Alter Ego #183

Roy Thomas’ Hangin’-Tough Comics Fanzine

A STAR-STUDDED SALUTE TO GOLDEN/SILVER/BRONZE AGE GREAT

IRV NOVICK

by JOHN COATES & DEWEY CASSELL FROM MLJ’s SHIELD & STEEL STERLING TO BATMAN, THE FLASH, & SOME OF DC’s MOST MEMORABLE WAR COMICS!

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No. 183 Sept.

2023

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Vol. 3, No. 183 Sept. 2023 Editor

Roy Thomas

Associate Editor Jim Amash

Design & Layout

Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor

P.C. Hamerlinck Mark Lewis (Cover Coordinator)

Comic Crypt Editor

Michael T. Gilbert

Editorial Honor Roll

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

Proofreaders

William J. Dowlding David Baldy

Cover Artist & Colorist Irv Novick

With Special Thanks to:

Mike Grell Heidi Amash Paul Handler Richard J. Arndt Heritage Art Bob Bailey Auctions Jean Bails Mike Jackson Sy Barry Sharon Karibian Cary Bates David Karoll Jim Beard Nick Katradis Bonnie Biro Jim Kealy Dewey Cassell Henry Kujawa Paul Castiglia Paul Levitz Mike Catron Art Lortie John Cimino Michael Lovitz Shaun Clancy Jim Ludwig John Coates Brian K. Morris Comic Book Plus Mark Muller (website) Kim Novick Jon B. Cooke Wayne Novick Chet Cox Denise Ortell Brian Cronin Stephen Donnelly Joe Petrilak Rune Rasmussen Michael Dunne Ralph Reese Mark Evanier James Rosen George Fears Bob Rozakis Shane Foley Leslie Novick Frank Randy Sargent Pierangelo Serafin Jeff Gelb Jatinder Ghataora David Siegel Robin Snyder Frank Giella Brian Stewart Janet Gilbert Bryan Stroud Penny Gold Dann Thomas Grand Comics John Wells Database Eddy Zeno (website)

Contents Writer/Editorial: Introduction By John Coates . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 John Coates & Dewey Cassell’s in-depth coverage of a major comicbook artist.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! “My Life With Wood” (Part 1) . . 65 Ralph Reese tells Michael T. Gilbert of his apprenticeship with the great Wally Wood.

FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #242 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 P.C. Hamerlinck showcases Shaun Clancy on “The Whiz Bang Life of Captain Billy.”

On Our Cover: Some years ago, our featured artist Irv Novick seems to have made a gift of his original cover art for Pep Comics #17 (July 1941)—the issue that introduced the sinister new masked hero The Hangman—to his fellow MLJ artist Ed Goggin. Far as we know, Irv even provided the coloring. While his work on Batman, The Flash, and DC’s war comics has reached more readers over the ensuing decades, authors/providers John Coates and Dewey Cassell and Alter Ego’s erudite editor conferred with TwoMorrows Publisher John Morrow… and the decision was made that the pulsating Pep cover should front this issue! Our thanks to Heritage Art Auctions for the pristine scan! [TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.] Above: Penciler Irv Novick, inker Dick Giordano, and writer Denny O’Neil restored Catwoman’s glamorous 1940s garb in this story done for Batman #266 (Aug. 1975). Of course, editor Julius Schwartz might’ve had something to do with that decision as well. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Alter EgoTM issue 183, September 2023 (ISSN 1932-6890) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage paid at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Alter Ego, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614.

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Irv Novick

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: $73 US, $111 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.

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Article Title writer/editorial

A/E EDITOR’S INTRO: Recently, comics historians John Coates and Dewey Cassell offered us the opportunity to feature an abridged version of a book they had assembled on the life and art of comics artist Irv Novick, especially noted for his work on “The Shield,” “Batman,” “The Flash,” and DC Comics war series—and we eagerly accepted. Since every

page is at a premium this issue, I’m presenting John Coates’ foreword to the material as this issue’s “writer/editorial.” Our letters section will return next issue. So, without further ado…

Bestest,

Introduction by JOHN COATES W hen most fans think of Irv Novick, they immediately envision one of four aspects of his over 50-year history of drawing comicbooks.

First, they may remember Irv as the co-creator of the first patriotic hero in comics, The Shield, who debuted in Pep Comics #1 (Jan. 1940), more than a year before the now better-known patriotic hero who debuted in Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941). In the early 1940s, Irv was a major artist at MLJ Comics (now Archie) on such titles as Blue Ribbon Comics, Top-Notch Comics, Pep Comics, Zip Comics, Jackpot Comics, Black Hood Comics, Shield-Wizard Comics, Hangman Comics, et al.

Or, they think of his work on DC Comics’ legendary “Big Five” war books (Our Army At War, All-American Men of War, Star Spangled War Stories, Our Fighting Forces, and G.I. Combat) under editor Bob Kanigher.

Perhaps they recall Novick’s being one of the primary artists on “Batman” stories from the late ’60s through the ’70s, where he excelled in adding darker tones and in continuing the realism brought to the hero by Neal Adams, while still making the character his own.

And finally, they might fondly remember his decade-long association with The Flash, where he defined Barry Allen’s look for comics readers of the ’70s.

Which brings you to me….

I began reading The Flash with issue #223 (Sept-Oct 1973). I immediately became a fan of Irv’s art and still consider his version of Barry Allen the definitive depiction of the character. (Apologies to Carmine Infantino fans. I also love Infantino’s work, but we all have our own personal Golden Age, right?)

In the early 1990s, I began to conduct interviews with various Golden and Silver Age artists, Irv being one. At first, he was apprehensive and a bit guarded about being interviewed. Very pleasant—not rude—just a bit confused as to why anyone would want to hear from or about him. When he had retired in the early 1990s, he had no knowledge of fandom, conventions, etc.

Over the course of our conversations, his astonishment turned to amusement, then fondness, and finally thankfulness, remembering his career and the people he had collaborated with. He was truly glad that his work was remembered, and treasured, though he continued to admit he never understood why!

Irv passed away on December 10, 2004, at the age of 88.

Maybe, just maybe, this issue of Alter Ego will make it clear why Irv Novick’s work is esteemed by more than one comicbook generation.

Enjoy this tribute to the artist and his art!

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IRV NOVICK: A Heroes’ Artist

by John Coates & Dewey Cassell

Foreword

by Denny O’Neil

H

ush, step over here, out of the light. I’ve a secret for you. But I won’t reveal it yet, not until I’ve compelled you to slog through about 462 words of questionable prose...

Julius Schwartz & Irv Novick

Our subject is M. Irv Novick. You may know him as an artist who draws Batman.

Elsewhere in this excellent volume, you can learn that Batman has been plying his trade, which is entertaining you by righteously, cleverly apprehending lawbreakers—call them Denny O’Neil “villains.” This he has been doing for, as I write this, 80 years, ever since his debut in 1939 in Detective Comics. Popular guy? I’ll say! Listen, Batman has been featured in every medium that can be made to tell stories. Radio, television, movies, novels, drama, short fiction, roller coasters! (no kidding), bubble gum cards (still not kidding)! Did I mention theatre? Well, brace yourself for full disclosure: Although there hasn’t been a Batman Broadway musical yet, at least one has been proposed, and the day is young yet. ...Something I’m forgetting...

Oh yeah. Comicbooks. Batman’s corporate parent, DC Comics, has just published the one thousandth issue of Detective Comics. Let me lay that out in numbers: 1,000 consecutive comics! Has any other periodical, apart from news venues, achieved that record? And, beginning with issue #27, every one of them has featured a “Batman” story. Not exactly the same Batman: our hero, like the great literary characters—Hamlet comes to mind, as does Sherlock Holmes—is subject to interpretation; different creators see him different ways, Which brings us to the true subject of these observations: Irv Novick, comicbook artist, and if you want to emphasize the “artist” part of that sobriquet, okay. Here’s something you may not understand: comicbook art is more than a collection of pictures sharing the same space. (Are you sensing a secret in the air?) It is integral to the story being told. The comics characters’ body language, expression, placement within the panel, distance from the imaginary “camera”—the reader’s eyes—all this and more is part of the information that shapes the story. Part of the narrative.

Together Again!

Although Denny O’Neil passed some months after writing the accompanying foreword, it’s more than fitting to feature his image along with those of two of his collaborators on this splash page from Batman #240 (March 1972). (Left to right in photos:) editor Julius Schwartz and penciler Irv Novick at a turn-of-the-century comics convention, and Denny O’Neil, circa 1971. They were aided and abetted by inker Dick Giordano.

Thanks to Jim Ludwig & Jim Keally. Unless otherwise noted, all images accompanying this abridged book are courtesy of authors John Coates & Dewey Cassell. [Page TM & © DC Comics.]

The earliest iteration of “The Bat-Man,” as he was sometimes known, was a tad effete, a bit soft around the edges, like Ellery Queen and such other fictional detectives as Hercule Poirot and Philo Vance. He evolved swiftly during the World War II years and although, back then, he wasn’t completely consistent from story to story, he was most often like the version Irv Novick and his collaborators presented to readers. In a word: hero. Tough, but never cruel or vicious, Smart, but never arrogant; responsible but not smug... a virtual tourist attraction. (”Mommy, can we go to Gotham City and see Batman and Robin?”) He was cheerful, but not a wiseacre, a good citizen who never cheated on his taxes. And not only was he all those commendable things—thanks to Mr. Novick, he looked like them. Excellent match of talents.

Recently, a Hollywood guy who has directed a super-hero flick or two told the world—smugly?—that Superman and Batman kill. He then advised us to “live with it.”

So: secret. No, they don’t. At least my Superman and Batman don’t. And I’ll bet that Irv Novick’s don’t, either.

—Denny O’Neil, 2019

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

Chapter One

Formative Years There is no better place to start, especially for readers who may not be familiar with Irv Novick, than at the beginning.

In his in-depth 1998 interview with Novick, which weaves its way throughout this issue, John Coates talks to the artist about his career in comics and elsewhere, including where he came from and how he got his start. (This interview was previously published in The Comic Book Marketplace #77, April 2000.)

JOHN COATES: Mr. Novick… I’d like to thank you for agreeing to this interview IRV NOVICK: Mr. “Who,” John?

Hey, rule #1 is that you can’t call me “Mr. Novick.” My name is Irv. Got it? [laughter]

Irv Novick

JC: Forgive me. The curse of being brought up in the South. [laughter]. Now, let’s begin with your family background.

NOVICK: Well, I was born in New York City on April 11, 1916. My father was in the fur business and fairly wealthy. He had about 100 people working for him. He was a good businessman and a good father.

He even made money during the Depression, which was quite a feat. My mother was a very thoughtful, loving person. She always encouraged us to read when we were young, and both were very supportive of us getting an education. She used to read to us, and we had learned to read even before we were taught to do so in school. As far as my first interest in drawing, my mother used to say that I scratched her womb with a pencil! [laughter] My art inspirations were many: Alex Raymond, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Winslow Homer, the classics, some contemporary artists, everyday life, etc.... Listen, if you’re an artist, you’re going to be influenced by a good many people and things. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar, or a fool!

Not Exactly Medical School!

Life, as John Lennon famously said, is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. So Irv wound up first attending the National Academy of Design in New York City, instead of studying to become a doctor.

JC: Did your family support your decision to be an artist?

NOVICK: Oh yes.

However, I do remember

“The Shield Of The Mighty” Irv Novick as a young man at his omnipresent drawing board… and his cover for MLJ’s Pep Comics #9 (Nov. 1940), nearly a year into “The Shield” but still some months before the debut of Simon & Kirby’s (and Timely’s) Captain America Comics #1. Thanks to the Grand Comics Database for the cover scan. [TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.]

that my mother’s brother used to drag me down to the hospital to watch surgery. He thought I was going to go to medical school, but I took the exam for the National Academy of Design in New York City instead. Boy, was he surprised! [laughter] The Academy was like a four-year college, but they didn’t give out degrees. No art schools gave degrees in those days. However, after four years, many graduates taught at universities without a master’s degree or having taken education classes. To get in, you had to first pass an art examination. If you passed, they would then make you come back and ask you to draw from casts/statues for about two weeks. If they still liked your work, then they offered you a scholarship. Around 1933 I received a four-year scholarship and an additional year for my master class. We were affiliated with Columbia University so we could take advantage of many of their resources.

JC: What was your first professional assignment?

NOVICK: While at the Academy, I saw an ad on the school bulletin board for someone to do “showcards” for an importing company which had consignment space in most of the large department stores throughout the country. The showcard was part of a department store floor display that showed a woman, usually a beautiful woman, well, always a beautiful woman, using whatever kitchen gadget the display was presenting. For example, a beautiful woman would be shown in a kitchen using a potato peeler, and an

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

actual potato peeler would be attached to the showcard.

The only problem was that this ad requested the artist be a girl.

Well, I called anyway, and this guy who was obviously a Frenchman answered and protested, [affecting a heavy mock-French accent] “But you are not a girl!” [laughter] I said that’s OK, let me bring my work in to show you. He liked it and hired me immediately.

I was very excited! This was in my second year at the Academy and I was only 17 years old. At that time, I was making close to $65 a week, which in the Depression was a lot of money. I saw them in Lord and Taylor’s, Macy’s, etc... After a while, the company began asking me to also design the actual floor displays. They paid me very well for that. I worked on that for about four years, or until I graduated from the Art Academy.

Chapter Two

1930s & 1940s – Breaking Into Comics The ’30s and ’40s were a time of great change in the United States. The country was recovering from the Great Depression, while watching a new threat arise in Germany and Japan. This period served as the backdrop for the advent of the comicbook industry. What started out as reprints of newspaper comics strips became a whole new medium with original stories of action, adventure, war, and romance, not to mention a new thing called super-heroes.

During this time period, the demand for comicbook stories was tremendous. Shops run by Harry “A” Chesler and by Will Eisner & Jerry Iger, among others, employed artists and writers who sat in classroom-like studios cranking out content for comicbook publishers. It was a time of great creativity, leading to enduring characters like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, as well as less long-lived ones such as Doll Man and Captain Triumph.

It was also a time of replication. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then adulation was the order of the day. If a comicbook character became successful, the competition wasted no time in creating their own version, with a slightly different name and costume. Knowing this, one might assume that a certain patriotic hero created by Irv Novick was simply a knock-off of a better-known character from another publisher… but you would be mistaken. Read on to learn how Novick made his first mark in the comicbook business at a publisher called MLJ: JC: How did you become interested in comicbooks?

Harry “A” Chesler Novick’s first comicbook employer, in a photo from late in his life. Reportedly, Chesler’s name contained no actual middle initial, so he just stuck an “A” in there.

NOVICK: I graduated from the Academy in 1938 and had seen an ad in The New York Times for artists to draw comicbooks.

Being that the industry was still in its infancy, I had never heard of a comicbook, never seen one, didn’t know what it was other than it meant work. I showed them my showcard art and they hired me

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right away. This was with Harry Chesler’s outfit. At first I worked in his shop, but eventually moved to working freelance from my home.

Working in the office was pleasant but I preferred working at my own pace, on my own time. I’ve always been a night person. I like to work at night when everyone else has gone to bed. I never went to bed before two o’clock.

JC: How long did you work for Chesler?

NOVICK: A few years, I believe. At the time, MLJ was buying most of the work being produced from Chesler’s studio. MLJ was a publishing house founded by Morris Coyne, Louis Silberkleit, and John Goldwater. Anyway, after a while, Louis came to me and asked if I could work directly for them. They wanted me to work on a character called “The Shield”. They were paying more money than Chesler, so I did. I think this was around 1940.

JC: Did MLJ have a readymade version of The Shield when you arrived?

NOVICK: Well, they had an idea for a hero that was based on the patriot theme. From their initial idea, I designed the costume and created his character of being a G-man. Once I had defined and created the character, Harry Shorten was brought in to write and edit the stories. I believe “The Shield” was the first patriotic hero. He appeared in Pep Comics.

JC: Yes, he was the first. Were you excited or surprised when it became a hit?

NOVICK: I tell you, John, to me it was just a character and a job and that was it. I tried to do it to the best of my abilities. That’s it!

JC: What was the creative process at MLJ? NOVICK: Well, MLJ provided me with a script and I penciled and inked it. If I wanted to change things in the story, they were always open to it.

JC: While at MLJ, there were other artists of note. Let me toss out a few names. Charles Biro?

NOVICK: Yes, Charlie Biro was a pretty big guy, overweight, a real heavy-set type. At the time, the MLJ office was located on the 8th floor of the New York Telegraph building on Hudson Street. I remember Charlie would always challenge me to all kinds of things when I came into the office. I never knew why. [laughter] For instance, he would bet me that if I took the elevator up and he raced the stairs, he could beat me. Well, I thought it was worth it to see him drop dead when we reached the top, so I accepted! He almost did drop dead. [laughter] But you know, he did beat me!

JC: Mort Meskin?

NOVICK: Mort was a very fine person. An excellent artist, too.

During my time at MLJ, Mort and I were very close. We had planned to get a studio together down in the village but we never found the right place. We kept in touch for quite a while, but then he up and disappeared on me. It was quite some time before I saw him again.

I believe it was the 1960s when we met again while at an advertising agency. You just lose track. Unfortunately, he died in 1995.

JC: Bob Wood?

NOVICK: Yes, Bob was an OK guy, but I think he was sent away to prison for a while for shooting someone. I can’t remember for what exactly, but I do know he was sent to prison for a while. [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: Bob Wood was convicted of manslaughter for beating a prostitute to death.]

JC: How about Jack Binder?

6

A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

“The Shield” Had A Lot Of Pep! The cover and a “Shield” action page from MLJ’s Pep Comics #1, coverdated Jan. 1940. The tale’s scripter was Harry Shorten. [TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.]

NOVICK: Jack was a nice guy, but some people didn’t like him. I don’t know why, because I liked him. Since Jack was paying for the work, he demanded quality. I had no problem with that.

JC: Bob Montana?

NOVICK: Bob created the character “Archie.” Which is what MLJ is called today, “Archie Comics.” I thought Bob was a very fine person, but somehow MLJ took the rights to Archie. Bob later took them to court and won. Now I understand that there is another suit going on where John Goldwater is claiming that he created the character.

That’s not true. I was in the office when Bob walked in with that character and presented it to MLJ. Goldwater did not create the character, Bob did.

JC: How long did you work with MLJ? NOVICK: I continued to work with MLJ throughout the war. After being drafted in 1943, I was stationed in Mississippi for a year and half. From there, I was stationed in Fort Knox, Kentucky, for two more years until 1946. I never saw combat, because when the Army sent me to Officers Candidate School, they re-examined me and found I had a heart murmur. The examining doctors said, “How did you even get in the Army in the first place?” I said, “They needed warm bodies, and they said I qualified!” [laughter] I told them I had a heart murmur, but the doctor at the entrance exam ignored it. I got it

Harry Shorten was a writer and, soon, editor at MLJ during its early days. Here, from a fairly risqué photo-“journalism” spread in the company “picture mag” Close-up in August of 1941, is a pic of Shorten. Thanks to Mike Catron. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

7

All The Way With MLJ Several of the other “artists of note” who drew for the early MLJ.

Charles Biro & Bob Wood (That’s left to right, of course.)

Courtesy of Shaun Clancy.

Mort Meskin

Jack Binder

From the Internet, bless it!

Courtesy of the late Bill Schelly.

Bob Montana Courtesy of Charles Biro’s daughters Denise Ortell, Penny Gold, and Bonnie Biro.

Steel-ing Himself Novick illustrated both the cover of MLJ’s Zip Comics #26 (May 1942) and its “Steel Sterling” lead feature. Also seen on the cover is Black Jack, a hero the artist also drew on occasion. [TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.]

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

as a child when I had rheumatic fever.

Anyway, during this time, MLJ would send me work at the Army base. Instead of playing cards like all the other guys did, I sat on my bunk and drew comicbooks. Sometimes the guys would stop playing cards for a minute or so, come by and look over my shoulder, ask questions, and then go back to playing cards. If any of the guys read my books, I never knew. At the end of each month, I would get this check from MLJ. Somebody from HQ always opened my mail, because you could see that it contained a check. Army pay being what it was, everybody on base was trying to borrow money from me. I was very popular, if you know what I mean. Some did borrow money, though I never got paid back. That was the end of that! [laughter].

The 1930s and ’40s proved a couple of things to Irv Novick.

One, he clearly had the talent and creativity to be successful as a comicbook artist. But, two, being first out of the gate did not necessarily lead to long-term eminence. While noteworthy in its own right, the early success of The Shield would ultimately be eclipsed by the endurance and popularity of another patriotic hero—Captain America. So, the time came to move on to bigger and better things.

“Let’s Get Together, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah…”

Team-ups were common on the covers of MLJ comics, if not inside the mags themselves. Novick drew the buddy shots on those of Shield-Wizard Comics #1 (July 1940) and Jackpot Comics #7 (Fall 1942). On the latter, the Supermanpowered Steel Sterling shared space with the Batman-like Black Hood. Courtesy of Comic Book Plus. [TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.]

Chapter Three

The 1950s As World War II drew to a close and the soldiers returned home, it was a time of prosperity for the United States. The end of the war meant a fresh start for many veterans, among them Irv Novick. For him, the approaching decade of the ’50s ushered in a life-long friendship as well as a life-long association with National Periodical Publications, better known today as DC Comics.

It was also a time of branching out. Virtually every comicbook artist aspired to having their own daily newspaper strip. A strip meant much wider exposure and a good, steady income.

Advertising and other forms of commercial art further broadened the horizon. But the lure of comics was still strong.

And, as the country geared up for entering another war in Korea, and then in the years that followed, DC Comics boasted the strongest stable of war-related comics, including what became collectively known as its “Big Five” in that genre: Our Fighting Forces, All-American Men of War, Star Spangled War Stories, G.I. Combat, and Our Army at War. They were a perfect fit for the realistic and detailed style of Irv Novick.

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

Department Of The Interior Splashes by Irv Novick for the oddly-named “Bob Phantom” in MLJ’s Blue Ribbon Comics #2 (Dec. 1939)—for the two-part, 21-page “Shield” origin story in Shield-Wizard Comics #1—and for “Steel Sterling” in Jackpot Comics #2 (Summer ’41). The scripts are, respectively, by [unknown], Harry Shorten, & Joe Blair. Courtesy of CBP. [TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.]

JC: How did you come to work at DC Comics?

NOVICK: After being discharged from the Army in 1946, I met Bob Kanigher. At the time he was a writer and editor for DC Comics. I met him at Irwin Hasen’s apartment. I had known Irwin since our days as artists at Chesler and MLJ. Anyway, years earlier when working for MLJ, Bob had called me on the phone, introduced himself, and told me he was hired to do a story for MLJ’s “Steel Sterling” in one of our books. At this point, I had never met him. But he dictated the story to me over the phone, and I drew it. He was so concise, so complete in his descriptions that I didn’t have to write it down. I simply drew it from memory.

Bob remembered this when we met again in Irwin’s apartment and offered me a freelance job. I think my first work for Bob was on one of the love or war comics. Bob was a heck of a writer. He had a keen sense of telling a story. Very imaginative. We worked on a number of characters: Johnny Cloud, Sgt. Rock, Captain Storm, Haunted Tank, and a few others, and we are still firm friends.

JC: You left DC in 1950 for a newspaper strip, correct?

NOVICK: No. I still worked for DC freelance. I was approached

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

by the McClure newspaper syndicate to develop a new daily strip. Harry Shorten, with whom I had worked at MLJ, and I created a comic strip called Cynthia. It was a soap-opera type of daily, similar to Mary Worth.

After a year, Harry left because he didn’t like the grind of a daily newspaper strip and gave me his share of the strip. I did it for five more years until around 1956, but, even though I had originally signed a ten-year contract with McClure, I asked to be let out. Harry was right! It just got to be too much.

You see, at the same time as I was doing Cynthia and still freelancing for DC Comics, I was also doing monthly work for Boy’s Life magazine. The magazine had continuities each month, which were ongoing strips in newspaper-strip format. I was doing one called “Stories from the Bible,” and “Pedro Patrol.” Pedro was a Boy Scout who got into different adventures, while the Bible series re-told Bible stories. I was also illustrating stories for Boy’s Life and Amazing Stories, an anthology book of science-fiction short stories published

by Ziff-Davis.

JC: After leaving Cynthia, did you continue with your work in advertising, along with your work for DC Comics?

Robert Kanigher (Above center:) as a young writer—and the splash page of a 14-page “Steel Sterling” yarn that he scribed and Irv Novick drew for Zip Comics #25 (April 1942). Kanigher included this image in his 1943 book How to Make Money Writing for Comic Magazines as being from his script dictated (basically ad-libbed) over the phone from the MLJ offices. Courtesy of the Comic Book Plus website. [TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.]

NOVICK: Oh, yes. I’ve always worked in advertising in some fashion.

However, in 1960, I was getting very tired of the comicbook industry and left it all together to work in advertising full-time. I had seen this ad in the newspaper about an advertising job, took up my samples, and was hired. Some of the managers were even familiar with my comicbook work, which helped. When I went to work, I found that Mort Meskin was working in the same office. At that time, we hadn’t seen each other in about 15 years, or since the mid-1940s at MLJ. It was good working with him again. Anyway, the job was to do storyboards for television shows and paid fairly well. After two days, I became art director.

About this same time, Irwin Donenfeld, who was the son of Harry Donenfeld, the owner of National Comics [DC Comics], came to me with a counteroffer that included a pension and all sorts

The Wages Of Cynthia The original art of an undated Cynthia daily, autographed to a fan by Novick; the writer is thus unidentified, since Harry Shorten left the feature after a year. As Novick says, Cynthia was sort of a younger and better-looking Mary Worth—although Mary herself has gradually been drawn younger and younger in her strip, especially in recent years.

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

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

Irwin Donenfeld As son of the founder, and then the co-publisher of DC Comics, circa 1960, he made Novick an offer he couldn’t refuse—the good kind.

of perks to come back to DC. Since I was in the driver’s seat, I asked him for all kinds of things. [laughter] The least of which was a page rate increase and the right to work at home. Though I went back to National, part of my contract was that I could still freelance in advertising, etc. I remember that I did the Hasbro G.I. Joe toy advertisements for the comicbooks. These were ads that would show the kids playing with the various dolls, posing them, using their imagination, etc....

