Alter Ego #113

Art ©2012 Estate of Gene Colan; Marvel rendition of Dracula TM & ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Roy Thomas’ Bloodthirsty Comics Fanzine

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In the USA

8.95

No.113

Oct. 2012

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Edited by ROY THOMAS The greatest ‘zine of the 1960s is back, ALL-NEW, and focusing on GOLDEN AND SILVER AGE comics and creators with ARTICLES, INTERVIEWS, UNSEEN ART, P.C. Hamerlinck’s FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America, featuring the archives of C.C. BECK and recollections by Fawcett artist MARCUS SWAYZE), Michael T. Gilbert’s MR. MONSTER, and more!

2012 EISNER AWARD Nominee Best Comics-Related Journalism

Other issues available, & an ULTIMATE BUNDLE with all issues at HALF-PRICE!

ALTER EGO: CENTENNIAL (AE #100)

ALTER EGO #101

DIEDGITIIOTANSL BL AVAILA

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ALTER EGO #97

ALTER EGO #98

ALTER EGO #99

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, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and 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, art by JOE SHUSTER, WAYNE BORING, CURT SWAN, AL PLASTINO, and NEAL ADAMS, plus MR. MONSTER, FCA (FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA), and a new cover by JERRY ORDWAY!

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, TEEN TITANS, HERO FOR HIRE, and more! PLUS: JIM AMASH’s interview with Golden Age Fiction House artist BILL BOSSERT, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), and more!

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

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ALTER EGO #102

ALTER EGO #103

ALTER EGO #104

A/E celebrates 100 issues, and 50 years, of ALTER EGO magazine in a double-size BOOK! ROY THOMAS interviewed by JIM AMASH about ALL-STAR SQUADRON, INFINITY, INC., ARAK, other DC work, and more! Art by PÉREZ, McFARLANE, BUCKLER, ORDWAY, MACHLAN, GIL KANE, COLAN, GIORDANO, and more, plus Mr. Monster, FCA, BUCKLER/ORDWAY cover!

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

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-beforepublished 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!

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ALTER EGO #105

ALTER EGO #106

ALTER EGO #107

ALTER EGO #108

ALTER EGO #109

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! 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, TUSKA, SEKOWSKY, TALLARICO Part 3, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, cover by EVERETT & BURGOS, and more!

Spectre/Hour-Man creator BERNARD BAILY, ‘40s super-groups that might have been, art by ORDWAY, INFANTINO, KUBERT, HASEN, ROBINSON, and BURNLEY, conclusion of the TONY TALLARICO interview by JIM AMASH, MIKE PEPPE interview by DEWEY CASSELL, BILL SCHELLY on “50 Years of Fandom” at San Diego 2011, FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, PÉREZ cover, and more!

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

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

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

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Vol. 3, No. 113 / October 2012 Roy Thomas

Editor

Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Associate Editors Christopher Day

Design & Layout John Morrow

Consulting Editor

P.C. Hamerlinck

FCA Editor

Michael T. Gilbert

Comic Crypt Editor Jerry G. Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White Mike Friedrich

Editorial Honor Roll

Rob Smentek William J. Dowlding

Proofreaders

Gene Colan

Cover Artists Tom Ziuko

Contents

Cover Colorist With Special Thanks to:

Dave Alexander Rob Allen Heidi Amash Henry Andrews Ger Apeldoorn Richard A. Arndt “Ric B” Michael Baulderstone Rodrigo Baeza Bob Bailey Jean Bails Robert R. Barrett Sy Barry Rod Beck John Benson Dominic Bongo Christopher B. Boyko Mark Staff Brandl Glenn Bray Elizabeth Breitwiser Mitch Breitweiser Howard Brenner Nicky WheelerNicholson Brown Thorsten Bruemmel Frank Brunner Aaron Caplan Nick Caputo Shaun Clancy Pierre Comtois Chet Cox Vince Davis Mike DeLisa Al Dellinges Leonardo de Sà Michaël Dewally Scott Edelman Mark Evanier Shane Foley Stephan Friedt Jeff Gelb Joe Giella Janet Gilbert Stan Goldberg Michael Gray George Hagenauer Jennifer Hamerlinck Neil A. Hansen Heritage Comics Archives Bob Hughes Dr. Thomas E. Inge G. Johannigmeier

Joe Jusko Lou Kanegson Jim Kealy Jon Knutson Jim Korkis Jeremy Korr Richard Kyle Jerry Lahm Mell Lazarus Dominique Leonard Jean-Marc Lofficier Jim Ludwig Pat Lupoff Richard Lupoff Russ Maheras Jack Mendelsohn Will Meugniot Fred Mommsen Brian K. Morris Michael Netzer Jacque Nodell Jerry Ordway Jake Oster Stephen Oswald Stewart Patton Barry Pearl Ken Quattro D. Radboud Dave Reeder Larry Rippee John Romita Steven Rowe Scott Rowland Randy Sargent Tom Sawyer Mitchell Senft Carole Seuling Beau Smith Anthony Snyder Leonard Starr Jim Steranko Ronn Sutton Marc Svensson Tony Tallarico Jeff Taylor Dann Thomas Maggie Thompson Dr. Michael J. Vassallo Lawrence B. Vossler Hames Ware George Warner John Wells Marv Wolfman

Writer/Editorial: Change Times Three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Cry Wolfman! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 A revealing e-talk between Marv Wolfman and Richard Arndt about Marv’s early career.

Concluding Jim Amash’s interview with comics great Leonard Starr (On Stage, Annie).

“There’s Been A Lot Of Characters In This Business” . . . . . 27 Richard Arndt follows up on last year’s look at the Comics Code in theory and practice.

Tales From The Code: The Sequel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Michael T. Gilbert on the secret origins of Jim Steranko’s legendary comics career.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! The Unknown Steranko! . . . . . 51 Comic Fandom Archive: The “50 Years Of Comic Book Fandom” Panel – Part II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Bill Schelly finishes up a presentation held at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con.

Tributes to Sheldon Moldoff & Eduardo Barreto . . . . . . . . 63 re: [correspondence, comments, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . 67 FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #172 . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73 P.C. Hamerlinck hosts a farewell salute to Fawcett stalwart (and nice guy) Emilio Squeglio.

On Our Cover: Some years back, genial Gene Colan gifted his longtime Tomb of Dracula collaborator Marv Wolfman with this evocative penciled illustration of the writer and the Lord of Vampires.

Thanks to Marv for sharing it with us. [Art ©2012 Estate of Gene Colan; Marvel rendition of Dracula TM & ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Above: Although this issue’s final installment of Jim Amash’s confab with Leonard Starr deals primarily with the latter’s work on newspaper strips, let’s not forget that he got his start in the early 1940s in comic books—as per this splash panel from House of Mystery #19 (Oct. 1953), which he penciled and inked. The scripter is unknown; the scan was provided by Stephan Friedt. [©2012 DC Comics.]

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Eduardo Barreto, Sheldon Moldoff, & Emilio Squeglio Alter EgoTM is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344.

Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: 32 Bluebird Trail, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices.

Eight-issue subscriptions: $60 US, $85 Canada, $107 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 China. ISSN: 1932-6890 FIRST PRINTING.

writer/editorial

2

Change Times Three

his is an issue of transitions. Three of them, to be exact—only two of which are celebratory.

T

First off, this month’s chat with longtime writer and editor Marv Wolfman represents a renewed determination to give the Silver Age of Comics its due in terms of coverage.

Not that we haven’t covered the early careers of several (very late) Silver-Agers in the past—Steves Skeates and Englehart and Dave Cockrum and Yours Truly come to mind, plus the far more numerous Age-spanners like John Buscema, Stan Lee, Carmine Infantino, et al. But at this point in time we’ve got several more Silver Age interviews scheduled, including artist Herb Trimpe and writer/editor Denny O’Neil—and that’s just for openers. (Even this issue spotlights Michael T. Gilbert’s look at Jim Steranko’s magic career and comics debut.) In addition, while we somehow allowed Spider-Man’s 50th birthday to slip by without special A/E notice, both The Avengers and The X-Men will receive their own conspicuous half-century celebrations in 2013. So set your calendars for lots more Silver Age excitement—although, to no one’s great surprise, we’ll hardly neglect the 1940s and ’50s in these purple-prose pages.

Secondly, this issue concludes a streak of more than 100 A/E issues in a row to feature expansive interviews prepared by Archie Comics inker Jim Amash. Alas, personal considerations have arisen which preclude Jim’s having the time to conduct them, so for the past couple of years we’ve been eating up inventory, including the serialized publication of the last two on the shelf, with Tony Tallarico and Leonard Starr. At least one more, with artist/writer/editor Al Feldstein about his pre-EC work, is slated to appear when Jim can find time to edit it into shape—and he’s promised to do others when he can. And this last despite some disillusionment on his part due to feeling (quite justifiably, I

believe) ripped off by a few people who’ve quoted from his copyrighted interviews with little or no attribution, or who’ve simply reverse-engineered his A/E interviews in order to “write” their own books. We share his pain; but the litigation necessary to stop these abuses would benefit only lawyers. Some people—and their publishers—have no shame.

Naturally, we long for the day when circumstances change—on all fronts. Meanwhile, Jim will stick-around as a valued consultant and associate editor. We’ll continue carrying in-depth interviews, of course—but we’ll miss Jim’s own special brand of them.

Third, with this issue we welcome back Christopher Day, who served as A/E’s “layout guru” from issue #8 (!) through #103. Jon B. Cooke, who ably handled #104-112, is readying a new TwoMorrows magazine… so when Chris admitted he’d kinda missed working on the mag, we persuaded him to return for a year. After that… who knows? But it’s great to have him back!

Nothing stands still, not really. Alter Ego has evolved from a quarterly to a monthly to an eight-times-a-year magazine (due to my own need for time for other projects)… we reluctantly abandoned our beloved “flip covers” after #44… and the mag only recently converted to full color. Through it all, we’ve been lucky to have a continuity of key personnel over this volume’s 13-year lifetime, thanks to Jim and Chris and Bill Schelly and Michael T. Gilbert and P.C. Hamerlinck and artist-in-residence Marc Swayze—not to mention a number of generous art-suppliers and other contributors—while still bringing in plenty of new blood to stir things up.

Stick with us for the next 13 years, okay? By then maybe I’ll finally be ready to retire.

Bestest,

# COMING IN DECEMBER 114 A TRIO OF TIMELY/MARVEL TITANS! DON RICO–ALLEN BELLMAN– & MARTIN GOODMAN!

ther art 12 Marvel Characters, Inc.;o Captain America TM & ©20 Breitweiser ©2012 Allen Bellman & Mitch

• Exciting new decades-spanning cover by ALLEN BELLMAN & MITCH BREITWEISER! • “The Once and Future DON RICO”—a 1970s interview with the 1940s-60s artist and/or writer of The Human Torch, Captain America, horror comics, & Dr. Strange (and let’s not forget the original Daredevil)!

• Timely/Marvel founding publisher MARTIN GOODMAN—as a Broadway angel!

• ALLEN BELLMAN celebrates 70 years as a comic book artist—from The Patriot to crime comics to new Cap sketches! Featuring art & artifacts by SIMON & KIRBY—AVISON— SHORES—SCHOMBURG—COLAN—et al.! Plus a few Marvel-ous surprises!

• FCA presents the 1951 Captain Video story drawn by GEORGE EVANS that inspired ROY THOMAS & JOHN BUSCEMA to create Avengers arch-foe ULTRON! MICHAEL T. GILBERT on Atlas (and Charles Atlas) in the comics—& MORE!!

Edited by ROY THOMAS • SUBSCRIBE NOW! Eight issues in the US: $60 Standard, $80 First Class • (Canada: $85, Elsewhere: $107 Surface, $155 Airmail). • NEW LOWER RATES FOR INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMERS! SAVE $4 PER ISSUE!

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3

Cry Wolfman!

A Revealing Conversation With MARV WOLFMAN About His Early Career—& Days In Fandom NTERVIEWER’S INTRO: Writer and editor Marv Wolfman has been working in comics for more than forty years, scripting nearly every major super-hero from either DC or Marvel. In addition, in concert with artists Gene Colan and Tom Palmer, he transformed Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula, at the time a faltering horror title, into one of the most acclaimed comics of the 1970s. Besides super-hero and horror, Wolfman has worked in nearly every genre that comics have to offer, including humor, science-fiction, sword&-sorcery, fantasy, war, and more. This interview about his early career was conducted via e-mail in June of 2011. —Richard.

Conducted by Richard J. Arndt

I

“I Got Heavily Into Comics”

RICHARD ARNDT: Thank you for the opportunity and the interview, Marv. To start with, where were you born and where did you grow up?

MARV WOLFMAN: I was born in Brooklyn, New York, and lived there until I was 13. My father, Abe, was a policeman in Coney Island, and my mother, Fay, was a housewife until I graduated from high school; then she returned to work. I had a sister, Harriet, who was 12 years older than me. She’d gotten married at 18 and was out of the house when I was only 6, so I have no early memories of her. I only got to know her when I was an

Marv Goes To Mars—Twice!

Marv Wolfman in the 1970s, flanked by two permutations of one of his favorite assignments—namely, scripting comics starring Edgar Rice Burroughs’ seminal hero John Carter of Mars, which he did for both the “majors.”

(Left:) Murphy Anderson’s splash page for DC’s Weird Worlds #1 (Aug-Sept. 1972), which followed John Carter’s earlier series in Tarzan; Marv’s credit came on p. 4.

(Right:) Splash penciled by Gil Kane and inked by Dave Cockrum for Marvel’s John Carter, Warlord of Mars #1 (June 1977); Marv was also the editor of this series, which was covered in detail in our sister mag Back Issue #6 but is outside the purview of this interview concerning his early career. The photo is from the 1975 Mighty Marvel Comic Convention program book. [Art & script ©2012 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.]

4

A Revealing Conversation With Marv Wolfman About His Early Career

It’s A Bird… It’s A Plane… It’s Wolfman!

Marv in the 1950s—clearly, after he discovered the Adventures of Superman TV show starring George Reeves. The shirt was a Kellogg’s cereal premium.

adult. Unfortunately, all are deceased.

RA: Sorry to hear that.

When did you discover comics?

WOLFMAN: I don’t remember the exact year, but it was in the early 1950s. I was no more than between 5 and 7 when I was at a friend’s house. We were watching the popular kids’ TV show Howdy Doody, but when it was over, instead of getting up to change the channel to a different kids’ show— mind you, this was long before remotes—we kept it on channel 4 and saw The Adventures of Superman, which was the next show. At the end it said it was based on the comics. We couldn’t believe what we were watching. We’d never seen anything like it before.

Once the show was over we ran to the corner candy store and bought our first comics, both Action and Superboy. I was hooked.

I got heavily into comics and read everything, without exclusion, from the very few super-hero titles that still existed at the time (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman) to the science-fiction books (Mystery in Space, Strange Adventures, etc.) to the Archie, ACG, and Harvey comics. I read pretty much anything except for romance and hot-rod comics.

My favorites were the Superman family of magazines, the sf comics, and Blackhawk. Of course, I also read Batman, Wonder Woman, and nearly everything else. As a kid, I never saw the Atlas monster comics or the EC horror comics, although they must have been on the racks. I guess my kid eyes just didn’t care about those comics, so I never paid them any attention.

My father hated comics, and despite the fact that, as it turned out, I had the highest boy’s reading average in my public school at the time—because, unlike the other boys, I did read— when my teacher said comics were bad for you (it was the Wertham era, although I didn’t know that at the time), all my early comics were thrown out. We lived in a four-

family apartment building in Brooklyn, two apartments on the first floor and two on the top. We were on the top. I actually sneaked comics in by hiding them in a rolled-up rug in the downstairs hallway. That worked until it rained, and I guess they opened up the rug and found the comics and tossed them. But eventually they stopped caring.

RA: That’s funny! My parents didn’t mind comics at all, but I always thought they would have been upset to find me paying for them. I didn’t steal money, but back then you could collect pop bottles and sell them to the store for 5¢ each. When I bought my comics—three for a quarter, cover logo torn off—I would roll them into the sleeve of my jacket where they fit between my hand and elbow. Years later, it occurred to me to wonder what those store clerks thought about a kid hiding comics when he’d just paid for them. Probably thought I was nuts. [laughs]

WOLFMAN: Different problems, but the same solution! Anyway, I assume [my parents] just gave up trying to get me to stop reading comics, knowing it was a lost cause. They did try, maybe at my teacher’s request, buying me “real” books to read instead of comics, but I used to read the books in one or two days, which meant they had to buy more and more books, which on a cop’s salary was probably prohibitive. At any rate, they no longer threw out my comics.

I was reading science-fiction, too, and quickly graduated from Tom Swift and the kid sf books to Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and the rest. If, in the library, it had a rocket or an atom symbol on the spine, I read it.

“I Began Publishing My Own Fanzines”

RA: Did you have any hobbies that lent themselves to a future career in comics? You were involved in the fanzines of the day, weren’t you?

WOLFMAN: I loved to draw and made up stories in order to draw them. I also started writing letters to the comics. My first published letter appeared in an issue of The Adventures of The Fly, but I soon had many letters printed in the various Julius Schwartz books. Julie used to print our addresses, and after my

A Young Man Of Letters Marv’s first published letter (and the editor’s response) saw print in Archie’s The Adventures of The Fly #22 (Oct. 1962)—and Marv’s missive to Hawkman about issue #7 of that title, as printed in #9 (Aug.-Sept. ’65), plus the comments of editor Julius Schwartz. Little did Marv suspect that within a few years he’d be working with both Hawkman artist Murphy Anderson and Schwartz. Thanks to Stephan Friedt and Bob Bailey, respectively. [©2012 DC Comics.]

Cry Wolfman!

5

first letter to him was printed in Mystery in Space, I received two fan magazines in the mail—The Comic Reader and the Rocket’s Blast.

Both were numbered 13.

I became a huge fan of the fanzines, and because I was one of the few New York-based fans at the time and because I had the opportunity to semi-regularly visit DC Comics, which conducted tours twice a week—later it became just once a week—I got involved with The Comic Reader and supplied them with news. I also started to write and draw stories for other fanzines of the period. I also entered the “Herbie Writing Contest” based on the ACG comic Herbie, which I loved. I got second prize for writing a complete script, although you were only supposed to write a plot. I still have the page of original art that I won.

When I was 13, we moved to Flushing, Queens, and I found there were only a few comic fans there in the junior high school.

Because I loved to draw, I applied to and got into the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan, which of course made it easier to go on the DC tours, as they were only a few blocks away. Among my teachers—although only for a short time—was Bernie Krigstein, whose work, by this time, I knew from some of the early EC reprints, which had come out in paperback form. I tried to get him to talk about his early days in comics, but he wasn’t interested and wouldn’t talk about it at all. I think, later on, he changed his mind and gave some interviews, but not then.

My cartooning teacher was a Charles Allen, who’d been an artist on Captain Marvel. Interestingly, he was a black man, which meant he was probably one of the very few black artists working in early comics.

I used to draw super-hero comics for my cartooning assignments, but Allen—maybe he was burned out by his comics career, though I don’t really know about that—kept pushing me to do humor work, instead. I resisted, but found I actually enjoyed

Lucky Thirteen The covers of the first two fanzines Marv Wolfman ever saw: G.B. Love’s Rocket’s Blast #13 (Dec. 1962) and Jerry Bails’ The Comic Reader #13 (Nov. 8, 1962). The artist on the former is Buddy Saunders, now owner of Lone Star Comics. Thanks to Aaron Caplan. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

writing and drawing comedy, which is why I published my humor fanzine and got into humor writing.

I began publishing my own fanzines—Super-Adventures, which was a super-hero fanzine that I inherited from writer-artist Dave Herring, one of my fellow A&D students; there was also The Foob, a comedy fanzine with a slightly political bent; Stories of Suspense, a horror fanzine (I actually published Stephen King’s first prose story—“I Was a Teenage Grave Robber”—which also appeared in another fanzine at the same time); and What Th …?, which was an opinion fanzine.

RA: The Stephen King Companion cites King’s first prose story as having appeared in Comics Review, edited by you. Was it Comics Review or Stories of Suspense? Or is the King Companion confusing the title with the other fanzine appearance you mentioned?

WOLFMAN: They’re both right and wrong. The story did appear in Comics Review, which was published by Mike Garrett. At the same time, my friend Jeff Gelb, who was also friends with Mike, sent me the story, which I published in Stories of Suspense. They both, I think, came out at about the same time, so we both published King’s first story. By the way, Jeff and Mike are still friends and work together. In fact, a few years back I wrote a short story for their Hot Blood horror anthology series.

I remember my mother taking me to Montgomery Ward in Manhattan to buy a ditto machine in order to print the fanzines.

Why she put up with that I don’t know, but that allowed me to

6

A Revealing Conversation With Marv Wolfman About His Early Career

do a lot of work when I was still a kid. I used to send my fanzines to the very few editors who were in the business then, and through them got to be known.

RA: Did your taste in comics change as you got older?

WOLFMAN: Well, like I said, I read pretty much everything except for DC’s romance comics and the TV and radio tie-in comics, of which there were many back in the 1960s. Although I still loved “Superman,” Julie Schwartz’s sf books quickly became my favorites. I was a huge fan of both Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space. Julie really hooked me, though, when he re-introduced “The Flash” and especially “Green Lantern.” Although I didn’t know it at the time, because there were no real credits on the comics, I was becoming a huge fan of the writing of John Broome. I liked Gardner Fox’s stories, but, in retrospect, felt they were too plot-driven; but John’s work came out of character, and I gravitated to them. He was the main Flash and Green Lantern writer. Green Lantern, which really connected with my science-fiction interests, became my second-favorite DC character, right after Superman. Fortunately, I got to write both of them. With “Superman,” I’ve become the only writer who can claim he’s written the character over six decades. I can say that because my first story for him was a “World of Krypton” short story in 1969, I think for Mort Weisinger. I’ve written him every decade since. Sometimes only once, sometimes for a long run. But that’s six decades, impossible as it might sound.

Fanzines, Anyone?

The covers of three Wolfman-published fanzines—The Foob #1 (1964) and What Th …? #1 (1966), both with art by Marvelous Marv himself, and Super Adventures #9 (Fall 1968), drawn by none other than Dick Giordano. Thanks to Howard Brenner for the Foob image, and to Aaron Caplan for the others.

[Art ©2012 Marv Wolfman & Estate of Dick Giordano, respectively.]

Cry Wolfman!

7

and up, while the DC stories at that time, though I still loved the heroes, were stuck in being aimed at the 8-12 crowd. At that point, Marvel quickly eclipsed DC for me, and though I never stopped reading the DCs, and they still had my favorite characters, they were no longer my favorite books.

“My Goal Was To Return The Blackhawks To Glory”

RA: What did you do after high school?

WOLFMAN: After the High School of Art and Design, I went to Queens College, where I majored in art and minored in education.

I also started to write professionally for comics, and that helped pay some of my way through school. I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and became a junior high school art teacher for one year. I hated it, was no good at it, and fled back to full-time comics work.

RA: Well, that brings us into your actual comics career. Your first professional credit (that I know of) was a plot for Blackhawk #242 (Sept.

1968). At the time, the Blackhawks had abandoned their original aviator uniforms and donned super-hero costumes, calling themselves the JunkHeap Heroes. That period was pretty god-awful for the characters. Your story, scripted by Bob Haney and illustrated by Pat Boyette, was an attempt to return them to the glory days and original outfits while keeping them viable in the 1960s. It didn’t work—the title was cancelled with #243—but it was a fairly decent try. Your plotline was strong and Boyette’s take on the artwork was impressive. What can you tell us about your debut?

WOLFMAN: Actually, my first professional credit was a story called “The Conjurer and the Man Called Armageddon,” which was published in an issue of Castle of Frankenstein. CoF was really a movie magazine, patterned after Famous Monsters of Filmland but

Tales From The Krypton The splash page of the first story Wolfman wrote for “Superman” line editor Mort Weisinger. Marv wrote the script circa 1969; but, for whatever reasons, it saw publication in Superman #248 (Feb. 1972), under successor editor Julius Schwartz. Art by Dave Cockrum. Thanks to Bob Bailey. [©2012 DC Comics.]

I also loved the ACG comics, all of which were written by one man, Richard Hughes, no matter what pseudonym he was using on the story, and he had many, going all the way from A (Ace Aquila) to Z (Zev Zimmer). He even used a pseudonym named for his typewriter—Greg Olivetti. In fact, Hughes appears to have been a pseudonym, too. Wikipedia says his real name was Leo Rosenbaum. His stories were often sappy and silly, but they had heart. And, as I mentioned, I was a huge fan of Herbie. In fact, I went to an early comic con masquerade dressed as Herbie, complete with a plunger on my head. My mother made the costume for me.

RA: I’m glad you mentioned Richard Hughes. I haven’t read a lot of his work, but I very much admire the little that I have. They maybe aren’t great stories, but they are good, or at the very least, better than average.

WOLFMAN: I bought my first Atlas comic (it wasn’t Marvel Comics quite yet) with Amazing Adult Fantasy. Although I wasn’t thrilled that they put a super-hero named Spider-Man in the last issue, I quickly became a Spider-Man fan. The first Fantastic Four I saw was #4 or #5, and from that moment on, I was a Marvel fan as well as a DC fan. Slowly, however, the Marvels matured at the same rate I was—they seemed aimed more for high school kids

Herbie Hath No Fury Marv as The Fat Fury (secret identity = Herbie Popnecker) at the comics convention hosted by Dave Kaler in New York City in July 1965. Seen in the background is near-future conventionmeister Phil Seuling as a bearded Captain Marvel. Thanks to Bill Schelly.

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A Revealing Conversation With Marv Wolfman About His Early Career

issues of Blackhawk ever back in the 1940s, but he was doing incredible black-&-white work for Warren Publishing.

Unfortunately, for health reasons or some such, Reed never finished the job. I’m not even sure if he began it. Dick reassigned it to Pat [Boyette]—one of his regulars when Dick was at Charlton— who penciled, inked, and lettered the entire story… in a week. Dick gave me the original art for the entire issue, the cover included, and I still own it all to this day. Obviously, being a young fan, my dialogue was not yet professional, so Dick had Bob Haney come in and do a dialogue polish.

I remain proud of it. My goal was to return the Blackhawks to glory by taking it in a slightly new direction, and for those brief two issues it succeeded in doing that.

Once the “Blackhawk” story was picked up by Dick Giordano, Joe Orlando, another new editor at DC—who’d seen my horror fanzine, Stories of Suspense—asked me to re-dialogue a horror story he’d bought from another writer. It was called “Roots of Evil” [House of Mystery #176 (Oct. 1968)]. I then started to write occasional stories for the DC mystery books.

Sphinx To High Heaven The last page of “The Conjurer and the Man Called Armageddon,” a comics story written and drawn by Marv Wolfman & Len Wein for Calvin Beck’s monster mag Castle of Frankenstein #12 (1968; also called “Vol., 3, #4”).

Thanks to Rodrigo Baeza & Jon Knutson. The latter points out that the villain Armageddon looks—even speaks—much like The Sphinx from Marv’s 1970s Marvel title Nova, a series based on Wolfman’s earlier fan-creation “Black Nova.” [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

slightly better-written. The story was written and lettered by me and co-drawn with Len Wein. It appeared in an early issue with Leonard Nimoy as Spock on the cover. It also had an interview or something with Stan Lee.

As for Blackhawk, because I was a fan of the early books, I hated the Junk-Heap Heroes stories. Out of anger, I wrote a script returning the Blackhawks to the Dark Knights they’d originally been. Since I’d had a letter printed in Mystery in Space, Julie Schwartz had “awarded” me, as he often did with letter-writers, a Gardner Fox original script, so I knew what comic scripts looked like and copied the format.

I sent my “Blackhawk” script to the editor, George Kashdan, but never heard back. A year later, Dick Giordano was hired by DC to replace Kashdan and inherited his desk. He found my unopened envelope in the desk and saw it was a script—why, considering Kashdan never opened it, it didn’t get thrown out, I’ll never know.

Dick called and asked if I still wanted him to read it. I said yes. He did and bought it. By the way, the fix didn’t fail. The book was cancelled before that issue was even published. It just had two more issues to go.

The art was supposed to be drawn by Reed Crandall, which thrilled me to no end. Not only had Reed drawn the most beautiful

“Hawk-aaa” Redux The sixth page of the “Blackhawk” story originally submitted by Wolfman to editor George Kashdan—which was finally purchased a year later

by Kashdan’s successor, Dick Giordano, who had it rewritten by Bob Haney and drawn by Pat Boyette for Blackhawk #242 (Aug.-Sept. 1968). Marv and Dick hoped to restore the Blackhawks’ faded glory, but it came too late.

Thanks to Mike DeLisa, who says he bought the copy he scanned off the stands in ’68. [©2012 DC Comics.]

Cry Wolfman!

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“It Took Some Time For My Writing To Equal My Ideas”

RA: You were part of an influx of new writers and artists who began appearing in comics in 1968-1969. This was the first real appearance of new talent to appear in comics since the advent of the Comics Code and the collapse or fade-out of so many publishers back in 1955. It drew heavily from the ranks of the comics fans. Earlier writers and artists had largely been talented people looking for a job, but the new talent of the times were fans looking for entry into a field they admired.

WOLFMAN: I was still going to the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan, and because of my art background I was actually hired as an unpaid intern in the art department, doing color separation work on DC covers and such. Back then the covers were still separated up at the office. I’d be given, I think, nine proofs of the cover, one for each of the colors we had back then—a 25% red, blue, and yellow, then a 50% set of those and then a 100%. If I recall—it’s been a long time, remember—to get pink flesh it would take 25% red and 25%yellow (R2, Y2) which meant painting those specific areas on two different stats. If I used 50% red it would be R3. Solid Red would just be R, and so on. Black was indicated with a K since B was used for blue. Some colors required different combinations, so you might be using three different sheets to get one color. You only painted in a red paint, but they could be separated out at Chemical Color, which was the coloring plant that comics used. It was essentially a coloring book, and my job was to stay inside the lines. Then, once they were all done, one of the main production people, mainly Jack Adler, would do a gray shaded version of the cover to give it depth. Of course the production folk would also have me do other things, like cut up the artwork before it would be incinerated, etc.

The cutting of the artwork would be ordered by Sol Harrison, who was one of the heads at DC. I was allowed to take pieces of the art once they were cut, so I carefully cut what I could between the panel borders, than reassembled them later on. On occasion, Sol would come by and slice the pages diagonally, destroying them. I specifically recall him doing that to the complete art for the Showcase “Origin of The Atom” story. He also did that with Neal Adams artwork and other great artists. I saved as much as I could.

Roy’s talked at length about my being able to save lots of pages… so I won’t go into it here.

The “Roots” Of All Evil The splash page of Wolfman’s first sold “mystery” story—fittingly enough, to The House of Mystery #176 (Sept.-Oct. 1968)—minus credits for both MW and artist Jack Sparling. Actually, Marv says he merely re-dialogued it.

Thanks to Dave Reeder. [©2012 DC Comics.]

WOLFMAN: Back then, if we young’uns wanted to come up to the offices, we’d have to wear a button shirt, tie, and jacket. It was that formal. As we did more work and were accepted, we got rid of those, but it was still a few years before we were allowed to come to the offices in jeans and t-shirts.

we’d both been fans of his Charlton comic Sarge Steel, which was [originally] a detective series, so we thought he’d be interested in doing another one for DC. I wanted to do a straight-forward detective, but Len suggested the character have the ability to disguise himself as the potential victim in order to root out his killer. He’d become their double, hence the name Jonny Double.

Because I didn’t read the TV/radio tie-in comics, I didn’t know that concept had actually originated in the DC comic Gang Busters #61 (Dec. 1957-Jan. 1958), in a story entitled “The Human Target.”

Sadly, I don’t know who created that character. Anyway, the idea sounded cool, so I agreed. Dick Giordano liked the idea of doing a detective, but didn’t want the disguise angle. Len and I had an argument over this and we each presented different plots to Dick.

Dick went with mine. By the way, Neal Adams came up with the look of Jonny, and Neal’s sketch was given to artist Jack Sparling to draw [the story].

WOLFMAN: That was an odd one. Originally, I was working with Len Wein on this. Dick Giordano had just come over to DC, and

WOLFMAN: Those monster/horror comics were the greatest training ground for writers, because you had to learn how to tell a complete story, with characters and plot twists, all in 6-8 pages,

Anyway, the industry was changing. Roy Thomas, Cary Bates, Mike Friedrich, Denny O’Neil, and others were starting to work. I was doing my fanzines and, as I said, sent them out to the few editors in the business. Also, I met many of the editors at the very early comic conventions. Slowly I was asked to submit material. It was pretty slow at first. My work was far better plotted than it was written, so it took some time for my writing to equal my ideas.

RA: What was it like at the DC offices at that time?

