Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

AL PLASTINO

Superman, Batman, Robin, Supergirl TM & © DC Comics.

LAST SUPERMAN STANDING

An illustrated biography EDDY ZENO

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AL PLASTINO

LAST SUPERMAN STANDING

EDDY ZENO

Previous page: the artist’s self-portrait framed by DC Comics heroes and United Feature Syndicate funny folks. From a newspaper article discussing Plastino’s career highlights (circa late 1980s).

The text is copyright © 2016 Eddy Zeno, except for the interviewees who hold copyright © 2016 personally or through their estates for their respective comments. The Foreword is copyright © 2016 Paul Levitz. All copyrighted images are used pursuant to 17 U.S.C. Sec. 107 and, insofar as known, are copyright © 2016 as follows: Al Plastino estate (pages 8-13, 15, 24-27, 30, 51, 64, 65, 69, 70-73, 102, 103, 105, 107); Archie Comics Publications, Inc. (page 23); The Barber Shop Company (pages 28, 30); DC Comics (pages 1, 5, 6, 32-50, 56, 64, 66, 67, 70, 74-78, 80-82, 84, 85, 87, 89, 92, 95, 97, 98, 100, 101, 104, 106, 108-111); DC Entertainment (pg. 104); Dell Publishing Company, Inc. (page 94); Exxon Mobil Corporation (page 96); Harry “A” Chesler, Jr. Features Syndicate (pages 15-23, 91); General Comics, Inc. (pages 94, 96, 105); Idea and Design Works, LLC (page 93); Kellogg Co. (page 64); Marvel Characters Inc. (pages 25, 26, 79, 99, 111); Merlin Entertainments Group (page 88); Michelin North America Inc. (pages 34, 83); News Syndicate Co., Inc. (page 55); Peanuts Worldwide LLC (pages 57-59); PIB Copenhagen (pages 61-63); Post Foods, LLC (page 31); Random House LLC (page 68); Sears Brands, LLC (page 105); Topps (pages 66-67); Trojan Publications (page 65); United Feature Syndicate (pages 1, 29, 54, 55, 59, 60, 68, 90, 91); VJIB, LLC (pages 56, 93).

Published by TwoMorrows Publishing Book design by Jeff Weigel 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 Proofreading by Eric Nolen-Weathington 919-449-0344 • www.twomorrows.com First Printing • April 2016 • Printed in Canada • ISBN: 978-1-60549-066-3

Acknowledgments: First, to my beautiful wife, Mitzi, who passed away in 2013. For decades she wholeheartedly supported my passion for this crazy avocation.

A huge debt of gratitude is owed to Melvin Higgins for his invaluable interviews and research. I thank Mel for his trust and encouragement in giving me the honor of continuing his work.

A salute to Jeff Weigel for being the graphic designer of Last Superman Standing. A decade after Curt Swan: A Life In Comics, it was time to join forces again. Jeff is a best-selling book illustrator, children’s author, and comic book artist.

To Jon B. Cooke, for bringing author and publisher together to make this book a reality.

For behind-the-scenes legal assistance, editorial advice, general inspiration, and helping keep the ol’ anxiety level associated with such a labor of love down, my good friend and cartoon art aficionado David Applegate.

Sincere appreciation goes to Johnny Lowe for adding his copy-editing skills. In addition to polishing others’ works for various publications, Johnny is a professional comic book letterer.

Heartfelt thanks are also extended to Allen Bellman, John Bogdanove, Stacey Bredhoff, Nick Cardy, Stephen Charla, MaryAnn Plastino Charles, Mike Curtis, Sid Friedfertig, Joe Giella, Gary Groth, Mark Heike at AC Comics, Janice Plastino Iapaolo, Carmine Infantino, Bill Janocha, Jim Kealy, Gary Land, Joe Latino, Paul Levitz, Dan Makara , Jerry Ordway, Ann Marie Plastino, Fred Plastino, Arlene Plastino Podlesny, Ron Poe , David Siegel, Jerry Stephan, Bryan Stroud, Michael “Doc V” Vassallo, Mark Waid, Tom Ward, Hames Ware, Steven Weill, Kevin Williams, and Michael Zeno.

And finally, to Al Plastino, a larger-than-life contributor to the history of comic book and newspaper strip art. The bulk of his quotes came from our phone calls during the past nine years. The artist supported and encouraged this tribute, which is long overdue. May the family enjoy it in his honor.

Contents

Foreword by Paul Levitz...................................................................................................

4

Introduction by the Author..............................................................................................

6

Globs Of Clay, Flecks Of Paint ......................................................................................

8

Harry “A”.............................................................................................................................

16

The War Years....................................................................................................................

24

Ten Cents For Toilet Paper...............................................................................................

28

The Big Three.....................................................................................................................

32

The “Most Plastino” Hero.................................................................................................

44

Man Of Action...................................................................................................................

50

Painting, Punching, And Pirates…Peanuts, Precision, And Pantomime..................

54

Special Projects..................................................................................................................

64

The Artist’s Super Power...................................................................................................

70

Paint Over The Pump—Draw Around The Balloons...................................................

72

Legacy.................................................................................................................................

76

Last Superman Standing...................................................................................................

84

Appendix & Art Gallery...................................................................................................

90

Cover Gallery..................................................................................................................... 108 My Pal, Al........................................................................................................................... 110

4 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Foreword

F Paul Levitz accepting an Inkpot Award for Al Plastino in absentia at Comic-Con International 2008 (San Diego). The Inkpot is “given to Comic-Con special guests for achievement in their respective fields.”

or most of the years he spent entertaining millions with his Superman art, Al Plastino was a silent voice: his work uncredited, his artistry uncelebrated, and his recollections of his life’s journey unheard by any but his loving family. His work on the newspaper strip version of Batman broke the silence, but only to the extent of a tiny signature in the corner of a small panel each day. It was only in his retirement years that Al discovered how many people had known and loved his work, and carefully catalogued his anonymous contributions.

Like many of his fellow talents working during comics’ Golden and Silver Ages, he had tales to tell, and Ed Zeno has gathered them.

If, like me, you grew up on issues of Superman lost in the worlds that Al and his brilliant co-workers crafted, or if you’re simply interested in the journey that young artists took from the immigrant communities of New York City to the printed page, you’ll find anecdotes aplenty here to amuse you. Al’s story is both very personal, and very archetypical of the early comics guys (there were virtually no women among this crowd). He put his considerable heart into the pages we all admired, and if you didn’t get a chance to meet him in person, here’s the next best thing.

Enjoy!

Paul Levitz New York, 2014

A former president and publisher of DC Comics, Paul Levitz continues to write for the company that plucked him from the ranks of fandom, beginning in 1972. Paul’s recent tome, 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking (Taschen, 2010), recognizes a multitude of creators, including the legends-building team of editor Mort Weisinger, writer Otto Binder, and artist Al Plastino.

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 5

6 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Introduction

S

uperman illustrators: their legacy began with co-creator Joe Shuster, the pictorial representative of Jerry Siegel’s written thoughts. Soon there was a “Shuster Shop” of delineators, along with artists hired directly by the company that would become DC Comics. Wayne Boring began with Siegel and Shuster and transitioned to DC; longtime fans know his name.

Even more have heard of freelance successor Curt Swan. But what about the middle guy on the timeline? Alfred J. Plastino became one of the big three DC Superman artists at the end of the Golden Age of Comic Books, an assignment which continued

through that medium’s Silver Age. His rendition of the Man of Steel was a bridge between Wayne Boring and Curt Swan’s different creative visions.

In addition to his comic book output, Al possessed an uncanny ability to mimic other cartoonists’ styles and take over their newspaper strips in a pinch. Whether assisting former magazine illustrator Raeburn Van Buren on Abbie an’ Slats, drawing the minimalist feature Nancy, or covertly stockpiling Peanuts strips for United Feature Syndicate, he was always learning. For the record, Al felt that the newspaper version of Batman (for the Ledger Syndicate) contained the finest work of his career.

A young Plastino cried at the sheer beauty of what was being painted by artists from all over the world when his father dropped him off at the Met: “I [painted] portraits of important people. A guy who drew comic books said, ‘All I can do is comics. You can do anything.’

Alan Price, who did art for Wedgwood Pottery said, ‘Al, I can’t do what you do. I need a

photograph but you can do it out of your head.’ That was a nice compliment.”

Before World War II, Plastino penciled and inked for comic book houses like Chesler, Fawcett, and Funnies, Inc. He had eight draft deferments during the war so he could perfect his design of a flying PT Boat, inspired in part from finishing Bill Everett’s “aerial subs” on SubMariner: “I’m not just a comic book guy. I worked on the B-29 at the Pentagon. I invented a plane that looked like a Space Shuttle and was 50 years ahead of its time. My sister-in-laws were Millie and Lulu Perkins, both of them models. Millie was on the cover of every g*ddamn magazine. She was on the insides, too, and was chosen by Director George Stevens to star in The Diary of Anne Frank.”

How do people live to be 90+ years of age? Is it genetics, a sense of purpose, feistiness, luck? Plastino is a beneficiary of each of these things. Hints of his feistiness can be found in the statements above. The luck, he made for himself. In addition, Alfred knew how to have fun.

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 7

While sharing a studio with Jack Sparling and Dow Walling in the years following the war, he was introduced to the wild night life of cartoonists. Good times with others got him away from the drawing table. He’s been playfully lambasted by Harry “A” Chelser and Ernie Bushmiller, gone hunting with Win Mortimer and George Tuska, attended golf tournaments with Ruben Moreira and John Celardo, teed it up with Fred Waring and Jackie Gleason, and found dates for Carmine Infantino and Nick Cardy. Plastino is proud, confident, self-deprecating, perceptive, and super-observant. A good listener who calls himself a loner, he is gregarious and highly social. Quite a few have staked the claim: “He’s my pal, Al.” He is serious when appropriate—until laughing while talking with Plastino becomes the only choice. He has guffawed with many comic artists and a handful of show biz folks, yet Al craves working in solitude even more. His yearning to create art has never diminished.

Plastino wants his story told; quotes are scattered throughout

the text to make for flowing narrative. Beginning in a world that no longer exists and extending all the way to the present, his memory is excellent. From Stuart to Renoir to Van Gogh to Sargent, Al’s oil painting of John S. Hobart is registered with the Library of Congress. From Barry Noble to Joe Palooka to Ferd’nand with lots between, Plastino the news strip guy knew many of the former greats.

He’s also one of the last of the pioneering comic book artists.

From Dynamic Man to Rocket Man to Sub-Mariner to Captain America to Superman, Alfred is co-creator of Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes. Share the man’s passion for life and art; all aboard for a journey with the last Superman standing.

(Note: Alfred John Plastino died on Monday, November 25, 2013.

Because he had chronicled his lifespan in its entirety within three weeks of his passing, the present-tense sensibility of the text remains unaltered. In a way most fitting it allows in these pages a form of immortality for the indomitable Plastino.)

8 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Globs of Clay, Flecks of Paint Frank

A

Al atop “Tony” while on vacation. He was 17 years old, the year was 1938, and he was already working in the nascent comic book industry.

Alfred wrote: “Here is a [1944] pencil sketch of my father at work in his hat factory in NYC­—I was working for Steinberg Studio on Army field manuals for the Pentagon USG part time­—­and working for United Feature Syndicate freelance.”

lfred “Al” Plastino’s father, Francisco (Frank) Plastino, was born on December 3, 1890.

He died in 1985 with a full head of hair. Growing up in Calabria, Italy (in the southern boot), he came to the United States between the ages of 12 and 14 years of age. Frank learned to read and write in English when Al was around 3 years old. The son didn’t grow up speaking Italian, but he could speak in broken English whenever he wished to mimic the family dialect.

Frank was a really nice guy (the same way Al describes his own son today). He was 5'3", well dressed, meticulously clean, and full of energy. Always scurrying, Alfred had to run to keep up with him. That is how the Super-

man artist developed the habit of racing between United Feature Syndicate and National Periodical Publications (the company today known as DC Comics) to garner assignments. To this day it is impossible for him to walk slowly.

Growing up, father and son went hunting and fishing together. Al continued to enjoy those endeavors as an adult— each brought welcome breaks from the grind of the drawing board. To them he would add the sport of golf, but not until turning nearly 30.

Like many, the elder Plastino went through Ellis Island upon arriving in America. He settled in Danbury, Connecticut before migrating to the Bronx. From a stint shining shoes, Frank worked his

way up to a $100-a-week job as the floor manager for Long’s Hat Company. A century note every seven days was a lot of money during the Depression.

Alfred’s dad always had a car.

One in particular was the first ’36 Ford with a V-8 engine. When he first drove down the street in it, everyone stopped to cheer—autos of any kind were rare in the neighborhood at that time.

Long’s Hat Company eventually closed due to the Great Depression, but Frank did not hesitate. He immediately began his own small business, F & J, on Alton Avenue near Fordham Road in the Upper Bronx. This was in roughly 1934 or 1935. He bought out his partner a couple of years later and opened a factory in Manhattan. It was then that the elder Plastino mastered the business of making custom hats. Everyone wore one in those days, and he eventually became known as “The Hatter of Manhattan.” From detectives in the NYPD to Mayor Fierello La Guardia, Frank would soon be fashioning hats for the nation’s leaders, beginning with President Harry S. Truman, followed by Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Another U.S. President, however, almost put Al’s dad out of business. In 1960 Frank had the honor of crafting the top hat John F. Kennedy was to wear to his January 20, 1961, inauguration. Preferring no head covering, however, the presidentelect kept if off for much of the ceremony.

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 9

So much for hats being in style! Still, Al’s dad was smart enough to adapt by converting to making equestrian riding hats in order to stay successful.

Yet he never completely gave up making custom head coverings, including a Stetson for President Lyndon Johnson and a high silk riding hat for the previous administration’s First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy.

Frank’s factory was at 10th and Broadway. When the Union tried to come in, he wanted no part of it. “They had two union men that drove him crazy,” Al said.

“My dad had an open shop. He took good care of his 30 employees, mostly women, who sewed linings into the hats. He gave two weeks’ vacation with pay and paid their insurance.” Decades later Frank’s example may have influenced his son’s decision not to participate in a 1968 effort by some of the older creative talent at National (DC). When they banded together to ask for benefits like health insurance, Alfred refused to join them. He was comfortable with the living he was making and remained independent, bolstered by the fact that he always maintained concurrent accounts outside of DC. Al: “They tried to form a guild for comics; it was really a union.

DC Comics gave me a check for $3,000. That was later and had nothing to do with my decision.

They never said why, but that’s what it was for.”

Joanna

A

lfred’s mother, Joanna Artese, was born around 1894.

Like Frank, she immigrated from Calabria but at a different time.

The son remembered a beautiful homemaker, calm, often baking. That, or she was at the sewing machine making the kids’ clothes. She would look out of

their fourth floor window and wave at him in the Bronx.

Taking him to the movies to see Rudolph Valentino and other actors of the silent film era, his mom bought him 5-cent ice cream cones at the theater. When the church across the street had a parade, she walked behind Alfred who was dressed as St. Anthony. He held a big candle as he marched. Toward the end when she got sick, Al and his brother Mario were sent to the nunnery for day care.

Joanna died in 1925 from peritonitis due to a ruptured gallbladder. When the artist was 25 years old, his appendix ruptured and, like his mother, got peritonitis. He might have perished as well, but he was given a new drug developed during World War II, something the doctors called penicillin. He was told the revolutionary medicine might or might not work. In the hospital for more than a month, the drug did its job. Frank hired a day nurse and a night nurse to alternate taking care of his son. Plastino remembered how he particularly loved the latter caregiver, who was AfricanAmerican.

Al sounded forlorn when describing how he was never quite able to capture his mother’s essence in a painting. Remembering her long, shiny, dark brown hair: “She would brush it before braiding it, or she wrapped her gorgeous, dark hair in a bun.”

On his 90th birthday the artist had another poignant moment: “You’ll think I’m crazy: Last night I woke up in the middle of the night. It was 3:45 a.m. and I lit a candle. I asked my mom, ‘Is that when I was born?’ She died so young; she was only 31. I always feel like she’s been watching over me and I still talk to her.”

Time stopped on187th Street, where Alfred lived for a while as a young boy. There was always plenty to eat; he never went hungry. In 2009 he recalled that the same bakery and what seemed like the same fruit carts were still standing on 187th.

Moving

A

fter the kids lost their mother, they moved into their maternal grandparents’ apartment for approximately seven years. “It was a closed neighborhood; no one could get in if they weren’t Italian,” Al recalled.

A Plastino still life: oil painted on wood.

Photo with JFK and the outgoing Ike, dutifully wearing Plastino top hats. If only the incoming President had liked hats more!

10 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

For Al, sketching was akin to breathing—and quickly became a lifelong habit.

“This was the same area where A Bronx Tale with Robert De Niro was filmed.” His grandfather had once been a professional cook, and Sunday mornings held the best smells of the week. He never spoke English but Al’s dad could translate whatever was being discussed. (The kids’ Uncle Joe also spoke English.) Granddad was strict—he got up at 5 a.m. and went to bed at 8 p.m. If the kids were in the living room, they were expected to make no noise outside normal waking hours. After his wife died, the old man lived alone on the fourth floor, with one of his sons living in the same apartment building.

He died at 98 years of age with a smile on his face.

Seven years after losing their mother, Frank Plastino remarried and took back the kids.

Known as “Mama Mary,” Mary Monfillio had an Irish mother and an Italian father. Alfred’s aunts thought it was wrong for Frank to take a new wife, but they didn’t realize that Al’s grandmother was growing sickly and could no longer take care of the kids.

Al commented, “It didn’t matter that Mama Mary was not a full-blooded Italian.” In fact, she practically saved their lives because the kids had become too wild for their grandparents.

A tough disciplinarian, Mary enforced the main house rule: if the kids ever bothered their father during a meal, they got it the next day from their stepmother.

And she always made sure Frank had steak or an equally good meal when he returned from work every night.

Brother and Sisters

F

ive children were born to Frank Plastino, four to his first wife, Joanna, and one to his second wife, Mary. Alfred John Plastino was born on December 15, 1921. The oldest sibling, Angelo, was born six years earlier.

Angelo entered the peacetime draft a year before the United States entered World War II. An Army Tech Sergeant (a military rank that was abolished in 1948) for five years, he later became a tank mechanic who served in Burma. When Alfred was in the Pentagon they needed artists badly. One of the lieutenants saw a drawing Angelo had done and mailed to Al. Recognizing another Plastino with talent, the lieutenant said he wanted Angelo to be transferred to the Pentagon.

They went through all of the

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 11

paperwork but when they finally found him, Angelo was busted.

He’d gone over the hill. “Burma had monsoons: rain, rain, rain.

Guys went nuts. No girls.” So Al couldn’t get big brother to the Pentagon.

The next oldest sibling was sister Ray, born in approximately 1916. Mario was born around 1918 and joined the Army Air Corps during the war.

Stepsister Margie came 14 years after Al’s birth.

Sports

P

lastino always loved sports and grew up playing baseball. His team had exactly ten guys; they used them all for every game. One day the catcher, Milo, (pronounced Mee-low) said he couldn’t play that day because he didn’t have his glove. The other team wouldn’t let him use a catcher’s mask, either. “Don’t worry about it,” Al said, because he was pitching and “wouldn’t throw too hard.” His first pitch was fouled off and hit his buddy in the tooth. Milo yelled, “I told you. I told you.” (It seems that he was always yelling or crying.) They played in the corner lot—real sandlot baseball. Al remembered the incident occurring before attending Evander Childs High school; by then his father had probably married for the second time and reunited the family.

Dead End Kids of the Bronx

P

lastino: “We skinny-dipped outside of the Bronx Zoo. It was just a muddy stream where the Botanical Gardens are. I got the seven-minute itch from some of the plants there. Fordham University is also right in the area. Cops on horseback would run us off. If you’d seen me naked, I was the skinniest bastard you ever saw in your life.

“I’ve got nine scars on my head, mostly from throwing rocks as a kid. We’d have picnics in the Pelham area, in the woods.

Cops would come by and drink hobo coffee we made. But it was dangerous. This was during the Depression and a family had chickens and let them run loose in the woods. We took a hatchet and cut the head off one to cook it and eat it. The family let four dogs loose in the woods and we were running from them. I was swinging the hatchet behind me as we ran.

“Once, my friend Milo and I got caught on a bridge where the train came over. The train was coming fast; we had to hang upside down from the bridge so it wouldn’t run over us. Milo was always crying; he sure cried that time. Another time, I chickened out and got stuck on a high billboard. I couldn’t move and the guys had to get me down.”

Drawing from an Early Age: Inspirations

A

lfred’s grandfather on his dad’s side was an art professor at the University of Milan.

His Uncle Joe also had artistic talent—it was in the blood.

Joe was a drummer in high society bands and sculpted just for the heck of it. However, when asked to name his earliest artistic inspiration, the name Angelo came up again. “He had patience and was great,” Alfred noted. The family had no TV and no radio. Al would simply sit, watching his older brother draw and craft model airplanes, including a facsimile of the Spirit of St. Louis. Alfred himself remembers taking up the pencil from around five years of age. He also read about the famous artists and fantasized he would someday become one.

The next critical inspiration occurred in the form of Alfred’s first art teacher, Miss Davis. She was not a pretty lady, possessing enormous features due to elephantiasis. Taking an interest in her talented pupil, Miss Davis assigned the young Plastino to do drawings for the yearbook and had him illustrate scenery for school plays.

A good artist in her own right, she taught him well. When she

Landscape by Al from a later period: it was featured on a postcard used to advertise his oils, watercolors, and pastels for sale.

12 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

gave him presents like chocolate and his first set of oils and brushes to take home, Al’s stepmother became suspicious.

Finally Mama Mary went to see Miss Davis but there were no ulterior motives, just a caring educator. When he matriculated from grade school, Al won both the art medal and the shop medal. He also won the John Wanamaker (named after the philanthropist who was one of the fathers of modern advertising) Medal for art.

The Third Muse

F

Sketch by Alfred which includes reproducing Michelangelo’s version of God (detail from the Sistine Chapel ceiling) at far right.

ormal training for Al’s lifelong career began at the Leonardo Da Vinci Art School on 34th Street. His older sister Ray met various artists when she joined her new husband in high society. Their connections

got Alfred into the school when he was 14 years old. His teacher was Mr. Cousmano. Though he withdrew after a year because attending night classes twice a week proved too much, Al loved it there: “The smell of paint and clay, it was like a disease.” It was the best part of his life, and he knew this was what he wanted to do.

The artist remembered: “Students used to draw on newspaper, right on The New York Times, over the printing and all, because paper was so expensive.”

He still does this today.

At the Da Vinci School Plastino decided to do a clay sculpture of himself, at least of his noggin. At the same time, there were two other guys working on a job that required a large outdoor carving. When

he returned and asked about his missing head, the response was, “That piece of crap? We needed the clay.” But young Plastino didn’t mind because he admired all of the artists at the school. Not to mention the fact that his bit of clay made up one of the curls on a “gorgeous, magnificent, head of Beethoven sculpture on a platform. It was over four feet high and was used for the front of a building.”

Alfred’s next school project was a still life on small canvas that he stretched himself. His dad took him to a presentation but the art was nowhere to be found—at first. Finally spotting it well above eye level with several rows of paintings underneath, Al’s father understated, “What’s it doing up there?”

Though his teachers chose

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 13

not to showcase his early work, Frank recognized his son’s talent for drawing and did not want him to go into the hat trade. Soon he began dropping Alfred at the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art) most Saturdays on the way to his business.

He’d either pick him up at the end of the day, or Al would take the subway home.

After brother Angelo and teacher Miss Davis, young Plastino’s third muse was the conglomerate of painters he observed at the Met. Traveling from countries all over the world to learn by copying the old masters, he stated: “They came from Europe, mostly, on commission.” Alfred joined them to discover the underlying techniques used to produce each masterpiece. He recreated paintings from the likes of Sargent, Renoir, and Van Gogh.

“For the Sargent, I only wanted to do the head. There was a special ladder. I’d be about five feet off the floor to learn how to do the shadows.” When the museum closed, the artists would all meet in the basement to store their paintings and talk to each other while washing their brushes. Al would cry at the beauty of their work.

One day at the Met a guy watched the young Plastino paint for over an hour. Finally, he ambled over and said, “I don’t know if you are a showoff or if you’re just great, but I want you to come and see me.”

Alfred remembered his name as Howard Christy Chandler, and he was working on a book that would show birds’-eye view maps of the states. They were actually detailed panoramas, and Al was enlisted to color individual houses in tempera paint. Laughing when recalling how he wasn’t paid for the

work, Plastino considered the experience far more important than money.

[Note: It is possible that the artist who discovered the 17-year-old Plastino that day was not “Howard Christy Chandler,” but “Howard Chandler Christy.” Christy was a well-known book illustrator and muralist who lived from 1873 to 1952. His beautifully portrayed women, including those seen in his war posters during World War I, led to the “Christy Girl,” similar to the “Gibson Girl” by Charles Dana Gibson. Christy painted scenes of the Spanish-American War and the signing of the United States Constitution.]

The painting Al was working on at the time was a Renoir, which still hangs on his wall: “I painted Renoir’s ‘Girl by the Sea Shore’ when I was 17. I could paint like a bastard when I was young.” It is stamped on the back as being painted from the original at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “That makes it worth something,” added Plastino. “If it came from a photograph, it would be worth nothing.”

The young painter/doodler was always doing something.

When he rode the subway between two and three a.m., he would sketch the guys who were asleep: “But they didn’t like you doing that; you had to be careful.” Al also did 20 or 30 portraits of himself, looking in a mirror for reference. Much later he lamented, “What else are you going to draw?”

The School of Industrial Art

T

hose attending Evander Childs High School in the Upper Bronx received a subscription to Youth Today magazine. “It came out once

Delicate penciling graces this Plastino drawing, done circa 2008.

a month, like Reader’s Digest.

They had a drawing contest and if you won, you’d get $50 plus your picture on the front page of the magazine.” Around 1936 or 1937 Al won two first prizes and a third prize which spurred the art director, a Mr. Cowden, to call: “He said it would be cheaper if I worked for him.

That way, he could pay a flat rate instead of all that prize money.” Alfred brought in little black-and-white sketches of the drawings he wanted to use.

Once they were approved, he finished the drawings to accompany printed stories. It wasn’t

14 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

much money; he received $15 or $20 per drawing. Still, it was exciting for Al to be working and getting paid while still in high school.

At the same time the young man was looking for another high school to attend because

into Manhattan to 7th Avenue.

From there, it was a five-block walk to the school on West 40th Street. His stepmother, Mama Mary, would make sure he got up early enough to make the long commute. After school, he’d sometimes go to the Met to paint.

Nicky

I

1937 photo featuring Nick Cardy at age 17 working on a mixed media mural at the School of Industrial Art. Only Al’s arm can be seen with white sleeve to the right of Nick. From the book, The Art of Nick Cardy (Vanguard Productions 2001; originally seen in an earlier 1999 printing by author John Coates).

they had a lousy art department at Evander Childs. The School of Industrial Art had just opened in Manhattan on West 40th Street, and he transferred there for his last two years of high school: “Though it was a broken down shack [located in an old warehouse], it was magnificent!” The principal interviewed him, and Alfred fell in love with it “because all of the teachers were in the business.” One was a puppeteer and another a stage designer (under whom Al studied). Though they never met, vocalist Tony Bennett went there. “He still paints when not singing,” Alfred noted. “There were 18 students per class, more or less.”

Young Plastino took the bus to the L (subway), then

t was at the School of Industrial Art that Alfred met Nicholas Viscardi (Nick Cardy): “He was one grade ahead of me. His mother was a beautiful woman. Like most, his family didn’t have much money; they were nice people.”

Plastino would have supper with them at their home in Lower Manhattan. He never stayed overnight, but Al met a “nice Jewish girl” he used to stay with and Nick would cover for him with his father. She lived on 86th Street.

“I used to hang out after school with Nicky and his friends. One guy was into sculpting, one into stage design, one was into marionettes.

I wanted to be part of the gang because they were all interesting guys. All were very talented and I wanted to soak up everything I could. Nicky was a quiet guy, insecure. Always saying he was going to do this, do that.

‘Just do it,’ I’d say. We got pretty close. I was the first of the two to do comics. Nick would always follow my lead. When he found out I was getting $9 a page, he got into comics with another publisher.”

Regarding Alfred’s earlier dalliance molding figures, he acknowledged that he lacked natural ability but noted buddy Nick Cardy could have been a great sculptor in the Michelangelo vein. During high school they put on a show with

marionettes at Carnegie Hall.

Fellow classmate and future television pioneer/ventriloquist Paul Winchell made the bodies and Nick shaped the heads.

“They were big puppets—two feet tall,” Al said, and his jobs were to design scenery and to make drawings for the lobby.

In the book The Art of Nick Cardy, Alfred’s classmate and friend recalled another project on which they worked together: “Al Plastino and I attended the school and did a very large mural. I remember he did the figures and I did the heads.

This was about 1937, and I was about 17 years old.”

