Alter Ego #31 Preview

SEARING SPOTLIGHT ON

DICK AYERS GOLDEN & SILVER AGE

TIMELY/MARVEL SUPER-STAR!

Plus Art & Artifacts By:

LEE • KIRBY • DITKO • BURGOS COLAN • SEVERIN • BUSCEMA & THE E.C. GANG

5.95

$

In the USA

No. 31

Art ©2003 Dick Ayers; characters TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.

December 2003

Vol. 3, No. 31 / December 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 Fred Ray Dick Ayers

DARLIN’ DICK AYERS and Friends Section

Cover Colorists (unknown) Tom Ziuko

Contents

And Special Thanks to: Jack Adams Dick & Lindy Ayers Paul Bach Bob Bailey Jeff Bailey Randall J. Barlow Dennis Beaulieu Blake Bell Howard Bender Bill Black Chris Brown Gary Brown Rich Buckler Jack Burnley Sal Buscema Nick Caputo Nick Cardy R. Dewey Cassell John Coates Shel Dorf Al Dellinges Harlan & Susan Ellison Michael T. Feldman Tom Field Shane Foley Brent Frankenhoff Janet Gilbert Marvin Giles Jennifer T. Go Ron Harris Cathy Hill Richard Howell Tony Isabella Larry Ivie Glen Johnson Marc Kardell Mark Kausler

Thomas C. Lammers Harry & Adele Lampert Mike Leach Dan Makara Nancy Maneely Bob Millikin Cynthia C. Miller Thomas H. Miller Shelly Moldoff Brian K. Morris Mart & Carrie Nodell Dave O’Dell John G. Pierce Virginia Provisiero Charlie Roberts Ethan Roberts Dorothy Schaffenberger Marie Severin Joe Sinnott Robin Snyder Paul Stefanowicz Steve Stiles Marc Swayze Greg Theakston Maggie Thompson Alex Toth Herb Trimpe Dann Thomas Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Mark Voger Dr. Michael J. Vassallo Delmo Walters Hames Ware Bill Warren

Writer/Editorial: Putting on Ayers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 “To Keep Busy as a Freelancer, You Should Have Three Accounts!” . 3 Golden/Silver Age legend Dick Ayers tells Roy Thomas & Jim Amash how he heeded that advice!

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt: Horror’s Missing Link!. . . . . . . 37 Michael T. Gilbert spotlights the horror comics that came in between EC and Creepy!

The Detroit Triple Fan Fair–––and How It Came to Be! . . . . . . 43 Shel Dorf, co-founder of both that 1965 event and the San Diego Comic-Con, reveals a little-known chunk of fandom’s history.

Happy Holidays and Harlan Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover: Never one to rest on his laurels, Dick Ayers composed this new cover for A/E, showcasing some of the heroes he drew for Timely/Marvel from the 1950s through the 1970s. To learn how you might purchase the original art for this illo, or have Dick draw something especially for you, see p. 36! [Art ©2003 Dick Ayers; Human Torch & Toro, SubMariner, Ghost Rider, Wyatt Earp, Two-Gun Kid, Fantastic Four, & Sgt. Fury ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Above: A man for all decades! Besides co-creating and drawing the original Ghost Rider for Vin Sullivan’s Magazine Enterprises from 1949-55 (at right, in a panel of original art provided by Ethan Roberts), Dick became the first penciler of that midnight cowboy’s Marvel reincarnation in 1967 (as per the panel at left, repro’d from a photocopy of the original Ayers/Colletta art of Ghost Rider #3, 1967, provided by Mr. A. himself). Since the 1990s, he has also drawn new covers and stories of AC Comics’ own Haunted Horseman; see AC’s ad elsewhere in this issue. [Art ©2003 Dick Ayers; Haunted Horseman TM & ©2003 AC Comics.]

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.

Dick Ayers

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“To Keep Busy As A Freelancer, You Should Have Three Accounts!”

A Candid 3-Way Conversation with Golden/Silver Age Artist DICK AYERS Conducted by Roy Thomas & Jim Amash Transcribed by Brian K. Morris & Jim Amash

(Above:) Dick Ayers—flanked by recent drawings of two of his favorite subjects: the original Ghost Rider (pencil-and-ink) and Sgt. Fury (pencil). Darlin’ Dick’s still got it! [Photo ©2003 Gannett/Robert F. Rodriguez; art ©2003 Dick Ayers; Ghost Rider, Sgt. Fury, & Dum Dum TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

[INTRODUCTORY NOTE: Richard Bache Ayers (b. 1924) has been drawing comics—for Timely/Atlas/Marvel more than for any other outfit—since the post-World War II years. He penciled and inked most of his art through the mid-1950s; but, beginning in the late 1950s, he became increasingly important as an inker of Jack Kirby and other early Marvel artists. In 2000 I interviewed him about his work for Vin Sullivan’s Magazine Enterprises company for Alter Ego #10 (still available from TwoMorrows Publishing), but in the course of that rambling talk we touched on several points unrelated to M.E., so I saved those comments for a later issue. And this is it.

[Recently, Jim Amash and I decided that, with Dick’s forbearance and cooperation, Jim would interview him primarily about his non-M.E. work prior to what Stan Lee dubbed “The Marvel Age of Comics,” and I’d step back in when we got to Dick’s work in the 1960s and ’70s. Even that straightforward plan, however, went astray, as Jim couldn’t resist asking him additional questions about the M.E. years, and delving into his 1970s work for Myron Fass— and I just had to query Dick about his stint drawing “The Human Torch” circa 1954. Hope you enjoy the verbal ping-pong game that follows. Oh, and unless otherwise noted, all photos and art are courtesy of the artist.

—Roy.]

“I Want Comic Books!”

ROY THOMAS: When did you start drawing—and when did you know you wanted to become a comic artist?

DICK AYERS: Oh, golly. I joke about it, but as far back as I know, as I can remember. I was still small enough that I slept in the crib, because I didn’t grow very fast. My father had stuck some butcher paper—you know, that brown paper—along the wall beside the crib, so I could scribble on it and not ruin the wall. [laughs] And then, he was always great at reading me the funnies.

My grandfather pitched in, too.

I had the good fortune that my father was a railroad conductor. When he came home off the run, on which he’d be gone for three days at a time, he’d bring an armful of newspapers full of funnies from all over. So I really grew up on comics in the 1920s and 1930s. He taught me with the stick figures, and then he taught me to make them look a little different so I knew one from the other.

RT: He didn’t draw himself, though?

Dick in 1929, at age five.

AYERS: No, no, no. He just had a fantastic interest in them, so he encouraged me in that type of thing. Then, when I got in the Army, I got to do a strip called Radio Ray, and that brought perks. [laughs] When I got pneumonia and was in the hospital out in Wisconsin, they

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“To Keep Busy as a Freelancer, You Should Have Three Accounts!”

A marvelous montage from Dick Ayers’ War: (Clockwise:) A Radio Ray strip he did while in the service—Dick at the drawing table in 1943, sketching flight charts—and two views of “Slow Starter,” an example of the “nose art” that he “painted for the crews of their B-26 bombers of the 586th Bomb Squadron in the Ninth Air Force, in World War 2, in the Normandy Invasion,” a.k.a. D-Day. The bomber art at bottom left is titled “Homesick Angel”—and, just for perspective, we’ve tossed in a longshot of one of the B-26s he decorated.

gave me a private room; they even brought me my drawing table. I had more offers in the hospital. So really, this is where I said, “Gee, this is all right!” And I kept pursuing it.

When I got out of the service in October of ’45, I tried to get work, like a local cartoonist, editorial, newspaper job. Everywhere I went, if they had a job before, it was being held for a veteran, so I never had any jobs from high school and the Army. I couldn’t get a job in cartooning.

So I rented a room at a studio in New Rochelle, and I was going like crazy and I didn’t hit the gate. He offered me an advance, but I only took a couple hundred dollars to live on in that whole couple of months.

Anyway, in March I got a phone call. He was back and he called me in to see him on St. Patrick’s Day when everybody was happy. And I went in and he had changed his mind. So I had no more Chic ’n’ Chu; and in between, I tried to sell it someplace else, and there was a paper shortage and I never could make it.

RT: But you were a veteran, too.

RT: Any explanation as to why he changed his mind?

AYERS: Yeah, but I wasn’t a veteran that had had a [cartooning] job before. So, back to art school. I went to a beautiful, nice school, a penthouse in the Flatiron Building on 23rd Street. I was there two years, learning to draw perfume bottles and such. Commercial art. And there was nobody that taught cartooning, storytelling, or anything. But one of the teachers had a date with someone—I think it was somebody from Marvel—and she told me they were looking for teenage comic strips. [laughs]

AYERS: He said it was for too old an audience. He said the books were, like Disney books and all, for 8-to-10-year-olds, and mine was for 15- or 16-year-olds or something. And I had another story I had written in which I had drawn St. Peter with a bowler hat and a walrus mustache and clog shoes and a kimono with an ascot with a diamond pin. And Oscar LeBeck said, “My God, we can’t have that!” He had changed his mind. He was away on vacation and I didn’t have any guidance. If he’d been there, he could have told me I was off in the wrong direction, that I had to make it more youthful.

