Alter Ego #155 by TwoMorrows Publishing

Roy Thomas' forever-MAURER Comics Fanzine

SHINING THE SPOTLIGHT ON

NORMAN MAURER

—GOLDEN AGE ARTIST OF CRIMEBUSTER, DAREDEVIL, CRIME DOES NOT PAY—

The Three Stooges ®/© 2018 C3 Entertainmen t, Inc. All Rights Reserved www.threestooges.com ; DD/Iron Jaw commiss . ion © Joan Maurer; othe © the respective holders; r art Daredevil is a trademark of Marvel Characters, Inc.

—&, O THESE H YEAH, G HIS IN COMPUYS— IN-LAWARABLE S!

82658 00152

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In the USA

No. 155 November 2018

Vol. 3, No. 155 / Nov.. 2018 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 Artist

Writer/Editorial: Thanks For The Memories! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Joan Maurer Remembers Norman Maurer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Rob Smentek William J. Dowlding Norman Maurer

Richard Arndt & the Golden Age artist of Daredevil, Crimebuster—& The Three Stooges!

Cover Colorists

“[Being In Comics] Was An Important Time In My Life” . . . 37

Tom Ziuko, et al.

With Special Thanks to: Heidi Amash Pedro Angosto Terrance Armstard Richard J. Arndt Bob Bailey Rod Beck John Benson bleedingcool (website) Ricky Terry Brisacque Michael Browning Bernie Bubnis Mark CarlsonGhost John Cimino Shaun Clancy Maddy Cohen Comic Book Plus (website) Comic Vine (website) Chet Cox Val Dal Chele Craig Delich Al Dellinges Mark Evanier Justin Fairfax Shane Foley Jeff Gelb Janet Gilbert Golden Age Comic Book Stories (website) Grand Comics Database (website)

George Hagenauer Heritage Comics Auctions Ellen Harris Lawrence Kaufman Jim Kealy Bob Klein Todd Klein Paul Levitz Mark Lewis Jim Ludwig Jeffrey Maurer Joan Maurer Robert Maurer Robert Menzies Mike Mikulovsky Brian K. Morris Will Murray Ken Quattro Barry Pearl Bill Pearson Sandy Plunkett Trina Robbins Bob Rozakis Jim Salicrup Randy Sargent Eric Schumacher Earl Shaw Anthony Snyder Ronn Sutton Dann Thomas Michael Uslan Dr. Michael J. Vassallo Lindsey Wilkerson Donald Woolfolk

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Norman Maurer, Fran Hopper, & Bill Harris

An interview with Maddy Cohen, a.k.a. (during the Marvel Age) Mimi Gold.

“Paris When It Sizzles” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Part VI of Golden/Silver Age super-writer John Broome’s offbeat memoir.

The REALLY SECRET Origin Of The Justice League . . . . . . . 55 Larry Ivie’s 1990s thoughts on interfaces with Shelly Mayer & Julius Schwartz.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! “Dan Adkins And The Incredible Tracing Machine!” Revisited – Part III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Michael T. Gilbert lets the late Silver Age artist speak for himself re the controversy.

Comic Fandom Archive: My Friend, Raymond Miller . . . . . 71 Bill Schelly presents Jeff Gelb’s reminiscence of the 1960s ultra-fan.

Tributes To Fran Hopper & Bill Harris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 re: [correspondence, comments, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . 81 FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #214 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 P.C. Hamerlinck with Michael Browning’s study of comics writer France “Ed” Herron.

On Our Cover: From the early 1940s through the mid-1950s, artist Norman Maurer did the majority of his comics work for two publishers, specializing in Daredevil Comics and Boy Comics (starring Crimebuster) for editors Charles Biro and Bob Wood at Lev Gleason Publications—and The Three Stooges and Whack at St. John Publishing Co. Solid, often inspired work—which we tried to do justice on our montage cover assembled by layout guru Chris Day. The photo is courtesy of Mrs. Joan Maurer, via Shaun Clancy. [Pages © the respective copyright holders; DD/Iron Jaw drawing © Estate of Norman Maurer. Daredevil is now a trademark of Marvel Characters, Inc.] Above: Another Norman Maurer moment—this one, an excellent splash page of Crimebuster from the pages of Boy Illustories #64 (April 1951), just as things were beginning to heat up again concerning “crime comics.” Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. For the probable reason why Boy Comics became Boy Illustories—see p. 17. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.] 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, $99 Elsewhere, $30 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

Thanks For The Memories!

ne of the primary reasons I’ve stuck around putting together Alter Ego for the past two decades is all the stuff I learn in the preparation for each issue. Take this one:

First, the lead interview with Joan Maurer, widow of Golden/ Silver Age artist Norman Maurer and daughter of Moe Howard, the head honcho of the immortal Three Stooges. I probably first met the Maurers at the 1983 San Diego Comic-Con they attended… and Dann and I were honored when they came to a party at our home in San Pedro, CA. In addition to seeming genuinely nice people, they possessed for me an almost hypnotizing aura. Besides his other excellent work, Norman had been part of the Kubert-&Maurer team that had produced the wonderful Tor, Three Stooges, and Whack (plus the world’s first 3-D comicbooks) for mid-1950s St. John Publishing… and Joan was Moe’s offspring, also the niece of Curly and Shemp—a royal family of wonderfully lowbrow comedy if ever there was one. (Fellow Stooge Larry Fine wasn’t technically a Howard, but Joan’s said he was always treated like a member of the family… which is why I refer to the Stooges as Norman’s “incomparable in-laws” on this issue’s cover. It’s only a slight exaggeration.) It was fascinating for me to learn, through Richard Arndt’s deft questions and Joan’s thought-out answers, that Norman developed a type of “animation without artists” (in which Moe appeared as a cutlass-wielding pirate!)… that the Little Wise Guys of Daredevil Comics were only the second kid gang with that name at Lev Gleason Publications… that there was almost a “Three Stooges” comic strip. And their son Jeff, with whom I exchanged a few e-mails, was the guy who (amid a zillion other TV-animation projects) wrote the early-’80s “bible” and pilot episode of a Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew! cartoon show when CBS optioned that comicbook series I’d co-created. I’m naturally pleased when readers express their appreciation for things they learn in A/E… but they’re no more chuffed than I am to have been privileged to meet folks like Joan and Norman Maurer. This issue, in fact, is virtually an “old-home” week for me:

Maddy Cohen, who as “Mimi Gold” worked for Marvel in the late 1960s/early ’70s, was a delight when I knew her then… and speaking with her on the phone not long ago swept aside the four-plus decades in between as if they had never existed. Larry Ivie, recently spotlighted by his friend Sandy Plunkett in A/E #152, was someone I knew less well; but he was a fascinatingly opinionated (and forever enthusiastic) figure on the 1960s fan/pro scene, and I’m happy to finally showcase an article he wrote for A/E—even if I disagree with a few of his conclusions. John Broome I met only once, in San Diego in 1998—but he’d been a major part of my comics-reading life from 1947’s All-Star Comics #35 through his final “Green Lantern” story in the 1980s, and I’m thankful I got the chance to tell him how much his work had meant to me—even though he couldn’t enlighten me where the name “Per Degaton” came from. Dan Adkins was one of the first artists I met outside the DC and Marvel offices after I moved to New York—it was at the studio of the fabulously irascible Wally Wood—and despite problems with his art swipes and occasional whoppers, I liked the guy. While I didn’t personally know the late fan Raymond Miller, I—like many another—thoroughly enjoyed his drawings and info on Golden Age super-heroes that surfaced in vintage fanzines. We were birds of a feather, even if from a distance. Sadly, I never got to meet the late artist Fran Hopper—but Gold Key editor/writer Bill Harris was a pipe-smoking presence at the 1965 New York comics convention, and it was good to see him at the helm of King Comics a couple of years later. The final e-mails we exchanged, a few months prior to his passing, brought back fond memories of a bygone time. So: no great point to be made in this issue’s writer/editorial. I just wanted to say— Thanks to A/E’s ever-supportive readers for giving me an excuse to be in touch with all these wonderful people—and to learn, with you, all the marvelous things they can share with us!

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JOAN MAURER Remembers NORMAN MAURER

Celebrating The Golden Age Artist of Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay—& The Three Stooges! Conducted & Transcribed by Richard J. Arndt

NTERVIEWER’S INTRODUCTION: Joan Maurer’s husband was the artist, writer, and film producer Norman Maurer. He entered the comics field in 1942, illustrating stories for Lev Gleason Publication’s titles Crime Does Not Pay, Boy Comics, and Daredevil Comics, drawing characters like Daredevil (the 1940s version), Bombshell, Robinhood [sic], and Crimebuster. During a stint in the military during World War II, where he still drew after duty hours for the comics, Norman met Joan at a party and they soon married.

Norman & Joan Maurer (top right) in a photo taken Nov. 1, 1983, by San Diego Comic-Con co-founder Shel Dorf—above examples from two of Norman’s most noted comicbook series runs. (Left:) A “Crimebuster” splash drawn for Lev Gleason Publications’ Boy Comics #33 (April 1947). This story, like most in that and other Gleason titles, was officially credited to editor Charles Biro, but various other writers probably wrote some of the scripts under his direction, and his “story” credit probably often reflected his merely giving the actual scripter a concept for a story. (Directly above:) Maurer’s cover for The Three Stooges #1 (Feb. 1949), the premiere issue of the first of two different Stooges series he wrote and drew for St. John Publishing Company, under its earlier name “Jubilee.” Thanks to Comic Book Plus website. [Boy page TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders; The Three Stooges are a registered trademark of C3 Entertainment, Inc.]

Celebrating The Golden Age Artist Of Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, & The Three Stooges

After the war, Norman continued to work for Lev Gleason through 1956, now concentrating on Daredevil and his kid gang—the Little Wise Guys—who by 1951 took over the magazine. In 1949 he drew the Three Stooges in a comic book for the first time, for Jubilee [St. John] comics. Norman had a unique “in” for the title, since Joan’s father was none other than Moe Howard, and her uncles were Curly and Shemp Howard— three of the four people who made up the Three Stooges during their amazingly successful 1934-1956 run of comedic theatrical shorts! That first comicbook series lasted only two issues, but Norman again took up the Stooges in 1953 for St. John Publications. That version lasted for two years and seven issues. Following the collapse of both Lev Gleason and St. John in the mid-1950s, Norman produced mystery, war, and Western comics for Atlas. When that work dried up, Norman began working as the Three Stooges’ manager and, eventually, as producer on their feature-length films and the 1960s cartoon show. In the late 1960s he produced several fine non-Stooges comedies, including the excellent 1967 film Who’s Minding the Mint? When his work in film began to dry up, his old friend and classmate Joe Kubert convinced him to return to comics at DC, where he drew the “Medal of Honor” back-up segment for editor Kubert’s war books for much of the 1970s. He also worked, yet again, on Three Stooges comics with The Little Stooges for Gold Key in the early 1970s. Norman passed away in 1986, at the age of 60. This interview was conducted by phone on May 23, 2016….

RA: How much do you know about Norman’s early life? MAURER: Quite a bit. He was born in Brooklyn on May 13, 1926. His home wasn’t too far from Ebbets Field, where the Brooklyn Dodgers played. The crowd noises were loud enough during games that they would keep him up at night. In retaliation he became a Giants fan! [laughs] Norman always wanted to be an artist and loved to draw. He did some very interesting work for the high school newspaper. He was drawing things at a very young age. He became fascinated, as many young people were at the time, with syndicated comic strips in the newspapers, and from that to the comicbooks. In later years, after meeting my dad, he became equally fascinated by film. There were so many parts of comics that lent itself to films. RA: Many films are based on storyboards, which is basically comics-style format, following a comicbook story right down the line. MAURER: Right. When he was seventeen, he went to the Manhattan’s High School of Music and Art. That’s where he met Joe Kubert, who became his life-long friend. They used to cut class together so they could work at a comicbook company erasing pages. RA: Joe started as a professional at an extremely young age. I think he was only twelve or thirteen.

“Joe Kubert… Became His Lifelong Friend” RICHARD ARNDT: Thanks for agreeing to this interview, Joan. Norman was born in 1926… JOAN MAURER: Yes, I was born in 1927. I’m a year younger.

The Maurer The Merrier! There were three Maurer brothers—in descending order of age: Lenny, Norman, & Robert. (Left to right above:) Norman and Lenny as kids—Norman in 1939, at age 13—and youngster Robert with Lenny. All photos provided by Robert Maurer, via Shaun Clancy, who had conducted his own interview with Joan Maurer but kindly shared these pics with us. The high school cartoon drawn by Norman is from Joan Maurer’s memoir/proposal Life in 3-D, dealing with her husband, herself, and her famous film family. Wouldn’t it be great if some enterprising publisher did indeed produce an entire book about this remarkable extended family— which also includes a couple of sons who gained prominence in the world of TV animation! [Art © Estate of Norman Maurer.]

Joan Maurer Remembers Norman Maurer

A Lifelong Mutual Admiration Society—And Deservedly So! Joe Kubert and Norman Maurer were friends from the 1940s through the latter’s death in 1986. Joan Maurer contrasts Kubert’s dynamic depiction of the human body with her husband’s clear storytelling—though of course both men were adept in each department. Seen above are Joe’s splash page from Tor, Vol. 1, #3 (May 1954—actually the fourth issue, since there’d been two 3-D editions between #1 & #3), and an action page from Norm’s “Medal of Honor” story of John Mitchell, a U.S. Navy hero of the Boxer Rebellion in China, as related in DC’s Our Fighting Forces #135 (Jan.-Feb. 1972). The artists also scripted both tales. Thanks to Ye Editor’s bound volumes and Jim Kealy, respectively. Photos of Kubert can be seen on pp. 7, et al. [Tor page TM & © Estate of Joe Kubert; OFF page TM & © DC Comics.]

MAURER: Joe was really good at anatomy and drawing the human body. Especially when I look at Tor or books like that. Norman couldn’t draw the human body like Joe could, but he could do other things that Joe had a more difficult time at. I think what Norman was best at in the comicbook field was that you knew what the characters on the page were doing. He had a way of dramatizing things. You knew what was going on even without reading the dialogue balloons. RA: I would assume that Joe and Norman had, well, perhaps not so much a friendly competition, but a sort of support system for each other…. MAURER: I would say it was more support. Norman leaned towards humorous art that wasn’t all that realistic. Joe, because of his ability at anatomy, did things in a more realistic way. So, there was never competition between them. Norman joined the Navy when he was eighteen. This was during the [World War II] war years. He worked as a photographer for them. One of his Navy photos, taken from a blimp at the Bikini Atoll bomb test site, appeared on the cover of Newsweek.

The Navy Gets The Gravy… Two photos of Norman Maurer in the Navy, circa 1945—the first, courtesy of Robert Maurer via Shaun Clancy; the second, showing Norman “moonlighting” drawing a comicbook story, courtesy of Comic Vine website.

Celebrating The Golden Age Artist Of Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, & The Three Stooges

“I Hadn’t Bothered To Tell Him My Dad Was Moe Howard Of The Three Stooges” RA: You met Norman at a party, is that right? MAURER: Yes. We met in… oh, about 1945…. and he was very verbal. He would tell me things about himself that I remember. Years ago I wanted to do a biography on him, and I put together a little proposal two or three years ago, spelling out what his life was like when he was younger and when he met Joe Kubert, etc, etc. With each little chunk of time I had a little illustration. It was called Life in 3-D. I only contacted one person with the proposal, and then he went out of town and I never heard anything back. That was the end of it. I thought it was interesting. Anyway, I had a girlfriend who was trying to cultivate this fellow that she really liked a lot, so she threw this party so he’d be there and she’d be with him. A lot of fellows were in the service then, so she, or a member of her family, called the USO or the Stage Door Canteen in Los Angeles, as those were the organizations that found things for sailors to do on a Saturday night. So Norman was asked if he wanted to go to a party, and he said yes and came. I did a lot of artwork myself, but was never very good. However, I was fascinated by what he could do. He drew Daredevil on a cocktail napkin for me. I think I still have it somewhere. I’ve been living in my house for sixty years and there’s so much stuff! Both from my dad, Moe Howard, who was famous as a member of the Three Stooges, and Norman. Norman tripped over a box in the attic one time and it was full of my dad’s cancelled checks. Every one of them with a genuine Moe Howard autograph! I sold all those checks by putting an ad in Rolling Stone magazine, and I said that for $10 you could have a genuine Moe Howard signed check. However, they had to make their payout out to the City of New Hope. I raised close to $40,000 for that charity. Dad would write out checks for a dollar or two dollars because the other Stooges didn’t pay for anything. Dad would pay for it with checks so he had a record of what he spent. Anyway, that had really nothing to do with Norman. When Norman drew on that cocktail napkin at the party, I was hooked! I brought him home to meet my parents and he was shocked when my dad walked in. I hadn’t bothered to tell him my dad was Moe Howard of the Three Stooges. Oops! Curly and Shemp were my dad’s brothers. Larry Fine wasn’t related. As an added note, my mom was a cousin of Harry Houdini. RA: When Norman was in the service, there doesn’t seem to be any interruption of his work. MAURER: There wasn’t! Norman drew comics in his off hours while in the Navy. There was a lieutenant—I’ll never forget his name, it was Lt. Featherstone—who was very jealous of Norman, because Norman was making far more money than his superior officer! We dated for two years and married when he got out of the service. I met Joe Kubert for the first time at our wedding. RA: You lived in California, so Norman must have been stationed there? MAURER: Right. The reason we met was that he was stationed at Roosevelt Base—I can’t remember if that was in San Diego or Long Beach. I didn’t meet him in San Diego, though. I met him in the Valley, at my girlfriend’s house. [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: When people in the L.A. area mention “the Valley,” they’re invariably referring to the San Fernando Valley, a suburban area north of the city proper.]

An Early Screen Test For Snow White And The Three Stooges? Joan Howard Maurer with the Three Stooges in 1952, as their movie-shorts career was winding down. (Left to right:) Moe Howard (Joan’s father), Shemp Howard (her uncle), Joan, & Larry Fine (not a blood relative, but always treated like a member of the family). The late “Curly” Howard, too, had been Joan’s uncle. Thanks to Joan Maurer & Shaun Clancy. For the record: Moe Howard (1897-1975) was born Moses Harry Horwitz… Shemp (1902-1955) was really Samuel Horwitz… Larry Fine (1902-1975) was Louis Feinberg… Curly Howard (1903-1952) was Jerome Lester Horwitz.

RA: I knew of Norman from his “Medal of Honor” series in the DC war books when I was a young man, but I’ve been surprised at how varied and accomplished his career was. MAURER: While doing research for the book proposal, I’d forgotten about him doing the art for Dennis the Menace. Not the syndicated comic strip but the comicbook version. I’ve found three or four pages of that here. It’s cute! Norman used to tell me a story about a Japanese letterer in the 1940s. His name was Hitoshi Watanabe. Norman always chuckled when he said, “You know he changed his name from Hitoshi Watanabe to Irving Watanabe!” [laughs] RA: From what I’ve been able to dig up, Norman must have become a professional artist at around age seventeen, during the same time he attended the school with Kubert. MAURER: That’s right, you’ve got it. I have doodles of his… it almost looks like paint-by-numbers, but it isn’t. This art is oil paintings, done when he would have been in junior high. It’s really fun to look back at that stuff and see how much he improved. Norman loved detail in his work. When he was attending Manhattan’s High School of Music and Art with Joe Kubert, the instructors tried to get him away from so much detail. If you were going to draw a brick wall, you were supposed to indicate it a little with shadow and light, but Norman had to draw every brick. [chuckles] That was just part of his personality.

Joan Maurer Remembers Norman Maurer

A Clockwise Cornucopia Of Maurer & Co. Norman Maurer and Joan Howard doing the town in 1945. Courtesy of Joan Maurer. The Daredevil/Iron Jaw drawing that Norm did for Joan on a date that year. In the comics, though, Iron Jaw fought only Crimebuster, never DD. Wish he had! [Art © Joan Maurer.] Norman and Joan’s wedding picture, June 29, 1947; thanks to Joan Maurer & Shaun Clancy. Joe Kubert (on left) and his DC artist buddy Irwin Hasen clowning around on a California beach in 1947, when they drove west to attend Norm and Joan’s wedding. This pic first appeared in the DC house fanzine Amazing World of DC Comics #5 (March-April 1975).

Celebrating The Golden Age Artist Of Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, & The Three Stooges

“Charles Biro [Drew] The Heads On The Main Characters In Boy Comics” RA: Did he start his career at Lev Gleason’s company? MAURER: Norman did crime stories, although he also did the 1940s Daredevil, which was a super-hero book, not really crime. He did work on books like Crime Does Not Pay. I have some of those old comicbooks somewhere. Norman was funny about this. In later years, if he had work in a book, he would go to the newsstands or wherever it was and buy a dozen copies for himself. [laughs] RA: [laughing] Even though I get contributor copies, I’ll always buy at least one copy, just to make sure I get one. Probably the same impulse. MAURER: It was also fun, I guess, for him to see his work in print. RA: He was doing the crime work, but there’s also a book called Boy Comics. I’m assuming he was doing some kind of a super-hero strip there, because it’s listed as being about a character called Bombshell. MAURER: No, Bombshell was different. Boy Comics was a title that Lev Gleason did. It was about kids—some of them were superheroes, but some were not. Bombshell was from another planet. He fought the Nazis with a sword. RA: You mentioned Daredevil earlier and, of course, this wasn’t the current version of Daredevil, the Marvel Comics version.

MAURER: Noooo, this is the old Daredevil. His costume was one color on one side and a different color on the other side. Where the other Daredevil got his name, I have no idea. I guess the original character didn’t stay in copyright. I don’t really know how that works. RA: The name fell out of trademark protection because it had been a number of years since the original character had appeared and the company that published the original character [Lev Gleason] had gone out of business and had not kept up the trademakr. MAURER: Yes, there’s probably a limitation on that sort of thing. There was something about Bob Wood… I can’t remember all the negative things, but Bob Wood was an editor at Lev Gleason and there was a scandal about him. RA: There were a number of Wood brothers, and several of them worked in comics. Bob Wood was an artist and editor at Lev Gleason from the 1940s right up to when the company shut down in 1956. MAURER: Bob was the one that Norman knew. During that era a lot of people drank a lot, and Bob was known as something of a bad boy. Nothing terrible. RA: Well, he eventually murdered his girlfriend or someone. This was later, after Lev Gleason went out of business. [INTERVIEWER’S NOTE: In 1958, with the loss of his position at Lev Gleason and the shrinking of the mainstream comics market from the effects of the Comics Code and the anti-comics hysteria, Bob Wood was apparently drawing, as was Joe Shuster, soft-core bondage comics. After a days-long extended bender, he had an argument with his girlfriend and killed her with an iron. The press at the time had a field day over the fact that the long-time editor of Crime Does Not Pay was guilty of the same kind of vicious crime he’d spent years depicting. For the general public, this was considered proof positive that crime and horror comics were just as bad as Fredric Wertham and others had depicted them only a few years earlier.] MAURER: That was Bob!? Oh, boy! I never really knew about the business at large, just what Norman would tell me about what was going on. Lev Gleason was the publisher, Charles Biro was the editor, and Bob Wood was the financial officer. I think that’s how it went. This murder, though, would have occurred years after Norman had parted ways with Lev Gleason and had gone to team up with Joe Kubert at St. John. I never actually met Bob Wood, although Charlie Biro came out to California once and visited us. I think he’s the only person from the Lev Gleason company that I ever met. RA: Norman was working for Lev Gleason in the 1940s but at some point he either left Daredevil or, perhaps, Daredevil left him as superheroes dropped out of favor. He began drawing the “Little Wise Guys” strip that took over the Daredevil comic. [Continued on p. 12]

Maurer The Menace? With the aid of her son Jeff, a longtime animation writer as “Jeffrey Scott,” Joan Maurer located and sent us this page of original art done for a Fawcett Dennis the Menace comicbook, which is probably Norman’s work—or else an example done by another artist. The Comics Code stamp at bottom right indicates that the page was approved by the CCA on Sept. 9, 1957. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Joan Maurer Remembers Norman Maurer

Boy, Oh, Boy! Norm quickly worked his way up the costumed hierarchy in Lev Gleason Publications’ Boy Comics (as demonstrated clockwise from above left): He started out drawing “Bombshell” in Boy #4 (June 1942), from a Dick Wood script, going on to illustrate that hero’s yarns in #5-7 as well. The “Son of War” was a sword-wielding youth who’d come to Earth from Mars to help the Allies battle the Axis. Well, we won—so it must’ve helped! Dick Wood, incidentally, was the brother of Gleason co-editor Bob Wood. In Boy #11-12, he drew “Young Robinhood,” seen here from #12 (Oct. ’43). That 1940s lad led a group of kids not unlike the Merry Men of legend. Scripter unknown. Also in Boy #12, Maurer hit the big time when editors Charles Biro and Bob Wood tapped him to draw the mag’s increasingly popular lead feature, “Crimebuster.” For the next several years, he drew numerous “Crimebuster” stories, as that young hero took over what had begun as an anthology title. Script attributed to Charles Biro. Thanks to the Comic Book Plus website. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Celebrating The Golden Age Artist Of Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, & The Three Stooges

Crime Does Too Pay—If You’re Doing Comicbooks! (Above:) Maurer also drew several stories for Crime Does Not Pay, Gleason/ Biro’s “true-crime” comics title that, after debuting in 1942, gained popularity all during World War II and became the hottest thing going for several years after the war—though it also contributed more than its fair share to the outcry against “crime comics” led by self-appointed postwar censors like Dr. Frederic Wertham. This story is from CDNP #26 (March 1943). Scripter unknown. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Streaking In From Left Field (Top right:) The original Daredevil first appeared in Silver Streak Comics #6 (Sept. 1940), from Your Guide, a precursor of Lev Gleason Publications, as co-created by Don Rico (writer) and Jack Binder (artist). In that issue, his costume was yellow and blue. The boomerang and spiked belt were present from the outset; in this issue only, he was a mute. (Right:) By Silver Streak #7 (Jan. 1941), a pre-“Plastic Man” Jack Cole had become the artist and (probable) writer… and Daredevil attained both a voice and his classic red-and-blue look, albeit with his hands still drawn bare. At least on the splash page: in the remainder of the story, they’re colored to match the rest of the costume. Both images are reproduced from the 2012 Dark Horse hardcover Silver Streak Archives, Featuring the Original Daredevil, Vol. 1, since the images available online seem to be from fuzzy microfiche. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Joan Maurer Remembers Norman Maurer

Maurer & Maurer Daredevil A clockwise quartet (from top left) of Daredevil splash pages, all apparently drawn by Maurer, though one is unsigned and the last is pseudonymously bylined “Bob Q. Siege.” Thanks to Jim Kealy and the Comic Book Plus website for the splashes of: Daredevil #26 (Aug. 1944)… #30 (May ’45)… #34 (June ’46)… and #35 (March ’46). Note that the Little Wise Guys were a fixture in the feature from virtually the beginning of this period under editor Biro, to whom all the scripts were officially attributed. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Celebrating The Golden Age Artist Of Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, & The Three Stooges

MAURER: That was Scarecrow! There was also a very little kid called Pee Wee and a normal-looking boy with glasses. RA: He must have been Jock, because the bald boy would have to have been Curly. [INTERVIEWER’S NOTE: Here I need to inject that Joan and I went on for a few minutes, describing the Little Wise Guys. Her memories and my research clashed quite a bit. However, it turns out that we were both right, even though we sound a bit confused. See, Lev Gleason actually had two sets of “Little Wise Guys” kid gangs. One, as Joan remembered, ran in Boy Comics and debuted only an issue before Norman’s first official comicbook credit. The Grand Comics Database lists Charles Biro as possibly being the writer and artist of that strip. However, Joan’s mention of Biro’s head drawings that were pasted on other artists’ actual work may indicate that Norman drew both groups of Little Wise Guys, with Biro taking credit for the artwork on the first set. It’s entirely possible that Norman was the uncredited ghost artist on those early “Little Wise Guys” stories. This first group apparently ran for only a couple of issues of Boy Comics, beginning with #4 (June 1942). They were kind of a violent bunch. Then, just a few months later, in Daredevil Comics #13 (Oct. 1942), the second group of “Little Wise Guys” appeared in supporting roles in the “Daredevil” feature. Norman drew almost all those appearances. The two groups of kids had the same gang name but were totally different groups of kids.] Norman also drew a very popular character named Crimebuster.

The Triple Pillar Of The [Comicbook] World Editors Bob Wood and Charles Biro flank publisher Lev Gleason in this message allegedly directed to their staff, from the inside front cover of Boy Comics #40 (June 1948). Thanks to Comic Book Plus. [© the respective copyright holders.]

[Continued from p. 8] MAURER: I don’t remember that! Maybe there were issues I never saw. Norman had boxes of that kind of thing. Not all the books, but some of them. I’ll have to check and see when the Little Wise Guys started. See, I didn’t meet Norman until 1945, so what we’re talking about here is before I knew him. Would you believe this? As beautiful and detailed as Norman drew, Biro had a thing that he personally had to draw the heads on the main characters in Boy Comics. He would send these little heads in to Norman, and Norman had to paste them on the original artwork. [laughs] It was a simple face, not one with a beard or complicated head-gear, just a simple kid’s face. RA: That is a little odd. What I’ve got says the “Little Wise Guys” took over the lead spot in Daredevil Comics with #70 (Jan. 1951), one issue after Daredevil was phased out, and continued as the lead feature to the end of the series with #134 (Sept. 1956). Norman drew those characters for quite a while, first when they were supporting Daredevil and then for more than five years when they were the lead characters in Daredevil Comics. There were four characters to start off with, but one of them died of pneumonia very early on and was replaced by a bald kid. One of them had hair like Gyro Gearloose from the Donald Duck comics, a sort of bird’s nest clump of hair perched up on his head.

Hold That “Tiger”! Another Maurer entry in Crime Does Not Pay—this time from #69 (Nov. 1948). Scripter unknown. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Joan Maurer Remembers Norman Maurer

Don’t Be A “Wise Guy”! (Left:) The original “Little Wise Guys” from Lev Gleason’s Boy Comics #4 (June 1942), four months before a new group with the same name debuted in the title feature in Daredevil Comics. Writer & artist unknown. Incidentally, the latter grouping were originally Scarecrow, Pee Wee, Jock, and a fat kid called Meatball—who was killed off in #15, with Curly replacing him the next issue. Thanks to CBP. [© the respective copyright holders.]

