Alter Ego #189

Roy Thomas’ Hero-Laden Comics Fanzine

JOHN ROMITA

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Featuring JOHN ROMITA, JR. STARLIN • ENGLEHART PULIDO • THOMAS • CIMINO JAMESON • SCALA • HOUSTON

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JAZZY JOHNNY

INTERVIEWED BY DAVID ARMSTRONG

No. 189

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TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Sept.

2024

Satiate Your Sinister Side!

“Greetings, creep culturists! For my debut

All characters and properties TM & © their respective owners.

issue, I, the CRYPTOLOGIST (with the help of FROM THE TOMB editor PETER NORMANTON), have exhumed the worst Horror Comics excesses of the 1950s, Killer “B” movies to die for, and the creepiest, kookiest toys that crossed your boney little fingers as a child! But wait... do you dare enter the House of Usher, or choose sides in the skirmish between the Addams Family and The Munsters?! Can you stand to gaze at Warren magazine frontispieces by this issue’s cover artist BERNIE WRIGHTSON, or spend some Hammer Time with that studio’s most frightening films? And if Atlas pre-Code covers or terrifying science-fiction are more than you can take, stay away! All this, and more, is lurching toward you in TwoMorrows Publishing’s latest, and most decrepit, magazine—just for retro horror fans, and featuring my henchmen WILL MURRAY, MARK VOGER, BARRY FORSHAW, TIM LEESE, PETE VON SHOLLY, and STEVE and MICHAEL KRONENBERG!” (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

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CRYPTOLOGY #2

CRYPTOLOGY #3

CRYPTOLOGY #4

The Cryptologist and his ghastly little band have cooked up more grisly morsels, including: ROGER HILL’s conversation with our diabolical cover artist DON HECK, severed hand films, pre-Code comic book terrors, the otherworldly horrors of Hammer’s Quatermass, another Killer “B” movie classic, plus spooky old radio shows, and the horror-inspired covers of the Shadow’s own comic book. Start the ghoul-year with retro-horror done right by FORSHAW, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, RICHARD HAND, VON SHOLLY, and editor PETER NORMANTON.

This third wretched issue inflicts the dread of MARS ATTACKS upon you—the banned cards, the model kits, the despicable comics, and a few words from the film’s deranged storyboard artist PETE VON SHOLLY! The chilling poster art of REYNOLD BROWN gets brought up from the Cryptologist’s vault, along with a host of terrifying puppets from film, and more comic books they’d prefer you forget! Plus, more Hammer Time, JUSTIN MARRIOT on obscure ’70s fear-filled paperbacks, another Killer “B” film, and more to satiate your sinister side!

Our fourth putrid tome treats you to ALEX ROSS’ gory lowdown on his Universal Monsters paintings! Hammer Time brings you face-to-face with the “Brides of Dracula”, and the Cryptologist resurrects 3-D horror movies and comics of the 1950s! Learn the origins of slasher films, and chill to the pre-Code artwork of Atlas’ BILL EVERETT and ACG’s 3-D maestro HARRY LAZARUS. Plus, another Killer “B” movie and more awaits retro horror fans, by NORMANTON, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, VOGER, and VON SHOLLY!

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Vol. 3, No. 189/Sept. 2024 Editor

Roy Thomas

Associate Editor Jim Amash

Design & Layout

Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor

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

Proofreader

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John Romita

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Cover Artist

Cover Colorist

Glenn Whitmore

With Special Thanks to: Heidi Amash David Armstrong Bob Bailey Jerry Beck John Benson Tom Brevoort Bernie Bubnis Mike Burkey Aaron Caplan Nick Caputo John Cimino Shaun Clancy Mandy Cohen Chet Cox Dwight Decker S.E. Dogaru Steve Englehart Shane Foley Janet Gilbert Keith Gleason Alex Grand Grand Comics Database (website) Tom Horowitz Steve Houston Sean Howe

Jaime Jameson Jim Kealy Henry Kujawa Art Lortie Jim Ludwig Nancy Maneely Maranee McDonald Mark Muller Joe Musich Rick Norwood Vince Olivia Jerry Ordway Barry Pearl Brian Pulido Larry Rapchak John Romita, Jr. Virginia Romita James Rosen Randy Sargent Mark Saskin Nile Scala Anthony Snyder Jim Starlin Dann Thomas Dr. Michael J. Vassallo Bob Wiener

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

John Romita

Contents Writer/Editorial: Prince John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 John Romita—An Artist For All Seasons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The John Romita Memorial Panel Discussion, June 15, 2023, from the POPXP! podcast Steve… and Cimino Says BOOM!

“I’m Getting Satisfaction From What I’m Doing!” . . . . . . . . 29 David Armstrong’s 2001 conversation with master storyteller and artist John Romita.

…All That Jazzy Johnny Jazz! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 John Cimino picks the top 10 greatest John Romita comics stories of all time.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt: We All Have To Start Somewhere! (Part 3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Michael T. Gilbert gives a guided tour of the early artwork of Murphy Anderson.

re: [correspondence, comments, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . 67 FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #248 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 P.C. Hamerlinck looks at Phil Bard, 1940s artist of Fawcett’s Minute Man, et al.

On Our Cover: This hero-filled cover illustration by John Romita seems to have first appeared in conjunction with the Third Eye black light posters that went public in 1971. We were having a rough time tracking down its original provenance, until Yancy Street Ganger Barry Pearl did a bit of detective work for us. We figured it had to be the late ‘60s or so, though, since when else would “Captain Mar-Vell,” resplendent in his original green-and-white Kree uniform, have been a part of the Mighty Marvel Mix? Special thanks to Anthony Snyder for the line art scan. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] Above: Okay, so we got all that 1960s-plus stuff accounted for on our capricious cover. Now, as editor, Roy T. is taking a point of personal privilege to present a few panels of art and story from his own favorite period of John Romita’s art—the 1953-54 revival of Captain America, including in the lead-off story in C.A. #76 (May 1954), which picked up the numbering from Captain America Comics, which had been discontinued four years earlier. Scripter unknown. With thanks to Jim Ludwig. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] Alter EgoTM issue 189, September 2024 (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.

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.

2

Article Title writer/editorial

J

Prince John ohn Romita was, as the over-used expression goes, a class act.

From the day I met him in July of 1965 to the last time I spoke with him by phone, which must be a few years ago now, he was unfailingly polite, enthusiastic, and positive.

Sure, like everybody else on planet Earth, I’m sure he had his off days—maybe he lost his temper sometimes—and we know from his son John Jr. (in the transcription of a podcast salute to him that begins on the facing page) that he was subject to insecurities about his work, as virtually every professional artist or writer or whatever is from time to time.

All the same, he was one of comics’ nice guys, as well as one of the more talented artisans to grace the field… in both the romance and super-hero genres (and he’d have risen to the top in other genres, too, if the occasion and frequency had arisen).

I don’t want to preview here what I say in the ensuing pages about the guy Stan Lee christened (for no particular reason except the fact that it was alliterative) “Jazzy Johnny.” You can read those observations as they arise, along with the recollections of others who knew him or at least had met him in person—his son, of course, but also writer Steve Englehart and artist/writer Jim Starlin and artist Jaime Jameson and even podcaster/former comics dealer John Cimino. And those folks can be balanced against the praise and appraisals of the participants who, alas, never had the good fortune to meet him, such as writer Brian Pulido and podcasters Steve Houston and Nile Scala.

One thing that always struck me was that John, despite any anxieties he may have felt over his own work and status, was always a calming presence in the office. He was a rock, someone

that Stan or I as editors, or others as fellow artists, could come to for an opinion or as a sounding-board. And such was John’s professionalism, his sense about his job and situation and what they required of him, that he rarely if ever turned anyone away without at least a few helpful words.

And somehow it always meant something that, when addressing me in some office conversation, he would usually wind up referring to me as “kid” at least once. I’m sure he did that with lots of others as well, but all the same it always seemed meant in a friendly and not demeaning way… and he, better than a few others around the office, had very little trouble adjusting when in 1972 Stan Lee turned over the editorship of Marvel to a guy in his early thirties who looked (and probably often acted) a good deal younger.

He never seemed to chafe, as I know I would have in his position, over the fact that Stan delayed far too long in giving him the title of “art director” that he deserved, because Stan wanted to hang onto that title himself for as long as he could—or at least stash the title in limbo so that for several years nobody was officially art director of Marvel Comics.

But all of us at Marvel knew quite well that the position was actually being filled, and quite capably, by John Romita.

John Romita was both one of the greats… and one of the good guys.

This issue devoted to him won’t begin to do him justice.

But we hope it’s a start.

Bestest,

COMING IN OCTOBER

190

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3

JOHN ROMITA – An Artist For All Seasons

The JOHN ROMITA Memorial Tribute Panel Discussion – June 15, 2023

I

Transcribed by S.E. Dogaru

NTRODUCTION: The nigh-weekly podcast Steve… and Cimino Says Boom! came to fruition due to the incessant texts that Steve Houston and John Cimino had begun exchanging concerning comicbook history and facts. Finally, in 2022, after a year of such back-and-forth, John suggested to Steve that the two of them join forces in a podcast, because they had so much “useless information” about comics and pop culture in their heads that it should be presented to the waiting world in grand fashion. Steve agreed, and they invited Roy Thomas to be a “recurring co-host,” on a very informal basis. After a jumpstart for several episodes aided by their pal Everett Otto, John and Steve eventually found a home when the podcast was picked up by Nile Scala and his POPXP! Network. Nile’s technical wizardry has kept John and Steve flying high

in the YouTube universe, and the three of them have never looked back.

Jazzy Johnny Romita in a 1970 photo—by which time (or during the next year or so) he had drawn all the Marvel super-heroes shown in the accompanying cover illo from the 1975 Mighty Marvel Calendar—and then some! Thanks to David Armstrong for the photo. [Art for Marvel heroes TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.; Conan TM & © Heroic Signatures, LLC.]

When they learned that John Romita passed away on June 12, 2023, the lads impulsively decided to put together a special episode (or “issue,” as they call it) devoted to that comic industry legend. Nile was fortunate enough to get John Romita, Jr., to drop in on the first part of the podcast, even though he was about to host a private family gathering, making this his first public appearance talking about his late father and his work.

Several other notable comics professionals also took part, as ID’d in

4

The John Romita Memorial Tribute Panel Discussion—June 15, 2023

Dressed To The Nines This screenshot, which depicts all nine participants in the 6-15-23 podcast, is what viewers saw much of the time while it was streaming live… although the number of participants and screens went down by one after John Romita, Jr., had to depart. [TM & © THEPOPXP/Nile Scala.]

the paragraphs below. Alas, the podcast was marred by a few technical difficulties (some of them due to terrible WiFi reception in Roy’s home in rural South Carolina—or was it the Negative Zone?—from which he and John C. were podcasting), but one and all managed to muck through.

The following is the list of the nine stalwarts who took part in this very special podcast, roughly in the order in which they appeared on-screen: STEVE HOUSTON has been an obsessed comicbook collector since 1983. Since ’93, he has become one of the best-known and most influential comicbook dealers in the country, as an Overstreet comics advisor and as comics expert on the popular reality-TV show Pawn Stars. The British-born Steve’s unique look and eccentric sense of style make him an unforgettable presence.

JOHN CIMINO sums himself up as a living, breathing modern-day cowboy. He’s a promoter, agent, and media rep who takes Roy Thomas around the world to comics conventions near you. He’s contributed articles to RetroFan, The Jack Kirby Collector, Alter Ego, and Back Issue magazines—and, with his background as a comics dealer, he has extensive knowledge of comics, toys, and animated cartoons from the Marvel Silver and Bronze Ages.

NILE SCALA is the founder (with artist Billy Tucci) of the POPXP! Network on YouTube. POPXP! produces many shows on pop culture with a focus on comicbooks. He has also lent his talents to many independent comics and is a leading voice in the independent comicbook movement, especially in the realm of crowdfunding.

ROY THOMAS has, since 1965, been a professional comics writer and often editor, including being Stan Lee’s successor as Marvel’s

editor-in-chief from 1972-74. He is noted for extended work on Avengers, X-Men, Conan the Barbarian, and numerous other comics series, and as the co-creator of Wolverine, the Silver Age Vision, Iron Fist, Red Sonja, and numerous other comics heroes—and worked in the Marvel offices with John Romita during the ’60s and ’70s.

JOHN ROMITA, JR., the son of John and Virginia Romita, had early runs on such comics as Iron Man and, in his father’s footsteps, Amazing Spider-Man, and helped launch the Dazzler series. He has since drawn much-applauded stints on The Uncanny X-Men, Daredevil, Black Panther, The Eternals, and other series, and co-created the independent comic Kick-Ass. STEVE ENGLEHART entered the comics field intending to be an artist, but wound up instead as the acclaimed writer of such Marvel series as The Beast, The Avengers, The Defenders, Dr. Strange, and Captain America, as well as equally successful runs on DC’s Batman and Justice League of America. He is also noted as the co-creator of the Master of Kung Fu series, starring Shang-Chi. BRIAN PULIDO is publisher of Coffin Comics and writer/creator of the series character Lady Death. He was the publisher of Chaos! Comics, where he created Evil Ernie, Purgatori, and other characters. Additionally, he has published or written comics based on A Nightmare on Elm Street, Chucky, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, WWE, and more.

JIM STARLIN, creator of Thanos, started off at Marvel drawing and plotting such series as Iron Man and Captain Marvel, and co-creating Master of Kung Fu with Steve Englehart. His work on Warlock and The Silver Surfer raised those cosmic characters to new heights, and his The Death of Captain Marvel was one of Marvel’s earliest and most important graphic novels. His creator-owned Dreadstar comics and graphic novels have only enhanced his reputation.

JAIME JAMESON has worked (primarily as inker) on covers for Metal Men (DC Comics), Dejah Thoris (Dynamite Comics), and Dreadstar graphic novels with Jim Starlin, along with numerous other comics-related concepts. She is currently developing several creator-owned

John Romita—An Artist For All Seasons

projects of her own, as well.

It should also be noted that major comics pros Billy Tucci, Jim Salicrup, and Tom DeFalco had also hoped to join this special podcast, but all three of them were attending Heroes Con in Charlotte, NC, at the time, so could only be present in spirit. As another fitting tribute to the memory of John Romita, the podcast was recommended by the Hollywood Reporter online edition to its viewers. —JC & RT. JOHN CIMINO: Hello, everybody, and welcome to the “Steve… and Cimino Says Boom!” show—a special edition, because today we’re doing a special tribute to the life and legacy of the recent passing of John Romita, Sr. And we wanted to make this episode live, and for everybody to enjoy it. And we have our host of today…

ROY THOMAS: Co-host.

CIMINO: …Roy Thomas, of course. And Steve [Houston], down below. And Nile Scala. Nile, tell us what we need to do, brother!

NILE SCALA: Hey, everyone—well, before we get started, make sure to look below, click that subscribe button, and smash that bell to get notifications, so you can catch some amazing streams like we’re doing tonight. And gentlemen, I’m excited for this. I’m honored to be doing this. I’m very honored that our guests are willing to take the time to share some memories.

CIMINO: What we’re going to do is, people are going to come in and out, and hopefully we’re gonna get a nice round in a celebration of everybody talking about John Romita—his inspiration to them, and their experiences in their life. So this is going to be great.

5

STEVE HOUSTON: Well, first things first. I’m very honored to be here amongst legends, and also looking forward to hearing some firsthand accounts. Some nice material. It’s going to be wonderful.

Remember, first, before anything—it’s a celebration. It’s not going to be a maudlin affair; it’s going to be a celebration of a lifelong work, which will be living forever.

CIMINO: Yes. And before we bring on our guests, I would want to point out that Roy here, created—co-created two characters—right, Roy?—with John. Would you tell us about that, really quick?

THOMAS: Well, the first one, I think, was Satana, where Stan had just [come up with] a name. Then John and I had a couple of days to do a three- or four-page story [about her] to get into a magazine… which is strange, because it turned out to be the only story John and I ever did together. All the stuff we did together, covers and this and that, we never got a chance to actually do a story together, [besides] this one.

And the other was when I had the idea for Wolverine. I gave

Rascally Roy Thomas (from a 1970s magazine) juxtaposed with two of his prized and ultra-rare collaborations with John Romita: The first page of the 4-page “Satana” intro they pulled together for Vampire Tales #2 (Oct. 1973) at Stan Lee’s behest (complete with footstep sound effects stolen by RT from Harvey Kurtzman & Wally Wood in Mad #3)—along with John’s Satana figure from a house ad at issue’s end (which may have doubled as John’s concept sketch)— —and John’s original 1974 concept illos for Wolverine, as additionally autographed by RT (at the request of current owner Vince Olivia) at a CGC signing in Florida in December 2020. (See it bigger in A/E #171.) Thanks to Barry Pearl for the “Satana” scans; the tale’s final page can be viewed on p. 54 of this issue. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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The John Romita Memorial Tribute Panel Discussion—June 15, 2023

the story assignment to Len Wein, and then I went in to John and said, “We need a character called Wolverine,” and [he was to] design the character. John said later he didn’t know what [a wolverine] was. He thought it was a female wolf… so he had to look it up. And he totally designed the character with no [visual] input from me or Len. So, you know, we got that kind of thing going. Those characters have a certain legacy. One of them, in particular, has been fairly popular in recent years.

CIMINO: Okay, look at that. So we just wanted to get that. So without further ado… Nile?

SCALA: So joining us right now, we’ve got Mr. Steve Englehart, back in on the channel. Welcome back, Steve.

STEVE ENGLEHART: Thank you. Nice to be here.

SCALA: We’ve got Brian Pulido in the house. Everyone’s getting sworn, and we have our honorary guest tonight. Everyone, the legend himself, Mr. John Romita, Jr. [John Romita, Jr., experiences minor technical difficulties and the conversation continues while the others wait for him to reboot]

“Captain America – Commie Smasher!”

That’s what it said on the cover! And these three Romita-drawn splash pages from Captain America #78 (Sept. 1954) should tell you everything you need to know about why John’s 1953-54 run on the Sentinel of Liberty is Roy Thomas’ all-time favorite of JR’s work. Writer(s) unidentified. Courtesy of Dr. Michael J. Vassallo. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

John Romita—An Artist For All Seasons

7

CIMINO: Roy, why don’t you start with when you first met him?

THOMAS: I remember it very well, because it was 1965, July. I had been working at Marvel about two weeks by the middle of July. I’d sit there at my little corrugated desk [with my] typewriter.

[Production manager] Sol Brodsky said he wanted me to meet someone who had worked for Marvel before and was going to be coming back to work for Marvel. I looked up to [see] John Romita, and [after Brodsky introduced us] I said, “Oh, Mr. Romita, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m such an admirer of the Captain America work you did back in 1954.” And he practically fainted, he told me [later], because he couldn’t believe anyone would remember that work from like 11, 12 years before.

[At this point John Romita, Jr., remotely rejoins the conversation—in addition, Jim Starlin and Jaime Jameson have appeared on a seventh screen, but in the confusion had not been acknowledged at first] JOHN ROMITA, JR.: I can hear everything. Beautiful.

CIMINO: Well, look who’s here!… So, John, since you came, Roy was talking about when he first met John Romita [in 1965]. [to Roy] Go ahead, repeat.

THOMAS: Well, the basic thing was that he just couldn’t believe that anybody’d remember this work of his, and I said, “Of course.”

The funny thing is, even now, almost seventy years later, I still consider his “Captain America” work in 1954 the best work he ever did, because that was the perfect combination of Jack Kirby and Milt Caniff, and it was just a perfect marriage. I could see it even at the age of 13 and 14. But anyway… I remember he told me he came back to work there —Stan had promised him, in luring him away from this job he had coming up at an advertising company, that he would only have to ink. Stan promised him, “You’ll never have to pencil. You don’t want to pencil, you don’t have to pencil.” Soon as he got him in, it took about a week or two before, “Well, yeah, you want to pencil this, pencil that?” The next thing you know he’s doing Daredevil, then Spider-Man. ROMITA: [first part lost] —that “Captain America” work. Very proud of that stuff he did at that age. You look at it, it has that Milton Caniffesque look; it’s beautiful stuff, agreed.

JIM STARLIN: It had those really big shoulders and that skinny waist on that Captain America. Very heroic-looking.

THOMAS: Yeah. He told me he put one over on Stan, because he didn’t like drawing the three little [striped] circles around the shield. So after a couple of issues, he—you probably know this, John—he got Stan to approve the idea that [the stripes] were going to be color-held, and there wouldn’t be the lines with the stripes.

They would just hold it with red and white color. Well, you know, and I know, we all know how lousy that went. You look at those books, it’s just like red and white blobs going through it. But he said, “At least it meant I didn’t ever have to draw those circles!”

ROMITA: Fantastic. I never heard that story. That’s a great story.

CIMINO: John, how did you feel when during the— Me, Steve, and Nile, we kind of grew up during the ’70s as kids, and your father’s work was all over the toys. You know, you saw Herb Trimpe, and I occasionally saw on some cards Mr. Starlin. But your father’s work was everywhere, and it became the definitive Spider-Man as a kid, and in just seeing all that, what was your experience in first seeing your father starting to do these largerthan-life characters and seeing it everywhere? Had to be a blast.

ROMITA: Yeah, it actually helped out socially. If you were awkward at that time, it was a common conversation piece to have.

I Got Stripes!

This splash page from Men’s Adventures #28 (June 1954) demonstrates how John R. “put one over” on editor Stan Lee by talking him into letting John have the stripes on Captain America’s shield merely “color-held” instead of being indicated by black-line art in later stories. On this page, we get only one red stripe—and a big white area! Writer unknown. Thanks to Dr. Michael J. Vassallo.

[TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

And suddenly people would say, “Wow, is that what your father does?” Instead of, “Hey, Romita, You’re an ***hole!” Everything changed, and then of course when Spider-Man got bigger and bigger and bigger, it was just a matter of time before he was a famous guy, and people wanted to ask me about it. But it was a wonderful time, because I went from being socially awkward to being more comfortable, because I had a famous father. I thought it was fantastic.

CIMINO: How were you socially awkward? You’re always a good-looking guy—get out of here!

ROMITA: Well, there’s always social awkwardness with the women.

JAIME JAMESON: I saw a picture of you with a nice-looking mullet recently. I can share that.

ROMITA: I had the best mullet, better than all the wrestlers. It was the best mullet in the world.

JAMESON: The silk shirt, and the chains, and the mullet.

8

The John Romita Memorial Tribute Panel Discussion—June 15, 2023

even when it didn’t need fixing. He especially fixed all my stuff.

ENGLEHART: Right.

Yeah.

CIMINO: Mr. Starlin— Thanos himself. Tell us your first experience meeting Mr. Romita.

STARLIN: You know, I don’t remember exactly the first time, but he and [artist] Frank Giacoia were the ones who were up at the office all the time. I don’t think either one of them at the time wanted to be the art director.

So when I showed up there, I certainly got stuck with the job as their first one doing cover layouts with Stan. And John was always very encouraging. The only criticism he ever gave me was getting Spider-Man’s web correct.

John Romita, Jr. hard at work—creating a legacy to rival even that of his dad.! Case in point: his variant cover for The X-Men #100 (May 2000), in the second incarnation of that title.

Courtesy of the GCD. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

CIMINO: I’ll tell you this: It’s funny that Roy, Steve Englehart, and Jim Starlin all have the same hairdo from the ’70s to today.

JAMESON: They’re rocking the same look.

CIMINO: So, Steve Englehart, tell us your first experience meeting Mr. Romita.

ROMITA: He did that with a lot of artists. There’s something about that “going against the curve of the arm and the leg.” He did that with a lot of people. You’re right.

ENGLEHART: Well, when I went to work at Marvel, I took a six-week fill-in job. I was put in the cubicle that faced the entrance door at the Marvel studios, so that when people would come in, I would be the guy who would deal with them.

People didn’t come in all that often, so it wasn’t the thing, but behind me in the next cubicle were John Romita and Herb Trimpe doing the art corrections, or whatever it was that they were asked to do at the time.

So they were like my first friends at Marvel when I went in there as an aspiring fan, whatever. They couldn’t have been nicer, both Herb and Jaime Jameson Johnny. You know, breaking me into and a Thanos illustration that the thing, telling me what was going she inked (and Bob Sharen & Joe on. So, my six weeks at Marvel, there Rubinstein colored) over pencils wasn’t a day that went by that I wasn’t by creator Jim Starlin. Thanks to Shaun Clancy. [Thanos TM & © over in their cubicle talking to them Marvel Characters, Inc.] about doing stuff, or just hanging out, or whatever. Johnny was completely welcoming. I mean, I was absolutely nobody, and he was, “Sure, you’re part of the Bullpen now—come on in.”

ROMITA: Nice to know. Nice to hear that.

ENGLEHART: Oh yeah, absolutely. And the other thing that I would mention is, in those days, I was doing art. And I did a romance story. I did two romance art jobs, one of which was inked

by Jack Abel… and one of which was inked by Johnny Romita. And I sure looked good!

ROMITA: Yeah, he had a habit of fixing everything he worked on,

John Romita—An Artist For All Seasons

Steve Englehart at the Forbidden Planet comics store in the UK— and one of the romance stories he penciled as a newcomer, and which was inked by John Romita.

It appeared in My Love #16 (March 1972), and was scripted by Gary Friedrich. Thanks to Nick Caputo for the scan. (Nick reminds us that Steve colored that “sob story,” too!) [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

sick of everywhere in the city.