I went home and I wracked my brain and I came up with Chic ’n’ Chu. It was cute, and if you read the dialogue, it’s like rap. It was hep talk, jive talk. Everything rhymed. And, by golly, I got three offers in this one day I took off from school. Oscar LeBeck up at Dell told me he would wrap a book around it. I was to have my own magazine, and I would get a royalty on every copy printed, not sold—a quarter of a cent royalty. Roy, I was in clover! He said, “We’ll sign the contract when I come back from vacation in Key West.” This is January of ’47.

I’m into comics now, and I want comic books! And I found there was a summer school at some high school in the 80s, probably Louis Stevenson. And there was a guy teaching gags, so I stuck with it. I had to go through a lot of problems with the G.I. Bill of Rights to do this type of thing. So I took the summer course and, by golly, I sold five gags that summer. We not only learned to draw; we learned to make the rounds.

And then I saw a poster—Burne Hogarth was up on 89th Street, at a

Dick Ayers new school he’d started, Cartoonists and Illustrators School.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Next, Dick and Roy discussed his work for Magazine Enterprises. That part of the interview, as mentioned earlier, saw print in Alter Ego V3#10, and is not repeated here. A bit more of Dick’s 2000 interview, mostly comments on his late-1960s run on Marvel’s own version of the western Ghost Rider, has been inserted later in this piece. At this point, in mid-2003, Jim Amash phoned Dick and the two of them picked up approximately where Dick and Roy had left off, beginning with some comments by Dick about a then-upcoming show of his art, which led into reflections on his teenage years.]

“[Siegel and Shuster] Were Very Good Friends” AYERS: I’m going to have a show up in the Glenn Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport. They sent me a book by Charles Champlin, a writer for Time and Life for years, in which he writes about growing up in

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the Depression was so bad that my father and mother didn’t have work, so we moved up to that God-forsaken town of Pulteney, and I loved it. I was going to Hammondsport, then I’d be bussed the ten miles to go to school, and down there I’d meet girls. I liked them but I couldn’t date them because I had no car and they lived on the other side of the lake, which was three miles wide. So that frustrated me something awful.

I was always writing and drawing my own comic stories, because there was nothing to do, nowhere to go. I’d get little jobs like designing a menu for a restaurant on the lake, and like that. But I got to be 16 and I was writing away to enlist in the Merchant Marines. And when my mother saw this, she came back to White Plains and got a job, so my father had to join her. So it brought us back, and I was in heaven, right here where I had a chance.

JIM AMASH: Even though Roy covered your Magazine Enterprises days in Alter Ego #10, I’d like to follow up with a few questions of my own. I know you worked for Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster on Funnyman, through them and not M.E., and I’d like to know more about them. Today, most people have this image of them as two very shy men, but at the point you worked for them, I’d like to know what they were like. They had been battling with DC over Superman properties by the time you started with them.

AYERS: They were very good friends. They seemed to be relaxed in their manner, and left all discussion of Superman out of the studio. I wasn’t in the studio from 9 to 5; I was there in the afternoons and studied under Burne Hogarth at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School at night. Marvin Stein taught there, and Ernie Bache (who’s no relation to me), who worked in the studio, went there, too.

Never-before-published art from the Chic ’n’ Chu feature Dick created, wrote, and drew in 1947—a display drawing, and two pages from the story, both heavy on the jargon in the bargain! [©2003 Dick Ayers.]

Hammondsport. We went to the same high school; he’s two years younger, so I didn’t really know him. He says that Glenn Curtiss, the famous aviator, was the model for Tom Swift.

Hammondsport was a town of around 1200 people.

It was on the head of the lake, in a grape region, with wineries all around it.

Pulteney was a town of 300 people, which were all cousins and aunts and uncles. [chuckles] And I loved it as a young boy, because I spent my summers there from the age of 8-13, with my grandparents and my uncle. We lived down here in White Plains, and they would take me up there to stay for the summer. And then, when I got to be 13,

The studio was very nice. It had a reception area, with two nice, comfortable chairs and a table. Then, there was a doorway that led to a very nice-sized room. There was a drawing table where Ernie Bache worked and another in the corner for Marvin Stein. On the other side of the room was another table where I worked. I liked that table, because it faced towards a window. There was another table behind me, where a letterer

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“To Keep Busy as a Freelancer, You Should Have Three Accounts!”

sometimes worked. The only thing I remember about the letterer was that he had red hair; his first name could have been Al, and I remember he did some inking, too, and was very good.

He never really worked in the studio, though. He might have inked one of the Funnyman stories I penciled.

get them to look the way he did it.

His eyes were giving him serious trouble. He wore thick glasses, which is why he didn’t have too much to say to you. It was hard for him to see much, and he didn’t want to get that focused on your work because it was so difficult for him to see.

In the studio, Joe Shuster was focused on doing Funnyman. Once in a while, I’d interject a comment about Superman, because I was anxious to draw him someday, but never said anything about it in depth.

Jerry didn’t come in the studio on a regular basis. I only remember seeing him a couple of times.

Joe was a very nice guy, and he helped get me started in comics.

When he didn’t have work for me, he sent me down to Vin Sullivan. I didn’t know who Vin was then and didn’t realize the connection between Vin and Joe. Vin had been Joe’s editor at DC, the one who had greenlighted “Superman.”

I started at Hogarth’s school in late September 1947. Joe’s studio was close enough to the school that he’d come in to visit. I got to know him, and he’d sit and talk to me and criticize my work. Eventually, I bombarded him with penny postcards with pictures of Funnyman on them, and one day, he called me and asked if I’d like to do some penciling on Funnyman. That was at the end of October of ’47.

JA: So the lawsuit was still going on while you worked for Siegel and Shuster. I’ve interviewed a few people who worked at Ziff-Davis for Siegel in the early 1950s, and they’ve all described him as being a disheveled-looking, lost-soul type. Was that the Jerry Siegel you saw?

JA: Were you working for them when they lost their lawsuit against DC? AYERS: I think it was still going on when I was doing Jimmy Durante, but I think they lost it when I was doing the Funnyman newspaper strip. They may have lost the lawsuit after the Funnyman comic book was canceled. I wasn’t there when they actually lost the suit; if I had, I’d have been as heartbroken as they were.

(Above:) The last page of the first story Dick penciled for Siegel & Shuster’s Funnyman (#3, April 1948) at Shuster’s studio; alas, he doesn’t recall the name of the inker. (Below:) The 2-18-49 Funnyman daily strip ghost-penciled by Mr. A. [©2003 Estates of Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster.]

AYERS: No. He was always dressed in business attire. I remember visiting him when he worked at Ziff-Davis, whose offices were on a higher floor than Timely’s were at the Empire State Building. Joe would always wear a suit when he came to the school.

By February of 1949, I had left the Shuster studio and was working directly for Magazine Enterprises. But Joe asked me to pencil a few Funnyman dailies. [Funnyman appeared in both a newspaper strip and the comic book for M.E.] I went to deliver it to his apartment, which was very close to Columbus Circle. His apartment was about the size of a master closet, with a bathroom off the side. He had a cot and daybed and a chair in that small room. It was sad to see how he was living. That was the last time I saw him.

Later, I saw he had done some work for Charlton Comics, and I think Vince Alascia inked the story I saw. It looked very good. I could tell that the splash panel was Joe’s by the facial expressions he gave the characters. That was one thing about Joe: he’d sit down beside me, pick up my work, and hold it about six inches from his face. He always concentrated on facial expressions and spent time showing me how to

JA: Were Siegel and Shuster convinced that they were going to win that suit?

AYERS: They didn’t talk that way. It just wasn’t something that they wanted to talk about. They knew they were on the way down after they lost Superman, and it was very hard on them, both emotionally and physically.

JA: Shuster wasn’t married at this time, was he?

AYERS: No. I called to congratulate him when I saw that Jerry and Joe had won a settlement from DC in the 1970s. Joe told me he was getting married then. I was so happy for him. That was the first time I had talked to him since 1949. Those two guys had such hard times up until then, and deserved to be taken care of.

“Then Along Came Dr. Wertham...”

JA: Exactly! Now, tell me about Marvin Stein.

AYERS: The Cartoonists and Illustrators School was started by Hogarth and Sy Rhodes, and had started that September. Marvin was teaching an evening course there when I met him. Marvin was a terrific artist and a nice guy. As far as I was concerned, he was Joe Shuster’s top honcho in the studio. As I said, Ernie was working there, and they had a letterer.

[Covers Š2003 Warren Publishing, Inc.]

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Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt

“Horror’s Missing Link!” (Part 1)

by Michael T. Gilbert Maybe you already know the story. Horror comics rile up censors in the early ’50s. Comic book publishers get skittish, so in 1955 they form the Comics Code. Soon things quiet down. Crime and hardcore horror comics are banned. For the next decade, fans of gruesome horror comics must settle for timid post-Code “mystery” books. ACG’s Forbidden Worlds, Marvel’s Strange Tales, or DC’s House of Mystery are a far cry from EC’s ghastly Tales from the Crypt. But when Jim Warren publishes Creepy magazine in 1964, he cracks the Code wide open.

Warren sidesteps the restrictive Comics Code by targeting his new black-&-white horror comic to adults rather than kids. Within a year, he launches a companion title, Eerie, which racks up respectable sales. In the wake of Warren’s success, cheap knock-offs like Shock, Weird, and Psycho spring up like weeds around a haunted house. These magazines duplicate the format (if not the quality!) of early Warren horror magazines.

