Alter Ego #162

“A PROPHECY IN FOUR COLORS?” THE SCINTILLATING UNSEEN CREATIONS OF GOLDEN AGE ARTISTS

$9.95

HAL SHERMAN, LEE HARRIS, & FRANK FOSTER!

In the USA

No. 162 January 2020

THE AY ON NDING RR U M OU WILL LSE-P OME OF S LE PU B F I POSS ESSORS O C E PRED

ATEST E R G ’ S COMICER-HEROES SUP

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82658 00375

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Figure at left © Estate of Frank Foster; central figure © Estate of Hal Sherman; figure at right © Estate of Harris Levey.

Roy Thomas' Prototype Comics Fanzine

RETROFAN #7

Featuring a JACLYN SMITH interview, as we reopen the Charlie’s Angels Casebook, and visit the Guinness World Records’ largest Charlie’s Angels collection. Plus: an exclusive interview with funnyman LARRY STORCH, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Captain Action, a vintage interview with Jonny Quest creator DOUG WILDEY, a visit to the Land of Oz, the ultra-rare Marvel World superhero playset, & more!

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

Vol. 3, No. 162 / January 2020 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

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Shane Foley

Cover Colorist

Glenn Whitmore

With Special Thanks to: Paul Allen Heidi Amash David Armstrong Richard Arndt Bob Bailey John Benson Brett Canavan John Cimino Pierre Comtois Chet Cox Cash-Book Journal (newspaper) Comic Book Plus (website) The Sven Elven family Frank Foster, Jr. & the Foster family Michael D. Fraley Wayne Gassmann Jim Gaylord Janet Gilbert Don Glut Grand Comics Database (website) Shane Foley Dan Hagen George Hagenauer Tom Hamilton Heritage Auctions (website)

Tom Horvitz Carla Jordan Joyce Kaffel Jim Kealy Paul King Jonathan Levey Art Lortie Doug Martin Peter Meskin Philip Meskin Brian K. Morris Will Murray Peter Normanton The Paul Norris family Barry Pearl John Pierce Sandy Plunkett Larry Rippee Charlie Roberts Al Rodriguez Bob Rozakis Randy Sargent Janet Myers Schuette David Siegel Southeast Missourian (newspaper) Dan Tandarich Dann Thomas Nicky WheelerNicholson Kent Wilson

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Hal Sherman, Frank Foster, & Sven Elven

Contents

Writer/Editorial: A Prophecy In Four Colors? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Super-Hero Skullduggery -1941? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Will Murray unlocks the mystery of the lost Batman, Wonder Woman, & Tarantula!

The Golden Bat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Dan Hagen tells us all about Japan’s “Dark Samurai” of 1931.

“Welcome Home, Roy Thomas!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 A photo-strewn remembrance of a comics celebration in Jackson, Missouri—Feb. 2019.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! The Other Stan Lee, Part 2 . . . 51 Michael T. Gilbert continues to compare and contrast Smilin’ Stan & Charles Biro.

re: [correspondence, comments, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . 58 FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #221 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

P.C. Hamerlinck and Michael D. Fraley showcase early DC & Fawcett artist Sven Elven.

On Our Cover: It was a real dilemma—what to feature on the cover of an issue that dealt with neverpublished possible prototypes of “Batman,” “Wonder Woman,” Tarantula, and other classic superheroes. Spotlighting the DC characters themselves didn’t seem right, so Roy T. suggested to Aussie artist Shane Foley that he utilize the predecessors, using as a template the several-hero cover of 1950’s AllStar Comics #50, by the team of Arthur Peddy & Bernard Sachs. Shane improved on that notion by basing the figures of the non-DC, unpublished 'Batman' and 'Wonder Woman' on the work of Bob Kane (from the cover of Detective Comics #27, 1939) and H.G. Peter (from the cover of Sensation Comics #1, 1942). The result, we think, is nothing short of terrific! [Art © Shane Foley.]

Above: Maybe Hal Sherman never got to draw a “Wonder Woman” of his own concoction, but he was the first artist of the feature “The Star-Spangled Kid” in DC’s Star Spangled Comics! Seen here are transformational panels from the two-for-one origin of the Star-Spangled Kid & Stripsey team. SSC #18 (March 1943); possibly scripted by Jerry Siegel, co-creator of Superman. [TM & © DC Comics.]

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: $67 US, $101 Elsewhere, $27 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.

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writer/editorial

A Prophecy In Four Colors?

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ollowing two issues in a row celebrating a pair of recently departed giants of the comics field (Steve Ditko and Stan Lee), this edition of Alter Ego is—well, not “a return to normalcy,” that odd phrase coined a century ago by President Warren G. Harding, but a one-issue swerve in a somewhat different direction.

Chances are, you didn’t recognize any of the three costumed heroes on Shane Foley’s color-splashed cover, unless maybe you recalled Golden Age “Air Wave” artist Lee Harris’ sample page for DC’s “Tarantula,” first published in A/E #125 (but not in color).

Instead, if Shane’s and my intent is realized, the only things that might’ve given you a slight feeling of déjà vu would’ve been that the pointy-eared, rope-swinging hero’s pose echoes that of Bob Kane’s Batman on the cover of 1939’s Detective Comics #27—and/or that the hard-charging super-heroine’s stance is an homage to H.G. Peter’s Wonder Woman on the late-1941 cover of Sensation Comics #1.

Will Murray, a pre-eminent comics historian, will explain the connection between our cover non-stars and the four-color luminaries whom they not only resemble—but even pre-date.

Now, please understand: Will as writer (and I as editor) are not saying that unknown artist Frank Foster’s cape-less Batman of 1932 is (or is not) a direct precursor of DC’s dynamic Dark Knight. Or that Hal Sherman, the original artist of the early-’40s “Star-Spangled Kid,” can be definitively proven to have given anyone at DC or sister company All-American the precise notion to launch a character called Wonder Woman. Or that early editors Whitney Ellsworth and Mort Weisinger were necessarily playing fast-andloose with concepts submitted by aspiring young freelance artists.

All three of the above notions are possibilities that Will explores, skillfully and succinctly, in the pages that follow. But they are and remain, of course, only possibilities.

Still, once I ran across Will’s original articles on the subject in a now-defunct magazine, they became possibilities that I felt should see the light of day in Alter Ego. Let us know what you think of this odd game of “what if,” okay? (And that includes your comments on Dan Hagen’s study of the “Golden Bat” hero from early-’30s Japan.) After all, this is a magazine concerned with the history of comicbooks—and every once in while, in pop culture history as in the annals of the broader world, previously unknown facts come to light that, from that day forward, refuse to let us ever again look at things in quite the same way we did before.

I myself had that same hair-standing-up-on-the-back-ofmy-neck feeling when I first read Philip Wylie’s 1930 novel Gladiator and recognized in it a brilliant road map for much (though not for all, mind) of Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s world-changing “Superman.”

We’re all archaeologists, just working with PCs and old, yellowing pages rather than with pick and shovel.

Bestest,

11TH HOUR P.S.: Just room to say that, alas, Alter Ego, since it’s printed in China, has become a minor casualty of the U.S./China tariff disputes. At the last minute, we had no choice but to delay Bill Schelly’s “Comic Fandom Archive” and the latest installment of John Broome’s memoir till next time, as the interior page count of issues drops for the foreseeable future from 96 to 80 to keep our prices the same. Hope you’ll help us “keep ’em flying”!

NOTE FROM ROY T.: Just as this issue was going to press, we were startled to learn the sad news that our good friend Bill Schelly had died on September 12 of multiple myeloma. Bill, who was only 67, had mostly kept the news of his serious illness to himself; I myself had learned of it (from his friend Jeff Gelb) only days before his passing.

Bill’s contributions to Alter Ego (in his regular “Comic Fandom Archive” section) and to comics history (via his books on fandom and in his excellent biographies, such as the Eisner-winning one on Harvey Kurtzman), make his death a very real tragedy to comics fans everywhere, but even more so for those of us who knew and loved him. A longer, more fitting tribute will appear in an early issue of this magazine. We can only wish it weren’t necessary.

Bill Schelly

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Super-Hero Skullduggery – 1941?

Or, The Mystery Of the Lost BATMAN & WONDER WOMAN!

by Will Murray

Seeing Double? Or Not! Bob Kane’s Batman & H.G. Peter’s Wonder Woman—juxtaposed with Frank Foster’s “Batman” & Hal Sherman’s “Wonder Woman.” Read the article for the rest of the story! [Batman & Wonder Woman TM & © DC Comics; Foster art © Estate of Frank Foster; Sherman art © Estate of Hal Sherman.]

The Kane Caped Crusader is from a circa-1980 painting by that artist, belonging to David Siegel and photographed years ago by Dr. Jerry G. Bails… while Peter’s Amazon princess is from a Junior Justice Society of America ad that ran in 1947 issues of All-Star Comics, although that illo had appeared several years earlier in ads for the Wonder Woman newspaper comic strip. All Frank Foster art accompanying this article is courtesy of the Foster family, via Will Murray; while all the Hal Sherman “WW” art accompanying it was provided by the late artist to Will for Comic Book Marketplace magazine #78 (May 2000) and appeared therein.

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The Mystery Of The Lost Batman & Wonder Woman

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Preface: One Awesome Overview— Sprinkled With Star-Spangled Kid & Aquaman s a comics historian, I enjoy unearthing lost lore and making new discoveries. Not all of them are pleasant. Some are puzzling, and a few were downright weird.

Periodically, I stumble upon dark, cobwebbed corners of the Golden Age of Comics that no light has touched in generations.

Especially in regards to DC Comics and its affiliate, All-American Comics. Among the most remarkable were a series of seemingly unrelated interviews I did for the late lamented magazine Comic Book Marketplace, which uncovered something bizarre.

It all started back in 1998, when I read a Boston Globe article about Frank Foster, an obscure artist whose surviving son claimed that his father had created an unpublished super-hero called “Batman” years before the Bob Kane and Bill Finger version had appeared in 1939’s Detective Comics #27.

Interested, I interviewed Frank Foster, Jr., heard his story concerning his father, and examined the yellowing pieces of art that survived of an Art Deco version of a hero called Batman—as recorded in the following section of this article, which is a slightly edited version of my piece that appeared in Comic Book Marketplace #66 (Jan. 1999). Though intriguing, the story ultimately proved to be something of a dead end, since nothing concrete connected Foster with DC Comics.

editorial director Whitney Ellsworth—only to find himself handed art chores on Jerry Siegel’s brand new “Star-Spangled Kid” feature instead of being offered work drawing the super-heroine concept he had submitted. The Kid was first seen by readers in a house ad in Action Comics #40 (Sept. 1941); the origin of Wonder Woman came along a month or so later, in All-Star Comics #8. This, too, I wrote up for Comic Book Marketplace (#78, May 2000)—an interview reworked somewhat and added to for this issue of Alter Ego. Still, there was little or no direct evidence of anything sinister going on in this case, either, and I did not suspect a pattern.

Then, a few years later, David arranged for me to interview artist Paul Norris on the creation of “Aquaman,” whereupon the character’s original artist told me something he had not previously revealed––an anecdote even David did not know.

“Well,” Norris related, “a couple of weeks before he called me in on ‘Aquaman,’ Whit [Ellsworth] asked a number of artists to come up with some ideas for new features. And I submitted one. They used the title, but they didn’t use the feature at all.”

Whitney Ellsworth had been a National/DC editor early on, had left, and returned to take the top editorial spot when Vin Sullivan moved on to co-found Columbia Comics.

“What was the title?” I asked innocently.

So imagine my surprise when comics maven David Siegel read my original article in CBM and informed me that he knew of a potentially similar instance!

“‘The Vigilante.’ But I had the idea of having him in tights. He wasn’t a cowboy like they did later. He was a super-character, in long underwear.”

David quickly put me in touch with Golden Age artist Hal Sherman, the original 1940s illustrator of the DC feature “The Star-Spangled Kid,” and I soon heard his tale of creating a character he called “Wonder Woman” in 1941 and offering it to DC Comics

I was staggered. Here was another artist telling the same story!

Instead of accepting his Vigilante, Ellsworth handed Norris a humorous sketch of a character called Aquaman who lived underwater––while smoking a cigar!––and asked Norris to rework it into a super-hero. A completely different version of another character calling himself The Vigilante swiftly appeared in Action Comics #42, scripted by new DC editor Mort Weisinger and drawn

by Mort Meskin.

Both features—“Aquaman” and “The Vigilante”—debuted the same month!

Here, perhaps, was the smoking gun, or something very much like it. Testimony that Ellsworth was soliciting fresh characters, but not acting on them in concert with the original artist. The coincidence of so many such switcheroos seemed compelling.

So when Alter Ego ran the story of “Air Wave” creator Lee Harris (Harris Levey) in issue #125, accompanied by a neverbefore-published illustration of a completely different version of “Tarantula” than the one that had debuted in Star Spangled Comics #1 (Oct. 1941), I thought to myself, “That sure looks like another possible example of a bait-and-switch editorial ploy.”

Coming Up To Bat! DC “Batman” co-creator/artist Bob Kane (on left) & fan David Siegel on right, with a copy of a 1980s French “Futuropolis” reprinting of the Batman comic strip. Dave, whose main claim to fame, perhaps, is helping to get many Golden Age artists to attend the San Diego Comic-Con between 1987 and 2005 (see A/E #142), was also instrumental in bringing the Hal Sherman “Wonder Woman” story to Will Murray’s attention—and, a bit later, a similar occurrence related to “Aquaman” co-creating artist Paul Norris. Read on! Thanks to Charlie Roberts for the photo, via Tom Horvitz.

It’s especially damning inasmuch as Mort Weisinger is credited with creating “Tarantula” and “Air Wave,” as well as with scripting the first “Aquaman” and “Vigilante” stories! (It must be said: some sources claim it was DC editor Murray Boltinoff who scripted the first “Air Wave” tale.)

The four above-mentioned features debuted only months apart, with “Air Wave” showing up last, in the Feb. 1942 Detective Comics. Harris’ Tarantula page was dated April 24, 1941. Hal

Super-Hero Skullduggery—1941?

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Mort Meskin Courtesy of sons Peter and Philip.

Paul Norris circa 1942-43. Thanks to the Norris family, via Richard Arndt.

Sherman recalls coming to New York City early that same year, and having Lee Harris assigned to ink him on “Star-Spangled Kid.” Harris started early in May of that year, so the Tarantula concept may have been his entry into DC employment.

Be Ever-Vigilante!

(Left grouping:) Artist Paul Norris informed Will Murray that he came up with a costumed hero he called “Vigilante”—but was then given a different debuting feature, “Aquaman,” to draw. Seen here is the first “Aquaman” splash page, from More Fun Comics #73 (Nov. 1941). Thanks to Jim Kealy.

(Right grouping:) When a “Vigilante” series did appear, he was a modern-day Western hero, illustrated by Mort Meskin. This illo, which became the cover of the Meskin-centered Alter Ego #24, seems quite likely to have been Meskin’s own concept drawing for the character. “Vigilante” had its premiere in Action Comics #42, which had the same cover-date as More Fun #73.

character in 1941 didn’t necessarily lead to being assigned to draw the feature.

This revelation also Surprisingly, a makes one wonder about surviving letter of reference the true origins of other [Art TM & © DC Comics.] from Murray Boltinoff DC characters Weisinger unequivocally credits Levey allegedly “created,” such as as the originator of both Green Arrow, Johnny Quick, and TNT, all of whom also debuted characters! Dated August 18, 1975, it states flatly: “Shortly after during the company’s late-1941 super-hero wave. joining us, Levey created two new features for this company: All the participants involved in these proceedings have by ‘Tarantula’ and ‘Air-Wave.’” now passed on and cannot speak for themselves. Anyone who This, despite the fact that Hal Sharp (original artist of “Mr. ever worked in comics knows the problems inherent in managing Terrific”) drew the “Tarantula” feature from its inception, working talent and submissions. I will point out, however, that in a frantic from a Weisinger script. In later years, Weisinger developed business like comicbooks, it was understood early on that the a reputation for appropriating the ideas of others, reportedly creator of a popular character possessed significant rights. But rejecting writer’s plots only to hand them off to other scripters in a if the character was created in-house, all rights would naturally vicious circle wherein he claimed credit. That he is at the center of reside with the publishing company. The complicated legal some of these reports is interesting, but not by itself damning. Whit situations surrounding “Superman” and “Batman” bear that out.

Ellsworth was Weisinger’s superior and would have had to approve Editors might well have been instructed to develop new all new characters. properties in such a way that no creator could later claim Boltinoff’s letter, however, reprinted on page 7 of this issue, ownership. clearly documents the fact that being the creator of a new DC

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The Mystery Of The Lost Batman & Wonder Woman

“…Hide The Deadly Black Tarantula…”

Actually, there were apparently two of that species that could’ve been hiding in Harry Belafonte’s “beautiful bunch of ripe banana.”

(Above left:) Lee Harris wrote and drew at least this splash page of a never-published “Tarantula” story, complete with brief origin “recap” and bottom-dated “April 24, 1941,” possibly at the request of DC editor Ellsworth. But, it was never used, and all that remains today is this black&-white Photostat of the page. Thanks to his son, Jonathan Levey.

(Above right:) Then, in summer of that year, there debuted Star Spangled Comics #1, cover-dated October, with a very similarly garbed if only halfmasked “Tarantula” hero drawn by Hal Sharp, with script credited to Mort Weisinger. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert for the scan. But see our very next art grouping for a surprising and tantalizing denouement to this tale of two spider-men! [Published “Tarantula” page TM & © DC Comics; Lee Harris art © Estate of Lee Harris.]

The Golden Age comics industry was a hungry market. Viable properties were needed to fill the pages of those 64- and 72-page periodicals. Many titles were anthologies, requiring multiple features. The editors and publishers could not concoct them all. If a feature like Frank Foster’s “Batman” came in over the transom, there might be a temptation to sit on a proposed property and offer the artist something else to keep him busy while the new concept was under consideration. And, of course, if the artist was kept busy with a feature, he was less likely to complain if his character appeared, albeit in different guise, under an identical name in an affiliated title. The connections between early DC Comics (managed by Whit Ellsworth) and its sister company All-American Comics (managed by M.C. Gaines) are well-established, and the accounts you are about to read make it sound as if those connections were closer than previously suspected.

Lee Harris (still using his birthname Harris Levey) at age 18 in 1940, while a student at DeWitt Clinton High School in NYC. Not many months later, he was drawing his sample “Tarantula” splash on the facing page—and the first “Air Wave” story. Thanks to Jonathan Levey.

Of course, coincidence cannot be ruled out in some of these instances. Frank Foster’s “Batman” greatly predates these other accounts. And there are numerous examples of rival publishing companies coming up with characters with similar names. E.g., The Owl and The Black Owl—while Nedor’s “The Mask” was intended to be called “The Owl” until it was discovered that the name was taken. “Captain Marvel” was originally called “Captain Thunder,” until Fawcett discovered a pre-existing “Captain Terry Thunder” (in Fiction House’s Jungle Comics). There were several four-color rivals calling themselves Hercules. And I have always suspected that MLJ’s Bob Phantom was originally called The Phantom, until

Super-Hero Skullduggery—1941?

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Over The “Air Waves”—Via The U.S. Mails!

(Left:) The technology-savvy super-hero “Air Wave” was introduced in Detective Comics #60 (Feb. 1942), with art by Lee Harris—and reportedly a script by, you guessed it, Mort Weisinger. Thanks to Doug Martin for the scan. [TM & © DC Comics.]

(Right:) Amazingly, this 1975 letter of recommendation from longtime DC editor Murray Boltinoff to Empire State College in Sarasota Springs, NY, actually credits Harris with creating not only “Air Wave” but also “Tarantula” for DC. Boltinoff, who had come to work under Ellsworth circa 1940, probably knew whereof he spoke—though perhaps DC (or at least Ellsworth) might have preferred he didn’t speak at all.

Owl Be Right There!

The two early “Owl” heroes in comics were both inspired, of course, by the swift success of DC’s “Batman” in 1939. It’s not 100% certain whether or not Jack Kirby and/or Joe Simon had a hand in the “Black Owl” cover of the Prize group’s Prize Comics #7 (Dec. 1940), but Frank Thomas—who was covered in depth back in A/E #151—definitely drew the “Owl” cover for Dell/Western. [Art TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

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The Mystery Of The Lost Batman & Wonder Woman

Mort Weisinger quit his editorial job at Standard/Thrilling pulp magazines to become an editor at DC in March of 1941—putting him there just in time to become credited with writing the first stories of “Vigilante,” “Tarantula,” “Air Wave,” “TNT and Dan the Dyna-Mite,” “Aquaman”—and two other future DC cover stars, “Green Arrow” and “Johnny Quick.” “GA” debuted, along with the Sea King, in More Fun Comics #73 (Nov. 1941). “JQ” had premiered two issues earlier. George Papp drew “GA,” while the “JQ” art is credited to Ed Moore (pencils) and Chad Grothkopf (inker). Reproduced from Millennium Edition: More Fun Comics 73 (Jan. 2001). Thanks to Weisinger’s daughter, Joyce Kaffel, for the 1940s photo of Mort. [TM & © DC Comics.]

While, as Will Murray states, Weisinger was known in later years, when he was editor of all the “Superman” titles, to play a somewhat similar game of baitand-switch with his writers, that doesn’t mean he was necessarily responsible for whatever may have occurred in the cases of “Vigilante,” “Tarantula,” and perhaps even other features listed in this caption. After all, the decision as to who wrote and who drew a particular story or series was the province of DC’s main editor, Whitney Ellsworth.

lawyers insisted the nondescript newcomer acquire an additional personal name to avoid angering Lee Falk and King Features.

On the pages that follow, I will introduce you to Frank Foster and his account of creating an earlier and completely variant version of “Batman.”

That will be followed by an updated reprinting of my CBM article on Hal Sherman and his entirely different “Wonder Woman.”

Please keep an open mind. In the creative chaos of the Golden Age of Comics, there were numerous borrowings, interstudio influences, cross-pollination, and of course outright theft.

But note also that all of the characters cited except Batman were created and published during the late-summer/autumn of a single

year: 1941. This coincided with the expansion that saw the release

by DC/AA alone of Star Spangled Comics, Sensation Comics, Green Lantern, and Leading Comics, and the introductions of numerous new characters, among them Wildcat, Mr. Terrific, Robotman, The Shining Knight, and Dr. Mid-Nite.

And, as Paul Norris observed regarding his unseen Vigilante: “All Whit did was use the title, which anybody had the right to do.

That’s all.”

On the other hand, we don’t know what we don’t know. So buckle up for a wild ride through the creative undercurrents of the Golden Age of Comics. But remember, things are not always what they seem to be....

Super-Hero Skullduggery—1941?

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concept drawings to what his family has always believed is the one, true, original Batman. The ancient piece of Strathmore board is yellowed, its edges chipped by time. Across the front are three India ink shots of a character caparisoned in a strikingly stylized super-hero costume: in action, decking a lightly penciled figure with a roundhouse right cross; standing in a nonchalant pose with one arm resting on a casually lifted leg; and climbing in through a window in classic super-hero style.

Frank Foster as a young man in the early 1940s, and (at left) one of his 1932 drawings of his hero “Batman.” [Art © Estate of Frank Foster.]

And below that, a three-quarters-view head shot of the unmasked mystery-man with a strangely batlike left ear and a sharp jawline that smacks of both the Golden Age Batman and Dick Tracy!

Foster flips the board to the other side to reveal a pencil sketch of an exotic-featured woman. The words “1932 Village” are visible and below that, two startling names in bold script: Batman Night-wing

Asked about the significance of these names, Foster digs out a deposition his father gave in 1975 and indicates the explanation Frank Foster, Senior, offered at that time:

Part I Frank Foster & The “Batman” Of 1932— Or, All This & Night-Wing, Too! One of the most famous “Batman” stories, “The First Batman” (Detective Comics #235, Sept. 1956), related the tale of Bruce Wayne’s astonishing discovery that his father had once worn a bat-costume similar to his own to a masquerade ball. It was an electrifying moment in the life of the Caped Crusader—the revelation that he was not the first Batman.

Frank Foster, Jr., knows how Bruce Wayne must have felt.

His own father, he believes, created the original Batman—ten years before Bob Kane’s version debuted in Detective Comics #27. Interviewed in the cool comfort of his Cape Cod basement home office, surrounded by his father’s nautical watercolors, Foster, a retired commercial photographer, recalls first hearing about the prototypal Batman when he was four years old in 1940.

“Oh, I guess that was a night wing, or something like that....

That’s just some sort of alternate thought I had at the moment, and then I checked off Batman because I thought that was a better name.”

Foster, Jr., seemed oblivious to the electrifying significance of the second name.

Nightwing was the name a grown-up Robin would take in 1984 for his adult crime-fighting alter ego during his stint with The New Teen

“I remember my parents telling me about it before I ever saw the Batman comic. My father said he drew the Batman and showed me the drawings. He said he showed it to people in New York, and they stole his ideas and he never got a penny.”

It’s an amazing, even stunning claim, that contradicts the admittedly murky lore surrounding the origin of the Caped Crusader, who debuted in early 1939.

“A father does not tell his four-year-old child that he’s been cheated!” Foster says firmly. “It was a curious thing for me when I was a kid. Not of any great significance, particularly. When I was of comicbook age, I’d say, ‘My father invented Batman.’ The kids would say, ‘Oh, sure.’ The drawings were always around.”

From a long architectural file drawer, he pulls out the original

Going Bats!

(Above right:) Sheldon Moldoff’s cover for Detective Comics #235 (Sept.

1956), the story in which Bruce Wayne learns that his father had once worn a “Batman” costume—to a masquerade party! Thanks to the Grand Comics Database. [TM & © DC Comics.].

(Above left:) The names “Batman” and “Night-wing” are written in Foster’s handwriting, and dated “1932 Village,” on the back of the sheet.

“Nightwing,” of course, is the name Dick (Robin) Grayson took when he became an adult crime-fighter. [© Estate of Frank Foster.]

The Mystery Of The Lost Batman & Wonder Woman

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“I didn’t push him,” the son recalls. “We made him come up to deal with my company attorney at Shapiro & Israel. I said, ‘Everyone’s fascinated when you tell them the story—at first.’ But when they say, ‘Well, what are we going to do with this?’ They agreed to give it a little bit of a run. And so my father came up—at my insistence. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to do it. My parents gave up on this many, many years ago. They were too busy trying to put food on the table. But then they had the Batman television series, and all that stuff.”

The elder Foster’s saga begins in the late 1920s when he was an aspiring young musician attending the Designer’s Art School in Boston.

“And at that school I became very friendly with Al Capp,” Foster, Sr., told his lawyers in 1975. “We went to school together and were quite close. I was studying fine arts—I was only interested in fine arts, and Al has always been interested in comics, and he asked me at one point during our school days if I would be the artist for a strip if he sold it. And I had no interest in it. But he talked me into a partial interest.”

Foster recalled coming to New York circa 1931 after going to art school with Capp. Capp dropped out of art school and went to New York, where he started Mr. Gilfeather, a daily panel for Associated Press, in 1932. Before long, he was assisting Ham Fischer on Joe Palooka, then jumped ship to create Li’l Abner in 1934.

It was during this period that Foster remembered conceiving his Batman—and another super-heroic character.

“Batman’s Girlfriend” Frank Jr. doesn’t claim that his father ever called this lovely lass “Batgirl” or “Batwoman,” merely that she was “Batman’s girlfriend.”]

