Alter Ego #13

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No. 13 March 2002

A STAR-STUDDED SPECTACULAR! STAN LEE•MURPHY ANDERSON DON HECK•GEORGE TUSKA MARIE SEVERIN•MICHAEL T. GILBERT MIKE MANLEY•MARC SWAYZE•C.C. BECK ROY THOMAS Interviews JOHN BUSCEMA

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THE BEST IN COMICS AND LEGO MAGAZINES!

ALTER EGO #105

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See comic art and script BEFORE and AFTER the Comics Code changes, with art

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

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

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

1970s Bullpenner WARREN REECE talks about Marvel Comics and working with EVERETT, BURGOS, ROMITA, STAN LEE, MARIE SEVERIN, ADAMS, FRIEDRICH, ROY THOMAS, and others, with rare art!

DEWEY CASSELL spotlights Golden Age artist MIKE PEPPE, with art by TOTH, ANDRU, TUSKA, CELARDO, & LUBBERS, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, cover by EVERETT & BURGOS, and more!

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

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

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

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Vol. 3, No. 13 / March 2002

™

Editor Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout Christopher Day

Consulting Editors John Morrow Jon B. Cooke

FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck

Comics Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

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

Cover Artists Murphy Anderson Joe Simon

Writer/Editorial: Avengers Re-Assemble! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 “Avengers Is Mine!”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Roy Thomas scans his own (and Stan Lee’s) 1960s tenure on The Avengers.

Cover Colorists Murphy Anderson III Joe Simon & Tom Ziuko

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

And Special Thanks to: Trey Alexander Murphy Anderson Murphy Anderson III Blake Bell Al Bigley Bill Black Jerry K. Boyd Tom Brevoort Frank Brunner John & Dolores Buscema William Cain James Cavenaugh Mike Costa Rich Donnelly Shelton Drum Ron Frenz Dave Gantz Grass Green George Hagenauer David G. Hamilton Mark & Stephanie Heike Roger Hill Carmine Infantino Daniel Keyes Batton Lash

Contents

Stan Lee John Paul Leon Dennis Mallonee Mike Manley Joe & Nadia Mannarino Matthew Moring Will Murray Michelle Nolan Eric NolenWeathington Don Perlin Dan Raspler Mrs. Edmee B. Reit Joe Rubinstein Marie Severin Gilbert Shelton Joe Simon J. David Spurlock Flo Steinberg Daniel Tesmoingt Dann Thomas George & Dorothy Tuska Michael J. Vassallo Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. William Woolfolk

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

John Buscema Johnny Craig Gray Morrow Seymour Reit

One Heck of a Professional . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 A verbal and visual tribute to early Marvel mainstay Don Heck.

An Avengers Interview––Sort of––with John Buscema . . . . . . . . . 16 John B. and Roy T. reminisce about their collaboration on Marvel’s greatest heroes.

Stan Lee’s Double Date! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Michael T. Gilbert re-presents an historic 1964 interview with The Man. The Eye Is Still Watching You!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 The great 1960s fandom hero is back, courtesy of Bill Schelly.

Tributes to Johnny Craig, Gray Morrow, and Seymour Reit . . . 34 Far too few words about three greats who have left us.

FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) #72. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 P.C. Hamerlinck proudly presents Marc Swayze, Mike Manley, and C.C. Beck.

Golden Age Section (“The Titans of Timely/Marvel,” Part II). . Flip Us! About Our Cover: From the moment Roy saw Murphy Anderson's fabulous cover on the program book of the 2001 Heroes Convention in Charlotte, NC, he had to have it as a cover on Alter Ego! Con host Shelton Drum suggested to Murphy the notion of inserting the original Avengers into the situation of the legendary cover Mr. A. had drawn four decades earlier for Justice League of America #1—and Murphy, aided by the coloring and technical expertise of his son Murphy III, executed it beautifully! Our sincere thanks to all three gents—and to Shel's wife Cynthia, without whom there probably wouldn't be a Heroes Con in the first place! See info on their 2002 convention on our very next page. [Art ©2002 Murphy Anderson & Murphy Anderson III; Avengers © & TM 2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Above: John Buscema drew this exquisite pencil sketch of the then-new Black Knight and his winged steed Aragorn in 1969 for Alter Ego [Vol. 1] #10; it hangs today on a staircase in Roy & Dann Thomas’ South Carolina home. [Art ©2002 John Buscema; Black Knight © & TM 2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Alter EgoTM is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092.

Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $8 ($10 Canada, $11 elsewhere). Eight-issue subscriptions: $40 US, $80 Canada, $88 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in Canada.

FIRST PRINTING.

writer/editorial

2

Avengers Re-Assemble!

Silver Age Forever!

That motto (like its complement re the Golden Age of Comics) appeared on the Jerry Ordway-drawn cover of our very first issue, in a banner billowing above the parading figures of Silver Surfer, The Thing, Jade and Fury of Infinity, Inc., The Atom, and Green Lantern—not to mention Stan Lee and Julius Schwartz garbed as Spider-Man and The Flash, respectively.

Still, as a few readers have pointed out to me, I’ve perhaps been guilty in Alter Ego of somewhat neglecting the Silver Age, that nebulous epoch that began with the second Flash’s debut in Showcase #4 in 1956 and ended—well, folks can’t rightly agree on exactly when it expired, but somewhere in the early-to-mid-1970s, at the latest.

And they’re right, those finger-pointing fans. In recent months I’ve been fortunate enough to stumble across such a treasure trove of Golden Age art and artifacts—while at the same time Jon B. Cooke was presenting plenty of Silver Age material over in his Comic Book Artist mag (even before he went monthly!)—that Silver Age stuff seems to keep getting shelved in favor of that from the ’40s and ’50s. (As if something from “only” 30-40 years ago isn’t old enough!) Yet, as a guy who entered the comics field in 1965, somewhere in the “Late Middle

Ages” of Silver, it ill behooved me (the finger-pointers politely insisted) to keep spotlighting Golden Age goodies and my ongoing history of my 1980s series All-Star Squadron, while neglecting the decade or so that yawned between.

So, with this issue already scheduled to feature the second part of the “Titans of Timely” series we kicked off two numbers back, I decided for the first time ever to devote virtually an entire issue of A/E to Timely/Atlas/Marvel. Even Michael T. Gilbert, out on a walkabout with Mr. Monster, ran across an intriguing 1964 Stan Lee interview which also has a fair amount of historical value, to further the theme.

Silver Age Marvel, like Silver Age DC, is a pretty broad topic... so this time around I’ve chosen to concentrate on my 1966-72 stint on The Avengers, my favorite among the many super-hero comics I wrote for Stan during the latter ’60s—and the series for which I wrote the most issues (70 in a row, plus a few Annuals and later one-shots, as recently as last year’s Avengers: The Ultron Imperative, done with Kurt Busiek and others). The Avengers theme gave me an excuse, if any were needed, both to spotlight a fine piece on Don Heck written by William Cain, and for me to interview my longtime collaborator John Buscema on that limited topic. As it is, in my own Avengers overview, I only had room to skim over Stan’s issues, and deal with the first fifteen or so I scripted. Well, you’ve gotta leave ’em (hopefully) wanting more, right?

And if you’re more of a Golden Age than Silver Age fan?

Fear not, effendi (as somebody once said)—just turn this mag upside down, and have a ball!

Bestest,

NOTE: Not long before this issue went to press, we learned the sad news of John Buscema’s passing. We shall say more concerning this unfortunate event on Page 16.

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Mirthful Marie Severin, the mischievous mainstay of Marvel’s Not Brand Echh during the late ’60s, drew this scintillatin’ spoof for Shelton & Cynthia Drum’s 2001 Heroes Convention program book. This year, that great Charlotte, NC, con is being held on June 14-16, with the admission still only $10 a day, or $20 for a 3-day pass. For more info, phone (704) 375-7462 or go on-line to <www.heroesonline.com>. Roy’ll be there—and so will George Pérez, Nick Cardy, Carlos Pacheco, Adam Hughes, and a whole passel of pro guests—who knows, maybe even Marie! Thanks to Shelton and to his artful associate, Trey Alexander. [Art ©2002 Marie Severin; Avengers © & TM 2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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“Avengers Is Mine”

“

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Is Mine!”

A Personal Look Back at (Some of) the World’s Greatest Heroes by The Avengers’ Second Scripter Part I

by Roy Thomas I. The Coming of The Avengers Everybody knows the (perhaps apocryphal) story: after playing a round of golf circa 1961 with DC publisher Jack Liebowitz, who bragged about sales of his new Justice League of America, Martin Goodman returned to his own little stump of the former Timely Comics and told editor Stan Lee to come up with a super-hero group of their own. The resulting Fantastic Four soon turned Goodman’s foundering company into the mighty Marvel Comics Group, restored F.F. artist/cocreator Jack Kirby to the prominence he had enjoyed during the ’40s and ’50s, and made Stan Lee the nearest thing comic books have ever had to a household word.

Except for featuring a super-group, however, Fantastic Four had less in common with the JLA than one might think. The League was

composed of buddy-buddy costumed stars of seven current DC features, while the F.F. came out of nowhere (even its “Human Torch” was a new version); they didn’t even wear uniforms at first, let alone individualized costumes. They fought amongst themselves, too, something which would have been inconceivable then at DC.

Before long, Fantastic Four was giving even JLA a run for its money, probably as much on the strength of the differences between the two titles as on their similarities.

And that’s when—whether he thought about it consciously or not (I suspect not)—Stan Lee decided to return to the JLA prototype, and this time to follow it a bit more closely in creating a second Marvel group.

This gang’s heroes would be ones who already starred in four solo series: Thor from Journey into Mystery, Iron Man from Tales of Suspense, Ant-Man and The Wasp from Tales to Astonish, and The

This re-creation of Kirby’s cover of The Avengers #1 was done in the 1990s by Dick Ayers, original inker of the cover and issue. It and the original art to the splash of issue #8 (Sept. 1964) are repro’d from a Sotheby’s art catalog. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“Avengers Is Mine”

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Its name wasn’t going to be anything like Justice League of America, either, which even then to Stan would’ve had way too much of a “super-hero Rotarians” feel about it. No, he wanted something pulpy. Fantastic Four had smacked of the pulp magazine title The Secret Six... Spider-Man’s name, at least, of The Spider... so the new assemblage of heroes became—The Avengers (#1, cover date Sept.

1963). The original Avenger, of course, had been a pulp-mag hero back in the 1930s.

In terms of intra-group relationships, however, The Avengers definitely owed more to F.F. than to JLA. From the very beginning, The Hulk was a lettuce-colored loose cannon, and readers wondered if he’d ever fit in with his fellow Avengers, even as well as The Thing had with the F.F. The answer was that he wouldn’t. By #3 Hulk had already forged a temporary alliance with Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, against his Avengers compatriots, and at story’s end he quit the team—for good, as it happened. And when Captain America was thawed out of the ice in #4, it looked as if, with penciler Don Heck relieving Kirby as of #9, The Avengers might settle comfortably into a JLA niche with a steady membership that could go on for years.

It didn’t, of course. Because Stan found it difficult (and worse— unrealistic) to have several of Marvel’s solo stars cavorting together in Avengers while in their own titles (which he also scripted or at least plotted) they were involved in other, often cliffhanger storylines, he took the unexpected and revolutionary step in #16 (May 1965) of having every hero except Cap quit the team, in a story he brought back Jack Kirby to pencil. Their replacements were definitely a bunch of secondraters: the quasi-villainous archer Hawkeye from a few “Iron Man” tales, and Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch, two nominally “evil mutants” from The X-Men, another team comic in more of an “I Was a Teenage Fantastic Four” mold which had debuted at the same time as The Avengers, but which had thus far proved not nearly as popular.

Amazingly, with this foursome—Captain America and his also-rans, as we fans thought of them at first—Avengers actually gained in sales, despite such early mediocre opponents as The Minotaur, The

Kang comes back with a bang! The Heck-Ayers splash for Avengers #24 (Oct. 1965), repro’d from the original art as seen in a Sotheby’s catalog. [©002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Incredible Hulk from—well, actually, Ol’ Greenskin’s own mag had bit the dust after six issues a half year earlier, but Bruce Banner’s bitter half was still popping up in various Marvel mags, and it was clearly only a matter of time till he got another regular gig. (Other possible members included Spider-Man—but he was a definite loner that Stan intended to keep that way—and Sub-Mariner, who would guest-star two issues later, though still behaving more like a villain than a hero.)

Once again Stan brought in his ace artist (and de facto coplotter) Jack Kirby to do the penciling honors—while Dick Ayers, who had been inking F.F., performed the same chores on the new mag.

Rascally Roy, seen here in a 1965-66 photo with Stan's gal Friday, Fabulous Flo Steinberg, made his first “creative contribution” to The Avengers in #30 (July 1966), when, in the final panel on Page 7, he penciled the palm tree seen above—just to see how it would look inked by Fearless Frank Giacoia.

Rest of pencils by Don Heck. The photo, courtesy of Flo, appeared in Les Daniels' indispensable 1991 book Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics. [Art ©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

(Some of) the World’s Greatest Heroes Commisar, Swordsman, and Power Man. The latter was intended to match the success of their earlier (but deceased) foe Wonder Man, but he didn’t come close, maybe partly because brown isn’t a particularly happy color for a super-baddie’s threads.

And that’s where I came in.

II. Who’re You Callin’ “Rascally”?

When I started working for Stan and Marvel in early July of 1965, the Power Man story (#21-22) was winding up, and in #23 Stan was finally bringing back a relative big gun—Kang the Conqueror—even if Kang had seemed a time-hopping knockoff of Dr. Doom. Next, Doc himself turned up. In #28 (May 1966) Giant-Man (nee Ant-Man) returned to the Avengers fold, his name altered to the more euphonious “Goliath.” The fact that the Biblical Goliath was a villain, not a hero, apparently never bothered Stan. And with Hank Pym, of course, came the wondrous Wasp— still as tiny and pea-brained as ever.

5

Dick Ayers. A few months later, I’d been given an issue of The X-Men which had already been penciled by Werner Roth. In each case—and Avengers followed this pattern—I simply provided the dialogue for my initial outing on a series. The first issue I would plot would be the second which would list me as scripter.

Still, I was overjoyed to have The Avengers lateraled over to me— more so than I had been even with Sgt. Fury or X-Men. After all, given my early-’60s enthusiasm for Justice League, and for the 1940s Justice Society which had inspired it, Avengers was a book I was eager to sink my teeth into, even if I had greatly preferred it when Thor and Iron Man had appeared in every issue.

Of course, issue #35 would’ve been looked the same and told the same story whether the dialogue had been written by Stan Lee, by Roy Thomas, or by the office boy—if we’d had one (not counting me). I muddled through as best I could. And, happily, Stan didn’t rewrite anything like as much of Avengers #35 as he had of my virgin forays on Sgt. Fury #29 and X-Men #20.

Before anyone might believe The Avengers were going to maintain any kind of stability for long, however, Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch found an excuse to leave the group. Well, it kept the covers (and the stories) from getting crowded.

In #35’s final panel, Don had drawn Captain America, brooding alone in Avengers Mansion, reacting in shock to someone who’s entered off-panel, exclaiming in big open letters: “YOU!” (“Next: The QUEST!” blares the end caption.)

With #32-33, Lee and Heck introduced a Ku Klux Klannish organization, The Sons of the Serpent, in a storyline fairly radical for its day. Hawkeye’s unrequited love, The Black Widow, wandered into it, and some wondered if she, too, might become an Avenger.

Did Stan and/or Don intend all along that, on the splash of the first Avengers I would plot (#36, Jan. 1967), the “YOU!” would turn out to be The Scarlet Witch, returned to enlist help in rescuing her swift-footed sibling Pietro? I believe they did. No matter. I liked the idea of bringing back Quicksilver and Wanda, not least because they’d make the group bigger. As an earlier JSA/JLA fan, I equated the ideal super-group size with seven, not four or so.

And then Stan dumped The Avengers in my lap.

He and Don had begun a twoparter with another lackluster villain, The Living Laser. (Of course, it’s not that they planned Not that I ever mentioned my The credits of Avengers #35 (Dec. 1966) indicated that it was “scripted the Laser to be lackluster. Nobody JSA/JLA template to Stan, of (surprisingly)” by Roy T. The assignment came as a surprise to him, too.

Stan ever plans such a thing. It just course. It would have been had given no indication that he was thinking of giving up the Avengers worked out that way. It does, anathema to him to think that his writing chores.

Art by Don Heck. [©Marvel Characters, Inc.] sometimes.) He wasn’t much, but protégé might ape, even slightly, he did manage, by the end of #34, the DC super-hero conclaves he meant to leave in the dust. I rememto trap Cap and Hawkeye in a circle of “lethal laser rays” which were bered what Bill Cosby once said about the way African-Americans had coming closer, closer... to get into TV: “Infiltrate!” First establish your bona fides as a competent Avengers scripter, then have fun using elements of the And that’s when Stan said, in essence: “Take it, Roy!” JSA/JLA model, while still writing the book in a Marvel mode!

Well, in truth, I merely inherited #35 after it had been plotted I greatly enjoyed writing The Avengers right from the get-go, even (probably as much by Don as by Stan) and even penciled by Don, who with Stan looking closely over my shoulder for the first few issues, and would be inking, as well. art-directing the early covers with little or no consultation with Roy the I was used to this kind of thing by then. After all, the morning after Boy. (I had dubbed myself that in an early credit line, as a complement the New York Power Blackout of November 1965, I had staggered into to Stan the Man—and because I was never totally wild about being the office to be told that I would henceforth be scripting Sgt. Fury and called “Rascally Roy,” an epithet which, though nicely alliterative, didn’t His Howling Commandos, starting with an issue already penciled by exactly fit my personality.)

“Avengers Is Mine”

6

III. Heck and High-water Don’s cover for #35, for instance, featured a Captain America figure Stan didn’t like—so he and/or production manager Sol Brodsky, his right-hand man, found a Kirby Cap figure from another comic and simply photostatted it and pasted it in place.

When Gil Kane wandered in a month or so later, I had virtually no contact with him—though we’d met at a New York comics convention the previous year—and it was Stan who assigned Gil to draw the covers of #37-38. I’ll admit that, big Kane fan that I was, I never felt—nor did Gil—that super-group dynamics was his strong point, and his covers for those two issues are not among his best. Still, I recall liking his Cap figure on #37.

Me, I concerned myself mostly with the book’s innards. While by then Stan had been just giving Don a few instructions over the phone about the plot of a given issue, I wrote out a full synopsis of 3-4 pages for Don to follow—and add to, since Stan preferred the artist to come up with the pacing and many of the visuals. There was no suggestion that I should pace out the stories panel-by-panel, or even page-by-page. In fact, during this period, I doubt if any Marvel writer ever even indicated that this scene would take up approximately two pages, this one four, etc. We just banged out a simplified short story synopsis for the penciler, and let him take it from there. Don Heck, like Dick Ayers and Werner Roth on the other two hero mags I was scripting, knew enough by now not to draw page after page of the heroes just standing around talking, right?

Scarlet Witch and Wasp, around for a while. I was particularly fond of Natasha. Dare I say it? The Black Widow reminded me of Black Canary, who in the late ’40s had been a card-carrying member of the Justice Society. They both had those fish-net stockings....

My own early ideas for villains, I’m afraid, were every bit as lacking as the least memorable of those Stan and Don had come up with previously: the Ultroids in #36-37, and a trio of un-worthies called Hammerhead, Pile-Driver, and Thunderfoot, who used head, fists, and feet, respectively, against The Avengers in #38-39. All that seems notable about the latter today is that, for some reason, the Comics Code let us get away with calling them “The Mad Thinker’s Triumvirate of Terror” on the cover of #38, even though at that time the Code explicitly forbade the use of the words “horror” or “terror” on covers! I suspect Stan had me write that bit of cover copy to see how I’d do, since I liked the word “triumvirate”—it smacked of those unstable Roman threesomes that Julius Caesar and Octavian had spearheaded. I may even have been ignorant of the fact that the word “terror” was verboten. Not that we’d be able to get away with such a thing a second time, mind: Whenever we tried to use precedent with Code head Leonard Darvin, even though he was a lawyer, he’d always just say he must’ve been out of town when the offending item slipped through, so you can’t do it again.

My main contribution to The Avengers in my early days, I think, was bringing in Hercules in #38. I could be wrong, but I believe that was my suggestion, rather than Stan’s. I didn’t feel that, even with Goliath aboard, the group had enough sheer, raw power (as we used to say)—and adding Herc would be the closest I could come at present to my real aim, which was to bring Thor and Iron Man back into The Avengers on a permanent basis.

Don and I rarely encountered each other. He mostly worked in his studio out on Long Island, coming by the Madison Avenue bullpen occasionally to drop off pages rather than mail them. I should have Don’t get me wrong: I’m sure I suggested we go out to lunch suggested bringing that pair back sometime and talk about The very early on. I argued that, by Avengers—forget about the possiHercules, in a pin-up by Don Heck and George Roussos in the first-ever now, Marvel had milked the Capbility of getting Marvel to pay for Avengers Annual in 1967. Roy Thomas used the occasion to write a 49-page, and-his-three-stooges bit for as Golden Age JSA-style tale which was the longest story to that date at Marvel the lunch!—but somehow I never much as it could get, and I had little Comics. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] did, much as I admired his art. Our enthusiasm for the current roster of relations were always amicable, Cap, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Wasp, and Goliath. But Stan however, and he seemed like what they call “a real nice guy.” I felt a fair didn’t want Goldilocks and Shellhead to return to the fold—not yet— amount of pain, later, over what happened to him in the comics quite possibly, not ever. industry... especially since in some ways I may have contributed to it.

A lot of copy, of course, but that was something I’d picked up in part from Stan, and he never objected to the amount of dialogue I wrote, as long as he felt it was good dialogue. Still, there was a bit too much of it.

So I bided my time... and inducted Hercules, Prince of Power. (Did I make up that last phrase? If so, it was probably based on my Lutheran upbringing and the term “Prince of Peace.”) Of course, he wasn’t too “peaceful” in #38, since it had become de rigueur by then that most potential heroes started out as villains—so first Herc had to fight the Avengers, for some sort of trumped-up reason—then he could sign up.

I also recall I was as enamored as most of the readership with Don’s drawing of females, so I contrived to keep The Black Widow, as well as

Herc gave me a chance to write the kind of quasi-Shakespearean dialogue I had enjoyed in Stan’s “Thor,” once he had taken over full

Looking over the issues I wrote with Don, certain things jump out at me.

(Some of) the World’s Greatest Heroes writing chores. Earlier, I’d employed Homeric similes when dialoguing two Ditko-drawn “Dr. Strange” tales. Now I called on the Bard and other favorites. E.g., in Avengers #39 I used the phrase: “—and the longremembering harpers had matter for their song!” Except for changing “have” to “had,” that was an exact quote from a line in one of William Butler Yeats’ five wonderfully poetic plays concerning the mythical Irish hero Cuchulain (either On Baile’s Strand or The Green Helmet) ; in the early ’60s they had become, along with The Iliad and Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, my favorite works of literature.

Of course, I was under no illusion that quoting Shakespeare or Homer or Yeats or anyone else made a story “good.” But I liked giving comics I wrote echoes of literary classics—those relatively few I was familiar with, anyway—even though I hardly expected anyone to recognize most of my little homages. I wouldn’t have, had I still been reader rather than writer. Hercules was also fun because, unlike Thor, he was something of a hedonist, and could be counted on to prefer the company of beautiful women to Captain America’s. In #39 I had Don dress him up in a suit and tie, though he returned to his Olympian garb by story’s end. I also had a lion’s head added to his belt, knowing that killing the Nemedian Lion had been one of his twelve legendary “labors.”

7

IV. Big John Based more on circumstantial evidence than on memory, I believe Don probably “left” the book merely to draw the 49-page Avengers Annual #1 I was also writing—which, after all, was the equivalent of nearly 2H regular issues.

To spell Don, Stan assigned John Buscema, who had worked at Timely in the late 1940s and who had recently returned, being prepped for 1960s Marvel by penciling over Kirby breakdowns on a handful of “S.H.I.E.L.D.” and “Hulk” stories. His eight years in advertising, on top of his quieter work in the 1950s for Orbit, Dell, Charlton, and ACG, had turned John into a fabulous draftsman—it was impossible not to see that, right off the bat—but Stan felt he still lacked some of the Kirbyesque dynamics, and “working over” Jack’s layouts was something that most artists did for an issue or three, as a way of acclimating them to the kind of storytelling Stan was looking for.

Though I’d been impressed

by John’s draftsmanship from the moment I saw his sample art (though I forget what it depicted—probably just figures), the real revelation came the instant I saw his penciled splash for Avengers #41. At that point I became, and have remained, a lifelong John Buscema fan. In a wonderfully composed page, Hercules sits in the mansion gym, casually flipping a huge barbell into the air, while Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and Wanda go through their paces nearby. The rest of the issue lived up to it, especially the knock-down, drag-out fight between Goliath and the android Dragon Man. Even Diablo, whom Stan and Jack both considered their least successful villain-creation ever, came alive in John’s hands, and seemed far more, well, diabolical than he had before.

In #40 we—and this would’ve been Stan and I, because I wouldn’t have done such a thing without consulting with him, though it may well have been my idea—brought in Namor as the villain. After all, I had been a Subby fan since the mid-’40s. I still like the name of that story— “Suddenly... The SubMariner!”—and wish I could say with certainty it was my idea, with its echoes of Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer. But it’s just as likely to have been a title Stan imposed on me, tossing out some nowhere name I gave the story. At any rate, the issue turned out well, with George Roussos (“George John Buscema’s first Avengers splash page (#41). No offense to the memory of inker Bell”) having become Avengers However, the most striking George Roussos, but it looked even better in pencil! [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] inker a couple of issues earlier. I thing about #41 is something thought Don did a great Namor, which didn’t necessarily survive a fact which would bear fruit in later years. into the finished product. John’s penciling style made everything come alive, with realistic, moody shadows and illustrative, detailed linework.

I was kinda proud of the denouement of issue #40, in which the allEven his supporting characters often seemed to have stepped out of powerful Cosmic Cube created by Stan and Jack falls down a convenient some vaguely familiar advertising campaign, yet had a humanity that crevice into cavernous depths, to be found by The Mole Man—who went beyond the usual for Marvel or DC. Neither George Roussos nor tosses it contemptuously aside as “a child’s gaudy plaything.” Not most other inkers managed to capture that flavor fully when inking exactly an earth-shattering moment, but it’s the little things that a writer John’s pencils—so that the finished product was probably more or artist is likely to remember from a story, not a mind-numbing superimpressive to Stan and me than it was to the reader. Still, I can tell even battle or the world almost coming to an end. in retrospect that John’s work had instantly inspired me. I came up with a title I liked better than usual—“Let Sleeping Dragons Lie!”—and used And then Don went away for a couple of issues, and, for all practical the phrase “epic time” in a splash page caption. purposes, was never allowed to come back.

8

“Avengers Is Mine” started finding ways to put The Avengers, especially Hercules, in various types of mythological peril. In #47, for example, the Prince of Power finds himself facing “the many-headed Hydra,” even if it’s only an illusion caused by the Psychotron. (I loved the term “Psychotron” which I invented for those issues—and was a bit miffed when, some months later, I saw it used as the title of a paperback book in a pulpstyle series. Of course, a word derived from “cyclotron” was too much of a natural to have remained undiscovered or uninvented forever—but still, I couldn’t help wondering...)

If John had one fault, it was perhaps a tendency to give all the male Avengers muscles that made each of them look like weight-lifters.

Hawkeye and especially Quicksilver, at least, should probably have been slimmer. Still, it didn’t bother me much. After all, weren’t all comic book super-heroes over-muscular in those days?

With #44 Vince Colletta was assigned the inking chores. In some ways he might be considered more appropriate to John’s pencils than George Roussos had been, and Vinnie at that time was one of Marvel’s most popular inkers with the readership—but I missed George. Still, neither was ideal for John.

Don Heck—probably because Stan had some interim assignment for John, now that he was developing apace; but I couldn’t swear to it— stepped in to do #45, and did it well. If anything, his rendering of the heroes’ Central Park blitzkrieg vs. The Super-Adaptoid was even better than much of what he’d done earlier... and Vinnie’s inking seemed to fit him. But by now I was impatient for John to return, next issue.

As a kid I had loved a story in which the original/real Captain Marvel had been trapped in an anthill, so I devised a tale in which that happened to Goliath, with the added threat of a mediocre old “Giant-Man” villain

Buscema’s cover for Avengers #44, inked by Vince Colletta, as repro’d from the original art in a Sotheby’s catalog. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

In fact, I loved John’s work so much that I resolved to keep him on The Avengers on a regular basis. When Don finished the Annual, I persuaded Stan to give him a different series—and he didn’t return to Avengers. Since, in some ways, Don seems to have lost his footing artwise after he was no longer drawing “Iron Man” or Avengers, perhaps I can be said in some way to have hastened Don’s fall from grace at Marvel. Nothing could have been further from my mind. Don had all the work he could handle in the late ’60s, and he wasn’t especially attached to The Avengers or to any super-hero strip. It was much the same to him when he moved first to X-Men (which I was still writing), then on to other books. And yet... and yet....

I’ll admit, I never looked back. Galvanized by seeing those beautiful Buscema pencils—his second Avengers splash had Herc sitting around luxuriously eating grapes while Hawkeye railed at him—I began to think harder than ever of “epic” things for the group to do, better villains for them to fight.

The first super-baddie John and I created together was The Red Guardian, a Russian Communist menace whose name was derived from the infamous Red Guards of China, then making themselves a byword for group tyranny. Not only was The Black Widow revealed to be his estranged wife... but it turned out that she looked, if anything, even sexier drawn by John than by Don! Also, having already sensed that John liked drawing subjects that were not technologically-based, in contrast to Jack Kirby’s tastes, I Don Heck returned—but as a fill-in artist—in Avengers #45 (Oct. 1967). [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

(Some of) the World’s Greatest Heroes

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follows this piece and a bio of Don Heck.

V. Dark Knight—1960s Style!

At this point, production assistant John Verpoorten and I—we had become friends, being around the same age—got together on a new character design. I had always loved The Black Knight, the Arthurian hero created by Stan and artist Joe Maneely back in ’55. In 1964 Stan and Jack had designed an evil Black Knight as a foe for Iron Man and The Avengers; the modern one had a winged horse, which reminded me of a defunct DC hero I’d always liked, The Shining Knight. In fact, by sheer dumb luck, I had wound up writing roughly half the dialogue for the villainous Black Knight’s previous appearance, in Tales of Suspense #39, Gene Colan’s first “Iron Man” outing.

So I decided to develop a hero called The Black Knight. In TOS #39 the bad guy had fallen off his feathered black steed from a great height, so I decided—and I’m sure I had to clear this with Stan—that I’d actually have him die, and replace him with a nephew who’d become a heroic Black Knight. And I’d give him a new, white winged stallion to underscore the point. John Verpoorten and I designed a modern version of Maneely’s hero, and I was all set to see what wonders John Buscema’s pencil would work on him.

As it happened, for some reason Buscema wasn’t able to pencil that issue—Stan was increasingly finding other assignments for him, something I found more than a bit annoying, though I didn’t complain—so that issue was both penciled and inked by George Tuska.

George did a creditable job, certainly, and a very nice cover. The main thing I remember about Avengers #48, actually, is really unrelated to the book: I had recently brought a new pet into the Brooklyn apartment I shared with my friend Len Brown of Topps Chewing Gum: a very George Tuska’s Avengers #48 cover—repro’d from photocopies of the original art, courtesy of an unfortunately unknown benefactor (like, we lost his name!)—plus a recent drawing of The Avengers by Tuska, courtesy of the artist and his missus. Still lookin’ good, George! [Art ©2002 George Tuska; Avengers © & TM Marvel Characters, Inc.]

called The Human Top whom John and I redesigned into Whirlwind—who now became a mediocre new Avengers villain. Well, you can’t win ’em all—but I relished John’s drawings of what looked like “giant” ants straight out of the ’50s thriller Them!, as the hero fought his way out of an anthill universe. It was to be a turning-point for Goliath, who henceforth decided he would become Ant-Man whenever the situation called for it.

With #47 I brought in Magneto from XMen. I remember, for some reason, going over to John’s Manhattan studio and watching him finish the penciling of its splash. It looked great—but somehow, when inked by George Tuska, a true talent, it looked less illustrative than even when inked

by Roussos or Colletta. Some of John’s best penciling qualities, like those of Gene Colan (and, I’d later learn, Ross Andru), just didn’t survive inking—by anybody.

John could have inked his own pencils and perhaps have salvaged more of their original look, but—well, I’ll let John talk about that in the short interview which

“Avengers Is Mine”

10

None of this is intended as a dig at George Tuska, of course. From the days of his superb work on Charlie Biro’s Crime Does Not Pay through his long, best-selling stint on Iron Man, he has been both a gentleman and one of the finest artists in the field. But Archie’s line still had me on the floor.

young ocelot I had named Gollum, after a character in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Gollum was a mistake. I had entertained visions of this cat, which looked just like a baby leopard and might grow to weigh as much as 25 pounds, sitting atop our TV set when Len and I threw a party, its claws daintily dangling while we sipped cocktails and talked about comics. Instead, the spotted feline terrorized Len and me—and Len’s pet collie Laddie—so that I had to keep my bedroom door shut at all times and, at night, keep my head under the covers while the ocelot prowled around, growling, occasionally leaping across my round bed—and my face. (I sold Gollum after roughly a month; we couldn’t legally keep him in our apartment anyway.)

So what’s this got to do with Avengers #48? Well, one morning, I rose to find that the ocelot had urinated on George Tuska’s penciled splash page for it. When I took it into the office, I ran into fellow writer Archie Goodwin and told him what had happened.

His wry comment: “Everybody’s an art critic.”

On the last page of #50, Hawkeye sarcastically suggests a surprising candidate for Avengers membership—and the Hog of Steel looks as if he might be taking him seriously, in a panel lifted from a recent Spanish reprint Wonder Wart-hog, El Superserdo, given to Roy T. by creator Gilbert Shelton. [Avengers ©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Wonder Wart-hog ©2002 Gilbert Shelton.]

With the next issue, John Buscema returned to The Avengers—and both penciled and inked #49-50, the only two issues of the mag he ever fully illustrated. He may have opted to do so because much of these issues took place in Olympus and the Greek underworld, which allowed him to draw the kinds of things he liked, as opposed to Kirby-style machinery and modern-day metropolises. Check out those two issues, if you want to compare authentic vintage Buscema with his pencils as inked by others. The last few pages of #50, in which the Titan Typhon is hurled down into Pluto’s domain, really turned me on, and I waxed as Shakespearean thereon as I ever did before or after in a superhero mag. It’s there that I had John toss in a couple of helmet-masked minions of Zeus I named Kratos and Bia— “Force” and “Might” in ancient Greek. I took the names from two minor characters in Aeschylus’ 5th century B.C. tragedy Prometheus Bound— from the same Richmond Lattimore translation thereof, in fact, in which I ran across the rare adjective “adamantine,” later my source for the name “adamantium.”

But, not everything can be all mythological and high-falutin’. On the final page, as a trio of Avengers discuss finding a replacement for Hercules, who has decided to remain in Olympus, I tossed in a passing homage to one of the few underground cartoonists I really liked: Gilbert Shelton, creator of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. In a reference to an earlier character of his, I had Hawkeye, frustrated with the group’s diminished numbers, say, “About now, I’m ready to vote in anybody this side of Wonder Wart-hog!”

(I finally met Gilbert Shelton in October 2001, when we were guests at a comics convention in Gijon, Spain. He seemed mildly amused that the Hog of Steel had been referred to in a “mainstream” comic book.)

Then, in #51, I decided it was time for my most audacious step... since I wasn’t really going to be able to induct a wart-hog into The Avengers.

I decided it was time to bring back Thor and Iron Man....

A clean-shaven Hercules battles Typhon in #50, one of the only two Avengers issues John inked. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

To Be Continued... One of These Days

One Heck of a Professional

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One Heck of a Professional An Appreciation of Marvel Artist DON HECK career in architectural drawing. But Don’s interests lay elsewhere.

As a teenager he began a series of correspondence courses in art and cartooning at Woodrow Wilson Vocational School in Jamaica and at the Brooklyn Community College.

These experiences, and an obvious display of talent, led to his first professional job in the field, repasting photostats for Harvey Comics. While Harvey didn’t exactly allow Heck to showcase his artistic skills, the job exposed him to the inner workings of the industry and allowed him to study the work of his idol, Milton Caniff, creator of Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon, and another legendary artist then working for Harvey—Jack Kirby.

by William Cain Quickly, now—what are the names you think of when someone mentions “The Marvel Age of Comics”?

Certainly Stan Lee appears at the forefront, along with mainstays like Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and Dick Ayers. No one could argue against any of those names. The creativity and marketing genius of Lee, the power of Kirby, the mystery of Ditko, and the efficiency of Ayers (among a handful of others) all played a tremendous role in Marvel’s rise to prominence in the early 1960s. But among those stars toiled another professional whose solid performance and remarkable dependability stamped him as one of the most reliable and well-liked artists in the history of the comic book field.

This man was Don Heck.

For an artist who admittedly preferred the “realistic” comics (westerns, war, mystery, and romance) to the super-hero genre, Heck is nonetheless associated with some of the most significant hero comics of the Silver Age.

In 1992 and 1993 Don Heck drew these never-before-published illustrations: a self-portrait, and a closeup of Iron Man and his alter ego of Tony Stark. They prove, if it needed proving, that, even in his mid-sixties, Don remained a consummate pro.

Courtesy of William Cain. [Art © 2002 the estate of Don Heck; Iron Man & Tony Stark © & TM Marvel Characters, Inc.]

One of his best-known runs came with “Iron Man,” beginning with the character’s very first appearance in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963) and including what many consider to be the Golden Avenger’s definitive look. He also provided the art to a groundbreaking run on The Avengers, eventually penciling or inking virtually every major hero in both the Marvel and DC universes. Among longtime comics fans and professionals, his name is immediately associated with the giants of the industry. His attention to detail, coupled with his efforts to constantly improve his craft, mark him as one of the best ever to man a draftsman’s table.

Just who was Don Heck, and how did he come to be such a valued and admired storyteller in the field of comics?

Like most of his contemporaries, Don was attracted to drawing at an early age. Born January 2, 1929, in Jamaica, New York, his artistic talent was quickly recognized by his father. Unable to see much of a future in comic art, however, the elder Heck tried to persuade him to pursue a

Heck wanted to draw, but the Harvey editors showed little interest in his artistic capabilities.

By 1950 his friend and fellow production artist, Pete Morisi, departed to begin a career as a freelance artist. Not only was Don not considered by Harvey to be an artist for their magazines; he was now expected to pick up the departing Morisi’s workload.

“I figured that was my cue to perfect my samples and get some work of my own,” Heck later explained. “The Harvey editors weren’t interested in my work. They wanted me back in the production department. So I picked a couple of comic book companies out of the phone book, visited them one day, and went home a professional comic artist.”

Those companies turned out to be Quality and Hillman, who assigned him short mystery stories. With his initial work under his belt and a fledgling portfolio to showcase, Heck soon found work with Toby Press and Media Comics. Media assigned him the lead art chores on a horror comic titled Horrific. While honing his craft working on the short-lived series, Heck drew the monster and vampire stories with shocking covers that were the vogue for the comics of the early ’50s, including shrunken heads, witches, and the obligatory Jack the Ripper.

While neither the series nor the company lasted long, Heck had his foot in the door, displaying the talent and professional demeanor that would propel him for the rest of his life. He also penciled features stories for characters like “Duke Douglas,” “Torpedo Taylor,” “Cliff Mason,” and

12

Don Heck

“Johnny Gallant” until, in 1954, Media folded.

upon. Following his instincts, Don Heck was his first choice.

With Heck looking for work, his friend and former Harvey production artist Pete Morisi was working for Stan Lee at Timely.

As the story goes, Lee opened a book from a competitor and asked, “Can’t you draw more like this guy?”

