Alter Ego #149 by TwoMorrows Publishing

Roy Thomas’ Green-Lighted Comics Fanzine

Special Issue!

THE MARK OF

GIL KANE

9.95

No.149

In the USA

November 2017

SOME MYSTERiOUS FORCE iS COMPELLiNG ME TO DRAW A PORTRAiT OF THE MAN WHO WiLL

The Life & Times of

JOHN BROOME!

GL cover art TM & © DC Comics Caricature © Marie Severin

And Beginning:

82658 00103

CONTROL MY DESTiNY!

Vol. 3, No. 149 / November 2017 Editor

Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout

Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor

P.C. Hamerlinck J.T. Go (Assoc. Editor)

Comic Crypt Editor

Michael T. Gilbert

Editorial Honor Roll

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

Proofreaders

Contents

Cover Artists

Writer/Editorial: Gil & Me—& John Broome, Too! . . . . . . . . . . 2 The Art & Times Of Gil Kane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Rob Smentek William J. Dowlding Gil Kane, Joe Giella & Marie Severin

Cover Colorist

Dan Herman of Hermes Press writes about the life and career of the legendary artist.

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With Special Thanks to: Heidi Amash Pedro Angosto Ger Apeldoorn Rodrigo Baeza Bob Bailey Alberto Becattini John Benson Dominic Bongo Christopher Boyko Alan Brennert Matt Brooker Peggy Broome Ricky Terry Broome Bernie Bubnis David Burd Mike Burkey Aaron Caplan Nick Caputo Dewey Cassell Bryn Cimino John Cimino Shaun Clancy Comic Book Plus (website) Chet Cox Karen Craft Brian Cremins Mike DeLisa Al Dellinges Anthony DeMaria Howard Devore Sean Dulaney Gerald Edwards Jim Engel Darryl Etheridge Mark Evanier John Fahey Sean Foley Jared Gardner Jeff Gelb Janet Gilbert Golden Age Comic Book Stories (website) Ron Goulart Alex Grand Grand Comics Database (website) Richard Halegua Jack C. Harris

Heritage Comics Auctions Daniel Herman Sean Howe Jennifer A. Hulshizer Alan Hutchinson Glen D. Johnson Elaine Kane Sharon Karibian Bennett Kashdan Jim Kealy Todd Klein William Lampkin Paul Levitz Mark Lewis Alan Light David Lloyd Art Lortie Jim Ludwig Doug Martin Brian K. Morris Mark Muller Will Murray Joe Musich Mike Netzer Michael Norwitz Barry Pearl Joe Petrilak Jay Piscopo Gene Reed Ralph Reese Steve Ringgenberg Charlie Roberts Trina Robbins Al Rodriguez Bernice Sachs-Smoller David Saunders Eric Schumacher Marie Severin Dann Thomas Steven Tice Paul Trimble Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Jim Van Hise Hames Ware Richard Whitaker Ted White Who’s Who of American Comic Books (website) Mike Zeck

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Gil Kane, John Broome, & Richard Kyle

Bypassing The Real For The Unreal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Gil Kane’s 1974 essay on comic art from Winsor McCay to Jack Kirby.

“An Old Ballet Dancer Like Me...” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 A 1986 interview with Gil Kane about his work—and the artists who influenced him.

My Life In Little Pieces – Part I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Beginning: a serialization of a memoir by Golden/Silver Age writer John Broome.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! – The PAM Papers (Part 2) . . . 67

Michael T. Gilbert & Glen Johnson with the secrets-revealing letters of artist Pete Morisi.

Ted White On Comics – Part 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 The SF writer and editor tells Bill Schelly about EC fandom and comics’ Silver Age.

Tributes to Richard Kyle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 re: [correspondence, comments, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . 81 FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #208 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 P.C. Hamerlinck presents Brian Cremins & Gerald Edwards on C.C. Beck & Captain Marvel.

On Our Cover: One of the coolest cover ideas that artist Gil Kane and editor Julius Schwartz ever came up with was the one for Green Lantern #19 (March 1963), in which a “mysterious force” compels GL to draw an image of himself being defeated by the villainous Sonar. The illustration was inked by Murphy Anderson. For this special issue dedicated to Gil, we substituted for the GL-vs.-Sonar image one which has always been a favorite of Ye Editor’s: Marie Severin’s masterful caricature of Gil done circa 1969 for the cover of Alter Ego [Vol. 1] #10. The result, we think, is a real winner—on which, for a change, the Silver Age Green Lantern is drawing Gil Kane! [Green Lantern cover art TM & © DC Comics; caricature © Marie Severin.] Above: Equal time for Marvel—and for Ye Ed Roy Thomas, who scripted the above panels. Penciler/ co-plotter Gil Kane (who else?) was known to say how much he enjoyed the “King Kong” takeoff the two of them did in the above-excerpted Amazing Spider-Man #104 (Jan. 1972) and the preceding issue. And no wonder, since it was his suggestion that the two of them do such a story while regular writer/ editor Stan Lee was off scribing a screenplay with French New Wave film director Alain Resnais. Inks by Frank Giacoia. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] Alter Ego TM is published 6 times a year by TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: 32 Bluebird Trail, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Six-issue subscriptions: $65 US, $102 Elsewhere, $29 Digital Only. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in China. ISSN: 1932-6890. FIRST PRINTING.

writer/editorial

Gil & Me—& John Broome, Too!

don’t suppose it’s exactly the best-kept secret around—but I really liked Gil Kane.

First, of course, as a comics reader, I was enamored of the artwork he produced starting in 1959-61, when he began his fabled runs on DC’s rejuvenation of Green Lantern and The Atom. Held back by editorial restraints, it was far from what he was capable of doing, but it was still good work, especially his treatment of Hal Jordan in flight and of the size-relationships of Ray Palmer. Next, in the latter ’60s, even as he was revitalizing his work at DC with all the dynamic anatomy he could sneak past the editors, I admired his toe-in-the-water jobs for Marvel, particularly his “Incredible Hulk” in Tales to Astonish. After we first collaborated on Marvel’s Captain Marvel in 1969-70, we found we enjoyed working together; and over the next two decades we did so on Ka-Zar and Conan the Barbarian—on Amazing Spider-Man (four gloriously atypical issues!)—co-creating Warlock and Iron Fist—coming up with enough Marvel cover sketches to paper Stan Lee’s wall—even on Kipling’s Jungle Book (as Gil recounts on p. 55, and bless his heart for remembering!)—and, as a grand finale to our cacophonous collaborations, the four-issue, four-opera Ring of the Nibelung for DC! Along the way, we also became friends. Oh, not truly close friends, I suppose… but friends nonetheless. We got along—our second wives (Elaine and Dann) got along—and we shared some good times, too, over coffee, just the two of us. Or with Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, that ’80s morning in Brentwood, CA, when, in a crowded coffee house, we spotted that legendary pair looking haplessly about for a place to sit and invited them to join us at our table. (As I wrote those words, I was suddenly struck by the fact that I’m the only person left alive who has a memory of

that minor episode.) And I recall with a warm glow the wonderful afternoons and evenings spent at the palatial residence Gil and Elaine had leased-with-an-option-to-buy up in rural Connecticut, where I sat around the pool chatting with legends like Al Jaffee, Dik Browne, and Harvey Kurtzman... and of course Gil Kane. In the course of this issue, I felt compelled to use my editorial prerogative to counterbalance a few of the statements Gil makes— as I’d have done if he were sitting across from me when he made them—but none of that diminishes my affectionate memories, and long-lingering respect, for the comics giant who was Gil Kane. I didn’t know John Broome well at all, of course. Like a number of other American fans and pros, I met him first and last at the 1998 San Diego Comic-Con (a happening covered in detail back in A/E #142). But I’ll never forget what a thrill it was for me to meet the original author of the Silver Age Green Lantern—the main scripter of the Silver Age Flash—and, most of all (for me personally), the writer of twenty out of the 55 feature-length “Justice Society of America” yarns back in the Golden Age All-Star Comics. To be able to present to a larger audience, for the first time ever, John’s 1998 “Off-Beat Autobio” is a distinct privilege—and I’m eternally grateful to his daughter Ricky Terry for giving us the chance to do so. It’s issues like this that remind me why I wanted to revive Alter Ego back in 1998-99! Bestest,

COMING IN DECEMBER #150 NOW 100 PAGES!

HAPPY 95TH BIRTHDAY TO

STAN LEE!

racters, Inc. Art TM & © Marvel Cha

• Bombastic Brobdingnagian cover by Big JOHN BUSCEMA, featuring the halcyon heroes of the Marvel Age of Comics! • A scintillating celebration of STAN LEE’s 95th, featuring: A rare LEE interview conducted by WILL MURRAY! • GER APELDOORN on STAN’s 1950s/early-’60s outside-comics work! • ROBERT MENZIES on Marvel (& STAN) in Britain in the 1970s! • Wacky 21st-century e-mails between STAN & Rascally ROY THOMAS! • Interview with LEE colleagues BONNIE & ARNOLD HANO • plus a zillion-&-one Stannish Surprises! • Art by KIRBY • ROMITA • BUSCEMA • DITKO • COLAN • KANE • WOOD • SEVERIN • LIEBER • HECK • MANEELY • COLLETTA • AYERS, & all the Marvel Age madmen! • Part II of Golden/Silver Age writer JOHN BROOME’s magnificent memoirs! • Plus: FCA • MICHAEL T. GILBERT & PETE MORISI, Part III • BILL SCHELLY back with TED WHITE, on his epochal 1965 interview with STAN—& MORE!!

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The Art & Times Of GIL KANE by Daniel Herman

Left-To-Right Landmarks Cover of Showcase #24 (Jan.-Feb. 1960), the third tryout issue starring the Silver Age “Green Lantern.” Pencils by Kane; inks by Joe Giella. The cover of Showcase #22 was depicted in our previous issue. [TM & © DC Comics.] First Kane cover for Amazing Spider-Man: #96 (May 1971). Pencils & inks by Kane for this first of the notorious non-Comics Code “drug issues.” This and the previous cover are from the Grand Comics Database website. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] Kane art used for the cover of a 2003 Ace paperback reprinting of the first year (1977-78) of Kane & Ron Goulart’s newspaper comic strip Star Hawks. [TM & © United Media, USA, or successors in interest.]

f you’ve been watching the most recent big-screen incarnations based on the comic book heroes of DC Comics or Mighty Marvel, the ol’ “House of Ideas,” then, dear reader, you know how the much-maligned comic book has become the object of international renown and commerce. There have been many notable writers and artists responsible for creating the mythology which is the basis for these films. Foremost among the purveyors of the art of comic book storytelling—with a career spanning almost sixty years—was Gil Kane, the subject of this brief rumination.

Gil Kane at the 1970 New York Comic Art Convention. Pic courtesy of Mike Zeck via Pedro Angosto.

Kane’s work for DC and Marvel established characters and story lines that are still used by other writers and artists today. Kane’s highly charged, elegant, athletic style of composition continues to be relevant and influential to today’s comic book artists. Indeed, Kane’s career reads like a history of the American comic book. Kane, who was born Eli Katz in Riga, Latvia, in 1926, emigrated with his parents to the United States in 1930. He grew up in the

Jewish immigrant neighborhood of Brownsville, in Brooklyn, New York. As with other artists who would eventually work in comic books, his first exposure to art and motivation to draw came from his experiencing, first hand, what is often referred to as the “Golden Age” of comic strips, which eventually laid the foundation for comic books. Every day and every Sunday, Kane read and studied such strips as Prince Valiant, Tarzan, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, Terry and the Pirates, and Red Ryder. The art and stories of these newspaper strips, combined with radio, pulp fiction, and the movies, all fired Kane’s imagination and inspired him to seek out work as an artist in the fledgling comic book industry.

Kane started his career in comic books at the ripe old age of sixteen in the comic book “shops” of New York City, in 1942. His first work in the business was cleaning comic book pages penciled by other artists, and he quickly progressed to creating pages and then entire stories.

Dan Herman Writes About The Life & Career Of The Legendary Artist

He began his career in the comic book business near the very beginning, when comic books, for the most part, were packaged by businessmen to be sold to publishers. The emphasis was on getting the product finished and ready on schedule. Formula was the rule and the turnover of artists was high. Comic books attracted unemployed artists, illustrators who could not sell their work, and aspiring youngsters such as Kane. He was in good company; many who would become the stars of the second generation of artists to work in comic books started with him. In addition to Kane, the alumni of these shops reads like a “who’s who” of artists from the Silver Age of comic books: Carmine Infantino, Joe Kubert, and Alex Toth, to name but a few. Kane was enthusiastic about working as an artist of comic book stories and was unrelentingly persistent, traits necessary in a business that at the time was more craft than art, but which, as Kane and many others realized, had the potential to become much more. These qualities, coupled with Kane’s desire to continually develop his art, marked his career. Although his enthusiasm got him in the door, his appreciation of the history of comic book and newspaper strip illustration and storytelling, an ability to be devastatingly self-critical, and an aptitude to grow beyond his influences helped to establish him as his career progressed. In his first year in the comic book business he went from shop to shop, looking for work. He was hired and quickly fired. He was rehired and fired, but he kept pitching himself and his samples and getting more work. Finally, he was interviewed by Jack Kirby, who gave him work pencilling pages for Simon and Kirby stories at DC Comics. Kirby was building an inventory of stories for his DC assignments, as he anticipated he would be drafted to fight in the Second World War. Finally Kirby received his draft notice. Kane was given a script and assigned a “Newsboy Legion” story, which he penciled and returned, only to learn he was fired. In 1943 Kane quit high school to dedicate himself, full time, to work as an artist. A year later, he was drafted into the Army and went off to fight in the war. When he returned, he went back to work in comic books, ready to make a name for himself. During his apprenticeship as a comic book artist Eli Katz had used a number of pen names, and he finally settled on one: Gil Kane. Kane, however, needed to hone his skill as an artist and storyteller and he used the next decade to do just that. By 1949 he had found steady work at DC Comics with editor Julius Schwartz. At that time DC had attracted, through the good judgment of DC editors like Shelly Mayer, artists who helped define methods and conventions of comic book storytelling which influenced every artist in the business. The ranks of artists at DC Comics boasted

Star Spangled Banter Eli Katz (the future Gil Kane), in the early or mid-1940s—and a Katz/Kane-drawn page from the “Newsboy Legion” adventure in Star Spangled Comics #35 (Aug. 1944). Scripter unknown. Thanks to Dan Herman & Elaine Kane for the photo, and to Eric Schumacher for the art scan. [SSC page TM & © DC Comics.]

the talents, among others, of Alex Toth and Dan Barry. Toth was preaching the gospel of inking, composition, and lighting scenes using strip artist Noel Sickles’ work as a prime example (Sickles’ partner and friend, Milton Caniff was also a pervasive influence on every artist picking up a pencil, brush, or pen to create a comic book story). Barry, whose pencils were clearly influenced by Flash Gordon strip artist Alex Raymond, also drew the attention of his fellow artists for his clean, elegant storytelling. Kane drank all of this in and continued to develop his own personal style of storytelling. During the 1950s he worked in just about every comic book genre. Science-fiction material, romance, mystery, crime, and Westerns: Kane drew them all. It was during the late 1950s that Kane finally became identified with several of the strips he had been consistently pencilling for DC Comics: the “Johnny Thunder” strip featured in All Star Western and The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog. Kane began to establish a vocabulary of stock shots for his stories that would become part of his signature style. He would acrobatically choreograph his characters as they literally glided in and out of their panels in tales of swashbucklers, cowboys, and super-heroes. He also continued to work on simplifying and refining his approach to the movement and anatomy of his characters. It was now possible to identify his stories by their look

The Art & Times Of Gil Kane

and dynamics, even though he was rarely credited as the artist, as it was not DC Comics’ policy to give artists a by-line. Finally in 1959 Kane was presented with an opportunity to help create a strip that would firmly establish him as a comic book storyteller for the rest of his life. Editor Julius Schwartz picked him to draw the Green Lantern character in Showcase #22. Schwartz was spearheading a revival of 1940s super-heroes and “Green Lantern” was his second reintroduction. Kane designed the look of the character and his costume, and helped define the tone of the strip. The feature ran in three successive issues of Showcase and was so well-received that in 1960 the strip became a regular DC Comics title, first as a bi-monthly magazine and later as an 8-time-a-year “monthly.” Kane, who had been periodically allowed to ink his Western strips, also wanted the chore of “finishing” his stories for Green

Mavericks & Mutts (Top left:) Kane’s “Trigger Twins” cover for All Star Western #91 (Oct.-Nov. 1956). Inks by Joe Giella. (Above:) This splash from The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #30 (Nov.-Dec. 1956) was inked by Bernard Sachs. Script by John Broome. Thanks to Bob Bailey. [TM & © DC Comics.]

SOS—The Comics Industry! Test pilot Hal Jordan was hijacked by a dying alien who wanted to give him super-powers in the first of three “Green Lantern” stories in Showcase #22 (Sept.-Oct. 1959). Script by John Broome; inks by Joe Giella. The other two splash pages from that issue were seen last ish. Resuscitated titles like The Flash, Green Lantern, and Justice League of America gave DC Comics a new lease on life in the late 1950s and early ’60s. Thanks to Art Lortie. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Lantern, a request that was motivated by his desire to control the look of the strip and to make more money, as he’d be paid an additional fee for finishing the strip. Schwartz would not accommodate Kane and assigned Joe Giella and Murphy Anderson to ink the strip (occasionally during the first years of the strip, inker Frank Giacoia lent a hand as well). Although it was standard practice in the comic book trade to have one artist pencil a story and another ink the artwork, Kane’s artwork was not generally well served by either inker. Both Giella and Anderson turned in serviceable work but the quality of their inking varied from story to story. Anderson’s inking was the most consistent; however, too much of his personality was put into the finished artwork, which stiffened Kane’s figures and composition. Giella, although inconsistent in his handling of the strip, on occasion accurately echoed Kane’s pencils, preserving the dynamics of the drawing. During the mid-1960s the look of the strip consistently improved as Kane’s style matured and with the addition of inker Sid Greene. As the sales of super-hero comic books picked up, DC Comics cancelled many of its Western titles which had provided steady work for Kane, leaving him with less monthly income. In an attempt to drum up more work, Kane took the initiative to pitch his own strip based on two shelved DC Comics properties. By combining a character DC Comics had acquired from Quality

Dan Herman Writes About The Life & Career Of The Legendary Artist

Comics called Doll Man (a crime-fighting detective who could shrink to eight inches and then return to normal size, created by Will Eisner with art by one of Kane’s heroes, Lou Fine) with a DC Comics hero called The Atom, Kane created a new and improved Atom. With the help of Schwartz to define the character and scripts by veteran comics writer Gardner Fox, The Atom provided Kane with more work and additional opportunities to further tweak his skills as an artist. By the mid-1960s all the elements of his style were established. He ambitiously now wanted to escape what he termed the “banality” of comic books, but he also needed to make a living. Kane, who was now in his forties, was ready to go out “Up An’ At ’Em, Atom!” on his own and, if need be, The cover of Showcase #34 (Sept.-Oct. 1961) by Gil create his own line of comic Kane & Murphy Anderson, the debut of the six-inch books. He was living in New “Atom,” was seen last issue—so here’s the one for York City and its culturally #35 (Nov.-Dec. ’61) by the same team, for editor charged environment was Julius Schwartz. It must be noted, however, that Gil’s account of the creation of the character was not lost on him. It was at this somewhat at variance with Schwartz’s version—also time, the mid-1960s, during with those of fans Jerry Bails and Roy Thomas. See Kane’s never-ending search Alter Ego, Vol. 2, #2, for a Rashomon-style look at the to expand his prospects secret origins of the Silver Age Atom. What counts, for more work, that he though, is that Kane, Fox, Anderson, & Schwartz met James Warren, the did a bang-up job with the concept! From the GCD. publisher of Creepy, Eerie, [TM & © DC Comics.] and Blazing Combat. Warren was a magazine publisher who was attempting to revisit the ground covered in the early 1950s by publisher William Gaines’ and editor Al Feldstein’s EC Comics line. Warren provided Kane with a studio at his offices in New York City, to work on a never-realized teenage strip in the vein of Archie. One of the prime movers of Warren’s line of comic books was writer and editor Archie Goodwin. Kane and Goodwin met through their common association with Warren and became frequent collaborators for the next thirty years. By 1967, Kane was finally ready to take a chance on publishing his own line of comic books. His company, Adventure House Press, was planning to produce extended comic book story narratives featuring characters with personalities combined with pulpish plots. What was planned was a novel told in pictures augmented with text. Today this form is commonly referred to as a graphic novel. Kane planned to draw an action/adventure feature in the mold of the popular His Name Was… spy thrillers of the time. This book was then to have Kane! been followed by a graphic novelization of Robert Preliminary art for E. Howard’s Conan. The first project became His a page (perhaps even Name Is Savage (June 1968). For Savage, Kane called an unused cover) of Gil Kane’s 1968 black-&upon Archie Goodwin to translate the plot outline white comic book His into dialogue. Kane acknowledged Point Blank, John Name Is Savage. Courtesy Boorman’s stylish 1967 film noir, as his starting point, of Heritage Comics. in more ways than one. Indeed, in several important [TM & © the respective respects Savage echoes Point Blank. trademark & copyright holders.]

Savage, the main character of the story, is modeled after the star of Point Blank, Lee Marvin, and the subtexts of the film, violence and alienation, are also main themes of Kane’s graphic novel. Despite its roots in the 1960s, Savage’s main character is still a classic anti-hero in the flavor of the great detective novels of the 1930s and 1940s. Savage combined the anxiety of the 1960s with classic pulp and detective story elements and created the first B-movie comic book. Kane used everything he had learned as an artist and storyteller to script and “shoot” the story. Savage is an encyclopedia of Kane’s style: forced perspective, long shots, pans, and non-stop action all coupled with his signature use of fluid anatomy to tell his story. There is also violence which, while less extreme than the violence of the comics of the late 1940s and early 1950s, was used as an excuse to blacklist the book and to attempt to ban it from distribution. The violence in Savage is not merely gratuitous; it is a primary element of the plot. The art of Savage is in the way the story is told and staged. As Kane was working for himself, he was free to pencil, ink, and create a story which pushed the limits of comic book storytelling but which was no more extreme than standard-fare general distribution movies of the period. The very freedom with which he created Savage also doomed it, because the book was seen as a threat to the Comics Code Authority, which controlled comic book content. Several printers refused to print the book, after they had committed to do so, after they received calls that Savage was pornographic. Savage was not meant for children, but it was in no way pornographic. Savage, however, was being produced by a small company working outside the comic book industry on something unregulated and uncontrolled. The assertion that Savage

The Art & Times Of Gil Kane

was pornographic was an utter contrivance, since no one outside of Kane’s small circle of friends had seen any part of the book. Also, it would have been impossible for its detractors to conclude anything about Savage, because while Kane was making arrangements to print the book he was at work penciling and inking it. The last page was, in fact, finished at the printer, which finally had agreed to print the book for less than the original printing bids. Just when Kane thought he could get Savage to the newsstands, he was dealt yet another blow; he couldn’t get the book into general distribution, again due to rumors about the book’s content. Only about 10% of the print run made it to the newsstands. His Name Is Savage was Adventure House Press’ first and last venture.

Archie Goodwin co-writer of Blackmark.

Kane was not through, though. He had always been fascinated with Robert E. Howard’s work since his youth. So much in fact that he had tracked down Howard’s papers and manuscripts and pored over them for almost a year. With the financial failure of Savage, Kane was unable to move ahead with his intention to translate the Conan mythos into comic books. Later, in 1970, Marvel editor Roy Thomas brought out the first Conan comic book, but although Thomas remembers discussing Conan with Kane, Thomas’ recollection is that the decision to bring Conan to the comics came about from letters he and Stan Lee received urging Marvel to adapt such a character, and from his own instincts. It is also clear that Kane had advocated the use of the character and his opinions were well known to writers, artists, and editors in the business. Ultimately Kane was involved with Conan the Barbarian within the first couple of years of its release by Marvel and would stay involved providing covers and stories for the next twelve years. Conan was also the starting point for Kane’s next graphic novel, Blackmark. Howard’s barbarian and the tone of the series in general were clearly one of the sources of inspiration for the creation of Kane’s next effort. Blackmark, which was released in 1971, was planned as a multiple book story arc. Only the first book was published, in its original form, during Kane’s lifetime. The second book, The Mind Demons, had to wait almost eight years after the publication of Blackmark to be published in a reformatted magazine version in Marvel Preview #17, which restructures the story, adding and removing artwork, and at best, is a confused hodgepodge. The two surviving books were finally united, restoring their original design, and published by Fantagraphics in 2002. Blackmark was designed by Kane for Bantam Books in a pocket book format, to be sold with other paperback books. The size of a pocket book, 4 by 7 inches, severely limited Kane’s ability to effectively construct a compelling tableau for his classic post-apocalyptic sword-and-sorcery tale. As with Savage, Archie Goodwin was brought in to translate Kane’s plot into dialogue. When Bantam cancelled the project after the release of the first book, the second book had already been completely finished and photographed for printing. The cover had also been designed, pencilled, inked, colored, and shot for printing. Kane had almost finished complete pencils for a third book, but it was abandoned with the cancellation of the project. Despite the limitations imposed by the format, Blackmark works as a pulp science-fiction story/ graphic novel. Kane designed the book using blocks of text as an element in the scheme of the story. He juxtaposed pictures with text, playing one page off against the next. He composed the layout of the book to be horizontal, so the reader could read from side-to-side without a break in the story. When the original artwork for Blackmark is viewed as it was designed, each page measuring 9 by 12 inches, Kane’s story has more impact and is more visually satisfying. In retrospect, both Savage and Blackmark, which were produced more than forty years ago, have generally aged quite well. Savage

The (Black)Mark Of Kane A hand-colored illo of Kane’s graphic novel hero Blackmark, courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions, with special thanks to Dominic Bongo. [Art © Estate of Gil Kane.]

remains a distinguished high point for independently published comic books aimed at a commercial, rather than an underground, audience. Savage also has been influential with comic book artists and writers as an example of how the graphic novel format can be used to successfully support an extended narrative. Blackmark, despite its unusual format, is another example of how a graphic novel can tell a detailed story, using words and pictures. Savage and Blackmark allowed Kane to imagine his characters and storylines and put them down on paper without stifling editorial interference. The price he paid for these two independent experiments was his inability to recapture or revisit such creative freedom ever again. During his work on Savage and Blackmark, Kane continued to work in mainstream comics. He wrote and penciled Captain Action #3, 4, and 5 for DC Comics. But Kane’s long-term relationship with DC Comics was, with the ascendancy of Carmine Infantino as editorial director of DC Comics, coming to an end. Infantino, a fellow classmate of Kane’s from The School of Industrial Art (later renamed The School for Art and Design), who had inked Kane’s pencils during a brief partnership, treated his old friend unkindly and substantially cut Kane’s rate per page for pencilled work, prompting Kane to look elsewhere for employment. Fortunately, Kane, who had started to develop a relationship with Marvel Comics in 1966, made the relationship a quasiexclusive one in 1971, which resulted in his most productive years in comic books. Kane was held in high esteem by Marvel editor and soon editor-in-chief Roy Thomas. During Kane’s tenure at Marvel, from 1971 to 1978, he would finally crystallize his style, further refine his inking, and influence a new generation of comic

Dan Herman Writes About The Life & Career Of The Legendary Artist

Marvels Two free-floating super-heroes (the first in the Negative Zone, the second in a symbolic depiction of outer space) from the Roy Thomas & Gil Kane team: Captain Marvel #17 (Oct. 1969) and Marvel Premiere #1 (April 1972) starring Adam Warlock. Inks by Dan Adkins. Thanks to Barry Pearl for the scans. The splash page of the third of their lead-feature co-creations, Iron Fist, was seen in A/E #136. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

book fans and artists. Kane had a close working relationship with Thomas from which both men benefited. Thomas had access to one of the most talented secondgeneration artists at his prime. Kane defined the style of Marvel comic book covers for over seven years. In 1969-70, Kane and Thomas redesigned that company’s own Captain Marvel and paid homage to the original Fawcett Captain Marvel. Kane also turned in work on “Spider-Man” stories, including the introduction of his and Thomas’ vampire character Morbius (who was spun off into his own title) and penciling arguably the web-spinner’s most important story of all time, “The Death of Gwen Stacy,” which was scripted by Gerry Conway.

“Go West, My Boy…” Two of Kane’s hard-riding Western covers for Marvel: Rawhide Kid #96 (Feb. 1972), inked by Bill Everett, and Kid Colt Outlaw #222 (Feb. 1978), with inks by GK himself. Thanks to Nick Caputo & the GCD, respectively. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

The Art & Times Of Gil Kane

Kane worked on just about every title Marvel offered. He and Thomas introduced the Warlock character in Marvel Premiere #1 and Iron Fist in Marvel Premiere #15. Just as Jack Kirby had defined the look of Marvel’s covers during the 1960s, Kane’s approach to cover design dominated Marvel during the 1970s. During Kane’s reign as Marvel’s chief cover artist, he produced over 800 covers. In addition to producing the super-hero covers he is best known for, he also created scores of Western covers, a genre for which he had a special fondness. Because these covers were not the big sellers the super-hero titles were, Marvel gave him much more freedom in producing these images. As he was given greater latitude with these covers, many of which he penciled and inked with little or no editorial interference, they stand as some of his strongest work during the period. Kane did not challenge himself with material on the level of Savage and Blackmark, however. The message sent to Kane by those who quashed Savage was clear: going outside the mainstream was financially untenable. In the early 1970s Kane moved to Wilton, Connecticut, an area known for its high concentration of writers and artists. A party was organized at the home of gag cartoonist Orlando Busino, welcoming Kane to the community, where he made the acquaintance of writer Ron Goulart. Goulart was a well-known science-fiction writer and at the time had over twenty novels to his credit (written under a variety of different pen-names). At the party, Kane and Goulart talked about a variety of subjects and the two hit it off. Kane suggested that Goulart, who as a freelance writer was always looking for more work, contact Roy Thomas at Marvel. Shortly afterward, Goulart began writing for Marvel. His first assignment paired him with Kane on a comic book interpretation of Robert Bloch’s famous short story “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper,” which was published in Journey into Mystery #2. Goulart and Kane worked on other assignments as well, including two issues of Warlock. Goulart acerbically observed that the challenge in writing these stories “was coming up with new monsters for Warlock to tangle with. We had one who ate the Golden Gate Bridge.” Goulart soon tired of writing stories for Marvel and went on to other things, including Star Hawks.

comics editor John “Flash” Fairfield to have lunch in Westport, Connecticut, with a group of gag cartoonists, comic strip artists, and Goulart. After lunch Fairfield was taken on a tour of Westport, which included a trip to the public library. Goulart made sure that Fairfield saw some of his books there. Goulart remembers, “I may have… hinted that I was available for writing assignments, but subtly, of course. It turned out his wife was a librarian, and when he got back home to Cleveland, he mentioned having met me. She said something along the lines of ‘He’s a funny science-fiction writer, I like his stuff.’ Flash phoned me and said that he wanted to develop a science-fiction adventure strip....” Fairfield wanted an artist who would give the strip an illustration-esque feel, but Goulart insisted the strip have a contemporary look and recommended Kane. Farfield’s general concept was refined, worked, and reworked by Kane and Goulart. They both mined their collective experience writing and drawing science-fiction, combining their love of classic pulp science-fiction, strips, and comic books; the end result was Star Hawks. After approval of the final concept, Kane prepared samples of the strip and they were sent to the NEA syndicate, where they sat collecting dust on Farfield’s desk. Kane and Goulart’s optimism about the prospects for Star Hawks was tempered by the reality that by the end of 1976 they had received no commitment from NEA to begin work on the strip; the project was dead in the water. Then, Star Wars happened. NEA now wanted to bring out a science-fiction strip, pronto. Star Hawks was taken out of mothballs and quickly pitched to newspapers. In response, several big papers picked it up. The New York Post, The Washington Star, and The Detroit News all committed to carry Star Hawks, so Kane and Goulart put themselves into high gear and moved the continuity forward. First, however, there were concerns from NEA that the initial installments of the strip started without an introduction, so two “new” strips were prepared, taking a swipe at Stars Wars and explaining what and who the Star Hawks were and about the universe they inhabited. During the initial weeks of the strip Kane had an occasional inking assist from Ralph Reese, and veteran comic book inker George Roussos lent a hand coloring the first

Cartoonist Gill Fox, another resident of the Connecticut artists community, in addition to producing the strip Side Glances, also dabbled as a matchmaker of sorts, teaming up local artists, writers, and editors. Fox had invited NEA [Newspaper Enterprise Association]

Ron Goulart Noted sciencefiction and mystery author.

Color Me Cosmic! The Star Hawks strip for Oct. 30, 1977, by Ron Goulart (writer) & Gil Kane (artist). [TM & © Newspaper Enterprise Association, Inc.]

Dan Herman Writes About The Life & Career Of The Legendary Artist

sympathetic editor who had no appreciation for Star Hawks. Goulart had his contract bought out and was unceremoniously dropped. Goulart’s last scripted daily ran on April 29, 1979. Kane’s old friend Archie Goodwin came aboard as scripter, but the strip would never be the same. Gone was the strip’s wit and half of its heart. Kane continued to work on other projects, including a run on the Tarzan Sunday strip, also scripted by Goodwin. Star Hawks sailed along, but its two-tier format was scrapped on July 30, 1979. Now, only the Sunday ran as a two-tiered strip. The Sunday strip was dropped as of February 3, 1980, and the continuity ran only six days a week. By August 16, 1980, Goodwin was gone, replaced by comic book writer Roger McKenzie, who wrote the strip until its end on May 2, 1981. Star Hawks was an under-appreciated gem. It was and remains quirky, funny, heroic, and a good sci-fi yarn, all in one. Kane’s storytelling was at its apex, and Star Hawks stands as one of his major efforts. After Star Hawks, Kane continued to pitch strips, but he never again worked on a daily cartoon comic strip, although for about a year and a half starting in 1979 he did helm the Tarzan Sunday

Sort Of The Atom Gil Kane penciled and inked the cover (as well as the interiors) of the four issues of The Sword of The Atom. The first issue was dated Sept. 1983. The writer of the story inside was Jan Strnad. [TM & © DC Comics.]

half-dozen Sundays. Star Hawks premiered on October 3, 1977, and in 1978 Kane was awarded The National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Award for his work on the strip. Kane, who in his youth had dreamed of being a strip artist, had finally made it. Newspaper strips, which had been an influence for so many comic book artists, were now learning a lesson in storytelling from the comic books. With Star Hawks Kane had come full circle and had brought the sensibility of comic books to the strips. Kane was now 52 years old, but he was still working at his normal pace, full speed ahead; then, at the end of 1978, he collapsed at his drawing board, landing in the hospital with a gall bladder attack. Kane called on fellow artist Ernie Colón and his own former assistant, Howard Chaykin, to fill in while he was recuperating. Each worked on the strip for a little over two months until Kane returned. Both artists’ work is easy to spot, as neither made a serious attempt to copy Kane’s style or manner of storytelling. By March 5, 1979, Kane was back at the helm.

