Alter Ego #10 by TwoMorrows Publishing

Roy T Thomas homas ’ Legendary Legendary Roy Comics F F anzine Comics anzine

Bonus! Rare Art & Artifacts by:

JOHN BROOME ROBERT KANIGHER JOE KUBERT FRANK HARRY ARTHUR PEDDY NICK CARDY GIL KANE

CARMINE INFANTINO talks about his life and times

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No. 10 SEPTEMBER 2001

(and wait'll you see This issue’s never-beforeprinted Carmine Infantino FLASH & GREEN LANTERN art! )

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“Gods!” Takes an in-depth look at WALTER SIMONSON’s Thor, the Thunder God in the Bronze Age, “Pro2Pro” interview with TOM DeFALCO and RON FRENZ, Hercules: Prince of Power, Moondragon, Three Ways to End the New Gods Saga, exclusive interview with fantasy writer MICHAEL MOORCOCK, art and commentary by GERRY CONWAY, JACK KIRBY, BOB LAYTON, and more, with a swingin’ Thor cover by SIMONSON!

“Liberated Ladies” eyeing female characters that broke barriers in the Bronze Age: Big Barda, Valkyrie, Ms. Marvel, Phoenix, Savage She-Hulk, and the sword-wielding Starfire. Plus a “Pro2Pro” interview with JILL THOMPSON, GAIL SIMONE, and BARBARA KESEL, art and commentary by JOHN BYRNE, GEORGE PEREZ, JACK KIRBY, MIKE VOSBURG, and more, with a new cover by BRUCE TIMM!

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THE BEST IN COMICS AND LEGO MAGAZINES!

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See comic art and script BEFORE and AFTER the Comics Code changes, with art by SIMON & KIRBY, DITKO, BUSCEMA, SINNOTT, GOULD, COLE, STERANKO, KRIGSTEIN, O’NEIL, GLANZMAN, ORLANDO, WILLIAMSON, HEATH, and others! Plus: FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, JIM AMASH interviews Timely/Atlas artist CAL MASSEY, and a new cover by JOSH MEDORS!

DICK GIORDANO through the 1960s—from freelance years and Charlton “Action-Heroes” to his first stint at DC! Art by DITKO, APARO, BOYETTE, MORISI, McLAUGHLIN, GIL KANE, and others, Dick’s final convention panel with STEVE SKEATES and ROY THOMAS, JIM AMASH interviews Charlton artist TONY TALLARICO, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and ROY ALD, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, BILL SCHELLY, GIORDANO cover, and more!

Big BATMAN issue, with an unused Golden Age cover by DICK SPRANG! SHEL DORF interviews SPRANG and JIM MOONEY, with rare and unseen Batman art by BOB KANE, JERRY ROBINSON, WIN MORTIMER, SHELLY MOLDOFF, CHARLES PARIS, and others! Part II of the TONY TALLARICO interview by JIM AMASH! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

1970s Bullpenner WARREN REECE talks about Marvel Comics and working with EVERETT, BURGOS, ROMITA, STAN LEE, MARIE SEVERIN, ADAMS, FRIEDRICH, ROY THOMAS, and others, with rare art! DEWEY CASSELL spotlights Golden Age artist MIKE PEPPE, with art by TOTH, ANDRU, TUSKA, CELARDO, & LUBBERS, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, cover by EVERETT & BURGOS, and more!

Interview with inker SCOTT WILLIAMS from his days at Marvel and Image to his work with JIM LEE, and PATRICK OLIFFE demos how he produces Spider-Girl, Mighty Samson, and digital comics. Also, MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ “Comic Art Bootcamp”, a “Rough Critique” of a newcomer’s work by BOB McLEOD, art supply reviews by “Crusty Critic” JAMAR NICHOLAS, and more!

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LEGO SPACE WAR issue! A STARFIGHTER BUILDING LESSON by Peter Reid, WHY SPACE MARINES ARE SO POPULAR by Mark Stafford, a trip behind the scenes of LEGO’S NEW ALIEN CONQUEST SETS that hit store shelves earlier this year, plus JARED K. BURKS’ column on MINIFIGURE CUSTOMIZATION, building tips, event reports, our step-by-step “YOU CAN BUILD IT” INSTRUCTIONS, and more!

Go to Japan with articles on two JAPANESE LEGO FAN EVENTS, plus take a look at JAPAN’S SACRED LEGO LAND, Nasu Highland Park—the site of the BrickFan events and a pilgrimage site for many Japanese LEGO fans. Also, a feature on JAPAN’S TV CHAMPIONSHIP OF LEGO, a look at the CLICKBRICK LEGO SHOPS in Japan, plus how to get into TECHNIC BUILDING, LEGO EDUCATION, and more!

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Vol. 3, No. 10 / September 2001 ™

Editor Roy Thomas

Associate Editor Bill Schelly

Design & Layout Christopher Day

Consulting Editors John Morrow Jon B. Cooke

FCA Editor

Infantino Co. Section

P.C. Hamerlinck

Comics Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

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

Cover Artists Carmine Infantino & Terry Austin Dick Ayers

Cover Color Tom Ziuko

Writer/Editorial: Themes and Remembrances. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 “Irritate the Eye!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Mailing Crew Russ Garwood, Glen Musial, Ed Stelli, Pat Varker, Loston & Carolyn Wallace

And Special Thanks to: The American Association of Comic Collectors Terry Austin Dick &Lindy Ayers Mike W. Barr Dennis Beaulieu Bill Black Nick Cardy Dave Cockrum Jerry de Fuccio Al Dellinges Shel Dorf Bruce Edwards Don Ensign Tom Fagan Patricia Floss Ken Gale Jeff Gelb Jennifer T. Go Fred Guardineer David G. Hamilton Paul Handler Bill Harper Ron Harris Mark & Stephanie Heike Tom Horvitz Carmine Infantino Shel Kagan Robert Kanigher Gene Kehoe Bob Koppany Joe Kubert

Contents

Joe & Nadia Mannarino Richard Martines Jim McLauchlin Brian K. Morris Emily Nelson Eric NolenWeathington Joe Petrilak Ethan Roberts Rob Schmidt Julius Schwartz Dave Siegel Dave Sim Jim Simmons Robin Snyder J. David Spurlock Bhob Stewart Steve Stiles Marc Svensson Marc Swayze Maggie Thompson Jim Vadeboncoeur Murray Ward Hames Ware Len Wein Dylan Williams Marv Wolfman Ed Zeno Mike Zeno

This issue dedicated to the memory of Rich Morrissey

Bob Koppany’s 1996 interview with Carmine Infantino... profusely illustrated.

The Man Who Launched the Corps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Rich Morrissey on the life and career of John Broome—with a P.S. on Doc Smith’s Lensmen Written Off – 9-30-49 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Scenes from a never-published Infantino “Flash” story from the Golden Age. Who Created the Silver Age Flash? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Round up the usual suspects: Kanigher, Infantino, Kubert, and Schwartz. “What’s So Great about Comic Art?” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Bill Schelly walks us through fandom’s other founding fanzine. Happy Anniversary to Us! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 A Fast Look Back at Alter Ego, Volume 1!

Comic Crypt, FCA, & ME, Too! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover: It started life as a commission drawing, done by original Silver Age Flash artist Carmine Infantino for super-fan Ed Zeno—and that pencil version can be seen on Page 19. But, with inks by Terry Austin, it became the main focus of our cover, which harks back (or did you notice that already?) to Showcase #4 in 1956. See elsewhere in this issue for fuller versions of the rare Golden and Silver Age Infantino art from which the images in the film strip were taken. [Art ©2001 Carmine Infantino & Terry Austin; two Flashes, Green Lantern, Batman, and Adam Strange ©2001 DC Comics.] Above: Ed Zeno strikes again—or rather, Carmine Infantino does, but Ed’s the one with the commission drawing! And thanks again to Carmine, who back in November of ’99, when I had left a phone message asking if I could use a particular piece of his art in A/E, left a wonderful response on my answering machine: “Roy—anything you choose—whenever you choose!” You’re a classy guy, Mr. I.! [Art ©2001 Carmine Infantino; Adam Strange ©2001 DC Comics.] Alter EgoTM is published quarterly by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@oburg.net. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $8 ($10 Canada, $11 elsewhere). Eight-issue subscriptions: $40 US, $80 Canada, $88 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.

writer/editorial

Themes And Remembrances

hate theme issues!

On a regretfully more somber note:

No, honest—I really do. I just seem to keep doing them in Alter Ego, and I have no idea how to quit. “Stop me before I do more theme issues!” There. Now that I’ve got that out of my system, let me tell you about the not one but two major themes of this edition of A/E. One of them, which you can learn more about by standing on your head (or else flipping the mag over), is the comics and creators of Vin Sullivan’s Magazine Enterprises.

Like many other longtime comics fans, I was startled not many weeks before these words are written to learn of the untimely death of Rich Morrissey [a photo of Rich is on page 23]. I didn’t know Rich well, but we would encounter each other from time to time over the past two or three decades, and he was invariably excited about some piece of information he had run across concerning the history of comic books. The last two times our paths crossed stick out in my mind: The second-from-last occasion was in spring of 2000, at the memorial held in Manhattan for Gil Kane. Rich was certainly not the person in that gathering for whom I would have assumed the next memorial would be held.

Then, at the Orlando MegaCon this March, we ran into each other as I was heading off to grab some lunch. When I mentioned that my favorite hamburger chain in all the cosmos, Steak ’n’ Shake (an icon from my St. Louis days), had an outlet in the area, Rich insisted on driving there. Well, at least I paid for his lunch to salve my conscience. We yakked all through lunch about this and that. For one thing, he was eager to revise a piece he’d written for A/E about John Broome, in the light of new conversations with the writer’s widow. We also discussed the videotaped interview he and several others had done in ’94 with the late Vin Sullivan, which was slated to be printed (at least in part) in the same issue. (Little did we know that some of Rich’s helpful comments and corrections re The All-Star Companion would also wind up here, delayed Alter Ego, our super-mascot who appeared in four Eclipse comics in 1986— from last time.) with knockoffs of the Hillman heroes Airboy, Sky Wolf, et al., some of whom

We call this half of the issue our “Infantino & Co. Section,” since it features a CI interview, a piece on his longtime Flash collaborator John Broome, a study of a never-published ’40s “Flash” story penciled by Carmine (great fun tracking all this down!), and a dissection of the Silver Age Flash’s creation by him and others. Still, Rich Morrissey’s article is slanted if anything toward Broome’s work on Green Lantern, and Infantino’s only connection with that title came later, as editorial director and publisher.

It happens every time: I start out with one primo item—like, say, Bob Koppany’s interview with Carmine from a 1996 issue of CFA-APA—and decide it would be virtually a public service to reprint it for a wider audience. Then, after that item is set for a particular issue, other things just were drawn in the 1940s by Carmine Infantino. naturally begin to accrue to it, like But, above all, Rich was excited [Alter Ego hero ©2001 Roy & Dann Thomas; art ©2001 Ron Harris.] barnacles—only welcome because after lunch he was barnacles. In this fashion, each issue of A/E to date, like Topsy in Uncle rendezvousing with Peggy Broome, and among other things he hoped to Tom’s Cabin, “just growed.” arrange a phone interview for A/E at a later date. Next thing I know, I’ve got an entire half-issue devoted to Flash, GL, Infantino, and Broome, with healthy slices of Kanigher, Kubert, and even Julie Schwartz thrown in for seasoning—and I realize that, with space already set aside for regulars like Bill Schelly on comics fandom, Michael T. Gilbert’s “Comic Crypt,” P.C. Hamerlinck’s FCA, plus newcomer (to these pages, at least) Jerry de Fuccio’s anecdotal “Nuggets,” Alter Ego V3#10 becomes yet another issue into which I can’t squeeze all the wonderful material I have on hand about, say, the Silver Age of Comics in other countries like France, Mexico, Canada, or Great Britain. Hell, there wouldn’t even be room for Luxembourg, if it had a Silver Age of Comics (and for all I know, maybe it did). There’s only one thing to do: One of these first issues, I’ll do a theme issue about the Silver Age around the world! Of course, that’ll just squeeze out something else...!

Rich and I talked on the phone once or twice after that. Eventually the Broome rewrite arrived via e-mail, and I was waiting to hear whether there’d also be a short Peggy Broome interview I should try to shoehorn into this issue—when I received a phone call from comics fan Dave Siegel, saying he had bad news. Since Dave is in touch with any number of older creators and I knew one or two of them had been ailing, I braced myself to learn that another link with the early days of comic books had been irretrievably broken. Instead, Dave told me that Rich Morrissey had passed away. Rich was an inveterate researcher. Several of his very helpful lists of information still reside in drawers where I put them for easy reference when he first sent them to me—while I was prepping the first issue of All-Star Squadron, two decades ago. So, in one sense—a link with comics’ history had been broken. We’ll miss you, Rich. In fact, we already do.

Ca TM & ptain Marv el ©DC Comic s.

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And now suddenly Barb was gone, as well... a far greater loss, of course.

And, while her name was not overly familiar to fans of adventure comics, my wife Dann and I were likewise saddened to learn of the death, due to cancer, of artist Barbara Rausch, whom we knew mostly from conversations at parties (at our home, and at others’) when we lived in Los Angeles. A few years ago I proudly recycled her DC Barbie comics to the young daughter of a local friend, who loved them.

It’s my philosophy that, whether we stop and think about it or not, our whole lives amount to the proverbial “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.” But you know something? Rearranging those colorful chairs—or in this case, writing or drawing comics (or even writing about comics)—makes as much sense, given life’s uncertainties, as most other things one might do with the time allotted. Like playing in the ship’s brass band, for instance. Or counting icebergs. Or even steering the damn boat.

Only the previous day, I’d been looking at a sketch by Barb that hangs in one of our guest rooms: Jessica Rabbit kissing our toco toucan. Glancing at it had saddened me, because that toucan, Bet, who shared our lives for a dozen years, had recently been killed in her aviary under mysterious circumstances, and I still haven’t quite got my mind around it. I was pondering the notion of running in A/E the handful of toucanrelated cartoons generously drawn for us over the years by talented friends like Sergio Aragonés, Cathy Hill (of Mad Raccoons)—and Barb Rausch.

You know something else? Maybe I’ll run the rest of those toucan cartoons one of these issues, after all... ...and dedicate them to Barb. Bestest,

Carmine Infantino

“Irritate The Eye!”

A Strangely-Titled Interview with CARMINE INFANTINO — But Read On!

Conducted and Transcribed by Bob Koppany [EDITOR’S NOTE: This phone interview took place on January 13, 1996. Bob Koppany was in Los Angeles, Carmine Infantino in New York City. It was printed in the Winter 1996 issue of CFA-APA #39, an “apa” [amateur press alliance] fanzine published by and for a membership composed of serious comic art collectors, with only about 60 copies being printed of any given issue. The interview, which has been slightly edited here for space by Roy Thomas, is ©2001 by Bob Koppany and is reprinted by permission of Bob and Carmine.] BOB KOPPANY: Tell us about your days growing up.

in. Now, the artwork was not very professional, I’ve got to admit, and they turned it down. I did six pages of work and they never accepted it. Later I got a call from Al Capp [creator of the comic strip Li’l Abner]. Someone had recommended me. I brought him my artwork, and he wanted me to come to Boston to work for him. My father would not let me leave school, thankfully. I was very upset, of course, but he said, “Naw, finish school. If you’re any good, they’ll want you after school just as well as before. An education is important.” And he was right. Much later on, Milt Caniff offered me his strip to draw. It was either Terry [and the Pirates] or Steve Canyon, I’m not sure which. But I turned him down, because I was much too busy doing my own stuff.

CARMINE INFANTINO: I was born in Brooklyn. My schooling BK: Does that mean you got into there was in elementary school, comic books at that time? and then I went to the High School of Industrial Arts. When I INFANTINO: As a kid, I used to began there, it was a new roam Manhattan, looking for conception... a vocational school artists to talk to. I met a guy for just art. They didn’t have Carmine in the glory days as editorial director of DC Comics. And, at top, from the named Charlie Flanders. He drew much hope for it, so they housed 1971 San Diego ComicCon program book, here’s a Cinemascopic CI illo, with thanks The Lone Ranger [comic strip] us in this old Civil War hospital and had an office across from to John Morrow. [Art ©2001 Carmine Infantino; characters ©2001 DC Comics.] building on 42nd Street. It has Grand Central Station. He was a long since burned down. Later on, I went to Queens College, the Art very sweet man. When I was 15 or 16, I would run over after school to Students League, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. This was on my see him. He’d let me scribble a little bit around the office and watch him. own, much later. That was the initial step. I ran into somebody that knew Harry Chesler’s studio. Chesler had BK: What sort of work did you do once you left school? an old factory kind of warehouse on 23rd Street. There was a brokendown elevator, and he was on the fourth floor. He packaged comics for INFANTINO: When I was 16 or 17 I did a job for a minor publishing minor publishers. I went up there, and I hung around... and I hung company called Fox. They gave me a script and I brought the artwork

“Irritate The Eye!”

One of Carmine’s early benefactors was Lone Ranger artist Charles Flanders, shown drawing Secret Agent X-9. The Lone Ranger daily depicted is from March 4, 1939, the end of Flanders’ first storyline. (For a truly great book on the Ranger in every medium, ambush a copy of From Out of the Past: A Pictorial History of The Lone Ranger by Dave Holland, published by The Holland House, 1988. You won’t be sorry!) [Lone Ranger ©2001 Lone Ranger Television, Inc.; a subsidiary of Palladium Media Enterprises, Inc.]

around. He had a reputation of being hard-nosed and cheap to artists. But he was more than fair to me. He said, “Why don’t you come here after school and Saturdays, and watch the guys work and learn. And I’ll give you five bucks a week for carfare and eating.” Which is very sweet. And he got nothing from it. I did that for quite a while. BK: How did you get to meet Charles Biro and into Daredevil? INFANTINO: I kept bringing my work around to all the comic houses. I hit there, I hit DC, I hit everywhere that anyone—I just kept going around. And then one day at Biro’s [Lev Gleason Publications], he said he was running late with one of his strips and he needed someone to work on the backgrounds. So I said, “Fine. I’ll take on anything.” I went to his house to work, with a kid named Norman Maurer. Norman finally married one of the Three Stooges’ daughters. We worked for Biro for a while, and from there I went over to Hillman Publications. Ed Cronin, the editor, had me drawing, and then he had me writing. I wasn’t sure I could write. But apparently I did. I drew a thing called “The Heap” for him. I also wrote a number of them. I wrote some Airboy stuff for him, too—drew and wrote. I got fascinated by writing, and I started reading Somerset Maugham and Sam Clemens/Mark Twain. I picked up an awful lot about writing from those gentlemen.

During the last year or two in school, I met Frank Giacoia. We got to be very friendly. We would each get a quarter a day to go to school and have lunch. You could have lunch on 15¢ a day in those days, which meant scrambled eggs and potatoes and coffee. What we would do is get one lunch, and share it, and we’d buy a comic book with the other money. We’d keep a dime for travel back and forth. Some days we bought all comic books and we walked home from Manhattan. It’s a rough trick, but we did it. He walked to Astoria; I walked to Brooklyn. It would take a couple of hours, but we felt it was worth it. We enjoyed at the time Lou Fine and Reed Crandall and the like. And we would roam the comic houses, looking for work. Well, one day we went to Timely Comics, and Frank and I got a strip called “Jack Frost.” Frank was the penciler. I was the inker... my inking was never that great. But he was a fairly good penciler at that time. They offered us a job in house [i.e., on staff]. My father said, “No way,” but Frank took it. He left school and he began with Timely Comics, which later became Marvel. Joe Simon was the editor-in-chief in those days. BK: Now, when you said you were inking, were you inking for a long time? INFANTINO: Just one or two jobs.

(Left-to-right:) Some of Carmine’s earliest work was “Hell’s Angels” in Holyoke’s Sparkling Stars. Note his progression from #1 (June ’44) through the Caniff-inspired page in #10 (Feb. ’46)... and his signed pencil-and-ink work in Aviation’s Contact Comics #4 (Jan. 1945) and in Continental’s Captain Aero Comics #26 (Aug. ’46). With thanks to Jim Vadeboncoeur. [©2001 the respective copyright holder.]

Carmine Infantino

BK: You always preferred penciling? INFANTINO: Always. Always. I don’t know how it turned out, but our roles reversed as time went on. I was the penciler and he was the inker. And Frank was a wonderful inker. While I was there, I was studying the Fosters [Hal Foster, creator of Prince Valiant] and the Milt Caniffs.

In Hillman’s Airboy Comics young Carmine drew “The Flying Dutchman” (Vol. 3, #6, July ’46), “The Heap” (V5#3, April ’48), and finally “Airboy” himself (V5#6, July ’48). Thanks to Jim Vadeboncoeur. Jim, who kindly loaned Roy a number of comics he could scan for this article, runs Bud Plant Illustrated Books, 3809 Laguna Av., Palo Alto, CA 94306-2629, which focuses on illustrative, cartooning, comic, reference, and how-to art books from the 1880s to the 1990s. Books about illustrators are a specialty. Three catalogs a year, free search service for customers. Jim can be reached at (650) 493-1191; website: <www.bpib.com>. [©2001 the respective copyright holder.]

BK: Were there other artists you were interested in? You mentioned Lou Fine earlier...

writing. Ed Cronin, the editor-in-chief, was very kind to me, and he helped me grow as a writer and an artist. Then at night I began going to the Art Students League. I finished there, and went to the Brooklyn Museum of Art. And later I went to Queens College.

INFANTINO: Crandall was another one. I adored his work. In the summer I got a job at Quality Comics, which is where Crandall and Lou Fine and that whole ilk were. I had a job erasing pages, whiting out around borders, and filling in blacks. I got a quarter a page for that, all summer long. I rubbed my fingers to the bone. But it was a good experience. I saw the originals of Crandall and Lou Fine come in, [Will] Eisner, and all kinds of wonderful artists’ work. I learned a lot just by looking at the stuff.

At about 19 years old, Frank was getting tired of working at Timely, so we took our work to DC Comics. There were two offices at that time at DC. One was Superman Comics, and in the back room, down the hall, was All-American Comics, that was run by Sheldon Mayer. But we went to the main office, and there was a [production] guy there named Eddie Eisenberg. I’ll never forget Eddie. He said, “We can’t use you, but do me a favor. Go down the hall and talk to Sheldon Mayer and tell him I sent you. He might be able to use you.”

BK: Did you have the chance to talk with any of the artists while you were there?

Shelly saw my work and liked it, and he liked Frank’s work. But he said to us, “You guys have raw talent. Now, I can hire you immediately and let you just hang on and maybe develop, or I really suggest you go home for six months and study. Go to school again. Study what you can. Come back in six months, and I’ll give you a job.”

INFANTINO: No. Crandall would mail his stuff in, and Lou Fine was kind of a recluse. I never met Lou, and I’m sorry I never did. I thought he was a genius. Absolutely brilliant, the man. Nor [did I get to meet] Eisner, either, until much later on. Meanwhile, Frank was working at Timely Comics. He was working as an assistant, and then he became a fulltime inker. And I finished school. And then I began with Hillman Comics, drawing and

Well, Frank wanted work now, and he got it. But I did what [Mayer] said. I went out, and I came back. And he was true to his word: he gave me work. At the same time, [Joe] Kubert came in, and [Alex] Toth came in. So there was a whole group of us coming in at the same time. We didn’t realize it at the time, but we were the next group of artists-to-be in the industry. BK: What did you start doing once you were at DC? INFANTINO: “Johnny Thunder” was the first thing I did, I believe. He put us all on back features, Sheldon did. He knew how to take talent, mold it, and develop it. He was absolutely brilliant. I did a strip called “The Shining Knight,” then something called “The Three Ghosts.” It was a back feature. [NOTE: The actual name of this Flash Comics feature was “The Ghost Patrol.” Interestingly, if Carmine drew “Shining Knight”— something which would be news to most of his devotees—that would have been not for Shelly Mayer and the AA side, but for DC proper.—Roy]

Above: As crime comics proliferated, Carmine drew for Hillman’s Real Clue Crime Stories (our motto: “Commit a crime and the world is made of glass”). “La Savate” in Vol. 2, #8 (Oct. 1947), at left, gave him a chance to draw both mood and action. Courtesy of Jim Vadeboncoeur. [©2001 the respective copyright holder.]

“Irritate The Eye!” One day I went in and Sheldon said, “You’re ready for ‘The Flash.’ That was the old Flash, not the new one. BK: “The Shining Knight” and “Johnny Thunder”—was that penciling and inking? INFANTINO: Just penciling. Frank was doing all the inking on my stuff then. We were pretty much a team at that time. And after that, Mayer put me on “The Flash.” Frank and I did that for quite a while. A guy named Hibbard was the first one to do “The Flash.” Also, Lee Elias had been doing it. BK: Were you encouraged to go your own way? INFANTINO: Shelly was very emphatic about that. “Go your own way,” he would say. He always felt that imitation was nothing. He wanted all of us, Kubert, myself, Giacoia, and Toth, to develop as individuals. He liked individualism in his books. BK: Did you like working on “The Flash”? INFANTINO: It was a challenge in the beginning. I enjoyed it in the beginning. Then, after a point, after you got to know the character, it starts to become a drag. We did that for quite a few years. We all worked on super-heroes. I drew about a page a day, just penciling. BK: The pay at DC was pretty good, I assume? INFANTINO: It wasn’t that good, but for the field it was good. We were getting $15 a page. By the way, the two editors we dealt with in those days were Julie Schwartz and Bob Kanigher. But Shelly kept a real tough hand on these guys, and on everybody. You did it his way. He was very strong, a terrific editor. He knew how to bring out things in people. He was a genius. I owe so much to him. BK: Were you working on other characters at the time? INFANTINO: No, only “The Flash.” BK: Did you want to work on other characters?

INFANTINO: I never thought about it, because the truth of it is that we were eating, and that’s what counted the most. But what we did do—I, Kubert, and Alex—we

talked with each other a lot. We’d all be studying. We’d be studying Frank Robbins’ work [on the comic strip Johnny Hazard], [Jack] Kirby another time. Alex went off on Roy Crane [creator of the Wash Tubbs/Cap’n Easy strip]. He loved his work. I stayed with Foster. I loved Foster. I learned mostly from his Tarzans. Later I moved on to Milton Caniff’s work. I joined the National Cartoonists Society at this time. I think it was ’46 or ’47. The Society used to have outings once a year to [prominent musician] Fred Waring’s place. Fred Waring loved cartoonists, and he had a big hotel and golf course, and a big Carmine doesn’t mention “Black Canary” in this interview club in Delaware on as a DC feature he helped inaugurate, but he remembered the Hudson. And he her when he drew this sketch for Shel Dorf; it appeared in would invite all the the 1972 San Diego ComiCon program book. Thanks, cartoonists one day a Carmine and Shel. For the heroine’s entire 1940s run, see year. Everything was the recent The Black Canary Archives. [Art ©2001 Carmine on the house, and we’d Infantino; Black Canary ©2001 DC Comics.] all go up. He’d have a show at night, and all the food you could eat. It was just a marvelous experience. That’s where I met Hal Foster, on one of those outings. He was a shy, quiet man... a genius... a big tall guy. I was in such awe of him I just kind of went over and said, “Ah... ah... ah...,” you know, “Mister Foster. Thank you for being you.” And I walked away. [laughs] Milt Caniff I met once or twice, and I got to be friendly with him. For some reason, I guess he was easier to approach, in my mind. We used to talk every once in a while. And then he called me one time. It may have been for Steve Canyon. He got sick and wanted me to take over the strip for a while. I couldn’t. I was too busy with my work, and I reluctantly turned him down. And I was trying at the time to do many newspaper strips on my own, which was a constant flop, after flop, after flop. I never connected with those things. In those days, working for the News Syndicate or King Features was the epitome of life. They were the two biggest syndicates, and you could become pretty wealthy if they bought your stuff. They were a locked-in club. Very few got in. But we kept trying. We drew new things, and we’d send them up, and they would get rejected. We’d do it in a different way, and it’d get rejected. And we’d get together with writers here and there, and constantly keep trying. Never connecting. I think it was for the best, actually, for it would have been a dead end road. I never left DC, by the way, from when I was 19 years old until I was 50 years old. So it was thirty years, I guess. BK: Were they a good company to work for?

8 INFANTINO: At that time, it was a solid company. It was steady work. That was the important thing. BK: Were they a fun company to work for? INFANTINO: When Sheldon Mayer was there. When Shelly left, it got a little sterile. When Shelly left, each editor took on his group. Shelly left in the late ’40s. He wanted to go back to drawing. He did not like being an editor any more. So he left, and the company changed. Schwartz took over “The Flash” and most of the super-heroes, and I worked with him. Bob Kanigher became the “Wonder Woman” and war books editor. They had Murray [Boltinoff] and Jack Schiff take over “Batman,” I believe. And Mort Weisinger was “Superman.” I worked with Julie for about twenty years, almost. But in between, I would get out.

Carmine Infantino INFANTINO: Not for me. I was a madman for Degas. The teacher showed me the beauty of Degas. Degas was a master designer, and I became infatuated with design. And I preferred design to literal drawing. By studying Degas, I helped to eliminate and develop design. The more I incorporated design, the more I enjoyed it. Now, you had to have knowledge of the figure, don’t misunderstand me. You must learn figure drawing, too. But what I did was, as I learned... his art was a matter of “you always get more from less,” and that was what I got from Degas. The more I learned, the more I realized that simplicity is the toughest thing to accomplish. Years later, I took another course late at night with a wonderful teacher named Jack Potter over at the School of Visual Arts. I studied with Jack for two seasons. He was great. His artwork never reflected how great a man he was at teaching. I learned much from him.

At one point, I worked for Simon and Kirby, and did Charlie Chan for them. They had their own I guess what’s coming company, and they asked through is that I was more me to join them. They had designer than anything garnered Mort Meskin and else. It’s the only thing I a number of other fine A full page from a never-published Flash-Thinker bout. We’re not sure of the inker... probably enjoy. Because once I lay Frank Giacoia, Joe Giella, or Bernie Sachs. Thanks to Tom Horvitz. [Flash ©2001 DC Comics.] people. The pay was not out a drawing, I’ve lost good, but the opportunity interest in it. The actual to work with Jack and Mort finish was almost a monotony, you know, the things you had to do. So, was priceless. I sat and watched. I didn’t want to work at home. I that part I never enjoyed. That’s why I never became an inker, although I wanted to work with them, which is the key to the whole thing. I did try inking at DC much later on. They never liked my inking. They watched Jack, and I watched Mort, and I asked questions, and learned preferred the “slicker” school of inking... the Dan Barry look, the Joe tremendous amounts. These two were geniuses. Giella look, the Frank Giacoia look. And mine, if you look at some of the inking I did over the years, it’s rather rough and crude. So they But I didn’t quit DC. What I did was cut back on DC to work with didn’t like it, and I didn’t care one way or another, so I didn’t do that them. I was doing their Charlie Chan during the day, and working for much of it. DC at night. After about nine months, with very little sleep, I had to give up something. I went back to DC. BK: Getting back—what was your next step after leaving Simon and Kirby? Mort was the one who put me onto Edd Cartier, whom you mentioned [in a previous issue of CFA-APA]. I loved the work he did INFANTINO: That was when the Gaines [EC] thing hit. You know, on The Shadow [pulp magazine], and I started studying him, Kirby, and with the horror comics. Then the [Senator Estes] Kefauver thing Meskin. And my stuff started to drift away from the Foster and Caniff started... the committee that was to investigate comics. They brought era. [publisher Bill] Gaines in to the government hearing. He represented EC Comics, the horror comics. He did very badly at the meeting, and all And later I went back to school... the Art Students League. A teacher comics took a hit. The whole field fell apart. Comic book sales were introduced me to Degas. dying. Being a cartoonist in those days was like a dirty word. Fear BK: Were there other Impressionists... reigned supreme.

“Irritate The Eye!”

INFANTINO: I did a thing called “Detective Chimp,” which was a humorous thing. That was my favorite strip. I enjoyed the chimp thing for one reason: it gave me the chance to animate. In fact, I inked quite a few of them.

Back at DC, I have to give them credit for this: they never fired anybody. But what they did was to cut the page rate in half. [laughs] But they kept us working while other companies had folded. Superheroes were losing popularity, and DC was looking for new things to do. The Comics Code was adopted and became stringent and saccharin. We lashed out in all directions. We tried sciencefiction, western, and romance, hoping something would catch on. I did romance. I did westerns. I did everything. Young Love and Young Romance... I did some of those.

They were trying experiments all over the place. And there was another called Danger Trails; I did “King Faraday” in that one. Alex Toth did some backup features. I don’t know if Kubert worked on that book. BK: Getting back to the ’50s and “Detective Chimp,” were there other characters you liked? Like Rex the Wonder Dog?

BK: Did you enjoy doing romance? INFANTINO: Not particularly. BK: Did you enjoy doing westerns? INFANTINO: Yes. The thing I never enjoyed at any point was science-fiction. I don’t know why; I just didn’t enjoy it. I did a strip called “Adam Strange” constantly. I also did “The Space Museum.” People enjoyed the science-fiction I did, but I didn’t enjoy doing it. Now, go figure. BK: You said DC was diversifying. Was there something else you did?

While “Flash” took up most of his DC time circa ’47-’49, editor Mayer also had Carmine draw a few “Green Lantern” tales, which were still unpublished when many of DC’s super-hero mags were cancelled in ’49. This page from a “lost” (i.e., incinerated) saga saw the light of day only in 1974, courtesy of Jerry G. Bails and Hames Ware; another page from this same story was printed in A/E V3#5. [Green Lantern ©2001 DC Comics.]

INFANTINO: I never did that. Gil Kane did that. Sheldon Mayer was doing “The Justice Society,” and in those days a comic book was 64 pages, which was too much for one guy to handle. So Shelly would do a threepart “Justice Society.” His approach was that I would do one part, and then Alex Toth would pick up the second part, and Joe Kubert would do the final part. Or the procedure would reverse. I would end my part with a cliffhanger, and Alex would pick up his end. He’d go from there, and end his with a cliffhanger. And then Kubert would take on his end and finalize the book.

[NOTE: Understandably, Carmine has mixed up a few long-past dates and procedures here. By the late 1940s ten-cent comics were 48 pages plus covers, not 64. He and Alex Toth did both work on the same JSA stories during 1947-48 in AllStar Comics #37-38 and #40; but the only one which contains work by Infantino, Toth, and Kubert is #37, “The Injustice Society of the World”—in which the first and last chapters were penciled by Irwin Hasen. All the same, Carmine’s description does give the feel of the time. —Roy] Carmine may not have loved horror comics, but he did the moody “Molu’s Secret” and “Boiling Point” in Suspense #23-24 (Oct. & Nov. 1952)... all for Stan Lee and Timely. Courtesy of Jim Vadeboncoeur. [©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Carmine Infantino

BK: And this was doing penciling? INFANTINO: At DC I rarely did any inking. Anything I did ink I would either sign “Cinfa” or “Rouge Enfant,” which is French for my name. I would use that name. BK: Was there a lot of response as to the mail coming in?

for architecture. I really love it. And if I hadn’t been born too poor, I would have gone to college and taken up architecture and become an architect. But, unfortunately, in those days, we had to eat, so we couldn’t worry about those things. But I was, and still am, a fan of Frank Lloyd Wright, and of the Bauhaus movement of design. BK: For the spacecraft, did you...

INFANTINO: Only later on, when Julie and Bob, or whoever it was, started the letter columns. Readers started writing letters, and they were asking about us. Schwartz would cut up the artwork and send a panel or two as a prize to the readers.

INFANTINO: That was me. I didn’t have any reference. I envisioned what it should look like. And the buildings, too, for that matter. I don’t think it was particularly good, what I did, either. BK: I think it was great!

BK: So they cut up the art?

INFANTINO: That’s funny. You remember “Adam Strange.” If you see that “backpack” he wore, that thing would burn his behind if he flew! [laughter] It really didn’t work too well. That used to bother me, so I tried to move it away from his body a little.

INFANTINO: They destroyed it. [Long pause.] BK: Were they destroying art before that, before the letter columns started? INFANTINO: Oh, yeah. They would just cut it up and throw it away. BK: Did you ever want to save it? INFANTINO: Not really. I didn’t think it was going to be worth anything, frankly. [laughter] Sorry, but it’s the truth. I’ve never even saved any comic books with my work in it. I have none of them. BK: Well, besides “Detective Chimp,” we’re still in the ’50s. For the science-fiction, since you said you didn’t enjoy it, how did you fall into the “Adam Strange” thing? INFANTINO: Mike Sekowsky did the first couple. I was overseas with the Cartoonists Society, traveling, at that time. I would do my work in advance. I was gone for a month. When I came back, Schwartz said, “I’m putting you on ‘Adam Strange.’” That was it.

BK: Did you try for reality in depicting the characters? The reason I’m asking is that in the “Adam Strange” stories, you would see Alanna straightening out her jet pack... INFANTINO: I would try to create what I thought the styles of the future would look like. I never strove for reality. Storytelling and design were paramount with me. BK: How did you fall into the new “Flash,” and were you happy to see it resurrected? INFANTINO: Work was not plentiful. As I told you earlier, we kept experimenting: romance, science-fiction, westerns... anything. We were desperately trying to find a field that would connect. Nothing really sold that well.

BK: I’ve noticed in a few “Adam Strange” stories that you had a telescope, an object you used more than once. Do you have a file for... INFANTINO: No. The science-fiction was all imagination. BK: Was there any inspiration for you as far as the science-fiction goes? How did you come up with your creatures? INFANTINO: Subconsciously. Remember, I told you about Edd Cartier; it was his work I remembered, I guess, developing those creatures. But it was all subconscious. I didn’t realize it at the time. It was much later where I realized where it was coming from. BK: And as far as the architecture for the cities? INFANTINO: That was me. I’m a freak

One day I went in the office to pick up some work. We never knew what we were going to get, and Julie Schwartz said to me, “We’re going to try a super-hero again. We are going to bring The Flash back, and I want you to design a costume for him.” I said, “OK.” Kanigher had written the first script and designed the first cover. So I went home and designed the costume, and if you notice, I kept it very simple. Because, anybody who was a speedster wouldn’t be encumbered with too many things. I brought it in, and it was approved. And that was the beginning of the new age of superheroes. BK: Did you prefer the old Flash or the new one?

During the ’50s Carmine penciled “romance... westerns... everything”... including The Hawk #2 (Summer 1952); a supposedly true exploit of movie actor George Brent as a boy (Famous Stars #5, Winter 1951); war stories (G.I. Joe #13, July 1952); even, er, anti-Communist explorer stories (Explorer Joe #2, Oct.-Nov. 1952)... all four of these being for Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. and editor Jerry (Superman) Siegel! Courtesy of Jim Vadeboncoeur. [©2001 the respective copyright holder.]

INFANTINO: I liked the new one. I liked the way Kanigher had developed the idea with the costume going into the ring, and all the little nuances. The rest of it was really the old Flash, you know: the slowness; he was always late... the

“Irritate The Eye!” girl chided him... everything was the same except for the ring and the characters Bob developed. We also continued science-fiction and westerns. I believe I did one or two more “Flash” [issues of Showcase—actually three] after that one. No one realized we had a winner until the third or fourth issue, when all of a sudden they saw the sales skyrocket. And then we knew we were onto something. Then the floodgate opened. I did The Flash, and “Detective Chimp,” and “Adam Strange.” “Adam Strange” remained solid, by the way. BK: Did you have a favorite character in The Flash?

11 INFANTINO: Too long. I even did the newspaper strip, and stayed with the thing right up when I became editor. At this time, I was doing Batman and The Flash. And I was practically doing a ton of covers over there. I did Brave and Bold covers. I designed them. By the way, when Schwartz and I began working, we would do the covers first. I would create a cover and bring it in, and he had a story written around it. It was an effective way for us to work. BK: As far as inkers go, did you enjoy working with Murphy Anderson?

INFANTINO: I think He didn’t care much for science-fiction—but fans loved CI’s “Adam Strange.” This Anderson did the best job on INFANTINO: There was one commissioned pencil sketch is courtesy of Bob Koppany. [Art ©2001 Carmine “Adam Strange.” Frank Giacoia villain I really enjoyed, and I Infantino; Adam Strange and Co. ©2001 DC Comics.] was my all-time favorite inker. I don’t know if it really came preferred some, and not others, across or not, but it was Captain but that was a personal choice. Boomerang. He really appealed to me. He was a strange character, but fun. Him I liked. BK: Was the DC company pretty lenient? If you said— I went in one day and Julie said to me, “We’d better go sit with Irwin INFANTINO: No. Schwartz would say, “It’s not your business. You’re Donenfeld.” He was the publisher at the time. He soberly told us, “The a pro. You’re getting paid to pencil, and shut your mouth.” [laughs] It’s Batman is dying. I want you two to try and revive it. We’ll give it about the truth. Schwartz would tell us that all the time. four or five issues. If nothing happens, we kill it.” The arrangement was that I was to do the “Batman” covers plus Flash covers, and they were apparently selling. I was also to do the one story in Detective Comics, and Kane was to handle the rest. Strangely enough, the book began to come alive again. Now, in all honesty, the only thing that made it really take off was the TV show. We helped it a bit, but the TV show was what made it rocket. BK: Did you like Batman as a character? INFANTINO: I never liked him. [laughs] BK: What made you put the ellipse around his emblem? INFANTINO: That was Schwartz. That was not my idea. BK: How long did you do “Batman”?

Carmine calls “Detective Chimp” his “favorite” among the features he drew. Thanks to Ray A. Cuthbert for photocopies of original art from The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #21 (1955)... and to Ed Zeno for the commission drawing of Bobo, Rex, and a pair of Caped Crusaders. [Rex art ©2001 DC Comics; pencil art ©2001 Carmine Infantino; Detective Chimp, Rex, and Batman & Robin ©2001 DC Comics.]

BK: Did you enjoy working with Schwartz, since you worked with him for so long?

Carmine Infantino most of the company’s covers and go from there. I thought about it, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do it. At the same time, I was asked by Stan Lee to come and work for Marvel. They offered me a few bucks more a page. Stan offered me something like $20,000 at the time. I wasn’t getting that kind of money at DC—I was making around $17,000 or $18,000, so I was ready to go. But then Donenfeld suggested that since the covers did so well, would I consider [becoming] art director, which I did. Shortly after that, there was a Kinney marriage, with Kinney National, the car [rental] company. And I don’t know what happened, but there was a dispute, and Irwin [Donenfeld] left the company. Suddenly I was art director plus editor-in-chief. As art director I just did the covers. As editor, I began plotting things like Wonder Woman and “Deadman.” I also plotted many other stories, and let the writers dialogue them. I moved on to start creating storylines. Then I started choosing the artists that I thought were best for whatever scripts we had. Like Joe Kubert on Tarzan.

A “King Faraday” splash for Danger Trails #1 (July-Aug. 1950)—and the splash of a story for Sensation Comics #109 (May-June 1952) whose cover, taken from the same scene, influenced that of Justice League of America #10 (March 1962), “The Fantastic Fingers of Felix Faust!” Courtesy of Jim Vadeboncoeur. [©2001 DC Comics.]

INFANTINO: At times he would challenge you. With Strange Sports Stories he told me, “I want something different.” And that was it. He trusted me implicitly. So, if you look at it carefully, do you see what I tried with the captions, and the little silhouettes? In other words, what I would do is to create action there. I would have a baseball player with the bat back in the silhouette, and that would be the caption. And the next panel, which is the real panel, I’d have the follow-through. You almost got a feeling of flow.

There were a number of great artists, but I had a particular favorite... a guy named Nick Cardy. He was sheer genius, then and now. Nick was ready to leave the company, as he was not appreciated at all. No one apparently liked his work, and he was ready to walk out when I said, “Nicky, don’t leave. I want you to do most of the covers for me.” He did amazing covers. We had a group of very talented artists. There was Irv Novick. Neal Adams was working on some inking or something else when I got there, and we moved him onto House of Mystery. Do you remember the wonderful covers he did? That he did with Joe Orlando. I had nothing to do with them. They brought the ideas in to me.

