Alter Ego #174 Preview

Roy Thomas' Nightmarish Comics Fanzine

PRESENTING:

FEATURING:

C.C. BECK

In the USA

No. 174 March 2022

82658 00452 1

Characters TM & © DC Comics; other art © estate of C.C. Beck

1

AND GOLDEN AGE CARD-CASTLES IN SPAIN!

$10.95

PLUS: • WILLIAM FOSTER III on BLACK SUPER-HEROES - PART II! • MICHAEL T. GILBERT SHOWCASES THE EARLY RIVALS OF MAD MAGAZINE! • THE HAUNTING OF GOLDEN/SILVER AGE WRITER JOHN BROOME!

Vol. 3, No. 174 March 2022 Editor

Roy Thomas

Associate Editor Jim Amash

Design & Layout

Don’t STEAL our Digital Editions!

Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor

P.C. Hamerlinck J.T. Go (Assoc. Editor) Mark Lewis (Cover Coordinator)

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Michael T. Gilbert Jerry G. Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White Mike Friedrich, Bill Schelly

Proofreaders

Contents

Writer/Editorial: High Cost Of [Historical/Nostalgic] Living . . . . . . . 2 FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #233 [interior cover] . . . . . . . 3

William J. Dowlding David Baldy

A special double-size edition presented by P.C. Hamerlinck

Cover Artist

The late artist C.C. Beck rendered his opinions on comics without fear or favor.

C.C. Beck

With Special Thanks to: Heidi Amash Bob Bailey John Benson Jon Bolerjack Ricky Terry Brisacque Gary Brown Bernie Bubnis R. Dewey Cassell John Cimino Shaun & Erika Clancy Comic Book Resources (website) Chet Cox Brian Cronin Mark Evanier Shane Foley William Foster III Stephan Friedt Janet Gilbert Don Glut Javier Gonzalez Alex Grand Grand Comics Database (website)

Heritage Art Auctions Sean Howe Jim Kealy Lambiek Comiclopedia (website) Art Lortie Jim Ludwig Glenn MacKay Mike Mikulovsky Brian K. Morris Peter Normanton Vince Olivia Barry Pearl Matthew Peets Ken Pierce Bud Plant Ken Quattro Charlo Ramon Randy Sargent Scott Shaw!

Dann Thomas Jim Thompson Robert Tuska

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Román Arámbula, & Richard Corben

Captain Marvel—As Remembered By His Co-Creator . . . . . . . . . . . 4 When Captain Marvel Built Card-Castles In Spain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Javier Gonzales gives a guided tour of the 1949 FHER Marvel Family trading cards.

“You Got To Stumble Sometime, So You Can Figure Out What You’re Going To Be” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 The conclusion of Alex Grand & Jim Thompson’s interview with William Foster III.

The Haunting Of John Broome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 The classic writer of “Flash” & “Green Lantern” & “The Legend of Deuel Hollow”

The Original Wolverine Sketches—Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 John Cimino & Roy Thomas ogle John Romita’s 1974 concept art—and Roy signs it.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! Don’t Get Mad—Get Angry! . . . . . . . 63 Michael T. Gilbert continues his examination of the early Mad and its imitators.

From The Tomb Presents: “Executions: Pre-Code Style!” . . . . . . 69 Peter Normanton says hanging (or the chair) was too good for ’50s comics bad-guys!

Tributes to Richard Corben & Román Arámbula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 re: [correspondence, comments, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 On Our Cover: For some years before he passed away in 1989, original “Captain Marvel” (and later Shazam!) artist Charles Clarence Beck drew or even painted commissions featuring the World’s Mightiest Mortal and many another subject—either re-creating vintage artwork or creating new compositions. One of the best of the latter was “Billy Batson’s Bad Dream.” Our thanks to Shaun & Erika Clancy for making it available as this issue’s cover. [Shazam hero, Billy Batson, and the Sivana Family TM & © DC Comics; other art © Estate of C.C. Beck.]

Above: Not all black super-heroes instantly integrated as smoothly with their white counterparts as did The Black Panther and The Falcon… as witness these final panels of a story from Superboy #216 (April 1976), as will be seen on p. 48. But racial (and professional) harmony conquered all by the final page, and Tyroc became a Legionnaire. Script by Cary Bates; art by Mike Grell. Thanks to Bob Bailey. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Alter Ego TM issue 174, March 2022 (ISSN 1932-6890) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage pending at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Alter Ego, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614.

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: $68 US, $103 Elsewhere, $29 Digital Only. All characters are © their respective companies. All material ©their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

4

Captain Marvel— As Remembered By His Co-Creator Mini-Essays By C.C. Beck

FCA

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: For this special edition of FCA, I decided to dust off and excerpt from my files various noteworthy commentaries from hundreds of hand-written, previously-unpublished pages of postulations, reminiscences, viewpoints, and essay “warm-ups” that Captain Marvel’s co-creator and chief artist Charles Clarence Beck (1910-1989) put to paper during the early 1980s as editor of FCA/ SOB—and later for his debate-by-mail group “The Critical Circle,” whose members included Richard Lupoff, Trina Robbins, Jim Amash, and myself.

—P.C. Hamerlinck.

