Alter Ego #2 Preview

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SILVER AGE-GOLDEN AGE-BEYOND!

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No. 2 AUTUMN 1999

THE

ATOM

was CREATED by:

Gil Kane B) Gardner Fox C) Julie Schwartz D) Jerry G. Bails E) All of the Above A)

Don’t answer Till you read this issue’s Extensive ExEgesis of the Tiny Titan--&

Mike W. Barr’s AwEsome Addendum!

A Surprise-Filled Interview with

Larry Lieber First scripter of THOR, IRON MAN, et al.!

A Rare Photo Gallery

Fandom’s FAN-tastic Past!

From the ’60s to the ’90s!

PLUS RARE ART BY:

Michael T. Gilbert Jerry Ordway Gil Kane John Romita And much more!

BLOCKBUSTER BONUS!

Mr. Monster Presents a Never-Reprinted

SPIRIT story by Will Eisner!

Volume 3, No. 2 Autumn 1999

™

Silver Age Section Background image: The Silver Age Atom dukes it out with the G.A. Atom in this cover detail by Gil Kane from The Atom #36. [©1999 DC Comics, Inc.]

Editor Roy Thomas

Associate Editor Bill Schelly

Consulting Editors John Morrow Jon B. Cooke

FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck

Contributing Editor Michael T. Gilbert

Editors Emeritus

Jerry G. Bails, Ronn Foss, Biljo White, Mike Friedrich

Cover Art Gil Kane, Jack Burnley

Contents Silver Threads among the Gold (& Bronze, & Beyond!) . . . . . . . . . 2 Our Only Writer/Editorial This Ish.

Splitting The Atom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Roy Thomas Tells All (We Hope!) about the 1960-61 Origins of the Tiny Titan, starring Gil Kane, Julius Schwartz, Gardner Fox, and Jerry Bails.

Cover Color

Splicing The Atom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Tom Ziuko, Jack Burnley

Mike W. Barr’s Fearless Footnote to the Previous Piece.

Design & Layout Jon B. Cooke/ GREAT SWAMP GRAPHICS

Mailing Crew

“Stan Made Up the Plot... and I’d Write the Script” . . . . . . . . . 18 A Conversation with Larry Lieber, Spidey Comic Strip Artist—and One of the Most Important Scripters of the Silver Age.

Russ Garwood, D. Hambone, Glen Musial, Ed Stelli, Pat Varker

Mr. Monster Introduces “The Spirit”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

And Special Thanks to:

Michael T. Gilbert Presents an Ultra-Rare 1966 Spirit Story by Will Eisner.

Neal Adams Mike W. Barr Jack Burnley Ernie Colon Craig & David Delich Al Dellinges Will Eisner Nancy Ford Ron Goulart Grass Green Mark Hanerfeld Roger Hill Gil Kane Robert Kanigher David Anthony Kraft Stan Lee Larry Lieber Russ Maheras Lou Mougin Will Murray Jerry Ordway Jon E. Park Julius Schwartz J.E. Smith Marc Swayze Daniel Tesmoingt Joel Thingvall Marv Wolfman

Hark, The Herald Tribune Sings! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Ye Editor Examines an Extraordinary Issue of the Trib’s New York Magazine.

Fandom’s FAN-tastic Past—from the ’60s to the ’90s! . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Bill Schelly’s Guided Tour of Photos and Other Artifacts of the Early Movers and Shakers of Comics Fandom.

Golden Age Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! Our sincere thanks to Gil Kane for giving us his blessing to print as our cover the little-seen, undated illustration of himself and The Atom. Thanks also to Mike Barr for making us aware of it, and John Dacey at Hi-De-Ho Comics in Santa Monica, California. [Atom ©1999 DC Comics, Inc.] Alter EgoTM is published quarterly by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@oburg.net. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $5.95 ($7.00 Canada, $9.00 elsewhere).

Four-issue subscriptions: $20 US, $27 Canada, $37 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective companies.

All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Alter and Captain Ego ©1999 Biljo White. The Atom, Batman, Billy Batson, Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Junior, Doll Man, Dr. Mid-Nite, The Flash, Green Lantern, Infinity, Inc., JSA, Mary Marvel, Mr. Mind, Rex the Wonder Dog, Robin, Rose & Thorn, Shazam, Sivana, Starman, Steamboat, Superman, Wonder Woman ©1999 DC Comics Inc.; Ant Man, Captain America, Captain Britain, The Hulk, Iron Man, Mr. Morgan’s Monster, Rawhide Kid, Spider-Man, Thor, Wasp, Watcher ©1999 Marvel Characters, Inc.; The Destructor, Tiger-Man, Warhawk ©1999 Atlas Comics; Xal-Kor ©1999 Grass Green. Mr. Monster © Michael T. Gilbert. The Spirit ©1999 Will Eisner; The Eye, The Eclipse ©1999 Bill Shelly; The Viper ©1999 Ronald E. Foss. Printed in Canada.

FIRST PRINTING

Splitting The Atom

5

Splitting The Atom More Than You Could Possibly Want to Know about the Creation of the Silver Age Mighty Mite!

by Roy Thomas

#34 (cover-dated Dec. 1961, but actually on sale several months earlier).

After appearing also in #35-36, he graduated at once to his own bimonthly magazine, The Atom (#1, June-July 1962).

L

AST YEAR AT RASHOMON DEPT.: Back in A/E V2#2, Ye Editor offered the classic 1950 Akiro Kurosawa film Rashomon, whose theme is the impossibility of ever knowing the whole truth about any event, as a template for comics (or any other kind of) history. Then there’s New Wave director Alain Resnais’ 1961 masterpiece Last Year at Marienbad, in which the male protagonist confronts the heroine again and again to insist the two of them had an affair “last year at Frederiksbad, perhaps at Marienbad.” In its own way, the French film plays with truth and memory every bit as much as does Rashomon—which, believe it or don’t, brings us to the creation of the Silver Age Atom.

Ray Palmer wasn’t the first DC hero called The Atom, of course.

The original one appeared from 1940-1951 in All-American Comics, Flash Comics, Comic Cavalcade, and All-Star Comics.

The Mighty Atom, as he was called in his origin in AllAmerican #19 (Oct. 1940), was a short, red-headed Calvin College student named Al Pratt who had been trained to physical perfection. Until 1948 this Atom had no superpowers, just a rather odd, leather-girdled outfit with a full face mask. Then, still early in the Atomic Age, DC decided a crimefighter with so timely a name needed powers to match; so The original, non-super-powered Atom, overnight, in a 1945 page drawn by Jon Chester with no explaKozlak. [Art courtesy of Jerry Bails; nation, he Atom ©1999 DC Comics Inc.] gained “atomic strength” and, soon afterward, a new costume with a stylized atom emblazoned on its tunic.

The first Atom’s last Golden Age appearance was in All-Star #57 (Feb.-March 1951).

A few facts about the creation of the second Atom are pretty much set in concrete: Scripted by Gardner Fox, penciled by Gil Kane (with Murphy Anderson inks), and edited by Julius Schwartz, he debuted in National/DC’s Showcase

The first Mighty Mite gained “atomic strength” in 1948: a detail from the cover of All-Star #52 (April-May 1950) by Arthur Peddy and Bernard Sachs. [Atom ©1999 DC Comics Inc.]

Alas, almost everything else about the origins of the six-inch stalwart is up for grabs.

Fact is, a study of The Atom’s less than immaculate conception is a textbook example of how difficult, if not downright impossible, it is to reconstruct comics history—even when most of the people involved in a particular creation are still alive. Maybe especially then, because it’s harder for anyone to make sweeping assumptions without someone else arising to vociferously deny them!

Offered for your consideration:

Background image: Jerry Bails’ 1960 concept of The Atom— like the one that eventually appeared in this panel from Showcase #35—called for a hero who shrank from 6’ tall to 6”!

[Original artwork by Kane & Anderson courtesy of Mike W. Barr; Atom ©1999 DC Comics Inc.]

The Silver Age versions of Flash, Green Lantern, and Hawkman, for all the science-fictional trappings which set them apart them from their 1940s forebears, were still basically “revivals,” as DC editors and fans alike called them back then.

However, the star of Showcase #34 was destined to have virtually nothing in common with the old Atom except his name. The new hero’s main schtick would be that he fought crime while shrunk to a height of six inches. For the first time, DC would take one of its “revivals” off in a radically different direction from the original, making him in effect a totally new character.

Ever wonder why?

In attempting to reconstruct the creation of the Silver Age Atom, we must examine the potential contributions of four principals. In alphabetical order: Jerry G. Bails, in 1960 a young associate professor of natural science at Wayne State University, Detroit, and soon to become the first editor/publisher of Alter Ego (Volume 1) and a founding father of comics fandom;

Jerry G. Bails, circa 1960-61. [Reprinted from Alter Ego V1#5 by way of the 1997 trade paperback The Best of Alter Ego.]

Gardner F. Fox (1911-1986), writer/co-creator of the Golden Age Flash, Hawkman, Dr. Fate, and Justice Society, among others—who by late 1960 had likewise co-created the Silver Age Justice League, Hawkman, and Adam Strange; Gil Kane, a professional comics artist since 1942, best known in late 1960 as the illustrator of the Silver Age Green Lantern—a perennial

6

Splitting The Atom in comics history.