Later, even Marvel gets into the act, publishing a raft of black-&white horror magazines, and some non-code super-hero and barbarian titles. Eventually, a tidal wave of black-and-white magazines, pro-zines, graphic novels, and underground comix make the Comics Code all but irrelevant. And all because of Creepy #1—the first horror comic since 1955 to defy the Code! It’s a great story.

But it just isn’t true.

Certainly the “the first horror comic since 1955 to defy the Comics Code” part isn’t true. Weird Mysteries, an all-but-forgotten black-&white magazine, holds that honor. Cover-dated March 1959, its first issue hit sported a handsome George Tuska cover painting and a hefty 35¢ price tag. That was quite a sum back then, but not a bad deal when you consider that the magazine had 12 comic book tales, two text stories, and a few assorted pin-ups, gags, and title pages in its 64 pages.

The book starred Morgue’n the Morgue Keeper, a ghoulish horror host who introduced EC-style “snap-ending” stories starring werewolves, vampires, and even that real-life monster, Hitler!

Weird Mysteries

[©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

64 pages plus covers Cover: George Tuska Morgue’n intro (1 page): Carl Burgos “The Puzzle” (2 pages): Paul Reinman ”Change My Face” (4 pages): George Tuska “Must I Die Again?” (3 pages): Paul Reinman “From Fear To Eternity!” (4 pages): Angelo Torres “A Good Daughter“ (3 pages): Joe Orlando “The Ragman” (4 pages): George Tuska “Sick Greeting Cards” (2 pages of gags): Unknown “The Corpse Talks Back!” (6 text pages, with illo): Unknown “Strange Thirst” (4 pages): Paul Reinman “Twin Bads” (3 pages): Paul Reinman “A Shriek In The Night” (3 pages): Carl Burgos “Easy Dies It” (4 pages): Carl Burgos Cartoon (1 page): Unknown “Flip Fairy Tale” (3 pages): Paul Reinman “Capital Punishment” (4 pages): George Tuska “Over The Wall” (5 text pages): Unknown “Still Sick Man?” (1 text page of sick jokes): Unknown

“Horror’s Missing Link!”

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Eerie Tales, a 48-page companion magazine, followed six months later. It was slightly more compact (8" x 10H" compared to Weird Mysteries’ 8H" x 10I"), but ten cents cheaper. Still, 25¢ for ten comic book stories was a bargain. Crime stories swiped from EC’s Shock SuspenStories and Crime SuspenStories were also part of the mix. Both titles only lasted one issue.

Interestingly, Eerie Tales was credited to Hastings Associates, Inc., 24 W. 45th St., New York 36, N.Y., while Weird Mysteries has Pastime Publications, Inc., 1 Appleton St., Holyoke, Mass. listed on the indicia. Nonetheless, the two almost certainly came out of the same studio. Both titles have similar painted covers, typeset balloon-lettering, and even the same horror host—good ol’ Morgue’n! This suggests that Eerie Tales may have originally been planned as the second issue of Weird Mysteries before a last-minute title change.

The production values of Weird Mysteries and Eerie Tales were minimal at best. Crooked pages and slapdash, misplaced type are the norm. The 64-page Weird Mysteries only has 44 pages of actual comic book stories. Text pieces and cartoons (possibly Cracked rejects) pad out the remaining 16 pages. One 5-page Bob Powell story was even chopped up and crudely reworked to fill 6 pages! It’s likely that Weird Mysteries was planned as a 48-page magazine and expanded at the last minute. Still, the stories are fun, and there’s some nice art inside.

Weird Mysteries was aimed at a more adult audience, judging by ads for Brigitte Bardot stag-movie photos and books like The Love Life of the Modern Homo Sapiens and An Unhurried View of Erotica. The discerning reader could even order a nifty .22 caliber pistol. What fun! There are also invitations to “Learn Radio-TV Servicing,” to train as “Heavy Equipment Operating Engineers” or to “Make Your Career with Airlines!” And naturally, no true comic book would be complete without an offer to “Add 3 Inches of Solid Steel to Your Arms!”

By contrast, Eerie Tales seemed to target a somewhat younger audience, with ads for a “Life Size Giant Moon Monster” and offers for “200 Toys and Games!”

We’ve already noted the similarities between Weird Mysteries, Eerie Tales, and Warren’s Creepy and Eerie. This isn’t surprising, since each patterned their magazines on the old EC horror comics. All four titles featured wisecracking horror hosts and EC-style “twist-ending” stories, sometimes scripted by actual EC writers.

[©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

An uncredited Carl Wessler is believed to have rewritten some of his EC tales for Hastings/Pastime. 1954’s “My Brother’s Keeper” (Shock SuspenStories #16) became Weird Mysteries’ “Capital Punishment” five years later. Wessler’s “Food For Thought” (Crime SuspenStories #24) gets transformed into “Lower Than Hell” for Eerie Tales, and so on.

Such plot-recycling wasn’t unusual. Both Wessler and fellow EC scripter Jack Oleck often rewrote their stories for companies like Crestwood in the 1950s and, decades later, for DC.

Eerie Tales

48 pages plus covers Cover: George Tuska?

“The Stalker” (4 pages): Gray Morrow “The Unbeliever” (6 pages): Bob Powell “Gunk” (5 pages): George Tuska “Shocked To Death!” (3 pages): Paul Reinman “The Suckspect!” (3 pages): Bob Powell “From the Greyble To The Grave!” (5 pages): Angelo Torres “Burn!” (4 pages): Gray Morrow “Little Miss Gruesome” (5 pages): Paul Reinman “Shroud Number Nine” (4 pages): Ken Battefield “Lower Than Hell!” (4 pages): Al Williamson “Frozen Stiff” (3 text pages, “Continued Next Issue”): No art.

[Please note that both Weird Mysteries and Eerie Tales lacked creator credits, so we can’t guarantee that the above listings are 100% accurate. In a few cases, some stories were retouched in-house or drawn with the help of assistants, making a positive identification difficult. Powell’s “The Suckspect” and Morrow’s “Burn” both fall into these categories. However, most had easily identifiable styles or were signed by the artist. The more questionable stories were reviewed by a panel of comic art experts including Hames Ware, Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., and Dr. Michael J. Vassallo. Our sincere thanks for their help.]

Shel Dorf

The Detroit Triple Fan Fair —And How It Came To Be

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A Fond Look Back at the Predecessor of the San Diego Comic-Con —by the Guy Who Helped Launch Both of ’Em!

by Shel Dorf

[A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: In 1970 Shel Dorf and several comics fans from Southern California inaugurated the San Diego Comic-Con, which in time would dwarf all other U.S. comics conventions in size and scope. But this was only the second legendary con that he helped to found. The first had been birthed in Detroit, Michigan, five years earlier. And here, in Shel’s own words, is its story:]

Tom Altschuler and His Amazing Bookstore Nowadays, kids are born into a world where comics conventions are an established thing. It wasn’t always that way. This is how I remember it in those early days of the mid-1960s.

Many comics fans are solitary souls. Reading a comic is a oneperson job. Just the creators and us. But there is a time when we learn to communicate with others of our kind.

Guide mags. Paperback books were there, too, but not many of them.

There were also some movie magazines and song sheets. This was downstairs.

But the forbidden area was upstairs. Only the serious spenders got to go upstairs. This top floor was where the really valuable collectibles were stored. The musty smell only added to the experience.

One whole wall was covered with shelves of Big Little Books. On the floor were wooden crates with movie magazines from the 1920s and ’30s.

There were stacks of Golden Age comic books, really old pulp magazines, old newspaper comic sections. Several stacks of old sheet music, extra-large movie magazines (Screen Guide was one) with plush full-color photos in rotogravure printing of favorite pin-up girls and leading men. There were stacks of Esquire magazine that had the Vargas Girls and Petty Girls fold-outs in mint condition. There were adult mags like Laff, Wink, Titter (a chick named Norma Jean Baker posed for several of those covers).

We wondered how Tom got these treasures. Here’s how he did it:

It was a group of such fans that would gather at Ableman’s Detroit was a town of factory Bookstore on a Saturday in Shel Dorf (in striped shirt) and three fellow San Diego Comic-Con people workers who lived in big homes and Detroit. It was mainly a used look over some collectors’ items in a 1974 photo from the San Diego had large families. When the kids bookstore. A friendly guy named Evening Tribune, two days before that year’s con commenced. [Left grew up and left, the old folks needed to right:] Barry Alfonso—unidentified staffer—Shel—and Richard Butner.

Tom Altschuler owned the place.