Titans. Twenty years before that, it had been Jimmy Olsen’s secret identity in the bottled city of Kandor.

According to Martin Cruz Smith’s 1977 novel Nightwing, it’s a translation of the Navajo word for “bat.”

At first glance, it might seem the notation “1932 Village” refers to this drawing, as if she were some unusual woman Foster sketched from life in Greenwich Village in New York City. Frank Foster’s deposition is silent on her significance. But Frank, Jr., recalls this: “My father told me that was Batman’s girlfriend.” Pressed for more details, he admits not being sure his father meant girlfriend in the literal sense. “I know it was related to Batman,” he says. “She was an exotic character in his life.”

The art is unmistakably faithful to the period, and the Strathmore board and ink have been authenticated as pre-World War II. The Batman drawings are rendered on the “tooth” side of the board, indicating the art dates back to at least 1932, if not before.

Could this be true? Could an obscure aspiring cartoonist have created a comics-style Batman before Bob Kane and Bill Finger conceived the Caped Crusader in 1939, and prefigured even the name of Nightwing?

The story of Frank Dinsmore Foster, Sr.—who died in 1995— and his Batman is a fascinating and intriguing one. It might have been lost forever except for his son’s determination. In 1975, inspired by a newspaper story about longtime “Batman” artist Lew Sayre Schwartz, he persuaded a reluctant Frank, Sr., to see a Boston law firm in an effort to explore possible legal remedies.

“He got me interested enough to make some ideas up. And it seems to me that in those days, and even now, that most of the strips were heroes of the day—such as flying through the sky during the day and doing good deeds and so forth and so on—and I thought, well, why couldn’t that be done at night? Have a good guy do stuff at night. So, I started working, just briefly, very briefly, not too seriously, with Al Capp, and cooking up a couple of ideas.

I had many others, but I kept these for nostalgia, and I thought they were the two that probably would be the most applicable to selling at that time. This was in the ’20s. So I cooked up these ideas, and then just discussed them and then sort of put them away for long, because I was studying fine art—you know, I was studying painting and drawing and so forth and so on, so I really had no definite interest in [the comics projects]. And so Al and I went our separate ways. One of the things was Batman, and the other was Raven.”

Out from the architectural drawings file cabinet, Frank, Jr., removes another piece of aging Strathmore. This one is an incomplete comics page entitled “The Raven.” It depicts a masked man in a business suit, called The Raven, who commands a group of crime-fighting subordinates consisting of two couples, Pete and Nancy, and Brent and Naja. The style, automobile, and even the free-floating lettering suggests the late 1920s or early ’30s. It is undated.

Al Capp The creator of the great comic strip Li’l Abner was a bit younger than this when Frank Foster knew him in the early ’30s.

Super-Hero Skullduggery—1941?

11

magazine publishers of the time. From his deposition:

“I’m positive that I drew it in the ’20s,” Foster, Sr., says in his deposition. When questioned on the Batman board date, he begins to say, “The reason for the 1932 on there is because—” Unfortunately, the lawyers interrupted him at that point, and that explanation went unrecorded. However, a separate statement by Foster’s wife Ruth stipulates: “I met Frank in 1927 while he was studying art at Designer’s Art School in Boston. We were married on July 15, 1932, the year after finishing his studies. It was most likely that the original drawings of ‘BATMAN’ were executed during the latter part of his attendance at Art School (1930-31), as I know they were done before our marriage.”

According to Frank Foster’s own recollection, he traveled from Boston to the Greenwich Village section of New York City in 1931 or ’32, and showed his ideas around with no result. Ruth Foster adds: “All of his drawings were put aside from 1932 to September 1937, during which time all of his efforts were made in trying to support me and our son (Frank D. Foster III), who was born on December 25, 1935. His business failed, and in September 1937 we moved to New York City, where he had some periodical work in his brother’s painting and decorating business. The following three years from September 1937 to October 1940 were financially grim years. (The Depression at its worst—particularly for an unknown freelance artist). From October 1938 to October 1940 we lived in Christopher Street in Greenwich Village.”

It was during this period that Frank Foster, Sr., tried to sell his services—and “Batman” and “The Raven”—in earnest. Through a friend named Julian Marson, who worked as art director for the Abraham-Straus Department Store in Brooklyn, Foster was given a referral to the Frank A. Munsey Company, one of the largest pulp

“He said, why don’t you take all your artwork up—including these drawings and everything else—go see them, and see so-and-so. I couldn’t possibly remember who I saw. Well, I submitted the drawings, among others, particularly these two, which “The Raven” were the Batman one Four panels of another of Frank Foster’s and the one of the late-’20s/early-1930s concepts. [Art © Raven. The people at Estate of Frank Foster.]

Munsey said to leave the drawings. As I said, there were several of them, but I threw the others away years ago. They said, in the meantime would you care to work here for a week or so while we have time to get together and discuss the thing and see if there’s a possibility of the future of a story? So I worked there on a drawing board on comic book covers. Now you’re going to ask me what covers I worked on. This is going to be very difficult. It would be—I don’t know—typical comic book covers. They were other people’s drawings, and I was transferring the drawings so that they could be reproduced in color.”

Munsey, which published Argosy, Detective Fiction Weekly, and Double Detective, among other pulps, did not publish comicbooks that anyone knows about.

Their pulps used painted covers exclusively, but the work Foster recalls certainly suggests comicbook covers.

The comicbook covers Foster remembers working on may have in

The Green Lama may form a crucial connection between Frank Foster (who reportedly took his early Batman to the pulp publisher Munsey) and possible Foster work on comicbook covers for the Prize group. Will Murray explains it all in the article. The cover seen here, by an unidentified artist, is for Prize Comics #8 (Jan. 1941). [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

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The Mystery Of The Lost Batman & Wonder Woman

Whither Thou Goest…

The three-page letter which Frank Foster’s wife Ruth wrote in 1975 concerning her own recollections of the 1932 Batman and attempts to sell the concept— and the unmasked Batman head from the single sheet on which Foster drew all his surviving Batman sketches. [© Estate of Ruth Foster.]

Super-Hero Skullduggery—1941?

fact been early issues of Prize Comics. Foster’s Batman resembles that comic’s early star, The Black Owl. Their cowls echo one another. Prize Comics also featured The Green Lama, who had first debuted in Munsey’s Double Detective pulp early in 1940. What was a Munsey pulp hero doing in Prize Comics only months after his creation? Was Munsey connected with Prize? Both companies had offices on Broadway in Manhattan, although at different addresses. Both cross-advertised each other’s magazines, implying a connection of some kind between them.

Artistic and creative comics pioneer Joe Simon, who worked on “The Black Owl” in 1940, stated that he knew of no connection between Munsey and Prize. He suggested that cross-plugging ads may have been generated by Prize’s ad-swapping department.

Prize ads also appeared in early DC comics, a fact that might be explained by the fact that DC’s Independent News distributed Prize Comics. In addition, Prize co-owner Paul Epstein was involved with Munsey’s Red Star News distribution company, so clearly there was a connection. Those covers Frank Foster recalled quite likely were early issues of Prize Comics.

Still, The Green Lama’s dual appearances make one wonder.

And the timing seems to fit with Ruth Foster’s recollection that “I feel sure it was 1939 that Julian Marson gave Frank the name of Munsey Publications to submit his drawings of ‘Batman’ and another set of drawings for ‘The Raven.’ The reason I feel positive of this time is that Frank got employment at the Mellon Art Gallery then under construction in Washington, DC (now the National Gallery of Art). He went to Washington in the early spring of 1940.”

Prize Comics #1 was cover-dated March 1940. “The Black Owl” does not appear until the second issue, as a business-suited crime-fighter wearing an owlish cowl which resembles the stylized Foster Batman headpiece. Later that year, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby re-created The Black Owl as a regulation super-hero.

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As far as the son knows, there are no scripts or notes or other art to shed any more light on the Batman of 1932. So we will never know who the rock-jawed face beneath the cowl really was, or how he came to be.

And what of “The Raven”? The surviving partial page seems to be part of a two-tier comic strip, though it could also be a portion of a comicbook page. The character seems to be a combination of The Shadow and perhaps Doc Savage. There is no date on the board, but the automobile suggests the early-to-mid-’30s. Although Foster recalls creating The Raven earlier, he also mentions other artwork since lost.

Since the surviving “Raven” page seems to be a middle-of-thestory page, it may be that Foster retooled a comic strip version of the character for comicbooks once that market opened up post-1935.

The fact that two characters were named after New York friends also tends to date the art to 1937 or later. In any case, the “Raven” material appears inconclusive as far as helping date the “Batman” art.

It’s worth noting that Ace’s Sure-Fire Comics featured a similar character, also called “The Raven,” in 1941. But masked mystery-men were very common in those days, and that series was actually an adaptation of the same company’s 1930s pulp hero called The Moon Man—just with his name and look changed for the different medium.

At the insistence of his lawyers, Frank Foster contacted his friends from his New York days who might recall seeing the “Batman” art and corroborate his claim. Most were unfindable, or professed no memory of the art, but one who did was P. Bryon Macdonald. Foster wrote him the following on July 20, 1975:

If the Munsey that Foster remembers was somehow connected to Prize Comics, this would date that experience to late 1939—post-“Batman” in DC’s Detective Comics. Why wouldn’t the Prize editors have told Foster: “Look, there’s already a Batman.”?

Perhaps when they discovered the other Batman in his portfolio, they decided the artist was a rank amateur, if not a plagiarist, and quietly dismissed him because they couldn’t trust his other characters to be original, either. And just as quietly appropriated his cowl design for their own creation.

This chronology also fits Frank Foster’s recollection of discovering Batman comics in Washington in 1940.

Not being a comics reader, he could have walked past Detective Comics without noticing a vaguely familiar creature of the night all through 1939.

But the logo on the eponymous Batman comic would have shouted out to him from any newsstand. Batman #1 debuted with a Spring 1940 cover date.

What’s In A Name?

Just printing the covers of Detective Comics #27 (May 1939), which showcased the very first Bob Kane-drawn “Batman” story ever, and Batman #1 (Spring 1940), on which Kane had a bit of background help from assistant Jerry Robinson, shows how the name of the hero would have been far more likely to catch a passer-by’s attention when it was the title of the entire magazine. Thanks to the Grand Comics Database. [TM & © DC Comics.]

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The Mystery Of The Lost Batman & Wonder Woman

Remember When…

Frank Foster’s 1975 letter to a friend he had known in New York City’s Greenwich Village four decades earlier, trying to jog his memory regarding his 1932 Batman and Raven drawings. [© Estate of Frank Foster.]

“I clearly remember Frank taking his drawings of ‘Batman’ and ‘The Raven’ to a publisher or agency, but I truthfully don’t remember the name of such firm. However, I do remember that they gave him a few days work executing some drawings (which was more than welcome to us at the time), and that they kept his drawings while he was there.

When he left Munsey, they told him they couldn’t use ‘Batman’ or ‘The Raven’ drawings and so they were filed away in ‘dead storage’ so to speak.

Imagine our surprise when a few months later we noticed a ‘BATMAN’ comic strip published.”

Despite their astonishment, the Fosters never pursued the matter legally. Ruth Foster explains: “We discussed the possibility of doing something about it, but with literally no money or ‘know-how’ and not knowing any legal authority, it seemed to be an impossible project. It was during this period that he was offered work in Washington and with the prospect of finally earning a small regular income, the whole matter of comics was forgotten. We have referred to these incidents many times during the past 35 years between ourselves and to some of our relatives and friends, but no physical action was ever taken.”

Byron Macdonald replied on August 4: Dear Frank & Ruth: The arrival of that package did rather surprise us and I couldn’t figure what you could be sending us, but after opening we understand. I definitely do remember those drawings as we had lots of discussions concerning Batman and Frank’s short time working there.

Brad, Pete & I were living in Brooklyn at the original interview, I think, but moved to 128 Christopher shortly thereafter. We had many discussions pro & con concerning this, in New York, Washington and on the Vineyard & trips to & from.

According to the affidavit, Frank Foster didn’t precisely remember when and where he first heard of Bob Kane’s “Batman”: “I think the first time it came out in a conversation would probably be in the late ’30s or ’40s, when we started to say, “Well, jeez, look at that—look at that!”

Foster’s wife Ruth had a clearer recollection. One day her husband came home all aghast with a Batman comicbook. “He brought it home and said, ‘Can you believe this!’” she recalls.

From her 1975 deposition:

One of the problems was that Frank Foster remembered showing his portfolio all over New York, but except for the Munsey experience, couldn’t specifically recall which companies he had visited. His son, who researched the period, points out that in 1937, his parents lived on East 52nd Street in Manhattan—only five or six blocks away from the DC Comics offices on Lexington Avenue, between East 46th and East 47th Streets.

“In my opinion,” he says, “if he went to New York to sell his art, he wouldn’t have missed them. He was right next door to them.

I think the chance that he overlooked them is nil. Considering that’s what he went for, and there were so few places to go anyway.”

In 1937-38, there were only a handful of comics publishers. DC Comics was the largest.

Having failed to launch an art career, the Fosters moved to Washington, DC, in September, 1940, where Frank worked for the Mellon Art Galley—now the National Gallery of Art—maintaining and restoring art. Later, he worked as an architectural designer and renderer all over the country, primarily working on hotels.

The puzzling matter of the DC Batman doppelgänger he didn’t know faded from his day-to-day concerns.

“It bothered him,” Frank Foster, Jr., explains, “but it never preyed on him. He was a very kind, gentle kind of person. Never used a swear word. Wouldn’t step on an ant. He wasn’t a religious person, but he was quite spiritual in his own way. He was not a go-getter type. He wasn’t a hustler. He didn’t know how to market himself. In all of his life—and he did a lot of creative things that people loved—but he was never able to cash in on anything. He

Super-Hero Skullduggery—1941?

15

“Batman” artboard and ink authenticated by an expert, ultimately the law firm of Shapiro & Israel dropped the matter of the “Batman” that never saw the light of day—or dark of night.

“They had nowhere to go with it,” Frank Jr. admits. “What do you do with it? It was too old.”

But the younger Foster wouldn’t completely give up. The death of his father rekindled his determination. “It was me that kept the interest on it,” he explains. “I would occasionally look through the portfolio of old drawings and “King Aquazoo” I’d see Batman. And An underwater creation of Frank Foster’s, I’d say, ‘Gee, this is often used in bedtime stories related to Frank unbelievable.’ You grow Jr. [© Estate of Frank Foster.] up with it, and you don’t think of the significance of it. It’s just something that’s always been there. My parents had given up on it so long ago, they think I’m crazy to even pursue it at all. My mother says, ‘Oh, no! Not ‘Batman’ again.’

The First Dark Night The first page of the first “Batman” story, in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939). Art by Bob Kane, script by Bill Finger. Thanks to Jim Kealy.

[TM & © DC Comics.]

was always one of those people who got taken advantage of. He was just too much of a pushover.”

Besides, Frank Foster, Sr., had moved on to a new character, one he hoped to market as a series of children’s books.

“He used to tell me bedtime stories of King Aquazoo,” Frank, Jr., recalls. “King Aquazoo was a character he invented—he probably got the idea from the legend of Atlantis—that lived on an island that sank, and he learned the secret of how to breathe underwater. And taught the rest of his little kingdom, and they started a new undersea life. And the adventures of all the creatures of the sea were what the books were about.”

Several mockup volumes entitled King Aquazoo and His Undersea People survive. Despite superficial conceptual parallels to both “Sub-Mariner” and “Aquaman,” they depict a bearded character resembling King Neptune. Although he attempted to market the property well into retirement, Frank Foster’s King Aquazoo remained an unrealized dream.

(As mentioned earlier in this article, Aquaman designer and original artist Paul Norris recalls DC editor Whit Ellsworth handing him a cartoon of a man smoking a cigar underwater and directing him to transform that simple idea into a super-hero named Aquaman. The year was 1941.)

Despite a great deal of work, which included having the

“I would keep thinking of it every time some new Batman thing came out. Then the movie. And another movie. And another movie. I was just cleaning my office space and I said to myself, ‘Am I just going to put these away and forget about them forever or—’ What can you do? So I thought I would get media interest in the story and see what happens.”

Shortly after his father passed away, Frank, Jr., engaged another law firm to pursue the matter further. A 1996 meeting with DC Comics legal counsel was cordial, but unproductive. Paul Levitz, then DC’s president, was intrigued, but unhelpful.

“He said he believes they are authentic,” Foster says. “There’s no problem with that as far as DC is concerned. As far as liability is concerned, he said, ‘Unless you can prove a direct link positive between Kane and these drawings, there’s no liability.’ And even if there was, it would be a tough liability to prove because it’s so old.”

While admitting it’s unprovable, he has his own theory as to the connection between his father’s Batman and the cultural icon the world knows today.

“I believe that my father showed it to Kane, or people at DC, or another party that ultimately resulted in the production of Batman comic books. I feel the visual resemblance is too strong. I think it’s unlikely that the person who drew Batman did not see the drawings, or replicas. But I feel there was a visual connection. That’s my best guess.”

Paul Levitz served for years as publisher (and for several years as president) of DC Comics. Photo courtesy of Bob Rozakis.

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The Mystery Of The Lost Batman & Wonder Woman

Like Bats Out Of Hell When mentioning predecessors of Batman (besides The Shadow, et al.), two in particular need to be mentioned—even if neither of them matches, let alone precedes, the 1932 date of Frank Foster’s artwork.

(Left:) “The Bat” appeared as a masked hero (complete with bat emblem on his hood) in four issues of the pulp magazine Popular Detective, beginning with the one dated Nov. 1934—and, while their official byline was “C.K.M. Scanlon,” Will Murray has suggested elsewhere that he believes they were actually the work of none other than Johnston McCulley, creator of Zorro, the first masked and costumed secret-identity hero ever. (See A/E #158 for more about both McCulley and Zorro.)

(Below:) “The Black Bat” starred for 14 years in the Thrilling pulp Black Book Detective, commencing with the July 1939 edition—i.e., at virtually the same time as the “Batman” feature debuted in Detective Comics #27, but evidently with no causal connection between the two. In fact, in 1933-34, there had been an even earlier pulp called Black Bat Detective Mysteries which featured a non-costumed, mask-less hero who simply called himself “The Black Bat,” the way Simon Templar was called “The Saint.” [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Both the “Bat” and Thrilling’s “Black Bat” series have been collected, with informative introductions, in quality trade paperbacks from Altus Books. Look ’em up online!

And the fact that an unknown artist like his father might have been the first to coin not only the name “Batman,” but that of “Night-wing” as well, does not strike Foster as either extremely unlikely or wildly coincidental.

“I think it was just another name for a night character,” he offers. “I think he just dreamed it up. My father dreamed up a lot of things. He had a great imagination. He could sit down and make very inventive stories. If you read ‘King Aquazoo,’ you’ll see the invention of the Great Red Sponge. This was a wise creature of the ocean. He had a very fertile mind. I’m sure he just invented it. He said that, when he made Batman, it was before Superman.”

“Gramps” (Above:) Frank Foster, Sr., in his later years—and (at left) a detailed view of one of his 1939 Batman sketches. [Art © Estate of Frank Foster.]

To Frank Foster, Jr., there is no question of accidental parallelism.

“In my mind there’s been a tremendous injustice, and I don’t feel right about just letting it lie forever and never trying to make it right,” he insists. “My father’s passed away, so unfortunately if anything develops, he won’t be here to enjoy it. There is an injustice to be made right, and history should be corrected, and even if it’s posthumous, he should be given some recognition. I feel he did create the Batman. It’s the first Batman. It was there, at the same place, at the same time, ‘Batman’ was published. I mean, very near by. In my mind, there has to be a connection. I would like to get

Super-Hero Skullduggery—1941?

proof positive of it. And I’m hoping that this media coverage will eventually flush out all the details and make it definite.”

The absence of a demonstrable connection between his father and the early DC Comics does not dissuade Frank Foster, Jr. “I think the possibility of two men in 5,000 years of history arriving at a character who’s a hero of the night, with the name of Batman, of being in the same place, at the same time, on the Earth, is zero,” he says flatly.

Part II The Star-Spangled Kid You Knew— & The Wonder Woman You Didn’t! (a.k.a. The HAL SHERMAN Story) The history of the Golden Age of Comicbooks is full of names without faces. One such person was Hal Sherman, best known as the originating artist of “The Star-Spangled Kid.” But there is more to the Hal Sherman story than that brief flare of Golden Age glory. Hal Sherman recalls creating another Golden Age super-hero on his own. He called her “Wonder Woman.” That’s right. “Wonder Woman.” His arresting story follows.

Harold Sherman (March 31, 1911, to Jan. 25, 2009) got his start the way many in his generation did.

“I took the W.L. Evans course in cartooning when I was 13 years old,” he told me. “I lived in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. At about the same time, I became the first marbles champ of Pottstown, under the name Sicherman, the family name. By dropping the ‘ic’ from the name, I became Sherman. I changed my name legally. I loved baseball. I was a pitcher. During a game in which I struck out

Hal Sherman (above, on right) seen with article author Will Murray in 2000 at the All-Time Classic Comic Book Convention held in White Plains, NY—soon after Will interviewed the artist for Comic Book Marketplace #78.

They’re flanked by (at top right) one of Sherman’s drawings attempting to recollect how he had depicted “his” Wonder Woman in 1941, as will be explained in the article/interview—and (on right) by the first glimpse the waiting world had of the Wonder Woman it now knows and loves, in All-Star Comics #8 (Dec. 1941-Jan. 1942), with script by William Moulton Marston and art by H.G. Peter. From Ye Ed’s bound volumes. [Sherman art © Estate of Hal Sherman; All-Star page & Wonder Woman TM & © DC Comics.]

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The Mystery Of The Lost Batman & Wonder Woman

working on opaque backgrounds, for the Popeye and Betty Boop films they were producing.”

At Fleisher’s New York studios, Sherman made the acquaintance of several future comics superstars.

Harry Lampert (on left) and Hal Sherman at the 2000 con in White Plains, NY. They had first met in the mid-1930s at the Fleischer Brothers’ animation studio. Both men wound up at DC Comics for a time. In 1939 Harry became the original artist of “The Flash” in DC/All-American’s Flash Comics #1 (Jan. 1940); script by Gardner Fox. Reprinted from the tabloid-sized Famous First Edition, Vol. 2, #F-8 (Aug. –Sept. 1975). [TM & © DC Comics.]

eleven men in seven innings, I was offered an opportunity to play semi-pro ball. I turned it down. I was afraid of damaging my hand.

Being a cartoonist was my goal, and I couldn’t allow anything to get in the way. I was 16 at the time.”

Like many, Sherman broke into cartooning via newspaper work. First it was contest cartoons for the Publisher’s Service Company. But, growing impatient with the work, Sherman took a job with the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper, drawing sports cartoons.

“I met Harry Lampert, John Stanley, and Frank Engli at Fleischer’s,” he recalled. “Sitting alongside of Harry on the opaque ordeal, he and I got into word games, to offset the boredom. I remember one word from that session... ‘nemesis.’”

Another person he remembered from those days was a young cartoonist and future All-American editor Sheldon Mayer, and he inadvertently gives us a brief glimpse of the hidden origins of the Golden Age Flash.

“I think I met [Mayer] at Fleischer. He hit up a nice relationship with Harry Lampert there. I was promoted to the inking department, where Stanley and Engli were inking on celluloids.

Frank left to assist a friend of his who just created a new comic

“I was doing fine until I was sent out to Fort Hamilton to interview a captain, a polo player. He told me he was hurt in the third ‘chucker.’ I had no idea what a ‘chucker’ was. Shortly after that assignment, I had to do a drawing of a hockey player. I was sent to a writer who would fill me in with hockey terminology. I hadn’t the slightest idea what he was talking about. It was all Greek to me.

“I decided I couldn’t handle this.

I left the Brooklyn Eagle after six months, and once again, wondered what now?

It had to be cartoons.

I found myself in the Max Fleischer Studios,

Old Names In New Comics Harold Sherman—Hal using his true first name—drew and probably wrote these two gag pages for National’s New Comics, Vol. 1, #4 (March-April 1936). Thanks to Jim Kealy. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Super-Hero Skullduggery—1941?

strip––Milton Caniff with his Terry and the Pirates. Through Frank Engli I met Milton Caniff and Noel Sickles.”

scripts, comedies, with humorous sketches, simplifying and visualizing the story, so the actors could get a clearer view of the story line. RKO thought it was a good idea. They gave me a script to work on, Hang Out the Moon, starring the Lane Sisters and John Payne. The material I added made the script too long. They suggested I sit in with the writers at the beginning of a new story and, by doing so, my material would fit more appropriately. They’ll get back to me, they said.”

This was circa 1934.

“Sam Buchwald, manager and Max Fleischer’s son-in-law, made every effort to help me as an animator. He gave me a set of ‘in-between’ drawings to practice on, making me eligible for the In-Between Department... a stepping stone to animation.”

This was a critical time in the history of the Fleischer Studio. Still years away from relocating to Florida and producing their classic Superman cartoons, it was a great place to launch a career. Had Sherman stayed, he might have been part of all that.

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The Happy Couple Hal and Ann Sherman in Yonkers, NY, in the very early 1940s.

But it was not to be.

“I never got around to practicing the in-between drawings,” Sherman admitted. “My interest was in doing original gag cartoons.

They had to can me, and rightfully so.”

Sherman turned to freelancing gag cartoons, principally for Boy’s Life magazine, then drifted over to the early National Comics (soon to be DC), still owned and operated by Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson and edited by Whitney Ellsworth.

While waiting for the call that never came, the frustrated artist took a temporary position at Walter Lantz’s studio, where he took another crack at the animation field.

Once again, he found adapting to the medium difficult.

“I developed a nauseating feeling of insecurity. In part, because of the negative results at RKO and not being familiar with animation-type humor at Walt Lantz Studios, and the strain of making that transition. In the meantime, we decided Hollywood was not for us. We made plans to return to the Bronx. But not to do freelance gags. Too precarious. Now that I’m a married man, I needed more security.

“I never worked for Wheeler-Nicholson,” Sherman remembered. “I worked for Whit Ellsworth, doing filler stuff. Might have been boxing gags. Not sure. And they could have appeared in the very first comicbooks.”

His filler strips like “Rusty,” “Blister,” and “Mr. Doodle” appeared in New Fun and More Fun Comics, during 1936-37. Some appear to be signed “Hal Shermes.”

During this time, Sherman had another fateful encounter.

“Things were quite confusing. I was still looking for the proper connection in the art field. I answered an ad which took me to a midtown hotel, where I met the artist who placed the ad.

“The artist, sitting on the edge of the bed in a small room, was working on a comicbook feature. It was Joe Shuster, working on ‘Superman.’ He offered me $3.00 a page to work with him. I turned it down.

This was when I was doing fillers for Whit Ellsworth.”

As the comicbook field expanded into adventure strips, Sherman remained focused on his gag career.

“At the very beginning I stayed away from comicbooks,” Sherman acknowledged. “I referred to the comicbooks as ‘blood and thunder,’ with very little appeal to me, because of my having done nothing but gag cartoons.”

In September 1940, Sherman married Ann Frum, and new horizons opened up.

“I got married and we went to Hollywood on our honeymoon,” he explained. “My objective was to illustrate movie

Hal Sherman’s Wonder Woman as he remembered her, under hypnotic suggestion (as noted in this article), nearly six decades after he had originally designed the character. This montage was first published in Comic Book Marketplace #78 in 2000.

