Alter Ego #32

MORE TITANS OF

TIMELY/MARVEL

BELLMAN, BURLOCKOFF, & NODELL! Plus:

AVISON • BURGOS • COLE • CRANDALL • EVERETT KOTZKY • REINMAN • ROY • SAHLE • SHORES

5.95

$

In the USA

No. 32 January 2004

All characters TM & ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Vol. 3, No. 32 / January 2004

™

Editor

Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout

Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor

P.C. Hamerlinck

Comic Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

Editors Emeritus

Jerry Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White, Mike Friedrich

Production Assistant

Eric Nolen-Weathington

Cover Artists Dick Giordano Gil Kane

Covers Colorist Tom Ziuko

MORE TITANS OF TIMELY/ MARVEL Section

And Special Thanks to: Mark Lewis Enrico Bagnoli Mile-High Comics Jeff Bailey Michael Baulderstone Mark Muller Will Murray Alberto Becattini Mart & Carrie Blake Bell Nodell Allen Bellman Michelle Nolan Ray Bottorff, Jr. Warren Reece Sam Burlockoff Paul Rivoche Jack Burnley David A. Roach Mike Carlin Steven Rowe Jon B. Cooke David A. Simpson Ray A. Cuthbert Joe Staton Mark Evanier Richard Steinberg Michael Feldman Marc Swayze Keif Fromm Joel Thingvall Carl Gafford Dann Thomas Janet Gilbert Antonio Toldo Dick Giordano Alex Toth Mike Gold George Hagenauer Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Dr. Michael J. Roger Dicken & Vassallo Wendy Hunt Hames Ware Robert Justice Mrs. Hazel White Marc Kardell Eddy Zeno Gene Kehoe Mike Zeno Richard Kyle

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Pete Morisi

Contents Writer/Editorial: Bellman, Burlockoff, and Candle . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 A Golden Age Reunion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1940s-50s Timely (also Quality, etc.) artists Allen Bellman & Sam Burlockoff meet again after half a century! Interviews by Dr. Michael J. Vassallo and Jim Amash.

Mart Nodell’s Time at Timely. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Blake Bell asks the genial co-creator of Green Lantern about when he traded in GL’s ring for Captain America’s shield.

Panoramic Potpourri Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover & Contents Page Illo: What can we say? Roy implored his old friend and colleague (and sometime boss) Dick Giordano to draw this cover—he photocopied drawings of dozens of vintage Timely/Marvel super-heroes as reference—and Dick came through like the champ he is, starting with the above layout. Originally, we planned to have each and every hero’s “photo” colored individually, but we didn’t want to risk giving colorist Tom Ziuko a nervous breakdown. We’d also considered lettering each hero’s name with his/her likeness, but frankly, even Ye Editor forgot who a couple of these guys were! So, tell you what—falling back on the time-honored tradition of all those no-prizes Stan Lee used to make Roy mail out to folks, Alter Ego will print (and send a free copy of issue #37 to) the writer of the first letter or e-mail we get that correctly identifies all 29 super-heroes on our cover and layout. Ready... set... go! [Art ©2004 Dick Giordano; heroes TM & ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Alter EgoTM is published monthly by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092.

Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $8 ($10 Canada, $11.00 elsewhere). Twelve-issue subscriptions: $60 US, $120 Canada, $132 elsewhere. 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 Canada.

FIRST PRINTING.

Title writer/editorial

2

Bellman, Burlockoff, and Candle

I admit it—once again, I’ve been genetically unable to resist using a pun as the title for these introductory notes. This one’s a riff on the famous stage play and movie Bell, Book, and Candle—but, of course, if I have to explain the pun, as I probably do to any non-old movie addict under the age of fifty, it’s probably not a very good one.

Never mind. It’s done. Let’s move on.

Actually, interviewers Michael J. Vassallo, Jim Amash and I will probably also need to explain who our two long-form interviewees are, since the talented Allen Bellman and Sam Burlockoff are only slightly better known, even to diehard comics fans, than was their Timely colleague Bob Deschamps before A/E #20! Allen and Sam signed a slightly larger percentage of their work than Bob did (which was none), but both left the field nearly fifty years ago, to make their primary marks elsewhere... though that doesn’t mean they don’t have some great stories to tell, and considerable light to shed on the Golden Age of Timely Comics.

What’s most amazing, perhaps, is that, although the pair were friends back in their youth, they hadn’t been in touch with each other for half a century—and at least one of them even thought the other was long since deceased, until a juxtaposition of fortunate circumstances (i.e., their interviews for Alter Ego) led to their getting together again for a happy reunion! But I’ll let Doc V. and Jim A., as well as Allen B., tell you about that in their own inimitable words.

Oh, and just to hit you over the head with it—the “candle” in the title is an oblique reference to the light of the first Green Lantern, which originally shone forth at the behest of artist Mart Nodell, who is briefly interviewed by Blake Bell about his late-1940s tenure at Timely/Marvel.

Hmm... maybe we should’ve just titled this page “Three Interviews” and let it go at that!

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ott; Comics Joe Sinn 04 DC Frenz & ca TM & ©20 04 Ron eri Art ©20 eague of Am L Justice

• A star-spangled symposium on M IKE SEKO W SKY, with M ARK EVANIER, SCO TT SHAW !, DAVE STEVENS, & FLO YD NO RM AN —with rare art by “Big Mike,” M URPHY ANDERSO N , CARM INE INFANTINO , GIL KANE, DICK DILLIN , GEO RGE PÉREZ, BILL EVERETT, CARL BURGO S—plus an intriguing interview with PAT “M RS.M IKE” SEKO W SKY! • Golden Age Timely/Marvel inker VALERIE BARCLAY talks to JIM AMASH about STAN LEE, GEO RGE KLEIN , DAVE GANTZ, CHRIS RULE—and, oh yes, M IKE SEKO W SKY! • “Lost Comics Lore, Part III” by W ILL M URRAY! • FCA with M ARC SW AYZE and a marvelous parody of Captain Marvel by RO SS ANDRU & M IKE ESPO SITO !

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Allen Bellman

A Golden Age Reunion

3

Old Friends and Timely/Marvel Artists—ALLEN BELLMAN and SAM BURLOCKOFF Interviewed by DOC VASSALLO and JIM AMASH

I. Two Timely Talks with ALLEN BELLMAN

by Dr. Michael J. Vassallo

Allen had no copies of his comic book work, and I was able to supply him with hundreds of pages—a sizable portion—of his Timely work. This material was drawn in the 1940s and early 1950s, and had not been seen by him in over half a century, nor had his family, his wonderful wife Roz, or his children or grandchildren ever seen it. Our friendship, and the validation of an artist’s long career, have proven to be as gratifying to this author as they have been to Allen.

[DOC V’S INTRODUCTION: The name Allen Bellman conjures up a smile of recognition among historians and aficionados of Timely Comics. From his beginnings as a teenager doing backgrounds for Syd Shores’ “Captain America” stories in 1942 up through “The Patriot,” “The A photo from the recent happy reunion, after half a century, of Allen Bellman [One point of very special Destroyer,” “The Human Torch,” (left) and Sam Burlockoff (right), taken in the latter’s Florida home—above interest: when the major part of “Jap-Buster Johnson,” his selfa Bellman “Patriot” splash from Marvel Mystery Comics #62 (March 1945) and this interview was originally created continuing crime feature the Jack Cole-penciled, Burlockoff-inked cover of Quality’s Plastic Man #33 conducted, Allen referred to his “Let’s Play Detective,” the Atom (Jan. 1952), from an idea Sam says he suggested to Plas’ creator childhood friend Sam (see p. 36). Photo courtesy of Allen and Sam; thanks to Doc V. for the art.

Age “Jet Dixon of the Space Burlockoff, saying he had long [Patriot art ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Plastic Man art ©2004 DC Comics.]

Squadron,” and scores of presince passed away. During this Comics Code horror, crime, war, piece’s long preparation, Jim Amash e-mailed me one day and asked and western tales for Atlas, Allen Bellman entertained us—whether we knew it or not—with a quirky, distinctive, and original comic book style. His career spanned the entire breadth of Timely/Atlas from the early Golden Age to the dissolution of the Timely bullpen. He then joined hundreds of freelancers whose work filled the myriad genres of titles that flourished after the decline of the costumed heroes into the early 1950s.

[I tracked Allen down in Florida about five years ago, thanks to a tip from Paul Curtis, and began a close friendship that remains to this day.

He is a storehouse of Timely reminiscences and looks back fondly on his career in the comic book industry.

4

A Golden Age Reunion

if I had ever heard of, or had any copies of Timely work done by, an artist he was in the process of interviewing—named Sam Burlockoff!

I froze in astonishment and told Jim that I was at the same time interviewing that artist’s boyhood friend Allen Bellman, and that Bellman thought him long deceased!

[Jim, Roy, and I immediately realized that we had a unique opportunity here. We would print both interviews in the same issue of A/E and be able to get these two long-lost friends back together in the process! Happily, the two old friends have gotten together in person since that day—as photos accompanying these interviews well illustrate. Even so, I elected to keep the original interview as is, and the reader will note that, when Allen mentions Sam early on, it’s with the assumption that he was deceased—but, by the end of the interview, conducted after the happy revelation, he refers to Sam in the present tense. —Dr. Michael J. Vassallo.]

“I Must Have Been Able to Draw Something!”

MICHAEL J. VASSALLO: Let’s start at the beginning, Allen. Where and when were you born? And tell me a little about your family.

ALLEN BELLMAN: I was born in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, on June 5th, 1924. Sometimes I get all choked up just thinking about how long ago it was and how quickly it seems to have passed. A lot of my contemporaries were also born on the Lower East Side.

My parents came from Russia. They were Jewish immigrants running away from the pogroms in the early part of the century. I have a picture of them that I’d never seen until recently.

My sister, who passed away, had it. My father is sitting in a chair with a stiff collar. You could just imagine that time.

I was not in my teens yet, and I was drawing comic strips on notebook paper, in pencil. Later on I created characters like “Mander the Mystic” and “Big Hank O’Malley” that were run on the “Aunt Jean page” of the defunct Brooklyn Eagle. The New York Daily Mirror published one of my cartoons, a box panel called “Pete.” It went something like this: one person says to the other, “I hear Hitler wants to be an athlete.” The other replies, “Yeah, he wants to jump over the poles.” They paid me $2 and that was the beginning of my career. This was at the time when dark clouds of war hovered over Europe, and Hitler was marching on Poland.

I drew a comic strip called Air Patrol for my school newspaper in the Williamsburg/Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. I still remember that neighborhood well, with the Grand Street Theatre.

MJV: I think it’s still there! I know that area; my roots are in Greenpoint, also. The different ethnic groups change over the years, but the houses are all the same from the turn of the century. In addition to the comic strips you read when you were young, did you also read comic books and think about art as a possible career?

BELLMAN: Well, I didn’t think about it as a “career.” I liked to do it, and in all honesty I didn’t think I was too good. I developed when I started working. Well, someone did hire me, so I must have been able to draw something!

As for comic books, I remember when I was in junior high school. On our lunch hour there was a candy store. I went in and paid 10¢ for the first “Superman” in Action Comics. I remember there was a guy running towards you and Superman was holding up a car. I remember it clearly. There was nothing previously on the newsstands like that. I wish I still had it.

I don’t know why there hasn’t been a movie made about Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. What happened to them is very sad. I should suggest it to Mike Uslan. I knew him a long time and was a Allen at about age three. friend of his father. But it would show National, Photo provided by the artist.

I had one brother and two sisters. A picture of much of the time, in a less than favorable light. I my brother is looking down at me as we speak. remember Joe Shuster working as a messenger My parents were in the bakery business, along with two or three of my for a company that made photo-offsets. He delivered these pieces of art uncles. They were the Bellman Brothers, but after a while the to National. Can you imagine that? The man who made the company, partnership split and the brothers went their separate ways. My parents reduced to a messenger boy? What an injustice! migrated to Brooklyn, along with my two sisters and brother, when I was six or seven. I was the youngest of the four, and that allowed me more privileges than the rest of my siblings, so they tell me. It was the old Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Same place Mike Tyson came from.

MJV: There certainly was a lot of animosity remaining from their MJV: That’s a tough neighborhood now. lawsuit with National over Superman. But what prompted you to seek a job as an artist? Did you put together a portfolio of samples?

BELLMAN: Then it wasn’t. It was a middle-class Italian, Jewish neighborhood. Brownsville was the home of the Jewish Mafia, widely known BELLMAN: Yes. They wouldn’t have ever hired me without seeing as “Murder, Incorporated.” My father opened a bakery store, and I some samples. I attended the High School of Industrial Arts, and on and attended the local public school. In the bakery store, everything was put off at Pratt Institute. At age 18 I saw an ad in the newspaper—I think it in brown paper bags. At some point I started drawing on the bags. I was the New York Times. The newspaper ad said, “Background artist suppose this was the start of printing on paper and plastic bags that we wanted.” It was for Captain America. I’m not sure it stated that in the know today. [laughs] I always wanted to tell a story in pictures. ad, but I think it did.

Airplanes intrigued me tremendously. As I got older, I started trying to I showed it to my father, may he rest in peace. He encouraged me to draw my own comic strips. They were very crude. go down there. I told him it was Columbus Day and they’d probably be I remember when Flash Gordon came out. I’ll never forget the first closed. He said, “You gotta try.” Maybe I was a little lazy or I didn’t time I saw it in the New York Journal-American. Boy, what beautiful think I’d get the job—I don’t know—but I went. It was Timely Comics work! I was so impressed by it. Alex Raymond was one of my idols. His and they were in the McGraw-Hill Building. I went up and told them I untimely death was a great loss. was there to apply for the job. The receptionist disappeared in the back

“Background Artist Wanted”

Allen Bellman

5 organizing or working for a comic book publishing house. I contacted him and met him somewhere, but nothing ever came of it.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: There’s a slight anomaly here. In A/E #27, courtesy of artist Creig Flessel, we ran a photo of Vin Sullivan’s bachelor dinner, which was apparently taken April 6, 1940. —Roy.] MJV: Vin Sullivan was the first editor of “Superman” and “Batman.” He later went on to start Magazine Enterprises. Did you ever have any formal art training?

According to Doc’s calculations, Captain America Comics was “up to about issue #22” (Jan. 1943) when Allen Bellman found work at Timely in fall of 1942, and was soon doing backgrounds for C.A. artist Syd Shores, who seems to have drawn the cover at right. But Allen’s first pro work was backgrounding for Carl Burgos on “The Human Torch,” beginning with an issue around the time of this tale, “Prescriptions for Death,” in panels repro’d from photostats of the original art from Marvel Mystery Comics #42 (April 1943). Burgos probably didn’t draw this entire story himself, if he drew any of it. And the buildings’ perspective in the final panel is ’way off, so hopefully this isn’t the story Allen started off on! [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

for a minute. [Then] Don Rico comes out. He takes my work samples in. I waited a bit, and he comes back out and tells me I’m hired.

MJV: Boy, that was quick!

BELLMAN: Yes, it amazed me, too! I think I went back home and started the following Monday. I think they started me off at $25 a week, when at that time a married man with a family was making $35–$45 a week. I thought I’d find it much tougher, as I was only 18.

There was one other brush with the comic book business before I started at Timely. There was a story in the defunct Brooklyn Eagle that mentioned that a Vincent Sullivan was getting married, and that he was

Doc V. has identified the “Patriot” story in Marvel Mystery Comics #62 (March 1945) as being drawn by Allen, though it probably wasn’t his first.

The splash was printed on p. 3, so here are a few more panels from that tale. [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

BELLMAN: My training was mostly experience. My best friend Sam Burlockoff and I went to Pratt Institute at night, on and off. It was in a bad neighborhood, and I didn’t like going at night. It was downtown Brooklyn, DeKalb Avenue... I forget the exact section. I also took the Landon cartoon mail-order course. That’s about it. The rest was onthe-job.

MJV: In October of 1942, Captain America would be up to about issue #22. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby had done the first ten issues, then left Timely for National around the end of 1941.

BELLMAN: From what I remember, they had left about nine months before I got there. There was always talk among the office staff about how great Simon and Kirby were. Syd Shores was doing it now. Vince Alascia was inking.

MJV: Making this official, I guess you can say with certainty that the very first thing you did at Timely was backgrounds for Syd Shores on Captain America?

BELLMAN: Yes. It wasn’t much. It was just drawing lines with a ruler, putting in a window, a tree, that kind of stuff. I didn’t do it too long, just a couple of months. I really didn’t like doing that kind of work at all.

Then they started me off on a script and took me off backgrounds. [My first story] may have been “The Patriot.” I just can’t remember for sure.

6

A Golden Age Reunion

MJV: “The Patriot” appeared in two of the earliest issues of Human Torch in mid-1941 and continued up through 1946, mostly in Marvel Mystery Comics. Many different artists drew this feature. Your “Patriot” stories seem to come later in the 194446 period. I’d place you on “The Patriot” at about Marvel Mystery #58. That’s an estimate, as I’ve not seen all those books.

BELLMAN: That sounds about right.

Maybe I did backgrounds longer than I thought, or maybe it [“The Patriot”] wasn’t the first, after all.

It’s hard to remember.

Anyhow, it was pretty crude. I was just starting to pencil. I was a staff artist; Timely had a large staff.

“I Wish I’d Kept Records!”

MJV: I’m trying to picture the work area there. How was it set up, and who was sitting near you?

BELLMAN: Mike Sekowsky, Frank Giacoia, George Klein, Frank Carin... his name was Carino and he changed it to Carin... Chris Rule—I think he was there then—I could be blending the years here. Ed Winiarski was also there that early on. Al Jaffee, too.

MJV: Was Vince Fago there? He became editor-in-chief during the war years when Stan Lee went into the service. This happened between the Feb.-March 1943 cover dates, putting it at about December ’42 real time.

BELLMAN: Stan must have left within a few months of my starting at Timely. I recall he worked on wartime filmstrips out in Astoria, NY. I don’t recall him being sent overseas.

MJV: He wasn’t. He worked on those Army films, as you say, but was down south, I believe. Jim Mooney told me he once drove Stan’s old car down to where Stan was stationed and spent a weekend holed up drawing while Stan was knocking out “E. Claude Pennygrabber” scripts for Terry-Toons.

BELLMAN: For some reason or other I seem to remember Stan just always being there. I’m sure he was away, as you say, but my memory can’t pinpoint it. Perhaps because his scripts were still coming in, his presence was still felt there.

I do remember Vince Fago. He was a thin fellow with one eye that seemed clouded. Years later I worked for his brother Al. He may have acted as an agent for some publication, but I just don’t remember the details. I recall doing one job that was about a devil. I was really happy with how the story came out. Usually, if I liked a script, I would put my heart into a story.

MJV: What about yourself? Were you in the service?

BELLMAN: I went into the Navy in 1943. I was painting insignias in Ships Service. It was just a few months before I returned to Timely, after

Allen says Young Allies was one of the Timely comics in which artist/writer/de facto editor Don Rico was heavily involved. In it, Bucky and Toro led a Simon-&-Kirby-created kid gang. The “Tommy Tyme” story from Y.A. #12 (Spring 1944) is listed on the Grand Comic Book Data Base as being drawn by Allen (the cover of the issue is by Alex Schomburg). Doc V., however, says it’s not Bellman’s work, and that some of the IDs of Timely art on the GCD, alas, were merely guesses which were not labeled as guesses. (Ray Bottorff, Jr., who currently handles the GCD, is valiantly trying to update and correct the files, and can use all the help and cooperation he can get, folks!) Still, Mark Muller of Australia kindly provided us with a scan of the “Tommy Tyme” splash, so we’re printing it as a specimen of 1940s Timely art. [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

receiving an honorable discharge due to illness. I notified Stan or Robby Solomon—I don’t remember who—that I was returning to Timely. It was no problem coming back.

MJV: How was the staff set up in the Timely offices?

BELLMAN: There was a separation of the guys who worked on the adventure books from the guys who worked on the animation [funnyanimal] books. We called them the “animators.” I remember one time Walt Disney sent them a letter telling them to stop copying their characters. I don’t think anything came of it, because I don’t remember hearing about it again. I also remember the animators once made this moveable cartoon character which they manipulated from their room.

They were crazy!

We used to play cards during lunch. Lunches were usually brought from home. Sometimes after hours we’d go out for a drink.

Allen Bellman

7

MJV: Don Rico, as you said, seems to have been used in some managerial capacity, evaluating new talent.

would look over my work and correct me early on.

Syd Shores was also a great help.

BELLMAN: Yes, but he wrote and drew, also. Young Allies was one of his books. He had a brother Chester, who was a prizefighter. We used to go after work and watch him fight.

There used to be a fight arena nearby— not Madison Square Garden—a local small Manhattan arena.

Some of these fights were televised, and I would make sure I would wave to my wife and neighbors at home while attending them. I don’t remember Chester ever winning. Having one of the first television sets in the area, my place was always host to neighbors and friends. I lived on the ground floor and never closed the blinds while the TV was on. Neighbors were resting on my open windowsill to watch the small screen.

Martin Goodman called Don Rico “Rat Rico,” because Don and some of the other artists didn’t bother with Syd Shores, who was the unofficial bullpen director. Rico was the ringleader of this “ignore Shores” group. He was always causing small problems in the office, and Goodman knew this, and hence the name “Rat Rico.”

MJV: Who were some of your biggest artistic influences at Timely?

BELLMAN: At Timely there was an artist—and a darned good one at that— named Tom Tomasch [sp?]. He taught me a lot when I arrived.

He was a short guy, very sophisticated and very nice. A real classy person. He even wrote a book on anatomy. He knew anatomy so well. He originally lived up in Lake Placid. His real name was, I think, Elmer Tomasch, but he was known as Tom. He

MJV: I find it fascinating how many “new” Timely names are being turned up after so much time has passed. Tom Tomasch is one. I’d never heard of Bob Deschamps until Jim Amash interviewed him [for A/E #22].

BELLMAN: I can’t believe Tom Tomasch got lost in the shuffle, as he was such a good artist. I wish I’d kept records! Who would have known people would be asking about them 60 years later?

“Mel Barry and Mel Blum” MJV: I want to talk about two people in management whose names I see in the credit pages of the early funny-animal comics, and in the credits of Martin Goodman’s magazine line: Mel Barry and Mel Blum.

BELLMAN: Mel Blum was the art director of Goodman’s magazine line and pulp line. He was later divorced and we would bum around sometimes. We had that in common. Misery loves company, I guess. I remember one time he almost got us killed. We were out riding, and he was falling asleep at the wheel of the car! Anyhow, he had a brother named Barry Blum, who was a photographer. Mel told me one time that he occasionally took his brother’s first name as his last name. I’m not sure why. I know he took jobs at some point with the National Enquirer. Maybe he wanted to hide the fact he was Jewish. I just don’t know. I didn’t know he had anything to do with the comics, though.

Allen Bellman had four drawings, one of which he signed, in Detective Short Stories (Vol. 4, #6, Oct. 1947)—which turned out to be the final issue of that Martin Goodman pulp mag. Cover artist unknown. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

MJV: He did at some point, at least early on.

He’s listed as Mel Barry on the credits pages of

8

A Golden Age Reunion

BELLMAN: I don’t think so.

But Mel put out some of his brother’s work in other publications. Barry, like I said, was a photographer. I even posed for some of his covers. And he used to buy my cartoons to use in letters-to-the-editor columns, in magazines like Love Story, which he published.

MJV: Martin Goodman had a pulp line, also.

The above-left title page of Krazy Komics #1 (Nov. 1942), which was penciled by Vince Fago and inked by George Klein (at least, so Doc tells us—and if he doesn’t know, we sure don’t!), lists Mel Barry as “Technical Advisor.” The aboveright title page of Terry-Toons Comics #51 (Dec. 1946) lists Mel Blum as one of three “Consulting Specialists,” along with Robert (Rob) Solomon. The two Mels were one and the same. [Krazy Komics art ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Terry-Toons art ©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

early Terry-Toons from November ’42 through June ’43. Then he’s listed as Mel Blum from July ’43 through September ’43, when the credits disappear. His title on these credit pages was “technical advisor,” which means nothing. He then continued as Mel Blum in Goodman’s detective magazines as “art director.” He also was art director on the celebrity magazines. I have him on these as late as the late 1950s, including a tenure as art director in 1956 and 1957 on Western Digest.

BELLMAN: Yes, Blum was an art director. He was also a weightlifter who could just about get through the door. He wasn’t that nice a person, but I got along well with him. He was always full of puns, and every time he pulled one, his staff members would just walk away from him.

He moved down here to Boca Raton with his second wife, and we used to see each other. I haven’t seen him in years, though, and I’m sure he’s passed away by now, as he was older than I was. He was friendly when I saw him at Goodman’s after my divorce. I can remember him saying to me, “Allen, straighten up— you are walking with your head down.” At the National Enquirer he made big money and worked for them for years.

This was after ending his long relationship with Martin Goodman.

MJV: That must have been in the late 1950s. He must have worked for the Enquirer even after that, perhaps in the 1960s. Did Barry Blum ever work for Timely?

BELLMAN: Yes, he did. In fact, I did illustrations for some of those pulps. I did them through Mel Blum, who was art director of the magazine line. I did these illustrations at home as a freelancer. I remember one I did to accompany a boxing story in a sports pulp. I did some outside of the sports pulps—detective stories, I believe. I was friendly with Blum, and he fed me those freelance assignments, knowing I could use the extra money.

“Robbie Solomon Was a Pain in the Ass” MJV: Did you get married soon after you began at Timely?

BELLMAN: Yes. I was 20 years old. That marriage ended in a bad divorce, and I’ve been re-married for 40 years now.

MJV: Your wife Roz is wonderful—especially how she puts up with all our hours of phone conversations! Do you recall a man named Bill King? He’s listed as an “associate” on 1942–43 books.

BELLMAN: He may have been the guy who took my Milton Caniff book. I loaned someone a hardcover Caniff book in good faith. He refused to give it back! He liked it so much he kept putting it off, making excuses, until finally I stopped asking him about it. I’ve never forgotten about it, though. I think he later came down with polio. I’m not certain it was Bill King, but if Bill later had polio, it was him.

“I used to eat, sleep, and dream Milton Caniff!” The creator of Terry and the Pirates was one of the immortals, all right, as witness this daily strip from December 7, 1940. The complete Terry was reprinted in beautiful hardcover editions by Flying Buttress Classics Library (NBM) a decade or two ago, and are worth seeking out.

[Terry and the Pirates is a registered trademark of Tribune Media Services, Inc.]

Allen Bellman Caniff was one of my heroes! I used to eat, sleep, and dream Milton Caniff! Every time the New York Daily News would come out—they had a morning and night edition and sold for 2¢—I’d cut out the Caniff and put it into a scrapbook. I started a cartoonists’ club in my junior high school called The National Amateur Cartoonist’s Association.

Caniff was our honorary president. Boy, I started corresponding with him, and when he started answering my letters, I was in heaven! In essence, Caniff asked us to look around and see what was “hot” and take it from there, [and] be aware of what was popular at the time. He wrote articles for us, and we put out a little newspaper called The Cartoon Journal. Some kid out in the Midwest printed it for us, and we paid him 50¢. He used a toy rubber printing set where every letter was set by hand.

Years later I would meet Milton Caniff at the National Cartoonist Society Annual Ruben Award affair—held at the Waldorf Astoria—but it wasn’t what I’d hoped! I was waiting for my date outside the restrooms in the Waldorf-Astoria when Caniff came out of the men’s room. I approached him and said, “Mr. Caniff”—I gave him the respect due him— and before I could even finish he said, “Excuse me, I have friends waiting for me.” I was wearing a tux same as he. I took a shower that day and changed my socks! Wow, what a letdown! My hero snubbed me!

MJV: What do you remember about Robbie Solomon?

BELLMAN: Robbie Solomon was Stan Lee’s uncle.

He was like a general manager. These guys came out

A vintage photo of artist Mike Roy (with an unidentified woman and newspaper), provided by Jim Amash—flanked by two splashes Roy penciled for Lev Gleason. (Left:) From an unidentified (i.e., coverless) late-’40s/early ’50s issue of Boy Comics/Illustories starring the young hero formerly known as Crimebuster. (Right:) From Daredevil #52 (Jan. 1949). Inks on both

by John Belfi. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

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of jobs like “shoe salesman,” etc. They had a relative in Martin Goodman and tried to get jobs. Solomon was a pain in the ass to the artists. His job was to annoy people. [laughs] He was always on my back about something. When I joined Timely, I thought he was the main guy running the office. He overshadowed Stan Lee, and it took a while until I realized Stan was the editor. Robbie used to bring in comic books from other companies to show the Timely artists what he wanted. One of the artists was Lou Fine, and this pushed me to change my brush strokes and put in more blacks. This improved my overall result. Robbie was always trying to act like he was running things, and I recall he died a young death. Another person there who died young was a bookkeeper named Sylvia Fagan. She was a single woman.

MJV: What do you remember about a young Stan Lee at Timely?

BELLMAN: I remember a funny incident. One day Stan walked into our room holding a cough medicine bottle and a spoon. I was a young smartass kid and jokingly asked Stan if it was the “silver spoon” he was born with. He laughed, but I always did regret saying that. Stan was wonderful to work for. He was good-natured but strict with his editing. He wanted perfection. If you drew a cup on a table in one panel, do not leave that cup out in the next panel.

MJV: It was Robby Solomon who originally got Stan Lee his job with Martin Goodman.

BELLMAN: I think I knew that, but Stan Lee was much better to work for!

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A Golden Age Reunion

MJV: What was the feeling at Timely of their hero comics compared to other companies, like National with Superman or Fawcett with Captain Marvel? Was there a palpable competition?

BELLMAN: They were never really mentioned, almost as if they were not a threat to Timely. Martin Goodman usually had more books by volume on the stands than anyone else. I remember Robby Solomon and Stan Lee telling the staff to draw like Lou Fine or Mort Meskin, not realizing that Timely magazines likely were outselling the competition or at least drowning them on the stands.

“I Haven’t Thought about Him in 60 Years!”

MJV: Do you remember Gary Keller?

BELLMAN: Yes. Gary was a manager of some sort. He had glasses and walked around. My goodness, I haven’t thought about him in 60 years! This really takes me way back. While I can’t really put a finger on exactly what Gary did, I do recall that he was a very nice man.

MJV: What about Jack Grogan? I recall that he was a writer for a short time.

BELLMAN: Jack Grogan made up a sign when I went into the service.

I think he lettered, also. The sign said, “We all agree that you’re the guy to knock the Axis for a loop. The best of luck to you, old pal, from all your friends at the Timely group!” Unfortunately, I think my ex-wife tore it up. It had all the signatures of everybody working for Timely at that time.

MJV: That’s too bad. It would be wonderful to still have that! From what I gather, Grogan developed drug problems and was later fired.

Do you remember Ernie Hart?

BELLMAN: Sure, I do. He had a mustache.

MJV: Ernie also went by the pseudonym E.H. Huntley, as his full name was Ernest Huntley Hart. He worked on and off for Stan Lee through the 1950s, mostly as a writer, and even came back in the early 1960s during the Marvel hero revival. Early on in the Timely days he was a fine funny-animal artist.

BELLMAN: I told you that the animators were separated from the adventure artists. This is one of the reasons I didn’t get to know the funny guys that well. Another thing I want to mention is that there were a few artists working there who had mean streaks, or were just plain cruel. There was this young girl who worked in the office, and every time she had to come into our room to give something to the staff these guys would get on her case, making vulgar remarks. I remember how fast she would run out of the room. Then there was a young married woman by the name of Barbara, who joined us an inker. The guys would sing “Barbara’s hole, Barbara’s hole” to the tune of the Barbersole Shaving Cream tune on the radio. Once they got on your case, they didn’t let go. This couldn’t happen today in an office. These were isolated incidents, but they stand out in my mind after all these years.

MJV: Kin Platt, another humor artist, is still around out in California and about 90 years old. He had a long career authoring books for young people.

BELLMAN: I remember the name and have a vague picture of him as tall and with glasses.

MJV: What about Valerie Barclay?

BELLMAN: Valerie and I go way back. She went to the High School of Industrial Arts with me. I knew her well before my Timely days. She was called Violet back then, but she was always changing her name. She was a bit of a loner who was always by herself. But she was an exquisitely beautiful young lady. She was a staff inker. I remember she would

When Joe Simon and Jack Kirby left Timely/Marvel for National/DC, Captain America Comics was briefly inherited by penciler Al Avison, often inked

by Al Gabrielle, Al Alascia, and/or Syd Shores. Not sure which of that trio embellished this story from C.A. #11 (Feb. 1942), the first post-Simon-&-Kirby issue, but it kept much of the creators’ original feel. With thanks to Mile-High Comics. [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

use India ink with a brush for mascara. That stands out in my mind.

I remember she had a romance with Mike Sekowsky. There was a feud that resulted between Mike and George Klein that I believe was over Violet. George was a nice quiet guy. I got along well with him.

Years later, after the bullpen closed, I met her on the street while I was hoofing it from publication house to publication house looking for work. We spoke a bit and made a date, but I never kept it. This was right around the time I met Roz! MJV: I met Valerie a few years back. We went out for coffee and she allowed me to tape our conversation about her Timely years. A real charmer, and still a stunner and impeccable dresser! The bad news is that after I got home I found out that the background noise in the coffee shop completely obliterated all the spoken voices on the tape. It was completely ruined. [NOTE: Fortunately, a full-length interview with Valerie Barclay, conducted by Jim Amash, is coming up in our very next issue. —Roy.] I was interested in pinning down features she might have worked on, but she was more interested in relating Timely romance gossip. In fact, maybe it’s a good thing that tape is useless! And don’t worry, you were never mentioned!

BELLMAN: [laughs] That was a close one!

MJV: Was there anyone else you went to school with who later worked in the business?

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“A Mickey Spillane-Typed Original Script!”

MJV: In addition to the staff artists, was there much work done by freelancers?

BELLMAN: Yes. There were many, many freelancers.

Bill Everett was a freelancer. I freelanced my crime feature “Let’s Play Detective” while on staff. I created it, wrote it, and drew it all by myself. That was all extra money for me. I was paid a scripting fee, also. I knew that Stan needed fillers for the books, so I went to him with my idea to have the reader turn the book upside down at the end for the answer to the mystery. Soon afterwards, other magazines were doing the same thing and copying me!

MJV: You mentioned Bill Everett, but what about Carl Burgos?

Allen provided this photo of himself at age 21 in 1945, with a copy of Marvel Mystery Comics at hand and a page of his “Let’s Play Detective” feature on his drawing-board. At right is the printed version from Young Allies #19 (Spring 1946), which is signed “Al Bellman.” You had to stand on your head to read the solution to the mystery. Doc tells us many of these pages (later retitled “Are You a Detective?”) were signed, and that, though Bellman drew them from 1946-49, most were held in inventory till 1949-51. [Art ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

BELLMAN: Yes, there was another fellow there with us at school who—while still a student—did a “Sub-Mariner” story.

His name was Mike Roy. He was looked upon as a big shot at school. He had done a “real” comic book feature!

MJV: Mike Roy had a long career in comics. But you say he was drawing for either Goodman or Jacquet while in high school?

BELLMAN: Yes, and he was real good, much better than we were at that time. He was also over at Lev Gleason, where he drew Daredevil. Chic Stone was another fellow Sam [Burlockoff] and I went to junior high school with. He later either worked on staff for Timely or freelanced, I don’t remember which.

MJV: I’m going to run more names by you. Do you remember Marty Nodell?

BELLMAN: Marty was on staff for a while. In fact, I ran into him at a comic book convention in Ft. Lauderdale years ago.

He lives in West Palm here in Florida.

MJV: What about Al Avison and Al Gabrielle, who did work early on Captain America after Simon & Kirby departed?

BELLMAN: They weren’t on staff when I was there. Either they pre-dated me, or were freelancers, or worked strictly for Funnies, Inc., like Bill Everett and others, and bypassed the staff completely, in which case I would have likely missed them. There were many “Captain America” artists, as Timely published his stories in other books. Avison did them right after Simon & Kirby, but Syd did some also. My first work was on those.

MJV: Mike Becker?

BELLMAN: Mike I remember. We worked in the same room.

He wasn’t too friendly and never said much except that he had been a P.O.W. A private person.

BELLMAN: Carl, at some point, was on staff—maybe off and on—I don’t remember. While on staff he sat behind me. He didn’t speak too much and just did his work. We hardly spoke at all, but I knew who he was and that he had created The Human Torch.

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A Golden Age Reunion

Before Captain America threw his mighty shield, Carl Burgos’ Human Torch and Bill Everett’s Sub-Mariner were Timely’s biggest guns. Early in 1942, after the U.S. entered World War II, Everett went into the Army and Burgos into the Army Air Forces. The “Sub-Mariner” splash above, signed “By Bill Everett ’42,” from Marvel Mystery Comics #31 (May ’42), was the last Bill did for that mag, and perhaps the last ever, until he was mustered out of the service after the war.

The “Torch” story, at top right, from Marvel Mystery #32 (June ’42), is signed “Burgos 42.” His final wartime tale appeared two months later, in #34.

The “Sub-Mariner” at right, from #32, is unsigned, but closely imitates Everett’s style—it may well be Carl Pfeufer, who soon veered off in his own direction—or could it be Mike Roy? “Story by Elvey Jay” probably refers to the scripter’s initials—surely not Funnies, Inc., owner Lloyd Jacquet himself!