C.C. Beck & “Billy’s Bad Dream” Charles Clarence Beck as a special guest at Phil Seuling’s Comic Art Convention on July 14, 1979, held at the Sheraton Hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—plus three of his initial “thumbnail sketches” of the Captain-Marvel-vs.-Sivana-Family situation, one of which wound up constituting this issue’s cover—from the original art collection of Shaun Clancy. Shaun’s wife Erika provided us with the photo-scan of the final painting. “Billy’s Bad Dream” was originally commissioned years ago by then-comics dealer/book publisher Ken Pierce, who remembers Beck as being a professional who “put a lot of care into his work” and was “very dedicated to being a good artist.” Beck had painted “Billy’s Bad Dream” a second time for a different collector; it was published in 2011 by The New Yorker. [Art & characters TM & © DC Comics.]

Captain Marvel—As Remembered By His Co-Creator

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No Credit, Thank You World War II started at about the time Captain Marvel did, and its finish in 1945 also marked the end of the Golden Age of the super-hero comicbooks.

I’ll not deny that Captain Marvel had become a super-hero—in both appearance and action—quite early on in his career when Fawcett farmed out some of the work to other artists and writers, who proceeded to present the World’s Mightiest Mortal as the World’s Mightiest Imitation Superman— bouncing bullets off his chest and looking like a ham actor in a shoot-’em-up movie.

In addition, Fawcett created a whole line of Captain Marvel spinoff characters which were drawn by other artists in styles quite unlike mine. Finally, Art Director Al Allard and I persuaded Fawcett to let me supervise the production of at least the Captain Marvel books. I was given the title of Chief Artist in charge of a studio filled with assistants and given some name recognition in the comics, but the writers were never given any credit at all, and to this day few people are aware that comic illustrators work from scripts instead of making everything up as they go along.

That is why today I refuse to accept any credit for creating Captain Marvel, pointing out that I was merely the first— and the last—artist to draw him in his original form. I want no credit whatsoever for drawings made by artists over whom I had no control and whom, as a matter of fact, I never met in some cases.

Al Allard Art director of Fawcett Publications’ comics in the early 1940s.

Not At His Beck And Call

George Tuska in a photo taken c.

1938-41. Courtesy of George’s son Robert, via Dewey Cassell.

I never had any control over the stories, either, although many have said that I had.

The stories were simply handed to me to be illustrated as they had been in the beginning. Most of them were well-written and, as people have often told me, the plots and characters were better developed and more imaginative than in most other comics.

How To Talk Without Saying Anything

C.C. Beck made it clear he wanted absolutely no credit (or blame) for “Captain Marvel” artwork he’d had nothing to do with—such as this scene from Captain Marvel Adventures #2 (Summer 1941), with art by George Tuska and script by Rod Reed, in a tale featuring the Arson Fiend. Art director Al Allard had hired Tuska to draw the entire second and third issues of CMA, probably fearful of overloading Beck with art assignments.

Tuska would make his super-hero mark years later, with Iron Man. [Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics.]

This way of regarding the illustrations in comicbooks was due to our having grown up reading the syndicated comic strips in the newspapers. I had myself once worked as a lettering man for a syndicated comic artist; Marc Swayze and some others had been assistants to syndicated cartoonists. I had spent the better part of six years at Fawcett as a “spot cartoonist” drawing single-panel cartoons before I was assigned to Captain Marvel. Pete Costanza had been an illustrator of Western pulp stories, in which one or two drawings were added to the typeset copy simply to break up the monotony.

Most syndicated comics of today have retained the off-hand, simplified (“cartoony”) way of illustrating the copy; the over-drawn comic strips can go on and on for years without accomplishing anything.

Rod Reed Early Fawcett editor and sometime scripter, seen in 1942.

Back in the Golden Age some artists, such as Mac Raboy, spent many hours lovingly feathering their lines, adding shadows and texture everywhere, and showing in minute detail all the muscles, tendons, bones, veins, arteries, eyelashes, and teeth of their figures. Others, such as myself, Pete Costanza, Marc Swayze, Ed Robbins, and many more who worked on Captain Marvel used a simpler drawing style now called “cartoony.”

We cartoonists could turn out three pages of camera-ready artwork while the fine artists were still drawing one panel. Captain Marvel, we believed, was designed to be read, not to be admired as art. To us, the pictures were mere adjuncts, that is, things added to but not necessary parts of the essential story.

There seems to be a law governing the production of illustrated copy that says, “The more pictures you add, the less story you will tell.” Today’s comicbooks, in my opinion, are almost all picture, with only a minute, feeble, meaningless amount of story… or perhaps none at all.

Otto And Wendell One time, back in the Golden Age, when I was producing comics for publishers other than Fawcett (with their permission), Otto Binder came into my office with about a dozen plot outlines for stories.

“Why so many?” I asked. “Can’t you tell the difference between good ideas and bad ones?”

“What do you mean?” Otto answered. “These are all good ideas!” And he was right; they were. Only in later years did Otto turn out bad stories to order for another publisher who shall remain nameless.