JC: You did those? I never knew!

The fact that a comicbook artist in 1960 received a contract is amazing.

NOVICK: I can’t speak for other artists, but DC was good to me. At the time, I had decided to go back to college and get my master’s in history. Also, I was teaching history to adult night classes during this time. The stability of working again at DC under these conditions was welcomed.

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Cushing in the early 1950s. He drew promotional comics such as Steel!, a 16-page full-color comicbook describing how the steel industry works, its uses and benefits to society. The comicbook was produced for the American Iron and Steel Institute and distributed by steel companies like Republic Steel Corporation.

In May 1956, he took over drawing the monthly “Stories from the Bible” in Boy’s Life from Creig Flessel, drawing stories about the Prodigal Son, Joseph and His Brothers, etc. He also drew a two-page installment called “The Scout Law as Taken from the Bible.” Occasionally, Novick signed the “Bible” strips, usually with his initials “IN” in a circle. Written by Stenzel, the stories were colored by Bob LeRose. In addition, Novick also illustrated historical strips like “America’s Heritage: Articles of the Bill of Rights,” as well as Scouting strips such as “The Pedro Patrol” and “Personal First Aid.” Novick himself was involved with Scouting. In a recent interview, his daughter Leslie noted: “[Dad] had been a Boy Scout.

Both my parents had been to camp. My mother’s camp just closed a few years ago and it eventually became a camp for Muscular Dystrophy. There’s actually a film on Netflix called Crip, about this

JC: Let me get this straight: You were working freelance for DC, a student getting his Masters in history, and a part-time teacher?

NOVICK: Yes, but I collapsed from trying to get my Ph.D. [laughter]. No, really, I’ve always held high the value of a good education. The Ph.D. would have been nice, but enough was enough! [laughter] By this time, I had a degree in history, sociology, and a master’s in history.

Between work, teaching, and working on my master’s, I hardly got any sleep!

By the end of the 1950s, the sentiments of the country had changed dramatically. The advent of the Comics Code following the Senate hearings on juvenile delinquency made it more difficult to depict violence in comics, and the appetite of the public for war was beginning to wane. But something was happening that would forever alter comics … in a Flash.

Spotlight On… Boy’s Life Johnstone and Cushing was an advertising agency founded in 1936 that specialized in illustrated advertising in a comics style. Using prominent artists at the time, including Milton Caniff, Lou Fine, and Noel Sickles, they produced high-quality ads for companies like General Foods, Nestle, and RC Cola. At the end of World War II, Al Stenzel joined the company as art director.

In the early 1950s, Johnstone and Cushing began producing a color comics section for Boy’s Life magazine, an official publication of the Boy Scouts of America since 1912. Stenzel wrote most of the material for the monthly strips, which fell into four basic categories: (a) humor and adventures strips; (b) “Stories from the Bible”; (c) historical strips, featuring U.S. and world history; and (d) Scouting strips.

Irv Novick started working with Johnstone and

Adam & Irv For some years, Novick contributed the art for the “Stories from the Bible” series that ran in the Boy Scouting-related magazine Boy’s Life, under Al Stenzel, who apparently wrote the feature as well. This is one is from 1957. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

A Conversation With

Leslie Novick Frank Leslie Novick Frank is the oldest child of Irv and Sylvia Novick, and the only daughter. In the interview that follows, she shares her memories of what it was like growing up in the Novick household and her impressions of her father and his colleagues. This is the first of three phone interviews with Irv’s children. You will notice differences in their recollections of certain events, which can be attributed to observations made at different ages and from different perspectives. All are included here (although some replicatory material has had to be left out due to space considerations) in an effort to provide a complete picture of what it was like growing up Novick.

JC: Through the years, what has been your over-all impression of the comicbook industry and your dad’s career? Is it weird to get these phone calls?

LESLIE NOVICK: It’s not weird. It was toward the end of his career that he started acknowledging these calls. He was a really humble guy, and he did what he did because it was a way to support his family. He actually wanted to go to medical school, but he also wanted to marry my mother, who was absolutely the love of his life. They had an incredible love story. Instead of becoming a doctor, he pursued his passion. His passion was drawing—he was a painter. He was supposed to have won the Prix de Rome [AUTHORS’ NOTE: French scholarship for art students], but then the war broke out. He was a fine-art painter. So he was able to transition to do commercial art. His career had a big arc. He did it to make money. The fact that people thought he had some celebrity—he was always taken aback. He thought that was pretty stupid. Not the people, but the fact they made such a big deal.

A “Noah-Count Ark” With abject apologies to Walt Kelly and Pogo Possum for the quote. Another 1957 “Stories from the Bible” entry from Boy’s Life, written by Stenzel and illustrated by Novick. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

camp, and she has fond memories about camp. My dad went to Scout camp; he went to Jubilee. He was an assistant Cubmaster. We had the meetings in our living room and I was allowed to sit in, so I learned how to tie knots, and we were never without a Swiss army knife. Even today! I have to remember to take it out when I go through airplane security. He loved Scouting and camping out.”

It is clear that Irv Novick was fond of the outdoors and Scouting, which was reflected in the many Scouting-related illustrations he did for Boy’s Life.

In 1962, Stenzel struck his own deal with Boy’s Life. Losing the contract was a devastating blow to Johnstone and Cushing, which was already suffering due to the advent of television advertising.

Stenzel bought the remaining business from Johnstone and Cushing and rebranded it Stenzel Productions. Novick continued to work with Stenzel and draw Scouting illustrations and the “Stories from the Bible” through the end of 1965.

JC: I had the pleasure of interviewing your father back in the ’90s for a magazine. He was everything you said, and he was very humble. He said, “I’m sorry, I just don’t get this. Why do people care that I drew this?” [chuckles]

LESLIE: I have to tell you that it was very important for him to pass it on. If he met someone who was exceptionally talented and creative—and this is before we called it networking—he would lead them on to a connection: “Call Julie— here’s his number,” “Call Carmine; here’s his number.” Call this guy, call that guy. “If you have a problem, call me and I’ll call them.”

I’ve read all kinds of accounts of his relationship with [pop artist Roy] Lichtenstein, and I think the most honest account was from The New York Times. He thought

Irv & Sylvia Novick Childhood sweethearts—together for life.

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

13

business and he ran into your father. Your father said, “Go tell Julie [Schwartz, DC editor] I sent you up there.” Now Mike’s become a giant in the industry. In his biography, Grell says, “Yeah, I’d just gotten out of the Air Force and this guy [Novick] gave me a note to give to Julie. He gave me a note so Julie wouldn’t think I was name-dropping.

I got a job!” It was fascinating stuff.

LESLIE: He [my dad] really believed in passing it on. He was interested in observing talent. When he finally agreed to go to a comic convention [in 1995], he was intrigued with artists’ alley. The number of artists there doing their work, the same way he had done his work for years. They were sitting and drawing. It really hadn’t changed much. He was impressed with how you could self-publish your own work for people who were passionate about it.

JC: Let me back up. I know Kim is your brother. Older? Younger?

LESLIE: Kim is the baby. I’m the oldest and the only girl, and then three boys. The birth order is Wayne, Jan, and Kim. I was his favorite daughter! And I was definitely Daddy’s girl.

“One [Fist] If By Land, Two If By Sea…” Splash page of the lead story in Pep Comics #5 (June 1940), drawn by Novick and written by Shorten. [TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.] Unfortunately, we were unable to acquire any photos of the Novick offspring who were interviewed for this publication… but their words speak like 1000 pictures!

[Lichtenstein] was clever and talented. The story he always told was, when he was in Fort Shelby [Army base in Hattiesburg, Mississippi], somebody said, “There’s this guy doing KP and he’s really talented and an artist and you should meet him.” So he did, and I know Lichtenstein worked with him for a while; but then Lichtenstein was sent overseas and my dad never went overseas.

We sometimes wonder if he [Novick] was part of the “ghost army,” because the story told us about being at Fort Shelby and how he got to stay there and not be sent overseas, was—he went through intelligence training and he met a colonel one day who said, “Oh, I need somebody to do Christmas cards,” so he wound up doing cards for the Army. But we don’t know. He was anti-war, yet always supported his division… which was the 41st or the 47th.

JC: You said he networked. In the 1970s, comic artist Mike Grell was trying to break into the comics

Let There Be Battle Cry! Novick served his country in uniform during World War II. Photo of Irv from the Pittsburgh Sun Telegraph for Sept. 22, 1943. And okay, so this Novick cover of Stanmor’s Battle Cry #2 (July 1952) takes place during the Korean War, not World War II. Nonetheless, this seems a fitting spot for this image… though Irv didn’t draw any interior art for this comic. This may well be the first of the many, many “war comics” art jobs that Irv did over the decades. [© the respective copyright holders.]

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

DC Goes To War—With Novick!

On the other hand, these two DC war comics had nearly the same cover dates as the Stanmor title and also contained early Novick war art: Our Army at War #1 (Aug. ’52) and All-American Men of War #127 (Aug.-Sept. ’52), which was also actually a first issue, picking up the number from All-American Western, which in turn had been a continuation of early title All-American Comics. Both stories by Robert Kanigher; inks in both cases

by Bernard Sachs. Thanks to Jim Kealy & Mark Muller for the AAMOW scan.

[TM & © DC Comics.]

JC: [chuckles] Growing up, what are some of your earliest memories of your dad drawing, and when did you become aware that he was a comicbook artist?

LESLIE: I always remember him drawing, and when we lived in the Bronx, we had a front room. Half of that was his studio and the other half was like a playroom for us. So he was always working on a story and drawing. I was never allowed to read love comics. It was considered “pap” and “unintellectual.” I couldn’t read. I had A.D.D., but they didn’t know that then, so reading anything with a picture was helpful, but it was considered crap. I remember going to camp.

It was a sleep-away camp and all the girls brought love comics. I was in s**t heaven! I was so happy. I have a potty mouth, sorry. [chuckles] I remember when he was doing Cynthia, the syndicated comic strip, we had to move to Florida for a year because my brother Wayne was sick. He had mono and some other stuff. The doctors said, “Change his climate.” My mother flew down to Florida with a six-week-old baby and two little kids and my father drove down to Miami. He set a place to work there in our apartment, and sent the

work back to New York. After a year we moved back to New York. I think it was 1952.

He’d gotten so involved with the [Cynthia] character, and I guess he was under a lot of pressure, so he had a breakdown and he left home for about three weeks. I don’t know where he went. Somebody said he went to live at the Lambs’ Club. My mother said he went to play golf.

He was a big golfer—he played every weekend. Then he stopped. When I started playing golf, I asked him, “Why’d you stop?”

He said, “I hit a hole in one and thought it would never get any better than that.” [chuckles] That was very much my dad: “I did it. I don’t have to go back to that.”

JC: When you looked at those romance comics at camp or went back to school, was your dad a local celebrity with kids?

LESLIE: Once the kids knew what my dad did, they cared. When we moved to Dobbs Ferry, New York, when I was in high school, he always worked at home. He didn’t work regular hours. He was a big procrastinator—I inherited that. He would start working after we left for school and work all day. He’d work at night, too. We always had breakfast and dinner together as a family. He was a househusband.

He helped cook; he helped do everything.

My mother was a real activist. She became the regional director for March of Dimes and they’d come escort her in a police car and take her around. She became head of the PTA [Parent-Teacher Association] for New York City. She was always in Albany working on stuff. We joke that she was never home. She always had a meeting to

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

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Sing, You Cynthia Novick’s strip for an early-1950s Sunday strip. Script may or may not be

by Harry Shorten. Thanks to Art Lortie. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

go to. We would come home and he would be there. He was always there. He would make us a snack, cook dinner sometimes, and then go back to work.

He was always late on deadlines. We kids wanted to “help” him finish his work. He would leave his work and we’d take it and draw over it and he’d have to stay up all night and re-do it. He never got angry about it. [chuckles] JC: “Helped” in air quotes?

LESLIE: Oh, yeah! As far as creativity, Jan is probably the most artistically creative. I went to art school and took art classes, but don’t have the raw talent. Jan’s a good illustrator. If any kids came over to hang out, Irv would sit and draw and talk to them. He never talked down to kids.

He made stuff fun. He had a pencil sharpener and he said it is “the magic pencil sharpener.” He’d put a pencil in and it would turn and he’d turn music on and put a pencil in. Everyone called it magic because he’d turn it around and nobody could see how it worked. He was always really good and generous to kids. Kids loved him. When I was in high school, kids wanted to meet him; we never made a big deal of it.

JC: That’s funny. When I’ve talked to other kids of artists from your father’s generation, they have some of the same stories; some go into creative industries as you said Jan did, and you were in marketing.

LESLIE: Jan never got into a creative industry, but he has talent. I don’t know if he draws anymore, but he has a lovely illustrative style.

My brother Wayne’s son is creative. I can draw but have more of an engineering mind.

JC: You had mentioned Carmine Infantino and Julie Schwartz. Kim said your dad would have you guys take in artwork. Do you have any recollections of the DC office?

LESLIE: Oh, my God, yes! My dad hated going downtown [i.e., to

Hang Loose, Hero!

You saw the original Novick art for the cover of Pep Comics #17 (July 1941) on that of this edition of Alter Ego. Now here’s the cover as printed, which introduced a new MLJ hero, The Hangman—who would take up crime-fighting when his brother, the earlier super-hero called The Comet, was murdered… a first in comicbook dramatics. [TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.]

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

DC’s Manhattan offices]. When we lived in the Bronx, I got paid a quarter or 50¢ round trip to take the work downtown. I thought I was such hot s**t. I’d get dressed up. I must’ve been 10 or 11. I would get on the subway from the Bronx. Then, that area went through such devastation, but I never cared. I’d show up and Carmine was always gracious and so was Julie. “Where’s your father? Why isn’t he here?”

“He couldn’t; he’s working.” [chuckles] “Where are the rest of the pages?” “I’ll bring them tomorrow.”

JC: Kim also mentioned the Kanighers. Bob Kanigher always said your dad was one of his favorite artists, and your dad said the same about Kanigher as a writer/editor.

LESLIE: They knew each other very well. Bob was particularly good-looking and charming. He was the first person I knew who had a convertible. I remember being aware of him in 1959 when we moved to Dobbs Ferry. He would take his kids for rides and they’d have to use the bathroom, so our house became the “Novick service station.” Bob was there every weekend. His wife Bernice became a mentor to me. I don’t think I would’ve gotten out of high school if it weren’t for her. She was really smart. She had been a high school principal in the Bronx. I think it was Grace Dodge, but I’m not sure.

Our families were really, really close. I babysat for their kids. Actually, their daughter just died and their son is a policeman in New York state.

JC: Do you have any other memories of Carmine Infantino?

LESLIE: Some people said very negative things about him. He was a change agent—he mixed stuff up at DC. My dad liked him. And he

was always kind to me; he was always well dressed. He always gave me a hug. He was a good-looking Italian guy!

JC: Actually, he’s very well-remembered and respected, not only as an artist, but, looking back through the lens of reflection—he was a change agent. Some of the negative projected onto him when he was publisher was coming from his boss. As publisher, Carmine did a lot for artists’ rights and creativity, so there were a lot of people who were very happy with him.

LESLIE: I liked him.

JC: In the late 1950s/early 1960s your father left DC Comics for a short time for the Johnstone and Cushing advertising agency. To bring him back, DC offered him the unprecedented freelance agreement guaranteeing him work. Any insight?

LESLIE: I know Joe Kubert was involved, and somebody else—they brought an intellectual property lawsuit and got the rights to their original work. So, anytime any of Irv’s work is used, we get royalties.

Yes, I think it must’ve been in the late 1950s or early ’60s, because he went from being a freelancer to being an exclusive-contract artist with a minimum guarantee of pages they had to give him. He was paid well by page or project and also given benefits and a pension.

JC: Unheard-of in the industry, even today.

LESLIE: Right. I think he and Joe Kubert and the other guy got it as part of the settlement. They [also] brought a lawsuit against the IRS because they were paying unincorporated business taxes. They weren’t incorporated. I remember something about that, but not the

Carmine Infantino

This Means War! Two Novick war covers that may have been produced under the regime of art director Carmine Infantino: All-American Men of War #117 (Aug. 1966), which may be a little early… and Our Fighting Forces #113 (May-June ’68). Courtesy of the GCD. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Noted as a comicbook illustrator, Infantino became DC’s art director in late 1966, later becoming the company’s editorial director, then publisher, through the mid-1970s.

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

specifics. I thought it was a cool thing, and they eventually didn’t have to pay unincorporated taxes. They were also guaranteed X amount of work because they were exclusive.

Do you know Irwin Hasen? Irwin and my dad were very good friends.

JC: I had the pleasure of meeting Irwin a few years ago. He was made for the convention circuit. Fans embraced him. Did your dad encourage you to be creative?

LESLIE: Yes. I liked to draw. He sent me to the Museum of Modern Art to take art classes. He’d take me down every Saturday morning.

We would go to the museums as a family. I took art classes at the local Y, and I majored in design in college. I guess I’m not as bad an illustrator as I thought I was. Somebody sent me a page from my high school yearbook that I had illustrated. I had no recollection of ever doing it. [chuckles] .

JC: There’s a dedication; you have to have to sit and draw. You mentioned Cynthia. Did your dad ever mention any other jobs?

People of my generation always call it a “comic” or “cartoon,” but people of his generation call it a “job.”

LESLIE: He always called it a “job.” He did Boy’s Life and the “Bible” page and a lot of stuff for them. He did a lot of illustrated ads. In the 1950s, when photography came in, illustration went out. That was the driver for him becoming solely a cartoonist, because there was no work for big illustrations.

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was interesting, cantankerous; he was a liberal but he wanted to know. I would come into his studio when he was working and he’d be listening to Rush Limbaugh. “Why are you listening to this?” “I want to know.” If he was in a conversation and somebody started talking about something and it was getting boring, he would take the opposite side to mix it up and make it more interesting.

They were both curious about the world and encouraged us not to sit idle and to always give back. I broke my arm—fell off my bike at seven or eight. They took me to the doctor, got a hard cast and were told I had to do physical therapy. You didn’t go to an actual physical therapist then. I had to make potholders from these stretchy things you put on a loom and weave in and out. I made hundreds of these things. I wanted to get better fast. So I have all these potholders. My mother decided I’m going to sell them and raise money for March of Dimes. My dad makes the sign and he takes me down to Central Park West and the 81st Street entrance. He sat me on the bench with the sign. I had on a short-sleeve shirt so my cast showed. He sat a little farther down, and because I was this little kid, I sold these things. I was so embarrassed, John. I still have the letter from March of Dimes thanking me—I think it was $15!

JC: Great teaching moment! At the end of his career in comics, did he want to retire or was it more like DC saying, “We’ll help you out the door”?

JC: As far as his painting, is that something he did throughout his life?

LESLIE: He did it when he was in college. He didn’t have a place to paint when we lived in the city… and he didn’t go back to it for a long time. He missed it. Every once in a while, he’d do something in Dobbs Ferry. I think he was conflicted about where to go with it. He tried abstraction. I didn’t like it, but Kim has a big painting. He gave it to me and I gave it to Kim. It’s really, really big and I still don’t like it.

You know Con-Ed in New York? They do public works and work in holes in the streets. He did this Con-Ed painting, and it’s pretty powerful and illustrative, but he never went back to the portrait or landscape work he did. I have a painting of a kid down the block in the Bronx that he grew up on. The Frome family were his neighbors and he did a portrait of their son and I’ve got that. I think he was 17 when he did it. People look at it and go, “Oh, my God. That’s beautiful.” Even at Fort Shelby, he would do portraits, while sitting and waiting for something, of other soldiers. I found ten of them about six or seven years ago. They all have their IDs on them or their last names. I was able to locate, through Fort Shelby, some of the families. Two of them never came back. I sent the families copies of the originals. He was really good at portraits. It’s exemplified in the way he drew his characters.

JC: He has such a distinctive style. He was one of the first artists that, when I was reading a comic, I would say, “Oh, that’s an Irv Novick.”

You mentioned his sense of humor and your mother, too. He seems like an open, humble person.

LESLIE: He was really the best parent to me. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body. They were both welcoming to everybody and we grew up color-blind. Didn’t matter who they were. They both had a sense of humor—not a quick sense, but they would say funny things.

I can’t tell you how many of my high school and college friends—if they were in town, they would stop at my parents’ house to see them.

We were long gone! They just wanted to see how they were doing.

When my dad was in a nursing home for the last two years, my friends would go visit him because they just adored him. He

Wash-ing Out The Sea Devils Irv Novick’s “wash” cover for Sea Devils #14 (Sept.-Oct. 1963). That particular effect on DC’s cover in that era was usually added by production manager Sol Harrison and his crew. [TM & © DC Comics.]

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

little bench. My dad built a huge credenza wall unit for our apartment.

They needed a bigger place to live; they had four kids. They went to Long Island, put in a deposit on a house, and we all came down with the measles. Every time we took our medicine—can you imagine four kids getting their medicine at the same time?—he would draw stars for us. That ended up becoming the border in our bedroom. At last, my mother said, “I’m exhausted running back and forth in this apartment—I’m not doing stairs.” So they bought property in Dobbs Ferry.

My father said, “I can do this. I built the credenza, I can build a house.” They hired an architect and the licensed crafts were done like pouring the slab, plumbing, heating, but they did everything else.

They were not supported by most of their family—family members made fun of them: “You’ll never get this finished.” My mother’s father helped them many times; he would drive up in his suit and tie. They did it themselves. We moved in 1959. So, from 1954 to 1959, I became the parent. They would leave in the morning. In the summertime, I would be there, taking care of the kids. Or my dad would work in the morning and they would leave and come home.

There’s No Place Like Home Novick’s dynamic yet heart-tugging cover for Star Spangled War Stories #41 (Jan. 1956). Thanks to the GCD. [TM & © DC Comics.]

LESLIE: No, he wanted to retire. He was having problems with his sight. His dream was to die with his pen going into his ink bottle. He wanted to die in the saddle, but his sight was failing and he felt it was impeding his work. Even after he retired, DC had him do stuff. I was in London for work and they were filming one of the Batman movies at the Pinewood Studios outside London. He was asked to do the commemorative/promotional comic for that. I told a British colleague about it. He said, “Oh, my God. So-and-so is on the board and I can take you out there.” I got to go there and see the set, and when he told them who I was, I was like a celebrity. [chuckles] They had him do stuff in a less stressful time frame and he could do it when he was comfortable doing it.

JC: Was he happy in retirement?

LESLIE: I think he was. My parents traveled. They were constantly in the city. They’d go to our house in California. They’d stay in our loft in the city when we were away. We lived in Tribeca. They loved to walk.

They would walk from downtown all the way uptown. They loved and embraced the city. They loved museums, galleries, loved to eat out.

Somebody once said to me, “You can be really poor or really rich in the city.” The city has such vitality. I think he was happy. He was always working on a project and seldom finished.

[Earlier] they built their house by themselves. He took the wood-working course at the Y. I took one, too, much later, and built a

Christmas In Cuba John Coates, Dewey Cassell, and Alter Ego were all unable to locate the “commemorative/promotional comic” that Leslie Novick says her father was asked to do for the first major Batman film (the one starring Michael Keaton), which was filmed at England’s Pinewood Studios in 1988. So we’ll have to settle for a Novick page from that year’s Detective Comics #595 (“Holiday 1988” issue), scripted by Alan Grant and inked by Steve Mitchell.

The name of that Yule-time tale? “Our Man in Havana”! [TM & © DC Comics.]

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“Profiles” In Artistic Courage (Left:) A “DC Profiles” piece on Irv Novick that appeared in the company’s magazines. From Unknown Soldier #240 (June 1980). [TM & © DC Comics.]

(Below:) Shane Foley drew and Randy Sargent inked this adaptation of an Irv Novick figure drawn for DC’s Who’s Who series, turning it into Captain Ego, the A/E “maskot” created by Biljo White in 1964. The space needed in order for an abridged book to be squeezed into the pages of Alter Ego may have pushed our letters page into our next issue, but we wanted Shane and Randy’s salute to Novick included here. The DC original was inked by Pablo Marcos. [Captain Ego TM & © Roy Thomas & Estate of Bill Schelly.]

We wound up eating out a lot. They’d come home late. But, yeah, they built this house by themselves. It’s a great-looking mid-century modern house and it’s still there and has been restored.

JC: Your mother is a person after my own heart. I grew up in a mid-century ranch house, but now have stairs. I think, “If I could just get a ranch again! I’m tired of the stairs.” Going up and down stairs can get old.

LESLIE: At that time, people thought it was bad for your health. Of course, now, people know that stairs are good for your health. It was about a 3,000-square-feet ranch house, and it was open-concept. It was a great house.

JC: Listening to you, I’m picturing a Norman Rockwell upbringing.

LESLIE: Far from it! There were four of us, so there was conflict!

Wayne and Jan are really, really smart. Jan is Mensa brilliant.

Jan and Wayne were pushed ahead in school. Jan probably graduated high school at 16.

When my folks were building their house, I’m left with three little kids to take care of. It was hard. I became really controlling—even to this day. There was a lot of conflict, fights, and screaming, and it was sort of allowed. It wasn’t “Norman Rockwell” at all!

A “Cloud” In The Sky All-American Men of War #82 (Nov.-Dec. 1960) introduced the feature “Johnny Cloud, Navajo Ace,” behind this cover by Novick. The artist said that he found Native American faces the hardest to draw. [TM & © DC Comics.]

You know about “Johnny Cloud”? Irv liked the character, but did he tell you it was the hardest face to draw? Because Native Americans do not have the same bone structure. He would never draw me. I don’t have cheekbones. It took him a while to figure out how to do Johnny Cloud.

Then there’s the way they updated Lois Lane at DC—under Carmine [in the late 1960s]—and they put her in white go-go boots and a short skirt and she was hip. He wanted to change her hairstyle,

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

An actor would look at the credits, wouldn’t they? [chuckles] LESLIE: Yes, they would. I look at credits for locations because I love a sense of place. I travel so much all over the world and there’s something comforting about seeing a place you recognize. Also, I wanted to mention that mother often did the lettering in the [word] balloons if Irv was working on a deadline.

