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IT’S A BAT! IT’S A PLANE! NO, IT’S...

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JACK BURNLEY REED CRANDALL JAY DISBROW WHITNEY ELLSWORTH CREIG FLESSEL ALFONSO GREENE BOB KANE JACK KIRBY BUNNY LYONS RAY OSRIN BOB POWELL JOHN ROMITA WARREN SATTLER JACK SCHIFF JOE SHUSTER JERRY SIEGEL MIKE SUCHORSKY MARC SWAYZE ALEX TOTH LES ZAKARIN LARRY IVIE PHIL SEULING BARBARA SEULING JOHN BENSON MICHAEL T. GILBERT BILL SCHELLY JIM AMASH P.C. HAMERLINCK & MORE!!

In the USA

No. 27 August 2003

VIN SULLIVAN ––GOLDEN AGE GODFATHER TO THE TWO GREATEST SUPER-HEROES OF ALL!

Superman, Batman TM & ©2003 DC Comics

Vol. 3, No. 27 / August 2003 Editor

™

Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout

Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor

P.C. Hamerlinck

Comic Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

Editors Emeritus

Jerry Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White, Mike Friedrich

Production Assistant

Eric Nolen-Weathington

Cover Artists Jack Burnley Jack Kirby (with Randy Sargent & Shane Foley)

Cover Colorists Tom Ziuko Shane Foley

And Special Thanks to: Heather Antonelli Dick Ayers Jill Baily Regina Baily Robert Beerbohm Blake Bell John Benson Jay Disbrow Shel Dorf Ken Dudley Harlan Ellison Tom Fagan Michael Feldman Creig Flessel Patricia Floss Shane Foley Ken Gale Glen David Gold Ron Goulart George Hagenauer Peter Hansen Ron Harris Larry Ivie Bill Jourdain Bunny Lyons Kaufman Adele Kurtzman

Richard Kyle Joe Latino Mark Luebker Maurizio Manzieri Fred Mommsen Brian K. Morris Will Murray Vittorio Pavesio John G. Pierce Devon Raymond Charlie Roberts John Romita Randy Sargent Warren Sattler Romano Scarpa Barbara Seuling Carole Seuling Gwen Seuling David Siegel Marc Swayze Alex Toth Jim Vadeboncouer, Jr. Michael J. Vassallo Hames Ware Bill Warren Ray Zone

VIN SULLIVAN & THE GIANTS OF DC! (And Fawcett,Too!)

Contents

Writer/Editorial: Vin and Vigor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Vin Sullivan––Present at the Creation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 A candid conversation with the late godfather of Superman and Batman.

The Golden Girl and the Silver Slipper. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Comics great Jack Burnley writes about his wife Dolores Farris—Broadway dancing star of the 1920s.

“I Wrote Batman in the 1940s!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Move over, Bill Finger! Here comes Ruth “Bunny” Lyons Kaufman.

FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) #86 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 P.C. Hamerlinck presents Jay Disbrow, Marc Swayze, and more.

“New” Jack Kirby Covers––and Some “Great Unknowns” . . Flip Us! About Our Cover and Illo Above: Jack Burnley—co-creator of Starman and ofttime artist of the Superman and Batman newspaper strips—has done occasional re-creations of his classic 1940s art.

The drawing he graciously allowed us to use as this issue’s cover was a quasi-re-creation of the one he’d done for the cover of World’s Finest Comics #29 (July-Aug. 1946)—except that, as seen above, on the original drawing Robin the Boy Wonder was winning a race with his bemused elders. Was the fix in? [Cover art ©2003 Jack Burnley; WFC cover ©2003 DC Comics; Superman & Batman TM & © 2003 DC Comics.]

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Mrs. Dolores Farris Burnley, Lester Zakarin, & Al Hartley

Alter EgoTM is published monthly 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@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $8 ($10 Canada, $11.00 elsewhere). Twelve-issue subscriptions: $60 US, $120 Canada, $132 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. Printed in Canada.

FIRST PRINTING.

Present At The Creation

Vin Sullivan--

3

Present At The Creation A Candid Conversation with the Godfather (or Is It Midwife?) of Superman and Batman Conducted Oct. 8, 1994, by Joe Latino, Rich Morrissey, Ken Gale, & Tom Fagan Edited by Roy Thomas

Transcribed by Brian K. Morris Corporation and launch such titles as Big Shot Comics, Skyman, The Face, and Sparky Watts. However, dissatisfied with that company, he left in 1943 to start his own well-remembered Magazine Enterprises, which became a reasonably prominent player in the field through most of the 1950s with such other-media adaptation comics as Straight Arrow, Tim Holt (later Redmask), and Durango Kid, and with such original material as the western Ghost Rider, Siegel and Shuster’s Funnyman, The Avenger, Strong Man, and others.

[The portion of this interview which dealt with Magazine Enterprises saw print in Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #10, along with a severalpage article on Vin Sullivan. That issue is still available from TwoMorrows; see its ad bloc in our flip side. —Roy.]

“We Were Putting Out a New Comic Book” In the beginning...! Since we lack the facilities for turning videotape images into reproduceable photos, here’s a shot of Vin Sullivan and two dawn-of-DC colleagues snapped in May 1993, a year and a half before this interview was conducted. [Left to right:] Creig Flessel (at whose Long Island home it was taken), Fred Guardineer, and Vin. Read about all three on the pages that follow. The accompanying art, of course, is from Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s “Superman” debut in 1938’s Action Comics #1; more about it coming up, too!

[Photo ©2003 Charlie Roberts.]

[EDITOR’S NOTE: On October 8, 1994, four knowledgeable comics fans/collectors interviewed Vincent Sullivan, who along with Whitney Ellsworth had been one of DC Comics’ first editors, back in the latter 1930s—including at the time of Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27. The interview, according to one of them—Joe Latino, from whose videotaping of the session our transcript is taken—took place in “a parlor room in his home” on Long Island, New York. “He was friendly and cordial to all of us. Totally absent from the walls in any of the rooms that I saw,” Joe writes, “were any comic art of any kind, although we did not walk by many rooms. The interview took approximately two hours before we broke and went out for dinner. We treated Vince to dinner at a local steakhouse... where Ken Gale and I got into a ‘heated’ discussion on capitalism and landlord/tenant issues.” Joe has long since left the profession of tenant lawyer, but Ken says that “Vin really seemed to enjoy the argument. He was smiling broadly the whole time, didn’t give his opinion on what we were arguing about. After the dinner he said we made him feel young.”

[Vin Sullivan, who had been born in 1911, passed away in 1999.

This interview—despite lapses while the videotape was being changed, etc.—deals with his accomplishments, primarily at DC Comics. In 1940 Sullivan left DC to co-found Columbia Comic

JOE LATINO: Okay, would you like to introduce yourselves?

Name, identity, what your interests are....

KEN GALE: I’m unwrapping tapes so I can record this whole thing for playing on WBAI, because I do a comic book show every two weeks, interviewing different people in the industry. My name is Ken Gale, and I guess the first time I knew of Vin Sullivan’s work was when I started buying Golden Age comics in the late ’70s.

4

Vin Sullivan SULLIVAN: Well, I guess it was Sheldon Mayer, but Charlie Gaines brought the thing to me. He knew we were putting out a new comic book.

“We Would Just Buy Things” RM: Maybe we should start at the very beginning. How did you get into comics?

SULLIVAN: I really don’t remember the beginning of this thing, how I got in touch with Nicholson [Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, founder of National Allied Comics, forerunner of DC]. He may have had an ad in the paper, or something, for an artist or cartoonist.

Nicholson was the fella who started the comic books, originally. In any event, I met him, and I think Whit Ellsworth came into the picture at that time, and we started off as editors of his book [New Fun].

RM: How did you and Ellsworth divide up the responsibility? He had some books and you had some?

SULLIVAN: Actually, there was no official technique for getting out a book. We would just buy things as the public came in. We did a lot of work ourselves on a book, both Whit and I. We’d draw cartoons, covers, and things.

KG: So you started out as an artist?

SULLIVAN: As a cartoonist. I am not an artist. I haven’t tried to sell comic strips of my own stuff, The founder of the company that in time became DC Comics was depicted last issue in a World War I-era photo. Here, courtesy of Charlie Roberts, is a 1926 cartoon by “Hinky” (full/real name unknown—any ideas out there?) which, Charlie says, was “probably published in a Major Malcolm WheelerNicholson pulp.” [©2003 the respective copyright holder.]

TOM FAGAN: I’m Tom Fagan, and I’m from Rutland, Vermont. The first time I heard of Vin Sullivan’s work was when I bought Detective #31.

JL: Mr. Sullivan, you’re still incredibly photogenic.

VIN SULLIVAN: Yes, I am. [laughter] RICH MORRISSEY: My name’s Rich Morrissey. I’ve been a Superman and Batman fan since early childhood, and I’m really thrilled to be the guest of the man who first launched them as editor and to hopefully shed some light on his career and how these characters, and so many others, came into existence.

SULLIVAN: This is a new experience for me.

KG: Have you been interviewed on radio before?

SULLIVAN: Not that I know of. One of the groups that came in, they had the microphone on the coffee table here, but what happened with it, I don’t know. Creig Flessel and Fred Guardineer live out here on the Island, too. If you ask the questions, I’ll try to answer them. I have that Comic Buyer’s Guide.

RM: That’s when you and several others all got together? Now, there were a few things [in the CBG piece] that really didn’t make a lot of sense. It says at one point that DC’s official story was that Harry Donenfeld discovered Superman. I’ve never heard that. The stories I’ve heard say it was either M. C. Gaines or Sheldon Mayer or both who spotted the feature and brought it over.

Everything I’ve heard about Donenfeld indicated he thought it was a silly idea at first.

This 1990s illo by veteran artist Creig Flessel, first published in The All-Star Companion, is a recollection of three of DC’s founding fathers and himself in the mid-to-late 1930s. (Left to right, standing:) Vin Sullivan, Major Malcolm WheelerNicholson, and Whitney Ellsworth. Creig drew himself seated at the drawing board, where else? Courtesy of the artist and David Siegel. [©2003 Creig Flessel.]