“Comin’ On Like Gang Busters!” The famous 1936-birthed radio series Gang Busters (which spawned the above phrase, still a part of the language) may have been the source of the “Crimebuster” monicker. Depicted here are Maurer’s second “Crimebuster” splash (his first to depict Iron Jaw), from Boy Comics #13 (Dec. 1943)—and a powerful splash from Boy #26 (Feb. 1946), bylined by official scripter Biro and “Norman Maurer, USNR”—i.e., U.S. Naval Reserve. Thanks to CBP. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Celebrating The Golden Age Artist Of Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, & The Three Stooges

Stick Around, Devil— We Dare Ya! (Clockwise from top left:) The first page of the second story from Gleason’s Daredevil Comics #44 (Sept. 1947)—and the lead splash page from #45 (Nov. ’47), all illustrated by Maurer; scripts attributed to Biro. By this time, the Little Wise Guys (gawky Scarecrow, little Pee Wee, brainy Jock, and bald-headed Curly) were beginning to take over the feature. Notice how, in #45, Daredevil doesn’t even appear on the splash page. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. [© the respective copyright holders; Daredevil is now a trademark of Marvel Characters, Inc.] Actually, back in #42, millionaire Bart Hill had revealed his Daredevil identity to the world and had given it up—only to decide, in the lead story in #44, to instead quit being Bart Hill and to spend his full time adventuring as DD! Little did he know that, ere long, his erstwhile kid “sidekicks” would crowd the twin-colored hero out of the comicbook named for him!

Daredevil No More—Except In The Comic’s Title! (Left:) On the final page of the second “Daredevil” story in issue #69 (Dec. 1950), DD (or, as they wrote it, “D.D.”) wrote to the Little Wise Guys to tell them he was staying in the Middle-Eastern nation of “Tarkabia” on a “special mission” and for an “indefinite stay.” (Right:) And, with #70, DD no longer appeared either on the cover masthead or in the stories themselves. Well, actually, he resurfaced briefly in #79-80, but after that he vanished for good, as far as Lev Gleason Publications was concerned. Both stories drawn by Maurer, with scripts attributed to Biro. Thanks to CBP. [© the respective copyright holders; Daredevil is now a trademark of Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Joan Maurer Remembers Norman Maurer

Playing Hockey—Or Hooky? In Boy Comics #30 (Oct. 1946), allegedly with Charles Biro layouts as well as script, Maurer redrew the origin story of Crimebuster, in which Nazi agent Iron Jaw murders the father of young Chuck Chandler, who then goes into action wearing his hockey outfit (and a cape for warmth) and becomes Crimebuster, a de facto costumed crime-fighter. In this same story, the hero acquires his monkey buddy, Squeeks. Biro reportedly owned a pet monkey himself, which was often in evidence at the Lev Gleason offices. Thanks to CBP. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

MAURER: Oh, what am I thinking? Crimebuster! That was the one that Charlie Biro drew the heads for! Norman had to glue them down on the page. Charlie wanted all the faces exactly the same. So he drew the heads to make sure. Norman took to drawing little ovals for the heads so Charlie could draw the heads at the proper angle. Then Norman would paste Biro’s heads over the head that Norman drew. It was so funny! [laughs] It was such an odd, interesting thing to do. I think it was a bit of ego on Charlie’s part, or maybe an odd quirk, or both. [both laugh] Biro had a real thing for that character.

“[The Maurer Brothers And Kubert] Had To Invent [3-D Comics] From Scratch” RA: Did Norman stay in California after the war? MAURER: Yes. We went together for about two years, and we married in 1947. For a time we lived in my parents’ house. We leased a home early on in our marriage. Then in 1952 or 1953, we built the house I still live in. Norman did a beautiful job designing it. It’s really stood up through the years. I still live here. I don’t like to move. [laughs] We planted a tree out front the year we moved in, and I swear

Celebrating The Golden Age Artist Of Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, & The Three Stooges

Crimebuster Evolves Clockwise (From top left:) Splash page from Boy Comics #32 (Feb. 1947). The stories in Boy, as well as in Daredevil, had many of the same attributes as those in the company’s best-selling title, Crime Does Not Pay: heavy dialogue, more adult-oriented (and often longer) stories, subdued and basically realistic art. With Boy #44 (Feb. ’49), the name “Crimebuster” was replaced, in both logo and stories, by the abbreviation “C.B,” as per the splash page from Boy #46 (June ’49). This was probably in reaction to the rising backlash against “crime” comics such as Crime Does Not Pay. By Boy #62 (Feb. ’51), the “Crimebuster” logo and name were back, with no explanation. This is the third issue in a row wherein the lad fought Iron Jaw, now mutated from a Nazi agent to a vicious criminal—not much of a leap. The hero’s cape and “costume” look had been discarded by this time. All three scripts on this page attributed to Biro. Thanks to Jim Kealy & CBP for the splashes. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Joan Maurer Remembers Norman Maurer

Tell Me An Illustory! Another vintage (and clockwise) trio of “Crimebuster” splashes by the Biro/ Maurer team: Boy #48 (Oct. 1949)… #52 (April ’50)… & #56 (Aug. ’50). Along with the evolution of “Crimebuster” to “C.B.” and back again—and finally to “Chuck Chandler,” when the series became collegiate rather than crime-related—Gleason and Biro also experimented with changes in the name of the mag itself. It was titled Boy Comics through #42… Boy Illustories from #43-97… and Boy Comics again from #98 through #119, the final issue. In all likelihood, the coined word “Illustories” was meant to deflect increasing criticism leveled at “Comics”—i.e., comicbooks—just as Classic Comics changed its name to Classics Illustrated. Thanks to Comic Book Plus— which maybe should rename itself “Illustories Plus”! [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

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Celebrating The Golden Age Artist Of Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, & The Three Stooges

other. I have a few of them left—a couple of background pages. The pages had three or four levels—I can’t remember—and then the actual figures were overlaid on top of that! RA: Joe Kubert told me that, when he was in Europe during his military service, he’d seen 3-D material that they were doing for magazines in Italy. MAURER: Yes, Joe was the one who came up with the idea of using 3-D in comics. The 3-D in Italy was for photos. He got Norman involved, because Norman was a really good idea person. What they had to solve for comics was how to do it, how to make it work. It wasn’t just layers of drawings, but there were chemicals involved. Leonard, Norman’s brother, was helpful in that direction. Joe, though, was the one who thought it could be used with comics. None of them, however, knew how the Europeans were doing the process. They had to invent it from scratch.

“…Two For The Show… 3-D To Get Ready…”

There were a lot of chemicals involved, because, I remember, they almost destroyed my bathtub, putting the red and green dye in it. It was a fascinating process, though. To show Archer St. John how the process worked, Norman and Joe bought red and green

Norman Maurer (on left) and his brother Leonard “working on 3-D” in the early 1950s. Leonard, an engineer, had a lot to do with the technical success of St. John Publishing’s 3-D comics of 1953. Thanks to Joan Maurer.

it was the size of my finger. Sixty years later it is huge—seventy or eighty feet high. The trunk, which we planted a fair distance from the house, is enormous. I now have to plan on what I need to prune, so it doesn’t knock the house over. The last time, I had to cut a little bit of house away, because the tree man said I’d better not cut the tree! It’s a beautiful tree, though. RA: So he was doing his regular art duties for Gleason long-distance? That was not the normal course of business back in those days. MAURER: Right. Norman would put the art in those round mailing tubes and mail his work to New York. Really, the only time we went back was to New Jersey when we were working on the 3-D books. Norman and his brother Leonard—Leonard worked a little on the 3-D because he was an engineer and an inventor so he helped solve some problems. Norman and I and Leonard and his wife moved there, and there were also two little kids. One of mine was born right before this. We were all living in [NYC] Mayor O’Dwyer’s home, which we leased. Norman and Leonard would drive from New Jersey into New York City to work on the pages for the 3-D. RA: I only met Joe Kubert once , the year before he passed away, but even in that single meeting he brought up Norman, and it was very clear how fond he was of him and how much respect he had for Norman’s talent. It was an interview focusing on Joe’s work as an editor, and one of the things he mentioned was that at St. John he and Norman were essentially their own editors. MAURER: I remember St. John. Was that during the 3-D days? RA: Yes, it was at St. John that the two of them co-created the 3-D process for comics. It was a huge financial success right off the bat, but St. John nearly went bankrupt when they transformed all their comics to 3-D, because it turned out to be a short-lived fad. MAURER: Norman told them not to overdo it, but St. John wouldn’t listen. I guess it was because it was so much money so fast with those first books, but the bottom fell out of it just as fast. It was very exciting while it was out there. RA: Those were very labor-intensive books, were they not? MAURER: Oh, yes! It was pages of artwork layered over each

“We’re Looking For People Who Like To Draw… And Write… And Edit!” The inside front cover of the first issues of St. John’s The Three Stooges (second volume) and One Million Years Ago (starring the caveman Tor), both dated Sept. 1953, featured this page topped by a photo of Norman Maurer (standing) and Joe Kubert, friends and co-editors. The chummy, intimate introduction presumably penned by publisher Archer St. John echoed those appearing at the time in EC Comics, and earlier in the Biro-edited Lev Gleason books—and were a foreshadowing, in their way, of the personal touch that Stan Lee would give Marvel Comics a decade later. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. [TM & © the respective copyright holders.]

Joan Maurer Remembers Norman Maurer

lollipops, took off the cellophane wrappers, and used the wrappers as makeshift 3-D glasses. The first 3-D book they did was Mighty Mouse. It was priced at 25¢, two-and-a-half times the cost of a regular comic at the time, and it sold an enormous number of comics.

Archer St. John

The bottom went out of 3-D comics just as rapidly as it came in. We made a lot of money and lost a lot of money. There were also a lot of lawsuits as other companies tried to steal the idea.

“Norman Would Take The Plot Of A [Three Stooges Short] And Turn It Into A Comic Story” RA: So at some point, Norman started drawing the Three Stooges for comics. How did that come about? MAURER: Well, he was married to me and Moe was my dad. My dad told Norman, “Look, you know every facet of doing comics. There are many similarities that carry over to the film business.” Dad talked Norman into writing and drawing the comicbooks, and from there, Norman would later take over producing the films. Gold Key, I think, did a Stooge comic as well as St. John. RA: Dell did a one shot in the mid-1940s, but Norman did two separate series. He actually did two different sets of Three Stooges comics. One in 1949 for two issues, and one in 1953-1954 for seven issues. Both of those series were for St. John. Later, Dell did another run beginning in 1959.

Norm & Joe Although Archer St. John was the company’s publisher, Maurer and Kubert wrote and drew panels and pages to introduce many of the stories in The Three Stooges and Tor. This full-pager from The Three Stooges #1 was drawn and probably scripted by Norman. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Apartment 3-D (Above:) A 1953 publicity pic of kids reading St. John’s Three Dimension Comics #1, which starred Mighty Mouse. (Right:) A three-dimension ad (at least, it will be if you’re wearing the proper specs) for three St. John titles edited by Maurer and Kubert: Three Stooges, Tor, and Whack. The latter was an early imitation of the color Mad comicbook. Thanks to Lawrence Kaufman for both scans. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Celebrating The Golden Age Artist Of Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, & The Three Stooges

3-D Or Not 3-D (Left:) One of the “background pages” from a St. John Publishing 3-D comic, still retained by Joan Maurer. As she relates, more layers/levels were added to these pages so that, through red-and-green-lensed “glasses,” there would be a strong three-dimensional effect. With thanks to her son, Jeff Maurer, for e-mailing a scan to us. [© Estate of Norman Maurer.] (Above & below:) The cover plus a double-spread splash page, both written and drawn by Norman Maurer, for St. John’s The Three Stooges #2 (Oct. 1953). See lots more of St. John Publishing’s 3-D comics in both A/E #115 & 126. Who knows? TwoMorrows Publishing may even still have a few of the 3-D specs we sent out to readers of those two issues! [© the respective copyright holders; the Three Stooges are a registered trademark of C3 Entertainment, Inc.]

Joan Maurer Remembers Norman Maurer

All The World’s A Stooge! The Three Stooges, in their earlier, most famous grouping. (L. to r.:) Larry Fine… Curly Howard… & Moe Howard.

Norman’s second run would have been at the same time he was working with Joe Kubert at St. John’s. In fact, two issues of the second run were 3-D comics. MAURER: OK, but Kubert never worked on the Stooges material at all. He was probably doing Tor at that time. There were 3-D Tor comics, as well. They worked together on the 3-D material, and I think they may have done a humorous romance comic or something like that together. Norman did some humorous books at the same time that weren’t related to The Three Stooges. RA: Did Norman help make the deal with St. John? In other words, did his connection with your father help Archer St. John decide to first do a Stooges comicbook, especially since there’d only been one previous comic dealing with the group, and was his writing and drawing it a part of the publishing deal? MAURER: Well, it was Norman’s idea. My dad was a pretty good businessman, but I don’t think he was even aware that comics could or would do magazines licensed by and built around entertainers. Dad had tunnel vision. Dad was the business manager for all three of the Stooges. He took on a lot of the responsibilities for the group. But it was Norman who brought it up to my dad. Dad thought a lot of Norman. They got along great. Some of those early Stooges books were based on the early Stooge shorts. Norman would take the plot of a picture and turn it into a comic story. He might not have done it exactly the same, because film doesn’t translate totally into comics, or vice versa, but the general idea might work. Norman would add an original character like a heavy for the comics to give it a little more interest. RA: Do you know why there was a four-year gap between the first series and the second? MAURER: It could be that Norman went off to do something else. He didn’t just do comics all the time. He was working on films, although that was later. At some point, as you mentioned, Dell published them, and Norman wasn’t involved at all in that. The only thing that would have taken Norman away in 1949 was that other work came up and he just didn’t have the time to do everything, because with the Stooges comics that Norman was involved with, he did the writing and art, or at least most of it. When he got involved with film, that ended. This was also the period of time that he drew those Dennis the Menace comics, and I think that was done because Gleason and St.

The Three Stooges#1 (Feb. 1949) Two splash pages from the first issue of St. John’s first Three Stooges series. Both yarns were adapted from the comedy short-subjects in which the Stooges starred for Columbia Pictures, starting in 1934. Art & script (adaptation) by Norman Maurer. This issue’s cover was depicted on p. 3. Thanks to Comic Book Plus. [© the respective copyright holders; the Three Stooges are a registered trademark of C3 Entertainment, Inc.]

Celebrating The Golden Age Artist Of Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, & The Three Stooges

The Three Stooges #2 (May 1949) (Above:) The cover and a splash page from the second and final issue of the first Stooges comic series that Maurer produced for St. John. Once again, the stories were adapted by Maurer from the Columbia shorts. Thanks to CBP. [© the respective copyright holders; the Three Stooges are a registered trademark of C3 Entertainment, Inc.]

The Three Stooges—The Second Time Around! Cover and the lead splash from St. John Publishing’s second The Three Stooges #1, this one cover-dated Sept. 1953. Art & story by Norman Maurer. By this time, Curly’s health had failed and he was replaced by Moe’s other brother, Shemp—who had actually been in the team briefly before Curly had. Thanks to CBP. [© the respective copyright holders; the Three Stooges are a registered trademark of C3 Entertainment, Inc.]

Joan Maurer Remembers Norman Maurer

John had shut down and he may have needed the money. I don’t know who got him involved with that. RA: Well, based on his acknowledged credits, he left comics for the first time within about two years of the Comics Code coming in, because once the Code arrived, a lot of the smaller publishers went belly-up because they simply couldn’t publish the kinds of comics that had made them money in the past. Lev Gleason couldn’t do crime comics, for example. MAURER: Oh, I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re probably right. They had some awful stuff in the crime comics at the time. RA: He did do some Westerns for Marvel, or what would become Marvel—it was Atlas at the time. He was doing stories for Wyatt Earp, Cowboy Action, and Wild Western. He did stories for Wyatt Earp for about two years. MAURER: I guess he was working wherever he could find a publisher that was still alive. [Continued on p. 27]

Stunting (Above:) As Joan Maurer says, Joe Kubert never worked on “Three Stooges” material. However, the 1953 Three Stooges #1 premiered his action feature “Hollywood Stunt-Girl,” which was continued in the second issue. After that, however, the Stooges comic contained only humorous features. Thanks to CBP. [TM & © the respective copyright holders.]

The 3-D Stooges (Above:) We’re not certain if this 3-D “Stooges” page Joan sent us is a page from an actual comic—or one of the tests that Norman did with his brother Leonard. But it’s a doozy, either way! (Left:) The third 1953 issue of The Three Stooges was another 3-D entry, cover-dated Nov. 1953—this time with a 3-D image on its cover. Thanks to the Grand Comics Database. [© the respective copyright holders; the Three Stooges are a registered trademark of C3 Entertainment, etc.]

Celebrating The Golden Age Artist Of Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, & The Three Stooges

Stooges Big & Little After the two 3-D issues—and a four-month lapse—The Three Stooges #4 (May 1954) showcased both the classic Stooges—and a new feature that would prove to have legs: “Lil Stooge,” who looks like a blond-haired Moe as a kid. The cover and main splash are by Maurer, but “Lil Stooge” was scripted by Michael Brand and drawn by Jeff Michaels. Thanks to CBP & Rod Beck. [© the respective copyright holders; the Three Stooges are a registered trademark of C3 Entertainment, Inc.] Incidentally, a number of Maurer’s (and others’) “Stooges” comics stories have recently been reprinted in the two volumes of Papercutz’s The Best of the Three Stooges Comic Books.

Joan Maurer Remembers Norman Maurer

This Is No Bull! (Left & directly above:) Maurer’s cover for Three Stooges #5 (June 1954)—and his two-page splash for one of the stories inside. Thanks to CBP. [© the respective copyright holders; the Three Stooges are a registered trademark of C3 Entertainment, Inc.]

Pretty As A Picture? The covers of the final two issues (#6 & 7, dated Aug. & Oct. 1954) were particularly clever concoctions combining photos and Maurer artwork. [© the respective copyright holders; the Three Stooges are a registered trademark of C3 Entertainment, Inc.]

Celebrating The Golden Age Artist Of Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, & The Three Stooges

Bringing Up The Stooges (Left:) Along with the usual “Stooges” material, issue #6 sported a parody of George McManus’ popular comic strip Bringing Up Father, more commonly known as “Maggie and Jiggs,” with art by Maurer and story credited to Maurer & Kubert. This yarn was left-over inventory from the defunct title Whack, as was the following issue’s Cisco Kid parody. The latter lampoon, drawn by William Overgard, was reprinted in John Benson & Fantagraphics’ invaluable 2012 volume The Sincerest Form of Parody… along with Maurer’s own takeoff on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. (Above:) The Stooges themselves, back in the days when Curly rather than Shemp was in the act, had posed for a publicity photo with McManus, which was sent to us by Joan Maurer (via Shaun Clancy). [Comics page © the respective copyright holders; the Three Stooges are a registered trademark of C3 Entertainment, Inc.]

Exiting Off-Stooge The Three Stooges #7, along with choice comedy material (including a contest and a plug for an “Ali Baba” parody left over from Whack that was scheduled for the next, but never-published issue), included an ad for the by-mail comic art course produced by the Kubert-Maurer team. Sadly, only the first “lesson” was ever printed and sold—it dealt with drawing the head. Years later, Joe Kubert opened his own comic art school in Dover, New Jersey, which graduated a number of professional artists. [© the respective copyright artists; the Three Stooges are a registered trademark of C3 Entertainment, Inc.]

Joan Maurer Remembers Norman Maurer

In A Timely Fashion Among his other Western work for Timely/Atlas, Maurer drew all four stories in Wyatt Earp #3 (March 1956)—a crime story for Tales of Justice #56 (Oct. 1955)—and an exquisite tale of medieval war between the Chinese and the Japanese for Battlefront #38 (Jan. ’56). The “Earp” stories were signed with his last name, the war story with his initials “NM.” Scripters unidentified. Thanks respectively to Jim Ludwig, Jim Kealy, and Dr. Michael J. Vassallo. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

[Continued from p. 23]

“The Movie Years”

RA: Then, from 1957 until 1971 or so, he doesn’t do anything in comics that he’s credited for. MAURER: That would have been the movie years. In 1955, Norman patented Artiscope, a kind of animation that didn’t involve artists. It was done with dyes and things. Actors were shot, including my dad, with special costumes, and they were transformed through a chemical film process into animated line drawings. It wasn’t rotoscoping, where the actor is filmed and then artists come in and trace the actors’ movements. Artiscope was a new process that didn’t use artists. I wasn’t really into the technical end of it, as I was occupied with raising two little kids. RA: The example that I’m looking at looks a lot like computer animation. MAURER: It was, I guess, an early form of what they do today with computers. Computer graphics, though, would be far easier to do. This was hell trying to get it to work. [laughs] My niece, my brother Paul’s daughter, works for Industrial Light & Magic in computer graphics, and they do a lot of animation. Some things that people don’t even realize is animation. Once she was animating dust or smoke for a project. Dust!! [laughs]

Celebrating The Golden Age Artist Of Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, & The Three Stooges

Norman formed a company back then, with the help of my dad, called Illustrated Films. He had plans to transform animation with Artiscope. They made a few commercials using the format, but it was way ahead of its time. Norman also helped my dad a lot in business management. In 1958 Norman changed occupations again and became a film producer, mostly at Columbia. He helped design alien monsters for science-fiction films like Space Master X-7 and The Angry Red Planet. He also developed the special effect technique that turned the angry red planet into an eerily glowing red. In the 1960s my dad got tired of the Stooges’ agent and hired Norman as their new manager. Norman went on to produce all of Columbia’s Three Stooges movies of the 1960s. These were feature-length films, not shorts. He also wrote the storylines and directed their last two movies.

A Really Big Shoe! The above heading was just in the process of becoming a parody of a tagline spoken by TV showman Ed Sullivan when Maurer drew this light-hearted 4-pager for Strange Tales #39 (Oct. 1955), whose first and last pages are depicted above. Scripter unknown. Thanks to Jim Kealy. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

There was a cartoon series done in the 1960s that Norman worked on. I never liked them. They were very modern-looking but with very limited animation. Nobody moved!

Animation Without Artists We’re not 100% clear on the workings of the “Artiscope” process Joan Maurer mentions, other than that it involved “clothing and makeup used to produce line drawings”—“animation without artists.” She says that it “takes live action and reduces it to line. The cell [shown middle left] is painted [and some background added], as per the ship in the finished drawing [directly above], and voila—Artiscope!” In the cells, she informs us that the pirate whose face is not seen is her father, Moe Howard—the leader of the Stooges, in perhaps his only non-Stooge appearance—with Don Lamond, who was married to Larry Fine’s daughter Phyllis, on the right. So maybe that means that, in the photo at left, that’s Moe behind the total face-mask, with Norman in the middle and Lamond on the right? Thanks to Joan M. [© Estate of Norman Maurer.]

Joan Maurer Remembers Norman Maurer

How To Make A Monster—Maurer Style A “commercial Hollywood job” drawn by Maurer as an ad for the 1957 American-International teen horror movie How to Make a Monster. Writer unknown. Thanks to Joan Maurer. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

They had live wraparounds with the real Stooges sort of introducing the cartoon stories. Joe DeRita was the third Stooge by that time. Frankly, the wraparounds were more interesting than the cartoons. After the Stooges retired, Norman produced several more films for Columbia—the most famous probably being 1967’s Who’s Minding the Mint? It had a really great cast, with funny straight actors as well as a lot of comedians. Howard Morris directed that. I don’t know if you know of him, but he was also a very talented comedian. He and Norman were really good friends. RA: I remember that he did a number of those American International films in the early 1960s. MAURER: Howard also did comedy routines on TV all the time. He was on the Mel Brooks show—Your Show of Shows—a lot. Sid Caesar was the star, but Mel was a writer. Howard and Mel would appear on the show from time to time. Norman also did a more serious film called The Mad Room, with Stella Stevens and Shelley Winters starring. The bulk of Norman’s film work was for Columbia, but he also did some work for Cinema Six. By 1969 the film industry hit a dry patch and Norman’s producing career ended.

The Angry Red Movie (Left:) Norman Maurer amid some of the actors—and one of the monsters he designed—from the 1959 science-fiction movie The Angry Red Planet, directed by Ib Melchior (reputedly on a budget of $200,000 and ten days’ shooting time) and starring Gerald Mohr and Naura Hayden—names to conjure with. Dramatic-radio veteran Les Tremayne was also in the cast. Maurer was credited as a co-producer. According to Wikipedia: “The shortened production time necessitated the use of a CineMagic technique, which involved using hand-drawn animation together with live-action footage, and it was used for all scenes on the surface of Mars. Although the process was largely unsuccessful… Maurer would attempt the same technique again in The Three Stooges in Orbit.” Thanks to Joan Maurer. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.] (Above:) Circa 1958, here’s Norman with his young sons Jeff (on left) and Mike. Both would work with him on later animation or comics-related projects. Thanks to Jeffrey Maurer.

Celebrating The Golden Age Artist Of Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, & The Three Stooges

Stooge Fright Between 1959 and 1965, the Three Stooges made a total of six feature films—a new venture for the team after several decades of short subjects only—with Maurer as a writer-producer and, later, director. (Clockwise from top left:) A lobby card for 1962’s The Three Stooges in Orbit… a publicity shot for that movie… and a 1964 photo of Maurer with the Stooges on the set of The Outlaws IS Coming! By this time, Shemp had passed away, and his place with Moe and Larry was taken by “Curly Joe” DeRita. The 1964 photo is courtesy of Joan Maurer, by way of Shaun Clancy. [Film materials TM & © the respective trademark and copyright holders; the Three Stooges are a registered trademark of C3 Entertainment, Inc.]

“…And The Movies That We Know…” (Above:) Lobby card for the 1967 comedy Who’s Minding the Mint? (with its multi-star cast) includes a double credit for Norman Maurer as producer. (Right:) Norman with Shelly Winters, one of the stars of the 1969 dramatic film The Mad Room. Thanks to Joan Maurer. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Joan Maurer Remembers Norman Maurer

History Channeled A trio of dramatic splashes from the Maurer-written-and-drawn “Medal of Honor” series, taking place in various periods of America’s history, taken from 1972 DC comics. (Clockwise from above left:) Our Army at War #240 (Jan.)… Our Army at War #245 (May)… and Tomahawk #138 (Jan.-Feb.). Thanks to Jim Ludwig. [TM & © DC Comics.]

“Medal Of Honor” RA: This would have been about the time Joe Kubert contacted him about doing the “Medal of Honor” stories for DC’s war books, which Joe was editing at the time. MAURER: I have some original pages on that series. They’re quite large—twice the size of the printed page. Norm was happy to do those because they were interesting. RA: I think it’s always a good idea to show examples of actual heroes to readers. Not just made-up characters but actual people who’ve gone above and beyond. And while those “Medal of Honor” tales weren’t long, they were still pretty darn good little stories. One of those back-up features that really added value to a comicbook. MAURER: Looking at the “Medal of Honor” pages, they’re so detailed. The boats and whatnot. Norman loved detail! Norman also did some of the horror stories for DC—I think, for The Witching Hour or something like that. Then, in 1973, Norman did work on another Stooges book, for Gold Key, but it wasn’t The Three Stooges; it was called The Little Stooges. It was a comic about when the Stooges were kids. Norman drew the whole book. RA: Did he write these as well? MAURER: At that point, if he drew it, he was writing it as well. There are boxes of those upstairs as well.

Celebrating The Golden Age Artist Of Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, & The Three Stooges

Three By Three (Above:) A sample of the Maurers’ unsold daily strip Larry, Moe, and Curly. Norman created it in conjunction with his sons Jeff and Mike. Thanks to Shaun Clancy. [© Estate of Norman Maurer; the Three Stooges are a registered trademark of C3 Entertainment, Inc.] (Left & below:) Norman was snapped by San Diego Comic-Con co-founder Shel Dorf in 1983 when he came to that West Coast event—and also drew a Crimebuster-&-Iron-Jaw illo for its program book. [Art © Estate of Norman Maurer.] (Bottom left:) The Maurers are flanked by film critic Leonard Maltin (on right) and Emil Sitka in October 1985 as they present the Three Stooges Collection to the UCLA Archives. Sitka was one of the few actors who appeared with the Stooges in both shorts and feature films over the decades.

Joan Maurer Remembers Norman Maurer

The first and last pages of a Maurer-illustrated three-pager from The Witching Hour #35 (Oct. 1973), with a quietly powerful ending. Script by Carl Wessler. Thanks to Jim Kealy. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Joe Kubert (on left) and Norman Maurer pose together at the 1983 San Diego Comic-Con. This photo was published after Norman’s death, in the April 8, 1988, issue of Comics Buyer’s Guide, on the occasion of the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art offering a Norman Maurer Scholarship for the 1988-89 school year. Thanks to Joan Maurer.

Best Friends Forever!

Mystery Train

RA: So Norman did three different comicbook versions of the Stooges over three different decades. That’s kind of cool. MAURER: Boy! I hadn’t realized that. Still, comics work was few and far between for Norman, so he took a shot at writing cartoons. He went to work for Hanna-Barbara in the 1970s, working on the Scooby-Doo cartoons, and cartoons starring Richie Rich and other characters. He was a writer, producer, and story editor on various shows. At one point, Norman, myself, and both of our sons were writing cartoon scripts. Norman also worked for CBS and NBC, developing Saturday morning cartoons, like Scooby-Doo,

2-D Or Not 2-D! (Left:) A Maurer splash page from St. John’s Three Stooges #1 (Sept. 1953), published right before the brief 3-D craze that led to issues #2-3 being produced in three dimensions. (Right:) The final page of the second “The 3-D-T’s” story from Whack #2 (Dec. ’53), penciled by Joe Kubert and inked by Norman Maurer; scripter uncertain. Since only the first issue of Whack was printed in 3-D, this follow-up tale was seen in color. [Pages © the respective copyright holders; the Three Stooges are a registered trademark of C3 Entertainment, Inc.]