JC: All in the family! [chuckles] LESLIE: Irv went back to college in the late 1950s. He wanted a degree, so he finished his BA and then went on to get a master’s in history later from Hunter in the 1980s, graduating Phi Beta Kappa.

He encouraged Syl to finish her degree as well, and they got their degrees on the same day. Irv was also the president of the National Cartoonist Society in the 1950s.

I remember that he worked for Zift-Davis back when they published comics. When the Danny Kaye movie Hans Christian Anderson was released, Irv did a promotional comic that was part of its marketing. We went to a special screening of the movie.

The Game Is Afoot!

The splash page from The Joker #6 (March-April 1976). Script by Denny O’Neil; pencils by Irv Novick; inks by Tex Blaisdell. [TM & © DC Comics.]

too, and get rid of the spit curl, and Julie went nuts because his wife had a spit curl!

Kim told you he worked on cards for my mother every year. He always made a birthday card for her except, I guess it was when he was retired. My mother had a catering business and he’d help her.

It was her birthday and she called and said, “He didn’t make me a birthday card and I’m really worried, maybe it’s dementia.” I was the bad cop, the one who has to call him, “Dad, do you know what day it is?” He said, “I know—she had me peeling 100 eggs. I had to get my priorities straight. She was making egg salad for a client.” He made her a card later on.

I have a photo of him in the Army working on something. Do you know about the “High and Low” MoMA [Museum of Modern Art, in NYC] show and its poster? I think that show was in 1990 or 1991. I have the poster somewhere. I think it’s in deep storage. The poster was the [Roy] Lichtenstein “Whaam!” … maybe from 1963 … but it was “Whaam!” and my dad’s comicbook—the “Okay, Hot-shot, Okay!” comicbook. “Okay, Hot-Shot” is on one side and “Whaam!” is on the other side of the poster. Irv’s art and Lichtenstein. That was a big show.

JC: Finally, due credit! [NOTE: See pp. 23-24 for more on the infamous “pop art” controversy.]

LESLIE: Do you know the recent Joker movie? A friend of mine is an actor in L.A. and he was watching the movie and said, “Your dad has a credit in it.”

JC: The Joker had his own series in the ’70s, and your dad drew that.

Hans Christian Anderson In Ziff-Davis’ 1953 adaptation of the Danny Kaye film “biography,” Irv Novick penciled the approximately 50% of the comicbook that depicted the fairytalespinner himself, with inks by Bob Stuart. Scripter unknown, adapting from the Moss Hart screenplay. The segments of the issue that retold several of the Danish storyteller’s yarns were drawn by Marv Levy and others. Courtesy of Comic Book Plus. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

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Brave, Bold, & Battle-Scarred The cover of The Brave and the Bold #1 (Aug.-Sept. 1955) was a montage of artwork from the mag’s original three features: “The Golden Gladiator” by Russ Heath… “Viking Prince” by Joe Kubert… and “The Silent Knight” by Irv Novick. That of #3 (Dec. ’55-Jan. ’56) spotlighted the latter in solo action. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Chapter Four

The 1960s Showcase #4, depicting a new incarnation of The Flash in 1956, is widely considered to mark the start of the Silver Age of Comics. It also marked the beginning of a resurgence of interest in super-hero comics that would lead to a period of unparalleled creativity and characters that permeated virtually every aspect of our society.

JC: I bet you were caught up in the hippie thing, right? Being back in college in the ’60s, I have this vision of you going to class with long hair, peace signs….

NOVICK: Are you kidding! [laughter] Really, I was never into anything.

Even as a child, I was an oddball and never followed anyone. Other kids were wearing these hats, like baseball caps, that were in style at the time. It was the in thing, you know? I never had one and never wanted one.

JC: Back to DC, what was the creative process at that time?

It was in the 1960s that Novick began his long association with Batman, though he continued to be a significant contributor to the war titles, as well as other super-hero books such as Teen Titans and Wonder Woman. He also began drawing G.I. Joe Club advertisements, even as his work for Boy’s Life drew to a close.

NOVICK: Well, at first I would pencil and ink but they kept giving me so much work that I had to sacrifice the inking. Bob [Kanigher] supplied the script. I never had to change the scripts. Bob was that good. My favorite character that we did together would have to be “Silent Knight.”

During this time period, comicbook readers became more sophisticated. College kids began to seek out new forms of entertainment, and DC Comics responded by attempting to provide stories that were more socially relevant, with mixed success.

JC: Yes, I’m familiar with [that feature] from the early Brave and the Bold issues. That’s still a sought-after series by collectors. Let’s play the name game again. Joe Kubert?

Returning to our interview with Irv Novick:

NOVICK: Joe is a wonderful artist. When he started his school in New Jersey, he wanted me to come work for him, but I live up in the Westchester area of New York and could not see driving down to

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

Surrounding The “Summer Of Love” Novick’s splash for Teen Titans #8 (March-April 1967) and his cover for his first issue as penciler of Wonder Woman (#172, Sept.-Oct. ’67) reveal the action feel he brought to DC in the latter 1960s. The “Titans” story was scripted by Bob Haney and inked by Jack Abel. Thanks to the GCD for the WW scan. [TM & © DC Comics.]

New Jersey every day.

JC: Neal Adams?

NOVICK: I have a story about Neal. As I was just about to leave Cynthia, around 1956, I was working with an advertising firm that did comicbook-type advertising for various companies: Ford, Chrysler, etc. These were continuities in comic strip format that were given away at the car company. Anyway, while working with this agency, a guy by the name of Neal Adams came up to look for work. I directed him up to DC. I thought he would be quite good at comicbooks, and he was! Neal is a very good artist.

JC: Russ Heath.

NOVICK: Russ was a darn good artist. I never really socialized with him.

JC: Paul Reinman.

what he wanted the story to say and how to accomplish it. Julie never really created anything and would just give me a story and that was it. After Julie, I began working for Paul Levitz. When I first began working with Paul, I thought he had ability but he did not have a college degree. I urged him to go back to college and work for a Business Administration degree and he finally did. I told him to get the firm to pay for it... and they did! Paul later became a vice president at DC. JC: In the late 1960s, Carmine Infantino became the publisher at DC Comics. Did this change affect your work?

NOVICK: For me it didn’t change much from when Harry Donenfeld had been publisher. Carmine and I always got along well and respected one another. I do remember that I always wanted to change Batman’s costume. I would always make his cowl ears longer and use more blacks than had been used on the character in recent years. I felt that character should have a dark tone, a dark appearance. I don’t know whether Carmine approved or not, but I continued to change Batman’s appearance.

JC: Bob Kanigher eventually left DC, and Julie Schwartz became your new editor. How was Julie’s style of editing different from Bob’s?

JC: Your dark tones are one of the many aspects of your Batman that I like. Your blacks seem to enhance the character and make him appear a darker figure, as opposed to simply blacking out the figure or keeping him in the shadows. You do know you’re considered one of “the” Batman artists?

NOVICK: I enjoyed working for Julie and don’t want to knock him, but Bob was an original artist, an original writer. He always knew

NOVICK: Thank you. But I must tell you that it’s the first time I’ve ever been considered the “the” in anything. I’m not quite sure I’m up to it!

NOVICK: Paul was a pretty bright guy, an intellectual. We used to have long, deep discussions about art, politics, and the like.

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

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A Comics Quartet Four comics artists admired by Irv Novick.

Joe Kubert

Neal Adams

Spotlight On

IRV & ROY LICHTENSTEIN Roy Lichtenstein was an American artist prominent in the “pop art” movement of the 1960s, alongside the likes of Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns. Lichtenstein is best remembered for his paintings derived from select comicbook panels. Among his best-known works was a 1963 diptych titled “Whaam!,” which was based on a comicbook panel from issue #89 of DC Comics’ All-American Men of War, published for February 1962. The panel had appeared in the story “The Star Jockey!”—illustrated by Irv Novick.

Russ Heath

Paul Reinman Photo from the 1964 Marvel Tales Annual #1.

Perhaps that is because Lichtenstein based his paintings on war and romance comics. Had he chosen to copy panels from Batman or Superman, DC Comics might have reacted differently.

The painting “Whaam!” is on permanent display at the Tate Modern Gallery in London, England.

The similarities between the Lichtenstein painting and the Novick comicbook panel are undeniable, down to the caption and sound effect from which the painting derives its name.

Although the type of aircraft was changed, it appears Lichtenstein simply used images taken from other comicbook panels, such as the attacking plane seen in the story “Wingmate of Doom” in All-American Men of War #90.

Many would consider this plagiarism, but Lichtenstein defended his work, claiming it to be a parody of the original. In a June 25, 2019, article titled “WOW! Lichtenstein: A Retrospective at Tate Modern II” on the Tate Museum website (www.tate.org. uk), author Nathan Dunne quotes Lichtenstein as saying, “I am nominally copying, but I am really restating the copied thing in other terms. In doing that, the original acquires a totally different texture. It isn’t thick or thin brushstrokes, it’s dots and flat colours and unyielding lines.”

Novick was not the only artist whose work was appropriated

by Lichtenstein. Others include Jack Kirby, Jerry Grandenetti, Russ Heath, and George Tuska, to name a few. The same issue of All-American Men of War served as the basis for at least four other Lichtenstein paintings, “Okay Hot-Shot, Okay!,” “Brattata,” “Blam,” and “Tex!,” as well as the graphite pencil sketch “Jet Pilot.”

Comicbook artists would sometimes “swipe” the work of other artists, but it was generally frowned upon and, if blatant and persistent, might prevent the artist from getting work. By contrast, Lichtenstein’s paintings have sold for as much as $165 million. No compensation has ever been given to the creators of the original comicbook art on which they were based, and only rarely have they been given any credit. One rationale put forth is that artists like Novick did not receive credit in the comicbooks at the time the original stories were published. The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation maintains they have never been sued for copyright infringement.

Oh My, Batman, What Long Ears You Have!

The Novick-Giordano splash for Batman #242 (June 1972) is a sterling example of the elongated bat-ears that Irv liked to put on the Caped Crusader’s mask. Script by Denny O’Neil. Thanks to Bob Bailey.

[TM & © DC Comics.]

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

“Pop!” Goes The Weasel A clockwise look at a pop art (and comicbook) controversy: In this composite, pop artist Roy Lichtenstein is juxtaposed with his famous/infamous “WHAAM!” painting that utilized a comicbook panel drawn by Irv Novick. Photos from the Internet. [Art & photo TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Irv Novick’s original panel, from the Johnny Cloud story “The Star Jockey” in All-American Men of War #89 (Jan.-Feb. 1962). Scripter uncertain. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons’ visual comment on Lichtenstein’s “artwork,” done for a print. Note that Dave added Novick’s name to the art. [Based on artwork TM & © DC Comics.]

In his book Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books (University Press of Mississippi, 2009, p. 350), author Jean-Paul Gabilliet calls into question the account of Novick’s interaction with Lichtenstein, saying that Lichtenstein had left the Army a year before the time Novick says the incident took place. However, as noted in the conversations in this book, Novick’s children substantiate the story as Irv told it.

John Romita, one of the DC romance artists whose work had been appropriated, recalled the furor in an interview conducted

by Cefn Ridout and Richard Ashford for the book The Art of John Romita (Marvel Comics, 1996): “A lot of the guys—Bernie Sachs and a few others—wanted to get together and file a class action suit against Lichtenstein and some of the other artists. I was not too interested. I said, first of all, I don’t want to contribute money to lawyers. I didn’t want to get involved in it. I even foolishly told them that I was somehow flattered by the fact that they would consider these panels so good that they felt it was worthy of a painting. And, of course, they thought I was crazy. ‘‘Flattered?! They’re ripping you off!’ I never felt ripped off. I felt like it was a different art form. I wished they would say ‘from a drawing by…,’ but they never did.”

Three decades later, Romita imagined that he and his fellow artists might finally get a measure of respect when they were invited to an exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art that contrasted their original art with the paintings. Instead, the group was faced with a show entitled “High and Low” and speakers who looked down on the entire comics form. “They invited me there proudly, never knowing that I thought I was insulted,” Romita

sighed. “I walked out of there right after dinner. I didn’t want to hear any more speeches. I was just so hurt by the whole thing.”

(Ridout & Ashford, pp. 29- 30) The end of the decade of the 1960s saw the end of the age of innocence. Between politics, the Vietnam War, and the civil rights movement, people were eager for a new way of thinking. Enter the Bronze Age of Comics.

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

25

A Conversation with

WAYNE NOVICK Wayne Novick is the oldest son of Irv and Sylvia Novick. In this candid interview, Wayne shares his own recollections about Irv and what it was like growing up with an artist for a father.

JC: It’s a real thrill for my co-author and me to discuss your dad with his family. We’ve been fans of your dad all our lives.

WAYNE NOVICK: I’ve met many people who are fans of my dad’s work and fans of other comic artists, as well. Where are you from?

JC: I’m from Columbia, South Carolina.

WAYNE: I know it well. After I was drafted, I did my basic at Fort Jackson [SC]. I made friends with people at the University [of South Carolina]. I would get a weekend pass, but I didn’t go to the bars and get drunk—I’d go to the library, which was a unique thing at the base.

The base library was not really well-stocked. In 1968, the coffee shops were anti-war and leaned to the left.

JC: Small world! Leslie said you’re the second oldest of the Novick kids.

“Riding Through The Glen…”

When Robin Hood replaced The Golden Gladiator with The Brave and the Bold #12 (June-July 1957), Irv Novick was tapped to draw the cover, even though Russ Heath drew the new feature inside. Irv, of course, was still busy doing “The Silent Knight.” [TM & © DC Comics.]

WAYNE: Yes, I’m 72. My sister Leslie is the oldest by three years, and then my two brothers are each three years younger than each of us. Three down to Jan, and three down to Kim. Kim was the baby; Jan was the middle one. I’ve always said, “I’m proud to be part of a pair of middle children, so we have double the problems of middle children.” [chuckles] JC: I can relate to Kim. I’m also the baby in my family! So, tell me a little about your father.

WAYNE: He was born in New York City in 1916. I honestly don’t know whether he was born in the Bronx or Manhattan. My [maternal] grandparents were both from Eastern Europe. Difficult to say Poland, Romania, or Russia—because of the Bolsheviks and the Red and the Whites—the border changed on a weekly basis. My grandmother identified not as a Polish Jew, but as a Jewish person who happened to live in Poland. My grandfather was the same, but he would speak about Russia. They were both from the border regions. My grandfather identified as a Menshevik, which was another fringe group at that time.

Warhorse An offbeat Johnny Cloud cover by Novick, this one for All-American Men of War #105 (Sept.-Oct. 1964). [TM & © DC Comics.]

From all the stories I hear, which may not be true, they met in Central Park and were political activists. My grandfather leaned left (as do I) and was a labor activist. He owned his own business up until

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

right before he died at 88 years old: “You’ve gotta give this up.” And that’s what killed him! It was something to do every day. Once you hit 80, there’s a bus waiting around the corner somewhere.

He owned a company called The New York Gaslight Company... a little shop in the Bronx. He made what they call “fat cans” that butchers use when they’re scraping the fat off the cows. They were made out of sheet copper. It wasn’t electrically mechanized. He would bend the sheets on a hand brake and solder them together with big soldering irons that sat on a gas flame; he’d hammer and pound all day long. Even when he died, his arms were unbelievably sinewy. This guy was a mass of muscle and unbelievably strong from working all of his life. I was told at the time there were only three or four companies in the United States that made these things. He’d ship them throughout the country.

JC: Fascinating. Now, your dad—how did he meet your mother?

WAYNE: They were elementary school sweethearts. They were together for 300 years! I don’t know if Leslie told you about some of the stuff that happened after my dad got ill and was in the nursing home that my mom called “The Rehab Center,” because he was “going to come home any day now.”

JC: She touched on it, yes. If you don’t mind, I’ll hold questions on his retirement for later. Did your father ever want to work in the family business?

JC: What are your earliest memories of your dad as a “comicbook artist?”

WAYNE: My earliest memories are when I helped him by taking a brush and a bottle of ink and drawing some lines on top of whatever comic he was working on, and of course he had to do the entire page over again. I was told, “No, let’s not you help Dad.” I don’t think I realized they were comicbooks until I was well into comicbooks, probably the 5th grade. I do remember Leslie and I taking pages into DC on Lexington Av, on the subway. Back in the 1950s, nobody bothered kids on the subway.

JC: I’ll throw some names out from DC Comics. Of course, Bob Kanigher, Joe Kubert, Bob Haney, Carmine Infantino, John Broome….

WAYNE: I met a lot of the guys when we’d go in. I was quite young.

I do remember meeting Joe Kubert. I do remember meeting Charlie something, who was a letterer. The only one we knew very well was Bob Kanigher, because my dad and Bob were joined at the hip! They were best friends. They met when he was working for MLJ… “The Hangman,” “The Shield.”

Years later, I looked at some of that artwork he had lying around.

Every cover had a Japanese or German! Never featured an Italian. A Nazi or full-regalia Japanese officer with a buxom woman in scanty

WAYNE: Well, his father was a furrier and made fur coats, mostly out of squirrel and raccoon. He didn’t make mink coats. Every Hanukkah… it didn’t change for years… he’d give us a squirrel skin. I don’t know what he gave to Leslie, but every boy got a dead squirrel and a WWII surplus training rifle—those wooden Springfield training rifles. I guess he’d pick them up because a friend would get a million of them. Those things today are going for thousands, depending on the condition. They were toys! Not in the military, but afterwards.

My maternal grandmother said, when she was in her early nineties, “Come the revolution, we’ll all eat strawberries in January.”

She passed away at 93. My mom made it to 97. She was sharp until 92 or 93 and started deteriorating. By the time she was 97, there wasn’t much left upstairs. A great run!

JC: Did your dad and mom stay together the whole time after grade school?

WAYNE: They sure did! [chuckles] They went to college much later in life. My dad went to the American Academy of Art in Manhattan.

Today it would be a community college level—a two-year program.

He wound up with a couple of master’s degrees. Sonofabitch graduated summa cum laude after 14 years of night school! One master’s in sociology and one in history. He earned the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship in history and taught for one or two semesters. He taught at Hunter College in the Bronx—history class in night school.

That would be in the 1970s. I got out of Vietnam in February of 1970 and moved out here to the Midwest in late spring of 1971. He graduated a couple years after that. My son was born in 1975, so it was right in that time frame.

JC: He was very prolific as an artist at that time, so it’s amazing he was also going to night school and teaching. Leslie said your mom was into volunteering.

WAYNE: I always chuckle when I hear people talk about how downtrodden women were. My mom was president of the March of Dimes. She was president of the Sisterhood. She wasn’t president of a corporation, but let me tell you: Running a major charitable organization as a volunteer—you gotta have your s**t together.

“Read All About It!” Under the art direction of (and often based on layouts by) Carmine Infantino, Novick poured out numerous exciting and inventive covers, such as this one for Detective Comics #378 (Aug. 1968). [TM & © DC Comics.]

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Damsels In Distress (Left:) Before America got into the global scrape known as World War II, Irv Novick had The Shield and Hangman rescuing beautiful young women from terrible fates at the hands of half-human thingies, as on his cover for Pep Comics #18 (Aug. 1941). (Right:) After Pearl Harbor, they were rescuing them from Axis tormentors, as per the cover of Pep #29 (July ’42). Courtesy of the GCD. [TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.]

clothing tied to a wall or to a horizontal board and there would always be whips and chains on the wall! They’d all be sneering with drool coming out. I said, “This is hot-bed, push-the-buttons propaganda!”

He said, “Absolutely! Don’t forget—these were not nice people. I had no objection portraying people as they really were.” That doesn’t mean that he didn’t like Japanese-Americans or German-Americans who weren’t getting involved. He did not like the German-American Bund, I’ll tell you that! Again, these are my recollections. Did Leslie mention us living in Florida?

said, “He’s a kid; he doesn’t care.” The guy said, “We don’t tolerate that kind of behavior down here.” He pushed my father and my dad decked him. I remember that as clear as a bell.

JC: Leslie mentioned the family moved to Florida for a while due to your health issues, and in the course of it your dad had somewhat of a nervous breakdown.

JC: You mentioned Bob Kanigher.

WAYNE: I had mononucleosis. I wasn’t getting better. Doctors said, “You need to go to another climate,” so we moved to Florida. The stuff about a nervous breakdown—I heard stuff about him being so stressed out over the romance comics and Cynthia. The weekly strip became a real chore for him. It was money, but he never really got into the idea of a weekly strip. It was too much, on top of everything else, including having a family. He may have wanted a break, but I don’t remember talk of a nervous breakdown.

I remember going into a Woolworth’s in Florida in the early 1950s and getting a drink out of a fountain, and some guy saying, “You know your son is drinking out of the ‘colored’ fountain.” My dad

He did not like bullies at all. He wasn’t a giant of a man, but he was muscular, an athlete. He’d been a handball player in his youth and played in champion games. He was very physical. He was an incessant walker and liked working in the garden. He was not sedentary.

WAYNE: Bob was a fixture; he was always around. When we moved to Dobbs Ferry, Bob moved to Ardsley, New York, which was literally next door. He’d be at the house several days every week because they collaborated. I know their earliest collaboration was [at MLJ].

I think, later on, in the 1950s, he did G.I. Joe, and I think they may have collaborated on that. That was before he went to DC, where they collaborated on “Johnny Cloud,” “Silent Knight,” “The Haunted Tank”—all this stuff, with Bob Kanigher as the writer. Bob was an incredibly creative individual, as was my dad.

Dad used to have us build plastic models of planes, tanks, and ships. He said, “I’ll use them for drawing.” He never did—he got all of that out of his head—but it made us feel good when he’d hang the planes over his drawing desk with fishing line and tell us he was using our models. He didn’t need to. He was very, very good.

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

I’m sure you’re aware that the DC brought him in to save Batman. Batman was not selling and they brought him in and he reimagined Batman as that huge, muscular individual—not the square-jawed Bob Kane creature that looked kind of pale. My dad’s Batman was animated—completely different. It reinvigorated the character—all the movie characters are based on Irv’s imagining of what Batman looked like, not the Bob Kane wimpy kind of guy. He’s a strong, self-sufficient, and powerful individual. That’s what the movies are based on. Irv did that.

what she threatened him with. The more they talked, my dad realized these weren’t 17-year-old pimply teenagers who were rabid fans.

They were serious people, adults, professionals, with real jobs. He agreed to go. It turns out he really loved it. He didn’t understand the type of people who really enjoyed his artwork. There was one group of war-comic fans—nothing else. They took him out to dinner. He realized that people really appreciated his art. He was glad he went.

JC: Did you read comics as a kid?

WAYNE: He did! He enjoyed the creating part. What he didn’t enjoy was doing comicbooks, as opposed to oil paintings. Stuff that at a different time would’ve been in a museum. I encouraged donating some of his artwork to a museum, but, “No, we don’t want to do that.” Roy Lichtenstein didn’t feel that way.

WAYNE: We weren’t allowed to, but we did. [chuckles] Leslie and Kim may have taken stuff to the office, but I know Leslie and I would ride the train. That’s how I know Joe Kubert. He’d always give us a sealed brown envelope full of comics and would say, “Don’t let your dad know I gave these to you.” [chuckles] My dad had a low opinion of comicbooks and comic art and didn’t recognize what he had done and his legacy until he got invited out to Comic-Con in San Diego one year. He wasn’t going to go. “I’m not going to go to no comic con.” But Mom, who was very pragmatic said, “I want a trip to California. They’ll pay all our expenses.” She told the guys from Comic-Con to come to the house and said he would speak to them. They came to the house. I wasn’t there at that time.

I was already in the Midwest. I live out in the country. Anyway, my mom got these guys to come out and forced my dad—I don’t know

JC: With the art he was doing, he had to enjoy what he was doing.

Dad and Lichtenstein were in the Army together. After the war, he approached Dad and asked him about doing that with the famous Johnny Cloud oil. So I don’t think he had any objection to it. I think it amused him, because he didn’t see it as serious art. He wasn’t offended. It was another day in his life.

JC: Did your childhood friends at school know about him?

WAYNE: I don’t think, in elementary school, anybody had that much awareness of it. When it came to high school, Dobbs Ferry was an interesting town. It was like kind of an artists’ community, and many people in one way or another were involved in arts—performing

Silent Knight, Haunted Tank…

More Kanigher/Novick magic from the early Silver Age of Comics! “The Silent Knight” from The Brave and the Bold #13 (Aug.-Sept. 1957)—and the first “Haunted Tank” tale Novick illustrated, from G.I. Combat #89 (Aug.-Sept. 1961), after the initial two issues drawn by Russ Heath. Scripts by Robert Kanigher.

Thanks to Bob Bailey & Jim Kealy for the scans. [TM & © DC Comics.]

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drew?

WAYNE: No. I interviewed him once for a graduate-level communications class at Western Michigan University. That was probably around the same time you interviewed him in the early ’90s.

It was the day he got the first shipment of art from DC, when they said, “We don’t want this anymore, so you get it.” I was with him when he got the first shipment. I was interviewing him for this class.

My professor was a huge fan of my dad’s. I got my dad to send an autographed “Batman” page. I gave it to him after the class was over.

JC: Wow. Today that’s a happy professor with what original art goes for these days!

WAYNE: He was a great guy and excellent prof. My dad never mentioned any particular character he was extremely fond of. Later in life, there was one he got slightly emotionally tied to, and that’s because I was in Vietnam at the time. There were two really unusual books he did … “Captain Storm”… that was the “Moby-Dick.” But later on, while I was still in Vietnam, he did a book, again with Bob Kanigher—“Lt. Hunter” or “Captain Hunter.” It kind of mimicked the Deer Hunter [film] with a Green Beret guy—because everyone who comes back from Vietnam is a Green Beret. I was not a Green Beret nor a Seal… or a paratrooper, because those are more exciting than those who go out and hug the grass. There was a Green Beret who came back from Vietnam. He’s finished. His brother gets captured and is a POW. So, he goes back to get his brother.