Present At The Creation

5 SULLIVAN: They brought them in. I would buy or turn them down. The word had gotten around among the artists and writers at that particular point. I don’t remember soliciting any work.

KG: How closely did you work with any of the artists and writers? Did you discuss stories before they were written?

SULLIVAN: Occasionally. Most of the time, they would come in with the complete story—first it would start with the story, of course—and then I’d go over that. All that stuff—I’d be working with them, editing the thing.

TF: How much editing did you do?

SULLIVAN: Not much, quite frankly. It wasn’t needed. If something had to be changed, we’d change it.

RM: Had Nicholson been editing the book himself before you came with Ellsworth?

Vin Sullivan apparently did the drawing above left of his character “Spike Spaulding” for a fan circa 1937— and the cover of the landmark Detective Comics #1 (March 1937) a bit earlier. That’s not really Sax Rohmer’s Oriental mastermind Dr. Fu Manchu, but rather Fang Gow, enemy of feature star “Barry O’Neill.” According to comics historian Ron Goulart: “Had Major Nicholson not had money problems, this title would have appeared months earlier and been the first comic book devoted entirely to detectives.” But the proto-DC title has lasted a wee bit longer than Comic Magazine Company’s Detective Picture Stories—like, 66 years and counting! “Spike Spaulding” cartoon courtesy of Charlie Roberts.

[Detective #1 cover ©2003 DC Comics; VS cartoon ©2003 Estate of Vin Sullivan.]

not as a success, really. So, yes, I think you could call me a cartoonist, because I’ve done some cartoons for the newspapers and also for the magazines themselves.

TF: We know you did the cover to Detective #1 with “Fu Manchu.”

JL: How did you get involved in cartooning?

SULLIVAN: I guess it was born in my body. [laughs] The first cartoon I ever had printed, I believe, I was in high school... or it could have been even before high school. I came from Brooklyn and our paper, The Brooklyn Eagle, had a Buttons and Fatty cartoon on the front cover of this small supplement they had for kids. They had school kids sending in cartoons and poems to be printed. I became friendly with one of the editors, a woman. I would keep feeding her these different strips, and one day she decided to print one. “Jibby Jones,” as a matter of fact, was it. A little boy.

RM: Ah, you ran that a bit later at DC when you came.

KG: But not the exact same strips?

SULLIVAN: Oh no, no.

RM: When, exactly, were you born?

SULLIVAN: [laughs] I hate to give my age away. 1911. I guess that makes me 83 years of age. I lived in Brooklyn all my life, really, until I got married and came out here. I wasn’t married until I left DC. I went with the North Syndicators, Frank Marky. We formed this company called the Columbia Comic Corporation. It was right after that when I got married.

RM: When you worked at DC, did artists generally come to you and make submissions, or did you go out to them?

SULLIVAN: Well, he was the publisher. He was trying to raise cash for the operation all the time.

TF: Why was Nicholson always trying to raise cash?

SULLIVAN: He first had the idea, which turned out to be a fabulous idea—but he hadn’t any money of his own or he couldn’t raise money to put this operation on the road. When you’re buying artwork, you must have money; and half the time, he wouldn’t pay the artists.

RM: I’ve heard that he was often very slow in paying and sometimes he wouldn’t pay them at all. Were you generally paid on time?

SULLIVAN: I think we were. Because if we weren’t, there wouldn’t be any business at all. But it was difficult, really. We had space in—I guess you’d call it a warehouse type of building, on 4th Avenue. I believe the address was 432. Around 30-some-odd Street in New York City.

KG: That’s right where Park Avenue South is now.

TF: And how many people would be working in the office in those days?

SULLIVAN: Just Whit and I. Freelancers would bring the work in. Any work [that] had to be done on the strips or the pages, either Whit or I had to do it. We were, presumably, professional cartoonists. It was a skeleton crew.

“We Were Looking for Work” TF: And Nicholson, what was he all about? What was he like?

SULLIVAN: He was a very charming man, I’ll put it that way.

TG: I think he had to be charming to get a printer to change his entire printing system just for him.

SULLIVAN: Well, they didn’t change anything, really, at that time. The printers were printing cartoon pages, the Sunday papers.

KG: I heard a story that he’d convinced the printer in Sparta {Illinois]

6

Vin Sullivan That’s where I first met them. They were looking, the same as I had been looking, to place their various strips in the newspapers. They got word, I suppose, about Nicholson and his organization being in operation, so they came down to see him.

RM: They lived in Cleveland. They actually came to New York to see you rather than doing it by mail?

SULLIVAN: They didn’t come just to see us, let me put it that way. I think we were the very last ones, perhaps, to look at the stuff that they had.

TF: So they were literally just shopping their strips around? Had they created “Slam Bradley” already?

SULLIVAN: Yes, that was one of the first features that we ran. He was in Detective Comics—I don’t know what other magazine. We had started Detective Comics, too, down there. Detective Comics, New Comics, and More Fun. TF: They had done some work for More Fun [earlier New Fun] with “Dr. Occult.”

SULLIVAN: Yeah, and “Henri Duvall” and some other thing.

Early DC artist and editor Whit Ellsworth did this “Little Linda” drawing for a fan or friend, circa 1937... complete with a note on the back. Linda was a soul sister to Little Orphan Annie. Courtesy of Charlie Roberts. [©2003 Estate of Whitney Ellsworth.]

to make his two two-color presses into one four-color press—that he’s the one who convinced them to do that so there would be comics, and he promised to fill up their press time.

SULLIVAN: [shrugs] He might have. I don’t know what arrangement he had with that printer. World Color Printing, I think it was called.

Nicholson was very affable and good company and a good storyteller.

As a matter of fact, he had been writing stories for years in the pulp magazines, so he and I had a fairly good idea of what stories should be like and structured in a comic book.

TF: What was it about him that made you want to work for them?

Was it the need for a job, simply?

SULLIVAN: Neither Whit nor I had any work at the time, I suppose.

We were looking for work ourselves. I had been constantly going around to the newspaper syndicates, trying to land a job of some sort.

So we decided to go along with this. It looked promising. Cartoons had always appealed to me, and I thought it might appeal to other people, particularly kids.

RM: But you didn’t aim at any particular age bracket the way most comics do now; say age 12 or 10-to-14 or whatever? I know that, especially during the war years, a lot of older people, especially soldiers, were buying the books.

SULLIVAN: Well, at that particular time in my life, the appeal was for adults, I think—for instance, the soldiers. The soldiers were all young fellas anyway: 17, 18, 19 years of age. So they were more into comic books at that time, too.

“They Didn’t Come Just to See Us” RM: I’d like to talk a bit more about the specific people you worked with. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, I believe, did their first work for you on “Slam Bradley.”

SULLIVAN: Yeah. That came out of the office on Fourth Avenue, yes.

Siegel and Shuster’s “Slam Bradley” made his debut in 1937’s Detective Comics #1.

Put Slam in a blue-and-red suit, and he’d be able to leap tall buildings with a single bound. Jerry and Joe had earlier done “Dr. Occult” for the Major’s New Fun Comics #6 (Oct. 1935). [©2003 DC Comics.]

The Dolores Farris Story

The Golden Girl and the Silver Slipper

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The Dolores Farris Story: A Tale of the Twenties Excepts from the Book by Jack Burnley Edited and Abridged by Roy Thomas

[INTRODUCTION: This entry is a bit unusual for Alter Ego, and really should have appeared in an issue with a February cover date. For it is indeed a Valentine—from Golden Age great Hardin “Jack” Burnley, 1940s artist of Starman, Superman, and Batman, to his beloved wife of more than six decades, Dolores Farris Burnley. I felt our readers might enjoy, as a change of pace, reading this piece which, though written by a legendary comics artist, deals with non-comics subject matter, although we’ve scattered a few of Jack’s comic book images throughout what follows. Here’s how it came about:

Jack and Dolores Burnley in 1992, holding some of Jack’s most noted comic artwork: a Macy’s Department Store giveway featuring Superman, printed as a Sunday advertising supplement in the New York Journal American for Nov. 24, 1940, and the cover of New York World’s Fair Comics—1940 Issue, the first drawing ever to depict Superman and Batman together. Photo courtesy of Jack Burnley.

my decision... and I trust you’ll agree with it. The abridgement that follows is copyright ©2003 Jack Burnley, and is, with minimal editing, just as written by Jack, and studded with liberal quotations from Dolores herself. Even in the italicized/bracketed stitching I have written between sections of the text, I have tried to paraphrase Jack to the fullest extent possible in the space allowed.]

[Sadly, Dolores Burnley passed away on May 22, 2003, while this abridgement was being readied. Jack, however, gave us his blessing to go ahead with its publication... and it thus becomes his, and now in a sense our, parting gift to a most remarkable lady. —Roy.]

[In 1995 Jack Burnley wrote a biography of Dolores’ early life, when she was a dancer and headliner on Broadway during the 1920s and ’30s. The book contains some eighty pages of text plus dozens of pages of photos and art, documenting not only her show business career and the famous personalities she encountered, but the whole panorama of the 1920s. It also recounts her love affair at that time— years before she and Jack met—with a prominent Broadway nightclub owner and, yes, racketeer. (But not gangster. Jack draws a firm distinction between the two: a racketeer is “one engaged in an illegal business”; a gangster is “a member of an organized group of criminals.” The man Dolores Farris loved was definitely the first, but probably not the latter.)

[It is rare to find a biography written by the subject’s spouse—far rarer to find one dealing largely with that husband or wife’s earlier romance with another person. But such was the strong bond between Jack and Dolores Burnley that he wrote just such a book, for which Dolores gave unstintingly of her honesty and memories... and the result, I found, is a book which touches the heartstrings and, at the same time, brings alive a decade that became an era. Jack gives copies of his book only to those he believes will appreciate it... and he was decidedly correct in deciding I was one of those.