BK: Speaking of flow, one thing I’ve noticed is that your characters are in constant movement. There’s a lot of action.

BK: When you were doing the Adams covers, did they remind you of the EC days?

INFANTINO: That was the design that did that. I also did something on The Flash in those days. I used little hands to direct you to captions. I put colorful little drawings around captions to give the page more drama and more flair, and to make it different. Once again, these were design elements. And, in my mind, design is what drew the eye in and made things work. That’s another concept of mine, where on the covers, I felt that if you irritate the eye you draw them [the readers] into something, and perhaps [they’ll] buy the comic, as comics are an impulse buy.

INFANTINO: Pretty much, but don’t forget that Orlando came from there. Joe Orlando was the editor [of House of Mystery], and I guess they were taking them out of that [EC] period. You know, with the kids hiding under the bed and all that stuff. But it worked. We started selling the mystery books. And of course Neal Adams and his particular

BK: How did you “irritate the eye”? That’s an interesting phrase. INFANTINO: One way to irritate the eye is by creating negative space with shapes. Also, you can put things off-angle. Or you can put a large object in with a tiny object, and that would force the eye to look; and it would offend it. That actually offends the eye, instead of having a smooth line. If I showed you a line that went straight across, and it’s very smooth, and then I jagged it up and down, it takes the eye with you. And it moves you in; it irritates a bit. But it takes you in. Does that make sense? Once you get the person in, you hold them. Then it’s the artist’s job: my composition, my moving the picture around, and my moving the camera around, to hold them. It’s the same thing they do in films, pretty much. BK: Once The Flash and everything took off, how did you get into the editorship thing? INFANTINO: I was doing all the covers for Julie. I’d do some stuff for Jack Schiff once in a while, and some for Boltinoff. Whenever they’d ask me, I would design and draw a cover. At that point, Marvel was kicking the living hell out of DC, saleswise, with Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, etc., etc. Donenfeld asked me to become art director, so I could design

Carmine has said, “One of my greatest pleasures in this industry is having known Nick [Cardy] and his work.” This recent sketch of the original Teen Titans appears courtesy of Vanguard Productions’ upcoming Deluxe signed & numbered Art of Nick Cardy hardcover. John Coates’ original limited edition of this book, designed by Comic Book Artist’s own Jon B. Cooke, sold out fast back in ’99... so don’t miss this new version, now on sale at comics shops and via mail outlets. [Art ©2001 Nick Cardy; Teen Titans ©2001 DC Comics.]

“Irritate The Eye!”

cookies. I had it especially for the artists, who would go in and sit, and they’d talk, and they’d look at each other’s work. So it was a hell of a stimulus. It worked. We got some great work from some marvelous young talent, like Bernie Wrightson and Mike Kaluta. BK: Did you pay attention to what Marvel was doing? INFANTINO: No. I didn’t want anybody to imitate them. I’d rather we went off on our own. I was editor-in-chief until ’72. Then I also became publisher for two years. In 1974 I became president. But I was editor about ten years. They asked me to become publisher, because the books were doing well again. When I became president, comics took off and we had a lot of money. BK: When you were publisher, did you still maintain your control over the comics?

Good on ya, mate! For collector Ed Zeno, Carmine drew Flash and his personal favorite villain from the speedster’s “rogues’ gallery,” Captain Boomerang. [Art ©2001 Carmine Infantino; Flash & Capt. Boomerang ©2001 DC Comics.]

INFANTINO: Sure. I continued as editor and publisher. I even went around the country selling, talking with distributors. And then I worked with [Godfather author Mario] Puzo on Superman I and II in Hollywood. Those were very long days of working twenty hours, traveling back and forth from coast to coast, with very little sleep. The year I left, the following year Superman [the movie] came out, so I didn’t have too much to do with that.

talent—he was wonderful—Batman, Deadman. Then I made Joe Kubert an editor. That was another thing I did. I started bringing in artists for editors, because I felt they had the visual sense you needed for books. But I continued designing most of the covers. BK: Were there characters you created? INFANTINO: One I loved was Bat Lash. I put Nick Cardy on it. I plotted from #2 on. That was my favorite book. But the irony is that the book never made it; it died. We must have done five or six of those, and the artwork was spectacular. Strangely enough, it was a huge hit in Europe. BK: Did you enjoy being editor more than the drawing aspect? INFANTINO: Yes. We started winning awards for editing and art directing. Then we won comic awards all over the place. My talented staff and I had a great time. BK: Sales were increasing, too? INFANTINO: Yes. BK: Did you encourage your staff to develop their own art styles, also? INFANTINO: Absolutely. One thing I did was that I had a coffee room up there at DC. There you could get sandwiches, coffee, cake, and

CI’s innovation of silhouette figures in the captions was an extra point of interest in the “Strange Sports Stories” issues of The Brave and the Bold. Thanks to Joe & Nadia Mannarino. Contact their All Star Auctions at <allstarauc@aol.com> or phone (201) 652-1305. [©2001 DC Comics.]

I left in 1976. We had a disagreement. What happened was that in 1975 the printers came to me and said that there might be a paper shortage. Not that there was, but that there could be. And Marvel had already increased to sixty titles a month. Now, what did I want to do? I said that I better protect my flanks. I raised the number of titles. The sales plummeted for everybody, as there were too many titles out there. And, midway through the year, when they said that there was no paper shortage, we started to pull back. But it was too late. Both companies lost a lot of money. BK: Did you also raise the price of the comics? INFANTINO: That happened a year or two before, when I was editor. We raised our prices to a quarter, and Marvel dropped their price to twenty cents. And they outflanked us. But I was not the publisher or decision-maker at that time.

BK: When comics plummeted [in 1976], is that when the disagreement occurred?

Carmine Infantino INFANTINO: Besides the special projects, I started teaching down at the School of Visual Arts. Through all of this, my mother was quite sick. That was the reason for coming back, more than anything else.

INFANTINO: Yes. I felt then, as I do now, that I did the right thing by adding more titles, and they disagreed with me. I felt I had to protect my space on the stands. And one of the people upstairs felt it wasn’t necessary. We agreed to disagree, and that was the end of it.

BK: Did you enjoy teaching?

After I left DC, I worked for HannaBarbera. I also worked for Marvel out there [in Los Angeles]. But my mother got very sick then, and I had to come back. My father had died.

INFANTINO: No. It filled up my time until about three or four years ago; then my back went. I was playing tennis quite a bit, and I blew my back out. I tried working after that, but it was just so difficult. I can’t do very much any more. And do you know something? I don’t really miss it. That’s the strange part. [laughs] I didn’t really enjoy being a cartoonist very much. I don’t know if you want to put that in. But that was my feeling. I don’t know why, but it just wasn’t enough for me, you know? Nor was the teaching enough.

BK: Did you prefer California or New York? INFANTINO: I preferred New York. But that’s a personal choice. To me, there’s more stimulation here. I couldn’t find it there. It’s very pleasant there. The lifestyle is lovely. The women are gorgeous. But there’s something “gritty” about this side of the country that I like. And I think it forces you to be more creative. At HannaBarbera I was creating characters. After I came back, I did work with Joe Orlando on special projects, which was advertising work. But I was still working on both coasts. BK: Were you working on comic books at the time? INFANTINO: Barely.

Some time after his stint as editorial director/publisher, CI returned to pencil still more issues of The Flash, including this beautifully-designed page of original art from #327 (Nov. 1983). Thanks to Ed Zeno. [©2001 DC Comics.]

BK: Did you enjoy the challenges of commercial art? INFANTINO: Yes, for a while. But it’s not that creative. You do whatever the toy companies want. And you’re satisfying twelve different people at one time. Suddenly, what you started with isn’t what you end up with. Animation’s that way, too. There was no individuality. You began with a concept, and then changes were made by a secondary artist, and you no longer recognized your original drawing in the final product. BK: After coming back, what did you go into then?

The editorship I enjoyed. I loved creating something, and then moving on to something else. That I enjoyed. Like designing the covers. I liked laying them out. I would do a rough drawing of all the covers, and then give it to an artist to finish off. I didn’t want to finish off. That part was boredom to me. BK: Do you have any projects right now?

INFANTINO: I can’t tell you about them, unfortunately, but they don’t have anything to do with comics. I watch comics once in a while, and I know they’re in a bad freefall. Too much quantity, too little quality. BK: Is there anything else you’d like to mention? Or something to the people who love your work? INFANTINO: I thank them very much. I never realized there were that many, because I was never satisfied with it. At any point, ever. It was never quite the way I wanted it. But now, in retrospect, I think that’s a healthy thing. Because being an artist, to me, is like always being pregnant, but never having a baby. Never giving birth. And the minute you give birth, that’s when you stop learning. And that was bad. Again, I thank all the people who liked the work. I really appreciate it. There were times I loved doing it, but the majority of times, not. The business has been good to me... but I’m glad I’m finished with it. I’ve been approached by a number of book companies. One in particular—I can’t give you their name, as they’re still negotiating with me. They want me to write my history at DC from beginning to end, and after. Strangely enough, Bill Gaines [who served as consultant to Carmine at DC for a time in the 1970s] sent me a number of notes after I left. His thoughts. They weren’t particularly pretty, by the way, about some of the people. They want me to write this up, what I did... the whole thing. I’m not sure if I want to or not. There’s a good friend of mine who’s with one of the companies, and he’s pushing me on this. So I may eventually write this, and I guess that’ll be the final story, if it’s done.

Finally, I can honestly say that, in comics, I had lots of excitement, and some disappointments. But I wouldn’t change a minute of it. Thank you very much.

John Broome

The Man Who Launched The Corps A Look at the Career of Master Storyteller JOHN BROOME by Rich Morrissey There was a time when The Green Lantern Corps patrolled the universe, 3600 strong. They had fought for justice since before the dawn of life on Earth, their mission and their power given them by the immortal Guardians of the planet Oa. Among them were the avian Tomar-Re, the sinister Sinestro, the lovely Katma Tui, and above all, the fearless, heroic Hal Jordan. The man from whose typewriter emerged all the above—as well as Wally West, the current heir to the title of The Flash; the noble Atomic Knights of a future now safely in the past; the diabolical but delightful rogues’ gallery of the Silver Age Flash—now is gone, after three decades of commuting in happy retirement between Paris and Tokyo, painting and teaching advanced English to the Japanese. Yet his importance to the field of comic books is a matter of historical record, treasured in the memory of his fans and his long-time editor, and still persists today when the above characters and countless more continue their adventures on the four-color page, as well as in animated cartoons and live-action series.

I. Peggy, Fawcett, and Science-fiction Irving Bernard Broome was born in Brooklyn in 1913, and grew up with many interests, including literature, writing, jazz, and contract bridge. In college he joined the basketball team and there picked up the nickname “Long John” (probably after Long John Silver from Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel Treasure Island), and it was as John Broome that he would be known for the rest of his life. He also met a young woman named Peggy Siegel, who was not related to the man who was at that time changing the course of comic books forever by creating Superman, but with whom he had many interests in common, especially literature and the use of language. They were married in 1937, and remained a loving and mutually supportive couple for over sixty years. In the early 1940s one of Broome’s frequent bridge partners, Rod Reed, was an editor at Fawcett Comics, and invited him to write for the line. Starting out with a story featuring sailor Lance O’Casey in Whiz Comics, Broome soon was “ready for Captain Marvel” and wrote a number of early adventures of the legendary Big Red Cheese and other characters. Already interested in creating new and original villains for his heroes to battle, John Broome came up with Ibac, a small-time crook given the powers of four historical villains by denizens of Hell, much as

(L. to r.:) Julius Schwartz, Peg Broome, and John Broome in a photo taken by Julie’s future wife Jean Ordwein in September 1946—with thanks to Julie and Jon B. Cooke. Gil Kane’s pencil rough for the cover of Green Lantern #167 shows him amid the Guardians of the Universe, courtesy of David G. Hamilton. [Photo ©1999 Julius Schwartz; art ©2001 DC Comics.]

the gods had given Billy Batson the powers of six mythic figures. In the meantime, Broome was writing and selling prose fiction, at the suggestion of his friend David Vern, who would also become a prolific comic book writer in years to come. Vern introduced him to “the world’s first interplanetary agent,” Julius Schwartz, who represented Vern and a number of the top science-fiction writers of the day (selling, among many others, Ray Bradbury’s first story). Schwartz would eventually sell twelve of John Broome’s stories, and the two became close friends. But then came World War II, and Broome entered the Army and was sent to the Pacific theatre.

The Man Who Launched The Corps

17 scripted all six issues of DC’s comic, The New Adventures of Charlie Chan, which were drawn by Sid Greene.

II. Apes and Atoms

Leaving the service after the end of the war, Broome again sought out Julius Schwartz. Schwartz, now an editor for AllAmerican Comics (a company Around the same once allied with DC Comics, and time, a short-lived recently purchased by it), invited newspaper strip him to write for his company, in featuring Nero an attempt to upgrade the level of Wolfe was launched writing in the comics under his with John Broome control. Most of the books were (along with his then being written almost in their friend and fellow entirety by veteran DC writers DC writer Ed Gardner Fox, John Wentworth, Herron) scripting; and Ted Udall. Schwartz Fran Matera and Frankly, we’ve no idea whether John Broome wrote the never-published, Infantino-penciled continued to obtain stories from another long-time late-’40s “GL” story from which these panels are taken, but he’s as likely a candidate as anyone Fox (and, indeed, encouraged him DC artist, Frank else. Courtesy of Len Wein. For the story behind the “written off” stamp, see next article. to write prose fiction for the first Giacoia, handled the [Green Lantern ©2001 DC Comics.] time: a field in which he would art. Years later, ultimately become prolific and successful in a number of genres), but Broome recalled visiting the home of Wolfe’s creator, Rex Stout, to get largely phased out the others in favor of freelancers Robert Kanigher his approval on his handling of Stout’s corpulent detective. and John Broome. He has frequently referred to the latter as “the best— my best writer, my best friend, and the best man at my wedding.” Writers rarely received credit on comic book stories at that time, but an exception was made for Strange Adventures, one of two scienceBroome again started out with backups such as “Wildcat,” “Dr. Midfiction titles (the other was Mystery in Space) conceived and edited by Nite,” “Little Boy Blue,” and “Sargon the Sorcerer,” but was soon Julius Schwartz. (Schwartz would be the editor on almost all of scripting headline features like the original “Flash” and “Green Broome’s DC work, though occasionally Broome would write a Lantern.” His familiarity with all these heroes led to Broome’s taking “Batman” or “Vigilante” story, or a sequence of the Superman over the scripting of the Justice Society of America in All-Star Comics, a newspaper strip, for Jack Schiff or Mort Weisinger.) Like the prose sf feature he would continue to write until its demise in 1950. Broome magazines, Strange Adventures credited its writers, especially those created several memorable villains for the JSA and its individual with any experience in prose SF, including Edmond Hamilton, Gardner members, including The Sportsmaster and the original Evil Star and Key. Fox... and John Broome. But super-heroes were already on the decline by the time John Broome started at DC, and he was soon proving his versatility on new and different features. He and Kanigher shared the writing of comics such as Rex the Wonder Dog, The Phantom Stranger (although Schwartz recalls the latter as having been created by Manly Wade Wellman), and the licensed Western movie hero Hopalong Cassidy (featuring art by Gene Colan and later by Gil Kane), which he would later recall as one of his favorites to write.

However, to get a wider variety of bylines, Schwartz had his writers employ several pseudonyms each. Broome was also both “John Osgood” and “Edgar Ray Merritt”: the former name combining Broome’s own (adopted) first name with his mother’s maiden name, while the latter nom de plume was an amalgam of sf writers Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Cummings, and A. Merritt. The bylines faded out before long, but Broome remained one of the primary scripters of the two sf titles for the rest of Schwartz’ tenure on them.

Broome created a recurring backup for Rex’s title: “Detective Chimp,” with artist Carmine Infantino. The title character was a highly intelligent chimpanzee who solved the murder of his first owner and was then adopted by Florida sheriff Fred Chase, with whom he worked on many more cases. This series, often cited by Infantino as his all-time favorite, was the first time, but decidedly not the last, that he and Broome would collaborate on stories involving apes.

By and large, the two DC science-fiction comics ran individual, self-contained stories without recurring characters. But increasingly as the ’50s wore on and gave way to the ’60s they would feature continuing characters, and John Broome contributed three of these.

Bobo the chimp was not the only detective whose adventures Broome chronicled during the 1950s; he also brought to comics two of the most famous detectives of prose fiction. Charlie Chan was originally created by Earl Derr Biggers in six novels and later starred in a series of movies featuring Warner Oland and Sidney Toler as the Asian-American detective of the Honolulu police force. In 1958-59 Broome

We do know that Broome wrote the never-reprinted Justice Society adventure “The Man Who Conquered the Solar System” in All-Star #55 (Oct.-Nov. 1950), with its combined Edgar Rice Burroughs and H.P. Lovecraft touches. Art by Frank Giacoia. [©2001 DC Comics.]

“Captain Comet,” written by Broome (as Edgar Ray Merritt) and drawn by Murphy

John Broome Anderson, was a super-powered mutant who hid his abilities under the guise of mildmannered librarian Adam Blake. He was the closest Julie Schwartz would come to a new superhero in the first half of the ’50s, but the character was not a great success, and largely faded out by the end of the decade, to be revived by other writers many years later.

“Star Hawkins,” drawn by Mike Sekowsky from Broome’s scripts, was a clever but Even Broome’s “Edgar Ray Merritt” pseudonym had faded disorganized private by the time this story saw print in Strange Adventures eye of the 21st #26 (Nov. 1952). Art by Murphy Anderson. century, who more [©2001 DC Comics.] often than not was bailed out of trouble by his robot secretary, Ilda. He was one of two characters (the other being Gardner Fox’s space-opera hero, Adam Strange) to last in the sf titles even beyond Schwartz’ tenure, though after Schwartz left the book Broome was replaced as writer by Dave Wood (and Sekowsky by frequent Broome collaborator Gil Kane). Broome’s most fondly remembered series from the sf comics was “The Atomic Knights,” again done with artist Murphy Anderson (whom Broome would later cite as his all-time favorite artistic collaborator). After an atomic war in 1986 (!), armed thugs took over one of the few surviving enclaves of humanity and ruled it with an iron fist, until six men and a woman discovered some medieval armor that was proof against radiation. They donned it to overthrow the dictators, and to restore the rule of law to the postwar Earth, as The Atomic Knights. Anderson excelled at drawing the heroes (complete with six distinct suits of armor), the cities of the post-war world, and the mutated creatures that thrived in it; and Broome, with a somber but basically optimistic approach, showed how the Earth gradually recovered its greenery and society. By the final story in the series, the Knights lived in an almost idyllic pastoral setting, and the series seemed to have run its course, so it was not continued by the new editor. But by this time, John Broome was already well into the most famous pair of series of his career.

appearance of the second Flash. In the first issue of DC’s “tryout” title (which featured tales of “Fireman Farrell”), it was announced that Showcase #2 would star “a colorful new hero suggested by YOU!” However, the second issue instead featured “Kings of the Wild,” tales centering around animals; this was followed by “Frogmen” in issue #3. But the idea may have already been around to bring back DC’s most prominent Golden Age hero that was not still being published (i.e., Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman, the last especially popular due to his then-current TV series starring George Reeves). As the final editor of The Flash’s adventures in the 1940s, Julie Schwartz was chosen to handle the try-out issue. Schwartz recalls having a very tight deadline on the issue, so the person he approached to script the origin was the man who shared his office: Robert Kanigher, a prominent writer of the original Flash’s later years, and in 1956 also a DC editor in charge of Wonder Woman and the expanding war lineup. Memories vary, but Schwartz and Kanigher seem to have agreed at once that, rather than bringing back Jay Garrick, the 1940s Flash (a character Schwartz was sure the large majority of 1956 readers wouldn’t remember), they would create a new hero along much the same lines. Like Jay, Barry Allen was a young scientist who received the power of super-speed in a lab accident—this one caused when a bolt of lightning struck some chemicals in his lab. Schwartz turned to other veterans of the Golden Age “Flash” series to complete the first issue— to sleek artist Carmine Infantino to pencil the stories, to the more stylistic Joe Kubert to ink them... and to John Broome to write the second story in the magazine. Showcase #4 was to come out during a month when so many ads had been sold that the number of story pages (normally 24 to 26 at the time) had temporarily dropped to 22, so Schwartz decided to run only two stories in the issue rather than the then-standard three. It was a very successful experiment which allowed for greater depth and plot development, so it was retained for subsequent “Flash” issues, and gradually became the new standard for the comics field. The Flash’s debut proved to be an immense sales success, the only one in Showcase’s first five issues. “The Flash” wasn’t the first feature to make a return appearance in Showcase (the editors were so pleased with Jack Kirby’s “Challengers of the Unknown” in #6 that they received an immediate second try in #7); but he was the second, coming back in #8, and again in #13 and #14. Schwartz kept the creative team intact for all four issues except for replacing inker Kubert with Frank Giacoia and Joe Giella; each issue was penciled by Carmine Infantino and featured two stories: one by Kanigher and one by Broome. Kanigher’s stories were sound and workmanlike, but Broome’s began to carry the feature in a new and intriguing direction.

IV. The Rogues’ Gallery

In developing Barry Allen’s background, Kanigher had stuck mostly to standard motifs. In civilian life Barry, like Clark Kent, was the antithesis of his superAt least a few fans consider Captain Comet heroic self: a man who was always late for work (for the the first super-hero of the Silver Age of Comics, Central City police department) and for dates with his and a few others opt for J’onn J’onzz, “The girlfriend, a reporter named Iris West who Manhunter from Mars.” But the vast started out very much in the Lois All the late-’50s “Flash” stories have been reprinted in DC’s majority date the Silver Age as beginning Lane/Vicki Vale mold. (She didn’t even Flash Archives volumes, so we figured you’d rather see us with Showcase #4 in 1956: the first know her boyfriend was The Flash, as Jay devote this space to a sketch done by Carmine Infantino for

III. Flash of Two Eras

The Man Who Launched The Corps

19 Flash.”

Garrick’s girlfriend Joan Williams had.) Kanigher’s villains were workmanlike but mundane: Beginning with a thief called The Turtle who was literally pulled out of Golden Age stories with little change, Kanigher continued with a set of larcenous triplets of no particular distinction and some international terrorists.

Broome took the opportunity to expand the parameters of the Flash, adding many new villains to his Rogues’ Gallery, starting with the Mirror Master in Flash #105. Like that of Captain Cold, most of the new villains’ gimmicks could be inferred from their names: Weather Wizard, Captain But, as he had done with Ibac over a Boomerang, Pied Piper, The Top, The decade before, Broome devoted his full Trickster, and finally Heat Wave to carry on attention to creating different and interesting Mazdan’s original thermal gimmick (and to villains. launch a continuing rivalry with Captain Cold). Even the limits of contemporary “I told Julie,” Broome would recall many comic book super-science weren’t enough, years later, “that I wanted to develop some as Broome reached into the future to pit villains who could be used again and again... Flash against the applause-craving magician a regular ‘rogues’ gallery’... for The Flash.” Abra Kadabra—and Flash’s own opposite If anything, the trend in comics in the late number Professor Zoom (a.k.a. The ’50s was away from such characters. It had Reverse-Flash), a 25th-century scientist who been years since Superman had faced such gave himself super-speed, but used it for colorful Golden Age adversaries as Toyman, evil. Most of these were simply thieves The Prankster, and Mr. Mxyztplk; his only whose battles with The Flash had a Each and every villain in this pin-up penciled by Carmine remaining recurring foe of any consequence relatively light touch. Broome even went Infantino for DC 80-Page Giant #4 (Nov. 1964) was born in was the criminal scientist Luthor. Batman’s into details earlier writers had overlooked, the fertile mind of John Broome. Repro’d from photocopies once-legendary villains had mostly faded of the original art. [©2001 DC Comics.] explaining that most of the villains’ away except for The Joker (and occasionally costumes were provided by a pair of underThe Penguin), with Catwoman, Two-Face, and other once-prominent world tailors named Paul Gambi (named for fan Paul Gambaccini) and figures virtually forgotten. J.M. Leach. But Broome’s very first “Flash” story in Showcase #4 featured a time-traveling criminal named Mazdan with an imaginative heat ray. Mazdan didn’t return until the 1970s, but both his heat rays and his futuristic origin would be reused by later Flash villains. As Mazdan had used heat, the first real member of the Rogues’ Gallery, introduced by Broome in Showcase #8, battled The Flash with cold. Captain Cold sported a stylish costume courtesy of artist Infantino. Broome followed in Showcase #13 with Mr. Element... who made a return the following issue, but under the new name of Dr. Alchemy. Clearly anything was possible with this new breed of villains: They could come back repeatedly, assume new identities, even reform (as Mr. Element/Dr. Alchemy would do by his next appearance in a “Flash” story), and break out of the narrow confines to which most comic book villains had hitherto been relegated. For reasons that are unclear, when Flash was awarded a title of his own in 1959 (starting with #105, continuing the numbering of the Golden Age anthology Flash Comics), editor Schwartz appointed Broome its regular writer. Kanigher was getting busier and busier, in any event, as the war line and other experimental new titles like The Brave and the Bold expanded, leaving Broome and Gardner Fox as the main writers on Schwartz’ comics. Fox had created the original Flash, but Schwartz kept Broome on the new series because he was doing such a good job, and, in any case, “I didn’t want to do the original

In the tradition of the Golden Age Flash, there was more humor in the new Flash’s adventures than in the average super-hero comic book, but it rarely became completely farcical, because Infantino drew even the most unlikely developments—Mirror Master changing Flash into a mirror, Weather Wizard riding around on a cloud, Abra Kadabra transforming Flash into a puppet—with complete seriousness.

But there was the inevitable criminal scientist who didn’t want just loot but world domination, and who had immense physical power with which he played for keeps against The Flash. With one major difference. He was a gorilla. From “Detective Chimp” on, Broome and/or Infantino had done a number of stories for DC’s science-fiction comics featuring apes, especially gorillas (which, Schwartz had discovered, seemed to sell very well when featured on covers, particularly when acting like human beings). So the Schwartz/Broome/ Infantino trio introduced Gorilla Grodd, a renegade from a hidden “Gorilla City” in Africa, who sought to take over the world. Flash triumphed only with the aid of “the greatest mind on Earth”... another super-advanced ape from Gorilla City named Solovar, then residing in the Central City Zoo. Grodd came back repeatedly with new and increasingly deadly schemes; but Flash always succeeded in foiling him. Broome’s development of The Flash wasn’t limited to villains.

John Broome

Not only did Mr. Element reform, but another apparent villain, the super-stretching Elongated Man, proved to be an honest (and rich) man who’d been framed by real crooks! Ralph Dibny went on to marry heiress Sue Dearbon and become a semi-regular supporting character in Flash; and if his powers were somewhat reminiscent of the old Quality Comics hero Plastic Man... well, DC had bought out Quality when it went out of business, so nobody was going to complain. (By sheer coincidence, only a month after Elongated Man’s first appearance, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced the similarly-powered Reed Richards, a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic, as the leader of The Fantastic Four; he too was independently wealthy, had no secret identity, and even went on to marry a woman named Sue!) Broome also enlarged the cast by introducing several other supporting characters. These included Ira West (Iris’ absent-minded professor of a father), Dexter Miles (a retired ham actor who eventually became curator of the Flash Museum), and Kid Flash. At the time, heroes’ kid sidekicks seemed to be making a comeback. Not only were such Golden Age holdovers as Robin and Speedy still going strong, but several new sidekicks—Aqualad and Supergirl—were just being introduced. So Broome had Iris’ nephew Wally (named by Schwartz after sf writer Wallace West), a boy of around 10 or 12, get caught in an accident in Barry’s lab identical to the one that had given Barry speed, and assume the identity of Kid Flash with a cut-down uniform Barry gave him. Kid Flash would be the last of the major kid sidekicks before the concept went completely out of fashion, and would go on to a more important role in the DC universe than even his creator had envisioned.

V. How Green Was My Lantern

Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog and western heroes Hopalong Cassidy and “Johnny Thunder”) were on the verge of cancellation. Kane designed a new, sleeker costume without the cape, which he’d always found impractical. Broome and Schwartz opted to avoid the fantasy elements of the original in favor of “pure” science-fiction. For inspiration Broome seems to have turned to a classic space-opera series: the Lensmen novels by Edward E. (“Doc”) Smith, Ph.D., which dealt with an interstellar corps of policemen given a powerful weapon by a highly advanced alien race. [NOTE: See mini-article on P. 24.] The immortal Guardians of the Universe (a concept Broome had used in two “Captain Comet” stories but hadn’t developed further) gave their representatives on over 3000 worlds a powerful weapon similar to Alan Scott’s. Broome retained the power ring and the lantern (now referred to as a “power battery”) on which it needed to be charged every 24 hours, but changed the weakness from wood (not always easy to work into a story, especially in outer space) to anything colored yellow, explained as being due to “a necessary impurity” in the power rings. The new series began when the Green Lantern of Earth’s sector of space, a red-skinned alien named Abin Sur (whose initials were the same as those of Alan Scott, his Golden Age predecessor) crashed on Earth and was critically injured. Instructed to find a successor who was honest and “completely without fear” (hence the symbolism of the yellow weakness?) on this planet, the ring came back with a young test pilot named Hal Jordan, a name Julie Schwartz recalls as being entirely Broome’s creation. Peggy Broome suspects the surname came from the movie Here Comes Mr. Jordan (about a man returning to Earth as an angel), and the “Hal” may well be derived from Prince Hal in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Parts I and II. She recalls John as being “almost a Shakespearean scholar,” who often read (and, in later life, taught) the Bard’s plays.

Of all the costumed heroes DC had published in the Golden Age, only six had been honored with solo comic books of their own. Four of these— Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superboy—had never lost them, and Julie Schwartz had just revived a fifth, The Flash, in a successful new incarnation. So the editor’s attention understandably turned to the only remaining Adopting the alien’s uniform and ring and costumed DC hero to have had his own title, A Green Lantern sketch, courtesy of Michael Zeno. adding a mask, Hal took on the identity of which Schwartz had also edited in its later [Art ©2001 Elaine Kane; Green Lantern © 2001 DC Comics.] Green Lantern, and was soon well known as a years, and to whom he would often refer as crime-fighter in his native Coast City, his favorite of all his Golden Age heroes. California. Unlike The Flash, he appeared in three consecutive issues of Green Lantern had been created in 1940 by artist Martin Nodell, with Showcase (#22-24); he was rewarded with his own title soon afterward. the help of writer Bill Finger; they had seen him as a modern version of As with Barry Allen, Broome quickly built up a supporting cast Aladdin, possessing both a magic lamp (in the shape of a green lantern, around Hal Jordan, this time adding some twists to the standard superhence his name) and a magic ring which had to be touched to the lamp hero formula. The woman Hal loved quickly fell hard for his costumed every 24 hours or else lose its power (which eventually worked on alter ego; but, rather than being the standard co-worker or secretary or everything except wood). In later years Finger had devoted most of his girl reporter, Carol Ferris was Hal Jordan’s boss... the daughter of the attention to other characters (especially his greatest co-creation, semi-retired owner of the Ferris Aircraft Company. The apparently Batman), so late-’40s “Green Lantern” stories were mostly written by mandatory girl reporter who suspected the hero’s identity soon materiJoseph Greene, award-winning science-fiction writers Alfred Bester and alized in the person of Sue Williams... but Sue’s suspicions centered on Henry Kuttner, Robert Kanigher... and John Broome. the wrong suspect, Hal’s younger brother Jim. (Hal had an older brother As with The Flash, Julie Schwartz decided in 1959 to create a new named Jack as well, defying the tradition that heroes be only children, or Green Lantern, rather than reviving the mostly-forgotten Alan Scott. at most have a single sibling who either becomes a villain or gets killed This time he gave the assignment to John Broome from the beginning; so the hero can avenge his death.) The cast was completed by Tom the first several years of the character’s adventures would be entirely Kalmaku, a young Eskimo jet mechanic at Ferris Aircraft who figured Broome’s. The art was by Gil Kane, whose regular assignments (The out Green Lantern’s identity in an early story, then gave him some tips

The Man Who Launched The Corps to keep others from noticing. In early issues Tom was known by the affectionate (if retrospectively politically incorrect) nickname “Pieface.” As an interplanetary policeman, Green Lantern had adventures that took him much farther afield than those of The Flash. His ring enabled him to fly though the air, and even through space. GL’s adventures were generally more serious than those of Broome’s Flash. Certainly his villains tended to be more powerful and more evil than Flash’s Rogues’ Gallery, including the Weaponers of Qward (the rulers of Earth’s antimatter counterpart), Hector Hammond (an ambitious criminal who used a radioactive meteor to evolve himself), Dr. Polaris (a schizophrenic scientist who used his magnetic discoveries for crime), The Shark (a real shark evolved into a super-intelligent humanoid by an atomic explosion, who considered the whole human race his prey), Star Sapphire (the subconscious alter ego of Carol Ferris, awakened by alien warrior women who wanted her as their queen), and, above all, Sinestro of Korugar, the one Green Lantern to become a renegade. Green Lantern’s Rogues’ Gallery did contain a few more lighthearted villains in the Flash tradition, though. Black Hand was a tribute to the cocreator of the original GL, Bill Finger (the character’s real name was William Hand), and deliberately relied on cliches. Sonar was a cross between the Pied Piper and Tully Bascomb (the ambitious military commander of the minuscule Duchy of Grand Fenwick who successfully conquered America in Leonard Wibberley’s then-popular satirical novel The Mouse That Roared); he wielded his tuning-fork gun against America solely to get publicity for his native land of Modora, a principality too small even to qualify as a postage-stamp country.

wanted improvements in sales for their second-oldest hero. So an editorial switch was initiated, with long-time editor Jack Schiff taking on the two Schwartz science-fiction titles, Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space. Schwartz in turn took over editorship of Batman and Detective Comics. Schwartz was somewhat restricted when it came to Batman. Some of his initial “Batman” stories were provided by the same men who had written them for Schiff: Eddie Herron and Batman co-creator Bill Finger. But Schwartz also wanted his top writers to help revitalize Batman, so he commissioned stories from Gardner Fox, who had written “Batman” as early as 1939. Yet the very first of the Schwartz “Batman” stories—which would soon be referred to as the “New Look”—which appeared in Detective #327, 300 issues and 25 years to the month after Batman’s first appearance, was drawn by Carmine Infantino (now freed from “Adam Strange”)... and was written by John Broome. “The Mystery of the Menacing Mask” was quite low-key for readers used to the heavy use of science-fiction elements in Broome’s “Flash” and “Green Lantern” stories... or, for that matter, in many of Schiff’s “Batman” stories. Broome had briefly written “Batman” scripts under Schiff’s editorship, but his experience didn’t prevent him from getting all too realistic at one point: After a fist-fight with some criminals, Batman used the gun he’d taken from one of them to hold them at bay while Robin called the police. Realizing after the fact that a gun was a completely inappropriate weapon for Batman to use, given his origin, Schwartz later apologized for that particular scene.

In later years, Schwartz recalled that Broome didn’t stay on “Batman” all that long, though he did for a time The wide variety of stories, villains, become the resident expert on stories and supporting characters created by GL doesn’t appear on this page of Green Lantern pencil layouts, but involving that greatest of Batman foes, Broome, combined with the first-rate hey—it’s by Gil Kane, circa mid-’60s! Courtesy of David G. Hamilton. The Joker. One of his stories, “The art and increasingly imaginative [©2001 DC Comics.] Joker’s Comedy Capers” in Detective layouts of Gil Kane, made Green Lantern one of the very best comics #341, in which the Clown Prince of of the Silver Age. Crime imitated old silent comedians to make new movies for an eccentric millionaire, was adapted into an episode of the Batman television series (which debuted in 1966) and featured real-life silent star Francis X. Bushman—though the villain on TV was switched to The Riddler. Another Broome story, featuring an Eastern European With two of DC’s most popular titles keeping John Broome busy, mechanical genius and a troubled magician, was also turned into a TV Julie Schwartz went on to introduce several more successful variations episode, though the latter went through a sex change so the role could on Golden Age heroes: Justice League of America, The Atom, go to actress Anne Baxter. On the whole, however, the TV show’s campy Hawkman, and The Spectre (all written by Gardner Fox). The prolific approach fit only imperfectly with John Broome’s more subtle sense of Fox began to write stories of “Flash” and “Green Lantern,” as well. humor, resulting in more adaptations of the more “classic” Batman Broome remained both heroes’ major writer, but, according to Julie writers like Bill Finger, Alvin Schwartz, and even Gardner Fox in the Schwartz, wasn’t nearly as fast as Fox and was kept as busy as he episodes taken from the comic books. wanted, once both titles went from bimonthly to eight times a year.

VI. A “New Look” Broome Sweeps Clean

So successful had Schwartz proved to be at developing new heroes that one of DC’s oldest heroes was turned over to him in 1964. Batman’s two titles had been declining in sales for several years. DC’s publishers

Broome’s last “Batman” story, “Public Luna-tic Number One,” featured The Joker in his last real Silver Age appearance. The title was prophetic: By the Joker’s next appearance he was certifiably insane, and writer Denny O’Neil had him meticulously murdering the members of

John Broome

his gang from Broome’s last story.

VII. A Farewell to Comics Many writers have been known to express themselves through their characters, and John Broome was no exception. In Showcase #22 Ferris had become Hal Jordan’s boss because her father, Carl Ferris, had retired and gone on a round-the-world trip with his wife “before I get too old to enjoy it.” When Broome and Fox worked out the parameters of an “Elongated Man” solo series in Detective with editor Schwartz, Ralph and Sue Dibny also spent most of their time traveling from city to city, exploring the country and sometimes the world. John Broome had invested well and wanted to see the world. Schwartz allowed him to send in scripts from abroad, so in the middle ’60s John and Peggy Broome moved to Paris, where they had lived for a time a decade before. The change of pace must have agreed with him, for both of his regular series underwent abrupt changes of their own in late 1966.

his career, was now bringing to comics.) In the face of the shifting market, Broome had attempted to organize DC’s long-standing writers to ask for reprint royalties, and for health insurance and other benefits that most long-term employees of large companies took for granted. He got several other DC regulars together and marched them into the office of then-owner Jack Liebowitz. But no sooner had he begun to make their first demand (to be paid when their stories were reprinted, so they wouldn’t in essence be competing with themselves), than Liebowitz offered them all a raise of $1 per story page. At least for a time, that satisfied them... but after that these writers found their work beginning to dry up. They weren’t exactly fired. They couldn’t be, since they had never been employees of DC Comics... only freelancers, with none of the rights of employees. In years past, managing editors like Whitney Ellsworth had looked after “their” freelancers with some care, but Ellsworth had retired and new corporate owners were coming in. On top of that, Infantino was interested in bringing what many saw as the excitement and explosive action of Marvel Comics into DC’s titles, and many young writers were beginning to enter the field. Jim Shooter, Denny O’Neil, Cary Bates, Mike Friedrich, and others were taking traditional DC characters in new directions, so maybe it was time to cut the older writers loose.

In The Flash #165 Barry Allen and Iris West were married, and Barry agonized for a year about whether or not to tell her he was The Flash, before the matter was resolved. The following month, the longWhich, in several cases, wasn’t standing love affair of Hal Jordan that hard. Ed Herron died soon and Carol Ferris was also after Broome’s abortive union resolved, but in a very different was created, and the death of direction. In Green Lantern #49, Otto Binder’s daughter so Carol announced that she too demoralized him that he had had decided to get married... and little interest in further comics not to either Hal Jordan or writing. Gardner Fox had Green Lantern. The crushed Hal become a prolific novelist and quit his job at Ferris Aircraft and didn’t need the comics to make a drifted into other cities and into living. Only Bill Finger, who was a succession of other jobs, going constantly in debt, was truly hurt from ski instructor to insurance by the involuntary severance; but claims adjuster to traveling he did pick up assignments in salesman to truck driver. This page from Detective #327, the first “New Look” issue, was scripted by Broome, Hollywood and continued to do Downward mobility was only and drawn by Infantino and Giella. Repro’d from photocopies of the original art, some writing for DC until his beginning to be a problem for courtesy of Richard Martines. [©2001 DC Comics.] death in 1973, largely because much of America’s work force, some DC editors truly felt he’d but GL’s stories were already dealing with it. It would launch a new and gotten a raw deal when Bob Kane was contractually given sole credit for more experimental phase of GL’s career, highlighted by Gil Kane taking creating Batman. sole responsibility for the title’s pencils and inks. As for John Broome, he already had one foot out the door. When longtime Flash artist Carmine Infantino graduated to an executive position at DC, the new artists, Ross Andru and Mike It was becoming increasingly difficult to write comics from abroad; Esposito, were directed to imitate the style of Jack Kirby, to try to and he and his wife had gone on to live for a time in Israel and then capture more of the audience being reached by rival Marvel Comics. But settle in Japan. Broome found he could make an excellent living by that approach was all wrong for The Flash... and for the stories of John teaching advanced English in a country where knowledge of the internaBroome and Gardner Fox. (Gil Kane had been much more successful in tional language of commerce was imperative, and had settled down to a Green Lantern in combining the draftsmanship of traditional DC with position at a prominent Tokyo university. the excitement which Kirby, in whose shop a young Kane had launched

The Man Who Launched The Corps The Andru/Esposito run on The Flash had been marked by experimentation: Broome’s increasingly rare stories were interspersed with others by writers both old (Frank Robbins, Robert Kanigher) and new (E. Nelson Bridwell, Cary Bates, Mike Friedrich). Broome bade his farewell to his most successful character with “The Bride Cast Two Shadows” in The Flash #294. With its publication, the Silver Age of the character who had launched it truly ended.

23 he and his stories were remembered by old-time fans. The one panel on which Broome appeared was later said by moderator Mark Evanier to be the best convention panel he had experienced in over thirty years in comics fandom and prodom. Along with Julie Schwartz, his favorite artist Murphy Anderson, and Mike Barr (whose first sale to comics had been a script featuring Broome’s character “The Elongated Man”), John Broome recalled his years in comics to the enthusiastic response of an audience composed, according to Evanier, from 30-50% of professional comics writers, including Kurt Busiek, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Mark Waid, Mike Friedrich, Roy Thomas, and many other scripters now well known in their own right.

John Broome’s very last comic book story was a better-remembered farewell to his most famous actual co-creation: “The Golden Obelisk of Qward” in Green Lantern #75. The team that had launched the hero was still there at the end: writer John Broome, artists Gil Kane and Joe Giella, and editor Julie Schwartz. Broome’s final tale of Hal John Broome at the San Diego ComiCon, Jordan had him battling side by side with a man summer of 1998. Courtesy of Gene Kehoe (in Broome received a standing ovation from all inspired by a real-life person who’d been with him whose publication It’s A Fanzine #48 it first these people... and an invitation from DC editor all along. With typical modesty, Broome based Dr. saw print) and photographer Don Ensign. Dan Raspler to write more scripts for the Eli Bently not on himself but on the alsocompany. He seemed at least somewhat receptive. departing artist, Gil Kane. (Kane’s birth-name had been Eli Katz, and his Even after his return to Paris, Broome’s interest in comics, and in first regular series had been an MLJ feature, “Bentley of Scotland Yard.”) returning to America, seemed to have rekindled, and once more there Broome’s tenure ended on the optimistic note that even the evil universe seemed to be a real possibility of his again writing for comics. of Qward might one day develop a better side. But it was not to be.