(But what was Jacquet’s middle initial, anyway?) Also in #32 was a 2-page text story with a Mickey Spillane byline. Thanks to Warren Reece for the art from MMC #31, and to Mile-High Comics for that from #32. Heroes all! [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

MJV: Was there any freelancing outside Timely while you were on the staff?

BELLMAN: No, there was no time to solicit outside work. We did get a nice Christmas bonus every year, though. I eventually worked for Bob Wood in Crime Does Not Pay. Bob killed a woman, you know. It was in the New York Journal-American. Bob was single. At Christmas time he used to have everyone up to his penthouse apartment. He threw parties and was a heavy drinker. He also used to come in on Mondays sporting a shiner and all bruised up. He must have fought often. He apparently had a woman next door that he knew and somehow killed her. I don’t remember the details. It was probably in a drunken rage.

MJV: Who did you admire artistically at Timely?

BELLMAN: Syd Shores was extremely talented. Mike Sekowsky, for certain. He was fantastic! Fast, free-flowing, just a natural talent. I didn’t

Allen Bellman

13

appearing at the Paramount. That was Frank Sinatra! Carmine was a big fan. I like Sinatra a great deal, also, and his records helped me get through a dark period of my life during my divorce.

MJV: Gene Colan?

BELLMAN: Gene was a young guy with lots of talent. He was quiet and laid back. Both John Buscema and Gene Colan were there towards the end of the staff’s life.

MJV: You once mentioned to me meeting Mickey Spillane at Timely.

BELLMAN: Mickey Spillane wrote quite a bit there. I remember the first time I met him. I had just finished up an assignment. I walked over to Stan Lee’s office and knocked on the door. “Come in,” says Stan’s voice from inside. There’s a GI standing there talking to Stan. Stan introduces me: “Allen, I want you to meet Mickey Spillane. Mickey, I want you to meet Allen Bellman.” I shook his hand. He had a crewcut and was in an Army uniform. Then Stan handed me a script to draw as my next assignment. In those days, as soon as you finished one job, you turned it in and were handed another script. Spillane had just brought it in and it was handed over to me. It was a “Jap-Buster Johnson” script.

Even in those bullpen days, I often penciled and inked my own stuff.

I remember that, while I was inking it, I would use the script as an ink blotter to wipe off the excess ink. This totally marred the front page, and then the script was tossed out at completion. Many times over the years I wished I had kept that script. A Mickey Spillane-typed original script!

Boy, who knew how famous he’d become!

In his Alter Ego interview [V3#11], Mickey Spillane denied that he ever wrote any war stories, but he certainly did write that “Jap-Buster Johnson” script I drew.

At presstime, Doc V. was still diligently searching for a copy of the “Jap-Buster Johnson” story Allen Bellman drew from a script by future Mike Hammer creator Mickey Spillane. Meanwhile, here’s a splash from USA Comics #7 (March 1943), just to show you what the series was like.

The very name of the feature would rightly be considered racist today; but Americans a few weeks after Pearl Harbor, when this story was probably prepared, felt differently, and anti-Japanese feelings ran high. [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

like him too much as a person, though. He had a terrible attitude and looked at people with contempt. He also had a brother who worked for Timely.

MJV: That would be George Sekowsky. I never knew he worked at Timely.

BELLMAN: Yeah, he was an artist, also. I don’t think he did much or lasted too long there. George came to me to get him a television set one day. He gave me the money to buy it for him, knowing I was the only one in the neighborhood with a television. He wasn’t like his brother; he was easy to talk to, a nice guy.

At Timely Mike only penciled, never inked his work. He had a lot of different people inking him. It didn’t matter, though; the end result was always good.

MJV: Do you remember John Buscema at Timely?

BELLMAN: Yes. I was sorry to hear he recently passed away. John was a quiet kid, good-looking with thick black hair. He was a really good penciler. I don’t remember too much more about him. He wasn’t around too long. Another Italian fellow I remember much earlier was Carmine Infantino. He was friends with Frank Giacoia. It was Carmine who I remember telling me about this new young Italian singer who was

MJV: Spillane came out of the Lloyd Jacquet shop, Funnies, Inc. That was one of the major sources that supplied Martin Goodman with features before he had his own staff, and even afterwards. Carl Burgos and Bill Everett came from that shop. That’s where the features for Marvel Comics #1 came from. Prior to this, Martin Goodman was strictly a pulp and magazine publisher.

“A Taste of What the Comic Book Business Was Like” BELLMAN: That all happened before I started at Timely. Bill Everett was a fine artist, but I never met him. I don’t believe he was on staff during any time I was there.

I want to digress here a minute. You asked about my earliest entry into the business. I once went for a job with my friend Sammy Burlockoff. He was also an artist, and we were childhood friends. I think he passed away a long time ago. We went up to Famous Funnies and saw this man pasting down comic pages. This was our very first introduction to the business. I don’t remember his name, but he was the guy who started Famous Funnies. They were all reprints at that time. This was when we were about 15 or 16 and still in junior high school. We didn’t get the job, but it gave us a taste of what the comic book business was like. Sammy and I were great friends. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Allen probably means Steve Douglas, original editor of Famous Funnies, who passed away in 1967. —Roy.] MJV: As the 1940s went on, the super-hero titles began to wane, especially after the war ended. Timely’s first change outside of the super-heroes and humor books was crime books in 1947. Across the industry, crime titles really took off.

BELLMAN: They were everywhere and were extremely popular, as it said in the Rudy Lapick interview in Alter Ego [#22]. If I remember correctly, Rudy Lapick was the fellow who bought a wire recorder when they first came out.

14

A Golden Age Reunion

In 1919 Ray Cummings shot to prominence in the nascent science-fiction field with his classic tale for All-Story Weekly, “The Girl in the Golden Atom,” about a man who shrinks down into a microscopic world; it soon begat a sequel (“People of the Golden Atom”) and even hardcover publication. In 1940 the original story was reprinted in the pulp magazine Fantastic Novels, accompanied by the illo at left by Frank R. Paul—who a year earlier had drawn the cover of Marvel Comics #1!

In a continued story—rare at Timely or elsewhere in those days—in Captain America #25-26 (April-May 1943), Cummings reprised elements of his most famous effort in “Princess of the Atom”—but somebody spelled Syd Shores’s first name wrong in the credits! Thanks to Roy’s 1970s Marvel buddy, Timely/Marvel expert Warren Reece, for providing copies of both splashes from his own mouth-watering collection. [Frank R. Paul art ©2004 the respective copyright holders; C.A. art ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

MJV: I gather you’ve seen Bob Deschamps’ interview [A/E #20]?

BELLMAN: Yes, in fact, I remember him well now. In my mind, I remember him as a young kid standing there waiting to take our food orders when he started. I took a look at his picture in the magazine—he’s about my age—and there I see this young kid, his face clear as a bell. But Rudy Lapick mentioned me buying stock in plastics, and that Sol Brodsky later told him I became a millionaire? I don’t remember that!

MJV: Talk about Sol Brodsky. I know he was a close friend to you.

BELLMAN: Now there was a friend! Sol and I were close friends. We both lived in Brooklyn, and I was already married. I can remember picking up Sol at his home (he wasn’t married as yet) and we went for a ride in my new car. I was a new driver and we were riding around the Prospect Park circle and I was scared stiff and, frankly, I was driving blind! Even in those days traffic was heavy. I could hear horns honking at me, and it’s a miracle that we made it back safely!

When Roz and I were married, we moved to the Jersey shore area of Asbury Park, and Sol and his wife Selma visited us often. He was a warm, good-natured person. His passing so early in his life shook me up.

was Mel Blum’s brother-in-law. I say “was,” because Murray was the brother of Mel’s ex-wife.

MJV: Bob Deschamps mentions your father’s bakery and that you would draw that bakery into the backgrounds of panels.

Bob also mentions my Bell’s Palsy. I came down with that because I was always sitting next to the window in the Timely office. Bob Landers was sitting near me and always bugged me to open the window. This was in the Empire State Building, and they didn’t have an updraft glass.

There were fans going in our room and I can remember when Vince Alascia went to move the fan as it was blowing on him, and accidentally cut his fingers on the blades. Landers always wanted the window open, and then the window broke and was never replaced. The constant wind injured my facial nerve behind my left ear. There was no air-conditioning then, and it was either the fans or the window. I recovered about 90% over the years.

BELLMAN: One time it was Martin Goodman’s birthday and I told my father to order up a cake to the office. Then I found out, or realized, that no one would deliver it. I had to take the subway back into Brooklyn to get it and bring it in myself! Bob also mentions Murray Postel. Murray

During the summer, we worked a half day because of the heat, so Syd Shores and I used to go to Ebbets Field to see the Brooklyn Dodgers play. Syd and I were very close. There was a camera store in the Empire State Building where we rented porno films, and after work Syd and a

Allen Bellman few others stayed, and when the others left we watched dirty movies.

Even Martin Goodman would sit in! This was not a frequent occurrence, mind you.

MJV: You mentioned Mickey Spillane, and we know Stan Lee also wrote, but are there any other writers you recall?

BELLMAN: I remember Ray Cummings, for one. I remember a story he wrote for Captain America that he took from one of his pulp stories.

The comics story was called “Princess of the Atom.”

MJV: Yes! A friend of mine, an excellent author in his own right and a fine comic book and pulp historian named Will Murray, has postulated the same connection.

BELLMAN: Ray was an elderly gentleman and he always had his daughter with him, who I think also wrote for Timely. He was always coming in and going into Stan Lee’s office for conferences and meetings.

I guess they were story conferences. Syd Shores was frequently in on those meetings.

Syd Shores was a good friend of mine and a great talent. On the westerns he drew the best horses of anyone on staff. It was a sad day when I attended his funeral in Morristown, New Jersey. Stan Lee and Martin Goodman attended, and if I remember correctly, they gave me a lift back to New York City so I could get the bus back to New Jersey. It was shortly after a bad auto accident where I had a leg cast on for close to a year. I decided not to drive to the funeral.

MJV: I think Syd is one of the most underrated artists in comics. His Captain America was superb.

BELLMAN: After Simon & Kirby left, many people drew Captain America. I think Fred Bell was one, perhaps Al Avison, also, although I never saw him. But Syd Shores was the main Captain America artist throughout the 1940s.

Vince Alascia was his primary inker, I’m certain. Vince was a very nervous type of guy and he inked in that manner, in very short strokes.

15

around after school from job to job. He then got this urge to become an opera singer and was tied in with the Metropolitan Opera. He also went to Italy to study opera singing for a while. He never stuck to anything. I encouraged him to write, and he landed work at Timely and was doing pretty good. I cannot for the life of me recall what exactly he wrote, but I can tell you he wrote for Timely in some capacity because I got him the job. He was about 6 years older than I was, born in 1918. I also remember Bill Finger at Timely.

MJV: Finger wrote for Timely in 1946 on all their major characters: Captain America, Sub-Mariner, and The Human Torch. He wrote “The All Winners Squad,” also. But he spent most of his career writing for National. He later wrote for television in the 1960s.

BELLMAN: There was also a husband-and-wife team writing for Timely... Bill and Dorothy, I believe.

MJV: That would be Bill and Dorothy Woolfolk. Bill just passed away last August. Dorothy was an editor at Timely when Vince Fago was chief, while Stan Lee was in the service. Bill met Dorothy there.

BELLMAN: If I remember correctly, Bill had a slight Bell’s Palsy like I did. He and Dorothy seemed to work as a team, and I never knew if they were freelancers or worked on staff. I remember there was one writer who sold his same script to many different comic book publishers, just changing the names of the characters—till he got caught!

I also remember doing a baseball story written by a woman who knew nothing about baseball. She had the manager taking a pitcher out of the game and then bringing the same pitcher back into the game. It got past Stan!

Don Rico wrote quite a bit, and later on Al Sulman, also. I can’t remember who else. Getting away from the comics division, I remember

MJV: Did the artists and writers have a lot of contact with each other in the office?

BELLMAN: No, except in certain circumstances like I mentioned where Ray and his daughter would confer on a story with Syd Shores.

I also know another writer you may not know about—my cousin, Leon Bellman.

He also wrote for Timely, but only for a short time. He floated

“First in war, first in peace...!” Two Captain America covers reputed by comics historians to have been drawn by Syd Shores are #18 (Sept. 1942), where the star-spangled sentinel battled the fanged Japanese hordes—and #59 (Nov. 1946), which symbolizes his return to civilian life after World War II. Over the next few years, however, the audience for Cap’s adventures dwindled, and his title was cancelled in 1949. [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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A Golden Age Reunion

Bessie Herman Little as the editor of Martin Goodman’s movie magazines.

The first job I did for her, I got stiffed as I had with Fox publications one time. I was warned about Fox not paying, so I went in with my eyes open.

MJV: Bessie Little, from what I’ve gathered, actually created the character of Patsy Walker for the second issue of Miss America, which was the first girl’smagazine type issue. The first issue was a comic book.

Mario Puzo [later author of The Godfather] also wrote for Goodman’s publications, not for the comic books. Mel told me they paid him $35 a story or page—I forget which. I also remember actress Ann Rutherford coming to the office to see Bessie, who was editor of Goodman’s movie magazines. When she left, I made believe I was going to the men’s room as I wanted to ride down in the elevator with her. We spoke a few words. She was Mickey Rooney’s girlfriend in the Andy Hardy movie series. She had also been in Gone with the Wind as one of Scarlett’s sisters.

BELLMAN: She also had an assistant, a young girl who walked with a limp. This young lady was president of the Eddie Fisher Fan Club and wanted Fisher to take her out. When he refused, she became angry at him and that was the end of her being president. That young lady grew up to become a famous movie commentator whose name escapes me. Rona something.

“The Public Was Sick of Heroes Fighting Nazi and Axis Villains”

MJV: Rona Barrett?

BELLMAN: Yes! That’s her. This info came to me from Mel Blum. One day she came in and asked me if I wanted to join her, as she was going to interview a new movie starlet. I couldn’t go, but the name of the actress was Shirley Shrift, who changed her name to Shelly Winters. Later on, Bessie was publishing comic books with a cartoonist from the defunct New York Daily Mirror.

Lev Gleason’s Crime Does Not Pay, edited by Charles Biro and Bob Wood, sold increasingly well during the WWII years, then exploded in popularity after the war. Biro drew this cover for #44 (March 1946). Thanks to Jim Amash. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

MJV: Anything or anyone else stand out about your Timely days?

BELLMAN: Outside of people I worked with, I remember someone on staff or a freelancer coming into our office saying that someone told him that we had a secret weapon that would end the war. Sure enough, a short time later the atom bomb was dropped on Japan.

I remember seeing a shoe falling down (I sat next to the window) of a man who committed suicide at the Empire State Building and him landing on top of a parked car belonging to a diplomat. The roof of the car was crushed in.

I remember when the plane hit the Empire State Building on a Saturday when we were off.

“As soon as the war was over, so was ‘The Patriot’!” Bellman pages from Marvel Mystery Comics #62 (March 1945)—and from Official True Crime Cases #24 (Fall 1947), which was actually the first issue. Note the “Crime Can’t Win” header, imitative of the big “Crime Does Not Pay” atop each page of the Gleason/Biro mag. In 1947 westerns were still the rage, so the latter tale combined crime and cowboys. How could it miss? Thanks to Doc V. [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Any day could be an adventure. You never knew what movie star would visit the office because of Martin Goodman’s movie magazines. Goodman also produced a Broadway play that bombed after one performance. Once there was a cocktail party at the Ritz Carlton hotel. I met child star Jane Withers, the late Carol Landis, and others.

Allen Bellman

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Lionel” in Krazy Krow #1 (1945). He signed it in tiny letters, “Spect.” I spoke to his son once, and he had no idea his dad was at Timely at this time; he told me it must have been the first job his dad took when he got out of the service.

BELLMAN: Well, a lot of things get left out of comics history. That’s why these interviews in Alter Ego are so important. We’re all very old and many of us are gone or will be going soon. Not to be morbid, but I’ve been waiting 50 years to tell my story. I didn’t even know there were magazines that were interested in this stuff. It’s very gratifying to be remembered for what we did so long ago. I want to make my story as accurate as possible.

I ended up doing some freelance work for Irv Spector at Lev Gleason, but then they let their staff go, also. Sometimes I wondered if there ever was really a “Lev Gleason,” because in all the time I was there I never met him! Bob Wood, Charlie Biro, Martin Goodman, I knew them all.

Did Lev Gleason exist?

MJV: Yes. He was the publisher and put the crime line together with Biro and Bob Wood. I think he even offered them a percentage as incentive.

BELLMAN: I worked on staff there drawing for books like Crime Does Not Pay, and he never was in the office.

The popularity of crime comics in the late 1940s led to the publication of stockpiled one- and two-pagers written and drawn by Allen 2-3 years earlier, such as this one from True Complete Mystery #6 (June 1949).

Many Timely crime comics had names reminiscent of the old crime pulp mags. Note that the perp in this one is named “Burgos”! Thanks to Doc V. [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

MJV: Let’s change direction again. What about Artie Simek?

BELLMAN: I remember the very day Artie Simek came to work for Timely, in the early to mid-1940s. He gave the impression that he just came off the farm. A real hayseed. He was tall and lanky and really didn’t say very much. This was his very first day, and come lunchtime some of the staff took out a deck of cards so they could play as they munched on their lunch. Not Artie, he pulls out a harmonica and starts to play. I don’t remember the tune, but it took us all by surprise. He played it quite well. Artie was a good soul. He never bothered anyone and did his work well. I’m sorry to hear that he, too, has passed on. His wife’s name, I believe, was Emily, who passed on before him, if my memory serves me correctly.

MJV: Do you recall Irv Spector at Timely? He didn’t do that much there, just a handful of features and spot illustrations for the Miss America title for teen girls BELLMAN: Oh, yes. Irv Spector worked for Timely and then went over to Lev Gleason. I did work for Gleason when the Timely staff was disbanded, and then I joined the Lev Gleason staff. Spector became the editor and later went on to Hollywood. I saw his name on a Bugs Bunny cartoon once.

MJV: He made a mark in animated cartoons. The only feature I ever saw him on at Timely was a funny-animal feature called “Little

Doc V. tells us that, judging by the story number (“7750”) in the bottom right corner of the splash, this horror entry is probably the first story Allen drew for Timely as a freelancer, after the bullpen staff was let go.

It’s from Adventures into Terror #44 (Feb. 1951), which was actually only that title’s second issue. [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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A Golden Age Reunion

MJV: In 1947 Timely began to branch out. With the decline of super-hero sales after the war, the first new type of books besides humor comics that they produced were crime comics, copied from Lev Gleason’s crime books that had been on the stands since 1942. Martin Goodman finally caught on by the start of 1947, and they put out Justice Comics and Official True Crime Cases.

What do you recall about this change by Timely?

MJV: Many of the artists drew both types of books. Dave Gantz drew teen and hero books.

BELLMAN: I remember that during the war I was drawing “The Patriot.” As soon as the war was over, so was “The Patriot”! So I knew that super-hero features were stalling. Martin Goodman was no fool. He had a huge publishing empire outside of the comic books.

He was always studying sales figures in his office. The Lev Gleason crime books were very popular, and I’m surprised it took as long as it did for him to try something new. The Lev Gleason books had those Charlie Biro covers! They were great!

BELLMAN: That was Mike!

MJV: Why do you think the super-hero titles waned after the war?

BELLMAN: And Mike Sekowsky. He drew both and drew them well. He was the best artist Timely had, bar none. He drew everything and drew it fast.

His pencils were loose, flowing, and exciting.

MJV: Yes, Sekowsky was equally at home drawing The Human Torch or Georgie!

“Allen Bellman, Come into My Office!”

MJV: What do you recall about the disbanding of the Timely Bullpen? There have been conflicting stories about that.

BELLMAN: Here’s a story about that. They put up a speaker outside of both rooms that housed the artists, about 1949 or so. We called it the “bitch box.”

Every so often you’d hear Stan yell, “So-and-So, come into my office!,” and you’d know that “So-and-So” was being fired. It was the voice of doom. I was a bit of a wiseguy and I used to say out loud, “I’ve seen them come, I’ve seen them go.” I said it over and over with each person called in, because for some reason I felt very secure. Then one day I heard “Allen Bellman, come into my office!”

BELLMAN: I’m sure the public In this Bellman-drawn tale from Mystic #2 (May 1951), a convicted murderer is was sick of heroes fighting Nazi contacted “across the void of space” and offered the opportunity for his mind to inhabit the body of a Venusian named Varga, while Varga takes over his and Axis villains. While the war body on Earth. He accepts, figuring at least on Venus he’ll be free, only to find was on, it was good propaganda. himself in a Venusian cell after the switch. Turns out Varga, too, was a When the true horror of the Nazi murderer! Each will die for his crime—but on the wrong planet! A bit of regime was exposed to the world, it existential philosophy—a hint of H.P. Lovecraft’s classic novella The Shadow likely made super-heroes seem silly Out of Time—and an alien who foreshadows DC’s “John Jones—Manhunter from in comparison. Perhaps the public Mars” of a few years later. Clever, these comic book people! Thanks to Doc V. wanted more realism, and the [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.] crime books attempted to give MJV: What exactly did Stan say? them this realism. Also, at this time crime films were in vogue, and Hollywood’s biggest stars—Cagney, BELLMAN: I don’t remember. I blanked it out. The details are all Bogart, Eddie G. Robinson—were headlining gangster films. It’s normal blurry now. I knew they were disbanding the staff slowly. I’d guess this for comic books to follow that trend. It seemed a natural progression. was late 1949. They were cutting the fat. They took inventory and saw Some of them were very violent. they had a lot of work stored. Goodman, Robbie Solomon, Stan Lee: they were all involved in that.

MJV: Martin Goodman had also been publishing three true-crime type magazines for almost a decade: Amazing Detective Cases, Anyhow, as I passed the “bitch box” outside Stan’s office on my way National Detective Cases, and Complete Detective Cases. out, I heard someone say, “I’ve seen them come, I’ve seen them go.” [laughs] I can laugh about it now, but I wasn’t laughing then. I was fired What about sales across the board at this time? It’s long been about midway through the entire staff firing. known that some of the biggest sellers were the teen girl-type comics.

Miss America allegedly sold in the millions. Did they outsell the hero MJV: Martin Goodman probably took inventory, found a large titles? surplus—whether it was a closet full of inventoried artwork or not, as in the famous legend—and instructed Stan Lee, his ax-man, to fire BELLMAN: During the war I think the hero books were tops, but right the staff. Stan, being close to you guys, probably slowly disbanded the after, I’d bet the girl books overtook them. The artists on them took the staff one at a time over a longer period. So you went over to Lev books very seriously because they were such big sellers. There were so Gleason and joined their staff for a while, until they disbanded. Was many of them. Miss America was a copy of Seventeen magazine. the Lev Gleason staff different in make-up from the Timely staff?

Timely wanted to tap into that audience. But by the end of the decade the crime books may have overtaken both. I never saw actual figures. I BELLMAN: It was smaller. There were just a few artists on their staff, have no idea what the numbers were. and it was nice working there. Bob Wood never really bothered anyone,

Allen Bellman

The evolution of a science-fiction title. [Top row:] George Tuska drew “Capt. Jet Dixon” in Space Squadron #1 (June 1951)... Werner Roth took over by #4 (Dec. ’51)... with #5 (Feb. ’52) the cover, by an unidentified artist, reflecting the growing popularity of the horror mags. [Middle row:] Allen Bellman handled the interior art for all three “Jet Dixon” stories in #5. [Bottom row:] By #6 (April ’52) even the comic’s title had changed, along with the definitely Earth-bound cover, and Jet and the boys fought a huge one-eyed monster. There was no #7. In 2000 Allen did the accompanying new and previously-unpublished (color) illo. Thanks to Allen & Doc V. [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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A Golden Age Reunion

and Charlie Biro was in and out of the office—“out,” mostly. I remember I and the staff, along with our wives, being invited to Wood’s penthouse for a Christmas party.

I also did some work for Will Eisner in his office. When Timely’s staff ended, I found myself knocking on his office door. He gave me a script to do with the understanding I would do it in his office, which I did. He stood over me and wanted me to draw in his style. That was like telling someone to change their style of writing to fit your style of writing, or making a left-handed person write with his right hand. I did learn a lot from him.

MJV: Shortly, you were back freelancing for Stan Lee in early 1951.

BELLMAN: Yes. Stan fired us, but Timely still needed new work. The funny thing is that almost everyone that was fired was back freelancing, almost without a break! When Lev Gleason disbanded the staff, I was back at Timely and Stan Lee was feeding me scripts again.

The only difference was, now I could work at home. One day a neighbor knocked on my door saying he wanted me to loan him one of my pages, as the other neighbors couldn’t understand why I was home all the time.

MJV: You were freelancing horror stories, westerns, and crime stories. In 1951 Stan tries to do a continuing-character feature outside of the girl, super-hero, or western books and puts out a new sci-fi series done up in a Buck Rogers fashion. This book is called Space Squadron and features “Captain Jet Dixon of the Space Squadron.” George Tuska was the first artist on that feature, then Werner Roth... with you following them. Why did those guys only draw an issue or two and leave?

Was there a stated policy on signatures?

BELLMAN: Not that I ever heard. We just did what the others were doing. It was hearsay. I was always made to feel that Timely didn’t want you to sign your work while you were on staff. I also remember being told that they didn’t want other publishers grabbing you. If you notice, I always signed my freelance work very small. I think Chris and George were just used to never signing their work.

MJV: I can only think of a tiny handful of times I’ve seen Chris Rule’s signature, and I’ve only seen George Klein’s name on a handful of Timely features in 1942. The pattern seems to be that they signed very early on, 1939-43; then most signatures vanished through the 1940s, making art identification a real difficult endeavor, not to really return until after the freelancers started in 1950-51.

Guys like Bill Everett and Carl Burgos seemed to sneak signatures in, and of course Stan Lee signed everything he wrote.

BELLMAN: He was the boss. He could do anything he wanted!

“It Was Not a Good Time for Me Personally” MJV: I’m going to throw more obscure Timely names at you. Stan Drake, later the artist of the newspaper strip The Heart of Juliet Jones.

BELLMAN: A great artist. I have no recollection of him, but from what I understand he worked for Timely in some capacity early on.

MJV: He did a few early features and then did a lot of early pulp illustrations. What about Bill Walton?

BELLMAN: I knew Bill Walton well. He also worked with me at Lev Gleason. A short Irish fellow.

BELLMAN: It was just another assignment to them. Whoever Allen considers this story from Justice #29 (Sept. 1952) one of his best.

MJV: What about Harvey walked in would get it, unless you [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Kurtzman? were doing something really special.

Sometimes you would just find work BELLMAN: Kurtzman freelanced for a short while, but I didn’t know someplace else and take whatever is offered. Freelancers live a desperate him. He went over to EC. I have a story to tell you about Al Feldstein. kind of life.

One time, I forget the exact year, I was finishing up one of Stan Lee’s MJV: By issue #5 you become the Space Squadron artist. You drew freelance jobs when I received a call from Al Feldstein. I had stopped up three stories in #5, cover-dated February 1952. Then with #6 the title there [at EC] in the past, leaving samples with the secretary. They had changed to Space Worlds and you drew three more stories. There taken down my number, but I hadn’t met Feldstein. Now he wanted me were also sci-fi type fillers by guys like Joe Maneely, Chris Rule, and to come down and pick up a script immediately. Whether I should have George Klein. Any recollections about how you got that feature? dropped everything or not I don’t know, but I told him I had to finish this job first for Stan, as there was a strict deadline. I told him I could BELLMAN: Basically, I just went in for a script and that was the next pick it up tomorrow, as I was dropping off the story with Stan. He one! But I thought I drew more than two issues. It may have seemed like finally relented, saying I could finish what I was doing, and I went down more because at that time I lived in East Meadow, Long Island, and there the next day. It was too late. He had given it to someone else. I’ll shared a studio with Syd Shores in Hempstead. We split the rent. always regret not jumping at that chance.

MJV: There was a back-up feature called “Blast Revere” that George MJV: EC had a small but extremely talented staff. Al must have liked Klein drew. Chris Rule also drew a feature called “Famous Explorers what he saw. of Space.” You signed most of these stories, but Klein and Rule didn’t.

Allen Bellman BELLMAN: I like to think he did, but in retrospect, I wasn’t as accomplished as they were.

MJV: Joe Giella was on the Timely staff, wasn’t he?

BELLMAN: He was an inker who was very quiet, as I remember him. I think he later did Mary Worth in the newspapers.

MJV: Among other strips, as well as a long career for National. I have another obscure name from Timely’s past—Frank Torpey.

BELLMAN: I remember Frank very well. He was always moving very fast, like The Flash. He ran in and out of Martin Goodman’s office, conducting his business. I never knew exactly what his business was.

Where he came from and where he was going was a mystery to me. I once thought he was a messenger person!

MJV: Frank Torpey was the man who convinced Goodman to start publishing comic books in 1939. He was the Funnies, Inc., sales agent for Lloyd Jacquet. If you remember him, it must have been early in your Timely tenure while Goodman was still buying Funnies, Inc., features. He was doing so concurrent to the operation of the bullpen staff for a while, so maybe it’s not so strange that you remember him.

You seemed to vanish from comic books in 1953–’54. Although you missed the formation of the Comics Code, did you hear about Dr.

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Wertham and the Senate hearings on the ills of comics?

BELLMAN: I did hear that there was a group of crusaders trying to destroy the comic book industry. This was in the newspapers and in the news on radio. I never thought they would succeed. I never paid too close attention once I was out of the business.

MJV: They did succeed in driving out many publishers. How did your retirement from comic books come about?

BELLMAN: By that time, I was divorced. When comics started to slow down in the mid-1950s, I got a job with Pyramid books on Madison Avenue. There, I learned layout and drew a lot of cartoons for them. But before that, I couldn’t seem to get any more comics freelance work.

MJV: That surprises me, because while comic books were under fire and many publishers were going under as the Comics Code came down in 1955, Goodman actually expanded his line. He continued to publish a ton of books, and continued to buy a vast amount of freelance work. There certainly should have been enough freelance work for you.

BELLMAN: Well, I had a lot of things going on in my life, and it was not a good time for me personally. Maybe that was the reason. It’s been so long now. I went through a very bitter divorce and my mind was probably not focused. I was just floating around, going from job to job.

Crime comics came in many forms in the early 1950s at Timely/Atlas, as witness Allen Bellman splashes from [clockwise:] Western Outlaws and Sheriffs #71 & #72 (Feb. & April 1952)—a text illo from Justice Comics #22 (July ’51, lifted from a comics story in Crime Cases #5, only two months earlier)—Suspense #17 (April ’52)— Spy Fighters #1 (March ’51)—and even, God help us, in Girl Comics #7 (March ’51)! Thanks to Doc V. [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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A Golden Age Reunion

Allen drew war comics in various phases for Timely. [Left to right:] pre-WWII in Justice #34 (Feb. 1953, which may well be his last freelance job for Timely/Atlas)—a post-WWII tale in War Comics #4 (June ’52)—Korean War action in Men’s Adventures #16 (Oct. ’52, one of his favorites). Thanks to Doc V. [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

There was a publisher on 14th Street, a real schlock operation. I worked there for a while, but then I got that job with Pyramid Books. They published paperbacks. They also had a men’s magazine, and I learned and did magazine layout, as well as cartoons, for them. I also drew the cover and many interior illustrations for a paperback called Impossible Greeting Cards. That was 1956 or ’57, but I don’t have a copy of it. My wife has never seen it, either.

[NOTE: Allen had not seen a copy of this book in 45 years. Happily, I was able to locate one and send it to him after this interview was given. —MJV.] MJV: What was the name of the men’s magazine?

BELLMAN: I think it was Man’s Magazine, or something similar. I remember they had an article on Rocky Marciano in one issue. I was newly divorced and went up to Grossinger’s—a country club. Rocky Marciano was there and I told him I worked for the magazine that just did a story on him. His manager was there, and told me in no uncertain terms how unhappy he was with the piece. What could I say? Then, a few months later, I was walking to work and was in front of St Patrick’s Cathedral on 5th Avenue, and I see Rocky Marciano walking right towards me on the street. He was carrying a small gym bag with him.

He recognized me and stops to talk for about 20 minutes. I ended up late for work, but who cared! I’ll never forget that. He was a kind, softspoken person. I remember I had one of the first televisions in my neighborhood in Brooklyn and I saw Marciano knock out Joe Louis at

Whether at the writers’ instruction or because he just liked ’em, Allen did several stories depicting hooded skeletons for Timely’s horror comics, as in (left to right) Mystic #3 (July 1951), Suspense #14 (Feb. ’52), and— believe it or don’t—Sports Action #10 (Jan. ’52)! Thanks to Doc V. [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Allen Bellman

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keeping me busy with freelance work, and this was keeping me alive. I was living with a woman who tore up my finished freelance work when we got into an argument. If I had had a wife like Roz at the time, it would have been a completely different story.

That period of my life was shattering emotionally for me. I was floating around in a fog and missed many artistic opportunities to move up. I went from being a hot-shot comic book artist with a wife and two children, and then it was gone. Maybe if I was married to the right woman at the time, I would have stayed in comics or at least in the art field. If only I had met Roz at the time of my first marriage. No, but that wouldn’t have worked, as I was 20 at the time and Roz was only ten! [laughs]

“A New Fulfillment” MJV: One of my favorite Atlas horror stories that you drew was called “Vampire Brats.”

Allen’s covers for a 1957 Pyramid paperback. He did the interior illos, too. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

the end of Louis’ career. Everyone was always over at my place to watch television. I had no control over my own apartment! [laughs].

BELLMAN: That was the story where I put my daughter Judy, who was three years old at the time and had cute pigtails, into the last panel.

She was the “vampire brat”! Years later, she was married to her first husband—now deceased—and she called me up excitedly to tell me her husband had found a copy of the issue containing that story. He then put it into a trunk with a ton of other comic books and could never locate it again. At that time I had no copies of any of my comic book work and was dying to find some to show my wife Roz and my children, who had never seen it. It was very discouraging. But then you tracked me down and sent me hundreds of pages. I cannot ever thank you enough.

But, getting back to comics, one time I also went over to the Associated Press and they liked my work. I was a copyboy there as a kid. You may ask what a copyboy is. There is no such thing anymore, but we watched the ticker tape machines which spit out the news, and it was our job to distribute the tear sheets among the writers or reporters. I worked in the RCA Building from 12 midnight to 8 or 9 in the morning at the tender age of 17. In our break or suppertime hour, the other copyboys and I would sneak out onto one of the roofs to join the reporters from the Tass news agency In the story “Vampire Brat” (Adventures into Terror #4, June 1951), Allen drew his or Reuters news agency, who were own daughter Judy, age 3, in the final panels (below). The “baby vampires” in the into the “going-ons” in the residential above sequence dwelled in a building at “28 Bleeker [sic] Street.” Wonder if that’s building across the street! anywhere near 177A Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, NYC, the 1965-66 apartment

MJV: Allen, the pleasure is all mine.

I’m just grateful to be able to give something back to you.

BELLMAN: Well, I always tried my best.

What troubled me for so long was the fact that my wife Roz and her two children that I adopted had never seen my work.

I used to go to comic of Roy Thomas, Gary Friedrich, and Bill Everett, which Wild Bill immortalized as the Anyhow, the A.P. was looking for book stores and flea address of Dr. Strange’s mansion!? [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.] an artist to take over the comic strip markets, and one time there was a convention in a town Scorchy Smith, and sent me over to a Mr. nearby, but no one could help me, Wing—a bald-headed guy. I’ll never forget and to make matters worse, no one him. I had my portfolio. He liked my work a had even heard of me. It made me great deal and wanted me to do a week’s worth almost feel that I never really was of sample strips. Six dailies without a Sunday. I a comic book artist. You’ve given was very happy, but had no one to share it that all back to me and especially with. I did a single daily and I couldn’t go on. to Roz. It’s given my life and my Doom and gloom had set in. Every comic later years a new fulfillment. book artist dreamed of doing a syndicated newspaper strip. That was the ultimate. I was MJV: Roz is a real sweetheart. still living with my ex-wife, and I became When you came up north last afraid that I couldn’t do it. My home life was year and we went out to dinner, terrible in my first marriage, and I was afraid she was the loveliest and most to take on the responsibility. My mind was not gracious host I could imagine. free of stress, and one had to have a free mind She spent more time doting over to write and illustrate a daily strip. If you sign my children than she did over a contract, you have to deliver, and I lost my you! confidence and gave it up. Stan Lee was

24

A Golden Age Reunion MJV: I want to talk about Sam Burlockoff a bit.

How far back did you guys go?

BELLMAN: Sam and I went to junior high school together in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.

That’s where I bought that first issue of Action Comics in a candy store near the school on my lunch hour. Sam always told me that I was the one who got him into the comic book business.