It was groundbreaking in several ways: It was anti-war. His partner in crime searching for his brother was a young Vietnamese woman of indescribable age because no one ever knows how old a woman is in comics. This woman and this former Green Beret go off in search of the POW camp. There are many anti-war references, and they refer to her family having been killed during the war without specifying how. My dad liked doing that comic, but it had to do with the fact that I was in Vietnam. It didn’t last long. I may be wrong,

“You Will Find Me A Grave Man” A moody, dramatic cover—with a powerful-looking Caped Crusader—adorns the cover of Batman #202 (June 1968). [TM & © DC Comics.]

arts. Kevin McCarthy, Mike Todd, Jr. A lot of art directors, people artistically involved with advertising in the Manhattan and production houses. It was no big deal: “So, your dad does comicbooks.” Dobbs Ferry was a small school. My graduating class was 63 kids.

We grew up in the Bronx, but moved to Dobbs Ferry. Leslie started and finished high school in the Bronx. It [Dobbs Ferry] was very small. K-12 was 420 kids. As a consequence, it was more like a private school with very small classes and well-paid teachers because of the nature of the people living in the community. Yeah, people knew what he did, but nobody cared.

JC: Do you remember anything about his approach to drawing?

WAYNE: No. He drew. He would work more feverishly when he had deadlines. Someone at DC would say, “Oh, my God, we’ve gotta get this book out by the end of the week,” and so-and-so was sick and they needed somebody. He was the go-to guy. If you needed “Sgt. Rock” done really quickly because Joe Kubert couldn’t get back from Europe, it would be, “Irv can do it,” and they’d throw it on top of whatever else he was working on. He’d get it done, even if he had to stay up to two o’clock in the morning. After we moved to Dobbs Ferry, he tried to work a more normal schedule. When my mom got off her job as a bookkeeper at five o’clock, he’d be trying to wrap things up and get to dinner.

JC: Did he ever mention anything about a favorite character that he

Still Full Of Pep At Nearly 80!

Irv Novick at the San Diego Comic-Con in 1995, holding a good-condition copy of Pep Comics #1 (Jan. 1940), for which he drew both the cover and the “Shield” story within. Thanks to David Siegel for the photo; during the 1990s and 2000s, Dave had a hand in bringing a number of Golden Age pros to San Diego, as detailed in A/E #142. [Cover TM & © Archie Publications, Inc.]

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

Captains Of [The Comicbook] Industry (Above left:) As Wayne Novick suggests, his dad’s (and Robert Kanigher’s) Capt.

Storm seems to have been intended to be the Moby-Dick of war comics, since its protagonist’s wooden leg was emphasized in text on virtually every cover, beginning with issue #1 (May-June 1964). Thanks to Mark Muller.

(Above:) DC had a “Lt. Hunter” series set in World War II, and, at another time, a “Captain Hunter” feature that occurred during the then-ongoing Vietnam War, as per this splash page from Our Fighting Forces #99 (April ’66). Script by Kanigher.

War comics dealing with Asian wars, whether in Korea or Vietnam, generally didn’t last as long as those set in “The Big One,” however. Thanks to Sharon Karibian. [TM & © DC Comics.]

From The Twilight Zone—To The Battlefield!

A/E reader and benefactor Bob Bailey (who once studied at Joe Kubert’s school) must be psychic! Just as Ye Editor was about to go trolling for a “Sgt. Rock” yarn that had been drawn by Irv Novick, he sent A/E this splash page from Our Army at War #106 (May 1961)! Script by Kanigher. [TM & © DC Comics.]

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1970s]? In his secret identity—he’s sitting in his living room?

That’s our house in Dobbs Ferry. His wife? That’s my mom.

He slipped us into Bible stories for Boy’s Life. He had an odd sense of humor for things like that. Why not? You have human models all over your house, why not use them?

JC: Your dad retired in the early 1990s. Was it something he looked forward to?

WAYNE: When I interviewed him, he said, “I retired. By then they’d started going to graphic novels, so the comicbook format was already changing. I wasn’t going to do any more, but DC offered me so much damn money, I had to come back and do that book.” Then he mentioned a number, which I’m not going to bring up. It was a lot of money. He was in his eighties at that time. What he loved doing—he loved to walk.

If he drove, he got himself in trouble a couple of times—he couldn’t look at the trees or the scenery, so he loved to walk.

In Dobbs Ferry, we lived on Beach Hill Road. He’d walk from there up to Tarrytown while in his eighties! He’d take his time. He just loved the walk.

When he was younger, he was an avid golfer. He didn’t play because he liked golf, he played to take the walk.

When they started saying, even on the public courses, that “you have to start to use the carts because we can’t have people wandering around on the course all day”—there were too many people wanting to play—that’s when he stopped playing golf. He’d walk and take a sketchpad. He was active and prolific. Even if nothing got turned into an oil

Waiting For Joe Before Joe Kubert became the main artist of the “Sgt. Rock” feature, Irv Novick drew battle-happy Easy Company in this Kanigher-scripted tale from Our Army at War #84 (July 1959). Thanks to Bob Bailey. [TM & © DC Comics.]

but DC was purchased by Kinney-National. These guys are all conservatives, primarily interested in making profits, so if the book brought any negative attention to DC, they would’ve shut it down fairly quickly. You know that the super-heroes aren’t political. None of them.

JC: At the time “Make War No More” was the slogan on the DC war books.

WAYNE: So you’re anti-Nazi… OK, that was popular. I know my dad enjoyed doing “The Haunted Tank” because they used the one tank everybody made fun of because it was one of the earliest pieces of armor in the U.S. arsenal. It was not a very good tank. It was under-gunned… under-armored. So, here was Jeb Stuart running around. Good Lord! Can you imagine now doing a comicbook with a tank named “Jeb Stuart”? The tank itself and the commander were doing extraordinary things because of the ghost of Jeb Stuart. My dad enjoyed doing it because the tank and the crew were doing incredible things with very little. He always liked the underdog.

Whether that book was his favorite, I do not know. I do know, in the interview I did, he said “The Flash was always too fast for me.”

JC: Did your dad have a good sense of humor?

WAYNE: Oh, hell yeah! You read Flash comics from that period [the

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

or turned into a comicbook or any other kind of artwork, he was constantly interpreting the world around him through his artistic mind.

My dad took us ice-skating all the time. Our first skates were hockey skates! We were hockey-skating on the public ice rink long before we were doing any other kind of skating. Kids now are equipped with all kinds of pads and helmets. We had none of that crap! We had pants and we had ice skates, thank you very much! “How fast can you go? How far can you slide when you fall, and do you know how to put your shoulder into the board when you slide in hard, instead of your head?” These are things you learn as a kid.

My dad didn’t take us to sporting events. My parents took us to museums. My mom took us to the ballet when we were young. We were very well-rounded kids! My grandfather took me to hockey games and soccer games.

He loved the New York Rangers. I was going to hockey games at the old Madison Square Garden. The first thing you learned was to duck, because there was no glass.

My dad would go out and buy watercolor pads and little watercolor sets with brushes. We’d go to parks along the Bronx River and we’d sit and draw. Not much was very good, but we were given the freedom to interpret and the freedom to make the creative decisions we wanted—if we wanted to make the grass blue, we made the grass blue.

He didn’t say, “That’s wrong.” It’s a method of viewing the world and that’s what my dad taught us: interpreting the world and opening yourself to the colors. That definitely helped me in my profession.

When I was designing and managing stage lighting for musical concerts, there were many, many artists who would say to me: “It’s amazing, you’re painting with the light.” It makes you feel good afterward, but I never realized what I was doing in the moment. I don’t think that Irv knew exactly what he was doing in the moment.

It came out and he would say, “Okay, I need to fix that,” or “I don’t need to fix that.” I didn’t realize until much later what he was doing. Of course, it was much later that I understood exactly what I had learned from him without realizing at the time that I had been taught that.

“Smoke-Damaged Furniture! You Can Drive It Away Today!”

(Above:) Forgive the line from a wonderful Tom Waits song; Ye Editor just couldn’t resist. But—on this page of original art by Irv Novick & Frank McLaughlin from The Flash #249 (May 1977), could that sofa on which the young lady is taking a snooze possibly be a piece of furniture from the Novicks’ living room? Script by Cary Bates. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Rebel Without A Horse—But With A Tank!

The ghost of Jeb Stuart, a Confederate general during the Civil War, was literally the guiding spirit of “The Haunted Tank.” Here he advises the vehicle’s commander in a panel from G.I. Combat #89 (Aug.-Sept. 1961). Script by Kanigher, art by Novick. Thanks to Jim Kealy & Mark Muller. [TM & © DC Comics.]

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was extremely moral. That doesn’t mean he didn’t make mistakes and didn’t lose his temper. It doesn’t mean he couldn’t be a horrible person. He was moral and ethical and those things were very important to him and he taught us that.

JC: Back to his retirement. Was that something where DC gave him a gold watch and he was like, “I’d love to walk and paint”?

WAYNE: As a freelancer, he and a bunch of other artists made DC sign a contract that gave them certain employee-style benefits. He was never really an employee, which is why he could do stuff for commercial art houses. There wasn’t the concept of getting a gold watch when you retire. I think there were some other people on staff at DC that it applied to later on, but his bunch of guys—all of them were from the same mold. They were all World War II vets, because who wasn’t at that time? Later on, some were Korean War vets, but there was always the concept that he worked and enjoyed working.

He may not have enjoyed everything he worked on for DC, but he enjoyed working.

JC: Most artists of his generation seemed to take the same approach; “I dream of having a newspaper strip” and/or “Comicbooks is just a

All Dressed Up… If the four Novick kids added a male buddy, they could’ve stood in for this Novick-penciled “Teen Titans” panel from the 1989 Secret Origins Annual.

Script by George Pérez; inks by Ty Templeton. [TM & © DC Comics.]

JC: You refer to your dad as “Irv.” I wouldn’t call my father by his first name unless I was sure I could outrun him. [chuckles] Is that a regional thing?

WAYNE: No, that came later. I never addressed him as “Irv.” If I were talking to my sister, I’d say, “Dad.” If I were talking to a cousin, I’d probably say “Irv.” As a Southerner you’ll appreciate this, but I still address people as “sir.” It’s force of habit. I taught a high school class for three years—a theatre tech class. My crew addressed each other as “sir” and “ma’am.” When we’re working a show by ourselves and want to be “Billy,” and “Johnny,” that’s fine, but when we have guests in the building and performers on the stage, it’s “sir,” and it is “ma’am.” Years later, I ran into several of my students, some in the technical end of the theatre, and they still say it. My dad did that. As kids we were expected to be polite to each other in public. We went out as a troupe!

JC: The Novick Troupe.

WAYNE: It was! We were a tribe. My parents had no qualms about the theatre or the ballet or out to dinner. It didn’t matter if we were going out to eat at Howard Johnson’s for an all-you-can-eat fish fry or we were going to an expensive restaurant in New York where the waiters all wore bow-ties and the maître d’ wore a tuxedo—we had a decent, upper-middle-class life. It’s not like we were poor.

It’s not like we were fabulously wealthy, either. It’s not like we drove Cadillacs.

My parents never bought me a car. My first car cost 30 bucks, and a couple of friends and I pushed it home because the engine didn’t work and I fixed it. I had to pay my own insurance because my dad wouldn’t let me register on his. If you want certain things, you have to accept the responsibilities. Above everything else, he

The Mystery Is—Why’d They Ever Break Up? A great team, together again—O’Neil, writer… Novick, penciler… Giordano, inker… and Schwartz, editor—in Batman #261 (March-April 1975). [TM & © DC Comics.]

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

job.” When they later attended comic conventions, their eyes were opened. In the interview with your dad, he was like, “Seriously?

I just sat and drew whatever they gave me, paying a mortgage, raising kids.” Not disrespectful to fans, just having trouble even comprehending what the big deal was.

WAYNE: Exactly. Just to give you an idea: Now I live outside of town with a smallish house and a 3,600-square-foot shop. I’ve got an auto lift, four welders, a plasma cutter, everything that every guy dreams of having—four drill presses, four band saws. I’m in seventh heaven out here. I have a wonderful woman in my life—you know you have a good woman when she buys you an X-Mark lawnmower for your birthday. [chuckles] I can make things. If I’m working on something and I don’t have the right tool, I make the tool. I weld, I cut, I drill. That’s essentially what my dad taught me. He didn’t teach me an appreciation of comicbooks, he taught me an appreciation of what you can do and how you can do it and being proud of your output.

Sergeant today.

At the end of the war, he and a bunch of other guys were working on a project and the military said, “We’ll let you go if you promise and come back and complete this project.” They all said yes, and down the road they went. I get that perfectly! I know my dad moved around while he was in the military. He was in Biloxi, Mississippi—which he hated; he was in Kentucky. My mom followed him. She lived in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, when he was stationed at Fort Knox.

Because I was in combat infantry in Vietnam, I’ve had guys hang their heads and say to me, “I never got there; I was in Germany.”

I say, “Why are you ashamed of the fact you weren’t getting shot at? There’s no honor in dying for your country.” Patton put it best: “Nobody ever won a war by dying for his country; he won it by

JC: Well said. You mentioned earlier he went to a rehab facility…

WAYNE: It wasn’t a rehab center; it was a nursing home—and I remember talking on the phone with him.

He never lost his mental faculties. His legs started bothering him and he wasn’t able to walk, which he loved, and his spirit started deteriorating after that.

My mom never left his side when he got ill. The only reason he stayed alive as long as he did was my mom wouldn’t give him permission to die. [chuckles] She finally said, “It’s okay, Irv, you can go to sleep,” and he went to sleep. They were in love with each other their entire lives.

My mom’s grandmother made it to 93; she was active like my mom in community organizations. A week before she died, she wasn’t feeling well and went to the doctor. They said she had cancer and had about six months to live: “We’ll put you in a hospital and treat you.” She said, “The hell you will. I’ll be dead in three days.” And she was. Her attitude was: “I’ve had a full life; I’ve never asked anybody to take care of me and I’m not going to start now, and my husband is waiting for me on the other side.” She closed her eyes and went. That’s how I want to go.

I’m 72 and I just bought two new chainsaws. I was out yesterday with one of them out in the woods. If you stay active, you are active. The quickest way to screw up an automobile is to let it sit and not run it.

JC: Agree. Oh, before we finish up: your dad’s World War II service. Leslie said the family joke was he was in “intelligence.”

WAYNE: She made that up. [chuckles] When they found out he could draw, they had him doing all kinds of stuff… training manuals, cartoons for Stars and Stripes [Army newspaper]. Then, he was about to get shipped out to Europe and the general he was working for found out and snatched him off the gangplank.

That’s the story. That happened twice. The third time, that general’s unit was going overseas and he wanted Dad to go with him as an artist, and Dad failed the physical. He had a heart murmur. If you have a heart murmur, you’re not fit to go out and get killed at Omaha Beach in the first 15 feet. He made it to a Tech Sergeant, I think. He was a T-6, which would be a Staff

“Mademoiselle Marie” Star Spangled War Stories #84 (Aug. 1959) introduced this long-running series, which was inspired by the brave deeds of a real woman in the WWII French underground. Cover art by Irv Novick, of course. The “Mlle. Marie” story inside was written by Robert Kanigher (who else?) and drawn by Jerry Grandenetti. [TM & © DC Comics.]

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you can possibly be. I always loved my father, and respect him. I’m amazed someone is doing this [book]. He deserves it; he was an amazing individual.

Chapter Five

The 1970s The 1970s were a period of unrest for the United States and for comics. The U.S. withdrew from Vietnam, but the country became embroiled in the Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon’s resignation. At the end of the decade, the U.S. embassy in Iran was attacked and 52 Americans were taken hostage and held for 444 days.

The comicbook business also underwent radical change. Sales declined, due, at least in part, to competition from other forms of entertainment. Cover prices increased and less conventional ideas abounded, from a talking duck to a female barbarian, as well as stories focused on drug abuse and the plight of minorities. And the Direct Market system was launched, forever changing how comics are distributed.

Ironically, for Novick it was a period of relative stability. During the ’70s, Novick was penciling two of DC Comics’ flagship titles: Batman and The Flash. That consistency was likely the result not only of his considerable artistic talent, but also the unique freelance contract he had negotiated with DC that ensured he would always have an assignment.

JC: Who were some of your favorite inkers?

They Also Serve Who Only… Do Fill-Ins Bob Bailey, who sent the above scan, writes: “Irv Novick was like a utility guy all over the place.

He also did one ‘Gunner and Sarge [and Pooch]’ in Our Fighting Forces #68 (May 1962). This was usually the series done by Jerry Grandenetti. It was a very good story, if not as dynamic as Grandenetti.” [TM & © DC Comics.]

making some other poor dumb sonofabitch die for his country.”

I survived and I’m glad. Like any other experience, you have to look for the good stuff to survive mentally. When we knew I was going into combat, he said, “Take away the positives; you can’t look for the negatives. There will be plenty of negatives, but you’ll go crazy.” That’s what he told me and that’s what I did. You develop a dark sense of humor.

If you’ve never been on the front lines of anything, it’s a lot easier to make comments about how those people should do their jobs. It’s remarkable what a dark sense of humor you develop, because you see people at their worst! When I was working in lighting in concerts, I was seeing people having fun. When I was a paramedic, I wasn’t seeing people having fun. Dad taught me that you take away from life the best you can and you do the best you can. Be the best person

NOVICK: Well, Joe Giella was very good and now does the newspaper strip Mary Worth. In fact, he called me about two years ago to ghost on Mary for him. His mother was very ill and he needed the break. Joe and I have always gotten along well. Another fine inker and artist was Dick Giordano. He moved up pretty fast in the editorial section, as I’m sure you know. Frank McLaughlin was also very good. He followed my pencils very well.

I believe the penciler should give the inker very precise, tight drawings. I used a #2 and a #F pencil. A number #2 was nice but the lead tended to be too soft and to smudge. As you draw, invariably your hand is going to rub the pencils. The #F pencil was basically a number #2 but the lead tended to be sharper and not smudge as much. I always liked a clean, clear penciled page.

By the end of the 1970s, Novick was approaching his mid-sixties. He had amassed an impressive body of work and earned the respect of his peers and fans. For many people, it would be time to start thinking about retirement. But Novick wasn’t done yet.

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INKERS THREE: In 1998, Irv Novick discussed a trio of his favorite inkers for his own work:

Dick Giordano at the 1968 SCARP-Con in New York City—plus his and Novick’s splash from Batman #216 (Nov. 1969); script by Frank Robbins. Photo courtesy of James Rosen; art scan courtesy of Jim Ludwig.

Joe Giella Alas, we didn’t have any photos at hand of Joe G. in his earlier days, but here he seems to contemplate his inking of Novick in Flash Spectacular 1978 (a.k.a. DC Special Series, Vol. 2, #11).

Script by Cary Bates.

Frank McLaughlin and a Novick-penciled splash page from Batman #317 (Nov. 1979). Script by Len Wein. [All art & story on this page TM & © DC Comics.]

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

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Cat Got Your Tongue?

For some obscure reason, the above-shown cover for Batman #210 (March 1969)—drawn by Irv Novick from a layout by art director Carmine Infantino—was sidelined in favor of the published version at right by Neal Adams, from the same layout. Now, more than half a century later, you readers get to play publisher, compare the two, and decide which of the two versions you would’ve decided to use. (Hint: There’s probably no wrong answer.) [TM & © DC Comics.]

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

Frank Robbins was both an artist and a writer, originally on his popular newspaper strip Johnny Hazzard—and, in the later ’60s and early ’70s, wrote and/or drew “Batman” adventures as well. He scripted this one for Batman #236 (Nov. 1971), which was penciled

by Novick and inked by Giordano.

Seen here is the autographed original art of the splash page.

[TM & © DC Comics.]

Spotlight On…

THE BATMAN

A common misperception is that it was writer Denny O’Neil and artist Neal Adams who first portrayed a darker version of the Caped Crusader.

The truth is that the Batman that Bob Kane created with Bill Finger, who first appeared in Detective Comics #27, was already a dark character. That first story in 1939 depicted a man who was stabbed to death, and another man being shot and killed. At the end of the story, “The Bat-man” knocks the villain into a tank of acid, calling it “a fitting end for his kind.”

As the years progressed and Batman was joined by his sidekick Robin, the stories became lighter in tone. By the late 1960s, the Batman comics were as campy as their television counterpart.

But it still wasn’t O’Neil and Adams who began the return to a darker interpretation of Batman. It was Frank Robbins and Irv Novick who ushered Robin off to college and closed up Wayne Manor and the Batcave in favor of a penthouse apartment at Wayne Foundation. So began the “creature of the night” era, in which Batman fought more common gangsters than costumed super-villains.

In their book The Batcave Companion (TwoMorrows 2009),

authors Michael Eury and Michael Kronenberg observed about Novick: “Starting in 1968 and running throughout the 1970s, the artist who drew the most stories in Batman and Detective Comics was veteran penciler Irv Novick. Novick penciled the first story in Batman’s continuity change, ‘One Bullet Too Many,’ appearing in Batman #217 (Dec 1969). Throughout the ’70s he illustrated some of the Caped Crusader’s most memorable stories. He drew the Bronze Age revivals of Catwoman and The Penguin and co-created the villains the Ten-Eyed Man, Colonel Sulphur, and The Spook. The prolific artist also worked on many of Robin’s solo stories in the back pages of Batman and Detective.”

Novick drew 17 covers and 15 stories for Detective Comics. By contrast, he drew 78 stories in the pages of Batman over the span of 13 years, but only 12 covers. He also drew Batman in other titles,

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

39

published Stan Lee’s Bring On the Bad Guys, while DC Comics debuted the Secret Society of Super-Villains and a solo title based on perhaps the most famous villain of all: The Joker.

Why all the focus on the bad guys? Well, truthfully, it was often the bad guys who made the heroes more interesting. The villains were complex characters, frequently with tragic origins that made them sympathetic. But while the Fantastic Four appeared in a comicbook every month, Doctor Doom sat idle between his battles with that quartet. So, when publishers were looking for new ways to leverage their stable of characters and expand their roster of titles, turning to the villains was a logical move, and none more so than The Joker.

When DC Comics decided to launch a bi-monthly comic headlined by “the Clown Prince of Crime”—the first comicbook series to feature a villain as the title character—they turned to veteran “Batman” artist Irv Novick to draw it. He had proven ability drawing the Caped Crusader and his nemesis, rendering The Joker in the style Neal Adams had popularized a few years earlier.

The debut issue featured The Joker escaping from Arkham Asylum and endeavoring to outwit fellow Batman villain Two-Face. The two bad guys end up knocking each other out at the end of the story and are

Put On A Happy Face!

The final page from the final issue of the first DC The Joker series, printed from a copy of the original art: #9, Sept.-Oct. 1976. Inks by Tex Blaisdell; script by Elliot Maggin. [TM & © DC Comics.]

such as Brave and the Bold. Combined, it represents thousands of hours spent drawing the Caped Crusader. It’s no wonder Batman is the character for which Novick is best remembered.

Novick’s art depicted a tall, imposing figure in Batman and his alter ego Bruce Wayne. He had a commanding presence, but could be vulnerable as well. Novick’s layouts were dynamic and creative, and action sequences seemed like they might leap right out of the page. It’s not a surprise that his style was well received by most fans.

Spotlight On…

THE JOKER

The mid-1970s was the era of the comicbook villain. Marvel Comics launched the title Super-Villain Team-Up and Fireside

The Joker’s On Us! The Novick full-art splash page for the previously unpublished story produced for The Joker #10 in the 1970s was first seen in The Joker: The Bronze Age Omnibus (2019). Script by Marty Pasko, with an assist from Paul Kupperberg. Thanks to David Karoll. [TM & © DC Comics.]

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

captured by the police. In the second issue, The Joker helps Willy the Weeper overcome his remorse from stealing, only to be caught again by Commissioner Gordon at the end of the story.

While the premise is somewhat silly, make no mistake: This is not the Cesar Romero Joker of the Batman television show. The Joker uses acid on his enemies in the first issue, and in the second tosses someone who betrays him into an incinerator.

For reasons unknown, Novick did not draw the next two issues of The Joker, but returned as regular penciler with #5. Over the next several issues, The Joker squared off against a variety of characters, including the Royal Flush Gang, Lex Luthor, The Scarecrow, Catwoman, even Sherlock Holmes. But after nine issues, The Joker was canceled, presumably due to sales, or lack thereof. Some of the other comics featuring villains lasted longer, but all ultimately succumbed to the same fate.

Therein lies the challenge in having a comicbook starring a villain. DC couldn’t have The Joker fight Batman in every issue, or it becomes just another Batman comic. Nor did they want to turn him into a hero. And since he is ultimately a villain, he needs to face justice for his crimes, or so said the Comics Code. In the end, the villain needs the hero as much as the hero needs the villain.

As The Joker said to Batman in the film The Dark Knight, “You complete me.”

There are two other Keyed For Speed contributions Irv Novick made The Flash splash—for #223 (Sept.-Oct. 1973). Script by Bates; inks by Giordano. [TM & © DC Comics.] to the annals of Joker history.

First, a tenth issue of The Joker was completed but never published the name Harlequin and joins the Teen Titans for a time. The at the time, due to the title’s cancelation. According to the Grand character co-created by Novick has persisted over the years, in one Comics Database, the synopsis of the story is: “When an Arkham form or another, though she is not actually The Joker’s daughter. doctor orders that Joker undergo psycho-therapy to remove his pathological tendencies, the Joker makes a deal with the devil to avoid his fate. The deal he makes is to kill the JLA.” In notes about the story, which was written by Marty Pasko, the GCD adds: “This was to be the first part of a two- or three-part story according to Pasko, but only this first part was completed.” The tale was finally published in The Joker: The Bronze Age Omnibus.

Having proved his capabilities illustrating Batman, Novick was given the responsibility of penciling another major DC Second, the sixth issue of Batman Family introduced “The super-hero: The Flash. The character’s Silver Age co-developer, Joker’s Daughter,” later revealed to be Duela Dent. Appearing to Carmine Infantino, had been promoted to art director for DC be a female version of The Joker, she uses gimmicks like a powder Comics; and, after a brief stint in the hands of Ross Andru, the puff and lipstick bullets against Robin. (See p. 56.) She later takes

Spotlight On…

THE FLASH

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

41

Bates & Switch (Above:) Cary Bates wrote the great, great majority of the issues of The Flash penciled by Irv Novick over approximately a decade—and even got himself included in the story in issue #228 (July-Aug. 1974). Inks by Tex Blaisdell.