IX. A Last Hurrah John Broome only rarely looked back at the characters, industry, and country he had left behind. He turned his writing ability to textbooks in his new field, two of which continued to be used in Japan for a number of years, and to occasional essays that were eventually collected in what he turned “an offbeat autobio,” My Life in Little Pieces. Even his trips to the United States, mostly to visit family and friends, became increasingly infrequent. During a visit to New York and to DC Comics in 1984, Broome briefly discussed writing one more “Atomic Knights” story for Schwartz. Several fans heard and became excited by the rumors, but the story never materialized. It would be another fourteen years before Broome would visit the Western Hemisphere again. In early 1998, during a discussion between Julius Schwartz and West Coast fan David Siegel, the fact came up that John Broome had never been to a comics convention. Comic-Con International in San Diego offered to pay for his and his wife’s hotel and meals, but international airline tickets were beyond its budget. Money for the Broomes’ air fare from Paris (their traditional summer residence) was carried through by Siegel and H.E.A.T., a group of Green Lantern fans that had originated on the Internet, and was ultimately aided by others, including Mark Evanier, Paul Levitz, and Marc Svensson. In spring of that year, I had the honor of purchasing a pair of round-trip tickets from Paris to San Diego and dispatching them to Peggy Broome. And in August 1998 Mr. and Mrs. Broome made their first trip ever to California. One of John Broome’s earliest stops was at Horton Plaza, a San Diego shopping mall, to buy a new pair of shoes that fit him... something he’d always had difficulty obtaining in Japan and France. At his request his convention schedule was relatively low-key, but he spent some time talking to fans in Artists’ Alley (where he was reunited with his long-time friend and editor, Julius Schwartz, for the first time in over a decade) and at the DC table, learning for the first time just how fondly

In the spring of 1999, John and Peggy Broome were traveling through Thailand. On March 14, John collapsed while swimming laps in the hotel pool, and was immediately taken to the hospital. He never regained consciousness. Those of us who were lucky enough to meet John Broome will always remember him as a modest and unassuming man who was bemused but thrilled at the impact his work had on those who came after him in the field of comics. But those inheritors, and the immensely greater number of people who knew Broome through his work, would do well to remember the words uttered by Hal Jordan in Green Lantern #75 just before he, like his creator, left the world and lifestyle he knew for a very different one... the last words, as it turned out, that John Broome ever wrote for comic books: “But if I had to... I’d do it again!” A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: Rich Morrissey, the author of the preceding article and of many other pieces on the history of the Golden and Silver Ages of Comics, passed away unexpectedly on May 22, 2001, at the much-too-young age of 47... only days after he had e-mailed me a revised draft of the preceding article. Typical of Rich and the kind of tireless researcher and perfectionist he was, it was his idea, not mine, to revise “The Man Who Launched the Corps,” to include new information learned during a personal meeting with Mrs. Peggy Broome in Florida in March, during the MegaCon. Rich will be missed—and remembered. —Roy.

Rich Morrissey. Photo courtesy of Patricia Floss.

Postscript shaped “rather like an oil drum [with] four stump legs, and... four tenfoot tentacles which end in a myriad cluster of oddly-shaped tendrils”— and Nadreck, a barely-described alien “master mathematician.”

The he T

Lensmen Connection

The Lenses themselves, dispensed by the Arisians (who “always appear to the humans as a fused form—a single entity having the name Mentor, [who] is sometimes an old man, a patriarch, and at other times only a naked brain”) are “a platinum-iridium bracelet carrying, wristwatch-wise, a lenticular something [which] seemed to be composed of thousands—millions—of tiny gems, each of which emitted pulsatingly all the colors of the spectrum.” The wearers of a Lens (all male, due to certain properties of the Lens itself) do not realize its full potentialities at first. It has no actual power of its own, but instead “concentrates, intensifies, and renders available whatever powers are already possessed by its wearer.” Semi-alive, it is a perfect telepathic instrument, hurls bolts of mental energy, and kills anyone who tries to don it besides the individual to whom it is specially attuned.

by Roy Thomas

In the final novel, Children of the Lens, the four daughters of Lensman Rod Kinnison, though they cannot wear Lenses themselves, team up with the three alien Lensmen mentioned two paragraphs back and their father to accomplish the ultimate destruction of Eddore by use of a mental thunderbolt hurled and focused through the linked For the title illo in A/E V1 #9 (1965), Roy combined a photostat of Rod Kinnison from the Lenses. cover of Astounding Science-Fiction (Oct. 1939) with a Mike Sekowsky-Bernie Sachs Green Lantern. And while Ye Editor can hardly believe it himself today, in that era before the accessibility of photocopiers, he actually cut out the GL figure from a page of Justice League of America original art given him by Julie Schwartz! He’s never fully forgiven himself... and the rest of that page hangs in his foyer as a reminder of youthful folly. [GL ©2001 DC comics; Astounding art ©2001 the respective copyright holder.]

In 1965, for Alter Ego [Vol. 1] #9, at my suggestion, comics/sf fan Shel Kagan wrote an article entitled “Great Guardians!” which detailed the similarities between the comic book universe of the Silver Age Green Lantern (then a relatively new character) and the Lensmen novels by E.E. “Doc” Smith, which had begun in 1934 with serialization in Astounding Stories sf pulp magazine. In the mid-’60s the Lensmen novels (Triplanetary, Galactic Patrol, Grey Lensmen, Second Stage Lensman, Children of the Lens—and First Lensman, a prequel written to fill out the series) were being published in paperback form for the first time, so many comics readers were unfamiliar with their very existence. Many doubtless still are.

As Shel Kagan wrote in a postscript to his article: “The many similarities of the Lensmen concept to that of the Green Lanterns [and those earlier in “Captain Comet”] might naturally lead one to surmise unequivocally that the older concept directly inspired the younger. Investigation in this direction, however, points up the dangers inherent in such ‘educated guesses,’ for editor Julius Schwartz says he has never read the series (though, as a longtime sf fan, he has of course heard of it). And DC writer John Broome, author of both the ‘Captain Comet’ and Green Lantern series, disclaims all knowledge of the Smith books.

As Kagan pointed out, the Arisians (a.k.a. the Elders) in Smith’s galaxies-spanning multi-book saga were very much the conceptual ancestors of both of John Broome’s versions of the Guardians of the Universe—although the Arisians, unlike the Oans, had a less powerful super-race, the Eddorians, as their ongoing enemies, with the fate of the space-spanning human race hanging in the balance between them. The Lensmen were the predecessors of the Green Lanterns as Broome (and Julie Schwartz) conceived them. Many of the Lens“men” weren’t human at all. Among these were Worsel, “a winged snake with a body of steel... and the ability to compartment his mind so that he can perform hundreds of In 1965 Roy applied his own limited artistic skills to draw Gil Kane’s “Green Lantern of jobs at one time”— Barrio III” and his own conceptions of Tregonsee and Worsel. A few years later, for the first Tregonsee, whose body was

time, he encountered Charles Schneeman’s fine illo for the Oct. 1939 Astounding, which depicted Tregonsee, Kinnison, and Worsel. [A/E art ©2001 Roy Thomas; GL of Barrio III ©2001 DC Comics; Astounding art ©2001 the respective copyright holder.]

“In Schwartz’ words, the Guardians were and simply are a ‘pet idea’ of Broome’s. As if to establish beyond dispute the extent to which... the comics and science-fiction share a fund of common ideas, Broome himself has this to say about his concept: “‘The Guardians is just another name for God—who has appeared under numerous guises in forms of fiction down through the ages. Some day when man matures a bit, the question of how science proves religion will be a widespread one (I hope). When that time arrives it will no longer be necessary to introduce the idea of a Supreme Intelligence in dramatic metaphors—probably it will no longer be possible.’”

Written Off - 9-30-49

by Roy Thomas

Part I The Day The Heroes Died

[Except where otherwise noted, all original-art reproductions accompanying this article are from photocopies courtesy of Marv Wolfman.]

i. Infamy There aren’t many dates I could rattle off instantly if somebody woke me up in the middle of the night, shone a flashlight in my eyes, and demanded to know when a particular event happened. My birthday, of course... the date of JFK’s assassination (maybe because it happened on my 23rd birthday)... oh yeah, and Pearl Harbor (you’re surprised at this?). Oh, and one more: I could, with only a couple of seconds’ thought, give a correct answer to someone who was yelling in my face: “On what day were hundreds of pages of vintage comic art ‘written off’ by DC Comics?” My reply: “September 30, 1949.” Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating a little. Still, the above date has definitely been emblazoned on my brain in recent years—because I’ve seen it, over and over and over again, stamped on old pages and pieces of pages of comic art (or, more often, on photocopies thereof), as reproduced above.

In 1944 the 25¢, 128-page Big All-American Comic Book showcased virtually every super-hero in the AA lineup except Dr. Mid-Nite (and maybe he was originally scheduled to make a house call, since somebody’s name must’ve been in that blank space between “Bulldog Drumhead” and “Atom”!). But by 1949 none of them except Wonder Woman still appeared in a solo series. [©2001 DC Comics.]

On that long-ago Friday, DC co-publishers Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz, acting in concert with their lawyers and accounting department, decided the time had come to “write off” a huge quantity of original art and story for which they no longer had any use. By doing so, DC—then officially National Comics Publications, Inc.—could take a one-time tax deduction for what that material had cost them, anywhere from one month to more than half a decade before. Accordingly, a vast number of twice-up pages of finished artwork were rubber-stamped: “WRITTEN OFF - 9-30-49,” whether the actual marking was done on that date or a bit later. In all probability a goodly amount of comic book art (and probably some scripts, as well) was trashed at that time or soon afterward. Although that action reflected decisions that had been made a year, even several years, earlier, 1949 was a logical time for this wholesale dumping to occur. For, ’twas in mid-1948 that Wonder Woman, The Flash, and Green Lantern were evicted from the pages of the oversize 15¢ Comic

This half-page of “Dr. Mid-Nite” (by Peddy & Sachs?) was once scheduled for AllAmerican Comics #110; but unless Doc had donned cowboy boots and a ten-gallon hat, he’d have been out of the running—because by then All-American Western was eight issues old! [Dr. Mid-Nite ©2001 DC Comics.]

Written Off - 9-30-49

Cavalcade, to be replaced starting in #30 (Dec. ’48-Jan. ’49) by The Fox and the Crow and a horde of (moderately) funny animals. Only a month or two later, the final issue of Flash Comics (#104) dashed onto sale, with a February ’49 cover date. Henceforth The Flash, Hawkman, The Atom, and Black Canary would be seen only as members of the Justice Society in All-Star Comics, and The Ghost

middle 1950s: Johnny Quick, The Vigilante, Robotman, Zatara the Magician, The Shining Knight, Green Arrow, and Aquaman. Indeed, the latter two have stuck around from that day to this. But why the preponderance of All-American characters on that late’40s hit list? By the end of 1950 every one of Max Gaines’ former superheroes except Wonder Woman was extinct—while various DC ones lasted for anywhere from a year to all the way up to the present? The survival of Superman, Batman, and (perhaps for a time) the Amazon princess was assured by sales of their solo titles; but what about the other seven?

ii. Mammon and the Archetypes Some months ago, when I referred in an e-mail to declining sales of super-hero comics in the late 1940s, a “fact” assumed even in statements by Gardner Fox and other pros who were around at the time, I received the following reply from Jerry G. Bails, founder of the original Alter Ego back in 1961—to which I’ve merely added a few bracketed clarifications: “There was no clear evidence that sales of costumed heroes were dropping after World War II. The decision to try new genres was Among the many “written off” tiers from 1940s DC comics were these “Atom” panels by Joe Gallagher—this “Little Boy Blue” row by Frank Harry once earmarked for Sensation Comics #88—and this “Ghost Patrol” art by Arthur Peddy and (probably) Bernard Sachs, one of the few ’40s splash panels preserved. Why and how Marv Wolfman happens to have this 2/3-page piece amongst all his art tiers, he has no recollection! [All characters ©2001 DC Comics.]

Patrol would finally give up the ghost for good. (The scarlet speedster’s solo title, All-Flash, had already dropped out of the race after #32, cover-dated Dec. 1947-Jan. 1948). Green Lantern was extinguished with #38 (May-June 1949), while with #102 the flag had been lowered on All-American Comics, the first title ever published by the company of that name. With #103 (Nov. 1948) it became All-American Western, and all the features of the original monthly (except for the Johnny-Thunder-come-lately cowboy hero) wound up on Boot Hill: Green Lantern, Dr. Mid-Nite, even The Black Pirate. (Aviator Hop Harrigan had been shot down in flames after #99.) Over in Sensation Comics Sargon the Sorcerer and Little Boy Blue had faded to black with #83 (Nov. ’48), and Wildcat was finally put to sleep with #90 (June ’49); Wonder Woman would soldier on in Sensation for a bit longer—and of course her own solo title never was dropped. By coincidence—or maybe not; read on—the major casualties of that day of infamy 9-30-49 were heroes who had originated in the onceproud All-American Comics group—M.C. Gaines’ company which had been loosely allied with National/DC (because co-owned by Harry Donenfeld, and later Jack Liebowitz) before being purchased by DC circa 1945 and fully submerged into it by 1948. Admittedly, a few once-bright stars of the original DC-proper lineup fell to Earth in ’48-’49, as well: Air Wave went off the air after Detective Comics #137 (July 1948); The Star Spangled Kid twinkled out after Star Spangled Comics #86 (Nov. 1948); and even his upstart sister Merry, Girl of 1000 Gimmicks, turned out to have only enough gadgets to carry her through #90 (March 1949). Yet, besides Superman/Superboy, Batman, and even Robin in his Star-Spangled solo series, no less than seven other pure DC (as opposed to originally AA) super-heroes lasted at least into the early or even

based on hopes of increased sales because some titles like Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, Crime Does Not Pay, Roy Rogers, etc., were taking off. With Sheldon Mayer moving on in 1948, I don’t think either Julie Schwartz or Robert Kanigher especially cared about the costumed genre, and they were more than willing to try new lines of their own. The so-called ‘sales drop’ of the All-American titles was never confirmed in any sales figures I’ve seen.

The Day the Heroes Died “The reports of returns [i.e., books unsold on the newsstands and later returned to the publisher for full credit] in those days were hopelessly inaccurate and much delayed. Publishers were always trying to anticipate new trends. There was no reason to kill off the top AA superheroes except internal and highly speculative reasons. I don’t think for a minute that The Flash didn’t have a greater following than Johnny Quick. A contract that would give Wonder Woman to William Moulton Marston’s estate if her title were cancelled was enough to make DC order Kanigher to churn out WW stories, which he did. “Contrast the DC house ads from 1945 on to those of the early ’40s. DC pushed its funny animal line (definitely fourth- or fifth-string cartoon characters) because Dell/Western had grabbed such a lead and had a monopoly of the major characters. DC’s internal political structure had more to do with which older features got the axe to make room for new genres.

Four Fandoms. There is minimal crossover of readership. War and westerns have small but faithful followings over time; they pick off a few hero fans, but more often than not lean toward EC-type stories. “The above is over-simplified, but my main point is that these readerships are largely distinct. Increases in popularity of a funny animal title cut into other funny animal titles, not into the heroic readership. I think that, throughout the ’40s through the ’70s, at least, readers selected comics on the basis of these four genres, and seldom strayed. “Knowing how unreliable the general sales reports were in the field right through Carmine Infantino’s tenure as head honcho at DC, I give very little credence to the argument that titles were killed for low sales. More often, it was a gamble on something new they thought had greater potential. “You tell me: Were you the only kid on the block who bought Flash and All-Star? “We were tossed overboard.” The more I ponder the subject, the more I suspect Jerry is basically correct. It never made sense to me, even as a kid, that The Flash, who had once starred in four titles, should be dropped—while an also-ran like Johnny Quick careened around in Adventure Comics for several more years. Why wasn’t Green Lantern at least made a back-up in either Adventure or World’s Finest, instead of keeping Green Arrow in both?

“The AA line didn’t die. “It was killed. “I think publisher Harry Donenfeld operated with an assumption that the readerships of hero comics and funny animals were identical... and that an increase in one meant a drop in the other. While there is some overlap, from what I can tell there were distinct genre readerships: hero, funny animal, romance/teen, crime/horror. Each could sustain a certain number of titles.

Not even great Alex Toth art saved Green Lantern from being upstaged in both his own mag and in All-American by Streak the Wonder Dog... forerunner of the longrunning DC title The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog. There’s no accounting for taste. [©2001 DC Comics.]

“Clearly there were too many hero titles in the early ’40s, but all DC did by killing the AA line was to lose many readers, and switch its hero readership to the next best thing it offered—science-fiction and westerns. I doubt seriously that they cut very deeply into Dell’s western sales, which continued to climb. I don’t believe that many hero fans switched to funny animals (unless they were already funny animal fans). New genres were in order to capture the female readers, the cartoon crowd, and the horror/crime aficionados; but, by and large, these are different from the heroic fans. “As a hero fan I would read Conan the Barbarian, Tomb of Dracula, Master of Kung Fu... but most of those offshoots never carried me into less ‘heroic’ versions of those genres. ACG [American Comics Group] bored me; I wasn’t even an EC fan. I was too old for the cartoon line when it got going. “I see still today several distinct fandoms. There’s the Archie crowd; the EC crowd; the heroic crowd; and funny animal fandom. I call it the

Three of Jerry Bails’ “Four Fandoms”: All we need is for EC’s Crypt-Keeper to drop by! This ad from mags cover-dated April-May 1949 depicts a DC divided between teenage humor, super-heroes, and funny animals. A Date with Judy was licensed from a popular radio series, while The Fox and the Crow had starred in a few lackluster animated cartoons from Columbia (the comic book was better!). [©2001 DC Comics.]

Written Off - 9-30-49

Surely a roost could have been found, too, for Hawkman, a cover feature for nearly a decade and thus obviously more bankable than, say, Aquaman. Was it all part of a deliberate plan to short-shrift the old AA heroes because they had originally been handled by an entirely different crew, such as Gaines, Mayer, and their script editors? I’ll be generous, and take my friend Jean-Marc Lofficier’s advice: “Never ascribe to malevolence what can be put down to stupidity.” That stupidity—well, let’s be kind and just call it bad judgment—goes even beyond the mere trashing of bought-and-paid-for art and stories, including (as readers of The All-Star Companion know) a full-length JSA adventure scripted and drawn in 1945-46. For example:

At least two events in the 1960s brought much of that unpublished art into the hands of people who appreciated and preserved it. In A/E V3#2, longtime comics scribe Marv Wolfman (Tomb of Dracula, The New Teen Titans, et al.) told how, one day in the mid-’60s, DC production chief Sol Harrison allowed him and several other thenfans taking a DC tour to carry off so many full, unmutilated pages of that vintage art that Marv was forced to take an expensive cab ride home to Queens, just to handle all the pages that he alone had carted off! Most of these, he says, bore the “WRITTEN OFF - 9-30-49” stamp, though others were from stories which had seen print. The art— much of it once intended for Flash, All-American, Sensation, et al.— included work by the likes of Carmine Infantino, Mart Nodell, Paul Reinman, Joe Gallagher, Frank Harry, Arthur Peddy—and of course the Joe Shuster studio.

For years DC sat on, and later tossed out, an entire 12- or 13-page “Superman” story drawn by the Joe Shuster studio in the early ’40s; yet, later that same decade, its editors had that same story totally redrawn as a 10-pager, which was published. (Marv Wolfman owns the complete, never-published original. Hope it sees print someday!)

Then, circa 1967, while working as a DC “intern,” Marv was told by that selfsame Sol Harrison that he could keep numerous pieces of original-art pages which he was slicing into thirds, even though his job forced him to consign many, many other pages to the building Jerry Bails feels the All-American heroes were the victims not of an accident, incinerator. Marv managed to but of premeditated murder. When this DC house ad ran in issues coverpreserve the integrity of the art he dated June 1948, the days were dwindling down to a precious few for the salvaged by slicing those pages into Even weirder: Thanks to two two AA-born monthlies pictured here. [©2001 DC Comics.] rows (tiers)—of which there were generous collectors, Alter Ego V3#4usually three on a page, especially in 5 printed three full pages from a never-published Joe Kubert-drawn the ’40s and ’50s—so that panels weren’t sliced in two diagonally, as “Hawkman.” In it Hawkman’s and Hawkgirl’s distinctive headgear is Harrison had intended. (This second windfall included many 1950s and drawn with the truncated beaks and slimmer side wings it sported circa ’60s pages, as well; most of these had been published previously.) Flash #89-97; in #98 (Aug. 1948) those winged helmets were replaced by simple yellow cowls with red hawk sigils. Yet Flash lasted seven issues The above two actions alone are responsible for the survival of after #98 before being cancelled—so why weren’t the helmets in the literally hundreds of pieces of art from the 1940s through the 1960s, unpublished story simply redrawn as cowls and the story printed, rather which otherwise would have gone up in smoke during the Lyndon than new stories being drawn? (Unless the Hawks’ headgear was Johnson administration. In all probability, however, other pieces of this redrawn in all seven of the tales in Flash #98-104. But Kubert aficionado art had already been “liberated” from the DC office drawers from time Al Dellinges and I can find no evidence that it was.) to time, as well. Talk about waste! Anyway, once the bigwigs at the 1949 National/DC were certain they weren’t going to revive any of the above super-hero features in the foreseeable future, they “wrote off” the art. We don’t know how much if any of it was destroyed in late ’49 or thereabouts. Much if not most of it, however, languished in closets or drawers for years, all but forgotten. It was there, yet it wasn’t there—like the dead man in Yossarian’s tent in Joseph Heller’s classic novel Catch-22.

iii. From the Ashes... But there’s a bittersweet happy ending of sorts:

One of the greatest incentives for me to put together The All-Star Companion last year was to see printed in one place, for the first time ever in the world, more than a dozen pages’ worth of the forementioned “lost” JSA adventure, as a window on the Golden Age of Comics. However, except for the “Superman” still in Marv’s possession, we know of few unprinted complete stories out there. Not that Alter Ego would or could print whole tales intact even if we had them, but it would be interesting to know they exist. Many more stories, of course, survive in part and in pieces—even if only one or two panels’ worth. And several other unpublished tales, while far from complete, exist at least to the tune of several pages’ worth—including one particularly good one penciled by this issue’s cover star, none other than Carmine Infantino!

“The Garrick Curse!”

Part II “The Garrick Curse!” If certain aficionados and students of Golden Age comics are correct in their assumptions, and comic books—especially from the major publishers—were nearly always still making a profit when they were cancelled, then it’s hard to see why DC didn’t simply extend the life of some of its titles for a few more months to eat up paid-for inventory. A case in point: “The Garrick Curse!”—a late-1940s “Flash” story penciled by Carmine Infantino and inked by Bernard Sachs. This obviously fully written-and-drawn adventure was code-

scheduled to appear in Flash Comics #109, whose cover date would have been July 1949, but was “written off” later in the year in which the monthly was dropped. Certainly both art and story are up to snuff with most other material DC was publishing at that point. Although the rest of the doubtless 12-page story was apparently cut into thirds, for some reason the splash page was not mutilated. It was reproduced from the original art in Sotheby’s catalog for its auction of June 5, 1998:

An “Infantino and Sachs” credit box at lower left, the “Flash 109” and [Page] “1” designations at lower right, the panel borders, and the “Flash” logo (if it was in place) were all trimmed off in Sotheby’s catalog. Carmine’s inked signature, probably added at a later date, is clearly visible below Joan Williams’ feet. According to the catalog, “The ‘written off - 9/30/49’ stamp appears on the lower right hand side of the splash page.” Sotheby’s suggested

bidding range was “$1500-2500,” though we have no way of knowing for what sum the page was sold. This story was probably written either by John Broome or Robert Kanigher, who scripted most of the very late “Flash” stories for editor Julius Schwartz and his official superior, Whitney Ellsworth. And note the lettering of the caption, carefully done in perspective on the surface of the toppling book.

Written Off - 9-30-49

Since all of the known remaining art to this “lost” tale had been cut into 1/3-page rows, it had to be taped back together later. Fortunately, because DC numbered its pages, we can be certain that the three tiers below comprised the first story page. Note the “FL 109” notation at top. What looks like a “1” after it was probably part of the letter “A,” a

designation which appeared on Page 3, to indicate that this tale was tentatively scheduled to be the opening story in that particular issue of Flash Comics—which of course was never published (although the numbering of the magazine was continued by its successor, The Flash, in 1959).

Since someone who seems to be Alma Greene appears on the splash with Joan Williams, and judging from a simple perusal of the art and dialogue, what else could this be but the second page of “The Garrick Curse!”? In the manner of the usually straightforward Golden Age stories, all the principal characters are introduced on this first story page—Jay (The

Flash) Garrick; his girlfriend Joan Williams (who knows his secret identity), and new characters Alma Greene and Mr. Wilkinson. Jay is called a “famous scientist” by Wilkinson. Well, he was head of Garrick Research Laboratories, although he doesn’t seem necessarily a household word in other “Flash” stories.

“The Garrick Curse!” Even the third page of this story seems to have survived. Little time is wasted in character development or subtleties. Golden Age stories got right to the point—in this case, tying together the Garrick and Greene family trees in a potentially sinister way:

To some extent, this tale may have been the first faint stirrings of DC’s reaction to the horror comics trend that was just beginning to be birthed in magazines like Avon’s Eerie and ACG’s Adventures into the Unknown, both of which had featured debut issues by 1947-48. There would be “curse” stories in other DC series such as “Hawkman” during this period, as well. However, such tales went back even into the earlier ’40s, and in any event usually had a decidedly non-supernatural explanation in the end.

Written Off - 9-30-49 Surprisingly, we seem to have the very next panel/tier of the story, as well—what would have been the top of Page 4, judging by the apparent flow of continuity from Page 3. It, like the two preceding full pages, is marked with a hand-lettered “Flash 109” designation at the top.

The next row of panels is AWOL, though it doubtless showed Jay’s skillful driving managing to avoid the tree. The bottom of Page 4 exists, too, but it’s likely there was a panel in the missing middle row which placed Jay already back at his lab. Otherwise, there’s no way that a Golden Age DC story would have made a transition without a caption in the first of the two panels following:

“The Garrick Curse!” Is this the next tier in order, out of the ones we have? Joan arrives— and when Jay awakens, he says he recalls nothing “after the explosion” (a seeming reference to Page 4). Most likely, there’s a row of panels missing; since there’s no page number on this tier, this is probably the middle of Page 5.

A curiosity: It was rare for anyone to actually die in the course of a late-’40s DC comic... but we’ve no indication that Alma Greene somehow survived. Even so, though we see no more of her in this story, it’s possible that she was still alive, and that Joan had simply jumped to conclusions... despite Wilkinson’s comments a couple of pages further on.)

Below, as you’ll see, is almost certainly a tier from Page 6 or 7, in which Flash goes looking for Wilkinson and learns he’s behind Alma Greene’s presumed death. More, he realizes the whole thing has been a plot to blackmail Jay Garrick into turning over a chemical formula of his to Wilkinson:

The heraldry shields below are actually the only thing which strongly suggests that these panels come from “The Garrick Curse!” There’s no way at present to be 100% certain.

Written Off - 9-30-49 Here we seem to have all of Page 9, in which Wilkinson has captured The Flash, no doubt due to some fluke accident such as a bullet ricocheting and accidentally striking his helmet, or some such thing. One thing we can be certain of: The Flash didn’t just trip, or simply bump into an overhang and knock himself out! The hero’s dialogue in Panel 1 was apparently whited out and never replaced.

“The Garrick Curse!”

Clearly, in the panels of this 10th page, Flash finds a way to get out of the trap Wilkinson left him in. Most likely, based on Jay’s dialogue, in the preceding pair of panels he tosses the two deadly beakers into the air— then manages to free himself of his ropes and race out of the room, as the following caption says—

Most likely, two pages still remained of the story, although there were a few 13-pagers during this period. So what probably happened on them? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or even a “famous” one like Jay Garrick) to figure out that The Flash has deduced from Wilkinson’s taunting verbal clue that he was going to the Keystone City Building Observatory—and he doubtless captured the crooks there. The Observatory is probably considered (at least in this story) the highest spot in that fictitious city that, once Flash Comics bit the dust, would make its next appearance in 1961’s The Flash #123, which for the first time brought the Golden Age and Silver Age Flashes into the same story—penciled by the selfsame Carmine Infantino who penciled “The Garrick Curse!” It’s far from impossible that Infantino, too, drew not a single picture of the original Flash in between this particular “lost” story and “Flash of Two Worlds!” But then, there was only about a dozen years between the drawing of “Curse” and of Flash #123. In 1961 Carmine was still very much around—as were John Broome and Bob Kanigher, the authorial suspects on “Curse”—although the first two-Flashes adventure would be scripted by the Scarlet Speedster’s original writer/co-creator, Gardner Fox. The splash page of The Flash #123 (Sept. 1961), by Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella. Repro’d from photocopies of the original art, courtesy of Mike W. Barr. [©2001 DC Comics.]

Sometimes it must have seemed to The Flash as if he were running in circles...

Number 3a, August 2001 • Hype and hullabaloo from the publisher determined to bring new life to comics fandom • Edited by Eric Nolen-Weathington

DRAW! Draws Huge Response! It’s official—DRAW! is a hit! Seems everyone’s talking about the newest member of the TwoMorrows family, including the pros! We had several big-name artists come up to our booth at HeroesCon and tell us what a great mag it is. So if you haven’t checked it out, what are you waiting for? The first issue is flying out the door, and editor MIKE MANLEY has many more top-notch interviews and How-To demonstrations lined up for future issues. Coming in September, DRAW! #2 has a new cover by and interview with GENNDY TARTAKOVSKY, the man behind DEXTER’S LABORATORY and the upcoming SAMURAI JACK! Inking tips and tricks with KLAUS JANSON! Plus PHIL HESTER, BRET BLEVINS, STEVE CONLEY, reviews, links, & more! Each issue is (at least) 88 pages, and includes a COLOR SECTION! Get your subscription today!

Do You Have A Sense Of Wonder? This October, TwoMorrows Publishing is releasing SENSE OF WONDER, a new 224-page, $15.95 trade paperback by Bill Schelly (author of THE GOLDEN AGE OF COMIC FANDOM and other acclaimed books on comics history). In it, fandom’s leading historian recounts his strange-but-true encounters with STEVE DITKO, DR. FREDERIC WERTHAM, JIM SHOOTER, BOB KANE and others! It’s all here: The fans, the dealers, the comicons, and more, including a special introduction by Rascally ROY THOMAS! PAUL LEVITZ writes: “[SENSE OF WONDER is] charmingly nostalgic, intimate and heart-warming. Schelly’s trip through the wilderness years of fandom echoes what so many of us felt when we made a magic connection with other comics fans.” It’s profusely illustrated with over 150 photos and illustrations, including rare work by DICK GIORDANO, JOE SINNOTT, STEVE DITKO, NEAL ADAMS, MIKE KALUTA, WALLY WOOD, DOUG POTTER, DAVE COCKRUM, C. C. BECK, DON NEWTON, and a knock-out Captain America frontispiece by JACK KIRBY and MIKE ALLRED!

PROS & CONS! Thanks to everyone who came by our booth at HEROES CON—we had a great time! We also had a fabulous time at COMICON INTERNATIONAL: SAN DIEGO (July 19-22) where Sergio Aragonés’ STREETWISE story won the Eisner Award for “Best Short Story”! And we ended up going to WIZARD WORLD CHICAGO (August 17-19), after all! But while he wasn’t with us in sunny CA, look for a couple of new items by ROY THOMAS in your local comics shop: AVENGERS: THE ULTRON IMPERATIVE and JLA ELSEWORLDS: THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU! If you need to contact the TwoMorrows editors (or want to send a letter of comment), try e-mail! John Morrow, publisher, KIRBY COLLECTOR editor (and the one to go to with subscription problems): twomorrow@aol.com Jon B. Cooke, COMIC BOOK ARTIST editor: jonbcooke@aol.com Roy Thomas, ALTER EGO editor: roydann@oburg.net Brian Saner Lamken, COMICOLOGY editor: comicology@aol.com Mike Manley, DRAW! editor: mike@actionplanet.com And the TWOMORROWS WEB SITE (where you can read excerpts from our back issues, and order from our secure online store) is at: www.twomorrows.com To get periodic e-mail updates of what’s new from TwoMorrows Publishing, sign up for our mailing list! Go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/twomorrows

They Just Can’t Wait For The FF’s 40th! And neither can we! THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #33 is the one you demanded—the ALL-FANTASTIC FOUR issue! This tabloid-size tribute is scheduled for November to coincide with the FF’s 40th Anniversary, and we’re pulling out all the stops, including a new interview with STAN LEE, and 40 PAGES of Kirby FF pencils! If you haven’t tried our new size, this is the one you can’t miss! Editor JOHN MORROW proclaims this will be the ultimate issue of TJKC!

Kimota!... No... Shazam!... No, Both! This Sept. at TwoMorrows, lightning strikes not once, but twice, with two incredible new trade paperbacks: KIMOTA! THE MIRACLEMAN COMPANION and THE FAWCETT COMPANION! Miracleman is generating a lot of buzz on the Internet these days, and Gorgeous GEORGE KHOURY has uncovered all the behind-the-scenes secrets of the strip, from the character’s start as the British Marvelman, to the legal and creative hurdles during its 24-issue run at Eclipse Comics, and why you never saw that final NEIL GAIMANscripted issue! KIMOTA! THE MIRACLEMAN COMPANION! is a 128-page trade paperback chock-full of unpublished art, uninked pencils, and sketches by JOHN TOTLEBEN, BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH, MARK BUCKINGHAM, JIM LEE, & more! Not to mention in-depth interviews with MOORE, GAIMAN, TOTLEBEN, BUCKINGHAM, RICK VEITCH, & others! It sports a snazzy, new BUCKINGHAM cover as well as an introduction and back cover by ALEX ROSS! And if that’s not enough, it also includes a NEVER-PUBLISHED 8page MOORE/TOTLEBEN story, “Lux Brevis,” and an unused MOORE script! (A percentage of profits go to Miracleman artist John Totleben, who is battling the eye disease Retinitis Pigmentosa, so order it already!) And if you really want to get to Miracleman’s roots, check out THE FAWCETT COMPANION, featuring: A new painted cover by JERRY ORDWAY! An index of all Fawcett comics published from 1940-1953! Interviews and features on C.C. BECK, MARC SWAYZE, OTTO BINDER, & others! Rare and unpublished artwork by BECK, SWAYZE, KURT SCHAFFENBERGER, MAC RABOY, ALEX TOTH, GEORGE EVANS, ALEX ROSS, and more, and a foreword by SWAYZE! If you love the FCA sections in ALTER EGO, this is a must-have! SHA-MOTA! Miracleman is a shared TM of Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc. and Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham.

DHL Speeds Up Delivery Time! INTERNATIONAL SUBSCRIBERS, LISTEN UP! We know you guys have been taking it on the chin since postal rates went up in January, having to opt for slower Surface delivery. FEAR NOT! TwoMorrows has searched high and low for a remedy, and we found one! We’re now using DHL for overseas subscription delivery, so if you choose Surface shipping, you’ll receive your new issues within 2-4 weeks instead of upwards of 2 months—and all for the same price! But don’t worry, you can still choose Airmail if you just have to have it as soon as possible (and can afford it)!

™

Now 8 Times A Year!

Due to the amazing synergy that editor ROY THOMAS and new designer CHRIS DAY have achieved, ALTER EGO is moving from 4x to 8x a year! Of course, with its increased frequency comes a new price: An 8-issue sub to A/E is now $40 US, but we’ll accept 4-issue sub payments ($20 US) through the end of 2001. Can CBA be far behind in the circulation wars? Only time (and JON B. COOKE) will tell... COPYRIGHT NOTICES: Black Bolt, Medusa, Karnak, Black Panther ©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc. Mr. Monster ©2001 Michael T. Gilbert. Uncle Creepy, Cousin Eerie ©2001 Warren Publishing. Superman, Captain Marvel, Bulletman, Bulletgirl, Mary Marvel, Capt. Marvel Jr., Spy Smasher, Isis, Ibis ©2001 DC Comics. Samurai Jack ©2001 Cartoon Network.

TwoMorrows Sells Out! Of ALTER EGO #1 and the COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, VOLUME TWO, that is! You can’t say you didn’t have your chance, but now they’re gone—and the COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, VOLUME THREE isn’t far behind, either! Get it while it lasts!

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The Jack Kirby Collector #32 Mr. Monster Vol. Zero Alter Ego #9 Comic Book Artist #14 The Warren Companion (softcover) Warren Companion (hardcover) Prime8: Creation #1

DRAW! #2 (September) Fawcett Companion (September) KIMOTA! The Miracleman Companion (September) Alter Ego #10 (September) Comic Book Artist #15 (September) Sense of Wonder TPB (October)

Who Created The Silver Age Flash?

Who Created The Silver Age Flash? An Oral History in the Words of Robert Kanigher, Carmine Infantino, Joe Kubert, Julius Schwartz—and Robin Snyder ROBIN SNYDER [Summarizing in History of the Comics, Vol. 1, #13, Dec. 1990:]

Carmine Infantino penciled and inked the wraparound cover for the out-of-print 1991 hardcover The Greatest Flash Stories Ever Told, which included tales of both the Golden and Silver Age Flashes. Repro’d from the original art as seen in the Sotheby’s art auction catalog for June 18, 1994. [©2001 DC Comics.]

Compiled and Edited by Roy Thomas [EDITOR’S NOTE: Forget those interesting speculations concerning Captain Comet, Captain Flash, and The Manhunter from Mars. The Silver Age of Comics was born in July of 1956 when Showcase #4 went on sale, featuring two tales of a new/revived Flash written respectively by Robert Kanigher and John Broome, penciled by Carmine Infantino, inked by Joe Kubert, and edited by Julius Schwartz, technically under the direction of Whitney Ellsworth. Over the past decade, several of the above creators, beginning with Robert Kanigher, have gone on the record in Robin Snyder’s excellent monthly publication and “oral history” History of the Comics (now simply The Comics) concerning their memories of the origins of the Barry Allen Flash. [With the permission of all concerned, we have assembled those statements, plus a smattering of comments from other sources, to form a connected narrative. (We haven’t sought quotations by the late John Broome, as he was not involved in The Flash’s origin story.) It will come as no great surprise to any knowledgeable student of comic art—or of human nature—that in several key instances there are substantial disagreements between the parties involved. Our purpose is not to weigh in on the side of one creator or another in any disputed area—we are admirers of each of them—but merely to gather these statements in one place and let the reader make up his/her own mind... hopefully remembering that a fan, as readily as a pro, can be wrong. But first, let’s read what Robin Snyder had to say about the subject. It was his magazine, after all: ]

34 years ago, in Showcase #4, Sept.-Oct. 1956, Barry Allen/The Fastest Man Alive/The Flash first appeared, in a 12-page story, “Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt.” Today there’s a TV program bearing his name. Who is he? How did he come to be? Who created him? The publisher, DC Comics, has yet to give the creator or creators a byline as in the case of Superman and Batman. The producer of the TV series does not, either, though similar programs, from Batman to Tales from the Crypt, do carry such credits. Why the exception in the case of The Flash? Which standards are being used by the publishers and producers?

In my investigation of this puzzle, some have suggested the lack of creator credits is because the contemporary character is an updated and revised character. Yet the updated and revised Perry Mason movies are credited to the originator, Earle Stanley Gardner. In 1990 Batman bears little resemblance to the 1939 character created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, yet Kane rates a byline. (Why Finger’s name is omitted is for the publisher to answer.) The current version of Superman is nearly unrecognizable when placed beside the original, yet Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster are still credited with his creation. And so forth. The question of who created The Flash has been addressed. By Julie Schwartz, Robert Kanigher, and Carmine Infantino. In the beginning, Schwartz said, in The Flash #161, May 1966: “...Robert Kanigher (originator of The Flash in its Showcase tryout)...” A few years later, in The Comic Artist #1, May 1969, Infantino said, “Schwartz became editor, Kanigher—writer, and I, etc...”

Robert Kanigher, scripter of the Silver Age Flash’s origin. Photo courtesy of RK.

In 1975 Infantino said, “Julie called me in... We were going to re-do The Flash. Kanigher would write it. I would do the pencils, and Joe Kubert would ink it.” [The Amazing World of DC Comics, Vol. 2, No. 8, Sept.-Oct. 1975.] In The Comics Journal #85, Oct. 1983, Kanigher said, “I created the modern Flash. I wrote about him. I sat with him and listened to his hopes and despairs and dreams. He has my genes.” In 1986, in Ron Goulart’s Great History of Comic Books, Schwartz is quoted as saying: “I worked out a story with Bob Kanigher—new costume, new secret identity, new origin.”

Who Created The Silver Age Flash?

And in the History of the DC Universe, 1988, [Schwartz] had this to say: “The only thing he had in common with his predecessor was his speed. I wanted originality—and that became my watchword for everything I did: Be Original. I gave Barry (The Flash) Allen a new origin and an interesting cast of characters. The result was a runaway hit...” So. What have we learned? That Schwartz, Kanigher, Infantino, and Kubert worked on that first story; that Kanigher said he created the character; that Infantino said Schwartz was the editor, Kanigher the writer, and himself the penciler, and Kubert the inker; that Schwartz first said that Kanigher was the originator of The Flash and then that he “worked out” a story with Kanigher, and finally that he gave the hero “a new origin and interesting cast of characters.” And Schwartz was the editor. Does that make him the creator? If so, how? Kanigher was the writer. Did he bring the character into being? How? Infantino was the pencil artist. Did he originate The Flash or his costume or design his look based on the work of another? Kubert inked Infantino’s drawings. Is the inker a prime cause in the act of creation or a corollary?

CARMINE INFANTINO [Writing as “Cinfa” in History of the Comics, Vol. 1, No. 13, Dec. 1990:] Super-heroes had died off and we were stabbing at anything that might sell: romance, western, sci-fi... On one day I was delivering my work, Julie told me we were going to try The Flash. He said it was decided at an editorial meeting. He gave me a script by Kanigher. (I know Kanigher had a lot of input. It was in his style.) I was told to design a costume. I chose a stark bland one with lightning bolt accents. (Those belts would help in creating the speed effects for the character.) I always kept him slim, like a runner; wiry, too. Others bulked him up. Different strokes for different... The cover idea for the first issue was Kanigher’s—this I do remember. As the strip progressed, Julie kept after me to come up with something different. The multi-figure action sequences helped create the illusion of speed, and I later added the device of gesturing hands for decoration.

Finally, is The Flash the The three other gents behind Showcase #4’s Flash origin: [left to right, seated] Carmine Infantino, Julie Schwartz, and Joe Kubert—together again for one brief shining moment at same character as the one first the All Time Classic New York Comic Book Convention held in White Plains, NY, in June written and drawn by 2000. The guy leaning between Julie and Joe is Roy Thomas, who moderated the panel. Gardner Fox and Harry (Photo courtesy of convention entrepreneur Joe Petrilak.) Lampert in Flash Comics #1, Why Kanigher didn’t 1940? Or an updated version? continue on the strip, I don’t know. I don’t recall when Gardner came Or completely different but bearing the same name? aboard. Let’s find out. And, hopefully, finally recognize the creator of The Flash.

ROBERT KANIGHER

Lastly, Kanigher had a way with his scripts to make me stretch and grow. Thank you, Bobby.

[From History of the Comics, Vol. 1, #4, April 1990:]

[From History of the Comics, Vol. 2, #4, April 1991, as excerpted there by Robin Snyder from the various sources noted:]

One day, Mr. Schwartz asked me to write a new origin for The Flash. Gardner Fox had originated The Flash. He was, and in my mind would always be, the creator of The Flash. I merely reinvented The Flash. I wrote a completely finished script in every single detail, which he [Schwartz] gave to Carmine Infantino to draw. I am credited with creating the modern Flash. Flash Two. Never. I’m not like the scavengers of today who make up new origins for my Rex the Wonder Dog, my Ragman, my Black Canary, my Enemy Ace, etc. The minion is still is session.

The Flash was revitalized in Showcase in 1956. I went up to the office one day and Julie Schwartz said to me, “We want to try super-heroes again...” I thought they were dead and gone after they had fallen out of favor a few years earlier, but DC wanted to give them another shot, starting with a revamping of The Flash... I just went home and did the job from Bob Kanigher’s script and that was it. (“People at Work,” Direct Currents, ©1990 DC Comics.)