Back with Marvel and working on a regular basis, Heck became a mainstay on the company’s revamped mystery and monster books, penciling and inking monthly assignments in the company’s prehero versions of Strange Tales, Journey into Mystery, Tales to Astonish, and Tales of Suspense. These four comics were basically interchangeable, with Kirby, Ayers, Ditko, and Heck (among a handful of others) providing short stories of monsters, aliens, and watered-down “horror” tales to meet the standards imposed by the Comics Code Authority.

Morisi says he answered, “That’s Don Heck. If you want him, I can have him come up here.”

Heck later recounted his first meeting with Stan Lee: “It turned out that the very worst day and time to bring samples [to Stan] was on Wednesday afternoon. So naturally that was the precise day and time I showed up! (I could have sworn that was when my friend told me to go!) I suppose [Stan] was so amazed that anyone would dare show up then, that he actually came out to look at the samples I’d brought. He proceeded to turn a couple of pages, then said, ‘I already know what you can do.

Come on in and I’ll give you a script.’”

Thus began an association between Heck and Lee that would eventually see Don as one of the big stars of the “Marvel Age.”

When Stan Lee launched Fantasy Masterpieces as a nonhero reprint title cover-dated Feb. 1966, he chose this Heckdrawn story from Strange Tales #76 (1960) as the lead feature. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

It was during this period, from 1954 through 1957, that Heck firmly established his style as one of the premier artists for the western, romance, and mystery genres of comics. That suited him just fine, as the super-hero strips appeared to be a thing of the past.

In 1954 came the well-documented hoopla over Dr. Frederic Wertham’s book Seduction of the Innocent and Congressional inquiries into comics and their reputed effects on juvenile delinquency in America. The negative backlash from this series of events led to the near-demise of comics as a whole, and Marvel (then under the Atlas banner) cancelled more than half its output. As Stan Lee would later say, it was one of the saddest days of his professional career, as he was forced to release much of his staff, including Don Heck.

Writing in 1965 about Heck’s work (from Strange Tales #76) in the first issue of the giant-size reprint title Fantasy Masterpieces, Lee opined that Heck “is perhaps our most sophisticated artist.” Of course, the smashing success of The Fantastic Four and of “Spider-Man” in Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1961-62 led to a huge revival of the super-hero titles by Marvel. While Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko drew the debut appearances of most of the now-familiar original Marvel characters, in 1963 Lee turned to Heck for the origin and debut of “Iron Man” in Tales of Suspense #39. It was Don’s first super-hero assignment.

“Stan called me one day and said, ‘You’re going to be doing a new character called Iron Man.’ I had no idea what it was, what I was going to do,” Heck recounted. “Kirby had designed a costume and contributed some ideas. Stan and I expanded on those ideas, and then Larry Lieber wound up writing the final story.”

With the future of the industry uncertain at best, Heck drifted in and out of freelance work, focusing primarily on projects outside the comics arena. But a tragic accident initiated a turn of events that brought him back into the Marvel fold.

Joe Maneely, one of the company’s star artists, was killed in a train accident in 1958. The sad news of his unexpected death greatly pained Stan. But, from a professional viewpoint, he had to replace Maneely with someone he could immediately trust and depend

Iron Man fights the Commies in his origin story in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963). For some three dozen Don Heck (and occasionally Jack Kirby) action epics starring Ol’ Shellhead, grab a copy of The Essential Iron Man at your local comics shop or even bookstore! [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Iron Man became one of the giants of the Marvel Universe, and Heck was the perfect choice to depict the exploits of millionaire industrialist Tony Stark and his colorful supporting cast. “A writer can only go so far in conceptualizing, and then he needs his creation to take form within the story’s panels,” Stan has said.

“Luckily, we had the perfect artist available at the time—Dazzlin’ Donnie Heck, whose style had both a crispness and sophistication that would be perfect for the strip I had in mind. Don had been with us for years, doing virtually every type of feature imaginable: mystery tales, romance stories, fantasy yarns, monster epics; you name it, he’s done it. All I had to do was describe the project and Don was all for it.”

When Joe Simon and Jack Kirby introduced Captain America to the world in 1941, the character

One Heck of a Professional

13

was slugging Adolf Hitler and fighting the Nazis prior to the direct involvement of the United States in World War II. In a similar vein, Stan Lee introduced Iron Man to the comics world with a Vietnam origin, well before the war-torn nation’s battle with Communism became a hotbed for civil unrest and anti-war sentiment in the turbulent 1960s.

The year 1963 was “a time when most of us genuinely felt that the conflict in that tortured land really was a simple matter of good versus evil,” Stan wrote in 1975, “and that the American military action against the Viet Cong was tantamount to St. George’s battle against the dragon.”

Using the typical “playboy/scientist” formula while adding his own unique “flawed” twist to the character, Stan plunged the story into the fray of Communist aggression throughout Southeast Asia and used the hero as a springboard to showcase emerging technology, the Communist threat to American interests—and of course romance!

Captain America in issue #4, Stan wanted to take “The World’s Mightiest Heroes” in a new direction. With the entire Marvel Universe now dedicated to depicting continuity, it was becoming extremely difficult to have characters like Thor and Iron Man starring in their own monthly magazines while maintaining a viable appearance in The Avengers. Thus, Heck was in place and sorting out all the heroes and their personalities when the first major lineup change occurred in the classic issue #16. Although changes in the group’s lineup would eventually become a staple of the successful series, this was something of a first in the history of comics, especially for a series as popular as The Avengers. (Over at neighboring DC, Justice League of America, the book which to a great extent was the prototype of The Avengers, had added heroes, pushing its membership to a rather unwieldy ten, but had never dropped any.)

“Don was my first choice to draw ‘Iron Man,’” Stan recalled. “I knew that his combination of realistic storytelling and sophistication were just what a strip about a handsome playboy/adventurer needed. Our sales later proved that he, indeed, had been the perfect choice.” In fact, sales were so good that Iron Man immediately became the lead character in Tales of Suspense. Heck’s interpretation of the character certainly made a huge impact on Marvel’s ever-growing fan base. In 1995 Stan remarked that a fan at a comics convention asked, “Hey, aren’t you the guy who used to write Don Heck’s ‘Iron Man’?” Although the super-hero strip was new to Heck, and although Jack Kirby stepped in to pencil the second and third stories, Don quickly developed an affinity for Iron Man and the intriguing plotlines that surrounded him.

“Stan decided to focus a little more on the characters and less on the fight scenes, and that made it really a challenge and one that I enjoyed,” Heck later recalled.

“I liked doing that strip,” Heck explained, “especially the character bits with Tony Stark, Happy Hogan, and Pepper Potts.” As Marvel’s heroes began to multiply rapidly, later in 1963 he also took over the art chores from Jack Kirby on “The Astonishing Ant-Man” in Tales to Astonish. He was beginning to be known as Marvel’s “handyman” who could handle myriad characters in multiple genres. “Whenever anything suddenly came up, they would say, ‘Don’t worry, Don can handle that,’” he explained. It was Heck’s adeptness at depicting character angst and suspense in daily conflict that led to his eventual assignment to the title that forever cemented his spot among the giants of Marvel... The Avengers.

“Dashin’” (also “Dapper” and “Dazzlin’”) Donnie Heck, as Stan christened him, continued his masterful storytelling of The Avengers for almost three years, then turning the penciling chores over to John Buscema and going on to work on other projects for Marvel. His ability to connect the characters with the fans on the pages of the comics led to his selection to draw the historic Amazing Spider-Man Annual #3 in 1966, over John Romita layouts. His knack for telling a powerful story through his pencils and inks was not lost on the editors, but the fans took special notice of his talent for drawing beautiful heroines. Roy Thomas, writer of many of those stories and dozens of other collaborations with Heck, was not surprised. “Don had the reputation in the ’60s of drawing the prettiest females in any of the Marvel comics,” he has stated. “I couldn’t count all the letters we got about his renditions of characters like The Wasp and The Black Widow.”

Heck’s ability to draw gorgeous ladies first captured the attention of

It was in that same year of 1963 that Stan struck gold again, teaming established heroes in the Marvel continuity as The Avengers. As usual, Jack Kirby kicked the series off, but after issue #8 his heavy workload forced him to relinquish the title.

With another red-hot hit on his hands, Stan turned to Don Heck to keep the fire going. As Don remarked: “Stan called one day and said, ‘You’re doing The Avengers.’ And I said, ‘Great!

Who are The Avengers?’”

He took over penciling chores with issue #9 and carried the comic through what many say was the high point of the feature’s entire run. Galvanized by the return of 1940s icon

One of Don's favorite inkers was Frank Giacoia, as per the splash at left from Avengers #29 (June 1966). But, whoever the inker (probably George Roussos in the pin-up at right from Annual #1, 1967), Don's females were considered some of the most gorgeous then in comics. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

14 fans when he drew the AntMan and Wasp during his run on Tales to Astonish in 196364. “I was married to a goodlooking woman at the time,” he said, “so that was a big help.” Poking fun at his reputation, he noted that working on The Avengers “is something like working on half a dozen strips at once. But there are consolations—not the least of which is that I’m the only Marvel Bullpenner who gets to draw three beautiful super-heroines in the same story.”

Of course, as Heck insinuated, drawing a “team” book is tough, trying to juggle numerous characters and still keep the story fresh and fastpaced. Stan Lee pointed this out on the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page in the April 1967 issues: “It’s a wonder Dazzlin’ Don Heck is still talking to us! Wait’ll you read The Avengers this month and count how many super-heroes the poor guy hadda draw in that one ish! But, y’know somethin’? He was never greater!”

Don Heck last page. I’d say, ‘What about the stuff in between?’ And he’d say, ‘Fill it in.’”

As the 1970s rolled in and out, Heck was shifted from one title to another, usually filling in for a few issues until a new, full-time artist took over. As a result, he worked on virtually every title in the Marvel Universe. While new styles came and went and comics professionals took on a celebrity-level status, his workmanlike approach seemed to fade into oblivion.

For a time, stories circulated through the ranks of comics fans that Heck’s work was outdated and did not live up to the standards of newer artists. Some fans still clamored for his distinctive style, however. On the letters page of the February 1968 issue of The Avengers (#49), fan Ken Kahre asked about Heck’s future at Marvel.

“You guys are far too intelligent to let him loose,” he added. At the time, Heck was working on The X-Men, but he never seemed to keep the lead artist title for an extended period anymore.

Still, whenever he’d be pulled from a title in favor of a new artist, sales on the comic would often drop.

“Don was unlucky enough, I think, to be a non-super-hero artist who, during the ’60s, had to find his niche in a world dominated by super-heroes,” explained Roy Thomas.

As the technique of having “Fortunately, as he proved one artist pencil and another first with ‘Iron Man’ and then artist ink became more and with The Avengers, Don more the accepted practice, Don Heck also had stints penciling other Marvel heroes, as on this page from could rise to the occasion Don proved deft as an inker Sub-Mariner #66 (Oct. ’73). It was good, solid work... but nothing seemed to last long. Repro’d because he had real talent and for many Marvel books when from photocopies of the original art, courtesy of inker Don Perlin. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] a good grounding in the needed. Still, it was not a fundamentals. He amalgamethod he necessarily agreed mated into his own style certain aspects of Jack Kirby’s style and carved with. “I don’t really believe in one guy penciling a job and another guy out a place for himself as one of a handful of artists who were of real inking it,” he argued. “Maybe there are a few like Kirby and [Joe] importance during the early days of Marvel. He added lots of plot Sinnott or [Ross] Andru and [Mike] Esposito where that works, but incidents and little artistic touches to whatever I gave him.” most of the time you know best how you should be inked.” While Heck’s work was inked by many other legends (and he, in turn, inked Adding those “plot incidents” and “artistic touches” was of utmost many stories of theirs), he always preferred to ink his own pencils. importance when creating comics in the “Marvel style,” of course, “Who can ink a Jack Davis drawing besides Jack Davis,” he reasoned, because illustrators were expected to take the writer’s concept and “and have it remain a Jack Davis drawing?” portray the story in pictures first so that dialogue could be added later.

Not all artists felt up to the challenge. Even Heck did not accept it easily.

Ever the consummate professional, Heck didn’t take the title moves When first briefed on this way of working, he responded, “You’ve got to and sometimes harsh fan criticism of his work personally. Instead, he be kidding. I’m not used to that. I’m used to a full script.” While others continued to hone his talents to become ever better, not content to rest came and went, Heck applied himself to learn the technique, and on his already impressive credentials. As a genuine fan of the medium of eventually he excelled at it. As was normally the case at Marvel during comic art, he wanted to be the best and to deliver the utmost to the fans. the early ’60s, he penciled and inked many stories using layouts by In an effort to improve his skills and give the fans what they wanted, he Kirby. Soon he used his own style and made his own mark as a visual began seeking advice from his peers and colleagues, notably John storyteller and plotter, a role he cherished. “Stan would call me up,” he Buscema. If his work was not what the fans and editors wanted, then said, “and he’d give me the first couple of pages over the phone, and the he’d just improve himself until he did meet that standard.

One Heck of a Professional

The final page of Night Glider #1-and-only (April 1993), some of Don’s last professional comics work. [© & TM 2002 the estate of Jack Kirby.]

While continually trying to improve himself, Don also got regular work with other companies, including Western Publishing and DC. When Jack Kirby made his move to DC in 1971, he remembered Heck’s skill at drawing attractive female characters and recommended him for the “Batgirl” series. Heck penciled “Batgirl” for a number of years, as well as many other DC comics and characters. This included a run as the inker on Hawkman and on an issue of Teen Titans Spotlight in the 1980s with Tony Isabella.

15

But Kirby’s failing health limited his personal involvement, and his death in 1994 ended the effort completely.

Then, on February 23, 1995, the comics industry got the sad news that Don Heck had succumbed to the same killer that had taken the lives of John Wayne, Yul Brunner, and countless others in the past century... lung cancer. One of the true giants in the industry, “Dashin’ Donnie Heck,” was gone.

“I still don’t think he gets his props from comicdom in general,” adds Isabella. “But, when you talk with fans and pros of my generation, they revere his work. As well they should. Don was one of the best ever. If there was a Marvel Universe version of Mount Rushmore, he would be up there with Stan, Jack, Steve, and Dick. Yeah, I know—that’s five heads—but comics have always been larger than life.”

From the Atlas monsters of the 1950s to the Marvel hero explosion of the 1960s through the changes in the modern age, Don Heck constantly strove to be the very best artist and storyteller he could be. While he may not be the super-star name that adorns marquee billboards, fans and professionals from the Silver Age hold him in the very highest esteem.

“Don Heck was more than a splendid artist,” said Stan Lee. “He was a gentleman and a friend and a joy to work with.”

[Bill Cain has spent the past two decades as a U.S. Army officer, serving with multiple units. A Lieutenant Colonel and a Gulf War veteran, he is currently stationed at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. He grew up loving comics, and had previously interviewed the late George Roussos for Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #6.]

“Working with Don was a thrill for me,” Isabella shared. “He was a terrific artist and storyteller, which made scripting from his pages more fun than work. I never had to cover storytelling flaws when Don was the artist. He never left out the details, adding an air of reality to the unreal world of super-heroes.”

The ’70s began a string of difficult years for Heck, including the death of his wife and declining personal health. While critics may say this was the low point in the quality of his work, he continued to produce an output that would put many others to shame. He was as dependable as they come, and his reputation for never missing a deadline remained intact. His determination always to meet his deadlines, according to Roy Thomas, “is hard to imagine in this day when 20-yearold neo-stars become instant and often undependable prima donnas.”

In fact, Don’s reputation for always meeting his deadlines once led Stan Lee to call the Long Island police to investigate! Flo Steinberg explained: “Early in the 1960s, not everyone had telephones in their vacation homes. And sometime in 1963 or ’64, Don was a day past his deadline for a project. This was so extremely unusual for him that Stan was concerned that something was wrong. Don was staying out on Fire Island, and since there was no telephone to reach him, we called the local police there and convinced them to check on Don. Of course, everything was okay and Don called in to verify that he was fine. But because Don was such a dependable professional, Stan was convinced that since he had missed a deadline, then something absolutely must be wrong! Me, too!”

In the early 1990s Topps Comics launched a series utilizing previously unpublished Jack Kirby characters, as Jack Kirby’s Secret City Saga. Several of Kirby’s friends and colleagues from the early Marvel era joined the effort at the instigation of Topps editor Jim Salicrup, including Heck on a special Night Glider issue. “It amuses me that one of the best-selling comics this month is drawn by Don Heck,” quipped Salicrup to Roy Thomas at the time.

In the late ’70s and after, Don penciled various series for DC—and did full art chores on this Wonder Woman pin-up for the 1983 DC Sampler given out at comics stores.

Matter of fact, this is only the left-hand side of a two-page spread! Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, courtesy of Joel Thingvall. [©2002 DC Comics.]

16

John Buscema

An Avengers Interview--Sort Of-with John Buscema A Conversation between Two Longtime Collaborators about a Half-remembered Sojourn Conducted by Roy Thomas

[NOTE: Even as I was in the final stages of proofreading this issue of A/E, I learned the sad news of John Buscema’s passing. As you might expect, it still seems unreal to me as I write these words, only an hour or so later, for last-minute inclusion. I’ll have far more to say about John two issues from now, in A/E #15, much of which will be devoted to this Titan among comic book artists; but I preferred to let the following short interview stand. From 1967-72 I scripted for Stan Lee a 70-issue run of The Avengers, quite a few of them penciled by John Buscema, who was one of Marvel’s major artists from 1966-67 through the 1990s... and he was my major collaborator, as well, on both Conan the Barbarian and The Savage Sword of Conan in the 1970s—and on the latter, again, in the ’90s. In November of last year I began working with the semi-retired “Big John” on a new five-issue series for DC Comics, and he graciously agreed to speak with me about our Avengers work. It was unspokenly agreed between us that there would be no mention of his recent diagnosis of stomach cancer, or of the chemotherapy he was undergoing at the time, though we did speak briefly of it between ourselves. Of course, during the recorded interview, we detoured off onto such subjects as Conan and the 1940s Timely, as well... and we made tentative plans to return to both topics in near-future issues. But this plan, like the one I’d forged with Gil Kane a couple of years earlier, was not destined to be realized. To jog John’s memory in preparation for our talk by phone, I mailed him photocopies from many of our Avengers issues. When I phoned him, he expressed half-serious amazement that I had bothered to save all those comics, let alone (as I informed him) had them professionally bound so they could sit proudly on bookcases. At this point I turned on the tape recorder:] ROY THOMAS: You wonder why I saved the stuff?

BUSCEMA: Well, Roy, I’m not a fan of comics.

Transcribed by Brian K. Morris

Juxtaposed with perhaps his most famous Avengers cover, which heralded the coming of The Vision (#57, Oct. 1968), John and Dolores Buscema smile for Dann Thomas’ camera at Joe Petrilak’s All Time Classic New York Comic Book Convention held in White Plains, NY, in June of 2000. They’re looking pretty cheerful, considering that the chauffeur hired to drive them from Long Island to White Plains got lost and took several hours to get them there! John said he went to this con and one in San Diego because “my grandkids made me!” [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

RT: No kidding. [laughs] BUSCEMA: As far as I’m concerned, if I never saw another comic—!

The only thing I’ve saved is a couple of Conan books we worked on, and that’s it. I got rid of everything. One of the reasons, which upset me

An Avengers Interview––Sort Of

17

(At left:) Buscema’s splash from Avengers #44 (Sept. 1967), inked by Vinnie Colletta. John sort-of recalls The Red Guardian, but had more enthusiasm for Hercules (below) facing the Psychotron’s manifestation of the mythological Hydra in #43, inked by George Roussos. Taken from the b-&-w images of Marvel’s Essential Avengers, Vol. 2. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

remember being put on The Avengers? I think that was the first fullbook assignment you had when you returned to Marvel.

BUSCEMA: Yeah, because I started back in ’66, and it must have been right after that.

RT: You’d done “S.H.I.E.L.D.” and “Hulk” over Kirby breakdowns.

Then Stan had you do a fill-in issue or two of Avengers with me while Don Heck was busy elsewhere... and I kept you on for another year or so. Had you ever done a super-hero group book before?

BUSCEMA: No, that was the first.

RT: [chuckles] And, hopefully, the last, huh?

BUSCEMA: Well, you know, if you know how to pace it so that you don’t have seventeen guys in each panel... [laughs] RT: You did that well. At one point, we had Hercules shave off the beard he had in Thor. Do you remember, is that something you and I both wanted? I can’t remember.

BUSCEMA: I don’t, either. You know, all these Xeroxes of pages you sent me, they don’t even ring a bell. [laughs] I completely forgot all about this stuff.

RT: Not even in #43-44—where you designed The Red Guardian, in his Russian Communist outfit?

BUSCEMA: I sort of vaguely remember that one.

over the years, is that other people were inking my stuff, and that is not my work.

I can’t look at it. The ones I inked, yes, I keep. Anything with super-heroes, I’m not interested. Only the Conans.

RT: You inked the last Conans we did together—that three-issue series two or three years ago. And that graphic novel you plotted, penciled, inked, and even colored in the ’90s, then asked me to dialogue—Conan the Rogue—was some of your best work ever! Of course, you always had the option of inking Conan. You just didn’t want to, generally.

BUSCEMA: No, it was a matter of trying to keep up with the schedules, because at one time, if you remember, Roy, I was doing the black-&-white and the color book.

RT: [laughs] And, of course, Stan wouldn’t have really wanted you inking all that work, because he’d rather get more penciling out of you.

Me, too. So, obviously, very few of your Avengers stories were inked by you.

Taking a brief look at our Avengers work together: the first one you penciled, back in 1967, was #41. Do you

RT: You always seemed to come to life when we’d be doing the mythological stuff, like Hercules fighting some of these gods or monsters.

BUSCEMA: That I enjoyed— because I don’t have the restrictions of the goddam automobiles and skyscrapers. I can create anything that comes into my imagination. That’s why Conan appealed to me. I had a lot of freedom in those books. I could do anything with the buildings and create costumes. Again, I don’t like drawing mechanical things. I just don’t enjoy it. I like animated stuff, you know.

RT: Every artist has different things they enjoy drawing.

BUSCEMA: Well, Herb Trimpe used to draw the most beautiful airplanes. He loved doing airplanes. And I hate drawing them. [laughs] RT: There were fans who wrote to me when I started doing Conan and doing less super-hero work: “Why don’t you quit that stupid Conan and go back to the super-heroes?” But what I enjoyed most was doing a little bit of everything.

18

John Buscema BUSCEMA: First of all, Conan was something that hadn’t been done before and I loved the Howard books. I fell in love with them as soon as I read them and I was chomping at the bit and I wanted to do them so badly.

[NOTE: John is referring to 1970, when he was the first artist offered the assignment of drawing Conan the Barbarian.]

RT: Well, all you’d have had to do was cut your rate in half, and they’d have let you do it. [laughs] Martin Goodman [Marvel’s thenpublisher] wanted to get back that tiny bit of money he was paying out for the rights—$150 an issue—in some way.

Avengers #52 (May 1968) introduced The Grim Reaper. Pencils by John Buscema. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

BUSCEMA: Oh, God. [laughs]

RT: That was his edict. Do you remember drawing, in Avengers #46, Giant-Man running around inside an anthill, fighting ants?

BUSCEMA: Again, it’s so foreign to me, really.

RT: #49-50 are two of the only Avengers issues you inked. They have all the mythological stuff again, which had the feeling of the Thor strip you’d draw later.

BUSCEMA: Yeah, that’s my inking, right. Again, I don’t remember the book.

RT: When you were doing the John Buscema Sketchbook recently with David Spurlock, you didn’t recall designing any characters; but here’s a villain you designed—The Grim Reaper in #52. Do you remember him? I know it was my idea to have him carry a scythe, but I have this feeling it was your idea to make the scythe part of his actual arm.

BUSCEMA: No, I don’t remember that at all, Roy. If I could help it, I didn’t want to create anything. [laughs]

Klein was there before me. I was one of the last guys to get in. I was probably the youngest guy in the place at the time, and I remember another guy named Joe Something, a young kid about my age. And Gene Colan was working there about a month or two before I did.

RT: And the next year they laid everybody off staff and turned them into freelancers.

BUSCEMA: They had a closet full of artwork that was partially finished. Apparently, if the editors weren’t happy with some work, they’d throw it in a closet—and when Goodman saw it, he went bananas. And I’ll never forget, it was one of the saddest times that I experienced. One of the guys that just got married came back from his honeymoon and he was out of a job.

RT: Back in the ’60s and ’70s, we almost never wasted a page, once it was drawn and paid for. If we wanted to pay for a new page, we’d better have a damn good reason!

BUSCEMA: What the hell, there’s a lot of money involved. But they weren’t on top of it in ’49.

There was Al Jaffee, he was one of the editors. There was—Jesus, what the hell are their names? I see their faces but I can’t remember.

There was a whole raft of these guys. These guys would just throw this stuff in the closet. I really can’t blame Goodman. You know, one of the things that was different in those days—we didn’t get paid by the page. We were paid a weekly salary. We were on staff, the whole Bullpen.

We were about twenty guys in one room. There was Danny DeCarlo, Syd Shores, Carl Burgos, a whole raft of people in that room.

The Masters of Evil, from Avengers #55, the first inked by George Klein on his return to Marvel after 2H decades. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

RT: Burgos laid out a bunch of covers, didn’t he?

BUSCEMA: He did. The production people were in a different part of the office. I very seldom walked out of the bullpen. That was in the Empire State Building.

I was there for about a year and a half, and that’s when things hit the fan with Goodman.

RT: You penciled The Black Panther in that issue with the full-face mask, but Stan decided we should make certain readers could see he was black. So we had to redraw the whole book to show his face. Vinnie Colletta inked.

RT: You were in the famous Room 1404. I wonder—is there a 13th floor in the Empire State?

Because if not, that means the 14th floor was really the 13th floor! Which would explain a lot!

In #55, George Klein became the inker, with more of a Joe Sinnott kind of style.

Had you known Klein from the old days when you were both at Marvel or Timely?

BUSCEMA: Could be. [laughs] But I do remember the 14th floor for the simple reason that, on the same floor, there was an outfit whose name was something with “gold.” They’d buy it and sell gold jewelry. And they used to advertise on radio and they would say, “The 14th floor of the Empire State Building.” That’s why it stuck in my mind.

BUSCEMA: Yeah, at Timely.

I started there in ’48. George

RT: So how did you feel about George Klein’s inking compared to some of the others?

This panel in #54 introduced the “robot” who turned out to be Ultron-5. More about Ultron’s origins in a near-future issue. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

An Avengers Interview––Sort Of

19

BUSCEMA: From what I’ve seen, a very credible job, not bad. He wasn’t that old when he died, was he?

RT: He was in his fifties. He’d inked Superman for years, and could do that Sinnott style that was very popular then.

I also sent you a copy of that robot who became Ultron. Do you remember if I ever sent you any reference on that, as I seem to recall?

BUSCEMA: Roy, I don’t remember. The only thing that I remember is when I saw the page that you sent, and it rang a bell.

That’s all.

RT: I don’t recall if he was always going to be Ultron or if he started out just as the robot. But Ultron, in his various incarnations, has easily been the most popular villain you and I ever created. I even co-wrote an Avengers comic a few months ago with him as the villain.

BUSCEMA: He’s still around?

RT: Oh, yeah. The two most popular characters you and I devised together for The Avengers were Ultron, and the other was The Vision, who came along in #57, as part of the same storyline.

BUSCEMA: Well, I think it was already created and I just made a revision.

RT: Jack Kirby had done a Vision back in the ’40s. I sent you a picture of that one, but I asked for the diamond symbol on his chest—and you added, on your own, that jewel on his forehead. So he’s partly new and partly old. Do you remember that final page where the kid finds Ultron’s head and is kicking it around?

BUSCEMA: Bumping the head all around? No, I don’t. Roy, let me put it this way: I never read a comic book. [laughs] In all the years I’ve been doing comics, I’ve never read one.

Jack Kirby’s “Vision” feature debuted in Marvel Mystery Comics #13 (Nov. 1940), as a green-skinned visitor from another dimension—while Thomas & Buscema’s red-fleshed android version floated onto the scene in Avengers #57. In Avengers: The Ultron Imperative (Nov. 2001), Roy Thomas co-plotted (with Kurt Busiek) and scripted a first page which harkened back to that 1968 splash; it’s repro’d from photocopies of John Paul Leon’s pencils. For the inked version, complete with captions that likewise echo Avengers #57, dig up a copy of the published comic! And see The Golden Age of Marvel Comics - Vol. 2 for the full Kirby “Vision” epic! [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

RT: So you never knew I took that page and put a poem by Percy Shelley with it? Many people assumed I must have intended it that way when I plotted the book. But actually, I just saw your page with all those panels and it sort of fit the poem so I threw it in.

BUSCEMA: Well, I wouldn’t have drawn with all those panels unless you described the scene in a lot of detail.

RT: Well, I probably wrote, “Do this scene in a number of panels.”

Then, the next issue—#58: I’m sure that on this second Vision story, “Even An Android Can Cry,” I must have put the title on the synopsis I sent you, because that’s your lettering of the title on the stone wall, isn’t it?

BUSCEMA: If you say so.

20

John Buscema RT: That’s another story where I must’ve made up the title in advance, because you wouldn’t have lettered it as part of the art if I hadn’t given you the title, from the Robert Frost poem. But I should have arranged it so the two title pages faced each other.

Then came the last Avengers we did together for a year: #62, with the Man-Ape—another villain you designed.

BUSCEMA: Yeah. That I remember. I enjoyed that. I loved that costume because I like drawing animals and I really enjoyed it.

RT: That was one of the rare times where we just talked for ten minutes on the phone about the story. And then I was going to send you a plot and you said, “Naw, it’s okay. I got enough.” [laughs] Then you drew the whole thing from that ten-minute conversation, which is not the way we usually worked, where I gave you a written synopsis.

BUSCEMA: I worked that way with Stan for a long time. You know, he would get on the phone and give me a plot and I’d take it from there.

RT: That’s about the time he took you off Avengers to do Silver Surfer, I guess. During that time, you began to show more Kirby influence after your experience on Silver Surfer #4.

BUSCEMA: Silver Surfer #4—that’s when I was trying to get away from Kirby. I didn’t want to work like Kirby any more. But Stan tore the job apart, so when I got home, I said screw it, I’ll go right back to the same old crap.

RT: It was still good work. About a year later, with #74, in 1971, you came back on The Avengers. And this time, Tom Palmer was inking.

BUSCEMA: Tom did a fabulous job, as far as I’m concerned. He did some of the panels—he really followed me right—you know, the penciling. That’s what I like about an inker. If he can follow my stuff, I’m happy.

The first of the two splashes for Avengers #60 (Feb. 1969). To see the other one, pick up Essential Avengers, Vol. 3, from which this b-&-w image, like some others in this issue, is taken. Like the other volumes in Marvel’s Essentials series, it’s a great, inexpensive way to latch onto readings copies of Silver Age classic stories. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

RT: In #59 we introduced Yellowjacket, who turned out to be Goliath with amnesia. One panel you drew of Jan in her wedding dress reminded me that I saw lots of things and background characters you’d do, that looked to me like they came out of advertising art. Was that conscious on your part? I remember one panel where a kid in the foreground is shouting back toward the reader, and he looks for all the world like he’s in of those Schwinn bicycle ads.

RT: You were still doing full pencils at this stage, right? I don’t think they were breakdowns like you did later.

BUSCEMA: Oh no, no, no, no. These were full pencils.

RT: You did some nice things that weren’t in the Kirby vein. I think even when you were trying to imitate Kirby, you still kept coming up with things that were different.

BUSCEMA: I guess after a while, you sort of start using your own brain instead of somebody else’s. [laughs] RT: In #75 we introduced another one of our more popular creations—Arkon the Magnificent. He had the feel of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars crossed with Conan. Of course, you

BUSCEMA: Probably I still hadn’t gotten the advertising out of my blood.

RT: That story, where Hank and Jan get married—I wrote the dialogue for the early pages of that story on my honeymoon, which is probably why I was divorced later.

BUSCEMA: You’re kidding! [laughs] A lot of characters in this story—I can see that.

RT: Yeah, we always invited everybody to a Marvel wedding in those days—and the Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime had to crash the gate. #61 has a couple of nice splashes: “Some Say the Earth Will End in Fire, Some Say In ice.”

BUSCEMA: That’s a nice splash. That’s pretty damn good.

Arkon from his premier issue, Avengers #75 (April 1970). Art by John Buscema and Tom Palmer. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

An Avengers Interview––Sort Of had read Conan several months earlier. Did you have Burroughs and Conan in mind when we—?

BUSCEMA: I don’t remember, Roy. I really don’t. I just remember the character because I can see the drawings here. But if you had talked to me about it over the phone without seeing this, I wouldn’t remember.

RT: When we were doing stories set in Arkon’s sword-andsorcery world, with him riding around on lizards, you seemed to really turn loose and enjoy that a lot more.

BUSCEMA: Well, like I keep repeating, I enjoy doing animated stuff.

You know, animals, people, and stuff. I just don’t enjoy doing the mechanical crap. You know, Jack Kirby used to draw the most beautiful machines, and you can see the guy enjoyed doing it. He’d come up with a different idea every panel and I’d swipe his because I couldn’t stand drawing these goddam machines. [laughs]

The Buscema-Klein cover of Avengers #62 (March 1969). [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

do a chapter in #94, the second otherwise Neal Adams-drawn issue of what would soon be known as the KreeSkrull War. And, by sheer coincidence, the last Avengers the two of us did together was #97, where I had to give you that whole issue to do in a few days due to Neal’s severe deadline problems.

BUSCEMA: I don’t remember that well, either. I remember you calling me up and saying that there was a problem, but I don’t remember the book. Lots of guys wouldn’t come through at the last moment.

Remember Frank Giacoia? He was good, but he was always screwing off. [laughs] He inked a couple of books of mine, and I loved the stuff he did.

The Valkyrie, first seen in Avengers #83 (Dec. 1970), makes her bid to be Time’s Man-hater of the Year. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

RT: Yeah. But Frank would rather sit around and watch Gunga Din for the fiftieth time on TV than work—which is unfortunate, because he was one of the best inkers around.

RT: In #80 we made up Red Wolf. You probably don’t remember anything about him?

BUSCEMA: The guy could draw. That’s another thing in his favor. If you can draw, your inking has got to be better than a guy who can’t draw.

BUSCEMA: Yes. I do remember that character. He had this wolf with him.

Yeah, that I remember.

RT: Like Tom Palmer, too. He started off penciling one or two Dr. Strange jobs, and he actually could draw, even if he was a better inker in Marvel terms. Joe Sinnott too, had been a full artist.

RT: Another of our characters who’s had an even more successful life in different incarnations we made up in #83—The Valkyrie. I just told you, “Let’s do a female Thor,” and that was basically it.

BUSCEMA: Yeah, but I preferred Tom inking me over Joe Sinnott. Sinnott, for some reason, just couldn’t ink my stuff. But he was born to do Jack’s stuff! I think no one could have done a better job. One of the things that Sinnott did to my stuff—he would smooth out the figures.

And my drawing had a lot of bumps, you know. Drawing the muscle on the arm, I put a couple of bumps here and there. If you take those out, it loses its power, or whatever the hell I’m trying to convey.

BUSCEMA: The only reason I remember her is that the cover on this book came out in Time or one of those magazines.

RT: Probably because we had all those women characters together. It was not one of my best stories, but it looked good, thanks to you. They ran the cover in Time?

RT: Don Heck was the Avengers artist before you. You two were friends, weren’t you?

BUSCEMA: Either Time or Newsweek. I don’t remember which one, but I did save the magazine. I don’t remember what they said about it. [laughs] I remember it had nothing to do with the book. It had something to do with Women’s Lib. RT: Soon afterward, you were taken off Avengers again, but you came back to

21

Big John returned to The Avengers with #74 (March 1970).

This Buscema cover, inked by Tom Palmer, is repro’d from a b-&-w copy of the original art. Thanks to Jerry K. Boyd. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

BUSCEMA: Oh, yeah. We lived about ten minutes away from each other. One of the things I remember about Don—he was having a lot of trouble with a lot of the editors in later years. I don’t know why. I always thought Don was one of the better men in the business,

22

John Buscema

Mort Drucker, watch out! John Buscema’s caricatures of Roy Thomas and Don Heck (above left) were right on target. (Roy stopped wearing his bright orange Nehru jacket after a truck driver whistled at him on 2nd Avenue in Manhattan; a few months later his first wife Jeanie refused to marry him till he shaved his goatee!) The 4-panel exchange is between Dashin’ Donnie and Big John—but of course Stan the Man (above right) had the final word. See the whole magilla, if you dare, in Essential Avengers, Vol. 3. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Opposite a 1990s Buscema pencil sketch of Conan, the Cimmerian enjoys an uncharacteristically quiet moment in this page from what is arguably John’s greatest artistic achievement ever, the super-rare 1991 Marvel graphic novel Conan the Rogue, which he plotted, penciled, inked, and colored—and which then was allowed to sink with little publicity. Roy Thomas provided the words. Pencil drawing provided by David G. Hamilton.

[Pencil sketch ©2002 John Buscema; art at left © 2002 Conan Properties, Inc.]

An Avengers Interview––Sort Of

23

John B’s pencils for a late-1960s Avengers pin-up, courtesy of David G. Hamilton. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

and for some reason, these young editors wouldn’t give him enough work to survive.

I was out to lunch one day with a couple of the editors and some of the writers. And I brought up the subject of Don, and I told the editors, “What the hell’s the matter with you guys? Why don’t you use Don Heck? He’s one of the best men in the business!” And you know, one of them said, “You know, I love the guy’s stuff, but I never think of calling him.” And that’s murder. [laughs] I said, the guy’s gotta eat. What’s the matter with them? Give him some work. They never gave him the work, anyway.

RT: If Stan had told someone he was going to keep them busy, even if they were officially freelancers, he got very angry if that person had time on his hands because no one had work ready for him when he needed it! I continued that policy, and so did an editor or two after me. But, over the years, it went by the wayside. And once the company went to having a whole ream of editors a few years later, if one editor dropped you from a book, nobody else at Marvel felt any obligation to find you a replacement. That horrible, inhuman departmentalization was happening there, like it had at DC earlier. Editors would forget about people.

BUSCEMA: And that’s a hell of a way to treat a guy after so many years, and he was damn good.

RT: Don had been very popular, especially in the ’60s, doing Avengers and Iron Man. Of course, he wasn’t really a guy who enjoyed doing super-heroes. I remember the backup story you did for an Avengers Annual, with humorous versions of you and me and Don Heck in it.

Do you remember it at all? It had the feel of Mort Drucker in Mad. BUSCEMA: [laughs] I couldn’t believe that I had done that. I didn’t think I could do it.

RT: I have a page hanging up in my guest house that you and I and Stu Schwartzberg did for Marvel’s Crazy black-&-white in the ’70s— a parody of the James Bond movie Live and Let Die. You could obviously have done stuff like that for magazines like Mad on a big scale if you’d really wanted to.

BUSCEMA: I never really thought about it, because I never had an interest in that kind of stuff. If they asked me to do it, I’d do it. That was it. I know when I was in advertising, I did a lot of cartoony-type art that some of the agencies wanted.

RT: Well, I’d say that you made me look ridiculous in that Nehru jacket and beard and on the tricycle—except that I really looked that way—except for the tricycle. [laughs] Of course, you came back and worked on a lot of Avengers later too, with others, right?

24

John Buscema

BUSCEMA: I don’t remember, Roy. [laughs] RT: Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you about them. But I’ve invited Steve Englehart to write about his experiences on Avengers and the like, anytime he feels like it.

BUSCEMA: You know something? I have about 10,000 comic books down in the cellar, in boxes and boxes—remember we used to get all the books from all the publishers? I just threw them down in the cellar and put them in boxes and I forgot about them. My granddaughter came over and she went down in the cellar and said, “Grandpa, what are these? Oh, can I have—?” I said, “They’re all yours. Take ’em.” I don’t know what the hell I had.

RT: Hey, some of those might be worth money. You could go to Italy on some of that.

BUSCEMA: Ah, Roy, I don’t have the patience. I told her, “Look, if you can sell them, it’s yours.” I’m keeping some of the books, the Conans. I’m not interested in any super-heroes. Some of the Conan books I enjoyed. I’m sorry I didn’t ink more of them, but at the time I wasn’t interested. All I was interested in was how much I could make today.

