QUALITY 1 TIME!
1994--2004
5.95
$
In the USA
No. 34 March 2004
Awesome Art & Artifacts By:
Doll Man TM & ©2004 DC Comics.
CRANDALL • ARNOLD • CUIDERA COLE • EISNER • FINE NORDLING • GUSTAVSON POWELL • DILLIN • FOX • WARD TOTH • AMASH • NOLAN KURTZMAN • GILBERT & MORE!
TwoMorrows Publishing Update 15%
SAVE
SUMMER 2011
WHE N YO ORD U ONL ER INE!
BACK ISSUE #51
BACK ISSUE #53
BACK ISSUE #54
• Digital Editions available: $2.95-$3.95! • Back Issue & Alter Ego now with color! • Lower international shipping rates!
(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “AllInterview Issue”! Part 2 of an exclusive STEVE ENGLEHART interview (continued from ALTER EGO #103)! “Pro2Pro” interviews between SIMONSON & LARSEN, MOENCH & WEIN, and comics letterers KLEIN & CHIANG. Plus JOHN OSTRANDER, MICHAEL USLAN, and longtime DC color artist ADRIENNE ROY! Cover by Englehart collaborator MARSHALL ROGERS!
“Gods!” Takes an in-depth look at WALTER SIMONSON’s Thor, the Thunder God in the Bronze Age, “Pro2Pro” interview with TOM DeFALCO and RON FRENZ, Hercules: Prince of Power, Moondragon, Three Ways to End the New Gods Saga, exclusive interview with fantasy writer MICHAEL MOORCOCK, art and commentary by GERRY CONWAY, JACK KIRBY, BOB LAYTON, and more, with a swingin’ Thor cover by SIMONSON!
“Liberated Ladies” eyeing female characters that broke barriers in the Bronze Age: Big Barda, Valkyrie, Ms. Marvel, Phoenix, Savage She-Hulk, and the sword-wielding Starfire. Plus a “Pro2Pro” interview with JILL THOMPSON, GAIL SIMONE, and BARBARA KESEL, art and commentary by JOHN BYRNE, GEORGE PEREZ, JACK KIRBY, MIKE VOSBURG, and more, with a new cover by BRUCE TIMM!
ORDER AT: www.twomorrows.com
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital edition) $2.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95 • Ships Nov. 2011
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95 • Ships Jan. 2012
THE BEST IN COMICS AND LEGO MAGAZINES!
ALTER EGO #105
ALTER EGO #106
ALTER EGO #107
ALTER EGO #108
DRAW! #22
See comic art and script BEFORE and AFTER the Comics Code changes, with art by SIMON & KIRBY, DITKO, BUSCEMA, SINNOTT, GOULD, COLE, STERANKO, KRIGSTEIN, O’NEIL, GLANZMAN, ORLANDO, WILLIAMSON, HEATH, and others! Plus: FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, JIM AMASH interviews Timely/Atlas artist CAL MASSEY, and a new cover by JOSH MEDORS!
DICK GIORDANO through the 1960s—from freelance years and Charlton “Action-Heroes” to his first stint at DC! Art by DITKO, APARO, BOYETTE, MORISI, McLAUGHLIN, GIL KANE, and others, Dick’s final convention panel with STEVE SKEATES and ROY THOMAS, JIM AMASH interviews Charlton artist TONY TALLARICO, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and ROY ALD, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, BILL SCHELLY, GIORDANO cover, and more!
Big BATMAN issue, with an unused Golden Age cover by DICK SPRANG! SHEL DORF interviews SPRANG and JIM MOONEY, with rare and unseen Batman art by BOB KANE, JERRY ROBINSON, WIN MORTIMER, SHELLY MOLDOFF, CHARLES PARIS, and others! Part II of the TONY TALLARICO interview by JIM AMASH! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, BILL SCHELLY, and more!
1970s Bullpenner WARREN REECE talks about Marvel Comics and working with EVERETT, BURGOS, ROMITA, STAN LEE, MARIE SEVERIN, ADAMS, FRIEDRICH, ROY THOMAS, and others, with rare art! DEWEY CASSELL spotlights Golden Age artist MIKE PEPPE, with art by TOTH, ANDRU, TUSKA, CELARDO, & LUBBERS, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, cover by EVERETT & BURGOS, and more!
Interview with inker SCOTT WILLIAMS from his days at Marvel and Image to his work with JIM LEE, and PATRICK OLIFFE demos how he produces Spider-Girl, Mighty Samson, and digital comics. Also, MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ “Comic Art Bootcamp”, a “Rough Critique” of a newcomer’s work by BOB McLEOD, art supply reviews by “Crusty Critic” JAMAR NICHOLAS, and more!
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95 • Ships Oct. 2011
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95 • Ships Dec. 2011
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95 • Ships Jan. 2012
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95 • Ships March 2012
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95 • Ships Feb. 2012
LEE & KIRBY: THE WONDER YEARS (KIRBY COLLECTOR #58)
Special double-size book examines the first decade of the FANTASTIC FOUR, and the events that put into motion the Marvel Age of Comics! New interviews with STAN LEE, FLO STEINBERG, MARK EVANIER, JOE SINNOTT, and others, with a wealth of historical information and Kirby artwork!
(128-page tabloid trade paperback) $19.95 (Digital Edition) $5.95 • Ships Nov. 2011 (Subscribers: counts as two issues)
KIRBY COLLECTOR #59
BRICKJOURNAL #17
BRICKJOURNAL #18
BRICKJOURNAL #19
“Kirby Vault!” Rarities from the “King” of comics: Personal correspondence, private photos, collages, rare Marvelmania art, bootleg album covers, sketches, transcript of a 1969 VISIT TO THE KIRBY HOME (where Jack answers the questions YOU’D ask in ‘69), MARK EVANIER, pencil art from the FOURTH WORLD, CAPTAIN AMERICA, MACHINE MAN, SILVER SURFER GRAPHIC NOVEL, and more!
LEGO SPACE WAR issue! A STARFIGHTER BUILDING LESSON by Peter Reid, WHY SPACE MARINES ARE SO POPULAR by Mark Stafford, a trip behind the scenes of LEGO’S NEW ALIEN CONQUEST SETS that hit store shelves earlier this year, plus JARED K. BURKS’ column on MINIFIGURE CUSTOMIZATION, building tips, event reports, our step-by-step “YOU CAN BUILD IT” INSTRUCTIONS, and more!
Go to Japan with articles on two JAPANESE LEGO FAN EVENTS, plus take a look at JAPAN’S SACRED LEGO LAND, Nasu Highland Park—the site of the BrickFan events and a pilgrimage site for many Japanese LEGO fans. Also, a feature on JAPAN’S TV CHAMPIONSHIP OF LEGO, a look at the CLICKBRICK LEGO SHOPS in Japan, plus how to get into TECHNIC BUILDING, LEGO EDUCATION, and more!
LEGO EVENTS ISSUE covering our own BRICKMAGIC FESTIVAL, BRICKWORLD, BRICKFAIR, BRICKCON, plus other events outside the US. There’s full event details, plus interviews with the winners of the BRICKMAGIC CHALLENGE competition, complete with instructions to build award winning models. Also JARED K. BURKS’ regular column on minifigure customizing, building tips, and more!
(84-page tabloid magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Feb. 2012
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Dec. 2011
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Feb. 2012
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships April 2012
Vol. 3, No. 34 / March 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
QUALITY TIME (Side One)
Production Assistant
Eric Nolen-Weathington
Cover Artists Reed Crandall Charles Nicholas (?)
Cover Colorist Tom Ziuko
And Special Thanks to: Ger Apeldoorn Dick Arnold Bob Bailey Mike W. Barr Michael Baulderstone Jack Bender Bill Black Jerry K. Boyd Lee Boyett Sam Burlockoff Gary Carlson Ray A. Cuthbert Teresa R. Davidson Al Dellinges Roger Dicken & Wendy Hunt Jay Disbrow Shel Dorf Chris Ecker Will Eisner Michael Feldman Elliot Fine Gill Fox Bill Fugate Ron Frantz
Carl Gafford Janet Gilbert Al & Belle Grenet George Hagenauer Jennifer Hamerlinck Peter Hansen Ron Harris Mark & Stephanie Heike Tom Horvitz Dave Hunt Brian Kotzky Adele Kurtzman Mark Lewis Scotty Moore Michelle Nolan Larry Ripee Ethan Roberts Marc Swayze Greg Theakston Dann Thomas Mort Todd Alex Toth Jim Vadeboncoeur Hames Ware John Yon
Contents
Writer/Editorial: I Love Theme Issues! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Men of Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Dick Arnold, son of company founder Busy Arnold, talks to Jim Amash about Quality Comics (with a sidebar by George Hagenauer on Arnold’s “men’s sweat” mags).
“IChuck Created Blackhawk!”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Cuidera voices his opinions (and how!) on just about everything! Better Read Than Dead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Michelle Nolan tells about Blackhawk’s 1950s transition from Quality to DC. “Another Fine Talent Lost”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 One Golden Age great re another: Alex Toth about Reed Crandall. Comic Crypt: The Unknown Kurtzman (Part Two) . . . . . . . . 39 Michael T. Gilbert (and Ger Apeldoorn) on Harvey Kurtzman’s work for Varsity. Quality Time (Side Two). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover: Because it’s one of the relatively few examples of Golden Age work by the fabulous Reed Crandall still in existence, this gorgeously horrific cover art done for Doll Man #42 (Oct. 1952) has been reprinted several times—including by Michael T. Gilbert in Alter Ego #30, from Gary Arlington’s early-’70s Nickel Library. We decided it was high time it saw print as a cover again—if not on an actual comic book, then on this magazine about comic books. [Doll Man TM & ©2004 DC Comics.] Above: Without a doubt, another of the most talented artists ever to work in the comic book field was Lou Fine. The Flame, Doll Man, Black Condor, The Ray, covers—he excelled at all of them. But when publisher Greg Theakston put together his Lou Fine Comics Treasury in 1991, he chose Fine art featuring the Quality Comics version of Uncle Sam as his cover (see p. 10)—and he reprinted, with restored art, the lead tale from National Comics #12 (June 1941) as the book’s example of Fine’s work on that editorial-cartoon-cum-super-hero. Though the byline on the splash art reprinted above read “by Will Eisner,” and Eisner probably did oversee its production in his studio, this art looks like pure Fine to most aficionados. [Uncle Sam TM & ©2004 DC Comics; retouched art ©2004 Pure Imagination.] 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
I Love Theme Issues!
Our cup runneth over…
Hence our coverage of several stalwarts who labored for Quality Comics from the 1940s through its demise in 1956, which begins on this side, behind a Doll Man cover by one of the company’s most outstanding artists, Reed Crandall, and ends on our flip side, headed by a cover that may have been drawn by the lesser-known Charles Nicholas, but might instead have been done by the historically ubiquitous A. Nonymous. How many issues ago was it that I said, defiantly, “I hate theme issues”? Over the past few years, slowly and surely, I’ve come first to accept their nigh-inevitability… and finally to embrace them, as a way to make one issue of a now-monthly mag stand out from those before and after it. And no defunct comics company—not even EC or Fawcett—ever deserved an issue centered around it more than Everett “Busy” Arnold’s Quality Comics line, which was officially titled Comic Magazines (look at any Quality indicia). And this despite our coverage of Quality and some of its major talents in #12 (Gill Fox), #17 (Lou Fine), #21 (the Eisner-Iger studio), and #25 (Jack Cole). As it happens, and though he didn’t suspect it then, Jim Amash began assembling this issue more than a decade ago, when he taped a long conversation (see our flip side) with artist Alex Kotzky that dealt more with his Quality work and the people he had known there than with his long-running newspaper comic strip Apartment 3-G.
In the past three years, since he became Alter Ego’s associate editor and ace interviewer, Jim has talked with every Quality alumnus he could locate—including Chuck Cuidera (“Blackhawk” creator or co-creator), Al Grenet (Busy Arnold’s last comics editor), and Dick Arnold (Busy’s son, who also worked for years at Quality). At one point recently, we decided to bite the bullet and devote most of an issue to Jim’s interviews with these three and the late Alex Kotzky, who passed away in 1996—as well as with his son Brian. By coincidence, Jim had earlier sent me a two-page essay that legendary artist Alex Toth had written about Quality/EC giant Reed Crandall, and that went into the mix, as well. I had one brainstorm of my own: I’d always been intrigued by the fact that Blackhawk was the one Quality “hero” title to make an immediate jump to another company (DC) when Busy folded his tents, and I knew that comics historian Michelle Nolan would be just the person to examine the all-important transitional period. I was right. You’ll see. As for Michael T. Gilbert’s “Comic Crypt” section continuing his focus on the early work of Mad creator Harvey Kurtzman—well, it may not have any direct connection to Quality Comics, but read it anyway. You’ll be happy you did. In fact, you may even laugh because you did. Kurtzman was and remains, after all, one of the most influential humorists of the twentieth century, and that isn’t gonna change at this late date. Bestest,
P.S.: Our squeezed-out letters section will be back next issue!
COMING IN APRIL
35
# ™
THE GOLDEN AGE OF MARVEL!
LEE, ROMITA, AYERS, HEATH, & JAFFEE on the 1940s-50s at Timely/Marvel!
.
c. cters, In
hara arvel C 004 M
Art ©2
Jaffee Al Jaff art ©2004 e © & T e; heroes M 20 Marv el Ch 04 aracte rs, Inc
• Full-color covers! JOHN ROMITA’s first-ever Captain America drawing—never before printed!—plus a new cover by Timely’s (& Mad’s) amiable AL JAFFEE! • STAN LEE, JOHN ROMITA, DICK AYERS, RUSS HEATH, & ROY THOMAS on the 1953-55 Timely super-hero revival—with rare art by ROMITA, AYERS, HEATH, CARL BURGOS, BILL EVERETT, BOB POWELL, MORT LAWRENCE, & others! • AL JAFFEE talks candidly about the 1940s Timely Bullpen (and Mad) in a humongous interview with JIM AMASH! Plus plenty of vintage art! • FCA with MARC SWAYZE, LES TREMAYNE, BIG BANG COMICS (Part 2)— ALEX TOTH on comic art—MICHAEL T. GILBERT on unpublished 1950s covers— BILL SCHELLY on South African fandom in the 1960s—& MORE!! Edited by ROY THOMAS • 108 PAGES!
SUBSCRIBE NOW! Twelve Issues in the US: $60 Standard, $96 First Class (Canada: $120, Elsewhere: $132 Surface, $180 Airmail). NOTE: IF YOU PREFER A SIX-ISSUE SUB, JUST CUT THE PRICE IN HALF!
TwoMorrows. Bringing New Life To Comics Fandom.
TwoMorrows • 1812 Park Drive • Raleigh, NC 27605 USA • 919-833-8092 • FAX: 919-833-8023 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com
Quality Time-- part one
Men of Quality
3
DICK ARNOLD Talks about Himself, His Father BUSY ARNOLD, and the Other Talented Men (and a Few Women) of Quality Comics [INTRODUCTION: Everett (Busy) Arnold was more than just the owner and publisher of Quality Comics, one of the best comic book companies of the Golden Age, which gave us Plastic Man, Blackhawk, Doll Man, and many others. He also hired the artists and the writers, proofread scripts, and looked over the finished art. By all accounts, he fostered an atmosphere of creativity for his employees that allowed them to do their best work, and was exceedingly generous with his staff and freelancers to a degree that few before or since have matched. In order to help complete the picture of Busy Arnold, I have spoken to many people who knew him. Now, for perhaps the most intimate look of all, let’s talk to Dick Arnold—who has the unique circumstance of having been both a loyal employee—and a loving son. —Jim.]
“As a Little Kid, He Was Always Doing Something” JIM AMASH: When was your father born? DICK ARNOLD: May 20, 1899, in Providence, Rhode Island. His father’s name was Earl and his mother’s name was Ada. He was an only child. The family was pretty well off. My father’s grandfather was a wealthy man who had all sorts of businesses, like a textile mill, and owned real estate all around Providence. My grandfather was a junior Phi Beta Kappa and was the chairman of the math department at Brown University, though that doesn’t mean he was a real good businessman. During his lifetime he managed to lose a great deal of what his family had. He died of influenza during the plague while my father was in college, in 1919. JA: What can you tell me about your father’s childhood? ARNOLD: The principal thing I can say was that his nickname was “Busy.” He got that nickname as a little kid because he was always doing something. He never sat still. He was a world-class long distance runner in college and ran against the best in the world. I don’t remember the name of the world’s champion at the time, but he wasn’t an American. My father beat him in a race. My father played ice hockey in school and was a goalie. In college he was a history major. I was a history major at Brown, as was my son. JA: So it runs in the family. Then you can appreciate why I’m so interested in history. ARNOLD: In that regard, the interesting thing is that we are related to Benedict Arnold. When Benedict Arnold’s nephew, at the end of the American Revolution, tried to go to West Point, he was treated very shabbily. He couldn’t take that, so he got on his horse and went back to Providence. On his way back, he stopped at New Haven, Connecticut, and enrolled at Yale, but everyone in the next generation on down went to Brown.
[Above left:] Quality founder/publisher Everett “Busy” Arnold, seen at right in photo, with Gill and Helen Fox. Dick Arnold couldn’t provide photos of himself or his father, so we’re all the more grateful that Quality artist/editor Gill Fox sent us this one of Arnold, Sr., for Alter Ego #12, which featured a blockbuster interview with Gill. Check it out! [Above:] According to The Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books, Gill drew the covers of Police Comics #1-12 in 1941-42—including this one for #5 (Jan. ’42). This was the first issue wherein Plastic Man usurped the feature spot from the original cover boy, Firebrand. See DC’s Plastic Man Archives, Vol. 1... although that fine collection lists the cover artists of Police #2-16 as “Unknown.” [Heroes TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
My father finished college in 1921, and left Providence for New York. He met my mother, Claire, soon after he got to New York and they were married in 1923. She was a model of some sort... she modeled gloves or something. My father got a job in the printing press business, with Goss Printing Company, and became a very successful printing press salesman. When I was very young, we moved out to Old Greenwich, Connecticut, and my father commuted to work. People would come to him for advice on how to start up printing plants. He told them what equipment they should buy. He’d go and help people, just as a pal, so to speak. He was that kind of guy. He left that business in the early 1930s and went to work for a guy named Walter
4
Dick Arnold collectors who think so. When I ran a comic shop, I never had trouble selling the old Quality comics. They are still very desirable and valuable magazines.
Koessler, who printed the comics sections of the Sunday newspapers. The company was The Greater Buffalo Press, and there was only one newspaper east of the Mississippi River that they didn’t do the Sunday comics section for. Then Koessler started cutting my father’s paycheck and he didn’t like that very much. Koessler had all the business he could get and didn’t need my father to bring in any new accounts. My father left and started a comic book called Feature Funnies [later retitled Feature Comics].
ARNOLD: When I was moving one time, I had in the attic all the bound volumes of what my father published. I got tired of moving them and had the garbage man haul them away. Later on, I was blowing my brains out because I threw away a lot of money. JA: Ouch! When you were young, did you spend much time at the offices?
JA: What gave your father the idea of starting his own comic book? ARNOLD: He probably saw it was the coming thing. DC Comics was publishing comics with new material, and others were starting up. My father started off imitating Famous Funnies, which was reprinting the newspaper strips. He knew all the people in the business, so it was easy for him to line up features like Joe Palooka and Mickey Finn. This was in 1937. He would bring home the comics when they were printed, and he also brought home the comics produced by the competition. JA: Your father also helped a couple of men named Bill Cook and John Mahon start up a comic book company, but they didn’t last long. I think that’s when your father decided to get into the business.
ARNOLD: It wasn’t too long after my father went into this business that he moved the offices from New York to Stamford, Connecticut. I remember, before I’d go to see a movie, going to the offices to get a couple of nickels so I could buy a couple of candy bars to eat while I was at the movies. I saw people working on comics up there then. JA: Did your father have a business partner? The cover of Busy Arnold’s first comic book, Feature Funnies #1 (Oct. 1937) spotlighted Ham Fisher’s ultrapopular Joe Palooka, although the cover art is credited in Gerber to another famous comic strip artist, Rube Goldberg. Arnold and Harry “A” Chesler were most likely partners at this time. [Art & characters TM & ©2004 the trademark and copyright holders.]
ARNOLD: That could well be. My father was always helping people. He must have thought he had a chance to do better.
“That Was Him Being ‘Busy’” JA: The first editor your father hired was a cartoonist named Johnny Devlin. He was replaced by Ed Cronin. Do you remember either of them? ARNOLD: I vaguely remember Ed Cronin, but not the other one. JA: Then Ed Cronin hired Gill Fox to be his assistant, and Gill became the editor when Cronin left. ARNOLD: I wasn’t aware that was how it worked. I don’t know much about how things worked in the early days. When I worked at Quality years later, my father read all the scripts and was hands-on with everything. That was him being “Busy,” I guess. JA: Is it fair to say that your father was a very detail-oriented man? ARNOLD: Yes. He took great pride in the fact that he thought the artwork in his magazines was much better than anyone else’s. I think it was, but whether it really was or not, he thought it was. JA: I’ll say this to you: he had four of the greatest artists who ever worked in comics. Will Eisner, Jack Cole, Lou Fine, and Reed Crandall. ARNOLD: Absolutely. I consider Eisner the greatest genius who ever worked in comics, along with Jack Cole. JA: Quality Comics sure lived up to its name. There are a lot of
ARNOLD: When he first started, he got the people who owned Look magazine [Mike and John Cowles of the Des Moines Register and Tribune Syndicate] as partners. I think they originally put up the money to get things started, and my father ran the company. Henry Martin was the liaison with the company that owned half the business with my father. JA: Did this business partnership last until Quality stopped publishing? ARNOLD: No. That’s where the Des Moines Register and Tribune [Syndicate] was smarter than my father. Around 1950, they told my father that they ought to get out of the comic book business. They said, “We’ve seen its best days.” So my father bought them out and he owned the whole thing. I don’t think he paid them much. JA: Jim Steranko’s History of the Comics says the amount was $140,000. So your father didn’t get hurt that much, after all. ARNOLD: In that sense, no. But the business didn’t make nearly as much after that. My father did well, but not like he had done during the peak war years. He published more magazines per month after the war, but the profit per magazine was pretty small.
“[The Spirit] Took Off like Gang Busters” JA: Did Will Eisner have any part of the business? ARNOLD: At one time, Eisner and Jerry Iger were partners, and my father hired them to do most of the work for the magazines. He’d tell them to fill up the pages of Military Comics, so they did. Originally, my father didn’t pick out the stories or the artists that did the magazines, though that soon changed. And Eisner split from Iger, whom my father didn’t like, when The Spirit started. My father got the idea to do a Sunday comics supplement. The Spirit, “Lady Luck,” and “Mr. Mystic” were the features. It took off like Gang Busters and ended up in many newspapers all across the country. For a
Man of Quality
5
To bolster interviewer Jim Amash’s point that Busy Arnold’s big little company boasted “four of the greatest artists who ever worked in comics,” here are samples of that colossal quartet’s Quality work. [Clockwise:] A Will Eisner Spirit splash for Feb. 5, 1950, as reprinted in black-&-white in Kitchen Sink’s The Spirit #23 (1980)—Jack Cole’s first-ever Plas cover, for Police Comics #19 (May 1943), as per The Plastic Man Archives, Vol. 1—Lou Fine doing a luminous job on a dim-bulb of a hero on Hit Comics #9 (March 1941)—and Reed Crandall’s “Blackhawk” splash for Military Comics #19 (May 1943), from a photocopy of the original art sent by Ray A. Cuthbert, and once owned by Alex Toth. [Spirit art ©2004 Will Eisner; Plastic Man, Neon the Unknown, Blackhawk, & King Cobra TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
6
Dick Arnold period of time, this was much more important to my father than the comic book end was. This was where the real money came from. Eisner packaged the work for my father. The interesting thing was that, when Eisner went into the service, my father decided to put the best artists on The Spirit, like Lou Fine. I don’t remember who did the writing. But without Eisner, the feature went down in quality. Eisner was basically a cartoonist: a Gill Fox type of artist rather than a Lou Fine type of artist. The newspapers were complaining, telling us to get rid of these awful artists and get the old artist back. But Eisner was in the service. It wasn’t really Lou Fine’s fault, but Eisner had a way of characterizing scenes and a look that no one else could match. It didn’t have the same flair. JA: Jack Cole also did some work on The Spirit.
Arnold & Eisner’s The Spirit “weekly comic book” provided Sunday newspapers with the adventures of The Spirit, Lady Luck, and Mr. Mystic. The splashes of Eisner’s “Spirit” story for Nov. 23, 1947, and a 1946 “Lady Luck” 4-pager drawn by Klaus Nordling were reprinted in Kitchen Sink’s black-&-white The Spirit #19 (Oct. 1978), with “wash” tones added to the former. The far earlier “Mr. Mystic” splash page by Bob Powell seems to be from July 14, 1940. [©2004 Will Eisner.]