RA: You also had another story that you plotted where a comic vet scripted, in this case, Charlton legend Joe Gill, although the story, “Jonny Double,” appeared in DC’s Showcase #78 (Nov. 1968). What was this, and how did you get involved?

RA: Much of your early work appeared in either the DC or Marvel mystery comics. Were those titles a common place for a young writer to learn the ropes of comic scripting?

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A Revealing Conversation With Marv Wolfman About His Early Career

Hard Targets The stories of “Jonny Double” and “The Human Target” are just a wee bit entangled: (1) Gang Busters #61 (Dec. 1957-Jan. 1958), based on a hit radio and TV series, coverfeatured “The Human Target,” the story of a man who hired himself out as a double and decoy for others in danger of being murdered. Cover art by Ruben Moreira.

(2) In Detective Comics #201 (Nov. 1953), Batman encountered one Fred Venable, who did pretty much the same thing in a tale with the same title; he’s in costume on the splash page, but mostly depended on various disguises in the story by writer Edmond Hamilton and artist Sheldon Moldoff (standing in as usual for Bob Kane). Thanks to Jim Kealy for the scan.

(3) “Jonny Double,” a private eye whose proposed double/disguise shtick was dropped after he was named, debuted in Showcase #78 (Nov. 1968), in a tale credited to Marv Wolfman (story) & Joe Gill (dialogue), with art by Jack Sparling. Marv relates how this character grew out of a concept co-created by Marv with friend and fellow neo-writer Len Wein; they later agreed each of them would present competing visions to editor Dick Giordano, who chose Wolfman’s. There’s been a DC Vertigo version of Jonny Double in recent years. Thanks to Dave Reeder.

(4) In Action Comics #419 (Dec. 1972), Len Wein’s rendition of the concept, doubtless reworked further, debuted as “The Human Target,” with art by Carmine Infantino & Dick Giordano. This is the hero who’s had a couple of comics runs and has twice become a TV series. Thanks to Bob Bailey. [All art ©2012 DC Comics.]

Cry Wolfman!

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A Dead Ringer?

As related in Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #2 (and reprinted in the 2006 trade paperback The Alter Ego Collection, Vol. 1), Marv rescued literally hundreds of pages and partial-pages from the DC incinerator circa 1969, while working as an intern. Many of those were of Golden Age art, some of which had never been published (and still hasn’t)—like this dramatic tier of panels from an unused mid-1940s “Green Lantern” story. The artwork seems to be that of the hero’s co-creator, Mart Nodell, though he and his wife Carrie didn’t believe it was; the tale was coded to appear in Comic Cavalcade #21—but didn’t. Scripter unknown. Both A/E publications listed above are still available from TwoMorrows Publishing. [©2012 DC Comics.]

and sometimes even less. I began selling stories like “Cain’s True Case Files”—which had to be done in two or three pages. Those books also were the training ground for new artists. Bernie Wrightson and Frank Brunner’s earliest work was illustrating some of my first short-short scripts.

RA: You co-wrote a number of stories with Len Wein in your early days.

There was a Teen Titans issue in 1968, a “Batman” story that appeared in 1971 (illustrated by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano), several mystery tales for both DC and Marvel, and more. Most of these appeared between 1969 and 1975. What prompted the team-up?

WOLFMAN: In those days Len and I had been friends and we were both new writers, so working together to take advantage of each other’s strengths and compensate for our weaknesses seemed logical. At that point Len was better on dialogue and I was better at plotting. I think working as a team is a good idea when you’re starting out, but as you develop your own styles you tend to move apart.

Back then I only got work in dribs and drabs. The reason was obvious a few years later, but not immediately then. My writing simply wasn’t very good. Perhaps just about good enough to be given short 2-4 page jobs but not much more than that. I didn’t quite know what was wrong. As I say, I concentrated primarily on plotting, since that was my strong suit, but my dialogue in those early days was always weak. I remember at one point, when it was obvious that I wasn’t advancing as quickly as some others, that Gerry Conway, who, although he was much younger than me, was

Teen Wolf(man) The only published Teen Titans issue of the first series that was co-written

by Len Wein & Marv Wolfman was #18 (Nov.-Dec. 1968), illustrated by veteran artist Bill Draut. In the 1980s, of course, Marv would co-create and script the super-successful New Teen Titans, with Len as that series’ original editor. Thanks to Stephan Friedt. [©2012 DC Comics.]

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A Revealing Conversation With Marv Wolfman About His Early Career

already a major star at DC and was, I think, being courted by Marvel, said to me at the office that my problem was that I didn’t know how to write characters. My dialogue didn’t sound real, and unless I learned how to do that I wouldn’t ever get regular work in the field. That obviously hurt, and for about three minutes (okay, maybe much longer than that) I probably wanted to strangle him, but he was bigger than me. By the time I got home I turned that into “I’ll show him.”

For the next year or so I concentrated on my character and dialogue until that became the major focus of my work, as evidenced in Tomb of Dracula. But if Gerry hadn’t said that to me, challenged me, I don’t think I would ever have gotten better. Years later, by the way, Bob Shreck did the same thing, pointing out that my writing was becoming old-fashioned. That forced me to really look at the current comics and try to evolve my work. I have a tendency to get angry fairly quickly, but I even more quickly turn that into a challenge and the anger is gone.

I believe if you want to be a good writer or artist or pretty much anything else, you have to learn to take criticism and make it work for you, even if at first you get angry over it. If in my soul I didn’t really want to be a writer, I would never have listened to Gerry. I would have called him an idiot and just kept doing what I was doing and eventually I would have been out of the industry.

Instead, after the anger faded, I pushed aside my ego and listened to his words and thought that maybe my bad dialogue was the reason I wasn’t getting work. I had to look at what I was doing wrong and then, if I had the talent to do so, fix it. I think I did.

I’m told I’m fairly blunt when I give criticism to others, and I think it comes from the same place. If you take criticism the wrong way and either give up or ignore it, you won’t ever get better because you’ll always believe you’re the be-all and end-all. There are other writers out there who will always do something better than you, and even if you’re good and have a healthy ego—which you need to survive as a freelancer—you need to always step back and analyze what others are doing and how you can apply some of that to your own work. I always ask editors for feedback, and though most don’t actually give it, I really do want it. It’s the only way I know how to keep pushing ahead.

“There’s A Real Story Behind That ‘Batman’ Story”

RA: What was your reaction to seeing your “Batman” tale illustrated by the top “Batman” art team?

WOLFMAN: There’s a real story behind that “Batman” story.

When Len and I first came up with the idea, “Batman” was very much in its camp phase, which was based on the approach of the TV show. We both hated that and wanted to make Batman dark and mysterious, the way he was meant to be. I’d already used my fan-oriented view of what was good and what wasn’t and written that early “Blackhawk” story, so why not try it again.

We came up with a grim and gritty plot and presented it to

The Wolfman/Wein Team That Haunted “Batman” At the 1967 “Kalercon” in NYC, Wolfman (on left) and Wein were just on the verge of entering the pro comics field. Soon afterward, they wrote the plot for “The House That Haunted Batman”—a script that was eventually drawn by a determined Neal Adams, with Dick Giordano inks, and printed in Detective Comics #408 (Feb. 1971). See interview for the full story.

Photo by Pat Yanchus; thanks to Bob Bailey for the art scan. [“Batman” page ©2012 DC Comics.]

editor Julie Schwartz, but its darker nature was so out of tune with what was going on at the time that he suggested we take out our ending—which I no longer remember at all—and put in a Batmanlike death trap to liven it up. That turned out to be what I’ve always called the giant ping-pong ball machine you see at the end.

Batman and Robin were trapped in pneumatic tubes that shot them around, or something to that effect. We did it, but Julie still didn’t like it and finally rejected it.

For some reason we were grousing about it to Dick Giordano.

Dick asked to read our plot, liked it, and then for some reason showed it to Neal Adams. Neal loved it. Then Neal did something I’d never heard of either before or after, and it’s one of the many reasons I have only good thoughts about him to this day: Neal decided to draw the entire story—in secret and on spec.

Remember, Neal was DC’s top artist at the time and had, I assume, their best page rate. Yet he took the chance to draw an entire story in his copious free time, knowing full well it might still be rejected and he would not get paid for his work.

Obviously Neal could only fit in a page here or there, so it was

Cry Wolfman!

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House Of Credits (Left:) The panel from the Abel-starring intro to The House of Secrets #83 (Dec. 1969-Jan. 1970) which wound up gaining Marv Wolfman—and by extension every other writer—printed credit in DC’s mystery mags. Script by Gerry Conway; art by Bill Draut. Thanks to Dave Reeder.

(Right:) The story that began on the very next page originally sported only artist Alex Toth’s byline; Marv’s was added at the last minute, via a patch sent to the printer. See interview for details. Thanks to Dave Reeder & Marc Svensson. [©2012 DC Comics.]

going to take a while to get done. During that time, based on Neal’s darker “Batman” work on The Brave and the Bold, it was decided to darken all the “Batman” stories. Writer Denny O’Neil and Neal then began Batman’s complete overhaul, which is essentially still the Batman we see today, with only cosmetic changes.

By the time Neal finished our story, the darkness we were going for was no longer unique, which is why, when Neal finally showed the finished penciled story to Julie, it was no longer out of sync with what was being done.

Julie was, of course, taken aback that Neal had done a story without him assigning it. Any other editor would probably have rejected it without even looking at the pages, simply to assert power. But Julie, bless ‘im, read it, then suddenly remembered it and asked Neal if this was indeed the story we’d written that he’d rejected maybe a year or two before. Neal said it was. Julie said, “Never do that again,” then bought it.

As I say, any other editor would probably have rejected it, then never used us again (Neal would always be used because he was the best, whereas we were still just kids), but Julie was great enough to ignore that hit to his ego and accepted it as a good story.

Not only did we sell it, but as an added gift Neal gave us the original artwork for it. I still have my pages, and the one with our credit on it is framed and on my office wall. Neal very much saved our careers back then by breaking every rule in the book, then Julie actually said yes when he could just as easily have said no. Both of them earned my eternal gratitude.

“A Wandering Wolfman”

RA: DC’s mystery titles in the early days usually didn’t carry writer or artist’s credits. There’s an amusing story about how that changed based on your name. Can you tell us what you remember about it?

WOLFMAN: Oh, gosh, that story’s been told so often. To get it out of the way fast: DC’s mystery books always had “hosts” who introduced the stories—Cain, Abel, Destiny, the Three Witches, etc.

Gerry Conway happened to write many of these introductions during this time period. Knowing I’d written the story that would follow his page, he wrote something to the effect of “the following story was told to me, long, long ago… by a wandering wolfman….” Well, back then, the Comics Code still forbade classic

monsters from being used in comics. No vampire, no zombies, no Frankenstein monsters, no wolfmen. Unfortunately, the book had already been sent to the printers. DC had to convince them that “Wolfman” was my actual name. The Code office believed them, but insisted that, in order to take away the “monster” stigma, DC had to put my credit on the story. DC sent a patch to the printer, who pasted it into place, and which said: “Story: Marv Wolfman.”

That was in House of Secrets #83 (Jan. 1970). After that came out, every writer insisted on having their credit, too. So, if my name had been Marv Smith, we’d all still be working anonymously to this day. By the way, I also have the original splash page art with my name pasted on it framed and on my office wall.

RA: You did a number of stories for the black-&-white magazines such as Major Publications’ Web of Horror (a story with Bernie Wrightson art), Skywald’s Psycho, and Warren’s Eerie magazines. What can you tell us about those titles? You actually did quite a few stories for Skywald, including a two-part science-fiction story with Rick Buckler and a couple of stories about The Love Witch, which were illustrated by Ernie Colón and cover-featured by Jeff Jones.

WOLFMAN: Between the well-documented Teen Titans “Titans Fit the Battle of Jericho” fiasco with what would have been DC’s first black super-hero, and a sad mistake where it was thought by DC management that we young fans-turned-professionals were stealing original art from the archives, several of us (including me) were pretty much blacklisted from the company. At the same time this was happening, I’d become an art teacher for a junior high

[continued on p. 16]

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A Revealing Conversation With Marv Wolfman About His Early Career

The Skywald’s The Limit!

To what editor Al Hewetson called the “Skywald Horror Mood,” Marv Wolfman contributed, among others, the following black-&-white stories—seen clockwise on this page and the facing one (scans courtesy of George Warner): Nightmare #2 (Feb. 1971) – art by Dan Adkins.

Psycho #2 (March 1971) – art by Tom Palmer—his & Marv’s first collaboration ever!

Psycho #3 (May 1971) – art by Jack Purcell (a pen name of Ernie Colón). The first of Wolfman’s “Love Witch” series.

Psycho #4 (Sept. 1971) – art by Rich Buckler (the only non-splash in this grouping).

Nightmare #6 (Dec. 1971) – art by Ernie Colón & Jack Abel.

Psycho #7 (July 1972) – art by Pablo Marcos (as “Jim Elder”).

Psycho #8 (Sept. 1972) – art by Ross Andru & Mike Esposito.

Cry Wolfman!

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16

A Revealing Conversation With Marv Wolfman About His Early Career

Destiny (now part of The Endless in The Sandman). As editor, I got Bernie Wrightson to design him. In the first issue we printed a leftover story from Jack Kirby’s b&w effort Spirit World as the leadoff story. Bernie did a full-shot intro which we put into the first page to the side of Jack’s art. As an oddity, Destiny also just appeared in the Superman Retro comic I recently wrote. Talk about going from A to A.

Joe actually hired me, though, to be his editorial assistant on the Tarzan and war comics. I was also working with Joe Orlando, helping out there, too. Then the first (although less well-known) DC implosion hit. In 1971-1972, DC was publishing a lot of 25-cent, 52-page “Annual”-sized books, with an original front feature and reprint back-ups. That required the assistants to find and edit reprints, etc. Then, after about a year of this, the implosion hit and all the books were reduced to 36 pages again with a cover price of 20 cents. There was no longer a need for assistants, and those of us who were better paid (meaning maybe $150 a week as compared to $125 a week) were let go. As I’d just gotten married, I needed work… badly.

RA: You mentioned working for Joe Kubert and Orlando. Did you work for E. Nelson Bridwell?

WOLFMAN: I never worked for Nelson. I was hired by the Joes, Kubert and Orlando. But I did work beside Nelson.

RA: You also did a number of stories for DC’s Weird War Tales, including the classic war tale “The Pool” with co-writer Len Wein in #3 (Feb. 1972).

You Are My Destiny Bernie Wrightson’s drawing of the host Destiny and a Jack Kirby-penciled splash panel were combined by editor Wolfman in Weird Mystery Tales #1 (July-Aug. 1972). Thanks to Dave Reeder. [©2012 DC Comics.]

[continued from p. 13]

school, so I thought my comics career was over. Then a new black&-white publisher started up, called Skywald, created by Sol Brodsky (best known for his days as Marvel’s head of production) and publisher Israel Waldman (best known for doing amazingly cheap knock-off comics). I started sending in stories, to augment my absolutely awful teacher’s salary. For the most part it was fine.

The people [at Skywald] were nice, and I got to keep writing and learning what I was doing. As it has been said, you need to write thousands of crappy pages before you get them out of your system.

Beyond having a halfway decent time and being paid for it, there are no real stories to tell [of my Skywald days].

But I will end this by saying that [my blacklisting ended when] DC sadly learned it was one of their editors who had cancer and needed money for health reasons who’d been taking the art [as well as] bound volumes and selling them to pay for chemo. But, even before then, they realized we’d been innocent all along and we were back in their good graces. We were apologized to. Since we were the young ones, we knew we had to be on our best behavior, so there’s no way we would have looked twice at the art, let alone touch or take it. Still, it was a really hard time, and to make ends meet I had to begin selling my old comics and more.

Anyway, I left teaching and was hired by Joe Kubert to be his editorial assistant and later worked my way all the way up to assistant editor, although I do have an editor credit on Weird Mystery Tales, which also featured my very first comics creation,

WOLFMAN: Yes, that was drawn by the incredible Russ Heath. As young people during the Vietnam War, we had a decidedly antiwar view. This story was physically split in half—one side of the page told the story of warring cavemen, while the other side was about Americans fighting Nazis. Yet both were fighting to claim the same pool of water in the desert. Nothing ever truly changes in war. I think it’s one of my most-reprinted stories.

RA: Your first regular feature was adapting Edgar Rice Burroughs’ first John Carter of Mars novel, first as a backup feature in Tarzan, then as a headliner for Weird Worlds. The first story was plotted by you but apparently ghost-scripted by Joe Kubert. How did that come about?

WOLFMAN: I was Joe’s assistant as well as a huge fan of Burroughs’ John Carter stories, and I begged Joe, who really had no interest in the sf stuff, to [let me] write it. He let me. I have no memory of him re-writing the first story, but I wouldn’t doubt that he did. Joe was a strong editor, and he probably wanted to set the style. Also, I wasn’t all that good back then, and that he let me write “Carter” at all was great.

RA: The strip was relatively short-lived, but there were some great artists on it—Murphy Anderson, Sal Amendola—Gray Morrow did one segment. What was it like working with them?

WOLFMAN: I loved working with Murphy. I loved his work on Julie’s sf comics as far back as I could remember. The only problem occurred when Joe did some art patches on the “John Carter” material and I was ordered not to tell Murphy—he intended to tell Murphy himself but was probably out of the office when Murphy learned about it. Joe only came into the office one day a week, since he had so much art to do at home. Anyway, Murphy was angry at me for not saying anything, but my boss had told me I couldn’t. Unfortunately, Joe’s style is so unique it was obvious. I also loved working with Gray, whose art was astounding, as well as Sal, but I thought Murphy was the best. He really loved Burroughs, and that was obvious.

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See What The Boys On Barsoom Will Have!

(Above left:) By Tarzan #208 (May 1972), Marv was working with artist Gray Morrow on “John Carter of Mars.”

(Above right:) Soon after the series made the jump to the new title Weird Worlds, up-and-coming artist Sal Amendola made his debut on the art, which was inked in issue #4 (Feb.-March 1973) by Joe Orlando. Thanks to Bob Bailey. [©2012 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.]

By the way, I think Joe is, arguably, one of the top handful of artists ever in the history of comics. I learned more about writing from him than I did with any other editor. He did this by taking one of my Weird War scripts, which he drew, and, though he kept all the words, he ignored my scene descriptions. He re-laid out the story to show me how comic storytelling worked. It was a revelation. I still use that advice today.

How good is Joe? I once watched him ink a cover using a flatnibbed lettering pen instead of a brush, and it looked as great as everything else he did. Joe’s amazing, and his current graphic novel work is not only daring in his ideas but it shows someone who, like Will Eisner, keeps getting better with age. I should be so lucky.

When the [first] DC implosion ended my job with him, Joe drew a beautiful full color drawing of Tarzan for me. And yes, it’s also framed and on my office wall.

“Warren Offered Me The Editorship After The DC Implosion In ’72”

RA: Following your DC editorial work, you were the editor for a brief period for Jim Warren’s titles, including Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella, between John Cochran’s tenure and Bill DuBay’s. There’s been some

debate on how long you lasted there. I’ve heard a month, six weeks, up to six months. How long was it?

WOLFMAN: I was the editor at Warren for, I think, between 6 to 8 months. Warren offered me the editorship after the DC implosion in ’72 and I was happy to take it, even if I was only getting $100 a week, an amount I could not possibly live on, even back then. But I was happy for it. In fact, not long after I started, Roy Thomas offered me an editorship at Marvel. But, because I thought it was bad form to take on a job and then quit it immediately, I turned it down. Roy then hired Steve Gerber for the position.

As a follow-up to the Stephen King story: when King was a fairly poor [i.e., poorly paid] teacher back in 1972, he learned I was an editor at Warren and submitted stories to me, hoping, since I’d published his fan work, I’d buy these. Unfortunately, by the time he learned I was editor, I’d left for Marvel. Bill DuBay, who followed me, never got back to him, so for years King assumed I’d rejected his stories. He then rewrote them as prose stories and they were among his first sales to the magazines. I always joke that had I stayed at Warren I probably would have bought the stories and today, rather than being the most successful writer in history, he would be an out-of-work comic book guy. So by not buying his work I made his career possible.

RA: Well, King must be very happy with you. [laughs] What was the

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A Revealing Conversation With Marv Wolfman About His Early Career

there were desperate. I was at the famous Rutland, Vermont, Halloween parade during this. A bus had been rented to bring up the professionals. On the way back to New York I was sitting behind Roy and his then-wife Jeanie. Roy once again offered me the editorial position at Marvel. Steve [Gerber] had a sleeping disorder and could not get into the office on time, and besides, he would be better used as a writer. Because the situation at Warren was bad, and Marvel was offering me a whopping $125 a week, plus writing, this time I agreed.

I told Warren I was giving him three weeks’ notice. I thought that would be better than the standard two weeks. He ran into my office and threw my coffee mug against the wall, shattering it. He started screaming. It got worse from there. So, yadda yadda, I started at Marvel three weeks earlier than intended.

RA: After you left Warren, there was some speculation—never denied by editor/writer Bill DuBay—that a swamp monster spoof in Eerie #49 (July 1973), where the monster was called “Marvin, the Dead-Thing,” was named after you. Do you have any knowledge or memory of this story?

WOLFMAN: If you’re asking me if “Marvin the Dead-Thing” was their dig at me, I’d have to say I wouldn’t be surprised if it was.

But I wasn’t twelve at the time, and I now had a good job at Marvel, working with people I deeply respected (and still

Going Down?

Marv mentions that, circa 1969, he was moonlighting for Marvel while editing the Warren mags. And indeed, it was in the pages of Tower of Shadows #4 (March 1970) that he and artist Gene Colan first teamed up, on a 7-pager titled “One Little Indian!”, inked by Dan Adkins. Seen here is its final page. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

experience like working with Jim Warren?

WOLFMAN: Warren was—well, let’s say he was a volatile man.

He ordered people to bring in notepads whenever he talked so that they’d write down his every word of wisdom. I never did and he didn’t say anything, but he’d scream at everyone else. Bill DuBay was in charge of production back then, and he was mad at me for even getting the job. I’m sure he wanted it, so he did everything he could to make things difficult. I ignored him and just did my work, which was buying stories and editing Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella.

I got to try some interesting things. My intention was to turn Eerie into a theme book. For example, I had commissioned an allvampire issue of Eerie, from the first vampire to the final one. I was going to write the modern-day vampire story, and that’s where I came up with the idea for Blade.

At the same time, I was supplementing my meager income writing a few stories here or there for Marvel, including when I just started writing Tomb of Dracula [for Marvel]. Warren wasn’t too happy about that, but he paid so badly he couldn’t say anything.

But as word got out that Marvel was moving into the black-&white horror magazine field, which would, of course, affect Warren’s sales, he went ballistic. The job got harder and things up

Marv As Marsh-Monster By an astonishing coincidence, a story featuring “Marvin, the Dead-Thing” (and brandishing a misspelling of the word “Loneliest” in its actual title) was printed in Eerie #49 (July 1973), not long after Marv Wolfman left Warren Publications for Marvel. Script by Al Milgrom, art by Esteban Maroto.

Thanks to Dave Reeder & Michael T. Gilbert. [©2012 New Comics Company.]

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19

anything quite like Maroto’s work. Back then American comic fans probably never saw any comics other than the standard DC, Marvels, etc., but never international comics.

We bought up every comic they had and then—I assume Mark got the info for this—we found the warehouse in Chile where they were stored and we bought up all the old copies, too. If I remember correctly, each series was 12 issues long. We started selling copies, at our cost, to all the American comic professionals, who went insane over Maroto’s art. It created quite a stir in the industry, as his art and imagination were staggering. We also sold copies to Jim Warren, who was the only one who thought to contact the Spanish studio and hire the artists for his company. Within a few months, Americans got to see all the Spanish artists we’d found in those Spanish Harlem candy stores.

Cut to a year or two later when I was an editor at Warren. We’d gotten some original Spanish stories from the studio we were dealing with (S.I. Studios) and needed them translated. I don’t remember if we were supplied with an English translation, but as editor I got the chance to write a new script over the existing art. I did that on a few jobs.

RA: Neal Adams says he was introduced to Maroto’s art from 1960s Spanish comics and reprinted some of them under his Continuity banner in the 1980s.

WOLFMAN: We passed around Maroto’s Legion of Space series. I don’t know if Neal published those or other works.

Dax And Spend This “Dax the Warrior” sword-and-sorcery tale from Warren Publications’ Eerie #47 (April ’73) was originally scripted (in Spanish) as well as drawn by Esteban Maroto. Various U.S. writers were paid to re-dialogue the “Dax” stories in English; this script, says provider Jim Ludwig, is attributed to Marv Wolfman in the Grand Comics Database. [©2012 New Comics Company.]

amazingly do), so if they got a good laugh out of that, fine.

RA: During your time at Warren you were credited for writing dialogue for several Esteban Maroto stories that had originally been published in Spanish comics—one story of “Dax the Warrior” for Eerie and all of the serial “Tomb of the Gods” in Vampirella. The “Tomb” stories look like much older artwork than the “Dax” tale. What do you remember about these?

WOLFMAN: Maroto, that’s a long story. When I was a teen, I was a part of a comics club called The Illegitimate Sons of Superman, or TISOS. Several of us went on to become professionals in the field.

Others never intended to and got into other lines of work. At any rate, our unofficial leader, Mark Hanerfeld, had found a candy store somewhere in Spanish Harlem in New York that somehow got the comics several days before any other store got them. I never did find out how. Each week, Mark, who was the only one of us to have a car, would go there and pick up the books for all of us. On occasion we would go with him.

One time when a few of us were with him on the comic run, we checked out a few other candy stores and saw some Spanishlanguage comics. One was, using an English translation, called The Legion of Space, and it was drawn by Esteban Maroto. The other, I think, was Delta 99, and I forget who that artist was at the moment, but like Maroto he was brilliant. None of us had ever seen

RA: No, that was it. Neal re-titled it Zero Patrol. [INTERVIEWER’S NOTE: Zero Patrol—2 issues in 1984 and 5 issues (the first two reprinted from the 1984 series) from 1987-1989.] You went from Warren to working on Marvel’s black-&-white magazines. Roy Thomas was listed as editor on these titles (and clearly either edited or had strong influence on the first issues of most of the titles), but I’ve long suspected that his workload—he was also editing the entire, and rapidly expanding, color line at the same time—meant that you, as associate editor, were the de facto actual editor after the first issues. Tell us anything you care to share about the b&w titles—Dracula Lives!, Monsters Unleashed, Vampires Tales, Tales of The Zombie, etc.

“Marvel Was A Pretty Loose Company”

WOLFMAN: I was specifically hired away from Warren by Roy to become the editor on the black-&-white mags as he concentrated on the color books as well as the b&w Conan [The Savage Sword of Conan] and science-fiction magazines. I’m sure that Roy went over the first issues, but though I don’t remember specifics, I believe I was commissioning the stories and editing the books from day one.

You have to remember that Marvel was a pretty loose company, where the writers controlled their own books. I actually changed that. Coming from DC, where we did full scripts, I felt that the horror stories, which were usually only about 8 pages long, needed to be carefully controlled. Mood had to be built. Pacing was essential. I didn’t think the Marvel plotting style—which, when teamed with the right artist, I still think is the best way to do super-hero comics—worked on short horror stories or on humor stories (later for Crazy Magazine). So I always demanded full scripts from my writers, and I brought in writers who could do them, such as Doug Moench and Don McGregor, both of whom I’d worked with at Warren.

RA: In 1973, at roughly the same time, you began a serial for DC entitled “The Spawn of Frankenstein,” based on Mary Shelley’s monster [Phantom Stranger #24 (April 1973)], while also beginning your long run on Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula #7 (March 1973). It seems a bit

20

A Revealing Conversation With Marv Wolfman About His Early Career

Spawn Of The Wolfman unusual, and really rather cool, to be writing the two most famous monsters in literature for two different companies at the same time. Did this occur to you at the time?

WOLFMAN: I don’t remember if I thought about the Dracula/Frankenstein thing, but I must have. I also wrote “John Carter”for DC while on staff at Marvel. Roy knew what a fan I was and let me wrap up the story. He didn’t have to, but being a fan of the material himself, he went the extra mile. Besides hiring me, that’s one more reason I think the world of Roy.

RA: You also had great artists on both features—Michael Kaluta and Jim Aparo on “Spawn of Frankenstein” and the team of Gene Colan and Tom Palmer on Tomb of Dracula. What can you tell us about the artists?

WOLFMAN: Mike Kaluta was a friend as well as a great artist, and I loved working with him on “Frankenstein.” Aparo only did the “Phantom Stranger”/”Frankenstein” crossover which I co-wrote with Len, but he was one of the greatest. As for working with Gene Colan, well, he only passed away a few days ago, so my thoughts are still jumbled. But I will say that Gene’s artwork and his ability to draw real expressions on real people is what then informed my work and my interest in character writing. If it wasn’t for Gene, I would not be the writer I became. I think Gene was also his own best inker, but Tom Palmer was really good, obviously, and he kept a consistent look that nobody else could have done. I don’t want to forget John Costanza, our letterer, who actually requested to work on ToD. We had a great team.

(Left:) Splash of the Mike Kaluta-drawn “Spawn of Frankenstein” tale from The Phantom Stranger #24 (March-April 1973).” (Right:) Jim Aparo drew one installment of the series, in PS #26 (Aug.-Sept. 1973), whose script was co-credited to Wein & Wolfman. Thanks to Bob Bailey for the scans. [©2012 DC Comics.]

“I’d Never Seen A Vampire Or Dracula Movie…. Still haven’t….”

RA: How did you get the gig on ToD? That Dracula title is rightly regarded as one of the best long-run series of the 1970s. The characterization of all the characters is quite high, and having a villain as the lead character was (and still is) quite unusual. At the time, I think only Dr. Doom and The Joker had their own series, and both were rather shortlived. Tomb of Dracula, however, lasted 70 issues and 18 more issues in b&w magazines such as Dracula Lives!, the b&w Tomb of Dracula and Legion of Monsters. Why do you think it lasted so long?

WOLFMAN: Well, first, thanks. ToD was the book I learned to write on. How did I get it? In its first six issues ToD had gone through three writers, and that’s usually the kiss of death. At the time my writing wasn’t strong and my super-hero writing was, well, honestly awful. Although I’d been reading super-hero comics from day one, I just didn’t get how to write them. But I’d written mystery stories for DC and Marvel, and I think Roy must’ve felt it really didn’t make a difference who wrote the Dracula title because it would probably be dead soon enough. Roy always saw something in my work that kept him hiring me, bless him.

I’ve said this before and it’s true: when Roy asked me to write Tomb of Dracula, I didn’t like vampires. I’d never seen a vampire or Dracula movie, including the Bela Lugosi original. Still haven’t, by the way. But I didn’t have much choice if I wanted to work. Since

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Seventh Time Lucky!

(Top left & right:) As was well-documented in Back Issue #6, artist Gene Colan won his spot as artist of Tomb of Dracula #1 by sending editor Stan Lee this display drawing that he’d penciled and inked. With thanks to Australian collector Michael Baulderstone, who now owns the original art—and who provided the handwritten note Gene sent him along with the artwork.

(Left & directly above:) The pluperfect Tomb of Dracula team finally came together with issue #7 (March 1973), when Marv Wolfman became the scripter, joining penciler Gene Colan and inker Tom Palmer. Colan had penciled and inked the first issue, and Palmer had come aboard to ink #3-6, after #2 was inked by Vince Colletta. Interim writers had included Gerry Conway (#1, scripting a story plotted by Roy Thomas from a story idea by Stan Lee), Archie Goodwin, and Gardner Fox. As it happened, after ToD #7, Palmer actually left the title for several months, to return with #12, after which the Wolfman/Colan/Palmer triumvirate settled in for a nice long run.

Thanks to Stephan Friedt & Barry Pearl for sending scans of the splash. The photos of Colan and Palmer are from the 1975 Mighty Marvel Comic Convention program book. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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A Revealing Conversation With Marv Wolfman About His Early Career

this was before videotapes or DVDs, I couldn’t just pop in a vampire movie and watch it, so I re-read the original Bram Stoker Dracula novel (I’d previously only read a heavily-edited kids’ version), and BAM! It was like nothing I had expected. I loved it.

Really loved it.

I think I was lucky I couldn’t just rent a tape, because I fear my take would have reflected that rather than what Stoker had done.

Reading only the original let me come up with my take rather than my take of someone else’s take of Stoker’s original. Also, since there had never been a serious horror series before in comics—all horror material till then (with the possible exception of Dick Briefer’s take on Frankenstein in the 1950s) had been presented in short one-shot anthology form—I had to come up with my own style. That made me grow up as a writer real fast. It was either that or fail. In which case, today I’d probably be selling fruit on the offramp of the 405.

RA: Was the Dracula origin story “Lord of Death, Lord of Hell” originally intended for that vampire theme issue you were going to do for Warren?