A Little Birdie Told Me…

Kane and Goulart’s dedication and love for the strip shows during the first year of the continuity, but all good things, it seems, have to come to an end. As part of a corporate restructuring, NEA transferred its offices from Cleveland to New York, but Flash Farfield did not make the move and was replaced by a far less

Kane does Wagner. If Siegfried, the dying dragon Fafnir, and the singing bird seem to talk a bit much… well, scripter Roy Thomas took it all from one translation or another of Richard Wagner’s opera Siegfried for the third of the four volumes of DC’s 1989 The Ring of the Nibelung. From the 1997 second edition of the graphic novel collection, published by ExPress. [TM & © DC Comics.]

The Art & Times Of Gil Kane

strip. Fortunately, in 1983 Kane would be called to comic books and turned in top-notch work revisiting, with a new twist, his old character, The Atom, in Sword of The Atom. Kane also again worked under editor Julius Schwartz on Superman. In 1984, Kane moved to Hollywood and after a brief stint with the Marvel television cartoon division swung the position of chief presentation artist for the television cartoon production house Ruby-Spears. He also turned in, albeit sporadically, work for DC Comics. When the Life On The Edge cartoon industry went Beginning with an issue dated July 1994, into a slump in 1988, Kane and writer Steven Grant produced the Kane went back to comic four-issue adventure title Edge for Malibu books. He pitched a Comics. [TM & © the respective trademark character called “The & copyright holders.] Killing Machine” and wrote three complete comic books using the character, which DC Comics bought but never published and which sit, to this day, unused.

Even so, 1989 was the year Kane was called upon to draw an adaptation of Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung opera cycle for DC Comics. The adaptation was written by Roy Thomas and was enthusiastically received by both the opera and comic book press. Kane was again plagued with physical problems in the 1990s. He nevertheless pursued a number of projects, including the creation of a new comic book, Edge, with writer Steven Grant, for Malibu Comics. After this, Kane never ventured into non-mainstream comics again. He continued to develop projects, concepts, and ideas. He also continued to talk and teach about the history of comic strips and comic books, a history he helped enrich. When he died on January 3, 2000, he had a host of unfinished and planned projects still on his drawing board. It is not an overstatement to conclude that Kane was a prime mover in elevating the craft of comic book storytelling to an art. The popular success that comic book characters and storylines enjoy in today’s mass media is due, in no small part, to Gil Kane and a handful of other artists whom he admired and worked with. DANIEL HERMAN is the author and publisher of Hermes Press, which among numerous other books produced the 2001 volume Gil Kane: The Art of the Comics. He has written extensively on various aspects of 20th-century culture and to date has authored five books. He has also been responsible for the graphic design of numerous critically acclaimed art books, and has written on subjects as diverse as film music and consumer law. When not involved with literary pursuits, he is a principal with the law firm of Gerr and Daniel Herman, P.C., where he fights a neverHerman ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way.

Dan Herman Writes About The Life & Career Of The Legendary Artist

GIL KANE Checklist [This checklist is adapted from the online edition of the Who’s Who of American Comic Books 1928-1999, established by Dr. Jerry G. Bails and viewable at www.bailsprojects.com. Last entries to the site were made October 2006; the checklist covers material printed through the end of 1999. Names of features that appeared both in comic books of that title and in other magazines as well are generally not italicized. Numerous reprintings of Kane’s material are not listed. Key: (w) = writer; (p) = penciler; (i) = inker.] Name: Gil Kane (1926-2000) – née Eli Katz – artist, writer, publisher

Ace Periodicals: Lash Lightning (p)(i) 1943

Pen Names: Pen Star (shared with Pen Shumaker); Scott Edward; Al Kame, Gil Stack, Al Stak; Staktil; Eli

Archie Publications/MLJ: Bentley of Scotland Yard (p)(i) 1943; The Black Hood (i) 1943-44; Scarlet Avenger (i) 1941; The Shield (i) 1943-44, 1946; various features 1983-84

Family in Arts: Marty Elkins (cousin) Print Media (Non-Comics): Cover artist, book – Beyond Thirty/ The Maneater 1952; book – Star Hawks; artist/contributor Pretty Girl Sketchbook #1 1981; Time magazine 1973; novel – Empire 99 1980; paperbacks 1971-81 Publisher: Adventure House Press; Dragon Press; Morningstar Press Writer (Non-Comics): article – Harvard Journal of Pictorial Fiction Spring 1974; various articles; novel – Excalibur (with co-writer John Jakes) 1980 Animation: Marvel animation studio 1984; Ruby-Spears – story consultant Rambo & Chuck Norris 1986, Superman 1988, Karate Kommandos (date uncertain), storyboarder Superman 1988; layout artist for TMS Bionic Six 1987; et al.; Hanna-Barbera - creative consultant/concept artist Centurions, et al. 1980s

Aviation Press: Golden Eagle (p)(i) 1945 Avon Comics: various features (p)(i) c. 1951 Awesome Entertainment: The Allies (p) 1998; filler (p) 1998; Glory (p) 1998; Judgment Day (p)(i) 1997-98; New Men (p) 1998; Youngblood (p) 1998 Bantam Books: Blackmark (plot)(p)(i) graphic album 1971 DC Comics: Action Team-Up [Superman with others] (p)(i) 1989; Adam Strange (p) 1965, 1970; Adventure Comics (w)(p)(i) genre

Honors: Academy of Comic Book Arts Shazam for Special Recognition 1971; Eisner Hall of Fame Award 1997; Harvey Award/ Jack Kirby Award (Lifetime Achievement) 1997; Inkpot Awards (San Diego) 1975; National Cartoonists Society Best Story Comic Book Artist 1972 Syndication: Prince Valiant (three Sundays) (asst. p & i) 1981, King Features Syndicate; Sherlock Holmes (daily & Sunday, two months) (ghost p) 1956 for New York Herald-Tribune; Star Hawks (daily & Sunday) (p)(i) 1977-78 for NEA, 1978-81 United Features Syndicate; Tarzan (Sunday) (asst. p & i) 1979, UFS; Tarzan (Sunday) (p)(i) 1979-81 Comics in Other Media: super-hero parody features for Topps 1967; Lone Ranger and Tonto comics with Aurora models 1974; Star Trek (p)(i) record album 1975 French Comics: Special USA (p)(i) 1986 Belgian Comics: Jason Drum (w)(p)(i) 1979 (in Tintin) German Comics: Superman (p)(i) 1980s Comics Studios/Shops: Bernard Baily Studio (p)(i) c. 1944; Jack Binder Studio (p)(i) 1942; Cloud Studios (p)(i) (unconfirmed); L.B. Cole Studio (p)(i) 1944-45; Simon & Kirby Studio (assistant) c. 1944-45 Fantagraphics Books: Anything Goes [Savage] (w)(p)(i) 1986; covers (p)(i) 1982, 1986-87; Doomsday + 1 (p)(i) 1987; His Name Is Savage (plot)(p) 1982 reprint with some new material Kitchen Sink Press: Shop Talk (p)(i) 1981 COMIC BOOKS (Mainstream U.S. Publishers) Acclaim Comics: covers (p)(i) 1998 Adventure House Press: His Name Is Savage (plot)(p)(i) 1968

And Then He Drew… Kane’s first signed work was on this “Scarlet Avenger” story for MLJ’s Zip Comics #14 (May 1941). The byline is “by Hubbell and Kane,” so clearly Eli Katz was already employing the pen name that would eventually become his legal moniker. According to reports, Kane inked this feature over penciler Carl Hubbell. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. [TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.]

The Art & Times Of Gil Kane

feature 1972; All-American Men of War (p) 1954; All-Star Comics (p) (i) backup features 1951; All Star Western (p)(i) 1951, 1971, 1982; Animal Man (p)(i) 1966; Astra (p)(i) 1950-51; Atari Force (p) 1982-83 (premium with Atari games); The Atom (p)(i) 1961-68, 1974, 1983-85, 1988; Batgirl (p)(i) 1969-71, 1982; Batgirl and Robin (p) 1970; Batman (p) 1968-69; Batman (plot)(p)(i) 1991-92; Batman and Robin (p) 1969; Battle Album (p)(i) no dates; Big Town (p )(i) 1950s; Blackhawk (p)(i) 1983; Blue Beetle (p) 1988; Blue Devil (p)(i) 1984; Boy Commandos (i) 1948; Captain Action (w)(p)(i) 1968-69; Captain Comet (p) 1954; Casebook Mystery (p) 1950; Catwoman (p)(i) 1982; covers (p) (i) 1945, 1949-75, 1982-92; The Creeper (p) 1969; Darwin Jones (p) 1956-57; DC Challenge (p) 1986; Don Caballero (p)(some i) 1951-52; Elongated Man (p) 1967-68; Epics of the Texas Rangers (p) 1950-51; Fabulous World of Krypton (p)(i) 1982; Faceless Creature (p) 1963; Falling in Love (p) 1956-65; Fanboy (p)(i) 1999; Fantasy (w) 1972; fillers (p)(i) 1950-51; The Flash (p) 1970, 1997; The Flight for Life (p) 1951; Foley of the Fighting 5th (p) 1952; Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion (p) 1973; Girls’ Love Stories (p) 1950-64; Girls’ Romances (p)(i) no dates; Green Arrow and Black Canary (p)(i) 1982; Green Lantern (p)(some i) 1959-70, 1982, 1988, 1991, 1996; Green Lantern Corps (p) (some i) 1983-84, 1988; Half-Breed (w)(p)(i) 1970; The Hawk and the Dove (w)(p)(i) 1968-69; Hopalong Cassidy (p)(i) 1957-59; House of Mystery (p)(i)(some w) 1969-70, 1977; House of Secrets (p)(i) 1970; How I Draw Green Lantern (w)(p) 1998; Jan Vern, Interplanetary

Agent (p)(i) 1965; Jimmy Wakely (p)(i) backup features 1951-52; Johnny Thunder [Western] (p)(i) 1952, 1955-61; Justice League of America 1982; Kit Colby, Girl Sheriff (p) 1950-51; Life Story of The Flash (p) graphic album 1997; Lois Lane (p)(i) 1983; Matt Savage, Trail Boss (p) 1954-61; Metal Men (p) 1968; Monty West (p)(some i) 1958-59; Mystery in Space (p)(some i) 1951-61, 1965; Newsboy Legion (p) 1944; Nighthawk (p)(some i) 1954-59; Our Army at War (p) 1952; The Outlaw (p)(i) 1970-71; Overland Coach (p) 1949-52; Plastic Man (p)(i) 1966; Rex the Wonder Dog? (p)(some i)(some w) 1952-59; Ring of the Nibelung (p)(i) 1989-90 [collected as graphic novel 1991]; Robin (p)(i) 1969-70; The Sandman (p)(i) 1944-46; Secret Hearts (p) 1954-56, 1964; Secret Origins (p)(i) 1986, 1988; Sensation Mystery (p) 1953; Shazam! [Captain Marvel] (p)(i) 1982, 1996; Space Cabbie (p) 1955-58; Star Hawkins (p)(i) 1965-655; Star Spangled War Stories (p) 1957, 1973; Strange Adventures (p)(some i) 1951-63, 1965-66; Superboy (p)(i) 1982-84; Superman (p)(some i)(some w) 1982; Superman and Captain Marvel (w)(i) 1984; Superman team-ups (p)(i) 1984; Superman: Distant Fires (p) graphic album 1997; Sword of The Atom (co-ed)(p)(i) 1982-83; Tales of the Unexpected (p)(i) 1965; Talos (w)(p)(i) 1987; Teen Titans (p)(some i) 1969, 1976; Time Warp (p)(i) 1979-80; Trigger Twins (p) 1952-55, 1958; The Unexpected (p) (i) 1965; The Vigilante (p)(i) 1984; The Warlord (p)(i) 1987; Weird Western Tales (p)(some i) 1972-74; Whatever Happened to Johnny Thunder? (p)(i) 1980; Whatever Happened to Rex the Wonder Dog? (p)(i) 1981; Who’s Who in the DC Universe entries (p)(i) 1985-87; Wild Frontier (p) 1970; Wildcat (p)(i) 1947-49; The Witching Hour (p)(i) 1971; World of Krypton (p)(i) 1982; Young Romance (p) 1971

On DC Street (Left:) One of the many science-fiction yarns Kane penciled for Julie Schwartz on Strange Adventures (in this case, #49, Oct. 1954), as inked by Joe Giella. Script by France “Ed” Herron. Thanks to Bob Bailey. (Right:) A dynamic splash page by Kane & Giella from Green Lantern #75 (March 1970); script by John Broome. By this time, Gil had come into his own and was no longer forced to play down his individual style, as he had in the earlier issues. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Dan Herman Writes About The Life & Career Of The Legendary Artist

Dell Publications: Brain Boy (p) 1962; Cadet Gray of West Point (p)(i) 1958; covers (p) 1965; fillers (p) 1960; The Frogmen (p) 1965; Hennesey (p) 1961; Laramie (p) 1960-61; Lost World (p) 1960; Naza (p) c. 1965; Tales of Wells Fargo (p) 1958 Eastern Color Printing: Heroic Comics (p)(i) 1948-49 Fawcett Publications: Western stories (p)(i) c. 1948 Feature Comics: Atomic Man (p)(i) 1946; Buck Saunders and His Pals (p)(i) 1943, 1946; Green Lama (backgrounds) 1943; Junior Rangers (p)(i) 1946 Fox Comics: various features (p)(i) 1946-48 Harvey Comics: Back to the Future (p)(i) 1992; covers (p)(i) 1992; Tiger Boy (p)(i) 1966

Atomic Comics Gil Kane is credited with drawing both the cover of the Feature/ Prize group’s Headline Comics #19 (May-June 1946) and the “Atomic Man” feature within—one of the first postHiroshima series to star a nuclearpowered hero. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Heavy Metal: Heavy Metal Magazine (p)(i) 1979, 1983 Hillman Periodicals: crime (p)(i) 1949; Iron Ace (p)(i) 1944; Nightmare (p)(i) 1944; Western stories (p)(i) 1949-50 Holyoke Publications: Blue Beetle (p)(i) 1943-45; Commandos of the Devil Dogs (p)(i) 1945; Terrific (p)(i) 1944 Image Comics: covers (p) 1997-98; illustration (p) 1998 King Comics: covers (p)(i) 1966; Flash Gordon (p)(some i) 1966-67 Lev Gleason Publications: Crime Does Not Pay (p)(i) 1944 Malibu Comics: Edge (p)(i) 1994-95 (imprint: Bravura) Marvel Comics: Amazing Spider-Man (p)(some i) 1970-76; Black Panther (p) 1974; Black Rider (p) 1950; Blackmark (reprinted from Bantam graphic novel +

The WHO’S WHO of American Comic Books 1928-1999 Online Edition Created by Jerry G. Bails

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Gil Kane’s hero Jason Drum on the cover of a 1979 issue of the Belgian comics magazine Tintin. [Kane art TM & © Estate of Gil Kane.]

[Art by Gil Kane & Joe Sinnott] Captain America TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

The Art & Times Of Gil Kane

From “Scott Edward” To “Gil (Sugar) Kane” (Left:) For Tales to Astonish #76 (Feb. 1966), Gil Kane penciled his first “Hulk” story—over Jack Kirby layouts, for Mike Esposito (as “Mickey Demeo”) to ink.| To avoid repercussions at DC, his byline read “Scott Edward,” the names of his son. Script by Stan Lee. (Right:) Exactly a year later, Kane returned to Marvel to pencil and ink another “Hulk” story—in Tales to Astonish #88 (Feb. 1967). This was the first of four Kane “Hulks” in a row. Script by Stan Lee, who on the latter two bylined him as “Gil (Sugar-Lips) Kane,” which Gil did not particularly appreciate. Thanks to Barry Pearl for both scans. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

previously unprinted material) (plot)(p)(i) 1974-75, 1979; Captain America (p) 1967, 1972; Captain Marvel (p)(some co plot) 1969-70; Chane (p)(i)(some w) 1981-83; Conan the Barbarian (p)(some i) 1972 & later; covers (p)(some i) 1967-86; Daredevil (p) 1977-78; The Defenders (p) 1974; fillers (p)(i) 1978; Ghost Rider (p) 1976; Gullivar Jones (p) 1972; horror (p) 1951-54; The Incredible Hulk (p) 1966-67, 1972; Human Torch & Hulk (p) 1974; Human Torch & iceman (p) 1974; Inhumans (p) 1976; Iron Fist (p) 1974; John Carter, Warlord of Mars (p) 1977-78; Journey into Mystery (p) 1972; Jungle Book (w) (p) 1983; Ka-Zar (p) 1972; Lovers (some i, perhaps some p) 1954; Man-Thing (p) 1974; Marvel Tales (p)(i) 1953; Monsters Unleashed (p) 1973; Morbius (p) 1974; Mystic (p)(i) 1952-53; Red Hawk (p)(i) 1943; Sons of the Tiger (p) 1976; Spider-Man and Captain America (p) 1973; Spider-Man and Captain Marvel (p) 1973; Spider-Man and Ka-Zar (p) 1974; Spider-Man and Mr. Fantastic (p) 1974; Spider-Man and Sub-Mariner (p) 1973; Spider-Man and the Thing (p) 1973; Spider-Man and The Vision (p) 1972; Spider-Man and The X-Men (p) 1972; Star Trek (p)(i) 1981; Tales of the Hyborian Age (p) 1971; Tales of Zabu (p)(i) 1982; Thing and Man-Thing (p) 1974; Thing and Sub-Mariner (p) 1974; Thor (p)(i) 1982; Two-Gun Kid (p)(some i) 1949, 1992; Valannus and Kalligor (p)(i) 1971; The Valley of the Worm (p) 1973; The Vision (p)(i) 1940s; War Comics (p)(i) 1953; Warlock (p) 1972-73; Werewolf by Night (p) 1973; What If [Avengers]

(p)(some plot) 1977, 1980; Worlds Unknown (w)(p) 1973; Young Allies (p)(i) 1940s Petersen Publishing: Car-Toons (p) 1971 Quality Comics: Candy (p)(i) 1944; Manhunter (p)(i) 1943 (unconfirmed) R.B. Leffingwell & Co.: Captain Power (p)(i) 1944 (unconfirmed) Rural Home Publishing: Captain Wizard (p) 1946 (unconfirmed) Street & Smith Comics: Biff Morgan (i) 1942; Blackstone the Magician (backgrounds) 1942 Topps Comics: covers (p) 1993; Jurassic Park (p) 1993 Tower Comics: covers (p)(i) 1966-67; Mentor (p) 1965; No-Man (p) 1966; The Raven (w)(p)(i) 1967; Undersea Agent (w)(p)(i) 1966-67 Warren Publications: cover (p)(i) for Creepy; Creepy (p)(i) 1968 Western Publishing: filler (p) 1951 in Gunsmoke Ziff-Davis Comics: adventure (p) 1952; Famous Stars (p) 1951

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Bypassing The Real For The Unreal by Gil Kane

A/E

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article first appeared in The Harvard Journal of Pictorial Fiction (April 1974), pp. 898-903. The HJPF was published in the first half of the 1970s by the Harvard University Comics Society, whose chairmen were Charles Wooley and Michael C. Young; it was, according to an online description, “dedicated to the scholarly treatment of comics as a narrative art form.” By 1976 the magazine had metamorphosed under a different publisher into Crimmer’s: The Journal of the Narrative Arts. Among pieces published in the original series were interviews with classic Tarzan artist (and art-anatomy teacher) Burne Hogarth and Mad creator Harvey Kurtzman. Circa 1973-74, comic book/graphic novel artist Gil Kane, however, elected to pen his own article for the magazine. There were a few minor false steps in the article’s original publication which had to be addressed when reprinting it in Alter Ego (with the kind permission of Gil’s widow, Elaine Kane). For one thing, probably through a proofreading error, following the editorial introduction which is reproduced beginning in column 2, the article proper as printed began with the sentence “Writing in an expansive, highly accessible style, Mr. Kane begins his exposition [etc.],” which obviously was part of the editorial intro, not Gil Kane’s opening to his text. In addition, for some reason, the editors chose to print the first half or so of the article with no interior headings or divisions… then, roughly halfway through the piece, such breaks suddenly appear. We have left those as they were. In addition, there is the singleton phrase “Kurtzman’s Unique Humanism” that pops up at the end of a paragraph for no discernible reason, preceding a short section on Kurtzman’s work. We’ve assumed those three words were originally meant to be yet another interior heading, and have repositioned them as such. These few items, however, are minor glitches compared to the intrinsic value of the article itself, which in many ways seems a follow-up to the groundbreaking interview EC fan John Benson conducted with Gil circa 1968-69 for the tenth issue of Vol. 1 of this magazine; that interview was reprinted in the 1997 trade paperback Alter Ego: The Best of the Legendary Comics Fanzine, which was reissued by TwoMorrows Publishing in 2008. Many of Gil’s tenets are certainly worth debating— and Ye Editor, who used to argue good-naturedly with him from time to time over some of the same points, has noted his disagreements here and there in accompanying captions; but neither viewpoint should be taken as the final word on any matter, of course. Special thanks to Barry Pearl for supplying us a copy of the text from his digital work The Essential Marvel Reference Project: Newspaper and Magazine Articles, to Aaron Caplan for a bit of textual help, and to Brian K. Morris for retyping it for editing for this magazine.

The Barbarian & The Prince (Above right:) Kane’s cover for the April 1974 edition of the Harvard Journal of Pictorial Fiction was a Kane-inked version of a figure he had penciled for the “Conan the Barbarian” tale in Savage Tales #4 (May ’74); the two magazines would’ve gone on sale around the same time. The Marvel version was inked by Neal Adams & “Diverse Hands,” with gray tones by Pablo Marcos. Since the Journal printing contained only a handful of illustrations, we’ve selected our own… and rather more of them. [© Estate of Gil Kane.] (Above left:) Gil Kane (on our left) interviews Harold R. Foster, noted creator/illustrator of the King Features Syndicate Sunday strip Prince Valiant, at a luncheon held at Phil Seuling’s New York Comic Art Convention over the July 4th weekend in 1970. Thanks to the formerly named Golden Age Comic Book Stories website. This photo originally appeared in the con’s 1971 program book.

RIGINAL INTRODUCTION FROM THE HARVARD JOURNAL OF PICTORIAL FICTION (April 1974): Our distinguished guest author is one of the most respected and articulate artists in comics. Winner of the National Cartoonists Society Award for Best Comic Book Artist in 1972 and 1973 and an ACBAS [sic] special award for his book Blackmark, Mr. Kane was a visiting lecturer at New York University in 1973. Among his most acclaimed work are Johnny Thunder, Green Lantern, The Atom, His Name Is Savage, Spider-Man, and of course Blackmark. Writing in an expansive, highly accessible style, Mr. Kane begins his exposition with a consideration of film’s relationship to comics as its narrative “big brother.” The differences between the two art forms suggest that the unique nature of comics—a combination of visual storytelling and literary technique—is perfectly suited for fantasy material. [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: All italicized paragraphs, as opposed to individual words, in the following article are the addition of the editors at HJPC, inserted into Gil Kane’s text from time to time. We’ve chosen to set those italicized comments apart from the main text above and below it, for reasons of clarity.]

Gil Kane’s 1974 Study of Comic Art

here can never be a direct, categorical comparison between film and comics as art forms; rather, the techniques of storytelling are mostly analogous. In film, there is the terrific difference of using real people and real props and places— there is not the barrier between the audience’s credibility and the story. The one thing you can create in film is a feeling of actual participation, and in comics this is rarely felt. You often have the sense that you are a spectator some distance behind the action in comics—there is not the immediacy, the people rising out of their seats when watching an intense moment. A further reason this does not happen in a comic strip is, I feel, that comics depend too much on film technique and not enough on its own devices in order to make its dramatic points.

There were comics before film, and the whole illustrative technique that you see in Little Nemo or Charles Dana Gibson is an entirely different approach to storytelling. In film, the artist has certain advantages that in no way translate into the medium of comics; a character will say something and there is an immediate facial reaction, for instance. There is no way to record that type of acting subtlety unless you utilize literary techniques. And I don’t think there are many comic purists who would have comics imitate film so closely that it becomes a series of pantomimes, where the artist would take 3000 pages to tell a 27-word story. It would break down the rhythm unnaturally so that it takes years for the simplest action to be described. At the same time, comics has something

that film does not, that film has never been able to interpolate properly—literary technique. A film seems unnatural when it is an intrusion. The director has to constantly show things happening in film; he doesn’t in comics. Literary technique allows the comic artist to compress time, to compress staging, and, moreover, to create with words a picture more vivid than if you had seen it on film. That is why they are replaying the old radio dramas, because the power of one’s own imagination is more effective than any artistic incarnation. Films, by incarnating the fictional scene completely, remove the imagination from the process. After an introductory warning that direct comparison of comics to film is limited, the author explains their common ground, their common attitude towards reality. Reality is an interpretation. I have never seen reality on a movie screen; I have seen dramatically constructed situations. The strength of film or comics storytelling does not come from an ability to portray reality but rather from the expressive effects quite removed from “reality.” There is no way to present life as it really is—you are presenting a theatrical synthesis which creates an expressive viewpoint from which the audience draws its own meaning. Clarity of meaning is absolutely the most important thing in films, comics, or literature. As important as it is to be judicious using the artistic effects—you can slop an effect, you can overdo an effect—into a statement. Simply to dispense with sound or background music or anything else that dramatizes a situation, helps carry it, is pointless. For example, at one time I didn’t like sound effects in comics, as a purist. I now think that, as Harvey Kurtzman used them, sound effects are fantastic, they are a part of the picture, brilliant in design, and they created in Harvey’s work a strident quality, a sense of violence.

Charles Dana Gibson

“Illustrative Technique” (Above:) Many of Charles Dana Gibson’s influential illustrations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries told a story, though he never drew an actual comic strip. (Right:) Winsor McCay’s Sunday feature Little Nemo in Slumberland is considered one of the best-drawn and most imaginative comic strips of all time. The installment from which these six panels are taken was published on July 26, 1908. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Winsor McCay

Bypassing The Real For The Unreal

I feel that the abstract approach to ﬁction material is anti-storytelling. I resent having to sweat to fasten my meaning to seemingly incoherent scenes: I prefer not to be aware Jack Davis that I am puzzling this had a heyday presentation through, Harvey drawing covers to be swept along Kurtzman for movies, Time and to see clearly was celebrated in magazine, TV Guide, what is happening. later years for his et al., in the 1960s Such a presentation is & ’70s. creation of Mad. frustrating, especially when it becomes an entire creative movement; it’s like a painting that the artist made for himself with secret meaning only he understands. There is no center, no direction to the thing.

The Sound And The Fury (Above:) In this sequence from “Enemy Contact!” in EC’s Two-Fisted Tales #22 (July-Aug. 1951), editor/writer/layout artist Harvey Kurtzman uses ever-larger sound effects in successive panels to indicate the increasing closeness of mortar explosions, achieving an effect that transcends what a “silent-movie” approach might have achieved. Finished art by Jack Davis; reproduced from the EC Archives edition Two-Fisted Tales, Volume 1. [TM & © William M. Gaines, Agent, Inc.] (Bottom right:) Sound effects had become pervasive in Silver Age DC and Marvel comics, but in 1970 writer Roy Thomas decided from the outset to ban all non-verbal sound effects from Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian. Penciler Barry Smith concurred; in fact, Roy’s memory is that the artist made a point of writing a note in the margin of the art to ask him not to add either sound effect or vocal outcry to the wide panel on this page from CTB #9 (Sept. 1971). The result was intended to duplicate the feel of a sound movie into which there suddenly intrudes a violent but soundless image. (Nowadays, it would probably be in slow motion as well.) Roy suspects Gil would’ve approved of this approach, too. Thanks to Barry Pearl for the scan. [TM & © Conan Properties International, Inc.]

Barry Smith He hadn’t yet added the family name “Windsor” when drawing Conan the Barbarian.

Roy Thomas Photos of Ye Editor appear quite often enough in Alter Ego… so he preferred to be represented this time by a drawing of himself at the movies, done by the very talented 12-year-old Bryn Cimino, daughter of comics dealer and convention expediter John Cimino. [© 2017 Bryn Cimino.]

What is each narrative art form best suited to? From the pivotal statement “A hero can be far more heroic in comics than as played by a real person,” the author moves to a theory that all forms of fiction draw images and motifs from the same source. Most stage and screen presentations have real people playing the parts of real people. They bring complex personalities to support and enlarge the script. This is the strength of film. A hero can be far more heroic, or handsome, or spectacular in comics than as played by a real person. There is a new frame of reference in comics; it starts with what is obviously not “real” life and creates its own level of acceptance. Using that larger-than-life starting point, comics moves upward from there. The limitation of unreality becomes the strength of unreality. Accordingly, comics do the one thing that films used to do and have now turned away from, and that is to focus on romance. Comics is a fantasy medium, suited perfectly for realizing romanticism and heroicism. They tend to project and reflect the

Gil Kane’s 1974 Study of Comic Art

The Zorro And The Pity (Clockwise from above left:) Douglas Fairbanks as Zorro, the first true masked/costumed hero, in the 1920 film The Mark of Zorro… Gil Kane doing an approximation of a non-costumed “Zorro” type in the “Don Caballero” feature in DC’s All Star Western #58 (April-May 1951); scripter unknown… and a panel drawn by Alex Toth for Dell/Western’s Zorro series, as reprinted on the cover of Hermes Press’ volume Alex Toth’s Zorro: The Complete Dell Comics Adventures. [“Don Caballero” art TM & © DC Comics; Zorro comic art TM & © the respective copyright holders.]

myth and fantasy needs of their audience, catering to universal experience and archetypes through these elemental fantasies. This is the importance, the value of comics and pulp material— that it evokes responses in the psyche of the audience that are universal and interconnecting. I believe totally in Jung’s point of view, that the unconscious harbors all these archetypes—motifs, images, characters—that all forms of ﬁction draw upon.

mythic image, and that is the appeal and strength of the medium. Taking a Midnight Cowboy approach in comics, as in the Green Lantern/Green Arrow series by Neal Adams and Denny O’Neil, is something of an absurdity, because you are taking a fantasy framework, using larger-than-life qualities which are romantic and

An example is the Gothic novel. There are now more Gothic novels printed than any other genre—science-fiction, mystery, adventure. In any book store in the country there are racks and racks of Gothic novels, looking like the same book printed fifty times. Women are buying these books by the millions, and I feel that part of the reason is that [there is] something distinctly archetypal in the purity and innocence of the half-savior figure. This Heathcliff prototype, this gypsy prince who vacillates between black, brooding menace and enormous, lyrical passion has got to be some sort of Jungian archetype. In comics, an essentially visual medium, it is the artist and not the writer who dramatizes, who invokes the fantastic images. A successful story owes its success to the artist, as demonstrated by Terry and the Pirates and Flash Gordon. Yet it is only on the story level that comics are elemental; what is not at all elemental is the complexity of the drawing. Each drawing has in it more complexity than anyone has ability to dissect, to understand how that visual creation can be so relevant to so many people on so many levels—why it can be so terribly effective. The craft of the comic artist communicates the collective-unconscious or

Theory Of General Relevancy

Dennis O’Neil & Neal Adams O’Neil (left) was the writer, Adams the penciler of the “Green Lantern/Green Arrow” stories in the early 1970s. Both photos from the 1971 New York Comic Art Convention, courtesy of Mike Zeck via Pedro Angosto.

Gil Kane considered comics like Green Lantern #76 (April 1970)—the foregoing was still the magazine’s indicia title during the “Green Lantern/ Green Arrow” period—“something of an absurdity,” with their “watereddown ‘relevancy.’” And it’s true that, at the time, sales of the DC series, already long declining, were not sufficiently bolstered to save the mag from cancellation after #89. Still, that sequence of issues has been almost permanently in print in quality paperback or hardcover for the past several decades, which has to count for something—including surely turning a profit long since. Script by Dennis O’Neil; pencils by Neal Adams; inks by Dick Giordano. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Bypassing The Real For The Unreal

Milton Caniff in the 1930s.

The Pen Is Mightier Than The Typewriter? A/E’s editor has to break in here: “Although the italicized paragraph ‘In comics, an essentially visual medium… [through] …A successful story owes its success to the artist and not the writer, as demonstrated by Terry and the Pirates and Flash Gordon’ seems to be an editor’s paraphrasing of the thoughts of my longtime friend and colleague Gil Kane, I can’t forbear a certain amount of friendly disagreement. On this page are Sunday samples of both the aforementioned newspaper comic strips from the exact same date: Dec. 1, 1935. Both had appealing art, certainly—but Milt Caniff wrote as well as drew Terry, while the Alex Raymond-drawn Flash was ghostwritten by one Don Moore. In my opinion—and I’m hardly alone—Terry owed its success as much to Caniff’s scripting as to his illustration… or else Noel Sickles’ Scorchy Smith would have been as popular as Terry. But surely the art-vs.-writing point can never be proven, either way. On the other hand, you try locating a photo of Don Moore!” [Terry page TM & © Tribune Media Services, Inc.; Flash Gordon page TM & © King Features Syndicate, Inc.]

Alex Raymond Ditto. Both photos on this page are from quality IDW collections of the respective strips.