RT: I remember you’d ink an issue, then you’d say you wanted to pencil and ink, and we’d say, “Okay.” Then you’d pencil and ink a few issues and say, “I just want to do layouts.” So we just kept changing, depending on what you felt like doing.

BUSCEMA: Roy, it was a matter of economics, that’s all. It wasn’t a matter of artistic craftsman, or anything like that.

Ernie Chan—“That Buscema/Chan stuff was great!” That and the stuff with Tony DeZuniga and with Alfredo.

BUSCEMA: I remember the first time Alcala inked my Conan. I went up to Marvel and ran into one of the editors—Len Wein, or who’s the other guy—Marv Wolfman—in the hallway, and he said, [excitedly] “Oh, you’ve got to see it, John. It’s beautiful.” Alcala was a good artist, but he destroyed my drawing. He would make these girls—now, I draw a pretty good-looking broad— RT: You certainly do.

BUSCEMA: And he would put these eyelashes from 1930— RT: Well, it did change the look. I put Alfredo on Savage Sword mainly because he put in all that detail—and, coming off the Conan issues by Barry, who had put so much detail in, I thought, well, if you weren’t going to ink it yourself, we might as well noodle it up and make it look like there’s a lot of drawing there, you know?

BUSCEMA: Giving them more than their money’s worth.

RT: Yeah, artwork by the pound. But artistically, much as I rather liked you with the Filipino embellishers personally, it probably was less successful artistically than commercially... certainly in your eyes.

BUSCEMA: Well, I have a certain taste, and you want to know something? What I like, most people don’t like. So what can I tell you?

But I enjoyed every Conan we worked on, Roy. As long as it was Conan, I loved working on it.

RT: At least, even though you weren’t wild about some of those Conan inkers, you at least understood that we had to put somebody on them. Alfredo Alcala, for instance, did a lot of noodling. It was popular. And I still hear people say, “Oh boy, that Ernie Chua,” who was also

Together again—for the first time at DC! Big John and Roy the Boy had teamed up, under editor Dan Raspler, on a projected five-part Elseworlds epic to answer the musical question: “What if Kal-El of Krypton had landed on Earth untold thousands of years ago, in a gleaming age of swords and sorcery?” Here, by Dan’s special permission, is a sneak peek at John Buscema’s pencils for the splash of the first issue of JLA: Barbarians—flanked by the series’ counterparts of Green Lantern and Wonder Woman. [©2002 DC Comics.]

[NOTE: In addition to our planned feature coverage of the life and career of John Buscema two issues hence, we strongly urge that you seek out a copy of The John Buscema Sketchbook from Vanguard Press, whose ad appears in the flip side of this issue.]

25

26

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt

Stan Lee’s Double Date!!

pencils. Editor David Castronuovo wrote this in Crusader’s original editorial:

by Michael T. Gilbert

“Vince Colletta, inking artist from Marvel Comics, who is Frank’s father, has also helped us a great deal. Not only did he set up the interviews with Mr. Lee, but also gave us some pro art to use in our zine.”

I was 14 years old in 1965, and a huge Marvel fan. Which also meant I was a rabid Stan Lee fan. In those days, Marvel produced a mere handful of comics, all pretty much edited and scripted by Stan. I loved them all, and “Smilin’ Stan’s” friendly, wise-cracking editorials just added to the fun. Naturally, I was dying to learn any small tidbits about Marvel Comics.

The “pro art” consisted of a quickly-drawn Spider-Man cover by Vince Colletta, and a cute Spider-Man pin-up credited to him but clearly based on a Steve Ditko drawing. Stan probably wrote the gag, as his signature was pasted onto the Spidey pin-up.

As David tells it, when they found out that Frank’s parents were planning a double date with Stan and his wife Joan, the boys arranged a one-hour interview with their idol. The scheduled one-hour interview eventually grew into a fivehour session!

So you can imagine my delight when I stumbled onto the Stan Lee interview you’re about to read. During a comics trading session, I snagged a copy of the first issue of a fanzine called Crusader (not to be confused with any super-hero of the same name, or with Marty Greim’s Comic Crusader fanzine of years back).

This Crusader was a big honking thing—46 single-sided pages, with a cover date of “Winter 1964-65” plastered on the cover. The mag sported a crude picture of Spider-Man, and was filled with typical fanzine fare: comic book news, pin-ups, ads, and an Avengers parody, “The Dentures.” There was also a short history of Dr. Doom, and some panels reprinting the origin of the Golden Age Aquaman.

But the “jewel in the crown” was an honest-to-gosh-wow Stan Lee interview.

No, your eyes aren’t going bad on you like Stan Lee says (in the interview) that his are! This grainy photo is taken directly from Crusader #1, so what we see is what you get, alas. But we wanted to print it anyway, in the spirit of the times. From left to right: Vinnie Colletta’s son Frank, Stan, and David Castronuovo. The photo was probably taken by fellow editor Pete Ricciardi, or else he’d have squeezed into the pic himself!

We’re reprinting Stan’s Crusader interview here, with minor editing. Don’t expect an in-depth “think piece”—or a “take-no-prisoners” Comics Journal-style conversation.

The Crusader interview took place during fandom’s brief, beloved “age of innocence,” and was conducted by three awestruck kids. Still, it’s interesting and valuable on a number of different levels.

First, it’s a rare glimpse of Stan Lee at the very beginning of his growing popularity—and the emergence of Marvel Comics as the fourcolor powerhouse it soon became. Stan clearly got a kick out of talking to these enthusiastic fans, and it shows.

Beyond that, the interview was done in 1964, making it one of the earliest Stan Lee interviews. As such, it’s an incredibly rare interview, made more so by Crusader’s limited press run. Most fanzines in the early ’60s had very small circulations. A popular offset-printed title like the original Alter Ego series might have a circulation in the hundreds, maybe as much as a thousand in rare cases. Your typical zine printed via spirit-duplicator machine (such as Crusader) generally had a print run of less than a hundred. Of these, only a handful of copies are likely to have survived after nearly four decades. It’s a real treat for me to be able to reprint this for a much wider audience. Those “old-timers” among us who were young Marvel fans in the early ’60s will find this interview particularly interesting.

Equally interesting are the circumstances behind the interview. The Q&A was conducted in two sessions by three young fans—David Castronuovo, Pete Ricciardi, and Frank Colletta. If that last name sounds familiar, it’s because Frank’s dad was famed Marvel inker Vince Colletta, who arranged the interview. Mr. Colletta was most famous for his long run on Journey into Mystery/Thor, over Jack “King” Kirby’s

I have to chuckle, thinking about Stan’s wife and Mr. and Mrs. Colletta twiddling their thumbs for five hours (!) as Stan and the kids gassed on about comics! I think it shows the level of enthusiasm Stan had for the comics and for his fans. I also like to imagine the moment when these two 11- or 12-yearold Marvel fanatics heard their buddy Frank mention that his dad’s pal STAN LEE!!!! was going to stop by. I was roughly their age at the time, and I know I would have freaked!

But, enough talk! David’s 1964 interview will fill you in on any additional background. Then it’s on to our main course: Stan “The Man” Lee!

At last! The interview that you’ve been waiting for!

In-Person Interview with STAN LEE As you would naturally expect, we were greatly enthused and excited over the fact that the three of us, David Castronuovo, Peter Ricciardi, and Frank Colletta, were really going to meet STAN LEE! When we found out that Vince Colletta was having Mr. Lee over to his house, we immediately started to prepare for the meeting that Mr. Colletta had set up. Aside from preparing a number of questions for this interview, we also saw to it that cameras and tape recorders were in top condition! (See pictures reprinted in this zine. Much to our surprise, we learned that Mr. Lee had the same type of camera that I was using!)

Waiting for Stan Lee to arrive, we became greatly impatient, which was naturally expected. (After all, how many times does one meet Stan Lee so informally?) We were under the impression that Mr. Lee was only going to be able to talk with us for about an hour (before going out to dinner with his wife and Mr. and Mrs. Colletta). But the way it turned out, poor Stan never left the house until 5 hours after he arrived.

After meeting Mr. and Mrs. Lee, and talking a little while, I got my camera out, and ended up taking several great candid shots of “the old master.”

Right before we started the real interview, we showed Stan the lineup of Marvel first issues that we had set up, and also some older mags like those printed by Atlas (including All Winners #15).

Stan Lee’s Double Date

27

Before, during, and after the interview, Mr. Lee’s conversation had us completely fascinated! Really, Stan Lee is one of the nicest guys you could ever want to meet.

STAN: No, not if it is by mail. I don’t like to give in-person interviews too much, because it isn’t really fair to other zine editors, who could not come to NY for an in-person interview.

—David Castronuovo

(EDITORS NOTE: The above shows one more reason why we are greatly in debt to Stan Lee for letting us interview him. Also, we are very grateful to Vince Colletta for making the interview possible.)

And now, on the following pages, we present to you, in question/answer form, a combination of the first two inperson interviews with STAN LEE— ONE OF THE GREATEST OF THE GREATS!

(EDITORS NOTE: Again?—yeah!—If any of you zine editors would like an interview with Stan Lee by mail, he told us that he really does appreciate it when you send him a questionnaire type of thing, leaving space for him to write in the answers.)

[NOTE: For the sake of space, we will use the following format in this interview: “Ed.” indicates a question asked by one of the editors. “Stan” indicates Mr. Lee’s answer.]

Ed.: Do you mind when a satirical strip is done on one of your super-heroes?

Ed.: Before we start, is there anything you would like to say to fandom?

STAN: No—because it means that they do read the comic!

STAN: FANS—I LOVE YOU ALL! Ed.: Which Marvel super-hero do you consider to be your favorite?

STAN: Well, really, I like all of them.

It’s like your own children—you like all of them.

Ed.: Where do you get your ideas for story plots?

The cover of Crusader #1 featured Vince Colletta art, based on Steve Ditko's Spider-Man. But since its photo of VC taken that evening turned out to be just too grainy to print, below is a slightly better one of Vinnie playing softball with other Marvel misfits in 1974. Word balloons were added, for all Bullpenners, by Smilin' Stan himself for the Marvel-published fan-mag Foom #7. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

STAN: I just sit down—and think!

Ed.: Have you ever worked for any other company in the past besides Marvel-Atlas-Timely?

STAN: No.

Ed.: Are you planning to start any new super-heroes in the near future?

STAN: Of course. One of them will be [CENSORED AT MR. LEE’S REQUEST].

Ed.: Do you keep your own personal collection of comic books?

STAN: I sure do! I keep a file cabinet of them at home. Now I don’t have all of the issues I wrote, but I do have everything I’ve done in the past three years.

Ed.: Did you do most of the Captain America stories of yesteryear?

STAN: Yes.

Ed.: How did you get started in comics?

Ed.: Do you plan to have the revised Captain America fighting the Russian Communists or the Red Chinese?

STAN: They needed a writer. I started writing captions for a mag.

STAN: No.

Ed.: Where did the Marvel Comics Group gets its name?

Ed.: Do you particularly favor any of your villains?

STAN: Well, there was a book long ago called Marvel. We liked the name—so we called it Marvel.

STAN: LOVE OUR VILLAINS! All of them. I like the villains as much as the heroes!

Ed.: Do you study any background information for writing stories for your super-heroes?

STAN: No—unfortunately, I haven’t got the time.

Ed.: Are you planning to bring back Captain Marvel, as you did Captain America, or don’t you have the rights to revise him?

STAN: Actually, it’s up for grabs. However, we don’t like copying, and we like to stick to our own work, so probably not.

[A/E NOTE: Of course, Stan did bring back a new Captain Marvel in Marvel Super-heroes #12, December 1967. —Michael.]

Ed.: Is there any reason behind the fact that you are always changing the Wasp’s costume?

STAN: We really aren’t satisfied yet.

Ed.: Do you mind being interviewed? (ED. NOTE: Silly question, but not a silly answer!)

Ed.: Why did you “kill off” Wonder Man (who appeared in The Avengers)?

STAN: Well, that is a very interesting story. We were intending to bring him back, but we found out that DC had a story about a year ago, concerning a robot named Wonder Man. I myself never saw him or heard [of] him.

The head of National Comics wrote to us and informed us of the fact that he had already used the name Wonder Man. We do

28

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt STAN: I tell you, we’ve already received dollars from fans who don’t want to wait, and who want to be sure to get in fast! Why, we’re sending the dollars back! We want all the fans to use the coupon which will appear in November. There will be a full-page ad in all of our super-hero books. The ad tells you that you get a big button that says ‘I belong to the M.M.M.S.,’ and there are ten stickers that you can paste on things. The stickers have a picture of the Thing saying ‘THE M.M.M.S. WANTS YOU!’ (Later on, we are going to have some printed up for those who don’t like the M.M.M.S.! They say something like ‘HELP GET RID OF THE M.M.M.S.!’ Then, we are going to have a membership card, which has on the back a pledge of allegiance to the M.M.M.S.

not want to use anyone else’s name, so only for that reason, we are not bringing Wonder Man back. And besides, we can’t, because we don’t copy anyone.

[A/E NOTE: Never say never!

Marvel eventually brought back Wonder Man, guest-starring him in various stories over the years. Wonder Man even got his own one-shot title in 1986, and a regular series in 1991.

—Michael.]

Ed.: Are you planning to give Captain America his own mag?

STAN: There is only one thing stopping us. Jack (Kirby) doesn’t have the time to draw it, and I don’t have the time to write it. But, sooner or later, whether it be a year from now, or ten years from now, we will find the time to do it!

Ed.: When did you start writing?

[A/E NOTE: And they did! Tales of Suspense became Captain America with issue #100 in April 1968. — Michael.]

STAN: I started writing in 1940, when I was 17.

Ed.: What happens to the original artwork after a comic is finished?

Ed.: Are you planning to have any of your heroes be “killed off”?

STAN: Not in the immediate future.

(EDITORS NOTE: -not again.- yes!- Here, STAN LEE told us a little bit about JACK KIRBY AND HIS ART STYLE.)

STAN: We send it to a warehouse, and then it just sits there. If you want to know why we don’t give out any original art, it’s just a case where we don’t believe in giving our readers things. We’ll give our readers our time, and our best efforts. But we don’t believe in bribing our readers, the kind of deal where, “If you send us letters, we’ll send you artwork!” I believe that if you have to do this, the stories are not good enough to hold the readers’ attention, and when this is true, you might as well give up. Actually, there is no way of being fair. If you send something to somebody, then somebody else who deserves it doesn’t get anything. It just is not fair. That is the reason why we have no-prize contests. I hate it when a kid takes all the time to send in a letter to enter a contest, and doesn’t get a thing for it. It’s not that we don’t want to give anything away, but it’s just that I hate to see losers!!!

For most of the 1960s, Vince Colletta, as embellisher of Journey into Mystery/Thor, was one of Marvel’s most popular inkers, as per various readers’ polls. This splash from Thor #163 (April 1969) is repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, courtesy of John Morrow and the Kirby estate. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

STAN: It’s a funny thing with Jack’s artwork. You never know just how good Jack really is. If he gets a good inker, he looks good. If he gets a bad inker, he looks bad. But Jack Kirby’s penciling is so magnificent— no inker can really do it justice!

Ed.: Do you save any of your original manuscripts?

STAN: As a matter of fact, there really are no manuscripts to save! The way I do it now, I write the story in synopsis form, and then give it to the artist. He pencils the drawings, and I get it back again. Then, I write the words above the panels, and these are eventually lettered in. So, we work so fast that there almost aren’t any real manuscripts.

Ed.: Is the original Human Torch artist ever going to be drawing the modern version of the Human Torch?

STAN: That was Carl Burgos, and he isn’t going to be drawing the new version of the Human Torch. As a matter of fact, he stopped drawing for comics. He now does ads and things like that.

Ed.: Would you name a few of the other heroes you did back in the Forties and Fifties (besides Captain America)?

STAN: Other than Captain America, I also did Father Time, The Destroyer, Hurricane, and some others.

Ed.: Did you do all of the Human Torch stories?

[A/E NOTE: Stan was taking a gentle jab here at DC editor Julius Schwartz’ practice of giving original art to fans who contributed to his letters pages. Stan later instituted his famous “no-prizes.” Fans who wrote to Marvel would receive an empty envelope that indeed contained “no prize.” —Michael.]

Ed.: Why is there no mention of Monsters to Laugh With in any of your mags?

STAN: We would like more readers to find out about Monsters to Laugh With, but the Comics Code won’t let us advertise it in our mags, because they did not approve any of it.

Ed.: Do you get any of your ideas from books or movies?

STAN: I think that people get ideas from everything that they see and hear.

STAN: Yes, I did quite a number of Human Torch stories.

Ed.: What else have you done aside from the comics you have been doing?

Ed.: Would you give us some of your ideas for the M.M.M.S. (Merry Marvel Marching Society)?

STAN: Well, of course, years ago, I did Secrets behind the Comics, but I understand that there aren’t many copies around.

Stan Lee’s Double Date

29

Ed.: How did you choose the name Daredevil for your new hero— because of the former Lev Gleason publication?

STAN: Actually, we had thought of the name, and then realized that there had once been another Daredevil. We liked the name, and we figured, what harm could it do, because they were out of business?

Ed.: Which comics are your biggest sellers?

A curiosity: Crusader labeled this piece of Marvel Daredevil art and logo a “DAREDEVIL REJECT” and appended this note: “Marvel’s newest super-hero, Daredevil, has really made it big in his new career. Since there would be no sense in giving you a Daredevil review, because he is so new, we present to you a Daredevil reject. Just like all of the others, Daredevil has his own special name written in his own special way on the first page of every Daredevil story. But the copy of it on this page differs from the one used in the comic books. Yes, our agents have brought us the rejected Daredevil name for the first pages of his stories.”

Unlike in many early Marvel titles, the DD logo did appear atop the splash pages of the first ten issues, though with speed lines added as on the covers—and, in #4-5, a Daredevil head was indeed depicted behind the lettering. But it was a different DD head—though probably still penciled by Joe Orlando and inked by Vince Colletta, who were the art team on issues #2-4. Someone—Stan, or more likely Vinnie— doubtless gave Crusader’s young editors this rejected logo as a bonus—and they preserved it for the ages! [© 2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Ed.: Do you read the fanzines that are sent to you?

STAN: Yes, I read every one of them—and I’m going blind! I like to look for my name!

Ed.: What other awards have you won besides Alleys?

STAN: I’ve won awards from all types of organizations, for books I did, including the State Department.

STAN: Well, of course, Fantastic Four, but Spider-Man, Sgt. Fury, and Avengers are all big hits... AND, all of a sudden, Thor is becoming a big hit. But it’s a funny thing, because all of a sudden Suspense and Astonish are becoming big because we have added Hulk and Captain America. And X-Men! X-Men is really selling, so... we really don’t have a bad seller! It’s just great!

Ed.: What do you think will have happened to comics in ten years?

STAN: Your guess is as good as mine! But I do think they will improve a lot. I know that our books are better than we started with on Fantastic Four!

Ed.: What about your competitors?

STAN: I think that their books have improved, too, and that all comics are improving. If we get fans interested, they buy our comics, and others, too, so everyone is better off. I think that you should level with the readers, and do the best job you can! You shouldn’t just bat out any old thing for the comics, but you should give the readers good, good stories!

Ed.: What gives you ideas for stories?

STAN: Actually, there is very little inspiration involved. You just sit down and figure it out. Do I need a new villain? What haven’t I used before? What do the readers like?

[Michael T. Gilbert and Mr. Monster will be back in the Comic Crypt next issue.]

Missing a Back Issue?

Got a hole in your Mr. Monster collection? We’ll gladly e-mail you a free Mr. Monster EEEK-Mail Catalog! Just Contact Michael T. Gilbert at:

MGILBERT@EFN.ORG

For a printed version, send one dollar to Michael T. Gilbert, P.O. Box 11421, Eugene OR 97440

Title Comic Fandom Archive

31

The Eye Is Still Watching You!

by Bill Schelly [On the occasion of the 47th anniversary of “The Eye, Underworld Executioner,” Alter Ego takes a look back at the bizarre hero who dazzled comics fandom in the 1960s... and gives you the lowdown on his return in a new millennium!]

Imagine for a moment: You’re one of that superstitious, cowardly lot known in pulp stories and comic books as a “cheap hoodlum.” You’ve just committed a robbery and now you’re desperately running from the police sirens through the darkened alleys of an eastern metropolis.

Finally, the sirens fade and you slow down to catch your breath. “Lousy coppers,” you gasp, “they’re not quick enough to get me!”

Then you hear it—the sound of footsteps coming closer in the shadows.

“Who’s there?” your voice rasps. “Better back off or you’ll eat lead!”

Suddenly, a weird shape emerges into the moonlight. It’s a man clad in colorful garb. But what’s wrong with his head? Then you realize… the red and blue figure has a giant, naked eyeball where his head should be! He seems to tower above you, maybe because you’re cowering with fear. You want to run but there’s something about that weird figure that leaves you spellbound.

You manage to stammer, “W-who are you?”

An eerie voice emanates from the giant eyeball: “I am The Eye who sees all. Your days of preying on society are over.”

“Oh yeah?” You try to raise the gun in your quivering hand, but a stabbing beam of light leaps from the eyeball into your brain, and suddenly you can’t move a muscle. Your limbs are frozen. Then—a sudden flash of blinding light, and everything goes dark.

For a guilty party, The Eye is the thing most to be feared. Discovery!

Exposure! Apprehension!

For us comics fans, however, the appearance of The Eye in Star-Studded Comics #3 in 1964 heralded the beginning of an exciting new comics hero, who offered a twist from the squeaky-clean heroes of the day: a hero whom everyone thought was a In 1997 Biljo White presented this color sketch of The Eye villain. While Marvel to another longtime fan—Roy Thomas—as a gift. [©2002 Comics had experiBill J. White; The Eye © & TM 2002 Bill Schelly.] mented with the hero who wasn’t always appreciated by society, few (with perhaps the exception of The Hulk) were truly thought to be “bad guys” at that time.

As with The Eye’s victims, there was something that held me spellbound at the sight of a costumed hero with a giant eyeball for a head.

There was something disturbing about it, especially if one thought it was an actual flesh-and-blood eyeball—slimy, pulsing, ribbed with tiny veins.

He looked like a mutant of some kind—maybe a refugee from one of those cheesy low-budget science-fiction movies of the 1950s.

But what of that costume: red tunic, blue pants, and white cape, gloves, and boots? Why was this bizarre character garbed in the primary hues of Captain America and the other patriotic heroes so common during World War II? Why not a more somber fashion palette?

First, a little background: I was thirteen years old when I first encountered The Eye’s early adventures in the pages of Star-Studded #3 and Fighting Hero Comics #10 in 1964. Both were printed in the sometimes crude—but always charming—spirit duplicator process.

More than any other original character of the fanzines of the era, and the majority of the heroes in professional comics, too, The Eye grabbed my attention. A brilliant character design will do that. Just one look should be enough to captivate the potential reader. This one sure does.

Then I found out more about his genesis, and my fascination increased.

I’d assumed The Eye was wholly the brainchild of the very talented

Panels by Biljo White from “Introducing the Eye” in The Eye #1. [©2002 Bill J. White; The Eye © & TM 2002 Bill Shelly.]

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The Eye Is Still Watching You! clear that Grass Green deserves full credit for designing that wild helmet, and the rest of The Eye’s costume.

As for those patriotic colors, Green was born in 1939 and couldn’t have been influenced by the flag-hued heroes of World War II. He would have been responding, more likely, to the Commie fighters of the 1950s: the revived Captain America at Atlas, and most of all, Green’s personal favorite, Fighting American. If Simon and Kirby were Green’s greatest artistic influence, Fighting American and Speedboy were his favorite heroes.

The fact that The Eye came out of the paranoid 1950s might help explain the “Big Brother looking over my shoulder” element to the character. After all, this was the era when it was thought there was a Communist under every rock, and Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Senate committee was busy peering into the pasts and private lives of American citizens.

Okay. Green designed The Eye. So what did Biljo White bring to the party?

A vintage photo of Biljo White—and his cover for The Eye #1 (1965).

[Eye cover ©2002 Bill J. White; The Eye © & TM 2002 Bill Schelly.]

writer-artist living in Columbia, Missouri—Bill J. White. Known affectionately as “Capt. Biljo” to fandom at large, White was born on June 4th, 1929, and had grown up reading both pulp magazines and early comic books. When he joined fandom in 1962 to share his own costumed characters in the pages of his own Komix Illustrated, and in a host of other amateur publications, his strips all had the “feel” of Golden Age comics at their best. Therefore, it was perfectly natural for me to assume that The Eye’s costume colors were a reflection of his grounding in the early 1940s, when patriotic heroes were part of every publisher’s stable.

Then came surprising information about the character’s creation. In The Eye #1 (Spring 1965)—likely the first photo-offset fanzine devoted to a single amateur hero—Capt. Biljo revealed that the hero was not of his own design. “Ronn Foss had sent me a version of [The] Eye that long ago had been originated by pal Richard Green when they were in high school,” White wrote in that issue’s editorial. “I decided to fashion an original story-idea around this weird-looking man with the huge single eye.” Richard Green—known throughout fandom as Grass Green—had come up with only a name and costume design; he had given his blessing to Biljo to make what he could of the concept.

The answer is, everything else: The Eye’s modus operandi as an undercover lawman, his headquarters at Observatory Hill, his relationship with the lovely Lynn O’Flynn, and the way he dispatches defeated criminals to Safe Haven, a quiet upstate rest home, for further disposition. White placed his Ocular Operative in Yorkton City, gave him an Eye-Plane, and established the mood of the feature as something that might be called “comics noir.”

In other words, Biljo White was as important to the invention of The Eye as we know him, perhaps even more so, as Bill Finger was to the development of Batman. Therefore, it’s clear that The Eye must properly be considered a co-creation of Grass and Biljo. Not a bad pedigree, that… considering how talented they are as individuals, and how much they each gave to comics fandom.

The Eye was a huge hit in fan circles in the mid-1960s, so why did it take till The Eye #2 in 1969 for his next adventure—the much-anticipated origin story—to see print?

The answer is two-fold. First, it wasn’t... the next story, that is. Next came a Cold War tale done in Sunday newspaper comics format by White as a possible syndicate submission, which was run serially in Bill DuBay’s fanzine Voice of Comicdom #2 (1964) through #7 (1966).

The original drawing of The Eye by Grass now resides in the Comic Fandom Archive. This crude yet striking sketch is being published here for the first time.

It is not large, only about 4" x 6", but it is fully colored (by crayon) and—wonder of wonders—it’s dated: November 4, 1955. That means that, by stretching a point a bit, one could say that the Eye had been originated in the Golden Age of Comics... or, at the very least, pre-dates the Silver Age. Looking at that original drawing, I realize it’s possible a black-&-white reproduction of it might make the design of the helmet difficult to discern, but that’s because Green colored the “whites” of the eye, around the iris, solid blue. That, and the blue on the cloak, are the only important differences from the character design as presented by Biljo. Therefore, it’s A recent self-caricature by Grass Green—and his character-design drawing from 1955!

[Art ©2002 Grass Green; The Eye © & TM 2002 Bill Schelly.]

Comics Fandom Archive Second, Biljo re-drew “Introducing The Eye,” his debut in StarStudded Comics #3, for photo-offset reproduction in The Eye #1. That certainly took up a good deal of his time and creative energy.

Actually, the answer should probably be three-fold, because, more than anything, The Eye was put on the back burner when the Batman TV show became a smash hit in January 1966. It so happened that, at the same time, White was also publishing a mimeographed fanzine by the title of Batmania, and its sales skyrocketed in the whirlwind of the TV show’s phenomenal success... from about 300 to close to 800. Let’s hope Biljo didn’t have to crank out all those copies by hand!

I was thrilled with The Eye #2, not only because the long-awaited origin story was excellent, but because of the hints Capt. Biljo offered about the future of the hero. In that issue, in a prologue and epilogue to the origin, he introduced The Eye’s headquarters in Observatory Hill, an abandoned stargazing facility on a hill above Yorkton City, as well as the Eye-Plane. It seemed White had put a lot of thought into setting up the strip for many exciting adventures to come. The possibilities seemed almost limitless!

But then the dreaded syndrome known as “fandom burn-out” hit both Biljo and me. In his case, he was exhausted and needed to take a break.

In mine, I had college to attend to, and then my entrance into the Real World.

It wasn’t until 1977 that The Eye finally returned for a last fling in the pages of Martin Greim’s Comic Crusader Storybook—and that cool-looking EyePlane took flight at last—and, darn it all, I missed it! I was completely out of fandom in the ’70s, and only discovered “The Secret Lair of The Eye!” (as the yarn was titled) when I got re-involved in 1991.

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Grass, too, gave me his full support, when we got together at the 1997 Chicago Comicon for a reunion of old-time comic book fans. On that occasion, he donated the original 1955 drawing of The Eye to the Archive. That spoke volumes to me, and you may be sure it is carefully preserved in a mylar sleeve in a temperature-controlled environment.

The first foray of the Underworld Executioner under the Hamster Press banner occurred with the publication of The Eye—Special Edition #1 in the summer of 1999. For this initial story, I satisfied a lifelong dream to both write and draw The Eye, though I enlisted experienced ink-slinger Bill Black to make sure the final result was as attractive as possible. The Eye’s battle with the chameleon-like female ninja Myopia brought an overwhelmingly positive response from readers, and confirmed that others shared my enthusiasm for the character. It was clear there was enough of a potential readership to justify more adventures.

The strong sales of the subsequent Heroes Vs. Hitler book (with The Eye as a member of the super-hero team against Der Führer) provided further encouragement.

When I sat down to write another Eye solo tale, my mind drifted back to the issue of his costume once again. I wondered: Is there any way to explain why the criminals who supplied him with the costume would choose red, white, and blue togs for their executioner? Was there a way to justify it within the context of The Eye saga?

What about Eric Drake, the undercover policeman whom fate chose to become this unorthodox crime-fighter? What sort of person was he? What was his background?

What motivated him to fight so relentlessly against the dueling crime syndicates of Yorkton City? Then I realized what I wanted to do next: write an extended origin of The Eye that in one way or another answered those questions. An “Untold Origin,” if you will.

Yes, The Eye had made a strong impression on me as a youth, and as we all know, those early affections can go very deep. When I began researching the history of fandom, I got in touch Everybody wants to get into the act! Splash panel by longtime Marvel artist Ron Frenz (pencils) and pro inker Joe Rubinstein (inks) from a with Biljo and asked if had any plans to script by Bill Schelly, for The Eye Collection. [©2002 Bill Schelly.] do more adventures of The Eye. The result was “The Return of The Eye” in And that’s the story behind the new series of Eye adventures in the Fandom’s Finest Comics, Vol. 2 (Hamster Press), which turned out new millennium. That expanded origin—which answers all those wonderfully, but seemed to represent White’s swan song to the character. questions and more—is now finished, and will soon be published by “I just have so many other things to do,” he said, when I was asking for Hamster Press in a trade paperback book called The Eye Collection, more. “I’d like to see more of The Eye… but I just don’t know when or along with other “Eye” strips, both new and old. if I can manage it.”

Was this the end of the Ocular Operative?

Can you tell where I’m going with this?

I had to ask: “Would you consider allowing me to bring back the character? I’d love to write some new Eye adventures, and I’ll bet there are any number of artists who’d like to take a crack at the visuals.”

“Sounds good to me,” Biljo replied with barely a hesitation.

The Eye would live again!

So keep looking over your shoulder... because... The Eye is STILL watching you!!

[The Eye Collection, a 144-page trade paperback (with the allnew 26-page origin) will be solicited in the April Diamond Previews for shipping this summer. Until then, all six of Biljo White’s original “Eye” strips (ditto and photo-offset) have been reprinted in books from Hamster Press that are currently available: Fandom’s Finest Comics, Vol. 1 & 2, for $9.95 each, and Giant Labors of Love for $12.00.]

34

Johnny Craig

Johnny Craig (1926-2001)

by Roger Hill John Thomas Alexis Craig passed away on September 13, 2001, at the age of 75, leaving behind a great wealth of published art for comics historians to savor and appreciate. At the age of twelve he had entered the comics profession working as an assistant to Harry Lampert for $1 a week. Lampert was drawing “The King” for Flash Comics in M.C. Gaines’ All-American Comics line, an affiliate of National/DC. Later on, he assisted editor Sheldon Mayer as a staff artist working at the AllAmerican offices.

After a stint in the Army during World War II, John returned to comics doing freelance crime and western work for various publishers.

He was hired at EC (Educational Comics) during the summer of 1947 to work on Max Gaines’ new comic called Moon Girl. When Max died soon afterward, the company switched over to producing crime, western, and romance comics under the direction of Max’ son Bill.

Later the company began to experiment with horror stories and, as it happened, Johnny drew the very first EC horror story— ”Zombie Terror”—which appeared in Moon Girl #5, dated Fall 1948.

When EC introduced its “New Trend” horror and crime titles in 1950, it was Johnny Craig who provided their first covers. During the “New Trend” years he became the regular artist illustrating the Vault Keeper’s stories that appeared in every issue of Vault of Horror and provided stories and covers for Crime SuspenStories and Shock SuspenStories, as well. Although slow and meticulous with his art, John’s clean style of drawing and solid storytelling ability made his work stand out as some of the best produced for that company. His specialty became the voodoo or haunted house type of stories, which he preferred over

the more graphic and gory type. Ironically, during his tenure at EC, John did produce three of EC’s most famous horror and crime covers, one of which eventually fell under close scrutiny during the Senate Investigations of 1954. After the horror books bit the dust, John concentrated on writing and producing covers and stories for EC’s “New Direction” title Extra! Years later, John commented that he considered this some of his very finest work.

After EC folded its comics line in 1956, he began working as a commercial artist in an art studio in New York City. He eventually accepted a position with a large ad agency/motion picture firm in Pennsylvania, where he worked exclusively for many years. In 1964, having become somewhat bored with commercial illustration, he returned to doing freelance horror comic work, first for the American Comics Group’s Unknown Worlds and later for Jim Warren’s Creepy and Eerie comic magazines.

In 1967 he drew a “Batman and Hawkman” team-up story for DC’s The Brave and the Bold title, and in April of 1968 his first work for Marvel Comics appeared in the one-shot Iron Man and Sub-Mariner #1. Shortly thereafter he was assigned as primary artist on the new Iron Man comic. Eventually he also inked five issues of Sub-Mariner. He left Marvel in 1970, maintaining several small commercial accounts until the 1980s, when he went into semi-retirement.

Johnny Craig as seen in Vault of Horror #24 (April-May 1954), flanked by his splash page art for that same issue—and his first splash for Iron Man (#2, June 1968). [Photo & EC art ©2002 William M. Gaines, Agent; Iron Man art ©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

At that point he continued to pursue his love of painting. He enjoyed doing portraits, landscapes, and special commissions of comics covers he had created earlier for EC, as well as special paintings of the popular horror host, the Vault-Keeper. His art will be sorely missed by fans and aficionados everywhere.

Gray Morrow

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Gray Morrow (1934-2001)

by Jim Amash Gray Morrow was sitting at one of my comic book conventions, drawing the Coppertone Girl, grown up, having her bikini bottom pulled down by a dog. It didn’t take him long to draw it, as drawing always seemed an effortless task for Gray. Flash Gordon artist Dan Barry and I were sitting beside Gray when Dan grabbed my arm and exclaimed, “I can’t believe this guy! Look how quickly he drew this girl turning her foot. It’s perfect! I have to struggle all day to draw figures this well, and look how fast he did it.”

Dan went on to describe how the lower leg and foot work together when a figure turns. “The ankle is in a perfect position and it looks so damn natural! I wish I could do it that easily.” Considering Dan’s impressive knowledge of figure drawing, I was surprised by his reaction.

But then again, maybe I shouldn’t have been. Gray Morrow spent a lifetime making difficult drawing decisions look easy.

“Drawing’s fun. It’s what I like to do most,” he once told me. He had complete confidence in his abilities and reveled in the joy of picturemaking. I once asked him how he learned to draw figures with such ease, and he replied, “I don’t know. I just spent a lot of time watching people and how they move. I watched what clothes do when they wrinkle, and what individual body parts do when in motion.” It was just that easy for Gray.

an artist’s life, and he knew better than most how tough that life was.

Gray had seen it all and done it all. When I decided to break into comics as an inker, Gray patiently described what I’d have to do to make it.

“In order to be valuable to a company, you must produce quality work and do it quickly, with no excuses. Don’t ever be late on a job.”

Gray looked at my work and said, “You’re almost ready. Now here’s what you need to concentrate on to get you the rest of the way.” He criticized in the most honest, direct, and gentle way possible. And every bit of advice he gave was solid in its foundation. Gray was sensitive to the realities of business in the art world and prepared me for them as best he could.

At a time when I was needing inking work, Gray said, “Why don’t you go talk to Archie Comics? Tell Victor [Gorelick, the editor] I sent you.” I took his advice, and before long I was working for Archie Comics. Gray opened my mind up in a direction I hadn’t seriously considered before, and it’s kept me working to this day.

Gray received much acclaim during his lifetime, all of it deserved. “I draw people as I see them, as they look to me in reality. I got some flack about drawing Batman because I drew the eyes in his cowl. I drew the wrinkles in his suit. Some guys don’t do that, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but that’s not my perception of reality. Look what we’re talking about: a man dressed up in a costume, fighting crime. I have to make it real for me.”

Most artists will tell you that producing art is a struggle. To produce in volume, as comic book artists do, takes a mental and physical toll at some point in the craft-making. Gray was no exception to this rule, though it sure didn’t seem like he was. Gray had a secret that only a few comic book artists possessed. “Jack Kirby and I are very different types of artists, but we have one thing in common. I can visualize a scene in my head and duplicate it on paper. That’s what makes it seem like I do it easily, but I have to think first, just like any other artist.”

When Tarzan (whose newspaper strip he drew for 18 years, longer than any other artist) talked with apes, it seemed like a natural event.

When Batman swung on a rope, I felt him rush past me. Flash Gordon, whether he was fighting, talking, relaxing, or laughing... I believed he was real because Gray made him look real. The fantasy worlds Gray created were the kinds you’d want to explore.

Gray was an easy man to like. He spoke with quiet intelligence, never pontificating as many artists do when given the chance. If you are in this business long enough, you’ll eventually hear someone say something negative about darn near everyone. Not so with Gray. There was nothing to dislike about him.

Gray judiciously offered opinions. When he did so, you knew they were carefully considered. His advice was forged in the crucible of

This beautifully rendered Morrow “Vigilante” page from World’s Finest Comics #246 (Aug.-Sept. 1977) is repro’d from the original art, which Gray autographed for Jim. At present, artist Mark Wheatley is organizing an auction of Gray’s and others’ art to be held early in 2002, all proceeds to go to Pocho Morrow. For information, write Insight Studios, 7844 St. Thomas Dr., Baltimore, MD 21236 .

Gray and his lovely wife Pocho were guests at the last two conventions I organized for Acme Comics.

The first one might have been the most special. One of my guests cancelled rather late in the game and I told my boss Mark Austin that I’d try to find a replacement. When I phoned Alex Toth and Pat Boyette for ideas, both men immediately suggested Gray. When I called Gray, he wasn’t bothered by the thought of being a substitute and readily agreed. The next time I spoke to Mark, I told him I had a new guest. As Mark was leaving the room, I said, “It’s Gray Morrow.”

Mark whirled around and said,

continued on page 37

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Seymour Reit

Seymour Reit (1918-2001)

by William Woolfolk [The following is an expansion of a eulogy given at a tribute for Seymour Reit by his lifetime friend, noted author and Golden Age comic book writer William Woolfolk.]

This is a tribute to a member of the Golden Age of Comics I would have given anything not to write. Because it is a farewell to one of the rarest human spirits I encountered in a long lifetime.

some of Sy’s artwork in it.

I immediately got in touch with him and accused him of selling out to Mammon, and inquired if he had any advice on how I could do the same. He told me he was working for the comic book shop of Eisner and Iger and that I should apply for a writing job there. In those days there were several such comic book shops, supplying work for the stillin-their-infancy comic magazines. I did go there and was told they had no need for writers. Although by then I was infrequently selling stories to other magazines, I still needed a regular weekly source of income, and Sy thought comic books were likely to provide an answer. And finally I did break into the comic book field, with such success that ten years went by before I turned to other forms of writing.