[Art © Estate of Hal Sherman.]

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The Mystery Of The Lost Batman & Wonder Woman

Star-Spangled Banter This very unusual two-page house ad printed in Action Comics #40 (Sept. 1941) not only heralded “The Star-Spangled Kid” strip as drawn by Hal Sherman, but really ballyhooed writer Jerry Siegel, listing him as the “creator of Superman.” Bet somebody up at DC regretted letting that be printed circa 1947, when Jerry and his artist partner Joe Shuster sued for ownership of “Superman”! Thanks to Jim Kealy for the scan. And yes, there was a hyphen in the Star-Spangled Kid’s name, though not in the title of the mag itself. [TM & © DC Comics.]

“I thought of Whit Ellsworth and the comicbook field. My thoughts were to do a feature. Fortunately, my wife, Ann, was working, making it possible for me to develop artwork required for comicbooks. I spent about three months making the transition from gag cartoons to comicbook art. I used Batman as my role model. I was intrigued by the rendering.

“When I felt I was ready, I did up six pages of samples. Two of the samples were Wonder Woman. The other four pages were divided––with two different characters. All the work was done with high tension, mainly because of the transition required, going from gag cartoons to comicbook style.”

This in 1941. The year Wonder Woman would premiere in All-Star Comics #8 (Dec. 1941). But the latter story wasn’t published until that autumn. Sherman recalls creating his character named Wonder Woman near the beginning of that fateful year.

“I sent them [the samples] off to Ellsworth,” he added. “He was the likeliest and only person I knew in the field. The reply from Ellsworth was most encouraging. In essence, he told me, ‘First there was Bob Kane, with his fat little boys and girls, coming up with Batman... and now here’s Sherman, coming up with action drawings.’ He invited me back to New York, telling me he had something for me.”

Unbeknownst to Sherman, writer Jerry Siegel had trained

into New York City from his native Cleveland, and, meeting with Ellsworth at the DC offices, was told they were looking for a lead feature for a new title, Star Spangled Comics, scheduled for an August release. Siegel said he’d see what he could come up with, returned to his hotel room and attacked his portable typewriter.

Ellsworth was astonished when Superman’s co-creator returned the next day with complete scripts for a new hero, appropriately called “The Star-Spangled Kid.” He had expected no more than a premise. A twist on Batman and Robin, the proposed feature elevated the kid sidekick to the lead and demoted the adult to second-banana status. Boy millionaire Sylvester Pemberton teams up with ex-boxer Pat Dugan to break up a Nazi demonstration, after which the two of them decide to team up as The Star-Spangled Kid and his beefy sidekick, Stripesy, to battle the Axis menace everywhere. Ellsworth bought it.

As for Sherman, he lost no time in packing and relocating East.

When he returned to DC, the character was ready for him.

“I created all the art on ‘The Star-Spangled Kid.’ That includes the logo and all the characters, as outlined and described by Jerry Siegel in his scripts. I used Jerry’s guidance as carefully as possible in creating the characters. I created Dr. Weerd and The Needle from Jerry’s descriptions. I exaggerated Dr. Weerd’s eyebrows somewhat.”

Super-Hero Skullduggery—1941?

21

to the city for conference with the office. He was a very pleasant person. He and Joe Shuster autographed a portrait of Superman for me. Jerry wrote: ‘To Hal, my pal and collaborator.’”

It was a promising start to a stable career, but as had happened so often with Sherman in the past, a dark cloud appeared almost immediately. Sherman recalls working in the DC bullpen when it came about.

“About a week or two after starting ‘The Star-Spangled Kid,’ and working at my drawing table, I heard bits of conversation Ellsworth was having with a few people. Unintentionally, I overheard a few words. I heard Whit discussing one of the samples I sent. But it appeared he was discussing it with others in mind––not me. I walked over to Whit and said, ‘Whit, shouldn’t I be part of this conversation?’ He mumbled something I didn’t understand and I returned to my drawing table. What I overheard were the words, ‘Wonder Woman.’

Puzzled, Sherman focused on the work at hand.

“I was preoccupied with developing ‘The Star-Spangled Kid’ and the happy thought of a bit more security it represented. I never brought this up with Whit again, but I did make an effort to get my six samples back. Obviously, I was unsuccessful. I did not make copies of the art; I was sending the material to a friend and the thought never suggested itself.”

Sherman couldn’t clearly recall when he first heard of the other Wonder Woman. Although he gave away all his comicbooks many years ago, he retained all his life a single tearsheet of the DC house ad that appeared in Star-Spangled Comics #3. An ad that prominently displayed the cover of Sensation Comics #1.

On first seeing it, the artist felt a strange shock of recognition.

I Love My Superman—But Oh, You Kid! Splash page of the Kid’s initial tale, in Star Spangled Comics #1 (Oct. 1941), by writer Siegel and artist Sherman—with, according to the latter, lettering and backgrounds by “Superman” inker Stan Kaye and some inking by a very young Lee Harris—who’d soon be drawing “Air Wave” for the company. Thanks to Jim Kealy. [TM & © DC Comics.]

The artist also remembered pitching in on the Kid’s versatile super-limousine, which could fly and submerge, first seen in Star Spangled Comics #2.

“That’s where my frustration began,” he said ruefully. “It lasted 60 years.”

At this point, Sherman faced an excruciating choice. To complain and risk his steady employment at DC, or to let it go. He had no copies of his concept art, and the letters between Ellsworth and himself had been lost in the move from Hollywood.

Reluctantly, he chose the path that didn’t jeopardize his security.

“I suggested various elements of that. I suggested the submarine aspect to it. Jerry Siegel liked the idea, and he incorporated it into the next script that I got. We were about ten years ahead of 007.”

“The stupid security was a terrible commodity,” Sherman explained. “There was so damned little of it. I didn’t want to rock the boat. I was doing ‘The Star-Spangled Kid’ and I was happy doing it. I never followed through. It was too much to take. I just walked away from it.”

Sherman found an assembly-line approach to creating comicbooks now in place.

Sherman was hazy on how closely the character on the cover of Sensation #1 resembles his own lost creation.

“DC assigned two people to assist me. One was Stan Kaye, doing the lettering and backgrounds. Lee Harris was the other guy’s name. He was on the inking. He was a hell of a nice kid. He did a pretty satisfactory job. But he used a heavy brush. He did a lot of stuff there that didn’t appeal to me at all. I wish the hell I could have rendered that whole thing myself, but there were publication problems. I learned quickly that was the pattern in the field. I was somewhat surprised at the young person doing the rendering on ‘Batman,’ Jerry Robinson. That’s the comic I used basically to guide me in my transition. I was very much impressed with the rendering.

I was more impressed watching Jerry at work.”

“That’s not my drawing,” he affirmed. “That could have been a takeoff of one of my Wonder Woman drawings. If you see my early ‘Star-Spangled Kid,’ Wonder Woman certainly would be reflected in that type of drawing. My Wonder Woman would have to have been somewhat in that style, and that’s a far cry from what Peter had done.”

Working with the creator of Superman proved to be a long-distance experience. “I met Jerry Siegel only when he came

But he admitted, “I have no recollection of my Wonder Woman art. I haven’t the slightest ideas what it looked like.”

Pressed for details, he told me, “You know, that in essence is the most puzzling thing to me. If I tried to describe it, I’d be bull*****ing. I’m not a bull**** artist. Her hair was dark. I have no idea what the costume was. I don’t remember. It wasn’t a plain

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The Mystery Of The Lost Batman & Wonder Woman

I Wander As I Wonder…

(Left:) Another of Hal Sherman’s circa-2000 post-hypnotic Wonder Woman sketches. [Art © Estate of Hal Sherman.]

(Right:) The splash page of the “Wonder Woman” story in Sensation Comics #1 (Jan. 1942), almost certainly originally intended to appear in Sensation #2 before the Amazon’s origin was truncated and squeezed into All-Star Comics #8. Script by Marston; art by H.G. Peter. [TM & © DC Comics.]

dress. It was done in short briefs, and sexy.

“I do remember one page,” he added. “On one of the samples, where I had a large, magnetized gadget on a strange aircraft, lifting a huge building into the air. It’s my belief Whit Ellsworth’s files with my samples had the answer.”

As for the origin of the magic name “Wonder Woman,” Sherman explained, “Here we are on our honeymoon and I’m working for three months on the transition from gag cartoons to comicbook style of art––and my bride is out working to keep everything from falling apart. Thinking of a title, the word ‘wonder’ kept swirling around inside my head—how wonderful can a woman be? Wonder... Wonder... Woman. I had a title for two of the samples: ‘Wonder Woman!’”

Avoiding any contact with “Wonder Woman” comics, Sherman concentrated on his bread and butter, The Star-Spangled Kid, who by year’s end joined The Vigilante, Green Arrow, and others in the “Seven Soldiers of Victory” feature in Leading Comics. The busy artist penciled the “Star-Spangled Kid” chapters in early issues.

It was a fascinating time, filled with fascinating people.

“Murray Boltinoff, Jack Schiff, and Mort Weisinger were the editors I came into contact with at DC. I also met Al Bester, who may have done some ‘Star-Spangled Kid’ scripts. But Whit Ellsworth was my major contact. Working with Whit Ellsworth was pleasant, but I got nowhere in my efforts to get back my ‘Wonder Woman’ art. He brushed me off every time.

“I remember a heated phone conversation he had with Bill Finger. He was tearing Bill apart. He turned to me and said, ‘How’d I do?’ I didn’t like it at all. Later, I asked Bill how come he had not

taken more credit for developing Batman. He just mumbled.”

Sherman recalled that only once did Ellsworth have a problem with the work he produced for DC. “The wife used to take the stuff in and turn it over to Ellsworth,” he revealed. “He looked at it and wasn’t happy with that particular week’s drawings. He asked Ann if she did it. I had a terrible sinus attack and it reflected in what I was doing.”

Sherman’s growing circle of friends continued to widen: “I dropped in to see Jerry Robinson and Mort Meskin at their 52st Street studio, when the two geniuses were turning out comicbook art like they just invented it. They seemed a bit groggy, and rightfully so. They were working around the clock, beating deadlines on the material they were sweating over. I picked up one of their finished pages and didn’t believe what I was looking at. I checked the copy. The copy did not bear out what I saw. You don’t doubt genius when he is in the act of creation. But two elbows on one arm? I howled. Jerry and Mort wanted to know what was so funny. I showed them. They howled. I made a phone call and left.

As I closed the door, the two geniuses were still howling.”

Sherman especially liked Meskin.

“At 480 Lexington Avenue, where we all worked together, I looked at a page Mort just completed. He signed it “M-M-M-Mort”... displaying his wonderful sense of humor. Mort stuttered.”

Like many of his contemporaries, he was less enamored of Batman co-creator Bob Kane.

“I ran into him one day somewhere in midtown. I was with some young lady. And along came Bob Kane. I introduced him to

Super-Hero Skullduggery—1941?

The Several Soldiers Of Victory (Above left:) The splash page of the first “Seven Soldiers of Victory” group story, in Leading Comics #1 (Winter 1941-42), with art by George Papp & script attributed to Mort Weisinger. The Seven Soldiers never did get a real group logo, though—and on the cover, only six heroes had been shown (no Stripesy) with a topline reading “Five Favorite Features!” Go figure!

(Above right:) While Weisinger apparently wrote the rest of the 56-page story, Jerry Siegel scripted the 9-page “Star-Spangled Kid” chapter, which was illustrated by Hal Sherman and featured the Kid’s recurring foe The Needle. Repro’d from Ye Editor’s personal copy. [TM & © DC Comics.]

the girl, and the first thing you know we’re hearing the life story of Bob Kane! In bull sessions, I usually walked away because I couldn’t take what he was saying. He said, ‘Who the hell is Milton Caniff?’ And on Jerry Robinson’s desk at that particular moment is a big airport layout taken from Milton Caniff! Can you imagine?

He’s swiping the stuff and he says, ‘Who the hell is Milton Caniff?’”

One person Sherman didn’t recall was Wonder Woman’s publisher, M.C. Gaines.

“I never worked with Gaines,” he said flatly. “I never met him.”

Sherman thinks he did come into contact with All-American editor Sheldon Mayer, however: “If he is the person I think he is, he and I, both loaded, beat the hell out of a huge cardboard cutout of Superman during a Christmas dinner. Somebody from the inner office spiked my drink.”

And he had a strong recollection of DC owner Harry Donenfeld.

“He was flirting with death one time when he gave Jack

Howard Sherman was the artist of the “Doctor Fate” strip that ran for several years in More Fun Comics, as originally written

by Gardner Fox. Seen here is part of the splash page from issue #58 (Aug. 1940). Hal says that, so far as he knows, he never met Howard Sherman—nor have we ever, alas, seen a photo of him. Repro’d from the hardcover Golden Age Doctor Fate Archives (2007), a 400-page tome that reprinted every single Golden Age “Doc Fate” solo story. [TM & © DC Comics.]

23

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The Mystery Of The Lost Batman & Wonder Woman

Dempsey a hot foot,” Sherman chuckles. “It was at a party.”

Dempsey, of course, was the former heavyweight boxing champ of the world.

“I left ‘The Star-Spangled Kid’ because Uncle Sam sent me a request to come help take care of a character named A. Hitler. All my new furniture––everything––had to go into storage.”

One of Harold Sherman’s fellow DC artists at that time was Howard Sherman, who drew “Doctor Fate” for More Fun Comics.

Hal Sherman dispelled the notion that they were related.

While in the service, Sherman served as cartoonist and editor for two different Army newspapers, one in Mississippi, the other in the Azores. He continued doing cartoon features like “Post Personalities” and “War Is Sure Hal––Sherman.”

“I never met Howard Sherman,” he said. “Our paths may not have crossed, because after a couple of weeks of doing ‘The Star-Spangled Kid,’ I did my work at home.”

Interesting opportunities continued to crop up.

“Occasionally, I reflect on one of the brightest moments of my life, when doing ‘The Star-Spangled Kid.’ On leaving the office one day, I met my friend [cartoonist] Noel Sickles, who took great pride in telling me he had just recently inked in four of the strips he was working on, in fifteen minutes. He topped that by asking me to share an office with him. I was flattered beyond words, but had to turn him down because I had just signed a lease on an apartment that was over my head. I should have begged, borrowed, or stolen some money to share an office with Noel Sickles! I get sick thinking about it. Noel was working on Scorchy Smith at the time.”

Sherman continued to draw “The Star-Spangled Kid” until June 1943. Then, suddenly, his comics career was over––for the duration.

When the war finally ended in August 1945, discharge was supposed to follow. Not quite.

“I was sent up to Bangor, Maine, to be discharged,” he noted.

“Instead of the discharge, they assigned me to edit the camp newspaper. I didn’t even meet the editor. He scrammed out of there in a hurry. I met a sergeant who was supposed to help me, but he was in the midst of a fantasy. There were POWs on the camp, and this sergeant must have thought he was a general. He had the POWs saluting him all day long.”

Finally mustered out of the service in December ’45, Sherman quickly returned to New York, and the familiar halls of National Comics, where the “Star-Spangled Kid” feature was continuing under new hands. But Ellsworth refused to reassign him to the series.

“I really thought DC would let me resume with ‘The Star-Spangled Kid.’ I didn’t press it. I had just gone through an

First Things Last!

The Kid and his older, bigger, but junior partner didn’t receive an origin until Star Spangled Comics #18 (March 1943). Hal Sherman was still around to illustrate that story, but whether Jerry Siegel scripted it is unknown. The intriguing double-origin: two guys separately think of creating a patriotic, stars-and-stripes hero persona for themselves, with the result that, by sheer coincidence, one becomes The Star-Spangled Kid… the other, Stripesy. Ingenious!

Thanks to Jim Kealy. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Super-Hero Skullduggery—1941?

25

with what I was doing. It was on and off for years.”

For Baily’s Swapper’s Quarterly, Sherman did gag cartoons. But a new problem began surfacing.

“I began to feel a strain on my hand,” he explained. “My fingers seemed quite stiff. It turned out to be writer’s cramp asserting itself. I had difficulty just signing my name. It sounds quite innocent, but it turned my life upside down.”

It soon grew worse.

“Working on a small drawing for three days that normally would have been completed in a half hour was a sharp sign that I must drop cartooning and do something else, if I was interested in paying my rent. I was very concerned about that. That, officially, was the beginning of my writer’s cramp.”

Disappointments continued. His humor strip “Jefferson Jones” ran for eight installments in Nedor’s Startling Comics and America’s Best Comics, but soon vanished.

“Another chap, by the name of Mell Lazarus, dropped in looking for work,” Sherman remembered. “I had managed to

We Kid You Not! With Star Spangled #7, the Kid was replaced on the comic’s cover spot by the arrival of Joe Simon & Jack Kirby (fresh from their creation of Captain America for Timely) and their new feature “The Newsboy Legion Starring The Guardian,” the latter being another shield-slinging super-hero. Here’s a page from the Siegel/Sherman story “King Midas” in SSC #8 (May 1942).

[TM & © DC Comics.]

upsetting experience. My energy was sapped. I did some work for DC––writing and drawing hillbilly stuff titled ‘Creepy Hollow.’

I never saw the material in print. I did it on my own and it was accepted. I think it was a five-page story. The title, of course, was a takeoff on Sleepy Hollow. I remember Whit Ellsworth made a comment about it. He walked in when I was talking to the editor–– whoever it was at that time––and looked at it. One of the gags was that one of the characters from Creepy Hollow smelled so bad that he could be smelled a mile away. Whit looked at that and laughed.

He thought it was funny.”

Sherman’s third phase at DC was destined to be brief: “Then I went floundering out into the freelance world.”

He got by peddling one-page gag features such as “Page o’ Fun” and “Professor Jabberwhacky” to the Gerona and Rural Home comics companies. He also soon found work with his friend and colleague Bernard Baily. The latter was still drawing “The Spectre” for DC. He hired Sherman to do backgrounds on that and other features.

“I worked with Bernard Baily through his office,” Sherman remembers. “He had an office in midtown. Whatever he was working on, I worked on backgrounds for him. He was quite happy

“Jefferson Jones” was a slightly more realistically drawn “Archie” type in Better/Nedor/ Standard’s Startling Comics #49 (Jan. 1948). This doesn’t especially look like Hal Sherman’s art to Ye Editor, but he is listed as artist in the Grand Comics Database and our source for this scan, Comic Book Plus. Perhaps Mell Lazarus helped him on this one? [© the respective copyright holders.]

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The Mystery Of The Lost Batman & Wonder Woman

develop about $1500 worth of fillers, my writer’s cramp still raising hell with me.

This young fellow agreed to do backgrounds on the drawings. But before we got into the situation, there was a change in editors and I lost the deal. All $1500 worth.

I wonder what happened to that youngster?” [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: Cartoonist Mell Lazarus later developed the popular comic strips Momma and Miss Peach.]

It’s In The Cards!

This self-caricature of Hal Sherman apparently appeared on one of the playing-card sets on which that artist worked with fellow cartoonist Jerry Robinson. [© Estate of Hal Sherman.]

Reluctantly, Sherman tried other fields. A partnership with Jerry Robinson to produce personalized playing cards as gift items in a loft opposite Bloomingdale’s materialized.

They ran into trouble on the production end. The cartoon images smudged when printed.

“We had to learn how to print the card,” Sherman revealed.

“So Jerry visited the competitor with the ruse that he was writing a college essay on unusual businesses. The writer’s cramp was the main reason I got into playing cards. It was an escape for me, possibly survival. Jerry’s reason? I believe he was seeking relief from deadlines.”

wash––rather than pen and ink. The [photo-]offset process of course allowed for that treatment. It was the only way I could render the drawings, although the editor did not know that. It was my secret.

The prisma pencil allowed me to control my hand. But sitting at the editor’s desk at contract time made me jittery. I was afraid that if he saw my hand quaking while signing the contract, he would wonder about my confidence and hence my ability to do the work I had contracted for. My problem was that I couldn’t even use a pen to sign my own name. The pressure––to control my hand––invariably broke the pen point. Fortunately, he was distracted by something and turned away from me and I quickly scrawled my name on the contract. The butterflies in my stomach immediately took off on vacation.”

This was followed by paperback gag collections like Fishing for Laughs, Nude-Niks, and Alley Whoops!

Over the years, Sherman continued to pop in and out of the comicbook field.

“Sid Jacobson, at Harvey Publications, had been buying gag cartoons from me, and at one point asked me to pencil stories for others to ink. My hand collapsed again while blocking out the pages. Because of my writer’s cramp, Sid switched me from blocking out, penciling ‘Spooky’ and other characters, to writing the stories. But I still had to rough out the stories in picture form.

Sid showed me a great deal of compassion, making the ordeal less painful. Sid, as a songwriter, wrote the lyrics of ‘Chances Are’ for the popular singer, Johnny Mathis.”

The secret of printing playing cards was solved. But funding ran out before the business could take off. Sherman then turned to non-artistic fields, like real estate and finance. But with very mixed results. He desperately yearned to return to gag cartooning. This is what he ruefully describes as his “Twilight Zone” period.

From time to time, he did sell gag creations like “The Little Friar,” “Nunsense,” and others.

With the Universal movie monster craze at its peak in 1962, Sherman came up with Monsterville, a Mad-style magazine chock full of monster gags panels and strips, all written and created by the artist himself.

“For Monsterville, I had made arrangements with the editor to use a prisma pencil and

Monsterville This comic from Dell/Western, cover-dated 1962, had its cover and interior drawn (and probably written) by Hal Sherman, but became only a black&-white one-shot. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Super-Hero Skullduggery—1941?

27

hint when I interviewed him in 2000. He looked back on his roller-coaster career with understandably extreme emotions.

“I take a great deal of pride in the fact that I chose a field, when I was only 13 years old, that had so much public appeal,” he told me. “I took a great deal of pride in telling people I am a cartoonist. I still do. The reaction is always a good one.

I discovered people have a great deal of respect for cartoonists. But in my case, with a writer’s cramp that knocked me out of the field for so many years, robbing me of so many years of development, how can I claim to be a cartoonist? But when I refer to The Star-Spangled Kid, eyebrows shoot up. A very good feeling.”

As for the lost Wonder Woman....

Another Amazing Amazon?

Another of Hal Sherman’s hypnotically induced drawings of his Wonder Woman character, as reproduced originally in Comic Book Marketplace #78 (May 2000). [Art © Estate of Hal Sherman.]

Sherman recalls working on ”Casper the Friendly Ghost,” “Wendy the Witch,” and “Richie Rich” for about a year in the 1960s or ’70s.

“I met George Wolf at Collier’s. He said, ‘You know, Hal, you’ve been in and out of this field more times than I’ve been in!,’ which typified my ins and outs of the business.”

Around this time, an answer to his drawing problem seemed to appear.

“A chiropractor finally discovered that it was a pinched nerve in my neck that was causing the writer’s cramp, causing stiffness in my fingers, removing all flexibility. Great! Now all the doctors have to do is cure the pinched nerve in my neck. They threw up their hands when I pointed out what the problem was. I even suggested surgery. They just looked at me.”

A breakthrough finally came out of a tragic mishap.

“During her first hip fracture 10-12 years ago, Ann required a therapist to show her how to use her limbs again,” Sherman explains. “I asked the therapist if she could help, do something about my writer’s cramp. She couldn’t, but she told me about a Hand Rehabilitation Center in White Plains, a half-hour away. I didn’t lose any time getting there. They put me through a series of tests... follow lines drawn in red––now follow in black. My hand wobbled all over the place. They finally wrapped something around my wrist. This time I managed to follow the lines fairly well.

“I then scribbled a cartoon and followed the lines I drew. I let out a scream. They came flying to my table wondering what was wrong. I told them I just did something I could not do for the last 40 years. My lines were perfect on the small cartoon. I’ve been wearing a wrist band ever since. Works great. What I’m pissed off about is the fact not one of the dozen doctors I visited during these years ever suggested anything so simple. I could have bought this brace in the pharmacy years ago!”

Hal Sherman continued to draw, and even experimented with a new comicbook character, at whose identity he would only

“I get a great deal of satisfaction out of knowing that something I created has been so well accepted by the public. At the same time, devastated.

Devastated, because I could not make any claim to creating Wonder Woman. I felt like a million dollars that it had registered so well, but no way in the world could I ever talk about it. Quite conscious of the fact that I’d sound ridiculous, taking claim to creating this outstanding character, with no evidence to back me up, I made every effort to subdue my frustration. Ann and I never discussed Wonder Woman. The frustration was a killer. It still is.”

Sherman maintained a steadfast silence over the Wonder Woman issue until collector/fan David Siegel came into his life: “It was David Siegel’s interest and persistence that revived my interest in Wonder Woman, enough to check into histories of the comics and see who has been given credit for creating Wonder Woman. It seemed to point to William Moulton Marston, the inventor of the lie detector. I was not at all convinced with the approach that was made to name Marston as the creator of Wonder Woman. It seems contrived... a justification.”

And Sherman had his own theory as to what might have happened: “My reasoning tells me that Whit Ellsworth, whom I sent my Wonder Woman and other samples to, placed them with Max Gaines, and he in turn brought in Marston, a psychologist, to develop the scripts. It is my belief he was given credit for creating Wonder Woman from that point of view.

“H.G. Peter created the artwork,” Sherman added. “I do not know his work. To this day, I have not seen a Wonder Woman comicbook. I never saw the Wonder Woman TV show. My wife and I became aware of Lynda Carter via the commercial she did for contact lens. The commercial was blackened out in a hurry. Neither the wife nor I could take any reminders of the Wonder Woman situation.”

Not that Sherman was bitter. He was not.

“This final word about Wonder Woman,” he said. “That wonderful, accident-prone, hard-of-hearing woman, Ann Sherman, and I just celebrated our 59th wedding anniversary. It was, and still is, Ann’s sense of humor––a real shock absorber––that helped weather all the storms we encountered.”

The Mystery Of The Lost Batman & Wonder Woman

28

Notes From Will Murray: Wonder Woman—The Evidence Lightning rarely strikes twice.

Some twenty years ago, I stumbled across the story of Frank Foster and his prototypal Batman, which I covered in Comic Book Marketplace #66.

Later, when I heard through collector David Siegel that Hal Sherman had a similar story to tell regarding his own version of Wonder Woman, I knew I had to interview him as well. I found Sherman to be forthright, direct, and unwilling to embellish on his admittedly fading recollections, despite repeated pressure on my part to dig deeper into his memory. This is the mark of an honest person.

One unfortunate aspect of his remarkable tale is the absence of the kind of surviving artwork that made the Frank Foster Batman story so compelling. But we can still assess the evidence, as we have it. The most striking thing I discovered are the close parallels in what we know of the timeframe in which both Wonder Women were created.

Hal Sherman was clear that, after marrying on September 22, 1940, he and his wife resettled in Hollywood. A period, he recalled, that lasted only five or six months. This would bring him back to New York in either February or March of 1941. Since we know Star Spangled Comics #1 went on sale the first week of August of that year and had been printed in July, that gave him only three or four months to get the first issue together––a typical production window for that time.

This means that his Wonder Woman was probably created sometime between December 1940 at the earliest and March 1941 at the very, very latest. More than likely, she was created and submitted in the January-February window.

What Sherman did not know until I told him is that William Moulton Marston’s cover letter to his initial “Wonder Woman” script does survive. It’s dated February 23, 1941. Precisely in the timeframe coinciding with the possibilities of Sherman’s own character creation. In fact, at the later end of it––suggesting that if Sherman’s recollection of his Hollywood sojourn is accurate, his Wonder Woman probably predated Marston’s by several weeks, if not months.