ARNOLD: They probably did that when they realized the thing was sinking. Jack Cole could have written the stories, because he could do the same kind of creative thinking that Eisner did. I never got to know Jack very well. He didn’t live near the offices when I was working at Quality. He sent the work in through the mail, so I didn’t see much of him. JA: What artists would you say your father held in the highest regard? ARNOLD: The people you mentioned: Eisner, Cole, Fine, and Crandall. Crandall was the master craftsman. Reed was such a meticulous worker that he wasn’t able to turn out that much work. He’d do a lead story in Blackhawk, and someone else would draw the other stories. That’s one of the reasons Chuck Cuidera inked a lot of his stories. JA: That’s interesting, because Chuck Cuidera created “Blackhawk,” right? ARNOLD: Right, but “Blackhawk” may have originally been an Eisner idea. Chuck had worked for Eisner when the feature was created. Chuck definitely worked on the first stories, but who originally came up with the names for the characters is something I don’t know. I loved Chuck dearly. JA: Eisner has said that your father owned The Spirit until it ceased publication, and that’s when the copyrights were transferred over to him. ARNOLD: That could well be. I think Eisner’s Spirit was as well-done as anything ever done in comics. There’s a story that I remember hearing: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster brought “Superman” to my father, who said, “Nobody would read this stupid thing.” [laughs]
Man of Quality
7
Even in the 1950s, Dick Arnold says, Blackhawk was Quality’s best-selling title, followed by Plastic Man. This splash from Blackhawk #13 (Winter 1946), supplied by Jim Amash (the artist may be Bill Ward), features the aviator's second brush with the femme fatale known as Fear... while Plastic Man #55 (Oct. 1955) pitted that hero against The Man Below Zero, with art that may be by Jack Cole—or Alex Kotzky—or John Spranger—or, says Hames Ware, possibly even “the more humor-oriented wing at Quality… meaning Klaus Nordling, Tony diPreta, André Le Blanc, et al.” When we printed the splash and other art from this “Plas” tale in A/E #12 & #25, we guessed Kotzky or Cole… but what do we know? [Blackhawk & Plastic Man TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
“He Knew Talent When He Saw It”
Eisner, Lou Fine, and Jack Cole. Maybe he didn’t know much about art, but he certainly knew good work when he saw it.
JA: Well, that just goes to show your father wasn’t perfect. What do you think spurred his interest in doing comics?
ARNOLD: That’s a fair statement. He had no appreciation of artists like Picasso, but he knew talent when he saw it.
ARNOLD: I don’t really know. In a certain sense, he got to know about comics because of his printing background. It probably came from that. My father wasn’t someone who was really interested in art, as such, in those days.
JA: What kind of father was he?
JA: Your father really was a generous person. He helped set printers up in business for no charge. He also was very giving of bonuses to his employees and to his freelancers. I heard he once gave an elevator operator a $300 bonus at Christmas time. Sixty years later, people who worked for him still talk about his generosity. That’s a helluva thing. ARNOLD: It sure is. I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear this. I always thought my father was able to pluck off top people from other outfits. Maybe it was because they liked my father better than the other guys? JA: He paid the best wages, too. He gave people like Jack Cole very big bonuses. ARNOLD: I knew that. JA: Your father sure had an eye for talent, because he hired Will
ARNOLD: He really let my mother run things to a great extent. He’d tell her how he wanted things done, and there was never any great argument about it. We did what he told us to do. He wasn’t a stern father, because he had my mother take care of those things. JA: Did he take you to the movies or play ball with you? ARNOLD: He did very little of that. When he was at home, he spent a great deal of time reading history books. He could describe historical events with great accuracy. I loved him dearly. His great joy in life was Brown University football. He got a couple of kids to go to Brown, during and before World War II, to play football. At the end of the war he went around to various schools and talked to football coaches to get the names of kids who had played football before they had gone off to war. Then he went around to these kids’ homes and got many of them to go to Brown. One of them was Joe Paterno, who’s currently the coach at Penn State. Many of these kids came from Catholic high schools. One of the tricks my father used was to get a Catholic priest to go with him when
8
Dick Arnold
he visited the homes. The priest would encourage the parents to send their kids to Brown. Brown had a very successful football team for many years.
ARNOLD: He was very friendly with Whit Ellsworth at DC Comics. As far as the others go, I’d be surprised if any one of them walked into the room and he’d know who they were. He may have met some of the other people, but Ellsworth was the guy he knew. He also admired [DC co-publisher] Jack Liebowitz and thought he was a very good businessman. My father thought that [DC’s co-publisher Harry] Donenfeld wasn’t that good, but that Liebowitz ran that company. Donenfeld was the guy out in front.
When the guy who was the football coach left and went to Penn State, he took Paterno with him. Unfortunately, at that point, Brown put someone new in, and my father was very mad because it wasn’t someone he asked to be interviewed for the job. The school wouldn’t interview his guys and they gave it to someone else. So my dad got mad and dropped the whole thing like a hot potato. Despite that, he always loved the school and followed it all his life.
JA: Was your father the sort of guy who took his work home with him?
JA: How would you describe your father’s temperament? Was he basically even-tempered?
ARNOLD: Oh, yes. He came home with scripts and edited and corrected them at home.
ARNOLD: Well, he’d get very angry at times. Most of the time, he was pretty even-tempered. He was a very talkative man. He’d talk to everyone about anything and speak his mind.
JA: He was doing his editor’s job? ARNOLD: Oh yeah. He was involved. JA: Gill Fox told me that your father was colorblind.
JA: Alex Kotzky loved your father. ARNOLD: Oh, I remember him. He was a good artist.
ARNOLD: He was red-green colorblind. He knew that the light at the top of the traffic light was red and that the green light was at the bottom.
“He Came Home with Scripts”
JA: What do you remember about Gill Fox?
JA: What else do you remember about Lou Fine?
ARNOLD: He was an extremely engaging, outgoing, friendly, nice guy. He did the artwork on a lot of humor features, like Candy. Gill could turn out a lot of work, and there was never anything wrong with anything he brought in. His work was always good, and my father really liked him.
ARNOLD: My father may have thought Fine was better than Reed Crandall. I met him, but I didn’t know him. He was a great painter, and my father had his paintings around his house for years. But I haven’t seen them for years. Fine also did “Doll Man,” which was a character my father really loved. I really didn’t understand why, but I guess it was because Lou Fine had once drawn him. JA: What was the best-selling comic your father published? ARNOLD: Blackhawk, by far. It sold about 600,000 copies an issue when I worked there, which was in the early 1950s. I worked there until the company ceased publishing. Plastic Man was the second-best seller. It sold around 400,000 to 450,000 copies an issue.
Busy Arnold and Quality editor Gwen Hansen, circa 1941; this photo was first printed in Jay Disbrow’s 1985 book The Iger Comics Kingdom, which was reprinted in its entirety (with info updates) in A/E #21. See that issue and #12 (with its Gill Fox interview) for a mountain of Quality Comics art! Photo courtesy of Jay Disbrow; thanks to Dick Arnold for the Hansen ID.
I used to be fascinated by sales figures. This is a wacky aside: we deliberately printed 100,000 copies more of Blackhawk for three or four months and took them out to the newsstands, selling an extra 50,000 copies. Then the next few months, we overprinted again by 100,000, wondering what else we could do to build up circulation. Then the newsstand dealers started complaining that we were handing them too many copies. These days, if you overprinted 100,000 extra copies of Time and took them out to the newsstands and they sold 10,000, they’d be pleased. When I heard this, I was amazed, because in the old days the distributors expected to sell through about 60 to 70% of the print runs. You had to sell a high percentage of the magazines you printed. The trouble with the comic book business was, when you were making money and your company only had ten comic books, you’d decide to start printing fifteen. At the same time Quality decided to do this, DC, Fawcett, and the other companies did the same thing. Then the overall sales would drop and everybody would cut back. That went along for years. JA: How did your father regard the competition?
JA: George Brenner became editor after Gill went into the service. What do you remember about him? ARNOLD: He drank a lot. He lived near us in Greenwich and was not a very good artist. He had done “The Clock” for us before the war. I don’t know how he became the editor for us, but he was for a number of years before my father fired him. I don’t know why he fired Brenner.
JA: Do you remember another editor during wartime named John Beardsley? ARNOLD: Yes. He worked there a short time. Beardsley came on board and claimed he knew all about the business and that he’d do all sorts of things for my father. The guy didn’t know anything. My father realized he’d been sold a bill of goods and let him go. JA: Did your father entertain employees at the house? ARNOLD: Well, it wouldn’t be large numbers of people. It’d be people who had worked for him at various times, and some would stay the weekend.
“They Were Making a Barrel of Money” JA: When do you think your father had his biggest success, sales-wise? ARNOLD: From what people have told me, it was during the war. They were making a barrel of money because they had paper quotas. My father was on some sort of board in Washington, DC, that allocated paper to different publishers. All the publishers were screaming that the
Man of Quality
9
government wouldn’t let them have enough paper. My father went to the meetings and said, “You guys are absolute fools. It’s the greatest thing that ever happened to you. You’re virtually guaranteed to sell out anything you print... no matter how bad it is.” They didn’t like that; they all wanted more paper. This was the heyday of heydays.
to music. It wasn’t jazz or opera or pop music; it was more like Balinese bell music and some other exotic stuff. She lived in Tudor City: a tall, dark-haired woman, probably in her forties.
I remember there was an issue of Blackhawk that sold about 99.99% of the copies that were printed. After the war, I was going through old records when I worked there and saw this. So we had Reed Crandall sit down and redraw the same cover exactly as it had been done before. He came in the office and it took him a couple of weeks to redraw this cover, which Chuck Cuidera inked. The comic came out and it didn’t sell any better than another issue we were then putting out. [laughs] That proved it was the paper shortage that did it. I had thought maybe the cover was the reason it sold so well, and that maybe we’d have another big seller here. It didn’t work out that way.
ARNOLD: It was awful. I don’t know how that deal worked. I think my father made a mistake with that, because he should have retained some control over what they did. They did a lousy job.
JA: Did your father personally deal with the magazine distributors? ARNOLD: Yes. He also had a circulation manager named Dan Goldstein. Danny had worked for Independent News and for Hearst for a number of years. When my father needed a circulation manager, he hired Danny, who worked for us for a number of years. After we quit publishing, Danny went back to work for Independent News.
JA: Do you remember the Blackhawk movie serial?
JA: It was very bad. Do you recall the Blackhawk radio show? ARNOLD: No, I don’t. JA: Do you remember the Torchy comic book by Bill Ward, and later Gill Fox? ARNOLD: No. I remember that Bill Ward was quite a good artist, though I didn’t know him. JA: What writers do you remember? ARNOLD: Joe Millard wrote a lot of “Blackhawks.” He was a tall, thin guy with a sweet smile on his face. He came from Minnesota. He’d come into the office, deliver a script, and talk with my father, and that was about all I remember.
JA: Since your father wasn’t called “Busy” for nothing, I assume he still dealt with the distributors.
JA: Manly Wade Wellman?
ARNOLD: Right. My father was the one who really dealt with the printers, circulation managers, artists, writers, etc.
ARNOLD: He wrote some “Blackhawk” and, later on, books, too. I don’t remember much about him except that he was a very good writer. Same for Joe Millard.
JA: Sounds like your father generally got along with everybody. Was he the sort of man people could go to with problems?
JA: William Woolfolk.
ARNOLD: I think so, because he helped a lot of people. People must have felt free to talk to him about things. JA: After George Brenner was let go, Harry Stein became the editor. Do you remember him? ARNOLD: I remember him, but I don’t think I ever met him. He was just a name to me, though I know he was a writer. Al Grenet took over after Stein. I think he mainly kept track of which artist was behind, and things like that. He was not a creative person, in my estimation, but he was a very nice guy. JA: Was Chuck Cuidera an art director there? ARNOLD: I don’t remember that. When I worked there, all he did was ink. JA: There were a few woman assistant editors from time to time at Quality. Do you remember who they were? ARNOLD: I’m not sure, but I think Helen Schmidt was one of those. She was a script-writer but I’m not sure how much editorial work she did. Gwen Hansen was an editor, early on. I don’t know why she didn’t stay on. She was a very nice lady. I remember one time when we were at her apartment, listening
Dick Arnold speaks of one occasion in which, because of the fantastic sales figures on an issue of Blackhawk, he had Reed Crandall redraw the cover for a later issue. He’s probably talking about Crandall’s cover for #57 (Oct. 1952), whose Blackhawk figure was repeated on that of #97 (Feb. 1956). However, the other elements on the cover, including the remaining Blackhawks and the Reds (plus Blackhawk’s lack of a rifle on the later art), are new, however similar to the originals. In addition, it seems likely that the tracing was done not by Crandall but by Dick Dillin and Chuck Cuidera, since (though you doubtless won’t be able to read it here), the sign on the building in the background of #97 refers to a “Cuidera-Dillin Mine”! Hmmm… that name was probably added by Cuidera; hence the inker’s billing above the penciler’s! [Blackhawk TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
10
Dick Arnold
We’ve never needed much excuse to print work by Lou Fine—so here are some pages of Fine art (pun intended) from early Quality mags: “Dollman” (later “Doll Man”), “Black Condor,” and “The Ray,” as retouched by Greg Theakston—after the color was washed out of copies of the original comics by exposure—for his 1991 Lou Fine Comics Treasury, whose Uncle Sam cover art is taken from National Comics #8 (Feb. ’41). The interior art had appeared in Feature Comics #32 (May 1940), Crack Comics #6 (Oct. ’40), and Smash Comics #19 (Feb. ’41), respectively. [Doll Man, Black Condor, The Ray, & Uncle Sam TM & ©2004 DC Comics; restored art ©2004 Pure Imagination Publishing.]
Man of Quality ARNOLD: He wrote a lot of stuff for us, especially “Blackhawk.” That’s all I remember. I remember Bill Finger, who was a very quiet guy: constantly in debt. He was a quite capable writer for DC, too. He’d come into the office with a script, and all he wanted to do was to get that check. [laughs] I think he was afraid someone would break his legs if he didn’t get that check. He was a very good writer. JA: I understand he was never on time with his work. ARNOLD: He’d never show up unless he was desperate for money. I think it was harder for writers to think up stories. The artist had the easier job, because the story was already written. They could just sit down and start drawing. My father never understood the problem the writers had. He’d get mad at Joe Millard and Bill Finger, because they’d never deliver a script on time. There were two brothers, Dick and Dave Wood. They were drunk all the time and they’d write incoherent stories. They wrote some of the later Blackhawk stories. They come into the offices drunk, just trying to get stories to write so they could go out and drink some more. When my father sold out to DC, the DC people turned Blackhawk over to the Wood brothers. I bought some of those comics and they were just awful! JA: Your dad must have hated that. ARNOLD: The problem was at that time we only had Millard and Finger writing scripts for Blackhawk, and they just didn’t turn out enough scripts. So we needed the Wood brothers.
11
too. Crack Comics became Crack Western; T-Man, G.I. Combat; and the romance comics were some of the newer things he tried. ARNOLD: I can’t really speak to that, but I’m sure he watched what others did. We published romance comics for a number of years, as did other people. I don’t think it mattered what the individual titles were, because they all sold reasonably well. It was not a matter of what romance titles sold big and which didn’t. I think they all sold about the same amount for us, probably around 250,000 copies an issue, no matter what the title was. They kept a lot of artists and writers going. JA: Your father moved the Quality offices a few times. Were the Quality offices usually small, or did they vary in size depending on where they were located? ARNOLD: I don’t think he ever had any big offices. When I was a kid, Quality was located in the Gurley Building, which was about a-ten story building in Stamford, Connecticut. He always had a few people who worked in the offices, like a few editors and a very small production department. His offices were never the size of companies like DC or Fawcett. DC had a whole bunch of colorists on staff; we didn’t.
“Why Don’t You Come Over and Work in the Company?” JA: How did you come to work for your father? ARNOLD: I had just gotten out of college and was working in an ad agency. My father said, “Why don’t you come over and work in the company?” JA: Considering that your father later sold the company, did you ever have any ideas about running the company someday?
JA: Did your dad have a favorite writer? ARNOLD: I think it was Joe Millard and Manly Wade Wellman. And Will Eisner.
ARNOLD: No. When he got out of the comic book business, he tried publishing other stuff. That didn’t work very well, and I told him that it might be a good idea to fold up the shop and live very comfortably on what he’d had saved. So he
JA: Most of the comic book publishers followed trends. If war comics sold, then everyone suddenly put out a bunch of war comics. Same for other genres. Your father did some of that,
Kirk Alyn made as great a Blackhawk as he had a Superman (twice); but the 1952 Columbia “super-serial” lost the Blackhawks’ international accents—Chop Chop and Hendrickson appeared only in passing, as a cook and a mechanic in white overalls, respectively—and most chapters featured only Blackhawk and Chuck, driving black cars to and from their secret base in the American Southwest, or occasionally flying uninsignia’d cargo planes with alleged “hidden jets.” Hey, other than that, it was just like the comic book! An (artless) ad for the serial appeared in Blackhawk #56 (Sept. 1952), the issue that introduced the classic War Wheel; cover by Reed Crandall. Thanks to Michelle Nolan. [Blackhawk TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
12
Dick Arnold
Scintillating Sidebar:
BUSY ARNOLD’S OTHER MAGAZINES by George Hagenauer Some comic book publishers were part of larger operations that published many different types of magazines. Others that published only comic books, like Busy Arnold’s Quality Comics and the various imprints owned by Stanley Morse, began to explore adding non-comics titles as the anti-comics crusade heated up and sales dropped. For Busy, the direction was clear: he would expand into men’s publishing. Arnold’s editor, Al Grenet, has said that in the early 1950s Hugh Hefner approached Busy with a proposal to publish Playboy. Arnold, being a comic book publisher, turned him down, to his later regret. But this made Arnold aware of the money that could be made in men’s magazines. Publishing men’s magazines was a booming industry in the 1950s. Playboy was not the only magazine that was making money. Basically the field had several categories. The first was the sophisticated men’s magazines like Playboy aimed at a more educated reader and featuring nudes and sexually-oriented material.
photo could possibly do justice, they commissioned delightfully outrageous paintings, many by former comic book artists recently laid off due to the Wertham crusades. The men’s-adventure magazines were the antithesis of Playboy, culturally and politically conservative and careful about exposing too much in their pin-up photos. In spite of his envy of Playboy, Busy took the safer route, publishing the art-photo magazine Classic Photography and one other similar title. He also published four men’s-adventure titles: Courage, Rage, Man’s Exploits, and Gusto. Some examples of blurbs for the stories in these magazines: “I found the Golden Virgin!” “Kill the Bloody Brute!” (below a nice painting of an elephant grabbing a scantily-clad native lass) “I Saw Sex Drugs Work!” —and “The Night I Went to Hell—I Drank the Steaming Blood and the Girl Spread-eagled Herself on the Obscene Altar!” There were also useful self-help articles by psychiatrists explaining why it was okay to enjoy looking at pin-up photos. While these titles may sound extreme, Busy’s sweats actually fell in the more moderate and tasteful end of the field. At least they had no gibbering Nazis torturing women on the cover and long sado-masochistic articles within. The oversight of these four bimonthly titles (and Classic Photography) fell to Al Grenet, editor of Arnold’s comics line. For Grenet, editing Busy’s men’s magazines meant not only reading and selecting the articles but actually pasting up a minimum of over 120 pages of text and photos each month. If the photos were a little too revealing, Al was the one who used the airbrush and touched them up.
The second was the art-photo magazines, magazines that looked like real photography magazines like Popular Photography but which mainly featured high-quality pin-up and nude photos of women. They essentially delivered the same photos as Playboy (in fact, often more and of better quality), but without the sexual The men’s-magazine line was context, which made them less short-lived. Busy got caught in the controversial and easier to get past Cover of Busy Arnold’s Rage magazine for Dec. 1965. Thanks to George collapse of the American News the decency crusaders who were Hagenauer.[©2004 the respective copyright holders.] Company (ANC) distributor. He attacking not only comics but other briefly tried distribution through magazines and paperbacks. If you took seriously the art photo Charlton and then closed everything down in December 1957, though magazines’ claims that they were for professional use by serious photogsome issues with dates as late as April 1958 exist thanks to the standard raphers and artists, there were over a million practicing artists and practice of dating covers months after their actual release. The entire professional photographers in America in the 1950s. operation lasted slightly over a year, with the earliest titles bearing a The third big category was men’s-adventure magazines (we called December 1956 date and the last April 1958. them “sweats” in my neighborhood because they often had sweaty hemen in their cover paintings). At the upper end of this manly genre were [Longtime comic art collector (and A/E benefactor) George slick magazines like True and Argosy that sold over a million copies a Hagenauer recently completed, with Max Allan Collins, a history month and which Dad felt free to bring home and openly read. At the of men’s-adventure magazines, which is to be published by Taschen bottom end were dozens of pulp-paper titles, often with “Man” or in March 2004—yes, this very month, if things happen on schedule. “Men” in the title. These sported lurid painted covers, clothed pin-up George can be reached at Box 930093, Verona, WI 53593 or online photos, and he-man articles about hunting, crime, adventure, and war. at yellowkd@terracom.net. Oh, and you can read more about Busy The “true-life” articles tended to be fictional and were illustrated by a Arnold’s non-comics magazines in the Al Grenet interview on our mix of real and fake photos. For the more extreme articles to which no flip side!]
Man of Quality
13 horror comics, I could understand that. It didn’t make any difference to them who was on the stand.
did that. I don’t know if it was because of what I said or not. He just published those other magazines for a year or so. He did several kinds of magazines, like Classic Photography and crossword puzzle magazines.
There was some Catholic bishop who said stuff about “these terrible comics like Blackhawk.” He said they needed a code of decency or something. A person said to him, “What is it about Blackhawk (they mentioned other comics, too) that’s bad?” He said, “I haven’t read it; I don’t know.” [laughs] I always loved that one. Estes Kefauver was one of the guys after comics.
JA: What did you do in the offices? ARNOLD: I read scripts and worked on circulation and advertising and other things. [NOTE: Jerry Bails’ online Who’s Who in 20th-Century American Comic Books lists Dick Arnold as “assistant editor–early 1950s.” —Jim.]
JA: Do you remember Dr. Fredric Wertham?
JA: Do you remember any of the staffers who did lettering or coloring?
ARNOLD: Yes. He testified, but I didn’t have any real impression of him. Unfortunately, I have since come to the conclusion that you can make a buck in life claiming to be an expert on anything under the sun. Just carry the flag and charge down the street and you can make a buck.
ARNOLD: Not really. Al Grenet did some lettering and some coloring, too. He was quite adept at lettering. JA: Your father never tried to syndicate any of his features to newspapers, did he? I always thought Plastic Man would have worked in newspapers, especially on the Sunday page. ARNOLD: I’m not aware of his trying to do that. I think Plastic Man would have worked in newspapers, too. I know Superman was in newspapers for many years. JA: Do you recall the Senate investigations into comic books?
JA: Did you father testify? ARNOLD: No. No one asked him to. I guess he would have if he’d been asked. “Crack Comics became Crack Western….” But Reed Crandall still did some incredible covers for the mag, such as Crack Western #78 (May 1952), repro’d from a photocopy of the original art supplied by Ray A. Cuthbert. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]
ARNOLD: Yes. I went and watched the hearings. I thought it was a total charade. Number one, there was no Senator there most of the times. There’d just be a staffer there, quizzing people. When it was time for the cameras to come in, the Senators would show up and give the comic book people a hard time. Helen Meyer was the editor at Dell Comics; they published books like Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. They’d tear her into shreds for the camera. Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck were innocuous, harmless books, and it was silly. If it had been Bill Gaines, who published the
JA: Did you sense that he was scared by any of this?
ARNOLD: No. He didn’t feel this was about any of his comic books. It was really the horror comics that caused this. He did publish Web of Evil, but this wasn’t really about him.
“I’d Have Been Happy If He’d Stayed in the Comic Book Business” JA: Did it bother you when your father quit doing comics? ARNOLD: Not really. I think I’d have been happy if he’d stayed in the comic book business, but that’s hindsight. I think one of the reasons he sold was that, for a number of years, he’d dealt with the same topnotch
Maybe Plastic Man never made it into newspaper comic strips, but Busy Arnold was a partner in another property that did: The Spirit, which, in addition to the long-running Sunday comic book supplement, became a daily strip beginning with this one from October 27, 1941, and ran through February 1944. [©2004 Will Eisner.]
14
Dick Arnold ARNOLD: He used to tell a lot of funny stories about himself. I remember him telling me about the time Mickey Spillane came looking for work. He had a script for a feature called “Mike Danger.” My father read the script. The next time Spillane came in, my father put his arm around his shoulder and walked him out of the office. He told Spillane that he should find something else to do for a living, because he didn’t think Spillane would make it as a writer. Spillane was so discouraged that he left the script with my father. [laughs] That script lay around for years.
people in distribution, and a number of them went out of the business. He was left with a number of mediocre people, and that discouraged him. He couldn’t get the distribution he’d had. The other outfits made sure his books were on every newsstand, and the newer guys couldn’t do that. JA: Do you think your father missed doing comics? ARNOLD: I don’t really know. He didn’t keep in touch with anybody from the comic book days. JA: I know Jim Steranko interviewed him extensively in the late 1960s for his History of the Comics. I guess that’s the only time your father was ever interviewed.
And, as I told you, he also laughed about turning down Siegel and Shuster.
ARNOLD: I remember checking that out of the library and reading it.
JA: He had a self-deprecating sense of humor? ARNOLD: Yes. There was a time when the coach of the Philadelphia Eagles wanted my father to buy the team from the owner for $25,000. My father said, “I’m not a rich man. I can’t afford to lose the kind of money you lose when you own a football team.”
JA: Your father never saved any of the comic art he published, did he? ARNOLD: No, he didn’t. In retrospect, he probably wished he had. We had a storeroom and stored the work for years and years, but when we closed up he got rid of everything. JA: What were his later years like?