This is only part of the debt I owe to Sy. Sy never boasted about his talent, but his talent was exceptional. He became a member in high standing of the Golden Age of Comics, a first-rate animator both for Fleischer Studios where he worked on the motion picture Gulliver’s Travels and as a writer and illustrator for leading comic magazines.

He was a humorist who did memorable work for Mad magazine. He wrote best-selling children’s books, and best-selling adult nonfiction books which were chosen by book clubs and optioned for motion pictures. His book The Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa was optioned year after year by motion picture producers who somehow never could arrange the necessary financing. But his agent called it “The Book That

A 1990s photo of Seymour Reit and friends: [l. to r.: Hal Sherman, SVR, Arnold Drake, & Jerry Robinson. (A photo of Reit with Bill Woolfolk appeared in Alter Ego V3#6.) Since Reit was never given credit for creating Casper the Friendly Ghost (he wrote and sold, with artist Joe Oriolo, the first Casper cartoon to the Max Fleischer Studios in 1940), at right instead is a piece of art he drew featuring his creation “Salty the Sea Horse.” Art and photo courtesy of Mrs. Edmee B. Reit. [Art ©2002 Mrs. Edmee B. Reit.]

I first met Seymour Victor Reit (everyone called him Sy) in college 65 years ago. We were in college together at New York University, where he drew cartoons for the college paper and all the girls chased him. Sy majored in fine arts and philosophy and I majored in English and horseracing. I was a foot taller than Sy, who stood only five foot three and weighed only a little over a hundred pounds, but no one would have dared to sell him short. Despite the physical disparity, we were friends from the first and remained friends. Sy had many friends and a legion of admirers. I was both his friend and his admirer. I admired his grace, his humor, his unfailing loyalty, and his courage.

I say “his courage” because, at a time when most of us were content to wait to be drafted into the war against Hitler, Sy volunteered for the Air Corps. He wanted to be a paratrooper, but they were afraid he didn’t weigh enough to open a parachute, so he spent most of the war in U.S. Army Intelligence, deciphering maps and instructing the Air Corps where to bomb. In that capacity he was responsible for ferreting out a secret German high command headquarters hidden in a French village, and sending in bombers to destroy it. So he performed a more signal service to our cause than he ever could have as a paratrooper.

Sy was responsible more than anyone for my own career in comics.

As we were about to graduate in a Depression year, we didn’t expect overnight success. We were willing to give it time. But we both made a vow that if we didn’t find a job within six months we would retreat under the bedcovers and never show our faces again. I was well on the way to keeping that vow when I happened on a comic book that had

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Seymour Reit / Gray Morrow REIT continued from page 36

MORROW continued from page 35

Will Not Die,” because so many producers wanted to make it.

“Gray Morrow? Gray Morrow’s coming? I always wanted to meet him.” I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say that.

And finally, of course, his creation Casper the Friendly Ghost was made into a very successful movie.

Anyone who knows anything about the motion picture business knows that the odds against a movie being successful are phenomenal.

Four of five productions fail to recoup their investment, and the business only survives because the one of five is a blockbuster that more than makes up for the others. Casper was such a blockbuster, and the character of the Friendly Ghost is still firmly enshrined in the affections of many who don’t know about its creator. I’m sure that the popularity of the character derives from the fact that he reflected the personality of Sy Reit.

Now that I’m about to become the Grandpa Moses of writers, I look back sadly on all the bright and shining persons I knew who preceded me into oblivion. Dr. Samuel Johnson, the famous English writer, said that the loss of a friend “lacerates the continuity of being.”

My life was badly, irreparably lacerated by the loss of Sy Reit.

Shakespeare described one of his characters: “His life was gentle and the elements so mixed in him that Nature might stand up and say to all the world: This was a man.”

Shakespeare might well have been writing that about Seymour Victor Reit.

I will miss him forever, but will forever carry him in my heart. And so, I’m sure, will everyone who knew him.

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Knowing that Gray smoked a pipe and cigars, I went to the local tobacconist and bought some good cigars.

Gray Morrow (left) with Jim Amash at Gray appreciated the thoughtfulness. a comics convention a few years back.

At one point during the convention I was moderating a panel with EC publisher Bill Gaines, when Pocho came into the room, handing me a slip of paper. Written on it were the words: “Gray needs his cigars bad!!!” I read it aloud, then reached into my portfolio and handed Pocho a couple of cigars while everyone in the room laughed (the loudest laughter coming from Bill Gaines).

Gray was a great guest for us. I spent some time with him at other conventions, too, and he never disappointed his fans. He appreciated them as much as they appreciated him. He had the respect of his peers for both his work and his personality.

Gray was a positive thinker. A good teacher. A great man. I owe him a lot. Not just for the help he gave me, but for his kindness and warmth.

I loved being near him. Unlike me, Gray wasn’t a very talkative man, but his soft-spoken words ring louder in my mind than any church bell.

Gray constantly received commission requests at shows and many times, his response was, “Sounds like fun.” Most things in life seemed fun to Gray Morrow, and he liked to share it with his fans and friends. He was a real gentleman.

Thanks for the fun, Gray. It’s what I’ll remember most about you.

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GREAT STUFF…

Over $2 million worth of fabulous comics, original art and movie posters will be featured in our second Signature auction, March 15-17, 2002 in Dallas, Texas.

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Romita line art used to create the cover of Spectacular Spider-Man #1

Joe Jusko Dr. Doom painting

More Fun Comics #54, CGC VF 8.0

Journey into Mystery #83, CGC NM- 9.2

Vault of Horror #28 (Gaines File), CGC NM/MT 9.8, just one of over 125 CGC-graded Gaines File comics!

Famous Funnies #213 cover, plus a dozen other Golden Age covers!

L’il Abner Shmoo strip dated 10-27-48

All-Flash Quarterly #1, CGC VF/NM 9.0

Frazetta Tarzan and Ape piece, part of Russ Cochran’s fabulous Tarzan collection

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No. 72

[Art ©2002 Mike Manley; Characters © & TM 2002 DC Comics.]

40

Marc Swayze I had definite convictions about the romances. The scripts were not always what you’d want to call literary jewels. Ponderous dialogue and unwieldy panel descriptions occasionally suggested that some of the old pros might have fled the scene. But to my way of thinking, regardless of what came off the typewriter, the picture romance story was told on the drawing board... through the expressions and emotions of the characters. The readers of romance wanted... probably always had and always will... pure, simple, sincere realism. From our house they got it.

By

mds& logo ©2002 Marc Swayze; Captain Marvel © & TM 2002 DC Comics] (c) [Art

[FCA EDITOR’S NOTE: From 1941 to 1953, Marcus D. Swayze was a top artist for Fawcett Comics. The very first Mary Marvel drawings came from his drawing table, and he illustrated her earliest adventures, including her origin story; but he was primarily hired to illustrate “Captain Marvel” stories and covers for Whiz Comics and Captain Marvel Adventures. He also wrote many “Captain Marvel” scripts, and continued to do so while in the military. Soon after World War II, he made an arrangement with Fawcett to produce art and stories for them on a freelance basis out of his home in Louisiana.

There he both wrote and drew stories for “The Phantom Eagle” in Wow Comics, in addition to drawing the Flyin’ Jenny newspaper strip created by his friend and mentor Russell Keaton. After Wow’s cancellation, he did artwork for Fawcett’s romance comics. Marc Swayze’s ongoing professional memoirs have been FCA’s most popular feature since they began to appear in issue #54, 1996. Last time, Marc further analyzed his romance work. In this issue he returns to the subject, regarding his several “syndicate tries” while at Fawcett, which included collaborations with Rod Reed and Glenn Chaffin. —P.C. Hamerlinck.]

In preceding installments I mentioned ten Fawcett romance comics. I have since learned of two more: Love Memories and Romantic Western. There may have been others.

A more notable discovery was that Sweethearts passed the two million sales mark. Enough cause for a pause: it stands to reason that many of those copies were read by more than just the individual

I was just as serious about the syndicate tries.

“Syndicate Tries” is the title I gave to a thick file of sketches, idea notes, typed scripts, finished art, photostats, and correspondence, accumulated in fourteen years of effort to achieve a goal. The goal was a syndicate contract to write and draw a newspaper feature of my own conception.

It is difficult to tell about those endeavors without feeling somewhat apologetic. That’s because they are so unrelated to Fawcett Publications and the Golden Age of Comics, compared to other subjects we attempt to cover. I proceed, however, on the strength of their having been created by one who was there, at that time, affiliated with that company, and who participated... and how!

It wasn’t really a secret, my doing much of the work after hours, often in cramped quarters... with never a word to friends or affiliates. It was simply a matter I considered to be my own private business.

Judi was the start of it–Judi the Jungle Girl, who, tucked away in a homemade portfolio, called on the syndicates of New York City with me, only to return without a contract.

The next try featured Judi’s canine companion. The art for Jango had something of a Captain Marvel flavor... probably because I was now on the Fawcett payroll. After about four daily strips had been completed, and a full week laid out, we entered World War II and the feature was shelved in favor of something more timely.

The original text for Jango, fourteen weeks of typed script with a synopsis of the story continuation, bears a date of 6-1-44, suggesting I

purchasers. It would also be very likely that the sales of Life Story had exceeded the previously reported 700,000 per issue. Surely those figures, with a modestly estimated total for the eight sister romances would amount to...

Do you see what I’m getting at? Could a fellow be forgiven for allaying moments of despair over an obscure career, with the thought that 3,000,000 people—some lonely, some ill—were made happy every month because he left his milk route and took to the comics?

“That’s my sis!” Rare Captain Marvel pencil sketch by Swayze—and two nice panels from Mary Marvel’s origin in Captain Marvel Adventures #18 (Dec. 1942).

[Art ©2002 Marc Swayze; Capt. Marvel © & TM 2002 DC Comics.]

We Didn’t Know...

In 1950 Sweethearts passed the 2,000,000 mark in sales. Fawcett romance page layout by Swayze. [©2002 Marc Swayze.]

41

Lucky Bill. [©2002 Marc Swayze.]

had later intentions to pursue the project. I must assume it was interrupted that time by my agreements with Daigh of Fawcett and Agnelli of Bell, and heading south.

Jango’s place on the small drawing stand at West 113th Street was taken by Bill O’Brien, America flyer.

Work on Lucky Bill was held to a slow pace by the daytime demands of Captain Marvel and Mary, and brought to an abrupt halt by my own entry into the service. A week of strips with near-finished penciling, some partly inked, all lettered, were stored away when I departed. Strip number 6 left Bill stranded on a mountain in enemy territory.

But Bill had tenacity. Recently I was looking at the old drawings, and there was Bill, still clinging to the mountainside, after 58 years!

Judi the Jungle Girl by Swayze—with Jango already waiting in the wings for his own big chance at stardom. [©2002 Marc Swayze.]

Although I scripted a number of Captain Marvel stories when in the military, I don’t recall ever having one thought about the syndicate tries. Then, several months on a hospital bed, an injured leg stretched out before me, I drew Trudy, a girl private detective. One Sunday page, lettered and inked, was completed when the work began to reveal a serious lack of what Russell Keaton and I had often discussed... spontaneity.

Another idea, begun under the same circumstances and continued later, was Little Ug-Li, a youngster dwelling in a mythical bygone age. It wasn’t a bother when I realized later that the idea might be taken as a

“The art for Jango had something of a Captain Marvel flavor....” [©2002 Marc Swayze.]

42

Marc Swayze

Trudy by Swayze. [©2002 Marc Swayze.]

swipe from a popular feature of the day. I doubt, though, that I would ever have taken it by the syndicate that distributed Alley Oop. As it turned out, neither Ug-Li nor Trudy ever reached a syndicate office.

Some of the early attempts were collaborations. Despite my original intention of a one-man-do-it-all feature, I didn’t hesitate when Rod Reed, close friend since the Fawcett days, suggested that we team up on one. He called his character Plink Plunk, a banjo player.

Little Ug-Li. [©2002 Marc Swayze.]

It wouldn’t happen that way, of course. In the first place, Rod, who could talk, would do the talking... and I, who could bite fingernails, would be nail-biting. It was fun work, kicking the Plink Plunk sketches and story ideas back and forth... and I think we had a good character.

Somehow, though, the enthusiasm, always tricky and elusive when associated with creativity, after fluctuating several times, fluttered, then died. Plink never plunked for a single syndicate representative.

It was a good idea sales-wise. I could just see us plopping it down on a syndicate executive’s table as he queried us about our background for producing such a feature:

Later on, Rod came up with a couple more ideas... one a western he called Wooly West. We never got to the peddling stage with any of them.

I don’t think Rod’s heart was in it... nor was mine. Again, I have no idea why. May have been our other commitments.

“Good question, sir! Rod, here, is editor of the popular music magazine Downbeat... you’ve heard of it, I’m sure. And I... well... if I do say so myself... I have performed...”

Another suggestion for collaboration came from Glenn Chaffin. As with Rod Reed, I thought so much of Glenn as a friend, I couldn’t refuse. He was a pro, in the most respectable sense of the word. He did

Plink Plunk by Reed and Swayze—and a night club intermission in the 1940s.

Tucky and Rod Reed (seated, center) chat with Marc (on left, partly obscured by lady’s hairdo) and other band members; that’s bandleader Collie Fontana standing. Photo courtesy of Marc Swayze. [Art ©2002 Marc Swayze.]

We Didn’t Know...

43

Flyin’ Jenny and Tailspin Tommy writer Glenn Chaffin—and a pair of Jenny panels by Chaffin and Swayze from Jan. 28, 1946. Photo courtesy of Marc Swayze. [Flyin’ Jenny ©2002 Bell Syndicate, Inc.]

an excellent job on Flyin’ Jenny and had been co-originator of the legendary aviation strip Tailspin Tommy.

People liked Glenn Chaffin. He could come to town from his home in Montana and swing right along with some of the top people in the newspaper syndicate game. In the marketing of whatever we came up with, Glenn would be able to accomplish far more than I could alone.

So we went to work. We saw eye-to-eye on the preference of the average newspaper reader of the day... the continuity story... adventure, intrigue, romance. His basic idea was a foreign/domestic correspondent at large. I thought that was great... would allow for an endless variety of story locales and colorful backgrounds. We had to swap letters for a while over main character sketches and names. Glenn chopped down my drawings of a hero with a mustache, and I got even by telling him “Tommy” sounded too immature for the name of the worldly guy we had in mind. Glenn’s clever wife was helping him with names, and it may have been Mae who came up with Christopher Chance.

Mysterious, the way events and mood changes interfere as we tread the big path... blocking us here, directing us there. Ever noticed? It would appear that getting one of those collaborations before a syndicate was just not in the cards. Christopher Chance, for example. As I prepared the second Sunday page, I received a call. My brother, in another state, had been seriously injured in a highway accident.

My big brother... witty, smart... who had bought me my bike, taught me to box and play ball... who had always encouraged me in anything I undertook. I left immediately.

I still don’t know why Glenn and I never got back on the feature. Of course, looking at those originals today... it’s all just too... too 1947ish.

Pretty good work for then, though!

[Marc Swayze’s reminiscences of his days in comics will continue next issue.]

One of the Christopher Chance sample dailies by Chaffin and Swayze. [Art ©2002 Marc Swayze.]

44

Mike Manley

“ Its Really Hard To Be Simple! ” An Interview with Power of Shazam! Artist MIKE MANLEY Conducted by P.C. Hamerlinck [As related below, Mike Manley was the inker and/or penciler on much of the nearly 50-issue Shazam! series developed and written by Jerry Ordway during the 1990s.]

FCA: Mike, tell me a little bit about your background… where you grew up, and if you have any early memories of comic books you may have read as a youngster.

MIKE MANLEY: I was born and grew up in Michigan. I was reading comics at a very early age. My dad used to buy them for me, or let me have the change in his pocket to buy them when we went to the store. I was fascinated when he would tell me about the comics he used to read when he was a kid, such as Captain Midnight, Captain Marvel Adventures, and The Spirit. I remember making a trip with my family to Lansing, Michigan, and stopping along the way at a store, where I saw some T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents comics by Wally Wood that really captivated me.

My favorite hero as a kid was Superman. Space Ghost became my second favorite hero when his cartoon appeared on television. Later, my favorite comics to read were Magnus, Robot Fighter and Jack Kirby’s Kamandi. I wasn’t into Marvel Comics too much because they were not readily available at my neighborhood stores for some reason… but I loved the Spider-Man TV show and the old stiffly-animated Marvel super-hero cartoons.

FCA: Did you have an early interest in art and drawing?

MANLEY: When we moved in 1975, I found a comic shop that stocked all the Marvel titles, and I really got into them. My only previous exposure to

“We’re looking for people who like to Draw!” And Mike Manley, selfcaricatured above, loved to draw Power of Shazam!—as in the pencil breakdowns below before they were inked by Dick Giordano. [Caricature ©2002 Mike Manley; Shazam! art ©2002 DC Comics.]

the Marvel characters was the ones I saw on TV and a few comics I had got down at the local deli that were resold with the covers torn off. I’d go to the comic shop several times a week after school, sometimes with my brother Dave, who was a fan of The Human Torch and Spider-Man. It was during this time of my life that I became really hooked on comics, became aware of comic fandom and conventions, and decided I wanted to be a comic book artist or animator. I began drawing from a very early age and was encouraged by both my parents and my grandma who used to bring me extra drawing supplies from Chrysler, where she worked. My grandpa, my mom’s dad, was a commercial artist and could do masterful calligraphy.

FCA: How did you break into the comic book business?

MANLEY: I started networking at comic conventions in the late ’70s and early ’80s and finally got my big break, assisting on Robotech for DC Comics. That led to additional freelance work from DC and later at Marvel Comics. In the meantime, I started doing some work for Western Publishing, illustrating many activity and children’s books.

By 1987 I was sharing Al Williamson’s studio with Al and Bret Blevins, whom I became best pals with after having a chance meeting when he came through Michigan on his way to New York.

Bret had landed a job with Marvel, and Al had just received a very loosely penciled Daredevil story from Steve Ditko. Al was going to

‘It’s Really Hard To Be Simple!’

45

return it, but I convinced him to keep it. I tightened up the pencils and we split the inking.

Editor Carl Potts was very pleased with the job, and he started giving me a lot of regular penciling and inking work. Marvel kept me very busy. It was a fun time, and I was constantly trying and learning new things.

character from the futuristic tale found in the Power of Shazam!

Annual?

FCA: What were some of the books you worked on in your career?

I did one Power of Shazam! issue featuring Mary Marvel that I got to ink myself, although I see now I could have done a better job on it. I was a bit rushed doing it, as I recall, having to squeeze it in between WB storyboard assignments. For another POS issue I did the pencil breakdowns and I was thrilled to have Dick Giordano ink it.

MANLEY: Batman, SpiderMan, Ghost Rider, Powerpuff Girls, Superman Adventures, Power of Shazam!, and many, many others… plus my own Action Planet Comics, Monsterman, and my on-line comic, G.I.R.L. Patrol.

Art from G.I.R.L. Patrol, Manley’s on-line comic strip. [©2002 Mike Manley.]

FCA: How did you get the Power of Shazam! job? How familiar were you with The Marvel Family and the stories from Fawcett comics, as well as artists such as C.C. Beck?

MANLEY: Editor Mike Carlin offered Shazam! to me and I leapt at the chance to work with Jerry Ordway and the others. My only previous exposure to the Big Red Cheese was a DC Shazam! Limited Collectors Edition containing reprints with C.C. Beck artwork in it. I didn’t really see much of the Golden Age material until my late teens and early 20s. I think Beck was an excellent cartoonist, and I love the Mac Raboy “Captain Marvel Jr.” stories. Fawcett seemed to employ really talented artists of a higher caliber than a lot of the other companies from the Golden Age. I think, because of the simplistic style employed back then, modern fans tend to not give those artists enough credit.

Actually, it’s really hard to be simple! It’s easy to cover bad drawings with a lot of rendering, lines, and shading. Some folks think any art that is really detailed is automatically good, or better than simple, cartoonlike art. I prefer the simpler, open style.

FCA: Was there any aspect you enjoyed or disliked while working on the Shazam! series?

MANLEY: I enjoyed doing the book and thought it was a really accessible title for anyone to pick up and get into the story. I like the characters; Jerry Ordway’s covers were great. It was a fun book to work on, but I gave it up because I went into doing storyboards full time for Warner Animation on Superman and Batman. I did both Power of Shazam! and the storyboard work at the same time for a while, but I couldn’t keep up the pace. I was working 80-hour weeks! But I have nothing but fond memories of working with the whole crew.

Jerry and I struck up a friendship, and I always respected his work quite a bit. Pete Krause is a really nice guy, and I think he’s an underrated artist. I understand he has gone back into advertising, which is a loss for comics. Mike Carlin is one of the best editors in the business.

He’s tough, but fair, and really understands the fundamentals.

FCA: Besides being the regular inker on Power of Shazam!, there were also some issues where you did the complete, finished artwork.

Like many artists, I assume you prefer to ink your own pencils? How much were you involved with the development of the “CeCeBeck”

MANLEY: While I enjoy inking the work of others, the best art I do is the art I do all myself, from start to finish. I’ve had a few jobs where I had good inkers, but mostly I have been disappointed, and its not because the inker did a bad job on it… it just might not have been done the way I would have liked to see it done. Regarding the Power of Shazam! Annual, I came up with all the character designs. I did a few versions of CeCeBeck and sent them back and forth between Carlin, Ordway, and myself.

FCA: You also drew a serious “Supergirl/Mary Marvel” story, written

by Peter David. Any comments on that?

MANLEY: I wasn’t happy with it at all and the final part of the story left a lot to be desired. I did it because I had committed to the project and DC advertised me doing it. The whole molestation storyline just turned my stomach. I really regret doing that story now. I think it’s 100% wrong to do those types of stories with these simple characters.

It’s an insult to people who have been abused, because you have to pull up short before you get into heavy, personal, private, politically charged subjects.

A super-hero talking about child abuse is emotionally dumb.

Characters with super-powers who can fly and bend steel just make a mockery of the situation. I also think it’s a violation of the character, as well. They are fantasies, and work best when kept within those parameters. I don’t think Shazam! characters should be tackling this type of issue. It would be like Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse having an adventure and discussing AIDS. It just doesn’t work. When realism is applied to comics, the industry stumbles, struggles, and the characters look dumb.

FCA: I agree with you. Since you mentioned the “realism” approach commonly used in today’s comics, I find your style of art very refreshing. How did you develop your clean economy of line/animated-style artwork over the years? How did your Action Planet Comics come about?

MANLEY: At a rather low point in my career, I was feeling unhappy and pretty burned out artistically. I was really trying to decide what I wanted to do. Did I still even want to draw comics, and if I did, what did I want to do? I didn’t want to spend all of my time drawing other people’s ideas; I wanted to do my own thing. I mulled over these thoughts a bit, then decided I wanted to really do my own characters. I loved doing more cartoony-style art, something I never had a chance to do in comics; I had done a lot of it

A Mary Marvel panel penciled and inked by Mike Manley, from Power of Shazam! #18. [©2002 DC Comics.]

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Mike Manley

Power of Shazam! Annual character concept roughs by Manley, of CeCeBeck, a.k.a. Thunder, and Captain Marvel as a senior citizen. (Or at least half of him). [©2002 DC Comics.]

only in kids’ books, but not in comics.

being done right.

Being a fan of the old Chuck Jones and Hanna-Barbera cartoons, along with Kirby’s stuff, I just let my mind wander, sketch, and play with concepts, incorporating some of the things I liked, and I came up with Monsterman. I formed my company—Action Planet—for the purpose of self-publishing my ideas, and I came up with the idea of doing an anthology book, Action Planet Comics. I figured I’d do Monsterman and whatever other ideas I had and publish them in there, as well as offering to publish work by friends or artists I admired. I sent a complimentary copy of the first issue to Bruce Timm. I was really enthralled by Timm’s work and storytelling style.

FCA: Let’s hear about DRAW!, the new magazine you edit for TwoMorrows.

We later talked and he offered me a tryout doing storyboards for the animated Superman TV show—freelance at first, and later on staff. I learned a lot about working simpler, because in animation you have to.

So I just kept developing, learning on the job, learning on my own projects. In a way I was regressing and returning to a style or way of working I had when I started out trying to break into the business. Some of the samples that landed me my first professional job (Robotech) were very cartoony.

MANLEY: It’s a “how-to” magazine on comics and cartooning in general. There has never really been a trade magazine for the professional cartoonist, a magazine that shows you the “how” of cartooning.

Sure, you’d get bits here and there, but never any one source. I am always being asked how to draw something, what pen or pencil to use, etc., by fans and amateurs.

I figured there was a real need for a solid source for this type of information. And I feel it takes a working professional to do it, because only a pro knows all the skills you need to master. The magazine is hard work, but very rewarding, and the feedback has been really fantastic so far. I am planning articles and interviews with many artists from all corners of cartooning and animation.

FCA: Welcome to the TwoMorrows family, Mike. Any final words on your experience with Shazam!?

MANLEY: It was a fun assignment and I feel proud of my work on it. I think over time the series will really be looked back upon with more respect and admiration. It was a bit of an odd duck in an industry that caters primarily to some, uh, interesting tastes.

FCA: Besides admiring Timm’s “animated style,” who are some of your other artistic influences?

MANLEY: Kirby, Buscema, Kubert, Wood, Williamson, Sinnott, Frank Robbins, Bernet, Moebius, Oskner, Drucker, Romita, and Toth. I love the classic American illustrators like Wyeth, Cornwell, Fawcett, etc. I love Hirschfeld, and, as I previously mentioned, the Chuck Jones/Warner Bros. cartoons and Hanna-Barbera’s stuff.

FCA: If a new Shazam! animated cartoon was to be produced today, would you want to be involved?

MANLEY: Sure!… if it was Mike Manley’s pencil breakdowns for a CeCeBeck/Thunder panel in Power of Shazam! Annual. [©2002 DC Comics.]

[Look for Mike Manley’s DRAW! magazine at your favorite comic shop or order directly from TwoMorrows— see ad elsewhere in this issue.

Mike’s websites: ACTION PLANET/G.I.R.L. PATROL: http://www.actionplanet.com MONSTERMAN: http://www.monsterman.net]

Why Things Never Get Better

47

Why Things Never Get Better

by C.C. Beck

Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

As far back as records go, there were people who bemoaned the fact that everything was getting worse instead of better. It all started with Adam and Eve, mankind’s first male and female, who quickly fell into sin and were punished by God for their dereliction and had their progeny cursed forever.

Whether an individual grows up in pleasant or unpleasant conditions, as soon as he reaches the age of reason he or she finds that there is definitely something rotten not only in the state of Denmark but in the condition of his own government, education, art, and literature. Only rarely, and very briefly, are there periods when things get better temporarily and so unexpectedly that these periods are recognized only after they have disappeared and everything has gone back to what during World War II was known as S.N.A.F.U (“Situation Normal, All Fouled Up”).

Such a group of artists appeared without warning in the late ’30s and early ’40s in, of all places, the field of trashy pulp publishing. It almost seems that any change for the better in human affairs can be made only when everything can’t possibly get any worse, and that state had been reached in the publishing field when, in 1938, a comic strip character named Superman burst upon the public’s consciousness with a bang… which is still echoing a half century later.

As with the appearance of the telephone, the electric light, the sewing machine, and many other discoveries and inventions, Superman was almost immediately surrounded by many other similar character creations which flourished not in the syndicated newspaper comic pages but in the pages of the pulp magazines…otherwise known as comic books.

(Superman had first been rejected by the newspaper comic syndicates.)

Human beings are social animals. Although not one in millions ever does anything out of the ordinary, as soon as anyone does, either by accident or by design, the rest of mankind hastens to follow suit.

Within practically no time at all, almost the whole field of publishing had been taken over by the publishing of comic books, which at their peak outsold all the old, established publications put together.

The reason that changes for the better occur so seldom is that the individuals who can change things are so rare. Most members of the human race are no more intelligent than were their ancestors of a couple of million years ago.

The average citizen, contrary to popular belief, is not blessed with common sense and an inborn intelligence which only needs bringing out. Most people have less sense than animals and would not last more than a few days—or hours—if turned loose in a desert or in a jungle without a supply of food and water and the means of making fire, of defending one’s self, and of killing other life forms if necessary.

Charles Clarence Beck, original artist and co-creator of Captain Marvel, drew, wrote, and lettered this great illo for the late collector/fan G.B. Love in 1970—two years before DC made arrangements to bring back the Big Red Cheese in Shazam!

[Art ©2002 estate of C.C. Beck; Captain Marvel © & TM 2002 DC Comics.]

The ability to make pictures and carvings was developed so far back in history that no one knows when it first appeared, but a talent for art is as rare among members of the human race as is talent for music, mathematics, acting, or governing.

Today there are schools which profess to teach such things, but most humans have an innate distrust of anyone who is “too smart” and thus different from the average citizen. Most humans actually have so thin a veneer of civilized behavior that at the slightest relaxation of whatever law and order may prevail at the moment they will revert to savagery.

Although a talent for art is so rare that many generations of humans may be born and die without a single creative artist’s appearing among the inhabitants of any particular country, for some reason small groups of creative artists may suddenly appear spontaneously and for brief periods light up the world of art like flaring torches in the darkness (or sometimes more like glowing sparks, instead).

As soon as Superman appeared, his publisher was overwhelmed by the demand of the public for more of the same, and production was expanded to enormous proportions. People who knew nothing about writing or art were put in charge of the workers who flocked to the typewriters and drawing boards now being set up not only by Superman’s publisher but by others.

Each of Superman’s rival comic book characters had a talented writer or artist (or both) present at his or her birth, but these individuals were quickly shouldered aside by the people in control of the various publishing firms now in the comic book business. The creators were “too eccentric,” “too hard to get along with,” thought the publishers.

The creators wanted name credit, a share in the profits, and—what no person in control of anything will ever voluntarily give up—control of their creations.

It is perhaps just as well that most of the creative people in the comic book field did not gain control of their creations, for most creative people are by their very natures impractical and unable to fit into society well enough to even support themselves. The history of inventions and discoveries is strewn with the corpses of the unfortunate individuals who

48

C.C. Beck

first introduced them to humanity. If the new comic book characters had not been taken over by the lawyers, bookkeepers, and the salesmen very shortly after their births, they would probably not have survived as long as they did.

nothing better to occupy their time. To this day, creative artists are looked on askance by ordinary people, who like to think of them as somewhat retarded but harmless individuals who have to be treated with tolerance.

No one has ever been able to explain why creative geniuses appear now and then in the most unexpected places, nor how and why they perform as they do. Many of them are so different from the average person that they seem to be insane and are regarded with fear and distrust by their fellow men.

There is a great difference between being talented and being skilled.

Talented individuals don’t operate on command, but only as the spirit moves them. Some of them are so unskilled that their work is thought to be crude and worthless by the common people, who are fond of declaring that they know nothing about art themselves and “can’t even draw a straight line.”

Insanity itself is quite common among humans. In ancient times, insane people were often regarded as in touch with the world of the gods and spirits, which were known to be irrational and beyond human understanding. In rare cases, insane individuals were also geniuses who started great migrations, wars, and religious and political revolutions.

Most of these individuals, after greater or lesser periods of time, lost their power over their fellow men and came to dismal ends. We have records of such individuals, which go back a few thousand years; before writing was invented they were remembered as mythical beings.

No one knows who started the first cooking fire, made the first axe or spear, fashioned the first bow and arrow, or scratched the first picture on the wall of a cave.

Once the first picture had been made (quite possibly by a child, for genius expresses itself early in life), others could easily copy and imitate it. But not understanding why and how the original picture had been made, the imitators changed and debased the newly discovered art form until it had lost whatever meaning it once had and had evolved into nothing but amusement for children or a harmless hobby for adults with

Skilled people, by contrast, can go into action at the crack of a whip and can operate without stopping until given the signal to cease. There are always hundreds of skilled craftsmen around, but few creative artists, just as there are always hundreds of skilled musicians around but few composers. When the creative artists and the composers die off, the skilled people remain, endlessly repeating the same performances until eventually they get so bad that any further changes at all would have to be an improvement, and a new cycle may start.

By the 1950s the comic book craze had passed its peak and was fading away, when another small group of creative geniuses revived it briefly. Ten years later it was burnt out almost completely and, while still alive today, the comic book business is only a pale shadow of what it once was.

Once again, the moaning voice is heard all over the land.

“Why do things always get worse and worse instead of better and better?” is the cry.

A COMICS FANDOM LEGEND RETURNS IN MAY! ™

XAL-KOR THE HUMAN CAT PRESENTS:

Xal-Kor is TM & ©2002 Grass Green.

FANDOM’S FAVORITE HERO IS BACK IN AN ALL-NEW 100PAGE GRAPHIC NOVELLA BY FAN LEGEND GRASS GREEN! In 1964, the HUMAN CAT saga debuted in the pages of the classic fanzine STAR-STUDDED COMICS, creating a sensation! Now, almost 40 years later, writer-artist GRASS GREEN has crafted a fantastic climax to this much-honored series, packed with ROUSING SUPER-HERO ACTION! The story: XAL-KOR awakes from 23 years of suspended animation, to find his arch-enemy QUEEN RODA and her rat legions on the brink of conquering planet Earth. Is there time for even Xal-Kor—the intrepid soldier from the cat-planet Felis—to stop Roda from turning Earth into a slave planet? Has his great love, the beautiful and sensual FELINA, survived his long absence? Get ready for shock after shock!

• Inks by ANGEL GABRIELE & RON FONTES! • Introductory remarks by ROY THOMAS and JEFF GELB! • Background on the Xal-Kor series by editor BILL SCHELLY to get new readers “up to speed”!

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Roy Thomas ’ T Timely imely Comics anzine Comics F F anzine

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In the the USA USA In

Titans

No. 13 March 2002

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Timely Marvel!

PART II

AMAZING ART & ARTIFACTS BY GOLDEN AGE GREATS! JOE SIMON• JACK KIRBY • STAN LEE• FRANK ROBBINS DAVE GANTZ• DANIEL KEYES• SYD SHORES MIKE SEKOWSKY• CARL BURGOS• BILL EVERETT CARL PFEUFER• BASIL WOLVERTON & MORE!!!

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Vol. 3, No. 13 / March 2002

™

Editor Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout Christopher Day

Consulting Editors John Morrow Jon B. Cooke

FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck

Comics Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

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

Cover Artists Joe Simon Murphy Anderson

Cover Colorists Joe Simon & Tom Ziuko Murphy Anderson III

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

And Special Thanks to: Trey Alexander Murphy Anderson Murphy Anderson III Blake Bell Al Bigley Bill Black Jerry K. Boyd Tom Brevoort Frank Brunner John & Dolores Buscema William Cain James Cavenaugh Mike Costa Rich Donnelly Shelton Drum Ron Frenz Dave Gantz Grass Green George Hagenauer David G. Hamilton Mark & Stephanie Heike Roger Hill Carmine Infantino Daniel Keyes Batton Lash

Stan Lee John Paul Leon Dennis Mallonee Mike Manley Joe & Nadia Mannarino Matthew Moring Will Murray Michelle Nolan Eric NolenWeathington Don Perlin Dan Raspler Mrs. Edmee B. Reit Joe Rubinstein Marie Severin Gilbert Shelton Joe Simon J. David Spurlock Flo Steinberg Daniel Tesmoingt Dann Thomas George & Dorothy Tuska Michael J. Vassallo Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. William Woolfolk

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

John Buscema Johnny Craig Gray Morrow Seymour Reit

Contents Writer/Editorial: O.K., Axis, Here We Come––Yet Again! . . . . 2 Power Luncheon––1974 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 A convention confab with Joe Simon, Stan Lee, Frank Robbins, and Roy & Jean Thomas.

A Long Glance at David Gantz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 First interview ever with a 1940s Timely Bullpen mainstay, conducted by Jim Amash.

A Close-up Look at Timely Komics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 The Fago Age of Marvel, scrutinized by Michael J. Vassallo and Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr.

A Timely Talk with Daniel Keyes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 A noted writer speaks with Will Murray about writing comics in the 1950s. re: [correspondence & corrections] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Even the letters are all about Timely/Atlas/Marvel!

Silver Age/FCA Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover: Joe Simon’s full-color Captain America figure—based on one he and Jack Kirby generated back in the early 1940s—came about because of a meeting a few years back with Marvel executive Joe Calamari, who was trying to initiate a series of coffee-table books which would be comics histories with illos. Alas, the project never came to fruition. We added a bit of Simon & Kirby C.A. art as background. For more about Joe’s drawing, see “Power Luncheon.” [Art ©2002 Joe Simon; Captain America © & TM 2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Above: A star-spangled Pauline Loth splash page from Miss America Comics #1 (1944), courtesy of Dennis Mallonee. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Alter EgoTM is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092.

Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $8 ($10 Canada, $11 elsewhere). Eight-issue subscriptions: $40 US, $80 Canada, $88 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in Canada.

FIRST PRINTING.

2

writer/editorial

O.K. Axis Here We Come--Yet Again!

Golden Age Forever!

That motto (like its complement re the Silver Age of Comics) appeared on the Irwin Hasen-drawn cover of our very first issue, in a banner billowing above the parading figures of the Justice Society of America, including honorary members Superman and Batman.

And, although that premier issue also showcased a 1995 “Stan Lee Roast” in Chicago and a 1950s Brazilian story in which the original Captain Marvel had encountered the original Human Torch, Alter Ego has featured fewer articles and less art on the Marvel/Timely crew than we’d have liked.

As we’ve noted, though, that has changed recently, thanks to the Herculean (or perhaps Thorian) efforts of Jim Amash, Blake Bell, Dr. Michael J. Vassallo, Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., Mike Costa, and several others “Timely/Atlas” enthusiasts. In fact, this issue’s Golden Age section in particular would be inconceivable without them, since Jim A. interviewed Timely staff artist Dave Gantz, Doc Vassallo and Jim V. delved into Timely’s humor comics (and their relation to their superhero forebears), while they and Blake and Mike and a couple of compatriots contributed some formidable art from the fabulous 1940s. And they tell me we’ve hardly scratched the surface!

To add to the fun, Will Murray presents an unexpected interview with Daniel Keyes, who wrote for Timely/Atlas back in the 1950s before he became the author of the celebrated short novel Flowers for Algernon (and perhaps the first person ever to refer to Stan Lee as “shy”).

At the same time, I stumbled across a beautiful full-color Joe Simon Captain America drawing for sale in an All Star Auctions catalog, and received Joe’s permission to use it as one of this issue’s covers! Joe even mailed me several items I could use inside the mag, bless his heart! But— what to run with them, so that readers got more of Joe and of the wonderful Simon-&-Kirby team of the ’40s and ’50s? Well, I opened a file drawer—and there, lo and behold, were photocopies that some sadly forgotten benefactor had sent me months ago of a transcribed 1974 convention panel with Joe, Stan Lee, Frank Robbins—and even my first wife Jean and myself!

And that was it! Except for cramming in a few Timely/Marvel-related letters, there was nothing else we could shoehorn into this half of the issue—so we didn’t try.

And if you’re more of a Silver Age than Golden Age fan?

Fear not, aficionado (as somebody ought to have said back in the ’60s)—just turn this mag upside down, and have a blast!

Bestest,

Submit Something To Alter Ego! Alter Ego is on the lookout for items that can be utilized in upcoming issues: • Convention Sketches and Program Books • Unpublished Artwork • Original Scripts (the older the better!)

• Photos • Unpublished Interviews • Little-seen Fanzine Material We’re also interested in articles, article ideas, or any other suggestions... and we pay off in FREE COPIES of A/E. (If you’re already an A/E subscriber, we’ll extend your subscription.) Contact: Roy Thomas, Editor Rt. 3, Box 468 St. Matthews, SC 29135 Fax: (803)826-6501 • E-mail: roydann@ntinet.com (NEW E-mail) No room for vintage Timely art on this page—not if we want to squeeze one of our magnificent mascots into this issue, and we definitely do! After creator Biljo White did his “Alter and Captain Ego” tale in 1964’s A/E V1#7, plus a few other sketches, he moved on to other projects such as Batmania.