Another interesting point is that, in print, Marston, who died in 1947, never claimed to have brought Wonder Woman to Gaines.

Instead, he repeatedly talks of urging Gaines to publish a female super-hero to counterbalance what he called comics’ “bloodcurdling masculinity.” Gaines resisted, citing previous failures in the pulps and elsewhere to launch a woman hero successfully. Marston persisted.

Finally, Gaines agreed, with the proviso that the psychologist script the character. As Marston wrote in a 1943 issue of The American Scholar: “M.C. Gaines listened to our arguments for a while. Then he said, ‘Well, Doc, I picked Superman after every syndicate in America turned it down. I’ll take a chance on your Wonder Woman, but you’ll have to write the strip yourself. After six months’ publication we’ll submit your woman hero to a vote of our comics readers. If they don’t like her, I can’t do any more about it.’

“I wrote Wonder Woman. I found an artist––Harry Peter, an old-time cartoonist who began with Bud Fisher on the San Francisco Chronicle and who knows what life is all about––and with Gaines’

I Got Stripes!

Stripesy goes into action solo, before meeting the Star-Spangled Kid, in their retroactive origin in Star Spangled #18. Thanks to Jim Kealy.

[TM & © DC Comics.]

helpful cooperation we created the first successful woman character in comic magazines.”

To which Hal Sherman responded: “That sounds very much like he got an assignment. That’s the way it appears to me.”

Even here, Marston doesn’t explicitly claim to have created Wonder Woman by himself—only to have put forth the notion of a female super-hero and subsequently scripted her adventures with input from Gaines and Peter.

Along that line is the interesting fact that the feature’s pen name, “Charles Moulton,” was assembled from the middle names of William Moulton Marston and Max Charles Gaines. Why include Gaines’ name? If he gave Marston the concept as his own, he might have also laid claim to a co-byline of sorts.

So what to make of this jigsaw with so many phantom pieces?

There are several scenarios possible.

First is accidental parallelism. Certainly, with super-heroes proliferating, it was inevitable that some brave publisher would attempt a distaff Superman, conventional wisdom notwithstanding.

There had been, of course, several costumed “mystery women” in comicbooks prior to Wonder Woman’s premier appearance.

In fact, DC itself trademarked an ashcan publication entitled Superwoman. Dated January, 1942, it shows that they were very

Super-Hero Skullduggery—1941?

29

aware of the possibilities in such a character.

(Interestingly enough, a Wonder Woman ashcan was registered for trademark that same month. Clearly, DC wished to establish its bona fides over both names.)

Secondly, it’s possible that Gaines saw the submitted Hal Sherman Wonder Woman sketches and simply appropriated the name––a nearly perfect one––while discarding Sherman’s costume design and other details. Ellsworth then might have had the art destroyed.

The fact that Ellsworth’s line of comics was technically a separate group with separate offices (although some common partners) created a theoretical firewall separating the editor Sherman submitted to and the ultimate progenitor of “Wonder Woman,” M.C. Gaines and his All-American Comics line.

Then there is the fascinating sleight-of-hand involved in Wonder Woman’s unusual debut as an added section of pages in the back of All-Star Comics #8. She appeared without prior announcement, or even a cover blurb, in a magazine that did not then carry any features other than issue-long “Justice Society of America” stories.

In Alter Ego, Roy Thomas has theorized that the feature may have been premiered under those extenuating circumstances (that extra half-signature of 8 pages cost money!) to test the character before her cover premiere in Sensation #1 the next month because of timidity over the audience acceptability of a female super-hero. This may be so. But another possibility suggests itself.

Perhaps her origin story was jammed (and I do mean jammed, since several pages were printed in text form in order to cram the tale into nine pages instead of 13) into All Star #8 in order to establish copyright a month or so prior even to Sensation Comics #1, just in case an irate artist dragged the publisher into court, even without proof of creation in artwork form.

One seeming hole in Sherman’s recall is his vagueness over his first awareness of Marston’s Wonder Woman, and his insistence that he never saw or read an issue of Wonder Woman, despite working for her publisher during the character’s formative years. He sent me his only Wonder Woman artifact from his DC days––a house ad announcing Sensation #1 (cover-dated Jan. 1942). On the back of this crumbling tearsheet was the final page of one of his own “Star-Spangled Kid” stories. A little research determined that it came from Star Spangled Comics #3 (Dec. 1941). When I brought this to Sherman’s attention, he said, “I’ll be damned. So that’s almost at the beginning. I probably clipped it and put it away for that very reason. I never really thought about it.”

After the passing of nearly 60 years, this memory lapse is perfectly understandable. So is Sherman’s avoidance of the character, then and now.

At the bottom of all this lies an unanswered question: Was

Superwomen At the same the first issue of Sensation Comics #1 (Jan. 1942) was going on sale, with Wonder Woman’s premier lead-off adventure, DC also put out a limited-circulation “ashcan” comic called Superwoman, surely to trademark that title as well. Ironically, the artist of the Dr. Fate drawing used on that hurriedly-thrown-together mag was Howard Sherman (no relation, as we’ve said, to Harold/Hal). The art on the Sensation cover is

by H.G. Peter and Jon Blummer. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Marston’s Wonder Woman identical to Sherman’s unseen character of that name?

Probably not. It’s highly unlikely that anyone would have dared copy the actual Hal Sherman costume design. That would have been too brazen, and would have invited a lawsuit, where copying the name could be dismissed as accidental. Also, had Sherman’s design been copied, he would certainly have a clearer memory of his first discovery of the character’s existence. Nor is it likely that the background and origin of the character are the same.

The Wonder Woman we know is too specifically derived from the beliefs and philosophies of William Moulton Marston.

It is possible that Ellsworth or Gaines initially intended to call the Marston character “Superwoman,” but backed off either because of the happy coincidence of Sherman’s Wonder Woman concept art coming their way, or else concern that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster might object to a character called Superwoman.

One interesting coincidence still hangs in the air: the fact that both The Star-Spangled Kid and Wonder Woman are garbed in red, white, and blue costumes. Simon and Kirby’s Captain America had debuted with a March 1941 cover date. Its tremendous sales probably inspired that very commercial choice. Or perhaps they [Continued on p. 31]

30

The Mystery Of The Lost Batman & Wonder Woman

Sidebar: HAL SHERMAN Writes…

[A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: Accompanying Will Murray’s interview with Hal Sherman in Comic Book Marketplace #78 (May 2000), and essentially part and parcel of that interview, was the following open letter from the artist detailing his work with a hypnotherapist in an attempt to re-create the drawing of the character that, in early 1941, he had called Wonder Woman. Our thanks to Will Murray for his permission to share these insights with a new generation, two decades after they were originally written.]

February 29, 2000 Dear CBM, After 60 years of silence, this is not an easy task.

When, in December 1999, Will Murray sent me a manuscript copy of his article on my career, which you are publishing in this [issue], I was more than pleased with it. But I was concerned how your readers would react to my claim to having created Wonder Woman.

My big concern was basically this: without some physical display of Wonder Woman drawings, would anyone reading that article believe what they were reading?

up.

When the hypnotherapy sessions finally ended, I remembered having read somewhere that a person could indulge in self-hypnosis, so I decided to continue on my own. I repeated the hypnotherapist’s hypnotic chant for several days, willing my eyes to get heavy and close, and my body to relax from head to toe. In an amateurish way, it worked!

I made more sketches, then at Will Murray’s suggestion, graduated to finished drawings, eventually one in color. These drawings are as close as I can come to my Wonder Woman without stating, absolutely, this is Wonder Woman. Yet I have a comfortable feeling I may have come close to duplicating my original drawings of Wonder Woman.

Summing up: To this day, I have no idea what DC Comics’ Wonder Woman looked like. I never bought a copy. I never saw the TV show.

I never attempted to draw Wonder Woman through the years, because of a vow my wife and I took to keep our distance from Wonder Woman. Basically, to avoid frustration. It may sound foolish from this perspective, but being a sensitive person I distanced myself from anything having to do with Wonder Woman. (Incidentally, that vow saved us 60 years of frustration, but

Frankly, I know less about Wonder Woman in the comics than a youngster who just bought his first copy. And for the life of me, I couldn’t summon up my memories of those long-lost Wonder Woman sketches I submitted to DC Comics’ Whit Ellsworth in 1940.

I discussed this with Will, and he suggested hypnosis in the hopes of dredging up some memories of Wonder Woman that I could re-create on paper. I was somewhat skeptical, as I had no experience pertaining to hypnosis. But I was willing to try.

I visited a hypnotherapist and outlined my problem: I was trying to visualize a character I created 60 years ago. This was a new one on him, but being a psychologist, he quickly understood, and in the session that followed, I made a smooth transition from his office to my Hollywood apartment in 1940, where I was seated at a table, with a drawing board propped up in front of me.

Our combined efforts made an attempt to re-create a female character I created 60 years back, whose likeness had completely eluded me. A character named Wonder Woman.

The hypnotherapist suggested I relax fully, from head to toe. I did just that. I relaxed to the point where there was nothing in my mind, other than being back in my Hollywood apartment, sitting at the drawing board, sketching a female character.

But to my frustration, the memory continued to elude me.

Other lost memories did flood back, but not the face of my Wonder Woman.

The hypnotherapist suggested I go home and attempt to draw the character from my subconscious. Which I did. My first sketches were crude and fumbling attempts.

After each visit, I was able to draw rough pencil sketches of Wonder Woman. But I wasn’t sure what to make of them. They came straight from my subconscious, but I couldn’t vouch for them because my memory still refused to open

The Wonder Years (Above:) Hal Sherman in May 1942, shortly before being drafted—and a bit more than a year after he said he submitted his Wonder Woman concept to editor Whitney Ellsworth.

(Right:) Another of his 2000 (the year, not the number) hypnotically induced drawings of his notion of Wonder Woman. [Art © Estate of Hal Sherman.]

Super-Hero Skullduggery—1941?

made it difficult to correctly determine what damage it did to me financially.)

When I returned from Hollywood, Whit Ellsworth gave me a script by Jerry Siegel called the Star-Spangled Kid, which I did to the best of my ability, until I was drafted into the Service.

I strongly feel that it was my Wonder Woman samples that prompted Ellsworth to assign the Star-Spangled Kid to me.

Less than two weeks after returning from L.A. (and now drawing the Star-Spangled Kid and sandwiched between Jerry Robinson and Mort Meskin at the Lexington Avenue DC studio), I overheard something that sounded familiar, that Whit Ellsworth and a couple of other people were discussing.

I approached Whit and said, “Whit, shouldn’t I be a part of this conversation?”

He brushed me off with a gruff answer. I returned to my drawing table rather upset. They were discussing Wonder Woman, two pages of the six pages I had sent to Whit Ellsworth. I made several efforts to get my samples back, but to no avail. I was quite upset. What bothered me more than anything was the fact that I had no copies of the material I sent to Ellsworth.

At the time, circa 1940, we were not copy conscious. There was no Xerox on the scene as yet to remind us to copy everything.

[Continued from p. 29] took their inspiration from MLJ’s even earlier flag-wearing hero, The Shield. Or both.

For Sherman’s part, he said of The Star-Spangled Kid’s outfit, “It was out of my head, basically. I was aware of some of the things that were going on at the time. I tried to be original. I didn’t copy.”

As for the proof of Hal Sherman’s Wonder Woman claims, he was the first to admit the surviving evidence is almost entirely circumstantial.

“I have no evidence,” he told me. “When we moved from Hollywood to New York, all correspondence between Whit Ellsworth and myself, and all of the sketches of Wonder Woman made prior to submitting the finished samples, were lost in the move. In my defense, my wife and I had gone through a deliberate process of forgetting about Wonder Woman to soften the pain of 60 years of frustration, basically because the evidence was carelessly lost at the very beginning.”

31

I found myself at a disadvantage… I couldn’t discuss Wonder Woman with anyone. With no evidence, I would sound foolish, and I didn’t like the idea of sounding foolish.

The enclosed drawings of Wonder Woman, which progress from simple pencil sketches to two fully rendered portraits, are ad-libbed from memory and are the direct result of my visits to the hypnotherapist. These visits were solely for the purpose of digging in my subconscious and plucking out the magic female I’m rightfully taking credit for creating.

I hope your readers find them interesting.

All the best, Hal Sherman P.S.: I would like to acknowledge my friend Kevin Regan, who inked my final Wonder Woman drawings for me.

Regardless of what happens as a result of articles pertaining to Wonder Woman, I am most grateful to Will Murray for his professional interest in helping me establish recognition as the creator of the original Wonder Woman.

And a big thanks to David Siegel, the “Cartoonist Collector,” who triggered this search in 1998.

A final word about Hal Sherman’s Wonder Woman sketches that accompany this piece, and which were first published in Comic Book Marketplace #78. They were produced decades after the fact, while the artist was under hypnosis. I’ve always been skeptical of them, if for no reason other than the fact that Hal had dredged up from his subconscious a character whose outfit paralleled that of the star-spangled version of Wonder Woman. I’ve always thought it unusual that DC/AA’s Wonder Woman––a character out of mythology––was designed to resemble a female Captain America.

I personally doubt that Sherman’s lost Wonder Woman sketches sported any U.S. flag elements. It would be the first thing an editor would change if he were adapting an idea with the intent of disguising its origins.

Postscript: A Timely Afterword DC wasn’t the only home to mysterious alternate versions of published super-heroes during the Golden Age of Comics. Martin Goodman’s Timely Comics, the predecessor to Marvel, also had a few.

A surviving photograph of writer-artist Harry Sahle depicts him holding a concept sketch of The Silver Scorpion which is completely different from the costumed super-hero he drew for Daring Mystery Comics in 1941. She seems more a gun-toting spy queen type than a predecessor of Wonder Woman.

Was this an early concept sketch? A proposal for a newspaperstrip heroine that the artist later converted into a super-heroine? These answers will probably never There’s A Star Spangled Banner be known.

Waving Somewhere!

Whatever the ultimate truth behind Wonder Woman, the fact remains that Hal Sherman got his shot at the title—the de facto titular character of Star Spangled Comics, no less. Here’s his cover for issue #1 (Oct. 1941). He even got to sign his full name on the cover! [TM & © DC Comics.]

In addition: In the files of early comics packager Lloyd Jacquet, head of Funnies, Inc., for which Bill Everett produced “The Sub-Mariner” and Carl Burgos “The Human Torch” (later with Sahle as his assistant), there is a surviving pencil

32

The Mystery Of The Lost Batman & Wonder Woman

sketch of a super-hero called “The Patriot.” He bears a strong resemblance to the hero of the same name who debuted in the pages of Timely’s Human Torch #4 (Spring 1941).

Is this a rejected concept sketch? A re-design? Since, by then, Funnies, Inc., was also providing material to other companies besides Timely, was it a proposal for a rival character who could just as easily have appeared in the pages of a Novelty Comics title?

Almost eighty years after the fact, these simple questions seem all but unanswerable.

Even the identity of the artist of the sketch is unknown, but it’s clearly not Bill Everett, who drew the character’s published debut story. Other early “Patriot” artists included Art Gates, George Mandel, Sid Greene (see Patriot images on the facing page), and Allen Bellman.

Harry Sahle Will Murray writes the Wild Adventures novel series featuring Doc Savage, Tarzan of the Apes, King Kong, The Spider, and other classic heroes (www.adventuresinbronze.com). He also created Marvel’s unbeatable Squirrel Girl.

served as Carl Burgos’ primary assistant on “The Human Torch” – but by late 1940 he was clearly working on his own character, “The Silver Scorpion,” as in this undated photo. That heroine, however, was not a costumed superhero like the one who was actually first published in Timely’s Daring Mystery Comics #7 (April 1941). Scripter uncertain; may or may not have been Sahle himself. Repro’d from the hardcover Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Daring Mystery, Vol. 2. [Page TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

How Silver Was My Scorpion?

It was a full nine months before the next (and final) issue of Daring Mystery was published, with a second Sahle-drawn (and anonymously scripted) “Silver Scorpion” yarn—behind a dynamic cover penciled by Jack Kirby, which featured her in an inset. Inker uncertain. Her next appearance—almost totally revamped from a visual point of view so that she actually looked silver—was in the 1990s Invaders series by writer Roy Thomas and penciler Dave Hoover. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Super-Hero Skullduggery—1941?

The Patriot Act It’s likely, but not inevitable, that the unsigned Patriot sketch above was done as one of a number of possible costume designs by some member of the 1940s Timely bullpen. The mostly-blue-garbed Patriot, as he finally debuted in Marvel Mystery Comics #21, looked quite different… but Timely’s colorists played around with his costume colors a bit, as in this predominantly red-clad look from Marvel Mystery #25 (Nov. 1941), with art by Sid Greene. This poor man’s Captain America endured in that title (and a couple of issues of Human Torch) through issue #74 in July of 1946, being one of the few Timely super-heroes to outlast World War II. Thanks to Will Murray for the illo, and to Jim Kealy for the MMC scan. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

The 1970s

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35

The Golden Bat Japan’s “Dark Samurai” Returns!

by Dan Hagen

H

e was a caped, flying champion from a lost, distant civilization, who fought monsters and criminals in defense of humanity.

In Japan.

In 1931.

As comics historian Zack Davisson observes, “Five years before Lee Falk’s ‘Ghost Who Walks,’ The Phantom, stalked the daily strips of newspapers everywhere, and seven years before Superman burst from the pages of Action Comics, 6,760 miles away in the island country of Japan kids were already thrilling to the adventures of super-powered heroes all their own.”

Even before the first modern comicbooks appeared, Japan had evolved a form of sequential fantasy art that put it “deep in a Golden Age of strange visitors from another planet flying through the sky in brilliant costumes, righting wrongs and battling mad scientist inventors,” Davisson notes.

Street performers painted and presented what were essentially oversized, itinerant comicbook adventures in Japanese communities, selling candy, roasted potatoes, and chestnuts to the

Fleischer Brothers, Look Out! (Above:) The Golden Bat is shown in his own “fortress of solitude” in the mountains of Japan, telepathically tuning in to a woman’s plea for help.

(Right:) The hero vs. a giant robot, by Nagamatsu—doubtless illustrating a story by Suzuki. These scenes somewhat resemble some of those in the early-1940s theatrical Superman cartoons by the Fleischer Brothers’ animation outfit—but this is a decade earlier! And of course they’re a precursor to all those Japanese robots like Astro Boy, Gigantor, and 8th Man. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

The Golden Bat Dan Hagen reveals how, in the early 1930s, Japanese creators developed a super-hero in the medium of Kamishibai, which, he writes, “is described as a form of participatory storytelling that combines hand-made art with a performance by a live narrator (“kami” means “paper,” and “shibai” means “play” or “drama”—so they were sort of oversized, itinerant comicbooks!” ).

Above is one of artist Takeo Nagamatsu’s original watercolor-onposter-board illustrations of The Golden Bat, a.k.a. Ōgon Batto, who was scripted by Ichiro Suzuki. Read on! The illustrations accompanying this piece appeared in Eric P. Nash’s book Manga Kamishibai: The Art of Japanese Paper Theatre, published by Abrams Comicarts, NY (2019), and were scanned from various kamishibai collections in Japan. Nash’s book is a must-have— because it features many, many other wonders besides these few!

[TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

youngsters who’d been summoned to the show by the clacking of wooden sticks.

These “paper theatre” performances provided inexpensive, colorful children’s entertainment during the Depression, as well as much-needed employment opportunities for the benshi (script narrators who sat next to the screen in the newly outmoded silent movies).

“Storytellers would travel from town to town with their butai (miniature stage) on the back of a bike,” observes Liesl Bradner in the Los Angeles Times. “The setup was reminiscent of a Punch and Judy show, but instead of puppets the narrator would slide a series of poster boards with watercolor illustrations in and out of the box. He would act out the script, which was written on cards placed on the back of a board. Each show consisted of three stories of about

36

Japan’s “Dark Samurai” Returns!

Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels: A History of Graphic Narratives.

“Golden Bat announced his arrival with a spooky laugh and swooped down to dispatch the villains with lightning from his staff.”

The Golden Bat’s name was apparently suggested by a brand of cigarettes introduced in Japan in 1906.

As depicted in period Kamishibai, The Golden Bat’s feats included telepathically responding to cries of distress, freeing a young man from the railroad tracks and halting the locomotive, hurling masked gang members down a mountainside, and smashing a gigantic mechanical man.

The Golden Bat fought Nazo, a would-be “Emperor of the Universe” whose name may have been intended to suggest the Nazis. Despite the official Axis pacts between Germany and Japan which would begin in 1936, Nazis were nevertheless often presented as villains in Japanese fiction at the time.

The Nazo Salute?

The Golden Bat faces the arch-villain and would-be world dictator Nazo, whose name, our author suggests, may have been derived from the word “Nazi.” Of course, Adolf Hitler and his National Socialists only came to power in German in 1933… and would form the Axis alliance with Japan and Italy in 1936. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

10 minutes each: an adventure for boys, a domestic drama for girls, and then a simple comic story. The majority of performances ended in a cliffhanger, forcing eager audiences to return the next day.”

The exploits of characters like the extraterrestrial Prince of Gamma and The Golden Bat were featured, and are detailed in Eric P. Nash’s fascinating book Manga Kamishibai: The Art of Japanese Paper Theatre.

Wearing a skull mask and a flowing red cape, The Golden Bat—Ōgon Batto—was a super-human being from Atlantis. Scripted by 25-year-old Ichiro Suzuki and illustrated by 16-year-old Takeo Nagamatsu, The Golden Bat flew to the rescue from his lonely Arctic retreat, using his super-strength to fight dinosaurs, robots, and aliens.

“Ōgon Bat also started what would become a popular trend in later comics: the opposite-enemy,” notes Davisson. “Where Superman has Bizarro, and the Flash has Reverse Flash, Ōgon Bat fought against Kurayami Bat, the Dark Bat.” “While his name resembles Batman, Golden Bat has much more in common with Superman (though he looks more like Spawn, or Captain America’s nemesis Red Skull),” notes the website TV Tropes. “While he was in many ways a precursor to both Superman and Batman, it is unknown whether he had any influence on their creation. However, due to his popularity in Japan, Golden Bat was essentially the trope maker for Japanese super-heroes. His legacy can be seen in the super-heroes who have permeated Japanese media since then, including other early 1930s kamishibai super-heroes like Prince of Gamma, the sentai superheroes of tokusatsu films and shows, manga and anime super-heroes ranging from Astro Boy and Goku to Magical Girls like Sailor Moon, and even Super Robots (he fought a gigantic mech).”

Children’s author Oliver Ho notes, “After the war, censors under the direction of General Douglas MacArthur ‘forbade

And, in a case of parallel cultural evolution, this character debuted years before Superman, “perhaps as a product of some collective unconscious,” Nash suggests. That concept has long fascinated me: were superheroes not really invented, but somehow inevitable?

“The masked swordsman Zorro, who appeared in American pulps in 1919, may be the granddaddy of super-heroes with a mask and a secret identity, but Golden Bat with his cape, European-style ruff collar and skullfaced visage is a true comicbook character,” Nash writes, adding that the character “still resonates with a musty sense of nostalgia for both old and young Japanese, much the way the Lone Ranger and Flash Gordon do for Americans.”

“The peculiar cross-eyed and skullheaded hero wore a high-collared coat and a long, red cape similar to the costume worn in Lon Chaney’s film appearance as the Masque of the Red Death in The Phantom of the Opera (1925),” notes Robert S. Petersen in his book

Help Stamp Out Evil!

A pair of 1932 Japanese commemorative postage stamps featuring the original Golden Bat. The art is by the feature’s regular illustrator, Suzuki Ichiro. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

The Golden Bat

37

A Cosmic Comeback Post-WWII incarnations of The Golden Bat include (clockwise from above left:) A 1966 poster for a live-action film (see plot description in article)…

A 1967 wind-up tin toy… …and a cel from Golden Bat anime (precise year unknown).

[TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

representations of martial themes in popular arts,’ crippling an industry that before the war attracted audiences of up to five million people per day, and sustained 40 production houses and 50,000 storytellers in Tokyo and Kansai alone. Along with persecution—over the themes of its stories, the candy it sold (nailed for being unhealthy), and the subversive and critical nature of some of the street performers—came television, which effectively killed off traditional kamishibai.”

In fact, the new medium of television was sometimes called “electric kamishibai” in Japan.

But no true super-hero ever stays dead, and The Golden Bat lived on in manga, anime, toys, and film versions (1950 and 1966). In Italy, he’d be known as Fantaman.

The 1966 movie—perhaps inspired by that year’s TV Batman craze—is a lively and happily brainless romp that has a Captain Marvel/Thor vibe, with protagonists on the run from alien invaders stumbling into an ancient Atlantean tomb and reviving the super-hero. You can see it on YouTube.

Dan Hagen, a freelance writer who’s a former central Illinois newspaper editor and journalism professor, has won a number of awards from the Associated Press, United Press International, the Southern Illinois Editorial Association, and the Illinois Press Association, as well as the Golden Dozen Award for Editorial Writing from the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors.

[NOTE: See additional Golden Bat images on the following page.]

38

Japan’s “Dark Samurai” Returns!

A Never-Ending Story A montage of Golden Bat images from various sources, from the 1930s on up, assembled by article-writer Dan Hagen.

[TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Now available from Pulp Hero Press

Art by John Romita.

Captain America TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Order at pulpheropress.com and Amazon

39

“Welcome Home, ROY THOMAS!” A Remembrance Of The “February Annual” Event In Jackson, Missouri, 2019

by Carla Jordan Director, Cape Girardeau County History Center of the Cape Girardeau County Historical Society

A/E

“Roy Thomas Day” in Jackson, Missouri… Saturday, Feb. 23, 2019. (Above:) The official February Annual poster, created by local graphic designer Megan Lopez, utilizing an art print drawn by pro comics artist Joe St. Pierre that spotlights Roy and many of the Marvel characters he had a hand in creating; concept

by John Cimino. (The art print itself, produced by special arrangement with Marvel Entertainment, is sold only at comics conventions at which Roy appears, with part of the proceeds going to the comics’ own charity, Hero Initiative.) [Art TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] (Left:) A photo taken that afternoon outside the Cape Girardeau County History Center on High Street, with Jackson’s town square, county courthouse, and bandstand prominent in the background. One summer in the late 1950s, Roy had the job of announcing the musical numbers performed in the latter by the town’s municipal band. Photo & poster courtesy of Carla Jordan.

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: Loath as I was (and if you doubt that, I can’t really blame you, I suppose) to showcase yet another article centered around myself so soon… the bald fact is that, nearly a year ago, my Missouri hometown surprisingly named me guest of honor at a local arts celebration. Even though flying from South Carolina to Memphis, then facing a several-hour drive north in the dead of winter, were hardly tops on my wish list, my wife Dann and I agreed that I could hardly refuse. And then, the person central to it all—the above-bylined Mrs. Carla Jordan—and her volunteer crew did such a spectacular job with the event that I felt I should document the whole magilla in Alter Ego… mostly from her POV. To the extent I’m involved as editor and caption-writer, just consider this article an early Valentine to a town that had, at the very least, a powerful hand in molding any creative virtues I may have brought to the comics or to other fields….