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When Captain Marvel Built Card-Castles In Spain The 1949 FHER Hazanas De Capitán Marvel Trading Cards

by Javier Gonzalez

W

hen one crosses paths with esoteric collectibles from distant lands, one may wonder how many hands have held these fascinating finds… or how they endured their long journey across an ocean divide… and what miraculously preserved them over decades before they finally found their way to new homes. In essence, we become the curators of these collectibles and ultimately navigate their next earthly destination. My passion for card collecting, with a wish to bring greater awareness of

vintage international finds to other like-minded collectors, eventually led me to create the online Tomorrowsgems.com. And it was this same enthusiasm and zeal that led me to discover—and eventually acquire—a complete set of the 1949 FHER Hazanas de Capitán Marvel [Adventures of Captain Marvel] cards from Spain.

The concept of Captain Marvel, originally created in 1939

by William Parker and C.C. Beck for Fawcett Publications’ Whiz

How Do You Say “Shazam!” In Spanish?

(Left:) The cover for the FHER card album in which to affix all 144 cards from the set Hazanas de Capitán Marvel, illustrated by Spanish artist Nogueras.

(Right:) Title page art from the interior of the card album; artist unknown. [Shazam heroes TM & © DC Comics.]

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Comics, introduced us to a pure-hearted boy left all alone to find his own way in the world and who became something extraordinary. Billy Batson was one of the most appealing aspects of Captain Marvel.

While sales of Captain Marvel comics in the U.S. often surpassed DC’s Superman during the 1940s, Fawcett initially didn’t attempt to capitalize on Cap’s popularity with a series of trading cards as their competitor had done.

In 1940, Gum Inc. released a set of 72 Superman gum cards.

So, while Fawcett never domestically released a gum card set of their own at the time, there was still a wide assortment of memorabilia offered to fans of the World’s Mightiest Mortal during the Golden Age. When Fawcett did eventually authorize production of 144 fully-illustrated Captain Marvel cards in 1949, the set had double the number of cards of the previous Superman gum card series. What’s even more compelling is that Fawcett chose to produce their incredible card set overseas in Spain.

The 1940s saw other companies, such as Disney, licensing products with their properties successfully abroad.

Fawcett had observed this strategy as a potential way of increasing worldwide readership exponentially, as numerous Captain Marvel items had already been distributed in Spain prior to the release of the 1949 card set.

In conjunction with theatre showings of the 1941 American movie serial from Republic Pictures titled The Adventures of Captain Marvel, the first Captain Marvel items released in Spain were a movie poster and an earlier card set by FHER featuring scenes from that movie serial.

(In Spain it was called Aventuras del Capitán Marvel.) The set’s 180 thin-paper cards measuring 2x2 7/8” featured colortinted, air-brushed photos from the film that could be affixed in a special album.

Maybe They Got Cap Confused With Blue Bolt?

In Spain, before Fawcett licensed the 1949 fully-illustrated Captain Marvel card set, the FHER company released set (and accompanying album), El Capitan Maravillas, featuring colorairbrushed still shots from Republic Pictures’ 1941 movie serial The Adventures of Captain Marvel, starring Tom Tyler as the World’s Mightiest Mortal. For some reason, the lightning bolt on his chest got colored blue instead of gold, but hey—you know what? It doesn’t look half bad! [Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics.]

Fawcett Collectors Of America

When Captain Marvel Built Card-Castles In Spain

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Marvel battle the evil Dr. Thaddeus Sivana and his family: son Thaddeus, Jr. (curiously named “Celso” in the card set) and daughter Georgia. As in the original Fawcett story, the Sivanas scheme to separate the Marvels from their magic lightning.

On a side note: Although expunged by Fawcett executive editor Will Lieberson in 1945, the controversial Captain Marvel black supporting character Steamboat appears briefly in the card set— at least, presumably it’s Steamboat—but he’s been re-named “Snowball” in the set.

And now, published in its entirety for the first time in 73 years—complete with a lightly-edited English translation—we re-present the Fawcett-licensed, original 1949 FHER card set illustrated by the artist Nogueras …

Two Of Fawcett’s Finest Original cover art for El Capitán Marvel #2 comicbook published in 1947 by Editorial Hispano-Americana, Spain. Special thanks to Charlo Ramon. [Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics; Nyoka the Jungle Girl TM & © Bill Black.]

The movie-serial merchandise was followed up with the distribution of a Captain Marvel comicbook series containing select Fawcett stories translated into Spanish, and packaged in a horizontal format with different cover art layouts. The comics from Spain also solicited individual fan clubs to join for Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr., and Mary Marvel. The club for Mary was touted exclusively for girls and was called the “Amigitas de Mary Marvel” [“Female Friends of Mary Marvel”]. The Marvel Family fan base continued to broaden overseas.

There was a great presence in Spain—a company named FHER, a Spanish publishing house located in Bilbao that produced comics, sticker albums, books, cut-out dolls, and die-cuts marketed to Spanish children. The company was founded by the brothers Germán and José Fuentes Lizaur in Bilbao in 1937—hence the acronym, FHER, which means “Fuentes Hermanos” (Brothers Fuentes).

Unlike most publishing companies at the time, the Fuentes brothers were astute businessmen who understood the importance of obtaining publishing rights and permissions from companies abroad who owned some of the world’s most successful and popular characters.

