they?

SC: Yeah, they did. They worked for Lev Gleason.

LANDAU: My first place for a job was with Biro/Wood.

SC: You know what happened with Bob Wood, don’t you? No? Probably not. He killed a woman and went to jail over it.

LANDAU: Ah, yeah. Yes! I remember that.

SC: And Charles Biro was his partner.

LANDAU: Yeah, that’s right.

SC: And they had a studio in the basement of his house, I think. They packaged books for Lev Gleason.

LANDAU: I’ll be damned.

SC: So that was your first job [in comics]?

ALTER EGO #182

An FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) special, behind a breathtaking JERRY ORDWAY cover! Features on Uncle Marvel and the Fawcett Family by P.C. HAMERLINCK, ACG artist KENNETH LANDAU (Commander Battle and The Atomic Sub), and writer LEE GOLDSMITH (Golden Age Green Lantern, Flash, and others). Plus Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt by MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and more!

LANDAU: That was the first one. I have a collection of comicbooks

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_55&products_id=1688