Celebrating The Golden Age Artist Of Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, & The Three Stooges

Dynomutt, and many others. He also worked on Super Friends and Richie Rich, which I guess are both comics-related. In the 1980s, Norman and I worked on four separate Stooges books. Norman, along with our sons Jeff and Mike, did try to do a syndicated Stooges strip that never went anywhere. It was called Larry, Moe, and Curly, and the credit was “by The Three Maurers,” which I always thought was cute. This was shortly before he became ill, so the strip never came to fruition. Norman passed away when he was sixty years old. Nov. 23, 1986. He died of lung cancer. For many years, Joe Kubert gave out the Norman Maurer Memorial Scholarship at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art. His sons continue to do so. Norman and I had two wonderful and creative sons, Michael and Jeffrey. Jeff has continued to follow in the family tradition and has won several Emmys and a Humanitas Prize for writing Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies. RA: Thank you for taking the time to do this interview. It’s much appreciated. MAURER: I’ve enjoyed talking to you, Richard.

(Right:) Maurer’s “Medal of Honor” splash page from G.I. Combat #151 (Dec. 1970-Jan. 1971). Thanks to Jim Kealy. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Wasn’t It A Time…? (Above:) Joan Maurer with collector Shaun Clancy, in a photo dated 8-5-11… bookended by Norman’s splash pages for Gleason’s Daredevil Comics #50 (Sept. 1948) and St. John’s Three Stooges #5 (June 1954). Former script attributed to Charles Biro. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert & Comic Book Plus for the scans, and to Shaun Clancy and Joan Maurer for the photo. [Pages © the respective copyright holders; Daredevil is now a trademark of Marvel Characters, Inc.; the Three Stooges are a registered trademark of C3 Entertainment, Inc.]

Joan Maurer Remembers Norman Maurer

NORMAN MAURER 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. (See p. 86.) Some information added by A/E editor, based on Grand Comics Database listings. Names of features that appeared both in comicbooks of that title and in other magazines are often not italicized. Key: (w) = writer; (p) = penciler; (i) = inker; (ed) = editor; (d) = daily comic strip; (S) = Sunday comic strip.] Name: Norman Maurer (1926-1986) – artist, writer, editor Pen Name: Jeff Michaels Education: High School of Music and Art, Brooklyn Family in Arts: Leonard Maurer (bother); Jeffrey Maurer (son); Michael Maurer (son); Joan Howard Maurer (wife) Animation: Cambria, producer of New Three Stooges [156 films]; De Patie-Freleng, animator on Planet of the Apes (1975); HannaBarbera, producer, story editor, and writer on Josie and the Pussycats, Scooby-Doo, Richie Rich, Dyno-Mutt, and Super Friends (all 1970s) Performing Arts: Films as producer, director, & writer – Angry Red Planet; Around the World in a Daze; Have Rocket, Will Travel; The Mad Room; The Outlaws Is Coming; Snow White and the Three Stooges; Spacemaster X-7; The Three Stooges in Orbit; The Three Stooges Meet Hercules; Who’s Minding the Mint? – also producer, director, & writer of Three Stooges TV pilots (precise dates unknown)

A Little Nut Music Maurer’s cover for Gold Key/Western’s Little Stooges #1 (Sept. 1972). Thanks to the GCD. [© the respective copyright holders; the Three Stooges are a registered trademark of C3 Entertainment, Inc.]

Newspaper Comic Strip Syndication: Happy Days (w)(p)(i) 1960 COMICBOOKS (Mainstream U.S. Publishers): DC Comics: G.I. Combat (w)(p)(i) 1972; Medal of Honor series (w) (p)(i) 1971-72, 1975-76; Our Army at War (w)(p)(i) 1972; Special Crime Feature (p)(i) 1952; Star Spangled War Stories (w)(p)(i) 1972; support (lettering) 1971-76 on own art; Tomahawk (w)(p)(i) 1972; Weird War Tales (w)(p)(i) 1972; The Witching Hour (p)(i) 1972-73 Fox Comics: Earthquake (p)(i) c. 1944-46 (unconfirmed) Hillman Periodicals: Crime Detective Comics (p)(i) 1951 Lev Gleason Publications: Bombshell (p)(i) 1942; The Claw (i) c. 1942; covers (i) 1943-53; crime (p)(i) 1942-52; Crime Does Not Pay (p)(i) 1943,1945, 1948, 1952; Crimebuster [later “C.B.”] (p)(i) 1943-53; Daredevil (p) (i) 1943-48; Little Wise Guys (p)(i) 1952-55; Rocky X of the Rocketeers (p)(i) 1952-53; Sniffer and the Deadly Dozen (p)(i) 1953; Sniffer and Iron Jaw (p) (i) 1953; Uncle Charlie’s Fables (p) (i) 1952; Young Robinhood (p)(i) 1943; Western (p)(i) 1949

Happy Days Are Here Again! In 1960, Maurer wrote and drew a short-lived 1969-set comic strip titled The Happy Days—a decade and a half before that title was used for a popular TV series starring Ron Howard and Henry Winkler. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Marvel Comics: Battlefront (p)(i) 1956; Cowboy Action (p)(i) 1956; crime (p)(i) 1955; Frontier Western (p)(i) 1956; Gunsmoke Western (p) (i) 1956; Marvel Tales (p)(i) 1956;

Celebrating The Golden Age Artist Of Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, & The Three Stooges

How The Mighty Are Fallen! Maurer drew Crimebuster battling Iron Jaw in a violent action page for Lev Gleason Publications’ Boy Comics #13 (Dec. 1943)—but, by Boy Illustories #92 (Aug. ’53), Iron Jaw had been reduced to second billing in a humor strip—which, however, led off the issue. Both stories attributed to Charles Biro. Thanks to CPB. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Strange Tales (p)(i) 1955; Tales of Justice (p)(i) 1955-56; Sergeant Barney Baxter filler (p)(i) 1956; Two-Gun Western (p)(i) 1957; Western Kid (p) (i) 1955; Wild Western (p)(i) 1956; Wyatt Earp (p)(i) 1956-57 St. John Publishing: covers (p)(i) 1953-54; fillers (w)(p)(i) 1953; The House of Terror (p)(i) 1953; Lil Stooge (w)(p)(i) dates uncertain; Mighty Mouse (w)(p)(i) 1953; The Three Stooges (w)(p)(i) 1949, 1953-54 (ed on latter issues); Whack (w)(p)(i) 1953-54; Western (w?) (p)(i) 1953; The Wizard of Uggh (p)(i)(ed) 1953 Western Publishing: The Little Stooges (w)(p)(i) 1972-74 William H. Wise & Co.: Complete Book of True Crime Comics (p)(i) 1944 [reprint of Lev Gleason material from Crime Does Not Pay]

Norman Maurer in 1967. Thanks to Joan Maurer & Shaun Clancy.

“[Being In Comics] Was An Important Time In My Life”

An Interview With MADDY COHEN, A.K.A. MIMI GOLD Conducted & Transcribed by Richard J. Arndt

NTERVIEWER’S INTRO: Mimi Gold entered the comicbook field via a rather unusual process: she had a blind date with Jim Steranko. (For details, see below.) She was briefly Stan Lee’s secretary in the waning days of the 1960s. She soon moved on to become an editorial assistant and to write scripts for Marvel’s mystery titles, as well as stories for Iron Man and “The Black Widow.” She was also a colorist, working on many of Marvel’s main titles, including most of the first dozen issues of Conan the Barbarian. In 1972, she moved to DC, first working in production for Sol Harrison and Jack Adler; she soon became an assistant editor (under Dorothy Woolfolk) on the romance titles and Lois Lane. After that, she left comics for an editorial position at McGraw-Hill. Along the way, she legally changed her name to Madeline Cohen and is currently a partner in a film production company in New Jersey. This interview was conducted by phone on Dec. 7th, 2013. RICHARD ARNDT: I guess the first question would be: where did the “Mimi Gold” name come from and where did it go to? MADDY COHEN: My given name when I was born was Miriam. From the time I was a toddler, my nickname was Mimi. I basically used that nickname for many years until I changed my name to Madeline and my nickname became Maddy. That happened about 24, 25 years ago. I was Mimi until I was about forty. My full last name was Goldenberg, but when I first got into comics I was dating Jim Steranko. I was a writer. I was always a writer and a filmmaker—no matter what the medium was, I wanted to write. That’s not how or why I got into Marvel Comics, but as soon as I was there, working as a secretary for Stan Lee, I wanted to be a writer, because that’s what everybody at Marvel wanted to be. So Jim Steranko and I were talking and he said, “Look, you just can’t use your full name. It’s not commercial enough. It’s not snappy enough. Let’s shorten it.” So he made the Goldenberg “Gold” and I became Mimi Gold. It was that name not only throughout my time in the comicbook industry but through my next couple of business moves in

“Me And Skippy” Little Miriam Goldenberg in 1949, with the family dog. Photo courtesy of MC.

Mimi Gold (Now Maddy Cohen) in 1970, by the River Thames in London—and the splash page of the “Black Widow” story she scripted for Amazing Adventures #4 (Jan. 1971), with powerful pencils by Gene Colan & incredible inks by Bill Everett. The photo of Mimi was snapped by artist Barry Smith (now Windsor-Smith), when she was visiting him in England. Thanks to Maddy for the pic, and to Barry Pearl for the comic art. [Page TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

book publishing. Gold stuck with me for fifteen years and Mimi for twenty. RA: Was there any particular reason you changed it? COHEN: Yeah. By the time I was forty, I hated everybody calling me Mimi. I hated that nickname! It was something my mother

An Interview With Maddy Cohen, A.K.A. Mimi Gold

started when I was just a little kid and I didn’t like it. So I said, I’ve got to have a name that has a better nickname attached to it. So Maddy, by way of Madeline, and my last name through marriage. RA: That makes sense. I’ve known a couple of people who’ve done something like that over the years. My dad, for one. COHEN: When I sent out the name change notice, I got so much reaction from people! The first time I got married, I added another name onto Gold and when I got divorced I got rid of it. Then I got married again and added the new first name on top of the new married name! People were going crazy! To make sure that people paid attention to it when I sent out the name change, I filled the envelope with metallic confetti as a sort of celebration. But people get a lot of mail and they don’t always pay attention when they’re opening envelopes. So when the envelopes were opened, confetti got all over the place. I got a lot of complaints, but I knew people were paying attention! RA: That’s for sure! What, if any, were your experiences with comics as a kid? COHEN: Basically, from the time I was six years old I knew I wanted to be a journalist. I started my own little kiddie newspaper. I made up stories. That was my little hobby. When I entered junior high I was a reporter, then the editor, for the school newspaper and did the same thing when I went to high school. Due to the influence of an English teacher, Mr. Brown, I decided to study cinema. I went to the film school at NYU as a film major, and for three of my four years there my primary cinema production teacher was Martin Scorsese. He is a very intense person. A very “A-type” personality. He made you understand that you needed to totally embrace whatever it is that you’re doing. Of course, you know what he’s done in the film industry over the past 45 years. So I graduated and I was thinking, “What do I do now? How do I get a job?” See, I didn’t know enough and was too naïve to understand that there was a “boys’ network” operating in industry at that time. It wasn’t always just boys, of course, but if you didn’t belong to some kind of inner circle that helped you get into unions or get work on a set, you didn’t get in. If you didn’t have the contacts you were really nowhere and that’s what happened to me. I had no idea what to do.

“Are You Talking To Me?” Mimi/Maddy’s film teacher Martin Scorsese went on to other things—like directing the 1976 Academy Award-winning film Taxi Driver. He’s seen here (at right) on a New York City set with Robert De Niro, whom the movie would make a star. In one scene in the film, Scorcese portrays a rage-filled passenger in the cab of De Niro’s “Travis Bickle.” [TM & © Columbia Pictures or successors in interest.]

Then, a week before college graduation, one of my friends from film school asked me to do them a favor. They had a friend coming in from out of town, and they wanted

Jim Steranko served as Mimi Gold’s entry to the comics field—and even suggested that she shorten her last name! Around the time they met in mid-1969, Steranko’s story art and script was making a rare appearance in the first issue of Tower of Shadows (Sept. ’69)… although his cover art for the issue was sadly (and probably foolishly) rejected by the publisher. Photo from 1969 Fantastic Four Annual. [Page TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

to fix him up with me on a date. I said, sure, why not? The guy was Jim Steranko. We went out and hit it off. About two weeks later, there was a comics convention at the Statler-Hilton and he invited me to be his guest. I went, and that convention was my first major exposure to comics. It was exciting! I met people like Harlan Ellison, Neal Adams—people who would become my friends. At that time, Stan didn’t have a regular secretary. Steranko, who’d introduced me to Stan at the convention, knew about that and said to me, “Would you like to be Stan’s secretary?” I needed a job, so I said, “Of course!” Right? That convention had been exciting and everybody seemed very passionate about what they were doing. So he brought me over to Stan and said, “Listen, she’s looking for a job. She knows film. She can write. She can handle all your stuff.” Stan said, “Great! She can start Monday!” That’s how I got into comics. There was an empty chair. When I started as Stan’s secretary, my desk was right next to Roy Thomas’ in the production room, and so was right by Stan’s office for the first six months or so. Roy sat in back of me, and Sol Brodsky and John Verpoorten were on the other side of the room. The four of us were in there. Roy was a very driven and very sweet

“[Being In Comics] Was An Important Time In My Life”

S.H.I.E.L.D. And that was the sort of stuff that was appearing at that first comics convention I went with him to. I didn’t know much about it before, but because everyone around me was constantly talking about science-fiction and fantasy, I immediately started reading all of those books, too. It was very helpful. As a writer, you’re influenced by the environment around you. I was encouraged by Jim to go to Stan and tell him that I could write, too. So that’s exactly what happened.

Sol Brodsky, John Verpoorten, & Roy Thomas were the three lucky guys with whom “Mischievous Mimi Gold” shared an office in 1969. Photos from 1964 & 1969 annuals. At right is the first Bullpen Bulletins mention of her, from the likes of Fantastic Four #100 (July 1970)—but Ye Editor sheepishly admits that he has no memory whatsoever of the alsomentioned “Lovable Leslie Dixon”! [Bulletin TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] Re Mimi/Maddy: Roy T. specifically remembers his and first wife Jeanie flying to England in the summer of 1970, while she was already there visiting Barry Smith. The latter pair greeted the Thomases at London’s Heathrow Airport, and Roy had to drive a rented English Ford out of the airport and into the city with the other three chatting away in the car. (Need we remind you that in Britain they drive on the left side of the road?) He white-knuckled it and somehow made it without an accident; and Mimi won his heart forever at a party a few months later in the U.S. when he overheard her say to someone, “Oh, Roy just drove out of the airport like he’d been doing it all his life!” The foursome spent two or three days palling around together in London (with Roy and Barry plotting out Conan the Barbarian #7 in a hotel lobby) before the Thomases motored off into the English countryside.

I wrote a mystery story on spec. Then I did another. I pushed a little. I volunteered. But everybody did that. I met great people during this period. I became very friendly with Jim Warren. Steranko introduced me to

man. Always a nice guy. One of the nice guys in the business. Then, after about six months as Stan’s secretary, one of the assistant editors left. I raised my hand and that’s how I got the job as an assistant editor. Now I have to say something, and it’s really important. In the forty years or so that I’ve been working, as an editor or writer—I was always, always writing—but despite all of those important jobs, the most important job I’ve had personally was in comics, even though I was only in comics for maybe three or four years. It was just an important time in my life. All the personal relationships and the formation of literary and artistic preferences—those things have stayed with me all these years. Those things I did then have driven me and stayed with me all these years. All the people that I knew and would love to get into touch with again are still in my head like it was just three or four years ago instead of decades. It’s really strange. That isn’t true for other industries. I was involved in travel and hotel public relations. I’ve traveled the world! Even though it was great to travel as much as I did and learn as much as I did, what I really remember with fondness and sentimentality is the time I spent in the comics industry and the people I knew there. It was during my formative years when you’re growing as a human being. The people you meet at those times can have a lot of influence on you and your life. It was really a great period. Next! RA: Had you read comics before you got into the field? COHEN: As a kid, I read Harvey and Archie comics. I did not know much about superheroes. Sure, I knew the names, but not as a reader or follower. Before I met Stan or went to the Marvel offices, of course, Steranko showed me his own stuff. I saw that “new” kind of comic art that he was offering in

Barry Smith A few years before he became Barry Windsor-Smith, but perhaps after his INS-forced return from the U.S. to London, the young English artist penciled the above tale for Tower of Shadows #5 (May 1970). Inks by Dan Adkins, script by Roy Thomas. By this time, the gravedigger-style hosts of the earlier “mystery” issues had given way to caricatures of the artists or writers; so Marie Severin added a caricature of Barry as narrator... and Barry himself may (or may not) have suggested some of “his” dialogue that Roy scribed on the splash. Inks by Dan Adkins. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] At left is Barry at a New York con in 1976, courtesy of the former GACBS website.

An Interview With Maddy Cohen, A.K.A. Mimi Gold

Marvel “Mystery” Comics The splash pages of three stories Mimi Gold wrote for Marvel’s “mystery” comics. Dick Ayers did full-art chores on her yarn for Chamber of Darkness #6 (Aug. 1970)—Rich Buckler did the same in “Dead Ringer!” in Where Monsters Dwell #15 (May 1972)—while Bill Everett illustrated “The Greatest Magician of All!” for Fear #9 (Aug. 1972). It’s quite possible Mimi/Maddy scribed these tales fairly close together, as she seems to suggest, but that there were delays in the artists either being assigned them or at least turning them in. But they’re all well-done… and the Everett job is particularly gorgeous, even though Wild Bill was then in declining health and would pass away in early ’73. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

a lot of people. He made sure I knew everybody! I had a lot of doors open and made a lot of friends thanks to Jim. Just at the end of my secretarial duties, before I moved to editorial, I was cleaning up my desk and there was a lot of stuff that had been pushed back into the corners. I started going though them and I came across some letters from Barry Smith. Barry had come over to the States originally on a Work Visa, and when it had expired he’d been forced to go back to England. He wanted to come back to the States. I noticed that nobody had answered any of these letters. So I answered the letters and told him, “Hi, I’m Stan Lee’s secretary, etc., etc.” I don’t really remember exactly what I wrote, but I answered his letters. In those days we didn’t have the Internet, so it was written mail. We started writing back and forth, and I ended up hiring an immigration lawyer for him, intervened with [then-publisher] Chip Goodman, and got Marvel’s parent company, Magazine Management, to sponsor the legal fees for his application

“[Being In Comics] Was An Important Time In My Life”

for a Visa so he could return to the United States. That took well over a year. I visited Barry several times in England, and when he finally came over we were a couple for a couple of years after that. He was a very big influence on me and my artistic preferences. He taught me a lot about art. Jim Steranko had pushed me to write, and Barry pushed me on the artistic side, so the combination of the two put me into a new zone. I was pretty good friends with a bunch of other people. I went to a comic-con here in New Jersey last April and ran into Herb Trimpe. We used to be pretty good friends. I was friends with everybody in the Bullpen. Gerry Conway was a good friend, too. I was at Marvel from 1969 to 1971. My day job was as an editor, but I was doing coloring at night to make extra money. Almost every night and on the weekends, I was coloring comics. That’s how I built up my first little bank account. After Barry came over from England, going to the office every day was getting distracting. The office wasn’t where I wanted to be. So I decided to become a freelance colorist and left the editorial job at Marvel. For the next six months or so, I just did coloring for Marvel as a freelancer. Barry colored the first Conan

Better Homes & “Garden” The white-to-pink-to-red change in the color of the blood-drinking flowers in “The Garden of Fear” in Conan the Barbarian #9 (Sept. 1971)—after a screaming man had been dropped into their vampiric midst by a winged fiend—was something writer Roy Thomas and penciler Barry Smith worked out to get around possible Comics Code censorship. They had Mimi Gold color-progress those three panels, going from white to pink to red. Their verbal instructions to her negated the need for a color note written in the margins of the original art, which the Code folks would’ve read. Inks by Sal Buscema. [TM & © Conan Properties International , LLC.] Nor did the lads inform editor Stan Lee of their little subterfuge, lest he (quite reasonably) object: After all, if Code administrator Len Darvin and his crew had seriously resented being outflanked in this particular instance, they’d have had ample opportunity to take revenge later. Even so, Conan’s creative team were determined to slip this by—and, Crom bless ’em, they did, with no ill after-effects that ever came to light! But then, Darvin once told Roy that they let things slip by in Conan that they wouldn’t have approved in the super-hero comics, because they figured the barbarian title had a somewhat older audience.

comic, I think, but I did Conan the Barbarian #2 through #11. That was absolutely my best work. Now, years after doing that and knowing that everything nowadays is done on computers, back then, when you were coloring them with Doctor Martin’s aniline dyes, you could see when the people who did the color separations wouldn’t follow your colors or didn’t necessarily stay within the lines. Still, you could do some dramatic effects. After comics, I stopped doing anything that was artistic like that until about four or five years ago when I started painting with oils. I’m doing that now in an abstract style, doing shows. It’s exciting to be doing something artistic again. RA: The coloring on those early Conans was actually quite well done. I particularly remember the page in #9 where the vampiric flowers are filling up with blood and the first panel shows them as white flowers, then in the second panel they’re pink, and in the last they’re blood-red, but we don’t actually see what is happening to the fellow caught in the flowers. COHEN: I’ve held on to the first twelve issues or so. Keeping them in very good condition and not basically touching them at all. Working on those books was the most fun I ever had. Some coloring was boring, you know. In those instances, what I did first was color the title characters’ uniforms. Then I went back and did everything else. You had to know that you did that part already and wouldn’t have to think about it on the rest of the page. But Conan was more artistic. You weren’t following the normal rules anymore. I colorcoded every section of color on the stats so the printing plant would know exactly what shade of purple or green I intended. Even on reprints, intention was everything, and I didn’t want a separator to

Save The Color Guides! The splash page of Iron Man #29 (Sept. 1970), scripted by “M. Gold,” was depicted in A/E #153; so here’s another action page from “Save the People— Save the Country!” Pencils by Don Heck, inks by Chic Stone. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

An Interview With Maddy Cohen, A.K.A. Mimi Gold

Conan The [Colorful] Barbarian With all the detail that Barry Smith was increasingly putting into his pencils, Mimi Gold had her work cut out for her as colorist of Conan the Barbarian #2-11… especially since she had to try to visually guide the women who applied color to the actual plates to follow her lead and not slop over the lines (or even ignore some of her coloring instructions entirely). Clockwise from top left are panels from Conan #3… #4… #11… #8… and #6 (all cover-dated 1971). Somehow, the hard work she had clearly put into preparing the color guides— and perhaps a recognition of the quality of the art—led the ladies to do a better job than was the norm on the massproduced comics of the day. Note, for example, the nigh-perfect work in the panel from #11 on the mortar between the individual stones, where the color-separators, to their credit, stayed within the (very thin) lines. Inks by Sal Buscema and (in #8) Tom Sutton. Scripts by Roy Thomas. Thanks to Barry Pearl for the scans. The recent Dark Horse reprinting of CTB were recolored—and, Ye Ed admits, not to the liking of the 1970s writer/associate editor himself—so it came as welcome news that the Marvel Conan the Barbarian Omnibus, Vol. 1, to be published at the end of 2018 will restore the original coloring by Mimi, Barry, et al. [TM & © Conan Properties International, LLC.]

“[Being In Comics] Was An Important Time In My Life”

when I investigated I found out that someone already had. I loved that character, though. That would have been a fulfilling project at this time in my life to work on. I still think about which heroine would make a really good character for a graphic novel or film, and the truth is that superheroines in film haven’t really worked out well. For the upcoming Wonder Woman, they cast the woman from the Fast and Furious franchise. Not Michelle Rodriguez but Gal Godot. She got killed in one of the Fast and Furious films, I believe. RA: It’s tough casting women in super-hero movies, because they have to be not only able to act but do all the fights and moves and then look right for the role. Lynda Carter was a godsend to the casting director for the Wonder Woman TV series back in the 1970s. COHEN: The only woman I think who’s ever been successful playing a super-heroine was Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, who was a character from the Tomb Raider video game, not a comic. I think she was great. But I’ve always wanted to do a female character, and I know enough people that I could reach out to. I have a small independent film company. I’m working on a screenplay right now, but that has nothing to do with comicbooks. It’s a bit in the vein of Moonstruck, the movie with Nicholas Cage and Cher. I’m trying for the same feeling that that film has. It deals with a bunch of older Italian ladies coming into their own. It’s about woman power. No matter how old. But it would be fun to work on something that had to do with a super-hero that comes from the fantasy genre. I like the stylization that Roy and Barry found in Conan and the world that they created. To me, that world is one of the best visualizations of a fantasy world that I’ve come across.

The “Widow”-Maker A gorgeous “Black Widow” fight page from Amazing Adventures #4 (Jan. ’71)—penciled by Gene Colan and inked by Bill Everett. And scripted, this time, by a duly credited “Mimi Gold.” The story’s splash was printed back on p. 37. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

decide what I had meant. I loved the fantasy stuff and still do. The Lord of the Rings, whatever. I loved medieval-style fantasy or a period piece or a make-believe world. That was just the most intriguing thing to work on. As for the writing, I was really just getting my feet wet. Trying to find my way. I did those mystery stories. Then I convinced Stan to let me write—and I don’t know which came first—either an Iron Man or a “Black Widow.” I just bought a really thick book of reprints, the Essential Iron Man, Vol. 3, and my story was in there. I was just so tickled. I showed my kids some of this stuff. They’re in their twenties and they don’t care all that much, but when I showed them a book [I was in], that made a real difference! RA: Well, just to give you a heads-up, I believe they’re reprinting all of those “Black Widow” stories in a new Daredevil Masterworks volume. Vol. 8. They’ll be in color. COHEN: It’s really amazing how many variations or reinventions those characters have gone through. What I really wanted to do was to take the Red Sonja character from Conan and develop that notion into graphic novels, but I’d been out of comics for a long time, and

I look at comics today—the slick paper, the beautiful color, and I think, “Oh my God, look what they can do with computers!” It’s very impressive, but there’s still something to be said for the way it used to be. However, the way that artists and writers were treated—well, I remember going to meetings where they talked of forming a union and how badly they were treated, paid, and just not respected. And it was everybody, from the guys starting out to the stars of the comics. I honestly don’t know how it is now, but back then, it started to seem to me that everybody was desperate to be in the business but everybody seemed to hate their lives! It was a very weird time. RA: They still haven’t got a union or a guild to protect themselves and negotiate standards. In some respects I suspect it hasn’t changed that much. COHEN: At one point there was one important meeting. Everyone had sort of reached the boiling point, and this meeting was going to be the one big meeting where unionization would take place. People were standing up and making speeches and so on. So Gil Kane stood up and uncharacteristically started yelling so loud. He was very angry and his anger just spilled out of him. For him to do that was very powerful. It’s a little odd, sometimes, the moments that stick in your mind for years and years afterwards. I don’t want you to think it was all gloom and doom. I really remember the people I worked with back then—Bill Everett and Marie Severin. Tony Mortellaro, Herb Trimpe, John Romita. They were all so funny! They made every day a crazy adventure! I could hear them over the wall talking and joking around all day. Stu Schwartzberg was there, too, and did all the Photostats. He somehow managed to get through every day facing absurdly quick deadlines and having emergency jobs dumped on him and he managed to get through it.

An Interview With Maddy Cohen, A.K.A. Mimi Gold

Bill Everett doesn’t seem to get mentioned as much as he should these days. He was an amazing talent. He wasn’t always well, so he wasn’t as reliable as some might wish. Still, when he was there, everyone was glad. John Romita was the best. He was the center of bullpen cheer and joking around. I just loved him! The freelancers, so many of them, who did the inking and lettering. I was talking to Alan Kupperberg not too long ago about Frank Giacoia. Frank was so unable to meet deadlines! He was always late with everything! It was such a burden. When I first started working at Marvel, I didn’t live in New York yet. I was out on Long Island living with my parents. Frank was in East Meadow, also on Long Island. I would pick up stuff from the office and bring them home, and Frank would pick them up because it would be same day instead of next-day messengering. Then he’d bring the work back to me and I’d take the pages back in to the office. It was both funny and sad. He was a good guy, but it was a lot of pressure for him. Marie [Severin] was the queen of covers. My God, she knocked out those covers! She was amazing. Kind of my inspiration for wanting to color. Marie worked in the side room with production assistants Stu and Bill, and I don’t think she liked all the fooling around that went on in the main bullpen where John and Tony worked. The production assistant position kind of revolved, but I do remember Stu Schwartzberg being at that machine so dependably. There were two desks in the small front office. I worked there with Allyn Brodsky, who wasn’t related to Sol. Allyn wrote, too, because it was impossible at Marvel to be surrounded by all these writers and not want to do it yourself. You had to tell a story because everyone was telling stories. Artie Simek and Sam Rosen were the freelance letterers there. Stan Goldberg and Larry Lieber did some work at the time I was there, as well. We sent packages out to Jack Kirby all the time, as he was living in California when I started at Marvel. I never actually met Jack. I just knew him by address. He lived in Tarzana. We sent packages to him nearly every day. Sol Brodsky was a doll. He was very nice. To me, he was kind of like the uncle who looked after you. He was very, very tenacious and reliable. He kept things running at Marvel, while he was there. He was the one who started giving me coloring work and I was grateful for that. He was just a decent and kind-hearted person. A lot of what I did was proofreading and copy-editing. But I also answered all the letters

Fearless Frank Giacoia inked this Don Heck splash page for Chamber of Darkness #1 (Oct. 1969). Script by Gary Friedrich. Photo from F.O.O.M. Magazine #17 (Fall ’77).