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Gil Kane’s 1974 Study of Comic Art

It’s A Blackmark On His Name… But That’s A Good Thing! (Left:) In this page from Kane’s paperback graphic novel Blackmark (first published by Bantam Books in 1971), the hero literally pulls his sword not out of a stone, à la King Arthur, but from a dying dragon’s eye. Blackmark was an ambitious project, especially following on the heels of the doomed His Name Is Savage, and shows the artist’s determination to find a way to create outside what he thought of as a “comic book ghetto.” [TM & © Estate of Gil Kane.]

heroic material, and neutralizing it by giving it watered-down “relevancy.” Given the essential mythic basis of comics, I feel that we are just now getting more range. In Blackmark, I tried for structure; I tried to work in the immaculate conception, the sword in the stone. I was very deliberate in using the mythic elements of the Greek and Arthurian legends. Any piece of work that can move you on a conscious level as the story of Arthur does can only be a structured and organized effort, directing the impact of the various elements in the story towards a specific response in the audience. Craft just gets it on the page. Economics has a great deal to do with the artistic level of comics. For instance, it is not the finest writers in the world that gravitate to comics. The fact is that all the failed writers of the world funnel down to comics, where they are resurrected by the artist. Even in the very best strips, those known for their sophistication—whether it’s Terry and the Pirates by Caniff or The Spirit by Eisner—it is childish to discuss it as superior writing.

The truth of the matter is that the value of a comic story is in the artist; the artist, in his drawing, “writes” more and dramatizes more than the writer he works with. In fact, all my ideas about Hong Kong and Southeast Asia and the way people live there were stronger through Caniff than through any movie. Take a look at Alex Raymond. Flash Gordon—as writing—is better than [Edgar Rice] Burroughs. Raymond’s drawings were so glorious, so full of life and sensual grace,

Terry, Terry, Quite Contrary… Another somewhat contrarian (and quasi-reluctant) comment from A/E‘s editor: “I feel that the above Terry and the Pirates daily for Oct. 22, 1936, by Milt Caniff and the sequence of color panels at right from Will Eisner’s 8-page The Spirit story done for newspapers of Sunday, April 11, 1948, are two examples—among many—that demonstrate that both strips do, despite Gil’s view, contain writing that could indeed be classified as ‘superior’— not because that writing is showy or ‘literary,’ but because their dialogue is perfectly fitted to the mood and storytelling needs of the situations. If Terry’s success had depended entirely on the art, as claimed earlier, Caniff would never have dared show Pat Ryan and the Dragon Lady sitting around talking for all four panels of a daily strip—and the next day’s offering was more of the same. The Spirit sequence, of course, is on another plane entirely: playful, light banter ’twixt gal and guy in the midst of a dramatic, even dangerous situation; but Eisner’s (or his assistants’) dialogue is perfectly matched to the tone of the art. And isn’t that, in both cases, what so-called ‘superior writing’ means in a comic strip or comic book?” Art repro’d from IDW’s The Complete Terry and the Pirates, Vol. One 1934-1936 and DC’s Will Eisner’s The Spirit Archives, Vol. 16. [TM & © Tribune Media Services, Inc., & Estate of Will Eisner, respectively.]

Bypassing The Real For The Unreal

And that is what Jack Kirby does. He has good ideas and his drawings are absolutely electric. Take The Fantastic Four; he infused that material with such a sophisticated and original quality—gigantic, gorgeous machines, a real sense of cosmic power, an exploration of super space—that no one else has ever been able to approach his concepts and make them believable. All too often, the use of technique is confused by artists in ﬁlm (Sidney J. Furie) and comics (the Spanish School). Properly, the techniques of telling the story are subordinate to the dramatic needs of the story itself— not an opportunity for the artist to intrude between ﬁction and audience. Mechanical facility has nothing at all to do with creation. Most artists who use photographs in order to suggest reality still have nothing to do with comic strip storytelling, with drama. The Myth Of The Hero “Raymond’s drawings were so glorious, so full of life and sensual grace, that they totally captured the image of heroic myth.” So says Gil Kane of Flash Gordon, as illustrated by this Alex Raymond panel from the strip for December 6, 1936—and who’s going to argue that point? Script by Don Moore. [TM & © King Features Syndicate, Inc.]

that they totally captured the image of heroic myth. Using the springboard of that really mediocre material, Raymond created a brilliant fantasy—it transcends all language barriers. Since Flash Gordon came out, it has never been out of print! Alex Raymond has lived and died and Flash Gordon continues to be printed and reprinted. There are still new projects being produced around this central ﬁgure. Raymond’s triumph was the same as Caniff’s; the drawings that dramatized the quality of the strip were greater than the script. The drawings become the strip. The same is true of strips like [Jean Giraud’s] Lt. Blueberry in Europe; the glory of that work is that the drawings create seamy characters, moody skies, endless vistas, heat, dirt, fatigue, and with such eloquence that it lifts the pedestrian writing to extraordinary credibility.

A Wakanda Wild Side

Jack Kirby in a montage of his Marvel work composed by cartoonist Jim Engel. [Art TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

This Jack Kirby-penciled page from Fantastic Four #52 (July 1966) delivers a high-tech environment that would be hard to make believable in real life or in film—or at least, it would’ve been impossible in 1974, when Kane’s article was written. Today’s CGI? Maybe technology is finally catching up—just barely—with “The King.” Inks by Joe Sinnott; script by Stan Lee. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Gil Kane’s 1974 Study of Comic Art

Sidney J. Furie

There is a director named Sidney J. Furie The director of the 1965 spy film The Ipcress File—and the infamous pair of glasses mentioned (The Ipcress File, The Appaloosa) who is gassed by by Gil Kane. The shot through the lenses is in the movie, too… though it does have a dramatic composition and framing. Every time someone point. [Frame TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.] puts down a pair of glasses, he’s got his camera down there, shooting through the lenses. Now, This is not a part of being an artist—to simply utilize technique his images are really startling, but you become obsessed with the to impress us with the artist’s cleverness. The mature artist technique being used to tell the story; you are constantly aware of makes himself invisible. If you cannot combine artfulness and the director’s intrusion. It is like reading Lin Carter—one is always clarity, if you have to apply your effects with a trowel as some conscious of this narrator intruding on his own story. do, you are not servicing the needs of the story. The story’s needs

are dramatization, succinct storytelling, intelligent focusing. Composition itself only means to bring the attention of the viewer to a specific point, to induce a dramatic framework. Similar to Sidney Furie, the Spanish school of comic artists seems to me too willing to abandon something dramatically substantial for some new rendering technique. As impressive as these tremendous rendering flourishes are, they have the same showy but meaningless quality as the fencing master who flexes his sword and cuts the air with it, while never fencing any opponent. It is a very Baroque approach to the material—an enormous amount of style but no continuity, no characterization. Just an obsession with line, with black-&-white pattern, with layout that is diametrically opposed to the story. Each picture exists for itself and not in relation to the others, pretty but pointless.

The “Incredible Vitality” Of Jack Kirby One of the things that make Kirby virtually the supreme comic artist is that he is hardly ever compromised by some commonplace notion of draftsmanship. The people who make a fetish of literal form have the smallest grip on the whole idea of drama. They live and die by the external, the cosmetic effect. Thus someone in the Spanish School is elevated to a kind of deity level, while their work is anti-life. It is still-born, while Kirby is absolutely raging with life. What Kirby does is to generate incredible vitality on each page. There are four or ﬁve high points in the last decade—the ﬁrst year of The New Gods especially—where he had so much to give that he needed someone to channel it for him. It came out faster than it could be digested. There were four different storylines at once, all those fascinating characters he was not able to follow up on…

Present At The Re-Creation Although it wasn’t the first of Kirby’s four “Fourth World” titles to be issued by DC in the early 1970s, The New Gods #1 (Feb. 1971) begins with what amounts to a “creation” scene—which is preceded by the heading: “Epilogue.” Script & pencils by Jack Kirby; inks by Vince Colletta. Thanks to Bob Bailey. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Jack does his drawing on the basis of the very strong impressions he is continually registering; and what he draws communicates the impression better than a literal interpretation. His drawings don’t depend on academic draftsmanship; they have a life of their own. He’s the one who started this whole business of distortion, the big hands and fists. And with him, they all work, they all have a dramatic quality that makes them believable, creating enormous power in his material. And his distortion is never questioned. I do more representational figures, but the same editor will accept Jack’s figures and constantly question mine. Correct is not right; what Jack does is project his qualities, and his

Bypassing The Real For The Unreal

Two Of The Best (Above:) Harold Gray’s daily for Little Orphan Annie, dated Aug. 29, 1939—and (below) Chester Gould’s showdown with the villainous Flattop in the Dick Tracy strip for May 11, 1944. SPOILER ALERT: Annie and her dog Sandy live to fight another day; Flattop doesn’t. [Both dailies TM & © Tribune Media Services, Inc.]

Harold Gray

Chester Gould

expressionism is better than the literal drawing of almost anyone in the business.

are reflected in the quality of his work. Frazetta, Kirby, and Foster are cases in point.

Harold Gray & The Relative Importance Of Draftsmanship

Moreover, the artist’s native talent and his personality are mutually formative. Comparing naturals (Toth, Kirby) to a “cerebral” artist (Foster), the author concludes that alternatives—truly artistic, structured creations—come from the non-natural.

Academic draftsmanship by itself is nothing, vapid, and often the best work is by artists who have little drawing ability. I used to think that Harold Gray was one of the worst artists in the world— now I think he’s one of the best; I used to think Chester Gould was a terrible artist; now I am convinced that he is also one of the best. The reason is that, regardless of what is obviously crude drawing, each of these artists has singularity. Even if they don’t draw representational “people,” they draw identifiable characters that I could believe in, that I could follow. It is so clear and easy to follow the progression of that material. It is almost like a course in what comic material should be. A consideration of Frank Frazetta’s super-sensual style leads to a comparison with the austerity of Al Williamson; the synthesis is a restatement of the Jungian concept that the unconscious is very much in evidence in artists’ work. That is, the specific personality traits of an artist

Frazetta is a good example of how a picture works. His covers have an arresting, sensual fantasy quality that—very much like Alex Raymond—fulfills everyone’s expectations of the material. They capture the hope, the imagination. He does barbarian kings that tend to look like day laborers; there is never a quality of aristocracy and nobility, of any grandeur other than a ﬂeshy, sensual grandeur. If nobility exists at all, it is in the austerity and dryness of Al Williamson. His people have the frosty, austere quality of aristocracy, a “Prussian elite” quality that comes from a preoccupation with the abstract elements of drawing and design. It is a projection of his personality needs. Moreover, you can always see the artist’s personality in his work. Most of the artists with the most singular qualities in their work are singular personalities themselves. People like Severin, Toth, Kirby,

Gil Kane’s 1974 Study of Comic Art

Frank Frazetta at the New York Comic Art Convention, 1971.

Al Williamson at the NY con, 1970. Thanks to Mike Zeck via Pedro Angosto for both photos.

“...And Barbarism Must Always Ultimately Triumph”—Robert E. Howard (Above:) A Frank Frazetta-painted Conan—or else another barbarian who looks a lot like him. (Above right:) Splash drawn by Al Williamson for EC’s Valor #3 (July-Aug. 1955). Writer unknown. [TM & © Estate of Frank Frazetta & William M. Gaines, Agent, Inc., respectively.]

Alex Toth at a comics convention in the 1990s. Courtesy of Jim Amash.

John Severin at his drawing desk circa the late 1950s, before a wall emblazoned with his comics covers.

They Rode A Blazing Combat! Gil Kane greatly admired “Severin, Toth, Kirby, and Frazetta… four of the most singular artists [and] four incarnations of ‘the creative personality.’” The latter two were depicted earlier in this article. Above are pages by Alex Toth (left) and John Severin (right) from Warren Publications’ short-lived black-&-white war title Blazing Combat #4 (July 1966), as repro’d from a 1978 reprint. Both stories (“The Edge!” and “The Trench!”) were written by Archie Goodwin. [TM & © J. Michael Catron.]

Bypassing The Real For The Unreal

Handwriting is used as a basis for analysis, as an insight into the personality. These are the personality’s own scribblings. The whole experience of one’s life, ultimately, forms the quality of the writing: And if that is true—as I believe it is—with simple handwriting, what must be the fully drawn symbols of fantasy and strength, potency and impotence which cartoonists throw around all the time.

Explosiveness And Repression

Vista Visions Mounted heroes survey grand vistas, as visualized by Hal Foster in Prince Valiant above and by Jack Kirby below right in Thor #134 (Nov. 1966); script for latter by Stan Lee. Kane considered Kirby a “natural,” and Foster a “non-natural.” We’ll leave that to him to explain. [TM & © King Features Syndicate, Inc., & Marvel Characters, Inc., respectively.]

and Frazetta, all of whom I admire tremendously, taken as four of the most singular artists, are four incarnations of “the creative personality.” For some reason or another, this business does not produce intellectuals among the artists. Ideas do not come from natural artists; ideas come from people who are not naturals, but from people who must consciously develop their skills. They are frustrated by their lack of facility and are forced to find alternatives to a situation. Toth has rarely had to examine an alternative to the way he draws because he is successful artistically so often with his first attempt. He has always had acceptance from the editor, acceptance from the publisher, a high level acceptance from all the professionals in the field. It works in everyday society, too; with that kind of acceptance, one never is forced to question what one does.

Deliberate Structure Versus Visceral, Imagistic Creation Alternatives come from people like Hal Foster. Hal Foster is not a natural; Frazetta is. Caniff is not a natural; Noel Sickles is. These non-natural people are forced to integrate, to invent, to compensate. “When the imagination fails, the will perseveres.” What some artists do naturally, others cannot and are forced to structure it intellectually. Foster is a very intelligent man applying a feeling for the material. His conquest is purely cerebral; his triumph is that of will and intelligence over (a lack of) natural facility. Men like Raymond, Frazetta, Kirby are all naturals; they keep rolling along on their tremendous ﬁgts [sic]. [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: I have no idea what word “figts” is a typo for. “Fights”? “Figures”?] Hal Foster has an understanding of writing and narrative that few others have, and it is largely because this is something that comes by deliberate choice and structure. Someone like Kirby, being a natural, has all this enormous play of attitude, feeling, and response constantly dancing before him. He creates and communicates vivid impressions which are often uncontrolled, then confused and redundant. While he is always quick to see the possibilities in a certain idea or situation, he is sometimes unable to develop them fully, effectively, as Foster was able to do. Their natural talents, their personalities bring forth the characteristics of their work.

Along these lines, the one thing you can see in Jack’s work is an angry, repressed personality. First there is the extreme explosiveness of his work—not merely explosive, but I mean there is a real nuclear situation on every page. Then there is his costuming: on every one of Kirby’s costumes there are belts and straps and restraints, leather buckles everywhere. There are times when he takes Odin and puts composition of symmetry and restrained power. His women are sort of sexually neutral. I don’t think Jack is very interested in drawing women, but give him a fist or a rock or a machine. If his women have any quality at all, it is a slightly maternal one. You certainly can’t compare them to Frazetta’s. Frazetta draws, putting a real carnal quality into the figure and then giving it a child’s face. For some reason, Frazetta is not able to define the male faces; the heads are the least finished, the least characterized. Again,

Gil Kane’s 1974 Study of Comic Art

Cherchez Les Femmes! I feel he has less concern with the individual characterization than with the overall effect.

Erotic And Masculine Qualities [Frazetta’s] male figures are every bit as sensual as his females. By degrees, his men have become thicker, heavier—they are like blacksmiths. There is a meatiness, a haunch quality to his male figures, more and more. There are veins standing out on the arms, and you feel that they are so flushed with blood and packed with muscle that they must be pure appetite. And the women figures are so soft, so yielding and vulnerable with their childlike faces and gross bodies. He repeats those same attributes over and over; it’s really the most erotic material, the figures loaded with erotic innuendo and sultriness. By contrast, Hal Foster is the least erotic of all the heroic artists. There is a sparseness in his material—even his women are pristine. Originally, they were like any blonde from the early movies, pure and innocent. Even when he focused in on Aleta, Foster couldn’t really draw a pretty girl. Her face was vapid, and the one characteristic she might have projected was an occasional “perkiness.” He never had a feeling for women that was as sensible as his feeling for men. Foster’s men had a real masculinity. Even with the pageboy hair, Prince Valiant’s masculinity is so clear in his face and in his authoritative actions. The unique thing about Foster is his reactions. Most artists create a situation around what is happening to the main figure in the drawing. Not Foster: he will have a figure in a central action and then figures reacting on an individual basis to that action. The result is a feeling of life and responsiveness; not merely an illustration but a dramatization, full of clearly set situations

In his 1974 text, Gil compares and contrasts the women drawn by Kirby, Frazetta, and Foster. Submitted for your clockwise consideration: Kirby’s splash page for Thor #137 (Jan. 1967), featuring only the second page to showcase the warrior-goddess Sif. Script by Stan Lee; inks by Vince Colletta. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] Frazetta’s cover art for the 1960s Ace paperback reprinting of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Lost Continent. [© the respective copyright holders.] Aleta as wife, mother, and relatively sexless vamp, in a panel from Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant. Precise date unknown. [TM & © King Features Syndicate, Inc.]

Bypassing The Real For The Unreal

and values and characters. Foster, Caniff, Roy Crane—these are the supreme dramatists. The range and intelligence of Foster’s achievement is really stunning; the moment you begin to appreciate subtleties, you realize that Foster has come down every avenue you’re starting up. From the masterful dramatics of Hal Foster, the author moves to analyze the very different mastery of Harvey Kurtzman—the careful structuring, the panel format, the intense, humane communication. Without proper direction and dramatization, all the action in comics becomes frozen, an abstraction—more like a painting than a ﬁlm. It becomes a dynamic abstraction which is totally removed from life; a comic needs a positive forward direction. For instance, you hardly ever see Harvey Kurtzman use fancy splicing of panels—he almost always uses the simplest kind of six-panel breakdown. He was not interested in a single picture holding all the attention on the page. Rather, he wanted a real movement of the eye from one panel to the next, a continuity. Very often, he would freeze the camera, allowing the ﬁgures to run into it. National [DC] has used it so often since then that it is now trite, but they have never done it as well as Harvey. Kurtzman built his entire structure scrupulously. He wanted panel shapes absolutely neutral. The focus must be on the interior, not on the shape of the panel. He was not drawing to accommodate the odd shape of the panel but to make a dramatic point. It is the drama that sustains the story, and he wasn’t going to throw it away to show how clever he was. Harvey’s effects were never wasted, he never looked for the hard way to make a dramatic point.

postured. Foster, like Kirby, had naturalistic feel; Hogarth never did. Kirby represents the artist with the most flair for the material. He is by nature a dramatist; all of his skill supports drama, not drawing. Besides everything else, Jack has an enormous facility; he can create effects that drive a person mad. He can set up a free-standing sculpture or machine with staggering weight and impact. What kind of life can he have led to have this alien sense of phenomenology? Bottled up inside of Jack Kirby is enough natural force to light New York City. And it’s such a pity to see all that great stuff working without someone saying, “Easy, easy.” It has just never happened—they either suppressed him entirely or forced on him ideas that were never his own. I just wish Jack were as excited now as when he first came to National. The pictures in Kamandi are far less vibrant than the New Gods material; I remember a fish-creature he did—I’ve never seen such force in my life! Jack’s characters are so larger-than-life that ultimately they couldn’t fight the crime syndicate or even super-villains; they had to fight these cosmic figures in order to accommodate the dynamism. He is the only one that can handle that kind of story and make it believable. In order to do material about the cosmos, there has to be something monumental about the quality of the art. It is only externally that John Buscema resembles Jack: inside, he is much more like John Romita—attractive but not electric. His work doesn’t have the intensity, the convolution, the distortion; it doesn’t make the demands. They are constantly giving him material that he is not suited for. With The Fantastic Four John was not capable of that real

Kurtzman’s Unique Humanism There is always a tremendous impact in Harvey’s work, especially the war stories. By degrees he will show the silence, the suspense, and finally the whole feeling of vulnerability. I have never felt as sorry for, and identified with, characters as I do with his. One doesn’t regard them as elemental ciphers but as terrified people who find that they have somehow survived the war. There was a strong sense of tragedy: a character reacting naturally in an unnatural situation makes it believable, makes Kurtzman’s work so effective. Kurtzman is an expressive realist. Alex Toth is, in a way, more naturalistic in his gestures and movements, with a great feeling for contemporary shapes and styles—especially industrial design. Yet with all that abstract sort of naturalism, there is nothing natural about his material. lt’s all very highly stylized, and abstract. Harvey is stylized, too, but his characters have a much more realistic quality—even though Kurtzman is a less literal artist than Toth. His people exist without the pretense and the posturing of Toth’s characters. The author returns to a favorite topic: the nature of Jack Kirby, whose work is so vital and charged at times and so sorely in need of structuring at other times. In the past four years, his successors at Marvel have not been able to sustain the cosmic scale and force of his work. The early Marvel Group was a unique phenomenon of chemistry, stimulating artists like Steve Ditko to the best work of their careers. Kirby is one of the few artists whose characters do not always have to be in a heroic posture—they can assume naturalistic attitudes. Reed Crandall and those artists “descended” from him find it almost impossible to draw a figure that is not heroically

War Was Hell Harvey Kurtzman script and art for the final page of “Search!” in Two-Fisted Tales #21 (May-June 1941). Repro’d from the hardcover EC Archives: Two-Fisted Tales, Vol. 1. [TM & © William M. Gaines, Agent, Inc.]

Gil Kane’s 1974 Study of Comic Art

freshness of perspective and insight that Jack managed to create with Galactus and a whole series of characters. The ﬁrst 100 issues are incredible, the most unparalleled sustained effort I have ever seen in comics.

The Early Marvel Magic With big bands, when there were one or two ﬁrst-rate musicians in the band, the whole band would come alive. And when the band would break up, all going different ways, the musicians would look back at that time as a kind of Olympus, when everyone was so charged by the intensity. It shows you that people can have enormous talent and never use it. It is untapped, a reserve; the potentials are never realized until a catalyst comes along. Harvey was a catalyst, Al Feldstein was a catalyst. Then there were artists who worked in obscurity, who had ordinary careers; by Kurtzman and Feldstein individually imposing their standards and ideas, they expanded the universes of all these artists and lifted their work to great heights.

How Deep Six Is The Ocean? A/E’s editor is gonna go way out on a limb and guess that, when Gil Kane talks about a “fish-creature” drawn by Kirby in his early-’70s days at DC and says, “I’ve never seen such force in my life!,” he’s talking about either the first panel to feature The Deep Six, in The New Gods #2 (April-May 1971), or, perhaps more likely, about the gigantic sea-thing from New Gods #5 (Oct. ’71). Inks by Vince Colletta and Mike Royer, respectively. Thanks to Bob Bailey & Nick Caputo, respectively. [TM & © DC Comics.]

That’s the way Stan [Lee], with virtually a depleted comics house, was able to use Jack as a catalyst and mobilize a group of lesser artists. All of a sudden, people like Ditko came from nowhere and in a period of three years were able to build up a tremendous skill and popularity. Ditko’s qualities at Marvel were second only to Jack’s. I still consider one of his sequences in particular a masterpiece of pacing and suspense. Spider-Man is trapped under a huge machine, and the sequence builds up a powerful communication of “will he, won’t he?” leading to a splash page of a superhuman effort that lifts clear the machine. It is one of the most satisfying moments in comics. Ditko was the only one that could do Spider-Man as a real spider; he constantly had him walking on ceilings, hanging upside down. There was a real spidery feel for the character. Even in the back ﬂips, the ﬁgure

And He Was Only Halfway Home! Gil calls the first 100 issues of Fantastic Four “the most unparalleled sustained effort I have ever seen in comics.” Hear, hear! Case in point: the Kirby-penciled, Sinnott-inked cover of F.F. #49 (April 1966), the mid-point of the fan-christened “Galactus Trilogy.” [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Bypassing The Real For The Unreal

continuity was perfect, clear as a bell. He was a pleasure to read. The author concludes his linear discussions of the comics art form with a suggestion of the field’s unfulfilled potential. As Harvey Kurtzman has demonstrated, the medium is extremely versatile and waits only for the challenging artist, the educated audience.

They “Expanded The Universes Of All These Artists” Like Gil says: EC editor/writer/artist Al Feldstein and editor/writer Stan Lee, along with Harvey Kurtzman, were able to push the artists who worked for them to great heights— Kurtzman and Feldstein at EC in the ’50s, Lee at Marvel in the ’60s. Ironically, Feldstein is pictured in the ’50s in front of a wall-full of Mad comics covers… though he wouldn’t take over that title till it was several issues into its black-&-white magazine incarnation. Thanks to Sean Howe for the Lee photo. [Feldstein photo © William M. Gaines, Inc., Agent.)

Harvey Kurtzman does not deal with the mythic hero in the romantic, lyrical way that we generally identify with comics. Harvey is almost antithetical to comics. He is a humorist, and as such he finds it impossible to be anything but naturalistic—he just can’t take the heroic—it’s too real, it’s not romantic enough for the comics audience. Kanigher’s war material—which is watered-down Kurtzman—outsold Harvey’s war stories. It was full of six-gun heroics, “Do you wanna live forever,” “War is hell,” and it did more to satisfy and fulfill the audience. For the moment, comics skips the “real” and jumps to the “ideal.” But as tastes mature, both in the artist and reader, the structure of comics will reflect the complexity and richness of the people who create and support it.

Steve Ditko

War Is The Continuation Of Profits By Other Means (Above left:) Wally Wood’s cover for the final issue of EC’s Kurtzman-edited Two-Fisted Tales to showcase the Korean War: #33 (May-June 1953). The issue would have been on sale before the truce in the war would be signed in May of that year. [TM & © William M. Gaines, Agent, Inc.]

“I’m FREE!” The above full-page panel plotted out, penciled, and inked by Steve Ditko came at the end of a several-page sequence of alternating despair and determination in Amazing Spider-Man #32 (Feb. 1966)—and is considered by Gil Kane and others to be “one of the most satisfying moments in comics.” Script by Stan Lee. Thanks to Barry Pearl for the scan. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

(Above right:) While most covers of the new Robert Kanigher-edited DC title Our Army at War were less overtly heroic than this Irv Novick example from #8 (March 1953), its stories were far more likely to have a triumphalistic “happy” ending than their EC counterparts, and DC’s war titles would have a long, long life, while EC’s were already sputtering out. Of course, one probable factor was that DC’s mags soon dealt with the more distant and history-enshrined Second World War, rather than with the Korean police action, which by this point was definitely unpopular with the mass of the American people. Thanks to the Grand Comics Database. [TM & © DC Comics.]

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“An Old Ballet Dancer Like Me…”

The Legendary GIL KANE On His Own Art— And Others’ 1986 Interview Conducted by Steve Whitaker

A/E

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: “This interview was conducted by Steve Whitaker at 1986’s UK Comic Art Convention on the Sunday afternoon, with Dave Proctor, Dale Cole, and numerous devotees sitting in.” The foregoing was the only preface attached to the following lively conversation with artist Gil Kane when it was first printed in the British fanzine Fantasy Advertiser, not long after the actual event. We’ve followed the main text just as Whitaker transcribed and edited it… except that we’ve altered the punctuation (and Americanized the spelling) in places, since both punctuation and spelling are, naturally, an arbitrary feature in a transcription of a taped or digitally recorded interview. Our special thanks to Steve’s brother, Richard Whitaker, for permission to reprint this insightful talk ...and to Steve Tice for retyping it. Oh, and a P.S.: As one who collaborated and/or socialized with Gil for more than two decades between 1969 and 1991, first in New York City, later in Los Angeles, and who regularly spoke with him by phone till very shortly before his death in January 2000, I find it difficult if not impossible to believe that he actually used the word “whilst” in the several instances where it appeared in the interview as printed; so I changed that word to the more American-vernacular (and thus far more likely) “while.” The meaning of the text, of course, is in no way affected by these slight changes. Perhaps the most astonishing thing about the interview is that at no point in the proceedings did Gil ever refer to Steve Whitaker as “My boy”… or, if he did, Steve chose to edit the phrase out of the printed version…. STEVE WHITAKER: Gil, I’ve always wanted to ask someone from DC about the big dispute that happened around 1965, where suddenly a lot of people disappeared from National Periodicals. GIL KANE: They were cleaning house; it wasn’t a dispute. Some people went onto pension very early. I remember one of the writer/editors, George… er… his brother became treasurer of the company…. DAVE PROCTOR: George Kashdan? KANE: Kashdan! Of course—he was one of the prominent guys who was forced into retirement. I mean, he was fired, so he

Just Between Friends… Gil Kane’s self-portrait and montage of the most prominent comics heroes he’d been associated with up to that time was drawn as a surprise gift for his collaborator (and de facto editor) Roy Thomas in 1970. It was utilized as the flip cover of Alter Ego, Vol. 2, #2, which was published as part of Comic Book Artist #2 (Summer 1999)… and colored by Tom Ziuko. [Batman, Atom, Johnny Thunder, & Green Lantern TM & © DC Comics; Captain America, Hulk, Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, & Rick Jones TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.; The Shield TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.; Blackmark & Savage TM & © Estate of Gil Kane. or successors in interest.]

immediately took advantage of the fact that he’d built up 15 or 20 years and began to collect his pension. Now, what happened back then was that Carmine Infantino came in as art director, then editor, then publisher and editor… for a while he was even president (of

The Legendary Gil Kane On His Own Art—And Others’

generally speaking, a nice guy—but he was probably the most inept single inker that ever worked professionally in comics. SW: Well, we could probably go into an extended bitching session about that… KANE: No, that’s probably my last word on the subject. SW: It’s puzzling, then, that you worked with Giella so much. KANE: I had absolutely no choice; it was an inflexible situation. Jobs were hard to get at that time, and while we all tried to assert our personalities, the people who had the most luck were people like Carmine—because he was Julius Schwartz’s favorite artist. So Carmine had his pick of assignments and tended to drift in the direction of his strengths. Meanwhile, most of us were assigned material that we felt totally unsuited to—but that was the kind of ass-backwards quality of the business. Everyone had vested interests in doing as little as possible as quickly as possible—the inkers, the writers—so it was the artist who was left with the need to make something out of the material; he was the only one in comics by choice. The editors were [people who had] failed in every other level of editing and publishing; the writers were all either ex-pulp writers or people who couldn’t make any other kind of place for themselves professionally, and colorists were just the kind of marginal craftsmen that comics were made for.

George Kashdan Photo courtesy of Bennett Kashdan, from Todd Klein’s blog.

DC, that is!)… and he simply turned out those people that he felt didn’t serve his needs and brought in, or at least brought to prominence, those who did. This was around about the time that Neal Adams first joined the company. Neal was obviously an excellent artist, and within two or three jobs had become Carmine’s most valued employee.

Call Me B’wana! Among other comics, George Kashdan was the editor of Showcase #66 (Jan.-Feb. 1967), which introduced the jungle master called “B’wana Beast,” some time before the changes that Gil Kane and Steve Whitaker discuss took place at DC. (The dispute Kane mentions actually occurred in 1967 or ’68, rather than in ’65 as Whitaker cites, and is still the focus of disagreements as to precise causes and effects.) Pencils by Mike Sekowsky; inks by Joe Giella. [TM & © DC Comics.]

SW: That’s a shame. I think that letterers and colorists should be thought of as something more than marginal craftsmen. KANE: Yes, of course, and they very often are, but that was the

SW: Seems a bit unfortunate for a lot of people that disappeared around then. KANE: George Papp… SW: Yes, and Dave and I were just talking about Bernie Sachs—I didn’t even know he was still alive until I saw the work he’s been doing for Who’s Who. KANE: Well, he left comics to go into advertising early on. He was always concerned with making money, and he made, as an inker, more than a great many pencilers. We were quite friendly for a while—despite the fact that I found him one of the worst inkers that I ever encountered. Bernie wasn’t without drawing skills, but he was so unsympathetic to what I or Carmine presented him….

Bernard Sachs Photo courtesy of Bernice Sachs-Smoller, who was interviewed about her first husband in A/E #121… where, through an error, her last name was accidentally rendered as “Smollet.”]

SW: The notable team-up is Sachs and Mike Sekowsky. KANE: In fact, you know, when Bernie was assigned to Justice League [of America], he almost dropped dead because of all those crowd scenes that you’d have to go through, but fortunately Sekowsky pencilled so simply, without any backgrounds, that Bernie found it suited him even better! PROCTOR: A marriage made in heaven. KANE: That’s right. Unfortunately, I also had Joe Giella for years. I thought that Giella was,

When Bernie Sachs Went Wild!

Mike Sekowsky Photo courtesy of Bernie Bubnis.

Justice League of America #5 (June-July 1961) sported the first cover of the series that was inked by Bernard Sachs, rather than Murphy Anderson. The penciler was Mike Sekowsky. While Gil Kane wasn’t wild (to put it mildly) about Sachs’ inking, others view his body of work far more favorably. [TM & © DC Comics.]

“An Old Ballet Dancer Like Me...”