Much as the four protagonists of Rashomon relate widely varying recollections of the same event, the saga of the Silver Age Atom is fraught with questions about precisely what was done when, by whom, and how important it was to the development of the new hero.

Fortunately, we don’t have to rely overmuch on current memories of an episode now nearly four decades old, because there exists a surprising amount of relevant correspondence from late 1960 and early 1961. Rarely before or for some years afterward was the development of any comics character so well (if contradictorily) documented. To wit:

In Strange Adventures #140 (May 1962), writer Gardner Fox and editor Julius Schwartz got caught up in one of their own stories. [Special thanks to Mike W. Barr; ©1999 by DC Comics.]

talent who remains active in the field even today; Julius Schwartz, in 1960 the editor and de facto co-creator of comics starring the new Flash, GL, JLA, and Hawkman, and a DC editor from 1944 until—well, I was about to say “until he retired,” but in 1998 he edited the first Green Lantern Annual ever, thus extending his editorship into a second halfcentury.

Quite a cast! With talents like those behind him, small wonder the Small Wonder has endured for nearly four decades! And certainly the last thing I’d want to do is denigrate any of them: I began corresponding with Julie, Gardner, and Jerry (in that order) in late 1960, several years before I met any of them in person; and Gil has been both collaborator and friend since 1969. For that reason, all four are generally referred to below by their first names.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should state here that I myself played a part in events, though hardly one to rank with these four fathers (forefathers?) of the incredible shrinking Atom. Think of me more as a spear-carrier, at most a supporting character with an interest

Jerry Bails saved most letters he received from Gardner Fox (beginning in 1953!), Julius Schwartz (starting in mid-1960), and myself (as of November 1960). He also kept carbon copies (remember them?) of some of his early missives to Gardner and Julie.

Gardner Fox, too, tended to save letters he received, though seldom carbons of those he wrote. Many of the former are now archived in the library of the University of Oregon (in Eugene).

Letters in this collection from Jerry and me were photocopied for us by Mr. Monster creator Michael T. Gilbert, bless him, while working on his own Fox-related pieces for A/E, Volume 2.

Gil Kane’s initial but crucial contribution to the Atom’s development was a series of conceptual illustrations, long since scattered to the winds; fortunately, we have access to 1961 comments made by Gil, Gardner, Julie, and Jerry about those drawings. I also discussed the hero’s creation with Gil by phone in 1998.

Julius Schwartz generally didn’t save correspondence, but he’s well represented anyway—by early-’60s letters squirreled away by Gardner and Jerry. In addition, he spoke with me at length by phone in spring of 1998 about the “Atomic Matter.”

And me? I saved relatively little correspondence, but luckily, in 1964, Jerry mailed back my early letters to him so I could use them to write a piece called “The Alter Ego Story.”

Among other things, that unfinished history of Roy Thomas circa 1961 A/E’s first incarna(not that he’s particularly tion recounted his proud of the photo). and my connection with The Atom’s genesis, then a mere 3-4 years in the past. Most of my article finally saw the light of day in the 1997 Best of Alter Ego volume from Hamster Press, but much of the Atom-related material was omitted there as irrelevant; so some of it is printed here for the first time.

Below: Detail from the cover of The Atom #1 (June-July 1962). [©1999 DC Comics Inc.]

Splicing The Atom

15

Splicing The Atom

by Mike W. Barr [NOTE: This short piece serves as a footnote to the foregoing article—but what a footnote! —R.T.]

I

’m told that a 19th century scientist named John Dalton was the first man to gather evidence for the existence of the atom, although many had theorized of it for centuries.

In a way, I know how he feels.

In October 1977 I moved from my native Ohio, leaving my job as night maintenance man at a local Sears & Roebuck (which taught me the real value of a B.A. in English) to take a position as the staff proofreader at DC Comics in New York.

The hours were long; the pay was, to be diplomatic, meager ($125 a week—which, after taxes, shrank to about $99 a week— to live in New York? I was making less than that in Ohio, but the money went farther there); and the benefits weren’t much. But, like many before me, I was glad to have made at least a foothold in becoming a fulltime comics pro.

I realized much later that I had come into comics at a crucial time. In 1977 the business of comics—printing, distribution, payment, rights—had remained essentially unchanged since the dawn of comics, over forty years before. It could not have been predicted with any reliability that within a few years the entire business—with the advent of the direct market, some tentative steps toward creators’ rights, the payment of royalties, among other, long-overdue innovations—was about to change forever.

(More to the point, several old pros were convinced the business was dying. And from the quality of the work they were turning out, you couldn’t say they were wrong.)

As remarked, my lowly job didn’t have much in the way of perks. I had to proofread the original art for each and every DC comic (which, in the days of This double-page pinup by Gil Kane from The Atom #26 (Aug.-Sept. 1966), Mike tells us, is quite similar to the late100-page all-new comics, 99 of which 1960 concept drawing which he returned to the artist while on staff at DC. (©1999 DC Comics Inc.) often seemed cranked out by the aforementioned “old pros,” was not ipso facto a But the job did have its advantages, though none of them were of a bed of roses, though it was better than waxing floors at Sears), as well as financial nature. I really wanted to be a fulltime writer, so meeting make copies for the editors, fetch lunches, and run errands for the higher scripters I’d always admired, like Robert Kanigher, was a genuine thrill. echelon of the editorial staff. (Remind me to tell you the time DC art I was also in charge of returning original artwork, which I enjoyed, as it director Vinnie Colletta tried to get me fired because I refused to do his put me in direct contact with a number of pencilers and inkers who supjob by writing critiques on a seeming mountain of unsolicited art samplied a different perspective on comics from that of the writer. And if a ples and signing his name to them. [Hey, I guess I just did.])

“St “Stan an Made Made Up Up the the Plot Plot... ... and d Write Write the the Script Script... ...”” and I I ’d

A Conversation with Artist-Writer Larry Lieber Conducted & Edited by Roy Thomas, Transcribed by Jon B. Knutson

Larry Lieber

19

I

t’s hardly a secret that Marvel’s premier writer/editor, Stan Lee, was born Stanley Lieber… or that Larry Lieber, early Marvel artist and writer, is his younger brother. The splash pages of a number of major early-1960s Marvel super-hero tales give Stan credit for “plot” and Larry credit for “script.” However, what this actually means, and the brothers’ method of working together, has only rarely been touched upon, even in passing. Over the years, even after becoming the artist of the long-running Spider-Man newspaper comic strip written by Stan, Larry has preferred to keep a low profile, but I will readily admit that, besides liking Larry on a personal basis, I have always felt a certain kinship with him because he was the only person besides Stan to write any real volume of Marvel stories before I wandered in in July of 1965. Alter Ego is grateful for the privilege of interviewing Larry. —R.T. ROY THOMAS: Larry, when did you decide—if you ever did, exactly—that you wanted to be an artist?

LARRY LIEBER: Oh, God, that would be years before I was doing it professionally. I must’ve been a kid, a teenager, in school. I guess it was when Stan was a young man, first working for Timely Comics. I knew my brother was a writer for that company, and I was interested in comics—all the kids were. It was during the war, and I remember Kirby, when Captain America began. I remember having a “Sentinels of Liberty” card

and badge.

As a kid I liked to draw, and for most kids, liking to draw then—maybe it’s the same thing today— I turned to comics.

So that was the beginning of it.

RT: Where were you born?

LIEBER: In Manhattan, in 1931. Six months later we moved to the Bronx. I lived there A sketch of our friendly neighborhood wall-crawler, by the man who’s drawn his newspaper comic strip adventures longer than anyone else. [Spider-Man ©1999 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

until I was about ten and a half, then we moved back to Manhattan, up in Washington Heights. During that time, Stan went into the Army, and I was just going to school and drawing. When I was in junior high, I tried to get into the High School of Music and Art, but I couldn’t. I asked the teacher why, and he said something about my attendance not being good. It wasn’t true; I was always there. Anyway that was a big disappointment, because I felt I could probably draw as well as the other guys. So I went to George Washington High School in Manhattan, and the years passed….

RT: It’s been reported you did your first professional work around 1950, when you were nineteen or twenty.

LIEBER: In 1951 I went into the Air Force, for four years, during the Korean War. I spent two of them on Okinawa. Before I went in, I was working for Magazine Management….

RT: When I walked in the door there for the first time in 1965, I’d never heard the name “Magazine Management.” Turned out that was the umbrella name for Martin Goodman’s company, which included Marvel Comics, which then was at most one-third of the company… but also men’s magazines, true confessions, detective, puzzles, movie mags, a little bit of everything.

Larry may have had a Sentinels of Liberty badge, but within a year or two Uncle Sam—who outranked even Captain America—had commandeered the metal in them. [©1999 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

LIEBER: Right. Back then Marvel was Timely Comics. At the time I worked there, Magazine Management was big when the comics were big… it was small when the comics were small. At one time in the late ’50s it was just an alcove, with one window, and Stan was doing all the corrections himself; he had no assistants. Later I think Flo [Steinberg, secretary] and Sol Brodsky [production manager] came in.