WOLFMAN: No, I never wrote a story for the Warren vampire issue. I’d gotten to the point where I’d thought up Blade and thought he’d be a good vampire hunter, but nothing more than that. By the way, although all the other stories had been commissioned before I left Warren, they were not published in a single

If you’ve read the original Dracula novel, you know that it’s written in epistolary form—that is, as a series of letters from various cast members to others or police blotters or newspaper articles, etc. Though the novel is titled Dracula, it’s actually about the people he came into conflict with. I wanted to do the same thing, to make the comic about people and not the monster.

As I said, because he drew real people with real expressions, Gene’s art allowed me to write stories about people. I think that allowed me to tell very different kinds of stories from what were being done elsewhere. It certainly opened me up to a whole new way of writing comics and the kinds of stories I could tell.

I started to take a more novelistic approach to ToD than the standard comic of the time.

RA: That’s true. Most of Marvel’s horror titles—Werewolf by Night, say, or Ghost Rider, even the later issues of Monster of Frankenstein—tended to be action-adventure stories with horror trappings. ToD, however, was much more about people—in this case, the supporting cast—reacting to real horror and a very believable monster.

WOLFMAN: Perhaps. I was thinking [in terms of] grand themes, smaller arcs, and telling character-driven stories. I actually plotted the book, in writing, two years in advance, so I could tell those larger stories. But though our sales were really good, we never thought ToD was anything more than our little horror book hiding out in the huge super-hero [world of] Marvel. Because it didn’t have heroes in it, nobody up there paid it much attention, and that’s probably why we were left alone to do what we wanted.

Once I began to develop the more nuanced approach to the humans in the book, it affected how I wrote Dracula himself.

Although almost all of the dialogue today makes me cringe, it is 40 years later and our approach to dialogue has greatly changed, but I think the overall stories still work.

Add to all that the fact that in the 1970s the readership was growing up. We were no longer having to write comics only for the 8-to-12-year-old crowd. I was writing Dracula for a college audience and above, as was Roy with Conan or Steve Gerber with Howard the Duck. Gene’s realistic art, which wasn’t all about fists and flexing, certainly was better appreciated and understood by an older and more discriminating reader.

So I think that Tomb of Dracula was the right book with the right team at the right time taking the right approach. I have to say that was not something we planned. It was just an outgrowth of my learning to write, Gene’s art, and the world in general. We were lucky.

The Plot Thickens!

1975’s Mighty Marvel Comic Convention program book reprinted Wolfman’s full synopsis for the 18-page story in Tomb of Dracula #32 (May 1975).

Repro’d above is page 8 of the printed tale, featuring Count Dracula, his nemesis Quincy Harker, and the latter’s dog Saint. Marv’s pre-dialoguing description of that page follows: “Drac, standing by the fireplace and the urn (he can finger the urn while speaking and Quincy could tell him to get his hands off of it) says that he learned last issue that Quincy had some papers which indicated Drac was not only alive after his battle with Doctor Sun (issue #20 & 21) but was losing his powers. Dracula demands to know how he is losing them, because he noticed some of them slipping as well. Quincy says he knows, but he is not telling. Because if Dracula’s powers are being drained, Quincy wants to kill him now. At that, Saint, who has been sitting staring menacingly at Drac, leaps. The vampire grabs the dog in mid-air by the neck as if to strangle him, but his hands begin smoking.”

As can be seen, Gene didn’t act on Marv’s suggestion that Dracula might be toying with an urn (if he had, Marv wouldn’t have had room for so much dialogue for panel 1)… but otherwise the action follows the plot closely.

Thanks to Barry Pearl for the art scan. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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action-driven comedy. I’m still a huge Abner fan as well as a Shmoo fan. I own a beautiful Sunday original Abner art page from 1938 which, oddly, features a mad scientist turning Abner into a—quote, Super Man, unquote. This is about the same time Superman appeared in Action Comics #1. I met Capp once, at a National Cartoonist meeting. He saw I had a copy of a Shmoo paperback that he didn’t own—I’d brought it hoping he would sign it—and he wanted it. To get it, he gave me a signed daily and a sketch for my mug book, both of which I still have, of course. Also, I had two copies of the Shmoo book, so I didn’t mind parting with one, especially in trade for the art. As I say, big fan.

Second, I was also a huge Mad magazine fan, which prompted me to buy the old Mad paperbacks. I never quite understood then why those paperbacks were so much funnier than the magazines, and why the art was so different. Of course, I discovered later they were from the original comic book run of Mad and were written by Harvey Kurtzman.

For a long time I worshipped Kurtzman’s writing and literally bought everything of his I could find. Harvey remains the only professional in comics I was never able to speak to, because I’d get tongue-tied in his presence. When I was editing Crazy Magazine, he called and asked if I’d come to the School of Visual Arts where he taught and conduct a lecture for his class. I turned him down because I knew I would be unable to utter a single syllable in his

Dracula Lives—And How! Marv says the two-issue Dracula “origin” he scribed for the black-&-white Dracula Lives! #2 & #3 (1973-no-month & Oct. 1973, respectively) was done specifically for the Marvel mag, not for a Warren all-vampire issue he’d earlier planned to do. Neal Adams provided the art for the first story.

Adams’ artwork is considered a high mark of the b&w Dracula title. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

issue as I intended. They appeared over time throughout Warren’s line. My attempt to make the different Warren books feel, well, different, never happened.

RA: Blade and Lilith were two characters you created for Tomb of Dracula. What was the inspiration behind them?

WOLFMAN: I’ve often said that in my entire professional career only two characters came to me full-blown, in the span of one second. The first was Blade. One moment he didn’t exist and the next he did. I knew who he was, what he looked like—in fact, everything about him. Where that came from I don’t know. The other character, by the way, is Deathstroke. As for Lilith: according to Bible stories, Adam’s first wife, before Eve, was Lilith and she’d been referred to as a vampire. The rest was fun extrapolation.

“For A Long Time I Worshipped Kurtzman’s Writing”

RA: You wrote or edited a number of humor stories for such titles as Blast, Spoof, Plop!, and Crazy. What attracted you to humor comics?

Humor comics don’t seem to be nearly as well appreciated as the superhero comics.

WOLFMAN: First and foremost was the Li’l Abner comic strip. As a kid I read it every day in the New York Daily Mirror. I loved its

Crazy, Man, Crazy!

For Crazy Magazine #2 (Feb. 1973), writer Marv Wolfman wrote—for editor Marv Wolfman—a parody of the popular TV series McCloud, starring Dennis Weaver. Art by Neal Adams. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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A Revealing Conversation With Marv Wolfman About His Early Career

presence. Later on, he did a sketch for my mug book.

Remember I had said my high school cartooning teacher, Charles Allen, kept pushing me to write and draw humor? I discovered I absolutely loved doing it, but sadly there haven’t been all that many places I could do it for. I could never have become a comedy writer for TV, because I can’t talk or pitch funny. I sit at the typewriter, now the computer, and keep rewriting until I think the rhythm of the joke works.

But those guys have to be able to be funny fast and on demand. I still love humor-writing and I think it comes out a lot in my other work. You know there were some really funny issues of Tomb of Dracula. I’m not kidding.

“Assignments I Never Sought Out”

RA: You did a number of short runs for various Marvel titles in the early 1970s—Werewolf by Night, Killraven/War of the Worlds, and the Sub-Mariner. What are your recollections of them?

WOLFMAN: Nothing much. They were assignments I never sought out. However, the one funny thing about Werewolf by Night was that Roy told me he wanted me to write it simply because my name was Wolfman. He thought a Wolfman writing about a werewolf would be hilarious. I did, too, so I did a few issues with Gil Kane and Mike Ploog doing the artwork. Ploog and I did a “Werewolf” story that was a homage to Will Eisner’s style, since Mike had worked for Will as his assistant.

RA: While re-reading a number of 1970s comics, I noticed that the Marvel comics of that era are very dialogue-heavy while the DC titles seemed to be better balanced, in my opinion, between art and dialogue.

Was that a result of Marvel writers following Stan Lee’s lead on writing “the Marvel way”—plot, then art, then dialogue? Lee often made it a point in his scripts of… well, pointing out to the reader that he wasn’t putting in dialogue on certain fight scenes. It was a quirk of his that was noticeable because he usually filled each panel, regardless of what was going on, with dialogue. Was there any particular reason for this?

WOLFMAN: Marvel was a very dialogue-heavy company, and a lot of that was based on Stan’s verbose style. But I think that came about more because of the speed we had to write. At DC we were usually six months ahead of print schedule. At Marvel, all too often the previous issue of the book was on the stands before you finished writing the next one. It is much easier to write too much when you’re rushing, because you don’t have the time to go back

And The Band Blade On! Tomb of Dracula #10 (July 1973) introduced Blade the VampireSlayer, who would become the hero of a trio of popular films beginning in 1998. Seen here are the cover by Gil Kane & Tom Palmer—Blake’s debut page by Gene Colan & Jack Abel—and a photo of Marv with star Wesley Snipes on the set of the Blade film. Thanks to Barry Pearl and Stephan Friedt for the scans.

[Comics pages ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.; photo courtesy of Marv Wolfman.]

and edit the work, to rewrite it to use the fewest and best-chosen words possible. The longer deadline you have the tighter and better the script. The shorter your deadline, the more rambling and uncontrolled it can become. It’s actually easier to write a lot than a little.

RA: You began a run on Daredevil with #124 (Aug. 1975) with the first issue being another team-up with Len Wein. During that run you created Bullseye, who certainly became a major playing character in the Frank Miller run that immediately followed your stint. Tell us anything you’d like to about your Daredevil run.

WOLFMAN: Not much to say other than creating Bullseye and The Torpedo, both of whom I liked a lot. I was never that fond of writing Daredevil, because I didn’t think he had a strong personality, and I didn’t think his book was all that unique. He seemed to be a redundant hero, someone who did a lot of what other heroes did but not everything. Unfortunately, back then you didn’t have license to change those things, even if we thought of doing so. But a few years later things changed, and Frank Miller (and Roger McKenzie) came in and essentially blew it all up and made Daredevil interesting for the first time. Frank used to joke that Daredevil’s only super-power was that he could see. His swinging from rooftop to rooftop would be pretty ordinary in comic book terms but He. Was. Blind. So that made him special. His power was that as a blind man he could see.

RA: That’s a pretty good quote, and quite funny, too.

WOLFMAN: I loved what Frank did, especially with Bullseye. I created [Bullseye], but Frank did a much better job with him than I did.

RA: Who was “Modred the Mystic”?

WOLFMAN: A half-baked idea for a book we suddenly needed to

Cry Wolfman!

fill a slot with overnight. Too many books got shoved onto the schedule because we were given orders for 10 new titles—NOW! To be honest, I don’t remember anything about him. He may have been really well done, for all I know, but that would be an accident from the writer and the artists, not of the need to create a new book in the next five minutes.

RA: Did you create Skull the Slayer, and what was that series about?

WOLFMAN: Skull was a long and winding road, but yes, this was another book we had to do overnight. I’d originally come up with the earliest version of the concept when I was at DC. I’d submitted a series idea to Joe Orlando. His mystery titles only had unconnected anthology stories, but I thought, what if we could make each story stand alone but they would all fit into one longer story?

So I came up with the idea of an apartment building that somehow got thrown back into the past. Each 8-page story would be about a different family and their problems surviving. Sadly, it was rejected.

Years later, when we needed an idea at Marvel, I remembered that. But because Marvel was then, and still is, all about the heroes, I removed the anthology aspect and created a lead hero character. I seem to recall Roy may have been pushing for a main hero, too,

25

but I’m not positive. I always liked Skull, but ultimately it was not a Marvel concept. It would have been much better if I’d done it at DC, even as a back-up. Even if it hadn’t succeeded, I would have had more fun writing it. I left after three issues, but I did color the first issue.

“Someone Threw A Dart At A Board And Hit My Name”

RA: When did you become the lead editor for Marvel’s color comics, and how did that come about? This time period seemed to be a revolving door of editors after Roy Thomas quit the lead editor position.

WOLFMAN: I think it was either in 1975 or 1976, but it’s easier for someone to look it up than for me to remember. I think I got the job because someone threw a dart at a board and hit my name.

Actually, I was already editing the black-&-white magazines, so it was logical that I’d move over to the color line when the previous editor quit. I hired Archie Goodwin, who was then at Atlas Comics, to replace me on the magazines. Archie was not only impossibly talented but one of the nicest people ever to be in comics. Anyway, hiring him was sort of like hiring Michelangelo to finish your coloring book for you. He had basically invented the

Wolfman Does Werewolf (Left:) Marv remembers editor Roy Thomas as liking the idea of a “Wolfman” writing Werewolf by Night—and voila, the splash page of Werewolf by Night #12 (Dec. 1973). Script by Wolfman, pencils by Gil Kane, inks by Don Perlin, who would later pencil the series.

(Right:) Equally amusing to editor RT was having primo 1950s “Superman” artist Wayne Boring penciling Marvel’s own Captain Marvel—for reasons either known to the reader or too complicated to go into here—and Marv wound up writing that one, too. This splash appeared in issue #24 (Nov. 1972). The next issue, Marv made up a villain named Dr. Mynde (after the original’s foe Mr. Mind)—just as, for #22, scribe Gerry Conway had come up with a “Prof.

Savannah,” in honor of Fawcett’s Dr. Sivana. Thanks to Barry Pearl for both scans. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

26

A Revealing Conversation With Marv Wolfman About His Early Career

black-&-white horror comic field with his incredible work on Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella, so I was merely bringing in the master. As Stan once told me, always hire up.

The problem at Marvel then was that it was owned by a company named Cadence. Look up “cheap” in the dictionary and you’ll see their picture. Ba Da Boom! They were the ones who insisted that artists take an original art page and turn it sideways to make it two separate pages when printed, though they would only pay for one. I think that under them we shrunk down to 17 pages for an entire book. They had more ways to cheapen Marvel than Martha Stewart has apple pie recipes.

Almost all of us who were editors-in-chief had come in to do good books, but we quickly found that 90% of our time was spent on business and our every day was wasted arguing with them, trying to preserve whatever little we still had, and trying to keep the writers and artists happy with an ever-dwindling company. If I learned tomorrow that they had been actually working for another company and were sent to Marvel to undermine it from within, my only response would be, “Duh. Should’a seen that one coming!”

I fought them when I was in charge of the black-&-white magazines, then fought them for another year when I was editorin-chief of the color comics, before I realized I’d have more fun performing open heart surgery on myself with kindergartenscissors. I got a writer/editor contract and happily worked from home, until Archie, who followed me as color comics editor, also

finally quit. The editor-in-chief who followed him often made me pine for those Cadence days. As soon as my contract ended, rather than sign up again under his terms, I happily hightailed it back to DC.

RA: What were your impressions of the editors, writers, artists, and production people you worked with between 1968-1975? Are there any you’d like to single out that you haven’t already?

WOLFMAN: Marvel had some of the best writers and artists who’d ever been in comics all under the same roof. Of course, we had Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko’s characters to work with, and they had been created and nurtured with near perfection.

We were all young fans who simply wanted to try to preserve what was but then to take it to the next generation, which is what Stan wanted, too. He strongly encouraged our quirky flights of fancy.

If you think of Marvel at that time, you can think of a writer and at least one title that stood out from nearly everything else on the stands at the time. Every writer contributed something special and uniquely personal to the whole that nobody else could have done.

We weren’t interchangeable. We had Roy on Conan, Gerber on Howard the Duck, Englehart on Captain America, McGregor on War of the Worlds, Conway on Thor, Moench on Master of Kung Fu, me on Dracula, and so on.

We were talented and passionate, and that was not only our strongest point but our biggest problem. We were given so much

Overnight Sensations Two offbeat first-issue (and virtually overnight) co-creations of Marv’s were “Modred the Mystic” in Marvel Chillers #1 (Oct. 1975), with art by Dave Cockrum, and Skull the Slayer #1 (Aug. 1975), drawn by Steven Gan. Thanks to Barry Pearl. Maybe, as Marv suspects, Roy T. had been “pushing for a main hero”—but A/E’s editor has no recollection of being involved with Skull at all, and he’d left the editor-in-chief position some time before either of the above series debuted. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Cry Wolfman!

27

admitted it, we respected each other.

Ultimately, we were friends who all day long would scream at each other at the top of our lungs and then go out for dinner together and amiably talk comics.

RA: Anything you’d like to tell us about your work today?

WOLFMAN: At this time I’m still writing comics. I love the field and hope I’ll always be given that chance. I’m also writing videogames, a field I got into about seven years ago and love. I’ve always played games, but for a long time they never hired writers. I am so pleased that now they do. On occasion I write novels and TV animation.

RICHARD ARNDT still lives—just like he did when we published his first A/E article five years ago—in the high desert country.

He is a librarian by day and a collector of black-&-white comics by night. In fact, McFarland has just published his new book Horror Comics in Black and White, which has an introduction by Steven R. Bissette.

[©2012 McFarland Publishing.]

“Good Lord!” Choke!

One of Ye Olde A/E Editor’s sentimental favorites among tales Marv wrote for Marvel back in the day is “Good Lord!,” which appeared in the black-&-white mag Marvel Preview #1 (1975—no month). It was an admitted homage, right down to its title, to the EC science-fiction comics of the 1950s, with luscious pencils by Dave Cockrum and inking by Neal Adams & The Crusty Bunkers (which basically meant whatever artists happened to drop by Adams & Giordano’s Continuity Studios while it was being worked on). Marv made the title pay off at the story’s end, too. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

freedom we could do nearly anything, and that allowed for some incredible stuff, but our freedom also made the books terribly late, leading to missed issues and too many reprint books hiding under new covers. I’m happy to say I never shipped one of my books late, but so be it. Still, that freedom allowed for the kind of personal experimentation the comics industry wouldn’t see again for nearly 25 years.

I’m still friends, or at least friendly, with the majority of the writers I worked with.

Sadly, most of the artists are gone now. I think that comes down to, despite the insanity of our schedules, horrible working conditions, the impossible cheapness of the company that owned us, and the daily arguments we’d have over the best way to do the books, we not only loved the characters and the creator who preceded us, but even though we rarely

Hey! Where’s The Frankenstein Monster When You Really Need Him? If Titans can clash—so can Terrors! Splash page of Tomb of Dracula #18 (March 1974), with art by Gene Colan & Tom Palmer—and script by Marv Wolfman. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.] That image is flanked by more tranquil photos of Marv and his daughter Jessica in 1977—and a pic from 2007. Both images courtesy of the writer.

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A quarter of a million records, covering the careers of people who have contributed to original comic books in the US.

A moody panel from the Leonard Starr-drawn “GhostBreaker” story in Star Spangled Comics #127 (April 1972); thanks to Jim Kealy. [©2012 DC Comics.]

29

“There’s Been A Lot Of Characters In This Business” Concluding Our Four-Part Interview With Comics Legend LEONARD STARR Interview Conducted by Jim Amash

NTERVIEWER’S INTRODUCTION: Leonard Starr began his career as a comic book artist, working for numerous companies, including DC, ACG, and Timely/Marvel, during the 1940s and ’50s, moving on from there into advertising, as related in our preceding three issues. In 1957 he achieved his desire to see a comic strip of his own syndicated in newspapers: On Stage, which on Sundays was soon titled Mary Perkins On Stage. Thanks once again to Tom Sawyer for putting me in touch with Leonard…. —Jim.

I

“I Took [Five Comic Strips] Up To King Features”

JA: You left Johnstone & Cushing—and advertising in general—when you started the On Stage strip in 1957. How did you get that strip?

Transcribed by Brian K. Morris

STARR: I was going through a divorce and Johnny Prentice was going through a divorce at the same time and so we found a place together. One day a week, I was developing ideas for newspaper strips. I came up with five strips, and I took them up to King Features because I knew a lot of the guys there, and I also knew editor Sylvan Byck. Sylvan said, “Yeah, this is good, but it’s kind of like something else we have.” He liked what I brought him, but it wasn’t quite what he was wanting. He said, “When you get something else, by all means, bring it in and show it to me.”

JA: When you were developing these strips, were you writing them, too?

STARR: I was setting up the story, but I never intended to write them if I sold a series. I never thought about writing, and I never wanted to write. I was forced into it because I couldn’t find anybody to write for me. I was always a heavy reader, and so I would have something in my head, a meter or some sort of scale or something, and I couldn’t find anybody to match it, so I was stuck doing it myself.

JA: So you did five strips that they didn’t take.

Was On Stage number six?

STARR: No, it was like #5, and Sylvan said, “You have something. The next idea you got, bring it up to me.” The idea I got was to bring all five up to the New York Daily News. [mutual chuckling] They were a little concerned about On Stage because

The World’s On Stage—And Each Must Play A Part “Leonard Starr in his New York studio completing On Stage’s second Sunday page, 2/17/57.” That’s the caption beneath the above photo in Vol. 1 of Classic Comics Press’ Leonard Starr’s Mary Perkins On Stage, which reprints all strips from its debut on Feb. 10, 1957, through Jan. 11, 1958. Seen at left is the art for that Sunday, as repro’d there in black-&-white. [©2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc.]

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Concluding Our Four-Part Interview With Comics Legend Leonard Starr

show-business strips hadn’t done well in the past. But apparently, they saw something in what I presented. The editor at the time was Maurice C. Riley, whom I liked a lot. His name was pronounced “Morris,” and he was called “Mo.”

He asked me, “Can you make up a week’s worth of dailies?” I had already done a week’s worth of another strip, which I brought in. He liked the looks of it and that one, I thought, had the most promise. It was international in nature, but they already had [Terry and the Pirates] so Mo was a little concerned about that. They thought about things like that, and I don’t know why, because except for the fact that it was roughly international in nature, it had nothing to do with Terry at all. It was about a medical missionary.

I’d done a lot of research at the World Health Organization at the U.N., so what I had was exotic travel and exotic women in nurses—and sickness and disease, which is always popular. [chuckles] The first stories had to do with an Indian village, and the sanitation was bad. They had the outhouses on the outside of the village that contaminated the water, and the tigers would get them there. If they lived on the inside, they had the polluted water. So the fact that the tigers are old and couldn’t forage for themselves didn’t help things. [mutual chuckling] They weren’t so old that they couldn’t nail you in the shower. It was a problem that had to be

solved. Some people said the tiger was sacred and he should do whatever he wanted… that sort of thing.

I thought it was the best idea, but they went with On Stage, and I wasn’t crazy about doing it because there were a lot of audiences and backstage stuff and large casts of people. A lot of work. So anyway, I drew up the samples for it, and Mo said, “Good. Let me keep it, I’ll let you know.” So I’m waiting and I’m waiting and I’m waiting—and don’t forget, I’m sharing a studio with John—and Alex Raymond gets killed in a car accident. I’m thinking, “Jesus, Sylvan’s going to call me about this,” and I’m waiting for my own strip, and sure enough, he calls. I said, “Sylvan, I’m sorry. I’d really like to, but I can’t right now. But I’ve got just the guy for you.”

And he says, “For God’s sakes, send him up, because Alex was only two days ahead on Rip Kirby!”

Actually, Johnny’s style was closer to Alex’s style than mine was. He got the job, and both of us were stony broke because we were wiped out after our divorces. I’m thinking, “Well, I just gave up a very lucrative job, waiting for God knows what.”

JA: You weren’t even sure that On Stage was going to be picked up.

That’s a hell of a chance to take.

STARR: It certainly was, but one o’clock that afternoon, a Western Union messenger came to the door, and it’s a telegram from Mo who was in Chicago. “I’ve sold On Stage, and I’ll call you on Monday.” Mo was working in Chicago at this point, and was visiting with his daughter who lived in a suburb of Chicago. He’s taking the commuting train back to Chicago, he’s reading the paper, and he sees Alex died. He’s thinking, “Oh, no! They’re going to get Leonard to do this,” so he got off the train, sent the telegram, and took the next train to Chicago.

“Look, Ma! I’m A Writer!”

JA: Now you had to find a writer. Who did you pick and how did you do that?

STARR: One was Dick French, who was Tex Blaisdell’s wife’s brother, and he had written a lot of comic books, but somehow, it just didn’t work out. With all of the guys who I tried—and there were five, all told, including Bill Finger—I told them the kind of story I wanted, and they would come back with the story I told them, but not done the way I wanted. They were doing comics, and I don’t know how familiar you are with On Stage, but its reputation is that it was a soap opera that wasn’t quite a soap opera. That was what I wanted, and I wasn’t getting what I had in mind.

So finally, time was running out, and I had to get it done. I kept writing it and talking to guys who were writing it and talking to guys and

Going Overboard On Stage was hardly a “weeper,” as show-biz trade publications used to refer to romantic films. This Sunday, a nigh-perfect combination of nigh-photographic realism with exaggerated action from Feb. 12, 1961, appears on the back cover of Leonard Starr’s Mary Perkins On Stage, Vol. 4, published by Charles Pelto’s Classic Comics Press. [©2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc.]

“There’s Been A Lot Of Characters In This Business”

31

didn’t use that idea. That was about the only instance with Bob. With Mo, he would occasionally have a comment, but I liked him a lot and I respected him.

He died about three years into my tenure there, and was sorely missed.

Molly Slott took over. She was like an assistant; everybody thought she had all the skeletons in the closets nailed. It was just a shambles, and so they got a guy who had been feature editor or maybe the editor of the Houston “It’s The Hard-Knock Life…”

Chronicle for some reason. Talk about The strip which artist/writer Harold Gray launched in 1924 as Little Orphan Annie is often referred to by that name in this interview.

However, when the syndicate decided in 1979, after five years of reprinted Gray strips, to re-launch the strip featuring new story and a low profile— art, with Leonard Starr as writer and artist, it was usually referred simply as Annie, in honor of the smash Broadway musical and hit man, he was way movie that had led to the revival—though the above strip displays the older title. This Starr Sunday for Dec. 9, 1990, is repro’d from under the horizon. a photocopy of the original art, supplied by Anthony Snyder. [©2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc.] [chuckles] Bob [Reed] was a major pretty soon, there I was: Look, Ma! I’m a writer! [Jim laughs] But I salesman for the syndicate or for The Chicago Tribune or something, never ever thought that one day, I would like to be a writer, but I and it showed. He was a hustler, so things really pepped up. wasn’t about to split 50-50 because, I think I told you, Elliott Caplin JA: On Stage ran from 1957 to 1979. Why did you end it? wrote scripts for [The Heart of] Juliet Jones Monday morning, riding into town on the train and Stan Drake would spend a week STARR: It was losing papers. The story strips were failing, and drawing it. they offered me Little Orphan Annie. I thought, “Why not? It’ll be easier to do, God knows.” So I took it. To put in 23 years on JA: I can understand that. anything is a long time. It’s bound to get stale, and so I figured at STARR: Actually, a strip is about the writing, and depending on least this would be a new way for me to go. I never liked the strip the credentials of the writer… if that’s the way it works and there’s [Annie]. I never read it as a kid, but I liked the character. Annie was enough money in it, then it’s fair enough. I remember there was a a self-starter and spunky, and so I figured I could give it a shot. thing about Mario Puzo writing one, and of course, that split JA: What were the most papers that you were ever in? would have been 60-40, Mario’s way. If anybody wanted to do it, that was the deal, and of course, there was Puzo’s name that would STARR: About 200. I worked a 50-, 60-hour week. To people have sold it. Sometimes you have to deal. But in this case, nobody working a 40-hour week, it sounds like, “Oh my God, how could knew me, nobody knew the writers. The writer’s clout had nothing you do it?”

But it doesn’t bother you. That’s what you wanted to to do with the strip, and so 50-50 was not going to happen. do, that’s what it takes to do it, so you did it; and actually, I had a very full social life at the same time. How did I do that? [laughs] I Even then, I had set up the first story. The first story wasn’t all was young! that great. It took maybe a year or two years for me to get up to speed. But somehow, it lasted.

JA: Did the syndicate ever interfere with your writing?

STARR: With Mo, I used to go up and talk over every story.

Usually, it was okay the way I had it. Every now and then, he would make a comment. In one Annie story, which was with Bob Reed, I wanted Sandy to be kidnapped and be used for fighting pit bulls. Bob says, “No, it’s just too grisly. I’d be very nervous about it.” So, if he’s nervous, then I don’t want him to be nervous, so I

“When You Were Sharing A Studio With Somebody… It Got Very Loud”

JA: You mentioned Dick French. Did you know him at all?

STARR: I knew him because he was Tex’s brother-in-law. What he really wanted to do was Broadway. He wanted to write lyrics, and he was married to an actress who didn’t go very far. But they were

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Concluding Our Four-Part Interview With Comics Legend Leonard Starr

All The Daily News That’s Fit To Print Noted cover illustrator Joe Jusko sent us this triptych scan of items in his personal collection.

(Top:) Starr’s original artwork to half of the On Stage Sunday for June 30, 1974 (Joe owns the rest of the page, too)…

(Below left:) The syndicate’s “color key” to that Sunday, prepared as a guide for the engravers…

(Below right:) …and the strip as it appeared in The New York Daily News nearly forty years ago. They don’t write and draw ’em like that anymore! Thanks, Joe! [©2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc.]

“There’s Been A Lot Of Characters In This Business”

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Annie Get Your Gum Eraser!

(Left:) This photo of artist Tex Blaisdell, from a Sept. 1971 edition of The New York Daily News, was provided by veteran comics writer and editor Scott Edelman. It was taken at a Central Park event celebrating the (alleged) 75th anniversary of the birth of the comic strip—which was sponsored by the News and the Newspaper Comics Council of New York.

Scott says he was there, too—dressed as the comic strip character Barnaby! But he may have just been kidding about that last part. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

going to be Mr. and Mrs. Broadway, and so he kept (Right:) This autographed Little Orphan Annie daily from August 3, 1973, near the end of Blaisdell’s 5-year tenure on trying. He could tell you who the strip, was sold over the Internet by History on Sale. [©2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc.] wrote every popular song since girls, and we hoped we didn’t have to come back that night.

Russ Columbo. He knew his business. I don’t think he wrote [mutual laughter] That was about it. It wasn’t easy to do because we music, so I don’t know who would have written the music for it. didn’t have any money at all. John’s check came in and we ate on But he survived. He made a living, and I think he drank more than John’s check; mine came in, we ate on mine. It was at that time that he should have, but I’d never seen it. I liked him a lot.

I said, “One day a week on developing strips,” which paid off. And JA: Was he a joke-teller? Was he a talker? actually, even then, what the hell? We were young. We shared a studio, all told, for maybe five years.

STARR: Yes, but they all were. So was Tex, so was Dick, so was I.

Our closest friend was Warren King, who wound up doing the editorial cartoons in The New York Daily News. We had terrific times. It turned so sour for Tex at the end, and that was bad.

Warren died too young, and that’s sometimes a reality of life.

JA: What happened with Tex at the end?

STARR: Booze, and that surprised me, because with all the parties, I’d never once seen him even mildly—my impression was he’d nurse one drink the entire night. All of a sudden, I remembered talking to his wife Lanie about Tex coming home, falling down or something. I said, “What are you saying, Lanie?” She said, “Don’t you know that Tex is a drinking man?” Now here was a guy I’ve been working next to for 30 years, and I didn’t know that. By about this time, he had worked for somebody else, so now I had Carl Anderson doing my backgrounds. Then he came back to work for me after Carl left, and he kept a bottle on his taboret. His work was good, so it was none of my business. I would rather that he didn’t, and I told him that. Finally, he did an emergency job for me that was not good. Whatever he had was gone, and what he’d had was terrific.

Lanie had been in the U.S.O. during World War II with her sister, and they had a dancing act. Her maiden name was “French,” and Samuel French Publications, the plays and everything, was part of the family culture, which is probably where her brother Dick got his ambition. This was the family business. He was going to go into it. He was going to do great, and somehow he didn’t. He sure spent a lot of time on it and he worked very hard. I’m sorry he didn’t make it. He was a very likable person.

JA: When you were sharing a studio with John Prentice and working those long hours, it had to get to you sometimes. What did you guys do to get the stress out of your system?

STARR: We tried to get laid. [Jim laughs uproariously] We dated

We had a lot of fun together. Clowning and joking around was so much of the daily fabric that you didn’t really make any note of it. When you were sharing a studio with somebody, and preferably two or three guys, it got very loud, but John or a third guy would pop in every now and again, and he would disrupt. I won’t mention his name because I’m very fond of him, but I couldn’t work with him. It was my attitude that I could work, leaning up against a telephone booth, and often did. [laughter] Our surprise was that this person was disruptive, probably because he was so entertaining.

But anyway, that’s when I split, and Tom Sawyer and I got a studio together. Tom was a very brash young guy from Chicago, and he was also a Milton Caniff fan. His mother’s first cousin was Mary King, who was Mary King Patterson, the wife of Captain Joseph Medill Patterson [owner] of The New York Daily News. So Tom got some originals of Milton’s stuff.