It’s Not Easy Being Green (Above:) Three fellow DCers of the Silver Age that Gil mentions in close proximity in the text are shown in equally close proximity at the 2000 All Time Classic New York Comic Book Convention. (Left to right:) Inker Joe Giella, editor Julius Schwartz, and artist (and erstwhile editorial director/ publisher) Carmine Infantino. Both Schwartz and Infantino—as well as a legion of comics readers over the years—have graded Giella’s inking skills far higher than Kane did. But that’s what makes horse-racing, right? Thanks to Joe Petrilak. (Right:) Splash page of the futuristic lead story from Green Lantern #8 (Sept.-Oct. 1961), as penciled by Kane, inked by Giella, scripted by John Broome, and edited by Schwartz. Broome’s photo appears later in this issue. Thanks to Doug Martin. [TM & © DC Comics.]

way of the publishers. They made everything into a General Motors assembly line and institutionalized everything in order to get the work out expediently. The truth of the matter is that they never had to worry about content because, for years, everything sold. For years Superman had sales in excess of a million copies. SW: All through the early-to-mid-’50s, you had the [Adventures of Superman] TV show supporting his popularity. Likewise with the Batman show in the mid-’60s. KANE: But magazines like The Flash sold 600,000 copies regularly, and those were subordinate titles. Batman and Superman sold 750,000, so you can imagine what the profits were like—not even Marvel has that kind of circulation now. They paid virtually nothing for page rates, and within two or three years every major publisher was a rich man. They became such powerful figures that the richer publishers of DC are now the heads of Warner Communications— they own the most stock. SW: Getting back to the subject of inkers and assignments… KANE: Yeah. I was doing a thing called “Space Cabbie” for a while with Bernie Sachs, and even when I got material in the sciencefiction books [Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space] that I liked, I would find Bernie just changing everything line for line. PROCTOR: All the faces were changed? KANE: Everything. As a matter of fact, once, on Rex the Wonder Dog, I had Rex coming out of a plane onto the tarmac of an airport, and I left it completely open because I was becoming aware of open space and pattern in my work then… and this will show you how indifferent he was—he put tufts of grass all over this open space, absolutely oblivious to the fact that it was an airport runway. That’s the extent to which he rode roughshod over everything. The inkers had pencilers so controlled that they would complain. Bernie, in particular, would complain to Julie about the fact that Carmine and I were giving him too much to ink, and Schwartz gave him

permission to cut out what he thought was not essential. SW: Rather like the old Vince Colletta approach to Jack Kirby’s Thor, where he’d just rub out a background figure or reduce figures to silhouette… KANE: Colletta did exactly the same thing. He never worked on anyone without deciding what was going to appear and what was not. PROCTOR: Talking about various inkers over the years, one person you haven’t mentioned is Murphy Anderson. KANE: Well, Murphy is a good friend of mine, and I certainly liked his inking better than Bernie Sachs or Joe Giella. The only thing is that Murphy had a very determined style of his own, and I felt that he always looked very good on Curt Swan. SW: George Klein I prefer… DALE COE: I think the combination of your pencils and Anderson’s inks is beautiful. KANE: I never thought that Sid Greene was as good an inker as Murphy, but I felt that he was more faithful to my penciling, so I always preferred his rendering—even though there was a kind of scratchiness, a wooliness about it that I didn’t like. The fact remains that I saw everything that I had put down in pencil. DC: There was more liveliness in it, I think. KANE: That’s the one reservation I always had about Murphy’s stuff. DC: Yes, it’s very polished. KANE: But also kind of static. I thought there was a kind of stiff,

The Legendary Gil Kane On His Own Art—And Others’

Strange Mysteries In Space Splash pages penciled by Kane and inked by Sachs for (l. to r.) Mystery in Space #31 (April 1956) and Strange Adventures #77 (Feb. 1957). The former is one of the “Space Cabbie” series mentioned by Gil. The scripter of both was Otto Binder, who was featured in A/E #147. Thanks to Bob Bailey. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Gardner F. Fox Co-creator of the Golden Age Flash, Hawkman, Dr. Fate, & Justice Society… as well as of the Silver Age Justice League, Hawkman, & Atom.

Murphy Anderson was valued by DC as a full artist on Hawkman, “Atomic Knights,” et al.—but became equally invaluable as an inker.

Sid Greene

A Little Bit Of This… A Little Bit Of That

(standing) with editor Julie Schwartz in 1965. The photo, taken by fan John Fahey on a visit to the DC offices, first appeared in Alter Ego [Vol. 1] #9 later that same year.

(Above, l. & r.:) What better way to compare the inking of Gil Kane by Murphy Anderson and Sid Greene than to showcase (so to speak) the two splash pages from The Atom #10 (Dec. 1963-Jan. 1964), since they were alternately inked by that pair. Scripts by Gardner Fox. Thanks to Rod Beck. [TM & © DC Comics.]

“An Old Ballet Dancer Like Me...”

upright quality about the material. You hardly ever saw diagonal shapes or conflicting shapes; you just saw verticals and extending gestures. It lacked any kind of spontaneous quality. SW: Looks like we’ve covered most of Julius Schwartz’s roster of inkers for the first half of the ’60s. It sounds far more “know your place” than I’d imagined. KANE: Julie knew very little about our art but was rigid and authoritarian because he was terrified that the publisher would come down on him for some infraction. He was difficult in that regard. He was a nice guy in that he kept his group together as much as he could, giving us all the work that we required.

Robert Kanigher Longtime DC editor and writer.

SW: So the other side of that coin was that as part of the Schwartz stable you were always working. KANE: We had one other editor that we had to deal with, and that was Bob Kanigher— who was, simply, a murderous bastard as far as I was concerned. He was just a vicious personality and he had his favorites—he loved Alex Toth and he loved Joe Kubert— you know, the good guys.

Joe Kubert Artist, writer, editor, publisher, school founder, entrepreneur—you name it!

The Enemy Of My Enemy Is An Ace! A Kanigher-Kubert “Enemy Ace” splash from Our Army at War #151 (Feb. 1965). This feature, while never a particular sales success during its run spread over several different titles, is laterally considered one of the pinnacles of DC’s war comics. [TM & © DC Comics.]

SW: He loved Toth, but, if what I’ve been led to believe is true, he’d been held out of a window by him. KANE: No, that’s not at all true, totally apocryphal. Alex was very difficult for any of the editors to work with—he simply wouldn’t take orders. He would rewrite material. In fact, he got fired because he’d gotten to the point where he was drawing material and totally ignoring editorial restraints. It got to a point where he and Julie weren’t even talking to each other. I was in the office when Alex came in for a paycheck while Julie was on lunch hour. Julie would not stop playing cards to give Alex his check—he said, “See me after lunch.” So Toth stewed for about half an hour and finally he came in and threatened to kill Schwartz if he didn’t give him his check. He frightened Julie because he was absolutely insensate with rage. SW: This would be back in the early ’50s. KANE: Yes—about the early-to-mid-’50s, right, and that was the last time that Alex worked for DC for a good many years.

It’s A Grand Old Flag! Robert Kanigher wrote and Alex Toth drew this story for DC’s Danger Trail #3 (Nov.-Dec. 1950). According to the IDW book Genius Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth by Dean Mullaney & Bruce Canwell, the artist, who was living in California at the time, asked his New York friend Jerry DeFuccio to get reference for the official French Foreign Legion flag from the French Consulate itself. And Jerry came through! Thanks to Gene Reed. [TM & © DC Comics.]

The Legendary Gil Kane On His Own Art—And Others’

SW: He moved on to Standard, didn’t he? KANE: Doing romance material. SW: He was, in all but name alone, their art director, wasn’t he? Ross Andru, Vince Colletta, Mike Peppe, and other people working there were trying very hard to copy his style. KANE: Well, everyone… I was trying to draw Dan Barry like him, too! He was simply the biggest influence in the field at that time. After Jack Kirby left the field [sic], for an interim there was Dan Barry representing a step away from the super-hero back to a more representational style; and then there was Alex, who brought all sorts of important considerations in, such as better drawing, brilliant design—and, as a result, he filled a vacuum and became the most important artist working in the late ’40s and early ’50s. He was radical and unstable; jobs would change from title to title, but they were nearly always brilliant at that period, and he was a major influence until just short of the time he went into service, at which point EC came to the fore. Then Wally Wood, Harvey Kurtzman, and Al Feldstein became enormous influences. SW: And Bernie Krigstein, presumably. KANE: And Bernie Krigstein, who did some brilliant work for a

There’ll Be A Hot Time In the Big Town Tonight! Alberto Becattini, whose career-bio of artist Dan Barry was serialized for A/E #130-131 & 134-135 (and has since been added to and published as a book in his native Italy), sent us this scan of a splash page penciled by DB for DC’s Big Town #1 (Jan. 1951), a comic based on a popular radio series. Inks by Sy Barry. Alberto writes: “It’s true that Dan Barry’s style was the most influential at DC at least from 1948-56. In fact, when Dan left DC, his brother Sy continued working there both as an inker (giving a ‘Dan Barry-ish’ looks to several artists’ work, including Carmine Infantino, Mort Drucker, and Alex Toth) and as a penciler/inker, working in what seemed to be a good approximation of his brother’s style.” Inks by Sy Barry; script by Dave Wood. Thanks to Mike DeLisa for the photo. [TM & © DC Comics.]

short while at DC and was fired, went over to EC and did even more brilliant work. SW: I remember hearing somewhere… it seems Walt Simonson was asking Infantino how he evolved that lovely fine-line style of his and Carmine said, “Just look at Krigstein’s work.” KANE: I must tell you—Carmine was one of my most intimate associations and so was Krigstein. Simonson didn’t come into the field until 15 years after the fact. Carmine always had that line quality. It has nothing to do with Krigstein; in fact he didn’t like Krigstein’s work. SW: That’s an interesting statement.

Krigstein Meets His Waterloo? Bernard Krigstein, juxtaposed with a beautifully ornate splash page from Our Army at War #14 (Sept. 1953). Yet Gil says he was fired by DC— after which he did some even more awesome artwork for William Gaines’ EC during its last years of producing color comics. Thanks to Mark Muller. See p. 74 for Krigstein at EC. Script by William Woolfolk. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Bernard Krigstein

KANE: Yes. What he liked, although he wouldn’t admit it, was Alex Toth’s material. But he was like me—a penciler. Carmine and I used to be partners: I was the penciller and he was the inker. At that time he had the style of one artist that we both favored—Mort Meskin.

“An Old Ballet Dancer Like Me...”

The “Quick” And The Dread Mort Meskin (at right), flanked by his work from the latter part of the glory days—a “Johnny Quick” splash from Adventure Comics #131 (Aug. 1948), scripted by Otto Binder—and from his late days in comics, drawing the first true “Mark Merlin” story in House of Secrets #23 (Aug. 1959); scripter uncertain. Thanks to Mark Muller for the Mort Meskin “Mark Merlin” scan— betcha can’t say that three times fast! And thanks to Ger Apeldoorn for the “Johnny Quick.” [Pages TM & © DC Comics.]

SW: Another man who disappeared around ’65. KANE: He went to work for an advertising agency. He had a nervous breakdown and left the field. He came back once or twice but never was able to stay. The pressure was too great and the money was too short. SW: So I presume he wasn’t interested in just inking. KANE: No, and the truth of the matter is that his work was getting further and further away from the representational requirement that happened post-Kirby during the late ’40s, early ’50s, when Barry and Toth brought these Alex Raymond-like styles onto the scene. SW: The thing that always strikes me about Meskin disappearing just then is that for some reason George Roussos was suddenly in demand as an inker—at DC and Marvel—doing all sorts of inking. But Roussos [whose Marvel pseudonym was “George Bell”] was like your second-string Meskin—not that I mean to be insulting to George Roussos, a man I admire, but… KANE: No, that’s okay—he happens to be a disciple of Meskin’s. He loved Meskin, was a close friend of his who shared the same studio—he shared it with two other disciples: one was Jerry Robinson and the other was Bernie Klein, an artist who got killed during the Second World War. Meskin was one of the great forces in

the field. He started in the late ’30s, reached his absolute peak in the very early ’40s with the “Vigilante” and “Johnny Quick” material, and then by 1944 it Mort Meskin was all over—he’d gone into the first of his nervous breakdowns. When he came back in ’47, his work was still excellent but entirely removed from that intoxicating fluid style that all of us went crazy about. Everybody copied Jack [Kirby]’s pencilling and Mort Meskin’s inking. SW: Of course that’s where Meskin ended up: in the Kirby shop for, what, ten or fifteen years? KANE: Yes, he did. He worked with Joe Simon and with Jack. Joe and Jack took over a small magazine and ultimately became its publishers—through that entire time Mort was working with them. When the whole affair finally collapsed, both Jack and Mort came back to DC for a short period. Joe became an editor for Harvey Comics. It was bad for both of them because neither one had a representational style and they both took a terrible beating. They put Wally Wood on Jack in order to make his work acceptable. DP: The “Challengers of the Unknown” stuff…

The Legendary Gil Kane On His Own Art—And Others’

The Roussos Is Coming! The Roussos Is Coming! While perhaps George Roussos (seen at right in 1940) could be considered a “second-string Meskin” during his early career, his work had real virtues of its own, as per this “Air Wave” splash page from Detective Comics #76 (June 1943); script by Joe Samachson. In the 1960s, as “George Bell” (moonlighting from work at DC), he briefly became Jack Kirby’s inker on Fantastic Four (as per #23, Feb. 1964; script by Stan Lee). Still later, he was Marvel’s cover colorist in the 1970s and ’80s. Thanks to Doug Martin. [“Air Wave” page TM & © DC Comics; FF page TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

SW: They used Marvin Stein on most of the early “Challs” stories—the first one was inked by George Papp…

George Roussos

KANE: The point is that, unlike Jack, Mort penciled so loosely that no one could ink him, so he continued to ink himself until finally the area of disagreement was so wide and Mort was simply finding so much emotional pressure that he had to leave comics. He got a good job in advertising, began to make more money and get more satisfying work. He never came back to comics. SW: It’s a great shame if, as you say, he was drifting away from realism. Another couple of years, and who knows? KANE: The fact is that his peak was in 1941/42 with “The Vigilante.” I would say the first dozen “Vigilantes” and “Johnny Quicks.” He was one of the great, great artists. I wouldn’t put Jack above him. Meskin influenced just about every artist with that material. SW: You can see it in a lot of the next generation that came up in the ’50s,

who were doing things like Western comics—the shirt and trousers type action stuff rather than the long underwear characters. KANE: Right! Add the design—Mort was the only artist to have an extraordinarily sophisticated design sense. As a matter of fact, when Alex Toth came in, he was very smitten with Mort’s design, and while he didn’t draw like Meskin he used Mort’s sense of blacks. Then, of course, he was also into Noel Sickles. Essentially Alex, like most of the artists I knew, whether it was Frazetta or Williamson, had a single point of development they would polarize around; with Toth it was Sickles, with Williamson and Frazetta it was Alex Raymond and Hal Foster. As a result, in the beginning, they just copied these guys cold and eventually they assimilated all of their attitudes and didn’t stray terribly far from those original styles. So with that kind of intense involvement, by the time they were 21, 22, 23, they were all excellent, but my feeling is that there was a cost for all of that with Williamson and Frazetta in that there was hardly any real development past that point. They weren’t able to take this enormous advance they’d made over everybody else and use it. What happened was that, as they pushed it to a certain point, it began to fall in on them. Without having someone to follow and no attitude of their own, my feeling was that, considering how good they were at 21 and 22, their work at 50 and 55—while it’s certainly more than competent—is, in the end, disappointing. SW: More or less on automatic pilot. KANE: Of course. It’s not even automatic pilot—they just weren’t

“An Old Ballet Dancer Like Me...”

able to evolve. In other words: it’s one thing to have an emotional, a subjective attitude, but it’s another to have an overview that allows you to control elements in order to achieve some specific point. For instance, I’ve always found it amazing that none of these artists have ever thought of writing their own material—which is symptomatic of the fact that the drawing wasn’t in the service of an idea, it was an end in itself. SW: Don’t you think that one of the reasons for that could lie with the American comic industry being more or less labor-intensive—at least traditionally—so that with, say, a comic “shop,” you have people who draw carpets, people who draw curtains, people who draw, ink, letter in an assembly line. KANE: The large companies did, yes. SW: Well, presumably, the temptation is to say, “My strong point is drawing. I’ll let someone who can really write do the scripting.” KANE: That’s not the temptation, don’t you see? What is created is a system that draws people to it for whom the breakdown of work is satisfying. My problem was that I didn’t have a single “role model.” I liked artists who were diametrically opposed in values. I liked Louis Fine and Alex Raymond, but I also loved Kirby and Meskin, I loved the poetic, lyrical potential at the same time as loving that powerful, direct, primitive quality—and it just took me years to reconcile those elements. I’ve always felt that if I had to characterize my own work, when it finally started to hit its stride and take on a style of its own, it looked like powerful gymnasts, ballet dancers, trapeze artists—you had a kind of lyrical quality to the body, a poetry of movement but at the same time a degree of power, strength. The artist I felt most analogous to was Reed Crandall—in the early days when he did “The Ray” and all that stuff for Quality before he went into the Army. His work had its focus on classic figure drawing—right out of Bridgman—and at the same time he had a great sense of movement—his figures were so powerful. SW: The thing I love about Crandall’s work is, despite its being brilliantly drawn, the figures are still idealized; you can see they’ve been constructed. This didn’t change when Crandall’s rendering style changed, either—I mean, you’re talking about his early, Eisner/Iger shop, Lou Fine style. KANE: Yes, yes, but, you see, that was only external, as any technique with rendering is. The involvement with body movement was purely his own. For instance: Lou Fine could not articulate the figures—they always had an awkward kind of brilliantly gangly quality… [laughter as Gil demonstrates] but none of his action scenes were believable in the way that people vaulting over low walls and

hurtling through the air were in Reed’s pages. SW: His [= Crandall’s] use of cast shadows, especially with people or objects off the ground, was marvelous. KANE: He did figures in “The Ray” which influenced my entire approach to Green Lantern. I mean, all the super-heroes seemed to run when they flew. I wanted to make Green Lantern fly this way. [gestures like a diver] SW: Straining into the air. KANE: Right, and I did that through Reed Crandall’s influence. I tried to reconcile those elements of power and lyricism, and it took me years to do it. Alex Toth, Carmine, and Joe Kubert—all of us were within a year or two of each other—in fact, most of us went to school together—and we all had different stages of development. Kubert was precocious and developed ahead of everybody else, and yet the thing that’s developed for him over the last 30 years is he’s become a richer inker, and yet his conceptions, his penciling conceptions, I find are pretty much the same as they were 30, 35 years ago. When he does, say, a “Hawkman” story, you know it’s never as effective as the stuff he did in the ’40s when his conceptions were purer and his drawing wasn’t so hot. So his inking is richer… the black, the play of skin tone, and that modeling quality that just drives you crazy… SW: Not being that familiar with his ’40s work, I’m not in a position to judge, but I find it hard to agree with you about Kubert’s “Hawkman.” However, sticking with the issue, it does seem that, as you’ve been saying, people were using certain artists as role models during the “Golden Age,” and the minute they shifted away from the super-hero books they moved toward a completely new set of ideals—from, say, 1947/48; everyone with a career bridging that rift seems to have had a ’40s style—yourself included. KANE: Oh, yes. SW: And suddenly in the ’50s everybody’s drawing differently. You mentioned before about Infantino having always had that fine line style we all know so well, but if you look at Infantino in the ’40s, he has a really thick, chunky art style which is radically different from his later stuff. KANE: That’s because he was using a brush in those days, and he was heavy-handed. That’s why he

Hammers & Sickles Since Gil discussed artists Frank Frazetta and Al Williamson on p. 25 in this issue, we’ll content ourselves with showing you the visage and handiwork of the incomparable Noel Sickles. Not only did his art on his own adventure comic strip Scorchy Smith influence Milt Caniff’s on Terry and the Pirates, but Sickles even worked with Caniff on the latter feature for a time, further contributing to Caniff’s style. The superiority of Terry, as Gil himself often said, was that Caniff was a better writer than Sickles, thus underscoring that writing, often as much as or more than art, was a key factor in a strip’s popularity. Photo & strip from Sept. 30, 1936, appear in the IDW volume Scorchy Smith and the Art of Noel Sickles. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

The Legendary Gil Kane On His Own Art—And Others’

Rays Of Hope Quality’s super-hero feature “The Ray” as drawn by two of the early greats. (Left:) Lou Fine, in Smash Comics #22 (June 1941), (Right:) Reed Crandall in Smash #25 (Aug. 1941). Scripters unknown. Both scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus website. [The Ray is now a trademark of DC Comics.]

Lou Fine A “Fine” portrait drawn by Mike Netzer.

couldn’t use a pen—he got scratchy lines out of it because he couldn’t control it at all. That was my problem, too—I’d either mash the nib flat or I would touch it too lightly. The good inkers were people like Joe Kubert who could handle pen and brush, were never intimidated by them, and could use ’em like a watercolorist. SW: Were you ever inked by Joe Kubert?

KANE: I’m not sure… I think there was one… yes! As a matter of fact I was. Carmine and Joe took on Avon’s Jesse James for a while, and Carmine and I were partners again after the war—only we reversed the partnership—he did the breakdowns and I tightened his pencils up… then Joe inked it. We were trying to make money at the time. SW: So those Jesse Jameses that Overstreet says are Kubert… KANE: That’s the three of us. It’s either the three of us or the two of them. [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: See A/E #148 for Infantino/Kubert art from Avon’s Jesse James comic.] I’ve been partners with virtually everybody in the business—Carmine, Roy Thomas, even Burne Hogarth, and almost anyone that you can think of at one time or another. I was never partnered with Al Toth—he didn’t need me.

COE: Vince Colletta follows Toth on the “Johnny Thunder” strip. KANE: Yes, that’s right. The thing was, I worked with [Toth] a lot, only to the extent that I lifted a lot of him. I followed his precedent, but Colletta, Giella, and Sachs had a license to kill as inkers. They were allowed to eliminate penciling. When they complained to Julie that Carmine and I and Alex were giving them too many pencil lines, he said that from now on they were going to eliminate anything that didn’t look right to them. SW: How can anyone complain about having too many lines on an Alex Toth page?! I mean—he’s Mister Economy. KANE: Believe me… Giella was an incompetent, and the other two only cared about volume and the amount of money they made.

Reed Crandall as a high school student in 1935. Within a few years, he was a pro. Seek out Roger Hill’s new book Reed Crandall: Illustrator of the Comics, from TwoMorrows Publishing. Thanks to Shaun Clancy.

SW: Those Jesse James comics also had a lot of Everett Raymond Kinstler’s work in them. Did you… KANE: I never cared much for Kinstler. I always thought he was a complete phoney-baloney. He was just a fake with a real facility for

“An Old Ballet Dancer Like Me...”

rendering and clearly had no interest in storytelling other than to swipe figures or anything else. His inking was powerful, though, and it even improved once he stopped following Raymond and started swiping Kubert. His style became so loose at that point that I felt it was bordering on painting. SW: The odd thing about that strip is that he was being inked by Gerald McCann on the later ones. KANE: All part of the power of publishers to simply do anything that they wanted. This was about the time when Russ Heath came to light—because of the naturalistic style they required— not necessarily better, you understand, just naturalistic. Heath became one of the most important artists of the period; he was simply every editor’s choice… especially for war material. He was Bob Kanigher’s first choice, and he was also used a lot by Harvey Kurtzman. It’s peculiar, you know, because Harvey himself was someone whose own style was terribly expressionistic, and yet when he worked with artists, he preferred ones who were incredibly accurate. SW: John Severin and Will Elder spring to mind as examples… KANE: Yes, people who did material that had none of the flair or expressiveness that [Harvey] exhibited. He would never have been comfortable with someone like Williamson, but he was totally at home with Russ Heath. Harvey and I became good friends, but

I wasn’t terribly competent back then—I was just looking to get myself on my feet. I just couldn’t figure out why it was taking me so long when all my contemporaries—Joe Kubert, Carmine, and Toth—were passing me by, and it wasn’t until I realized I wasn’t them… Kubert could wing things. He never learned to draw the figure, but he could fake the figure beautifully, and he had an instinct that allowed him to transpose what he saw into very accurate stuff—he gradually formed his own drawing style. Alex, on the other hand, was a worker who did tens of thousands of sketches… Frazetta, too—he filled I don’t know how many dozens of notebooks endlessly doing Foster and Bridgman, and he was also attending the Art Students League taking life classes five days a week. I found that working like Infantino or Kubert wasn’t doing it for me. Neither of them could draw well, but they could fake well enough to get by. That’s when I started to teach myself through Bridgman, through Roy Crane, all of the things that I felt I needed to know about—deep space, composition, design, the figure itself— and ultimately I worked out a sort of aggressive philosophy about all of those things. Suddenly, during the mid-’60s, I felt my whole personality pull together, and consequently I felt that my work from the late ’60s and early ’70s began to reflect what I had taken the time to assimilate, and that was the time when Carmine started to run into trouble. He’d been winging it for a long time and had grasped an enormous amount intuitively, but he didn’t know about perspective, he made terrible mistakes there, and his anatomy was approximate. All of a sudden it all started to fall apart.

You Pays Your Money… Gil makes it clear that he preferred Joe Kubert’s more primitive art on the 1940s “Hawkman” (as per the splash above left from Flash Comics #86, July 1947; scripter unknown) to his more sophisticated approach to the 1960s Winged Wonder (as per The Brave and the Bold #43, Aug-Sept. 1962). Actually, so does AE’s editor—though Roy T. likes both. Thanks to Al Dellinges & Jim Kealy, respectively. [TM & © DC Comics.]

The Legendary Gil Kane On His Own Art—And Others’

SW: Things don’t seem to have changed much. KANE: But everything has. Everything I do now has to be done entirely differently. [Frank] Miller spends close to a year doing four books. It’s not possible to make a living simply on volume, because it’s self-defeating—you can only make it on very personalized kinds of books. I’m anxious to get back and start applying myself in a new way that’ll make books as good as I can without concerning myself about how long it takes, how fast it’s done. I’ve never worked that way before—I’ve always worked under the gun—and I think it will take a transitional phase to reach a sort of definitive style. There’s a real difference between working spontaneously and doing the kind of involved work of someone like Brian Bolland, for instance. Take a look at his inking—you know it takes a long, long time—it’s painstaking.

Home, James! Everett Raymond Kinstler (circa 1950) and his apparently Kubert-influenced cover for Avon Periodicals’ Jesse James #17 (April-May 1954). Thanks to Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. [© the respective copyright holders.]

For myself, in order to inject what I think is now essential into the material in order to characterize and deepen it, to give it tone and a certain mood, it will take more work than I’ve ever given it before. I’ve never been a gifted inker, so I feel that I really have to try to work out an approach that isn’t labored but is, at the same time, appropriate. A more kind of intense effort is required—an effort that I see everywhere. There’s no other way to do it; and, in fact, that’s why the monthly books are suffering—they can’t get good artists to do the monthlies, they spend so much time… Garcia-Lopez, who draws really quite well, does four books and it takes him six months—so he has to have one or two fill-in books.

Something else I’ve noticed is that, despite there being a far more human scale to a lot of the modern stuff, there’s nothing beautiful about the figure work and the strips generally look ugly—not incompetent, you understand—there’s just an ugliness about the material. SW: There is a sort of aggressiveness to the inking, a sort of means to an end approach, if you like… KANE: Yes. It’s like taking one aspect of Jack Kirby’s work. There

was a beauty, somehow, to Jack’s early work that ultimately got blunted in the last few years. You know, so many of the young guys are doing material that, while it’s far more representational, doesn’t have any sense of grace or classic feeling whatsoever in their figures. FLOYD HUGHES: They look at the technique and try to imitate it when they haven’t learned to draw. KANE: Right. I used to be able to look at a piece of work and, simply by the gesture, the lift of the head, I’d be able to say “that’s this artist,” and you could see artists swiping them because their attitudes, the feeling of poetry they had for hands, faces, gestures came through. Hogarth and all those artists had distinct qualities that are missing now. There isn’t a single figure that you could identify out of context as, say, [George] Pérez or any of those others. SW: Since you’re talking about the genesis of your style, something I wanted to ask you about was inking your own stuff. I don’t know how much of your Western stuff for DC you inked… KANE: I did a couple. SW: Well, that’s interesting, because I saw an issue of a Dell/Western comic called Hennesey that you drew and inked around 1960. KANE: Are you sure? I thought I did breakdowns on all those jobs. SW: I’ll have to check. What interests me is that it looks like Gil Kane six or seven years on.

War Fever Russ Heath and a latter-day re-creation of his cover for Timely’s War Action #14 (June 1953). [War Action #14 TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

KANE: Actually, what happened was that I needed to fulfil a volume of work that exceeded the amount that DC was supplying me with; and despite Dell being one of the lowest-paying publishers at the time, I did several TV Western comics for them. I think this was about the time that the Western titles at DC started to die off. I hated doing things like Hennesey, and they were paying so little that I was trying to do three complete pages a day. It wasn’t all that successful, I have to admit. SW: You must have picked up quite a bit of speed during the ’60s. KANE: I did. I think the most successful piece of fast work I did was with Wally Wood’s outfit. I did a couple of features—“Raven” was one of them—and I was penciling, inking, and writing three pages a day there.

“An Old Ballet Dancer Like Me...”

SW: You did some Undersea Agent stories solo as well… KANE: Right. Every day I would start off at about 7 in the morning, and by 6 o’clock that evening I had three pages. I still felt that I was slow, though, because a friend of mine named Manny Stallman had preceded me on “The Raven” and that son of a gun was doing seven pages a day—and I thought it was some of the best work I’d ever seen him do. SW: I think that was probably because he was drawing them with his hands and inking with his feet—or vice versa. KANE: [laughter] The point is that he was working in commercial art, and he just brought commercial art points of view and techniques to bear. For instance, he didn’t involve himself with backgrounds—it was just figures and expressive shots. After a while it all became self-defeating, the stuff became so primitive that they weren’t able to use it—and they replaced him with me. SW: That’s curious, after what you said about Meskin. You get someone like Stallman doing just about the fastest and, as you say, crudest comic art I’ve ever seen… KANE: There were a couple of “Raven” episodes that I remember as being very effective. SW: Yes, and Stallman did a lovely black-&-white wash story for Warren around that time. KANE: The point is, the economics dictated a great deal, and one of the reasons I wanted to ink was not so much to protect my own penciling but because inking doubled the amount of paid work I was getting from Tower Comics, who published T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. There was a constant battle with DC, since they had a kind of Bernie Sachs syndrome going, where all they wanted was a clean professional ink job, the kind of work epitomized by Sachs and Seymour Barry. I liked Sy Barry’s work over my stuff, as it happens; I felt that he didn’t bring it down at all. SW: The same goes for his inking Alex Toth. KANE: Did you ever see Bernie Sachs on Toth? [groans] It was devastating. Bernie would be like a member of your football team, and when you kicked the ball towards the opposition’s goal Bernie would catch the ball and bring it back towards your own side. He would simply neutralize what everyone did, so that the only person who came out significantly was Bernie. As I say, it was kind of a scramble there. The editors were completely powerful—they could fire, they could hire…. and they could savage. When EC collapsed, Wally Wood tried working for Kanigher—and you’d think that he’d be a natural to work for him. He did one job and got so battered and ridiculed, and that’s not the worst display I’ve seen— John Severin was the perfect war artist, but he managed, I think, four jobs for DC. Have you ever seen, in the movies, when a soldier has his epaulettes torn off? That’s what Kanigher did to him with every job. He would tear him down, demean him… and I once saw him fling the pages across the room, and Severin just stood there and took it—I saw him moved almost to the point of tears at one point. Severin carried a .45, you know—he carried it not because he was aggressive but because had this great sense of impotence. He was never a confronter. It’s like—Jack Kirby, with all that hostility and aggression in his work, was the most blithe person. When you dealt with him directly and he had any antagonism—as he did towards Stan Lee—it never came out in any discussion between them, but come lunchtime with a few friends you’d think he was having a fit, he was so angry. And yet he’d come into the office, Stan would say, “Jack, would you

When I See Hennesey This 1959-62 TV series starring one-time child star Jackie Cooper was celebrated for its gentle in-service humor. Gil Kane penciled Dell/Western’s adaptation of it in Four Color #1280 (Feb.-April 1962). Scripter & inker uncertain. Thanks to Alan Hutchinson & Anthony DeMaria. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

change this?”—and he’d say, “Sure.” All of that frustration came out in the work, which obviously made it richer… SW: So you were in this situation of being fenced in at DC all the way through the ’60s and then suddenly you started broadening your horizons…? KANE: I was at odds when Kanigher started on me—I used to give what I got, but in the beginning he really used to bloody me up—I mean, he was an educated man with a grasp of language that put me in the position where, in order to survive the battering, I started to read critical essays and the kind of material that would arm me. I was no match for him, being culturally impoverished, but ultimately I beat him back, and the result was that we never worked with each other again. Julie became my sole basis for getting work at DC. But then, after a while, I began to get tired of Julie sitting on me all the time—so I started taking work from Jack Schiff. Then Stan asked me to come over now that Marvel had started to roll. In the beginning he said, “Your work is too much like D’Artagnan.” SW: Is that why they put Joe Sinnott on some of your “Captain America” pages? KANE: Yes. Stan thought my figures were too delicate. SW: That’s bizarre. I mean, I remember back in the ’60s opening a copy of Tales to Astonish and thinking “Wow!” After playing musical artists with the “Hulk” strip for well over a year, Jack Kirby breakdowns and all…

The Legendary Gil Kane On His Own Art—And Others’

And The Dawn Comes Up Like T.H.U.N.D.E.R. “The Raven” in issues of Tower Comics’ T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. (Left:) Story & art by Manny Stallman in #9 (Oct. 1966). (Right:) Story & art by Gil Kane in #14 (July 1967). Repro’d from DC’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Archives, Vol. 3 & 5. [TM & © Estate of John Carbonaro.]