Mirthful Marie Severin hard at work at her drawing board in 1969—and the cover she penciled that went with the Mimi Gold-written script “Put Another Nickel In!!!” in Chamber of Darkness #6 (Aug. 1970). Of course, Stan—or someone—called it by a different title on the cover. Inks by Bill Everett; coloring probably by Marie. Photo found by Mike Mikulovsky. [Cover TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“[Being In Comics] Was An Important Time In My Life”

Stan Lee may have figured in a few controversial news stories of late, but that’s far from the sum total of his recent life. He’s seen at left at the Great Wall of China in December 2017—and with star Chadwick Boseman around the time of the premiere of the smash Marvel Studios film Black Panther, based on a hero created by Stan and Jack Kirby. Thanks to Robert Menzies for the former scan from the Internet.

think he still has them, but I don’t know. I’ve never asked. In some ways, I’ll kick myself forever for that! [laughs] Oh, well. Stan [Lee] worked at home a lot. When he came into work, he would close his door and you wouldn’t see him for three or four hours, but when he came out, he would burst out with something to say! He was the engine! He kept everything going. I know all the stuff about rights and who created what and all that, but when I see his little cameos in the Marvel Studios’ films I just laugh because, you know, through all the corporate changes and problems and politics that have gone on through the years, he has survived. He’s

Please Scream All My Calls! Staffer Allyn Brodsky scripted the story “The Scream of Things,” as penciled by Barry Smith for Tower of Shadows #7 (Sept. 1970). Inks by Vince Colletta. Allyn can be seen amid the Bullpen in A/E #153, but alas, we could locate no other photos of him by presstime. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

that were written to the bullpen. I spent a lot of time writing to the kids from the fanzines. I used to take the letters home with me because there just wasn’t enough time in the day to answer them all. I’d answer a bunch of letters from home every night. There were just so many kids, and my heart just broke for a lot of them. So many of them seemed so sad and lonely. I just became a kind of social worker and wrote them nice letters. I mentioned Alan Kupperberg earlier. Recently he posted on Facebook a copy of the letter I wrote to him, on Marvel stationery, way back then. It was the first letter he’d gotten from Marvel, and I guess to him that was something. I think it’s kind of cute that he kept it. [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: Sadly, Alan Kupperberg died in 2015, some time after this too-long-delayed interview was conducted.] RA: It is pretty amazing that he’d kept it all those years! COHEN: Well, I wish I’d done a better job of keeping things. I was doing all the coloring on the Conan books, and by this time I’d gotten to know Alan a little. He asked me about getting some of the coloring pages, and I was so naïve that I had no idea that those painted Photostats would become something of value. I just said, “Here! You can have it!” I got them out and gave them to him. I

Alan Kupperberg in 2008, and a penciled commission he did featuring three of the four members of the Fantastic Four. Photo by Luigi Novi from bleedingcool website. [Mr. Fantastic, Human Torch, & the Thing TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

An Interview With Maddy Cohen, A.K.A. Mimi Gold

in different directions. I always thought he came off as somewhat misunderstood. He was always trying to make everybody happy in a lot of different ways. Dealing with the Goodmans—it was very difficult to deal with them. Everybody knew they were the cheapsters of the industry. When I went to DC I got $10 a week more as a production assistant for Sol Harrison than I was making for Marvel as an assistant editor.

Sol Harrison

Jack Adler

Sol Harrison and Jack Adler were the heads of production at DC/National for many years. Harrison eventually became president of the company. Thanks to Bob Rozakis and Todd Klein, respectively.

one of the giants and I wish him well. I hope he’s enjoying his long and fruitful life. The book that came out early this year—Marvel Comics: The Untold Story by Sean Howe—to me, it just captured exactly what I saw but I never discussed. The notion that Stan’s wife and daughter were totally disinterested in what he was doing. He adored them. He absolutely adored them. He wanted to make his world of comics come to fruition and was boiling over with ideas, but he had this whole other life with his wife and daughter. He put them on a pedestal and was always trying to make them happy. He was being pulled

Dorothy Woolfolk Originally a story editor from 1942-44 at All-American under Sheldon Mayer under her maiden name Roubicek, before AA was submerged into DC Comics, Dorothy Woolfolk “returned” to DC for a time in the 1970s. She’s listed by the Grand Comics Database as the editor of a number of issues of Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane during that period, with several different people (but not Mimi Gold) listed as assistant editor—but then, comicbook credits don’t always reflect who’s actually doing the work on a particular issue. Seen here is Bob Oksner’s cover for Lois Lane #126 (Sept. 1972). Photo courtesy of Donald Woolfolk. [TM & © DC Comics.]

I worked with Sol and Jack Adler in production at DC. They were fabulous people! Jack was the one that was more approachable of the two. Sol was not. I had no inkling he was an executive in the making. I was in the production department for about five months. Again, though, I felt pulled away by my desire to write or be an editor, so I went to work for Dorothy Woolfolk, who was the editor of Lois Lane. She courted me to work for her. I think she felt lonely in her quiet office. It was kind of a relief for me, because to some extent I felt like a duck out of water with Sol and Jack. I’d left a situation at Marvel where I knew everybody and the feeling was good. I knew that people moved around from company to company, but I still felt a little bit like a traitor. I was helping Dorothy with Lois Lane as well as all the romance books. I was doing more editorial work there than I’d done at Marvel. At Marvel I’d done more copy editing, writing letters, that sort of thing. At DC I was working with specific books and I liked that. Denny O’Neil and Archie Goodwin were the other main editors that I remember from that time. Archie and his wife were two of the nicest people ever. Really, really sweet. Archie could have been right out of a 1940s movie. He was just like Jimmy Stewart— totally wholesome and well-mannered, sensitive. He cared about everybody he interacted with. I can’t imagine anyone having anything negative to say about Archie Goodwin. I found out that the work ambiance at DC was completely different than Marvel. There was a time clock at DC! [laughs] There wasn’t anything like that at Marvel! DC was more generous, though, and I don’t mean just financially—still, it was more dictatorial in some ways. There was more of a family feel at Marvel. It made you want to be there every day. I would have stayed on and maybe got into some other things, but Carmine Infantino was a very temperamental person, and right at that time, Warner, who owned DC, had bought Mad magazine and Bill Gaines had come in. There was a lot of politics and a lot of tension going on. I thought it was a good time to move on to a more normal job. So I got a job at McGraw-Hill, copy editing a magazine which was boring as hell. [laughs] It was a trade publication called Today’s Secretary. I wrote articles for them, and the most interesting thing that I

Take A Letter—Any Letter! We couldn’t find any 1970s covers for the magazine Today’s Secretary, but here’s one from May 1962. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

“[Being In Comics] Was An Important Time In My Life”

did for them was when Barry and I were going back to London. We were still together at the time. So I contacted the Rolling Stones— the rock group, not the magazine. I told them I worked for this magazine and wanted to do a profile on their secretary. So that’s what I did. I interviewed the Rolling Stones’ secretary and did the piece for the magazine. Believe me, it was the only interesting thing I did for that magazine. After that, I went to work for a filmmaking magazine, then a travel industry publication, then went back to school where I got a degree in restaurant and hotel management. I did travel PR for the Hilton organization for ten years or so. Then I started my own PR firm and finally joined a PR firm in New York. RA: You mentioned that you were still with Barry Windsor-Smith while you were at DC, so you would have been with him when he started his portfolio and fine arts business… COHEN: Yes, Gorblimey Press. In England the word “blimey” or “Gorblimey” means “God blind me” or “God bless me.” It’s an old English word. I still have some of the original art that he did at the time. He wanted to be independent so badly, in so many ways. And he is! He continues to produce art. He sells his books [Opus Vols. 1 & 2] and his art prints. He has his website. He never was able to work for a corporate entity for very long because he’s a very independent person. He does his own comics, too. That was the period when Barry added the Windsor to his name. Windsor was his mother’s maiden name. He used to sign all of his work “Barry Smith” and at the bottom of the “h” in Smith he’d put a little “x” through the line. After a while he felt it just didn’t have enough presence. So he decided to take his mother’s maiden name and become Barry Windsor-Smith. Somehow, I think she was related to the Windsors [England’s royal family]. I think it worked out very well for him. It was a great idea. That’s one of the reasons I changed my name in the beginning—to have a greater presence. That sort of thing doesn’t matter so much anymore, although actors and actresses change their professional names all the time. There’s also a long tradition in the comics field of changing from your real name to a professional name.

Gorblimey! The Gorblimey Press Catalogue 1975-76 featured the Barry Windsor-Smith illustration that Richard Arndt describes to Maddy Cohen in the course of this interview. [TM & © Barry Windsor-Smith or successors in interest.]

RA: That’s true. Stan Lee wasn’t born Stan Lee. Jack Kirby wasn’t born Jack Kirby. Gil Kane didn’t use the name he was born with; he was born Eli Katz.

COHEN: I went to dinner a couple of times with Larry Lieber [Stan’s brother], and I knew that Stan’s real last name wasn’t Lee. I think a lot of the old-timers, including Stan, were tentative about how the world would look at or react to an ethnic name. A lot of people probably felt they had to protect themselves. RA: I suspect, for those Michael W. Kaluta original artists and writers, Photo of the artist as a young man—in 1971, changing your name to a to be exact. With thanks to MWK himself. less ethnic version made the door open a little easier, or at least, not have it close so fast. Nowadays the reason for changing your name is totally different. Sometimes, it’s like what you were doing—“I like the new name better than the old one.” COHEN: Yeah. It’s just a matter of theatrics. Back to artists: There was also Neal Adams who, because he did so much work with Roy Thomas, was a good friend of mine. We hung out with so many people. Roy used to have get-togethers called First Fridays, or something like that, at his apartment on a regular basis, and a whole gang of people would go up there. Alan Weiss, Bernie Wrightson, and Mike Kaluta had a big apartment on the Upper West Side and people would go over there and get together. There were a lot of constant social gatherings, because everybody just breathed comics. Mike Kaluta gave me this huge Maxwell Parrish print, an original, which is hanging over my bed. He gave it to me one day when a bunch of us were over to the apartment. I would stand in front of that print and go “This is so beautiful!” over and over again. So one day, Mike took it off the wall and said, “Here.” I’m sure it’s got value. RA: Yeah, I have a Barry Windsor-Smith print framed and mounted on my wall. It’s called The Devil’s Lake and I just love looking at it. It’s of a half-nude angel with her hair tangled in a tree above a lake. Barry did the greatest trees! COHEN: I don’t remember that particular image, but I can imagine it. All sorts of little tendrils of hair twisted in there. Barry loves details. That’s his thing. It’s what distinguishes his work. RA: Exactly! I was talking with Mike Kaluta once and he mentioned that he was very jealous of Barry’s ability to draw a tree. You’d be looking at his trees and leaves and become so immersed in them that you’d forget all about the central image in the foreground on the painting. COHEN: That’s so true! It sounds like Mike could have been describing Maxwell Parrish, as well. Oh! Before I go, there’s one person I really want to mention and that’s John Verpoorten. He headed the production department after Sol Brodsky started Skywald. He was one of the sweetest guys in the entire universe—a gentle giant at 6”5’. He was very quick with his humor, but he was quiet so a lot of people didn’t know him well. I was very sad when I learned that he had passed away. I don’t hear his name mentioned as much as it could be when people are reminiscing about the old days at Marvel. As much or even more than Sol Brodsky, John kept that production department going. He was tenacious, too. I remember going with him down to Coney Island to Nathan’s hot dogs and a little beagle puppy. He named it Snoopy. John had red

An Interview With Maddy Cohen, A.K.A. Mimi Gold

my own, to really expand upon and make something of. I left comics because it was just very, very intense. You couldn’t just go to a job like in insurance and do your job, then go home and have a life. Your entire life, 24/7, was revolving around the people in comics, the job you had to do and pleasing the industry. It was something that at the end I just couldn’t handle. I felt that I needed to separate the home and the social from the work. The industry was very… how to use the right word for this?

Michael Uslan One-time DC Comics writer… a co-producer on all Batman films since the late 1980s… and author of the memoir The Boy Who Loved Batman. If he’s the gent who “turned [Maddy’s] mind back to the world of comics,” then he definitely deserves a shout-out!

I guess I’ll just be blunt. Everybody was either dating or sleeping with everybody else in the business. It was revolving doors. It was just crazy to me. It was just really crazy. You’d go out with a couple on a double date and have a lovely evening. Then the next time you saw the guy he’d be with a different girlfriend or a groupie, [and it] was just a very non-monogamist world. That bothered me. It seemed crazy to me. It was living life as a soap opera! Everybody was wonderful, but everybody seemed to be flirting through this crazy fictional world that they were caught up in. I regret, looking back over the years, because it was really fun, up to a point. I just wasn’t mature enough to say to myself that this [comics thing] could be a career. This could be a job if I can keep my social life separate. It was just too emotionally overwhelming.

Hope Springs Eternals! “Jumbo John” Verpoorten, whose photo graced p. 39, inked the splash page of The Eternals #3 (Sept. 1976), over the dynamic pencils of writer/penciler Jack Kirby during the latter’s brief return to Marvel in the mid-’70s. John was production manager there from 1970 through his passing at the end of 1977. Thanks to Bob Bailey. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

hair and so did Snoopy! They were adorable together. John didn’t go out much with the mainstream crowd, though. He was older and he felt too wise to get caught up in the scene. He didn’t even take his work home with him. But he deserves mention as one of the nicest guys in that office. RA: He was also a really good inker. He could ink people as different in artistic styles as John Buscema or Mike Ploog and it would not only look like their artwork and still be recognizable as Verpoorten’s art as well. COHEN: You’re right. He was fabulous. I guess he didn’t want the freelance life. He had a regular job at Marvel. He did do fabulous work—much better, I think, than some people who are considered good inkers. If there was an emergency, he’d jump in and deal with it. He would often do double-duty. Working with both John and Sol Brodsky was just very nice. I didn’t necessarily get that everywhere. I wish I’d done a lot more in comics. I wish I’d had the maturity to… I could have had a voice, you know? As a writer. I didn’t get enough of a chance to be the writer that I now would have liked to be. I would have liked to create a character, one of

I guess what I’m really trying to say is, if I’d stayed, that over the years there was so much more that I could have done. I have regrets about leaving the comics, but I have a lot of wonderful and joyous memories about my time working there. I’m also really glad that I’m getting back in touch with some of those folks, too.

It’s funny, my filmmaking partner is a producer, and one of her best friends in the world is Mike Carlin. I never met him. Through some connections a couple of years back I was asked to do some publicity for Michael Uslan’s book The Boy Who Loved Batman. There was a big book-signing event and so on and I became friends with Michael, who was the executive producer of the Batman films, as well as a writer/historian extraordinaire. I saw him at the comic-con that’s an annual thing in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and I asked him out of the blue if he would be interested in being the keynote speaker at our local high school graduation. I didn’t know if the high school would say OK, but I thought it was a great idea. My own kids were out of school. My business partner’s son was graduating, though, so the principal went to the school board and they liked the notion. So Michael came back to town and gave a wonderful speech to the kids. Michael, in the last couple of years, has really turned my mind back to the world of comics. I’ve gotten back in touch with some people. I’ve tried to learn more about what’s going on in that world today. I feel much more connected now but it was a very serendipitous thing that happened and that made me curious about comics again.

“[Being In Comics] Was An Important Time In My Life”

MIMI GOLD Checklist [This checklist is adapted from the online edition of Who’s Who of American Comic Books 1928-1999, established by Dr. Jerry G. Bails and viewable at www.bailsprojects.com (see ad on p. 86). Names of features that appeared both in comicbooks with that title and in other magazines as well are generally not italicized. The source of some data is Mimi Gold, now Maddy Cohen; other data supplied by Grand Comics Database. Key: (w) = writer; (ed) = editor; (c) = colorist.] Name & Vital Stats: Maddy Cohen [known in 1960s-70s in comics field as “Mimi Gold”—real name then Miriam Goldenberg] (b. 1948) – writer, editor, colorist Education: New York University School of Arts Influences: Cinema COMICBOOKS (U.S. Mainstream Publications): DC Comics: support (asst. ed) 1973-? [probably through 1974-75 at latest]; includes Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane & romance comics Marvel Comics: Black Widow (w) 1971; Chamber of Darkness (w) 1969; Conan the Barbarian (c) 1970-72; Fear (w) 1972; Iron Man (w) 1970; support (asst. ed) 1970; support (c) 1969-73; Where Monsters Dwell (w) 1972 Warren Publications: horror (w) 1971 [unconfirmed] [NOTE: The Grand Comics Database also lists Mimi Gold as writing the one-page puzzle feature “Romance 101” for Archie Comics’ Betty’s Diary #33 (June 1990); but Maddy Cohen says: “It seems an indexer made a presumption by noting that that submission was ‘possibly from the same Mimi Gold who worked at Marvel in the early 1970s.’ Nice to know someone actually remembered! Also, looked at contents for all Eerie and Creepy 1970-71 and can’t find anything indexed to me.”]

A Colorfully Climactic Cornucopia Maddy Cohen in 2016, framed by pages she scripted for Amazing Adventures #4 (“Black Widow”), Iron Man #29, and Fear #9. The illustrative teams, respectively, are: Gene Colan & Bill Everett… Don Heck & Chic Stone… and Bill Everett as a solo art act. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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“Paris When It Sizzles”

Part VI Of JOHN BROOME’s My Life In Little Pieces A/E EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: Since A/E #149, we’ve been presenting, a few pages at a time, the “little pieces” (i.e., vignettes and anecdotes) of the 1998 reminiscence by John Broome (1913-1999). Broome was a comicbook writer in the Golden Age and, in the Silver Age that began in 1956, was the primary writer of tales of both “The Flash” and “Green Lantern,” along with a fair amount of science-fiction comics yarns for DC Comics. In the mid-’60s, he, his wife Peggy, and their daughter Ricky moved to Paris; he would spend the final two decades of his life teaching English in the schools of Japan. Our thanks to Ricky Terry Brisacque for permission to serialize her father’s book, and to Brian K. Morris for retyping it onto a Word document for editing. In this installment, John recalls a few memorable days on the boulevards of gay Paree. Oh, and we should warn you up front: one or two of these memories are a bit spicier (though not by that much) than the usual fare in Alter Ego. Parental discretion is advised… though in most of our cases, it’s a bit late for that…. that’s just in case the title quasi-quotation above from a famous Cole Porter song lyric didn’t already clue you in….

Paris – The 1960s

cIntyre was a minor poet from Canada with a reputation for having, in his salad days, disassembled the furnishings of a couple of Montparnasse cafes, but when l knew him, he was near seventy and a massive stroke had just felled him. lt couldn’t kill the man, but did its damnedest, leaving him completely paralyzed and bedridden the last ﬁve years of his life. He could still drink and smoke if someone ﬁlled his glass and lit his cigarettes. And he could still listen to dirty stories. He loved dirty stories. I used to save up for him any new ones I heard and tell them as best I could on my occasional visits. Though it was always an ordeal to watch a laugh try to work its way up through that frozen visage and emerge from that defeated but still indomitable wreckage of a face—one eyeball all white and rimmed with blood—in sounds not resembling laughter at all, or only in a ghastly sort of way. Marion, Mac’s still youthful wife, had taken a job to make ends meet, but they had a hard time keeping a maid to take care of Mac. As may be imagined, he was no easy patient. Once, Marion told us, they had had a likely prospect, a young mademoiselle fresh from the provinces whom she had liked especially, but that one ‘s stay proved to be particularly short.

As Marion put it, “She took one look at Mac’s rigid digit and ﬂed for her life. “It was then I realized that that part of a man might be the very last part of him to die.” *** Tatsy and I were sitting in the Coupole watching a pair of lovers on the banquette just across from our table. The girl was a bewitching blonde, in a mini-skirt of course, this being the ’60s, and she was all over the boy so that you could hardly get a glimpse of him—as if we cared about that. The girl’s restlessly moving

John Broome at the 1998 San Diego Comic-Con—and don’t worry, he wasn’t a contortionist. That’s a friend’s hand on his shoulder. From Comic Vine website. (Left:) Probably one of the earliest stories Broome wrote that had as its locale his later-beloved Paris was the Flash chapter of “The Justice Society of America” yarn “The Mystery of the Vanishing Detectives” in the Golden Age All-Star Comics #57 (Feb.-March 1951), the final issue. Someone is stealing the famous gargoyles atop Notre Dame Cathedral—and not a Hunchback on hand to stop them—so enter the Fastest Man Alive! Pencils by Arthur Peddy; inks by Bernard Sachs. Thanks to Jim Kealy. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Part VI Of My Life In Little Pieces By John Broome

Four-Color French Cuisine (Above:) An interior of the well-known Parisian brasserie [restaurant] La Coupole, in which John Broome and his buddies hung out from time to time. (Right:) In this punnishingly titled “Elongated Man” story “The Counter of Monte Carlo,” from Detective Comics #352 (June 1966), John settles for having artist Carmine Infantino draw an outdoor café in the far-famed section of the Principality of Monaco on the French Riviera. Thanks to Jim Kealy & Bob Bailey. [TM & © DC Comics.]

beautiful upper thighs with their clinging symmetrical curves made my mouth go dry, and Tatsy from time to time would groan/ grunt semi-audibly. It really was an excruciating sight for two perpetually hungry oldsters to watch at close range, so that it was almost a relief when the waiter came up to break the spell. “And what would M’sieu like to have?” The waiter addressed only me because Tatsy had come in a bit earlier and was already halfway through his first ballon of rouge; but Tatsy answered for me. Tatsy had a bad right arm, but it seemed providentially bent expressly for hoisting a wine glass to his lips. He used this arm now and the wine glass at the end of it to gesture to the two lovers on the banquette, thighs in unceasing, remorseless action.

return home. But apparently, the waiter’s jeu d’esprit or whatever it was baffled him, too, for he scratched his head in an expression of wry puzzlement that was pure Tatsy. “Mysterious,” he finally concluded. “And I want another rouge.”

“M’sieu,” Tatsy said, “would like to have what that young man over there is getting.”

The mystery, however, was not long in getting cleared up, for back came the waiter and set down in front of me a glass of dark beer—une brune, sure enough!

l grinned at that and simpered, appealing to the waiter with mock helplessness for his sympathy. We liked to treat the Coupole waiters palsy–walsy, and they generally responded in kind. This one was new to us, but looking toward the lovers, he replied with a proper, comforting insouciance. “Ah, une brune.” And off he marched, tray high. They always carried their trays high in the Coupole even when there was nothing on them—question of panache, I suppose.

“But what is this?” demanded Tatsy, chin outjutted. “He didn’t order beer.” Tatsy could be very haughty with waiters on occasion. The blood of gypsy kings ran in his veins. His father was a famous artist in Budapest. Czigany was their name—Tzigane or “gypsy” in French—and Ladislas was my friend’s correct front name, only he hadn’t been able to pronounce the “l” as a child and so became Tatsy.

Tatsy and l guffawed. “Une brune!” But really, what the devil did it mean? The girl was so obviously a blonde and not a brunette. What kind of an in joke was it anyway? And besides— “How come he went away without taking my order?” l complained peevishly. Tatsy ﬁnished his rouge in one long swallow while I looked to him for explanation. Tatsy, to be sure, knew Paris and its lingo a lot better than l did—better than any foreigner I’d ever met. He’d come to the city at sixteen on vacation with his parents ﬁfty years before, and when they went home to their native Hungary, Tatsy had refused to budge, had stayed on, and never did

“Pardon!” returned the waiter equally haughty. “You said he wanted what that young man over there is having, is it not?” At this point, all three of us turned to the scene across from us and there on the boy’s side of the slim table in front of the thigh-gloriﬁed banquette was a half-ﬁnished glass of dark beer. “Une brune,” said the waiter fully vindicated. “Et voila.” And off he marched again before Tatsy could even mention his second rouge. Tatsy and I regarded each other and then we just broke up. lt was some time before we could control ourselves. “He never saw the girl,” l moaned. “He never saw her at all. All he saw was the

“Paris When It Sizzles”

big shot, but not a financial shot.” And of a girl we knew: “She showed up here at noon very bright and chippy.” Dorine was a group regular for many months, a sea-green-eyed, bronze-haired Irish lass no longer in her first blush of youth but making the most of what was left. She told us that Bruno, a great startling ours of a Swiss-German, was impotent but in her next breath confided that he had kept her in his hotel room for three days, door locked. We asked curious: How come if he was impotent? What did he do? Dorine smiled lazily. “Oh, it’s complicated.” She delivered the word so daintily—kohm-plee-kayted—you couldn’t ever forget it. It was marvelous once when she’d had a few drinks to listen to her talk dreamily of penises: “Small stumpy ones, long red ones …” like assorted frankfurters. On this night, ours Bruno kept giving her bear hugs as he got drunker. We decided old Bruno wasn’t impotent at all. Bill Leahy was Irish, too, a big handsome lad, devoted to Tatsy. Bill got a job in Paris but had a problem, he couldn’t wake up in the morning. He bought the loudest alarm clock he could find but, invariably, he’d turn it off and afterward not even remember doing so. With his job in danger, he put the clock on a bureau across the room and stationed some chairs between it and his bed. When it rang, he got out of bed, negotiated a path through the chairs, turned off the clock, and returned to bed, all the while remaining fast asleep. So the following night, he put the clock in a drawer of the bureau. Same result. In desperation, he locked the bureau drawer and threw the key under the bed. That worked. In scrambling to look for the key to open the drawer, to stop the accursed ringing, he finally did wake up. ***

“I Love Paris In The Fall…” (Above:) Another, slightly earlier Broome-scripted French foray occurred in Detective Comics #344 (Oct. 1965), in which The Elongated Man faced peril on the banks of the River Seine. Artist Infantino loved inking his own work (and did it well), but he was seldom allowed to do so by editor Julius Schwartz, who preferred to get more penciling out of one of his most valuable artists. Thanks to Jim Kealy & Bob Bailey—and of course, once again, to Cole Porter. [TM & © DC Comics.] (Right:) This sketch by Broome himself appears in this section of his 1998 memoir. Perhaps it’s meant to suggest one of those “outsized floral displays” at La Coupole, mentioned a few pages away? [Art © Estate of John Broome.]

beer. How could he not see those legs?” “Mysterious” replied Tatsy with a lilt and again l let loose. It was his word of the evening. *** Tatsy was always helping some newcomer to Paris, generously with his time and with his money when he had it – he’d been a Life photographer for a few prosperous years. But it was his Old World charm that drew people around him at the Coupole. Once I counted the number, twenty-ﬁve, mostly recently arrived foreigners but also a sprinkling of young French though the language was mainly English. Tatsy’s English could be counted on to enliven the conversation. Of a well-to-do acquaintance, he informed us, “He is an American

Centered in the spacious Coupole was (is?) a huge ceramic bowl six or seven feet across, itself centered unfailingly by a charming wide-spreading bouquet of fresh flowers. Around this outsized ﬂoral display ... the “brass bandits” of the Ecole d’Architecture Blvd Raspail would on occasion gather to tootle away, some in their uniforms of choice, chapeaux melons and prison-stripe long winter underwear. The management would set up free beers for the colorful crew around the bowl, for they had tremendous verve and volume, if less harmony, and were a drawing card. On the oblong pillars, roundabout as they ompah-oompahhed, one could let one’s eyes wander over the murals contributed by name artists of the twenties. The Coupole sported an enviable atmosphere, unknown to most other cafes, and accentuated by the periodic “happenings” that took place there. One night, fortified by traditional champagne, a champion “football” team celebrated its national victory by stripping to the buff and snaking its way in a conga line in and out among the diners in the ritzy restaurant part of the cafe. It was something to see dignified old ladies, many in their best ﬁnery, suddenly developing an all-absorbing interest in their various expensive plats while the strapping boyos, each and every one “buck-ass nekkid” cavorted and reeled around their tables. John Broome’s memoirs will be continued in our next issue.

New Books! MIKE GRELL: LIFE IS DRAWING WITHOUT AN ERASER (Softcover & Hardcover) From a seminal turn on Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes and creating the lost world of the Warlord, to his work on Green Arrow—first relaunching the Green Lantern/Green Arrow series with DENNY O’NEIL, and later redefining the character in Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters— MIKE GRELL made an indelible mark at DC Comics in the 1970s and ’80s. But his greatest contribution to the comics industry was in pioneering creator-owned properties like Jon Sable, Starslayer, and Shaman’s Tears. Grell even tried his hand at legendary literary characters like Tarzan and James Bond, adding to his remarkable tenure in comics. This career-spanning tribute to the master storyteller is told in Grell’s own words, full of candor, optimism, and humor. Lending insights are colleagues PAUL LEVITZ, DAN JURGENS, DENNY O’NEIL, MIKE GOLD, and MARK RYAN. Full of illustrations from every facet of his long career, with a Foreword by CHAD HARDIN, it also includes a checklist of his work and an examination of “the Mike Grell method.” It is a fitting tribute to the artist, writer, and storyteller who has made the most of every opportunity set before him, living up to his own mantra, “Life is Drawing Without an Eraser.” By DEWEY CASSELL, with JEFF MESSER. NOW SHIPPING! (160-page FULL-COLOR trade paperback) $27.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-088-5 • (Digital Edition) $12.95 • Diamond Order Code: JUN182065 (176-page LIMITED EDITION HARDCOVER) $37.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-087-8 • Diamond Order Code: JUN182066 (This LIMITED HARDCOVER EDITION is limited to 1000 COPIES, and includes 16 EXTRA FULL-COLOR PAGES not in the Softcover Edition.)

KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID!

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THE 1990s was the decade when Marvel Comics sold 8.1 million copies of an issue of the X-MEN, saw its superstar creators form their own company, cloned SPIDER-MAN, and went bankrupt. The 1990s was when SUPERMAN died, BATMAN had his back broken, and the runaway success of Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN led to DC Comics’ VERTIGO line of adult comic books. It was the decade of gimmicky covers, skimpy costumes, and mega-crossovers. But most of all, the 1990s was the decade when companies like IMAGE, VALIANT and MALIBU published million-selling comic books before the industry experienced a shocking and rapid collapse.

The REALLY SECRET Origin Of The Justice League by Larry Ivie A/E EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: Issue #152 of this magazine saw one of the longest pieces ever to appear in its pages: pro artist Sandy Plunkett’s masterful study of his late friend Larry Ivie (1936-2014), who had been one of the most prominent comics fans of the late 1950s and the 1960s, and who’d had a modest career as a comicbook professional during the mid- and late ’60s. Left unpublished in A/E #152, due to space limitations, were a number of penciled, scripted, and occasionally even inked pages that Larry had prepared in the latter half of the 1950s as examples of what a revival of the 1940-1951 “Justice Society of America” could look and read like. Those pages will appear next issue.

The All-American Way The 1944 Big All-American Comic Book, which Ivie makes the starting point of his essay, was 128 pages long (132, counting cardboardstock covers) and contained stories of all the All-American company’s heroes depicted here. Since its debut in 1939, All-American Comics, Inc., had been affiliated with National/DC and been distributed by its Independent News organization; but, despite the “DC” symbol that graced its comics’ covers, it was basically a separate company, headed by Max C. Gaines in partnership with Jack Liebowitz and, probably, Harry Donenfeld. Note that the “DC” symbol does not appear on the Big All-American cover. Beginning with spring 1945 issues, All-American’s comics would sport an “AA” symbol similar to the DC one for more than half a year. Cover art is a compendium of the work of numerous artists, including (at the very least) E.E. Hibbard, H.G. Peter, Howard Purcell, Joe Kubert, and Sheldon Mayer. Thanks to the Grand Comics Database. [TM & © DC Comics.]