The headline read (and I’m sure we’re all shocked at its originality): to clean out their attics before they It was huge (probably an old “Out of blue—Shazam!—it’s Comic Con!” Thanks to Shel for the photo, could sell the homes. Tom had a crew furniture store). The downstairs which was taken by Barry Fitzsimmons. (By sheer coincidence, 1974 was of casual laborers who cleaned out the had shelves of books and tables the year A/E editor Roy Thomas, then Marvel’s editor-in-chief, was a guest attics free of charge. One condition: piled high with old magazines. of honor at the con and received his Inkpot Award, sitting on the dais that Tom could keep all the old You could find copies of Liberty, with Charles Schultz on one side, and Russ Manning and Milt Caniff on magazines, books, etc., that they The Saturday Evening Post, the other. Talk about a comics fan’s heaven!) found there. It was just junk to most Look, Life, Redbook, Collier’s, people, so they quickly agreed. No etc. There were also detective, publicity in those days about how much money old comic books would mystery, and science-fiction pulp magazines. There were “men’s bring. I’m sure this was when mothers threw out their grown-up kids’ magazines,” “women’s magazines,” westerns, and over-sized Radio

44

The Detroit Triple Fan Fair

(often servicemen’s) comic books. Perhaps in rural places today, such deals can still be found. Who knows?

But the point is that it was at Tom’s bookstore that the major players in the creation of the Detroit Triple Fan Fair found each other. On page two of the program book is a list of the early committee members and what they collected. Under my name you’ll see that I mostly collected newspaper comic strips; I also saved the comic books which were reprints of the newspaper strips, such as Super Comics, Famous Funnies, Popular Comics, King Comics, Comics on Parade, Tip-Top, etc. Several of us were introverted people who had made a world for ourselves.

Never bored, always taking the path least traveled.

A Personal Journey I fit the mold perfectly. At age ten, I preferred comic books, movies, newspaper strip, movie magazines, dramatic radio, and books.

Time spent in school was to be endured until I could be “I also saved the comic books which were reprints of the newspaper strips,” says Shel. Shown here are covers for back home with my hobbies. I issues from all six of the reprint comics he mentions: Super Comics #43 (Dec. 1941)—Famous Funnies #82 (May ’41)— had friends, a large family of Popular Comics #13 (Feb. ’37)—King Comics #13 (Oct. ’37)—Comics on Parade #17 (Sept. ’39)—and Tip-Top Comics #9 aunts, uncles, cousins, and a few (Jan. ’37). Some of these comic strip heroes were fickle: note that Dick Tracy and Tarzan jumped ship from one serious “crushes” on blue-eyed title to another. [All characters ©2003 their respective copyright holders.] blondes (my favorites). But in real life I was painfully shy, them back and forth until they fell apart. (No “back-boards and plastic retreating into my world of hobbies. I felt like the Ugly Duckling. bags.”)

But then I began to meet other fans, and despite the competition for the same books, I realized that I was not alone! Of course, kids in those days had no money to speak of. But, by doing odd jobs, and cashing in pop and milk bottles, you could get enough to buy a few comic books.

This was the early 1940s. Movies cost 15 to 25 cents. Comic books were all in color for a dime.

I look in the mirror now, and a 70-year-old man looks back. But that ten-year-old kid still lives inside.

I got interested in the newspaper funnies early on. I remember when Superman (a favorite comic book) suddenly appeared daily and Sunday in the Detroit News. It was a truly thrilling experience1 Since my dad paid for delivery of the paper, it was free!!! But I didn’t have the heart to throw the strips out with yesterday’s paper; instead, I clipped the strips and saved them: Dick Tracy, The Spirit, Terry and the Pirates, Red Ryder, et al. I went to the “dime stores,” bought scrapbooks and glue bottles, and began this hobby. My poor mother couldn’t figure it out: “Sheldon, why do you do that? I don’t see other children doing that!”

She later learned that others did.

I knew the good stuff. And I could read it over and over! Many kids in those days had cartons of comic books in the closet. Kids would swap

In the six decades I’ve been collecting, things have changed. People have become used to the idea of collecting old comics. The enormous prices some old comics bring caused people to take us seriously. But, in the early days, nobody talked price value. It was all about the art and story.

Some of the comic books I enjoyed were Doll Man (Lou Fine’s figure drawing was amazing), Bulletman, Blue Beetle, Wonder Woman, Boy Comics, Daredevil (the first one, who threw a boomerang), Crime Does Not Pay, Looney Tunes, Mickey Mouse, Green Lantern, and Little Lulu. Captain Marvel Jr. had appeal for me; I guess the poor crippled newsboy got my sympathy.

Years passed. I finished school. Kept collecting and eventually found Tom’s wonderful store in 1963. Among this group of comics fans, I met a few who decided to do a public event for comic book fans. They had the free use of a downtown hotel. Dealers brought their own bridge tables and set up their old comic books for sale. There was a punchbowl where Koolaid was served. It was all very informal and friendly. Some dealers and fans made money, too!

PLUS:

5.95

$

In the USA

No. 31

with MARC SWAYZE

December 2003

SPECIAL FEATURE:

HARLAN ELLISON’s 1970s MARVEL MASTERWORKS!

CHRISTMAS CARDS

FRED RAY STAN LEE SHELLY MOLDOFF NICK CARDY CHIC STONE DICK AYERS ALEX TOTH JACK BURNLEY GEORGE EVANS JOE SINNOTT MICHAEL T. GILBERT JOE MANEELY MARIE SEVERIN KURT SCHAFFENBERGER HARRY LAMPERT MART NODELL LARRY IVIE JIM JONES RONN FOSS MARK KAUSLER CATHY HILL & BILL BLACK

Superman TM & ©2003 DC Comics.

FROM THE COMIC BOOK CARTOONISTS!

with

SAL BUSCEMA HERB TRIMPE RICH BUCKLER ROY THOMAS & STEVE STILES

Vol. 3, No. 31 / December 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

Section

Contents

Fred Ray Dick Ayers

Cover Colorists (unknown) Tom Ziuko

And Special Thanks to: Jack Adams Dick & Lindy Ayers Paul Bach Bob Bailey Jeff Bailey Randall J. Barlow Dennis Beaulieu Blake Bell Howard Bender Bill Black Chris Brown Gary Brown Rich Buckler Jack Burnley Sal Buscema Nick Caputo Nick Cardy R. Dewey Cassell John Coates Shel Dorf Al Dellinges Harlan & Susan Ellison Michael T. Feldman Tom Field Shane Foley Brent Frankenhoff Janet Gilbert Marvin Giles Jennifer T. Go Ron Harris Cathy Hill Richard Howell Tony Isabella Larry Ivie Glen Johnson Marc Kardell Mark Kausler

HAPPY HOLIDAYS and HARLAN!

Thomas C. Lammers Harry & Adele Lampert Mike Leach Dan Makara Nancy Maneely Bob Millikin Cynthia C. Miller Thomas H. Miller Shelly Moldoff Brian K. Morris Mart & Carrie Nodell Dave O’Dell John G. Pierce Virginia Provisiero Charlie Roberts Ethan Roberts Dorothy Schaffenberger Marie Severin Joe Sinnott Robin Snyder Paul Stefanowicz Steve Stiles Marc Swayze Greg Theakston Maggie Thompson Alex Toth Herb Trimpe Dann Thomas Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Mark Voger Dr. Michael J. Vassallo Delmo Walters Hames Ware Bill Warren

Writer/Editorial: Deck the Halls with–––Comic Books!? . . . . . . 2 A Four-Color Christmas–––Mostly in Black-&-White . . . . . . . . 3 Holiday greetings sent out by comics pros and fans.

“And Men Shall Call Him–––Prototype!”–––Part Two . . . . . . . . . 12 Tom Lammers on the precursors and precedents of The X-Men, Dr. Strange, et al.

Ellison Marvel-Land . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 When science-fiction’s talented enfant terrible teamed up with Thomas, Buscema, Trimpe, and Buckler.

re: [comments, correspondence, & corrections]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) #72. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 P.C. Hamerlinck presents Swayze, Schaffenberger, and humor in 1940s Captain Marvel.

Darlin’ Dick Ayers & Friends Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover: Sometime circa 1941-43, National (DC) Comics mailed out Christmas postcards to—retailers? wholesalers? somebody!—which featured an all-new full-color illustration of Superman as Santa, drawn by master cover delineator Fred Ray, no less. On the day that collector Charlie Roberts sent Ye Editor a copy of that postcard, the Christmas 2003 issue of Alter Ego was born! (We showed you the actual card in #30’s next-issue ad.) But it’s set us to wondering—did DC ever commission any other Golden Age illos for use as holiday hellos outside the comics themselves? [©2003 DC Comics.]

Above: Stan Lee got publisher Martin Goodman to spring for sending out season’s greetings in the mid-1960s: a letter-size illo of The Thing penciled and inked by Mirthful Marie Severin— “swiping Kirby,” she says—but very well indeed! If memory serves, they were mailed out to charter members of Stan’s first fan-club brainchild, the Merry Marvel Marching Society... but maybe other fans got them, too. Wonder how many are still kicking around out there? Cards, we mean—not fans! [©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.

Yuletide Cards by Comics Pros & Fans

A Four-Color Christmas

—Mostly In Black-&-White Yuletide Cards Sent by Comics Greats [INTRODUCTORY NOTE: As most of Alter Ego’s readers probably already know, many comics pros and fans create personalized Christmas or Happy-Holiday greetings around the end of each year. Here, courtesy of my own file cabinets and those of several much-appreciated fans, are a few pages’ worth of holiday cards sent by some of comics’ finest talents. The artist is identified in capital letters at the start of each caption following. —Roy.]