KANE: Jack Kirby wanted to do the whole thing himself, but Stan insisted that in order to spread the quality of the magazines around, he would have Kirby break down everything and then bring people in. He felt that Kirby’s breakdowns could survive any penciling or inking over them—he was almost right. SW: But getting, say, John Buscema to work over Jack’s breakdowns is… KANE: Buscema assimilated a lot of Jack’s approach and finally got away from the rather sterile Alex Raymond look. He crossbred Jack with his own resourcefulness and produced some very effective material. That’s all down to Stan, though. Jack would have preferred penciling, inking, and writing everything himself. It wasn’t just Stan who didn’t let him. Back when he was at DC, they wouldn’t let him ink or write. They did let him do some small science-fiction stories by himself—that was for Jack Schiff. The editor was all-powerful, we had to conform—but there were some of us that simply couldn’t. Alex Toth couldn’t. Many of us couldn’t deal with that sort of repressive situation, and so eventually the air went out of the family that DC had through the late ’40s and early ’50s. By the mid- to late ’50s, new people came in—Russ Heath, Ross Andru… SW: And DC lost Sy Barry when he went into syndication, which was quite a blow, I’d imagine. KANE: Absolutely. First Sy worked over his brother Dan’s work,

and then Dan Barry recommended him for the Phantom strip. Around about that time, Carmine and Joe Kubert did “The Flash,” and since it was a hit, they decided to do “Green Lantern.” Even so, we were all just fooling around until Jack came in. He was the ultimate super-hero artist. He started working for Marvel because he was fired by DC. SW: That’d be over the Sky Masters syndicated strip he was doing. [INTERVIEWER’S NOTE: Kirby’s editor at DC, Jack Schiff, claimed he was using ideas from DC material—and Kirby was working with two of Schiff’s scripters, the Wood brothers, on both Challengers of the Unknown and Sky Masters at the time. The strips even shared inkers— both Wally Wood and Marvin Stein; consequently, pressure was brought to bear.] KANE: Jack Schiff claimed that he owned part of [Sky Masters]. As a result, Jack axed the strip and was wandering for a couple of years until Stan found a place for him—at the lowest rate that Jack had ever worked for. Their rates were poverty low rates, but Jack could get no other work, so when he fell in with Stan, after one of the worst situations he’d ever endured, Stan’s total approval of everything he did freed him again to a certain extent. Everything started to roll for him—first with the monster stuff and the Westerns—then, when DC’s super-heroes started to hit, Marvel took these tired ideas like duplications of Plastic Man and so forth, but, you know, through Jack. Lee and Kirby worked together, Jack essentially creating the context for the material and Stan sort of

“An Old Ballet Dancer Like Me...”

Office Politics Is The Continuation Of War By Other Means (Left:) John Severin drew, and France “Ed” Herron wrote, this entry for Our Army at War #67. Repro’d from the 1979 Fireside/Simon and Shuster trade paperback America at War: The Best of DC War Comics. But DC war editor Robert Kanigher apparently hadn’t agreed with book editor Michael Uslan’s assessment, since he’d browbeaten Severin, who consequently did few jobs for the company. (Right:) Wally Wood actually drew a total of three stories for DC’s war comics under editor/scripter Kanigher, commencing with this one from All-American Men of War #29 (Jan. 1956). Whatever RK thought of Wood’s art, this yarn led off the issue. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert & Sharon Karibian. [TM & © DC Comics.]

directing it, and they set the field on its feet again. SW: But Marvel were basically very small-time back then. KANE: The thing was that, when Marvel started up, they were so impoverished that they had sold off their distribution company— namely Atlas—and they were distributing through DC. Marvel was only taken on because the government had launched an anti-trust suit against DC because they controlled the distributing and publishing—they were forced to take on Marvel as a way of breaking up the monopoly which they enjoyed. Anyway, they restricted Marvel to eight titles, and these were the books that Stan and Jack started the monster material with. It wasn’t until ’64/’65, when Marvel was absolutely bursting as a result of their inability to get beyond that restriction, that they broke their contract with DC and its distributor to go over to Curtis and allow for the expansion that built an empire. [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: Actually, it was in 1968 that Marvel publisher Martin Goodman sold his entire Magazine Management company to Perfect Film & Chemical conglomerate, which also owned Curtis Distribution. Soon after that, when Marvel’s contract with distributor Independent News was up, the company switched to Curtis.] SW: Since we’re on the subject of distribution, can you tell us anything about the squeezing-out of Tower Comics in 1967? They were more or less put out of business by their distributors, weren’t they?

Wally Wood

KANE: No, it was just bad management. I was working for them at the time their magazines began to fail. Harry Shorten was the publisher—he was the editor of MLJ through their highest point back in the late ’40s and he eventually started this company, hired one of the Archie artists—Samm Schwartz—and set him up as an editor. They began by producing exact duplicates of the Archie material [Tippy Teen] and then decided to enlarge their line with regular comic stuff [T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, Fight the Enemy, Undersea Agent, etc.]. Nothing sold and they never got real distribution; the books couldn’t get any support because of such faulty, spotty exposure, and ultimately Harry Shorten put the whole operation under because it was losing money. SW: That’s interesting. I was under the impression that Tower were squeezed by DC and Marvel. I mean, they [Tower] were definitely producing a very superior product with no adverts… KANE: The first mistake they made was selling for a quarter when everybody else was twelve cents. They stayed at a quarter, and as a result they never got a real proportion of the market. As a matter of fact, when any of the companies—DC included—made the jump from twelve cents to fifteen, Marvel benefitted by staying at twelve cents and were improving their circulation in exact proportion to DC’s loss—that’s how critical small changes in price were.

The Legendary Gil Kane On His Own Art—And Others’

“Captain” Of His Fate? For some reason, Stan Lee decided not to proceed with this mid-1960s “Captain America” story being penciled and scripted by Gil Kane. These three pages of rough pencils were supplied to A/E some time back by the late Alan Kupperberg. [Captain America TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

John Buscema Photo card from the 1980s. Thanks to Dewey Cassell. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Reprints Be Not Proud! John Buscema’s cover for The Avengers #56 (Sept. 1968), as inked by George Klein—and reprinted on an “Alan Class” British reprint a bit later. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“An Old Ballet Dancer Like Me...”

The Sky’s The Limit! Jack Kirby penciled and Wally Wood inked the Sky Masters of the Space Force strip from the very beginning, with Dick and Dave Wood scripting. The deal had been put together by longtime DC editor Jack Schiff—but a legal dispute between Schiff and Kirby a couple of years later ended both the strip, and Kirby’s then-employment by DC Comics. Interviewer Steve Whitaker’s analysis of the Schiff/Kirby dispute on p. 46 is partly at variance with other accounts. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

SW: I still think that both companies benefitted from people like Wally Wood being available again. KANE: Don’t you see? Wally Wood was a meaningless figure back then. He wasn’t productive, and after the DC [sic—but surely Kane actually said “EC”] stuff nothing he did was really ever successful. Samm Schwartz was in charge at Tower, but he would delegate: he would let me do what I wanted, and likewise with Wally. Both of us were intent on making money—Wally made money by involving as many people in his operation as possible and getting them to take as little for it as possible—I tried to make money by doing as much work as I could all by myself. SW: Did you letter your strips as well? KANE: No, as a matter of fact, that’s the only thing I didn’t do. Anyway, so that was the situation: the magazines [i.e., Tower’s comics] failed because there was no support, they were overpriced for the market, and at that time individual artists were still not terribly important to the public. In fact, the publisher, traditionally, had so much contempt for the individual creators that he wouldn’t allow them to sign their work. We were simply reduced to individual skills—the editor would mix and match, take this artist here and this writer and this colorist, this inker, and just put the whole thing together as a mosaic—a mosaic for which he would take the whole credit. That’s the way it was until EC started, and even though the editors there controlled the material, they wanted individual quality and excellence in the work—so certain artists and some writers started to come to the fore. Then, when Marvel hit its stride, Stan put over the brilliant idea of involving the reader, making the artist a familiar figure—the writer was, of course, mostly Stan himself— and ultimately they realized that Jack sold more books than anybody and Steve Ditko sold quite a few books. Out of this came the new style of working where we didn’t work from scripts—the artist not only dramatized the material but actually constructed the basic narrative. This changed the position of the artist in relation to the previous situation of being under the control of the editor, the writer, and the inker. Consequently, for years, comic stories became nothing more than fight scenes and spectacular splashes, but eventually some stronger writers emerged who really collaborated with the artist. They would talk over storylines, the writer would do a couple of paragraphs which summarized what

Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

Jack Schiff Photo taken by DC production chief Jack Adler. Courtesy of Todd Klein’s blog.

The only known photo of the two Marvel titans side by side. Taken at a 1966 National Cartoonists Society gathering. Thanks to Ger Apeldoorn.

they had discussed, the artist would then build a 20-page book out of it, and the writer would then be in a position to second-guess the art so he was able to relate his script to the art far more thoroughly, which made the material richer and far more vivid, as far as I was concerned. SW: So you were in this highly creative climate—pacing up and down your cage, so to speak—and, with your working for companies outside of DC, actually getting to write and produce the whole thing yourself. Do you think this was the moment when Gil Kane arrived? You said earlier that you were particularly happy with your work around then. KANE: Yes, and I finally felt strong enough to go out and challenge the situation. I wanted to do my own stuff: [His Name Is] Savage, Blackmark… I felt I had attitudes for the first time that I could carry through successfully without someone telling me there was some better way to do things. SW: Could you give us a rough chronology including Savage, Blackmark, working for Tower, and your leaving Green Lantern and The Atom? KANE: Well, the big problem was, I took a studio. Jim Warren wanted me to do some work for him; I wouldn’t unless he rented a lavish apartment for me

Roll, T.H.U.N.D.E.R., Roll! Wally Wood’s cover for Tower Comics’ T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 (Nov. 1965). [TM & © Estate of John Carbonaro.]

The Legendary Gil Kane On His Own Art—And Others’

The Plot Thickens…

in a building in which he owned a studio and office—he had the penthouse at the time. I never thought he’d do it. Once I got into the studio, I never wanted to work at home again. I had to justify the existence of that studio; I had a luxury apartment all to myself— something I’d dreamed of since I was Jack’s assistant and DC had rented a lavish apartment for him in a place called Tudor City in New York, overlooking the harbor. So, despite it being a dream come true, once I was in there the rentals were so high I had to find work. I got rid of Warren—for whom I’d never really wanted to work—and around this time Wally Wood called me. I knew Samm Schwartz and I knew Harry Shorten, so they called me down there and I started doing fill-ins for Tower Comics. In order to get everything done, however, I had to upgrade my production. SW: This would be around 1966? KANE: Yes, right around ’65/’66. Anyway, I was doing that work and soon found myself coming into my own strength and, at least in my own mind, becoming quite authoritative. I decided I wanted to do a book of my own. Harry Shorten had talked to me about the idea, but he offered so little support financially and at the same time clearly wanted all the rewards the book might make, so I decided to do it on my own. I went to a distributor and they responded well to my proposal—His Name Is Savage—and while I was doing it, I had the idea for Blackmark and got my lawyer to make an appointment with Bantam Books. They were only going to give us ten minutes…

A/E editor Roy T. here: “Sorry, but I have to amend slightly what Gil says about how in the 1960s the Marvel writer and artist ‘would talk over storylines, the writer would do a couple of paragraphs which summarized what they had discussed, [and] the artist would then build a 20-page book out of it.’ That may have been true sometimes, but hardly invariably. E.g., although Jack Kirby was definitely the primary plotter on Marvel comics he drew after a certain stage, surviving partial-plots by Stan Lee for Fantastic Four #1 & #8 consist of considerably more than ‘a couple of paragraphs’—nor is it known or probably knowable whether or not Lee and Kirby had discussed those storylines previously. And, circa 1966-67 and later, I myself was generally writing several-page plots for most of the comics I scripted, usually without any prior consultation with the penciler. Case in point: On the left, the first page of my three-page synopsis for The Avengers #40 (May 1967), as salvaged by Chris Boyko. On the right, that issue’s splash page, which is based on the plot’s first paragraph. I’d be the first to say that penciler Don Heck contributed materially to the fleshing out of the story; but I felt a responsibility to point out that Gil’s description above is an overgeneralization of the Marvel method of 1960s and ’70s.” [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

an hour and a half later, we had agreed to put a book out—in fact, I didn’t even have a name for the character, I just showed them my ideas for the paperback format and said, “Pick the kind of material you want.” He wanted sword-&-sorcery, so I made up Blackmark. That was my richest and most satisfying period. I was still doing Green Lantern and The Atom for DC at the time, and when Blackmark came through, I went and told them I was leaving. I had a whole new world starting for me. SW: You must have been fairly demoralized by that time—I mean, at one stage you were inking Green Lantern and getting the look of your other, non-DC stuff when they presumably came to you and said, “We’d like to stick Sid Greene on you and make the thing like a DC comic again.”

“An Old Ballet Dancer Like Me...”

KANE: They still let me ink any covers I did, but what happened was that eventually Marvel came to me and asked me to do [Amazing] Spider-Man—John Romita was not able to produce pencils for the book every month. I came in and proposed a radical change from what they had been doing. SW: You started with the drugs issue. KANE: Yes, it was the drug issue—a sensational way to grab the headlines. I made up a story and Stan put in the copy. I never thought that issue was anything special—it was simply that we didn’t get a Comics Code stamp. Anyway, Stan liked what I was doing and so, for the next several issues, I did Spider-Man with him. It was a first-rate process. He taught me a lot—he was very critical of certain things and knew what he wanted in the Marvel style and ultimately he showed me how to apply it. Stan made so many requirements of me as a writer, though—a couple of times I said, “Look, if you don’t like what I’m doing, do it yourself!” But he didn’t want that; he just wanted to take the artwork home at night and there, from after dinner until 2 or 3 in the morning he’d write a book—and it was some of his best stuff. Then Roy Thomas and I became friends—he always wanted to work with me—and he took over on Spider-Man. SW: You know, I almost forgot, when I was writing a profile of you for the convention booklet, that you did quite a considerable block of issues on Spidey. I tend to think that was because of your work being buried under John Romita and the whole less than tasteful early-’70s Marvel thing… KANE: Giacoia, Frank Giacoia, was also inking Spider-Man and he was very heavy-handed—he was a better artist than, say, Bernie Sachs, but, firstly, he would impose a regular angular construction on my drawing, and secondly he never left any open space, so his background man would simply litter street scenes with paper and refuse where I wanted open space to sort of contrast the patterns and the buildings. Nevertheless, I thought some of the penciling there was some of my best. The most rewarding work up there was when I started working with Dan Adkins and we did Captain Marvel. With my penciling and Dan’s inking, we did the best work on the character before they dropped him—Stan didn’t like the direction the book was taking. SW: It took something like two years for those last five issues to come out. I remember being amazed to see the second-last issue; I thought the book was cancelled! Then there were the “Gulliver Jones” episodes and Conan... KANE: I was the first one to want to do Conan as a comic, so when Savage came out I’d made a deal to do Conan as the sister magazine; that was before anyone in the field could be bothered with it. The guy who published Conan was called Marty Greenburg, and he owned a small hardcover publishing house called Gnome Press. We had debated whether to try Conan in that format and then, when I did Savage, I decided to try it in comic form. I made a deal with the agent who handled the Robert E. Howard estate. The agent’s name was Oscar Friend—he was an old pulp writer and, in fact, he gave me a box to take home which contained everything they owned that Howard had ever done. I found original manuscripts there… letters

“A Book [Or Two] Of My Own” (Left:) The original 1971 Bantam paperback edition of Gil Kane’s Blackmark. (Right:) The “Lee Marvin” cover for His Name Is Savage (June 1968). Gil says this was his “richest and most satisfying period.” Savage cover painting by Bob Foster. [Blackmark TM & © Estate of Gil Kane; His Name Is Savage TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

from H.P. Lovecraft to Howard… also letters from… who was that wonderful writer? She married a science-fiction writer called Henry Kuttner. DP: That’s C.L. Moore, isn’t it? KANE: C.L. Moore! Of course! She was working at a bank as a teller and she wrote letters to Howard that he kept—they were the most beautiful, poetic, lovely, intimate letters… they were sensational. They talked about how she wanted to write. I went through every scrap of paper in that box and held onto it for about nine months—I thought that Friend had possibly forgotten about it, but he didn’t. What happened was Friend became quite ill, and the Howard estate’s bank wanted a new agent for the material, and they got Glenn Lord, who was a fan down in Texas. He took things over and he wanted the box back. What I did was… through Glenn Lord, I optioned a couple of stories—I owned “Valley of the Worm” and “The Blonde Goddess [of Bal-Sagoth],” [the latter of] which I used as the basis of the two Conan issues that I did. SW: With some lovely inks from Ralph Reese. KANE: Right—and also Dan Adkins on the second issue. I must say here that I hated Ernie Chan’s work on the “Valley of the Worm” adaptation I did [for Supernatural Thrillers], but then I was unhappy with quite a few of my inkers at that time… SW: But the work with Adkins and Roy Thomas continued with Warlock. KANE: I was plotting all those stories, and when we got to the third or fourth issue, which had some sort of warthog character (all the villains were evolutional mixtures of men and characteristically nasty animals), I thought it was one of the best pencil jobs I’d done in a long while. Adkins did an absolutely sensational inking job on it, and I also got a good job on the coloring, and that made a difference. It actually marked a break, because I remember walking

The Legendary Gil Kane On His Own Art—And Others’

period, and John Verpoorten, the art director, were two friends, and they would simply give me carte blanche. I did whatever I wanted, and whenever Roy had a new book coming up, he would insist that he and I do it. So we did the first issue of “Iron Fist” [Marvel Premiere #15] and many other debut issues, and it was Roy who insisted that I do most of the covers. [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: John Verpoorten’s actual position was production manager. The art director at that point was John Romita. Gil’s point, however, is otherwise valid.]

John Romita From the 1975 Mighty Marvel Comic Convention program book.

SW: A great deal of them inked by Tom Palmer. KANE: They only let me ink the Western

Look, Ma—No Wings! Gil’s second penciling job on Amazing Spider-Man was done for the first of the three so-called “drug issues”: #96 (May 1971). Here Spidey rescues a stoner who thinks he can fly. Script by Stan Lee; inking (and doubtless a few alterations at Stan’s behest) by John Romita. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

down the halls of Marvel and being stopped by different people who told me that they loved this Warlock job. At that point I stepped over a professional line of sorts and I started, happily, to get all the top rates from different companies. SW: Something I’m very vague about is your position at Marvel at the time. You did something like 80% of their covers [for 50 or 60 titles in the mid-’70s]. KANE: In the period I was there, I did something like 878 covers over ten years, and at the same time I was doing almost as much work as Buscema and Kirby. I was doing pencilling on a lot of features. For a while, I was doing a story a week— regardless of what they gave me—either that or forty covers in pencil. SW: Did you have an official position at Marvel, though? KANE: No, I didn’t. I just went up there and Roy, who was editor through that

The Comic That Wouldn’t Die!

Dan Adkins From the 1975 Mighty Marvel Comic Convention program book.

Roy T. again, with a bit of info: “As Gil and Steve Whitaker discuss, it did take eight months—though nothing like two years—for the final five issues of Gil’s and my Captain Marvel series to come out. But it definitely wasn’t because ‘Stan didn’t like the direction the book was taking.’ Rather, publisher Martin Goodman canceled the title with #19, based on sales before #17, the first issue by Gil, Dan Adkins, and me, came out. When MG saw sales figures on our first issue or two, he brought the mag back— though, for unknown (and obviously poor) reasons, he canceled it again after #21 (Aug. 1970). Still, our five issues must’ve sold fairly well, because CM was revived the instant Stan became publisher, with #22 published for Sept. 1972… only by then Gil and I were too busy elsewhere to handle the book.” Thanks to Barry Pearl for the scan of the splash page of CM #20 (June ’70). [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“An Old Ballet Dancer Like Me...”

Conan By Any Other Name… Gil Kane, working with writer Roy Thomas, adapted two stories which he says he “owned” (meaning that he’d optioned them earlier from the Robert E. Howard estate) for Conan the Barbarian #17-18 (Aug. & Sept. 1972) and Supernatural Thrillers #3 (April 1973). But Roy recalls clearing rights directly with REH literary agent Glenn Lord at the time, with Glenn saying nothing about any prior lien; so perhaps Gil’s option was a non-exclusive one. Be that as it may, he delivered masterful jobs on both tales! The Conan splash, inked by Ralph Reese, is from #17; “Valley of the Worm” was inked by Ernie Chan, and its second half was dialogued by Gerry Conway. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Conan Properties International, LLC, & Robert E. Howard Properties, Inc., respectively.]

Ralph Reese with his ACBA award. Since Ralph isn’t mentioned in A/E #143’s coverage of the Academy of Comic Book Arts banquet held in June 1973, perhaps his precise award was given in another year. Thanks to Ralph for the photo.

covers. My own feeling about Palmer was that he was better suited to Neal Adams. If only I could have worked with someone like Dan Adkins—but Dan kept drifting in and out of the field like a hobo, and he was very slow.

but on one or two of the books I did the penciling and the outlines of the figures and Wally did the blacks—just putting in the blacks and stuff—Hawk & Dove #5, for example. It was a great and satisfying period for me. I was working like crazy with no obstructions.

SW: A shame, that. If we can backtrack a bit, what about Captain Action?

SW: Your scripts took on a lot of character. You could begin to recognize a Gil Kane style.

KANE: I worked with Wally Wood on Captain Action. Jim Shooter wrote the first two issues before I took over the writing. I also inked most of the remaining issues and I had a great time! In fact I kept the prints because nobody remembered that I did that stuff and I thought it was pretty good writing, some of my best material all round.

KANE: I wanted to write my own stuff. I always had men crying, you know. I loved doing things with a tragic quality.

SW: I look at those short-lived ’68/’69 titles as a spate of mini-series before their time. They were all canceled more or less within a year. You took on The Hawk & the Dove when Ditko left it… KANE: Yes, I was working so fast that, I’m not sure if you realize,

Ernie Chan also had long runs as the inker of Conan the Barbarian and The Savage Sword of Conan.

SW: That second-last Captain Action! It’s got all those incredible, heartwrenching figures—the dead wife and mother, the son, the father… KANE: That’s right—but I have to tell you that Julie never thought much of them. SW: But then… that really isn’t his style—all the overblown emotion and such isn’t the Schwartz style. He goes more for that cold, calculating “educational science-fiction for kids” stuff. KANE: Absolutely—so I found that I never had a comfortable berth riding with DC until Giordano came in and let me do Westerns which I was able to write.

The Legendary Gil Kane On His Own Art—And Others’

KANE: Yeah, and with the syndicated strip the original idea was to put two standard 3-panel strips on top of each other. I said, “You mean to say that you’re not going to break up that space more creatively and dominate the page?” You know, it took me weeks to convince them that the material should be handled that way. SW: A battle that you eventually lost, sadly… KANE: Absolutely true. They gave me about eighteen months. SW: How long did it last as a one-tier strip? KANE: Eighteen months. Some way through the first year, I thought I did some of my better work, but everything was easy subject matter for me. I must tell you, nothing took much time—which was just as well, since I needed money. Eventually I had to go back to Marvel and do some work for them while I also did the Star Hawks and Tarzan strips. SW: Didn’t you do some animation work as well? We see “Gil Kane” flash by on the credits.

“Madam, I’m Adam!” Roy T. once more: “Sorry to have to interrupt again, but, much as I loved working with Gil, I can’t let pass unchallenged his statement that he ‘was plotting all those [“Warlock”] stories.’ The first three, which I scripted, were definitely co-plotted by the two of us, in face-to-face conversations… and the series’ basic concept as well as much of the origin story was already in my mind before I invited Gil to be the artist. While Mike Friedrich, scripter of Warlock #3 & 4 (1972-73), reports that Gil ‘work[ed] from a written plot outline. I never talked him through a story. I was a little intimidated by Gil, since he had been one of my favorite DC artists as a young fan and that was still true when I was working at Marvel.’ Warlock #5, Gil’s last issue, was scripted by Ron Goulart. “Gil’s additions to the ‘Warlock’ tales he drew were substantial— e.g., it was his idea to give the hero a first name (‘Adam’) and to ‘borrow’ the then-defunct Fawcett Captain Marvel’s lightning bolt, two notions I enthusiastically embraced—but Mike and I both did considerably more than just dialogue stories concocted by an artist.” The above interior splash page from Marvel Premiere #1 (April 1972), in which Adam Warlock emerges from his space cocoon, was inked by Dan Adkins. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

SW: You did “Outlaw” in All-Star Western. KANE: I also worked for Joe Orlando, who also let me write some of the material for the mystery books. So, I was able to go back and forth between Marvel and DC at that period. Any time I had an argument with Roy, I would go right over to Joe, and Dick would find me something. I worked between two companies until I got the syndicated strip. SW: Oh, the Star Hawks strip.

A Fist-Full Of Dollars Although Kane and Thomas both departed the “Iron Fist” feature after the first story/origin, RT and subsequent editors-in-chief (in this case, Marv Wolfman) continued to have Gil pencil the series’ covers, such as his pencil layout and the finished (flopped) cover art for Iron Fist #4 (April 1976). Inking by Frank Giacoia. Thanks to Mike Burkey for the cover sketch, and to the Grand Comics Database for the cover image. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“An Old Ballet Dancer Like Me...”

KANE: They needed someone adaptable, and since I was so crazy about lyrical, poetic art styles coupled with being crazy about Jack, it gave me a range that allowed me to adjust to situations like animation and advertising work. Handsomely paid work, too. SW: Around the late ’70s, it was almost a treat to find a Gil Kane job somewhere. You dig out the comics and come up with something like “Whatever Happened to Rex the Wonder Dog?” or those beautiful Jungle Book features you did for Marvel Feature. KANE: Those Mowgli things were printed ten years after they were penciled. SW: Seriously? So that’s why they put a Marvel script hack on the last two. KANE: That’s right. They were originally done with Roy Thomas as the editor and me adapting, but by the time they were ready for inking, Jim Shooter thought the better of it. The book was going to be called Wild Boy, but they ran into problems with the copyright. SW: Kipling’s been in the public domain for ages, surely… KANE: Well, in England, it’s fifty years after the death of the author. In the States, the copyright had worn off so we could use it,

Credit Where Credit Is Due Gil received credit, along with erstwhile comickers Jack Kirby and Doug Wildey, as a “creative consultant” on the animated 1980s Hanna-Barbera TV series The Centurions. But though the pay was good, he found the work, for the most part, less than aesthetically rewarding. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Hawk… Dove… Action! (Left:) Gil reports that, although he is credited as having “written and illustrated” The Hawk and the Dove #5 (April-May 1969), fellow comics legend Wally Wood actually handled the blacks in the art. [TM & © DC Comics.] (Right:) He also says that editor Julie Schwartz “never thought much of” the emotionally charged deaths of the hero’s family in Captain Action #5 (June-July 1969). Script & pencils by Kane; inks by Wood. Thanks to Doug Martin for both scans in this grouping. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

The Legendary Gil Kane On His Own Art—And Others’

Is There A Doctor In The House Of Mystery? Gil penciled two stories in House of Mystery #180 (May-June 1969)—scripted by Mike Friedrich and himself, respectively, with both inked by Wally Wood. Thanks to Doug Martin. [TM & © DC Comics.]

but it wasn’t possible to reprint it anywhere else. SW: Getting back to animation…

Mike Friedrich at 1982 San Diego Comic-Con. Photo by Alan Light.

KANE: I was about to say—DC even suggested I do Rambo. SW: With Ditko doing Chuck Norris—why not?

KANE: I was called by a syndicate which got the rights to do Rambo as a newspaper strip. They asked me to do it, and so I did some sample material. Anyway, it worked out fairly well, we’d agreed on money and everything, and then we found that no newspaper in the United States would carry the strip because the subject had become so stigmatized that they all felt that public opinion was too much against it. At the time I was working at the [animation] studio, so I suggested that they try for Rambo. They did, and they let me do the presentation designs for the characters. They liked it very much and we got the contract, so I started designing all the other shows like Centurions and so on. Jack had been designing most of them before I got there, but over a period of time Jack’s stuff had become less representational… SW: Just abstract shapes. KANE: Yes, right. So, as a result, they found that I could bring some of Jack’s force, if not his invention, to the work and at the same time

make it look realistic enough. I used sort of an elaborate, dramatic approach which seems to have worked out really well. In fact, it’s worked out well right up to this moment. SW: Is it very different working that way? KANE: I work on big boards—enormous 20×30 ones. Once I had a board that was so big that I couldn’t reach. It was like working on a mural. I had to put it on the floor and stand over it. SW: Jackson Pollock! KANE: Yes, it was sensational, and the thing was a success. I only had a night to do the whole thing. Anyway, I’m ready to come back to comics. The only thing wrong with working in animation is that, while it pays a lot, you’re simply serving up a skill. SW: The artist as a commodity… KANE: Right—you’re just a commodity, and while it’s good to be skilled, at the same time it’s the producer who really puts things together. He’s the one who hires the artist, the writers, the directors, the painters, and so on, and to some extent you can’t not give him what he wants and still hold on to the job. Of course, they pay you for the privilege—which is good—but it destroys your sense of identity. You have to suspend your judgment in so many situations and stick strictly to the point of view that they advance.

“An Old Ballet Dancer Like Me...”

From Europe, With Love Moebius The pen name of French cartoonist Jean Giraud (19382012), who under the name “Gir” also drew the popular strip Lt. Blueberry.

(Above left:) A comics-style illustration by “Moebius,” as printed by Marvel’s Epic Comics imprint in the 1991 volume Moebius—Chaos. [TM & © Estate of Jean Giraud.] (Above right:) An exciting chase scene from Hugo Pratt’s graphic novel Corto Maltese in Siberia. [TM & © 1979 Casterman; English translation © 1988 NBM.]

One thing that I love is new work, and the reason I came here wasn’t because of the convention. My wife and I had planned the trip anyhow; the con was just a nice thing that happened on the way. We intended to come here and Paris to see everything that we weren’t getting. I had the feeling that we just weren’t seeing what was really happening over here. I saw some European stuff which could absolutely turn you around—it was just devastating. SW: Yes, everything from Moebius to Hugo Pratt, who is, sort of, Europe’s answer to Alex Toth. And the creative freedom is so different from that of America.

Hugo Pratt Italian cartoonist (1929-1995).

Toppi Of The World, Ma! Italian cartoonist Sergio Toppi (1932-2012) and a page from one of his graphic novels. [TM & © Estate of Sergio Toppi or successors in interest.]

The Legendary Gil Kane On His Own Art—And Others’

Star Hawks Come Home To Roost You got a glimpse of a color Star Hawks strip by Gil Kane and writer | Ron Goulart back on p. 9. Here’s another one, dated Oct. 16, 1977. [TM & © Newspaper Enterprise Association, Inc.]

KANE: The range there, compared to the range in America, seems enormous. There’s everything from highly expressive, stylized efforts to very literal, representational, photographic efforts. SW: I think people like Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz are picking up on that. You can see that Miller has looked at Enki Bilal’s work as well as Muñoz, McMahon… and I hear Sienkiewicz is interested in a guy called Sergio Toppi, an absolutely masterful artist. KANE: Primarily, I feel that their great strength is essentially that of a designer. Toppi’s a great designer, but none of these guys are strong in terms of being narrative. Now, there’s an artist over there called Arno—do you know his work? SW: I’ve seen some. KANE: I think that Arno is one of the greatest storytellers I’ve ever seen. I also like Muñoz. SW: Yes, what a brilliant man. Keith Giffen should be tarred and feathered for what he does with Muñoz’s stuff. KANE: Well, at least it suggests that he’s sensitive to better work. I think he’s trying to get away from the standard. SW: I think it’s pretty insensitive to just trace panels by someone else and then get paid for producing “original art.”

The Jungle [Comic] Book Copyright problems may or may not have been the thing that delayed Roy’s and Gil’s initial adaptations of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book from being published in the 1970s—but if Gil’s memory is correct (and Ye Editor isn’t saying it isn’t), things must’ve been cleared up by the time those stories and several more were published in Marvel Fanfare. This one is from #9 (1983). Inking by P. Craig Russell; script by Kane. Originally, co-plotter Roy Thomas was to have been the scripter. Thanks to Alex Grand & Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“An Old Ballet Dancer Like Me...”

There Arno Words… A cover—or perhaps it’s only part of one— by cartoonist “Arno” (Arnaud Dombre). [TM & © Arnaud Dombre or successors in interest.]

KANE: Is that right? Do you mean that Judge Dredd and those characters are drawn by…? SW: Oh, I thought you were talking about war books. Well, even 2000 AD uses a lot of Spanish artists—out of Barcelona, mostly. I think their page rates are, how can I put it? Highly competitive. KANE: Well, I recognize that, and I know that they worked on the war libraries, because I was approached by them myself—but I thought that mostly Bolland and McMahon and all those people were responsible for Judge Dredd.

Sing, You Sinner! Argentine cartoonist José Muñoz—and a page from his (and writer Carlos Sampayo’s) graphic novel Alack Sinner: Flic ou Privé. (We kinda suspect the latter phrase may mean “Private Eye,” but don’t quote us.) From the 1983 French edition published by Casterman. [TM & © José Muñoz & Carlos Sampayo.]

KANE: I think that’s true, but practically everybody in the business traced and copied. I know that the Thun’da book by Frazetta is 90% cold swipes from Foster’s Prince Valiant. There’s simply no question about it, but it was a means towards an end. What was ultimately presented was more Frazetta than Foster. I don’t like Giffen’s work, but I recognize how he is struggling to get rid of the standard institutions, the house style that Marvel and DC have developed between them. SW: Well, Giffen had already worked up quite a reputation by copying Jack Kirby for quite some time. It seems to me that “old habits die hard” is what it boils down to. Just because most artists swipe doesn’t make it all right. That’s saying it’s an institution just like all those others he’s supposed to be struggling with.

SW: Judge Dredd was originally designed by Carlos Ezquerra, a Spanish artist, although at the time Mike McMahon did a lot of work on the early Dredds in a style heavily influenced by Ezquerra and his colleagues. You can see some interesting European influences on his later work—like Toppi, for instance. KANE: I think McMahon is a really first-rate artist. I heard that he hasn’t been working for a couple of years for health reasons. SW: Okay, well, just to wrap things up, we’d all like to know what’s

KANE: Well, in any case I think it’s good to see a wide variety of work. There seems to finally be some kind of internationalization happening, whether we want it or not. Everybody in Britain, in America, in Europe, seems to be moving towards a common meld. I see that the British material is so much more sympathetic to the American point of view than the French… SW: That’s true, comics for kids… KANE: You know, all of the war books look as though Jack could have been involved in them early on. SW: What’s odd is that something like 50% of them if not more are drawn by Spanish studios.