In the meantime, I remembered that, several years before he Larry Ivie passed away, Larry had sent me an article meant as a follow-up Photo courtesy of Sandy to one he’d written for Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #5, back in 2000. He Plunkett. had titled the earlier one “DC vs. the Justice Society of America,” because he was convinced that DC in general—and 1948-51 worst-edited issues All-Star Comics editor Julius Schwartz in particular, though he didn’t ever (although the refer to JS by name—was committed to only the most juvenile approach all-time poorest—the to scripts and art, both of which Larry felt were mired in “silliness.” That appallingly inept A/E issue is long out of print, though available via digital download from Batman #500—would TwoMorrows Publishing. not appear until 1993). For various reasons—not least because Larry’s second article repeated several anecdotes related in the first, though with additional information, A search including the use of Julie Schwartz’s name this time—I had never gotten through the finished around to publishing the later submission. Yet I always intended to do so art of The Big one day, perhaps after I’d talked to Larry about revising it slightly. But it All-American Comic recently occurred to me that it might be a good idea to commit it to print Book finds no lead even before the publication of Larry’s “JSA”-related story pages coming in page visually worthy of the issue’s first inside page. The closest #156… and so, with the permission of Sandy Plunkett, executor of Larry was that for “Wonder Woman”! What should have begun the issue Ivie’s estate, it follows. I do feel a need to state up front that some of Larry’s was the traditionally beautiful “Hawkman” feature. But this issue’s opinions (as opposed to verifiable facts) may be controversial, the more so “Hawkman” had to be buried near the end, because instead of the since Julie became a figure so beloved by much of comics fandom, including familiar signature “Shelly” on it, it had been done by someone new, most definitely Yours Truly; still, Larry’s article is a combination of someone seemingly incapable of drawing adequate faces, or legs of opinion and fact—and facts, in particular, are what history, comicbook or realistic thickness. Fortunately, the near-future issues of Flash Comics otherwise, is made of…. saw a much-welcomed return of art by “Shelly” [Sheldon Moldoff].

he first step toward the end of the Golden Age of superheroes was made in 1944 by what should have been one of its most wondrous highlights—a super-thick issue titled The Big All-American Comic Book, featuring popular heroes from a variety of DC titles—Hawkman, The Flash, Green Lantern, The Atom, Wildcat, Wonder Woman…. But, the inside “art” was surprisingly poor—one of the

Long after, when I asked 1944 editor editor Shelly Mayer if he knew what had gone wrong with the Big All-American, he said that, although it seemed a good idea when initiated by publisher Max Gaines, the major editors of the time had been so busy on their regular titles that the decision-making on the special was scattered among many at the company, including, under a different name on the company records, Julius Schwartz.

The REALLY SECRET Origin Of The Justice League

Making A Big Splash Larry Ivie felt that none of the splash pages in the giant BAACB, with the possible exception of that of the “Wonder Woman” exploit that led off the issue, was “visually worthy of the issue’s first inside page.” Still, it must be said that, with a single exception, the artist of every feature in that publication was one who was already identified with that character: e.g., H.G. Peter drew the William Marston-scribed “WW” tale… Paul Reinman drew the Alfred Bester-written “Green Lantern”… and E.E. Hibbard drew “The Flash,” reportedly from a Gardner Fox script. Repro’d from Ye Editor’s personal, banged-up copy of The Big All-American Comic Book. [TM & © DC Comics.]

A curious decision was made by [DC] managing editor Whitney Ellsworth to mis-assign control of Superman to an individual who not only disliked the comic book medium, but stated he thought Superman to be the all-time worst creation— Mort Weisinger. There’s no doubt it was due to Weisinger that the issue which introduced Superboy (More Fun Comics #101) made no mention of that fact on its cover—in favor of Green Arrow, a character Weisinger had introduced following a movie serial titled The Green Archer. Following his statement that he felt comicbook readers were either very young or intellectually retarded, he placed a sign next to his desk for his writers, turned to the wall during fan visits, that read: “Remember, we are writing for 8-year-olds!” He had rejected a 1945 proposal by Siegel and Shuster to increase the educational elements within the “Superman” stories; not a single “Superman” tale appearing during the editorial control of Weisinger can be called “intelligent”! It was then that Ellsworth mis-assigned editorship to a friend of Weisinger’s from their pulp-fan days, Julius Schwartz. I was later told by Schwartz that the primary benefit of this was his ability to offer new work to good writers—those who had authored pulp stories! (I questioned a lot of these choices.)

Larry Ivie

Watchin’ ’Em Like A Hawk! (Above:) Sheldon Moldoff’s final “Hawkman” splash page, before he went into the Army during World War II, was this one for Flash Comics #61 (Jan. 1945)—and it’s even possible (though not likely) that his draft notice may have arrived by the time art assignments for Big All-American were handed out. Still, it’s well-known nowadays that editor Sheldon Mayer disapproved of all the Alex Raymond/Hal Foster swipes in Moldoff’s work, and indeed Mayer would refuse to give “Shelly” back the “Hawkman” feature when he was mustered out of the service a couple of years later. (Right:) For some reason, Larry Ivie preferred not to utter the name of Joe Kubert, who drew his first, one-off “Hawkman” story for Big All-American; its splash and 4th page are seen here. Certainly, at that stage, the 18-yearold Kubert was a good deal less polished than Moldoff—but he was already displaying the Mort Meskin-inspired dynamism that would soon make him one of DC’s best artists. Irony: In the early-to-mid-1960s, when a clarion call of comics fandom became “Bring Back Hawkman!,” it was Kubert’s rendition, not Moldoff’s, that most were crying for—while Larry, in 1959, had drawn a “Hawkman” splash page that clearly echoed Moldoff’s work! Both scripts by Gardner Fox. Thanks to Al Dellinges for these three scans. A 1940s photo of Kubert was seen back on p. 7. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Sheldon Mayer & Sheldon Moldoff (left to right) are seen here in a mock-fisticuffs mode in the early 1940s, probably not too long before The Big All-American Comic Book was published. After the war, though, neither was particularly amused by the other.

The Really Secret Origin Of The Justice League

Agents Of Change? A photo from the late 1930s or early ’40s. (Left to right:) Julius Schwartz, science-fiction author Edmund Hamilton, and Mort Weisinger. For a short time, Schwartz and Weisinger operated as the very first literary agents for SF writers; when Weisinger took a job for Thrilling pulp-mags (later switching to DC Comics), Schwartz kept the SF agency alive, even after he became an editor for All-American in 1944.

For years, Weisinger insisted on no editorial credit, in the belief that it would taint his future reputation as a respective novelist. (But his attempts at the latter proved unsuccessful, and he told me in 1959 that he felt financially trapped by his comicbook occupation!) He “helpfully” said I shouldn’t be looking for work in the comicbook industry that I was “too good” for!

A favorite subject of his pulp-reading days had been cowboys. So all members of the Justice Society under his editorship were suddenly replaced with cowboys! Schwartz had no doubt that buyers would prefer his new version of All-Star Comics—All Star Western—when given the choice. World events provided Schwartz the reason he needed to explain the sudden drop in sales that followed instead: competition from the sudden appearance of home television! But our fascination with this new wonder did nothing to interfere with our shared walks to the newsstand to spend our allowances of comicbooks. Due to Schwartz, it was no longer the titles of the DC company getting most of our dimes, but the companies with editors more in tune with the current buyer tastes, not those of his childhood! Following high school, I rushed to New York City (and the art school—the Cartoonists and Illustrators School—that had been attended by most of the comicbook artists), so I would be ready to

Getting back to Julius Schwartz:

During the Golden Age of comicbook sales under editor Sheldon Mayer, the “Hawkman” feature drawn by Sheldon Moldoff appealed to all ages, his dynamic hawk’s-head mask being so popular that three of us in my grade school class independently made our own versions for Hawkman play. When the two titles featuring Hawkman came under the editorship of Julius Schwartz, he ignored the fact that “Shelly” was still available and, instead, eventually rehired the individual who had drawn him for the Big All-American issue—having him replace the popular hawk’s-head with a cloth hood! [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: I feel obliged to point out that Joe Kubert was actually hired by Mayer in 1945 as regular “Hawkman” artist; Julius Schwartz, who had been hired as story editor in 1944 by Mayer (not Ellsworth), did not become full editor till circa 1948, and simply continued Kubert as the illustrator.] Did Schwartz really believe the buyers would consider the cloth hood an improvement? Inconceivable! The probability is that it was a deliberate move to lose enough readers to justify new directions he was convinced—absolutely convinced—would increase sales once buyers were presented the new choices which he knew— absolutely knew—they would prefer over super-heroes! First he changed the Green Lantern title to star Streak the Wonder Dog!

What’s In A— Mask? A young Larry Ivie with the beautiful Hawkman mask he fashioned, based on Moldoff’s version (wonder if it still exists, somewhere)—and the Kubert-drawn cover of Flash Comics #98 (July 1948), the first issue to feature Hawkman in a “cloth hood.” This change basically coincided with Shelly Mayer’s return to writing and drawing and Julius Schwartz’s assuming the mantle of editorship of the once-AA’s super-hero titles… including All-Star Comics, wherein A/E’s editor encountered that new and (to him likewise) unwelcome headgear before its debut in the Winged Wonder’s solo feature. As it turned out, Flash Comics would be canceled just half a year later, with #104, though All-Star would last an additional two years. Thanks to Al Dellinges for the art; the photo first appeared with Ivie’s article “DC vs. the Justice Society” in A/E V3#5. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Larry Ivie

Off The Charts Longtime DC publisher and writer Paul Levitz did Golden Age fans a real service in his humongous Taschen tome 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking (2010), when he printed DC’s office log-page re the last seven issues of All-Star Comics and the first 11 of All Star Western, representing the threeyear (cover-date) period from 1950-52. As per the accompanying caption: “To better gauge sales, [co-publisher Irwin] Donenfeld created a chart that displayed the cover of each comic book and a variety of sales data…. [H]e was able to determine that the super hero stories in All-Star Comics were in a downward cycle, prompting its transition to the more successful Western genre.” Ah, but was the cowboy-starring successor to the JSA’s mag really “more successful,” as DC’s powers-that-be (including editor Julie Schwartz) had hoped? Let’s check it out on the entry reprinted above…. Almost certainly, the circled number on the left under each cover image on the page indicates that particular issue’s final sales percentage, with the 3-digit number directly above it surely indicating the issue’s print run, minus three zeroes. Thus, the first one depicted, All-Star Comics #51 (Feb.-March 1950), would appear to have sold 68% of a print run of 450,000 (or approximately 306,000 copies), with #57, the final JSA edition, selling 70% of a 400,000 print run (or 280,000 copies)—definitely a downward trend, no argument there… although not an extreme drop, in terms of number of copies sold. But—perhaps other factors were at play as well; for, the premiere issue of All Star Western (#58, April-May 1951) seems to have sold just 66% of a slightly-lowerthan-#57 print run of 390,000, for a total of just a bit over 257,000 copies, or more than 20,000 copies fewer than the last JSA issue… while, a year and a half later, the print run of ASW #68 had declined all the way to 350,000, and yet that issue sold only 57% of that, for a sell-through of approximately 200,000 copies. Percentages, too, had dropped with the genre switch—from an average of just over 70% per issue for the last seven JSA editions of All-Star to a little over 66% for the first seven ASW outings—and to just barely over 64% if we average all 11 ASW issues depicted. It’s doubtless true that super-heroes were hardly a growth stock in the early 1950s, not long before The Adventures of Superman had made a splash on TV; but frontier shoot-’em-ups were clearly not the answer to lowering sales… as witnessed by a decline over the course of these 18 issues from 306,000 copies sold per issue to around 200,000… a drop of approximately one-third. During this same period, with the handwriting on the saloon wall, All-American Western hung up its spurs and became All-American Men of War. (With issue #61, ASW was reduced from 48 pages plus covers to 40; from #62 on it ran 48 pages plus covers.) Both Larry Ivie (probably) and A/E’s editor would dare to suggest that, since Wonder Woman (as well as Superman, Batman, and a number of titles related to those two heroes) endured from the Golden Age clear through the Silver and beyond, some of them all the way to the present, it’s hardly inconceivable that All-Star Comics might have survived as well, if the effort expended in creating “The Trigger Twins,” “The Roving Ranger,” and their ilk had gone instead into revitalizing “The Justice Society of America.” Still, in the end, that might’ve meant we’d have had no modernized Flash, Green Lantern, and Justice League at decade’s close—with perhaps no bump in sales at that time on super-hero titles, and thus no Fantastic Four or Marvel Comics, either—so, hey, maybe we’re all better off that DC’s early-’50s guiding lights were myopically focused on Westerns as their sixgun-toting saviors! [Chart TM & © DC Comics.]

The Really Secret Origin Of The Justice League

show samples that could restore sales to the level of the quality (competently edited) era of Superman, Batman, and the Justice Society. By 1956 I had met a number of the best, and had penciled a small cover rough I intended to enlarge as a sample for DC. Suddenly, seeing an unusual gathering of kids around a newsstand, I phoned the DC company to suggest that the editor of Showcase go immediately to see the reaction to the new Back In A Flash! issue just placed on The cover of the comic that, according to sale. It was obvious Larry Ivie, caused “an unusual gathering that its revival of the of kids around a newsstand”: Showcase #4 (Sept.-Oct. 1956), which ushered in what “Flash” title was going later became known as the Silver Age revival to be such a success of super-heroes with an “updated” Flash. that I wanted to show Pencils by Carmine Infantino; inks by Joe a sample of what I Kubert; design reportedly by origin writer felt would sell even Robert Kanigher; editing by Julius Schwartz. better—a revival of Thanks to the GCD. [TM & © DC Comics.] the “Justice Society” in its original format, in which I would like to draw the “Hawkman” feature, with the chapters for the other characters each drawn by the top-level artists I knew. But the editor had no interest in the reaction of a few kids, because he knew the revival would do so poorly that there would be no more revivals! The new “Flash” was part of a long experiment testing different subjects from top to bottom—a super-hero being, to him, the bottom of the barrel in subject matter. When kids had failed to instantly leap at a top subject—baseball heroes—he knew it was the comicbook format being rejected. The day of large-profit comicbooks were over! Convinced his thinking was upside-down, and that I should make a full-scale presentation for a Justice Society revival, I scripted three full issues and began drawing full-size pages for them. The school, however, delayed things with a long parade of comics-related work for me. What could have been ready to go by early 1957: [INSERT DRAWING WITH LIST OF POTENTIAL ARTISTS] [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: Ivie’s list, unfortunately, has not been located. His art for a “JSA” revival will appear next issue.] Then, one day, with a table next to my desk at school covered with almost-finished “JSA” sample pages, the guest professional of the day, by coincidence, was Sheldon Mayer, the original editor of the “Justice Society.” Looking at what I had, he said I should not delay in immediately taking what was completed to DC. “Any competent editor will grab you—in charge of the revival idea—now!”

Go Western, Young Man? Roy Thomas writes: “Okay, I’ll admit it! Not even Larry Ivie had any more scorn and dislike for the 1948-51 changes in DC’s lineup than I did at age 7 to 10! I loathed the transformations of two super-hero comics into nondescript horse operas with All-American Western #103 (Nov. 1948) and even more so All Star Western #58 (April-May 1951)… just as I’d hated the spotlighting of Streak the Wonder Dog in place of the Emerald Crusader on covers such as Green Lantern #38 (May-June 1949), the title’s final issue.” The first and third of these covers were drawn by Alex Toth; ASW cover penciled by Gil Kane and inked by Frank Giacoia. Thanks to Grand Comics Database. [TM & © DC Comics.]

But, when asked who the most competent DC editor was, he took a long pause before saying, “Unfortunately, you’ll probably have to see Julie. But—” Looking at the story title page for the third issue—set 20 years in the future with a gathering of both the soon-toretire JSA members and their offspring about to replace them—with the issue’s story title being “The Justice Legion”—he suggested inking in the last word, instead, with a baseball term, “more within Julie’s League”! I made an appointment to show the seven most-finished pages to Julius Schwartz, a name that then meant nothing to me.

Larry Ivie

His first comments were “I’ve never heard of The Sandman” and “We never use cross-hatching or shading dots. It would confuse the color artists— and remind buyers of the unpopular work of the EC company.” (?!!) While he stared the longest at the page titled Gardner F. Fox “The Justice League,” I JSA and JLA writer and co-creator—most hoped he wouldn’t read likely with his wife Lynda—at Phil Seuling’s the summary on it for 1971 New York Comic Art Convention, where he was a major guest of honor, a decade Green Lantern, in which I after the debut of the Justice League—and had foolishly revised his nearly half a decade after DC had ceased origin to say that his power employing him. Thanks to Pedro Angosto. that come from another world. I would certainly never want to repeat the over-used “man from another planet” idea. He concluded with a statement that the art was all just title pages—he would need to know how I would draw a complete story! He seemed to indicate no interest in a “Justice Society” revival, but promised to use me on it if there was, and also had a seeming willingness to see additional samples. I did additional work on what I felt would be the most popular idea for a new solo “Hawkman” series—the future adventures in which his teenage son could be accepted as an adult, due to his father’s hawk’s-head hiding his true age. I still feel this would be a

What’s In A— Name? The cover, etc., of The Brave and the Bold #28 (Feb.-March 1960) have been seen so often that we asked collector/benefactor Bob Bailey to send an action page from the second appearance of the then-new “Justice League of America,” from B&B #29 (April-May ’60). Script by Gardner Fox; pencils by Mike Sekowsky; inks by Bernard Sachs; editing by Julius Schwartz. Bob informs us that, when his baby-sitter saw this comic being read by young Bob, he/she thought it must be a comic starring the Justice Society. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Showing Their Colors The “list of potential artists” for a revived Justice Society of America, referred to by Larry Ivie in the bracketed/all-caps note on the opposite page, seems to be lost to us—and all his drawings related to that hopedfor revival were either printed in A/E #152 or will be showcased in our very next issue. So we’ve reprinted the original Ivie “Justice League” illustration that was used as #152’s cover—as colored at right by his friend, biographer, and executor, artist Sandy Plunkett. This is a moodier, more muted approach to the coloring than the comicbook-style approach taken on the A/E cover, but it can only be a plus to see such an historically important piece of artwork rendered in more than one range of hues. [Heroes TM & © DC Comics.]

The Really Secret Origin Of The Justice League

Orlando took my page titled “Justice League” to Julie Schwartz, who reacted with surprise that he had forgotten it, with a sense of frustration at what it meant. Since he had promised me work on any “Justice Society” revival, but wanted, instead, to use individuals he had worked with before, he decided to avoid any complaints from me by making his version as different as possible from my samples, which, he failed to remember, contained the “Justice League” title he now realized had been the source of the title he had given to Fox. Although Orlando immediately offered me work on any of his titles, a glance through them didn’t inspire me, and I already had a variety of other possibilities, including publishers interested in my samples for new titles: T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and Larry Ivie’s Monsters and Heroes.

Joe Orlando became a DC editor in 1968; and two of his first assignments, apparently, were penciling the cover of House of Mystery #174 (May-June ’68) and becoming the editor of that title as it metamorphosed overnight from a lackluster super-hero title into a top-notch purveyor of Code-approved “mystery” stories. Actually, while it is relatively certain that editorial director Carmine Infantino did layouts of this cover, it’s not as sure that Orlando penciled it and George Roussos inked it… but it seems not unlikely, according to the GCD. Orlando had been a top EC artist during that company’s horror-comics days of the early 1950s. Photo courtesy of Bob Rozakis. [Page TM & © DC Comics.]

strangely appealing idea to young male buyers. It was not until those who had seen my “Justice Society” samples began asking me why the finished version, on the stands, was so comparatively anemic that I was aware the “Justice League” title had been published! Since it was written by Gardner Fox, the original “Justice Society” author, I couldn’t complain; but did Fox independently also conceive Mayer’s title “Justice League”? When I asked him, he said, “No—I had preferred a total revival of the original ‘Justice Society,’ including its name. But Julie said there was a reason that direction couldn’t be used. The new version had to be significantly different, and in agreement with Weisinger’s belief that the issues of the early ’40s had been written on an intellectual level much higher than that of the average buyer! So, at Julie’s insistence (I always follow editor instructions), the ‘Justice League’ plots were dumbed down from those of what I felt was the peak era.” It would be years before Schwartz revealed what he had meant by “a reason.” When I was using my rejected “Justice Society” pages as work samples, Joe

More From The “Halls Of Ivie” During the general era in which editor Joe Orlando offered him work at DC, Larry Ivie was more intrigued by other possibilities. For Tower’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 (Nov. 1965), he scripted, among other things, the “NoMan” origin illustrated by Reed Crandall (don’t worry—the protagonist’s consciousness would instantly switch to an alternate android body)—and soon Larry would launch his self-co-published comics-inclusive magazine Larry Ivie’s Monsters and Heroes; seen above right is his painted cover, featuring his character Altron Boy, for M&H #7 (May 1970). But he seems to done no more Tower work after that single issue—and the creative drive poured into his magazine, alas, did not enable it to endure past that edition. Thanks to Sandy Plunkett for the M&H cover scan. [“NoMan” page TM & © John Carbonaro; M&H cover TM & © Estate of Larry Ivie.]

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

“Dan Adkins And The Incredible Tracing Machine!” Revisited (Part 3) by Michael T. Gilbert

ecapping from the previous two issues: The 1969 fanzine MCR (Modern Collector’s Review) #3 featured an article by a budding art expert, Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., in which he called cartoonist Dan Adkins to task for his extensive use of swipes. Vadeboncoeur also included a detailed, cross-referenced list of the copies to back up his case (as seen on our splash page). The writer had been a huge fan of Adkins, and seemed crushed to discover his idol was only human. At the time, an MCR editorial stated, ”Dan Adkins and the Incredible Tracing Machine” must be the most controversial article ever printed in fandom. The amount of response was phenomenal!” Last issue we reprinted letters discussing the ethics of copying, by some of the industry’s brightest lights—as well as comments on their comments by Jim Vadeboncoeur on the firestorm he inadvertently started. Now let’s hear what Dan Adkins himself had to say on the subject, in a circa 1969-70 letter to MCR’s editor, John McLaughlin: Dear John, I finally got around to seeing a copy of MCR #3 with the article on my swiping art. I’d heard about it from Jim Steranko and a few other friends. I had also seen one along the same lines about two years ago, and heard of a few others. My reaction upon first seeing all those swipes laid out was one of amusement. One of the rules to swiping is not to get caught. Early in the game, I sort of threw out that rule. I didn’t care if I got caught. I still don’t. But, I am getting tired of playing the game. It seems so silly.

Notes To You, Buddy! Dan Adkins wrote this amusing intro to his article. He was just kidding, folks! Er…wasn’t he…?

Strange. Mainly because I think I could have drawn it better myself. Stan Lee was always saying, “Make it look like Ditko,” and I sure did. Although, even after all that swiping, I got a little part of myself in there. Still, it was silly, wasn’t it? Jim Vadeboncoeur, you must have gone through a lot of trouble to make the checklist. I think that was also silly. At least, a waste of time. You could have figured out that I did a lot of swiping after finding a small portion of the art on that list. Or just asked me. I would have told you the facts. If Jim was trying to find out if everything I drew was swiped, the answer is no. But about 70% has been. The checklist is not accurate in total. I will give you an example. My painting for the cover of Eerie #12 was from a movie still supplied by [publisher] James Warren, not from the small drawing done by Joe Orlando in a story he had done. Joe took his drawing from the movie still. I could hardly paint a realistic cover from the small panel drawn by Joe. Jim seems to be surprised to find that artists swipe. Anyway, that he found that I swiped. I can understand that. He hasn’t been around much. Now I would be surprised to find an artist that didn’t swipe. Not that I’m saying there aren’t artists who draw most of their stuff. There are a few. But it is clear to me that Jim doesn’t have the knowledge that I do or understand the game at all. As I have said, I didn’t play the game very well. I thought it was stupid. It still seems that way to me, but I’m beginning to see that if you play the game, it’s better to play by the rules.

I think it was silly of me to take all those Ditko swipes for Dr.

J’accuse! In his original article, Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., accused Dan of swiping his Eerie #12 (Nov. 1967) cover for Warren Publications from a Joe Orlando drawing from Warren’s Monster World #2 (Jan. 1964). But both artists had actually swiped a movie still from the 1944 movie, The Mummy Strikes. [© New Comic Company, LLC.]

“Dan Adkins And The Incredible Tracing Machine!” Revisited (Part 3)

I’ll try to show you what I mean without going to all the trouble that Jim did with his checklist. Let’s take an example. In Eerie #10 I did a story called “It.” Have you ever found the swipes for my hero’s face? I doubt it. All the heads for the hero were taken from a British comic book: a beautiful Western comic. Most of the stuff on your checklist was easy to find. That’s what I mean about my playing the game in a silly manner. But, caught or not, every last one of those heads was a swipe. The point is, not many people have that British comic. I gave my comic to another artist for him to use, so even I don’t have a copy any more. That’s the way the game should be played. Of course I goofed up and used movie stills for most of the monster shots; not all, but most. Those were pretty easy to spot on that job. The trouble with playing the game is the money and time spent in finding swipes that people won’t notice. You need a good file of old stuff, mostly from out of the USA. You take Roy Krenkel’s Ace cover for Edgar Rick Burroughs’ The Cave Girl. It’s a direct swipe from a British magazine publisher there in January 1944. The artist on the original was F. Matania [MTG NOTE: Fortunino Mantania]. Krenkel has a big collection of his stuff, and Al Williamson and Frank Frazetta are great fans of Matania. I don’t blame them, he’s great. But who else has that stuff? I got a few pieces of Matania stuff from Bill Pearson, who got it from Krenkel’s extras. I don’t have any Eagles, either, a great British comic. [MTG NOTE: Adkins mistakenly called the comic “Engle” throughout his article. We’ve corrected it for this printing.] Al Williamson’s gladiator story in Creepy #6 was taken almost entirely from Frank Bellamy’s art from Eagle.

Pip! Pip! Adkins states that the faces in his “It” story from Eerie #10 (July 1967) were swiped from a British comic. Since we don’t have a copy, we’ll take his word for it! [© New Comic Company, LLC.]

That’s what I mean by the whole thing being silly. I know that some of the best artists around swipe. I see it. They tell me! But you don’t have the old stuff or the British stuff to catch them and I don’t have it to play the games. Not that I could play as well as Al anyway. I could play the same, but he’s a better artist.

How Much Wood…? Dan Adkins (on left) and his boss/mentor Wally Wood in a photo taken by Colin Cameron circa 1964-65. If we could read those namecards, we’d know at which event the pic was snapped!

Let’s take an example. Try Strange Tales #167. In the second panel of the last page of the Dr. Strange story, I have a horse coming up out of the mystic disc. I swiped it from an Eagle comic, which I borrowed from another artist. Six months after the comic came out with my drawing, Jeff Jones had a cover come out that looked like a swipe from me, [on a book] called The Moon of Comrath by Alan Garner, from Ace. He had also swiped from the Eagle comic, using the same illustrations to swipe from that I had. He had borrowed his Eagles from me. I could go on, showing how Neal Adams takes from the Spanish comics doing a better job than the swipe he uses, but it’s silly.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

Thumbs Up! Al Williamson drew “Thumbs Down!” in Warren’s Creepy #6 (Dec. 1965). According to Dan, Al swiped all the faces from a story in the British comic Eagle, illustrated by Frank Bellamy. [© The New Comic Company, LLC.]

Point is, I do know others swipe. Wally Wood had me swiping old Crandall, Raymond, etc., when I worked for him. I thought, jeez, so this is how it’s done. I know also guys like Jack Kirby create most of their stuff. Then I turn around and find Gil Kane swiping from Kirby. I still think almost as much of Kane’s ability as I do of Kirby. Gil tells his story his own way, swipes or not. And another point is, I know I played the game stupid; so I went into inking. If I ever get a collection of art to swipe from like Al Williamson, Roy Krenkel, etc., then perhaps I’ll join in the game again. I would also like to do some drawing of my own, more than in the past. But that won’t be until I make up my mind to really play it serious…. Later Dan added these comments on Jim’s article… Sure, I was putting too much Ditko, Wood, Crandall, Raymond, etc., into my stuff and that bothered you and fans maybe. But what if I was putting Lovejoy, Blackmore, Yeager, Matania, etc. into it? You wouldn’t have known because you don’t have those guys’ work around and thought it was all Adkins. The point is not to get caught, as I’ve said. Besides, Wood takes from a lot of artists, and when I took from Wally I knew I really was taking from someone else. So the whole thing is just crazy to me since I know all this. No, I haven’t developed my talents to a peak, except that as far as inking I can’t learn much more control than I have. I could try and get a more easily spotted style maybe. But on the pencils, I’m still learning. I don’t know where you have any defense except saying you don’t like it when an artist swipes. Or catching them at it. After all, at least half of the field has swiped. Are you against them? They are the best half… Morrow, Wood, Williamson, Frazetta, Krenkel, Jones, Torres, etc. The other side only has two good men: Kirby and Ditko—and Ditko has swiped some in the beginning. Silly case to be arguing. If you want to make any point, make it toward not getting caught. I can see that point!

Double Swipe? Dan referenced a panel from a British comic for the “Dr. Strange” panel on the left, from Strange Tales #167 (April 1968). His pal Jeff Jones borrowed the same comic, and six months later swiped that very panel for the cover of the Ace paperback The Moon of Gomrath. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc., & the respective copyright holders.]

“Dan Adkins And The Incredible Tracing Machine!” Revisited (Part 3)

In the same issue of MCR, the editors published a second Adkins letter, which the editor titled “Dan Adkins Speaks.” While some overlap with the previous article remain, we felt there were enough interesting historical tidbits to be worth reprinting. Here’s Dan’s often-passionate response to Jim V.’s article from the previous issue, slightly edited for clarity.