Flash forward: With the revision going on now turning genuine creatorship into entangled spaghetti to include people whose head is an empty balloon as far as creativity is concerned, I glanced at a copy of the first Flash 2, which was published as a re-invention. With a slight difference. Now I had as collaborators: Mr. Infantino, penciler; and Mr. Schwartz, editor, etc., etc., etc. [From History of the Comics, Vol. 1, #6, August 27, 1990:] [Gardner] Fox was a creator. A seminal figure. He created The Flash, etc. I invented Flash 2, the modern Flash. A world of difference.

And so we [Frank Giacoia and I] began our careers at National Periodicals [in the 1940s] and, more important, our working relationship with the genius of Shelly Mayer. During this period, he also fostered the careers of Joe Kubert and Alex Toth. This brilliant man molded, encouraged, indulged, and drew a talent from us that we never knew existed. I began with secondary features like “Johnny Thunder” (the one with the Magic Thunderbolt) and “The Ghost Patrol,” and graduated to one of the top bananas, the original “Flash.” In early 1956, during one of my weekly visits to Julie’s office—one he shared with writer-editor Bob Kanigher—I was informed that during one of their editorial meetings a decision was made to try super-heroes once again...

Who Created The Silver Age Flash?

39 come to mind at the moment). I really don’t know who (or how many) shared the writing chores during that time.

The Flash was the character selected to begin the revival, and I was offered the art assignment. The Flash seemed like an old friend; I was elated.

My next (and last) involvement with “The Flash” was when I was asked to ink Carmine’s pencils for Showcase #4. I had worked with Carmine before (on Jesse James and other features for different publishers) and we worked well together. His layouts, designs, and storytelling abilities were (and still are) the best. And we had a good understanding between the two of us: He was responsible for the pencils but, once they left his hands, it became my sole responsibility. So both of us felt quite free and uninhibited about the work and working together.

Bob Kanigher had developed a new version of the old Flash, and I was told to design a new character, a new costume, and sundry villains. Joe Kubert was to be the inker, and Julie, of course, would be the editor. I enjoyed the challenge of designing new approaches to the unusual visual sequences demanded for The Flash by the wonderful writing of Robert Kanigher, Gardner Fox, and John Broome. (from the “Foreword” to The Greatest Flash Stories Ever Told, ©1991 DC Comics.)

JOE KUBERT

Julie Schwartz was the editor—to my knowledge—and we (the artists) never discussed story and/or plot with the writer or editor. Plot and story were totally in the bailiwick of an editor and writer.

[From History of the Comics, Vol. 1, No. 13, Dec. 1999:] I must admit that my memory is quite hazy as to dates, issue numbers, etc., so please allow me some flexibility in terms of time. The first time I did the “Flash” character (pencil & inks) was around the time I also did “Hawkman.” I also did a number of covers (featuring both Hawkman and The Flash) to go with the stories I illustrated. That, I believe, was the late ’40s.

(Above:) One of the most celebrated “written off” stories is the third Flash/Rose & Thorn tale drawn by Joe Kubert (with script by Robert Kanigher). The complete story apparently now exists only in photostats, with the original art probably having been incinerated—yet it’s a story that seems never to have been sliced into thirds. This is Page 10. With thanks to Robin Snyder’s invaluable monthly publication, The Comics. (Below:) The comic that launched the Silver Age! Showcase #4 (1956)— cover by Carmine Infantino (pencils) and Joe Kubert (inks), from a layout by Robert Kanigher for editor Julie Schwartz. [©2001 DC Comics.]

I’m not certain who the writer was—it may have been Gardner Fox. The editor was Shelly Mayer. That was before these characters (and others) became part of the DC entourage, when M.C. Gaines sold his publications to DC. In the exchange that took place, it’s my understanding that Shelly was offered the job of editor-inchief, along with a munificent salary, both of which he gave up. Why? Because he wanted to draw—to be a cartoonist—just like the Scribbly character he created years before. Carmine Infantino and Frank Giacoia (penciler and inker) were also doing “The Flash,” along with several other regular strips (the names of which don’t

ROBERT KANIGHER [From History of the Comics, Vol. 2, #7, July 1991, “The Flushing of Flash”:]

Gardner Fox created The Flash, the fastest man in the world, in Flash Comics #1, 1940. No illustrator (penciler), inker, letterer, colorist, or editor whispered to him in the mysterious, labyrinthine maze of his brain what path he was to follow; like all creators, he did it alone. This was the Jay Garrick-Flash of the Golden Age. I arrived at DC by a meandering route, never having read comics (although I found The Golden Ass by Apuleus very comical; as were Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, the pornographic “Tiller the Toiler” and “Jiggs and Maggie” (furtively sold in Times Square in soiled little mini-comics by soiled little men), Fanny Hill, Villon’s Ballad to Fat Margot (written when he was in jail)... but comics? No. Sue me. I was uneducated.

Who Created The Silver Age Flash?

Although Fox, Bill Finger, John Broome, etc., were reliable writers at DC in 1956, Julius Schwartz asked me to write a new origin for a new Flash. It was easy... I hadn’t read or seen any of Fox’s “Flash.” I wrote a handful in the 1940s, illustrated by Joe Kubert, Lee Elias, and others. Just wrote them. Come 1956 and all I needed to know about the new assignment was that he was the fastest man alive. I left the rest to my inner self. What name to give the new Flash? I was too impatient to waste time to think up one. You really can get hung up on the simplest things. My task was to bring him alive. What could be more natural than to call him Flash, and pretend that he was inspired by an old comic? And Jay Garrick was changed into Barry Allen, who was the new Flash. The Flash’s ring was sheer plagiarism. When I was a pre-teen or almost a teenager, I used to sit on the steps of a tenement house at Washington Ave. and about 179th Street, with a rabbi’s son, who was an aspiring pulp writer. He told me about a character running in a pulp. Called the Crimson Clown, I believe. When he wanted to switch from his civvies, he pressed a spring on a ring on his finger. The clown costume erupted out and expanded to life-size. So, many years later, I stole that gimmick. You can’t sue me. The statute of limitations has run out. How to give Barry his super-powers? I used comics’ hallucinatory idea of reality. I made him a police scientist, since I had worked for the P.A.L. for several years, and blew him up in a chemical explosion. In real life he would have been scraped off the walls. In comics, his atomic structure was rearranged. And he became the fastest man in the world. Naturally, he was always late in civilian life, exasperating his girl friend. He had to have a girl friend, didn’t he? He had to be late, didn’t he? I have been asked why I wrote so few “Flash” stories. Irv Novick and I live near each other. We met half way between our houses. He gave me his artwork. I brought it to Schwartz. To save time for Schwartz having to wait for Novick to bring it in. Whenever I asked Schwartz how things

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were—instead of thanking me for the favor—he crudely answered: “Don’t bother me. I’m too busy.” One day I was plotting with Dorothy Woolfolk. Schwartz burst in. “Where’s Novick’s artwork?” “Novick is your problem,” I said quietly. He rushed out. By the next day I learned I had touched a nerve somewhere. Because he had called Cary Bates and given The Flash to him. [Excerpted from the RK article “The Showcase Solution” in The Comics, Vol. 9, #4, April 1998:] For years Julie Schwartz has been thumbholing people, telling them that he created ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt’ featuring the new Flash which appeared in Showcase #4. In one article he managed to describe that cosmic event and how he did it without reference to the names of the writer or artist. He impressed [Gerard] Jones and [Will] Jacobs to the extent that in The Comic Book Heroes, 2nd edition, Prime, 1997, they report, “Schwartz gave the new Flash’s ‘origin’ story to Robert Kanigher.” In that same volume Schwartz recalls, “Someone, some unknown inspirational genius, suggested we bring back the Flash.” In The Flash Archives, Vol. 1, 1996, Paul Kupperberg, in his Foreword, quotes Julie: “Someone suggested, and I really don’t know who it was, that we should bring back the Flash.” Jack Schiff, in an early issue of The Comics, claimed credit for the creation of Showcase. With little mention of how he accomplished that feat. No Phyllis Reed, no George Kashdan, was present at an ordinary editorial conference. Whit Ellsworth may have helmed it. (Irwin Donenfeld has gotten some mileage for himself as Editor-in-chief. His editorial activities are pure fiction.) Present at that first meeting and many thereafter were Jack Schiff, Mort Weisinger, Murray Boltinoff, Julius Schwartz, possibly Larry Nadle, and RK. The latter said, “How about showcasing a brand new character every month? The readers will grow wild not knowing what to expect. There are five editors here. Five

Who Created The Silver Age Flash? into 12 months is 2+. All each has to do is come up with only two characters per year. It will be easy. Sooner or later one or more is bound to hit and we’ll have new books. A showcase. The title is already there.” Mort, the man with the Midas touch, edited the fizzled “Fireman Farrell.” RK created, wrote, and edited “Kings of the Wild.” No movement. The follow-up was “The Frogmen”... again created, written, and edited by RK. Movement upward. Back to the editorial conference Schwartz mentioned. Ellsworth, maybe. Mort, Jack, Murray, perhaps Larry, Julie, and RK. Pick out the one Julie won’t name who came up with the idea for “The Flash.” The story changed from there, reaching ridiculous proportions, until resolved in the pages of The Comics (July 1991) in RK’s “The Flushing of Flash.” But, in the years since, there has been some confusion, once again, as to who did what. And by 1995, in DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World’s Favorite Comic Book Heroes by Les Daniels, Julie suddenly remembered who created The Flash, “...no question, but we plotted to a certain extent.” So Schwartz did handle Showcase #4. That is: RK produced the finished script (as per “The Flushing of Flash”) and designed the legendary cover (according to Carmine Infantino in “Infantino,” an interview in The Comics Journal, Nov. 1996: “Bob handed me the script, and even laid out the first cover. He did a rough drawing of it; I’ll never forget it. Then he sat with me and asked, ‘If there’s anything in the script that you don’t quite understand, ask me.’ And we went over it quite a bit.”

At this point, Schwartz says, someone observed that it had been approximately five years since Flash Comics had been cancelled with #104: There was “an entirely new audience out there, because it was generally accepted back then that kids only read comics for maybe, tops, five years.” So, to see if the Fastest Man Alive had anything to say to a new generation of readers, “Donenfeld thought we should go with Flash... I had been the last editor of the original Flash, so everybody looked at me.” When he learned that the deadline was very short, Schwartz says, “I immediately went back to my office, which I shared with fellow editor Robert Kanigher, and said let’s get to work.” He knew he could depend upon Kanigher to deliver the script in a couple of days, at most. Schwartz says he insisted that “the new Flash would have no relation to the original except the name. Everything else would be different. Everything... including and above all, his origin.” Since lightning is “the fastest thing that we know of,” he says “we decided to tie the super-speed origin in with lightning,” and so the chemical lab accident was born, as was the police scientist identity. “By the way,” JS says, “the name of the new Flash’s secret identity, Barry Allen, came from two show-business personalities I was very fond of in those days”... radio talk-show host Barry Gray and humorist Steve Allen.

Since a cover was needed even before the stories were drawn, Schwartz says, he called Carmine Infantino into the office and “Carmine came up with the idea, the now-famous cover of Flash speeding through frames of film,” as well as the design of the new Flash’s costume. “Without question, So Carmine drew the first story A rough pencil sketch of The Flash by Infantino, from The History of Comics, Carmine really was the artist best and designed the unique costume, reprinted by permission of the artist and Robin Snyder. For info on how to suited to pencil the revival. His receive Robin’s informative monthly “oral history” of comic books, now titled bringing to life the character skill at drawing speedlines gave the simply The Comics, see the Creig Flessel-drawn ad elsewhere in this issue. which, it is said, heralded a fresh impression that Flash was really [Art ©2001 Carmine Infantino; Flash ©2001 DC Comics.] direction for comics. moving!” Several other “Flash” stories came and went by the same writer and No one seems to know how Joe Kubert, who rarely worked for artist. editor Schwartz, became the inker of Showcase #4. He may simply have been in the right place at the right time, Schwartz conjectures. “The Frogmen” resurfaced as “Sea Devils,” solidly drawn by Russ Heath, created, written, and edited by RK. John Broome, whom Schwartz has often called “my best friend, as well as one of my favorite writers to work with,” was added to the initial Living in his own world, with a full editorial and social schedule, his issue-team of Kanigher, Infantino, and Kubert, doing the second story in eyes were on a different horizon. He barely noticed the issues of the two-tale issue. Showcase as they came...

JULIUS SCHWARTZ [From The Flash Archives, Vol. 1, 1996, quoted in Paul Kupperberg’s introduction as statements made by Julius Schwartz in 1996— paraphrased here by Alter Ego’s editor with a few direct quotes from material ©2001 DC Comics:] Julie Schwartz, speaking of what Paul Kupperberg calls “that fateful editorial conference” in 1955 (is he 100% certain it was ’55, and not early ’56?), is quoted as saying: “So there we were, sitting around at our monthly meeting. Irwin Donenfeld was in charge,” as they sat trying to decide new feature to introduce in Showcase #4. “Someone suggested, and I really don’t know who it was, that maybe we should bring back the Flash. Someone else objected, saying that the Flash had failed once. Why bring back a character that had failed?”

After Kupperberg asks, no doubt rhetorically, if Showcase #4 was “part of some brilliant scheme to revive the comic book marketplace’s interest in super-heroes,” to which Julie Schwartz replies: “Absolutely not! We had no idea we’d ever bring back super-heroes. We had moved on to other concepts—the Westerns, funny animals, romance, along with celebrated movie and television characters. We did Jackie Gleason, Bob Hope, Martin & Lewis, Pat Boone, Dobie Gillis.” And, beginning in 1956—The Flash! [NOTE: All quotations from Robin Snyder’s History of the Comics/ The Comics are ©2001 by the person who made the statement. Julius Schwartz’ comments quoted by Paul Kupperberg are ©2001 DC Comics.]

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Title Comic Fandom Archive

“What s So Great About Comic Art ?” fanfare, ado, or folderol, here’s an issue-by-issue stroll through the pages of Comic Art!

by Bill Schelly [In Alter Ego V3#9 we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the publication of Alter-Ego #1 (then hyphenated) back in March 1961 by showcasing a San Diego 2000 panel discussion by seven fans who were active in fandom’s Golden Age—the 1960s. One of the key members of that blue-ribbon panel was Maggie Thompson, who with her late husband Don edited and published a fanzine that appeared at roughly the same time as A-E #1, but with a very different tenor and mission. That fanzine was Comic Art. [We couldn’t let this year pass without observing the 40th anniversary of CA, looking back on the origins and highlights of that landmark publication. For, just as A/E was a vehicle for the interests of mostly-super-hero comics fans, many of whom had been comics readers in the 1940s, so Comic Art was a vehicle for the mostly-science-fiction fans who also enjoyed comic books and strips, and who comprised a major tributary into the river that became known as comics fandom—a separate and distinct phenomenon from science-fiction fandom. —Bill.]

COMIC ART #1 (April 1961)

Don and Maggie Thompson pose as if running off a fanzine page on their mimeograph in their apartment in Oberlin, Ohio. Astute readers will note that the protective cover is on the mimeo drum, rather than a stencil. The cover of Comic Art #1 was printed in the previous issue of Alter Ego, so below is the one for #2. [Photo courtesy of Maggie Thompson; Krazy Kat ©2001 the respective copyright holder.]

At a recent Seattle comicon, while discussing the fanzines of the 1960s, I found myself pausing for a moment when one cheeky fellow—no fresh-faced youth, either—posed the question, “What’s so great about Comic Art?” I paused because, while I could easily toss an answer back at him—and did—I suddenly realized I wasn’t as familiar with the contents of Comic Art as I was with other vintage favorites such as Fantasy Illustrated, Batmania, Star-Studded Comics, or Alter Ego. I hadn’t thoroughly revisited CA’s seven issues since reading them when I initially added them to the Comic Fandom Archive almost a decade ago. On returning home, I retrieved my copies of CA from the archive, and spent the remainder of a languorous Sunday re-reading them cover-tocover. When I was done, I was seized with the urge to phone that questioning fan and regale him with my refreshed knowledge. But unfortunately… frustratingly… I didn’t remember his name. Then an even better idea occurred to me: I would share what I had learned with fandom in general through A/E. As it turned out, that plan neatly dovetailed with Roy’s own desire to recognize the anniversary of Don and Maggie’s venerable publication. Therefore, without further

The first thing that struck me about CA #1 was its slim stature: It runs a mere sixteen pages. Though Don and Maggie had sent out their single-sheet Harbinger #1 around the end of 1960, announcing their intention to publish an all-comics fanzine (something that had heretofore been done mainly in admiration of EC comics), they obviously hadn’t been inundated with contributions. Yet that modest first issue served to give concrete form to their vision, and offered two important features, plus an editorial that re-stated the clarion call of Harbinger.

This issue, like all that followed, was printed via high-quality mimeograph in black ink on nice paper (not to be confused with ditto or spirit duplication, which prints mainly in purple.) Later issues would sometimes include a lithographed page, but only when absolutely necessary for art reproduction.

In their editorial, “The Word,” Don and Maggie wrote, “This is not meant in any way to be a science-fiction fanzine— although the bulk of the circulation will be among SF fans because most of our friends are fans. It is to be a comic art fanzine. Comic art, for our purposes, covers a wide field. Besides comic books and comic strips, it includes movie and TV cartoons, gag and spot and political cartoons, and the Big and Better Little Books of years ago. Subject matter ranges from horror and adventure to satire and gentle humor. This fanzine is not meant for kids, but for adults who appreciate, admire, or produce comic art.” At once, it was clear that Comic Art cast its net widely. At the 1960 Worldcon over Labor Day weekend in Pittsburgh, Don and Maggie and fellow fan Hal Lynch had not seen the copies of Xero #1 that Dick and Pat Lupoff were handing out free there, and which contained the first installment of “And All in Color for a Dime,” devoted to The Marvel Family. But they had attended the masquerade and admired the Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel costumes sported by the Lupoffs; and that spark, coupled with their own interest, had set them talking about

Comics Fandom Archive

forming a fandom just for comics fans. Thus it’s particularly fitting that the major contributor to Comic Art #1 was Xero editor Dick Lupoff, who speculated on the emergence of latent interest in comics. “Re-birth” is an article of inestimable value to anyone interested in the history of fandom. In its five pages Lupoff recounts step-by-step how he and his wife came to publish an sf fanzine, how that first issue included his “Big Red Cheese” article, how From CA #2, one of Maggie (then Curtis)’s cartoons of they attended that masquerade in those bright herself and near-future husband Don—juxtaposed with a red costumes, and how the reception the photo of Maggie and Dick & Pat Lupoff using the latter’s fanzine and their homemade outfits received fireplace as a spot to staple copies of Comic Art prior to seemed to precipitate or catalyze the interest in taking them to a New York City convention for distribution. [Art ©2001 Maggie Thompson; photo by Don Thompson.] comics. Lupoff wrote, “During this same general time-frame a number of fans have indicated a strong interest in comics and comics-oriented activity, ranging from the efforts of Tom Condit and Martha Atkins to form a Marvel Family Revival Association to Hal Lynch, Maggie Curtis, and Don Thompson’s efforts to start a general comics fandom, to simultaneous moves by Ted White and Don Thompson to publish comics fanzines.” Dick also put his finger on one of the most critical reasons why a comics fandom movement was so necessary: to preserve the history of the medium before it was lost forever. It seemed to Lupoff (and he wasn’t the only one, especially among those not cognizant of the DC hero revivals) that comics in 1961 were in a very bad way, perhaps even on the verge of extinction. Like the dime novels and pulps before them, it was possible comics had reached the end of their natural life span. Yet there was nothing—apart from the ridiculous Seduction of the Innocent—written about comic books, and precious little about comic strips. Lupoff asserted that the time had come when it was vital to do something about that lack. He concluded, “Yes, I enjoy old comics, but it’s a lot more than that. I care about old comics. Old comics matter— they count. And anyone planning projects to save them can count on me.” Don and Maggie responded to Lupoff’s semi-challenge in “Re-birth” by announcing their intention to produce a bibliography of the work of Walt Kelly, and a list of the Dell Four Color series which had had a different feature in each issue.

Thus were established the three themes that would dominate future issues of Comic Art: discussions of the inherent value of comics as a popular culture medium (with the debate becoming quite heated); research into the medium’s past with still-living creators; and the forwarding of plans to accumulate information on the field that would eventually catalog every comic book ever published. All these pursuits would be conducted in a noticeably more adult context than in many of the comics fanzines that would follow, primarily (though not entirely) because CA emerged from the ranks of mainly adult science-fiction fans. The other important feature of CA #1 was a printing of the entire Code of the Comics Magazine Association of America, Inc—i.e., the Comics Code—something most comic book fans had never actually read. It raised more than a few eyebrows, particularly in the amount of latitude it gave the censors. Oh, and one more thing: The issue sported a cover combining characters from Crockett Johnson’s Barnaby strip with caricatures of Don and Maggie themselves, showing that Maggie possessed a notinconsiderable cartooning talent, which would come more into evidence in later issues. Certainly the caricatures of herself and Don—reading comics, toasting a new success, overseeing the activities of their burgeoning family of pets and children—are one of the most charming aspects of the fanzine’s seven issues.

COMIC ART #2 (August/September 1961) Behind its neatly stencilled cover featuring George Herriman and characters from Krazy Kat, CA #2 offered a few more pages than #1 (20 compared to 16), but was still clearly in its developmental stages. Aside from the beginnings of what would be one of the most interesting letter columns of any comics zine (“Oh, So?”—a title derived from Donald Duck’s favorite expression), with missives from Carl Barks and Harvey Kurtzman, no less, this issue, too, is comprised basically of two articles: one on costumed- vs. super-heroes by Lupoff, and the other (much the more interesting) by Robert “Buck” Coulson opining on the value of comic books.

“A Glance at Comic Books, or: All Is Duller for a Time” by Coulson, partly a response to “Re-birth” in CA #1, is clearly— even playfully—intended to garner a strong response from the readership. The two-page piece begins, “At first glance, a reason for disliking comics would seem to be obvious. They’re literary trash. But a closer look reveals flaws in the idea. Comic books are trash, of course; that at least is open to no question. But, as regards my disliking them, I have the uncomfortable recollection that Planet Stories was trash, and I liked that, so

“What’s So Great About Comic Art ?” mere lack of literary merit cannot be my reason for refusing houseroom to comic books.” Instead, he states that he dislikes comics because “they are intended for children (or mentally retarded adults)” as well as because of “their complete lack of subtlety.” Buck magnanimously concludes: “I really don’t object to older people recalling [comic books] with nostalgia; I’m just curious as to why nobody seems to recall the ‘Dick and Jane’ primers with similar nostalgia. Certainly they are on the same literary level.” Now the battle was truly joined! Coulson’s incendiary volley ensured that the debate between comics’ defenders and detractors would create fireworks in and out of “Oh, So?” for the remainder of CA’s life.

thusly: “[Comic books] came in the Thirties, their golden age was in the Forties.” This may well have been the first usage of the term “the golden age” (not yet capitalized, but it soon would be); in Alter Ego, Jerry Bails was using the term “the First Heroic Age” to refer to comics of the ’40s. Anyway, Beach’s list (his “Hall of Fame” so to speak) is interesting and worth listing, as follows: Siegel and Shuster, Simon and Kirby, Bob Kane, C. C. Beck, Charles Biro, Gardner F. Fox, Carl Barks, Will Eisner, Charles Moulton, and Fred Guardineer. Not a bad list, though one could easily argue for the substitution of Lou Fine, Alex Schomburg, or others for one or two on that honor roll. Bhob Stewart drew this cartoon with the original Biro/Gleason Daredevil in #3—the first of two “belt jokes” to appear in Comic Art. [©2001 Bhob Stewart.]

How did Carl Barks come to write a letter of comment to Don and Maggie? In their response to his brief note, Don quoted from his initial letter to the writer/artist: “Maggie wrote to Dell and asked for the name and address of the man who drew the Donald Duck stories in Walt Disney’s Comics and the Uncle Scrooge stories in Uncle Scrooge comics. They sent us your name and address, and we’re sending you Comic Art as long as you can stand it. Note the title of this letter column for an indication of the influence you have had upon us.”

COMIC ART #3 (Spring 1962) One can’t help but notice the big difference between the second and third issues: The page count nearly doubled, going from 20 to 38! Now there was room for a number of fairly weighty features, and no lack of worthwhile items presented themselves. It seems that the flow of contributions had well and truly been inspired by the appearance of two bona fide issues—that, and the fact that some seven months elapsed before #3 finally appeared. In any case, one can say with #3 that Comic Art had “arrived.” A quick survey of the contents page gives evidence of considerable variety: “The Naming of Ignatz” by Ed Wheelan (an amazing firsthand account); “A Study in Scarlet” by Dick Lupoff (on Fawcett’s Mr. Scarlet and Pinky); “Sam’s Strip” by Don Thompson (the cover feature); “An Index to All-Star Comics” by Charles N. Reinsel; “The Top Ten of The Golden Era” by Herb Beach; and “Muddy Thinking in Supermanland” by Harlan Ellison. How’s that for a line-up to conjure with?!

Herb Beach’s listing of the top creator or creative teams of the “Golden Era” picked up on a term introduced in Lupoff’s “Re-birth”

Harlan Ellison’s article attacked the “appalling poverty of imagination evinced in almost every issue of every DC comic”—with the exception of the Hawkman revival in The Brave and the Bold, which he mightily applauds—and states, “This, then is the warning: if DC persists in this lunacy—i.e., the effeminization of basically male-oriented characters and strips, the ephemeral and transitory use of creatures, the illogical structuring of plots that demand coherence and sensitivity to permit the suspension of disbelief in super-powered heroes, the cross-pollination of heroes and villains from one strip to another—the bloom will wear off the rose.” Certainly Ellison was not alone in decrying the shortcomings of many of the comics of 1962.

Comic Art #3 saw the expansion of the editorial “The Word” into a four-page compendium of news, fanzine plugs, gossip, and, this time around, the marriage announcement of Don Thompson and Maggie Curtis: “Anyone who happens to be in Meadville [Pennsylvania] at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 23, is welcome to drop in at the Episcopal Church and observe the ceremony.”

COMIC ART #4 (December 1962) The Thompsons were always most obliging about publishing their print runs, which nicely document their ability to generate copies, if not the actual demand for the fanzine (which always seemed to exceed the supply). CA #1 initially had a print run of 75 copies, which quickly ran short of demand; more were printed some time later. The same thing

Comics Fandom Archive happened with #2, which had begun with a run of 125 copies. The circulation of #3 had swelled to 200 copies, which is not a lot by the standards later in the decade, but quite high considering this was only a year after its first issue. Further documentation reveals that the print runs for subsequent issues were as follows: #4, 250 copies; #5, 425 copies; #6, 500 copies; and #7, 450 copies.

CA #4 introduced three new elements to The cover of #4 featured the zine’s first photo— the publication: first, of artist/writer Ed Wheelan. [©2001 Maggie Thompson; the photo-offset Ed Wheelan art ©2001 the respective copyright holder.] cover (dedicated to Ed Wheelan’s Minute Movies, including a photograph of Wheelan); second, the first really lengthy (20 pages) article in CA (on the cover-featured strip) by Hal Lynch and Vernell Coriell; third, the debut of Steve Stiles’ cartoons to the pages of CA, which would become a real “plus” for the fanzine. These gags are both well-designed and funny, hitting the mark nearly all the time—some of the best cartoons about comic book characters ever. Stiles contributed seven to #4, and a like number to the upcoming issues. In fact, the overall appearance of Comic Art is noticeably improved this time. Maggie’s handling of the mimeo stylus has reached something like mastery, and almost every column and feature is accompanied by attractive visuals. Rounding out the issue are Ron Goulart’s article on James Swinnerton, Jerry de Fuccio’s “MADmen” profile on Sergio Aragonés, Paul Seydor’s response to Harlan Ellison’s “Muddy Thinking” article, and “Oh, So?” with letters from Carl Barks, Dick Lupoff, Ted White, Bob Jennings, and others.

fanzines with mailing lists approaching or surpassing ours. Please. We simply can not afford it; the cost-andwork load is too much. Money does not and can not pay us for publishing [Comic Art].” With #5 Maggie broke out into her own editorial space, following “The Word” with her column “And…” which offered her own thoughts, plugs, and commentary. Some fans probably felt CA was mainly the work of Don, since he took the lead spot editorially, but in reality the fanzine was always a 50-50 effort. Now she took the step of visibly staking out her editorial presence in print.

CA #5 was another highly provocative, superb issue. The fanzine had now reached its full potential, presenting contributions from the most erudite fans, disseminating information about mentions of comics in mass media, presenting what amounted to additional chapters in “All in Color for a Dime,” discussing the past, present, and potential of the comic art medium, and punctuating it all with cartoons in a way that, for lack of a better comparison, made CA something of a New Yorker of comicdom. Behind a cover by George Metzger came an article on Dr. Mid-Nite by Steve Perrin (“He Who Walked The Night”), a column about EC fandom by Ted White (“Forgotten Worlds”), two reports on the 1964 New York comicon by Dick Lupoff and Larry Ivie (one of the main sources of information on this event for my book The Golden Age of Comic Fandom), and a kind of climactic orgy of opinion about the value of comics in a long collection of letters under the heading “The Final Mud-Fling,” with contributions from well-known fans Richard Kyle, Ron Haydock, Bhob Stewart, Raymond Miller, Richard West, Bill Thailing, Rick Norwood, and others. It’s a fascinating exchange of ideas and differing points of view, which finally reach a kind of consensus that the comics medium itself has the potential to appeal to adults, even if it hasn’t very often in the past.

COMIC ART #5 (October 1964)

COMIC ART #6 (July 1966)

The sharp-eyed reader will notice the very long time between the publication of #4 and #5. This was due to the newspaper strike at The Cleveland Press, where Don worked as a financial reporter. He wrote, “The last issue of CA came out just as Cleveland’s record-breaking 129-day newspaper strike began. By the time it was over, we had virtually no money at all, let alone enough to fritter away on expensive hobbies such as publishing an amateur magazine for comic art fans. So, it’s been a while….”

Another long gap in publication occurred between this issue and the previous one, this time because Don and Maggie had stepped forward to helm comics apa (amateur press alliance) Capaalpha when Jerry Bails unexpectedly withdrew as central mailer.

In “The Word” Don made a special request: “Our circulation… is already too big. Please do not aid it to grow larger. We most emphatically do not want any plugs in large circulation magazines—comic books, monster magazines or

CA #6 was a mixed bag of various types of features: a pseudo-interview, a discussion of an artist’s wide-ranging influence on the medium, another profile of a MAD-man, fan satire/fiction, and the usual long editorials and letter column. The most unusual item was the photo-offset cover, this time by the venerable Ed Wheelan, who passed away before it could see print. A contents page illo by popular fan-artist Ronn Foss. [Art ©2001 Ronn Foss; Captain Marvel ©2001 DC Comics.]

From the pages of Capa-alpha came the

“What’s So Great About Comic Art ?” fanzine’s only contribution by Roy Thomas. In “Newsweek Meets Alter Ego” he wrote “an imaginary tale” wherein Newsweek interviewed the editor of A/E as a follow-up to its February 1965 article “Superfans and Batmaniacs,” which had brought comics fandom to national attention. Ron Goulart explored “The Caniff School,” tracing the pervasive influence of Milton Caniff’s artwork and storytelling on a whole generation of comics artists. He focused mainly on Bert Christman, Alfred Andriola, Ken Ernst, Mel Graff, and Ed Wheelan’s cover for Comic Art #6. Frank Robbins. In the end [©2001 the estate of Ed Wheelan.] there were so many that he couldn’t discuss each one separately, but was forced to end with a list of “plus others such as Alex Toth, Lee Elias….” Just too many to cover in the five allotted pages. More and more, the highlight of the issue seemed to be the letter column. Some of the new names this time are John Benson, Jim Harmon, Curt Swan, Russ Manning, Jim Jones, Phil Seuling, and Landon Chesney—and those are in addition to the usual suspects. Again the main topic at hand is whether or not adults can legitimately enjoy comic books. With the possible exception of Xero, this discussion could have occurred in no other fanzine, not only because of the caliber of the respondents, but because of the number of outspoken sf fans who happily threw fuel on the fire by playing devil’s advocate to the hardcore comics fans. This may well be the topic that most defines Comic Art, which is certainly logical, since it existed at the nexus of the two fandoms.

time), plus a brief Barks bibliography. One is struck, more than anything in the interview, with Barks’ humility, as well as his amazement that his past work— thought to be enjoyed and then forgotten by past generations of children—was now the object of study and admiration by adults. The section on Carl Barks encompasses over 40 pages. The rest of the issue, apart from editorial matter and letters and a couple of inconsequential miniarticles, consists of a fiction piece by Harlan Ellison called “Five Dooms To Save Tomorrow.” This was originally a synopsis for a Don and Carl Barks pose with the comic book story (obviously for Hawkman) that had been rejected Thompson children, nine-year-old Valerie and four-year-old Stephen in 1976. by DC as “too adult,” and so saw [Photo by Maggie Thompson.] print in CA with only a few name changes. It is accompanied by two uncharacteristically serious illustrations by Steve Stiles. (With Ellison’s permission, Roy Thomas later adapted it with artist Rich Buckler in The Avengers #101, July 1972; it was recently reprinted in a Marvel trade paperback.)

That’s all, folks. Comic Art ended… not with a “bang” but with a “whimper.” Well, maybe not even a whimper; basically, CA got lost in the limbo of “maybe some day we’ll do another issue”… but, by then, a little newsletter by the name of Newfangles had come along from the Thompsons. Actually, Newfangles had begun in March 1967; by October 1968 it had become a mainstay in fandom—and one that was probably a lot more fun to produce than a humongous magazine. “What’s so great about Comic Art?” Well, now that you know what was in it—do you really need to ask?

COMIC ART #7 (October 1968)

NEXT ISSUE: Don and Maggie tell their whole story in their own words, in a lengthy (and heretofore unpublished) interview conducted by Bill Schelly and Jeff Gelb at the 1992 San Diego Comicon.

Despite Maggie’s assurance in the editorial that “there will be a next issue”… there wasn’t. CA #7 was the last, and it was also the fattest, coming in at a whopping 76 pages. Maybe that had something to do with it, just as it did with the Lupoffs’ decision to discontinue Xero; the enterprise had become too successful, too elaborate, and too unwieldy for its own good. The gaps between issues were certainly due to other causes (house-hunting and childbirth, for example), but there’s no doubt that increased expectations placed a burden on the Thompsons that was getting difficult to manage. (Imagine for a moment collating and stapling 450 copies of that monster!) At any rate, Comic Art #7 can lay reasonable claim to being their best issue of all, headlining as it does a wonderful interview with Carl Barks by Malcolm Willits, and the lengthy “Lord of Quackly Hall” by funny animal enthusiast Mike Barrier (who would launch his long-running fanzine Funnyworld around this

We featured the cover of CA #7 last issue, so here’s the cartoon Carl Barks did for that issue, only a few years before he achieved deserved mega-stardom and financial rewards at last with a series of Duck paintings, first announced in Don and Maggie’s Newfangles. [©2001 the estate of Carl Barks.]

Note: Richard Lupoff’s seminal article “Re-birth” from Comic Art #1 is just one of many great (and historically important) articles reprinted in Hamster Press’ forthcoming book Fandom Collector’s Item Classics. This book also reprints a “lost” chapter of the series “All in Color for a Dime” (i.e., it didn’t appear in the Arlington House book)—“The Education of Victor Fox” by Richard Kyle. Fandom Collector’s Item Classics ships this fall, and can be purchased for $19.95 in check or money order from Hamster Press, PO Box 27471, Seattle, WA 98125. You should also still be able to order a copy through your local comic store, or from Bud Plant Comic Art.

A/E Cover Gallery

Happy Anniversary To Us! Spring of 2001 saw the 40th anniversary of both Comic Art—and Alter Ego, which started out its hyphenated life in a dead heat with Don and Maggie Thompson’s fanzine as the flagships of comics fandom. Issues #1-4 were edited/published by Jerry Bails, with Roy Thomas as “co-editor”; #5-6 were the handiwork of Ronn Foss; #7-10 were produced by Roy Thomas (with Biljo White as art director of #7-9); and #11 was published by Mike Friedrich and co-edited by MF and RT.

Before 2001 turns into history just as 1984 did before it, we wanted to re-present the nigh-dozen covers of A/E, Vol. 1. To learn more about those halcyon days, see the 160-page Alter Ego: The Best of the Legendary Comics Fanzine, still just barely available from Bill Schelly’s Hamster Press. See ad on page 15 of this section.

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Vol. 3, No. 10 / September 2001 ™

Editor Roy Thomas

Associate Editor Bill Schelly

Design & Layout Christopher Day

Consulting Editors John Morrow Jon B. Cooke

FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck

ME FCA TO O! Section

Comics Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

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

Cover Artists Dick Ayers Carmine Infantino & Terry Austin

Cover Color Tom Ziuko

Mailing Crew Russ Garwood, Glen Musial, Ed Stelli, Pat Varker, Loston & Carolyn Wallace

This issue dedicated to the memory of Rich Morrissey

Contents Writer/Editorial: I Love ME—Meaning “Magazine Enterprises”! 2 “You Either Have It, or You Do Not!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Bill Harper looks at Vin Sullivan and ME. Vin Sullivan: The ME Decades. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Excerpts from an interview with the company’s founding father and guiding light. Fred Guardineer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 The artist of The Durango Kid— profiled by Bill Black and interviewed by Dylan Williams. Dick Ayers: A Life in the Gowanus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Before Ghost Rider, there was— Ghost Rider! (Not to mention Funnyman, The Avenger, et al.) Nuggets: A Letter from Bob Powell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 A 1965 missive to Jerry de Fuccio from ME’s most prolific artist. “Wayne Is Boring!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Michael T. Gilbert and Dave Sim take yet another look at Superman’s second artist. ACTOR Up and Running! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Jim McLauchlin on the new organization created to help comics people help themselves. The All-Star Compendium, Installment III. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 A few (hopefully final) corrections to the All-Star Companion. Paul Hamerlinck’s FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) #69 . 39 Dave Cockrum, Marc Swayze, and C.C. Beck co-star in a Fawcett fiesta! Carmine & Company. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover: We couldn’t make up our minds as to whether our ME-related cover should feature quasi-super-heroes like The Avenger and Jet Powers— or cowboys like Ghost Rider and Redmask— or jungle stars like Cave Girl and Thun’da— so Dick Ayers solved our problem by drawing ’em all! Thanks, Dick— and thanks to his wife Lindy for keeping on his back about it! [Art ©2001 Dick Ayers; heroes ©2001 the respective copyright holders. Ghost Rider is now a trademark of Marvel Characters, Inc.] Above: This dramatic panel by Darlin’ Dick Ayers ended the first tale of ME’s mysterious masked hero in The Avenger #1 (1955). AC Comics’ version of the art, shown here, was restored and tone-enhanced by Bill Black and his talented crew for glorious black-&-white reproduction. [Art ©2001 AC Comics and the estate of Vin Sullivan.] Alter EgoTM is published quarterly by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@oburg.net. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $8 ($10 Canada, $11 elsewhere). Eight-issue subscriptions: $40 US, $80 Canada, $88 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.

Title writer/editorial

I Love ME Meaning “Magazine Enterprises”!

hat? You say you never even heard of Magazine Enterprises?

Or else, you have—and, well, you know they published some comics, but you couldn’t for the life of you name any of them? Or—you know ME put out a bunch of westerns, and hey, wasn’t one of them that cowboy Ghost Rider that Marvel appropriated back in the ’60s and has renamed a couple of times since, but what’s that got to do with a magazine that mostly deals with super-heroes? I’d wager better than even money that you fall into one of the foregoing three categories. How many others are there? When the comic books of the Golden Age are discussed, Magazine Enterprises, although it debuted in 1943 and endured through the late ’50s, often gets lost in the shuffle... partly because, though it was active in numerous genres, the super-hero wasn’t really one of them, except for The Avenger and a few peripheral heroes like Strong Man, Ghost Rider, and Jet Powers in Jet. Still, ME (as its logo proclaimed it) is worthy of serious consideration, because it put out a number of good comics—because they were written and drawn by talented guys, many of whom made their marks elsewhere (read our intro piece on ME and you’ll see!)—and because it was founded by Vin Sullivan, the onetime National/DC editor who in 1938 had a hand in putting “Superman” in Action Comics #1 and who also seems to have played a crucial role in the creation of “Batman” a year later. This time around, we didn’t have room to deal overmuch with Sullivan in his DC mode—so we’re saving that part of the lengthy interview we have on hand for a near-future issue—but there’s still a colorful story on ME to be told here, thanks in large part to a couple of Bills—last names, Harper and Black. In 1986, with issue #35, Bill and Teresa Harper took over publication of the FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) Newsletter, following the reign of Captain Marvel co-creator C.C. Beck. Since the Harpers’ interests also included ME’s comics—especially Straight Arrow, in all his incarnations—by #37 (Fall 1986) they rechristened it with a new logo: FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) & ME (Magazine Enterprise) Newsletter—and yes, the “s” was accidently left off “Enterprises.” Written out that way, it seems an ungainly title, especially for a publication that generally ran only eight pages. However, the biggest letters in the logo—and the name by which it was popularly known during this period—was far shorter: FCA & ME, TOO! FCA #37 also sported a “No. 1” in far bigger type, to signal the dawn of a new (if potentially confusing) era. Over the next few years, through 1993’s issue #53 (or No. 17, take your pick), FCA & ME, TOO! divided its pages between Fawcett and Magazine Enterprises in roughly equal measure. While “No. 1” started off with an announcement of the deaths of Charles Starrett, the movies’ (and ME’s) Durango Kid, and of comic artist Edd Ashe, who had drawn “Don Winslow,” “Commando Yank,” et al. for Fawcett, the publication was primarily a celebration of comic books and their creators. Along with groundbreaking interviews with such ME artists as Dick

He wore a costume—he had incredible strength—and he fought crime. So was he a super-hero or not? If artist Bob Powell knew, he was too busy drawing feature after feature for ME (not to mention Harvey) to take the time to tell anybody. [Art ©2001 AC Comics & the estate of Vin Sullivan.]

Ayers, Frank Bolle, John Belfi, and others, the Harpers carried on a continuing quest to learn all they could about Fred L. Meagher, the artist who’d drawn the entire run of Straight Arrow, plus related material directly for Nabisco, which owed that hero. They also featured material about Joe Certa, Fred Guardineer, Vin Sullivan, Ogden Whitney, Bob Powell, and others who had labored in the ME vineyards... while not neglecting the Fawcett books or creators. The coverage ran toward short articles and interviews, but the result was invariably entertaining and useful to the cause of comics history. In fact, as soon as Alter Ego became a full-fledged magazine again in 1999, I contacted Bill Harper about doing an issue that would be a sort of “best of” the ME-related parts of those issues of FCA, along with a new short history of ME, which I hoped he would write. Bill, who by coincidence lives in North Augusta, SC (still another Carolinian involved in TwoMorrows! where will it end?), was amenable, though he hasn’t participated actively in comics fandom since 1993. Thus, with the blessing of current FCA editor P.C. Hamerlinck, I planned for this issue of A/E to reprint everything from FCA & ME, TOO! which might interest our readers. However, there proved to be just too much of it! I’d already decided to feature only the parts of interviews we had with Vin Sullivan, Dick Ayers, and Fred Guardineer that deal with their ME work— And we were still twenty pages over-length. So we pulled most of the material on ME’s masked western heroes— Durango Kid, Red Mask, Black Phantom, Straight Arrow, as well as on

I Love Me

3 It’s only because of such generosity on the part of collectors and, yes, even dealers sometimes, that Alter Ego (as well as its companion TwoMorrows mags Comic Book Artist and The Jack Kirby Collector and even that new kid on the block, Comicology) is able to bring you so many issues a year of art and information about the comics field that we all know and love.

their artists Bolle, Certa, Belfi, Meagher, and Whitney—and are saving it for next issue, which was already set to carry a 20-page FCA section, complete with a Don Newton Captain Marvel cover. There’ll be more about ME’s most ubiquitous artist, Bob Powell, too. Any bets as to whether we’ll be able to resist writing on the cover:

So, next time you’re at a comicon and you run into one of the guys whose names we mention in our caption credits, let Vin Sullivan in 1940. ’em know how much you appreciate their sharing their Photo courtesy of Meanwhile, if you’re really into Straight Arrow and can’t collections with many fans through such magazines. We Creig Flessel. wait for next issue, send Bill Harper a stamped, selfcouldn’t do what we do without the likes of Ethan Roberts, addressed envelope at 301 E. Buena Vista Av., North Bob Koppany, Roger Hill, Al Dellinges, Ray Cuthbert, Tom Horvitz, Augusta, SC 29841, and you’ll get back a flyer on how to purchase a full Joe and Nadia Mannarino, Mike and Ed Zeno, Jerry K. Boyd, Jim run of Pow-wow, the wonderful newsletter he published from 1986-93, Vadeboncoeur, Michael J. Vassallo, Paul Handler, Shel Dorf, and a which will tell you most anything you could ever have wanted to know number of others. And don’t forget Marv Wolfman and Len Wein and about Straight Arrow in any medium, from radio through cereal box Mike W. Barr! through comic books. It even includes a nearly complete run of the yearFCA & ME, 2!

plus of the 1950s Straight Arrow daily comic strip! The other stalwart who’s helped preserve the ME heritage, though in a quite different way, is Bill Black, with his Paragon/AC Comics organization. Aided and abetted by Mark and Stephanie Heike down in Longwood, Florida, Bill has devoted himself in large part to preserving and reprinting vintage comic art—though of course he steers clear of material owned by DC and Marvel. Because westerns are one of Bill’s main areas of interest, he has re-published and enhanced a sizable amount of ME material, as his full-page ad elsewhere in this issue shows. Give his website a try! Bill also supplied clean black-&-white photostats of art from AC’s reprints of ME comics, so we could get the best reproduction possible. Of course, in other place we’ve reproduced from the original ME comics, and even in a few cases from the original art, courtesy of an artist or two—and of collectors.