Sam and I were great friends. When I went over to his mother’s house, I ate kielbasa. When he came to my house, he ate my mother’s pickled lox. We were very close. One time Milton Caniff was going to Roz and Allen Bellman—and Allen with a Stan named Lee make an appearance on radio on WOR. There was no at a convention in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1992. television then, only radio. The name of the program Courtesy of the Bellmans. was The Benay Venuta Show. We didn’t have tickets and went pretending we had them. The studio was on BELLMAN: That’s my Roz! 42nd street in the New Amsterdam Building. We were last on line to get in, and when we reached the ticket taker, we started an Abbott and MJV: Were you aware that Goodman almost went under in 1957 Costello routine of each of us thinking the other had the tickets. Finally when his distributor collapsed? [Or] that Stan Lee later had a huge the ticket taker says, “Ah, just go in!” [laughs] We wanted to see Caniff success with Jack Kirby when they revived super-heroes in the early so badly. We’d do anything to get in. He was our hero.

1960s?

BELLMAN: No. I was so wrapped up in my own problems that nothing else mattered except my will to survive. I was wrapped up in my own problems, and not aware of what was going on in a business I had left years before. I wanted to settle down again, and my focus and attention was on that.

MJV: Have you kept in touch with Stan Lee over the years?

BELLMAN: Yes. When people learn that I worked for Stan, they ask me if I could get his autograph for their kids. “Kids,” my eye! I think they wanted it! Stan never let me down. I remember when this friend asked me to get Stan’s autograph for his four kids. I told him he was asking too much and that I couldn’t impose on Stan. Stan never just sent his John Hancock. He always included a small gift along with it, like a Spider-Man book or hat along with his signature written on the visor of the cap. It always included a hand-written note to me along with it. So when he sent me the four autographs and the goodies that went with it, he wrote back, “I’m glad your friend doesn’t have 12 kids!” Stan is a “mensch,” a Yiddish term for a good person.

“I Never Knew What Happened to Sam” [NOTE: The following part of the interview was conducted after Allen learned that his friend Sam Burlockoff was indeed still living, and had been interviewed independently by Jim Amash for this very same issue. —MJV.]

MJV: When you started at Timely, Sam didn’t go with you?

BELLMAN: No, by that time we had drifted apart, as people do after school ends. I was single, and saw that ad in the New York Times that Timely was looking for a background artist. I don’t know what I would have ended up doing for a living if my father hadn’t pushed me. I still don’t know what Don Rico saw in me. I had no experience at all. I started out as crudely as you can imagine, but I learned fast on the job, though I was never in the same league as guys like Mike Sekowsky and Syd Shores.

I never knew what Allen at a newspaper comic strip program happened to Sam. Many years sponsored by the Florida Sun Sentinel a few years back. Courtesy of Allen Bellman. ago, my ex-mother-in-law told me a friend of mine from the neighborhood passed away. I was sitting alone at the airport waiting to pick up my children. My ex-wife had remarried and her husband was there. My ex-wife’s mother said it was my friend with the bushy eyebrows, which Sam had.

MJV: So you just assumed it was Sammy.

BELLMAN: Yes, and I’ve thought him passed away for 45 years. I had tried to find him over the years to no avail, so I assumed it was him she was talking about.

MJV: A few years ago you mentioned him to me when you told me the Famous Funnies story, and I sent you photocopies of Timely stories he did in 1953 and 1954, just after you left comics.

Another photo from the Bellman/Burlockoff reunion of 2003.

Thanks to Allen Bellman.

BELLMAN: I had no idea that he had later worked for Stan Lee as a freelancer, and was thrilled to see those copies.

Allen Bellman

25 thought I remembered Mort Walker’s name in the contest as a winner. I can’t remember what I had for lunch today, but in the back of my mind his name stuck with me. So I asked Mort if he remembered that magazine, and his eyes lit up as he opened his book to a page where he referred to that magazine and his cartoons that won! I, too, entered the magazine’s contests. But how his name stuck in my mind all these years is unknown. I never connected the name to Beetle Bailey!

Allen with his camera—and his photo (a “scene of driftwood and dark sand... shot in September in Hawaii”) which took the Best of Show award at the Coral Springs Camera Club’s 1998 competition.

He’s also the editor of his Camera Club newsletter, The SHUTTERbug. Courtesy of Allen Bellman.

MJV: Then last year Jim Amash asked me if I had ever heard of an artist named Sam Burlockoff, because he was interviewing him for Alter Ego, and I froze. I told Jim he was a childhood friend of Allen Bellman, and that you thought him long deceased.

BELLMAN: Michael, when you called me and told me to sit down, I thought you had bad news.

MJV: I knew you would, but I had to heighten the expense!

BELLMAN: Then you told me he was alive and well, and gave me his phone number, and tears came to my eyes. First you gave me back my old comic book legacy, and then you give me back my old friend.

Another name from the past is Al Lewis, who played Grandpa Munster on TV. I could swear he was a childhood friend of mine from Brooklyn. I knew him as Albert Lewis with a brother named Henry and a single mother.

MJV: Have your artistic talents been passed on to anyone else in your family?

BELLMAN: Very much so! Jeaneen and Doreen Barnhardt, my twin granddaughters, have made a name for themselves in the art world, especially in Louisville, Kentucky.

They did two posters for the Kentucky Derby, and one for the PGA. In their younger days, they always came out on top in whatever they did.

Both won art scholarships to Alfred University in Upstate New York with art in their hearts. Doreen is a top artist at an art agency in Louisville, while Jeanen has a studio. Her pictures sell, and she is represented by agents here and abroad. The girls at times work together on projects, and they recently donated a painting for a charity cause which brought in a bid of $19,000. Marvin Hamlisch—Barbara Streisand’s musical arranger—purchased one of Jeaneen’s paintings when it was on exhibit in the Hamptons in New York.

Doreen loves the path she has taken working for an art agency, while Jeaneen loves the freedom of doing what she wants to do. Doreen designed a t-shirt for the Kentucky Derby Museum store, which won BELLMAN: I do, dearly. And Sam lives right down here in Florida. We her an award from the commercial art industry. Doreen has a young son drove out a few months ago, and had a just wonderful time together. He named Dane, who already made his debut as a model. I can remember didn’t look like the Sammy I remember, but he sure sounded like him! when Roz and I went to Louisville to attend the unveiling of their Sam told me that our old schoolmate, Mike Roy, worked with him in second Kentucky Derby poster in a fashionable hotel. The place was Washington, D.C.—drawing propaganda comic books which were buzzing with reporters and TV people interviewing the girls. Fox News, printed in Russian and Japanese, and working under Edward R. Murrow.

NBC, CBS, and many other news media people were waiting for their Sam said Roy called him from Washington, saying there was an opening turn. Afterwards, for an artist. Sam agreed to move his family lock, stock, we went into the and barrel to the nation’s capital for that job. main ballroom where laser lights were glowing in the dark, food was being served, and the first posters MJV: Anything we’ve forgotten to talk about? were being auctioned off. Then BELLMAN: We’ve covered so much. I don’t think I the people who mentioned that I was a member of the National purchased the Cartoonists Society. I was sponsored by Henry posters lined up for Boltinoff, a gag cartoonist, and Al Smith, who did the girls to Mutt and Jeff. The acceptance letter was signed by Dik autograph them.

Browne [creator of Hagar the Horrible].

Wow! Were we proud! Later in the I’ll relate another story. A while back, Roz and I evening, with the were invited to a cocktail party at the Cartoon Museum party over, people in Mizner Park here in Florida and saw Mort Walker. were starting to He had written a book about his life, and it was just leave and we out. Now let’s back up a good many years, and I mean Allen’s twin granddaughters Doreen and Jeaneen Barnhart were the schmoozed around, a “good many.” I was 11 or 12 years of age, and one of official 1997 Kentucky Derby Festival Poster Artists; this photo, with speaking to the girls Jeaneen wearing the poster image, graced its catalog, which stated: my favorite magazines was The Open Road for Boys, “After Jeaneen created the original artwork, Doreen helped co-create the and the rest of the as they always had a cartoon contest. Somehow I poster and active wear imagery.” Courtesy of their proud grandfather. family who MJV: You can thank Jim Amash, Roy Thomas, and Alter Ego, Allen.

“I Did My Best at All Times and Respected the Job I Had”

26

A Golden Age Reunion

attended, and shortly after we went to our room, we saw the results of the interviews on television. It was very exciting for us all.

MJV: Allen, how do you want to be remembered by students of Timely history and comic book history in general?

BELLMAN: That I did my best at all times, and respected the job I had. Some fellows hated the work they did, hoping eventually they could leave it. I always hoped to move up in the art world, but enjoyed every minute of my time at Timely. I thought we were doing important work for the readers of the books.

It’s funny. I’m getting a lot of recognition now in my old age. I recently did a program down here on cartooning and had a packed house. A woman brought her 11-year-old son, who wanted to be a cartoonist, and another of about 17 wanted to be a comic book artist.

They asked me for advice, and all I could say was to learn to draw well first and not copy the comic book characters. I told them to copy from photographs, learn anatomy, and how to draw a body, a face, and clothes, as well as animals. They both thanked me and even asked for my autograph. Imagine that! For the first time in 50 years I actually felt like a celebrity!

After the publishing business, I became a successful businessman, and after 18 years we moved down here to Florida, where I joined the art department of a major daily newspaper, the Sun Sentinel. After that, I went into photography. I won many nationwide photography contests, winning out over 20,000 entries or more. That has now become an outlet for my creativity. I create with my camera. My photos appear in hardcover books, have been on exhibit in museums down here, and have received great reviews in the newspapers here. I was described in a recent story in the Miami Herald as an artist who now paints with his camera.

I was waiting in a doctor’s office recently and met someone there, starting a conversation. The fellow tells me in a joking fashion, “We’re supposed to be dead by now.” I told him, “No, I’ve just started to live!”

This was because of the recognition I’ve received about my comic book career recently, and my photography awards. It’s been a nice cap to my life.

Interviewer Michael J. Vassallo and Allen Bellman, in a photo taken in 2000—and a 2003 sketch by Allen which he sent Doc just before this issue went to press. [Art ©2004 Allen Bellman.]

AN ALLEN BELLMAN CHECKLIST [NOTE: Thanks to Jerry G. Bails, A/E founder and editor emeritus, for providing information from the online Who’s Who of 20th-Century American Comic Books at www.nostromo.no/whoswho/. The following is an abridged version of the Who’s Who listing. Key: (a) = full art. (p) = pencils only. (i) = inks only. (w) writer. Italicized titles are the names of comics; non-italicized names are features, which may have appeared in more than one title, such as “Human Torch.”]

Full Name: Allen Bellman—artist, writer.

Pen Names: Al Bellman, also A.B. U.S. MAINSTREAM COMIC BOOKS: Shop Work: Biro-Wood (?) 1952 Charlton Comics (&/or precursors): Lawbreakers Suspense Stories (a) 1953; horror (a) 1953 Lev Gleason (&/or precursors): crime (a) 1950-51; fillers (a) 195455; romance (1950-53 Marvel/Timely (& related lines): Adventures into Terror (a) 1951; Apache Kid (a) 1951-52; Are You a Detective? (filler; w/a) 1959-51; Battle (a) 1951; Crime Can’t Win (a) 1951; Crime Cases (a) 1951-52;

Crime Exposed (a) 1951; Crime Must Lose (a) 1952; The Destroyer (a) c. 1944-45; Girl Comics (a) 1951; Human Torch (a) 1943; Human Torch & Sub-Mariner (i) 1943; Jap-Buster Johnson (a) c. 1944; Journey into Unknown Worlds (a) 1952; Justice Comics (a) 1951-53; Kid Colt Outlaw (a) 1952; Let’s Play Detective (filler, w/a) 1943-49; Love Romances (filler, How I Won the Man I Love, w/a) 1951; Man Comics (a) 1951; Marvel Tales (a) 1952; Men’s Adventures (a) 1952; Mystery Tales (a) 1952; Mystic (a) 1951; Oddities in Crime (filler, w/a) 1949; The Patriot (a) 1944-46; Private Eye (fillers, w/a) 1951; Rangeland Love (w/a) 1949; Red Warrior (a) 1951; Ringo Kid (a) 1954; Space Squadron/Space World (1951-52); Sports Action (a) 1952; Spy Cases (a) 1951-52; Spy Fighters (a) 1951-52; Suspense (a) 1952; Two-Gun Western (a) 1951; Venus (misc. backups, a) 1951; War Adventures (a) 1952; War Comics (a) 1951; Western Outlaws and Sheriffs (a) 195152; Western Thrillers (a) 1955 [from inventory 1951]

Sam Burlockoff

27

II. The SAM BURLOCKOFF Interview [JIM AMASH’S INTRODUCTION: Sam Burlockoff is another in the long line of artists who toiled in the burgeoning comic book industry of the 1940s, then jumped into the swirl of the uncertain 1950s. Sam had the distinction of working with some of the greats in comics, many of whom he recalls with fondness and accuracy. Sam left the comic book field to do important work for the United States government, where his acquaintance with one of the most important men in the history of broadcast news makes for an interesting tale. While he drew many comic book stories, it may be that Sam’s slick inks over giants such as Reed Crandall and Jack Cole will be what most A/E readers remember best. Now, thanks to Sam, you’ll get to learn and remember just a bit more about him. —Jim.] JIM AMASH: Where and when were you born? And what made you gravitate towards art?

SAM BURLOCKOFF: October 12, 1924, in Russeltown, Pennsylvania.

It was a coal-mining town near Pittsburgh. My family moved to New York when I was a year or so old, so I basically grew up in New York.

Nobody in my family had any art background or seemed to have that talent, so it just came out. I went to the School of Industrial Arts, which is now the School of Art and Design. I was one of the early pioneers,

A recent photo of Sam Burlockoff, and the splash page of a story he penciled and inked for DC’s All-American Men of War #11 (June-July 1953)—if we read the scan correctly. Thanks to Mark Muller for the DC page. [Art ©2004 DC Comics.]

because we all sat on orange crates. It was an old school on 43rd Street, right around from where the New York Times’ trucks came and unloaded paper. That building was over a hundred years old. It still had slits in the walls where the rifles came out to fight the Indians or something. Frank Giacoia, Joe Giella, Allen Bellman, Carmine Infantino, Tony Bennett, the singer, Rudy Lapick, and cartoonist Rudy Johnson also went to the school. I also went to Pratt Institute.

Later, when I lived on Long Island, I found out to my amazement that Frank Giacoia lived about a block away from me. We renewed our friendship and he was really something. We remained friends until he passed away. I helped Frank on the Johnny Reb and Sherlock Holmes newspaper strips. Because we lived so close together, I was there when he needed help.

JA: Giacoia had a reputation for being slow. Was he?

BURLOCKOFF: We often talked about that. There are two schools of thought: either you’re doing it to make a living or you’re doing it as a hobby. In those days, you weren’t paid that much to begin with, so it was a lot easier to ink, because you could do three times as much work as a penciler could.

That’s why a lot of people gravitated towards inking. It was a choice of economics.

In addition to Johnny Reb, the late and talented Frank Giacoia was at one time also the official artist of the Sherlock Holmes newspaper strip, as per these dailies from 1954. Frank often called on friends and colleagues for help on penciling or inking—or both, though Allen says he thinks these dailies are all-Giacoia. (Looks a bit like Infantino or Kane pencils to Ye Editor! The other name on the strips is that of the writer. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

28

A Golden Age Reunion walking around this maze of books and newspapers, just to get to where he was working. Frank always said he was going to go through them and clip out what he wanted to save, but I don’t think he ever found the time to do it. I also remember he had a big comic book collection, which included a copy of the first Batman. I wonder whatever happened to all that great material.

JA: Sounds like the basement of a museum to me. When you were at the School of Industrial Arts, did any of you guys get together and make your own comics for fun? Or were you all already serious about making a career in comics?

BURLOCKOFF: Oh, yeah. I was already doing it in school. I did some penciling for Timely on “The Human Torch,” but it was a group effort.

Chic Stone was there and so was Al Bellman. I went to William J. Gainer High School in Brooklyn with Al. It was one of the first schools to have air-conditioning. We did “The Human Torch” around 1941, but that wasn’t the only thing we did. We had our own cartoonists club and we put out some things.

I knew Alex Kotzky, though he went to the School of Music and Art. We worked together, too. He was a good man. I don’t think there’s a guy in the business that I didn’t work with. [laughs] Alex and I worked on “Red, White, and Blue” for Elliott Caplin at Toby Press. I also did

This (basically Burgos?) page from Human Torch #4 (Spring 1941) might have been drawn a little while before Sam Burlockoff came aboard, but it’s the closest we could come. Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art. [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Frank was a great inker, and he could draw, too. But he’d get behind in his work and call me or Joe Giella—who also lived nearby—to help him out. That Johnny Reb strip took so much of his time because Frank had to draw a lot of full figures and use a lot of research to accurately depict what things looked like during the Civil War. Frank’s studio was in the basement of his house. In this studio was his enormous collection of newspaper strips. They’d be in stacks so high that they almost went to the ceiling.

Walking around in there was like walking through a maze, because there were so many stacks of papers. Frank’s drawing board was in a little corner of this basement and it struck me as funny every time I went down there to see him,

(Left:) Flyboy was a Ziff-Davis title published during 1952—for two whole issues. (Above:) Kotzy penciled these character sketches for the “Red, White, and Blue” feature for Toby Press, but we’re not sure when (or if) the series was ever published. Interestingly, its enlistedmen heroes are not unlike the crew of the same-name feature that ran in All-American Comics and other DC/AA titles in the early 1940s!

[Art ©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

Sam Burlockoff

BURLOCKOFF: I might have... I really don’t remember him. I wasn’t really into “The Human Torch.” As I said, I just did the one story on speculation and ended up looking at an empty envelope. [laughs] In those days, you had to wait for your money, and when it finally came, you had to make a deal on how much you’d get. It was a very rough time.

Flyboy, among other things.

JA: Was “The Human Torch” the feature you started on?

BURLOCKOFF: I did other things with Chic and Bellman, though I don’t remember what else we did. I only worked on one “Human Torch” story. We ended up getting tangled up in the finances and didn’t make any money at all. It wasn’t one of my most pleasant experiences. I laid out the stories, and someone else inked them.

JA: Did you have trouble getting paid from Jacquet?

BURLOCKOFF: No, no.

That’s not what I meant. A lot of the companies would put you off. They’d say you missed the pay period and would have to wait another week or two.

You know the old story: “the check’s in the mail.”

JA: Did one of you get the job for the rest?

BURLOCKOFF: No. We got these jobs on our own. We hit all of the comic offices with pages that we had done; sometimes we made the pages up for samples and showed them. We’d meet downtown after we delivered our stuff and have lunch. That was fun.

I started out working for Lloyd Jacquet’s Funnies, Inc., not directly for Timely. That was more or less a permanent thing. I did a lot of inking for Jacquet— “Sub-Mariner,” for example.

That was Bill Everett’s feature.

Bill’s mother worked there, too; I think she colored and lettered.

Al Plastino was there; in fact, he was the one who started me inking. Plastino would show me the different techniques he used.

I remember that he used to go to Fred Waring’s club, and that he was an ardent golfer.

There weren’t many people working in the studio, which wasn’t that big a room. Most of the guys worked at home, only showing up to deliver and pick up work—and their paychecks.

The ones I remember working there were Mike Roy, Bill Everett, Mickey Spillane, and Ray Gill.

Sam mentions inking some “Sub-Mariner” but says that was “Bill Everett’s feature,” and it might have been either Everett or Mike Roy that he inked (or even Everett’s successor Carl Pfeufer). But—did Bill’s mother really color and letter for Lloyd Jacquet’s Funnies, Inc., shop? Maybe we should have accompanied all these questions with Namor art from Marvel Mystery Comics, but the above page is from Sub-Mariner #1 (Spring 1941), repro’d from photostats of the original art. [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Jacquet was a sub-contractor for Martin Goodman’s Timely Comics.

I didn’t have too much to do with Jacquet. He’d come into the office and look over my shoulder and say, “Keep up the good work.” He didn’t associate with us that much.

JA: Did you work there after school?

BURLOCKOFF: Yes. And I’d work there on my summer vacations. I started there around 1940.

JA: This explains why very few people at Timely remembered Bill Everett from those days. He worked at Jacquet’s shop instead of the Timely offices.

BURLOCKOFF: Yes. And so did my friend Mike Roy. He worked on “Sub-Mariner,” too. Everett was a little older than me, and I was in awe of him. We didn’t get to know each other that well, but we’d exchange pleasantries. I used to look over his shoulder and watch him work. I’m not sure who I inked on “Sub-Mariner.” It was either Bill Everett or Mike Roy. JA: Did you meet Carl Burgos?

29

JA: When you went into comics, was it your goal to be a penciler? Or was inking first on your mind?

BURLOCKOFF: I just wanted to draw—period! Jacquet was a stepping-stone for me. I didn’t work for him that long. I ran into Harry Sahle [pronounced “Sally”], and he more or less steered me into MLJ. Harry worked for Jacquet, too. Harry said, “I’m going to work for MLJ. You want to come with me?” I went with him and started inking “Archie”—and “The Shield” over Irv Novick. I also inked “Dusty” and “The Web.” Harry was one of my best friends and was a little older than me. He was a nice guy, very free with his encouragement. He never shot down anyone.

Harry was a lot of fun to be with. He had a home recording machine and we used to make imitations and joke around on it. We did this on paper discs; they had a wax coating and you could make recordings on them. We made sound effects, too, and did our own comic stories on them... it was almost like doing radio shows. We used to go bowling together, too. Harry had one son and his wife was named Carrie.

He was medium height and prematurely balding. He had a very expressive smile on his face, almost like a Bugs Bunny face. He was a happy-go-lucky sort, always joking. Harry died from leukemia in the early 1950s. In fact, he was on the phone with me, telling me that his head hurt so much that it seemed like he was in a barrel. He died shortly after that.

Harry was a very fast artist. That was the important thing. If you

30

A Golden Age Reunion Sam provided us with this mid-’40s photo of fellow artist Harry Sahle.

By then, Sahle had worked for most every company around, including Centaur, Pelican, Quality, Hillman, Harvey, MLJ, and Timely. In an earlier issue of A/E, the late great Gil Kane credited Sahle as the artist who codified the look of Archie Andrews, in between original artist Bob Montana and Dan DeCarlo, as per the “Sahle/Ginger” art at left. Sahle also drew—and signed—the cover seen below for a never-published Mike Danger Mystery Comics; see A/E #11 for details.

[Art ©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

shortage of newsprint at the time; it was too expensive it get it out of Mexico or something. We had a backer; in fact, I got married on the promise that we’d do the books and live happily ever after. [laughs] What a joke!

JA: I know what you mean. I didn’t know you worked with Mickey Spillane— outside of Jaquet’s shop, I mean.

BURLOCKOFF: Oh, yeah. I did “Mike Danger” before it became “Mike Hammer.” I penciled and inked the stories.

weren’t fast enough, you were left in the dust. The editors were always hounding us, “Where’s the work? Where’s the work?”

JA: Sahle also drew “The Human Torch.”

BURLOCKOFF: Yes, but he was really more of a cartoonist. Some people drew straighter, but he leaned more towards cartooning. He drew “Candy” for Quality Comics, he drew “Archie,” and he helped out on some newspaper strips.

I inked some of the “Candy” stories.

Harry didn’t ink his work, except in a pinch. He was almost like a brother to me. A wonderful person.

JA: You did what I did. I started out doing super-heroes at Marvel and later went to humor features at Archie and Disney. There aren’t too many people who can make that switch.

BURLOCKOFF: That’s right. But the drawing on “The Human Torch” wasn’t all that realistic, you know. Neither was “Batman,” in those days.

Bob Kane was a cartoonist.

Harry was proud of working in comics. Right after the war, we all got together and were going to publish our own comic books. It was Harry Sahle, Mike Roy, Mickey Spillane, and me. Mickey Spillane was going to head the thing but we couldn’t get the paper. There was a

JA: Were you aware that two of those stories were printed in Crime Detector Comics #3 and #4 in 1953? Timor Publications was the publisher.

BURLOCKOFF: I didn’t know that.

JA: Someone must have sold those stories to Timor. There are no credits for anyone on the first story... I haven’t seen the second one. It’s odd that they didn’t play up Spillane as the writer. Maybe the publisher didn’t know who wrote or drew them, and probably didn’t care, either. Do you recall how many stories you drew?

BURLOCKOFF: No. In fact, I think Mickey Spillane took it around to the New York Daily News. That was during the time when Caniff left Terry and the Pirates and the Daily News didn’t know if they were going to keep printing Terry. Spillane tried to peddle it to newspapers but didn’t succeed. We each did a feature for that particular comic book. “Mike Danger” was to be the first one.

JA: Were you aware that, in the mid-1990s, Tekno Comics licensed the Danger character from Spillane and did a long-running series of Mike Danger comics?

BURLOCKOFF: I didn’t know that. But we didn’t get too far along in our series.

JA: How did you hook up with Mickey Spillane during that time?

BURLOCKOFF: Through Harry Sahle, who had known Spillane back

Sam Burlockoff

31 (Far Left:) Mickey Spillane, future creator of hardboiled (and bestselling) private eye Mike Hammer in novels like I, the Jury and Kiss Me, Deadly, was drawn by Harold DeLay and Ray Gill as a lifeguard in Blue Bolt, Vol. 3, #3 (Aug. 1942), which was produced by Funnies, Inc. (Left:) In 1954 some earlier stories featuring “Mike Danger,” scripted by Spillane and drawn by Sam Burlockoff, probably from the unpublished Mike Danger Mystery Comics, were printed in Timor Publications’ Crime Detector #3 (May 1954), as per this splash printed in Mike Benton’s excellent Crime Comics: The Illustrated History. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

always trying to improve my work and give my all, no matter what the deadlines were like. in the Jacquet shop. They also worked at Timely together. We all kind of palled around together.

Spillane was outgoing... just as you see him on television: full of pep, very enthused. His mind was always working and thinking of plots. He was a good observer of people.

JA: A while back, Alter Ego [V3#11] published a “Mike Lancer” page that was drawn by Sahle. Spillane was probably in the service at that time, because only Sahle’s name is on the splash. I wonder if Spillane had the idea for “Mike Danger” earlier than previously thought, and Sahle did this story based on that idea?

BURLOCKOFF: I didn’t know about the “Mike Lancer” story, but it doesn’t surprise me. Harry and Spillane spent a lot of time working together. I don’t remember that story, so I don’t think I inked it.

JA: I’d like to go back to MLJ. When you and Harry Sahle went there, who did you see? Harry Shorten?

BURLOCKOFF: Yes, he was the editor there. He was an ex-football player and was kind of gruff on the outside, but was a real easy touch. He was a nice person, not too demanding. We turned out the work as fast as we could. Sometimes we came to the office to finish things off, and other times we worked at home.

JA: You primarily inked for MLJ. Did you ink Bob Montana on “Archie”?

BURLOCKOFF: Yes. His pencils were pretty complete. In fact, Bob Montana reminded me of Archie because he had red hair and a grin like

JA: What do you remember about Mike Roy? BURLOCKOFF: He was a funny guy. He was a Canuck and we used to tease each other all the time. We had a repertoire of jokes and if someone else was around, I’d say, “Mike, tell him number three,” or “Tell him number four.”

I did a lot of work with Mike Roy. We weren’t partners, but we always worked together and helped each other out in a pinch. We had a studio in Jamaica, Long Island, and for a time worked together with Dan Barry, too. Mike and I worked on The Saint newspaper strip together: his pencils and my inks. We also worked on features for Detective Comics and did Dobie Gillis.

Mike was exceptionally fast. He could sit down and knock something out in no time at all, where I’d have to mull it over, work it over. I was never happy with the end results. I was

Burlockoff inked some of Irv Novick’s “Shield” and Bob Montana’s “Archie”—though whether that includes these pages from an early-’40s issue of Shield-Wizard Comics and from Pep Comics #26 (April 1942), we’ve no idea—and neither does Sam! Matter of fact, we’re not even 100% certain Novick penciled the former, though it resembles work he signed. The “Archie” story was reprinted in the 1991 trade paperback Archie Americana Series: Best of the Forties. [©2004 Archie Comic Publications, Inc.]

32

A Golden Age Reunion Collector Steven Rowe graciously loaned us his personal copy of Crime Detector #3 so we could present this montage of Spillane-scripted, Burlockoff-drawn action in the Mike Hammer—excuse us, Mike Danger— style. Thanks, Steven! It must be because Jim Amash asked you so nicely. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

Archie’s. It was almost like a caricature of Montana: he drew himself as Archie.

Bob was a very nice man. He invited us over to his house to meet his mother and she made spaghetti for us. I ran into him several times at the cartoonists’ club and he’d come over and say, “How ya doing, Sam?” He died young, and it was very sad, because he always wanted to do a newspaper strip. When he finally got it [Archie], it didn’t last long because he died, so other artists took it over. And it’s still running in newspapers today.

JA: Was “Archie” the first thing you did there?

BURLOCKOFF: No. I might have started on Novick’s “Shield.” Eli Katz was there at the time and he was just a kid, hanging around, trying to do things. He might have been inking and doing clean-up work. He went on to other things. Later on, he changed his name to Gil Kane: he changed his name, he changed his nose. [laughs] Harry Sahle drew a cartoon about Kane, with a bugle. We used to joke around with him. He was so serious, trying to be a pseudo-intellectual and walking around as if he read nothing but the classics. He talked as though he knew everything.

JA: Were you a staffer or a freelancer?

BURLOCKOFF: Both, partly. I’d come in and work a day or two and take the rest home, then bring back the finished job. MLJ’s offices were in the Western Union Building in downtown New York. They were spacious, with partitions, and artists had drawing-boards around the room. They were all pretty close together, and the other offices had glass partitions.

I’m sure they had people working there fulltime, but Harry and I didn’t. We didn’t get a salary... we were paid by the page.

John Goldwater used to come in all the time and ask if anyone wanted to box. “Let’s go into the ring and go a couple of rounds.” He was always trying to egg somebody on. [laughs] Nobody ever took him up on it, though.

JA: What do you remember about Irv Novick?

BURLOCKOFF: He was a pretty level-headed guy and a good artist.

Later on, he went into oil painting. He was in the offices more than the rest of us, so he must have been on staff. He worked there a long time and later went to DC. His pencils were tight: everything was there. You learn a lot from inking good people... it’s like going to school again.

JA: Did you like working there?

BURLOCKOFF: It was just a job. They were a little off the beaten path because MLJ was downtown and most of the other companies were uptown.

JA: You worked at other places before the war besides MLJ. BURLOCKOFF: Right. I was working for Charlie Biro and Bob Wood at Lev Gleason Publications. You know how it is. When you’re working for a company, you don’t sign your life away. If a better opportunity comes along, you go work somewhere else.

I remember Bob Wood best. He’d chase every babe that walked down the street. One time, while working for Max Gaines [publisher of the All-American Comics group affiliated with National/DC] on some union-suit character—I can’t recall who it was now—I was delivering some work to Bob Wood’s apartment on Lexington Avenue. I knocked on the door and Bob said to come in. I went in and here was this babe laying in bed. [laughs] Bob gets out of bed and says, “Hey! Can you do me something? Can you draw your character on the wall?” Everybody had done one in ink on the wall. So I did. After I gave him my work, Bob said, “Okay. I’ll give you your check as soon as I can.” [mutual laughter] He was really something. I understand he ended up in jail.

JA: Yes, he did. He was drunk and killed a girlfriend.

BURLOCKOFF: I can see why. Bob went through so many women that he probably called one of them by the wrong name or something. [laughs]

Sam Burlockoff JA: They had an argument about something. Were you aware of his drinking problem?

BURLOCKOFF: He didn’t do it in the office, as far as I know. We had a Christmas party at The Palms once, and we all did a drawing on the wall. The opera singer Lawrence Melchior was there with his wife or girlfriend and asked if someone would draw a picture on the wall for him. So someone did and Melchior sent over a bottle of champagne. It was a nice evening.

Crime Does Not Pay was one of the books I did for Biro and Wood.

I inked Dan Barry on those. I also did complete art on stories, before and after the war.

JA: So you dealt more with Bob Wood than you did with Charlie Biro.

BURLOCKOFF: Right, although Biro would be around. If he was around, then I dealt with Biro. They were equal partners, but Biro did more writing than Wood. Wood was more or less the art director. Biro had a pretty active mind: he was way ahead of his time.

When I was in the service, I contracted pneumonia and was in the hospital. I called up Biro and said, “Gee, I’m going to be here for a month, so if I can do any stories for you, let me know.” He sent me up a script, but I wasn’t in the hospital that long, so I had to send it back.

JA: Did they pay pretty well?

BURLOCKOFF: It was standard pay, but I had a pretty tough time getting paid. They’d eventually pay you, but that’s why I did other work to fill in the time.

That’s one of the things I liked about working for Busy Arnold at Quality. The minute you finished your work, he had a paycheck for you. That’s why he had so many of the good artists, like Reed Crandall and Jack Cole.

JA: What did you do for M.C. Gaines?

BURLOCKOFF: I was inking for Paul Reinman. I met him at MLJ and he had a thick German accent. We used to play tricks on him. Remember those fake plastic ink drops? He’d just finished a page and we put those fake ink drops all over his page. He saw that and yelled, “Oh, my God! My work is ruined!” [laughs] We were having fun.

JA: I didn’t know that Reinman spoke with a German accent. Was he born overseas?

Dan Barry pencils inked by Sam Burlockoff, supplied by S.B. We’re not sure of the date or issue number of the Crime Does Not Pay splash— but the Flash Gordon newspaper daily is from May 7, 1953. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

33

BURLOCKOFF: I didn’t know that much about him, but he could have been. We worked on several things for Gaines, whom I didn’t get to know. We were a team, even though we were paid separately for our work. I inked his work at MLJ, too. Paul was a very serious man who liked classical music. He could take a joke. He was a typical straitlaced European. I remember that he was married, but I don’t know if he had any children.

JA: My editor at Archie, Victor Gorelick, said that when he knew Reinman in the 1960s, Reinman was a painter. Was he doing that kind of work when you knew him?

BURLOCKOFF: He might have been. He leaned in that direction. That was a way out for him, as was the case for a lot of artists. They had aspirations for being painters but gravitated towards comics.

JA: Would you put yourself in that group?

34

A Golden Age Reunion I went overseas to New Guinea, the West Indies, the Philippines, and Japan. We built airstrips and I became the entertainment director for the group. I ran the PX, too. We went to all the Islands and built those landing strips. We were always on the move.

Before I went overseas, the leader of our group was Henry Grace, who was the assistant art director for MGM. He said, “You know what’d be a fantastic idea? You should do a strip on camouflage.” I did, and it appeared in the local papers there. I did strips on Helen of Troy... you know the story about the wooden horse... Catherine the Great, and other types of stories dealing with camouflage. Grace said I should come to Hollywood and do storyboards, but I never took him up on that. I only did the feature for a couple of months before I shipped out. Then I did posters, like “Watch out! She may have VD”... things like that. I was in the service nearly three years. I got out in 1946.

JA: What was your rank when you got out?

BURLOCKOFF: Oh, I was always busted. [laughs] I was free-thinking and always got myself in a hole, but I got myself out of it. I was a technical corporal. Every time something happened, off came my stripes.

I didn’t care. I was a fun-loving person.

JA: What did you do when you returned home?

BURLOCKOFF: I went back to comics, and that’s when I got involved with Mickey Spillane. I also did more work with Harry Sahle, like on “Candy.” He was my mentor and always looked after me.

I went to see Busy Arnold with Harry Sahle, who was doing regular work for Quality. George Brenner was the editor. They had several women editors there that Arnold met in a bar somewhere. He used to go to the bars down on Park Avenue and see these women and say, “Hey! You’d make a good editor.”

JA: Arnold was known for his drinking.

Sam says he inked Paul Reinman’s “Green Lantern” in early-’40s issues of All-American Comics, so maybe he embellished this page from issue #55 (Jan. 1944). If so, he did a nice job on Gotham City’s equivalent of the Chrysler Building in the background. The splash of this story,“The Riddle of the Runaway Trolley,”was seen in A/E #12; both pages repro’d from photocopies of the original art, courtesy of Joel Thingvall. [©2004 DC Comics.]

BURLOCKOFF: Oh, yeah. He liked the ladies, too. He was always hanging around with some pretty chick. He gave them jobs so they’d be around him.

JA: So Brenner didn’t edit the whole line?

BURLOCKOFF: Oh, yeah. Once I retired, I had work in a lot of exhibits and had some newspaper write-ups.

BURLOCKOFF: No, he didn’t. There was another editor there, named Harry Stein, who called me years later, asking if I could get him a job in the government.

JA: Did you and Reinman work on “Green Lantern”?

JA: What do you remember about George Brenner?

BURLOCKOFF: Yes, and some other features, too, though I don’t remember what they were. They used to give out bonuses at Christmas time, based on how many pages you did. Most companies didn’t do that. They might give you a bottle of whiskey, but that’d be about it.

BURLOCKOFF: He was okay. We exchanged recipes. I wasn’t around him enough to really form an opinion. I didn’t work on staff at Quality,

JA: Was Shelly Mayer your editor?

BURLOCKOFF: Yes. He was good to work for, but I didn’t get to know him. I didn’t sit around and talk to editors. I remember Paul and I got him a gift for Christmas.

In 1943, I went into the Army Air Corps as a camouflage technician. I went to camouflage school in Virginia and learned how to make myself invisible. [mutual laughter] JA: Did it work?