9

STARLIN: But what I have [about] you and your family—coming back to Marvel from DC or wherever I was at, your mom was working up there, your dad was working up there, you were working up there. I was coming back to this corporation, but it felt like the family business. [audio momentarily unclear] ROMITA: That was working for Marvel. Very safe at that time. You had three family members.

Nobody was worried about driving. They were

CIMINO: Mr. Pulido—your first introduction to Mr. Romita?

BRIAN PULIDO: Well, full disclosure, everybody—I did not have the great pleasure of meeting John Romita, Sr., in person.

However, as a lifelong comics fan, reading his work—it was among the first times I was able to put together a creator with a name, and start having that understanding. So it was around the Amazing Spider-Man run in the #110s, where a friend brought over a stack, maybe a year’s worth of books—and the first thing that impressed upon me was the quality, and this is even as a 13- or 14-year-old— is the quality of the draftsmanship on the covers. They were incredibly impactful. And as I was reading the stories, even as a kid, the storytelling was masterful. There was a great sense of adventure. But what I also particularly adored is that the men were handsome, the women were beautiful, everything was bigger than life. It wasn’t lost on me.

Jim Starlin at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2021—juxtaposed with one of his most famous Warlock covers, for Strange Tales #178 (Feb. 1975).

Courtesy of the GCD. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

As a fan who started to become a little more knowledgeable that people actually do this, it really became clear to me that John Romita, Sr., defined Marvel, and brought it into the mainstream in my opinion at that time. So the work has always been very impactful, and certainly the other folks that are in attendance have had their—your work has delighted me tremendously. You know, Steve Englehart, Starlin.

It’s been remarkable, and Jr. of course has been remarkably impactful in my life, not only as a comic professional, but particularly as a lifelong comic fan.

So what I did want to say to John, Jr., is, your father’s work in a sense was like the soundtrack of a young comic fan’s life, and the work has had a tremendous impact, I know, not only on myself as a fan, but on fandom in general. So that’s just what I wanted to say, so thank you.

ROMITA: It was beautiful, thank you very much. The ironic part about what you said was the man didn’t think he had a style, and he wished he had a style.

He said, “I see this, I see this guy.” And even later on with Kirby’s, and Don Heck’s, and all of the other artists that were his contemporaries, he felt they had a distinctive style, and he didn’t. The irony is, that style in and of itself is as great as everybody else’s. But he was uncomfortable with how good everyone was, and

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The John Romita Memorial Tribute Panel Discussion—June 15, 2023

that’s the way I felt for the longest time. There’s better artists around, and that’s what kept my feet on the ground. And he said, “There’s always somebody bigger, better, stronger, better loo—” well, not better-looking, but anyway—“and smarter.” And his advice was, “If you think you’re good, you’re never gonna get better.

So do not let yourself get full of yourself.” And if that man didn’t have an ego, how the bleep am I supposed to have an ego? And that’s what it was.

Brian Pulido and his co-creation Lady Death, as introduced in Evil Ernie #1 back in 1991, with art by Steven Hughes.

Thanks to Nile Scala & John Cimino. [TM & © Brian Pulido & Steven Hughes.]

CIMINO: Yeah. John, I wanted to ask you, when you were starting to draw and you’re getting good, did your father put a lot of pressure on you? Or were you intimidated? How do you do that and become as good as you are with your father? I mean, I just want to know the whole building of that.

ROMITA: It was all self-imposed. The man was nothing but supportive, and did not ever lord over me. It was too much that he wanted me to bring work to him and

Just One Of Those Kangs John Romita’s first assignment the second time around at Marvel was to ink Don Heck’s pencils for The Avengers #23 (Dec. 1965); script by Stan Lee. His second task was to ink Jack Kirby’s cover pencils for that same issue.

Infamously, the Comics Code Authority forced Marvel to move Kang the Conqueror’s right hand slightly lower on this art, which somehow was supposed to make it less “menacing.” Thanks to Aaron Caplan for both scans. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

John Romita—An Artist For All Seasons

11

to show even back as far as college. I would bring it and show it to him. I was ashamed. But he would give me his opinion, he never wanted to lord over it. It was all self-imposed intimidation, and nervousness, and then working on the characters that he was so great at. That made me even more nervous. And, again, he was nothing but supportive. If I came up with anything, I said, “Listen, I just [want to know what] you think.” And he would give me a little tip. It was as simple as that. The man was wonderful in his support.

THOMAS: I’ve got a question, John. As the son of a fine artist like that, do you think that he always thought, or did it have to dawn on him, that you were going to make it as a comicbook artist? Or do you think that he saw it from the start?

Do you think he wasn’t sure if you would develop into a real professional, or do you think he was just always certain you would, or didn’t he know, or what?

ROMITA: He was fatherly supportive, but was nervous. Because I recall at some point, after I had become relatively established, he said, “I was terrified. I thought you were going to be crushed, and I didn’t want it to happen to you.” But he never let on that he was nervous about it because I would have probably been more terrified. Always supportive, to answer your question. But I found out later on that he was concerned about me failing, yes.

THOMAS: Once you made up The Prowler you were on your way, right? [both laugh] ROMITA: You should have seen the sketch of The Prowler I did, which was skintight and no face showing, just two eye holes. And

Meet The Romitas!

Virginia and John Romita, with sons Victor and John, Jr., in 1962.

Thanks to John Cimino.

His Night To Prowl (Above right & below:) The cover, splash page, and a “Prowler origin” page from Amazing Spider-Man #78 (Nov. 1969). The cover was done totally by John Romita; the story was penciled by John Buscema and inked by Jim Mooney, with script by Stan Lee. Note the nod to John Jr. in the splash page credits. Thanks to the GCD and Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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The John Romita Memorial Tribute Panel Discussion—June 15, 2023

Stan said, “The art sucks, but I love the name!” That was— [Cimino laughs] CIMINO: Roy, why don’t you tell everybody the early dynamics of Stan Lee and John Romita—how they got together, and stuff that you saw early in their career in those days.

THOMAS: Well— ROMITA: They were pretty much how Stan was with everybody else. Stan’s personality dominated the room. But when the two of them were together, if I was ever in the room listening, Stan would go—Roy must know this story—Stan would go as far as getting, crouching up on the table to show the awkwardness of Spider-Man. Because he felt Romita was drawing too much of an elegantlooking Spider-Man, à la Daredevil. Stan would pose up on this table, this senior-looking gentleman to me, and he had his glasses and the suit, on top of the table: “And I want to see this, and I want to see that.” And I’m trying to keep myself from laughing too loud. Romita, Sr., would be taking notes. So Romita, Sr., was never intimidated by Stan, he embraced it, and used it, it was great.

THOMAS: One of the things I remember the most about it was

Man Without Peer A 1970 Daredevil “presentation piece,” co-starring The Owl, by John Romita.

Thanks to Mike Burkey. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

how he was with Romita when writing in the first month or so after Ditko left. And suddenly, you know, John was pushed into doing something he did not want to do, which was to draw Spider-Man. He was very happy doing Daredevil, and he knew he was being held in reserve, by having done those two issues with Spider-Man as a guest star, and he did not want to go over to Spider-Man. I think partly he thought Ditko might be back. But even so, he didn’t want to do it.

Then, after they did that, they were just [starting on that run], and Stan called me in to take notes. He and John had a conference for about an hour or so, and they were just talking about where Spider-Man was gonna go. Because, after all, they were just introducing Mary Jane, and now Stan, of course, was really eager about this. Because, for the last year or two, he’d had really very little to do with Spider-Man’s destiny. I mean, he could have overruled Steve Ditko at any time, but he was letting him plot it.

But he was a little frustrated, because he hadn’t been able to have the input on the character he wanted to. And now suddenly he was like a kid let loose in his own way. He was going to be able to take Spider-Man in directions that he could kind of control, and work with somebody like John, whom he greatly respected.

To Prowl Once More!

The Prowler was also the antagonist in Amazing Spider-Man #79 (Dec. ’69), as per this color cover rough by Romita. Whether he or someone else (perhaps Marie Severin) colored it is not certain. Thanks to Mike Burkey. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

And they were sitting there talking, stating ideas of where it would be in six months, and this and that—just in a general way.

Spitballing everything. And finally, Stan looked over at me and he said, “You have a weird look on your face while you’re taking notes. Why is that?” I said, “Well, it’s just you’re talking about the future of this character, and taking it seriously like it’s alive. This just isn’t the way I thought of comicbooks as being done.” You

John Romita—An Artist For All Seasons

13

ROMITA: Amen, amen. Roy mentioned something about that story conference process of how we progressed actually—that was a great story—is that once Stan worked with Senior on a couple of books, he almost set forth, “I don’t have to write this. I just give it to him like this.” And that’s how really great story conferences would happen.

Romita, Sr., would have his little scratchpad; Stan would talk. He would talk the plot to Romita, Sr., Mike Esposito and that was where the Marvel Method blew up, because it was From the 1975 Marvel Con Program Book. better than getting the synopsis to the artists. And that’s how I learned how to do it, for me to see him go from that kind of thing—to bridge it, five or six pages from a sentence of Stan’s story. That’s brilliant. That’s the Marvel Method.

ENGLEHART: I have a question, John. You were obviously a little kid, so I don’t know how much you would know about this. But at the point that your dad took over Spider-Man… Spider-Man was a Ditko thing, you know? It had that super-Ditko thing going on, and part of that was that we kept seeing Mary Jane from the back, dressed like she was from the 1940s. And I’m gonna say—to jump ahead of that, that when we saw Johnny Romita’s Mary Jane, that probably sort of sold the whole thing right then and there. I mean, it was like— JAMESON: Ann-Margret. [See p. 56 for the “MJ Sequence.”]

First Out Of The Gate: The Rhino!

The first Spidey villain that Stan and John co-created was The Rhino, who debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #41 (Oct. 1966), as soon as the two-issue story arc with The Green Goblin had ended. Inks by Mike Esposito as “Mickey Demeo.”

know, usually everything was kind of—it was really by the seat of their pants and so forth. But in this case, they really wanted to map it out. They got very, very serious about it. It was really fun to be in on that one hour that in a way set the tone for the next several years of Spider-Man. SCALA: Jim, did you have something?

STARLIN: Yes. Somewhere along those lines, but I also had heard that—[to Romita] and I think it came from your father, that he was the second son of an Italian family, and the expectation was that he was supposed to go into the priesthood. Was it?

ROMITA: That was a suggestion by my grandfather. He thought [my father] was a Martian… [that he] came from nowhere.

They had no idea where it came from. My grandfather was a woodworker and a blue collar worker. And my father was drawing the Statue of Liberty from manhole cover to manhole cover in Brooklyn. My grandfather thought this man was from outer space.

But I don’t know about that being true or not, about the priesthood.

But I heard that rumor, yes.

STARLIN: I guess you and the rest of the family, and the rest of the fans, are very happy that he didn’t go that route.

ENGLEHART: —this is a good-looking woman! Now we finally understand why we were so interested in Mary Jane. But I was wondering, since everything to that point had been Ditko, and Stan wasn’t involved that much, was your dad—he didn’t want to do it, Roy said, but was he intimidated at all? The idea of taking over the strip, which had been done by one guy with a very distinct other style for so long?

ROMITA: I don’t think the word “intimidated” was in the conversation. But he was concerned that he didn’t want to depart too much from the guy before him. Maybe that’s considered intimidation. He thought Ditko had great style, “And I don’t have a style.” But he managed, he said, within a couple of months or a couple of issues, to feel more comfortable. And the issues 108, 109 for some reason, he said that’s what made him more comfortable.

It was a tribute to Ditko every time he talked about it: “How do I—like, keep on giving them what he was giving them? Or do I go in my own way?” So the majority of it in his mind was because of the style of [Ditko], before his departure. But Stan loved his stuff off right from the get-go.

ENGLEHART: Yeah, so did we, on reading it.

JAMESON: I grew up with your dad’s Spider-Man before I knew Ditko’s. I came later in the game. And I mean, he was Spider-Man to me. When I first met him, I’m talking comics—I was just asking his advice, “I don’t know if I’m really doing what I want to do.” And he was like, “Sometimes you do things that you don’t think you want to do.” He was like, “I didn’t want to do Spider-Man.” And my jaw hit the floor. “How can you say you didn’t want to do Spider-Man!?”

He was happy that he did. He was like “Yeah, at the time I wanted to do Daredevil or, you know, anything else other than Spider-Man.” But he became known most for Spider-Man. ROMITA: Well, when he became confident in what he was doing,

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The John Romita Memorial Tribute Panel Discussion—June 15, 2023

percentages [of the print run sold]…. It was ahead of Spider-Man or whatever, with a lower print run. When he took over Spider-Man, it went within about six months from being the second-best-selling Marvel book to being the best. It was actually John Romita who made Amazing Spider-Man the top-selling Marvel comic.

But the funny thing is, I remember John mentioning, once or twice in the early days, he really didn’t think much of the Ditko Spider-Man. Is that right? Did he say that? And that it took him a while to get into it. This was a warped style?

How To Spend 37¢ In August 1966 (Above left:) While the face-to-face introduction of Mary Jane Watson is definitely the most memorable incident in Amazing Spider-Man #42 (Nov. 1966), let’s not forget that that issue also re-introduced us to J. Jonah Jameson’s astronaut son, who temporarily becomes a super-powered menace. Roy T. says he always wondered why Lee and Romita didn’t turn him into either a permanent super-villain or -hero as a regular fixture in the series (rather than his eventually becoming Man-Wolf). John had even done a couple of concept illos of his outfit in advance, as seen below right.

(Above right:) John had barely had time to draw a handful of monthly Spidey issues before he had to tackle the 21-page cover feature for Amazing SpiderMan Annual #3 (also Nov. ’66), wherein the Web-Spinner had to capture the Hulk in order to prove himself worthy of becoming an Avenger. JR produced full art for this cover, but inside, he had to settle for doing storytelling and layouts, which were then finished by penciler Don Heck and inker Mike Esposito. Script

by Stan Lee. The two inset panels at the bottom of the cover are, of course, reprints of Steve Ditko work. Both cover scans courtesy of the GCD. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

he had the same attitude as when he was unconfident. He just worked hard, and then he felt he wasn’t fast enough and wasn’t good enough. That’s a Romita trait. That’s actually a great trait, because you work to get better, and when I’m 105, 110, I’ll be really good.

JAMESON: Another thing he said was, “Just never think you’re at your best. Always work hard.”

ROMITA: He said to me, “If you ever get full of yourself, go to a museum in Manhattan. Come out looking like this.” [Romita gesture “small”] He said, “You feel like this.”

JAMESON: I feel nonexistent when I go to the Met. STARLIN: [to Romita] I don’t think Spider-Man’s sales really exploded until after your dad’s taking over. Right?

THOMAS: Yeah, I can confirm that. When John Romita took over Daredevil after Wally Wood left, it was selling quite well, at a relatively low print run compared to some other books.

Within three or four or five issues, it’d become the best-selling percentage—I don’t remember the [exact numbers], but I know it was the best-selling book at Marvel at the time in terms of

ROMITA: It was a style that was a departure from what he was used to.

What he saw [was] other artists— Kirby’s, everybody’s stuff that had a style. It was a distinctive style. It’s not that he didn’t think [Ditko’s Spider-Man] was good. He said, “Style over substance,” sometimes.

It never made him do anything different from what he could do, and he stuck to what he could do. But, again, he bemoaned the fact that he had no distinctive style and— JAMESON: He drew beautiful women. He drew beautiful women in that. So for me to say that is a big compliment, because the first thing I can say [is] if you’re a good artist, “Let me see how you draw a woman.” His were beautiful, beautiful women. And I mean, ask him— [Jameson indicates Starlin] I’m like, “No, no, it’s wrong, the proportions are wrong, boobs are wrong....” You know—beautiful,

John Romita—An Artist For All Seasons

You Say You Want An Evolution?

(Clockwise from above left:) Steve Ditko’s Wall-Crawler battles baddies, then phantoms, in the artist’s trademark style in Amazing Spider-Man #33 (Feb. 1966).

In the first issue of Amazing Spider-Man he penciled (#39, Aug. 1966), John Romita made a conscious effort to imitate Steve Ditko’s distinctive style, even in the fight scenes—although scripter Stan used the occasion to restore the colorful sound effects that Ditko had mostly talked him out of using.

By a year later, in ASM #51 (Aug. ’67), John was using bigger panels, and less Ditkoesque angles (such as the foreground Spidey in panel 2), reflecting his own more Kirby-influenced battle style. The end result was a sort of amalgam of the Kirby and Ditko styles. All three stories scripted by Stan Lee; thanks to Barry Pearl for the trio of scans. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Steve Ditko in his studio, 1970s.

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The John Romita Memorial Tribute Panel Discussion—June 15, 2023

We’re Off To See The Lizard…

By around the time of Romita’s sixth outing on that title—i.e., circa Amazing Spider-Man #44 (Jan. 1967)— the arachnid’s mag had surpassed Fantastic Four in per-issue sales to become Marvel’s best-selling title.

Interestingly, this Lizard cover is one of the more Ditkoesque of John’s offerings. Courtesy of the GCD. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] In the words of A/E benefactor and Marvel researcher Barry Pearl: “When Wood left Daredevil, Stan replaced him with Romita.

“When Ditko left Spider-Man, Stan replaced him with Romita.

“When Kirby left Fantastic Four, Stan replaced him with Romita.

“When Kirby and Steranko [both] left Captain America, Stan replaced them with Romita.

“That tells you a lot.”

Indeed.

beautiful women. He was an amazing artist.

PULIDO: I also think he had a great sense of melodrama. The drama was always overblown, but that was phenomenal, fun work.

ROMITA: I’ve mentioned a million times that he was a cinephile

beyond all cinephiles. When it was rainy and summer days, he would put us in front of the TV and we would talk about the movies that were coming on. We’d go to see a black-&-white film in a theatre, talk about it before the scene was coming. He was storytelling, whether he knew it or not. He loved to talk about films, and equated comicbooks with stop-action film. It was his famous line to me.

CIMINO: John, I know you gotta go soon, but I gotta ask you something. I’m half Sicilian, and I know you’re Sicilian. But I have to ask you this: my Sicilian side is nuts. Temper, crazy... That’s why I’m a little out there. How come the Romitas are the most lovable, nice people? I don’t get it! I don’t understand. Can you tell me?

ROMITA: We owe people a lot of money that are more— [laughter] We owe, so we have to keep our mouths shut. The truth is that the Romita side of the family is Calabria Zambaiti, and that tempers the Sicilian side.

CIMINO: Well, I know you’ve got to go, John.

But any last words you want to say to the fans out there—some last words, some dedication to your father?

ROMITA: I’ve been reading things about his passing. I didn’t get as affected by his passing as I’m getting affected by the tribute.

Wonderful things people are saying about him. I’ll try not to get choked up. But he touched so many people, and people he didn’t know because he was a sweetheart. And not only am I—well, I

Femmes Up Front Interestingly, not one of the nearly 40 Steve Ditko covers for Amazing Spider-Man had prominently featured a female face or form—while, in the space of less than a year in 196869, a trio of all-Romita covers did: Mary Jane on #59 (April ’68), Medusa on #62 (July ’68), and a bespectacled but still comely protestor on #68 (Jan. ’69). But what—no Gwen Stacy?

Courtesy of the GCD. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

John Romita—An Artist For All Seasons

tried to reach that goalpost of being as good. He’s LeBron.

I’m the waterboy at the end of the bench. I have that to look for, trying to reach it. But all his personality… the man had no ego. And that’s the way to be a brilliant artist… with no ego. You don’t get that very often.

CIMINO: And Steve Houston, any last words to Mr. Junior here?

17

Four By Father & Son (Above:) John Romita and John Jr. (Right:) An illustration by Johns Sr. & Jr. combined—probably penciled by Jr. and inked by his dad—delineating characters memorably drawn over the years separately by both of them: Spider-Man, Daredevil, Wolverine, and The Punisher. Romita the Elder had, of course, visually designed the latter two. [Heroes TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

HOUSTON: You know, I was actually very fortunate to see John at a Spider-Man panel in San Diego in 1996, and I was actually able to ask him: “When you drew the cover to Amazing Spider-Man 39, you had it on your drawing desk and you’re sitting back and you’re thinking, “Okay, I’m taking over Spider-Man from Steve Ditko. I’m going to be in charge.” I said, “When you sat back on the drawing desk, did you realize that you had created a masterpiece?” Because it is one of the most iconic covers of all time, Nile Scala and to go into what you’re saying, he said, “I just hoped they liked it.” He goes, “I sent it off, and I was worried that they might not like it.” And I was like, “Oh my word!”

ROMITA: But you know what cover he would inflate his chest over? Number 50.

“Spider-Man No More!” He was more proud of that cover because of the reaction it got, and he said [that], to this day, it’s his favorite piece that he ever did.

Goblin Up The Turf John Romita’s very first cover for Amazing Spider-Man: issue #39 (Aug. 1966). Brian Pulido thinks he should have realized that he had succeeded in making the title his own from the start— while John just “hoped they [meaning Stan Lee and Martin Goodman] liked it.”

SPOILER ALERT: They did.

Courtesy of the GCD. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

THOMAS: I think it’s the most famous cover. Certainly the most important cover he probably ever did. [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: For Romita’s cover for Amazing Spider-Man #50, see p. 57.]

ROMITA: I agree. He got awards from a lot of people because of how important it was. Ladies and gentle people, I have to get going, and I apologize for cutting it short, but I have a lot of— JAMESON: J.R., tell your mom I’m sending a cheesecake.

ROMITA: Thank you very much. You’ve been wonderful, and I hope to talk to you all again under better circumstances.

ENGLEHART: Nice to see you, John.

SCALA: And I have just two super-chats [sent in by watchers] for you, John, if I can just get those up real quick.

CIMINO: He’s gotta get the pizza ready. Come on!

SCALA: I know, I know. Just real quick. John Malin: “Thanks for the super chat. Sorry for the loss, John.” Right, and then I’ve got one more here. 200 Watt Studio: “JRJR, I’m so sorry for your loss. Did your dad give you any advice when you started on Amazing Spider-Man?” ROMITA: Advice? That line about “There’s always someone bigger and better and smarter than you. Deal with that and try to get better.” It was basically a short conversation. “If you think you’re good, you’re never gonna get better.” And that was the one that I took the most. Bless you all. Thank you. [John Jr. signs off.]

CIMINO: Jaime. I’m sorry that I missed you when I went around talking to people. I apologize for that. Please tell me your experience with John Romita, and stuff in your background with him.

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The John Romita Memorial Tribute Panel Discussion—June 15, 2023

coming in a little later to kind of help out. I mean, I knew her, and I knew John [Jr.] when he was a little kid. The funny thing is, I think that John Jr. said his first job was being the New York editorial assistant and coordinator for Savage Sword of Conan, but I didn’t remember it, because I never saw him. It was just a voice over the phone, and I knew it was John Jr., but I just didn’t recall it. It’s kind of strange. So he sort of made a name for himself after that.

But to me, though, there’s—I have forbidden, in Alter Ego or anything else I work on—I have forbidden the term “John Romita, Sr.” I come from a different place. No disrespect to John Romita, Jr., who’s become a fantastic artist. I worked with him once or twice; I’m happy I did. But you know, there’s John Romita, Jr., and there’s John Romita. There is no John Romita, Sr. SCALA: Those are the rules.

THOMAS: Just for me. You know, I knew John Romita for so many years before I knew John Jr. as an artist.

STARLIN: I think the style guide would say you’re right.

THOMAS: Well, I speak as a “Junior” myself, you know… and my father was never called Roy Thomas, Sr. JAMESON: I was supposed to be James Patrick, Jr., and I’m so glad I’m not.

CIMINO: Mr. Englehart, what’s your “best work of John Romita”?

What’s a work that he’s done that impressed you, that you can still look at, that still has a lingering impression on you?

ENGLEHART: Well, all of it. But if I were to single something out, I’d go back to his Daredevil, because that was such a nice piece of

Funny What Some People Throw Away!

Perhaps the most celebrated page that John Romita ever drew that didn’t feature Mary Jane Watson was this one from Amazing Spider-Man #50 (July 1967). Roy T. states, “Even the day we first saw it in the office, we knew it was a classic. Often imitated, never bettered.” Script by Stan Lee. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

JAMESON: Well, as I mentioned, I met him many, many years ago, before I was in comics, but he was like—Spider-Man was my favorite as a kid. My great-uncle used to call me—I was obsessed with Spider-Man—he called me Jaime Jameson, “Jaime Jules Jameson.” I mean, just all these names. Jim is in my chair, but if you look, it is Spider-Man. [Starlin is seated in a Spider-Man-backed chair] I was obsessed. But I got Spencer [Beck], my art manager—he would FaceTime me with John Sr., and I’d have these conversations with him on FaceTime in Virginia, and just got to know him better. It was my very first FaceTime call, actually. But just getting to know him or talk about what I said before. I mean, J.R. just said it best: “You’re never where you want to be with art, and just not to give up and not to take into consideration—maybe you don’t love what you’re doing, but it might be the right thing.” I just thought that was always such good advice. I didn’t expect to do comics. I’m the last person that would tell you, “Yeah, I work in comics now.” Did not foresee that. But it led me here, doing things I didn’t want to do. So, just a lovely man. Just the nicest, happiest personality, you know? Just a sweetheart.

CIMINO: Roy, the Romita family all started filling up the offices of Marvel. Do you have any stories about that?

THOMAS: No, that was a little after my time. Mrs. Romita started

The Family That Works Together…

John and Virginia Romita together in the Marvel offices—during the days when she was a very important office manager. Thanks to Tom Brevoort.

John Romita—An Artist For All Seasons

work. Lower key, as Roy said. The world was less spectacular than Spider-Man’s world. But you know, that run was just really nice.