SHELDON “SHELLY” MOLDOFF (Above left:) It’s relatively rare to find a Christmas card sent out by an individual artist or writer that depicts a company-owned character—but, says Dan Makara, who sent us a copy, this splendid card was first mailed out in 1942 by the Golden Age artist of “Hawkman” and “The Black Pirate.”

Thanks also to John Coates, who sent us a scan of it from a 1992 sending, along with the other two cards on this page. (Top right:) This 1994 card features Captain Midnight and a host of DC heroes drawn by Shelly over the years. (Right:) This space-age card was sent out a few years ago

by Sheldon and his beloved Shirley. [Art ©2003 Sheldon Mayer; Captain Midnight TM & ©2003 the respective copyright holders; Hawkman, Black Pirate, Green Lantern, Batman, Robin, Flash, Catwoman, Penguin, &!Bat-Mite TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

3

4

A Four-Color Christmas––Mostly in Black-&-White

NICK CARDY Both John Coates and the artist himself sent us scans of several Christmas cards by the venerable artist of Aquaman, Teen Titans, and other quality titles. The one at top left is a triple fold-out—and the drawing of the kids next to it is from its backside!

And, just for the heck of it, we’ve also tossed in a Cardy pencil sketch of late-’60s icon Bat Lash. [Art ©2003 Nick Cardy; Bat Lash TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

12

Of Mystics, Mighty Men, and Immortals

“And Men Shall Call Him... PROTOTYPE!”—Part II

Of Mystics, Mighty Men, and Immortals

A Further Look at the Foreshadowing—or Something—of the Marvel Age of Comics

by Thomas G. Lammers [EDITOR’S NOTE: The idea of “Marvel Pre-Hero Prototypes” which pre-dated and were used as models or patterns for many of the heroes and villains created in the early 1960s by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko originated in the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide and has ever since been disputed in various quarters. Two issues ago, with no ill will toward the Price Guide, Tom Lammers began his examination of “prototypes”—which he defines (I’m paraphrasing here) as a concept introduced so a publisher can learn if it is worth developing further, but with a new, improved, and somewhat different character. For instance, is the Lee-Kirby story “I Was a Slave of the Living Hulk!” in Journey into Mystery #62 (Nov. 1960) related in some cause-and-effect way to The Incredible Hulk #1 (May 1962)? Was the saga “The Spider Strikes!” in Journey into Mystery #73 (Oct. 1961), in which an arachnid gained gargantuan size and human intelligence, intended to find out if

comics fans might welcome a feature, less than a year later, starring your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man? Tom feels that, unless there was a clear intent on the part of the creators to test the waters with one character as a “model or pattern” for a later one, the original story was not a true “prototype,” but at most a “precursor”—a concept which preceded (and perhaps even influenced) the later effort, but which wasn’t specifically designed to lead to it. In A/E #29 Tom surveyed the Price Guide-listed “prototype” stories related to Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, and The Amazing Spider-Man. This time, he continues with the other Lee-Kirby-Ditko creations introduced in Marvel Comics through 1963. Incidentally, except where otherwise noted, all art for this article was supplied by its author. —Roy.]

Everybody knows that, in Amazing Fantasy #15 (Aug. 1962), high school student Peter Parker was bitten by a recently-irradiated spider and became Spider-Man, with script by Stan Lee and art by Steve Ditko. But in A/E #29 Tom Lammers shone a spotlight on Journey into Mystery #73’s “The Spider Strikes!” nearly a year earlier—wherein an accidentally-irradiated spider became huge and malevolently brainy—in what has been perhaps ironically termed a “reverse prototype.”

Two issues back, we printed the splash page from JiM #73; here, flanking art from AF #15, are pp. 2 & 3 of “The Spider Strikes!”—penciled by Jack Kirby and inked

by Dick Ayers, with no writer credited—courtesy of alert A/E reader Chris Brown. (Was it Stan Lee and Larry Lieber working in tandem, as in so many monster stories in those “pre-hero”days?) For the first 21 “Spider-Man” stories at eminently affordable prices, pick up a copy of The Essential Spider-Man, Vol. 1. [©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“And Men Shall Call Him... Prototype!”

13

Thor In Journey into Mystery #83 (Aug. 1962), handicapped physician Dr. Donald Blake discovered that, upon striking a gnarled wooden cane against the ground, he was magically transformed into Thor, the thunder god of Norse mythology, while the cane became Thor’s mighty hammer Mjolnir. The Overstreet Guide does not identify any stories as Thor prototypes; and in fact, very few pre-hero [i.e., pre-Fantastic Four #1 in 1961) stories at Martin Goodman’s comics company were inspired by mythology.

However, no less than four stories are identified as containing prototypes of the very first foes Thor faced, the Stone Men of Saturn.

These invaders, who arrived in a flying saucer, somewhat resemble The Thing in their craggy stone bodies, except that their heads are greatly elongated, making up a greater proportion of their overall height.

[See next page.]

The earliest of the supposed prototypes is found in Tales to Astonish #5 (Sep 1959), in the Kirby-penciled cover story “I Was Trapped by the Things on Easter Island!” (5 pp.). The pilot of a small aircraft, crashing on Easter Island (Rapa Nui) in the southeastern Pacific, discovers that the moai, the giant stone heads allegedly carved by the indigenous Polynesians, actually represent the upper portions of partially buried aliens! They are patiently awaiting a signal from their home planet, Lithodia Rex, to begin the invasion and conquest of the Earth.

Creatures of stone are also found in the very next issue, TTA #6 (Nov. 1959). The cover story, drawn by Steve Ditko, is “I Saw the Invasion of the Stone Men” (5 pp.). There, Stone Men from deep within the Earth burst through in Times Square and bumble around for a while, seemingly oblivious to the Army’s attempts to destroy them, before returning to the Earth’s core.

The third Stone Men of Saturn prototype is likewise found in Tales to Astonish, this one in #16 (Feb. 1961). “Thorr the Unbelievable” (7 pp.) is another Kirby-and-Ayers cover story inspired by the moai of Easter Island. An archaeologist and his nagging wife, digging beneath a strange statue on a newly discovered volcanic island in the South Pacific, find a chamber full of electronic circuitry. Entering it activates the statue, which rises from the ground and reveals that, like the Easter Island versions in TTA #5, it is actually a partially-buried body with only the head emerging from the soil. He is Thorr, left by alien invaders a million years earlier, to be reactivated upon their return. As might be expected, the archaeologist foils their plans of conquest, earning his wife’s respect in the process. It is ironic that this supposed Stone Men prototype bears the same basic name as the hero his descendants battled!

Easter Island’s moai return for one last outing in Tales of Suspense #28 (April 1962). In the Kirby-penciled “Back from the Dead!” (6 pp.), criminal Harry Dawes flees in a stolen boat to—Easter Island. There he

Thor looks uncharacteristically relaxed (at least for a Jack Kirby drawing) on the cover of Journey into Mystery #83, as he scatters Stone Men like so many pebbles; inks by Joe Sinnott. One Timely/Marvel precursor of the thunder god, of course, is Venus, goddess of love and the star of her own comic from 1948-52, as detailed in Alter Ego #29. In this page from Venus #14 (June ’51), the immortal beauty talks to Jupiter, king of the Roman gods, just as Thor would later do with his father Odin, head honcho of the Norse pantheon—and is propelled back to Mars, where (now no longer needing a space suit) she promptly encounters a Martian, in a weird mix of fantasy and science-fiction drawn, and probably written, by Bill Everett. [©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

meets a strange little man who is searching for (and finds) a parchment which, when read aloud, brings the statues to life. They tell Dawes they are aliens, marooned on Earth when their spaceship developed engine trouble, and are waiting for their captain to return for them. The strange little man is, of course, their captain.

In perusing these four tales, it is clear that the characters fall into two distinct categories: (1) Pacific island stone statue aliens drawn by Kirby (Tales to Astonish #5 & #16, Tales of Suspense #28), and (2) center-ofthe-Earth creatures drawn by Ditko (Tales to Astonish #6). Although the last are explicitly dubbed “Stone Men,” they clearly have little in common with Thor’s first opponents: they are not from outer space, nor are they invading the Earth with conquest in mind, nor do they physically resemble the Saturnians, lacking elongated moai-style heads. In fact, these Ditko Stone Men rather remind one of the Michelin Man® in overall shape!

The stone men in the three Kirby tales do resemble the Stone Men of Saturn in their alien-invader nature and characteristic elongated heads.

On the other hand, all three have been waiting for ages to invade, while

14

Of Mystics, Mighty Men, and Immortals was a monster, and it was no doubt deemed wise to keep monsters on the cover of a title that had previously featured such tales.

“Let him who is without a prototype cast the first stone!”

[Clockwise:] Art from Tales to Astonish #5, #6, #16, and Tales of Suspense #28. Note that in TTA #16, Thorr-with-two-r’s is a stone man. Three of the four pre-Journey into Mystery #83 Stone Men types were penciled by Jack Kirby, the other drawn by Steve Ditko. Thanks to Dr. Michael J. Vassallo for the TTA #16 scan. [©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Thor’s opponents are newly-arrived. This point aside, one must ask whether Goodman or Lee would be so concerned about the marketability of minor antagonists (the Stone Men would not reappear for over 170 issues!) for an as-yet-undeveloped super-hero that they would testmarket the concept three times! Is it at all plausible that these stories represent an intentional effort to evaluate the profitability of comics featuring men made of stone? If so, would it not be more reasonable to interpret them as prototypes for the Fantastic Four’s Ben Grimm, the craggy Thing? The Ditko version particularly resembles Grimm in the short rounded head.