Prelude Jackson, Missouri, is a small, peaceful town not far from the Mississippi River. Though its current population is just 14,000, it has a bustling town square that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The historic district is known as Uptown Jackson, because its grouping of blocks is set on the highest point in the town, on two sides of a classic stone courthouse and its grounds, on which sits an old-fashioned bandstand right out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Jackson also happens to be the hometown of comicbook writer Roy Thomas, although it boasted only about one-fourth as many people when he was a child. (He memorized its 1950 census figure of 3694 as he drove past the city-limits sign countless times as a teenager in the late ’50s.)

Each late winter for the past half-decade, the Uptown Jackson Revitalization Organization (UJRO) has hosted a celebration of arts and culture known as the “February Annual,” organized around one guest of honor. Since no

40

A Remembrance Of The “February Annual” Event In Jackson, Missouri, 2019

previous Annual had honored anyone who had actually lived in Jackson (or in Cape Girardeau County, of which Jackson is the county seat), it was decided that it was time to remedy that situation.

Thus, UJRO and the Cape Girardeau County History Center pulled out all the stops with their “Celebration of Roy Thomas” on February 23, 2019. (The nearby city of Cape Girardeau now has a population of around 40,000; Roy graduated in 1961 from Southeast Missouri State College— now University—in what Jacksonians often refer to simply as “Cape.”)

Carla Jordan & Tara Thomas

When I was designated the liaison for the UJRO Design Committee with Roy and Dann Thomas, I had no idea what I was undertaking. But the journey, which included numerous e-mails of planning, schooling myself in the world of comics, and then hosting the Thomases, was absolutely delightful. I have been a historic preservationist for 30 years, and have owned my own preservation business for nearly 20. During this time, I have preserved structures on historic Route 66, directed two regional museums, consulted with numerous historical sites regarding development, and designed hundreds of exhibitions. In addition, since my 1960s childhood, I have been a “closet” Batman fan, but this project opened up a whole new world that fascinates me. It became a project of my heart, and I admit that I now enjoy reading Alter Ego from cover to cover, and my children have given me a list of how to properly watch the Marvel movies.

Carla (on left) and Roy’s youngest sister Tara—she’s an accountant in Des Moines, Iowa—smile for the camera at the History Center on 2-23-19. And yes, the damsels introduced in both Conan the Barbarian #1 (Oct. 1970) and #52 (July 1975) were named for Tara.

“You’re My Supermen!”

In September of 2018, Roy (on left) greets Michael Archer, who as a graduate intern at the State University in nearby Cape Girardeau had put together a comicbook exhibit for the History Center; it’s seen behind them. The Center held a reception for the pair five months prior to the February event. Photo by Carla Jordan. The most prominent artwork in the display is a blow-up of the Wayne Boring-penciled cover of Superman #29 (July-Aug. 1944), seen more fully at right, courtesy of the online Grand Comics Database. [TM & © DC Comics.]

commenced unofficially on the evening of Friday, the 22nd, with a dinner and a gathering of some of Roy’s family and acquaintances, including classmates and friends from Jackson’s St. Paul Lutheran School (where he attended grades 1-8), Jackson High School, and Southeast Missouri State University. It was held at the St. Paul Lutheran Fellowship Hall, and was hosted by C.L. Jordan Preservation, on the grounds of the church Roy attended while living in Jackson.

Unfortunately, he, Dann, and his manager and friend John Cimino arrived in town an hour late, due to flight delays getting to Memphis plus considerable rain during their three-hour drive north. But they made it, and the attendees had voted to hold dinner until they pulled in.

Dress Rehearsals Roy paid a visit to Jackson roughly once a year until about a decade ago, when his late mother, Leona Thomas, moved to an assisted-living facility in Des Moines, Iowa, where his sister Tara resides. As it happened, his most recent trip here had occurred in September 2018, to attend the 60-year reunion of the Jackson High School class of ’58, and we took that opportunity to get together to plan the details of the February 2019 celebration.

That September meeting also included a one-night reception for Roy and “SEMO” graduate intern Michael Archer. Michael had interned at the Cape Girardeau County History Center, which is a part of CGC Historical Society. His internship project had included the creation of an exhibit titled “When Comics and History Collide.”

Michael had corresponded by e-mail with Roy seeking advice for the display, and that exchange had established the relationships that led to the February celebration.

The February Annual: Celebration of Roy Thomas event

Roy, Dann, & John Cimino arrive at their Jackson motel digs weary but unbowed (well, maybe a little bit bowed) on the evening of 2-22-19, after a day of air flights, driving north from Memphis in the rain, then attending the dinner in the Thomases’ honor.

“Welcome Home, Roy Thomas!”

“What? And Quit Show Business?”

(Above:) Jackson’s Palace Theatre on High Street, circa the 1930s—the only pic we could find of the long-gone movie emporium, which hadn’t changed much when Roy worked there from 1954-60 as usher, ticket-taker, ticket-seller, popcorn boy, and soda jerk. It’s also where he met his lifelong friend Gary Friedrich, who later also wrote comics for Marvel, et al. Photo from the Jackson Cash-Book Journal, with thanks to fellow JHS grad Kent Wilson, whose family formerly owned both theatre and newspaper. (Kent himself scripted a couple of first-season episodes of the legendary Andy Griffith Show, and would make a great guest for a future February Annual. Imagine all those store windows filled with images of Andy, Barney, and Opie! Are you sure Mayberry was in North Carolina?)

(Right:) Perhaps mercifully, no photos seem to exist of Roy’s stint as vocalist with the Gaberlunzies/Galaxies rock’n’roll band he and Gary formed circa 1962—but here’s a pic of Marvel’s future “Rascally Roy” performing as “Evitz Pretzel” at a Jackson High School dance in early ’58. The turtleneck was supposed to approximate the look of Elvis himself singing “Baby I Don’t Care” in the 1957 movie Jailhouse Rock. The piano-player is Palmer Hacker; Gary, who played drums in that trio, is unfortunately just out of frame.

After a downhome meal served by the celebrated “Lutheran ladies,” friends and family (and Roy himself) presented stories about his “coming of age,” including his six years working at the Palace Theatre in Uptown Jackson, and his time as vocalist in the Gaberlunzies (later the Galaxies), a rock’n’roll foursome started by his friend Gary Friedrich; the band performed for a couple of years at the Roll-O-Fun skating rink on the edge of town and occasionally elsewhere.

Roy’s sister Kathryn (Katy) Kirn, who now lives in Osage Beach, Missouri, treated the audience to stories of the Thomas kids’ childhood, and expressed her pride in watching Roy’s career thrive over the years. His nieces (Katy’s daughters) Nicole Bolda and Natalie Kirn were on hand with their families; Natalie and her daughter Serra added their own verbal recollections to the evening.

Roy’s youngest sister, Tara Thomas, would arrive the following day; his other niece, Jodi Christian, was unable to attend.

Roy was pleased that Dr. John Bierk, who had taught him English during his freshman college year and still resides in Cape Girardeau, could attend. The two have kept in touch for the past decade or two. Also present was Janet Myers Schuette, Roy’s neighbor and playmate when they were three or four; in September, she had given Roy copies of vintage photos, including several depicting his parents. Likewise on hand were class-of-’58 friends Vicki Crites Lane and Rodney Miller; fellow JHS students and pals such as Albert “Bud” Tindall, Adelaide Heyde Parsons, Jim Woeltje, Beverly Hahs, and Larry Decker; Roy’s cousin Agnes Wachter; and several others. Likewise in attendance were a number of members of the Historical Society, some of whom were also JHS graduates.

Rock’n’Roll High School Roy with classmate Vicki Crites Lane, whose family’s fabulous party basement saw lots of late-’50s/ early-’60s dancing to “Party Doll,” Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, et al. In recent times, Vicki created a number of gorgeous quilts that are exhibited at the History Center. Photo by John Cimino.

Also seen, speaking at the dinner, are classmate Rodney Miller (above right, a good-guy jock who recently retired from being county clerk for many years) and Jim Woeltje, a childhood chum and JHS grad who had a long career as a high school principal. Photos by Carla Jordan.

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A Remembrance Of The “February Annual” Event In Jackson, Missouri, 2019

Pictures Perfect

More scenes from the Jackson dinner gathering, 2-22-19. (Clockwise from top left:) (a) Roy’s sister Katy Kirn surprised Roy by getting up and speaking—but hey, she was the queen of the JHS yearbook dance back in the day! (b) Katy and Roy hug, not having seen each other since their mother’s funeral in 2016.

Also seen are Katy’s husband Tony Kirn (a former Caterpillar engineer/exec and her JHS classmate) and Adelaide Parsons (daughter of beloved 1950s JHS English and French teacher Mrs. Bernice Heyde), who was formerly Director of the Office of International programs at Southeast Missouri U. (c) Natalie Kirn, one of Roy’s three nieces (Katy’s daughters) related a few anecdotes of her own. (d) As did Nate’s teenage daughter Serra Kay, an outgoing arts student, seen at breakfast the next morning with Roy, et al. (e) Albert “Bud” Tindall, an attorney in Potosi, MO, was Roy’s fellow teacher and roommate in 1964-65, and wangled him a graduate fellowship in foreign relations at George Washington U. in DC… only to see him opt for a job in comicbooks instead. Bud and wife Connie (another JHS grad) have always had a special if long-distance place in Roy’s affections, and he was as delighted as he was startled that they drove an hour-plus each way to attend that evening!

Photos by Carla Jordan and John Cimino.

“Welcome Home, Roy Thomas!”

(Clockwise from top left:) (a) Roy greets Dr. John Bierk, who taught English at “SEMO” State University beginning in the late 1950s and instilled in him a lifelong fascination with Moby-Dick. When Roy and artist Pascal Alixe adapted Melville’s classic for Marvel in 2008 (see page at top right), Roy sent John an inscribed copy—and naturally, the latter was able to (tactfully) point out a thing or two they’d missed. [Page TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.\] (b) 1950s JHS friend Beverly Hahs (on left) and childhood playmate Janet Myers Schuette talk with Roy; pic by Bev’s hubbie Ron. Beverly writes for the local newspaper, and Janet showed up with photos of herself, Roy, and their families going back to at least 1944! (c) Seen in the photo montage are Janet and Roy tricycling at age 3 or 4 (they ran away from home together once, but didn’t get far because they weren’t allowed to cross the street)… and the pair up the Thomases’ backyard cherry tree (right before they came down to face the music for climbing dangerously high!)… while the snapshot of the Thomas family (Roy Sr., Leona, Roy Jr., and baby Katy) was taken around the turn of ’44-’45, soon after they moved to 307 Greensferry Road.

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A Remembrance Of The “February Annual” Event In Jackson, Missouri, 2019

The Old Homestead(s) (Clockwise from above:) A pic of the two-story house (it also had a basement, crucial during Missouri’s tornado season) at 307 Greensferry, which the Thomases rented, starting at $10 a month, from 1944 until Roy’s mother moved to an apartment in the 1980s. This photo was taken even before the family installed a porch swing. Courtesy of Janet Myers Schuette.

The house as it now looks, pretty thoroughly remodeled, painted dark brown, and considerably added to, but still with the same basic frame, at least in front. Even the walkway remains as it was.

Roy was actually born around the corner and down the hill on the same block in November 1940, and was amazed to learn that house still stands—and looks very much as he remembers it: a tiny duplex. The Thomases lived in the half behind the right-hand door. Both 2019 photos by John Cimino.

Missouri Morning The morning of the 23rd began with an early two-man drive around Roy’s hometown. Since Dann had toured Jackson on previous visits, he and John Cimino took a run by the modest two-story house on Greensferry Road into which his family had moved in 1944, when he was not quite four. (Greensferry Road was on the historic path of the Trail of Tears Cherokee relocation in the late 1830s.) They also dropped by the location of the old Jackson High building—totally razed and replaced just a few years ago— and Wib’s Barbecue.

Well before most of the stores opened, they also took in historic Uptown, where Roy—or rather, his mother on his behalf— purchased his very first comicbook in 1945 at Jones Drugs; the store is still in operation, though it no longer carries comics. The former Fulenweider’s drugstore, on another side of the town square, and Cox’s five-and-dime were the two additional Jackson sites of Roy’s

early comicbook purchases. He recalls the latter as the only place in town where, by the early 1950s, he could still buy Fawcett comics starring the original Captain Marvel, now known by his famous magic word Shazam! Little did Roy dream then that one day he would write stories about super-heroes named Captain Marvel for two different comics companies (Marvel and DC), and also help lay the groundwork for a third one, who would be a woman.

Some Like It Hot! (Left:) Roy in front of Wib’s Barbecue, the Jackson drive-in hangout in the 1950s, and still a great place to eat! He even held down a job there for one whole night—washing dishes!

(Right:) Off to one side of Wib’s, Roy poses on the spot where he oversaw a fireworks stand (for the owner of Jones Drugs) in the summer of 1957—until a teenage pal lit a “flying saucer” too close, and it zoomed straight at Roy behind the counter. When he ducked, it landed amid the Roman candles, Vesuvius fountains, and cherry bombs, so Roy decided cowardice was the better part of valor and took shelter behind the cement-block safety of Wib’s—while stand, fireworks, rented tarpaulin, and all were consumed by fire and explosions. The whole area where he’s seen standing was still covered in grass then. Roy says it was his most disastrous job experience ever until he went to work for Mort Weisinger at DC. Photos by John Cimino.

“Welcome Home, Roy Thomas!”

Comics, Drugs, & Rock’n’Roll!

(Top grouping:) Jones Drugs (“Since 1871”) once also sold comics, magazines, toys, and a zillion other things—you could even buy tickets for the big Greyhound bus that stopped outside. Roy’s mother bought him his first comicbook here when he was four, as its store window display artfully notes. That was probably something with Superman or Batman; but the earliest comic he specifically recalls buying there, to peruse while sitting in the family car and listening to a bandstand concert across the street, is Green Lantern #16 (Summer 1945), with its Paul Reinman cover. The quotes in the windows, by the way, are from RT’s recent interview in Bill Schelly Talks to the Founders of Comics Fandom, Vol. 2, from Pulp House Press. Photos by John Cimino.

(Bottom grouping:) The storefront of what was once Fulenweider Drugs is little changed, though today it’s a boutique. This is where, among many other comics, Roy purchased the epoch-marking Showcase #4 in July 1956 after walking the several blocks uptown to purchase fireworks. Cover by Carmine Infantino & Joe Kubert. Photo by John Cimino. [Covers TM & © DC Comics.]

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A Remembrance Of The “February Annual” Event In Jackson, Missouri, 2019

Windows Of The Soul Early on Feb. 23, before the stores opened, was the best time for John Cimino to snap these pics of some of the inventive and biographical window displays prepared by Carla’s super-creative crew. One concentrates on Roy’s contributions to Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian, the other two to various heroes he co-created for Marvel, including Red Sonja.

He, Dann, and John were dazzled by the amount of work put in by college and high school students (and a few teachers as well)!

In support of the celebration, many of the Uptown Merchants, utilizing the artwork of the Jackson High School Art Department and the Southeast Missouri State University Art Department, had, over recent weeks, created window landscapes for the celebration.

One depicted Roy as a child purchasing his first comicbook, and as a youngster reading Edgar Rice Burroughs novels such as the Tarzan books, which he found in Jackson Public Library and which inspired some of his comics work. Siemer’s Appliance store windows boasted an installation of some of his comics and character co-creations, as did Mo Mo’s Treats, Summer Lane, Jones Drugs, and others. These storybook windows allowed several businesses that had not participated much in previous Annuals to take part.

Another contributor was Benjie Heu, a renowned potter, ceramic professor at SEMO, and a comicbook fan since childhood.

We do a series exhibit at the History Center titled “Things People in Cape County Collect.” Benjie installed an exhibit there that consisted of just a small part of his comicbook collection, along with various porcelains he created that were inspired by comics.

Bank Holiday The 23rd was cool and crisp, but clear. The main celebration included an early-afternoon presentation in the auditorium at the Montgomery Bank Center, located where the IGA store, the first super-market in Jackson, had stood during Roy’s youth. As he entered the packed hall, trailers for the upcoming Marvel films Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame (both of which feature characters he co-created) were showing on a screen—and the sound system was playing “[Look Out! Here Comes the] Spider-Man!,” a rock song he and his buddy Gary Friedrich had co-written and recorded at a New York City studio in 1966, and later marketed (alas, unsuccessfully) with Marvel’s blessing. Local technician Darren Burgfeld had spent hours restoring the quality of the original 45 r.p.m. recording, refusing any payment for his efforts.

After being introduced by event chairman Craig Milde, Roy

talked a bit about his years in Jackson, which included commuting to college in Cape Girardeau, from which he graduated in three years (1958-61) by attending summer classes. He spoke fondly of his memories of Gary, who with his help had also become a Marvel writer in the 1960s and who would have been co-guest of honor that weekend if he had not sadly passed away in August of 2018. The audience of nearly 200 was transfixed by Roy’s account of his brief career in 1965 at DC Comics (two whole weeks!) and of his migration to Stan Lee’s then-much-smaller Marvel Comics, where he wrote and edited for the next fifteen years. He served as Marvel’s editor-in-chief for more than two years in the early 1970s before moving to Los Angeles. For much of the 1980s he wrote for DC Comics, and since then he has freelanced for Marvel, DC, and other comics companies, as well as writing several historical books about the field. While living in L.A., he also co-wrote two movies, including the film Conan the Destroyer starring Arnold Schwarzenegger; he currently edits his revived comics-history magazine, Alter Ego. In February he was also in his 18th year of ghost-writing the Spider-Man newspaper comic strip for/with that hero’s co-creator, Stan Lee. Following an enlivened question-and-answer session, Roy received awards from the City of Jackson, the Uptown Jackson Revitalization Organization, the Cape Girardeau County Historical Society, and a letter of congratulations from Marvel Comics’ current editor-in-chief, C.B. Cebulski, read by John Cimino. The awards included an official City of Jackson declaration of February 23 as “Roy Thomas Day,” a lifetime membership to the Cape Girardeau County Historical Society, and a very real and sizable metal key to historic Uptown Jackson.

“Welcome Home, Roy Thomas!”

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Roy & Gary Friedrich had been close friends since 1958 or ’59—more than half a century by the time Bob Bailey snapped this shot at the 2011 Heroes Con in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Gary was hawking his “Ghost Rider” wares. Roy had helped sell Stan Lee on the latter idea and had a hand in designing the costume for his debut in Marvel Spotlight #5 (Aug. 1972)—but the whole concept of a supernatural, motorcycle-riding Ghost Rider was indisputably Gary’s, and it was a major one! Art by Michael Ploog. Thanks to Barry Pearl for the scan.

[Page TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

The Main Event The next part of the celebration commenced with Roy being chauffeured around town in a 1970 Dodge Polara, owned by Jackson native Neil Dougan. The vintage auto eventually dropped him off at a big celebration in Uptown Jackson, which included a pop-up comicbook market, activities for children, comics-related art exhibitions in the store windows, and other special Thomas-and comics-themed displays.

Roy took his place behind a table in the History Center, to sign comics and comics-related items and to chat with all who came by, both old friends and folks born long after he moved away. Some were comics readers, others were fans of the blockbuster Marvel movies or TV series, many of which utilize characters Roy helped create, such as Wolverine, Carol Danvers (the new Captain Marvel), the Vision, Ultron, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Valkyrie, and others.

Editors Across The Ages In the Montgomery Bank auditorium on the afternoon of 2-23-19, John Cimino reads an official letter of congratulations from Marvel editor-inchief C.B. Cebulski, while, behind him, Michael Archer and event chairman Craig Milde look on. Photo by Carla Jordan.

There was a special biographical exhibit in the Center. It included photographs of Roy and pal Janet Meyers climbing trees as youngsters; his grade school and high school years; his time in New York City and Los Angeles; and highlights of his half-century-plus career. The regional fans joined Roy, family members, and Dann at the History Center for hours of visiting, storytelling, and sharing of memorabilia. At times throughout the evening, the line to enter the History Center wrapped around the corner of the building. His sister Tara chose to stand in the long line, in order to experience the authentic anticipation of all those gathered to meet Roy. He spoke with each patron, signed their treasured comicsrelated ephemera, and often shared stories related to a particular item, recalling when and under what circumstances such-and-such

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A Remembrance Of The “February Annual” Event In Jackson, Missouri, 2019

Signs Of The Times (Clockwise from top left:) The autograph line both outside and inside the Cape Girardeau County History Center on 2-23-19 (note the many exhibits besides the comics displays)… Roy obligingly signs the armor of Iron Man, a.k.a. 5-year-old Tristen Watkins of Marble Hill, Missouri… and he inscribes the cover of a Dr. Strange comic for an area dentist named… Dr. Strange! First photo courtesy of Carla Jordan.

[Other photos courtesy & © the Southeast Missourian newspaper in Cape Girardeau.]

Getting Into The Spirit Roy & Dann pose at the History Center before the signing session begins… while two local Marvel enthusiasts, with an oversize Spidey balloon and a bit of Wasp-ish cosplay, give the occasion a bit of a comicsconvention feel. Photos by John Cimino & Carla Jordan.

The former is Dr. Steve “Doc” Jordan, Carla’s husband; the latter is Becky Gockel, owner of Sweetheart Floral in Uptown Jackson.

“Welcome Home, Roy Thomas!”

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Creative Contributions (Clockwise From Top Left:) Marvel fan Carrie Walker is photographed by Justin Damback as she mimics the expression on a gigantic Sal Buscema/Captain America face painted on a store window. They are former Jacksonians now living in Cape Girardeau.

One of Carla Jordan’s more audacious ideas—ably realized by SEMO grad intern Karl Lugar, who hails from Gary, Indiana—was to project an image of Wolverine onto a Jackson storefront that night. It reminded Roy of what a loudspeaker voice used to respond at the Jackson Drive-In Theatre when impatient patrons started honking their horns for the movie to begin: “The show will start as soon as it gets dark enough!” [Photos courtesy of & © Southeast Missourian.]

Roy with one of the main gents who helped get the whole craziness started— Tyler Wolfsberger, president of the Uptown Jackson Revitaliation Organization.

Photo by Carla Jordan.

Roy T. & Carla J. (Right:) The two principals in the 2019 February Annual were way too busy that night to stand still long enough to have their picture taken together, but here’s a snapshot from the September 2018 reception at the History Center. Sorry Carla’s a little out of focus— but hey, after all her hard work, that’s probably how she was feeling at the time! [Courtesy of & © the Southeast Missourian.]

a story was written. Many of the Uptown businesses had special events during the evening with comicbook-themed beverages, snacks, and giveaways. But Roy never left the table to indulge in any of those, as he didn’t want to keep anyone waiting in line any longer than he had to.

The signing-and-chatting part of the Annual went on well into the evening… after which Roy and a few others sat around talking for a little while to unwind. He was also filmed, on both days, for a proposed documentary on his life and career.

The Thomases—And The Kirn Clan After the affair “Uptown,” Roy & Dann gathered with his sister Katy’s side of the family, for a bit of a catch-up and a group photo taken by John Cimino. (Left to right, standing:) Tony Kirn (Katy’s husband), Dann, Mike & Alyson Kirn (Tony’s brother and his wife), Ryan Bolda, & Nicole Bolda (Roy’s niece and mother of Ryan). (L. to r., seated:) niece Natalie Kirn, Roy, and sister Katy. Natalie’s daughter Serra and Roy’s youngest sister Tara weren’t present for this pic.

The February Annual: A Celebration of Roy Thomas was the perfect homecoming event. Sometimes it’s difficult to “come back home,” but in some ways Roy has never really left. He has never forgotten his roots, and he spoke humbly and graciously with his (and comics’) fans here for hours on end, telling stories of his time in Jackson and in the comics industry, and about other comics creators in whom they might be interested, especially his late boss and mentor, Stan Lee. Roy will always be one of our beloved hometown sons of Jackson, Missouri.

A/E EDITOR’S POSTSCRIPT: Ye Ed promises that there will be no photos of Roy T. in A/E #163.

Edited

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{Above:) Daredevil meets Crimebuster and Squeeks, C.B.’s pet monkey. This was for a “Win A Live Monkey” contest from Daredevil #9, April 1942. Biro owned one! (Right:) Biro from a 1950 film “Famous Cartoonists.” [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.\]

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Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

Charles Biro—The Other Stan Lee! (Part 2)

by Michael T. Gilbert

L

ast issue we explored some notable similarities between Marvel writer/editor Stan Lee in the ’60s, and Gleason Publications writer/artist/editor Charles Biro in the ’40s. But wait! There’s more!

Reality Check!

Perhaps Stan’s greatest contribution to Marvel was injecting a dose of reality into the tired super-hero formula. Under Lee and Ditko, Spider-Man became a refreshingly real-world take on super-heroes. Take for instance Amazing Spider-Man #12, in which our hero, weakened by the flu, was easily beaten by Dr. Octopus.

Ock triumphantly unmasked his foe, only to react with dismay when Spider-Man is revealed to be a kid named Peter Parker. At staid DC, the writer would have figured some contrived gimmick for Superman or Batman to fool the villain. But Lee (along with co-plotter Ditko) took a startling different route.

In this story Parker didn’t figure some clever way out. Instead, Doc Ock, surprised at how easily he defeated “Spider-Man,” reacts in shocked disbelief as he stares at the face of the helpless teenager.

Who Was That Masked Man? Stan Lee had Spidey revealed as Peter Parker in this scene from Amazing Spider-Man #12 (May 1964). Art by Steve Ditko.

[TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“I should have known!!” he bellows. “It isn’t Spider-Man! It’s that weakling brat, Peter Parker!”

Of course! In the real world, the logical conclusion would be to assume that the kid under the mask, beaten so easily, was just some dumb teenager playing Spider-Man (while the real Spidey was clearly missing in action).

Lee’s solution to the problem was brilliant in its simplicity.

But, back in the ’40s, Charles Biro had beaten Stan to the punch. Daredevil #42 (May 1947) had a reporter stumbling onto Daredevil removing his costume, revealing himself as Bart Hill. Rather than threaten the reporter, Bart decided to do what no other ’40s comicbook hero would have done in the situation: bribe him!

“Look,” says Bart, “perhaps you and I could work out a little something.”

No goody two-shoes, this hero!

Unfortunately for Bart, the reporter, a guy named Killroy, declines even after being offered a car, an apartment, hot stock market tips, and a horse (!).

A Daredevil By Any Other Name…

Bart Hill, having revealed his Daredevil identity to the world, is shoved in front of a truck by a crook. But while Bart may not have been wearing his costume any more, he still had exceptional reflexes. From Daredevil #44 (Sept. 1947). Art by Norman Maurer. [© the respective copyright holders.]

“Tut, tut! Mustn’t bribe!” chastises Killroy.

“Remember that won’t look so good in my story!”

Just Daredevil’s luck, finding an honest newshound.

It was a very unexpected twist, but then, Biro was known for them.

In the same story Charlie added another

Charles Biro—The Other Stan Lee (Part 2)

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twist by having Daredevil actually reveal his identity to the world! And then, in a refreshing, realistic turn, Biro showed us why having a secret identity was vitally important for these masked vigilantes.

Initially, DD’s greatest danger is being attacked by a bevy of lovesick beauties set on ravaging hunky, hapless Bart Hill. What a fate!

But things get worse. Next day, Bart is strolling along when some lowlife recognizes him and pushes him right in front of a huge truck. Anyone else would have been dead meat, but costume or not, Daredevil is still Daredevil. In a beautifully choreographed scene, Bart manages to spring out of the path of the deadly vehicle.

Minutes later another crook blasts him with a Tommy gun. Bart survives that attack by sheer luck.