Judge Not… English artist Mike McMahon and the black-&-white art for one of his Judge Dredd covers. The “hero” eventually became quite popular in the United States. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

The Legendary Gil Kane On His Own Art—And Others’

coming next. We haven’t heard from you for a while… KANE: Well, as I say, I’ve taken two years off to get rich, and now I can afford to go back into comics. I want to go back now because I want to exercise my own judgment. This time I want to be in control of the material to the full extent that comics will allow. My current situation doesn’t allow me nearly as much freedom as I want, so I’m already working on Talos of the Wilderness, which should come out some time in ’87. It was supposed to be a maxi-series, but they kept us waiting so long that I lost interest, the writer lost interest… so we agreed on my just wrapping it up in one big 40-45-page special, and then we’ll see what happens. DC wants me to do some Atoms, and then I’ve got a couple of other projects that I’ve talked over with them… and some others. SW: Have you thought about what sort of format this is going to take? It’d be good to see your work away from the newsprint, with some classy coloring. KANE: It just so happens that we have one format that I have evolved which is my favorite, and it’s something that I’m already contracted for. I can’t say too much about it, but I will say that I think it will be some of my best stuff simply because it offers all the things that I think are important to the medium. In many ways, things have come full circle. I’ve been lucky over the years in that each new cycle starts at a level just above the last. I feel that the last sequence I started was the “Superman” and the Sword of The Atom material, which I thought was a cut above what I’d previously been doing; and now I feel that, with this new experience, I expect, I hope, to start at another level. I look forward to challenging some aspects of contemporary material. One of the things that gets me about today’s stuff is that it’s so powerful that it doesn’t care about anything but its own power…

“It’s Superman!” Gil did some superlative work on “Superman” stories, both penciling and inking—and occasionally scripting—in the 1980s. This full-page DC house ad displays his flair for Siegel & Shuster’s Man of Tomorrow. [TM & © DC Comics.]

SW: Presumably today’s generation of comic producers didn’t have Foster and Raymond as influences—or Sickles, Crane, Caniff… KANE: Well, an old ballet dancer like me… SW: We’ll take our poetry where we can find it. Thank you for talking to us, Mr. Kane.

Steve Whitaker

Talos A Story! DC kind of “buried” the 1987 double-size Talos of the Wilderness #1, which was conceived & drawn by Gil Kane and co-written by GK and Jan Strnad. This Kane cover for Comics Journal #78 was superior to that used on the DC “special.” [Art TM & © DC Comics.]

The late Steve Whitaker was the main interviewer (and the transcriber) of this conversation with Gil Kane, which took place in London, England, in 1986. Also seen is the cover of the related issue of Fantasy Advertiser, which juxtaposed The Atom & Fat Freddy’s Cat from The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. [Atom TM & © DC Comics; Fat Freddy’s Cat TM & © Gilbert Shelton or successors in interest.]

My Life In Little Pieces Beginning: An “Offbeat Autobio” By Golden/Silver Age Writer JOHN BROOME

A/E

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: The importance of writer John Broome to the Silver Age of Comics can scarcely be overestimated. He belongs to a small pantheon that includes Julius Schwartz, Robert Kanigher, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Gardner Fox, Joe Kubert, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Larry Lieber, Joe Simon (re The Fly), and perhaps one or two others. Broome’s decade-plus scripting of DC’s reconstituted Flash and Green Lantern series (scribing the second “Flash” story in 1956’s Showcase #4 and co-originating the Hal Jordan “GL” in 1959) capped his fine work for editor Schwartz’s two science-fiction comics, Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space, particularly his co-creation of “The Guardians of the Clockwork Universe” in the former’s “Captain Comet” series. Nor should one ignore his contribution to latter-Golden-Age DC Comics, particularly his authoring more “Justice Society of America” scripts than anyone save co-creator Fox, commencing with the masterful All-Star Comics #35 (1947) and including all issues from #39 through that title’s end in 1951’s #57.

Memories Are Made Of This (Left to right:) The cover of John Broome’s 1998 memoir My Life in Little Pieces, featuring a drawing by the writer… JB’s inscription to his daughter Ricky and her husband Dominique, upon the book’s publication… and a photo of the Broome family over Christmas 1956: John, Peggy, and Ricky. With thanks to Ricky Terry. [Book cover © Estate of John Broome.]

So when it became known that, at the turn of 1998—only a little more than a year before he died, and the same year in which he would make his one and only appearance at a comics convention—John Broome had published a small volume of memoirs, researchers of heroic-comics history were naturally eager to read it. In 2017 I was finally able to do so, with the help of Paul Trimble, whose account of a 2006 lunch in Paris with John’s widow, Peggy Broome, was printed in Alter Ego #142. Soon afterward, again with the aid of others, I was fortunate enough to establish contact with their daughter, Ricky Terry, who like her mother still lives in the City of Lights, which had long since become the Broome family’s second home. Ricky generously loaned me her own copy of her father’s book, My Life in Little Pieces: An “Offbeat Autobio,” gave me permission to reprint it in Alter Ego, and also kindly sent me several family photos, which will see print in this and future installments.

My Life was printed in Tokyo, by publisher Meisou Shuppan, since Japan had become a third home to John. The memoir—it would be a bit of a stretch to term it a true “autobiography,” nor was it intended as such—is a limited edition clearly meant for family and friends. Regrettably from a comics historian’s point of view, it contains no direct references at all to the comic books, comic strips, or science-fiction pulp stories he’d written over the years. Rather, it’s a non-linear amalgamation of anecdotes, reflections, and observations—but these are valuable in their own way, taking us inside the mind of one of the major comic book writers of the middle third

of the 20th century. John (whom I had the pleasure to meet and talk with for a little while at the ’98 San Diego ComicCon) does offer fleeting word portraits of a bare handful of his comics contemporaries: Flash and Green Lantern editor Julius Schwartz and fellow scripters David Vern Reed and France “Ed” Herron. Because his memoir offers few hard facts of John Broome’s life, perhaps it will prove useful to present same up front, as an ongoing point of reference to a life that was lived out on several different continents: Irving Bernard (John) Broome was born into a Jewish family on May 4, 1913. A fan of science-fiction from an early age, he began writing for American comic books in 1936 and for SF pulps in the 1940s. His representative for much of his post-World War II prose fiction work was his National/DC Comics editor, Julius Schwartz, who’d been an SF literary agent since the 1930s and kept his hand in that field even while on staff in the House That Superman Built. John got married in the late 1930s. In the early 1960s he and wife Peggy began spending much of their time in Paris. By 1966 they had moved there, after which his comic scripting greatly decreased; his last comics stories appeared in 1970. He continued to travel widely, eventually becoming an English teacher in Japan. He died on March 14, 1999, in Chiang Mai, Thailand, while swimming in a hotel pool on vacation with his wife. He was 85 years old. And now, it’s time to meet John Broome through his own words, as retyped for us by Brian K. Morris. The writer commences My Life in

Beginning: An “Offbeat Autobio” By Golden/Silver Age Writer John Broome

Flash Of Two Artists (Left:) John’s editor, agent, and friend Julius Schwartz (on left) with Peggy & John Broome on an outing which one photo in daughter Ricky’s possession suggests was taken in Gaylordsville, Connecticut, on Sept. 28, 1946. This snapshot was first supplied to A/E’s editor years ago by Schwartz and previously appeared with other pics of the Broomes with Julie and his future wife in issue #38, the Julius Schwartz memorial issue… although Julie gave the date as July 6. (Center & right:) According to the Grand Comics Database, John Broome’s first script for National/DC saw print in All-Flash #22 (April-May 1946), with art by Martin Naydel and story-editing by Julius Schwartz, under editor Sheldon Mayer. Three decades later, DC had that tale redrawn by artist Edgar Bercasio (using Broome’s original script) for Four Star Spectacular #1 (March-April 1976). The 1946 scan may be from microfiche; thanks to Jim Kealy for both. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Little Pieces with quotations from well-wishing friends, followed by an anecdote starring “Vern” (the aforementioned David V. Reed)… a short poem… and then we’re into the first of Broome’s many incident-laden essays. Stick along for the ride, which will be continued in most future issues of A/E until the book has been completely reprinted. You’ll meet a man whom, I suspect, most of us would have enjoyed knowing better in person… although, for my own part, I’m simply glad I got to meet him, just once in my life….

Part I: Acknowledgements: Some few friends who read parts of the text, or listened to the cassette, reacted in encouraging ways that helped keep me going. Here they are... “...all told in Mr. Broome’s uniquely personal style. Hugh Wilkinson “The piece entitled ‘Oofty-Goofty’ is absolutely a masterpiece.” Ken Woodroofe “l envy you your memories and your ability to write them down.” Kathryn (Kitti) Weissberger

Vern Vern had the world by the tail. Maybe still has. He was one of the ﬁrst pot smokers in the U.S. and today ﬁfty years later he still smokes, unfiltered Camel cigarettes and pot (but won’t touch acid or hard stuff). Built like a smoothDavid Vern Reed limbed truck driver,

Vern, Baby, Vern! (Left corner:) David Vern Reed—whom John invariably refers to in his memoir as “Vern”—in a detail from a group photo taken at a 1947 DC Christmas party. That pic originally belonged to Julius Schwartz, and this detail was kindly supplied to us by pro letterer Todd Klein; thanks also to Will Murray. Todd writes that Vern is seen quite small in the original photo, but that “former DC editor Jack C. Harris said it does look like the man he worked with in the 1970s when Vern came back to write for DC. Harris said he was kind of scary, and reminded him of a mobster.” (Above:) The GCD records Reed’s first script for DC as being the colorful “Ride, Bat-Hombre, Ride!” in Batman #56 (Dec. 1949-Jan. 1950). Pencils by Dick Sprang; inks by Charles Paris. Thanks to Jim Kealy. [TM & © DC Comics.]

My Life In Little Pieces

he was born with a hair-trigger wit. Early in our acquaintance he said, “Give me a word, any word, and I’ll pun on it.” I said, “Hypochondriac.” A momentary pause, then: “Andre hits me so I poke Andre accurately in the nose.” You never got one up on Vern; at least I never did. If anything casts doubt on whether the human race deserves to survive, it’s the way we treat our fellow creatures, the animals. There was a protest scrawled on a wall in Paris a recent summer: vivisection sadisme. l like to think the archangel Gabriel has started leaving graffiti around.

I Am A Fool I am a fool Cousin-german to an ass And my shoes squeak. On my vest food stains From uncountable dinners that didn’t agree. Made (one feels) to sing But whence comes the Rau-cau-cau of a raucous crow? How hideous (one feels) to have shoes That squeak, a stained vest. And the pois’nous knowledge That what is is not true Only what ought to be.

On Idealism There aren’t many idealists, Platonic idealists, around anymore. In 1968, in Israel where I stayed for a while on a kibbutz, a young married couple lit into me one day because I had the temerity to use the expression, “the essence of masculinity.” The female as might be expected in that heyday of Women’s Lib was the more vehement of my two attackers. Not only wasn’t there anything in existence remotely resembling an essence, but there wasn’t any such animal as masculinity either. I was dead wrong on both counts. As Vonnegut would say: Ho-hum. Japan is one country where idealists don’t abound at all. They get along there without idealism; they don’t need it. They are as humane as their counterparts anywhere else and a lot more considerate of others than most races, but they aren’t idealists. It’s just that practicality or enlightened self-interest does for them what principles and ideals do for the best among westerners. It comes out almost but not quite to the same thing. A very dainty Japanese lady of my acquaintance, the purest spirit in fact that I have ever encountered, for several years kept on her dining room table a pretty pink receptacle that housed a roll of toilet paper for use in place of napkins or tissues. Finally, she removed it, no doubt sensing something wrong. But what permitted such an extreme economy measure (the life of this lady had been indelibly marked by her deprivations decades earlier during the Paciﬁc war) was, it is pretty clear, the Japanese weakness where ideas are concerned. The idea of toilet paper cast no reverberations around that pink canister for her nor, I must confess, after enough times at her table for me either.

Fake News – 1941 Style This short “autobiography” of John Broome appeared in the Sept. 1941 issue of the science-fiction pulp Fantastic Adventures, in conjunction with his short story “The Pulsating Planet.” Far as we can tell, there’s not a word of truth in the bio… although the photo seems to be Broome (though whether the moustache was genuine in ’41 or airbrushed in, we couldn’t say). Art by Albert Magarian. Thanks to Art Lortie & David Saunders. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Beginning: An “Offbeat Autobio” By Golden/Silver Age Writer John Broome

Riddle Q - Why is God like an adverb? A - Because He answers the questions How, When, Where, Why—and Wherefore. About adverbs, I don’t know whether the new linguists have succeeded in abolishing them. One hopes not, one devoutly hopes not. This movement, along with set theory and the new math, seems kin to the advance in auto design some years ago that required the user to remove a fender in order to change a tire—a powerful stride in the wrong direction.

Some Observations Life is a run-on sentence, but travel lends it punctuation. In Japan, even heaven is overcrowded with some 800 deities in residence.

Holons All children should learn about holons in high school or earlier. The word was coined by Arthur Koestler. A holon is a part of an organic unit such as the human body. For example: it is a part which is at the same time both subservient to the whole unit and self-assertive on its own hook. Cells are holons, and organs such as liver or lungs. The operative word here is self-assertive. Koestler doesn’t belabor the point, but it is clear that an organ which is “self-assertive” must have a self. If it has a “self,” it must have intelligence. Do the cells of our body have intelligence? It is hard to see how they could function without it. Children in school should be given the opportunity to learn that their selves—their particular boyself or girlself—are really composed of thousands, millions of other selves living quasi-independent lives side by side inside them.

Wife Peggy We are close to our 50th and I can truthfully say she’s never bored me. On the contrary. Long ago, l began to jot down the Peggyisms—remarks of hers that particularly delighted me—that have popped out of her so effortlessly and so inimitably, as it seems to me, down through the years. We are living in 1962 in the Square du Port Royal in Paris. Peggy is reading a newspaper. The emergency squad of the city’s ﬁre department has rescued a cat trapped in a chimney. She says: “There’s something nice about firemen everywhere.” It is 1968, the time of student riots and confrontations around the world. According to Peggy: “It doesn’t seem fair. The youth not only have youth, they want power too. It’s just not fair.” “My opinion of Guiseppe took a nose dive when l found he had only a three-year card.”

Arthur Koestler Hungarian-British author (1905-1983) of the classic | anti-totalitarian novel Darkness at Noon.

In other words, Guiseppe Englert, an Italian-born musician, married incidentally to the daughter of the blind organist of St. Eustache, had only a temporary visa like ourselves, and was not a permanent resident of Paris.

You’re A Star! The real Peggy Broome was depicted on pp. 61 & 62. But perhaps John was also thinking of the wife of whom he was to write so admiringly near century’s end when, for Green Lantern #16 (Oct. 1962), he scribed the tale that introduced the Silver Age’s Star Sapphire as a challenging alter ego of GL/Hal Jordan’s love interest, Carol Ferris. Pencils by Gil Kane; inks by Joe Giella. Thanks to Doug Martin. [TM & © DC Comics.]

“I have a great deal of sympathy for the East.” This was in America some years before departing for Europe. The East was Russia. I don’t know any more just what brought this on. In 1963, after she had listened to a Paris radio broadcast concerning the increasingly dangerous Cold War: “You know, I’m just as impatient with the East as I am with the West.” By 1966, we had really become expatriates. In Paris, baseball news from America comes to us as from a foreign country: “Uh, the National League is so changed, honey. Whoever heard of San Francisco?” But she is still absorbed mainly with broad international questions: “Who do the ‘untouchables’ of Japan look down on?” By 1967, we had moved to our permanent residence in Montparnasse, which made our life easier but didn’t noticeably

My Life In Little Pieces

“We’ll Always Have Paris!” In Detective Comics #344 (Oct. 1965), during a period in which he and Peggy were spending an increasing amount of their time in Paris, John scripted this “Elongated Man” yarn set in the French capital, starring newlyweds Ralph and Sue Dibny. Artist Carmine Infantino fulfilled his part of the bargain admirably. The editor of both this and the Green Lantern #16 splash on the preceding page was, of course, John’s pal Julius Schwartz. Thanks to Jim Kealy. [TM & © DC Comics.]

improve Paris weather. And the skies of the so-called City of Light hadn’t cleared in weeks when l got up one morning to open the blinds and peer out unhappily. Peggy (from bed, sleepily): “What kind of a rainy day is it?” One day in the 1960s, I was reading a news magazine. Me: You know, Russia and China may go to war. She: Really? With whom? And at another time not out of the blue: “You know, I’m glad Alaska is bigger than Texas!”

Ricky Terry & Dominique Brisacque John Broome’s daughter (who uses the above professional name) and her husband. They reside in Paris.

Comics legend Jim Steranko showcases his distinct take on the Dark Knight Detective on the cover of

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Pete Morisi’s cover to Peter Cannon... Thunderbolt, V3 #52 (June 1966). [TM & © Estate of Pete Morisi.]

Charles Biro’s gruesome Daredevil #6 (Dec. 1941). [© the respective copyright holders; Daredevil is now a TM of Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

The PAM Papers (Part 2) by Michael T. Gilbert

ast issue we published a sampling of correspondence between veteran comic book creator Pete Morisi and his pen-pal, Glen D. Johnson. We have more letters for you this time around, edited for clarity. Glen, a retired teacher, is also a long-time fan and a former editor of the venerable fanzine The Comic Reader. I recently wrote to Glen requesting info on how he met PAM. He replied in a letter dated 2/17/17: “While [I was] teaching on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico in 1964, Ronn Foss visited me. He showed me an issue of a Charlton Lash LaRue and asked if I knew the artist. One quick look and I told him it was George Tuska. ‘Wrong!’ was Ronn’s answer. ‘It’s Pete Morisi.’ Ronn showed me where it was signed ‘PAM.’ I later found out that an editor told Pete he needed a more stylized look for his artwork. At the time, he was sharing an art studio with George Tuska and other artists. Pete asked George if he would mind if he drew in George’s style, and of course George said it was all right with him. Pete said many times when he met with a group of artists he would yell across the room to George Tuska, ‘Hey George, you still stealing my stuff?’ “I started corresponding with Peter in 1964 on a regular basis until his death. I visited him in New York City on three different occasions; the last time was in 1993.

Separated At Birth? (Above:) Pete Morisi’s art was often mistaken for George Tuska’s. Here’s a Tuska page from Crime and Punishment #64 (Nov. 1953). (Below:) And here’s a Pete Morisi crime page from Comic Media’s Dynamite #2 (July 1953). Kinda similar to Tuska, no? Both scripters unknown. [© the respective copyright holders.]

“Pete always looked forward to retiring so he would have more time to spend on his artwork. With his job as a cop, he was always rushed. However, once he retired he never found very much work. Pete was very stubborn. He didn’t want to do art unless he could pencil and ink. He could have found lots of work at DC if he was willing to pencil or ink, but not both.” Pete, who passed away in 2003, enjoyed discussing his profession. It’s fascinating to hear his thoughts on the comic book scene of the ’60s on, as well as on his fellow cartoonists and Charlton editors. PAM was also a hardcore comic art enthusiast, and his informal, chatty letters are similar to the gossipy emails I share with my own cartoonist pals. Let’s start off with a bit of comic history, courtesy of PAM!

Lashing Out! (Left:) A Pete Morisi panel from Charlton’s Lash LaRue #82 (Feb. 1961). Scripter unknown. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Glen Johnson in 1964. Courtesy of Bill Schelly.

The PAM Papers (Part 2)

Twice-Told Tales? Two different villains. Two different stories. Same photo swipe! Imagine Pete’s chagrin, when both stories wound up in the same Charlton comic! Above, a Joe Butana/”Kid Montana” story—and, at left, one starring “The Man Called Loco,” both of which showed up in Texas Rangers in Action #78 (June 1970). Scripters unknown. [© the respective copyright holders.]

2/12/70 Dear Glen –– Yes, [Alfred] Andriola did Capt. Triumph for the old Quality comic group—he was “between strips” at the time and needed some loot— then came ‘Kerry Drake’ and big money. His past strips were ‘Dan Dunn’ and ‘Charlie Chan.’ I still consider his Capt. Triumph to be good art—Andriola did a job on that one. $5.00 for an ‘X-9’ sounds like a good deal. $100 for a Raymond ‘Kirby and X-9’ is too steep. Texas Rangers #78 is the issue I’d like you to see. Loco [MTG NOTE: Charlton’s “The Man from Loco” series] is featured as the front story, and a “Kid Montana” story (that was changed to suit the Texas Rangers title) is the back story. I used the same villain in both stories, figuring they’d be printed in different books, and months apart—but Sal [Gentile, Charlton editor] goofed. (The villain was taken from photos). Saw Dick [Giordano, DC editor] a few weeks ago and he gave me part of a Toth job from Witching Hour and an Adams penciled page printed in the same issue (#8). Also spoke to Toth on the phone when he was in town and we kicked around old times. A trade for Andriola—[Dan] Barry sounds okay to me, but I don’t have any “Deadman” Adams pages. Just finished a “Winnie the Witch” thing, and am now doing a ‘Mr. Dedd’ strip, which is fairly well written for a change. Sal promised me a steady Dr. Graves feature some time ago, but hasn’t kept his word. It’s a little annoying but I don’t intend to get ulcers over it. See ya, Pete In the next letter, Pete refers to a Steranko love comic story that appeared in Marvel’s Our Love Story #5. The other big comic news at the time was Jack Kirby’s defection from Marvel to DC to begin his famous “Fourth World” titles. 4/2/1970 Dear Glen –– Didn’t see the Steranko “love” art—but I did like the Morrow art I saw. Yes, I spoke to Dick last week and mentioned that Kirby was with National –I’m looking forward to his stuff. National, incidentally, is on the borderline of financial trouble. It seems that the Kinney outfit that owns National bought the outfit when it was a going concern (each

Crack Artist! PAM was a fan of Kerry Drake artist Alfred Andriola, who co-created “Captain Triumph” for Quality’s Crack Comics. Here’s a splashy Andriola page from the Captain’s first story, in Crack Comics #27 (Jan. 1943). Scripter unknown. [© the respective copyright holders.]

month’s profit better than the last), but now that the superhero phase is about over, and all comics are in limbo, they’re getting annoyed with a stand-still outfit. That’s why National seems to be trying everything under the sun to get a hot item or trend going. Dick said, “we’re getting close to the panic button.” I’m still doing romance—a 10 pg. “Dear Diary” thing right now. My Dr. Graves should be in the next issue of T.M.G.O.D.B. [MTG

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

NOTE: The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves.] I’m not pushing Dick for any Deadman strips—he’s given me enough stuff as it is. If he offered a few pages to me (like he did with the Toth pages) that’s a different story. Did I mention that the comic artists are trying to organize a “comic society” type thing? Stan Lee and C. Infantino are heading it so far. I was notified of the first meeting—but couldn’t make it. The next meeting is April 30—and I plan to make that one. I’ll let you know how it goes. Gotta go! See ya, Pete In our next letter, Pete then talks a bit about ACBA, the first serious attempt to organize comic creators since the ’50s. In these days of $200 original comic art portfolios, billion-dollar super-hero movies, and zillions of comic book titles glutting the market, it’s hard to remember just how tenuous the industry was in the early ’70s. Publishers reduced page counts and traded metal printing plates for cheap plastic in a desperate attempt to keep the industry afloat. In this letter, we hear how Neal Adams, one of the driving forces behind ACBA, shared his concerns with his fellow cartoonists:

“Hey, Kids! Free Art! “ Back in the days before creator rights, publishers often handed out original art like party favors. PAM was lucky enough to score two pages for his collection—including a penciled Neal Adams page (likely the one above), from DC’s Witching Hour #8 (May 1970). [TM & © DC Comics.]

What’s He Witching About? (Above:) PAM’s former Charlton editor, Dick Giordano, gifted him a classic Alex Toth page from this Witching Hour #8 story (May 1970). Plot by Sergio Aragonés; script by Toth. [TM & © DC Comics]

Lovely Love (Right:) A lovely Jim Steranko splash from Marvel’s Our Love Story #5 (June 1970). Script by Stan Lee. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

The PAM Papers (Part 2)

5/1/1970 Dear Glen –– I held off on answering your letter until I could report on the “Academy of Comic Books” [=ACBA] meeting, which was held last night. About 50 artists, writers, colorists, editors attended and I got to see some old friends. Among the crowd was G. Tuska, D. Heck, Ross Andru, Mike Esposito, Jack Abel, D. Giordano, N. Adams, S. Lee, J. Romita, F. Mclaughlin, and a load of others that I still haven’t met. The object of the academy is to promote good will, and improve relations between the public and the comic book industry. The academy is still in the “forming” stage and will meet again next month. After the meeting, Don Heck, Adams, Giordano, McLaughlin, and myself stepped off for a quickie drink and that’s when Adams said, “Yes, comics are in a bad way. National is surviving only because of the money that’s coming in from the TV use of Batman, Superman, etc. And Stan Lee is taking tremendous chances at Marvel to make ends meet.” So, there you have it, a situation that’s on the verge of developing into the same thing that made me seek a different type of employment some 12 or 13 years ago. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. In our next letter Pete talks about an encounter with George Tuska. As mentioned earlier, at one point PAM even asked Tuska if he’d mind him imitating his style! Which makes the next letter particularly amusing…

Tongs For The Memories! A classic PAM Thunderbolt page from Peter Cannon…Thunderbolt, Vol. 3, #53 (Aug. 1966). Due to Charlton’s screwy numbering system, that was actually the fourth issue! [TM & © Estate of Pete Morisi.]

5/20/70 Dear Glen –– When I saw Tuska at that meeting, I said, “Hey George, how ya been? You still swiping my stuff?” At which point Johnny Romita (who I hadn’t met yet) cracked up and yelled, “Will you listen to this—listen to this!” Yes, the Montana story in Billy The Kid was my last one—but there may be others (done before it) that have yet to be printed. Sal doesn’t always print them as he gets them. I don’t know which Montana was my best—there were a few over the years that I liked—but this wasn’t one of them. Since the last Montana I’ve done: “Share And Share Alike” (Dr. Graves) “That’s The Way To Go” (Romance) “The Name Of The Game” (Romance) “The Man Wrecker” (Romance) “All But One Room” (Mr. Dedd) “Heartbreak Revisited” (Romance) “Well, Hello Dolly” (Winnie The Witch) Mr. Dedd Revisited! PAM mentions working on this story, which is introduced by Mr. Dedd. From Ghostly Tales #84 (Feb. 1971). Scripter unknown. [© the respective copyright holders.]

“Cowardice Revisited” (Mr. Dedd) Plus a dozen or so fillers. Some single page fillers of mine have been printed but I haven’t seen any of the others—they should be out

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

any day now. The “Cowardice Revisited” I’m finishing up looks good so far—it could shape up real nice. Maybe I’ll photostat it. Editor Sal Gentile often assigned Pete love comics stories, despite the fact that PAM hated ‘em—as seen in this exchange: Spoke to Sal again and he mentioned that Charlton is aiming for some real big stuff—and then he stopped there (as usual)—he couldn’t tell me anymore. No Dick Giordano is he! And asked me again about doing romance stuff—and I said no, again. He’s a hard guy to talk to—not open to ideas and suggestions, or even conversation, like Dick was. That’s about it—Gotta get back to Loco, before I lose interest in the script. See ya, Pete This was apparently a long-running complaint, as seen by this letter written a few months earlier. 10/4/1969 Dear Glen— Spoke to Sal and he told me that Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim have been dropped. Lousy sales. They’re being replaced with two “funny books.” The Phantom book is on the borderline. Tried to press Sal for a Dr. Graves, but got a “My other artists can’t do good westerns—I need you on Montana and Loco” answer. Ain’t that just like an editor? That’s it for this issue, but don’t worry, we’ll have more later. Special thanks, once again, to Glen D. Johnson for sharing this fascinating piece of comic book history with us. Till next time…

Love, Actually! PAM didn’t love drawing romance comics, but he wasn’t bad at it. The above Charlton page is a bit reminiscent of work by his pal Al Williamson. From Hollywood Romances #58 (April 1971). Scripter unknown. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Two Series Have I! PAM drew “Kid Montana” (sometimes called “Montana Kid”) and “The Man Called Loco” for Charlton’s Western comics. The “Kid Montana” splash is from Montana Kid #50 (March 1965), while the “Loco” story is from Texas Rangers in Action #68 (Oct. 1968). Scripters unknown. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Comic Fandom Archive

TED WHITE On Comics – Part 3

In Which He Talks About EC Fandom, The Comics Code, The Arrival Of The Silver Age of Comics, & “All In Color For A Dime” In Xero

by Bill Schelly

n Part 1, prominent science-fiction author, editor, and fan Ted White filled us in on his boyhood as a comic book fan and collector. In Part 2, he told of meeting noted EC fans Fred von Bernewitz, Bhob Stewart, and Larry Stark, publishing the fanzine Potrzebie, and becoming fandom’s favorite mimeographer. Now, we back up just a bit, to the time when Ted first got into EC Comics in early 1953, after seeing Mad #3. He turned 14 in February, and was in ninth grade. This interview took place by telephone in November 2014. It was transcribed by Brian K. Morris and Sean Dulaney and reviewed by Ted White. Let’s go!

Pulp Culture Another in our series of photos of Ted White as Guest of Honor at the 2016 PulpFest in Columbus, Ohio. Photograph: William Lampkin. Special thanks to Mike Chomko of PulpFest.

WHITE: Well, except that it was just for my own amusement. I also did colored ink paintings of Krazy Kat. BS: I didn’t realize …. Do you have art ability?

BILL SCHELLY: Once you discovered EC, did you buy all of their comics? Tell me a little about your interest in one of the greatest lines of comic books ever published. TED WHITE: Yeah, I bought them all. As soon as I discovered them, I snapped them all up. There weren’t that many. BS: Nine or ten. WHITE: And then I started looking for back issues. I discovered this really weird thing that EC did: the quarterlies or annuals, I forget which they were, but those were 25¢, and what they did was, they took, I think, three normal comics and bound them together, put a new overall cover on them. BS: But the comics within that overall cover would vary, right? WHITE: Yes, they were not necessarily the same three. But for any given title, they would all be of that title. For the science-fiction titles, they would all be just Weird Sciences or Weird Fantasys. They wouldn’t throw a horror title in, but it might not be the same issues, you know, number-wise, of Weird Science and Weird Fantasy. So when I discovered that, then I had to start looking through them to see whether they had ones in them that I hadn’t seen before. BS: Who were your favorite artists at EC? WHITE: I have to say, overall, the artist I valued the highest was [Bernard] Krigstein. His work on Bradbury’s “The Flying Machine” struck me as just an incredible masterpiece. He really got into the whole concept of Chinese art. BS: Yes. WHITE: I used to make little paintings in colored inks, and I took one panel out of that story and blew it up into a painting. It just looked so good. BS: Sort of an early Lichtenstein. [chuckles]

Come Fly With EC “The Flying Machine” was an adaptation of a Ray Bradbury story scripted by Al Feldstein and illustrated by Bernard Krigstein, Ted’s favorite EC artist (or, at least, the one he “valued the highest”). It appeared in WeirdScience Fantasy #23 (March 1954). [Art & script TM and © William M. Gaines, Agent, Inc.; original story TM & © Estate of Ray Bradbury.]

Comic Fandom Archive

the lettering in the balloons would be different. One of Harvey Comics’ science- fiction titles had these space men, you assume—they’re in space suits, you can’t really see what they look like—landing on this devastated planet that has been destroyed by nuclear war. They’re poking around in the ruins and finding little bits of things and commenting on the civilization that blew itself up. And you know, you just know, that this planet is Earth and that these people in the space suits are aliens. Except, the story had to be changed, so the last panel reveals that they’re Earthlings having landed on some alien planet. That panel was differently drawn and differently lettered than the rest of the story. It’s because they couldn’t have unhappy endings. BS: Talk about putting a creative chill on story possibilities! WHITE: Of course, we EC fans were aware of the famous last page of “Judgment Day,” when the Code tried to get Gaines to have the artist remove the beads of sweat on the black astronaut’s face. Which Gaines refused to do.

EC Fan Addicts Ted White in the 1950s, looking (on left) as he did when he visited the EC offices with Fred Von Bernewitz (depicted on right), along with Larry Stark, known as “EC’s number one fan.”

WHITE: Growing up, I regarded myself as an artist. I trained as an artist, I learned all the commercial art techniques. I did a lot of art for fanzines, and I wanted to do professional science-fiction illustration. I put together a portfolio in 1960 but didn’t succeed in selling any. I did do one illustration for myself when I was editing Amazing, just so I would have one published illustration. It wasn’t very good because I’d gotten rusty by then. I regard myself as a quasi-artist. Sitting here in this room, I can look on the wall and I can see a painting that I did when I was eighteen, and below it is a pencil study for the same painting. I don’t think I was ever that good as an artist in terms of my creative abilities, but technically, I was pretty good. I could render in a variety of styles. I could work in scratchboard or Craftint or any of those styles. BS: If it happened for you like it happened for me, I just realized I was a better writer than I was an artist. WHITE: Oh, yeah. I discovered I did not meet my own standards as an artist. I did not realize in that period when I was a teenager how much artists make use of photographs for anatomy and other things like that. So I thought when I used a photograph, I was cheating. [Bill chuckles] But I’d still like to get back to doing some painting in my old age. I don’t know whether I’ll get to it or not. BS: The EC period ended, and I know that you were very incensed and passionate about the whole issue of censorship and Wertham and so on. How did that hit you as a teenager? WHITE: Well, I read Fredric Wertham’s book Seduction of the Innocent, which I regarded as meretricious crap. BS: It is. WHITE: I picked up a lot of comics that were published shortly after the Code started. (I don’t have them any longer or I’d have passed them on to Roy Thomas.) Comics with the Code’s seal on their covers, where clearly the entire issue had been ready to print before it was censored. So you would have stories with random panels scattered through them that were in black-&-white. There was no color on them because they had had to replace something at the very last minute. So there would just be a black-&-white panel, and it would be much more crudely drawn or it might look like a huge blow-up of some small part of the original panel. And often,

BS: Didn’t you visit the EC office? WHITE: In the week between Christmas of 1955 and New Year’s Day, Fred and I got on a train and took it up to Brunswick, New Jersey, and were met by Larry Stark, whose family lived there. We spent our nights at Larry’s house and our days in Manhattan— primarily at EC. Fred brought a big reel-to-reel tape recorder to the EC offices, there being nothing more portable available, and he would plunk that tape recorder down on the floor next to a bookcase with bound volumes of ECs in it, and he would systematically take out each volume and dictate into his tape recorder all of the appropriate credits from the stories. I think he was doing Pre-Trends at that point because he’d already done his main checklist. BS: Filling in gaps and things like that. WHITE: What I did not realize was that he kept that recorder running while we had conversations with Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein. Transcripts of that conversation appear in Tales of Terror!, the book published by Fantagraphics a few years back. It’s the book with the ultimate EC checklist. That was kind of stunning to me, because I remember those conversations, but I don’t remember anything that I said. I only remember what I was told. [Bill chuckles] You know, that was the new information to me, so I was fascinated to read those transcripts and see that I didn’t embarrass myself. BS: No, you didn’t. But you were there at the very end of EC Comics, doing this. WHITE: I was. I was shown a copy of Mad #28, the spring issue which had already had its date changed once already. There would be, ultimately, be three

It Might As Well Be… Summer Mad #28, the “spring” issue, wasn’t actually published until July 1956. It was the last issue edited by Harvey Kurtzman. [TM & © EC Comic Publications, Inc.]