And that’s where I first really took notice of it. I can’t remember what I might have seen of his before that. I didn’t see those ’50s “Captain Americas” until later.

THOMAS: You did see them at some stage, didn’t you, Steve?

ENGLEHART: Yeah, yeah. [both laugh] CIMINO: And what about you, Mr. Pulido?

PULIDO: Well, you know, I’m biased because I’m a Captain America super-fan. So, John’s run on Captain America was pretty good. I think it was—am I right? like 138 to 145, thereabouts? Great stuff. But I mean, again, I always go back to—and the covers are insane! That’s a question that’d have been fun to ask “JR”: “Was Senior looking at anything? Do these covers completely come out of his imagination?” Because they’re very potent, there’s just so much storytelling. It’s not just a single image, you get a sense of story. But yeah, there’s just too many to choose from.

THOMAS: I can kind of answer that in one sense—you have to remember, John sat there in the office, mostly five days a week, and he just worked, and he sat, and he thought. Obviously, he had other things [references], but a lot of it was in his memory. Maybe he did some research, but he did so much thinking and just sitting around that, as you probably heard: Martin Goodman—who was the publisher—would occasionally, in the late ’60s, wander around, come walking through. He would look in there, and he would go in to Stan and say, “What the hell does John Romita do? I never see him [working]—he sort of does Spider-Man, and he’s sort of sitting there...” and so forth.

And what it was was, John became more and more depended upon by Stan, not just to do Spider-Man, but at the same time— even though Stan didn’t want to admit it—to be like an assistant art director, or almost art director, under him.

At the same time he was doing all that stuff, doing the stories, he was doing an awful lot. But he didn’t produce a lot of actual artwork by volume. Stan said he had a lot of trouble at various times defending John Romita’s job, because Martin Goodman—who was a bean-counter type— could not see that John was producing enough pages, enough this, enough that.

And Stan was constantly having to explain that he was involved in everything, and a lot of the stuff [Goodman] just couldn’t see. Because he was redoing a cover, or he Daredevil May Care was guiding somebody doing this, or guiding John Romita’s final Daredevil (#19, Aug. 1966) showed him in fine fettle, both on someone doing that.

I’m amazed that John was able to make those “Spider-Man” stories—when he was drawing them—

the cover and interiors. On the latter, he was inked by Frank Giacoia. Script

by Stan Lee. With thanks to the GCD and Barry Pearl, respectively. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

19

coherent, because he was constantly, constantly being yanked one way or the other. Either by Stan, or by Sol Brodsky, his production manager, who had his own needs. Maybe somebody else who needed some help—myself, occasionally. He was constantly being pulled one way or the other. And then he had to get back and plot: “Now let’s see, where did I leave Spider-Man hanging by a rope?”

So it was a very difficult situation. John probably had it harder than a lot of people, because everyone depended on him at some stage or the other. Much more than it looked like, and there wasn’t any way to draw a chart for Martin Goodman that showed that.

CIMINO: Wow! And Mr. Starlin? You? What was some work that Mr. Romita did that was very impressive to you, that inspired you in some way? Something that was very inspirational to you, and your work?

STARLIN: You know, it was watching him dealing with people which I always found the most impressive. Roy was saying he was constantly being interrupted as he was producing these Spider-Mans. One of his jobs was—and in fact I was working with him, trying to help him out with layouts—and he was working with this guy named Morty-something—I can’t remember his last name—who was filling in blacks for him. [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: At this point, though it’s not clearly heard on the tape, Roy says that Jim is referring to Tony Mortellaro, veteran comics artist who worked on staff at Marvel in the 1970s and assisted Romita by inking backgrounds, etc.]

But John was, as he was inking, he was always filling in his

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The John Romita Memorial Tribute Panel Discussion—June 15, 2023

own blacks. And [Mortellaro] would come along and say, “Don’t do that.” And finally he put up a sign saying, “John, no blacks!”

And within a week or so, John— among his jobs was to look at people’s artwork—and one of the first people that came in was Ron Wilson, who happened to be a black man. And there’s the sign on top of [Romita’s] desk saying, “John, no blacks!” [laughter] Romita looked at it, and looked at Ron, and went, “Sorry, this has nothing to do with anything,” and they went on like [regular business]. I’m sitting over there going, “I couldn’t have handled that that smoothly.”

CIMINO: Jaime, what about you?

Captains, Falcons—And Spiders!

JAMESON: Um, what was the question? That is so funny. I’ve never heard that.

Credit Brian Pulido for a sharp memory!

John Romita’s reign on the Captain America title did begin with #138 (June 1971)—and editor/writer Stan Lee had him toss Spider-Man into the issue and onto the cover for good measure. John’s run on that title wasn’t a terribly long one, but it made its mark. Thanks to the GCD & Barry Pearl for the scans. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

CIMINO: No blacks! No blacks!

Yeah. Some work that John did that was very impressionable to you, and inspired you?

Suit Up! Along with the designs for Wolverine and Satana (seen on p. 5), John also did the original concept design drawings for The Punisher, Brother Voodoo, and for a more super-heroic costume that editor-in-chief Roy Thomas wanted for the Sub-Mariner. Gerry Conway had indicated a small skull chest symbol for the character he originally called “The Assassin,” and John turned that into The Punisher’s iconic elongated skull design so well-known today—while RT’s only request to John re Namor was to include a trident sigil as part of the design. In all three cases, John came through like a champ, as always! With thanks to Tom Brevoort and Mike Burkey, respectively. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

John Romita—An Artist For All Seasons

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here. You actually saw this beautiful face. Just all of his stuff, but Spider-Man is my childhood.

CIMINO: And you, Steve Houston?

From the 1975 Marvel Con Program Book.

JAMESON: I mean, all of his Spider-Man. That was my childhood.

But he actually told me about Alex Toth when I was young, and I would have never known who Alex Toth was. He was telling me who he was inspired by, and he inspired me by pointing out other artists that had inspired him. That stands out in my mind—just him sharing where he’d gotten inspired, and seeing what he did with his inspiration. And the first appearance of Mary Jane. I mean, that stands out in my mind. She wasn’t behind a plant, or behind

HOUSTON: It’s funny, I’m in agreement. I think maybe Brian will agree with me here: by the time we get to 1971, ‘72, ‘73, he in my opinion is in his peak, and those issues of Amazing Spider-Man between 103 and 119, 120. Absolutely sensational. But, again, Jaime is correct—his drawings of women. For me, of course, I’m a big sucker for women with big eyelashes, and so when I first saw Satana, I was like, “I have to find myself a lady that looks like Satana! Find the one of those.” Because they didn’t exist in England, all those dark-haired ladies. I was like, “Wow!” But those eyelashes—! And I was very fortunate a couple years later to come across the romance stuff that he drew. And of course, you got John Romita, John Buscema, and Gene Colan in like every issue. Like, what? Whoa, unbelievable. So, again, that era—1971 to ‘73. Many people don’t equate that, because they’re always talking about that early [material]—but it’s becoming a craftsman…. But that drawing

Romita Interregnum Co-host Steve Houston particularly lauds the year-long period between Amazing Spider-Man #106 (March 1972) seen at left, when John Romita returned to the comic after a number of issues penciled by Gil Kane, and AMS #119 (April 1973), JR’s last before relinquishing the reins to Kane once more because of increased art-directorial duties. The cover of #119 is all Romita, while the interior art for #106 was inked by Frank Giacoia; script

by Stan Lee. Thanks to Barry Pearl and the GCD, respectively. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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The John Romita Memorial Tribute Panel Discussion—June 15, 2023

of Satana still has a special place in my heart.

CIMINO: And, Mr. Starlin, you should know Steve’s love of his life is Moondragon. I’m just throwing that out there.

STARLIN: Oh, can’t imagine why!

THOMAS: I want to say something about John Romita and DC Comics.

You know I like DC Comics. I’ve Steve Houston worked for them from time to time, and so forth. But I was just discussing with somebody at lunch today my amazement that, in the 1960s, up through ’65, for about eight years or so, they had John Romita—also Gene Colan and other people—but they had John Romita in their romance department. They were very departmentalized as a company.

[John was] doing romance comics, doing a wonderful job selling those romance comics. So he was definitely earning his money there, because those did well, and his were considered some of the very best and most popular.

But the amazement to me when I look back [is to] realize that John Romita had been this person with no signature that occasionally I would see on the romance covers, and that when they started “Doom Patrol” they had a romance artist draw that.

Bruno Premiani, who was nice, but totally... you know. Okay, Ross Andru, he was a super-hero artist—they had different people drawing all these super-heroes, and yet, they had one of the best super-hero artists of all time there, and he never drew a super-hero for DC Comics, because they didn’t know it.

JAMESON: He did Young Love, and— ENGLEHART: His women were too good-looking.

THOMAS: Yeah, I suppose. You know, if any of them had

Romita On DC Street While Romita never did any super-hero artwork for DC Comics, he would occasionally be called on in later years to draw DC characters in an art commissions— such as this “JLA cover” featuring Batman done to aid the comics charity Hero Initiative, a 1996 pic of Wonder Woman, and a 1997 illo of Superman done for a fan. (But why the gloves on the Man of Steel?

Hey, we told you John didn’t draw him very often!) JR was a member of Hero Initiative’s Disbursement Board from its founding in 2000 until his passing.

[All characters TM & © DC Comics.]

John Romita—An Artist For All Seasons

23

gone back to ‘54—those “Captain America” stories—maybe they would’ve been able to make better use of him. But, of course, my favorite thing about him was—

would be my view, and I think that that’s under-realized. I think just the sheer outrageously phenomenal quality of the work just forced it out, and so many people embraced it.

John would tell how he was all set to go to—what was it, was it B.B.D & O? One of the very big advertising agencies. And he was all set to start a job there on Monday, and Stan took him out to lunch and said, “Okay, you’re gonna make more money—” All that. You know Stan never cared about money. But anyway, he said, “But, you know, you’re gonna be a little tiny fish in a great big pond. You come over here, you can be a big fish in a little pond!”

I don’t know how, but anyway, somehow he seduced John into giving up this job that would have been, in a certain sense, a dream job and more security. The comicbook field in 1965 would not have been considered by most people a growth industry, and yet there he was later on. I don’t know how John ever felt at the end of his life about his career, but it was a great career, and comicbooks were made so much better by the fact that he stayed in them, instead of going into faceless advertising.

CIMINO: Mr. Starlin?

CIMINO: Yeah. It’s awesome. And, winding this down, I’m gonna go around the horn here and say, “What is John Romita’s legacy?”

What do we think how he stands amongst— Obviously, he’s influential, but where do you think he goes? Where do you think that legend goes? Steve, we’ll start with you—Mr. Houston.

STARLIN: Marvel was sort of started by Stan and Jack, and Steve, and Don Heck, and a couple others. But there were the folks like yourself, Roy, John Buscema, Gene Colan, and at the foremost probably John, who came along, and they built on that rickety framework that was the beginning of Marvel, and turned it into this steamship that just chugged along perfectly. I think that’s John’s biggest legacy—that he helped put it into cement.

CIMINO: Jaime?

JAMESON: I mean, I could sit here and say exactly what all of you said, but I was having dinner with Jim Steranko the other night and we were talking about Neal Adams—it’s his birthday today, by the way—happy birthday to Neal, miss you. But we were talking about Neal, and we brought up John, and we’re talking about the

HOUSTON: For me personally, I think it is quintessential, beautiful line work. Finally we had some art that could be put on cups and T-shirts and pillows, and it was beautiful, marketable. As soon as you saw those drawings, you are done. So whenever I think of John Romita, Sr., I always think of ultra-professional, modern marketing material. I’m sorry, you couldn’t do that with Steve Ditko. But when it comes to Romita—beautiful, clean, professional lines.

CIMINO: Perfect. Mr. Englehart?

ENGLEHART: Well, yeah. All everything that everybody said about the art is all true. But I think part of his legacy—going back to what Roy was talking about, with being pulled in all different directions—I mean, I sat next to him for a while, and was one of the people who pulled him in a direction every day when he wasn’t doing something. But I think he was the kind of guy who had the Spider-Man thing in his head, what he was going to do—and if he was going to talk to you for a while, he was going to talk to you for a while. He was going to do this, and then he would sit down and he would draw what he was supposed to draw, and the sort of calm, just total competence, was certainly inspiring to me. I think it was probably inspiring to pretty much everybody who might have worked with him or around him in those days. Just as John Jr. talked about a little bit from his perspective, he was a mentor.

Not in the sense that he would take you aside—I mean, he did that, too—but he was a mentor in just sort of showing you that you could do this job, and you could be a good person at the same time, and you could take care of whatever business you got to take care of. It was a very almost, I want to say zen approach. He just was inspiring to work with, work around. I didn’t work with him that much. But I think a lot of comicbook artists would talk about having hung out with John Romita, and be the better for it.

CIMINO: Wow. Mr. Pulido?

PULIDO: Well, in my view, the work of John Romita not only as an illustrator, but as an art director at Marvel—I would assert that the sheer force of that work caused Marvel and comics to explode onto the mainstream. I think there are a lot of mechanics that were involved, and there were pieces of the puzzle were coming into [play]—but the sheer power of the work just catapulted it. So that

He’s Just My Type!

John Romita’s rendering in Captain America #78 (Sept. 1954) of a very Batmanstyle action sequence. Either Batman co-creator/writer Bill Finger did a bit of moonlighting on this one—or else somebody at Timely/Atlas was channeling him! Thanks to Dr. Michael J. Vassallo. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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The John Romita Memorial Tribute Panel Discussion—June 15, 2023

as important, and maybe just as important, as the guy who had artistically created Spider-Man. He took him to new heights.

[Spider-Man] became the most popular, famous, and archetypal Marvel character; he took him to the absolute pinnacle. You can’t take any character any higher than that.

So I think, in many ways, the world can’t see the subtle things perhaps that John did, the things he held together, and the art direction, all those things. I think the legacy in a way will be—I don’t know how many issues—but between penciling, inking, and just overseeing, when he was guiding Gil Kane and Ross Andru and other artists, I think his legacy is really as the second quintessential artist on Spider-Man. CIMINO: And with that, Nile—any last things?

SCALA: Yeah, I do. You know, we’ve been talking about John and his work, and all he’s done to inspire all of us, especially as artists who strive to be like him—and you got to throw Jim into that as well—you know, those are the guys that we want to draw like. But what I’d like to know from you guys is, do you have any fun stories? Maybe something out of the office, out of the Bullpen?

Maybe some fun stories that happened at a convention, at a dinner?

Were there any memorable moments you guys have with John Romita, maybe outside of the workspace?

Bring On The Hardcovers!

Romita’s original color sketch for the cover of the Simon & Schuster/Fireside collection Bring on the Bad Guys (1976), which followed the success of Origins of Marvel Comics and Son of Origins of Marvel Comics. At that time, it seemed unlikely there would any other hardcover assemblages of Marvel material besides the occasional “best of” offering—but history proved lots of people wrong on that! [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

JAMESON: My FaceTime call was pretty memorable. He had no idea what FaceTime was. And he’s like, “I can see Jaime! You can see me? Shoot, can you see me?” It was the cutest thing! I will never forget that moment. It was like the sweetest thing, and he looks at Virginia and he’s like, “Virginia, she can see me!”

Adorable. Spencer Beck actually was the one showing him how it worked, and I was the first person that came to mind. That was just adorable.

CIMINO: I actually have something pretty funny, back in like 2006. This was during my bigger bodybuilding days, and I was

fact that their work is going to last a lifetime. It is unforgettable, that is their legacy. They lived work, and their work was their life.

They loved their work. And that is going to be around far longer than we are. You know what I mean? I think that their legacy was the fact that they loved their work, and it showed.

CIMINO: Yeah. Roy? THOMAS: Well, two things. One is that in those days— particularly in the days after first Ditko, and then Jack Kirby, left—there were two people really important for the next decade or so in setting the Marvel style—with room for other people to do their thing, and yet a certain center that you knew was sort of the gravity that was holding things together. One was John Buscema, the other was John Romita. Romita was a little more at the center because he was right there in the office, where John Buscema was just doing it by example.

To me, though, while everything that everyone says is true about John, to me his greatest legacy will be that he’s the reason we can say that the character Spider-Man had two quintessential artists. Usually the quintessential artist is the one who creates [a character], and certainly nobody is going to ever take that away from Ditko, or ever should try, and John would have been the last person to do that. But what John maybe took a long time to realize... maybe he never did… was that he was the other quintessential artist. The one who, in his own way, was almost

A Novel Idea JR’s prelim for the cover of a 1979 Fantastic Four paperback novel, juxtaposed with the finished cover signed “Buscema [Sal or John?] & [Peter] Ledger.” [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

John Romita—An Artist For All Seasons

25

A Four-Most Photo One of Roy’s favorite photos of himself is this one with (left to right) Irwin Hasen, John Romita, and Stan Lee at the 1995 Chicago Comics Convention, where three of them took part in a Stan Lee Roast transcribed for Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #1. Hasen, of course, was the artist of the long-running Dondi newspaper strip—but, before that, an artist on tales of the Golden Age “Green Lantern” and “Justice Society of America.”

Also seen, just to remind us how worldwide the reach of Marvel, Spidey, and John Romita became: the splash page of Amazing Spider-Man #57 (Feb. 1968), as translated for a German edition, and showing Romita embellished by Don Heck and Mike Esposito and scripted by Lee. Thanks to James Rosen. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

working for a production company, and put out these web series.

I remember we were in New York Comic-Con— and this is at the time when it wasn’t the big explosion. Now you [comics] guys are bigger than ever, all you guys. But at that time, it was still kind of passive. I saw John Romita and John Romita, Jr., sitting there, and I’m like, “Oh, my God!” At that time I had a tank top on, and was all tanned and stuff. So I walk up there and I’m, like, I’m just gonna say hi to John Romita. So I walk up to him. John Romita touches my shoulder. He goes, “Are you Italian?” “Yeah!” I go, “I’m Sicilian, I’m half Sicilian.” He goes, “I’m Sicilian, too!”

And then this was the funniest thing, and my friend was filming this—I have to find this footage, it’s hilarious—John must have been bored, so he goes, “Let me see you flex.” So John Romita gets up and he starts flexing, and you see John Romita, Jr., he’s all embarrassed, and John starts flexing, and I start flexing with him. I’m looking at my friend and I go, “Are you getting this!?” He goes, “Yeah.” He [Romita] goes, “How do you get that big?” I go, “Meatballs.” Then he looks at me he goes, “...And spaghetti.” It was such an odd thing, and I said “Thank you.” So I have to find that footage. It was just so bizarre, and all that. That was a weird thing.

I guess they were bored that day, you know? That was great to say, but that was my story.

SCALA: Jim, do you have a story?

STARLIN: One that Jim Steranko told us this past weekend. Jim had gotten some of his artwork back from Marvel when he was doing “Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” but not all of it, because a lot of it disappeared, or was just misplaced or stolen. He said that one day he was at a convention, like 15-20 years later, and John Romita calls him over and says, “Hey, come here, I have something for you.”

And it turned out it was one of Steranko’s Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. covers, and he said, “Yeah, Marvel sent this back to me a long time ago by mistake, and I’ve been waiting to see you to give it back, and this is the first time we actually ran into each other.” Steranko

was blown away because at that point that cover was probably worth about $20,000 JAMESON: He said anywhere from $20-$50,000.

STARLIN: Yeah, and so John just said, “I’ve been holding on to this, had to get it to you, here you go.”

JAMESON: He had gone to San Diego Comic-Con with this piece just to give it back.

STARLIN: And he just walked away afterwards.

JAMESON: Biggest heart, biggest heart.

CIMINO: Steve, any stories?

ENGLEHART: I live 3,000 miles away from you guys, or most of you guys, so I knew him in that era that I talked about, but i didn’t run into him after that.

SCALA: What about Roy? You got any bar stories? Come on, you gotta have something.

THOMAS: I’ve already told most of my stories. I just remember how– [at this point the famous 1969 photo of Stan Lee, Marie Severin, John Romita, and Roy in a Spider-Man costume is displayed on the screen] I don’t know who that guy is in that costume; he had a better figure then than he does now, anyway. [a page from “Thing/Liberty Legion” story is displayed on screen, with a kid version of John Romita as a character] Yeah, that’s a scene set in 1942 in Times Square. John told me a year or two before that he used to run errands there, back and

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The John Romita Memorial Tribute Panel Discussion—June 15, 2023

Which Way To Muscle Beach?

In the above two (unfortunately fuzzy) screenshots from 2006, comics dealer John Cimino and comics legend John Romita compare guns (at JR’s suggestion)—while John Jr., unseen, cringes off to the side.

In the second pic, John is pointing to his elbow and saying, “This is the hardest part of me now!”

In the third photo, Cimino and John Jr. and Roy Thomas pay homage to that earlier photo-op while attending the huge CPXP23 comic-con in Sáo Paolo, Brazil, on Dec. 1, 2023. (RT unabashedly admits that he came in a poor third in that trio.) All three photos courtesy of John Cimino; first two pics snapped by Keith Gleason.

forth between businesses, I can’t remember the details. You know, back and forth, physically just to carry the stuff, during World War II. So when I had a story set there, I just asked Sal Buscema to draw little Johnny Romita. He said, “Well, what did he look like?”

I didn’t have any pictures, so I said, “Just draw John Romita as a kid.” John later said, “Well, I was a skinny kid back then! I wasn’t really fleshed out.” But he was kind of pleased to see that. Little Johnny Romita there in Times Square in 1942.

CIMINO: What Ben Grimm says there—at the very end, he says, “Yeah? Well I’m gonna remember you, kid, when I get back where I came from.” I love that because John Romita’s legacy has begun.

THOMAS: He was, after all, also the second person ever to draw

the Fantastic Four in their own book.

By the way, once again, for those few issues that he took over when Jack left, the sales went up. Those few issues he was on. Then it sort of leveled off [after Buscema came on]. I always wondered—if John Romita had stayed on Fantastic Four—another book he did not want to do, in Jack’s shadow—I wonder, would it have stayed up higher in sales, at a

Little Johnny Romita appeared as a young boy in two panels of Marvel Two-In-One Annual #1 (1976), based on a part-time job he told writer Roy Thomas he’d had… although JR did later say that he was a thin kid rather than a slightly chunky one. Art by Sal Buscema & one of three inkers (Sam Grainger, John Tartaglione, or George Roussos). John didn’t know about his kid cameo until after it was drawn, but he gave it his amused blessing. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Sal Buscema From the 1975 Marvel Con Program Book.

John Romita—An Artist For All Seasons

How To Draw Comics The Kirby Way—And The Romita Way! (Above:) Jack Kirby’s pencil layouts for a page done for Daredevil #12 (Jan. 1966), quickly laid out in summer of 1965 to acquaint John Romita with the Marvel way—in this case, specifically “the Kirby way”—of telling an exciting story… complete with Jack’s border notes, based on his plotting conversation with Stan Lee. Only thing is—we couldn’t locate a single page in either DD #12 or #13 with a layout anything like this one, on which Ka-Zar carries off an unconscious DD… so Stan must’ve changed his mind and had Romita draw some new pages featuring different actions than those Kirby had laid out. Oh, well… thanks all the same to Henry Kujawa for this scan.

(Above right:) The closest thing we could locate in Daredevil #12 or 13 to the previous sequence—but with nary a pirate in sight. Art by Romita; script by Lee. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

higher level than it was, or [did people just buy those issues] just out of curiosity to see what the hell Marvel was gonna do now that Jack wasn’t doing The Fantastic Four after 100 issues? That’s a “What If” we’ll never know the answer to. [ John Cimino and Steve Houston wrap up, and thank the participants; Nile ends the broadcast with plugs, etc. ]

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The WHO’S WHO of American Comic Books 1928-1999 Online Edition Created by Jerry G. Bails FREE – online searchable database – FREE http://www. bailsprojects.com/ whoswho.aspx – No password required

In 1970 John Romita drew (and probably colored) this playful cartoon of Captain America carrying off staffer Mimi Gold—who today, using her given name Mandy Cohen, shared it with us.

[Captain America TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

19942024 UPDATE #2

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ZOWIE!

THE TV SUPERHERO CRAZE IN ’60s POP CULTURE

by MARK VOGER

HOLY PHENOMENON! In the way-out year of 1966, the action comedy “Batman” starring ADAM WEST premiered and triggered a tsunami of super swag, including toys, games, Halloween costumes, puppets, action figures, and lunch boxes. Meanwhile, still more costumed avengers sprang forth on TV (“The Green Hornet,” “Ultraman”), in MOVIES (“The Wild World of Batwoman,” “Rat Pfink and Boo Boo”), and in ANIMATION (“Space Ghost,” “The Marvel Super Heroes”). ZOWIE! traces the history of the superhero genre from early films, through the 1960s TV superhero craze, and its pop culture influence ever since. This 192-page hardcover, in pop art colors that conjure the period, spotlights the coolest collectibles and kookiest knockoffs every ’60s kid begged their parents for, and features interviews with the TV stars (WEST, BURT WARD, YVONNE CRAIG, FRANK GORSHIN, BURGESS MEREDITH, CESAR ROMERO, JULIE NEWMAR, VAN WILLIAMS), the artists behind the comics (JERRY ROBINSON, DICK SPRANG, CARMINE INFANTINO, JOE GIELLA), and others. Written and designed by MARK VOGER (MONSTER MASH, HOLLY JOLLY), ZOWIE! is one super read!

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MARVEL COMICS In The EARLY 1960s

All characters and properties TM & © their respective owners.