BURLOCKOFF: Oh, yeah. They used to find me asleep on top of the garlands all the time. [laughs]

The types of stories Sam drew during the 1950s for comics like DC’s Star Spangled War Stories were a far cry from the action he saw as an entertainment director and running the PX in the Pacific during World War II. [©2004 DC Comics.]

Sam Burlockoff

35

him like an automatic rifle. He could draw the Panama Canal and it looked like the Panama Canal. That’s how fertile his mind was.

JA: Was he a fast artist?

BURLOCKOFF: Yes, considering the amount of detail he put into his work. And I never saw Crandall use any reference. It was all in his head.

His pencils were beautiful and complete. He never thumbnailed his stories first—just started at the top and went to the bottom. Crandall worked in the offices a lot, and I got to know him real well. Crandall was the number one artist at Quality, no question. And he was prolific.

If there’s any criticism about his work—and let’s face it, anybody’s work can be criticized—it’s that, as good as his work was, he never got past a certain point. Reed wasn’t a great storyteller. He did beautiful drawings, but he was really an illustrator. He didn’t get enough drama into his storytelling.

JA: Nobody at Quality signed their work. Were you told not to?

BURLOCKOFF: I don’t recall. In those days, very few artists signed their work. Reed Crandall never signed his work. For years, I wasn’t allowed to sign my name to True Tales, a strip I did for the government.

JA: I understand that Crandall had some unhappiness in his life and drank. Do you know anything about that?

“The Clock” was one of the first original-material masked-hero features in early comic books. Jim Amash, who supplied this splash from Crack Comics #9 (Jan. 1941), says he suspects this story was indeed drawn by the character’s creator, George Brenner, who was also the Quality group’s editor for a time. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]\

but I did have my own desk there. When Quality moved to 45th Street, they moved in with Look magazine. which distributed Quality’s magazines. We took a part of the office complex for Quality Comics.

Most of the time, I worked there during the day, because it was a lot easier. I had a young baby at home and there wasn’t a lot of room to work. That’s where I met Reed Crandall and started inking him on “Blackhawk,” as well as other features.

JA: Tell me about Reed Crandall.

BURLOCKOFF: We used to go out to dinner together with our wives.

He was a very wonderful guy; very open and had a very hearty laugh.

He always had a smile on his face. He was so good that I don’t think he realized how good he was. He could sit down and the work came out of

Golden Age legend Reed Crandall is listed in the Gerbers’ indispensable Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books as doing at least some of the art in Blackhawk #13 (Winter 1946), whose cover and first splash page are seen here. Again, Sam has no idea if he inked these particular stories; but if not, he was doing work very similar to these examples. Dog-eared copy supplied

by Jim Amash... and we were glad to get it! [©2004 DC Comics.]

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A Golden Age Reunion

BURLOCKOFF: He might have. That could have been later on, after I knew him. I know he had some marital problems, and maybe that did lead to drinking. He was working all the time, and maybe he felt he wasn’t going in the direction he wanted.

JA: Did you have to audition in order to ink Crandall, since he was their top artist?

BURLOCKOFF: No. They knew enough about what I could do. I never blew my own horn, but evidently other people did. I also did some “Plastic Man” stories over Jack Cole, but I don’t remember anything about it.

JA: Neither do I. I just know that it happens. Tell me more about Alex Kotzky.

BURLOCKOFF: Alex Kotzky and I became fast friends. I stay in touch with his widow. Alex was a workaholic—he was very dedicated to his work. He had a quiet sense of humor and enjoyed all the talk shows, which we listened to while we were working.

We’d talk and compare notes about what we’d hear on these shows. He liked music and we used to get together quite often. We’d go out with our wives, but he was always working. Even when he was very ill with his kidney problems, he’d be writing and drawing his strip while in bed. I told him to delegate the work to his son and come down to Florida where I was, and enjoy himself. He never did. He never took a vacation as far as I know or hardly ever left his studio. His wife used to deliver his work for him.

[NOTE: Later on, in the 1990s, Alex’s son Brian did help him on the strip and took it over for a short time after Alex’s passing. —Jim.]

I met Jack Cole on several occasions. He worked out of town and would only come in occasionally. He was a pleasant guy. I used to tease him when he came in. I’d say, “Hey! You’re Jack Cole!” [laughs] Sometimes we’d sit around and thrash around cover ideas, because you run dry after a while. Everyone there would suggest things, you know. I came up with a cover idea that we used: Plastic Man was being stirred in a pot and Woozy Winks was off to the side. [NOTE: The splash of the “Plastic Man” story in Police Comics #99 (April 1950) was reprinted Alex was a perfectionist. two issues back; here is page 2 of that frantically zany episode probably drawn Plastic Man #33. —Jim.] His work was so well by writer/artist Jack Cole. Sam Burlockoff inked various Cole-penciled “Plas” tales, Another time, I said to animated. People looked though not necessarily this one. Thanks to Mike Feldman for the copies of the Crandall, “Hey, Reed. alive; they weren’t just original black-&-white art. [©2004 DC Comics.]

Wouldn’t it be a good idea for standing around. Alex Blackhawk to hang from a observed a lot of things. He cliff with one hand and a hawk attacking him?” He’d say, “Yeah, watched soap operas to get ideas for [his later newspaper strip] that’d be a good idea.” And he used it. [NOTE: This cover was for Apartment 3-G. I inked for him several times, early on in the strip’s Blackhawk #48. —Jim.] Reed was a real illustrator. beginnings. In fact, I was the one who told Alex to start using photos for Cole’s pencils were fairly tight. Some artists would be sketchy and I’d have to work it out. Alex Kotzky did “Plastic Man,” too, as well as “Doll Man” and other features. I inked Alex on both “Plastic Man” and “Doll Man,” and I inked an Al Bryant “Doll Man,” story, too. When I met Kotzky, he was doing “Doll Man,” because Al Bryant had a nervous breakdown. That was an odd thing, because Bryant was always such a quiet, gentle guy. I hate to even mention this, but one day Bryant came in and started working. Everybody was surprised to see him because he was supposed to be in a sanitarium. Finally, two men in white coats came in and escorted him out. He had broken out of the sanitarium. It was a sad situation.

JA: Bryant committed suicide after that.

BURLOCKOFF: He did? He tried to a few times, and that’s why they finally committed him. So many artists seem to do themselves in—I don’t know why.

backgrounds and swipes. I said, “Your work would look more realistic that way. All the realistic artists do that.” He liked the idea, and we took photos of each other in various poses, so we’d have better files to use when needed. Alex’s work took on a better flavor when he did that, and he always gave me credit for the idea. Stan Drake, Len Starr... they all did the same thing.

JA: I interviewed Kotzky several years ago and he was busily working on Apartment 3-G. But he took time to talk to me because he wanted to talk about Lou Fine. [NOTE: Jim’s interview with the late Alex Kotzky will appear in A/E #34. —Roy.] BURLOCKOFF: Now there’s another great artist! Lou Fine did “The Ray,” “Black Condor,” and The Spirit, too. He shared a studio with Kotzky. Shortly before Lou died, Gill Fox, Alex, and I went out and talked about the old days. Lou was painting then, and when he died, there was an unfinished painting on his board. His widow left the painting on the board just as it was.

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As an inker, I didn’t feel like it was my job to change the penciler’s work. If Reed Crandall penciled something, I inked it in his style. The same goes for Kotzky, Cole—you name it. I didn’t want to bury the penciler’s work under a different style. And, of course, with the number of top people I had the good fortune to work with, it wasn’t necessary to do that. As their inker, I was part of a team.

JA: I think you were one of Crandall’s best inkers. You have a couple of original Crandall Blackhawk covers. Since art wasn’t returned to the artists, how did you get them?

BURLOCKOFF: I got them because I was inking some covers and they gave them to me, saying, “Here’s some work that Crandall inked himself. This will give you an idea of how he works.” It was for reference. They discarded the art, you know.

JA: Did you meet Bill Finger at Quality?

BURLOCKOFF: Yes. He was very enthusiastic about his work and had a quick mind. But the writers didn’t spend much time at the offices, though they’d come over and see what I was doing. I remember that Jerry Siegel came in and did some writing for Arnold. I don’t remember what he did, though. It was probably adventure work and it was later on, in the 1950s.

JA: Everybody tells me that Arnold was very generous to his employees.

Photo of Alex Kotzky (left) and Sam Burlockoff (right) in the late 1940s— flanked by a “Plastic Man” page perhaps penciled by Kotzky, and the 5-861 Sunday of Kotzky’s long-running comic strip Apartment 3-G, on which Sam had assisted him in the early 1960s. The 3-G art was reprinted in Robert C. Harvey’s Children of the Yellow Kid; the “Plas” art, which may (or may not) have been inked by Burlockoff, is repro’d from black-&-white copies of the story “Dazzla, Daughter of Darkness!” from a 1950s English Ajax Adventure Annual, with thanks to Roger Dickin & Wendy Hunt over in the wilds of North Wales. Anybody know in which issue of Police Comics or Plastic Man it originally appeared? Photo courtesy of S.B. [Plastic Man art ©2004 DC Comics; Apt. 3-G art ©2004 King Features Syndicate.]

JA: That’s exactly the story Gill Fox told me.

BURLOCKOFF: Gill’s been around a long time, and he’s always done excellent work. He’s a great talker and loves to talk about the old days. He’s a very good man.

JA: One of the best. He’s been so very helpful to me so many times. By the way, when you worked at Quality, did you do any penciling?

BURLOCKOFF: I did a small feature, like a picto-crime filler. They knew I always wanted to do that sort of thing.

JA: Whom did you prefer to ink: Crandall or Cole?

BURLOCKOFF: Crandall, because that was the direction that I wanted to go in. I was a pretty fast inker with a crisp style. In those days, we inked everything with a brush, which is harder to control than a quill pen. I outlined my figures with a pen and then used a brush to finish up.

BURLOCKOFF: As I said before, we were all pleased at our payment. That’s why he had so many people loyal to him. He was a pleasant guy and always joked around. He always talked about Brown University. I used to go in and talk to him quite a bit. He was in the office right next to where we were working, so he could keep an eye on us. I remember that his son Dick came into the offices on occasion. Chuck Cuidera was there, too... and he was a real nice guy.

JA: Chuck told me that he was the art director there.

BURLOCKOFF: Well, he might have done that for a very brief while, but I don’t recall that. Cuidera worked in the offices quite a few times because I

38

A Golden Age Reunion BURLOCKOFF: I remember Robin King. His mother was an art agent. Later on, when I was doing children’s books, my editor wanted me to ask her to be my art agent. We called Robin “Orson Welles.” [laughs] He had style: like when he entered a room, we expected him to throw back his cape over his shoulder. He was quite theatrical. His father, Alexander King, was a television personality on talk shows. He’d tell great stories and used to appear on Jack Paar’s show. He was very clever and funny.

Robin became an art director for Vanity Fair or some publication like that. He used to complain that, when he’d do an illustration, someone there would say, “We like it very much, but can you make it so all the people are facing the other way?” And he’d go into a tirade! They would write down, “Draw a charging army,” but he’s the one who had to do the work. We used to laugh about that.

There was a woman editor there named Gwen Hansen. I think her husband was a photographer for Look. She was quite nice and very helpful— very nice-looking. She was mostly a writer.

There were so many people who edited there that it made your head swim. They never stayed long, except for Al Grenet.

JA: Why did people leave so quickly?

Sam B. owns the original art to Reed Crandall’s exquisite covers for Modern Comics #78 & #79 (Oct., Nov. 1948), from which these images have been reproduced. We’re at least half tempted to use the former as an Alter Ego cover sometime! Quality’s Military Comics had become Modern Comics with #44 (Nov. 1945), immediately upon the end of WWII. Talk about a rapid demobilization! [©2004 DC Comics.]

remember sitting next to him at times. He originated “Blackhawk,” and when Crandall came over, Chuck inked him. Then I started inking Crandall, and Chuck inked other stuff. Some of the “ChopChop” filler stories were Chuck’s work. He did some penciling, but mainly he was an inker.

JA: There’s been some dispute about who created Blackhawk. Will Eisner said he came up with the idea, but Cuidera disputed that. Was Chuck claiming credit for it back then?

BURLOCKOFF: Oh, yes. He made sure we all knew who created Blackhawk.

JA: Was there an art director?

BURLOCKOFF: The editors did that.

JA: What do you remember about Harry Stein?

BURLOCKOFF: Not much. I knew Al Grenet a little better. He was very fair and straitlaced. He didn’t fool around too much and was very serious about getting the work done. He did his job, that was the main thing. [NOTE: Alter Ego is very pleased to be presenting an interview with Al Grenet in issue #34, just two months from now. —Roy.] JA: There was another inker there named Robin King.

Sam Burlockoff BURLOCKOFF: Maybe they thought it would lead to other things? I don’t really know. Al Stahl worked there, but I never met him. Zully (Zoltan) Szenics and his wife Terry lettered for Quality. One time, Mike Roy and I needed something lettered, so we went to their house. They were sitting back to back and had a time clock to gauge how much time they were spending on a page. I never saw anyone work like that. [laughs] They wouldn’t face each other. It was so funny. We used to laugh about that.

JA: I’d like to backtrack and ask you about Dan Barry. You shared a studio with him, right?

BURLOCKOFF: Yes. We shared a studio on 14th Street in a hotel. Sy Barry was there, too. I met Dan at Hillman, when he was drawing “The Heap.” Dan thought it’d be a good idea for us to work together and I was in between jobs, so... well, actually, we shared two different studios.

One was in a loft.

Occasionally, Dan would come to my house to work and sometimes I went to his house. We did a lot of stuff for Biro and Wood. I also inked Flash Gordon for him around 1952 and ’53—I did at least a year’s worth of inks on the strip. One of the stories involved a group of space kids, and I later took that story and did more with those characters in the Flash Gordon coloring book I did in 1958 for the Saalfield Company.

JA: Working back to back was bad enough—but to use a time clock? “Better finish this page before the bell rings!”

Did you get to know them?

BURLOCKOFF: Well, I’d see them when they came in to deliver work.

JA: Did you know John Spranger?

BURLOCKOFF: He did “Plastic Man” and “Doll Man,” both of which I inked. He lived around our way and we got together often. A lot of us got together and socialized. We were all in the same boat and it was quite nice. We’d take turns eating at each other’s houses.

John was a very good artist, but he was always the nervous type. Kotzky knew John better than I did.

JA: Here’s an inker with a last name that Groucho Marx would have loved: Bill Quackenbush.

39

By the way, I read your interview with John Belfi in Alter Ego #11 and noticed he worked at some of the same places I did, at the same time I did. But I never met him.

JA: You’d have liked John; he was real nice guy. How excited was Dan when he got the strip?

BURLOCKOFF: Well, it’s like the old saying: “Don’t wish for something because it might come true.” [laughs] It’s a lot of work. Same thing happened to Alex Kotzky. He always dreamt of having a strip, and once he got it, he said, “Oh, my God! I don’t have a living minute to myself.” It’s very tedious, time-consuming work, and you can’t slough off or the syndicate will fine you. You always have to keep on your toes and stay ahead.

Sam writes that this is a “Ken Shannon [page] drawn by Reed Crandall and inked by me for Quality Comics.” Ken Shannon (subtitled Crime-busting Private Eye) ran from 1951-53. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

BURLOCKOFF: Oh, yeah. He lived on Long Island, around Montauk Point. I remember him because of his name. I think he also drew a feature for them, but he was mainly an inker. I didn’t really know him.

He’d come into the office and talk about Long Island ducks, because it was really rural where he lived.

JA: [laughs] There’s something hysterical about a man named Quackenbush talking about ducks.

BURLOCKOFF: [imitating 1940s comedian Joe Penner] “Wanna Buy a Duck?” I remember Joe Rosen used to letter for us. “Blackhawk” was one of his jobs. A lot of these guys didn’t work in the offices. They’d just come in when it was time to deliver or pick up work. Some might work in the offices a day or two, but that’s about it. We’d look forward to getting together and go out and have lunch when we’d come into town. We’d go to museums and have a good time.

Dave Berg’s wife used to work for Arnold. She always mentioned that Dave had worked for Arnold before the war. There was a guy in Arnold’s office named Jimmy Dee. He was a crooner on the side and didn’t stay at Quality too long.

Dan was a realistic artist and put a lot of work into Flash Gordon.

That was a labor-intensive feature. Dan and I did a lot of stuff. I worked with him on “The Heap,” as well as the Crime Does Not Pay books.

Later on, his brother Sy inked his work and I think Joe Giella helped out, too. Dan later went to Europe to paint, but that was after I did the Flash Gordon work. He always said he wanted to be a painter, but that petered out, I think. I saw an exhibit of his in Washington, D.C., but he complained about the politics involved.

I liked Dan and we always got along. The arrangement was that Dan got the work and he paid me. Dan always treated me fairly. He used to imagine that he was a boxer and tell stories about how he boxed while in the service. By the way, it was while working at the loft that I introduced Mike Roy to Dan and he started doing Crime Does Not Pay, penciling and inking for Dan. Mike was also doing his own work.

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A Golden Age Reunion

Dan’s younger brother Sy was a very pleasant person, and we each did our share of the work.

Dan brought Sy in a little later. Dan expected a lot from Sy and really wanted him to succeed.

Sy had talent and proved himself to be a very good artist. I’d say he was During the period when Sam was inking Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon for the newspapers, rough breakdowns were being done for the more laid back than Dan strip by Harvey Kurtzman, creator of Mad and EC’s war comics. At top are Kurtzman’s layouts, then the Barry/Burlockoff finished was. They were both art, for March 10, 1953, as reprinted in the 1988 Kitchen Sink book Flash Gordon—Dan Barry & Harvey Kurtzman, which contains the good guys to be around. complete daily strips from November 1951 through April 1953. [©2004 King Features Syndicate.]

Dan introduced Sy to assistant editor. He was the point man for me. One thing he did have King Features, which was when Sy got the Phantom newspaper strip. was a terrific collection of cartoon art. In fact, I gave him several things: JA: I know Dan had some writers helping him on Flash. Did you a Scorchy Smith, some political cartoons. As a kid, I used to go to the ever deal with any of them?

Associated Press and bug the cartoonists. Allen Bellman and I used to go when we were about fifteen. I think Bellman had a cousin or something BURLOCKOFF: I know Dan wrote the story about the space kids, who worked in the mailroom, so we got a chance to go in and see that because I remember watching him write in the dialogue on the pages I artists. They were good about giving us originals. inked.

JA: I’d like to ask about Toby Press. You worked on Flyboy and with JA: In the late 1940s and in the 1950s, you worked for Famous Alex Kotzky on “Red, White, and Blue.” You inked some stories and Funnies. You know, Alex Toth got his start there. did complete art on others, right?

BURLOCKOFF: Yes. Steve Douglas was the editor there. He was a BURLOCKOFF: Right. I did something about a circus, too... it might happy-go-lucky guy. He always praised Alex Toth’s work. Alex had a have been called Big Top. Mel Lazarus was the editor there and was very style of his own and had quite a following. into what he was doing. I remember when he got the Miss Peach strip... he sure was happy! Elliot Caplin would show up sometimes, too. It was I did “Hero of the Month” for Famous Funnies. I also did a Singing his company, but he left most of the work to Mel. in the Rain comic for them. One day, I came in to deliver some work for Heroic Comics. That comic had true stories about people. We’d look I think this was about the time Alex started ghosting on Big Ben in the newspaper for ideas and come in and tell Douglas these stories.

Bolt. John Cullen Murphy was falling behind, so Alex helped him out.

He’d say, “Okay, go ahead and do it.” I did that, Mike Roy did that, we Kotzky was very versatile; he worked on Steve Canyon with Milton all did that. Frank Frazetta was there. He was a free soul, very outgoing.

Caniff, too.

He later went to work for Al Capp on Li’l Abner before he got into painting.

JA: In 1953 you started freelancing for Atlas Comics. Or did you know the company as Timely?

JA: Were you surprised at how his work changed over the years?

BURLOCKOFF: They were Timely, as far as I was concerned. I did BURLOCKOFF: Not at all. I thought he was very accomplished at the several horror stories for them. I also did western and war stories and time. I was happy to see success come to him. He wanted to paint. some romance. I did both penciling and inking for them.

JA: I heard that Steve Douglas had a drinking problem.

JA: I’ve been told that Stan Lee wouldn’t hire artists unless they did the complete art job. Do you recall being told that?

BURLOCKOFF: Well, he was real happy! [laughs] Harry G. Peter worked there, too. He was good friends with Douglas and he came up BURLOCKOFF: That did happen at several places. Some artists would there all the time. He was a very friendly guy, older than most of us. It get together and do complete stories and turn them in, so the editors was unfortunate that he never reaped any rewards from “Wonder would think that one man did the entire job. I did Destination Moon Woman,” since he was the original artist. with Dick Rockwell that way. Dick got the job and needed an inker, so I inked it for him.

Nobody worked on staff there as far as I could see. I recall a big leather couch and a receptionist. Steve would be in a glass-enclosed Stan Lee was a theatrical type, always energetic and enthused. He was office. They paid the going rate. I don’t recall Douglas having an a very hands-on type; he liked to see the story through. I never saw an

Sam Burlockoff

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Three 1950s splashes, three (or is it four?) genres—penciled, inked, and even signed by Sam Burlockoff for Timely/Atlas. [Left to right:] Uncanny Tales #10 (July 1953)—Secret Story Romances #5 (March 1954)—and Battlefront #12 (July 1953). Thanks to Doc Vassallo for the first two, and to Michael Baulderstone for black-&-white photocopies of the third. [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

assistant editor, if he had one. I always dealt with Stan. But I didn’t work there that long. Something happened, I don’t remember what. I think that was when I switched over to DC Comics and worked for Bob Kanigher. DC paid a little higher rate than Timely. I did a lot of war stories for Bob. One day, they asked a few artists to come in and work on the Superman 3-D comics. Seymour Barry and I inked, as did several other inkers. They had to get the book out in record time. I inked half a dozen pages or so. I wish I had a copy of that comic.

JA: DC had a reputation for proprietariness. If you were working for one editor, you worked for just that editor.

BURLOCKOFF: That’s probably true. I know that when I started working for Kanigher, I didn’t work for Schwartz any more. Maybe there was something to that. I did the complete art job on all my DC work.

I liked doing war stories. I liked doing stories with action, and I could add a lot of textures in the art.

JA: What was Kanigher like to work for?

BURLOCKOFF: Ahhh... I wasn’t too thrilled with him. He had a mean streak in him—very arrogant about certain things. You know what used to get to me? I’d come in to get the work and Kanigher was sitting behind his desk, not doing anything. And he’d make you wait. I blew up at him one day and told him I’d throw him through the window if he didn’t get up. But you know something—when the government came to check on me for the job I applied for, Kanigher gave me the best recommendation. He had nothing but praise for me.

I quit doing comics in 1955 to go do children’s coloring books for the Saalfield Company, which no longer exists today. A lot of the coloring books were based on television shows. I did Sea Hunt, Bat Masterson, G.I. Joe, Get Smart, Combat, and a bunch of other books. I painted the covers for the books, too. I also worked for Harry Volk, who was running a clip art service. Gill Fox and Alex Kotzky also worked there.

JA: Did you miss doing comic books?

JA: You earned his respect by not taking any crap off of him. Was Julie Schwartz sharing an office with Kanigher then?

BURLOCKOFF: Julie Schwartz was in a different office. I did some work

for Julie on detective features. I think I did Gang Busters for him. But it was only a couple of stories.

Another Burlockoff-drawn page from “Jump Boots” in All-American Men of War #11 (June-July 1953). Thanks to Mark Muller. [©2004 DC Comics.]

BURLOCKOFF: I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for comics. I don’t like it when people put them down, because there are an awful lot of good artists and effort that go into it. It always bothered me to hear, “It’s only a comic book.”

42

A Golden Age Reunion They gave me a few freelance jobs while my clearance was being approved. Edward R. Murrow was there; he was the big honcho. This was during the Kennedy years.

There was a lot of enthusiasm, because everyone was patriotic in those days... like they were after Sept. 11. It was a nice feeling.

JA: Was this for the Voice of America?

BURLOCKOFF: Well, the Voice of America was part of the U.S.I.A (United States Information Agency, Press and Publication). Everybody confuses that because they think The title pages of a 1956 Clip Book of Line Art done for Harry Volk, and of a 1958 Flash Gordon Coloring Book, both drawn by Sam B. [1956 art ©2004 the respective copyright holders; Flash Gordon art ©2004 King Features Syndicate.] the Voice of America was the head of U.S.I.A. It wasn’t; it was just a JA: You started working for the government in 1960. How did you section of it. They’ve dissolved that now, but I worked there for thirty get that job? years. A friend of mine called me up a while back and said, “You wouldn’t like it here now. You worked in the Golden Age.” I started BURLOCKOFF: Mike Roy was working for them at the time, doing an there in 1960 and stayed until 1989. educational comic strip that was distributed in around 1700 newspapers and magazines throughout the world. I worked with him on that. One JA: What was Edward R. Murrow like? I’ve always been fascinated of the artists that worked in that particular area left, so there was an by him. opening. Mike suggested that they contact me and they called me up. I BURLOCKOFF: Wonderful. He was very down-to-earth and very thought it was a joke, because Mike and I would call each other up and helpful. He was the type of guy whose office you could just walk into. say things like, “This is the F.B.I. calling”... things like that. I took it You didn’t have to go through a hundred people to see him or deal with with a grain of salt, but it turned out to be real. The boss asked me to suggestion boxes. I had free access. And Murrow always had a cigarette come down, so I did. I said, “This sounds like a good idea.” It was interdangling from his mouth. esting.

An early-1960s photo of the so-called “Cartoon Section” of the U.S. Information Agency. [Left to right:] writer John Augustin, artist Mike Roy, Ed Bouling, Jim Douglas [standing], Sam Burlockoff, Dee Fairchild.—plus a trio of the mid-1960s True Tales art Sam did for the USIA, on space, Mount Rushmore, and jazz, respectively. The text ran underneath the pictures in English, Spanish, French, Arabic, or other languages. Thanks to S.B. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

Sam Burlockoff

43

Photo of Sam (at right) with legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow at the USIA—and the drawing of two-time Presidential candidate (1952, 1956) and 1960s U.N. representative Adlai Stevenson which the artist was drawing while Morrow looked on. Thanks to S.B. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

People used to walk along the street and come into the office and ask, “How do you get to such and such a place?” We’d say, “We’re not that kind of information office.” We used to howl at them! [laughs]

signing it under the name Verus, which in Latin means “the truth.” Later on, I was allowed to sign my name on the strip. I was disappointed when we stopped doing them, because I thought they were educational. I always came back with the remark, “Well, how come they always take the visiting dignitaries to Disney World?”

I was doing a comic strip on Adlai Stevenson, and Murrow came into the room and looked over my shoulder. He chuckled and said, “Oh, boy! Adlai would love that!” [laughs] They took a picture of that and it ran in the newspaper.

Look at the movies. They steal all this stuff from the comic books. Like Steven Spielberg.

JA: Did you ever get to deal with Presidents?

JA: There’s a lot of Jack Kirby’s New Gods in Star Wars. Where were these books you did for the government distributed?

BURLOCKOFF: Not directly. Our boss at the time was a guy named Okamoto, who was a photographer for L.B.J. I did a comic book on L.B.J., along with Mike Roy. I did comic books on Kennedy, The United Nations and You, and The Man On The Moon (which was before we actually accomplished that), among many other things.

JA: Who wrote these?

BURLOCKOFF: They went to libraries, magazines, and newspapers. It was interesting to see these published in Chinese and Arabic. It was also on television in the Orient. The strip never appeared in the United States. The idea was for the U.S. to push our philosophy overseas. I did three strips a week.

BURLOCKOFF: We had several writers.

John Augustin wrote some in the early days. I did a strip called True Tales, which was about American success stories—true facts, like how American Presidents were elected. I did that from 1960 to 1970,

They disbanded the comics area because it wasn’t sophisticated enough for the government. I started designing publications for the agency, which went in many libraries all over the world. I ended up getting a Silver Award from the

Page of a comic book on Edison drawn by Sam for the USIA. Thanks to S.B. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

44

A Golden Age Reunion New York Art Director’s Club and a Gold Medal from the Washington Art Directors’ Club. I also got one from the Society of Federal Artists and Designers in 1970. I was the assistant art director. Al Majal was one of the magazines we did; that was for the Middle East. Doing all this was a complete turnaround for me, and I got a different perspective on magazines. You have to be versatile or else you lose yourself. I retired in 1989.

Even though I’m retired, I still paint. My paintings are all over the house. It’s what I love to do. I learned new ways to visualize while working on those magazines, which helped me when I started painting. You know, everything you learn, you can use somewhere else. That makes you an artist.

The cover of the John F. Kennedy comic book Burlockoff drew for the USIA in the early 1960s— plus those of several translations. Thanks to S.B. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

A SAM BURLOCKOFF CHECKLIST [NOTE: Thanks to Jerry Bails for providing the following information (which has been abridged by A/E) from the online Who’s Who of 20th-Century American Comic Books. Key: (a) = full art; (p) = penciling only; (i) = inks only. Italicized titles are the names of comics; nonitalicized titles are features, which may have appeared in more than one title, such as “Human Torch.” Some of this information has been provided by Sam Burlockoff, via Jim Amash.]

Full Name & Date of Birth: Sam Burlockoff (b. 1924), artist

Illustrations: Picture World Encyclopedia 1959

1943; The King (i) 1943-44; The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (i) 1960s; Our Army at War (a) 1953-54; Our Fighting Forces (a) 1955; Star Spangled War Stories (a) 1954-55; Starman (i, in All-Star Comics) 1943;Wildcat (i) 1943-44

Advertising: assistant art director: Al Majal (magazine for U.S. Information Agency for the Middle East)—dates uncertain

Easter Color Printing/Famous Funnies: Heroic Comics (a) 194648/52-53; romance (a) c. 1947-52

Coloring Books: Saalfield (a) 1950s to late 1960s

Fawcett Comics: Destination Moon (i) 1950

Juvenile Books: Flash Gordon and His Adventures in Space (a) 1958 (2 versions with different cover paintings)

Harvey/Family Comics: Mister Q (a) 1943

Honors: Silver Award from the New York Art Director’s Club; Gold Medal from the Washington Art Director’s Club; Gold Medal from the Society of Federal Artists and Designers, 1970

Lev Gleason & precursors: crime (p) 1947; Hero of the Month (p) 1943; Yankee Longago (p) 1943; inked features for Mike Roy and Dan Barry, late 1940s

Syndicated Credits: Apartment 3-G (i) early 1960s; Flash Gordon (a; assistant) 1952-53; The Saint (a, i) c. 1950

Marvel/Timely/Atlas: Adventures into Weird Worlds (a) 1954; Battlefront (a) 1953; Human Torch (p) c. 1941; Men’s Adventures (a) 1953; misc. work with Allen Bellman and Chic Stone c. 1941; Secret Story Romances (a) 1954; Sub-Mariner (i) c. 1941; Uncanny Tales (a) 1954; western (p) c. 1953

Pen Name: Burly

Comic Books for Overseas [for USIA; not available in U.S.]: John F. Kennedy (p), L.B.J., Man on the Moon, all pre-1970; True Tales (a) 1960-70 twice weekly U.S. MAINSTREAM COMIC BOOKS: Comic Shop: Funnies, Inc. (a) 1941 (work for Timely/Marvel)

Hillman Periodicals: The Heap (i, over Dan Barry) 1947

Quality Comics: Blackhawk (i) c. 1945- ; Candy (i) 1940s; Captain Triumph (i) c. 1945- ; crime (a) late 1940s; Plastic Man (i) c. 1945- ; western (p) 1951

Archie/MLJ: Archie (i) 1943; Dusty the Boy Detective (p) dates unknown; The Shield (p) 1942-44; The Web (p) 1940s

St. John/Jubilee: Flyboy (i, over Alex Kotzky) 1954

DC Comics: All-American Men of War (a) 1954-55; covers (a) 1954; Gang Busters (i) 1953; Green Lantern (i; over Paul Reinman pencils)

Toby/Minoan: horror (p) 1950s; Red, White, and Blue (?) (i) 1950s; romance (a) 1954

Stanmore/Timor & related: Crime Detector (Mike Danger) (a) 1954

Mart Nodell

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Mart Nodell’s Time at Timely From Green Lantern’s Ring to Captain America’s Shield

by Blake Bell [INTRODUCTION: Few people in the comic book industry are as eloquent as Mart Nodell, the creator of the Golden Age Green Lantern. His quick wit and his ability to speak clearly, and concisely, suggest one is speaking to a man in his fifties, not his eighties. Marty saw it all in the early ’40s at DC, but few people know he also spent three years in the Timely bullpen, working for Stan Lee and Syd Shores, from 1948-50. We caught up with Marty at his table at the 2001 San Diego Comic-Con’s Artist Alley and discussed his time at Timely. —Blake.]

BELL: How did you end up at working at Timely Comics?

NODELL: I had been doing “Green Lantern” for about eight years, but I decided to take a little time away from the “Green Lantern,” and Stan Lee said he needed someone on his staff, so I went to work for Stan. I met Stan on a floor at the Empire State Building. At that point, it was an area where there were, I’d say, about a dozen artists—where we just worked as we wanted right there. In other words, tables set up as a studio. We all enjoyed working that way.

BELL: So you specifically worked in the bullpen, in the Empire State Building?

NODELL: We all worked in the studio at the Empire State Building. I forget whether it was the 13th floor, but it was a good floor. Everyone

Mart and Carrie Nodell met in 1941, roughly a year and a half after Marty came up with the concept of The Green Lantern. They’re seen here a few years ago with sculptor Randy Bowen’s exquisite sculpture of the Golden Age GL; Bowen and sf writer Harlan Ellison own the other two of only three copies ever made. Sorry, but we’re uncertain who took this photo of the Nodells.

who worked with Stan enjoyed the work they did. It was fun and games.

Everybody had their work to do. We were fairly well paid. We were not well-paid, but it was fair and we enjoyed our work. The crew we had was Stan Lee as the editor... there was Syd Shores, who was the head of the [art] department. As we worked various other jobs, we were given scripts from Stan, and finishing that, the fellows who did the penciling handed them over to the inkers, who finished up the work, and that was about it.

BELL: It doesn’t sound like an artist did one specific story. It almost sounds like a “conveyor belt” scenario.

NODELL: Well, you may believe so, but it really wasn’t exactly like that. Actually, we were set up so that we were on three walls, plus Stan with his office, and Syd ran the works. He did mostly the “Captain Americas,” and he was an easy-going chap, who worked well with everyone else. Syd was the kind of fellow who accepted only excellent work, but it was easy working with him.

Every once and awhile, a chap named Sekowsky came in during the daytime with about three or four different pages and he’d show us what he had there. He’d go see Stan, of course, and then he’d go home. At night he’d come back and he’d have about another six pages, he worked so swiftly. It was great working with Mike.

BELL: Did you ever work with Bill Everett?

NODELL: I don’t recall that I ever did. I don’t remember too much about him.

Because there were generally at least two artists on postwar “Big Three” stories (penciler and inker), and often more, as Mart Nodell describes, it’s difficult to be certain who the artists are. These panels from a later-1940s “Sub-Mariner” tale is a case in point—or, if there’s somebody who feels he can ID the artist(s) for sure, we hope he’ll let us know! Thanks to Jerry G. Bails. (See A/E V3#5 for an unfinished Nodell Sub-Mariner cover, at least, that is definitely Marty’s work.) Thanks to Jerry G. Bails. [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

BELL: Did you receive scripts from Stan that he had written himself, or were they from other writers?

NODELL: I don’t recall whether he wrote them, but I think the scripts were from other writers. I know that they were finished scripts, very little changes. They were finalized scripts on typewriter paper—typed out and given to the fellows.

46

Mart Nodell did Dan DeCarlo, who did a lot of the girlie work. He was there before I showed up.

BELL: What about Joe Maneely? Was he there at that time?

NODELL: Another nice easy-going guy. He didn’t leave too much of an impression.

BELL: Did you ever get a chance to meet Alex Schomburg?

NODELL: I really don’t believe I ever got to know him at all. We really got to know Syd Shores. We had him home for dinner all through then. He was a good friend.

BELL: Did you stay friends with him after 1950?

One of numerous copies of recent Nodell colored art that Marty and Carrie sell at comicons around the country. In honor of his time at Timely, Marty composed this one with the top heroes he drew for both Timely and DC. [Art ©2004 Mart Nodell; Captain America TM & ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Green Lantern TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]

BELL: What kind of books did you do at Timely during that period?

NODELL: I worked on the big three super-heroes of the time [Captain America, Human Torch, & Sub-Mariner]. I did pencils on them. Inkers were separate, and every once and a while there’d be a rush job, so I’d do three pages, somebody else would do another page or two, another page or two for another artist, and they’d all finish up the work as pencils; then the inkers would get them. No one would ever really know who did what, or what work was done by anybody. It was very difficult to judge, for anybody.

BELL: Do you remember doing any other kind of genre work, like romance or western?

NODELL: I did some westerns—very few westerns. Pierce Rice did most of the westerns. He was very good.

BELL: What about other individuals there?

NODELL: They were all a really great group. Gene Colan was there.

He was one of our young artists. He was the “kid on the block.”