(Right:) Splash page by Bates, Novick, & McLaughlin from The Flash #244 (Sept. 1976).

[TM & © DC Comics.]

Cary Bates Scarlet Speedster was handed off to Novick in 1970. One could argue this was as much a curse as a blessing. Infantino had co-created the Silver Age Flash, so following in his footsteps invited comparison, but Novick proved up to the task.

In the book The Flash Companion (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2008), Jim Beard notes, “Novick did not so much ape his popular predecessor, but most definitely emulated him. Novick’s feel for architecture and the skyscape of Central City, the Flash’s home, were very much inspired by Infantino, as was his eye for panoramic landscapes and creative panel structure. His figures were lanky at times, accurate in anatomy, yet also heroically proportioned. Novick created a look for Barry Allen and his wife Iris that would define them for years to come, yet also rooting them in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s as relatively ‘hip’ citizens of their fictional Central City. Their clothes and hairstyles were current to the times and felt ‘real,’ and the Allen home became a comfortable hang-out that inside and out would make Flash fans feel welcome.”

Over the nine years Novick penciled the comic, he often

illustrated The Flash taking on his Rogues Gallery of villains, including the Weather Wizard, Captain Cold, Mirror Master, The Trickster, Abra Kadabra, Captain Boomerang, Heat Wave, and The Pied Piper, among others. Novick is remembered for co-creating the beautiful Golden Glider, the younger sister of Captain Cold, in The Flash #250. She blamed The Flash for the death of her coach and boyfriend (and fellow Rogue) The Top. Novick also co-created The Clown.

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

“Flash Of Two Worlds” No, Cary Bates and Irv Novick didn’t produce the above-named 1961 classic tale that introduced the concept of Earth-Two—writer Gardner Fox and penciler Carmine Infantino did, in conjunction with editor Julius Schwartz.

But—Bates and Novick definitely put their own stamp on that multiverse’s mythology with yarns like the above “Death of an Immortal” from The Flash #215 (May 1972), as inked by Frank McLaughlin & Dick Giordano— —and in The Flash #268 (Dec. ’78), on whose McLaughlin-inked splash page even the Golden Age Green Lantern and Wildcat get in on the action! By the way, that’s the cover image of the very real Flash Comics #26 (Feb. 1942) that everybody’s chasing after—with its E.E. Hibbard main cover figure and the small image of fellow featuree Hawkman (as drawn by Sheldon “Shelly” Moldoff) up there in the left-hand corner! [TM & © DC Comics.]

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

43

and they raised a family. They were married in 1940, and my dad died in 2004. So what is that, 64 years?

I know when my parents got married, they were living in Parkchester. One of the big insurance companies in New York City was Met Life, and one of their investments was two big housing developments. One of them was in the Bronx, Parkchester, and the other is in Manhattan, and that’s called Stuyvesant Town. These were great apartments for middleclass families. Stuyvesant Town is still going. Met Life got rid of it a few years ago, but it’s kind of like an oasis right in the middle of Manhattan. Not on the Lower East Side, but down east. And the same thing with Parkchester. I remember going there and there were nice apartments, tree-lined streets, and

Fast & Furious In The ’40s A pair of high-speed panels of the “Golden Age Flash” story from Flash Special #1 (Summer 1990). Script by Len Strazewski, pencils by Novick, inks by Giordano.

[TM & © DC Comics.]

Novick penciled 67 stories for The Flash, but no covers. When he left the title in 1979, fans were not happy. Novick also drew The Flash in stories appearing in Adventure Comics, World’s Finest Comics, Wonder Woman, and DC Special Series #1 and 11. In addition, he drew several issues of Teen Titans that featured Wally West as Kid Flash. The last “Flash” story Novick illustrated was a Jay Garrick (Golden Age Flash) tale in the 1990 Flash Special #1.

A Conversation with

KIM NOVICK

Kim Novick is the youngest of the Novick children. Although some of the topics discussed in this interview are the same as those covered with his siblings, Kim offers a unique perspective on Irv, the artist and father.

DEWEY CASSELL: Can you tell me when and where your dad was born?

KIM NOVICK: He was born in the Bronx, New York. He’s the second of three brothers, and they’re all dead now. They both predeceased him. The older one was named George, the younger one was named Jesse. Their father was Max. And their mother was Rose. My mother was also born in the Bronx.

At a certain point they were living in the same two-family house on a street called Rosedale Avenue, which is between the South Bronx and a part called Parkchester. My dad’s family owned the house, and my mom’s family members were tenants. So my dad’s family lived downstairs, my mom’s family lived upstairs. The rest is history.

They knew each other forever… I think since they were nine or something. They were childhood sweethearts and they got married

Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah! “Steel Sterling” splash from Zip Comics #46 (May 1944). Script by Otto Binder; art by Novick. Thanks to Jim Kealy. [TM & © Archie Comic Publications.]

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

Boy, What A Life!

Illustrations by Novick done for Boys’ Life issues in 1956 and 1960, respectively. [© the respective copyright holders.]

mixed-use retail downstairs, apartments upstairs. So they moved in there. At a certain point my dad goes into the Army, and they have my sister in 1945. She’s conceived down in Kentucky, where my dad was stationed.

He spent his Army career drawing. They moved back to New York, I guess in 1945. Then they moved down to Florida, because one of my brothers needed the warm climes, so we moved down there for a couple of years.

DC: So what do you call home?

KIM: I grew up in a place two or three doors down from where my grandmother lived, so it was very neighborhoody. I remember being four or five years old and playing in the street all by myself.

My grandparents lived two doors down, another grandparent lived around the corner. There was an aunt who lived two blocks away.

We had cousins who were four blocks away. Everything was walking distance. And then, in 1960, came the urban flight and we moved to Westchester County. Do you remember The Dick Van Dyke Show?

So we lived in New Rochelle on Long Island Sound. We lived on the Hudson River. We lived in a town called Dobbs Ferry, which is about twenty miles outside of Manhattan. A bedroom community.

And that’s where I guess I grew up. We moved there when I was six. My dad always worked at home, so even when we were in the Bronx, he had a little work space set up where he drew. He would go into Manhattan to deliver his work. Sometimes I’d go with him, because someone’s got to watch the kid, right? I remember going to one firm he worked for… Johnstone and Cushing… they did what he called industrials. They were like comicbooks for industry. He did one for Alcoa Aluminum, or maybe it was U.S. Steel or Bethlehem Steel.

When I was in my teens, I used to go into the city all the time, and I would deliver his work for him. I’d either go in the afternoons, or, if I was skipping school, I’d take his work. There was a guy who worked there named Bob LeRose, who eventually went to DC… a colorist, but also an illustrator. He worked in the art department for Al Stenzel. Al was this crotchety old guy who was responsible for all the illustration work in Boy’s Life. It was kind of like “A Christmas Carol,” where you had the scrivener, Bob LeRose, who was there always in

the corner, drawing, and you had Al Stenzel who was there chewing on his cigar and yelling things and was kind of a nefarious guy.

They had a couple of different studios. One of them was right across from Rockefeller Center, probably on 50th Street, between 5th and 6th [Avenues]. It was a townhouse at one point, a Brownstone, and downstairs there was a coffee shop; and upstairs, on the first or second floor, this guy had a studio. Then they moved farther east, between 2nd and 3rd, and had a studio there.

There were all these great buildings in New York where they had those kinds of things. There were retail rent-payers downstairs, a store, and upstairs they would have lofts. The place Al had on the East Side must have been similar to that, where it was a loft but it had always been commercial. This was before people started moving into lofts, when they were still commercial places.

DC: Where else did he work?

KIM: I know he did work for DC, for Wonder Woman. A couple of years ago, Jill Lepore wrote a great book about Wonder Woman.

It’s amazing, a great read. The New York Review did a review of it.

My dad’s art isn’t in the book, but they used his art to illustrate the review. So it had to have been [work from] the early ’50s, would be my guess. So Bob Kanigher was there. They were close friends.

I know that Bob was very involved with Wonder Woman in the formative years.

Irv also did work for The Brave and the Bold, and his style at that point had really come into its own. There was one character called The Silent Knight; I liked those comics as a little kid. The whole fantasy thing, like Knights of the Round Table. So this Silent Knight—he did what the other super-heroes do, but he wasn’t a super-hero. But he’d go around like The Lone Ranger or Batman and help out people who were in danger. Irv also did “Johnny Cloud”; that was probably in the ’50s. [NOTE: Actually, the 1960s.] He drew love comics at one point, but my sister says he wouldn’t let her read the love comics.

DC: Were they too racy?

KIM: No, I think they were just so bad. [laughter] Here’s this kid… she’s probably 12 years old, and they didn’t have Vogue or

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

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Cosmopolitan back then, so there were these love comics. I guess that’s what she would glom onto. We didn’t really have a lot of comics around the house. Then, at a certain point, probably in the mid-’60s, DC started sending Irv tons of comicbooks.

Every month they’d send him everything that was produced, all the titles.

So we had all these things around. I started reading them, but it didn’t faze us, because they were just there. Kids would say, “Oh, my gosh! Your dad drew for that?” It was like, “Yeah.” We weren’t into comicbooks.

And he’d be at home, drawing every day. There were times when it was very hard for him to draw, because he’d get these scripts that were terrible, and he’d have to rewrite them. He’d get on the phone and get into, not fights, not heated arguments, but conversations, let’s put it that way, with Kanigher and with Julie Schwartz. He did so much work with Bob. Early on, they didn’t give credit on comicbooks. I want to say it was in the late ’60s they started putting credits in there. I don’t know what drove that.

DC: I think in part it was Marvel Comics.

KIM: Oh, like the Jack Kirby stuff with Stan Lee? Yeah, that makes sense. So, they [DC} have got to keep up with the Joneses. I think Marvel at the time was eating their lunch. So, Irv did some Lois Lane work… probably some “Superman.” I’m not exactly sure when he started doing “Batman.” He continued to do war comics. There was “Captain Storm,” fifteen or twenty different issues of that. “Johnny Cloud” never got his own book, but he was in All-American Tales of War or something like that. God, what a name. [laughter] Star Spangled War Stories. There was one where there were dinosaurs.

DC: Right—“The War That Time Forgot.” So did you ever meet Bob Kanigher?

KIM: Oh, yeah. Our families were close friends. We used to play with their kids. I used to babysit his son. They lived in the Bronx, too, and we used to go up to their apartment. When we moved out to Westchester, they built a house right near us. In the next town over they found some property and they built a house up there. They lived in Ardsley, New York. We moved to Dobbs Ferry in 1960. My guess is they probably moved in 1964, ’66. Yeah, they were always over and we were always over there. Bob’s wife and my mother were close friends. His wife was a very smart woman, very capable. I want to say she was a principal at a high school in Rockland County; maybe she became a superintendent.

Bob Kanigher was a nice guy, very creative. He painted, he

Run “Silent”… Run “Knight”!

(Above left:) The “Silent Knight” cover for The Brave and the Bold #4 (Feb.March 1956) by Irv Novick. The premise of the series was that an Arthurian-Age lad named Brian finds a mysterious suit of armor in the forest that, when donned, enables him to become a nameless knight in order to right wrongs, by virtue of the magic of Merlin. (Above right:) This series’ premise and final panels (such as the one above, by writer Kanigher and full artist Novick from B&B #13, Aug.-Sept. ’57) are coincidentally very similar to those of its contemporary Black Knight comic at Timely/Marvel, written by Stan Lee and drawn by Joe Maneely… but with the added touch that Brian dared not speak when in armor lest his youthful secret identity be given away… hence the cutesy name “The Silent Knight.” It was a fun series, in some ways also anticipating Spider-Man little more than half a decade later. [TM & © DC Comics.]

wrote, he wrote comicbooks. They all hated doing what they did. My dad hated drawing comicbooks. I don’t want to say “hated,” because he enjoyed it, too, but if he had his druthers, he’d rather be painting.

And if Bob had his druthers, he’d rather be writing novels. That’s what they aspired to. Irv was trained as a classical painter. He went to the American Academy of Art, studying painting, and he was good at it. We’ve got some portraits and landscapes he did. Later on, he got into some very abstract kind of things. When you look at his comics work, you can see the painterly stuff in it. In the late ’50s, you could see where he really found his style and it showed through until his later work. The early stuff that he did, like “Steel Sterling” and…I want to say “Captain America,” but that wasn’t it…

DC: “The Shield.”

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

one thing to draw The Flash, but you have to also draw all those people on the street that The Flash is passing by, and they need to be different people than The Flash was passing the previous issue. And, as you said, there’s all this stuff in the background that most of us don’t even think about. We’re all focused on what The Flash is doing, and we’re not thinking about the fact that you have to imagine and draw all of the stuff in the background, as well, and make it look realistic.

KIM: Yeah. He had all these tear sheets he would take from magazines and other comicbooks so he could remember who was the arch-villain, or who was the other character that’s coming in. He’d pull things from magazines—cars, people, and those kinds of things. Architecture. At a certain point he started going to night school, because he decided he wanted to get a BA. Right near where he went to college, there was this huge apartment house that he always thought looked like a prison, so in one of the books, it must have been a Batman, he’s drawn this apartment house as a high-security prison. [laughs] One summer night—this must have been in the mid-’70s—a cop knocks on the door and he says, “I’m sorry, your neighbor got robbed. Did you see anything unusual?” And Irv says, “Well, I sit here all day. I don’t really look out the window because I’m doing my work, but I can see anything.” He sees this cop, and he says, “Wait a second. Can you draw your gun? And stand there as if you’re shooting somebody, or about to shoot?” And Irv starts drawing this cop, and the cop’s standing there, like he

New Romances For Old! The original art for Irv’s splash in Pines/Standard’s New Romances #12 (July 1952).

Inks by Bernard Sachs; scripter unknown. In fact, the Grand Comics Database has a question mark by Novick’s name in its credits—but authors John Coates and Dewey Cassell confirm that this is his work. [© the respective copyright holders.]

KIM: “The Shield”! That stuff was so square, stultified, and stiff. Later on, he really started getting everything so fluid and lifelike. I think his early Wonder Woman work was similar to that… very stiff. When he started doing Lois Lane, that was a big thing, because he did Lois Lane—it must have been the ’60s—and he put her into a miniskirt and fishnet stockings… completely different from what she was before, with the pillbox hat and the A-lined skirts.

And that style continued when he got into Batman and The Flash. He liked doing The Flash because The Flash didn’t beat anybody up. He used his brain. I went to school up near Rochester in Brockport, New York. I remember being in college, and going to the local bookstore and picking up a copy of Flash and thumbing through it, and it was like, “There’s my house!” It was a bird’s-eye view and it was the house I grew up in. And there’s Iris, and she’s lying on the couch. It was the couch that we had in our house. And later she’s lying on another couch, and it wasn’t bad continuity… we had gotten a new couch! He drew what was around him. I guess it was nicer having The Flash’s house than somebody that was going around shooting people and beating people up.

DC: One of the things that’s always fascinated me about comics—it’s

Turn Left On Lois Lane!

Novick’s first “Lois Lane” splash, for Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #82 (Aug. 1968). Script by Leo Dorfman; inks by Mike Esposito. Thanks to Bob Bailey. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

47

He did birthday cards. He did one for my grandmother at one point.

And he did some sketching now and then. If he was traveling, he’d keep a sketchbook with him and he would always draw.

DC: So when you guys went on vacations, did he take his work with him?

KIM: We didn’t go on very many vacations because he was always working. If we did, he’d take his work with him, but we just weren’t that kind of family. It’s like where I live now, in Concord, Massachusetts, for 26 years. My wife has a family house out in the Berkshires… beautiful mountains two hours west of us. So it’s like, why go on vacation? We could go to Vermont, but do we really have to drive three hours to be in a place that’s very similar to where we live?

It was a very similar kind of thing when we were growing up. There were tons of woods around, so we could always just go exploring in the woods. We could camp out on a neighbor’s lawn. It wasn’t like we lived in the city and had to be sent off to a summer camp. I guess maybe if we did, maybe we would have done something like that, but that wasn’t my parents’ lifestyle.

DC: Was there anything that your dad liked to do for fun?

KIM: Well, I know that in his early years, when we lived in New York

Where’s That Cop With His Gun When You Really Need Him? The Flash’s infamous Rogues’ Gallery, from The Flash #243 (Aug. 1973). Script by Cary Bates; inks by Frank McLaughlin. [TM & © DC Comics.]

forgot about the guy who got robbed next door. So we hear another knock on the door, and it’s his partner. And his partner comes in and he says, “What are you doing?” “I’m posing! I’m helping Irv Novick, here!” [laughter] So, if I remember correctly, his partner takes out his gun, too! That was kind of over the top.

I remember once, probably 1968, ’69, he had to draw this thing, probably Batman, with three henchmen who were in every panel. He made one look like Nixon, and one look like Agnew, and he made the other one look like a cross between [Lyndon] Johnson and [Charles] de Gaulle. He hated de Gaulle. Oh boy, did he hate de Gaulle! He sent it in, and Julie called him up and said, “We can’t publish this.

You’ve got to change every single panel.” And Irv was pissed.

DC: Did your dad ever draw things that were not related to comics, like birthday cards or posters for school?

KIM: Yeah. He made a birthday card for my mom every year.

We’ve probably got a good forty or fifty years of those. He never did Christmas cards or Hanukkah cards, but, he’d sometimes do work for the synagogue my parents belonged to, if they were doing fundraising and they needed an illustration for something. I remember once I needed a poster for a play I was directing, and I reached out to him and said, “Irv, could you draw this?” And he finally got around to doing it.

One of our neighbors was an art director for an ad agency that specialized in pharmaceuticals, and Irv did quite a few illustrations for him. I’m sure he did other drawings, too, that weren’t commercial art.

That’s Amazing!

Among the many places Novick’s artwork appeared was in the sciencefiction magazines, such as this one from a 1958 issue of Amazing Science Fiction Stories. Thanks to Art Lortie. [© the respective copyright holders.]

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

he still golfed, but once we moved up to Westchester, he didn’t do that as often. He loved walking. He would just go for two-hour walks, three-hour walks. That would clear his mind, and no one ever knew where he went. Then he’d come back and draw or take a nap.

He loved to garden. My mom and he built our house with their own hands. It took them, like, three years to do. He loved taking care of the house, and building onto it, like putting in a patio. He had a vegetable garden that he really loved, so he’d go out there and work in that. He loved planting it, and harvesting, and taking care of the plants. He liked nature. Before I came along, he used to volunteer for the Boy Scouts, because my brothers were both in the Boy Scouts.

Oh, and he enjoyed singing in synagogue choir. He got into that late in life. My dad was kind of an atheist. He and my mom were both Jewish, raised in Orthodox households. But my mom was very much a traditionalist, and it was important to her to raise us going to synagogue for all of the holidays. Everybody in New York City loves September because every other day is a Jewish holiday, and they just have alternate side of the street parking and you can park wherever you like. You get taken out of school and go to all these different holidays, and that was before they started closing schools for Rosh Hashanah.

My dad was this atheist and a cynic, and we grew up that way, too. It was easier than having to pour on the whole organized religion thing, since none of us really were enamored of it. It was more of a cultural thing, I think, for me and my other sibs, being raised in a Jewish household. But, at a certain point, my mom was going to synagogue for these holidays and my dad started getting involved with the choir and singing, and it turned out he had a very good, deep, baritone voice, so they’d give him solos. It’s not like he found religion or anything, but it was a social community for him to be in, and my mother was doing all kinds of leadership stuff, whether it was for the women’s group or organizing this or that or cooking, or whatever. So I guess he eventually got hoodwinked into it: “Hey, Irv, could you help us with this?”

So, yeah, he enjoyed singing.

DC: Was he singing in Hebrew?

KIM: Yeah! It was probably choir books where it had the words spelled out in phonetics rather than in Hebrew.

They had the Hebrew, too. And at a certain point you start recognizing words if you see them all the time.

DC: Did he ever encourage you or your siblings to draw?

KIM: I can’t draw a straight line. I have a brother who is very talented, who is a very good artist, very good at mechanical drawing.

My sister became a fashion designer. She was very good at drawing fashion and costumes. I don’t think she ever painted. She’s got a good hand, and she’s got a very good eye.

My other brother, I don’t think that he’s very good at drawing, either. So two up, two down. But we all ended up doing creative things.

My brother Wayne, in Michigan, ended up doing lighting design for theatre. He lived out in Kalamazoo, and he owned some lights, so the theatre let him store them there, and he ended up doing all this lighting design.

I was doing theatre. I was acting, got into stagemanaging, directing. Ended up doing corporate stuff, trade shows, business meetings, recognition events, that kind of thing.

All This And Go-Go Checks, Too! This original cover art for Capt. Storm #17 (Jan.-Feb. 1967) should remind folks that, along with Melville’s Moby-Dick (the wooden-leg bit), the series was partly inspired by the oft-told tale of President John F. Kennedy’s experiences as a PT boat captain during World War II, which had already been made into a popular movie. Pencils by Novick; inker uncertain. There’s no balloon pointer on the original art, probably because the editor wasn’t certain which of the guys on the PT boat was Capt. Storm! Guess he never did figure that out, since, on the published comic, the word balloon was totally eliminated!

[TM & © DC Comics.]

DC: It sounds like a very talented family. Did your dad keep fairly normal working hours?

KIM: Because he worked at home, he had a very flexible schedule, so he could take care of the kids if need be.

By the time we moved up to Westchester, if my mother was doing something, he could help out. He could do the laundry; he could clean the house; he could pick a kid up from school. He worked every day. He’d start in the mornings, after breakfast, and he’d take a lunch break,

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

and sometimes he was waiting on the muse to come, or he was waiting on a script to be rewritten. He was waiting for everything to come together.

And, yeah, there were times where he would work really late into the night. Once or twice he would do an all-nighter, but that was very unusual for him. If it was ten o’clock, he was done. If he worked until 11:00 o’clock, that was late. But he’d go back to work after dinner.

There were days when he would be out in the garden, he’d be doing this, he’d be doing that, but he was always drawing, too. He was disciplined, but he didn’t have a strict schedule. He knew what he had to do and when it had to get done. But, yeah, the deadline word was a word we learned very quickly as kids: “I’ve got a deadline I’ve got to hit.”

DC: How often did he go in to the city to pick up a script or to drop off his work?

KIM: He didn’t like going in because it took up a lot of time, and he’d say, “Those guys like to talk a lot.” Irv liked to talk a lot, too.

Julie [Schwartz] or Bob Kanigher would be there, or one of the other artists. Paul Levitz came on the scene much later. The guys who liked talking would all be sitting around talking. And it would take up a lot of his time, because you would have to drive in or take the train in. It would take the whole day, basically. Your whole day was shot.

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Quite often they would deliver things to him. Saturday mornings at 8:00 o’clock, the doorbell would ring and it was the post office, and they’d drop off scripts or stories that had to be reworked, something along those lines.

When we lived in the city, it was easier for him to get in. He could just get right on the subway, three blocks from our house, and he could be downtown probably in half an hour or 40 minutes. But once we moved to Westchester, it was different. So I used to go in, or my brothers or my sister would drop stuff off. I remember one time bringing stuff in and one of the artists said, “Your dad draws all of these kids looking just like you and your brother.”

DC: Did he get his artwork back?

KIM: Yeah, he got quite a lot of it back, and we do have some of it.

We simply didn’t know what to do with it, so we’ve catalogued some of it. And there’s stuff in there that hasn’t been published. There was a Superman he did for a German Superman, and we came across this Wonder Woman where she’s running down the aisle with another woman, like, from the altar, and you wonder, did they just get married or something? It was really odd. I had someone come in and catalogue all of this stuff, and once in a while she’d come across something and say, “You’ve got to come over and take a look at this thing.” There was some really weird stuff going on in there. Some really neat stuff, too.

I have no idea what those things are worth. What’s a page worth? Five hundred bucks, a thousand bucks? If they’re covers, I know those are worth more. But these things never really meant that much to us. I’ve worked in the theatre, I started to do The Actors Studio, and there were all these big actors around. They treated me like a person, I treated them like a person. Other people would say, “Ahhh! Is that Julie Newmar? Oh my gosh!” It didn’t faze me. You ate with these people, you worked with them, you changed clothes with them. They were just people. And that’s kind of the way it was growing up with Irv. He was just a person. He was not interested in celebrity in any way.

At one point Kubert was starting a comicbook school and he wanted Irv to come work with him. I don’t think Irv wanted to do it.

What Irv really wanted to do was paint or read. He loved reading. The comicbook stuff was something he did to make a living. And it’s nice if you can make a living doing something that’s aligned with what you do and you’re good at. He could be sociable and work with all of the personalities there, so he held his own. I think, if he had his druthers, that’s not what he would have been doing, but he enjoyed doing it.

You know, when you’re drawing something, it just comes off the page. Irv, if he wanted to draw a horse, he could draw a horse.

He didn’t have to be looking at one. But when you’re drawing from a script, you’re getting direction, and you’re taking something off of a page, and you have to translate that, panel by panel, kind of like storyboarding for a film. I guess where I’m going is, the grass is always greener. If you’ve got to draw, it might seem simpler to be a writer: “Oh, all you have to do is write?” And the writer is there, pulling out his teeth, taking pages out of the typewriter, throwing them on the floor. You’re both struggling. But Kanigher and Irv turned out a lot of work together. They liked each other. They loved each other. They were good friends.

Wotta Woman!

Novick’s cover for Wonder Woman #176 (May-June 1968). He inked this one, too! [TM & © DC Comics.]

DC: One of the things I really admired about your dad’s artwork was he had this way of drawing these larger-than-life characters so that they looked believable. It would pull you into the story, feeling like, “Okay, I really believe that’s Batgirl standing there on the sidewalk punching some bad guy.”

KIM: Yeah. That’s a naturalistic style, which came from his painting training.

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

last work I did for DC Comics was a Superman issue. Even after I retired, I still kept getting assignments for DC. Plus, I was getting a pension, so that was nice.

JC: Do you keep up with the comicbook market today [in the 1990s]?