FHER and Fawcett Publications came to an agreement in 1949 that gave the Spanish company the right to publish a complete trading card series that would reacquaint fans in Spain with Captain Marvel. Other illustrated cards of that era simply showcased the star character in random, unimaginative scenes, with no real story or plot. What made the FHER Captain Marvel illustrated card series from ’49 so unique was that it began with the (altered) origins of the World’s Mightiest Family, and then was followed with a (somewhat loose) adaptation of Otto Binder’s epic 5-part story from The Marvel Family #10 (1947) in which Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr. (referred to as “Little Marvel” in the card set, edited for A/E readers with his true name), and Mary

The American Original The FHER 1949 card set from Spain is based on Otto Binder’s 5-chapter epic tale from Marvel Family #10 (April 1947). Art by C.C. Beck. [Shazam heroes TM & © DC Comics.]

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Fawcett Collectors Of America

Hazanas De Capitán Marvel [Shazam heroes, Batsons, Freddy Freeman, Shazam, & Sivanas TM & © DC Comics]

1 - On the Rock of Eternity, a place equidistant from the Present, the Past, and the Future, the spirit of Shazam, a very wise Egyptian magician, has his dwelling place, devoted to meditation and contemplating human frailties, seeking relief from mortals’ sorrows.

2 - He is rarely seen by humans. Only three kids, siblings Billy and Mary Batson and Freddy Freeman, can invoke him by lighting a brazier deep in a cave known only to them.

3 - These three kids were granted by Shazam the ability to become three wonderful beings.

When Mary and Billy say “SHAZAM!” and Freddy says “CAPTAIN MARVEL!” magical rays of ardent lightning split the space.

4 - Billy Batson, the young radio host, instantly becomes Captain Marvel, gifted with superhuman strength, extremely powerful intelligence, and extraordinary courage. He runs with the speed of an express train [and] flies like a bird, and his body rejects bullets.

5 - The gentle Mary Batson—cultured, sporty, determined, prototype of the modern girl— becomes Mary Marvel, a wonderful young woman, endowed with the same powers as Captain Marvel, supporting him to protect the weak and the oppressed.

6 - Freddy Freeman, a humble newsboy, poor and crippled from birth, when he says “Captain Marvel!” becomes Captain Marvel Jr., possessing the same powers as Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel, and an extremely efficient helper! How did they …

7 - … receive such wonderful powers? Let’s go back, a few years... Mary and Billy were then living at the home of Susana Bromfield, the adoptive mother of the former. They were both orphans and their best friend was Freddy Freeman.

8 - Billy was going to school one day.

Extremely nice, honest, and noble, he was unaware that his great qualities were being observed by someone who trusted him. And, as he passed an entrance to the Metro, a strange figure approached him...

9 - ...motioning for him to follow. Billy innocently obeyed, and the mysterious character entered through the mouth of the underground railway and through a secret door that went unnoticed by the many people who passed through that place.

When Captain Marvel Built Card-Castles In Spain

13

10 - Billy, following the strange character, found himself in a cave that presented a surprising appearance. What place was this, located in the heart of the populous city, that seemed to take him back to a remote and legendary time?

11 - The mysterious guide left Billy Batson before a venerable old man with a long white beard, seated on a marble throne at the back of the cave. And the old man spoke thus: “Billy Batson! I am Shazam, the ancient Egyptian sorcerer...

12 - “ …I have spent my life fighting Evil... but my days are ending... you will be my successor!

You are pure of heart, honest, noble... you have been chosen! Call my name!” And Billy, surprised and amazed, spoke the magic word: “SHAZAM!”

13 - And, for the first time, the magical lightning fell on Billy... that fantastic bright flash that falls unseen by mortals; they do not perceive the noise or the momentous transformation that our hero undergoes...

14 - …and, for the first time in history, Captain Marvel appeared, the extraordinary figure who would undertake so many interesting adventures, and who would be the idol of modern youth. Billy was very surprised by the change...

15 - …then watched as a great block of stone that hung over the throne where the magician was sitting fell with a great crash with the same lightning that gave life to Captain Marvel.

Shazam could still hear Billy from the lips of the spell, but it was written that he must die!

16 - Then, a moment later, the spirit of Shazam appeared and spoke: “I name you Captain Marvel. With my name you are granted the powers of these six great men of history and mythology. You will be able to fight effectively against evil.”

17 - And a new magical bolt struck, returning Billy Batson to his true self. Seconds later, our young friend was at the entrance to the Metro, feeling that everything that had happened in such a short time was a dream.

18 - Afraid that they would not believe him, Billy said nothing to his sister or his friend.

He hardly believed it himself! To distract himself, he read the newspaper. A strange piece of news soon caught his attention: “The Phantom Scientist threatens to paralyze all radio broadcasts...

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“You Got To Stumble Sometime, So You Can Figure Out What You’re Going To Be” Part II Of Our Interview With WILLIAM FOSTER III On African-Americans In Comics Conducted & Transcribed by Alex Grand & Jim Thompson

A/E

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: Our preceding issue [#173] spotlighted two pieces on black people in comicbooks—an overview by Barry Pearl, and (due to spatial limitations) the first half of an interview with retired college teacher William Foster III, author of the 2005 study Looking for a Face Like Mine. This concluding installment deals primarily with comics characters and creators in the 1970s and since….

is interesting because, in the ’70s, there are a lot of movements where the ‘60s start to manifest into mainstream. There’s a delay, and then suddenly it starts showing up in pop culture, more in the ’70s, like an explosion.