But a few years before, I was working for Magazine Management, doing

20

Larry Lieber

Three splashes from Strange Tales #99 (1962)—by Kirby & Ayers, Heck, and Ditko. Only the latter had a writer’s credit for Stan Lee, so the other two were quite probably dialogued by Larry Lieber. [©1999 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

paste-ups, and I wanted to be an artist, an illustrator. I was working during the day, and I went to Pratt Art Institute the evening.

RT: In ’50-’51, would you have been drawing or writing or both?

LIEBER: The writing I didn’t do. When I came out after the service, I went to the Art Students’ League, and I still wanted to be an artist and do comics, but I had in mind to eventually become an illustrator. I was drawing, but I was slow. I didn’t have the skill to draw quickly, and in 1958 I had to earn a living. And Stan, at the time—well, things were bad. He had almost nobody working for him.

doing the lead story, and Don Heck was there. Ditko used to do the story at the end of the books, and later he and Stan did Amazing Adult Fantasy. At the time I had a room in Tudor City, and I was writing stories for Jack to draw. Jack was so fast, and I was learning to write. You can appreciate this, I’m sure: I didn’t really know how, and Stan was giving me a writing course!

RT: That was right after the American News collapse, when Goodman’s comics almost closed down for about a year.

LIEBER: Just in general. The change in his style really came, I think, with Fantastic Four and Spider-Man. Before that, he didn’t have that kind of style; and with me, it was just the principles, you know: just how you write, and “This is too many words” and “Put in less words, because even if it’s well-written they won’t want to read it,” that kind of thing. I learned a lot of the basics.

LIEBER: Wait a minute—I did do some comics then. I did some romance comics. I was penciling them. And there was a point where I did writing, because I remember Stan saying to me, “You write romances really well,” so I must have written some. In 1958 Stan said he wanted somebody to help him write, and he had nobody then; he was doing it all himself. I said, “I’m really not a writer.” He said, “Oh, I’ve read your letters.” So I probably wrote the romances sometime after that.

Later on, he got his style, and I didn’t particularly want to go with that style myself. I continued to write whatever way I did write. Later, when I did the westerns, they were not written in Stan’s style. I remember that Kirby was so fast he could draw faster than I was writing! Stan would say to me, “Jack needs another script!” I was on 41st, and I used to sit there Saturday and Sunday, and there was the Grand Central Post Office that was open all the time.

RT: When the comics were just getting started up again.

LIEBER: Well, they were putting out… let’s see… Journey into Mystery… Tales to Astonish.… I remember Jack Kirby was usually

RT: I had that advantage, too—as only one or two other people did—of working closely with Stan, in the mid-’60s. I got the impression that, as he was developing this new mutation of his style, he just had an irresistible impulse to teach you to write in his style, or just in general.

In 1961-62 Amazing Adult Fantasy became the outlet for the LeeDitko “O. Henry”-style tales. [©1999 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

RT: I used to take cab rides down there from the East 80s at midnight or later,

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt

33

—The “Found” Spirit Section

The “Found” Spirit Section W e very definitely wanted to reprint the two preceding pages prepared by Michael T. Gilbert in this Digital Edition—as well as the short piece by Ye Editor which appears on page 38.

However, we aren’t re-presenting the five-page 1966 Spirit story itself, because Denis Kitchen, on behalf of the Will Eisner Estate, has

[Spirit story & art ©2006 Will Eisner Studios, Inc.]

35

informed us that DC Comics intends to reprint it as part of its excellent ongoing Spirit Archives. So we’re featuring just a tantalizing foretaste of panels from that epoch-marking tale below—and, on the following two pages, some additional Eisner art that wasn’t in A/E V3#2….

38

Hark, the Herald Tribune Sings!

Hark, the Herald Tribune Sings!

A Look at a Very Special Issue of New York Sunday Magazine

by Roy Thomas [An Informational Addendum to What Has Gone Before]

B

y the start of 1996, the New York Herald Tribune was nearing the end of a long and colorful career as a daily newspaper, but it was still a force to be reckoned with.

The so-called New Journalism, for example, was represented in its pages by the irrepressible Tom Wolfe, whose 1965 article about Hugh Hefner’s life style and revolving round bed had made a strong impression on neo-Manhattanite R.T. (not to mention a lot of other people).

The paper’s Sunday supplement magazine New York, in fact, would—after the Herald Trib itself folded its U.S. tents a few years later, leaving only its famed International edition— spin off into a separate and influential monthly magazine.

But on Sunday, January 9, 1966, as documented earlier by Michael T. Gilbert, New York discovered comic books in general… and The Spirit in particular.

“The Great Comics Revival,” heralded the Trib’s cover, although the photo there was merely of a New York skyline.

Will Eisner—“reasonably young and still reasonably grand,” in Marilyn Mercer’s pithy phrase—in 1965.

There were six comicsoriented pieces in that landmark issue, and all but three of them—articles on the campy Batman TV show set to debut the very next night, and on the upcoming Broadway musical It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s SUPERMAN, set for a March 29 opening, and the infamous Lee-Kirby interview reprinted in The Jack Kirby Collector #18—had at least a tangential connection with Will Eisner’s quirky plainclothes super-hero, who had been out of the public limelight for a decade and a half.

The magazine’s lead article, accompanied by a photo of “Batman” reading a newspaper on the subway, was written by cartoonist/satirist Jules Feiffer, whose groundbreaking 1965 book The Great Comic Book Heroes had made writing about old comics almost respectable in some circles. His “Pop-Sociology” listed Jerry Siegel, Bob Kane, Jack Cole, and Will Eisner (“authors” of Superman, Batman, Plastic Man, and The Spirit, respectively), as “the writers who influenced me,” in contrast to the usual list of respectable men of letters such as “Blake, Lawrence, Emerson, and Whitman.” Simply stated, Feiffer’s theme was: “To know the true temper of a nation’s people, turn not to its sociologists, but to its junk.” He maintains that “there is room, important room, for junk in our culture… But good Lord, let’s not make it respectable!”

The Spirit just goes on… and on… and on. Roy Thomas’ wife Dann bought this cover for him because of his own love-hate relationship with his aracari toucan, Gonzo. [1990 Kitchen Sink Spirit comics cover ©1999 Will Eisner; from the collection of R.T.]

Nowhere in Feiffer’s article, however, does the playwright of Little Murders and the future screenwriter of Carnal Knowledge bother to mention that he was once Eisner’s assistant on the weekly Spirit strip.

That was left to his and Eisner’s onetime colleague, Marilyn Mercer, who may well have been the catalyst for getting the old gang

Fandom’s FAN-tastic Past!

41

Fandom ’s FAN-tastic Past... from the ’60s to the ’90s Photos and Other Artifacts of the Founders of Comics Fandom Commentary by Bill Schelly

I

f few people once thought that old comic books would ever be sought after as prized items, fewer still ever anticipated that photographic images of the early gatherings of comics fans would be treasured as they are today—let alone that these photos, often taken with early portable cameras “on the fly,” are studied like rare artifacts of an ancient culture.

Almost forty years have passed since Jerry Bails set in motion the twin wheels that became comics fandom and Alter Ego. Before this, no one except the late Don Thompson seems to have imagined that a fandom for admirers of comic art could exist apart from science-fiction fandom—let alone that it would become a self-sustaining phenomenon, with sufficient impetus to propel us into the next millennium.

Such photos provide a portal to a time before anyone had heard of price guides, autograph fees, or signed editions—or the word “comicon”! In the early 1960s, just bringing together a handful of fans from different cities was an unbridled thrill. A new fraternity of comics aficionados was busy being born.

Or, as a well-known troubadour of the day sang, “The times, they are a-changing!”

Let us begin our travels back in time with…

Spring 1963. Bill J. (“Biljo”) White was visited at his new home in Columbia, Missouri, by fan-artist Ronn Foss, who showed him a Grass Green drawing which inspired Biljo to launch his own super-hero, The Eye. (Ronn and writer Drury Moroz’ creation, The Eclipse, would debut in the Foss-edited A/E #5, which was at the printer even as Ruth White snapped this photo.)

In the cinder-block “White House of Comics” built in his backyard to house his collection of rare comics and art, Biljo showed Ronn the original Kubert cover of The Brave and the Bold #35.

Only a few days later, Biljo hosted the first face-to-face meeting of A/E cofounders Jerry Bails and Roy Thomas. This photo appeared postage-stamp size in Voice of Comicdom #4 (Apr. 1965) from Golden Gate Publishers. Reproduction is far from ideal, but it remains the only photo of the three and their ladies together.

(L-to-R: Roy Thomas, Linda Rahm, Jerry & Sondra Bails, Biljo & Ruth White.) Surprisingly, Biljo also has home movie footage of the visits of Ronn, Jerry, and Roy!

[Above] As Jerry and Sondra examine the White House treasures, can you identify the pieces of original art adorning the walls?

(Biljo ruefully informs us he has parted with most of this artwork in the ensuing years.)

[At right] “Fannish Love in Bloom.”

Ronn Foss and Illinois fan Coreen Casey married in 1965 and co-edited the fanzine Pandora: The Romance of Adventure. Their own romance produced two talented children, Scott and Alexandra, now grown and living in Oregon.