Alfred did more watercolors than drawings of people in the early days. He and Nick would do them right from the car.

Once in a while, Plastino attended live painting classes on Tuesday night. John Gannon, whose painted watercolors graced magazine covers and interiors, conducted the lessons. When he said, “Let me see those watercolors,” Gannon then added, “You’re pretty good; stay with [it].” More than 70 years later Al still enjoys painting landscapes in that medium.

When both became established pros, Plastino said that he and Cardy flew in a DC-3 on USO tours “in bucket seats.”

They traveled to Walter Reed Army Hospital in the mid1940s and later for the National Cartoonists Society. In doing soldiers’ portraits, “Nick could get a likeness right away.” Plastino traveled only in the USA while other cartoonists went overseas.

Reference in addition to the artist’s personal account: Coates, John with Nick Cardy. The Art of Nick Cardy. Vanguard Productions, Copyright ©1999 and 2001 John Coates.

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 15

Of his comic book covers, Al’s eloquent, earthy image of the Liberty Bell, with the rub of the wood and the wear of the metal, came closest to fine art. Blue Bolt Vol. 4, No. 2 (JulyAug. 1943).

16 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Harry “A”

Enter the Comic Book Trade

B

Al noted that he penciled this self-portrait in pencil when he was “about 20 years old.”

First two pages from the “Rocketman” story in Scoop Comics No. 3 (March 1942). Note how Alfred snuck his art credit onto the splash page by showing the diminutive bad guy handling stolen bills with “Al” and “Pla” on opposite ends. In addition, “Harry A. Chesler Features Syndicate N.Y.” is captioned at lower right.

esides Al Plastino, Nick Cardy, and Paul Winchell, many well-known comic book creators and other celebrities attended the School of Industrial Art. Alumni graduating between 1937 and 1947 included female comic book pioneering artist Violet Barclay, along with Chic Stone; Carmine Infantino; Joe Orlando; Joe Giella; Sy Barry; Alex Toth; John Romita, Sr.; and singer Tony Bennett, who is also a well-known painter.

In 1939, as high school graduation approached, Al was preparing to attend college at Cooper Union on East 8th Street: “Lincoln made a speech there. You’d walk in and smell the paint and hear the pianos.

It’s so artistic, it makes you cry.” Five hundred applicants took the entrance exam and young Plastino was one of 50 who passed. Separate tests took one and a half days and included design, sculpting with clay, drawing from a live model, and

architecture. But there was a decision to make. Though he really wanted to go to Cooper Union for its prestigious art program, Al made the fateful decision not to attend college.

After deciding to stay with his part-time job at Youth Today, Alfred saw a newspaper ad: “Black and White Artist Wanted.” Since he was learning to render without color for the magazine, he traveled to 23rd Street and 7th Avenue where he “saw all of these guys drawing

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 17

comics.” At first he was less than impressed, but then a large man sporting an unlit cigar in his mouth came out to greet young Al. It was Harry Chesler, owner and head of the Chesler Studio. Scanning Alfred’s portfolio (which mostly showcased his Youth Today magazine work), Chesler said, “Hey kid.

Throw that stuff away and come make money with me.” After talking to a few guys in the studio, Plastino decided to work there while simultaneously continuing with the magazine. It was the beginning of a lifelong philosophy: “Always have at least two accounts.” That guaranteed a fallback plan if laid off at one place. But perhaps most important to Al was his independence. Having more than one employer meant no one would ever have such control over him that he couldn’t say, “I quit,” if the need arose.

he was given the most basic of tasks, including ruling the pages and erasing pencil marks after they were inked. Alfred was extremely excited to be working in the shop and learning from professionals: “[At first] I didn’t mind how much I was making because I started to get interested in it all.”

There are two ways to look at the “cheap as hell” comment by the often-humorous artist.

First, when fellow comicbook creators Joe Kubert and Carmine Infantino spoke about Chesler generously giving them $1.00 a day or $5.00 a week, they were a few years younger than Plastino. He was think-

Being a quick study, Plastino soon began drawing directly for Jack’s independent pulp magazine (mostly science fiction) projects. He didn’t actually illustrate for Harry Chesler for a long time: “I was penciling, then watching, watching, watching. Jack Binder gave me $5.00 a week; he was cheap as hell. I penciled and Jack, or others, probably, would ink.

Then they gave me an exercise on how to use a brush. There were about 20 guys working there. One of the biggest things I noticed was that they were not using models, props, or photographs as reference. Instead they were using their minds.”

ing of making a living; they weren’t. Also, Joe and Carmine were alluding to the boss himself, who wanted to make sure they had transportation money and was most kind.

Alfred was speaking of the art director, whom he described as a wheeler-dealer. Regardless, the feisty Plastino was better than most, even at a young age, for seeking a fair wage—a trait that would help him in coming years to be a good provider for his family.

Upon graduation from the School of Industrial Art, Plastino became a full-time artist at the studio. Though the hours were from 9:00–5:00, Alfred

The Shop

I

n 1933, the first official American comic books were merely reprints of newspaper comic strips. However, as the format gained in popularity, the relative lack of material available combined with the expense to reproduce them necessitated the emergence of publishing original stories. In February 1935, National/DC’s New Fun Comics No. 1 became the first to devote an entire issue to never-before seen stories. As the medium continued to gain in popularity, comic art production shops emerged to fill the ever-increasing need for original art.

While still in high school Al began visiting the Chesler Studio a few times per week.

Eventually he met the art director, Jack Binder. Learning the business from the ground up,

The next two pages from the Scoop Comics No. 3 “Rocketman” story. Note its confining panels and horror aspects.

18 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Signed cover by Plastino for Blue Bolt Vol. 4, No. 1 (June 1943), Novelty Press.

rarely made it there on schedule. Since he was running late, he usually ate breakfast downstairs in the same building before going to the sixth floor to begin his day. Thus, when he finally arrived upstairs, it was also time for his morning con-

stitution. Harry Chesler joked with him about this routine.

Ad-libbing a nickname for the young artist, he’d say, “‘Plasty, I don’t mind you eating on my time, but I’ll be damned if I’m paying you to take a s--- on my time.’ Eventually, he made me

art director so I would get in early. That didn’t work, either.”

The building had an elevator operator named Tony. Al laughed when he recalled Chesler absentmindedly walking into the empty lift and loudly exclaiming, “Uh, uh…” while going up and up with no one to run it: “[Another time] about eight of us guys were on it and the elevator went out. We tried to jump when we hit bottom. BOOM! We blew out the lights when we hit the spring.”

It was Jack Binder who taught Plastino how to turn his brush to vary the thickness or thinness of a line. Practicing at home, eventually Alfred was permitted to use his newfound techniques at the shop: “Chesler finally gave me stuff to [both] pencil and ink.” By then he was earning $40/week while the top artists at the shop were making $60.

The assignments at the Chesler Studio were usually given verbally rather than as a complete script. Either Harry or Jack gave his idea for a story.

The delineators were usually given a description of what should be on the opening page and an idea about where the story should go. The rest was left for them to plot. They were not given strict deadlines for when the stories needed to be completed; however, it was understood that every employee should produce as many pages as possible per week since they were being paid a salary and not by the page.

Some of the artists that Al came to know at the Chesler Studio included Charles Biro, Mac Raboy, Raphael Astarita, and Ruben Moreira. The senior artists were given the window tables while Plastino and his young cohorts were situated in

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 19

the middle of the room. That placed Moreira on one side of him and Astarita on the other.

Raphael was always sketching. Mac Raboy, seven years Al’s senior, counseled him to continue with his fine arts training. Raboy was an extremely nice person who was shabbily dressed and not well groomed—and he smoked non-stop. Later made famous for his work at Fawcett Comics on Captain Marvel, Jr. and on the Flash Gordon Sunday pages, Mac urged Alfred to make a submission to the prestigious Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts. Having a work of art accepted by the Academy was extremely difficult. Plastino drove to Philly to show a rendering in person. Done in black and white with a Japanese brush—“Real fine lines”—it was of a heavy man on a donkey. The drawing, titled “The Search,” was soon hanging in the Academy. “I also submitted some watercolors that were accepted,” stated Al. Robert Winsor McKay, son of famous Little Nemo in Slumberland creator [Zenas] Winsor McKay, was one of the writers who dialogued pages. Chesler had lots of Little Nemo original art from Bob. Another writer for the Chesler Studio was one of Jack’s brothers, pulp writer and soon-to-be Captain Marvel scribe, Otto Binder. He, along with Al Plastino, churned out stories for Harry Chesler that were not polished or memorable compared to what their collaboration would produce the following decade. In the late 1950s the two pros teamed up at DC Comics to create such successful characters as Supergirl, the space villain Brainiac, and the Legion of Super-Heroes (see Chapter 5).

Harry “A” (no real middle initial; he said the “A” stood for “anything”) Chesler was not an artist; he was a businessman.

He did not have a good eye for art or storytelling but that didn’t stop him from erasing panels on the pages when artists were at lunch. “This infuriated everyone but what could you do?” Al recalled. “He was the boss.”

Similarly, there was an illustrator in the shop whom the others hated because he listened to chamber music on his radio all day. Once in a while, when he left to eat, a few of the artists would hide the tubes to his receiver so they could enjoy an afternoon of quiet. To add another distraction, by 2:00 in

the afternoon, Harry usually went into his back room office and started humming. It drove the guys crazy and they would yell at him to knock it off.

Chesler was a big, crude man whose ever-present cigar remained unlit. However, he was a good employer. Wanting to keep his staff happy (and working), Harry would do small things like serve juice to the artists. Although he made them report for work on Thanksgiving, he allowed them to work a half-day before bringing in turkey so everyone could enjoy a holiday meal.

Payday was at the end of the workweek. Since Chesler wasn’t making much of a profit with

Detail from a photo of “Gorgeous” George Tuska. From the book, The Art of George Tuska (TwoMorrows Publishing 2005), by Dewey Cassell with Aaron Sultan and Mike Gartland.

4 Most Vol. 2, No. 3 (Summer 1943), Novelty Press: another of Al’s signed covers of the time.

20 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Gorgeous George

The Boss’s Friends

irectly behind Al sat George Tuska, a goodlooking, strongly built man.

Because George was very hard of hearing, he spoke with a monotone voice. The weightlifting Tuska roped Alfred (thin as a rail) into joining him in that endeavor. Nearly killing himself when the bar fell against his Adam’s apple during a bench press, Plastino said, “That’s it!” and never returned to pumping iron. Despite that debacle, George became his closest friend at the studio.

Although George almost cost Al his life, he quickly made up for the incident.

Another artist who was “a pain in the neck” was the chamber music fan, also a weightlifter like Tuska. One day he got into an argument with Plastino (who was around 19 years old at this point). He wanted to start a fistfight, but Al wanted no part in it. George spoke up and told the artist, “Don’t pick on my friend.” The obstinate fellow then walked over to Tuska’s desk and started shadow boxing in front of him.

As legend has it, and Plastino confirmed, George calmly cleaned his brush, laid it down on his art table and, without getting out of his seat, punched the artist so hard it knocked him off his feet and through two rows of art tables, breaking them in two. (Note: In the book The Art of George Tuska, George himself remembered the incident as protecting a different illustrator, Joey Cavallo, from a bullying Rafael Astarita. Tuska noted that Rafael started out a wise guy but both he and Al confirmed that Astarita ultimately became a good fellow whom they enjoyed knowing.)

l Plastino and George Tuska became good friends not only with each other, but also with their boss. They went to Harry’s house in Dover, New Jersey, on different social occasions, often to hunt. Harry lived in what Alfred described as a “bastard house,” where different design influences congregated. One room might contain both Italian and Greek statuary and columns, a coinoperated jukebox, and a Coke machine. Although Chesler did not make much money producing his original comic book publications before World War II, he struck it rich during and after the war when he reprinted his older comics. Harry bought a huge amount of land in the Dover area (Morris County), almost an entire town. He ended up making a fortune in real estate as well as with his comic book reprints.

During one winter hunting trip at Chesler’s, a group of about ten men decided to fan out in the woods and walk in a line to chase out any game in the area. The plan was that if the tracking direction needed to change, each man would signal to the next which way to turn. Tuska and Plastino ended up being the next to last, and last in line, respectively.

Because of Tuska’s poor hearing, he did not hear Al calling to him to ask where the others were when they rotated. He ended up turning left when he should have turned right, and became completely lost in the middle of a vast forest. It was snowing and soon became nighttime. “I tried yelling and blowing through the barrel of my shotgun (to make the sound of a horn),” Alfred stated. “I even fired a couple of

D

Again, an early superhero story with horror elements. From the Harry “A” Chesler Feature Syndicate: Dynamic Comics No. 3 (Feb. 1942), which next saw reprinting in issue No. 12 (Nov. 1944). Hames Ware, founding co-editor of The Who’s Who of American Comic Books, identified the work as Alfred’s.

the business, he took to the streets and sold whatever he had, including his coat, to return with the money he owed.

Many were the Friday nights when the artists had to stay late and wait for Harry to scrape together their wages.

A sometime-shortage of funds notwithstanding, Harry “A” ran one of the most successful comic art production factories that existed during the naissance of the comic book industry. Created in the mid-1930s and in and out of business, the studio produced mountains of original art for some of the major comic book publishers of the day, including MLJ, Fawcett, and Timely.

Chesler also published several titles of his own.

A

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 21

shots but no one heard me. So I walked—and walked—and walked! Eventually, I came upon a logging road about ten miles away from where I should have been. I had to flag down a car to drive me back to the Chesler mansion.”

At one point, Al and George were the sole artists still working for Harry “A.” Because the company closed its doors more than once (before doing so for the final time in 1947), he was asked about this in a phone call on July 3, 2012: “I was age 17 or 18 when I first went to Chesler. George was three or four years older. I never worked there after the war.”

Upon further inquiry, Plastino had no recollection of two other art directors in the studio’s history, Charles Sultan and Gus Ricca. It seems likely that Al served in the same capacity after Sultan left and before Ricca came aboard, around the time the U.S. entered WWII. By then, Chesler was recycling books with great success. Alfred and George touched up story pages before they were reprinted; the artist remembered traveling to Denville, New Jersey, to do so.

Except for a new cover or two wrapped around reprints, the studio was closed for much of the war’s duration.

Branching Out

M

ost people knew each other in the early days of the comic book industry, and news traveled fast. Soon after he started working at the Chesler Studio, Alfred heard about other publishers needing help. Showing samples of his output to a competitor, Al was taken aback when that company’s art editor told him the work was not his. “What do

you mean?” said Al. “I should know. I’m the one who drew them,” to which the editor responded, “The actual artist who drew those pages was in here not long ago showing me the same ones.”

That’s when Plastino learned the importance of marking his work since others were taking credit. But it had to be done covertly. During the first three decades plus in the comic book industry illustrators mostly chose not to sign their art; a boss might consider it stealing rather than sharing if the employees and freelancers decided to moonlight. Alfred and his cohorts, therefore, sneaked initials and sometimes even their last names into splash panels, end pages, and elsewhere. An example can be found on the splash page to the “Rocketman” story published in Scoop Comics No. 3 (January 1942). At bottom left is a hunchbacked person holding stolen bills. On the currency is written “AL PLA.” The artist reflected: “I jumped around, inking for Fawcett and Funnies Incorporated.” And those weren’t the only companies at which he moonlighted. Because his published output appeared so early in the burgeoning comic book trade, Al rarely had to look for additional work—extra jobs usually found him. He became known as someone who didn’t need coaching and could get the task done reliably. Chesler never knew about the side stuff or he’d have been furious.

Different studios paid different wages, but $9 per page was probably the most made by the freelancing young man during this period.

Art Editor Jack Binder left Harry “A” in 1940 and, before

long, he was running his own operation. Plastino noted that he only drew one story for the Jack Binder Studio. The early comic book business was tough, and Binder had developed a reputation as a bit of a hustler. He had taken advantage of Alfred at Chesler’s by having the 18-year-old pencil side jobs at little or no pay.

Now older and wiser, upon delivering an eight-page story he had penciled and inked to Binder’s home, Al was prepared—and requested payment before handing over the art.

Jack balked at the idea, and that’s when Plastino positioned his hands to show that he was fully prepared to rip the pages apart. Making it clear that if he was not being paid then no one would have them, Binder

Splash page from Chesler’s Dynamic Comics No. 2 (Dec. 1941), which was reprinted in issue No. 13 (January 1945). Al Plastino art credit verified

by Hames Ware.

22 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

This page and next: panel and pages from a “Johnny on the Spot” story (Chesler Syndicate). Early Plastino art identified

by Hames Ware. From Punch Comics No. 13 (April 1945) and next reprinted in Authentic Police Cases No. 4 (St. John, October 1948). Alfred was becoming a better storyteller.

acquiesced since he needed the job quickly for publication.

Here was an early demonstration that, for the rest of Al’s life, few would be able to take advantage of him.

Some of the titles that Plastino worked on during the early 1940s included Dynamic Comics, Blue Bolt Comics, 4 Most, Target Comics, Scoop Comics, and Punch Comics, with stories featuring Dynamic Man, Rocketman, and Johnny on the Spot. Alfred stated, “‘Dynamic Man’ is when I first started really catching on with Chesler.” Other jobs included tales of Captain America, SubMariner, the Vision, and the Patriot during 1942 and 1943.

Al recalled doing inks only on the “Captain America” stories. The underlying pencils were loose but very good; they may have been by Jack Kirby or by Joe Simon. Though he was uncertain who did them, they taught him a good deal about page layout and action. Without firm deadlines, Plastino took time to work at a slower pace, tightening up the pencils before embellishing. Around 20 years of age, he worked on the side jobs at home in the Upper Bronx before bringing them into the city upon completion.

The Next Frontier

F

or MLJ, Chesler’s shop had produced the early Pep Comics featuring the first true patriotic comic book superhero, the Shield. Alfred likely saw the underwater airplanes that appeared in Pep No. 3 (April 1940). The Shield referred to these ships that went under the sea, then emerged from the water and flew, as submaplanes. In addition to submaplanes, as Al began to

moonlight, he remembered inking some of the exploits of anti-hero Namor the Sub-Mariner over creator Bill Everett’s pencils. Everett’s recurring aerial-submarine first appeared in Funnies Incorporated’s Marvel Mystery Comics No. 4, February 1940. Plastino knows that he inked at least one of the stories in which the intriguing device appeared: “In ‘Sub-Mariner’ there was a machine that would come out of the water and the wings would come out and take off.” Those sightings may have inspired the young man to design a possible secret weapon for the U.S. military.

References in addition to the artist’s personal account: Land, R. Gary. “Al Plastino: A Real ‘Super’-Guy.” CFA-APA No. 82 (a fanzine for original comic art collectors), 2011.

Berk, Jon. “Harry ‘A’ Chesler, Jr.: Comic Book Entrepreneur.” Scoop Archive (online newsletter), June 22, 2002.

Cassell, Dewey, and Mike Gartland, and Aaron Sultan, editors. The Art of George Tuska. TwoMorrows Publishing, February 2005.

Kealy, Jim and Eddy Zeno. “My Attitude Was, They’re Not Bosses, They’re Editors.” Alter Ego Vol. 3, No. 59, TwoMorrows Publishing, June 2006.

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 23

Arriving on newsstands before Captain America, comic books’ first purely patriotic superhero was the Shield, illustrated by Irv Novick. At left a “submaplane” surfaces from the sea with wings retracted; below an enemy soldier is being yanked from the craft.

The fantasy machine may have helped inspire young Plastino to design something not-so-different in real life.

24 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

The War Years

“That Was the Turning Point of My Whole Life”

T

Al in Washington, D.C., 1942.

Plastino’s 1941 design for his combination attack bomber and PT boat, including close-up of gun turret.

he notion of a flying sub was not new. Bill Everett’s comic book machine may have been named after a 1910 British silent film titled, Aerial Submarine. Though he liked what he saw from Everett, Alfred went in a different direction. After all, in real life submarines couldn’t soar, but since the early 1920s planes that could take off and land on the surface of water had been in existence.

Amphibious planes were praised for their military usage in air-sea rescues, patrolling for enemy subs, and for being able to touch down on the variable terrain of Alaska and Canada.

Unfortunately they were heavier and slower than aircraft meant to land on solid ground only.

PT (patrol torpedo) boats were small, fast, well-armed craft that carried two to four torpedoes and were very prominent during World War II. Plastino sought to marry the two by creating a plane that could quickly convert to a speedy gunboat. One way to ac-

complish his goal was to design retractable wings. The Army became so intrigued that they gave Alfred eight draft exemptions to design a prototype.

He remembered: “I wrote to the President of the United States, FDR [Roosevelt]. That’s how the plane story started.”

As noted, by watching his older brothers, especially Angelo, Plastino learned to design and carve wooden model airplanes as a boy. They were hewn from pure balsa wood; pre-formed store models did not yet exist. It was a time to let his creativity, coupled with a sincere desire to help the country’s war efforts, carry him. The artist exclaimed, “That was the turning point of my whole life.”

Continuing: “I got really serious about the plane and thought it might actually work. I studied the power of the engines and used a push motor; most other planes used pull motors. I thought it would act like an Everglade boat. It had turrets

that could shoot between the props. At the time, people said the design wouldn’t work but I was worried about the turrets shooting the tail off. Now it is a common design… These crazy, new, inventive ideas come from people like me who don’t know any better.

“A bunch of guys on the block would run around and were excited, saying, ‘I got mine [their draft notice].’” Al received his when he was 19 years old.

Reporting for a physical, he stood next to the tallest, broadest guy he could find. Al was 5'9" and skinny, weighing approximately 110 lbs. He figured the contrast in body types would get him declared not physically fit.

Turns out the big guy failed but Al was declared 1-A (draft eligible). A busted eardrum left from his school days was missed: “The ear was bleeding after a teacher slapped me upside the head for talking in line.” It was later caught, however, when he went for a second Army physical after the Battle of the Bulge (Dec. 1944–Jan. 1945).

The Draft Board asked if there was any reason he should not be conscripted. He told them that the President had encouraged him to continue working on his amphibious plane, which led to the first of his eight deferments. Three times he ended up waving goodbye to the guys on the block; on each occasion, the Board intervened. Plastino believes having two brothers already in

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 25

the military may have played a role, along with the originality, imagination, and artistic talent the young man showed.

When he penned his letter to Roosevelt, it was actually the President’s secretary who sent a beautifully worded reply instructing him to go to the Inventor’s Council, located at 90 Church Street. The Inventor’s Council acknowledged the value of his idea but added they could not use it. They suggested going to Grumman (Aircraft Engineering Corporation). The Grumman Company opened its doors in 1929 and was now totally given over to the war effort.

Plastino’s idea was given some attention but they didn’t have time to help him overcome its inherent problems. He was told, “The wings are short and push back; it would need jet engines to fly.” (Practical jet fighters were still a few years away.) Folding wings tend to be even heavier and need more structural support if they retract. Another obstacle for which he had not accounted: “Water has to be able to come out of the plane.” Thus, Grumman sent Alfred to the Pentagon to see if the flying PT boat’s initial promise could be salvaged.

Young Plastino reported to Washington, D.C., with a shoebox containing blueprints and his gray-painted model. What most impressed the Pentagon’s engineers was the ingenious system of gears used to bring out the hidden wings. Yet in the end nothing came of it, the exemptions ended, and Al returned home. He explained what happened next: “After the Pentagon, I got a draft notice telling me to report for duty [back in Washington] in three days. I still have the telegram. A Major Shively asked me to stay in Washington

as a civilian: ‘If you become a lieutenant, then I can send you to Timbuktu.’ There were thousands of what we called paper lieutenants in Washington during the war. A regular Army sergeant at the Pentagon had more power than these guys.

He said he would like to see me in uniform but suggested I wait a while and look around first.

I was a young guy and could always enter later if that’s what I wanted. Major Shively gave me the choice.”

Alfred decided not to enlist, yet working in the Pentagon was its own form of service. He was unsure if he started there in 1942 or 1943, but he still has one of the first things he did for the military, an original poster dated 1943. He was given an SP4 (Specialist 4th Class) designation and paid $38 a week.

Initially, there was no supervisor. Searching for something to

do in his assigned basement corner, Plastino seized the opportunity to learn how to incorporate silkscreen printing (serigraphy) into poster production. Still a relatively primitive process at the time, he mastered the stenciling process in which ink was pressed through a mesh screen to reproduce his drawings. Color was dropped out and an arc light hardened the sensitized emulsion that was used. One poster’s message conveyed that war plans begin on paper, so don’t waste it.

Another showed how sleeping

“Aerial subs” from Marvel Mystery Comics No. 15 (Timely, Jan. 1941), likely during the time when Al was assisting Bill Everett. (Panel detail of the original art to pg. 6, as seen in Fire & Water: Bill Everett, The Sub-Mariner, and the Birth of Marvel Comics by Blake Bell, Fantagraphics, 2010.)

WW II painting of Alfred’s bomber/PT boat with wings retracted into fuselage racing away from a targeted Japanese war ship.

26 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

More aerial subs, this time from Marvel Mystery Comics No. 17 (Mar. 1941) by Carl Burgos and Bill Everett.

on the job can cause disasters.

They were hung right there in the Pentagon.

Superbomber

A

Two of young Alfred’s schematics for his flying PT boat, showing how the wings moved and how they locked into position.

nother major, possibly named Gerard, had been an art director for Macy’s Department Stores. He visited the basement and saw the quality of Alfred’s work, commenting, “That’s the guy doing posters?

Get his ass upstairs.” The artist was happy. Assigned a window desk, he then became involved

in a new secret task.

Without his knowing, the military incorporated the flair displayed by Al with his flying PT boat into helping to develop a new bomber. Along with others, Plastino was fed bits and pieces of information needed to isometrically depict portions of the plane (an isometric perspective shows all sides of the components).

Coming off his war poster illustrations, he enjoyed the technical work, learning a lot from the kind major who had art-directed at Macy’s. Upon finishing a shift, everyone was searched each night by the MPs to make sure they weren’t smuggling out papers.

They also had Bunsen burners at their desks to ignite any copies they had made. Because each person only knew part of the plane’s workings, no one realized the importance of their war contributions, or that they were helping to perfect the giant B-29 Superfortress. When it was time and they were eventually told, everyone cheered and was proud of their involvement. [Note: It is because of numerous problems with earlier prototypes that Plastino

was likely working on a redesign of the Superfortress.]

An Overheated Madhouse

A

l remembered wartime Washington as an overheated madhouse: “Ninety bucks a month rented a room with one window and no air conditioning at the Colonial Hotel. I did comics at night to pay the rent.

The bathroom was down the hall.

There was one radio down in the lobby that was on from 7:00 to 7:30 p.m. It was a hot and sticky dump! The heat in Washington was awful.” (Apparently Plastino was never a hot-weather person.

To this day, he won’t visit his daughter MaryAnn in Alabama during the summer, preferring that she fly northeast to see him.)

Eventually, a new apartment building was built in Virginia, renting for $43 a month. Plastino excitedly moved: “At first I thought it was great. An old gal split her apartment in half. I never cooked there but one night I bought some chops. When I got back from sketching in the city, I took them out to thaw, went into another room, and got involved in a drawing. When I returned, cockroaches were walking away with the meat. You’ve never seen them so big! Plus, the old gal used to listen at the door at night to see if I had any company. She’d listen to me breathe, which gave me the creeps. I got out of there and moved to the Pentagon.”

The solution was to volunteer for work in the evenings as a watchman in the Pentagon art room, which was air-conditioned. They gave him a cot so he could guard the place while sleeping. Also, the food in the cafeteria was inexpensive and good: “For $1.50, you could eat like a king; on the outside, you got slop to eat.”

No one at the Pentagon mind-

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 27

ed that young Alfred continued doing occasional freelance work for Timely Comics. Asked if he communicated by telephone, the artist said, “No, they weren’t used that much at the time. There wasn’t one in my [rented] room; I’d have had to go find a phone booth.” Though he had a line at his desk in the Pentagon, he didn’t want to make outside calls.

After receiving a script, once the work was completed and mailed back to New York, they would send a check. Plastino never made copies—when a couple of stories were lost in the mail, he simply redrew them. He doesn’t think he did anything for Chesler at this time, which seems accurate since Harry “A” closed shop for most of the war.

War’s End: Back to the Big Apple

C

hanging circumstances in early 1945 led the military to think that Al might make a better soldier than civilian. The Battle of the Bulge was a major offensive by the Nazis through the Ardennes Mountain region of Belgium, France, and Luxembourg. Nineteen thousand Americans were killed and many tens of thousands were wounded. This latest shortage of manpower took Al back to the Big Apple for his second physical. Luckily, an advertising man named Norman Steinberg had an officer’s commission in Washington during the war.

Watching Plastino at the Pentagon and the speed with which he worked, the ad-man officer told the Draft Board the young artist could be of help back at his New York studio. Al remembered: “Steinberg knew everybody, all the big shots. He said, ‘I need him.’

He was still doing army manuals, so they let me go to work for him.

Major Gerard also wrote another letter to help me.”