Ted White On Comics—Part 3

WHITE: Yeah, I think so. I never met Lyle Stuart; I only heard about him. You know, glancing blows, never made contact. [Bill chuckles] Paul and I became friends, though. BS: Let’s jump ahead, just for a moment, to your verbal exchange with Leonard Darvin about the censorship issue at John Benson’s 1966 New York Comicon. Darvin was administrator of the Comics Code at that time. WHITE: I think all of that’s been published in Alter Ego, right? [NOTE: In A/E #56, still available. —Bill.] BS: Yes, I just wondered if you have any further thoughts about that event, or about censorship in general. WHITE: Well, my total contact with Darvin was at that convention, very publicly, and I think all of it was pretty much transcribed. I am incredibly anti-censorship, and my contempt for people like him is overwhelming. I regard him and their entire crew as fundamentally dishonest. They were bigots. They were enforcing bigotry in the comic books. They were enforcing white American attitudes, and anything that clashed with the white American attitude would be removed from the comic. Even for the 1950s, their attitudes were antediluvian. BS: The Comics Code, when it was first administered, made comics even “cleaner” than television. I mean, comic books couldn’t show things that were acceptable on television because comic books “were only for children.”

A Treasure Map After fanzine editors visited the EC offices, they often printed a “map” of its layout in their fanzines. Here’s the one George Snowden III drew and published in The EC Fan Bulletin. [© George Snowden III or successors in interest.]

separate, differently printed covers for that issue of Mad, with the bedspring on the cover. BS: Right. I explained all about those cover variants in my Harvey Kurtzman biography. WHITE: Yeah, because it was late, and because of the change in distributor. John Putnam was very helpful to us. He showed us the Mad stuff. We never saw Harvey. He wasn’t there. BS: He didn’t work in the office much. WHITE: No. We didn’t see too many of the EC artists, either. We mostly saw Al and Bill and John and a couple of the office assistants. But everybody at EC was really, really nice to us. We were up there at least three or four days out of that week.

WHITE: Right, and children must not be allowed to know the truth about anything. BS: That’s right. WHITE: When I was a kid, somewhere between the ages of six and ten, but probably closer to six, I ran into this adult attitude— primarily from teachers, but not good teachers—that was a kind of an arrogance of adulthood. “We’re adults, therefore we know, therefore you should shut up and listen.” There was an implicit assumption that children were both ignorant and stupid. BS: Mm-mm. Almost the attitude that children aren’t really people. WHITE: That, too. And I made a vow, a promise to myself, that when I grew up, I would remember what it was like to be a kid so that I wouldn’t treat kids the way adults were treating me. I always resented adults who patronized me, who assumed that because I was a kid, I couldn’t possibly say anything worth hearing. Even then, I knew that I was smarter than many of these adults who were patronizing me. They were more ignorant than me, even though I was a kid.

BS: How many publishers would have provided that kind of access? Maybe a quick visit, but just allowing fans to come by for extended periods of time seems quite unusual to me.

BS: How did you view the return, or retooling, of The Flash and Green Lantern when they came along?

WHITE: Well, you know, they were a fixture in EC comics, what with Larry’s letters, and the EC fanzines, starting with the first one, Bhob Stewart’s EC Fan Bulletin. There were any number of accounts of visiting the EC offices, complete with a map of the office layout.

WHITE: I bought them. I read them. I have to say, although I was glad to see it happening, and the revival of the Justice Society as the Justice League and all that, it did not strike me that they were particularly well done. But that may have been the fact that I had outgrown the audience they were aimed at.

BS: Right. [chuckles] It’s funny, all the maps vary slightly. WHITE: Everybody had their own memory. Well, the funny thing is that, years later, in 1960 or ’61, I was back in that building again [225 Lafayette Street], only this time I was visiting Paul Krasner at The Realist. Paul was subletting a portion of Lyle Stuart’s office. [NOTE: Stuart was a publisher who served as a business manager for EC for a period of time, and was disliked by everyone except Bill Gaines. —Bill.] BS: He was like a protégé of Stuart, to some degree.

Sort of as a sidebar to all that: somewhere in late ’59 or ’60—I can’t date it closer than that—Larry Ivie came to me and said that he wanted to create the revival of The Atom for DC. He wanted to draw it, and had done some really outstanding art for it. He wanted me to write it. And I did. I wrote some. Not a complete story or anything. We didn’t get that far. I think we were working on a proposal. Something to present to Julie Schwartz, because he knew he had to sell it to Julie. We worked on that, I don’t know, a couple of weeks, at least.

Comic Fandom Archive

WHITE: What happened is, I knew she lived in Florida, and I asked her how she was getting back. She had gotten out there by way of Greyhound buses, which is a horrible thing to do if you’re traveling cross-country. I said, “Why don’t you ride back to the East Coast with us?” I was with a guy named Bob Pavlat; we’d come out in his car, so I volunteered Larry Ivie space in his car for her on the trip back, in 1962. A major which he did not object to. I figured she’d exploration of Ivie’s life come back to the East Coast with us and and art, written by artist she could catch a bus down to Florida Sandy Plunkett, will from the DC. That would be a lot less appear in Alter Ego #152. grueling than a cross-country bus trip, and she agreed. So she and I started back to the East Coast in my friend’s car along with another fellow who was along for the ride. We ended up occupying the back seat, and things progressed as they naturally will. When we got back to the DC area—Baltimore, actually, where I was living in an apartment that I shared with several friends—we hung out together for several days, and one day she said to me, “Do you know what today is?” I said, “No. What is it?” She said, “Today is the day I should be registering for classes.” I said, “Oh my God! What are you going to do?” She said, “I’m not going to register for classes, am I?” [laughter] And that’s how we both realized that she wasn’t going back to Florida, and at the end of November—on the last day of November—we were married. BS: Her maiden name was “Dees,” right?

Up ‘N’ Atom Larry Ivie’s proposed “new look” for The Atom graced the cover of Xero #5, presiding over a banner reading “The Fanzine of Relativistic Dadaism.” [The Atom TM & © DC Comics.]

BS: Well, at least we have one remnant from that, Larry’s really excellent illustration of a possible new Atom, which was used as the cover for Xero #5. At what point did you move from Falls Church to New York? WHITE: First I moved from Falls Church to Baltimore in 1958 and then got married in November of that year. Then, in August, roughly, of 1959, we moved to New York City… Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. 107 Christopher. Fourth floor apartment. Walk-up. BS: I wanted to ask you about Sylvia. How did you meet? Was she a fan? WHITE: She was a science-fiction fan. I was aware of her before I met her. She had sent me the first issue of her fanzine Flafan, probably in ’57. She was living in Gainesville, Florida, and going to the University of Florida. She put out a very good fanzine. I corresponded with her after I received it. Then, in ’58, I went to the World Science Fiction Convention that year, which was in Los Angeles, and Sylvia was there. That’s where I met her in person. She was this attractive young lady, and I was one of, oh, between one and two dozen guys my age at that convention who were interested in her. But most of the guys were kind of shy. I was, too, but I was more willing to get past my shyness. So I was the only one to ask her to dance. In those days, they would have kind of a masquerade ball thing where there would be a live band and there would be dancing, and I was the only one who had the courage to ask her to dance. BS: That’s a good start.

WHITE: Yes. Same as Morris Dees, the name of that fellow involved with the Southern Poverty Law Center, but there’s no relation. BS: Now we’re getting up to the “All in Color for a Dime” period. Did you get together with Dick and Pat Lupoff in the city when you moved there? WHITE: When they moved to New York, actually. They didn’t move there until, I think, the spring of 1960. Dick was working for IBM. They were living up on 73rd Street in Manhattan, in a penthouse apartment with a working fireplace. BS: Nice. WHITE: Dick and Pat were just a whole quantum level higher than the rest of us. [laughter] The rest of us were kind of scruffy beatnik types, you know. Somewhat literally. Dick and Pat were very straight, very conservative. They were proud that they were Nixon Republicans. There was Dick and Pat Nixon and there was Dick and Pat Lupoff. They were not the people they subsequently became. BS: That’s for sure… WHITE: They took offense… Well, I should say, we had parties, and there was a club called “The Futurians” that they started hosting. This was a revival of the original Futurians that had been revived several years earlier. A couple of the people who showed up at the Futurians’ meetings offended Dick and Pat. They were too scruffy. One of them was my friend Tom Condit. The other was Pete Stampfel, who was a good friend of mine in the 1960s. He was a musician and a member of the Holy Modal Rounders and vaguely associated with, but not actually in, The Fugs. BS: I know the story of the New Futurians and their picnic that ended

Ted White On Comics—Part 3

WHITE: I just sat down and wrote something that I knew. It was that simple. Now, when it came time to do the chapter for the book, Dick asked me to rewrite the thing and concentrate just on Superman and Batman. Originally, “The Spawn of M.C. Gaines” was all about M.C. Gaines. It was more about things like All-Star Comics and so on. To trim it down to just Superman and Batman for the book meant a completely new chapter. I think it’s damned good, to tell you the truth. It’s been reprinted a couple of times by other publishers.

Captain & Mary Conservative? The “conservative” Pat & Dick Lupoff made fannish history when they donned the flamboyant costumes of Captain and Mary Marvel at the 1960 PittCon. In addition, they gave away copies of the first issue of their mimeographed, mostly science-fiction fanzine Xero at that con, which had been printed by Ted White. Xero also made fannish history, to put it mildly. [Art © the respective copyright holders.]

up in the rumble. That’s when you became a printer for the Lupoffs, right? WHITE: Yeah, I was the guy with a mimeograph. [laughter] Lots of people came to me to do their fanzines, and when the Lupoffs began doing Xero, I was the one who ran it off for them.

BS: It really sets the stage for the history of comics, for the coming of DC and everything very well, where the original article was more a stream of consciousness kind of thing. Enjoyable, but for the one you did ten years later, for the All in Color for a Dime book from Arlington House, you had the benefit of some additional research that had happened.

WHITE: It wasn’t ten years. Basically, the original thing I did would have been done in ’60, I think. The chapter for the book was probably done around ’65-’66, something like that. So, five years or so. But I didn’t actually do any specific research for the new version. I think probably everything that’s in the book chapter was stuff that I knew when I wrote the original

BS: Like the first three issues, or something like that? WHITE: Yeah. BS: How did you gather the information for “The Spawn of M.C. Gaines,” which became the second entry in the “All in Color for a Dime” series in Xero? Where did you get the information at that point, because information was so hard to come by? WHITE: That entirely came out of my head. BS: Dick’s “The Big Red Cheese” [in Xero #1] was that way.

“Swiped By Sylvia” Illustrations with the above (and related) bylines accompanied Ted White’s entry in the “All in Color for a Dime” series, “The Spawn of M.C. Gaines.” Sylvia White was a wizardess with a mimeograph stencil! (Far left:) Ted & Sylvia White at the 1959 SF Worldcon in Detroit. (Left:) Sylvia in costume at the Pittcon [Pittsburgh], 1960. Both photos courtesy of TW. [Characters on Xero pages TM & © DC Comics.]

Comic Fandom Archive

piece for Xero, but it was more like I hadn’t tried to organize it the same way. I wasn’t writing it for a book. I was writing it for a fanzine. I was much more, let us say… relaxed, in my approach. BS: In the late 1950s, Larry Ivie was quite an authority on old comics. A lot of people visited his apartment in Manhattan to check out his collection, and… WHITE: Larry had an outstanding collection. On his walls he had framed Sunday originals by Harold Foster and Alex Raymond. Larry would point out things to me: “Raymond was so much better than Foster. Look at this.” And he would point out that where Foster was drawing, you know, parallel lines that were effective for shading, you know, with brush-strokes, when he would reach the edge of a panel border, his little brushstrokes would go over the border. Then he would use White-Out to block those off. Whereas Alex Raymond’s brushstrokes ended precisely at the panel borders, so he needed almost no White-Out at all. BS: That would have been tough technically. WHITE: Yeah. These were technical accomplishments of the sort that Larry noticed and pointed out to me. Listen, Larry was a really good friend. Sylvia and I hung out a lot with him in ’59 and ’60 and ’61. We made movies with him. Did all kinds of stuff. NEXT: Ted White on the DC hero revivals, on doing perhaps the first substantive interview with Stan Lee, on writing the novel Captain America: The Great American Gold Steal, and on attending the monthly meetings of the Comic Art Group in Manhattan. Stay tuned!

Mostly in Black-&-White—And Costing Considerably More Than A Dime In 1970, Arlington House published All in Color for a Dime, edited by Dick Lupoff & Don Thompson—a hardcover book that represented many of the original “AICFAD” entries from Xero, mostly in revised and/or substantially rewritten form, along with some new material. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Bill Schelly’s latest book is John Stanley: Giving Life to Little Lulu (Fantagraphics Books). It includes both Bill’s full biography of the talented Mr. Stanley, and a cornucopia of over 300 illustrations, nearly all in color. Also, his biographies of Otto Binder, Joe Kubert, and Harvey Kurtzman are still in print. Own them all!

Celebrate the life of John Stanley, one of America’s greatest storytellers! “I would pile up all our blankets and stay awake till quite late reading Little Lulu comics and listening to Bob Dylan.” — Patti Smith “Little Lulu had incredible stories. I still read those Little Lulu comics from the late ‘40s, early ‘50s and they’re great.” — R. Crumb “[Stanley was] the most consistently funny cartoonist to work in the comic book medium.” – Fred Hembeck

John Stanley: Giving Life to Little Lulu by Bill Schelly

AVAILABLE WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD MARCH 2017 350 ILLUSTRATIONS AND A 60,000 WORD BIOGRAPHY 180 PAGES - $39.99 US — HARDCOVER – 10" X 13" — FULL COLOR

in memoriam

Richard Kyle (1929-2016) Writer, Publisher, & Bookstore Owner

by Bill Schelly

was writing a piece about the 2011 Fandom Reunion at Comic-Con International in San Diego, which was the occasion when I met Richard Kyle in person, when I heard of his passing. He and I had exchanged letters occasionally since the late 1960s, but I only got to meet that one time. I understand he was never the same after a debilitating stroke two or three years later. He spent his last years in a nursing home in Long Beach, California. Richard was hale and hearty at the reunion, and that’s how I’ll always remember him. He was one of the 90 people profiled in my book Founders of Comic Fandom. Here’s much of that entry, abridged for inclusion here. Best known for inventing the terms “graphic story” and “graphic novel,” Richard Kyle was one of the most erudite and intelligent writers to contribute to the fanzines. His columns and articles appeared in Xero, Alter Ego, Fantasy Illustrated, and Graphic Story Magazine. He was the editor and publisher of Graphic Story World, a widely-read publication that began in 1971. As a boy, Kyle lost his mother when he was four years old, and left school to work at the age of 13. He educated himself by reading comic books, science-fiction pulps, and mystery stories. After serving as a combat infantryman in Korea, he read and enjoyed the innovative EC comic books, as well as science-fiction (which was becoming more reputable) and mystery stories. His interest in comics waned with the advent of the Comics Code Authority, which made it much more difficult to publish comic book stories for mature readers. Then, in 1961, he discovered Xero.

A Half-Century Of Richard Kyle (Left:) Richard in 1960, the year Dick and Pat Lupoff’s remarkable fanzine Xero was created, and the “All in Color for a Dime” series was launched.

Richard Kyle first appeared in comic fandom in spectacular (Right:) Kyle at the 2011 San Diego fashion, with a much-lauded Comic-Con’s Fandom Reunion. entry to the “All in Color for a Photo by Jeff Gelb. Dime” series in Dick and Pat Lupoff’s fanzine. He penned “The Education of Victor Fox” for Xero #8 (April 1962). The longest of the series by far, this 27-page opus was not remarkable for its factual coverage of the Fox line of comics, though it did cover that aspect; it was simply a highly entertaining, humorous, and often thought-provoking stroll through the sometimes bizarre world fashioned by the self-styled “King of Comics.” [NOTE: That article was reprinted in Alter Ego #101. —Bill.] It was quickly followed by a second AICFAD entry, “Sparky Watts and the Big Shots” in Xero #10 (1963). He also wrote “And That Was the End of Solomon Grundy?” for Alter Ego #7 (Oct. 1964). Kyle became a founding member of Capa-alpha, contributing for the first time to the second mailing, in November 1964. In that brief, four-page apa-zine titled Wonderworld, he coined the terms “graphic story” and “graphic novel.” Kyle ended a 1½-page essay called “The Future” as follows: As I read such stories as “Killer Hunt,” in Capt. Storm, and admire the art of Joe Kubert, and re-read the Kurtzman and Krigstein stories in the old EC magazines … I cannot help but feel that “comic book” and “comic book strip” are not only inappropriate and antiquated terms with which to describe these genuinely creative efforts and those of the even more fully realized productions which are bound to come, but are also terms which may easily prevent the early acceptance of the medium by the literary world. Charles Biro coined the word “illustories” to describe his attempts at adult “comic book strips.” EC coined “picto-fiction” for a somewhat similar effort. But I believe there is a good word, already in the dictionary, which does a far better job than either of these. My Merriam-Webster defines “graphic” as “of or pertaining to the arts (graphic arts) of painting, engraving, and any other arts which pertain to the expression of ideas by means of lines, marks, or characters impressed on a surface.”

What’s In A Name? (Left:) By the fall 1967 issue, publisher Bill Spicer had become so enamored of Kyle’s term for cartoon continuities that he renamed his zine Graphic Story Magazine. (GSM #8, Fall 1967). [Art © George Metzger or successors in interest.] (Right:) Alex Toth’s “Jon Fury in Japan” had its first printing in the pages of Wonderworld #10 (November 1973), Kyle’s fanzine that had formerly been known as Graphic Story World. [Art © Estate of Alex Toth.]

And so, in future issues of Wonderworld, when you find me using the terms “graphic story” and “graphic novel” to describe the artistically serious “comic book strip,” you’ll know what I mean. I may even use it on some that aren’t so serious. Kyle’s “Graphic Story Review” columns were some of the first, and certainly the most prominent, attempts to critically consider the aesthetics of the comic book story in intellectual terms. Fans

In Memoriam

appreciated these articles largely because they proclaimed that the humble, much-maligned medium was worthy of serious discussion. However, his theory that the graphic story is the editor’s medium, similar to movies being a director’s medium, was not met with much agreement. In 1971, he launched his own fanzine, Graphic Story World, which began as a comics news magazine, then became a more general comics fan magazine re-titled Wonderworld, which also carried new graphic stories by professionals, including Dan Spiegle and Alex Toth. With a circulation of almost 3000 copies per issue, Graphic Story World/Wonderworld was one of the most successful comics fan magazines published before the establishment of today’s direct distribution system. That same year, Fred Patten introduced Kyle to European comics “albums,” and they formed a partnership to import them for sale through their mail-order store, the Graphic Story Bookshop. By 1973, the mail-order bookshop had grown so quickly that a walk-in store was opened, later re-named Richard Kyle Books. In 1976, Kyle and Denis Wheary formed a company to publish Beyond Time and

Again by George Metzger. It was subtitled “A Graphic Novel” on the inside title page when it was collected as a 48-page black-&white hardcover book, making it the first book self-identified as a graphic novel. Due to its brevity, the Richard Kyle entry in Founders of Comic Fandom left out several of his contributions to the comic book field. He commissioned Jack Kirby to create the seminal story “Street Code,” about Kirby’s childhood on the sidewalks of New York City’s Lower East Side; it first appeared in Kyle’s revived Argosy magazine in 1990. Richard also wrote comic book scripts, such as “The Pied Piper of North Am” in Magnus, Robot Fighter #24 (Nov. 1968). Perhaps most importantly, he inspired the work of many young writers and artists in comics through his writing, his publishing, and in his bookstores (as his friend, author Alan Brennert recounts in the accompanying piece). To learn more about Richard Kyle, check out my interview with him in Alter Ego #115 & #117. There was no member in our community whom I admired and respected more than Richard Kyle. It was a pleasure and a privilege to know him, and I’ll miss him.

Richard Kyle

“[He] Encouraged All Of Us To Pursue Our Dreams”

by Alan Brennert

ugust, 1973. Newly arrived in California to attend college, I barely knew a soul on the West Coast. But one day I walked into what was then called Graphic Story Bookshop in downtown Long Beach, began talking with the genial, smart, funny man behind the counter—and we kept on talking for most of the next 43 years. Richard always had an interesting take on any subject—comics, writing, politics, history, philosophy—and his sharp wit and infectious laughter immediately put newcomers at ease. His store (initially co-owned with Fred Patten) stocked comic books and science-fiction but reflected his own broad interests, eventually encompassing everything from Westerns to pulp fiction to mainstream literature (its name morphing to Wonderworld Books and then, fittingly, to Richard Kyle Books). Wonderworld was a magnet for local creative types and enthusiasts of all genres: the kind of place where you could find proto-superstar SF writer Greg Bear chatting away with musical superstar Mel Tormé (true story). Jack Kirby, Jim Steranko, Mark Evanier, Mike Royer, and D. Bruce Berry were among the professional comics folk who dropped

by. Richard talked about comics as an art form at a time when few others did. He was also genuinely excited to meet new young talent, and Long Beach in the 1970s was an unlikely crucible for a new generation of creators. Some of those he welcomed, encouraged, or advocated for included such soon-tobe-luminaries as cartoonists Phil Yeh and Roberta Gregory, comic book artists Pat Broderick, Rick Hoberg, Tom Luth, and Scott Haile, animation artist-director-producer Glen Murakami, comic book writer Mary Bierbaum, mystery novelist Jan Burke, and animation writer Michael Dobkins. Richard encouraged all of us to pursue our dreams and did his best to help us along. I started working at Wonderworld part-time in 1975. Truthfully, I think Richard had forgotten he’d promised me a job before I left town for a few weeks; when I got back I found that he had hired another assistant, Paul Brandi. But Richard was a man of his word and soon he had two assistants. That meant a lot to a college student struggling to get by on 3¢ a word writing for SF magazines. I can’t begin to sum up how much Richard has meant to me—from giving me that job to letting me type up the manuscript of my first book on his Selectric typewriter to simply being a generous, loyal friend, as he was to everyone who was drawn into his jovial orbit.

Getting Graphic (Above right:) Richard Kyle (in dark shirt) and Bill Spicer, 1964. (Left:) Graphic Story World #8 (Dec. 1972) offered Dan Spiegle’s “Penn and Chris,” an interview with Jim Steranko, and John Benson’s excellent report on the 1972 EC Fan-Addict Convention. With thanks to Bill Schelly for both scans. [Spiegle art TM & © Estate of Dan Spiegle.]

He suffered a stroke in 2014 and for two years was trapped in a body that no longer did what he wanted it to do, in a nursing home that provided him good care but none of the privacy this deeply private man craved. He’s free, now, of both. Goodbye, Richard; goodbye, my old friend. Thank you for welcoming the 19-year-old me into your bookstore. My life has been the richer for it. Alan Brennert is an author, TV producer, screenwriter, and occasional comics scribe, most notably associated with the New Twilight Zone TV series in the 1980s.

and paying attention. Always enjoyed his writing, but “Repent, Harlequin” was just too fantastic to ever forget. And I read it in one of the digest SF mags! It was just great to read his answers in this issue’s interview. He is a breath of excitement talking about Captain Marvel or Julie Schwartz. Hey, you ran the Dr. Strange photo from the NY Comic Con! That kid was great. I saw him with those “Ditko Fingers” and I had to talk with him. I mentioned that I could get a photo of him to Ditko. Man, if he had pockets, he would have given me all his cash and the keys to his car. He was just a pure fan of Mr. D. You just had to love this kid. I feared that Steve might burn the picture. But what the hell, I’d send it anyway.

ne thing Ye Editor wishes were possible would be, retroactively, to have had key pro artists do drawings of either the Alter Ego super-hero that Dann, artist Ron Harris, and I introduced in Heroic’s 1986 comic book mini-series, or of Alter and Captain Ego, the characters my late colleague Biljo White concocted circa 1964. Lucky for us, Sean Foley has done a fantastic job, over our past umpty-leven issues, of demonstrating what such illos might’ve looked like—and his Gil Kane approximation this time is a more than welcome addition to that list! Thanks once again, Sean! [Alter Ego hero TM & © Roy & Dann Thomas; costume designed by Ron Harris.] The various contents of Alter Ego #138 included Brian Cremins’ up-front interview with SF author Harlan Ellison on the original Captain Marvel, excerpts from C.C. Beck’s testimony in the DC/Fawcett lawsuit, material on Golden Age artist Fred Kida, etc.—and our letters and e-mails this time around cover many of the issue’s various offerings. First and foremost, though, this short and sweet message from reader David Burd:

Well, Ditko must have seen the soul of this kid. Who in the world is practicing “Ditko Fingers” for a couple of hours a day but the real deal? Super happy with the response. From Mr. Ditko: “The Dr. Strange fan may be more legitimately involved than the later spin-offs in TV shows, movies, etc., the more commercial, special interest groups just seeking exploiting the character.” Damn straight. This kid loved Ditko, loved the character, and he loved “being” Dr. Strange. Surely one of the highlights of my first comicon in 50 years. You cannot get more real. Thanks for running Part 2 of our “Survivors” panel. You made one mistake in labeling the photos. On p. 59, in the photo at right, seen from left to right are Ethan Roberts, myself, Rick Bierman, and Flo Steinberg (as opposed to the precise list you gave)—and that’s Aaron Caplan snapping another photo. Hey, I’m just happy that you spelled my name right 90% of the time! Bierman was not listed as one of the original panelists, but came onstage after Ethan invited any other “survivors” to join. I know [BBC-Radio personality and early comics fandom member] Paul Gambaccini was an original choice and was expected to attend. Never got the story straight but heard it two ways from Ethan: Paul was somehow ensnared in a BBC sex scandal (he was eventually fully exonerated), and then later Ethan told me that Paul thought his appearance with his husband would not be understood. The second surprised me because I thought it was always clear that Paul was gay and never hid the fact. Bernie Bubnis

Dear Roy: The only thing wrong with the Harlan Ellison interview in A/E #138 is that it’s not long enough. I could “listen” to that guy “talk” all day. David Burd East Stroudsburg, PA Too bad, then, that you didn’t live in the Los Angeles area and thus have the chance, as Dann and I did back in the 1980s, of hearing Harlan as the host, for one year, of the SF-oriented Hour 25 radio program that came on late Saturday nights. I particularly remember that his reading of his own short story about a Jewish werewolf was so hilarious that, coming home from a party at pal Don Glut’s house one night, I had to pull our car off the San Diego Freeway for a minute because I was laughing so hard. Too bad no one’s ever arranged for Harlan to read all his stories for CD, streaming, or the like! Bernie Bubnis, a welcome regular on these pages, had similar thoughts to yours: Hi Roy, Harlan Ellison always seemed so approachable. In the sense that his letters in early SF fanzines made him so readable. Not as fiction or non-fiction, just as the thinking of one Harlan Ellison. Sometimes I did not “get it” after reading, but I wanted to read more. No straight lines in his prose. You better be wide awake

Weekend With Bernie Along with the e-mail reprinted on this page, Bernie Bubnis sent us another photo of the 2014 “Survivors of the First Comicon” panel (on that event’s 50th anniversary), which shows two guys holding a copy of Len Wein’s fanzine Aurora #2. (Left to right:) Rick Bierman, Bernie, Ethan Roberts, Art Tripp, Aaron Caplan (the only one of the crew who wasn’t at that 1964 con). Seated: Len Wein.

[correspondence, comments, & corrections]

Sanctorum’s real-life history! Darryl Etheridge Master of the Mystic Yogurt And thank you, Darryl, for forgiving us for accidentally leaving your photo credit off the pic of the glazed-glass doorway to 177A, seen on p. 52. We now realize that you had also sent a copy of that photo to article author Paris Liu, who likewise forwarded it to us—so that we wound up, through no fault of hers, crediting it to Paris, rather than the way we should have: “Photo: Darryl Etheridge, DE/VL Design (www.devldesign.com).” In the year since you wrote your e-mail, we hope you got as big a kick as we did out of seeing the “177A Bleecker Street” address used prominently in a shot in the Doctor Strange film—which we personally believe was one of Marvel’s best to date.

I’LL DO ANYTHING TO GET ON THE CONTENTS PAGE OF ALTER EGO!

Next, from John Benson, re our excerpting of a couple of comparison splash panels from pre-Code and post-Code printings in Harvey romance comics, in our bibliography for Amy K. Nyberg’s A/E-reprinted book Seal of Approval. Matter of fact, that’s the problem—they were Harvey comics: Hi Roy,

A Hickok Hiccup On the contents page of A/E #138, we reprinted a Comics Code-censored panel from Avon Periodicals’ Wild Bill Hickok #26 (Jan.-Feb. 1956) drawn by Howard Larsen. The word balloon from a young lady being yanked upward via lasso had been stripped of dialogue, so we asked readers to suggest their own to fill it. Truth to tell, the only guy who tried was Chet Cox, who handles the online Alter-Ego-Fans chat list (see end of “re:” section), as seen above left—so he’s our winner! The original panel, from Wild Bill Hickok #13 (Nov. 1952) is printed above right. Ye Editor spent an hour or so searching online at the invaluable Comic Book Plus website of public-domain comics, determined to locate the original pre-Code version. ’Twas tricky, because the reprint title was “The Secret of the Lost Treasure,” while the pre-Code title had been “Bloody Canyon Massacre”—but he finally located the story in Wild Bill Hickok #13 (Nov. 1952), and it turns out that all the lass uttered was a simple: “AAAIIIEEE!” Oh, plus the Code people whited out the word “screaming” at the end of the caption above it. Guess they really earned their pay that day! [© the respective copyright holders.]

Yeah, I’d love to see Paul again one of these days myself. Dann and I had a fun dinner with him in London one Christmas season—back in the ‘90s, I think it was, the only time we met in person. But his native America is not nearly so backward as years abroad may have led him to believe, and I hope he makes it to some future U.S. con. One of the weird little pieces of A/E #138 was Paris Liu’s article on the history of 177 Bleecker Street in New York City (including the “177A” side-address where Gary Friedrich, Bill Everett, and I dwelt for half a year back in ’65-’66. Here’s a comment from Darryl Etheridge, a photocontributor to that piece: Hey Roy! I really enjoyed the article on the Unknown History of 177A Bleecker Street, just as I’d expected to. Between the article and the release of the first Dr. Strange [comics] series in nearly 20 years, I’m more than ready for Benedict Cumberbatch in full costume running around New York in the big-screen adventures of Dr. Strange. And hey! Just as I’d suspected, the caption for the Pinkberry photo was both amusing and perfect in every way. Roy, I’m sure you were referring to the rival FroYo establishment when you titled it “Masters of the Mystic Yogurt,” but I’ve assumed the title for myself with gusto! And my offer still stands: if you and Dann are ever up in the Toronto or Niagara Falls area, the frozen yogurt is on me! Thanks to you again, and to Paris Liu as well, for reaching out and inviting me to be part of the latest chapter in the Sanctum

The two romance images came out fine, and my caption was there word for word (with no italics issues, since there were no italics in the original)… but… I hate to tell you this, Roy, but those pages—and all the other examples in my upcoming article—are from Harvey comics, not St. John comics! Regarding the panels shown on page 41, the “Kid Melton” panel did indeed appear in Seduction of the Innocent. As to where it first appeared, a one-second search on GCD comes up with Lawbreakers Always Lose #7 (April 1949). (GCD is no good for creator ID, but for stuff like this they’re very useful.)

The original art page and the before-and-after examples from “Firehair” were quite interesting. Hagenauer’s comment in the caption suggests that this may be a unique example of “such art changes occurring pre-Code and before Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent was published,” but I don’t think it was all that uncommon, especially at Fiction House. I found an extreme example in St. John comics that I highlighted in [my book] Confession, Romances, Secrets, and Temptations. The heavily censored St. John reprint appeared in 1952. (See attachment.) I really loved your example from Soldier and Marine and your sardonic caption! But again, I feel cheated when you run heavily censored pages (as on pages 35 and 36) without showing the original. Better not to run at all if you don’t have the original. In the case of the [Wild Bill] Hickok page 1, how is it that you know the original title of the story and do not have the original page to show us? As to some panels being in black-&-white, your caption assuming “no budget (or no will) to color” is a bit misleading. The redrawn panels are in black-&-white because the reprint is using the same color plates as the original, and with the same plates they can rout out the color but can’t change it. Although, to be sure, you could say that the decision not to make entirely new color plates for the issue (and all the intermediate steps that would entail) is a budget matter. John Benson

re:

Which Came First—The Chick Or The Legs? John Benson sent us a scan of the page below from his 2007 book Confessions, Romances, Secrets, and Temptations, which dealt with the love comics of St. John Publications. We’re reprinting it as it appears in his book, except we hope John won’t mind that, with the help of the online Comic Book Plus website and layout man Chris Day, we couldn’t resist substituting the original color renditions for the three black-&-white panels reproduced therein. The two top panels display art by Walter Johnson (scripter unknown) from the 1948 story “Human Cat Trapped by Death Gun Slugs,” while the Code-approved 1952 version was rechristened “Buried Bullets Betray the Burglar”; both titles were designed to read like newspaper headlines. Note the considerably more grammatical dialogue in the Code entry. Incidentally, John mentions in the book text that the gun moll’s figure was “swiped cold” from a “Torchy” story drawn, and probably written, by Bill Ward in Quality’s Modern Comics #68 (Dec. 1947)—and that’s doubtless true for the figure, from the shoulders and bust down to the shapely, stockinged legs. But the entry in the Grand Comics Database claims “the female character is a swipe of ‘P’Gell’ in Eisner’s ‘The Spirit’ [comic strip],” and that’s probably true, too—at least for her head! In other words, the lady’s an artistic hybrid! [Text on book page © John Benson; art © the respective copyright holders.]