One time he and a friend each bought 2000 shares of International Paper. It went up from $2 a share to $6 a share, and my father couldn’t run fast enough to sell it. He told his friend, who was a printer, to do the same. Years later, they were having lunch together, and my father said, “Too bad we sold that stock.” The guy said, “I kept mine. I now have 55,000 shares.” [laughs] Most people wouldn’t tell that kind of story on themselves. He knew how to laugh at himself.
Oh, what a tangled Web of Evil we weave…! In our extensive coverage of Plastic Man creator Jack Cole in A/E #25, we reprinted the splash of “Hangman’s Horror” from WOE #2 (Jan. 1953). Here’s another powerful page from that Cole-drawn (and -written?) horrorcomics tale. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]
ARNOLD: He retired to Florida and led a very uneventful life down there. He was a very avid reader and didn’t do much of anything. He’d walk ten to fifteen miles on the beach, but that was about all the physical activity that he did. He died in 1974. JA: When was the last time you saw him? ARNOLD: A couple of months before he died. He died of cancer. He had it in his jaw. He had been a heavy smoker. Everyone was in those days. JA: He liked to drink, too. A lot? ARNOLD: Not every day, but when he went out to party, he partied... though not like the Wood brothers. [laughs] JA: Was your father proud of what he accomplished in the comic book field? ARNOLD: Yes, he was. He loved being involved with every aspect of the business, even though he had others who could do it for him. JA: What do you remember most about your father?
[JIM AMASH came from humble beginnings in Altoona, Pennsylvania, eventually becoming the associate editor of Alter Ego. He remade Roy Thomas in his own image, thus earning the eternal gratitude of Roy’s wife Dann and frightening off Roy’s neighbors. After besting Bill O’Reilly for control of the known universe, he comfortably settled down with his crown and sceptre as he continued to be master of all he surveyed... uhhh... what? What’s that you said? Oh... yes, dear. Yesssss, dear. I will, dear. Right now, dear? Of course, dear...!] [EDITOR’S NOTE: For another version of Jim’s bio, see the end of his interview with Quality editor Al Grenet on our flip side. He’ll keep trying till he gets it right. —Roy.]
Man of Quality
15
BUSY ARNOLD Checklist [NOTE: A print-out of the Dick Arnold entry in the Who’s Who of 20th-Century American Comic Books, sent us by Jerry Bails, and which can be accessed on the Internet at www.nostromo.no/whoswho/, lists the younger Arnold as an assistant editor at Quality in the early 1950s. Here is an abridged version of the listing for his father. The statement that Busy Arnold wrote at least one “Blackhawk” story was made by Arnold himself, as recorded in The Steranko History of Comics. Key: (w) writer.] Full Name: Everett M. Arnold (1899-1974) - publisher, editor, writer Nickname: Busy Education: Brown University Son: Richard Arnold (assistant editor, Quality, early 1950s–1956) First Job: R. Hoe and Co. Press Manufacturing
Staff: Quality Comics (publisher) 1938-56 1922-33: Eastern Sales Rep: Gross Printing Press Co. 1933-38: Vice President - Greater Buffalo Press 1935: printed Comics Magazine Company comics for Cook and Mahon COMIC BOOK CREDIT (Mainstream U.S. Publishers) Quality Comics: Blackhawk (one story) (w) 1941
If 1940s Timely/Marvel had a super-hero “Big Three,” so did Quality! Here’s a closing triptych of “Blackhawk” (as per a b&w reprint comic Ye Editor picked up in Australia or New Zealand, artist unknown)—“Doll Man” (artist unknown— may be Al Bryant or Johnny Cassone)—and “Plastic Man” by Cole, Kotzky, Spranger, or whomever. (Sorry, we’re not sure of any of the issue numbers, either.) As per Dick Arnold, Blackhawk and Plastic Man were long the company’s two biggest sellers, while publisher Busy Arnold “really loved” Doll Man, whose solo title lasted till 1953. [Blackhawk, Doll Man, & Plastic Man TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
Quality Time-- part two
16
“I Created Blackhawk!” A Controversial Interview with the Late Artist CHUCK CUIDERA
Conducted & Transcribed by Jim Amash [INTERVIEWER’S INTRO: Charles (Chuck) Cuidera, who passed away in 2001, only two days after this interview was completed, was an interesting character: feisty, opinionated, and talented. He was instrumental in the creation and development of Quality Comics’ best-selling character (and later title), Blackhawk. After a stint in the military during World War II, he returned to Quality, primarily as an inker on “Blackhawk” and other features. When DC Comics bought out the Quality line in 1956, Chuck went along as Dick Dillin’s inker on the Blackhawk title; the pair remained a team on the comic until it was canceled in 1968. Afterward, Dillin and Cuidera drew a few issues of Hawkman before Chuck retired from comics. [It must be noted that some of the statements Chuck has made below (and elsewhere) about Blackhawk, The Blue Beetle, and his art director status at Quality have been questioned by others. In fairness to Chuck’s memory, we have decided to present his side of the story pretty much as he related it, with appropriate editorial comments. —Jim.]
“I Had Nothing to Lose” JIM AMASH: We’ll start by playing To Tell the Truth. Tell me when and where you were born. CHUCK CUIDERA: I was born in Newark, New Jersey, September 23, 1915. I have my mother to thank for my artistic talent. She was the one who was artistic in the family, and one of the nice things about that was that we were the best-dressed kids on our street. [laughs] I started drawing comics in grammar school. My mother heard about the Northpine Art School on High Street, and she got me up on Saturday mornings to attend. We drew from sculptures, and most of the instructors were from Germany. My mother had thirteen children, but I only remember six of them. It’s harder to remember the oldest ones. My mom was quite a woman, and she kept a barber strap on the knob of the kitchen door. When we didn’t follow orders, she’d swing at us, and of course she’d start crying. Pop never touched that strap. He’d lecture to us, but he never hit us.
Chuck Cuidera (left) and fellow pro inker Dave Hunt, in a photo taken several years back—juxtaposed with the cover of Blackhawk #40 (May 1951), repro’d from a photocopy of the art which Stephanie Heike of AC Comics restored for Cuidera from the partly-destroyed original art a few years ago. This cover is usually credited to Reed Crandall, but Chuck swore he had done the entire thing—which was why he had the original artwork! Thanks, Mark & Stephanie Heike—and Dave—for this pair of artifacts! [BlackhawK TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
Those were the days of the Great Depression. My father came from Sicily, and he had one cousin who was a doctor and taught my father the English language. Pop also learned how to speak Spanish and French. Most of the poor unfortunates who lived in the neighborhood had no money but could always find some money to make wine. They’d pay my father off in five-gallon jugs of wine. My father was politically connected to a couple of Italian lawyers who looked to Pop to send them applicants to their office. Those poor unfortunates were trying to get their citizenship papers. JA: What were your favorite newspaper strips? CUIDERA: Hal Foster, Alex Raymond, and Milton Caniff were my favorite artists. As a kid, I used to love The Katzenjammer Kids and all the funny strips. JA: After Northpine, you went to Pratt Institute, didn’t you? CUIDERA: Yes. I had a scholarship there. I got that while I was at Eastside High School. One of my art teachers was a lovely woman who did watercolors, and I tried to emulate her work. She took a real big interest in me and was responsible for me getting into Northpine Art School. I started at Pratt in 1936 and graduated in 1939. Pratt was an
“I Created Blackhawk!”
17 Kirby was nothing but a cleaner boy. He erased pages, made art corrections, paste-ups, and anything else that needed to be done. JA: Did you meet Victor Fox?
CUIDERA: And how! He was a big clip artist. When I was working for Fox, he asked me to do him a favor. He had this big box of liquor and wanted me to bring it up to his apartment, which was in the same building his office was. I got up there and this pretty little wench, wearing only a slip, invited me in for a cup of coffee. I said, “No, thank you.” I couldn’t wait to get out of there. [laughs]. Old man Fox always had a wench around him. Fox was an older man than the rest of us. He was short, had a full head of hair, and smoked a cigar, and had a tremendously loud voice. Very impressive, and he scared everybody. He wasn’t fat and he always liked women. JA: I heard he was a crook and cheated people out of money. CUIDERA: Oh, boy! He stuck Simon and Kirby for a lot of dough. Most of the other publishers paid a good wage per page, but not Fox. He only paid $5 a page, if you could get it from him. JA: What did he do, hide out on payday? “Lou Fine… was my boy,” said Chuck Cuidera of his artistic colleague and friend. Above are a Fine page from the origin of The Flame in Wonderworld Comics #8 (Dec. 1939), and a panel of the searing super-hero in costume from #6 (Oct. 1939), courtesy of Greg Theakston from his 1991 Lou Fine Comics Treasury. [Restored art ©2004 Pure Imagination.]
architectural and engineering school. For the women, it was a dressmaking school. I expected to paint after I graduated, and I wanted to be a pictorial illustrator. JA: How did you break into comic books? CUIDERA: After I got out of Pratt, I went to all the publishing companies in New York and struck out. I saw an ad in the paper that Fox Features was looking for artists. I had nothing to lose, so I went there. The art director, Joe Simon, hired me on the spot, so I was making 35 bucks a week, between the staff pay and freelancing.
“Old Man Fox Always Had a Wench Around” JA: Had you read comic books before you went to Fox? CUIDERA: I don’t think I did. Comic books were just really starting out, and they became big and fat. Now, Joe Simon was an artist. He and Jack Kirby became partners and were working together even at Fox. Kirby was the artist and Joe was the writer, although Joe could draw, too. Joe was easy to work for. I worked in the office. Al Harvey was there, too. The office was small.
CUIDERA: Yes, something like that. Since I was on staff, I was pretty sure I’d get my week’s salary and all the freelance work I could handle. JA: Lou Fine worked there, too, didn’t he? CUIDERA: Yes, he did. And he was my boy. He was real good. At that time, I thought nobody drew anatomical figures better than Lou Fine. He was the first to draw “The Flame.” We all admired him, especially when he drew the covers. He was a very nice man. We used to go to lunch together and sometimes went bowling. He had a game leg because he had suffered from polio when he was a kid. Sometimes he’d grab my arm when we went to lunch. I remember when he had a fight with Will Eisner, who was working behind the scenes at Quality Comics. I wanted to knock Eisner on his butt like you wouldn’t believe. Lou was a quiet, even-balanced guy, and after he left Eisner and went to work directly for Busy Arnold [Quality’s publisher], we stopped seeing each other. JA: Do you remember what features you did for Fox? CUIDERA: Yes. I did “The Flame,” but “The Blue Beetle” was where I started. I took over “The Flame” when Lou Fine left Fox. JA: You’ve said you created “The Blue Beetle”... CUIDERA: Yes, I did. Then there was a Polish fellow, Charles Wojtokowski, who followed me on the feature, using my name.
JA: What was Jack Kirby like in those days?
JA: Your full name is Charles Nicholas Cuidera. Why did you use the name Charles Nicholas instead of using your last name? Were you asked to do that?
CUIDERA: Jack came from a poor family. He was supporting his family. The funny part was that, when I started working for Joe Simon,
CUIDERA: No. I just used Charles Nicholas because I thought it was a better name to use. No one told me to use a pen name. Everyone used
18
Chuck Cuidera
In his later years, Cuidera found himself in the eye of two storms of controversy regarding his career. The first involved his oft-repeated statement that he created The Blue Beetle, one of the earliest (and, in various incarnations, longest-lived) super-heroes, using his first and middle names, “Charles Nicholas”—while others feel strongly that was merely the pseudonym of artist Charles Wojtokowski. Comics historian Hames Ware says that although, to the best of his knowledge, “Charles Nicholas Wojtokowski is the only artist who consistently used that nom de plum over a nearly 30-year period… it is still possible that Chuck Cuidera, in an incredible coincidental fashion, may have also drawn ‘Blue Beetle’ at Fox and done so under the ‘Charles Nicholas’ byline. (Jerry Iger was noted for maintaining shop-created bylines regardless of whether the originating artist remained on a strip or not. ‘Charles Nicholas’ is a case in point, with several different artists in addition to Wojtokowski working with that same shop name stuck up there by Iger on the strip. Al Carreno would be one example of that happening, I believe.)” Be that as it may, “Blue Beetle” debuted in Fox’s Mystery Men Comics #1 (Aug. 1939); his earliest cover appearance was on Blue Beetle #1 (Winter 1939-40), seen at left. As is well-known, Jack Kirby briefly drew the short-lived Blue Beetle newspaper comic strip, as per the above daily for 1-25-40, under the Nicholas byline. Later, in Blue Beetle #28 (March 1944), seen below, someone—certainly neither Cuidera nor Kirby—had clearly been looking at Simon & Kirby comics! [Blue Beetle TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
my name on that feature, including Jack Kirby. And I designed the Blue Beetle costume. JA: Do you recall who wrote the first “Blue Beetle” stories? CUIDERA: No. I wrote some of the stories, and I think Joe Simon did, too. I’ll probably stand corrected, but there were quite a few writers there. Bill Woolfolk was one of them; he later wrote “Blackhawk.” There was another top guy, but I can’t think of his name now. JA: Could it have been Bob Powell? CUIDERA: No. But Bob Powell and I graduated from Pratt together. Bob was responsible for me leaving Joe Simon and working for Quality Comics. He called me up one day and said, “There’s an editor at Quality who’ll double what you’re making at Fox’s.” I said, “You got a deal.” I went over to see him, and who was running the show for Busy Arnold but Will Eisner! I never got double my salary from Eisner. I wanted to whack him, and I was just the sort of a guy who could do it. I came from a rough neighborhood and could take care of myself. [laughs] Bob Powell and Will Eisner were good friends. When Eisner started working for Quality, he brought Bob Powell with him. Powell was the one who called me, because Eisner must have liked my work. [NOTE: Eisner was actually running the Eisner & Iger studio, not Quality per se. — Jim.] Bob Powell was an easy-going guy. I didn’t think he was going to be very successful once we got out of school, but he surprised me. I thought he was a better writer than an artist, but he did “Mr. Mystic” for Eisner. He made a pretty good buck in comics up until he died. JA: Was the other writer you were thinking of Joe Millard?
“I Created Blackhawk!”
19
“That Was Busy Arnold!” JA: What did you think of Jack Kirby’s artwork when you met him? CUIDERA: I thought it stunk. He really developed later, though. Joe Simon really helped Kirby develop. Simon and Kirby were really close friends. Jack Kirby’s real name was Jack Kurtzberg, and I remember the day he changed his name. He was like a brand new kitten! Jack walked in and said, “My name is no longer Jack Kurtzberg. It’s Jack Kirby now.” I said, “Good for you, Jack.” When Joe Simon left Victor Fox, Jack stayed on for a while. Jack was a fairly decent, quiet guy, and he was so fast in drawing that his work was a little sketchy. He needed a good inker. And Joe did all the writing back then, not Jack. Joe was a nice guy, very impressive. He wasn’t a big talker, but very business-like. JA: Who replaced Joe Simon at Fox? CUIDERA: That’s a good question. I don’t think anybody did. It all fell upon me. JA: So you went to work for Eisner & Iger after you left Fox? CUIDERA: Yes. And Fox owed me money, too. JA: Was Ed Cronin editing at Quality then?
According to Jerry Bails & Hames Ware’s 1970s Who’s Who of American Comic Books, Bob Powell drew only decidedly minor features with names like “Abdul the Arab,” “Loops & Banks,” “Lee Preston,” “Betty Bates,” and “Spin Shaw” for Quality during the 1940-43 period. Even so, Will Eisner tapped Powell to draw one of the two supporting features in his Spirit Sunday newspaper comic book produced for/with Busy Arnold. Above is the first page (of four) of a “Mr. Mystic” story drawn by Powell, as reprinted in Ron Frantz’s b&w Fantastic Adventures #2 (Oct. 1987). [Mr. Mystic TM & ©2004 Will Eisner; retouched art ©2004 Ace Comics, Inc.]
CUIDERA: You got it! We were pretty good buddies. He was an excellent writer and very easy to get along with. I don’t recall ever hearing him raise his voice or fight with anyone. Busy Arnold liked him, too; and years later, when Arnold made me art director at Quality, I made sure Joe Millard had plenty of work. He was strictly a freelancer. JA: Getting back to Victor Fox: was he in the office that much? CUIDERA: No, because he owed everybody and his brother. JA: Did Fox mind when you quit him? CUIDERA: No. He didn’t give a hoot about me or anybody else who worked for him. We got along just fine, but it was nothing special. The only thing was that we both liked women. [laughs] He had them. He was a playboy and a bluffer. He didn’t have the money to pay people. JA: Jack Kirby told me that Al Harvey used to talk like Victor Fox. CUIDERA: Oh, yeah. He used to imitate him pretty well. Al was a nice fellow and very active with the Boy Scouts. He got into the publishing business, too.
Chuck Cuidera says he inked some “Uncle Sam” stories for Quality, but Hames Ware feels the above page is probably by either Bob Fujitani or Myron Strauss. Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, courtesy of Ethan Roberts. [Uncle Sam TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
20
Chuck Cuidera
While Will Eisner is often credited as the creator or co-creator of Blackhawk, Chuck Cuidera always insisted he created the character alone. Despite what he says in this interview, however, it’s not clear that Cuidera ever wrote any “Blackhawk” tales. The origin in Military Comics #1 (Aug. 1941), whose splash is seen at left, is credited in DC’s gorgeous Blackhawk Archives, Vol. 1, to Eisner and Bob Powell, while Dick French is listed as scripter of the lead tales in Military #5-12, including “The Vial of Death” in issue #6 (Jan. 1942)—though Cuidera himself says Joe Millard “took over” from him in that arena. Perhaps Chuck thought up springboard plots for French, et al.? Whatever the truth behind the creation and development of “Blackhawk,” Cuidera soon excelled in drawing the Eisneresque splash pages which quickly became a Quality Comics trademark. You gotta admire a guy who draws Death himself hitching a ride on Chop Chop’s skis—across the top of the three-dimensional logo! One wonders: did reputed scripter Dick French call for that, or did Cuidera (or Eisner) call the shots? [©2004 DC Comics.]
CUIDERA: I really don’t remember him. Eisner had his own set-up, producing work for Quality, and that’s where I was. Busy Arnold was a great guy, though. There was nothing bad about him. I’ll tell you what a great guy he was: when Quality had its offices on 44th Street in New York City, he gave the elevator operators 300 bucks apiece for a Christmas present. That was Busy Arnold! He was good with a buck. The nice part about Arnold was that he was honest. JA: Then I take it Gill Fox was editor when you started there. CUIDERA: Yes, he was, but he was fired later because he got on Arnold’s nerves. I don’t think Arnold liked his artwork that much, either. [NOTE: When I questioned Gill Fox about this, he categorically denied having been fired, saying he left the Quality staff because he was about to be drafted. After the war he returned to freelancing for Quality until he left the comic book field in 1951 to do advertising work for Johnstone and Cushing. —Jim.] JA: What did you start out doing for Eisner? CUIDERA: I think it was “Yank Wilson.” I also did some “Uncle Sam” and inked some of the Spirit dailies. Most of those weren’t done by Eisner. He had quite a few artists who could imitate his style pretty easily. Eisner was a B.S.-er. He didn’t like me for nothing.
JA: Why didn’t you like Eisner? Was it the pay? CUIDERA: No, it was because I didn’t like the way he handled people. He was a great artist and a good writer. But there was no way I was ever going to get along with him. JA: I have you listed as having inked some “Ray” stories. CUIDERA: That’s wrong. I never did “The Ray.”
“‘Blackhawk’ Even Outsold Batman” JA: Did you create “Blackhawk” for Will Eisner? CUIDERA: I created “Blackhawk” before I met Will Eisner. Eisner had nothing to do with creating “Blackhawk.” When Bob Powell got me to come over to Eisner, I had already started creating “Blackhawk.” I finished creating it while Will Eisner was down South hunting. With the second or third “Blackhawk” story, the feature took off and even outsold Batman. JA: The character Chuck [one of the seven Blackhawks] was named after you, wasn’t he? And Stanislaus [another Blackhawk] was named after Bob Powell, whose real name was Stanislaus Pulowski. CUIDERA: That’s right. Bob Powell changed his name early on. I knew
“I Created Blackhawk!” him as Bob Powell even at Pratt Institute. He was a real go-getter; he knew how to make money. Powell did so well, he once bought a twoseater car and a yacht. I wrote the first dozen or so “Blackhawk” stories, and I also penciled and inked them. Sam Rosen was our lettering man. That’s where he got started in comics. Sam was going to New York University on certain days, and we’d go over to the nearby baseball field and play two-hand touch football. He was a really nice guy. JA: Once you created “Blackhawk,” how did it get into the hands of Busy Arnold? Did you take it to Will Eisner? CUIDERA: No. I took it to Busy Arnold myself. Eisner didn’t see the feature till after Arnold did. Arnold liked me right from the beginning. Arnold hired Eisner to get the books ready for the printer. My paychecks came from Arnold, not Eisner. JA: Do you remember how much you made per week when you started at Quality? CUIDERA: About $25 a week. When I showed Arnold the first story that I did... Bingo! It was printed a month after I gave it to him. He handled me with kid gloves. I got along with him very well. His son Jay came to work for us, and he was a little sissy, but I knocked that out of him. [NOTE: Here Chuck must have confused Busy Arnold’s son Dick, who did become an assistant editor at Quality, with Jay Chesler, son of comics-shop operator Harry “A” Chesler, who worked briefly at Quality. —Jim.]
CUIDERA: My buddy! He was one of the best artists who ever worked in comics. No disrespect to Lou Fine, but Crandall drew figures even better than Fine did. Reed was a very personal friend. My folks had a summer home near the Jersey shore, and we had a boat to go tuna fishing. He hooked up with a guy named Sid Green [not the comic book artist] and they were going to make a lot of money, but that never happened. When the Crandalls lived out on Long Island, I’d take him to New York City with me. He was strictly business and we got along fine. Reed was a drinker and it started to get bad after a while. I tried to give him pep talks about it. One time in the 1950s, he was starting to make a surf pole and I was teaching him how to rewind the surf thread. All of a sudden, he moved up to where Sid Green and his wife were, and that was the beginning of the end of our relationship. After that, I only saw him when he came in to the Quality offices. JA: What do you remember about Al Bryant? CUIDERA: He was a graduate of Pratt, and he did “Doll Man.” I helped him on it. He worked so hard to do good work that he suffered a nervous breakdown. Like most of us, he wanted to be at the top. Bryant was a nice-looking, good guy.
JA: Why did you quit doing the writing on “Blackhawk”? CUIDERA: Because I couldn’t think of any more good stories. Joe Millard took over from me. Bill Finger also wrote some “Blackhawk.” He was big back then, and most of the comic book writers imitated him. Manly Wade Wellman wrote some stories, too.
Cole, Crandall, and Bryant JA: What did you think of Jack Cole? He’s one of my favorite creators. CUIDERA: Mine, too. He could really tell a story. We used to go to lunch together. He liked to drink. Cole and Arnold used to drink together. One time, they went to a bar and got loaded, and a few weeks after that, Cole bought a .22 and killed himself. Jack and his wife Dorothy lived in Massachusetts before they moved to Chicago. Once he moved to Massachusetts, I only saw him when he came in to pick up a check or deliver a story. [NOTE: It behooves us to mention that Cuidera’s story about Busy Arnold and Jack Cole going out drinking together not long before Cole’s 1958 suicide is open to question, since by then Cole was living in Chicago and working for Playboy, and it’s not likely he was around the Quality offices in New York at that time. —Jim.] JA: Did you ever meet Mrs. Cole? CUIDERA: I think I met her once. But I don’t know why he killed himself. Jack was a practical joker and full of fun. He’d tell a joke, and they weren’t always clean. He was a guy you just couldn’t help loving. Everybody liked him. I inked some of his “Plastic Man” stories and many of the covers after World War II. JA: Cole never worked in the offices, did he? But you did? CUIDERA: He didn’t, but I did—every day, until later on when I decided to come in once a week. JA: What do you remember about Reed Crandall?
21
Al Bryant’s cover for Feature Comics #96 (March 1946). Doll Man may have been drawn as only between 6-10” tall, but he was still expected to carry the load of being the only super-hero in that mag—and he kept it going, with a lackluster supporting cast, from his 1939 debut in #27 through #139 (Oct. 1949). When the Mighty Mite was replaced on covers (and inside) with #140 by somebody named Stunt Man Stetson, the mag lasted only five more issues. [Doll Man ©2004 DC Comics.]
22
Chuck Cuidera
Three generations of Blackhawk fighter planes. (Clockwise:) Cuidera’s splash for Military Comics #2 (Sept. 1941) with those incomparably visual Grumman Skyrockets—a Reed Crandall page displaying their first jets, which somewhat resembled the Sabres that battled Russian MiGs during the Korean War—and a sleeker later model (based on a Lockheed something-or-other, wasn’t it?) from Blackhawk #97 (Feb. 1956). Thanks to George Hagenauer for photocopies of the Crandall original art (inks, Lee Boyett believes, by Al Bryant), and to Michelle Nolan for the 1956 panels. [Blackhawk TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
“[‘Blackhawk’] Was Like a League of Nations” JA: How long did you work on “Blackhawk” before you were drafted? CUIDERA: I was drafted in 1942, so I only worked on “Blackhawk” for about a year. JA: Being Italian, did you have any problems in the service since Italy was on the side of the Nazis in World War II? CUIDERA: When I became a second lieutenant in the Army Air Force, if you were Italian or German you had to go in front of a board and were asked how your parents felt about the Nazis. I didn’t go overseas. I was in transportation and I started a studio while in the Air Force. We did posters, painted the fronts of buildings and cut-outs. We were very popular. By the time I was discharged, I had made captain. JA: Captain Cuidera. Sounds like a comic book character. [laughs] Some cartoonists still did comic book work while in the service. Did you? CUIDERA: No, I didn’t want to. I could have if I wanted to, though. I did do a couple of covers.