We only wish all collectors and dealers were like these guys and another dozen or so—but maybe one of these days the former will all get the message and stop hiding their light (and comic art) under a bushel. Hey, the day that happens, A/E will have to go monthly! Bestest,

P.S.: Because the name "Ghost Rider" is now a trademark of Marvel Characters, Inc., while many of the original Magazine Enterprises stories of that hero have been reprinted by AC Comics with the title altered to "The Haunted Horseman," we have made our best effort to give the correct copyright notice in each instance. In addition, on the other ME material reproduced in this issue from AC reprintings (often retouched and slightly altered by Bill Black and Co.), we have listed a shared copyright notice for AC Comics and the estate of Vin Sullivan.

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Vin Sullivan

“You Either Have It Or You Do Not!” A Brief Look at the Life and Times of VIN SULLIVAN—and at Magazine Enterprises by Bill Harper Vincent Sullivan’s introduction to the world of comic books came through his early love and appreciation for the Sunday funnies. “I always liked to draw and was always interested in cartooning,” said Vin (as he was usually called). He never had any formal art training. “I don’t think you can be taught to be a cartoonist; it is something you grow up with. You either have it, or you do not!” His determination and boldness led him to send his cartoon work to various newspapers and syndicates. After the New York Daily News bought several of his sports cartoons, he applied for the position of sports cartoonist when there was an opening. However, Gus Edson (creator of the popular strip The Gumps) got the job. “I think I might have been too young,” was how Vin figured it later. Still, he continued submitting and looking for openings as a cartoonist. He did not recall how he learned that Major Malcolm WheelerNicholson was forming a comic book publishing firm. After their initial meeting, Sullivan joined Nicholson and Whitney Ellsworth, also a cartoonist, as the first editors of National Allied Publications. Thus was Sullivan thrust into comics history by being in on the advent of the modern comic book when in 1938, as editor of Action Comics #1, he had a hand in debuting “Superman,” certainly the most important comic book series ever published, as the cover feature. Sullivan is also credited with encouraging Bob Kane to create a costumed hero; the result in that case was the debut of “Batman” in Detective Comics #27 (1939).

Vin Sullivan is thus organically connected to the two most popular and influential comic book characters of all time.

Vin Sullivan at the San Diego Comicon, 1998—flanked by his two most famous “discoveries.” But he was prouder of Magazine Enterprises. Photo ©Dave Siegel; provided by Bill Schelly. [Art ©2001 DC Comics.]

Born in Brooklyn, New York, on June 5, 1911, he joined Nicholson in 1935 at the age of 24. Because there were no precedents or job descriptions at the time, Sullivan was forced to learn all the tasks of creating “comic” books, drawing fillers, marketing the books, and, most importantly, distributing the things. Nicholson, who was deeply in financial debt to his distributor, Independent News Company, suddenly found its owner Harry Donenfeld stepping in and redirecting his firm into a new organization: National Periodical. It was at this juncture that Sullivan was made a full editor, overseeing various titles, particularly Action Comics. With this acknowledged position and working experience, Sullivan was approached by Charles McAdams, president of McNaught Newspaper Syndicate (to which Sullivan had earlier submitted cartoons), and Frank Marky, owner of a smaller syndicate, with the proposition of forming a comic book publishing firm. Sullivan agreed, and in 1940 Columbia Comic Corporation was launched. His main interest in the new company was to be with a firm “progressive” enough to develop and publish new features, rather than relying primarily on reprints from newspaper syndicates. Columbia did publish new work, including the super-heroes Skyman and The Face; but Sullivan felt that the company’s heads were reluctant (or, as he put it, “dragging their heels”) to make original material the foundation of the firm. Thus, in 1943, he formed his own company—Magazine Enterprises— beginning with a comic titled The United States Marines, which featured all-new stories. Vin Sullivan had moved from editor to entrepreneur.

“You Either Have It Or You Do Not!” His dream of being a cartoonist had led him to helm a company where, ironically, business responsibilities forced him further than ever from his dream of cartooning, yet allowed him to make yet another mark in comics history and to employ many of comics history’s greats. He brought a level-headed business approach to Magazine Enterprises, as he had to the other organizations for which he had worked. Magazine Enterprises (ME), which had many different company names—Life Romances Publications, Complix and Sussex Publication Companies, etc.—did initially rely in part on syndicate reprints, but eventually its lineup was composed of books with all-original features. To free himself to handle the business side of ME, Sullivan sought an editor for his new firm. He found a most unlikely candidate in Raymond Krank, who at the time was employed at Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Krank wrote scripts, in addition to being very influential in the creative direction of ME. Many artists and writers interviewed in later years remarked on Krank’s editorial abilities. Interestingly, according to Sullivan, Krank never took a hand at cartooning. Unfortunately, very little is known about ME’s only editor. Under the leadership of Sullivan and Krank, ME supplied readers with fifteen years of one of the most creative, aggressive, and exciting lineups of comic characters. In 1944 ME introduced a comic book with the overall title A-1, in which many of the company’s successful series got their first tryout. The series’ numbering, as well as the A-1 logo, was discontinued after issue #17, with various features having numbers which corresponded to the times they had appeared as an issue of A-1. If a series broke away from A-1, the numeration would continue from that point. This system can make collecting ME titles maddening at times. With the success of ME’s Tim Holt series, depicting the adventures of a post-war cowboy movie star, Sullivan began to actively seek to license other popular culture icons. The two issues of Jimmy Durante, drawn by Dick Ayers and written by Raymond Krank, published in the A-1 series, were especially pleasing to Sullivan. He admired Durante, an amazingly popular stage and screen comedian of the period, known primarily for his big nose and raspy voice. This short-lived comic book had a single-story-per-issue format that was before its time.

ME is fondly remembered primarily for its western comics of the 1950s. After Tim Holt (and before it became Red Mask), a contract was penned to bring The Durango Kid (a Columbia movie series starring Charles Starrett as another masked cowboy) into a western lineup that would eventually include Straight Arrow (another secret-identity western series, based on a popular radio series) and Best of the West, which printed new stories of Straight Arrow, Tim Holt, The Durango Kid, and Ghost Rider (of whom more below). From radio, too, came From Tim Holt #41, one of Frank Bolle’s "3D Effect" comics about comedians issues; courtesy of Bill Black. Fibber McGee and [©2001 AC Comics & the estate of Vin Sullivan.] Mollie, and Bobby Benson’s B-Bar-B Riders (yet another western). Sullivan once remarked in a letter to the present writer that Straight Arrow, which had the longest run of any ME title, became the company’s best-seller, as well. A backup feature in all issues of Straight Arrow except the first was the Bob Powell-drawn “Red Hawk”; one solo Red Hawk issue was also included in the A-1 series. Both “Red Hawk” and Straight Arrow depicted Native Americans as heroes. In the late 1950s ME also put out an authorized Robin Hood comic, based on the TV series starring Richard Greene. In addition, ME packaged books as promotional giveaways. Major Inapak the Space Ace, drawn by Bob Powell for Inapak chocolate drink, and Little Miss Sunbeam Comics for Quality Bakers of America have been identified as two of ME’s promotional books. There was also a Strong Man, likewise drawn by Powell, listed as a complimentary comic copyright by Sales Promotional Publishers, under ME’s umbrella of companies. Recently uncovered was a Straight Arrow (#9) stamped “Compliments of Straight Arrow and Nabisco Shredded Wheat/FOR PROMOTIONAL USE ONLY - NOT TO BE SOLD” with a Nabisco Shredded Wheat “Injun-uity” card tipped in the center with “Sample Card” stamped on the back.

An adaptation of the movie biography of baseball star Lou Gehrig (Pride of the Yankees) and another based on the Ingrid Bergman-starring film Joan of Arc, both drawn by Ogden Whitney, appeared in 1949. Another innovative technique developed at ME during the early 1950s was the “3-D Effect” created by artist Frank Bolle in Tim Holt and continued when its matinee-idol hero donned a disguise and the book metamorphosed into Red Mask. The “3-D Effect” was also used in the Red Mask spinoff magazine The Black Phantom. Sullivan remembered fondly how this answer to the 3-D craze required no glasses, yet gave a (supposedly) similar effect without the adding printing expense.

The late Charles Starrett, who played The Durango Kid in the movie series (though most of his masked scenes were done by a stunt double), autographed this publicity photo for Bill and Teresa Harper. [Durango Kid ©2001 the respective copyright holder; photo courtesy of Bill Harper.]

ME also boasted a lineup of humorous comics such as Funnyman, initiated by Superman’s creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, which had a six-issue run.

Vin Sullivan Newspaper Syndicate, and the hodgepodge of others, such as Texas Slim and Dirty Dalton, Rocky, Steamer Kelly, Mr. Ex, Lew Loyal, to name but a few, were from the Chicago Tribune Syndicate. Interestingly, Fred L. Meagher (pronounced “marr”), who drew a feature Vesta West in what the Chicago Tribune newspaper called its Comic Book Magazine, would later join ME to draw Straight Arrow, “Dan Brand & Tipi,” and other features. (Researchers on Vin Sullivan once thought he used the name “Sulles” for cartooning, because the Comic Book Magazine included a feature called “Buck McKale,” which was signed “Sulles.” However, Sullivan claimed that he was not “Sulles.”) ME never had a true super-hero in its lineup, unless one counts The Avenger (no relation to the old pulp-magazine character), a Batmantype who wore a costume much like the one Wally Wood would design a decade later for Marvel’s Daredevil. ME’s other approximations of super-heroes were Strong Man (who wore a leopard-skin but was basically exactly what the name implies—a strong man in the classic circus sense) and Jet Comics (which starred a quasi-costumed sciencefictional hero named Jet Powers who looked a lot like movie actor Jeff Chandler, white hair and all). All three of these heroes were drawn primarily by the ubiquitous Bob Powell, though Dick Ayers illustrated the first issue of The Avenger. Oh yeah... and we mustn’t forget Funnyman. Sullivan never explained why there were no super-powered heroes at ME, especially given his background of success at DC with “Superman,” and the fact that he founded his company in 1943, when men in capes were still flying high. It should also be noted that Sullivan shied away from the “horror” comics so popular in the 1950s, although a few ME titles flirted with that genre, such as Ghost Rider and even many stories in his Bobby Benson title. Frankly, we’re not sure who drew the story “Leapin’ Lena” from Funnyman #4—we rather suspect John Sikela and/or others at the Shuster studio—but collector Paul Handler, who owns the original art, sent us this beautiful photocopy, and we’ll be darned if we’re gonna miss a chance to print it! [©2001 the estates of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.]

ME had comics aimed at every age group. The super-youngsters had The Adventures of Pixie, Tom-Tom the Jungle Boy, and Tick Tock Tales, plus funny animal books such as Koko & Kola and Muggsy Mouse, to name a few. George Crenshaw’s Dogface Dooley was popular with the military. Teenage girls had Teena. ME published comics in a variety of popular genres: war comics, romance comics (ME is credited with issuing one of the first of this type), and crime comics with “cop” stories from other countries as well as the US. Perhaps the three best-remembered comics published by ME are The Ghost Rider (drawn by Dick Ayers), Cave Girl (a jungle comic with “good-girl” art by Bob Powell), and Thun’da (whose premier issue was illustrated by young Frank Frazetta, followed by five issues drawn by Powell). S. Robert “Bob” Powell was by far the most prolific artist at ME. His work encompassed practically every comics genre and demonstrated his mastery of each. Powell’s researcher, Ed Lane, considers the ME books “the epitome of Powell.” It is worth mentioning that many of the western features were reissued under the title Great Westerns. One of the most popular and sought-after comic books for collectors from ME reprints Frazettadrawn “Dan Brand & Tipi” stories under the A-1 title White Indian. When ME began the A-1 series, it included many comic strip reprints from syndicates in the Chicago area. Kerry Drake was from the Field

The late ’50s found ME losing money: “Lots of money!” was how Sullivan expressed the situation. Many comics companies folded during the 1950s, and the Comics Code Authority is often blamed for these failures. But Sullivan and artist Fred Guardineer both attribute television as having the greatest impact on the comics industry. Magazine Enterprises discontinued operations in 1958 after The Brain, a comic for youngsters. It

“You Either Have It Or You Do Not!” was the last word in an incredible lineup of features. As an expression of Vin Sullivan’s charisma, it is noted that many talented writers and artists followed Sullivan from National/DC, first to Columbia and later to ME. Fred Guardineer, one of those artists, remarked that Sullivan treated both scripters and artists as professionals.

7 placed his ME output at over 800 stories—and all the while he was still writing for DC, and occasionally for other companies, as well!

After ME folded, Sullivan never returned to the “comic business,” as he called it. He did secure the rights to use the name “Popeye” and the character’s cartoon likeness on a peanut butter product. But the market was too competitive and production costs so great that it eventually failed. In 1993 Sullivan expressed the possibility of bringing some of the ME characters to television as animated features, but nothing came of it.

Another comic book great who followed him from company to company over the years At the same time, Sullivan finally was Gardner F. Fox, began to get the belated recognition The closest ME ever got to super-heroes were The Avenger and Strong Man, both of whom who could well be he deserved for his role in comic appeared in A-1 during the genre’s “false spring” 1954-55, not long before Showcase #4 added to the names of book history, especially as guest and brought back The Flash. Each of these two series had four issues. Art by Bob Powell. Vin Sullivan and Ray [©2001 estate of Vin Sullivan.] panelist at the San Diego Comics Krank as the backbones Convention in 1998. of ME. Fox—co-creator of The Flash, Hawkman, Dr. Fate, and the Justice Society of America Vin Sullivan died February 3, 1999. even before he developed features for Columbia and ME—had been a friend of Sullivan’s since grade school. It had been Sullivan, in fact, who He is gone, but fortunately he is not forgotten. first persuaded him to write for DC Comics in 1939. Fox was responsible for the great majority of the scripting at ME. Fox’s own count

This novel deals with the woman who by common consent was considered the most beautiful actress ever to appear on a movie screen. The facts of her life are on record and so are her major love affairs with the leading figures of her day. You won’t have to read very far to recognize who she is. Some names have been changed to spare the feelings of those still alive who might find some of the graphic sexual descriptions here offensive, but these are all based on published and reliable accounts from many sources. This is "factual-fiction" at its exciting and daring best. William Woolfolk has previously written eight major novels that became choices of leading book clubs and sold a total of four million copies. He was also the story editor and a chief writer of the legendary TV dramatic series THE DEFENDERS. In his almost mythical career he has been a magazine publisher, the creator of SPACE WORLD, the first magazine to deal with the unfolding wonders of the new space age, and in his youth he was the highest paid comic book writer of the so called Golden Age of comics, writing stories for Captain Marvel, Superman, Blackhawk, Plastic Man and many others. Small wonder that a leading magazine for writers labeled him as "probably the most versatile writer in America." Cover illustration by Seymour V. Reit, creator of Casper The Friendly Ghost. You can order advance copies from Xlibris.com, Amazon.com, or your local bookstore.

Vin Sullivan

Vin Sullivan The Decades A Candid Conversation with the Godfather of Magazine Enterprises Conducted by Joe Latino, Rich Morrissey, Ken Gale, & Tom Fagan Edited by Roy Thomas Transcribed by Brian K. Morris

[EDITOR’S NOTE: On October 8, 1994, four knowledgeable comics fans videotaped an interview with Vin Sullivan at his home. Much of this interview dealt with Sullivan’s editorship at DC, and there are unfortunately several periods during which the video-camera was turned off, with the conversation then resumed midstream. Most of this historically important interview will see print in a near-future issue of A/E. For the purposes of this issue, the parts that deal with Vin Sullivan’s company Magazine Enterprises have been excerpted, along with a bit of contextual material.—R.T.] RICH MORRISSEY: Gardner Fox told us you were the one who got him into the business.

VIN SULLIVAN: Well, we went to grammar school—elementary school, if you want to call it—together. He became a lawyer. But he always liked to write anyway, so when I got into this business, I thought of Gardner. And I had seen him occasionally, and asked him if he would be interested in writing some stories. He said he would and that’s how he got started. [EDITOR’S NOTE: At a later point, the videotape is turned off. When it resumes, in medias res, Sullivan is talking about the World War II years at his own company, Magazine Enterprises, abbreviated ME, which he had founded in 1943:] SULLIVAN: I helped keep [artist] Creig Flessel out of the war. They [the armed services] would give a citation to certain publications that were helping the war effort. And so I had The Marine Corps. [NOTE: Sullivan is probably referring here to The United States Marines, the first title published by Magazine Enterprises when it

Seven of Magazine Enterprises’ greatest adventure heroes—clockwise from upper left: The Avenger, Strong Man, Cave Girl, Jet Powers, Ghost Rider, Funnyman, Straight Arrow—by the likes of Bob Powell, Dick Ayers, the Joe Shuster studio (probably mostly John Sikela), Fred Meagher. Straight Arrow art courtesy of Ethan Roberts (repro’d from original art); Funnyman from cover of Funnyman #5 (July 1948); other images courtesy of Bill Black, who has reprinted many ME tales in his AC Comics line; see full-page ad elsewhere in this issue. [Ghost Rider is a TM of Marvel Characters, Inc.; GR & Avenger art ©2001 AC comics & the estate of Vin Sullivan; Funnyman ©2001 estates of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster; Straight Arrow ©2001 Nabisco; other characters ©2001 the estate of Vin Sullivan.]

The ME Decades

9 SULLIVAN: [examining a copy of Funnyman] This I lost quite a bit of money on. [laughs] It just didn’t sell. MORRISSEY: How did it come about? Did Siegel and Shuster come to you? SULLIVAN: They came to me and they had this idea. They were constantly coming up with new ideas, and I guess they didn’t show it to Donenfeld. I’m sure they didn’t. MORRISSEY: They just finished their lawsuit with DC and settled. They supposedly got a generous settlement and lost most of it. GALE: When you were doing this, did you do just packaging the comics or what role did you have?

was launched in 1943.—RT] This was like an unofficial magazine of the Marine Corps! I went to Washington, and some brigadier general gave me some sort of semiofficial book. And as a result of that, we got a plaque. I say “we”— I did. The company, Magazine Enterprises, they gave a citation; I think it was called an “E.” I don’t know why. As a result of that, I was able to have Creig Flessel not drafted because he was doing work on a publication that was helping the war effort!

SULLIVAN: I was the publisher. I was paying out the money. TOM FAGAN: Were you a hands-on publisher? SULLIVAN: I was still editing the thing, if you want to put it that way. I had this fellow, Ray Krank, who was presumably my editor, and we would both look at the thing and decide what to do with it.

The cover of Funnyman #1 (Jan. 1948) gets reprinted fairly often, so we decided to emphasize the first splash page and origin page, probably mostly the work of former Superman assistant John Sikela. [©2001 the estates of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.]

Fred Guardineer was drafted and he met [artist] Ogden Whitney, I think. They were both drafted at the same time. I think they were in the same organization. I’m trying to think of things that Fred was saying—they were together in the same platoon. But Fred said he was always very annoyed about Whitney because he was such a slob. [laughs] KEN GALE: “The Odd Couple.”

SULLIVAN: Fred was always very meticulous. MORRISSEY: Well, you seem to be doing quite well with yourself and with your friends. When you were a publisher, did you try to treat the people better than Donenfeld had? SULLIVAN: Well, I hoped I did. MORRISSEY: Did you let them [the writers and artists] often keep the rights to their characters if they came in with a new character, or did they give away ownership? SULLIVAN: I didn’t keep those things at all, no. [At this point Sullivan is shown a number of ME issues which interviewers have brought with them.] MORRISSEY: As a Superman fan, I was especially thrilled by Funnyman because it was by Siegel and Shuster after they left DC.

MORRISSEY: It’s obviously Joe Shuster layouts, but we see a lot of John Sikela on various stories. SULLIVAN: Now, they had another fellow working here, on Funnyman. MORRISSEY: Was that Dick Ayers? SULLIVAN: No. Jerry had somebody else. In other words, Joe Shuster didn’t do this. MORRISSEY: Weren’t his eyes very bad by that point? He was having trouble. SULLIVAN: They were not the greatest to begin with. He was almost blind. GALE: Did Shuster draw any of the stories? SULLIVAN: Of Funnyman? I don’t think so. MORRISSEY: Did they just bring in the pages to you the way they had done at DC? SULLIVAN: Yeah, same way. MORRISSEY: So they were probably getting it done by other people. Do you think he may have done very rough layouts and had someone else finish them, like Sikela?

Vin Sullivan SULLIVAN: He may have penciled the pages and had somebody else ink them. MORRISSEY: You say this didn’t sell at all? SULLIVAN: It didn’t sell well enough to continue. Was it in the newspapers?

Africa - Thrilling Land of Mystery may have been the cover title of what was also officially A-1 Comics #137 (1955), but Cave Girl and Thun’da stories set in prehistoric jungles assured that it wasn’t exactly a restful travelogue. Art by Bob Powell. [©2001 the respective copyright holder.]

MORRISSEY: Oh, yes. They did a newspaper strip. The strip ran for, I think, about a year; and toward the end I gather they were desperate to do something else, so they introduced a new character called Ricky Van Twerp, who took over the strip. It was obviously based on Bertie Wooster in P.G. Wodehouse’s stories. He even had a butler like Jeeves who got him out of trouble. That didn’t last very long either, and I think that was the end of that character. GALE: Did you get in any trouble by having “By the Creators of Superman” on the cover?

SULLIVAN: I don’t know. He did White Indian and I think he did some of the Straight Arrow. That was quite successful in the beginning. MORRISSEY: How is it he got hooked up with you, do you remember? SULLIVAN: He came in, the same as these other fellows came in. I was out at Park Place in New York City. I moved from the Graybar Building downtown to Park Place by City Hall. I recall once or twice, down at this office, these fellows would come in and at that time they would speak to Ray Krank, my editor. We had two girls that were in the art department, if you want to call it that. I wouldn’t see these fellows too often, but I do recall meeting Frank Frazetta once or twice. He was quiet... thin... dark... that’s about all. JOE LATINO: How about Bob Powell. Powell did a lot of work for you. SULLIVAN: Well, that’s why I think Powell had a lot of fellows working with him, or for him, if you want to put it that way. LATINO: Is what you’re saying possible—that a good portion of the things that are attributed to Powell really are done by ghosts for him? SULLIVAN: Oh, yeah. GALE: Well, Powell started out with Eisner, and almost everybody who worked for Eisner did the same thing Eisner did, which is hire people to work with them. LATINO: Why was he doing so much work for you?

SULLIVAN: Yeah, they were going to sue me, DC Comics. MORRISSEY: As a lawyer myself, we had thought that since it’s a fact that Siegel and Shuster were the creators of Superman and you didn’t use the “Superman” logo, you had the right to do it, just as in book publishing you can say, if John Grisham has a new book with a different publisher, “By the author of The Firm,” even if it isn’t the same publisher. SULLIVAN: It’s the law, as they found out. [chuckles] I knew you could use the name. GALE: How did you find out DC was unhappy? SULLIVAN: They sent me a letter or something. I would assume they didn’t call me on the phone. GALE: As a publisher, you would have to deal with that sort of thing. SULLIVAN: Oh yeah. Nothing happened. As I was told by my brother Frank [an attorney], who was alive at the time. He said the same thing, just because you mentioned it and you’re not using the “Superman” logo... MORRISSEY: Other people were doing that successfully. Milton Caniff had been doing Terry and the Pirates and he quit and came up with Steve Canyon, which he owns. The syndicates might have figured, well, Terry and the Pirates was a success and Steve Canyon was a success, whereas Superman was a success and Funnyman wasn’t. Caniff hit a home run every time he came to bat, as it were. SULLIVAN: DC had no legal grounds for suing. MORRISSEY: [hands Sullivan a comic—Africa, Thrilling Land of Mystery] This is another interesting one. This is by Bob Powell. GALE: Now, was it your idea, or did Bob Powell give it to you? SULLIVAN: No, I think we—I say “we”—Ray Krank and I might have come up with the idea of a book about Africa. MORRISSEY: How is it Frank Frazetta started doing Thun’da?

The ME Decades

SULLIVAN: Yeah, it was like a pre-sold kind of heritage. It was in the movies. I contacted people up at Columbia Pictures. As a matter of fact, when I was out at the Coast to get—it wasn’t Tim Holt. His father was Jack Holt; he was in the movies earlier. I went out to the Coast to sign up Jimmy Durante and Dick Powell and I don’t know who else. But I worked mostly with the New York office. MORRISSEY: Dick Ayers drew the Jimmy Durante comics. Do you remember much about Ayers? SULLIVAN: No. He was one of the many fellows that was doing work for me, the same as Powell and all the others. MORRISSEY: I read, as a matter of fact, that Ayers was one of the winners of that contest we were talking about before. He may have gotten in touch with you through that. Anyway, tell us about Ghost Rider.

SULLIVAN: Well, when I was looking for a title when the westerns were selling quite well, it dawned on me there was the song, Ghost Riders in the Sky. And that always stuck in my mind, a very haunting type of song, and I thought that would be a pretty good title: Ghost Rider. So that’s how it started. [NOTE: The official title of the song was Riders in the Sky, but the line in the lyrics was indeed “Ghost riders in the sky,” which became the name by which the song was popularly known. It was originally recorded by Vaughn Monroe, later by Frankie Laine and others.—RT.] LATINO: Did you come up with the character? SULLIVAN: I don’t know whether I did; I don’t recall. But he had the mask, of course, that would glow in the dark. MORRISSEY: I believe “Ghost Rider” actually got started as an offshoot of “The Calico Kid.”

SULLIVAN: Because I thought he was pretty good. His work came out very strong and forceful, I thought. Actually, we became quite friendly. In fact, he lived not too far from here when he moved out here from wherever it was, I don’t know. He has since died. He died of cancer, I think. MORRISSEY: I was told that one of the Blackhawks was named after him [NOTE: Stanislaus, since Powell’s real name was Stanley (or Stanislaus?) Robert Pulowski.] And Chuck Cuidera had another Blackhawk named after himself. That was a feature they both worked on with Eisner at Quality. Did you follow the field very much besides whatever company you’re working for, yourself? SULLIVAN: Follow the field? No. GALE: Or analyze trends? SULLIVAN: No, I didn’t want to. GALE: Did you see that a lot of people were putting out westerns so you put out one or did you put out westerns because that’s what you wanted to do? SULLIVAN: I think I had one of the first westerns. Anyway, it was one of the near-first, because they were selling, apparently. MORRISSEY: But that wasn’t just in comic books. They were selling in movies, they were selling in novels. FAGAN: They had been popular in movies long before it was put in comic books. The Durango Kid, Tim Holt... A 1996 Ayers re-creation of his late-’40s Jimmy Durante work. [Art ©2001 Dick Ayers.]

Vin Sullivan

SULLIVAN: “The Calico Kid” was another one that Bob Powell did. [NOTE: Actually, Dick Ayers drew it.—RT.] “The Lemonade Kid” and Bobby Benson’s B-Bar-B Riders—he [Powell] did the whole thing. LATINO: Do you know Dick Ayers got his first job at Marvel Comics as a result of a cover on Ghost Rider that he did for you? SULLIVAN: He was good. Dick Ayers was good. LATINO: You said that you developed a friendship with Bob Powell. SULLIVAN: Well, not a close friendship. I was out here and I had my own friends and he had his. But every so often, he’d drop in and have a drink at one of the bars. MORRISSEY: So you were living here or somewhere else at that time?

GALE: How many books a month did you put out? SULLIVAN: I’d have to sit down and think. I think there could have been six or eight or ten. FAGAN: You approached the Nabisco people to get the rights to do Straight Arrow. It was a radio program first. SULLIVAN: Yeah, yeah. That was what prompted me to go with them. I went to them, and the Dell Publishing Company was trying to get the character, too. And I went to see the Nabisco people on West 14th Street—I think that’s where the baking plant was—and this fellow, Stu Boyd, I believe it was. He was in the advertising department, and for some reason we developed a friendship and he saw to it that I got the franchise instead of Dell. Dell probably could have done a hell of a good job with it because they had the money to promote it and do whatever was necessary. But I got hold of it that way.

SULLIVAN: Well, I’ve been here since right after the war, World War II. I was a young man back then, but why wasn’t I drafted? The reason FAGAN: And did you have anything to do with supplying the art and was I bought my house here in 1945 and moved out in ’46, I think it the text for the Nabisco Shredded Wheat Straight Arrow Cards? was. And the very day I was moving, I SULLIVAN: The was the last one—I person who was was living at this doing the book did section called Hollis. that. I had nothing It’s further in here. to do with that. That So we lived in an was handled by the apartment at that Nabisco people. time. I was making a Fred Meagher was little money. I was the artist. He had living in Brooklyn had been working at and moved out to Nabisco, doing Queens and moved things for the fillers out of Brooklyn. But in the boxes of the very day that I Nabisco Shredded moved out here, I Wheat, with the got my notice and I Straight Arrow was put in A-1 character. which is the—you were in. But I was FAGAN: They separated the little the very next-to-last biscuits with three of that group. First cardboard hoppers of all, I was lucky. I which had pictures got the next-toof Straight arrow highest number in and then text, and the draft in that you collected the section, in Hollis. whole series. And second, it was a A Dick Ayers splash for The Ghost Rider, repro’d from the original art, courtesy of Ethan Roberts—the lucky stiff! very young neigh[Ghost Rider is a TM of Marvel Characters, Inc.; art ©2001 the estate of Vin Sullivan.] SULLIVAN: Well, borhood and they when I started the were loads of young magazine, they may have even suggested I use Fred Meagher’s work, fellows who unfortunately—fortunately for me—were ahead of me. I which was good. He was doing it anyway so I was very happy to have had one of the lowest numbers next to the lowest number in the draft. him. But it was so bad that they had reached my number and I can remember the very day I moved out here, I got this notice. But I was never called. FAGAN: Was there a Dick Powell comic? The war had ended after that. SULLIVAN: Oh yeah, Dick Powell, the actor. It wasn’t too successful. LATINO: So ME was a very successful business for you. [laughs] SULLIVAN: It was, yeah. LATINO: And how big an operation was it? How many in-house employees did you have? SULLIVAN: Not too many. I had Ray Krank as my editor. I had these two or three girls. Well, two anyway, I know that. And I had a girl, Sally Jamison [sp?], who was my secretary, I guess you’d call her. And when my brother Frank came back from the war, in the Marine Corps, I took him on. And I think I had one or two other people. I don’t recall.

FAGAN: One thing I’d like to clear up about the Marines book: Was that one book about Marines or was it a series? SULLIVAN: It was a series, and I used, for the very first time in comic books, a viewer’s section that had photos of the Marine Corps fellows and the fighting in all these places. GALE: I notice that your later comics had the Comics Code seal. Do you recall any of the big fuss that Wertham caused?

The ME Decades

13 SULLIVAN: I didn’t renew the copyright, and I wrote to Marvel about it and they said they were going to use him because they went down to Washington and had somebody search through the files and it had expired, so there was nothing I could do. MORRISSEY: Because I wondered if somebody had ever gone to you and paid you for the character. That has happened a number of times when someone goes out of business. SULLIVAN: In fact, I think it was Dick Ayers who told me about it, that he was doing this thing for Marvel Comics. So I wrote to them. They said they were very unhappy about my writing, and all that, but wouldn’t do anything about it because the copyright had expired.

SULLIVAN: Oh yeah, sure. A pain in the neck. [laughs] GALE: Did it really hurt sales for you? SULLIVAN: I don’t think it hurt sales, but you couldn’t do certain things. For instance, Robin Hood, another book that I did— fighting with a sword, you couldn’t have him killing the guy. What else would you use a sword for? [laughs] You had to get around that.

[NOTE: See the Dick Ayers interview, later in this issue, Bob Powell drew the cover for The Avenger #1 (1955), but Dick Ayers illustrated the stories for more on this matter. At this point, the videotape inside. See this issue’s interview with Ayers for more about the scarlet spy-buster. makes another editing jump. Interior page restored by Bill Black and ©2001 AC Comics & the estate of Vin Sullivan. When it resumes, Sullivan is talking about his dealings with Judge Charles Murphy, the first administrator of the Comics Code:] GALE: Were you ever singled out during all that to-do about comics?

SULLIVAN: I do remember going up to the Judge Magistrate by the name of Murphy, who was put in charge of this in New York. He was the czar, you might say. I remember going to see him about the thing.

SULLIVAN: No, I think my books were pretty clean when you come right down to it. GALE: Do you remember The Avenger?

GALE: And what happened?

SULLIVAN: Oh, sure. It didn’t sell as well as I expected and I just dropped it and then Marvel Comics picked it up. A lot of these things I had copyrighted, but then I let the copyright expire. I just never thought of it. [NOTE: Here Sullivan may be confusing The Avenger with Ghost Rider; see Rich Morrissey’s next question. While Marvel in 1963 initiated a title called The Avengers, and Wally Wood’s Daredevil costume resembled that of ME’s Avenger, any MEMarvel connection in either of these cases seems extremely tenuous.—RT.] MORRISSEY: Well, trademarks, the brand name, the title of the comic—it has to be used. Ghost Rider, I think, is the classic one that you did, and Marvel later did a book by the same title. I don’t know if they bought the rights to the original character or not, but they had a western Ghost Rider, too. They got Dick Ayers to do it again, based on his character.

SULLIVAN: Nothing happened. In particular, it was about Robin Hood and I said it was ridiculous and he agreed with me. He said, “Just tone it down a bit.” It was a big fuss about nothing at all. GALE: Is that the only time you went before him? SULLIVAN: Well, I made a point of going up to see him. I called him. FAGAN: Who was complaining about Robin Hood? SULLIVAN: I don’t know that there was anybody complaining about it, but I wanted to satisfy myself that there’s no sense in cutting out the heart of a comic book. Another Powell-drawn quasi-super-hero was Strongman (also 1955; the title was one word in the indicia and stories). Courtesy of Bill Black/AC Comics. [©2001 the estate of Vin Sullivan.]

MORRISSEY: Did you have to submit the pages to the Comics Code before a book was published? All the pages of original art had

Vin Sullivan the Comics Code stamp on the back. SULLIVAN: Yeah. They’d send the pages out to Murphy’s office and they’d look through it and find out the things that would have to come out, and all that sort of stuff. He had been a judge, had been a magistrate, and I

people lasted from the ’40s, because they tended to die in the early-tomid-’50s. So you actually have a longer success story than most of your competitors. LATINO: Did you have any subsequent publishing companies after ME? SULLIVAN: No. LATINO: And did ME diversify into any areas besides comics? SULLIVAN: Well, I diversified into the peanut butter business. [chuckles] I produced a Popeye Peanut Butter. LATINO: I remember that. Wasn’t that in the ’60s? How did you get into the peanut butter business? SULLIVAN: I had four sons of my own and they loved peanut butter and I liked peanut butter and I thought this was a pretty good character to use on peanut butter. MORRISSEY: Look how Skippy Peanut Butter has outlasted that character.

don’t know how tough the job was but I had to go call, I guess, so I had an appointment with him. MORRISSEY: There was a story that one person claimed that they had, at one point, a committee existing solely of pregnant women—that they felt that if a woman was pregnant, she would be more full of maternal instincts than any other time, even if she had a new-born. This is probably an apocryphal story. SULLIVAN: I don’t know. MORRISSEY: Were you involved, in any way, in setting up the Comics Code? I know that was basically something the publishers of the time got into. But you were one of the members of the Code, I know. LATINO: How many years did you last after the Code? GALE: The Code started in ’55. SULLIVAN: I think I pulled out of the business somewhere in the ’60s. [NOTE: Actually, as per Bill Harper’s preceding article, it was 1958... but that’s close enough.—RT.] GALE: So you lasted longer than most of the

Magazine Enterprises remains perhaps best-remembered for its western titles, including Red Mask (who started out as movie cowboy Tim Holt), Bobby Benson’s B-Bar-B Riders, Straight Arrow, and The Durango Kid. The first three examples of cover art here are by Frank Frazetta; the Durango Kid splash is by Joe Certa & John Belfi. Courtesy of Bill Black/AC Comics. [Ghost Rider is a TM of Marvel Characters, Inc.; Straight Arrow ©2001 Nabisco; other art ©2001 the respective copyright holders.]

LATINO: What happened to Popeye Peanut Butter? SULLIVAN: It just wasn’t successful. At least I didn’t find it so. Is it Teddy, up in New England? Teddy Peanut Butter? It’s a regional brand. It’s packed outside of Boston and I finally sold the company to them. [NOTE: The great majority of this landmark interview with Vin Sullivan will see print in an early issue of Alter Ego, and deals primarily with his experiences at DC and Columbia.]

Fred Guardineer

Fred Guardineer The Years A Brief Biography of and Interview with “A True Pareil” [EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: Fred Guardineer is one of the true pioneers of the comic book field. He is one of only two known surviving creators who contributed to the landmark Action Comics #1 in 1938, creating, drawing, and originally even writing the “Zatara the Magician” feature, which lasted until 1951. Because a 1999 interview with Guardineer conducted by Dylan Williams proved far too long to be included in an issue devoted in large part to Magazine Enterprises, we are reprinting below only portions of it. But first, by way of background, we are thankful to Bill Black of AC Comics for permission to reprint the ME-and-after-related excerpts from his article about the artist written years ago for Paragon #5, and ©2001 Bill Black:] Fred Guardineer returned to comics upon being discharged in 1944. Crime comics were big, and Fred worked for Charles Biro and Bob Wood on Crime Does Not Pay and other books. In 1952 Fred joined his old friend Vincent Sullivan, publisher of Magazine Enterprises: “ME... this was my favorite outfit, as I felt—and knew—I was among friends. Vin Sullivan, the publisher, was one of the first good friends I made when I came to the city looking for work. He is a fine gentleman, appreciative of good art and writing.” Fred produced The Durango Kid for three years, drawing all the stories, lettering, and covers! Gardner Fox wrote most, if not all, the scripts. In the waning years of the series, Fred freelanced wildlife illustrations for various outdoor publications. These full-page drawings often appeared in ME books as fillers, as well, and wildlife illustrations would enhance panels of the “Durango Kid” stories. Fred also drew “The Calico Kid” at ME: “I did my best for ME on The Durango Kid, but the onslaught of TV swept the comics off the stands.”

Fred Guardineer was born October 3, 1913, in Albany, New York, and at

Why should Ghost Rider have all the fun? A little touch of horror in ME’s version of the old west, served up by Fred Guardineer in a splash from Durango Kid #33 (1954). [©2001 AC Comics & the estate of Vin Sullivan.]

the age of 73 summed up his life: “I am a survivor, making more good moves than bad.” Several good moves were marrying Ruth Ball in 1938, buying a home on Long Island in 1939, and starting a second 20-year career with the post office in his hometown after ME ceased publishing The Durango Kid in 1955. Fred continued freelancing his wildlife and fishing illustrations for such publications as The Long Island Fisherman, which allowed him to combine his talent with his hobby. Now retired from the postal service, Fred is still trying to “retire” from illustrating, but there is always “one more assignment.” He has been recognized nationally for his contributions to the “outdoors.” Recently, he was honored with membership in the Outdoors Writers Association of America and featured in the April 1987 edition of Outdoors Unlimited. Ron Goulart, in his excellent book The Great Comic Book Artists (St. Martin’s Press, 1986), remarked on Fred’s style: “He was a true nonpareil, an artist whose style was unmistakably his own, and there’s been no one remotely like him in the field since... His style was almost fully formed from the start. He seems always to have thought in terms of the entire page, never the individual panel. Each of his pages is a thoughtfully designed whole, giving the impression sometimes that Guardineer is arranging a series of similar snapshots into an attractive overall pattern, a personal design that will both tell the story clearly and be pleasing to the eye... His drawing style enabled him to create complex pictures by building them with simple elements.”

Fred Guardineer On ME

Fred Guardineer On ME Excerpts from an Interview Conducted by Dylan Williams [NOTE: In April 1999 collector Dylan Williams interviewed Fred Guardineer by phone. Guardineer currently lives in Northern California. The interview was originally edited by Emily Nilsson. A/E plans to print this very long interview in something like its entirety in a near-future edition; but for the purposes of this issue we have included and edited only those parts of it that deal with Magazine Enterprises and related matters. Even much of Guardineer’s relationship with Vin Sullivan, since it occurred at DC Comics, will be covered in the later version.] DYLAN WILLIAMS: What kind of stuff did you draw as a kid? FRED GUARDINEER: I loved to draw. From the earliest beginnings, before I could do anything else, I drew. My parents gave me a paper bag and a pencil and I lay down on the floor and I drew my brains out. Mostly cowboys and Indians... [NOTE: Later, after a mention of how much Guardineer liked to draw animals, as well:]

GUARDINEER: Oh, yeah! It changes your life. I get a call on Friday; they want a job on Monday. You know what you’re doing that weekend: You’re working. [NOTE: There follows a long conversation concerning Guardineer’s earlier life in and out of comics. Following his service in the Army during World War II, during which he saw action in the Philippines, the talk turned to what he did after the war:] GUARDINEER: I was getting work. My good friends were back, especially Vin Sullivan, Bob Wood, and Charlie Biro. They were the last ones you’d want to be with you [in a foxhole], but they were good friends of mine to work for. I did a lot of crime comics. I liked the work and I liked them and they paid well. DW: Jumping ahead a bit—did you know about the Senate hearings [in the 1950s] and problems with crime comics when they came down, or did jobs just dry up all of a sudden?

A group photo of an amazing conglomeration of Golden and Silver Age comics creators, taken by Bruce Edwards after the AACC dinner at the 1998 San Diego Comics Convention. [L. to r., seated:] Nick Cardy, Dick Sprang, Jim Mooney, Julius Schwartz, Vin Sullivan, Fred Guardineer. [L. to r., standing:] Russ Heath, Bob Haney, Ramona Fradon, John Broome, Paul S. Newman, John Severin, Roy Thomas, Joe Simon, Sheldon Moldoff, Murphy Anderson. Ye Editor wound up being the youngest person in the picture—but only because cartoonist Scott Shaw! accidentally got cut off at the left in Bruce’s Cinemascopic scene! Well, actually, this is two photos—skillfully combined by A/E designer Chris Day. The photos are ©1998, 2001 by Bruce Edwards and were contributed by The American Association of Comic Collectors. Check out their website at <www.aacc-info.com>.