The war ended not long after:

“When I went back to New York, I was running all over the place—flit, flit, flit. I was a nut job. From this office to that office, I had so many opportunities.” Alfred decided to stay with Steinberg Advertising for the

next few years. Working three to four hours in the mornings for Steinberg allowed precious time for other pursuits.

Referenced from the artist’s personal account.

Plastino war poster.

28 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Ten Cents for Toilet Paper

“The Studio Was Another World”

P

The artist in studio (at 43rd St. and Lexington Avenue, New York City, 1948).

The Kreml man always has “keen and well-groomed” hair! Unfinished commercial art.

lastino likely met Jack Sparling at Fawcett Publications. One day Jack came in the art room for a visit. He was stepping down as the newspaper strip artist on the Hap Hopper, Washington Correspondent feature, and inquired whether his new friend might like to do the dailies.

Al jumped at the chance, and thus began his long involvement with United Feature Syndicate.

Some sources claim that Plastino’s stint on Hap Hopper commenced in 1943 but the artist is certain he did not contribute to the strip while at the Pentagon: “It started after I got back to New York. Sparling was still at Vanderbilt Avenue, and we took a liking to each

other. We hadn’t yet started our studio. They might have tried out a few guys for a while before having me take a whack at it.”

Living at home once again and drawing there as well, Alfred was eager to rent a studio with Jack. It got him into Manhattan, which he adored: hot dogs were a nickel and a dollar got a parking spot next to the news building. Plastino owned a ’38 Ford convertible with no heater, and in the winter he had to drain the water out at night and put fresh water in the next morning (no antifreeze).

“The city was cleaner then,” he said. “Guys with old-fashioned brooms and pushcarts swept the streets. The Horn and Hardart Automat restaurant at the corner of 42nd and 3rd

contained coin slots [that gave way to] beans and hot dogs for 25 cents or chicken pot pies for two nickels more. The Daily News and the Mirror were each two cents, the Journal America was five, and the Herald Tribune was seven cents, I believe. Those were great days.”

Al described his colleagues: “The cartoonists then were real characters. Many were working half bombed. One night we picked up Gus Edson (he did The Gumps) off the sidewalk in the middle of the night, wearing a tuxedo in the rain. We brought him into the Cavalier Hotel.

It was two dollars a night. The next morning, Edson got mad at us for putting him in a dump; he was insulted he was in such a cheap place. I was mad: ‘You son

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 29

of a b----. You were in the street, out like a light. You could have been run over.’ It took three guys to get him upstairs.

“The guy who did Moon Mullins [Frank Willard]: diabetic.

He would lift up his leg and they would give him a shot of insulin in the leg. Milt Caniff [Terry and the Pirates and later, Steve Canyon], I met, though I didn’t get to know him until near the end of his life. I was awestruck. He was a very nice man. Hal Foster [Tarzan followed by Prince Valiant]: the greatest. I wish I had some of his original artwork. But he was arrogant. I met them all through the National Cartoonists Society.”

Alfred moved to Manhattan when he began sharing the studio at 43rd and Lexington, over Kelly’s Bar: “The rent was $60 a month. We divided it three ways so we each owed $20.10. The ten cents included toilet paper.”

Besides Jack Sparling, cartoonist Dow Walling was the other suite mate—Walling did the Sunday Skeets for the Herald Tribune.

Al recalled Sparling: “Jack Sparling was from New Orleans. He was the fastest artist in the world! He would start in the morning typing up six scripts—then by afternoon he’d start very fast sketching—did a lot with the brush. He’d draw all six strips in a day, completely finished. He was normal till he had a few drinks in him.

“I was pretty fast—you had to be—penciling and inking two pages, more or less, in a day. I don’t think I ever missed a deadline. Dow wasn’t fast, and Jack and I would help him out a bit. Sparling later did a strip called Claire Voyant for PM, a liberal newspaper. Walling was a college man, really sophisticated, and a true Republican. He didn’t like PM and called Jack

a ‘Communist Bastard.’ But it was a friendly thing—friendly enemies. The studio was another world. That’s when I started doing paintings again.”

Hangouts

“A

ll the cartoonists would go to the Inkwell right after the war,” stated Al. “Guys from the Daily News, Daily Mirror, PM newspaper, and the Herald Tribune. [Milton] Caniff—we all had drawings on the wall. The Inkwell was owned by two Irishmen. There was also Costello’s, Irish-owned even with a name like that. And the Pen and Pencil, on East 45th Street between Lexington and First [on what was known as Steak Row]. Right around the corner from the Pen and Pencil was the Palm, on 2nd Avenue, where we had our meetings once a month; it was real exclusive.

The 21 Club—everyone went there, all the artists, writers, cartoonists, actors…Hopalong Cassidy, gangsters, you name ’em.

The Palm had good musicians.

There was a trio; they’d have jam sessions after their regular job that went till three in the morning. They were unbelievable!

There used to be stockyards where the UN [United Nations] is now; there was a French place with kept girls. I knew every one of them. This is before I was married. One girl was with a little short guy. She said, ‘Al, take me out of here.’ I told her, ‘Uncle Al, at your service; no problem, honey.’ But the guy she was with stuck something in my back. I didn’t know if it was a gun or his finger and got the heck out of there.

“The studio was like a hangout. Guys came up to watch. My brother Mario hung out with us once in a while.

He was something else; Mario

thought everybody was a jerk.

Dow Walling lived in Pelham Manor. He’d come in at three or four in the afternoon and cash a $15 check for whatever date he had that night. Once, he was struggling with ideas for his strip Skeets, and Jack and I finally helped him come up with a gag. Mario leaned over him to watch him draw. He said, ‘Dow, that looks so easy, I could do it.’ Walling was a big guy who’d been a rower—an oarsman—in college. The studio had these big windows that would open. Dow was gonna throw him out of the window if we hadn’t stopped him.

“Then, Mario wanted to be a maître d’. He thought everything was easy and that he could bring customers in. Dad financed a

Two surviving fragments that Al kept from his days illustrating Hap Hopper (from the Feb. 25 and 26, 1947 dailies).

30 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Right: Plastino’s attached note said, “Scratch Board illustration for trade mag.

1947.” Signed “AP.”

restaurant for him—it didn’t work out—but he was a good soul. For years, Mario helped kids [with disabilities]. He’d take them to a little lake and help them do things like crabbing.”

The Expanding Artist

T

“Who’s that keen-looking man?”

A finished panel ad for Kreml hair tonic, signed by Al.

hough he never kept a ledger of his work, Plastino recalled several assignments from the late 1940s, extending into the 1950s.

“I did everything. Portraits, black-and-whites, watercolors, a beer ad, and one for Kreml Hair Tonic for the Daily News. I did love story covers for Arrow Publications. Most were accepted; only one was rejected.

“We had an agent—a big, tall woman. Dow was in love with her. I still laugh when I picture her sitting on the john with a big hat on, talking to us through the door. She got us some ad work but it didn’t pan out.

“I was young and tried to soak up everything at the studio.

Once I tried to sell a strip about a country lawyer, an Abe Lincoln type. It was called Justin Case.

Jack Sparling gave me the idea and tried to help, but it flopped.

I worked up some other things, but it is very tough to try and sell a new script idea.

“Also, when I had the studio, I worked for Harry Childs, drawing pages to sell US Royal Air Tires for bikes.

They appeared in comic books at the time. I did quite a few of them.” In addition to illustrating for Norman Steinberg and Harry Childs, Alfred worked for another advertising studio: “Not in Montclair [New Jersey], but in Upper Montclair,” he said in his most hoity-toity voice.

By 1947 Hap Hopper, Washington Correspondent was no longer doing well and there came a change. The strip was renamed Barry Noble, and a private investigator became the featured character. “A Canadian wrote Barry Noble [Charles Verral],” Al recalled on September 12, 2013.

“He was a nice guy that I met a couple of times. He spoke with a British-type accent. In fact,

his kid called me for the first time tonight because he didn’t know much about the strip. He’s 68 and said his dad died when he was about 85.” In spite of its alterations, Barry Noble ended two years later. The year was 1949 and Al Plastino was becoming ensconced at DC Comics as one of the premier Superman illustrators.

Reference in addition to the artist’s personal account: Kealy, Jim, and Eddy Zeno. “My Attitude Was, They’re Not Bosses, They’re Editors.” Alter Ego Vol. 3, No. 59, June 2006.

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 31

(His early drawings appeared at DC Comics before he actually worked for them.) Two artists, Frank Robbins and Alfred Plastino separately created approximately twenty, one-page panel story ads that appeared in various comic books for different companies.

Volto from Mars was the sf hero chosen to represent “Grape:Nuts Flakes” cereal and this commercial page is attributed to Al. From National/DC’s Star Spangled Comics No. 52 (January 1946).

32 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

The Big Three

Destiny Waiting

I

The Silver Age Plastino: photo taken circa 1963 in his Wyckoff, N.J. home studio/garage. From the Kennedy Library collection.

About to shoot a love scene with “Miss Heartache:” panel from “Superman, Stunt Man!”

t was the pivotal Norman Steinberg who rescued Alfred from wartime conscription and later helped get him the job for which he will always be remembered. Co-creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were blacklisted from National (DC Comics) after filing an unsuccessful lawsuit in 1947 to try and regain ownership of Superman. Steinberg knew Harry Donenfeld, one of the publishers. Hearing of his need for additional help and knowing that Plastino had previously drawn for comic books, Steinberg informed the young man: “If you are interested, go up there, talk to

them, and bring a sample of your work.” Al asked with whom he should speak, and was told to see managing editor Jack Schiff.

Plastino showed up at DC unannounced. When he referenced Mr. Steinberg, he was welcomed into Schiff ’s office and asked to see what he’d brought. Curious himself whether he could do it, Alfred had prepared a Superman sample page: “My brushwork was okay, but kind of corny in a way.”

Schiff apparently liked what he saw, but he didn’t hire Al just yet—there was still payment to negotiate. “Wayne Boring was getting $55 a page,” the artist recalled. “They said he’d been there [almost] ten years and only offered me $35. I said no.” Then there was a lull. When finally given a trial Superman story to illustrate, Plastino was told: “If we like what you do now, we’ll give you $50 a page.” He then received one last instruction: “It has to look like Wayne Boring’s work.”

(Given some of Boring’s original art to take with him for reference, those pages, and many other originals, were lost in a basement flood when Alfred later moved to Long Island.)

Plastino doesn’t remember his first solo story for the company, which was likely “Superman, Stunt Man!” in Action Comics No. 120 (May 1948). This coincided with “The Un-Super Superman” in the May–June 1948 issue of World’s Finest (No. 34) and was immediately followed by “The Oracle from Metropolis” in Superman No. 53 (July 1948). Al

was up and flying.

After a time, Plastino wanted to purchase a new car. He threw a question to Jack Schiff: “How secure is this job?” Schiff ’s response: “I can’t tell you that, kid.”

Alfred bought the vehicle anyway: a Nash Rambler, circa 1950.

Cost: $2,100. He instructed the automobile dealer to not cash the check until the following week.

“On the following Monday l walked across the street from my studio into Chase Bank,” Alfred noted. “I knew the guys who worked there: ‘Hey Al, what did you buy?’ I said, ‘A car. Why do you ask?’ ‘Because we cashed your check last Friday.’ ‘Friday? I have no money for it.’ ‘We know; we covered the check [amount] for you.’ That’s how it was in those days.”

The Post-Shuster Big Three: Boring, Plastino, and Swan

P

lastino was impressed with Wayne Boring’s art: “They gave me some of his pencils to ink early on. This helped give me a feeling of how Wayne drew Superman.” He occasionally saw the older man (born in 1905) in the art room at DC, though not too often since most of the guys worked from home.

The two illustrators got along fine, with Al adding: “Wayne had really tight pencils.”

Nevertheless, Alfred had mixed feelings while in the senior illustrator’s shadow. Viewing the tale of “The Three Supermen from Krypton!” (Superman No. 65, July–Aug. 1950) from today’s

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 33

perspective, Plastino noted: “That is crap because I was still influenced by [him]. But at least you can follow the story. My faces were lousy but they were consistent.“ Asked when he broke from following Boring’s lead, Al reported, “No one said change it.

Wayne’s work was really cleancut and professional, though the characters were a little stiff. It almost hurt me to draw like him.

I tried to keep the look consistent but it gradually did change.”

Because Jack Schiff was handling Wayne Boring’s work, he was also Alfred’s first boss at DC Comics. The goal was to maintain Superman’s artistic continuity. Al: “Jack was one of the editors for Superman. He was a mild guy, very shy and gentle, nothing like Mort Weisinger. Jack was not a

good idea man, unlike Mort, who was a great idea man. He would just say, ‘Here is the story, Al.’ He wouldn’t give directions, per se.

I started working with Mort a little later.” Though he could not remember when the relationship began in earnest, there exists a note for Plastino to call Weisinger regarding his cover preliminary for Superman No. 60. With an indicia dated Sept.–Oct. 1949, this means the artist and editor had dealings no later than spring of that year.

In approximately 1951, fellow illustrator Curt Swan was getting terrible migraine headaches from Weisinger’s frequent demands to correct the art by adding more detail. In addition, Mort committed other forms of verbal bullying when he thought the artists

weren’t giving him his money’s worth. Swan’s headaches began dissipating when he began standing up to the editor.

In the book Superman at Fifty! The Persistence of a Legend! (edited by Dennis Dooley and Gary Engle, Octavia Press, 1987), Curt wrote, “I did speak briefly to Wayne Boring about it when I took over drawing the syndicated Superman strip in the late ’50s or early ’60s, a couple of years before they killed it. He knew how difficult Weisinger could be on the subject of Superman’s looks. ‘Just hang in there,’ Wayne told me, ‘and don’t take any s---.’” Alfred had his own perspective when dealing with Mort, but the results were the same: “My attitude was, they’re not bosses, they’re editors.

“Wayne was on the way out; they were feeding him less and less work. He had the newspaper strip. Then Curt Swan took over [the dailies but not the Sundays for a few years]. There wasn’t as much of a difference between Curt Swan’s style and mine as there was between mine and Wayne Boring’s. Curt’s style was more realistic and calm. I added more jazz, where Curt’s was more kind and a little monotonous because he would have no big changes between panels. But he was a good artist.”

Al added that Swan was a nice guy with whom he enjoyed conversing when they happened to be visiting the DC offices at the same time. He felt that Swan doing pencils only— and not inking himself—helped lead to his early demise (Curt passed away in 1996). Al noted that controlling both tasks kept him from working himself to death. One time, when Mort Weisinger asked him to let someone else embellish his pages, Al turned in such sketchy work that no one could find

Wayne Boring’s powerful Superman pictured above Mr. Boring loading up his drawing board for vacation. Photo from Coronet (magazine, June 1954).

34 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Contrasting styles: an early Superman splash page by Plastino versus one of his ads for U.S. Royal Bike Tires. Both appeared in World’s Finest Comics No. 34.

Al’s smug version of Brainiac (from the origin story).

the line to ink. The idea was quickly dropped.

With much of Swan’s time monopolized by the syndicated dailies and Boring’s by the Sundays, Plastino became Weisinger’s main artist on both Superman and Action Comics in the latter 1950s. Superman’s writer-father, Jerry Siegel, found his way back to DC in 1959 to script the character’s exploits. About his reappearance, Alfred would comment: “It was a terrible time.

That Mort was a tough customer.

He yelled at Siegel; he had him shaking in his boots. I said to Mort, ‘You wouldn’t have a job if not for him.’ When Weisinger had [Kurt] Schaffenberger redraw the heads on my Lois Lane a couple of times, he would tell me about it. He even wanted some of

the money back that he paid me.

I said, ‘Find somebody else.’ He started sputtering. I didn’t give a damn; you had to have that attitude. I got along with him after a while when I got huffy with him.”

Even before Jerry Siegel’s return, the late 1950s was Weisinger’s most fertile period in terms of launching enduring plot devices and exciting new characters. Under his controlling vision, writer Otto Binder and artist Al Plastino became his primary tandem during that time. A little later, Mort gravitated to writer Edmond Hamilton and penciler Curt Swan. Yet, while Edmond and Curt specialized in plot-heavy two- and three-part epics that expanded the heroes’ and villains’ backgrounds, Otto and Alfred handled their shorter-length un-

veilings. Their first 12-page home run occurred when the Legion of Super-Heroes was introduced in Adventure Comics No. 247 (April 1958). The next success occurred almost immediately.

After Lex Luthor, who’d persisted since 1940, the Man of Steel’s greatest nemesis during comics’ Silver Age became the space-pirate Brainiac. Conceived for Action Comics No. 242 (July 1958) by writer Otto Binder, Alfred penciled and inked the outlaw’s 13-page debut. Brainiac traveled the universe collecting cities by reducing them to Lilliputian status and placing them in large bottles. One shrunken burg was especially significant.

In Superman at Fifty! Curt Swan remembered: “I think Al Plastino had first drawn Kandor,

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 35

the Kryptonian city that had been miniaturized by the villain Brainiac and thus escaped the destruction of Superman’s native planet. But I had a lot of fun inventing all that tiny futuristic architecture, not to mention the view from inside the bottle—with the ‘giant’ figures peering in. I’ve always regretted that Al Plastino and I never got to play golf together, another passion that we shared.”

Alfred’s published art to the right of the underlying Kirby/Colletta version, revealed in the Jack Kirby Collector Vol. 12, No. 42 (Spring 2005, TwoMorrows).

Panel from Jimmy Olsen No. 135.

Co-Creating a Character: the Artist’s Point of View

I

n Action Comics No. 252 (May 1959) Alfred drew the lead tale with a fairly notable villain, Metallo, facing the Man of Steel, with script by Robert Bernstein.

It was the second story, however, at less than eight pages (a third of the final page contained an ad), in which Binder and Plastino had another bona fide hit. That’s when Kal-El’s super-powered cousin, Kara Zor-El, found her way to Earth.

Names were never attached to the scripts Al received: “Otto was a different guy, much nicer than Jack [his brother]. Mort talked to me about the idea of Supergirl.

I wasn’t aware that Otto Binder was that involved in creating these characters. It was just part of the job. I went home and later brought in a sketch to show Mort.

I made her blonde and as attractive as I could, putting a black wig on her for the disguise. I wanted to maintain the same type of costume but gave her a skirt to be more girlish. No need to make her big and muscle-y. She had the power already.” (Al’s children later disclosed that wife Ann Marie was his original model for Supergirl.)

Pasting Over Jack Kirby’s Heads

I

t was a strange editorial policy: if the freelance artist of choice

on a particular character happened to be in the office, Alfred would sometimes be asked to draw the heads over another penciler/inker team’s covers or interiors. For Action Comics No. 252, it appears that Plastino was asked to redraw the faces of Supergirl and Superman on penciler Curt Swan and inker Stan Kaye’s cover.

He had likely done the same for Adventure No. 247’s Legion of Super-Heroes front wrap: “A story would come in; the heads weren’t right. But it went both ways. One time, Schaffenberger redrew my heads on Lois Lane.

What are you gonna do?”

The practice persisted for a time after Mort Weisinger retired and artist/writer Jack Kirby was recruited by DC. Jack’s initial assignment under Editorial Director Carmine Infantino’s helm was Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen, beginning with No. 133 (Oct. 1970). Carmine upheld the tradition of maintaining a “house look” for Superman, and Plastino remembered going in to do the

work: “They gave me Kirby’s originals. It was a pain in the butt to paste over Kirby’s heads in Jimmy Olsen. The paste-on paper was very thin. I would put the original page on a light box and lay the paste-on paper over the original art so I could see the

Curt Swan and his version of the Man of Steel. Photo from Cartoonist Profiles, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Spring 1969).

36 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Though team logo “AP” on the batter’s sleeve made it from preliminary to finished cover (Superman No. 60, Sept.-Oct. 1949), the baseball stadium background did not.

Al had a handwritten note at the bottom to: “Call Mort [Weisinger]—10:30.”

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 37

body. I would draw out the body, then take it away and draw the head. Then I would cut it out and paste it in.” Murphy Anderson later became the regular artist who redrew the faces on both Superman and Olsen.

The Kryptonite Speaks

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ne of the oddest and most imaginative series-withina-series started with “Tales of Green Kryptonite No. 1” in Superman No. 173 (Nov. 1964), where the kryptonite itself was the narrator. Conceived by Otto Binder, Alfred illustrated that one along with the final installment, “Menace of Gold Kryptonite!

Tales of Kryptonite No. 4,” in Superman No. 179 (August 1965).

Curt Swan and George Klein illustrated the middle two in Superman Nos. 176 and 177, respectively. The K-rock changed from green to red to gold in the course of four stories, fragmenting from a statuette given to Superman’s father, Jor-El, when Krypton exploded. Meandering its way to Earth to torment Superboy, the meteorite lay fallow in the arctic for years before endangering the adult Man of Tomorrow.

Besides being the stories’ narrator—in another interesting take, it did not want any harm to come to Kal-El. Plastino and Swan drew the stone with the hint of a “face” embedded in its facets.

In May 1964 the art team of Curt Swan and George Klein was moved to other Weisinger-edited books such as World’s Finest Comics and, with the death of artist John Forte, to Adventure Comics less than two years later.

In addition, writer Edmond Hamilton retired from DC in 1966. Otto Binder and Al Plastino filled the vacuum by assuming script and art chores on the fulllength Superman “novels.” But there was a problem. While Ham-

ilton was adept at conveying a sense of the epic, Binder excelled at imagining new heroes and villains in shorter-written tales. This was combined with Weisinger losing the pulse of comic book readers. The editor’s plot suggestions became repetitious by the mid- to latter 1960s. Kal-El losing his powers (“The Demon Under the Red Sun!”); Superman robots/ androids heroically sacrificing themselves to save their master (“The School for Superman Assassins!”); and bringing Phantom Zone villains out of purgatory to temporarily do good (“The Man Who Destroyed Krypton!”) were rehashed ideas seen, respectively, in Superman Nos. 184 (Feb. 1966), 188 (July 1966), and 205 (Apr. 1968).

Superman: A Triumphant 20 Years

T

he full-length novels notwithstanding, there were additional triumphs between Plastino and Otto Binder, along with writers Bill Finger, Edmond Hamilton, Jerry Coleman, Jerry Siegel, and a young Jim Shooter.

For example, Superman No. 61 (Feb.–March 1950) was revelatory to Kal-El when he uncovered his Kryptonian origins. Nineteen issues later, for a short time an amnesiac with inferior powers was thought to be Superman’s older brother (Superman No. 80, Jan.–Feb. 1953). Adventure Comics No. 271 (April 1960) detailed events that led to a young Lex Luthor losing his hair and blaming Superboy for his own experiment gone awry. Al was asked to pencil and ink Lois Lane and Lana Lang’s initial meeting in Showcase No. 9 (Jul.–Aug. 1957).

He drew Bizarro’s first adult appearance in comic books, a twoparter that culminated with him falling for an imperfect duplicate of Lois (Action Comics Nos. 254–255, July and August 1959,

respectively). Beyond distorted Bizarro affection, Al illustrated a grand romance turned tragic in Superman No. 165 (Nov. 1963).

Divergently, he portrayed the earliest showdowns between Supes and the villainous energydraining Parasite (Action Comics No. 340, Aug. 1966, and No. 361, March 1968). Despite these and many other artistic opportunities to shine, Alfred and most of his contemporaries held the belief that the stories were nothing special. To him they were simply part of the job.

Presidential Link: From Father to Son

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n addition to canonical introductions of new characters and story elements, Alfred illustrated

Alfred loved creating this backgroundrich, sequestered view of the Fortress of Solitude for a 2008 commission.

38 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Above: 1970 press photo of editor Mort W. Captioned on the back: “Even around his swimming pool, Weisinger always kept his notebook handy, just in case another new idea for a Superman adventure came to him.” Below: a cape, a drape, and anatomy by Al, circa 2006.

numerous other memorable fables during his 20-year romp with Superman. But more important to him than the fictional entities was when he was asked to portray the American President who nearly knocked his dad out of the hat business (see Chapter 1). Assigned to cowriters Bill Finger and E. Nelson Bridwell, a full-sized copy of the splash page for “Superman’s Mission for President Kennedy!”

(Superman No. 170, July 1964) still hangs on Plastino’s studio wall. Editor Mort Weisinger, in his added role as vice president of public relations, worked with the White House to enlist America’s flabby youth in the President’s physical fitness program. On September 17, 2012, Al recounted: “Curt Swan

started on the story but they decided to give it to me. [Swan penciled and George Klein inked an earlier splash panel.]

Kennedy was still alive when I started. Who knew he’d be assassinated half way through? Mort said, ‘Hang on for a while and we’ll see what happens.’ Then [Lyndon] Johnson’s people told him to go ahead.”

All of us might reach grandeur at some point, often without being aware. It was the same for the last Superman standing when he began illustrating this tale of physical fitness: “At first, it was just another job. But after getting into it, I got interested.

I didn’t realize how great it was till after it was done.” Throughout, Al’s likenesses of President Kennedy (and of even Astronaut

John Glenn in one panel) were uncanny. The original art was announced to be donated to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, though it later showed up elsewhere.

“I changed the splash page because of the assassination,” Alfred noted. Instead of showing the president in person, his large, ethereal image was displayed in the sky behind the Capitol building. In 2011 Plastino tried to recreate the entire splash but felt he could no longer do justice to the architectural detail on the Capitol: “You know me, if I can’t give it my best, I won’t do it.

Back then, I did everything with a brush. Now I can’t even do it with a pen.”

Al said he was ultimately asked to complete the Kennedy

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 39

story assignment because of his ability to capture likenesses of real-life people. Though Curt Swan drew visages, such as singer Pat Boone on the cover of Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane No. 9 (May 1959); wrestler Antonino Rocca for Superman No. 155 (August 1962); and JFK himself a couple of times, he modestly declared that was never his strength. While Swan was certainly capable, Mort Weisinger knew that Alfred had experience portraying celebrities as far back as Action Comics Nos. 127 and 130 (the Dec. 1948 and March 1949 issues). They included radio game show host Ralph Edwards and Hollywood actress Ann Blyth, respectively.

That soon led to illustrating crooner Perry Como for Superman No. 67 (Nov.–Dec. 1950).

One wild short story in Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen No. 56 (October 1961, and weren’t they all wild in that title?) required Al to create the likenesses of movie hunk Rock Hudson and five former film sirens: Marilyn Monroe, Tuesday Weld, Gina Lollabrigida, Brigitte Bardot, and Jayne Mansfield. His final

opportunity to draw a celebrity at editor Weisinger’s behest in a comic magazine was for the interior of Action Comics No. 345 (Jan. 1967), in a tale which featured TV’s Candid Camera host Allen Funt.

Favorite Cover

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ronically, as famous as the “Superman’s Mission for President Kennedy!” interior story remains, Alfred’s favorite comic

book cover (Action Comics No. 177, Feb. 1953) is little-remembered. In conversation, the artist expressed the pleasure he always gets from adding interesting background minutiae, including the extensive junkyard of shattered weaponry pictured on the aforementioned front wrap.

The book, Superman: Cover to Cover, had Plastino reiterate: “Of all the covers I’ve drawn for DC Comics over the years [and he did more than 50], my favorite is Action Comics No. 177 [right]. This cover is my favorite because it symbolizes a chess game between Good and Evil: Luthor’s evil brain trying to outwit Superman’s super-strength.

With all his powers, Superman is unable to see through the lead-lined box, which adds suspense to what is inside the box.” Sincere and succinct—a straightforward message from a straight-shooting guy.

To contrast Al Plastino’s brief run as chief cover artist for Superman and Action Comics

Left: Superman confabbing with President Kennedy, courtesy of Al.

Plastino original art panel detail from Action Comics No. 306 (Nov. 1963).

40 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

with his successor to that role, Curt Swan, one must start with the backdrops. Al’s take was literal, with greater detail, because he loved drawing clues to the mysteries that lay within. Swan’s backgrounds were more symmetrical, a symbolic shorthand to focus the reader’s eye on key cover figures. He drew his heroes larger than did Alfred.

Evolution of the Art

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Original art panel by Alfred from the second story in Superman No. 163 (Oct. 1963).

he Man of Tomorrow’s art history is one of evolution.

Once Wayne Boring’s taller rendition of Superman no longer had to look like co-creator Joe Shuster’s, it was still easy to imagine similar rough sketch lines underpinning both artists’ heroic frameworks. Successors Al Plastino and later Curt Swan adopted Boring’s broad-waisted, burly, he-man look for the char-

acter early in their runs. Yet they drew smoother and less geometrically than Wayne in transitioning from trunk to limbs.

Though Plastino had been instructed to copy Boring at first, when asked if he tried to consciously emulate Swan later, the answer was no. Still, as both illustrators transitioned from the ‘50s to the ‘60s, their storytelling techniques had some resemblance to each other.

Alfred’s art continued to develop in the latter 1960s with bigger figures, looser inks, and more dynamic layouts. Carmine Infantino again played a role: “He was the art director. The only time I remember dealing with Carmine was once when he called all of the artists in and discussed how he wanted to break out of the standard layout.

He started the tricky panels.