AN ISSUE-BY-ISSUE FIELD GUIDE TO A POP CULTURE PHENOMENON

by PIERRE COMTOIS

This new volume in the ongoing “MARVEL COMICS IN THE...” series takes you all the way back to that company’s legendary beginnings, when gunfighters traveled the West and monsters roamed the Earth! The company’s output in other genres influenced the development of their super-hero characters from Thor to Spider-Man, and featured here are the best of those stories not covered previously, completing issue-by-issue reviews of EVERY MARVEL COMIC OF NOTE FROM 1961-1965! Presented are scores of handy, easy to reference entries on AMAZING FANTASY, TALES OF SUSPENSE (and ASTONISH), STRANGE TALES, JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, RAWHIDE KID, plus issues of FANTASTIC FOUR, AVENGERS, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and others that weren’t in the previous 1960s edition. It’s author PIERRE COMTOIS’ last word on Marvel’s early years, when JACK KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, and DON HECK, together with writer/editor STAN LEE (and brother LARRY LIEBER), built an unprecedented new universe of excitement!

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NOW IN FULL-COLOR WITH BONUS PAGES! In 1978, DC Comics launched a line-wide expansion known as “The DC Explosion,” but pulled the plug weeks later, cancelling titles and leaving dozens of completed comic book stories unpublished. Now, that notorious “DC Implosion” is examined with an exhaustive oral history from JENETTE KAHN, PAUL LEVITZ, LEN WEIN, MIKE GOLD, AL MILGROM, and other DC creators of the time, plus commentary by other top pros, examining how it changed the landscape of comics forever! This new EXPANDED EDITION of the Eisner Award-nominated book explodes in FULL-COLOR FOR THE FIRST TIME, with extra coverage of LOST 1970s DC PROJECTS like NINJA THE INVISIBLE and an adaptation of “THE WIZ,” JIM STARLIN’s unaltered cover art for BATMAN FAMILY #21, content meant for cancelled Marvel titles such as GODZILLA and MS. MARVEL, and more! NOW SHIPPING! (144-page FULL-COLOR SOFTCOVER) $26.95 • (Digital Edition) $10.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-124-0

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“I’m Getting Satisfaction Doing What I’m Doing!”

A 2001 Conversation With Master Storyteller JOHN ROMITA

Interview Conducted by David Armstrong

Transcribed by Alex Grand

A/E

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: The Marvel Bullpen in the latter 1960s and first half of the ’70s—the years when I was lucky enough to be around in person as a physical part of it—was basically a good-natured, friendly, and upbeat lot: Sol Brodsky, later succeeded as production manager by John Verpoorten… corresponding secretaries like Flo Steinberg (not that there was ever anyone quite like Fabulous Flo)…. resident artists like Marie Severin, Herb Trimpe, Bill Everett—and John Romita. Almost as soon as he signed aboard in July 1965, he was recognized as virtually an art director without portfolio (Stan Lee retained that title for himself till 1972), and the ultimate go-to guy for any purely artistic questions (and answers).

In this short but incisive interview conducted by David Armstrong at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2001, John recounts some of the high (and low) points of his career—and gives a clear and unassailable defense of that era’s so-called “Marvel method” of producing comicbooks, which undeniably played a powerful part in Marvel’s gradual ascendancy between 1961 and 1972 to becoming the leader in the field. No offense to other comics companies, but Stan and I couldn’t have said it any better ourselves!

DAVID ARMSTRONG: When did you start drawing?

JOHN ROMITA: Well, like a lot of kids, I started drawing about five years old, maybe earlier, but about five. I used to get a lot of mileage out of doing drawings.

DA: Did you do stuff in high school or junior high school?

ROMITA: Oh, yeah. Went through the whole thing, starting from elementary school, fourth and fifth grade. I decorated the halls every holiday, Valentine’s Day, Lincoln’s birthday, Washington’s birthday, the 4th of July. I did Civil War generals… decorated all the backgrounds on plays.

DA: And so did you know that’s when you wanted to do for a living?

ROMITA: I assumed I was going to be an artist. You know, I actually didn’t have a lot of confidence, but I really never stopped.

It’s amazing.

DA: And how did you get your first paid professional job?

ROMITA: That’s interesting. I graduated high school on my 17th birthday. I was lucky that way. They had an advanced class. The school recommended me to a doctor on Second Avenue. It was called Manhattan General at the time. It’s another name for the hospital. This doctor was instituting a new process. He was an anesthesiologist, but he was a multi-millionaire anesthesiologist,

Romita’s Raiders The above is the name that was given, in the late ’70s and afterward, to the informal group of young artists that John R. would assemble when necessary to rescue an art job from the Dreaded Deadline Doom—but here it refers to the Jazzy One and the innumerable Marvel heroes and hoodlums he drew over the years, some of whom he co-created as well. This immortal illo was created for the Marvelmania folks who controlled Marvel merchandising for a couple of years in the early ’70s—but John, like several other artists, probably never got paid for his efforts. The illustration, colored, served as the cover of the program at the time of his memorial on Oct. 12, 2023. (As a proud Italian, John would’ve appreciated that date: Columbus Day!) Thanks to John Cimino. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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“I’m Getting Satisfaction Doing What I’m Doing!”

and he was instituting this new process from ambulance to operation that would be coordinated by this process. He called it “pneumatology.” It means something else now.

I was 17 years old and he told me, “Can you do an exhibit?”

He showed me a long corridor in the second floor of this hospital.

“I want an exhibit down these corridor walls and a turn at the door.” And he said, “Could you design and illustrate it and execute it?” And I must have been crazy. I said yes. I had no professional experience. I designed it. I used medical books to do cross-sections of hearts, lungs. I did everything in that exhibit. I purchased all the materials after I designed it in sketch form, and he okayed it.

Then I had to execute it on four-by-eight cardboard thick board, one-quarter-inch thick, mounted on wooden frames. I went to hardware stores and art supply stores in Union Square and ordered all the stuff, billed it to him, and I put it together on the floor of that office, every single frame, four by eight, and I scaled up every one of my thumbnail drawings onto that board.

I drew them, I painted them. I Photostatted, did some things, photographs. I did six months. He paid me $60 a week, which was more than my father was making at the time to raise five kids. 60 bucks a week. And I was really trying to drag it out. And I still got it done in six months, because I was figuring that the longer I’d take, the longer he’s going to pay me, you know, until he finally got wise

to me. This guy was a very impressive version of The Perfect Doctor from a movie, had a white goatee and white hair and had a castle on the Hudson, and he had 12 children. It was almost a Hollywood setup. I think the carpenters helped me to hang it. That was the one thing I needed help for. They put up the hooks and I put up wire and hung them as picture frames. Six months and I did that whole thing. I thought it was beautiful until I saw pictures of it about ten years later. I wasn’t pleased with all the drawings; I mean, I was really just a rank amateur. So I threw all the photos out. I hated that it was so bad.

It only stayed up for about two months. He had a cocktail party and people coming constantly, and I stayed for a while as a guide at 60 bucks a week. And then I was on my own.

DA: And so how did you get to do comicbooks?

ROMITA: My second job, I was an office boy messenger at Litho House called Forbes Litho. They were one of the litho houses in the city during the late ’40s that were competing for Coca-Cola assignments. They used to do the festoons that appeared in the ice cream parlors behind the counter, showing a beautiful girl drinking a bottle of Coke and Santa Claus at Christmas and Coke bottles on both ends. I did so many Coke bottles that I could do them in my sleep.

It was a wonderful 2½ years until I met somebody I graduated school with who wanted me to ghost a comicbook story for him.

His name was Lester Zakarin. I was just speaking to him after a 40-year hiatus. He was an inker, couldn’t get any work, so he figured if he told [the editor] he could pencil, he’d get work. Stan Lee gave him work, but [Zakarin] needed a guy to ghost it, because he was not fast enough to do the pencils himself. So I penciled for him as a ghost. He inked it and turned it in as as his own work. It was very interesting.

DA: And how long did that work?

ROMITA: Maybe two years, I think. I started in September of ’49, all through ’50, I believe. We worked together, and Stan Lee gave us maybe one 7- or 8-page story a month, or something like that. It was keeping us in groceries. I made more money on that first pencil assignment than I did in a month. I was making $21 a week at the Litho House after taxes. So when I got my first check for 270 bucks, I treated everybody in the family to a midsummer Christmas. It was crazy.

DA: When did they find out that you weren’t really Zakarin?

ROMITA: I got inducted into the Army. It was 1951 and the Korean War had started a year earlier. I passed the physical. Even though I have a bad leg from polio, the Army said, “Oh no, you’re able.”

My mother almost had a heart attack. I had a buddy who was on Governors Island doing recruiting posters. We went to school together and he said, “If you get drafted and if you don’t get sent to Camp Gordon in Georgia—if you get sent to Fort Dix [NJ]—let me know, and I’m going to try and have you assigned over here.” He was a sergeant at the time. There was an Air Force captain who was the art director, and he made a request for me and snatched me off a boat to go to Germany. And I went to Governors Island and spent 18 months doing recruiting posters.

Creem Of The Crop Alas, Johnny got rid of all the evidence re the massive medical tableau he drew as a youngster in 1947 for a prominent anesthesiologist—but much of his later “merchandising” artwork is still around for viewing. E.g., the cover of the April 1973 issue of Creem magazine, aimed at a youthful audience. [Spider-Man art TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

While I was there, I had a class-A pass. Whenever I was not on duty. I used to go up and see if I can get some comic work for weekends. I go in in uniform, you know, a private in the Korean War, standing in the waiting room, and [tell the secretary], “I’ve been working for Stan for 18 months. He doesn’t know me, but I’ve been doing the work that Lester Zakarin has been turning in.”

She comes out with a script and she said, “Stan said, great, here’s

A 2001 Conversation With Master Storyteller John Romita

31

Les Zakarin A portrait of the artist as a young man, drawn in the 1940s by his colleague Ray Osrin. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Comics From “A” To “Zakarin” While Romita, in this interview, doesn’t recall his byline as being on any of the stories he ghost-penciled for already-established artist Les Zakarin as having a credit for himself, there were at least four “Zakarin-Romita” bylines for Timely/Marvel, with Mr. Z listed first even though he was merely the inker. Here’s one of them, for Crime Cases Comics #7 (Sept. 1951), whose script is attributed by the Grand Comics Database to Carl Wessler. Thanks to Dr. Michael J. Vassallo. (Another “Zakarin-Romita”-credited splash page, from All-True Crime #44 (May ’51) accompanied an interview with Zakarin in A/E #27. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

worked with Zakarin in a couple of other companies… minor companies. My first actual job was for Famous Funnies. I did a romance job, 15 pages. He paid me for it… Steven Douglas. Steve Douglas has a special place in heaven. He paid me 270 bucks for that first job, and he never printed it. And I found out that he had a stack of artwork on his desk this high. It was all artwork he had given to beginners to give them a break. Never used it. I regret that I never went to his wake and tell his widow what a wonderful guy he was, because he probably supported half the young artists in the city.

a story.” It was a four-page story. And I said, “Well, when do you need the pencils?” She said, “You don’t have to show us the pencils.

Just ink it. We’ll letter it in after you.” I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know how to ink except for that experience with the exhibit. But I was afraid to turn it down. It was money, so I took it. And the rest is history. I’ve been working for Stan, except for those eight years at DC, like 40 years…35 years.

DA: It is tough to get that first job.

ROMITA: Oh yeah, it was. I worked for other editors, and most editors were rather blasé. They would look at the stuff and grunt and give you a check, or you’d take an invoice and hope you’d

DA: So how did you figure out about inking technique?

ROMITA: I got a crowquill pen. I knew enough, because I had done illustration work, book illustration in school. I went to an art high school, did three years of illustration, book and magazine illustration, and I knew how to do pen work, but I didn’t know how to do comic-style pen work. So I just struggled along and I lucked out. It worked out okay, very stiff. But you know, I did one of the best baby renderings I’ve ever done in my life. On my first story. I had some good photo reference, I guess.

DA: What was the story?

ROMITA: It was a science-fiction story about a couple who adopt a baby. On the second day, her husband comes home. His wife is dead at the foot of the steps. And the only person in the apartment was the baby, and he didn’t know who did this. It turns out the baby was an alien and killed the mother and then ends up killing the father. And the last panel shows another couple adopting him.

It was one of Stan Lee’s science-fiction gems. It was called “It!” (See pp. 33 & 53.)

DA: It was funny that you didn’t meet Stan that first time. He just had someone come out with the script.

ROMITA: I met him when I brought in that first story. I had

Steven Douglas (1907-1967) was an important early comics editor—of Famous Funnies, Eastern Color’s comic-strip-reprinting title that had been the first regularly published comicbook. He was also a cartoonist himself, as per this cover (utilizing the newspaper-strip knight in shining armor Sir Oaky Doaks) for FF #178 (May 1949); also reprinted in that issue were such popular strips as Buck Rogers, Napoleon, and Scorchy Smith. John Romita pretty much nominated Steven Douglas for sainthood… and he gives a good reason why. Cover courtesy of the GCD. [© the respective copyright holders.]

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“I’m Getting Satisfaction Doing What I’m Doing!”

get paid. Stan Lee was absolutely different. After three or four editors I had worked for, some of them really annoying, some of them very negative, he was all advice and positive. He would give you, “Gee, if you could do this…. I like what you did here.

Do more of that,” and “You can’t do enough of this,” and full of life. And he was like seven years older than me. I was 20 years old, he was 27. Amazing. I could see the difference between him and everybody else right away.

DA: Do you think that he actually felt like he was living the story when he was doing it?

ROMITA: It’s funny. He was like a lot of us, he was not really planning a life in comics. But he’d been working in comics about eight years. I learned later he started when he was about 18, when Jack Kirby got drafted, and Joe Simon, he became the editor pro tem while they were in the Army. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Not quite correct, of course. Simon and Kirby were both working at Timely Comics when Stan was hired there, and he took over when they split for DC circa late 1941. Joe and Jack didn’t enter the armed services until several years later.]

Smilin’ Stan & Jazzy Johnny We don’t have any photos of the pair together in the early 1950s— but here they are in the late 1970s, perusing copies of the Amazing Spider-Man daily comic strip on which they collaborated for several years. Thanks to Ger Apeldoorn.

Also seen, courtesy of Al Bigley, are their Sunday strip dated Feb. 12, 1978, showing Peter Parker in a pensive mood—and a splash page from Menace #6 (Aug. 1953), which sported the first-ever “Lee & Romita” joint byline. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

[Stan] was thinking of movies and novels. All of us assumed that comics was on a short leash, that in a short time there would

A 2001 Conversation With Master Storyteller John Romita

33

“It!” Had To Be You (Left:) Romita’s first solo credit in comics appeared on this 4-pager for Strange Tales #4 (Dec. 1951), just two months after the preceding “ZakarinRomita” outings. Its climactic panels can be viewed on p. 53 of this issue.

Scripter unknown. Apparently, Stan Lee wasn’t wild about JR’s inking at this stage, though. Thanks to Jim Ludwig. This story, incidentally, was reprinted in 2007 in the hardcover Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Era – Strange Tales, Vol. 1. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Joe Maneely & Stan Lee (Above, left to right) seen in a 1958 photo poring over their comic strip Mrs. Lyon’s Cubs, not too long before the artist’s untimely passing.

Courtesy of daughter Nancy Maneely.

(Below:) Alas, even Maneely expert Dr. Michael J. Vassallo couldn’t locate a Maneely comics page that fit the verbal description John Romita gives of one he saw on Joe’s drawing board in the early 1950s—let alone a two-page spread (of which, Doc V. assures us, there were precisely zero in Timely Comics during that period)—but this Maneely splash page he sent from Ringo Kid #1 (Aug. 1954) should give a good idea of how intricately detailed, yet still powerful, that artist’s work could be… while the “Apache Kid” splash page from Two Gun Western #7 (April ’51) shows his deftness with Native Americans. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

be no comics. We were all doing it temporarily, making money until it died.

I swear to you, we all expected it, especially Stan. In fact, he was rooting for it. He was hoping it was going to happen, because he was dying to do novels and plays and things. But he couldn’t help his enthusiasm… and I don’t know whether he infected me with that or I had it already.

I was a fanatic for making it good, meaning I wanted people to enjoy the stories. I was trying to make a buck, but I never did it the quickest

34

“I’m Getting Satisfaction Doing What I’m Doing!”

way. I always slaved over it and made it as good as possible on a hopefully ever-increasing level of quality. Even when I started, I never settled for my first drawing. I used to tear up pages, I used to erase pages, and Stan Lee was the same. He may have added to my mania, not for perfection, but for ever-increasing quality, trying to make it so that people would forget they’re looking at a drawing.

Something’s happening on paper. I have to say, he inspired me that way.

DA: So you worked [in comics] through your [Army career], didn’t you?

ROMITA: Yeah.

Even while I was on Governors Island, I was doing war stories and Westerns… and then after I got discharged in ’53. I stayed [at Timely] until ’58, when the business hit the wall. From ‘49 to ‘58 I mostly worked for Stan Lee. I think either right after my first job, maybe that job or the second or third, Stan must have noticed that I

You’re In The Army Now! John Romita served a couple of years in the U.S. Army, as seen in this early’50s photo of him with his younger brother Dominic. He was mustered out sometime in ’53, after a truce was declared in the Korean War—so maybe he used his time in uniform as inspiration for the two panels (bottom left) that wind up the second yarn in Captain America #76 (May 1954). In fact, it’s even possible he may have still been in the Army when he drew these pics!

Thanks to JR for the photo, and to Mark Muller & Jim Ludwig for the panels.

For Timely/Atlas’ Battle #26 (Feb. 1954), JR drew the entry at right, which related key events of the recently-“ended” Korean War and congratulated America’s G.I.’s for “a job well done!” Writers of both tales unknown.

Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

was not the best inker. He called up Joe Maneely, who had a studio in Flushing, Queens, and I lived on the city line about 15-20 minutes away from there. So he told me, “Could you do me a favor? Could you go and spend a day with Joe Maneely at his studio?” So I get in my little ’36 Plymouth, whatever it was, and I drove in and I spent the day there. I got there about 10:00 and I left about 4:00.

He was working on a double-spread Western scene of an Indian attack on a fort. It was Kirbyesque, you know—you could see all the wood, all the structure of the fort, the way wooden stockades were made. You could see the Indians on horseback, all authentic, all reeking of authenticity, full of dynamics. They’re circling the fort. Guys are shooting long rifles in buckskin from the fort. I mean, typical Boys’ Ranch kind of stuff. He’s penciling that thing when I get there. He’s talking to me a mile a minute, telling me how to structure a panel, how to work your figures in, how to make sure the background doesn’t clash with it.

He had this wonderful trick of doing his figures in a slightly bolder line than his backgrounds, and then when he did the ink work, he used a different pen for the backgrounds. He did a bolder pen for the foreground and a finer pen for the background, [giving] a great amount of depth, almost a 3-D effect. He would do the whole thing in pen after he blocked in the pencils very roughly. He would then rule up the page and start doing the inking immediately, and he would do a pen outline contour drawing of everything on the page, and then he would do details and then he

A 2001 Conversation With Master Storyteller John Romita

Maneely Marvels—A Few Years Early (Above:) Three of the ten Sub-Mariner covers during the 1953-55 revival (including this one for #39, April ’55) represent the only true “super-hero” work that Joe Maneely ever produced, due to the trends of the times—but that titanic trio make it clear that, had he lived, he would’ve found a comfortable niche in the Marvel Age of Comics launched in ’61.

And, if quasi-super-heroic clinchers are needed, witness his covers for Black Knight #2 (July ’55) and Yellow Claw #1 (Oct. ’56). All courtesy of the GCD. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Three Cheers For The Red, White, And Blue—And Red And White And… (Left:) John R. was tapped to draw only two (out of three) mid-1950s Captain America covers—the first (#76) is tentatively attributed to Carl Burgos—but Timely/ Atlas got plenty of mileage out of his offering for the second of those, issue #77 (July ’54).

(Right:) It was adapted and rather strangely re-colored shortly afterward for “Captain America #2” of the Australian edition.

Thanks to the GCD and Tom Horowitz, respectively. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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“I’m Getting Satisfaction Doing What I’m Doing!”

would take a big brush, a #5 brush or something, and start slashing blacks in there, which was also Kirbyesque.

Joe Simon and Jack Kirby had worked out that principle. I could see it. They used a very thin brush or a pen to do the outline of all their drawings, and then Jack and Joe or just Jack would go in there with the blacks and do all the technique. So it was a wonderful assembly-line approach, but it also had this great effect when you do a contour drawing and you’re forced to make it simple because you don’t want to have the background clash with it.

It’s the secret of simplicity in comics, and of clarity. And Joe Maneely had it nailed. He could do silhouettes [that] make you think you’re looking at a character full of guns and knives and bristling with stuff, and the silhouette was as simple as can be. It was almost like a coloring book silhouette to some extent, only better. And then you would look at the finish and not believe all the stuff that’s going on in the figure and in the background, but never once blending into each other. Always clearly separated.

And I immediately caught it, and [Joe] must have told me that that was the purpose. Because from that moment on I understood the principle of clarity and depth in comics. And he did that double-page spread while he’s telling me all this stuff, knocking it out mindlessly clear. It was just a pleasure to watch one day. I never had to go back. I understood what Stan wanted from me from that day on.

DA: Joe did most of the covers for the Atlas books.

ROMITA: He was the most versatile, productive guy I ever ran into outside of Jack Kirby. Actually, Joe could even do humor

stuff. Kirby could do humor, but I think he always was an adventure [artist], with stronger characterization.

But Maneely could do [from] Mickey Mouse to the Black Knight, fully rendered in Howard Pyle’s style. He was the most versatile, productive guy I ever saw in my life.

Could do everything. What was his background? I don’t know. I don’t know. And he died. Unfortunate accident on a train.

DA: He fell off the back of the train.

Joe Simon & Jack Kirby (left to right) in a 1940s photo— juxtaposed with a marvelous Kirbypenciled double-page spread from Harvey Comics’ Boys’ Ranch #2 (Dec. 1950). Back in those days, Jack and Joe were the most influential team of artists/creators in the business—and it’s easy to see why! Thanks to John Morrow. [TM & © Estates of Joe Simon & Jack Kirby.]

ROMITA: Yeah. And there is no telling…. I always tell people that if Joe Maneely had not died at the age of 38—remember, I was 35 when I started Spider-Man—he was 38 when he died. He had his whole career ahead of him.

Jack Kirby penciled until he was 75 or 77. I’m still penciling a little bit, not too much, but the point is that he could have done so much for Stan during that boom

A 2001 Conversation With Master Storyteller John Romita

37

Proofs Positive Concerning these two black-&-white Photostat proofs from p. 3 of the Romita-drawn “Captain America” story in Young Men #24 (Dec. 1953), which reintroduced Timely’s “Big Three” to an un-waiting world, we’ll just repeat what we wrote about them back in A/E #35: “Editor (and reputed writer) Stan Lee seems to have had John re-draw (and vertically extend) the first panel on page 3, in order to emphasize the new, bulkier Steve Rogers—and incidentally do away with those boxer shorts!— with the result that Bucky and two hoodlums were eliminated from panel 3 below it. Thanks to Bob Wiener for the previously unpublished b&w proofs.”

[TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

time. I always kid around and say, if Maneely had lived, between Kirby and Maneely, there wouldn’t have been any work for the rest of us. Half of us would have starved. Probably true.

DA: Did Stan ever talk about Maneely dying so young?

ROMITA: Oh, he missed him terribly. He was so important to him.

DA: Because I heard he was closer to Joe than he was [to most artists].

ROMITA: He was very close to him. Maneely was an easygoing guy, as far as I know. I don’t know how he was when he drank or anything like that. I didn’t know him well enough. I just met him once.

I started doing “Captain America” around 1954. And when “Captain America” was dropped, I did Westerns. I believe I started doing Westerns with The Western Kid for Stan until ’58, when Martin Goodman had to close practically down to the bone. They only had two books, after [having] about 50 titles or 40 titles. They just shut the doors, maybe Stan alone. And he had maybe Dick Ayers and Don Heck, the only two guys he was using at the time.

I went to DC and I did love stories. It’s funny—when I first started for Stan, I went from $20 a page, and every time I went in, his enthusiasm was accompanied by generosity. He’d say, “I love this. This is great.” He’d call up a secretary, say “Give John Romita a $2 raise,” like every other month. Every other time I’d go in there, he would give me a raise. I went from $20 a page to $40 a page in like a year and a half, two years.

Go West, Young Kid! John R. seems to have leaped directly from “Captain America” to drawing the adventures of Western Kid for 17 straight issues—but, oddly, after he supplied the cover for issue #1 (Dec. 1954), all the following covers were drawn by the likes of Joe Maneely, Carl Burgos, Syd Shores, and John Severin. Thanks to the GCD. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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“I’m Getting Satisfaction Doing What I’m Doing!”

From Menace To Marvel (Left:) During the pre-Comics Code days, Romita illustrated this Stan Lee script for Menace #3 (May 1953). Thanks to Jim Kealy. (The full story was reprinted in the hardcover Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Era – Menace, Vol. 1.)

(Right:) In Young Men #26 (March 1954), John became the only person in that hero revival to draw all of Timely’s wartime “big three” in a 1950s context. Alas, their resuscitation didn’t last long enough for any more interaction. Scripter unknown. Thanks to Dr. Michael J. Vassallo & Bob Bailey. [TM & © Marvel Characters,Inc.]