NOVICK: No, but I do keep in touch with Bob Kanigher. Outside of comics, he’s written books, poetry, and plays. He is very talented. A Renaissance man! Very prolific. Bob is recovering from a quadruple bypass and is trying to get back to his old self. He lives nearby so we keep in close contact.

JC: I did not know he was ill. Please give him my regards.

NOVICK: Thank you, I will. Anyway, though I enjoyed the work, I would never really look at the comics themselves. Back in the 1940s, every month MLJ would send me stacks of comics and I would just set them aside or store them in the attic. When we moved to Westchester in 1960, I threw them all out: Steel Sterling, Zip Comics, Pep Comics, all that stuff.

JC: Ouch, that hurts! [laughter]

Say His Name Backward? We Can’t Even Say It Forward!

From one of Novick’s very last comics stories: the splash page from Superman #407 (May 1985). Script by Gerry & Carla Conway; art by Irv Novick & Dave Hunt. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Chapter Six

The 1980s & 1990s The 1980s saw comics take a darker turn. From SpiderMan’s black symbiote suit that would become Venom to the deaths of Supergirl and Barry Allen’s Flash in Crisis on Infinite Earths, an increasing number of comics were being written for an older audience. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller are other examples of material aimed at a maturing readership. The trend continued into the 1990s with storylines like the “Death of Superman.”

Just as the comics industry was speeding up to record sales, Novick was beginning to slow down. He continued to produce some amazing art, but his tremendous work ethic couldn’t overcome the problem of his failing eyesight. Still, he wasn’t done yet. Let’s return to our 1998 interview with Irv Novick: JOHN COATES: How long did you work at DC? IRV NOVICK: Until 1986. Throughout this time, I had also continued to work in advertising. But in 1986 I officially retired from it all. The

Pipe Irv Novick Aboard!

Novick appears in a couple of panels on this page from Sea Devils #14 (Nov.-Dec. 1963). Script by Ed Herron. [TM & © DC Comics.]

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

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NOVICK: You’re telling me? I didn’t know what they were worth, they were just in the way. I was just thinking of the house I was building. It took five years between 1955 and 1960.

JC: Impressive! I could not imagine building my own home.

NOVICK: I always enjoyed doing carpentry, plumbing, electrical wiring and all kinds of construction work. I was fortunate to have these as hobbies, considering I was building my house! My favorite hobby now is walking. I’m a pretty fast walker and that keeps me thinking young. Doesn’t keep me young, though!

There comes a time for everyone to take a well-deserved rest.

But being retired doesn’t mean resting on your laurels, at least not if you’re Irv Novick.

Chapter Seven

Retirement & Conventions JC: Growing up, how did your children feel about your drawing comics?

NOVICK: Oddly enough, they never read comics. The comics were there, all over the house, so they could’ve read them but they didn’t.

Some of their friends did, though. They’d come over and were enamored with me drawing comics. I’d give them some comics. I guess my drawing was somewhat influential on my children, because one’s an engineer and the other was a fashion design.

JC: You recently attended your first comicbook convention, the 1995 San Diego Con. Give us your impression of the convention. I mean, you walk into this dealers’ room… there are all these people there to see you and your books are up on the shelves commanding all sorts of prices. What was your take on all this from the outside looking in?

NOVICK: I was taken aback by the whole experience. I was stopped every ten feet because I wore a name tag. Just to walk down to the DC Comics booth, which was only across the convention room, seemed to take hours. I was surprised at the amount of people and industry professionals who told me they were inspired by my work. Inspired, no less! [laughter] I found it flattering but a bit awkward. There are fans of everything. These people knew more about my work than I did! I was never a fan of anything. It was a new experience for me.

JC: Were you embarrassed? Did you enjoy it?

NOVICK: Well, John, I’ve never been embarrassed in my life. What’s it like? [laughter] Really, since they paid my way for me and my wife, and set us up in the Marriott for five days, yes, I think you could say it was a good experience! Seriously, I had the opportunity to become reacquainted with guys I had not seen in years. Julie Schwartz was there. He came walking up to me in the hotel lobby and said he had just finished talking to my daughter. My daughter is a consultant for QVC-TV and was there working. Anyway, I didn’t recognize him.

Julie used to be quite heavy but is now very skinny. It was very good talking to Julie again. Gil Kane was there, as well. You know he has had cancer, but is in remission. I think he’s doing quite well. I also met Will Eisner. I had never met him prior to the convention but of course knew his work. That was nice. The whole experience brought back a lot of good memories.

JC: And how about all your old comicbooks commanding those high prices?

NOVICK: Well, whatever they can get for them, it’s good. I don’t

Novick the Con Man Irv Novick holding a copy of Pep Comics #47 at a comics convention.

Courtesy of Jean Bails.

really have an opinion. The books I do have I’ve willed to my children, along with all of my original art that I’ve kept over the years.

JC: Would you attend another convention?

NOVICK: No, I think once is enough. Everyone was very nice but it’s just not me. I’m not good at that sort of thing.

JC: Any future plans to draw comics again?

NOVICK: Not really. I like being retired. But I’ll always continue to paint and draw. It’s in my blood.

Chapter Eight

Impressions & Reflections Following are impressions and reflections from numerous editors, writers, and fellow artists about Irv Novick, culled from a variety of sources.

EDDY ZENO: In the conclusion to his book on classic Superman artist Al Plastino, author Eddy Zeno pointed out that artist’s pantheon of

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

peers: “Curt Swan, Kurt Schaffenberger, Jim Mooney, Murphy Anderson, Ross Andru, Nick Cardy, Bob Oksner, Gil Kane, Irv Novick—even Jack Kirby— all were from Al Plastino’s generation and each contributed to the Superman legend.”

—Source: Al Plastino: Last Superman Standing, Eddy Zeno, (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2016), p. 88

Eddy Zeno Photo courtesy of EZ.

MIKE ESPOSITO, major Golden/Silver Age comicbook inker: Regarding long-time DC Editor Robert Kanigher: “He was tough on the workers, but not on everybody; he was a great man to his friends. He was very close with Irv Novick.”

Mike Esposito A Princess Of An Amazon (Right:) Novick’s cover for Wonder Woman #174 (Jan.-Feb. 1968), done from a layout by art director Carmine Infantino. [TM & © DC Comics.]

On Novick being the successor on Wonder Woman after Ross Andru left the series, Esposito observed: “When Ross left DC for Marvel, Irving Novick drew a couple of issues, and I was amazed at how attractive his Wonder Woman faces were compared to Ross’.

He approached it differently. It wasn’t that Ross couldn’t do it; he saw the attractiveness in other ways: in gestures and movements, in bending the arms and fingers gracefully. Guys like Novick and Romita stamp an attractive look on a character that is undeniably pretty. It doesn’t look labored; it doesn’t look like they struggled to do it. You don’t even have to be an artist to see it; you just look at it, and it looks right.”

—Source: Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #54, Nov. 2005. Mike Esposito, interviewed by Jim Amash, pp. 4 & 5 JOE GIELLA, celebrated Golden and Silver Age artist: “Bob Brown used to comment that he liked what I did on various jobs. His drawing was similar to Irv Novick. If you had

problems inking Bob’s pencils, something was wrong with you, because it was all there. It was just great.”

Giella also comments: “I didn’t see much of him [Novick].

When I did see him, he was very energetic. He came from the advertising business, and his work was just dynamic. In fact, I have a couple of his originals that I worked on hanging in my office.

That’s how highly I think of his work.”

Of inking Novick, Joe said: “He [Julie Schwartz] knew which pencilers needed a slight fix here and there, and which ones didn’t.

With Irv Novick, Julie just handed me the pages because he knew how I’d ink them. I never had to make changes on his [Novick] stuff.”

—Source: Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #38, p. 37 & #52, Sept 2005.

Interviewed by Jim Amash, pp. 21-22 MIKE GRELL, important comics artist and writer: Years ago, Mike Grell canvassed comic conventions to show his early samples to publishers. He eventually hit pay dirt:

The Three Amigos (Left to right:) DC 1960’s Flash team Joe Giella, Julius Schwartz, and Carmine Infantino clowning around at the 2000 con in White Plains, NY. Thanks to Joe Petrilak.

“I attended the New York Comic Con [1973], but part of my purpose was to sell my stuff to newspaper strip editors. I couldn’t even get an appointment…. As soon as they found out that I had an action/adventure strip, they just hung up the phone or slammed the door in my face, so that was it. But at the Comic Con, I met two guys from DC Comics who told me in no uncertain terms to get

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

my carcass up to Julie Schwartz’s office and show him my stuff. One of the guys was Allan Asherman and the other was Irv Novick. Irv would always say, ‘Tell them Irv sent you.’ I had no idea Irv was a Batman artist.”

Weeks later, Grell would be called up to interview at DC Comics with editor Julie Schwartz and Joe Orlando, and the rest is history.

Mike Grell at a comics convention in recent years.

—Source: Mike Grell: Life Is Drawing without an Eraser, by Dewey Cassell with Jeff Messer, (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2018)

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CARY BATES, veteran comicbook writer: Bates worked with Novick on The Flash for eight years. He describes the life of freelancers who meet only when they happen to be in the office at the same time: “I didn’t really know Irv all that well; we’d only see each other now and then in Julie (Schwartz)’s office. He was a very nice guy, very mellow. I remember his sardonic smile and wry sense of humor. As for getting to know him, realize that Irv (and Curt Swan, Kurt Schaffenberger, Murphy Anderson, Al Plastino, Don Heck, Carmine, Gene Colan, etc.) was one of the many ‘seasoned pros’ who drew most of my DC stuff. They were all a good 30+ years older (some even had kids older than me!), so it wasn’t like we had a whole lot in common. As for Irv’s work, he was a consummate pro.”

—Source: The Flash Companion, by Keith Dallas (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2008)

JOE KUBERT, iconic comicbook artist, writer, and editor, was interviewed via postcard in 1964 for the original fannish version of Alter Ego:

Cary has written: “When it came to The Flash, [Novick and I] were always on the same page (pun intended) and he and I (and Julie) enjoyed a harmonious working relationship. Irv was a classy guy and even though I was just a kid new to the business, he went out of his way to make me feel welcome at DC.”

RONN FOSS: Did you originate the panel-within-a-panel method, now used in many DC war comics?

—Source: e-mail response in 2019 to this author’s inquires regrading Irv.

JOE KUBERT: I may add slight variations, but fellows like Will Eisner, Simon & Kirby, Lou Fine, Irv Novick, Mort Meskin, to name a few of the real greats, proceeded me and others along the lines of ‘novel’ breakdowns.”

— Source: Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #8, Spring 2001, “Joe Kubert Interviewed by Ronn Foss,” p. 11.

Originally conducted in 1964 for Alter Ego [Vol. 1] #6

Ronn Foss The second editor/publisher of Alter Ego, sometime in the 1960s. Thanks to John Coates & Aaron Caplan. (Artist/ interviewee Joe Kubert was depicted on p. 23 of this issue.)

BILL SCHELLY, author of Man of Rock: A Biography of Joe Kubert, describing the artistic environment when Kubert joined DC and specifically, under editor Robert Kanigher:

“One of the key responsibilities of an editor at DC was the selection of the writers and artists to be given assignments.

Kanigher’s most prominent artists in 1955, when Kubert came aboard, were Irv Novick and Jerry Grandenetti. Novick was as much a comicbook veteran as anybody, having begun his career in the Chesler shop in the late 1930s; in fact it was he [Novick], Kubert remembered, who originally taught him how to draw a German military helmet.”

Bill Schelly The late great comicbook biographer.

Courtesy of Jeff Gelb.

Schelly contrasts the strengths of Novick and Grandenetti: “Novick used negative space better than Grandenetti, and he also knew how to get the most impact out of a cover’s action; he was a solid professional who fit the genre well.”

—Source: The Art of Joe Kubert, by Bill Schelly, p. 135

“Always On The Same Page”—In This Case, It’s A Splash!

Splash page of The Flash #259 (March 1978), scripted by Cary Bates, with art by Irv Novick & Joe Giella. Cary Bates is pictured on p. 51. [TM & © DC Comics.]

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

Robert Kanigher was seen as a young comics writer back on p. 10; but if anyone besides Irv Novick himself deserves double exposure in this issue, it’s the guy who dictated an entire off-the-cuff “Steel Sterling” script to Novick over the phone in late 1941… and who later was the editor and often the writer of much of the artist’s war output for DC. Seen here are another page from Zip Comics #25 (April 1942), whose splash was also depicted on p. 10… and Novick’s cover for Our Army at War #17 (April 1953). [TM & © respectively Archie Comic Publications, Inc. & DC Comics.]

ROBERT KANIGHER, fabled comicbook writer and editor: “I’ve always preferred pencilers who did their own inking.

Irv Novick’s pencils are so astonishingly good, that I’ve always thought that they could be printed without inking.” [p. 53] Kanigher said that any success he had was due to the talent of the artists; he never had to “ride” these specific artists: “Novick, Andru, Heath, Grandenetti, Kubert, Drucker, and Toth on loan, were winged Pegasus who needed no rider for them to leap over any obstacle in a steeplechase to the sun.” [p. 56] Speaking of his early days as a writer for MLJ and working with Novick: “I also wrote for MLJ. Harry Shorten was the editor.

Bill Woolfolk , who writes novels now [1983], was one of the writers. I walked into panicsville. Harry said, ‘Irv Novick is on the other end of the phone. Can you give him Steel Sterling?’ I made up a Steel Sterling and just gave him [Novick] the story over the phone. I verbalized a finished script for him. I know Irv. He’s a very close friend of mine. Now, I can see him at the drawing board, calmly listening to me, drawing the story, just like that. Magic, real magic.” [p. 72]

Kanigher also praised Novick for his 1950s-plus DC work: “Irv was, and is, incredibly versatile. I was in his studio once, when he was drawing one of my Johnny Cloud scripts. The scene was of an aerial dogfight. Irv held the model of a P-51 [airplane] in one hand, twisting it and turning it like a fighter pilot describing a fight with his swooping hands. With his free hand Irv drew the scene while conversing with me without dropping a syllable. Talk about Merlins. Irv’s a magician.” [p. 76] Regarding Lichtenstein’s swiping of Irv’s work: “Irv and I later saw a famous pop artists’ painting reproduced in The New York Times. It was a duplicate of a Johnny Cloud panel, a dogfighting plane, with sound effects. The artist got thousands of dollars for that oil. He should have split it with Irv. DC got the ‘copyright’ credit.” [p. 76] Kanigher on Novick yet again: “A very special case. A rare talent. His versatility is incredible. Like a Brando or De Niro who can’t give a bad performance. Irv is incapable of drawing a bad line. Whether it was romance, Cloud, or Storm. I recall a short story. A replacement was told to follow a sergeant. Through all the action, all the replacement saw was the back of that sergeant. But Irv’s drawing of all that back, was more eloquent than other artists’ faces. After all these years I still recall the sheer character of the back of the shirt the sergeant wore. Not bulging with hot air, bur flesh and blood. One of many. Irv illustrated a story of mine called ‘Dig Your Foxholes Deep.’ A tour de force.”

Kanigher continued to explain the outline of that story, which was set in the WWII Pacific Theatre, where the Japanese forces were going to launch a kamikaze attack at night—and why he called Irv’s work on this story a tour de force: “After the first page

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

Run Silent, Run “Deep” The first page of the Robert Kanigher/Irv Novick story “Dig Your Foxhole Deep!” from DC’s Our Fighting Forces #1 (Aug. 1952) was reprinted back on p.14 of this A/E. Seen here are pp. 2-4 & 8 of that story.

It eschewed all captions and dialogue between p. 2 and the final panel—though it did allow for loudspeakers and sound effects—and apparently caused a bit of an uproar in the staid DC offices.

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

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A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

there were no captions, no dialogue, it was all conveyed by art. The action, the suspense, the life, the death, until the attack had been beaten off, and it was dawn. I told it from the viewpoint of two marines in a foxhole. In the last panel, the sergeant stands over the foxhole, and not realizing that one or both of the men had been killed, asked: ‘Cat got your tongue?’ Whit Ellsworth [long-time DC editor] showed the artwork to all the other editors. They said they could see those silent panels for a page, but not the whole story, failing to realize that the silence was the story. I stood firm. The story went through. The readers loved it.” [p. 77] —Source: The Comics Journal #85, 1983 – “Robert Kanigher interview by Richard Morrissey, Robin Snyder & Al Turniansky” BOB ROZAKIS, longtime DC writer and production manager: “When I first started working at DC as Julie Schwartz’s assistant in 1973, Irv was the regular artist on The Flash and Batman.

At the time, he was working a regular job at an ad agency over on Madison Avenue so he would come to DC on his lunch hour.

He would drop off a finished story, collect his check, and pick up the next job from Julie. Julie usually let me sit in while he went over the pages with Irv and, occasionally my fanboy enthusiasm would result in a gushy compliment. Irv would just smile slightly; I don’t think he ever understood what we fans-turned-pros felt about meeting and working with men who’d been in the Bob Rozakis business from its earliest at the 2011 Big Apple days…. comics convention in NYC—and the splash of

“Every now and “The Joker’s Daughter” then, Irv would have a from Batman Family job finished but wouldn’t #6 (July-Aug. 1976). be able to deliver it on Thanks to Bob Bailey.

[TM & © DC Comics.] his lunch hour. On those occasions, I was pressed into service as a messenger.

Julie would tell me to head out, he’d call Irv to say I was on the way, and I would walk the few blocks from DC to the building where Irv worked. He would always meet me in the lobby or in front of the building. He’d hand me the envelope of pages and if it was the end of a job, I’d have a check for him. One morning, I was standing outside waiting for Irv and a girl I had dated briefly in college walked by on her way to work in that same building. She had heard through the grapevine that I was working for DC and we spoke for a minute. Just then, Irv came out and handed me the envelope of art. The girl made a face, said a quick goodbye, and went inside. Irv looked at me, puzzled, and I said, ‘Old girlfriend.’

“I later found out that the girl told some mutual friends that I’d probably made up the story about being an assistant editor at DC: ‘I saw him on the street. He’s a messenger boy!’ I told Irv the story the next time he was up at DC. He laughed and said, ‘A messenger, eh? I hope you don’t expect me to tip you!’

“In 1976, I finally had Irv illustrate some of my stories, beginning with the debut of The Joker’s Daughter in Batman Family #6. (As a result, he shares creator credit on the character.) I must confess that the couple of times that I picked up art for a story I’d written, I would pull it out of the envelope and look at it as I walked back to the DC offices….

“I only recall one time that I heard Irv complain about a script. He was picking up a new script from Julie and was looking through it with an annoyed expression on his face. Julie asked him what the problem was. “This guy drives me nuts!” replied Irv. “His scene descriptions are so long that by the time I get to the end of one, I forget what it said at the beginning!” (As Julie’s assistant, I got to read all the scripts and knew what Irv said was true.)

“Irv,” said Julie, “you were drawing comics before this guy was born. You know what to put in and what to leave out.”

—Source: Personal correspondence/response to this author’s inquiries – 2020

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

57

a brand-new Jack Kirby combination, and all of their books started to pick up and sell well.” [pp. 56-57] “Carmine [Infantino] was Julie’s favorite artist, and [Irv] Novick and [Joe] Kubert were Kanigher’s favorite artists…” [p.

81] —Source: The Comics Journal #186, April 1995, “Gil Kane interviewed by Gary Groth” In another place, discussing how his sense of composition had evolved over the years, Kane quoted early advice from Novick that helped that development: “When I was a kid about sixteen [1942-43], Irv Novick said all you have to do in order to create a design is to have people looking into a panel and from both sides of the picture and not to have anything go out of the frame.” —Source: Gil Kane—The Art of the Comics, by Daniel Herman. Hermes Press, 2001, p. 184 CARMINE INFANTINO, landmark artist, later editorial director & publisher of DC Comics: Carmine is explaining his and other editors’ frustration with younger artists missing deadlines but that they had their “go-to” creators just in case: “There were a few guys who were notorious for blowing deadlines. Julie didn’t like having his schedules disrupted and would get upset sometimes. We considered those guys to be unprofessional. Julie had Irv Novick and Nick Cardy working for him, so there were other people he could use if he wanted to.”

—Source: Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #38, July 2004. Interview by Jim Amash

Gil Kane was himself one of the finest action artists in the history of comics, so you have to hear him out when he talks of how fellow artist Pierce Rice was brought in by MLJ’s editors to do more exciting layouts for Novick to finish and ink, so the mags would wind up with work to rival what Simon & Kirby and their successors had been doing on Captain America Comics over at Timely. Reproduced from the original art of a classic Novick-drawn battle with Captain Swastika from Shield-Wizard Comics #7 (Summer 1942). Could this be one of the stories reportedly laid out by Rice? [TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.]

GIL KANE, Hall of Fame comicbook artist and writer: Kane describes the early days at the MLJ office circa 1941, and the freelancers he remembered, beginning by describing the company’s office: “Fifteen-by-15 or 20-by-20 feet. So everybody was packed in. People used to come in and drop off their stuff.

Bill Woolfolk was writing there at the time, a guy named Jerry something who used to write for radio, and Bob Montana [co-creator of Archie], Irv Novick, Joe Edwards, Paul Reinman.” [p. 49] “They [the MLJ editors] had wanted Novick to spice up the stuff [“The Shield”] to look more like Jack Kirby, but he couldn’t do it. So they brought in a guy named Pierce Rice, who was the chief artist at Harvey Comics. [Rice] started to do breakdowns for Novick. Novick’s inks were so great, that they looked like

How Much Is He Worth In Today’s Money?

In 1977 Irv Novick drew the cover and accompanying mini-comicbook for Peter Pan’s record Six Million Dollar Man, adapted from the TV series starring Lee Majors. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

58

A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

The Human Targets Irv Novick happily signing some mags at one of the handful of comics conventions he attended in the last decade of his life. Fans were happy to zero in on him, whether because of The Shield, Batman, The Flash, or for his noted work on DC’s war comics. Seen at right is Novick’s full-art cover for Batman #207 (Dec. 1968). [TM & © DC Comics.]

Before “Archie” (Above:) Novick drew “The Scarlet Avenger” in very early issues of MLJ’s Zip Comics; this splash panel is from one of those. Scripter unknown.

(Left:) Irv’s Shield/Hangman cover for Pep Comics #22 (Dec. 1941) was re-purposed a few years later by a British/Canadian combine as the cover of its Three Ring Comics #3 (Sept. 1946), with The Shield’s costume redrawn so that it now sports the British Union Jack instead of the Stars and Stripes.

Please note that while the “3p” price is hand-scribbled near the logo, the original “6d” price on the heel of the giant boot is part of the original art—replacing the Nazi swastika and the Japanese rising sun. Incidentally, this comic’s black-&-white interior was composed entirely of funny-animal reprints. [Original version of cover TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc. ]

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

59

SY BARRY, noted artist of comicbooks and The Phantom newspaper strip: “Irv Novick, who was one of my favorite artists, had a style and technique I loved looking at.

There were times I wished I could ink a story of his, because I knew I could really do something with it. There were certain artists like that.”

—Source: Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #37, June 2004, pp. 7-8.

Interviewed by Jim Amash

Sy Barry was one of many professional comics artists who admired the work of Irv Novick.

For instance, A/E reader/contributor Sharon Karibian writes: “Regarding the art of G.I. Combat #120’s lead story ‘Pull a Tiger’s Tale’: I found confirmation that it was by Novick a few issues later in #125’s letter column, [when] a letter writer praises the story’s art and recognizes it’s not the work of the regular G.I. Combat artists Russ Heath or Joe Kubert. He guesses that the artist is Irv Novick. Editor Robert Kanigher confirms that and states that Novick is ‘an artist’s artist.’ Everyone in the field knows his work and the merit in it. Novick has been around a long time. And it’s noteworthy that his quality has never dipped. Instead, he seems to be getting better and better.

He also has the ability to take over a feature which a first-class artist has been doing and giving it a quality all its own.” G.I. Combat #120 was coverdated Oct.-Nov. 1966. [TM & © DC Comics.]

IRV NOVICK Checklist/Index What follows is a summary of the artwork created by Irv Novick, including titles, characters, and genres. Note that many of the stories from popular series such as “Batman” have been reprinted, both in the U.S. and overseas, but not all reprints are included here. With thanks to the late Jerry Bails’ website Who’s Who of American Comic Books at http://www.bailsprojects.com/whoswho.aspx. Features that appeared in more than one comics title are generally not italicized below. Differentiations between full artwork and merely penciling by Novick are not indicated in this checklist. Key: (S) = Sunday comic strip; (d) = daily comic strip, Monday to Saturday Name and Vital Stats: Irving H. Novick (1916-2004) – artist, writer Education: National Academy of Design Member: National Cartoonists Society Print Media (non-comics): Advertising: Johnstone and Cushing; and Al Stenzel Studios 1951-65; Magazines: Boy’s Life 1955-68; science-fiction late-50s-60s: Amazing Stories, Astounding, Fantastic; Other: Army training manuals Commercial Art & Design: International Correspondence Schools 1961-62 Additional biography: Comic Book Marketplace #77, April 2000; Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #45 Feb., 2005; Unknown Soldier #240 [DC Profiles] 1980 Syndication: Cynthia (d)(S)(p)(i) 1946-52 for McClure Syndicate; Vengador Escarlato a.k.a. Scarlet Avenger (p)(i) (frequency uncertain) 1946-50 Comics in other media: In Boy’s Life: Stories from the Bible 1956-1965; cartoon features 1960s; Heroes of the Faith 1960s; Lives of Great Men 1960s; Our Heritage 1962-64; The Sioux 1964-65

Major Publishers/Reprints: Batman from the 30s to the 70s - 1971 graphic album reprint – Crown Publishing Illustrations: Today’s Romance 1952 – Better Publications Promotional comics: G.I. Joe Club with Andy and George 1960s for G.I. Joe action dolls Comics Studio (Shop): Harry “A” Chesler Studio 1939 COMICBOOKS (U.S. Mainstream Publishers): Archie Comic Publications [a.k.a. MLJ]: Avenger c1941; Betty and Veronica c1947; The Black Hood 1943-46; Black Jack 1941-42; Bob Phantom 1940; Boy Buddies 1940s; Captain Commando c1941; Fran Franzier c1941; The Hangman c1941; Inferno c1941; Kalthar c1941; Penny Parker 1941; romance 1949-50; Scarlet Avenger 1940; Shanghai Sheridan c1941; The Shield 1940-46; Steel Sterling 1941-43; The Web c1941; The Wizard c1941 DC Comics: All-American Men of War 1952-66; The Atom 1982; Batgirl and Robin 1976-77; Batman 1966-83, 1989 with graphic album reprint ‘87; Batman and Teen Titans 1969; Batman and Wildcat 1970; Captain Hunter 1966; Capt. Storm 1964-67; covers 1952-79; 80-Page Giant Magazine 1965; Elongated Man 1967; Fighting

60

A Star-Studded Salute To A Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Great

Holyoke Publications: The Green Hornet 1941 Lev Gleason Publications: crime 1944 St. John Publishing: Joe Barton 1954-55 Ziff-Davis Comics: Famous Stars 1951; G.I. Joe 1950-54; Hans Christian Anderson 1953; Joe Barton 1952; romance 1952

Two Kinds Of “Flyboys” The Novick/Giordano cover of DC Comics Presents #69 (March 1984) fronted for a team-up story written by Mark Evanier and penciled by Novick.