Then people started to go crazy with it and you couldn’t follow the story. I didn’t care much for it being used just to be different and told Carmine I’d do these things only if they made sense.

He agreed. My belief is that comics should be simple, cleancut. Draw the characters the same way in every panel. I don’t like all the crazy panels… crazy action scenes.” (In part, Infantino’s edict for more variable panel design was likely inspired by artist Neal Adams’ arrival at the company.)

Alfred left DC in the early 1970s to draw newspaper protagonists with different visuals based on comedic needs. His last regular assignment with the adult Man of Steel was in the May 1968, 206th issue of Superman, a 15-pager. Curt, however, continued as the character’s regular artist for another 18 years. He ventured furthest from Wayne’s stout-midriffed hero to portray an anatomic version of what being fit in today’s world really means. It, therefore, seems fair to say that Plastino’s Superman remains a cross between Boring’s and Swan’s—no surprise. Alfred learned from everyone with whom he came in contact, as long as he admired their work.

References in addition to the artist’s personal account: Grand Comics Database. Online at www.comics.org.

Infantino, Carmine, with J. David Spurlock. Amazing World of Carmine Infantino. Vanguard Productions. Lebanon, NJ, June 2000.

Greenberger, Robert, Senior Editor.

Superman: Cover to Cover. DC Comics.

New York, NY, 2006.

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 41

Playing with the myth: commission signed by the artist (2011).

42 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 43

On previous page: a bevy of screen sirens with one Hollywood hunk thrown in for good measure. Al Plastino art from Jimmy Olsen No. 56 (Oct. 1961).

Left: Alfred finally meets the Caped Kryptonian in this tongue-in-cheek 2006 color drawing.

Circa 2004, Al was asked to do his version of the Wayne Boring cover to Superman No. 53, July-Aug. 1948 (the origin of Superman).

44 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

The “Most Plastino” Hero

Closure on the World’s Finest Team

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Drawing in his Shirley, Long Island studio: from the Nov. 21, 2008 Arts & Living section of The Press of Manorville and the Moriches. The photo accompanied an article by Jennett Meriden Russell.

Tugging at fun—1993 signed rendering of the World’s Finest duo.

edrawing Jack Kirby’s (with inker Vince Colletta’s) heads in Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen was not what kept Alfred involved with DC Comics from 1968 to 1972. Rather, it was his four-year run on the Batman daily and Sunday syndicated strip, another career high mark.

How did Al end up working on the Dark Knight detective half of the “World’s Finest” team?

He explained: “I was drawing Superboy when Mort Weisinger was the editor. Mort had a lot of other things going on and was passing the editorial work over to Murray Boltinoff. I liked his brother [Henry], but not him.

He was a little bit of a guy but stout; his expression reminded me of Edward G. Robinson—

that smug look. Boltinoff wanted to tell me that I was going to work for him now. He wanted to discuss Superboy. When you go into the office, you go into a big room with other artists, doing corrections, waiting for editors to look at the story, etc. I was talking with the guys when Boltinoff opened his door and called, ‘Hey, you.’ When I didn’t look up, he said it again: ‘Hey, you. You over there, what the hell’s your name?’ He talked down to everybody. Who did he think he was? He was just an editor, not God. Most were scared of him, but what was there to be afraid of? I went in his office, shut the door, and had it out with him. Whit Ellsworth heard the commotion and came in; he

thought I was going to kill Boltinoff. Murray didn’t say a word to me. His eyes were coming out of his head. I said I wouldn’t work for him if I had to sell pencils.

When I told him I quit, Whit said, ‘How would you like to work with me on Batman?’”

(Alfred did part of the featured tale in Superboy No. 149 [July 1968] before resigning in the middle of the story, according to the Grand Comics Database. The year prior, he had guest-illustrated World’s Finest Comics No. 165, and two issues later a reader’s letter of praise appeared: “Dear Editor: Who’s the new artist who did

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 45

the March WF? I must congratulate him for capturing the true Batman. Let’s see more of his work in the future.” Perhaps fan reaction to Al’s foray in World’s Finest played a part in his being assigned the Gotham Detective’s strip for the papers.)

Whitney “Whit” Ellsworth was the editorial director of DC prior to producing the Adventures of Superman television series from 1953 to 1957. Serving as the company’s liaison on other Hollywood projects before and after the TV show, Ellsworth was a special consultant to the Batman television series in 1965–1966 and wrote the Batman newspaper strip from 1966 until July 1970.

Distributed by the Ledger Syndicate, the strip’s storylines

were handled by DC Comics’ creative people.

When Joe Giella decided to return to inking comic books in 1968, Al took over as the strip’s primary artist. His first Sunday was dated March 17, 1968; the following Monday was his debut daily. The Sunday strip ended July 13, 1969, but the dailies continued to be illustrated by Plastino through January 1, 1972.

E. Nelson Bridwell took over writing chores from Ellsworth, and Nick Cardy assisted Al toward the end. A new creative team took over the strip on January 3, 1972. It was completely revamped with Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson appearing sans secret identities (along with a new superhero named Galexo). That version closed in 1974.

Al remembered his time on what was formally titled Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder: “Whit was transferred to the West Coast. From there, he would send me scripts in the mail. He would also call me on the phone and send letters saying what a great job I was doing.

He was a good guy, easy to work with. Whit understood artists because he ran the DC show for a long time. I never had any problems with him.

“Don’t forget I had two accounts—except when I did Batman. Batman was a crazy setup. I would pencil and ink two weeks of dailies [12 total] the first week and two Sundays the second week. That’s the way we kept it up. The newspaper scripts weren’t as precise as the

The “most Plastino” hero in visage and pose: 1969 Batman dailies

46 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Right: Alfred’s rendition of Bruce Wayne from a 1969 daily.

comic book scripts (which would tell the artists what each panel should be like). Instead, they would suggest how it could go.

For example, use two panels for this…. When I first started doing the strip, it was hard for me; I was sweating. They didn’t really give me direction on how to draw him, so I made him more realistic. By the end, I was really doing good stuff on Batman and was feeling at the top of my game. All I used was a No. 3 brush; now it seems impossible.”

A Heroic Everyman Al’s classical training, largely selftaught, is dramatically evident in this sketch. Discovered on the back of the March 8, 1968 Abbie an’ Slats daily, Al was just leaving that strip as art assistant to take over Batman.

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he Caped Crusader since inception has mostly been illustrated in a highly stylized manner. Perhaps it’s his noir-ness that tempts artists to express themselves as such.

Plastino’s Batman, however, was different: not pedestrian, but essentially a jutjawed, stocky guy in a cowl. He looked more

like you and me as he swung from a rope, trotted from point A to B, reached for a Bat-gadget, or covered his costume to swim in a wetsuit, leaving only the mask with its pliable eyebrows exposed for identification. Here was the moment when Al veered furthest from the influences of Wayne Boring and Curt Swan.

Prior to abandoning superhero rendering for the variances he would evoke on more cartoony characters during the rest of his syndicated tenure, Plastino’s everyman approach to the Dark Knight was splendid.

He now possessed all of the skills required to tell Whit Ellsworth’s extended stories in a relaxed and confident manner.

An August 16, 2012, article in Newsday (Long Island) quoted one of Alfred’s daughters, MaryAnn Plastino Charles. She was inspired by her father to attend art school where “I thought everyone could draw like him.”

Admiring a Batman Sunday strip guest-starring Aquaman, she added, “I never saw anyone like him. The way he can interpret water, I wouldn’t even know how to do that.”

Al kept the original art for very few of his Batman newspaper strips, selling or giving away most of them through the

years. For the record, the one he treasured most is a Sunday from a storyline that guest-starred Superman. Picturing the Kryptonian kibitzing with the Dynamic Duo, all three in costume but Batman without cowl and Robin without mask, is a gem. The artist felt it exemplified his best work. Indeed, it’s a fine example of Plastino’s flair for varying close-ups and camera angles differently in the strip than on the comic book page.

During his four-year stint, other guest stars included Batgirl, Man-Bat, and as daughter MaryAnn noted, fellow Justice Leaguer, Aquaman. Not only did Alfred have a talent for illustrating the Sea King’s ocean surface from glassy to high surf, he masterfully depicted its viscosity as subs, marine creatures, and diving humans maneuvered through its depths.

Al: “I got busy with Ferd’nand [his next assignment for United Feature Syndicate] toward the end, so I asked Nick Cardy if he would help out on the Batman strip. They were paying me $400 a week on Batman, so I gave Nick $200 to pencil it; then I would ink it. It was no problem inking Nick’s stuff. He had pretty tight pencils.”

Finding out years later that Cardy called himself a ghost artist on Batman, Plastino remarked, “Ghost artist? What, he penciled the strip for something like a month and he calls himself a ghost artist? When I see him, I’ll break his neck.” Of course, Al was 90 years of age and Nick even older when he made that threatening statement all in good fun.

On February 1, 2010, Plastino’s old friend Cardy had his own thoughts about that era: “In the early ’70s, Al got stuck on his schedule so he

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 47

recruited me to help him on the Batman strip. We would meet at a restaurant to talk shop at the time. The food and drinks were free for Al at this place.

Sometimes he would come to my run-down studio. One time Al showed up after dinner with a woman for me. I was divorced at this time. Al left, and left the woman behind. I ended up doing a nude drawing of her; she was posing with a cocktail glass. I think Al felt sorry for me because I was shy; I didn’t like to impose upon women.”

“I Don’t Know How I Did It”

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hether describing his ability to reproduce Renoir’s “By the Seashore” in oils, or discussing the smoothness of his ink line on a Batman

comic strip, Al had a favorite exclamation: “I don’t know how I did it.” Recalling the steady hand and sharpness of sight that once took him to the peak of his painting and comic art abilities, it was as if he was admiring someone else’s work. Yet what seemed mysterious to him at an advanced age may be explained by another statement he once made: “In art, the more you do, the better you get.”

References in addition to the artist’s personal account: Grand Comics Database.

Online at www.comics.org.

Marx, Berry; Thomas Hill, and Joey Cavalieri.

Fifty Who Made DC Great. DC Comics, 1985.

“The Silver Age Sage.” Online interview with Joe Giella. Copyright 2007 by B.D.S. Schreiner, David, editor-in-chief. Batman: The Sunday Classics, 1943–1946.

Co-published by DC Comics Inc. and Kitchen Sink Press, 1991.

Bubbeo, Daniel. “Long Islanders Behind Batman Comics.” Newsday (Long Island), pp. B4–B5, August 16, 2012.

Above: a seafaring Batman enlists Aquaman’s help in this 1968 Sunday by Plastino and Ellsworth.

Below: Robin and Alfred the butler itching for battle.

48 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Plastino and Ellsworth Batman Sunday with aquatic action by Al and matching script by Whit.

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 49

Left: hacked off at the Boy Wonder—a comedic salute to Fort Benning’s (located in Georgia) 50th anniversary.

The artist felt that he was at the height of his powers and could never part with the above Batman Sunday during his lifetime.

Below: the Dark Knight atop a gargoyle— color commission by Al.

50 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Man of Action

Parallel Careers

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Accompanying note from Al: “About Golf! Age 57—”

Arnold Palmer’s superhero caddies: donated drawing for charity auction held at Rock Hill Golf and Country Club (on Long Island).

hile working in the studio he shared with Dow Walling and Jack Sparling, Plastino continued illustrating newspaper strips after Barry Noble ended in 1949. In addition to his sporadic jobs with United Feature Syndicate, Al recalled advertising gigs and other endeavors: “I did a lot of stuff for A & P Stores [a supermarket chain that, at the time, was the nation’s largest] and stuff like that. Then I did commercial comics. I had

portraits going; I was painting a portrait of Mr. Singer, who was the head of General Comics.”

Assignments for General Comics, Inc. included promotional 8- and 16-page stories.

Alfred’s artwork also appeared in a magazine called Young Catholic. One of the oddest commissions of the industrious man’s career was done for a couple whose son was coming home from the Navy. Plastino: “She had the money; he [the husband] said, ‘Can you do

something in a week for me?’

The inside of his cellar was like the inside of a yacht. It had two giant portholes. You look at the bar window and you see the back of the ocean with the curtains.” Alfred went back to the studio, tacked up four large canvases, and painted “sky here, sky over here, sky over here… I put the dryer on and some guy helped me out, to put them on the wall.”

Continuing with his life’s philosophy of maintaining two

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 51

or more accounts, Al’s freelance assignments at DC Comics were steady. Still, it remained a hand-to-mouth existence. He explained: “I’d receive a call at the studio to pick up the next script from DC. They would pay the artists after turning in the art. If you worked on a story, it would take two weeks. They always paid by check.” Most of the illustrators, including Plastino, needed cash advances: “After getting married, I couldn’t live like this. Many of the other artists weren’t married; they didn’t have families to support.” Later, he arranged to receive half the money from DC up front and the other half upon completion of a job.

Alfred acknowledged another option to end the occasional cash-strapped times— penciling and inking comic book pages all night to increase production. Deciding against it, the artist made another resolution he would honor for the rest of his life: he refused to become a workaholic. Determining he needed $100/day to make a living in comic books, his primary source of income, Al’s goal was to produce a minimum of two penciled and inked pages for DC every 24 hours (at $50 per).

In truth this was not exactly the way he worked because he had many pages in various stages going at the same time. Yet he successfully met the requisite two-page average.

To Keep from Cracking Up

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hen he was 28 a new passion entered Plastino’s life—he decided to learn the sport of kings. In 2012 Al told his friend, professional golf instructor Tom Ward, “I took to the game pretty quickly because I was a good athlete growing up in the Bronx.”

He expounded to the author: “I needed the hunting and golfing to get outdoors. Otherwise, I might have cracked up.” The latter sport began with a dare: “Other artists at United Feature kept saying how hard it was. I told them, ‘It can’t be that hard,’ and started playing. They took me to a sports store on 42nd Street where I bought a set of Leo Diegel irons, two woods, and a bag for $35. I got a pair of golf shoes for $6. I told Tony— head of the syndicate’s art department and also the letterer for Rae Van Buren, who told me about the opening on Abbie an’ Slats—that if I couldn’t beat him in a year I would give him all of my clubs, golf balls, everything.

I had a big slice but really liked the game and got into it.

“I was just starting to play golf and went to watch golf tournaments with Ruby Moreira and John Celardo. Ruby with a Homburg, Celardo all dressed up to kill; they had canes and umbrellas. [chuckles] We were walking with Sam Snead and Tommy Bolt. In those days you could be right next to the pros.

Bolt missed a shot; an airliner was passing overhead [Plastino mimics the drone of the plane].

Like an idiot I said, ‘Mr. Bolt, did that airplane bother you?’

This was after he broke the club.

He looked at me with such disdain. I didn’t know where to go.”

Al continued: “I played golf with celebrities like Perry Como, Fred Waring, and Jackie Gleason. This was at Shawneeon-the-Delaware. Shawnee was a golf course that Fred Waring owned. He was a very successful band leader at the time. He invited guests from the [National] Cartoonists Society for an outing every June 8, on his birthday. That’s where I met Jackie Gleason. He was a guest at the

cartoonists’ outing, and the next week I’d play with the entertainers at the ASCAP [American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers] tournament because Jackie Gleason would invite me as a guest. We played together six years in a row; he was great! Mr. Gleason called me a skinny Italian because I used to eat and eat. He was on a diet and could only watch, so it would drive him crazy.

“Fred Waring had a big ego.

When I played in his tournament he wanted to be with the golfers playing well, so I had to ride in the cart with him. Jackie Gleason put him in his place when he said, ‘Now I know why the Indians left Shawnee; it’s full of mosquitoes.’”

At Shawnee, when the cartoonists approached the first tee, the announcer would introduce some with much more flair than others. One whose name was unenthusiastically mumbled was Beetle Bailey creator Mort Walker. “When he asked me, ‘Al, how come they announce your name so loudly?’ I said, ‘It’s because I tip them the day before—several dollars. What do

“Left to right—Al Plastino, Jackie Gleason, Fred Waring: golf outing at Shawnee-on-the-Delaware, Annual National Cartoonist Society. June 8, 1957.” (Photo and caption provided by the artist.)

illustration for Rock Hill golf course school.

52 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Newlyweds Al and Ann Marie—married in Maryland (1957).

you give the locker guys?’ Mort’s answer: ‘50 cents.’ [laughter] “I won the Cartoonists Society tournament 16 years in a row, I think something that Tiger Woods will never achieve.”

Al eventually gave up hunting but on the fairways he shot his birthday score the day he turned 75. He continued to play the game at 90 years plus.

Another Destiny Fulfilled

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n August 23, 2012, Alfred discussed how he met his wife, Ann Marie: “I’d visit my sister Ray in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, and either stay with her for a week or two at a time, or at a rented apartment on 40th Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. It was a furnished place very close to United Feature. In New Jersey, I got friendly with an assistant pro and played a lot of golf.

“One time I stopped for a piece of pie at a roadside burger place like a McDonald’s. I was on my way back to Manhattan for a date. There was a nice, pretty girl with long blond hair. After leaving, I knew I’d never see her again. I looked in the window, went back in, and introduced myself. She was with two guys and talking to her girlfriend. The guys were 19 years old or so. They never said a word but one of them was Ron Perranoski [who became a Major Leaguer and later was a pitching coach for the Dodgers under manager Tommy Lasorda]. I was doing pulp covers then [in 1956] and told her I wanted to put her in a painting.

She said she would have to ask her mother.”

His story continued: “So I went and met her mother. She was very nice and looked like an actress, a beautiful Irish woman.

We got along well. Ann Marie was 17, almost 18 years old; I was 35 but looked like I was about 21. I went to Maryland to see her father. Her father was a sea captain for the Merchant Marine. His real surname was Kuhar. He was an orphan who lived with a family called Perkins in New England. He took their name. When he was captured after being torpedoed during WWII, he gave the name of [Adolf] Kuhar and the Germans treated him differently because he had an Austrian name. He was quite a big guy.

“We went together for a year and got married in 1957 at a chapel in Maryland. It was not a big wedding or anything. Ann Marie had five sisters and I was sitting with them. They were all kicking me under the table to have me tell the father that we were married. He hated Italians. He hated everybody. When I told him that

we were married, he didn’t say a word. He just put his knife down, looked at me, and said, ‘Don’t you ever lay a hand on her.’ That’s all he said. And we became the best of friends. He came out to Long Island and would stay with us. He enjoyed my own father.

He changed his mind about everybody. When Ann Marie told him I drew the Superman comic, he said, ‘He probably sweeps up the paper from the floor.’

“One of my wife’s sisters is Millie Perkins, an actress who had the title role in [the film] The Diary of Anne Frank. Millie was picked for the part of Anne Frank from over 10,000 women interviewed. They wanted someone who’d never acted before. George Stevens was the director. He considered Audrey Hepburn but she was too old for the part. Millie at the time was a top fashion model.

She was on every cover: The New York Times, Daily Mirror, the Daily News magazine section, Seventeen… every magazine you can imagine. I took her to three [television] shows. One of them was Johnny Carson; he was just getting started. He wouldn’t let her off the stage. She was so natural… he loved her! Another sister, Lulu, was a model too. She was on a lot of record album covers. I just found an old jacket in the studio with Lulu on the cover.

She’s standing next to a baby grand [piano]—just beautiful!

“Millie’s second movie was Wild in the Country with Elvis Presley. Next came The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind with Jack Nicholson. Millie was married to [actor] Dean Stockwell at one time. Later, she was married to Robert Thom, a screenwriter.

He wrote Wild in the Streets.”

[Thom’s short story inspired the cult movie classic. He also revamped the script for Compulsion, a fictionalized account of

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 53

the Leopold and Loeb thrill killing.] “Millie had two girls with Robert. He died very young—at age 49. He taught [my son] Freddie how to play chess.”

“That is the Way I Lived My Life: Just Do It”

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l: “I asked Ann Marie where she wanted to go for our honeymoon. She said she wanted to go back home.

I had recently rented a studio in Ridgewood, New Jersey, the next town over from where my sister lived. It was on a four-acre estate. I had a carriage house for a studio. It was beautiful, with a swimming pool outside. Rent was $150 a month. There was even a kennel for my dog. We lived there about a year.

“After Ridgewood, in 1958 I bought a house in Wyckoff, New Jersey, for $17,000. I bought it without my wife even seeing it.

We needed a house. That is the way I lived my life: just do it. By that time our oldest daughter, MaryAnn, was born. The baby was living in a walk-in closet in Ridgewood, so we decided we needed to get into a bigger place when she was one year old. There was a big, detached garage where I built a studio. We already had friends in the area, so it was nice.

“There was still the studio with Jack Sparling and Dow Walling; it was an easy commute from Jersey to New York.

I would go in about every day and work there, then maybe bring work home. After getting married, I worked [more] at home and gave up the studio after a while.”

Three other children followed little MaryAnn: Fred, Janice, and eventually Arlene. Because it was during the Cold War, Al had a fallout shelter built at their home in Wyckoff. It was too tiny

for everyone and was specifically meant to protect the kids. Al found that he liked to visit the shelter by himself “to get away from it all.” He was told to keep a shotgun inside because in the event of atomic war, neighbors would assault the family to fight for space. Plastino laughed and said, “What? I’m supposed to shoot people?” It cost him $130 to build.

Ann Marie and the kids gave Alfred greater impetus to get to the point where he would no longer be as hungry for comic book scripts. It was through United Feature Syndicate by which his largest secondary paycheck eventually became his primary source of income. There was even an added bonus: the comic book editors he did not care for could wield no power.

References in addition to the artist’s personal account: Ward, Tom. “Al Plastino: Comic Book’s ‘Man of Steel,” the Sports Page Weekly. March 10, 2012.

Kealy, Jim, and Eddy Zeno.

“My Attitude Was, They’re Not Bosses, They’re Editors.” Alter Ego Vol. 3, No. 59, June 2006.

News photo of Al Plastino, “artist for Superman Comic Books,” receiving golf trophy from bandleader Fred Waring after winning the annual NCS golf tournament for the 16th year in a row.

Details from the artist: “Al with daughter no. 1 MaryAnn and Millie Perkins and brother Jimmy and her dad in N.Y. hotel… before the opening of movie (The Diary of Anne Frank).”

54 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Painting, Punching, and Pirates… Peanuts, Precision, and Pantomime Newspaper Highlights

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Panel from the Casey Ruggles strip dated Sunday, May 7, 1950. Ruggles reminded Al of a western version of Flash Gordon.

Another fragmented Hap Hopper daily strip from Alfred’s archives (dated Feb. 24, 1947).

fter Hap Hopper, which evolved into Barry Noble, Alfred pinch-hit on the Casey Ruggles strip for United Feature Syndicate from 1949-1950 (and for one additional month in 1952). Ruggles’ creator, Warren Tufts, was a purist and demanded so much of himself that he had a hard time meeting deadlines. He needed other assistants, too, including Al’s comic book cohort Alex Toth, along with buddies Ruben Moreira and Nick Cardy.

Though it was a western strip, Alfred noted that it was done in the tradition of Flash Gordon. He was not particularly impressed.

It was a couple of years later that Al began to make enough as a freelance artist to think of supporting a family. The syndicate portion of his income was more consistent and, in addition, he had negotiated better pay. The timeline commenced with Abbie an’ Slats from 1955–1959, though he

continued to lend a hand with the strip on and off until 1967.

He assisted on Joe Palooka in 1959. Batman’s already covered tenure lasted from 1968 till 1972. It has been rumored that Alfred assisted George Wunder on Terry and the Pirates, circa 1972–1973. That would have been for the Tribune-News Syndicate and not United Feature.

Ferd’nand extended from 1970 until Al’s retirement in 1989. Nancy ran concurrently for part of that sequence, from 1982–1984. There was even an odd stint ghosting top feature Peanuts, about which creator Charles Schulz didn’t know at the time (explored later in this chapter). But these opportunities didn’t just fall from the sky. In a profession where many often missed deadlines, Plastino never procrastinated.

He would be the first to submit mock-ups, even when other newspaper artists claimed they were more established and had greater right to the work

than he did. For instance, John Dirks, son of Rudolph Dirks, had taken over The Captain and the Kids strip from his famous dad years earlier. When he found out golfing buddy Alfred had gotten the job drawing Peanuts: “John Dirks got angry: ‘Why didn’t they call me to do it?’ I said, ‘John, they didn’t call me. When I heard them talking, I came in the next day with a sample.’ I made things happen.”

Painting

A

lfred said that Raeburn Van Buren “…painted with ink…” on Abbie an’ Slats.

Rae Van Buren started as a sketch artist at the Kansas City Star but moved to New York City in 1913. His first Big Apple roommates were actor William Powell, artist Thomas Hart Benton, and caricaturist Ralph Barton, all Missouri transplants. Van became a highly successful magazine illustrator before accepting the Abbie an’ Slats drawing chores

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 55

at its 1937 inception. By the time Al knew him, Rae was living in Great Neck, on Long Island, New York. The younger artist learned that Van Buren needed help from the strip’s letterer, Tony D’Antoni. Plastino noted: “His brother [Phil D’Antoni] produced The French Connection, which had one of the greatest movie chase scenes of all time.”

Alfred visited Van’s home: “Rae was a nervous person when we first met. I could tell he needed help. He would work and work on the strip to make it beautiful. When I told him I wanted $100 a week to help out, he said, ‘What?’ But he paid that, and we got along great. Once I got the hang of it, Rae trusted me on the strip.

Elliott Caplin [who took over in 1946 from his famous older brother, Al Capp] was writing Abbie an’ Slats.”

DC Comics received an unexpected benefit from Alfred’s association with Raeburn Van

Buren while inheriting a latterday mystery, as well. With the successful sales of romance comic books in the 1950s, an edict was relayed to Alfred and the other Superman artists to alter Lois Lane’s appearance: “They changed the hairdo to make her more attractive and sexier. This is the time they would start kissing.” When the story, “The Girl in Superman’s Past” (Showcase No. 9, June/ July 1957) reappeared in the book Superman in the Fifties (DC Comics, 2002), those responsible for paying reprint royalties were confused. The credits mistakenly listed Ruben Moreira as penciler. Further adding to the perplexity of the royalty payers was the fact that Moreira probably did pencil (with Al doing the Superman faces) one of three entries in Showcase No. 9, titled “The New Lois Lane.”) Alfred called then Executive Vice President and Publisher Paul Levitz to set the record straight. Specifi-

cally, as both penciler and inker on “The Girl in Superman’s Past” and on “Mrs. Superman” in the original Showcase comic, he embellished the faces of female characters like Lois Lane and Lana Lang to look like Van Buren women.

If they’d asked fellow DC artist Murphy Anderson, the dilemma would have been quickly resolved: “Plastino had been working on Superman almost from the beginning, back in the early ’40s.

He also ghosted for Rae Van Buren on Abbie an’ Slats. He was quite versatile…. You can see in some of the Superman stuff that he was doing where he was penciling and inking his own stuff that a lot of girls looked like something out of Abbie an’ Slats.”

Al had his own take: “I thought Rae was a marvelous artist. He should never have been in cartooning; he was more of a fine illustrator. When I was helping him in the 1950s,

Al may have provided strong assists to the June 21, 1972 Terry and the Pirates daily, but one can’t be certain. After all, the great mimic made a second career out of masking his own style.

Van Buren figures with Plastino backgrounds on a 1956 Abbie an’ Slats daily.

56 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

What if Lois Lane and Lana Lang had appeared in Abbie an’ Slats as “Van Buren women?” Al experimenting at DC Comics (Showcase No. 9, June/July 1957).

Joe Palooka DVD with a daily beneath featuring the heavyweight champ.

Though credited to creator Ham Fisher, the art was produced by assistant Moe Leff.

people started to ask, ‘Do you have an assistant? Who is drawing your women, Al?’ Nobody helped me.” For a short time Plastino brought something unique to comic books, not only to Showcase but also to Superman and Action Comics. He offered remnants of a top magazine illustrator’s style from an earlier age.

Punching

F

rom Moe Leff on Joe Palooka, Alfred was reminded about the dangers of a life out of balance.

Joe Palooka’s originator, Ham Fisher, took his own life in 1955.

It was former assistant, Moe Leff, who took over the artistic chores and with whom Alfred worked. “Moe had a studio in a hotel; he had two rooms,” said Al. “He and his brothers would come in to discuss storylines while I listened. So they would call me in to help them with Sunday pages because his brother worked at United Feature.

[Joe Palooka was a McNaught Syndicate feature.]

“The brothers put in long hours. Moe was a strong man but he would work all the time. I would hear him moaning in the next room and told him to get out of the business. I said, ‘You

can’t work every day.’ He said, ‘You can make more money.’ I said, ‘I got enough money. Why don’t you play golf?’ ‘No, I’m too busy.’ He wouldn’t listen. Moe died too young. He was only 57.

“Ham Fisher did nothing—Moe Leff did everything.

When Ham Fisher committed suicide, no one got paid for a year because the estate was up for grabs. Moe was getting $4,000 a week. Joe Palooka was the biggest thing… the biggest strip in the Daily Mirror! Movies were made of him. Now he’s forgotten. Nobody knows who he is anymore.” Joe Palooka was a reluctant heavy weight box-

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 57

ing champion, defender of the underdog at a time when sports figures were put on a pedestal for presumed moral fortitude.