[Early this year, I suggested to Jack that a brief abridgement of his book be featured in the issue of A/E fronted by his cover of Superman and Batman. Only 10% or so of its text could be included here, and a like percentage of the accompanying visuals. But I assumed our readers would appreciate, just this once, a piece by a comics master, yet not about comics. The fact that some of the real-life characters you’ll meet herein, even in truncated fashion, are at least as colorful as Dr. Sivana or Dr. Doom could ever be, helped me make

“The Gangster and the Bubble Dancer.” Illustration by Jack Burnley for the Damon Runyon short story collection Guys and Dolls, source of the popular Broadway and Hollywood musical comedy. Runyon’s tales were a major source of popular mythology about the “Roaring Twenties”... and Burnley’s gangster could’ve done a walk-on in his Batman newspaper strips of the 1940s. Dolores, of course, was never a bubble dancer. [Art ©2003 the respective copyright holder.]

28

The Golden Girl and the Silver Slipper

Preface This is a tale of the Roaring Twenties and of a great dancer who made the Twenties roar with applause. The dancer is my wife, Dolores Farris, originator of the jazz toe dance, which she introduced in the Jazz Age. I was motivated to write the story after seeing television re-runs of the film versions of two classics—F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Damon Runyon’s Guys and Dolls. Although Fitzgerald and Runyon are the acknowledged literary spokesmen for the Twenties, it occurred to me that Dolores’ life and career could express the spirit of that exciting time even better than their books and the movies based on them. The Farris scenario combines the romanticism of Gatsby with Runyon’s Broadway atmosphere in a sparkling show business setting with a Prohibition-era gangster background.

The 1992 edition of The Great Gatsby has a preface by Professor Matthew J. Bruccoli in which this scholar complains that the Twenties “have been trivialized and vulgarized by people who weren’t there.”

Dolores Farris was there, right in the middle of the action on Broadway’s Great White Way. Here is an authentic memoir of the Jazz Age, the true story of a remarkable dancer’s meteoric rise and starcrossed romance in the most colorful decade of the century.

Making It in the Big City When a little blonde dancer from Kansas City, Missouri, arrived in Manhattan in 1922, she was just one of many thousands of aspirants from all parts of the country who came to New York hoping to make good in the big time of show business. Dolores Farris was one of the few who succeeded.

Scott Fitzgerald was the first to call the Twenties the Jazz Age. Dolores combined classical ballet technique with the rhythm of the day and came up with an entirely new creation: the jazz toe dance. Her youthful exuberance and sensational dancing style matched the frantic

tempo of the time, and she went on to become the golden girl of the nightclub era and the epitome of the Roaring Twenties. It was a dream she had always believed in, never doubting for a moment that it would come true. She wasn’t awed by the Big City, but her self-confidence was not egotism; Dolores knew what she could do, and all she wanted was a chance to show it to blasé New Yorkers.

The opportunity came when she was given several featured parts in A Fantastic Fricassee, a revue which opened September 11, 1922, at the Greenwich Village Theatre. Thanks to a Kansas City friend who had preceded her to New York and sang her praises (and showed her pictures) to the producer, she was given a part in the new production.

The cast included Jeanette MacDonald, who later starred with Nelson Eddy in popular Hollywood musicals. Future literary lights Ben Hecht and Maxwell Bodenheim contributed a one-act play to the revue.

Reviews of A Fantastic Fricassee singled out Dolores. The drama column of the New York World called the Fricassee “a dish worth trying.... Dolores Farris, who has the burden of the dancing, as Columbine in the pantomime and in two specialties, carried off the honors of the dish. She has better things than this present engagement ahead of her.”

[Dolores attracted the attention of producer Daniel Frohman, but the role he offered her in a traveling stock company involved acting, not dancing, so she politely declined. However, leading musical comedy producer J.J. Shubert offered her a dancing part in his Winter Garden revue set for the following year. After Fricassee closed, she remained in the Village to open at a swank nightclub, Barney Gallant’s. Dolores recalls:] “This was the first time I had ever danced in a nightclub; in fact, it was the first time I had ever been inside a nightclub. I was incredibly naive; I didn’t drink and paid no attention to the problems caused by Prohibition. At that time it never occurred to me that these places were breaking the law by serving liquor; I regarded them as entertainment showplaces where I could dance for a big city audience. I had no idea that gangsters owned the clubs or at least controlled the liquor supply. I would find out about that later.”

[Dolores was next a featured dancer in Hitchy-Koo, a revue which went on a Midwestern road tour. Among the dancers in the show was Busby Berkeley, who in the 1930s would become Hollywood’s top choreographer. Hitchy-Koo closed in Cincinnati, but Dolores’ reviews were wildly favorable, including one that referred to her as a “ginger cookie”—evidently high praise. She was soon booked into one of the resort hotels in the Catskill Mountains in upper New York state, which were patronized by prosperous Jewish vacationers, the so-called “Borscht Circuit.” There she worked with young Milton Berle, whose mother traveled everywhere with him.]

The Dance Age In his book America in the Twenties, Geoffrey Perrett points out that the Jazz Age might with greater accuracy have been called the Dance Age. There was always a new dance sensation. It was the Charleston that became for all time the wild and happy symbol of the Twenties: flappers with flying beads, knocking knees, and crossing hands. “I used steps and swinging hand movements from the Charleston in my jazz toe routines,” recalls Dolores. “It was such a contrast to the slow, graceful, classical ballet style that it surprised and delighted audiences everywhere.”

“The Girl with the Iron Toes.” Dolores Farris shows her inimitable Russian toe step. Jack writes: “No other dancer has ever been able to do this.” Photo courtesy of Jack Burnley.

The basic Farris jazz toe dance had several elements that made it unique and inimitable. The most difficult part was the Russian toe

The Dolores Farris Story Paul Muni (left) was the star of UA’s 1932 blockbuster Scarface, but former Broadway dancer George Raft— not even billed in the credits on the movie’s original posters!—stole the show. Sorry we couldn’t find a still of “Georgie” flipping a coin—but in 1946 Jack Burnley would draw Batman’s nemesis Two-Face doing so, and even using the weighted half dollar as a weapon! Raft’s trademark had doubtless inspired Bob Kane and Bill Finger a few years earlier.

Inks by Charles Paris. Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art. [©2003 DC Comics.]

sequence. Russian dancing is strenuous enough as it is; to perform these steps on the toes would seem impossible if Dolores hadn’t done it. At first she introduced just a few Russian steps into her jazz dance; eventually her exceptionally strong toes enabled her to close her dance with a full chorus of Russian toe stepping.

For a spectacular finish, she hopped all the way across the stage in the Russian position, squatting on one toe with the other leg extended. This would bring down the house. It was an exhibition of virtuosity that showed remarkable toe and leg strength; no other dancer has been able to duplicate it. This tour de force earned her the title of “The Girl with the Iron Toes,” and stopped the show many times in nightclubs and on the stage. The whole dance showed off her toe strength; Dolores was on her toes from the time of her entrance until she left the stage. Classical ballerinas remain on their toes for no more than three minutes at a time in the course of a ballet; this new jazz toe dancer stayed on her toes for a full seven minutes in her routines.

29 musical shows and movie theatre engagements, the toe dancer was featured in the leading Broadway cabarets, including the famous El Fey Club. Its owner, Larry Fay, was one of the most colorful racketeers of the Twenties and, Dolores says, “one of the ugliest men I have ever known.” He died by the bullet, but not one from a gangster’s gun. He was shot by a drunken doorman who resented a salary cut.

[The El Fey Club was often called “the Guinan Club” after colorful cabaret hostess Mary “Texas” Guinan, “Queen of the Night Clubs,” who in 1929 was featured in a film with that title.

Her life was the subject of a 1940s Broadway review, Billion Dollar Baby, and a Betty Hutton film Incendiary Blonde (1945). In Damon Runyon’s stories, Texas Guinan appears thinly disguised as Miss Missouri Martin. Guinan “opened the nightly entertainment with her famous greeting, ‘Hello, Suckers’—a cheerful insult the customers loved, even though it obviously referred to the padded checks, watered booze, and inflated prices of the Prohibition night spots.”

[Two dancers who worked with Dolores at Guinan’s—George Raft and Ruby Keeler—later

It is traditional that entertainers have to struggle through a long and difficult climb if they hope to get to the top. Dolores was a featured performer from the outset and went from one success to another without experiencing any setbacks.

[The grand new movie houses of the 1920s were “the most spectacular Broadway theatres” in existence at the time, and featured elaborate stage shows, of which Manhattan’s later Radio City Music Hall became, in time, the last survivor. In spring and summer of 1925 Dolores made a hit as a “premiere danseuse” alternating between Broadway’s famous Rivoli and Rialto [movie] Theatres. One critic remarked that “Miss Farris is an unusually pretty chick, and production managers this week should not pass the Rialto.” Nor did they—but, Jack reports, “the constant presence of her overly protective mother Bessie... was enough to discourage amorous sentiments.” Her father, Merl, generally kept to himself.]

The Nightclub Era Returning to New York after J.J. Shubert’s latest show, Innocent Eyes, closed in Cleveland, Dolores was in demand. This was the Jazz Age, the Dance Age... and it was also the Nightclub Era. In between

gained movie fame. Fred Astaire once said that “George Raft did the fastest and most exciting Charleston I ever saw,” and Dolores concurs. When, following a small role in Queen of the Night Clubs, Raft made a big hit as a coin-flipping gangster in Scarface in 1932, he returned to New York for public appearances to help publicize that movie. “Wherever Raft appeared, the crowd went wild. He was the toast of the town, as New Yorkers welcomed him back after his Hollywood success.”]

At this time Dolores didn’t pay much attention to the movies; she was concentrating on her own dancing career, and when George Raft made an unexpected appearance at a big benefit show in which she was one of the performers, she was not impressed. She liked George, but still thought of him as just another fine dancer she had worked with in the Guinan years. However, everyone else was excited when the great Hollywood star walked in, accompanied by his bodyguards just like the big shot gangsters he portrayed on the screen. Raft looked around, and when he saw Dolores his face lit up, and with one exclamation— “DOLORES!”—he went over and hugged her happily, while other

38

“Bunny” Kaufman

“I Wrote Batman in the 1940s!”

RUTH “BUNNY” LYONS KAUFMAN Probably the First Female Ever to Script the Darknight Detective

by Bill Jourdain As the webmaster of the Golden Age Batman website, I receive interesting e-mail from around the world asking questions about Batman.

While I don’t profess to be an expert on the topic, I love to discuss the Golden Age Dark Knight with the various fans that take the time to write.