Fanzine writer Glen Johnson lounges on the porch of Magnus artist Russ Manning in 1964, soon after assuming editorship of The Comic Reader from Jerry Bails. Then a school teacher, Glen now makes his home in Brigham City, Utah.

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Fandom’s FAN-tastic Past—

Like other cities across the country, Chicago spawned its own comics club in response to the fan movement spearheaded by Alter Ego, Comic Art, Xero, and a few other early fanzines. The 1962 World Science Fiction Convention held in the Windy City also helped bring area comics fans together.

Don Glut (later the writer of novelization of The Empire Strikes Back and creator of Dr. Spektor, et al., for Gold Key) and his friend Dick Anderson (right) flank Forrest J Ackerman, editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland, at the ’62 ChiCon. Forry’s probably displaying a copy of Don’s movie fanzine Shazam!

[Above] Many out-of-towners were drawn to Chicago’s fan meetings. (L-to-R:) Bob (Keith) Greene, Bob Butts, Alex Almaraz, Chuck Moss, Russ Keeler, and Larry Raybourne. Those who visited Ross and Larry in Cleveland never failed to be shocked upon meeting their pet python!

[Left] Don Glut was known for his Captain America costume, but here’s a rare look at him garbed as another Golden Age hero. Yet another publicity shot for his fanzine Shazam!?

{Above] Members of the Chicago Comics Club, 1964. (L-to-R:) Ed Navarrete, Bob Noga, Paul Thompson, Greg Feldoman, Ronn Foss, Ann Foss, Ross Kight (behind Ann), Marti Beck, Bill Placzek, John-somebody (behind Bill), and (kneeling) Alex Almaraz.

[Left] The Eclipse (created by Drury Moroz & Ronn Foss; TM 1999 Bill Schelly)

[Left] Later Warren/Marvel/DC writer Doug Moench at a mid-’60s meeting of the Chicago Comics Club. Like just about everyone else, Doug published his own fanzine, called Review. Copies are as scarce as hen’s teeth!

[Right] Bill (then Billy) Placzek and Ed Navarrete pose with some vintage comics, circa 1964. Bill had been given a huge collection by a family friend, and his small attic couldn’t accommodate many people at one time, lest someone step on a vintage issue!

5.95

$

In the USA

Roy Thomas’ Legendary Comics Fanzine

No. 2 AUTUMN 1999

GOLDEN AGE-SILVER AGE-BEYOND!

&

With Speci al Bonus:

EXTRA!

Kanigher on Kanigher!

Marv Wolfman on Saving Golden Age Art Treasures!

Plus Rare Art By:

Joe Kubert Marc Swayze C.C. Beck Mac Raboy R.D. Taylor Ernie Colon

INSIDE:

Will Murray on The Lost Origin of the Sky Wizard!

H.G. Peter and MUCH More!

Star-Spangled Interview with

Jack Burnley 1940s Artist of Starman, Batman, Superman & the JSA!

AN A/E EXCLUSIVE! THE MYSTERies Behind the first two Wonder

Woman stories!

Volume 3, No. 2 Autumn 1999 Editor

™

Golden Age Section Background image: Detail of Adventure Comics #65 cover featuring Jack Burnley’s Starman. [©1999 DC Comics, Inc.]

Roy Thomas

Associate Editor Bill Schelly

Consulting Editors John Morrow Jon B. Cooke

FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck

Contributing Editor Michael T. Gilbert

Editors Emeritus

Jerry G. Bails, Ronn Foss, Biljo White, Mike Friedrich

Cover Art Gil Kane, Jack Burnley

Cover Color Tom Ziuko, Jack Burnley

Design & Layout Jon B. Cooke/ GREAT SWAMP GRAPHICS

Mailing Crew

Russ Garwood, D. Hambone, Glen Musial, Ed Stelli, Pat Varker

And Special Thanks to:

Neal Adams Mike W. Barr Jack Burnley Ernie Colon Craig & David Delich Al Dellinges Will Eisner Nancy Ford Ron Goulart Grass Green Mark Hanerfeld Roger Hill Gil Kane Robert Kanigher David Anthony Kraft Stan Lee Larry Lieber Russ Maheras Lou Mougin Will Murray Jerry Ordway Jon E. Park Julius Schwartz J.E. Smith Marc Swayze Daniel Tesmoingt Joel Thingvall Marv Wolfman

Contents

Re: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Letters from Stan Lee and lots of other folks.

“It Was Only Starman I Paid Attention To!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Actually, Golden Age great Jack Burnley lavished attention on all aspects of his art, as shown in this stunningly illustrated interview.

How Marv Wolfman and Company Saved (a Bit of) the Golden Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 You don’t believe us? Read it and see!

The Sky Wizard’s Lost Origins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Will Murray’s unearthed the detailed documentation of a Golden Age hero.

So how come most of us never heard of him?

Kanigher on Kanigher (and Everything Else!). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 We mean what we say.

An All-Star Sensation!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Roy Thomas examines curiosities behind the first two Wonder Woman stories.

FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) #61 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 P.C. Hamerlinck presents another edition of FCA—with a C.C. Beck cover!

“We Didn’t Know... It Was the Golden Age!” (FCA) . . . . . . . . 36 Captain Marvel artist Marc Swayze regales us with tales of the creation of Mary Marvel—and of going off to war.

The Richard Deane Taylor Interview (FCA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 A conversation with a noted Fawcett alumnus.

The Captain’s Chief (FCA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 The late Captain Marvel co-creator C.C. Beck’s history lesson on Fawcett Publications and a certain Big Red Cheese and his friends and relations.

Silver Age Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! Our thanks to Jack Burnley for allowing us to use his great Adventure Comics #71 cover recreation as our cover illo, to Jerry Bails for loaning us the art from his collection, and to Craig and David Delich, who first published it in black-&-white in the 1977 All-Star Comics Revue. [Starman ©1999 DC Comics, Inc.] Alter EgoTM is published quarterly by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@oburg.net. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $5.95 ($7.00 Canada, $9.00 elsewhere).

Four-issue subscriptions: $20 US, $27 Canada, $37 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective companies.

All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Alter and Captain Ego ©1999 Biljo White. The Atom, Batman, Billy Batson, Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Junior, Doll Man, Dr. Mid-Nite, The Flash, Green Lantern, Infinity, Inc., JSA, Mary Marvel, Mr. Mind, Rex the Wonder Dog, Robin, Rose & Thorn, Shazam, Sivana, Starman, Steamboat, Superman, Wonder Woman ©1999 DC Comics Inc.; Ant Man, Captain America, Captain Britain, The Hulk, Iron Man, Mr. Morgan’s Monster, Rawhide Kid, Spider-Man, Thor, Wasp, Watcher ©1999 Marvel Characters, Inc.; The Destructor, Tiger-Man, Warhawk ©1999 Atlas Comics; Xal-Kor ©1999 Grass Green. Mr. Monster © Michael T. Gilbert. The Spirit ©1999 Will Eisner; The Eye, The Eclipse ©1999 Bill Shelly; The Viper ©1999 Ronald E. Foss. Printed in Canada.

FIRST PRINTING

“It Was Only Starman I Paid Attention To!”

A Conversation with Jack Burnley Conducted & Edited by Roy Thomas Transcribed by Jon B. Knutson

A

s a kid in the late 1940s, I ran across an “old” (i.e., 1942) copy of Superman #19 at my grandparents’ farm. Inside were advertised the covers of other DC comics—including All-Star Comics #13, wherein the Justice Society were “Shanghaied into Space.” I spent years yearning to see the comic that went with that ad. But it would be more than a decade before I’d see it—or would learn that the artist of that stunning cover (and, as it happened, of quite a few pages inside) was one Jack Burnley… who was also responsible for some of the most beautiful Superman, Batman, and Starman artwork ever done, including much of the 1940s Superman and Batman newspaper comic strips.

In the final, 150th issue of his pace-setting Comics Interview magazine in 1995, David Anthony Kraft presented a lengthy talk with the artist, ably conducted by Lou Mougin, and I urge readers to seek out a copy. I was tempted to reprint it here, with Dave’s permission, but decided that, because I had a few questions of my own, it would be better to accept Jack Burnley’s kind offer to be interviewed again.

However, Lou’s interview for CI blazed the trail I followed, and I hereby acknowledge that debt, with thanks.

Thus, on July 10, 1999, I phoned Mr. Burnley (who quickly insisted I call him “Jack,” which I found a bit difficult, given my upbringing) and taped the following interview.—RT.

ROY THOMAS: You were born Harden Burnley. How did you get “Jack” out of that?

JACK BURNLEY: Well, my middle name is John, so I used Jack.

Harden Burnley’s a family name. When I first became a syndicated sports cartoonist with King Features, I was eighteen. That sports cartoon, which was syndicated to the Hearst newspapers, or to any newspaper throughout the country, used the name “Harden Burnley” for a year or two. But then I had them change the byline to just “Burnley.”

By two years before I went into comics, I was using the name “Jack Burnley” professionally.

RT: Where were you born?