ALEX GRAND: So, as far as the ‘60s, we talked about Robert Crumb, we talked about Franklin in Peanuts… so now we’re going to enter the ’70s. This

FOSTER: Absolutely.

WILLIAM FOSTER III: Absolutely.

AG: You mentioned Inner City Romance by Guy Colwell… Super Soul Comics, 1972, Richard “Grass” Green…

AG: Don McGregor’s Jungle Action series with

William Foster III at a comics symposium in 2013— sandwiched in between young African-American artist Billy Graham’s action-packed “Black Panther” splash page for Jungle Action #13 (Jan. 1975), with script

by Don McGregor & inks by Craig Russell … and Gus Lemoine’s cover for the teenage title Fast Willie Jackson #4 (April 1977). This issue’s interview segment runs the gamut! All art scans accompanying this interview were provided by Alex Grand and/or William Foster III, unless otherwise noted. “Black Panther” page supplied by Barry Pearl; cover courtesy of the Grand Comics Database. [JA art TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.; FWJ cover TM & © Fitzgerald Periodicals, Inc.]

“You Got To Stumble Sometime, So You Can Figure Out What You’re Going To Be”

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Black Panther… Luke Cage. Tell us, as you were reading these in real time… what did you feel was going on?

FOSTER: Oh, man, it wasn’t easy. It’s that the counterculture was taking over. When you see a major trend come in or a major wave is coming through, it’s making money and you want to make money, too. So you try things out. You start seeing a lot more women manifest themselves in the comicbook world, and not just as superheroes but as policemen, or police chiefs in some cases, heads of government agencies, and politicians. It becomes easy for them. Like now, we have a template.

The first ones were, like we said, there’s that kind of humor: “Oh, I got to go to the Senate and pass a bill, but first, I got to get my nails fixed.” But I’m remembering plainly, I had friends telling me they were told, “I don’t care how many degrees you have, every woman here starts in the typing pool.” Or, “You are not going to be able to get this job. Why should I hire you when you’ll just get pregnant, and go get married to someone, and I got to train somebody else?” Right to their faces, with no shame whatsoever.

What I’m saying, and that’s horrible, is I’m coming in to the age where women are trying to get a fair shake, and a fair shake is for everybody.

So, the ’70s is that. The language changes… Or ask anybody you know about Luke Cage. And that’s the last time you had a black guy say, “Sweet Christmas!” [chuckles] JIM THOMPSON: Well, it would have been on the Netflix show, two years ago.

FOSTER: I was talking to one of the guys who did the Milestone Comics, and he was cracking me up with that. He said, “Yeah, me and the brothers are sitting around, and I heard somebody say, ‘Sweet Christmas!” [chuckles] I said, “Please, you’re killing me.”

There’s Always A “But”!

This yarn by writer Stan Lee and artists Gene Colan & John Romita was the second tale in Marvel’s Our Love Story #5 (June 1970). The lead-off “confession,” with white protagonists, was titled “But He’s Not the Boy for Me!” (by Lee & John Buscema)—while the follow-up, from an AfricanAmerican perspective, was titled “—But He’s the Boy I Love!” Clearly, the implication of using the word “Boy” for a black man in 1970 slipped right past The Man—and his proofreading crew. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

But, also, there was another phase where every black super-hero had to have “Black” in front of his name. And that kind of got to be a joke. Even now, it’s still kind of a joke. But I understand what that was: Being black was important to say. And if this is the only way you can say it, that’s fine.

JT: Did you see the Harvey Birdman [TV] episode with Black Vulcan.

Have you gotten to that one yet. Alex?

AG: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve finished the Harvey Birdmans; they are funny.

JT: Black Vulcan is on the stand, and he doesn’t want to be called Black Vulcan. And he says, “I said to Aquaman, ‘Why don’t you call yourself White Fish?’” [chuckles] Continued on p. 33

Sidebar:

When Did Luke Cage First Say “Sweet Christmas”?

by Brian Cronin A/E EDITOR’S INTRO: This piece, with lots more panels reproduced to underscore its points, was first published online on the “Comic Book Resources” website and is © 2016, 2021 by Comic Book Resources. Our thanks to CBR and Brian Cronin for allowing its publication.

I

n [the “Comic Book Resources” series] “When We First Met,” we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects, or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said “Avengers Assemble!” or the first

appearance of Batman’s giant penny [etc.].

Today, reader Chris Ghostly asked me on Twitter when was the first time that Luke Cage said his famous catchphrase “Sweet Christmas!” in a comicbook. Let’s find out!

The first time Cage used any sort of exclamation was in Hero for Hire #2 (Aug. 1972)—by Archie Goodwin, George Tuska, & Billy Graham—when he shouted, “Mother of…!” He would use that expression in issues #5 & 15 as well.

38

Part II Of Our Interview With William Foster III On African-Americans In Comics

he trying to do with Fast Willie Jackson? It didn’t go for a long time. Tell us what led to ceasing the publication of that comic.