It’s a sobering lesson, one that Bart takes to heart when, a couple of issues later, he invents another secret identity for himself.

The story was remarkably plotted, with a sense of realism that would be at home in any ’60s Marvel comic. In fact, a famous Lee storyline in Marvel’s Daredevil #25 also featured that Daredevil’s secret identity being compromised. In that one, Lee salvaged Matt Murdock’s secret identity by having him invent an imaginary twin brother, Mike Murdock. Now there’s a curve even Biro missed!

Charles Biro also played with some of the soap opera elements that Stan made famous. One Biro storyline had Bart finally propose to his long time gal-pal Tonia Saunders, who was in on Bart’s secret from the first. But she turned him down cold, afraid marriage to a reckless daredevil like Bart might make for a disastrously short-term union.

Hmm! Now where have I heard that plot before?

Stan & Charlie All of which is not to suggest that Stan consciously copied Biro. He may have come up with a similar approach on his own.

Or he may have remembered the old Boy and Daredevil comics and recalled how successful Biro’s more sophisticated approach had been decades earlier.

Our own Roy Thomas weighed in on the issue. In an e-mail of Nov. 20, 2018, Lee’s former right-hand man wrote: “I think I mentioned in a caption in AE #155 that Biro’s personal approach to the readers and a couple of other things were forerunners of what Stan did later, even if he always said his main influence was those Poppy Ott and other kid novels of his youth.”

We know that Stan was very familiar with Biro, and admired his work. Asked to name some of his influences, Lee once said this of Biro: “Chas. Biro was an influence because he stressed (and produced) intelligent stories in his comics. No matter the subject matter, they were beautifully structured, written, and edited.” He

All Guys Should Have Such Problems!

The gals went crazy for Bart Hill—once he revealed he was also hunky Daredevil! Art by Dan Barry from Daredevil #42 (May 1947). [© the respective copyright holders.]

was also quoted as saying, “Biro was a genius!”

No doubt about it, Stan was a fan!

The Sincerest Form Of Flattery!

Stan’s admiration for Biro may have been evinced in 1953 when Marvel publisher Martin Goodman, notorious for stealing ideas, likely ordered Stan to come up with a knockoff of Biro’s very successful Boy Comics. Stan probably figured if Boy Comics was a hot title, a more mature Man Comics would be twice as good!

Man started out as a war comic, but the later issues starred “Bob Brant and the TroubleShooters”—a mash-up of Gleason’s Crimebuster from Boy Comics (note the school letters on both characters) and Daredevil’s Little Wise Guys. “Bob Brant” was illustrated by Gleason mainstay Carl Hubbell, who also drew features for both Boy and Daredevil

At Least He Wasn’t An Evil Twin!

Stan invented Matt Murdock’s imaginary swingin’ twin brother, played by Matt Murdock himself! From Daredevil #25 (Feb 1967). Art by Gene Colan & Frank Giacoia. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

Comics. Carl’s wife, Virginia Hubbell (who wrote those titles for Gleason), may have scripted the series.

The Trouble-Shooters consisted of blond Bob Brant, half-pint Bomber, dumb Daffy, and mildly-offensivestereotype-with-a-stupid-Indianheadband Feathers. Not to be confused with Daredevil’s Little Wise Guys: blond Jock, half-pint Slugger, dumb Scarecrow, and no-featheror-hair-either Curly. Alas, lightning didn’t strike twice, and the series lasted a mere three issues.

A Little To The Left…

Politically, Biro and Lee were both liberals whose stories sometimes tackled controversial racial and religious issues. Take, for instance, Lee and Kirby’s Hate-Monger villain in Fantastic Four #21 (Dec. 1963)—a rabble-rouser spewing hate and intolerance until stopped by the Fantastic Four. At story’s end, he was revealed to be Adolf Hitler (or more likely one of his doubles).

A similar situation had also occurred decades earlier at Comic House (aka Lev Gleason Publications). Some former Gleason staff members, years later, also accused Biro of being a credit hog.

Gleason cartoonist Pete Morisi (quoted in David Hajdu’s The Ten Cent Plague) was one of them: “Biro was an egomaniac. Look at the covers—his autograph was the biggest type on the cover. He wanted everybody to think that he was the whole show, and he was the whole show, in the sense that he ran everything. He was very good at that. He knew what he wanted.

He liked to let on that he wrote everything, but he didn’t. Ginny Hubbell wrote just about everything that Charlie Biro took credit for. I didn’t think anybody really cared who wrote anything, except Charlie.

He cared a lot. He was the boss.”

Stretched Thin!

When Jim Amish interviewed Bob Fujitani for Alter Ego #23, the Not bad, but in 1942 Biro cartoonist had similar sentiments. had already done him one better.

Commenting on the fact that Biro’s “What Happened To Daredevil’s Costume?” Indeed!

Daredevil #13 (Oct. 1942) saw DD Daredevil and Boy splash pages battling a band of murderous gooseHe got rid of it… at least for a couple of issues. But don’t you love always had a “Story by Charles the red and blue trunks? From Daredevil #42 (May 1947). steppers who bore an uncanny Biro” blurb plastered on it, Fujitani Art by Biro. [© the respective copyright holders.] resemblance to the Ku Klux Klan. A asserted that “Bob Bernstein wrote white-robed “Wizard” led the thugs, most of those stories. Biro took credit and an attempted lynching was also for everything. He might have given a synopsis to Bernstein, but part of the plot. Strong stuff in the war years!

Bob actually wrote the stories.”

Credit Where Credit Isn’t Due!

Fujitani later clarified his statement, saying that Biro did write many of his stories, but fewer as time went on and he took on more editorial responsibilities.

Of course, all wasn’t sweetness and light. Over the years, one of the complaints leveled against Stan was his willingness to take credit (and full payment) for stories he merely plotted or dialogued. With new books popping up all the time, Lee’s workload became increasingly heavy. He compensated by employing the “Marvel Method,” where the artist often co-plots the story from a synopsis provided by the writer (Stan, in this case), who then adds the final dialogue. This method gave the artists more creative freedom, but that rarely translated directly to more cash or co-writing credit for the artists, who were now doing an increasing part of the writer’s job. But it’s hard to complain when the writer is also your boss!

This eventually soured Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Wally Wood, and other artists—the very people who created the Marvel Universe with Stan Lee in the first place.

This approach was taken to the next level beginning in the ’70s when “Stan Lee Presents” was plastered on most Marvel comics, even when Stan’s involvement was only as the publisher, not the credited scripter. But owner Cadence Industries found it useful having Stan as the company front man, similar to Walt Disney at his own company. And Stan, of course, had no objection to seeing his name everywhere.

Charlie & Stan, Man! (Left:) Biro in 1950. (Right:) Lee in 1966.

Charles Biro—The Other Stan Lee (Part 2)

Boy Becomes Man! (Above:) Lev Gleason’s Boy Illustories #60 (March 1951), art by Charles Biro—and Timely’s Man Comics #26 (Dec. 1950), art by Carl Hubbell.

(Below:) “The Little Wise Guys” from Gleason’s Daredevil #124 (Aug. 1955), art by Tony DiPreta—and “Bob Brant and the Trouble-Shooters” from Man Comics #28 (Sept. 1953), art by Carl Hubbell. While the precise Timely/Marvel art in this spot is earlier-dated, of course, the Gleason/Biro concepts came first. [Marvel art TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.; other art © the respective copyright holders.]

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Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

If Fujitani and Morisi are correct, why did Biro delegate much of his later work to other writers? Biro explained the situation at the 1968 SCARP-Con panel, as reported in A/E #73. Biro was explaining why he left the comics field:

spread his marketable name over more and more books—but, of course, he was still overseeing, editing, and providing dialogue for those titles.

“What had happened was that I found so much happiness in the field, and I was so thrilled with the great successes and number of books, about four or five really great books that we had, all selling very well. And I was making a lot of money, and enjoying it and, oh, it was just the greatest. But then [publisher Lev] Gleason thought, ‘Well, we have five books, each making X-dollars. But what if we have ten books each making X-dollars? You know, we’d have ten times as much. So, Charlie, we need a new title today.’

“It Was Very Exhausting…”

“Well, okay. Desperado and Black Diamond, and ‘Charlie, we need [another] new title!’—along came another, and a couple of animation books [funny animal]… Finally, there were so many titles, I didn’t even know them. If you asked me what books, I couldn’t even tell you the books I was working on, produced, created, and wrote the stories for… [Life] became a sixty- to seventy-hour week, it became a hundred-hour week. You might say I had nightmares, dreams about the damned things, which I’m so in conflict on. And then I reached a point where I finally said, ‘Holy cow, this has got to stop!’

“And little by little I told the guys to do the book any way they wanted—’Draw anything you want, write any way, fine, fine, fine’… things got thinned out to the point where so much was watered down as to be totally innocuous. It was so thin, you couldn’t even see me [in it]; you couldn’t recognize any Biro.

Then, actually, our sales fell off, and our publisher got a little disgusted….”

Regardless of how much both Story By… writers delegated work, it would be The famous signature! wrong to think Biro and Lee were simply lazy. Just the opposite, actually.

Biro described the situation in 1968, when he talked about his long comic book career, from 1936 to 1956: “That’s nearly twenty years. I was tired. Boy, let me tell you. I mean, if you were trying to knock out a living in the days of early comics, you had to produce. And I was just exhausted, handling about thirty artists, and maybe as many, sometimes, people in the art positions, along with the engravers, and all sorts of people, when you’re an editor and half a publisher to boot. So it was very exhausting….”

Biro and Lee were hard-working, no-nonsense editors, who did a lot of PR work for their respective companies. And even when they assigned stories to others, the two would generally rewrite the scripts in the editing phase, giving Gleason or Marvel a cohesive feel. As the public faces of their companies, it was considered commercially viable (if questioned by some today) for Lee and Biro to put the final stamp on the stories—and take the lion’s share of credit.

Indeed, the later Gleason books were watered down kiddie fare, a far cry from the thrilling “blood and guts” stories that had made Biro’s comics million-sellers in the ’40s. The institution of the Comics Code, whose seal began appearing on Gleason’s books by March 1955, exacerbated this trend.

By the mid-’50s Charlie was burned out. It’s not surprising he passed the work onto others. But the readers still expected to see the famous Charles Biro signature on all the stories.

Stan Lee had a similar problem. In the ’60s, Marvel was getting bigger and bigger. Even for Stan, Marvel’s indefatigable main writer, it was too much. It got worse in the late ’60s, when Marvel publisher Martin Goodman demanded more titles. By then artists like Kirby, Colan, Romita, and Ditko had already been doing the heavy lifting on many of Lee’s stories. As a result, Stan was able to

Harbingers Of Hate!

(Left:) In Daredevil #13 (Oct. 1942), Biro had Daredevil tackle a group of white-robed KKK-inspired Nazis. (Right:) Nazis also made their appearance in Lee & Kirby’s Fantastic Four #21 (Dec. 1963). [Marvel page TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.; other art © the respective copyright holders.]

Charles Biro—The Other Stan Lee (Part 2)

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A Bevy Of Biros!

As Biro’s books became best-sellers, publisher Leverett Gleason insisted that Charlie create more and more books, which quickly watered down the line. Dear Lord! Even Crimebuster’s pet monkey got his own book for five issues! (Left to right:) Desperado #1 (June 1948), Slugger #1-and-only (April 1956), Dilly #1 (May 1953), and Squeeks #1 (Oct. 1953). All covers attributed to Biro. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Al Feldstein at EC also rewrote stories by Jack Oleck, Carl Wessler, and others to give EC a consistent “house style.” But unlike Biro and Lee, Feldstein didn’t sign his stories.

Moreover, the use of anonymous ghosts was common practice in newspaper strips—the gold standard of cartoonists of the era.

Artists like Frank Frazetta toiled in obscurity, sweating on Li’l Abner and Flash Gordon strips for Al Capp and Dan Barry. Will Eisner had dozens of writers and artists working on The Spirit over the years, but readers only saw Eisner’s name signed every week. That was business as usual in the not-always-so-Golden Age.

And So…

Join us as we conclude our examination of two of the greatest editors in comics next issue. Maybe we’ll even tell a tale of two Daredevils!

Till next time…

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appeared in Scary Monsters Magazine 1999 Yearbook (Monsters Memories #7).

Tom Hamilton Always glad to get a correction to anything, Tom… even if, in this case, it’s more a matter of a more precise title. Next, on to a lengthy but ultra-informative e-mail from someone who knew Larry well and was quoted concerning him in A/E #152, John Benson: Roy— Page 15: SATA was Bill Pearson’s fanzine (initially co-edited by Dan Adkins, but solo Pearson by the issue shown). This is issue 11, and the cover is actually a wraparound; see attached. The page size was 8½ x 5½ inches. Dick Lupoff had nothing to do with SATA. Ivie did a fair amount of work for the offset issues of SATA (10 to 15), doing the cover of issue 10 in addition to this one.

O

ur Australian “maskot”-artist-in-residence Shane Foley clearly developed a fondness for Golden Age comicker Lee Harris’ version of the costumed DC hero Tarantula, since he used it as the focus of his illo to head this issue’s rendition of “re:.” Far be it from us to remind him that tarantulas don’t really spin webs—but then, the versions envisioned by both Harris and (beginning in Star Spangled Comics #1 in 1941) Hal Sharp did—at least with the aid of technology. Nice job by Shane and colorist Randy Sargent, as per usual! [Alter Ego hero TM & © Roy & Dann Thomas – costume designed by Ron Harris, no relation to Lee; other art © Shane Foley.]

It was hardly a shock to me (a.k.a. Ye Editor, Roy T.) that Alter Ego #152, centered around the fan and pro life of the late Larry Ivie as chronicled by friend and fellow artist Sandy Plunkett, garnered even more mail and e-comments than usual! That may seem a bit odd at first thought, since Larry didn’t produce a terrific amount of published work. But Sandy’s writing, added to the multiple samples of art, made clear both Ivie’s passion and talent—and readers responded.

Typical, perhaps, is this missive from Tom Hamilton:

By the way, looking at page 11 of A/E #152, I see a few errors.

First, in the caption that quotes me, a line was left out of my anecdote. The missing portion is here in CAPS: “…asked Larry if he could stay WITH HIM. LARRY SAID THAT HE WOULDN’T BE HOME, BUT ARCHIE COULD STAY there. Larry said he kept an extra key…”

This kind of renders the story meaningless, since the point is that Archie [Goodwin] would have to get the key from Central Park, since Larry wouldn’t be home. I’m sure this was an inadvertent error, not a case of condensing for space.

Shifting eyes to the right on the same page, that must be Paul Davis with Archie, not “Phil” Davis. Paul Davis was a close friend of Archie’s in Oklahoma, was about Archie’s age, and went to the School of Visual Arts, presumably at the same time as Archie. I have

Dear Roy, Ever since discovering Monsters and Heroes in the ’60s, I’ve been interested in Larry Ivie’s significant, yet relatively obscure contributions to the field, and this issue’s feature article did much to clarify these mysteries.

Back then, I was very impressed by his Raboy-influenced Altron Boy, and never understood why he seemingly vanished. Sandy Plunkett’s study—as well as your own observations— provided an insightful portrait of the man and the reasons his efforts remained largely unheralded. I also appreciate getting to see so much of Larry’s art, and I’ve encouraged Sandy to post all of the unpublished Altron Boy material to his own site.

I do have one item for clarification: On page 50 there is mention of an Altron Boy article Larry wrote in Scary Monsters #7. That article actually

Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Fan Reader Paul Allen writes: “I had the pleasure of visiting Larry at his NYC apartment around the Labor Day weekend of 1967, but as a Burroughs fan, not a comics fan. I was attending the World Science Fiction Convention that weekend and stayed on for a few days with my then fiancée (now married for 50 years). Larry was a terrific host and I remember being surprised at meeting a ‘pro’ who really seemed to be more of a ‘fan.’

He didn’t have any spare art handy to lend me for my Burroughs fanmag The Barsoomian. However, he did loan me a number of sketches by Roy Krenkel which I used in later issues. (I also got to meet and spend some time with Krenkel at the con.) I still have a complete set of Larry’s Monsters and Heroes which he autographed to me during my visit.

“Attached are scans of two photos I took. In one, Larry is pretending to touch up a piece of art which I believe later appeared in Monsters and Heroes. In the other, he proudly shows off his Hal Foster and Frank Frazetta original art. The pics were taken with an Instamatic camera, so the flash is pretty obtrusive.”

re:

Setting The Record Straight John Benson, hardly a stranger to these pages, sent the Larry Ivie wraparound cover (above) of the science-fiction fanzine SATA #11, of which we showed only the front cover in A/E #152—along with the info that Dick Lupoff had nothing to do with editing or publishing the mag, as per the information we had for the Ivie issue. [© Estate of Larry Ivie.]

He also sent two decades-apart photos of Paul Davis, the man who (rather than “Phil Davis,” as per our info) roomed with Archie Goodwin for a time in Manhattan back in the 1960s. Davis became a well-known artist, as per this cover of his 1977 book Paul Davis Posters & Paintings. The poster art used as the cover was, John thinks, from one done for a presentation of The Threepenny Opera. [TM & © Paul Davis.]

no independent recollection that they roomed together in NYC, but that would make sense and is more or less cinched by the attached photo of Paul that I found on the web. Paul Davis, of course, became a famous artist in his own right, arguably having broader name recognition than Archie. I found a reference in a July 1959 fanzine that 345 West 23rd Street was shortly to be torn down, so that photo may have been taken at that address, not 76th Street.

When Bill Schelly interviewed me, he did not refer to Ivie’s apartment as “the apartment where fandom was born.” What he said was, “You’d almost have to come up with a name for it—the apartment building that started fandom, or something.” His point was that all these fans were living in the same building. In fact, Pearson and Adkins (and likely Goodwin, too) were active in fandom before they even heard of Larry or came to New York.

On page 15, Plunkett’s description of Profusely as the equivalent of a blog is right on the mark. It is a long narrative of Larry’s personal life at the time, the central event being his realization that someone had walked off with some rare items from his collection. Larry told me that he never distributed Profusely but only gave a copy to the person he suspected of being the thief, hoping to shame him into returning the material. I got my copy by finding a stack of them in his apartment and asking if I could have one. Other one-off (at least I think they were one-off) mimeo fanzines that Larry created include Story Art and Agamemnon Weekly (with Bill Pearson).

Come on, Roy, you don’t really think the [George] Evans art on page 34 is reproduced from pencils, do you? Looks clearly like ink

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and grease pencil to me.

Page 35: It should be noted that Premier’s Mysterious Stories featured a series called “Grandma Gruesome’s Deadtime Stories.”

I liked Brill’s sidebar on page 41. Someone (Marland Frenzel?

Archie?) loved to tell the story of looking for a soft drink in Larry’s refrigerator and finding only a rubber dinosaur. Apparently he wasn’t the only one; glad that tidbit got in the issue.

Page 42: It’s nice that Plunkett acknowledges that Castle of Frankenstein became a more sophisticated, adult magazine after Larry left, but don’t you think the person responsible for that, Bhob Stewart, deserves a mention?

Page 47: The distributor’s name is Kable, not Kabel.

And, add to Larry’s credits: ads in The New York Times and elsewhere for the Inwood Theatre (including drawings of Chaplin, Lon Chaney, Sr., and W.C. Fields). This came about because Fred von Bernewitz was manager of the Inwood at the time.

John Benson Thanks for providing us with (among other things) the additional information about the late Archie G.’s early roomie, John. We’ve printed the photos you provided, plus the cover of a book retrospective of Paul Davis’ art, elsewhere on this page—as well as the SATA art of which you sent a scan. However, I’ve got to admit that, although a few words did indeed get left out of your description of the incident regarding Archie and Larry and the key under a rock in Central Park, the narrative never seemed anything less than crystal clear to me (even in print).

On page 24 of A/E #152, we printed a page of Ivie art that seemed to be the one he had referred to in writing as “the last undrawn EC script…

Nick Meglin’s ‘Audience with Caesar.’” When we sent a copy of that issue to the latter, who for many years had been associate editor of Mad magazine, the response of Nick Meglin took us slightly aback: Dear Roy: Glad you sent this. Sorry, not my script. My first draft, also about Julius Caesar, was returned to me for a final pass to be scheduled for a future issue in order to make time between the Roman/gladiator/Caesar, etc., stories. But alas, Valor was part of the EC sinking ship and it never came to pass. My hope was that it would be drawn by my closest pal, Angelo Torres.

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[correspondence, comments, & corrections]

Still, this appears to be Larry’s best work, at least what I have seen.

Nick Meglin Sadly, Nick passed away very shortly after sending us the above e-mail. We were wondering if perhaps Larry, as was his wont, had simply changed the script so much while he was drawing his sample pages that Mr. Meglin didn’t recognize it. Now we’ll probably never know.

This next note, from Brett Canavan, has more to do with artist Gene Day, who is mentioned in Plunkett’s article on Ivie: Hi Roy— Sandy Plunkett did a marvelous job of outlining Larry Ivie’s work and career. In my opinion, Larry could have “made it” professionally with a few nudges and some possible assistance/ inking to improve his anatomy. His work reminded me a lot of early Frank Brunner.

The late Gene Day has been mentioned frequently in A/E of late. I knew Gene somewhat through his friendship with Dave Sim and (the late) Harry Kremer of Now & Then Books here in

Kitchener [Ontario, Canada]. Whenever Gene would come to town, I would be invited along for dinner and fun conversation. Gene knew a lot about a lot of things, including old comics and films. He was thrilled when he got the gig at Marvel.

Gene loved most of his assignments, including Marvel Two-in-One, Master of Kung Fu with Moench and Zeck (later on his own), but he was overjoyed to be inking one of his idols, Carmine Infantino, on every other issue of Star Wars.

We were at a convention together (Cosmicancon, I believe), and Now & Then was selling Gene’s pages for him. Gene wandered by and I told him how much the fans loved his art; the lettercols were full of praise. Gene’s response was something like, “Gee, I wish Marvel would tell me that. They never let me see the fan mail.” Gene felt under-appreciated at Marvel, as much as he loved the work. It is no secret that a certain editor didn’t care for Gene’s work and had him and Doug Moench pulled from the book. Loyal to Gene, when Doug accepted the Batman/Detective gig at DC, he asked for (and got) permission to bring Gene along. Sadly, Gene died just after completing one cover and a few interior pages (reworked later by brother Dan, if I recall). Gene’s only full DC work was inking George Pérez on a Teen Titans mini-series featuring Changeling (issue 3). His only other non-Marvel work at this time was an adaptation of the Rolling Stones song “Sympathy for the Devil” for Heavy Metal magazine—which has to be seen to realize the depths of Gene’s talent. I consider it a privilege to have known the man for the short time I did and to have been able to tell him how much I admired his work.

Brett Canavan Gene Day had plenty of admirers, Brett—and we’re glad to hear that you were one of them. Thanks for sharing your memories of him with us.

Next, a welcome shout-out from longtime underground-comix cartoonist Larry Rippee: Dear Roy, In the early days of fandom, Ivie seemed to be everywhere: proto-cosplay (long before such a term existed), dressing up like The Green Hornet or some such… drawings in ERB-dom… and I was knocked out by his Mummy cover for Castle of Frankenstein #3 back when I was a lad. He always seemed to be on the verge of some real pro status.

I’ve always appreciated his odd, ubiquitous contributions.

Sandy Plunkett’s article filled in the blanks on just how much Ivie really did in so many different arenas. It’s pleasantly surprising that he was so honored with an issue of Alter Ego. Larry Rippee I myself had always figured I’d feature Larry in some issue of Alter Ego, Larry. I just never knew—until I received Sandy Plunkett’s manuscript via e-mail—that it would turn out to transform that issue into one of my all-time favorites!

John Pierce (who has often signed himself “John G. Pierce”) has been a mainstay of our FCA section from its beginnings in Alter Ego, but in this case he writes about the front part of an issue—the coverage of Larry Ivie: Salutations, Roy,

"I've Been Around For A Long, Long Year..."

Gene Day was a talented and under-appreciated artist at Marvel in the 1970s on features such as Master of Kung Fu, but Brett Canavan contends that his most outstanding work was this adaptation of "Sympathy for the Devil," a 1968 song performed by the Rolling Stones rock band. It appeared in the Aug. 1979 issue of Heavy Metal Magazine. [TM & © Heavy Metal Magazine or successors in interest.]

The Larry Ivie article is definitely one I want to comment on, but first let’s get the niggling errors out of the way.

Sandy Plunkett seems to be a good writer, but he (in common with so many others) needs to learn the different between “roll” and “role.” Also, on page 45, he uses the word “pour” when he means “pore.” Finally, on p. 43, he incorrectly credits The Double Life of Private Strong to Harvey Comics, when it was really published

re:

by Archie, as correctly noted in the caption on the very same page.

But the article itself was fascinating, not least so because I was one of the many people he influenced.

No, I never Captains In Captions “crashed” in David Armstrong scribes: “The table of contents his apartment, illustration of Altron Boy was done from a picture Larry and in fact took of me [see A/E #152, p. 47]. There’s more story never met him about this: Larry came to my home in Connecticut to in person at shoot some 16mm footage, in costume, to try to sell a all. I found Saturday morning series. I don’t know what happened Monsters and to the footage. Were you, or the author of the Ivie article, Heroes on in touch with whoever bought stuff from the estate the stands auction? I’d like to get a copy of the picture he took of during my me in the Captain America costume at John Benson’s ’66 NY Con.” undergraduate days, at a One of those photos was printed in A/E #152; here’s another one. A/E’s editor well remembers walking down time when I a Manhattan street in 1966 with young David clad as a wasn’t heavily very authentic (if underage and undersized) Captain following America, complete with a well-made shield. We ourselves comics or have only scans of those photos, of course, courtesy fanzines, due of Sandy Plunkett; but perhaps the owner will see this to restraints caption and contact Dave through us. of time and money. But I did immerse myself in M&H, a high-quality publication in spite of some of the errors it contained, at least one of which I wasn’t aware of at the time (such as a reference to the supposed “Mary Marvel Marching Society,” something I later repeated in print before I learned that apparently Larry had simply made this up in order to get back at Marvel for some supposed offense).

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things that would not have happened if it hadn’t been for Larry.

He deserves to be so much better-known, which is why I love magazines like Alter Ego and Back Issue. I’m looking forward to seeing the “Justice Society/Legion/League” section soon!

Dan Tandarich As you now know, Dan, Michael T. Gilbert spotlighted those Ivie “JSA revival” pages in A/E #156. We have access, mostly through Sandy Plunkett, to other Ivie pages related to such heroes as Batman and Captain America, and one of these days we’ll find a chance to spring them on you.

Here’s a bit of info, courtesy of George Hagenauer, about a bit of Fiction House art from Larry’s collection that made its way into A/E #152: Hi Roy, The Jungle Comics #75 prelim and cover [by Joe Doolin] on page 60 of the Larry Ivie article is a reverse swipe (with some minor modifications) of the Jungle Tales pulp Summer 1942 cover.

The original cover may have been by George Gross. Reusing pulp covers as comics covers occurred occasionally at Fiction House—and, thinking about it, the swiping I think most commonly occurred on covers by Doolin, himself an old pulp artist. Jungle #75 was the first Fiction House comic I ever saw or owned, bought used for a dime back in the early ’60s.

George Hagenauer More on Larry Ivie—and on an aspect of the FCA segment of that

But M&H was the catalyst for my engaging in a relatively prolific correspondence with Larry in the late ’60s and on into my post-college years of the early ’70s. A lot of our conversations seemed to revolve around Captain Marvel.