The McNaught Syndicate strip ran from 1930 until 1984, appearing in 900 newspapers at its peak.

Plastino enjoyed challenging young people by betting they’d never heard of the champ.

Though Joe Palooka isn’t nearly as well known today, the artist would have been surprised to learn that the character was recently resurrected—as an MMA fighter! A limited series of six comic books was released from IDW starting in 2012. It was eventually reprinted in trade paperback.

writing it too, by the way. I made Snoopy a vegetarian and introduced a rabbit character.

Peanuts was a little different because for many of the gags, I would show my kids a strip with three different punch lines. For the most part they thought that the funniest of the three was the one I liked best. When I wrote Peanuts, I

1979, Charles’s children had insisted on working with the syndicate lawyers so no one else could continue Peanuts after its creator’s retirement or death. For those reasons, it is unlikely that United Feature (by then, United Media) would have hired Al to produce inventory, unless he was asked to do so at an earlier date.

realized it was not the obvious punch line; it was the not-obvious punch line that made it successful. I really got good at it because it was so interesting.”

In 1981, knowing he was facing quadruple-bypass surgery, Charles M. Schulz stockpiled three months’ worth of advance Peanuts dailies and Sundays so only new gags/ insights would appear without the need for reprints, substitutes, or assistants. Not long before, Schulz had gained full control of the strip and its characters, including product licensing, to ensure quality control. Independently, in

Author David Michaelis wrote that arrangements were actually made in 1977 for Alfred to draw Peanuts because contract negotiations between Schulz and the syndicate were not advancing at the time.

Al’s work was supposedly destroyed by the new president of United Feature, Bob Metz, who helped settle the dispute with Charles after he took over. Schulz told interviewer Gary Groth that he did learn about the sequestered strips (contrary to what Alfred believed), though not until a later date: “He [Metz] told me that he went back and he was

Pirates

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l had no recollection of knowing George Wunder.

George Wunder took over as artist for the Terry and the Pirates feature in 1946 from its originator and a talent much admired by Plastino, Milton Caniff. In a television interview circa 2006 Alfred confirmed that he did a bit of labor on Terry. To that brief statement, he had nothing new to add when asked again in 2012. He may not have remembered Wunder because longtime assistant George Evans was likely doing much of the work when Al presumably helped. That would be during the last year or so of the strip, following his time on Batman. Terry and the Pirates ended its run in February 1973.

Peanuts

“I

did Snoopy [Peanuts] for a year-and-a-half, in case Charles Schulz died after heart bypass surgery.

“It was never used, and he never knew,” Al said. “I was

Plastino’s little-known, unpublished rendition of Peanuts.

58 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

More Peanuts from Alfred. Though never used, he enjoyed the subtlety of the writing.

going through some files, and he found some strips that—maybe it was Al Plastino—had drawn, that Bill Payette [the previous president] had asked him to draw. [chuckles] Unbelievably thinking that if I had decided to quit he would have somebody ready to take over the strip.

Which was absurd.”

It’s hard to say why Plastino remembered his involvement as being tied to the 1981 bypass surgery, instead of being used in an earlier attempt by the former syndicate president to show that Schulz was replaceable. But whatever the reason, it was not out of naiveté. He knew the way of business. For example, years before, Moe Leff asked Alfred

not to take over Joe Palooka if it was ever offered to him, which it later was. Out of loyalty, he told the McNaught Syndicate he wasn’t interested. On December 3, 2012, Plastino lamented, “I should have taken over the strip; it might’ve saved Moe Leff ’s life.”

One last item of note brings the Plastino/Schulz connection full circle. Jim Freeman was a newspaper strip managing editor at the time Peanuts began in 1950. (It was Freeman who later told Alfred about the job openings on both Ferd’nand and Nancy.) In a 2003 interview, Al recounted to Glen Cadigan: “In fact, I was instrumental in getting Peanuts started in United Feature, ’cause they used

to ask my opinion. They’d get new strips in, and it was called Little People [actually Li’l Folks, a forerunner to Peanuts]. Jim Freeman called me and said, ‘Al, we’ve got a strip here we’re not sure of. I like it, but four of

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 59

the other guys don’t like it.’ So I looked at it, and I said, ‘Yeah I think it’s pretty cute. It’s fresh.

It’s different.’ He said, ‘What do you think?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, I think it’s [good].’ Boy, was that a decision they made!…. They made a fortune on that. They’re still making a fortune on the reruns.” Though his line grew increasingly shaky after openheart surgery, Charles Schulz lived until February 12, 2000.

The final new strip (a Sunday) of this American institution appeared the following day.

Precision

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lfred was immensely challenged by the precision of Ernie Bushmiller, whom he likened to a “German mechanic” on Nancy with his deceptively simple line.

“I’m not bragging,” said Al. “I dare anybody to try it. I

used to hold my breath when I would do the chin. If you didn’t get the line exactly right, it’s like her jaw was broken.

Sometimes I’d turn the paper upside-down to draw the jaw line. Even the spikes of Nancy’s hair, Ernie counted them. They had to stick out at just the right angle—like a sunburst.

“When I sent him a [tryout] sample it was done on thin, single-ply paper. Bushmiller said [in the raspiest, huskiest voice Plastino could muster to imitate his old boss], ‘It’s good but next time don’t use toilet paper.’ [laughs] But I enjoyed it. Aunt Fritzi was gorgeous, and I had fun with that.”

Illustrating mostly Sundays while another artist (Mark Lasky) drew the dailies, Al remembered the fellow using a lot of whiteout and having difficulty mastering the sweep and smoothness of the line.

“When I was writing Nancy, I came up with the gag first and worked backward. Ernie’d send a daily for an idea: ‘Can you make a Sunday out of that?’ I said, ‘Sure.’”

Ernie Bushmiller died on August 15, 1982. A young woman had just been put in charge of the syndicated strips at United Feature. By the next year, she decided to replace Alfred with

cartoonist Jerry Scott. Al recalled, “I was only in my sixties but they said they were going to go in a different direction and give the whole thing to a younger guy. It’s the only time I was sort of let go. There was a lot of writing. I said, ‘What the hell?

Are you going to write a book?’ I hated to see it. It was doing fine.

I didn’t mind being retired from Nancy, but didn’t agree with the way she was being drawn. The new artist only drew three-quarter shots of Nancy and Sluggo.

I can’t explain it. He gave her a broken jaw.”

Upper left: Linus by Plastino, not Schulz.

Above: from one assistant to the other, Nancy and Sluggo gifted by Alfred to Mort Walker’s longtime helper on Beetle Bailey, cartoonist Bill Janocha.

Stating it was the most difficult thing he ever had to draw, Plastino got Nancy’s chin just right in the Sunday panel below (August 5, 1984).

60 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Original art from a Nancy Sunday (dated March 6, 1983). Notice how Al snuck a drawing of the other strip he was doing simultaneously into the fourth panel.

Though Jerry Scott took over the dailies after Mark Lasky died prematurely in 1983, Alfred continued with the Sundays into 1984. Jerry left Nancy after 12 years. With longtime friend Rick Kirkman, Scott started Baby Blues for Creators Syndicate (later King Features) in 1990, followed by Zits (1997) in collaboration with Jim Borgman.

At one time, Bushmiller wrote comedy for early film comedian (who did his own daredevil stunts) Harold Lloyd.

In his final years, Ernie did not want anyone coming to his home. Al was only allowed to visit once because Bushmiller was very protective of his beautiful wife, Abby. While he didn’t originate Fritzi Ritz, Abby became his art inspira-

tion and the eventual model for Nancy’s aunt.

Alfred got to know Ernie well. The boss kept his assistant on the phone sometimes for hours, having Plastino change a panel and then calling to change it back, before calling again to repeat the whole process. The German mechanic’s need for precision continued until the end.

Pantomime

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rom Dahl Mikkelsen, Al Plastino learned how to wordlessly pace his art and “write pantomime” on the comic strip Ferd’nand.

Henning Dahl Mikkelsen created Ferd’nand in his home country of Denmark. It was first published in 1937. Being all pantomime, the strip

did not need interpreters and was soon picked up by other countries, including the United States, in 1947.

By then Mikkelsen was living in this country; he became a U.S. citizen in 1954. Needing Alfred’s assistance in 1970, Dahl flew to New York’s United Feature offices from his West Coast home to negotiate. It was the only time they met.

Similar to the reaction from Rae Van Buren 15 years earlier, Mikkelsen exclaimed, “That’s a lot of money!” when Plastino told him that he wanted $400 a week. Because Dahl owned the feature and was being paid much more than that, the two men came to an agreement.

Al began by doing touch-ups, eventually adding more and more finishes. In 1971, he

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 61

reached full-time status on Ferd’nand, which is why he ratcheted down on Batman from sole art duty to providing inks only over Nick Cardy’s pencils.

Batman had been a huge job in terms of its deadlines. With Ferd’nand, the artist had similar pressures. Alfred’s dad was getting older and traveled to Italy each summer for a month or more to visit overseas family.

Wanting his son’s company and offering to pay his expenses, it just wasn’t possible to take a real vacation. When the art was completed, Al mailed it directly to United Feature. He strived to never be late so the printers could not charge time-and-ahalf as a penalty.

Though lengthy retreats were out, Alfred rarely worked seven days a week. He took breaks most afternoons, going bird hunting or playing golf.

“But when I work,” he said, “I don’t fool around. I learned that from Jack [Sparling]. Jack would work fast.” At one time, Plastino tried to hire a couple of assistants to make life easier.

However, when the individuals seemed more interested in how much they were going to be paid than in actually working, Al scrapped the idea.

While drawing Batman in 1969, Alfred moved to Shirley, New York. He bought the house next door to his dad and looked after him. Working at home was a bit distracting until he paid $1,000 to have an unattached studio built in the backyard. And, the kids generally knew to leave him alone if he was out back. “I watched the guy build it; it’s still standing,” said Al. “I had to have air conditioning in the window.

It’s not too big, about 6 x 12 [feet]—like a prison cell—but

really comfy. A guy came one time to take a picture for an article about Ferd’nand. He had to step back out the door to snap it because it was so small. [laughs] My dog Poncho stayed with me in there. It had carpeting so I could take a nap on the floor.”

Like the two decades spent with Superman, his 19 years associated with Ferd’nand was another cornerstone to Al’s career: “It was a nice change; I wanted to do something different and couldn’t wait to start working on the strip because Mikkelsen was a true draftsman.” The two men corresponded by mail. “Sometimes [Dahl] would send me a favorite gag. One time he made a tape talking about all of the gags he had used on the strip.”

When the Danish cartoonist died from a heart attack

in 1982, Alfred assumed the entire feature’s requirements for the next seven years: “It was pantomime, it was cartoons, and it was great! [Also], it was the most difficult job I ever had, writing pantomime.”

Internal logic and the characters’ personalities were sacrificed for the good of the gag. Lead character Ferd’nand’s occupation changed randomly, as did his skill sets and hobbies. There were no recurring characters except a wife, son, and dog, who came and went, depending on their need. On most days Ferd’nand may as well have lived alone.

As it was with Nancy, Plastino said, “Once I got a gag, I worked backward and spread it out, especially the Sundays.” When injecting his own experiences, Al wrote and pantomimed strips that dealt

Ferd’nand was probably the most autobiographical newspaper strip the artist ever drew. For instance, Alfred wrote and illustrated gags related to his passions for art, hunting, and golf.

62 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

The Sunday Ferd’nand from Nov. 23, 1986 by Al. Below: his images of golf and leisure.

with hunting and fishing. A few showed the artist at his drawing board: “I made quite a few of them about golf and family. In one Sunday he hits the ball in every trap on the golf course. When he gets home he sets up a practice hole in the yard and hits the ball in his kid’s sandbox. My favorite gag—I laugh when

I think about it: Ferd’nand comes home with one of those wooden mermaid figureheads from a ship. His wife looks at it when he first puts it up on the wall. But it shows up everywhere. That night he goes to bed and the g*ddamn thing’s

in bed with him. Another one: he eats and leaves a tip (a quarter) for his wife at the table. I love all that stuff. Even when I was in the hospital for two weeks after gall bladder surgery, I was drawing hospital gags.”

The way the protagonist looked and dressed had an Old World feel. For instance, one of Ferd’nand’s most prominent features was his highdomed comical hat. His son wore an identical topping, as well. Again, Alfred could not escape the legacy of his father’s business. Perhaps it was those timeworn hats that awakened in him his European heritage and aptitude for the strip.

The artist noted: “It was like Mikkelsen was reborn. They couldn’t tell the difference.”

Dahl signed his work “Mik.” When Al became the finisher, he engraved “Al Mik” in the credits. After Mikkelsen died, he simply wrote “Plastino.”

To alleviate Monday morning desperation, Alfred

started thinking about jokes the Sunday night prior. Yet in the end, seeking a punch line seven days a week became a grind: “I’d say to Ann Marie, ‘I need help.’ She kept coming up with the same stupid gag over and over. I think it was about a duck. [laughs] When I’d say, ‘Honey, take a look,’ she’d say, ‘I think I’d say this here, or add this here.’ I’d say, ‘I can’t change it now.’ After a while, I stopped asking her. The kids would help me out once in a while, but not much. My kids would get scared because they’d hear me yelling from my studio, ‘God, give me an idea!’ It got to the point where it was ridiculous. Sometimes I’d repeat myself without even knowing it; the editors would call it to my attention. I had been doing [Ferd’nand] for too long. It was just time to finally get out of the business.”

In 1989, Danish artist Henrik Rehr took over the strip.

Continuing a Plastino tradition, he signed his work “Rehr Mik.” At 68 years of age, Alfred was officially retired: “But you know me; I’ve gotta keep busy.”

It was an opportunity to return to painting in oils and watercolors, rendering superhero commissions, and drawing comic book illustrations for charity donations.

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 63

References in addition to the artist’s personal account: Wiacek, Win. Now Read This! Graphic Novel Reviews and Recommendations.

“Casey Ruggles: The Marchioness of Grofnek.” Online website.

Goulart, Ron. The Funnies: 100 Years of American Comic Strips. Adams Media Corporation. Holbrook, MA, 1995.

Bails, Jerry, and Hames Ware.

Who’s Who of American Comic Books: 1928–1999. Online website.

Harris, Stephen Lamar. “Raeburn Van Buren.” Cartoonist PROfiles No. 78, June 1988.

“Obituaries: Raeburn Van Buren; Illustrator Drew Popular ‘Abbie an’ Slats.” Los Angeles Times (from Times Wire Services), December 31, 1987.

Anderson, Murphy, with R.C. Harvey.

The Life and Art of Murphy Anderson.

TwoMorrows Publishing. Raleigh, North Carolina, 2003.

Throne, G.T., producer and host/artist; Michele Chaussabel, director. Television interview with Alfred J. Plastino, likely for Public Access Channel on Cablevision, Long Island, NY, circa 2006.

Johnson, Rheta Grimsley. Good Grief: The Story of Charles M. Schulz. Pharos Books, A Scripps Howard Company. New York, 1989.

Inge, M. Thomas, editor. Charles M. Schulz: Conversations. “Schulz at 3 O’Clock in the Morning.” Schulz interviewed by Gary Groth. (Reprinted with permission from the Comics Journal No. 200, December 1997.) University Press of Mississippi.

Jackson, MS, 2000.

Michaelis, David. Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography. HarperCollins.

New York, 2007.

Kealy, Jim, and Eddy Zeno. “My Attitude Was, They’re Not Bosses, They’re Editors.” Alter Ego Vol. 3, No. 59, June 2006.

Cadigan, Glen, compiler and editor.

Legion Companion. TwoMorrows Publishing. Raleigh, North Carolina, 2003.

Harvey, R.C. “The Lawrence Welk of Cartoonists: Ernie, Nancy, and the Bushmiller Society.” The Comics Journal Archive (online website), Apr. 10, 2012.

Scott, Jerry. TheCartoonistStudio.com (Jerry Scott’s own website).

Obituaries. “Henning Mikkelsen.” The New York Times (AP), June 10, 1982.

Russell, Jennett Meriden. “A man of steel stays grounded: Shirley illustrator honored by peers for lifetime’s work.” The Press of Manorville and The Moriches (Arts & Living), November 21, 2008.

Three Ferd’nand dailies from Dec. 1988, very near the end of Plastino’s 45-year newspaper strip run.

64 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Special Projects

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

T

Photo detail of Al Plastino from a 34th Street Armory cartoonists’ demonstration (NYC, 1949).

Portrait of the young artist— oil painting by Raymond Perry done in the DC offices, circa late 1940s.

he first project discussed had Plastino as its subject but was produced by another artist. Raymond Perry (1876– 1960) was an old-time illustrator and colorist at DC Comics.

Working for the company since the early days, he was also known for producing oil or watercolor portraits of some of the staff and freelancers at the company. Alfred posed for him not long after he began illustrating Superman (circa late 1940s).

Ray gifted the young artist with the painting, consisting of full face and profile images placed

side by side. “Raymond won a prize with this painting,” said Al. “He also played the cello. To repay him for the painting, my father made a beautiful felt hat for him. The painting is big. It’s a life-size head, done in oils. Raymond did some side stories and coloring. I would sometimes just sit at his desk and watch him paint. He painted other people in the office, using really crisp brush strokes. He was a member of some well-known artist club [Perry belonged to both the Salmagundi Club and American Watercolor Society]. As great a painter as Raymond was, he had a harder time in comics. [Like]

Mac Raboy, he was a fantastic artist, but his figures were stiff.”

Flying Hero

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s an offshoot of his love for designing airplanes, Plastino devised a flying Superman toy in 1954—and the Kellogg cereal company showed inter-

est. Though he was told to use one kind of paper, it required two different thicknesses to adequately stay aloft. Shot into the air with a rubber band, the cape unfurled from Superman’s back, and it spun down like a helicopter. The original remains in a postmarked, wax-sealed envelope Alfred mailed to himself to retain copyright. In spite of his foresight, the following year a flying Superman was available from Kellogg’s as a ten-cent mail-in premium (plus one boxtop). Theirs was plastic, though the cape/wings were an extremely thin and fragile type. They took Alfred’s basic idea and he got nothing for it.

The artist called it a hard lesson learned. (Incidentally, the Transogram toy company in 1954 offered a flying Superman made of hollow, lightweight plastic that looked quite different than the Plastino/Kellogg’s figure.)

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 65

Pulp Covers

“A

rrow Publications was [located] right there next to DC,” Al recalled. “I did around four pulp covers, love story covers.” When Plastino met his future wife at a diner in 1956 and asked her to model for him, Ann Marie said she’d have to ask her mother (see Chapter 7). With mom’s permission, she became the young woman being kissed by a lieutenant on a Leading Love pulp magazine cover. Al modeled the officer after himself: wish fulfillment that helped lead to their falling in love and marrying the following year.

Perhaps those special circumstances are what led artist Alfred to try something daring commercially: “Pulp magazines had to exaggerate their colors because the printing was cheaply done. Everything had to be vivid, so the originals looked off. The regular covers were done in oil. They had to be big and gaudy. The covers were all done on speculation, with no direction given. If they liked it, they bought it.” Composing his “lieutenant kissing the beautiful girl” scene, the artist thought the beauty of it demanded something softer—an out-of-the box solution. Thus, “I did the only pulp cover done in watercolors that was ever used.”

Topps Gum Cards

P

lastino got his friend and longtime Tarzan artist John Celardo a job at Topps illustrating Land of the Giants but John didn’t return the favor when Al needed help finding work later: “I hated asking anybody to help me anyway. I found my own jobs.

One of them was Doctor Dolittle.

I used color photos from the movie for reference. Rex Harrison was the star. Each card was

Above: Leading Love pulp magazine cover, June issue (circa 1949 or 1950), oils by Al. Left: Alfred’s “lieutenant kissing the beautiful girl… the only pulp cover done in watercolors that was ever used.” The models were he and future wife Ann Marie Perkins. A couple of years later the by-then Mrs. Plastino would be his model for Supergirl too.

66 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Upper right: Well-known pulp and trading card illustrator Norman Saunders’ painted box art for Superman in the Jungle. The actual gum cards were penciled by Al and embellished by Norman (though Plastino remembered doing some inking himself).

3 x 4 inches. They wanted them drawn actual size to save money.

I used my Winsor & Newton #3 brush and didn’t need glasses until after that job. I did them all on one sheet and thought, ‘What the hell is this?’ when I kept backing up from the paper.” (The original Doctor Dolittle film was a musical released in 1967.)

The other set Al drew for Topps was called Superman in the Jungle. The cards were printed as a test set and did not sell well enough for wide release in the U.S. Instead, the artwork was licensed to the A & BC Company and printed in England.

Prolific pulp and non-sports card painter Norman Saunders remembered being paid $100 to ink Plastino’s 66 penciled scenes for the Superman in the Jungle card set. Thinking it would be no more than a day’s effort, Saunders lamented that it took him eight times as long: “Inking comics is a lot harder than it looks.” But though the color scheme is clearly Norman’s, the inks, at least on some Superman figures, could be identified as Alfred’s own. It’s possible Plastino inked the Man of Steel’s visage on certain cards, while Saunders did the backgrounds and other characters. The artwork was rendered circa 1966.

One last comment about Saunders’ inking: it brought newfound sophistication to Alfred’s illustrations. For a guy who penciled very loosely so others could not embellish his work, Plastino must have broken his rule and used clear delineation for his Superman in the

Jungle inker. In turn, Al learned from Norman and took his own brushwork to another level on the soon-to-come Batman newspaper strip assignment.

Pop-Up Book

T

he artist reminisced: “I was half-way through a pop-up book with Nancy and Sluggo. I figured out three of the mechanics but started smoking more (in those days I smoked) and was losing sleep; I wasn’t interested.

They paid me $4,000. I said, ‘Give me half and I’ll give you all the work I’ve done.’ One thing about me, I know my limits.”

Alfred added that the people he was dealing with were very understanding when he said it was making him a nervous wreck to do such a complicated thing in the time allotted. He did, indeed, give back $2,000 and turned over what he determined would happen when the tabs were pulled. Nancy and Sluggo: A Pop-Up Book is copyright 1981

by United Feature Syndicate.

Since Al remembered working with Ernie Bushmiller at the time he was asked to produce the book, it indicates he was illustrating Nancy for the funny papers sooner than previously thought.

While a woman representing

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 67

68 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

the publisher said, “Wow. You’ve done a lot,” Alfred was not listed for his preliminary work. Credits were divided between George Wildman (a longtime Popeye comic book artist) as illustrator and Ib Penick for mechanics.

(Incidentally, Penick also did the paper engineering for Superman: A Pop-Up Book, copyright 1979 by DC Comics Inc. with art by Curt Swan, Bob Oksner, and Jerry Serpe. Random House was the publisher of both the Nancy and Sluggo and Superman pop-ups.)

Hobart Painting

J

ohn Sloss Hobart was a Federalist and an “unsung revolutionary hero.” He was elected as a Senator from New York in 1798 but resigned the same year to become a United States federal judge. An elementary school in Shirley, New York, is named after him. Local resident Alfred J. Plastino painted Hobart’s portrait in oils. He do-

nated the painting to the school and spoke at its dedication in 1981. In a thank-you letter from the William Floyd School District, the President of the Board of Education at that time wrote: “To my knowledge it is the only original portrait and picture of same and is now a matter of record in the United States Library of Congress. While the estimate of value is presently assessed at three thousand dollars ($3,000), I am confident that, in time, its value will increase immeasurably. Thank you again for your contribution.”

On December 21, 2012, Al affirmed that the painting “still sits right in the lobby as you walk into the school. It’s the first portrait of Hobart. There’s a woodcut but you can barely see the outline. An expert on Hobart said, ‘That’s him!’ when she saw my painting. How would she know? [laughs] I purposefully did it in the style of 18th century painter [Gilbert] Stuart.”

References in addition to the artist’s personal account: Obituary. “Raymond Perry Dead: Art Editor of Comic Books, Designed Church Windows.” The New York Times, November 16, 1960.

Cadigan, Glen, compiler and editor.

Legion Companion. TwoMorrows Publishing. Raleigh, North Carolina, 2003.

Kealy, Jim, and Eddy Zeno. “My Attitude Was, They’re Not Bosses, They’re Editors.” Alter Ego Vol. 3, No. 59, June 2006.

Obituaries. “John Celardo, 93.” silive. com (Staten Island Advance), January 7, 2012.

Saunders, David. Norman Saunders.

The Illustrated Press, Inc., St. Louis, Missouri, 2009.

Rech, Rita, President, Board of Education, William Floyd School District.

Thank-you letter to Mr. Alfred Plastino.

January 21, 1982.

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 69

When John S. Hobart Elementary School opened in Alfred’s community, he made sure they had a proper portrait of its namesake hero.

70 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

The Artist’s Super Power

The Great Mimic

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Artist note: “Al Plastino self-portrait age 55, oil painting.”

Could there be a better thug? From Superman No. 79 (Nov./Dec. 1952).

lastino the teenager copied the Old Masters; his goal was to reproduce their paintings exactly. As a young comic book artist, many of Al’s freelance inking jobs are nigh impossible to identify; he may have only embellished backgrounds on some of his early work. Learning to blend with others paid later dividends.

In addition to the signature art style with which he would soon be known, Alfred became a great mimic. Intentionally in some cases, subconsciously at other times, he took on the formal traits of fine artists, followed by comic book and newspaper strip creators whose duties he assumed.

For instance, a bad guy appeared in a Superman tale (“The End of the Planet!”

Superman No. 79, November/ December 1952) who was startlingly different. The thug had blurry features and cauliflower ears—as though his good looks had been beaten out of him.

While the illustrator he was channeling remains unknown, Alfred was experimenting at DC Comics at least three years

before he started drawing women like Raeburn Van Buren did in Abbie an’ Slats. “I always took on something new to learn from those guys,” Al said.

“Seeing their pencils, I’d get a little of their ability and soak it in.” In an article titled “Coming Back as a Straightman,” Marjorie Kaufman wrote: “It was soon obvious that Plastino was able to reproduce exactly, nearly every style.” He soaked it all up, whether by scrutinizing others directly or by poring over their canvases, panels, and covers.

Plastino’s observational skills extended beyond painting and illustrating. He would scrutinize a golfer or baseball batter and then duplicate their movements so well that his swing improved almost immediately.

That’s how Al became a scratch golfer who won the National Cartoonists Society tournament 16 years straight.

Alfred was open to what he saw and confident in his interpretation. He and Otto Binder shared, in addition to their many fine story credits at DC, a belief in the existence of UFOs. About them, Binder once wrote: “A remarkable number of sightings are over bodies of water—lakes, reservoirs, rivers, and such.” Plastino’s personal encounter was in a boat on a lake years ago, sharing the excursion with a fellow artist. The sky was fading to a multi-colored sunset when two brightly lit, cigar-shaped objects ap-

peared overhead. They hovered until one suddenly flitted away without a sound. It returned just as quickly a couple minutes later. Al’s conclusion: “I built models and studied airplanes all of my life. These weren’t like anything we have. I got so disgusted with the other guy because he said it must be a reflection or something. He refused to believe it. It’s crazy to think we’re by ourselves with all that is out there in space.”

A calling that, somehow, Alfred missed, was as a sound effects technician—he would have had a ton of work during the Golden Age of radio.

And he could have done all of the tweets and noises without props. During an August 2012 phone call, he imitated the sound of a train crossing a clackety bridge. Recalling how he once clung to dear life under said bridge as a locomotive bore down, he mimicked the deep rumbling it made passing overhead. Next he was the voice of an angry tomcat perched on a fire escape. He later made the forlorn sound of blowing across a shotgun barrel in winter’s dark. Though he is Catholic, it could have just as easily been the sound of a rabbi or cantor masterfully blowing a shofar (ram’s horn) on the High Holy Days.

In January 2013 he was a kid again, one who didn’t like rides but was once trying to impress a girl. “Ch, ch, ch, ch…ch… roooaaaAAARRR!” was how

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 71

Alfred described the steady climb and inevitable plummet on the Cyclone roller coaster at Coney Island. The Cyclone is now past 85 years old, but it was only nine when Al last rode its tracks.

In addition to his mastery of inanimate sounds, Al could have mimicked enough voices to cast an entire radio program—ranging from the smoke-ravaged rasp of an aged newspaper strip cartoonist to the staccato sobs of his best boyhood friend, Milo. And of course, there’s his repertoire of various dialects.

References in addition to the artist’s personal account: Kealy, Jim, and Eddy Zeno. “My Attitude Was, They’re Not Bosses, They’re Editors.” Alter Ego Vol. 3, No. 59, June 2006.

Schelly, Bill. Words of Wonder: The Life and Times of Otto Binder. Hamster Press, Seattle, Washington, 2003.

Left: learning from a master. Vincent Van Gogh self-portrait, oil painting recreation by Al (1957).

Bottom left and right: Plastino Pope next to Madonna and Child. The latter became the family Christmas card one year. (Ink rendering shared by Mrs. P).