JA: When you created “Blackhawk,” were you paid anything for creating the feature? CUIDERA: No. Not a dime. It occurred to me to ask for that, but I liked Busy Arnold and he liked me. And I got bonuses. One year, I got $600 at Christmas. JA: Once you were discharged from the service, did you go right back to Quality? CUIDERA: Yes. I was married right before I was drafted and had a baby girl, so I had to make some money. Then I had two more children, a boy and a girl. Quality had been located in Stamford, Connecticut, when I was drafted, but when I returned, they were in New York City, on 44th Street. JA: Getting back to “Blackhawk,” why did you keep changing the kinds of planes they flew? CUIDERA: I liked the first plane [the Grumman F5F Skyrocket] they used, but we changed them from time to time to keep current with what was being used in real life. I always loved flying, and that love was part of my inspiration in creating the characters.
“I Created Blackhawk!” JA: The Blackhawks had many characters in the group, but you narrowed them down as time went on. What made you decide to do that? CUIDERA: Well, it was like a League of Nations originally. My father had a World War I book depicting an island that was shelled by enemy fire and I used it as the Blackhawks’ island. When I started doing “Blackhawk,” I drew the model sheets for the characters and practiced drawing them so I’d always have the correct likenesses. The top part of the uniform, I designed. The bottom part was swiped from Alex Raymond. I thought it was a great uniform. I also gave Blackhawk a scarf and the hawk symbol to distinguish himself from the others.
23
CUIDERA: Well, thank you. JA: I don’t mean to knock Crandall’s work because he was so great, but your ink line had more warmth to it. CUIDERA: Well, probably you’re right. I was always experimenting with my inking. Sometimes I inked with a pen and other times used both a pen and a brush. JA: Did you like inking more than penciling?
JA: Did you have a favorite Blackhawk?
CUIDERA: Yes, I did. And I could make more money that way. I had a family to support. But the main thing I always concerned myself with was to draw real well—to make myself look real good. I kept trying new things because I wanted to improve.
CUIDERA: Not really. Maybe Chop Chop.
JA: Did you miss penciling?
JA: What do you remember about Dick Dillin?
CUIDERA: Only now and then. But I did a lot of covers.
CUIDERA: Busy Arnold brought Dick Dillin in to see me and said, “This guy likes to draw comics.” Dillin showed me some of his samples and they stunk! So I had to break him into the business. I told him, “You have to learn how to draw the figure and learn perspective. If you can do that, you got it made, pal.” We became good friends and I inked his work for many years. When I started inking his pencils, I corrected the bad drawing. Dick was a very hard worker and made a big effort to improve. Of course, the guy he was trying to imitate was Reed Crandall.
JA: You also did “Captain Triumph.” Were you just inking that?
JA: But your work had a warmth to it that Crandall’s didn’t have. As great an artist as Crandall was, I thought you were a better storyteller. Alex Kotzky thought the same thing about you.
CUIDERA: No. I did some whole stories. And I also did the complete art on some “Chop Chop” stories, and on some romance comics in the 1950s. JA: You also did some work on Web of Evil. CUIDERA: That’s right. But I only inked those stories. JA: Who was your favorite penciler to ink? CUIDERA: Reed Crandall. He made his reputation on “Blackhawk.” His penciling was nice and clean.
(Left:) Whether or not Cuidera as inker really had to correct any “bad drawing” by penciler Dick Dillin at the outset of their long stint in tandem on Blackhawk, they made a great team, as per this splash from #70 (Nov. 1953), with the second appearance of the aviator-hero’s most renowned foe. (Right:) Chuck may have liked the character Chop Chop, who had his own filler series for some years (see Michelle Nolan’s article, following); but both it and the racial stereotyping of the seventh Blackhawk were altered before Busy Arnold sold Blackhawk to DC. Issue number and artist unknown. Thanks to Michael Baulderstone for both pieces of art, taken from Australian black&-white reprints. [Blackhawk & Chop Chop TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
24
Chuck Cuidera
(Left:) Collector Mort Todd sent us a scan of the original cover proof of Military Comics #30 (July 1944), which of course allowed editors to make last-minute changes on the published version. Mort says its artist, Bill Ward, told him some years back that this was the only cover featuring Blackhawk he ever drew, though he did pencil a number of actual stories (and later re-creations of other artists’ covers, such as the one used on Alter Ego #12). In the early 1960s it was reported in fan circles that Ward always hated drawing the Blackhawks’ military hats, and that whenever they got into a fight, he had them lose their hats for the rest of the story—until an editor caught wise and stopped that practice. One pro even drew a picture of a factory that was devoted to nothing but making Blackhawk hats to replace those Ward had them lose! Oddly, the sentence “He had lost his cap” appears regarding the protagonists in both Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, after they have fled from a battle. Maybe those two literary giants didn’t like writing about military headwear? (Right:) Ward’s best-known comic book work today is the “Torchy” feature he did for Modern Comics (the postwar name of Military)—though Gill Fox later ghosted Ward’s style on it. This story, with grey tones added, was reprinted in AC Comics’ Men of Mystery Comics #35 in 2002, and is still available; check out AC’s ad elsewhere in this ish, as Bill Black’s company includes lots of vintage Quality art among its Golden Age reprints! [Blackhawk TM & ©2004 DC Comics; retouched Torchy art ©2004 AC Comics.]
“Chuck, I Want You to Run the Show for Me” JA: You told me that you became art director at Quality. When did that happen? CUIDERA: Right after I came out of the service. Arnold said, “Chuck. I want you to run the show for me.” And I did. [NOTE: As will be apparent from other interviews in this issue and others of Alter Ego, no other Golden Age Quality interviewee has yet confirmed Chuck’s status as art director. Perhaps it was an unofficial title, but even if it was, it appears Busy Arnold never got around to telling all his other employees about it. —Jim.] JA: Were you art director right up until the company folded? CUIDERA: Yes. I liked being an art director. That was the only thing I could do that I was proud of. Busy Arnold paid me well. The artists brought the work to me first and I’d go over what they did. Then I’d take it into Busy Arnold’s office and we’d talk about it. I did a lot of covers, no matter whether it was romance or adventure. Busy Arnold’s
son Dick worked there, too. JA: As art director, did you deal with the writers much? CUIDERA: Once in a while, yes. JA: Do you remember George Brenner? CUIDERA: Oh, yeah. Another screw-up. He was an editor until Busy Arnold got rid of him. I also don’t think he could draw. JA: Al Grenet was there as an editor, too. What do you remember about him? CUIDERA: I had to teach him how to draw and letter and do the promotional work for Quality Comics. He was a terrible editor. Al wasn’t a bad fellow, but he wasn’t talented. JA: As art director, you answered only to Busy Arnold, correct? CUIDERA: That’s correct. JA: Did you socialize with Arnold after working hours?
“I Created Blackhawk!”
25
CUIDERA: No. But every day, he’d sneak out and go across the street and have a few drinks. I went with him a couple of times. So did Jack Cole. I was never much of a drinker. At Christmas time he’d throw a party and we’d get drunk.
People in the office hated his guts. People would come to me and say, “Did you hear what he just said?” I said, “Yeah, I feel the same way.”
JA: Did you hire artists?
CUIDERA: That S.O.B.! He used to erase my pages and white-out for me. We used to talk about different things, and after we’d leave, Blaisdell would run into the boss’ office and tell him what we talked about. I wanted to rap him so hard, it wasn’t funny. He was such a tall guy, too. None of the others liked him, either. I remember that he pleaded with me to give some work to his brother-in-law, Dick French, who was a writer. I gave him some work. Some of the stuff he wrote was pretty good, but not all of it.
CUIDERA: When someone came in whose work I thought was good, I’d take him to see Busy Arnold. Arnold approved the artists who worked there.
“Do You Remember...?” JA: Do you remember Bill Ward?
JA: Speaking of inkers, how about Tex Blaisdell?
Ed Herron was a pretty good writer, too. And a nice guy.
CUIDERA: Oh, yeah. He graduated from Pratt after I did. He was a real hard worker with a style of his own. I made sure he had plenty of work. He did an issue of Torchy that was banned in Boston. It was very sexy. At that time, there was a demand for sexy comics, which was why he came up with Torchy. Ward was a very quiet guy who minded his own business. He also did spot cartoons for magazines. He drew Blackhawk for a while, but I didn’t like his technique on it. I may stand corrected, but I don’t recall that he ever inked Blackhawk. There was always one of his stories on my drawing table to ink.
JA: Another inker was Sam Burlockoff.
JA: Do you remember an inker named Robin King?
JA: There were guys that worked at Quality that I thought were very good. Paul Gustavson and Klaus Nordling.
CUIDERA: Yeah. He stunk, too. He couldn’t draw worth a damn.
CUIDERA: Oh, yes! He never penciled anything, but he was a fairly good inker. He imitated me pretty well. JA: John Spranger worked at Quality, too. CUIDERA: Yes, he did. Another Pratt Institute graduate; he worked in the offices. He had a newspaper strip, but he fizzled out after a while. He had a nervous breakdown.
“[Paul Gustavson and Klaus Nordling] were both good,” according to Cuidera as well as Amash. (Left:) Gustavson signed the above “Human Bomb” splash page with a house name. It is taken from AC’s Men of Mystery Comics #22 (2000), as reprinted with tones added and art retouched from Police Comics #10 (July 1942). (Right:) Nordling was listed as the artist of this page of original art from the Quality feature “The Barker” when it was sold for $175 a few years back. Thanks to Ray A. Cuthbert. [Retouched Human Bomb art ©2004 AC Comics; The Barker art ©2004 the respective copyright holders; Human Bomb TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
26
Chuck Cuidera
(Left:) With issue #108, Blackhawk became a DC title, though drawn by the same Dillin/Cuidera team. This splash from #115 (Aug. 1957) was provided by Michelle Nolan; its cover appears with her article, following. (Center:) This photo of longtime Blackhawk, then Justice League of America penciler Dick Dillin appeared in DC’s own fanzine, The Amazing World of DC Comics #11 (April 1976). (Right:) Collector Scotty Moore sent us a photocopy of the original art of this later cover, from Blackhawk #170 (March 1962). By this point the heroes were still fighting old foes like Killer Shark, but in increasingly outré situations—like Lady Blackhawk as a mermaid! [©2004 DC Comics.]
CUIDERA: Yeah, they were both good. Nordling was one of the better people who worked for us. He was a quiet guy who’d take off every once in a while for Florida. And he was a pretty fast artist. Al McWilliams worked for us, too. He drew great ships. He was tops! When he came in with a story, he showed it to me first. God, he was good at drawing battleships and stuff like that. A nice guy. JA: Did you consider yourself to be a fast artist? CUIDERA: No. My biggest problem was that I always thought about the quality of the work.
CUIDERA: We all used to take a day off and go over and listen. We were scared, because comics were our bread and butter. Busy Arnold never came out and said so, but one time he thought about quitting. He said, “Chuck, I’m thinking about packing it in. You’d better start looking for a new job.” I said, “I’ll stay with you until the end.” Which I did. JA: When he decided to close shop, how did he handle it? Did he tell you that you had two weeks left or something?
CUIDERA: It stunk! [laughs] Busy Arnold and I saw it together and he thought it stunk, too.
CUIDERA: No. He told me he was thinking about selling out to DC. I said, “Why do you want to do that? You have some of the best artists in the business.” We talked about it for a while and he said, “There’s one proviso. Wherever Blackhawk goes, you go with it.” The next thing I know, I’m working for DC on Blackhawk. I never saw Busy Arnold again.
JA: Did you get any money from the serial?
JA: It must have been sad to see Quality Comics stop publishing.
CUIDERA: No. But I didn’t even think about it.
CUIDERA: Oh, sure. You get used to seeing certain people come in, and it’s such a big change.
JA: What did you think of the Blackhawk movie serial?
JA: Did you ever hear the Blackhawk radio show? CUIDERA: I remember hearing it once, but that was a long time ago. I didn’t get any money for that, either. [NOTE: The Blackhawk radio series appeared on the ABC network during the 1951-52 season. —Jim.]
“Wherever Blackhawk Goes, You Go with It” JA: What do you remember about the Senate investigations into comic books?
JA: Did your page rate change when you went to DC? CUIDERA: It was about the same. JA: Who became your editor at DC? CUIDERA: Jack Schiff and a guy I wanted to whack so bad, it wasn’t funny—Murray Boltinoff. You don’t know how close he came to getting the “works” from me. JA: Was it dislike at first sight?
“I Created Blackhawk!” CUIDERA: Yes. When you brought your work in, he was “way out” in his criticism. I said, “You’re ridiculous.” First thing you know, I was arguing with him all the time. He was just a guy that wanted to make your life miserable all the time. His brother Henry was a good cartoonist, though. Jack Schiff was tough to get along with, too. Every time I wanted to change something, I had to go through hell and high water. He’d say, “Just leave it the way it is.” George Kashdan was there, too, but he was a nice guy, and he could write, too. I had more freedom at Quality and I had none at DC. I never liked working there.
27 CUIDERA: Sales were down, and the editors didn’t know what else to do. I really blew my stack over that change. Those costumes were ugly. Some of the stories were good, but most of them stunk. JA: Who designed those costumes? Was it Dick Dillin? CUIDERA: It could have been. It wasn’t me! JA: Why did you quit doing comic books? CUIDERA: I was tired of doing it. I woke up one day and said, “That’s it. I’m not going to do any more comics.”
JA: Did Dick Dillin feel the same way you did?
JA: Did you miss doing comics? CUIDERA: After a while, yes. I went and did advertising work, but that didn’t amount to a hill of beans. Now and then I’ll do some Blackhawk drawings for fans.
CUIDERA: Yes. Dick always relied on me because I made him look good. JA: Why did DC change the Blackhawk uniforms from your design to those ugly red and green ones?
[NOTE: See Chuck Cuidera Checklist on next page.]
Easily the weirdest and worst period in the Blackhawks’ long career was when they briefly gained truly odd super-powers. In a later revival, writer/editor Gerry Conway had the artists garb the again non-super-powered team in new, modern uniforms, as per the above Joe Kubert cover for #244 (Feb. 1976), repro’d from a black-&-white photocopy. But neither change saved them. The Mark Evanier-scripted, Dan Spiegel-drawn revival of the 1980s was truer to the Blackhawks’ essence, but likewise failed to find an audience. Of revivals since then… well, the less said, the better, in Ye Editor’s not particularly humble opinion. Incidentally, Blackhawk movie serial star Kirk Alyn once related to said Roy Thomas that the Quality team was up for a TV series in the early 1950s, and that the primary reason it wasn’t a “go,” Kirk was told, was that their uniforms looked too much like those of the Nazi S.S. of World War II and Holocaust infamy! [©2004 DC Comics.]
The most trusted name in comic collectibles auctions in the world! The #1 Auction Service dedicated exclusively to Comics, Original Art, Posters and more! Call us now to participate either buying, selling or for an insurance or estate apprasial!
Let us help you realize the highest prices possible for all your prized possessions!
Office: (201) 652-1305 Fax: (501) 325-6504
The only member of the American Appraisers Association in comic art, comic books and animation art
e-mail: art@allstarauctions.net • www.allstarauctions.net
28
Chuck Cuidera
(Left:) Among the last of the Dillin/Cuidera collaborations was their work together on Hawkman in 1967-68, after Murphy Anderson departed the mag. This cover illustration is repro’d from photocopies of the original art for an unpublished version of the cover of Hawkman #24 (Feb-March 1968), provided by Tom Horvitz; check out his original-art website at <trhgallery@earthlink.net> or phone him at (818) 757-0747. Thanks to Carl Gafford for the issue-number ID. (Right:) Cuidera’s most memorable work by far, however, will always be those unbeatable “Blackhawk” exploits in Quality’s Military Comics #1-11, as per this splash from #4 (Nov. 1941). Together, Cuidera and Crandall make The Blackhawk Archives, Vol. 1, one of the very best of DC’s irreplaceable Archives line. [©2004 DC Comics.]
CHUCK CUIDERA Checklist [NOTE: Thanks to Dr. Jerry G. Bails for providing information from the online Who’s Who of 20th-Century American Comic Books, which can be accessed at www.nostromo.no/whoswho/, but alas, not yet at the Grand Comic Book Database site, as was reported in A/E #31. The following is a slightly abridged version of the Who’s Who listing. Additions or corrections to this information are invited. Names of features and comic books below are generally not placed in italics or quotation marks because in some cases, such as “Blackhawk,” there was both a comic with that title and a feature in Military/Modern Comics. Some of the information below was supplied by Chuck Cuidera. Key: (a) = full art; (p) = pencils only; (i) = inking only. In one or two cases, this information may conflict with statements in the foregoing interview, because based on other sources.] Full Name: Charles Nicholas Cuidera (1915-2001) - artist. Pen Name: Charles Nicholas (one of several to use this pen name). Nickname: Chuck Education: Pratt Institute Staff: Quality (art director?) c. 1950-57 SYNDICATED CREDITS: The Spirit (ghost) - (specifics unknown) COMIC BOOK CREDITS (Mainstream U.S. Publishers): DC Comics & related imprints: Batman and Hawkman (i) 1967; Blackhawk (i/some p) 1956-68, 1975, 1989; Blackhawk Combat Diary (i) 1964; Blackhawk Detached Service Diary (i) 1964-66; Blackhawk World War II Combat Diary (i) 1965-65; covers (i) 1957-67; crime (a) 1968;
Flash and Spectre (i) 1967; Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told (i) 1990 reprint; Hawkman (i) 1967-68; Our Army at War (a) 1968; Spectre and Flash (i) 1967 Fox Comics: Blue Beetle (?) (a) 1939; D-13 (a) 1941; Secret Agent Z-5 (a); Yank Wilson (a) 1942 Holyoke & related imprints: Captain Aero (a) 1941-42; Red Cross (a) 1942 Quality Comics: Blackhawk (a; plotted first story) 1941-42, (i) 1945-56; Captain Triumph (i) 1940s; covers (a) 1942; Love Letters (p) 1951; Love Scandals (a) 1950; Love Secrets (a) 1953-54; Plastic Man (i) 1940s; Uncle Sam (a) 1941; Web of Evil (i) 1953 Simon & Schuster/Fireside Books: America at War: The Best of DC War Comics (a) 1979 - reprint of Blackhawk origin
Quality Time-- part three
29
Better Read Than Dead How the Blackhawks Made a Radical Transition from Quality to DC by Michelle Nolan
The Torch Is Passed
That was the issue in which Police changed its cover and lead characters from pliable Plastic Man to hard-boiled Ken Shannon, “Crime-busting Private Eye,” who also starred in ten issues of his own title from 1951-53.
By the time Quality Comics went out of business at the end of 1956, the Blackhawks were the only surviving team of Golden Age costumed heroes. They had spent nearly that entire year fighting “Commies” and “Reds,” as Soviet-bloc peoples were bluntly dubbed even in the early era of the Comics Code Authority.
DC, however, had no use for either TMan or the long-canceled Ken Shannon. Plastic Man, too, was buried for ten years, nor was there any discernible interest in Doll Man, last published in 1953—though both these heroes (and of course Doll Man’s spiritual descendant The Atom) would be of real importance to DC Comics in decades to come.
Then, in 1957, everybody’s favorite flying aces made one of the quickest stylistic changes in comic book history, after DC bought the rights to several popular series from Quality publisher Busy Arnold and began publishing the Blackhawks’ jetpropelled adventures. DC, then known as National, had long been loath to involve the company’s multitude of super-heroes and costumed characters against real-world villains. Even during World War II, at least after a spate of reviling what DC termed the “Japanazis” on covers in 1942 in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor, most of DC’s justly famous patriotic covers tended to be positively symbolic, rather than violent and aimed at the Axis foe. As the Cold War intensified in the 1950s, that reality rarely touched the world of DC’s heroes outside the pages of the company’s war comics, which began in 1952 and mostly dealt with World War II themes.
But DC made long-running successes of Quality’s G.I. Combat and romance title Heart Throbs, though another Quality carry-over, Robin Hood Tales, lasted only through #14 in 1958 after DC picked up the television-inspired feature with #7. What a difference a year can make! In the August 1956 issue of Blackhawk, the dark-clad aviators were battling die-hard Nazis (as per the cover of #103, top left) and, in #105 (Oct.), their Cold War cousins, the Communists, in Quality Comics. By August of 1957 the Blackhawks were fighting aliens from other dimensions and other planets, over at DC, as on the cover of #115. But the art team remained Dick Dillin on pencils, Charles “Chuck” Cuidera on inks. Oh, and unless otherwise noted or picked up from Ernst & Mary Gerber’s invaluable Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books, all art for this article was provided by the author from her extensive Silver Age collection. [Blackhawk TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
Meanwhile, rival Quality Comics’ Blackhawk and T-Man titles, not to mention G.I. Combat, continued to feature anti-Communist themes in the vast majority of stories all the way through 1956.
T-Man (the “T” stood for Treasury Dept., of course) apparently had been a successful title, running 38 issues from 1951-56, after the twofisted Pete Trask made his debut in Police Comics #103 (Dec. 1950).
And, most importantly, DC never missed a single monthly issue of Blackhawk, seamlessly picking up the title with #108 (Jan. 1957). The last seven Quality issues of Blackhawk (#101-107) were among the comics I most cherished in 1956 during my first year as a reader and collector at age eight, so I had developed a pretty good feeling for the character by the time DC took over.
I remember being startled to see the beloved “Superman DC National Comics” circle in the top left corner of Blackhawk #108. The cover— featuring “Killer Shark’s Secret Weapon—Killer Whale!”—didn’t seem that much different from the Quality issues, and the art looked the same. (I would learn later that it was by the previously Quality team of Dick Dillin, penciler, and Charles Cuidera, inker.) Even so, it didn’t take many
30
The Blackhawks’ Transition from Quality to DC which after all had started out as a variety of war comic in a mag called Military Comics—had definitely been tamed down, the series still seemed to have a politically noir-ish aspect, unlike almost anything else in post-Code comics. If anything, Quality’s anti-Communist emphasis in Blackhawk seemed to increase in 1956, well after the notorious Red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy had been censured by his Congressional colleagues in 1954 for policies that had already become known as “McCarthyism.” Of the 36 “Blackhawk” stories published with 1956 cover dates in issues #96-107, no fewer than thirty specifically featured anti-Communist themes. Yet, by the time DC’s second issue, #109 (Feb. 1957), was published, any mention of “Reds” or “Communists” had disappeared, along with the raft of female villains whom the Blackhawks had routinely fought in the 1948-56 period.
In #87, the Blackhawks’ post-Code careers began at Quality with an adventure pitting them against Sovietta, a In the last few years of Quality Comics, Police Comics kicked out Plastic Man in favor of femme fatale from you-guess-where. But when she initially Ken Shannon, P.I.—and T-Man, a co-star in that mag, even had his own title—as seen on survived a crash on Blackhawk Island—the first stage of her these covers for Police #111 (Jan. 1952) and T-Man #23 (March 1955). Sam Burlockoff, in his plot to destroy the team’s base—Hendrickson muttered, “Ainterview in A/E #32, says he sometimes inked Reed Crandall’s pencils on “Ken Shannon”; this Police cover may be one of them. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.] A girl... she is the pilot?” To which the ever-loving playboy Andre responded, “Oui, Stanislaus[?]... and what a girl! Zee issues to detect a significant difference in emphasis in the DC radiant beauty... eet is magnifique!” She fooled the colorful international Blackhawk. aviators for five pages, until they realized who she was when she finally emerged wearing an appropriately-colored red costume, complete with Comic book ownership changes were fairly common in the 1954-55 epaulets and a military cap sporting a red star. period, but the industry had pretty much shaken itself out by 1957. I think Blackhawk represented the first such shift that I had ever seen. Others were soon to follow, including the transfer of the Nancy and Sluggo franchise from dying St. John to healthy Dell.
I never missed a DC issue of Blackhawk until the title’s initial run expired in 1968, but as the years went on, I couldn’t help admitting how much more I enjoyed the occasional Quality-era back issues I would find, both pre- and post-Code. Blackhawk wasn’t all that bad throughout the rest of DC’s 10¢ era—though there were some truly awful 12¢ moments!—yet the blue-clad crew had seemed so much more vibrant in their Quality days.
There was a real post-Code shocker on the first splash page of #94 (Nov. 1955), “The Web of The Black Widow!” with all seven Blackhawks stuck in a giant web menaced by The Black Widow in a bizarre costume. “It’s useless to struggle, men!” Blackhawk called out. “This web is coated with an adhesive that sticks like grim death!” To which The Black Widow replied, “You’re right, Blackhawk! And death is the only way you’ll escape from the web of The Black Widow!”
The Blackhawks’ Quality battles against Communists, long-lost Nazis, dictators, and devils of the desert somehow seemed so much more vivid than their interminable DC struggles with aliens, mad scientists, and largely apolitical super-villains, although I do fondly remember the first three stories co-starring Lady Blackhawk in 1959. I also liked the humaninterest stories featuring Blackie, the team’s fine feathered mascot. Let’s take a closer look at that year or three of dramatic, unprecedented change in the life and career of Blackhawk, 1956-57.