“Gosh, Wow, Oh Boy! I Found A Swipe!” by Dan L. Adkins

he main fault of Jim Vadeboncoeur’s articles on swiping in the professional art field is his lack of knowledge. He simply does not know enough about the subject of which he writes. He hasn’t worked as a professional. He hasn’t been to the homes of the professionals and watched them work. He hasn’t really studied the subject at all. There’s one thing that he has done. He’s looked at the comic books. There’s another thing he has done. He’s read letters from a few professional artists and from other fans about the subject of swiping. I don’t think this has made him an expert on the subject. He has nothing new to tell a professional artist in the field. I’m sure they know a great deal more about it than he does. Perhaps he has something worthwhile to tell the newcomer to comic fandom. There may be some fans out there that know less about swiping than he does. I’m sure there are fans that know more. Therefore, there may be ones that know less. I would rather someone who knew what they were talking about inform the newcomer, instead of Jim Vadeboncoeur. His ramblings can be misguided. His guessing on certain details can be so far from reality that I sometime think he must live in a dream world. I wonder what he was taught at Foothill Junior College. The opaque projector, or swipe-o-graph, is a very common tool in the artist’s equipment list. It’s not meant to be stuck in the closet to gather dust any more than your rulers, brushes, pens, or any other piece of equipment. It’s to be used. I have a small model that cost $46.00. Gray Morrow has one that costs a lot more. So does Wally Wood. So does Al Williamson. And for that matter, so does Norman Rockwell. I have seen them, even the one Norman Rockwell uses. It’s an acceptable piece of artist’s equipment by the field using it. It doesn’t matter if Jim Vadeboncoeur accepts it or not. Jim states that, as far as volume goes, I have swiped more than any other artist. This is mentioned in his second article. “It is a fact.” That’s a direct quote from him. The truth of the matter is, Jim Vadeboncoeur doesn’t have enough information to establish that as being a fact or not. He doesn’t know the swipes of every artist in the file and nether do I. It would be an impossible task to end out all those sources. Some other artists that I know have great numbers of British comics, Spanish comics, Italian comics, and others from other countries. They have old magazines, books, and engravings from this country and others. I have two file cabinets full of comics and photographs. Some artists have two rooms full of stuff. Since I don’t have a great amount of swiping sources, I’ve made use of what I have.

Exiled? This story’s title may have proved prophetic for both Dr. Strange and Dan Adkins! After the artist drew this final half-book story in Strange Tales #168 (May 1968) and the premier issue of the retitled Doctor Strange comic (#169, June ’68), continuing the numbering from Strange Tales), he penciled very little for Marvel. It has been not unreasonably speculated that this may have been partly due to fan-press criticism, as well as Marvel’s concern about possible legal problems arising from the swiping of artwork from comic strips or even rival DC Comics. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] A/E’s editor, however, doesn’t recall hearing Stan Lee make any clear pronouncements about further Adkins penciling, pro or con, and the artist did draw a mystery story for Chamber of Darkness #8 (Dec. 1970). Nor did Stan object when, e.g., in 1972, then-editor-in-chief Roy T. assigned Adkins to plot and draw Sub-Mariner #56 (Dec. 1972).

Therefore Jim Vadeboncoeur has been able to spot my swipes rather easily compared to the task of trying to find the sources of others. He would have to have a really unbelievable amount of material to locate the swipes of every one. He doesn’t, as he has admitted, being only aware of comics to any extent from 1966. Just because my sources are not too old, or too hard to locate, it doesn’t mean that I swipe any more than any other artist. Al least Jim Vadeboncoeur has learned that other artists swipe, which he didn’t seem to know in his first article, but is ready to admit in his second. He’s getting more knowledgeable in some respects. I think the prices paid for doing comics are unethical. I think fans that write articles on swiping without knowing what they are talking about are unethical. But I don’t think swiping in the manner done in the comic book field is unethical. So don’t pat me on the hand and tell me what I’m doing isn’t nice, Jim Vadeboncoeur. You couldn’t cut

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

it. You gave up. You quit. Now you want to sit back and tell us what the rules should be. You get in here and beat the deadlines, take the bulls**t, and see if you can go by your own rules and still make a living. Then I could have a little more respect for your opinions.

mine. I’m not proud of my swipes, and I don’t wish to imply that. I am proud of my inking, even on a swipe, but not the act of swiping. But I’m not going around feeling guilty of something that is done by a lot of other artists, as well as myself.

“That the quality of art in a comic is a determining factor in the quality of sales and can make or break a comic” is bull! If that were the case, editors wouldn’t have any problems. Just put out well-drawn comics. Unfortunately, bad comics sell as well as good comics when it comes to art. All the following folded and had good art: Neal Adams’ Deadman, X-Men; John Buscema’s Silver Surfer, Gene Colan’s Dr. Strange—and on and on. Trying to sell comics isn’t that simple.

I don’t, as a rule, accept more work than I can handle and that has nothing to do with my swiping. A real short deadline can cause a sloppy job of swiping, but even with time, I would swipe—though being more careful to do something better with the swipe. What Jim Vadeboncoeur doesn’t understand is that no editor gives you a month to do a job. I had ten days to do “Doomsday” upon receiving the script. That was my deadline. I usually have ten days to two weeks to ink a 20-page book. I work within those deadlines. If you don’t meet deadlines, it can cost the publisher up to $5000.00 because printing presses are set up on certain dates to run off comics. If that comic doesn’t show up, the printer is going to charge you all the same. So if he thinks we can play around on these jobs to our heart’s content, he’s way off base again.

I mostly ink for comics now and I certainly am prepared for it and am no hack. It’s my own opinion, but one shared by other artists and fans. Or does Jim Vadeboncoeur wish to contest the matter of my being one of the top five or so inkers in the business? As for penciling, being prepared means having ten file cabinets full of old material to swipe from, and that I don’t have. Anyway, that’s what it means to me. I know it means something else to Jim Vadeboncoeur. I mentioned before that Jim Vadeboncoeur doesn’t know much about the subject on which he writes. “The Day after Doomsday” did not take weeks or months to do. I was paid $360 for the eight pages of “Doomsday.” I have a wife and kid and many bills. To have spent a month earning $360.00 is for the birds. You could get as much on welfare! That job was done in ten days, averaging about a page a day, pencil and ink, with two full days on the splash. I didn’t suffer any personal grief when I used a Schoenherr swipe. I didn’t use it for economical reasons or to meet any deadlines. I used a Schoenherr swipe in “Doomsday” because I wanted to, because John Schoenherr is a good friend and I love his stuff. Jim Vadeboncoeur can’t seem to understand that I don’t see anything wrong with swiping. I don’t like getting caught because it creates a fuss; but I wish Jim Vadeboncoeur wouldn’t try and make his feeling

You can imagine what happens when you get sick during the middle of a job. “The Beckoning Beyond” was done in two days, pencils and inks, except for the second page of the story. I did the full page first, got sick and had to finish it up in two days. Bill Pearson did some drawing and some swiping for me. I was still somewhat sick and had plenty of worries about getting the job done. I didn’t care about anything but getting this thing done so it wouldn’t cost Warren a chunk of money for being late. I don’t need to swipe. I like to swipe, not to be proud of it, but as a manner of learning and enjoying art. I see a lot of fans swiping. They don’t have to. They aren’t getting paid for it. So why don’t they admit they enjoy doing it? Otherwise, why are they doing it? I don’t want to get an exclusively comic book style like Kirby or Ditko—who don’t swipe or need to much, whatever they draw, real or unreal as related to the world. I would rather have a more realistic look to my art like Neal Adams, Al Williamson, Gray Morrow, etc.— who swipe—cleverly, but swipe. I don’t think Jim Vadeboncoeur should be telling me any more about how to do my job than I should tell him how to be a Quality Control Manager. I know nothing about his job and he seems to know nothing about mine. —Dan Adkins, August 1970 I sent cartoonist and comicbook critic Ronn Sutton Dan’s comments. Here are Ronn’s thoughts: “I don’t think Adkins does much to distinguish himself in his reply, especially when he starts accusing Al Williamson of somewhat wholesale swiping from Heros in the Eagle. While Williamson did occasionally swipe and used a lot of reference (“scrap” as he called it), the main difference between Dan and Al is that Williamson adapted his reference whereas Adkins just lifted line-for-line somebody else’s work.

By the Hoary Hosts of Xerox! Ditko’s version of Dr. Strange from Strange Tales #138 (left), and Dan’s copy from issue #163. Maybe Adkins took Stan Lee’s order to “make it look like Ditko!” a little too literally? [© Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“All this reminds me of Gene Day. His studio had a little knick-knack shelf (a few inches down from the ceiling) that ran around the room on all four walls. Gene had taped there, side by side, probably a few hundred 2” pieces of tracing paper; each one had the silhouette outline of a figure traced onto it (mostly Gil Kane), and when Gene was composing a page, he’d scan along these simply traced poses and go “that one!,” pull it down, pop it into the art-o-graph, and enlarge it to desired size on the page, quickly trace the pose onto the

“Dan Adkins And The Incredible Tracing Machine!” Revisited (Part 3)

Sick Story! According to Dan, the 8-page “The Beckoning Beyond!” in Creepy #14 (April 1967) had to be drawn in two days (with help from Bill Pearson) when Dan fell ill. He met the deadline! [© The New Comic Company.]

page and put the scrap of tracing paper back. I always thought the first best rule of swiping was to begin by flopping the figure (and then you begin to adapt & change to suit your needs). I remember chiding Gene about a figure he had swiped from Joseph Clement Coll that I recognized. Turns out Gene didn’t even know who JCC was; he had swiped it from someone else. The swiper had flopped JCC’s image and Gene had unknowingly flopped it back again into JCC’s original pose. Ha!” Pretty funny, Ronn! But that’s the risk one takes when swiping. Finally, Roy Thomas, A/E’s editor and Stan Lee’s righthand-man in the swingin’ ’60s, recently put in his two cents concerning the Adkins’ controversy: “Dan’s swiping bothered me from an early stage, too, I’ll admit... though I was already a pro (for a few days) when I first met him at Wally Wood’s studio, where he and Wally and others were at work on T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #2. In my case, the work that bothered me was the X-Men issue we did together with The Mole Man, Tyrannus, et al. I recognized a couple of poses of The Angel, especially because of the wings, as being Joe Kubert’s Hawkman, and I brought them to Stan’s attention... mainly because there was always a chance that DC might object. Stan didn’t seem worried, so I let it go... and there were no complaints. Some readers wrote us about [Adkins] swipes, too... an octopus from Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant in one story, another Foster magical-scene swipe in Dr. Strange... that kind of thing. I think he did carry it too far... and in the end, it made editors rather un-eager to use him as a penciler. “Best wishes, Roy” We hope our readers enjoyed the debate reprinted here. The creators’ reasoned and impassioned comments are still thoughtprovoking fifty years later. Our thanks to Jim Vadeboncoeur, Richard Corben, Mike Kaluta, Jan Strnad, Roy Thomas, and Ronn Sutton. We’d also like to dedicate this article to the departed creators who weighed in on the subject: Dan Adkins, Marty Greim, Jeff Jones, and Bernie Wrightson. I miss them all. Before we go, we’d like to leave you with one final bit of irony. A couple of issues ago, we presented examples of Bernie Wrightson swiping French master illustrator Gustave Dore. But in the 1800s Dore had a different copy problem. Upon publication of his book London: A Pilgrimage (in which Dore dared to draw the seamy side of London), critics at The Art Journal slammed the great artist. “Dore give us sketches in which the commonest, the vulgarest external features are set down,” they whined. As a final insult, the irate critic accused Dore of the sin of “inventing rather than copying.” Sigh! Sometimes you just can’t win! Till next time…

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DON GLUT discusses his early years as comic book writer for Marvel, Warren, and Gold Key, with art by SANTOS, MAROTO, CHAN, NEBRES, KUPPERBERG, TUSKA, TRIMPE, SAL BUSCEMA, and others! Also, SAL AMENDOLA and ROY THOMAS on the 1970s professional Academy of Comic Book Arts, founded by STAN LEE and CARMINE INFANTINO! Plus Mr. Monster, FCA, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

MARK CARLSON documents 1940s-50s ACE COMICS (with super-heroes Magno & Davey, Lash Lightning, The Raven, Unknown Soldier, Captain Courageous, Vulcan, and others)! Art by KURTZMAN, MOONEY, BERG, L.B. COLE, PALAIS, and more. Plus: RICHARD ARNDT’s interview with BILL HARRIS (1960s-70s editor of Gold Key and King Comics), FCA, Comic Crypt, and Comic Fandom Archive.

40 years after the debut of Marvel’s STAR WARS #1, its writer/editor ROY THOMAS tells RICHARD ARNDT the story behind that landmark comic, plus interviews with artists HOWARD CHAYKIN, RICK HOBERG, and BILL WRAY. Also: MR. MONSTER looks at “Jazz in Comics” with MICHAEL T. GILBERT—the finale of BILL SCHELLY’s salute to G.B. LOVE—FCA— and more! CHAYKIN cover.

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ALTER EGO #148

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DOUG MOENCH in the 1970s at Warren and Marvel (Master of Kung Fu, Planet of the Apes, Deathlok, Werewolf by Night, Morbius, Moon Knight, Ka-Zar, Weirdworld)! Art by BUSCEMA, GULACY, PLOOG, BUCKLER, ZECK, DAY, PERLIN, & HEATH! MICHAEL T. GILBERT on EC’s oddball “variant covers”—FCA—and a neverpublished Golden Age super-hero story by MARV LEVY! Cover by PAUL GULACY!

Giant-size Fawcett Collectors of America special with Golden/Silver Age writer OTTO BINDER’s personal script records and illos from his greatest series! Intros by P.C. HAMERLINCK and BILL SCHELLY, art by BECK, SIMON & KIRBY, SWAN, SCHAFFENBERGER, AVISON, BORING, MOONEY, PLASTINO, and others! Plus MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and a C.C. BECK cover!

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Showcases GIL KANE, with an incisive and free-wheeling interview conducted in the 1990s by DANIEL HERMAN for his 2001 book Gil Kane: The Art of the Comics—plus other surprise features centered around the artistic co-creator of the Silver Age Green Lantern and The Atom! Also: FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and BILL SCHELLY! Cover by GIL KANE, JOE GIELLA, and MARIE SEVERIN!

STAN LEE’s 95th birthday! Rare 1980s LEE interview by WILL MURRAY—GER APELDOORN on Stan’s non-Marvel writing in the 1950s—STAN LEE/ROY THOMAS e-mails of the 21st century—and more special features than you could shake Irving Forbush at! Also FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), BILL SCHELLY, and MICHAEL T. GILBERT! Colorful Marvel multi-hero cover by Big JOHN BUSCEMA!

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Golden Age artist FRANK THOMAS (The Owl! The Eye! Dr. Hypno!) celebrated by Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt’s MICHAEL T. GILBERT! Plus the scintillating (and often offbeat) Golden & Silver Age super-heroes of Western Publishing’s DELL & GOLD KEY comics! Art by MANNING, DITKO, KANE, MARSH, GILL, SPIEGLE, SPRINGER, NORRIS, SANTOS, THORNE, et al.! Plus FCA, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

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Remembering Fabulous FLO STEINBERG, Stan Lee’s gal Friday during the Marvel Age of Comics—with anecdotes and essays by pros and friends who knew and loved her! Rare Marvel art, Flo’s successor ROBIN GREEN interviewed by RICHARD ARNDT about her time at Marvel, and Robin’s 1971 article on Marvel for ROLLING STONE magazine! Plus FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

ALLEN BELLMAN (1940s Timely artist) interviewed by DR. MICHAEL J. VASSALLO, with art by SHORES, BURGOS, BRODSKY, SEKOWSKY, EVERETT, & JAFFEE. Plus Marvel’s ’70s heroines: LINDA FITE & PATY COCKRUM on The Cat, CAROLE SEULING on Shanna the She-Devil, & ROY THOMAS on Night Nurse—with art by SEVERIN, FRADON, ANDRU, and more! With FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

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Comic Fandom Archive

My Friend, RAYMOND MILLER

A Personal Reminiscence & Interview with Raymond by Guest Columnist Jeff Gelb

NTRODUCTION BY BILL SCHELLY: On December 15, 2017, we lost venerable comics fan and historian Raymond Miller. He was 86 years old, and had been in a nursing home for about a month when he suddenly passed away from natural causes. Although A/E has already published an obituary for Raymond (see #154), I felt a little more remembrance was due the humble man who devoted his life to Golden Age comicbooks. I asked his friend Jeff Gelb, who was Miller’s longtime correspondent, to write something for a follow-up column. This, coupled with reprinting the interview Jeff did with Raymond for Comic Buyer’s Guide in 1996, is our way of spending a little more time saying goodbye to a true founder of comic fandom. Here’s what Jeff wrote. As a comicbook fan and collector in the 1960s, I’ve known Raymond Miller by name since I was reading his columns in RBCC and elsewhere, and was always enthralled by his encyclopedic knowledge of the Golden Age of comics (which is my primary comicbook interest as well). I started producing a fanzine for the amateur press alliance Capa-alpha in the early 1980s and made contact with Raymond, who surprised me by sending me two huge notebooks full of his drawings of Golden Age super-heroes, along with bio info for each character. I believe there were over 1200 drawings in those two giant notebooks. I ran his column of “Raymond Miller’s Golden Age Super Heroes” in my fanzine for over a decade and still didn’t complete his listings! We started corresponding and I found him to be very quirky but equally charming. He didn’t own a typewriter, let alone a computer. His letters (and all of his articles) were hand-written. I was fascinated by the idea of corresponding with someone my father’s age who still owned the comics he’d bought off the stands during World War II. Ironically, he told me he no longer read his old comicbooks, but he still owned them all, and he delighted in setting them up, 15 at a time, on a board in his kitchen, so he could stare at them over meals. He would set them up alphabetically by company, switching them out by the week or month. I thought that was a great idea. He loved being surrounded by his comicbook collection. And at some point he began hand-painting action figures to look like Golden Age characters. (I did the same briefly but found it too time-consuming). Raymond’s were the work of a perfectionist; beautifully and meticulously painted and

crafted. He covered all the major characters from Timely, DC, Fawcett, and even some of the second-tier publishers like Nedor. Toward the end, he gifted me with his entire collection of these characters (which total over 50); they now have a place of honor in my comicbook library. They really are beautifully done and I treasure them.

Old Photos--& Old Comics Raymond Miller (left) and Jeff Gelb (right) as they appeared in their high school senior photos, Miller’s taken in 1949 and Gelb’s almost 20 years later—juxtaposed with a smattering (below) of the Golden Age comics Miller loved. All comicbook photos in this column are of Miller’s collection and were taken by his friend Earl Shaw.

Raymond also occasionally would give me coverless or incomplete Golden Age comics that he no longer wanted. He knew I loved looking at and reading them. His generosity was so appreciated. His letters were not normally about comicbooks; they were chatty missives about what he was doing with his time (mostly watching Western DVDs or old TV shows on DVD), along with family news. But he was always interested in knowing what comicbooks I was buying, and he occasionally still bought archive collections of Golden Age comics just to look through. Raymond loved comics till the very end. He did sell off some of his collection late in life, but kept his favorite titles (mostly Fawcetts) till the day he died. He was a true comicbook fanatic. And I say that with great affection.

Comic Fandom Archive

A Fan & His Fawcetts (Right:) Earl Shaw’s photo of Raymond Miller in his home, taken less than a couple of years before his passing. (Above:) In his later years, Miller lavished a great deal of time and energy creating action figures of his favorite Golden Age heroes. Seen here is the Fawcett set.

Interview With Raymond Miller by Jeff Gelb [This piece originally appeared in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1167, dated March 29, 1996.]

t’s a Golden Age fan’s dream come true, and Raymond Miller has lived it. He was born in 1931, which made him of prime comicbook-buying age during the 1940s, the legendary Golden Age of Comics. Twenty years later, as the first comicbook fanzines were appearing, Miller turned his boyhood love of comics into a seemingly endless series of hero, title, and company histories. For several years during the mid-1960s, it was hard to open a fanzine and not see Raymond’s writing or traced artwork—full of enthusiasm for the medium he has enjoyed since he was just a boy. JEFF GELB: What was it like to collect comics in the ’40s? RAYMOND MILLER: That’s a long way back to remember! I do recall where I bought Captain Marvel Adventures from 1943 to 1946, in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania. It wasn’t really what one would call a newsstand. Comicbooks were stacked on tables. I remember Captain Marvel made up quite a stack, and it was the only title I bought regularly up until 1946 (so I was in on the Mr. Mind serial from start

to finish). My earliest Captain Marvel purchase was #18, with the origin of Mary Marvel, and my buying didn’t end until #110, eight years later. I do faintly remember buying some Fawcett bagged comics at the local 5&10¢ store sometime in 1943. If memory serves me right, there were five in a bag. But it was 1946 to 1950 when I really got into it. Now that I think back on it, I often wonder where I got the money to buy what I did. I bought every Fiction House title from 1946 to 1948, Batman and Superman, Phantom Lady, Blue Beetle, All Top, etc. Then I branched into all the Fawcett Westerns and, later, the ECs. In those days, you didn’t need a comicbook store. You could buy comics at newsstands, drug stores, grocery stores, 5&10¢ stores. I must have had access to at last ten different places to buy comics in a town of nine thousand people. I never stopped collecting, although I sold or traded just about every comicbook I bought from 1946 to 1955 during the 1960s, for

My Friend, Raymond Miller

brother had traded them to someone else. That was it. My comic books never left my house after that! GELB: Historically, parents and comics don’t mix. Was it any different in the ’40s and’50s? MILLER: They never objected to my buying comicbooks. Maybe it was because I always did my own bedroom cleaning, even as a kid. With two sisters, I always ended up with the smallest bedroom in any house we ever lived in. So I never had much space after I fit in my bed, dresser, and all my other stuff, including the comics. So my mother always said, “I don’t care what you buy, just take care of your bedroom.” And I did. I still do. GELB: Were you ever asked to donate your comics to wartime paper drives? MILLER: Nope. I still have more than thirty comicbooks in my collection that I originally bought from 1942 to 1945. GELB: When the Silver Age began, how did you feel, seeing your childhood heroes being re-introduced? MILLER: I was flabbergasted! During the ’50s, the ECs pretty much kept me going, but it was slim pickings till Showcase #4. I was so starved for super-heroes other than Superman and Batman that when the new Flash, Green Lantern, JLA, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Fly, and the rest came along, it was about like dying and going to comicbook heaven! I don’t think I missed an issue of Flash, Green Lantern, JLA, Atom, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and the other Marvel super-heroes throughout the entire 1960s. GELB: What was your first fanzine contribution?

“For That Dollar I Owed You I Sent You ‘Blue Beetle’ #6” Miller bought many of his Golden Age comics from dealer Bill Thailing. This letter is dated February 22, 1961, approximately one month before Alter-Ego #1 (of Vol. 1, of course) was published.

pre-1946 comic books. That was when you could get 25¢ to 50¢ in trade for them. Imagine, Planet Comics #50 or Tom Mix #3 or Captain Marvel Adventures being worth 50¢. All-Star #3 to 16 or Batman or any early Golden Age comicbook could be had for 75¢ to $1.50 per comic. The first pre-1945 Golden Age comic book I bought in 1961 was World’s Finest #8 for $1.50, from Bill Thailing. Bill really got my Golden Age collection going, selling me comicbooks for 75¢ to $1.50 that today you couldn’t touch for under $75. GELB: Did your friends collect comics in the 1940s, as kids do today? MILLER: I was pretty much alone. I don’t recall any of my friends actually collecting comics. Sure, they bought them, but to them they were something you read and then tossed into a corner. I kept mine in neat stacks on a shelf. By the way, I never bought more than one copy of a first issue ever. GELB: Did you ever loan comics to your friends? MILLER: Only once. In the late ’40s, I lent some comics to a friend, and when I asked for them back, I found out that my friend’s older

MILLER: I don’t recall how it came about, but it was likely RB-CC [Rocket’s Blast-Comicollector], for which I did a lot of work in the ’60s and ’70s. I did so many articles for so many different fanzines that I could never say for sure what I did or where they appeared. I did “Information Center” for RB-CC, whole zines for G.B. Love [then publisher of RB-CC], like the Rocket’s Blast Special on Timely Comics, The Illustrated Comic Collector’s Handbooks, etc. I wrote what I think was the first long history of Will Eisner’s career for Bill Schelly’s fanzine Sense of Wonder. GELB: Who were some of your fan friends back then? MILLER: I made a lot of friends during the ’60s and ’70s in this hobby, if corresponding through the mail qualifies as friends. In fact, I still write to three guys I’ve known since the 1960s. A few years ago, I lost one of my oldest pen pals, M.C. Goodwin. M.C. supplied me with lots of Golden Age info when I was writing fanzine articles. We had a lot in common: comics, old serials, B-movie Westerns, books, and so forth. Other guys I corresponded with back then included Jerry Bails, Howard Keltner, Dick Hoffman, Bill White, Ronn Foss, Henry Steele, Howard Siegel (who did a column in RB-CC at the same time I did), Kenneth Heineman, Rick Durell, Hames Ware, Glen Johnson, Richard O’Brien, and Don Rosa. Correspondents Mike Nolan and Don Foote used to visit me during the summer for a day or two, Mike coming all the way from California. GELB: Why did you stop contributing to fanzines? MILLER: A number of reasons. I had to take care of my mom, who had multiple sclerosis, which became a full-time job in her last year (1976). And by 1976 fandom was down to just about one well-known fanzine, RB-CC. I’d done “The Information Center” for years, but most of my knowledge was about Golden Age comics,

Comic Fandom Archive

When “Notebooks” Were Made Of Paper Miller kept a list of his entire collection in the above notebook. At right are a couple of sample pages of his meticulous records. [Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics.]

and more and more readers were starting to ask about the Silver Age. So I ended up turning my column over to Don Rosa. I don’t really miss those days of writing all those articles. It was fun but it was another time. I’ve kept most of the RB-CCs with my writing, but that’s about it. GELB: What’s your fondest memory of the early days of fandom? MILLER: The cheap comic prices and others, like me, who were willing to trade or sell for what they wanted without getting rich. If someone had a comicbook I wanted and I had one they wanted, it wasn’t, “I’ll trade you but I’ll have to have two or three others for the one you want.” These were one-for-one trades. I remember trading late-’40s Rocky Lane Westerns to Bill White for early 1940s super-hero comics. Try that today! GELB: What’s the best development in comic collecting since fandom’s early days? MILLER: Comic shops and comic conventions. GELB: How do you feel about today’s comicbooks? MILLER: There are a lot of good comics on sale now, but I can’t afford them, so I buy very few. I do buy the EC reprints, and an occasional Superman or Batman. But my favorite comics were those during the Golden Age: Captain Marvel Adventures, Captain America, and Batman were my all-time favorites.

My Friend, Raymond Miller

Like We Said—“Fawcett Forever!” Fawcett was perhaps Raymond’s favorite comicbook publisher during the Golden Age, along with DC. Titles shown are his copies of All Hero Comics #1 (March 1943), Gift Comics #1 (1942), Spy Smasher #3 (dated 2-25-42), and Xmas Comics #1 (1941). As you can see, Raymond was not a “condition freak.” Many of his comics were “good” or “good minus.” This didn’t diminish how meaningful they were to him. [Shazam heroes & other Fawcett heroes TM & © DC Comics.]

Comic Fandom Archive

Comics & Stories, Mutt and Jeff, early ACGs, ME, Fiction House, Fawcett, Dell, DC Westerns, etc. And not just super-heroes. But no horror or science-fiction outside of EC. GELB: What makes the Golden Age comics so special to you? MILLER: Memories! The ’40s are still my favorite decade—64-page comics for 10¢, or later, 52 pages for 10¢. Read a World War II comicbook and you have a history of World War II. Later in the ’40s, you could ride with one of your favorite B-Western heroes every month in the comics. Think of it. In just about five years, most of the characters were created who are still remembered today. A true Golden Age collector will find Magno and Davy, Cat-Man, Captain Freedom, U.S. Jones, TNT, and hundreds of others just as fascinating as Superman, Batman, Captain America, or Captain Marvel. Even most of today’s better-known heroes have been at it for more than thirty years.

Jaunty Jeff Gelb in a recent photo.

GELB: Do you still re-read your Golden Age collection? MILLER: Not in years. That doesn’t mean my collection just sits there in boxes untouched. I like to display my comics, for my pleasure, once a year. I have a big piece of plywood that holds eighteen comic books and, right after New Year’s, I set up my board and display eighteen comics a day. That way, I pretty well know what I have and what the covers look like without having to check my list. It takes me about 3½ months to display them all. When it comes to the Golden Age, I’m more or less a total collector; I try to have at last one copy of every title (except Dell Four Color) published before 1949. And this includes Walt Disney’s

Raymond Miller wrote the introduction for the first volume of Tony Santangelo’s Echoes, the first in a series of trade paperback books from Solson Publishing devoted to full-page illustrations of each and every Golden Age hero. Copies remain available from Bud Plant Comic Art as of this printing. www.budplant.com. Books by Bill Schelly published in 2018: Sense of Wonder, My Life in Comic Fandom (a new memoir), Founders of Comic Fandom (second printing), Bill Schelly Talks with the Founders of Comic Fandom Vols. 1 & 2 (interviews), and James Warren, Empire of Monsters (a biography). For more information: www.billschelly.net.

award-winning writer bill schelly relates how

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in memoriam

Bill Harris

(1934-2018) “He Certainly Deserves To Be Remembered”

omicbook writer-editor Bill Harris died January 8th at the age of 84. He started and ended his career in the field of advertising and promotion, moving from company to company for many years. When he secured a post doing promotional work for Dell Publishing, he took a special interest in their comicbook lineup and wound up moving into editorial to work on it. That meant leaving Dell and going to work for Western Publishing, which produced Dell’s comicbook line until 1962.

Bill Harris between two fans at the 1965 comics convention in New York City—and at about age 84—plus (below) a page scribed by Harris and drawn by Bill Lignante for King Comics’ The Phantom #22 (May 1967). After the demise of King Comics, several Harris-scripted “Phantom” stories were printed from inventory when Charlton picked up the series. Bill also noted, in Richard Arndt’s interview with him for Alter Ego #144, that he had written more than one hundred books. The pic at left is mentioned on p. 83 of this issue; the later photo is courtesy of his daughter, Ellen Harris, from a newspaper obituary. [Page TM & © King Features Syndicate, Inc.]