FOSTER: No problem. He started Golden Legacy for the same reason that brother Evans started All-Negro Comics. He said he got tired of not seeing black people in comics. So he would dedicate an entire series to that. And he said he was told by both black people and white people, “It will never sell.”

No one would sell him Bertram Fitzgerald a subscription list, so he in the 1960s, and a house ad for couldn’t sell at newsstands Fitzgerald Periodicals, Inc.’s Golden where comicbooks were sold.

Legacy series in the pages of his But he acted clever, and he got company’s Fast Willie Jackson #1 inventive. He went to grocery (Dec. 1976). [TM & © Fitzgerald stores and got advertising from Periodicals, Inc., or successors in interest.] different groups… like Pepsi and Coke… and sold them there, and he started doing very well. He also submitted to the Urban League and got support. And those books were amazing.

By the way, it’s important to say, unfortunately, he’s no longer with us. He passed last year. Crushed my heart. He had to go and find his own printer, and a guy was stealing his designs and selling them off the books. He had to take that guy to court. While he was at the courtroom, he had a heart attack. Went to the hospital, came back out, and still won the case. So, what he was looking for in Fast Willie Jackson was something for young people. He said, “How can I tell if they’re reading this?” So they used a contest in the “Letters to the Editor” page and said, “If you can come up with a good ending for this story, we’ll use your story.”

He said they got an amazing amount of letters coming back to them. He said it was an important thing for him to try out. And it was so different from Golden Legacy. And he particularly said, “You got to set it to the Archie art, which everybody recognized.” Those are becoming increasingly hard to find now, sadly.

AG: Yeah. I managed to find one issue on eBay. The only affordable one I could find, yes.

FOSTER: I’ll tell you what, talk to me, I’ll hook you up later…

I know a guy.

AG: [chuckles] So now, in the ‘80s, there’s a few things you mentioned like Daddy Cool in 1984. But it seems like it’s not as much as in the ‘70s and the ‘90s. It’s almost like there’s less of these in some way.

FOSTER: Absolutely. I think it had to do with the economic conditions of the country at that time. And also, the political feeling on what was happening, too, because the Reagan years… [chuckles] It was interesting.

Daddy Cool was deep, in that it was printed by the same people who did Player magazine… which was, how should we say it, adult entertainment? It was a large-sized format, and they reduced it later on into a paperback size. But the person who reduced it wasn’t paying attention; the page count was all off. It’s like reading a Japanese novel at a train station.

Fast—Faster—Fastest!

(Across bottom of this page and next:) This issue and last, we’ve previously seen Gus Lemoine’s covers for Fast Willie Jackson #1, 2, & 4. Here are the remaining four, cover-dated February, June, August, and September of 1977. [TM & © Fitzgerald Periodicals, Inc., or successors in interest.]

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The Haunting Of JOHN BROOME

Part XVIII Of The Golden/Silver Age Writer’s 1997 Memoir EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: As we near the end of Irving Bernard (John) Broome’s short and “Offbeat Autobio” My Life in Little Pieces, courtesy of his daughter Ricky Terry Brisacque, we encounter the closest thing to a “ghost story” that he offers up therein. It springs from his and wife Peggy’s (and their offspring’s) days in the quiet community of Wingdale, in rural Duchess Country, New York. Thanks again to Brian K. Morris for retyping the text for us….

A/E

Deuel Hollow Summers particularly, when Wingdale’s “little red schoolhouse” was locked and boarded up against flying squirrels and other equally cute

John & Peggy Broome in a photo taken during the early 1940s, when the whole world was at war—and when John had fairly recently sold a prose yarn to the Summer 1942 edition of Fiction House’s Planet Stories pulp magazine, which would even slap his name on the cover. His entry was titled “The Cosmic Derelict,” and its spooky interior illo by Robert Leydenfrost is as good a mood-setter for this issue’s installment of his book as we can come up with. Cover art

by Norman Saunders. Thanks to Glenn MacKay & Art Lortie. For a pic of daughter Ricky, alas, you’ll have to hie you back to A/E #171 or before, since we’ve long since printed all the photos we have of the Broomes’ Baby-Boomer daughter.

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Part XVIII Of The Golden/Silver Age Writer’s 1997 Memoir

When One Door Closes…

(Left:) One of the more memorable scenes Broome wrote for the original six-issue run of The Phantom Stranger was this splash-page scene for “Doorway in the Sky” in issue #6 (June-July 1953). This splash page—which may or may not have been penciled by Murphy Anderson, but was definitely inked by Joe Giella —is especially memorable because it inspired Anderson covers both for that issue and later for Justice League of America #2 (Dec. ’60-Jan. ’61), not to mention Mike Bair’s for Infinity, Inc. #50 (May ’88).

(Right:) The lead story in PS #6, though, advertised (falsely, as it turned out) some actual ghosts. Broome script, with Giella inks over Carmine Infantino pencils. Thanks to Jim Ludwig & Michael T. Gilbert. [TM & © DC Comics.]

and pestiferous marauders, daughter Ricky and I—she aged about 12 at this time—would take long walks through the still largely wild countryside around our house, usually under an agreement to keep going and not turn back till we came across something, some feature of the landscape, interesting enough to give a punctuation mark to our day’s ramble. This could be merely a stricken tree fallen neatly enough for us across an active stream, or a tottering old kiln from the period of the charcoal burners 100 years earlier when life roundabout, it appeared, had been much livelier than it was now.