I was living on top of the world. I was getting top rate with Stan, and I was still basically an amateur, and he loved it. And then things started to slump in ’54. The Congressional committee, Kefauver, Seduction of the Innocent—[they] just destroyed our industry. The Senate committee investigated comics and its influence on young people, and it was a nightmare. And Stan’s [i.e., Timely’s] business manager, accountant, whatever he was—I think his name was Froelich—made a terrible impression. He just had no defense for anything we were doing.

And frankly, there was no defense for the industry. It was crude stuff. It was terrible. My first horror story for Stan, the last panel was a decapitated head dripping with blood being held by some mean creature. So there was a lot of bad stuff being done, but we were not doing as bad as some people. EC Comics really took the brunt of it, so the whole comic industry almost folded, and DC was the only one that kept its head above water, because they didn’t do a lot of crap. And I went to DC. Preceding that, every time I went in for about a year and a half, I got a cut because things were getting bad for Stan. I went from $44 a page down to $24 a page. Every time I got a cut, I would come home a little glum and Virginia would say, “Well, how long are you going to take it?” I said, “Well, maybe this is the last one.”

You know, I kept always kidding myself. I never liked to change companies. So at $24 a page, I was at my lowest ebb anyway. So when he dropped me, when he dropped the Western books, it was

hardly a problem.

I didn’t know if was going to get work, but I got work at DC for $38 a page. So it was like a nightmare, and then the sun came out the next day. It was amazing, and I did eight years of love stories. I was making top rate in a matter of six months. I was their main cover artist for the romance department, and I was living great, and I thought, “This is wonderful.” I used to tell Virginia, “If Stan Lee ever calls, tell him to go to hell,” because I figured I’m in the Cadillac of the industry now. DC was quality. I was proud to be there, even though I was on the fringes because I never got into the pension department.

DA: This was the first time you ever worked for a woman editor?

ROMITA: Yeah. Zena Brody was there, and then she left soon after I went back. I had worked for her while I was still working for Stan.

Another reason I was mad at him was that he told me, “If you’re going to work for DC, I won’t be able to give you my primary stuff.” So I dropped the DC stuff. Six months later he drops me, so I was really mad at him.

Then there was another young lady [editor] that was very, very good to me, named Phyllis Reed. She was a writer. I guess she was very accommodating and very patient and we did a lot of good work together. We worked out cover situations that became storylines. They were basing their scripts on our cover situations. So I was really a cog in the wheel there for about eight years.

A 2001 Conversation With Master Storyteller John Romita

All You Need Is Love!

Romita had already cut his eyeteeth on romance comics at Timely with the likes of the splash above left for Love Romances #35 (Jan. 1954)—but he soon became an even more in-demand artist on DC’s, as per the cover of Girls’ Love Stories #53 (March ’58). It’s not 100% certain that he inked the latter cover, however. Thanks to Jim Ludwig & Bob Bailey, respectively. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. & DC Comics, respectively.]

DA: Did you know Gene Colan, because you guys did a lot of stories together?

ROMITA: Well, we didn’t do them “together,” but at the same time.

Oh yeah, I met Colan, Seymour Barry, Bernie Sachs… these were the best in the business. I mean, Colan was an offbeat guy. He was not the standard DC slick.

He was an illustrator in a comicbook artist’s skin. And I met Frank Giacoia. I met Mike Pepe.

I never met Alex Toth, unfortunately, because I idolized Alex Toth. I was taking every Alex Toth book and devouring it with my brain.

I felt I was I was in heaven. I was making a decent buck, 45 bucks a page. This was pencil and ink, by the way, which was not a lot of money, but I was making like $350 every two weeks. I was not making a lot of money, but it was more than I had been used to. So for those eight years, I was very happy.

And then suddenly the whole thing

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disappeared, because one of the DC owners found a closet full of inventory and wondered “why the hell we’re paying for new artwork when we got all this.” So they just shut down their romance department and I was told, “Well, you’re a freelancer, go get work.”

They never shunted me into the adventure department. I was so hurt. But I was almost relieved, because I wanted to do Superman and Batman if I could, but I wasn’t sure I was good enough. So I had mixed emotions. I was hoping they’d give me a chance, but

Zena Brody & Phyllis Reed (left to right)—a pair of DC romance editors much respected and appreciated

by John R. They were provided to us some years back by the late DC production chief Jack Adler.

Zena Brody

Phyllis Reed

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“I’m Getting Satisfaction Doing What I’m Doing!”

they never did.

ROMITA: Or I thought it was because he had left.

DA: But the romance department was totally different in terms of who handled what books?

DA: Well, the point is, no one got credit, even when [Ellsworth] went to Los Angeles [to work on the Superman TV show]. So everyone was fighting underneath him to try and get noticed.

ROMITA: Also, editors were very flinty about overlapping. If you worked for one editor and you took a job from another editor, they would watch you like a hawk. If you turned in the other guy’s book before his, he’d put a black mark on you. You’d be dead. They were very, very possessive, those guys. And I really feared those editors. They were known as a cutthroat bunch of editors. They had ego, and they were very quick to insult and to hurt. No diplomacy. I never dealt with Julie [Schwartz]. But other guys I heard were really cold-blooded guys, and they would cut your throat. Corporate, very corporate.

And they were also competing with each other. It was not a cooperative effort there. They would not exchange artists easily.

They would begrudgingly let a guy do somebody else’s work.

DA: I tend to think that it started earlier on, when Whitney Ellsworth was the editor.

ROMITA: I know that the tradition was not to be given credit, right? They made you feel that if you put your name on it, you were being not a team player. Right?

DA: I don’t think anyone really got true credit until the early ’60s.

ROMITA: I mean, maybe there were some guys—I remember Carmine started to sign some things… “Pow-Wow Smith” and things like that.

DA: No, I mean, as an editor.

Gentleman Gene Colan worked on staff at Timely beginning in the late 1940s, and landed at DC after the late-’50s “Atlas Implosion,” becoming a valued romance artist there, as per the page from Girls’ Romances #114 (Jan. ’66). However, by 1965 he was moonlighting for Marvel under the pseudonym “Adam Austin”—and, in fact, that very same month and year saw his dramatic “Sub-Mariner” splash page in Tales to Astonish #75! The Namor yarn was inked by Vince Colletta; scripts are by an unknown writer & a very known Stan Lee, respectively. The photo is from the 1975 Marvel Con program book; thanks to Michael T. Gilbert & Barry Pearl, respectively, for the page scans. [Page TM & © DC Comics.]

A 2001 Conversation With Master Storyteller John Romita

ROMITA: Oh, the editor. Oh, you’re right. But even the artists were discouraged from putting their names in there. I remember, because I didn’t put my name on covers. I thought it was not the professional thing to do. They had conned me, you know. [Robert] Kanigher personified the DC personality to me. Kanigher wrote two of my series while I was doing romance stuff… a nurse series and a stewardess series. They were pretty well-received, and I really put my best work into those. I worked for him for about a year and a half. And we were going down in the elevator one day at the DC building and he says, “The stuff looks good.” I said, “Gee, I’m glad you like it. I hope you don’t mind [that] occasionally I do a little juggling.” He said, “What are you talking about?” I said, “Sometimes I need a little transition panel, if people leave one building and enter another building. I put a little panel showing them walking down the street or something and sometimes, if you’ve got a big balloon in one panel, I will split it up if one panel has no balloon.” I told him I did minor editing.

Well, he almost ate me alive. He says, “Who the hell do you think you are, changing my stuff?” I said, “I didn’t change any words.” “You’ve got no right to go adding panels and taking panels out!” I felt, “Oh my God, why did I tell him?” I said, “You never noticed it. You just told me you loved this stuff, and now you’re jumping down my throat.” Well, I thought I was finished. I went home that day figuring Phyllis Reed’s going to call me up and say, “You’re finished. This is your last check. Turn in your work.” He probably never told her that. Maybe he realized it made him look stupid or something. Whatever it was, I kept working until they ran out of inventory.

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He was a boy wonder, from what I hear. And I think he carried that banner. He just felt that he really was justified. He really was one of the best. I mean, he created some of the best things in comics and he carried them through and wrote some very touching stories at a time when very few people cared. You know, I admired him.

DA: Do you think some of it ends up being bitterness, that he wasn’t recognized because he was in a business that doesn’t get recognition?

ROMITA: Well, I think he did get some, actually. He was well known among us. But I don’t know if the public ever got to know anybody. The public was under an impression that comics was done mechanically and nobody would take the time to do 120 drawings for a story that nobody’s going to remember. I couldn’t convince my own friends that I put that much. “Are you crazy? You’re doing 120 different drawings, all these little figures and backgrounds and trees and 100,000 windows a month?”

Young people used to write in and say that they were under the impression that comics was done mechanically. In other words, like a polarized photograph turned into line art. Some vague, imaginative idea they had. It could not be somebody doing tedious

DA: Did Kanigher have a temper?

ROMITA: Oh, he was explosive. He was! He personified the DC editor to me. I never worked for him as an editor; I only worked for him because he was writing my stuff. I had an editor named Phyllis Reed who protected me. I saw him ream out artists in the bullpen— severely ream out people that I respected. I just was grateful I never had to work for him, because I had this mixed emotion about DC. I wanted to do the super-heroes or some of the main titles. I would have loved to do some of the war stuff, except for tanks. I hated to draw tanks.

DA: Do you think Kanigher did it for effect in terms of getting people to stand up and take notice of it?

ROMITA: I used to wonder about that. Almost all of those editors had the same behavior pattern. It was almost like, how would a big-shot editor act? In other words, I don’t think it was their natural bent. I think it was just they were putting on the mantle of an editor and acting the way a lot of people go into business and say, “If you’re a businessman, you’ve got to be bloodthirsty. You can’t be gentle, you can’t be considerate. You’ve got to come down heavy on people. Otherwise they’re not going to do anything.” And I think they say, “Okay, if I’m going to be a boss, I’m going to be a mean boss.” And I think that’s what they did.

I’m sure that, if you’re a creative person, you’ve got to understand the other creative people and what makes them tick. You can’t come down on them like that. Some of those editors I don’t think were too creative. I don’t want to name names, but I know Kanigher was a creative genius, and why he would come down on another creative person is very hard for me to understand. I always thought creative people should take care of each other.

Robert Kanigher (at left). A legendarily cruel comicbook editor, by most contemporary accounts… but also an oft-brilliant comics writer, as John Romita readily agreed. Seen here is the splash page of a noted RK/Alex Toth collaboration from Star Spangled War Stories #164 (Aug.-Sept. 1972). Thanks to Art Lortie for the page scan. [TM & © DC Comics.]

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“I’m Getting Satisfaction Doing What I’m Doing!”

of stuff. You know, if you do it every day, you don’t notice you’re piling on the work. I never questioned it, except to think it was a personality thing.

And then when he started adding editors on, he still was very much involved in every concept. Frankly, I think he was an inspiration to a lot of people. He taught us how to make the stuff alive. There was no dead weight. We used to make fun of a lot of comics. When we’d talk about plots, [we’d look at competitors’ comics] where people with heavy-lidded eyes and closed mouths are screaming. The dialogue is screaming like you’re standing on my foot and the face is passive, you know? And to this day, I tell a young artist, “All your people are sleeping. One of the first things I notice, you don’t have anybody’s mouth open. You don’t have anybody’s eyes intense. You need to get animation and dynamics into your work.” And a lot of comic artists at the time, DC’s best, used to do very passive stuff, very still stuff.

DA: Do you find that romance helped you in terms of taking you through a range of emotions that you wouldn’t have gotten in other parts of the business?

ROMITA: It was a very valuable thing. I think it was responsible

“Look! Up In The Sky!” Clearly, John R. was a quick study in the matter of making bystanders look amazed, fearful, excited, or whatever, rather than rendering them as simple, blasé onlookers. Case in point: This Romita splash page from Amazing SpiderMan #42 (Nov. 1966), only his fourth outing on the Wall-Crawler’s title. Script

by Stan Lee. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

work, doing the same heads over and over again and the same backgrounds.

DA: We’re drafting it out of there.

ROMITA: Yeah. And making it out of them. They couldn’t comprehend that anybody would take the time to do it. It’s a very tedious job.

DA: Did you find it interesting that DC had all these various editors for all the books that they had? And that Marvel, on the other hand, was basically running out of one editor?

ROMITA: I didn’t question it. I just assumed that DC was a powerhouse like General Motors, and that Marvel, or Timely at the time, was a one-man show and that it sort of like grew on him.

When I went back there in ’65, [Stan] only had 17 titles, so he was still building from ’58 to ’65. He had been building slowly. I just took it for granted that DC knows how to do it and that Stan is just a guy who started a line of books and took in the work gradually, like grew it. It grew like Topsy. And he was like the guy who lifts a calf every day—and when it’s a cow, he still can lift it. That kind

All At Sea And if the wind was wildly blowing a gal’s hair on the cover, you can bet that waves and water would be! JR’s cover (though the inking credit is uncertain) for Girls’ Love Stories #88 (Aug. 1962). Thanks to the GCD. [TM & © DC Comics.]

A 2001 Conversation With Master Storyteller John Romita

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Romance taught me that. But I never got a chance to do [at DC] that with Westerns or war or mystery stories.

DA: You have to draw people’s attention to the page. Because if you don’t, if that doesn’t happen, you’re never going to get to the story part of it.

ROMITA: And that’s the reason that Stan’s accidental procedure with art first and script second was a landmark milestone in the industry. I only worked 15 years as a freelancer before Stan in ’65.

There was a whole generation of guys working from 1935 on that had done comics from a script. The script narrowed your horizons and your range tremendously, because you were pinned down to what [the writer] said on the page. If they had a lot of copy, you had a small amount of space. If you didn’t have a lot of copy, you had to fill it with artwork, but you were stuck on the words.

When Stan ran out of time and could not supply everybody with scripts, Jack Kirby would call him up and say, “I’ve got no script.” [Stan] would give him a verbal quick thing, say, “Let me tell you, do the first five pages: the Fantastic Four is coming to Earth

Follow That Car! Better Yet—Hitch A Ride On Top Of It! From his very first full penciling job back at Marvel, in Daredevil #14 (March 1966), John R. was co-plotting and fleshing out sequences based on his story conferences with editor/scripter Stan Lee, as per the first four or five panels on this page. Inks by Frank Giacoia as “Frankie Ray.” Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

for me bringing subtlety to my stuff and adding excitement when no excitement was happening. In other words, if I had a woman who was thinking about leaving somebody or thinking that her boyfriend just betrayed her, [she could be] just a girl standing there with a sad look and a tear down her face. I would throw a bandana around her shoulders or flowing in the breeze, her hair flowing in the breeze. I used hair extensively as a dynamic, an element of dynamics. The wind was always blowing, the dresses were always blowing, and I never had anybody standing straight up and down, if I could avoid it. I would bend them over. I would twist them.

When they walked, they walked with full steps instead of mincing steps.

The whole thing taught me how to make something out of nothing. To this day, the artist’s responsibility is subtle but very important. My son has learned that lesson almost from the beginning, because I used to tell him about it. He used to say, “This is a dead story, so I’m going to do this, this, and this,” while he’s watching me. And he does it. He does it very well. He makes nothing pages interesting. And that is a hell of an accomplishment.

“Jack Kirby Would Have All Sorts Of Wonderful Things Going On” Now there’s a difficult assignment, if we ever heard of one: find a Kirby page where there’s a lot happening! Almost at random, and from late in Kirby’s Marvel career, here’s a climactic page from Fantastic Four #70 (Jan. 1968)—and this one features the F.F. battling one of their lesser protagonists, The Mad Thinker’s Awesome Android! Script by Stan Lee; inks by Joe Sinnott. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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“I’m Getting Satisfaction Doing What I’m Doing!”

now Jack Kirby would have all sorts of wonderful things going on. There’s creatures crawling everywhere in every corner of the page. And Stan would then start picking and choosing where to put balloons on the artwork. That became an art form.

If you look at Stan’s original scripts, Xeroxes or Photostats, whatever they made, Stan’s placement of balloons was a work of art because not only was it less stilted than [word balloons] all being at the top of every panel, it also kept your eye moving across the page, something that scientists years later used in the Spidey Super Stories, which was done for young children to teach them to read. We did a “Spider-Man” series for five years with no advertising, scientifically designed to invite the kids to read and to follow a sequence. We couldn’t put balloons everywhere. We could only put them in certain places scientifically located. Stan had done that instinctively.

He had made it an art form. Young writers had to be indoctrinated into the art of balloon placements five years after he started.

DA: Well, it also becomes a true collaborative medium, because if you’ve got a plot, you get the visuals. You know the artwork. Yeah. Then the writer looks at it and changes [what he’s going to write].

crashing in one of their vehicles, and how they get out of it, they skim down a mountain like Indiana Jones did later and skip across the water and break their fall.” And he would give Kirby just a five-page sequence to give him time to write the rest of the script.

And so the verbal plot came about. And what happened is, guys like Jack Kirby suddenly turned nothing stories into exciting visuals because he had to fill the space. A fight scene. Stan would say, “Do a fight scene for four pages and I’ll get the script to you for the rest of the story.” So help me, it was an accident. It turned out to be the best idea in comics history, because now it became the visual medium it should have been from the beginning.

The written word should not have been [paramount]. It’s not a play, a stilted play behind headlights. You’ve got action, you’ve got reaction. So, to me, it was the greatest thing that ever happened.

And I was terrified the first time he told me he was not going to give me a script. Not that I liked scripts. Scripts always bothered me in retrospect. I realized I was already editing Bob Kanigher years before, so I was already a thinking artist, not aware that I was a thinking artist. I thought I was bringing beauty and authenticity and invincibility to it, but I never thought of it as bringing a new dynamic to it.

When we [artists] started doing our own artwork before the words, then the other great thing happened. Stan suddenly found he didn’t have to put all the balloons at the top of the panel, because

Football, F.F. Style (Top left:) Jack Kirby’s pencils for p. 13 of Fantastic Four #61 (April 1967), with Stan Lee’s penciled balloon placements; Stan’s script was typed up separately, using both the picture and Jack’s margin notes as a guide, although sometimes it’s as easy to see the differences between what Jack suggested and what Stan dialogued (in the printed page above) as it is to see the similarities. Thanks to John Morrow and Barry Pearl, respectively.

[TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

A 2001 Conversation With Master Storyteller John Romita

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to write a story about them! So, in other words, do the back of the head or do a shadow, but don’t make them interesting, because I like these characters, you know?”

Stan found a whole new dimension in writing that he never realized before. He was free now to do dialogue he wouldn’t have thought of because of the dynamics and the expressions on the characters and the interplay of the characters, which might not have been in his mind.

And he didn’t have to explain, when the artist did a good transition job so you could follow the sequence. He didn’t have to make captions for it. If the artist failed to do a proper sequence, he could put a caption in to explain what’s happening. So the whole thing opened up. It became a whole new industry, and I don’t know why people don’t make more of it. To me, it was like the discovery

Spidey Super Splashes Frankly, Ye A/E Editor is surprised that educational-TV’s Electric Company let John draw this Jaws-influenced cover for Spidey Super Stories #16 (April 1976). Roy T. admits that, when he was Marvel’s editor-in-chief, he never fully agreed with the EC’s supposedly “scientific” placement of balloons, which was sometimes at variance with the way he and Stan would’ve done them—but he was happy to let his then-wife Jean (who wrote the early issues of SSS) deal with the TV folks, and was just glad to have Marvel be a part of anything that encouraged young people to read. Incidentally, the sea-faring Sub-Mariner showed up inside the issue to help the Wall-Crawler out! [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

ROMITA: It sounds like the right thing to do from the beginning.

It should have been done that way from the beginning, but it was never thought of.

DA: Because you got the basic plot. But the dialogue completely changes.

ROMITA: And Stan said what happened was, the things that he would have written with a blank page were one thing… but when he was presented with the art and expressions on people’s faces and interesting characters that might have been overlooked that Jack threw in, he used to tell me, “If you put a character in the foreground”—we call it a foreground element, a person standing on a street corner, maybe looking at a map or making a phone call on a phone booth—he used to say, “Every time you do that, I want

Beautiful Balloons Want to see how you might write the words for a page of Amazing Spider-Man penciled by Jazzy Johnny Romita—and precisely where you’d place the dialogue balloons? Here’s a page done for issue #70 (March 1969), featuring Spidey, Gwen Stacy, and an ailing Capt. Stacy (Gwen’s police-commissioner father). Only thing is, you won’t be able to compare your own deathless dialogue with that of Smilin’ Stan Lee—because this particular page wasn’t used—though definitely not because of anything John did wrong! [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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“I’m Getting Satisfaction Doing What I’m Doing!”

Three For The Money Here, selected almost at random, are a trio of Marvel covers from the period during which, not long before John Romita left DC for good, a number of DC editorial and managerial personnel were busy convincing each other that Marvel’s comics—most definitely including their covers—were woefully inferior to those being produced by themselves. Exhibits “A” through “C”: The Avengers #10 (Nov. ’64) by Jack Kirby & Chic Stone… Amazing Spider-Man #19 (Dec. 1964) by Steve Ditko… and Fantastic Four #39 (June 1965) by Jack Kirby, Chic Stone, & Wally Wood. All cover text written by editor Stan Lee. Naturally, we’re also admirers of a lot of DC covers done during that era by the likes of Infantino, Kane, Anderson, et al.—but maybe some of those folks at DC weren’t necessarily looking at the right cover elements? And—maybe it wasn’t all about the covers? Thanks to the GCD. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

of the wheel in the history of comics. But I was terrified, frozen, the first time. I said, “What am I going to do? How am I going to do this?” But it forced you to do a visual. So he would say, “Make it interesting. When in doubt, make it interesting, make it exciting.”

So then I was forced to now decide to myself: the guy walks in the room, he’s looking around, somebody’s behind the door. He has to look back. I had to make up a sensible sequence of events which made the whole story better and then easier for Stan to write, and everything fell into place. But it was like pulling teeth. I was terrified. Everything new is hard, I think. Jack Kirby thrived on it because he was a writer at heart. I was never a writer.

DA: Did you guys think of yourself at the time as like a guerrilla force working against this big Goliath? Because Marvel obviously had a different way of working, had different personality at the top, different people working for him, and a very casual approach.

ROMITA: You want to hear something funny? I had both ends of the spectrum there, because, while I was working for DC, they used to have discussions at the bullpen, the editors, and I was at one of those discussions—I think it was just one—and they were analyzing, “What the hell is happening? Why is Stan Lee getting such a market all of a sudden?” They had Stan Lee’s covers tacked up on a board, and some of DC’s covers, and were saying, “Ours are obviously better. Why are Stan Lee’s books getting noticed?

Why are people buying them?” All they could glean from that was: “Well, Stan’s stuff looks crude. I mean, look at the jagged lettering and the crudity of the stuff,” and how rough the stuff was. It wasn’t that nice, clean, beautifully colored things that DC did. They were puzzled. One of them actually, I believe, suggested—I don’t know if it was [production chief] Sol Harrison—that perhaps there was something about the crudity of the stuff that made youngsters feel

closer to the stuff that Stan Lee was doing than the slick stuff that was above the abilities of young people.

In other words, like where people said rock’n’roll became a success because every kid felt like, “I can get up and play the guitar like that. I could scream at the top of my lungs just like that. I could be a star.” But if you’re talking about Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, every kid can’t say, “I can sing like that,” so that it became a viewer-friendly thing, saying, “Wow, that’s encouraging. I feel close to that.”

Whatever it was, they [DC] were missing the boat. Stan’s formula was right out there in the open. It was: Make everything extreme action and extreme emotion, nothing mild, don’t do anything mild. We used to joke how DC’s reaction by every super-hero was “Great Scott!” The mountain’s exploding? “Great Scott!” You remember “Great Scott!” It was the key two words in the history of comics. For 10 or 15 years, everybody said, “Great Scott!” What the hell does “Great Scott!” mean? “Great Scott!”

“Great Scott!”

And I don’t think it was ever really supposed to be [spelled with a] double “t.” I think they meant a great Scottish hero. It wasn’t Scott from the South Pole. You know, I don’t know what the hell they were talking about! Stan would say, “Holy Moley” or whatever was the current expression: “It’s clobbering time!” He would make up things, and immediately the kids responded to it. They started using those words, and whenever they wrote letters in, they would say, “Stan, it’s clobbering time! I’m going to destroy what you did in the Spider-Man book because I think you were wrong.” And they would use his “’Nuff said!” All of those things were tying him to his audience, and DC always was insulated from the audience.

A 2001 Conversation With Master Storyteller John Romita

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“Great Scott!” Vs. “It’s Clobberin’ Time!”

You pays your money and you takes your choice: a splash panel by writer Bill Finger & artist Kurt Schaffenberger from Superman #128 (April 1959)—and a panel from Fantastic Four #37 (April ’65) by scripter Stan Lee & artists Jack Kirby & Chic Stone. Thanks to Barry Pearl for the latter scan. [Superman page TM & © DC Comics; F.F. panel TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

The audience always felt like an observer through a glass. And in Marvel, I think they felt like they were in a candy store with a chance to reach in and get the candy. That’s my guess.

DA: Did it ever occur to anyone in the [DC] bullpen sessions that it might be the content that was making them come to the book?

ROMITA: I’m telling you, it was an open secret. Any editor worth his salt should have said, “I see what Stan is doing. He’s pulling the kids in as a friend instead of an insulated reader.” And then I went over to Stan during the same period. So I saw both ends of it, and Stan was chuckling. He was saying, “We’re not hiding anything.”

In fact, he was telling people in the Bullpen Bulletins what he was doing. He was saying, “Oh, yeah, Jack Kirby and I got together over lunch and we discussed the plot and it’s going to be dynamite. And we’ve got plenty of action for you, and you guys are going to love it.” They weren’t doing that at DC. They were like searching around for an answer when it was told to them every day in Stan’s letters.