Tom came to New York to become a cartoonist, and get a syndicated strip. Somehow, he ran into Tex, who with a writer named John Augustyn was sharing a studio on 57th Street in Manhattan.

Every now and then, I would come in and finish up a job, or do something or pick something up. Why they were sharing a studio together, I really don’t remember at this point. Was Tex working for me at that time? I think he was, or he had just gone. Whatever it was, he recommended that Tom might like to do backgrounds for me to get started. He did some stuff and it was okay, so he worked for me.

At that time, I was living in Centerport, which is about an hour and a quarter drive out of New York, and Tom—I don’t know where he was living, but he was in love with a girl in Chicago. She came East, they got married, and she didn’t like any of his friends and missed her mother or something. She went home, so the marriage was very brief. Tom actually stayed over at our house,

34

Concluding Our Four-Part Interview With Comics Legend Leonard Starr

almost as if he lived there for a while. My thenwife was fond of him, and didn’t mind him being around. We worked a lot, we laughed a lot, and we partied a lot— that kind of thing.

Then Tom went off on his own, and I don’t know how much success he had, but ultimately he tried to sell a couple of strips. When we were sharing the studio together, he was doing mainly advertising, some for Johnstone & Cushing, but also for another guy who did those advertising books pertaining to a lot of general subjects.

“You Don’t Know About Me Without You’ve Read An Interview With Tom Sawyer…”

(Left:) This 1992 photo of artists and longtime friends Leonard Starr (on left) and Tom Sawyer was originally printed in A/E #77, which featured Jim Amash’s interview with the latter. Thanks to Tom. (Right:) A Sawyer-bylined splash page from Mystery Tales #35 (Nov. 1955). Thanks to Dr. Michael J. Vassallo. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

JA: But of course, he went on to television and did well.

STARR: Yes, that’s the gutsiest thing I know of in my entire life.

He was around 40 or so, with at least one very young child, and maybe another on the way, but he goes to California to make a movie. He made a cult movie called Alice Goodbody. He’s got them on DVD, and he told me he still makes some revenue from it. He still had his drawing board in the garage, and advertising was his main source of income for quite a while. But then he started selling scripts to television shows, and the next thing I knew, he was the head writer/showrunner for Murder She Wrote. Astonishing, astonishing! I wouldn’t have had the guts. I have to know where my next meal is coming from. [NOTE: For more about Tom and his career, check out Alter Ego #77. —Jim.]

“What Drove Me Crazy About Annie…”

JA: So you got the Little Orphan Annie strip. Who offered that to you?

STARR: The head of the Chicago Tribune Syndicate then was Bob Reed, who asked me if I’d like to do it. I thought about it, and then agreed to do it.

JA: This is the thing I find fascinating about you and about Stan Drake: both of you drew in a photo-realistic type of style. Then both of you turn around—he draws Blondie, you draw Little Orphan Annie. Did you find the switch in styles difficult?

STARR: Only at first. Cartoon artists usually can’t adapt to a straight style. But the straight guys—if they have to copy an established character, it’s a portrait. They can draw anything. It’s much easier for a straight cartoonist to do the simplified stuff or even the cartoon stuff. You know, Dagwood’s leg articulates halfway up the shin. Once you’ve got that figured out, you can draw it. But until then, it’s kind of tough.

What drove me crazy about Annie was drawing her hair. It took

A Heart-To-Heart Talk Stan Drake (photo) titled his celebrated newspaper strip The Heart of Juliet Jones—but her sister Eve had all the fun! Drake’s strip lacked the action of On Stage, but sported its own fair share of lush art! The photo and the daily for April 10, 1953, appear in Classic Comics Press’ first volume of Stan Drake’s The Heart of Juliet Jones, published in 2008. You owe it to yourself to pick up these Drake and Starr goodies! [©2012 King Features Syndicate, Inc.]

“There’s Been A Lot Of Characters In This Business”

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Ripped Flash Gordon original artist Alex Raymond in 1946, the year he began Rip Kirby after mustering out of the armed services—and two RK dailies from a decade later, by two different artists.

(Top:) The beautifully lit Raymond strip for Jan. 18, 1956.

(Bottom:) John Prentice’s daily for Nov. 13 of that same year—from the first (and unbylined) story he illustrated after Raymond’s death—as seen in Brian Walker’s 2002 book The Comics since 1945. The hardcover series Alex Raymond’s Rip Kirby is currently available in several volumes from The Library of American Comics, with John Prentice’s tenure on the strip set to follow soon. [©2012 King Features Syndicate, Inc.]

me about a year or two before I could get easy with it, where I could just scribble it in the way [creator Harold] Gray had, and make it look okay. At first, I traced it off Gray’s work in order to just get loose with it, and as I say, that took time. But once I got going on it, essentially, I realized that Gray was drawing as well as he could, so that realization gave me the opportunity to take his style a few years into the future, the way he might have done it if he had the ability.

JA: Your version was very clean, very modern-looking.

STARR: Yeah, but it’s still Annie, you know. The three most popular strips in history at that time were Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, and Blondie. So why did I want to go my own way? The idea was to make it as close to what Gray might have done if he wasn’t a reactionary swine. [Jim laughs] Truly, I couldn’t write about the politics the way he did. You know, he killed Daddy Warbucks because President Franklin Roosevelt got re-elected. And he brought him back to life later, and I forget exactly how all of that worked, but Harold Gray was very, very far to the Right. I did cover some social issues, though, like Medicare. I did all the writing on Annie.

JA: When Stan Drake took over Blondie, do you think it was much of a switch for him?

STARR: About the same as me. It took him a while to dope it out, then he drew a portrait of the characters. Being as good as he was, essentially, he just copied what it was. Kids copy comics all the time. So you figure you take that up about a hundred dimensions, and make it Stan Drake, how tough can it be?

JA: One thing that surprised me about him: here he was doing Blondie, and then he began inking comic books in the late 1980s and into the mid1990s. Why? STARR: Money.

JA: He just needed money? I would have figured that Blondie paid pretty well.

STARR: He had married a very nice woman with two children, and they had the usual expenses and all. With the addition of two kids that he’s raising to go to college, and all of that, Stan was very responsible in those ways.

JA: Gill Fox told me a story. One time, he was in a bar with Stan Drake, and Stan was getting inking royalties—and we’re talking about 1990s here—he showed Gill a check, and the check was for—as Gill put it—an astronomical amount. Thousands of dollars of inking royalty for what he was doing for Valiant Comics.

STARR: I don’t remember that, and I don’t remember him doing work for Valiant. I know he did some stuff for Marvel. He was just filling in time in order to make some extra bucks. Somehow, his standard of living was much higher than his income.

JA: Before we change subjects, I’d like to know what Stan Drake told you about the automobile accident that took Alex Raymond’s life and nearly his own.

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Concluding Our Four-Part Interview With Comics Legend Leonard Starr

STARR: We were both car enthusiasts, and Alex had been taking speed-driving lessons. I guess he got good at it, but not good enough, because he kept wrecking cars on the Merritt Parkway at night. Alex drove expensive cars like Mercedes, which he drew in Rip Kirby. When Alex’s body was brought to the hospital, his regular doctor was there and said, “That stupid bastard finally did it.”

Stan had just bought a new Corvette. Alex dropped by and wanted to try it out. At one point, they were driving uphill very fast as they were coming to a crossroad. Being unfamiliar with the car, Alex hit the accelerator instead of the brake, and they went up into air, off the road, and hit a tree in mid-air. Stan was thrown clear; his ear was almost torn off and his shoulder was dislocated. They managed to sew the ear back on and put his arm in a sling. He would never wear a seat beat after that. If he had been wearing one, it would’ve been all over for him. The driving shaft of the steering wheel went right through Alex.

Alex was having an affair with a certain Mrs. White. None of us met her, but he was madly in love with her, and she with him. His wife wouldn’t give him a divorce because she was devoutly Catholic, as Alex was. They had five kids, who were mostly grown by the time of the accident. Some time after the accident, a couple of insurance investigators showed up, thinking Alex deliberately crashed the car because he had a million-dollar insurance policy that would have been voided if this was suicide. Stan got furious and said, “Do you think he would have done that with me in the car? My best friend?” Stan threw them out of his house. That was the end of that.

Years later, Stan and I were sharing a studio, and were talking about it, and he started thinking about it, and says, “You know….”

Well, they said Alex was an experienced driver and wouldn’t have made a mistake like that. Thinking about it, well, they have a point. Would you make that mistake?

JA: No.

STARR: It doesn’t take more than five minutes to get familiar with a new car, and then it’s like you’ve been driving it forever.

“I Was Sick And Tired Of Working”

JA: True enough. Okay, we’ll move on. Tell me about how Kelly Green came into being.

STARR: I knew Mike Greg, who was the editor of Les E’ditions Lombard in Brussels, and he was a friend of Gil Kane’s, as a matter of fact. He was staying with Gil Kane, and he was a big fan of mine, asked to meet me, so Gil had a party. He thought he would love to write something for the European market for me. I wondered how he happened to know my work, because I wasn’t widely circulated in Europe. King Features had Opera Mundi which was a very lucrative arm for them in Europe. I guess he just kept track of all of that. He wrote three pages of a thing called Cannonball Carmody. Mike himself was a superstar in Europe. He

A Gathering Of Greats (Top left:) Friends Gil Kane and Leonard Starr (the latter wearing glasses) at the 1968 “SCARP-Con” in New York City. Kane, of course, is particularly remembered as artist of the Silver Age Green Lantern and for a key stint on The Amazing Spider-Man. Thanks to Carole Seuling and Fred Mommsen.

(When we ran this pic from a comics-convention program book back in A/E #20, we blush to recall that we misidentified Starr as publisher James Warren! Mea culpa! (And is that young Howard Chaykin, originally Gil’s assistant, in the background?)

(Center & right:) Belgian artist “Greg” (photo) and his humorous creation Achille Talon, who debuted in the French comics magazine Pilote in 1963.

Greg, whose real name was Michel Regnier, was often called Mike.

Incidentally, Jean-Marc Lofficier, who supplied this art, informs us that in the mid-’80s Achille Talon was briefly translated and published in the USA under the name Walter Melon. Thanks to Mike DeLisa, Rob Allen, & Lawrence B. Vossler for the photo and information re Greg. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

did a cartoony feature called Achille Talon, which translates as “Achilles Heel.” In Europe, they have what they call “albums,” which is now our “graphic novels.” He would get one out every two or three months, translated all over the country, and was making money hand over fist. But he was a fan of American comics, so anyway, he wrote two or three pages and it seemed ordinary. To me, it was like a James Bond spoof. It was going to be that kind of thing, which was popular at the time. This is 1983. I’ll tell you how I know that in a moment.

The major publisher in Europe of this kind of material was Dargaud in Paris. They asked him to join their staff at a very high position, and to start an American branch. So he went off to do that, and he wasn’t going to have time to finish writing the stuff for me, but he gave me the ownership of the thing. French law at the time, and I guess still, is that a work of creation, even if it’s crap, belongs to the creator. I’d like it to be that way in the United States, where the syndicates own everything by Divine Right. So it was all set up to do, and I figured, “Well, since all the machinery is in place, I will write it and draw it.” I made some money on it, but it was one of those things, I didn’t give it any thought to doing more. All of a sudden, a guy sends me a hardcover Cannonball

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37

for about eight, ten years. [laughs]

JA: You did the ThunderCats in ‘86, ‘87, and you did Ghost Warrior, 1985, for Rankin-Bass.

STARR: Ghost Warrior, never. “Ghost Warrior” may have been one of the episodes of ThunderCats. Now, Rankin did a thing called Ghost Warrior. But I wrote about a third of the first year [of ThunderCats], and I was the story editor on the rest of the year.

JA: That’s all the animation credits you have, isn’t it?

STARR: No, I had done some stuff for Rankin-Bass before that, which is how they knew to contact me. I had done a couple of specials for them. I wrote a Charlie Chaplin special, a W.C. Fields special…. Neither of them was produced, but they liked my work so much that they asked me to do the ThunderCats. But I also did a Red Baron, I did Around the World in 80 Days, and another one I don’t remember. And this was about two, three years previously.

JA: Why did you retire from doing Annie?

Carmody Tonight!

Original art from Starr’s work on Cannonball Carmody: Operation Psy, the adventure album originated by Greg (Michel Regnier). Thanks to D. Radboud. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

Carmody, 46 pages, [mutual chuckling] copyrighted 1984, which is how I know about when that was. The editor, Charles Pelto, at Classics Comics Press is reprinting all of the On Stage stuff, and he’s been asking about Cannonball Carmody. How he found it, I have no idea, because there was no English edition of it. I didn’t really have time to do another one. I think I started writing one, but then the ThunderCats came up, and that was big bucks, and I was doing Annie.

The guy who was writing Winnie Winkle had what they call “congestive heart failure,” and he was still alive, but he wasn’t able to do it anymore, and I was asked to take it on until he got better. You can imagine how much time I had. Since I now couldn’t draw Kelly Green, I suggested that I do it with Stan Drake. Well, Stan is better known in Europe than I am, much better known because of Opera Mundi. One of his big fans at the time was Brigitte Bardot.

When he was in Paris, she called. [laughs] Anyway, Stan says, “Sure,” so hence, we did Kelly Green. I wrote it and Stan drew it. I think we did five, all told. But at the same time, I’m already doing Annie at that point, and ThunderCats, and writing Winnie. Hank Raduta was the name of the guy I was filling in for. He had been one of the editorial assistants. Frank Bolle was drawing it, and we were still very, very close friends. But Raduta never got better and I wrote it

STARR: I was 75, and I’d been working since I was 16, and I was sick and tired of working. I haven’t drawn a line since, and that surprises even me. It’s like a knack I had that I thought I might be able to turn into a living that, really, I had no real affection for.

There are guys that sketch all the time. Bill Sienkiewicz had a studio near where Stan’s and my studio was just down the hall.

Bill goes on vacation, and he sends some postcards with some sketches. He just draws all the time, and he’s very, very good. His life is filling up little pieces of paper with drawings. And I was very surprised to find that mine wasn’t. The last panel that I ever did, I photocopied the week, packed it up, ran it down to the Post Office, which is, round trip, maybe 24 minutes; came back, had dinner. There was no sense of elation or remorse or nostalgia. It’s like suddenly, that stopped. I woke up the next morning—nothing on the drawing board—I wasn’t surprised. It’s like I’d never done any of it. It was very surprising. Whatever that means, that’s the way it was. [mutual chuckling]

At this point, I would hate to have to do it. It’s now so alien to me, and of course, comic art changed so much. The styles are so different. A lot of it is an “anyone-can-do-it” style which is, none the less, very, very effective, and it would be very hard for me to do that, to go back to that kind of thing. For somebody who does draw well academically, to draw poorly or sketchily is very tough, because they don’t know when they’re finished. Really, it’s like you look at abstract art, and you wonder how’ll the guy know when he’s done?

It’s Raining Cats—Keep The Dogs Safe Inside!

An image from the 1985-87 RankinBass animated TV series ThunderCats—and Starr’s on-screen credit therefor. Thanks to Leonardo de Sà for the screen captures. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

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Concluding Our Four-Part Interview With Comics Legend Leonard Starr

It’s Not Easy Being Green Leonard Starr wrote and Stan Drake drew the Dargaud series Kelly Green, which was published in France but not in the U.S. In the second of the two pages repro’d here from #5 (1984), says supplier Neil A. Hansen, Drake visually based the character named “Farrell” on Starr. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

“Ham Fisher Or Al Capp Stories…?”

JA: Are there any people that we haven’t mentioned that you would like to? Do you have any Ham Fisher or Al Capp stories, for instance?

STARR: Yes, but none of them flattering.

JA: Yeah, I know. I’ve never heard one about either man.

STARR: At 25, I became one of the youngest members to ever join The Society of Illustrators, as I’ve told you. The Illustrators shows were very much like a Broadway show in miniature. The same things had to happen: we had to fireproof the sets, we had to have the firemen in attendance for every performance, etc. Ham Fisher would come around, and brag how he saved the Illustrators shows.

They were raided in the 1930s, and he went and testified as the creator of Joe Palooka, and it was his prestige that kept the whole thing going, that it wasn’t just a filthy show, it was artists’ and writers’ work. And of course, that whole vendetta he had with Al Capp was just ridiculous. I mean, the knotholes in trees that Fisher claimed was disguised pornography, and God knows Al may have meant that because Al was a satyr. But he was also very generous with the younger cartoonists—in this case, me. Very helpful—not exactly helpful, but encouraging. But you couldn’t be with Al for 10 minutes without his telling you about the last five girls he slept with.

Al became very conservative, and I do believe that was because it was very popular to be liberal. [Jim laughs] I mean it. I think he took the opposite tack because you could get more material out of

it. He was making a lot of personal appearances at the time, and I think finally, he was shanghaied. I think that the girl that he was supposed to have done nasty things with had set him up.

JA: That’s what I wondered, because he was accused of having sex with a young college girl, and he claimed he had been set up. I know lots of people believe he was.

STARR: Yeah, this was at a college [Wisconsin State University – Eau Claire]. He spoke at colleges a lot, and I don’t know why they kept inviting him, because they’d make points, and he’d say, “Listen, I wouldn’t let you carry my luggage, why would I let you run my country?” [mutual laughter] So finally, I guess he pissed them off enough so that they set him up. It seems to me there were two college girls. [NOTE: They were separate incidents, only one of which went to court, where Capp wound up paying a fine and court costs.

—Jim.] He hired a really high-profile criminal lawyer—and boy, that cost him. And he had to have a private plane for the guy, too.

JA: That was Edward Bennett Williams, the famous Mafia lawyer. He could have gotten anybody out of anything.

STARR: Well, he didn’t get him out of this. Al would be getting on a regular transport plane, and Williams would be getting on a private plane that Al paid for. Williams advised him to cop a plea, and he would get him off of this and that. It ruined Al’s reputation.

Stan was working for him, doing his backgrounds for a while, and said he was not the old Al. Finally, Al got lung cancer, so they had to operate, and he said, “Nah, [forget] it!” So that took its course, and that was the end of it for Al. A lousy ending for a guy who, for

“There’s Been A Lot Of Characters In This Business”

my money, was one of the great American humorists. And we don’t see his stuff around very much by way of reprints or anything, but his day will come. They’ll find him again, and realize how great he was.

JA: Can you give me an example of how he was generous with you?

STARR: Well, he was always congratulatory, and advised me on how to deal with editors.

He was generous with advice; never standoffish. He was Mister Big. He could have given us very short shrift, and as it happened, he gave us long shrift.

JA: I’m under the impression that Hal Foster was reserved and standoffish.

STARR: He was, but it was just his nature. There was nothing nasty about him or anything. He was just a reserved guy.

JA: Did you know Roy Crane at all?

STARR: I met him a couple of times at Cartoonists meetings in Florida. We had one in Daytona—and there weren’t even conventions, there weren’t National Cartoonists Society dinners—but there would be outings with a whole bunch of cartoonists. I met Roy at one of them. He was very cordial, but one of my last assistants, Al Wenzel, who had been Roy’s assistant for a long, long time, knew a lot about him. Crane’s early stuff was a lot like painting. The way he did his backgrounds and everything, he was just marvelous. I’m trying to remember something Al said that really surprised me. I figured Crane really used a lot of reference material, but Al said, “No, not at all.” He was very friendly, but again, a little reserved, maybe a little shy. Guys that didn’t share a lot of time with other guys in studios are sort of hermetic, so I guess there was a certain lack of social skills which is not damaging, except to them. You sort of wish they would have a better time, because they did so much great work.

JA: Of all the people you met, who impressed you the most?

Capping It Off Al Capp and two panels from the Sunday Li’l Abner for April 16, 1939.

A couple of decades back, Kitchen Sink Press reprinted a long run of the daily strip, and now The Library of American Comics is collecting both dailies and Sundays (the latter in color), with several volumes already in print. Abner, as Leonard Starr says, was one of the best! [©2012 Capp Enterprises, Inc.]

STARR: For a while, we did a lot of chalk talks, so we were like the Andrews Sisters: Milt Caniff, Allen Saunders, and me. We hit about five, six cities—and talk about the perfect gentlemen! Milt taught me how to deal with the audience, and I hate that kind of stuff. I did it because I thought it would be good for business. But public speaking, addressing an audience, being

39

“A One-Way Ticket To Palookaville” Ham Fisher, in a photo-ad related to coffee— and a detail of a display drawing for his once phenomenally popular comic strip Joe Palooka. So how come nobody’s reprinting that classic feature in hardcover? And where’s Smilin’ Jack, and Brick Bradford, and—? [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

charming, and all of that is very tough for me. Milt showed me the ropes and the kind of things that they like to hear, and the kind of drawings they like to see, which I really appreciated. Allen was a very entertaining guy, and as heavily read as I was, so we had a lot of fun discussing “Did Dashiell Hammett get his style from Ernest Hemingway or vice versa?” [mutual chuckling] Allen would say, “Well, I’ve read an awful lot of boring Hemingway, but never any boring Hammett.” [mutual laughter] So that part of it was a real treat. I enjoyed all of that.

When we were away from the drawing board, it was like we busted out of stir. It’s like we had to drink all the drinks, and kiss all the women, and dance every dance, and were just awful to behold. [laughs] And it wasn’t that we were swine, either. We were never boorish.

JA: You were just so cooped up that when it came time to unleash—

STARR: We had busted loose for a little while, and Milt, however, always had work that he did on the road. He always had a drawing board in his suitcase. We’d have dinner, and he’d have two or three martinis, and it turned out that Milton liked to drink more than he ever showed. I’d never seen him even tipsy. But once, driving in Montreal, he had the driver stop on the way to the airport so he could pick up a fifth of scotch for the trip… and it was an hour trip. [mutual chuckling] Surprisingly, I guess he was one of those Irishmen who would use it as fuel, and there are some who did. They didn’t get drunk, but it energized them. For some reason, it wasn’t a depressant, which is what most alcohol is—with the exception of brandy, because it mainly comes from the grape, rather than grain. That’s why St. Bernards carry it. [laughs]

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Concluding Our Four-Part Interview With Comics Legend Leonard Starr

That Was Easy!

JA: I could have used one of those many times. You too, I’m sure.

STARR: Yeah. Well, I always had a good head for liquor, and now I have to remind myself to have a drink because it’s good for me at this age. Somehow, it’s now boring to me, and it’s just as well. In the old days, drinking was what you did, and it was sort of glamorous. You look at the movies of that period: everybody’s drinking and smoking and it just seemed like the fun would never end. Like William Powell in the movies. He’d wake up wearing his tuxedo, and Carole Lombard was still in her evening gown, and they’d have a martini. [mutual laughter]

“Rube [Goldberg] Was A Very Fascinating Guy”

JA: Did you happen to know Rube Goldberg?

Roy Crane, as seen in an NEA publicity page circa 1933—and half of the Captain Easy comic strip for Sunday, Feb. 20, 1938.

Both are reproduced in volumes of Fantagraphics’ wonderfully oversize Roy Crane’s Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips.

Easy was the Sunday version of the Wash Tubbs strip, in which the Captain co-starred; Crane’s early work was a major influence on adventure strips (and comic books) from Milt Caniff on. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

STARR: Very well. He was my sponsor at the Illustrators. Rube was a very fascinating guy. He was probably the best after-dinner speaker I’ve ever heard. We used to have speakers at the Lamb’s Club. Some of the guys at the Lamb’s stand up, and they would do some stuff. Rube would stand up, speak off the cuff, and just shred them.

Three’s Company Starr mentions his chalk-talk grouping with Milt Caniff and Allen Saunders, making that a real trilogy of titans: (Far left:) Milt Caniff—and the cover of the first volume of the recent reprinting of his 1947-1988 comic strip Steve Canyon, published by IDW. Of course, even more important to comics history and to Caniff fans (and in the Golden and Silver Ages of comics, who wasn’t one?) is his 1934-46 work on its predecessor, Terry and the Pirates. [Steve Canyon art ©2012 Milton Caniff Estate.]

(Above & near left:) Allen Saunders was, among other things, the (uncredited) writer of the long-running comic strip Kerry Drake, which was drawn by Alfred Andriola. Saunders is shown appearing on the TV quiz show Password in 1965.

[Kerry Drake panels ©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

“There’s Been A Lot Of Characters In This Business”

41

getting the Ace Award—Amateur Cartoonist Extraordinary. Morris set that up. Johnny Hart and I ended up at Morris’ house, and he had a lot of terrific originals on the walls. He worked for Lank Leonard on Mickey Finn before taking the strip over.

[NOTE: For more on Morris Weiss, see our interview in Alter Ego #43. —Jim.] JA: Morris said Goldberg told him this one story that just horrified Morris. Do you remember a cartoonist named Fontaine Fox? STARR: He did Toonerville Trolley.

To begin with, he was a self-made millionaire, and he married the White Rose Tea heiress and at a fairly advanced age—he was like 36, and the relationship was like a Billy Wilder love story.

They met on a train in France. Rube wasn’t married and she wasn’t married.

They got to talking, one thing after another, and they got married, and stayed together until the day he died. Towards the end, I think he lived to be 87, and you begin to get a competitive thing.

JA: Right. He’s out golfing, and tells Rube Goldberg, “The only problem with Hitler is he’s not killing the Jews fast enough.” It’s hard for me to imagine a man saying that to someone who’s Jewish.

Hey, Rube!

The phrase “a Rube Goldberg machine” has firmly entered the language as an overly complicated apparatus created to perform a simple task—such as the artist drew in many, many cartoons over the years. But Goldberg (seen at left in a 1928 photo) also drew the humor strip Boob McNutt—and editorial cartoons, such as the one at right re potential statehood for Alaska and Hawaii. Thanks to Dominic Bongo for retrieving this from the Heritage Comics Archives. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

STARR: Even if he believes it! I can’t understand anybody being anti-Semitic who is in the least aware of American culture. Growing up: Bob Hope and W.C. Fields—quick, name me another Gentile humorist of that time. [Jim laughs] Broadway: Cole Porter—name another Gentile composer. Our culture was enriched by Jews in so many areas, whether people realize it or not: television, movies, radio, it’s just astonishing. So we owe them a big debt. Well, some people have no brains.

There’s been a lot of characters in this business.

That’s a compliment to some, and not to others. Either way, I sure knew a lot of them in my time.

When it came time for me to negotiate a contract to draw On Stage, Rube suggested I get a lawyer to negotiate terms, which I did. The lawyer had a fancy lunch with the syndicate people, and when he came back, he told me I’d have to split 50-50 with them— which was standard—and no ownership rights of any kind, which was also standard. “It’s a take it or leave it proposition,” and with me being a Depression kid, I did what all Depression kids did and signed the contract. So the lawyer did absolutely nothing for me, but he did send me a bill for $200. [ruefully laughs]

I remember one Cartoonists Christmas party at Toots Shor’s, and Rube came in, rubbing his hands. He says, “Well, I just buried Al Dorne. That’s another one down!” [mutual riotous laughter] Yeah, it becomes competitive, and he liked Al. Everybody liked Al. One of my favorite stories is, we had Andy Warhol as a speaker. This was in the afternoon, and he had one of his very sort of wispy companions with him. And he’s talking about where Fine Art is and Illustration, which he had done. He says, “Art has to go beyond mere drawing.” All of a sudden, Al Dorne stands up. He says, “Excuse me, Andy. I just want to say that there’s nothing all that ****ing ‘mere’ about drawing.” [mutual riotous laughter] Al liked to be clear. And of course, who would know better?

JA: Morris Weiss told me about a few people that he knew. I don’t know if you knew Morris.

STARR: Yes, I met him. I went to his house. A very, very nice family; Morris was a devoted father. He probably won’t remember me. There was a Cartoonists meeting in Miami with Jackie Gleason

“Indian” Giver Starr was very much in demand in 1951—particularly to draw Native American heroes in filler features! Here’s a splash from Tomahawk #4 (March-April 1951); thanks to Stephan Friedt. [©2012 DC Comics.]

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Concluding Our Four-Part Interview With Comics Legend Leonard Starr

LEONARD STARR Checklist

[NOTE: This Checklist is adapted from information contained in the online Who’s Who of American Comic Books (1928-1999), established by Jerry G. Bails; see info on p. 28. Names of features below which appeared both in comics with that title and also in other comics are not generally italicized. Special thanks to Mike DeLisa for a technical assist. Some additions were made to this list by Jim Amash in March 2006 related to this interview.

Key: (w) = writer; (a) = full art; (p) = pencils; (i) = inks; (d) = daily newspaper comic strip; (S) = Sunday newspaper comic strip.]

Name: Leonard Starr (b. 1925) (artist, writer)

tration (a) 1984; Lois Lane (i) 1988; Manhunters around the World (a) 1950-51; My Greatest Adventure (a) 1955-58; Mysto – Magician Detective (a) 1953-54; Nighthawk (a) 1950-51; Overland Coach (a) early 1950s; Phantom Stranger (a) 1951; Pow-Wow Smith (a) 1951-53, Special Crime Feature (a) 1950; Star Spangled War Stories (a) 1953; Superman (i) 1988; Tales of the Arrow Maker (a) 1951; Tales of the Unexpected (a) 1956-57; Who’s Who in the DC Universe (a) 1986

Pen Name: Donald Fraser

Education: High School of Music and Art (Brooklyn, NY); Pratt Institute (NYC)

Print Media (Non-Comics): Artist: advertising 1950-c. 1956; editorial illustration

Animation: Rankin-Bass – writer: ThunderCats 1986-87 [co-creator]; Ghost Warrior 1987 (?). [NOTE: Starr does not feel the latter credit is accurate; see interview.]

D.S. Publishing: Outlaws (i) 1949; Underworld (i) 1948

E.R. Ross Publishing: Hi-Lite Comics [coown] 1945 with Roberta Ross & Warren King

Honors: Inkpot Award – San Diego Comic-Con 1982; National Cartoonists Society – Best Story Strip 1968 & 1984; NCS Reuben 1965

Syndication: Annie (w)(a)(d)(S) 1979-84 Tribune Media Services (originally for Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate); Flash Gordon (ghost a)(d) c.

1955-56 for King Features Syndicate, Inc.; On Stage (w)(a)(d)(S) 1957-79 Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate

Comics in Other Media: “King Richard” (a) 1955 for Boy’s Life (magazine)

Comics Studio/Shop: Chesler shop (p)(i) 1943; Funnies, Inc. (p)(i) 1942-43

Foreign Comics Material: Kelly Green (w)(p)(i) 1982-84 graphic albums; Cannonball Carmody c. 1984

EC Comics: War against Crime (a) c. 1949

Fawcett Publications: Don Winslow of the Navy (a) mid-1940s; romance (p)(i) 1950

Len Ventures Into The Unknown One of Starr’s earliest signed solo art jobs is this tale from Adventures in the Unknown #4 (April-May 1949), for the American Comics Group. Copies of this page were provided by both Rod Beck and Michael T. Gilbert. Issues #1-5 of this first-ever regularly published horror comic have recently been released

by PS Artbooks of Great Britian in the hardcover Collected Works: Adventures into the Unknown, Vol. 1, with more to follow. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

COMIC BOOK CREDITS (Mainstream U.S. Publishers)

American Comics Group: Adventures into the Unknown (a) 1949; Bantam Buckaroo (a) 1951; Cowboy Sahib (a) 1953

Avon Periodicals: crime (p)(i) 1951; Jesse James (i) 1952 (unconfirmed)

Better/Nedor/Standard Publications: Real Life Comics (i) 1958

Consolidated Books: Lucky Comics (a) 1944 Deluxe Comics: filler (a) 1985

Croyden Publications: Satannas (?) (p) 1945

Crestwood/Headline (a.k.a. Feature): Black Magic (a) 1950; crime (a) 1959-50; romance (a) 1949-53; Young Love c. 1953 and/or 1956

DC Comics: Captain Compass (a) 1950; Casebook Mystery (a) 1950; Congo Bill (a) 1956; covers (p)(i) 1949, 1952-57, 1988; Dale Evans Comics (a) 1950-51 [NOTE: Starr doubts the preceding claim]; Davy Crockett (a) 1956; Dr. 13 the Ghost Breaker (a) 1951-52; Gang Busters (a) 1952; Ghosts (a) 1975; House of Mystery (a) 1952-56; illus-

Harvey Comics: First Love (p) 1953-54; HiSchool Romance (p) 1954; romance (p) 195354, 1958; Teen-Age Brides (p) 1954

Hillman Periodicals: Airboy Comics backup features (p)(i) 1948-49; crime (p)(i) 1948-49; The Flying Fool (a) 1949; The Heap (p)(i) 1947-49; Rackman (i) 1947; Westerns (p)(i) 1948-49 Lev Gleason Publications: Crime and Punishment (a) 1948

Mainline Comics: Bulls-Eye (a) 1954

Marvel/Timely Comics: Human Torch (backgrounds) 1943; Morbius (i) 1975; Sub-Mariner (p)(i) c. 1943 (through Funnies, Inc.)