[A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: Mark explained the relationship between Western, Dell, and Gold Key in an article reprinted in A/E #151.] Harris continued working for Western. He was proudest of his editorial work on Western’s Bullwinkle comics and of his writing work on the comic starring Lee Falk’s classic character, The Phantom. In 1966, when the King Features newspaper syndicate attempted to start its own line of comicbooks, Bill was hired as editor of its small list of titles, which included Flash Gordon, Mandrake the Magician, The Phantom, Blondie, Beetle Bailey, and Popeye. The line was not successful, lasting a little over a year, and while Bill briefly did work for Warren Publishing’s Creepy and Eerie, he did not work much more in comics. Most of his career thereafter was spent working in the promotional department of The New York Times. [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: He also reportedly authored more than 100 novels.] Of his innovations when he was in comics was that he was one of the first editors to recognize that there was a promotional value in comicbook fanzines. Many of the early zines of the 1960s featured letters from Bill, telling fandom what would be forthcoming in the comics he edited. Few others in comics at the time saw any value in that, but Harris predicted correctly the growing impact that fanzines and comics conventions would have on the field. For that, and for writing some pretty good Phantom comics, he certainly deserves to be remembered. This tribute is reprinted with permission from Mark Evanier’s blog www.newsfromme.com with only slight adjustments, and is © 2018 Mark Evanier.

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in memoriam

FRAN HOPPER

(1922-2017) “Smart Editors Assigned Her To Stories That Starred Women Action Heroes” by Trina Robbins

he world of comics lost another Golden Age pioneer when cartoonist Frances Deitrick Hopper passed away on November 29, 2017, at the age of 95. In 1942, as a young art student at Pratt Institute, she answered an ad for cartoonists to work at Fiction House, thinking it would just be a summer job; but she stayed, joining Lily Renée, Marcia Snyder, and Ruth Atkinson as a group of women cartoonists who drew for the Golden Age

Fran Hopper in 1945, and one of her splash pages for the “Camilla” feature in Jungle Comics. This splash appeared in Trina Robbins’ 2013 book Pretty in Ink: North American Women Cartoonists 18962010, co-authored by Kristy Valenti. Photo courtesy of Trina R. [© the respective copyright holders.]

publisher. During World War II, with many of the male cartoonists enlisted or drafted, the comics publishers hired women to take their place, and Fiction House hired more women than any of the other companies. Fran drew beautiful women, and smart editors assigned her to stories that starred women action heroes. From Lily Renée she inherited “Jane Martin,” a tough aviatrix who fought the bad guys in stylish 1940s dresses and high heels, as did her girl detective, “Glory Forbes.” For Planet Comics, Fran drew “Mysta of the Moon,” a goddess-like woman who lived on the moon with her faithful robot, and “Gale Allen.” The latter feature had originally been titled “Gale Allen and Her Girl Squadron,” in which its heroine had led an entire crew of beautiful space-busting women; but by the time Fran took it over, Gale had become a solo act, roaming the galaxy in search of adventure. Fiction House specialized in jungle girls, including “Tiger Girl” and their most famous, “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.” Fran’s jungle girl contribution was “Camilla,” a zebra-skin-clad blonde who very much resembled the artist herself. I had the good fortune to meet Fran Hopper in 2014, and to clear up a mystery. Previously, on the phone, she had told me that after leaving Fiction House she’d gone to work for Stan Lee at Timely (the future Marvel), drawing Annie Oakley. But I knew that comic, and it was obviously not drawn by Fran. What did seem to me to have been drawn by her was “Patsy Walker.” Most of the first year’s worth of “Patsy Walker” stories had been drawn by fellow Fiction House cartoonist Ruth Atkinson, but each issue featured one story by a different artist. That artist’s style looked to me like Fran Hopper; but, unlike her Fiction House work, those tales

In Memoriam—Fran Hopper

Before Friends Was A TV Series Fran’s cartoons of herself and fellow artist Lily Renée, drawn when they were roommates in the 1940s. Fran was the blonde, Lili the brunette. An interview with Lily Renée was featured in A/E #85. Thanks to Shaun Clancy and Trina R. [© Estate of Fran Dietrick Hopper.]

were not signed. When I met Fran, I showed her photocopies of the comics. She was suffering from macular degeneration, but she looked at the pages through a magnifying glass and said, “Yes, I drew these.” By the late 1940s, the boys had come home from war and got their old jobs back. Fran and the other women cartoonists were phased out; and, like many of the other women, Fran retired to raise a family with her husband, Dr. Jack Hopper. She continued to paint, exhibiting and selling her work at local galleries. Women cartoonists would not appear again in large numbers in comic books until the 21st century.

Patsy, Fran, & Trina A 1945 “Patsy Walker” page drawn by Fran Hopper (scripter unknown)— juxtaposed with an image of Trina (on left) and Fran a few years back. [Art TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

happened when that nicely drawn (by Warren Kremer) mummy ghost attacked the blonde explorers. In spite of that, their horror titles lasted up to the Code. And someday some industrious publisher will take those covers and do a “Best of What Ace Never Published,” and commission the stories. Helluva a lot of good springboards there! George Hagenauer

works.

Undoubtedly so, George. While Alter Ego has generally leaned toward creator interviews rather than analysis of characters or comics lines, we’re open to any approach that fits. Who knows? With Golden Age talents almost entirely vanished from our ranks, many future issues dealing with the 1930s/40s will probably come at comics from that angle. In fact, we already have one or two such in the

Meanwhile, this from Bob Klein: Roy,

ince this issue’s cover star Norman Maurer was long associated with both the Three Stooges and the Golden Age Daredevil, our awesome Aussie artist Shane Foley decided to combine those elements with A/E’s two official super-hero “maskots” in an homage to one of Maurer’s 1950s drawings of Larry, Shemp, and Moe in the outfits of Alter Ego and Captain Ego—with the original DD’s two-tone togs tossed in for good measure. That gave colorist Randy Sargent plenty to apply his high-falutin’ hues to! Thanks, guys! [Art © Shane Foley; Alter Ego costume designed by Ron Harris; Captain Ego created by Biljo White; Alter Ego hero TM & © Roy & Dann Thomas; Captain Ego TM & © Roy Thomas & Bill Schelly.] This time around, we’re dealing with e-mails and other epistles re Alter Ego #144, which double-headlined Mark Carlson-Ghost’s overview of the Golden Age super-heroes of Ace Comics, and Bill Harris, Silver Age editor of Gold Key and King Comics… starting with this electronically transmitted missive from George Hagenauer… Dear Roy:

My hat’s off to Mark Carlson-Ghost for his terrific article on Ace. Thorough without being tedious, broad without being superficial, and pointing us to things that made Ace unique and interesting. Nice work! Do I recall his name from some early research into little-known titles, perhaps something in APA-1? At least, I think I do.

Can you talk him into doing something similar on Fiction House? There’s a publisher that deserves to be better-known than it is: great characters, great art, and an interesting backstory. Bob Klein

Mark Carlson-Ghost was indeed part of the “apas” (amateur press alliances) APA-1 and Kapa-alpha back in the day, and is considering writing an article on Rural Home, a little-known Golden Age comics company with a (in his words) “short-lived (1944-45) batch of superheroes across five or six titles, related [wartime] paper quotas, and some other fast-buck companies that trafficked in costumed heroes during the same time period.” We look forward to bringing it to you!

Thanks for the issue on Ace Comics. Super-Mystery Comics always fascinated but also eluded me. In 50 years of collecting, maybe I had three issues. I was luckier with the Ace horror and science-fiction line, ultimately owning all the issues with one of my favorite artists, Lou Cameron. They also had great covers: vampires, mummies, invisible bone-crushing elephants, blondes hanging from bell-clappers being attacked by giant hands, and lots of women being shrunk. Except that they rarely had stories inside to go with them! You see a neat Cameron of the witch in the tunnel of love and open the comic—no witch, no tunnel… sigh. No matter how wacky [editor] Julius Schwartz got with DC science-fiction covers—merry-gorounds on the moon, flying saucers grabbing South America off the planet, giant hands grabbing everything, to say nothing of the talking apes— nonetheless, Gardner Fox, Edmund Hamilton— someone would actually write a story about it! But not at Ace. You never found out what

With This Ring, I Thee Web! We’re not 100% certain this Lou Cameron cover for Web of Mystery #8 (April 1952) fits George Hagenauer’s precise description of Ace horror comics that sported great covers but had no tale related to them inside; but, when we picked up this image from the online Grand Comics Database, we sure couldn’t find any story titles or descriptions that read as if they went with it. Web of Mystery has been reprinted in hardcover form by PS Artbooks of Britain, and Craig Yoe & IDW books’ recent hardcover Lou Cameron’s Unsleeping Dead reprints various covers and tales by that late artist, who was interviewed by Jim Amash back in A/E #79 & 80. [© the respective copyright holders.]

re:

Stranger Than Fiction House In his accompanying e-mail, Bob Klein asks about coverage of the comics of Fiction House, that great pulps-and-comics company that published four-color fantasies from the late 1930s through the mid-’50s. Actually, we did have major A/E coverage of the Fiction House comics line in the works a couple of years back… but then writer Mitchell Maglio decided he might prefer to publish his research as a book, combining his textual history with the reprinting of a number of FH stories— and we gave him our blessing to do so. (In fact, Roy T. even wrote the intro to the IDW volume Fiction House: From Pulps to Panels, from Jungle to Space, whose Lily Renee/Planet Comics cover is depicted at left.) Never fear, though: Mitch is making other research of his available to A/E for near-future issues! [© the respective copyright holders.]

Will Murray is an authority on both comics and their predecessors, pulp magazines—and those two genres were rarely more closely connected than in the case of Ace Comics, where both characters and plots were often recycled from latter to former. Mark pointed out a number of such cases in his article in #144, and here are a few more observations by Will, whose articles will grace near-future issues of A/E:

is clearly seen therein:

Thank you for doing it. Bill Harris

It was our honor—as we e-mailed Bill back at the time. We’re only sorry he isn’t still around to read the favorable reaction to his interview.

As it happened, some minor controversy arose over a couple of photos that accompanied Bill’s interview. They were taken at comics conventions hosted by comics writer Dave Kaler in 1966 and/or 1967 and were printed on pp. 39 & 46 of A/E #144, accompanying that piece. We’ll get to some dubious IDs of personnel in a minute, but first, at least A/E editor emeritus and longtime comics writer and editor Mike Friedrich seems to have forever settled the question of in which year the second of those pics was taken, since Mike

Hi Roy,

I only went to one Kaler con… in 1967, the first summer I spent in NYC. Did not attend a Benson con. Stan appeared in 1967; so did

Hi Roy,

FYI, The Phantom Fed was [pulp hero] Secret Agent “X” renamed. Some stories adapted pulp novels. Robert Turner was editor and head writer. He may have written the first “Magno, the Magnetic Man” story that ran in companion title Super-Mystery Comics #1 (July 1940). Untitled, it was an adaptation of Octopus of Crime (Secret Agent “X,” Sept. 1934), with Magno in place of “X.” I remember discovering that an old Lester Dent “Mountie” pulp story was adapted for an Ace Comics “Mountie” story. I wrote an old Comic Book Marketplace article about some of this. And don’t you have in inventory an article I wrote about Robert Turner? Will Murray

We sure do, Will—and it escapes us why we haven’t printed it before now! We’ll have to find a place for it, as we have for other material by you that will be appearing next year. (It just occurred to me—Roy— that I have to “plot out” the contents of issues of Alter Ego much further ahead than I generally did issues of Marvel Comics back in the day!)

Besides the piece on Ace Comics, the other featured attraction of #144 was Richard Arndt’s interview with Silver Age editor and writer Bill Harris. Bill, alas, passed away recently—see the tribute to him on p. 77—but after he received a copy of #144, we received the following very welcome e-mail from him: Hi Roy,

I don’t know what I expected from your interview, but the result is beyond any expectations.

“X” Marks The (Magnetized) Spot! (Left:) The cover of the Ace pulp Secret Agent “X” for Sept. 1934, headlining the “novel” Octopus of Crime. (Above:) First page of the “Magno, the Magnetic Man” story from Ace’s Super-Mystery Comics #1 (July 1940), whose Robert Turner script was adapted from the aforementioned pulp yarn written by Paul Chadwick. The comicbook art was by Lou Ferstadt. [© the respective copyright holders.]

[correspondence, comments, & corrections]

Dick Giordano, then at Charlton. I also remember Steranko, but not the Romitas. Marv Wolfman came to the costume event as Tower’s NoMan and I took a photo, which sadly I lost a couple of decades ago.

Re the photo on p. 39, your original instinct was correct. I think that’s Dick Giordano sitting next to you, and almost certainly not Maurice Horn. I’m guessing this was in 1966, since both you and Dick look a bit younger than when I met you both in 1967. Mike Friedrich

Yeah, I used to ID the person sitting between Gil Kane and myself in the photo on p. 39 of A/E #144 as Dick Giordano, whom I knew fairly well by 1966—while I’ve no recollection of meeting French writer and comics historian Maurice Horn before the 1968 SCARP-Con that he and Phil Seuling co-hosted. Still, a couple of folks, at some time in the past, insisted that was Horn, not Dick G., in the pic, and I sort of acquiesced. However, Mike and others have helped convince me that, at least in this one instance, I was right all along.

The other ID problem concerned the gent seen in the 1967 photo on p. 46, seated in the front row between Bill Harris and artist (and later Marvel production manager) John Verpoorten. I’ve always identified that person as Archie Goodwin, then beginning to write scripts for Marvel. Both John Benson and Bill Pearson, two contemporaries of Archie’s who knew him well, feel that may not be Archie… but I still think it is, and I’ll continue to do so until and unless someone convinces me otherwise. (But hey, anyone and everyone is welcome to try!) One thing that helps me in my determination is that John B. also originally didn’t think the third guy in that front row is Verpoorten—and of that particular ID I’m as certain of as I am of my own! John B., however, correctly points out something I’d already made a note to myself to mention in this issue: In the also-Harris-related photo on p. 35 of #144, I reversed the location of the two fellas talking to Bill. Mark Hanerfeld is seen on the right in the photo, and Bobby Van on the left. Mark, of course, was prominent in comics fandom for years and even served a stint as a DC editorial assistant; Bobby was a fan I met through Dave Kaler during my earliest days in Manhattan. [See that photo again on p. 77.]

strip. He’s right about the strip. As for the comicbooks, I keep seeing the Bullwinkle comics being credited to Kilgore. Maybe he wrote some of them, and there are one or two that look like he might have penciled them. But Kilgore was a very distinctive artist, and the vast majority of those books—including the comicbook you attributed to him—are clearly not his work.

Also, he did not draw the Hoppity Hooper comicbooks from Western because there were no Hoppity Hooper comicbooks from Western—at least none that were published. Perhaps he did some of the activity books Western issued of the property. Harris said that Al Kilgore wore The Flintstones at the World’s Fair comic and that Fred Fredericks drew it, with a cover by Mel Crawford. You or the interviewer, in a caption, wrote, “The art is credited in the Grand Comics Database to a Phil deLara rather than Fredericks; it’s impossible for us to confirm which of the two is correct.”

Well, maybe not, if you’re willing to believe a guy like me who worked with Phil. That’s his art throughout most of the book, and the stuff he didn’t draw was drawn by Harvey Eisenberg. Both men worked for the Los Angeles office of Western Publishing, as did Rome Siemen, who lettered the book. This leads me to believe that the insides were largely the work of the Los Angeles office. The script might have been by the New York-based Kilgore and the cover was indeed by Mel Crawford.

Mr. Harris talks about the back-up stories that appeared in King Comics—“Mandrake” stories in the back of The Phantom, for instance—and says they had to be there because of postal requirements, and he says, “I’m pretty sure it was eight pages for a secondary character.” It was indeed because of postal requirements, but those stories had to be four pages—and most of the ones in the comics he edited were four pages. Mr. Harris says that Carl Barks created Donald Duck’s nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and that Uncle Scrooge was created to fulfill the above-mentioned postal requirements. Nope. Donald’s nephews first appeared in the Donald Duck newspaper strip by Ted Osborne and Al Taliaferro in 1937, well before Barks

As I said above, the Bill Harris interview was well-received, and deservedly so. However, one frequent benefactor of A/E, longtime comics and TV writer Mark Evanier, felt a need to set the record straight in a few areas, and we invited him to send us those corrections in an e-mail, to wit: Hi Roy,

I was glad to see the interview with Bill Harris about his days with Western Publishing working on the Gold Key comics. He got a rep there as a good editor, and the comics that I know he worked on, as editor and/or writer, were pretty good books.

Now, you might smell a “but” coming, and if so, you’re right. But there were a number of things he said in the interview that probably confused people. Some even confused me. In the interest of clarification and getting the history right, I’d like to go over some points… He said, “There were three editors at Western when I was there—Wally Green, Ken Power, and myself. Matt Murphy was the chief.” That was true of the New York office, but over half the line was then being produced out of the Los Angeles office, and they had editors there like Chase Craig and Del Connell. Someone who wasn’t aware of this would think those men [Green, Power, and Harris] edited the Disney comics, the Warner Bros. comics, the Walter Lantz comics, and many more which came out of L.A.

Mr. Harris says that Al Kilgore drew the Bullwinkle and Hoppity Hooper comicbooks for Western, and also the Bullwinkle newspaper

West Is Western A vintage photo of Western Publishing’s West Coast editors. Mark Evanier IDs Chase Craig as being the man seated at center, while the man standing at right is Del Connell. He is unaware of the identities of the other two people. Thanks, Mark! A photo of Western’s East Coast comics editor Wally Green appeared in A/E #148, but no photos have surfaced of chief editor Matt Murphy.

re:

started working on the comics. Scrooge first appeared in regular “Donald Duck” stories and was not a back-up feature for postal reasons. (He debuted in an issue of the Dell Four-Color series which I don’t think even had subscriptions, which, if so, meant no postal requirements.) Also, if someone didn’t know otherwise, the references to Barks and to Russ Manning working on Tarzan and Magnus, Robot Fighter would create the assumption that those men worked for the New York editors Harris mentioned. Barks and Manning worked for the L.A. office. Lastly, this is not so much a correction as a point of interest with me. Harris talks about how, though Western was not a subscriber to the Comics Code, they consulted with the folks over there and Harris had meetings with Code administrator Leonard Darvin to show them material without giving them the authority to demand changes. I’m not doubting Mr. Harris, but, boy, is that the opposite of what I heard when I worked for the L.A. office of Western.

Actually, it started before I worked for them. For some fanzine, I wrote a long article about the Comics Code and I quoted Darvin as saying something that made it sound like, though Western didn’t subscribe to the Code, the Code was unofficially influencing the contents of Gold Key Comics. I soon received an angry letter from some business-type person at Western’s Poughkeepsie office saying that that was a lie; that Western had nothing to do with the Comics Code and did not submit material to them.

fans. Make an appointment with any DC editor and treat yourself to a walking tour of the offices after the meeting. Always an artist working nearby and free “take all you can carry” original art on the way out. A truly unreal experience that I never fully appreciated in those days. Marvel, on the other hand, was a chance to spend a few minutes with the ravishing Flo Steinberg, who politely tried to answer our questions and make up new excuses why Stan (or any of the Bullpen) would not be available for us to question.

Meeting Bill for the first time was just like meeting another fan. He wanted to know more about fandom and how it could “help” the comicbook industry. Neither DC nor Marvel ever really wanted the opinions of a teenaged nerd as much as Bill Harris did. Behind his head hung a Phantom Club certificate, and a dozen Phantom Club buttons were spread over his desk. He also showed us a copy of a Golden Age comic (Shield and Wizard) and told us he wanted to capture some of the excitement of that cover with Gold Key. He then pulled out a copy of Alter Ego #5 and could not believe the quality of a fan-produced periodical. He also included us in discussions regarding “sales” of Gold Key comics. I always felt like an adult when I left his office. It was a great visit, and that same

Later, when I did work for Western, I asked around the L.A. office and heard the same thing and even that Western had threatened to sue the Comics Code for claiming any role in their publishing. Chase Craig, who was the chief editor out here, told me that Western did not want to ever endorse the Code in any way. He said, “We weren’t the ones who put out the horror and crime comics that prompted the public outcry that comics be banned. Why should we use our respectability to help rehabilitate the image of the guys who did?”

There was a great rivalry between the L.A. and NY offices of Western. I think the guys out here would have been furious to think the comics they were editing were ever being shown to Leonard Darvin to get his opinion. I’m pretty sure they didn’t know. Mark Evanier

Thanks for the clarification about the Eastern and Western branches of Western Publishing, Mark. I must say that, in all I ever heard re Dell/ Western, I never got any hint that Code administrator Len Darvin was consulted by them in any way. Perhaps Bill did clue him in informally about a few things coming up from that never-Code-member company… but it may have been without official approval. Sadly, Bill is no longer around, or we’d have asked him for his thoughts on your letter.

We’ll end the main part of this edition of “re:” with a letter about the issue in general—this one from veteran fan Bernie Burnis, whose appearances in these pages are such a regular thing that we practically consider him a part of our “staff”… such as it is. Hi Roy,

The Ace Comics article from Mark Carlson-Ghost is really appreciated. I love reading about writers and artists, but it was fun to see the lead A/E article feature Golden Age comicbook heroes and not just their creators. I interviewed Bill Harris back in the early ’60s and (wow) he sounds the same. A very engaging storyteller with a great sense of humor. I did not know what to expect when I made the appointment to first meet with him. We New Yorkers regularly visited DC and Marvel and already knew how they treated visiting

It’s In The Blood! This Ace Comics page got squeezed out of A/E #144, but article author Mark Carlson-Ghost calls this wartime plot by the imperial Japanese villain X2 “the most evil scheme ever”—a plan to replace the plasma in the Red Cross’ blood supply with plasma tainted by leprosy! From the “Dr. Nemesis” story, scripted by Robert Turner and drawn by Earl Da Voren, that appeared in Super-Mystery Comics, Vol. 4, #1 (1944). Thanks to Mark Carlson-Ghost. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

[correspondence, comments, & corrections]

great personality was on display in Arndt’s excellent interview.

Man, I wish I was more like Mr. Monster! I threw a lot of my early fanzine stuff right out the window. I’m glad he didn’t. As usual, a well-illustrated and fun piece.

Bill Schelly has done well by the incredible G.B. Love. Honestly, I never knew Gordon suffered from anything until years after I had contributed my last piece to RBCC. I just assumed his sloppy typing errors were normal, because my efforts always looked worse than his. He sure had a lot of energy. He will always be his own monument.

Brian Cremins touches a subject that is still hurtful. I always remember the film Amos and Andy where two white radio personalities from the show played these black characters on screen. Holy cow. Outside of a Turner Movie Classic vintage unedited film or a PBS doc, you rarely see the insane portrayals of black citizens presented as “entertainment” in those days. Comicbooks weren’t much better. This is a great piece and probably could use an extension into other Golden Age comics and their misrepresentations of people of color. Bernie Bubnis

Thanks for your comments on the Harris, Carlson-Ghost, and other contributions to A/E #144, Bernie. It’s always interesting to hear what a New York fan’s perspective might have been, back in the 1960s or early ’70s, on comics-related matters that are constantly receding further and further into the past… but, by our lights, no less intriguing or important because of that fact. After all, last time we looked, scholars were still studying Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, right?

Oh, and, to close: In a sequence of brief e-mails combined here, Craig Delich points out that the “unknown” artist of the “Captain Courageous” art depicted on p. 27 of #144 is actually the great Warren Kremer, who signed the story “Doc,” as he sometimes did. Craig also notes that the Hap Hazard cover on p. 18, identified as “#1,” is actually that of issue #14. And, he adds, the “Dr. Nemesis” splash page shown on p. 9 is listed in the Who’s Who of American Comic Books 1928-1999 website as being written by Robert Turner; he feels it was drawn by Harry Anderson, not by Red Holmdale as Jerry Bails once listed. “This art,” Craig insists, “looks identical to what Anderson did on ‘Buckskin,’ as seen on p. 7.” Thanks, pal! You’re a one-man fact-checking department! Send all cards, letters, and e-mails—well, at least all of them that have anything to do with this issue of Alter Ego—to: e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com Roy Thomas 32 Bluebird Trail St. Matthews, SC 29135 As we’ve said before: The Alter-Ego-Fans e-mail discussion list is still active. Subscribers (no charge!) will learn about future issues of A/E and whatever else they, Roy T., or moderator Chet Cox feel like haranguing them about! Just visit http:/groups.yahoo.com/group/ alter-ego-fans. Chet informs us that Yahoo Groups has deleted its “Add Member” token, so if you find it won’t let you in, please contact him at mormonyoyoman@gmail.com and he’ll walk you through the process!

And, over on Facebook, dealer/collector/con expediter John Cimino is still working wonders with what he calls The Roy Thomas Appreciation Boards, where you don’t really have to “appreciate” RT but just want to learn about what A/E’s editor (and longtime comics writer and editor) is currently up to, including this mag, convention appearances, comments on comics or super-hero movies or whatever. John assures us the site is “fully interactive”; we’re not 100% sure what that means, but it sounds good!

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Daredevil and the Little Wise Guys from Lev Gleason Publications’ Daredevil Comics #36 (July 1946), as drawn by Norman Maurer. Story attributed to Charles Biro. [© the respective copyright holders; Daredevil is now a trademark of Marvel Characters, Inc.]

FRANCE “ED” HERRON

Comics’ Mightiest Mystery Man by Michael Browning Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

FCA EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION:

key player from the Golden Age of Comics, former Fawcett editor France Edward Herron passed away on Friday, September 2, 1966, at Manhattan Veterans Hospital with little fanfare. He only reached 48 years of age, and had been living at the Chalfonte Hotel in Manhattan. Regrettably, in later years, very few Fawcett alumni ever had much to say about him, forever leaving an aura of mystery attached to him. Herron was freelance-writing for various publishers, including Fawcett, before that company offered him an editorial position based on the high-caliber “Captain Marvel” scripts he had previously sold them. In the same month that Bill Parker departed to serve in the National Guard, Herron took his place as Fawcett’s comics editor on October 10, 1940.

Captains Clockwise France “Ed” Herron mapped out a spine-tingling trilogy to introduce his new creation to comics readers: Captain Marvel Jr.! The editor placed scripting in the capable hands of freelance writer Bill Woolfolk (who’ll be featured in the FCA-centered A/E #157, as well as in #159). Next, desiring to contrast the new young hero with Cap Sr., he brought in artist Mac Raboy to render the Blue Boy with fine-line realism. Herron’s magnum opus commenced in Master Comics #21 (Dec. ’41) with the introduction of Woolfolk’s wicked Captain Nazi, and an early comicbook crossover starring Bulletman and Captain Marvel. That tale was continued that same month over in Whiz Comics #25 —where Captain Nazi inadvertently sets in motion the debut of Captain Marvel Jr., featuring a rare, one-time collaborative artist mash-up between C.C. Beck and Raboy. The trilogy was wrapped up in Master Comics #22 (Jan. ’42), wherein Junior joined forces with previous cover star Bulletman. The two Master covers are drawn by Raboy; the Whiz cover was illustrated by Beck; and the Whiz #25 interior page at left, with Junior’s first appearance, is a collaborative effort by both artists. [Shazam heroes, Captain Nazi, & Bulletman TM & © DC Comics.]

France “Ed” Herron

Cap’s Second Solo Flight

Just under half a year later, to capitalize on the popularity of Whiz Comics’ cover star, Fawcett launched Captain Marvel Adventures with Herron at the steering wheel. Having worked with him on Timely’s Captain America (and co-creating the Red Skull in the process), Herron commissioned the first CMA issue’s interior artwork from Jack Kirby (working with his partner Joe Simon), without even mentioning the fact to Captain Marvel’s artistic

Due to reader demand, and to profits awaiting the publisher, editor Herron helped launch and edit a new ongoing solo title for the World’s Mightiest Mortal after Fawcett had successfully test-driven a Cap solo one-shot book in 1940 by Bill Parker and C.C. Beck, called Special Edition Comics. Herron outsourced the interior artwork of Captain Marvel Adventures #1 (Spring 1941; see cover at left) officially to Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, though Kirby seems to have done the actual penciling. Herron had stayed in touch with Kirby since working on Captain America Comics prior to his being hired by Fawcett. In the first CMA story (seen at right), Captain Marvel takes on writer Manly Wade Wellman’s “Z,” in addition to Dr. Sivana; Dick Briefer assisted on the inking. Beck was not made aware in advance of the new title being put together, but was later called in to supply its single-figure cover art. [Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics.]

co-creator, C.C. Beck. However, Beck artwork was utilized for the book’s cover. A few months prior to the new Captain Marvel solo book, Herron had conceived a new hero named Mr. Scarlet for the debut issue of Wow Comics. Again, the interior artwork was outsourced to Kirby. Many have concluded that therefore Kirby is the co-creator of the character. But that is not the case. Beck informed me that, besides Captain Marvel, Spy Smasher, and Ibis the Invincible, he also originally designed “most of Fawcett’s

A Study In “Scarlet” One of France Herron’s first projects after being hired by Fawcett, even before Captain Marvel Adventures #1, was his creation of “Mr. Scarlet,” the lead feature for Wow Comics #1 (Winter 1940-41). The editor also provided the first script, and the hero was designed by C.C. Beck, who also drew the issue’s cover. But Herron out-sourced the story’s artwork to the ubiquitous Jack Kirby, who provided both pencils and inks for a one-time gig. [Mr. Scarlet TM & © DC Comics.]