1955–56: The Last Quality Years From Blackhawk #87 (April 1955), the first issue to bear the Comics Code Authority seal, through #107 (Dec. 1956), Quality produced 21 of the most compelling and unusual of all Code-approved comics. Although the violence—once a hallmark of Blackhawk,
When a sizable Comics Code Authority seal was slapped onto Blackhawk covers beginning with #87 (April 1955), something had to give—and that something turned out to be the cameo heads of Blackhawk, Chop Chop, Olaf, Hendrickson, Andre, Chuck, and Stanislaus that had long bookended the mag’s logo. (Additional bit of trivia: starting with #41 in 1951, Chop Chop’s head had switched columns with Andre’s; see the cover of #40 on p. 16.) Art by Dillin & Cuidera. [Blackhawks TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
Better Read Than Dead
31
In Blackhawk #87, the team bested Sovietta—while The Black Widow, in #88, inspired one of the Dillin/Cuidera team’s best-designed splash pages. Both are Quality issues, of course—and both are “post-Code” stories, by which Michelle Nolan means, “after the launching of the Comics Code Authority,” the approval arm of the Comics Magazine Association of America. Note that Chop Chop remains a regrettable racial stereotype, nearly a year after the Code took effect. Art by Dillin & Cuidera. [Blackhawks TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
This was strong stuff for a Code-approved comic, but hardly original, considering the 1947 Republic serial The Black Widow, followed by The Spider Lady and her deadly web in the 1948 Columbia chapter-play Superman. The exotic Carol Forman—with an accent which is a cross between Scarlett O’Hara and a Bette Davis baddie—played both sexy sickies with truly wonderful viciousness, thus setting a never-to-bematched record for venomous villainesses. In Blackhawk #96 (Jan. 1956) the team opened their final Quality year with a nifty tale entitled “Seven Graves for Seven Blackhawks,” in which they defeated the Communist menace Madam Fura, better known to her countrymen as “Chief of Home Living.” Egad! A Martha Stewart Commie! The height of post-Code weirdness in Blackhawk was reached throughout #97 (Feb. 1956), though there was no hint of that on the cover, which featured the heroes freeing slaves from a clearly-marked “Cuidera-Dillin Mine” in Siberia! Talk about your Freudian in-jokes! [See p. 9.] Issue #97, however, turned out to be one of the absolute enigmas of the Comics Code era, for all three “Blackhawk” stories therein feature costumed Communist femme fatales! Comrade Vampira (!), Hitla (!!), and Comrade Communa (!!!) made this issue unique in the post-Code world of the latter 1950s, especially since these three wicked women were nearly the last of a long line of villainesses the Blackhawks kissed off!
Comrade Vampira, who looked like a young Bela Lugosi in purple drag with a bat symbol across her chest, commanded a flying group of jet-pack-powered bad-guys known as “The Horde of the Bat,” as the title indicates. The Blackhawks finally defeated their airborne assault with “jet-jitsu”—one of my all-time favorite comic book puns. The traditional story-ending song the heroes sang as they soared away went like this: “When evil talents fall from grace/The Reds know just what price they face/We let the wicked pay the cost/When all the mighty dreams they lost/We’re Blackhawks!” (When DC took over, there was never anything like this. Oh, how I loved those flight songs!) In the second story in #97, one Comrade Olga tried to pass herself off as Hitler’s daughter—Hitla, of course—and wore a swastika across the chest of her gray military costume as she tried to restore Nazi hegemony. Hendrickson, the (Dutch-cum-German) hero of the piece, told Blackhawk in the final panel: “Ach, ja! By der time dis female gets out of prison, she vill haff to pose as Hitler’s grandmother!” The third epic in our memorable #97, “Revolt of the Slave Workers!,” featured the only appearance of Comrade Communa, dressed all in red with a hammer-and-sickle across her chest. She had no better tack against the Blackhawks, though, than her sisters-in-sin. In #99 (April 1956), the Blackhawks had one final full-fledged costumed female to face—Zera, a Communist with a lightning bolt across her chest—in “The Queen of Blackhawk Island!” Unlike her Commie sisters in #97, she met a strange fate for a Code-approved
32
The Blackhawks’ Transition from Quality to DC
There were no Marxist femme fatales on the cover, which is on view on p. 9—but they were all over the place inside Blackhawk #97 (Feb. 1956)! The vixenish villainesses inside were Vampira (no relation to the popular 1950s TV horror-flick hostess)… Hitler’s alleged daughter Hitla… and Comrade Communa… each complete with a dramatic chest symbol. Note on the Vampira page that Chop Chop (who by now has at least ditched his pigtail, though he still otherwise looks and talks like a stereotype) alludes to Reds “taking the Fifth,” a reference to the heady days of Senator Joe McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee. But, of course, Communists are far from the only people who’ve used the Fifth Amendment as a shield in our lifetimes, aren’t they? Art by Dillin & Cuidera. [Blackhawks TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
villain. Blackhawk purposely fired a mortar to sink her submarine as it prepared to dive, and she died with her male partner. It’s hard to believe that this little saga passed the Comics Code—but somehow it did. The Comics Code may not have been able to save Zera, but it had already apparently eliminated the long-running series of grossly racist “Chop Chop” fillers. These tales were played strictly for laughs, and though Chop Chop was one of the seven Blackhawks, they were hardly Blackhawk-style drama. They seem incredibly dated today, unlike the “Blackhawk” stories, even though Chop Chop was physically portrayed as a stereotype in those tales, as well. The last “Chop Chop” short appeared in Blackhawk #95 (Dec. 1955), meaning that nine of these decidedly politically incorrect stories somehow sneaked past the Comics Code. Quality replaced them with aviation and war stories in 1956. Also in #99, Chop Chop was the hero in “The War That Never Ended,” a variation on the “lost Japanese soldiers who don’t know World War II is over” theme. In this one, North Korean soldiers continued to fight the Korean War against the Blackhawks on an island off the Korean peninsula, three years after a truce had been declared. There was a memorable cover scene and blurb on Blackhawk #103 (Aug. 1956): “In the catacombs of a volcanic island the Blackhawks stumble upon a deposed Nazi leader and his native horde—the Super Race.” Wow... there surely was nothing like that in any other post-Code comic that year! The word “catacombs” was so evocative. Blackhawk, of course, gave the reader the inevitable lecture: “There are no super races!” Also in #103, however, was a story theme that would become far more common in DC’s issues, when the Blackhawks flew into outer space to defeat a menace on Planetoid X-1. It wasn’t the first Quality Having Chop Chop pretend to betray the Blackhawks was clearly in vogue in the 1950s! We saw him do it in issue #97—and here he’s at it again, only two issues later, in #99 (April 1956), this time to the lovely but evil Zera. Art by Dillin & Cuidera. [Blackhawks TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
Better Read Than Dead
The cover and splash for “The Winged Menace!” in the final Quality issue, #107 (Dec. 1956). Art by Dillin & Cuidera. [Blackhawk TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
The cover of Blackhawk #108 (Jan. 1957), the first DC issue—and a page from the Killer Shark encounter inside. Art by Dillin & Cuidera. [©2004 DC Comics.]
33
34
The Blackhawks’ Transition from Quality to DC
(Left:) This story from the second DC issue (#109) became the Blackhawks’ entry in the 1990 hardcover volume The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told, most likely because of the use of the War Wheel and the Flying Tank from classic Quality tales. (Right:) Another story in #109, “Blackhawk the Sorcerer,” was, as Michelle puts it, a “DC-type story already.” [©2004 DC Comics.]
venture into science-fiction, but they were few and far between in those pre-Sputnik days.
was one anti-Communist story, “The Avalanche King,” along with a DC-style time-travel theme for “Blackhawk the Sorcerer.”
The last use of the word “Red” (for Communist, anyway) in a cover feature was the oddly-titled “The Red Kamikaze Terror” in #105 (Oct. 1956). Even more oddly, the word was misspelled “kamakaze” in the story itself.
Issue #110 (March 1957) featured a giant Blackhawk battling a giant named Zorac (spelled Zaroc in the story) in the first 100% DC issue. Strangely, though, in this same issue, there was something of a tribute to the tradition of villainesses—with one story featuring an entire team of them!
The last two Quality Blackhawk covers hearkened back to the many cool machines invented throughout the run—“The Flying Tank Platoon” in #106 (Nov. 1956) and the one-man helicopters in “The Winged Menace” in #107 (Dec. 1956). In their last Quality issue, the Blackhawks fought especially nasty Communists in all three stories, and even the non-series war short was entitled “Red Helicopter Ambush.”
1957: DC Year One The Communists, though, were quickly doomed by DC, even though it took a couple of issues to completely shake them out. In addition to Killer Shark, a familiar Quality villain, the Blackhawks fought a pair of Red menaces in their DC debut issue, #108... probably in inventory tales left over when publisher Busy Arnold sold some of his properties to DC. The second DC issue, #109 (Feb. 1957), also had a Quality aura, including the cover feature “The Raid on Blackhawk Island,” with the War Wheel and Flying Tank from the team’s Victory Museum. There
“The Mystery of Tigress Island” featured an international team of six Tigresses on a revenge mission. They even had a female version of Andre, named Yvette: “Oui, Joan! We do not wear ze insignia of ze jungle tigress because we are weak! Ze Blackhawks will learn zey have met zere match in us!” The twist was that each Tigress had had a husband killed by a villain named Kurt Ostrec. After both the Tigresses and the Blackhawks emerged victorious, Blackhawk gave the distaff team an ironic lecture— especially considering the origins of his team, which had been called an “international lynch mob” by the likes of Fredric Wertham: “You were very foolish... and wrong! You almost lost your lives when Ostrec smelled a rat! People must never take the law into their own hands! The law can only fight evil by setting a just example in its methods!” The cover features of Blackhawk #111-119 distinctly show the transition to the DC style: “Trigger Craig’s Magic Carpet!” “The Eighth Blackhawk!” “The Cellblock in the Sky!” “The Winged Goliath!” “The Human Torpedo!” “The Fantastic Mr. Freeze!” “The Human Clay
Better Read Than Dead
35
The cover and a splash page from Blackhawk #110 (March 1957). “Duel of the Giants!” fit right into the DC late-’50s/early-’60s mold, while “The Mystery of Tigress Island” hearkened back to the colorful villainess tradition—except that they turned out to be heroines of a sort! [©2004 DC Comics.]
Pigeons!” and “The Valley of the Monsters!” Super-criminals and fantastic menaces replaced the Communists, and the world was made safer for democracy. In #111 (April 1957), the DC transition neared completion with “The Perils of Blackie, the Wonder Bird!” This epic was improbable fun—Blackie the hawk moved a light switch up and down with his beak to signal the Blackhawks!—but it wasn’t Quality. Likewise, Blackie seemed to become “The Winged Goliath!” in #114—until the clever hawk found a way to smash the control board of a giant birdlike machine designed to look just like him. I remember thinking that the transition was finally complete with “The Creature of Blackhawk Island!” in #115 (Aug. 1957). The titular creature—a green crawling hand from another dimension—looked just like something out of a horror movie of the period, but surely like nothing that had ever appeared on a Quality Blackhawk cover. Even a separate story featuring a phony Hitler was done in pure DC style. By the end of the Blackhawks’ first year under the DC aegis, the story themes in #119 (Dec. 1957) were time travel in “Blackhawk vs. Chief Black Hawk!”—Andre’s phony defection in “The Playboy Blackhawk!”—and mechanical creatures in “The Valley of the Monsters!” By author Michelle Nolan’s lights, Blackhawk moved firmly into the DC camp with the introduction of the team’s mascot, Blackie—and the appearance of a crawling green hand from another dimension (see p. 29) clinched the transition. Well, he who pays the piper calls the tune—even if it’s the Blackhawk Song! Hawkaaa! [©2004 DC Comics.]
And there wasn’t a Commie to be uncovered anywhere!
Quality Time-- part four
36
“Another Fine Talent Lost” Artist ALEX TOTH on Artist REED CRANDALL
[Art ©2004 Alex Toth.]
[ED. NOTE: Thanks to Jim Amash for providing a copy of this 1992 mini-essay by Alex Toth. —Roy.]
“How do I love thee? Let me count the planes!” Alex says Reed Crandall was “too good to ‘cheat out’ ‘Hawks’ to save work” and gave all the aerial scenes “their full complement of aircraft.” This page from Military Comics #14 (Dec. 1942) is most definitely a case in point. Check it out in color in The Blackhawk Archives, Vol. 1. [©2004 DC Comics.]
Alex Toth on Artist Reed Crandall
37
Forget Pirates of the Caribbean! Feast your eyes, ye lubbers, on Crandall’s cover for Quality’s Buccaneers #27 (May 1951), and his splash (below) for the lead story from EC’s Piracy #2 (Dec. 1954Jan. 1955). Avast, ye hearties! [Buccaneers art ©2004 the respective copyright holders; Piracy art ©2004 William M. Gaines Agent.]
Crandall’s Uncle Sam cover for National Comics #25 (Oct. 1942), repro’d from a photocopy of the original art. Thanks to Jerry K. Boyd—we think. [Uncle Sam TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
ROMITAMAN ORIGINAL COMIC ART IF YOU LOVE COMICBOOKS, THEN YOU “MUST” CHECK OUT ONE OF THE LARGEST INTERNET WEBSITES FOR COMIC BOOK ART AND COMIC STRIP ART EVER PRODUCED! THIS MAY BE YOUR BEST ARTWORK INTERNET SOURCE! CHECK OUT OVER 1000+ “PICTURED” PIECES OF COMICBOOK AND COMIC STRIP ART FOR SALE OR TRADE. ALSO CHECK OUT THE WORLD’S “LARGEST” SPIDER-MAN ORIGINAL ART GALLERY! I BUY/SELL/AND TRADE “ALL” COMICBOOK/ STRIP ARTWORK FROM THE 1930S TO PRESENT. SO LET ME KNOW YOUR WANTS, OR WHAT YOU HAVE FOR SALE OR TRADE!
www.romitaman.com 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
Submission Guidelines Submit artwork in one of these forms (in order of preference): 1) Clear color or black-&-white photocopies. 2) Scanned images—300ppi TIF (preferred) or JPEG (on Zip or floppy disk). 3) Originals (carefully packed and insured). Submit text in one of these forms: 1) E-mail (ASCII text attachments preferred) to: roydann@ntinet.com 2) An ASCII or “plain text” file, supplied on floppy disk. 3) Typed, xeroxed, or laser printed pages.
Advertise In Alter Ego! FULL-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 10" Tall • $300 HALF-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 4.875" Tall • $175 QUARTER-PAGE: 3.75" Wide x 4.875" Tall • $100
The TwoMorrows Two-Fer! Prepay for two ads in Alter Ego, DRAW!, Write Now!, Back Issue, or any combination and these discounts apply: TWO FULL-PAGE ADS: $500 ($100 savings) TWO HALF-PAGE ADS: $300 ($50 savings) TWO QUARTER-PAGE ADS: $175 ($25 savings) The above rates are for black-&-white ads, supplied on-disk (TIF, EPS, or Quark Xpress files acceptable) or as cameraready art. Typesetting service available at 20% mark-up. Due to our already low ad rates, no agency discounts apply. Sorry, display ads are not available for the Jack Kirby Collector. Send ad copy and check/money order (US funds) payable to: TwoMorrows 1812 Park Drive Raleigh, NC 27605 Phone: (919)833-8092 Fax: (919)833-8023 E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com
We also accept VISA and MASTERCARD! Include card number and expiration date.
39
All strips ©2004 by the Harvey Kurtzman Estate. Other material ©2004 the respective copyright holders.
40
Comic Crypt
Introduction!
The Unknown Kurtzman
by Michael T. Gilbert
by Ger Apeldoorn
Few cartoonists have been as influential as Harvey Kurtzman—or as thoroughly researched!
The Hunt Begins! Two years ago, while researching a “Little Annie Fanny” article, I dug out an old set of Harvey Kurtzman stats given to me 15 years earlier by the editor of the Dutch strip-fanzine Striprofiel. I’d been a Kurtzman fan since the age of 14, when I first discovered the paperbacks reprinting the early years of Mad. But getting a collection of Kurtzman material was pretty tough from Holland.
Fans have explored his groundbreaking early-’50s work for such EC titles as TwoFisted Tales, Frontline Combat, Weird Science, and Tales from the Crypt, and volumes have been devoted to Kurtzman’s most enduring creation, Mad. Harvey’s subsequent forays into humor, Trump, Humbug, and Help, have also been exhaustively examined, as has his “Little Annie Fanny” series for Playboy.
I was lucky enough to buy a complete set of Humbugs from another collector early on, and about fifteen years ago I managed to track down a set of Helps. But once I discovered eBay, my Kurtzman-collecting really took off!
To a lesser extent, even Kurtzman’s most minor early work has been documented! Comics scholars have noted that he began his professional career in I found two issues of the U.S. Army 1943, working on “Magno and Davy,” Varsity, Vol. 1, #1 (June 1947). [Cover art ©2004 the magazine Yank my first week—both featuring “Mr. Risk,” “Lash Lightning,” and other respective copyright holders.] Kurtzman cartoons listed but not shown in long-forgotten heroes. Also wellGlen Bray’s Illustrated Harvey Kurtzman documented are his early humor work on Index! I also spotted a TV Guide with Kurtzman’s three-page color features like “Flatfoot Burns” for Quality, “Hey Look!” for Timely, and visit to Perry Como and a 1957 issue of Pageant with a ten-page “Potshot Pete” for Toby Press. Kurtzman/Elder space story. I bought the first two for a couple of bucks In 1976, researcher Glenn Bray collected all this data into a but passed on the third and didn’t get a copy until much, much later. remarkably comprehensive 120-page checklist. Still the definitive word Soon, I’d amassed a near-complete collection of Kurtzman’s elegant on the subject, Bray’s Illustrated Harvey Kurtzman Index lists every magazine work from the ’50s. piece of Kurtzman art known to exist up to that date—even sketches and Then, while shuffling through my set of stats, I saw something I such esoteric items as his rare Silver Linings strip for the New York hadn’t noticed earlier: a pair of two-page spreads not listed in Bray’s Herald-Tribune. Bray also cataloged every known magazine article book. One was a two-page illustration of students on a campus. The featuring or discussing Kurtzman and his work, including rare appearsecond was an article about different types of girls, similar to ances in Esquire and TV Guide. No matter how obscure, every Kurtzman’s Mad work. Both had Varsity written on the back. I immedimagazine was listed. Every magazine except one: ately went on eBay to check out this title. Varsity. The great hunt had begun! Between 1949 until 1951 Kurtzman wrote and drew a series of satirical articles and comic strips for the college magazine Varsity. The following year, he made comic book history with Mad magazine—but it was in Varsity that Kurtzman honed his unique approach to humor. Last issue we reprinted Kurtzman’s Varsity comic strips. This issue we conclude our two-part article on “The Unknown Kurtzman” with Harvey’s equally impressive pin-ups and illustrations for the same magazine. Together they encompass every known cartoon drawn by Kurtzman for Varsity. We’re delighted to share these exceptionally rare items by a man considered by many to be the most important American satirist of the 20th century. We’re even more delighted (and surprised!) to discover how sophisticated and funny these early strips are. Oddly enough, this important part of Kurtzman’s career was lost for almost sixty years— until a determined Kurtzman fan from Holland named Ger Apeldoorn rediscovered it. I’ll let Ger fill you in on Varsity’s history, and how he discovered these lost cartoons. Take it away, Ger… On previous page: the cover of Varsity, Vol. 2, #5 (March-April 1949). [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]
Varsity Varsity, “The Young Man’s Magazine,” first appeared on the stands in June 1947, courtesy of The Parents’ Institute, a Christian-oriented publisher. The same folks also produced comic books like Calling All Girls, Calling All Boys, and True Comics. TrueBut-Dull Comics might be a better description! That first Varsity included no editorial statement, but the title and contents speak for themselves. This tabloid-sized magazine [Continued on p. 44.]
The Unknown Kurtzman
Art on this page and bottom right of the previous one is from “Lou Boudreau—Mastermind or Just Lucky?” in Varsity, Vol. 2, #5 (March-April 1949).
41
42
Comic Crypt
From Varsity, Vol. 5, #28 (Feb.-March 1951).
The Unknown Kurtzman
43
44
Comic Crypt
was intended primarily for young college men, and there’s a great emphasis on sports stories. Baseball legend Bob Feller is prominent on the first cover, along with six smaller pictures with accompanying banners that read: Dating, Pin-Ups, Adventure, Fiction, Cartoons, and Band-Leaders. The pin-ups, by the way, are quite innocent—just photos of girls in bikinis. Playboy it wasn’t!
regular magazine size. But the sports coverage, pin-ups, and campus humor features remained. Then, in the March-April edition of that same year, an important new artist was added to Varsity’s lineup. That issue featured a cover article on baseball star Lou Boudreau drawn by Harvey Kurtzman. The illustration, featuring Boudreau seated on an electric chair, is a good example of Kurtzman at his most irreverent.
Throughout its run, Varsity’s sports articles remained the main attraction, usually featured in some way on the cover. In fact, most of the magazines I found on eBay were in the sports magazine section. Other regular features were a condensed book (usually a detective story by writers such as Rex Stout and James Cain) and a fair amount of cartoons and cartoon features—some taken from the many college humor magazines that inspired Varsity.
The jokes are typical Kurtzman silliness. [See art.] The illustration is signed H. Kurtz—with a little drawing of a man added. It’s probably Kurtzman’s first Mad-like piece, with that distinctive signature that became his trademark. [See p. 46.]
The first year, Varsity was helmed by Elliot Caplin. Caplin (the brother of Al “Li’l Abner” Capp), was a playwright and novelist. But he’s best known for two popular soap-opera comic strips from the 1950s and ’60s, The Heart of Juliet Jones and Big Ben Bolt. He also scripted Kermit the Hermit, an unsold humor strip drawn by Kurtzman in the early ’60s. Caplin disappeared before Kurtzman arrived, but may have been responsible for some of the other comic connections. The first issue includes a story illustrated by comic artist Edd Ashe, and another written by none other than Gardner Fox!
Enter Harvey Kurtzman… Somewhere in 1949 Caplin left as publisher and Varsity shrank to
But that honor could also go to another article later in the same magazine, “The Secret Thoughts of an Undergraduate.” This unsigned half-page illo shows a student’s hidden thoughts revealed through an XRay view of his head. Though clearly illustrated (and possibly written) by Kurtzman, the art is credited to “well-known artist Harvey Harmon.” I have yet to discover the reason for this pseudonym. While the gags aren’t spectacular, the feature’s concept is. Kurtzman’s idea was typical of the later Mad magazine—years before it existed. This historic issue seems to be the one that is most regularly offered on eBay, probably because Lou Boudreau is featured on the cover. As an extra bonus, the issue also includes a whole page of college-themed cartoons by cartoonist Mort Walker—his first appearance in Varsity, years before achieving fame with Beetle Bailey. This very collectable item usually sells for $10 in good condition. The following issue (July-August 1949), there’s a spot illustration that may be Kurtzman. It’s the only item on my Varsity list that is
From Varsity, Vol. 4, #26 (Oct.-Nov. 1950).
The Unknown Kurtzman
45
disputable. The style itself is similar to Kurtzman’s, but it isn’t signed, apart from a strange scribble that looks more like an abbreviation for someone called “dl.” [See p. 46.] There remain a couple of holes in my collection (in 1949 and early 1950), but it appears Kurtzman wasn’t contributing regularly to Varsity until slightly later. The first “regular” appearance of Kurtzman I spotted is in the March-April issue of 1950—and it’s worth the wait!
Girls! Girls! Girls! “Girls... with Whom You Wouldn’t Like to Be Stranded on an Island” is Kurtzman’s third piece for Varsity—and the one most reminiscent of his later Mad magazine work. Kurtzman cleverly explores the title’s premise in a series of six illustrations disguised as an article. Similar pieces followed, including “Look At You!” (a humorous look at the way teachers see their pupils) and “An Exposé of Fraternity Initiations” (kind of a “Lighter Side of Hazing” piece). Though illustrated in his earlier “Hey Look!” style, one can see some of the maturity displayed in Kurtzman’s late-’50s magazine pieces. There is more attention to body language and a great use of wash grays. High points are the flirty girl whose boyfriend fits her with blinders to keep her from looking at other boys (“Girls...”), and the inept cheater unable to read his own notes (“Look At You!”). [NOTE: See last issue.] The last articles I discovered are both two-page spreads, each crammed with jokes illustrating a common theme. “Good Clean Fun” features Kurtzman’s view of fans sitting in the bleachers at a football game. Kurtzman’s spectacular picture shows one fan bouncing over the stands on a pogo stick, while another watches the game on a TV he’s dragged with him. Yet another scene shows a quarterback tackling a sexy cheerleader! Hoo-hah! “Spring Comes to the Campus” is an equally impressive panorama, featuring lovesick college lads in hot pursuit of comely coeds. This spread (signed with Kurtzman’s full name) depicts leering college boys using a fishing pole to snag a towel off a sunbathing beauty and similar campus hijinks. This was probably the final issue of Varsity. In two years of searching eBay, I’ve never seen any issue later than this. By then, Kurtzman was working full-time at EC. Even if Varsity had continued, it’s likely his work for Mad and the other EC titles would have made it impossible for him to continue. In fact, Kurtzman wouldn’t return to this form of satire for nearly five years, when he changed Mad from a comic book to a magazine.