McCombs: Buckskin (i) 1947-48 (a.k.a. Bart Stewart); covers (i) 1947-48; crime (i) 1947; jungle (i) 1947; Vic Cutter (w)(i) 1945-48 (collaboration with Frank Bolle); Voodah (w)(i) (collaboration with Frank Bolle); Westerns (i) 1947

Orbit Publications: various features (a) 1951

Parents Magazine Press: True Comics (a) c. 1943

Rural Home: covers (p)(i) 1945; El Kuraan (a) 1945; Secret Assignment (p) 1943

St. John Publishing: Adventures (p) 1949-50; crime (a) 1954; Western (a) 1953 U.S. Camera: Camera Comics (a) 1944

Ziff-Davis Comics: crime (a) 1951; Red Feather (a) 195051; science-fantasy (a) 1951-52; Tom Rogers’ Crime Clinic (a) 1951; war (a) 1951; Westerns (a) 1951

43

The Sequel

by Richard J. Arndt elcome to Part 2 of “Tales from the Code.” Here, in a follow-up to the cover feature of last October’s Alter Ego #105, is another batch of curious, odd, and downright confounding examples of the rulings of the Comics Code Authority related to the companies that subscribed to the Code.

W

“Them!”

Before we begin examining actual changes wrought by the Code Office, however, I can’t resist the temptation to showcase a comic book that the Code passed as OK for the reading public, but probably shouldn’t have. It’s an issue we mentioned briefly in A/E #105 but didn’t go into great detail about because it was discovered too late in the editing process. It’s the benign-looking but rather deviant Wonder Woman #185 (Dec. 1969).

This comic was published midway through the 1969-1971 “depowered Wonder Woman” era, during which the Amazon dropped her traditional costume and donned a white jumpsuit, left the Justice League of America, and answered to the name Diana Prince far more than she was addressed as Wonder Woman. This particular issue was written and penciled by Mike Sekowsky and inked by Dick Giordano. The editor was Sekowsky himself, who had taken over the title from Jack Miller with #182.

The story is entitled “Them!” Clearly that pronoun was significant: whenever the villains of this issue were mentioned, the word

The Common Code (Below left:) In its early days, the Comics Code office produced and distributed regular advertisements for itself throughout the comics industry. This is one of its distribution sticker seals, which presumably could be stuck on a rack of comics by a responsible retailer to show he was towing the line, er, we mean, responsibly looking out for young minds.

(There was also a vertical version of this basically horizontal sticker.)

(Above:) Although the Code folks may well have written the text for the legend (enlarged) that ran at the top of some Charlton comics circa 1957, it was signed here by Charlton’s executive editor, Pat Masulli. This splash page, drawn by Rocco Mastroserio, is from Black Fury #11 (Nov. ’57); the script is very likely by Joe Gill. Oh, and thanks again to Al Dellinges for our logo! [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

“Them” was always colored in red and lettered twice the size of the surrounding dialogue. So who were “Them”?

Well, although the L-word is never mentioned in either dialogue or captions, it’s pretty clear that “Them” is a trio of mannish, even butch, lesbians. Our first glimpse of “Them” reveals a huge, hulking, masculine woman named Moose Mama, a rather homely woman dressed in cowboy duds named Pinto, and Top Hat, an attractive middle-aged woman dressed in either a Mad Hatter’s outfit or possibly just a particularly garish version of a 1970s-era pantsuit.

Ongoing coverage of the relatively new gay and lesbian political movement was big news in 1969. The New York City police raids of the Black Cat Tavern had happened

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petite and very young-looking girl named Cathy hiding in her store. Cathy is dressed in baggy and far too large army fatigues which make her look about 12 years old, although the story indicates she is at least out of high school. When Diana asks the obviously terrified girl of whom she is so afraid, she blurts out: “Them!” Then the three mannish women show up, demanding that Cathy, whom they call “slave,” put her dog collar and leash back on and leave with them. When Diana objects, the trio’s leader, Top Hat, suggests that Diana should put a collar on, too, or Moose Mama will force Diana to wear the collar.

Diana punches all three of them out and tosses them out of her shop.

Then, in a bizarre sequence, Diana takes Cathy upstairs to her apartment over the store and starts ordering the obviously traumatized teenager around, telling her to strip and take a bath (one in which Diana washes Cathy’s hair). Diana discovers that Cathy has been whipped savagely with Top Hat’s umbrella. The girl tells Diana a story that could have come straight out of a Greenleaf Classic’s porno template:

A Lot On His Plate Of the above 1955 book plate, collector Jim Korkis writes: “A friend found this book plate in an old library book of Tom Sawyer that he bought in a used book sale [several years ago]. I can’t imagine any red-blooded young boy happily exchanging ten of the comics from his prized collection for a copy of Tom Sawyer with a parent over his shoulder.” The reach of the comic book censors was long in those heady days. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

only two years earlier, during a time when to simply be openly gay and in the company of other gays in public were grounds for arrest. The Gay Liberation Front, which advocated that homosexual men and women should “come out of the closet,” had just come into being in early 1969, while the Stonewall riots, also in New York and generally considered the incident that birthed the gay pride movement, had occurred only that June. Wonder Woman #185, with its cover date of Dec. 1969, would have come out in early October or late September. Given a scripting lead-time of several months before publication, Sekowsky was clearly basing this story on events either directly or very recently in the news. That’s not to say that his story’s viewpoint is favorable to the gay or lesbian lifestyle. It is not.

During this period, Diana, after losing her Amazon powers, had become a karate/kung fu master and adventurer. In her spare time she also ran a clothing boutique, living in an apartment just above it. Only in the 1960s could you be a boutique owner/martial artist/adventurer!

One night, she discovers a

Well, At Least “Them” Ain’t Giant Ants This Time!

Mike Sekowsky cover and splash page (actually page 3) for Wonder Woman #185 (Dec. 1969). Script, pencils, & editing by Sekowsky; inks by Dick Giordano. Those were the days, my friend....

Thanks to Richard Arndt for the scans. [©2012 DC Comics.]

Tales From The Code: The Sequel

45

Cathy left home to seek her fortune in the big city. Shortly after stepping off the bus, she met Top Hat and her two buddies, who invited her to room with them. She got a job but soon her clothes disappeared from the apartment; then the money she’d saved from her first job was stolen. Soon she’d lost her outside job and was acting as a maid/slave for the trio, forced by them to wear men’s clothing that made her look much younger than she actually was.

As Cathy tells it: “Top Hat put the dog collar on me and she beat me; she said a dog that’s beaten regularly knows its place, and is a good dog.”

“Them” now begin a campaign of terror against Diana and Cathy, using skuzzy hippie types to harass them in the street, secretly slicing and tearing Diana’s dresses on the rack at the boutique so that they are unsalable, and finally torching Diana’s place of business and home. Cathy goes back to “Them” so that nothing more will happen to Diana. While searching for their lair, Diana discovers that much of the neighborhood is afraid of the three bullies, although Tony Petrucci, a local activist, is not; and when Diana confronts Top Hat on the street, Tony takes her side.

In a showdown, Top Hat again demands that Diana wear her dog collar as a sign of submission and attacks Diana with her umbrella, which has a concealed sword in the handle. Diana easily disarms her. She discovers stolen jewels in Top Hat’s… well, top hat… and hands her over to the police. Cathy’s parents have been located and arrive just in time to see Top Hat’s arrest and to reunite with Cathy.

Another disturbing note is that in some panels, particularly on page 20, Top-Hat looks a bit like Betty Friedan, a leader of the Woman’s Liberation Movement who was much in the news at the time.

Why didn’t the Comics Code Authority object to this story?

They had demanded multiple changes to stories far less explicit than “Them!” It’s possible that nobody at the CCA office actually read the issue, or, if they did, didn’t understand or completely missed the underlying subtext in this story. Still, that seems a bit hard to believe. It’s entirely possible the readers at the Code Office looked at the artwork, in which nothing untoward appears to happen, and let it go through without reading it at all. Although “Them!” may be considered by some to be relatively mild by today’s light, Sekowsky’s stealthy tale of wicked, predatory lesbians, child abuse, and domination/submission themes should have been completely banned by the Code as it existed in 1969.

Mind you, I’m not attempting, in any way, to say that Mike Sekowsky was anti-gay. I have no idea whether he was or was not.

Only that he was a product of his time. Several excellent writers of the 1950s and 1960s, notably sciencefiction writer C. M. Kornbluth and mystery and TV writer (as well as magazine editor) Howard Browne wrote significant novels in the 1950s dealing with lesbianism that characterized the lesbians in the books as older predators who preyed on younger women. These talented authors

It’s A Dog’s Life Top Hat and friends try to get Diana to put on a dog collar, in more panels from WW #185. Wholesome stuff. Thanks to Richard Arndt. [©2012 DC Comics.]

didn’t write these books because they were prudish. There is considerable evidence that Kornbluth, who died in 1958, was fairly liberated sexually, while Browne, who passed away in the 1990s, later apologized in a foreword to a reprinting of his novel, saying that the portrayal of the lesbians was a product of the times and of the information then available, and that he would not write that novel in the same way if he were writing it “today.” I suspect that Sekowsky’s story came about from similar viewpoints and background as those of Kornbluth and Browne. He was a middleaged man writing about a female-centered, underground culture that was not particularly well-known or understood at the time, and one with which he may have had little personal experience.

Still and all, Wonder Woman #185 is one truly strange comic.

From Our Readers

Following are messages from various A/E readers clarifying and/or correcting statements made in my previous article:

Jerry Lahm notes that, ironically, the 1942 photo on page 4 of A/E #105, which shows four Asian-American boys enjoying their free time reading comics, was actually—and ironically—taken in a Japanese-American internment camp during World War II. (And so it was. We checked.)

John Wells, in a very informative e-mail, notes that Bob Toomey’s “Green Lantern” tale that mentioned one alien Green Lantern eating a dead fellow member of the GL Corps (see A/E #105, pp. 30-31) was written and drawn in 1978 and was intended as a backup story in Green Lantern #111. It was Friedan’s Just Another Name rejected by the Code office that year and was left in limbo, For Nothin’ Left To Lose as least in part due to the “DC Implosion” of that year, Richard Arndt believes that which eliminated room in comics for most back up stories.

Sekowsky patterned the villainous The three-parter eventually saw print in GL #130-132 Top Hat after women’s liberation (July-Sept. 1980), which was rather more than the few spokesperson Betty Friedan (seen months that Bob recalled in his anecdote. at near left). Did he? You decide!

[Panel ©2012 DC Comics.]

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Still More Curious Changes Wrought By The Comics Code Authority

John also pointed out, in an aside, that DC’s Starfire #1 and World’s Finest Comics #245 had the Comics Code Seal left off their covers by accident.

He likewise posits the notion that, in addition to Two-Face (as mentioned in last year’s article), the Comics Code or perhaps just the fear of the Code may have kept Catwoman out of the comics for a lengthy period, since she didn’t appear between 1954 (the year at whose end the new Code went into effect) and 1966 (when the Batman TV show became popular and she was used thereon). John writes, “Evidently, even suggesting Batman was smitten with a beautiful criminal was too much for the post-Code 1950s.”

Both John Wells and Jake Oster pointed out that the “blackedout by order of the Comics Code” panel from World’s Finest #189 (A/E #105, pp. 23-24) was actually only a gag. According to an editorial note in WFC #192: “Here are the facts. Before the tale was written, we checked with the Code, and they okayed the plot, provided we kept the pictures within the bounds of good taste.

When we got to that panel, we knew it wouldn’t pass as written, so we put in the ‘Censored’ label as a gag. The fact that the Code Authority passed it proves that they have a sense of humor.” I suspected this at the time but, not having a copy of #192, didn’t know that the gag had been explicitly revealed some months later.

Thanks, guys!

Reader Chris Boyko notes that he owns the original marked-up Photostats from Dick Tracy #112 (June 1957), published by Harvey.

Chris says that the Code notes were in blue pencil on the stats’ margins and… well, why don’t I just let him tell you: “The changes made on the stats and submitted to the Code for approval were not

Seen Of The Crime The example of a Code-censored Harvey reprint of Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy newspaper comic strip cited in Chris Boyko’s e-mail, and other panels that were depicted in A/E #103 & 105, were only the tip of an unappetizing iceberg.

Case in point: these two tiers of panels from Dick Tracy #112 (which was published sometime in the late 1950s), which immediately follow two others that were seen in #105. Note the elongated arm of the mostly off-panel suicide in panel 2 (a redrawn replacement, no doubt, for the entire corpse) and the whited-out dialogue from B.O. Plenty in panel 4. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

the same as the changes that saw print! For example, in the second panel of the story printed on p. 36 of A/E #105, Diet Smith is shot in the bathtub by his ex-wife Irma with clear lines of white-out obscuring the bullet tracks, as well as (for decency?) his leg. There is also a strange vertical line that [Roy] logically ascribed to being a printing glitch. However, in the Code-approved stat, the gun traces and leg are whited out, but there are two big differences. One is that the phone by the bath, which was obscured by the white-out of the bullet lines, has been redrawn by a Harvey artist, and the strange vertical line is revealed to exist because someone cut out a tiny sliver of the panel and split the panel in two.” While all of the Code demands were done on the Photostats, not all of them appear in the actual comic. Chris cites several examples of this thoughout the reworked pages. He speculates that Harvey made the changes the Code demanded on the stats but then did a slapdash job during production of the final page layouts. As he puts it, “The Code offices saw cleaner art than the folks who actually bought the comic!”

What The—?

They Saw The Arrow Of Their Ways Nope, not an example of Code censorship, ’cause this panel from Timely’s parody comic Crazy #7 (July 1954), drawn by Carl Hubbell for “Hambo,” a spoof of the John Wayne Western Hondo, was altered months before the Code came into the existence at the tail-end of that year. Probably already nervous about mounting criticism of violence in comics, Timely/Atlas/Marvel deleted the art lines of the arrow sticking out of the back of the lovely lass’ cranium, but no one bothered to restore the linework of the back of her head or the panel border that the shaft had previously blotted out. Which is odd, since Timely managed to remove the coloring of the arrowhead and shaft, and to color the heroine’s hair totally blonde. Scripter unknown. Thanks to Shane Foley. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Various readers also sent in anecdotes (either with or without accompanying artwork) noting Code-related matters that were not mentioned in my article. These are covered both in the following text and in accompanying art and captions:

Shaun Clancy sent in an anecdote obtained from a conversation with George Pfaum’s son Bill. George was the publisher of Treasure Chest, a comic book series strongly associated with the Catholic Church. When I was a kid we got copies at Catechism, but the kids who attended parochial schools got them for classroom reading (us kids who attended public school got Highlights, which reprinted Tintin adventures, so it was all good). Seems that the Code even had a problem with Treasure Chest! For one issue, Jesus Christ apparently had too much blood on his hands while nailed to the cross, and the Code asked Pfaum to remove the excessive blood!

The Code seemed to have a real problem with reprinting pre-

Tales From The Code: The Sequel

47

Conan The Code-Baiter Sneaking things past the Code was a favorite pastime of freelancers, and some staffers—as long as they could avoid the wrath of their superiors. The latter, knowing the Code people could find ways to retaliate if they felt they’d been made to look foolish, generally took a dim view of such pranks.

(Above:) All the same, in Conan the Barbarian #9 (Sept. 1971), Marvel writer/associate editor Roy Thomas and penciler Barry Smith conspired between them to show something they suspected the Code might disallow. The three rightmost panels in this sequence show carnivorous flowers into which a screaming hill-man had just been dropped by the winged, quasi-human ruler of Robert E. Howard’s “Garden of Fear.” Roy and Barry wanted the flowers to change from pinkish-white to bright red over a sequence of three panels, thus clearly indicating that they had ingested the victim’s blood; but writing any instructions to the colorist in the page’s margin might simply attract the Code reader’s attention and lead to an objection, so no color notes were written, and Roy simply told the colorist verbally to gradate the panels from whitish to pink to red. If the Code folks ever noticed Roy and Barry had done an end run around them, they didn’t complain. Good thing, too… ’cause Stan Lee took a decidedly dim view of challenging the Code—unless it was in The Amazing Spider-Man drug issues, of course.

(Below:) In #10, the Barbarian boys did it again. This REH-inspired story called for the Cimmerian to kill an evil “fat, gross priest” of the god Anu for causing the death of his thieving Gunderman friend, and Barry decided the priest deserved to be beheaded. But he and Roy were already pushing the envelope that issue by showing several silhouettes of the hanged thief. So Barry finessed the matter by drawing the priest lying on his back, his ample belly jutting up like a round hillock, then Conan swinging his murderous sword downward (in a panel whose background the colorist was verbally instructed to render in red), and finally the barbarian walking away, with the profile of the dead priest’s head prominent at the left of panel 6. Of course, if that head were still attached to its ample body, that big belly would’ve been visible in the middle of the panel… which was Barry’s subtle way of indicating that Conan had cut off the priest’s head, which was now lying some distance from the rest of him. The young British artist showed his de facto editor what he’d done, and Roy happily went along with it, as usual, without checking with head honcho Stan as he definitely should have. Frankly, Roy’s amazed to this day that the hanging corpse and Conan’s slaying a wounded foe crying for mercy made it through the Code unscathed, and he gives full credit to Code administrator Len Darvin for treating more adult and “literary” 1970s comics like Conan and Tomb of Dracula differently from other fare. Not, of course, that that stopped Roy and Barry from being quietly proud of sneaking something past him, once in a while! Oh, and the inks on both issues are by Sal Buscema. [©2012 Conan Properties International, LLD.]

Code Western stories in post-Code issues, and with no company so much as with Avon Periodicals.

Both Avon’s Wild Bill Hickok and Jesse James titles had to be heavily altered circa 1956 in terms of both dialogue and art. Many of the word balloons have large whited-out areas simply left blank when published, where references to shooting, killing, or beating someone were removed. On many of the pages, gunfire, punch speed lines, or impact smacks have been removed, particularly if they occurred against women, and in one scene the body of a hanging man has been whited out. (Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert for this one.) However, as we’ve mentioned before, the Code office only saw the pages in black-&-white, so when the color overlays were placed over the art for the printed comic the original color was still there, and what was supposed to be in the whited-out areas became very self-evident. In addition, the Code demanded some panels to be redrawn entirely, so much so that nearly the entire story “The Flaming Fingers of Danger!”, originally from The Savage Raids of Chief Geronimo #4 (Feb. 1952), for Wild Bill Hickok #26 had to be redrawn. However, there wasn’t enough time to color the new panels and pages, so the book

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Still More Curious Changes Wrought By The Comics Code Authority

went out featuring both colored original panels and numerous new panels that appeared in just black-&-white. It all looks very odd! (See sample pages on the next page.)

“Ric B” (no further name on the e-mail) reminds us of an anecdote related to Roy Thomas that Roy himself says he doesn’t recall at this late stage, though he says it sounds right. Apparently, and despite the fact that the 1971 revision of the Comics Code specifically allowed the use of werewolves, the Code office still expressed some qualms about Marvel using the title “Werewolf by Night” on the cover of the first appearance of that series in an early-’70s issue of Marvel Spotlight. Reportedly, Roy, who co-created the feature, got fired up and pointedly asked someone at the Code if they wanted it renamed “Kewpie Bear by Night,” instead. The original title was allowed.

Pierre Comtois remarks that he was disappointed that the first installment of “Tales from the Code” didn’t address or examine the inside operation of the Comics Code offices. While the first “Tales” installment was never intended to address that particular notion, Pierre’s is, nonetheless, an excellent suggestion. The problem being, of course, that while many publishers, editors, writers, and artists in the comics industry are known by name so that either they or their relatives might be located, the identities of the folks who worked behind the scenes in the Code offices are largely unknown.

Judge Charles Murphy, the first Code administrator, mentioned in press conferences that his team of Code overseers consisted of retired New York City school teachers. This may help to explain the rather draconian harshness and zeal of the Code Office under Murphy, since retired school teachers in 1955 would have been likely to be 65 years or older, which means they’d probably been 45 years old or older when comics had first come into existence in 1936! They were not and quite likely never had been readers of comics for fun. Especially not as children. And remember, it was the New York City Public School System that objected vigorously to the cover of Mad #20 (Feb. 1955), which mimicked a composition book cover (the style of which is still in use today). Teachers—quite rightly, I suspect—thought this was a smirky attempt to have students disguise their reading of Mad in class instead of doing their homework. Every

The Whole Town’s Talkin’ About The James Boy Weird were the ways of the Comics Code! On this page originally drawn by later magazine illustrator Everett Raymond Kinstler for Avon’s pre-Code Jesse James #8 (Aug. 1952) and later reprinted in the post-Code #24 (Sept.-Oct. 1955), our oh-so-sensitive censors left in scenes of Jesse pummeling the bad-guy and references to his trip to the gallows and “the end of a rope” and settled for merely decreeing that the figure of the hanged man be whited out.

However, they also insisted on Avon’s deleting the bottom two panels, in which Jesse robbed the local bank and used the stolen money to pay back a victim of the dead man’s crimes. The result: a big blank space on the bottom of the story’s final page. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

Out Of Their Skulls As noted in A/E #105, the Code had serious problems with Jack Kirby’s renditions of the Red Skull’s head. Kirby himself ignored their strictures and routinely continued to draw the Skull with a hideous skull-like head, but Code objections to it caused a lot of redrawing by the production staff, particularly on covers, so that it would look more like a mask than a skull. In #105 we reprinted a re-do of an early-1940s Red Skull head when the story was reprinted in the late ’60s; above left is the printed cover for May 1968’s Captain America #101, inked by Syd Shores.

We wouldn’t even be certain that the Skull’s cranium was changed by edict of the Code, except that, when that issue’s contents were reprinted in Marvel Super-Heroes #2 (July 1977), the original, unaltered version of the art was utilized! According to an online blog whose name was, alas, mislaid (and we’ll happily acknowledge them if they contact us, of course), this was most likely an accidental use of the older art by staffers who were unaware that there were two versions. By ’77, the more liberalized Code probably approved the cover of MSH #2 without checking its records from a decade earlier. Still, we’re happy for the error, which preserved a fine piece of Kirby art! [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Tales From The Code: The Sequel

The Wild, Wild, Black-&-White West As Richard Arndt notes, the 8-page story “The Flaming Fingers of Danger!” from Avon Periodicals’ Wild Bill Hickok #26 (Jan-Feb. 1956) had its splash page and third page so fully redrawn that they wound up being printed totally in black-&white, while two other pages have only one color panel on them. Numerous panels on other pages are also b&w and, on page 7, the only fully colored page in the whole shebang, the sight of both gunfire and gunsmoke has been eliminated in panel 5. Other than that, it’s the exact same story as Avon had printed, pre-Code, exactly four years earlier! Oh yeah, and we don’t know who the writer(s) and artist(s) were, either! Thanks to RA. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

kid who read comics in the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, and possibly the ’70s can remember having a comic pulled out of his or her hands by the teacher and confiscated because “Comics aren’t good for you!” Nor were they educational, either!

How times have changed! Nowadays, teachers are often excited to see graphic novels and stories being used in the classrooms. Jeff Smith’s nine volumes of Bone rival and compete with J. K. Rowling’s seven volumes of Harry Potter for the most popular book series in my middle school library.

Still, as Pierre suggests, knowledge of Code Office background and operations would be both interesting and perhaps historically important.

So… who has information on the identity of the Code officers (both original and latter-day) and what function they served at the Code Office before it was closed in February of 2011? Shaun Clancy sent me a list of the officers of the CMA from some time in the mid-1960s. They include as directors the four main heads of the Code-using comics companies: John Goldwater from Archie Comics, Jack Liebowitz from DC Comics, Martin Goodman from Marvel Comics, and Leon Harvey from Harvey Comics.

Also listed were representatives of the printers, engravers, and distributors: Burton Levey, George Dougherty, Maurice Hirsch, William Server, and Lawrence Manheimer, as well as second Code administrator Mrs.

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Still More Curious Changes Wrought By The Comics Code Authority

Guy Percy Trulock and executive secretary (later Code administrator himself) Leonard Darvin. Shaun informs me that, of this list, only Burton Levey is still alive. Are children or grandchildren alive that may have information on how the CCA worked behind the scenes? It would seem that interviews with the children of some of those CCA officers, such as Archie Comics’ John Goldwater, are certainly doable.

In addition, how were the internal guidelines drawn up? How many people worked in the Code Office from 1955 to 2011 and, still living, might be willing to be interviewed? Where and from

Dragon ’Em Around Shane Foley points out that the Code folks must’ve been especially touchy about seeing women manhandled the week it reviewed the art and story for Fantastic Four #44 (Nov. 1965). Two of that issue’s final five panels have been severely redrawn. In the second panel seen above right, Sue Storm is still carried off by the android Dragon Man in the printed version, but all of her except her feet is now out of the panel. As for Medusa in the very next panel, Karnak still grabs her, yet only a few of her scarlet tresses are pictured. Script

by Stan Lee; art by Jack Kirby & Joe Sinnott. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

what fields were the latter-day Code administrators drawn?

While it is unlikely that any of the original Code employees or readers from the 1950s are still alive, again, there could be children or grandchildren who may be able to supply information. Does anyone out there know who the original Code Office readers or staff members were, and where their children may be located? Any help that readers can give us in contacting one-time Code officials will be greatly appreciated. (Mike W. Barr wrote in to suggest that we try to reach Laurie Sutton, 1980s editor at DC who at one time worked for the Code. Does anyone out there have any contact info for her?)

Perhaps, if more information on Code personnel and/or changes is forthcoming, a third installment of “Tales from the Code” can appear next year, just in time for our Halloween issue!

See You In The Cosmic Books!

(Left:) In the phrase of provider Michael T. Gilbert, this must surely be one of the most “Code-mangled” pages ever that didn’t result in an entirely new page being drawn! One ponders: what could those cowboys in this page from Wild Bill Hickok #23 (May-June 1955) have been saying to each other to get the Code gang all lathered up? Small wonder that Avon Periodicals, and many another comics company, threw in their hands, once Judge Murphy and his posse got on their trail!

Artist uncertain. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

(Right:) Eight issues back, we mentioned the little joke that writer/artist Jim Starlin and company played on the Code by quietly altering the CCA seal on the cover of Strange Tales #179 (April 1975), featuring “Warlock,” so that it referred to the “Cosmic Code Authority,” but we didn’t get around to showing it to you. Here ’tis, in case you don’t have a copy of it, or of the hardcover Marvel Masterworks: Warlock, Vol. 2. Thanks to Richard Arndt. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

52

The Early Career Of A Legendary Artist—& Magician

The Unknown Steranko!

by Michael T. Gilbert

he legend of Jim Steranko’s career has been told many times: How the 26-year-old magician, musician, and commercial artist conquered the comic book world. How he approached Marvel in 1965, portfolio in hand, only to be rejected. How he rebounded, landing his first professional comics job with editor Joe Simon at Harvey a year later––creating Magicmaster, The Gladiator, and Spyman in the process. And how he struck paydirt at Marvel that same year, transforming the floundering spy strip “Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.” into a fan favorite.

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It’s a wonderful story, and true, as far as it goes.

But there’s more to the tale, as you’ll see in this rare article reprinted from the February 1961 issue of The Linking Ring. The focus of the magazine was magic, with the discussion of Steranko’s embryonic comic book career mere background in the article. But what background!

While it’s generally believed that Steranko’s first published comic book work was the cover of Spyman #1 in September 1966, Steranko reveals for the first time that his four-color career actually began years earlier––in a sweatshop run by another well-known cartoonist. And who was this artist? Ah, a good magician never reveals his secrets. But the article will!

Even at the young age of 22, Jim’s knack for self-promotion–– and style!–– was evident. I had to chuckle as the article’s author, the late Frances Marshall, described Steranko as coming “right out of Beatville.” That bearded fellow in the photo may have shocked the dear lady in 1961, but the ’60s would bring far worse.

Regardless, Mrs. Marshall took it all in good humor.

Frances Marshall, a magician herself, co-founded Magigals, a club for female magicians, in 1938. She married Laurie Ireland, owner of L.L. Ireland Magic Co. in Chicago in 1940 and took over the company following his death in 1954. A year later she married magician Jay Marshall, and in 1963 their company, the L. L. Ireland Magic Co., was renamed Magic, Inc. Mrs. Marshall passed away in May 26, 2002, at the age of 92. Our thanks to Mr. G. Johannigmeier for sharing this rare article, and to Ronn Sutton for supplying art samples.

And now, on with the (1961) show!

Steranko’s “Beatnik Moment” (Above:) This photo was the only visual accompanying the original “Who Is Steranko?” article in early 1961. [©2012 Frances Marshall.]

Who Is This Steranko?

by Frances Ireland Marshall Humans are funny. Magicians are human. Ergo, magicians are funny. We magicians are anxious to swell our ranks, build up our magic clubs, increase the importance of magic in the world. But at the same time we are suspicious of the newcomer, cold to the stranger, aloof to the unknown. By so doing, we take a chance on missing some very interesting people who might cross our path.

These thoughts come to me when I think about Steranko. He appeared on the general magic scene rather all-of-a-sudden (or so it seemed) and several people said: “Who’s this guy Steranko?” with the inference that he should have had the decency to stay under whatever rock had housed him until now. This didn’t bother me too much because in my day I have heard the same remark about Marlo, Jerry Andrus, Brother Hamman and others, all of whom have long since been taken to the hearts of the magickers.

Jim Contemplates The World!

From Steranko’s World of Escapes. [©2012 Jim Steranko.]

Herewith is a photograph of Steranko during one of his beatnik moments –– to prove to you he is as modern as tomorrow. By the time you meet him, he may have assumed a different character, but when this picture was taken, he was right out of Beatville. Steranko doesn’t show it here, because you can’t see artistic talent, but he is a marvelous artist, perhaps one of the best magic has been lucky enough to have. He is also a musician. He is also very young, having been born way back in 1939 [AE NOTE: Steranko’s birthday was actually Nov. 5, 1938]. Like all today’s young, he is very intense,

The Unknown Steranko!

crowding a lot of living and desire for accomplishment into a very short space of time.

might say…at 17.

With high school graduation he was offered a job with Milford Associates as a freelance artist, doing newspaper and other ads, and making very good money for a beginner. But show business called, and Steranko joined a carnival. Always a good businessman, he sold Elvis Presley and Pat Boone photos (bought for a penny each) at 25 cents, and doubled in the sideshow with fire eating, magic and the nail board.

After a season, his desire to draw returned, and he abandoned the carnival and went to New York as an artist.

He did a series of comic book pages, ended with a job inking comic book drawings with two other artists, Vince Colletta and Matt Baker. To meet schedules, they worked three or four days at a time, staying awake the entire time, getting checks as high as $500 some weeks. The pressure of work was so great, Steranko had to leave it. He returned to Reading.

I once wrote that magicians seldom breed magicians, but Steranko is the son of an ardent enthusiast. His father did tricks as far back as Steranko can remember. When the boy was six, his dad developed tuberculosis, spending four years in a hospital, during which time the small family was on relief. Steranko (who in those days had a first name, James) learned to read by studying the old Tarbell Course and by 10, he was doing one-hand cuts and the back and front palm.

Also about then he found he could draw and he covered reams of paper with comic book type heroes and villains. The leaders of the day were Captain America, Green Hornet, Boy Commandos, etc., and he emulated all of them on paper. Within a year or two, his musical talent came to the front, and he joined a Drum and Bugle Corps with a tenor drum.

The early magic interest had veered to one of Steranko Draws escapes and locks, so that at 15 years old our boy Steranko James was handcuffed spread eagle in a jail cell [©2012 Jim Steranko] with four pairs of cuffs (hand and feet) by city detectives. He made an escape in 28 minutes, for which he received three photos and a half-page write-up in the paper, plus a 15-minute radio interview. This was in his hometown of Reading, Pennsylvania. The publicity gave him an opening to other opportunities, so that the next week he was locked in a vault at a country club, which he opened from the inside with a cleat from his shoe and a pencil (time seven minutes). Next, he got out in three minutes from a city jail cell under test conditions. In 52 seconds he made a straightjacket escape on TV. Later the Sheriff tied him up with 120 feet of sash cord and he got out in 90 seconds. By late spring, he had himself hung upside down in a jacket at the mental hospital and got away in three minutes. The Associated Press wrote him up and released the story nationally.

Partners In Time Jim Steranko and his partner in magic, Robert Paolini. [©2012 the copyright owners.]

In midsummer he was buried alive in the Stadium for 15 minutes under four feet of earth (1,500 people present). Next he escaped from a Government mailbag in seven minutes. In fact, at that early age, there was nothing in Reading that could hold Steranko. He built up a complete escape act lasting 20 to 30 minutes, as required, and called it Dynamic Magic. His friend, Bob Paolini, was the mechanical genius behind many of the effects. For two years, the boys did well with the act, made money and got oceans of publicity. Then interest in escapes fell off.