BURNLEY: New York City. We lived in a large apartment house on Riverside Drive, just across from Grant’s Tomb. It’s been torn down, and now there’s the Riverside Church there.

RT: You were born in 1911. Your older brother, Depree, who was called Ray….

BURNLEY: I’d like to correct that, if I may. His name was Dupree.

With a “u.” It’s pronounced “dew-pray.” It’s a French name. He didn’t use “Ray” until he went into comics with me.

RT: I understand both of you got into comics around the same time, in 1939.

BURNLEY: He never settled into any particular art line. He was interested in fine arts. He liked the French impressionists, and he liked to do This page: Superman, Batman, and Starman—the Big Three of Burnley’s comic book career. [Superman-Batman illo ©1999 Jack Burnley; Superman, Batman, Starman ©1999 DC Comics Inc.]

Jack Burnley

times after that. I didn’t see his actual fights—I was too young—but I saw him work out in the gymnasium.

illustrations, but he was never really successful. When I left King Features and went into comics, I took him with me, and he worked as my assistant.

He did penciling and inking of some of the backgrounds.

RT: Jim Steranko’s History of Comics says you got into sports cartoons professionally because your sister took you up to King Features.

RT: He was never interested in a separate comics career for himself?

BURNLEY: Her name was Martine. My other sister, Elizabeth—who goes by the name of Betty—did the lettering for several years.

BURNLEY: He just got into it with me; he didn’t have a regular job otherwise, and it just turned out he was able to become a successful inker. But that was only through the association with me. He knew nothing about comics otherwise.

RT: So you were an artistic family.

RT: Comics Interview mentioned that some of your influences included one of my favorites, George Herriman, who did Krazy Kat, and Billy DeBeck on Barney Google… also Alex Raymond on Flash Gordon, and William Gould….

BURNLEY: Will Gould was a sports cartoonist. He spent a A past master holding a past masterpiece: This photo, taken a few years ago, shows year at King Features before I Jack Burnley holding a copy of the 1940 edition of World’s Fair Comics—the first time Superman and Batman appeared on a comic cover together, and containing took over the job. He later did his first Superman story. a Dick Tracy type of strip called Red Barry. But his influence on me was only as a sports cartoonist. apprenticeship.

RT: You also mentioned Bill Ripley….

RT: Was it your idea, BURNLEY: He was originally a sports cartoonist with the New York or your sister’s, to Globe in the ’20s. I was still a sports cartoonist when he started doing show your cartoons?

Believe It or Not, which started out as a sports cartoon. But it became so Were you pushing popular that he dropped the sports part. this, or was it just something she RT: You did a lot of boxing cartoons. Was boxing a special favorite, or saw and said, did you like all kinds of sports?

“People ought BURNLEY: When I was quite young, I was interested in boxing and to see this”? baseball. I’m one of the only persons around who can say they saw Ty BURNLEY: Cobb, Walter Johnson, Tris Speaker, and of course Babe Ruth. I used to I wanted to go to ballgames at Yankee Stadium; we weren’t living too far from there. be a cartoonIt was the old Polo Grounds where the Yankees played, and from the ist!

I wanted time I was around nine or ten years old, I used to go there, sitting in the to get out of bleachers. school! I felt I RT: The 1920s are often called “The Golden Age of Sports.” Do you could go right agree that it was a particularly golden time? in and start a comic strip BURNLEY: I think it was probably the most colorful time….

RT: You’ve said you saw Jack Dempsey fight.

BURNLEY: I saw him work out in an open air stadium, when he was training for a fight with Bill Brennan in 1921, and I saw him a number of

5

Jack Dempsey, heavyweight champion 19191927, as drawn by Jack Burnley.

BURNLEY: I guess. Martine had done some modeling for an illustrator who used to do work for The Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s, which had short stories with some illustrations. She showed an artist some of my cartoons when I was about thirteen. He liked them and suggested she take them to Jack Lait, who was an editor at King Features.

Lait liked the stuff. He said, “Just sit in the art department there, and do whatever you want. Watch the cartoonists work; eventually you’ll learn and go on from there.” It was just like an

6

Jack Burnley possibility Ham Fisher saw those strips, before he created Joe Palooka?

BURNLEY: That can’t be proved, but I had given some of those strips to Harry Hirschfield, the cartoonist. Hirschfield was a very good friend of Ham Fisher. Fisher at that time was a salesman, but he wanted to be a cartoonist. He’d go in to see Hirschfield often, and I’m sure he saw those strips. He might have claimed he already had the idea before he saw the strips, but it is a coincidence.

RT: Quite a coincidence. Did you remain a sports fan as you grew up, or did you just get more interested in drawing?

BURNLEY: I was a sports fan. Originally I was doing the humorous strips of the ’20s, not the adventure type of thing. I switched to sports cartooning, which would be more serious, not a cartoony thing, but an actual drawing of the athlete.

Burnley’s 1948 farewell to The Babe.

right off the bat. I was pretty pugnacious at that time.

RT: One of your cartoons they printed in Comics Interview was a “So long, old pal” to Babe Ruth.

I presume this was done when he died, around 1948?

BURNLEY: Yes. After I left comics in 1947, Hearst offered me a job as staff sports cartoonist for the Pittsburgh SunTelegraph. So that was easier for me than comics.

Comics were always a difficult thing for me.

RT: You also illustrated some Damon Runyon short stories for newspaper syndication….

BURNLEY: That was around ’37 or ’38, just about the time my sports cartoon was discontinued at King Features. My wife Dolores was a very good friend of Damon Runyon’s. She was a famous dancer and musicalcomedy actress. She was a big star in the ’20s. I recently wrote a book about her that you might be interested in seeing.

RT: I read mostly history and biography, so I’d love to read it.

RT: Well, you had to draw six pictures on every page….

BURNLEY: It was difficult, and I wanted to get out of it, so when I had the offer to go back to the newspapers, I took it.

RT: I was surprised to read in Comics Interview that you did up samples for a strip called Charlie and Joe, whose boxer hero had the last name “Palooka”— it was Charlie Palooka.

When was that?

BURNLEY: I was 15 or 16 at the time, so it would be around 1925 or 1926.

Anyway, it was before Joe Palooka.

RT: And you think there’s a

Illustrations by “the brilliant Hardin Burnley”—that’s “Jack” to us—done to accompany syndicated stories by Damon Runyon, today remembered primarily because of movies, including the musical Guys and Dolls, based on his fiction.

How Marv Wolfman & Co. Saved (a Bit of) the Golden Age

19

You’ve Heard of the Book Titled “How the Irish Saved Civilization.” Now read—

How Marv Wolfman and Co. Saved (a Bit of) The Golden Age

by Roy Thomas

W

e can’t get around it. We have to begin with what seems like an unabashed plug. And maybe it is:

In the works is a new book from TwoMorrows Publishing: The All-Star Companion, compiled by Ye Editor with the help of several other prominent fans of the Justice Society of America.

One of the highlights of that volume will be more than a dozen pages’ worth of art panels from a never-published JSA story written and drawn circa 1946: “The Will of William Wilson,” with script by JSA co-creator Gardner Fox, and art by Martin Naydel, Jon Chester Kozlak, Stan Aschmeier, and Paul Reinman.

The story of how so many pages of this story—and literally hundreds of other pages of Golden and even Silver Age art—came to be salvaged and preserved is virtually a comic book epic in and of itself.

It’s a story that deserves telling.

Circa 1967-68, a young New York fan named Marv Wolfman was just edging into the comic book field. Such scripting triumphs as Tomb of Dracula and The New Teen Titans still lay several years in his future. In the late ’60s he worked for a couple of summers as an “intern” (gopher) at DC Comics, performing whatever odd jobs needed doing around the offices.

One of which was to cut up original comic book artwork to prepare it for incineration.

For, believe it or not: Until the early 1970s, DC (and doubtless other companies, as well) routinely burned all original art once it had been printed, presumably so that no unscrupulous artist or writer (or editor!) could sell entire covers and stories to some Godless foreign land which might re-publish same without paying for the privilege.

Also incinerated on such occasions was unpublished artwork, which was often stamped “WRITTEN OFF”: i.e., DC had decided not to print it, either because a feature had been canceled or for some other reason.

Actually, we need to back up a little, because the

This “Written Off” page of a 1940s Dr. Mid-Nite story, most likely by Arthur Peddy (pencils) and Bernard Sachs (inks), is unusual in having four tiers rather than three, but was rescued during the episode recounted here. Only one piece at the bottom right was missing from the photocopies sent to A/E by Mark Hanerfeld. [Dr. Mid-Nite ©1999 DC Comics Inc.]

22

The Sky Wizard’s Lost Origins

The Sky Wizard ’s Lost Origins The Golden Age Hero That Time—and Everybody Else—Forgot!

by Will Murray

C

ontroversies aside, the stories behind the creations of the major Golden Age super-heroes are pretty well documented. We know how Superman, Batman, Captain America, The Human Torch, and The Sub-Mariner were created, among others.

But what about the also-rans and the second-stringers?

Come on, admit it. Wouldn’t you just love to have been a fly on the wall when they were brainstorming the likes of The Red Bee or Spider Widow? Bulletman or Bob Phantom? Not to mention The Claw and The Comet?