Kurtzman’s Kollege Konnection! Years back, as a young fan, I wrote Kurtzman a letter asking him what drove him to choose satire as a form of expression. After all, ideas that big aren’t created in a vacuum. I specifically asked if the satires in Sid Caesar’s Your Show Of Shows were any influence. He replied by scribbling short answers in the margins of my own letter, as he always did with fans. According to him, Sid Caesar was not his main influence. Rather, it was the college humor magazines of the period that had showed him how satirical humor could be done in magazine form! That struck me as odd, as I’d never seen a college humor magazine that was in any way like the later Mad. Most seem more related to the gag-humor magazines of the period than anything else. But with the discovery of these seven Varsity pieces, we seem to have found what can only be called… The Missing Link! Indeed, it’s not an
The first issue of Varsity, in 1947, contained a story by prominent DC and Magazine Enterprises comics writer Gardner Fox, co-creator of The Flash, Hawkman, et al.—though it was not accompanied by Kurtzman art. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]
overstatement to suggest that these Varsity cartoons helped Kurtzman to develop his unique approach to humor and paved the way for his success with Mad a few years later. Of course, the Varsity cartoons are hardly the last word on the subject. Despite the tireless efforts of Glenn Bray, Denis Kitchen, and other dedicated researchers, many other “lost” Kurtzman pages are still out there, waiting to be discovered. Not everything is known about Kurtzman’s Silver Linings strip done for the Herald-Tribute Syndicate in the late 1940s, for instance, or his six children’s puzzle books. But that’s another subject for another time. In the meantime, feel free to scour eBay and see what other Kurtzman treasures you can uncover!
Final Thoughts Some final thoughts as we end this exploration of the unknown Kurtzman. It occurs to me that some may find my attempts to find and catalog every scrap of Kurtzman’s work a little… weird! But in my defense, it must be said that, despite his relatively small body of work (and an even smaller percentage that he drew himself!), Kurtzman almost never lets you down. Anytime something new is found, I marvel again at Kurtzman’s wit, humor, and superb drawing style. So let’s hope still more “lost” Kurtzman art turns up in the future. Perhaps someone like Denis Kitchen can collect them all in a deluxe art book similar to recent volumes devoted to Kurtzman’s fellow Mad-men Wally Wood, Bernie Krigstein, and Will Elder. After all, Denis already produced several excellent Kurtzman books, including reprints of The Jungle Book, Goodman Beaver, and The Grasshopper and the Ant.
46
Comic Crypt
Postscript by MTG: Ger (with the help of many eBay sellers) has compiled the following list of all known Varsity issues. As part of this ongoing project, he’s looking for confirmation of any issues after the April 1949 that are listed as “Unknown” (meaning the issues in question haven’t been found to date) or that are listed as having “No Kurtzman.” He’s especially interested in finding information on #18 and #22. Also, if anyone discovers an earlier Kurtzman appearance in Varsity than the April 1949 issue, please let us know so we can make a complete checklist. Information can be sent directly to Ger Apeldoorn at: geapeld@euronet.nl. In the future we hope to uncover and reprint even more “Unknown Kurtzman” gems—so if you’ve got ’em, send copies, Bwah!
Is this art signed “dl” or whatever truly by Kurtzman? You tell us! [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]
Perhaps such a book can even include Kurtzman’s unfinished 64-page adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” drawn in the early ’60s. You know—the one he had to abandon after beautifully drawing the first ten full-color pages himself? Oh, didn’t I mention that one...? Always leave ’em wanting more, I say!
Before we go, we’d like to thank the late Harvey Kurtzman’s wife Adele, and Harvey’s friend and agent Denis Kitchen, for allowing us to reprint these rare items. All strips reprinted here are ©2004 by the Harvey Kurtzman Estate. For more Kurtzman goodies, make sure you check Denis’ website at: www.deniskitchen.com.
[Ger Apeldoorn, a 45 year-old mild-mannered TV comedy-writer by day, rescues incredibly rare comic art from obscurity by night. You can often find him scouring eBay from his secret base in beautiful Holland!]
This art spot and signature from Varsity, Vol. 2, #5 (March-April 1949) may tie the one on p. 41 for the first use ever by Kurtzman of the distinctive signature he used in early issues of Mad.
VARSITY CHECKLIST 1947 Vol. 1 #1 (June 1947): No Kurtzman Vol. 1 #2 (August 1947): Unknown Vol. 1 #3 (September 1947): Unknown Vol. 1 #4 (October 1947): Unknown Vol. 1 #5 (November 1947): No Kurtzman Vol. 1 #6 (December 1947): Unknown 1948 Vol. 1 #7 (January 1948): Unknown
Vol. 2 #18 (May/June 1949): Unknown Vol. 2 #19 (July/August 1949): Unsigned illustration. Kurtzman? Vol. 2 #20 (September/October 1949): No Kurtzman Vol. 2 #21 (November/December 1949): 2-pp article “Follow That Girl” (attributed to “Harvey Harman”) 1950 Vol. 2 # 22 (January/February 1950): No Kurtzman Vol. 2 # 23 (March/April 1950): 2 pages “Girls with Whom You Would Not Like to Be Stranded on a Desert Island”
Vol. 1 #8 (February 1948): No Kurtzman Vol. 1 #9 (March 1948): Unknown
Vol. 2 #24 (May/June 1950):2 pages
Vol. 1 #10 (April 1948): No Kurtzman
“Look at You!”
Vol. 1 #11 (May 1948): Unknown
Vol. 4 #25 (August/September 1950): No Kurtzman
Vol. 1 #12 (June 1948): No Kurtzman
Vol. 4 # 26 (October/November 1950): 2 pages
Vol. 2 #1 (July/August 1948): No Kurtzman
“Good Clean Fun”
Vol. 2 #2 (September/ October 1948): Unknown
1951
1949
Vol. 5 #27 (December/January 1950/51): 2 pages
Vol. 2 #4 (January/February 1949): Unknown Vol. 2 #5 (March/April 1949): Full page illustration for Lou Boudreau article and half page “The Secret Thoughts of an Undergraduate” article (credited to “Harvey Harmon”)
“Scenes from a Fraternity Initiation” Vol. 5 #28 (February/March 1951): 2 pages “Spring Comes to the Campus”
1
PLUS: PLUS:
5.95
$$
QUALITY TIME!
Amazing Art & Artifacts By:
Plastic Man, Woozy Winks TM & ©2004 DC Comics.
KOTZKY (Father & Son) GRENET • COLE • FINE • EISNER GUSTAVSON • CRANDALL NICHOLAS • CUIDERA • AMASH KANE • SCHELLY • SWAYZE & MANY, MANY MORE!!
In the the USA USA In
No. 34 March 2004
1994--2004
THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!
TM
Edited by MICHAEL EURY, BACK ISSUE magazine celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through recurring (and rotating) departments like “Pro2Pro” (dialogue between professionals), “BackStage Pass” (behind-the-scenes of comicsbased media), “Greatest Stories Never Told” (spotlighting unrealized comics series or stories), and more!
Go to www.twomorrows.com for other issues, and an ULTIMATE BUNDLE, with all the issues at HALF-PRICE!
BACK ISSUE #41
BACK ISSUE #42
DIEDGITIIOTANSL E
BL AVAILA
BACK ISSUE #38
BACK ISSUE #39
BACK ISSUE #40
“Family!” JOHN BYRNE’s Fantastic Four, SIMONSON, BRIGMAN, and BOGDANOVE on Power Pack, LEVITZ and STATON on the Huntress, Henry Pym’s “son” Ultron, Wonder Twins, Commissioner Gordon & Batgirl’s relationship, and Return of the New Gods. With art and commentary from BUCKLER, BUSIEK, FRADON, HECK, INFANTINO, NEWTON, and WOLFMAN, and a Norman Rockwell-inspired BYRNE cover!
“April Fools”! GIFFEN and LOREN FLEMING on Ambush Bug, BYRNE’s She-Hulk, interviews with HEMBECK, ALAN KUPPERBERG, Flaming Carrot’s BOB BURDEN, and DAVID CHELSEA, Spider-Ham, Forbush-Man, Reid Fleming, MAD in the 1970s, art and commentary from DICK DeBARTOLO, TOM DeFALCO, AL FELDSTEIN, AL JAFFEE, STAN LEE, DAVE SIM, and a Spider-Ham cover by MIKE WIERINGO, inked by KARL KESEL!
(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Cat People!” Catwoman, Black Cat, Hellcat, Vixen, Atlas’ Tiger-Man and Cougar, White Tiger and the Sons of the Tiger, Wildcat, Thundercats, Josie and the Pussycats, and the Badger! With art and commentary from BOLLAND, BRENNERT, COLON, CONWAY, DITKO, GOLDBERG, LEVITZ, MILGROM, MST3000’s MIKE NELSON, and more. Cover by JOE STATON and FREDDY LOPEZ, JR.!
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital edition) $2.95
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital edition) $2.95
BACK ISSUE #43
BACK ISSUE #44
BACK ISSUE #45
(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Red, White, and Blue” issue! Captain America and the Red Skull, CHAYKIN’s American Flagg, THOMAS and COLAN’s Wonder Woman, Freedom Fighters, and Team America! With art and commentary from JOHN BYRNE, STEVE ENGLEHART, ROGER STERN, CURT SWAN, MARK WAID, LEN WEIN, MIKE ZECK, and more. Cover by HOWARD CHAYKIN!
(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Wild West” issue! Jonah Hex examined with FLEISHER, DeZUNIGA, DOMINGUEZ, GARCIA-LOPEZ, GIFFEN, HANNIGAN, plus TRUMAN’s Scout, TRIMPE’s Rawhide Kid, AYERS’ Ghost Rider, DC’s Weird Westerns, the Vigilante’s 1970s revival, and more! Art and commentary by ADAMS, APARO, DIXON, EVANS, KUNKEL, MORROW, NICIEZA, and more. Cover by DeZUNIGA!
(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Jungle and barbarian” issue! Shanna the She-Devil feature and gallery, JONES and ANDERSON on Ka-Zar, LARRY HAMA interview, Beowulf, Claw the Unconquered, Korg 70,000 B.C., Red Sonja, Rima the Jungle Girl, art and commentary by AZZARELLO, BOYETTE, CHAN, GULACY, KUBERT, MICHELINIE, REDONDO, ROY THOMAS, WINDSOR-SMITH, cover by FRANK CHO!
(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Spider-Man in the Bronze Age!” Drug issues, resurrection of Green Goblin and Gwen Stacy, Marvel Team-Up, Spectacular Spider-Man, Spidey Super Stories, CBS and Japanese TV shows, Clone Saga, CONWAY, ANDRU, BAGLEY, SAL BUSCEMA, DeFALCO, FINGEROTH, GIL KANE, STAN LEE, LEIBER, MOONEY, ROMITA SR., SALICRUP, SAVIUK, STERN, cover by BOB LARKIN!
(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Odd Couples!” O’NEIL and ADAMS’ Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Englehart’s Justice League of America, Daredevil and Black Widow, Power Man and Iron Fist, Vision and Scarlet Witch, Cloak and Dagger, and… Aquaman and Deadman (?!). With AUSTIN, COLAN, CONWAY, COWAN, DILLIN, HOWELL, LEONARDI, SKEATES, and more. New cover by NEAL ADAMS!
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital edition) $2.95
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital edition) $2.95
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital edition) $2.95
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital edition) $2.95
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital edition) $2.95
BACK ISSUE #46
BACK ISSUE #47
BACK ISSUE #48
BACK ISSUE #49
BACK ISSUE #50
(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Greatest Stories Never Told!” How Savage Empire became The Warlord, the aborted FF graphic novel “Fathers and Sons,” BYRNE’s Last Galactus Story, Star*Reach’s Batman, Aquaman II, 1984 Black Canary miniseries, Captain America: The Musical, Miracleman: Triumphant, unpublished issues of The Cat and Warlock, BLEVINS, DEODATO, FRADON, SEKOWSKY, WEISS, MIKE GRELL cover!
(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Thrilling Days of Yesteryear!” The final DAVE STEVENS interview, Rocketeer film discussion with DANNY BILSON and PAUL DeMEO, The Phantom, Indiana Jones, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ heroes, Dominic Fortune, Sherlock Holmes, Man-God, Miracle Squad, 3-D Man, Justice, Inc., APARO, CHAYKIN, CLAREMONT, MILLER, VERHEIDEN, and more, Rocketeer cover by DAVE STEVENS!
(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Dead Heroes”! JIM (“Death of Captain Marvel”) STARLIN interview, Deadman after Neal Adams, Jason Todd Robin, the death and resurrection of the Flash, Elektra, the many deaths of Aunt May, art by and/or commentary from APARO, BATES, CONWAY, GARCIA-LOPEZ, GEOFF JOHNS, MILLER, WOLFMAN, and a cosmically cool cover by JIM STARLIN!
(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “1970s Time Capsule”! Examines relevance in comics, Planet of the Apes, DC Salutes the Bicentennial, Richard Dragon–Kung-Fu Fighter, FOOM, Amazing World of DC, Fast Willie Jackson, Marvel Comics calendars, art and commentary from ADAMS, BRUNNER, GIORDANO, LARKIN, LEVITZ, MAGGIN, MOENCH, O’NEIL, PLOOG, STERANKO, cover by BUCKLER and BEATTY!
Special 50th Anniversary FULL-COLOR issue ($8.95 price) on “Batman in the Bronze Age!” O’NEIL, ADAMS, and LEVITZ roundtable, praise for “unsung” Batman creators JIM APARO, DAVID V. REED, BOB BROWN, ERNIE CHAN, and JOHN CALNAN, Joker’s Daughter, Batman Family, Nocturna, Dark Knight, art and commentary from BYRNE, COLAN, CONWAY, MOENCH, MILLER, NEWTON, WEIN, and more. APARO cover!
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital edition) $2.95
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital edition) $2.95
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital edition) $2.95
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital edition) $2.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital edition) $2.95
Vol. 3, No. 34 / March 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
QUALITY TIME (Side Two)
Production Assistant
Contents
Eric Nolen-Weathington
Cover Artists Charles Nicholas (?) Reed Crandall
Cover Colorist Tom Ziuko
And Special Thanks to: Ger Apeldoorn Dick Arnold Bob Bailey Mike W. Barr Michael Baulderstone Jack Bender Bill Black Jerry K. Boyd Lee Boyett Sam Burlockoff Gary Carlson Ray A. Cuthbert Teresa R. Davidson Al Dellinges Roger Dicken & Wendy Hunt Jay Disbrow Shel Dorf Chris Ecker Will Eisner Michael Feldman Elliot Fine Gill Fox Bill Fugate Ron Frantz
Carl Gafford Janet Gilbert Al & Belle Grenet George Hagenauer Jennifer Hamerlinck Peter Hansen Ron Harris Mark & Stephanie Heike Tom Horvitz Dave Hunt Brian Kotzky Adele Kurtzman Mark Lewis Scotty Moore Michelle Nolan Larry Ripee Ethan Roberts Marc Swayze Greg Theakston Dann Thomas Mort Todd Alex Toth Jim Vadeboncoeur Hames Ware John Yon
Writer/Editorial: Clenched Fists, Clenched Teeth. . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Anything Happened, I Was Working on a Comic!” . . . 3 “When A 1992 interview with Quality (and Apartment 3-G) artist Alex Kotzky, by Jim Amash. “ITheDidn’t Want to Do Apartment 3-G !”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 son also rises! Brian Kotzky on his father’s career—and his own. The Last Quality Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Al Grenet, Busy Arnold’s final head honcho, talks about his two decades in the field— and the fabulous talents he encountered.
The Alley Tally Party . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Bill Schelly reminds us it’s the 40th anniversary of one of fandom’s first conclaves! Where does the time go?
FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America ) #93 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 P.C. Hamerlinck points a finger at Marc Swayze and Big Bang Comics. Well, maybe that’d take two fingers.
Quality Time (Side One) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover & Above: Our cover art was first seen as the lead splash in Plastic Man #47 (July 1954)… and seemed an appropriate lead-in to this side’s interview with Quality’s final editor, Al Grenet. The artist(s) can’t be pinned down with certainty, but researcher Hames Ware is putting his money on Charles Nicholas (née Charles Wojtokowski), the same guy who, Charles Nicholas Cuidera insists on p. 17 of our flip side, did not create Blue Beetle. See the black-&-white splash-page version of our cover on p. 30 of the Grenet piece. Still, ain’t it weird how A/E has sported two Plas covers—Alex Toth on #25, plus this one—but none yet with the primary art by creator Jack Cole? The reason: we can’t be sure that any of the art of which we have b&w copies, not even the one with Needles Noggle above from Police Comics #99 (April 1950), is actually by Cole! It may be by Cole—or Alex Kotzky—or John Spranger— or Klaus Nordling—or maybe even somebody else—and that doesn’t even count possible inkers! Thanks to Roger Dicken & Wendy Hunt and Michael Feldman for the photocopies. [Plastic Man 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.
Title writer/editorial
2
Clenched Fists, Clenched Teeth Welcome to the flip side of our most heavily Quality Comicsoriented issue ever! By now, unless you’re the kind of rebel without a cause who reads material out of the suggested sequence out of sheer perversity, you’ve already seen what Busy Arnold’s son Dick and “Blackhawk” artist/originator Chuck Cuidera had to say about that company, its personnel, and related matters. On this side of the issue, we open with Jim Amash’s 1992 interview with artist Alex Kotzky, who toiled at Quality (and sometimes for Will Eisner’s related shop, which produced The Spirit weekly comics supplement) from 1942 through 1954, only a couple of years before Arnold left the field. Of course, that’s hardly the end of Kotzky’s tale, since he went on to become the original artist of the comic strip Apartment 3-G, which he drew until his death in 1996. Recently, however, Jim got in touch with Alex’s son Brian, who assisted his father on 3-G for years and drew the strip himself for three years after his father’s death. Jim’s original purpose was to get additional insights from Brian on his dad, but what Brian had to say, even if not directly about Quality Comics, was interesting enough that we decided to run the two interviews together.
artist or writer or editor is speaking for longer without interruption than happened in real life (This Our mascot, Alter Ego. [Art ©2004 Ron Harris; is usually, but not always, Alter Ego is TM of Roy &^ Dann Thomas.] done for length.) Of necessity, we excise certain statements by interviewees that are potentially libelous, occasional foul language (matter of taste), and the like. And yet, if we edit out too many of an interviewee’s opinions, outrageous and unsupportable though some of them may be by any rational measure, we inevitably alter our presentation of that person. So we naturally prefer, as much as possible, to let you read the creator’s words and make up your own mind about him or her—merely tossing in clearly-marked editorial comments from time to time when we believe they’re warranted or necessary. In the case of the Cuidera interview this time around, we felt obliged to insert several, because Chuck, sadly, passed away not long after this issue’s interview was conducted, so Jim Amash was unable to check back with him and seek clarification on certain key points. Even so, we’ve tried to avoid taking sides in any disputes to the extent we can. Frankly, we think that Al Grenet and Chuck Cuidera and Dick Arnold and the Kotzkys in this issue, Gill Fox back in A/E #12, and Will Eisner in an upcoming A/E interview, speak eloquently enough to defend themselves, without our having to say overmuch in their behalf.
Then there’s Al Grenet, who entered the comics field in 1946 as a letterer and colorist, and wound up as Quality’s editor from 1951 through the end in 1956 (or 1957, if you go by final cover dates). Grenet and the Kotzkys naturally had quite different perspectives, so it’s instructive to see where they (and the gents on our flip side) agree… and disagree. We think this dialogue by Roy’s childhood favorite Doll
Maybe I should just be glad that, for all the info also included in this section’s pieces written by Bill Schelly and those edited by P.C. Hamerlinck, there’s nothing overtly controversial about them. That doesn’t make them any less interesting or important.
Unavoidably, there are liable to be Man says it all. Let us know what you think about this clenched teeth at some point in the editorial, about the interviews and articles in this issue, and whatever else crosses your mind. Thanks to Jerry Bails proceedings. One or two interviewees for this art, though its precise artist and 1940s comic book downplay Al Grenet’s skills, for instance… After all: for all the comments made in (Feature Comics? Doll Man?) are uncertain. Jerry thinks and Al even inadvertently suggests some interviews and articles in Alter Ego about Bill Ward may have drawn it. Any other suggestions out reasons why that’s all but inevitable… while the myriad things wrong with the comic there? [Doll Man TM & ©2004 DC Comics.] Chuck Cuidera’s well-publicized one-way book industry from the 1930s right up feud with Will Eisner over the creation of through the present (Will Gil Kane and I receive screen credit as creators Blackhawk seems to have continued unabated right up to Chuck’s death of “Iron Fist” in the projected film, for instance—and what possible in 2001, even though, when they shared a panel at a San Diego Comicethical or moral justification could there be for our not receiving it, as I Con, the promised fireworks most definitely failed to materialize. Matter have formally requested?), we are first and foremost boosters of the comic of fact, Chuck Cuidera—for all that most folks in this issue seem to have book and comic art medium, warts and all. genuinely liked him, and there must have been ample reason for that— As we’ve said before, Alter Ego was conceived by Jerry G. Bails in was full of enough contrary opinions to sink the Good Ship Lollipop 1961 to celebrate the comics medium, not to dwell on criticism of it… with all hands. and that’s basically the way we intend to keep it. That’s one of the problems with putting together a mag like Alter Ego. Yes, we edit the interviews—I at this end, and often the interviewers before I ever see them—for clarity and interest, often taking out redundancies, or omitting an interviewer’s brief question or two so that the
But we’ll do so with our eyes open. Yours, too, we imagine. Bestest,
Quality Time-- part five
3
“When Anything Happened, I Was Working On A Comic!” Golden Age Artist ALEX KOTZKY Talks about Quality, Apartment 3-G, and All the “Characters” in the Comics World
Conducted & Transcribed by Jim Amash [INTRODUCTION: Alex Kotzky (19231996) was a hard-working artist, devoted to his craft, a fact which once prompted his wife to say to fellow artist Gill Fox: “He hasn’t left the attic for 35 years.” His major claim to fame was one of the better soap-opera comic strips, Apartment 3-G, which he drew from its debut until his death. I originally interviewed Kotzky because I wanted to learn more about Lou Fine and Jack Cole, as well as about his own work. On June 27, 1992, Kotzky, busy as could be, gave me two hours of his time which he didn’t really have... mainly because he felt that Lou Fine, in particular, hadn’t been remembered as fully as he deserved. Alex really didn’t want to talk about himself much, but I managed to get him to, in spite of himself. And his own career is definitely worth all the coverage we can give it! This interview was previously printed in the limited-circulation apa-zize CFA-APA (#29, Jan. 1993). It has been re-edited for Alter Ego by —Jim.]
“I Answered an Ad in the New York Times” JIM AMASH: Newspaper strips were your first exposure to comics? ALEX KOTZKY: Yes. I was still in public school when the first comic books came on the stands. I thought it was like something from heaven. I was always interested in comics like Flash Gordon and Milton Caniff. I didn’t necessarily want to be a comic book artist. But I had to make a living when I got out of high school. I was 16, but I had a couple of art scholarships and I couldn’t even afford to take them. JA: So if you could have gotten a job doing illustration, you would have never gotten into comics? KOTZKY: Well, I never really penciled before I did comics. I went to Music and Art High School. I think I did my best work when I painted, so comics were something I had to learn immediately. My son is an illustrator and he’s doing fairly well. He does paperback covers and is represented by an agent. He’s doing the type of thing I would have enjoyed doing. He worked very hard to get where he is. JA: So you gave up painting?
(Center:) Alex Kotzky’s “Manhunter” in a panel from Police Comics #10 (June 1942)—flanked by photos of the artist. (Top left:) This 1960s Polaroid snapshot, says his son Brian, is “one of thousands of reference photos taken for Apartment 3-G.” (Right:) Alex holding his granddaughter Kim in 1992—the year Jim Amash interviewed him. Photos courtesy of Brian Kotzky. Kotzky and writer Tex Blaisdell created Quality’s “Manhunter”; this art has been retouched, and grey tones added, for AC Comics’ new 150-page volume Golden-Age Greats Spotlight, Vol. 2. See ad on p. 8. [Retouched art ©2004 AC Comics; Manhunter TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
KOTZKY: Yes. Immediately. I never went back to painting. JA: How did you start in comics? KOTZKY: I got out of high school in 1940 and couldn’t find a job. I answered an ad in the New York Times to do penciling for a comic artist. It was Chad Grothkopf at DC Comics, and I began penciling for him. It
4
Alex Kotzky Fine. I was too young to be drafted.
just evolved from there. “Cliff Crosby” was the first comic [book] strip I worked on. We also did “The Destroyer” for Martin Goodman at Timely. I was with Chad a year or so before I began working for Will Eisner. He was the standard type of guy you run into in comics. I was only 16 at the time. It was much like a junior-to-senior relationship.
JA: When Eisner got drafted, you and Fine took over the bulk of the drawing for The Spirit? KOTZKY: Yes. I was still doing backgrounds. A couple of months later, I started inking figures. I began doing my own comic stories in the evening, on my own time. Then I started doing covers for different Quality comics. I did five covers a week, one a day. They wanted someone to do covers so they’d have a backlog. I was drafted in 1943.
JA: Where were you when Pearl Harbor happened? KOTZKY: I was working on a comic. Most of my life has been spent working on comics. When anything happened, I was working on a comic!
“[Eisner] Was a Dynamo” JA: How did you get your job with Will Eisner? KOTZKY: In 1941 a friend of mine, Al Jaffee, who later worked for Mad, offered to take my stuff up to Eisner. He wanted to try and sell him some of his artwork, too. Eisner said, “Okay, he’s hired.” And at the same time Al got a job for himself. I started out doing backgrounds on The Spirit. There were six or seven people working for Eisner. We worked in twos or threes. Right above the East River on 42nd Street. I remember coming out one evening when we quit work and there was a big light in the sky towards the Hudson River. And that’s where the Normandie was burning. [NOTE: The Normandie, a French ocean liner, was being refitted for conversion into a U.S. aircraft carrier when it caught fire in New York Harbor in February 1942. —Jim.]