Bob got married and the Steranko family moved. All of a sudden, Steranko was at a dead end…finished…you

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Now magic rose in importance. He began to study closeup work, attended clubs and conventions, organized the Contemporary Magicians’ Club (with the most beautiful membership card I ever saw). At Harrisburg, Pa., Ring 20 he met Joe Homcheck, whom was a Chavez boy, and Bob Rettew from Lebanon, both of whom inspired him. He also began to drive fast cars and motorcycles, which put him in the hospital a couple of times.

“Fast Cars and Motorcycles!”

Steranko drew this sample page as a teenager in the ’50s, inspired by the Marlon Brando movie The Wild One. [©2012 Jim Steranko.]

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The Early Career Of A Legendary Artist—& Magician

well he does it? We must set our own standards of creativity and functional approach.”

“Many a magician thinks that he alone sees another do a secret move; but never for a moment does he think anyone might see him do a secret slight.”

Want to argue with him? He’ll be in Chicago for the February 25 weekend, and no doubt at many another 1961 magical gathering.

Dust off your deck and come match wits and talents with Steranko, card man of the new beat generation.

The End

Postscript

Steranko’s comic book career took off five years later. In the process he switched from magic to comics, and no wonder. “I am still covered from head to toe with scars from my tour as an escape artist, many of which are too deep to be seen.” Now he only suffers the occasional paper cut.

Still, there were times when Jim’s two loves intersected. In 1971 his friend, Jack Kirby, created DC’s Mr. Miracle, a super escape artist reportedly inspired by Steranko’s exploits. Similarly, Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay featured a comic book superhero, The Escapist, partially based on Steranko.

One more thing…

I Spy! (Above:) Steranko’s original 1966 Spyman design. Steranko wrote the first story, but George Tuska illustrated it. Go figure! Steranko did draw the mechanical hand that appeared on each cover ––including Tuska’s for issue #1, cover-dated Sept. 1966 (right). [Spyman ©2012 Harvey Comics.]

Steranko began doing regular close-up work at spots like Junction Inn, St. Marco Club, Les and Josie’s, etc. His experience broadened, he created, probed, destroyed and rebuilt, seeing new methods for close-up card work. He won many awards, among them the Delaware Knights’ “Outstanding Performer of the Year” trophy in 1959.

In February 1959 Steranko joined Rieck, Inc., an advertising and printing agency, as a commercial illustrator. He also bought his first sports car, and formed his own rock’n’roll combo, “The Lancers,” playing electric guitar and sitting in at jam sessions with the Reading Jazz Quartet. In his spare time he began to write “Steranko on Cards.”

So, you see, this guy Steranko is a man of parts –– he’s that new kind of magician, the kind that fits in today’s world. We are all so rebellious against change, but it will do us no good –– things do change, magic among them. And it’s guys like Steranko that make the changes.

In conclusion, let me quote some Steranko-isms: “There is too much complacency in close-up techniques.”

“Why should anyone who calls himself a card-man use the first double-lift (or any other move) he learned years ago, no matter how

The Unknown Steranko!

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At the beginning of this article I wrote that the legend of Jim Steranko is “a wonderful story, and true, as far as it goes.” How true is a point of contention with Mr. Steranko.

The generally accepted story of Jim’s early career (as discussed in the beginning of this article) has him approaching Marvel in 1965, getting rejected, then selling work to both Harvey and Marvel a year later.

Upon completing this piece, I emailed Jim a copy and was delighted to receive a reply from him the same day. He was gracious, but quick to dispute the record on some points –– particularly on the fact that he had been rejected at Marvel in 1965. Jim wrote:

“I’ve confronted Roy [Thomas] numerous times about being rejected

by Marvel in 1965. IT’S BOGUS! There was no rebound to Simon. It’s a fabrication that even appears on Wikipedia, but it simply NEVER happened. I had no comics portfolio in 1965 or, for that matter, even afterward.”

Strange Board-Fellows!

(Left:) A typical page from the Vince Colletta studios, from Charlton’s Teen-Age Love #4 (July 1958). Vince and his assistants chunked out tons of these for Charlton and other companies. (Right:) Matt Baker drew this cover to St. John’s True Love Pictorial #7 in 1954. In 1957 a teenaged Steranko briefly worked in Vince’s studio with Baker and Colletta. Steranko says that Colletta was “a straight-up guy.” [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

Sleight-ly Steranko (Left:) Steranko teaches slight of hand. (Above:) Cover to Steranko’s World of Escapes. [©2012 Jim Steranko.]

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The Early Career Of A Legendary Artist—& Magician

Roy and others may have conflicting memories, but I wanted to make sure that Jim had his comments on the record.

[A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: Roy regrets it if he has misremembered events of 1965. All he truly recalls now is Jim coming up to the Marvel offices in 1966 with Secret Agent X.]

Jim’s character, Super Agent X, fits into all this, too. Harvey editor Joe Simon had a financial dispute with Jim concerning characters Steranko had developed for their super-hero line.

Angry, he took his friend Wally Wood’s recommendation to try Tower Comics. Jim tells how editor Harry Shorten was so impressed he asked Steranko to write and draw his own 52-page super-hero comic—Super Agent X.

But according to Steranko, when editor Samm Schwartz saw Jim’s pencils he objected to the shape of a female character’s nose.

Steranko refused to change it, words were exchanged, and the artist stormed out. Steranko adds: “The nose their derisive art director wanted changed belonged to Kim Novak, after whom I modeled the character. Some days I still regret not bitch-slapping Schwartz.”

According to Vanguard’s Steranko Arte Noir book, Jim was then offered work as a cover artist at Archie and as a writer at DC. Instead he took Super Agent X to Paramount’s TV animation division, where he was signed to develop it as a cartoon series.

The series never aired, but on his way back from Paramount he stopped by Marvel, where he met with Stan Lee. And the rest, though sometimes disputed, is comic book history.

Till next time…

Casper Meets Steranko!

Someone was a fan at Jim’s old Harvey Comics stomping grounds! From Spooky #126 (Sept. 1971). [©2012 Harvey Comics.]

A Rose By Any Other Name…

(Above:) Steranko designed “Sorcerer” for Harvey comics. The feature was renamed “Magicmaster” when the story appeared in Double-Dare Adventures #1 (Dec. 1966). (Below:) Jim and Super Agent X from Castle of Frankenstein #11 in 1967. [©2012 Harvey Comics and Jim Steranko.]

The Comic Fandom Archive presents…

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The “50 Years Of Comic Book Fandom” Panel —Part II More From The Celebration at Comic-Con International 2011, San Diego

ere’s the second part of A/E’s transcript of this panel which occurred in San Diego, California, on July 23rd, 2011, earlier on the same day as the Fandom Reunion Party we highlighted in issues #108-109 as part of our multi-issue coverage of the wonderful “50th Anniversary of Fandom” events at Comic-Con. (This is installment #6, if you’re keeping track.)

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MARK EVANIER: All right, let me ask everyone here: to what extent did you find being involved with comic fandom supplemented your real, your regular life?

MAGGIE THOMPSON: In my particular case, I grew up basically in science-fiction fandom. There’s an anecdote involving a major, wonderful writer, a science-fiction fan named Walt Willis. He spoke of overhearing his daughter, I believe it was, being visited by some fellow children, and the other kids said, “What are all those on the table?” Her response was, “Those are fanzines, silly.”

That was the world in which I grew up. Yes, [fandom] was an alternate universe, but I grew up surrounded by it my entire life, and I always thought it was more important than the people I knew in school, because fanzines were [written by grownups]. I was reading grownups writing about things I cared about, which included comics once in a while, though I was reading mostly about science-fiction. But yeah, these were the interesting people.

That was always the way it was for me.

EVANIER: When I got involved, I found science-fiction fandom was enormously hostile to comic book fandom. There was this notion, particularly in Los Angeles, that comics fandom was the little kids’ version, and they didn’t want science-fiction fandom to be tainted by comic books and comics fandom. Did anybody encounter that sentiment?

Last issue, panel moderator Mark Evanier welcomed the convention’s Special Guests—Jean Bails, Roy Thomas, Maggie Thompson, Richard Kyle, Dick Lupoff, Pat Lupoff, and Bill Schelly—and got the ball rolling.

We thank Brian K. Morris for his transcription of this panel discussion, which has been edited slightly both for length, and because some parts were indistinct on the tape. —Bill Schelly.

The Dais Of Our Lives On the dais, left to right: Moderator Mark Evanier (longtime comics and TV writer)… Maggie Thompson (publisher, with her late husband Don, of the fanzine Comic Art, which first appeared in April 1961)… Pat and Dick Lupoff (whose Xero debuted at the 1960 Science Fiction Worldcon)… Richard Kyle (early writer for comics fanzines and inventor of the terms “graphic story” and “graphic novel”)… Bill Schelly (author of The Golden Age of Comic Fandom, 1995)… Roy Thomas and Jean Bails (representing the fanzine Alter-Ego, first published in March of 1961). Yes, the late Jerry Bails’ wife is there, peeking out on the far right. Photo by Aaron Caplan.

1962 members of the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society came to Worldcon dressed as The Justice Society. Bjo Trimble talked John Trimble into coming as Sandman because it was the most outrageous costume in the world. You know, it’s like, what, the green jacket and the orange whatever and the brown hat and chem-gas mask, so that was cool. But the classic was Jack Harness, whom they talked into being Hawkman, and I have a photo An Audience With of the group. [NOTE: See A/E #106 for photos of some of the The Founders JSA costume contingent in 1962, including Hawkman. —Bill.]

This panel was held in a Fred Patten’s The Flash, but here’s Jack Harness. They had large room which filled up the Hawkman costume, but they hadn’t really worked out nicely. Many of the audience about the wings, so he had the wings, but they weren’t members, such as prolific suspended by the straps, and the idea was he’d hold the author Michelle Nolan wings like this. [extends arms upwards] Now you have to (right), showed up later that understand that the costume competition lasted for like, Saturday for the Fandom what, an hour? Two hours? And so slowly, slowly... [slowly Reunion party. (A/E #107 & lowers arms] the wings just sat there. And the only person 108 carried a cornucopia of photos from that memorable that Don overheard respond to that costume was, “Look! It’s event.) Photo by Aaron Henery Hawk!” [audience laughs]

THOMPSON: It just depended on who you talked to. There are the snobs who don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. I don’t care what generation it is. [audience applauds] Not only were Dick and Pat Lupoff as Captain and Mary Marvel a sensation at the Pittsburgh World Science Fiction Convention in 1960, but in

Caplan.

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Comic Fandom Archive

Taia, the elaborate costuming involved a suit, a turban, a red dress for me, a yellow belt, and a yellow thingie. We were looking for the effect—and man, I was cheap, and that was those days. Now, look at the costumes in the Hall of Fame!

Fifty Years After (Above:) Maggie Thompson signs an exceedingly rare copy of Comic Art #1 (April 1961) at the Fandom Reunion; that cover was depicted in A/E #110. Photo by Russ Maheras.

(Right:) The cover of 1966’s Comic Art #6, edited/published by Don & Maggie Thompson, featured the artwork of comic great Ed Wheelan, creator of Minute Movies. [Art ©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

EVANIER: Roy, did you indicate you have something to add?

ROY THOMAS: Well, I was thinking in terms of the fact that—and I think this is true for over half the people on this panel—when we grew up, we didn’t have fandom as a support. Basically, we’d have been happy if we’d been like Maggie and been born in sciencefiction fandom. We didn’t have that secret pen-pal life that Bill talked about. [NOTE: See Part 1 last issue. —Bill.] When I was a kid, friends of mine read comics. I remember one friend of mine trying to sneak out of my birthday party with a Wonder Woman comic that somebody else had given me. That’s the kind of friends I had. [audience laughs] I didn’t think people really saw me often with comics, and yet, whenever I go back to school [reunions], I’m always remembered as reading comic books. I must’ve had them sometime or another, but I never took them to school…. You could see that the entire world kind of looked down at the comics. When Alter-Ego came out, we got a letter [from Ted White] saying it was too “gosh-wow,” and to the extent that was true, it was maybe because we were trying to keep it sort of light… and not be real critical.

BILL SCHELLY: Another thing that came from science-fiction fandom was the Amateur Press Alliance. In fact, the person who named CAPA-alpha [the first comics apa] is here at the convention this year, Johnny Chambers. He was a member of FAPA, the venerable, long-running science-fiction amateur press alliance, and Johnny was the one who said, “Well, for comics, it should be ‘CAPA,’ with the ‘F’ which stood for fantasy being replaced by a ‘C’ for comics. So CAPA-alpha it was. That was just one more way that comic fandom took something from the earlier fandom and just adapted it to who we were. By the way, I think

There was always a kind of snobbishness, but even though I was never really a member of science-fiction fandom, I was always fascinated with it, because I liked science-fiction and I always saw the two as being together. We took some things from science-fiction fandom, [including] the term “fanzine” that eventually entered the language slowly over the years. We just kept bringing things in, a lot of attitudes and so forth. Jerry was never really interested in science-fiction fandom like other people on this panel are. Most of us were at least science-fiction fans of a sort.

DICK LUPOFF: Before we leave the costuming aspect of this, which we sort of branched off to, nobody’s said anything about a pair that I saw in an early science-fiction convention that just blew me away. None of the costumes were so elaborate; they were very nice, but they were so perfectly authentic and on-target. It was Ibis the Invincible and Princess Taia. Maybe Maggie can talk a little bit about that...? [NOTE: Ibis and Taia were played by Don and Maggie Thompson at this masquerade. See The All-Star Companion, Vol. 4. — Bill.]

THOMPSON: I would just mention that, of course, regardless of

Have A Cuppa CAPA When CAPA-alpha founder Jerry Bails decided to move on to new projects, Don and Maggie Thompson leaped into the breach to rescue the venerable apa (“amateur press alliance”). Their “first emergency issue” was K-a #21, above, which was mailed out in early July 1966. Cover by Maggie.

The “50 Years Of Comic Book Fandom” Panel—Part II

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both FAPA and CAPA-alpha are still around. I know CAPAalpha is.

EVANIER: Yeah. How many people in this room are veteran members of CAPA-alpha? [numerous audience members hold up hands, as do panelists Evanier, Thompson, Kyle, Schelly, and Thomas]

THOMPSON: Who were the second Central Mailers of CAPAalpha? [Maggie holds up her hand, since she and Don took over the CM position from Jerry Bails]

EVANIER: Let me ask each person on the panel: I want to know the first convention you ever attended, and if it was a science-fiction convention. You can also tell us the first fanzine that you ever published something in, the name of it and the year. All right? Shall we start with Jean? What was the first convention you ever went to?

JEAN BAILS: It would have been about 1967, and I was really wowed. I mean there was like almost a hundred people there. [laughs] EVANIER: Where was it?

BAILS: It was in Detroit. I remember Jerry was really, really excited, because he said, [excited] “There’s someone here from England. International!” [audience laughs]

EVANIER: And what was the first fanzine you ever contributed to?

BAILS: I didn’t contribute to any in a direct way. Um, no.

EVANIER: All right, Roy, what was the first fanzine you ever had work in?

THOMAS: That would be hard. [laughs] It was Alter-Ego #1.

The magazine was originally going to be called The JLA Kirby’s Helping (If Gloved) Hand Newsletter, and it expanded to Alter-Ego #1. [My] first Bill Schelly’s first fanzine was the oddly-named Super-Heroes Anonymous. The first convention was 1965, about three or four weeks after I’d issue debuted in Feb. 1965; depicted here is #2, which appeared in late April or moved to New York to join the [comics] field. Dave Kaler, with early May, despite a March cover date. The cover was taken from a sketch sent to whom I was temporarily living there on the Lower East Side, Ye Editor by a generous Jack Kirby, but was rather badly mangled in the stenciling was throwing what was really the second real convention. and printing process. The original pencil drawing is framed and graces a wall in There’d been that small one in 1964. This was ... what Bill the House of Hamster. [Captain America TM & ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.] [Schelly] called “the first full-service convention”…. I mean, we had the first panel, and I’m really proud of it. The first But the first convention—I only went to one major convention, panel ever at a comic book convention, really, was a writers panel. which was in 1973 New York. In Pittsburgh, where I grew up, we The panelists were Bill Finger, Gardner Fox, and Otto Binder. Mort had what we called the Mini-Pitt Con in 1967. We had about eight Weisinger came in while he was there, as an editor—he was also a people there. One of them was Jim Shooter, who lived in writer. Jerry Bails moderated— Pittsburgh; one of them was Bill Wilson, who published The Collector. Bill was thirteen at that time. There was a banquet that EVANIER: You had a panel I didn’t moderate? [audience laughs] was a wienie roast, and we just had a ball.

THOMAS: Yeah, well, we’d meet you out here. Then [at the 1965 But then in New York in 1973 was when I tried to get into the convention] we had a second panel with sort of everybody. I was New Talent Program at DC, and that was a farce. But one of the there to represent the fan point of view, and I was sitting next to interesting things about that convention, to me, was when Bob Jim Warren. We formed an instantaneous animosity. [audience Kane gave a speech. He was the big Guest of Honor of that laughs] And Gil Kane was sitting in the front row, and became so convention. And he came out and of course, “Here’s Bob Kane, the agitated, getting up and down [to make comments] that he was creator of Batman,” and so the huge applause. It was like this finally invited to join the panel. I met him that day. It was a very massive applause when he got up. Forty-five minutes later, he left nice convention. I went to the costume party as Plastic Man in a the stage and half the hall had left and there was a smattering of costume my aunt had made for me, wearing dark sunglasses and applause and coughing. [audience chuckles] He’d spent the whole so forth, and trying to stretch as far as I could. [audience laughs; that time saying how great and brilliant he was, and it was really photo was seen in A/E #107] embarrassing. And really, for the first time, you realized that—for me, anyway—some of my heroes had feet of clay.

EVANIER: Bill—first convention, first contribution to a fanzine.

SCHELLY: Yeah, well, no one would publish my stuff, so I became a publisher, and that’s where my first stuff saw print. That was the imaginatively titled magazine Super-Heroes Anonymous. I don’t know why I named it that, but it was the title and I wrote for that.

EVANIER: I was there. Bill is describing it accurately. And for the rest of the convention, people went around using the following phrase, “Hey, did you hear Bob ‘The Putz’ Kane?” [audience laughs] Richard, what was the first convention you ever went to, and what was the first

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fanzine? Was Xero was the first thing you ever contributed to?

KYLE: Yes, it was Xero. I knew what was going on in sciencefiction. I used to read a lot of the magazines, and was aware of the science-fiction fanzines. Some of them were extremely literate, which kind of let me out, because I left school at thirteen. Dick and Pat sent me the very first issue of Xero [in 1960].

There’s some reality to science-fiction fans looking down on comics fans, because if you think about it, most of the comics fans at the time were thirteen, fourteen years old, and most of the science-fiction fans were really grown adults. They were eighteen, nineteen…. [audience laughs] Also the science-fiction fanzines sometimes had some serious writing and criticism and things like that. The number of professional writers and publishers that came out of science-fiction is really remarkable. I could spend the next five minutes enumerating people that went on to become writers and publishers, like Fred Pohl as a writer and editor, and Donald Wollheim, who created his own paperback publishing company, just an incredible number. And artists came along, and everything, so it was really a complete world. It had very irritating people in it and had really terrific people. Some were interested in comics… but the extraordinary bloom of interest in comics in 1960 was different.

EVANIER: One of the topics I wanted to get to, if we have time here, was the vast number of people who, because of comic book fandom, became comic book writers, artists, editors and such. Roy? THOMAS: I’m here. [audience chuckles]

EVANIER: True or false: you never would have gotten into comics if not for fandom.

THOMAS: I doubt it. I was so unambitious and so unadventurous, I never would have moved to New York, although I did write my first [pro] story when I was still living in the St. Louis area, where I was doing Alter Ego. Because of Alter Ego, Charlton editor Pat Masulli contacted me—this was [not long] before Dick Giordano took over as editor—because he wanted to

find somebody to write stories for Son of Vulcan or Blue Beetle… and we were supposed to put [notices] in our magazines to tell people about it. I never put that in my mag. Of course, I only published every six months or so. I just wrote a story myself, to hell with everybody else. [NOTE: The info did appear in other fanzines. —Bill.] So I sold that first couple of stories, four bucks a page, you know, and that was a start. So maybe I would have ended up doing it with Charlton from there. But basically, yeah, it was true that a lot of people, writers and artists in those years— guys like Marv Wolfman—were interested in fandom first.

EVANIER: Were there people who were contributing stuff to Alter Ego or sending stuff in to fanzines at the time, and you thought, “Gee, why didn’t that guy become a real big comic book artist?”

THOMAS: Yeah. To some extent, Biljo White, who had kind of a nice Batman, Dick Tracy-ish style but who didn’t really want to push that kind of thing. I used a Biljo White page in The Invaders once. I named a character after him and had him captured by the Nazis, and I never remembered to release him. [audience laughs] Another guy we thought was good and maybe if he had pushed just the right way, he could have done it—that was Grass Green, who did eventually do some stories for Charlton, and I almost got him into doing a thing for Marvel. I did write a little feature for Not Brand Echh and had Ronn Foss draw it, which meant a lot to him. Those were three main people I think of [from the earliest days]... because they were really good artists. There was never anybody that got into comics from the fanzines that surprised me… where I thought, “Boy, this guy didn’t have the talent”….

There were some people, as Bill has written, who didn’t have quite the drive and maybe even luck, too. There’s a lot of luck involved.

If I hadn’t dropped a line to Jerry Bails, and done a couple of things here and there, I could have been a hostage during the Iranian crisis, because I would have gone into foreign relations or something.

EVANIER: When Warren lost Archie Goodwin, who was paying out $8 a page for comics, some of these fanzine guys had an opening. Certain people went the distance, and some just did a couple stories and couldn’t handle professional commitments or whatever it was they encountered, or, as Roy said, some didn’t have the drive, and they dropped out. One guy Richard Kyle mentioned was Bill Spicer. Bill had a pretty good career in publishing. He was an editor at Western Publishing for a while. He was also their house letterer for a long time; he lettered a lot of comics. He was a really knowledgeable guy and he parlayed it into a professional career, much like a lot of people who are now—

The Birds And The Bats Russell Myers’ cover to the 1973 Comic Art Convention program parodied the Vampirella cover that had led off the prior year’s booklet.

Inside, a profile of Guest of Honor Bob Kane was accompanied by a nice inked drawing in the style of the early Batman. [Broomhilda art ©2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc.; Batman TM & ©2012 DC Comics.]

You know, last night, Roy was accepting a Hall of Fame award. [applause] I find it fascinating that Roy is 70 years old, I’m going to be 60 next year. I don’t believe either of us are those ages. I met Roy in 1969, I still think of him as that same guy. I’m the same guy who went up to the Marvel offices in 1970, and I feel like nobody else has changed. And yet all of a sudden, we’re becoming the elder statesmen of this business, which is scary. Last night someone shook my hand, and said, “I just want to shake the hand that shook Jack Kirby’s hand.” [Evanier notices David Siegel in the audience raising his hand.] We only have a couple more minutes here. Dave, have you a question?

DAVE: Yeah, I was kind of curious about one thing.

What was the reaction to The Adventures of Superman TV show with George Reeves in science-fiction

The “50 Years Of Comic Book Fandom” Panel—Part II

61

The Golden Age Of Comic Phantom Art by three of the best-loved (and most talented) artists of very early comics fandom.

(From top to bottom:) Biljo White was perhaps best known for his fanzine Batmania and for his artwork in Alter Ego [V1] #7-9, but he also published a ditto fanzine called Komix Illustrated, as witness his solid Phantom cover for KI #9 (March 1963). [Phantom TM & ©2012 King Features Syndicate, Inc.] Few fan-artists used the ditto process with the panache of Ronn Foss, whose Captain America and Bucky illo appeared in Bob Greene’s little-known fanzine Rapport II. Foss was an amateur artist who might have gone pro, but didn’t have the drive or the desire to live in or close to New York City. [Captain America & Bucky TM & ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Richard “Grass” Green made a big splash in early fandom with his “Xal-Kor, the Human Cat” strips in Star-Studded Comics, but did only a little work in professional comics. His talent was undeniable, as was his popularity in fandom. [Human Cat art ©2012 estate of Richard Green.]

EVANIER: Unfortunately, we’re out of time. I’d like you to join me in thanking Maggie Thompson, Dick and Pat Lupoff, Richard Kyle .... [drowned out by audience applause]

fandom?

DICK LUPOFF: I don’t remember them writing anything about it, but it wasn’t regarded as being too darned exceptional.

THOMPSON: Well, to some extent, there was the knowledge that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster had started in science-fiction fandom ... so I’m sure there were comments in assortments of fanzines that are now gone in which they referred to it in one way or another.

DICK LUPOFF: In fact, Jerry and Joe were fanzine publishers.

THOMPSON: Yes, exactly. “The Reign of the Super-Man” was a famous story.

DICK LUPOFF: Yes, but also, we should mention that there was coverage in some of the science-fiction fanzines as early as the late 1930s and 1940s about specifically committed science-fiction comic strips. I remember there was one long essay in a FAPA zine comparing Brick Bradford, Buck Rogers, and Flash Gordon, and the virtues and shortcomings of each of those three strips. This was in the context of “this is science-fiction in a slightly different form.” It was not in the context that comics are, themselves, a topic of interest.

SCHELLY: As a footnote on Superman in the 1950s, there was probably the first fanzine ever devoted to a single comic book character, called The Story of Superman, in 1952. It was published by Ted White. Admittedly, it had a circulation of 35 copies, but the point is that there were people giving attention to Superman in the fanzines of that era.

THOMPSON: Robert Bloch did a hilarious science-fiction short story in Fantastic Universe about how, many centuries from now, fandom will be the origin of everything that’s important in the world. And the last line of that story was, “It is a proud and lonely thing to be a fan.”

NOTE: By special request of A/E’s editor, a near-future issue will showcase the Bill Schelly panel at the 2011 convention; unfortunately, a special Alter Ego panel thereat does not seem to have been recorded.

In A/E #115, we will have the great pleasure of presenting a fascinating interview with the loquacious Richard Kyle, fanzine writer and publisher par excellence. We consider it, too, part of our coverage of Fandom’s 50th Birthday, as celebrated at Comic-Con International 2011 in San Diego.

After all, Richard was a Guest of Honor at the con, and now we’ll all get a chance to know him better.

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Schelly has done new research, and this book is ALL-NEW! Each person profiled has a photo, and the personal information is more in-depth than has appeared anywhere before. Includes EC Fandom!

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In Memoriam

63

Sheldon Moldoff (1920-2012)

by Mark Evanier

L

et me tell you some facts about a man named Sheldon Moldoff, who died Wednesday, March 3, 2012, at the age of 91 due to kidney failure.

• Shelly Moldoff was one of the artists who worked on the historic Action Comics #1 (1938). He didn’t work on the “Superman” debut material in that issue—he drew a sportscartoon page on the inside front cover—but he did have artwork in what some call the most important comic book ever published. And he was the last surviving person who did.

• Shelly Moldoff worked as an assistant and ghost artist to Bob Kane on the earliest “Batman” stories that appeared in Detective Comics, beginning in 1939.

• Shelly Moldoff drew the cover of Flash Comics #1 (1940), which introduced the original Flash to the world.

• Shelly Moldoff drew the cover of All-American Comics #16 (1940), which introduced the original Green Lantern to the world.

• Shelly Moldoff was the artist of the original “Hawkman” feature beginning with the character’s fourth appearance and continuing for several years.

• Shelly Moldoff was by some accounts the inventor of the horror comic book, having proposed the idea to EC Comics publisher William Gaines before Gaines came out with his own Tales from the Crypt.

• Shelly Moldoff was the ghost artist for Bob Kane on the “Batman” comic book stories and covers that Kane allegedly drew between 1953 and 1967. He also worked for DC Comics directly, often as an inker of covers on all their key titles, including the “Superman” books.

• Shelly Moldoff also worked for Kane as the main artist/designer of the animated TV series Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse.

• Shelly Moldoff was a very nice man and, as you can tell, a very important person in the history of the American comic book.

Sheldon “Shelly” Moldoff was born in New York City on April 14, 1920. A self-taught artist, he was encouraged in his work by comic book illustrator Bernard Baily,

who lived in the same apartment house as the Moldoff family. He Present At The Re-Creation was 17 when Sheldon Moldoff at a comics convention, holding his he broke into re-do of a Green Lantern cover—and (bottom left) professional a re-created image of his iconic cover for Batman #156 comic book (June 1963), from his website, which is still operated by his son. Photo courtesy of Michael Dunne. work, selling [Green Lantern & Batman TM & ©2012 DC Comics.] filler pages to Vincent Sullivan, the editor at Detective Comics, Inc. That page for Action Comics #1 may have been his first sale or publication, though there were others at about the same time.

Shelly was much in demand through the 1940s, working for DC on many strips. One of his favorites was one he created—“The Black Pirate,” featured in Action Comics. Moldoff was apparently Kane’s first assistant on “Batman” in 1939, then left and was replaced soon afterward by Jerry Robinson. In 1953 he returned and became Kane’s major “Batman” ghost. There is some dispute as to whether the editors at DC knew that Shelly Moldoff was the guy drawing all, or virtually all, of what Kane handed in. They definitely knew the work was ghosted, but Shelly told me they had no idea he was the ghost. He was also working for DC at the time, mainly as an inker. From time to time, they’d say, “Shelly, we have another Bob Kane story for you to ink,” and then they’d hand him a story he had penciled anonymously for Kane. Others who were around DC at the time have said, “Naw, everyone knew Kane’s work was being ghosted by Shelly.”

In 1967 Kane’s arrangement with DC was renegotiated. They gave him a lot of money and he no longer had to pretend to produce pages for them… which put Moldoff out of a job. At first, he had another gig—working on a TV cartoon show called Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse that Kane had sold—and he still had some assignments of his own from DC. But then the cartoon work dried up and some new management at DC decided his art was “old-fashioned,” and that ended. He worked on and off in advertising and animation after that.

Then came the comic convention circuit. In the 1980s, a Las Vegas cab driver/comics fan named Dave Siegel made contact with Shelly and arranged an invite to the Comic-Con International in San Diego. Shelly was swamped with admirers who wanted to meet him. Many wanted to purchase re-creations he did of his classic covers. I asked him once which one was most requested. He thought for a moment, then said, “Lately, anything with Bat-Mite on it.” Dave did a wonderful thing for Shelly Moldoff by getting him to conventions… and a wonderful thing for so many of us who enjoyed meeting him and getting to know the guy.

The above is an abridged and slightly edited version of Mark Evanier’s tribute to Moldoff that appeared on the former’s website, www.newsfromme.com.

64

In Memoriam

A Double Tribute For

Eduardo Barreto (1954-2011) “An Inspiration And Mentor For Younger Artists”

by Rodrigo Baeza

duardo Barreto, well-known Uruguayan comics artist, passed away on Dec. 15, 2011. He was only 57 years old.

E

Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1954, Barreto was primarily self-taught, though he did acknowledge the influence and early encouragement of Uruguayan comics artists such as José Rivera and Carlos Federici. Other artists he admired included Hal Foster, Warren Tufts, and Russ Manning; he cited the latter as “an absolutely definitive influence in my becoming a comic book artist.”

In 1971, at age 17, he went to work for El Día newspaper, for which he created strips for its supplement for children, El Día de los Niños. He also did illustration work for the newspaper and for advertising agencies, as well as comics work for other Uruguayan publications.

When he was 21, he started working for Argentina’s biggest comics publisher, Ediciones Columba, where he followed Horacio Altuna on the Kabul de Bengala strip and drew such series as Nippur de Lagash, Kayan, and Wolf, among others.

After a trip to the United States in 1979, he began doing finishes or inks on such Marvel titles as Marvel Team-Up and Battlestar Galactica, art for short stories for DC and Western, and Steel Sterling for Archie. Soon he was appearing regularly in Julius Schwartz-

edited titles such as Superman, Supergirl, and DC Comics Presents.

This led to his becoming the regular artist on one of DC’s bestselling titles, The New Teen Titans. In the late ’80s Barreto became the regular artist on DC’s The Shadow Strikes. This series was notable because it (along with 1989’s Lex Luthor: An Unauthorized Biography) marks the point where he began doing full artwork instead of leaving the inking to other hands, and also because of the way he captured the stories’ 1930s setting.

His ability to draw various locations and eras served him well during the 1990s, when he worked on comics for DC that featured super-heroes in period settings such as a steampunk 19th century inspired by the works of Jules Verne (Batman: Master of the Future, 1991), 1950s McCarthy-era America (Martian Manhunter: American Secrets, 1992), Prohibition-era Chicago (Batman: Scar of the Bat, 1996), and the American Civil War (Superman: A Nation Divided, 1999). He also worked for publishers such as Dark Horse (Aliens/Predator: The Deadliest of the Species, Star Wars: A New Hope), Tekno Comix (Mickey Spillane’s Mike Danger), and Marvel (the ongoing Marvel Knights series).