We had never before headed toward Deuel Hollow, a bit distant from our own more southeasterly Pleasant Ridge, and we knew little about it. And yet did not the appellation “Hollow” evoke in me a near-unconscious thrill of apprehension? Was there not, if one thought about it, something peculiar, unnatural, spectral even, about an area on Earth labeled by a term that was a very opposite of Earth, that was indeed a curiously unpleasant denial of Earth? True, Deuel Hollow in prosaic Wingdale, NY (population 500 all told, not including the inmates and staff—the total ran to thousands—of Harlem Valley State Hospital whose cluster of forbidding dull red-bricked buildings stood sullen watch

over the entrance to the village as one came up State Road 22 from the south), probably hadn’t the least power of enchantment required to plunge humans into prolonged deathlike slumber à la Washington Irving’s Sleepy Hollow in the neighboring Catskills, just across the broad Hudson a few miles west; but still, even if only subconsciously, I believe that as Ricky and I started out that morning, I was already to an extent on my guard.

But to come back to our hike... As usual, on occasion, we had to climb through barbed wire or over dry stonewalls, across farmers’ pastures—but not their fields bearing crops—and through untracked woods. No one, so far as I know, ever objected to these bold intrusions, except once a short-tempered bullock, somehow untied, who with his poor eyesight started a whisk too late to get at us. The day was fine and at length we emerged from a dark cool wood into the scattered shadow around a sunlit glade, and at once the impact of the Hollow—for such it was—struck us.

There was the silence. Not ordinary silence which is merely absence of sound, a negative thing: this silence had a queer positive quality as if not from something that was absent but from something that was there. The first thing she noticed, Ricky

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(Above:) “Julius Caesar!” splash page from Mad #17 (Sep. 1954). Script

by Harvey Kurtzman; art by Wallace Wood. [TM & © EC Publications, Inc.]

64

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

Don’t Get Mad… Get Angry! (Part 2)

by Michael T. Gilbert

L

ast issue we reprinted a two-page magazine article from Mad #41 (Sept. 1958), purporting to instruct its competitors how do a better job stealing ideas from Mad. The response from the Mad imitators was, as expected, swift and vicious. Since we at Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt love “swift and vicious,” we’ve gathered more examples for your viewing pleasure!

The Horror! The Horror!

For instance, how about “The Horrible Comic Story behind the Horror Story Comic Books!” from Whitestone Publications’ Lunatickle #2 (April 1956). This bizarre ten-pager was published by notorious schlockmeister Myron Fass, and drawn in a pseudo-Jack Davis style by the talented Lee Elias. Elias knew the subject well, having drawn some of the most gruesome horror covers in the early ’50s for Harvey Publications. Fass’s “Horrible Comic Story” wasn’t written in reaction to that specific Mad article, but does give an idea of how some rival publishers viewed Mad publisher Bill Gaines even before that.

The story purports to tell the sordid story of ECHH Publications and their publisher, Samuel Grisly (maestro of horror comics!). As the story begins, sales for Grisly’s horror books are down the tubes, and he briefly considers jumping off a roof.

Instead, Sam and his freelancers create horror comics on steroids… comics too horrible to even imagine! Naturally they start selling like hotcakes and their competitors take note, converting love and super-hero comics into horror comics. Cops and Robbers becomes Corpse Robbers, Sports Comics becomes The Corpse Vomits, Captain Quicktime (resembling the Golden Age Flash!) becomes Trapped In Quicklime! and so on. EC had actually done something similar, changing its lone super-hero title, Moon Girl and The Prince first into

(Above:) A fine selection of comic titles recently converted to horror comics! From Lunatickle #2 (April 1956). Art by Lee Elias; script by Jack Mendelsohn. [© Whitestone Publishing].

Moon Girl, then into Moon Girl Fights Crime (a crime comic), and finally into a love title, A Moon, A Girl…Romance!

In our story art imitates life as the horror glut leads to a political lynching, led by Senator Egbert Keepoffer (aka Senator Estes Kefauver, who skewered Gaines when the publisher testified before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1954). The story also included “expert” testimony by “Dr. Frederik Von Werthless,” clearly a parody of Dr. Fredric Wertham, who never met a comicbook he didn’t hate. At story’s end the verdict is clear, as the Senate committee gleefully tortures poor Sam Grisly in a pot of boiling water. Not too far from what really happened back then!

The story was likely in part payback for Gaines’ creating the horror comics that led to the detested Comics Code, as well as his disastrous Senate testimony that subsequently brought the comics industry to the brink of collapse.

(Below:) “Famous Viennese psychiatrist” Doctor Frederick Von Werthless, from Lunatickle #2 (April 1956). Art by Lee Elias; script by Jack Mendelsohn. [© Whitestone Publishing].

(Above:) This panel from Myron Fass’s Lunatickle #2 lampoons Bill Gaines as Sam Grisly, and mentions his nemesis, Dr. F. Werthless. Wonder if he might have been referring to Dr. Fredric Wertham? Art by Lee Elias; script

by Jack Mendelsohn. [© Whitestone Publishing].