In 1965 North Carolina commercial artist Sam Grainger volunteered to continue the pair’s adventures, and sent Roy the above drawing to encourage him to write some. Biljo gave his permission, but alas, Sam and Roy never got around to doing more “A&CE” stories before both found work in pro comics (both initially for Charlton, as it happened). [Art √2002 the estate of Sam Grainger; Captain Ego √© & TM Roy Thomas & Bill Schelly.]

Submission Guidelines Submit artwork in one of these forms (in order of preference): 1) Clear color or black-&-white photocopies.

2) Scanned images—300ppi TIF (preferred) or JPEG (on Zip or floppy disk).

3) Originals (carefully packed and insured).

Submit text in one of these forms: 1) E-mail (ASCII text attachments preferred) to: roydann@ntinet.com (NEW) 2) An ASCII or “plain text” file, supplied on floppy disk.

3) Typed, xeroxed, or laser printed pages.

#

Art ©20 0 JSA © & 2 James Cave nau TM 200 2 DC C gh; omics, Inc.

COMING IN APRIL

™

14

They’re BAAAAACK! THE

t; l T. Gilber Inc. 2 Michae s, Art ©200 DC Comic TM 2002 JSA © &

JUSTICE SOCIETY —FROM THE ’40S TO THE ’80S! THE ULTIMATE COMPANION TO ROY THOMAS’ ACCLAIMED, BESTSELLING ALL-STAR COMPANION! • TWO FULL-COLOR COVERS—by MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and by MIKE NASSER & STEVE LEIALOHA! • MORE NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN GOLDEN AGE ART from the legendary unpublished 1945 JSA adventure “The Will of William Wilson!”

• RARE GOLDEN, SILVER, & BRONZE AGE JSA ART by: KUBERT • INFANTINO • TOTH • KIRBY • ANDERSON • HASEN • NODELL • SHUSTER • MOLDOFF • KANE (BOB & GIL!) • BURNLEY • PETER • SEKOWSKY • GREENE • FLESSEL • PEDDY • DILLIN • GALLAGHER • HIBBARD • SHERMAN • SWAN • NAYDEL—and MORE! • THE 1970s JUSTICE SOCIETY REVIVAL! Full info on JSA tales from the ’70s —plus art-studded interviews with CONWAY—ESTRADA—GIFFEN— LEVITZ—MILGROM—STATON! Oh yeah—and seldom-seen art by WALLY WOOD & NEAL ADAMS! • VINTAGE INTERVIEWS with original FLASH/ALL-STAR artist LEE ELIAS! • COMIC CRYPT: THE GARDNER FOX ARCHIVES! MICHAEL T. GILBERT examines Golden Age plots & scripts by the JSA’s co-creator!

• THE ALL-STAR SQUADRON CHRONICLES! The continuing saga of the 1980s series, featuring an interview with JERRY ORDWAY! • Plus—FCA with JAY DISBROW, MARC SWAYZE, & C.C. BECK—BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom—and MORE!!

Edited by ROY THOMAS • 100 pages SUBSCRIBE NOW! Eight Issues in the US: $40 Standard, $64 First Class (Canada: $80, Elsewhere: $88 Surface, $120 Airmail).

NOW 8 BIG TIMES A YEAR! Art ©2002 Bil l Black; Black Canary © & TM 2002 DC

Comics, Inc. JSA © 2002 DC Comics, Inc.

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4

Power Luncheon—1974

Power Luncheon-Joe Simon, Stan Lee, Frank Robbins, & Roy Thomas at a Mid-’70s Seulingcon [NOTE: From the late 1960s through the 1970s, comics entrepreneur Phil Seuling was host to a series of major New York City Comics Conventions, which, until they were eventually eclipsed by those in San Diego, were the biggest in the world. Four of the major guests at the 1974 “Seulingcon,” as they were colloquially known, were the four gents listed above. By sheer coincidence they included three of the first four editors-in-chief of Timely/Marvel Comics: Joe, Stan, and then ed-in-chief Roy. (Only 1942-45 head honcho Vince Fago was missing to make it a full house!) Seuling gathered Stan, Joe, and Roy (with his first wife Jean, also a writer for Marvel), plus artist/writer Frank Robbins, together at a luncheon in a packed meeting-room at the Hotel Commodore, after which he initiated a question-and-answer session. The following transcription was printed in Seuling’s 1975 convention program booklet, along with photos. Alas, we’re not sure who originally sent us photocopies of various Seulingcon materials, but our hat’s off to him—and to A/E consulting editor (and Comic Book Artist editor) Jon B. Cooke for helping us get the best possible reproduction of the photos. Since many of the panel’s comments were of mostly transitory interest (queries asked of Stan, or of Roy because he had been Marvel’s main editor for two years), Phil’s interview has been considerably edited to emphasize the more pertinent remarks. —RT.] PHIL SEULING: Joe Simon, you were the editor at Marvel Comics when the 17year-old Stan Lee came to work there, which means that between you two and Roy Thomas we have three generations of Marvel editors on this panel.

That’s quite true, isn’t it, Joe? What was it like then?

From left to right: Frank Robbins, Joe Simon, Phil Seuling, Roy Thomas, Jean Thomas. Stan Lee got crowded out at far left, but see later pics—and besides, you’ll see a photo of The Man in the “Comic Crypt” in our flip section! [©2002 the respective copyright holder.]

STAN LEE: I’d just graduated.

SIMON: Just graduated? Well, we gave him the text page to do because nobody ever read the text page, even the editors! And Stan wrote his text, signed his name to it, and we printed his name. He made it very important and he made everything important after that. And that’s why he’s where he’s at, I guess.

LEE: At the end of the table.

SIMON: At the end of the table. [laughter] SEULING: Roy, you’ve seen a heck of a lot of writers and artists go through Marvel Comics. Who are the people who are not with Marvel any longer that you still feel some vibrations from?

ROY THOMAS: Good or bad?

SEULING: Either. It’s an open luncheon.

THOMAS: I’ve been working for Marvel for about nine years. And the people who have worked for Marvel that I think contributed the most, and who aren’t there any longer, are the same ones the readers would like to see—since I was a reader of Marvel Comics.

JOE SIMON: Well, Stan was Jack Kirby, certainly. Stan Lee—he’s sort of not there any more as just telling me that the last far as writing goes! I wish he were... I keep asking him to do The time he left me, 1939, I was Silver Surfer, but he doesn’t have time right now. Obviously, a guy like eating then, and nothing’s Steve Ditko, who sort of wandered out the door and never came back— changed. When Stan came guys like Jim Steranko and Barry Smith. Some people that I admire have to us, he was very eager, he gone on to other places, like Bernie Wrightson, who did his first covers wanted to do some writing, for Marvel, and a couple of stories.... It would be the same people, and I think he was still in probably, that you would want working for Marvel. In other words, high school, weren’t you, Stan? everybody in the business who’s any good! We have a goodly percentage of them now. I wish we had those Joe Simon contributed this drawing of Captain America to the program book of Shelton and people and a few more.

Cynthia Drum’s 1998 Heroes Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina... which was held on the 4th of July. Incidentally, don’t miss the ad in this very issue for Vanguard Press’ re-issue, with new material, of Joe’s biography The Comic Book Makers, written with his son Jim. [Art ©2002 Joe Simon; Captain America © & TM 2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Joe Simon, Stan Lee, Frank Robbins, & Roy Thomas

5

of gives you a visual challenge and you try to dramatize and imagine what the dialogue might or might not be. You get a pretty good picture of what you’re doing as you go along, and it’s very freewheeling, you know. I like it. It’s a different way of handling things.

THOMAS: I’d just like to mention that we may be the first people— Marv Wolfman, Tony Isabella, and I—ever to ask Frank Robbins if he can draw any faster. [laughter] SIMON: I have something to say about that. I just met Frank last night for the first time, but I remember his work from when Kirby and I first started, and Jack used to have Frank Robbins’ work in front of him. He was influenced by this man here.

SEULING: There are so many ties in this business from one person to another, from one company to another. I think these luncheons have brought out many of these interwoven threads.

Stan, I’d like to ask you a question, since you have a few of the people that you’ve worked with through the years here. When Roy first came to New York, and we met each other for the first time, he said he would favor working with Marvel because of a flavor, or spirit, some certain characteristic about Marvel that at that time the fans really admired. Now, the question would be this: Of the people that you like to call the “Marvel people” through the years, what would you say are the characteristics that they have in common?

LEE: The one common denominator is you have to be a little bit insane... and enthusiastic. I think maybe, if nothing else, the people at Marvel, at our batty bullpen, as I cordially call it, are pretty enthusiastic.

(Above:) In the mid-’50s Joe Simon and Jack Kirby co-created Fighting American near the end of their days as a team; this splash from issue #1 (April-May 1954) is repro’d from the original art as printed in a Christie’s auction catalog. (Right:) In the 1970s they teamed up one last time, at the urging of DC head Carmine Infantino in 1973-74: this version of the original art for the cover of The Sandman #1 (Jack penciled and Joe scripted—presumably the inks are by Mike Royer) was provided by Joe & Nadia Mannarino. Visit their All Star Auctions website at <allstarauc.com> or contact them at <allstarauc@aol.com>, and tell ‘em Alter Ego sent you! [Fighting American © & TM 2002 Joe Simon & the estate of Jack Kirby; Stuntman © & TM 2002 DC Comics.]

SEULING: I want to ask this question of Joe Simon. How much are you a fan of comic books?

SIMON: I’m afraid I haven’t read a comic book in many years, but I do look at the pictures. The graphics are considerably improved over the early years and what they called the Golden Age. At that time we had less than a handful of really good artists—Lou Fine, of course Jack, and there were maybe three or four others, but today almost every artist is superb. I couldn’t keep up with them today.

SEULING: Speaking about writing—Roy said that some of the finest artists and writers are working for Marvel Comics right now. That’s hard to contradict when you’ve just added to your work force a man who’s written and drawn, oh, 10,000 pages or so. Frank Robbins, how do you like the Marvel style as you’ve found it so far?

FRANK ROBBINS: The Marvel method of working? Well, they have a different approach than I’ve been used to, in terms of the way they lay out the script in synopsis form and then you work the pictures and then add the words later. But it’s very intriguing. I like it very much. It sort

6

Power Luncheon—1974

In summer of 1974 Frank Robbins, renowned for his Johnny Hazard newspaper comic strip (this one’s from 10/11/47), had recently moved from DC, where he’d been writing and drawing such fare as “Man-Bat Madness” (Detective Comics #416, Oct. 1971), to Marvel, for whom he penciled Captain America and, later, The Invaders. The splash for Invaders #11 (Dec. 1976), splendidly inked by Frank Springer, is repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, courtesy of Daniel Tesmoingt of Belgium. Robbins’ self-caricature is courtesy of Robin Snyder. [Johnny Hazard ©2002 King Features Syndicate; Batman art ©2002 DC Comics; Invaders art ©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.; caricature ©2002 estate of Frank Robbins.]

Almost every time that we sit and talk about something, Roy’ll say, “Hey, how about doing a magazine of this sort or that sort?” and I never can say no to him. His ideas are usually great, and we’re always turning out more magazines than we really have enough artists and writers to produce. It’s hard for us to turn any idea down, if we think it’ll be good, and we love our ideas, so what usually happens is—our biggest problem is always trying to go out and get better and better artists and writers. When a guy like Frank Robbins falls into our lap after, lo, these many years, this is a great thing.

Just like when Roy Thomas fell into our lap—how many years ago was it, Roy? It was the greatest thing that ever happened to me, ’cause I

had been doing most of the writing and editing myself and I kept thinking, “Gee, if I could only find somebody who’d be dumb enough to do all this work and let me have some time off and also be good enough.” I didn’t know he’d end up being better, but that’s okay.

Joe Simon, Stan Lee, Frank Robbins, & Roy Thomas

7

Another luncheon photo. L. to r.: Stan (partly obscured by Frank’s cigarette hand), Frank, and Joe. Plus, at right—a Simon drawing that Joe labeled “My Law Firm.” He says the character is “Jove U.N. Born, a genetically-engineered I-man of all faces (in film development).” [©2002 Joe Simon.]

Anyway, I’d say the biggest thing at our place is the quest for talent.

If Marvel is to any degree successful, it’s because we’ve always tried to have the best people working for us. And that can be considered as a want-ad solicitation. [laughter] SEULING: Let me ask this of Joe: In the 1940s, let’s say from ’39 to ’45, the war years, was it more of a business with a production line, or was there a camaraderie, fellowship, spirit that held people together in those days of the Marvel bullpen?

SIMON: I think the spirit that held us together was the spirit of nepotism. Almost everybody there was a member of the Goodman family [NOTE: Martin Goodman was Timely/Marvel’s original publisher. —R.T.], and we were all good friends and we had a nice spirit about it. I was going to say to Stan that we love our ideas, too, until we get the sales figures.

SEULING: I learned something this morning which will be one of the things I’ll remember from this convention, and I think this audience would be interested in it. When you think of all the Joe Simon productions, when you think of Boy Commandos, Young Allies, Captain America, “Sandman,” Boy Explorers, Stuntman— endless parades of excellent quality products—what was the most profitable book you ever worked on?

SIMON: Well, Young Romance and Young Love are by far the most profitable ventures! For over ten years, they sold two million copies a month, and with high percentage figures. Of course, everybody was copying them, but there’s something about the first titles. If they’re pretty good, they’ll outlast all the others, and nobody seemed to approach them in sales. Young Romance and Young Love were the leading magazines in sales in Hawaii, for instance, leading Life magazine and everything else!

This Frank Robbins/Vince Colletta page from Invaders #4 (Jan. 1976) spotlighted Simon and Kirby’s Sentinel of Liberty. Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, courtesy of Al Bigley. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

SEULING: In other words, we talk about Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Silver Surfer, and it turns out that “Dear

8

Power Luncheon—1974 SIMON: Bill worked there, right. It was run by someone named Lloyd Jacquet. And they just told me to give them six pages or seven pages.

There was no character or anything. You know, just fill seven pages.

And so we had to come up with a character or an idea and write it, draw it, letter it, and turn it in. Then they’d send it over to some publisher and they’d use it. That was the beginning of comics.

SEULING: And you think that that’s one of their strengths? The artist/writer kind of originated them?

SIMON: Well, I think some of the best things that were done, like Eisner’s things, were in a class by themselves. I don’t think they can be duplicated by a team.

SEULING: As one member of the most outstanding team in the comics’ history, this is an interesting statement.

SIMON: Well, when I say “team,” I mean a written script given to an artist to work from. When we worked, we didn’t use a script. We wrote it right on the board.

SEULING: Frank, do you see a difference in the collaborations and the single-man product?

ROBBINS: That’s a difficult thing to answer, in a way, because, in many cases, if it’s a perfect welding of the various elements and if you didn’t see the credits, you’d find it very difficult—at least I would—to differentiate whether it’s a one-man team, so to speak, or a three-man team.

But in other instances, of course, it’s very desirable if someone can do his own writing, plotting, dramatization, visual and otherwise. It has a hell of a lot of advantages, too.

Okay, so the love comics were Simon & Kirby’s hottest creations ever.

We still prefer Captain America—or Stuntman—or even The Fly, as seen in this 1998 sketch by Joe. The never-published Stuntman cover from the mid-1950s was done by the Simon “shop” for Harvey Comics, based on the S&K creation; the precise artist is unknown.

Photocopy of original Stuntman art is courtesy of George Hagenauer.

[Fly art ©2002 Joe Simon; Fly © & TM Archie Publications, Inc.; Stuntman © & TM Joe Simon & estate of Jack Kirby.]

Abby” may outsell them all. That’ll tell us where we are! We started out being a super-hero fan convention, and I guess we’re learning other things....

I’m going to change the line of questioning. Both Joe and Frank fall into kind of a rarefied category—the writer/artist. I don’t know which is more writer, which is more artist, in either man. And the question that occurred to me is this: do you, when you read other people’s work, recognize that this artist was a writer, or that he wasn’t? Do the things that are collaborations between the strictly artists and the strictly writers... do they have a different flavor, in your eyes?

SIMON: I think so. I think that the artist/writer is an ideal comic book producer, and he can do things that a team can’t do. In the old days, they didn’t have scripts.

When comics first started, there was no such thing as a script. Everybody did his own complete job. In fact, when I first started in comics, I went to a package outfit called Funnies, Inc., and they were packaging the Goodman books, and— SEULING: Was Funnies, Inc., Bill Everett’s—?

And yet, oddly enough, I find it sort of intriguing to draw things which are going to surprise me by the dialogue that’s going to come in later. So, I’m going to end up a reader of something that I’ve already illustrated, even though the dramatization, the plot, are all in my pictures. I assume the general idea is to suggest to the writer certain things to say, more so than if he hadn’t had the pictures first. It’s the reverse of what I’ve been used to. You learn to adapt to that, to a certain extent.

THOMAS: All of us drew at one time or another.

Stan has mentioned how he used to win drawing contests in New York newspapers until they asked him not to enter any more... and I used to fool around with drawing a little. While I think that a person who is a good writer and a good artist can produce some very fine things and does have total control over the product (which both artists and writers would like to have), the collaboration thing

Joe Simon, Stan Lee, Frank Robbins, & Roy Thomas

9

The only question is what two people or what one person you get.

It may be Bill Everett doing The Sub-Mariner [by himself] down to a very distinctive style of lettering, or it may be Al Feldstein or Harvey Kurtzman laying out an entire page and then giving it to an artist and saying, “Here, fill in the space between the panel borders.” Obviously, both methods work out quite well and they have both produced some real classics of comic artwork, so I think it’s almost irrelevant to talk about a particular method being better....

But it was a good question, Phil. [laughter] [NOTE: There follows some discussion among the panel members concerning the changes in comic book writing over the decades. Phil Seuling addresses Stan Lee’s closing statement:] SEULING: I listen to what you say, I listen to what Frank says, listen to what Joe says about the new writers and artists being so much better than they were when you remember them, that everybody has a great talent now... I listen to what Roy says, and I guess you all have to agree with me: these are the good old days... right?

While Joe Simon reigned as Timely’s first editor, Marvel Mystery Comics #20 (June 1941) featured this full-page b-&-w ad. Of course, Daring Mystery Comics and Mystic Comics weren’t nearly the smash hits the ad indicates... and there never really was a full-fledged Angel comic. Thanks to Jerry K. Boyd. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

works well with comics. One of the things that I have admired about comic books over all the years is that it’s a collaborative effort.

I keep reading articles about how [in a newspaper strip] one guy is doing everything. These people believe Alex Raymond wrote Flash Gordon [as well as drew it], but he had help on that; Charlie Schultz may be one of the last people doing an entire strip. Everybody else has ten assistants.

One of the things I like about comic books is that there are a lot of credits. Everybody’s saying it’s “production mentality, production mentality.” But think of the wonderful things done on Captain Marvel in the ’40s. Then you discover it was produced by a shop where different guys drew different parts of panels. Comics, be they strips or books, have always been a collaborative effort with certain rare exceptions. It works both ways.

After the luncheon, Joe Simon signs autographs for some fans. And here are two versions of the Cap figure from our cover.

Joe writes: “The introduction of extreme ‘stretch-and-flex’ action to comic book art was inspired by Jack Kirby’s acrobatic penciling in the early issues of Captain America beginning in 1940. In this classic panel, Cap’s left arm was a chiropractic nightmare... and I suggested that future figures display the face of his shield instead of the back side whenever possible... as in this ‘corrected’ re-creation which glorifies the majesty of Captain America’s great shield... in my opinion!”

[Photo ©2002 the respective copyright holder; new art ©2002 Joe Simon; Captain America © & TM 2002 Marvel Comics.]

10

Power Luncheon—1974 the book, but we’ll never buy it again unless you put them in their little long-underwear suits.”

I gotta mention one thing, talking about Joe Simon.

When I first started there, I think I was still wearing short pants and playing with a yo-yo, and I walked in and there was the whole staff... which consisted of Joe Simon, hiding behind the biggest cigar anybody ever saw, and Jack Kirby.

But for the first three weeks I only saw the top of his head, ’cause he was always crouched over the drawing board while Joe was giving his orders that Jack never particularly listened to. [laughter] SIMON: That’s what you think!

LEE: And it didn’t matter, because Joe changed everything he did, anyhow. And Jack used to smoke, I think, Joe’s leftover cigars, or cast-offs. Jack had to smoke a little smaller cigar than Joe. And this was the mighty Timely staff for quite a while, while I worked there. I didn’t see too much of them, ’cause they had me running out to buy lunch and coffee and stuff... when I wasn’t screwing up the place.

But I gotta tell you that they were two great guys to work for, and for many years Joe was really my idol because he came up with more ideas and he really knew this business. I never knew for years... I’d look at a drawing or a page they had done... I never knew whether Joe gave Jack the idea and Jack drew it, or Jack gave Joe the idea and Joe had Jack draw it, or Joe drew it first and Jack copied it.

I sometimes suspect that they didn’t know, but that was a real good examples of two guys— SIMON: Usually we stole the idea. [laughter] LEE: I’d like to say, from me... but they didn’t, because I was just learning at the time.

Collector George Hagenauer, who generously shared a photocopy of the original art with us, says this never-used Green Hornet cover, done for Harvey Comics in the 1940s, may have been drawn by Joe Simon. If not, it still captures that Simon & Kirby style! [Green Hornet © & TM the respective holder of copyright & trademark.]

[NOTE: At this point the panel take questions from the floor, beginning with one about how comics were then scripted at Marvel, fielded first by Stan, then by Roy, who tells of his initial encounter with a Marvel synopsis in 1963, as recounted in TwoMorrows’ trade paperback Alter Ego: The Comic Book Artist Collection. Next come a pair of queries about “minority” writers, about the language and “censorship” of comics, about the then-possibility of a Spider-Man movie, etc.—after which Jean Thomas asks a question of Joe Simon:] JEAN THOMAS: Joe, I’d like to know what you would think about creating a character such as Captain America today. How would you make a Captain America relevant to 1974? Would he wear red, white, and blue?

[NOTE: There follows a bit of talk about the Republic Captain America movie serial, and a question to Roy Thomas about how someone could become a writer for Marvel... after which Phil Seuling ends the panel:] SEULING: I remember [Golden Age writer] Otto Binder’s words at another convention. He said that when he came to New York to break into the very profitable comic book field, he wrote twenty or thirty scripts, all of which were rejected. Then he sold his first, and within a month, all the twenty or thirty that he hadn’t sold before... so that might be an encouragement to keep you going.

Monthly! Edited and published by Robin Snyder

SIMON: Well, I just read somewhere, in [someone’s] analyzing Captain America, that he is really a fascist... and he has all the ways of a Nazi Superman. Did you read that, Stan? So I guess I would try to do something with him more on the free-thinker style. I don’t think it would be a super-type hero. It would be more like Thoreau. Well, it’s a camp thing now, isn’t it—the red, white, and blue? But the uniform’s valuable, isn’t it, Stan?

LEE: I never knew how important uniforms were until we brought out the first Fantastic Four, and I thought we were being so clever by not giving them costumes. Boy, we got an avalanche of mail saying, “We love

Write to: Robin Snyder, 2284 Yew St. Rd. #B6, Bellingham, WA 98226-8899

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12

Dave Gantz

A Long Glance at Dave Gantz A Conversation with One of Comics’ Top Golden Age Humor Artists— about the Timely/Marvel Bullpen and Other Oddities!

Interview Conducted & Transcribed by Jim Amash [INTRODUCTION: Dave Gantz is a Renaissance man in Modern Art clothes. To call him anything but the “compleat artist” would be shortsheeting his long, varied career.

From humor and horror at Timely to Mad magazine and advertising art to newspaper strips and editorial musings from his pen and brush, Dave has always managed to make art where it’s needed. After I was given his number by our mutual friend, artist Stan Goldberg (whose own Alter Ego interview will be coming up in an issue or two), Dave spent many telephone hours letting me bend his ear— so please forgive him if he’s starting to resemble Vincent van Gogh. But I’ll pay the doctor bills for you, Dave! —Jim.]

JIM AMASH: When did you start drawing, Dave?

DAVE GANTZ: I was born in the Bronx, December 6, 1922, and I started drawing when I was six. I’ve never stopped. I always knew I was going to be an artist. I loved the newspaper strips—Gasoline Alley, Dick Tracy, Smilin’ Jack, Abie Kabibble, Happy Hooligan, among others. I was in love with Smitty, which was done by Walter Berndt.

I’m a member of the Berndt Toast Gang.

The group started when a few of us cartoonists started getting together for lunch on a regular basis more than thirty years ago: Creig Flessel, Frank Springer, Lee Ames, Al Jaffee, and a few others. We’d go to the Northport Veterans Center in Long Island, New York, to entertain the mental patients. When Berndt died, we drank a toast in his honor and named the group after him.

JA: You were born around the same time commercial radio came into being. Did radio shows influence you?

GANTZ: We didn’t get a radio until I was eight. We were the first family to have one in our tenement. People used to drop by and listen.

We’d all sit and stare at the radio while we listened. I translated what I heard into pictures in my mind.

JA: Did movies influence you?

GANTZ: Oh, sure. The Chaplin films. Skippy, which was a movie version of Percy Crosby’s newspaper strip. Those silent films with Douglas Fairbanks were great. On hot, humid days, they’d take the projector outside where they had a screen and benches set up.

JA: Did you go home and draw what you had seen on the screen?

GANTZ: Sometimes. I remember drawing a pirate scene when I was about twelve and put that in my portfolio when I applied to the School of Music and Art. But I was drawing mostly from life. I’d draw my parents and go out sketching.

JA: Comic books came into being in 1933. Did you read them?

GANTZ: I saw Famous Funnies, which was all newspaper reprints, but I was mostly interested in the fine arts. I copied Rembrandt and the old masters. My father bought me a book on El Greco when I was eleven and it really blew me away. I often visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The museum was my best teacher.

(Above:) Dave Gantz as caricatured (probably by Ed Winiarski) in Krazy Komics #5 (Jan. 1943). While he and the other bullpeners were both having fun and blazing trails in humor comics, the long-underwear boys were still flying high. The splash at left (by Syd Shores and Vince Alascia?) is from Captain America Comics #22 (also Jan. ’43). Caricature courtesy of Jim Vadeboncoeur; see his article later this issue. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Dave Gantz

13

But Martin Goodman’s kookie krew would soon find success mixing super-heroes and funny animals, as Super Rabbit became one of Timely’s biggest stars. Dr. Michael J. Vassallo, a.k.a. Doc, who covers the “Fago Age” in an article later this issue, identifies this undated cover as Dave Gantz’ work. Incidentally, Supe’s shirt was light blue; his pants sky-blue; his gloves, cape, and boots red. Remind you of any Men of Steel we know? Oh yeah—and his face was pink and his tail white! [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

I started at Music and Art when I was 12H. I got out when I was 16H; they had rapid advancement classes in junior high school. It was a wonderful learning experience. In high school we concentrated on the fine arts, as there were no commercial art classes taught there.

I also went to the YMCA on 92nd Street for life drawing classes, because they wouldn’t allow nude models in high school. Our teacher was Zero Mostel, before he became an entertainer. Art was his first love, and he maintained a studio on 28th Street throughout his career. Mostel was paid by an offshoot of the WPA [Works Progress Administration] called the FAP [ Federal Arts Project]. They paid artists $23 a week, but you had to teach an art class. Don Rico was a member of the FAP before he got into comics. I remember seeing his lithographs.

JA: Where did you go after you graduated from high school?

GANTZ: I got a scholarship to attend the National Academy of Design, but only stayed there for six months. I didn’t like the way they taught.

They had us drawing from dead white plaster casts.

I decided to go to Iowa University in Iowa City, and I was there for a year when my father suffered a heart attack. I returned home because I had to assume responsibility for the family and I didn’t know what to do for work. I had worked since I was eight years old, but this was different.

One day in 1940 I was walking down the street and bumped into Al Jaffee, whom I’d known since I was thirteen. I told him I was looking for a job and Al asked if I’d help him do comic books. That’s how I became a cartoonist.

Talk about finds! This shadowed photo provided by Dave Gantz is one of the only ones known of the 1940s Timely bullpen—and it’s from the early ’40s, to boot! He suspects it was taken when they were in the McGraw-Hill Building, but says it might be the Empire State Building, to which they moved in 1942. Left to right: Chris Rule, Barbara Clark Vogel, David Gantz, Marcia Snyder, Mike Sekowsky, & Ed Winiarski.

14

Artist Chris Rule, one of the two main candidates for mystery inker of Fantastic Four #1-2 in 1961 (the other is fellow 1940s bullpenner George Klein), stuck around long enough to do full art chores for the cover of Wendy Parker #1 (July 1953), a light comedy title. Get a magnifying glass and you’ll see his initials at lower right. Thanks to Doc Vassallo. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

A Long Glance at–– JA: Was Jaffee working for Timely yet?

and he was there, too. Stan Lee had his own office, but it was nothing elaborate.

GANTZ: No. He was freelancing for several places. Before I went to Iowa, we had collaborated on a children’s book which was never published. That was my first attempt at one. Over the years, I’ve done about a hundred children’s books.

JA: Was Chris Rule there then?

We worked at Al’s house because he had a studio there. Al got the art assignments and we did them together. This only lasted a few months, as Al was drafted. Then I went to Timely for work, since I had published material to show. I got a staff job right away. They were in the McGraw-Hill Building on West 42nd Street.

I don’t remember who hired me. It must have been [publisher] Martin Goodman. He was very accessible in those days, because we were in close quarters. I think we were on the 14th floor, but we didn’t have the whole floor. There was a very small reception room. Goodman had a large office up front, and his secretary was in there with him. His brother Artie was there, too, and so was his cousin Robert Solomon, who went around making sure we were working. He was always peering over our shoulders.

JA: I have the impression that Solomon wasn’t well liked.

GANTZ: He came along when we moved to the Empire State Building.

Besides inking, he penciled stuff like Millie the Model. His work was so distinctive that he established the style for the Millie comic. He looked like Santa Claus. I did a caricature of him once. He was an interesting, wonderful guy whose first wife was from the Steinway Piano family. She had a lot of dough, but he frittered his away. His second wife was a prominent socialite from Connecticut. He married into money and didn’t have to work in comics any more.

Rule was in World War I as an ambulance driver before America even got into the war. He came from aristocracy; his grandmother had owned a plantation in Texas and they had owned slaves. Chris had been around in Europe and knew New York like the back of his hand. He was a great raconteur with a marvelous sense of humor. He was from Texas but was a true New Yorker. Chris had known good times and bad times. When he got into comics, it was the bad times. [laughs] He had worked as a fashion illustrator for the Hearst newspapers for a great many years. He was a “man about town.” He knew all the nightclubs and all the people who were in the limelight.

Frank Giacoia worked on staff at McGraw-Hill, too, and was very good. He was a nice Italian fellow, a good-looking guy. Frank kept to himself a lot, and I think he got Joe Giella into Timely when we moved to the Empire State Building.

JA: Where were the pulp and magazine offices? Same floor?

GANTZ: No. They were on a lower floor, either the ninth or the tenth.

I did some drawings and wrote some stories for the magazines. Mel Blum was in charge of those books. His office was on the same floor as the comics section. We called him “Bum Blum.” He was an exercise freak and his shoulders couldn’t fit through the doors. He wore a hearing aid and could shut it off at any time.

JA: Very convenient. Was that section called Magazine Management during this time?

GANTZ: Yes. And the movie magazines were on the lower floor.

JA: What did you start out drawing for Timely? Humor comics?

GANTZ: It wasn’t that Robbie was a bad guy. It’s just that he was always watching us, and that rubbed some people the wrong way. I don’t even think he wanted to do that job. But he was related to Goodman, so he was going to have a job.

Goodman was a rather shy person who blushed very easily. You could tell what he was thinking by the color of his face. The comic book business has gone through many ups and downs, and there was a time when Goodman had trouble relaxing. So we made up a bunch of posters that said “Relax!!!” in comic book lettering with lots of exclamation points and put them up in his office. You could do anything but relax with those posters! [laughs] We were in the Empire State Building when this happened.

JA: Was Goodman a nervous person?

GANTZ: Not when we were in the McGraw-Hill Building. That came later, when the Kefauver hearings were investigating comic books.

Everybody started getting jittery about things.

JA: What else do you remember about the layout of the offices?

GANTZ: We had a room with one window. It was maybe 18' x 10'. I was in there with George Klein, Ed Winiarski, writer Jack Grogan, Mike Sekowsky, and Marcia Snyder. Gary Keller was like a traffic manager,

Mike Sekowsky would later be best-known for penciling Justice League of America in the 1960s, but in the ’40s he was an ace humor penciler at Timely. This splash from Comedy Comics #12 (Dec. ’42), inked by George Klein, features a gnome that looks amazingly like Mad’s later Alfred E. Newman! Thanks again to Doc V. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Dave Gantz

15 were only doing fillers.

JA: Captain America #1 is cover-dated March 1941. Were Simon and Kirby around much?

GANTZ: I don’t remember seeing them in the office. Kirby was the genius of that team.

Doc Vassallo says he’s “almost positive” the cover of Comedy Comics #23 (May 1944) is by Dave Gantz. His method of analysis, in part, is to compare the background silhouettes of buildings on the cover with those in the Gantz-signed “Sharpy Fox” tale in Comic Capers #1 (Fall ’44), as seen at right. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

GANTZ: I think so, yeah. I also did some adventure work... because they asked me to do it. That’s how things happened up there. While we were on staff, we were also allowed to take freelance work home. We’d get paid per page for that work and did it on the weekends. We had a contest to see who could do the most work over the weekend. Mike Sekowsky always won. He did 27 pages. I got as high as fifteen.

JA: Did you get to know Bill Everett or Carl Burgos?

GANTZ: No. They didn’t work on staff.

Burgos did work on staff

much later, though.

JA: What do you remember about George Klein?

GANTZ: A quiet man. We were both influenced by Chad Grothkopf’s

JA: How could a guy pencil 27 pages over a weekend?

GANTZ: Well, he was a phenomenal artist.

JA: Was it all humor work?

GANTZ: Or adventure. Later on, he did romance that fast, too. The fifteen I did was all humor stuff.

JA: What humor features did you draw?

GANTZ: I did Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal, Super Rabbit, Gandy Goose, and “Skilly Boo and Bloop.” Vince Fago originated that one. I also did Mighty Mouse, but that was after we were in the Empire State Building.

I also created a few features for them, including Little Lizzie in the 1950s; it was a Little Lulu takeoff.

Kin Platt wrote a lot of the humor stuff with a very nice, facile style.

A very good writer and a very active person. He also drew in an animated style, very loose and exciting. He freelanced for us and wrote novels and other kinds of books. He originated the Pepsi Cola Cops, who were called Pepsi and Pete. He got along well with Stan Lee. Later on, he went to Hollywood to work and we never saw him again.

JA: Did you draw from complete scripts?

GANTZ: Yes. But I wrote a lot of the humor stories I drew. I did them as storyboards first. Most writers typed their stories out, but I didn’t.

Stan would go over them and then I drew them. Later on, I also wrote some adventure and horror stuff, too.

JA: What super-hero work did you do?

GANTZ: I inked some “Captain America.” I penciled some “SubMariner” work, but it wasn’t much, just a few pages. I think Robbie Solomon got me to do that. I might have done some inking on “SubMariner,” and I think I did some inking on “The Human Torch”— maybe over Mike Sekowsky, who penciled some “Torch” stories. We

Chance are this ornate “Sub-Mariner” page from All Select Comics #2 (Winter 1943-44) isn’t one Dave inked—heck, we don’t even have any idea who penciled it—but Ye Editor won’t rest till he finds out who did draw it! Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, courtesy of Rich Donnelly; the story’s splash was seen two issues back. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

16

A Long Glance at–– GANTZ: No. He was kind of a shy guy. The big talker was Mike Sekowsky. Mike was a terrific talent, and very facile in that he could draw anything. Comedy, romance, Captain America, and other adventure stuff; he was just great at it. He couldn’t ink his own stuff—he had a thing about that—although his pencils were so beautiful that you could print from them. He had a great style. I inked some of his Captain America and, later on, his romance stuff; when we were in the Empire State Building. Years later, I worked with Mike on the Dell Comics adaptation of the Ten Commandments movie. We also did The Munsters together.

JA: From things others have said, I have the impression that Sekowsky was a gruff guy.

GANTZ: Mike was gruff but very clever. He could cut you to pieces with a few words. But we got along very well and I liked him a lot. He had his prejudices and was kind of schizophrenic in a way. He’d be very friendly at times; other times, he’d be argumentative and get into fights. I mean physical fights. This was later on. Mike was a very big guy, about six foot two. He was very skinny when I first met him.

Mike had a beautiful scar across his very wide forehead. It was always red and Mike was fair-complected, so it showed. We’d go into a bar at the beginning of World War II and everyone there thought he got it in the war. But he got it when he was a kid. Mike had long hair when he was a child. He fell out of a car while it was moving, and his hair got caught in the spokes in the wheel, ripping off his scalp. When you met him, it was the first thing you noticed.

JA: That’s sad. Rudy Lapick told me Sekowsky had lost part of a pinky finger, too.

GANTZ: Yes. He bought a house in Levittown after he got married and set up a wood shop. He was fooling around with a circular saw and cut off one joint on his pinky. I don’t think Mike ever got the recognition that he deserved.

JA: You knew Sekowsky for a lot of years. Did he change during that time?

Was this “Human Torch” splash from Captain America #59 (Nov. 1946) penciled by Mike Sekowsky? It’s hard to tell, but thanks anyway to Blake Bell & Mike Costa for providing a copy of it! [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

work. George started out as a painter. He came from Milton, Connecticut, and went to art school somewhere in Boston, studying to be an illustrator. When he came to New York, he went into the comic business because he had to make a living. He was older than most of the staffers during the 1940s and spent his whole life in comics. He inked for Timely all the time I was there.

George was drafted before I was and wound up in the Pacific Theatre of operations. He died rather young, around the age of 55.

He was a tall, good-looking guy; laconic, with a big toothy smile. When we had to draw a horse, we always used George as a model. [laughs] He was a thoroughbred. George did a lot of the Joker covers, and generally worked in the humor department.

JA: He wasn’t a talker?

A Sekowsky-penciled cover for Joker Comics #19 (Summer 1945) and a splash for a tale from Rusty #18 (Aug. ’48) apparently penciled by Kin Platt. What do they have in common besides being “funny human” comics? Mainly that Doc Vassallo suspects that Violet Barclay, “glamorous girl inker,” may have embellished both of them, though it’s hard to be certain. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

GANTZ: His art style stayed the same all through those years. Personally, he had a messy divorce that affected him terribly. He drank a lot and became more and more aggressive when he got older. His wife [Joanne Latta] worked for a commercial agency [Ruder-Finn] and had been a writer at Timely for a while. She was a petite blonde and nice-looking.

Dave Gantz

17 JA: Did you use Japanese brushes when inking comics?

GANTZ: No. Only in fine art.

JA: What did you think of Syd Shores?

GANTZ: He was a very good artist... an uneducated, kind of gruff guy. You’d never think he had that art ability in him. I didn’t have much to do with him.

Vince Alascia inked his work. Vince was a nervous sort of guy. He worried about his job constantly.

Alascia would get comfortable working with one guy and hated change.

JA: Wasn’t Artie Simek there, too?

GANTZ: Yes, he was. He was a staff letterer. He lived in a little world all his own and was the butt of a lot of jokes. But he got pretty strong after a while and they laid off him. He was not an articulate person, but sometimes I thought he was wiser than any of us.

JA: You mentioned Chad Grothkopf.

GANTZ: He freelanced for Timely. His ink work was phenomenal. Everybody copied that style at Timely. We were all told to ink that way.

Syd Shores remained the major Captain America artist through most of the ’40s. Collector Matthew Moring, who in real life is a designer for a national magazine, provided this splash from C.A. #68 (July ’48), and says it’s definitely Syd Shores’ work. In the early ’70s, shortly before his death in ’73, Syd drew this caricature of himself for a projected satire mag. [Capt. America art ©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.; portrait ©2002 Al Hewetson and the estate of Syd Shores.]

JA: I know he and [staff inker] Violet Barclay dated for a while.

GANTZ: That’s right. I think Mike met Violet at the School of Art and Design. Mike got her into the comic business. She also dated George Klein for a while.

Pauline Loth was another woman who worked there. She was a very good penciler. I think she was married to a guy named Sullivan who was somehow connected to magazines. She came to work for us when we moved to the Empire State Building.