Everyone kidded him about being the youngster, as he was a little bit younger than we were. Gene was an easy-going fellow, but he could speak up for himself. His work was good. We always had fun with him.

Everyone was really nice and pleasant, except me. [laughs] There was John Buscema, who was always super-good, and he did a lot of work. So

A MART NODELL Timely Checklist [NOTE: Jerry Bails also sent this information from the online Who’s Who of 20th-Century American Comic Books. Key: (a) = full art; (p) = pencils only. The names of the features have not been italicized because they appeared in more than one title at the time and it is not known precisely in which title the work appeared, i.e., The Human Torch or Marvel Mystery Comics.]

Full Name and Date of Birth: Martin Nodell (born 1915) —artist, writer.

Work at Timely/Marvel: Captain America (p) c. 1948; horror (a) c. 1948-49; Human Torch (p) c. 1948; science-fantasy (a) c. 1948-49; Sub-Mariner (p) c. 1948; war (a) c. 1948-49. Some data provided by Mart Nodell.

NODELL: No, but there it was just a matter of being away from New York, and going to Chicago, and from there to Florida. We couldn’t be in touch. Part of the problem was that people in advertising did not especially care for anyone connected in the business of comics in general.

BELL: Was it a fun atmosphere up there in the Timely bullpen, or was it just hard work?

NODELL: Yes, to both questions. There were times we really had to do a great deal of work, all within one day, and finish up a job. We’d begin in the morning, and by mid-day we’d have to have a lot of work done.

BELL: Was there a lot of business there in the late ‘40s? You never felt a “crunch” from lack of work?

NODELL: There were crunches at Timely, and there were rushes, but it worked out pretty well.

BELL: Why was your stay at Timely so short?

NODELL: I had made the decision in 1950 to get into advertising because I had begun to see a lot of work on storyboards, that kind of work, as well as animation. I thought I should really take advantage of that. And we were not all that well-paid in comics, whether it was “The Green Lantern” or afterwards. So by 1950 I went right into advertising.

It worked out well, as I became an art director for a number of agencies.

I worked for about five big agencies, and it worked out fine.

BELL: You never went back to comics?

NODELL: In 1975 I had a few friends drag me back into comics, because people wanted to know about me, and see me. We moved to Florida in 1976, and from that time until about 1980, I worked at the newspaper there, and it was fun doing work for them. We started coming to conventions mostly around 1982, and my wife likes it, so here we are, year after year.

[Blake Bell, as he says in his current TwoMorrows book I Have to Live with This Guy!, “has had poems published in London, articles in Comic Book Artist, and currently resides in Toronto.” Now he can add Alter Ego to his résumé. Blake has also been generous with information and material related to Timely and some of its top creators. In addition, he runs Steve Ditko’s “unofficial web haven for serious fans” at <www.ditko.comics.org>... the 1950s Atlas [Timely/Marvel] Cover Gallery at <www.timely-atlas.comics.org>... the “Golden Age Legends – Bill Everett/Alex Schomburg/Syd Shores” website at <www.ess.comics.org>... and the Gene Colan Art Gallery at <www.geocities.com/gcolan/>. So tell us, Blake—what do you do in your spare time?]

PLUS: PLUS:

5.95

$$

In the the USA USA In

No. 32 January 2004

Also, Rare Art & Also,

Artifacts By:

GIL KANE MIKE GOLD CARMINE INFANTINO WIN MORTIMER WAYNE BORING CURT SWAN AL PLASTINO JIM MOONEY SIMON & KIRBY JON SMALL ENRICO BAGNOLI ALEX TOTH PETE MORISI MARK EVANIER MICHAEL T. GILBERT WILL ELDER GRAY MORROW JEFF JONES ANGELO TORRES JOHN SEVERIN STEVE DITKO BOB POWELL AL WILLIAMSON BILL SCHELLY BILJO WHITE JEFF E. SMITH CARL GAFFORD JOE STATON JERRY BAILS JIM AMASH MARK LEWIS P.C. HAMERLINCK IRV STEINBERG MARC SWAYZE & MORE!!

1

1994--2004

Green Lantern, Lantern, Star Star Sapphire Sapphire TM TM & & ©2004 ©2004 DC DC Comics Comics Green

Vol. 3, No. 32 / January 2004

™

Editor

Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout

Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor

P.C. Hamerlinck

Comic Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

Editors Emeritus

Jerry Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White, Mike Friedrich

PANORAMIC POTPOURRI Section

Contents Writer/Editorial: A Guest Editorial by A/E Founder Jerry G. Bails . . 2

Production Assistant

Crisis on Silver Age Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Year (or so) the Future Started—by former DC/First Comics editor Mike Gold.

Cover Artists

Lost Comics Lore – Part II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Continuing Will Murray’s look at early comics—as reported by Writer’s Digest.

Eric Nolen-Weathington Gil Kane Dick Giordano

Covers Colorist Tom Ziuko

And Special Thanks to: Mark Lewis Enrico Bagnoli Mile-High Comics Jeff Bailey Michael Baulderstone Mark Muller Will Murray Alberto Becattini Mart & Carrie Blake Bell Nodell Allen Bellman Michelle Nolan Ray Bottorff, Jr. Warren Reece Sam Burlockoff Paul Rivoche Jack Burnley David A. Roach Mike Carlin Steven Rowe Jon B. Cooke David A. Simpson Ray A. Cuthbert Joe Staton Mark Evanier Richard Steinberg Michael Feldman Marc Swayze Keif Fromm Joel Thingvall Carl Gafford Dann Thomas Janet Gilbert Antonio Toldo Dick Giordano Alex Toth Mike Gold George Hagenauer Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Dr. Michael J. Roger Dicken & Vassallo Wendy Hunt Hames Ware Robert Justice Mrs. Hazel White Marc Kardell Eddy Zeno Gene Kehoe Mike Zeno Richard Kyle

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Pete Morisi

The Italian Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Alberto Beccatini and Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., discover “foreign agents” at Fiction House!

“The Silhouette Is The Strongest Graphic/Visual Image Possible!” . . 22 Alex Toth on comic art.

A Brief Tribute to Pete Morisi. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Mark Evanier writes about the creator of Johnny Dynamite and Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt.

Comic Crypt: Horror’s Missing Link, Part 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Michael T. Gilbert unearths secrets of the first black-&-white post-EC horror comics!

“We Miss You, Capt. Biljo!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Bill Schelly pays tribute to one of the great talents of Comic Fandom’s Golden Age. re: [correspondence, comments, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) #91. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 P.C. Hamerlinck presents Marc Swayze and Fawcett mystery man Irv Steinberg.

Bellman, Burlockoff, & Nodell Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover: When you’re talking dynamic late-1950s super-hero art for an Alter Ego cover, you’re definitely talking short list! Carmine Infantino’s Flash, no doubt about it—Simon and Kirby’s Fly, certainly—Steve Ditko’s Captain Atom, for sure—or Gil Kane’s Green Lantern (yes!). We were lucky that, at a crucial moment, collector Eddy Zeno sent us this drawing, done by Gil at an Atlanta, Georgia, con with his famous markers. You’re a lifesaver, Eddy! [Art ©2004 Estate of Gil Kane; Green Lantern & Star Sapphire TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]

Above: Veteran comics colorist Carl Gafford writes a long-running feature for the apa-zine CAPA-alpha entitled “This Month in Comics,” for which he draws clever cartoons to accompany information about what was on sale 40, 35, 30, and 25 years earlier, as well as who wrote and drew that material. The above pair are from his March and May 1999 contribution.

Mike Gold has a few more words to say on the subject on the pages that follow. [Cartoons ©2004 Carl Gafford; characters TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]

Alter EgoTM is published monthly by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092.

Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $8 ($10 Canada, $11.00 elsewhere). Twelve-issue subscriptions: $60 US, $120 Canada, $132 elsewhere. 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 Canada.

FIRST PRINTING.

2

Title writer/editorial

A Guest Editorial by Jerry Bails [NOTE: Alter Ego’s founding editor and publisher Jerry G. Bails recently sent us the following thoughts about errata and corrections —and we felt they were worth printing as our first (but not necessarily last) guest editorial.]

Books about the people in the comics industry are real jewels that we all prize, but they allow errors to persist long after the author is embarrassed by them. On the other hand, the Internet is a wonderful medium that allows researchers to get instant feedback and rapid correction of their errors. It saves writers from a good many errors—not all, but it sure helps.

especially when it was farmed out to the Jack Binder shop and was being published in Prize Comics.

The later appearances of The Green Lama in his own magazine from Crossen’s Spark Publications seem to have been primarily written by Horace Gold. Gold was a friend of Jerry Siegel’s, who, according to a letter from Siegel, assisted him by supplying plots for early “Superman” adventures.

Okay, I’ve got one more error to clean up—for now.

In the introduction to the recent Spectre Archives, Vol. 1, I repeated the conventional wisdom about Victor Fox, who published “Wonder Man,” a rip-off of “Superman” that was immediately sued out of existence. I repeated the traditional story that he was a former accountant for Harry Donenfeld at DC. As the story went, once Fox saw the sales figures of Action Comics, he went off and started his own line of comics.

However, even with archives of Internet discussions preserved somewhere on the Web, errors discussed on the Internet do not yet rise to the level of print as the last word on a subject. That is where Alter Ego is so important. It is a living, growing instrument of research into the comics medium, and because Roy Thomas is so careful in publishing errata, it will serve for many years as a reference tool for Michael Feldman has since writers. They may not always credit An early Will Eisner panel—from Wonder Comics #1 (May 1939). convinced me that this widely-told Alter Ego or get the facts straight, [©2004 the respective copyright holder.] tale is very likely apocryphal. Fox but the beauty of A/E is that it will would have had to have access to be a research tool on the shelves of writers for decades to come, and we considerable capital to launch numerous titles, as he did in 1939. It’s can consult back issues, knowing you cared enough to print additions unlikely that an accountant working for a second-rate publisher in those and corrections, for which you are to be justly rewarded with an days had access to that much capital. There are numerous other ways honorary degree from the School of Hard Knocks. that someone in advertising, merchandising, publishing, distributing, or I’d like to take advantage of this wonderful aspect of the magazine to correct a few errors of my own that have appeared in book form in recent years. I believe that I can make the points so that they will be of general interest to its readers.

The first error appeared in the introduction I wrote for The Golden Age Green Lantern, Vol. 2. I mentioned in passing what I thought was a radio pilot based on the origin story in All-American Comics #16, by Bill Finger and Mart Nodell. I have had that recording in my possession for over twenty years. It had circulated with Old Time Radio recordings, some of which were pilots for shows that never got a sponsor. I presumed—wrongly—that this was the case with the “origin of GL” tape. As I learned on the Grand Comic-Book Chat List (www.comics.org), it was actually one of three recordings DC licensed in the late Silver Age (exact date unknown to me). The other two were Silver Age characters—one being Aquaman, I’m told.

I never saw this set for sale. I would have been flabbergasted to discover a Golden Age character released on a record during the Silver Age. Maybe one of your readers can enlighten me as to how that happened. Anyway, the recording is a faithful adaptation of the very first “Green Lantern” story from 1940, which should be of interest to Golden Age collectors.

In the very next paragraph of that same Archives introduction, I also mentioned The Green Lama and attributed his creation to Ken Crossen, a writer and later publisher. That may have been only partially true.

Crossen was using the writing talents of Horace Gold to produce many of the “Green Lama” stories. I have no idea who initiated the idea, or how much input Crossen had, but I suspect he had some. I have evidence of other writers (like Ken Jackson) writing the feature,

the paper industry might have learned early on of the success of “Superman.” We have yet to learn where Fox raised his capital, but I am now highly suspicious of the traditional story.

Nevertheless, we can all put Fox Publications in the same large office building as early DC Comics. That was 480 Lexington Avenue, known as the Grand Central Palace. It was a large building occupying an entire block, with at least one other street entrance. Will Eisner, who created “Wonder Man,” has told the story of Victor Fox opening the entrance doors on DC’s floor and spitting out to show his disdain for Donenfeld.

Well, Fox did lose that legal battle over “Wonder Man.” I hasten to add that I photographed the Grand Central Palace on my family’s trip to New York in the summer of 1948. So I was in New York City that summer. I just couldn’t find the Seuling convention covered in Alter Ego #27. Someone must have made that up.

Jerry G .Bails [So how about it, A/Enthusiasts? Keep spotting those errors, in Alter Ego and elsewhere. For instance, we hope Craig Delich (or somebody else) will find time soon to do a piece correcting the ID mistakes— including my own—that’ve sneaked into DC’s basically excellent Archives series. Let’s forget this “Print the legend” bull that often passes for both journalism and history nowadays, and examine any and all assumptions, even if they come from a revered comics icon. If it’s truth, it’ll withstand the scrutiny! Oh, and please—don’t automatically trust anything you read on the Internet, either—it’s a valuable tool, but it’s also the greatest spreader of mis-information in the history of humankind!

Bestest,

Mike Gold

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Crisis On Silver Age Earth The Year (or So) the Future Started

by Mike Gold [EDITOR’S NOTE: Mike Gold was one of the founding editors of First Comics in Chicago in the mid1980s, and from the late 1980s through much of the ’90s, he served as an editor at DC Comics. His current bio follows this piece, which he wrote at the time of Alter Ego V3#1 and which has been sitting undeservedly on a shelf for more than thirty issues, awaiting a berth. —Roy.] It was a deeply fearful time for the comic book industry.

Business was bad and a great many writers and artists who had dedicated their livelihoods to the medium found themselves staring unemployment in the face. A legion of talent left in search of reliable engagement elsewhere. Many new titles fell into the abyss, discontinued shortly after their debut.

Most smaller comics companies had already gone out of business.

Distributors were folding, as well—major, well-known distributors. Retail outlets were disappearing, with no replacement venues on the horizon. A great many people believed the end was near.

Riddle me this: when did this happen? Here’s a clue: at the time, just about the only comic with variant cover art was Mad. And Mad had become a magazine several years earlier, no longer counted as a comic book.

The time was the end of comics’ third decade: 1958 and 1959. Market conditions were not unlike those of recent years, although the response to the problem was quite different. The concept of generating a multitude of expensive artificial collectibles was not an option. Indeed, those clever few that had kept their wits and their jobs believed the best way the medium could ward off oblivion was through creativity and talent.

As an outlet for the publication of new material, the comic book medium was a mere two decades old. For much of that time, it had suffered through castigation, restriction, and external censorship; if they wanted to stay in business, the few surviving publishers had a very good idea what they should not publish. To start with, they could not publish

Mike Gold (as sketched a few years ago by DC editorial head honcho Mike Carlin) ponders a six-pack of Superman covers from the 1950s, a montage done for the 1971 hardcover Superman from the 30’s to the 70’s. In many ways, Gold feels, a looming era of transition related to the Man of Steel was the starting-point for comics events of the late 1950s and beyond. Read it and find out how! [Sketch ©2004 Mike Carlin; Superman art ©2004 DC Comics.]

violent crime and horror comics—two significant profit centers for the first half of the 1950s.

Western comics had peaked, and science-fiction titles had never truly taken off. With the obvious (and important) exception of “Archie,” teen humor had been hitor-miss, and the broader funny-animal genre had run aground. Only Dell and Harvey Comics were committed to its continuance. Even though certain Dell titles were, by some accounts, selling more than three million copies each month, Harvey was moving away from newspaper strip reprints towards a line of funny ghosts, funny devils, funny witches, and funny people with really thick ankles. Sports, music, and movie star titles were short-lived, and romance comics were a matter of tonnage: successful at present levels, but without room for expansion.

Super-hero comics had been the staple of the industry throughout the 1940s, but the hundreds of super-hero titles had been whittled down to perhaps half dozen a month, in a good month. A few years earlier, Marvel had tried a revival with Captain America, The Human Torch, and The Sub-Mariner; all three had been major successes during the 1940s, but in revival, the first two lasted only a year, and Namor only two. At roughly the same time, the most successful post-Siegel andShuster creative team in comics history, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, flopped with Fighting American, which lasted only seven issues.

National Comics still had Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, along with Aquaman and Green Arrow in six page back-up features, and the Blackhawks, who almost qualify as costumed heroes. National’s

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Crisis On Silver Age Earth The time for scattergun experimentation had passed. It was time for writers, artists, editors, and publishers to buckle down and do what they did best—but now do it in a more contemporary fashion. They had to inspire new readers, regain the attention of those they had lost, and run like the devil down the tunnel toward that dim light at the end. In so doing, these stalwarts paved the way for the so-called Silver Age, creating or refining many of the devices we have taken for granted ever since.

First and foremost, they started paying attention to the readers.

One might think that publishers always paid attention to their readers, because they followed sales figures. If something sold well or better, they’d do more. If something sold poorly or worse, they’d do less. This belief contains a fundamental flaw. There is an enormous difference between paying attention to sales figures and paying attention to the readers. Sales figures tell you what the readers have liked, and that is important as far as it goes. But if you would only listen to them, the readers will enthusiastically tell you what they would like. They will show you the future. But you have to give them the opportunity for feedback, and you’ve got to cultivate and capture and hold on to their enthusiasm.

The door had been opened two years earlier. National had launched a title that would allow them to experiment without going through the logistical trouble of launching new titles. Their new book, Showcase, was conceived as a series of one-shots covering unexplored themes: underwater adventure, firemen, heroic animals, and sundry types of detectives and adventurers. As we all know, the fourth issue truly resurrected the super-hero genre with the modernized revival of “The Flash.”

endurance was propped up by the Superman television show—it had been an enormous hit, but it had gone out of production after 1957, and thoughts of a restart were mitigated by the increasing age of its cast.

Unfortunately for everyone’s peace of mind, no one could have foreseen its healthy afterlife in the rerun market.

With or without Simon and Kirby, two of that super-team’s patriotically-garbed heroes didn’t set off any sales fireworks in the mid-’50s. John Romita recapped the S&K origin for Timely/Atlas’ revival of Captain America in Young Men #24 (Dec. 1953)—while S&K themselves found a new way to turn a 90-pound weakling into a Fighting American (in #1, April-May 1954). Both series are fondly remembered today. Two Romita-drawn “Captain America” tales were reprinted in the 1997 trade paperback The Golden Age of Marvel [Vol. 1], and the entire run of Fighting American was collected in a glorious 1989 hardcover. [Captain America art ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Fighting American art ©2004 Joe Simon & the Estate of Jack Kirby.]

Cavemen, high adventure, satire, heroic animals like Rex the Wonder Dog (launched shortly before the 1950s Rin Tin Tin and Lassie craze)—these were interesting attempts at taking the medium into new directions, but they hardly set the world on fire. Whereas Jack Schiff introduced the first new ongoing super-hero of the period in 1955 in the back pages of Detective Comics, this did not fundamentally alter comics’ condition. Initially, “John Jones - Manhunter from Mars” was little more than a different take on Superman, combined with the imagery of the science-fiction movies of the time (a favorite Schiff device). There is little reason to believe that it provided impetus to launch “The Flash” the following year.

Mike Gold Clearly, Showcase #4 sold well, as the second appearance of The Flash followed a mere eight months later, which was barely enough time to get serious sales figures in and commission, print, and distribute the work. Following that issue, National upped the ante by changing their format from single appearances to two-issue runs, starting with Jack Kirby’s “Challengers of the Unknown.”

From today’s perspective it’s easy to see “The Challengers” as part of a movement towards super-heroes, but at the time they were just another team of uncostumed, unpowered adventurers—far better conceived, written, and drawn, of course, but the series neither indicated nor fostered any change in editorial direction.

The two-issue “Lois Lane” tryout in Showcase followed the Chals, but the gamble on Lois had more to do with launching a title that featured a female lead. Her exposure on television and Superman’s consistent appearance mitigated National’s risk. After Lois and two more issues with the Challengers, they brought back The Flash in Showcase #13 and #14 for his final tryout run.

When Showcase launched its next significant characters, Adam Strange, Green Lantern, and The Atom were all done in three-issue arcs. This philosophy was ported over to The Brave and the Bold, with the Justice League of America (at the very end of 1959) and Hawkman try-outs. From the sales figures on the first two issues and the “flash” (preliminary) numbers on the third, National could tell the difference between a fad and a fluke and could minimize the amount of time between the final tryout and the first ongoing appearance.

This evolution in format from one-shot to the three-issue runs we came to associate with Showcase was a significant change in marketing philosophy: a three-issue run represented a move away from scattergun publishing, and that gave National—and later, the industry—the way out of their circulation nightmare.

It was proven that intelligent and contemporary super-heroes were a fad, at the very least, and genreoriented concepts were a fluke, at the very best. But this information only provided a sketchy map out of the sales morass. Publishers needed more information. They needed market research.

The most obvious way to elicit readers’ opinions was to establish a letters column. In and of itself, this was nothing new: in this publishing category, letter columns date back to the earliest pulp days, when even President Teddy Roosevelt was a member of Adventure magazine’s fan club. Lettercols, as they were often called for short, had been seen in comics as well, and several titles carried the readers’ praise (and occasionally their sketches) during the 1940s.

In the early-to-mid-1950s, the EC titles offered critical analysis from future comics writers and editors like Archie Goodwin and E. Nelson Bridwell, but, given the nature of the EC line, they had little influence

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over the company’s direction. Various romance comics had their “advice to the lovelorn” letters—letters of dubious origin. But an across-theboard effort to elicit, gauge, understand, and incorporate the thoughts of the readers was as yet unrealized. Mort Weisinger’s Superman titles carried highly self-promotional letters: the response to an incredible percentage of letters was a plug for an upcoming Superman family title.

But Weisinger’s letter columns had at least one more effect: they generated mail.

Bolstered by the success of the television series, Mort Weisinger’s Superman line was comparatively strong. But Weisinger also served as the TV show’s story editor, DC editor Julius Schwartz came into and whereas the program his own in the latter 1950s, with the was still being broadcast, revival/revamping of The Flash. Showcase production had come to an #14 (June 1958) spotlighted the last of the end in 1957. The time was speedster’s four strategically-spaced ripe to shore up his line, tryouts; with later heroes, a three-issuesand the best place to start in-a-row approach became more common. was with the traditionally The cover is repro’d here from a copy marginal Adventure of the original black-&-white art by Comics.

Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella, which was sold in a Sotheby’s auction exactly forty years later. Photo by Beth Gwinn.

[Art ©2004 DC Comics.]

Astonishingly selfpromoting though they were, his letter columns provided a font of conceptual energy, all provided without charge by his loyal fans. How did Superboy learn to use his powers? What if Superboy met Robin? And—let’s see more of Bizarro. Let’s see more of that Legion of Super-Heroes.

Ever since the pulp days, editors had been receiving story ideas from willing readers, but all that produced was a (hopefully) good story, and that was that. It was revolutionary to reach out to the consensus of fan desires— indeed, even the idea of recognizing that fan input could be representative of the broader readership was something new, and something National didn’t fully accept for another twenty years. This de facto empowerment of the hardcore reader was the way the comics industry altered its future, saving its butt in the process. The most identifiable moment when this corner was turned was 1958.

The idea of crossovers was not new, but crossover stories were extremely rare. They were all the more unusual at National Comics, where each editor operated his line as a separate fiefdom. By 1958 there were four main editors who handled super-heroes: Julius Schwartz with The Flash (still bound to Showcase), Jack Schiff with the Batman books, Robert Kanigher with Wonder Woman, and Weisinger with the Superman titles. Murray Boltinoff and George Kashdan were editing at the time, working under Jack Schiff. World’s Finest Comics was the

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Crisis On Silver Age Earth Mort Weisinger, who like Schwartz emerged from the shadow of chief editor Whitney Ellsworth in the late 1950s, edited all Superman-starring mags except World’s Finest Comics. He utilized some of the field’s top talent, including the trio of artists whose work is depicted here: Win Mortimer, Wayne Boring, and Curt Swan. The photo of M.W. appeared in the 1985 publication Fifty Who Made DC Great, while the commissioned art is courtesy of collector Eddy Zeno, author of the recent illustrated biography Curt Swan: A Life in Comics, which may just still be available from Vanguard Press; see <creativemix.com/ vanguard> for details. [Art © the estates of the respective artists; Superman TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]

only title that regularly indicated an awareness of a “universe,” as Superman, Batman, and Robin had been teaming up ever since page restrictions forced them to share the same apartment. On at least one occasion in the late 1950s, Blackhawk mentioned the existence of Superman, but there was no indication they had ever taken lunch together.

Indeed, there was more crossover between those editors than there had been among their characters: various editors shared offices from time to time, Kanigher wrote for Schwartz, and everybody reported to editorial director Schiff—who covered for Weisinger when he was working on the TV show.

So when Adventure Comics #253 came out in the summer of 1958, my little eight-year-old fanboy head exploded (when it came to comic books, I was quite precocious; by age eight I was a veteran). “Superboy Meets Robin,” the cover proclaimed—and there he was, little barelegged Robin, just about to take a baseball bat to Superboy’s favorite intergalactic grandfather clock! Okay, the conflict seems weak by today’s standards, but the cover could have showed the two of them flagging baseball cards for all I cared—the idea of Robin, from Batman fame, meeting Superboy, from Superman fame, was revolutionary. And the idea of Robin, from our contemporary time, meeting Superboy, from a Depression-less, pre-World War II America, in his native environment— well, folks, that made World’s Finest seem routine.

By now, Mort was getting mail on Adventure #247, and readers wanted more of The Legion of Super-Heroes. Undoubtedly, sales on that issue were at least average, but editors did not routinely revisit “used” concepts—unless that used concept was a particularly popular villain. Beginning in the fall of 1959, the Legion began a lengthy series of

Mike Gold

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character had done before: his name became a part of the English language, and is noted in various dictionaries as a person who is strange and unusual—and, according to The American Heritage Dictionary, brave. (The word “superman” had entered our lexicon long before Action Comics #1, by way of philosopher Friedrich Nietzche and playwright George Bernard Shaw.)

In Superman #123 (August, 1958), Superman met his near-equal in

(Above:) Because many of the specific stories mentioned herein have been reprinted in recent years, we aren’t spotlighting most of them—but because Mike Gold says his “little eight-year-old fanboy head exploded” when Adventure Comics #253 appeared with an Oct. 1958 cover date, we had to make an exception! “Superboy Meets Robin the Boy Wonder” was also featured in the 1989 DC hardcover The Greatest Team-Up Stories Ever Told. Pencils by Al Plastino. [©2004 DC Comics.]

guest-shots throughout the Superman line, leading up to their own series in 1962.

The readers also clamored for the return of two different one-shot characters, each of whom had met an unfortunate destiny. In that fateful summer of 1958 Weisinger brought a heavily-promoted Frankenstein tribute to the pages of Superboy, introducing a tragic figure named Bizarro. The character became so popular that he was introduced into various Superman family titles, until he earned his own short-lived series in the back pages of Adventure Comics.

The “Tales of the Bizarro World” series was replaced by the far more popular “Legion of Super-Heroes”; this event marked the greatest fan influence to date.

Mike feels that the above second appearance by the Legion of Super-Heroes, in Adventure #267 (Dec. 1959), more than a year and a half after their debut in #247, was the result of mail response and burgeoning fan-mail, as well as sales reports. At any rate, the upshot to date has been twelve volumes of Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, beginning in 1991—and the end is not yet in sight. [©2004 DC Comics.]

The Legion continued to appear in other Superman titles, although far less frequently. So did Bizarro and his undead family—but Bizarro achieved something no other comic book

Indeed, what made the “Supergirl” series unique was not that she was a female version of Superboy, but that she had to earn her wings. She was a super-hero in training, whose movements were restricted to those that would not reveal her existence to the world until

the form of a Girl of Steel—a Super-Girl. Sales were strong, and fan response was even stronger. So he created a new “Maid of Steel”—it’s hard to believe, but in 1959 the idea of simply bringing a character back from the dead had not occurred to anybody; or, if it did, it was probably believed to be in bad taste.

So in Action Comics #252 (May, 1959), Super-Girl “came back” in the form of a new Supergirl. Score another one for the fans.

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Crisis On Silver Age Earth

(Above:) The first-ever use of Bizarro was in the Superman daily comic strip, as penciled by Curt Swan. This strip for Dec. 8, 1958, is repro’d from proof sheets sent out by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate at the time to Otto Binder, who was to introduce the Bizarro concept into comic books—but it seems likely that strip writer Alvin Schwartz got there first. (Left:) A page from a “Tales of the Bizarro World” feature in Adventure Comics #295 (April 1962).

Art by John Forte? [©2004 DC Comics.]

her mentor, Superman himself, proclaimed her fit for public duty. One might suspect that ol’ Supes was concerned about competition, if he hadn’t made good on his promise and eventually declared her worthy of notice nearly three years later.

This concept gave the early “Supergirl” run a tighter continuity than most super-hero series.

Whereas readers could miss issues (unless they were in the middle of a multi-part story, another rarely-used device at the time), the broader concept was only realized by having an understanding of the greater run of the feature. Along the way, Supergirl became deeply imbedded in the Superman continuity, linking up with the Legion, Jimmy Olsen (in a nice little story in which she had to persuade a blind Jimmy of her existence in order to help him), and the various super-pets.

(Left:) The first Supergirl appeared in Superman #123 in 1958. Thanks to Jim Amash for the scan. There seems to be some disagreement as to the penciler, so we’ll skip the ID. (Above:) A pencil sketch of the original continuing Supergirl by her longtime artist, Jim Mooney; thanks to collector Robert Justice. [Superman #123 art ©2004 DC Comics; Supergirl drawing ©2004 Jim Mooney; Supergirl TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]

Mike Gold

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The 1958 story at left, in Superman #125, was the first of the “Untold Tales of Superman”—but the introduction of Lori Lemaris in #129 (right) made perhaps the greatest impact. Thanks to Jim Amash for the #125 scan. [©2004 DC Comics.]

When you provide a vehicle that encourages communication, the hard-core readers will make fannish suggestions. If Superman was Superman in contemporary time and Superboy in the recent past, when did Superboy become Superman? Weisinger started a series of “Untold Tales,” beginning in Superman #125 (“Superman’s College Days,” Nov. 1958), and fans got a bit more meat on their plate. In short order, we discovered the name of Clark’s first girl friend (Lori Lemaris, of course), how Superboy learned to control his various powers, and all kinds of information about Krypton and Superman’s birth parents.

Having established a continuity and a method for filling in the blank spaces, it is logical that readers would start clamoring for stories that allow for alternate continuities—“what if” stories that could contradict the sanctioned storyline. The whole concept of the imaginary story furthered the empowerment of the hard-core reader: by saying certain stories were imaginary, Weisinger was telling people the other stories were not imaginary, thereby sanctifying the official continuity.

This is not to say that these various storytelling devices originated during this period. Indeed, Jack Schiff had run a handful of such stories in his Batman line. It was the routine and continuous use of such devices that straightened the two-way link between editor and reader and led the industry out of its darkness. With the spin-off, the untold tales, and the imaginary stories, we had finally established the contemporary continuity-driven comic book.

These roots lie with Mort Weisinger, who listened to his most faithful readers, tried their suggestions, gave fan-favored concepts a shot, and established a linear continuity in the process. Those roots also entwine Julius Schwartz, who proved you could revitalize previously successful characters and concepts in a completely contemporary manner.

But by no means were they alone.

The folks over at Archie Comics were moving on to their second generation of ownership—Richard Goldwater and Michael Silberkleit, the sons of the founders, were taking a greater role in company affairs.

Given the state of comics at the time, it would be logical to explore the idea of growing beyond their world of funny teenagers and, to a lesser extent, funny animals.

Like the other publishers, they experimented. Their bread-and-butter

was funny humans; in 1958 they extended themselves to funny aliens with a very clever series called Cosmo the Merry Martian. They also took their family jewels and put them in a number of extremely bizarre titles: Archie’s Mad House [sic] in 1959—a title that indulged in selfsatire—and Jughead’s Fantasy in 1960.

Goldwater and Silberkleit also remembered the medium’s super-hero glory days. Whereas those days had been more short-lived for Archie (MLJ) than for publishers like National, All-American, Timely, Fawcett, and Quality, still they had been a profit center for quite some time. It was natural for the new powers-that-be to want to take the temperature of the costumed waters.

In so doing, they went to the best: Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

Together, they created a brand-new series, The Adventures of The Fly (Aug. 1959), and they revived comics’ very first star-spangled superhero, The Shield. The latter series was called The Double Life of Private Strong (June 1959), and only the name “The Shield” was the same. Quite frankly, the new Simon and Kirby Shield seemed a lot more like their Captain America than like Harry Shorten and Irv Novick’s Shield.

All the same, both series were hallmarks of the super-hero genre. The few issues packaged by Simon & Kirby took graphic storytelling to a new height: characters seemingly leaped off the pages, and one story in each issue was built around a “wide angle scream” centerfold. Their issues were imbued with an energy that we were seeing in other media, and particularly in rock ‘n’ roll. Each page bristled with energy; their few issues for Archie Comics had a major impact on Marvel Comics’ super-hero work just a few years later.

Simon and Kirby quickly left—and split up to pursue individual endeavors—Simon with Sick magazine and Harvey Comics, Kirby with National and later Marvel. Private Strong left at the same time (after a mere two issues), but The Fly endured for eight years. During the Batman TV craze of the mid-1960s, the rest of the MLJ heroes were revived in solo stories and grouped together as The Mighty Crusaders.

They all met—and I mean all of them—in one wonderful story called

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Crisis On Silver Age Earth Sorry, no room to show Cosmo the Merry Martian or Archie’s Mad House— not when longtime comics colorist Carl Gafford sent us a scan of this two-page Simon & Kirby plug in an issue of The Adventures of The Fly for The Double Life of Private Strong, starring the revived/revised Shield! Alas, this third 1950s try at a red-white-and-blue super-hero didn’t even last as long as the earlier ones of Captain America and Fighting American! The Fly was considerably more successful. [©2004 Archie Comics Publications.]

“Too Many Superheroes” (The Mighty Crusaders #4, April 1966). The writer was a guy named Jerry Siegel.

As 1958 was coming to an end, The Flash graduated to his own title—the first new super-hero to do so successfully. Moving into 1959, Julius Schwartz moved on to his second revival, as Green Lantern swooped into his three-issue Showcase run. In that origin issue, the bad guys acknowledged the existence of Superman: the villains were confused; the guy beaming through the wall wasn’t the Man of Steel, thereby furthering National’s shaky cross-editor continuity. The letters page was in place with the third appearance; Green Lantern #1 followed Showcase #24 by five months. The Silver Age was off and running.

While all of this was going on, where was Marvel Comics? Then known under a variety of corporate names without any cover imprint whatsoever, publisher Martin Goodman’s company (or companies) had a unique problem: their distributor had gone out of business in 1957, and in order to maintain access to the newsstands, they had had to cut a deal with Independent News. Unfortunately, Independent was owned by National Periodical Publications—which owned National Comics, a.k.a.

D.C. Comics (at the time, the periods were part of the colophon). Their deal came with a lid on the number of titles Marvel could produce—only eight a month.

This “proto-Marvel” sat by the sidelines, producing its teen sit-com books, its monster line, and its mystery titles, changing and altering genres according to whim until a fateful day in 1961 when Martin Goodman noticed National Comics’ new title, Justice League of America, was doing quite well. This might not have been the case: at one convention appearance, JLA editor Julius Schwartz said the title was only doing okay at the time. Another story indicates Goodman was given this information by one of National’s owners at the golf course; perhaps there was a bit of back-nine braggadocio going on. It didn’t matter: upon receipt of this information, Martin Goodman was inspired.

Recalling the good old days when Captain America, The SubMariner, and The Human Torch had been paying his country club fees, Goodman instructed his editor (and cousin-in-law) Stan Lee to come up with something similar. Believing those characters were old and boring, Lee combined forces with Jack Kirby and came up with Fantastic Four #1 instead.

Within three years, Lee, Kirby, and crew had set up a linear, coherent universe. It was one that was extremely responsive to the fans. (FF #3 had the first letter column; future professional comics artist Alan Weiss had the first letter), it was slavish to its linear continuity, and it not only touted the existence of other characters but soon acknowledged the existence of a past. The Sub-Mariner, reintroduced in Fantastic Four #4, had been part of this brand new Marvel Universe for more than twenty years! Captain America was impersonated by a criminal in a “Human Torch” story the following year, with the Real McCap returning only a few months later in The Avengers #4.

In those days, cancelled characters disappeared. But when The Hulk lost his own series after six issues, he quickly reappeared in Fantastic Four as a villain. A year later, he returned for a two-part bout—and it took the combined forces of the FF and The Avengers to subdue him, in perhaps the greatest single crossover event in comics history up to that point.

Mike Gold

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Bookending the 1958-59 year-plus examined by Mike Gold, two different comic book heroes read comic books. Barry Allen was reading an old (and non-existent) 1940s issue of Flash Comics when he was struck by lightning and chemicals in Showcase #4 (Oct. 1956), and had to wait till 1961 to meet his Golden Age counterpart on a parallel world. But when Johnny Storm, the new Human Torch, perused an equally spurious vintage issue of Sub-Mariner in 1962, it turned out a few seconds later that Prince Namor, amnesiac and bearded, had been sitting a few feet away from him the whole time. [Showcase #4 art ©2004 DC Comics; Fantastic Four #4 art ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

All of these concepts, all of these approaches, had found their roots in the 1958–59 period, primarily in National titles edited by Mort Weisinger and Julius Schwartz. The industry thrived for a while, receded a bit and got glandular during the Batman TV craze. A new generation took over in the mid-’60s, people who had been reared on comics and lusted to be in the industry.