John Pierce Any few misspellings or misuses in Sandy’s text, of course, should have been caught by me as editor—and I’m far more surprised that, while correctly crediting Archie Comics with publication of Simon & Kirby’s Double Life of Private Strong in a caption, I missed altering the publishing byline for Harvey Comics in the article itself.

Dan Tandarich’s e-letter below sums up the way many people felt about A/E #152: Dear Roy, I was captivated by Sandy Plunkett’s in-depth article on Larry Ivie! I have to say I’m somewhat shocked that I had never heard of him before, but I guess that was part of the point of his spotlight issue. Larry’s spirit really shone through in Sandy’s writing, from his move to NYC to his love of comicbooks and characters. This article would have been worth it for the “Justice Legion” story alone, but I’m so glad it had all of the rest. Larry really seemed to be a catalyst for so many other stories and creators. It’s intriguing to think of all the possibilities that could have been and all those

Shield-Slinger & Sidekick A sketch of Captain America and Bucky by Larry Ivie, probably from the late 1950s or early ’60s. Thanks to Sandy Plunkett. [Captain America & Bucky TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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[correspondence, comments, & corrections]

issue, from TwoMorrows author/editor Pierre Comtois: Roy, Enjoyed the Larry Ivie profile by Sandy Plunkett. I can identify somewhat with Larry’s disenchantment regarding the post-Vietnam state of pop culture. He would surely have been disappointed in the deconstruction of classic characters that has taken place over the past few decades. Of less interest to him, possibly, but more so to me, would be the state that Marvel’s characters have been reduced to, particularly in recent years, driving sales down and necessitating regular reboots attempting to get things back on track… and failing miserably.

I was also interested to learn that Larry had scripted some stories for Tower, namely T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. By sheer coincidence, I came upon a clutch of those comics cheap and have been reading them. Unfortunately, though the art is decent, the scripting is wanting. Compared to what Marvel was doing at the time (or even DC, Gold Key, or even Charlton), I find them almost unreadable. Some concepts such as “NoMan” are interesting, but the unknown scripters never seemed to bother to delve too deeply into characterization. Shrug. Hats off to Sandy Plunkett as well, not only for writing the Ivie piece but for the far too few instances of comics work he himself did back in the day. I remember at the time wanting to see more of his stuff, but alas! ’Twas not to be.

On to the FCA section: In the article “Captain Marvel and the ©opyright ©risis” by Mike Tiefenbacher, you make a reference for the illo on page 95 to “style-blind DC editors” unable to recognize the art of Kurt Schaffenberger. This touched on a subject that I’ve always wondered about. When artists like Gene Colan or Werner Roth first did work for Marvel, they were working for DC and so used pseudonyms such as “Adam Austin” and “Jay Gavin.” With Colan’s distinctive style in particular, I always thought it impossible that his employers at DC wouldn’t be able to recognize his work right off. Was there any real hope of that, or did the editors there simply turn a blind eye on the moonlighting?

Pierre Comtois

My own guess, Pierre, is that the DC editors of that day mostly didn’t look at Marvel’s comics… and I sincerely doubt that many of them, even the romance editors who had worked with Gene Colan for years, recognized the true identity of “Adam Austin” if they did see it. With the love comics genre dying, though, they might simply have been inclined not to try to prevent an artist from making a bit of needed money; besides, that simply stopped him from dunning them for work. Who knows? I do know that it was the consensus of moonlighting artists I know, such as Gene, Gil Kane, et al., that most of DC’s editors weren’t that good at recognizing an artist’s style if seen in an unfamiliar setting (i.e., in the pages of a Marvel comic).

One fellow pro who knew Larry Ivie well was Don Glut, who would soon become a writer for Gold Key and other comics companies himself.

Here are his welcome reminiscences of Larry: Hi Roy, My first encounter with Larry Ivie was his illustration for a story titled “Mummy’s Rumble” in the third issue (1958) of Monster Parade magazine. I didn’t make it a point back then to remember the artist’s name, though the illo bore his distinctive signature. When I actually met him, in Chicago, he was dressed as Batman, in an impressively accurate homemade costume he was wearing for the masquerade contest at the 20th World Science Fiction Convention (Chicon, 1962). Larry was impressed when I mentioned that Batman’s cape and cowl, like his, was black, not blue. What stunned me was his saying that he always bought three copies of certain Golden Age comicbooks. For example, he owned three copies of Superman #1. Two he cut up, pasting the pages into scrapbooks— sometimes rearranging or even redrawing panels to “improve” the stories.

Among my memories, Larry: informed me about two of his new projects, one being T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, another the top-secret Creepy, many months before their first issues appeared on newsstands… showed me which Private Strong panels he’s penciled for his friend Al Williamson… proudly noted how he got Captain America’s costume back to basics (his only Marvel art gig), eliminating the wraparound stripes that made Cap, he said, look like a merry-go-round… and claimed he’d designed the famous 1960s “Peace Symbol” (a stylized rocket enclosed in a circle symbolizing Earth, symbolizing the use of atomic power for peace), a “work for hire” that, he said, got him investigated by the FBI. He found the Weismuller Tarzan movies important due to the presence of Johnny Sheffield, because as the Boy actor aged, the films preserved a moving, visual record of human growth.

Back in the early 1960s, Larry did some art for my fanzine Shazam!, a title he really fancied. Around that time, he showed me his very impressive, full-color pages for his attempted JSA/JLA revival, starring the son of the Hawks.

We both made 16mm amateur super-hero movies. Larry appears as the Nazi villain in my Captain America Battles the Red Skull, also as The Mask and one of his henchmen in my Batman and Robin, both filmed in 1964. And he inserted a close-up clip of me “flying” from my black-&-white Captain Marvel movie into his own color Superboy film. Mixing color and black-&-white shots didn’t matter to Larry.

War Is Helmet Way back in Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #5, in conjunction with an article written

by Larry Ivie, we featured photos the artist had taken of the well-detailed Hawkman and Dr. Fate helmets he had made while still a kid. Well, turns out those artifacts have been preserved all these years, and here they are— along with a Caduceus that perhaps Larry made on some occasion where he intended to play at being the god Mercury/Hermes. Courtesy of Sandy Plunkett.

Larry was always concerned about “bagginess” in homemade super-hero costumes. He believed that if a costumed character moved around fast enough on film, wrinkles and other flaws could go unnoticed. Sometimes Larry took no chances—and literally painted the costumes on his actors! He said that, one time, while shooting a swordfight in Central Park for a Flash Gordon movie, a man walking his dog happened by and stopped to watch. The man offered to help out in staging the scene and Larry accepted the offer.

That man was actor Basil Rathbone!

re:

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A Face Without Meaning Don Glut points out that photos of him had been used by Larry Ivie when the latter penciled the story “A Kiss without Meaning” for Charlton’s I Love You #57 (July 1965), whose cover and splash page were depicted in A/E #152. By the time inker Vince Colletta was finished, however, all resemblance was long gone—and Larry didn’t even save a copy of one of his very few published art assignments. To see what Don really looked like in the 1960s, see his interview in A/E #143. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Mummy Dearest!

The first picture drawn by Larry Ivie that pro writer Don Glut recalls seeing was the display drawing for “Mummy’s Rumble” in a 1958 issue of a mag called Monster Parade. [© Estate of Larry Ivie.]

Larry and I mostly communicated back then by exchanging reel-to-reel correspondence tapes. In one he told me that he’d drawn me as a character in a romance comicbook. He drew me as the teenaged boyfriend in “A Kiss without Meaning” for Charlton’s I Love You #57 (p. 31 in A/E #152). Presumably he worked from photos and also his memory. He showed me the pencils during one of my visits to New York. But he felt the character no longer looked like yours truly, thanks to Vince Colletta’s rushed inking. Of course, Larry also had a habit of drawing himself into his various characters. Note the faces.

Seemingly forever, Larry was writing what he intended to be the definitive book about Superman. He was especially fond of the Adventures of Superman radio series and spent years trying to assemble the storyline, based mostly on his own memories of the show, plus old magazine articles, radio logs, whatever he could find. When I told him, in the late 1990s or early 2000s, that almost every episode was available—and at small cost—on MP3, he replied that anything on a disc was beyond his comprehension. He resumed his “old school” researching.

NEW FOLIO COLLECTOR’S EDITION

Selected and introduced by ROY THOMAS

Includes facsimile of MARVEL COMICS #1

Larry and I were friends since 1962. Sandy Plunkett got the story right. Larry was indeed quite a character!

Don Glut No argument there, Don! Thanks for your long remembrance.

We close with a bit of info from Al Rodriguez, related to the “Captain Marvel & the ©opyright ©risis” article serialized over several issues of Alter Ego:

ORDER NOW from foliosociety.com/Marvel

© 2019 MARVEL

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[correspondence, comments, & corrections]

Roy: This is to add to one of the recent issues of Alter Ego said in a Fawcett Collectors of America section: Albert Bernard Feldstein said that after William Maxwell Gaines sold Mad magazine, Mad was briefly owned by, and passed through the hands of, McCarthyite Roy Cohn through his company the Lionel Corporation (which was originally founded by Cohn’s great-uncle Joshua Lionel Cowen and Harry C. Grant). Here is a website saying so (it was also said in Fred von Bernewitz’s and Grant Geissman’s Tales of Terror Compendium): https://tinyurl.com/y9f32gw6.

Al Rodriguez Always glad to receive some additional info, Al. Whether sending confirmation or corrections, address your lines to: Roy Thomas e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com 32 Bluebird Trail St. Matthews, SC 29135 In case you didn’t know: our Alter-Ego-Fans e-mail discussion list is still going strong with news and views at http:/groups.yahoo. com/group/alter-ego-fans. Mirthful moderator Chet Cox tells us that Yahoo no longer as an “Add Member” tool (how did they lose that?), so you might experience a slight problem getting in—but if you contact him at mormonyoyoman@gmail.com, he’ll walk—nay, trot—you through the process.

And Ye Ed’s buddy and manager John Cimino still presides over The Roy Thomas Appreciation Boards on Facebook, which likewise discusses just about anything related to RT, including con appearances, the occasional comicbook-scripting gig, photos, etc., etc., etc. Since I’ve never been on Facebook in my life, I’ve never seen it directly—but people tell me he does a fabulous job. Give it a try!

KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID (Expanded Second Edition)

After achieving the quickest sell-out in TwoMorrows’ history, we’re going back to press for an EXPANDED SECOND EDITION, including minor corrections, and 16 NEW PAGES of “Stuf’ Said” by the creators of the Marvel Universe! This first-ofits-kind examination, completed just days before STAN LEE’s recent passing, looks back at KIRBY & LEE’s own words, in chronological order, from fanzine, magazine, radio, and television interviews, to paint the most comprehensive and enlightening picture of their relationship ever done—why it succeeded, where it deteriorated, and when it eventually failed. Also here are recollections from STEVE DITKO, WALLACE WOOD, JOHN ROMITA SR., and more Marvel Bullpen stalwarts who worked with them both. Compiled, researched, and edited by publisher JOHN MORROW. SECOND EDITION NOW SHIPPING! (176-page FULL-COLOR trade paperback) $26.95 • (Digital Edition) $12.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-094-6 • Order at www.twomorrows.com

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JACK KIRBY’S DINGBAT LOVE

In cooperation with DC COMICS, TwoMorrows compiles a tempestuous trio of never-seen 1970s Kirby projects! These are the final complete, unpublished Jack Kirby stories in existence, presented here for the first time! Included are: Two unused DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET tales (Kirby’s final Kid Gang group, inked by MIKE ROYER and D. BRUCE BERRY, and newly colored for this book)! TRUE-LIFE DIVORCE, the abandoned newsstand magazine that was too hot for its time (reproduced from Jack’s pencil art—and as a bonus, we’ve commissioned MIKE ROYER to ink one of the stories)! And SOUL LOVE, the unseen ’70s romance book so funky, even a jive turkey will dig the unretouched inks by VINCE COLLETTA and TONY DeZUNIGA. PLUS: There’s Kirby historian JOHN MORROW’s in-depth examination of why these projects got left back, concept art and uninked pencils from DINGBATS, and a Foreword by former 1970s Kirby assistant MARK EVANIER! SHIPS DEC. 2019!

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MAC RABOY Master of the Comics

Beginning with his WPA etchings during the 1930s, MAC RABOY struggled to survive the Great Depression and eventually found his way into the comic book sweatshops of America. In that world of four-color panels, he perfected his art style on such creations as DR. VOODOO, ZORO the MYSTERY MAN, BULLETMAN, SPY SMASHER, GREEN LAMA, and his crowning achievement, CAPTAIN MARVEL JR. Raboy went on to illustrate the FLASH GORDON Sunday newspaper strip, and left behind a legacy of meticulous perfection.

Through extensive research and interviews with son DAVID RABOY, and assistants who worked with the artist during the Golden Age of Comics, author ROGER HILL brings Mac Raboy, the man and the artist, into focus for historians to savor and enjoy. This FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER includes never-before-seen photos, a wealth of rare and unpublished artwork, and the first definitive biography of a true Master of the Comics! Introduction by ROY THOMAS! ISBN: 978-1-60549-090-8 • NOW SHIPPING! (160-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $14.95 Roger Hill’s 2017 biography of REED CRANDALL sold out just months after its release—don’t let this one pass you by!Pre-order now!

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EL CARIM!

The Miraculous Life Of SVEN ELVEN

by Michael D. Fraley Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

T

he statuesque brunette in the crimson hat stood in the doorway of El Carim’s office. Jane Grey’s father had been kidnapped, and she had come to this place out of desperation.

“Oh El Carim, you’re the only one who can help me!” she pleaded to the magician. After a few pleasantries, the master of mystery wrote the name of Jane’s father on a slip of paper and fed it into a strange device he called a “spectrograph.” Removing the monocle from his eye, he held it in front of a slot on one end of the mechanism, and magically, like a scene from a movie, her father’s fate was played out on the “screen” of the lens.

That’s the story Sven Elven illustrated for Master Comics #1 back in 1940; and, in my journey to solve the mystery of just exactly who Sven Elven was, I could have used a magic spectrograph more than once along the way. Fortunately, I had access to wonderful resources nonetheless—the memories of his daughter and grandchildren, access to his various documents and tools, and the work of Elven’s widow and son-in-law, both of whom have passed

Sven Elven & El Carim (Above:) Sven, his wife Martha, and their newborn daughter Sigrid at their farm in the Catskills in 1938. One would never know it from her proud smile, but Martha had given birth with broken ribs due to an accident on the farm.

(Below left:) The master of magic, “El Carim”—from Master Comics #9 (Dec. 1940). Script by Carl Formes (a former opera singer); art by Sven Elven. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

on. I am deeply grateful for all of that. The love and respect that the family has repeatedly expressed for their grandfather is what has impressed me the most about this entire journey. I can only hope that all of us would be so fortunate. *** Before illustrating the adventures of “El Carim” for Fawcett, Elven produced a tremendous amount of work for National (the future DC Comics) in the 1930s, appearing in landmark issues such as Detective Comics #1, Action Comics #1, and Detective Comics #27. If you’ve seen any of his work at all, it’s thanks to the fact that he was part of a larger show. He was responsible for well over a hundred stories for National alone—writing, drawing, and inking up to 22 pages’ worth of comics per month, spread across four publications.

This doesn’t even take into account his later work for Fawcett and Centaur.

Then, after just five short years, he was gone without a trace.

An anecdote or two survived about him, but no one really seemed to know just who Sven Elven was, other than that he most likely was of Swedish origin. Even his name has come into doubt. Was it a slick pseudonym that played on the lucky numbers seven and eleven in craps or blackjack? Compounding the problem is the fact that he wasn’t a super-hero artist like Joe Shuster, a super-herocreating machine like Jack Kirby, a storyteller who pushed the limits of the medium like Will Eisner, or an artist who became a studio boss like Jack Binder.

Elven illustrated the classics with a confident pen line, helping to lay the foundation for the revolution, but he never seemed interested in joining the revolution himself. He proved to be as mysterious as the characters he drew. The other artists he shared the pages of those early comics with, like Creig Flessel, Leo O’Mealia,

FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

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A Nation Of Immigrants (Left:) As detailed in Michael D. Fraley’s article, the family of young Sven Elven made its way to the New World on board the RMS Empress of Ireland, seen here. There was room on board for some 765 immigrants and poorer passengers. The Empress tragically sank to the bottom of the St. Lawrence River near Quebec years later, after running into a Norwegian coal ship.

(Right:) Sven’s family, the Frykholms, circa 1910, just after they arrived in the United States. From left: Martha, Wendela, Judith, Philip, Sven, Albin, and possibly William, one of twins. In front would be the other twin, Fred.

Homer Fleming, and Tom Hickey, remained in either comicbooks or comic strips for decades. Sven Elven chose not to do that. Even Merna Gamble, who drew a lovely adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities for National, has more personal history available than Elven has had. It’s time to draw back the curtain.

Origins Born as Herbert Swen Frederik Frykholm in Stockholm, Sweden, on July 17, 1897, Sven and his family emigrated to America in 1909, fleeing the poverty of their homeland.

After taking a ship to England, their Transatlantic ocean liner, the Empress of Ireland, sailed from Liverpool to Canada, from which the family quickly made their way towards the western suburbs of Chicago. There, they would find a large number of other Swedish immigrants. According to historian Ulf Beijbom, there were nearly 150,000 Swedes in Chicago alone by the turn of the century. Berwyn, the Swedish hub, was not far away.

Sven’s father found employment as a bricklayer, while his older brother Philip worked laying cement. Sven would work with dogged determination to learn English so that he could make his way in his new country, keeping a massive, unabridged Webster’s dictionary within easy reach as he would read books or newspapers. Sven’s 1918 draft

registration and the 1920 U.S. Census show him living in the Old Irving Park neighborhood of Chicago with his parents and siblings, but working at a metal forging plant near East Chicago, Indiana—a train commute of about two hours each way. As a young man, Sven was quite handsome, with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. Standing 6’2”, he was probably the shortest of the Frykholm brothers, with two others towering over him at 6’5”.

Turning Towards Art The 1920 U.S. Census marks the first time we find Sven identifying his profession as “artist.” When he could, he took classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and it is intriguing to wonder if he rubbed shoulders with a few other famous students who were there between the late 1910s and the 1920s. Harold R. (Hal) Foster, who would later draw Tarzan and Prince Valiant, would have ridden into Chicago on his bicycle in 1919, just as Russell Patterson, the delineator of Jazz Age beauties, was leaving his studies at the SAIC. In 1921, Vernon Grant, creator of Snap, Crackle, and Pop for Kellogg’s cereals, became a student as well.

During art lectures by Dudley Crafts Wilson, he may have heard Orson Welles’ mother Beatrice providing background music on the piano. The Art Institute of Chicago would remain a fond

A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man (Above:) On June 5, 1921, Sven Elven married Martha Hofmann in Chicago, Illinois. Sven’s brother Phil and Martha’s sister Edith are standing behind the couple, while Martha’s youngest sister is positioned between them. (Also seen is a blow-up of Sven himself from that same wedding picture.).

(Right:) Although Elven produced a few oil paintings in his later years, most of the later paintings are watercolors. This preliminary color selfportrait sketch in oils probably belongs to his student work from the early 1920s, when he attended classes at the Art Institute of Chicago.

A finished painting based on this sketch was eventually made, but its whereabouts are unknown.

El Carim! The Miraculous Life Of Sven Elven

focal point for him as the years passed, appearing in some of his personal art. It would also be a point of contention for him, as more modern and abstract art made its way onto the museum walls.

Sven’s student works that survive from this period are paintings in oils, including color sketches that have a spontaneous, impressionistic look about them, similar to the legendary Swedish portrait painter Anders Zorn. On close inspection, he also seems to have even used the “Zorn palette” for a while, teasing a full spectrum of colors out of just black, white, red, and yellow ochre.

According to the family, Sven illustrated some 38 books; I’ve been able to identify seven of them. Tearsheets from those books were clipped and saved by his wife, documenting his long career, but not always with a note as to where the piece might have appeared. It’s possible that he may have done some of the work under a different name, experimenting as some other family members did with names that would allow them to blend more easily into English-speaking America. Philip, for example, shortened the family name to “Holmes,” which is a name that Sven is also said to have used early on. At any rate, an illustration career would begin to open up for the tall, young immigrant with calluses on his hands. In later years, he would tell a tale from around that time.

Grandson John says, “Grandpa would tell us a story of how he

had done his first real successful art which had been paid for, and he was still working very hard to master English. Well, he decided to celebrate the occasion of his success and went to a very upscale restaurant and ordered a steak. He told the waiter he wanted a ‘very rare steak,’ thinking that ‘very rare’ would be the finest steak in the house. He was a little surprised that what was served was a practically raw steak! He’d laugh as he would tell us, but he would also tell us how important it was to have a good command of the language!” Granddaughter Janet adds that Sven would go on to speak English very well. He spent some 45 years of his life in and around the Windy City.

Working Methods & Influences The magazine cover art for Tatler & American Sketch (which was also an early venue for Alberto Vargas) that currently adorns the walls of granddaughter Ruth’s home is drawn in a very linear Art Deco style similar to Russell Patterson and other artists of the late 1920s and early 1930s. In addition to Patterson, Elven was also clearly influenced by adventure illustrators such as Pyle, Wyeth, and Coll, as most of his generation were. This combination of influences sometimes gave his later comic work the unique appearance of N.C. Wyeth inked with a stylized art deco line. Like Wyeth, Elven was someone familiar with hard work and a love of adventure and the outdoors.

He enjoyed the world of fine art, too, and he admired Degas, whom years later in a letter to the Chicago Tribune (11/22/1952) he would term “the superb master,” both for the life he brought to his paintings as well as his ability to convincingly depict animal anatomy. A sense of liveliness and accuracy were important to

Ars Gratia Artist (Above:) During his time in Sweden in 1924, Sven supported himself by making “plein air” paintings of Stockholm. This is a palette knife painting of a street in Sweden that returned home with him.

(Right:) In the early 1930s, he created Art Deco-oriented covers for Tatler & American Sketch magazine, a showcase for the cream of New York’s upper class. Shown is the March 1931 issue. To look at Elven’s covers, or the magazine in general, one would never know that the Roaring ’20s had come to a grinding halt and that America had been plunged into the Great Depression. The Tatler was clinging desperately to a world that was swiftly fading. [© the respective copyright holders.]

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FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

Sven. He was known to remark that hands were just as expressive as faces, if not more so. Maurice Utrillo gets a positive mention in another letter he wrote to the Tribune (7/30/1961). Other artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Franz Hals, William Hogarth (particularly for The Shrimp Girl), Anders Zorn, and Joaquin Sorolla are mentioned in his private papers. The impressionistic style of fine art he favored translated into the precise-yet-sketchy line he often employed in his work.

For most of his life, Sven worked with a drawing board in his lap, leaned against a desk or table. He would draw with his left hand and letter with his right, since he had been trained as a schoolboy to use the “correct” hand to write with. He wouldn’t have a proper drawing table or anything more than a portable easel until quite late in life. He would purchase Speedball India ink by the pint, and at least one of those old bottles is still in the family’s possession. Many of his old inking tools still exist. Most of the pen nibs are Speedball/Hunt nibs, No. 101 and No. 108 for finer details, and a No. 513EF bowl pointed pen for the majority of the drawing.

There are also some Gillott No. 170s, a flexible nib popular with calligraphers and cartoonists such as Hal Foster, Hank Ketcham, and Bud Blake. He seems to have had a special fondness for steel Spencerian Invincible Dome No. 44 nibs, which were flexible English pens produced by Ivison Phinney & Co. In all of his work, he tended to employ a medium-weight pen line to make sure that his drawings could be reduced in size and still “read” easily, similar to the “woodcut” pen technique pioneer illustrator Howard Pyle had used. In Sven’s book illustrations, he often drew small page decorations—all beautifully clear—with that same steady line.

The same careful style of lettering that he used in his comic art is visible in some of his later, more personal work. When matting a watercolor painting, that same, exacting, font-like hand can be seen in his signature and in the titles of his pictures.

Marriage, A Hollywood Road Trip, & Sweden In 1921, Sven married Chicago native Martha Hofmann, a wavy haired beauty with large, soft eyes who looked a bit like movie star Mabel Normand. Both are described by their family as type A personalities, but Sven was the dreamer, while Martha was more practical. Martha had only been allowed to attend school until the fifth grade, but she loved reading and doing dramatic recitals.

Someone with contacts in Hollywood had seen Martha perform and suggested that she go audition for the silent screen. In no time, Sven had fired up his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, packed a tent, helped Martha into the rowboat-shaped sidecar, and off they went across the country.

The details of what happened at Martha’s audition when they reached California aren’t known, but eventually, she and Sven roared back across America towards home. In spite of whatever disappointment Martha might have felt, that was to be only one of several road trips with Sven and his trusty Harley. During one of them, Sven was driving through fog so thick that he couldn’t see where they were going, so they pulled over to the nearest flat patch of land they could find and pitched their tent for the night. In the morning, when the fog cleared, they discovered that they had been camping in someone’s front yard.

By 1924, Sven was having severe problems with asthma, and he returned to Stockholm for a time for treatment. The family remembers that over the years he would often have trouble even walking up a flight of stairs because of the asthma. While in Sweden, though, he sold paintings in order to earn money. He would set up his portable French easel and paint landscapes at

Liner Notes Since Elven and his family made their way from Sweden to the New World during the age of the great ocean liners, he may well have drawn upon his own memories of that era in his work for the 1934 book Liners and Freighters. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Stockholm Palace, home of the Swedish monarchs, pretending to be a “dumb American” so he wouldn’t get into trouble. To his surprise, the “dumb American” was welcomed inside the gates and given a tour of the palace grounds. When Sven returned to America, he discovered that he had been gone long enough to lose his United States citizenship, and, as a result, Martha (who was born in the U.S.) had as well. This was a difficult situation that wouldn’t be resolved for another nineteen years.

In 1926, a photo of Martha manufacturing vacuum tubes at Bell Labs was published in the company’s magazine, placing the young couple in New York at that time. Working in this brand new technology would lead her on to other things in later years.

The 1930 census shows that the young couple had moved to Greenburgh, NY, just west of White Plains. A train ride south on the Hudson Line would place Sven close within reach of his dreams in the publishing mecca of New York City.

He would also spend some time in New York attending classes at Columbia University during a time of rich intellectual ferment at the school. Bestselling author and Columbia alum Herman Wouk, in his essay “A Doubled Magic,” described the university he remembered as a place where “the best things of the moment

El Carim! The Miraculous Life Of Sven Elven

were outside the rectangle of Columbia; the best things of all human history and thought were inside the rectangle.” During this time, Sven and Martha became close friends with their neighbors, the Curtis Cooksey family, a friendship which would continue many years after the Elvens had left the area.

In 1930, Sven provided pictures for Comrades of the Clouds, by Laurie York Erskine, an author best known for his boys’ adventure novels featuring Renfrew of the Royal Mounted.

Don’t Mention It!

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His approach in Unmentionables once again found inspiration in Russell Patterson’s lively depiction of fashionable women of the 1920s, all drawn with a flat, Art Deco pen line.

Comics For National On January 11, 1935, New Fun – The Big Comic Magazine appeared on newsstands for the first time, and a blurb announcing the birth of the first regularly published comicbook featuring all-new material was published in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper. Not coincidentally, New Fun was being printed on the Daily Eagle’s presses. In the article, Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson was mentioned as president of National Allied Publications, with Lloyd Jacquet, Sheldon H. Stark, and Dick Loederer listed as his editorial staff.