Leon Winick freelanced for Timely, too. He also illustrated children’s books and later committed suicide. I think he suffered from clinical depression.

A sad situation.

JA: There have been a lot of artists who had those kind of problems. I think creative people are sometimes prone to it.

There was a guy who worked on staff named Mario Acquaviva.

He’s been listed in different places as a letterer and as an inker. Do you remember him?

GANTZ: He was a very good-looking guy and a nice guy. He might have lettered but I remember him mainly as an inker.

JA: Violet Barclay now goes by the name Valerie, and she told me you helped teach her how to ink. Do you remember that?

GANTZ: Maybe I did. I don’t recall. As I told you, I inked in the Chad Grothkopf manner, which was the Japanese way of holding the brush. I held the brush straight up and pivoted the brush with the thumb and forefinger, sliding my hand across the page with my other three fingers. But I got away from that eventually. I might have taught her how to do it.

The splash at left from Krazy Komics #7 (April ’43), Doc Vassallo thinks, was penciled by Chad Grothkopf, who often signed himself “Chad”—and who would go on to fame, if not fortune, as the artist of Capt. Marvel Bunny—seen above in Hoppy the Marvel Bunny #3 (July 1946). [“Inky” art ©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Hoppy art ©2002 DC Comics.]

18

A Long Glance at––

JA: Vince Fago told me there was a staff letterer who only had one arm. Do you remember her?

GANTZ: Yes. Her name was Judith Christ [pronounced with a short “i”]. She was a sweet, lovable person. I was fascinated by her last name.

She worked there for a couple of years.

JA: What did you think of Vince Fago?

GANTZ: He was a very nice guy and easy to work with.

JA: Why do you think Vince was made editor when Stan left for the Army?

GANTZ: I think Stan was protecting himself. He didn’t want anyone to upstage him. Vince had the type of nature that would never allow him to do a thing like that.

JA: Would you have ever wanted a job like that?

GANTZ: No! Later on, I got into the business end of the art field. I made a lot of money but I hated it. I got out of it.

JA: Well, artists and good business sense don’t always go together, you know.

GANTZ: True, unless you’re Picasso or Dali. The most wonderful thing about Dali was that he was insane! Dali once did a comic strip for United Features that was so abstract that nobody knew what the hell it was. It lasted about two weeks. I was a member of the National Cartoonists Society in the early 1960s and we invited Dali to one of our meetings... but he sent his pet cheetah with a beautiful blonde. She was beautiful to look at, and so was the cheetah. [laughs] JA: You mentioned Jack Grogan was a writer. What can you tell me about him?

GANTZ: He was very talented. He would take a story that was already finished and rewrite it into a completely different story. He didn’t letter for Timely but he had lettered movie titles for movie outfits. He had a great passion for lettering but not for comic books.

Jack was a poet and could write five sonnets on his lunch hour.

He was also addicted to drugs.

I don’t know what happened to him. He Though Dave recalls Mario Aquaviva as an inker, in Secrets behind the Comics Stan Lee referred to him as a letterer. Here’s another deathless page from that 1947 mini-classic, as Stan had Mario show wide-eyed readers the “secret” of how he ruled the lines on a “Sub-Mariner” page. But—did anybody notice that the vaunted letterer misspelled “balloons”? Artie Simek and Sam Rosen—where are you when we really need you? [Text & new art ©2002 Stan Lee; Sub-Mariner and Namora © & TM 2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Though Dave had little contact with “Sub-Mariner” creator Bill Everett and doesn’t mention his wartime replacement Carl Pfeufer, we can’t resist showing you this pair of great pages: the Everett (courtesy of Doc Vassallo) is from Marvel Mystery Comics #19 (May 1941)—the Pfeufer on the opposite page from Marvel Mystery #41 (March ’43) is repro’d from Canadian b-&-w photostats in Captain George’s Comic World in the late ’60s. Bless you, Cap’n! [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

wasn’t at Timely for very long.

He also did some editorial work for Stan and Vince. He wasn’t officially an editor, but he looked over scripts when needed. So did I. Stan would ask me for my opinion on stories, too. It was all very casual.

You know, when we were told we were leaving McGraw-Hill for the Empire State Building [in 1942], the staffers decorated the walls with ink drawings. Goodman had to pay an extra fee to have the walls covered. [laughs] JA: I’ll bet he wasn’t happy with you guys!

GANTZ: He never professed any dislike for us.

JA: What can you tell me about Frank Torpey?

GANTZ: Torpey was in the distribution end of comics. I think he had owned a part of Famous Funnies. He may have been in the printing end of that company, but I’m not certain. He was very close with Martin Goodman. I think Goodman even bought him a house.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Timely researcher Dr. Michael J. Vassallo, upon reading this interview prior to publication, writes: “I think Dave is confusing Famous Funnies with Funnies, Inc.” when he mentions

Dave Gantz

19

GANTZ: Yes. They were publishing thirty books a month at one time.

This was later on, though. Timely got into the teenage books and we did Pasty Walker, Millie the Model, and other books. Ken Bald drew Millie; he was a freelancer, fresh out of the Marines. Stan Drake also freelanced on the teen books and did some Millie work. Leonard Starr worked for Timely and was a few years behind me at the School of Music And Art. Frank Springer also did teenage work. You couldn’t miss that guy because he had black hair with a white streak through it—almost the reverse of Steve Canyon, who was blonde with a black streak in his hair. I always thought Caniff used Frank as a model. Frank worked with Caniff later on.

JA: What do you remember about Dave Berg?

GANTZ: He was an amiable guy. He was working for Timely when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He was a good artist, but that work was nothing like what he did later for Mad magazine.

JA: Do you remember seeing Gil Kane when he was coming up to the Timely offices?

GANTZ: Oh, yes. He was about sixteen then. He was a nervous kid, and his work was nothing like what it became. I never dreamed he’d blossom into the artist he became. I saw him again later on when he was married and settled into the comic book business. He was a wellregarded artist. We became very good friends at that time. I was doing the Dudley D. strip at the time for the Herald Tribune Syndicate and they needed an artist for a syndicated spy strip they wanted to launch. I recommended Gil for it, but it didn’t work out.

JA: Did you know Mickey Spillane?

“Famous Funnies” in conjunction with Frank Torpey. Funnies, Inc., was the early comics shop run by Lloyd Jacquet, which produced the entire first issue of Marvel Comics, including Carl Burgos’ “Human Torch” and Bill Everett’s “Sub-Mariner,” and which later provided finished art and story for Timely, Novelty, Centaur, and several other companies.]

JA: Vince Fago told me that Goodman gave Torpey $25 a week solely because he had talked Goodman into publishing comics... for giving him the original idea.

GANTZ: That sounds like it might be true. Torpey was at the offices a lot. I remember a strip he published at Famous Funnies (and at Timely, in Joker) called “E. Radicate de Bugs.” [laughs] That title always fascinated me. It had a character who was like Major Hoople from the newspaper strips. When Torpey was at Famous Funnies, he’d take any type of style, and he gave people a lot of leeway. He was a little guy, very energetic and almost quixotic in his actions. He was up in years at that time, a likable guy. A typical New Yorker.

JA: I’m trying to fit pieces of a puzzle here. I have this feeling that Torpey was working for Funnies, Inc., at the same time he was working for Timely.

GANTZ: I can’t swear to it, but I think he did.

JA: That would explain some things about him. Now, when Timely moved from the McGraw-Hill Building to the Empire State Building, did they increase the number of comics they published?

GANTZ: I met him a couple of times.

Spillane wrote for Stan, and one time Spillane told me he was building a house. I asked, “You mean you’re building it all by yourself?” He said, “Yeah. I’m laying the cinder blocks and all.”

That fascinated me, because I always wanted to do something like that but I’m such a klutz.

JA: What were your early impressions of Stan Lee? GANTZ: I thought he was the Orson Welles of the comic book business. He had energy and was young, tall, and good-looking.

When Stan would try to explain an action scene, he’d say, “Take it to its ultimate point.

Don’t give me the in-

Gil Kane developed into a top-notch action penciler over the years, and from time to time had occasion to draw Timely’s Golden Age heroes—including several covers for Roy T.’s pet project The Invaders.

This cover for issue #26 (March 1978), probably inked

by Joe Sinnott and repro’d from b-&-w proofs, features a foe named after (but not otherwise related to) a Simon & Kirby “Boy Commandos” foe from the early 1940s; Stan and Jack had once accidentally mentioned Agent Axis in a ’60s “Captain America” story, so Roy devised his own villain of that name. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

20

A Long Glance at––

between stuff.” Stan got along well with most of the staffers. When you’re the boss, you’ll get kudos and negative comments. But I thought he was a nice guy.

You know, after the war was over, Stan asked me to be his assistant editor. I said, “It’s hard enough to keep my wits about me, sitting here all day drawing. You want to tie me into this completely?” That didn’t sit very well with him, so he offered the job to Al Jaffee, who did a very good job. Al organized the place beautifully.

JA: How much control did Jaffee have over the comics?

GANTZ: He had complete control over the books he was handling, because he was a full editor. The only one he had to answer to was Stan, and they got along very well. Jaffee created features, too, including Pasty Walker, which I also did some work on.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Doc Vassallo tells us that, while later Mad regular Al Jaffee had “a long and distinguished run” on Patsy Walker, the character was actually created by Stuart Little, whose wife Bessie Little edited Miss America magazine, in which Patsy made her debut, “with Ruth Atkinson drawing the first issue of her own title shortly thereafter.” Apparently Atkinson and inker Chris Rule were the original team on Patsy Walker, which lasted into the 1960s.]

JA: I’m learning new things about you all the time.

GANTZ: So am I! At Al Jaffee’s 80th birthday party a guy came up and reminded me that I had done a children’s book for him at G.B. Putnam and Sons sometime back. I didn’t remember that. I told him about a novel I had written, Rembrandt and Me, but I didn’t have an agent.

This fellow said he did, so he has it now. I’ll hear from him soon.

Dan DeCarlo told me that I had done some work for Archie Comics, and I didn’t remember that, either. But Dan would know. He worked at Timely, too.

There was a time in the late 1940s when Timely installed a time clock.

I think it was Robbie Solomon’s idea. That’s why people didn’t like him.

I didn’t want to punch a time clock. I was incensed and didn’t do it. I wrote a piece about the dignity of the job and posted it on the bulletin board.

Mr. Goodman called me into his office and was pretty nice to me. I explained that we do creative work and sometimes it comes in a flood and sometimes it doesn’t. He understood, and this led to me doing my work at home.

JA: When were you in the service?

GANTZ: From 1943 until 1945. I was in Army Infantry Replacement. I got out of going to Europe by painting General Fales’ portrait. He was the commander of the JA: Was Al Sulman doing Infantry Replacement Camp any editorial work? in Camp Blanding in Florida.

When I came into the camp, GANTZ: He did some there were about 60,000 guys editorial work but didn’t Two issues ago, we ran an “Angel” splash from Marvel Mystery #41. Here’s more from that in a great big auditorium and have much power. I usually story, which Jim Vadeboncoeur informs us is by Gustave “Gus” Schrotter, “most likely via Fales was speaking. He was ignored him. I remember a the [Lloyd] Jacuqet shop.” For an entire Schrotter-drawn “Angel” yarn, see The Golden Age the meanest S.O.B. you’d funny encounter with him. I of Marvel, the first of two great trade paperbacks in that series in ’97 and ’99. (Get them, ever want to see, and he was drawing an adventure and great reprints Marvel Mystery Comics #1, Human Torch #5, and All Winners #19 through Bud Plant Comic Art at (800) 242-6642, and tell ’em A/E sent you! But, despite turned out to be a pussycat. story and there was a scene in what Bud’s wondrous catalog says, all were edited by Tom Brevoort, not by Roy T.!) Art But it was his job to be a dining room with people repro’d from b-&-w Canadian copies. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] tough. He was about 65 eating. He wanted to know if years old and they dragged that was roast beef or a steak him out of retirement to run this replacement camp. The way this on the plates. [laughs] I couldn’t believe he asked me that! That was Al worked was, they replaced a single guy at a time rather than a company Sulman. I think he went to another comic company later on. Those or a division. The replacements were primarily used during the Battle of kinds of idiosyncrasies drove me to work at home. the Bulge, when the casualties were like 75%.

I made a deal with Stan to do a certain amount of pages a week at I wanted to get married but didn’t have a furlough. My lieutenant home. He agreed to that, and later on, a lot of other guys did that, too. said he knew how to get me a furlough; he told me to paint the general’s But I was the first man to do this. I did it because I wanted to have time portrait. I did, and we got along beautifully because the general was a to paint, which was my real love. I’d finish my comics work about frustrated painter. I also got that furlough. twelve noon and that gave me time to be a painter. That shows you how I viewed the comic book business.

The men I was training with went to the Battle of the Bulge. I was the only one in the whole group who didn’t go. I went to Fort Ord, I didn’t like the comic book genre until I met Will Eisner. He had a California. The general repaid me for what I did. big studio in downtown New York, and Jules Feiffer was there.

Somehow I got to do some freelance work for him. He was doing When I got to Fort Ord, they noticed I had some experience in leaflets for the Fram Oil Filter Company; this was right after World War silkscreen printing. They were reopening Camp Adair in Albany, II. He gave me an assignment that opened my eyes to what you could do Oregon. I was sent up there to set up the silk screen plant to print with comics. The assignment he gave me was, “Draw me a G.I. with his posters. They told me to take four guys with me. On the trip to Fort ass in a sling.” I did penciling for Will. He was a straight-to-the-point Ord, I talked to four infantry guys who had survived the war in Europe kind of guy.

Dave Gantz

21

and they said they would go A.W.O.L. if they were shipped to the Pacific. I took those four guys with me.

When I was at Camp Blanding, I continued to work for Martin Goodman.

I’d take the weekend off and go to Orlando, Florida, rent a hotel room, and turn out a story. I made about five hundred bucks on a weekend.

I can tell you another incident that occurred while at Camp Blanding that was funny and tragic. My C.O. was a major and a much older man. You remember the kind of beds we had to sleep on in those days? They were pipe beds, and the springs sank down below the pipe if you sat on it. He sat on it bare-assed and when he got up, his [testicles] were sheared off. I did about a dozen cartoons about that, and it was the talk of the camp. Somehow, the cartoons got to my C.O. and he wanted to meet me. I thought, “Oh, hell, I’m in deep. This is the end of my Army career.” He complimented me on the cartoons!

It gave him a lot of pleasure. That’s the power of a cartoon.

JA: Were you still doing humor comics?

Two pages (?) by Pauline Loth: the first, which Doc Vassallo says is “probably” drawn by her, is from Krazy Komics #13 (Jan. ’44)... the other, courtesy of Dennis Mallonee, is from Miss America #1 (1944).

Both are kinda cold-blooded, but hey—we were at war! Visit Dennis’ website at: <www.heroicpub.com> for more (non-Timely) goodies. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

GANTZ: I don’t remember. I remember sitting in the middle of a day room with all the guys around and they were playing pool. An argument broke out and I didn’t know I was a part of it. I was just sitting there drawing my stuff. Someone told me that another guy made a nasty remark about me being Jewish and this other guy got up and fought with the guy who made the remark. They wrecked the day room! I didn’t know what was going on because I was just sitting there doing my work.

JA: Did you experience a lot of prejudice?

GANTZ: I did when I was in college in Iowa, but not in the Army.

Maybe it was going on around me, but I was never aware of it.

When I was discharged, I immediately went back to my staff job at Timely. That’s when they offered me the assistant editor job. Stan Lee returned before I did, and he was the editor again.

JA: Was Don Rico there when you returned?

GANTZ: I only remember Don Rico from the McGraw-Hill days. He had a brother named Chester Rico, who was a welterweight boxer. And that was pretty sad. Chester was brought up too quickly and he fought a very classy fighter. We all had ringside seats and the opposing fighter was all covered in blood. Chester’s blood, not his own.

We went back to Don Rico’s mother’s house in the Bronx and it was sad. You know, Chester could have been a cartoonist, but he chose to be a fighter. That was Chester’s last fight.

JA: Did Rico do any editorial work?

GANTZ: I think he did. He might have done that at McGraw-Hill, and maybe did more than assistant-edit before Fago took over. I don’t think Rico could deal with the job. He was an artist and just wanted to draw. I don’t think he wanted to do office work.

Vince [Fago] was the nicest guy around, and Stan gave him the editor’s job because he might have been afraid of Rico. Rico was a strong character... tall, good-looking, and married with kids. I don’t think Stan had a thing to worry about, because he was so good at what he did. But not everybody knows his true value.

JA: Very true. When you were working home, you were still considered a staff person, weren’t you?

Don Rico was a mainstay at Timely for many years, as witness this splash from Suspense #8 (May 1951).

He even dialogued a “Dr. Strange” tale in 1964—and drew the “Captain America” chapter in The Invaders Annual #1 in 1977. Thanks to Doc V. for “The Picture” splash. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

GANTZ: Yes. I was getting paid a salary.

22

A Long Glance at–– Doc V. suspects “possibly an assist from the Terry-Toons animation dept.” on this art from Terry-Toons #39 (Dec. 1945). Since this issue would’ve seen print in autumn of ’45, this has to be one of the earliest references in comics to the A-bomb! In it Mighty Mouse journeys to the heart of a uranium atom to make the first test bomb explode, thus making possible Hiroshima and Nagasaki a few weeks later! Odd fare for a funny animal comic, but those were the times! Not only does the pink “Atom” resemble Johnny Thunder’s pet Thunderbolt over at DC, but the idea of both good (“Atom”) and “Evil” lurking “in every atom” is clearly very early propaganda for the peaceful use of nuclear power. Perhaps Timely had a little nudge from the boys in Washington? [©2002 the respective copyright holder.]

JA: That’s very unusual.

GANTZ: It was unusual, but remember that Jack Grogan worked on staff as a writer, too.

GANTZ: [laughs] I know. I did the same thing for two years working for Norcross Greeting Cards. I started the same thing up there.

JA: I neglected to ask you about Ed Winiarski.

JA: Do you remember Vic Dowd?

He did humor work.

GANTZ: He was a good-looking guy and very savvy. Did he do the Ella Cinders newspaper strip?

JA: If he did, he did it as a ghost artist.

GANTZ: I think Timely did a takeoff on that strip. They did takeoffs on everything. When we were doing the teenage books, Archie became very popular. Stan noticed that Archie had crosshatch on the back of his head and told us to start doing that. Go figure!

GANTZ: Wini did mostly animated comics for Timely. He had worked for Disney before he did comics. He was a very sweet, funny guy... much older than the rest of us.

JA: I discovered that several of the Timely humor artists drew their likenesses in several stories.

GANTZ: That jogs my memory. Winiarski did a lot of that.

JA: What do you recall about Frank Carin?

GANTZ: Frank drew Mighty Mouse (as did I) for Timely. He was brought in to do the comic book because he had done Mighty Mouse for the Terry-Toons studio. His last name was Carrino, but he dropped the last vowel. In the mid-1950s, we shared a studio for a little while near Grand Central Station. He looked like Abe Lincoln. That’s a compliment, as I think Abe Lincoln was one of the most beautiful men ever. Frank was tall and thin like Lincoln... without the beard.

JA: Did you have model sheets to work off of for Mighty Mouse?

GANTZ: We always had model sheets for licensed characters. I didn’t deal with Terry-Toons. Timely did that.

JA: I’ve worked on licensed stuff, and sometimes the license-holder will request changes in the art.

I think Dan DeCarlo was working at Timely then. He was a very amiable guy. When I saw him again at the NCS awards dinner, many years later, he was the same amiable guy.

GANTZ: I know. I’ve worked on stuff for Disney, doing Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, etc. I did all of their characters. A guy by the name of McLaughlin was in charge of that, and he was a stickler for accuracy. Things would go back and forth until it got approval. I did a few books for Random House that involved all the Disney characters.

They were mass-marketed hardcover children’s books.

JA: Did you socialize with other Timely staffers after hours?

JA: Before I started the tape, you told me to ask you about Morris Weiss.

GANTZ: Oh, very much so. We had a clique: Mike Sekowsky, Ed Winiarski, George Klein, and me. We made all the rounds of the nightclubs on 52nd Street. We went to all the jazz clubs.

JA: Do you remember Lin Streeter?

GANTZ: I sure do. Lin Streeter was a wild, funny guy who did a lot of teenage stuff. He came from a family that made ice cream. I think he went back into the ice cream business after comics, but I’m not sure. We were about the same age. He was a pretty good artist who penciled and inked. He wasn’t at Timely too long and he worked for other companies, too. I think he even worked for Archie Comics.

JA: Do remember Joe Calcagno?

GANTZ: Oh, yes. He was a stocky type of fellow and a happy guy. He was a staff writer for us.

JA: Wasn’t that unusual? Because I’m under the impression that few writers worked on staff.

Dave Gantz GANTZ: Morris Weiss was freelance cartooning for Timely and also worked with Ham Fisher on Joe Palooka. He penciled, inked, and lettered. Morris was making quite a bit of money and wanted to buy a piece of fine art for his house. The artist was Maurice Utrillo [famous French artist]. I had a friend who had an art gallery on 56th Street, near the Plaza Hotel. We went up there and my friend’s mother brought out a Utrillo painting that she asked $15,000 for, which was a bargain in 1950.

I got kind of nervous about it, because my friend was a bit of a forger. I said, “Morris, let’s go.” We left, and a couple of weeks later I saw Morris at Timely and asked if he bought anything. He said, “Yes. I went to a gallery that sold Norman Rockwell paintings and I bought a Saturday Evening Post cover.” Now at that time, illustration was regarded

23

GANTZ: I’ve known quite a few liberals who made a lot of money and became right-wingers. Capp was very impressed with himself and was a very imposing figure, even with that wooden leg. He had a head that belonged on a nine-foot-tall body, and it looked like it was made of stone. He had a beautiful bass voice that got your attention. And he was a womanizer, which got him into trouble when he visited colleges during the Vietnam War. Someone set him up with an underage girl and he was charged with statutory rape. He never recovered from that incident.

JA: When you started doing horror comics for Atlas (nee Timely), did you write all of the ones you drew?

GANTZ: I wrote some, but many of them were written by other people.

I wrote outlines for stories, and sometimes Stan Lee would just file them away. Later, I’d see these stories published and note that Stan had someone else to draw them. That really bothered me.

There was a big firing up at Timely in February 1950, but I had already started up an art service—Brown and Gantz— because I was getting tired of the comic book business. Ben Brown, a fine artist who became a photographer, was my partner.

We both went to the School of Music and Art and Iowa, so we had long history together. Ben’s name went first because I had lost the coin toss that decided the issue.

The Ben Brown & Dave Gantz team produced various types of art for Timely: horror (from Adventures into Weird Worlds #8, July ’52)... romance (from Lovers #42, Oct. ’52)... and crime (from Justice Comics #30, Oct. ’52). And they seem to have signed every one! Good for them! Thanks to Dr. Michael J. Vassallo. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

way beneath fine art. I said, “You idiot! You bought a Rockwell? What did you pay for it?” Morris said, “$2000.” I said, “You just threw $2000 away.”

Now skip to 1987, when I got a call from Zeke Zekely, who was then an art dealer. He had a lot of customers looking for Norman Rockwell paintings. I put him in touch with Morris Weiss, and Weiss sold the painting for $95,000. That’s how good my advice was.

While working for Ham Fisher, Morris would come into work a certain time each morning. Fisher had problems with clinical depression and tried suicide a few times.

Every time he tried it, Morris would come in and save him. One day, Fisher tried suicide again, but Morris didn’t come to work that day and Fisher died.

JA: Fisher also had problems because of his fights with Al Capp.

GANTZ: Both of them were nasty guys. Capp was a wonderful guy up to a point. He was quite a liberal guy and very accessible. When I was doing the Dudley D. strip, Capp was writing a column for the Herald Tribune. But during the Vietnam War, Capp became a “hawk” and was hated by college students.

JA: Why do you think he changed?

Ben had served in the Army during the war and was beat up emotionally. We got the studio together because we wanted a place to paint.

The studio was on the edge of Greenwich Village—an old cold-water flat with a 17-foot skylight. We wanted all the light we could get, and we painted everything white, which nearly blinded us. So we ended up painting out some of the windows.

We did brochures and other art jobs for a while, and when that got slow I took on some more comic book work. Ben was doing our photography and I got him to help me do comics. We went to Timely as freelancers—they’d started hiring people back—and also did work for other companies. Ben dropped out of comics and I eventually lost track of him.

I would lay the story out and Ben would pencil it. Then I inked it.

We did a lot of horror and romance stuff that way. We signed our work “Brown and Gantz.” Then we went to work for Ziff-Davis in 1952.

Jerry Siegel was the editor. He called me because he knew I did children’s books and he was doing a comic book for children. The first story he gave me was “The Ugly Duckling.” Then I got to know one of the company’s vice-presidents, Mr. Zarra, and presented the Beanbags feature to him. I did two issues and got a very good contract with them,

24

A Long Glance at––

but then Ziff-Davis went out of the comic book business.

JA: What was Jerry Siegel like?

GANTZ: Jerry was a very unassuming, quiet, sweet guy.

JA: Several people have described Siegel as being disheveled in appearance.

GANTZ: Yes, he was. This was after he’d lost the Superman lawsuit, though we never discussed that subject.

JA: Was Joe Shuster ever around the offices?

GANTZ: If he was, I never saw him.

JA: Since you were a Timely staffer working at home, how did you learn about the company firings in 1950?

JA: Roy’s taste has improved since then. [laughs] What else do you remember about Toby?

GANTZ: Mel Lazarus was the editor there. He was a very intelligent man. He later became the president of the National Cartoonists Society for two years and pulled it up from the depths. A very good organizer. I later had a studio with Mel when we were doing strips for the Herald Tribune [Syndicate].

Elliot Caplin, Al Capp’s brother, ran Toby Press. He looked like a Machiavellian prince. He was a very nice, impressive guy; good-looking and well-spoken. He also did a lot of newspaper strip writing: Abbie and Slats, Heart of Juliet Jones, Doctor Kildare, and many others. He was a good promoter.

A Chicago publisher had an idea for doing digest-sized comics. He published four books. I did Maisie [a teenage feature], and Jack Davis did a western.

I’ve forgotten what the other two were.

As I recall, Jack Davis drew without any penciling. He just picked up the brush and started working. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. What a genius!

GANTZ: Stan Lee told me. He said, “I don’t have to worry about you. You’ve probably got other freelance work.” Which was true. Stan worried about the guys he had to let go.

JA: Were the firings a surprise to you?

Davis was drawing a straight western strip, but he changed his style when he went to work for Harvey Kurtzman.

Davis was an amiable Southern guy.

Very likable, pleasant, with not a bad bone in his body. He was very unassuming and didn’t know how good he was. Kurtzman got hold of him and they worked together for years.

Kurtzman guided Davis into that great style that made him famous.

GANTZ: No, not at all. I knew things were going south in the business, as they had a number of times. I think it’s happening now.

JA: Oh, yeah!

GANTZ: It’ll change again. At least it always has, as I remember.

JA: But then you started freelancing again for Timely. Did Stan call you and ask you to work for him again?

GANTZ: Yeah. I did a western in a different style than I had used before, and Stan liked it. I did more of those, and that’s when I started to do the adventure and horror stories.

JA: What do you remember about working for St. John publications?

GANTZ: Nothing. I did write some Little Audrey comics, but I don’t remember who for.

JA: St. John published that for a few years [1948 to 1952]. Joe Kubert did some editing there, along with Norman Maurer.

JA: I knew Harvey Kurtzman. He was one of a kind. You knew him when he worked for Timely, didn’t you?

Interviewer Jim Amash says Roy Thomas “liked [The Purple Claw] as a kid” because, in a review of Fantastic Four #1 written in 1961 Ye Editor suggested such a character be added to turn the new group into the Fantastic Five—probably because Dr. Jonathan Weir, a.k.a. The Purple Claw, was like them a plainclothed hero. But y’know what? Roy still kinda likes at least the concept of the mag, which combined mild horror with super-heroics—with sometimes-signed Brown & Gantz art. This cover for issue #3 (May 1953) provided by Doc Vassallo. [©2002 the respective copyright holder.]

GANTZ: Then I must have done it for them. I do remember doing some penciling for Joe Kubert. I don’t remember on what, though. Joe’s a very talented guy.

JA: You also worked for Toby Press.

GANTZ: Yes, but I knew Harvey before that. We went to the School of Music and Art together. Harvey did “Hey Look!” for Timely. He’d come to the offices once a week and we’d go out to lunch.

Will Elder, Jaffee, and I were two grades ahead of Harvey. We were the first class to enter the School of Music and Art. I lost contact with Harvey after that until he came to work for Timely. And his work was totally different from when I had known him.

I was surprised Timely bought the feature, because it was so different from what they normally published.

JA: Stan Lee really liked Harvey, didn’t he?

JA: The Purple Claw was a book that Alter Ego’s editor, Roy Thomas, liked as a kid.

GANTZ: He sure did. Everyone saw how talented Harvey was, and he was a very likable guy, but not funny in person. He was always serious and kind of quiet. One time he wanted to buy a gift for his girlfriend, Adele, whom he later married. Harvey didn’t know what to get her and I went with him to the jewelry store to help him pick something out. He wouldn’t have gone by himself.

GANTZ: I can’t believe it! That was a terrible book. Just awful!

JA: He was that shy? Or just insecure about picking the wrong gift?

GANTZ: Oh, yes. That was Al Capp’s comic company. I did The Purple Claw for him, and some westerns, too.

Dave Gantz

25 for a tryout. Willy got stage fright because all the funny things he did were spontaneous. He wasn’t putting it on for anyone.

He was just a class clown.

Willy Elder, Al Jaffee, and I used to pal around after school when we were going to Music and Art. One time, Willy had to babysit for his nephew. Now, his sister was a very neat person.

Nothing could be out of place in her household. She had very expensive furniture and Persian rugs and all that kind of stuff. We were involved in our own conversation and the kid was bothering us. So we gave him a bottle of India ink and a pad and told him to draw something. He put the ink and pad down on the Persian rug and the ink spilled.

The kid said, “Mom’s going to kill me! She’s going to kill me!”

He was ready to jump out the window.

We told him not to worry; we’d clean it up. One of us had GANTZ: Maybe both. The shyness came out heard that seltzer would clean it when he was interviewed on an early television up, so we tried that first. It made program. Remember Henry Morgan, the a larger, dark gray blob of the Before he created Mad as a color comic book, Harvey Kurtzman comedian? Morgan interviewed Harvey, drew “Hey Look!” one-pagers for various Timely comics—and spilt ink. The last thing we tried thinking he’d get a “Ha! ha! Cut ’em up” type even before that, he cut his artistic teeth in mags like Ace’s was Chlorox and that bleached it of guy. Harvey came into the studio using a Super Mystery Comics. This 1942-43 “Buckskin” splash was a little, but Willy’s sister would cigar for a prop, though I don’t think he lit it. reprinted (retouched) in AC Comics’ Golden-Age Men of Mystery notice that immediately. At that Morgan asked Harvey a question that Harvey #16 (1999) by Bill Black; our thanks to Bill and to Mark Heike. point, Willy got his watercolors didn’t want to answer. And he kept asking him If you dig inexpensive reprints of 1940s comics, check out AC’s out and painted the design back this question until Harvey got up and walked website: www.accomics.com for how you can obtain them! [“Hey into the rug. And the sister never Look” art ©2002 estate of Harvey Kurtzman; retouched “Buckskin” off the show. He left Morgan there to finish noticed it. But then she sent the art ©2002 AC Comics; Buckskin © the respective copyright holder.] the show by himself. I don’t think that had rug out to be cleaned, and it came ever been done before. Harvey felt that back with this great big gray spot! She sued the cleaners and won. And Morgan was pushing on him, and he was uncomfortable, so he just left. we never told her what really happened. Didn’t you say you’ve talked to Willy before?

JA: Basil Wolverton was doing work for Timely. Did you ever meet him?

JA: Yes. I tried to get him as a guest for my comic book convention back when I put them on. He couldn’t come, but he gave me a nice GANTZ: No, but I flipped over the stuff when it came in. He lived in watercolor of Little Annie Fanny with a small self-portrait as a gift Washington state and mailed his work in. Remember that Lena the instead.

Hyena drawing he did for Li’l Abner? It appeared on the cover of Life.

That drawing took me back to high school when we art students were all assembled in a large gym area. The head of the art department was a woman and she stood on the dais for us to draw her. We were students who had just entered the school and most of us did a literal portrait of her. But Willy Elder drew something that looked exactly like Lena the Hyena and we all thought, “Geez, he’s going to be thrown out of the school.” The students were then asked to judge the best portrait, and we all chose Elder’s drawing!

JA: Sounds like Elder was sort of crazy even back then. In a nice way, I mean. I talked to him before and really liked him.

GANTZ: He was crazy. He was insane. He was the complete opposite of Harvey Kurtzman. Willy would do the most outrageous things in high school. When we were seniors in school, Hellzapoppin was playing in New York. It was a wacky show where anything went. We thought Willy would be great for that, so Al Jaffee took him down to the theatre

GANTZ: That’s a nice thing to have. Willy was always a sweet guy. He’s crazy, but a sweet guy. I like a little craziness.

JA: Then you came to the right business. What do you remember about working for Classics Illustrated?

GANTZ: The editor there was Alex Blum. He was an elderly, staid kind of guy. Kind of fussy. Every time I brought in a cover, he’d ask to increase the size of the art. He had the vision that the larger you did the art, the better the color separation would be. At that time, color separation wasn’t very good in comics, and these were all painted covers.

JA: Did you paint many comic book covers besides those for Classics Illustrated?

GANTZ: Yes, I did. I painted The Little Rascals and Howdy Doody for Dell and the Beanbags covers for Ziff-Davis. And many record album covers.

26

A Long Glance at––

JA: Were the cover rates for painted covers very good?

you couldn’t tell his stuff from Ketcham’s.

GANTZ: I don’t remember, but they must have been because I was pretty satisfied with the money and was doing well. I was able to buy a nice yellow convertible.

JA: You also did some Peanuts comic books, didn’t you?

JA: Some artists complained because the editors at Classics Illustrated were fairly nit-picky about historical details. Did you find that to be true?

GANTZ: They were nit-picky, but that came with the territory. I remember Dik Browne did some stuff for them, too.

JA: Was Alex Blum the only office person you remember working there?

GANTZ: Yes, for Dell Comics. I did quite a few things for Dell— writing and drawing. They asked me to write the first Peanuts comic. I did, but I never wrote any more. Charles Schulz didn’t like anyone else working on his characters, so he took over the book himself. I wrote the comic in storyboard form. I think Schulz himself may have drawn it. I think he wasn’t used to the comic book timing. He was used to doing a newspaper strip.

Matt Murphy was my editor at Dell. He was also a pretty good photographer, and photographed a lot of my sculpture. He was a great guy to work for. And the art director for the painted covers was Ed Marin. I also did work for Steve Douglas at Famous Funnies.

JA: What can you tell me about Douglas?

A 1963 daily from Gantz’ newspaper strip Dudley D., which dealt primarily with Dudley’s attempts to play master to his dog George... with less than satisfactory results. [©2002 Publishers Newspaper Syndicate.]

GANTZ: I remember the owner but I don’t remember his name. Blum was the one I dealt with. In fact, he’s a character in one of my books because he kept wanting me to do the covers bigger and bigger. I exaggerated the story for my book and I have the character trying to take a seven-by-nine-foot painting down in the subway.

JA: Didn’t you do some romance comics for Victor Fox in 1949?

GANTZ: He had a horrible alcohol problem and died from it. We ran into trouble with one of the characters I created for him, called Melvin the Monster. Douglas neglected to copyright the character.

He put the notice in the comic but never sent the paperwork to Washington, D.C. He was in very bad shape at the time but was very easy to work with. He was a friendly drunk.

JA: You basically stopped doing comics in 1962, when you started the Dudley D. newspaper strip. Was the strip why you quit doing comic books?

GANTZ: Yes. JA: You did the Munsters comic book covers a few years later. I take it that was for the money.

GANTZ: I did some work for Fox, but I don’t remember what I worked on. I remember he was slow in paying, and sometimes he didn’t pay at all.

GANTZ: Yes. I believe that was my last comic book work.

JA: You were still working for Timely. What made you go do work for Fox?

GANTZ: It was a seven-day-a-week strip and was in 150 papers. I did this from 1961 until 1964. I had a five-year contract but quit after the fourth year. The Herald Tribune [Syndicate] decided to sell off the syndicate to the Publisher’s Syndicate in Chicago. Andy Anderson was in charge, and I’d had some lousy experiences with Andy a few years before and wasn’t too keen on going to work for him. I had just signed a contract with G.B. Putnam and Son to write a novel. I figured the hell with Andy Anderson. I’d be the Great American Novelist. I had never done a novel before.

GANTZ: I did it for the money. But a lot of guys had trouble getting money from him.

JA: Much of your comic book work is uncredited. Did that bother you?

GANTZ: No. We were doing the stuff by the pound. It was a job for me and it never bothered me. Most of the time, I was glad not to have my name on the work. [laughs] I think I did some work for Fawcett Comics, too. Al Allard was the art director. And I got to know the art director for their paperback division. I painted covers for them, including some for the Nick Carter series.

You know, when Hank Ketcham died, I remembered that I had written a few of the Dennis the Menace comic books.

JA: Really? Maybe that was what you did for Fawcett, because they published that comic book for a while.

GANTZ: It could have been. Dick Hodgins worked on the book, and

JA: Tell me about Dudley D.

I wrote a book called In a Fly’s Eye, and it was about the comic book business and art in general. I got a nice advance on it, didn’t have an editor, and worked on it for a year. And they never published it. They told me if I sold it somewhere else, I’d have to give back the advance, so I just stuck it on a shelf. I had spent that year closeted at home working on this book and had lost all my contacts. So I was without my strip and without my novel and I had a house with a wife and two kids. By the way, Publisher’s Syndicate welcomed my leaving because they were launching The Wizard of Id, and that strip got all my papers.

During that lean time, I went over to a friend’s house. He was an amateur sculptor and he stuck a wad of clay in my hand and said, “Do something!” I became hooked on sculpting. It was like a drug and I

Dave Gantz eventually made this my livelihood.

Then I worked for Norcross Greeting Cards in New York City for two years. They had the biggest studio in the world up there at 277 Madison Avenue and 38th Street. They had 150 artists working there.

When anybody got into trouble and needed work, they could find it there. We had all the great illustrators up there, and I did a lot of painting for them. I set up a sculpture studio and worked for Norcross three days a week.

My work was on exhibit in a sculpture garden near the Museum of Modern Art. A lot of people came to the show; one person was the head of the book and record department at CBS. I had created a lot of art involving Don Quixote—sepia drawings that I had done for the sculpture. He told me they were doing a book on Don Quixote and asked if I’d be interested in illustrating it. I said, “Yeah.” So I did the book.

Then he asked if I’d be interested in doing illustrations for Oliver Twist and I did that, too. Then he said, “Pinocchio!” so I did that one, too. Then he told me they had a hundred and fifty books to do; they packaged a record with each book. He knew I couldn’t do them all and asked if I’d set up a studio to do them. I set up a company called Design Complex and we did everything from a postage stamp to a monument.

And we did all those books. It’s amazing how accidents and diversity can lead you to other things, other successes. That’s happened to me my whole life.

Another thing I started was called Funny Papers, which was a collection of short stories in comic form. I never took this project to a publisher, but I did a lot of work on it because I was intrigued with telling my own story in a comic book format, which is one of the most wonderful means of telling stories.

JA: I take it you’ve seen Maus by Art Spiegelman.

GANTZ: Oh, sure. But my book is a humorous one. It pokes fun at the super-hero genre. I did some of the stories in prose and some in comic book form. But I think that doesn’t work; it should all be in comic book form. I did it in black-&-white with sepia tone.

JA: You did a newspaper strip for the New York Times Feature Syndicate called Don Q. How did you come up with the idea for it?

GANTZ: The way Don Q came about was that I was writing my own stuff for Mad. I came into the office with a storyboard called D.C., which was a

27

takeoff on the strip B.C., but it had the Watergate characters in there.

Nixon, Agnew, and the others were cavemen like in the B.C. strip.