However, like many other freelancers of his generation, Barreto found it increasingly harder to get work from the bigger publishers after the 1990s bust of the speculator market and the dramatic reduction of the comics market that followed. He turned to independent publishers, where he could do work that may have paid less but was more suited to his artistic strengths, such as the graphic novels Union Station (2003) and The Long Haul (2005), and the mini-series Cobb: Off the Leash (2006).

Also in 2006, he started drawing the Judge Parker daily strip. He enjoyed the assignment, because he felt he was reaching a wider audience than the one served by the super-hero comics, with which he’d become dissastified, largely due to their increasing self-referentiality and complexity that, in his opinion, drove away casual readers. Health problems related to meningitis, however, resulted in his departure from the strip in early 2010, and also postponed other comics projects for publishers in America, Europe, and his native Uruguay.

He returned to drawing comics in 2011, working with his son Diego Barreto on Boom Studios’ Irredeemable, and illustrating DC Retroactive: Superman The 1970s for DC. At the time he passed away, he had been slated to become the regular artist on the Sunday page of the Phantom comic strip. Various online tributes from friends and colleagues followed, pointing out the outstanding quality of his work, his Clash Of The Titans professionalism, and the role he served as inspiEduardo Barreto, as depicted by fellow ration and mentor for younger artists artist Michael Netzer—and Barreto’s cover in his native Uruguay. for The New Teen Titans #13 (Oct. 1985).

Inks by Romeo Tanghal. [Portrait ©2012 Michael Netzer; cover ©2012 DC Comics.]

In Memoriam

65

Eduardo Barreto: Remembered, Respected, And Loved

by Beau Smith duardo and I had been close friends for over 20 years. We were the same age, and even though we grew up thousands of miles apart and were from different countries, he was always like my brother. I mean that. Eduardo was like family to me, the kind you get lucky enough to choose.

E

I had always admired Eduardo’s artwork and storytelling. It began in the late 1970s when I saw his work and had to find more that he had done and The Bad And The Beautiful was going to do. Eduardo’s (Above:) Eduardo and his wife Carina. With thanks to talent was rare, in that he had all Beau Smith. the traditional storytelling (Right:) Barreto’s cover for the as-yet-unpublished Cobb: power of the legendary masters On the Border, which was written by Beau Smith. The that had come before, like Alex first Cobb series, however, was most definitely published.

Raymond, Joe Kubert, Hal [©2012 Estate of Eduardo Barreto.]

Foster, and Wally Wood, yet his art always continued to grow, adapt, and progress, taking the teachings of the past into the future. a place I had never imagined. Eduardo made a film of my story.

Eduardo also had a film director’s cinematic eye. If you look at His work as a whole was truly a gift from God that was shared his work, you’ll be able to see how he could take the reader’s eyes with us all. Eduardo himself as a man was a true gift from God. on a wonderful journey and unfurl a story with characters that one When you talked to Eduardo, he was always concerned about would invest in emotionally. Not many artists can do this. Eduardo your health, your life, and what you were doing. He never whined, could. His work on books such as The New Teen Titans and Atari complained, or shoved a bad mood on you. He was modest to a Force shot a surge of energy into both books and made the fault, he was generous to a fault. Those were his only faults. More characters step out of the printed page. of us should have those so-called failings.

Please don’t think I’m saying this because Eduardo was one of Being in the comic book business as a writer and a marketing my best friends. These are honest words that I would say even if he VP for the last 25 years, I can honestly say there are only a small and I had never met. His artistic talents speak for themselves. handful of artists that are Eduardo’s all-round artistic peers. His Just as Eduardo was a top professional with a brush and pen, he heroes were rugged, his women beautiful, his supporting was also A-list when it came to doing his work on time and going characters immortal, and his work honorable. the extra distance to make everyone connected with the job look A few years back at the San Diego Comic-Con, Eduardo, Chuck better.

Dixon, Graham Nolan, and I were all guests of a Dark Horse He first starting getting sick when we were working on Cobb: Comics party, high atop on the roof of a hotel. The four of us had Off the Leash at IDW Publishing. Instead of letting the pain double been mingling, networking, and drinking, when we finally settled him up and knuckle him down, Eduardo took the fight to his art out on the roof section overlooking San Diego. The stories flowed, and produced possibly the finest work of his career. I was never so as did the beer. Wonderful stories about the comic book business, honored as when Eduardo told me that working on Cobb and the our childhoods, and all the pop culture that we admired and story was his favorite work of all. It brought tears to my eyes then shared interest in. We spoke of the Old West, history, and of course, and it does to this day. For a talented man like Eduardo, with an beautiful women, but it was Eduardo who, while on the subject of amazing landscape of work like his, to tell me that a story of mine women, had these words that rung most true. He simply smiled, was his favorite… well, it’s career-making for me, an honor I raised his beer, and said: “My friends, there is beauty in every cannot put into words. (Rarely do words not spew out of my everwoman.” moving mouth.)

I will miss my friend, Eduardo Barreto, very much. I loved him When we worked on Cobb, we truly discovered that we were of as a brother. I wish you had had the chance to know him as I did. the same creative mind. I was amazed each time Eduardo would turn in pages; it was like he was able to reach into my mind and Beau Smith is a comics writer and columnist best known for pull the images out and transfer them to paper. He added his own his work for DC, Image, and IDW. layers of character and creativity to the story to take my dreams to

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IN OCTOBER, OUR

67

ently still producing for Fox seven months later. Suppose that Fox merely told the guys that he couldn’t pay them at the time because of the lawsuit and that he would eventually come through. $3000 isn’t really beyond possibility; at $15 a page that’s about three issues. Suppose they stopped working for Fox because the float became too big, and it was when they stopped working for Fox that he stiffed them for the money. This is how he operated with others; he kept getting further behind on his payments until they got fed up and stopped, and then he didn’t pay what he owed. So maybe Fox did stiff them, but it wasn’t necessarily because of the trial or exactly at the time of the trial.

There are two other points I found interesting in the transcript that I’m surprised that Quattro didn’t point out.

The first is that [Harry] Donenfeld was taking a cruise and a vacation over a month long that included stays in Havana and Miami. At that time, that was really luxury stuff. Working folks were lucky to get one week paid vacation. Ship cruises, which are cheap today, were incredibly expensive, and travel of any sort for pleasure was only for the very wealthy. It was what the very wealthy did in movies. Even knowing that Donenfeld was doing well with all his magazine enterprises, it amazed me that he could afford both the time and money to take such a trip. Surely no other comics publisher at the time would take off more than a month at a clip! Imagine what [Jerry] Siegel must have been thinking when he heard of this cruise and contrasted it with his fights with Donenfeld about getting decent money for his creation.

ittingly, we begin the letters section with a “maskot” drawing based on figures from an issue of Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula done

by Gene Colan and Tom Palmer—as homaged by artist Shane Foley and colored by Randy Sargent. You’ve done it again, guys!

F

Now, on to coverage of A/E #101-102—starting with the former.

Certain correspondents—both pro and fan—appear in our “re:” section with such regularity that we virtually think of them as volunteer columnists. Case in point: John Benson, editor of the recent Fantagraphics book The Sincerest Form of Parody, an excellent annotated collection of stories and art from the color Mad imitators circa 1953-55 (which he’d earlier helped us cover in A/E #86 & 91). But then, we’ve always unabashedly admitted that our preference is for missives that add hard information to the knowledge heap—this time, about A/E #101, whose principal focus was the comics published by one Victor Fox:

Dear Roy,

I thought Ken Quattro’s presentation of the Wonder Man trial was really top-notch! Exactly the sort of informed, careful scholarship that should be in A/E. His background information and clarification really added to the basic testimony.

I was interested in his [questioning of] the oft-told story of Fox reneging on a $3000 debt to Eisner & Iger due to the trial. After reading the raw testimony on the web, I made the assumption that what had struck so strongly in Eisner’s memory over the years was that Fox did not pay them. That was about money, which is what Eisner would remember best. Why Fox didn’t pay was apparently a little hazier in his mind. Quattro makes good points to rebut this, but I still think it’s reasonable. Quattro notes that E & I were appar-

The other point of interest is that this contemporaneous testimony more or less validates the long-accepted tale about how “Superman” came to be published in Action Comics. In the transcript [M.C.] Gaines says that in January of 1938 he sent “Superman” over to [Jack] Liebowitz (mentioning that Donenfeld wasn’t around). In A/E #88, [Major Malcolm] Wheeler-Nicholson’s family tell a revisionist tale which makes “Superman” W-N’s baby, more or less leaving Max Gaines out of the picture. I didn’t read the whole issue, but that’s my recollection.

John Benson

Here’s the Wheeler-Nicholson family’s current take on things, courtesy of Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson Brown, who was instrumental in our detailed look at the Major and his accomplishments back in A/E #88: Dear Roy—

I looked at the Wonder Man transcripts again and I’m not surprised that the Major was not mentioned. His involvement in DC was not an issue at this trial. It would not have benefited the case for DC to bring him into it. The only person who might have benefited from bringing it up would have been Victor Fox, and I don’t know how much interaction Fox and MWN ever had. So far, I haven’t found anything. That’s something I’d love to track down, by the way.

Initially there had been some supposition that Victor Fox was working for Donenfeld as a bookkeeper or an accountant. If so, all I can say is “Yikes!” given his background. That alone makes for a good story. However, I talked it over with Gerard Jones, and there is a general feeling that Fox was not involved in that way. If anyone has any concrete, i.e., primary research material to prove anything one way or the other, I would be very interested. Thanks so much, as always. What would we all do without Alter Ego? And again, congratulations on your very well-deserved Eisner.

Nicky Brown

Thanks, Nicky. Your note made me realize I never got around to mentioning in the pages of A/E (although Mark Evanier does refer to it on page 60 of this very issue) that in 2011 I was proud to be inducted into

68

[correspondence, comments & corretions]

Check This Out!

the Will Eisner Hall of Fame.

Usually I’m fairly indifferent to awards that are voted on, even when Alter Ego itself won an Eisner in 2007… but I’ll admit this was one I was especially happy to receive. I’m in some fairly good company in that virtual “Hall,” from Siegel & Shuster and Jack Kirby and Stan Lee through Archie Goodwin and Steve Gerber.

Now on to a note from Dr. Thomas E. Inge, a scholar who over the past few decades has edited a number of outstanding academic works dealing with the comics field: Roy:

Since we reprinted the entirety of the single published “Wonder Man” story (albeit in black-&-white) back in A/E #48, the Will Eisner issue, here we’ll illustrate the plaintiff side of that 1939 trial: “Superman” creators Jerry Siegel (left) and Joe Shuster, in a nice design from the “Big Red S” website—plus front and back views of an historical artifact that’s been getting a lot of scrutiny lately: namely, the 1938 check from Detective Comics [DC] in which the lads (twice!) signed away all their rights in the Man of Tomorrow by selling that first story. The actual check was recently sold to Stephen Fishler of Metropolis Collectibles for $160,000. Most likely, the boys’ double signatures on the back are because, on the front, the company misspelled their names as “Seigel” and “Schuster”—so each of them wrote his name with two spellings on the back.

As you can see, the check covered a couple of other items besides that first “Superman” story, for which the grand sum of $130 out of the total of $412 was paid: $10 a page times 13 pages.

That was actually a pretty fair piece of change in 1938. As Rodrigo Baeza points out: “The check is dated March 7, 1938, but the stamp at bottom (dated April 6, 1939) shows that it was used as evidence during the Fox/Wonder Man trial.” Thanks to Mitchell Senft & Jim Amash for the check scans. [Superman symbol TM & ©2012 DC Comics.]

Ken Quattro’s article in Alter Ego #101, “Superman vs. The Wonder Man 1939,” is an amazing piece of research and reporting.

The way he has blended quotations from the court transcript with his own comments and annotations makes for an engaging and compelling narrative. He has provided more insight into the publishing practices of the time, as well as comic book history, than anything else I have read in a long time. Now I would like to see him do the same with that other trial of the century, Superman vs.

Captain Marvel.

I, too, remain firm in my respect for Will Eisner. He did what most young artists would have done to protect their meager livelihood, and he can be forgiven for misremembering what actually happened. He was a man of profound genius who shared his love of comics with the world by producing brilliant examples of the art form and teaching others how to create and appreciate them. His integrity and passion shine through the interviews collected in my book, Will Eisner: Conversation, which will be published in November [2011].

Tom (M. Thomas Inge) Blackwell Professor of Humanities Randolph-Macon College Ashland, VA 23005-5505

Glad that you and most other readers understood that neither Ken Quattro nor I was interested in trashing the late great Will Eisner. But a court record is a court record—and we only regret that it turned up a few years too late for Will to have his had chance to comment on it.

The other Fox-related highlight of A/E #101 was the reprinting, with a multitude of illustrations, of the early fan-study “The Education of Victor Fox.” Not only did virtually every reader who commented on it like it, but even our hardworking proofreader Rob Smentek lifted his squinting eyes from the proofs of the issue long enough to e-mail me about how well-written (and hilarious) he thought it was. And, as it happens, the article’s author, Richard Kyle, had a few words to say about the presentation of his early-1960s article, as well: Dear Roy,

Thank you for “[The Education of] Victor Fox.” The layout is impeccable, and the editorial remarks are truly appreciated. I

couldn’t ask for more. Thank you, too, for the check—a complete surprise. The best kind.

Ken Quattro’s “Superman vs. The Wonder Man,” the Jack Mendelsohn interview, Michael T. Gilbert’s piece on letterer Abe Kanegson, and Swayze, Beck, and the rest, make this a really exceptional issue.

The court records of the Fox-DC affair were great reading.

Classic farce. A clueless judge. All the litigants lying their hearts out or evading the facts or hiding the truth. Even a touch of Shakespeare with poor Siegel and (offstage) Shuster playing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Good summer theatre stuff.

As far as the origin of the comic book format, I tend to be on Max Gaines’ side. He spent a career thinking about comics, not just the paper and printing business. And in those days, only a few magazines were printed in the half-tabloid format. Standard dimensions for mainstream magazines were essentially the same as Alter Ego’s today, and although the difference was seemingly slight, 8½"x11" versus the half-tab’s 7"x9", it wasn’t seen that way by the public. Most such magazines were marginal at best. Light porno, I seem to remember. So, whether it was Gaines or [Harry] Wildenberg, it’s understandable that people in the printing business would see the discovery (or invention) as significant— especially since comics reprints had been a failure in other formats.

[In “The Education of Victor Fox”] I found a couple of typos:

On page 8, 2nd column, 3rd paragraph, 3rd line, a word has been dropped. It should read: “mystic as well as scientific powers….” This was in the Lupoff-mimeographed version [in Xero in 1962] but not in the original manuscript. I should have caught it before.

Then, on p. 10, 2nd column, 7th paragraph, first line, a word has again been left out. It should read: “For Wonderworld (aside from ‘Shorty Shortcake,’ which was not done in his usual style), he drew ‘Spark Stevens of the Navy.’” Again, this was in the Lupoffmimeographed version but not in the original manuscript.

The first typo doesn’t make much difference. However, the second obscures my belief that “Shorty Shortcake” had been ghosted by Klaus Nordling and that it was not his own strip. The examples here are inconclusive, but I think I was right. “Jerry Williams” was probably Jerry Iger, but given the multitude of

re:

house names at Fox, it seems likely Iger had originated “Shorty” and then dropped him somewhere along the way. My memory is that Iger (surprisingly enough) had a warmer style than Nordling.

Doubtless, some A/E reader will straighten this out.

[Re] “The Green Mask”: Will Gould, the writer/artist of the newspaper detective strip Red Barry, once said that Frehm had been his assistant in the ’30s and later had drawn for—a pitying shake of the head—comic books. Which explains the early “Green Mask.” Gould also said that Frehm was now doing Believe It or Not for syndication.

Regarding Wolverton’s dead-seriousness (see page 16), I don’t think he ever did anything dead-serious, thank heavens. For Basil Wolverton there was a touch of deranged humor even in the end of the world and even in “Spacehawk.” I think Dick Lupoff was confused about “seriousness.”

And a mistake of mine in the letters column of A/E #100: On p.

134, column 1, line 3, it should read: “‘Speed Silvers,’ about panel adventures of a ’30s streamline train,” strike the part about “not a human costume character.”

Richard Kyle

All minor glitches aside, Richard, it was an honor to reprint so worthwhile an article. Early on, “The Education of Victor Fox” raised the bar for writing articles about old comic books and their creators.

Now, a few brief comments on A/E #101 from some of the usual gang plus a few new faces, with my own comments, where given, printed in italics:

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Bob Hughes: “The earliest Fox comics are all printed by Phelps Publishing, 29 Worthington St., in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Beginning possibly with Science Comics #1 (#2 for sure), some titles are printed by Holyoke Publishing, 1 Appleton St., in Holyoke, MA. Green Mask and The Flame #1 in June 1940 are printed by Greater Buffalo Press in Buffalo, NY. By the time Fox went bankrupt, half his titles were at Phelps and the other half at Holyoke. Blue Beetle was at Phelps. Fox’s creditors were Phelps, Chemical Color, and Bulkley, Dunton, and Co. (paper). Yet Blue Beetle was the only title that continued at Holyoke. It looks to me like Fox somehow snuck Blue Beetle over to Holyoke to save it from being seized by Phelps, etc. He later used the profits from Blue Beetle to get the other titles back from his creditors (who didn’t do anything with them while they had them.) Plus he used World War II surrogates to get back into publishing in 1944 (using inventory material?). Why do V-Man and Puppeteer wear the same costume?

What kind of a stupid name is The Puppeteer, anyway? Who did all those funny-animal comics Fox put out in 1944-45? Questions, questions, questions….” And we hope they’re all answered, Bob, when you or some other researcher finally gets around to producing a definitive study of Holyoke! The pages of Alter Ego are always open….

Steven Rowe [begins his cyber-missive with a quote from Richard Kyle’s 1962 article on Victor Fox]: “‘By the third issue, Wonder Comics had vanished, replaced by Wonderworld Comics. The judge hadn’t decreed a name change for the mag, but maybe Fox just wanted to forget all about Wonder Comics.’ No, there’s a separate story behind that. The UK science-fiction fanzine New Worlds #3 (May 1939) [you can Google it] runs a US sf news section from Jimmy Taurasi, where he reports that ‘[Thrilling] Wonder is to sue Wonder Comics for plagiarism of a registered title.’ Thus Fox appears to have found changing the title much easier than going to court twice. (This info through the courtesy of Rob Hansen.)” Steve later wrote us that the Thrilling pulp group, which would soon launch the Nedor/Standard comics line, apparently had registered the trademark to the name “Wonder Comics” by 1939. And of course, as covered in the previous issue of A/E, Nedor did launch a comics series of that title, though not till 1944. We forwarded Steven’s e-mails to:

Hames Ware: “I think the artist on ‘Typhon’ on page 20 is Dan Gormley. Ken Quattro’s article on Fox is simply one of the finest, best-researched articles on comics history I have ever had the pleasure of reading. If only all the books purporting to be ‘histories’ that are pouring forth rose to Ken’s level of documentation, excellent reliable sources, credited and obviously appreciated, comics history, and history in general, would be the better for it. It was so thorough that I can only think to add one more possible link to all the myriad internecine connections scattered through his overview, and that is speculation: that even one of the lawyers in the DC vs.

Fox trial may himself have wound up on a comic book publisher listing. I am thinking of Samuel Fried possibly being the ‘S.J. Fried’ who was listed, along with ‘Uncle’ Joe Hardie, Raymond Kelly, and the ubiquitous Warren A. Angel during the Centaur years. Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., and I are hoping to do our part to clear the mists from comics’ earliest days by going back to the beginnings and trying to sort out all the players, publishers, artists, earliest shops and studios, et al.

Give A Man Enough Grope, And He’ll Hang Himself If anyone out there has some This splash panel from Blue Beetle #57 (July 1948) demonstrates why Victor clear scans of Wheeler-Nicholson Fox’s comics line was a favorite whipping-boy of Dr. Fredric Wertham and features, we’d sure like to hear his ilk during the campaign against comics. Not only is the gal rendered in from them!” You’re not the only a cheesecakey fashion—but the Beetle looks like he has roamin’ hands, to one who’s interested, Hames; see the boot! Scripter unknown; art credited to Robert Webb & the Jerry Iger shop. very next excerpted e-mail: Thanks to Henry Andrews. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

Ken Quattro [who replied]: “Thanks! I was unaware of such a lawsuit, but I’m not surprised.

Victor Fox was used to being sued.” Also, in response to my mentioning to him a tale told by Joe Simon that Fox had a British accent, Ken responded: “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before. And honestly, unless it was an affectation, I doubt it.”

Jeff Taylor: “The fascinating Fantagraphics book Supermen!

The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941 reprints a black-&-white ad for Mystery Men Comics #1 (originally the inside cover of Wonderworld #7, Nov. 1939?), and oddly, while Blue Beetle and Rex Dexter of Mars are written up in the accompanying text, there is no mention of The Green Mask, even though it is obviously him on the cover. Instead, the text

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speaks of ‘THE MYSTERY MAN—a startling new character who will become the greatest figure in comics.’ Could that, in fact, be what The Green Mask was originally going to be called? I mean, the final printed color cover of Mystery Men Comics #1 does show him wearing a dark blue mask instead of his signature green one (something I’d assumed for years had merely been a mistake), and the accompanying blurb only identifies him as ‘a strange figure.’ Indeed, it would have made sense for Fox to have had a character called Mystery Man in the book, and I wonder why at the last minute he appears to have changed his mind.” It’s a mystery, for sure, Jeff—but we suspect you may well be right in thinking that The Green Mask’s name was originally to have been The Mystery Man.

[correspondence, comments & corretions]

And artist/writer/Toby editor Mell Lazarus soon verified: “Yes, U.S. Crime was one of the magazines published at Toby Press when I was there.”

Ger himself adds: “[Jack Mendelsohn] stated that he found the three pages in a drawer. Toby Press was run by Al Capp’s brother [Elliot Caplan], who later, in the early ’60s, also tried his hand at a comic strip called Kermit the Hermit with Kurtzman. It remained unsold and will feature in an upcoming book on Kurtzman’s unsold newspaper strip efforts. By the way, Mendelsohn has a website now, with news and articles: www.jackmendelsohn.com”

Lou Kanegson: [sent to Michael T. Gilbert] “I thought your follow-through on the story of my brother Abe was particularly well done—and I learned a lot on two fronts: Abe’s work in the comics field, and more about the ever-fascinating history of comic strips in America.”

Cartoonist Jack Mendelsohn, who was interviewed in A/E #101102, wrote the following e-mail response to Dutch fan/A/E contributor Ger Apeldoorn about #96’s Mell Lazarus interview—and Dave Reeder: “The mystery both e-mails were forwarded to us panel on contents page is from

by Jim Amash, just to make things Thrilling Comics #10.” Thanks, Crimes and Misdemeanors truly convoluted: “To clear up Dave. Since we printed other art Courtesy of Ger Apeldoorn, this is one of the Harvey Kurtzman “wash” some of the confusion: Maybe it also from the “Woman in Red” cartoon pages talked about by Jack Mendelsohn, Glenn Bray, and Ger wasn’t [the comic strip] Miss story in that issue, I should’ve himself elsewhere on this page. It apparently appeared in a 1952 issue of the Peach that Mell had just sold, but figured that out! magazine U.S. Crime. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.] rather Momma. I couldn’t say for Dave Alexander: “I saw Alter sure—better check with Mell.

Ego #101 at a Barnes & Noble in Valparaiso, Indiana. Know what I My time with Toby Press was short-lived; I edited a small monthly did? I bought it! It was so refreshing to see this vital magazine of mag for them titled The Most—consisting of scores of gag cartoons popular culture where it should be—on a regular newsstand.” (submissions already passed on by all the major mags) bought for Unfortunately, distribution through Barnes & Noble Bookstores was about 5 bucks apiece. Due to mailing laws in force at that time, I a, er, noble experiment that didn’t quite pan out. When B&N’s economic was also required to include 3 or 4 pages of pure text along with problems came to the fore recently, the company cut back severely on the the cartoons. The magazine died a quiet death after a few issues, as number of copies they ordered for their stores, even though there was a did another Toby Press publication: a mag that tried to compete “returns” policy in place… so TwoMorrows had to call a halt to its mags with the hot-selling TV Guide at the time. I had very little to do appearing in B&N outlets. Perhaps at some time in the future…. with the Li’l Abner comic book of reprints, but I do remember Next, here are some comments re A/E #102: seeing the [Harvey] Kurtzman cartoon; I believe it was part of his continuing “Hey Look!” series. It was 3 pages rendered in black Hi Roy— ink plus various shades of gray goache (guashe?). And it was The thing about A/E that gets me is that every issue has gorgeous! It was obviously bought by Toby Press (maybe even by something in it I did not know before! The Green Lantern/Alfred Mell himself) for one of their publications. Hope this has been of Bester details and Mart Nodell “Green Lantern” tryout pages stood some help.” out for me [in #102], as did the details (with incredible clarity) of Jack’s comment was forwarded by Ger to Glenn Bray, editor of the Jack Mendelsohn’s work in comics and elsewhere. I can support seminal Harvey Kurtzman Index, who responded: “I know exactly his statement about Carol Burnett being “too nice for show what Jack Mendelsohn is talking about. But he is confused saying business,” for on January 9, 1996, during a raging blizzard in NYC it was a 3-page strip, because he sold me the only 3 pages of (the second biggest snowstorm ever!), she put on an outstanding original art he had from it. It was the U.S. Crime magazine performance in Moon over Buffalo on Broadway and came out to (published by US Crime Pub., possibly an alias for Toby Press?), in thank the audience of maybe 75 people for coming out. She could 1952. Somehow I met JM in the early/mid-1970s and visited him at easily have cancelled the show, but… what a great lady! his place. I bought the 3 pages later, only to find the magazine and By the way, writer Alfred Bester, famed science-fiction author discover the last page was missing.” of such classics as The Stars My Destination (or Tiger! Tiger! if you

re:

are inclined to think British), was also the writer for Lee Falk’s The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician during Falk’s WWII uniform service. Considering The Phantom is one of the forerunners of the costumed super-hero, this is fitting, indeed.

The Shel Dorf interview with the Nodells is undated, but Shel states (on p. 20) that it is Saturday, March 26th, which means it was either 1983, 1988, or 1994 (because David Anthony Kraft’s Comics Interview [its original intended market] ran from 1983-95). Given that the interview was not used, I suspect 1994 is the correct date.

Inference, yes, but probably good inference.

Finally, the Jackys Diary on p. 37 is dated 1960 (if you squint).

Christopher B. Boyko

Thanks for those considerable kernels of information, Chris. Now, we come to an e-mail from Jeremy Korr, which he asked me to forward to Michael T. Gilbert (so I did, and they’ve been happily communicating ever since): Hello Michael,

Your two-part series on Abe Kanegson was very exciting, because I’ve been working from the other end (the square dance world) since 2009 to track down the same story. Jules Feiffer learned from a friend and me in September 2010 [as you reported] about Abe’s background in square dance, as part of our own research effort.

I’m a square dance and contra dance caller, and an avid comics and Eisner fan, in the L.A. suburbs. I had noticed the recurrence of Abe’s name in both contexts enough times that by 2008 I enlisted a fellow caller and dance historian David Millstone of New Hampshire to help me find if they were the same Abe Kanegson. Like you, I had a number of Kanegson references in the comics world and a number of dance references, but nothing connecting the two. In January 2009, an 85-year-old dance historian who’d worked with Abe found, and showed David and me, several photos from the 1950s from the New England Folk Festival of Abe performing and being surrounded by groups of singing children, though we don’t have copies of them. He also shared with us private diaries of Abe’s on-again/off-again girlfriend in the mid-1950s, a square dance caller herself. From those diaries and other dance-related materials I had turned up, I developed a decent sense of Abe’s non-comics life—and both sources do reference Abe’s artistic ability, though they fall short of talking about his actual professional accomplishments.

Jeremy Korr

One of these days, Jeremy, I suspect Michael will do a follow-up “Comic Crypt” that will incorporate the things he’s learned since the eventually six-part Kanegson coverage came out. But who’d ever have thought there would be such an intimate connection between comics’ legendary Spirit Sections and do-se-doing?

Next up, a few brief quips re #102:

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thought that in essence Kane made Hogarth’s pedagogical approach into a viable, personal, and expressive style…. I’d also like to congratulate Michael T. Gilbert on his Abe Kanegson articles. As part of A/E’s, especially Jim Amash’s, admirable campaign to rediscover many ‘forgotten’ or under-recognized artists and authors, I would like to see discovery and appreciation of the highly creative letterers who were also true artists. I myself have been trying to research Howard Ferguson, the great African American letterer for Simon & Kirby. Roy, could you please suggest to your readers that, if anyone has any information on Ferguson, please contact me through my website (www.markstaffbrandl.com) or Facebook—or write their own article about him!”

Will Meugniot: “On page 13 of #102 you printed a Gil Kane animation presentation drawing but didn’t know its source. This is Gil’s version of Ted Turner’s Captain Planet. [In the 1980s] Gil did design work for Ruby-Spears, who briefly had the show but were aced out in the final negotiations by DIC. When DIC got Captain Planet, I was assigned to produce and direct it. I was shown the Ruby-Spears material but was instructed to take the design in a different direction. I designed what has become the Planet costume, and Neal Adams designed the final face. Gil did a lot of great art for the animation studios. He started doing models at Marvel on G.I. Joe, but wanted to do storyboards. His first board work was brilliant right off the bat. Unlike [Jack] Kirby, Gil got right away that doing boards was different from comics, and asked for help from those of us who’d come from comics and learned the craft. His storyboard art looked a lot like his Star Hawks strips. In the end, Gil preferred doing designs and presentation art to storyboards, and ended up at Ruby-Spears doing tons of development art, like the Planet piece.”

Robert R. Barrett: “While perusing A/E #102, I noticed on page 16 of Part 2 of the Jack Mendelsohn interview, with the scan from Four Color #355, Francis the Talking Mule, that you had noted that the artist was unknown. Not so! This issue was illustrated by the great Dan Noonan, who drew so many wonderful pages in Dell’s Animal Comics, as well as several other titles.” (Incidentally, Gary F. Brown, co-editor with Alan Hutchinson of the ongoing Four-Color Four Color Index series that runs in the apazine CAPA-alpha, also sent in the identity of the artist of the first Francis comic.)

Jake Oster: “I enjoyed Shaun Clancy’s unexpectedly informative interview with Betty Tokar Jankovich. I believe the nonexistent location of ‘Birch Amwood’ supposedly mentioned by Ms. Tokar on page 48 is actually ‘Perth Amboy.’ Yes, the very same previ-

Mark Staff Brandl: “A/E #102 is another joy to read. I have long been a fan of Gil Kane’s, especially the second part of his career when he came into his own unique style. The “Green” Jobs additional Nodell and Green Lantern info was also A late-1980s photo of “Green enjoyable to read. One quick pedantic criticism: Mention Lantern” creator Mart Nodell, was made of Kane’s debt to George B. Bridgman, yet his in which he displays one of surname was misspelled, with an ‘e’ in the middle. his latest color drawings of Bridgman’s book can be purchased in a cheap Dover edition the Emerald Crusader.

Courtesy of his (as it is now in the public domain). It has, however, birthed granddaughter, Jacque an even more essential child in the book Dynamic Anatomy Nodell, who contributed so

by Burne Hogarth. Hogarth was a close friend and philomuch to the coverage of Mart sophical discussion partner of Gil Kane’s, and I have always & Carrie Nodell in A/E #102.

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[correspondence, comments & corretions]

the first name of Harry. See www.pulpartists.com, the Pulp Artists website maintained by David Saunders, son of [pulp cover artist] Norman Saunders, for more information.”

Larry Rippee: “I really enjoyed Bill Schelly’s interview with fanartist Rudi Franke. I can add a couple of tidbits of information to Franke’s recollection of that second meeting of the Northern California Comic Collectors in 1966. My comic-collecting buddy Hector Tellez and I attended that gathering in Mike Friedrich’s garage in Castro Valley. Franke recalls that Bill Dubay had invited [a comics pro] who lived in the Bay Area: ‘Maybe he worked for Treasure Chest or Catholic Comics.’ That guest’s name was Tony Chikes, a local cartoonist/illustrator who at the time was drawing for the Treasure Chest comic book. He talked mostly about the trials and frustrations of being a freelancer. Most surprisingly, I recall he asserted that he had turned down a chance to draw for Marvel.

(He was put off by the ‘Marvel method’ of illustrating a story without a script.)” Tony Chikes should’ve stuck around for a few decades, Larry. Marvel no longer uses that system inaugurated by Stan Lee and later followed for some years by the rest of us… and which perhaps produced some comics even nearly as good as today’s.

Send your comment and critiques to:

Get Plenty Of Greens!