The address of National was included in the article, as well as the dream of taking the book, which was a tabloid, into print on a weekly basis. That dream would later be modified, as the tabloid size would be discarded, and the one weekly title multiplied into several different magazines, with most of the features drawn by the same creative staff. That first edition of New Fun was not only a strange hybrid of Sunday funnies and pulp magazines; it also had informative articles and activity pages—the kinds of things found in traditional children’s magazines. Everything was being thrown against the wall to see what would stick, and when the magazine boasted that it was “designed to please boys and girls from 2 to 90,” it wasn’t kidding. Loederer even had a page of advice for housewives. The newspaper article that ran in the Daily Eagle may not have been an explicit cattle call to artists, but anyone with sense would have known that Wheeler-Nicholson was dreaming big, and that meant opportunity for hungry, Depression Era artists.

The publisher was D. Appleton and Company, and in 1932 Elven would illustrate another title for them, a biography of George Washington by Belle Moses. The Master of Mount Vernon would reach print just in time for the 200th anniversary of Washington’s birth. In 1933, he would tackle his most ambitious project yet with Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson Robert Cortes Holliday’s Unmentionables, from Fig The founder of National Allied Leaves to Scanties. As ridiculous as the book’s title Publications (the future DC Comics), was, Unmentionables gave Elven the opportunity circa 1934-37. The full photo, which to depict, however fancifully, the entire history of also included Mrs. Wheeler-Nicholson, the human race—and female undergarments— appeared in Alter Ego #88, an issue through twenty-six wonderful drawings and centered around the Major and his page decorations. Even though Elven was not legacy. With thanks to Nicky Wheelerlisted in the book as the illustrator, reviewers of Nicholson. [Photo © Major Malcolm the book took notice of his work (praising him by Wheeler-Nicholson Estate.] name). Interestingly, although he was working Also seen is the Lyman Anderson-drawn professionally as Sven Elven (an adaptation of his cover of the Major’s first offering, and the first regularly published comicbook: mother’s maiden name, Elfvin, and his father’s New Fun – The Big Comic Magazine #1, middle name, Albin, pronounced “Alvin”), he was cover-dated February 1935. Though often clearly signing his work with the monogram “SF,” referred to in comics-history texts as New with the serifs on the “F” forming the suggestion of Fun Comics, the periodical never had an “E.”

Most of Sven Elven’s illustrations for Robert Cortes Holliday’s Unmentionables in 1933 reflected his own mischievous sense of humor, but drawings of beautiful, glamorous women were always welcome subjects. [© the respective copyright holders.]

In his work on Comrades, his style was recognizable, but obscured by thick pen and brush lines, with the illustrations rendered in a pulp magazine style that did him few favors. By 1933, with Unmentionables, he was in his element, depicting historical subjects with an organic, dancing pen line.

that actual name; with #7 it was reduced in page-size from 10” x 15” to 10” x 12” and retitled More Fun. It reduced pagesize again, to the industry standard, with #9, at which time it was officially re-christened More Fun Comics. The first issue of New Fun is currently being reprinted by DC Comics in a hardcover format. [TM & © DC Comics.]

In Gary Groth’s interview with Creig Flessel, the artist would later recall that he’d responded to a help-wanted ad that Wheeler-Nicholson had placed in The New York Times,

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A National “Treasure” From More Fun Comics #9 (March-April 1936) & #10 (May ’36): the first pages (out of two each) of the two installments adapting Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic Treasure Island to be drawn by Sven Elven, and probably scripted

by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson.

Thanks to Jim Kealy & Art Lortie, respectively. Incidentally, in both captions and main text in this article, the name of the original work, if an entire book (like Treasure Island), is italicized, but the title of the comics adaptation, since it’s only part of a work, is merely placed in italics (i.e., “Treasure Island”). [TM & © DC Comics.]

perfect artist to handle National’s adaptation of the classics, which were usually written by the Major himself.

and that he was being paid $5 per page for story and art [The Comics Journal #211]. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that $5 would be worth about $90 per page today. Through one avenue or another, Elven would have heard about National, and it would have meant the possibility of something he likely hadn’t always had in his illustration work: the promise, however shaky, of a steady income.

Elven’s first two-page installment of “Treasure Island” was printed in black&-white, and he was clearly trying to adjust his style to the demands of the comics. The next month, Elven’s installment proved to be a great improvement. The art is tight, full of detail, and is printed in full color. The chapter in issue #11 would be the last More Fun episode of “Treasure Island,”

Elven’s first work for National was the fifth installment of an adaptation of Treasure Island in More Fun Comics #9, carrying a cover date of March-April 1936. (The title of New Fun had been changed to More Fun with the seventh issue, and technically More Fun Comics with the ninth.)

Sven replaced Charles Flanders on the feature. Flanders had been with National since the first issue of New Fun, and his work for National was very illustrative. Flanders had been an assistant at King Features from 1932 to 1935 and had briefly seen his adaptation of Robin Hood appear in newspapers; in the winter of 1936 he was leaving “Treasure Island” behind for another shot at a syndicated strip with King of the Royal Mounted. Within a few years, he would be illustrating the strip he is best known for today, The Lone Ranger. It was just the right time for Sven Elven to walk in the door.

Given the work he had done for Unmentionables in illustrating every conceivable era of Western European history, Elven was a godsend for Wheeler-Nicholson. He was the

More Buckles To Swash (Left:) Episode 26 of “The Three Musketeers” from More Fun Comics #36 (Oct. 1938); script & art by Sven Elven.

The series had begun two years earlier, back in issue #11.

(Right:) Part 11 of “Pirate Gold” from More Fun Comics #23 (Feb. 1938). Script & art by Sven Elven.

[TM & © DC Comics.]

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Sven Be Nimble, Sven Be “Quick”!

Episode 21 of “Captain Quick” from New Adventure Comics #24 (Feb. 1938).

Script & art by Sven Elven. Before long, the comic would lose the “New” part of its title, which must have been confusing, since National in the course of 2-3 years had introduced titles New Fun and New Comics, with the latter having soon become New Adventure Comics, just as New Fun had become More Fun. [TM & © DC Comics.]

his Musketeers and pirates through their paces for another twenty issues of More Fun. The same month he began working on “Treasure Island,” he also picked up work in New Comics #3, drawing the adventures of another swashbuckler, “Captain Quick.” Although the feature was created by Jon L. Blummer, later known for the aviation hero “Hop Harrigan,” Elven soon made “Quick” his own. In the sixth issue of New Comics (a second National title, which had been launched in December 1935), Elven began another adaptation from the classics—H. Rider Haggard’s She, the tale of a lost city ruled by an immortal woman.

“She” allowed Elven to tell a story away from the sea, yet still atmospheric as well as more sensuous. It was one of the few times in his comics career that he was allowed to indulge in his love of drawing beautiful women without the historical baggage of hoop skirts and petticoats. An adaptation of the Robin Hood legends began in New Adventure Comics #23, which featured some of Elven’s best work. The detailed forests, forts, and castles make the stories truly come alive. (New Adventure Comics was actually New Comics with a change of name; it would ere long metamorphose into Adventure Comics, the title it would retain for the remainder of its half-century run.)

What would prove to be Elven’s most ambitious project in comics, “Foe of the Borgias,” was published in New Adventure Comics #13, cover dated February 1937. “Borgias” is the closest which was dropped mid-story. Replacing it would be two Sven Elven features: an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers (which began in issue #11), providing him with illustrative subjects that were much closer to his heart, and “Pirate Gold,” which would begin in issue #12.

With the two new features, Elven began to open up and display the kind of art he had demonstrated in his book illustrations. Casting off young Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver with no regrets, Elven was gifted with material that featured dashing, handsome swashbucklers and beautiful women. The heroes could have been portrayed on the screen by Douglas Fairbanks or Errol Flynn, the villains

by Basil Rathbone, and his willowy heroines by the likes of Gloria Swanson or Pola Negri. His characters rarely showed much emotion aside from steely determination, but he displayed a keen interest in ships, swordplay, and period costumes that was delightful.

While he drew with his left hand, with his right hand he continued to letter all of the work that he produced for National. Sven would proceed to put

Robin & The Italian Hoods (Left:) Episode 2 of “Robin Hood” from New Adventure Comics #24 (Feb. 1938). Script & art by Sven Elven.

(Right:) “Foe of the Borgias” from New Adventure Comics #13 (Feb. 1937). Script: Malcolm Wheeler Nicholson; art: Sven Elven. [TM & © DC Comics.]

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Cosmo, Meet Marco!

(Far left:) “Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise” from Detective Comics #15 (Aug. 1937). Art by Sven Elven; writer unknown.

(Near left:) “The Adventures of Marco Polo” from Action Comics #1 (June 1938). Script & art by Sven Elven. Rumor has it, however, that another feature in that issue garnered the cover spot. [TM & © DC Comics.]

in style to his book illustration work; and, unlike his previous serialized work for National, the 12-page story was complete in one issue. It also broke away from his typical eight-panel page grid, with most pages containing no more than two or three panels, including three full-page images that carried a proud, elaborate artist’s signature. In “Foe of the Borgias,” Count Rafael Colonna thrashes a would-be assassin, and learns from him that Princess Yolanda is being held prisoner by Ascanio Malatesta, who has joined forces with the Borgias. Both have Rafael’s city under siege.

Escaping from the city, Rafael makes his way to Malatesta’s castle. He fights his way to where the princess is being held, and the story ends with Rafael escaping with her on horseback. Adapted by the Major from

Elementary, My Dear Sven!

Sven Elven’s grandson John MacPartland discovered these illustrated samples for a Sherlock Holmes comic strip among his grandfather’s papers. They appear to be from the 1930s, and Elven was clearly pouring everything he had into them. Instead of having the dialogue in speech balloons, the samples look as if they were designed to have blocks of text under the drawings. Leo O’Mealia, who would also provide work for early National issues, drew a Sherlock Holmes strip for the Bell Syndicate from 1930-31.

It’s intriguing to wonder if Sven’s samples were meant to continue the Bell Syndicate version, but it seems unlikely. Holmes and Watson have a completely different look in Elven’s version of Arthur Conan Doyle’s creations. As a matter of fact, they bear some resemblance to the actors starring in the popular Sherlock Holmes movies, which began in 1939—especially Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. [Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders; art © Estate of Sven Elven.]

“Naked Steel,” an old short story of his originally published in Argosy pulp magazine in 1931, “Foe of the Borgias” was part Alexander Dumas, part Raphael Sabatini (author of Captain Blood, Scaramouche, et al.), and it was obviously an intense amount of fun for Elven. For really the first time, he was able to give National a story drawn on a grand scale.

The next month, National’s Detective Comics #1 saw the debut of “Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise”—the only feature created by Elven himself, the only contemporary character drawn by him, and the first series in which he used word balloons. Operating in an upper-crust world of millionaires, mansions, and master criminals, Cosmo used his gifts for disguising himself to help bring outlaws to

El Carim! The Miraculous Life Of Sven Elven

justice. Cosmo, with his gentlemanly demeanor, was a far cry from the two-fisted, brawling tough guys found in Dick Tracy and other detective strips of the time.

His closest fictional comrades would have been the heroes of British thrillers from the 1910s and 1920s. More than that, though, what Elven had created with “Cosmo” was a rather simplified modern-day version of yet another swashbuckler, The Scarlet Pimpernel, whom Leslie Howard had brought to life on the screen at the end of 1934. Like Cosmo, the Pimpernel wore no regular mask or disguise. In the Howard film, we first meet him disguised as an old woman driving a cart. Elven’s mystery man was known to the police, but among the lawless he could be anyone. The “Cosmo” feature would appear in Detective Comics through issue #37 (March 1940). A mark of Cosmo’s place in National’s lineup was his inclusion in the company’s “Merry Christmas” house ad for 1937, which featured a Photostat of the very urbane detective surrounded by mostly humor characters.

Elven’s final creation for National was a return to more familiar territory, being both a period piece and an adaptation of a literary classic. “The Adventures of Marco Polo” would debut in the first issue of Action Comics (June 1938), and would continue without a break until issue #17 (October, 1939).

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A mystery project that Sven drew around this time is a few samples illustrating the adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. The pages that survive are drawn more in the dimensions of a daily newspaper strip, but arranged so that the text could be typeset under the images in an illustrated-novel format.

In many ways they are Sven Elven at his best. Just whom they were drawn for, and what happened to that project, are unknown.

Life On The Farm By the late 1930s, Sven and Martha had moved away from the suburbs of New York City, purchasing what Martha would remember as “a large tract of land, complete with a house and barns” in the Catskills. At the same time that he was drawing comics, he and Martha were also throwing themselves into their lives as farmers.

They added to Sven’s income by canning chicken and beef from the livestock they and the Cookseys had raised, and it is tempting to wonder if they helped supply the thriving resort hotels that filled the area back then, such as Grossinger’s or the Concord Plaza.

“It’s A Miracle!”

Or, as National/DC’s hero Zatara the Master Magician would say, “S’ti a elcarim!” The first page of the first “El Carim” installment drawn by Elven for Fawcett Publications, in the oversize Master Comics #1 (March 1940).

Writer unknown. Unfortunately, this page had to be reproduced here from microfiche, but we’re just glad the Comic Book Plus site has it at all! [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

A Disappearing Act An original art page from Elven’s final “El Carim” art job, in Master Comics #10 (Jan. 1941). Script attributed to Carl Formes. Scan courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

[TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

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It’s A “Jungle” Out There!

(Top row:) “The Jungle Twins,” from Nickel Comics #2 (May 31, 1940) & #4 (June 28, 1940). Both scripts attributed to Bill Parker, co-creator of Fawcett’s original Captain Marvel; art by Sven Elven. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Living on the farm meant that Sven’s occasional trips into town to deliver his comicbook work would necessarily give way to putting the pages in a tube and mailing them off. Once, after a long night of drawing pages to beat a deadline, he hurried to pack up his drawings to mail them off. His car was in the shop, so he started off on foot, taking a shortcut down a steep hill as a way of taking several miles off of the journey, climbing through a neighboring farmer’s barbed wire fence along the way. Continuing through a small cemetery in the farm’s pasture, he stepped on what seemed like a large white rock, but which rose up from the ground, bellowing and howling like some ghostly nightmare. In the dark, he could make out a cow, shaking her horns. He got a grip on both himself and his drawings, and continued his race to the post office.

In a similar story remembered by his grandchildren, Sven was trudging home through a storm after sending off his comic pages, and he found what he believed to be a kitten in that same cemetery.

Carrying it under his coat, he took it home to his wife, who raised the roof, informing the artist (who had no sense of smell at all) that

“Rajah That—Over & Out!” Michael D. Fraley suspects that Sven Elven at least laid out this “White Rajah” story that replaced “The Jungle Twins” in Fawcett’s Nickel Comics #8 (Aug. 23, 1940), the last issue of that short-lived 5¢ comicbook. Thanks to Comic Book Plus website. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

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are a few exceptions to this rule, however. In Master Comics #8 (Nov. 1940), the Elven finishes and lettering are back, and in his last few Master issues, at least some of the inking seems to be his.

The new character, El Carim (“miracle” spelled backwards), is a turbaned magician who wears a magic monocle that can perform various wonders. He doesn’t need the monocle, sometimes performing miracles with a magic word, other times accomplishing his deeds with what seem to be super-scientific devices. El Carim is also portrayed as a phenomenal escape artist. Even though the magician never donned tights or a mask, he was, in a very real sense, the first super-powered character Sven had drawn in his five-year career in comics. Elven’s final “El Carim” tale saw print in Master Comics #10 (Jan. 1941). After a fill-in issue drawn by Charles Sultan (probably best known today for his work on Chesler’s “Rocket Man”), George Tuska became the regular artist of “El Carim.”

The other feature Elven is credited with was the “Jungle Twins” series featured in Fawcett’s attempt at a biweekly title, Nickel Comics, debuting in the first issue (May 17, 1940). The stories involved twin brothers who were separated during an attack in Africa. One brother, Bill, was rescued, returned to the States and was raised in New York, while the other brother, Steve (or Sti-Vah), becomes the stuff of legend, growing up to become king of the jungle. With “Jungle Twins,” Fawcett was attempting something really ingenious—a combination of the Great White Hunter type popularized in comic strips like Alex Raymond’s Jungle Jim, and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ feral jungle lord Tarzan of the Apes. Why not have both?

“It’s A Miraco!”—Or Did We Already (Almost) Say That?

According to author/researcher Fraley, Elven’s sole story for the Centaur group was “Miraco the Great” in Amazing Man Comics #23 (Aug. 1941).

The tale had previously been attributed to Paul Gustavson. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

he had brought home a skunk. The night ended with every piece of Sven’s clothing being buried in a hole on the farm.

Farm life agreed with Sven, and he would return to it again and again, throughout the various moves he would make across the country. At heart, he was an outdoorsman, and the farm gave him something in his life beyond the surface of his drawing board.

What’s more, there was a child on the way, a baby girl coming in July 1938 that he and Martha would name Sigrid Inga Elven Frykholm.

Comics For Fawcett & Centaur The same month that the last “Cosmo” adventure appeared in Detective, Sven was busy drawing a new feature over at Fawcett—“El Carim,” which debuted in the first issue of Master Comics. Fawcett Publications’ editorial offices were on 4th Avenue in New York City, just as National’s were at the time, and such a move may have been on Sven’s mind for awhile. Unlike his very individualistic work for National, Elven’s editors at Fawcett put him on a team, assigning him not only a writer, but also (at least) an inker and a letterer. The unknown inker didn’t try to reproduce the pen line for which Elven was known, instead employing the kind of broad, friendly brush stroke associated more with C.C. Beck’s Captain Marvel. The square dialogue balloons so common in his 1930s comics were gone, too, in favor of round, bouncy-looking balloons filled with a more standard style of comic lettering. There

It’s obvious that Elven put a lot more work into “Jungle Twins” than he did into “El Carim.” While he was still working as part of a creative team, the art is much more elaborate. This is a world he is sympathetic to. While ostensibly taking place in 1940, the stories owe much to the world of the imagination, with exotic races, jagged cliffs, palm trees, and fearsome animals the like of which might have been encountered by Captain Quick or Marco Polo in his work for National.

By Nickel Comics #4 (June 28, 1940), the number of the panels Elven was drawing per page seemed to almost double, as the editors sought to squeeze a ten-page story into five pages, and while “Jungle Twins” remained a handsome feature, the art became more simplified. In Elven’s last “Jungle Twins” story, in Nickel Comics #7 (Aug. 9, 1940), the artist is working solo again, and all of the elements that make Sven Elven’s work so unique come back to the surface.

The eighth and final issue of Nickel Comics (Aug. 23, 1940) uses a “White Rajah” story to replace the “Jungle Twins” series that Sven had been working on. However, the artwork looks much the same as the work on “Twins.” The other “White Rajah” stories, which were published in the first few issues of Master, have the same consistent look that Sven and his art team had given to “Jungle Twins.” Did Elven at least do the layouts for the “White Rajah” stories? I think it’s very likely.

Other than his work at National and Fawcett, Sven Elven appears to have worked for only one other comicbook publisher: Centaur. He drew and lettered a one-shot story for Amazing Man Comics #23 (Aug. 1941). The character, Miraco, is a curious blend of the same company’s Amazing Man and Fawcett’s El Carim, with the stylish good looks of National’s Cosmo, Phantom of Disguise.

Miraco is a magician who works with a traveling circus, aided by his adolescent sidekick Eddie, who appears to have at least some magical abilities himself. Miraco has also discovered some way to

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Especially at Fawcett, he had become part of an assembly line system of making comics, and he was deeply dissatisfied with that. Other than some occasional illustration and private commissions, he decided that he would spend the rest of his life creating work for himself.

The 1940 U.S. Census finds Sven, still known as Herbert Frykholm, supporting his wife Martha, their daughter Sigrid, who was almost two, and Sven’s disabled father. Albin Frykholm had gotten into a labor argument during a construction job, and had been pushed off a scaffold, falling into a pile of bricks. He spent his last years struggling to regain his mobility. Living on his farm in the Catskills, Sven no longer listed his profession as “artist.” He was satisfied to call himself a farmer. The 1940 Census was also the last time he would be known legally under his birth name. By the summer of 1941, he was gone from the pages of the comics, and a short time later he would find himself back in Chicago.

“May Your Days Be Merry—And Your Water Soft!”

(Above left:) Elven drew this Christmas card for a water softener company, circa 1940s. It demonstrates his love for drawing animals and Dickensian types of people, which would always be constants in his work. [© the respective copyright holders.]

(Above right:) A Sven Elven self-portrait sketch from 1956. [© 2019 Estate of Sven Elven.]

magically enhance his strength, similar to Amazing Man. In the story, Miraco battles a crooked circus owner, and on page 8 he is left chasing down wild animals the owner has released. And that’s it. Some of the features in Amazing Man had ten pages, and my best guess is that this is how Sven planned out the story; but in the end it appears that Centaur just dropped the last two pages, leaving the story with a wild, chaotic “finale.” Interestingly, in that very issue, Amazing Man also gained a teen sidekick, rather like Miraco’s young Eddie.

“He Never Sacrificed Quality” The super-heroes, which at first seemed like a fluke, were beginning to be a major force in comics. Sven Elven, at this point in his early forties, had been a part of the first wave of comicbook artists, but, like many of that first wave, he was easing out of the business. Leo O’Mealia, in his mid-fifties, had returned to being a newspaper sports cartoonist. At 57, Western artist Homer Fleming would continue to find work at National and eventually for Gilberton’s Classics Illustrated series, as did Henry Kiefer. Charles Flanders and Creig Flessel had moved on to greener pastures in newspaper syndication. Adolphe Barreaux was packaging comics for various publishers, and he also found time to do some children’s book illustrations. Merna Gamble had dabbled in magazine illustration before leaving to move with her family to Arizona.

The field Elven had helped to pioneer was changing, seemingly overnight, and the average age of the new artists was now about twenty, if that. It had become an industry of kids making comics for kids. Elven wasn’t known for super-heroes, Westerns, or humor. There might have been a good market for his work over at Gilberton, which was just beginning to publish when he left the field. Whether he attempted to reach out to them or not is unknown.

What is known is that by the end of his time at National, the winter of 1939-40, he was consciously exiting the professional art world.

Two years later, in the summer of 1943, Sven would finally regain his American citizenship. His naturalization papers note that he had taken “Sven Elven” as his legal name, and Martha and Sigrid’s names were legally changed as well. The photo from these documents shows a man who seems weary and a bit flustered by the whole process. October 1943 would bring the passing of his father, and work at a telephone supply company in Lombard, Illinois, would keep him regularly employed until his retirement in 1962.

After moving back to Illinois, Martha found work in

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Sven Up (Clockwise from top left:) Sven at the MacPartland home in 1965.

Sven Elven in September 1968. Photos courtesy of Sven’s Grandson, John MacPartland.

Sven and Martha Elven in November 1968. The comicbook artist from Sweden and the woman who could have been a movie star at the end of their time together. Martha would go on to live for another 29 years after Sven’s passing.

In March 2019, while conducting research for this article, author Michael D. Fraley was delighted to meet with Sven Elven’s daughter Sigrid MacPartland (center) and several grandchildren at the nursing home where Sigrid had lived as an Alzheimer’s patient. (Back row:) Rachel Rosales, Erica Simpson, John MacPartland, Rich MacPartland, Janet MacPartland, and David MacPartland. (Front row:) Ruth Dean, Sven Elven’s daughter Sigrid MacPartland, and Michael D. Fraley. Photo by Wayne Gassmann.

Chicago at General Electric, producing vacuum tubes for the new radar technology. There, she won the highest award the company could give for discovering a way to extend the life of the tubes, thus contributing to the war effort.

One aggravating (and hilarious) episode from the Lombard years involves the rise of the Seven Eleven convenience stores in the post-war era. The new Lombard Seven Eleven store had a similar address to Sven’s, and occasionally he would discover that a delivery truck had unloaded hundreds of cases of soda at his home, much to the old Swede’s consternation.

Sven maintained a deep love for classic representational art throughout his life, and he continued to create, winning a prize for some of his work in a Chicago-area art contest in 1958. For a short time, the couple owned a farm near Wasco, Illinois. After Martha retired from her job in 1967, the couple moved to White Creek, NY, where their son-in-law Douglas had purchased a large dairy farm.

The older grandchildren have fond memories of Sven from those days, but like all good times, they came to an end. A fall from a tractor a few years after moving to the farm left Sven paralyzed from the neck down. While in the hospital, respiratory problems set in, and on June 11, 1969, Sven Elven passed away at age 72. His ashes rest in a small 17th-century cemetery on the farm in White

Creek. In 1998, Martha’s ashes were laid to rest at the same spot.

Their graves are marked only by a stone carved with a cross.

Elven’s son-in-law Douglas MacPartland had given the eulogy: “Sven set his sights high and mighty. He was a big man: his ideals were in lofty places; morality and scruples weren’t just words. He lived them. The roads of his life were mostly good, taking him many exciting places. The road was long and successful, if you consider he never sacrificed quality… His art may not have made the ‘big time,’ but make no mistake, he was a great talent.”

FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

80

What’s Black-&-White And Read All Over?

(Left:) An Elven-drawn page from the chapter of the adaptation of H. Rider Haggard’s classic novel She, in New Adventures Comics, Vol. 1, #12 (Jan. 1937).

Scripter uncertain. Thanks to Jim Kealy. [TM & © DC Comics.]

(Right:) A page of original art from the “El Carim” yarn in Fawcett’s Master Comics #7 (Oct. 1940). Art by Sven Elven; scripter unknown. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Comic Book Features Illustrated By Sven Elven Fawcett:

Books Known To Be Illustrated By Sven Elven

“El Carim,” 1940

Camp, Samuel G., Fishing Kits & Equipment, MacMillan, edition unknown.

“Jungle Twins,” 1940

Crane, Hart, The Bridge, Black Sun Press, 1930.

National (DC): “Captain Quick,” 1936-38

Erskine, Laurie York, Comrades of the Clouds, D. Appleton & Co., 1930.

“Cosmo, The Phantom of Disguise,” 1937-40

Holliday, Robert Cortes, Unmentionables: From Fig Leaves to Scanties, 1933.

“Foe of the Borgias,” 1937 “Marco Polo,” 1938-39

Moses, Belle, The Master of Mount Vernon, D. Appleton & Co., 1932.

“Pirate Gold,” 1936-38

Nolen, Eleanor Weakley, How the Government Serves the Nation, T. Nelson and Sons, 1937.

“Robin Hood,” 1938

Starbuck, Wilson, Liners and Freighters, T. Nelson and Sons, 1934.

“She,” 1936-37 “The Three Musketeers,” 1936-38 “Treasure Island,” 1935-36 Centaur: “Miraco the Great,” 1941

Known Magazine Covers By Sven Elven Tatler & American Sketch, Sept. 1930; Nov. 1930; Mar. 1931.

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Featuring a JACLYN SMITH interview, as we reopen the Charlie’s Angels Casebook, and visit the Guinness World Records’ largest Charlie’s Angels collection. Plus: an exclusive interview with funnyman LARRY STORCH, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Captain Action—the original super-hero action figure, a vintage interview with Jonny Quest creator DOUG WILDEY, a visit to the Land of Oz, the ultra-rare Marvel World superhero playset, & more!