When Marvel got out from under Independent News in 1968, their line rapidly doubled and redoubled, taking over the top circulation slot in the field by 1972. The direct sales system was established in the mid-1970s, and publishers slowly started to reorient themselves towards the safer venue of non-returnable sales to comics shops. Slowly, most publishers backed off from the newsstand that had put them in business and had brought them an unending supply of new readers.

Eschewing the simple business edict of pleasing the customer, comics redirected its efforts from the reader to the collector, and the medium started to swallow its own tail. What had started out as a great way to survive and thrive in 1958 turned into a dead end less than four decades later.

Julie Schwartz, editor of the new Flash, Green Lantern, and Justice League of America, was the most astute utilizer at DC of the letters page.

Here’s most of the letters page from JLA #2 (Jan. 1961), which featured the fifth tale of the new super-group—and two letters from Jerry Bails, who would be instrumental in the founding of a new fandom based initially on super-hero comics. (“Robert Ronald Lindsey” was a pseudonym of Jerry’s—not that Julie knew that!) [©2004 DC Comics.]

12

Crisis On Silver Age Earth And, as we all know—in comics, nothing stays dead forever!

1958–1959 was one of comics’ most innovative periods, and those innovations stemmed from one simple philosophy: to an unprecedented degree, the medium opened its ears to its readers and took their desires to heart. Approaches and concepts that came out of that time last to this very day.

[Mike Gold currently heads up Arrogant Media, a schizophrenic New England operation that packages comic books and graphic arts projects and provides consulting and agenting services to comics creators, non-profit organizations, political causes, and Internet companies. He is the author and/or editor of a wide range of books, including How to Draw Those Bodacious Bad Babes of Comics (Renaissance/St. Martin’s Press) with industry veteran Frank McLaughlin.]

In order to survive, it is time for comics to reinvent itself once again, drawing on the virtues of this unique medium. It can be done—people of vision like Mort Weisinger, Julius Schwartz, Joe Simon & Jack Kirby did it in 1958.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: We inadvertently omitted David Siegel’s name from the credits in our recent LEGION COMPANION book. David supplied the great Jim Mooney commissioned drawing on the back cover. We at TwoMorrows apologize for the oversight.

A recent photo of Mike Gold—flanked by two more panels from Adventure Comics #253—and a Gil Kane/Joe Giella panel from Showcase #22 (Sept.–Oct. 1959) which was adapted from black-&-white photostats in the house fanzine The Amazing World of DC Comics #3 (Nov. 1974). Its final word balloon would hardly be startling even in a DC mag by the late ’60s, but it sure surprised Ye Editor—and probably Mike G., as well—a decade earlier! [©2004 DC Comics.]

Submit Something To Alter Ego! Alter Ego is on the lookout for items that can be utilized in upcoming issues: • Convention Sketches and Program Books • Unpublished Artwork • Original Scripts (the older the better!)

• Photos • Unpublished Interviews • Little-seen Fanzine Material We’re also interested in articles, article ideas, or any other suggestions... and we pay off in FREE COPIES of A/E. (If you’re already an A/E subscriber, we’ll extend your subscription.) Contact: Roy Thomas, Editor Rt. 3, Box 468 St. Matthews, SC 29135 Fax: (803)826-6501 • E-mail: roydann@ntinet.com

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Writer’s Digest Magazine

13

Lost Comics Lore

Part 2: Continuing Our Look at the Early Comic Book Biz— as Witnessed in the Pages of Writer’s Digest Magazine

by Will Murray [EDITOR’S NOTE: In Alter Ego #25 Will began his examination of the Golden Age comic book industry as a market for would-be scripters, as reported in the pages of a major “trade magazine.” This three-part series provides an intriguing analysis of the best-laid plans of comics publishers and editors ganging aft aglay. —Roy.]

suffering a relapse, the company seems livelier and more prosperous.... Two new comics are also going to appear under the imprint of this group, but the titles are not yet released.”

Captain Battle and Daredevil were the new books.

Change came swiftly With a combination of amazement and alarm, in June 1941 Bradfield noted:

For years, Writer’s Digest ran a column called “New York Market Letter” by former love-pulp editor and writer Harriet A. Bradfield, featuring market tips for writers. Bradfield rarely covered comic books, but when she did, it meant that something new and different was in the offing. Her April 1940 column noted the shifting sands of an early comic book and pulp company: “Lex Publications, 381 Fourth Avenue, which superseded Ultem and Resolute Publications, is in its turn out. [...] But there are plans afoot for new corporation names.

Brookwood Publishing Company is one of these, issuing Speed Comics. No outside market on this. Tem Publishing is another of the names to be used.”

This outfit metamorphosed into Continental, later Holyoke—while Speed Comics ultimately became a Harvey title.

In May of that year, Bradfield ran this correction: “In the March Market Letter we said that ‘Your Guide Publications, formerly known as Astro Distributors, seems to have folded up.’ This was incorrect, and we wish to apologize for the error.

Two of the group of Your Guide Publications were sold to Daniel Gilmor, publisher of Friday. These are Popular Psychology Guide and Silver Streak Comics. The rest of the group has been moved to offices of its own at 114 East 32nd Street, Room 903. Far from

“The number of comics on the stands continues to grow in unbelievable fashion. It is reported that there are 115 of them on the stands now, and that by September this will be increased to 135!”

Bradfield also reported this: “If you are an artist living in the New York area and interested in a staff job doing comic strips of a high order, or if you are a writer with pulp experience and interested in a staff connection with a publisher, you might get in touch with Harry A. [sic] Chesler, at 163 West 23rd Street. He was a pioneer in this comics business; got out his own books for a while, then did a lot of them for several well known companies of high standards. Now he is planning to get out a series of his own—eight, at least. And he needs good, experienced men.”

Writer’s Digest magazine announced two new comics from Your Guide Publications, even if its reporter wasn’t told their names. Captain Battle soon metamorphosed into the far more popular Boy Comics starring Crimebuster, while Daredevil lasted for years, even if the split-screen super-hero was gradually edged out of his own magazine in the postwar years by The Little Wise Guys. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

Also in that issue, a separate notice provides a complete roster of projected titles: “Harry ‘A’ Chesler Feature Syndicate of 163 West 23rd Street, New York, will publish a group of ten cent comic books to be known as Yankee Comics, Victory Comics, Scoop Comics, Punch Comics, A.B.C. Comics, Dynamic Comics, Kayo Comics, and Dandy Comics. Also the following six quarterlies will feature the lead

14

Lost Comics Lore

Though successful at producing material for other companies, Harry “A” [the initial apparently didn’t stand for anything] Chesler and his comics shop never made a hit out of its own line of comics. Captain Glory, who dominated the cover of Punch Comics #1 (Dec. 1941), was gone after #2. Still, some Punch covers, by the likes of Charles Sultan, Gus Ricca, and Fran Smith, were striking... and you’ve gotta admit, Rocketgirl (on #20) does have some interesting costume lines. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

characters appearing in these monthly comics to be known as Yankee Doodle Jones, Major Victory, Captain Glory, Dynamic Man, Rocket Man, and Master Key Comics.

“Harry ‘A’ Chesler is publisher, Phil Sturm, editor, and Charles Sultan, art director. This company has been producing original comics for the past six yers, having pioneered in the comic book field.”

Chesler put out only four titles in his new Dynamic line: Yankee, Punch, Scoop, and Dynamic Comics. Hillman beat him into print with Victory Comics. Kayo and Major Victory didn’t appear until 1944.

In August, Bradfield noted that the tide was already turning against super-heroes: “John H. Compton is editing two comics magazines for Hillman: Victory Comics and a new one whose title had not yet been given out. There are no super-men in these. The emphasis is on story and character values. And the market is open to outside writers who have sufficient dramatic sense to supply usable plots following the characters which Mr. Compton is already using. The difficulty most writers have in this field appears to be getting sufficient pictureaction. The ordinary 6,000 word story in a pulp magazine provides only enough plot for 6 to 8 pages of comic continuity! Plots for this type of market must be very compact with picture possibilities. Good dialogue is also vital. It must get the flavor of the characters in, even through so terse a means. Plots must work up to a climax, give a real drama. Payment is by arrangement, according to the value of the plot, and will be made on acceptance. It may vary from a minimum of $5 up to $20 or $25. Studying the magazines is important to gain a knowledge of the characters used. The new one will have plots about modern air-war and all phases of modern aviation.”

The “new one” was, of course, Air Fighters Comics, later called Airboy. Suspended after one issue, it was brought back a year later under a new editor, Ed Cronin, and duly noted in WD for July 1943: “Inventiveness, according to Mr. Cronin, who has had plenty of experience to know what he’s talking about, is most needed in comics—and is very rarely found. You can’t go on using just the same formula, and expect to get any sparks into it. You work within the same character outline, to be sure. But it takes real virility of mind and imagination to get new angles on the old character. That’s why

past performance is less important than a present active imagination, even though much editing may be needed. Poe stands out in American literature because of his great inventiveness. And actually, inventiveness is the basis of great success in any line, even in a socalled cut-and-dried business. Ability to tell a lie convincingly makes a man a good liar, for a bad liar can’t make you believe his lie. A second qualification for work in comics is a sense of graphic presentation. These are much like static versions of the old Pearl White serials. And the artist, like a movie director, can move any way he sees fit. But the result must have dramatic suspense. Following the crowd will not produce much suspense. Too many people, Editor Cronin thinks, underestimate this popular field.”

Writer’s Digest published an annual which also yields interesting nuggets. The 1941 Writer’s Year Book contained a piece by sciencefiction legend Henry Kuttner called “New York... Should I Come?” in which he talks of an early brush with comic book scripting: “In March of 1940 the comic books were booming, and I found out one of the best-paying outfits needed continuity writers. I saw the editor, and showed him a sample or two, and wrangled eight strips a month, at $30 each.

“Writing comics is a dull grind. Though I didn’t know it then, it was hurting my other work. My stories began to read like comic strips, and I pulled out of the picture books entirely. But the discipline of turning out 60 panel continuities helped a lot.

“May was my high-water mark of the year—$500. In June I went into a slump—a long one, that took several months to run its course. I was recovering from comic-trip-itis, and until I had done that, my bankroll had a lean and hungry book.”

Writer’s Digest Magazine

15

early comics line was evidently in a state of flux. Witness this startling revelation in the September 1940 issue:

Kuttner, of course, is known for his work on DC’s “Green Lantern,” beginning in 1944. This experience predates those credentials. It’s tricky to determine which outfit he means. However, if we look for market notices in Writer’s Digest around May 1940, we find a brief announcement of the launching of Street & Smith’s Doc Savage Comics in the May issue. Kuttner was no stranger to S&S’s halls. More likely, however, he was responding to this notice from June 1940:

“With the October issues, the Fawcett Comics will be combined into one regular-sized magazine. The title will be Slam-Bang Comics.

The others will be dropped: Nickel Comics, Master Comics, and Whiz Comics.”

“Another very interesting venture at Fawcett’s is the issuance of Nickel Comics. Most of the field sells at ten cents. If this new one goes over, plans are already stewing up for another, to be known as Five-Cent Comics. Bill Parker edits the new one, in addition to the three ten-cent comics started several months ago.

Amazingly, Fawcett was on the verge of canceling Whiz with issue #8! Cooler heads obviously prevailed, for Nickel Comics was dropped in August. Slam-Bang was folded into Master, starting with #7. Nickel’s “Bulletman” became a Master Comics character, which continued along with the indestructible Whiz, birthplace of Captain Marvel.

“Stories for these comics publications are all done to order. But Mr. Parker needs some writers who are experienced in the general adventure and superhuman fields and can turn out action ideas. Due to the speed with which ideas must be put together, changes made, etc., it is necessary that writers live close enough to New York so quick editorial communication is possible. If you live in the metropolitan area and are interested in trying work for this field, write Mr. Parker about your qualifications.”

The mention of Five-Cent Comics explains the mystery of the Fawcett ashcan called 5-Cent Comics, dated February 1940. No color version was ever produced for reasons that soon became clear. Fawcett’s

The significance of comic books to magazine publishing in the early ’40s was spelled out by Fawcett’s editorial director, Ralph Daigh, in a WD piece published in April 1943: “This country sells more comic magazines than magazines of any other type, weeklies, picture magazines, fan books, etc. Comics magazines are today in the pioneering stage of what may eventually be the most important single medium of magazine expression.”

Daigh was probably correct, up to a point. But he failed to foresee television, which derailed his prediction.

One of the largest publishers of the 1940s, Fawcett’s offices were

Air Fighters Comics #1 (Nov. 1941) was produced and published under the aegis of Lloyd Jacquet’s Funnies, Inc., comics shop. Exactly one year later, the title was revived by Hillman Periodicals as a vehicle for Airboy and a bunch of colorful aviators. This montage of splash pages from #6 (the fifth Hillman issue) was assembled from the 1989 Eclipse reprint volume Air Fighters Classics, Vol. 1, #5. Bob Fujitani drew “Sky Wolf”; Tony diPreta’s humorous “Skinny McGinty” was in there, as well. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

16

Lost Comics Lore Bulletman flew from the pages of Nickel Comics into Master Comics, where he was again the cover feature—until Captain Marvel Jr. came along a few issues later. Thanks to Keif Fromm for a photocopy of the original art from the early Master page at left. Art by Jon Small? [Bulletman TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]

“George J. Hecht, the publisher who puts out Parents’ Magazine, has added several new titles to his usually successful comics. These include True Aviation Picture Stories, Comic Digest, which is for adults, and Extra, another comic sheet for adults. The last is not for sale on newsstands, but goes directly to war plants and programs to pep up morale as well as entertain workers.”

Extra does not appear in Overstreet or Gerber. In the November Writer’s Digest, Bradfield reports tersely: “Comics Digest and Extra have been dropped from the Hecht group of comics for the duration.”

Speaking of the experimental Fawcett Digest in the August 1945 issue [see A/E #28], Harriet Bradfield accidentally peered into the future of comics when she wrote: “Incidentally, ‘Captain Marvel’ is included in Fawcett Digest, and you’d be surprised how fine comics look when they are printed carefully on high grade coated stock. If some publisher thinks the kiddies might appreciate this, the whole production level of comics might be so increased so as to knock off the shyster pulp printer competition that today is trying to slip in.”

A 1946 Fawcett Digest was released the following year, which, in addition to reprinting another “Captain Marvel” story, listed the entire Fawcett line of magazines—including several never-seen comic books and revivals of titles like America’s Greatest Comics and All Hero Comics, which had been suspended during the war.

More on this, next installment. regularly visited by Harriet Bradfield.

Usually she obtained the latest comics news. This is from her September 1942 column:

[Part III of this series will appear next issue.]

“Fawcett Publications, 1501 Broadway, are branching out in a new direction in their comic books.

The newest idea is Animal Funny Stories. It is intended for a younger audience than the average adventure comic, and the style will be a little different. There will be more humor and more fantasy. It will start off as a bi-monthly, appearing in early November. The juvenile illustrator, ‘Chad,’ is styling the magazine.

Material is all on assignment now. But that does not close the door to writers with new ideas to offer. Write to the editor, Rod Reed. A personal consultation is a good idea, when you want to work for comics.”

“Chad” was Chad Grothkopf, who invented Hoppy the Marvel Bunny for Fawcett’s Funny Animals, as the book was ultimately titled.

(The rival writer’s magazine Author & Journalist reported this title as Funny Animal Book in October, so the title was probably in flux.

They also referenced a new Fawcett title, Ranger Comics, which never came out... probably because Fiction House had been publishing Rangers Comics since 1941!)

Another publisher Bradfield reported on often was Parents Institute, publisher of True Comics. In March 1943, Bradfield noted:

Chad Grothkopf’s Hoppy—officially yclept Captain Marvel Bunny in the stories themselves—was a durable and malleable beastie. After a good run in Fawcett’s Funny Animals (the above cover is from #63, Summer 1949), he was changed to Happy the Magic Bunny, stripped of his lightning bolt, given the new magic word “Alazam!,” colored mostly blue instead of red, and plopped into Charlton humor comics in the 1950s. Thanks to Gene Kehoe for the Charlton photocopy. [Hoppy the Marvel Bunny TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]

Title “The Great Unknowns”–––Part IV of a Series

17

The Italian Connection Discovering an Artist Who Helped Put the “Fiction” in Fiction House––– and Three of His Friends!

By Alberto Becattini, as told to Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Setting the Stage In the Golden Age of Comics, Fiction House published some of the most salacious titles of the day. They had been publishing pulp magazines for seventeen years before entering the comic book field in 1938. The pulp legacy was evident and the comic stories were replete with beautiful, long-legged, scantily-dressed girls, menaced by mad scientists, horny apes, bloodthirsty savages, crazed robots, and—well, name your own variation. The pretty girl often played the stereotypical damsel-in-distress role, waiting to be saved by a male hero in the nick of time. Or she might break her bonds and beat the baddies on her own, as the heroine of a strip that bore her name.

As seen by this 1950 house ad for its ever-shifting “Big Six,” Fiction House did indeed star some “memorable heroines”! How did Wambi, the Jungle Boy, ever get along with just a bunch of animals? [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

Thurman T. Scott, the publisher of Fiction House, found that it was easier to incorporate the requisite female character into his books by simply making her a star. Each story was only about six to ten pages long, so there was room for a few memorable heroines in each and every 64- and 52-page title. “Señorita Rio” (drawn by Nick Viscardi, Lily Renée, et al.) and “Tiger Girl” (a Matt Baker masterpiece) romped through Fight Comics. “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle” (Robert Webb, Robert Powell, et al.) and “Sky Girl” were found in Jumbo Comics.

“Camilla” (George Tuska, Marcia Snyder, Fran Hopper, Matt Baker, Ralph Mayo) and “Fantoma” (Henry Fletcher, George Appel) lived in the Jungle next door. “Glory Forbes” (George Tuska, Fran Hopper, then Baker) and “Firehair” (Lee Elias, Bob Lubbers) were in Rangers Comics. Wings Comics featured “Jane Martin” (most ably drawn by Lily Renée, Nick Viscardi, George Evans, etc.).

"Futura" panel by the unidentified first artist of the series, known only by the pseudonym "John Douglas." [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

So it came as no surprise that when Planet Comics dumped “Gale Allen (and the Girl Squadron)” with issue #42, they replaced it with another science-fiction strip with a female lead, “Futura,” in #43 (July 1946). Futura was the “battle name” of the voluptuous Marcia Reynolds, a citizen of 21st-century Titan City who happened to be abducted to the planet Cymradia for a brain transplant. Needless to say, Marcia/Futura

18

The Italian Connection managed to escape, and to become a space avenger on her own.

A “Futura” panel by Walter Palais, who drew the feature in Planet Comics #50-53. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

“Futura” was credited to “John Douglas,” possibly a pen name for staff scripter John Mitchell, but certainly not the name of the artist.

These first strips are by a stylized but unknown artist sometimes identified as John Cavallo—but quite unlikely to be him. (The comparison is easy to make, since Cavallo illustrates and signs “Space Rangers” in “Futura’s” debut issue, #43.)

This artist worked until #50.

Then, following four justcompetent strips by Walter Palais, our story begins in #54….

The “Martin” Mystery

Police Cases and many other St. Johns with art by “Martin” (and some other artists he and Hames considered as potential Italians). This way, I figured, Alberto could see the big picture and share the work of fifty years ago with our mystery artist, who, we learned, is still alive.

“Martin” turned out to be the well-known Italian artist Enrico Bagnoli.

Bagnoli, in fact, recently discussed his American adventure with Alberto Becattini. With another coincidence bordering over the edge of believability, “Martin” was not connected to the group of Italian Rangers artists. Of course, it is possible, perhaps probable, that the “guy” who was responsible for getting him into American comics may have brokered the Rangers crew, as well. We’ll probably never know.

History Lesson Born in Milan on August 21, 1925, Enrico Bagnoli drew his first comic strip at 15. By the mid-’40s his style was very developed, modeled after such American masters as Alex Raymond and Hal Foster. In 1945 Bagnoli drew a science-fiction story entitled “Il terrore di Allagalla” (“The Terror of Allagalla”), which might have been his passport to American comic books. In late 1947, Bagnoli was approached by an Italian-American who happened to be in touch with American publishers. Perhaps he had seen Bagnoli’s art in Allagalla, and thought (and, boy, was he right!) that the young artist could draw sf stories for

With that issue, (May 1948), a new artist took over “Futura.” He had a distinctive style somewhat reminiscent of Alex Raymond. (Curiously enough, the “Futura” strip never used balloons but only captions, which had been customary in the Flash Gordon Sunday pages since 1939.) The “Futura” artist, who continued to draw the strip until its demise in Planet #64 (Spring 1950), would be a real mystery for decades to come.

His identity would stump experts as knowledgeable as Henry Steele (who painstakingly crafted the original Fiction House and Quality indexes back in the 1960s and was the originator of the speculative Cavallo credit), Hames Ware, Jerry Bails, and Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. After discounting the known artists like Rafael Astarita who were capable of such quality, the above gents had to ask themselves: how does an artist of this calibre suddenly appear with no history of developing?

He/she was obviously well-trained in the comics, yet we find no instance of this style prior to “Futura.” Eventually Jim V. found a 1951 western strip at St. John, signed “Martin,” that was by the same artist.

Now they had a name, but it wasn’t really much progress. Was it a first name, a last name or a pen name?

Oddly enough, there was a John Martin who has credits at the Iger Shop in the late ’40s. The shop had provided some of the material for Fiction House over the years, and Henry Steele had once speculated the name Martin for this artist. For many years that was the designation Hames and Jim used when we referred to this artist. Truth is truly stranger than fiction.

Different hypotheses were proposed as to who this “Martin” could be. According to one, he was from the Philippines. Another held that “Martin” might be Italian. Artist Ron Harris had years ago translated an article in an Italian fanzine that identified some Rangers artists as Italian, so it was known that at a certain point Fiction House featured work by Italians.

But how to find out if this hypothesis was true? Simple! Jim V. went on the Internet, looked up “Italian Comic Book Historians,” searched out Alberto Becattini’s e-mail address, and sent him a request for assistance. One response and a few attachment-laden messages later, he had his answer. Alberto recognized the style at once and began the process of locating the mystery man. Jim mailed Alberto his run of Authentic

A page from the first “Futura” story (from Planet Comics #54, May 1948) drawn by the mysterious artist who at St. John signed himself as “Martin.” [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

The Great Unknowns

19

American comic books, as well. As Bagnoli himself recalls, “This guy, whose name I can no longer remember, had a double nationality, so that he would spend six months in Italy and six months in the States every year. He asked me if I was interested in drawing comics for American publishers. You can bet I was! He was not a professional agent, but got me the job, acting as an intermediary with the publishers.” It is not certain whether the Italian-American agent was dealing directly with Fiction House or with the Iger Studio (indications favor the former), but what counts is that the 23-year-old Bagnoli was now drawing for American comic books on a regular basis.

Besides tackling “Futura” in Planet Comics, Bagnoli illustrated the adventures of the Mowgli-inspired “Jan of the Jungle” in Rangers Comics, beginning with issue #42 (Aug. 1948), until the series’ demise in #63 (Aug. 1951). In Jungle Comics, Bagnoli succeeded Maurice Whitman as the regular artist on “Tabu.” He drew the adventures of this young and handsome jungle magician from #116 (Aug. 1949) until the strip ended in #137 (May 1951). AC Comics (a.k.a. Paragon Publications) has recently reprinted a few Fiction House stories by Bagnoli: two “Futura” adventures appeared in Thrilling Planet Tales (1991) and Thrilling Science Fiction #2 (1999), and one “Tabu” story was featured in Golden Age Greats #14 (1999).

This Bagnoli-drawn story appeared in St. John’s Authentic Police Cases #15 in 1951. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

How Bagnoli became “Martin” Why would a young Italian eventually adopt such a pen-name? Read on.

In 1950 Bagnoli decided to take a trip to the States, and he stayed in New York for six months. This was the perfect opportunity to fire his Italian-American agent (“He got the checks from the publishers, but I soon found out that his percentages were far too high”) and to personally explore potential employers. At 480 Lexington Avenue, he talked with the National/DC Comics editors (“For DC, I drew a couple of covers and possibly a western story, but I’m not sure.”). Then he went to St. John, whose offices were on the eighth floor at 545 Fifth Avenue. In both cases he introduced himself by his own name, but “they couldn’t pronounce my surname. They kept saying ‘Bag-no-li’ instead of ‘Bañoli’ (bahn-yo-lee). That’s when I decided to be called ‘Martin,’ which was easier for all to say and remember.”

This page of “Jan of the Jungle” from Wambi the Jungle Boy #18 (Winter 1952) is most likely the work of Enrico Bagnoli; it was reprinted from an earlier issue of Rangers. Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, from which the word balloons had fallen off; courtesy of Jeff Bailey. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

Thus it happened that, with that pen name, or simply with an “M.,” Bagnoli signed the first few stories he drew for St. John Publishing, the very first of which appeared in Authentic Police Cases #15 (“Death on Millionaires Beach,” Oct. 1951—note that his Fiction House work ended in May and August of that same year). For that title, Bagnoli would draw most of his comic book stories during the next three years.

“I was my own agent now,” the artist recalls. “St. John would send me the typewritten scripts on yellow sheets, and I would draw them at home in Milan. When I was finished with a story, I would go to the airport and ship the art to the U.S. by registered mail.”

20

Lost Comics Lore

“MARTIN” & Co. By the time Bagnoli started working for St. John, he had changed his drawing style. The illustrative approach he had used on “Futura” and on the other Fiction House strips had evolved to a more simplified, yet still effective, kind of graphics. In the crime stories—which, incidentally, allowed Bagnoli to draw more charming females—the Raymond influence was still there. However, here it was the slicker Rip Kirby version rather than the lush brushwork of the early Flash Gordon. This stylistic change was influenced partly by the subject matter, partly by simple artistic development, and partly by the need to produce an evergrowing amount of work for St. John. As Authentic Police Cases became more and more Bagnoli’s book, he sought the collaboration of his fellow Italian comic artists.

Acting as a sort of editor-supervisor, Bagnoli drew many of his 1952–54 St. John stories with Antonio Toldo. He recalls Toldo as “an excellent artist, much better than me in fact, but he was very lazy, and I always had to literally drag him to the drawing board. We did a few stories together, where sometimes I would do the pencils and he would do the inking, or vice versa, or other times he would draw and ink the faces whereas I would do the backgrounds.” Looking at such stories as “A Winner Every Time” (Authentic Police Cases #30, Nov. 1953), anyone can see that Toldo is a real master at drawing the human figure.

1953 work for St. John by Enrico Bagnoli and Antonio Toldo, Bagnoli’s “excellent, but very lazy” artist-friend, from Authentic Police Cases #30. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

The scripts that Bagnoli visualized came from America, but at least one of them had an unmistakable Italian flavor. In fact “The Violin of Death,” which appeared in Weird Horrors #2 (Aug. 1952), was set in Italy, had Italian protagonists (by the names of Ulrico Antonio and Giovanni Monti), and was interspersed with background signs in Italian.

This story was also one of the clues that pointed to the eventual solution of the mystery. Little did Alberto dream that there was so much more knowledge that Signore Bagnoli would impart.

History Lesson II Most people who think of St. John Publishing conjure up images of Matt Baker romance books, Joe Kubert and Norman Maurer on Tor and The Three Stooges, and perhaps some recall Terry-Toons. Archer St. John put out dozens of other books, including horror and western titles.

Some of his early titles in the late ’40s were filled with reprints from the old Harry “A” Chesler shop stalwarts. A lot of the later material in the mid-’50s was acquired from the defunct Ziff-Davis line. In short, St. John seemed to be a publisher who took his content where he could find it. Few titles had extended lifespans. Though he published over sixty titles from 1947 to 1955, only two managed to reach issue #30. One was Diary Secrets, which was practically drawn single-handedly by Matt Baker, and the other was Authentic Police Cases, the longest-running St. John title, which it turns out was drawn almost single-handedly by Enrico Bagnoli.

Another colleague of Bagnoli’s, Antonio Canale, also worked with the former for Authentic Police Cases. No wonder that was St. John’s longestlived title! [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

The Great Unknowns

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By the way, his collaboration with Bagnoli would continue long after their “American adventure” had ended. In the late 1960s, when Bagnoli was editing the Italian editions of Superman and Batman, Toldo would be the best amongst Superman’s Italian artists.

In those same issues of APC was another excellent and thoroughly unknown (to Hames and me) artist whom we had dubbed “Serious Sharp.” Those of you who are familiar with the excellent but lighthearted approach of Henry Enoch Sharp (if only from the Hames WareJim Vadeboncoeur article in Alter Ego #26) will get an immediate idea of what his style was like.

Imagine the excitement when Alberto recognized him, as well. His name was Antonio Canale (1915-1991) and he was called in by Bagnoli to assist on the St. John crime comics. In Italy, often using the pen name “Tony Chan,” he had drawn the costumed avenger Amok (1946-48) and the western hero Pecos Bill (1949), often visualizing these hard-boiled comic book yarns in a formidable style based on a bold contrast between black and white. This made each of his stories look like the synthetic comics’ version of film noir. Another artist who joined the group supervised by Bagnoli was Mario Norberto Leone (born 1922), who is better known as a writer for Italian comics. “In fact”, Leone recalls, “I did write two or three stories for the American comics, whereas I only drew one on a script coming from the publisher [“Last Cruise of the Ibex,” in Authentic Police Cases #26, March 1953].” Also worth a footnote is Gino D’Antonio (born 1927), who penciled the first few pages of one of the crime stories (nobody seems to remember which one) for which Bagnoli did the finished art.

Epilogue The contribution of Enrico Bagnoli and his associates to U.S. comic books ended in late 1953, as the last stories drawn by Bagnoli and Canale for St. John appeared in Authentic Police Cases #33 (May 1954).

Beginning with the following issue, the title would carry only reprints.

Still today, almost fifty years later, Enrico “Martin” Bagnoli’s comic book stories stand out for their beauty. The “Futura” stories, especially, with their elegant brush-strokes, are labors of love, and a testimony of how a great Italian artist has been able to leave his mark of excellence in American comics. It is no wonder that many a U.S. comic collector and fan considers those stories as little masterpieces in their own right. By the way—at 75 years old, Enrico Bagnoli is still working full time at the drawing board. After illustrating comics and books for Italy, Germany, France, and Great Britain, since 1985 he has been one of the regular artists on the Martin Mystère strip (samples of which are now available in the States from Dark Horse Comics as Martin Mystery). He signs his works with the pen name—“Henry Martin”!

History Lesson III The pages of pre-1955 comics are populated by hundreds of unknown artists who contributed to the comics. With all the credits at EC and the research that’s been done on DC, we forget that many who toiled in other companies are still mostly ciphers. Jerry Bails and Hames Ware’s Who’s Who of American Comic Books is loaded with names of artists most of us have never heard of, but it is also lacking the names of some major talents and contributors to the rich texture of the medium.

It’s always a joy to be able to add one name to the lexicon. To add four at once is unprecedented. We’re pleased and honored to help bring Enrico Bagnoli, Antonio Toldo, Antonio Canale, and Mario Leone out of the shadows and give them the credits they deserve in the history of American comic books.

[Born in Florence, Italy, Alberto Beccantini, whom Ye Editor had the pleasure of meeting (and being on a panel with) in Turin last

Alberto and Jim write that the Fiction House artist who turned out to be Enrico Bagnoli had a style reminiscent of Flash Gordon. But so did the still-unidentified artist of the first seven "Futura" stories, including the above Raymondesque illo from Planet Comics #44. Looks like Jim, Alberto, and Hames Ware still have a few "Great Unknowns" to track down! [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

summer, is a teacher of English in high school. He bought his first American comic book in 1967. Since the mid-1970s he has contributed to and even co-founded various Italian fanzines and pro-zines, and has written hundreds of articles and several books on comics artists such as Alex Toth, Bob Lubbers, Floyd Gottfredson, Milt Caniff, and Alex Raymond. Since 1992 he has contributed to Disney-Italy’s publications on a regular basis. A senior editor of The Who’s Who of American Comic Books, he has translated and prefaced Italian Disney stories for Gladstone Publishing and has written for U.S. magazines such as Comic Book Artist, Comic Book Marketplace— and now for Alter Ego. [Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., is 57 years old and has been doing this type of research for over 35 years, 32 of those in partnership with Hames Ware. In 1972 he published what was arguably the first index of a specific artist with Al Williamson: His Work. He is proud that his tens of thousands of comics from pre-1965 are unbagged and unboarded and available for scrutiny at a moment’s notice by other researchers. Dozens of St. John comics made a round trip to Italy so Albert could share them firsthand with artists Bagnoli and Toldo. Jim also sells books and publishes the art magazine ImageS. He adds: “I drive a 1966 T-Bird, look like an old hippie, and have been living with Karen Lane for over 30 years. And she still likes me.”]

Alex Toth

“The Silhouette Is The Strongest Graphic/Visual Image Possible!”

ALEX TOTH on Comic Art [EDITOR’S NOTE: Thanks to the good offices of Paul Rivoche and Jon B. Cooke—and, of course, to Alex himself for doing them in the first place—Alter Ego is in receipt of a goodly number of essays by master cartoonist Toth. Some are several pages long, covering either several topics or artists, or just one favored topic—other pieces are short, sweet, and succinct. This time, Ye Ed has chosen two single-page musings... with accompanying art, of course. —Roy.]

[Art ©2004 Alex Toth.]

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[Text & art ©2004 Alex Toth.]

Alex Toth

23 [Text & art ©2004 Alex Toth.]

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Pete Morisi

Pete Morisi (1928-2003)

by Mark Evanier [The following tribute ran on Mark’s website www.newsfromme.com on October 13, 2003, and is used by permission.]

Pete Morisi, known to fans of Charlton comics as “P.A.M.,” died yesterday at Staten Island University Hospital. So far, we’ve heard nothing about a cause of death, but I’ll tell you what I can about his life and times.

Pete A. Morisi was born in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn in 1938 and grew up there, dreaming of being either a policeman or a comic book artist.

He opted for the latter and wound up studying, like about half the comic artists of his generation, at the School of Industrial Arts in New York City.

He occasionally assisted on newspaper strips (Dickie Dare, The Saint, and the Dan Barry Flash Gordon), but devoted most of his career to comic books and another, unrelated occupation, which we’ll get to.

that he gave Morisi permission to draw like him and waived the fee.

Thereafter, some of Morisi’s work was so close to Tuska’s in style that, when they worked for the same firm, the editor got them confused.

In the mid-1950s, there was a recession in the comic book field and publishers began closing. Morisi saw where it was all headed and decided he needed another line of work. Fulfilling his other childhood dream, he studied for and joined the New York Police Department in 1956. He put in twenty years on the force, most of it spent working in Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. But he didn’t stop working for comics. He just stopped signing his work... or he’d sign it “P.A.M.,” so that the NYPD wouldn’t know of his moonlighting.

Except for one brief job for Classics Illustrated and a few jobs for DC in the early ’70s, all of his comic book work was done for Charlton, primarily on westerns. These included Billy the Kid, Gunmaster, Wyatt Earp, and Kid Montana. Though Charlton paid rock-bottom wages, the company was willing to allow him to work without deadlines. He’d write and draw his own stories (or accept a script which he would only draw) at his own pace in whatever time he had away from the police beat.

Whenever he got one done, they’d accept it and pay him. It worked out well for both sides, and Morisi was one of their more talented contributors.

His first comic book work appears to have been for Fox Comics in 1948, where he sold a few stories before being drafted into the Army.

While stationed in Colorado, he wrote a number of scripts for that company’s romance and crime comics, and even managed to draw a few stories, including a short-lived strip called “Lionus the Cruel.” Upon his return to New York in 1950, he worked for Quality Comics, Timely (now Marvel), Harvey, Lev Gleason, Fiction House, and several other companies.

In 1953 he wrote and drew a detective strip called Johnny Dynamite for Comic Media. It failed to click with readers but attracted a strong following among professionals and the admiration of his fellow artists.

Morisi’s early work in comics showed a lot of Alex Raymond influence, but one day he made a sharp turn.

Reportedly, an editor told him to try and draw more like George Tuska, who was then the “star” artist in the field of crime comics. Morisi liked Tuska’s work and saw that others were emulating the man, but felt it was wrong to simply appropriate someone else’s style. So, the story goes, he phoned up Tuska, asked if he could imitate his approach, and offered to pay a small royalty for the privilege. Tuska was so amazed that anyone had asked

(Top:) Pete Morisi in his NYPD uniform... and (above) a commission drawing of his P.I. hero Johnny Dynamite. A newspaper account said that in the 1970s Morisi also illustrated a column for the Staten Island Advance, “loved dogs and spending time with his most recent dog, Midnight.” Art & photo courtesy of Mark Evanier and George Hagenauer, respectively.

[Art ©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

His most memorable work, however, came during a brief period in the ’60s when editor Dick Giordano launched an “action hero” line and asked Morisi to come up with a title for it.

Morisi created Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt—an uncommonly thoughtful super-hero comic which delved into Eastern philosophies and martial arts at a time when such areas were relatively new to American media.