DA: Probably it was even tougher for them to understand because they controlled distribution. I mean, books were hard to find.

And I used to go around to local stores and ask and they’d say, “The distributor sometimes gives us books, sometimes they don’t.”

A lot of times they left them in the back of the truck because they didn’t want to bother taking returns the next week. A lot of times, store owners never opened up the bundles. They just returned them. I don’t know how anybody made a success. We had a success despite every single roadblock that people could give us. The economy was wrong. Everything was wrong. People couldn’t get books, and we had a success.

DA: Do you think culturally, because of the ’60s and the way things were and the upheavals that were going on on campus, that all of that stuff contributed to the success?

ROMITA: Well, Stan used it. He reflected daily life. I don’t think DC reflected daily life until after Stan started.

I think Julie Schwartz and Carmine

ROMITA: In fact, DC was distributing them during that time because Marvel had screwed itself with their own distribution that failed or something [in the late ’50s]. Yeah, there was some business. It was very funny, because we were succeeding despite every possible impediment in our Rolling Thunder way. And there John Romita was far from the was also a terrible only comics professional—or distribution fan—who dug Alex Toth’s secret-identity cowboy system period in “Johnny Thunder.” That hero the business. Kids was launched with the cover used to come to spot in All-American Comics me in my house #100 (Aug. 1948), relegating in western Nassau long-time super-hero star County and tell me Green Lantern (whom Toth that they couldn’t had also drawn) to second find the comics. billing. The series’ writer/ “Where can we go co-creator was Robert Alex Toth to get comics?”

Kanigher. Courtesy of the back in the day.

GCD. [TM & © DC Comics.]

48

“I’m Getting Satisfaction Doing What I’m Doing!”

Fantastic Voyage (Left:) Marvel’s upward march had started slowly, with Fantastic Four #1 (Nov. 1970), as seen by this second splash page from the issue, from writer/editor Stan Lee, penciler/co-plotter Jack Kirby, & (probably) inker George Klein.

Thanks to Jim Kealy.

(Right:) With F.F. #102 (Nov. 1970), John Romita himself would become only that series’ second-ever penciler, beginning with this cover, inked by John Verpoorten. With #103, the Jazzy One would take over the interior art as well.

Courtesy of the GCD. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

rightfully take credit for the rebirth of super-heroes in a certain sense. But I think the boom of comics in the early ’60s was Stan’s doing completely. They did their share. They glamorized and renewed old characters into new characters and made them dynamic and wonderful. But I think Stan is the guy responsible, because I think he turned the nature of the medium into an open-ended possibility. He opened up the possibilities. It was no longer a parochial, narrow group that they were reaching for. They suddenly reached college students, college professors. We used to get letters from faculty. We got letters from fan clubs in the service.

They used to compare books and talk about them. The famous stories of movie producers and directors that commented and contacted Stan and told him what they thought of the stuff, and visited him in his office. Fellini and Alain Resnais. Great filmmakers were all fans of Stan’s.

DC never had that kind of reaction. They had a wonderful clientele like me. I used to read their books. I would kill to see “Johnny Thunder” by Alex Toth, you know, And Carmine and stuff.

The thing is that they missed the boat. The answer was on the wall and they never read it.

DA: I think they generally figured that their audience was 10 to 14 years old.

ROMITA: And they didn’t want to disturb that. You know, the old publishers were very, very narrow-minded. Martin Goodman held us back for many years because he refused to kick over the traditional stuff. We did a successful book in magazine form, The Spectacular Spider-Man in black-&-white, and he canceled it before he found out the final figures. It sold 58% at a 35¢ price.

He could have made a killing. He would have beaten everybody to the black-&-white magazine business. The second issue of that series was a full-color comicbook—to get it back to normal, he said, because his buddies, meaning the printers and the engravers and the distributors told him, “Martin, what do you want to mess around with an oversized magazine? It can’t fit in the racks. The hell with it. Go back to regular comics, do your regular stuff.” And I guarantee you, he held us back for like at least five years. Our own publisher. And I don’t think the DC publishers were above holding their editorial staff back from progressing. They were very, very conservative and narrow-minded.

DA: I was going to say Jack Liebowitz and Martin Goodman were friends.

ROMITA: The story is that they would talk over golf, and Liebowitz would tell Martin Goodman that Justice League is selling like hotcakes. Next thing you know, Stan Lee is told to come up with a group. It’s called The Fantastic Four. That’s supposed to be

A 2001 Conversation With Master Storyteller John Romita

history. And I wouldn’t be surprised, because they were a very strange bunch of guys. They were mired in the ’30s, and here it was the ’60s, and things were slipping through their fingers and they didn’t care. Martin Goodman said, “Why do I need to expand? I’m making plenty of money now.” He was making plenty of money.

The rest of us weren’t. Stan Lee was hungry for more. You know, it was a very strange time.

DA: What’s the one thing out of the comicbook business that you’ve gotten that has enriched your life?

49

ROMITA: You know, it’s funny. I never looked for enrichment. I realized in retrospect that that was the lacking in my generation. We were only in it to make a buck. I envy the generation that came in in the ’90s—in the late ’80s and the ‘90s. I will say that the generation that came in in the ’70s was a disappointment to me. I don’t want to name names, but those guys got into comics and then left comics to go into posters and advertising and whatever else illustration. I can’t fault them for trying to make themselves better, but they failed us because the generation we expected to fill the gap in the ’70s never showed up.

So we jumped to the late ’80s and ’90s, and there’s a whole group of foreign artists, local artists, college graduate artists, the Walt Simonson type, the Todd McFarlane approach, the [Rob] Liefeld kind of guy. They come into comics with nowhere near the approach we had. We had only “Let’s make a buck and when the comic industry dies, we’ll all throw a party and go into something else.” I swear I never had a feeling that I needed gratification. But I will tell you, before I finish, what I did find out later.

But these guys, I envy them because they came in with a mission to do comics. They wanted to do comics.

They wanted to stay in comics, as opposed to us. And they were dedicated to making comics better. Whether they succeeded or failed is another question. But they cared about comics more than we ever did. We all had the John Buscema approach on comics: “It’s crap. We’re only doing it for a buck. And when we’re out of it, we’re happier.” You know, that kind of stuff. Sometimes that’s overstated in a curmudgeonly kind of joke.

But I do envy and respect those [later] guys. Even

There’s Lots Of Kinds Of “Rhinos” In the News!

Even Romita’s discards would have made decent “keepers.” Above we see his un-used penciled splash page done for Amazing Spider-Man #43 (Dec. 1966)—and (at right) the published version, as scripted by Stan the Man. Clearly, the writer/ editor decided he wanted to see Spidey and The Rhino battling it out on the story’s lead page. Thanks to Mike Burkey and Barry Pearl, respectively.

[TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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“I’m Getting Satisfaction Doing What I’m Doing!”

Our magazines are no longer at Barnes & Noble or in Apps!

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Three Cheers For The Black, White, & Blue!

As John R. laments, Stan Lee had pushed hard for the black-&-white, magazinesized Spectacular Spider-Man #1 (July 1968), minus Comics Code approval. But, after approving that single issue (see splash page at left), publisher Martin Goodman stalled, delayed, back-filled… and finally allowed issue #2 (Nov. ’68) to go ahead only as a simple over-sized color comic, approved by the Code. (See below.) Thanks to Barry Pearl for both scans. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] Stan told his associate editor, Roy Thomas, that the switch was made at least partly because of pressure on Goodman from fellow CMAA (Comic Magazine Association of America) members such as Archie’s John Goldwater and others.

Stan lost heart over the matter, although by the latter part of 1970 he was pushing again for a black-&-white, Code-less magazine, this time Savage Tales #1—which the publisher again canceled after a single issue. It was not until Stan became president and publisher in 1972 that Marvel would enter the black-&-white field in earnest.

A 2001 Conversation With Master Storyteller John Romita

51

though I don’t always like their work, I respect them because they cared about making comics better and better and better, and they succeeded in changing comics. I don’t know if it was good or bad. I’ll leave that to history, but I will tell you what happened to me. I always felt frustrated when I was 35 to 40—I felt like a failure. I felt like, what am I doing? I’m doing the same stuff over and over again. Why don’t I get out? I wanted to go into advertising and do storyboards.

John & Virginia Romita in 2001, floating above JR’s splash page for the mid-1950s Captain America (from #77, July 1954) and his cover for Amazing Spider-Man Annual #5 (Nov. 1968), which revealed the secret of Peter Parker’s parents. With thanks to Dr. Michael J. Vassallo & the GCD, respectively. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

I didn’t know if that was the answer. I thought I’d make more money, whatever. But Virginia kept telling me not to be despondent. She kept saying, “What are you worried about?

You’re doing good stuff.” I suddenly woke up one day and realized, “What am I complaining about? I’m getting steady work and I’m telling stories that are getting responses from people.

People are telling me they love my stories.” And I suddenly realized, why do I have to become a magazine illustrator or a painter to get satisfaction? I’m getting satisfaction doing what I’m doing! And a light went on and I said, “I will do the best comics I can, and I’m going to enjoy it and not worry about where I’m going to go next.” It was too late at the dance to make a difference in my life, but I just had a little bit less anxiety and a little bit more satisfaction. I was feeling, I’m doing the best comics I can do, and people are appreciating it. What the hell am I complaining about? So I got satisfaction much later than I expected.

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…All That Jazzy Johnny Jazz!

The Top 10 Greatest JOHN ROMITA Comics Stories Of All Time

B

According to John Cimino

ack in Alter Ego #170 and #179, I was pleased to have Roy Thomas invite me to write articles on “the top 10 Jack Kirby Marvel slugfests (1961-1970)” and “the top 10 greatest Stan Lee stories of all time.” This time, it’s to honor the late artist extraordinaire Johnny Victor Romita, another legend from the hallowed halls of Marvel’s mighty Bullpen, and to put together a top-10 list of his greatest comics. By many, Mr. Romita has been dubbed “the Norman Rockwell of Comics,” and he has drawn stories and images that inspired millions, defined a culture, and literally changed the world. Yeah, no pressure at all… Holy Moley!

Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this article, I have to write about John Romita’s everlasting impression on me. First off, I’ve been obsessed with super-heroes since I was three years old; if Cimino legend is correct, my mom said “Spidey” was one of the first words I ever spoke. That has to be true, because when I was a toddler in the mid-1970s, to calm my little ADHD-fueled body down, she plopped me in front of the television set to watch episodes of Spider-Man from The Electric Company and the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon series that was in syndication at the time.

And you know what? It worked. It worked so well, in fact, that I became infatuated with Spider-Man. Luckily, when Mom would take me out shopping with her, super-hero merchandise, especially Spider-Man merchandise, was everywhere (yeah, growing up in the ’70s and ’80s was a glorious time). And whose art was on the majority of all that wonderful packaging? None other than that of “Jazzy” Johnny Romita! His images became so impactful on me at such an early age that, even to this day, his art is what I would use to define the look and feel of super-heroes, and more specifically the look and feel of Spider-Man. So, look no further than the cover of Marvel Treasury Edition #1 (1974), because that’s the greatest image of Spider-Man ever drawn, IMHO. Now, the time has come to go through the massive amount of comicbooks John Romita produced over the years and pull out his

John Romita does a vintage turn at the drawingboard, juxtaposed with his cover for the tabloid-sized otherwisemostly-reprint Marvel Treasury Edition (Sept. 1974), with full art by JR. John Cimino considers this cover the best drawing ever done of Spider-Man. [Cover TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

ten greatest—well, not his ten greatest issues, but his ten greatest stories, since a few of them extended over more than one edition of the comic he was drawing (and often co-plotting). Judging this legend’s work in a list is, of course, strictly subjective.

I had to base my decisions on how I felt when I was reading them, especially for the first time. Also, I wanted to include issues where his art and storytelling were the main focus, so that his genius was being shown throughout, rather than tales that showcased his incredible inking and even his great covers. This is a list of pure Jazzy Johnny at his Jazzing best, so accept no substitutes.

RIP Mr. John Victor Romita (1930-2023)… this one’s for you!

10) Strange Tales #4 (1951) – “It!” Bill and Jenny adopt a baby, but are soon plagued by a mysterious series of deadly accidents. Finally, Jenny trips over the baby’s teddy bear and falls down the stairs to her death.

Bewildered, Bill enters a room in the house and finds the baby (who is actually a being from another world, inhabiting the body of the child) pointing a gun at him. After shooting and killing Bill, the baby is adopted by a new family, where the cycle will begin all over again. John Romita drew a stellar story with perfect pacing, and that little evil baby with a gun reveal at the end was priceless.

This is what I call classic 1950s horror at its finest!

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…All That Jazzy John Jazz!

9) Young Men #24 (1953) – “Back From the Dead!”

“It” Came From Johnny Romita This first-ever Romita art job done under his own name and the debut of his own inking, the yarn titled “It!” appeared in Strange Tales #4 (Dec. 1951). The plot was, according to the Grand Comics Database, a swipe from a Ray Bradbury short story called “The Small Assassin.” The scripter who wrote the “homage” is unidentified. See the yarn’s splash on p. 33. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

The Red Skull, thinking Captain America long dead, rounds up his minions so they can begin an international crime syndicate. At that moment, Lee School high school teacher Steven Rogers is driving Bucky into New York City. Bucky asks Steve why he doesn’t come out of retirement to prove to the kids at school that Captain America is not make-believe, but Steve tells him that Captain America’s work is done. However, as they listen to the car radio, they hear reports that The Red Skull has returned and allied himself with the Communists and that he has invaded the United Nations building and is taking hostages. Seeing this as a reason for Captain America to return, Bucky reveals that he has hidden their costumes under the car seat in case they would ever need them again. In full costume, the two heroes rush to the UN Building, much to the surprise of those gathered outside.

Smashing into the General Assembly, they easily trounce Red Skull and his minions and free the hostages. The delegates thank Captain America and welcome him back. It should be noted that this was the first super-hero feature John Romita ever drew—and what an introduction it was! BOOM!!

“Let ’Em Have It!” 23-year-old John Romita’s debut on “Captain America” in Young Men #24 (Dec. 1953)—see his original art above left—was delayed by one panel, when editor Stan Lee decreed that the splash panel (though not the others on that page) be redrawn by artist Mort Lawrence, who would later draw a single full “Cap” story during the hero’s 1953-54 revival. Thanks to Bob Wiener for the balloon-less original art at left, and to John Cimino for the published page at right. Clearly, a Red Skull dialogue balloon was accidentally left off the printed art; he must have been shouting “Let ’em have it!,” to which Cap is responding in panel 2. Scripter unknown, although Romita believed that some of the “Captain America” scripts he drew bore Stan’s name and might have been written by him—in which case this initial story would be a primo candidate.

For a color version of JR’s original splash, with added JR figures of The Human Torch and Sub-Mariner, see Alter Ego #35, which used it as a cover.

[TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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The Top 10 Greatest John Romita Comics Stories Of All Time

8) Daredevil #16 & 17 (1966) – “Enter…Spider-Man” & “None Are So Blind..!”

While this 2-part story of Daredevil, Spider-Man, and The Masked Marauder (his first appearance) is somewhat fairly routine in terms of what Marvel was producing at the time, it’s the legend behind them that make these issues true classics in John Romita history. Behind the scenes, the relationship between Stan Lee and regular “Spider-Man” artist and co-creator Steve Ditko had been deteriorating. So, Stan wrote Spider-Man into the plot of these Daredevil issues in order to gauge how well John could handle the Wall-Crawler and to see how the readers would react to it. And react they did! As soon as Ditko left Amazing Spider-Man around the end of 1965, John Romita would find himself as the new regular artist on that title—and he and Stan together would soon turn it from Marvel’s second-bestselling title to its best-selling one!

Enter—John Romita!

(Above:) Romita’s covers for Daredevil #16 & 17 (May & June 1966) were the first glimpses—especially in the case of the former issue—that Silver Age Marvel readers ever had of John’s version of Spider-Man. Though Stan was unhappy to see Steve Ditko depart around the end of ’65, he couldn’t have been happier with the artist he now had waiting in the wings—whether JR liked the idea or not! John had a bit of help, though: Frank Giacoia (as “Frankie Ray”) beautifully inked both covers and interiors in the two issues. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

7) Vampire Tales #2 (1973) – “Satana” In the only story on which John Romita and Roy Thomas ever collaborated, they introduce the sultry Devil’s daughter, Satana (a concept of Stan’s)! As Satana is walking the streets alone at night, she realizes she is being stalked by a man. She purposely leads him into a dead end, allowing him to think he will be able to have his way with her. However, when he kisses her, she psychically drains the man of his life force and steals his soul (which appears in the shape of a butterfly).

Satana leaves the fallen corpse behind as she saunters off with the butterfly, telling her would-be attacker that it’s best not to pick on the Devil’s daughter. Ooh, la, la, did Satana look good….

Butterflies Are Free!

(Left:)The fourth and final page of the “Satana” story that writer Roy Thomas and artist John Romita turned out virtually overnight, at Satana-conceptualizer Stan Lee’s “request.” [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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…All That Jazzy John Jazz!

6) Tales to Astonish #77 (1966) – “Bruce Banner Is The Hulk!”

The Hulk, trapped in the future, slugs it out with The Executioner to prove his superiority. And back in the present, Rick Jones spills the beans to Major Glenn Talbot, revealing to him that Bruce Banner is the Hulk. A milestone if there ever was one.

Jack Kirby would provide the layouts as John Romita draws ol’ Jade-Jaws for the first time, doing the finishing pencils and inks.

The results were simply a gamma explosion! Romita’s rendition of the Hulk in this issue was so good that a few images from it were used on Marvel merchandise throughout the ’60s and ’70s.

That’s really saying something about Romita’s ability to interpret the Marvel heroes so quickly and efficiently. This was just the beginning: John would eventually take the reins from Kirby and visually lead Marvel into the next decade.

“Bruce Banner Is The Hulk!”

In this powerful story, working over dynamic breakdowns by Jack Kirby, John Romita and a guy named Lee joined the King in revealing to the world, for the first time ever, the secret gamma-ray-induced life of Robert Bruce (“Dave”) Banner. Though Kirby took care of the basic storytelling, his breakdowns left plenty of room for John’s powerful finished artwork to shine. From Tales to Astonish #77 (March 1966). [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

5) Amazing Spider-Man #123 (1973) – “…Just a Man Called Cage!”

Feel The Power, Man! Our ever-lovin’ list-compiler feels that the Wall-crawler’s energetic encounter with Luke Cage in Amazing Spider-Man #123 (Aug. 1973) is one of JR’s best romps, both inside and out. The story inside was primarily penciled by Gil Kane, but John Romita (at Stan Lee’s behest) did so much fixing up and redrawing that the splash page credits listed both men as “Artist”; clearly somebody forgot to turn that word into a plural.

[TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

These were the years when Spider-Man looked his absolute best, IMHO. While John Romita did the pencils working with Gil Kane, he also did the inks along aided by Tony Mortellaro, and the results were spectacular! The story is simple: J. Jonah Jameson pays the no-nonsense Luke Cage to capture Spider-Man—dead or alive. The result is two bombastic slugfests that would make any adrenaline junkie proud. That’s all a funnybook fanatic like me needs: solid dialogue, great art, and action in the Mighty Marvel Manner! To be honest, I must’ve read this comic more than any other Spider-Man comic, and it never seems to grow old. Did I mention that it also sports one of my favorite comicbook covers of all time? Yup, when Johnny was at the peak of his powers on Spider-Man, he was untouchable!

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The Top 10 Greatest John Romita Comics Stories Of All Time

4) Fantastic Four #103 & 104 (1970) – “At War with Atlantis!” & “Our World – Enslaved!”

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had previously done 102 consecutive issues of Fantastic Four together (plus a bunch of FF annuals as well) in what is arguably the greatest comicbook run of all time. But when Kirby exited, Stan had to go with the only artist who could fill Kirby’s mighty shoes and keep the title moving along without missing a beat. That guy was none other than Johnny Romita! It had to be an intimidating challenge for John, because not only would the readers be clamoring for more Kirby, but Stan had to throw John into the second issue of a 3-part story. And what did Johnny do under all that pressure? He hit it out of the freaking ballpark with a two-issue Marvel masterpiece and even increased sales on the Fantastic Four title, all at the same time! The Thing slugs it out with Namor! Magneto takes Sue Richards and Lady Dorma prisoner! Then it’s the Fantastic Four versus Namor versus Magneto, with a million surprises and a million thrills! And oh boy, what an ending!

Four For The Money…

You saw Romita’s first cover for Fantastic Four earlier this issue. Above are the covers of issues #103 & 104 (Oct. & Nov. 1970). For some reason, Stan had both the covers and interior artwork of both these issues inked by John Verpoorten rather than usual embellisher Joe Sinnott.

Maybe he just wanted to really shake readers up? If so, he succeeded—as did John! [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

3) Amazing Spider-Man #42 (1966) –“The Birth of a Super-Hero!”

“Face It, Tiger…”

Perhaps the most famous panel in the history of Amazing Spider-Man—and if it’s not, maybe it oughtta be—is the final one in issue #42 (Nov. 1966), which finally gave the rhapsodized readership its first full-frontal view of Mary Jane Watson, the future Mary Jane Parker. Script by Stan Lee. Neither Stan nor anyone else Ye Editor knows has ever been able to figure out a good reason for MJ’s introductory line not to have been included in the first, otherwise-excellent Spider-Man film in 2002. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

The focus of the story is J. Jonah Jameson’s astronaut son, Colonel John Jameson, getting a space virus that gives him super-powers with which he fights Spider-Man. After defeating the Colonel and leaving the scene, Peter Parker just wants to relax, but Aunt May reminds him that she’s set him up with Mary Jane Watson (whom he has been avoiding for months). With no way to get out of it, Peter and Aunt May take a stroll to Anna Watson’s house for dinner and wait for her niece MJ to show up. And show up she does, in her first full appearance (Steve Ditko had been teasing her, without showing her face, since Amazing Spider-Man #25), in one of the most iconic panels in the history of comics! “Face it, Tiger… you just hit the jackpot!” Peter Parker is dumfounded by the sheer beauty and sass of Mary Jane Watson, and the Spider-Universe would never be the same again.

…All That Jazzy John Jazz!

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2) Amazing Spider-Man #39 & 40 (1966) – “How Green Was My Goblin!” & “Spidey Saves the Day!” It’s a recurring theme in Johnny Romita’s history. Who does Stan Lee call upon when an artist as talented as Steve Ditko leaves a title that he was a co-creator on, a co-plotter on, and the only artist ever to work on, and that title just happens to be called The Amazing Spider-Man? We all know the answer… and the unbelievable pressure. But John Romita pulls through again (and again and again) in this 2-part classic where the Green Goblin discovers that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. But the importance of this story doesn’t end there. These issues also marked the beginning of a new age for Marvel Comics as Johnny was taking Spider-Man into a new phase by quickly increasing sales and soon making The Amazing Spider-Man the #1-selling comicbook at Marvel and modernizing Spidey into the flagship character we recognize today.

Green Grow The Goblins (Above right:) What was perhaps originally intended (at least briefly) to be Spidey’s final showdown with foe Green Goblin benefited from the Romita magic in Amazing Spider-Man #39 & 40 (Aug. & Sept. 1966).

Inside, John’s pencils were inked by Mike Esposito (as “Mickey Demeo”), but the covers were plain pure Romita! [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

1) Amazing Spider-Man #50 (1967) – “Spider-Man No More!”

When I asked John Romita, Jr., to describe his father in one word to me, he said: “Humble.” He also said that “The man had no ego.” It’s easy to see that John Romita (Sr.) never glorified his work and was all class. But, if pressured, John Jr. told me that the work and cover his father was most proud of was that of Amazing Spider-Man #50. It’s a classic tale written by Stan Lee and dramatically drawn by John, in which Peter Parker succumbs to the pressures in his life and gives up the mantle of being Spider-Man. (The Kingpin makes his first appearance in this as well.) But, as New York City cries out for a hero, Peter will return to his roots, for, despite all the adversity he faces—Spider-Man must live again! This issue spotlights the spirit and soul of Spider-Man drawn to absolute perfection and, in my mind— without a doubt— represents John Romita’s finest hour. And it’s an hour that will last an eternity.

THWIPP!!

Little John Cimino as Spider-Man, back in the day… with cousin Orietta Ritchotte (Bugs Bunny) and brother Carlo Cimino (Dracula). The kids could’ve really used a flashlight!

Yes, Virginia, There Was An Amazing Spider-Man #51!

50th-issue and even 100th-issue anniversaries weren’t celebrated during the Silver Age with anything like the fanfare (let alone the number of variant covers!) that they have been in recent decades—but Johns R. & C. totally agreed on at least one thing: Johnny’s cover for Amazing Spider-Man #50 (July 1967) was definitely their favorite among all of his comics work. And the Lee-scripted story inside wasn’t to be sneezed at, either—nor is the full-page shot of Peter Parker leaving his Spidey costume behind him in a garbage can, a scene often imitated but never surpassed. But you already saw that monumental panel back on page 18 of this issue! [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

$1,000,000 PAID FOR ORIGINAL COMIC ART! COLLECTOR PAYING TOP DOLLAR FOR “ANY AND ALL” ORIGINAL COMIC BOOK AND COMIC STRIP ARTWORK FROM THE 1930S TO PRESENT! COVERS, PINUPS, PAGES, IT DOESN’T MATTER! 1 PAGE OR ENTIRE COLLECTIONS SOUGHT! CALL OR EMAIL ME ANYTIME!