72 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Paint over the Pump— Draw Around the Balloons Art Lesson No. 1: A Professional’s Formula

A

Looking a bit like fellow School of Industrial Art alumnus Tony Bennett, Alfred captioned of his photo, “Age, I think about 68—.”

“I did a watercolor of an old water pump in the back of the manor.”

lfred gave an art lesson by phone on November 18, 2010. He began with musical composition: “It’s not just the notes. That’s only one of three things that are important.” Singing part of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony: “Duh-duh-de-duh, duh-duh-de-duh”, he added, “The tone and the cadence are the other ingredients that make

great music.” Asked if he had composed songs, Al replied, “Not really,” but he espoused that he can identify good music based on this formula.

Actors practice their technique in front of a mirror. They decide how to emote while learning their lines. Similarly, “Artists make faces to their reflections” as they learn to craft expression.

Plastino can look at a draw-

ing and tell immediately if it has been copied from a photograph: “Folds look crazy.” An artist learns to simplify and takes out the folds in clothing that look wild. The same with an ear: “The way shadows play upon an ear can make it look crazy, too.

“Go from light to dark as the layers of a watercolor are placed. Go from dark to light in an oil painting. Black is never an end to itself in portraying shadow. It is in addition to reds and browns. Sepia is the underpinning to many an oil painting.

“In Shirley [New York] they call big houses manors. Tony Bennett and the owner of one were first cousins. The singer used to entertain there. I did a watercolor of an old water pump in the back of the manor.

How the hell can you work around the pump? First I had to paint the pump with a certain paint that acts like rubber cement. Then I put in the background. It’s the only way the background would look right — to paint over the pump like it’s not even there. When you’d rub off the rubber cement, it leaves a white area to be painted back in. The tip came from an art magazine. A plumber looked at it and told me the pump was broken on top. I purposely like it that way, even if it wouldn’t work. The left background is cattails. I added the pail because it needed something. The white flecks were to break it up.”

Alfred mused about amateurs having no set path while

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 73

Like this watercolor, Al loved painting landscapes near his Long Island home.

trying to stumble their way into a masterpiece. Professionals don’t depend on luck; they know how to plug things into a blueprint. Even fine art is created by using a recipe, though commercial art is simpler to do because it fits the template more easily. That is why, when drawing and writing newspaper strips, Plastino always starts with the punch line and works backward: “Even life is a formula.”

On January 11, 2013, he noted: “It was slow around here this week so I was adding watercolors to a previous black-andwhite drawing of Superman saving Lois from a tornado. It looks pretty good. Also, my wife has an encyclopedia with a beautiful half-finished portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart.

I was recreating the painting.

Like all of the old masters, every color in the figure is also in the background. The eyes are blue and there’s a lot of gray blue in the wig. The background is a greenish brown and the way he scrubbed it in — all of that stuff is in the face. I can’t reproduce it

exactly but I came pretty close.

I don’t know but I can imagine the way Stuart worked. He painted very loose, then he goes back and picks up the detail.

These guys today stink. They’re doing painted photographs. The older painters weren’t influenced by photos. That’s why they’re great! I wish I’d studied this painting back when I was working on the Hobart.”

In spite of Alfred’s passion for painting, he might love more what lies beneath. On January 15, 2013, he admitted: “The Stuart painting? I also did a pencil of George Washington I like even better — I’d much rather have a Michelangelo pencil drawing than one of his paintings. It’s the first thought that an artist has — the first thing his hand touched. When he chiseled his statues, it’s that first impression. The rough!

That’s why guys would rather have my pencil drawings when I go to comic cons. They see a sketch: ‘Can I buy that?’

“There was an artist named Alan Price who painted scenes for Wedgewood China [collec-

tor plates]. He always worked on treated board, never canvas, because he needed a smoother surface. He sized his own boards and covered them with several coats of plaster mixed with adhesive. Each coat he would sandpaper to get it just right. Alan would take about three days to pencil. He’d project the drawing on the easel and trace every detail. I met him when he came to this country.

One of his paintings was just roughed in. I said, ‘Stop! Don’t touch it!’ I didn’t like things that glistened like a photograph.

Even though he got $7,000 or more for a painting, I was trying to get him not to do the finished, polished work. But he said, ‘No, it’s got to be finished.’

I miss Alan; we could really discuss art.”

On January 30, 2013, a new stair step of diminished nearvision was reached earlier in the day when he’d been unable to masterfully ink a Superman in the Jungle trading card-art sized reproduction. “I can’t see as well,” Al wistfully noted.

His next two sentences mixed

74 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Artist using colored pencil (at approximately 86 years of age). Commission piece also done with pen, ink, dyes, and acrylics; see next page for result.

acceptance, adaptation, and hope: “But I’m still working on an oil painting of George Washington. And I can still pencil.”

Art Lesson No. 2: Working for DC Comics

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It was Alfred who put fifth-dimensional imp Mr. Mxyzptlk into new fairyland togs in the 1950s, making him appear more mischievous.

hough Alfred preferred illustrating during the day, deadlines sometimes intruded on his evenings: “When I worked, I always liked quiet...

[Trailing to a whisper] Quiet… music used to kill me. I love classical music, but it would put me in a different mood. So I used to listen to Barry Gray late at night. [Barry Gray was a pioneer of the talk radio format and, according to former DC editor Julius Schwartz, the inspiration for the first name of the Flash’s secret identity—Barry Allen.] He was very popular.

I loved that show and there was another talk show guy. They’d be talking from 12:00 until 3:00 in the morning. I was concentrating but, when somebody was talking, I was able to do several things.”

Regarding comic book art: “I might lay out the story in the office, then bring it home to finish it up. I did the pencils pretty loose and would do the

finished work with a Winsor & Newton Series 7, No. 3 brush because it comes to a fine point.

I had excellent eyes back then and never used a pen. With the No. 3 brush, I did everything on the page with India ink. There would be a paper next to me that I used to work the brush into a fine point. To make a straight line, I laid the brush at an angle and ran it along the edge of a ruler. Later on with Nancy and Sluggo, I started using a fountain pen.”

If Alfred was drawing the sun, moon, or any sphere, he usually first penciled the circle with a compass. Oldest brother Angelo had a beautiful German drafting set that Al used frequently. If Al chose to ink directly, he maneuvered his brush around a plate or some other pre-sized circular object at a slant.

After roughly laying out all of a story’s pages, Al would travel into the city to drop off the layouts with the letterer.

The lettering was then either completed that day or it was simply indicated where the word balloons would go—especially useful with text-heavy copy. Shuttling back and forth to drop off and pick up art was okay at first. That’s because Alfred still rented the studio on 43rd Street and DC Comics was nearby (on 47th).

“I worked the drawing in around the balloons,” Al said.

“If you did it the other way, the balloons would cut into the drawing and it was too late.”

Plastino would put something on every page to get a feel for the story; he had many pages going at the same time: “I often inked Superman before the other characters to make him dominant on the page. Then I’d go back and work on the

secondary characters. [In 1953] I didn’t like the way Mr. Mxyzptlk looked—didn’t like the way Wayne Boring was drawing him. So I redesigned him and the company went along with it.” It was Alfred who took the mischievous imp out of his spats and bow tie and put him into fairyland togs, complete with skirt, tights, and boots (beginning in Superman No. 82, May–June 1953).

Al wasn’t one to waste time: “I didn’t get to know many artists at DC or see them work.

I went in the corner of the art room, did the work that was needed, and got back to the studio. I had too many things in the fire and was busy with family life, too. Kids were coming out like chickens! Other people talked about a movie they saw—a book they read. Those guys were salaried and getting paid where they didn’t have to worry about it. I didn’t want to hear that crap.

As a freelancer, I needed to get going. Although I wasn’t making a killing in art, we were comfortable because things weren’t as expensive as today.

“I did get friendly with Win Mortimer, a real nice guy. We went hunting together a few times. I liked how he drew—a clean artist.”

When he was given a script, Plastino also received the amount of art boards necessary to do the story. These pages were scored with non-reproducible blue lines to be used for lettering. “I worked on the back of the paper,” Al said. “The front had blue lines to help the letterer but they had a little grease on them that affected the inking.

The letterers got mad at me for doing this because they had to draw the lines in by hand. On the reverse side I put powder on before inking because a lot of

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 75

people handled the pages; there was also grease on the hands.

Then I rubbed down the entire page with a piece of cotton. That way, the ink would take better.”

Al feathered with a brush when a soft effect was desired, as with watercolors: “You’re trying to wipe out most of the ink by flattening out the hairs of the brush. Rub it over an area.

You can feather with a pen, too.

[But] everything needed to be sharp and crisp in comics—this is not where I feathered. ” Plastino was asked if the cover for a DC comic book was prepared before the story, or whether the story was completed prior to creating the cover: “No one ever gave me a cover to do first. They were done after finishing the inside art. I’d pick out a scene or something and make a concept cover sketch in Mort’s office or in the art room.

He would okay it. Then I’d go home and draw it. Mort didn’t give me too much hassle with the art. He never said to change an angle or something, but he might say to play up a character more.” Alfred’s last covers at DC were drawn in September 1957.

It was likely after that when Weisinger began soliciting cover images before the matching interior story was written.

Discussing the fact that artist Vince Colletta (who embellished Jack Kirby’s pencils) sometimes erased entire characters from panels, Plastino said, “Sure. He had lots of tricks.

Everyone had tricks. The script might call for many things to happen, which sounds nice but is too complex to draw. I might simplify things and just draw the main points in a panel.

Mort would sometimes tell me they had a rush job. He’d say, ‘We need something quick.’ I’d tell him to calm down and to

tell me when they needed it by.

Those deadlines didn’t bother me.

“Once in a while the editors wanted a panel changed. I told them I wasn’t going to change any panels. ‘They’re fine. This is what you wanted and this is what you got.’ If you didn’t hold your ground like this, they would have eaten you alive…. Sometimes I might cut down the dialogue to make a better picture.” Did the writers mind their scripts being changed? Al responded, “The writers were treated like dirt.

Mort was the boss. He could change anything.”

Alfred never talked to the

story guys. He simply did what was given to him, even if he thought it was silly. “I was too keyed up on doing the work and getting it done.”

The only exception was when he told editor Weisinger that he thought putting capes on the super-powered animals (Krypto, Streaky, and Comet, to name three) was stupid. “But Mort knew what he was doing because he brought back sales on the Superman titles and made them popular again. He had talent, that bastard.”

Referenced from the artist’s personal account.

Culmination of the work in progress (see photo, previous page): Al’s cover recreation of Action Comics No. 146 (July 1950). Image courtesy of collector Dan Makara, who wrote, “I think I chose the Action 146 cover because it was a great shot of Superman in action and the great expressions of the three being rescued. It’s my favorite period of Al’s work; the cover says 1950 all over it.”

76 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Legacy

Pro-Speak

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Al Plastino—photo from the same session as page 74.

lastino’s longevity precludes many of his peers from writing or speaking about him because they are no longer with us: however, we are lucky enough to have a handful of them. In addition, a few comic book successors share their impressions of his legacy.

Nick Cardy (1920-2013)

F

Fabulous Nick Cardy art. Cover detail, Aquaman No. 37 (Jan.-Feb. 1968).

ollowing are extended comments from an interview cited earlier in the book. The conversation took place by phone on February 1, 2010, between Mr. Cardy and Mel Higgins and was transcribed by Eddy Zeno.

Mel Higgins: I know what he’s like now but what was

Al like then? What was he like in high school?

Nick Cardy: The School of Industrial Art was in an old, old building, between 8th and 9th Avenue right near Times Square on 40th Street, an antique. I don’t think they had too much money. They had narrow stairways that two alongside each other could barely get by. Four or five classrooms would be together. Each class had sliding doors. At each section of the sliding doors was a room. So when you wanted to combine them into an auditorium, you just opened a door.

We were a bunch of rowdy… well, not rowdy, but the way kids were in those days. A lot of the guys were from the East Side. They were just rough kids who liked to play. If you played hooky, you could go to the Paramount Theater. [laughs] In the class, the teacher had us start drawing and stuff like that.

I don’t know how it came about but the school wanted us to do a mural. If we did a project, Al was one of the fellows in the project. I don’t think we ever finished it. Even so, they had a big medal and I won the award when I was graduating.

In about the ’30s, around 1933 because I was born in 1920 and must have been about 13—in the springtime men started wearing straw hats. On opposite sides of a block they had lampposts. They’d get a group of about three or four boys who took a clothesline

and ran it from one side of the street to the other. They hooked it up near the light and the man would walk down the street.

Someone would snatch his hat off his head and run off. The guy would chase him; he’d give it to another fellow, and another, and another. In the long run, you saw a big batch of hats hanging on these lines. [laughter] I think Al’s parents lived uptown in the Bronx. I met his father once when I went with him. His mother died when he was very young, so his father had a woman living there who was a foster mother. She was very heavy. She never spoke to anyone. She just did her job. I lived on Third Street between Avenue A and 1st Avenue. We did a lot of walking. We walked way down to the end of the Bowery where they had the fisherman’s wharf. Years later, when Al got a car, with one or two of his friends, we would drive up near Woodstock or somewhere up there. There was a farm that we went by. The guy gave permission for them to do shooting. I never did that; I just did a watercolor or something.

Al was very conservative.

He wasn’t playful. Things that I remember were that some guys would always joke around.

I don’t remember Al joking around. I may be wrong because this goes back to the way I feel, but I think he had this disposition that wasn’t explosive at all, like with some kids that try to play games, are confrontational,

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 77

and try to push you around. He just did his job. With me, Al’s always been very good, very kind. I liked him. But sometimes the way he does things isn’t my way.

Mel: Did you like the teachers that you and Al had in high school?

Nick: The teachers were good. I had [one] that was close to five feet tall, narrow in build, and his name was Mayotte.

He was a professional puppeteer. We put on theater puppet shows. He’d take some students from the class. Some girls would design clothes. I modeled the heads in clay and then I had them made in pressed wood.

They would put a T-screw—you know, the one with the holes— and you’d put it at the bottom of the plastic wood; it would attach to the head. And they had eyelets over each ear; from up above, they would use these airplanes to manipulate the things. [Mayotte] could make the head turn to the side, to the left, or whatever. He was also good in composition.

Mel: When Plastino was young, he was very sickly and spent a lot of time in bed. That’s when he really started to draw.

Nick: Another thing that Al and I did, now that I think about it, we used to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Al did a painting of a woman sitting by the beach; it’s a copy of a Renoir. But he made it smaller because in those days, whenever you made a copy of a painting, you never did it the same size as the painting. I used to go in there and I used to look at a lot of the other artists. But I never put up an easel. I would go in there and, say, there’s a William Turner painting—I like his stuff. To me he was the precursor of the Impressionists.

His watercolors or his oil paintings are very loose. I would look at the painting and where the painting was the weakest, where sometimes they don’t paint up to the edge of the paper, I would look underneath the layers of the paint. I’d get about 3 inches away… I didn’t have any eyesight. But I was looking to

see what the first color of paint was, the undercoat, and what was the pencil. And in the weak spots you could see that. And I did some of that in the paintings, only my way. I would do it with acrylics and then put oil or glazes over that. I don’t know if Al does any of that. He does mainly watercolors.

Will Eisner had a studio.

He interviewed me and then he broke me in with [Jerry] Iger. While I was doing Lady Luck [one of the tabloid-sized features that often appeared along with Eisner’s The Spirit in newspapers], Plastino, I believe, was working with Chesler.

I did go up to Chesler’s and remember a stack of tables. Al wasn’t my only friend; I remember seeing George Tuska [who also drew for Eisner and Iger]. I stayed and talked to a lot of the guys working there. The thing about artwork: people knew of me. I didn’t know who the hell they were. Because everybody lived so far away, I’d see them once in a blue moon. There was a nice guy, a macho guy, who

Revisiting his buddies from the Legion of Super-Heroes: pencil drawing by Al at the age of 91.

78 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

The Silver Age Flash, penciled by Carmine Infantino and inked by Joe Giella.

recommended a few Sigmund Freud books to me. At that time there was a big rage about dream interpretation.

After the war, Al had gotten into a studio: Plastino, Jack Sparling, and another guy who was doing daily strips.

He wasn’t in the service. A lot of the fellows came out of the service and some had very plush jobs. When I got out of the service I was going to make samples for illustration.

While I was doing that, in the meanwhile I had to make some money. I started doing magazine covers, mainly for crossword puzzles. I did it mostly to experiment with my color to see how it worked. Then I did other jobs in advertising. Al sort of faded away. I don’t mean faded away—he went his way—I went my way. I was busy and in ’47 I got married. I don’t know what year he got married. But we never socialized; I never met his wife.

The guys that played golf always met on the golf course.

There used to be Bob Lubbers and another guy, John Celardo.

We were good friends but I would call them all the time.

They were nice to talk to but they would never call me back. I figured one time I’m not gonna call and let’s see what happens.

They never called and so I said forget it. They were so involved and Al was also very involved with his golf. And I think that the publicity of being with the celebrities like the Fred Waring Band… you know, some artists are also good politicians.

Anything for publicity. It’s later on that I found that you have to push yourself. I wish I had one-tenth of the pushing or advertising—the arrogance to say how great I am. Like Steranko,

or Neal Adams, or guys these days. But Steranko likes me.

Then later on I met Al at DC in the ’50s. In the ’50s Al was [also] working for United Feature. He must have recommended me because he went up there a lot. So I did the Tarzan thing. [Burne Hogarth] did the writing and I did the drawing. It went on for about a year. Then I worked on another strip [Casey Ruggles].

Mel: What did you think of Al’s work on the comics?

Nick: With Al, when he did Superman, he did a job that was fit for the time. He was in the same mold… you’re familiar with Curt Swan. There’s Curt Swan and all the other artists that did Superman. Wayne Boring was the same way. Al fell into that style of drawing. It was almost like a cross between Eisner and Swan.

DC had a way with their modeling. Everyone had to draw like Curt, who was very popular. You could always tell if it was by Curt because, below the knees, the legs are bowlegged. And they have big chests, very tiny legs. Even the girls are bowlegged. When I used to shake hands with Curt Swan, that guy had a grip! He used to play golf, too. He looked solidly built, as compared to Al. Al is very thin. I don’t know if Al ever played any other sports.

Mort Weisinger was the big wheel, and he was the type of guy that—did you ever see Alice in Wonderland with the White Rabbit that went “Hello, hello, good bye, good bye”? He was always so busy. [laughs] I never dealt with him because he didn’t ask; he didn’t have my characters.

Later, Al and his family had moved to Long Island. It was about the same time as the Beatles, and everything changed.

It was like a juvenile revolution

with the music. The hat business wasn’t doing too well for Al’s father and they moved from the Bronx. I was always a freelancer and would rarely see Al at the DC offices; you’d sometimes go a year or two without running into these guys… till working on the Batman strip.

I love drawing characters.

Say there’s a certain movie actor that… who’s this guy [Lee J.] Cobb that was a character actor? I remember his face. He had a slightly hooked nose, a big lantern jaw. I didn’t take it from a photograph. I tried to remember his character and did him in one or two of the Batman stories because he was Commissioner of Police or something.

If you talk to Al, say hi for me.

Postscript (1): Al Plastino and Nick Cardy were reunited after a 15-to-20-year lapse at the 2013 Florida Supercon, held in Miami from July 4-7.

Allen Bellman, Alfred, and Nick Cardy did a “Golden Age of Comics” panel on July 6. Al’s thoughts: “Between Nick and this guy [Bellman], they never got to the point. For Chrissake, answer the question. [laughter] “[Allen] was sitting on my left. He worked on Captain America. I asked him how you draw a shield? He looked at me.

I said again, ‘How do you draw a shield?’ He didn’t have an answer. [Bellman remembers doing backgrounds for artist Syd Shores, who assumed the Captain America duties after Joe Simon and Jack Kirby left Timely Comics.] I drew a shield; it’s tough to draw a shield from different perspectives.

“Nick said he got $5,200 for a cover at DC. I went to work for them long before he did and got maybe $150 for a cover. I love him but I’m the kind of guy… if

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 79

someone’s b.s.’ing, I can’t stand it.

“They had me [on a panel] for two hours the first day. I danced and sang regular songs.

Then I started singing opera: ‘One Enchanted Evening.’ There were at least 600 people and I got rolling. I brought the house down. The next day, they got me back again. A little girl came up and I did the Lindy [Hop] with her. We had a party the night before we left.”

Postscript (2): When Plastino learned that Nick Cardy passed away on November 3, 2013, he lamented: “We did watercolors together—now we can never do that again.”

(They finally met in 2013.) It wasn’t widely known until recent years that Allen Bellman and Al Plastino art-assisted on Captain America and other Golden Age Timely/Marvel heroes.

Bellman graciously asked to pencil this memorial to Al when he learned about the book.

Allen Bellman

A

ward-winning photographer Allen Bellman began his professional career by joining Timely/Marvel Comics in 1942.

Plastino was three years older; consequently, it’s possible that Bellman’s stint assisting on Captain America, Sub-Mariner and their superhero brethren began soon after Alfred’s assignments ended at that company. The following interview was conducted by phone on March 6, 2014.

Eddy Zeno: Plastino also attended the High School of Industrial Art. What year did you graduate?

Allen Bellman: You’re the first person who’s asked that. I didn’t graduate; I played hooky; I was 18 and wanted to get into comic books.

Eddy: Did you ever meet Al before the 2013 Florida Supercon? After all, you both worked on Captain America and SubMariner, and a few other heroes at Marvel.

Allen: Everybody did a little bit of everything but that was the first time, and he was very impressive. His name, of course, was always around.

Eddy: Al told me he asked you how you drew Captain America’s shield. Do you remember that conversation?

Allen: No. [However], it took me awhile to draw the shield.

If I did it face on, you had to use a template, which took a lot of time. So every time I had to draw the shield, I did it in twothirds view.

Eddy: I saw the YouTube video of the Golden Age panel that featured you and Plastino (without Nick Cardy). Please explain your “friendly feud” with Al, as you described it.

Allen: He was standing up and dancing, and at first I got a little annoyed. Then he took

my wife’s expensive jacket and crumpled it up. I don’t hold bitterness and anger. The man was in his 90s and I’m age 89.

We began friendly jabbing and I started to have a ball.

Eddy: Besides the panel featuring only yourself and Al, wasn’t there another one the next day with the two of you, along with Nick Cardy?

Allen: They brought us back, and it was so great to be with both of them together. They were not cartoonists, they were artists!

Eddy: What was your impression of Nick?

Allen: He is real quiet. [But] Nick Cardy is a real gentleman.

80 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Bogdanove’s Man of Steel.

I’m just a gentleman.

Eddy: I understand you were looking forward to Al returning to the Florida Supercon this year?

Allen: To meet a person one time and miss him has to say something. He was a beautiful human being. What else can a guy ask for?

I’ll tell you another thing: Al Plastino gave his friend Tom Ward a message to tell me. Al apologized for his behavior to me. It meant so much that he thought of me. It was a man-toman thing—from a man’s man!

Carmine Infantino (1925-2013)

O

Right: Superman by Ordway.

n April 17, 2010, Alfred’s old friend and former boss Carmine Infantino stated, “I think Al Plastino was one of the best. I don’t think he ever got his due. He was able to imitate anybody, sometimes better than they did themselves. I’m a big fan of Al Plastino. Al’s a terrific guy!”

Postscript (1): More than once, Plastino laughed while recalling how he found his friends Nick Cardy and Carmine Infantino at a bar: “It was at the Yardarm on the Island, a famous place and they were visiting for a week.” The artists

were lamenting the fact that there was no action to be found.

“Two grown men—like they’re sitting on the moon.” Al left the table, only to return a few minutes later escorting a bevy of beautiful women for the unlucky duo. He then promptly left the scene with other friends with whom he came.

Postscript (2): Alfred chuckled again while speaking of the time he sat next to Carmine at the 2009 New York Comic-Con. Invited guests had found a way to make some extra cash, that is, until Plastino threatened to jeopardize a good thing.

Infantino leaned over to his friend and said, “Al, quit signing autographs for free; you’re making us all look bad.”

Jon Bogdanove

L

ike Jerry Ordway, some 20 years after Plastino, Jon Bogdanove also became one of the main artists on the Man of Steel.

On December 11, 2010, December

30, 2012, and January 1, 2013, he wrote about his predecessor.

Al did a lot of stuff besides Superman. He is one of the most underappreciated greats, perhaps because he was too good at imitating whatever style he was called upon to draw.

His skills as a style-chameleon could never disguise the heart he put into his characters, though. Isn’t it odd that a guy who was so adept at mimicking different art styles with so much soul—whose ability to draw was so flexible, so plastic—that his name is coincidentally, ‘Plastino’?

As you know, he is my favorite Superman artist after Joe Shuster himself, and the very best of the Silver Age guys.

I admired Curt’s work too, and Wayne Boring’s, but the way Al drew the characters—especially his Superman—seemed to have more heart—and more balls.

I was five in 1963 when that story [“Superman’s Mission

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 81

From the hand of Giella—and an article showcasing the Bat-talents of both him and Plastino—Long Island residents and “two local artists drawn to the Caped Crusader.”

for President Kennedy!”] was drawn. I didn’t actually see it until it was reprinted tabloidsize in The Amazing World of Superman, Metropolis, IL promo—but it was inspiring, even then. His likenesses of JFK were spot on, and the whole job really captured that sense of Camelot-era optimism. As a kid, I could easily imagine Superman and Kennedy being pals. It was so great. I think very highly of Mr. Plastino. He deserves a spotlight to cement his place in history at last.

Jerry Ordway

I

n the mid-1980s, when artist/writer John Byrne was asked to recreate Superman for the next generation of readers, scribe Marv Wolfman and illustrator Jerry Ordway joined him in doing so. It wasn’t long before Jerry was writing many of the hero’s exploits, as well. In emails dated January 25 and March 20,

2013, he had this to say.

I was always impressed to read the credits in comics in the later 1960s and find that an artist did both pencils and inks. Since most comic credits indicated different people did different jobs, it stood out when someone did double-duty. Of course I never knew many of Plastino’s DC credits until they started collecting stories in trade paperbacks.

I honestly was never aware of his work until I was doing the Superman titles. I always thought his stuff was really well drawn, though I had no real info on him because I didn’t read much Superman as a kid (preferring Marvel Comics).

That he did the Batman strip is interesting, because I was a big fan of the 1960s TV show, and used to have my mom mark the comic page in the Chicago Tribune, so I could follow the Batman strip back then.

“That famous pose,” penciled by Alfred in the 1950s style for his friend and fan, Jim Kealy.

82 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Sketch by Leinil Yu, penciler on the 2003-2004 Waid-written maxi-series, Superman: Birthright.

Joe Giella

J

oe Giella was Al Plastino’s predecessor on the Batman newspaper strip; his stint ran from 1966-68. In addition to a decades-long career at DC Comics, today he is the 85 yearsyoung artist on the Mary Worth feature, which he has been illustrating since 1991. The following interview took place by phone on March 3, 2014.

Joe Giella: John Higgins was the head of Ledger Syndicate; he saw my Batman work [at DC] and wanted me on the strip. He said, “He’s got an honest style.

It’s very clear and not too stylized.” When I’m asked, “What’s your favorite character? I always say, “The Batman.” He’s got such a great costume!

Eddy Zeno: Who edited the newspaper Batman?

Joe: Mort Weisinger.

Eddy: Was he difficult to work for?

Joe: A little bit; I mean I got along with him to a point.

Eddy: How was Whitney Ellsworth to collaborate with as the writer?

Joe: Wonderful. We were doing a storyline with Jack Benny and he had me draw the Batman Hilton. I drew a pool adjacent to the hotel in the

shape of a bat. [laughs] Whit was a gentleman. He knew and he felt the problems of an artist. He’d call all the time from California; if I needed to ask him a question he would get back to me very quickly.

Eddy: What made you stop drawing the dailies and Sundays?

Joe: I’m going to tell you the truth. I think I quit twice, one time before I got started. They didn’t want to pay anything; the pie was cut too many ways.

I had Bob Kane, DC Comics, and the Ledger Syndicate, and it wasn’t enough to sustain. Mort Weisinger provided the paper, which was very expensive, and Milt Snapinn became the letterer. He only lived about 15 minutes from my house. And someone colored the Sunday page. [Those things] helped and I stayed for a while, but I made a lot more in comic books. At the time, I had a little dog that I walked outside. I’d say, “I gotta get off this strip.” Later, when I was walking the dog I’d say, “I really miss the strip. [laughter] It was like a void after I finished but—I was also doing the Batman comic book.

Another thing: I couldn’t sign the strip. It had Bob Kane’s name on it. I used to meet him at his apartment. At the time, he had a television show on Saturday mornings. He’d say, “Joe, draw me two or three villains.

I’d pencil them very lightly in blue pencil; you couldn’t see the blue pencil on television. Bob would then go over my lines with a marker or a sharpie. My luck—they bought his contract out and Al got to sign his name on the strip. [chuckles] Eddy: Did you see the Batman dailies and Sundays after Al took over?

Joe: Yes. I don’t know wheth-

er he was a better golfer, or artist. [laughs] But he was very competent, a very good artist.