I sat in the room with four editors. They try not to smile when they look at stuff, but I noticed Nick Meglin chuckling a little. When Al Feldstein looked at it, he said, “We can’t publish it.” I asked why and he said, “There’s not enough connection between our readers and B.C. I don’t think our readers read B.C.” And he was right. I took that idea and evolved it into Don Q, which I did from 1975 until 1981. My strip was the first and only one the Times Syndicate ever syndicated.

JA: How did you get work from Mad magazine?

GANTZ: I knew all the guys up there and decided to go to work for them. I knew Nick because I had worked with him for a sports magazine called Pro Quarterback. I did polychrome relief sculptures and they photographed and used them in the magazine. That was great because I was able to use my sculpture in a commercial manner.

JA: You wrote and drew your own stuff for Mad, right?

GANTZ: Right. I started out just drawing features. I didn’t like drawing other people’s work and got into trouble for that because I changed the scripts. So I decided to write my own stuff.

I was going along fine there. Al Feldstein was the chief editor at the time. But every time I went in there with my storyboards, they went through five people. I quit working for them because the work was always done on spec. But once they approved it, you did the art and it was good pay. I never had much contact with Feldstein; I worked with Nick Meglin, though Feldstein had the final say. Al was a decent guy to work with; Nick was fun to work with.

JA: Was publisher Bill Gaines around the offices that much?

GANTZ: Oh, yeah. [laughs] Right after the Watergate thing, I made shrunken heads of Nixon and Agnew, which you could hang by the hair in your car. They were great caricatures in the round. I brought them up to Mad and said, “This would be a great thing for Mad to sponsor.” But Mad never sponsored any licensing, not at the time anyway. Feldstein said, “Why don’t you show those things to Gaines?” I went into his office, and Gaines threw me out. I was wondering why, and they told me that Gaines was a Nixon-lover. You’d never tell by what he published that Gaines was a Nixon-lover, but he was. The guys had set me up.

JA: I knew Bill but didn’t know he was a Nixon fan.

In 1975 Dave launched another strip, Don Q, which often had political overtones—such as the above daily featuring the costumed “Henry the K.” [© 2002 New York Times Special Features.]

GANTZ: Well, he didn’t

28

A Long Glance at––

A recent photo of Dave Gantz in his sculpting studio, working on a piece in wax for later casting in bronze—surrounded by a montage of his sculptures. Clockwise from above: three views of his 1995 17-inch-tall “Rigoletto” (plus his sketch for same)...

“Cyrano de Bergerac”... his bronze of Don Quixote’s fabled lady, Dulcinea... and “Quixote’s Despair” (bronze on marble). [Photos and art ©2002 David Gantz.]

things approved. You remember when Jesus Christ, Superstar became a big hit? I brought in an idea for a parody of it, and they didn’t want to use it because they didn’t want to poke fun at religion.

let that get out too much.

JA: That’s unusual because Bill didn’t have many restrictions, did he?

JA: Oh, Lord! I used to make a lot of Nixon jokes.

GANTZ: No, but that was one thing that was restricted. After a few things like that happened, I realized I couldn’t afford to work that way, so I looked for work elsewhere. And I was still doing fine art.

GANTZ: Did you do that in front of Bill?

JA: I hope not. I don’t remember. I plead the Fifth! But I knew Bill because he was a guest at one of the comic book conventions I used to put on. That’s how I met people like Harvey Kurtzman, Murphy Anderson, Alex Toth, Jack Kirby (whom I had previously known only by telephone), Joe Kubert, and others. We got guests that we wanted to meet. Same with these interviews. I talk to people I want to learn more about.

JA: You’ve never stopped doing fine art, have you?

GANTZ: No. I’m still doing it now. Painting and sculpting.

JA: You know, there’ve been a lot of fine artists who have done comics. Like Frank Robbins.

JA: So you worked for Mad for two years?

GANTZ: Frank Robbins was a genius. Not only in comics and painting, but he was an inventor. He had an electronics company. Remember when they started making tubes for radios smaller and smaller? He invented those small tubes and retired before they started making microchips. Robbins moved to Mexico. I knew him when he was doing the Johnny Hazard newspaper strip. He was an extremely intellectual guy. Painting was his first love. The style he did Johnny Hazard in was unique. The way he spotted blacks and all. He took Caniff’s style a step further.

GANTZ: Yes. It began to get too “iffy” up there, in regard to getting

JA: Not to put down Caniff, but I thought Robbins’ work had an

GANTZ: You know, when I had my sculpture gallery, I wanted to sell original comic strip art in there, too. So I went up to see Milton Caniff, who had sponsored my membership into the National Cartoonists Society [NCS]. He said, “Great! I’ll give you stuff.” But I never pursued it and that idea fell by the wayside. This was way before anyone thought of doing that.

Dave Gantz

29

energy that Caniff never had.

GANTZ: Caniff was one of the most wonderful people I ever met. He was kind, considerate, and ethical. He was head of the ethics committee of the NCS. The committee was started because of the squabble between Hamilton Fisher and Al Capp. Caniff stepped in and put that thing to rest. There’s nothing wrong you can say about Caniff. He was just a great guy.

JA: Alex Kotzky really had nice things to say about Caniff.

GANTZ: Alex went to Music and Art, too. He lived about three towns from me. He was a very quiet guy. At the school he was an excellent painter. I met him again when he worked for Eisner, and again, later on, when I was doing newspaper strips. His art was technically great and he was good at using photo reference.

JA: Tell me about the NCS award you won.

GANTZ: I got the NCS award for the Best Newspaper Panel, Gantz Glances, while I was at Newsday. It was a cartoon essay more than just a panel, and took up half a page. The award was for my work in 1997, but I received the award in 1998. But after that, they had a budget crunch and I was dumped. They were able to pay a reporter for the money they were paying me.

That’s when I went over to the Courier, a weekly New York paper, and did political cartoons about New York. Then I had a problem with the editor. We disagreed on a political point and I quit working for them.

The cartoon had to do with Mayor Giuliani. A year later, they called me back because now they agreed with my point of view. You know, politicians write your material for you. You don’t have to make anything up.

You can’t be more absurd than politicians today.

JA: What else are you doing now?

GANTZ: I just finished writing and drawing a book entitled Jews in

A pointed Gantz Glances panel from 1997. [©2002 David Gantz.]

America, A Cartoon History. It’s due for release in February 2002.

Bruce Black, an editor for the Jewish Publication Society in Philadelphia—which is one of the oldest publishers in America—asked me to do it. I did a couple of children’s books for them in the past. This book was originally going to be for children, but when I started sending in my work, they noticed I had dealt with some sophisticated themes. So they decided to make it for children and adults.

It’s a comic book, but it doesn’t follow the traditional comic book format in that it doesn’t have panel-to-panel continuity. It has a unique layout but it reads like a comic book. It’s 165 pages long and will be a coffee-table-sized book in hardcover and softcover. It has a color cover and the inside art is black-&-white with sepia wash. It starts with Columbus, because he had four Jews on his ship, and goes up to the year 2000. It took me about a year and a half to research the material. When I was finished with it, I had to document the information for the publisher.

I felt great, because I had never done anything like this before.

JA: What phase of your art career has given you the most joy?

GANTZ: Sculpture. Painting, second. But now that I’m in the autumn of my career, I’m doing a comic book! What goes around comes around.

JA: That’s what I find fascinating about you.

GANTZ: You know why? I feel that what I’m doing is a comic book about a topic I love. I never thought I’d be able to do a comic on the subject of Jews. It shows how things have changed since Maus was published. Maus won the Pulitzer Prize, and this type of book has become acceptable. And a lot of other books have come out since then in our medium. Now I realize what can be done with the medium of comic books, if you have full control.

JA: Did the lack of full control bother you when you were doing comic books?

GANTZ: Yes. It bothered me terribly. That’s the main thing that bothered me. You know, I never expected comic books to become a respected medium.

JA: You see... respectability caught up with you!

GANTZ: [laughs] Yeah, right! One thing I want to stress is that I came back to comic books after trying to get away from it all my life. Now I’ve come back to it and I’m loving it. That’s what I’m about right now.

Dave’s book Jews in America, a history in comics form, should be out right about the time this issue of Alter Ego goes on sale. See the ad on page 37 of the flip side of this issue. [©2002 David Gantz.]

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31

A Pair of Pieces on Timely/Marvel’s Humor Mags of the 1940s [EDITOR’S NOTE: Alter Ego V3#11 showcased Jim Amash’s in-depth interview with Vince Fago, who was Timely’s editor-in-chief from 1942-45, while Stan Lee was in the service during World War II. At the eleventh hour, Timely collector Michael J. Vassallo submitted an article on the Fago era of funny animal comics which, alas, we couldn’t quite squeeze in. Later, we asked yet another knowledgeable Timely aficionado, Jim Vadeboncoeur, to write a few words about all those caricatures of artists and writers that popped up in the Timely humor comics of that epoch—many of which were printed two issues ago. So we’re running these twin articles back-to-back. —Roy.]

Jim V. customized the title logo from the cover of Krazy Komics #3 (Nov. 1942) for a Marvel-ous notebook of Timely caricatures which he kindly loaned to Ye Editor, and we couldn’t resist using it for our umbrella title! Unfortunately, neither he nor Doc Vassallo can positively ID the artist of this issue, though they suspect Chad Grothkopf had at least a hand in it... since Vince Fago usually signed covers he drew on his own. [Art ©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Part I

Vince Fago & The Timely/Marvel Funny Animal Dept. (1942-1945)

by Dr. Michael J. Vassallo In the winter of 1941-42 former assistant animator Vince Fago left the Fleischer/Paramount stable of artists and returned to New York looking for work in the comic book business.

As it turned out, his timing couldn’t have been better.

Just six months earlier, publisher Martin Goodman had expanded Timely’s nascent super-hero lineup of titles. From 1939 to mid-’42 Timely had launched (in order) Marvel Mystery Comics, Daring Mystery Comics, Mystic Comics, Red Raven, Human Torch, Captain America, Sub-Mariner, All Winners, Young Allies, U.S.A. Comics, and Tough Kid Squad Comics.

Daring Mystery, after eight issues, would change its name to Comedy Comics (with #9, April 1942); simultaneously another new title, Joker Comics, would debut. These two bimonthlies would launch a genre (humor) that would, by the postwar period, eclipse the super-hero titles in sales... and Vince Fago, taking over from Stan Lee, who spent much of 1942-45 in the Army, would spearhead much of this expansion as Timely’s chief editor.

Comedy Comics #9 continued the numbering of the aforementioned Daring Mystery and is actually a dual-genre book. Part of its contents, and that of #10 (June ’42), consisted of super-hero The team of Sekowsky (penciler) and Klein (inker) is most likely responsible for this first cover after Daring Mystery had metamorphosed into Comedy Comics—in the usual attempt to make an end-run around Post Office regulations concerning second-class mailing privileges. Note the “Riot of Fun” lettering over the big Timely symbol at the bottom of #10. Thanks to Dr. Michael J. Vassallo. [©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

32

A Close-Up Look at Timely Komics

features continuing from Daring: Ben Thompson’s “Citizen V” and Bill Everett’s “The Fin.” (Both stories are reprinted in the 1999 trade paperback The Golden Age of Marvel Comics, Vol. Two, which see.)

To this were added humor features like Basil Wolverton’s “Splash Morgan,” Ray Houlihan’s “Tubby an’ Tack,” and Clyde Don’s “Trinket.” The cover would sport a wacky humor motif and blare “A Riot of Fun!” under the title lettering.

Comedy #10 (June ’42) would be similarly split between hero and humor, with Don Rico’s “The Fourth Musketeer,” Al Alvison’s “Kid Columbus,” and Ernie Hart’s “Victory Boys” accompanying Art Helfant’s “Educatin’ Otto,” Art Gates’ “Cannon Ball Brown,” and Reney’s “Wheezy.” The cover again sports a “Riot of Fun” blurb, this time in the familiar Timely Comics shield at the lower right hand corner.

Both these covers (#9-10) are unsigned, but if I had to hazard a guess, I’d vote that Mike Sekowsky penciled them. I’m discovering more and more that Sekowsky was an unheralded workhorse of this period. He never signed his name, and during my recent visit with Vince Fago, Timely’s third editor-in-chief suggested to me that Sekowsky was a good bet to have drawn them.

Joker Comics #1 (April 1942) consisted of all humor features by creators like Ernie Hart, Art Gates, Ed Winiarski, Al Fagaly, and Red Holmdale. It also saw the debut of Basil Wolverton’s “Powerhouse Pepper” and the start of features like “Snoopy and Dr. Nutzy,” “Trinket,” “Tommy Gunz,” “Eustice Hayseed,” and “Stuporman” (which would shortly move over to Comedy Comics). Many of these features would continue to run through Joker for most of its run. Early issues also saw the introduction of “Tessie the Typist,” as well as “Squat Car Squad,” “Scottie,” “Dippy Diplomat,” and the peculiar yet longrunning “E. Radicate de Bugs,” a series that for part of its run sported art by Dennis Neville, who had been the Golden Age Hawkman’s first artist over at DC/AA. Finally, by the cover date of July ’42 we see the debut of Timely’s funny animals, with the publication of Krazy Komics #1.

What was unique about Krazy was that actual credits were printed on the inside front cover, usually with the creators being given joke titles or designations! These credits continue through issue #13 (Jan. ’44) and, added to similar credits in Terry-Toons and in Comedy #13-14, give us a valuable insight into the Timely humor bullpen of 1942-43.

Two left-over adventure features that popped up in Comedy #10 were “Victory Boys,” drawn by Ernie Hart, who would specialize in humor during the ’40s, then script a few early-’60s Marvel super-hero tales as “E.E. Huntley”—and “Kid Columbus,” by Al Avison (pencils) and Al Gabrielle (inks), who would briefly succeed Simon & Kirby as the Captain America art team. Oh, and #11’s “Maisie Martin in Hollywood” was drawn by Chuck Winter, who for DC drew “Liberty Belle” and “Shining Knight,” and who sometimes signed his first name “Chick” or even “C.A.” [©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Sept. ’42’s Comedy #11 sports (finally!) an almost-all-humor lineup, with Chick Winter’s “Maise Martin in Hollywood” the sole “serious” strip accompanying humor features like Lou Paige’s “Otto Bragg & Snippy,” Ed Winiarski’s “The Vagabond” (inked seemingly by George Klein), Harry Fisk and Doug Grant’s “Stuporman,” Louis Ferstadt’s “Casey McKann,” Red Holmdale’s “Snigger,” Sekowsky’s “Percy” (inked by Klein), and what looks to be a very early George Tuska freelance effort called “Maymee Hazzit.” Tuska took a look at “Maymee” last year and vaguely recalled drawing it. He suggested it “may” have been inventory from one of the comics shops he worked for, though, and this thought immediately makes some sense—in fact, it makes me consider that many of the strange “one-shot” humor features peppering these earliest Timely humor issues were possibly bought by Martin Goodman from a source outside his early bullpen staff. More research is pending into this scenario.

Krazy Komics #1 lists Stan Lee as “managing editor” behind a cover

by Chad Grothkopf (noted for his work on DC’s “Sandman” and on Fawcett’s “Hoppy the Marvel Bunny”). “Silly Seal” and “Ziggy Pig,” later an inseparable team, make their debuts separately, done by Al Jaffee... much as Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy did solo work before Hal Roach decided to team them up. Other features include Dave Berg’s “Baldy” and two features by Ernie Hart, “Pookey the Poetical Pup” and “Ding-a-Ling the Little Bellboy.” “Chad” seems to draw “Snappy,” and Moss Worth is the likely artist on “Chester Chipmunk and Toughy Tomcat,” while Ed Winiarski and inker George Klein are the team on “Little Pan.” The debut of “Posty the Pelican Postman,” a long-running Vince Fago feature, is a bit of a tough guess. While his name is not on the credit page, the art has enough Fago elements to lead me to believe that it’s his work. Factor into this, as well, the distinctive lettering by Vince’s

Vince Fago & The Timely/Marvel Funny Animal Dept.

33

Doc Vassallo documents the evolution—or is it de-volution?—of a feature: (a) Ed (“Win”) Winiarski’s “The Vagabond” started life in U.S.A. Comics #2-4 as a strip about a man donning a costume to become crime-buster “Chauncey Throttlebottom.” (b) In Comedy #11, “Vagabond” suddenly became a humor strip, and Chauncey a real hobo, stalked by The Creeper—who promptly took over the strip! (c) In Krazy Komics #4 (Dec. 1942) The Creeper re-surfaced in that mag’s “Homer” feature. (d) “The series,” Doc V. tells us, “then became ‘The Creeper and Homer’ for most of the rest of the run, as well as ‘The Creeper and Crawler’”— almost always with the art team of Winarski and inker George Klein—but Doc suspects the final splash shown, (e), from Funny Tunes #17 (Fall ’44), may be by Dave Gantz. As Stan Lee once said—Sheesh! [©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

brother Al (who years later would do Atomic Mouse for Charlton) and the fact that Vince debuted as a freelancer, a status that might have precluded his name from being on the credits page with those of staff artists.

Mooney is on “E. Claude Pennygrabber and the Ginch,” and Ernie Hart does both “Wacky Willie” and “Andy Wolf & Bertie Mouse.”

Except for a 4-page war bond propaganda feature in issue #2 titled “Hello! We Want to Talk to You!” by Lee, Winiarski, and Klein, these character lineups will likewise remain unchanged in this title up to 1945.

By the Nov.-Dec. 1942 cover date Vince is listed in the credits of both Krazy Komics and Terry-Toons, the latter debuting an Oct. ’42 date. Smelling success with funny animals, Goodman procured the rights to publish comic book adventures of Paul Terry’s animated characters and quickly got out the first issue. The features in that initial issue would continue almost without change through 1945.

Back over in Krazy Komics, in addition to the forementioned “Silly & Ziggy” (now a permanent team), “Baldy,” “Toughy Tomcat,” and “Posty,” Ed Winiarski would draw “The Creeper and Homer,” a strip that would be a showcase for frequent caricatures of Timely bullpenners like himself, Sekowsky, Klein, Fago, Goodman, and Lee. Other features such as “Skinny Bones,” “Inky,” and “Super Baby” (with art that looks like Pauline Loth’s) would come and go during the early issues.

The cover to #1, featuring Gandy and Sourpuss, appears to be by Mike Sekowsky, who draws them inside.

Sekowsky’s inker is probably George Klein, who seems to have only inked for Timely during these years; Klein did contribute story illustrations to Goodman’s pulp-magazine line, though: American Sky Devils, Vol. 1, #1 (July ’42), sports an illo by Klein (plus one by Stan Drake), and other issues possibly exist. Next comes Ed Winiarski on “Oscar Pig.” Vince Fago will carry two features in Terry-Toons: “Dinky” and “Frenchy Rabbit.” Jim

34

A Close-Up Look at Timely Komics laid out stories for a time, but drug problems reportedly led to his being fired. According to Vince Fago’s recollections, Grogan never did any finished art. Writers included Stan Lee, William Clayton, and Joe Calcagno, as well as writer/artists Hart, Gantz, Platt, Jaffee, and Vince Fago.

Behind a (probably) Sekowsky-Klein cover for Joker Comics #1 lurked Basil Wolverton’s very first “Powerhouse Pepper” story. People are still amazed when they encounter Wolverton’s work and recognize its influence on underground cartoonist R. Crumb and others. [©2001 the respective copyright holder.]

With issue #12 (Dec. ’42) Comedy Comics converted to all funny animal content, and Timely settled into three such concurrentlyrunning titles— Comedy, TerryToons, and Krazy—added to the non-funny animal humor Joker. Comedy, in addition to Vince Fago’s “Floop and Skilly Boo,” also sports Kin Platt on “Widjet Witch,” Al Jaffee on “Waldo & Ferdie,” and Ernie Hart on “Skip O’Hare,” plus other features with art not presently identified.

One of the most visually stunning features to come out of 1943 was the three-part series “Inky and the Pied Piper” in Krazy Komics #7-9 (see P. 17). The unsigned artwork appears to be the work of either “Chad” or Al Fago on pencils (both similarly wonderful artists) with gorgeous, lush inking perhaps by other hands. At different times, in different panels, I could swear I see elements of Kin Platt and Dave Gantz! The overall effect is breathtaking and is quite possibly the prettiest funny animal artwork you will ever see.

By 1944 an influx of new artists began to swell Timely’s funny animal line.

Joe Beck, Doc Ellison, Havey Eisenberg, Violet Barclay, Chris Rule, and Milt Stein began appearing. Even Carl Wessler cameoed a story or two. The funny animal lineup expanded again as new titles debuted: All Surprise (Fall ’43); Funny Tunes (Summer ’44); and Comic Capers, Ideal Comics, Ziggy Pig & Silly Seal, and Super Rabbit (all Fall ’44).

By comics cover-dated March 1943 Vince Fago has assumed the position of editor-in-chief, as Stan Lee enters the armed services. This probably corresponds to books going on sale around December of 1942, and of course the issues carry work completed at least two or three months earlier. Terry-Toons #5 (Feb. ’43) lists Stan Lee as “Editorial and Art Director”; #6 (March ’43) lists Vince Fago as “Editorial and Art Director.” It’s as simple as that!

Although his duties now doubled and trebled, Fago still manages to keep drawing on his features in Terry-Toons and Krazy Komics. Except for a 9-page, Lee-scripted, Fleischer-inspired “Little Lester” in Krazy #5 (Jan. ’43), Fago will concentrate on “Frenchy Rabbit” and “Dinky” in Terry-Toons, as well as “Posty” in Krazy, up through 1945.

As 1943 progresses, Ernie Hart debuts “Super Rabbit”—probably Timely’s most successful homegrown funny animal feature—in Comedy Comics #14 (March 1943). The same roster of creators continue throughout the year. For the record, the lineup of funny animal artists of 1942-43 includes Vince Fago, Al Fago, Mike Sekowsky, George Klein, Kin Platt, Al Jaffee, Ernie Hart, Moss Worthman, Jim Mooney, Dave Berg, Chad Grothkopf, Pauline Loth, and David Gantz. Jack Grogan

As seen in A/E V3#11, Martin Goodman “presented” Timely’s home-grown funny animal comics—and Paul Terry “presented” its Terry-Toons mag. Looks like Stan Lee came in third as a Marvel “presenter”! Note the staff credits from the inside front cover of Terry-Toons #46 (July 1946)—but was there really a “Stanley Martin,” or was that just Stan using his first and middle names?

[Characters ©2002 the respective copyright holders.]

Vince Fago & The Timely/Marvel Funny Animal Dept.

35 by 1945, and titles like Patsy Walker, Millie the Model, Tessie the Typist, Dolly Dill, Georgie, Margie, Frankie, Willie, Rusty, Oscar, and Jeanie proliferated throughout the rest of the decade. Except for the earliest issues of Tessie, Millie, and Patsy Walker, this expansion was orchestrated and supervised by the nowreturned Stan Lee. Funny animal titles are now short-lived, and the sub-genre begins to wane.

For the most part, the Vince Fago era of Timely Comics is over.

For roughly three years, Fago supervised and helped produce some of the best funny animal comics on the stands. Having brought an animator’s sense of pacing and dynamics to the page, Vince always gave his best to an appreciative audience. Along with his art and editorial duties, he laid out not only Timely’s funny animal covers but also a goodly number of their super-hero covers, providing cover concept sketches even for Alex Schomburg.

Super Rabbit first appeared in Comedy #14, drawn by Ernie Hart—but the “S” on his chest was probably too blatant, so he soon sported his whole name there instead. Even so, we’re surprised DC didn’t sue! 1944’s Comedy #22 boasts a Nazi sabotage cover that may be by Dave Gantz. Oh yeah—and the next time anybody tries to tell you Timely never called itself “Atlas,” because that was “only” the name of its self-distributor, show ’em this cover (or numerous others, circa ’44), whose globe symbol proudly proclaims the mag “An ATLAS Publication”! [©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Then, in 1945 (most with Fall cover dates), still more titles made their debuts: Funny Frolics, Krazy Krow, Animated Movie Tunes, Dopey Duck, Komic Kartoons, Silly Tunes, and Comics for Kids.

Vince Fago’s art continues on “Dinky,” “Posty,” and “Frency Rabbit” through most of 1945, with “Posty” appearing in a variety of titles outside of Krazy Komics.

With this issue (combined with V3#11) of Alter Ego, we salute Vince Fago—and have attempted to shed a needed light on another fascinating facet of Timely Comics history.

[Dr. Michael J. Vassallo, a dentist affectionately known in fandom as “Doc,” has spent the last fifteen years at the unthinkable task of trying to index and assign creator credits for every feature ever to appear in a Timely/Atlas comic book from 1939-1959.

He claims as his mentors Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., Hames Ware, and Dr. Jerry Bails. Doc also spends his time trying to track down and speak to many of the lesser-known Timely/Atlas creators, getting their reminiscences for posterity. His wife Maggie reports that his children can spell “Vadeboncoeur” faster than their father can type it!]

While the exact date of Stan Lee’s return to Timely’s helm is unknown, Vince seems to have gone back to freelancing for a time before leaving the company for good by the end of 1945 or early 1946.

Either that, or else there was enough Fago inventory to last into ’46.

During this period, his art appears to adorn additional features like “Krazy Krow,” “Tubby” (previously drawn by Kin Platt), even “Silly Seal and Ziggy Pig.” (Yes, the order of the two critters’ names was sometimes reversed.)

Timely had expanded into the teen-humor field

Two by Fago: “Posty” (the pelican postman) and “Frenchy and Flippit.”

Note the script by “Corporal Stan Lee.” [©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

36

A Close-Up Look at Timely Komics

Part II

Those Krazy Karicatures

by Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. In the mid-1960s Stan Lee created a virtual bullpen at Marvel Comics.

It was populated with such fascinating denizens as “Dashing” Don Heck, “Jazzy” Johnny Romita, Jack “King” Kirby, “Genial” Gene Colan, and of course Stan “The Man” Lee. He invented a happy-golucky atmosphere wherein this gregarious gang labored happily away together at the joyous task of creating comic books. I was reading those comics at the time and, believe me, I bought it!

Of course, the reality was a lot more prosaic. Most of the artists worked at home and only came in once a week or once a month to drop off and pick up assignments. Stan had an office and there were some production people who actually worked there, but the “in-house” camaraderie was primarily in Stan’s mind.

But did you know he had a template for that myth?

Back in 1942, Timely Comics was growing. They published 65 issues that year, making them the fifth-largest comic book company in the world! As Timely expanded, so did the spectrum of comics they published. Goodman foresaw a wartime demand for comic relief, and he branched out from super-heroes and began to publish funny animal and humor titles. Comedy, Joker, Krazy Komics, and Terry-Toons all Ed Winiarski started the ball rolling as debuted in 1942. That year, the patron de pork in Terry-Toons #2.

Goodman moved his company to [©2002 the respective copyright holder.] the Empire State Building. With the move, a real in-house bullpen was established.

Stan Lee was in charge of the “funny animal” titles from their inception. These were actually very different from the “humor” titles, Joker and Comedy, the first few issues of which were edited by Goodman himself. Lee assumed the reins of Comedy with #10 (June 1942) and with Joker #6 (Jan. 1943). He was twenty years old.

With Lee’s editorship and a staff of artists working together, an interesting phenomenon occurred: the artists started showing up in their strips.

The first sign (literally) of this trend was the splash of “The Vagabond” strip in Comedy #11 (Aug. 1942), repro’d on Page 33, upper right. For the record, Ed Winiarski is the one with the pencil, and George Klein is the one with the ink brush. Other signs and probable caricatures appear in that same strip.

Winiarski depicts himself again as a bit player in his “Oscar Pig” strip in Terry-Toons #2 (Nov. 1942).

Looking at Joker #6, we see that Al Jaffee, the artist of

the “Squat Car Squad” strip, has drawn himself into the story no less than 31 times!

And there’s possibly even a caricature of young editor Lee! The same issue sports a Mike Sekowsky cover on which Mike is shown proposing to Tessie the Typist (see Alter Ego V3#11).

Vince Fago was hired in late 1942, and it is then that the shenanigans seem to take off.

Seemingly inspired by the antics of Winiarski, Klein, Roy Thomas’ personal favorite among all the Bullpen-oriented backups ever to appear in Marvel is this one written and and Jaffee, Fago penciled by Jack Kirby for a 1967 Fantastic Four Annual. seemed to foster [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] an atmosphere of camaraderie and craziness. After all, these were comic books.

Lee and Fago gathered around them a group of the original “wild and crazy guys”: Ed Winiarski, Chad Grothkopf, Moses Worthman, George Klein, Kin Platt, Al Jaffee, even some early Dave Berg, and more. Mike Sekowsky and Ernie Hart, who had both been around before the debut of these new titles, did double duty in both genres.

A wonderful aspect of the artists’ becoming involved in their strips was that it was possible to pinpoint a style for, say, Ed Winiarski, because he was right there on Page 2, identifying himself as the artist in a panel in the “Creeper” strip in Krazy Komics #7 (April 1943). (See middle of opposite page.)

However, a close examination of the stories from this era turns up literally dozens of samples that might be portraits, and many of the obvious caricatures are of people that even Stan Lee and Dave Gantz couldn’t place,

Jim V. says that staffer Al Jaffee drew himself into this several-page Joker Comics #6 story no less than 31 times—as well as Not-so-smilin’ Stan Lee! [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Those Krazy Karicatures

37

others. A look at the credits on the inside front cover of the issue adds Ernie Hart, Joe Calcagno, and Pauline Loth to the potential cast.

While these pages from “The Creeper and Homer” story are the most intense concentration of caricatures, there were many, many others, some of which were printed two issues ago. Wouldn’t it be nice to know who all these other guys are? For instance, despite Vince Fago’s assertion in A/E V3#11 that Hart and Platt were writers, both of them drew tons of stories, as well. You’d think that they would rate a cameo.

It’s too bad no one did a caricature of Pauline Loth. We certainly heard enough in the 1960s about Fabulous Flo Steinberg.

As an aside: Loth was supposed to be a petite beauty. I’m sure the Krazy #12 story is not a depiction of reality, but it’s at least the way some of them were envisioning themselves. Throughout the story, the same cast of characters appears, often drawn by diverse hands. Were they drawing each other? They certainly seem to be having fun. Is this Winiarski drawing Sekowsky, or is he drawing himself? Who did the caricature of (I think) Gantz? It could be Winiarski, Klein, Sekowsky, or Gantz himself, all of whom appear in the panels of this “Creeper” story in Krazy #13.

Penciler Ed Winiarski is at it again in Krazy Komics #7 (April ’43). The swell with the pipe (even named in one panel!) is inker George Klein, who would embellish John Buscema’s Avengers pencils in the late 1960s. That’s “Win” himself at right. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

when they eyeballed them recently to try to help us out.

There is one particularly zany story in Krazy Komics #12 (Nov. 1943) that shows an entire room full of artists and such. (See panel at bottom right.) The crew is featured throughout the story with careful renditions of individuals repeated. Some of them we know, but others we can only speculate about.

Who, for instance, is the “Idea Machine” in the story department? Is he Vince Alascia, as some suggest? If so, why is he shown as a writer instead of as an inker? I’ve guessed that it might be someone like Kin Platt.

Some of these printed antics were done during Stan Lee’s initial tenure as editor during 1942, but they blossomed when Vince Fago took over. With a bunch of artists in one room trying their darnedest to be funny, there seemed to be constant attempts to outdo each other, often making themselves the butt of their own jokes and adding themselves as actors.

Mike Sekowsky

George Klein

Vince Fago Ed Winiarski

I’ve been calling the guy with the “Moe Is Unfair” sign “Beak.” You can see him driving the trolley on Page 6, too. I speculated that he might be Ernie Hart, but only because I think Hart should be in here somewhere. Who’s the guy with the glasses giving George Klein a hotfoot? Until we get a confirmed identification, we call him “Specs.”

The balding guy holding the “Moe Is Fair - So There!” sign I’ve christened “Moe,” and it’s possible that he might be Moses Worthman (a.k.a. Moss Worth), the artist on the long-running “Toughy Tomcat and Chester Chipmunk” strip.

Running through the background are characters who have been identified as Frank Giacoia, Dave Gantz, and

One wild and crazy panel from Krazy Komics #12! At right Jim V. lists the potential cast of characters as listed on that issue’s inside front cover (see credits circle at right). He and his Timely-mad cohorts such as Doc Vassallo, Hames Ware, et al., have been able to pretty much identify some of them, but there’s confusion even among the participants. For instance, the guy holding the “Moe Is Unfair” sign was identified by Dave Gantz in Alter Ego V3#11 as editor Vince Fago—whereas Jim sees the guy at the easel as “almost positively” Vince. (Hmm... wonder if anybody ever asked Vince which one he thinks is him!) The guy with the “Moe Is Fair - So There” sign may be Moss Worth, as Jim thinks—but it also looks a lot like a caricatured reprinted in V3#11 which Gantz had ID’d as straw boss Robbie Solomon. And, since they figure so prominently in the credits circle, Jim figures that Ernie Hart and Kin Platt are probably in here somewhere, too.

38

A Close-Up Look at Timely Komics had settled down into a routine that meant just cranking out those stories.

Individual styles started to fade, and a sameness became pervasive. Strips that had been done for years by the same artist become homogenized or altered styles with each episode.

The bullpen existed until the late ’40s, when Martin Goodman opened that fabled closet of artwork that he had paid for but which had never been published. Everyone was laid off, and Goodman and Lee returned Timely to a freelance system.

Three more pages of that infamous “Creeper” story from Krazy #12. Even publisher Martin Goodman gets into the act

by Page 6. And believe it or not—this article didn’t use up nearly all the Timely caricatures, some of which appeared in Alter Ego V3#11, while others reared their misshapen heads earlier in our Gantz interview—and more will doubtless pop up in future issues. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

The Stan Lee gags must have meant that he was seeing these books while in the service, and I’ll bet he wondered, just like I do now, just how much of these shenanigans actually went on while he was away. Most of the frivolity disappeared by the time he returned. I doubt if the cessation had anything to do with Stan; it was more likely a result of the tendency of such humor to wane quickly, plus the expanded production.

By the end of 1944 Timely was publishing the following non-super-hero titles: Comedy Comics—Joker Comics—Krazy Komics—TerryToons—All Surprise Comics—Funny Tunes—Tessie the Typist—Gay Comics—Ideal Comics—Comic Capers—Super Rabbit—Ziggy Pig & Silly Seal.

With so many books, new artists were being used as freelancers, and several of the staff instigators of the fun had left the company. Things

Looking back on those early Vince Fago years (1942-44), though, it’s possible to see in those comics the humor crew as they may have seen themselves— fun-loving, and enjoying the notion of making a living by drawing funny-books. I’m sure that Stan saw it, too, and looked back at those days in the early ’60s as the model for what he wanted his company to be like.

The comic camaraderie created a sense of reader involvement and it, along with the “staff credits” in those early Timely issues, was the obvious inspiration for that mythical “Marvel Bullpen” of the 1960s letters pages, and for the upbeat tempo of “Stan’s Soapbox.”

After all, it wasn’t long before Stan and Jack began in appearing in those Marvel Comics stories. First they were terrorized by Dr. Doom—and before long they were kibitzing the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm!

[Jim Vadeboncoeur, besides being the Managing Partner of Bud Plant Illustrated Books, has recently begun combining 100-year-old art with today’s technology to produce a magazine filled with spectacular pictures by the best artists in the illustrative field at the turn of the 20th century: Heinrich Kley, Maxfield Parrish, Arthur Rackham, Alberto Vargas, Vernon Grant, T.S. Sullivant, and many others. The Vadeboncoeur Collection of ImageS reprints rare images from old books and magazines in full color, three times a year, on 9" x 12" 100 pound coated stock, with reproduction that will satisfy the most demanding collectors. It’s available now for $20 per issue; subscriptions available at $50 per year ($60 non-US). Write to ImageS, 3809 Laguna Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94306 USA—or go online to <images@bpib.com>.]

Daniel Keyes

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A Timely Talk With Daniel Keyes Charly, Stan, and Psychoanalysis Conducted & Transcribed by Will Murray If the name “Daniel Keyes” rings a bell, it’s probably because you’ve read his classic novel Flowers for Algernon. Or perhaps seen one of the various TV, film, or stage productions based on the bittersweet story first published in 1959 as a Nebula-winning novelette in The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Among the most famous adaptations are the 1968 film Charly (named after the tale’s hero, a retarded man who is chemically transformed into a mental genius, only to retrogress later), starring Cliff Robertson. A few years ago, a TV movie version (with the title Flowers for Algernon restored) featured Matthew Modine. Recently, Keyes penned an autobiographical book, Algernon, Charlie and I, in which he recounts the genesis of his best-known work—and reveals his brief career in comic books.

Keyes may be the most famous person ever to work for Marvel Comics, outside of Stan Lee himself and Mike Hammer creator Mickey Spillane. Early in his career, Keyes landed a job as associate editor of Marvel Science Fiction and assorted western pulps for Martin Goodman’s Stadium Publications, working under editor Robert O. Erisman, who himself had scripted for Marvel Mystery Comics, among others. This led to a stint of writing and editing for Timely Comics, as Marvel was then called. Between 1952 and 1955 Keyes was a prolific contributor to Stan Lee’s fantasy/horror line, although one wouldn’t know it. He seems to have signed only two Timely stories—both of which had the distinction of being drawn by the unique Basil Wolverton.

In between scripting comic book horror stories and penning his autobiography, Daniel Keyes—seen above in a recent photo—found time to write a classic modern novel, Flowers for Algernon. The earlier of two Timely tales signed by “Dan Keyes” is from Journey into Unknown Worlds #14 (Dec. 1952) and is titled “One of Our Graveyards Is Missing!” (Don’t you just hate it when that happens?) Photocopy courtesy of Dr. Michael J. Vassallo. [Timely art ©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.; photo & dust jacket ©2002 the respective copyright holders.]

While at Timely, Keyes also plotted a suspense story he called “Brainstorm.” It was probably one of the most significant comic book concepts that never appeared in comics—because it became the inspiration for Flowers for Algernon.

But, let Dan Keyes tell his own story: WILL MURRAY: What was it like to work for Martin Goodman as a pulp editor?

DANIEL KEYES: I didn’t work for Martin Goodman. I worked for Bob Erisman. I had met Martin Goodman a few times. He hired me. He was a shadowy figure at the top. Bob Erisman was a wonderful guy. I think, between the two of us, we were together responsible for putting out half of the western magazines, under different pen names.

WM: Whatever happened to Erisman?

KEYES: I believe he died recently. I had been in touch with him for a

while. I used to visit him at his home in Mystic, Connecticut. Then he moved to North Stonington. He had a charming wife. Last I heard of him, he was studying Russian. Writing in Russian. And he was saying he had problems. The postmaster was delivering the Russian newspaper there—Pravda. Everybody was getting very nervous about him. [laughs] But I believe he died. But he was wonderful to work with.

WM: What kind of writers were you working with?

KEYES: Well, Luke Short. Max Brand. A lot of writers came through agents. If they weren’t well-known writers, you’d look at the story.

You’d say, this is a good story. And I would edit the story. So I don’t remember their names.

WM: Were you involved in the art direction?

KEYES: No. That was one of the things Bob did. I would buy the stories. I would edit them. On Friday he would come and pick them up.

He would take them to Mystic. And he would do the blurbs. The titles.

And the description of the artwork. He in a sense directed the artwork

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A Timely Talk With glass. Because I’d published a few stories outside, in Other Worlds and Fantastic [pulp magazines], he sort of let me take control of the science-fiction/fantasy/ horror comics.

WM: Things like Strange Tales?

KEYES: Exactly. Strange Tales, yes.

WM: I think their big magazines were Journey into Mystery, Mystic, Spellbound, Marvel Tales.

KEYES: Yes. I wrote all those. [laughs] I want to write that down, because I had forgotten the titles. At first I just edited them. Writers would come in. I would bring the synopses in to Stan. He would choose a number of them, but I was the front man. I would sit up front. I would deal with the script writers, the artists. They would bring the stuff to me. I would bring them back to Stan. I was a go-between.

Eventually, I started writing them. And I was pretty good at it.

WM: Who were writers?