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Headline Headline 2 Author

(Right:) Murphy Anderson himself!

(Far Right:) His cover to The Brave and the Bold #61 (Sept. 1965). [TM & © DC Comics.]

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60

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

We All Have To Start Somewhere (Part 3)

W

by Michael T. Gilbert

elcome to the third “Crypt” episode devoted to the early works of some of fandom’s favorite artists. In previous issues we explored novice art by Leonard Starr, Gray Morrow, and Gil Kane. This time we look at Fiction House and DC mainstay Murphy Anderson.

But before we do, we wish to state that Anderson makes a base canard or two below. There were no five bucks involved. There were only two—and we didn’t squeeze his neck—very hard. Anyway, just as we found him, clean unspoiled and almost unshaven, we give you––

Money-Mad Murphy!

Mageditor [= magazine editor] Peacock peered fiendishly through his horn-rimmed glasses. “Murph!” he said, said he, “my old pal! You old salt of the earth you! I love you more than my pay check!”

This episode was inspired by an article in Dwight Decker’s fanzine Torch (#166), which put a spotlight on Murph’s early art for Fiction House’s venerable pulp magazine, Planet Stories. This was shortly before the artist began his comicbook career for the same company.

Anderson was 18 when he drew the pulp illustrations on the next pages. It was crude stuff, indeed, but one enjoys Murphy’s youthful enthusiasm. Soon, given the opportunity, his talents increased faster that a speeding Martian Floogle-rocket!

Early Years…

Anderson was born in Asheville, North Carolina, on July 9, 1926. Artistically gifted, 14-year-old Murphy Anderson won a newspaper art contest in 1939 at the Greensboro Daily Record. After graduating high school in 1943, he briefly attended the University of North Carolina before moving to New York City, seeking work in the comics industry.

There he was hired by Jack Byrne as a staff artist at Fiction House, where the bulk of his early work took place.

Murphy started out doing illustrations for Fiction House’s sci-fi pulp Planet Stories when he was still a teen. He then transitioned to the pulp title’s comicbook counterpart, Planet Comics.

Shortly before joining the Navy in 1944, Murphy wrote an amusing “attack” on his editor, Wilbur Scott Peacock.

Peacock took it in good fun, even writing a tongue-in-cheek introduction to Anderson’s article. The following appeared in Planet Stories, Vol. 2, #9 (Winter 1944), along with numerous Anderson illustrations throughout, which we reprint here. And now we present, direct from Planet Stories’ letter page…

“PS’s Feature Flash!”

Flashing you the headlights on one of the men you’ve met in preceding issues—those cosmic-minded artists who help to nourish Planet Stories and “The Vizigraph” [the title of Planet Stories’ letters page].

Fine Art! Murphy Anderson was a huge fan of legendary cartoonist Lou Fine. The latter’s influence is evident on Murphy’s lively “Star Pirate” splash page from Planet Comics #50 (Sept. 1947).

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

We All Have To Start Somewhere (Part 3)

He Got His Wings!

Knowing such a love is (Right:) Reportedly, Anderson’s first impossible, I immediately comicbook story, from Wings Comics detected the distinctly #48 (Aug. 1944). [TM & © the respective unpleasant odor of a rat and trademark & copyright holders.] turned to flee, but it was in vain. A long, scrawny arm snaked out; cold, clammy fingers collared me. It hauled me beneath the mad gleam of a science-fiction mageditor (you know, one of those horrid creatures who is eternally haunted by bug-eyed monsters, keeps a flask of choice Saturnian wine handy in the right-hand middle drawer of his desk, and goes around trying to slit the throats of people who dislike his magazine).

“Murphy, old chum, old chap,” he menaced, “you’ll never know how much I love you!”

“Okay, okay,” I managed to gasp as his fingers tightened around my windpipe, “how much do ya want, ya fiend?” His grip immediately loosened.

“Why––uh––a fin [NOTE: $5] till February first will be swell,” he gloated. So I slipped him a fin and sought to escape, but again his hold strengthened, and I knew that this time I could not buy my way out.

Mageditor Peacock’s eyes gleamed like a firebrand. “Oh, Murphy,” he drooled, “I know you’ll do me a favor, won’t you?” I squirmed helplessly, unable to answer.

So I’m writing this in self-defense. ‘Scuse please, but I gotta eat.

Yeah, us artists eat just like humans.

Thou Shalt Not Cover Thy Neighbor’s Planet!

(Above:) An early Murphy Anderson double-page spread from the pulp-mag Planet Stories, Vol. 2, #9 (Winter 1944). Murphy’s work may have appeared in Planet Stories earlier, but many of those issues had no art credits. He also illustrated stories for Fiction House’s North West Romances and Fight Stories. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

61

62

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

I was born July 9, 1926, in the beautiful resort town of Asheville, North Carolina, located high in the Blue Ridge Mountains. There I lived until the age of eight when my family migrated to Greensboro, N. C., which was to become my permanent home.

“Suicide” Is Painless (Right:) “Suicide Smith,” from Fiction House’s Wings Comics #50 (Oct. 1944), Anderson’s first ongoing series! [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

In the spring of 1943, I graduated from high school by the skin of my teeth and then spent two quarters as a student at the University of North Carolina. Realizing that my time as a civilian was growing short, I decide to see my fortunes as an artist in New York.

By the time you read this, I shall have left the pages of PLANET to don the Navy blue; but when the war’s over, you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be back.

So, until then…So long…

Murphy Anderson.

And with that parting shot, Murphy Anderson joined the Navy, where he served from 1944 to 1945. However, while stationed in the States, he was still able to contribute art to both Planet Stories and Planet Comics, as well as pulp illustrations for their rival Ziff-Davis.

Anderson’s first confirmed credit is the short nonfiction aviation featurette “Jet-Propulsion” in Wings Comics #48 (coverdated Aug. 1944), and his first feature work was an eight-page “Suicide Smith and the Air Commandos” story in Wings Comics

The Secret Life Of Planets (Below left & right:) Two more early Anderson illustrations from Planet Stories, Vol. 2, #9 (Winter 1944). [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

We All Have To Start Somewhere (Part 3)

63

We Won’t Even Attempt A Pun On This One! (Left:) Murphy Anderson illustrated a series devoted to speculations about life on other planets (in this case, Uranus). This pic appeared in Planet Comics #50 (Sept.

1947). [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

#50 (Oct. 1944). By the following month he was the regular artist on the Planet Comics features “Life on Other Worlds” and “Star Pirate.”

Murphy then embarked on a stellar career, with an emphasis on science-fiction.

In addition to his work on Planet Comics, Anderson did two stints illustrating the famed Buck Rogers newspapers strip, first from 1947 to 1949, and then from 1958 to 1959.

In between, he drew numerous stories for DCs sci-fi anthologies Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures, plus other DC titles. He also illustrated the space-opera feature “Captain Comet,” and later “The Atomic Knights,” which he declared his favorite strip.

In the ‘60s, Murphy developed into a highly respected inker for DC, providing meticulous inks over Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Mike Sekowsky, and Curt Swan. For the latter, the term “Swanderson” was affectionately coined, particularly for the team’s tandem work on Superman.

On the super-hero front, Anderson penciled and inked Hawkman, starting with the half-book series in Mystery in Space, then in his own book, as well as stories in DC’s Showcase reviving DC’s Golden Age heroes The

That Crazy Buck Rogers Stuff!

(Below:) A beautiful Murphy Anderson Buck Rogers Sunday page from 9/21/1958.

[TM & © John F. Dille Co. or successors in interest.]

64

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

A Spectre Is Haunting Comics!

Spectre, Doctor Fate, Hourman, Starman, and Black Canary.

(Right:) Murphy and Gardner Fox (with editor Julius Schwartz) revive In 1973, Anderson established Jerry Siegel & Bernard Baily’s early-1940s his own company, “Murphy hero The Spectre in Showcase #60 Anderson Visual Concepts,” (Feb. 1966). [TM & © DC Comics.] which provided color separations and lettering for comicbooks. He also took over the reins of the military instructional booklet PS magazine, created in 1951 by Will Eisner.

Murphy Anderson passed away on October 22, 2015, at the age of 89, of heart failure, leaving behind an extraordinary body of work and a comicbook legacy that included superb art for DC, Marvel, St. John, Ziff-Davis, Toby, Dell, and others.

But it all started with these early jobs for Fiction House, both in the pulps and comics. Not a bad place to begin! ’Till next time…

Watch Him Like A Hawk, Man! (Above:) Murphy does the honors for the cover of Hawkman #1 (May 1964).

[TM & © DC Comics.]

Team Spirit (Above:) Murphy and writer Gardner Fox also resurrect Golden Age greats Dr. Fate and Hourman as a team in Showcase #55 (April 1965). [TM & © DC Comics.]

by ROY THOMAS & SHANE FOLEY

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67

FACE IT, TIGER… YOU JUST HIT THE JACKPOT!

A/E

EDITOR’S NOTE: I (Roy) had hoped to “double up” again by printing comments on two issues, but there was so much good stuff to say about John Romita that one issue will have to suffice this time—beneath a tribute to Jazzy Johnny’s art by the inexhaustible Shane Foley, with coloring by the exhausted Randy Sargent. [Captain Ego TM & © Roy Thomas & Estate of Bill Schelly; created by Biljo White.]

So, without further ado about anything, here we go re Alter Ego #182, beginning with a letter from regular Bernie Bubnis. Seems like Bernie always finds something new to say about the subjects of each A/E issue, and he always says it well: Dear Roy,

About #182: Gosh, I could care less about anything to do with Uncle Marvel. This is sure gonna be a tough piece to wade through.

Whew… Deep Breath… Here Goes: What a pleasant surprise! It was so well written and researched that I found it a real fun read.

And, in the second FCA article, Shaun Clancy does a great job on his Rocky Fawcett interview. It really is intriguing to view the Fawcett clan from the inside. Throw in a lot of business data and this is another piece I had to read in one sitting. Great vintage photos of the family are priceless. The photo of Roscoe Fawcett and Jack Dempsey really caught my eye. A little side-story from the Jack Dempsey Broadway Restaurant, circa 1957 or 1958: I never found out my father was a gangster until early in the 1970s, so as a kid in the 1950s he was just “Daddy” to me when he took me with him on one of his trips to New York City. This time he decided to sit me at a table in the Jack Dempsey Broadway Restaurant along with the comicbooks he bought me at Penn Station. It was typical for him to leave me with someone to watch over me so he could disappear to do whatever gangsters did in 1958. I remember a large guy talking to (I think) the waitress or manager. They traded words and he walked away. He returned and handed me a miniature boxing glove with his name signed on it. His hands seemed gigantic, I thought, bigger than Daddy’s.

It must have been a year or two later before I realized just who “Jack Dempsey” was. In those days, boxing champs were champs forever!

Looking forward to part 2 of this Fawcett interview. Thanks to

“yesterday-detectives” like Shaun Clancy, memories never really fade away. Great job.

Also fun to relive those comic strip greats in the “Comic Crypt.”

The [Kenneth] Landau article was an interesting look at a very talented guy. My favorite was the Shaun Clancy (him again!) telephone “ambush” of Landau. The artist was very receptive to this surprise call, and his attitude tells the story the best. A real nice guy at any age or time or place. Congrats to Mr. Landau— and to his daughter for taking his career seriously and trying to catalogue it all!

Bernie Bubnis

Amen to that, Bernie! Glad you didn’t find any errors in #182 that needed correcting—because it seems nearly everybody else who wrote in found at least one or two inadvertent mistakes, and of course we always want to acknowledge those for the sake of the historical record. For instance, take Mark Saskin: Hi Roy,

Been a big fan of your work since I was a young boy in the early ’70s. I enjoy reading in Alter Ego about the history of the comics and seeing original artwork and commissions. When I looked at the cover of Alter Ego #182, it looked exactly like the commission Jerry Ordway did for me. I had explained to him what I wanted on the commission: Shazam flying high, where you can see the ground from far above, with Uncle Marvel holding on for dear life. When I looked inside, I noticed the magazine gave credit to Ordway (which was the right thing), then gave credit to the colorist and letterer who finished the cover. However, I was quite disappointed to find out that I was not given any mention in the article. This snub actually made me feel quite sad and dejected. I hope you can do something to remedy the situation.

Mark Saskin

Well, afraid all we can do at this point, Mark, is to apologize that we didn’t know who had ordered that awesome Jerry Ordway commission of Captain and Uncle Marvel, because we found it at an online source, then got a better scan from Jerry himself. The blessing we received from him to use that artwork as our cover was, of course, more than enough—while the copyright and trademark on the two heroes belong to DC Comics—but

68

[correspondence, comments, & corrections]

I did want you to know there were two things in the article that were incorrect.

First of all, the photo on p. 59 is a picture of my father and me on my 16th birthday, [rather than one of him and my mother, who’s seen on p. 63].

Also, my father’s birthday was February 2, 1926, not 1931 as listed.

Maranee McDonald

Glad to be able to make these corrections, Marenee. Also, since you have since issued your own book about your dad and his work, we’re re-running below the ad for it that first appeared in our previous issue. Lots more info and art to be had there, folks!

And here’s another missive—this one from Larry Rapchak, whose analysis of a twice-printed (with alterations) Kenneth Landau story appeared with Maranee’s offering: Dear Roy,

There are three changes made to my article “Interplanetary Episode” that should be corrected… one on p. 70, where the accidental omission of four words entirely changed the meaning of the sentence (making an already complicated story even more confusing). What I wrote was:

“…of the simpleton Simon by the townsfolks—has been entirely altered [FROM WHAT ONE SEES] in the 1960s version!”

Without the four all-caps words, the meaning of the sentence is entirely reversed.

The other error was in the first blue caption on p. 71. I was credited as a blogger who is in charge of the “Bare-Bones-

You’ll Believe An Uncle Can Fly! In our humble opinion, nobody’s ever drawn Uncle Marvel better than Ye Editor’s 1980s All-Star Squadron/Infinity, Inc. collaborator Jerry Ordway, who of course was the guiding hand behind the Power of Shazam! series a couple of decades back. Here’s a 2017 Ordway take on the old fraud overcoming his “Shazambago” long enough to actually fly on his own!

Thanks to JO. [Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics.]

we’d have been happy to name you if we’d known the provenance of the piece. We’re pleased to do so now—and have sent you a couple of copies of A/E #182, which you requested. You sure inspired Jerry to draw one of the best Shazam-oriented drawings we’ve ever seen from him—and we’ve seen a lot of great ones!

ON SALE! NOW

Next, a minor correction from P.C. Hamerlinck, editor of the FCA section of each issue of this magazine—though here he’s channeling reader Joe Musich: Hi Roy,

A/E subscriber Joe Musich caught a goof in the Uncle Marvel index: “Mary Marvel and the Big Test” appeared in Mary Marvel #7, not #17. At least we got it right in the caption for the splash from the story.

P.C. Hamerlinck

Doubtless just a typo, P.C. A couple of errors of a bit more substance slipped into our coverage of the late artist Kenneth Landau and his daughter Maranee McDonald, so we’ll take care of that right now, too….

Dear Roy,

I absolutely love this [coverage]. I have it on Facebook, and everybody’s asking me where they can get a copy. But I think they have to subscribe, correct?

available from amazon.com Kindle – $9.95 HC – $42 SC – $32 ISBN #979-88877713809

re:

69

ezine” blog, where my article was originally posted. However, I’m just a musician who had a story to tell. The guy who runs “Bare-Bones” is Peter Enfantino, whom I knew from his excellent blogs on Thriller and Outer Limits. Peter asked me to submit my Landau story, which he posted in 2010.

In addition, on p. 71, in the top left caption, the credit “Art probably by Ogden Whitney” appears twice—but the second (lower) one is incorrect and should have been deleted.

Despite the above, I think the layout and overall presentation of your Kenneth Landau article (including my contribution) is fabulous.

Larry Rapchak

Thanks, Larry. Hope this correction does the trick. But even with that odd omission of four crucial words from your piece, we’re certain that most readers got the gist of that intriguing story.

I also used #182 as an excuse to showcase the early-1950s newspaper comic strip Chris Welkin, Planeteer, which is currently being serialized as a sort of “Roy Thomas Presents” section in Rick Norwood’s bimonthly comic-strip reprint zine Comics Revue (see ad on p. 70). And we got a bit more info about it from Jerry Beck:

A Wishing Welkin We didn’t find any cels from a 1950s (or later) attempt at a Chris Welkin, Planeteer TV animated series, but the comic strip managed to get itself reprinted in Australia for at least three issues, by a company called New Century (as per art spot at left)—and in the French magazine Bip, as seen on the right.

Fortunately, Comics Revue magazine is now making the entirely of its two-year daily run available… and may follow up with a decade’s worth of color Sunday as well. Script by Russ Winterbotham; art by Art Sansom, or someone imitating his work. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Roy,

Another great issue. I appreciated the background on Chris Welkin, Planeteer. I do an annual show for San Diego Comic-Con called “The Worst Cartoons Ever.” About twelve years ago someone sent me a VHS of a Chris Welkin, Planeteer [animated] cartoon from the 1950s. It was hideous—one of the worst things I ever saw. I suspect it was made in the UK or Australia. It might have been a pilot, as I can find no reference to it anywhere.

Been reading your words since 1965—don’t stop!

Jerry Beck

Hey, I’m only 83, Jer. Stan Lee kept going till he was nearly 96… I can’t quit earlier than my respected (and always busy) mentor, can I?

Here’s a bit more info about that “lost” page of Jack Kirby penciling from Fantastic Four #52, part of which appeared as the cover of the program book for a 1966 comics convention hosted by longtime SF and comics fan John Benson: Roy,

In A/E #182 you say that Kirby page not used in Fantastic Four #52 “was utilized by John Benson as the cover of the program book” for the 1966 Comicon I hosted. Let me expand on that a little. You are listed as being on the “Convention Committee,” and I believe your main contribution to the event was an unsigned biography of Kirby in the program book. (You also produced Marvel’s full-page ad in the program book.)

I have no recollection of how that Kirby page came to be on the cover, but the only logical explanation is that you provided it.

It’s like that I never saw this art or even knew what would be on the cover of the program book until I saw the printed copies. Bill Pearson did the layouts and production work for it. I’d guess the art went straight from you to Pearson, and determined how the art was cropped and tilted and advised Schuster how he wanted it. The art then presumably wended its way back to you and was

returned to wherever you borrowed it. This would have happened over a short period of time, like a day. I have no direct memory, but that’s how things worked back then.

John Benson

I have no recollection whatever of ever seeing or handling that Fantastic Four page, John, though your re-creation of events sounds plausible enough to me. Just wish that photocopiers had been more ubiquitous in 1965-66 so that somebody could have preserved the whole page, not just approximately half of it. Still, glad we got to see that piece of it, anyway. More Jack Kirby is always better than less Jack Kirby!

Got a comment or a correction about this issue? Send it to: Roy Thomas e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com 32 Bluebird Trail St. Matthews, SC 29135

If you feel like joining a classic-style online group about Alter Ego, try the discussion/chat group https://groups.io/g/Alter-Ego-Fans. If you have trouble boarding that cyber-train, contact moderator Chet Cox at mormonyoyoman.com and he’ll strap you to the caboose.

In addition, my good buddy John Cimino operates The Roy Thomas Appreciation Board on Facebook, which is chock-full of comics-related (as well as RT-related) occurrences. Learn what Roy is up to—hey, I often have to have wife Dann check in for me to find out what’s going on—and see ad at bottom of page 80.

Pulsating Postscript: If any convention promoter or comic store owner would like to inquire about booking Roy Thomas for a future appearance—or if a podcaster would like to do an interview or some such­—he/she should contact that very same John Cimino, Roy’s multi-tasking media rep and good right hand. John can be reached at johnstretch@live.com.

Art by John Romita.

Captain America TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

72

Minute Man— The One Man Army The Life & Troubled Times Of Fawcett Artist PHIL BARD

by P.C. Hamerlinck

From Krazy Kat To Communist Capers

A

Communist-affiliated activist would paradoxically become the principal artist for Fawcett Publications’ patriotic “One Man Army.”

Phil Bard was born on February 14, 1912, in New York City. His parents were Haskell and Becky Bard, both born in Ukraine. He had two older sisters and one older brother. The highest grade he completed was the 8th grade. (He did not attend NYC’s School of Industrial Art as previously reported, as the high school didn’t open its doors until 1936.)

In January 1930, the U.S. Census revealed that 18-year-old Phil Bard worked at an “artist studio” in New York City. That place of business was the Mintz Studio, and his employer was Charles Mintz.

In late 1929, animation producer Mintz had negotiated a deal with Columbia Pictures to adapt George Herriman’s comic strip Krazy Kat as sound featurettes. Whatever Bard’s art duties were on Krazy Kat, they were short-lived ones: Mintz relocated his operation to the West Coast at the end of February 1930 and did not take Bard along with him.

Bard’s political philosophies and proclivities had progressed by the time he was a young man in his late teens. After the brief Mintz Studio gig, the artist sought out freelance jobs, and perhaps possible outlets to express his left-leaning convictions. He found them with New Masses.

A Marxist Workers Party of America magazine closely connected with the American Communist Party, New Masses’ circulation had increased amongst Americans who had become disillusioned with capitalism during the Great Depression. Bard designed striking front-cover images and illustrated editorial and gag cartoons consistently for the publication from 1930 to 1935.

Throughout the ’30s, Bard also created illustrations on a freelance basis for Labor Unity magazine for the Trade Union Unity League, and artwork for The Daily Worker newspaper published by the American Communist Party. Additionally, he contributed artwork to a 1936 calendar for the American League against War and Fascism.

Phil Bard—Man Of The Hour (Er, Minute) The artist, as exemplified by his passport photo of Dec. 22, 1938—and one of his trademark dramatic “Minute Man” splash pages, this one from Master Comics #31 (Oct. 1942).

Scripter unknown. [Minute Man TM & © DC Comics.]

Also during this time, he created a recruiting booklet, No Jobs Today, for the Young Communist League of New York City.

The pamphlet’s introduction stated: “This little book is ‘written’ in pictures by a young workingman, Phil Bard. It is a book of cartoons, but not of ‘comic’ pictures—it is full of grim humor that will touch the mind.…”

Bard’s copious contract work came to a halt when he would leave the country on a special assignment.

Wintering In Spain During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), nearly 40,000 men and women from 52 countries—including 2,800 Americans— volunteered to travel to Spain and join the International Brigades’ fight against fascism. The American volunteers served in various units in different capacities; they came to be known collectively as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Phil Bard was part of this battalion.

On the day after Christmas 1936, Bard and a group of his fellow Lincoln Brigade comrades set sail in the cold Atlantic waters to Spain, departing from New York aboard the SS Normandie passenger ship.

While in Spain, Bard—only 24 years old at the time—was a figure of authority for the Brigade as the “Commissar” for their American base in the city of Albacete, and his position put him in charge of political education and organization. However, due to

FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

Krazy & The “Commies” Clockwise samples (more or less) of Phil Bard’s early work: Since he was only briefly employed at the Mintz Studio in early 1930, it’s highly unlikely he contributed to the art of this 1932 Krazy Kat cartoon—but it is the type of work he was doing for a few months.

Bard’s bold cover for the Marxist magazine New Masses (Jan. 1933), drawn just shy of his 21st birthday. He created artwork for the publication for half a decade.

The front cover and first interior page drawing for the booklet No Jobs Today, illustrated by Bard, published in the 1930s by the Young Communist League of New York City. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright owners.]

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medical reasons, his mission with the Brigade abruptly ended and he returned to the United States on March 19, 1937, aboard the SS Manhattan.

WPA & The Coming Of World War II A month after his time in Spain, Bard was hired by the U.S. government-funded Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Artists in the program received a steady income of $23.50 per week. Bard was allowed—without interference from the Feds—the freedom of creating works on subject matter he was passionately concerned about: labor unrest, economic disparity, and the rise of fascism. Those topics can be found in the numerous lithograph print illustrations he produced for the WPA up through mid-1940.

During this time, Bard was residing in Manhattan’s West [Greenwich] Village neighborhood at 46 Bank Street. He married 22-year-old Aza Cefkin in June 1940. His wife was listed as a “dancer” on Census records; Bard was listed as “artist— freelancer—WPA.” The couple had one child, a son, Sam Bard.

As World War II raged in Europe, Bard registered for the draft on October 16, 1940, but he was not selected to serve. Alternately, a four-colored pathway was predestined for the artist.

Oliver Ashford, a.k.a…?

How Phil Bard found his way into the world of comicbooks in 1941 remains a mystery. Many artists in New York City were hungry and struggling for work, and it may be as simple as that.

Conceivably, while making the rounds to various publishers in the Big Apple, Bard found himself in Times Square in front of the Paramount Building at 1501 Broadway, and took the elevator up to the offices of Fawcett Publications. In all likelihood, an impromptu meeting with art director Al Allard, as well as comics editor Ed Herron, and a favorable reaction to the freelancer’s artwork samples resulted in an assignment for Bard.

Am I Blue?

The FCA editor disputes the guesswork about “Oliver Ashford” being an alias for Phil Bard. This Ashford page from Holyoke’s Blue Beetle #18 (Jan. 1943) may very well prove his point. [Blue Beetle is TM & © DC Comics.]

But, before I further explore Bard’s prolific tenure for Fawcett, let’s address Oliver Ashford.

Oliver who?