[TM & © DC Comics.]

Devil Dogs 1965-66; The Flash [Golden Age version] 1990; The Flash [1956 version] 1970-79, Kid Flash 1978; G.I. Combat 1957-62, 1965-67; G.I. Joe 1964-65; Girls’ Love Stories 1954; Girls’ Romances 1958; The Greatest Flash Stories Ever Told 1991 graphic album reprint; Green Arrow 1983; Green Lantern Corps 1982; Gunner and Sarge 1962; The Haunted Tank 1961-68; The Haunted Tank and Johnny Cloud 1966; Hunter’s Hellcats (illustration) 1974; Johnny Cloud 1960-67; The Joker 1975-76; Lois Lane 1968-70; Mademoiselle Marie 1960; Mr. and Mrs. Superman 1981-82; Our Army at War 1952-59, 1961-65; Our Fighting Forces 1954-58/1960-66; public service page 1957; Robin 1970-73, 1976-77, 1981; Robin Hood 1956-57; Sargon the Sorcerer 1942; Sea Devils 1963-64; Secret Origins: Rocket Red 1988-89; Secret Origins: Teen Titans 1989; Sgt. Rock 1959/61; Silent Knight 1955-59, 1974; Star Spangled War Stories 1953-58, 1961-64; Strange Sports Stories 1973-74; Superman 1980-82,. 1984-85; Tales of Gotham City 1980; Teen Titans 1967-77; Tomahawk 1967-68; Viking Prince 1955, 1958; Who’s Who in the DC Universe 1985-87 entries; Wonder Woman 1967-68, 1974, 1984

Novicks For The Ages!

(Above & below:) Irv Novick was tapped to illustrate The Flash one month in each of DC’s calendars for 1977 and 1978—the former battling Gorilla Grodd doing a King Kong bit, the latter against Captain Cold and Heat Wave (though this time he has Kid Flash helping him). [TM & © DC Comics.]

Irv Novick: A Heroes’ Artist

61

Afterword

S

by Paul Levitz

o, looking back on it, Irv Novick had one of the most solid careers in comics… very much like the scenes he carved into Strathmore paper with a dark and definitive pencil line. There wasn’t anything sketchy or tentative about Irv’s artwork; he took you into a place, and made it concrete and real, filled with genuine people.

The first act, his time at MLJ, he helped define the very idea of super-hero comics coming in at their dawn. Besides his visual creation of the first of the “patriotic” characters, he brought his distinctive approach to the genre while it was establishing its rules. Not prone to the exaggerations and energy of Jack Kirby, or the cinematic dramedy of Will Eisner, Irv’s heroes lived and fought on the ground we walk on. His camera was steady, and he relied on the acting and body language he could give his characters to make the story move energetically.

His second act was even more grounded.

Enlisting as one of the original artists of DC’s war comics line less than two years after Harvey Kurtzman fired the first shot in that genre over at EC, he helped set the style that would let the line prosper for decades: a little less cartoony than EC’s look, again less influenced by film, but with an illustrative look that helped you feel the rough edge of the unshaved faces and the discomfort of the mud underfoot. Irv knew the feel of a battlefield, and brought it home for his readers.

When that enlistment was up, Irv seamlessly switched to the super-hero side of DC for the second half of his three decades there. Month after month, page after page, he delivered crisp, clear storytelling on adventures of all of the major DC characters: Batman, The Flash, Superman, Wonder Woman… and any other feature tossed at him. The editors had complete confidence in his competence to handle any task. I know firsthand, having served as his editor on Batman for several years, and occasionally on the others.

Paul Levitz (seen below) served as DC writer, editor, publisher, and even president during his long career (which is still far from over), although one highlight had to be the giant-size 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking (Taschen Publishing, 2010).

Still, we suspect Paul was also having fun when he edited Batman #313 (July 1979), if we can judge by the above splash page by Irv Novick & Frank McLaughlin, as scripted by Len Wein.

[TM & © DC Comics.]

His comicbook work was occasionally slowed or interrupted briefly by his commercial art assignments, or his brief runs on newspaper strips, or by the need to squeeze one of his

Boy’s Life comics off his drawing board. While these had wider exposure and better pay than his mainstream comics, the piece of Irv’s art that the world knows best neither had his name attached, nor a nickel of compensation to him: his Army acquaintance Roy Lichtenstein’s use of Irv’s artwork as the basis for “Whaam!”

In all the thousands of pages Irv turned in to his publishers, it’s hard to find ones where he took an easy way out, or showed evidence of a bad day (surely he had some, we all do, right?). Script after script, whether done by his most frequent collaborator Bob Kanigher or by a neophyte writer, would come back immaculately laid out in pencils so crisp to be an inker’s delight. He wasn’t always cheery, and sometimes the outside temptations meant that he’d be turning in jobs a few pages at a time, barely making the last possible deadline, but the reader never knew it. To his readers, Irv Novick’s byline (or his stylistic imprint back before there were credits) was a sure guarantee of an exciting ride.

62

John Coates

Dewey Cassell

— a few years back.

— somewhat more recently.

Yoe, Tim Pilcher, Frank Plowright, Christopher Starkey, Bryan Stroud, Tom Brevoort, Jim Kingman, Brian Cronin, Daniel Herman, Dan Best, Bill Schelly, Ronn Foss, Eddy Zeno, David Siegel, Jeff Wesser, Joe Petrilak, Richard J. Arndt, George Fears, Brian Stewart, Bob Bailey, Mark Muller, Scott Holy, Pierangelo Serafin, Nick Katradis, Jeffrey Streeter, Michael Lovitz, Kelly Borkert, Chris Boyle, Rodolfo Payro, Robert J Donahue, Peter Jones, Paul Handler, Soumya Das, Henry Kujawa, Jay Austin, Rob Hughes, Arnie Grieves, Rune Rasmussen, Dietmar Krueger, Frank Giella, Stephen Stein, Jatinder Ghataora, Stephen Donnelly, Mike Jackson, Kelly B., Brian Stewart, Dynamic Duos, Steve Rubin, Michael Dunne, Robert Beerbohm, Gary Land, Brian Morris, Rodolfo Payro, Will K., Rob D. Note: John Coates’ interview with Irv Novick originally appeared in a different format in Comic Book Marketplace #77, April 2000.

“‘The Shield’ Of The Mighty” Figured we might as well end this extensive coverage with a Biblical quotation. Here’s Irv Novick’s splash page for “The Shield” in MLJ’s Pep Comics #1 (Jan. 1940)—the first of the “patriotic” comicbook super-heroes. Script

by Harry Shorten. Also seen on this page is The Shield’s boss, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Courtesy of Comic Book Plus website. [TM & © Archie Comic Publications.]

Acknowledgements from Authors John Coates & Dewey Cassell: Special thanks to the Novick Family for their support and cooperation.

Thanks to Paul Levitz, Denny O’Neil, Bob Rozakis, Roy Thomas, Mark Evanier, Jim Amash, Gary Groth, Eric NolenWeathinton, Cary Bates, Joe Giella, Robert Greenberger, Richard Morrissey, Robin Snyder, Al Turniansky, Jim Beard, Keith Dallas, Dave Dykema, Jason Sacks, John Wells, Rik Offenberger, Paul Castiglia, Jon B. Cooke, Michael T. Gilbert, Jim Salicrup, Craig

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65

(Above left:) Wally Wood self-portrait from Marvel’s “Flight Into Fear!” in Tower of Shadows #5 (May 1970). [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

(Above right:) Ralph Reese’s self-portrait featuring many of the characters he’s drawn, plus one of his mentor, Wally Wood. [© 2023 Ralph Reese]

66

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

My Life With Wood…

(Part 1)

I

by Ralph Reese

first met Wally Wood in 1966 when I was a sixteen-year-old runaway, on the lam from a juvenile detention facility in New York. Two of my friends from the High School of Art and Design, which I had attended intermittently, were Larry Hama and J.D. Smith. We were all fledgling comicbook fans and had made a few trips together to King Features and places like that after school, where we would hang around and pester people and try to get an idea of how things were actually done. At that time, I had no great ambition to be a comic artist myself--I was actually more into mechanical drawing or maybe industrial design.

Anyway, when I got in some trouble and found myself needing a place to stay, Larry and J.D. introduced me to Larry Ivie, who at that time was in his mid-twenties and a sort of semi-pro artist who put together a magazine/fanzine called Larry Ivie’s Monsters and Heroes, published by Kable Pubs. Larry had an apartment on the West Side of Manhattan and was well known in the fan community, which was at that time quite small, and would sometimes let other fans from out of town crash with him when they came to New York. To make a long story short, he agreed to let me stay there for a little while, as I looked for some sort of work.

Joe Cool!

(Above:) A dapper Ralph Reese in 1966.

(Below:) A nerdier version, from 1968, as seen in Comic Book Creator #17 [© Estate of Bhob Stewart.]

Ivie had quite an extensive comicbook collection, and introduced me to EC Comics, which I had never seen or heard of, as well as the whole world of comic fandom as it was then. I discovered all the classics: Raymond, Foster, Crandall, Frazetta, Williamson, and Wood. It was then that Larry Ivie it occurred to me that real people were actually making a living at this, and that it might be something I could do.

It was the Wood and Williamson science-fiction stuff that really inspired me. I liked super-heroes okay and read my share of FF and Spider-Man, but never had a great desire to draw them.

At this time Wood was still doing some inking for Marvel and had tried out Larry Ivie as an assistant. I’m not sure how they got to know each other, but at that time comics was a pretty small world and Larry had been a Big-Name-Fan ever since the EC days.

For one reason and another, that assistantship didn’t work out, but I did manage to persuade Ivie to introduce me to Wood, who lived only a few blocks away and was at that time looking to expand his studio to take on more work.

Monsters And Heroes In The Ivie League Reese’s pal Larry Ivie painted the cover to the first issue of his magazine Larry Ivie’s Monsters and Heroes, in 1967. [TM & © Larry Ivie.]

“Don’t Call Me Wally!”

I was completely forthright with WW about my situation and of my great admiration for his work, and he offered to try me out

Ralph Reese: “My Life With Wood…” (Part 1)

67

as an assistant in his studio. It was in the apartment that he shared with Tatjana, his first wife, a fifth-floor walkup on West 76th Street.

The first thing that he told me was: “Don’t call me Wally”… he always hated the nickname and preferred for his friends to call him “Woody.” The only person I ever saw that he allowed to call him Wally was Al Williamson, who used to come up and visit occasionally when he was in New York. Williamson was probably the only other artist from the EC/Mad days that Wood remained very friendly with, although he maintained cordial relations with most of the other guys except for Kurtzman and Feldstein, whom he despised.

[MTG NOTE: I was surprised when Ralph wrote that Wood “hated” Kurtzman. When I asked him about that, he gave this response: “Maybe that’s too strong a word. But for whatever reason, WW grew to hate working for Mad and anything associated with it. I think he felt trapped there or something, I dunno….”]

The pay was fifty bucks a week and the duties were mostly pretty menial at first. What possessed him to take a troubled young man under his wing at that time I can’t be sure, but perhaps it had something to do with the fact that he was becoming middle-aged and was childless. Maybe he sensed another rebellious spirit…

He certainly took more of an interest in me than a mere employer.

I will say that, although I was a very angry and rebellious young man, my very great admiration and respect for Wood made him probably one of the few people on Earth that I could take direction from.

Sentenced To Life!

As years went by, he went on to mentor a lot of other up-andcoming young artists. I think that he enjoyed teaching and had developed a very systematic approach to his work. And he enjoyed having someone to talk to, especially a young person who would hang on his every word. Being a professional illustrator can be a fairly lonely pursuit. As a matter of fact, he once compared it to sentencing yourself to “life at hard labor in solitary confinement.”

Color Me Tatjana!

Tatjana Wood, a superb colorist and Woody’s first wife. [© the respective copyright holders.]

A lot of us go and rent studio space with other artists just to have some company.

It probably helped that we liked the same kind of music. At that time the folk music revival was going strong and WW always had the record player going while we worked. We wore the grooves off the old Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie discs, and there was always country/folkie music playing. If he had been into bebop jazz or doo wop, I don’t know if we would have got on so well. Also, we both had very kind of leftist/socialist political leanings, opposed the Vietnam War, etc. And we were both science-fiction fans and had read a lot of the same classics of the genre. Although it was his SF work for EC that had most impressed me, by that time Wood tended to pooh-pooh that work as overly “busy.” By then, he was already tired of hearing that “his old stuff was better.”

When I started working for him, Wood was just finishing up his run with Marvel and just beginning to start working on T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. At first, I had very few real skills… I ran his errands, cleaned and strained his ink bottles, and mostly did a lot of Artographing. WW had a very extensive system of files, pictures cut from magazines of almost every conceivable subject, which filled up a whole small room. Also, he had a vast collection of other artists’ published work, Raymond, Foster, Crandall, etc. etc. He would do a basic layout for a page and then leave it up to me to find “swipe” for whatever was possible. I would dig up as much stuff as I could that seemed to fit and show it to him for his approval, then trace it into place and size using the overhead projector (the Artograph). One thing that always amazed me was his ability to redraw these disparate elements in the process of inking so that the finished product always came out looking like Wood.

“Don’t Call Me Wally!”

Wallace Wood around 1965. As far as Wood hating being called “Wally,” David Spurlock says: “Since WWII, Wood had preferred to be verbally ‘Woody’ and listed in print as ‘Wallace.’ But Wood also understood the uniqueness of ‘Wally Wood’ and even one of his idols, Pogo creator Walt Kelly, had noted his name in print. So, when Wood chose, he used ‘Wally’ for various reasons, often marketing-related. In fact, one of Wood’s famous slogans was ‘There is only one Wally Wood and I am him!’” [Photo © the respective copyright holders.]

Learning The Basics…

Bit by bit, I learned the basics of producing comic art… how to rule ink lines without making blobs… how to control a brush line… how to put together a job from reference material. How to compose a panel or a page, how to letter, the basic elements of anatomy and perspective. Up until this point, I had a fairly good “eye” and could copy what I saw, but I had no real understanding of the underlying principles of composition or figure drawing.

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Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

Wood got me practicing with skeleton figures until I could keep them pretty much in proportion, then start adding the surface musculature and drapery. Like I said: he liked to teach, and he was full of aphorisms and little sayings like “When in doubt, black it out!” I am sure that by this time many of your readers have seen his “20 Panels That Always Work.” Wood was a master of spotting blacks in order to create the illusion of depth in a comicbook panel and he taught me a lot about lighting and how to cast shadows….

Unlike a lot of artists of lesser talent, whom I met in my later years, Wood was always a rather modest and unpretentious guy.

He was not a high-liver or a fancy dresser, and, actually, outside of his artwork, didn’t have a whole lot of other interests. He wasn’t into sports, going to nightclubs, or socializing all that much. As a matter of fact he didn’t really go out much. I guess you could say he was pretty much a workaholic; he felt most at home and he felt most himself when sitting at his drawing table. Although he was not the sort of person to suffer fools gladly and he could be ruthlessly critical, he was not the kind of guy who builds up his own ego at other people’s expense. I am sure he was much kinder to me than he had to be, and he generally tried to encourage all the other budding talents that came under his purview.

During the years that I worked with and for him, Wood was completely sober. It is well known now that he had his problems with alcohol, and indeed it was his alcoholism which eventually led to his sad and untimely demise, but during that period from the mid-’60s to the mid-’70s, he pretty much left it alone. He was a chain smoker and always drank copious quantities of tea, and he used to joke about his insides being tanned like old leather.

I have read a lot of stuff from people who didn’t really know him, attempting armchair psychoanalysis of the man and why he wound up more or less destroying himself. And there can be no doubt that he had some sort of inner demons, but I have no definitive answer why things turned out the way that they did.

Woody, at that time, was undergoing psychotherapy, and we had many long discussions about psychology in general and himself and myself in particular. We had both come from rather unhappy family lives, and I think we both suffered from a kind of inner emptiness that we carried with us from childhood. At that time, his marriage to his first wife Tatjana seemed to be sort of petering out or drying up. It’s not that they fought, but more like all the meaning had just gone out of it. I do know that he seemed to have a lot of difficulty in finding real satisfaction in his relationships with women, and we both seemed to have a deep-seated resentment and distrust of all forms of authority.

Wood hated pretty much everybody he had ever worked for, and the whole capitalist business world in general. That was something else we had in common. And we were both outspoken atheists.

The first few years I spent working there in the late ‘60s were mostly consumed with putting together the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents books. While other people who worked in the studio have later

The Amazing Mr. Reese!

In addition to drawing “T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents” stories, Reese wrote a few, including this Steve Ditko-illustrated classic from T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #18 (Sept. 1968). [TM & © John Carbonaro.]

Ralph Reese: “My Life With Wood…” (Part 1)

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tried to take credit for this or that, I would say that Wood himself created, and was the guiding light for, every bit of that material. I think his experience working with Stan Lee made him feel, why should he let someone else take all the glory for his ideas? When Harry Shorten approached him with the idea of creating a whole new line of comics, he said, “Why not me?”

That being said, I don’t think Woody was ever a big super-hero fan. A lot of the stories were kind of tongue-in-cheek. I think the only T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agent that he had a real attachment to was NoMan, which was an idea of his that he had been saving since he was a teenager, filling sketchbooks with homemade comics.

Dynamo was an effort to make a Superman-like character who was not so incredibly powerful that nothing could really hurt him.

That is why the Thunderbelt only worked for some short period of time. But he often poked fun at his own character, making him comically inept in his romantic pursuits and getting him into situations like being immersed in a giant vat of peanut butter. The other T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents were obviously derivative, and Wood had not a great deal of interest in them, other than that the pages got done on time.

From his past experience working at Eisner’s studio and other similar places, WW knew how to put a team together. Many artists and writers were involved in producing the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents in 1965, notably Reed Crandall, who did the first NoMan story, and Steve Ditko, who took over the character when Crandall, who at that time was becoming quite old, was no longer able to keep up with it. In spite of their very different political views, Woody and Ditko always got along well, perhaps because they were both unassuming in nature and shared a mutual hatred of Stan Lee.

Sharing A Sheepskin Ralph Reese earned this Wally Wood School of Comic Art diploma the hard way. [© Estate of Wallace Wood.]

When the success of the original TA books inspired spinoffs, Gil Kane got involved with the Undersea Agent series. Mike Sekowsky, Chic Stone, John Giunta, George Tuska, and several others all handled various characters more or less independently, working from Wood-approved scripts. Among the writers who helped out were Bill Pearson and a young Steve Skeates.

Hillbilly Elegy…

A great deal of artwork was generated there in the 76th Street studio. In addition to myself, many other assistants came and went and performed various tasks according to their ability. There was a British fella by the name of Anthony Coleman who had come over here looking for work and inked backgrounds and outlined background figures. He was always good for a joke or a funny story. Dan Adkins did quite a lot of penciling for Wood once the series was fairly well established and was a familiar face around the studio. Dan was kind of a hillbilly and had terrible teeth from drinking five quarts of Pepsi every day. Roger Brand came to New York around ‘67 or ‘68, and helped out with penciling and story ideas. I got to take a crack at writing a few scripts myself, which were then edited and fixed up by Wood. I colored a bunch of “T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents” stories which were not done by WW’s wife Tatjana, and by the time they folded I had graduated to penciling an occasional pinup page.

The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents series remained fairly successful until pressure from DC and Marvel caused them to lose their distribution deal. That was what really killed the series, if I remember right. This must have been a bitter blow to Wood, although I was not there to experience it at the time, having become entangled in some further legal problems and once again caught up in the juvenile justice system.

Wood Cut Woody did this lovely sketch of first wife Tatjana Wood. [© Estate of Wallace Wood.]

During this period, WW did find time somehow for several other projects. Although he respected the work that Williamson, Crandall, and others were doing for the Creepy/Eerie/Blazing Combat books, he looked at that as a “money-losing contest” to see who could put the most work into their stuff in an effort to outdo each other. But Archie Goodwin was such a good person and a fine writer and editor that he talked him into participating. I look at

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Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

the “Battle of Britain” story that Wood did for Blazing Combat as some of his best work from that time, and I know that he really put his heart into it. That was one that he completely did himself--I don’t think he even had anybody Artograph the airplanes for him.

Occasionally Wood would get contacted by advertising agency people who remembered his Mad work and needed some humorous illustration. While the money was good, WW always hated working on that kind of stuff.

He didn’t like advertising people and he hated having to go back and forth with a job making diddlysh*t changes to make some art director feel important. I am sure he could have made a lot more money if he had chosen to exploit this avenue the way that Jack Davis or Frazetta or Drucker did, but he just couldn’t deal with the BS factor.

Woody also never stopped doing occasional jobs for Topps gum company, and I helped design ugly stickers, joke books, goofy product packages, and funny Valentines for them. Bhob Stewart was working there at the time, as was a young Artie Spiegelman, and both were frequent visitors at 76th Street. This stuff was always fun to work on and nobody took it too seriously.

He Wore A Blazing Spitfire…

Wood thought that working on the Warren books was a “money-losing contest,” but nonetheless put his heart and soul into this story for Blazing Combat #3 (April 1966). [© the respective copyright holders.]

Next Issue: Ralph Reese discusses witzend and the ups and downs of working with Wood. Be there!

Till next time…

Two For The Road Ralph (left) and underground cartoonist Roger Brand in 1968. Brand was yet another Wood assistant. [© the respective copyright holders.]

TM & © 2023 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

Beginning: TARZAN & H.G. WELLS’ TIME MACHINE!

Art by John Romita.

Captain America TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS’ GREATEST HEROES— NOW IN FABULOUS ONLINE COMIC STRIPS! NEW SEQUENCES CONSTANTLY BEING ADDED! Official Website: http://edgarriceburroughs.com/comics/ Website now also features ongoing comic strips of John Carter of Mars, Carson of Venus, Pellucidar, Land That Time Forgot, and many others— only $1.99 per month!

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ALL-NEW FULL-COLOR ADVENTURES —NOW PLAYING ON AN INTERNET NEAR YOU!

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THE BEST OF SIMON & KIRBY’S

MAINLINE COMICS

by JOE SIMON & JACK KIRBY Introduction by JOHN MORROW

In 1954, industry legends JOE SIMON and JACK KIRBY founded MAINLINE PUBLICATIONS to publish their own comics during that turbulent era in comics history. The four titles—BULLSEYE, FOXHOLE, POLICE TRAP, and IN LOVE—looked to build off their reputation as hit makers in the Western, War, Crime, and Romance genres, but the 1950s backlash against comics killed any chance at success, and Mainline closed its doors just two years later. For the first time, TwoMorrows Publishing is compiling the best of Simon & Kirby’s Mainline comics work, including all of the stories with S&K art, as well as key tales with contributions

by MORT MESKIN and others. After the company’s dissolution, their partnership ended with Simon leaving comics for advertising, and Kirby taking unused Mainline concepts to both DC and Marvel. This collection bridges the gap between Simon & Kirby’s peak with their 1950s romance comics, and the lows that led to Kirby’s resurgence with CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN and the early MARVEL UNIVERSE. With loving art restoration by CHRIS FAMA, and an historical overview by JOHN MORROW to put it all into perspective, the BEST OF SIMON & KIRBY’S MAINLINE COMICS presents some of the final, and finest, work Joe and Jack ever produced. NOW SHIPPING! (256-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $49.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-118-9

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

DESTROYER DUCK GRAPHITE EDITION

by JACK KIRBY & STEVE GERBER Introduction by MARK EVANIER

In the 1980s, writer STEVE GERBER was embroiled in a lawsuit against MARVEL COMICS over ownership of his creation HOWARD THE DUCK. To raise funds for legal fees, Gerber asked JACK KIRBY to contribute to a benefit comic titled DESTROYER DUCK. Without hesitation, Kirby (who was in his own dispute with Marvel at the time) donated his services for the first issue, and the duo took aim at their former employer in an outrageous five-issue run. With biting satire and guns blazing, Duke “Destroyer” Duck battled the thinly veiled Godcorp (whose infamous credo was “Grab it all! Own it all! Drain it all!”), its evil leader Ned Packer and the (literally) spineless Booster Cogburn, Medea (a parody of Daredevil’s Elektra), and more! Now, all five Gerber/Kirby issues are collected—but relettered and reproduced from JACK’S UNBRIDLED, UNINKED PENCIL ART! Also included are select examples of ALFREDO ALCALA’s unique inking style over Kirby on the original issues, Gerber’s script pages, an historical Introduction by MARK EVANIER (co-editor of the original 1980s issues), and an Afterword by BUZZ DIXON (who continued the series after Gerber)! Discover all the hidden jabs you missed when DESTROYER DUCK was first published, and experience page after page of Kirby’s raw pencil art! NOW SHIPPING! (128-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $31.95 • (Digital Edition) $13.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-117-2

ALTER EGO COLLECTORS’ ITEM CLASSICS

By overwhelming demand, editor ROY THOMAS has compiled all the material on the founders of the Marvel Bullpen from three SOLD-OUT ALTER EGO ISSUES—plus OVER 30 NEW PAGES OF CONTENT! There’s the STEVE DITKO ISSUE (#160 with a rare ’60s Ditko interview by RICHARD HOWELL, biographical notes by NICK CAPUTO, and Ditko tributes)! The STAN LEE ISSUE (#161 with ROY THOMAS on his 50+ year relationship with Stan, art by KIRBY, DITKO, MANEELY, EVERETT, SEVERIN, ROMITA, plus tributes from pros and fans)! And the JACK KIRBY ISSUE (#170 with WILL MURRAY on Kirby’s contributions to Iron Man’s creation, Jack’s Captain Marvel/Mr. Scarlet Fawcett work, Kirby in 1960s fanzines, plus STAN LEE and ROY THOMAS on Jack)! Whether you missed these issues, or can’t live without the extensive NEW MATERIAL on DITKO, LEE, and KIRBY, it’s sure to be an AMAZING, ASTONISHING, FANTASTIC tribute to the main men who made Marvel! NOW SHIPPING! (256-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $35.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-116-5

CLIFFHANGER!