Imagine my surprise in June of 2000 when I received an e-mail with the subject: “I wrote Batman in the 1940s”!

The receipt of that e-mail from Ruth “Bunny” Lyons Kaufman has led to the discovery of a wonderful woman who wrote a few Golden Age stories for DC Comics in 1942.

Apparently, her contribution to the Golden Age of Comics was unknown before now.

some Golden Age comic book covers and what appeared to be a copy of a four-page 1942 letter on Detective Comics letterhead. The note was as delightful as the e-mails had been. My friend wrote, “Enclosed, finally, are photo-copies of the Batman, Shining Knight, and Aquaman 1942 comic books.” “Frankly, those early scripts had a lot more story-line, but less blood and gore than today’s comic books.” She then went on to describe the attached letter: “To me, the letter from Jack Schiff is far more interesting. Jack was a great guy and a very good editor. He applied the same in-depth editing to Batman as he would to a Nero Wolfe mystery novel! Hope you enjoy this bit of comic book memorabilia. See you on the E!” Upon reviewing the rest of the contents of the envelope, I knew that her story was true, and she had indeed written these Golden Age stories. I also knew that she deserved the credit for her work, so here it is!

When I first received the e-mail containing this claim, I must admit I was skeptical. I didn’t know this person, and upon checking sources such as the Grand Comic Book Database Project (www.comics.org), I found no reference to her. In fact, the “Batman” story she claimed to have written was credited to the great Bill Finger. She told me that she had written other stories as well, and upon checking references for those stories, I found that the scripters were listed as “unknown.” Despite my skepticism, my interest was piqued, and I began to exchange e-mails with this “mystery writer” from the Golden Age. After we exchanged a few more e-mails, in late June she emailed me that she had copies of the books in which her stories appeared and would be happy to send me color copies of the covers. She also told me, almost as an aside, that she had a letter from a DC editor in which her “Batman” story was discussed and that she would send me a copy of that, as well. I gladly accepted her offer and told her that I would look forward to her package. Two months later (I had almost forgotten about the package by then), I received a large manila envelope from my e-mail friend of the Golden Age of Comics. Upon opening the envelope I was astounded by what I found inside.

Inside the package was a handwritten note clipped to color copies of

A couple of years back, Ruth Kaufman sent Bill Jourdain the photo at left, which she says was taken about the time she wrote the story for Batman #16. Interestingly, if DC ever does a fourth volume of its Dark Knight Archives, “The Grade A Crimes” will finally be reprinted after more than six decades. Photo courtesy of Ruth Kaufman. Thanks to Ken Dudley for all scans from the “Batman” story which accompany this article. Art by Dick!Sprang &!Charles Paris. [Art ©2003 DC Comics.]

“I Wrote Batman In The 1940s!”

When writer/historian Ron Goulart interviewed Jack Schiff for Pioneer Books’ 1985 book The History of DC Comics: Fifty Years of Fantastic Imagination, the above photo of the longtime DC editor appeared with it. Alas, we couldn’t turn up copies of Adventure Comics #84 or More Fun Comics #90, in which Mrs. Kaufman’s “Shining Knight” and “Aquaman” stories appeared, by deadline time. But here are the classic covers to those two issues—by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, and by George Papp, respectively. Can anybody out there supply us with interior art for a follow-up piece?

[Art ©2003 DC Comics.]

Ruth “Bunny” Lyons Kaufman wrote three stories for DC Comics in 1942. Under the name Bunny Lyons, she submitted her stories to editor Jack Schiff. She wrote “The Grade A Crimes,” which is the second story in Batman #16 (AprilMay, 1943); “Riddle of the Rodeo,” the “Shining Knight” story in Adventure Comics #84 (March 1943); and “Somewhere in the Pacific,” the “Aquaman” story from More Fun Comics #90 (April 1943).

How do we confirm that she wrote these stories? Other than her word (which is more than good enough for me), there is no way identify with certainty her work in Adventure and More Fun. However, the 1942 Jack Schiff letter confirms that Bunny Lyons, not Bill Finger, scripted “The Grade A Crimes” for Batman #16 (a “key” book because it features the first appearance of Alfred, Batman and Robin’s loyal butler and friend). Not only does this letter confirm Bunny’s authorship; it also provides a wonderful historical glimpse into the creation of a published Golden Age comic book story.

Here is Schiff’s letter, dated August 14, 1942:

39

No. 85

Our 30th Year!

1973-2003

LEVITY, LEARNING and LIGHTNING LIGHTNING BOLTS MARC SWAYZE OTTO BINDER JAY DISBROW

[Bulletman by Jay Disbrow; Art ©2003 Jay Disbrow; Bulletman TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

by

by John John G. Pierce

44

Marc Swayze at the end. Billy, who invariably set the stage for the solution to the problem. Billy, who had merely to speak the magic word... and have done with it!

So where did the “thinking” come in when these stories were being conceived... the... if I may use the word... the creativity?

By

mds& (c) [Art

logo ©2003 Marc Swayze; Captain Marvel © & TM 2003 DC Comics]

[FCA EDITORS NOTE: From 1941-53, Marcus D. Swayze was a top artist for Fawcett Comics. The very first Mary Marvel character sketches came from Marc’s drawing table, and he illustrated her earliest adventures, including the classic Mary Marvel origin story in Captain Marvel Adventures #18 (Dec. ’42); but he was primarily hired by Fawcett Publications to illustrate Captain Marvel stories and covers for Whiz Comics and CMA. He also wrote many Captain Marvel scripts, and continued to do so while in the military. Upon leaving the armed services in 1944, he made an arrangement with Fawcett to produce art and stories for them on a freelance basis out of his Louisiana home. There he created both art and story for The Phantom Eagle in Wow Comics, in addition to drawing the Flyin’ Jenny newspaper strip for Bell Syndicate (created by his friend and mentor Russell Keaton). After the cancellation of Wow, Swayze produced artwork for Fawcett’s top-selling line of romance comics.

After the company dropped its comics line, Marc moved over to Charlton Publications, where he ended his comics career in the mid’50s. Marc’s ongoing professional memoirs have been FCA’s most popular feature since his first column appeared in FCA #54, 1996.

Last issue, he related more about the fun atmosphere that prevailed in the Fawcett art department in the early 1940s. This time, he talks about how he came to write a number of the Captain Marvel scripts, citing several examples from his repertoire. —P.C. Hamerlinck.]

It was essential that each story be different... distinctive… unlike any that had ever been spoken, written, or printed. Put more simply... and truthfully... if one tale was to be about a frog, the next one should not be about a frog. Anything else... but not a frog! I recall that as being the way editor Ken Crossen described it long ago in relating the trials and tribulations of editorial work. A book full of frog stories, said Ken, could cost an editor his job... his career... his sanity... if any. His sobriety, for sure!

France E. Herron, Fawcett executive editor of comics, had a knack for transmitting his editorial... and marketing... theories without lecturing. You could have lunch with him and chat the whole time about the rising cost of Automat peach pie, and come away with new knowledge of the necessity for an element of the unique to the comic book story. Uncanny.

Herron had excellent people on the comic book staff. Crossen, Mercy Shull, Stanley Kauffman, Tom Naughton, Henry Perkins... and others. They all

I didn’t go to Fawcett Publications as a writer. It is doubtful that the résumé sent to them made the slightest reference to the college semester of short story composition... or the later library study of the literary novel. They weren’t looking for a writer. They were looking for an artist... to draw Captain Marvel.

My writing for the super-hero began simply as an offer to fill an immediate need. Wish I could remember its title... or what it was about... or the book in which it appeared.

Not much was made of that story. The only obvious benefit from the experience was a possible degree of respect among the Fawcett comic book editors... as an artist who could write. Apparently not a common combination in those days.

If I had a system, a formula, for writing the comic book story, I have no idea what it might have been. I had carried around in the back of my mind, for I don’t know how long, a set of fundamentals that I thought, if followed, might make sense... a character, a problem of some kind... some obstacles, then a solution by way of the main character’s special abilities.

Nothing to it, was it? Three major elements, two of which... the character and the solution... had been provided originally by Fawcett writer-editor Bill Parker, with pictorial assistance from C.C. Beck.

The hero, as one would expect, was Captain Marvel. Or, to be more specific, Billy Batson. Billy, who was always there... at the beginning and

Last issue, we saw the splash of Marc’s 1943 Captain Marvel story titled “The Baron of Barracuda Bay.” To avoid using that title again five years later, Marc metamorphosed a Phantom Eagle tale with the same tentative name into “The Horror of the Swamp” for Wow Comics #64 (Sept. ’48). It featured P.E.’s old enemy, The Black Flamingo. [©2003 DC Comics.]

46

Bill Schelly

Words of Wonder: The Life and Times of Otto Binder

An Interview with BILL SCHELLY, Author of the New (and First) Biography of One of the Greatest Scripters of Comics’ Golden Age Conducted by P.C. Hamerlinck PCH: When was the first time you discovered (knowingly or not) Otto’s work? List specific comics, pulps, and books.

BILL SCHELLY: In the opening chapter of my book Sense of Wonder: A Life in Comic Fandom, I describe my experience of discovering the magic of comic books. In 1960, when I was eight, my family was on a crosscountry trip to visit my grandparents, and my dad bought me the Giant Superman Annual #1 to give me something to read on the train. It was a life-changing experience for me, getting a large dose of some of the better “Superman family” stories of the late ‘50s. Later, I learned that six of the nine stories in that annual were written by Otto Binder. I was especially touched by the story introducing Supergirl, and Lois Lane as “The Witch of Metropolis!” I guess

Giant Superman Annual #1 (1960) was Bill Schelly’s first exposure to the work of Otto Binder, and began a lifelong love for comics— but, as Bill relates, “There is a playful, almost childlike quality to much of [Binder’s] comic book work,” especially in his Fawcett stories.

Panel at right is from Captain Marvel Adventures #115 (Dec. 1950)— story by Otto Binder, art by C.C. Beck. [©2003 DC Comics.]

you could say that, in that sense, Otto Binder changed my life. I became a lifetime fan of comics, and it all started with that one wonderful annual.

PCH: Besides the comics, did you also read Binder’s Adam Link stories?