JA: What was Eisner like to work for? KOTZKY: He was a dynamo. He didn’t have much time to fool around; he had to get the work done. In order to do that, he couldn’t baby you in any way. If you couldn’t do the work, you were out. JA: Did you like the supporting characters in The Spirit? KOTZKY: Yes. All of them. Considering the humorous approach to the characters, the strip would work well on television today. You could do it the way Batman was done in the 1960s—with humor.
Tex Blaisdell was also working on the backgrounds for The Spirit. He had three or four guys working there on the Spirit supplement. Bob Powell did “Mr. Mystic” and Nick Viscardi [later Cardy] did “Lady Luck.” Chuck Cuidera was working on “Blackhawk.” He worked in the studio, too. Eisner did the penciling and the inking... all the figure work. He was a whiz at production. He worked fast and he was excellent. And he wrote his own stories. Tex Blaisdell was drafted in early 1942, and so was Eisner. That’s when I went up to Stamford, Connecticut, with Lou
Eisner still sent in scripts for The Spirit while he was in the service, and did breakdowns for us. Not always... just when he had the time. He was a warrant officer in Ordinance in Maryland. He did those Joe Dope posters. They were very popular. Later he did P.S. magazine [for the military]. In fact, I did some illustrations for P.S. I worked for Eisner’s company on commercial comics from 1949 to about ’52 or ’53.
In regards to Eisner’s current work, I’m surprised that his work now is very moody, introspective, and not at all the light type of writing he had done with The Spirit. I imagine that his early environment has taken over and is coming out on the page now, whereas before he repressed it. We both came from the same area. I lived up in the Bronx and he lived up a little higher, northern Bronx, but I didn’t know him then. l understand the background he came from. The work I’ve seen him do lately reminds me of Arthur Miller... if Arthur Miller was doing comic book pages. JA: Eisner has said that he’s had trouble relating to the concept of the super-hero. KOTZKY: I can understand that. Being a very intelligent guy, his mind just went beyond that. He wouldn’t allow himself to stay in that vein. Even when he was doing The Spirit, he was avant-garde. There wasn’t anything like it.
(Left:) Alex Kotzky in uniform during World War II. (Below:) Until he was drafted in 1943, Kotzky helped Lou Fine and others keep The Spirit going. While it’s difficult if not impossible to be certain, this daily Spirit strip from Jan. 10, 1943, might be one on which Kotzky did backgrounds, or even inked figures. [©2004 Will Eisner.]
“When Anything Happened, I Was Working On A Comic!”
5
“What a Good Artist/Illustrator Lou Fine Was” JA: What was Lou Fine like? I’ve never heard a bad word about him. KOTZKY: Well, there wasn’t. Consider that Lou Fine was a big name in the business at that time. He never once treated me as if I was in a subordinate position. I was always an associate with him, and he was extremely nice. Although I ruined the penciling that he did many times, he never complained. He offered some suggestions, but it was never in the form of criticism. You run into guys with temperament in this business, but Lou didn’t have any temperament at all. He didn’t have any ego. He was just Lou Fine and he was working there the same as the rest of us. He was very quiet. Lou and his wife Mary led a quiet life and they enjoyed each other very much. JA: Did you socialize with him very often? KOTZKY: We had a group up there: Lou Fine, Gill Fox, Jack Cole, and Zully Szenics (he lettered). We used to go out bowling in the evenings—friendly games, no competition. Lou was the opposite of Jack Cole. Cole was a completely extroverted type of guy. Always had a gag. Lou was certainly intelligent. He probably would have done well in anything he attempted. You know he had a
(Above left:) Lou Fine’s son Elliot sent us this photo of Lou sitting in his studio, and we printed it in our Fine issue, A/E #17—but none of us knew the identity of the guy pretending to hit Fine with a hammer. We now know: ‘tis none other than Alex Kotzky, clowning around! (Above:) “Black Condor” splash page from Hit Comics #6 (Nov. 1940), drawn by Fine under his “Kenneth Lewis” pseudonym. This story, with restored art, was reprinted in Greg Theakston’s Lou Fine Comics Treasury. [Retouched art ©2004 Pure Imagination; Black Condor TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
game leg. He had polio when he was younger and he limped. I think, to some extent, that made him a little more introverted. Lou Fine was really a painter and an illustrator. He really didn’t belong in comics. He was wasting his time. In his later years, before he died, I think he spent almost all his time doing paintings. Gill Fox and I went out to his house when he died to see his wife, and he had all his paintings on the wall. With a little more effort and training, he could have been a successful illustrator. I know he liked the work of Saul Tepper very much, an illustrator from the 1930s who was an excellent artist and painter. JA: Why do you think Fine abandoned that beautiful sweeping brush line, so organic and decorative, and switched styles when he went to work for the advertising agencies? KOTZKY: It was less work and a better-quality work. At that time, comic books didn’t have the reputation that they have now. They’ve made new inroads in fine art. I guess it was the later influence of the (Left:) A spectacularly spooky “Ray” page by Fine from Quality’s Crack Comics #20 (March 1941), repro’d from Alan Light’s 1970s Special Edition Series #2. [The Ray TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
6
Alex Kotzky
Two Kotzky “Manhunter” pages from Police Comics. (Left:) We ran this one in issue #12, with the Gill Fox interview; but, since then, we’ve learned the issue number and date—it’s from #13 (Nov. 1942)—so we’re running it again, repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, courtesy of Jerry Bails and Hames Ware’s 1970s Who’s Who of American Comic Books. If you don’t like it, you can sick Thor on us! (Right:) This Kotzky-drawn story of Manhunter vs. big-city voodoo from #10 (June 1942) was reprinted, with retouched art and grey tones, in AC Comics’ Golden-Age Greats Spotlight, Vol. 2. [Manhunter TM & ©2004 DC Comics; retouched “Voodoo” art ©2004 AC Comics..]
European comics that did it. Doing commercial work and advertising was more lucrative and you did less work. You’re able to spend more time on the work. Lou did some illustrations for the Sunday newspapers in the magazine section, and you could see the love and care that was put into that work. I still want to stress what a good artist/illustrator Lou Fine was. I’m sure that if he had persisted in the illustration field, he would have done extremely well. In regards to his painting, he just needed the work under his belt to smooth out the rough spots. That’s the process he was going through when I saw the paintings that he had done just before he died. All he needed was a little more direction and a few jobs. Only in regards to color painting. He did some wash illustrations for the Sunday Journal-American magazine, and they were very good. JA: You think that Lou Fine felt he didn’t belong in comic books? KOTZKY: I think that, in later years, yes. It was tragic to me because I talked to him a short while before he died, and I could hear in his voice that something was missing as far as his excitement for the work. JA: John Belfi told me that Fine was very a fast artist. KOTZKY: He was fast, but he never jammed the stuff out. The quality was always there. There weren’t any shortcuts. The penciling was excellent at all times. Lou worked in the office. He worked five days from nine to five and he did eight pages of The Spirit in that time.
Sometimes he used the Japanese brushes. I used them but I eventually moved over to a Winsor-Newton #3. JA: Did Fine draw thumbnail sketches first, or did he have the page laid out on his head already? KOTZKY: He just sketched directly on the page. He knew exactly what he was doing. His penciling was always very refined. It was never rough or inaccurate. He could visualize the work in his head first. He was like John Spranger or Reed Crandall. When the pencil hit the page, it just moved by itself. Lou never wrote stories. I don’t think his interests were in that area. He was strictly an illustrator. JA: When Fine was working over Eisner’s layouts, would he change anything? KOTZKY: No. He wasn’t the type who would disdain what was done previously with the thought that he knew better. Of course, Will Eisner was so good that it didn’t need improving. That doesn’t take anything away from Lou. He approached his work as would a craftsman. He was in a class all by himself. At the time, comics were still in their infancy. There were a few outstanding ones like Jack Kirby, Fine, and Crandall. The others were also-rans. By the way, Lou Fine had great appreciation for Kirby’s work. They met each other at Eisner & Iger’s.
“When Anything Happened, I Was Working On A Comic!”
“Jack Cole Was Very Fast. He Had to Be...” JA: How fast an artist were you? KOTZKY: I was never fast. Never. I’m still not. I’m a plodding type of worker. I fuss over details and things like that. That’s why I had to get out of comics. You earn your money there by being fast, and I was never on that level. Jack Cole was very fast. He had to be, because he did a lot of work. JA: Did he write the story as he drew, or was it all written out beforehand? KOTZKY: I don’t know, but I would guess he had a very rough outline in mind and just picked up as he went along; whatever came to him, he put on the page. JA: There’s so much spontaneity in his work. I figure he couldn’t have had a complete script. KOTZKY: Not according to the type of person he was. He was a talker. He was a typical salesman, if you can imagine that type of guy. You know who Willard Scott is? Physically, Jack could have been his twin brother. And he was the type of jokester that Willard Scott is. But Jack didn’t spend much time in the offices. He worked at home and brought the stuff in. He called me up in 1947 and said he had a “go-ahead” from Magazine Village, who was in the same building where Biro and Wood did their comics. They told him to put out several books, and he wanted me to work with him on the books. It was a 50/50 deal. We did our own features. Jack did his and I did mine. And we wrote our own stories. After doing one or two issues, it didn’t work out. The sales apparently weren’t too good, so the association was suspended. We worked through the night on Thanksgiving Eve in 1947 in New York to get the work out. [NOTE: These were the infamous True Crime comics that included the “injury to the eye” panel that Dr. Fredric Wertham made infamous in his 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent. —Jim.]
7
JA: What was Cole’s approach to drawing a page in regards to panel composition? KOTZKY: He worked very roughly. He did a lot of the drawing with the brush. The sketches were just there with all the essential action on the page. As far as the details that you would normally put in with the pencil, he just did it with the brush. He used a very small brush... a number one or a two. He didn’t use a number three brush. That smaller brush gave him the opportunity to put in more detail over rough penciling. I was always amazed at the spontaneity Jack had with his brushwork. If he had done it any other way, he might have lost that quality. JA: Do you think his pencils were rough because he had more compositional problems to work out than Fine did? KOTZKY: Yes. With Plastic Man bouncing all over the place and stretching into different shapes, I think the entire effect of the page was more important to that type of character than what Lou was doing on The Spirit. With The Spirit, there would usually be more panels on a tier because of the pantomime action Will Eisner wrote into the stories. The last time I saw Jack was about 1954 or ’55 at the Illustrators Club in New York. Just by chance he happened to show up to one of the meetings there. He had trimmed down, because he had had quite a corporation... by corporation, I mean waistline. He looked great. The same old Jack. Cheerful, talkative. I couldn’t imagine why he would go out and kill himself a few years later. JA: His wife remarried six months after Cole killed himself.
By our lights, one of Jack Cole’s best “Plastic Man” stories ever appeared in Police Comics #100 (June 1950), in which Plas tangled with the electrified Thrilla and her hapless henchmen. We printed a whole page of other panels from this tale in our Cole ish, A/E #25, and the splash in #8—before we even knew what issue Ye Editor’s coverless copy was! [Plastic Man TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
KOTZKY: She was the complete opposite of Jack. She was very quiet; I didn’t know her too well. When we worked on those [True Crime] comic books, we had a Thanksgiving meal together... Jack, his wife, and myself. She was a very pleasant woman, and beyond that, I know nothing of their relationship.
8
Alex Kotzky
With Lou Fine, we talked much more because we worked in the same room for about a year, five days a week. We talked about many things. I know that Lou’s father was a house painter and he had several brothers. [NOTE: According to Lou Fine’s son Elliot, Lou had a sister and a brother. See Alter Ego #17. —Jim.] It’s a rough memory as far as I’m concerned, but I think in the beginning his father didn’t care much for cartoonists. He would have rather that Lou go into some other occupation that would be more secure. But I think that once Lou established himself in the business, he proved to his father that he belonged there. As far as Lou’s personal life, he never discussed it. I know he came from Brooklyn.
JA: While you were in the Army, did you have time to do any comics work?
“It Was Really a Challenge”
KOTZKY: No. We had several writers. I can’t remember their names now. Manly Wade Wellman was one.
JA: Were you more money-conscious in those days, being essentially a “Depression kid”? Was getting the top page rates that important to you? KOTZKY: When I started with Chad Grothkopf, I was getting either $2.25 or $2.50 a page for penciling. After that, I got either a $.25 or $.50 raise. When I began doing backgrounds for Will Eisner, he paid me $25 a week. As far as I was concerned, that was big money. You could support a family on $25 a week in 1940. You wouldn’t be out dancing every night, but you’d be paying the rent and you’d be eating. When I moved up to Stanford, they raised me to $35 a week, mainly because I had to live up there in addition to living back home. And I had a mother and brother back home. JA: I understand Busy Arnold was a good man to work for. KOTZKY: Yes, he was. An excellent man who was very good to me. I couldn’t have worked for a nicer guy. He never hesitated to give me a raise, and even when I was drafted, he sent me checks while I was in the Army and overseas. He was always there with the buck.
KOTZKY: Yes, I did. Toward the end, while I was in North Carolina and stationed at Camp Butner, we didn’t do anything but hang around. I was working on “Plastic Man” then. I was doing the penciling. That was the system then. In order to get more work from a particular artist, they’d just have him pencil. They could get inkers, but it was difficult to get the kind of pencilers they wanted. I also did some “Plastic Man” stories when I came out of the Army, for about a year and a half. JA: Cole didn’t have any involvement with those stories, did he?
JA: How did it feel to be working on a strip that was Cole’s? KOTZKY: It was really a challenge. I was never anywhere as good as Jack. I’m not a natural cartoonist as Jack was, so it was a handicap as far as I was concerned. It was a good learning period, and I enjoyed it very much. JA: By that time Cole was only doing “Plastic Man” stories when he had time, right? The workload was too much. KOTZKY: Yes. In the early 1940s, he began to do cartoons for magazines. I remember once he showed me twenty or thirty of them, and that eventually led to the stuff he did for Playboy magazine. JA: Do you think he felt more at home doing those cartoons than he did when doing comic books? KOTZKY: I think he did. He did some excellent work when he started doing them in watercolor. The response was very good, and I’m sure he would have developed into a fine artist more so than a cartoonist. He had a great color sense. It’s such a shame what eventually happened to him.
“When Anything Happened, I Was Working On A Comic!”
9
JA: Did you ever see him drink? KOTZKY: Not that I can recall. He was a recluse as well as an extrovert. Gill Fox [his editor at Quality when he was doing “Plastic Man” in Connecticut] said that Jack sometimes wouldn’t show up for several days and he’d go out to his house to find out why. It’s a strange paradox, the two types of people that Cole seemed to be. JA: Do you think that he had trouble making deadlines? KOTZKY: I think he made the deadlines. But Stamford, Connecticut, was a small town, and maybe Gill was used to having Jack show up every day or so. When he didn’t show up for several days, that’s when Gill went out there to check up on him. Before Jack moved out to Chicago, he bought a farm in northern Massachusetts. It was way out in the wilderness. I was never there, but I remember talking to Gill and he replied, “That’s Jack. When he wants to be by himself, he wants to be way by himself.” JA: What about his manner of speech? Did he use “earthy” language? KOTZKY: No. First, it wasn’t in style in those days, believe it or not. Now it’s the way you speak. In those days, it just wasn’t done. He was just a lot of fun. You remember Bob Wood of Biro and Wood? One day in the mid-’50s, I believe it was, I opened up a copy of the [New York] Daily News and Bob Wood was on the front page. He was sent off to an institution because he had killed his girlfriend. And I remember Jack telling me that in the late 1930s, while he and Bob Wood both worked for Harry Chesler, they went out for the night with their girlfriends and wives. Jack and his wife got out of the cab, looked back, and saw Bob Wood beat up this woman who was his escort for the evening. This gives you an indication of what went on.
“They Were All Characters” JA: You never worked for Harry Chesler, did you?
John Spranger, who along with Alex Kotzky was Jack Cole’s most prominent “ghost” on his most famous creation, has been tentatively credited with drawing this splash from Plastic Man #15 (Jan. 1949). Other very early ghosts, according to DC’s Plastic Man Archives, Vol. 5, were André LeBlanc and Bart Tumey (the latter mostly on “Woozy Winks” fillers). Thanks to Jerry G. Bails. [Plastic Man ©2004 DC Comics.]
KOTZKY: As a matter of fact, when I was still in high school, I had to get a job somewhere. I think this was my last year of school. I saw an ad in the New York Times and I took a day off from school and I went to Chesler’s. Of course he turned me down. I went up a second time and he turned me down. I went up a third time on a Saturday morning and he was running into the elevator. His office was on the second floor of the building. He interviewed me in the elevator, and by the time we reached the second floor, he rejected me again.
He said, “Here’s Eisner & Iger. Go see them.” It was Saturday morning and people still worked Saturday mornings in those days. Eisner & Iger were in the Grand Central Palace Building near Grand Central Station. The place was empty except for one guy. And I’m pretty sure that was Will Eisner, because he was smoking a pipe. He looked at my stuff and said it was “grotesque.” I didn’t get a job there, either. To some degree I was fortunate, because I’m sure if I had gotten the least bit of work, I’d have quit school at that time. I really needed the money. That was the end of 1939. JA: What was Charles Biro like to work for? KOTZKY: He was a character in himself. I handed him my work and we’d go over a few things. There wasn’t much more than that as far as my relationship with him.
JA: He wasn’t stringent about how he wanted your work to look? KOTZKY: Oh, no. But I remember going into the office one day, and here comes Charlie Biro. He had this big polo coat and he ran down to the elevator and scooted along the marble floor. That was the type of guy he was. In those days, all the characters went into the comic books. They were all characters, but Biro stands out in that category. JA: Did you know Reed Crandall? KOTZKY: Yes. Of course, there you have an excellent artist. I first saw him when I was working with Eisner in 1941. He was a very goodlooking guy; he could have easily been a male model for white collar ads, things like that. The epitome of a successful type of guy. Are you aware of what happened to him later? Al Williamson discovered Crandall in a bar in upstate New York. He was the guy who swept out the place. Al took him under his wing and rehabilitated him. Then Reed went back to his hometown, Cleveland, and began working again. I think the credit for that belonged to Al Williamson. The last time I had seen him was about 1948 or ’49. We had a few beers in a bar with Chuck Cuidera, who was a good friend of his. I didn’t know
10
Alex Kotzky KOTZKY: I knew Al Bryant very well. As a matter of fact, he lived near me. I know a couple of times Al and his wife and my wife, with Gill Fox, would entertain at our homes together. He had some problems, I know. He was coming home one day on the Grand Central Parkway and I guess his personal problems got to be too much and he turned his car into a wall. He ended up in an institution out on Long Island. We went out there to visit him with John Spranger and his wife, but there was nothing we could do. I heard in recent years that he went down to Florida when he got out. He had four children and, for whatever reason, the whole thing became too much for him. I imagine he was considered to be one of the main artists at Quality. He did “Doll Man.” [NOTE: Gill Fox recalls it differently. According to him, Bryant committed suicide by driving into the abutment on the Grand Central parkway. —Jim.] Several years after they worked together at Quality, Alex Kotzky used his friend (and former editor) Gill Fox as the model for an ex-prize fighter valet in his Apartment 3-G newspaper comic strip. Thanks to Gill for the copy. [©2004 North America Syndicate, Inc.]
By the way, John Spranger was an excellent artist. He was in a class with Reed Crandall, although his work didn’t look like Reed’s. On that level, he was equally good.
Crandall personally, but at the time he was sort of a political activist. At the time, I wasn’t interested in politics. I think he was a serious-minded guy.
JA: Gil Kane told me Spranger did a lot of the penciling for Eisner on the postwar Spirit stories (including the famous “Meet P’Gell”), and that he was a better draftsman than Eisner.
JA: Did you know Chuck Cuidera better?
KOTZKY: Spranger was more of an illustrator himself. He could have done as well as an illustrator as a comic book artist. I even inked some of Spranger’s strips that he did for the Herald-Tribune Syndicate in the late ’40s. He was the type of penciler, like Reed Crandall, who didn’t even have to look at the page. His hand would go by itself. His work on “Plastic Man” was very good.
KOTZKY: I did. The last time I saw Chuck was in the mid-1950s. A bunch of us got together, and Will Eisner gave us an entree to the Advertising Club for the evening. We were having dinner together and having some fun. Everybody took turns taking all our venom out on Eisner. Especially Chuck. It ended up with Eisner running out of the place, going down the staircase, and Chuck yelling after him. Eisner was terribly embarrassed, because Chuck was getting pretty loud with his heckling. Maybe he had a couple of drinks that loosened his tongue. That’s what caused it. All the repressed irritations. He was normally a happy-go-lucky type of guy. I’m not particularly tall, and Chuck was shorter than I was: Italian and a lot of fun to be out with. Chuck was a good artist. I particularly liked his work on “Blackhawk.” He gave it personality it didn’t have after that. Reed Crandall did a good job, but Chuck gave it an extra touch, although he wasn’t the artist Reed Crandall was. Still, it had a warmth to it. JA: I always admired Crandall’s work, but sometimes it could be cold and stiff. He was an incredible illustrator, much more than he was a storyteller. KOTZKY: He was much more like Lou Fine. They were brothers under the skin in that regard. They were absorbed with the craft of drafting. As far as the warmth and personal feelings that some of these stories need, it came so easily to them that it wasn’t necessary. JA: Would you say that, while Cuidera was concerned with draftsmanship, he was more interested in telling the story? KOTZKY: I would agree with that. He was more concerned with the personalities and how they reacted.
“There’s Another Character!”
JA: Spranger was considered to be the best “Plastic Man” artist, outside of Jack Cole. KOTZKY: I would agree with that. He was fast and didn’t labor over the stuff as I did. We socialized until the early ’50s when he had some personal problems; we didn’t get together after that. It was nothing personal between us. We still exchange Christmas cards. JA: You mentioned Zoltan Szenics earlier. He did a lot of lettering for Quality. KOTZKY: We exchange Christmas cards every year, too. He’s living down in Florida. Zully did the inking and his wife Terry did the lettering. He did both. JA: I understand she took over his workload during World War II. KOTZKY: Yes. Later on, he got a job with IBM in the art department and she became a schoolteacher. They’re both retired now. Zully was a meticulous type of guy who had to have everything in precise order. He worked very systematically by the clock. In fact, when he was lettering, he would set an alarm clock, and would have to get the page done by the
Monthly! Edited and published by Robin Snyder
JA: Do you have any stories about George Brenner? KOTZKY: He used to drive Busy Arnold mad because he’d always find ways to simplify the page as much as possible to do the least amount of work. He wrote his own stuff, and he had a page sequence that was all black with footsteps across the page. Arnold said, “Hey, George. What are you doing here?” But he got away with it. JA: Did you know Al Bryant?
Write to: Robin Snyder, 2284 Yew St. Rd. #B6, Bellingham, WA 98226-8899
“When Anything Happened, I Was Working On A Comic!”
11
time the alarm went off. He was meticulous to the point of almost annoying Busy Arnold. The one who really knew him when they were young and chasing girls was Gill Fox. It was Gill who pointed out Terry to Zully. She came from Hungary and she worked for Zully’s mother in the house. Gill was over there one day and he saw her. He said, “Zully, do you notice this pretty girl here?” And for the first time, Zully really took notice of her. One thing led to another and they got married. She was a very pretty lady. JA: Did you know Tony DiPreta then? KOTZKY: Yes. When I first went up to Stamford in January 1942, he was working up there as a letterer. Then he left and Zully came in. DiPreta wanted to move over to drawing, and when he had the opportunity with someone else, he did. I know he eventually went to work for Lank Leonard, who was doing Mickey Finn. He also did Joe Palooka with Moe Leff [after Ham Fisher’s death]. He was freelancing on Joe Palooka [writing and drawing] when Nick Dallis got in touch with him. He gave up Joe Palooka, which didn’t have many papers by then.
Among things Kotzky drew for Ziff-Davis was this illo for the science-fiction magazine Amazing Stories for July 1957. Thanks to Ger Apeldoorn. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]
JA: What was Gill Fox like? KOTZKY: There’s another character! He was my editor. He got drafted and when he came back, he did everything: children’s books, comics, commercial work, anything that came along. He’s doing political cartoons for the Bridgeport paper. He’s wanted to do that all his life. In the early 1950s, Cushing [of Johnstone and Cushing Art Service] had an estate in Greenwich, Connecticut, and he gave a picnic there every year. As a gag, we had a footrace where everyone had to carry their portfolios, and Gill Fox won the race.