We’ll probably never get the inside scoops on the more minor super-heroes of that era. But once in a while, we do get lucky.

It just so happens that the lost origin of one obscure super-character of the Golden Age of Comics was documented.

The Sky Wizard, Master of Space, had a relatively short run as a comics character. He debuted in Hillman’s Miracle Comics #1 (Feb. 1940). The strip was signed Emile C. Schurmacher. The Sky Wizard was not exactly the most illustrious creation of the Golden Age. He lasted only four issues—the entire run of that brief title, which happened to mark Hillman’s first, brief foray into the four-color field.

But The Sky Wizard’s origin has come down to us, thanks to an article Miracle Comics #1 cover. penned by Schurmacher himself—not an artist, as you might expect from his prominent signature, but a forgotten writer of that period who scripted large chunks of Miracle Comics.

In “Action, and How!” (Writer’s Digest, Feb. 1940), Emile C. “Schnurmacher” (note that here his last name is spelled with an “n”)

gives his contemporaries a glimpse of what it’s like to be a comic book scripter during the early Golden Age: “After some fifteen years of freelancing on four continents, doing features for newspaper and magazines, I thought, reasonably enough, that I knew what action meant. I’ve bumped guys off in anything from 500-word shorts to 7,500word features, depending on what the traffic would bear.

But that was before I began writing for the action comics, a field which during Miracle Comics #2 cover. the past year or so has zipped along almost as fast as the contents of its own publications.

“Take that phone call this morning from Tony Field’s. Tony, who ordinarily seems like a nice quiet gent, edits the new line of action comics for Hillman Publications, 7 East 44th Street, New York, an outfit which started with Crime Detective a couple of years ago and has branched out plenty. “‘That last installment of Sky Wizard is static, no action at all,’ Tony growled. ‘Hop over and fix it up!’ “‘Look here,’ I answered indignantly. ‘On page one the terrible giant Snow Men abduct the heroine. On page two, three of them are blown to bits by sky mines. On page four the villain makes a 50,000foot parachute jump, and on...’ “‘Yeah!’ hooted Tony. ‘But page three! What about page three?

Whatcha trying to do, cheat our readers?’”

Incredulous? A couple of months ago I would have said so, too.

But that was before I discovered this new and fast-moving market which pays decent prices and pays ’em promptly for reasons which I’ll point out.

Tony Field was one of the many pseudonyms for the improbably-

Kanigher on Kanigher

25

Kanigher on Kanigher (and Everything Else!)

A Long Letter from “RK”—and Ye Editor’s response

O

ne of the foremost writers from the 1940s through at least the 1960s, no doubt about it, was Robert Kanigher, longtime DC editor and writer.

Recently, via e-mail, JSA expert Jerry Bails and I were discussing 1947’s All-Star Comics #36 (“Five Drowned Men”), when Jerry came up with a tentative theory about its authorship—generally attributed as one of three JSA stories scripted

by RK—as well as a few thoughts on what counts as “creating” a comic book hero. Jerry felt that internal evidence indicated that in #36 Kanigher might have been rewriting an earlier, unpublished Gardner Fox script called “The Men of Magnifica.” (For more about this, see TwoMorrows’ and my forthcoming trade paperback The All-Star Companion.)

I duly sent a copy of Jerry’s musings to RK, hoping to prod him into thinking a bit about those bygone days, and received a lengthy missive—a welcome one, despite some of its more arguable opinions. Here is that letter, followed by a few comments from Ye Writer/Editor.— R.T. Dear Mr. Thomas: I received your deluge of detritus yesterday. I’m restless. So I’m going to reciprocate in my own fashion....

work part-time. Later it became full-time. I supported them in their own flat (without their asking me), paying for everything from chewing gum to their coffins, 28 years later. I didn’t mind the money.

My wife Bern’s income as a principal of a NYC high school was always greater than mine.

What haunted me all those years was that I had become the parent of my parents. I was forced to make decision of life and death at any moment without warning.

Economic circumstances forced me to answer [Victor] Fox’s ad in the New York Times for a writer. After one sentence from me, he sent me to W.W. Scott, his editor, as he “liked a man who can think on his feet.” It was 1940.

I never plotted. One summer I wrote 100 pages a week. I never forgot to write poetry, short stories, plays, novels. And later to paint oils and water colors. Fox eventually folded, and I was introduced to Dick Hughes [at Better/Standard/Nedor/Pines]. All I knew is that he never rejected any of my ideas; but I grew tired of his having to go somewhere in the back and get permission to give me the assignment; so I left.

Snyder knows the name of the woman editor who called me to write for Fox again. We “plotted” in her Mr. Bails’ objection that creator-writers’ opinions about their brownstone apartment in the Village and had a merry time, work isn’t carved in stone and that readers can disagree segues with an with her hilarious tales of the people she lived with in the objection that Rich Morrissey raised in the latest Florida Keys, who became addicted to Coca-Cola edition that [Robin] Snyder sent me of his Comics. I and waited for each ship’s delivery like panting Robert Kanigher, as depicted by artist was moved to reply.

Ernie Colon. [Art ©1999 Ernie Colon] sheep dogs.

To Mr. Rich Morrissey: I read your highly intelligent and challenging question in Robin Snyder’s Comics—shot into the air like a bowman at Agincourt. Since of two writers you mention my name, and I had my first short story titled “The Night God Rode the El,” published in the Phoenix, a literary magazine in New York, when I was an American schoolboy of eleven and I have been writing ever since, I owe you this answer: I light the lamp In the darkness And leave the light behind me For you to see.

RK My father was destroyed by the Great Depression. At 12 I had to

Fox failed again, and I walked into Fawcett’s offices on Broadway. I wrote for Stanley J. Kauffman. Captain Marvel.

No plotting. He quit when Fawcett in an economy move made editors out of secretaries. And I with him. He became drama critic, temporarily, for the New York Times, and I don’t know how I wound up at the abbatoir that Harry Shorten conducted at MLJ. One day I came in—Shorten was hysterical. Irv Novick was on the phone. He hadn’t received his Steel Sterling script. Shorten asked me whether I could dictate a finished script over the phone to Irv. I said: “Give me a chair and a glass of water.”

The script is reprinted in my book on writing, asked for by my friend (whose name escapes me for the moment) who was the general manager for Cambridge House, New York, in 1943. My title was Breakthrough. The publisher changed it to How to Make Money Writing for Newspapers and Magazines, Radio, Movies, Stage, Comics

26

Kanigher on Kanigher waiting room at DC at the other end of the hall. Larry handled the funnies.

I wrote super-characters for Schwartz.

Less than two or three minutes for plotting. I don’t plot. I don’t use a computer. My mind is a computer. Ben timed me. I composed scripts at sixty words a minute. With two fingers.

Hardly any errors. Except when two keys came up at the same time and got entangled.

Bern said I could always get a job as a typist.

Yes, Larry mentioned to me that he had a brother he called Marty, a cartoonist, who died at the age of fifty from a heart attack. Larry followed in his heartbeats much later.

Everyone worshiped Shelly. I thought he was more of a performer than creator. When he wanted us, he blew on a police whistle. When he asked for more visual dramatics, according to my Comics Journal interview (on Page 70, illustrated): “Kanigher’s first use of a ‘cinematic device,’ a series of panels that is part pan, part zoom.”

On Page 7 [of that same interview]: “The triptych, another classic Kanigher cinematic device: three panels consecutive in time, but with a continuous background. (From Our Army at War #150.)”

We moved. Larry had an office to himself.

Schwartz and I shared the same office, our desks back to back. I erected a “Chinese Wall” of books so I wouldn’t have to see his lemon face each morning. But, unlike Mort and Schiff, we never quarreled. We simply had nothing in common. Except when he needed scripts. An Eskimo and a polar bear had more in common.

This page and next: Two pages from the unpublished third meeting of the Golden Age Flash with first Thorn, then her alter ego Rose, circa 1948. Alas, the glitches in copy and art exist in the photocopies which are all that remain of the story; they were printed in Robin Snyder’s The Comics! a few years ago.

Note that Thorn retains here original, scantier costume on p. 4, panel 4. Doubtless it would have been changed if the story had seen print. [Story by R. Kanigher, art by J. Kubert. Flash, Rose & Thorn ©1999 DC Comics Inc.]

Magazines, Popular Novels. I could regurgitate when I think of the sheer nerve of it. And yet, each paperback sold out at one dollar each. And so did the following hardcover at three dollars for all of them. Robin told me some time ago that it cost him thirty dollars for a single tattered paperback. I loaned him my only copy until he could xerox it. I haven’t read it.

My friend Ben Raeburn quit and became general manager of Arco Publishers, whose offices were next door to National’s. Bails says they’re “AA” [All-American]. So be it. What did I know about comics?