The online Who’s Who of American Comic Books 1928-1999 speculates that “Oliver Ashford” may have been a pseudonym used by Phil Bard. I disagree with this hypothesis. Between 1942 and ’43, the curious “Ashford”signed stories were found in Holyoke’s Blue Beetle, as well as various filler features from other titles. However, when these tales saw print, Bard— an experienced artist by that time—had already established himself over at Fawcett the previous year with a highly distinctive, vibrantly flamboyant style… virtually a rigorouslyexaggerated-Jack Kirby-methodology at work! On the flip side, the “Oliver Ashford”-Holyoke pages are mostly dull, emotionless doses of mediocrity, amateurishly rendered by an individual with clearly little confidence or skillful drawing knowledge.

From The Reds To The Feds Aftermath (1938) is an example of one of the many lithograph illustrations Bard produced for the Federal Art Project (FAP) of Works Progress Administration (WPA). [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

While it’s certainly possible that Bard could’ve produced very rough layouts for Holyoke on the side— only for those pages to ultimately be finalized by lesser hands—I’m unconvinced of Bard’s involvement with any of them, or that he ever used the nom de plume “Oliver Ashford.”

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FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

The Years Of Minute Man & Friends From the autumn of 1941 to the spring of 1944, Bard produced an impressive amount of work for Fawcett, illustrating a total of 50 stories!

Drawn by Harry “A” Chesler Shop artist Charles Sultan, Minute-Man (the name was initially hyphenated as one word) premiered in Master Comics #11 (Feb. ’41), appearing approximately one month before Joe Simon & Jack Kirby’s Captain America Comics—and nearly a year after MLJ’s similarly garbed hero The Shield made his debut in Pep Comics #1. During World War II, U.S. Army private Jack Weston donned a stars-and-stripes costume and became a “One Man Army” who battled saboteurs and spies.

“Minute-Man” was Bard’s first assignment for Fawcett, an audition of sorts that immediately brought him the position of chief artist for the character until the super-hero’s final battle in 1944. Another former WPA artist, Clem Weisbecker, occasionally provided inks to Bard’s pages.

Bard’s Fawcett debut, “Minute-Man Meets Mr. Skeleton”— with its villain a cross between Simon & Kirby’s Red Skull and Jack Cole’s The Claw—appeared in America’s Greatest Comics #1 (Oct. 1941).

One of Bard’s strengths throughout his run on the soon-dehyphenated “Minute Man” was designing engaging, amplified pages. He clearly turned to Jack Kirby’s kinetic work for comicbook-action inspiration. (Cf., the title page of this edition of FCA.) In fact, one can spot an occasional direct Kirby swipe within Bard’s stories, such as on the splash page of “The Fuehrer Sends a Killer” (Master Comics #28, July 1942), which copied, then flopped, the positioning of the title hero’s figure from the cover of Timely’s Captain America Comics #7 (Oct. ’41).

One modification made to heighten a more mystery-man element to “Minute Man” was Bard’s simply adding a blue mask and red gloves to the previously mask-less hero’s costume. The altered attire first appeared in “The Baffling Case of the Murdered Millionaire” (America’s Greatest Comics #3, May 1942), and the new look remained for the rest of Minute Man’s career.

No Bones About It! Phil Bard’s Fawcett debut—“Minute-Man Meets Mr. Skeleton” (in America’s Greatest Comics #1, Oct. 1941), by an unknown scripter—got him the job as “The One Man Army’s” chief artist till the character’s four-color demise three years later. [Minute Man TM & © DC Comics.]

Swipe Left!

It appears Phil Bard was indeed fond of Jack Kirby’s artwork. Compare Bard’s Minute Man figure from “The Fuehrer Sends a Killer” (Master Comics #28, July 1942), on the left, with Kirby and Syd Shores’ heroic red, white, and blue figure on the cover of Captain America Comics #7 (Oct. 1941). Kirby swipes occurred a few times within the Bard-drawn “Minute Man” tales. [Minute Man TM & © DC Comics; Captain America page TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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Bard was one of the few Golden Age comicbook artists to receive a byline (“Drawn by Phil Bard”), which every so often appeared in the lower center of the opening page of the strip. It had only briefly become a common practice by Fawcett to acknowledge artists in print. Credits appeared sporadically for a 7-month period before they were suddenly abandoned, from comic issues dated July 1943 to January 1944, and curiously, mostly only within two titles, Master Comics and Wow Comics.

Another significant event during Bard’s time on “Minute Man” was the formation of the Crime Crusaders Club in “The Man Who Demanded Death” (Master Comics #41, Aug. 1943). The short-lived super-group consisted of Master’s main characters— Captain Marvel Jr., Bulletman, Bulletgirl, and Minute Man—who all convened to formulate a plan to sell more war bonds. Bard drew all of the CCC heroes faultlessly, and it seems a missed opportunity that the team was only a one-time affair.

It’s no surprise that Bard was so versatile and adaptable in handling other Fawcett super-heroes in the Crime Crusaders Club story, since he already had experience doing so. Obviously, he was a fast artist, which enabled him to pick up other Fawcett fill-in assignments such as “Mr. Scarlet,” “Captain Marvel Jr.,” and “Commando Yank” while concurrently drawing “Minute Man.” He had always worked as a freelancer, but he did do a brief stint at

Clubbin’ It The first and only appearance of the Crime Crusaders Club, a super-team consisting of Master heroes Minute Man, Bulletman, Bulletgirl, and Captain Marvel Jr.—all faultlessly illustrated by Phil Bard. Panels from “The Man Who Demanded Death” (Master Comics #41, Aug. 1943); scripter unknown. [Shazam hero, Bulletman, Bulletgirl, Minute Man TM & © DC Comics.]

the Jack Binder Studio in 1943, likely on one or more of the above fill-in assignments.

Fawcett Editorial Director Ralph Daigh and Executive Comics Editor Rod Reed’s March 29, 1943, office memo which listed the page rates of the freelance artists they were working with at the time [reproduced in Fawcett Companion (2001)] revealed that Phil Bard was making $17 per completed comic page—earning him the same rate as Jack Binder, and pocketing more per completed page than Dan Barry. Daigh’s memo also proposed a page rate increase for Bard to $18. Alas, within a year’s time, Bard’s rewarding association with the publisher would come to an end.

Bard’s final comicbook story for Fawcett was “The Conquering Con Man” in Master Comics #49 (April 1944), which also closed the curtain on Minute Man, who was dropped forever from Master to make room for Radar the International Policeman and Nyoka the Jungle Girl. The “One-Man Army” couldn’t even make it to the end of the war.

While working on his Fawcett pages, Bard reportedly had moonlighted as an inker. While specific stories have never been identified, the Who’s Who of American Comic Books lists Bard as having worked on “Captain America” for Timely in 1942, and “The Newsboy Legion” and “Sandman” for DC between 1944-46.

Without question, Bard was an ideal fit to ink any of those strips.

With a noticeable Simon & Kirby influence, the experienced artist had proven over the years that he had mastered the brush and was able to meet deadlines even while juggling other art jobs.

Nonetheless, when the work had dried up everywhere, he walked away from comics for good.

Giving Credit Where…

“Minute Man Shakes Down the Underworld” (Master Comics #45, Dec. 1943).

Writer unknown. Note the “Drawn by Phil Bard” byline near the bottom of the page. [Minute Man TM & © DC Comics.]

The Long Road After Phil Bard met harder times in a more unstable, less productive/less lucrative period for the artist in his post-Fawcett years.

FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

Fawcett Forays (Above:) Bard’s speed in handling “Minute Man” deadlines allowed him time to draw other Fawcett heroes as well. This tale from America’s Greatest Comics #2 (Feb. 1942), scripted by Otto Binder, was one of six “Mr. Scarlet and Pinky” adventures he illustrated.

(Above right:) Besides proficiently delineating the World’s Mightiest Boy in Master Comics #41’s Crime Crusaders Club yarn, Bard also drew Junior on two other occasions, one of them being “Captain Marvel Jr. Stars in His Own Movie” in Captain Marvel Jr. #15 (Jan. 1944); also scripted by Otto Binder.

[Shazam hero, Mr. Scarlet, and Pinky TM & © DC Comics.]

Any Bonds Today?

Minute Man in Berlin, in America’s Greatest Comics #7 (Spring 1943). Art by Phil Bard; scripter unknown.

[Minute Man TM & © DC Comics.]

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complained considerably about the art. That may explain how Bard got the two freelance assignments for the magazine. Regrettably, the two drawings he did for them were odd, below-average pieces and a far cry from his earlier work.

Later that same year, Bard was troubled with serious health problems, undergoing a heart operation. After his recovery, he tried his hand at being a playwright, producing a failed play, Ninth Month Midnight.

Bard had one piece in a 1956 exhibit, Recent Drawings USA, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Several of his drawings from the WPA era currently reside at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the Illinois State Museum.

A Galaxy Far, Far Away

Throughout the 1950s, Bard had befriended numerous artists while living in Manhattan, including renowned painters Herman Rose and Alice Neel, both of whom created their own remarkable portraits of Bard.

He also enjoyed a long friendship with artist and teacher Herbert Kruckman.

One of the two uninspired illustrations Phil Bard did for Galaxy Science Fiction magazine. This particular piece appeared in the April 1951 issue, for a story written by Fritz Leiber titled “Nice Girls with Five Husbands.” [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Bard’s last published artwork appeared in the March and April 1951 issues of Galaxy Science Fiction. At this stage, he was attempting to reinvent himself as an impressionistic gallery artist.

Horace Gold, originator and first publisher of Galaxy, hired an art director who wanted more impressionistic-type of illustrations in each issue. Eventually Gold fired that art director after readers

The end of the road for Phil Bard came on March 11, 1966. He passed away at the Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital of Brooklyn, where he had been undergoing treatment for nearly two years while battling heart disease. He was 54 years old. The headline for his obituary in the March 17, 1966, New York Times read: “Phil Bard, Artist, Volunteer in Spain.”

Artists Painting Artists (Above:) Phil Bard became friends of acclaimed painter Alice Neel (1900-1984), who created this magnificent oil painting portrait of Bard in 1957—along with this pen-and-ink portrait of Bard from the same posing session. While Neel consorted with members of the Communist Party and was sympathetic towards their beliefs, she never actually became an official member of the Party. [Artwork © the estate of Alice Neel.]

(Right:) Another New York City artist-friend of Bard’s, Herman Rose (1909-2007), painted this extraordinary portrait of him in 1958. [© Estate of Herman Rose.]

FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

PHIL BARD FAWCETT INDEX MINUTE MAN: “Minute-Man Meets Mr. Skeleton” (America’s Greatest Comics #1, Oct. 1941) “The Hawk” (Master Comics #22, Jan. 1942)

“The Ghost of Sir Francis Drake” (Master Comics #24, March 1942) “The Vaudevillains” (Master Comics #25, April 1942) “Dr. Hour” (Master Comics #26, May 1942) “The Baffling Case of the Murdered Millionaire” (America’s Greatest Com. #3, May 1942)

“The Walking Dead Man” (Master Comics #23, Feb. 1942)

“Death’s Toymaker” (Master Comics #27, June 1942)

“The Murder Music” (Minute Man #3, Dec. ’41-March ’42 - Spring 1942)

“Every One’s a Minute Man!” PSA (Master Comics #28, July 1942)

[“Von Winkle, the Sleeping Saboteur”] (Minute Man #3, Dec. ’41March ’42 - Spring 1942) “The Black Poet” (Minute Man #3, Dec. ’41-March ’42 - Spring 1942) “The Ghost of Dry Gulch” (Minute Man #3, Dec. ’41-March ’42 Spring 1942) “The Return of the Black Poet” (America’s Greatest Comics #2, Feb. 1942)

“The Fuehrer Sends a Killer” (Master Comics #28, July 1942) “The Fumes of Fear” (Master Comics #29, Aug. 1942) “The Sands of Time” (America’s Greatest Comics #4, Aug. 1942) “The ‘SHHH!’ Campaign” (Master Comics #30, Sept. 1942) “Commando Night Raid” (Master Comics #31, Oct. 1942) “The Paralysis Ray” (Master Comics #32, Nov. 1942) “The Goddess of Fire” (America’s Greatest Comics #5, Dec. 1942) “The Valley of Death” (Master Comics #33, Dec. 2, 1942) “Why Is Every Friend a Foe?” (Master Comics #34, Dec. 30, 1942) Minute Man Mighty Midget [comic] (1943) “Minute Man Goes to Ireland” (Master Comics #35, Jan. 1943)

Got A Minute, Man? (Left:) One of many imaginative “Minute Man” splash pages by Bard: “The ‘SHHH!’ Campaign” for Master Comics #30 (Sept. 1942).

(Right:) “The Hypnotized Town,” from America’s Greatest Comics #6 (Feb. 1943), was likewise illustrated by Bard; and the writers of both these stories are, as usual, unidentified. [Minute Man TM & © DC Comics.]

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“The Victory Vampire” (Master Comics #43, Oct. 1943) “The Nazi Knights of New York” (Master Comics #44, Nov. 1943) “Minute Man Shakes Down the Underworld” (Master Comics #45, Dec. 1943) “One Minute with Minute Man” (Master Comics #46, Jan. 1944) “Amid the Head Hunters” (Master Comics #47, Feb. 1944) “The Barrage Mirage” (Master Comics #48, March 1944) “The Conquering Con Man” (Master Comics #49, April 1944) CAPTAIN MARVEL JR.: “Captain Marvel Jr. Battles the Giant Insects” (Capt. Marvel Jr. #12, Oct. 1943) “Captain Marvel Jr. Stars in His Own Movie” (Capt. Marvel Jr. #15, Jan. 1944) COMMANDO YANK: “The Temple of the One-Eyed Yellow Idol” (Wow Comics #21, Jan. 1944) MR. SCARLET & PINKY: “Crimes for a Penny” (America’s Greatest Comics #2, Feb. 1942) “The Baffling Morto” (America’s Greatest Comics #3, May 1942) “The Voice” (Wow Comics #6, July 1942) “Murder without Clues” (Wow Comics #6, July 1942) “The Wolf-Men of the West” (Wow Comics #19, Nov. 1943) “Mr. Scarlet Meets His Ghost” (Wow Comics #22, Feb. 1944)

Going “Commando Yank” Splash page of a Bard-drawn entry from Wow Comics #21 (Jan. 1944). Scripter unknown. [Commando Yank TM & © DC Comics.]

“Minute Man Meets the Mummy” (Master Comics #36, Feb. 1943)

[A posthumous thank-you to my friend and colleague Roger Hill for kindly providing me with the information on Galaxy Science Fiction magazine during my journey in piecing together the life of Minute Man’s artist. —PCH]

“The Hypnotized Town” (America’s Greatest Comics #6, Feb. 1943) “The Idol of Death” (Master Comics #37, April 1943)

“Minute Man Battles Hata Hari” (Master Comics #38, May 1943) “The Bond Show Battle” (Master Comics #39, June 1943) “Mystery at the O.C.S.” (Master Comics #40, July 1943) “The Man Who Demanded Death” (Master Comics #41, Aug. 1943) “The Fort of Fury” (Master Comics #42, Sept. 1943)

(Photo taken at CCXP23 in São Paolo, Brazil, Dec. 2023)

“Minute Man in Berlin” (America’s Greatest Comics #7, May 1943)

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK ALTER EGO #190 CHRONICLES: 1945-49 MITCH MAGLIO examines vintage jungle

Covers the aftermath of WWII, when comics shifted from super-heroes to crime, romance, and western comics, BILL GAINES plotted a new course for EC Comics, and SIEGEL & SHUSTER sued for rights to Superman! By RICHARD ARNDT, KURT MITCHELL, and KEITH DALLAS.

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BRICKJOURNAL #86

comics heroes (Kaänga, Ka-Zar, Sheena, Rulah, Jo-Jo/Congo King, Thun’da, Tarzan) with art by LOU FINE, WILL EISNER, FRANK FRAZETTA, MATT BAKER, BOB POWELL, ALEX SCHOMBURG, and others! Plus: the comicbook career of reallife jungle explorers MARTIN AND OSA JOHNSON, FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more!

#191 is an FCA (FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA) issue! Documenting the influence of MAC RABOY’s Captain Marvel Jr. on the life, career, and look of ELVIS PRESLEY during his stellar career, from the 1950s through the 1970s! Plus: Captain Marvel co-creator BILL PARKER’s complete testimony from the DC vs. Fawcett lawsuit, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and other surprises!

MARK CARLSON-GHOST documents the mid-1950s super-hero revival featuring The Human Torch, Captain America, SubMariner, Fighting American, The Avenger, Phantom Lady, The Flame, Captain Flash, and others—with art by JOHN ROMITA, JOHN BUSCEMA, BILL EVERETT, SIMON & KIRBY, MIKE SEKOWSKY, MORT MESKIN, BOB POWELL, and other greats! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more!

LEGO LANDSCAPING! A detailed look at how to create realistic stone and foliage from bricks: ANU PEHRSON’s White Wall from Game of Thrones, and JOEL and JONATHAN NEUBER’s (working!) Pirates of the Caribbean ride! Plus BRICKNERD, BANTHA BRICKS: Fans of LEGO Star Wars, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions

by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #92

KIRBY COLLECTOR #93

THIS ISSUE IS HAUNTED! House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Unexpected, Marvel’s failed horror anthologies, Haunted Tank, Eerie Publications, House II adaptation, Elvira’s House of Mystery, and more wth NEAL ADAMS, MIKE W. BARR, DICK GIORDANO, SAM GLANZMAN, ROBERT KANIGHER, JOE ORLANDO, STERANKO, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, and others. Unused cover by GARCÍA-LÓPEZ & WRIGHTSON.

BRONZE AGE GRAPHIC NOVELS! 1980s GNs from Marvel, DC, and First Comics, Conan GNs, and DC’s Sci-Fi GN series!

With BRENT ANDERSON, JOHN BYRNE, HOWARD CHAYKIN, CHRIS CLAREMONT, JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, JACK KIRBY, DON MCGREGOR, BOB McLEOD, BILL SIENKIEWICZ, JIM STARLIN, ROY THOMAS, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, and more. WRIGHTSON cover.

KEITH GIFFEN TRIBUTE ISSUE! Starstudded celebration of the prolific writer/ artist of Legion of Super-Heroes, Rocket Raccoon, Guardians of the Galaxy, Justice League, Lobo, Blue Beetle, and others!

With CARY BATES, TOM BIERBAUM, J.M. DeMATTEIS, DAN DIDIO, ROBERT LOREN FLEMING, CULLY HAMNER, SCOTT KOBLISH, PAUL LEVITZ, KEVIN MAGUIRE, BART SEARS, MARK WAID, and more!

IN THE NEWS! Rare newspaper interviews with Jack, 1973 San Diego panel with Jack and NEAL ADAMS discussing DC’s coloring, strips Kirby ghosted for others, unused strip concepts, collages, a never-reprinted Headline Comics tale, Jimmy Olsen pencil art gallery, 2024 WonderCon Kirby panel (featuring DAVID SCHWARTZ, GLEN GOLD, and RAY WYMAN), and more!

Cover inked by DAVID REDDICK!

SUPPORTING PLAYERS! Almost-major villains like Kanto the Assassin and Diablo, Rodney Rumpkin, Mr. Little, the Falcon, Randu Singh, and others take center stage!

Plus: 1970 interview with Jack by SHEL DORF, MARK EVANIER’s 2024 Kirby Tribute Panel from Comic-Con, neverreprinted Simon & Kirby story, pencil art gallery, and more! Unused Mister Miracle cover inked by MIKE ROYER!

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RETROFAN #35

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RETROFAN #37

TOM PALMER retrospective, career-spanning interview, and tributes compiled by GREG BIGA. LEE MARRS chats about assisting on Little Orphan Annie, work for DC’s Plop! and underground Pudge, Girl Blimp!

The start of a multi-part look at the life and career of DAN DIDIO, part two of our ARNOLD DRAKE interview, public service comics produced by students at the CENTER FOR CARTOON STUDIES, & more!

STEVE ENGLEHART is spotlighted in a career-spanning interview, former DC Comics’ romance editor BARBARA FRIEDLANDER redeems the late DC editor JACK MILLER, DAN DIDIO discusses going from DC exec to co-publisher, we conclude our 100th birthday celebration for ARNOLD DRAKE, take a look at the 1970s underground comix oddity THE FUNNY PAGES, and more, including HEMBECK!

Saturday morning super-hero Space Ghost, plus The Beatles, The Jackson 5ive, and other real rockers in animation! Also: The Addams Family’s JOHN ASTIN, Mighty Isis co-stars JOANNA PANG and BRIAN CUTLER, TV’s The Name of the Game, on the set of Evil Dead II, classic coffee ads, and more! With ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, MARK VOGER & MICHAEL EURY.

Feel the G-Force of Eighties sci-fi toon BATTLE OF THE PLANETS! Plus: The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.’s STEFANIE POWERS, CHUCK CONNORS, The Oddball World of SCTV, Rankin/Bass’ stop-motion Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, TV’s Greatest Catchphrases, one-season TV shows, and more! With ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, MARK VOGER & MICHAEL EURY.

The Jetsons, Freaky Frankensteins, Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling’s HOLLYWOOD, the Archies and other Saturday morning rockers, Star Wars copycats, Build Your Own Adventure books, crazy kitchen gadgets, toymaker MARVIN GLASS, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

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New from TwoMorrows!

ALTER EGO #188

BACK ISSUE #152

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #90

MARVELMANIA ISSUE! SAL BUSCEMA’s Avengers, FABIAN NICIEZA’s Captain America, and KURT BUSIEK and ALEX ROSS’s Marvels turns 30! Plus: Marvelmania International, Marvel Age, Marvel Classics, PAUL KUPPERBERG’s Marvel Novels, and Marvel Value Stamps.

Featuring JACK KIRBY, KEVIN MAGUIRE, ROY THOMAS, and more! SAL BUSCEMA cover.

BIG BABY ISSUE! X-Babies, the last days of Sugar and Spike, FF’s Franklin Richards, Superbaby vs. Luthor, Dennis the Menace Bonus Magazine, Baby Snoots, Marvel and Harvey kid humor comics, & more! With ARTHUR ADAMS, CARY BATES, JOHN BYRNE, CHRIS CLAREMONT, SCOTT LOBDELL, SHELDON MAYER, CURT SWAN, ROY THOMAS, and other grownup creators. Cover by ARTHUR ADAMS.

BRONZE AGE NOT-READY-FORPRIMETIME DC HEROES! Black Canary, Elongated Man, Lilith, Metamorpho, Nubia, Odd Man, Ultraa of Earth-Prime, Vartox, and Jimmy Olsen as Mr. Action! Plus: Jason’s Quest! Featuring MIKE W. BARR, CARY BATES, STEVE DITKO, BOB HANEY, DENNY O’NEIL, MIKE SEKOWSKY, MARK WAID, and more ready-for-primetime talent. Retro cover by NICK CARDY.

WHAT IF KIRBY... hadn’t been stopped by his rejected Spider-Man presentation?

DC’s abandonment of the Fourth World?

The ill-fated Speak-Out Series? FREDRIC WERTHAM’s anti-comics crusade? The CIA’s involvement with the Lord of Light?

Plus a rare Kirby interview, MARK EVANIER and our other columnists, a classic Simon & Kirby story, pencil art gallery, & more!

Cover inks by DAMIAN PICKADOR ZAJKO!

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All characters TM & © their respective owners.

DOUBLE-SIZE ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! The Marvel side includes mini-interviews with JOHN BUSCEMA, MARIE SEVERIN, JIM MOONEY, and GEORGE TUSKA—plus “STAN LEE’S Dinner with ALAIN RESNAIS” annotated by SEAN HOWE! On the DC side: talks with CARMINE INFANTINO, JOHN BROOME, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, JOE KUBERT, & MURPHY ANDERSON—plus a GARDNER FOX photo-feature, and more!

RETROFAN #33

RETROFAN #34

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #34 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #35

Meet the Bionic Duo, LEE MAJORS and LINDSAY WAGNER! Plus: Hot Wheels: The Early Years, Fantastic Four cartoons, Modesty Blaise, Hostess snacks, TV Westerns, Movie Icons vs. the Axis Powers, the San Diego Chicken, and more!

Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited

by MICHAEL EURY.

Take a ride with CHiPs’ ERIK ESTRADA and LARRY WILCOX! Plus: an interview with movie Hercules STEVE REEVES, WeirdOhs cartoonist BILL CAMPBELL, Plastic Man on Saturday mornings, TINY TIM, Remo Williams, the search for a Disney artist, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

DAN JURGENS talks about Superman, Sun Devils, creating Booster Gold, developing the “Doomsday scenario” with the demise of the Man of Steel, and more! Traverse DON GLUT’s “Glutverse” continuity across Gold Key, Marvel, and DC! Plus RICK ALTERGOTT, we conclude our profiles of MIKE DEODATO, JR. and FRANK BORTH, LINDA SUNSHINE (editor of DC/Marvel hardcover super-hero collections), & more!

An in-depth look at the life and career of writer/editor DENNY O’NEIL, and part one of a career-spanning interview with ARNOLD DRAKE, co-creator of The Doom Patrol and Deadman! Plus the story behind Studio Zero, the ’70s collective of JIM STARLIN, FRANK BRUNNER, ALAN WEISS, and others! Warren horror mag writer/ historian JACK BUTTERWORTH, alternative cartoonist TIM HENSLEY, & more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Sept. 2024

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #91

30th Anniversary issue, with KIRBY’S GREATEST VICTORIES! Jack gets the girl (wife ROZ), early hits Captain America and Boy Commandos, surviving WWII, romance comics, Captain Victory and the direct market, his original art battle with Marvel, and finally winning credit! Plus MARK EVANIER, a colossal gallery of Kirby’s winningest pencil art, a never-reprinted SIMON & KIRBY story, and more!