In light of all this, is it really plausible to regard these four stories as intentional try-outs of a character idea? Is it not more reasonable to suggest that they are mere precursors of what came later? If books with stone men on the cover sold reasonably well, and if some sort of monster was needed to battle the latest super-hero in his debut, is it surprising that a frequently-invoked concept from the pre-hero monster books, stone invaders from outer space, was once again pressed into service? As such, while the three Kirby stories could reasonably be considered precursors of the Stone Men from Saturn, they do not seem to be intentional prototypes.

The Ditko characters, in contrast, have less claim to forerunner status, and are best considered merely a coincidence of an obvious name.

Another early Thor adversary was the Lava Man (Molto), who first appears in Journey into Mystery #97 (Oct. 1963) and returns in The Avengers #5 (May 1964); both appearances were penciled by Jack Kirby.

Molto, who emerges from a volcano to claim the surface world for his subterranean race, has a generally humanoid body apparently made of living lava. A very similar sort of creature appears in Tales of Suspense #7 (Jan. 1960) in “I Fought the Molten Man-Thing!” (5 pp.), unsigned, but clearly penciled by Kirby and inked by Ditko. The Molten Man-Thing likewise emerges from a volcano (in this case, on the tropical island of Napuka) and is also composed of living lava; however, he is of slightly less humanoid appearance and (except on the cover) does not speak. The most striking similarity involves the covers of the two issues; their composition is virtually identical. Both show the respective creature emerging from a short steep-sided caldera at right. At

As we attempt to understand these alleged prototypes, we must consider the possibility that Goodman or Lee may not yet have been convinced of the marketability of super-heroes. As Joseph William Marek has pointed out, Spider-Man, Thor, and Ant-Man were all registered with the U.S. copyright office on the same date, June 5, 1962.1 As such, they represent only the third Marvel super-hero appearances of the ’60s, after Fantastic Four and The Incredible Hulk. It has been logically suggested that the cover of F.F. #1 represented a compromise between the sales potential of super-heroes and the known marketability of monsters. The cover of Journey into Mystery In Tales to Astonish #16 (left) “the mighty Thorr” is already a catch-phrase to #83 may represent a conjure with—though spelled with two “r’s” and applied to an alien stone man. similar compromise.

Hey, maybe Stan or Larry (or somebody) was subconsciously remembering that The F.F. had shared when, in the final panel of Journey into Mystery #83 a year and a half later (above), their first cover with the thunder god’s name was likewise spelled “Thorr”! Odin bless Marvel for leaving monsters, The Hulk that panel intact in 2001’s Essential Thor, Vol. 1! [©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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Ellison Marvel-Land

Ellison Marvel-Land Science-Fiction Writer HARLAN ELLISON’s Marvel Age Masterworks —in His Own Words, This Time!

[A/E EDITOR’S PERSONAL INTRO: As mentioned in Alter Ego #18, I first became aware of Harlan Ellison in the early 1960s, in issues of Dick and Pat Lupoff’s influential science-fiction/comics fanzine Xero, where he wrote several insightful articles and reviews and was even kidded in cartoons by his fellow sf fans. Before long, of course, I became an ardent admirer of his fiction, as well, beginning with “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman.” Harlan and I met at an early comics convention in the mid-to-late 1960s, if not before; I distinctly recall introducing him at one of these to Jim Steranko (each wanted to meet the other) while Jim was writing and drawing “S.H.I.E.L.D.” for Marvel.

[Over the years, my off-and-on acquaintanceship with Harlan has been a very positive thing, in my mind. In 1970 he was kind enough to be a “guest critic” in the first Conan the Barbarian letters page and was, like his fellow reviewers, probably far too kind to that initial effort by Barry Smith and myself. In 1975 he arranged for Denny O’Neil and me to be flown from New York to Los Angeles for a UCLA symposium called, if memory serves a-right, “Ten Evenings down a Rabbit Hole”; our particular night dealt with “strange inputs” to science-fiction, of which comics were one. The two days I spent in L.A. at that time, during

which I renewed a few friendships, helped put me in the frame of mind to relocate there the next year instead of returning for a second round as Marvel’s editor-in-chief... a decision I have never regretted.

I might not have done that if not for Harlan’s flying me out the year before.

[Though I thus knew from the outset that Harlan was a comics enthusiast, neither he nor I recall precisely how he came to write the story-synopsis that became the basis of the first two Marvel Comics I dialogued from his plots—The Avengers #88 (May 1971) and The Incredible Hulk #140 (June ’71). In an interview in Comic Book Artist two or three years ago, he opined that perhaps Stan Lee suggested that I approach him about writing something for Marvel. Maybe so—but I suspect it was my own idea, hatched soon after I invited him to comment on Conan #1. I’ve no recollection whether I paid Harlan out of my own not-too-deep pockets for the story he sent me around the turn of 1970-71, or if I conned Marvel into paying him directly over and above my page-rate. For, what Harlan wrote was not (nor was it ever intended to be, of course) an actual comic book script, but rather a synopsis, which I would oversee being turned into pictures by artists and would then dialogue. The story proved meaty enough that

Harlan Ellison in a vintage photo—flanked by the covers of The Avengers #88 and The Incredible Hulk #140. With these issues, Harlan became perhaps the first writer of a comics story ever to have his name on Marvel covers, at least without its being paired with that of an artist.

Photo courtesy of Harlan Ellison.

[Avengers ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Harlan Ellison’s Marvel Age Masterworks it was turned into two comic book issues... which may or may not have been intended from the start.

[At some very early stage, Marvel’s self-produced fanzine of the day, Marvelmania, obtained permission to print Harlan’s synopsis intact. Surprisingly, it was published there in advance of the actual comics—but to the best of our knowledge it has never appeared anywhere else since—at least not legally. The anonymous writer of the introduction to the synopsis in Marvelmania #4 (1970) referred to the effort as a “forthcoming two-part Hulk story, now in the works,” so clearly that piece was prepared before I decided that the first part of the tale would become an issue of Avengers. Since I was the regular scripter of both Hulk and Avengers at the time, this hardly presented an obstacle. The intro-writer also stated that “[Harlan] was contacted some months back by our own Roy Thomas on the possibility of Ellison’s doing something for Marvel,” and that Harlan “thought that it would be interesting to publish his synopsis so that it may be compared with the finished product, which should hit the

SPLASH PANEL shows the Hulk caught between the poles of a specially-rigged trap powered by the magneto generators of Boulder Dam. He is being bombarded by millions of volts of electricity.

Thunderbolt Ross and his corps of army engineers have lured the green behemoth to the dam, where they have pinned him in a barrage of current (much in the manner the Thing was killed), in hopes the assault—enough to slaughter an army of rampaging Visigoths—will stun him long enough to put him in a newly-designed crypt filled with comagas. Then, effectively immobilized, the Hulk will be transported to a testing ground where he will be kept unconscious until a cure has been effected to turn him back, once and for all, to Bruce Banner. The crypt was designed by Tony Stark and Reed Richards, working in conjunction with Professor Xavier.

It’s working! Screaming in impotent rage, the Hulk struggles feebly in the grip of raw energy cascading over him. And as Mr. Fantastic and Tony Stark look on with Professor X, gauging the possibilities of finally saving Bruce Banner from the living coffin of flesh wherein he has been trapped for so many years, we cut away to: The Avengers, hot on the trail of a menace so great they cannot even speak its name without fearing dread. They are stalking through swampland... shrouded in mist, eerie, compelling... on a nameless atoll near Easter Island. Looking for a decayed ancient idol, an icon of a lost (Above:) In the interests of historical accuracy (and ’cause we kinda liked it), we used the title heading from the synopsis-printing in Marvelmania #4 for this A/E version. (Right:) The splash of Avengers #88 gave the Hulk equal billing with the mag’s titular heroes, and spelled out who wrote what in the story to come. (See blow-up of credits.) Because Harlan had apparently conceived the early part of the synopsis as an homage to H.P. Lovecraft’s tale “The Call of Cthulhu,” Roy quoted the first line of that HPL classic at the bottom left of the page. [Hulk &!Hulk logo TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

31

stands early next year.” I was also quoted indirectly as saying I would “try to keep as much of Ellison’s description in the final product as possible, and also try to keep Ellison’s plot outline intact.”

[Duh! I recall having mild reservations about the name “Syklop” for the villain, because of Cyclops in The X-Men—and the fact that in the printed comic the name begins with an added “P” suggests to me that that particular spelling was mine—but my mother didn’t raise any children dense enough to acquire the rights to a Harlan Ellison synopsis and then not use as much of his language and plotting as possible! It was a beauty of a story—and A/E layout man Chris Day provided nice art scans from the three issues in question. So let’s relive that classic tale—in its original form—with Harlan’s generous permission and forbearance—after we give its copyright info: “In the Grip of Syklop” by Harlan Ellison. Copyright ©1970 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, ©1998 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation. All rights reserved. —Roy.]