GUARDINEER: I have always gotten into nature. It followed me the rest of my life. I was happiest drawing animals and stuff like that. DW: I have a Durango Kid where you drew a mountain lion that’s just wonderful.

GUARDINEER: I knew there was a lot of talk, people being upset about comics. Blaming everything that kids did wrong on comics. Like they do today. DW: Now it’s video games!

GUARDINEER: Drawings like pistols, rifles, and things like that had to be perfect. I kept a file going on that for years and years and years. No magazine went out of my house that hadn’t been clipped and filed. I had files all over the place. I could draw anything in this world. Took about five minutes. I could simply swipe it. It cuts a lot of corners.

GUARDINEER: [laughs] Yeah. I knew that was going on. It didn’t seem to touch me that much when it first started. Either way, I thought that crime comics were good. It was stories about what happened. It was just like what I like to watch on the TV. I like to watch them today still. My favorite is—there’s no way I’m ever going to miss Law and Order.

DW: Especially when the deadline’s down and you’ve got to get something in!

DW: You like that show, too? It’s really authentic, like a modern Dragnet.

Fred Guardineer On ME

17 He doesn’t mention it in his interview, but Guardineer also drew several tales of “Space Ace”—in a comic titled, believe it or not, Manhunt. In 1953 his stories were reprinted as a Space Ace oneshot—behind a new Dick Ayers cover. Reprinted here from the 1989 AC comic Thrilling Science Tales #1, by permission of Bill Black. [©2001 AC Comics & the estate of Vin Sullivan.]

DW: Who were your favorite editors to work with? GUARDINEER: Vin Sullivan. DW: What was so great about him? GUARDINEER: [laughs] I just knew him the longest. He was like an old friend. He liked my work and I tried to do my best for him. DW: Who wrote those Durango Kids? GUARDINEER: I don’t know. Somebody did [ = drew] Durango Kid ahead of me. DW: Did you write it yourself? GUARDINEER: I think I did a couple. You sent me that cover of The Durango Kid and Larry Atwater. I remember doing that. DW: That’s something no one else in comics that I know of GUARDINEER: Yes, I was thinking of Dragnet, too. I was thinking back on the days when I was drawing stuff that was similar: Crime Does Not Pay. Well, something happened. For some reason I had to change and go see my friend Vin Sullivan [at Magazine Enterprises]. I knew the guy and liked him very much. He wanted me to work for him. He was turning out these westerns, The Durango Kid. I did that for about three years. I loved that thing. I don’t know what the change was from crime to The Durango Kid, but something was wrong in the business. I knew that—well, maybe Gleason [Lev Gleason, publisher of Crime Does Not Pay] folded. DW: I have a Durango Kid where you drew Clark Gable as a character in it. GUARDINEER: I did a lot of work where there were likenesses. I enjoyed that. I would say, probably, the stuff I liked most took me the longest, like westerns, cowboys. That gets bogged down with horses and stagecoaches. You don’t just draw stagecoaches—a lot of stuff there. Unless, sometimes, the story concerns backgrounds, bars and things like that where you don’t have to draw a lot of horses. DW: Did you try to make it as authentic as you could? GUARDINEER: Absolutely! I tried to get the guns and everything. I was knowledgeable about most of that, anyway. I wouldn’t try to fool anybody.

Fred Guardineer’s major assignment for Magazine Enterprises was The Durango Kid, based on the long-running series of Columbia Pictures westerns starring Charles Starrett. This splash has been repro’d from a photocopy of the original, courtesy of Ethan Roberts, who owns perhaps the largest collection of ME original art. [©2001 the respective copyright holder.]

Fred Guardineer On ME with Gardner Fox, who had known Vin Sullivan since grade school and who wrote a sizable percentage of the ME scripts, as he had written “Zatara” for Sullivan at DC years earlier.] DW: So which comics were your favorites to do? GUARDINEER: I liked the westerns. I guess the clean good-guy, bad-guy westerns. I liked the crime stuff, too. I guess I liked most everything. DW: So which western movies did you like? GUARDINEER: I liked John Wayne, Stagecoach. When they first came on [cable TV], I couldn’t get enough of them. I must say, I think I’ve gotten tired of westerns but I do love those crime things, Law and Order, any time. DW: What was your favorite stuff of your own comics? What do you think you did the best job on? GUARDINEER: I think probably The Durango Kid. They were my last shot to, possibly, make a hit. Because I didn’t think comics had a good enough stature to plan a life on. DW: I was going to ask why you quit. That was my next question. GUARDINEER: Comics had been stopand-go, ever since they started. It was always like: from one cake of ice to the next, with people folding up and new guys starting. I had made out pretty good. I had paid for everything. I had money in the bank. I wasn’t exactly broke, but I didn’t see much of a future, especially when Sullivan folded. “Now I gotta go pounding the pavements again,” I said. “Not for me!”

“Every picture tells a story.” So does this cover—in nine panels. In case it’s not quite clear enough: Durango finds a dead man who’d managed to drag himself to a creek’s edge and dunked his rope (lariat) into the water. Taking the body to the nearest town, the hero sees a sign for a “loans and mortgage” business run by one Larry Atwater. He instantly realizes the victim had formed a rebus with his dying actions (lariat + water = Larry Atwater!) and accuses the loan shark of the murder. Atwater panics, tries to shoot Durango, and is captured and turned over to the sheriff—who clearly has no qualms about accepting an accusation against a solid citizen made by a guy wearing a kerchief mask. Still, we give the cover 10 points for cleverness and uniqueness! [©2001 the respective copyright holder.]

would do—put panels on the cover. So who were your favorite writers to work with? GUARDINEER: I had Gill Fox most of the time. I guess he was a good friend of Vin. Fox was probably knocking out the Durango Kids. [NOTE: Actually, Guardineer is here confusing artist/editor Gill Fox

I had been in the Army. I had about three years of government service, which is what the Army time would count. So I decided, “I’m gonna get a government job.” I was about forty then. That’d give me twenty years. The nearest government job in the neighborhood was the Post Office. So I went to the Post Office and told the Postmaster what I’m telling you. He said, “Come in tomorrow.” The way it developed, during my twenty years there I was more of an artist than anything else.

[NOTE: The remainder of this verbal iceberg, of which the foregoing is only the perhaps 5% tip, will be published in a near-future issue of Alter Ego which will be devoted to the work of Fred Guardineer.]

Dick Ayers

Dick Ayers A Life In The “Gowanus” A Conversation with One of Magazine Enterprises’ Best and Most Prolific Artists Interview conducted by Roy Thomas

Transcribed by Brian K. Morris smile of his, it looked like Clark Gable’s, and he said, “It’s the garbage in the canal.” The Gowanus Canal is the canal in Brooklyn where they dumped the garbage at the time, and that’s what he referred to comic books as. And Burne went into it more, and I argued more about it. But he let me in, and he taught me nights. It was wonderful. Then Joe Shuster came in. Not just to talk; he came in and he sat beside you and chatted with you, real nice. He’d just come in and visit like a regular guy. And, also, Marvin Stein taught there. He was Joe Shuster’s top honcho of the studio. It was Marvin, really, who did all the work and he passed on everything. He gave out the assignments and Joe would come in, maybe once or twice a week. And then there was Ernie Bache, who was in my class; we had dinner together, and I would go down to the studio to visit him. And the next thing I knew, I was drawing. So I started out penciling. That would be the end of October, November 1947. RT: And so what did you start on?

Dick Ayers in 1949 at the drawing board doing “The Ghost Rider”—from Cartoonist PROfiles #59.—plus a 1994 illo of his most famous co-creation, the original Ghost Rider. [Art ©2001 Dick Ayers; Ghost Rider ©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This is projected as the first of at least two interviews with Dick Ayers on his career in comics. The second, longer one—including a considerable part of this interview which we didn’t have room to print this time around—will be published in a near-future issue of Alter Ego and will deal in particular with Dick’s work for Timely/Marvel.—RT.] ROY THOMAS: You actually wound up getting into Magazine Enterprises by the back door, didn’t you? DICK AYERS: I saw a poster—Burne Hogarth [artist of the Tarzan strip] was up on 89th Street, at a new school he started, Cartoonists and Illustrators School. This is like October. It had already started in September. Burne looked at my samples and he said, “Gee, Dick. You want to be in this comic book stuff?” And I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Don’t you know that’s the Gowanus of the industry?” RT: The what? AYERS: Yeah, the “Gowanus.” And my face went blank, just like yours right now. [laughs] And he laughed. That

AYERS: The Funnyman comic book. I’m doing that, and I guess around the first of the year, Joe tells me, “Vin Sullivan would like to see you.” So he sent me down to see Vin, and to take some samples. Vin had drawn a newspaper strip, Schnozzola, in the ’30s, about Jimmy Durante. My Jimmy Durante later is more or less modeled after what he drew. RT: You didn’t know that you were already working for Sullivan in a way— since Sullivan published Funnyman by Siegel and Shuster? AYERS: He did, but I never realized Funnyman was a Magazine Enterprises book. I never connected it, really. I thought I was working for Joe Shuster, which I was.

Dick Ayers AYERS: Well, he would make it sound like it was inventory. If things picked up, like the humor market, then he would go back in again. But he killed Fibber McGee by Phil Usgis. After that, he gave me a one-page feature in Tim Holt.

RT: Because they had their own special deal, with their studio supplying art and story. AYERS: It was under the Magazine Enterprises label, so Vin had me try out for Jimmy Durante. And I sent you a copy of the drawing that I made. And then I traced that onto illustration board and then I inked it and colored it.

Oh, I forgot—before I got to do Jimmy Durante, while I was waiting for Ray to write the script, he gave me a western. I don’t know how many pages. “Doctor of Fate - the Story of Doc Holliday.” That’s the first job I did... the first job that I penciled, inked, and lettered, that got printed!

RT: So did you ever meet Durante or was it all done through the mail? AYERS: No, I didn’t. I didn’t even get to know who Mrs. Calabash was. [laughs] Vin either didn’t know or wouldn’t tell me. I noticed the other night, they had on television an hour show on Durante. Oh boy, I really had tears in my eyes. It was terrific.

RT: Between Sullivan and editor Raymond Krank, ME was basically almost a two-man operation, wasn’t it? AYERS: That’s what it was. Vin would come in and sit down and describe what he wanted in The Ghost Rider. He told me to go see Disney’s Sleepy Hollow— Ichabod Crane, the Headless Horseman—and then he told me to play the Vaughn Monroe record, “Ghost Riders in the Sky.” And then he started talking about what he wanted the guy wearing.

RT: Of course, you were aware that Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, who were doing Funnyman, had created Superman and were going through this lawsuit. AYERS: Yes. We thought, “Oh, boy! We’ll get to do Superman. We’ll have it made!” We were very upbeat. But then I left, before the end came. They did a few more books. They went six books and I think mine was, maybe, #3, or something like that. RT: I’ll check my complete bound set of Funnyman. Were you aware that Sullivan was one of the people who discovered “Superman”?

Some of Dick’s first work on Siegel and Shuster’s Funnyman for ME seems to have been “The House That Funnyman Built!” in issue #3 (April 1948). Reprinted from Ye Editor’s bound volumes. [©2001 the estates of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.]

AYERS: No, I didn’t know that till years later that Vin was the one who more or less hired Siegel and Shuster. I liked Vin very much. He was really a very nice, outward person, a very good guy. He came and he sat with Ray Krank and me. I did three issues of Jimmy Durante as my first work for Vin. The third, he never did publish. I’m eating my heart out to see it, because that was just about when I was really into the character. Oh, God, I loved it. The first one, where Jimmy went to the circus—the whole book was one story. When he went west, we had an added feature in the book where he went to college, so that was, like, only maybe 5-6 pages. And in the third, he went to London. He became like Sherlock Holmes and it was a lot of fun. But I never got to see it. RT: That was pretty unusual for comics at that time, to have booklength stories. You sort of wonder why he didn’t carry that book-length policy over in the westerns or the hero books... only into a few movie adaptations. AYERS: Vin would go by percentages. If they didn’t do big in the percentages market, it would frighten him, or make him cautious. RT: So did Sullivan lay on the bad news about the book’s cancellation and give you another assignment right away, or was there a time between?

RT: So even though Krank was officially the editor, Vin Sullivan took a very big editorial part, too? That’s the thing he really liked the most, I suspect.

After the bad news that the Durante book was cancelled and you had only a filler to do, were you beginning to wonder whether you had a future at that company? AYERS: Well, I hung on because they always saw that I had something to do. But I was heart-broken that I lost Jimmy Durante, because I loved drawing him. That was the style I would have loved to keep, because you could tell adventure and you could also be funny, like Roy Crane. Then when they started up the westerns, I found out, boy, did I love doing those! [laughs] RT: You’d never thought about them before? AYERS: No, but as a kid I loved cowboys and I loved playing “Cowboys and Indians” and the movies and all that. RT: So the next big thing for you after Jimmy Durante was Ghost Rider? Well, I guess first came “The Calico Kid.” AYERS: Yes, “The Calico Kid” came first; he was just a few short stories. I did them all except one that I know of. Ernie Bache did that one and I didn’t know it until Bill Black told me. RT: It was very strange—and very inventive—to take this character that already existed, The Calico Kid, and turn him into another character, The Ghost Rider. Is that Sullivan?

A Life In The “Gowanus”

21 RT: Maybe that’s why Frazetta didn’t do a second Thun’da. He was still just a kid at that time. You said Ray Krank wrote the first “Ghost Rider” story. It’s usually been said Gardner Fox wrote most of the ME line. Did Gardner write much of “The Ghost Rider”?

AYERS: Yeah. The Calico Kid, the “a.k.a.,” as you call it, was Rex Fury; that was a great name. RT: He had the same sidekick— Sing-Song—and it’s like the hero suddenly graduated to another strip. He got a secret identity and he was off and running. AYERS: Vin Sullivan, I remember, came and said, “And now we’re going to turn The Calico Kid into The Ghost Rider.” And so Ray wrote the one story. He was in Tim Holt first. RT: Yeah. I bought Tim Holt, too. But “The Ghost Rider” quickly proved popular enough to get his own book.

AYERS: I don’t remember seeing his name on the scripts, no. RT: Were the writers’ names usually on the scripts when they came to you?

A vintage Ayers rough of Jimmy Durante and crooner Bing Crosby on the golf green, with a chicken laying an egg in the hole (Jimmy’s trademark line was to be: “Ev’rybody wants ta get into the act!”). [©2001 Dick Ayers.]

AYERS: We went to a fancy dinner. We celebrated at the WaldorfAstoria and I was sitting at the table with Vin’s brother Frank, and he said—“You know, that Ghost Rider book [#1] you did sold 67%,” which was high in their eyes. Vin watched percentages and 45% meant it was doing bad and he would lay off for a while. RT: They must have felt that the series had been helping Tim Holt’s sales, or else they just thought it would do well on its own. How did the all-white costume come about? AYERS: I don’t know which one it was, Vin or Ray, thought that one up, but I know they thought of the white and also said it glows in the dark, so we had to think of what made it glow. [Laughter] All we could think of was phosphorescence or phosphorus. And even the horse, we had to have him painted with phosphorus. RT: And you did every “Ghost Rider” story that ever was ever done, didn’t you? Everything but the couple of covers Frazetta did. AYERS: For Magazine Enterprises, yes. I’d be jealous if anyone else touched it. [laughs] There were three covers Frank did, which made me focus on Frank’s work. And boy, did I love his Thund’a, and all that. So I would try to capture some of his style, which was impossible. I would rave about Frank’s work to Ray Krank, but Ray did not like all that scratchy—[laughs] He wanted it nice and bold.

AYERS: No. Over at Timely they were on the front page, but not from Ray Krank. I never knew Paul S. Newman wrote a “Ghost Rider”—“A Coffin on Snow,” I believe it was.

Most of the “Ghost Rider” scripts were by Carl Memling. I brought him in. I met him through one of my fellow artists who went to the Art Career School. He was working for some artist named Winter. They were doing a big mural of “The Last Supper of Christ” and I was visiting him, and I met Carl. I liked him, so I’m riding on the elevator with him, after I’ve seen him a couple of times, and I said, “Gee whiz, you should write for comics. I can get you with this Magazine Enterprises.” “I couldn’t write for children’s books. I don’t want to do that.” So I said, “Well, give me one of your things. I’m going to show it to my editor.” He gave me a page he’d written for a Street and Smith western and I took that in and, by golly, that got him started in the comic book business. And boy, he got adept at it. I went to visit him out on Long Island one time and he showed me how he kept a file of every synopsis that he ever sold and so he could write the same story over and over. [laughs] He did! RT: Did he write much else for Magazine Enterprises besides Ghost Rider? AYERS: Bobby Benson. I don’t know what else. But I talked on the phone with him often. And then he got with Classic Comics and with DC. He was going strong and he died young. I don’t know if he made it past fifty. But he was a loss. He was working for Charlton and he was knocking that stuff for $3 a page, or something. I was doing penciling,

A splash panel from “The Calico Kid”—the hero who, some months later, would become “The Ghost Rider”! Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, courtesy of Ethan Roberts. [©2001 the estate of Vin Sullivan.]

Dick Ayers remember Jimmy Durante, though. [laughs] So, anyway—you inherited Bobby Benson from Bob Powell? AYERS: Yeah. That helped me because then I got so busy that when they gave me Bobby Benson, I had just started with Marvel or Timely, too. And Stan started me right off. As fast as I got a story done, he gave me another one. At this stage I needed help, so I called Ernie Bache, and he joined me. And then I had to quickly get a studio. And my wife, Charlotte Lindy, had worked for this salesman who had rented this one-big-room apartment and it had a kitchen and he didn’t know what to do with the kitchen, so Lindy said, “Why don’t you rent it to my husband?” Great! Twenty-five bucks a month—I had this nice big kitchen with a sink and all that. So I got Ernie and he came to work with me. Side-by-side we worked for—oh, that was ’52. It wasn’t until ’55 when that damn Wertham thing came and killed all our books, The Ghost Rider and Human Torch. So we were down and we had, mostly, just Charlton. We didn’t quite make it. I lettered first and then I would pencil, and then I’d ink the outlines and then I’d give it to Ernie. Ernie would erase the page [laughs] and then he would finish it. He would put on all the blacks and the KraftTone and bring in all that stuff. So we made a good team. I didn’t bother throwing in heavy blacks. I would start them, maybe, but then he would accentuate the lines I’d put in, make them a little stronger. And he was very meticulous in his approach. I mean, everything had to be a certain formula so that we could knock out four pages a day, so he was a good asset for me. RT: You did a handful of books that are particularly in the purview of Alter Ego. One is Ghost Rider, which is half-super-hero, half-western. And of course Funnyman with Siegel and Shuster. Then you did the first issue of the closest thing ME ever got to a super-hero—The Avenger. How did that come about? Did you ever get any idea why they were trying the super-hero? Was it because the Superman TV show was so popular?

Dick Ayers’ splash page for the very first “Ghost Rider” story sees Rex Fury, the Calico Kid, and Sing-Song in deep trouble, in Tim Holt #11 (1949). Script by Raymond Krank. Thanks to Bill Black. [Ghost Rider is a TM of Marvel Characters, Inc.; this restored art is ©2001 AC Comics & the estate of Vin Sullivan.]

AYERS: Well, maybe. Gardner Fox wrote that. Maybe Vin thought it might be time for super-heroes to come back. He was always thinking

inking, and lettering for fifteen. RT: Let me go back to Funnyman for a moment. You worked on the comic strip version, too, didn’t you? AYERS: Yeah, that was in 1949, I think... in January, February. It was the first part of the year. Joe [Shuster] called me and had me pencil. I don’t know who did the inking. He lived up by Columbus Circle and I delivered it; they were down to just one room by then, and I felt sad. I don’t think the strip lasted much past that. Also, Joe was in such straits, he was always behind in paying me, and it did reach a point where I had to have a lawyer threaten him. I’m running around with my tongue hanging out, too, because it’s only like twenty-five bucks or something. RT: A sad situation. Funnyman just didn’t take off. But I can see why Sullivan went for it. You go with the creators of “Superman”—maybe they can hit lightning again. It just wasn’t what people were looking for. AYERS: It was just like with Jimmy Durante. Nobody bought humor. RT: I bought ’em. AYERS: You did? RT: Yeah. I bought every issue of Funnyman I saw, starting with the first issue. I bought the first Ghost Rider, and the first Avenger and Strongman, all that stuff. Lots of the ME westerns, too. I don’t

In his origin story, Rex is given a new mission by none other than Will Bill Hickock and friends. [Ghost Rider is a TM of Marvel Characters, Inc.; this restored art is ©2001 AC Comics & the estate of Vin Sullivan.]

A Life In The “Gowanus”

name. [laughs] AYERS: I don’t know. They said that they just didn’t like him. RT: And you had been skirting a little close to horror stories, near the later Ghost Rider issues. AYERS: Yeah. So Vin, Ray and I sat there—what do we do? Phantom Rider? Well, that won’t go. All the names you could think of. Night Rider? No, that wasn’t it. RT: All the ones that Marvel did later. [laughs] Not “The Haunted Horseman,” though? AYERS: Where do you think Timely got “The Black Rider”? And “Kid Colt”—Trail Colt came first, with the cowhide vest. RT: The Presto Kid didn’t last very long—but Ghost Rider—there were quite a few of those. AYERS: Oh yeah, because I think I did 167 “Ghost Rider” stories. RT: I can believe it, because he appeared in Ghost Rider and Best of the West, and in other books from time to time. He got stuck into everything. So you did the first issue of The Avenger, except for the cover. So what happened with #2? AYERS: The weeks went by, and it went into months, and I’m sitting up here. Lindy and I are saying, “What the hell? When are they going to send the script for The Avenger? It’s about time for #2.” So I call up Ray, “Where’s The Avenger?” He said, “We gave that to Bob Powell.”

Dick’s 1998 re-creation of the John Sikela-drawn (?) hero from the cover of Funnyman #1. Notice the dates of Ayers’ working on both comic book and strip. [Art ©2001 Dick Ayers; Funnyman ©2001 the estates of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.]

ahead of what the market was. RT: And then came the Strongman character, who was also not super-powered. They never really did a super-hero at Magazine Enterprises. It was all Batman-types. Ghost Rider, Avenger, Strongman, Funnyman... AYERS: And The Presto Kid, who was a magician. RT: Yeah. As a teenage reader in the mid-’50s, I had the feeling that somehow, because Ghost Rider died and Presto Kid started up very soon with the same artist and also using magic—it seemed to me as if, even though there was no overt connection—he wasn’t Rex Fury, as Ghost Rider had been—it seemed like Presto Kid was an attempt to do as close as they could to The Ghost Rider under the Comics Code. AYERS: Yeah, no guns, and then Carl came up with the magic thing. In that, also, he made it magic that the reader could do, if he was adept. But he practically had to be told how the trick was to be done. RT: It was a nice idea, but it didn’t have that magic The Ghost Rider had. Would the Code just not allow The Ghost Rider at all, because he wasn’t really a ghost? AYERS: No, so we sat there, trying to think up a new name. RT: But why couldn’t you? There’s nothing in the Code that says you can’t have a hero called “The Ghost Rider.” You couldn’t use the words “horror” and “terror” on a cover, but he wasn’t really a ghost. I guess it’s just because he had the word “ghost” in his

Dick Ayers

“Why didn’t you tell me?” “We don’t have to tell you everything,” he says. So I was quite angry about that, and then I pushed further. I think it was Vin who told me, finally, “Powell works cheaper than you. You started doing stuff for Marvel, and they gave you more money, and we tried to match it, and it kept going up.” They hadn’t matched it, but Vin said Powell would do it cheaper for $28 a page, and I was getting $35! RT: Powell had a very distinctive style, but he also seems to have had a lot of assistants working with him, more than you did. Still, somehow it all got tied together into a coherent whole. Did you know Powell at all? AYERS: I only met him once.

RT: He must’ve been home drawing all the time, just like you. [laughs] You two guys were real workhorses. Were there any other artists at ME who did as much work as you two? I don’t think Frank Bolle or Fred Guardineer did nearly the volume of work you did for Sullivan. AYERS: And at the same time as we’re talking about all that work I did with Stan and Vin, there was work with Al Fago up at Charlton. RT: And Powell was working with Harvey, too, at the same time, wasn’t he? Did you resent losing The Avenger, or was it more just the way you lost it? AYERS: The way that I lost it. No, I missed the character. I enjoyed that he was the scientist kind of thing, and he had this fancy airplane that I designed. RT: I think Bill Black’s AC Comics has reprinted most everything from all four Avenger issues. It was a shame at the time to see that and Strongman die. What was that other book you worked on in there— Danger Is Their Business!? AYERS: Oh, that was in the very beginning. It was about a photographer. I’m pretty sure that was the one. I did covers for Undercover Girl, but I don’t know if I did any stories. And there was “Jolly Jim Dandy,” in Dan’l Boone. RT: You obviously really enjoyed humor. AYERS: Oh, yeah. Ray was very, very exacting on how he wanted Jolly Jim Dandy to look. He had to be a certain height, and he had to look like he was almost a dwarf, with short legs and short arms. And over and over, I’d send in sketches and over and over, it would come back: “You gotta do this, you gotta do that.” Yep, he was a good character. RT: Did you run into Gardner Fox often or he wasn’t in the office that much? AYERS: I don’t know if I really ever did meet him.

RT: Magazine Enterprises didn’t really do horror comics, exactly, did they? They came close with Ghost Rider and a few things here and there. Yet the 1950s were the heyday of the horror comic. Do you have any idea why Sullivan didn’t do horror comics?

A Life In The “Gowanus”

AYERS: Well, Vin was slanted towards the young audience. So he wouldn’t want to go all that way. He may want to scare them a little bit but not to get so monsterish or horror-like.

you drew Ghost Rider yet again, for Bill Black’s AC Comics—only now he’s called “The Haunted Horseman,” since Marvel now owns the “Ghost Rider” name.

RT: Wasn’t there a Ghost Rider cover you did that had the Frankenstein monster in it?

AYERS: Around 1991, the National Cartoonists Society had a cruise that went from Miami to Nassau. And this cartoonist from up in New Hampshire, Larry White, is standing by the rail with me and he says, “Dick, I just got a book at home that’s a collection of your westerns.” “Holy shoot,” I said, “I never heard of such a thing.” So he sent me a copy when we got home.

AYERS: Yes. I loved that story. I can remember doing it because Carl wrote it and I don’t know what was behind him to get him to do it, but it was a good one. That cover—one of these collectors’ magazines featured that as their #1 choice, the all-time best. They reprinted it, a nice, full-color job. I re-created it for myself, and I sold some copies of that. Oh, I did the cover for one of those collectors’ magazines, that’s what it was. I had the guy getting drowned and he was saying, “Boy, that Ghost Rider book is up to $500!” as he goes, “bubble, bubble, bubble.” [laughs] RT: Do you have many of the original ME comics? AYERS: I have one run and then maybe a couple of extra ones here and there, that type of thing. RT: If you’d known, you’d have taken more copies from the ME office when they first came out.

It was Bill Black’s printing of Presto Kid. So I counted the pages [laughs] and I sent a note to Bill—and Mark Heike [Bill’s right-hand man at AC Comics] tells me how Bill got the envelope and says [excitedly] “Oh, I got a letter from Dick Ayers! Ohhh, jeez!” [laughs] So Bill opened up the letter—and it was a bill! But he was very good, and in the next mail I got a check from him. So I called him and said, “Bill, how come you use my old stuff and you don’t use my new stuff?” “Dick, I can’t afford you,” he says. And I say, “There’s no such word, dammit!” We talked a bit and I gave him a nice cheap price and, by God, he had me do the pencils for quite a while. RT: It was nice seeing you do some original Ghost Rider/Haunted Horseman stories.

AYERS: What actually happened was, you’d go in and they’d have it on a wire rack, or something. You’d beg, borrow, or steal one!

AYERS: Yeah, and the funny thing is—in the old days, if I drew soldiers and one of them had a girlfriend, he got killed. And if I drew a cowboy, he only kissed a horse. That was for forty years. Finally, I get to draw girls. And Lindy says she had a hell of a time getting me down for dinner. [laughs]

RT: So how did things come to an end for you with Magazine Enterprises? Were you with them right up to the end in the late ’50s? AYERS: As far as The Presto Kid went, and then that was about it. ’56, I think it was. RT: ME was around for a couple more years, but with few books, pretty much reprints there at the end. And by that time, you were busy enough working for other companies. Of course, you later drew The Ghost Rider for Marvel—which we’ll cover in the second Dick Ayers/Alter Ego interview. And, in the ’90s,

RT: That’s a good note to end on—until we talk about the rest of your long career, one day soon. Thank you very much, Dick. AYERS: Nice talking with you. See you at the Big Apple Con. Dick Ayers in his White Plains, New York, studio in 1976— penciling “The Haunted Tank” for DC Comics, of all things. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Nuggets

NUGGETS

A Letter From Bob Powell

Along came marriage, a son, and the war. I was hot to be a flyer, so before I got too goddam ancient (I was 26) I enlisted and was sworn in three days after my son’s first birthday. (Incidentally, he is an ensign in the regular Navy as a career officer and is about to get his wings as a jet pilot. He’s married and has presented me with the greatest grandson ever conceived. What a heart stealer.)

[EDITOR’S NOTE: On July 10, 1956, the following letter was sent by Golden Age (and Magazine Enterprises) artist Bob Powell to former Mad and EC editor Jerry de Fuccio, eminent researcher on the comics of the ’30s through the ’50s. Jerry has printed it as his “Nuggets” column this time around—and we think it’s a gem:]

Dear Jerry: You catch me unawares with your letter and I must say that this resurgence in comic book sales and the avidness of the fans is somewhat ridiculous; albeit nicely rewarding. For years we were bums and most of us had to relearn to draw to make a living, and now all of a sudden, we’re little tin gods. I’m afraid I’m not impressed, but because of our long association and friendship I’ll try to run off some of my checkered career. However, at best, my memory isn’t very good, and ye gods, after reading your letter and some of the things you mention, you should be telling me!

Harvey came into the picture then and when MM folded I did all the ones you mentioned, along with Tommy Tween and Chickie Ricks. Man in Black was my favorite, of course, and my baby exclusively (though Harvey owns, natch). I understand it’s coming out again, but because of an agreement I made with Stan Lee, I’ve refused to take it over again.

But to get back to the business at hand: I made A self-caricature by Powell, who drew the “Loops and the program and while in Banks” strip in Quality’s Military Comics #10 (1941). the second stage of Thanks to Al Dellinges. [art ©2001 DC Comics.] training was sent to Milwaukee State Teachers (now part of the U. of Wisconsin) and while there was asked to do a strip for the weekly school paper. It gave me excellent training for satire and humor writing as I was given free reign to lampoon training and the officers and I had a ball. It was titled Kent Doodid and was a sort of Private Hargrove in pics.

In 1938 I started with Eisner and Iger. With them I did various and sundries. The most known of course was “Sheena.” God, we must have had a hundred characters before Chuck Mazoujian and I split off with Bill Eisner to do Spirit, Mystic, and Lady Luck. Busy Arnold, bless his little old thieving heart, gave me the opportunity to break off from old pinchpenny and go on my own. I’ve been freelance ever since. That was what? 1940-1? The splash to a “Blonde Bomber” story in Green Hornet #34 (1946). Lucky Paul Handler owns this entire Powell tale. [©2001 Harvey Publications.]

Then my advanced training began and I did nothing until after I earned my wings and commission. They immediately made me an instructor, which kept me out of the shooting war, but even to this day I remember that I deserved the “Battle of Texas” medal... with teardrop cluster. Mustered out (on my birthday) I was still in uniform when the Harveys put me right back to work. I had had an assistant before the war and now with things booming after, I took on several more. Street and Smith came along, too, along with Magazine Management and a couple of others, tho’ I can’t remember who,

A Letter From Bob Powell

Incidentally, we forgot to mention Vin Sullivan and Magazine Enterprises. I did a lot for them. Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders, Red Hawk, etc. HEY! I also did a year’s syndicated strip of Bat Masterson. I hated it. I enclose several things for your amusement. They’re all pretty valuable to me and I’d appreciate their return. And most especially the two pictures. One shows me the day I got back to NY after the army with Leon Harvey, Buddy Schroeder, his wife, and an old school friend, Nancy Nelson. The other shows my chief gremlins. From top, counterclockwise: Epp, Siefringer, and Nostrand. I’m remarried and have a son Kyle besides R.R., the ensign, my second son John, an art student at Syracuse U. I’m fat, getting old, drive a Stingray, we’re restoring a ’35 Hubert Johnson cabin cruiser with our own little hands, and why the hell don’t you come out a split a booze? Thanks for all the compliments and the very best on your book. Please send me a copy. But why the hell you want me in it, I don’t know. As ever,

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT! Turned out we had so much Magazine Enterprises-related material from Bill Harper and others that we couldn’t squeeze it all into this issue—but not to worry. We’ll be presenting it next issue, along with a cornucopia of coverage of Timely/Marvel and Fawcett!

Splash to a Bob Powell horror story in Harvey’s Black Cat Mystery #43 (April 1953). Paul Handler, the collector who owns the original art to this entire 5page story, thinks Howard Nostrand may have had a hand in the inking. [©2001 Harvey Publications.]

and my staff grew to six. I did the writing, penciling, and the faces. Howard Nostrand and Marty Epp did the inking. Marty also did lettering. George Siefringer, the old souse, did backgrounds. Other casuals did cleanup, errands, and created ulcers. Came TV and everything folded. But to regress: Shadow, Doc Savage, Nick Carter, Dr. F. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Fu Manchu?] were all done under Street and Smith. Then they folded. And boom! Dead. Kaput. Bum. And oh, do I remember the years of struggle when art directors would say, “Ah, yes. Very nice, Mr. Powell, but you were a comic book artist, weren’t you?” Finally I was able to break the style of drawing and started to make a decent living and again a damned good one and now what? Everyone’s knocking on the door and begging us to do comics again. I can’t get quite as enthused. Yes, I do some. I like the money. But I’d rather do illustrating, book and mag and the cartoons that your good offices acquired for me at Topps. Jerry, I don’t know if this will be of any help. I swear, you know more about my career than I do. As for getting originals or silver prints, I can’t help.

Wayne Is Boring!

by Michael T. Gilbert Welcome to the second part of two Superman-related “Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt” episodes. Last time we focused on artist Wayne Boring’s lesser-known comic strip career. In addition to his long run in the Superman comic books from the 1930s to the 1980s, Boring worked on some very famous newspaper strips (and a few deservedly forgotten). According to Jerry Bails’ indispensable Who’s Who of American Comic Books, Boring drew or assisted on Rip Kirby (1968), Davy Jones (1960-71), Prince Valiant (1968-71), and Superman (1939-41, 1942-50, and 1959-67). We printed a few examples last issue, and this time we’re

reprinting two unfinished sci-fi strips he drew in 1966. Boring pitched The Awful World of Ticker Tynn to the Toronto Star Syndicate, but it failed to sell. Too bad, because it looks pretty interesting. Then, by kind permission of Cerberus the Aardvark creator Dave Sim, we’re re-presenting an article he wrote in 1973 about Boring for the Now & Then Times, a Canadian fanzine—following a new introduction by Dave to put the piece in context. And of course any Wayne Boring article would be incomplete without one of his classic Superman drawings; luckily, Roy Thomas has a photocopy of a great Superman Sunday page to share with us.

Wayne Is Boring! by Dave Sim (2001) Well, that’s what Jeff and Mark Hoppe and I used to say during the summers of 1968 and 1969, when all we thought about was comic book collecting (DC exclusively—no Marvel). Though my thoughts had definitely changed by 1973 when John Balge and I were assembling the contents of the Now & Then Times’ second issue (of two: collect ’em all!), I carried a pang of guilt in my 17year-old breast at that memory when I found Wayne Boring’s address (can’t remember where for the life of me) and contacted him about the possibility of doing an interview. That’s not quite true. At the time I think I just sent my intended

victims... er... interview subjects a list of ten or twelve questions and asked if they would answer them and send me some artwork. The chutzpah of a 17-year-old. Anyway, that’s what I did with Mr. Boring—a list of numbered questions and a request for artwork, mentioning that I thought it would be interesting to have him draw some quick sketches of what the DC offices (the old 480 Lexington offices) looked like in the early days. Whose office was next to whose. That kind of thing. I still think it’s a good idea, but (now that we’re chronologically as far from Now & Then Times #2 as Now & Then Times #2 was from the end of World War II: a thought, as they say, to give sober men pause) it seems scarcely likely that there’s anyone around who still remembers 480 Lexington.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt

What I got back from Wayne Boring was a multi-page, handwritten letter, the “political cartoons” (what other term for them?) which you see in the article, as well as The Awful Work of Ticker Tynn newspaper strips you see reproduced on the two-page spread. [EDITOR’S NOTE: All of the above material which is not reproduced in this issue was repro’d in our previous one—and wonderful cartoons they were, too!—RT.] I tried (in vain) to turn the handwritten letter into an interview: manufacturing questions to suit individual paragraphs-as-answers, but the result was just too “clunky.” That was when I actually thought of doing a magazine article instead. Funny, Michael, that when you asked me to write this annotation, the first thought was, “have to credit Jim Steranko.” It’s too easily forgotten that Steranko, in the first volume of his History, single-handedly changed everyone’s view of Wayne Boring (with the paragraph that I noticed that I included in the article: what a great feeling to be unexpectedly proud of your 17-yearold self) by putting the weight of his own irrefutable place in the Comic Book Pantheon (particularly in 1970) in the balance. This really should be mandatory in the field, I think, for those in the Pantheon at any given moment: Speak up for someone whose work you admire that is otherwise generally thought of as pedestrian or merely “workmanlike.”

Of course, Kinney itself was absorbed by Warners and Warners subsumed within Time Warner and Time Warner subsumed within AOL Time Warner (An Ol’ Time Warner?). A lot of guys, a lot of boxes, a lot of curbs, a lot of sanitation department trucks. Sad, really.

1973 Article By Dave Sim “Wayne Boring has to rank among the giants in the comic book field. His work on the Superman strip in the ’40s and ’50s set the standard for many of the ‘super-heroes’ published today! He is a true professional and a great guy to boot!” —John Verpoorten, production manager Marvel Comics Group

What strikes me—in re-reading the piece—was: (a) Wayne Boring’s honesty. Apart from Jim Shooter, no one (at that time) had dared to say anything publicly about Mort Weisinger’s... peculiarities, the treatment of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the... well, read the cartoons for yourself.

(b) Wayne Boring’s versatility. In an “industry” that preferred the assembly-line approach, he could obviously do it all. The composition, the spotting of blacks, the variety of texture on the suits and ties, the lettering. Just amazing. (c) “When Kinney took over, I was in a box with Mort Weisinger.” Dispassionate. No trace of self-pity. Just the recognition that “facts is facts.” Look at what he thought of Weisinger. And then, after thirty years of service, to find yourself in a box with the guy, out at the curb, waiting for the sanitation department truck.

In 1937, the idea of using new material in comic books was novel. And, apparently, no one really knew what to do. The only precedents were newsstand and giveaway comic-book-size reprints of newspaper comic strips. There were no people making a living off comic books except publishers, editors, and printers. Then M.C. Gaines, in association with Major Malcolm WheelerNicholson, decided to print new material in Detective Comics’ first issue (1937). The result was a wave of mediocre to average talents— frustrated in the newspaper strip field—grasping at any new idea that might “make it big” in the new medium of word bubbles and pen-andink drawings.

Names like Bob Kane, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, and Creig Flessel began appearing on pages of primitive swipes of Raymond, Foster, and Caniff panels in Detective Comics and its companion magazines New Adventure and More Fun. It was during that first year that Wayne Boring, looking in a writers’ magazine for a short cut to a writing career, came across a “Cartoonist Wanted” advertisement and answered it. As a result, he was contacted by Jerry Siegel, who, with his partner Joe Shuster, had the idea of “selling comics to a magazine.” They had not thought of the Superman concept at that time. “I was a newspaper layout guy when I started with Jerry and Joe,”

Wayne Is Boring! says Boring. “I worked on ‘Spy,’ ‘Federal Men,’ ‘Slam Bradley,’ and ‘Superman’ in 1938.” He began his work in comic books doing backgrounds and inking and finally finished work when Jerry Siegel, as he had tried to do for three years previously, sold the “Superman” feature as a comic strip to the McClure Syndicate in 1940. Boring quit his job drawing for the Virginia Pilot and, along with his wife Lois, moved to Cleveland to draw “Superman” for $50 a week. Wayne Boring is very brief about his beginnings as an artist. “At first I copied Frank Godwin’s Connie. My animal draughtsmanship came form my instructor, J. Allen St. John, of Tarzan.” His art training includes three years at the Minneapolis School of Art. He turned down a scholarship in his fourth year to study under St. John at the Chicago Institute of Art. He has a real love for drawing, although he doesn’t consider comic art and cartooning as respectable as other forms of drawing, preferring more “serious” forms of graphic presentation. “I can’t stay away from a stretched canvas and a tube of acrylic color.” Boring was at National Periodicals (DC) through the period of formation, the initial success of Superman, the recession of comic books owing to Dr. Fredric Wertham’s book Seduction of the Innocent, the restoration of Superman in the late 1950s (shored up by a menagerie of Mort Weisinger creations— Superhorse, Superdog, Supercat, Supermonkey, etc.), the competitive years which saw Marvel Comics’ restructured super-hero concepts outstrip the DC books in sales, the Batman craze of 1966, and, ultimately, the mass firing of artists and writers by Carmine Infantino when he was instituted as the head of National Periodicals, coincident to its being bought out by the Kinney Corporation in 1968.

featuring Superman. His was a distinctive style—the addition of facial expression in place of bland three-quarter and profile views of faces. The villains that, under Siegel and Shuster’s typewriter and drawing board, had been churned out of a Dick Tracy-like mold, which dictated that the characters were to be almost completely unbelievable and hardly resemble anything human, became as close to believable as they ever would with Boring’s efforts. The Toyman and the Prankster, among other notables, while still decidedly cartoonish, suddenly became obese but more realistic overgrown kids. Superman took on a more streamlined look—muscles showed, but not in any abundance. The ludicrous and top-heavy Joe Shuster figure gave way to the deity-proportioned Man of Tomorrow of the Wayne Boring years. Jim Steranko, in the first volume of his History of Comics, says: “...the work of Wayne Boring emerges as the most notable of the ‘stable’ artists. Boring salvaged the Man of Steel by transforming him into a massive, muscled version of virile exuberance. His expressive faces and tight, incisive rendering breathed new life into Superman’s tired hulk. Cities became skyscrapered stylizations of vertical lines. Superman began to look the part. Boring’s classic figure remains as the model for today’s Superman.”