The first issue appeared in January of 1966 and made a huge hit with fans. Unfortunately, Morisi was unable to produce material on the kind of deadline necessary for a recurring feature. Others had to fill in for him, and after only eight issues, he had to abandon his creation and return to non-series stories, mostly for westerns or ghost comics such as The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves.

He did not attempt another regular strip until 1975, as he neared retirement from the NYPD. Then, he created, wrote, and drew Vengeance Squad, which dealt with a crew of private detectives who used fisticuffs and high-

Pete Morisi

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tech means (though rarely firearms) to solve crimes and catch criminals that stymied the police. The book lasted only six issues—and Charlton didn’t last much longer. Had readers known the comic was the work of a cop, with twenty years on the force, it might have meant more.

Morisi retired from police work in 1976 but did very little in comics after that. His wife of 53 years passed away last May, so he is survived by three sons (Steven, Russ, and Val), a brother, a sister, and five grandchildren.

I never had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Morisi in person, but we spoke several times on the phone. He was a modest man who cared deeply about a select group of artist friends. He was always calling to check on them and see if he could assist with advice or work referrals, or even to loan them money.

One time we spoke, I asked him if, during all his years as a cop, he ever had to arrest anyone he knew from the comic book business. He chuckled and replied, “No... but I can think of a few guys who should have been doing hard time.”

(Above:) The splash page of Thunderbolt (the comic’s official title) #56 (Feb. 1967)—and, at left, a color drawing he sent in 1990 to fellow artist Jim Amash. Jim exchanged numerous letters with P.A.M., which we hope will form the basis of a future piece on this talented professional.

In the 1980s Morisi wrote and drew a potential Secret Origins issue for “Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt” (see left), which he had hoped to see published someday. [Thunderbolt TM & ©2004 DC Comics; original art ©2004 Estate of Pete A. Morisi.]

Monthly! Edited and published by Robin Snyder

Write to: Robin Snyder, 2284 Yew St. Rd. #B6, Bellingham, WA 98226-8899

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[Quoted text ©2004 Jon B. Cooke.]

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Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt

“Horror’s Missing Link!”

(Part 2)

by Michael T. Gilbert So who was the unknown mastermind behind Weird Mysteries and Eerie Tales? According to comic historian Mike Feldman, the leading suspect is—well, we’ll let him tell you in his own words: “I’ve always been under the impression that those two horror comic mags, coming between EC’s PictoFiction and Warren, were the handiwork of [publisher] Robert Sproul, whose other experiment debuting at the same time, Cracked, was more successful.”

Robert C. Sproul, whose Cracked magazine was indeed by far the most durable of all the Mad knockoffs, was quite a busy fellow. According to Feldman: “Bob Sproul inflicted on the world of junk publishing… an endless stream of low-budget imitations of successful mags and genres. Confessionals and men’s-sweat mags were his forte. Sproul… was some kind of freelance publisher/packager back then. He put together a magazine called Saturn which ran for a year and some in ’57–’58, edited by Ace’s Don Wollheim.

“In the aftermath of the collapse of American News Company in mid-’57, the surviving Independent Distributors became like feudal barons.

When they felt the market was able to absorb it, they’d generate a new Playboy or Mad imitation.

They essentially published their own magazines, with packagers putting together the contents, much like the comic shops in the ’30s and ’40s.

“Someone like Sproul would go to a distributor with a concept, maybe even a dummy, and sell it to the distributor, who might gamble and finance it.

The distributor would then arrange the printing, and decide, based on returns, whether to continue with the publication.

This is how people like Jim Warren got going.

“Sproul likely arranged deals with three distributors, with two of whom he arranged to do one-shots of horror comics in magazine form. They still remembered the great sales of horror comics, from only a few years previous. Neither succeeded wildly, or the distributor just didn’t feel like going through five or six issues to see if would find its market. Possibly it was killed it after the first trial issue, and the leftover material intended for #2 was taken to by a different distributor/publisher.

“Self-distributing publishers were more common back then—like Wyn’s Ace, Charlton, IND/DC, and even Goodman’s Atlas! In their roles as publishers, they all had their own printing arrangements, and

Cracked #10 had a great Will Elder cover! [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

this would account for differences in size, paper, etc.

“The notion of a publisher having an office, staff, editors, etc. works fine for established outfits. But in the bottom rung of the business, like these magazines were, often it’s just a guy hustling around and assembling the work, which is sent off to say, Holyoke, Mass. where, for a service fee, they paste up the pictures and text, do color seps, etc., print it, get it on the trains, and voila, you’re an instant publisher.

“That’s my take on things.”

Horror’s Missing Link

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Gray Morrow displayed his mastery of the black-&-white medium in many of the early Warren issues. But “The Stalker” from Eerie Tales pre-dated those stories.

Man, he sure drew some sexy gals! [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

Feldman’s theory is convincing. A quick glance at Cracked magazine from the late ’50s provides evidence of Sproul’s involvement in Weird Mysteries and Eerie Tales. Al Williamson, Angelo Torres, Paul Reinman, Carl Burgos, and Gray Morrow were simultaneously pro viding art for both Cracked magazine and the two horror titles, and all three magazines were the same size and price.

Further evidence of a Sproul connection is suggested by his later involvement with two other horror titles. In 1969 Robert C. Sproul experimented with another black-&-white comic book horror magazine, Web of Horror, still fondly remembered for showcasing early art by Berni Wrightson, Mike Kaluta, Frank Brunner, and Jeff Jones. Only three issues appeared, though a fourth was completed when the publisher unexpectedly pulled the plug, leaving the astonished artists in the lurch.

(Above and next page:) Jeff Jones painted covers for all three issues of Web of Horror (1969), while John Severin drew covers for the first issues of Monsters Attack! (1990) and Cracked (1957). Severin also illustrated the great 3-panel sequence at far right on the next page, which is from Monsters Attack! #1––the same issue that featured Steve Ditko’s wonky “living computer” page, also depicted. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

(Left:) Angelo Torres drew “From the Greyble to the Grave” in Eerie Tales years before his more famous stories for Eerie and Creepy. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

In 1990, Sproul followed up with another black-&-white horror comic in the same format.

Monsters Attack! featured art by Steve Ditko, Gene Colan, Pat Boyette, John Severin, and even former Eerie Tales artist Gray Morrow. This one lasted a slightlymore-impressive five issues. Taken together, these facts seem to suggest that Bob Sproul was the man behind Weird Mysteries and Eerie Tales.

If Sproul did indeed publish the two horror mags, then Marvel production ace Sol Brodsky, listed as editor of the early Cracked, may have put them together. Brodsky was no stranger to horror himself, having drawn stories and covers for the Atlas horror books in the 1950s.

In the ’60s, Sol Brodsky and Israel Waldman’s Skywald Publications produced Nightmare, Psycho, and Scream, the most successful of the Creepy imitations. Mike Feldman speculates about the Brodsky connection:

[Art by John Severin.]

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt

“Sol Brodsky, who was doing art direction for Sproul—a glorified name for production work—was trying to find work for the artists caught in the Atlas ANC crash, in this period… like Burgos, Reinman, Williamson, Everett, Severin, etc. They also did work on early Cracked, after a pit stop at Charlton where the page rates were a fraction of a fraction of other operations.”

Indeed, the early Cracked features such Atlas/Marvel super-stars as Bill Everett, Carl Burgos, Al Williamson, Russ Heath, Joe Maneely, Syd Shores, Basil Wolverton, and John Severin. Quite a line-up! It’s fun to speculate what kind of stories these ace Atlas horror artists could have drawn for future issues of Eerie Tales and Weird Mysteries. But, of course, both titles only lasted one issue.

So why did Weird Mysteries and Eerie Tales fail? Perhaps they were simply ahead of their time. In 1959 the early-’50s anti-comics hysteria was still a recent memory, and local drugstores may have been too skittish to carry a horror comic lacking a Comic Code sticker. Warren,

[Art by Steve Ditko.]

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Horror’s Missing Link

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operation, so he put full effort into them. Overall, Warren demanded better art and higher production values from his staff than did the competition. Maybe that’s why Creepy and Eerie each lasted almost 20 years, while Weird Mysteries and Eerie Tales died a quick death.

One final thought: it’s impossible to know if James Warren ever saw Creepy’s and Eerie’s predecessors, or what influence, if any, they had on his own titles.

Still, Warren was a canny businessman who kept his eye on the competition.

The mystery artist who drew this panel from “Shroud Number Nine” (Weird Mysteries) almost stumped our panel of art-experts.

But Hames Ware claims Golden Age artist Ken Battefield drew it, probably with another unknown artist. Gruesome, ain’t she? [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

In fact, it’s more than likely he saw them, judging by a comment made by early Warren editor Archie Goodwin in the fifth issue of GoreShriek magazine. During this 1988 interview, Eerie’s first editor discussed how Warren‘s new horror comic got its title: “In the late Fifties, there had been a one-issue attempt at a b&w horror comics: its title was Eerie [Tales]. With its failure, rights to the title had lapsed. Now, whoever got their version of Eerie out first would have new claim to the title.”

Carl Burgos drew this page from “A Shriek in the Night” in Weird Mysteries long after he created The Human Torch. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

by contrast, published the first Creepy in 1964, nearly a decade after the Code was instituted. By then, things were loosening up as the fearful ’50s slowly morphed into the swinging ’60s.

That’s one possibility.

Another is that James Warren was simply more determined to make his horror magazines succeed. Humor was Sproul’s bread-and-butter, not horror. Cracked paid the bills––anything else was strictly optional.

If a book wasn’t making money, he’d drop it (witness the quick cancellation of both Web of Horror and Monsters Attack!).

By contrast, James Warren’s horror magazines were the heart of his

Paul Reinman did this 2-page tier for “Little Miss Gruesome.” Mike Feldman believes some of the Reinman stories in Eerie Tales were originally produced for a digest magazine and used here instead. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

A Bob Powell page from “The Unbeliever” (Eerie Tales) —crudely chopped up and expanded from 5 to 6 pages. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

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Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt Based on that statement, it appears that James Warren was indeed familiar with Eerie Tales and possibly Weird Mysteries, as well. If one or both did indeed influence Warren’s own breakthrough titles years later, then these two long-forgotten titles may have had an impact on the comics field far greater than anyone suspects.

Regardless of any influence on Warren’s magazines, Weird Mysteries and Eerie Tales remain a fascinating oddity—a “missing link” of sorts for fans of horror comics. Indeed, these two failed and forgotten titles were the first true horror comics to crack the Comics Code. As such, they paved the way for Creepy, Eerie, and all that followed to shatter the creative chains that had, for far too long, imprisoned the comic industry.

When you think about it, that’s a pretty impressive failure!

Our sincere thanks to Hames Ware, Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., and Dr. Michael J. Vassallo for their expert art-spotting. Thanks, too, to Marc Kardell for helping us obtain a copy of Weird Mysteries, and to my wife Janet for her editorial and proofreading assistance. And finally, an extra-big thank-you to Mike Feldman, our “expert on publishing,” for sharing his fascinating insights into the industry’s inner workings.

That’s all for now, horror fans. See you next month!

Till next time…

Al Williamson’s beautiful “Lower Than Hell” from Eerie Tales. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

Missing a Back Issue?

Got a hole in your Mr. Monster collection? We’ll gladly e-mail you a free Mr. Monster EEEK-Mail Catalog! Just Contact Michael T. Gilbert at:

MGILBERT@EFN.ORG

For a printed version, send one dollar to Michael T. Gilbert, P.O. Box 11421, Eugene OR 97440

Title Comic Fandom Archive

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“We Miss You, Capt. Biljo!”

A Tribute to Comic Book Collector, Amateur Writer-Artist, and Fanzine Editor WILLIAM JOSEPH (a.k.a. BILJO) WHITE (1929–2003)

by Bill Schelly Introduction Early in 2003, when I received word that Biljo White (a.k.a. Capt.

Biljo) had passed away, it came like a bolt out of the blue because it was completely unexpected. Biljo hadn’t been ill; in fact, the last time we had had one of our periodic telephone chats, he was still working at the Veterans Administration hospital in his hometown of Columbia, Missouri.

A conversation with his widow Hazel filled in the gaps. Biljo White died of Burkett’s Lymphoma, which came on so suddenly that he never experienced any pain, merely a loss of appetite. Reacting poorly to chemotherapy, he died within eight days of being diagnosed, at age 73.

Just as we had for oldtime fans and friends Grass Green, Ronn Foss, G.B. Love, and Landon Chesney who had passed away in the prior two years, Roy and I ran a tribute to Biljo in A/E (#24, May 2003)… but it was necessarily brief, because the issue had been about to go to press when the sad news reached us.

However, his importance to fandom, and to the hobby of comic book and strip collecting, called for a lengthier tribute.

This, then, is Part I of a two-issue look at Biljo’s fannish life as collector, artist, writer, editor and publisher. Also on hand is J.E. Smith, fan and collector who is now assistant director of auctions with Heritage Comics, with a remembrance of his friendship with Biljo White in recent years.

Amateur Artist Extraordinaire In the 1960s, fans often speculated which of the outstanding amateur artists would graduate first to the ranks of professional comics. Would it be Ronn Foss, whose “Eclipse” won fan awards? Or Grass Green, whose “Human Cat” feature became the toast of Star-Studded Comics? Or would it be Biljo White, whose original characters “The Eye,” “The Fog,” “Astro Ace,” and “The Blade” demonstrated his undeniable ability to write and draw entertaining amateur comic strips?

Biljo himself was strangely silent on the matter. History would show that his only serious attempt to break into pro comics occurred in the mid-1950s, when he was fresh out of the U.S. Army. But DC editor Jack Schiff had given him short shrift, which effectively ended his dream of one day drawing “Batman.” As far as I know, there were only two other times he drew something for professional consideration. The first was a

A photo of Biljo White, taken just a couple of years back—and the cover of his 1968 Capt.

Biljo Presents publication, which featured new stories—and a reprint of his “Alter and Captain Ego” feature from 1964’s Alter Ego [Vol. 1] #7, which supplied the current incarnation of A/E with one of its pair of mascots. Thanks to Mrs. Harriet White for the photos. [Art ©2004 Estate of Biljo White; Captain Ego TM & ©2004 Roy Thomas & Bill Schelly.]

“Son of Vulcan” done circa 1966–67 with Roy Thomas for a suggested comeback of that character; the second was... well, let me refer you to J.E. Smith’s appended comments for info on that. But the point is that Biljo made few attempts to become a pro. There are, perhaps, understandable reasons for this.

For one thing, he was earning a decent living as a firefighter in his home town of Columbia, Missouri, and wasn’t about to leave his comfort zone for the vicissitudes of life in or around New York City, at a time when proximity to Manhattan was a necessity for a comic book professional. He was, at heart, a small-town boy—and a rather shy one, at that. He had moved from Columbia only once, to take a job in Portland, Oregon, as an artist for a large department store; but when his daughter Julio Jo died of childhood meningitis, he and his homesick first wife Ruthie had returned to Columbia.

Biljo almost never left Columbia again, not even to attend any of the increasing number of comicons around the country. When Batman fans planned a special meeting at the 1965 New York Comicon, it fell to Tom Fagan to chair the meeting and relay Biljo’s regrets that he couldn’t attend. (He did, however, send a giant full-color poster to be displayed at that event, which is reproduced here for the first time anywhere.) He

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“We Miss You, Capt. Biljo!” that there were others who loved comics as I did, and that they were a built-in audience for my own amateur heroes,” he told me on more than one occasion.

“One of White’s last characters who finally got into print,” says Bill Schelly, was his tongue-in-cheek “Great Scott!”—named for the common expression exclaimed by many comic book super-heroes but probably by very few people in real life. [©2004 Estate of Biljo White.]

never made it to the Rutland Halloween parades in Vermont. As far as I know, the largest comicons Biljo attended were in St. Louis. We can only speculate, but it seems that the Cap’n just wasn’t enough of a wandering soul to leave his own bailiwick much.

Biljo wasn’t anti-social, nothing of the sort. He loved meeting other fans, and offered his hospitality to those who happened to be passing through Columbia, or were willing to make the trip just to get together with him. In 1963 Ronn Foss stopped by on his way from California back to Ohio, just a few days before Biljo played host to Jerry and Sondra Bails, and Roy Thomas and Linda Rahm. Over the ensuing years, the moon-faced Missourian played host to Masquerader editor Mike Vosburg and Nebraska-based Chuck Moss, among many others.

Again the question: why didn’t Biljo persist in his efforts to do professional comics work? Even the distance from Columbia to New York City might have been surmounted. The answer, I think, is this: comics fandom gave Biljo all the audience he needed to be creatively fulfilled.

As an amateur writer and artist, White was in great demand by fanzine editors. He couldn’t find time to answer all the letters requesting contributions, let alone fulfill faneditors’ requests. His comic strips appeared in most of the top fanzines of the 1960s—Masquerader, All-Stars, Voice of Comicdom, Star-Studded Comics, Fighting Hero Comics, and Alter Ego—and were read by hundreds of fans, even thousands.

You see, White had a huge backlog of comic strip ideas, both in rough and completed form, starting from the time of his discharge from the military in 1953. Fandom gave him a place to polish them up and show them off. These early ideas formed the basis for the majority of the comic strips he created: “The Fog,” “The Blade,” “Tom Trojan (originally “Gus Gunn”), “The Lion,” and more. The pages of Komix Illustrated were colorful, lively, entertaining and irresistibly charming. Biljo knew how to create comic book “magic,” and fans were quick to realize they had a special talent among them.

“What’s amazing is how his work remained so true to The cover of Batmania #1. [Art ©204 Estate of Biljo his childhood influWhite; Batman TM & ©2004 DC Comics.] ences without being affected by time,” fan/collector Jeff Gelb recalled. “Reading a comic strip by Biljo White is like finding a great, quintessential Golden Age comic book I’ve never seen before but have always hoped to find.” Biljo had been a comic book addict when he was a teenager, during World War II, and early influences are often the strongest. Many were quick to notice the influence of C.C. Beck’s “Captain Marvel” artwork on Biljo’s, which was never so pronounced as in “Great Scott!,” one of White’s last characters who finally got into print, in Fandom’s Finest Comics #2. But Beck wasn’t the only influence; White’s work also bore evidence of his admiration for the work of Bob Kane and Roy Crane. He was of the “old school,” where the art could be slightly cartoony, and this was thought to be a virtue.

Komix Illustrated Biljo White’s introduction to fandom came with his first fanzine, Komix Illustrated #1, in July 1962. He wasn’t one to write letters to comic books, so he hadn’t been the recipient of a gratis copy of Alter-Ego #1 or #2; but, when he did find out about fandom and fanzines, he jumped in with both feet. “I was so happy to find

Never-before-published photo of Biljo’s mural, done for the Batmanians’ meeting at Dave Kaler’s 1965 New York ComiCon. Biljo himself couldn’t attend.

Biljo produced ten issues of Komix Illustrated over about a year and a half. (A bit of Biljo trivia: Komix Illustrated was the fanzine whose ads inspired a 16-year-old Howard Rogofsky to become a comic book dealer.) It was popular enough that a fan named Mickey Martin received permission to continue the title, putting out three more issues. But Biljo contributed little or nothing to those. His attention had been captured by the brainchild of a group of fans called The Texas Trio, who launched a more ambitious type of amateur

Comic Fandom Archive

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The Comicollector and Alter Ego But about nine months before Batmania was birthed, a chapter occurred in Biljo White’s fannish life that is not as well known: his assumption of the editorial and publishing reins of both The Comicollector (fandom’s first adzine) and Alter Ego! Ronn Foss had taken them over when founder/editor/publisher Jerry Bails wanted to move on, and now Foss was restless to spend more time on his artwork.

(Foss had edited A/E #5 and 6.) Ronn asked Biljo if he wanted to continue the two zines, and White accepted. This occurred some time in the late summer of 1963. Foss would take another six months to finally get A/E #6 out, and more issues of CC, too, but Biljo had no hesitation about announcing the earth-shattering news in a special three-page dittoed announcement, which is reproduced here in full. (Note that Page 1 has a section cut out of it, to reveal the actual “surprise” on page 2.)

If you look over these pages carefully, you’ll notice that, while Biljo doesn’t actually say he will be the main editor and publisher, with Roy Thomas as co- or assistant editor, that’s the clear impression given by the way the pages are laid out, with the prominence of Biljo over Roy, pictorially speaking. Plus, the sheets bear White’s mailing address, which is usually the purview of the publisher.

Somehow, though—and neither Roy nor Biljo remembered the details—things got flipped around, with Roy assuming the publishing and editing duties, and Biljo on board as chief artist, with the formal title of art editor. Here’s what I suspect happened: Biljo found that the duties involved in taking over The Comicollector from Ronn Foss were so time-consuming that he couldn’t also publish Alter Ego. Roy may not have wanted to take on all the work of publisher and editor, but when Biljo backed away from A/E, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for “Corporal Roy” to step up to the plate, since he had been Jerry Bails’s official co-editor on the earliest issues.

The Fog and The Eye were probably the writer/artist’s best known fandom creations. The “Eye” page seen here is from The Eye #1 (1965), the first small-press comic book featuring a single hero. [Art ©2004 Estate of Biljo White; The Eye TM & ©2004 Bill Schelly.]

comic book called Star-Studded Comics. SSC became Biljo’s outlet of choice. “The Eye” had his debut in that popular fanzine, as did two episodes of “The Fog.” But White had enough printer’s ink in his veins that he couldn’t give up fanzine publishing for long. In July 1964 Capt. Biljo launched the fanzine for which he is now best known: Batmania.

There may have been another reason as well: following Jerry Bails and Ronn Foss may have been somewhat intimidating to Biljo. I don’t think that he really had the mastery of the English language necessary to edit the work of the best writers in fandom. This isn’t a slight to Biljo.

None of us can be equally good at everything. Fortunately, Roy was more qualified in this area, and with White doing much of the art, the arrangement they finally reached probably resulted in the best possible fanzine at that time. Who can argue with the result? Not I! Then, Biljo bowed out of The Comicollector, too, after a mere three issues. CC was mostly drudgery (keeping subscription lists, typing ads, collating and mailing), which was a poor vehicle for one with White’s creative abilities.

He left it to G.B. Love to pick up the pieces, and Love merged The Comicollector with Rocket’s Blast to form RB-CC.

Batmania Much has been written about Batmania, including a feature article in this new incarnation of Alter Ego: how it was authorized by Julius Schwartz at National, how the Batman TV show pumped up its circulation to over 800 copies per issue (a huge amount for a fanzine of that era), and how it led to “fanzine editor burn-out” for Biljo White. As he said later, “I believe I perfected the perfect fanzine formula with Batmania.” Fans agreed, enjoying not only his expertlystenciled mimeographed artwork, but the choice of features, and the way he divided each issue into departments: editorial, letters, Bat-facts, Comic Oddities, Batman news, and advertisements. He recruited top writers like Tom Fagan and George Pacinda, and always took great care that the pages of each issue looked clean and attractive. Batmania printed the first article about the Rutland Halloween Parade, written, appropriately enough, by its “Batman,” Tom Fagan.

Ronn Foss’ own artistic interpretation of his handing Alter Ego and Comicollector over to Biljo White and Roy Thomas, as seen in Ronn’s final issue of CC, #12 (Sept.-Oct. 1963).[Art ©2004 Estate of Biljo White.]

That left Biljo with enough time to publish Batmania.

And who of us would have wanted it any other way?

Suddenly, the right people were helming the publications that best fit their abilities and temperaments! Hallelujah!

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“We Miss You, Capt. Biljo!”

A Biljo triptych. In 1964 BJW sent out a three-page spirit-duplicator-produced color flyer (left) in which he and his intended “assistant editor” Roy Thomas—whom he dubbed here “Corporal Roy”—announced their intention to pick up the reins of the first incarnation of Alter Ego, after four issues edited and published by Jerry G. Bails and two by Ronn Foss. Note that Biljo cut a rectangular hole in the top page (around the word “SURPRISE”) that carried through to the second sheet. The third sheet heralded a reprint that Biljo was going to do of Alter-Ego #1. And yes, that reprint edition did come out, and is nearly as rare as the one Jerry Bails had done three years earlier! [Art ©2004 Estate of Biljo White.]

years, sold off most of his fabled collection. But Biljo always remained an interested fan and collector, even when he drifted from fanzine activity in the 1970s.

In recent years, I know he regularly visited his local comics retail store, and decorated his den with framed comic art by himself, his friends, and some professionals.

Conversations with Biljo “Just a Comic Book Fan and Collector” Toward the end of the 1960s, White cut back on his fan activity. After 18 issues, the Chief Batmanian pulled the plug on “The Fanzine Especially for Batman fans” and began spending more time enjoying the hobby again as a collector and fan. For Capt. Biljo, his primary interest had always been the reading and collecting of comic books and strips. In that respect, he was very much like any other fan.

Though I’m sure he had tongue in cheek when he christened the cinder block building in his back yard “The White House of Comics,” White’s collection of Golden Age comics and vintage comic strips was extensive. Like most of us, he focused his collecting energy on the items that he had read and enjoyed as a child and teenager: the late 1930s and early 1940s.

His favorite character was the Caped Crusader, of course, followed closely by Captain Marvel, and the collection he amassed was heavy on the many titles featuring those two icons of the 1940s.

One of the reasons he was able to create fanzine features of interest to fans was that he had the reference material on hand. It was largely his collection that provided the reference for “One Man’s Family,” Roy’s article in Alter Ego #7, Roy’s Blackhawk piece in #8, or the many other illustrations Biljo did for Alter Ego during Thomas’ editorial tenure.

From certain hints (rather than direct statements), it seems that Biljo had periods of being financially stretched. As a result, he had, over the

In 1991, when I began researching the history of comic fandom, Bill White was one of the first people I wanted to contact. I found his telephone number in directory assistance, and soon began a series of phone calls with the Cap’n every two or three months, all the way up to the time of his passing.

The first order of business when we got in touch was to do an interview, for a column Jeff Gelb and I were then doing for Comics Buyer’s Guide called “Fandom’s Founders.” I wanted to do it by phone, but Biljo preferred to answer questions by mail. He wasn’t the most articulate fellow, and preferred to take a little extra time over his answers.

When I first got into contact with him, Biljo seemed a little disengaged, as if fandom were something that had occupied his time in the distant past, and was no longer a part of his world. But over time I gradually came to understand that he wasn’t being stand-offish—he was just naturally somewhat shy, and took some time to warm up to an inquisitive guy from Seattle who was calling out of the blue. Once we broke the ice, White was just as friendly and warm as could be.

He was unfailingly supportive of my efforts to document the history of fandom, and helped in any way he could. If I had attributed the sources of the photographs in The Golden Age of Comic Fandom, readers would see just how many key images were supplied by Biljo White.

Once I received a package from him that was completely unexpected.

Comic Fandom Archive When I opened it, my jaw dropped as I realized what it was: all of the original ditto masters to the old “Eye” comic strips (ca. 1964) that he’d saved through the intervening years. They were, in reality, the original art to The Eye’s first two adventures! It was thrilling to me to actually be able to examine the pages that those evanescent masterworks had been printed from, and to see the sketch lines and preliminary work that remained. These provided the basis for the eventual reprinting of those two strips in Labors of Love (Hamster Press, 2002) and why the reproduction is so beautiful. (I made photocopies of the dittos from their printing side, then reversed the image by using a special function in the copy machine.)

Obviously, of all his super-heroes, the character that most intrigued me was The Eye, Underworld Executioner. When I began making noises about bringing back the Ocular Operative, Biljo gave me carte blanche.

He also did his own “Return of the Eye!” strip, his first new strip in over twenty years. His art was a little sketchy, but this was just a function of his rustiness. All the fundamentals were there, and it was a real privilege to be able to publish it in Fandom’s Finest Comics, Vol. 2.

Of my own efforts to write and draw new “Eye” strips, Capt. Biljo was my greatest booster, and was especially happy with The Eye Collection, the trade paperback that put all this new material under one cover.

Another thing that came out of my back-and-forth with Biljo was an awareness that he was gaining a whole new group of fans who had discovered his work (reprinted) in various Hamster Press books. I was frequently being asked for Biljo’s address, which he said I could give out without trepidation.

Perhaps the most ardent Biljo booster to emerge was Jeff (“Not the Bone guy”) Smith, a Texasbased writer/artist in his own right. Biljo created a special bulletin board in his den, dedicated to “Biljo’s Buddies,” with displays of artwork and photographs from Jeff Smith and other new fans.

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Memories of the Cap’n

by J.E. Smith The Fandom Reunion Luncheon, held in the summer of 1997 during the Chicago Comicon, was a life-altering event for me. Though I never actually participated in the dawn of comic fandom, I had been turned on to its wild wonders by Bill Schelly’s infectiously entertaining tome The Golden Age of Comic Fandom (Hamster Press, 1995), which brought the sights, sounds, and personalities of the movement’s earliest years to vivid life. Having spent quite a chunk of time in movie fandom myself, publishing an array of fanzines over the space of fifteen years or so, I felt a great kinship with these pioneering spirits, and longed to be accepted into their fraternity. The luncheon, organized by Bill with the help of Chicago fan Russ Maheras, brought together many of the fans, faneditors, -writers, and -artists who made those formative years great.

Having read Bill’s book multiple times, and corresponded with some of the great and friendly folk in that room, it was almost an out-of-body experience to actually be hanging out with the likes of Jerry Bails, Roy Thomas, Howard Keltner, Grass Green, Maggie Thompson, and many more. I had the time of my life.

But as great as that afternoon was, there was one small disappointment—somebody was missing.

Biljo White.

(Actually, at least two people were missing: Ronn Foss was also unable to attend, but as most of us knew his health was in decline, no one really expected him to try and make the journey.)

At the time, Bill J. White, a.k.a.

Biljo (or Cap’n Biljo), was alive and well and living in Missouri, but had decided that he would not be able to attend the gathering. I don’t really know his reasons, but I do know that

Of course, amid all this, Biljo had gradually gotten back in touch with many of his old fandom friends, including Roy Thomas, Jerry Bails, Ed Lahmann, and Ronn Foss. I think re-connecting with those folks who had once been such a big part of his life meant a lot to him, though he wasn’t one to say as much. I could tell by reading between the lines.

I’m just grateful that I got to know him as not just a fandom icon, but as a friendly fellow who had a great deal of art talent, matched with a great deal of humility. You know something? That’s a pretty good combination.

It was fandom’s great fortune to be blessed by Bill White’s creative contributions. It’s not easy to accept the fact that he is no longer among us.

We miss you, Capt. Biljo!

[We recommend that you visit Bill’s site at www.billschelly.com, where you can grab a copy of Alter Ego: The Best of the Legendary Comics Fanzine, as well as our associate editor’s new blockbuster Words of Wonder: The Life and Times of Otto Binder. Also, copies of Fandom’s Finest Comics #1 & #2 and Labors of Love (trade paperbacks) are still available for $12.00 each, all reprinting the best of Biljo’s fanzine strips (complete).]

(Top:) “Biljo’s Buddies”—a collage of the Captain’s old and new friends.

Even without a magnifying glass, we can see photos of Bill Schelly, Jerry Bails, and Roy Thomas—art by Ronn Foss and (we think) Mike Vosburg—and more! (Above:) Possibly Biljo’s last fan art, done as a gift for Bill Schelly.

[Art ©2004 Estate of Bill J. White; The Eye TM & ©2004 Bill Schelly.]

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“We Miss You, Capt. Biljo!” other cool stuff. My favorite photo arrived after I had sent him a sketch of The Eye I’d drawn— he returned with a photo of himself holding the sketch, and imitating the dramatic pose the Eye was striking. What a sense of humor, and what a way to make me feel good about the work I’d done. While I could never claim that Biljo and I became the best of friends, he always treated me with good cheer and respect, and always seemed to enjoy our occasional letter-swapping.

(Above:) The sketch that Biljo drew for Jeff E. Smith in 1996—and (right) the resulting panel in the “Eye” story written and drawn

by Jeff.[Art ©2004 Estate of Biljo White & of Jeff E. Smith, respectively; The Eye TM & ©2004 Bill Schelly.\]

his presence was sorely missed. As that like-minded group spent the better part of two hours recalling the great days when comics were treasured possessions rather than commodities, I would very much have like to have sat with the creator of The Eye and talked about comics and art. But it didn’t happen, and though there was occasional talk of making the Luncheon an annual event, such plans never materialized, and it will likely remain an unrepeatable benchmark in the history of fandom, like the Alley Tally party at Jerry Bails’ house in 1964.

Of all the creators who had graced The Golden Age of Comic Fandom with their work, I liked Biljo the best. His style was simple and direct, his storytelling bold. He is often compared to C.C. Beck, but I occasionally see the clean, crisp lines of Dick Sprang and Jack Burnley in his work, as well. Mostly, however, what I saw was Biljo himself. Like the classical creators who inspired him, Biljo rarely indulged in fancy panel layouts or extravagant detailing. The story was the most important thing, and Biljo knew how to move a tale along at a thrilling clip. “The Eye,” “The Fog,” “Alter and Captain Ego,” and even his humorous trademark character Cap’n Biljo (a nickname Biljo used for himself, as well) never failed to charm and entertain. (Of the Biljo fanzines I have acquired for my collection, none is more treasured than Captain Biljo Goes to a Comic Book Convention!, a hilarious take on the early con scene as White’s bemused alter ego solves a mystery involving a rare stolen comic book!) Although I do think Biljo entertained the notion of perhaps going pro someday, what really came through in his fan work was a pure love of comics. If Biljo had a cynical bone in his body in those early days, it certainly never showed in the comics he produced, or the fanzines he published. He loved the medium, and we loved what he contributed to it.

Probably my greatest connection with Biljo came when Bill Schelly asked me to do the artwork for a 10-page “Eye” story he was writing for a new anthology, The Eye Collection. I couldn’t take the gig fast enough, and though I struggled quite a bit with getting just the right synthesis of my own style and Biljo’s, in the end I felt like it was the best tribute I could pay to the guy who had inspired me so much with his simple, well-told adventure tales in those old purple-and-white ditto-printed fanzines. In one panel, the first big revelation of The Eye as he enters the story, I based the figure directly on that first sketch Biljo had sent me—it seemed only fitting that there be some honest-to-goodness Biljo White artwork in the story, and for that panel, I was merely the inker. It was an immeasurable thrill to me a few weeks after the book came out when I got a letter from Biljo saying how much he had liked the artwork on the story, and that he thought I had done a nice job with the character. I had intended to send Biljo the original art for the title page to the story, but, as it turned out, I waited too late to get it into the mail.

It had been a couple of months since I’d heard from Biljo, but that didn’t really cause me much concern—the frequency of our correspondence was often measured in months rather than days or weeks. Like most people, I’d understood him to be in reasonably good health, so when the e-mail came from Bill Schelly that the great Cap’n Biljo had passed away rather suddenly, the news hit me like a ton of bricks.

Although I think I conveyed to Biljo over the years how much I enjoyed his work, and felt inspired by it, I probably would have said something more formal if I’d known the time was quite so short. I never got a chance to say good-bye.

But I was lucky enough just to have known him. Though our acquaintance came late in his life, long after his days in comic fandom were over, I feel I am enriched for having made some small connection with him. And isn’t that, after all, the mark of a great man, to inspire those he comes in contact with? For me, at least, that is certainly true of the incomparable Bill J. White.

I never got to meet Biljo White in person, but I did [J.E. Smith is a Texas-based writer maintain a sporadic corresponand artist, and the proud owner of dence with him. The first time the original art to Biljo White’s only I wrote, he responded with a published Marvel or DC artwork, quick-but-thrilling original namely The Invaders #16, p. 17, sketch of The Eye, standing atop which details the origin of Major a building, laser beam lancing Victory—whose secret identity in out of that huge cornea to thwart the comic was named Capt. Biljo some unseen cad. His letters were White! Eat your heart out.] brief but extremely friendly, and he often sent me pictures of [NOTE: Next issue—more art bits of his collection, artwork and photos, in a special Biljo A sketch that Biljo drew of Jeff’s character “Bulldog Malone” from his comic book he had framed on the wall, and Complex City. [Art ©2004 Estate of Biljo White; Bulldog Malone TM & ©2004 Jeff E. Smith.]

White Art Show.]

re:

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re:

Jack Burnley’s Starman shines his light from the cover of the 2000 tome The Golden Age Starman Archives, Vol. 1, backward in time to light up Jack’s then-future bride Dolores Farris in the Roaring ’20s, doing a Detroit gig with the legendary Ted “Is ev’rybody happy?”

Lewis. The photo appears in Jack’s book The Golden Girl and the Silver Slipper.

[Starman TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]

Hey, Roy— Just got Alter Ego #27. I continue to be amazed by the history that you are discovering and preserving. You’re doing a real service.

Whenever I see A/E in the mailbox, I think of a couple of extremely tiny footnotes that I meant to pass on to you regarding a pair of fairly recent articles.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ll start right off with our favorite letter re Alter Ego #27, which came from Golden Age Superman/Batman/ Starman artist Jack Burnley, who had authored the short book about the life and career of his wife in the Roaring Twenties which appeared there in abridged form:] Dear Roy, Thanks for the copies of Alter Ego with the abridgement of The Golden Girl and the Silver Slipper.

Your presentation was perfect. My only regret is that Dolores wasn’t here to see it.