Seen above are panels from the final page of “Our Mastermind the Car” in Green Lantern #52 (April 1967), a tale of two GLs. It’s reprinted in the recent hardcover Green Lantern Archives, Vol. 7, but our scan comes from a real-life comic book owned by Bob Bailey. Script by John Broome; art by Gil Kane & Sid Greene. [©2012 DC Comics.]

ously mentioned Perth Amboy [New Jersey] where Mr. Jankovich became police commissioner. I presume this to be a transcription error from a sound recording. By the way, Dell artist H.L.V. Parkhurst, mentioned by Hames Ware on p. 71, did indeed have

Roy Thomas e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com 32 Bluebird Trail St. Matthews, SC 29135

OUR USUAL SPECIAL NOTE: Get advance news and informed discussion concerning features in Alter Ego in particular, and comics of yesteryear in general, at group.yahoo.com/group/alter-ego-fans/. If you have trouble getting on board, simply contact Web co-overseer Chet Cox at mormonyoyoman@gmail.com and he’ll walk you through it. Alter-Ego-Fans is where the Golden and Silver Ages still live!

#172 October 2012

Presenting:

A Special Tribute To

EMILIO SQUEGLIO (1927-2012)

This issue’s FCA is dedicated to Emilio Squeglio, who left us on March 12 of this year after a lingering illness. Emilio, who was a Fawcett Publications production artist in the late 1940s and early ’50s, primarily on the “Captain Marvel” titles, was memorialized by Jim Amash in Alter Ego #110 (June 2012), an issue whose cover Emilio had penciled for inking by his friend Joe Giella.

There were numerous other friends and colleagues, however, who wished to express admiration and affection for Emilio. We are pleased to give them—and ourselves—the opportunity to do so.

—PCH.

[2006 art on this page by Marc Swayze; colors by Randy Sargent; with thanks to Dominique Leonard. Shazam hero TM & ©2012 DC Comics.]

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A Fond Farewell To A Fawcett Friend EMILIO SQUEGLIO: 1927-2012 Compiled & Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

Superstar

helpful tip from former “Captain Marvel” artist Chic Stone led to Emilio Squeglio landing a job at Fawcett Publications’ comics department in 1947 at the age of 18, when he was fresh out of high school. Emilio remained with Fawcett for the next nine years. And, when the company folded its comics line, he shifted over to magazine design before leaving the publisher to become art director at American Artist magazine and embarking on a successful career as a prolific, highly sought-after book designer.

A

Jim Amash’s enlightening interview with Emilio in Alter Ego #41 (Oct. ’04) was followed up by three engaging, no-holds-barred Emilio encores in A/E #s 64, 65, & 91, in addition to providing several FCA covers in

Up, Up, And Shazam!

(Left:) Emilio Squeglio amid a lifetime’s worth of office memorabilia, in a photo taken by German fan Thorsten Bruemmel during a 2007 visit. See Thorsten’s account on p. 78.

(Right:) A beautifully graceful Captain Marvel commission drawn

by Emilio for Thorsten. Thanks to TB for the scan.

[Shazam hero TM & ©2012 DC Comics.]

between those issues.

While many might consider an obscure figure from the Golden Age of Comics to be nothing more than a minor footnote, I’ll always consider Emilio a true superstar in every sense of the word. Warm-hearted… open and honest… humble… helpful… kind… funny… positive… gracious… these are all words that described the man, and it is rare— especially in these times—to run across someone with such noble characteristics.

Chatting with Emilio over the phone was always a capti-

A Fond Farewell To A Fawcett Friend

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“A” Is For “Absolutely Beautiful”!

(Left:) Emilio and his beloved Model “A” Ford—his “dream car.” See Jim Amash’s account on p. 80.

(Below:) Naturally, Emilio wanted his artist-buddy John Romita to pose with the car, as well. Not that Jazzy Johnny seems to have minded!

vating adventure. With his faithful dog yelping in the background, he would routinely want to know how my family was doing and what I was planning for future FCAs. I’d sit back and listen to this wonderful teller of tales share with candor things about his life and career… the enduring friendships he formed at the School of Industrial Arts in Manhattan… the folks he loved working with at Fawcett… bringing first-hand recollections of the National vs.

Fawcett court trials… and his remarkable tales surrounding the 900+ books he designed and the prominent people whom he met along his journey.

As one of Alter Ego’s most passionate and enthusiastic supporters, he’d always offer me appraisals of each issue. (He wanted it on the record that he wasn’t the one who was hypnotized by comics editor Roy Ald at a Fawcett Christmas party!) Emilio would make me laugh at things like calling Uncle Marvel a “pain in the neck” and referring to Mr. Mind as “that damn bug!” He considered Fawcett “the epitome of what a business should be” and treasured his time with them.

I’m going to miss my lovable friend … now a superstar in the heavens.

—P.C. Hamerlinck (FCA Editor)

A World Of Friends

I met Emilio Squeglio when I entered the School of Industrial Art in Manhattan in 1944, my freshman year. He was a sophomore and we became friends immediately. That’s the way Emilio was: he made friends very easily, and kept them for life. Denied a Cartooning major (too few to make a class), I began studying Illustration while Emilio concentrated on Advertising. But we shared other classes and lunches, too, where we enjoyed fun times talking about comics and our dreams for the future. Many of our fellow students—Joe Giella, Al Scaduto, and Seymour Barry (all life-long friends)—went on to great careers in art. It was a heady time for study and play.

We drifted apart after graduation, all scrambling to get work in comics. Emilio quickly found a job as a production artist at Fawcett, mostly working on “Captain Marvel” stories. I was not as lucky. I got a job as an office boy at a lithography house, doing

Coca-Cola ads for three years. But like the others I mentioned earlier, I did get to live out the dreams I used to tell Emilio about during our lunch hours.

We lost touch for a long while. Luckily, we met in the subway one day, and it was if we had just seen each other yesterday. Emilio never let us drift away again. No matter how seldom I’d call him, he made sure to phone me, always cheering me up with his infectious humor, like the best friend he was.

When Fawcett quit publishing comics in 1953, Emilio began a career in magazine editing, then became one of the most soughtafter book designers in New York, winning several awards along the way. He made movie stars, illustrators, and world famous painters a large part of his world of friends. Emilio’s friends… a group we’re all proudly part of.

—John Romita (Artist: The Amazing Spider-Man, et al.)

Walk On Hot Coals

There’s a lot of things about Emilio that come to mind as I write this, so I’ll jot down a few random thoughts. For instance, Emilio knew I liked music, which was a large part of his life. He used to make DVDs and CDs of operas, country-western, classical, and Italian music, some of it very rare. We spent many hours discussing the nuances of the musical scores, usually comparing the works of different artists. Once in a while, we’d disagree on some points, but we’d do so without argument.

Whenever Emilio gave lectures to the Berndt Toast Gang (the Long Island Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society), he held our attention so raptly that you could hear a pin drop as he talked about working with Norman Rockwell, Salvador Dali, Norman Kent, Robert Fawcett, Vincent Price, and many other people. He was a wonderful storyteller, and we never tired of hearing about the great people he had known. Emilio did a lot of artwork for friends, always for free. He wanted to share his work with his pals.

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Fawcett Collectors Of America

It’s Always Fair Weather…

(Left:) Emilio and some of his pals. [L. to r.:] Emilio himself, Phantom artist Sy Barry, major inker (and now Mary Worth artist) Joe Giella, and Al Scaduto (artist of the newspaper panel They’ll Do It Every Time).

(Below:) From Emilio’s office—a quintych (if that’s a word) of drawings by Joe Giella (Batman), Emilio (Captain Marvel), Little Iodine (Al Scaduto), Spider-Man (John Romita), and The Phantom (Sy Barry). That’s a lot of talent displayed on that wall! Photo courtesy of Thorsten Bruemmel. [Characters TM & ©2012 the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Sometimes he would ask a few of us to do a piece of art for a friend of his, and no matter how busy we were, we never turned him down. Hey, most of us would walk on hot coals for Emilio, and be happy we were asked to do it.

He was a deeply religious man who believed in the power of prayer. There was a time when my granddaughter was sick.

While we were dealing with her problems, Emilio was constantly checking in, saying prayers for her speedy recovery. “Anything else I can do for you, Joey, just let me know. I’ll be there.”

The last time I saw Emilio, he was in the hospital, and not feeling well. I could tell his time was short. On the trip home, it occurred to me that I might not see him again. Unfortunately, that turned out to be true. My friend is gone now, but one day I’ll see him again, and we’ll have a lot of catching up to do.

—Joe Giella (Artist/inker, The Flash, et al.)

Appreciative Man

I was fortunate these last ten years to call Emilio a friend. I first met him at the Berndt Toast Gang meetings, which is a monthly meeting of Long Island cartoonists. Getting to meet many of my idols in cartooning was fantastic, but none more so than Emilio.

Besides being a great cartoonist, he was a great person and a good friend to all of us. Always thankful even for the smallest gesture, Emilio was a very appreciative man.

One particular event has always stuck out in my mind: every month at the meetings one of the members would get to feature their work. When it was Emilio’s turn, he asked if it was possible for me to film the display. I was more than happy to, and filmed the event, making him both a VHS and DVD copy. I did this thinking nothing of it; I was just helping out a friend. Imagine my surprise at the next month’s meeting when Emilio presented me with a large full-color Captain Marvel drawing that he drew as an expression of his gratitude. That piece of art is one of my most treasured possessions, not because it’s of one of my favorite comic book characters, but because it came from a friend who I will greatly miss.

—Stephen Oswald (Associate Editor/Production Manager of Archie Comics Publications)

Giving & Caring

To have had Emilio Squeglio as a friend, you were a very lucky man, and he was my friend.

Before I left the country during February and March of this year, I called Emilio. I knew how ill he was, but he had lots of plans for the future. He had plans to get back to painting again, and to drawing Captain Marvel. His voice was weak when we started our conversation, but after 45 minutes, he was raring to go. After wishing me a good time, he was looking forward to our seeing each other when I returned.

I have lots of memories that Emilio left me with, and I’ll miss the guy. He touched me in so many ways. He was very giving and very caring.

—Stan Goldberg (Artist: Archie, et al.)

Five Men In A Car

Al Scaduto finally convinced me to attend a monthly “Berndt Toast Gang” meeting. We all met at his house. When I arrived I met cartoonists whom I knew… Johnny Romita, Sy Barry, and Al, plus a guy who worked on Captain Marvel whom I had never met before: Emilio Squeglio.

Sy was the driver, so we all got into his car. Both Emilio and I

A Fond Farewell To A Fawcett Friend

77

got into the back seat with Johnny, and believe it or not, we almost fit! We talked non-stop all the way. Emilio led the conversation about growing up in an Italian family, and going to the School of Industrial Arts (S.I.A.). Everybody in the car was in the same class, except me. I was four years younger. The chatting never stopped, except for Sy—he was the only non-Italian—but we let him drive anyway.

The meeting at the restaurant was fun, especially when it was time for the platter of cookies to appear on every table. Everyone went for them! They told me they were very tasty, though I never got a chance to taste one. Emilio was the champ in cookie consumption.

On the return trip, the talk continued on the same topics… Italian family… and S.I.A. That’s how I first met Emilio. From that time on, there wasn’t a month that passed by that Emilio and I didn’t chat on the phone or in person. He showed me his paintings, the books he designed… and so we became friends.

He would always end our phone talks with a “God bless you.” God bless you, Emilio. I hope they are taking painting lessons from you up above!

—Tony Tallarico (Artist: Lobo, et al.)

Brothers

It was September of 1943 when I first met that zany and wonderful class of artists at The School of Industrial Art (now known as The School of Art and Design). Out of the entire class there were three guys that stood out in my memory, and with whom I was determined to strike up a friendship, and they were Joe Giella, Al Scaduto, and Emilio. Well, our meeting clicked immediately… and we have been friends ever since.

There were moments during all those years that I was somewhat negligent in keeping in touch, but it was Emilio who was the unifying force behind all of us. It was always he who was the communicator and inevitably arranged our gettogethers! Emilio would express his affection for the three of us by calling us his “Brothers.” He could not have bestowed a greater honor on us than that.

His kindness, sincerity, and unrestrained devotion to us will never be forgotten. I miss Emilio terribly, and I will never meet another such as he. I loved you as a brother too, Emilio.

—Sy Barry (Artist: The Phantom, et al.)

Captain Billy’s Whiz Shebang (Left & above:) Actor Michael Gray, who played Billy Batson on the 1970s Shazam! hit TV series—and the drawing of Billy and the wizard Shazam that Emilio did especially for him. Thanks to Michael, who is seen below on the show and in a photo taken by P.C. Hamerlinck at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. [Billy Batson & Shazam TM & ©2012 DC Comics.]

Billy Batson & Emilio

I consider it an honor that a man like Emilio, and someone with his background, told me that I was the best Billy Batson on television… even if I was the only Billy Batson on TV! Not only was he a very creative and talented artist, he had a wonderful sense of humor. I wish I’d had a chance to sit down and talk with him; it would

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have been a great experience. I will cherish the drawing that he did for me.

—Michael Gray (Actor: Shazam!, et al.)

Greetings From Germany

I made my first trip to the United States in February 2007. I had planned to go to the New York Comic Con and to visit several artists in New York and New Jersey area, including Joe Giella, Bob Lubbers, Mike Esposito, Dick Ayers, Joe Sinnott, George Tuska, and Emilio Squeglio. This was very exciting for me, because you don’t get the chance to meet these artists at their homes or at their studios every day. I only had three days for all my visits. This whole trip was dedicated to my hobby!

Emilio was working on a drawing of Captain Marvel when I came to his house. He told me that it was requested by a German fan. Being from Germany, I naturally asked him the name of the fan, who was someone very familiar to me! It was Michael, a good friend of mine and also a big collector of comic book art and sketches. What a coincidence! I took some pictures of Emilio working on Michael’s sketch! That was a big surprise for Michael when I returned back home! After that, Emilio showed me his house and all the artwork that was hanging on the walls. It was great to see all the originals and especially the color drawings that were done by Joe Giella (Batman), Emilio (Captain Marvel), Al Scaduto (Little Iodine), John Romita (Spider-Man) and Sy Barry (The Phantom). And then there was a portrait of Emilio done by Creig Flessel, with smaller sketches from many NCS artists. We

talked about many artists whom we both knew. He really enjoyed it, as I did, too. Unfortunately, the time was going by much too fast. Emilio did another sketch of Captain Marvel for me in my sketchbook and then I had to go.

Looking back, I’m very happy that I had the opportunity to see Emilio. He was a great artist and a very nice and gentle person. He will be missed.

—Thorsten Bruemmel

A Family Man

Because I don’t travel to the Northeast very often these days, I never got a chance to meet Emilio Squeglio face to face, but only to speak with him on the phone a couple of times.

But, you know what? It doesn’t make any difference.

Jim Amash, who did meet Emilio in person and spoke with him often via phone, informs me that I’d became his friend more or less by osmosis. Emilio, as Jim noted in his tribute to the man in A/E #110, considered himself a member of the Alter Ego family. And that’s kind of the way we considered him, too. It just felt good to know that Emilio was out there, reading each issue of the magazine, especially the FCA segment, and occasionally writing me a brief comment about the contents. His interests, like his friends, were legion… and I’m proud to have been one of those friends, even at a distance.

Every time nowadays that I look over a “Captain Marvel” or related story from the 1947-53 period—which is very nearly the

The Visit (Left:) Thorsten Bruemmel with Emilio, February 2007. (Right:) Emilio hard at work. Note the partly finished Captain Marvel color drawing.

Photos courtesy of Thorsten.

A Fond Farewell To A Fawcett Friend

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exact era when I was devouring the adventures of the World’s Mightiest Mortal—I can’t help wondering if Emilio lent a helping hand to this panel or to that one. He’s probably in there somewhere, I figure.

Emilio was a family man. He and his wife Felicia were a loving and devoted family. He was an adopted member, for the last half of its four-color life, of Fawcett’s Marvel Family. He and the celebrated Berndt Toast Gang were yet another family of sorts. And Jim and P.C. and I—well, I guess we were still another one.

All your families are going to be the poorer for your leaving us, Emilio.

—Roy Thomas (Writer/editor: Conan the Barbarian, et al.)

A Man Of Many Parts

I was shocked to hear of Emilio’s passing, as I had a message from him on my answering machine that I kept meaning to reply to. I only met Emilio via telephone in the past few years, by way of the Captain Marvel drawing we collaborated on for the Hero Initiative. We chatted a couple of times, before and after the drawing was completed, and he impressed me as a great guy. I learned about his many art careers, as a comic guy as well as about his time at American Artist magazine.

Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall… Who’s The Mightiest Mortal Of Them All? (Above:) Jerry Ordway and Emilio Squeglio originally collaborated on this drawing for the Hero Initiative, the comics industry’s own charity (see information on p. xx)—which then did double duty as the cover of Alter Ego #91. Jerry penciled and inked the majority of the illo, while Emilio drew the vintage Captain Marvel reflection in the mirror, from Jerry’s layout. [Shazam hero TM & ©2012 DC Comics.]

We talked cars, and really connected, as I love older models but don’t have the mechanical knowledge to either own one or restore one. He related his experiences restoring a classic, and was very proud of his accomplishment. He very kindly sent me pictures of the vehicle, as well as a pencil sketch from an artist he had art-directed, for True Magazine (I think).

It Must Be A Jam—’Cause Jelly Don’t Shape Like That!

(Left:) This “artists’ jam” piece on the wall of Emilio’s office was photographed by Thorsten Bruemmel in 2007. It’s emblazoned with a color caricature of Emilio done by Creig Flessel (“Sandman,” David Crane, et al.), plus sketches and comments by cartoonists such as Tom Gill, Al Scaduto, Sy Barry, Joe Giella, and Marv Levy—and even a triangular “S” scribbled by DC editor Julius Schwartz. We only wish the art and writing showed up better! Photo courtesy of Thorsten Bruemmel. [Characters & art TM & ©2012 the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

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Fawcett Collectors Of America

I wish I had had the time to talk to him, as he was a great storyteller, and had crossed paths with so many great artists in his various jobs. My condolences go out to his family.

—Jerry Ordway (Writer/artist: The Power of Shazam!, et al.)

A Favorite Emilio Page

Emilio found life exciting. Big or small, every happening he was a part of was a major event. He had a joyous outlook on life, which had a positive effect on all who knew him. He never met a stranger and he never lost a friend. We were drawn to Emilio like moths to a flame, for he cast a bright, warm glow of love to his friends. Sharing was what Emilio was all about. He was completely

An Adopted Member Of The Marvel Family (Left:) Emilio and Jim Amash. The two became friends after Jim interviewed him for 2004’s Alter Ego #41. Photo courtesy of Jim. (Right:) A 2011 Squeglio Captain Marvel sketch, courtesy of Stewart Patton.

Emilio was always ready to draw the Big Red Cheese, as a reminder of a very happy time—not that he didn’t seem to enjoy all the various eras of his life!

[Shazam hero TM & ©2012 DC Comics.]

open-hearted, his life an open book of wondrous fire that burned brightly on every page as an illumination of a happy life well lived.

One of my favorite pages was written the day Emilio excitedly called to tell me of the acquisition of a long-held dream. He had bought a 1930 Model “A” Ford, which, except for the battery, still had all the original parts. When he sent me pictures of the car, Emilio wrote, “What you see is a dream of 40 years come true.” He held a party for the car, and invited his friends to celebrate and enjoy the day.

As much as he loved that car, his ownership wouldn’t be complete without his friends sharing the joy. That was our Emilio. The book of his life may have closed, but the spirit of the man endures.

—Jim Amash (Artist/inker: Sonic the Hedgehog, et al.)

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WHE N YO ORD U ONL ER INE!

KIRBY COLLECTOR #60

DRAW! #24

BRICKJOURNAL #22

• Digital Editions available: $2.95-$3.95!

• Back Issue & Alter Ego now full-color!

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FANTASTIC FOUR FOLLOW-UP to #58’s THE WONDER YEARS! Never-seen FF wraparound cover, interview between FF inkers JOE SINNOTT and DICK AYERS, rare LEE & KIRBY interview, comparison of a Jack and Stan FF story conference to Stan’s final script and Jack’s penciled pages, MARK EVANIER and other columnists, gallery of KIRBY FF ART, pencils from BLACK PANTHER, SILVER SURFER, & more!

GLEN ORBIK demos how he creates his painted noir paperback and comic covers, ROBERT VALLEY discusses animating “The Beatles: Rock Band” music video and Tron: Uprising, plus Comic Art Bootcamp on “Dramatic Lighting” with MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS, Crusty Critic JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews art supplies, BOB McCLOUD gives a Rough Critique of a newcomer’s work, and more!

LEGO PLANE BUILDING! Top builder RALPH SAVELSBERG takes off with his custom LEGO fighter models, there’s a squadron of articles on Sky-Fi planes by FRADEL GONZALES and COLE MARTIN, find instructions to build a Sky-Fi plane, plus our regular feature on minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, other step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions, and more!

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THE BEST IN COMICS AND LEGO MAGAZINES!

BACK ISSUE #59

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“Toon Comics!” History of Space Ghost in comics, Comico’s Jonny Quest and Star Blazers, Marvel’s Hanna-Barbera line and Dennis the Menace, behind the scenes at Marvel Productions, Ltd., and a look at the unpublished Plastic Man comic strip.

Art/comments by EVANIER, FOGLIO, HEMPEL and WHEATLEY, MARRS, RUDE, TOTH, WILDEY, and more. All-new painted Space Ghost cover by STEVE RUDE!

“Halloween Heroes and Villains”! JEPH LOEB and TIM SALE’s chiller Batman: The Long Halloween, the Scarecrow (both the DC and Marvel versions), Solomon Grundy, Man-Wolf, Lord Pumpkin, Rutland, Vermont’s Halloween parades, and… the Korvac Saga’s Dead Avengers! With commentary from and/or art by CONWAY, GIL KANE, LOPRESTI, MOENCH, PÉREZ, DAVE WENZEL, and more. Cover by TIM SALE!

“Tabloids and Treasuries,” spotlighting every all-new tabloid from the 1970s. Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man, The Bible, Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles, The Wizard of Oz, even the PAUL DINI/ALEX ROSS World’s Greatest Super-Heroes editions! Commentary and art by ADAMS, GARCIA-LOPEZ, GRELL, KIRBY, KUBERT, MAYER, ROMITA SR., TOTH, and more.

Wraparound cover by ALEX ROSS!

“Superman in the Bronze Age”! JULIUS SCHWARTZ, CURT SWAN, Superman Family, World of Krypton miniseries, and ALAN MOORE’s “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”, art & comments

by ADAMS, ANDERSON, CARDY, CHAYKIN, PAUL KUPPERBERG, OKSNER, O’NEIL, PASKO, ROZAKIS, SAVIUK, and more. Cover by GARCÍA-LÓPEZ and SCOTT WILLIAMS! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

“British Invasion” issue! History of Marvel UK, Beatles in comics, DC’s ‘80s British talent pool, V for Vendetta, Excalibur, Marshal Law, Doctor Who, “Pro2Pro” interview with PETER MILLIGAN & BRENDAN McCARTHY, plus BERGER, BOLLAND, DAVIS, GIBBONS, STAN LEE, LLOYD, MOORE, DEZ SKINN, and others. Bonus 25” long fold-out triptych cover by RON WILSON and DAVE HUNT of Marvel UK’s rare 1970s “Quadra-Poster”!

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ALTER EGO #110

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SHAZAM!/FAWCETT issue! The 1940s “CAPTAIN MARVEL” RADIO SHOW, interview with radio’s “Billy Batson” BURT BOYAR, P.C. HAMERLINCK and C.C. BECK on the origin of Captain Marvel, ROY THOMAS and JERRY BINGHAM on their Secret Origins “Shazam!”, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, LEONARD STARR interview, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

GOLDEN AGE NEDOR super-heroes are spotlighted, with MIKE NOLAN’s Nedor Index, and art by MORT MESKIN, JERRY ROBINSON, GEORGE TUSKA, RUBEN MOIRERA, ALEX SHOMBURG, and others!

Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, more 2011 Fandom Celebration, and part II of JIM AMASH’s interview with Golden Age artist LEONARD STARR! Cover by SHANE FOLEY!

SUPERMAN issue! PAUL CASSIDY (early Superman artist), Italian Nembo Kid, and ARLEN SCHUMER’s look at the MORT WEISINGER era, plus an interview with son HANK WEISINGER! Art by SHUSTER, BORING, ANDERSON, PLASTINO, and others! LEONARD STARR interview Part III—FCA—Mr. Monster—more 2011 Fandom Celebration, and a MURPHY ANDERSON/ARLEN SCHUMER cover!

MARVEL ISSUE on Captain America and Fantastic Four! MARTIN GOODMAN’s Broadway debut, speculations about FF #1, history of the MMMS, interview with Golden Age writer/artist DON RICO, art

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3-D COMICS OF THE 1950S! In-depth feature by RAY (3-D) ZONE, actual red and green 1950s 3-D art (get out those glasses!) by SIMON & KIRBY, KUBERT, MESKIN, POWELL, MAURER, NOSTRAND, SWAN, BORING, SCHWARTZ, MOONEY, SHORES, TUSKA and many others! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Cover by JOE SIMON and JACK KIRBY!

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A COMICS HISTORY GAME-CHANGER!

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES THE

Order the first volume (covering 1960-64) IN OCTOBER’S PREVIEWS!

This ambitious new series of FULLCOLOR HARDCOVERS documents every decade of comic books from the 1940s to today!

Each colossal volume presents a year-by-year account of the comic book industry’s most significant publications, most notable creators, and most impactful trends.

This ongoing project enlists TwoMorrows’ top authors, as they provide exhaustively researched details on all the major events along the comics history timeline! Editor KEITH DALLAS (The Flash Companion) spearheads the series and writes his own volume on the 1980s. Also in the works are two volumes on the 1940s by ROY THOMAS, the 1950s by BILL SCHELLY, two volumes on the 1960s by JOHN WELLS, a 1970s volume by JIM BEARD, and more volumes documenting the 1990s and 2000s. Taken together, the series forms the first cohesive, linear overview of the entire landscape of comics history, sure to be an invaluable resource for ANY comic book enthusiast!

JOHN WELLS leads off with the first of two volumes on the 1960s, covering all the pivotal moments and behind-the-scenes details of comics in the JFK and Beatles era! You’ll get a year-by-year account of the most significant publications, notable creators, and impactful trends, including: DC Comics’ rebirth of GREEN LANTERN, HAWKMAN, and others, and the launch of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA and multiple earths! STAN LEE and JACK KIRBY’s transformation of superhero comics with the debut of Marvel’ FANTASTIC FOUR, SPIDER-MAN, HULK, X-MEN, AVENGERS, and other iconic characters! Plus BATMAN gets a “new look”, the BLUE BEETLE is revamped at Charlton Comics, and CREEPY #1 brings horror back to comic book form, just as Harvey’s “kid” comics are booming! These are just a few of the events chronicled in this exhaustive, full-color hardcover. SHIPS NOVEMBER 2012!

(224-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $11.95 • ISBN: 9781605490458

Look for the 1965-69, 1970s, & 1980s ACBC volumes in 2013!

BACK ISSUE #61 The magazine that covers COMICS’ BRONZE AGE AND BEYOND presents a whopping TABLOID-SIZE ISSUE, spotlighting all the giant Marvel Treasury Editions and DC oversized comics of the 1970s! With commentary from and art

by NEAL ADAMS, JOSE LUIS GARCIA-LOPEZ, MIKE GRELL, JACK KIRBY, JOE KUBERT, JOHN ROMITA SR., ALEX TOTH, and more. And don’t miss ALEX ROSS’ new wraparound cover painting, paying homage to MIKE GRELL’s classic Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes Limited Collectors’ Edition cover!

Order a month early, in the OCTOBER issue of Previews, for November release!

All characters TM & ©2012 their respective owners.

Also in October’s PREVIEWS:

A NEW BEGINNING…

Not final cover art. Art ©2012 Alex Ross.

Characters ©2012 the Estate of Jack Kirby.

Alex Ross photo © 2012 Seth Kushner.

Kurt Busiek photo © 2012 Barbara Kesel.

All images used with permission.

In 1998, TwoMorrows Publishing and editor Jon B. Cooke debuted Comic Book Artist, the magazine devoted to “celebrating the lives and work of the great cartoonists, writers and editors,” which would go on to win five consecutive Eisner Awards for “Best Comics Related Periodical.” Today we are proud to announce the coming of the latest full-color, 80-page magazine from TwoMorrows, COMIC BOOK CREATOR, the quarterly periodical edited by Jon and set for release in early 2013.

CBC will strive to celebrate and serve the comics art community, and, to quote our mission statement, we’re “dedicated to examining the lives, work and careers of artists, writers, editors and publishers of sequential art in the United States and throughout the world, with Comic Book Artist #1 cover art ©1998 Neal Adams. Baman ©2012 DC Comics.

appreciation for their contributions to art and culture. We advocate for fair and just treatment of creators in the comics industry and are determined to chronicle the experiences, both high and low, of those who contributed to the field since the birth of the form. We emphasize the achievements of independent cartoonists, scribes, compilers and producers. We exhalt the artist, not the artifact. We honor comics creators over comics characters. We treasure always the worth of the artisans behind the work, and at no time any market value of the work itself. Rest assured, at COMIC BOOK CREATOR, we will stick to our promise: price guide never included.”

TwoMorrows publisher John Morrow and CBC editor Jon B. Cooke are excited about collaborating on this new venture and we urge you to contact us at comicbookcreator@aol.com with any comments and suggestions for the new magazine. Please check us out and we both thank you for your support.

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The fabled master of glamour art finally gets his due!

In the early 1940s, MATT BAKER became of one the earliest African-American comic book artists. But it wasn’t the color of his skin which made him such a significant figure in the history of the medium—it was his innate ability to draw gorgeous, exciting women and handsome, dynamic men in a fluid, graceful style. Imagine DAVE STEVENS or ADAM HUGHES working in the ‘40s, drawing a new story every month, and you’ll have a good idea of Matt Baker’s place in the industry throughout his career. Yet few of today’s comic book fans know of the artist or his work, because he died in 1959 at the young age of 38, just as the Silver Age of Comics was blossoming and bringing in a new generation of readers. MATT BAKER: THE ART OF GLAMOUR, edited by JIM AMASH and ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON, presents an impressive career cut tragically short. It features a wealth of essays; interviews with Baker’s friends, family, and coworkers; and a treasure trove of his finest artwork, including several complete stories. SHIPS OCTOBER 2012!

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The FILMATION Generation lives on!

LOU SCHEIMER was the co-founder of FILMATION STUDIOS, which created the first DC cartoons with SUPERMAN, BATMAN, and AQUAMAN, ruled the song charts with THE ARCHIES, kept Trekkie hope alive with STAR TREK: THE ANIMATED SERIES, taught morals with FAT ALBERT AND THE COSBY KIDS, and swung into high adventure with TARZAN, THE LONE RANGER, and ZORRO. Forays into live-action included SHAZAM! and THE SECRETS OF ISIS, and in the 1980s, Filmation singlehandedly caused the syndication explosion with HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. Now, LOU SCHEIMER tells the entire story to best-selling author ANDY MANGELS, including what it meant to lead the last allAmerican animation company through nearly thirty years of innovation and fun! Profusely illustrated with photos, model sheets, storyboards, presentation art, looks at rare and unproduced series, and more—plus stories from top animation insiders about Scheimer and Filmation’s past, and rare Filmation art by BRUCE TIMM, ADAM HUGHES, ALEX ROSS, PHIL JIMENEZ, FRANK CHO, GENE HA, and MIKE McKONE—this book shows the Filmation Generation the story behind the stories! SHIPS OCTOBER 2012!

(264-page trade paperback with COLOR) $26.95 • (Digital Edition) $8.95 • ISBN: 9781605490441 • Diamond Order Code: JUL121245

It’s MARIE SEVERIN, The Mirthful Mistress of Comics!

MARIE SEVERIN colored the legendary EC Comics line, and spent thirty years working for Marvel Comics, doing everything from production and coloring to penciling, inking, and art direction. She is renowned for her sense of humor, which earned her the nickname “Mirthful Marie” from Stan Lee. This loving tribute contains insights from her close friends and her brother JOHN SEVERIN, as well as STAN LEE, AL FELDSTEIN, ROY THOMAS, JOHN ROMITA, JACK DAVIS, JACK KAMEN, TONY ISABELLA, GENE COLAN, JIM MOONEY, JOE SINNOTT, MARK EVANIER, and others, plus extensive commentary by MARIE herself. Complementing the text are photographs, plus rare and unpublished artwork, including a color gallery, showing her mastery with a painter’s pallette! NOW SHIPPING! (176-page trade paperback with COLOR) $24.95 • (Digital Edition) $7.95 ISBN: 9781605490427 • Diamond Order Code: MAY121304

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TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 E-mail: store@twomorrowspubs.com • Visit us on the Web at www.twomorrows.com