Eddy: You mentioned John Higgins of the Ledger Syndicate liking your clear style? Though you and Al had a very different approach on Batman, he was also very easy to follow as a storyteller.

Joe: Right: old school. I can’t believe in all the years we worked at DC that we never met. I always wanted to call him, especially after the article in Newsday [dated August 16, 2012 and referenced in Chapter 6] that talked about both of us together. Someone told me he was going to be at the Jacob Javits Center last year [for the New York Comic-Con] and I hoped we’d run into each other… it’s not like me but I did make up my mind to call him.

I’m sorry I didn’t.

Mark Waid

M

ark’s past writing projects include the graphic novels Kingdom Come (with Alex Ross) and Superman: Birthright. He is currently adding digital comics to his busy schedule.

The following email was submitted on December 30, 2013: I never got the chance to meet Al Plastino. The one time our paths might have crossed, it was at a New York comics convention that was overcrowded and understaffed. No matter how many times I tried to find him, I failed—but I assumed there’d be another opportunity someday.

Not a mistake I’ll make with the next artist I admire.

By all accounts and by my own removed observation, Plastino was a smart, smart man. Not only did he find some amazing way to flourish under the withering editorship of Superman’s meanest

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 83

editor, Mort Weisinger, but he always had side-jobs working (something any good freelancer knows—never put all your eggs in one client-basket). Unlike his Superman contemporaries Curt Swan and Wayne Boring, he never got a shot at drawing the Man of Steel’s newspaper strip, but that hardly kept readers of the funnies from seeing his craft, given how much uncredited ghosting he did for higherprofile strips. And unlike any other artist of the Silver Age, Plastino was able to maneuver into a position where he enjoyed lengthy, definitive runs on both Superman and Batman, the latter in the newspaper dailies and Sundays of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the Batman strips were among his best work; Plastino was comfortable drawing anything, but he excelled at the smaller, human moments and seemed to thrive at the reduced size of a daily strip.

There was always something very honest about Plastino’s Superman work, something very down-to-Earth (paradoxically fitting, given Superman’s alien origins). No one else of his era could wring emotion from a character’s expression with so few perfectly-placed lines, and when Superboy or Sally Selwyn or Lois Lane or, frankly, anyone broke down in tears under Al’s brush, it was always a punch in the gut. It really got to you in a way that seems appropriately familiar to me right now, as I sit here and contemplate the loss of one of Superman’s most prolific artists, the one who helped birth Supergirl, the Legion of SuperHeroes, Brainiac, Kryptonite, and so many other key elements of the Super-mythos. He will be profoundly missed.

There was a lot of Superman in the look of “U.S.” Royal, who rode his jet-propelled bike to local emergencies and saved the day. One page ad-story that appeared in comic books, including Real Fact Comics No. 21 (July-Aug. 1949). The artist inserted “Plastino” into the next-to-last story panel.

84 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Last Superman Standing

Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, and Superman?

T

The artist, speaking at the dedication of John S. Hobart Elementary School in 1981.

Golfers Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson in the clouds—a Superman salute.

Color rendering by Al Plastino (2013), image courtesy of Tom Ward.

he year 2013 began with a commission for the mostly retired artist. Requested by Al’s good friend, Texas golf pro Tom Ward, its purpose was to commemorate two legends of the sport who hailed from Fort Worth. Forty-nine years after the fact, a 91-year-old Plastino revised his famous 1964 splash page of Superman waving at President Kennedy for a different sort of tribute.

“Tom sent photos of [Byron] Nelson and [Ben] Hogan and asked, ‘Could you do a drawing of Hogan and Nelson with

Superman in a golf group?’ I couldn’t see drawing the two of them alive with Superman.

It’s stupid. I got the idea from Superman waving at Kennedy; this at least makes a little sense.

So I put them in the clouds and it turned out pretty good.” Al was further quoted regarding his motivation in a golf column that Ward writes: “I drew it because I’m a great admirer of truly talented people and when we were in Texas last year visiting, you took the time to show me and my son the great courses and told us about the deep, rich roots golf had in the area.” The artist added, “I really drew it be-

cause you inspired me with your friendship and showed us how great the history of the game is in Texas. I’m very pleased with the drawing because it seemed fitting to pay homage to those two great golfers!”

Though Superman’s flying pose is the same in both the original illustration and its descendant, there is a subtle difference in the hero’s expression.

When Plastino drew the Man of Steel acknowledging Kennedy, the pain was too recent, the events surrounding the President’s assassination too raw. In the golfers’ accolade, enough time had passed and their lives

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 85

were not cut short in a way that led to such sadness. Therefore, the look on Kal-El’s face was altered: thoughtful, but with a hint of a smile.

Near the end of 2013, art inspired by President John F. Kennedy would again intertwine with the life of Al Plastino. But first, we must go back to Superman’s Silver Age.

Personal Camelot

M

ort Weisinger was king of the imaginary tales. These were comic book stories he ordered that took place outside of normal continuity. The Kennedy years in office were known as America’s Camelot. Part of the basis for that laudatory phrase was imaginary, as well. JFK was thought to be the epitome of a young and physically fit President. In fact, he suffered at times from debilitating back pain and secretly wore a brace under his suits. His and Jackie Kennedy’s marriage was considered ideal—while they apparently shared a deep, abiding love, the husband was at times a womanizer. Americans felt newfound economic prosperity, though there was an underlying anxiety due to the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Similarly, part of Alfred’s personal Camelot was based on a falsehood. After all, he had been told when he illustrated “Superman’s Mission for President Kennedy” that the original pages were being donated to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Columbia Point, Boston (based in Waltham until 1979). It was even announced in a blurb at the end of the story (in Superman No. 170, cover-dated July, 1964). Because the original site for the library was to be at Harvard University, the illustrator

had long imagined grandkids and their progeny traipsing to that site to view the work.

Tilting at Windmills and Knocking Them Over

A

lfred was a guest of honor on Friday, October 11, at the 2013 New York Comic-Con. The large crowds had gotten to be too much for him to appear beyond one day. While happily signing comic books and selling a few sketches, a representative from Heritage Auctions told the artist that the original art for “Superman’s Mission,” all ten pages, was going to be auctioned in Beverly Hills. The story would be broken up and each panel board sold separately. To capitalize on Kennedy’s assassination taking place on November 22, 1963, the overall auction was scheduled for November 21-23 with the originals going on the middle day, one half-century later.

When it was determined that Heritage had the actual splash page in New York to publicize the upcoming event, Fred Plastino was allowed to bring the art back to his father’s table.

Finally exposed to the truth, the Heritage rep. felt badly when he sensed immediately that Al was devastated. The elder Plastino managed a smile and posed for a photograph. Holding the splash with which he’d been momentarily reunited, he recalled at the comic-con: “In the picture, my eyes were all red. I was crying.”

Alfred’s still-strong voice yelled for help and the cavalry began appearing in the form of his two oldest children, Fred and MaryAnn. Both contacted Heritage directly. Al’s first daughter, especially, began to publicize dad’s plight while seeking resolution. The goal: to return the art to the site where it was thought to be safely

ensconced, or hand it outright to the artist. Seeking to learn why the Presidential Library no longer housed the work, the mystery deepened when MaryAnn learned that they had no record of ever receiving it in the first place. Plastino usually relished a good mystery as evidenced by the comic book covers he’d enjoyed illustrating most. This time, however, he experienced pain and sleeplessness wondering which long ago DC employee had not delivered the originals to the library as promised. Surmising that the art must be stolen, helplessness became outrage. Then things went viral.

People on various blogs and chat rooms said that Alfred was tilting at windmills and the author leaned that way too. Turns out we underestimated the formi-

Not only did Alfred successfully capture President Kennedy’s likeness, he made the image of astronaut John Glenn (fifth panel) photo-realistic.

86 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Mort Weisinger letter explaining how the Kennedy assassination (almost) halted the release date of “Superman’s Mission,” originally planned for inclusion in Superman No. 168, cover dated April 1964.

dable nonagenarian. Knowing the next Heritage Signature Auction’s location, Plastino lamented that if he could travel to California, he’d disrupt things with sheer indignation. He didn’t care if he was arrested.

A win-win situation might have occurred if the JFK Presidential Library could have outbid everyone else and exhibited the art as intended. When this was suggested, a library representative responded by email: “Unfortunately, as a federal institution, we are not able to purchase materials for our archival collections; we only acquire materials through donations.”

Things continued to percolate. On October 25, two weeks after his appearance at New York Comic-Con, according to Alfred, “Everybody called.” A woman who’d bought a couple of Plastino original sketches at the Big Apple Con offered free

legal representation. “She’s not a little attorney, but a big lawyer,” said Al. A second attorney proposed pro bono litigation, as well. A New York Post reporter with an apt last name, Laura Italiano, contacted the ItalianAmerican for details on the escalating news story. Famed comic book artist and creator rights advocate Neal Adams phoned Plastino personally, followed by his daughter Kris Adams Stone. She was continuing a legacy stemming to 1975 when Neal played a key role in getting Superman co-creators Siegel and Shuster pensions and restoring their bylines. Kris was quoted in the New York Post: “He [Al Plastino] never gave up ownership of the art because DC never purchased it from him or paid sales tax.” The day culminated when a call came from a vice-president from Heritage who informed him that the art was being pulled from auction.

Besides the Post’s electronic coverage, the National Enquirer also filed an internet headline on October 25. The Enquirer’s online editor Dick Siegel (more irony in a last name) wrote: “It [‘Superman’s Mission for President Kennedy’] had intended to be a follow-up to Action Comics 390 ‘The Superman Super Spectacular’ where JFK doubled as Clark Kent to help prevent Lois Lane from discovering the Man of Steel’s true identity.” The issue he meant to reference was Action Comics No. 309 (not 390), which was cover-dated February 1964 but in fact appeared just after the Kennedy assassination, too late for DC Comics to halt distribution as a show of respect.

Minor errors appeared in the New York Post article, as well. For example, mention was made that Al began drawing Superman when he was 17 years

old. That is, instead, around the time he first drew comic books for Chesler; he started illustrating Superman at age 25 or just after turning 26. Multiple sites including the Post reported that the starting bid for the story was to be $200,000. Reporters wrongly assumed that because there were ten pages that each would begin at the same minimum. Actually, Heritage merely estimated that the splash page would hammer down at $20,000 (there is usually no minimum opening bid on these items). The other individual boards would have likely sold for far less, perhaps ranging from $2,000 to $6,000 each, with those picturing Superman and JFK bringing a higher premium than pages featuring Clark Kent and other supporting characters. Later articles were more accurate in estimating the entire story’s worth at around $50,000. Online websites including Bleeding Cool, Comic Book Resources, Comics Alliance, and 13th Dimension reported the story, most quoting the New York Post as their primary source. Reader comments abounded on both sides regarding whether Alfred had any real legal claim to the originals.

Al excitedly purchased a hardcopy version of the Post article, which appeared one day after the internet accounting of events.

Expressing his worry over the originals’ plight, the artist was counseled not to let his health be jeopardized as Jerry Siegel had while fighting to regain the rights to Superman. Plastino vowed to do his best. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a stated lack of sleep that soon landed him in the hospital, but rather a fluke occurrence. Alfred contracted the rare disorder, Guillain-Barré Syndrome. From his ICU bed,

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 87

he continued to fight.

The next flurry of activity began November 18 and 19, 2013. More online articles appeared in the New York Daily News, Long Island Newsday, and again in the Post. Another paper, the Dallas News, followed later in the week. The primary pro bono attorney (of three) on the case was revealed. Dale Cendali works for the New York law firm Kirkman & Ellis LLP, heading the copyright and trademark practice group. From the New York Post: “Cendali said Plastino is eager for the return of the drawings so he can arrange to have them tour between Harvard and the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Texas that chronicles the assassination.” From Newsday: “She added, ‘These early creators really did not get the credit and compensation that they should have. Many have passed and here is someone who is still around, thank God, and who deserves a proper outcome, and that the work be respected.’”

It was not noted by reporters, but the attorney is a longtime collector of original comic art.

MaryAnn Plastino Charles stated by phone (November 19, 2013) that Cendali had another reason for wanting the art to finds its proper home. Harvard University is linked to the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and Dale is also a Harvard law professor.

In the same phone conversation, MaryAnn acknowledged fatigue from traveling to be with her ill father and supporting her mother, as well as from spearheading efforts to see “Superman’s Mission” find its proper home. Told that she possesses her father’s fiery determination, the daughter noted: “If it was just another comic book story—but every Thanksgiving, every Christmas—that was the

art we heard about. It meant so much to him.”

Because of the critical nature of Alfred’s illness, the New York State Supreme Court, in the County of New York and based in Manhattan, rushed to hear a motion on November 20, 2013. Al, MaryAnn, and the rest of the family were seeking to learn the current identity of the now-former Heritage Auctions consignor of the art. (Heritage was honoring the person’s right to privacy short of a court order to release the name.) The aim was for the Plastino family to purchase the art for the same price the owner paid for it, if possible. Also, they were striving to block the art being sold privately to someone else and having the trail grow colder.

If needed, it was hoped that a December 2013 court hearing would follow.

Tracing the Path of the Art

P

erhaps there is no smokinggun DC employee who once held onto the original boards or sold them outright. One theory for how they wound up in private hands is that Plastino’s story pages were gifted to JFK’s widow instead of to the Kennedy Library. After all, that is where the initial Curt Swan-penciled and George Klein-inked splash panel was sent, according to Superman No. 168 (cover-dated April 1964). This premise appears unlikely: the Swan/Klein art is not known to have resurfaced from Jacqueline’s estate, so why would Alfred’s? Also, Al’s work was not listed as inventory during the well-known auction of the former First Lady’s holdings, which took place in 1996. Instead, the Plastino art for “Superman’s Mission” had been sold quietly three years earlier through Sotheby’s Auction House in

June 1993.

There were more scenarios, however dubious. If, somehow, Alfred’s art boards were indeed given to Jackie Kennedy instead of to the JFK Library, perhaps the former First Lady passed them along to a friend in the private sector who appreciated comics, or to someone with a greater passion for the physical fitness cause.

Maybe DC Comics just never got around to the donation, and the art eventually left its possession. Perhaps the still-coalescing Presidential Library had no place to store it at the time and kindly declined the gift.

It was further conjectured that Swan and Klein illustrated the entire story before the assassination, rather than the single “teaser” panel pictured in the New York Times (on August

Five years before JFK’s vow came true that the United States of America would successfully land men on the Moon, the Man of Steel took young men to train in its one-sixth gravity as a strategy to boost physical fitness.

88 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

From left: Fred Plastino, MaryAnn (Plastino) Charles, and Jay Kogan of DC Entertainment posing with the Superman/Kennedy splash page after it was successfully obtained for donation to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. (From a Jan. 17, 2014 Library Journal article by Roxanna Asgarian.)

Postcard of a circa 1965 memorial to the 35th President seen at Tussaud’s London Wax Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida branch. In early 2014 a postcard like this one was displayed with a Superman No. 170 comic book open to Al’s famous splash page. Both were part of a Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza (Dallas) pop culture exhibit marking the roughly halfcentury since JFK’s assassination.

30, 1963, and reproduced in Superman No. 168). Since the art was considered “not publishable” and given to Jackie after the shooting, it was no longer available when the Johnson administration urged DC to place it back on the schedule: therefore, Al was asked to redraw the whole thing. This theory, too, is implausible. Plastino was the one assigned the full story prior to the president’s death, not Swan and Klein. Evidence exists in the form of Alfred’s initial, unused, original splash. Soon after 2013’s New York ComicCon, the pre-assassination artifact was located by the artist himself in a large envelope lodged between a wall and some furniture. Penciled and partially inked, its survival is miraculous.

In Superman No. 168, editor Mort Weisinger himself referred to the Swan/Klein panel seen in The New York Times as a “preview.” This is further evidence that their services were likely commissioned to publicize the upcoming Superman milestone, while Plastino was assigned the actual story. Alfred even remembered visiting JFK’s secretary to okay the penciled pages before they were inked, with the President himself peeking in the door to say hello.

In 2009, Plastino told interviewer Mel Higgins that comic book artists at DC were welcome to retrieve their art back then, if desired—all they had to do was visit the warehouse and get it. It could be argued that in the case of “Superman’s Mission,” the original pages were special enough that Alfred would have done so, but in this instance he did not ask, thinking he knew their noble destination.

Perhaps this made for a stronger legal case than the usual one, in which artists didn’t care about

retrieving their originals at the time. Indeed, most publishers considered it part of their inventory until the 1970s.

For Public Display

I

t was an unexpected and significant victory that Al was able to halt the November 22, 2013 auction of the Superman/ Kennedy tale. As he weakened further, the family continued to seek an ultimate resolution in his stead. Not wishing for either side to be hurt in a court battle, it was satisfactory to all when DC Entertainment announced on December 16, 2013, that they had acquired the original art for “Superman’s Mission.” This time, nothing would stop DC Comics (DC Entertainment) from donating all ten story pages to the Kennedy Library and Museum, as originally planned. The splendid proclamation once made by editor Mort Weisinger was fulfilled as a fifty-year-old wrong was righted.

Though events happened quickly, Al would succumb to his atypical illness on November 25, exactly three weeks before the company could issue its statement. When he was alive, the artist was never that interested in traveling to Boston to see the work; he wanted it there for relatives and others to enjoy.

Now they will be able to do so— whenever they want!

Last Superman Standing

C

urt Swan, Kurt Schaffenberger, Jim Mooney, Murphy Anderson, Ross Andru, Nick Cardy, Bob Oksner, Gil Kane, Irv Novick—even Jack Kirby—all were from Al Plastino’s generation and each contributed to the Superman legend. As the others moved farther from the character or eventually passed away, Alfred returned to service as ambas-

sador for an earlier Man of Steel who exists in the hearts of aging fans. With a less groundbreaking style than some, the great mimic, the guy who always held two accounts, the man who believed in “just do it” lived to see a growing number of admirers gravitate to his work. Part nostalgia, part respect for his output, there is a newfound appreciation for the experimentation that has finally been noted and prized. One more thing: remember in 2011 (Chapter 5) when Al yielded to a shakier hand and weaker eyes while unsuccessfully trying to recreate the Superman/Kennedy splash?

For the passionate and determined illustrator, the events that transpired at New York ComicCon in October 2013 raised the stakes: “When I get mad, I can do anything.” Thus, laboring over the Capitol with a pen instead of his old Winsor & Newton No. 3 brush, the last Superman standing persevered and finally reconstructed the background in all its detail. Once able to produce such a page in under a day, this time it took the aging illustrator two grueling weeks. We’re all going to die; Al Plastino conquered life.

References in addition to the artist’s personal account: Ward, Tom. “Superman Salutes Fort Worth’s Superman of Golf.” Tee Time with Tom Ward (Rattle and Hum Sports), May 8, 2013.

Email from a representative of the Kennedy Library to the author. November 6, 2013.

Siegel, Dick, online editor. “Historic JFK Superman Art Up For Auction May Be Stolen!” National Enquirer, 10/25/13.

Italiano, Laura. “’Super’ Tribute to JFK: Artist at heart of comic-vanish mystery.” New York Post, October 26, 2013.

Polsky, Carol. “Al Plastino’s JFK comic book artwork should have gone to Kennedy Library.” Long Island Newsday (online), November 18, 2013. dce_ publisher. “Al Plastino Art Acquired and to be Donated by DC Entertainment to John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.”

DC Comics (website), Mon. 12/16/13.

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 89

90 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Appendix

The Assistant

E

Artist self-caricature

rnie Bushmiller was Al Plastino’s most demanding employer on the newspaper strips because he required Nancy to be simple yet precise. But tough as Ernie was to work for, directions to Alfred from his Abbie an’ Slats boss were intricate too; the difference was that Bushmiller often changed his mind while Raeburn Van Buren knew exactly what he wanted. With penciled comments grown faint after 57 years of handling, enough graphite remains that they can still be

discerned (see daily below on this page and next). First panel—“Al. This is important. Make house as spooky looking as possible.

Canopy over driveway at door to house. Steps. Black shadows where possible. Frame house. I would suggest you don’t use ruler on lines, free hand drawing looks better. Old car entering driveway. Broken down fence & sign.

See photo for house only make it longer as indicated.” Second panel—“Inside large hall. Beat up bags.” Third panel—“Nice old fashioned room here. Use blacks

with highlights. Canopy over black ornate bed.”

Thoughts from Family and Friends

A

lfred’s wife and children stepped forward to help us get to know the artist and his environs on a more personal level.

A friend from the golfing world, so important to the artist since he took up that sport at the age of 28, came through, as well.

Ann Marie Plastino

F

rom a phone interview on March 6 and an April 24,

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 91

2013 follow-up letter from Mrs. P. Eddy Zeno: What first attracted you to your husband?

Ann Marie Plastino: Al was always a very nice person. He asked me if I wanted to go to dinner; what I wanted to do? He had a hunting dog. The dog was in the back, jumping on me in the front seat like they do, and Al got excited. He said, “I’ll chain him up,” but I said, “I don’t care.”

Eddy: Please discuss one or two of your secrets for making your marriage of 50+ years succeed.

Ann Marie: All marriages are a lot of work. I was a mom at all times and Al was a dad and husband. He doesn’t talk a lot.

I guess that’s why he’s got me. [laughs] I make up for it. He does have a temper, though. Sometimes he thinks I’m ridiculous.

My father thought my mother

was ridiculous, too.

Eddy: What was it like having a stay-at-home artist around the house while the kids were growing up?

Ann Marie: Al was helpful because he helped me manage the children and the pets, the cars, and other things.

Eddy: Your impression of his studio?

Ann Marie: His studio is a mess but he knows where things are.

Eddy: What made your home on Long Island a special place to grow a family?

Ann Marie: Its natural beauty!

The Atlantic Ocean and its wildlife.

Eddy: Your favorite art projects on which Al has worked?

Ann Marie: I love the watercolors of the outdoors best. He has painted famous Americans

such as John S. Hobart and William Floyd, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, for the schools in our area.

Eddy: What are Al’s best qualities?

Ann Marie: He’s a very hardworking man who cares so much about his family. He wants everyone to be the best they can be, even his grandchildren!

Eddy: Did you ever help Al with his work, inking some of his comic book or strip panel backgrounds, for example?

Ann Marie: I didn’t help with art. I never had the confidence.

He’d already been doing it so long; he was years ahead of me.

I like to do things that I’m years ahead of him. [chuckle] He’s still doing it. I’m looking at his desk and there’s art and comics all over it.

Eddy: Alfred mentioned that

Recalling Chesler: a latter day Dynamic Man sketch by Alfred.

92 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Note accompanying a signed print of this charity auction drawing: “I used pastel coloring on the figure of Superman. It sold for $650.00.”

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 93

you occasionally helped him come up with a punch line or gag on the Ferd’nand newspaper strip.

Ann Marie: I would try. I could count the times I was successful. He liked his own jokes better; he was using me to get them going.

Eddy: Anything else you’d like to mention?

Ann Marie: He had pleasant memories of his mother. She wasn’t trying for recognition, so she had to have been special because he remembers her from when he was so young. If you ever said anything bad about her, you wouldn’t be alive more than an hour. I can’t remember anything about my mother from when I was four years old [Al’s approximate age when his mom passed away].

Postscript: On January 8, 2014 by phone, Ann Marie denoted how her late husband embraced life and looked forward to the uncertain: “Al wanted to live to be 100, you know. He wanted to see what it was all about.”

MaryAnn Plastino Charles

F

rom an email composed on December 30, 2012 by Alfred and Ann Marie’s oldest child.

My most memorable moments were when Al would let me help him in his studio behind the house. I was about 12 years old and he would let me erase the penciling after he had inked the page. A few times I erased too hard and without hesitation he would amazingly ink it precisely the way he had done it before.

Other memories were his conversations on the phone with other cartoonists like Carmine Infantino, Mort Weisinger, Ernie Bushmiller, Charles Schulz, Bob Kane, Dahl Mikkelsen, and the times he would bring me up to DC Comics and United Feature

Syndicate when he was delivering his work. That is when I decided I wanted to be an artist.

I went on to become the Director of Graphic Services and ran the art department for USA Network and the Sci Fi Channel when it launched in 1992. I helped launch the Golf Channel in 1993. I am now the Creative Director for EWTN [Eternal World Television Network] Global Catholic Television and Radio Networks.

I have two children (a boy and girl in their teens now) and my husband is a Broadcast Engineer who also works for EWTN along with running video for CBS Sports and other production companies when they cover college football and basketball games in the Southeast.

Fred Plastino

F

red was asked to describe his occupation and on February 13, 2013, he responded: “My company, Plastino Interiors LLC, does consulting and construction management for new residential developments in NYC. We also perform design-build renovation for people that own apartments and want to renovate their homes. My wife Corinne sells real estate in NY. She works for Sotheby’s.” [The following interview took place on October 20, 2012 at the Dallas Comic Con, when Fred, second in line of the Plastino children, accompanied his father to Big D.] Eddy Zeno: Did you grow up in the same house your parents are in now?

Fred Plastino: Yes. I was born in New Jersey but the house in Long Island, that’s the house we grew up in from about the time I was seven.

Eddy: What are your earliest childhood memories?

Fred: Earliest memories of

my sisters? MaryAnn’s gonna love this. [chuckles] MaryAnn was a bit of a problem—a little bit of an independent child.

And she, and Mom and Dad, sometimes, would just clash.

She would get upset. And when she got really upset, she’d pack a bag and say, “I’m leaving.” She was only about six years old.

One time Mom actually let her go. She walked down the sidewalk; she walked around. They followed her from a distance.

It took about an hour and she came back home. But I can remember MaryAnn as being very independent, even at such a young age. Just the way she was born, I guess. Jan was just a toddler when we lived in New Jersey. And I remember in the wintertime, playing out in the snow. These are really the only memories I have of New Jersey.

We’d see a lot of snow in Jersey and so we’d have to dig a pathway. Janice barely came to the top of the pathway. She used to wear this cute little snowsuit so you could see her going through the little mazes we made. We used to play outside a lot, like a lot of kids at the time. That’s just what you did. Other than that, I can remember Mom and Dad; of course, they were very young at the time. Lots of energy.

Earliest memories of life in New Jersey: He worked primarily out of the house at that time, kind of like an eight-hour job kind of a thing. When he would do his work, we had a detached garage.

I think he used to do his work out there, some of it anyway. I didn’t see much of

Plastino recalled (and redrew) this friendly cop on a beat from one of his unsuccessful attempts to have his own newspaper syndicated feature. Possibly from the one about a lawyer titled “Justin Case.”

Al figured that no one remembered the once-famous fictional character, Joe Palooka, on whose newspaper strip he assisted. He would have been surprised to learn that Palooka was resurrected as a MMA fighter in a 2012-2013 comic-book miniseries from IDW. (Pencils and inks

by Fernando Peniche.)

94 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

One of Alfred’s office mates at 421 Lexington Avenue (top floor) was cartoonist Dow Walling.

Plastino’s other studio mate Jack Sparling did a lot of comic strip and comic book work during his long career.

Cover to Naza, Stone Age Warrior No. 6 (April-June 1965, Dell Publishing Co.) with pencils and inks by Jack.

him; I think it was Mom’s job to keep us away from him when he was working.

When we moved [to Long Island], initially he tried to work from inside the house. That didn’t work out at all. And then somebody had the studio built, so he could get a lot of his work done that way. But that was the problem; we couldn’t be close by when he was working. And even when he worked in the studio on Long Island, if I was in the yard playing ball with my friends, every once in a while somebody would throw the ball and hit the studio and he’d flip out. Because it would startle him. He used to come out: “Stop it.”

Eddy: To skip around a little

bit, when did you realize your dad was in the public eye, so to speak?

Fred: Pretty early on, probably about a year after being on Long Island, when I was seven or eight years old, with teachers, and some of the adult figures in my life, mentioning: “Oh, your dad does such and such?” I’d go, “Yeah,” and they’d be impressed.

So that’s when I started to get the feeling that maybe Dad was doing something that was special.

Eddy: Did he come to your school and do art demonstrations for your class?

Fred: No, he didn’t do much of that at all. The art teachers knew who he was. In fact, fast forwarding to middle school years, I won an art award one year. To be honest with you, it’s probably more because he was my dad than my actual talent. [laughter] I like being creative and I did some things that I can remember, that I liked. Whether or not I was the best one to legitimately receive such an award, I don’t know.

Eddy: Do you still do anything art-wise?

Fred: Yeah, I still… you know, for me it was about music. That was my passion and that’s what I loved.

Eddy: You played what musical instrument?

Fred: I was a classical trombone player, and when I got to college, I started picking up other instruments. I played piano but he makes fun of the way I play piano because I like jazz and I like improvisation. My sisters took lessons and they could actually read music and play classics. Like sonatas. And I could do it too, but my fun was improvisation. So it used to drive him crazy. He’d go, “Stop! Play something.”

Eddy: And you played classical trombone for how long?