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Not To Be Confused With The Three Stooges Before creating Captain Marvel Jr., editor Herron had first tried to bottle the Captain Marvel magic with the conception of the three Lieutenants Marvel. They were delightful spin-offs, but the trio only enjoyed a handful of appearances. At left is C.C. Beck’s cover art for the issue featuring their first appearance, in Whiz Comics #21 (Sept. ’41). Herron was also involved in the genesis of Mary Marvel, but he had been terminated by Fawcett before her published debut. And unfortunately, amongst his many accomplishments in comics, Herron forever bears the burden of being the one responsible for the racial stereotype side-character Steamboat, brought in during the wartime “Captain Marvel” stories. [Shazam heroes TM & © DC Comics.]

responsible for the creation of the infamous Steamboat, Captain Marvel’s unfortunate racial-stereotype side-character who was eventually expunged by editor-in-chief Will Lieberson in 1945. With Captain Marvel continually crushing the competition at the newsstands, the Fawcett brothers, seeking to duplicate their financial success with The World’s Mightiest Mortal, gave Herron a directive to begin expanding the Captain Marvel universe with likable, and hopefully profitable, knock-offs. The first Cap spin-offs instituted under Herron’s watch were the Lieutenant Marvels—three guys who all happened to be named Billy Batson but resided in different regions of the U.S. All three Batsons were avid Captain Marvel readers who wondered if saying Billy’s magic word would also work for them. As things unfolded, when they all shouted “Shazam!” at the same time, it did indeed work. Tall Marvel, Hill [stood for Hillbilly] Marvel, and Fat Marvel were popular enough to garner a few more appearances, but Fawcett desired something from Herron that could better connect with its comics customers. In the fall of 1941, the editor conceptualized a teenaged Captain Marvel—not a sidekick character, but a teen hero in his own right. other early characters” and specifically listed “Bulletman and Mr. Scarlet.” (Beck supplied the cover art for Wow #1.) While he did write a handful of scripts for Fawcett (more on that in a bit!), Herron was hired by that company solely as an editor. In addition to Wow Comics and Captain Marvel Adventures, he also took on editorial duties for Whiz Comics, America’s Greatest Comics, Bulletman, Spy Smasher, Minute Man, and Master Comics. He was also

To contrast with Captain Marvel’s more simplified storytelling approach, Herron pushed to have the illustrative style of artist Mac Raboy—who had just been employed by Fawcett after leaving the Harry “A” Chesler shop—for the new character he christened Captain Marvel Junior. With plotting direction from Herron, Raboy began working on a trilogy of tales that rolled out Captain Marvel Jr.’s origin (Master Comics #21/Whiz Comics #25/Master Comics #22), with the scripts assigned by Herron to freelance writer William Woolfolk.

Fawcett Four-Ever! A gathering of Golden Age goodness, showcasing the covers of additional books edited by Herron during his tenure as comics editor at Fawcett Publications: America’s Greatest Comics #1 (Fall ’41); Bulletman #3 (Jan. ’42); Minute Man #2 (Winter ’41); Spy Smasher #2 (Winter ’41). All four covers were illustrated by one of Herron’s preferred go-to artists, Mac Raboy. [Shazam hero, Bulletman, Minute Man, Spy Smasher, & Mr. Scarlet TM & © DC Comics.]

France “Ed” Herron

court proceedings with DC (National) during the prolonged copyright infringement case viz. Superman and Captain Marvel was the testimony of two former Fawcett comics creators who claimed they had been ordered by the publisher to straightforwardly copy material from “Superman” stories. Joe Simon & Jack Kirby Otto Binder had later reported to One of the greatest teams in the history of fandom that those comics. Joe’s standing, Kirby’s seated at the drawing board. two individuals were writer Manly Wade Wellman and ex-editor Ed Herron. Binder stated that Herron, “apparently embittered” by his firing from Fawcett, had “turned state’s evidence over to DC that Captain Marvel was a direct copy of Superman.…” Our late colleague, Fawcett artist Marc Swayze, in his long-running memoirs published in FCA, recalled happier times, beginning on his first day at the Fawcett offices… which was also the first day he met Ed Herron: “It was 1941. I rose from my seat in the reception room of Fawcett Publications and a big fellow approached with outstretched hand.

Bone-fied Debut One of the most famous Golden Age stories was “The Riddle of The Red Skull” from the first issue of Captain America Comics (March ’41), written by Ed Herron with art by Cap co-creators Simon & Kirby, which introduced Timely’s most notorious villain. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]=`

Woolfolk, who also contributed the creation of Captain Nazi to the tales, shared memories of Herron with me in 2000: “Ed Herron was the next editor-in-chief [after Parker] and, by all accounts, was a good one. He was also a good writer who sold stories to other media. He was fired when the maharajas at Fawcett discovered he was writing stories under different names and paying himself. He was undone by a typewriter tic that identified the stories as having been written on his typewriter. Personally, I think if the stories were good, the maharajas should have had nothing to complain about. I didn’t meet Ed until years afterward when I had left comics and became chief writer for The Defenders television drama series. By that time, Ed was down at his heels and he was hanging around the fringes of comics. He died not long afterward.” After Herron’s termination, Fawcett replaced him with new editor Rod Reed in September 1942.

“‘I suppose you were expecting a woman,’” he said cordially. guy.

“‘Well, not right at first,’ I quipped. ‘Why?’ Already I liked the “‘Your wire addressed me as Miss Frances Herron.’

“We laughed. To this day, I don’t know whether the error was mine or the telegraph operator’s back in Louisiana.” Herron, with art director Al Allard and editorial assistant John Beardsley, told the artist that day that they liked the drawings he had submitted to them. Swayze didn’t let on that he didn’t even know the name of the character in the red suit he had drawn. “Yeah,” Herron chimed in, “We couldn’t distinguish your art from Beck’s.” In addition to Junior and the Lieutenants, Herron also got the ball rolling with Mary Marvel, assigning the Shazam girl to consummate creators Otto Binder and Marc Swayze. In his FCA column, Swayze took us back to events that transpired in 1942:

On top of his having not abided by Fawcett’s rule regarding editors writing their own stories, there was another elephant in the room concerning Herron’s tenure at Fawcett.

“Earlier in the year, Herron had approached my desk and, without a word, pulled up a chair. Then, leaning forward, he began in hushed tones to describe ‘a new feature character—a little girl about Billy Batson’s age.’ He paused and looked around cautiously. ‘To start off,’ he continued, ‘we’ll call her Mary Bromfield. Then, when she speaks her magic word she’ll become.…’ Eddie finished with, ‘From that description, can you whip up a character sketch?’ He knew I could—he was already replacing his chair against the wall.”

Undoubtedly, the most damaging thing to Fawcett in the 1953

Marc Swayze always had nothing but good things to say about

While Herron had hit a home run with Marvel Jr., let’s not forget an even greater achievement: Herron was instrumental in bringing over Otto Binder to Fawcett, and altered Otto’s life forever when he gave him “Captain Marvel” to script!

FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

his first comicbook editor: “I liked Eddie Herron. His contribution toward the success of Captain Marvel cannot be overstated. He had come at the right moment, shortly before Bill Parker left, and at a time when the very character of Captain Marvel was being formulated. I’ve read where he was a talented writer. He certainly knew good writing when he saw it. He was a serious student of the comic book business and he was extremely market-minded. Rarely did he pass a newsstand that he didn’t step in and re-arrange the comics section so the Fawcett books got at least their fair share—maybe more—of the display area. It was Herron who suggested that, whenever possible, in planning the cover art, we position Captain Marvel toward the left edge. He had observed a growing tendency among dealers to display the comic books in a lapped-over arrangement where only that section of the cover was visible. Herron was a giant of a man… energetic, dynamic… he fairly radiated enthusiasm. I’m convinced that if it’s possible for a human being, a grown man, to love a comic book hero, Eddie Herron loved Captain Marvel as much as did our young readers.”

ome of the secrets behind one of comics’ greatest mystery men have finally been revealed.

France Herron, or Eddie Herron, or Ed Herron—whichever name you want to call him—has been credited with creating The Red Skull for Timely Comics and Captain Marvel Jr. for Fawcett; he also wrote a number of stories for DC in the 1950s and 1960s, but not much else is known about that writer and editor. Herron’s name graces the contents pages of the Showcase Presents The Green Arrow trade paperback from DC Comics, which reprints the emerald archer’s early Silver Age adventures in a phone-book-format, black-&-white edition. Throughout the Green

And with that, let’s join author Michael Browning as he brings to light more details about the life and career of France “Eddie” Herron! —P.C. Hamerlinck

Blackhawk Down (Above left:) Herron’s “Five Broken Guns” from Blackhawk #196 (May ’64), featuring art by Jack Sparling & Chuck Cuidera, marked the final story before the “new look” of the Blackhawks got underway in the following issue. (Above right:) Along with one for Arnold Drake, Herron was spotlighted with a mini-biography in the pages of Blackhawk #197 (June ’64), written by editor Murray Boltinoff. [TM & © DC Comics]

France “Ed” Herron

country. He later lived in West Virginia before joining comics legends Joe Simon and Jack Kirby at Fox Features Syndicate in 1939. It’s not known where Herron lived in Ohio, nor in West Virginia, but, most likely, it was in the Wheeling, WV, area. Joe Simon recalls Herron’s physical appearance as “very normal.” No known photos of him have surfaced [except for one—see it on page 96!—PCH.]. A genealogy website finds that Herron was believed to be part Cherokee Indian.

Arrow book’s content pages, Herron is alternately called France Herron and Ed Herron. Readers could be forgiven for thinking there were two Herrons writing “Green Arrow” scripts. For those keeping score, though, the two Herrons are actually one and the same. In addition to 29 adventures of Green Arrow and Speedy, Herron also wrote numerous stories for Timely, DC, Fawcett, and Harvey throughout his career in comics. His stories were so popular that they were reprinted by DC until the 1980s, years [sic] after his death. According to reports, France Edward Herron was born circa 1917 and raised in Ohio farm

DC Divots Here’s a more or less random clockwise chunk carved out of the mountain of stories written for DC by France Herron, spanning beyond the Golden Age and throughout the Silver Age: “The Green Arrow’s First Case” (Adventure Comics #256, Jan. ’59), art by Jack Kirby with backgrounds by Roz Kirby… “Batman—The Superman of Planet X!” (Batman #113, Feb. ’58), art by Dick Sprang & Charles Paris… “Manhunt in Painted Hills!” (Hopalong Cassidy #122, Mar. ’57), art by Gene Colan & Ray Burnley… and “The Iron Sniper!” (Our Army at War #138, Jan. ’64), art by Jack Abel. [TM & © DC Comics.]

After working for Simon at Fox, and then after stints at Timely and Fawcett, Herron entered the military in 1942 and fought in World War II. While on his tour of duty through Europe, he allegedly wrote for The Stars & Stripes armed services

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newspaper in Paris, after its 1944 Liberation.

Andy Rooney was for many years a popular commentator on CBS television.

Herron’s reported time at The Stars and Stripes seems to be in dispute, though. The late Andy Rooney, of CBS’s 60 Minutes news-magazine television show, said he was vaguely familiar with Herron’s name, but didn’t remember him working for Stars and Stripes in Paris. Rooney said Herron may have worked for another military newspaper, Warweek.

“You’ll pardon me for saying I don’t think Herron was ever much at The Stars and Stripes,” Rooney said. “I was with The S&S in Paris. We worked out of the Paris Herald Tribune building at 21 rue de Berri. I thought I knew everyone on staff. If Herron was there, he must have come at or near the end of the war in Europe, after I left.” Upon returning to the United States, Herron went to work for a New York newspaper and reportedly, in the early ’50s, spent two years in Mexico on assignment. From there, he re-entered the comics field, spending long periods of time writing several comicbooks.

According to Simon, Herron didn’t spend his time in Mexico on a newspaper assignment; he spent it there avoiding the U.S. government, which was after him for tax evasion. “Eddie Herron, oh yes, I remember him very well,” Simon said. “He still owes me a lot of money for loans!” Simon spelled it out: “Eddie had a problem. He forgot to pay his taxes for several years, and I think he was working for DC at the time. He skipped out to Mexico City for several years until he got that straightened out. Eddie was never a very responsible money guy.” Simon said that, after Herron’s stint at Fox and at Timely, he switched companies along with Simon and Kirby, and created Captain Marvel Jr. for Fawcett. “He wound up as one of the editors at Fawcett Comics,” Simon said. “He helped create the whole Captain Marvel thing. I was called in there to do that first Captain Marvel edition [Captain Marvel Adventures #1]. Jack Kirby and I did that in about a week. But, that was through Eddie, actually. He was always with me when I’d call him — no matter what he was doing. He went all over with me.”

Herron wrote war comics, Westerns, super-heroes, and anything else Joe Simon threw at him, and that continued until Herron died of colon cancer in 1966. Following his tour of duty and trip to Mexico, Herron wrote comics for DC (then called National Periodical Publications), and he was working for Harvey Comics (“Spyman,” “Dynamite Joe,” et al.) at the time of his death. [FCA EDITOR’S NOTE: Herron’s prodigious output at DC over the years saw him writing, well, almost everything: “Batman,” “Slam Bradley,” “Blackhawk,” “Sea Devils,” “Boy Commandos,” All Star Western, Our Army at War, Challengers of the Unknown, G.I. Combat, “Cave Carson,” “Animal Man,” House of Mystery, “Superman,” Star Spangled War Stories, and many others mentioned in this article… and many others that aren’t mentioned.] At 92 years of age, the late Joe Simon, the co-creator with Jack Kirby of Captain America, still recalled hiring Herron, who Simon confirmed did indeed create The Red Skull and Captain Marvel Jr. Simon said Herron also wrote for him at Harvey Comics and died before finishing a script that was later finished by Herron’s close friend and roommate, Dave Wood, of the famous Wood brothers writing team. Herron, Simon said, came to him wanting to be an artist, but was better suited to being a comicbook writer. “In 1939, I took over Will Eisner’s business at Fox Features,” Simon said. “I had to start from scratch, because Will took all of his artists and writers with him. I advertised for some new people and Eddie Herron was one of those. He was a very young man from West Virginia. He applied as an artist. I looked at his work and he couldn’t make the cut as an artist. I told him some of his copy was interesting and I asked him if he wanted to be a writer. So, he tried that, because he had just come to New York and was living at the YMCA and he was totally broke. He worked out well as a script writer for comic books.” Wherever Simon and Kirby went, Herron followed. “I didn’t think too much of the writers in the business, but I admired the artists greatly. So, I certainly thought he was a good writer,” Simon said.

I, Spyman Towards the end of his life, Herron was again back with Joe Simon—this time at Harvey Comics. One of his last scripts was “Death of Spyman!” from Spyman #3—the issue dated Feb. 1967, several months after Herron’s death. Scan is from the original art by Bill Draut; courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions. [Spyman TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.

France “Ed” Herron

Bat Out Of Hell One of several syndicated newspaper strips France Herron wrote was Bat Masterson for Columbia Features; illustrated by Howard Nostrand. The above daily is from Sept. 21, 1959, and is scanned from the original artwork, courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Simon said Herron definitely had a hand in creating The Red Skull for Captain America Comics #1, published in 1941. “Both Eddie Herron and Marty Burston (one of many pen names used by Jack Kirby) worked with me, and I don’t know who first came up with him [Red Skull], but I was looking for very graphic things to put into the script,” Simon said. “I looked through characters that would draw well. Did Eddie have a part in creating that? You can say he did.” Simon couldn’t recall what area of West Virginia Herron had come from, but he did remember that the writer was a “city guy”: “Eddie was normal. He was trim, as I remember him, an averagelooking guy. You couldn’t pick him out of a crowd.” Simon said he was proud to have been the editor to have given Herron his first comicbook writing work: “He was one of my discoveries and I’m very proud of my discoveries in the business. They weren’t perfect students, but they were very talented.” According to Simon, when Herron died in 1966, he was still working on a script for one of the Harvey titles that Simon was packaging: “I remember when Eddie died, one of the Wood brothers, Dave, came over and Eddie had been writing a script for me at Harvey, and Dave said ‘Look, I don’t want you to get in trouble. I’ll finish Eddie’s script for him.’ I thought that was beautiful.” Simon said Herron was a heavy drinker, but that wasn’t uncommon amongst the comic writers of the day. “Oh yeah, they all were,” he reported. “All the writers were drinkers. All of them that I knew, anyway. I know the three Wood brothers were pretty bad.” Simon said Herron and Dave Wood remained close friends until the end: “Eddie shared an apartment with one of the Wood brothers. It was a very high-class building on Park Avenue, like a men’s club. I guess they were into saving money.” Simon believed Herron did have family, but didn’t know what ever happened to any of his relatives. “Eddie had a child,” Simon said. “I think he did get married and had a boy.”

Herron, Simon remembered, was living in his Park Avenue apartment when he passed away. Simon said Herron didn’t just do comics. He also ventured into writing comic strips: “He was Howard Nostrand involved with a popular daily posing for a reference photo re Western strip, Hopalong Cassidy.” a Western assignment. [FCA EDITOR’S NOTE: Actually, Herron wrote DC’s Hopalong Cassidy comicbook, rather than the newspaper strip… but he did write several syndicated comic strips at one time or another: Bat Masterson, Davy Crockett Frontiersman, Nero Wolf, Ripe Tide (all for Columbia Features) and Captain Midnight (for Chicago Sun Syndicate).] Fawcett Publications’ Captain Marvel wasn’t the first super-hero, nor the most original, but he was commercially innovative—by producing spin-offs. Captain Marvel was the first of the super-heroes with an ancillary character—Captain Marvel Jr.— who headlined a series of his own. He surely wasn’t the last. Captain Marvel Jr. first appeared in Whiz Comics #25 (Dec. 1941), and later starred in his own series. More Captain Marvel spin-offs were to follow, as Mary Marvel got her own title and The Marvel Family also received its own comic. Despite his work for other publishers, Herron spent decades writing for DC. In the 1940s, he scripted the backup series “Vigilante.” In the 1950s he wrote “Batman” and “Tomahawk” stories. And, in 1965, he’s credited as co-creating “Animal Man,” although Dave Wood was the scripter believed to have written the character’s first appearance. Carmine Infantino and George Roussos provided the visuals for the first appearance of “Animal Man” in Strange Adventures #180. The Grand Comics Database [comics.org] has Wood listed as the author, but also has Herron’s name listed with a question mark beside it in parentheses. The late Marc Swayze, one of Fawcett’s top artists in the 1940s, remembered Herron as a close friend and shared a pleasant memory of his last meeting with Herron more than half a century ago. “Ed was my editor,” Swayze said in February of 2006. “I respected him and appreciated knowing him. I could keep you

FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

all day talking about Ed Herron. After I left Fawcett Publications before I left the industry, I went to Charlton Publications in Derby, Connecticut. While I was up there, in 1955, which was my last year in comics, Charlton was assembling New York artists and people already in the profession with the intention of going into the comicbook business seriously. Up to that time, they had just done reprints of old comics they had bought from publishers who had cast them aside, like Fawcett. They gathered a bunch of people from New Marc Swayze York for a reception in Derby The late artist in January, 2011. Photo at the plant, which was by Terrance Armstard. Thanks to very unusual for Charlton Lindsey Wilkerson at the University of Publications, because John Louisiana-Monroe. Santangelo didn’t go much for entertaining people. Among those people, I heard somebody say ‘Know Marc Swayze? Do I know him? I’m the fellow who brought him up from the South!’ I turned around and it was big ol’ Ed Herron.”

of Herron from memory, but he remembered him being a large man with brown hair: “His hair must have been brown, but he wasn’t a distinctive brunette, like a black-haired, dark-complected person. And, he was not a distinctive blond, either. He was a nice-looking guy, with no outstanding physical traits.” Swayze said Herron was at the top of the chain of command for him at Fawcett. “Ed hired me to come up from the South… to draw Captain Marvel,” Swayze said. “He and Al Allard made it very plain to me that I was to report to both of them — Al as the art director, and Ed as the editor. I reported to Al from the organizational standpoint, and functionally I reported to Ed Herron. They made that clear to me. Ed was an important guy to the industry.” Michael Browning has been involved in the comics fan press since the 1990s, having worked for Comics Buyer’s Guide, Comic Book Marketplace, Back Issue, Charlton Spotlight, and others, including his own fanzine, Comic Book Issues. He is a former newspaper executive editor and currently works for the United States Senate. Michael was born and raised down in the mountains of West Virginia, where he currently resides with his wife Shauna.

Swayze continued: “Ed was a big guy, physically. He was not fat, just a tall, big, healthy-looking guy. He was a good guy. I liked him and he was one of my best friends up there. I hadn’t seen him in 11 years when I turned around and saw him in Derby. This was after he was away from Fawcett for a few years and just a few years before his death. That was my last occasion of seeing Ed.” Swayze was with Fawcett for more than a decade and said he made some very good friends while there. “The more I look back on that period, there were friends back then that I never went back to see, even when I made trips to New York, except maybe once or twice in ’44,” Swayze said. “Ed Herron and Al Allard, the art director at Fawcett, were two of the best friends, professionally, that I ever had. But, I never went out socially with them. They lived a different life. I was just a country boy from the South and they were big-city guys. I knew Ed very well during that period. I feel greatly indebted to have known him.” Swayze said he had never heard any stories about Herron’s reported money problems. He said Herron was replaced at Fawcett by Rod Reed after the publisher fired Herron. “I knew nothing of any of those things,” Swayze said. “The stories I heard of him was that, when he left Fawcett, it turned up he was an editor and had been buying his own stories. The way I felt about that was that if Ed wrote a story and bought it, it was because it was the best story he could get, in house or out. He was a good writer and dedicated to comicbooks. I don’t think of him in an incriminating way at all. I just liked the guy. I think he was an honorable guy and a good writer.” Swayze said he couldn’t sit down today and create a portrait

Fawcett Would Probably Have Cast Him As The Robber! And here it is! The one and only known photograph of France “Eddie” Herron in existence—and it’s on a cover of a comicbook, no less! Herron is playing the part of the policeman, while DC editor Jack Schiff is posing as the crook, on the cover to Gangbusters #10 (June-July ’49). Herron had written several scripts for the radio-licensed title during the previous year. [TM & © DC Comics.]

ALTER EGO #156

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #75

KIRBY COLLECTOR #76

All Time Classic Con continued from #148! Panels on Golden Age (CUIDERA, HASEN, SCHWARTZ [LEW & ALVIN], BOLTINOFF, LAMPERT, GILL, FLESSEL) & Silver Age Marvel, DC, & Gold Key (SEVERIN, SINNOTT, AYERS, DRAKE, ANDERSON, FRADON, SIMONSON, GREEN, BOLLE, THOMAS), plus JOHN BROOME, FCA, MR. MONSTER, & BILL SCHELLY! Unused RON WILSON/CHRIS IVY cover!

Interview with JOYE MURCHISON, assistant to Wonder Woman co-creator DR. WILLIAM MARSTON, and WW’s female scriptwriter from 1945-1948! Rare art by H.G. PETER, 1960s DC love comics writer BARBARA FRIEDLANDER, art & anecdotes by ROMITA, COLAN, JAY SCOTT PIKE, INFANTINO, WEISINGER, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, and others! Extra: FCA, JOHN BROOME, MR. MONSTER, & more!

FCA SPECIAL! Golden Age writer WILLIAM WOOLFOLK interview, and his scripting records! Art by BECK, SCHAFFENBERGER, BORING, BOB KANE, CRANDALL, KRIGSTEIN, ANDRU, JACK COLE, FINE, PETER, HEATH, PLASTINO, MOLDOFF, GRANDENETTI, and more! Plus JOHN BROOME, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and the 2017 STAR WARS PANEL with CHAYKIN, LIPPINCOTT, and THOMAS!

KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID! The creators of the Marvel Universe’s own words, in chronological order, from fanzine, magazine, radio, and TV interviews, painting a picture of JACK KIRBY and STAN LEE’s relationship—why it succeeded, where it deteriorated, and when it eventually failed. Includes a study of their solo careers after 1970, and recollections from STEVE DITKO, WALLACE WOOD, & JOHN ROMITA SR.

FATHERS & SONS! Odin/Thor, Zeus/ Hercules, Darkseid/Orion, Captain America/ Bucky, and other dysfunctional relationships, unpublished 1994 interview with GIL KANE eulogizing Kirby, tributes from Jack’s creative “sons” in comics (MUMY, PALMIOTTI, QUESADA, VALENTINO, McFARLANE, GAIMAN, & MILLER), MARK EVANIER, 2018 Kirby Tribute Panel, Kirby pencil art gallery, and more!

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RETROFAN #1

COMIC BOOK IMPLOSION

SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE 40th ANNIVERSARY! CARY BATES’ plans for unfilmed Superman V, ELLIOT S. MAGGIN’s Superman novels, 1975 CARMINE INFANTINO interview about the movie, plus interviews: JACK O’HALLORAN (Non), AARON SMOLINSKI (baby Clark), JEFF EAST (young Clark), DIANE SHERRY CASE (teenage Lana Lang), and Superman Movie Contest winner ED FINNERAN. Chris Reeve Superman cover by GARY FRANK!

MAKE MINE MARVEL! ENGLEHART’s “lost” issues of West Coast Avengers, O’NEIL and INFANTINO’s Marvel work, a WAID/ NOCENTI Daredevil Pro2Pro interview, British Bronze Age Marvel fandom, Pizzazz Magazine, Speedball, Marvel Comics Presents, and backstage at Marvel Comicon ’75 and ’76! With DeFALCO, EDELMAN, KAVANAGH, McDONNELL, WOLFMAN, and cover by MILGROM and MACHLAN.

ALTERNATE REALITIES! Cover-featuring the 20th anniversary of ALEX ROSS and JIM KRUEGER’s Marvel Earth X! Plus: What If?, Bronze Age DC Imaginary Stories, Elseworlds, Marvel 2099, and PETER DAVID and GEORGE PÉREZ’s senses-shattering Hulk: Future Imperfect. Featuring TOM DeFALCO, CHUCK DIXON, PETER B. GILLIS, PAT MILLS, ROY THOMAS, and many more! With an Earth X cover by ALEX ROSS.

THE CRAZY, COOL CUTURE WE GREW UP WITH! LOU FERRIGNO interview, The Phantom in Hollywood, Filmation’s Star Trek cartoon, “How I Met Lon Chaney, Jr.”, goofy comic Zody the Mod Rob, Mego’s rare Elastic Hulk toy, RetroTravel to Mount Airy, NC (the real-life Mayberry), interview with BETTY LYNN (“Thelma Lou” of The Andy Griffith Show), TOM STEWART’s eclectic House of Collectibles, and Mr. Microphone!

AN ORAL HISTORY OF DC COMICS CIRCA 1978! Marking the 40th anniversary of the “DC Implosion”, one of the most notorious events in comics (which left stacks of completed comic book stories unpublished and spawned Cancelled Comics Cavalcade). Featuring JENETTE KAHN, PAUL LEVITZ, LEN WEIN, MIKE GOLD, and others, plus detailed analysis of how it changed the landscape of comics!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Ships Nov. 2018

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Ships Jan. 2019

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Ships March 2019

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(136-page paperback w/ COLOR) $21.95 (Digital Edition) $10.95 • Now shipping!

TwoMorrows. The Future of Comics History.

BRICKJOURNAL #54

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #18

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #19

DRAW #36

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY: A covert Dossier on Taiwan’s HSINWEI CHI and his revolutionary LEGO animals and giant robots! We also declassify other top LEGO builders’ creations, including MICHAEL BROWN’s colossal Technic-scale F-18 Hornet! Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, & more!

Career-spanning discussion with STEVE “THE DUDE” RUDE, as he shares his reallife psychological struggles, the challenges of freelance subsistence, and his creative aspirations. Also: The jungle art of NEAL ADAMS, MARY FLEENER on her forthcoming graphic novel Billie the Bee and her comix career, RICH BUCKLER interview Part Three, Golden Age artist FRANK BORTH, HEMBECK and more!

Celebrating the greatest fantasy artist of all time, FRANK FRAZETTA! From THUN’DA and EC COMICS to CREEPY, EERIE, and VAMPIRELLA, STEVE RINGGENBERG and CBC’s editor present an historical retrospective, including insights by current creators and associates, and memories of the man himself. PLUS: Frazetta-inspired artists JOE JUSKO, and TOM GRINDBERG, who contributes our Death Dealer cover painting!

MIKE HAWTHORNE (Deadpool, Infinity Countdown) interview, YANICK PAQUETTE (Wonder Woman: Earth One, Batman Inc., Swamp Thing) how-to demo, JERRY ORDWAY’s “Ord-Way” of creating comics, JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews the latest art supplies, plus Comic Art Bootcamp by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY! May contain nudity for figure-drawing instruction; for Mature Readers Only.

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Ships Nov. 2018

(100-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Now shipping!

(100-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $5.95 • Ships Winter 2019

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Ships Spring 2019

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orrows Inc.

Inspired By The SUPER COOL Culture We Grew Up With!

#4: Interviews with the Shazam! TV show’s JOHN (Captain Marvel) DAVEY and MICHAEL (Billy Batson) GRAY, the Green Hornet in Hollywood, remembering monster maker RAY HARRYHAUSEN, the way-out Santa Monica Pacific Ocean Amusement Park, a Star Trek Set Tour, SAM J. JONES on the Spirit movie pilot, British scifi TV classic Thunderbirds, Casper & Richie Rich museum, the King Tut fad, and more! SHIPS MARCH 2019!

NEW!

RETROFAN #3 celebrates the 40th ANNIVERSARY of SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE with an exclusive interview with Superman director RICHARD DONNER! Editor MICHAEL EURY voyages to the bottom of IRWIN ALLEN’s sci-fi universe and Retro Travels to Metropolis, IL, home of the Superman Celebration! ANDY MANGELS dives in to Saturday morning’s undersea adventures of AQUAMAN! ERNEST FARINO flips through monster fanzines of the Sixties and Seventies! The Oddball World of SCOTT SHAW! unravels Marvel’s wackiest product ever: Spider-Man and Hulk toilet paper! SCOTT SAAVEDRA adopts a family of SEA-MONKEYS®! Plus FUNNY FACE beverages and collectibles, a fortress of SUPERMAN AND BATMAN MEMORABILIA, and more fun, fab features! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 • (Digital Edition) $4.95 • SHIPS DECEMBER 2018!

SUBSCRIBE NOW! Four issues: $38 Economy, $63 International, $16 Digital Only

TwoMorrows. The Future of Pop History.

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA

#2 NOW SHIPPING! TV horror-hosts ZACHERLEY, VAMPIRA, SEYMOUR, MARVIN, and cover-featured ELVIRA interview! Groovie Goolies! Creepy, kooky sitcoms Bewitched, The Addams Family, and The Munsters! The long-buried Dinosaur Land amusement park! History of Ben Cooper Halloween costumes! Super collection of character lunchboxes! Plus superhero ViewMasters; Sindy, the British Barbie; Mood Rings; and more fun, fab features! Phone: 919-449-0344 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com Web: www.twomorrows.com

PRINTED IN CHINA PRINTED IN CHINA

Edited by Back Issue’s MICHAEL EURY!