SCHELLY: I first encountered Binder’s Adam Link stories through a comic strip adaptation of “Adam Link’s Vengeance” in the fanzine Fantasy Illustrated, in 1964. I didn’t get to read the prose stories in the series until a year later, when they were collected into a paperback book.

I loved them.

PCH: Why did you want to do a book on Otto Binder?

A photo of the Binder brothers and their wives, circa 1947. At left: Jack and Olga Binder. At right: Otto and Ione Binder. These and numerous other rare, even never-before-printed photos appear in Words of Wonder.

SCHELLY: The inspiration for actually doing a book came during a discussion that Roy Thomas and I had about the lack of books about comic book writers—not writer-artists like Will Eisner, but people who “just” wrote the scripts. That’s when I thought of Otto. Here was a man whose work was read by millions over the years, who wrote for the two most successful characters of the Golden Age, yet is completely unknown to all but the people in comics fandom.

John G. Pierce

49

Levity, Learning, & Lightning Bolts

by John G. Pierce [Based on previously published articles concerning the many facets of the original Captain Marvel, by JGP; rewritten in 2003.]

Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck Part 1 of 3:

Learning from Captain Marvel When “Captain Marvel” was made into a live-action television series, Shazam!, in 1974, many fans of the character were initially excited about the show, until they had their first actual look at the program. Gone were the whimsy, humor, action, and adventure of his old tales. In their place were highly censored stories which attempted to teach kids moral values. In addition, Captain Marvel or Billy would later appear after each episode to explain the point of each story, just in case the young viewers had somehow missed it!

Although most fans highly approved of Jackson Bostwick (or even his successor John Davey) as Captain Marvel, and most may have tolerated the too-old Michael Gray as Billy Batson, and even the animated “elders” who consulted Billy, overall most fans of the World’s Mightiest Mortal felt the show’s approach fell short.

However, it may come as a surprise that moralistic stories were not really anything new, or a departure from Captain Marvel tradition, but rather were somewhat of a staple of the Big Red Cheese back in the ’40s and early ’50s. (DC, in its revival of the character, never attempted this type of story, per se.) Although Filmation, the studio which produced the Shazam! TV series, probably didn’t know it, they were simply reviving an old style of story of the original Captain Marvel. Alas, because of the incredible restrictions on Saturday morning television at the time, one of the show’s many writers, Don Glut, once told me that even the word “atomic” was forbidden. The morals were not wrapped in entertaining adventures.

No guns or knives were ever pulled or even hinted at. Most of the conflict was emotional, not physical.

But these were not hurdles to jump during the Golden Age days at Fawcett Publications, where Captain Marvel’s moralistic stories were neither lacking in adventure or excitement.

In this series’ first installment, I’d like to examine a few of those stories which not only entertained readers, but provided good values and lessons which could, and still do, last a lifetime.

Jackson Bostwick as Captain Marvel, in the moralistic 1970s TV series Shazam!

[Captain Marvel TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

From “Mr. Tawny Seeks Happiness,” in Captain Marvel Adventures #117 (Feb. ‘51) and “Mr. Tawny’s New Home” in CMA #90 (Nov. ’48). Both stories by Otto Binder, with art by C.C. Beck. [©2003 DC Comics.]

Many of the best such tales featured the talking tiger, Mr. Tawny, all of whose stories were written by prolific “Captain Marvel” scripter Otto Binder and illustrated by the Captain’s chief artist, C.C. Beck. It is sad that many comics researchers of past years completely missed the point of those stories because they couldn’t get past the concept of a talking tiger (yet they could swallow a boy turning into a man who could fly!).

Jules Feiffer, in The Great Comic Book Heroes, dismissed Mr. Tawny as a villain, which he never was, while Dick Lupoff, in All in Color for a Dime, wrote that he had “never warmed to Mr. Tawny.” Later, the author of the RBCC Special #8 stated that he’d automatically skipped over any story containing Tawny. These individuals really should have read and closely examined those stories.

First of all, though a tiger, Mr. Tawny was actually as human as two more famous talking animals, Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge. Except perhaps for his origin story (Captain Marvel Adventures #79), virtually every tale that featured Mr. Tawny as the main player (with Captain Marvel being a secondary figure) contained some sort of moral or special lesson. Usually it was Tawny himself who had to learn the lesson, with the assistance of his friends Billy and Captain Marvel. The loquacious feline was lionized by Hollywood in CMA #92, lost faith in mankind in #96, had a persecution complex in #98, daydreamed of himself as a hero in #102, was turned against Cap in #113, and went on a culture craze in #137. He sought new personalities in #115, looked for happiness in #117, engaged in a sales campaign in #119, had to go on a diet in #121, faced a

50

Levity, Learning & Lightning Bolts lady has!” Eventually Sauer realized it was only his own bad thoughts which had been getting him into trouble, whereupon the gnome appeared and removed the curse from both Jasper and Captain Marvel.

(Jasper had learned the truth of Proverbs 23:7: “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he,” as well as Phillippians 4:8, wherein the Apostle Paul urged his followers to meditate on whatever was noble, true, lovely, just, pure, and praiseworthy.)

Still another story of extraordinary moral content was Captain Marvel Adventures #113’s “The Imperfect Perfection,” in which Billy Batson visited a town called Perfection, a village devoid of noise, dirt, and slums. As Robert Ajax, head of the Perfection Civic League, explained to Billy, “We insist on nothing less than perfection itself....

Notice how everybody is handsome and noble in appearance. The ancient Greeks gave us our ideals of human form and face. Our citizens must conform to those standards.” Ajax then proceeded to point out some “disgusting freaks” in Perfection—people who had oddly-colored hair, or were too skinny, had big ears, etc.—in short, anyone who did not look like ancient Greek statues. These “freaks” had banded together in an “Odd Fellows Club.”

A panel from “The Man Who Thought Aloud,” CMA #119 (April 1951).

Art by C.C. Beck and Pete Costanza. [©2003 DC Comics.]

“Pleasure Peril” in #128, went on a quest for youth in #131, marketed bouncing shoes in #134, and became a hermit in #149. Throughout it all, Mr. Tawny usually remained a hard-working individual. His occasional dissatisfactions were excellent reflections of emotions and experiences most people have undergone at one time or another. If young readers could identify with Billy Batson, older readers—and apparently there were more than a few—could certainly identify with Mr. Tawny.

Some stories concerned themes that might even surprise those who believe that “relevance” in comics began with Green Lantern/Green Arrow. In Captain Marvel Adventures #90 (Nov. 1948), Mr. Tawny moved into a new neighborhood, only to be met with prejudice and bigotry. (He was evidently the first tiger to live in that area.) He was ready to pack up and leave, but Captain Marvel convinced him to stay. When the local bigot and his friends tried burning down Mr. Tawny’s house, Cap saved the day, while Tawny rescued the neighborhood children from spreading flames, thus proving that the suspicions against him were unfounded.

Incidentally, in the house-burning scenes, the bigots wore blackhooded outfits not unlike those of the Ku Klux Klan.

When Ajax and his committee attempted to drive these “odd fellows” out of Perfection, Billy said “Shazam!” and Captain Marvel intervened: “You don’t like people with purple hair, eh? Well, I don’t like people with two ears! My reasons are as good as yours!” Still, since Captain Marvel seldom, if ever, contravened the vested authorities, the Odd Fellows gave up and left town. Cap then crashed a meeting of the Perfection Civic League, declaring Ajax had been right: “But you didn’t go far enough. Let’s make it a rule that all men in town must be just as tall as I am!” Cap then proceeded to measure all the men and to toss out of the window anyone who was too short—which included all of them.

When Ajax protested that Cap had simply made up that rule, Cap responded, “That’s the trouble with all such rules made by snobs and bigots like you. Who ever gave you or me or anybody the right to make such stupid rules?” Actually, he asked this question while he punched Ajax into the wall.

Robert Ajax learned his lesson and soon returned the Odd Fellows to

But there were many moralistic tales which didn’t star Mr. Tawny. One of the greatest, “The Man Who Thought Aloud,” appeared in Captain Marvel Adventures #119 in 1951. Jasper Sauer (names of one-time characters in Captain Marvel stories were seldom subtle) was an employee of Station WHIZ who always had negative thoughts about everyone and everything.

(Incidentally, if giving people names which reflected their personalities seems unrealistic, I refer you to the Old Testament, where everybody’s name, in the original languages, had a meaning connected to their personality, attributes, or mission in life.)

A gnome, the “collector of all bad thoughts that you humans have,” had to work overtime because of Sauer’s outlook on life, so he placed on Jasper “The Curse of Spoken Thoughts.” Jasper soon found that his thoughts, spoken aloud, got him into all sorts of trouble, even cost him his job at WHIZ. When Captain Marvel attempted to intercede, the gnome placed the same curse on him. Jasper gloated over the trouble he imagined Cap would soon get into. Soon a rather plump woman approached, but a caption informed us that “Captain Marvel never has bad thoughts.” Rather, he muses, “What a jolly and pleasing face that

The splash panel of “The Imperfect Perfection,” in Captain Marvel Adventures #113 (Oct. ’50). Art by Beck. [©2003 DC Comics.]

Characters & Art TM & Š2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Vol. 3, No. 27 / August 2003 Editor

™

Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout

Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor

P.C. Hamerlinck

Comic Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

Editors Emeritus

Jerry Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White, Mike Friedrich

Production Assistant

Eric Nolen-Weathington

Cover Artists Jack Kirby (with Randy Sargent & Shane Foley) Jack Burnley

Cover Colorists

Contents

Writer/Editorial: A Dream! A Hoax! An Imaginary Tale!. . . . . 2 I Remember Monster!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Michael T. Gilbert & Co. speculate: “What if The Incredible Hulk hadn’t been cancelled in 1963?”

The 1948 Comic Art Convention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 And Phil Seuling asks: “What if there’d been a comicon 16 years earlier than 1964?”