I never heard of Marvel! Either Ben—or Ben induced one of the partners at Arco, Dave (whom I later met socially) to do so—introduced me to Shelly Mayer. Ted Udall had quit. His editors were Larry Nadle and Julius Schwartz. There were no assistant editors or secretaries or even a switchboard operator. We received our calls from Phyllis Reed, in the

We never co-edited a single book. Because I created and wrote the western Johnny Thunder and The Trigger Twins, and designed all the covers, fans thought we co-edited AllAmerican Western. But Schwartz was the editor. Toth illustrated Johnny Thunder. He used to come in at lunchtime for his check, when Schwartz was playing cards with Miltie Snappin. Toth’s check was in Schwartz’ desk drawer. It would have taken him two seconds to open it and give Toth his check. A yelling match ensued. Schwartz gave Toth his check and fired him. Thus did DC lose a great talent.

A demonology began to spring up about me. Fans thought I fired Toth. Schwartz kept a craven silence. Snyder finally questioned Toth about what happened.

Alex agreed with me. If the fans had a brain they would have seen I couldn’t fire Toth. (Schwartz was the editor, not I.)

Shelly asked me to write a Wonder Woman. I did. He threw it on the floor and jumped up and down on it. (My first rejection!) He did his Jumping Jack routine on my second and third scripts publicly. I said: “F—- you!” And left. He phoned me that night and said he and Liebowitz wanted to see me. I deliberately waited a few days and then came in.

Shelly and [co-publisher Jack] Liebowitz wanted me to be the editor and sole writer of Wonder Woman. They offered me the same salary as Nadle and Schwartz. I said: “I could make more money at home, writing, without getting out of my pajamas.” Liebowitz said: “We want

30

An All-Star Sensation!

An All-Star Sensation!

An Examination of the First Two Wonder Woman Stories

by Roy Thomas When Wonder Woman burst upon the comic book scene in autumn of 1941, she quickly became one of the hottest tickets in the field.

the Golden Age, either before or after?

That move, after all, cost DC good money.

In a day when a dime was all it could charge for 64 interior pages, the page count of All-Star #8 was raised by one halfsignature to 72 pages.

As noted last issue, the amazing Amazon was conceived by Dr. William Moulton Marston, eminent psychologist who briefly held an official position on DC’s “Editorial Advisory Board” made up of educators, psychologists, specialists in children’s literature, and ex-heavyweight boxing champ Gene Tunney. Her exploits were drawn, in a studio operated by Marston, by H.G. Peter.

(A “signature” is a printing term which refers to a sheet of newsprint which, in the process of printing, becomes 16 different pages of a comic; thus, a half-signature would be eight pages. This is why most comics, by the early 1950s, had dropped from 48 interior pages to 32, and not 40 or some other number in between. When a half-signature was used, I’ve been told the other half-sheet of newsprint often had to be thrown away as wastage. Even if it weren’t, DC was definitely spending extra money to add eight interior pages to All-Star #8.)

The inclusion of Wonder Woman’s origin couldn’t have been done to “help” All-Star. Not only was the JSA-starring title one of DC’s new smash hits, but—even more tellingly—there isn’t the slightest mention of the Amazon on the cover, let alone a picture!

Her debut came in All-Star Comics #8 (cover-date Dec. 1941-Jan. 1942), as a nine-page backup to the lead feature, The Justice Society of America.

Within a few weeks at most, Sensation Comics #1 (Jan. 1942) went on sale, with Wonder Woman as the issue’s cover (and longest) feature. Sensation was the right word, because her rise was almost unprecedented. By spring of ’42 (with a “Summer” cover date) she already had her own fourstory Wonder Woman quarterly. She had started out a year or two behind The Flash and Green Lantern, but would soon have every DC hero except Superman and Batman eating her Paradise Island dust!

And yet…

Nor was there any announcement at the end of the 56-page Justice Society story about the backup feature.

You simply turned the page—and there it was. (Many a regular All-Star reader must have been quite surprised to see a backup feature of any kind in All-Star, since there had never been one before.)

So what does the lack of fanfare both on the cover and even inside All-Star #8 indicate?

Wonder Woman ©1999 DC Comics, Inc.

One lingering mini-mystery of Wonder Woman’s beginnings is that first story in All-Star #8.

Its existence raises several intriguing questions… and it seems that, at last, we may be able to answer some of them with a bit more than guesswork and farfetched surmises.

So why in All-Star, and not in some other comic?

The premier question about that origin has long been:

Well, for one thing, Gaines was partnered with DC publisher Harry A. Donenfeld in his All-American Comics line, which was published under the DC symbol. Thus, the pure-DC titles (such as the five Superman and/or Batman mags, but also Adventure, More Fun, and Star Spangled) were probably offlimits, since Wonder Woman (like Gaines’ two mainstays, The Flash and

If publisher Max C. Gaines truly believed Wonder Woman was going to be the hottest thing since sliced bullets, then why was her origin put into the back pages of another comic before her first regular story saw print—unlike any other “star” feature DC introduced in ©1999 DC Comics, Inc.

Most likely, that Wonder Woman’s origin was a last-minute inclusion, with no opportunity—maybe even no inclination—to change any cover copy or interior captions.

©1999 DC Comics, Inc.

An All-Star Sensation!

31 appeal to the possible prurient interests of pre-adolescent (or even older) males, as Phantom Lady and others would do a few years hence.

Ah, but if those selfsame little boys just happened to stumble upon Wonder Woman’s origin in the same book as the all-male JSA, they might get intrigued by her before they had a chance to think, “Hey, she’s a girl!”—let alone “Hey, she’s only a girl!”

This, in turn, might make them more predisposed to purchase, shortly afterward, the first issue of Sensation, with Wonder Woman emblazoned on its cover.

In addition, it may have occurred to Gaines and/or Mayer that Diana only appears as Wonder Woman in the origin story in the final panel. While, in 1940, Green Lantern hadn’t appeared in costume till the end of his first story (and The Atom not till his second one), Gaines may have wanted the readers to see more of Wonder Woman in her colorful costume when they picked up Sensation #1, not a lot of derring-do by Steve Trevor and some nondescript Amazons running around chasing deer and stopping bullets with their bracelets.

Okay, so let’s say the decision to forcefeed Wonder Woman’s origin into All-Star #8 was made more or less along these lines—and that Gaines figured the extra expense for the eight-page half-signature was a necessary business expense.

Let’s assume he didn’t even mind that, because of a 1/3page ad for a Lionel Trains Catalog, for the first time the house

Two slightly marred photocopies of Marston’s script for what became the Wonder Woman tale in Sensation Comics #2.

Green Lantern) was strictly an AA character. All-Star had originally been created to showcase the DC/AA heroes who didn’t have their own titles, so it was an even more logical choice than Flash Comics or All-American, let alone All-Flash or Green Lantern Quarterly.

If Gaines was hedging his bets by shoehorning the first Wonder Woman story into the back of one of his most popular titles, that suggests he had perhaps a bit less faith in the Amazon’s pulling power than he could have had.

I can see why.

After all, Wonder Woman wasn’t the first costumed heroine in comics: August 1941, for instance, had been the cover date of comics introducing (a) Quality’s Miss America (in Military Comics #1); (b) Quality’s Phantom Lady, as well, in Police Comics #1; and (c) Holyoke’s Miss Victory in Captain Fearless #1. Phantom Lady’s had even been one of several cameo heads featured on the Police #1 cover.

However, Princess Diana was the first super-heroine who would be the star of both cover and comic—the focal point, the obvious raison d’être of the new magazine.

She might well bomb. Gaines and company could hardly have failed to know that the main audience for comic book super-heroes was young boys. Would they relate to a superheroine—especially since, in those days, she couldn’t be drawn with her eagle and star-spangled panties barely covering what the law disallowed? DC clearly had no intention of trying to

no. 61

C.C. Beck

36

Fawcett Collectors of America

“C.C. Beck called us the unknowns.

Rod Reed had called us the forgotten ones. I am said to be the most forgotten of the unknowns, or the most unknown of the forgottens. Like the rest of the comic book people at the time I had no idea it would become the Golden Age. Had we known, would we have done anything differently?

I doubt it.”

—Marc Swayze FCA #54, January 1996

(c) mds

From 1941 through 1953, Marcus D. Swayze was a major artist for Fawcett Publications, specializing in Captain Marvel and The Phantom Eagle, but also being the first artist to visualize Mary Marvel—as he details below. His ongoing professional memoirs have been an important part of FCA since #54 in 1996.—PCH

W

hen I was a schoolboy, I got a job with the city, painting signs.

An uncle, who just happened to drive along where I was creating some “Caution, Men Working” masterpieces, stopped with a little advice. All my uncles had advice.

“D—” (he called me “D”) “—when you paint a sign, first plan it.

Decide which word or words are of greatest importance and emphasize those most… then, the next in importance, and so on. That way you’ll have some parts of your message in big letters, in the more prominent locations, and others on down the line.”

Uncle Delly was right. He had never painted a sign or rendered a work of visual art in his life, but he was smart. He was talking about an order of emphasis. I finished my signs that morning with “CAUTION” in big red letters and “Men Working” in smaller black letters.

That incident has stayed with me. Some years later, in packaging graphics where the “order” was important, I translated it as: “Get the shoppers’ attention first… then tell them the good things about the contents.”