32

Ellison Marvel-Land of ancient sciences and regiments even the most advanced human scientists would call sorcery, Syklop had located a source of power, limitless power, that if he can only tap, he can save his race from eternal sleep and certain destruction. That power-source: The Hulk.

Now, with the Hulk stunned, lying semi-conscious in the portal of the great machine he has used to disassemble the green giant’s atoms and reassemble them here... Syklop knows his theory was correct: the only way to uncover the secret of the Hulk’s incredible power is to compress the atoms of that green form so the molecular structure can be better studied under the analyzers of another of Syklop’s Herculean machines.

But to do this, the Hulk must be reduced in size and must be shrunk and compressed. He transfers the Hulk to the other machine, and the shrinking ray begins to bathe the green behemoth in a ruby glow. Syklop knows he must be careful, and not shrink the creature too much.

But even as he works his ancient science on the Hulk, the Avengers (Left:) Since Syklop/Psyklop was what sf fans call a B.E.M.—a “bug-eyed monster”—Roy asked penciler Sal Buscema to show one panel from the insectoid alien’s POV in multiple images. What? You say R.T. stole that bit from the 1950s horror flick The Fly? Never heard of it! Art by Sal B. and Jim Mooney. (Below:) Besides a stint or two on The Avengers, Sal also drew The Incredible Hulk from time to time—including penciling and inking, a few years back, this cover for what he terms a “custom comic.” Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, sent by Sal. [Avengers, Hulk, & Abomination TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

civilization: key to a subterranean stronghold of the decimator whose very existence on the planet is more deadly than a thousand hydrogen bombs. They push onward and, finally, in the heart of the steaming night swamp they stumble on it—a statue so grotesque and monstrous it brings them to a halt. And we cut back to: The Hulk, pinned in a torrent of lightning. As the electricity takes its toll and the Hulk sinks down senseless, the great crane-machines move in, to lift him into the coma crypt. But as they lumber forward, as they wait for the instant the electricity ceases its crackling work, the Hulk suddenly become transparent, wavers in their sight, and... vanishes!

Winks out of existence!

Cut to the underground eyrie of a bizarre new villain, Syklop; halfhuman, half-creature of a long-dead race, he is the menace being even now stalked by the Avengers. And as we first see him, first dwell on the eldritch horror of his single bee-faceted ruby eye, his strangely-structured body, we see the Hulk suddenly appear in the crystal receiving portal of a weird machine.

Syklop runs through his background and his purpose at this meaningful moment like a damned soul telling its beads for the final, agonizing time; his race had lived in the bowels of the Earth eons before even apes had walked the land. But they had fallen into disrepute with the Dark Gods they had worshipped, and they had been put to eternal sleep. For millennia they had dwelled in that starless night of empty dreams, until Syklop had been called up from slumber by the Dark Gods, who had promised him if he could tap a new source of power for their failing energy-demands, they would release his race—who would then with ease recapture the world for themselves. And so, with the aid

HERO GETS GIRL! And Captain Marvel Jr. Gets Sivana, Jr.!

No. 90 DEC. 2003

Our 30th Year!

1973-2003

MARK VOG ER’S

KURT SCHAFFENB ERGER

PLUS: YZE A W S C R A M E JOHN PIERC

[Art ©2003 DC!Comics; thanks to Howard Bender.]

BOOK

44

Marc Swayze

By

[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, “Captain Marvel Introduces Mary Marvel (CMA #18, Dec. ’42); but he was primarily hired by Fawcett Publications to illustrate Captain Marvel stories and covers for Whiz Comics and Captain Marvel Adventures. He also wrote many Captain Marvel scripts, and continued to do so while in the military. After leaving the service, he made an arrangement with Fawcett to produce art and stories 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 ceased publishing comics, Marc moved over to Charlton Publications, where he ended his comics career in the mid-’50s. His ongoing professional memoirs have been FCA’s most popular feature since his first column appeared in FCA #54, 1996.

Last issue, Marc revisited the period when he helped to originate Captain Marvel’s little sister, Mary Marvel.

This time, he relates his fond memories of the fun and friendly (yet highly competitive) baseball games in which he participated, specifically when the Fawcett Comics crew took on the team from Jack Binder’s studio. —P.C. Hamerlinck.]

“Mr. Crowley sang the hymns right along with everybody in the church! He sounded pretty good, too!”

I’ve forgotten which of our children was speaking, but it

Wendell Crowley (with Otto Binder peeking through on the right). 1960s photo during a get-together of Binder shop alumni.

was about our guest of several days who had just pulled out of the driveway, bound for the airport.

“That’s because he believes in taking an active part in things. Mr. Crowley isn’t one to stand back and depend on others to move things along. He joins in... merges... he’s a... participator!” I said to the kids, seeing the opportunity for one of life’s little lessons.

The Phantom Eagle “catapults his punches” in Wow Comics #42 (April 1946).

Art by Marc Swayze. [Phantom Eagle TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

June, their mom, something of a participator herself, was letting me have the show... probably enjoying my struggle with the words. We were talking about Wendell Crowley, my friend since the early days at Fawcett. It was a pleasure to see that our youngsters admired and respected him as a person dedicated to whatever he was doing.

To live so far away... New Jersey... Wendell came a long way to see us... almost annually. Of course the travel, “lumber business things,” somehow took him to other stops where he could “talk comics.” I suspected that, and I believe Dagny, Wendell’s wife, also suspected it.

“What’s all this ‘the-ball-wasfair... the-ball-was-foul’ business that goes on when you and Mr. Crowley greet each other?” one of the kids wanted to know. The answer to that required a little thought... a little explanation.

Wendell was not an employee of Fawcett Publications when I first knew him. He represented the Jack Binder comic book art studio, and in that capacity was

Kurt Schaffenberger

47

The Artist Right Around The Corner

by Mark Voger Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck [EDITOR’S NOTE: Mark Voger has written an incisive and smartly designed biography of one of the great comic book artists from the glory days of Fawcett: Kurt Schaffenberger, who passed away in 2002 at age 81. Voger, a columnist based in New Jersey, now writes about the journey that led to his new book, Hero Gets Girl! The Life and Art of Kurt Schaffenberger, available from TwoMorrows—and highly recommended by all of us here at the FCA offices! —P.C. Hamerlinck.]

had drawn Superman earlier in the ’80s and was now stumping for his independent title, Mr. Fixitt.

Howard shared my jones for oldschool comics, particularly Silver Age stuff.

My relationship with Kurt Schaffenberger began, as it did for so many, as a kid reading his comic book work. I distinctly remember, in the mid-’60, being stranded at some school friend’s birthday party waiting for my parents to pick me up. As my diet that afternoon consisted of M&Ms, Coca Cola, and birthday cake, I was beginning to crash from a sugar high, when I peeked into a toy chest and spotted a tattered issue of Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane—(Nov. 27, 1961), to be exact.

In “Lois Lane’s Super-Brain!” the plucky heroine got a cerebral jolt from a “fantastic computer that absorbs electrical brain wave impulses from the minds of brilliant people and stores them up,” an invention of a Professor Holt, who never should have left Lois alone with that machine.

“Guess who moved into town?”

Howard said one day. Kurt Schaffenberger, the guy who drew Lois Lane. What luck! A comic book legend right around the corner!

Kurt Schaffenberger in 1941, the year he unwittingly entered the comic book field, and (top right) one of his classic drawings of Superman flying with Lois Lane—no doubt after rescuing her from a horrible death. Photo courtesy of Mrs. Dorothy Schaffenberger. [Art ©2003 DC Comics.]

Lois became super-smart (she could identify distant constellations and cheat at roulette by calculating mathematical permutations), but there was a catch: her hair fell out and the top of her head grew to more than double its size. When you’re trying to snare Superman as a husband, this can be a terrible disadvantage in the looks department.

Young, innocent, and none-too-bright as I was, I got lost in the moment of Lois’ shock and despair when she first spotted her creepy new melon in the mirror. That memory got filed away along with all the other wonderful, but ultimately useless, pop culture milestones of my boyhood.

Fast forward to 1989. I’d recently reacquired the comic book habit, and I wasn’t alone. Through some super-hero synchronicity, there was a renewed interest, nationwide, in this venerable medium. Tim Burton’s movie Batman triggered a comeback for the tights-clad detective. Comic shops, heretofore found only in big cities, were popping up in neighborhood shopping centers.

I had been writing a sporadic column about comics for a daily newspaper in New Jersey. I profiled a local artist, Howard Bender, who

I called Kurt and set up an appointment to interview him at his home in Brick, New Jersey, where he’d moved from River Edge, also in NJ, earlier that year. My wife Kathy, a freelance photographer, posed Kurt in his back-porch studio for the article, which I titled, “It’s the Way He Draws His Faces.” Kurt was charming, with an easygoing manner, an understated humor. His wife Dorothy returned from an errand, and a friendship was forged that afternoon.

Before long, the “Schaffs,” the Benders (Howard and Joni), and Kathy and I became like the six Musketeers. I’m not saying we were inseparable, but every now and then we’d plan a nice evening (a dinner party or a dinner out; we would also meet up at comic book conventions and shows).

Howard and I, being comic book geeks, always tried to coax Kurt into talking about the old days. Kurt didn’t share our obsession. He would always say, in his bemused way, that it was “just a job.” Once when Howard asked Kurt about artistic motivation, Kurt replied: “You think of all the bills that need to be paid, and then you go to work.”