Shane Foley Tom Ziuko

“I Never Really Stopped Doing Comics!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

And Special Thanks to: Heather Antonelli Dick Ayers Jill Baily Regina Baily Robert Beerbohm Blake Bell John Benson Jay Disbrow Shel Dorf Ken Dudley Harlan Ellison Tom Fagan Michael Feldman Creig Flessel Patricia Floss Shane Foley Ken Gale Glen David Gold Ron Goulart George Hagenauer Peter Hansen Ron Harris Larry Ivie Bill Jourdain Bunny Lyons Kaufman Adele Kurtzman

JACK KIRBY & Some “Great Unknowns”!

Richard Kyle Joe Latino Mark Luebker Maurizio Manzieri Fred Mommsen Brian K. Morris Will Murray Vittorio Pavesio John G. Pierce Devon Raymond Charlie Roberts John Romita Randy Sargent Warren Sattler Romano Scarpa Barbara Seuling Carole Seuling Gwen Seuling David Siegel Marc Swayze Alex Toth Jim Vadeboncouer, Jr. Michael J. Vassallo Hames Ware Bill Warren Ray Zone

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Mrs. Dolores Farris Burnley, Lester Zakarin, & Al Hartley

Inker Les Zakarin talks with Jim Amash about John Romita and other phenomena.

About “The Black Pirate” and Alfonso Greene . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Comics great Alex Toth on the career of an African-American Golden Age artist.

Mike Suchorsky, a.k.a. “Mr. Photo” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Hames Ware and Jim Vadeboncouer, Jr., on one of the best of the “Great Unknowns”!

A Talk with John Benson (part one). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Bill Schelly interviews the editor of Squa Tront, greatest of the EC fanzines.

In Memoriam: Al Hartley (1925-2003) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 A few words about the talented artist of Patsy Walker, Archie, and Christian comics.

re: [comments, criticisms, & corrections]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Vin Sullivan and the Giants of DC––plus FCA . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover: Randy Sargent and Shane Foley did such a fabulous job creating “new” Jack Kirby covers using the King’s early-’60s art that, when they composed their own pseudo-Marvel Collectors’ Item Classics cover harking back to that latter-’60s reprint mag, we just had to use it as our flip cover! [Art reconstructed by Randy Sargent & Shane Foley; art ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Above: This Kirby-penciled panel of the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Thing was previously printed in TwoMorrows’ flagship title The Jack Kirby Collector—even in the recent issue #38—but when Glen David Gold sent us a copy, we couldn’t resist. This is a “rejected” final panel from page 3 of Fantastic Four #15 (June ’63)—around the time The Incredible Hulk was cancelled. Stan Lee had Jack replace it with a new panel showing Ben joining his three fellow heroes—but here’s the original, in all its glory! [© 2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Alter EgoTM is published monthly 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@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $8 ($10 Canada, $11.00 elsewhere). Twelve-issue subscriptions: $60 US, $120 Canada, $132 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. Printed in Canada.

FIRST PRINTING.

[New art ©2003 Michael T.!Gilbert; Hulk TM!&!©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

3

[Jack Kirby art reconstructed & rearranged by Randy Sargent and Shane Foley. Art ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

4 Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt

Michael T. Gilbert

5

I Remember Monster!

by Michael T. Gilbert

It was 1962, and my mom and I had just walked from our Levittown, Long Island, home to the A&P grocery store a few blocks away. While she searched the aisles for dented cans and other dubious bargains, I dashed to the drugstore next door to look at comics.

One book in particular caught my attention among the dozens on display at the drugstore’s spin-rack: a strange comic featuring a green monster called The Incredible Hulk. (It was issue #2.) Before I knew what was happening, Jack Kirby’s dynamic art hooked me, and Steve Ditko’s dark, moody inks reeled this poor fish in! Who was this Hulk guy? Another Marvel monster threatening Earth for the umpteenth time? Or some kind of gruesome super-hero? My 11-year-old brain burned with curiosity! The Hulk sure looked like a monster, but the weird Toad Men he was fighting looked even worse.

Predictably, I begged Mom for 12¢. Equally predictably, she refused.

Rats! A couple of months later, the third issue of The Incredible Hulk was on the same spin-rack. This story began with The Hulk trapped in a dark, gloomy cell, somehow imprisoned by a terrified teenager named Rick. How could any kid do that? And was Rick a friend of The Hulk, or his enemy? I was dying to find out more, but I’d only read a few pages when Mom returned. Try as I might, no amount of whining convinced her to buy me that glorious comic. Double rats!

A few months later I finally scored my first Hulk comic. I was studying for my upcoming Bar Mitzvah, and every Saturday my dad took me to his tailor shop, where I’d cool my heels until Hebrew School started. Happily, a soda shop around the corner had a great comic book display on the wall. Most Saturdays Dad would spring for a hamburger and a couple of comics.

One Saturday, we went there for lunch, and I spotted not one, but two different Hulk comics on the rack. Issues #4 and #5, to be exact. #4’s cover was only so-so, but issue #5 more than made up for it. That one showed an enraged Hulk smashing through a solid stone wall in the foreground as the villain ordered his minions to kill the brute. It was glorious! Dark grey coloring made the cover even more mysterious and appealing. The villain, Tyrannus, was an arrogant blond Adonis. Even as a kid I was struck by the originality of a villain handsomer than the hero. Superman was never like this!

I read my comics while Dad gulped his food and “schmoozed” with the waitress. Between bites I learned that the teenager who’d trapped The Hulk in issue #3 was Rick Jones, a friend of Bruce Banner, The Hulk’s alter ego. Aha! Bruce’s girlfriend Betty Ross didn’t know her skinny scientist boyfriend was really The Hulk. Good thing too, since The Hulk made her skin crawl.

And what about The Hulk? Well, he was a good guy, sort of. I mean, he was always saving Earth from Toad Men and Commies and stuff. But half the time you didn’t know if he was going to save someone or kill them! He was kind of unpredictable that way.

That very unpredictability made those early Hulks incredibly exciting. Stan and Jack were making it up as they went along, and that was half the fun. The Hulk might be a half-witted brute one issue, and a cunning savage in the next. Once he even became a mindless puppet controlled by Rick.

Then there were the transformations. In issue #1, Bruce Banner involuntarily changed into The Hulk at night. Later, it took a blast from his Gamma Ray machine to make the change. And you never knew how that would turn out.

Those darn Gamma Rays always seemed to screw things up. Either The Hulk would wind up with Banner’s brain, or Banner would wind up with The Hulk’s muscles. One time The Hulk even got stuck with Bruce Banner’s head and had to wear a Hulk mask. Talk about schizophrenic! Half the time, The Hulk was afraid he couldn’t change back into Bruce Banner, and be trapped in this monster’s body forever. The other half he worried that he would turn back into his puny alter ego.

The first Incredible Hulk series died with issue #6 (March 1963). Jack “King“ Kirby penciled the first five, while “Sturdy“ Steve Ditko drew both cover and interior art for that final outing. But “what if” Kirby hadn’t left? Well, his cover might have looked like this imaginary cover (on facing page), rather than the published Ditko version (above). Us, we love ’em both!

Art by Steve Ditko. [©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Around the same time, I discovered a second monster-hero in another offbeat Marvel comic. Fantastic Four #11 was a tongue-in-cheek job starring The Impossible Man, with a guest appearance by Lee and Kirby, no less. This issue, my first, also introduced me to The Thing, a hero almost as ugly as The Hulk. Needless to say, I loved the comic, even if I didn’t quite understand it. But things really kicked into high gear the following issue.

Dad took me to the same drugstore a couple of months later, where I

Phil Seuling

13

[INTRODUCTORY NOTE: By 1978 comics conventioneer Phil Seuling, a Brooklyn high school English teacher, had been putting on his annual New York shindigs for a decade, beginning in 1968 with the SCARP-Con in affiliation with others. To celebrate this tenth anniversary, he wrote for the ’78 Comic Art Convention’s program book a fanciful account of a comicon he had attended thirty years earlier—which of course had never existed. But what if it had? Ye Editor believes Phil’s spoof catches the spirit of the ’40s, and what such a convention might’ve been like. Our thanks to Phil’s daughters Gwen Seuling and Heather Antonelli for permission to reprint this piece—to Fred Mommsen for providing a copy of the program book—to Phil’s ex-wife Carole Seuling for putting us in touch with all of the above—and to Barbara Seuling, Phil’s artist sister, for allowing us to reprint several of the illustrations she did to accompany the spoof in 1978. All art except Barbara’s drawings has been added for this reprinting. All events in this article are fictitious—on this Earth. —Roy.] A teenage Phil Seuling arrives at the ’48 comicon—as depicted in 1978 by his sister Barbara. [Art ©2003 Barbara Seuling.]

The 1948 Comic Art Convention As It Very Well Might Have Been, If It Had Been At All A Report by Phil Seuling (Who Would Have Been There, of Course!)

When I got to the Hotel Pennsylvania opposite Penn Station in Manhattan, I was nervous and my anticipation was rising minute by minute. I didn’t know what to expect, so I didn’t know why I was excited, but I really was trying to keep myself calm. A fourteen-year-old kid biting his nails doesn’t look too cool, and I tried to resist every time I found myself chewing at a thumbnail. On the trip to the Convention by subway, I had already cursed myself out plenty of times for forgetting things I should have remembered to bring. A shopping bag or something. Those comics without covers I wanted to dump on someone in a trade. My want list (but anyway I knew it by heart).

Now I was here. And I was weak in the knees at what might be there to see.

Maybe my folks would turn out to be right. The convention would be just another way of taking advantage of kids who were too stupid to stop reading comic books. “Especially at your age,” they would add.

They had a mental warehouse of examples of my misplaced trust which they would heap on me every time I wanted to make another venture into collecting comic book stuff. “Where’s that subscription for a year?

You only got three issues, didn’t you?” That one hurt. “Did you ever get the Tom Mix ring you sent for?” No, I didn’t. But I did get a badge, a de-coder, and all that went with it from the Junior Justice Society of America! Anyway, there were things my folks didn’t know because I’d never tell them. Once I waited weeks for a Tom Mix comic book which had the criminal’s name hidden somewhere in the book—the criminal

from the radio series, of course. It was a contest: who could find the name first and send it in? They announced the winner three weeks before I received the comic book!