What does all this have to do with comics? Well, Uncle Delly’s advice came to mind when I was drawing Captain Marvel. C.C. Beck and I were talking about the heavy contour line… as it, in our work, took prominence over details within the contour. We got around to shading the figure. Beck, the number one proponent of the bold contour, said, “When too many muscles are put on the guy, he’s gonna look more like a Charles Atlas ad than a super-hero… and the reader is gonna pay more attention to the muscled figure than what the muscled figure is doing! Heh, heh, heh!”

Beck rarely failed to throw in that little chuckle.

My uncle’s advice carried with it another thought: “First, plan it!” In our business that translated to layout, preliminary composition… to thinking before you act.

you have to do it.

That was the case in the creation of Mary Marvel.

Creating Mary was a fairly simple task… a face, a figure, a costume… all influenced in one way or another by Captain Marvel. And right away she was plopped into her first story, then another, then another. There were no conferences, no joint skull sessions of any kind. I don’t recall ever being aware of who the first writer was. Everybody, however, seemed happy with the new feature.

Everybody but me. I wasn’t ready for it. Mary wasn’t ready. She had been hastily sketched for approval, but in my opinion she wasn’t ready for the road… wasn’t ready for panel after panel of appearances under inconceivable comic book circumstances.

Marc Swayze on staff at Fawcett, circa 1941-42.

Of course, there are instances where there is no time to plan… where you just have to do the best you can in the time

Marc writes: “This was

Call it methodical plandiscovered recently in ning. I never liked to let my old sketches of go of a character until, 1942… was never published.” Well, then, it’s through ample prelimiabout time… because nary sketches, I knew the character pretty it’s a real beauty! [Art well. I suppose it was a natural ©1999 Marc Swayze; desire to take care of probMary Marvel ©1999 DC lems likely to demand Comics Inc.] resolution later. But, in Mary’s case, there wasn’t time for that. It was 1942.

Despite its being our first full year of participation in World War II, Captain Marvel was selling like the proverbial hotcakes. Things in the Fawcett comics department were hectic… but good.

My idea for Mary Marvel was that she be of light heart, light hand, light step… a wisp of a teenager, never a grim super-person who might joy in bashing an opponent into a senseless mass, but who pleasantly and gracefully clipped him with her dainty fist or foot into slumberland.

In the evenings at home… I called it home, my tiny quarters up Broadway… I began to sketch and make notes… Mary’s features, expressions, angles, lighting.

Her costume… that cape! During phone conversations I

40

Fawcett Collectors of America

The Richard Deane Taylor Interview Conducted by P.C. Hamerlinck P.C. HAMERLINCK: Richard, tell me briefly about your upbringing, schooling, and when you became interested in art.

RICHARD DEANE TAYLOR: I was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1925, the youngest of three brothers and two sisters. I attended Brooklyn Technical High School, a 45-minute trip from my home in the Bronx. After the first two years of classes, studying mechanical and free-hand drawing among other technical subjects, my art teachers encouraged me to select the art program as my major for the remaining two years. Their arguments were all the more persuasive as they had rewarded me with numerous citations and a medal for my first two years of art.

PCH: How did landing a job with Fawcett Publications come about? Who were you interviewed by? How old were you? When did you meet C.C. Beck and the other staff artists?

TAYLOR: During my junior year in high school, a Dr. Aposdorf, having seen some of my illustrated and lettered notebooks, suggested I get in touch with Frank Taggart at Fawcett Publications and show him my work. Taggart was a former student of Dr. Aposdorf and a graduate of Brooklyn Technical High School where I attended. I called him a few days later and he invited me to come up and see him at Fawcett’s offices with samples of my work. He looked at my portfolio with great interest, but what caught his eye was my lettering. At Tech we were required to letter all our notebooks and, needless to say, after three years of lettering, I could letter faster than I could write.

proofread all his work and devote valuable time to correcting his many errors and omissions.

After this initial job, Allard began giving me more and more pages to letter. During this period, which was in the early spring of 1942, I met C.C. Beck and the Captain Marvel staff, as well as Captain Marvel Jr. artist Mac Raboy. As the months went by, I found myself spending more and more afternoons at the Fawcett offices, chatting with C.C. Beck and the staff, while watching and studying them closely as they worked.

Within a few months I got up enough courage to begin badgering Beck about the possibilities of joining the Captain Marvel staff. At first he scoffed at the idea, but after I wore him down, he acquiesced and gave me a tear sheet of directions to follow to take “The Captain Marvel Test,” which consisted of showing how I could handle a watercolor brush with India ink.

Beck wanted to see whether I could produce an interpretative contour line, and if I could draw a figure in action, etc.

I practiced at home until I felt confident in doing a finished brush-and-ink page. When I brought it in for Beck’s inspection, he was delighted and offered me a staff job just as the summer of 1942 began.

This was my first job. I was only seventeen, and Fawcett artist Richard Deane Taylor my salary was to be $37.50 a week. Because of —a recent self-portrait. my age, an official from the state labor department came to check the working environment Taggart was so enthused with the quality of to ascertain that the child labor laws were not being violated. my work that he suggested we both go in and meet with Fawcett’s art director, Al Allard. Upon reviewing my lettering samples, he asked if I PCH: After joining the Captain Marvel staff, what, besides lettering, would be interested in doing some speedball lettering for Fawcett. He were your exact job duties? promptly handed me a set of eight penciled pages of a Whiz Comics TAYLOR: My job duties with the Captain Marvel stories were working Lance O’Casey story, along with a typewritten script. Since I was still a on foregrounds, backgrounds, villains, and minor figures, inking them student at Tech, I did the lettering in the evenings and brought back the from approved pencil layouts, and proofing the lettering to correct any finished pages to his office the following week, after school. The next errors with opaque white. One of the stories I worked on and still afternoon I received a call from Allard expressing amazement and plearemember was “Captain Marvel and the Lie Detector” [Captain Marvel sure at a job well done. What delighted him was the fact that there was Adventures #23, 1943]. I had a ball inking Captain Marvel tied up in not one error or correction needed on all eight pages. Their regular letrope from head to toe. This was such a memorable story that even C.C. tering man was so careless that they had to have someone on their staff

44

Fawcett Collectors of America

The Captain ’s Chief The Original, Genuine, Golden Age Captain Marvel, the World’s Mightiest Mortal As Remembered by C.C. Beck, Chief Artist, Captain Marvel, 1940-53, Fawcett Publications Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck (with special thanks & love to Jenny) I. ABOUT MYSELF My first paying job as an artist was drawing cartoon figures on lampshades. Rather than print pictures of popular comic characters of the time (1928) on their custom-made lampshades, the company for which I worked hired artists like myself to draw figures taken from work by the top syndicated cartoonists, whose permission to do so they had obtained.

on his books disappeared.

III. CAPTAIN MARVEL CHARACTERS BILLY BATSON AND CAPTAIN MARVEL The first character to appear in the first Captain Marvel story in the first issue of Whiz Comics was Billy Batson, a homeless newsboy.

(Although Captain Marvel appeared in the title splash preceding the story, he didn’t appear in the story itself until later.) Billy Batson was, although the publisher wasn’t ever aware of it, the real hero of all the Captain Marvel stories from the first issue till the last.

A previously unpublished Captain Marvel head by C.C. Beck. [Captain Marvel ©1999 DC Comics Inc.]

Actually, it was cheaper to draw the characters than it would have been to print them, for the work was done at rather low piecework rates. I made a very good living at the job, however, and got a good education in cartooning at the same time.

At one time, believe it or not, the publisher sent down word to drop Billy from the stories, saying that he was only taking room that could have been used to show Captain Marvel instead, and that he wasn’t

This education enabled me to get a job with Fawcett Publications later, working on their humor magazines Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang, Smokehouse Monthly, and other titles. In 1939 Fawcett got into the comic book field and I was assigned the job of illustrating three stories in the first issue of Whiz Comics. These stories, featuring Captain Marvel, Ibis the Invincible, and Spy Smasher, had all been written by Bill Parker, and I simply put them into picture form.

When Captain Marvel was discontinued in 1953, I went back to being what I had always wanted to be: a commercial artist and copywriter. Over thirty years later, however, people still remembered me for my work on Captain Marvel.

II. FAWCETT COMICS Fawcett’s Captain Marvel was produced by writers and artists working separately. The scripts were prepared by the editorial department, the drawing by the art department. The writers, who worked under the supervision of a managing editor, had nothing to say about the art, and the artists, who worked under the direction of an art director, had nothing to say about the stories they were given to illustrate. In the thirteen years I spent drawing Captain Marvel, I wrote only one story (“The Temple of Itzalotahui,” Whiz #22), which had to be submitted in typed form and edited and approved before I was allowed to illustrate it.

As Fawcett’s writers, artists, and editorial and art directors were all professionals with years of experience in their trades, Fawcett’s comic books quickly took over the market, and Captain Marvel and his family of characters became famous all over the world.

Captain Marvel was a big hit for thirteen years. Then, as times changed, his style of comedy and old-fashioned storytelling went out of fashion. Loose morals and unrestrained behavior patterns took over, and Captain Marvel and all the editors, writers, and artists who had worked

Beck drew this page especially for the 1974 Orlandocon. See later in the article for references to Dr. Sivana’s penchant for transparent disguises.

[Captain Marvel and Billy Batson ©1999 DC Comics Inc.]