[correspondence, comments, & corrections]

“A” Is For “Absent” In the interim since A/E #138, Ye Editor located a couple of temporarily mislaid photos taken in autumn of 2003, during the filming of the Travel Channel documentary Marvel Superheroes’ Guide to New York City. (Left:) Dann and Roy in the little-changed Greenwich Village doorway of what had formerly been “177A Bleecker Street”; the “A,” as noted in #138, had been dropped sometime in the past. Both Thomases appeared in the doc. (Right:) Roy with Karen Craft, who conceived and produced the 2004-released doc for the Travel Channel (which was owned by the Discovery Channel). Photos courtesy of Karen.

We don’t always have room to show the “before” and “after” of Comics Code-altered work, John—and in the case of the Dick Tracy pages we ran on several occasions, we frankly found it far too much trouble to track down the original newspaper strips that had been pasted up and then censored—but we do show comparisons most of the time, if we can. And Ye Ed’s most humble apologies for accidentally referring to the Harvey romance pages spotlighted in #138 as being from St. John’s line of comics; one reason I got sloppy on that detail, of course, is that your excellent book Confessions, Romances, Secrets, and Temptations deals entirely with St. John’s romance comics. We’re looking for the right opportunity to start reprinting more of the Harvey “before” and “after” romance work you sent us, as per the

samples seen in A/E #138 and on this issue’s preceding page! In that same segment of that issue, I also mixed up, as I occasionally do, the company names “Avon” and “Ace,” as noted below by noted comics researcher Hames Ware:

All In Black-&-White For A Dime! (Left:) The original splash page from Avon’s Wild Bill Hickok #13 (Nov. 1952). (Right:) The Code-approved splash page from WBH #26 (Jan.-Feb. 1956). When the Code disallowed the reprinting of key elements of all three panels, it would’ve taken both time and money to re-color the altered panels, so Avon just printed the entire page in black-&-white the second time around. Art by Howard Larsen; scripter unknown. Thanks to the Comic Book Plus website. [© the respective copyright holders.]

re:

Hi Roy— Just a quick note that Howard Larsen’s Wild Bill Hickok was done for Avon, not for Ace—and an observation that Larsen, for whatever reason, always seemed to have a difficult time drawing human feet. Can’t imagine why, but if readers study his work, they will see that, whenever possible, he will hide the feet with grass, stirrups, or other masking attempts. A real mystery. As to Premier Publishing Company and Billy Friedman: I was reading back over some of the voluminous and wonderful correspondence I had with [artist/writer] Lou Cameron, where he was reminiscing about Billy and what a delight he was to work for, from Lou’s point of view, and I saw that Lou had noted that prominent attorney Nathan Rothstein had been a mostly silent backer of many of Billy’s endeavors. Billy had numerous other associates along the way, but I don’t think the Rothstein one has ever been noted before. Hames Ware You always have some interesting tidbits (and often more!) of comics history to share with us, Hames. And we’re always ready, willing, and able to hear ’em! Keep ’em coming!

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Now, a few short takes: Longtime fan-publisher Jim Van Hise informed us that, in illustrations that accompanied the same Nyberg bibliography, “The Wally Wood b&w comic strip ‘Six-Gun Smith’ appeared in the pulp Six-Gun Western (June 1950) in its uncensored version.” Thanks, Jim. We figured it was some pulp magazine or other, but we had no idea which one. Next, reader Al Rodriguez send word that there’s been a slight discrepancy in the reporting of the death date of Fawcett writer and editor Bill Parker, co-creator of the original Captain Marvel, et al. He notes that Parker died on January 31, 1963. We forwarded this info to P.C. Hamerlinck, editor of the FCA [Fawcett Collectors of America], who responded that he had earlier reported Parker’s death as being in “early February 1963,” since his funeral was held on February 5th, leading him to assume that his demise must’ve been just one to four days earlier… when it turned out to actually be five.

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“A Fabric Of Illusion” C.C. Beck’s Critical Circle & His Theory Of Comic Art

by Brian Cremins

UTHOR’S NOTE: I presented Everybody’s A Critic! a version of this essay, which is (Left:) The old wizard himself, based in part on the introduction C.C. Beck, snapped in 1977 and first chapter of my book Captain Marvel at his Lake Wales, Florida, home. and the Art of Nostalgia (University Press of [© Charlie Roberts.] Mississippi, 2016) at “Canon Fodder! A Cartoon (Right:) Back in the Golden Age, Crossroads Columbus Scholarly Symposium” artist Beck and writer Otto Binder at the Ohio State University on October 14, had Captain Marvel contemplating comments from “His 2016. I’d like to thank Trina Robbins and Carping Critics” in Whiz Comics Paul Hamerlinck for generously sharing their #45 (Aug. ’43). Cover by Beck. memories of the Critical Circle as well as copies [Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics.] of these letters and essays. I’d also like to thank Jared Gardner at Ohio State for giving me the opportunity to present this material last fall, and FCA reader (and fellow teacher) Joe Musich for his kind and encouraging feedback on my work. As all faithful FCA readers know, Paul has published some of the Critical Circle articles in these pages over the last couple of decades. What a pleasure that, as readers, we get to experience the insights of this small group of friends who shared ideas on politics, life, and comics three decades ago. Given the world that we now live in, we could learn a lot from the curiosity, kindness, and optimism of Beck and his Circle…. I’m sure you know this story. It’s an old one, courtesy of Bill Parker and C.C. Beck: Billy Batson, a homeless young man who sells newspapers to survive, meets an old wizard in the shadows of a strange subway tunnel. The old man offers Billy a gift: a magic word that will grant him great power and restore a life stolen from him by his heartless uncle. The boy says “Shazam!,” the old man disappears, and Captain Marvel— Fred MacMurray in a bright red suit with a yellow lightning bolt across his chest—soon confronts and defeats a mad scientist named Dr. Thaddeus Bodog Sivana. In a 1974 interview, over three

“We’re Looking For People Who Like To Draw!” C.C. Beck and Trina Robbins were both immortalized in the Famous Cartoonist button set from 1975. Art by Beck & Robbins, respectively. [Art © the respective artists.]

decades after our favorite hero’s 1940 debut, Bruce Hamilton asked Beck to provide fans with “a capsule autobiography” for a collection of Golden Age Captain Marvel comics. Writing in the third person, Beck stressed that he “was never an editor or an idea man. He is an illustrator. Give him a set of blueprints of a building you have in mind and he’ll make you a fine ‘artist’s rendering’ of what it will look like when finished” (qtd. in Hamilton). Despite his insistence that, as a trained artist who had studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in the late 1920s, he served merely as “[a]n extension of the writer” (qtd. in Eisner 73), Beck was a prolific critic who wrote extensively about the theory and practice of comic book art until his death at the age of 79 on November 22, 1989. Although he ceased working as a cartoonist in the early 1970s after a stroke affected his vision (letter to Robbins, August 25, 1989), Beck remained active in comics fandom in the U.S. and proved himself to be more of “an idea man” than he cared to admit. In the last two years of his life, he created and corresponded extensively with what he called the Critical Circle, a group of fans and fellow comic book professionals with whom he shared his unpublished essays, some of which eventually appeared

FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

as installments of his “Crusty Curmudgeon” column in The Comics Journal (and, more recently, right here in the pages of FCA). Although the starting point for Beck’s theories can be traced back to his role as “Chief Artist” for Captain Marvel in the 1940s—a period during which he and his assistant Pete Costanza were in charge of a group of artists at their Englewood, New Jersey-based studio— he produced some of his most ambitious and forward-thinking criticism in the late 1980s, due in no small part to his friendship with and admiration for Trina Robbins, whose career as a cartoonist and scholar has mirrored Beck’s progression from innovative artist to influential writer. The essays and letters that Beck and his Circle shared reveal a small but lively epistolary community of comic book fans and professionals who collaboratively produced a miniature study of comic art in the United States at the close of the twentieth century.

and art” filled with “all the marvelous things that the imagination can create” without “trying to make them realistic. This kind of writing and art is as old as the human race and I believe is the only true purpose for one human’s trying to convey messages to others” (Beck, “What Kind”).

In an obituary published in the Comics Buyer’s Guide in December 1989, John G. Pierce writes that Beck was notable not only for “the incredible warmth and enduring charm of the Captain Marvel/Billy Batson persona he had helped to develop” but also for “his oft-repeated viewpoints on the need for simplicity in art—viewpoints which were challenging, iconoclastic, highly individualistic, simplistic in their presentation but complex in the depth and breadth of knowledge and skill which went into their development” (Pierce 32). Scholars, however, have largely ignored Beck’s “legacy,” not only as a cartoonist but also as an essayist and theorist. Art Spiegelman, for example, in “A Colloquy on Classic Kids’ Comics,” published in The Comics Journal #302, argues that, as he puts it, “Beck sits—to use the taxonomy of Andrew Sarris’s American Cinema book that defined the auteur theory for me in the ’60s—as ‘Lightly Likable’” (qtd. in Heer 240). In studying Beck’s art and career, however, I found myself returning to another work of auteurist film criticism, Paul Schrader’s Transcendental Style in Film, his 1972 study of Yasujirō Ozu, Carl Theodor Dreyer, and Robert Bresson.

In the spring of 1989, Beck’s writing took a more prophetic turn, as he looked to his childhood in Minnesota as a source for his artistic sensibility. “We Pennsylvania Dutch are by nature plain people, not fond of fancy clothes and a life devoted to dancing, card playing, and wasting time in childish games.” These “conservative and old-fashioned” tendencies, he continues, sometimes prompted “neighbors” to “call us narrow-minded and out of touch with the real world.” At the close of the essay, Beck set his sights on that “real world,” one sadly “[broken] up into a thousand tiny fiefdoms, each led by a local tyrant of one persuasion or another.” After World War II, Beck believed, “[w]e were back in the dark ages again—and are still in them today” (Beck, “Racial Inheritance”). While works of the imagination, he argued, might remedy that situation, he also believed strongly in open dialogue and spirited discourse. Or, as he assured Robbins in a letter dated June 19, 1989, “Don’t worry about our different views of things—that’s what makes life interesting. Nothing bores me more than being in a group of people who agree on everything.” Robbins’ enthusiasm and encouragement, as we’ll see, made the Critical Circle possible. In addition to their scholarly significance, these letters are also the record of a lasting and meaningful friendship between two colleagues who cared for and respected each other. “How is your book coming along?” Beck asks Robbins at the close of that June 19th letter. “Let me know, will you?”

While Beck wrote numerous essays on the mechanics of a comic book page, there is also a spiritual and, in his final essays, even mystical dimension to his writing that no doubt owes a debt to his father, Willis Beck, a Lutheran minister in Zumbrota, Minnesota, where Beck was born in 1910 (Pierce 27). For Beck, what Schrader describes as the “transcendent” finds expression in a simple and unadorned style that Jules Feiffer once described as part of Captain Marvel’s “magic”: “not only did it appear easy to become him,” Feiffer writes in The Great Comic Book Heroes, “it looked easy to draw him. Deceptively so” (24). In a 1989 letter to Robbins, Beck advised her to “[n]ever draw any more than necessary”—that is, to respect the work already done by the writer and to leave space for the reader’s imagination. Or, as Beck explained in a Critical Circle essay from January 1989, his “personal preference” was “for writing

Transcendental Medication Paul Schrader’s 1988 book from Da Capo Press, Transcendental Style in Film. Besides later directing some films of his own, Schrader wrote and/or co-wrote the screenplays for the acclaimed Martin Scorsese films Taxi Driver (1975) and Raging Bull (1980).

I find in Beck’s art and in his writing an attempt to locate in works of the imagination the “transcendental style” or state of being that Schrader found, for example, in Dreyer’s stark, austere, and often ecstatic movies (Dreyer, I should admit, is, along with Beck, one of my favorite visual artists). For Schrader, that “style” often, as he puts it, “seeks to maximize the mystery of existence” as it “eschews all conventional interpretations of reality: realism, naturalism, psychologism, romanticism, expressionism, impressionism, and, finally, rationalism” (Schrader 10).

Like Captain Marvel, the Critical Circle also has an origin story, one that begins with a question Beck asked Robbins in a letter from March 7, 1988. Inspired in part by the articles he’d been writing for The Comics Journal, Beck described his plan: I have just given birth to a new idea (parthenogenetically): How about my lining up a dozen or more people like yourself with whom I correspond and sending them one of my unpublished articles every so often? I write many more than are published, and get all sorts of ideas and questions from my correspondents, whose comments I’d like to share with others. I’ll publish their comments on my articles in following mailings. Beck includes the names of two other acquaintances, Gary Groth from Fantagraphics and cat yronwode from Eclipse. While Groth and yronwode did not join the Circle, Robbins immediately signed on, along with writer and comics historian Richard A. Lupoff, who, with Pat Lupoff, had sparked a renewal of interest in Captain Marvel in the pages of the fanzine Xero in the early 1960s. Soon, others joined, including writer and Mad editor Jerry DeFuccio and a certain young artist, comic book fan, and budding scholar/editor named P. C. Hamerlinck. Other members included political cartoonist Jim Ivey, future comic book inker and Alter Ego associate editor Jim Amash, and FCA/SOB contributor Klaus D. Haisch. Hamerlinck has pointed out that Beck’s group of friends and colleagues shared thoughts and ideas “years before Internet ‘chat rooms’” (Hamerlinck, “Seven Deadly Sins”). That comparison

“A Fabric Of Illusion”

Critical Circle Members

Richard Lupoff

Jim Ivey The cartoonist with Beck, at the Orlando Con, 11-24-74. Photo: Ron Goulart.

Trina Robbins Cartoonist & author with Beck, at San Diego Comic-Con, July 1977.

His article on Captain Marvel, “The Big Red Cheese,” in the SF fanzine Xero #1 (1960) initiated a wave of nostalgic articles on vintage comics and set the table for the comics fanzines that began to debut the next year.

Jerry DeFuccio

P.C. Hamerlinck Major Fawcett/Beck fan and now longtime editor of FCA.

echoes the late Roger Ebert’s argument that those who wrote for the fanzines of the 1960s and 1970s—like Beck himself—“were online before there was an online” (Ebert 10). In his introduction to Richard and Pat Lupoff’s 2004 collection The Best of Xero, Ebert insists that “[i]t is perfectly obvious” in retrospect “that fanzines were Web pages before there was a Web, and locs [letters of comment] were message threads and bulletin boards before there was cyberspace” (10). Although Beck wrote some of his earliest criticism for the magazine Inside Comics in the early 1970s, his fascination with the relationship between words and pictures dates back to his years at Fawcett when he—along with Binder, Costanza, artist Kurt Schaffenberger, and other Fawcett freelancers and extended family—would meet and debate the future of the medium they were helping to shape. In a 1977 interview with Chris Padovano, Beck recalled with humor and affection the happiest years of his career as a cartoonist. “The parties we had during the ’40s are my fondest memories,” he told Padovano. “We had no pot or rock music, but plenty of booze and old-time [accordion] and guitar music” (qtd. in Padovano). In Words of Wonder, his definitive biography of Binder, Bill Schelly describes these Fawcett parties as joyful gatherings where writers and artists would sing and play music before, as he puts it, “the late night bull sessions began” (Schelly 107). In the second volume of Jim Steranko’s History of Comics, Binder recalls these get-togethers: “All of us lived, ate, and dreamed comics in the Golden Era,” he explained, noting that conversation would often turn to subjects including “that crazy Jack Kirby’s layouts” and admiration for Will Eisner’s innovative work (Binder qtd. in Steranko 17). Meanwhile,

Associate editor of Mad for years, in a 1955 photo taken by Jennifer A. Hulshizer.

Jim Amash & an actor from An Evening with Groucho. A longtime comic book inker, Jim has done many interviews for Alter Ego.

at their art studio, which produced comics for Fawcett as well as for the Captain Tootsie ad campaign, Beck and Costanza trained students recruited from various art schools in the visual language of comics. In a 1983 conversation with Eisner, Beck describes a guide he created for the artists under his direction who worked as part of Fawcett’s assembly-line system in the early 1940s. This pamphlet, it appears, was Beck’s first attempt to articulate a working theory of comic art: “I made up a little book of how to cartoon and how not to,” he told Eisner. He included “samples” by some of his favorite cartoonists, including ones from Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie (qtd. in Eisner 63). Later in their lives, Binder and Beck both looked back on the 1940s and early 1950s with pride and a palpable sense of longing. It’s no surprise, then, that in “What Really Killed Captain Marvel?,” the first essay mailed to the members of the Critical Circle on March 7, 1988, Beck recalled his years at Fawcett and shared his thoughts on the company’s settlement with National/DC. Beck argues that, despite what history might tell us, it “was not the lawsuit” that did Captain Marvel in, “nor a change in reading habits and attitudes, but mishandling by his own publisher and associated producers” (Beck, “What Really”). In this essay, Beck introduces a theme that he returns to frequently in his criticism: what place does realism have, if any, in a work of comic book art? As Fawcett, Beck writes, “insisted that he be made more convincingly real,” Captain Marvel and the comic books in which he appeared began to lose the unique qualities that readers found

FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

Art Do You Prefer?” from January 1989, first appear in a short story called “Vanishing Point” which he had published in Astounding Science Fiction in July 1959. More a polemic than a fully formed narrative, “Vanishing Point” tells the story of an artist named Carter who invents a perspective machine in order to understand the phenomenological relationship between the artist and reality. “Maybe everything is just imaginary,” Carter suggests, “and appears to our senses in whatever way we want it to appear. We are so well-trained that we see everything just as we are taught to see it by generations of artists, writers, and other symbol-makers. If we could see things as they really are,” he wonders, “what might happen?” (138). At the end of the story, much to his horror, he’s Critical Mass found his answer. His machine, Years before the formation of the Critical Circle, Beck first debated the comics medium with his Golden Age peers. having revealed the nature of Later on, his critiques of comics began to surface in such magazines as Joe Brancatelli’s Inside Comics and numerous perception, now threatens to fanzines during the ’70s. The next decade he took over editorship of FCA, re-naming it FCA/SOB (Some Opinionated destroy the universe—or his sanity, Bastards), with new emphasis on comic art criticism. Above are the cover of Inside Comics #4 (Winter 1974) and FCA/ or both: “The artists were right all SOB #11 (FCA #22) (Jan. ’82); both covers by Beck. [Shazam heroes, Superman, Batman TM & © DC Comics.] the time . . . there is no reality!” he exclaims. “It’s all a fabric of endearing. “While real-life characters can appear in comic strips illusion we’ve created ourselves! And now I’ve ripped a hole in with more or less success,” Beck argued, “comic strip characters that!” (“Vanishing Point,” 139). can’t appear in real life and be convincing. The contrast between a normal human and a cartoon character is too great; one or the other In “What Kind of Writing and Art Do You Prefer?,” Beck strikes will always look phony.” Beck’s conclusion? Because of Fawcett’s the same apocalyptic tone as he did in the conclusion of “Vanishing interference, “Captain Marvel looked phony” (Beck, “What Point.” Realism has its place, but when it becomes the dominant Really”). mode of discourse, it can have devastating consequences, Beck argues, on society. Of all the Critical Circle essays, I find this one the A month later, in a letter dated April 21, 1988, Beck typed up most fascinating and even moving, as Beck reiterates his belief in short summaries of the Circle’s response to the article. This set the the relationship between art and life: pattern for the next year and a half: Beck would select highlights from the letters he received, respond to questions, and include a When a culture reaches a point where its writing and art are too new essay for the Circle to read (on a couple of occasions, he also realistic its members start to lose touch with reality. Soon they can’t tell mailed short stories or comic book scripts he’d written). In her reply the artificial from the real to Beck’s comments on comic books and realism, Robbins reflected and their buildings fall on the state of mainstream comics in the United States in the wake down, their vehicles crash of, for example, popular series like Howard Chaykin’s American and kill people, their very Flagg! and The Shadow, Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, and food and water kill them. Alan Moore’s Miracleman: “There’s something very weird about the Hideous wars break out way contemporary superhero comics strive for gritty realism,” she and eventually destroy the wrote. “Superheroes aren’t real, they are fantasy creatures, so how culture that has lost touch bizarre to try and make them as real as possible.” with reality. In the same mailing, Beck followed up on these points with an article titled “Good Taste in Comic Art.” He cautioned that Seeing Red! the “nine points” included in the essay “are not iron-bound Beck’s cover for Captain rules” but “merely basic principles” that provide a framework Marvel Adventures #139 for the working artist. In his cover letter, Beck also describes his (Dec. ’52). The artist felt strongly that integrating ideal reader. Despite his reputation for cynicism, Beck insisted comics with real-life situathat he “always imagined” a comic book reader as “a bright tions (like the Korean War) young person merely looking for excitement and adventure in and real-life personas is the world of imaginative storytelling and illustration [ . . . ].” what ultimately killed the Since childhood, Beck, whose mother was a teacher, had been an original Captain Marvel, avid reader, especially of fantasy and science-fiction. Perhaps it’s not the lawsuit with DC no surprise, then, that Beck’s ideas on “realism,” especially as Comics. [Shazam hero TM & expressed in the Critical Circle essay “What Kind of Writing and © DC Comics.]

“A Fabric Of Illusion”

What might save us from this fate, Beck continues, are “[f]airy tales and impossible stories,” those “jokes and flights of fancy” that “are good for one’s health” (Beck, “What Kind”). Here, Beck returns to an argument he’d made in The Comics Journal #106 from March 1986: “The true purpose of art is this: it is an attempt to make some kind of order out of the world by putting down in pictorial form a version of the world as it might appear, not as it actually appears” (Beck, “Good Art” 8–9). That is the “world” that Beck imagined in his comics, one that proved to be an inspiration for Trina Robbins who, in an essay she wrote for her friend not long after his death, opens with a line from Paul Simon’s 1986 hit song “You Can Call Me Al”: “Who’ll be my role model now that my role model’s gone?” While Robbins, as a child, had little use for Mac Raboy’s Captain Marvel Jr. comics, which she “dismissed as being too realistic,” she loved Beck’s work because she “couldn’t resist the crisp, clean drawing style and the whimsical array of characters, including Dr. Sivana” and “Mister Mind, an evil genius in the body of a worm.” Not only was Beck’s hero “the only superhero comic I read as a girl,” she explains, but also “a pretty major inspiration for my own art style.” At the close of her essay, Robbins, a central figure in the underground comix movement of the 1960s who has had a long and distinguished career as a prolific artist, scholar, and writer, said farewell to her friend by describing his character, one suited to the fantastic and visionary spaces he’d created in his comics. “C.C. delighted in being a curmudgeon,” she writes, “yet I was very aware that most of his crustiness was an act. He was a believer in and a practitioner of the gentle and humorous in life and comics” (“C.C. Beck”). At the end of his life, Beck, like the old wizard he’d helped to create decades earlier, passed on these tales and observations to a new generation of artists and scholars who carefully archived and persevered his correspondence. Having now shared these letters with us, Trina Robbins and Paul Hamerlinck encourage us to continue the dialogue Beck and the Circle began in the 1980s. And the magic word? That, Trina has told me, we each already possess, but must discover for ourselves—always, of course, with the help of our friends and loved ones.

Works Cited Beck, C. C. “Are We Living in the Golden Age and Don’t Know It?” Comics Journal no. 135 (April 1990): 117–18. Print. — Interview with Bruce Hamilton. “Introduction . . . Bruce Hamilton Talks to C.C. Beck.” Special Edition Series 1: A Complete Collection of Captain Marvel Adventures from Whiz Comics 7–28. By Alan Light, Bruce Hamilton, and Murray Bishoff. East Moline, IL: Special Edition Reprints, 1974: N.p. Print. — “Good Art.” Comics Journal no. 106 (March 1986): 7–9. Print. — “Good Taste in Comic Art,” 1988. TS. Collection of Trina Robbins, San Francisco.

— Letter to Trina Robbins, August 25, 1989. TS. Collection of Trina Robbins, San Francisco. — “Never draw any more than necessary.” Letter to Trina Robbins, n.d. (probably 1989). TS. Collection of Trina Robbins, San Francisco. — “Racial Inheritance in Story and Art,” May 26, 1989. TS. Collection of Trina Robbins, San Francisco. — “Vanishing Point.” Astounding Science Fiction vol. LXIII, no. 5 (July 1959): 135–39. Print. — “What Kind of Writing and Art Do You Prefer?” January 19, 1989. TS. Collection of Trina Robbins, San Francisco. — “What Really Killed Captain Marvel?” 1988. TS. Collection of Trina Robbins, San Francisco.

Prose & Cons The opening page of C.C. Beck’s short story “Vanishing Point,” published in John W. Campbell’s Astounding Science Fiction (July 1959). Illustration credited to “Martinez.” [© the respective copyright holders.]

Ebert, Roger. “Introduction: How Propellor-Heads, BNFs, Sercon Geeks, Newbies, Recovering GAFIAtors and Kids in Basements Invented the World Wide Web, All Except for the Delivery System.” The Best of Xero. Eds. Pat Lupoff and Dick Lupoff. San Francisco: Tachyon Press, 2004: 1–11. Print. Eisner, Will. “C. C. Beck.” Will Eisner’s Shop Talk. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Comics: 52–75. Print. Feiffer, Jules. The Great Comic Book Heroes. New York: Bonanza Books, 1965. Print. Hamerlinck, P. C. Editor’s Note for “The Seven Deadly Sins of Comics Creators” by C. C. Beck. Alter Ego vol. 3, no. 6. Available online: http://www.twomorrows.com/alterego/articles/06sins. html Heer, Jeet. From “A Colloquy on Classic Kids’ Comics Moderated by Art Spiegelman with Paul Karasik, Jeff Smith, Seth, Paul Levitz, Monte Wolverton, Michael Barrier, Jeet Heer, Frank Young, Chris Duffy, Bob Heer and Others.” Comics Journal no. 302 (January 2013): 236–360. Print. Pierce, John G. “C.C. Beck: An American Original.” Comics Buyer’s Guide no. 840 (December 22, 1989): 27–28, 30, 32. Print. Robbins, Trina. “C.C. Beck; An Appreciation.” (N.d., probably late 1989). TS. Collection of Trina Robbins, San Francisco.

— Interview with Chris Padovano. Fan (1977): N.p. Print.

Schelly, Bill. Words of Wonder: The Life and Times of Otto Binder. Seattle: Hamster Press, 2003. Print.

— Letter to Critical Circle members, April 21, 1988. TS. Collection of Trina Robbins, San Francisco.

Schrader, Paul. Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer. New York: Da Capo Press, 1972. Print.

— Letter to Trina Robbins, March 7, 1988. TS. Collection of Trina Robbins, San Francisco.

Steranko, Jim. The Steranko History of Comics 2. Reading: Supergraphics, 1972. Print.

— Letter to Trina Robbins, June 19, 1989. TS. Collection of Trina Robbins, San Francisco.

Brian Cremins is an Associate Professor of English at Harper College in Palatine, Illinois. The University Press of Mississippi published his first book, Captain Marvel and the Art of Nostalgia, in December 2016. He lives in Chicago.

— Letter to Trina Robbins, June 25, 1989. TS. Collection of Trina Robbins, San Francisco.

More British Fawcetts —Golden Age Style!

by Gerald Edwards

Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

n Alter Ego #137 ( Jan. 2016), I examined the history of the Fawcett comic reprints produced by publisher L. Miller & Son, Ltd., of London, England. In that article, “Britain’s Fawcetts—L. Miller Style!,” I lamented over the fact that few of the very early Miller issues had survived. Since then, however, I’ve had the good fortune to acquire five early Captain Marvel family-related UK Fawcetts. These books shed a little more light on the very beginnings of the Fawcett comic line distribution in Britain. Len Miller dealt with all manner of books, comics, and magazines. In the early ’40s he executed an arrangement with Fawcett Publications to reprint a small handful of Captain Marvel comics in England. There was absolutely no structure to the frequency of the issues that were published. A major factor for the books that came into play was how much paper Miller could obtain under wartime and post-war conditions to produce them. These early comics were all printed on basic newsprint paper, including the covers, and cost-effective, two-tone coloring was as good as it got for the books. There was either no number to be found on these comics, or Miller simply kept the original US issue number. This makes it very difficult to ascertain exactly how many different issues were produced and, since they contained only the Fawcett copyright date, the actual year of release in the UK is pure guesswork. It’s a confusing mess! The earliest known British Fawcett comic appears to be an undated, unnumbered issue of Wow Comics published approximately in 1944. Sad to say, thus far I have only been able to view a small black-&-white image of its cover, in a long-defunct British magazine titled Model Mart, dated April 1997.

Wow Comics (unnumbered) 1944 - Art by Jack Binder. [Shazam heroine, Mr. Scarlet, & Pinky, Phantom Eagle, & Commando Yank TM & © DC Comics.]

Another of the earliest Miller-Fawcett books is Master Comics #49 (April ’44). This date, from its US counterpart, was in all probability the first British issue of Master, also from 1944. The only story is Otto Binder’s “The Ghost Projector,” wherein Captain Marvel Jr. faces off with Dr. Sivana. The 10¢ price box on the U.S. original has morphed into the L. Miller brand logo. The relative lack of pages (16 pages in the British edition) has also necessitated the storyline cover blurb to be reduced to just one hero from the lineup of five other strips from the U.S. version. The distinct lack of color on Mac Raboy’s cover is just the way it was issued, but does lend itself to a little piece of period charm. There is no price on the cover, as many of these comics were sold for whatever the seller could get for them! Similarly, since they were undated, they were never defined as being a “current issue” of a periodical.

More British Fawcetts—Golden Age Style

Whiz Comics (unnumbered) - c. 1945-46 The unnumbered Whiz Comics issue shown is also, in all likelihood, the first British edition of the title. It contains reprints from the U.S. Whiz Comics #64 (April ’45). This particular issue, for some reason, is a much larger-sized comic, measuring 11 inches by 8 inches; all of the others featured here measure quite a bit smaller at 9 inches by 7 inches. It also has 16 pages and features Captain Marvel (“The Seven League Boots” by Otto Binder, C.C. Beck, & Pete Costanza) and Spy Smasher (“The Japanese Sandman,” with art by Charlie Tomsey), but none of the other Whiz strips. C.C. Beck’s cover gets an odd color treatment. (See cover of U.S. Whiz Comics #64 below.)

The Captain Marvel issue depicted reprints material from U.S. issue #66 (Oct. ’46) of Captain Marvel Adventures—again, with standard washed-out, duo-tone colors of the British editions. It features the Binder/Beck/Costanza classic nuclear holocaust cautionary tale, “Captain Marvel and the Atomic War.” This is a previously uncatalogued comic, with the Adventures part of the title deleted by L. Miller. The original US issue number is retained. (See U.S. cover directly below.)

FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

Finally, the Wow Comics shown reprints the Mary Marvel (“Shorthorn, U.S.A.” drawn by Jack Binder) and Mr. Scarlet (“The Bolt of Doom” drawn by Carl Pfeufer) stories only from U.S. issue #49 (Nov. ’46); the cover art by Jack Binder, however, depicts Mary with another Wow hero, Commando Yank. The U.S. issue number is retained but, like all the comics here, without most of the previous issues being produced. A collector’s nightmare!

Captain Marvel Jr. (unnumbered) - c. 1946-47 The Captain Marvel Jr. comic shown is undated but reprints material from U.S. issue #43 (also from Oct. ’46); cover art by Bud Thompson. The featured story is Binder and Thompson’s “Beasts on Broadway.” There is an obvious lack of continuity going on here ,as both the Captain Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr. comics used the same month of issue, but only one retains the issue number!

Wow Comics #49 – c. 1946-47

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All of the early L. Miller comics are extremely scarce. There were very few comics available at the time in the UK, particularly those from the super-hero genre. The print runs were low, and the quality of the paper was so poor that many have crumbled into pieces over time. Previously, only a 16-page, all-newsprint, un-numbered comic of The Marvel Family had come to light (as reported by Gregg Clifford back in Alter Ego #66 [Mar. ’07])—which now indeed appears to be a part of the early L. Miller/Fawcett releases. It is gratifying to know that at least a few of the early L. Miller/ Fawcett books have survived, revealing to us the type of comic available in England around the end of World War II. Fawcett comics were very popular in Britain, just as they were in America. Whilst L. Miller’s issues from the 1950s showed a greater upsurge in popularity and, to a certain extent, survival rates, the very early issues shown here remain some of just a few, if not the only, surviving examples. With these conjectured “first issues,” it is entirely possible—although unlikely— that more early UK issues could surface in the future. These early Miller comics will probably forever remain a grey area of comic research, yet still qualify as fascinating finds … not just for British comic collectors but for U.S. collectors seeking something a little different to complement their Fawcett U.S. collection.

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Celebrating 30 years of artist’s artist MARK SCHULTZ, creator of the CADILLACS AND DINOSAURS franchise, with a featurelength, career-spanning interview conducted in Mark’s Pennsylvanian home, examining the early years of struggle, success with Kitchen Sink Press, and hitting it big with a Saturday morning cartoon series. Includes rarely-seen art and fascinating photos from Mark’s amazing and award-winning career.

A look at 75 years of Archie Comics’ characters and titles, from Archie and his pals ‘n gals to the mighty MLJ heroes of yesteryear and today’s “Dark Circle”! Also: Careerspanning interviews with The Fox’s DEAN HASPIEL and Kevin Keller’s cartoonist DAN PARENT, who both jam on our exclusive cover depicting a face-off between humor and heroes. Plus our usual features, including the hilarious FRED HEMBECK!

The legacy and influence of WALLACE WOOD, with a comprehensive essay about Woody’s career, extended interview with Wood assistant RALPH REESE (artist for Marvel’s horror comics, National Lampoon, and underground), a long chat with cover artist HILARY BARTA (Marvel inker, Plastic Man and America’s Best artist with ALAN MOORE), plus our usual columns, features, and the humor of HEMBECK!

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