Maybe I was stupid. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable telling people about my fascination with comic books. I was now in high school! It’s true I didn’t feel odd telling people about my other manias— baseball, softball, skating, reading—but comic books? They sounded like kid stuff to most people. It wasn’t often that I could find others who would laugh and enjoy themselves as much as I did when we recalled our favorite books, stories, characters!

The comic book collectors’ convention might be the place I would encounter more of my kind of people. I arrived at the registration area, paid my fifty cents, and walked in. It took me a minute to absorb the scene. It wasn’t what I expected, but it wasn’t different, either. It was only that it caught me unprepared. The room was long and narrow and I couldn’t see what was down at the end. I saw first of all the banners strung across the room by National Comics, which was made to look as if it was supported on one side by Superman and on the other by Batman.

Somebody next to me said, “It looks symbolic. Those two have always supported the company.” That was funny, and I wondered who this guy was who was both clever enough to use words like “symbolic” in ordinary conversation, and comical enough to make me laugh. We

14

The 1948 Comic Art Convention

At the time of the 1948 comicon, World’s Finest Comics #37 (Nov.-Dec. 1948) was about to go on sale, with a cover depicting Superman, Batman, and Robin holding up each other if not precisely National/DC—while, some months earlier, the “Hey Look” page at right, by future Mad and Little Annie Fanny creator Harvey Kurtzman, had appeared in Timely’s Hedy Devine #25 (Feb. ’48). (Above:) Late1940s photo of Kurtzman courtesy of Adele Kurtzman and Blake Bell; it can be viewed in full in Blake’s TwoMorrows volume “I Have to Live with This Guy!” [WFC art ©2003 DC Comics; “Hey Look” art ©1992, 2003 Kitchen Sink Press.]

told each other our names (just so we at least knew someone else at the show, I guess). He was Harvey Kurtzman. He said he was a writer for Timely Comics.

That was interesting! But it turned out it was only a once-in-a-while page called “Hey Look!” which was in Millie the Model when they had to fill some space. He drew it, too, but it didn’t look like much to me. I didn’t have the self-confidence to give him my advice, which would have been to learn to draw super-heroes and lay off the funny stuff. Comics aren’t really comic. Who reads the funny stuff? Maybe when there was nothing else around, I’d read Archie or even Donald Duck or Looney Tunes. I didn’t know or care who wrote or drew them, though. Who would? I kept my ideas to myself, as I said, because he was a nice guy and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

“It was raining money! For sci-stories I was getting one cent per word. Comic book publishers were paying 2¢ per word. I couldn’t believe it, but the checks kept coming in. I phoned Jack and told him to get down to New York quick before the golden goose died!”

Jack added that he had replied, “Yes, but how long could it last?” And Otto had told him it didn’t matter. They could earn big dollars while it lasted. He knew comic books were only a passing fad!

We wandered further in and separated to look at the different displays. Fawcett Comics was drawing the biggest crowds, as might be expected. National Comics may publish the most titles, but, like other fans, I reach for Captain Marvel or The Marvel Family first! That’s probably why there are rumors of an everlasting lawsuit against Fawcett by National to get them to stop publishing Captain Marvel. That kind of legal stuff must be a joke!

At the Fawcett Comics booth were three men with name tags on, artists and writers who produced the largest part of Fawcett’s total output. They were C.C. Beck (I recognized his name from “Captain Tootsie” ads) and Jack and Otto Binder. I listened in on part of a conversation as Otto Binder reminisced about his reason for leaving science-fiction writing to write for comic books.

We all laughed. Otto added, “I’m still trying to convince him of that!” And we laughed some more.

These were my kind of people. I was beginning to warm up to the idea of people with the same interests getting together to spend some time on their favorite subject. I hoped conventions were here to stay!

In 1948 writer Otto Binder (left) and his artist brother Jack (right) worked together on various features for Fawcett Comics, especially “Mary Marvel.” The above Binder Brothers script and art is from Mary’s chapter in the book-length story in Marvel Family #10 (April 1947), as reprinted in the 1977 black-&-white volume Shazam! from the 40’s to the 70’s. The full photo of Otto and Jack, sent to Roy Thomas by Otto circa 1964, will soon be seen in Bill Schelly’s new biography Words of Wonder: The Life and Times of Otto Binder. [Art ©2003 DC Comics.]

The next exhibit was a display of all the Classics Illustrated titles, which I passed by without much pause.

I read them only when they were all there was to read, not by choice, and I still called them Classic Comics. I didn’t even use

22

Les Zakarin

“I Never Really Stopped Doing Comics!”

LES ZAKARIN Talks about Timely, Quality, and Other Things—Including JOHN ROMITA Interview Conducted & Transcribed by Jim Amash (Left:) Les Zakarin says he never penciled, “only” inked—as if that weren’t accomplishment enough! Alas, however, though he sent us a beautiful full-size copy of the original art of the above splash page for a tale called “The Matterhorn”—complete with a tear at the bottom center—he never got around to telling us who the penciler was— let alone the date, comics title, or company. Still, it’s a beauty! (Above:) A caricature of Les drawn, circa the late ’40s, by his friend and colleague Ray Osrin. [“Matterhorn” art ©2003 the respective copyright holder; caricature ©2003 Estate of Ray Osrin.]

JIM AMASH: I have a novel way of starting interviews: when and where were you born?

LES ZAKARIN: March 17, 1929, in Brooklyn, N.Y. That was St. Patrick’s Day, and they’ve yet to ask me to lead the parade in New York. [laughs] JA: At least they haven’t put your picture up in any of their post offices. What art training did you have?

ZAKARIN: In essence, I went to the High School of Industrial Arts in Manhattan. They focused more on art than a regular high school, so I graduated with a high school diploma and a degree in cartooning. John Romita went to school with me. He majored in illustration and I majored in cartooning; we graduated at the same time and we went our separate ways. We didn’t meet again until later, when I was trying to get work from Stan Lee. Stan didn’t hire you unless you were able to give him a complete art job. I was only an inker.

JA: How did you get your start in comics?

[INTRODUCTION: Les Zakarin, a fine gentleman, passed away in early 2003, as this interview was in preparation, a year or two after it had been recorded. He worked in the comic book business for a decade. He had a few interesting stop-overs during that time, and introduced a future legend into the field. Les’ story affirms some comic book history that we already knew, and adds a new chapter or two that we didn’t. Before he takes us first to Quality Comics, then to Timely (where Stan Lee handed out assignments to Les and an anonymous friend who was destined to be a Lee collaborator for many years), let’s peek inside the famous Jerry Iger shop, which was covered at length back in Alter Ego #21.... —Jim.]

ZAKARIN: I started working for Jerry Iger’s studio right after high school, in 1947. He had a little studio that produced work for Fiction House, on 51st Street, down in the basement. There were five tables there. Ray Osrin, Bob Webb, and another guy were there. They also had a letterer and a colorist. I don’t remember their names, except that the colorist was a woman.

JA: Was the other guy Matt Baker?

ZAKARIN: That name rings a bell; I think so. Anyway, I sat there and cranked out ink work all day long. It was easy to ink Bob Webb’s stuff, like “Sheena,” because he put in every little detail. If a guy had seventeen eyelashes, there were seventeen lines there. It was good working with him. I inked other features and pencilers for Iger, too, but “Sheena” is the only one I really remember.

JA: What do you remember about Jerry Iger?

“I Never Really Stopped Doing Comics!”

23

JA: Did you consider yourself to be a fast inker?

ZAKARIN: Yes. I can’t say how fast, but I could get it done. I was the type of inker who could look at a page and visualize how to ink it.

While looking through some old stuff of mine, I found the original fullpage inking sample I made when I was freelancing for work. I’m sure it was the first thing I showed Stan Lee. I actually penciled it myself, but you will see it was penciled so I could show off my inking prowess, not my penciling ability. You can hide poor penciling with good inking.

When John Romita and I worked together, he complained that I used too small a brush. I used a number three. When John started inking his own stuff, he worked his way up to a larger brush.

JA: What do you remember about Bob Webb?

ZAKARIN: I would guess he was a good ten or fifteen years older than I was then. He was an extremely astute penciler and loved drawing “Sheena.” He was very good and extremely detailed in his work. He was very quiet and sat in his corner and worked. He wasn’t a great conversationalist. He was a stocky guy. We got along well. If you work in a studio with someone and don’t get along with them, you are in big trouble. It was a very fun time for me. It was the first time that I really got involved in comics and I enjoyed the guys I worked with.

JA: What do you remember about Ray Osrin?

We’ve no way of knowing if Les Zakarin inked this splash page, which was reprinted in the 1985 Sheena 3-D Special produced by Ray (3-D) Zone and his associates for Blackthorne Publishing... but it’s definitely Bob Webb pencils, so could be! [Art ©2003 the respective copyright holder; Sheena TM & ©2003 Aratow/Columbia.]

ZAKARIN: He was a taskmaster, but a great guy to work for. He ran the place himself. If he came over and said, “This is the way I want it done,” and if you did it that way, he would never argue with you.

JA: Did you have to produce a certain amount of pages per week?

ZAKARIN: It wasn’t like that. We were told, “This is the stuff. We have to get it done.” I don’t remember how many pages we’d have to do except that it had to get done. It was not a leisurely activity, that’s for sure.

JA: Was there ever a discussion about why no one could sign their work?

ZAKARIN: No. Nobody did in those days. That’s when I started hiding my name “ZAK” in the foliage or some other place. One day, Bob Webb noticed and asked me what I was doing. I told him and we used to have a little fun with it. He’d say, “Let me find it.”

As an aside, a couple of years ago, I was down at the International Museum of Cartoon Art in Boca Raton, Florida. They had a display of a few old comic book pages, and one of those pages was a romance page. I was there with a friend of mine, and the title card under the art said, “Artist Unknown.” I told my friend I did that page, and he was skeptical until I showed him that I had put about thirteen “ZAKs” in the trees and branches. He immediately called the curator over, and I became a celebrity.

A year or so ago, Les sent us a color photocopy of the above cover for Hit Comics #65 (July 1950)—coincidentally, the very last issue of that long-running mag—and we assume he did so because he had inked Reed Crandall’s pencils on this “Jeb Rivers” scene. Incidentally, A/E has an in-depth interview with Al Grenet, Quality’s last editor—who oversaw this issue—coming up in just a few short months. Watch for it! [©2003 the respective copyright holder.]