Fred: I only played till I gradu-

ated from college because I really became enamored with the bass guitar—electric bass. I was a big fan of a guy named Jaco Pastorius, a very famous bass player, probably the most innovative guy to come along, still to this day. He used to play with a group called Weather Report. I really became fixated on what he was doing. So a lot of my bass playing is focused around that.

Eddy: And you said that your sister Janice was artistic, also?

Fred: Yeah, yeah, very artistic.

She might have been the best of all. She just had the ability to take a piece of paper and a pencil and create something right on the spot. MaryAnn’s got that ability too, but hers is much more focused and it is with specifics in mind. Jan could just free-wheel and create. I admired her.

Eddy: What about Arlene?

Fred: Arlene, that wasn’t something that she… I can’t say that she can’t draw. She can. She’s much better than me. But she hasn’t really had as much of a chance to express it as my other two sisters. I’m sure she does some things with her children, but not to the degree that MaryAnn and Janice do.

Eddy: What about your mom?

Any artistic leanings?

Fred: Gosh, for us, mom’s artistic contributions are putting up with my dad all these years, quite honestly. And mom, she’s got some talent. She can do different things. Probably her best characteristic, or best attribute, is that she’s such a free spirit.

Eddy: In what way?

Fred: Well, nothing really bothers her and she kind of goes with the flow of life, whereas dad is a bit contrary. He’s got the way he wants to live his life, and my mom’s the complete opposite.

Where dad has to be structured, mom can be completely

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 95

unstructured. As much as they get along and as much as they love one another, that’s also a problem, when you have one person like that. But, God bless her, I kid her all the time. I say, “Ma, there’s a special place in heaven for putting up with dad all these years and taking such good care of him. You’ve got a free pass.

There’s no doubt about it.”

Eddy: My dad and his first cousin were very close. At my parents’ fortieth anniversary party, his quote to them was, “Eva [Mom] had to be a saint for putting up with you all those years.” The way he said it was hilarious.

Fred: That’s exactly right. I don’t think about his death much at all, because you just don’t ever think that Dad’s gonna go anywhere. But I always thought one day if I had to say a few words about him it would be… about my mom, that would be the thing that I would say. To put up with him, she’s got to get an award of some kind.

Eddy: Do you think that as kids, you guys got the best of both worlds, as far as one being a free spirit and one being the opposite, because it gave you an idea of what sort of balance there should be?

Fred: Without a doubt. I really got a lot of confidence from Dad because he exudes confidence. He’s got a big ego. If I had problems, whatever they may be, when I went to Dad he was like, “Well, do this, this, and this. No worrying. You’re my son and everything’s going to be okay.“ Now, if I’d go to Mom, I’d walk away with the same feeling but the way she presented it was completely different. She was quiet. With Mom, I could feel her love; it was there. I was lucky to have parents that—when you’re a kid, when you grow up and you

meet people who haven’t had that, you feel bad for them.

Eddy: Did you enjoy watching your father draw?

Fred: Yeah, absolutely. Though I appreciate it much more now than I did then, I could always sit and watch very easily. Especially when he inked and did some of the things other than just pencil,

which was always interesting, as well. You know, he would always explain to us what he was doing and how he was doing it. Whether he was working with acrylics, oil painting, whatever it was, he would tell you about what was difficult and what was good when using such products.

Eddy: He didn’t mind you ask-

From late October into early November 2013, Al turned back time to recreate the “Superman’s Mission” splash page. On Feb. 18, 2014, his son Fred admired the achievement: “At 91 he still had it! He loved being an artist.”

96 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Elaborate cover detail for a 16-page comic book touting the oil industry. This is an early example of Plastino’s work for General Comics, Inc. (Copr. 1946).

ing such questions?

Fred: No, not at all. He was never like, “Get away from me; I’m trying to do something. He was always like, “Sit down.” He was always good that way.

Eddy: What works of his are among your favorites?

Fred: Probably the Superman

and Batman stuff to me really stands out. I watched him go through Ferd’nand, Nancy and Sluggo, and all of the other different things he picked up along the way. I admired his ability to adapt to different styles. Take Nancy and Sluggo. People don’t realize how hard it is to recreate

what Ernie [Bushmiller] did.

He used to talk about it. Of all the things he did, he worked at that the hardest. It’s a simple strip if you look at it, yet it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done.

Eddy: Have you seen some of the books that have come out about Nancy? A lot of people who came along after Bushmiller died have formed an art movement about his stuff. He’s considered almost a genius.

Fred: I didn’t know that.

When dad gave up the strip— actually, he didn’t really give that up—they kind of pushed him out. I don’t know if, at the time, he was thinking of retiring anyway. But I remember they brought in a younger guy that they wanted to work with him. He worked with the guy for a while but then the guy changed his style; he changed [the strip] completely. And that was it for him. He was upset about that and couldn’t do it anymore.

Eddy: What do you remember about the Batman newspaper strip?

Fred: Batman wasn’t easy to draw. Very detailed stuff, very lifelike, like Superman. And that was a grind: the Sundays, the dailies. I can remember him on a Sunday already getting uptight about Monday morning. And then in the Batman years he went from thinking about starting Monday morning to actually starting Sunday afternoon—to starting Sunday morning—to starting Saturday.

At least Batman was scripted and all he had to do was create the illustrations, but with Ferd’nand, it was all on him.

Create the gag and draw the actual strip.

Eddy: Didn’t he once have to come up with some Ferd’nand gags while in the hospital?

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 97

Fred: I can imagine… one of his many operations, or whatever. [laughter]

In 1965 Alfred gave an encore performance by putting one of his dad’s old hats on another cauliflower-eared bad guy. Panel from Action Comics No. 328, the September issue.

Janice Plastino Iapaolo

T

he Plastino’s third oldest child wrote about her family on January 10, 2013: Our day, at 44 Pinetree Drive, where the pine trees grew very large, would start with a very healthy breakfast that my mother would make. She would always make sure there was more than enough food at the table and that you left so full, you had to go and take a nap after. Waffles, eggs, bacon, and Pollichinkies (crepes filled with grape or strawberry jam) were the favorites among all. Dad always started with his Wheatina and then had his real breakfast about an hour later.

Mom loved being a full-time mom with four kids. She did it all. Dad worked at home so it was convenient to eat and have time for us and to do his hobbies on the side. After breakfast (in the summer) he would go to his studio to start his day if there wasn’t anything major to be done in the house. Dad raised English Setters, which are hunting dogs. He was an avid hunter and brought home pheasants, quail, and duck.

He enjoyed hunting with his dogs Mindy and Poncho. He usually came back in the house around lunch time and mom made him his lunch every day too. In the summer dad took us out on my grandfather’s boat to the beaches on the east end of Long Island.

He loved the water and everything that it offered, but he wasn’t fond of the beach itself and the sand. He never sat still.

He would drop us to swim and the dog would come too. Then he would go out to the Moriches Inlet and fish forever. He would always come back with flounder

or blue fish to eat for dinner. My mother would cook it up that night and we would enjoy it with homemade fried potatoes, beans, fresh cabbage, coleslaw, and broccoli. Fresh food was a must in my house. Crabs were caught in the inlet or by the Smith Point Bridge by my brother and I when we were young. We would get up at 6:00 in the morning and go to the bridge and catch dozens of blue claw crabs to eat. Everyone in my house loved seafood, from fresh raw clams to crabs marinated in homemade tomato sauce.

My mom was such a great cook. I call her a pioneer because she could do anything; she would teach herself or just figure out how to do it. From cleaning birds that my dad had hunted and caught to cleaning fish, she made dinner using every part of the animal. Fish heads were buried in my dad’s tomato garden for fertilizing—which my dog Poncho loved to dig up and roll in and boy did he smell bad! My dad would say, you have to dig very deep and bury the fish heads or

the dog will dig them up. Mom sewed and mended everything herself. She always cooked from scratch and didn’t use readymade mixes. We didn’t have frozen foods in our refrigerator— just frozen fresh gizzards from chicken that the dog was getting for dinner the next day.

Recently, my dad took a spill down the stairs and hurt himself somewhat. The next day I went to the house to see how he was doing and he asked if I could cook up some dinner for him. He was having bacon and fresh liver fried in the pan with some bread. His favorite meal!

Mom and Dad have a great relationship. They are always busy—but not too busy for you!

Mom has never said no to any of her kids and neither has my dad.

They babysit together, sometimes taking turns with grandchildren and have a good time doing it. It’s never been bothersome for them.

(Unless they were sick.) They enjoy spending time with everyone and have always been so helpful.

Dad always pulls through with

98 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Helping Tiger Woods recover from a challenging lie.

projects even when he’d remind us that we were asking at the last minute to design a costume, or poster, or even a professional sign.

My dad loves to paint big still life scenes of the ocean and the inlet. Since he loves the water, he has done many beautiful oil and water color paintings of the Moriches Inlet. I have a gorgeous oil painting that he thoroughly enjoyed doing for my living room. He matched all the colors of the room in the painting and made it look so real to life. He also portrayed my personality with roaring waves and bold colors of brown and amber.

When my dad made my brother’s inlet painting, it came across as calm and warm with a glow that relaxes you. Very much like my

older brother Fred’s personality.

My father made a painting of a desert with a southwest color scheme which matches my sister too. My younger sister Arlene has always had a sweet pretty smile that my dad and mom love. When she was little, everyone loved her and loved having a little sister to play house with. My brother Fred was special to my dad because he was the boy in the family. He became a great golfer just like my dad, and today they go to the course and my dad watches him play. My dad has so many trophies for winning at golf and now my brother excels, winning matches with other players and on his own. My older sister, MaryAnn, inherited the artistic skill that my dad has. She has always been very successful at drawing and designing amazing projects which have won awards and scholarships—to becoming successful at her director jobs. When she worked for USA Network, she was the art director. Now at EWTN she is the creative director. She is in charge of all the booths and directs, schedules, and designs how the network will display their information. She is highly respected at her job and has great rapport with all her workers.

My gig is teaching kindergarten which I found a good way to explore drawing and doing crafts.

It’s an art project grade filled with lots of hands-on materials to create with. I so enjoy this aspect of designing projects for the kids to make while they have a good time. Technology has helped me a lot. I am not very good at drawing from memory as my dad and sister are. So I research my material on the computer to use the dimensions and copy what I need to draw from there. In the early days of teaching, my dad would help me illustrate a lot of the things I needed because he

could do it so quickly and from memory. It kept me from needing additional books, and time was so short that I had to spend more time on my planning and teaching. My dad always chipped in to help when he could.

I have two very talented sons who portray great ability in art, music, and sports. My oldest son Paul started playing piano when he was two years old and then played the trombone in grade school and high school.

He loved to draw in school and made many beautiful projects.

His love became sports: basketball, football, lacrosse, soccer, and baseball. He played them all in school. He also snowboards and loves the terrain parks. My husband looks forward to taking him and Louis upstate to ski and snowboard because he loves the cold outdoors too. Paul now attends Albany University and wants to major in Business, opening his own gym someday.

Louis my youngest, now 15, is the most talented in art. He picked up a pencil at two years old and just started drawing people. My dad would babysit and loved to see him draw on big pads of paper. He would show him how to do some things, but he could see that Louis was a natural. Dad comes over often with all kinds of learning tasks for him to do. He is proud of his grandson’s ability and his teachers think he is great too. Louis has always had the drive to draw. He has many beautiful paintings hung in our home which he did in school.

He also plays the trumpet—my favorite instrument. It makes me so happy to hear him play.

My mom and dad have always enjoyed going to Paul’s and Louis’ band concerts at school. Louis also taught himself how to play the electric guitar. Me, I play the piano. But I play fun tunes:

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 99

“Old MacDonald” and “Beautiful Dreamer.” I like to play at Christmas when everyone is at my house. Dad sings the loudest. My husband Lou is a great father; he’s like my dad. He does everything for his sons and will never say no to them. He’s great at fixing and figuring out how things work, which makes my sons happy when they go to him with a car issue or a problem to do with school work.

Our whole family is very fortunate because we have one another. When my younger sister had a heart attack from a seizure related to her epilepsy, we were devastated. Thank God five-yearold Ryan was able to tell my sister’s neighbor/friend who called the ambulance. My mom has always gone to help my sister, who has two small children and only lives two blocks away. She cried and felt so bad that she wasn’t there that morning. We were scared and at her side when she was in the hospital for a week.

We work together as a family and couldn’t believe something like this could have happened to our little sister Arlene. We love life and have always loved being together, even though we fight a lot about nothing.

Arlene Plastino Podlesny

F

rom an email dated January 16, 2013: Growing up with my dad was coloring his Sunday pages for him. I would go into his studio and use his colored pencils. He would ask me to color Nancy and Ferd’nand. I grew up with drawing; loved all of my dad’s work; was in love with Mickey Mouse as a child. I would make my father draw Mickey Mouse on all of my clothing and shoes.

I currently live in Shirley, N.Y. with my husband Brian Podlesny.

We have an eight-year-old son

Ryan, and a daughter Melanie who is six. I work part time at my local library. It is close to home and has a ton of my father’s art work, which is pretty cool. I did work in banking but wanted to be close to my kids. I love art and music, and draw a lot of pictures with Ryan and Melanie. They love it.

Ryan and Melanie love my father’s presence. They think he is extremely animated and they make him laugh. I think my daughter’s art talent will take after his.

Growing up with my dad was challenging. I am the youngest, and it was harder on me than my sisters and brother. I have epilepsy and battled it throughout my whole life. No one knew what I had because I didn’t even know.

Today, it is under control and I do live a normal life now.

One thing I will always remember about my dad was he gave the best advice growing up. He was always right when it came to relationships, politics,

and everyday situations. I have followed what he has said to me to this day.

My father was always there for us. He made sure we lived comfortably and took care of us as a father should.

Tom Ward

T

om is a former club and touring pro who, after a series of shoulder operations, used his skills to teach golfers of all ages, from beginners to winning pros on the PGA tour. He runs numerous tournaments, including celebrity charity golf tournaments, around the globe. Tom created a patented golf training device and has taught the physically challenged (loss of sight, amputees wearing prosthetics, etc.) to play golf at a high level. [This professional of 34 years whose website is www.teetimewithtom.com wrote the following on January 7, 2013:

100 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Interesting logo and dexterous fingers are the standout features of this friendly pencil drawing of the Caped Crusader (2012).

I’ve always been interested in art. If I didn’t go into golf I would have pursued a career as a cartoonist. I had read a story about Al and his career and it mentioned his passion about golf. I thought I’d invite him to a future charity golf event because I respected his immense talent as an artist. As a kid I didn’t know at the time he was the man drawing those Superman comic books I loved so much. Al’s the kind of artist that can draw anything, and even in his artwork he has his own unique style that shines through.

Al has great stories, and we talked about his love of the game. He dominated the annual cartoonist golf tournament, winning it 16 years in a row. He sent some wonderful golf drawings: Superman helping Tiger Woods

out of trouble; Superman and Batman giving the great golfer Arnold Palmer some assistance.

I kidded with Al that in my office I now have one wall dedicated to all the great drawings he’s sent that are now framed. Everything from Superman, Supergirl, Batman and Ferd’nand comic strips, and some original golf pieces.

One has a golf pro giving a chipping clinic to small children and another is titled, “Egyptian Golf.”

It’s those kinds of things that to me are priceless. I would never part with them because they came directly from Al to me.

We had some great conversations via many phone calls, but meeting Al in person for the first time (October 19, 2012) was even better. He didn’t disappoint.

How much energy he has for a man of 90 (now 91 years old)! It

blew me away that he could keep up such a pace at his advanced age. It’s encouraging to believe if you could live that long you can still accomplish a lot of things in your life. I’ve met many comic book artists, cartoonists, and other famous personalities from sports, music, and entertainment (movies & TV) because of my charity golf tournaments. In some cases meeting these people was a real let-down. Al is on top of that list for me!

He’s a rare gem of a person and I want people to know about a terrific guy with enormous talent. He has added so much enjoyment for generations of people throughout the world who grew up loving the comics.

Sadly, unless you’re a real diehard fan, most people wouldn’t know the name of the man who drew those comic books and newspaper strips. He may not have created all those memorable, iconic characters (of course, Supergirl and the Legion of Super-heroes, he helped create), but with Al at the drawing board he gave them life with his own indelible stamp which will last forever. My greatest regret when it comes to Al is I wish we had met many years ago. It would have been a blast playing golf and hanging out with him at the 19th Hole (a bar) to see Al weave his magic with all the people that crossed his path. He has a terrific sense of humor. He’s an inspiration to be around because he seems to really enjoy life. Like I mentioned in my golf column, over the past eight decades Al may have drawn numerous superheroes but in real life he’s not only a classy gentleman, he’s a real Superman.

Millie Perkins

M

illie’s most famous movie roles were listed in Chapter 7. An article in the New York

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 101

Herald Tribune’s “This Week Magazine” on April 20, 1958 was titled, “The Girl You Want To Protect.” If the writer’s assessment of Ms. Perkins’ vulnerability was accurate at the time, the woman who evolved from the girl needs no bodyguard. She’s a survivor with a strong, beautiful personality reminiscent of her brother-inlaw’s. When told this, Millie said, “Of course; we’re both from New Jersey.”

After her second husband died, Millie had to go back to work after being away from films for a decade. “I took ten years off to teach in Oregon. People said I couldn’t get back into films in my 40s but I did it. My husband had died. I was out there to earn a living. My children were what were important to me. I got my girls through college and bought their braces. I did everything. I was Andy Garcia’s mother in The Lost City, Sean Penn’s mother in At Close Range, Charlie Sheen’s mother in Wall Street… I was everybody’s mother. [laughter]” With the author living in Memphis, the actress felt a connection. Cast as a mom again in Elvis: The Early Years for ABC, she explained: “I walked to Beale Street to hear the music. It’s the only city where I could walk by myself. They put us in a hotel across the street from the Peabody Hotel and I could look out my window and see it. We did thirteen shows there in 1990 and I romanticize Memphis.” [The following phone interview was conducted on October 19, 2013.]

Millie Perkins: If I sound exhausted, I got back yesterday from a 19-hour plane flight from Holland. The Anne Frank House had a big celebration.

Eddy Zeno: Please describe your relationship with your brother-in-law.

Millie: It’s always been great.

He’s magnificent! He’s almost 92 years old but has so much energy; it’s like he’s 42.

He married my sister Ann. Ann is wild and crazy. She’s off-the-wall and a good person.

They live in Shirley Long Island, New York. One time we’re in her kitchen. Al and I were sitting at the table. Ann’s a great cook. She was making ricotta in lasagna or something. She made lobster for us and we were eating that, too.

Al said to me, “You know your sister; watch this. ‘Hey Perkins [to his wife], how was the beach today?’” Ann said, “Wall-to-wall hair. If they ever need a gorilla for the circus, they’ll find one there.” He said, “Do you see? See what I mean? She’s crazy!” Then we ate more lobster. [laughs] Al’s always had a great sense of humor. He’s like a Dean Martin. He has to keep Ann Marie kidded. He gets her and puts up with her.

Al’s a smart man; he’s not like everyone else. He knew what was going on in the world and he’s very savvy. I admire him as much as I admire anyone. He’s a kind person, as well. Al cares about his family very much; I always knew he was in my corner. If I ever needed help, he’d have been there. But I guess I never thought to need it. [chuckles] He had his life, and I had mine.

Eddy: What do you think of his art? Any favorites?

Millie: Do you mean his paintings or his comics? I think it’s beautiful? I love his landscapes. I have one, but would love to have more. Whenever we talk I say, “Al, come on, send me [another] picture.

Did he do Batman? Didn’t he do little Nancy? What else did he do? [She didn’t remember Ferd’nand but remembered Joe Palooka and Abbie an’ Slats. It was drawing the Man of Steel,

however, that Ms. Perkins respected as his cartooning claim to fame.] Al is amazing!

He did Superman for so many years. When I tell them that my brother-in-law did Superman, they go wild.

He’s one of the special people on this planet. He cares about the Earth and what we’re doing with it. He’s a human who cares about ecology. Once he did an amazing cartoon about human beings eating up the greenery of the Earth. It was funny and shockingly poignant. He has a great imagination.

Eddy: Who was sexier, Al or Elvis? [laughter] Millie: I was living in New York. Being a New York person,

Wayne Boring, Al Plastino, and Curt Swan were the primary Superman artists during comic books’ late Golden and Silver Ages. By the time assignments were given out for Superman: The Wedding Album No. 1 (Dec. 1996) Al was the last remaining member of the big three. Shown here—one of two new pages he both penciled and inked for the special.

102 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Al captured the beauty of the sea grasses in the Great South Bay area near his home.

I never thought of Elvis as anything. [While making the movie with him] I wasn’t in love with Elvis. Was I married at the time?

I may have been married to Dean Stockwell. Dean and I were married for three or four years but that was a silly romance at the time. My second marriage was to Robert Thom; that was a real marriage. He was a writer and the father of my children. With me, my husband wrote plays. Later he took me to Las Vegas to hear Elvis and I realized he was brilliant!

The crowd went berserk. Who else is there like him? Sinatra?

The Beatles? Maybe Barbra Streisand? There was a scene where he was driving me home in a truck.

And he was supposed to sing to me. After the scene he said to me, “Boy, is this stupid; no one would do this.” I had a new respect.

Al, sexy? He’d say, “Excuse me; if they saw me, I’d be a movie star too.” Al, he just thought it

was fun to tease me. He’d make fun of my clothes—that no movie star would ever wear them. But it was never mean. We’re family!

Who the hell’s Al Plastino?

We were all so proud of him. I think it’s great he’s getting this attention now. I, and all of my sisters, adore him. Cathy (Catharina) Pressman is in Colorado.

She’s the youngest. She loves Al. He’s 91 and I can’t imagine what I would ever do without him.

Boston Bound The Superman/Kennedy story found its proper home too late for Al. Still, when the pages did arrive, there remained a sense of urgency and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum moved quickly.

On March 20, 2014, an exhibit opened and all four Plastino children were in attendance, along with the late artist’s wife.

MaryAnn and Fred flew to

Boston; Janice went by train; Arlene and Ann Marie traveled by car. A few added family members were in tow. The display was scheduled to run through May 31. Its success, however, led to the timeline being extended through the first of September. All ten pages of original art were on display in a special exhibit room, six on one wall and four on another.

While discussing the presentation a few days after returning home, Fred admitted to a lack of excitement initially, participating in the event more “out of respect.” But noting that the museum itself is very impressive, and how all of the staff joined the family for a private lunch they had prepared, he brightened when stating if his dad could have been there, “It probably would have been the highlight of his life.” Ann Marie confirmed that the staff treated them very well. She also remembered a recurring conversation from her marriage: “I said, ‘Al, you do comic books.’

He thought I was insulting him; Al always wanted to be called an artist.” After attending the exhibit, her late husband being celebrated as a cartoonist is (and always has been) good enough for Ann Marie.

The curator of the Plastino art display, Stacey Bredhoff, emailed on May 8, 2014, her impressions after initially viewing the pages and deciding on their arrangement: “I can tell you that when I did see them for the first time, the first thing that struck me was their size and that they were not in color. (I didn’t realize the coloring came later in the process.) It was also fascinating to look closely and see the artist’s revisions, and to get some sense of the process of creating the finished art. I was also impressed with their excellent

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 103

condition. And I could see that they were something extraordinary—to have an entire story intact after half a century was very unique. Someone had valued them and taken care of them and kept them together.

“Before the art arrived, we thought of various options and our exhibit designer suggested that the small gallery that we call the ‘Document Room,’ would be perfect for it. Early on, we knew that we wanted to present all the drawings so that visitors could read through the entire story; when we saw the art for the first time, that confirmed our decision to show all ten of them. We were committed to showing all the drawings as a single work.

“The last thought—which is really just a repeat of the above—is that we feel fortunate and grateful that the drawings survived, and that they stand as a tribute to a program that was very important to President Kennedy. We are only sorry that Mr. Plastino did not live to see them come to the place they were always meant to be.”

The author made his own pilgrimage to the Library and Museum on May 3, 2014. Upon perusing the twice-up original art in person, there appeared a different quality to the inks (not on the redrawn splash page, but with the other nine pages completed prior to the assassination). Unsuspected when looking at “Superman’s Mission” in comic book form, it’s as if someone else’s brush strokes embellished Alfred’s pencils. Possibly George Klein, who was regularly inking Curt Swan’s work at the time, and was previously believed never to have collaborated with Plastino.

Did editor Mort Weisinger think this special occasion warranted the unusual pairing? Another mystery to fathom.

The “Superman’s Mission for President Kennedy” originals find their longintended home. In front are the younger Melanie and Ryan Podlesny, and encircling them starting from left are: Ann Marie Plastino, Janice Iapaolo, Paul Iapaolo, Brian Podlesny, Daniel Charles, Fred Plastino, MaryAnn Charles, and Arlene Podlesny. (Photo taken March 20, 2014 and courtesy of Fred Plastino.)

Renoir’s “By the Sea Shore,” Plastino style. Copied at the Met when he was age 17, this painting from which he learned so much gave Al a lifetime of enjoyment.

104 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

“Train with Elaine” – a gift from Plastino to his personal trainer at the time.

Pencil rough and finished art for the Sept.

20, 1968 daily installment of Batman.

Al enjoyed this Warner Brothers Animation television tribute, as seen on the Krypto the Superdog program (Cartoon Network).

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 105

Thom McAn shoe ad for comic books, used in this case as the back cover of Mr. District Attorney No. 4, July-Aug. 1948 (National/ DC Comics). The art is attributed to Plastino.

Below: With a nod to Peanuts, “Smile” was created by Alfred in 1980 and appeared monthly in the Rotary Club newspaper on Long Island.

Above: Careening cars and other panels by Al from Bike Comics (1949). The artist illustrated five of 16 total pages in this General Comics giveaway.

106 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Unofficial audition: Plastino’s splash page from World’s Finest Comics No. 165 (Mar. 1967), and a sketch of the Caped Crusader, both done around the time Al was taking over the Batman newspaper comic strip.

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 107

2006 pencil doodling by Alfred.

Action Comics No. 130 (Mar. 1949)

Action Comics No. 222 (Nov. 1956)

Showcase No. 9 (Jul.-Aug. 1957)

Superman No. 67 (Nov.-Dec. 1950)

Plastino Cover Gallery

Kids, Cuties, Celebrities, and a Couple of Mysteries Too!

108 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 109

Superboy No. 10 (Sept.-Oct. 1950)

Superboy No. 6 (Jan.-Feb. 1950, inks by Bob Oksner)

Superman No. 63 (Mar.-Apr. 1950)

Adventure Comics No. 159 (Dec. 1950)

110 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

My Pal, Al

Author’s Final Note: l’s first words included several expletives deleted and I was glad for every one of them when he learned about my wife’s latest cancer in August 2012. The fiery language stemmed from his passionate nature, the region of the country in which he has always lived and, most of all, because he is a caring friend. Then he went in another direction entirely: “Tell your wife I have breasts.” The “breasts” comment would be repeated in succeeding phone calls. It was made to bring humor and to impart optimism to my Mitzi. Al was reminding her that he’d been taking female hormone treatments to slow the progression of his own prostate cancer, which he had for “going on four years” at the time. During another call he said, “I’m an old man, I’ve lived my life.” With the next sentence he reminded, “You’ve got to have hope.” Thank you, Al.

A

Plastino photo detail—taken by Tony Tower of the Hero Initiative (at the 2013 New York Comic-Con).

Next page, top: pencil preliminary for “Al Plastino Meets Superman.”

Bottom: Al’s dynamic mixing of a few DC and Marvel characters on which he worked.

Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing • 111

112 • Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing

COMICS MAGAZINES FROM TWOMORROWS ™

A Tw o M o r r o w s P u b l i c a t i o n

No. 3, Fall 2013

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JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR celebrates the life and career of the “King” of comics through interviews with Kirby and his contemporaries, feature articles, and rare & unseen Kirby artwork. Now full-color, the magazine showcases Kirby’s art even more dynamically. Edited by JOHN MORROW.

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Alfred John Plastino might not be as famous as the

creators of Nancy, Joe Palooka, Batman, and other classic daily and Sunday newspaper strips, but he worked on many of them. And of his era, Plastino was the last surviving penciler/inker of Superman comic books, having co-created Supergirl, Brainiac, and the Legion of SuperHeroes—drawing those characters’ first appearances, and illustrating the initial comics story to feature Kryptonite. In these pages, the artist remembers both his struggles and triumphs in the world of cartooning and beyond. A near-century of history and insights shared by Al, his family, and contemporaries Allen Bellman, Nick Cardy, Joe Giella, and Carmine Infantino—along with successors Jon Bogdanove, Jerry Ordway, and Mark Waid—paint a layered portrait of Plastino’s life and career.

ISBN 978-1-60549-066-3 $17.95 in the US ISBN-13: 978-1-60549-066-3 ISBN-10: 1-60549-066-0 51795

9 781605 490663

TwoMorrows Publishing Raleigh, North Carolina

Captain America, Sub-Mariner TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Snoopy TM & © United Media. Nancy, Ferd’nand TM & © United Features Syndicate.

From the author and designer team of Curt Swan: A Life In Comics.

Foreword by Paul Levitz.