[TM & © William M. Gaines Agent, Inc.]

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by Peter Normanton

T

he hangman’s noose, the axeman’s block, Madame Guillotine, Old Smokey: their very mention is likely to arouse a whole host of emotions, every once in a while bordering on the extreme. Even supposing our liberal views, when so impassioned, how long would it be before we too threw the switch?

Fear not, for we are not here to debate the morality of the death sentence in modern-day society; rather, the next few pages will tread that dark corridor to uncover the odious glee relished by the horror comics of 70 years past in their sentencing of the condemned to a most unceremonious demise, invariably graphic in the finality of its display.

In researching this piece, I was surprised to learn the United States remains the only country listed amongst the Western democracies to advocate the use of capital punishment in certain of its states, the governing institutions across western Europe having taken measures to abolish the practice towards the end of the last century. However, during the early 1950s, such harrowing decrees were commonplace amongst each and every one of these nations, making them fair game for the unscrupulous publishers of those disreputable horror comics.

Let’s go back a few years further, for execution scenes were not the sole reserve of the crime and horror comics proliferating the newsstands of the late 1940s and early ’50s. These torturous spectacles were occasionally evidenced during the celebrated Golden Age of Comics. It’s hard to deny the notoriety of MLJ’s Hangman Comics, a title which left nothing to the imagination. From the covers you will see accompanying this piece, Hangman Comics was explicit in its exploitation of this form of punishment, as was its predecessor Special Comics.

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From The Tomb

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS PREVIEW, CLICK THE LINK TO ORDER THIS ISSUE IN PRINT OR DIGITAL FORMAT!

Timely were known to dabble with the execution-styled motif, with the cover to Marvel Mystery Comics #55 immediately springing to mind. When citing Timely Comics, we should remember they had Alex Schomburg at their behest, an artist whose bizarre sense of design could conceive the most elaborate ways of torment, before swiftly disposing of those who had fallen into his path. The potency in these images would be the precursor to the excess that followed, as this war-torn decade rolled into the four-coloured horrors of the next.

Crime made a quite significant mark on the world of comicbook publishing during the 1940s, led by Lev Gleason’s Crime Does Not Pay. This title briefly flirted with electrocution covers not long after the war, as did Magazine Enterprises’ Manhunt and Prize’s Justice Traps the Guilty. Readers would have to wait until the autumn of 1953 for Justice Traps the Guilty #57 to showcase a true rarity—the suffocating terror of the gas chamber. In reality, such covers were few and far between. These comics were more inclined towards the violence dispensed by the genre’s ruthless scions of criminality. However, it wasn’t unusual for the denouements within ALTER EGO #173Such to contain an unsettling reminder as to the day when judgment was finally pronounced.

FCA [FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA] issue—spearscenes were invariably short-lived, unlike those now spilling forth from dreaded horror headed by feisty and the informative articles by Captain Marvel co-creator C.C. BECK—plus a fabulous feature on vintage cards comic. created in Spain and starring The Marvel Family! In addition: DR. WILLIAM FOSTER III interview (conclusion)—MICHAEL T.

Of all these terrifying titles, it was those published by GILBERT EC Comics, company from on the lostaart of comicbookwhich greats—the haunting of JOHN BROOME—and more! BECKof cover. humble origins had prospered to become one of the most impressive enterprises the day, (84-page FULL-COLOR $10.95 while simultaneously earning themselves a reputation for shameless audacity thatmagazine) set the (Digital Edition) $4.99 benchmark. Their staging of these deathly punishments was macabre, pushing the boundaries of acceptability ever further, turning this also-ran outfit of thehttps://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=133&products_id=1646 late 1940s into the one every other publisher took care to maintain a watchful eye for. As early as the summer of 1951, Crime SuspenStories #6 flabbergasted its newfound audience with Johnny Craig’s depiction of a hanged man, recently returned from the dead with but one thing in mind, the unassailable compulsion to seek out retribution. The attendant story “Jury Duty,” introduced by the Old Witch and ably abetted by her accomplice at the drawing board, one Ghastly Graham Ingels, was a characteristically grisly affair, its hideous narrative redolent of the Haunt of Fear. The Old Witch disclosed the tale of Peter Kardoff, a man who, having survived the gallows, forthwith sought to

Getting It In The Neck Whether it was death by hanging, the guillotine, or the dreaded electric chair, comicbook publishers couldn’t resist snuffing out a life or three, as evidenced by these covers: Timely’s Marvel Mystery Comics #55 (May 1944; art by Alex Schomburg)… Et-Es-Go’s Suspense Comics #12 (Sept. ’46; art by L.B. Cole)…

EC’s Crime SuspenStories #6 (Aug.-Sept. ’51; art by Johnny Craig). No less grisly were stories in the latter issue by writers Bill Gaines & Al Feldstein & artist Graham Ingels, or in Tales from the Crypt #27 (Dec. ’51-Jan. ’52; script & art by the same team) and “The Hangman” in MLJ’s Special Comics #1-and-only, produced for Winter 1941, with art by Harry Lucey; writer unknown. [MMC cover TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.; EC covers & interiors TM & © William M. Gaines Agent, Inc.; Special Comics TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.; other art © the respective copyright holders.]