I never planned to write a biography of Kurt, but in my capacity as a columnist (one who is married to a photographer, no less) I occasionally interrogated him, and Kathy occasionally posed him. In the meantime, Howard was also interviewing Kurt, as well as nailing him down on his drawing credits from the old Fawcett days. We didn’t realize it at the time, but we were constructing the skeleton of a biography.

Still, there was plenty to uncover when, years later, we got the green

50

Levity, Learning & Lightning Bolts

Levity, Learning & Lightning Bolts Part II: Humor and Whimsy In Captain Marvel Stories

by John G. Pierce There was a time when Fawcett Publications’ Captain Marvel from the Golden Age was thought of as primarily—if not exclusively—a humorous character. Certainly, Steranko’s History of Comics, Vol. 2, in an otherwise outstanding chapter on Cap’s career, tended to leave that impression, and I’ve long had the sense (whether rightly or wrongly, I do not know) that when DC, in 1972, picked up the rights to publish The Marvel Family, the articles from Steranko’s book, of then-recent vintage, were likely in the forefront of their minds.

(On the other hand, it must be noted that DC assistant editor and sometime-scribe E. Nelson Bridwell had been a Captain Marvel fan in his youth, as had DC writer Denny O’Neil.)

Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

Typical of many humorous and/or whimsical stories in the Captain Marvel canon is the story (splash above) from Captain Marvel Adventures #43 (Feb. 1945), with art by C.C. Beck & Pete Costanza.

Later 1970s-80s artistic approaches by Alan Weiss, Don Newton, Tom Mandrake, and even Jerry Ordway went in a more realistic direction, as desired by DC at the time. The display illo at right by Tom Mandrake was done to promote the four-issue Shazam! The New Beginning written

by Roy & Dann Thomas in 1987, as a follow-up to the line-spanning Legends series, and was printed in the Comics Buyer’s Guide issue dated Sept. 26, 1986. A darker, grimmer cover was eventually prepared for Shazam! TNB #1, as seen in Alter Ego V3#9. [©2003 DC Comics.]

But somehow, in spite of their best efforts, the folks at DC couldn’t quite achieve the level of humor of their Fawcett predecessors, except rarely—and those occasions were probably largely the result of C.C. Beck’s determined efforts to try to improve the scripts when he illustrated them. In the end, it was two DC scripts attempting humor that Beck considered to be totally ridiculous—most notably, the “Salad Men” story from Shazam! #10 and the “Cape-Man” tale from #11—which led to Beck’s departure from DC and from comic books forever.

Perhaps part of the reason was that the good folks at DC unintentionally divorced humor from the whimsical aspects of many of the old Captain Marvel tales. And most subsequent attempts to handle Captain Marvel at DC have not even made the attempt to be humorous. But in the Fawcett days, Cap’s adventures were both humorous and whimsical, as I trust that the following study will demonstrate. (Hereafter, by “whimsy,” we mean one of its dictionary definitions: “an odd or fanciful notion.”)

Examples from the Golden Age are legion, but let’s first look at “Captain Marvel Goes to Nowhere” from Captain Marvel Adventures #43 (Feb. 1945). The symbolic splash panel (remember those?) showed a puzzled Cap contemplating the meaning of several road signs reading “No Place Castle Ahead,” “Welcome to Nowhere,” “Room and Meals Somewhere,” “Danger Ahead, Anywhere Beach, Thither and Yon,” and

“Going Somewhere? Stop! You’re There!”

The story involved Billy Batson’s accidental radio contact with a voice which said, “Goodbye? Goodbye? Is anybody there? Goodbye?” Once Billy was convinced that the radio message was not a hoax, he learned of another dimension, called Nowhere, which could be reached through a black hole in the sky. Captain Marvel quickly located the black hole and emerged in the Land of Nowhere.

Meeting a citizen along the road, Cap inquired, “Say, pal! How do I find King Nobody?” (the person who had contacted Billy by radio). The citizen replied, “He’d be Somewhere ahead. Just keep going Anywhere and you’ll get Noplace. That’s where you’ll find him.” Cap reflected that he’d need a long rest in a sanitarium when he returned home.

Some road signs led him to realize that the castle was named Noplace, so it was there that he headed, only to find the edifice under attack by warriors who shouted, “Down with Nobody! Up with No One!” Plunging into the fray, Cap said, “Here comes nothing—to use your own language!”

(Some latter-day DC writers, who have insisted on portraying Captain Marvel as somewhat dimwitted, should read these old stories.

Cap wasn’t slow. He picked up on the idea of talking backwards a lot quicker than Superman ever would when dealing with his own backwards-talking foils, the Bizarros, decades later. Oh well, Superman is intelligent, but he does not count the wisdom of Solomon among his

Humor and Whimsy in Captain Marvel Stories

51

Marvel, instantly attacked by No One’s thugs, repelled them, saying, “Goodbye—and this time I’m not talking backwards!”

Once No One had been defeated, the king thanked Cap again. “You have defeated my enemy, Captain Marvel! You have saved Nowhere from No One!” To this Cap responded, “Er—let’s not go into that again!”

Notice that, even in the midst of absurdities, Cap did not play the buffoon. He was heroic throughout, his heroism accented, perhaps, by being thrust into a world so far removed from his own. Both dialogue and situations provided the humor.

Another very humorous tale appeared in Captain Marvel Adventures #56 (March 1946), entitled “Captain Marvel and the Golden Fleece.” If one were to categorize stories according to theme, rather than style, this one would be included in the groupings of “stories based on or taking off from classic literature,” of which there were several.

(Another noted category, revived to mostly good effect by E. Nelson Bridwell in the mid-1970s for his own Captain Marvel stories, was “cityvisiting tales.”)

Captain Marvel gets fleeced in CMA #56 (March 1946).

Art by Beck & Costanza. [©2003 DC Comics.]

powers.)

A green-garbed individual confronted Captain Marvel. “Varlet! Who are you? I’m No One! I will become the dictator of Nowhere!”

“Huh?” replied Cap. “You’re No One? Well, I’m someone! Pleased to meet you!” And then he socked the invader.

Finally, Captain Marvel located the king, who hailed him, “Here I am, good sir. Goodbye.” After Cap introduced himself, the king responded with, “I’m King Nobody, ruler of Noplace Castle and Provinces of Somewhere and Anywhere.” Thanking Cap for helping to defeat his enemy, No One, King Nobody said, “Come! I shall pay you nothing! Lots of nothing!” To which our hero good-naturedly replied, “That’s mighty generous of you!” (‘Nothing,’ of course, turned out to be the local currency.)

From the king, Cap learned that years ago, the ancestors of the people of the land had rebelled against a tyrant king and been defeated.

As punishment, they were banished by a wizard-scientist (I think we have a few of those running around today) into another dimension, the Land of Nowhere. “We are right on Earth—yet as far away as Mars, for we can’t return to the Earth dimension. That is why we called this the Land of Nowhere.” (In other words, an early comic book usage of something akin to the parallel world concept.) It was explained that the return trip through the black hole—not a black hole as we use the term today—would kill anyone. (It was safe to assume that Captain Marvel was the exception.)

In this case, Cap thought he was searching for the stolen Golden Fleece of Jason the Argonaut, only to find that what had actually been stolen was a set of Golden Fleas, a mix-up not revealed to Cap until the final panels of the tale, but known to the readers all along. The story also involved a trip to the Mediterranean and an encounter with a dogworshipping cult before he solved the problem.

Captain Marvel Adventures #92 (Jan. 1949) gave readers “Captain Marvel in the Land of Limbo,” a story which might be classed as whimsy alone, though it had humorous touches. The first two panels, for instance, invited readers to “Imagine the strange events that would occur if the things we sometimes say really happened,” and gave two examples: “Don’t bother me! Drop dead!” followed by the annoying person’s keeling over. And “Gee! Dad’s so mad he hit the ceiling!”—as the angered father’s head crashes into the ceiling.

The story concerned one particular idiomatic expression which did come true, as the art director of a museum found a terribly bad painting which he declared ought to “go into limbo and be forgotten forever.”

Immediately, a short, bearded fellow in rather tacky clothing appeared.

“I’m the collector from Limbo. I’ll take the painting.” Thinking that this

Cap inquired about the radio, whereupon King Nobody led him to their studios. (Their society was obviously the not-uncommon mixture of medieval and modern.) Cap, as he had a habit of doing, changed back to Billy (okay, so maybe he didn’t always use the wisdom of Solomon!) and made a broadcast back to Earth: “Goodbye, Earth! That’s the way the people of Nowhere say hello! Yes, folks, I’m Nowhere! Nobody is entertaining me! Captain Marvel is after No One, who wants to have all of nothing! And if you think this all sounds crazy—you ought to live here!”

But of course, the fact that Captain Marvel was not on the scene was, as always, the occasion for an attack, and for Billy to be bound and gagged. As likewise happened to King Nobody. But then No One made his fatal mistake—he ordered the gags of Nobody and Billy lowered so that they might address him as dictator. Billy said his word, and Captain

Cap does the Limbo in CMA #92 (Jan. 1949)—again with art by Beck & Costanza. [©2003 DC Comics.]