Daniel Keyes is listed as associate editor in these (and other) issues of Martin Goodman’s pulp magazine Marvel Science Fiction, with cover dates of August and November 1951. Covers by the great Hannes Bok; provided by Doc Vassallo. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

KEYES: Oh, those are not names I remember. You’re talking about fifty years ago. You name it, and you’d probably be right.

he wanted for the artist. That was his job.

WM: Don Rico.

WM: There was a third person who worked in that office. The name “Arthur Lane” is on the contents page.

KEYES: Sounds familiar.

WM: How about Carl Wessler?

KEYES: No, sir. Arthur Lane didn’t exist. He was a house name to make it look like there was more than one editor at the house. Actually, Arthur Lane was really—I forget the last name. There was another relative of Martin Goodman, who supervised Erisman. He wasn’t an editor. But he became Arthur Lane.

KEYES: I don’t remember him.

WM: Hank Chapman?

KEYES: Yes, he sounds familiar.

Oh—Chapman! He was one of the other editors. He was like me. The other front man. He pretty much handled the westerns and the sports. Between the two of us, we handled all of the writers.

WM: How did you switch from pulps to comics editing?

KEYES: The pulps were about to fold, and I was getting laid off from Stadium Publications. I was transferred over to Timely to work for Martin Goodman’s [nephew by marriage] Stan Lee. Goodman had to cut back on the pulps because they were dying. And he didn’t want to let me go. He felt I was a good editor. And Erisman put in a good word for me. So he gave me an opportunity to work for Stan Lee. On the same floor. It was just through another door. It was this big place. The letterers were there.

And Stan had an office in the back.

WM: Did you work on the western comics?

WM: Tell me about Stan Lee. KEYES: Well, Stan was tall, skinny. And the shyest person I had ever met up until that time. He would not talk to anyone.

He’d hole up in his back office. My memory of him is that he’s got a glass on the floor, and a putter, and he’s putting golf balls, practicing his putting into the

Keyes’ prose tale in Marvel Science Fiction, Vol. 3, #6 (May 1952), rated a title page illustration by none other than the legendary Roy G. Krenkel.

Courtesy of Doc Vassallo. [Art ©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

KEYES: I worked across the board. I think Hank Chapman was mostly with westerns. They had westerns. They had war. I think Timely had about fifty titles. It was like we had an assembly line going. We worked our asses off. I’d get the synopses. I’d read them, and select a number, bring them to Stan. He would then weed them out again. He had a regular stable, so we gave preference to those. Usually, they were all written by the same writers. As I submitted more and more synopses, he liked my stuff. Over a weekend I might write three or four scripts. I was earning between three and four hundred

Daniel Keyes

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WM: So you never kept your comic books?

KEYES: The funny thing is, I did. And I kept carbons of my manuscripts. They were stored away in my sister’s basement, and they disappeared. And that kills me, because the suspense stuff, I’ve seen a lot of those made into movies and TV. I would have had copyright.

Because this was not writing for hire. I was freelancing.

WM: I thought in those days they bought all rights to the comic stuff.

KEYES: No. I knew damn well I would write a script, turn it in, and they’d pay me. They could buy all rights, but I would still own the copyright.

WM: When you turned the script in, would you pick the artist to illustrate it?

KEYES: No. Stan would do that. Or the art director.

WM: Do you remember who that was?

bucks a week at that time. That was pretty good money in the ’50s. And eventually I said it didn’t pay for me to be an editor there. I’d make much more money writing. So then I was freelancing, with Stan’s approval.

KEYES: No. WM: Was it Syd Shores?

KEYES: I’d be guessing. I would not have had much contact with the art director. They worked with the artists. But the balloons and the lettering I would bring in to them. So I in a sense was the editor of the scripts. I would edit, cut, change, make suggestions.

And then it went into the production line.

WM: And how long did you work for Stan?

KEYES: Probably about another year. But then I was freelancing. I was making good money. It was easy money. At one point I decided I had to pull out the harpoon because I wanted to do serious stuff. And that’s when I wrote the synopsis for Flowers for Algernon. It was originally written as a synopsis for Stan Lee. WM: No kidding?

KEYES: Oh, yeah. I never turned it in to Stan Lee. Something told me it shouldn’t be in there.

WM: The only other Since Keyes and Murray mention five Timely/Atlas horror titles, we might as well show you a cover from each: Strange Tales #11 (Oct. 1952, art by Bill Everett)...

Journey into Mystery #1 (June 1952; Russ Heath)... Mystic #4 (Sept. 1951, artists uncertain)... Spellbound #1 (March 1952; Sol Brodsky, perhaps with Carl Burgos)...

Marvel Tales #108 (Aug. 1952; Joe Maneely). Courtesy of Doc Vassallo again. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

WM: It’s amazing to think that, but for your hunch, Flowers for Algernon would have languished in Journey into Mystery as a fivepager drawn by Bill Everett or Sid Check or somebody.

KEYES: Stan had a beef with me. I was a little too independent. He knew I would quit on a dime. He was a control freak. He couldn’t control me. But he couldn’t let me go, either. So one day I said, “I think I’m going to get married.” And I remember vividly, he says, “Good. Get married. Buy a car. Get a house. Then you won’t be so independent.” [laughs] He figured he would be in control.

WM: Was he good to work for?

KEYES: Not really. That shyness. He was very supercilious. He was way above all of us. I think Martin Goodman looked down on him. I intuited that. So I think, in a sense, Stan kicked people below him.

There’s a pattern. When somebody looks down at you, then you look down at the people below you. Nothing overt. It was just this feeling.

But he was tough. He couldn’t control me.

possible art director I can think of was Bill Everett.

KEYES: That name sounds familiar. The funny thing is, there’s a name—Wait. Bonnie. Bonnie Arno, or something. Oh, no, she was head of the lettering department. She wasn’t art. She was lettering. She was like the manager. She would just run the shop. Her husband Marty was the editor of Lion Books.

WM: Goodman’s paperback house.

KEYES: Yeah. Bonnie ran the lettering bullpen.

WM: Did Stan have an artists’ bullpen working in-house at that time?

KEYES: The letterers worked there. Not the artists. The artists would

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A Timely Talk With WM: So you didn’t write any serial characters?

KEYES: No. I never did that.

WM: And you never wrote things like Kid Colt or Two-Gun Kid or Millie the Model?

KEYES: I remember Millie the Model. But I was generally suspense, horror, weird, and science-fiction. That was my bailiwick.

WM: Stan Lee is today considered one of the great comic book writers. Was he writing many comics in those days?

KEYES: Not to my knowledge. He edited, I guess. He was a businessman, as far as I was concerned. And a shy businessman is almost an oxymoron. I’ve never thought of Stan as a writer at all. So that surprises me. Of course, he might have been turning in comics for a few extra bucks, doing it under pen names so that Martin Goodman wouldn’t know about it. I never thought of Stan as a writer. He says that he created Spider-Man. I never thought of him as a creative person. It could be that one of the writers created it and sent in a synopsis. And it got picked up. But of course he’s become a multi-millionaire for that stuff.

WM: I understand you worked for Bill Gaines [at EC].

KEYES: I knew Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein. We got very friendly. I

come in. Artwork was not done there, to my memory. It was done by freelancers.

WM: Was there a lot of attention paid to the competition?

KEYES: Only Mad. Everybody was competing with everybody else at the time. This was the heyday of the comic books. And of course we were not in their league. This was just something to do. But the moment I saw that first one, I collected them [Mad]. I had them all. I had from #1 to #36, mint. I paid a dime apiece for them. And I finally donated them to Ohio University, where my papers are. I was still working there when Mad came out. That’s how I met Bill Gaines.

WM: You must have been with Stan Lee two or three years freelancing, then?

KEYES: Yeah. I would write between three and five scripts a week.

WM: Did he have fixed lengths he wanted you to work in?

KEYES: Not fixed lengths. It went according to the story. He had a fairly good instinct for the suspense, the twists, you know. Generally, he knew what he was doing. But there was no fixed length as such.

WM: Were their super-heroes, like Sub-Mariner and The Human Torch, over by the time you worked there?

KEYES: The Torch was there.

WM: Were you writing “The Torch”?

KEYES: No, no. I was writing kind of suspense twist stories.

“They Crawl by Night!” Like most horror stories of the era, this second Timely terror tale signed by Keyes (from Journey into Unknown Worlds #15, Feb. 1953) has an O. Henry-style “twist ending”—which foreshadows an episode or three of TV’s Twilight Zone a decade later. Strangely, Daniel doesn’t recall Stan Lee writing scripts during his Timely sojourn—but everybody else sure does—and Stan signed lots of them. Courtesy of Doc Vassallo. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Daniel Keyes

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Actually, Daniel Keyes’ memories to the contrary, Psychoanalysis ran four issues, each containing three (not six) stories—called “cases”—which were mostly continued from issue to issue. The general format was continued in its very short-lived successor, Shock Illustrated.

Did Daniel Keyes really induce Gaines and Feldstein to launch EC’s Psychoanalysis comic? (Issue #1 had a March-April 1955 cover date.) In those barely-pre-Code days, its “case histories” could still have something of a horror/crime feel, as in this page from #2 (May-June ’55). Art by Jack Kamen. [©2002 William M. Gaines, Agent.]

convinced them to try a different kind of comic book. I said, “You have adult comic books. Psychological.” So they started a comic book. I think it was called Psychoanalysis. Or Shock. Or one of the two, or both. I don’t remember.

WM: Both were published by EC. KEYES: I wrote for both of them. At any rate, in the first issue of Psychoanalysis, there are about six stories. I wrote five of them. Under five different pen names, okay? Maybe it went to two issues. It was black-&-white. Comic books for adults, with adult themes.

WM: Why did you come up with this idea?

KEYES: My degree was in psychoanalysis. I was in psychoanalysis. You like to write from what you know, your background. They folded after a couple of issues. They were good. That’s probably why they weren’t successful. [laughs] WM: When you think back to your comics career of fifty years ago, how do you feel about it?

KEYES: It was an important part of my life, because it set me on the road to where I am now. I want a copy of this for my own memory banks.

[Will Murray is a longtime pulp magazine and comic book historian, as well as the author of over fifty novels in the Doc Savage, Destroyer, and other series.]

When Keyes says The Human Torch was around during his tenure, he doubtless refers to the short-lived revival of the Torch, Captain America, and Sub-Mariner in 1953-54 (with Namor dog-paddling along through ’55). This page by Torch creator Carl Burgos from Young Men #26 (March 1954) is repro’d from b-&-w proofs of the original art. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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re: [correspondence & corrections] Burgos, in a nononsense manner, explained that the reprints they used were cheap; they’d been purchased outright (i.e., no reprint fees to pay), and ultimately he and the publisher believed that the readership didn’t know—or care—whether the stories were new or not! He looked at our portfolios; we had each done up a story and included some horror-type illos for good measure. I’m sure they were gawdawful. Let me amend that: I know they were gawd-awful. (An aside here: At that moment, I had an epiphany: compared to the samples we provided, even the reprinted “hack” work John and I had derided began to look more and more polished; the lettering was professional and readable, the blacks were spotted so that the art was easy on the eye, and the composition of each panel led the reader to the next panel... make no mistake, those reprints were hack work, but our fledgling, inexperienced efforts couldn’t even match the stuff that we deemed “terrible”! I can’t speak for John, but I realized I had a long way to go to get good enough to look better than the bad stuff!)

re:

[EDITOR’S NOTE: The panels above—with one “subtle” alteration—are from the Carl Burgos-drawn “Human Torch” story in Young Men #26 (March 1954); flip back to Page 43 to see the villainous Vulture in all his buzzardly glory. We started with it since we’re devoting our entire “re:” section this time to responses to the Timely Comics coverage two issues back. First, a note from Batton Lash, creator of Wolf & Byrd, Counselors to the Macabre:] Dear Roy, In the spring of 1973, in my first year at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, I became fast friends with another “foundation year” classmate, John Holmstrom. John went on to create Punk magazine and to become publisher of High Times, but back then we hit it off as aspiring cartoonists wanting to break into the comic book field. We were both young, cocky, and certainly more than a little naive!

We decided that, while we may have been a little, ah, raw for DC and/or Marvel, maybe instead of starting at the top, why not break in at what we considered the bottom—and work our way up? To John and me, that meant those black-&-white Creepy/Eerie knockoffs published

by Myron Fass—such titles as Witches’ Tales, Tales from the Tomb, Voodoo Tales, and so on. The books seemed to consist entirely of reprints. So, to us, it only stood to reason that they needed new material. After all, those reprints were so dated and drawn terribly!

Certainly even a new story by someone not quite there yet would be better than an old clunker drawn by some hack, right? Ah, youth...!

John and I set up our appointment with the secretary of the editorin-chief—Carl Burgos. Now, we were certainly aware that Burgos had created The Human Torch and, thanks to the Steranko History of Comics, we had learned of his contributions in the fledgling days of the industry. I know I was more than a little intimidated to meet him, let alone have him judge my work!

We arrived at an office building on Park Avenue South at our appointed time and waited in the reception area of Myron Fass Publications. (I recall being surprised that the offices for such tawdry magazines would be fairly nice; I think I was expecting an environment that resembled a Voodoo Tales cover scene! No rats or demented hunchbacks torturing half-naked nubiles anywhere!) We waited and waited, and finally a balding, middle-aged man popped his head out of the inner office and gruffly ushered us into his office. He was Carl Burgos.

Burgos had a very businesslike formality about him—an “Okay, boys, let’s see what you have” directness. In hindsight, I think he was being very generous. It was obvious that he was an extremely busy man whose time was limited, yet he agreed to meet with two greenhorns looking for jobs!

Burgos, however, wasn’t harsh or as critical as his initial demeanor might have suggested. He said that if his magazines were going to contain new material, he could buy it very inexpensively from the Philippines. He advised us to learn as much as we could in SVA and that we might want to reconsider and not enter comics, warning us that comic books are a “terrible field”; we’d be better off in advertising.

As the interview came to an end and we were leaving, Burgos goodnaturedly said there’d be no problem if we wanted to set up another interview in the future. That’s when I piped in with: “Maybe then you could tell us about The Human Torch!” Without missing a beat and with a dismissive wave of his hand, Burgos said, “If I knew how much trouble and heartbreak that character would cause me, I would never have bothered!”

Boy, did that resonate with us, as we headed up Park Avenue South back to SVA. We never did go back for that follow-up interview, as our careers went into wildly different directions. But I never forgot Carl Burgos’ comment about the Torch. In recent times, I read that Burgos once sued Marvel to get back the rights to his creation. If true, that only makes his parting comment to two young idealistic cartoonists that day in 1973 all the more poignant.

Batton Lash Thanks for sharing the true-life adventure, Batton. It’s sad to hear of a creator regretting the act of creation years later—though not the first time we’ve all heard such tales, of course.

Subject: Alter Ego #11 Kudos to Roy Thomas for starting what hopefully will be a good look at the Timely/Atlas years in Alter Ego. Double kudos to Jim Amash for a great interview with Vince Fago, also! I cannot believe it’s taken until now to finally interview the man who ran Timely during the war years—at age 88, no less! The picture of Vince in his studio taken 22 years ago is the exact same scene when I visited him this past summer.

The same pin-ups on the wall and all!

re: [correspondence & corrections]

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A couple of points to refresh Vince’s memory: On Page 16 it was Allen Bellman, not Dave Gantz, who penciled and inked “Let’s Play Detective.” Allen created the concept, took it to Stan Lee, and continued it through 1949. While a staff artist, Bellman drew the feature at home as a freelancer. Fago also says Al Jaffee must have come along later. Not so.

Jaffee began in the spring of 1942 and drew features in the earliest issues of Krazy Komics and Joker Comics, debuting “Silly Seal” and “Ziggy Pig” (as solo features!) in Krazy Komics #1 (July ’42).

Re the Mickey Spillane interview: he was also writing for Stan while in the service. One day Stan comes over to Al Bellman in the bullpen and introduces him to a GI in a crewcut: Mickey Spillane.

Spillane was dropping off a “Jap Buster Johnson” script, and Bellman was assigned to draw it.

Spillane also mentions the author of the novel Forever Amber as “Katherine Woodroof.” Katherine (whose last name was Winsor) was a patient of mine before she died. We talked at great length about her novel and its place in the more sexually conservative times it was written. She didn’t even know that the novel was featured in a handful of Warner Bros. cartoons! A very sweet woman.

Dr. Michael J. Vassallo (via e-mail) That “Woodroof” goof may have been our transcribing error, Doc. Next, a note from Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., who wrote the piece this issue on the caricatures in the 1940s Timely humor comics, but who clearly has other things on his mind, as well: Dear Roy— I was entranced by the Vince Fago interview in issue #11, but was disappointed by Jim [Amash]’s tendency to redirect Vince away from new and interesting material (Clem Weisbecker, Frank Torpey, Doc Ellison, etc.) back towards the mundane and well-known (Empire State Building and Mickey Spillane).

A few art identification corrections and additions: P. 20: “The Angel” is by Gus Schrotter, most likely via the Jacquet shop.

P. 31: Glamorous Romances was published by Ace, not Gleason.

P. 31: “Target and the Targeteers” is by Ken Battefield [sic]!

P. 37: “Sgt. Spook” was primarily drawn by Malcolm Kildale or John Jordan during the Spillane years, and “Sub-Zero” was by John Daly.

An interesting aside about that copy of Blue Bolt, Vol. 3, #3. That was my comic. Several years ago, Jerry de Fuccio begged me unmercifully to sell him my copy. After months of phone calls and letters and even a $100 check (which I returned), I told him that while I wouldn’t sell him the book, I would give it to him. And he gave it to Mickey Spillane! How cool. The right person ended up with it. To date, that is the only book I’ve ever given up out of my collection that wasn’t a duplicate.

Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. (via e-mail) Thanks for the info, Jim. But don’t be too sure that Jim Amash actually “redirected” Vince Fago or others he’s interviewed away from those topics. What sometimes happens is that an interviewee has said all he had to say on a particular subject, despite follow-up questions by the interviewer; later, editing the piece in the interests of space, unproductive questions must often be omitted.

And here’s a voice we didn’t expect to hear from, but we’re glad we did: Michelle Nolan, who writes a regular column for the recentlyreturned Comic Book Marketplace magazine—and who is a longtime expert on things Timely: Hi Roy, Alter Ego continues to be a marvelous feast of comic history! With more and more artists, writers, and editors from the “good old days” of comics being interviewed during the past decade, one thing that bothers

Jim V. tells us that Jim Daly drew these panels from the August 1942 Blue Bolt, on which Sub-Zero and his Eskimo buddy Freezum put the cold kibosh on some Nazi spies. But the late, gracious Jerry de Fuccio must have had two copies of that issue, ‘cause he mailed Roy the one from which these copies were made, a few months before his untimely death. [©2002 the respective copyright holder.]

me (although often it can’t be helped) is that factual errors frequently slip in, courtesy of understandably faulty memories of events of 40, 50, or 60 years ago!

I found the interview with Vince Fago fascinating. I can remember seeing the short-lived Fago line as a child and wondering where these comics came from (and where they went so abruptly). Vince said the Fago outfit published eight comics and Jim Amash cited ten, but it was actually a slightly different ten. Fago indeed published three issues of Li’l Menace and two of Li’l Ghost and Atom-Age Combat, as Jim cited, but there were not three issues of Beanie the Meanie—#3 (May 1959) was the only one. Beanie #3 apparently took over the numbering from the two Fago issues of Tense Suspense #1-2. By the way, two of the last St. John comics published before expiring in 1958 were the #1 issues of Li’l Ghost and Atom-Age Combat, taken over by Fago a year later.

Wonderful interview with Syd Shores... but he didn’t quite have it right about comic book publishers doing mostly reprints in 1957, the year of the Atlas implosion, which cost so many Atlas/Timely/Marvel writers and artists their jobs. For that matter, Shores’ contention was not even primarily true in 1955 and 1956, when some reprinting was indeed going on, mostly by Quality, Ace, and Harvey.

Over the past 15 years or so, dedicated comic historians Dan Stevenson and Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., and I have tracked issue-by-issue data on every comic published from the 1930s through the 1960s. There are a handful we aren’t sure exist, mostly because of numbering errors, but our data is the best available anywhere.

In 1957 there were 1908 newsstand comics published, give or take a couple, and very few of them had significant reprints. The field had shaken out so that only six major companies—DC (407), Dell (404), Atlas/Marvel (351, mostly pre-implosion), Charlton (222), Harvey (185), and Archie (83)—accounted for all but 256 comics. Of the leading minor companies, there were Ajax (60), ACG (48), Pines (40), Gilberton (21), Prize (21), and St. John (20).

To the best of my knowledge, virtually everything was original (albeit often rewritten or recycled scripts) from DC, Dell, Atlas, Charlton, Archie, ACG, and Pines. I believe most 1957 comics from Harvey were original, as well, though not all. I can’t be nearly so positive about Ajax, St. John, or Prize, but they represented a tiny

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re: [correspondence & corrections] were no fewer than 14,500 or so fiction magazines (pulps and digests) published during the 1940-59 period, and perhaps more than 15,000!

That doesn’t even count the true crime and confession rags. I’m not sure how many fiction magazines were published from the 1960s on, but it was a relative handful. The market for fiction—except for paperback novels—has dropped off precipitously in the last four decades.

Keep up the wonderful work!

Michelle Nolan Alas, informative letters re #11 from Hames Ware and George Hagenauer will have to wait until #15...

OOPS Dept.: (our usual collection of corrections, in this case concerning issue V3#11): Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., besides his other contributions to this issue, also sent us two spelling corrections re #11: “Joe De Grouche of Street and Smith is actually Bill De Grouchy. Ivan Klapper at DC is spelt ‘Clapper.’” Matter of fact, Jim Amash sent in the same corrections himself—then discovered the latter artist’s name spelled “Klapper” elsewhere—so we’re still not 100% certain which is correct. But we’re leaning toward “Clapper.”

Re the Miss America covers depicted in the interview with Vince Fago in #11, Dennis Mallonee, head honcho of Heroic Publications (Captain Thunder and Blue Bolt, Eternity Smith, et al.) informs us: “The very impressive-looking 15-year-old girl who posed for the cover of Miss America #2 was named Dolores Conlon. I’ve no idea whether or not she’s still alive. Also, there was only one ‘comic book’ issue of Miss America. The transition to teen magazines was made with #2.

However, ‘Miss America’ stories—including a few wonderful doublelength adventures—continued to appear through issue #5. I highly recommend giving them a read. You can find them at <http://www.heroicpub.com/missamerica>.” Thanks, Dennis.

In a letters column like this one, we need little excuse to run this great page by Bill Everett from Sub-Mariner #1 (Spring 1941), as repro’d from photocopies of the original art. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

fraction of the market. At any rate, my guess is that somewhere between 90-95% of the material printed in 1957 was new!

It’s true that issue-by-issue newsstand comic circulation had been slowly dropping by 1958, when some 1856 comics were published.

However, the issue-by-issue sales numbers, almost all 100,000-plus and many more than a quarter or a third of a million copies per issue, would be considered fabulous today!

Even with the beginning of the Silver Age, the real problem comic book writers and artists faced was the lack of issues being produced.

There were only 1512 issues published with 1959 dates, and there were never more than 1590 issues published in any single year throughout the entire supposedly “Silver” decade of the 1960s!

In contrast, during a surge beginning with the total of 1956 issues in 1948, more than 2000 issues were published in every year through 1956!

The total peaked with 3161 issues in 1952, give or take a couple.

It wasn’t reprints that were the problem for comic book artists after the Atlas/Marvel implosion—the dilemma was, pure and simple, much less work available of any type! There was more than twice as much work available in 1952 as there was in 1959! And throughout the 1960s there was generally only about 60% or less as much work available as in the 1950s. There were 23,349 comics published in the 1950s, compared to only 14,868 in the 1960s, give or take a handful!

A far worse dilemma struck the writers of popular fiction, especially short stories and novelettes, beginning in the 1960s. There

Jim Amash, who interviewed Vince Fago for #11, would like to add an anecdote he inadvertently left out: “Vince told me that Bing Crosby wrote a fan letter to Timely, asking for a subscription to Terrytoons for one of his sons (which one, Vince didn’t remember). The letter hung in the offices for some years, though the ink finally faded out because of light exposure, and eventually the letter disappeared.” In the blue of the night, no doubt, Jim—or maybe in the cool, cool, cool of the evening?

And we apologize to Mike & Carole Curtis, publishers of excellent funny animal comics (including the special on the Fagos’ “Atomic Mouse” mentioned in V3#11), for accidentally listing their home state as “AR” (Arkansas), not “AZ” (Arizona). The real mailing address for info re their publications is Shanda Fantasy Arts, P.O. Box 545, Greenbrier, AZ 72058; or you can e-mail them at <shandafa@cyberback.com>.

Comments? Corrections? Info? Ideas for great articles that you—or even somebody else—could write? Send such stuff to: Roy Thomas/Alter Ego Rt. 3, Box 468 St. Matthews, SC 29135 Fax: (803) 826-6501 New e-mail address: <roydann@ntinet.com> See you in thirty days, on A/E’s new eight-times-a-year schedule!

(BTW, Ye Ed is still hawking a few spare personal copies of the outof-print Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #1, with Ordway, Hasen, Lee, Gilbert, FCA, et al., for the outrageous price of $15 per copy, postpaid—and autographed if desired. Ditto Comic Book Artist #1-5 (each with an Alter Ego section) for $15@. He even has a few sets left of Alter Ego #14, the color comic book series published by First Comics in 1986, with art by Ron (Crash Ryan) Harris, $20 postpaid for the four—also autographed if you like your mags defaced that way. Send checks and M.O.’s to the above address.)

Now—FLIP US for our Silver Age Section

Edited by ROY THOMAS

DIGITAL

The greatest ‘zine of the 1960s is back, ALL-NEW, and focusing on GOLDEN AND SILVER AGE comics and creators with NS EDITIO BLE ARTICLES, INTERVIEWS, A IL AVA NLY UNSEEN ART, P.C. Hamerlinck’s FOR O 5 FCA (Fawcett Collectors of $2.9 America, featuring the archives of C.C. BECK and recollections

by Fawcett artist MARCUS SWAYZE), Michael T. Gilbert’s MR. MONSTER, and more!

EISNER AWARD WINNER for Best Comics-Related Periodical

Go online for an ULTIMATE BUNDLE, with issues at HALF-PRICE!

ALTER EGO #4

ALTER EGO #5

ALTER EGO #1

ALTER EGO #2

ALTER EGO #3

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

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

GIL KANE and JACK BURNLEY flip-covers!

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

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ALTER EGO #6

ALTER EGO #7

ALTER EGO #8

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

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

by CARMINE INFANTINO and JERRY ORDWAY!

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

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

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

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ALTER EGO #9

ALTER EGO #10

ALTER EGO #11

ALTER EGO #12

ALTER EGO #13

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

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

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

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

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

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16

ALTER EGO #14

ALTER EGO #15

ALTER EGO #16

ALTER EGO #17

ALTER EGO #18

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

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

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

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

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

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ALTER EGO #19

ALTER EGO #20

ALTER EGO #21

ALTER EGO #22

ALTER EGO #23

Spotlight on DICK SPRANG (profile and interview) with unseen art, rare Batman art

by BOB KANE, CHARLES PARIS, SHELLY MOLDOFF, MAX ALLAN COLLINS, JIM MOONEY, CARMINE INFANTINO, and ALEX TOTH, JERRY ROBINSON interviewed about Tomahawk and 1940s cover artist FRED RAY, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD’s Flash Gordon, Part 2!

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

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

DAVE STEVENS and IRWIN HASEN covers!

BILL EVERETT and JOE KUBERT interviewed

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

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

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ALTER EGO #24

ALTER EGO #25

ALTER EGO #26

ALTER EGO #27

ALTER EGO #28

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

JACK COLE remembered by ALEX TOTH, interview with brother DICK COLE and his PLAYBOY colleagues, CHRIS CLAREMONT on the X-Men (with more never-seen art by DAVE COCKRUM), ROY THOMAS on AllStar Squadron #1 and its ‘40s roots (with art

by ORDWAY, BUCKLER, MESKIN and MOLDOFF), FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more! Covers by TOTH and SCHELLY!

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

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

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

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17

ALTER EGO #29

ALTER EGO #30

ALTER EGO #31

ALTER EGO #32

ALTER EGO #33

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

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

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

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

Covers by DICK GIORDANO and GIL KANE!

Symposium on MIKE SEKOWSKY by MARK EVANIER, SCOTT SHAW!, et al., with art

by ANDERSON, INFANTINO, and others, PAT (MRS. MIKE) SEKOWSKY and inker VALERIE BARCLAY interviewed, FCA, 1950s Captain Marvel parody by ANDRU and ESPOSITO, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY, MR. MONSTER, and more! Covers by FRENZ/SINNOTT and FRENZ/BUSCEMA!

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

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

ALTER EGO #34

ALTER EGO #35

ALTER EGO #36

ALTER EGO #37

ALTER EGO #38

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

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

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

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

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

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

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ALTER EGO #39

ALTER EGO #40

ALTER EGO #41

ALTER EGO #42

ALTER EGO #43

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

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

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

Covers by WRIGHTSON & MARC SWAYZE!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

18

ALTER EGO #44

ALTER EGO #45

ALTER EGO #46

ALTER EGO #47

ALTER EGO #48

JSA/All-Star Squadron/Infinity Inc. special!

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

Interviews with Sandman artist CREIG FLESSEL and ‘40s creator BERT CHRISTMAN, MICHAEL CHABON on researching his Pulitzer-winning novel Kavalier & Clay, art

by EISNER, KANE, KIRBY, and AYERS, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, OTTO BINDER’s “lost” Jon Jarl story, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and ALEX TOTH! CREIG FLESSEL cover!

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

Cover by EVERETT and MARIE SEVERIN!

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

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

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ALTER EGO #49

ALTER EGO #50

ALTER EGO #51

ALTER EGO #52

ALTER EGO #53

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

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

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

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

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

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ALTER EGO #54

ALTER EGO #55

ALTER EGO #56

ALTER EGO #57

ALTER EGO #58

MIKE ESPOSITO on DC and Marvel, ROBERT KANIGHER on the creation of Metal Men and Sgt. Rock (with comments

by JOE KUBERT and BOB HANEY), art by ANDRU, INFANTINO, KIRBY, SEVERIN, WINDSOR-SMITH, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, TRIMPE, GIL KANE, and others, plus FCA, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY, MR. MONSTER, and more! ESPOSITO cover!

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

ALEX ROSS and ALEX WRIGHT covers!

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

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

by JACK KIRBY and PETE VON SHOLLY!

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

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19

ALTER EGO #59

ALTER EGO #60

ALTER EGO #61

ALTER EGO #62

ALTER EGO #63

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

Celebrates 50 years since SHOWCASE #4!

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

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

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

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

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ALTER EGO #64

ALTER EGO #65

ALTER EGO #66

ALTER EGO #67

ALTER EGO #68

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

NICK CARDY interviewed on his Golden & Silver Age work (with CARDY art), plus art

by WILL EISNER, NEAL ADAMS, CARMINE INFANTINO, JIM APARO, RAMONA FRADON, CURT SWAN, MIKE SEKOWSKY, and others, tributes to ERNIE SCHROEDER and DAVE COCKRUM, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, new CARDY COVER, and more!

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

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

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

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ALTER EGO #69

ALTER EGO #70

ALTER EGO #71

ALTER EGO #72

ALTER EGO #73

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

Cover painted by JOHN WATSON, from a breathtaking illo by RAMONA FRADON!

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

Represents THE GREAT CANADIAN COMIC BOOKS, the long out-of-print 1970s book

by MICHAEL HIRSH and PATRICK LOUBERT, with rare art of such heroes as Mr. Monster, Nelvana, Thunderfist, and others, plus new INVADERS art by JOHN BYRNE, MIKE GRELL, RON LIM, and more, plus a new cover by GEORGE FREEMAN, from a layout by JACK KIRBY!

SCOTT SHAW! and ROY THOMAS on the creation of Captain Carrot, art & artifacts

by RICK HOBERG, STAN GOLDBERG, MIKE SEKOWSKY, JOHN COSTANZA, E. NELSON BRIDWELL, CAROL LAY, and others, interview with DICK ROCKWELL, Golden Age artist and 36-year ghost artist on MILTON CANIFF’s Steve Canyon! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

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

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20

ALTER EGO #74

ALTER EGO #75

ALTER EGO #76

ALTER EGO #77

ALTER EGO #78

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

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

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

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

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

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ALTER EGO #79

ALTER EGO #80

ALTER EGO #81

ALTER EGO #82

ALTER EGO #83

SUPERMAN & HIS CREATORS! New cover

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

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

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

MLJ ISSUE! Golden Age MLJ index illustrated with vintage images of The Shield, Hangman, Mr. Justice, Black Hood,

by IRV NOVICK, JACK COLE, CHARLES BIRO, MORT MESKIN, GIL KANE, & others—behind a marvelous MLJ-heroes cover

by BOB McLEOD! Plus interviews with IRV NOVICK and JOE EDWARDS, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

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

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ALTER EGO #84

ALTER EGO #85

ALTER EGO #86

ALTER EGO #87

ALTER EGO #88

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

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

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

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

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

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21

ALTER EGO #89

ALTER EGO #90

ALTER EGO #91

ALTER EGO #92

ALTER EGO #93

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

SIMON & KIRBY and NOSTRAND cover!

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

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

New cover by ORDWAY and SQUEGLIO!

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

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

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ALTER EGO #94

ALTER EGO #95

ALTER EGO #96

ALTER EGO #97

ALTER EGO #98

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

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

Focus on Archie’s 1960s MIGHTY CRUSADERS, with vintage art and artifacts

by JERRY SIEGEL, PAUL REINMAN, SIMON & KIRBY, JOHN ROSENBERGER, tributes to the Mighty Crusaders by BOB FUJITANE, GEORGE TUSKA, BOB LAYTON, and others! Interview with MELL LAZARUS, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more! Cover

by MIKE MACHLAN!

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

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

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ALTER EGO: CENTENNIAL (AE #100)

ALTER EGO #99

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

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ALTER EGO: CENTENNIAL is a celebration of 100 issues, and 50 years, of ALTER EGO, Roy Thomas’ legendary super-hero fanzine. It’s a double-size triple-threat BOOK, with twice as many pages as the regular magazine, plus special features just for this anniversary edition! Behind a RICH BUCKLER/JERRY ORDWAY JSA cover, ALTER EGO celebrates its 100th issue and the 50th anniversary of A/E (Vol. 1) #1 in 1961—as ROY THOMAS is interviewed by JIM AMASH about the 1980s at DC! Learn secrets behind ALL-STAR SQUADRON—INFINITY, INC.—ARAK, SON OF THUNDER—CAPTAIN CARROT—JONNI THUNDER, a.k.a. THUNDERBOLT— YOUNG ALL-STARS—SHAZAM!—RING OF THE NIBELUNG—and more! With rare art and artifacts

by GEORGE PÉREZ, TODD McFARLANE, RICH BUCKLER, JERRY ORDWAY, MIKE MACHLAN, GIL KANE, GENE COLAN, DICK GIORDANO, ALFREDO ALCALA, TONY DEZUNIGA, ERNIE COLÓN, STAN GOLDBERG, SCOTT SHAW!, ROSS ANDRU, and many more! Plus special anniversary editions of Alter Ego staples MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA (FCA)—and ALEX WRIGHT’s amazing color collection of 1940s DC pinup babes! Edited by ROY THOMAS. (NOTE: This book takes the place of ALTER EGO #100, and counts as TWO issues toward your subscription.)

(160-page trade paperback with COLOR) $19.95 (Digital Edition) $5.95 • ISBN: 9781605490311 Diamond Order Code: JAN111351

ALTER EGO #101

Fox Comics of the 1940s with art by FINE, BAKER, SIMON, KIRBY, TUSKA, FLETCHER HANKS, ALEX BLUM, and others!

“Superman vs. Wonder Man” starring EISNER, IGER, SIEGEL, LIEBERSON, MAYER, DONENFELD, and VICTOR FOX! Plus, Part I of an interview with JACK MENDELSOHN, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and new cover by Marvel artist DAVE WILLIAMS!

NEW!

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

ALTER EGO #102

ALTER EGO #103

ALTER EGO #104

ALTER EGO: THE CBA COLLECTION

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

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

Celebrates the 50th anniversary of FANTASTIC FOUR #1 and the birth of Marvel Comics! New, never-before-published STAN LEE interview, art and artifacts

by KIRBY, DITKO, SINNOTT, AYERS, THOMAS, and secrets behind the Marvel Mythos! Also: JIM AMASH interviews 1940s Timely editor AL SULMAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and a new cover by FRENZ and SINNOTT!

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

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

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

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

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

HUMOR MAGAZINES (BUNDLE ALL THREE FOR JUST $14.95)

ALTER EGO:

BEST OF THE LEGENDARY COMICS FANZINE

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

COMIC BOOK NERD

PETE VON SHOLLY’s side-splitting parody of the fan press, including our own mags!

Experience the magic(?) of such publications as WHIZZER, the COMICS URINAL, ULTRA EGO, COMICS BUYER’S GUISE, BAGGED ISSUE!, SCRAWL!, COMIC BOOK ARTISTE, and more, as we unabashedly poke fun at ourselves, our competitors, and you, our loyal readers! It’s a first issue, collector’s item, double-bag, slab-worthy, speculator’s special sure to rub even the thickest-skinned fanboy the wrong way!

(64-page COLOR magazine) $8.95 • (Digital Edition) $2.95

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

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

DIEDGITIIOTANSL E

BL AVAILA

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

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

NEW!

MR. MONSTER, VOL. 0

TRUE BRIT

DICK GIORDANO: CHANGING COMICS, ONE DAY AT A TIME

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

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

MICHAEL EURY’s biography of comics’ most prominent and affable personality! It covers his career as illustrator, inker, and editor—peppered with DICK’S PERSONAL REFLECTIONS—and is illustrated with RARE AND UNSEEN comics, merchandising, and advertising art! Plus: an extensive index of his published work, comments and tributes

by NEAL ADAMS, DENNIS O’NEIL, TERRY AUSTIN, PAUL LEVITZ, MARV WOLFMAN, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, JIM APARO and others, a Foreword by NEAL ADAMS, and an Afterword by PAUL LEVITZ!

(136-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $4.95

(204-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $6.95

(176-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $5.95

SECRETS IN THE SHADOWS: GENE COLAN

TOM FIELD’s amazing COLAN retrospective, with rare drawings, photos, and art from his 60-year career, and a comprehensive overview of Gene’s glory days at Marvel Comics!

MARV WOLFMAN, DON McGREGOR and other writers share script samples and anecdotes of their Colan collaborations, while TOM PALMER, STEVE LEIALOHA and others show how they approached inking Colan’s famously nuanced penciled pages!

Plus: a NEW PORTFOLIO of never-seen collaborations between Gene and masters such as BYRNE, KALUTA and PÉREZ, and all-new artwork created just for this book!

(192-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $6.95

ART OF GEORGE TUSKA

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

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OTHER BOOKS FROM TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING

PENCILER, PUBLISHER, PROVOCATEUR

COMICS’ FAST & FURIOUS ARTIST

THE ART OF GLAMOUR

MATT BAKER

EXTRAORDINARY WORKS OF ALAN MOORE

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

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

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

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

(224-page trade paperback) $26.95

(176-page trade paperback with COLOR) $26.95

(192-page hardcover with COLOR) $39.95

(240-page trade paperback) $29.95

QUALITY COMPANION

BATCAVE COMPANION

ALL- STAR COMPANION

AGE OF TV HEROES

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

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

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

(256-page trade paperback with COLOR) $31.95

(240-page trade paperback) $26.95

(224-page trade paperbacks) $24.95

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

CARMINE INFANTINO

SAL BUSCEMA

(192-page full-color hardcover) $39.95

MARVEL COMICS

MARVEL COMICS

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

IN THE 1960s

(224-page trade paperback) $27.95

MODERN MASTERS

HOW TO CREATE COMICS

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

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

(224-page trade paperback) $27.95

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

(128-page trade paperbacks) $14.95 each

(108-page trade paperback) $15.95

IN THE 1970s

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

FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT

FOR A FREE COLOR CATALOG, CALL, WRITE, E-MAIL, OR LOG ONTO www.twomorrows.com

TwoMorrows—A New Day For Comics Fandom!

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