Jack Burnley You have our sympathies and our prayers, Jack. I had spoken only briefly with Mrs. Burnely, once or twice, on the phone, but after reading your heartfelt book, I felt as if I knew her... or as if Hollywood had made a glittering spectacular movie of the classic style about her career and her star-crossed early romance. We can only thank you for sharing your—and her—memories with us.

Incidentally, A/E editor emeritus Mike Friedrich and cartoonist Lee Marrs wrote to ask if by any chance the "unknown dancer" seen with Dolores Farris, Dan Healy, and Imogene Coca in a 1926 Silver Slipper photo on p. 35 could be Joan Crawford, who had been a dancer in New York—since her show-biz career started after she won a Charleston contest and later, as "Billie Cassin," she was spotted in a Broadway chorus line by an MGM scout. Actually, it seems unlikely, since she had roles in five movies in 1925, and three more in ’26. Still, she could have been between engagements.

Next, a bit of info that concerned Ye Editor, and which he hadn’t known about for 15 years until veteran comics artist Joe Staton sent us this note:

Re Captain Midnight: Back in the early ’80s when I was with First Comics in Chicago, we were approached by someone who held the rights to Captain Midnight and was shopping around the comic book version to tie in with a movie that was in the works. I was interested in this, because we had samples from a Midwest artist who had never done comics but who did a lovely Caniff pastiche. It would have been a nice comic. I think this was unrelated to your proposals with Ron Harris, though I know you had dealings with First. I’ve forgotten who approached us, and obviously neither comic nor movie happened.

Re Captain Marvel: One day during the time you were working to re-launch Shazam! at DC, I was wandering down the hall and a very distracted Bob Greenberger practically bumped into me. Bob looked up, recognized me, and said, “So, do you want to draw ‘Captain Marvel’?” “Sure, love to,” I replied.

“OK, it’s yours.” (This sort-of even made sense, since Bob and others at DC had promised me Cap at various times over the years.)

Apparently, by the time Bob got back to his office, the entire encounter had slipped his mind, and nothing came of it.

But, for at least three to five minutes, I was your penciler on Cap. I would have done a good job, but we all know I would have drawn Tawny too cute.

Two small events from the Alternate Earth of Comics That Never Were.

Joe Staton There’s a million billion of ’em, Joe—and many of them are at least as interesting as the things that really did happen. Meanwhile, having suffered through that period of trying to get a long-promised Shazam! series off the ground, I can only say that I wish you had been assigned the book. We’d have had a ball—and I know you’d have done a great Captain Marvel, balanced between the spirit of C.C. Beck and the modern manner! Well, at least we did get to do a couple of issues of Green Lantern together once, right?

David A. Simpson sent us some info of a different type: Hi Roy, “Captain Daring” and “Black Roger,” as featured on page 2 of

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re: with a few comments, identifications, and diversions about your fantastic Alter Ego, which I look forward to so expectantly every month. I missed out on the Golden Age by a couple of decades, but I must say I find the “comics archaeology” you delve into (with Jim Amash, Doc Vassallo, et al.) absolutely engrossing.

The Buccaneers cover in A/E #27 was indeed by Joe Simon, I’m sure, but amongst the contents inside was a “Captain Daring” strip (though not the one whose splash you reproduced) penciled by Reed Crandall and inked quite possibly by Les Zakarin. Interestingly, I had seen that “Captain Daring” strip before, in the British Okay Annual of Adventure, which appeared (along with a companion Ajax Annual) in the mid-’50s from TV Boardman. Boardman brought out British reprints of Blackhawk, amongst other things, but their involvement with U.S. comics goes back to the legendary Wags, which printed some of the earliest Eisner & Iger material. So why am I bringing this up? Well, I was fascinated by the Iger Studio investigation you ran in A/E #21, and I was surprised to see that studio carried on into the ’60s, if only because I couldn’t figure out what they might actually be doing that late in their history.

Maybe Joe Staton never got to draw Captain Marvel in a Shazam! comic (DC’s loss, as well as Ye Editor’s!), but here’s a great illo he did of the Golden Age Superman and Flash for collector Eddy Zeno at a Memphis event in 1992. The original’s even in color! [Art ©2004 Joe Staton; Superman & Flash TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]

Alter Ego #27, appeared in Buccaneers, published by Quality Comics.

A continuation of the Kid Eternity title, it ran from issue #19 (Jan. 1950) to issue #27 (May 1951) and featured pirate stories. According to the 1987 Overstreet Price Guide, the copy of Super Comics’ Buccaneers #12 pictured reprinted issue #21 of the Quality series. I assume that the “Captain Daring” story, “Alliance of Evil,” appeared in one of those issues.

On the other hand, I know for a fact that it was published in Britain, sometime in the 1950s, in a hardback called The Adventure Book. That volume’s 192 pages were mostly filled with text stories, including two from Modesty Blaise creator Peter O’Donnell, and comic strips drawn by British comics great Denis McLoughlin. However, as in several similar books of the era, the page count was bulked out by American reprints from the Quality archives. Captain Daring was joined by fellow Buccaneers stars Eric Falcon, Adam Peril, and, yes, Black Roger—alongside Doll Man and Plastic Man’s pal Woozy Winks.

Finally, many thanks for Alter Ego, Volume 3. I’ve been with it since the CBA days, and it continues to go from strength to strength.

I’m especially glad to see you cover so many obscure writers and artists, people whose work and lives are usually just as interesting as those of the usual suspects.

David A. Simpson Thanks, David. A couple of other folks wrote us about Captain Daring and Black Roger and Buccaneers, as well. A lot of Quality art was reprinted in black-&-white British books in the 1950s, and copies of it have been sent to us by various kind-hearted souls. Some of it will be on display two issues hence, when we feature not one but two Quality Comics covers, and interviews with no less than four people who labored for that high-calibre company—two artists, an editor, and the son of publisher “Busy” Arnold, no less! Stick around.

Here’s more on the subject, from pro comics artist David Roach over in Great Britain: Hi there, Roy— Long time no speak. You may vaguely remember that we collaborated on what was to have been the fourth Topps Comics Cadillacs and Dinosaurs series, but alas, we’re still waiting for it to appear. I’m writing

Then, recently, I stumbled upon a ’50s (undated, but probably later than ’55) Okay Annual which really surprised me. These Boardman annuals were typically packed with reprints of Quality strips such as “Blackhawk,” “Doll Man,” “Plastic Man,” “Jeb Rivers,” etc., from the company’s dying days, but this one was different. The contents were “Dr. Fung” by Bob Powell, “Yarko the Great” by Will Eisner, “Tex Mason” by Cecillia Munson, “The Flame” by Lou Fine, “Spark Stevens”

by Klaus Nordling, and—oh, yes—a Dillin/Cuidera “Blackhawk.”

Clearly, some of these were reprints from Fox’s Wonderworld Comics, circa 1939, but since Fox had gone out of business years earlier, who was selling this stuff to Boardman? I wonder if somehow Jerry Iger (who put this work together for Fox originally) kept the original art or had highquality stats made of the pages before he sent the art to Fox, and after his studio more or less stopped producing went into the syndication business. The quality of reproduction is excellent, so it’s certainly not taken from the comics themselves. I’m also unaware of any other Fox material which was reprinted over here, so Victor Fox himself doesn’t seem to have any connection to it (though I believe he was actually British). With Jerry Iger’s earlier dealings with Boardman, he does seem to be the logical choice, but I guess we’ll never really know. I wonder if anyone else might have any ideas.

Was also intrigued by Alex Toth’s Alfonso Greene article. I’ve got a strip drawn by Greene in Heroic Comics #62, 1950 (along with strips by H.G. Peter and Bill Everett), which might suggest that he got off with a very short sentence in the late ’40s.

One more thing: most Saturday mornings I sit down to breakfast with my daughters and watch the cartoons, including Spider-Man, which I’m guessing is a fairly recent show. It’s interesting to see which obscure guest stars they bring in, including your own Morbius.

However, nothing could quite compare me for a recent storyline, which seems to have been beamed in from some parallel reality. The story revolves around a big group of Spidey villains trying to hunt down six statues/keys belong to some elderly citizens. But these are no ordinary pensioners: they are in reality The Whizzer, Miss America, The Destroyer, The Black Marvel, and The Thunderer! Together with Captain America, they once comprised a group called the Six Americans (I think). When they come out of retirement, Cap pops up, so does The Red Skull (with the help of his adoptive son The Chameleon), S.H.I.E.L.D. arrives in the nick (ouch!) of time, and much fighting ensues. I’m embarrassed to say I can’t remember the writer’s name, but he did a good job overall, and my girls (4 and 6) really enjoyed them, particularly Miss America. In fact, this afternoon they sat around drawing pictures of her, so she must have made an impact. Is this an old Invaders fan at work here? Or a devoted Alter Ego reader?

David A. Roach

re:

41 Here’s a list of additional stories for him, in alphabetical order: Gunsmoke Western #45 (March 1958); Journey into Mystery #49 (Nov. 1958); Marines in Battle #24 (July 1958); Mystic #61 (Aug. 1957); Strange Tales #63 (June 1958); Strange Tales #66 (Dec. 1958); Two-Gun Kid #40 (Feb. 1958); Two-Gun Kid #44 (Oct. 1958—this one’s a guess); World of Fantasy #11 (April 1958); World of Fantasy #12 (June 1958); Wyatt Earp #18 (Aug. 1958); Western Trails #2 (July 1957); Wild Western #57 (Sept. 1957).

Doc V. Thanks, Doc! Since you, like me, are interested in the history of comics, you’ll enjoy this letter from longtime science-fiction and comics fan Richard Kyle, who’s been writing about comics since the Xero days back in the early 1960s. Here, he shares some memories of the team of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster—including recollections of some rather surprising revelations told him years ago by the original “Superman” artist himself: Dear Roy, It’s been a while since I last wrote—and in the interim seven issues of Alter Ego have arrived. Amazing.

I enjoyed the Vin Sullivan piece in #27—but, as usual, was annoyed that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster are sort-of written off, as though “Superman” were independent of the two of them—an inevitable accident that would have occurred whether or not Jerry and Joe were there—and that their other strips were inconsequential. But they weren’t. “Superman” was no accident. It was merely the first chronologically. Incidentally, Joe once told me that he was not responsible for the shading in the “Superman” newspaper strips that were pasted up to form the story in Action Comics #1—all those vertical lines. They were

Doc V. lists work by A/E #27-spotlighted artists Les Zakarin and Alfonso Greene, and he sent us Timely art to illustrate his point: Zakarin’s inking of Bob Bean from Spellbound #21 (April 1954), and Greene art from World of Fantasy #11 (April 1952). [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Dunno, David... but I wouldn’t mind seeing that episode. And, speaking of regular (and valued) contributor Dr. Michael J. Vassallo, as you were a few paragraphs back—as per usual, he can be counted on to add to what was published in A/E #27: Roy, Alter Ego #27 was another great issue. I loved the faux Marvel covers by Shane and Sarge! Les Zakarin’s interview was very informative; I’ve long seen his name on those handful of early Atlas Romita stories I sent you and had his phone number here for a few years without ever getting around to calling him.

Then, woe of woes, I learned he actually lived 25 miles from me!

Thankfully, Jim A. got his memories down before his untimely passing.

There are so many unknown and unsung guys who came up for a cup of coffee before bowing out. Outside of those 1951 Romita/Zakarin stories, Zakarin shows up one additional time for Atlas in early 1954, inking Bob Bean on a pre-Code horror tale in Spellbound #21 (April).

I can add to Alex Toth’s poignant piece on Alfonso Greene. While I had no idea he was an African-American, the story of his trouble with gangs and jail time explains his mysterious disappearance from comic books for a large swarth of time. He reappears in 1957, doing quite a bit of freelance work for Stan Lee (as indicated by the splash you printed, which had been supplied by Jerry Bails) and was freelancing at the exact instance of the Atlas implosion, with inventoried stories by him appearing well into 1958.

42

re:

done somewhere else along the line, by someone who wanted to get of all the open white spaces in the strips.

of the boots are drawn incorrectly, something that Peter would not have done. It’s a fake.

I loved their “Slam Bradley” as a kid—more than “Superman,” actually.

Jerry once told me that he’d created Slam following the creation of “Superman” (which they’d been unable to sell) and had incorporated in realistic terms many of the Superman ideas.

Thank you for publishing my complete letter in A/E #23. I’m amazed at bhob [stewart]’s response to the layouts for the Xero article. I thought they were very effective.

Xero was Xero. Alter Ego is Alter Ego.

If you look at “Slam Bradley” closely—the original Siegel and Shuster stories, no others—you can see the basic structure of the original “Captain Marvel.” There is Shorty, Slam’s assistant, a symbolic little boy, and there’s Slam, an idealized father/big brother figure. In some of the stories, Shorty even rides around on Slam’s shoulder, almost like a kid.

It is, underneath, a Clark KentSuperman relationship.

The genius of “Captain Marvel” was in understanding Siegel’s mechanism. Billy Batson and Captain Marvel became “alter egos” of one person. And Joe’s exceptional design sense and simplicity of style are also echoed by C.C. Beck. “Captain Marvel” is really an astonishingly adept fusion of “Superman” and “Slam Bradley.”

Richard Kyle 3644 Lewis Avenue Long Beach, CA 90807-4118 And Richard Kyle, as always, makes for a very good read—as he has ever since Ye Editor was knocked out by reading “The Education of Victor Fox” in Xero back in the early ’60s. Ye Ed was particularly surprised to learn that Joe Shuster told you that someone else, not he, had added all those diagonal lines in the early comic strip panels of “Superman” that were pasted up for Action Comics #1. Your analysis of the comparison between Superman and Captain Marvel is intriguing, too... and probably right on the mark. That may explain why those two heroes were at the top of the heap back in the 1940s.

There’s a real charm to Siegel and Shuster’s early features, such as this Now, just time (or rather, room) But, in addition to “Slam “Dr. Occult” page from More Fun Comics #13 (Sept. 1936), as there was to for a few of: Bradley,” Siegel and Shuster’s “Dr. “Slam Bradley” and their other efforts. [©2004 DC Comics.]

Occult,” “Federal Men” (a particuThe Usual Corrections and larly good strip, too), “Radio Squad,” and “Spy” were fine strips in their Additions: own time. Someday, critics will actually look at these series carefully and We didn’t learn this in time to mention in last month, but Jim compare them to the stories of Siegel and Shuster’s competitors.

Amash tells us that Ron Frantz was the fellow who sent us the full-

They were a greater team than Simon and Kirby; the fusion of writing and drawing is perfect. Joe is written off by a lot of comics historians, but when you look at the early Shuster art (not the studio stuff, but Joe’s own), it’s clear that a comic artist of great talent is present. Joe’s often hasty inking and uneven lettering (he once told me that, when his right hand got tired, he would switch to his left for lettering)—not to mention often poor reproduction—distract from his strengths. Early pencils I have seen are exceptionally good.

The best of Joe’s mature work can be seen in the Sunday Funnyman strips. He couldn’t find an assistant on the Sunday strip because of the draft, and ended up penciling, inking, lettering (I think), and coloring most or all of them. It is all Shuster and it is smooth, fully professional work.

“Superman” blew everything away, of course, but if there had been no “Superman,” the two of them would have created something else of great impact. (They would not have had to compete against any costumed heroes, needless to say. They invented them all.)

Re #23—there’s a lot wrong with the nude Wonder Woman drawing. [NOTE: We wondered in print whether it was really by H.G. Peter, or someone imitating his style. —Roy.] Wonder Woman is drawn more or less realistically, but Peter drew her with spaghetti elbows and cartoon legs. Her left arm is out of proportion, with a rather stunted forearm and poor use of perspective. And if you look at her clothes flying above her head, not only are her bra and shorts drawn in reverse, white on black (a possibility for a b-&-w drawing), but the tops

size photocopies from New Fun #1 which we used in A/E #26-27.

Sorry, Ron.

Ye Editor erred (so what else is new?) on p. 11 of the Vin Sullivan interview, when he said that only one of the two 1938-39 covers of New Comics was signed by editor/cartoonist Sullivan. Both of them clearly were. These old eyes aren’t what they used to be—and probably never were! (On p. 13, we misspelled the last name of the “Tex Thomson” feature that metamorphosed into “Mr. America” and “Americommando,” too.)

Oh, and if anybody knows the whereabouts (even e-mail-wise) of Ruth “Bunny” Lyons Kaufman, the writer of a story in Batman #16, please let us know, okay? Article-writer Bill Jourdain says he lost touch with her... and she’d want to know her tale “The Grade A Crimes” was recently reprinted in the Batman: Dark Knight Archives, Vol. 4. Hey, for all we know, DC Comics may even wanna pay her a few quid!

Well, that’s it for this go-round. Please send all appropriate comments to: Roy Thomas Fax: (803) 826-6301 Rt. 3, Box 468 e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com St. Matthews, SC 29135 Remember, we said all appropriate comments!

No. 91 January 2004

IRVIN STEINBERG MARC SWAYZE

[Spy Smasher TM & ©2004 DC Comics; Art ©2004 Mark Lewis (pencils) & P.C. Hamerlinck (inks).]

Dr. Strange TM & ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Conan TM & ©2004 Conan Properties, Inc.; Red Sonja TM & ©2004 Red Sonja Properties, Inc.

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Marc Swayze

45 impression that those questions had been resolved when I was hired. I told them so.

Herron was holding up a page of art I had inked that morning. “It has been brought to our attention that you are frequently changing the work of the layout artist to your own satisfaction. Why?”

By

[Art & logo ©2004 Marc Swayze; Captain Marvel © & TM 2004 DC Comics]

I didn’t want to say I changed the layouts when they were lousy... but it was true. I said the rough pencil layouts, to me, were a most important phase of the art procedure. They amounted to taking the story from the typed pages and telling it in pictures. It was difficult to understand how, if one person did that, others could be depended upon for expressions... gestures... emotions. I was not familiar with the concept, having come along by a different route—the syndicated newspaper route—where, with those old comic strips, it was understood that a lone individual was the responsible party... McManus and Jiggs... Sid Smith and Andy Gump... and the others.

[FCA EDITORS NOTE: From 1941-53, Marcus D. Swayze was a top artist for Fawcett Comics. The very first Mary Marvel character sketches came from his drawing table, and he illustrated her earliest adventures, including her classic origin story “Captain Marvel Introduces Mary Marvel (CMA #18, Dec. ’42); but he was primarily “For that reason,” I explained, “I am not comfortable finishing up the hired by Fawcett Publications to illustrate Captain Marvel stories and layout work of someone else.” covers for Whiz Comics and Captain Marvel Adventures. He also wrote many Captain Marvel scripts, and continued to do so while in “Meaning you’d rather lay out the pages for others to finish up?” the military. After he left the service, and after drawing Ibis the asked Herron.

Invincible and Mr. Scarlet stories, he made an arrangement with “Meaning I’d rather do it all,” I answered. It was getting serious.

Fawcett to produce art and stories for the company on a freelance “That’s the way I learned. It’s the way I like to work.” basis out of his Louisiana home. There he created both art and story for The Phantom Eagle in Wow Comics, in addition to drawing the “How, then, could we be certain a character, say Captain Marvel, Flyin’ Jenny newspaper strip for Bell Syndicate would look the same, coming from your (created by his friend and mentor Russell drawing board... as he would look from Keaton). After the cancellation of an assembled group?” The question Wow, Swayze produced artwork for came from Allard.

Fawcett’s top-selling line of romance comics. After the That was when I said, “Try company ceased publishing me,” and returned to my desk comics, Marc moved over to wondering if I had just arranged Charlton Publications, where he for my departure from Fawcett ended his comics career in the Publications... from New York mid-1950s. Marc’s ongoing City... from it all! The fears, professional memoirs have been however, were allayed when, FCA’s most popular feature since instead of another laid-out art his first column appeared in FCA page to “finish up,” I received from #54, 1996. Last issue, he shared his the editorial department a typed memories of the fun yet competitive script to be carried to completion. And baseball games in which he participated that’s the way it continued. back in the “Golden Age” when the Fawcett comics crew took on “By 1941 Captain Marvel’s features and general image had undergone Captain Marvel, drawn the team from Jack Binder’s studio. changes....” (Left:) a CM head from one of the earliest issues of Whiz primarily by C.C. Beck alone, had In this installment, Marc reflects Comics. (Right:) the fuller-faced Cap of two years later, as drawn by Beck by the early Whiz Comics issues of upon his opposition to Fawcett’s or Swayze. Can you tell which one? [©2004 DC Comics.]

1941 passed through a period— assembly-line system by which they rather common in the lives of main produced their comic books in the characters—where the features and general image tend to assume more early ’40s. —P.C. Hamerlinck.] permanence. It’s a familiar phase to most of us... as though the creator of the feature has sat back comfortably... confidently... to drive on down the They were talking about comic book assembly line art, of which I long trail. The World’s Mightiest Mortal, still mighty, mind you, had knew virtually nothing. At my new desk with Fawcett Publications become... well... a nicer guy. hardly more than a week, I had been called in for “a little conference.”

Ed Herron, executive editor of the comics department, was speaking.

I never kept a clipping or reproduction of Captain Marvel tacked to Art director Al Allard sat by. my desk top as a guide. The character I drew was the same I had submitted with my résumé, the same that was discussed at my initial “You see, where one artist draws the rough layouts, another does the interview. It was the same Captain Marvel seen leading a platoon of tight penciling, and another the inking... the result is a common style infantrymen over a rugged WWII battlefield... the same seen later flying that can be maintained.” through a wintery sky alongside Mary Marvel, and with Santa Claus atop his back.

“The idea,” said Allard, “is to make certain that Captain Marvel looks the same continually... page after page, issue after issue.” It was my

There were no problems that I recall, drawing Captain Marvel. Not

46

We Didn’t Know... It Was The Golden Age!

“...The same Captain Marvel seen leading a platoon of infantryman” (CMA #12, June 1942) or “flying alongside Mary Marvel, and with Santa Claus atop his back” (CMA #19, Jan. ’43). Two classic Captain Marvel Adventures covers drawn entirely by Marc Swayze. [©2004 DC Comics.]

with the art style. When Mary Marvel came along, I had hopes of edging away from the original Beck style to a finer line, a more realistic approach, but the heavy 1942 workload stood in the way... and the call to military duty scuttled the idea completely.

I think Herron and Allard... and Fawcett Publications... were visualizing the forthcoming several years in which Captain Marvel ascended to the crest of the Golden Age super-hero heap. Though it was beyond my knowledge, art shops and studios were already supplying comic book material to publishers... and by way of the assembly-line system.

I’ve had second thoughts about my opposition to that system. A future in comics was a faraway dream for a young artist prior to and during the early years of the Golden Age. The shops and studios and the teams they assembled... and the assembly-line system they employed... must have created a lot of opportunities for those aspirants.

[Marc Swayze will be back next issue for more memories of the Golden Age of Comics.]

“When Mary Marvel came along, there were thoughts of a more realistic style... a finer line....” A panel from Mary’s origin in CMA #18 (Dec. 1942), laid out, penciled, and inked by Marc Swayze. Script by Otto Binder. [©2004 DC Comics.]

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BACK ISSUE OF THE ISSUE! If you dug hearing from Timely artists Allen Bellman and Sam Burlockoff, you’ll wanna get hold of Alter Ego #20 (see all back issues on an inside front cover), which spotlights Marvel mystery man Bob Deschamps and his tales of Stan Lee, Syd Shores, Mike Sekowsky, Dave Berg, Al Jaffee, and other Golden Age Timely talents—plus Roy Thomas on The Invaders, with art by Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, Sal Buscema, Frank Robbins, and others!

This cover by Al Milgrom ain’t too shabby, either!

48

Irvin Steinberg

“IRV”

Artist IRVIN STEINBERG and His Contribution to Comics

by P.C. Hamerlinck [with Richard Steinberg, son of the late artist] scholarship. He attended the academy from 1935 to 1937, and thereafter studied fine art at the Cooper Union School, graduating in the year 1941, just as the comic book was becoming firmly planted into America’s pop culture, and with its momentum moving rapidly. The Golden Age had arrived and was already in full swing, providing many opportunities for young, aspiring artists.

Fawcett artist Marc Swayze, in his first installment of his long-running FCA column, “We Didn’t Know... It Was the Golden Age,” described himself as “the most forgotten of the unknowns, or the most unknown of the forgottens.”

Artist Irvin Steinberg is another from the unsung group of “Fawcett’s Forgottens” who produced a large output of comic book artwork for Fawcett Publications until the company folded its line of comics in 1953.

Irvin Steinberg’s actual first name was Isidore, but he preferred to be called “Irvin” (no “g”) or “Irv,” and the name stuck throughout his career.

According to his son Richard, the artist was “a complex, moody individual, often irascible, and uncomfortable around most people.” Due to his shyness, the introverted Steinberg experienced difficulty in marketing his own artwork, which undoubtedly reflects why his work in the comic book field has remained mostly unknown until now. Steinberg’s work in comics spans a period of over fifteen years, wherein he created comic story art primarily for Fawcett Publications, but also for other publishers, including Quality, Fox, Spark... and one “mystery” story for National/DC—his swan song for comics.

Steinberg’s comic book work began in late 1941, as a freelance artist, for Fawcett Publications. His first known work for Fawcett was the cover to Spy Smasher #4 (April 1942), drawn shortly before he was drafted. The patriotic cover art, with its memorable scene of Spy Smasher and an American bald eagle towering over the nation’s Capitol, was also used later that year as the cover of the Spy Smasher edition of Fawcett’s “Mighty Midget” giveaway comics distributed

by Samuel E. Lowe and Company.

Back in a time when artists didn’t have their original artwork returned, Steinberg was somehow allowed to keep it. The original cover art had survived for many years, tucked away in Steinberg’s old portfolio residing in the hall closet of the family’s Bronx (Below:) Irvin and Sylvia Steinberg in summer 1988 (left) and with apartment. The Spy Smasher #4 cover his son Richard in late 1987 (right)—plus a repro of Steinberg’s late-1941 art was eventually auctioned off by —and classic—cover for Spy Smasher #4, which was sold at auction Sotheby’s in June 1997 for $2500. In

by Sotheby’s a few years back. Photos courtesy of Richard Steinberg.

[Spy Smasher TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]

2003, AC Comics publisher Bill Black re-presented the classic artwork on the cover of issue #38 of his reprint anthology title Men of Mystery, over sixty years after it was first published!

“Irv” Steinberg was born on New York’s Lower East Side in 1916, although his mother, Anna, gave his birthdate as 1915 so he could be enrolled in school a year early.

His gift for illustration was obvious from childhood, and his father, Jack, a housepainter, encouraged him to study art formally. After graduation from Seward Park High School, young Irv was soon accepted at New York’s prestigious National Academy of Design on a full

In early 1942, like so many comic artists during that period, Steinberg left comics for military service. He served in the U.S. Army until his discharge in 1944.

Afterwards, he picked up some freelance work, drawing gag cartoons for various magazines such as This Week, which was distributed as a Sunday newspaper insert (similar to Parade magazine).

Irvin Steinberg

49

Another Steinberg original! In the 1990s, Sotheby’s also auctioned off this sample art page, done sometime in the early ’40s. It probably led to the artist’s drawing stories for Fawcett’s Captain Midnight title, but that is unverified at present. This art was also printed in A/E #22, with Jim Harmon’s article on the multi-media aviator-cum-super-hero—but at that time we didn’t yet know the artist’s name! [Captain Midnight TM & ©2004 the respective trademark and copyright holders.]

Steinberg quickly moved up as one of the principal artists for the Hopalong Cassidy comic, and his work appears consistently throughout Fawcett’s run of the title, ending with #85 (Nov. 1953). In some instances, Steinberg produced the story art for an entire issue of Hopalong, including some of the covers.

Steinberg’s son Richard believes his father illustrated the infamously disturbing story in Hopalong Cassidy #5, “The Mad Barber,” in which the normally genial town barber becomes a menace with his razor. The story wound up in Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent as a nefarious example of the comic book’s corrupting influence on its youthful readership. Richard Steinberg doesn’t believe his father, who weighed 140 pounds with his shoes on and whose full stature of five and a half feet could hardly be considered an intimidating presence, was ever aware that Dr. Wertham considered him, and others who produced such stories, as a menace to society. (The story itself was certainly no more intense than many others appearing in comic books at the time, such as an unnerving wartime “Bulletman” story involving a pathologically dysphoric villain known as The Weeper who shoots dogs and clowns and strangulates another victim by stuffing a wad of bills down his throat!)

By 1945 he was back illustrating comic story art for Fawcett, still as a freelancer, but through the C.C. Beck-Pete Costanza studio in Englewood, New Jersey, assisting on “Captain Marvel” stories. Eventually, by late 1946, he switched over to illustrating Hopalong Cassidy stories through the Schoffman shop.

In 1947 he began producing artwork for “Golden Arrow” stories for Whiz Comics.

Also approximately during this period, Steinberg most likely contributed some early Captain Midnight story art, or at the very least submitted some very fine samples for the book.

Steinberg’s style changed somewhat while working on Hopalong Cassidy. As William Boyd (the actor who played Hopalong in the Bwestern films) aged, either art director Al Allard or editors Will Lieberson or Ginny Provisiero instructed the artists working on the book to make alterations in the way Hopalong was facially rendered. Early issues of Hopalong depict the cowboy hero more oval-faced, whereas his chin became more prominent a couple of years later. Steinberg drew possibly over a hundred “Hopalong Cassidy” stories for Fawcett, always doing

A pair of 1951 splash pages drawn by Irv Steinberg, from Hopalong Cassidy #51 (Jan.) and #58 (Aug.); his son Richard says that Steinberg illustrated the entire latter issue. Fawcett’s list of titles can be seen to be shifting a bit as the company moved into its final two years of comic book publishing, with Smiley Burnette, who had been a movie sidekick to both Gene Autry and The Durango Kid, losing his comic—though Gabby Hayes, pal at various times to both Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy, kept his! Smiley Burnette was replaced by two movie-adaptation titles and two more westerns—one of which, Bob Colt, starred a cinema cowboy who never really existed! [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

50

Irvin Steinberg In 1953, after the demise of all of Fawcett’s comic books, Steinberg started working for Quality Comics.

Richard Steinberg remembers seeing, as a youngster, a stack of comics featuring his father’s work, such as Blackhawk, G.I. Combat, Web of Evil, and T-Man, all preComics Code, that the artist kept in a glass bookcase during the mid-’50s. By that time, Steinberg, like so many other artists, had left the comic book field altogether.

Two from ’52! A pair of nice Irv Steinberg splashes from Hopalong Cassidy #64 (Feb.) and #71 (Sept.). Fawcett’s musical-chairs game with titles continued, with the short-lived Battle Stories, Soldier Comics, and Mike Barnett, Man against Crime popping up in #64 after not being on the 1951 lists—and both gone by #71.

“He objected to my reading the Web of Evil comics, which he confessed he had hated

An anomaly: William Boyd—the white-haired actor who played Hopalong Cassidy in films from beginning to end—now had his own Fawcett comic book, as well, in which he was treated as an entirely separate character from Hoppy (and didn’t wear Hoppy’s trademark black)! Kids of the 1950s loved Hopalong Cassidy—who in the early days of television made Boyd (who by then owned full rights to all his films) a millionaire and a pop icon, even though there hadn’t been a new Hoppy movie since the mid-1940s! One book on western movies reported that at one stage Boyd made $60,000 a year from comics rights alone—a sum that in the 1950s would buy perhaps ten times what it would now! [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

both the penciling and inking himself. Richard Steinberg clearly recalls, as a boy four or five years old, watching his father work at home at his drawing board located in the bedroom of their cramped apartment in the Bronx (which still stands today). Richard stood next to his father as the artist drew rough sketches on large heavy paper, dividing the drawings into panels, and eventually, as Richard recalls, “fleshed out the details one could never have foreseen, and then inked the results, creating a vivid gestalt!”

Irv Steinberg’s widow Sylvia remembers her husband making regular trips to Englewood, New Jersey, from the Bronx, to pick up new scripts and pages from the Beck-Costanza Studio, and to drop off completed work.

As a freelance artist, Steinberg was paid by the page, and he found it necessary to work for several publishers at one time in order to have sufficient income to provide for his wife and two children. Due to his association with Fawcett Publications, he also worked for former Fawcett writer Ken Crossen’s Spark Publications on back-up stories in Green Lama, whose lead feature was drawn by famed “Captain Marvel Jr.” artist Mac Raboy. Steinberg often spoke highly of Raboy’s advanced artistic ability. He also assisted on the Vic Verity and Don Fortune comic books, which were created by Captain Marvel chief artist C.C. Beck at the Beck-Costanza Studio. According to Sylvia Steinberg, her husband likewise did some work for Fox Syndicate, circa 1946-48, and “was hired because of the way he drew women.”

Irv Steinberg splash page from an unidentified issue of Hopalong Cassidy circa 1950-53. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

Irvin Steinberg

A photo of Irv Steinberg at his drawing board at the Leo Art Studios, circa the 1960s—surrounded by financial and other mementos of the artist’s days in comics. Such mundane memorabilia—statements of 1945, ’46, and ’47 earnings from the Beck-Costanza studios (the 1947 note was handwritten by artist Pete Costanza) and 1099 forms showing that Steinberg made $1103 from Quality (a.k.a. Comic Magazines) in 1953 and $420 from National/DC in 1954—are hardly the stuff a comics fan’s dreams are made of, but mags like Web of Evil (#15, June 1954) helped pay the bills. Oh, and the address of the “Quality Comics Group” on the envelope from Busy Arnold’s company was 347 Madison Avenue, Room 1209, New York 17, N.Y. —and the phone number was MU9-4231. It’s probably been disconnected by now, though. Photos and documents courtesy of Richard Steinberg.

[Art ©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

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Irvin Steinberg

illustrating due to their gruesome content... although those were the ones I preferred!”

Richard Steinberg recalled recently.

“After repeatedly ignoring my father’s admonitions to stay away from them, I watched in dismay as he proceeded to tear up the comic I was perusing after taking it from me. He evidently had no regrets about destroying the fruit of his labor, preferring to sacrifice the comic Steinberg’s work appeared in Quality’s popular so as to protect Blackhawk beginning in 1953—though this cover my impres(#69, Oct. ’53) is usually credited to Reed Crandall. sionable mind (But did Irv S. have a hand in it, as his son believes?)

Interestingly, two of the main comics titles Irv from further Steinberg drew for—Hopalong Cassidy and warpage. (I’m not Blackhawk—were both picked up as ongoing series sure his efforts

by National/DC after Fawcett and Quality left the were successful!) comics business; but Steinberg drew only one story The stack of prefor DC—a “mystery” tale—and by the latter 1950s had Code Quality left the comics field. [©2004 DC Comics.] comics that he had worked on gradually diminished as he continued his strategy of tearing up each offending Web of Evil comic I was caught reading. In addition, my older cousin who often visited—and who frequently read and re-read the Quality titles—I strongly suspect (although he denies it) may have taken many of them surreptitiously over time, further depleting the stack.”

he would never return, his love for the West lasted his entire life.

Fawcett’s decision to cease publishing Hopalong Cassidy and their entire line of comic books at the end of 1953 was a devastating blow to Steinberg, although he would continue to work in the industry for another year. By the end of 1954, the comics industry was badly shaken by the impending Code, and many titles were being eliminated. Jobs in comics became scarce, and wages were dropped precipitously. It became impossible for Steinberg to earn enough to support his family at the new depressed wage scale, and he was forced to leave the comic book field.

Steinberg’s career eventually took him into the field of textile design, working at the Leo Art Studios in Manhattan from the late-1950s till his retirement in 1983-84. Interestingly, while at Leo Art, Steinberg most likely did the box cover design for the Milton Bradley board game, The Marvel Comics Super Heroes Strategy Game, circa 1979. The board game cover, drawn in Kirbyesque style, features Spider-Man, Captain America, Thor, Green Goblin, Dr. Octopus, et al.

Irv Steinberg passed away in 1993. And, like the West that he loved so much, comics was a place to which he would never return.

Charles Cuidera, creator of “Blackhawk” and a self-described art director for many years at Quality Comics, recalled he hired Steinberg at the end of 1953, and in later years referred to Steinberg as “one of the best.” According to Cuidera, Steinberg worked primarily as a penciler for the aforementioned Quality titles, and most likely illustrated some covers, as well. Steinberg also worked extensively as a penciler on romance titles for Quality.

In Web of Evil #16 there is one panel in the Steinberg-illustrated story “Medium of Murder” in which a victim earmarked for death is riding in an elevator, which, says Richard Steinberg, is identical to the one in the Bronx apartment building in which their family of four lived.

Steinberg was at his zenith when drawing the adventures of Hopalong Cassidy and Golden Arrow. He loved cowboys, Indians, horses, and anything to do with the Old West, and his enthusiasm illustrating “Hopalong” stories all those years never diminished. Even after he left comics he never stopped drawing horses, and he would study other artists’ renderings of the animal, of which he kept clippings in his reference files.

As a teenager during the WPA years, Steinberg had joined Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps and had spent one summer in the state of Washington clearing the wilderness and building roadways.

The experience had a profound effect on him and, although

Steinberg did horror stories for Quality’s Web of Evil—this splash is from #21 (Dec. 1954)—but tore up any copy of the comic he found his son Richard reading! Dr. Wertham, author that year of Seduction of the Innocent, would have been proud! [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

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