Indeed, Boring’s efforts improved in the years he worked at DC. In the late ’40s, when Joe Shuster was gradually easing out of the Superman strip and Boring was being introduced, their styles were quite similar. Perhaps the only difference was Boring’s better sense of page composition and balance. Around 1945, Boring began drawing covers for the Superman magazines. Perhaps the most well known is the cover of Superman #53, marking Superman’s tenth For Thor #280 (Feb. 1979), writer/editor Roy Thomas had Wayne Boring pencil Marvel’s own anniversary in the comic Superman rival—fighting Hyperion of the Squadron Supreme, whom Roy and Sal Buscema books. The illustration of had originally designed as a takeoff on Boring’s version of the Man of Steel. Repro’d from Superman standing on a the original art, from RT’s collection. [©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.] rocky surface with the planet Krypton exploding and the small rocket being hurled off into space in the background has since been used in numerous ways to promote “I enjoyed working with National Periodicals for years. This was a Superman and has become a kind of trademark. good company until the original builders started leaving. I worked for years with Jack Schiff, editor. When Kinney took over, I was in a box “Yes, I did the cover. It bears little resemblance to my original, with Mort Weisinger. I bowed out due to editorial stupidity. My Sunday though, because it has been worked over by editors who think they can and daily strips had folded, anyway, which was my main effort.” draw and by the kids in the bullpen.” Boring’s work during the years that he was involved with DC Comics was perhaps the best ever to be featured in the DC magazines

Boring also drew the origin of Superman in that same issue, becoming the first person besides Superman’s creator to do so and adding a dimension of realism that the 1938 version had lacked. The basic ideas

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt

were still present, plus some more ‘facual’ data, but somehow the artwork with bold brush strokes and delicate feathering set off the oftenreferred-to story in a way Joe Shuster never could. In a newspaper article written in 1950 on his work on the Superman strip, Boring revealed that when he received a script written by one of the three Superman writers, he never read it through before drawing it. Instead, he read one panel at a time, drew it, and then continued on with the next, following the story as an average reader would. “To read the script over and over and then draw it, knowing the answer, would spoil it for me and make it seem too much like work.” Boring drew innumerable stories during the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s in Superman, Action Comics, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen (including the cover of the first issue), Superboy (cover of that first issue, too), and World’s Finest Comics. “I drew off the cuff,” he says, speaking mostly of his 1960s work at DC, “penciling twenty pages per week. I did a Sunday and daily Superman per week and twelve pages for the magazine per month. Plus, I did a ten-page Action story per month, pencils only. Stan Kaye inked and made me look really good.” While at DC, Boring began experimenting with new ideas in the newspaper strip field, including Cassie Van Twerp (a young girl accidentally granted powers of telekinesis) and a science-fiction strip requested in 1966 by the Toronto Star Syndicate. Entitled The Awful World of Ticket Tynn, the sample strips Boring had completed were returned without explanation. He submitted them, along with a number of other ideas, to a number of New York syndicates without success.

Frank is now accepting art commissions for covers, splash panels, or pin-up re-creations! Also, your ideas for NEW art are welcome! Art can be pencils only, inked or full-color (painted) creation! Contact Frank directly for details and prices. (Minimum order: $150) Write now (be sure to include a self-addressed stamped envelope!) and receive FREE with my reply an autographed Brunner “Star Wars Galaxy” trading card! Contact the artist at his NEW address:

FRANK BRUNNER 312 Kildare Court Myrtle Beach, SC 29588 Visit my website at: http://www.geocities.com/soho/8915 and click on “Brunner Link”

“Foster was okay, but a perfectionist. I did all those damn castles, snow in the forest, and the boats and storms at sea.” Of the young artists of today, Boring says, “This kid (Neal Adams) is just a plain genius, but he takes too much time trying for perfection. He draws in miniature and projects up to page size. [John] Buscema is excellent and fast.” He does not, however, recommend comics as a career to promising artists. “The comic field is changing so fast (downhill) that maybe they [people entering the field] should take a second look at the profession as a source of income or something to dream on.” Wayne Boring has now left the comic book/comic strip field, after a very brief period working on Captain Marvel at Marvel Comics. As one of the few “original builders” of the New York comic book industry still around, and a fine artist, Wayne Boring has left behind him a history that may never be surpassed or matched. [NOTE: The preceding article is from Now & Then Times #2 (1973), and is reprinted by courtesy of Dave Sim. Dave Sim is the creator of Cerberus the Aardvark, one of the longest-running and most successful alternative comics.]

ATTENTION: FRANK BRUNNER ART FANS!

After quitting the National books, he went on to draw a strip called Davy Jones, which he describes as a “kind of Primus-scuba action strip,” until it was cancelled by United Features in late 1970. He also worked as an assistant to Hal Foster on Prince Valiant.

The ACTOR Page

ACTOR Up And Running by Jim McLauchlin ACTOR (A Commitment To Our Roots) is a new, federally certified notfor-profit corporation dedicated to helping members of the comic book industry in financial need. It is loosely based on Major League Baseball’s BAT (Baseball Assistance Team), whose premise is that many players, coaches, scouts, and other personnel worked in MLB in, say, the 1940s for low pay and with a nonexistent pension plan. Today, many of these people, who laid the groundwork for today’s more economically rewarding system, may be in financial need, due to age or health. BAT provides a safety net for former MLB people in need. A parallel exists in comics. Most Golden and even Silver Age creators toiled to build today’s industry, working only for page rate with no chance of ownership and no pension. ACTOR hopes to be a safety net for these creators, to whom today’s comics owe so much. ACTOR is still in its infancy, but it’s gaining steam fast. It has two boards of directors:

ACTOR’s first-ever auction at the Orlando MegaCon on March 3, 2001, was a rousing success. The event included 188 pieces from over 104 comics creators, was attended more than 100 people, and raised $68,620 for the group. As President, I hosted the auction with help from Mark Waid, George Pérez, and Image’s Anthony Bozzi. Highlights included:

• Joseph Michael Linsner—Dawn cover to Forbidden Zone (sold for $6000).

The Executive/Fund Raising Board, [Art ©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.] which will administer all the fund’s • George Pérez—JLA/Avengers promo operations and raise money, consists of piece ($4100). Mark Alessi of CrossGen Comics, Brian Pulido of Chaos! Comics, Pat • Joe Kubert—Tarzan original ($2500). McCallum of Wizard Entertainment, Joe Quesada of Marvel Comics, Michael Richardson of Dark Horse Comics, Jim Valentino of Image • Walter Simonson—Thor and Beta Ray Bill drawing ($2000). Comics, and myself. • John Romita Jr.—Spider-Man and Hobgoblin drawing, with inks by The Fund Disbursement Board, which will hear petitions and Romita Sr. ($2000). disburse funds, is composed of George Pérez and Roy Thomas (cochairs), Dick Giordano, Joe Kubert, Dennis O’Neil, and John Romita Sr. • Alan Moore—personal dummy copy of From Hell #1, complete with extensive notes from artist Eddie Campbell ($700).

Monthly! Edited and published by Robin Snyder

The generosity shown by everyone—artists and bidders alike—was amazing and gratifying to see. The cause really seems to resonate with everyone. Other ACTOR fund-raising activities will have been held by the time this notice appears in Alter Ego. Those who cannot attend a convention but wish to help this worthy cause can send donations to: ACTOR (A Commitment To Our Roots) 11301 Olympic Blvd., #587 Los Angeles, CA 90064

www.comicsfun.com/thecomics

Look for more bulletins in future issues of Alter Ego and elsewhere.

All-Star Compendium

A Few Hopefully Final Corrections to the All-Star Companion Installment No.

by Roy Thomas

With these notes that got squeezed out of our previous issue, we near the end of our announced project to catalogue virtually all errors in our 2000 publication. Ye Editor won’t be truly satisfied till there’s a second edition of The All-Star Companion, with all corrections embodied in the text. But don’t hold your breath. Your best bet is still to insert copies of these six pages from A/E V3#7-8 and this one into your copy of the book. To that end, we’ve formatted all three installments as two-sided pages. First, though it deals with only one actual (spelling) error, we wanted to share with you an informative letter from longtime comics writer Mike W. Barr: Dear Roy: Re the elusive authorship of All-Star #36 (“5 Drowned Men”): I have read this story, but until I read your summary of the plot, a possible source of inspiration—and therefore authorship—never occurred to me. “5,” with its “frat brother... who vowed revenge for a college prank” is very similar to the springboard of the plot for Rex Stout’s 1935 novel The League of Frightened Men. In that book, Stout’s second Nero Wolfe novel, the alleged motivation for the killer is having been crippled in a college prank by other students. Years later, the “other students” start showing up murdered. (The plot is twistier than that; I haven’t given away anything you won’t learn from the dust jacket copy.) It’s possible the similarity is coincidence. But if it isn’t, does it help us deduce the identity of the author of All-Star #36? Not with any certainty. It’s tempting to say this disclosure points to John Broome as the author, since he wrote the Nero Wolfe comic strip for several years, had been a guest at Rex Stout’s house, and certainly was familiar with Stout’s work. On the other hand, Stout was enormously popular in the ’30s and ’40s, so it’s possible that any comics writer of that era might have known of his novel, just as they were familiar with the work of Ellery Queen. Gardner Fox is known to have been an avid fan of John Dickson Carr, and might also have read Stout. Even curmudgeonly Bob Kanigher, who’s admitted to liking Clint Eastwood movies, may have read Stout. Any evidence is as circumstantial as that dealt with in my article in The All-Star Companion, “A Study in Speculation.” Still, it’s an interesting point to ponder. By the way, I also realized, after the Companion was in print, that I had spelled the first name of one of Ellery Queen’s co-creators, Frederic Dannay, as “Frederick.” (He took his spelling from the name of Chopin.) Mike W. Barr Thanks for the info, Mike. Now, on to our round of corrections: Right out of the chute—and most surprisingly, even embarrassingly— I must thank Jim Simmons of Madison Heights, Michigan, for his letter noting that the full-story page counts on seven of the 55 Golden Age JSA tales were off by one page each. I checked—and damned if he wasn’t right! I had taken the overall page counts from Craig Delich’s excellent and usually reliable 1977 All-Star Comics Revue, rather than counting the story pages myself, as I should have. And Craig says he took them from

Jerry G. Bails’ earlier Index. The error is my responsibility, not Jerry’s or Craig’s, but it shows how easy it is for incorrect data to get passed on. I did re-count the pages in each individual chapter for those listings; and merely adding those figures would have given me, in seven cases, a slightly different story-length total. At any rate, here are the seven incorrect Companion page-count totals, and the corrected ones:

Issue: #9 #13 #14 #15 #20 #35 #44

Page Count in Companion: 56 55 55 55 39 39 32

Corrected Page Count: 57 56 54 56 38 38 33

Now on to page-by-page notes on a few more errors, mostly thankfully minor, plus a bit of additional information about entries in the Companion: Page 4: Murray Ward, publisher of the single 1987 issue of All-Star Comics Index, was first to remind us, re Julie Schwartz’ Preface, that Justice League of America #21-22 actually contained the second two-part JLA tale, the first being the Felix Faust story in #10-11. We had corrected that goof by the time we printed the full version of Julie’s interview in A/E V3#7.

All-Star Compendium

Page 15: The late Rich Morrissey, access to information that wasn’t in the only weeks before his untimely passing, several books we checked, but that these sent us a number of corrections and beasts actually did inhabit ancient additions, beginning with one Australia, as per the story. Rob Schmidt concerning the possible creator(s) of e-mailed Jerry Bails (who passed it on “Ultra-Man,” who appeared in All-Star to us) as follows: “The giant kangaroo #1: “I think Ron Goulart rejected the was about as Roy Thomas described it. idea that the ‘Don Shelby/By Sheldon’ Genyornis (Genyornis Newtoni) was a anagram in the ‘Ultra-Man’ credits was real giant bird—though it resembled the anything more than coincidence. Martin flightless dodo, not a pterodactyl. [O’Hearn, Rich’s colleague who Diprotodon [spelled with an ‘e’ instead analyzes writing styles in comics] tells of an ‘i’ in All-Star] was a large me Jon L. Blummer wrote as well as mammal—the ‘largest marsupial that drew it... and, even more telling, ‘Don ever lived,’ not ‘one of the first Shelby’ rhymes with Blummer’s other, mammals.’ It didn’t look anything like much more transparent pseudonym of the animal pictured, since the animal Jon Elby (Jon L.B.).” Even so, as I pictured was a faux dinosaur, not a replied to Rich, the fact that “Don mammal.” One JSA artist no example of whose work was reprinted in the Companion was Bernard Klein, who drew the “Dr. Fate” chapter in Shelby” and “By Sheldon” contain All-Star #12, as reprinted in the third volume of DC’s All Star Archives. exactly the same letters is quite a coinciPage 163: Matthew Wanderski points [©2001 DC Comics.] dence! Perhaps Sheldon Mayer at least out that Green Lantern is listed as being had a hand in creating Ultra-Man—or, even if he didn’t, maybe Blummer on two of the teams that tackled the Diamond Men in All-Star #51. In used his editor’s name as the basis of an anagram. After all, one has to actuality, as (fortunately) depicted in a panel reproduced on the next page dig up his pseudonyms from somewhere. of the Companion, Black Canary teamed up with Flash and Wonder Woman—GL with The Atom. Page 39: As Murray Ward (among others) mentioned, Page 169: Re those in-joke posters in All-Star Sisty and Dinky in Mayer’s #55, Murray asks: “Could ‘Ira Knox’ be a reference “Scribbly” feature were not to DC letterer Ira Schnapp, who could have lettered siblings, only playmates. Sisty this story?” Could be. (See illos.) was Ma Hunkel’s kid; Dinky was Scribbly’s little brother. We Page 175: Rich Morrissey’s correction to a knew that, but somehow forgot backup credit: “The ‘Tippie’ strip in All-Star #26 it when writing the “Red used as a filler was not by ‘Ed Wina.’ It is a Tornado” entry. newspaper strip by ‘Edwina,’ a female cartoonist who signed her work with only her first name... for Page 65: And Murray which she can hardly be blamed, considering the last reminds us that, while listing name (Dumm) that she was stuck with!” Edgar Rice Burroughs influences on JSA tales, we might Page 184: Rich and Murray both noted that have added that Hawkman’s somehow Roy combined elements of the plots of belt of “Ninth (later Nth) Metal Flash #123 and JLA #21. No Earthwas most probably inspired by Two villains crossed over to Earththe Eighth Ray (in addition to One in the former; Barry Allen merely the seven rays of the spectrum) of vibrated into Jay Garrick’s world to Barsoom,” which is ERB’s name for Mars help him battle same. in his John Carter novels. Okay—so that’s six pages of Page 151: Murray yet again: “Whoops! corrections and additions to The AllThe Harlequin was Molly Maynne, not Star Companion (counting the Molly Mann.” Double-whoops! And Ye printing of two “Flash” tiers from the Editor is even the guy who married her off unpublished “Will of William Wilson” to Alan Scott in Infinity, Inc.! saga) over the course of three issues of Alter Ego. Will there be a few more to P. 160: With regard to the prehistoric come? Wait and see—but we creatures shown in All-Star #48, it appears sure hope not! that writer John Broome not only had The books and “wanted” poster in these panels from two pages in All-Star #55 are probably crammed with private intra-office meaning, as suggested in the Companion. [©2001 DC Comics.]

no. 69

in this issue:

Marc Swayze Dave Cockrum & C.C. Beck

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We Didn’t Know...

[FCA EDITOR’S NOTE: From 1941-53, Marcus D. Swayze was one of Fawcett Comics’ top artists. He was the first artist to bring Mary Marvel to life on the drawing board, and the one who illustrated her very first adventures; but he was primarily hired to illustrate (layout, pencil, and ink) “Captain Marvel” stories and covers, as well as to write “Captain Marvel” scripts, which he continued to do while in the armed services during World War II. Soon after returning from military duty, he made his way back home to Louisiana and freelanced for Fawcett, in addition to drawing Bell Syndicate’s Flyin’ Jenny newspaper strip, created by his mentor and friend Russell Keaton. Marc’s ongoing professional memoirs have been an important and popular part of FCA since his first column appeared in #54 in 1996. Last time he discussed his post-Fawcett work and took us back to his days working for Charlton Comics in Derby, Connecticut. This issue, Marc returns to the time when he was illustrating and often writing Wow Comics’ “Phantom Eagle,” continuing the narrative from his columns in Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #4-6. He also touches upon the genre that awaited him after Wow’s cancellation with the Fall 1948 issue.—P.C. Hamerlinck.] Shortly after I had begun drawing “The Phantom Eagle” in 1944, word came down the Fawcett pipe that the second or third story was to be a “crossover.” I wasn’t sure what that meant. “You’ve done them,” insisted editor Wendell Crowley. “When you were drawing Mary Marvel and the story called for assistance by Captain Marvel Jr.... that was a crossover. You drew the Captain and Mary, and Mac Raboy drew Junior!” (Captain Marvel Adventures #18, Dec. ’42.) So that was it. A crossover was when a hero, or heroine, moved over into the story of another, to lend a helping hand.

39 Artist Carl Pfeufer was a neighbor of mine... in Wow Comics, that is. At that time he was drawing Commando Yank, and Yank was appearing in each issue, right next door to The Phantom Eagle. The crossover didn’t mean that the creators pulled their drawing tables up side-by-side, chatting warmly about who would do this panel and who would do that. Pfeufer and I were 1500 miles apart and never spoke a word on the phone about the project. The story, “The Iron Gate” (Wow #33, Feb. ’45), featured the Eagle predominantly, and consequently came first to me. I merely roughed in the figure in pencil where Yank was to appear, finished my part around it, and shipped it that way. Carl Pfeufer was a solid, no-nonsense professional. There was no need for further concern. I never knew who wrote that story. As far as that goes, I wasn’t certain who any of the writers were. In those days it wasn’t common practice that the authors’ names be on the Fawcett scripts. But by and large the stories were

good. It was my assumption that the seasoned pros I had known in the Captain Marvel days were involved... Woolfolk, Messman, Millard, Wellman, Broome, et al. Toward the end of 1945 the scripts began to show a decided change... an air of uncertainty that hadn’t been there before. The underlying theme of the Phantom Eagle feature was stated broadly in the legend that appeared within the title panel of each story. But there was more to it than that. The scripts were revealing an unfamiliarity with the characters... their personalities, their expressions. It didn’t take long for me to realize... I was working with a new set of writers. Also a new editor! Mercedes Shull was a member of the comics editorial department when I joined Fawcett Publications in 1941. She was editor of Wow Comics when I took over “The Phantom Eagle” after returning from the military. We rarely corresponded. There was no need to. She was an if-itain’t-broke editor and, I like to think, completely confident in my ability to do the right thing. I was pleased when told some years later that Mercy and her husband had retired and were happily operating a vacation ranch. Deep down inside me I suspect there may have lurked an ugly little suspicion that the primary objective of all new editors was to make comic book writers out of untalented relatives. I didn’t say that in my letter to Roy Ald, but I did let him know that I held a high respect for the Phantom Eagle feature and was irritated when that respect wasn’t shared by anyone connected with it.

Crossovers, anybody? Previously unglimpsed Swayze sketches of the Shazam siblings, whom he occasionally drew in the same story in 1940s Fawcett stories. [Art ©2001 Marc Swayze; Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel ©2001 DC Comics.]

On the right in the photo: Carl Pfeufer (artist for both Fawcett and Timely, where he succeeded Bill Everett on “Sub-Mariner”). On the left is Charlie Tomsey, who drew various super-hero strips for Fawcett in the early ’40s. Vintage photo courtesy of Marc Swayze. [Art ©2001 DC Comics.]

I don’t have a copy of that letter to Ald, but I did save my rough preliminary notes. I quote from them: • Story very weak on p. 3. Insufficient motivation for PE’s movements. • PE’s plane is the Cometplane... is a feature in itself and should be written as such.

that, so I assumed the exchange of correspondence hadn’t hurt. Might have made better writers out of the new guys. And who knows? Might have made a better editor. I drew “The Phantom Eagle” in Wow Comics from issue #30, Oct. ’44, until Fawcett discontinued publication of the book with #69, fall of

• On page 1 the Phantom Eagle is sent on a mission. On page 2 he is “Pilot Malone”... with no explanation as to why he is flying as “Malone” or why he should be. We must guard against featuring Mickey. When he dons the costume he is The Phantom Eagle. • On page 3 there is no reason given why PE suddenly decides to land at this particular spot. • Captions that describe what can be seen in the illustrations are unnecessary. • PE doesn’t ordinarily carry a gun of any kind on his person. • Title panel should feature full figure of PE, not just a long shot in his plane. • Lengthy balloons should never appear in action panels. • “The” should be used before PE when referring to him, but dropped in addressing him. Ex: Here comes the Phantom Eagle. “Welcome, Phantom Eagle!” • PE should not be addressed as “Phantom”... There’s a newspaper strip by that name. • Okay for pals to call him “Eagle”... but with some restraint... the feature’s name is “The Phantom Eagle.” The scripts began to show improvement after

Fawcett editor Roy Ald’s letter to Marc Swayze—plus a previously unpublished illo (also circa 1946) of The Phantom Eagle by Marc from his personal sketchbook. [Art ©2001 Marc Swayze; Phantom Eagle ©2001 DC Comics.]

...It Was The Golden Age!

’48. There were two issues that did not carry my work, Nos. 54 and 56, and two, Nos. 42 and 43, that contained two stories each, drawn by me. My first writing of the feature, a story titled “The Black Flamingo,” appeared in Wow #63. It was my intention to introduce a villain colorful enough to be brought back in future stories, and toward that end I followed it with “The Return of the Black Flamingo” in Wow #65. Other Phantom Eagle tales from my typewriter were “The Horror of the Swamp” (Wow #64), “The Runaway Rocket” (#66), “The Eyes of

“I wanted a villain I could bring back.” Marc’s original 1947 pencil-andsometimes-ink sketches of The Black Flamingo (right) and his plane (top right)— and his story synopsis. [Art ©2001 Marc Swayze; Black Flamingo ©2001 DC Comics.]

We Didn’t Know... Evil” (#67), “The Jungle of Doom” (#68), and “The Flight of the Bee” (#69). Several approved scripts had the titles changed in the editorial office prior to publication, making it difficult to connect them to specific issues of Wow. They included “The Kiffen Diamond” and “The Valley of Fog.” I was preparing an outline and preliminary sketches for another, “The Daughter of the Black Flamingo,” when I received a call from William H. Lieberson, executive editor of Fawcett comics. Wow was being discontinued. No question about it, “The Phantom Eagle” was a fun job. Had Fawcett Publications taken such a direction, I might have been perfectly satisfied to lay aside my dreams of a future with a newspaper feature and to fly with young Mickey Malone and his pal Jerry on to the wherever. But, of course, things didn’t turn out that way. It was a surprise, but I don’t recall any pangs of disappointment or regret at the announcement. Without the slightest pause, Willie went right on, “Would you be interested in illustrating romances?” Now there was a pause. Romances were in. A new day was here. The war was over... and so were a lot of other things. Illustrate romances? Romances would mean no more panel-after-panel aerial dogfights, fistfights, and other kinds of fights... and, in their place, characterizations... expressions... emotions... human interest... people... women! I loved to draw women! You can guess my answer. [Marc Swayze’s memoirs of his life and comics career will be continued in the next FCA section of Alter Ego.] “The war was over... No more dogfights.” From Wow Comics #38 (Sept.-Oct. 1945). [©2001 DC Comics.]

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Dave Cockrum

“I Wish I Could Have Done More” Artist Dave Cockrum’s Short but Sweet Stint on Captain Marvel Jr. in Shazam! Interviewed by P.C. Hamerlinck FCA: Where were you born, and what did your parents do for a living? DAVE COCKRUM: I was born in Pendleton, Oregon, in November of 1943. My folks were both teachers, but my dad also had a reserve commission in the U.S. Army during World War II, then switched over when the Air Force was organized as a separate unit around 1949 or 1950. Dad was recalled to active duty for Korea, and after that ended, he decided to stay in until retirement. Consequently, we moved around a lot. FCA: Did you grow up reading comic books? If so, what were some of your favorites?

COCKRUM: Yes. There was an issue of Captain Marvel Jr. I remember vividly. I actually still have it, but I don’t recall the issue number. The cover features Captain Marvel Jr. bashing a giant flying eyeball. Green goo was flying everywhere! [laughter] FCA: How did you break into comics? Through the fanzines? What was your first professional work? What had you worked on prior to getting the Shazam! assignment? COCKRUM: I did some fanzine work; my first fan work was published in a tabloid fanzine called Enterprise Monthly. Later I did a lot of work for Gary Groth’s Fantastic Fanzine. My first paid professional work was for Warren Publishing in Vampirella #11. My early work at DC was “The Legion of Superheroes,” and I believe I’m generally credited for taking a dying feature and bringing it back to robust life.

COCKRUM: Some of my earliest memories involve comic books. I can recall my father bringing home comic books that he had confiscated from kids in his class. The first one I recall was “Crimebuster” in Boy Comics. Later, my folks bought me a subscription to Looney Tunes and Merrie FCA: How did the Melodies, rightly figuring it would help me to read at an Shazam! assignment come early age. My favorites as a about? Were you asked by boy just happened to be all DC to provide samples of of the Fawcett Marvel Captain Marvel Jr. as well A 1970 Captain Marvel painting done by Cockrum around the time he broke into the pro ranks. Family titles. I caught the as of the entire Marvel [Art ©2001 Dave Cockrum; Capt. Marvel ©2001 DC Comics.] tail end of their 13-year run. Family? I used to run around our yard with a towel tied around my neck, yelling COCKRUM: Actually, I got the job to draw Captain Marvel Jr. because “Scissors!” because I couldn’t pronounce “Shazam!” I pretended I was I shamelessly badgered Shazam! editors Julie Schwartz and E. Nelson Captain Marvel, of course, and my younger brother and sister were Bridwell about it. I would have been delighted to draw Captain Marvel Junior and Mary. or Mary Marvel, too, for that matter, but I felt my emerging style was FCA: Any particular Fawcett comic from your childhood that you can more suitable to that established for Cap Jr. years ago by Mac Raboy. I recall? did three sample pages of a hypothetical “Junior” story to show that I

“I Wish I Could Have Done More” COCKRUM: Absolutely to all of the questions! I could have spent an entire career drawing the Marvel Family. FCA: Why did you leave Shazam!? Didn’t DC want you to continue to be the main “Captain Marvel Jr.” artist? COCKRUM: I don’t like to point fingers, but you asked. The reason I left DC was almost entirely the doing of then editor-in-chief Carmine Infantino. I had drawn a story in Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes #200 featuring the wedding of Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel. At the time, DC was not yet returning original artwork to the artists (unlike Marvel Comics, whom I was also doing work for at the time). I asked for the return of one page from SATLSH #200, the actual wedding scene. Murray Boltinoff agreed, and when the art was returned from the printer, he set it aside for me. The day I was due to pick it up at the DC offices, Carmine found out that Murray was going to hand it over, and absolutely forbade it. Period. No discussion. I resigned from the Legion comic that very day. However, I had worked long and hard to get to do the “Captain Marvel Jr.” strip in Shazam!, and I wanted to keep doing it. I asked both Julie Schwartz and Roy Thomas (then the editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics) if I could continue doing “Captain Marvel Jr.” if I was working at Marvel. Both editors very generously agreed. Once again, it was Carmine Infantino who vetoed it. If I was not going to stay with DC full time, I would not be allowed to do “Cap Jr.” So I went to Marvel Comics fulltime and helped create the new X-Men.

could handle the character, but it was done entirely on my own initiative. No one at DC asked me to do it. FCA: It seems you were already familiar with Raboy’s version of Jr. when you got the job to draw the character. Looking back at your one and only “Junior” story (Shazam! #9, Jan. 1974), your approach superbly captured the mood of the character. Before illustrating Junior, did you research Fawcett comic books with Raboy artwork? COCKRUM: As mentioned, I’d been a fan of the entire Marvel Family since childhood. When it seemed likely that I would be given the Shazam! assignment, I went out and bought a number of issues of Captain Marvel Jr. and Master Comics featuring Mac Raboy’s work. FCA: Did you enjoy drawing Cap Jr.? Did you wish you could have drawn more “Junior” stories, or had your hand in illustrating Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel, as well?

Dave Cockrum

FCA: Are there any comic book artists whose work you greatly admire or consider influential in your own work? COCKRUM: Well, C. C. Beck would have to be one of my early favorites, since Captain Marvel Adventures and The Marvel Family were some of the first comic books I ever read. Later, I fell head over heels in love with Wally Wood’s work, and since—unlike most other artists of the day—his work was usually signed, I knew who it was I was admiring. His artwork is still some of my very favorite, especially the work he did on T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents for Tower Comics. Later on, of course, I discovered Joe Kubert, Gil Kane, Murphy Anderson, and yes, Carmine Infantino. Once the Marvel Age debuted, I discovered Jack Kirby (I’d actually seen and loved his work earlier on Harvey’s Shield—The Double Life of Private Strong—and The Fly), Steve Ditko, Bill Everett, John Romita Sr., and John Buscema.

Somewhere along the line I also encountered reprints of Will Eisner’s Spirit and grew to love that, as well. FCA: What other comic book work have you done, and what are your current projects? COCKRUM: At Marvel Comics, I had two well-received stints drawing The X-Men. I’ve also worked on The Avengers, Star Trek, Ms. Marvel, and designed many covers. Also while at Marvel I created my own group, The Futurians, and penciled, wrote and inked a graphic novel under that title (my wife Paty did the coloring). I did four more issues of Futurians for a company named Lodestone, where I also worked on four issues of a revived version of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. Upon my return to DC I did four lackluster issues of Batman. I also did a number of covers for one of my all-time favorite comics, Blackhawk. In addition, I did a couple of backup stories for the book. I worked on some Justice League comics, a couple of Green Lantern stories, a Wonder Woman Annual, and other odds and ends. I’ve always regretted not having had a chance to work on The Marvel Family as well as Hawkman, Flash, and to do more Hal Jordan-Green Lantern and Blackhawk stories. After I departed from DC for the second time, I did worked for Valiant, Defiant, Broadway, and Claypool. Currently, I’m creating commissioned art pieces and selling off some of my comic book pages (see <www.davecockrum.com>). I’m also nursing several projects involving The Futurians (they’re currently being reprinted in France), and working on a new series idea titled T.H.U.G.S. (Tough Huge Ugly Goons). It’s about a repo agency which uses monsters as its repo men. My son Ivan is also working on a dark, noir science-fiction series concept that he wants me to collaborate on with him. FCA: While you only drew one “Captain Marvel Jr.” story, how does it feel to be at least a small part of Marvel Family history? COCKRUM: I enjoyed the one story I did. Other than that, I wasn’t enough of a part of Marvel Family history; I wish I could have done more. I would still like to draw the Marvel Family. Splash and panels from Dave’s CMJr tale in Shazam! #9. [©2001 DC Comics.]

C.C. Beck

Mr. Editor-Man Tell Us A Story Please? by C.C. Beck Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck [FCA presents another previously unpublished essay by the late C.C. Beck, the original Captain Marvel’s first and chief artist, and one of the true masters of comic art. Beck, who held conservative views, was often highly critical of savage, cluttered art and of unnecessary violence used in comic books; and this essay from January 1979 is no exception.—PCH.] Comic books have always been known for their violent action. But how has this action been shown? In pictures that seem to move and live and do things? Or in pictures that just lie on the paper like snapshots in an album? In comic book production a script comes first and is carefully worked up between a writer and an editor. It is then turned over to an artist for illustration. Often, in comic books, the finished result is a sort of hand-lettered story with illustrations added. Most of the copy is put into captions, and in some stories no speech balloons or sound effects are used at all. As whatever action may be in the story is told in words, the pictures can either duplicate what the reader is reading or else present elaborate settings, panoramic views, and displays of costumes and theatricallooking people standing around in various poses. A picture is, by its very nature, stopped in time. Only a sequence of pictures can give the illusion of action, and here is where so many comic books go wrong. Instead of presenting a series of panels, one following another like the frames of a moving picture film, the panels jump all over the place, expanding and contracting as if the movie screen were jumping all over while changing size. Furthermore, perspectives and light sources change from panel to panel so that reading a comic book can be like watching a slide show with someone describing everything while the slide projector throws large, small, dark, light, jammed and empty slides onto the walls, ceiling, floor, or out the window.

Editors of comic books always want “lots of action” in the drawings, whether there is any action in the story or not. They seem to be the happiest when they can show a hero doing a half dozen things at once, which results in a picture of a hero apparently throwing an epileptic

fit. Again, they call for showing the hero in a dramatic pose, which makes him look like an actor in an oldtime “living statues show,” where people use to dress up in costumes and stand stock still for a minute or two while the curtain was opened and closed again. There can be no action in a comic book panel, and trying to put action into one is useless. All the action must take place outside the pictures, not in them. Sometimes the actual action takes place before the strip even starts; the reader only sees the results, which leaves the reader free to imagine the action. Today’s comics, in an attempt to create excitement, are filled with little theatrical bits that are placed into each panel. The artist sees the need to dress up the strip with trick perspective, close-ups, long shots, and elaborate drawings. Since most stories are so dull today, the only thing the reader can do is admire the elaborate artwork in them. Wouldn’t they be better off going to an art museum if the reader’s an art lover, rather than spend time looking at comic books? The editors are right: The readers do want action. But they don’t get it from reading overwritten and hyped-up stories or by looking at elaborate layouts and overdrawn panel art. In these comic book stories, the editor, the writer, and the artist knock themselves out trying to attract the reader’s attention and then hold it for a few minutes with various tricks. What they should do is try to get the reader’s imagination working, then let everything take place in their imagination where it belongs. Both words and pictures are dead; they just lie on the paper where they have been placed. A reader has to bring them to life in his mind. “But the readers are just kids. Don’t you have to spell out everything for them? Their little minds can’t grasp a story unless you build it up with lots of exciting words and action-filled pictures,” you may say. To which I say, “Horsefeathers!” Kids have wonderful imaginations. All you have to do is give them a chance to use them. When kids grow up their imaginations shrivel up, like their thymus glands shrivel up and become inactive. Most adults think that imaginations are something to be ashamed of and any adult who still has one is queer or childish. Adults who still read comic books or, even worse, edit, write, and illustrate them are put into a category somewhere between bed-wetters and thumb-suckers by your average “normal” grownup, who never reads anything at all and wouldn’t be caught dead even looking at a road sign or the drawings on an instruction sheet. So please, comic book editors, writers, and artists, give us readers a chance to use our imaginations while we’ve still got them. Stop telling us everything and showing us everything as if we were reading income tax instructions or watching an army training film. When we read a story we want to enjoy the story, not the words and pictures that tell it.

Now—FLIP US for “Carmine & Company”

Edited by ROY THOMAS

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ALTER EGO #3

STAN LEE gets roasted by SCHWARTZ, CLAREMONT, DAVID, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, and SHOOTER, ORDWAY and THOMAS on INFINITY, INC., IRWIN HASEN interview, unseen H.G. PETER Wonder Woman pages, the original Captain Marvel and Human Torch teamup, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, “Mr. Monster”, plus plenty of rare and unpublished art!

Featuring a never-reprinted SPIRIT story by WILL EISNER, the genesis of the SILVER AGE ATOM (with GARDNER FOX, GIL KANE, and JULIE SCHWARTZ), interviews with LARRY LIEBER and Golden Age great JACK BURNLEY, BOB KANIGHER, a new Fawcett Collectors of America section with MARC SWAYZE, C.C. BECK, and more! GIL KANE and JACK BURNLEY flip-covers!

Unseen ALEX ROSS and JERRY ORDWAY Shazam! art, 1953 interview with OTTO BINDER, the SUPERMAN/CAPTAIN MARVEL LAWSUIT, GIL KANE on The Golden Age of TIMELY COMICS, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, and SCHAFFENBERGER, rare art by AYERS, BERG, BURNLEY, DITKO, RICO, SCHOMBURG, MARIE SEVERIN and more! ALEX ROSS & BILL EVERETT covers!

(80-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $2.95

(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #6

ALTER EGO #7

ALTER EGO #8

Interviews with KUBERT, SHELLY MOLDOFF, and HARRY LAMPERT, BOB KANIGHER, life and times of GARDNER FOX, ROY THOMAS remembers GIL KANE, a history of Flash Comics, MOEBIUS Silver Surfer sketches, MR. MONSTER, FCA section with SWAYZE, BECK, and SCHAFFENBERGER, and lots more! Dual color covers by JOE KUBERT!

Celebrating the JSA, with interviews with MART NODELL, SHELLY MAYER, GEORGE ROUSSOS, BILL BLACK, and GIL KANE, unpublished H.G. PETER Wonder Woman art, GARDNER FOX, an FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, C.C. BECK, WENDELL CROWLEY, and more! Wraparound cover by CARMINE INFANTINO and JERRY ORDWAY!

GENE COLAN interview, 1940s books on comics by STAN LEE and ROBERT KANIGHER, AYERS, SEVERIN, and ROY THOMAS on Sgt. Fury, ROY on All-Star Squadron’s Golden Age roots, FCA section with SWAYZE, BECK, and WILLIAM WOOLFOLK, JOE SIMON interview, a definitive look at MAC RABOY’S work, and more! Covers by COLAN and RABOY!

Companion to ALL-STAR COMPANION book, with a JULIE SCHWARTZ interview, guide to JLA-JSA TEAMUPS, origins of the ALL-STAR SQUADRON, FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, C.C. BECK (on his 1970s DC conflicts), DAVE BERG, BOB ROGERS, more on MAC RABOY from his son, MR. MONSTER, and more! RICH BUCKLER and C.C. BECK covers!

WALLY WOOD biography, DAN ADKINS & BILL PEARSON on Wood, TOR section with 1963 JOE KUBERT interview, ROY THOMAS on creating the ALL-STAR SQUADRON and its 1940s forebears, FCA section with SWAYZE & BECK, MR. MONSTER, JERRY ORDWAY on Shazam!, JERRY DeFUCCIO on the Golden Age, CHIC STONE remembered! ADKINS and KUBERT covers!

(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(100-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $2.95

(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #9

ALTER EGO #10

ALTER EGO #11

ALTER EGO #12

ALTER EGO #13

JOHN ROMITA interview by ROY THOMAS (with unseen art), Roy’s PROPOSED DREAM PROJECTS that never got published (with a host of great artists), MR. MONSTER on WAYNE BORING’S life after Superman, The Golden Age of Comic Fandom Panel, FCA section with GEORGE TUSKA, C.C. BECK, MARC SWAYZE, BILL MORRISON, & more! ROMITA and GIORDANO covers!

Who Created the Silver Age Flash? (with KANIGHER, INFANTINO, KUBERT, and SCHWARTZ), DICK AYERS interview (with unseen art), JOHN BROOME remembered, never-seen Golden Age Flash pages, VIN SULLIVAN Magazine Enterprises interview, FCA, interview with FRED GUARDINEER, and MR. MONSTER on WAYNE BORING! INFANTINO and AYERS covers!

Focuses on TIMELY/MARVEL (interviews and features on SYD SHORES, MICKEY SPILLANE, and VINCE FAGO), and MAGAZINE ENTERPRISES (including JOE CERTA, JOHN BELFI, FRANK BOLLE, BOB POWELL, and FRED MEAGHER), MR. MONSTER on JERRY SIEGEL, DON and MAGGIE THOMPSON interview, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, and DON NEWTON!

DC and QUALITY COMICS focus! Quality’s GILL FOX interview, never-seen ‘40s PAUL REINMAN Green Lantern story, ROY THOMAS talks to LEN WEIN and RICH BUCKLER about ALL-STAR SQUADRON, MR. MONSTER shows what made WALLY WOOD leave MAD, FCA section with BECK & SWAYZE, & ‘65 NEWSWEEK ARTICLE on comics! REINMAN and BILL WARD covers!

1974 panel with JOE SIMON, STAN LEE, FRANK ROBBINS, and ROY THOMAS, ROY and JOHN BUSCEMA on Avengers, 1964 STAN LEE interview, tributes to DON HECK, JOHNNY CRAIG, and GRAY MORROW, Timely alums DAVID GANTZ and DANIEL KEYES, and FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, and MIKE MANLEY! Covers by MURPHY ANDERSON and JOE SIMON!

(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #14

ALTER EGO #15

ALTER EGO #16

ALTER EGO #17

ALTER EGO #18

A look at the 1970s JSA revival with CONWAY, LEVITZ, ESTRADA, GIFFEN, MILGROM, and STATON, JERRY ORDWAY on All-Star Squadron, tributes to CRAIG CHASE and DAN DeCARLO, “lost” 1945 issue of All-Star, 1970 interview with LEE ELIAS, MR. MONSTER on GARDNER FOX, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, & JAY DISBROW! MIKE NASSER & MICHAEL GILBERT covers!

JOHN BUSCEMA ISSUE! BUSCEMA interview (with UNSEEN ART), reminiscences by SAL BUSCEMA, STAN LEE, INFANTINO, KUBERT, ORDWAY, FLO STEINBERG, and HERB TRIMPE, ROY THOMAS on 35 years with BIG JOHN, FCA tribute to KURT SCHAFFENBERGER, plus C.C. BECK and MARC SWAYZE, and MR. MONSTER revisits WALLY WOOD! Two BUSCEMA covers!

MARVEL BULLPEN REUNION (BUSCEMA, COLAN, ROMITA, and SEVERIN), memories of the JOHN BUSCEMA SCHOOL, FCA with ALEX ROSS, C.C. BECK, and MARC SWAYZE, tribute to CHAD GROTHKOPF, MR. MONSTER on EC COMICS with art by KURTZMAN, DAVIS, and WOOD, and more! Covers by ALEX ROSS and MARIE SEVERIN & RAMONA FRADON!

Spotlighting LOU FINE (with an overview of his career, and interviews with family members), interview with MURPHY ANDERSON about Fine, ALEX TOTH on Fine, ARNOLD DRAKE interviewed about DEADMAN and DOOM PATROL, MR. MONSTER on the non-EC work of JACK DAVIS and GEORGE EVANS, FINE and LUIS DOMINGUEZ COVERS, FCA and more!

STAN GOLDBERG interview, secrets of ‘40s Timely, art by KIRBY, DITKO, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, MANEELY, EVERETT, BURGOS, and DeCARLO, spotlight on sci-fi fanzine XERO with the LUPOFFS, OTTO BINDER, DON THOMPSON, ROY THOMAS, BILL SCHELLY, and ROGER EBERT, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD ghosting Flash Gordon! KIRBY and SWAYZE covers!

(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #19

ALTER EGO #20

ALTER EGO #21

ALTER EGO #22

ALTER EGO #23

Spotlight on DICK SPRANG (profile and interview) with unseen art, rare Batman art by BOB KANE, CHARLES PARIS, SHELLY MOLDOFF, MAX ALLAN COLLINS, JIM MOONEY, CARMINE INFANTINO, and ALEX TOTH, JERRY ROBINSON interviewed about Tomahawk and 1940s cover artist FRED RAY, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD’s Flash Gordon, Part 2!

Timely/Marvel art by SEKOWSKY, SHORES, EVERETT, and BURGOS, secrets behind THE INVADERS with ROY THOMAS, KIRBY, GIL KANE, & ROBBINS, BOB DESCHAMPS interviewed, 1965 NY Comics Con review, panel with FINGER, BINDER, FOX and WEISINGER, MR. MONSTER, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, RABOY, SCHAFFENBERGER, and more! MILGROM and SCHELLY covers!

The IGER “SHOP” examined, with art by EISNER, FINE, ANDERSON, CRANDALL, BAKER, MESKIN, CARDY, EVANS, BOB KANE, and TUSKA, “SHEENA” section with art by DAVE STEVENS & FRANK BRUNNER, ROY THOMAS on JSA & All-Star Squadron, MR. MONSTER on GARDNER FOX, UNSEEN 1946 ALL-STAR ART, FCA, and more! DAVE STEVENS and IRWIN HASEN covers!

BILL EVERETT and JOE KUBERT interviewed by NEAL ADAMS and GIL KANE in 1970, Timely art by BURGOS, SHORES, NODELL, and SEKOWSKY, RUDY LAPICK, ROY THOMAS on Sub-Mariner, with art by EVERETT, COLAN, ANDRU, BUSCEMAs, SEVERINs, and more, FCA, MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD at EC, ALEX TOTH, and CAPT. MIDNIGHT! EVERETT & BECK covers!

Unseen art from TWO “LOST” 1940s H.G. PETER WONDER WOMAN STORIES (and analysis of “CHARLES MOULTON” scripts), BOB FUJITANI and JOHN ROSENBERGER, VICTOR GORELICK discusses Archie and The Mighty Crusaders, with art by MORROW, BUCKLER, and REINMAN, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD! H.G. PETER and BOB FUJITANI covers!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #24

ALTER EGO #25

ALTER EGO #26

ALTER EGO #27

ALTER EGO #28

X-MEN interviews with STAN LEE, DAVE COCKRUM, CHRIS CLAREMONT, ARNOLD DRAKE, JIM SHOOTER, ROY THOMAS, and LEN WEIN, MORT MESKIN profiled by his sons and ALEX TOTH, rare art by JERRY ROBINSON, FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, and WILLIAM WOOLFOLK, MR. MONSTER, and BILL SCHELLY on Comics Fandom! MESKIN and COCKRUM covers!