28

Alex Toth

About “The Black Pirate” —And Alfonso Greene!

[Art ©2003 Alex Toth.]

ALEX TOTH on One of the Unsung Talents of the Golden Age

“The Black Pirate” was originally written and illustrated by Sheldon Moldoff in Sensation Comics, but later, when it had become a secret-identity feature, it was given to Alfonso Greene. This Greene-drawn story appeared in All-American Comics #73 (May 1946). [©2003 DC Comics.]

30

Title “The Great Unknowns”–––Part II of a Series

Mike Suchorsky,

a.k.a. “Mr. Photo”

by Hames Ware & Jim Vadeboncouer, Jr. A top-ten list of the finest artists to draw for comic books in their first decade would provoke little contention on the first six to ten names.

For most who’ve studied the subject: Lou Fine, Reed Crandall, Will Eisner, Carl Barks, Jack Kirby, Walt Kelly, and a number of others, for a variety of reasons, would vie for these slots without protest—but if you only have ten slots, you’ve gotta get Jack Cole in there too somehow, and....

The earliest example of Mike Suchorsky work accompanying this piece is this “Green Lama” splash from Prize Comics #24, a.k.a. Vol. 2, #12 (Oct. 1942). [©2003 the respective copyright holder.]

Well, obviously it’s tough. So tough, in fact, that just by randomly selecting the above we’ve already omitted a bunch of other contenders, some of them equally worthy.

But what if you saw such a listing, and wedged in between some of these giants of the comic art world you spotted the name—Mike Suchorsky!?

Your first reaction, altogether understandable, might be: “Now, Mike Sekowsky may’ve been the fastest good artist... but he sure doesn’t deserve to be in the top ten!!” (Note: several artists may’ve equaled Sekowsky’s speed, but few combined fast and good the way he did!)

Actually there are probably some who might argue persuasively that Sekowsky does deserve such a designation—only, we’re not talking about Mike Sekowsky or committing a typo. We mean Mike Suchorsky, and here’s why!

A Suchorsky page from “Ginny,” a teenage feature in My Date Comics #2 (Sept.

1947), published by Hillman. [©2003 the respective copyright holder.]

As an adjunct of the art-detecting done for the original Who’s Who of American Comic Books, Jim and I began an unofficial list of top ten “Unknown Artists” whom we were determined to identify. These were the Golden Age talents who, despite all the research Jerry Bails, Jim, and I had done to uncover their identities, alas, remained unknown. Heading the list, with no other artist even close, was an unknown whom Jim dubbed “Mr. Photo” because of his crisp, realistic style.

What made this artist so worthy of being credited was that, among

Title Comic Fandom Archive

33

The Comic Fandom Archive proudly presents…

A Talk with JOHN BENSON An Overdue Interview with the Editor of Squa Tront, the Ultimate EC Fanzine, about His Days in Comic Fandom’s Formative Years

by Bill Schelly

BS: What did he do?

BENSON: That’s always a tough question to answer. By trade, he was a printer. I may have gotten some of my interest in amateur publishing from his interest in printing. But he was really a theologian, although he hated the term because he thought the term implied an academician.

He was the leading authority on George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, although he wasn’t probably recognized as that until late in life. Among other things, he created a concordance of Fox’s works on Rolodex cards that has now been published and is a standard reference.

Introduction Few fans have had the kind of wideranging experiences that characterized John Benson’s years in EC and comics fandom from 1956 to 1972. You may know him from his legendary A/E interview with Gil Kane, or from his later articles and reviews for Graphic Story Magazine and Graphic Story World. Or as the fellow who conducted the first in-depth interviews with Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, and Bernard Krigstein. But did you know he organized a full-fledged New York Comicon in 1966? Wrote stories for Warren Publishing? Assisted on Wally Wood’s witzend?

When I sat down with John on January 26th, 2003, I had no idea how much fun it would be to pick the brain of this fascinating fellow—and the resulting interview was so long, we couldn’t fit it into one issue, or even two issues. Therefore, sit back, relax, and enjoy the first of three parts of this fascinating foray into Fandom Past.

BS: Where did you live in New Jersey?

A lady in deadly peril, and not a super-hero in sight! In the late 1960s, John Benson's wife Friedel was an art director at MacFadden Publications, so the two of them tried their hand at producing photo covers. This is the only one actually published.

John is the one wielding the knife; the other pair are personal friends who would probably prefer to remain anonymous.

Friedel took the photo. [©2003 the respective copyright holder.]

This interview was transcribed by Brian K. Morris and was edited by Bill Schelly and John Benson, and is ©2003 by Bill Schelly.

BENSON: Mount Holly, which is a small town in south central Jersey. My parents were caretakers of something called The John Woolman Memorial. John Woolman was one of the earliest of the Quaker abolitionists. It was a tiny, very old house, but on a large block of land, with a big, beautiful yard. It went way back to a little stream, with a little glen with bamboo and weeping willows and a stone bench, the whole thing. I lived there for the first seven years of my life.

BS: Would you say it was semi-rural?

BILL SCHELLY: John, let’s start by going back to ancient history.

BENSON: Yes. There were small-town type houses on one side, and on the other side there was a huge apple orchard. Beyond that there was woods, at that time. My recollections of Mount Holly remind me a lot of The Night of the Hunter. [Schelly laughs] I mean in terms of the town. The barber shop was like that one in the famous Norman Rockwell painting. It had these unfinished wide plank wood floors. When I was a little kid, I was fascinated that they’d lift a section of board and just sweep the hair into the hole.

JOHN BENSON: I was just a green kid!

BS: What was the population of the town, roughly? Five thousand?

BS: [laughs] Go back to before you were just a green kid. Back to when and where you were born, and what your father did for a living, that sort of thing.

BENSON: Probably, yeah. Small town. My father worked in a print shop, in a 19th-century building, which operated in 19th-century fashion, with hand-set moveable type. Later my father bought his own press, and I think some of the type he got was from that shop. He was only in business for himself for a short time, but he kept some equipment for most of his life. He had some large wooden headline type of nineteenth century vintage, which I later used to print a headline for my fanzine Image. I remember going down there as a very small child, and there were these old characters hanging around. They remind me now of the old codgers in the machine-shop strips in J. R. Williams’ Out Our Way. Really a different age, different even from the ’50s.

Part One

BENSON: I was born in Chicago, in December 1940, but we moved to New Jersey before I was a year old. Other than that, I’ve hardly ever been in Chicago. My parents both came from the East; they were just in Chicago long enough for me to be born.

BS: Was that because your father took a job there?

BENSON: Right.

34

John Benson Blue Fairy Book. My vote for the best book of all time for any age is Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, the edition with the Arthur Rackham illustrations, of course. Then, when I got a little older, I read all the juvenile mysteries, which was a wonderful genre that’s totally dead now. One of my favorites was Shadow in the Pines by Stephen Meader, which took place in the Jersey pine barrens. The Jersey pines were actually settled very early, before Philadelphia even, with industries like bog iron and charcoal, so there actually are ghost towns, lost towns, in the pines. The book was written during World War II, and the kid, the hero, found spies living in a ghost town. In fact, there probably were spies living out in the pines then.

BS: So you read quite a bit as a kid.

“Jack Benny... was the penultimate, and Edgar Bergen was the ultimate.”

Benny (left) was perhaps radio’s all-time best-loved comedian, while Bergen’s dummy Charlie McCarthy got all the laughs. A ventriloquist on the radio—now there was a “high concept”!

BS: Do you have any brothers or sisters?

BENSON: I probably read as many books as a kid as I did the rest of my life. [laughs] You know, I recently had a discussion with Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., about this. Jim says he read tons of books as a kid and hardly read any comics until he was 18. And look at him now. So I’m in good company. Jim, by the way is a major contributor to the next issue of Squa Tront, with an interview with John Severin and other interesting stuff.

BS: Did you read comics in the newspaper?

BENSON: Not when I was little, no. In fact, later, my parents told me that when they bought the Sunday paper, which probably wasn’t too often, they actually took the funnies out. [laughs]

BENSON: I’m an only child. When we left Mount Holly, we moved to Philadelphia, where we lived in a great, huge grand Victorian house in Germantown with my maiden great-aunt. We were there for about three years, and then we moved back to Haddonfield, New Jersey, which is a larger town than Mt. Holly, a more typical ’50s Saturday Evening Post small town, close to Philadelphia.

BS: So you would have discovered comics around the time that you moved to Philadelphia.

BENSON: Well, I have to tell you, popular culture was not a significant part of my childhood.

BS: Is this due to the Quaker thing?

BENSON: Only partly. I would say it was more a cultural aversion on my parents’ part. [laughs] No, not exactly religious in nature in the way you mean it. The only radio I ever listened to was Sunday nights, which was the lineup of Jack Benny... he was the penultimate, and Edgar Bergen was the ultimate. And when I was very small there was Fred Allen after Bergen. I remember his last Sunday show, where he said he was moving to Saturday night, and I knew we were never going to be listening to the radio on Saturday night. Later, the Sunday line-up started at 5:30 with My Friend Irma, My Little Margie, Our Miss Brooks, then a half-hour of silence in our house while Amos and Andy was on, and then Benny and Bergen.

BS: So it really had to do with the fact that your parents felt that it should be sort of occasional or a limited amount of ...

BENSON: Yeah. And that was not something that I particularly objected to. I had a wonderful childhood. I mean, I had the same kind of problems that every kid has in childhood. I was shy, for one thing. But I lived in a wonderful world.

BS: How did your exposure to the world of fantasy and popular culture come about?

BENSON: My exposure to fantasy was all from books. My childhood was made up of the Mary Poppins books, Winnie the Pooh, all the Doctor Dolittle books, all the Oz books, the Ruth Plumly Thompson Oz books, and Freddie the Pig. When I was very young my mother read Kipling’s Just-So Stories to me, and also The Red Fairy Book and The

“The Spirit was pretty impressive.” Since John was reading Will Eisner’s tabloid comic at the age of eight or so, here’s one he might have seen at the time—the splash page of the story for March 21, 1948. [©2003 Will Eisner.]