CINEMATIC SUPERHEROES OF THE SERIALS: 1941–1952 by CHRISTOPHER IRVING

Hold on tight as historian CHRISTOPHER IRVING explores the origins of the first on-screen superheroes and the comic creators and film-makers who brought them to life. CLIFFHANGER! touches on the early days of the film serial, to its explosion as a juvenile medium of the 1930s and ‘40s. See how the creation of characters like SUPERMAN, CAPTAIN AMERICA, SPY SMASHER, and CAPTAIN MARVEL dovetailed with the early film adaptations. Along the way, you’ll meet the stuntmen, directors (SPENCER BENNETT, WILLIAM WITNEY, producer SAM KATZMAN), comic book creators (SIEGEL & SHUSTER, SIMON & KIRBY, BOB KANE, C.C. BECK, FRANK FRAZETTA, WILL EISNER), and actors (BUSTER CRABBE, GEORGE REEVES, LORNA GRAY, KANE RICHMOND, KIRK ALYN, DAVE O’BRIEN) who brought them to the silver screen—and how that resonates with today’s cinematic superhero universe. NOW SHIPPING! (160-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-119-6

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The Fabulous Fawcett Family – Part II

The Whiz Bang Life Of CAPTAIN BILLY

by Shaun Clancy

Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck On the following pages, Shaun Clancy dives into the details of Fawcett family history and Wilford’s remarkable life. At the age of 16, young Billy ran away from his Grand Forks, North Dakota, home and joined the US Army in time to see action in the Philippines Insurrection of 1899. He later joined the Minnesota National Guard, after being hired as a newspaper reporter at the Minneapolis Journal. When World War I came along, Fawcett again served his country overseas, being promoted from an enlisted man to the rank of Captain.

FCA EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: Without the Captain, there wouldn’t have been the Captain!

Wilford (Billy) Hamilton Fawcett of Robbinsdale, Minnesota, had launched an enterprise in 1919 that became a national sensation: Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang was a monthly magazine of suggestive jokes, anecdotes, and scantily clad (for the times) ladies—all for only 25 cents at newsstands. Fawcett Publishing [a.k.a. Fawcett Publications] was born!

By 1922, 400,000 copies a month of Fawcett magazines were being circulated worldwide. As the company continued to grow, they eventually relocated to the East Coast, where a new Captain would be created just a few years later.

Captain Billy returned to civilian life, opening a Minneapolis nightclub before the arrival of Prohibition in 1919 put him out of business. (Prohibition would go into full force in January 1920, but apparently the Captain could read the handwriting on the

Captain Billy & A Pair Of Whiz Bangs!

Captain Billy Fawcett on the Empress of Australia ocean liner, as he takes a trip around the world during the 1930s— flanked by two of his greatest early successes, only one of which he stuck around long enough to fully appreciate: an early issue of the joke magazine Capt.

Billy’s Whiz Bang, dated Aug. 1920… and C.C. Beck’s cover for the Fawcett company’s Whiz Comics #2 (Feb. 1940), the first issue having been a mere ashcan edition. [TM & © the respective copyright holders; Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics.]

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Fawcett Collectors Of America

saloon wall.) What venture could he try next? He wanted to give the doughboys of WWI something to laugh about.

Why not a joke magazine? Taking his own name, and adding to it the sound of artillery shells rocketing through the skies over the trenches in France’s No Man’s Land before ultimately exploding, he christened the magazine Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang.

It took $500 in 1919 for Billy to produce Whiz Bang from his home in Robbinsdale. By 1923, the Captain’s income was $45,000 a month, with his magazine’s circulation closing in on half a million—all accomplished without ever carrying advertising within its pages. From Whiz Bang’s earnings, he released other magazines … True Confessions … Modern Mechanix … even imitations of Whiz Bang itself, such as Smokehouse Monthly, For Men, and Hooey.

His publishing company continued to grow, as did Captain Billy’s fame and prominence. He traveled the world and hobnobbed with statesmen, royalty, and celebrities. With his newfound higher social status, the Captain invited other elite friends and acquaintances to his luxury lakeside lodge at Breezy Point Resort in northern Minnesota. (Read about those tales of the Captain in our next issue.)

The Fawcett Family—1902 A turn-of-the-century family portrait. Front row: Mrs. John Fawcett (mother), Clarence Fawcett, Maria Eva Fawcett. Second row: Capt. Wilford H. Fawcett, Harvey Fawcett, Dr. John Fawcett (father).

Third row: John (Jack) Fawcett, Margaret (Peggy) Fawcett, Capt. Roscoe Fawcett. Note: A brother named Gordon died at 2 years old.

While dark days hindered American businesses during the Great Depression, Fawcett Publications thrived, and by 1936 had pulled up the stakes in Minnesota for larger headquarters in Connecticut and New York.

However, in that same prosperous year, they did suffer one casualty: Whiz Bang. The magazine’s style of humor had run its course and the public began looking for new forms of entertainment… one being a new thing called a “comicbook.”

In December of 1939, Fawcett’s Captain Marvel debuted in Whiz Comics. Two months later in Hollywood, at the age of 57, a fatal heart attack marked Captain Billy’s final adventure. While he lived long enough to see the first appearance of the World’s Mightiest Mortal, he never got to witness the full triumphant success of the comicbook super-hero. Whiz Comics was, in essence, a wholesome extension of Whiz Bang. The “Whiz Bang Days” annual festival still held in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, is a wistful reminder of the Fawcett publishing empire from a bygone era … one that began with one big Whiz Bang from Captain Billy.

—P.C. Hamerlinck

W

ilford (Billy) Hamilton Fawcett was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, to Maria B. Neilson (1859-1913) and John Fawcett (1849-1915), a physician, on April 29, 1885. The Fawcetts had a total of eight children, with the other seven siblings being: Roscoe Allan Fawcett, Clarence G. Fawcett, Harry (Harvey) R. Fawcett, John (Jack) W. Fawcett, and sisters Maria Eva Fawcett and Margaret (Peggy) F. Fawcett/Conner. They had a brother, Gordon N. Fawcett, who died at two years old (1881-1883).

Three years after Wilford Fawcett, Jr., was born, they relocated to the United States in 1888 and lived in North Dakota. At age 16, Billy decided to run away from home and join the Army. According to his Military Record paperwork, he entered the US Army on January 25, 1902, and was discharged January 30, 1905. He re-enlisted on February 13, 1906 and was once again discharged on December 8, 1906. While in his first tour of duty, he spent two years in the Philippines during the Philippine-American War, where he was injured—undoubtedly the reason why he was not in the service for a year from 1905-1906.

Billy Fawcett married Claire Viva Meyers (b. 1886) in 1907; the couple eventually divorced in 1920. They had a total of five children: Wilford Hamilton Fawcett Jr. (1908-1970) and his twin sister Miriam (Marian) Claire Fawcett (1908-1993), Roger Knowlton Fawcett (1909-1979), Gordon Wesley Fawcett (1911-1993), and Roscoe Kent Fawcett (1913-1999).

After two years of marriage, the Fawcett family moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, where Billy worked as a clerk at the Railway Mail Service. He soon gave up that job to work as a cub reporter at the Minneapolis Tribune before once again joining the US Army on November 27, 1917, as a captain. He was stationed as a 3rd Instructor at the Officers Training School in Lyon Springs, Texas, before being transferred on December 19, 1917, to the 3rd Motor Mechanical Regiment at Camp Hancock, Georgia. He was once again transferred on May 20, 1918, to the Central Officers Training School in Camp Lee, Virginia. He was honorably discharged on November 25, 1918. While in the service, and because of his experience at the Minneapolis Tribune, he worked on the military newspaper Stars and Stripes and adopted the nickname “Captain Billy,” which he used for the remainder of his life.

Upon re-entering civilian life, he tried his hand at running a bar called the Army and Navy Club located in downtown Minneapolis. Unfortunately for Captain Billy, Prohibition was about to become the law of the land, and in 1919 he was forced to close the doors. His next business venture was one that was on his mind for a while. He had pitched the idea of a men’s humor magazine to several friends but could not convince others to invest in it, so the family of Fawcetts decided to fund it themselves. Here’s how Billy described that experience in his own words, which he published in Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang, dated October 1920, in his “Drippings From The Fawcett” column: Two years ago Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang exploded pedigreed bunk, junk, or whatever you might wish to call it, with the idea in mind that Ye Editor might be able to inject a little more humor into our rural community of Robbinsdale. The printer told us it would be as cheap to

The Whiz Bang Life Of Captain Billy

print 5,000 magazines as it would to print 100 or so, which was the number we planned to distribute among our friends just returned from service in the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps.

And so, under the exuberant “exuberation” of “exubrious” raisin juice we generously permitted the printer to turn out 5,000 of our first issue. After giving away a couple of hundred among our friends around Robbinsdale we were puzzled what to do with the remaining The “First Family” Of Fawcett 4,800.

Marian Fawcett, Capt. Billy’s only daughter, Mrs. Bill standing next her mother, Claire, the Captain’s suggested first wife. The couple divorced in 1920. The that we photograph was taken on 2-19-29. [© the send them respective copyright holders.] out around the country rather than build a bonfire, and so I borrowed the Hotel Red Book directory and during leisure hours after milking the cows and salting down the horses, we addressed free copies to a couple hundred hotel newsstands around the country. And imagine our joy and manifest surprise when checks began to come back to our rural mail box.

Our receipts the first month were seventy-eight dollars, and thus encouraged, we decided to be “generous” once more. With the November, 1919, issue, we printed 3,500 copies and sold virtually every one of them. A couple months later, through the good offices of the Independent Magazine Distributors’ Association and Mr. B. A. McKinnon, of the Pictorial Review, we obtained lists of news dealers throughout the country, and began a small circular campaign from the Whiz Bang farm house.

We were crude, and perhaps because of our unfamiliarity with the magazine distributing business, we attracted the attention of various news dealers around the country. In February of 1920, we received our most pleasant shock—a letter from one Cohen News Company, 30 Vessey Street, New York, ordering 5,000 copies monthly from us. Up went the circulation to 30,000!

Thus encouraged, we sent out more circular letters to newsdealers, but four months later the “Cohen News Company” disappeared, together with $4,000 worth of magazines. We had to mortgage the old homestead to meet the loss. It was tough pickens [sic] but somehow or other we didn’t lose heart and stuck to the game.

“Explosion of Pedigreed Bull” The cover of the very first issue of Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang, dated Oct. 1919, with its longtime slogan already firmly in place. [© the respective copyright holders.]

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In October, 1920, we celebrated our first birthday by calling the October issue our Winter Annual and printing several thousand more books than our usual order. We put in a few such masterpieces as “The Girl in the Blue Velvet Band” and stories from our earlier issues. The result was astonishing. The Annual sold out on the Pacific coast within a few days and within a couple of weeks not a copy could be found at any news stand in the United States.

We celebrated our success in the proper manner in Minneapolis, and over-bubbling with enthusiasm—inspired and otherwise—we called up the printer and told him to run 90,000 copies of the next issue. When we sobered down a few days later, we regretted our hasty judgment, but again we were surprised with a clean sale.

Since then it has been the same story over and over again and now the old Whiz Bang is soaring onward to the million mark monthly.

To the hundreds of thousands of loyal readers we extend a heartfelt thanks, and to the thousands of friendly news dealers we only say we wish we could visit each and every one of you on the day the United States goes wet again and with our foot alongside of yours on the brass rail, bend our elbows and say “Here’s how!”

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Fawcett Collectors Of America

Get Out Your Time Machine—And Your Microscope!

The cover of the magazine’s 1920 Annual, dated October of that year. [© the respective copyright holders.]

For the benefit of the new readers we will repeat our opening explanation for our existence on this mundane sphere, as originally published in our first issue: Whiz-z Bang!!! We’re off and in our trail follows a mighty explosion of pedigreed bull. “Make it Snappy” is our motto. Snap! Pep! Ginger!

Even more. The first issue of Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang is off the press and with its advent the editor and contributors hope to have added something really worthwhile to brighten the atmosphere of human existence. Captain Billy’s only and original Whiz Bang will explode in every issue. No “duds” allowed in our monthly Literary Indigestion.

Today we are the Cherry Sisters of journalism with the fond hopes for “Big Time” sometime.

As the old saying goes, “Laugh and the world laughs with you, near beer and you drink alone.” If we dance we must pay the jazz band; no matter what we get we must “put up or shut up.” Doctors of Dope and Doctors of Divinity must have the price of our life and love and the undertaker smiles with a self-satisfied grin as our mortal flesh and bones are delivered to the charnel house.

Therefore, the motto of the WHIZ BANG will be: Be happy while you live; live a full life and while you are living, live on the square so you may be able to follow that quaint western philosophy and look every man in the face and tell him to go to Hell.

Please do not get the impression from the title page that the Whiz Bang is to be a military publication only. There will be 100 laughs for the service man and 97 ¼ laughs for the civilian. We will give the soldier, sailor, and marine the benefit of two and three-quarters per cent because we believe he is fairly entitled to it. (Brewers please note.)

Free, Fawcett, & ’21!

Two early issues: April & October 1921. [© the respective copyright holders.]

The Whiz Bang Life Of Captain Billy

79

Double Your Pleasure (Left:) The title page of the April 1923 issue of Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang (#44).

(Right:) The cover of CBWB for January 1929. [© the respective copyright holders.]

The WHIZ BANG is only in its infancy, so look for the November issue. Then we will burst out and explode into a full-grown bull. We will be fatter, lovelier, snappier, and juicer and—oh, girls, we just hate to tell you…

Those of us who have lived through the past five years have the satisfaction of knowing that we have seen the mightiest and most stirring five years in history, and we are watching from day to day the unfolding and ending of the colossal drama. Never has there been such a crashing of empires, such a falling of thrones, such righting of wrongs and deliverance of the oppressed, such vivid demonstration of the wickedness, the folly and the weakness, the nobility, the wisdom and the courage of which human nature is capable.

As a grand finale, an alleviation from the terrific strain. Billy’s WHIZ BANG will come as a relieving Balsam—an ointment on the checkered skein of life. Please remember that the oldest truths are the freshest. They are rich with the blood of humanity. As the apple tree in your yard may be a sprout from the apple tree in the Garden of Eden, so the idea that just came to you may be the same that struck King Solomon.

Thoughts are deciduous as trees, and appear green and fresh to each generation and, like desert soil, we are unfurrowed and unfettered. —THE EDITOR.

The first issue of Whiz Bang was released in October of 1919.

Billy published it out of his home in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, on a hand press. He wrote and edited the entire first issue himself— with his wife and sons doing everything they could from handling the printing press to packaging and mailing the issues at the local post office. Jack Smalley worked at Fawcett from 1924-1936, his first position being a Manuscript Editor. The following excerpt from a 1974 issue of Westways Magazine gives Smalley’s account of how Whiz Bang began, as it had been relayed to him while at Fawcett Publications: After collecting jokes, limericks, and cartoons, Billy had gone round to his friends, offering to sell a half interest in his magazine for $500, the amount needed to print 10,000 copies. There were no takers. Finally a small print shop agreed to produce 5,000 copies on credit. Billy peddled these to cigar stands and hotels in Minneapolis and St. Paul, to be sold on consignment for twenty-five cents per copy; Billy would collect fifteen cents on each copy sold. Before he got back home, some stands were on the phone asking for a reorder. The forms were put back on the press again and again, and still the dealers clamored for copies.

On a monthly sale of 450,000 copies, Billy cleared nearly a dime apiece, for an income of $45,000. He put together his own distributing company, further increasing his profits, and he demanded a cash advance before he would ship copies to a dealer. Billy was a smart poker player, and he now began shoving some of his winnings back into new magazines.

80

Fawcett Collectors Of America

More Whiz Bang For A Buck!

(Above left:) Released just a month and a half after the debut of Captain Marvel in Whiz Comics was Fawcett’s Slam-Bang Comics—the “Bang” in its title being another acknowledgement of Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang. Edited

by Captain Marvel writer/co-creator Bill Parker, the first issue of the short-lived series included the talents of Gus Ricca, Hal Sharp, Mike Suchorsky, and even gifted cartoonist Jack Cole, who supplied the one-page filler “Slam-Bang Gags.” Cover by Ricca. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

(Above right:) On the C.C. Beck cover of issue #21 (dated Feb. 12, 1943), Captain Marvel Adventures first proclaimed that title had the “Largest Circulation of Any Comic Magazine.” Commencing with #22, as seen in the inset detail at right, that phrase became part of a circle at the top left of nearly every CMA cover through #101 in mid-1949. With Fawcett profits like those, small wonder Superman’s head honchos weren’t willing to abandon their long-running copyright-infringement lawsuit! Still, somewhere out beyond the Rock of Eternity, Captain Billy must’ve been quietly—or maybe explosively and thunderously—proud. [Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics.]

Contributors to Whiz Bang included a high percentage of con men who sent in jokes and jingles from dozens of jailhouses. They cashed the three dollars paid for each accepted joke and came to regard Billy as both a friend and benefactor. They wrote long letters of their lurid wrongdoings to prove that they were really innocent victims of society, and Billy got the idea of publishing their stories. He thought of the perfect title: True Confessions. Its pages were crawling with the confessions of convicts,

murderers, train robbers, and jaded ladies, stitched together with tearful tales of unwed mothers and the serial life story of seductive Evelyn Nesbit Thaw, whose husband shot her lover.

“The Whiz Bang Life of Captain Billy” will be concluded in our next issue.

TwoMorrows 2023 www.twomorrows.com • store@twomorrows.com

THE

PACIFIC COMICS COMPANION

by STEPHAN FRIEDT & JON B. COOKE

Author STEPHAN FRIEDT shares the story of the meteoric rise of the Schanes brothers’ California-based imprint PACIFIC COMICS, which published such legends as JACK KIRBY, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, STEVE DITKO, NEAL ADAMS, MIKE GRELL, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, and DAVE STEVENS. From its groundbreaking 1981 arrival in the fledgling direct sales market, to a catastrophic, precipitous fall after only four years, THE PACIFIC COMICS COMPANION reveals the inside saga, as told to Friedt by BILL AND STEVE SCHANES, DAVID SCROGGY, and many of the creators themselves. It also focuses on the titles and the amazing array of characters they introduced to an unsuspecting world, including THE ROCKETEER, CAPTAIN VICTORY, MS. MYSTIC, GROO THE WANDERER, STARSLAYER, and many more. Written with the editorial assist of Eisner Award-winning historian JON B. COOKE, this retrospective is the most comprehensive study of an essential publisher in the development of the creator’s rights movement. Main cover illustration by DAVE STEVENS. SHIPS NOVEMBER 2023!

WORKING WITH DITKO

by JACK C. HARRIS

WORKING WITH DITKO takes a unique and nostalgic journey through comics’ Bronze Age, as editor and writer JACK C. HARRIS recalls his numerous collaborations with legendary comics master STEVE DITKO! It features never-before-seen preliminary sketches and pencil art from Harris’ tenure working with Ditko on THE CREEPER, SHADE THE CHANGING MAN, THE ODD MAN, THE DEMON, WONDER WOMAN, LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES, THE FLY, and even Ditko’s unused redesign for BATMAN! Plus, it documents their work on numerous independent properties, and offers glimpses of original characters from Ditko’s drawing board that have never been viewed by even his most avid fans! This illustrated volume is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to experience the creative comic book process by one of the industry’s most revered creators, as seen through the eyes of one of his most frequent collaborators! SHIPS OCTOBER 2023!

Star Guider TM & © Jack C. Harris.

Shade TM & © DC Comics.

(160-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $29.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-121-9

(128-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $24.95 • (Digital Edition) $13.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-122-6

THE CHILLINGLY WEIRD ART OF

MATT FOX

by ROGER HILL

MATT FOX (1906–1988) first gained notoriety for his jarring cover paintings on the pulp magazine WEIRD TALES from 1943 to 1951. His almost primitive artistry encompassed ghouls, demons, and grotesqueries of all types, evoking a disquieting horror vibe that no one since has ever matched. Fox suffered with chronic pain throughout his life, and that anguish permeated his classic 1950s cover illustrations and his lone story for CHILLING TALES, putting them at the top of all pre-code horror comic enthusiasts’ want lists. He brought his evocative storytelling skills (and an almost BASIL WOLVERTON-esque ink line over other artists) to ATLAS/MARVEL horror comics of the 1950s and ’60s, but since Fox never gave an interview, this unique creator remained largely unheralded—until now! Comic art historian ROGER HILL finally tells Fox’s life story, through an informative biographical essay, augmented with an insightful introduction by FROM THE TOMB editor PETER NORMANTON. This FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER also showcases all of the artist’s WEIRD TALES covers and interior illustrations, and a special Atlas Comics gallery with examples of his inking over GIL KANE, LARRY LIEBER, and others. Plus, there’s a wealth of other delightfully disturbing images by this grand master of horror—many previously unpublished and reproduced from his original paintings and art—sure to make an indelible imprint on a new legion of fans. SHIPS SEPTEMBER 2023!

(128-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $29.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-120-2

New from TwoMorrows!

KIRBY COLLECTOR #87

KIRBY COLLECTOR #88

RETROFAN #28

ALTER EGO #185

BRICKJOURNAL #82

THE COLLECTORS! Fans’ quest for and purchase of Jack’s original art and comics, MARV WOLFMAN shares his (and LEN WEIN’s) interactions with Jack as fans and pros, unseen Kirby memorabilia, an extensive Kirby pencil art gallery, MARK EVANIER moderating the 2023 Kirby Tribute Panel from Comic-Con International, plus a deluxe wrap-around Kirby cover with foldout back cover flap, inked by MIKE ROYER!

The BRITISH INVASION of the Sixties, interview with Bond Girl TRINA PARKS, The Mighty Hercules, Horror Hostess MOONA LISA, World’s Greatest Super Friends, TV Guide Fall Previews, the Frito Bandito, a Popeye Super Collector, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Presenting MARK CARLSON-GHOST’s stupendous study of the 1940s NOVELTY COMICS GROUP—with heroes like Blue Bolt, Target and the Targeteers, White Streak, Spacehawk, etc., produced by such Golden Age super-stars as JOE SIMON & JACK KIRBY, CARL BURGOS, BILL EVERETT, BASIL WOLVERTON, et al. Plus MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, FCA, and more!

Celebrating Disney’s 100th anniversary in LEGO! Disney Castles with MARTIN HARRIS and DISNEYBRICK, magical builds

by JOHN RUDY and editor JOE MENO, instructions to build characters, plus: Nerding Out with BRICKNERD, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Fall 2023

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Dec. 2023

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Oct. 2023

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

LAW & ORDER! Kirby’s lawmen from the Newsboy Legion’s Jim Harper and “Terrible” Turpin, to Western gunfighters, and even future policemen like OMAC and Captain Victory! Also: how a Marvel cop led to the creation of Funky Flashman!

Justice Traps The Guilty and Headline Comics! Plus MARK EVANIER moderating 2022’s Kirby Tribute Panel (with Sin City’s FRANK MILLER). MACHLAN cover inks.

BACK ISSUE #147

BACK ISSUE #148

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #31 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #32

Great Hera, it’s the 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF BACK ISSUE, featuring a tribute to the late, great GEORGE PÉREZ! Wonder Woman: The George Pérez Years, Pérez’s 20 Greatest Hits of the Bronze Age, Pérez’s fanzine days, a Pérez remembrance by MARV WOLFMAN, a Wonder Woman interview with MINDY NEWELL, and more!

With a stunning Wonder Woman cover

by Pérez!

DC SUPER-STARS OF SPACE! Adam Strange in the Bronze Age (with RICHARD BRUNING & ANDY KUBERT), From Beyond the Unknown, the Fabulous World of Krypton, Vartox, a Mongul history, the Omega Men, and more! Featuring CARY BATES, DAVE GIBBONS, DAN JURGENS, CURT SWAN, PETER J. TOMASI, MARV WOLFMAN, and more! Cover by CARMINE INFANTINO & MURPHY ANDERSON!

Career-spanning interview with Bane’s co-creator GRAHAM NOLAN! Plus, STAN LEE’s Carnegie Hall debacle of 1972, the Golden Age Quality Comics’ work of FRANK BORTH (Phantom Lady, Spider Widow), and GREG BIGA talks with ex-DC Comics co-publisher DAN DIDIO on his current career as writer/creator on the FRANK MILLER PRESENTS comics line, as well as that new comics line’s publisher!

WILLIAM STOUT is interviewed about his illustration and comics work, as well as his association with DINOSAURS publisher BYRON PREISS, the visionary packager/ publisher who is also celebrated in this double-header issue. Included is the only comprehensive interview ever conducted with PREISS, plus a huge biographical essay.

Also MIKE DEODATO on his early years and FRANK BORTH on Treasure Chest!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Oct. 2023

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Nov. 2023

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(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Fall 2023

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BACK ISSUE #146

MEN WITHOUT FEAR, featuring Daredevil’s swinging ’70s adventures!

Plus: Challengers of the Unknown in the Bronze Age, JEPH LOEB interview about his Challs and DD projects with TIM SALE, Sinestro and Mr. Fear histories, superheroes with disabilities, and... Who Is Hal Jordan? Featuring CONWAY, ENGLEHART, McKENZIE, ROZAKIS, STATON, THOMAS, WOLFMAN, & more! GENE COLAN cover!