JACK COLE remembered by ALEX TOTH, interview with brother DICK COLE and his PLAYBOY colleagues, CHRIS CLAREMONT on the X-Men (with more never-seen art by DAVE COCKRUM), ROY THOMAS on AllStar Squadron #1 and its ‘40s roots (with art by ORDWAY, BUCKLER, MESKIN and MOLDOFF), FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more! Covers by TOTH and SCHELLY!

JOE SINNOTT interview, IRWIN DONENFELD interview by EVANIER & SCHWARTZ, art by SHUSTER, INFANTINO, ANDERSON, and SWAN, MARK WAID analyzes the first Kryptonite story, JERRY SIEGEL and HARRY DONENFELD, JERRY IGER Shop update, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, and FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, and KEN BALD! Covers by SINNOTT and WAYNE BORING!

VIN SULLIVAN interview about the early DC days with art by SHUSTER, MOLDOFF, FLESSEL, GUARDINEER, and BURNLEY, MR. MONSTER’s “Lost” KIRBY HULK covers, 1948 NEW YORK COMIC CON with STAN LEE, SIMON & KIRBY, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, HARVEY KURTZMAN, and ROY THOMAS, ALEX TOTH, FCA, and more! Covers by JACK BURNLEY and JACK KIRBY!

Spotlight on JOE MANEELY, with a career overview, remembrance by his daughter and tons of art, Timely/Atlas/Marvel art by ROMITA, EVERETT, SEVERIN, SHORES, KIRBY, and DITKO, STAN LEE on Maneely, LEE AMES interview, FCA with SWAYZE, ISIS, and STEVE SKEATES, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Covers by JOE MANEELY and DON NEWTON!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #29

ALTER EGO #30

ALTER EGO #31

ALTER EGO #32

ALTER EGO #33

FRANK BRUNNER interview, BILL EVERETT’S Venus examined by TRINA ROBBINS, Classics Illustrated “What ifs”, LEE/KIRBY/DITKO Marvel prototypes, JOE MANEELY’s monsters, BILL FRACCIO interview, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, JOHN BENSON on EC, The Heap by ERNIE SCHROEDER, and FCA! Covers by FRANK BRUNNER and PETE VON SHOLLY!

ALEX ROSS on his love for the JLA, BLACKHAWK/JLA artist DICK DILLIN, the super-heroes of 1940s-1980s France (with art by STEVE RUDE, STEVE BISSETTE, LADRÖNN, and NEAL ADAMS), KIM AAMODT & WALTER GEIER on writing for SIMON & KIRBY, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, and FCA! Covers by ALEX ROSS and STEVE RUDE!

DICK AYERS on his 1950s and ‘60s work (with tons of Marvel Bullpen art), HARLAN ELLISON’s Marvel Age work examined (with art by BUCKLER, SAL BUSCEMA, and TRIMPE), STAN LEE’S Marvel Prototypes (with art by KIRBY and DITKO), Christmas cards from comics greats, MR. MONSTER, & FCA with SWAYZE and SCHAFFENBERGER! Covers by DICK AYERS and FRED RAY!

Timely artists ALLEN BELLMAN and SAM BURLOCKOFF interviewed, MART NODELL on his Timely years, rare art by BURGOS, EVERETT, and SHORES, MIKE GOLD on the Silver Age (with art by SIMON & KIRBY, SWAN, INFANTINO, KANE, and more), FCA, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and more! Covers by DICK GIORDANO and GIL KANE!

Symposium on MIKE SEKOWSKY by MARK EVANIER, SCOTT SHAW!, et al., with art by ANDERSON, INFANTINO, and others, PAT (MRS. MIKE) SEKOWSKY and inker VALERIE BARCLAY interviewed, FCA, 1950s Captain Marvel parody by ANDRU and ESPOSITO, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY, MR. MONSTER, and more! Covers by FRENZ/SINNOTT and FRENZ/BUSCEMA!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(108-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $2.95

(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #34

ALTER EGO #35

ALTER EGO #36

ALTER EGO #37

ALTER EGO #38

Quality Comics interviews with ALEX KOTZKY, AL GRENET, CHUCK CUIDERA, & DICK ARNOLD (son of BUSY ARNOLD), art by COLE, EISNER, FINE, WARD, DILLIN, and KANE, MICHELLE NOLAN on Blackhawk’s jump to DC, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on HARVEY KURTZMAN, & ALEX TOTH on REED CRANDALL! Covers by REED CRANDALL & CHARLES NICHOLAS!

Covers by JOHN ROMITA and AL JAFFEE! LEE, ROMITA, AYERS, HEATH, & THOMAS on the 1953-55 Timely super-hero revival, with rare art by ROMITA, AYERS, BURGOS, HEATH, EVERETT, LAWRENCE, & POWELL, AL JAFFEE on the 1940s Timely Bullpen (and MAD), FCA, ALEX TOTH on comic art, MR. MONSTER on unpublished 1950s covers, and more!

JOE SIMON on SIMON & KIRBY, CARL BURGOS, and LLOYD JACQUET, JOHN BELL on World War II Canadian heroes, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on Canadian origins of MR. MONSTER, tributes to BOB DESCHAMPS, DON LAWRENCE, & GEORGE WOODBRIDGE, FCA, ALEX TOTH, and ELMER WEXLER interview! Covers by SIMON and GILBERT & RONN SUTTON!

WILL MURRAY on the 1940 Superman “KMetal” story & PHILIP WYLIE’s GLADIATOR (with art by SHUSTER, SWAN, ADAMS, and BORING), FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, and DON NEWTON, SY BARRY interview, art by TOTH, MESKIN, INFANTINO, and ANDERSON, and MICHAEL T. GILBERT interviews AL FELDSTEIN on EC and RAY BRADBURY! Covers by C.C. BECK and WAYNE BORING!

JULIE SCHWARTZ TRIBUTE with HARLAN ELLISON, INFANTINO, ANDERSON, TOTH, KUBERT, GIELLA, GIORDANO, CARDY, LEVITZ, STAN LEE, WOLFMAN, EVANIER, & ROY THOMAS, never-seen interviews with Julie, FCA with BECK, SCHAFFENBERGER, NEWTON, COCKRUM, OKSNER, FRADON, SWAYZE, and JACKSON BOSTWICK! Covers by INFANTINO and IRWIN HASEN!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #39

ALTER EGO #40

ALTER EGO #41

ALTER EGO #42

ALTER EGO #43

Full-issue spotlight on JERRY ROBINSON, with an interview on being BOB KANE’s Batman “ghost”, creating the JOKER and ROBIN, working on VIGILANTE, GREEN HORNET, and ATOMAN, plus never-seen art by Jerry, MESKIN, ROUSSOS, RAY, KIRBY, SPRANG, DITKO, and PARIS! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER on AL FELDSTEIN Part 2, and more! Two JERRY ROBINSON covers!

RUSS HEATH and GIL KANE interviews (with tons of unseen art), the JULIE SCHWARTZ Memorial Service with ELLISON, MOORE, GAIMAN, HASEN, O’NEIL, and LEVITZ, art by INFANTINO, ANDERSON, TOTH, NOVICK, DILLIN, SEKOWSKY, KUBERT, GIELLA, ARAGONÉS, FCA, MR. MONSTER and AL FELDSTEIN Part 3, and more! Covers by GIL KANE & RUSS HEATH!

Halloween issue! BERNIE WRIGHTSON on his 1970s FRANKENSTEIN, DICK BRIEFER’S monster, the campy 1960s Frankie, art by KALUTA, BAILY, MANEELY, PLOOG, KUBERT, BRUNNER, BORING, OKSNER, TUSKA, CRANDALL, and SUTTON, FCA #100, EMILIO SQUEGLIO interview, ALEX TOTH, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and more! Covers by WRIGHTSON & MARC SWAYZE!

A celebration of DON HECK, WERNER ROTH, and PAUL REINMAN, rare art by KIRBY, DITKO, and AYERS, Hillman and Ziff-Davis remembered by Heap artist ERNIE SCHROEDER, HERB ROGOFF, and WALTER LITTMAN, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and ALEX TOTH! Covers by FASTNER & LARSON and ERNIE SCHROEDER!

Yuletide art by WOOD, SINNOTT, CARDY, BRUNNER, TOTH, NODELL, and others, interviews with Golden Age artists TOM GILL (Lone Ranger) and MORRIS WEISS, exploring 1960s Mexican comics, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, MR. MONSTER, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and more! Flip covers by GEORGE TUSKA and DAVE STEVENS!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #44

ALTER EGO #45

ALTER EGO #46

ALTER EGO #47

ALTER EGO #48

JSA/All-Star Squadron/Infinity Inc. special! Interviews with KUBERT, HASEN, ANDERSON, ORDWAY, BUCKLER, THOMAS, 1940s Atom writer ARTHUR ADLER, art by TOTH, SEKOWSKY, HASEN, MACHLAN, OKSNER, and INFANTINO, FCA, and MR. MONSTER’S “I Like Ike!” cartoons by BOB KANE, INFANTINO, OKSNER, and BIRO! Wraparound ORDWAY cover!

Interviews with Sandman artist CREIG FLESSEL and ‘40s creator BERT CHRISTMAN, MICHAEL CHABON on researching his Pulitzer-winning novel Kavalier & Clay, art by EISNER, KANE, KIRBY, and AYERS, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, OTTO BINDER’s “lost” Jon Jarl story, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and ALEX TOTH! CREIG FLESSEL cover!

The VERY BEST of the 1960s-70s ALTER EGO! 1969 BILL EVERETT interview, art by BURGOS, GUSTAVSON, SIMON & KIRBY, and others, 1960s gems by DITKO, E. NELSON BRIDWELL, JERRY BAILS, and ROY THOMAS, LOU GLANZMAN interview, tributes to IRV NOVICK and CHRIS REEVE, MR. MONSTER, FCA, TOTH, and more! Cover by EVERETT and MARIE SEVERIN!

Spotlights MATT BAKER, Golden Age cheesecake artist of PHANTOM LADY! Career overview, interviews with BAKER’s half-brother and nephew, art from AL FELDSTEIN, VINCE COLLETTA, ARTHUR PEDDY, JACK KAMEN and others, FCA, BILL SCHELLY talks to comic-book-seller (and fan) BUD PLANT, MR. MONSTER on missing AL WILLIAMSON art, and ALEX TOTH!

WILL EISNER discusses Eisner & Iger’s Shop and BUSY ARNOLD’s ‘40s Quality Comics, art by FINE, CRANDALL, COLE, POWELL, and CARDY, EISNER tributes by STAN LEE, GENE COLAN, & others, interviews with ‘40s Quality artist VERN HENKEL and CHUCK MAZOUJIAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER on EISNER’s Wonder Man, ALEX TOTH, and more with BUD PLANT! EISNER cover!

(100-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $2.95

(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #49

ALTER EGO #50

ALTER EGO #51

ALTER EGO #52

ALTER EGO #53

Spotlights CARL BURGOS! Interview with daughter SUE BURGOS, art by BURGOS, BILL EVERETT, MIKE SEKOWSKY, ED ASCHE, and DICK AYERS, unused 1941 Timely cover layouts, the 1957 Atlas Implosion examined, MANNY STALLMAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER and more! New cover by MARK SPARACIO, from an unused 1941 layout by CARL BURGOS!

ROY THOMAS covers his 40-YEAR career in comics (AVENGERS, X-MEN, CONAN, ALL-STAR SQUADRON, INFINITY INC.), with ADAMS, BUSCEMA, COLAN, DITKO, GIL KANE, KIRBY, STAN LEE, ORDWAY, PÉREZ, ROMITA, and many others! Also FCA, & MR. MONSTER on ROY’s letters to GARDNER FOX! Flip-covers by BUSCEMA/ KIRBY/ALCALA and JERRY ORDWAY!

Golden Age Batman artist/BOB KANE ghost LEW SAYRE SCHWARTZ interviewed, Batman art by JERRY ROBINSON, DICK SPRANG, SHELDON MOLDOFF, WIN MORTIMER, JIM MOONEY, and others, the Golden and Silver Ages of AUSTRALIAN SUPER-HEROES, Mad artist DAVE BERG interviewed, FCA, MR. MONSTER on WILL EISNER, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

JOE GIELLA on the Silver Age at DC, the Golden Age at Marvel, and JULIE SCHWARTZ, with rare art by INFANTINO, GIL KANE, SEKOWSKY, SWAN, DILLIN, MOLDOFF, GIACOIA, SCHAFFENBERGER, and others, JAY SCOTT PIKE on STAN LEE and CHARLES BIRO, MARTIN THALL interview, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more! GIELLA cover!

GIORDANO and THOMAS on STOKER’S DRACULA, never-seen DICK BRIEFER Frankenstein strip, MIKE ESPOSITO on his work with ROSS ANDRU, art by COLAN, WRIGHTSON, MIGNOLA, BRUNNER, BISSETTE, KALUTA, HEATH, MANEELY, EVERETT, DITKO, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, BILL SCHELLY, ALEX TOTH, and MR. MONSTER! Cover by GIORDANO!

(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #54

ALTER EGO #55

ALTER EGO #56

ALTER EGO #57

ALTER EGO #58

MIKE ESPOSITO on DC and Marvel, ROBERT KANIGHER on the creation of Metal Men and Sgt. Rock (with comments by JOE KUBERT and BOB HANEY), art by ANDRU, INFANTINO, KIRBY, SEVERIN, WINDSOR-SMITH, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, TRIMPE, GIL KANE, and others, plus FCA, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY, MR. MONSTER, and more! ESPOSITO cover!

JACK and OTTO BINDER, KEN BALD, VIC DOWD, and BOB BOYAJIAN interviewed, FCA with SWAYZE and EMILIO SQUEGLIO, rare art by BECK, WARD, & SCHAFFENBERGER, Christmas Cards from CRANDALL, SINNOTT, HEATH, MOONEY, and CARDY, 1943 Pin-Up Calendar (with ‘40s movie stars as superheroines), ALEX TOTH, more! ALEX ROSS and ALEX WRIGHT covers!

Interviews with Superman creators SIEGEL & SHUSTER, Golden/Silver Age DC production guru JACK ADLER interviewed, NEAL ADAMS and radio/TV iconoclast (and comics fan) HOWARD STERN on Adler and his amazing career, art by CURT SWAN, WAYNE BORING, and AL PLASTINO, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, ALEX TOTH, and more! NEAL ADAMS cover!

Issue-by-issue index of Timely/Atlas superhero stories by MICHELLE NOLAN, art by SIMON & KIRBY, EVERETT, BURGOS, ROMITA, AYERS, HEATH, SEKOWSKY, SHORES, SCHOMBURG, MANEELY, and SEVERIN, GENE COLAN and ALLEN BELLMAN on 1940s Timely super-heroes, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and BILL SCHELLY! Cover by JACK KIRBY and PETE VON SHOLLY!

GERRY CONWAY and ROY THOMAS on their ‘80s screenplay for “The X-Men Movie That Never Was!”with art by COCKRUM, ADAMS, BUSCEMA, BYRNE, GIL KANE, KIRBY, HECK, and LIEBER, Atlas artist VIC CARRABOTTA interview, ALLEN BELLMAN on 1940s Timely bullpen, FCA, 1966 panel on 1950s EC Comics, and MR. MONSTER! MARK SPARACIO/GIL KANE cover!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #59

ALTER EGO #60

ALTER EGO #61

ALTER EGO #62

ALTER EGO #63

Special issue on Batman and Superman in the Golden and Silver Ages, featuring a new ARTHUR SUYDAM interview, NEAL ADAMS on DC in the 1960s-1970s, SHELLY MOLDOFF, AL PLASTINO, Golden Age artist FRAN (Doll Man) MATERA interviewed, SIEGEL & SHUSTER, RUSS MANNING, FCA, MR. MONSTER, SUYDAM cover, and more!

Celebrates 50 years since SHOWCASE #4! FLASH interviews with SCHWARTZ, KANIGHER, INFANTINO, KUBERT, and BROOME, Golden Age artist TONY DiPRETA, 1966 panel with NORDLING, BINDER, and LARRY IVIE, FCA, MR. MONSTER, never-before-published color Flash cover by CARMINE INFANTINO, and more!

History of the AMERICAN COMICS GROUP (1946 to 1967)—including its roots in the Golden Age SANGOR ART SHOP and STANDARD/NEDOR comics! Art by MESKIN, ROBINSON, WILLIAMSON, FRAZETTA, SCHAFFENBERGER, & BUSCEMA, ACG writer/editor RICHARD HUGHES, plus AL HARTLEY interviewed, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more! GIORDANO cover!

HAPPY HAUNTED HALLOWEEN ISSUE, featuring: MIKE PLOOG and RUDY PALAIS on their horror-comics work! AL WILLIAMSON on his work for the American Comics Group—plus more on ACG horror comics! Rare DICK BRIEFER Frankenstein strips! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY on the 1966 KalerCon, a new PLOOG cover—and more!

Tribute to ALEX TOTH! Never-before-seen interview with tons of TOTH art, including sketches he sent to friends! Articles about Toth by TERRY AUSTIN, JIM AMASH, SY BARRY, JOE KUBERT, LOU SAYRE SCHWARTZ, IRWIN HASEN, JOHN WORKMAN, and others! Plus illustrated Christmas cards by comics pros, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #64

ALTER EGO #65

ALTER EGO #66

ALTER EGO #67

ALTER EGO #68

Fawcett Favorites! Issue-by-issue analysis of BINDER & BECK’s 1943-45 “The Monster Society of Evil!” serial, double-size FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, EMILIO SQUEGLIO, C.C. BECK, MAC RABOY, and others! Interview with MARTIN FILCHOCK, Golden Age artist for Centaur Comics! Plus MR. MONSTER, DON NEWTON cover, plus a FREE 1943 MARVEL CALENDAR!

NICK CARDY interviewed on his Golden & Silver Age work (with CARDY art), plus art by WILL EISNER, NEAL ADAMS, CARMINE INFANTINO, JIM APARO, RAMONA FRADON, CURT SWAN, MIKE SEKOWSKY, and others, tributes to ERNIE SCHROEDER and DAVE COCKRUM, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, new CARDY COVER, and more!

Spotlight on BOB POWELL, the artist who drew Daredevil, Sub-Mariner, Sheena, The Avenger, The Hulk, Giant-Man, and others, plus art by WALLY WOOD, HOWARD NOSTRAND, DICK AYERS, SIMON & KIRBY, MARTIN GOODMAN’s Magazine Management, and others! FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, and more!

Interview with BOB OKSNER, artist of Supergirl, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Angel and the Ape, Leave It to Binky, Shazam!, and more, plus art and artifacts by SHELLY MAYER, IRWIN HASEN, LEE ELIAS, C.C. BECK, CARMINE INFANTINO, GIL KANE, JULIE SCHWARTZ, etc., FCA with MARC SWAYZE & C.C. BECK, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on BOB POWELL Part II, and more!

Tribute to JERRY BAILS—Father of Comics Fandom and founder of Alter Ego! Cover by GEORGE PÉREZ, plus art by JOE KUBERT, CARMINE INFANTINO, GIL KANE, DICK DILLIN, MIKE SEKOWSKY, JERRY ORDWAY, JOE STATON, JACK KIRBY, and others! Plus STEVE DITKO’s notes to STAN LEE for a 1965 Dr. Strange story! And ROY reveals secrets behind Marvel’s STAR WARS comic!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #69

ALTER EGO #70

ALTER EGO #71

ALTER EGO #72

ALTER EGO #73

PAUL NORRIS drew AQUAMAN first, in 1941—and RAMONA FRADON was the hero’s ultimate Golden Age artist. But both drew other things as well, and both are interviewed in this landmark issue—along with a pocket history of Aquaman! Plus FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and more! Cover painted by JOHN WATSON, from a breathtaking illo by RAMONA FRADON!

Spotlight on ROY THOMAS’ 1970s stint as Marvel’s editor-in-chief and major writer, plus art and reminiscences of GIL KANE, BOTH BUSCEMAS, ADAMS, ROMITA, CHAYKIN, BRUNNER, PLOOG, EVERETT, WRIGHTSON, PÉREZ, ROBBINS, BARRY SMITH, STAN LEE and others, FCA, MR. MONSTER, a new GENE COLAN cover, plus an homage to artist LILY RENÉE!

Represents THE GREAT CANADIAN COMIC BOOKS, the long out-of-print 1970s book by MICHAEL HIRSH and PATRICK LOUBERT, with rare art of such heroes as Mr. Monster, Nelvana, Thunderfist, and others, plus new INVADERS art by JOHN BYRNE, MIKE GRELL, RON LIM, and more, plus a new cover by GEORGE FREEMAN, from a layout by JACK KIRBY!

SCOTT SHAW! and ROY THOMAS on the creation of Captain Carrot, art & artifacts by RICK HOBERG, STAN GOLDBERG, MIKE SEKOWSKY, JOHN COSTANZA, E. NELSON BRIDWELL, CAROL LAY, and others, interview with DICK ROCKWELL, Golden Age artist and 36-year ghost artist on MILTON CANIFF’s Steve Canyon! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

FRANK BRUNNER on drawing Dr. Strange, interviews with CHARLES BIRO and his daughters, interview with publisher ROBERT GERSON about his 1970s horror comic Reality, art by BERNIE WRIGHTSON, GRAHAM INGELS, HOWARD CHAYKIN, MICHAEL W. KALUTA, JEFF JONES, and others FCA, MR. MONSTER, a FREE DRAW! #15! PREVIEW, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #74

ALTER EGO #75

ALTER EGO #76

ALTER EGO #77

ALTER EGO #78

STAN LEE SPECIAL in honor of his 85th birthday, with a cover by JACK KIRBY, classic (and virtually unseen) interviews with Stan, tributes, and tons of rare and unseen art by KIRBY, ROMITA, the brothers BUSCEMA, DITKO, COLAN, HECK, AYERS, MANEELY, SHORES, EVERETT, BURGOS, KANE, the SEVERIN siblings—plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

FAWCETT FESTIVAL—with an ALEX ROSS cover! Double-size FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) with P.C. HAMERLINCK on the many “Captains Marvel” over the years, unseen Shazam! proposal by ALEX ROSS, C.C. BECK on “The Death of a Legend!”, MARC SWAYZE, interview with Golden Age artist MARV LEVY, MR. MONSTER, and more!

JOE SIMON SPECIAL! In-depth SIMON interview by JIM AMASH, with neverbefore-revealed secrets behind the creation of Captain America, Fighting American, Stuntman, Adventures of The Fly, Sick magazine and more, art by JACK KIRBY, BOB POWELL, AL WILLIAMSON, JERRY GRANDENETTI, GEORGE TUSKA, and others, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

ST. JOHN ISSUE! Golden Age Tor cover by JOE KUBERT, KEN QUATTRO relates the full legend of St. John Publishing, art by KUBERT, NORMAN MAURER, MATT BAKER, LILY RENEE, BOB LUBBERS, RUBEN MOREIRA, RALPH MAYO, AL FAGO, special reminiscences of ARNOLD DRAKE, Golden Age artist TOM SAWYER interviewed, and more!

DAVE COCKRUM TRIBUTE! Great rare XMen cover, Cockrum tributes from contemporaries and colleagues, and an interview with PATY COCKRUM on Dave’s life and legacy on The Legion of Super-Heroes, The X-Men, Star-Jammers, & more! Plus an interview with 1950s Timely/Marvel artist MARION SITTON on his own incredible career and his Golden Age contemporaries!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #79

ALTER EGO #80

ALTER EGO #81

ALTER EGO #82

ALTER EGO #83

SUPERMAN & HIS CREATORS! New cover by MICHAEL GOLDEN, exclusive and revealing interview with JOE SHUSTER’s sister, JEAN SHUSTER PEAVEY—LOU CAMERON interview—STEVE GERBER tribute—DWIGHT DECKER on the Man of Steel & Hitler’s Third Reich—plus art by WAYNE BORING, CURT SWAN, NEAL ADAMS, GIL KANE, and others!

SWORD-AND-SORCERY COMICS! Learn about Crom the Barbarian, Viking Prince, Nightmaster, Kull, Red Sonja, Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, Beowulf, Warlord, Dagar the Invincible, and more, with art by FRAZETTA, SMITH, BUSCEMA, KANE, WRIGHTSON, PLOOG, THORNE, BRUNNER, LOU CAMERON Part II, and more! Cover by RAFAEL KAYANAN!

New FRANK BRUNNER Man-Thing cover, a look at the late-’60s horror comic WEB OF HORROR with early work by BRUNNER, WRIGHTSON, WINDSOR-SMITH, SIMONSON, & CHAYKIN, interview with comics & fine artist EVERETT RAYMOND KINTSLER, ROY THOMAS’ 1971 origin synopsis for the FIRST MAN-THING STORY, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

MLJ ISSUE! Golden Age MLJ index illustrated with vintage images of The Shield, Hangman, Mr. Justice, Black Hood, by IRV NOVICK, JACK COLE, CHARLES BIRO, MORT MESKIN, GIL KANE, & others—behind a marvelous MLJ-heroes cover by BOB McLEOD! Plus interviews with IRV NOVICK and JOE EDWARDS, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

SWORD & SORCERY PART 2! Cover by ARTHUR SUYDAM, with a focus on Conan the Barbarian by ROY THOMAS and WILL MURRAY, a look at WALLY WOOD’s Marvel sword-&-sorcery work, the Black Knight examined, plus JOE EDWARDS interview Part 2, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #84

ALTER EGO #85

ALTER EGO #86

ALTER EGO #87

ALTER EGO #88

Unseen JIM APARO cover, STEVE SKEATES discusses his early comics work, art & artifacts by ADKINS, APARO, ARAGONÉS, BOYETTE, DITKO, GIORDANO, KANE, KELLER, MORISI, ORLANDO, SEKOWSKY, STONE, THOMAS, WOOD, and the great WARREN SAVIN! Plus writer CHARLES SINCLAIR on his partnership with Batman co-creator BILL FINGER, FCA, and more!

Captain Marvel and Superman’s battles explored (in cosmic space, candy stores, and in court), RICH BUCKLER on Captain Marvel, plus an in-depth interview with Golden Age great LILY RENÉE, overview of CENTAUR COMICS (home of BILL EVERETT’s Amazing-Man and others), FCA, MR. MONSTER, new RICH BUCKLER cover, and more!

Spotlighting the Frantic Four-Color MAD WANNABES of 1953-55 that copied HARVEY KURTZMAN’S EC smash (see Captain Marble, Mighty Moose, Drag-ula, Prince Scallion, and more) with art by SIMON & KIRBY, KUBERT & MAURER, ANDRU & ESPOSITO, EVERETT, COLAN, and many others, plus Part 1 of a talk with Golden/ Silver Age artist FRANK BOLLE, and more!

The sensational 1954-1963 saga of Great Britain’s MARVELMAN (decades before he metamorphosed into Miracleman), plus an interview with writer/artist/co-creator MICK ANGLO, and rare Marvelman/ Miracleman work by ALAN DAVIS, ALAN MOORE, a new RICK VEITCH cover, plus FRANK BOLLE, Part 2, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

First-ever in-depth look at National/DC’s founder MAJOR MALCOLM WHEELERNICHOLSON, and pioneers WHITNEY ELLSWORTH and CREIG FLESSEL, with rare art and artifacts by SIEGEL & SHUSTER, BOB KANE, CURT SWAN, GARDNER FOX, SHELDON MOLDOFF, and others, focus on DC advisor DR. LAURETTA BENDER, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #89

ALTER EGO #90

ALTER EGO #91

ALTER EGO #92

ALTER EGO #93

HARVEY COMICS’ PRE-CODE HORROR MAGS OF THE 1950s! Interviews with SID JACOBSON, WARREN KREMER, and HOWARD NOSTRAND, plus Harvey artist KEN SELIG talks to JIM AMASH! MR. MONSTER presents the wit and wisdom (and worse) of DR. FREDRIC WERTHAM, plus FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) with C.C. BECK & MARC SWAYZE, & more! SIMON & KIRBY and NOSTRAND cover!

BIG MARVEL ISSUE! Salutes to legends SINNOTT and AYERS—plus STAN LEE, TUSKA, EVERETT, MARTIN GOODMAN, and others! A look at the “Marvel SuperHeroes” TV animation of 1966! 1940s Timely writer and editor LEON LAZARUS interviewed by JIM AMASH! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, the 1960s fandom creations of STEVE GERBER, and more! JACK KIRBY holiday cover!

FAWCETT FESTIVAL! Big FCA section with Golden Age artists MARC SWAYZE & EMILIO SQUEGLIO! Plus JERRY ORDWAY on researching The Power of Shazam, Part II of “The MAD Four-Color Wannabes of the 1950s,” more on DR. LAURETTA BENDER and the teenage creations of STEVE GERBER, artist JACK KATZ spills Golden Age secrets to JIM AMASH, and more! New cover by ORDWAY and SQUEGLIO!

SWORD-AND-SORCERY, PART 3! DC’s Sword of Sorcery by O’NEIL, CHAYKIN, & SIMONSON and Claw by MICHELINIE & CHAN, Hercules by GLANZMAN, Dagar by GLUT & SANTOS, Marvel S&S art by BUSCEMA, CHAN, KAYANAN, WRIGHTSON, et al., and JACK KATZ on his classic First Kingdom! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, STEVE GERBER’s fan-creations (part 3), and more! Cover by RAFAEL KAYANAN!

(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “EarthTwo—1961 to 1985!” with rare art by INFANTINO, GIL KANE, ANDERSON, DELBO, ANDRU, BUCKLER, APARO, GRANDENETTI, and DILLIN, interview with Golden/Silver Age DC editor GEORGE KASHDAN, plus MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, STEVE GERBER, FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), and a new cover by INFANTINO and AMASH!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #94

ALTER EGO #95

ALTER EGO #96

ALTER EGO #97

ALTER EGO #98

“Earth-Two Companion, Part II!” More on the 1963-1985 series that changed comics forever! The Huntress, Power Girl, Dr. Fate, Freedom Fighters, and more, with art by ADAMS, APARO, AYERS, BUCKLER, GIFFEN, INFANTINO, KANE, NOVICK, SCHAFFENBERGER, SIMONSON, STATON, SWAN, TUSKA, our GEORGE KASHDAN interview Part 2, FCA, and more! STATON & GIORDANO cover!

Marvel’s NOT BRAND ECHH madcap parody mag from 1967-69, examined with rare art & artifacts by ANDRU, COLAN, BUSCEMA, DRAKE, EVERETT, FRIEDRICH, KIRBY, LEE, the SEVERIN siblings, SPRINGER, SUTTON, THOMAS, TRIMPE, and more, GEORGE KASHDAN interview conclusion, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, and more! Cover by MARIE SEVERIN!

Focus on Archie’s 1960s MIGHTY CRUSADERS, with vintage art and artifacts by JERRY SIEGEL, PAUL REINMAN, SIMON & KIRBY, JOHN ROSENBERGER, tributes to the Mighty Crusaders by BOB FUJITANE, GEORGE TUSKA, BOB LAYTON, and others! Interview with MELL LAZARUS, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more! Cover by MIKE MACHLAN!

The NON-EC HORROR COMICS OF THE 1950s! From Menace and House of Mystery to The Thing!, we present vintage art and artifacts by EVERETT, BRIEFER, DITKO, MANEELY, COLAN , MESKIN, MOLDOFF, HEATH, POWELL, COLE, SIMON & KIRBY, FUJITANI, and others, plus FCA , MR. MONSTER and more, behind a creepy, eerie cover by BILL EVERETT!

Spotlight on Superman’s first editor WHITNEY ELLSWORTH, longtime Kryptoeditor MORT WEISINGER remembered by his daughter, an interview with Superman writer ALVIN SCHWARTZ, tributes to FRANK FRAZETTA and AL WILLIAMSON, art by JOE SHUSTER, WAYNE BORING, CURT SWAN, and NEAL ADAMS, plus MR. MONSTER, FCA, and a new cover by JERRY ORDWAY!

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO: CENTENNIAL (AE #100)

ALTER EGO #99

GEORGE TUSKA showcase issue on his career at Lev Gleason, Marvel, and in comics strips through the early 1970s—CRIME DOES NOT PAY, BUCK ROGERS, IRON MAN, AVENGERS, HERO FOR HIRE, & more! Plus interviews with Golden Age artist BILL BOSSERT and fan-artist RUDY FRANKE, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), and more! (84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO: CENTENNIAL is a celebration of 100 issues, and 50 years, of ALTER EGO, Roy Thomas’ legendary super-hero fanzine. It’s a double-size triple-threat BOOK, with twice as many pages as the regular magazine, plus special features just for this anniversary edition! Behind a RICH BUCKLER/JERRY ORDWAY JSA cover, ALTER EGO celebrates its 100th issue and the 50th anniversary of A/E (Vol. 1) #1 in 1961—as ROY THOMAS is interviewed by JIM AMASH about the 1980s at DC! Learn secrets behind ALL-STAR SQUADRON—INFINITY, INC.—ARAK, SON OF THUNDER—CAPTAIN CARROT—JONNI THUNDER, a.k.a. THUNDERBOLT— YOUNG ALL-STARS—SHAZAM!—RING OF THE NIBELUNG—and more! With rare art and artifacts by GEORGE PÉREZ, TODD McFARLANE, RICH BUCKLER, JERRY ORDWAY, MIKE MACHLAN, GIL KANE, GENE COLAN, DICK GIORDANO, ALFREDO ALCALA, TONY DEZUNIGA, ERNIE COLÓN, STAN GOLDBERG, SCOTT SHAW!, ROSS ANDRU, and many more! Plus special anniversary editions of Alter Ego staples MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA (FCA)—and ALEX WRIGHT’s amazing color collection of 1940s DC pinup babes! Edited by ROY THOMAS. (NOTE: This book takes the place of ALTER EGO #100, and counts as TWO issues toward your subscription.) (160-page trade paperback with COLOR) $19.95 (Digital Edition) $5.95 • ISBN: 9781605490311 Diamond Order Code: JAN111351

ALTER EGO #101

Fox Comics of the 1940s with art by FINE, BAKER, SIMON, KIRBY, TUSKA, FLETCHER HANKS, ALEX BLUM, and others! “Superman vs. Wonder Man” starring EISNER, IGER, SIEGEL, LIEBERSON, MAYER, DONENFELD, and VICTOR FOX! Plus, Part I of an interview with JACK MENDELSOHN, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and new cover by Marvel artist DAVE WILLIAMS!

NEW!

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #102

ALTER EGO #103

ALTER EGO #104

ALTER EGO: THE CBA COLLECTION

Spotlight on Green Lantern creators MART NODELL and BILL FINGER in the 1940s, and JOHN BROOME, GIL KANE, and JULIUS SCHWARTZ in 1959! Rare GL artwork by INFANTINO, REINMAN, HASEN, NEAL ADAMS, and others! Plus JACK MENDELSOHN Part II, FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and new cover by GIL KANE & TERRY AUSTIN, and MART NODELL!

The early career of comics writer STEVE ENGLEHART: Defenders, Captain America, Master of Kung Fu, The Beast, Mantis, and more, with rare art and artifacts by SAL BUSCEMA, STARLIN, SUTTON, HECK, BROWN, and others. Plus, JIM AMASH interviews early artist GEORGE MANDEL (Captain Midnight, The Woman in Red, Blue Bolt, Black Marvel, etc.), FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and more!

Celebrates the 50th anniversary of FANTASTIC FOUR #1 and the birth of Marvel Comics! New, never-before-published STAN LEE interview, art and artifacts by KIRBY, DITKO, SINNOTT, AYERS, THOMAS, and secrets behind the Marvel Mythos! Also: JIM AMASH interviews 1940s Timely editor AL SULMAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and a new cover by FRENZ and SINNOTT!

Compiles the ALTER EGO flip-sides from COMIC BOOK ARTIST #1-5, plus 30 NEW PAGES of features & art! All-new rare and previously-unpublished art by JACK KIRBY, GIL KANE, JOE KUBERT, WALLY WOOD, FRANK ROBBINS, NEAL ADAMS, & others, ROY THOMAS on X-MEN, AVENGERS/ KREE-SKRULL WAR, INVADERS, and more! Cover by JOE KUBERT!

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(160-page trade paperback) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $4.95

HUMOR MAGAZINES (BUNDLE ALL THREE FOR JUST $14.95)

ALTER EGO:

BEST OF THE LEGENDARY COMICS FANZINE

Collects the original 11 issues of JERRY BAILS and ROY THOMAS’ ALTER EGO fanzine (from 1961-78), with contributions from JACK KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, WALLY WOOD, JOHN BUSCEMA, MARIE SEVERIN, BILL EVERETT, RUSS MANNING, CURT SWAN, and others—and illustrated interviews with GIL KANE, BILL EVERETT, & JOE KUBERT! Plus major articles on the JUSTICE SOCIETY, the MARVEL FAMILY, the MLJ HEROES, and more! Edited by ROY THOMAS and BILL SCHELLY with an introduction by JULIE SCHWARTZ. (192-page trade paperback) $21.95 ISBN: 9781893905887 Diamond Order Code: DEC073946

COMIC BOOK NERD

PETE VON SHOLLY’s side-splitting parody of the fan press, including our own mags! Experience the magic(?) of such publications as WHIZZER, the COMICS URINAL, ULTRA EGO, COMICS BUYER’S GUISE, BAGGED ISSUE!, SCRAWL!, COMIC BOOK ARTISTE, and more, as we unabashedly poke fun at ourselves, our competitors, and you, our loyal readers! It’s a first issue, collector’s item, double-bag, slab-worthy, speculator’s special sure to rub even the thickest-skinned fanboy the wrong way! (64-page COLOR magazine) $8.95 • (Digital Edition) $2.95

CRAZY HIP GROOVY GO-GO WAY OUT MONSTERS #29 & #32

PETE VON SHOLLY’s spoofs of monster mags will have you laughing your pants off— right after you soil them from sheer terror! This RETRO MONSTER MOVIE MAGAZINE is a laugh riot lampoon of those GREAT (and absolutely abominable) mags of the 1950s and ‘60s, replete with fake letters-to-the-editor, phony ads for worthless, wacky stuff, stills from imaginary films as bad as any that were really made, interviews with their “creators,” and much more! Relive your misspent youth (and misspent allowance) as you dig the hilarious photos, ads, and articles skewering OUR FAVORITE THINGS of the past! Get our first issue (#29!), the sequel (#32!), or both!

DIEDGITIIOTANSL E

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(48-page magazines) $5.95 EACH • (Digital Editions) $1.95 EACH

These sold-out books are now available again in DIGITAL EDITIONS:

NEW!

MR. MONSTER, VOL. 0

TRUE BRIT

DICK GIORDANO: CHANGING COMICS, ONE DAY AT A TIME

Collects hard-to-find Mr. Monster stories from A-1, CRACK-A-BOOM! and DARK HORSE PRESENTS (many in COLOR for the first time) plus over 30 pages of ALLNEW MR. MONSTER art and stories! Can your sanity survive our Lee/Kirby monster spoof by MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MARK MARTIN, or the long-lost 1933 Mr. Monster newspaper strip? Or the terrifying TRENCHER/MR. MONSTER slug-fest, drawn by KEITH GIFFEN and MICHAEL T. GILBERT?! Read at your own risk!

GEORGE KHOURY’s definitive book on the rich history of British Comics Artists, their influence on the US, and how they have revolutionized the way comics are seen and perceived! It features breathtaking art, intimate photographs, and in-depth interviews with BRIAN BOLLAND, ALAN DAVIS, DAVE GIBBONS, KEVIN O’NEILL, DAVID LLOYD, DAVE McKEAN, BRYAN HITCH, BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH and other fine gents! Sporting a new JUDGE DREDD cover by BRIAN BOLLAND!

MICHAEL EURY’s biography of comics’ most prominent and affable personality! It covers his career as illustrator, inker, and editor—peppered with DICK’S PERSONAL REFLECTIONS—and is illustrated with RARE AND UNSEEN comics, merchandising, and advertising art! Plus: an extensive index of his published work, comments and tributes by NEAL ADAMS, DENNIS O’NEIL, TERRY AUSTIN, PAUL LEVITZ, MARV WOLFMAN, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, JIM APARO and others, a Foreword by NEAL ADAMS, and an Afterword by PAUL LEVITZ!

(136-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $4.95

(204-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $6.95

(176-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $5.95

SECRETS IN THE SHADOWS: GENE COLAN

TOM FIELD’s amazing COLAN retrospective, with rare drawings, photos, and art from his 60-year career, and a comprehensive overview of Gene’s glory days at Marvel Comics! MARV WOLFMAN, DON McGREGOR and other writers share script samples and anecdotes of their Colan collaborations, while TOM PALMER, STEVE LEIALOHA and others show how they approached inking Colan’s famously nuanced penciled pages! Plus: a NEW PORTFOLIO of never-seen collaborations between Gene and masters such as BYRNE, KALUTA and PÉREZ, and all-new artwork created just for this book! (192-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $6.95

ART OF GEORGE TUSKA

A comprehensive look at GEORGE TUSKA’S personal and professional life, including early work at the Eisner-Iger shop, producing controversial crime comics of the 1950s, and his tenure with Marvel and DC Comics, as well as independent publishers. Includes extensive coverage of his work on IRON MAN, X-MEN, HULK, JUSTICE LEAGUE, TEEN TITANS, BATMAN, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS, and others, a gallery of commission art and a thorough index of his work, original art, photos, sketches, unpublished art, interviews and anecdotes from his peers and fans, plus the very personal and reflective words of George himself! Written by DEWEY CASSELL. (128-page Digital Edition) $4.95

OTHER BOOKS FROM TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING

PENCILER, PUBLISHER, PROVOCATEUR

COMICS’ FAST & FURIOUS ARTIST

THE ART OF GLAMOUR

MATT BAKER

EXTRAORDINARY WORKS OF ALAN MOORE

Shines a light on the life and career of the artistic and publishing visionary of DC Comics!

Explores the life and career of one of Marvel Comics’ most recognizable and dependable artists!

Biography of the talented master of 1940s “Good Girl” art, complete with color story reprints!

Definitive biography of the Watchmen writer, in a new, expanded edition!

(224-page trade paperback) $26.95

(176-page trade paperback with COLOR) $26.95

(192-page hardcover with COLOR) $39.95

(240-page trade paperback) $29.95

QUALITY COMPANION

BATCAVE COMPANION

ALL- STAR COMPANION

AGE OF TV HEROES

The first dedicated book about the Golden Age publisher that spawned the modern-day “Freedom Fighters”, Plastic Man, and the Blackhawks!

Unlocks the secrets of Batman’s Silver and Bronze Ages, following the Dark Knight’s progression from 1960s camp to 1970s creature of the night!

Roy Thomas has four volumes documenting the history of ALL-STAR COMICS, the JUSTICE SOCIETY, INFINITY, INC., and more!

(256-page trade paperback with COLOR) $31.95

(240-page trade paperback) $26.95

(224-page trade paperbacks) $24.95

Examining the history of the live-action television adventures of everyone’s favorite comic book heroes, featuring the in-depth stories of the shows’ actors and behind-the-scenes players!

CARMINE INFANTINO

SAL BUSCEMA

(192-page full-color hardcover) $39.95

MARVEL COMICS

An issue-by-issue field guide to the pop culture phenomenon of LEE, KIRBY, DITKO, and others, from the company’s fumbling beginnings to the full maturity of its wild, colorful, offbeat grandiosity!

IN THE 1960s

(224-page trade paperback) $27.95

MODERN MASTERS

HOW TO CREATE COMICS

Covers how Stan Lee went from writer to publisher, Jack Kirby left (and returned), Roy Thomas rose as editor, and a new wave of writers and artists came in!

20+ volumes with in-depth interviews, plus extensive galleries of rare and unseen art from the artist’s files!

(224-page trade paperback) $27.95

Shows step-by-step how to develop a new comic, from script and art, to printing and distribution!

(128-page trade paperbacks) $14.95 each

(108-page trade paperback) $15.95

IN THE 1970s

A BOOK SERIES DEVOTED TO THE BEST OF TODAY’S ARTISTS

FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT

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TwoMorrows—A New Day For Comics Fandom! TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • Visit us on the Web at www.twomorrows.com