“After So Many Years, the Pressure of the Work Just Gets to You” JA: What did you do when you left Quality? KOTZKY: At Quality, they didn’t want you to do both penciling and inking. I felt that prevented me from improving. I started doing work for Biro and Wood. JA: You also worked for Ziff-Davis. Who was the editor there? KOTZKY: I worked for several different editors. Ben Martin was one of them. I was doing Flyboy for them, and one day they asked me to come in. They brought me in to the owner of the company. I believe his name was Ziff. Either him or Davis. I was seated in this luxuriously-paneled room and he proceeded to tell me how to draw a head. The sad part is that he was right. I was drawing heads and some of them looked the same. He pointed out that there should be some definitive features to make the characters stand out, and he was perfectly right. I worked there for several years until they discontinued their comics. I was penciling and inking, but did no writing. I did a couple of stories for DC. They wanted me to do more work, but that’s when I started
doing commercial comics for Johnstone and Cushing. JA: Were Stan Drake and Lou Fine at Johnstone and Cushing when you started? KOTZKY: Stan Drake was there. Lou Fine had his own studio; he did commercial work with Don Kamisarow and was doing well. He had as many as three ads every week in the Sunday comics. Palmolive Pete, Colgate, and that sort of thing. I mostly did commercial comic books, starting in 1949. I did one that Dodge Brothers put out. I worked on Ford ads for the newspapers. I did many others. They started putting out comic books on political candidates. I wasn’t politically involved, but the money was much better. I said, “Hey, what’s going on here? Here I am doing comic books for $35, $40 a page when I can do this for $75, $80 a page?” Gill Fox got the lead on this job and we worked on some of them together. Then television began taking over and Johnstone and Cushing began losing a lot of their revenue. I got in touch with Milton Caniff and he sent me one of his stories to do. I ghosted for Caniff [on the Steve Canyon comic strip] in addition to my other freelance work for several years. I’d do a 12- or 15-week story. The complete art job except for the Steve Canyon heads. Of course he went over it when he got it, adding some blacks, giving it the Caniff touch. I did it from about 1955 to 1960, doing three or four complete stories. I recently got a note from a guy in the Midwest. He bought a Caniff page and a cartoonist friend of his says, “No, that’s Kotzky’s page.” He asked me whether it was mine. I looked at it and realized it was mine. JA: I’ve seen the kind of breakdowns that Caniff gave Dick Rockwell [Caniff’s long-time assistant]. Did you get breakdowns, too? KOTZKY: I got very rough breakdowns. They weren’t pencils, just an indication of what he wanted in each panel. JA: Sounds like the bulk of the storytelling was up to you.
12
Alex Kotzky
KOTZKY: It was.
KOTZKY: After so many years, the pressure of the work just gets to you. It’s just amazing that he was able to last that long.
I used to take Polaroids about twenty years ago, but I found if you get away from them, the work becomes more fluid and spontaneous. When Stan Drake did [The Heart of] Juliet Jones, he used a lot of Polaroids for the figure work. I think in the long run it was a handicap more than anything else. Stan’s such a good artist that for the sake of speed he used photographs. I think that if he’d put the stuff aside, the work would have been more interesting.
JA: What was Caniff like to work for?
JA: Do you have assistants?
KOTZKY: I said about three words in person to Caniff in all the time I worked for him. We mainly did things over the phone. The first time I met him, he was getting an enema. He was in the hospital and I had never met him. I decided, “Well, now I finally got him cornered.” He was in Saint Vincent’s Hospital and I had to deliver the work to the hospital. The nurse interrupted me and said, “It’s time for your enema, Mr. Caniff.”
KOTZKY: My son Brian comes over a couple times a week; he’s doing me a favor, as he has a successful illustration career of his own. He does the lettering and the inking on the figures. I did the lettering from 1973 to about 1978. We pass it back and forth constantly so it melds together.
JA: I find that amazing, as Caniff was famous for being one of the greatest storytellers comics ever had, yet he would give that up to you and other people.
“It’s Never Easy” JA: How much time passed between your work on Canyon and Apartment 3-G? KOTZKY: I started 3-G on May 8, 1961. Nick Dallis was the writer and creator. He was the one who got the idea for the strip, and since he had two other strips with Publisher’s Syndicate, he was able to get the ear of Harold Anderson, who owned the syndicate, and convince him this would be worthwhile to put out. Nick passed on a little over a year ago, and I’ve been writing it since. Nick asked me to do it. He knew he was going to die. He had lung cancer. JA: Do you use photographic references? KOTZKY: l do. I don’t use it for figure drawing. Right now I’m drawing a page where a little boy and another boy have to get together. They’re pretty much eye-to-eye throughout the entire Sunday page. There aren’t any interesting things going on between them, but if I can look through photographs and see different situations of children, you get ideas of what they should be doing other than just talking to each other. That’s how I use photos now. Candid shots that suggest other situations that you can put the figures in without diverting from the story.
JA: I can’t tell there’s been another hand in there. Your figure work is so lively. You say you’re not a natural cartoonist, but your figures look so expressive and lifelike. They move like real figures move. KOTZKY: It’s a very competitive business. JA: Don’t you feel like it’s gotten easier over the years? KOTZKY: No. It’s never easy. Back in the early ’70s, everybody said that nobody wants story strips. Even newspaper publishers who were coming to the cartoonists’ dinners were giving speeches about how they watch their children and the children never read the story strips. That was an excuse to cut them out of the newspapers. You constantly felt like you had to do better in order to compete, not to lose any more ground than you had already. We’re in 125 papers now. 200 was the most we were ever in. We didn’t get in on the big sales because we started in 1961. We steadily improved until about 1971 when we got the anti-strip propaganda, and we started hurting after that. JA: You can’t be pleased with the size your strip is printed, and that’s got to affect your panel composition. KOTZKY: That’s right. I really ignored the whole situation because it was something you couldn’t work with. The only thing I could focus my attention on was to tell a good story and make the characters interesting to the readers.
Whether Kotzky, Spranger, or someone else drew this story from Plastic Man #55 (Oct. 1955), it’s relatively unusual in that, for once, Plas, having taken the shape of a filing cabinet to trap “Mr. Fission,” loses his trademark red-yellow-and-black coloring because he’s covered himself with grey lead paint to protect himself from the villain’s radioactivity. Hope he didn’t get lead poisoning, instead! Incidentally, Plastic Man #53-54 have April and June 1955 cover dates—then the series skips to an October date for #55 and is published monthly thereafter through #62, only two issues before the demise of Quality. As his company neared its end, Busy Arnold must’ve figured that, with Plas his best-selling comic next to Blackhawk, he should publish it as often as possible! But how come the missing several months (at least one issue’s worth) between #54 & #55? [Plastic Man ©2004 DC Comics.]
“When Anything Happened, I Was Working On A Comic!”
13
Alex Kotzky in another of his posed Polaroids done for Apartment 3-G (this one taken by Sam Burlockoff)—and the strip for Sunday, Aug. 16, 1964, in which Lu Ann definitely is not being all sweetness and light! Original writer Nick Dallis launched three highly successful “soap opera” strips: Rex Morgan, M.D.; Judge Parker; and Apartment 3-G. [Art ©2004 North America Syndicate, Inc.]
“Writing’s a Lot of Fun” JA: Who’s your favorite character in 3-G? KOTZKY: In doing a strip, you can’t worry about individual characters. You have to worry about how each character plays off the other characters. It’s like acting. You have to watch how you react rather than how you act. Tommie and Margo are the ones who provide the best material for that sort of thing. JA: Lu Ann’s not in the strip that much. KOTZKY: No, because she’s sort-of the sweet type. As a matter of fact, in the current story [published during Sept.-Oct. 1992] I’m trying to give her a little more vigor and an individual personality. JA: Is that why you brought Flo into the strip? Because she’s a more dynamic personality? KOTZKY: Yes. When Nick Dallis died, I had absolutely no warning when I would really start writing. He told me ten months before he died that he was terminal, and he stopped writing one week before he died. I couldn’t worry about whether or not I could do it. I just had to do it. I hadn’t written since I did the stuff with Jack Cole. But I would suggest ideas all the time I worked with Nick and he was gracious enough to accept some of them. We had a very good working relationship, and I couldn’t write today if I hadn’t been associated with Nick all those years. In working on the strip for over thirty years, you get a certain rhythm that a story has to be paced in. I try to keep a lively pace in the story and hope the reader will appreciate it. Especially today. People’s attention span today is what—45 or 60 seconds? You have to catch them and get your point across; otherwise you’ll be dropped. JA: What was the first story you wrote for 3-G? KOTZKY: That was with Sadie Sadler, the woman with the two kids who had problems. She kicked them out of the house. JA: You write good characters. Believable and fun. KOTZKY: I have to have them in my own mind as real people, otherwise they couldn’t work in the story. Once you have a character in mind, the character just takes off by himself. You thought you planned the story one way and he won’t let it go that way. I’m having that problem now. I think I’ve written myself into a corner and I’m trying to get out. Writing’s a lot of fun. I should have done this many years ago, but I
was just too yellow. JA: Do you have a particular person in mind when creating characters? KOTZKY: Yes. I have to, because I draw so many of them. I would never be able to stay with a character if I didn’t have a definite person in mind. JA: Your own pencils on 3-G: are they rough or tight? KOTZKY: I ink the faces and my son does the figures. If it’s rough, it still has to have the essential construction underneath, so that it’s pretty much a detailed pencil drawing. I don’t leave much to chance. It has to be there on the paper. The construction, folds, and the shading. I rough in the copy because I have to have the spacing for the figure work. The space for the lettering is part of the composition. Lately, I’ve been trying to loosen up a bit more. The work reduces so small that if you get a real suggestion rather than hitting it with a sledgehammer, you’re better off. JA: Do you believe that if they increased the print size of strips today, that the adventure strip would come back? Or is it already too late? KOTZKY: With current big-foot comic strips, it wouldn’t make any difference. But it would make a difference in the adventure strips. The art would be better appreciated. You’d naturally have more copy as a rule. I didn’t have this problem, but Nick used to tell me he couldn’t read some of the strips because the copy was too small. I think one strip that would work very well today is the original Spirit, done in the semihumorous vein the way Will Eisner did it.
“[Stan Drake] Had a Beautiful Ink Line” JA: Let’s talk about Stan Drake. KOTZKY: He had a beautiful ink line. I ghosted on Juliet Jones several times. Once Stan was really set up with work and felt he needed a
14
Alex Kotzky other tourists used him as a guide because he knew so much about the painters.
When I went to Music and Art in New York, I took entrance exams. If you passed, you either went into the art courses or music. Many people in music today came from Music and Art. I didn’t know anything about painting or drawing. During my second year, there Stan Drake’s Heart of Juliet Jones daily for Nov. 27, 1957, was reprinted in cartoonist Jerry Robinson’s 1974 book was an art teacher named Wayne The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art. [©2004 King Features Syndicate, Inc.] Wilhelm who came from the Midwest. And for the first time I learned what vacation. He really looked haggard. He put so much of himself into the good draftsmanship is. His idol was Michelangelo as far as draftswork that he was completely drained. So he said, “ I’ll give you the manship went. He gave me excellent groundwork in fine art. Sunday page on Juliet Jones. It’s yours. You keep on doing it.” I did Unfortunately, I didn’t pursue it after that because I went into about three or four months of it and he came back and said, “Well, I cartooning. I think it’s necessary to have somebody establish the history think I’ll take it back now.” He was golfing down in North Carolina of what good art comprises in anybody. I was fortunate to have him in somewhere. that stage. JA: He was in the car when Alex Raymond died. [NOTE: Raymond, of course, was the artist/creator of Flash Gordon, later of Rip Kirby. —Jim.] KOTZKY: Raymond was driving, and Stan suffered a broken collarbone with severe lacerations around his scalp. Of course, Alex Raymond was having family problems at that time, and I don’t know how much that affected his mental state. I didn’t know him, although I saw him at cartoonists’ dinners. I admired his work greatly. In Stan Drake’s case, I think he would have been a great illustrator. Especially for today’s market with romance paperbacks and things like that. JA: I always thought there was a lot of Lou Fine influence in Drake’s work. I’m talking about Fine’s advertising style. KOTZKY: Well, the difference is that I think Stan Drake is more of a cartoonist than Lou Fine was. Stan couldn’t repress it. I would strictly categorize Lou Fine in the illustration field. I’m not putting down either side. I’m just talking about their natural tendencies. Stan was fast and very spontaneous. If he was sad, he was as depressed as anybody could be. Other times he was just a lot of fun. I like Stan very much. I had a good working arrangement with him. He’s also an interesting character. He was completely different from Jack Cole. Jack never had a moody side that I saw. Stan had his own advertising studio before he got the strip. He said he had to bring some samples in for a job and the editor put the stuff on the floor. Stan chewed the guy out for it: “It doesn’t belong on the floor.” That was the type of guy Stan was. He never had an unexpressed thought.
“For the First Time I Learned What Good Draftsmanship Is” JA: Sounds like one of my sisters. I’m one of eight kids. KOTZKY: What college did you go to? JA: I went to UNC-Greensboro where I received a Master’s Degree in Fine Art. I did painting, etching, and pen-and-ink landscapes. KOTZKY: What period of painting do you prefer? JA: I prefer the Northern Renaissance. Some of those artists like Bosch and Bruegl were quite remarkable. Albrecht Dürer was incredible. KOTZKY: My son likes that period, too. He was in Italy a few years ago. He’ll travel to see an exhibit anywhere. He made the tour, and the
JA: You didn’t have any idea that the original comic art you did back in the old days would ever be worth anything? KOTZKY: Not at all. Some of the stuff done for comics was so terribly bad that you didn’t even want to look at it. Now, I’m not talking about Lou Fine, Reed Crandall, or any of those artists. But there was some junk in there that didn’t deserve the light of day. JA: You never did a comic book job that you were particularly proud of and thought, “I’d like to have a page or two from that”? KOTZKY: No. Never occurred to me at all. I did recently get back some work that I had done back when I was freelancing—same time I was working on The Spirit. Somebody sent me a photostatic copy, and I didn’t recognize it. As I studied it, I realized it was one of the first stories I did when I was up in Stamford. It was terrible. JA: But you couldn’t have worked for Eisner and been terrible. KOTZKY: I give you my word: some of the stuff was terrible. I put a lot of work in on it. I spent most of the time putting in backgrounds to load it up. JA: What would you do if you gave up 3-G? KOTZKY: I’d like to start painting, but I don’t see that happening in the near future. JA: Does the fact that you’re working all the time take most of the fun out of it? KOTZKY: It was more of a task when I had to work from Nick Dallis’ writing. Not that the writing wasn’t good, but you just don’t have the interest that you have when you’re writing it yourself. You don’t have the empathy for the characters. It has given me a spurt of interest to be able to write it myself. JA: I think your writing has really improved since your first story. The dialogue is more natural and your story construction is smoother. KOTZKY: My son edits the stuff. He’s a prolific reader and he points things out to me. He doesn’t let me get away with anything. When I start a story, I don’t have the ending plotted out. I have no idea from one week to the other what’s going to happen, and I think that’s best because I think the reader’s going to be in the same position. [NOTE: When Alex Kotzky died, his son Brian took over Apartment 3-G for a while before passing it off to artist Frank Bolle. See following interview. —Jim.]
“When Anything Happened, I Was Working On A Comic!”
15
(Above, left to right:) Emma and Alex Kotzky, and their son Brian, in 1995. (Left:) More panels from that previously-utilized Police #10 “Manhunter” tale reprinted by AC Comics, and (below) the daily from Nov. 29, 1991, featuring all three of the denizens of Apartment 3-G—Lu Ann Powers, Margo Magee, and Tommy Thompson. [Manhunter TM & ©2004 DC Comics; retouched “Manhunter” art ©2004 AC Comics; Apt. 3-G art ©2004 North America Syndicate, Inc.]
An ALEX KOTZKY Checklist [NOTE: As usual, our thanks to Dr. Jerry Bails for providing information from the Who’s Who of 20th-Century American Comic Books, which can be accessed at www.nostromo.no/whoswho/. This abridgement has no italicized words in the comic book section, because some of those names were the titles of both features and entire magazines. Key: (a) full art; (p) pencils only; (i) inks only; (w) writer. Some data was provided by Alex Kotzky.] Full Name: Alex S. Kotzky (1923-1996) - artist
COMIC BOOK CREDITS (Alternate and Joint Publishers):
Pen Names: Alec Kott; Grotsky (with Chad Grothkopf); also see Al Katrus
Shop Work: Grothkopf (a) c. 1941
Education: High School of Music and Art (New York City); Pratt Institute; Art Students League
Kitchen Sink Press: covers (i) 1982; The Spirit (i) 1981-82 - reprints
Son: Brian Kotzky (assumed strip Apartment 3-G in 1996 after assisting his father since 1979) Magazine Illustrations: Fantastic, 1955; Amazing Stories, 1957 Advertising Work: Johnstone & Cushing; Duke Handy (a) for Sunday advertisement for Philip Morris - dates unknown
Note: ghosted strips for Chad Grothkopf (a) c. 1942
COMIC BOOK CREDITS (Mainstream U.S. Publishers): DC Comics & related imprints: Detective Chimp (a) 1953; miscellaneous strips for Chad Grothkopf (asst a) c. 1941-42 Lev Gleason/Comic House: crime (a) 1951 Magazine Village: True Crime (w/a) 1947-48
Commercial Art: Volk Clip Art, c. 1960s
Parents’ Magazine Press/True: True (asst a) 1941-42
Honor: National Cartoonists Society - Best Story Strip, 1968
Quality Comics: Blackhawk (a) 1942-44, 1947; covers (a) 1944; Doll Man (i) 1943-44, 1948, 1951; Espionage (a) 1942; Her Highness (a) 194344; Kid Eternity (p) dates unknown; Manhunter (a) 1942; Plastic Man (p) 1947-56; Quicksilver (i) dates unknown; various features by Vern Henkel (ghost a?) Torchy (i) dates unknown; Uncle Sam (i) dates unknown; Woozy (a) 1954
SYNDICATED CREDITS: Apartment 3-G (a) 1961-96 (some w); Big Ben Bolt (a, ghost); The Heart of Juliet Jones (a, ghost) - dates unknown; Rex Morgan, M.D. (a, ghost), c. 1980; The Spirit (i) c. 194143; Steve Canyon (a, ghost) 1955-60
St. John/Jubilee: Famous Stars (a) 1952; Flyboy (a) 1952 (from inventory); G.I. Joe (a) 1951-52; western (a) 1951-52
Quality Time-- part five-a
16
“I Didn’t Want to Do Apartment 3-G!” Interview with BRIAN KOTZKY, son of Alex Kotzky Conducted & Transcribed by Jim Amash (Left:) Alex Kotzky and young son Brian at the drawing board, 1958. (Below:) Margo and Tommy—two of the three “G’s” in Apartment 3-G—in strips drawn by Alex Kotzky, probably with the assistance of son Brian, for Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, 1989. (Right:) Brian with daughter Kim, 2001. Unless noted, all art and photos accompanying this interview were supplied by Brian Kotzky. [Art ©2004 North America Syndicate, Inc.]
[INTRODUCTION: Brian Kotzky is more than the son of a great comic artist. An artist in his own right, Brian’s paintings graced many a paperback cover over the years. He also became his father’s assistant on Apartment 3-G, taking over the art chores upon Alex Kotzky’s death. Now a teacher, Brian looks back at his father in an honest portrayal of a man totally dedicated to his craft. —Jim.]
“I Was Seven Years Old When He Got the Strip” JIM AMASH: Tell me about your father’s beginnings. BRIAN KOTZKY: He was born in the Bronx on September 11, 1923. He was one of four kids. He had an older half-brother Milton, also a sister and a brother. His father was a widower when he met my grandmother. My grandfather died right after my father graduated from the High School of Music and Art, so, though I understand he had a chance to go to college, that changed his plans, as he had to support the family to a large extent. Then, there was a rupture in the family dynamic, so he wasn’t close to his family. I know he took classes at the Art Students League, probably on the weekends. JA: How many children did your parents have? KOTZKY: Two—me and my brother Bruce. I was born in 1954, Bruce in ’58. Bruce lives out in Las Vegas. He did inherit some artistic talent, and while in college it appeared he was going into a career in theatre set design. But he changed his mind and now does retail work.
JA: Your first memories of your father’s work would be Apartment 3-G, wouldn’t it? KOTZKY: Yes. I was about seven years old when he got the strip. I have very vague memories of him working in an upstairs studio before then. We lived in a couple of different houses, and he converted an upstairs bedroom into a home studio. In the late ’50s—before 3G—I remember he did other kinds of work, like comic strip advertisements such as Duke Handy. I was proud of the fact that my father was doing something that he was good at. I was interested in art, so I could identify with what he did. He wasn’t like other kids’ fathers: they left home to go to work,and my father didn’t. That made me feel a little self-conscious. He was an extreme example of a workaholic. That’s not a healthy thing. Working at home allowed him to develop a lifestyle where all he did was eat, sleep, and work. He had no hobbies. He allowed the comic strip to fill up all his available time. He was always upstairs working on Apartment 3-G. In terms of being a parent and doing things with the family—like fatherand-son activities—there was virtually none of that. I can remember maybe one or two occasions when he took time out and we threw the ball around. I do believe that, when I was two to five years old, he was able to be more of a family man. We have home movies of family outings from that time period. But later he worked all the time. We’d call him down for supper, which was the one time of the day when the four of us were together. Other than that, he was home around the clock, but he was upstairs.
“I Didn’t Want to Do Apartment 3-G !”
“He Was a Real Perfectionist” JA: When I interviewed your father, he said he worked all the time because he was a very slow artist. Do you think he was that slow? KOTZKY: If you mean that he was slower than other cartoonists... well, I don’t know if he was slow in that way. What was so time-consuming is that he spent a huge amount of his work week preparing to do the finished art. He had enormous reference files he collected from magazines and newspapers, and spent a lot of time looking over that material before he started to draw. He was a real perfectionist. If he was dissatisfied with the results, he’d keep erasing and reworking the pencils until he got it right. That will make you slower. His studio was filled with filing cabinets full of reference material, which I inherited when I took over 3-G. There was just enough space for his drafting table and a second drafting table, where I worked. I tried to duplicate his working methods at first, but it was extremely frustrating. For instance, let’s say I had to draw an ambulance. I’d find a folder that was labeled “vehicles,” which was the size of a couple of phone books. I’d have to flip through hundreds of pictures to find what I needed. Maybe I’d get lucky and find one in ten minutes, but it could take 45 minutes to find a shot of an ambulance. If you wanted to draw that vehicle from a particular point of view, but don’t have the necessary reference, what do you do? Keep looking, hoping you’ll find the shot you need? Or use the information from the shot you have and invent the detail needed to make it look the way you envisioned it? You have to come up with a strategy. JA: Since he didn’t have spare time for hobbies, I take it that he wasn’t much of a reader. KOTZKY: The only time I remember him taking time to read anything was in 1978, when his kidneys failed and he was hospitalized for several months. Other than that, he would read the newspaper and Time magazine each week, and that was it. But he watched TV or listened to the radio around the clock. He didn’t start working until late morning or early afternoon. For most of the time while I was growing up, he worked until around 3 a.m., and then went to sleep. He’d listen to the radio for a few hours, mostly to classic songs from the ’40s and ’50s and scores from Broadway plays. He loved to listen to Frank Sinatra. By late afternoon, he’d turn on the television to catch the news and segue into the evening sitcoms or dramatic shows. If there was a good movie on, he’d make a point of watching it.
17
more of Dad in the early years? I’ve talked to cartoonists who knew him in the ’40s and ’50s. In the 1950s he was a freelance advertising artist and cartoonist. He was out getting jobs and spent a lot of time in Manhattan dealing with art directors. So he was out of the house and led an active life until he started doing Apartment 3-G, which dramatically changed the pattern of his life. The guys who remember seeing my father in the flesh are those who knew him before 3-G. JA: Sam Burlockoff said he loved listening to radio talk shows. KOTZKY: Yes. There used to be a mid-day show on New York City radio with a very opinionated guy named Jack O’Brien, who had a lot of celebrity guests. JA: Was your father interested in politics? KOTZKY: He wasn’t politically active, but had conservative political opinions. With me being a teenager in the 1960s, there was the classic generation gap between the parent and the rebellious kid of the ’60s. Frankly, he was exaggerating the degree to which I was rebelling. My hair was a little long, but that was about the extent of it. I think he felt threatened by the change in society that the 1960s brought. I think he felt he was part of President Nixon’s “silent majority.” He did not vote that I remember, largely because, in New York, the jury duty notices were taken from the voter registration lists. He couldn’t chance being called for jury duty. My father never drove. He depended on my mother to do that. That contributed to his reclusiveness. When he did get out, he’d immediately go to his studio when he returned home.
“He Had No Time” JA: Did he employ any assistants before his kidney problems in 1978? KOTZKY: Yes. Ben Oda was his letterer from the beginning. He was Japanese; a very gracious guy. He’d stop by once a week to pick up the strips and scripts, and return a few days later. I think it may have been an Asian custom, but at Christmas time he gave both my brother and me presents. He was the letterer for a number of cartoonists, so he must have had quite a budget for buying presents for all the kids of the guys he was working for!
I’d come over a few nights a week and work for a few hours in mid-evening, like 8 to 10 o’clock. Sometimes, he’d tell me about a movie he saw... but that movie wouldn’t come on until one a.m. sometimes. [laughter] If he mentioned it, it was usually because he was observing the camera angles or the visuals, like in an old John Ford western. He made a point of watching baseball games on TV. Most of the time he was concentrating on what he was drawing, but if something caught his attention, he’d look up and watch a little, then go back to work. My dad did get out of the house once a week, because he was a religious man. He’d walk to church and attend on Sunday mornings. JA: But people would come over to see him. Gill Fox told me he used to do that on occasion. KOTZKY: Gill lived several hours away, and they’d talk on the phone from time to time. Maybe Gill saw
After Alex Kotzky’s death in 1996, Brian Kotzky drew Apartment 3-G for three years. These dailies are from Oct. 28-29, 1998. On the syndicate proofs, the typeset credit is “By Brian Kotzky and Lisa Trusiani.” [©2004 North America Syndicate, Inc.]
18
Brian Kotzky
I became the letterer when I became my father’s assistant. He had a couple of different guys as background assistants. The one I remember most was Bernie Casey, who worked in my father’s studio in the mid-1960s. My father would rough out the backgrounds, Bernie would draw them, and then my father inked them. I’m not exactly sure why my father stopped using assistants. He may have found it too cumbersome, because he’d have to work around what they did. If my father had something ready and it’s Monday night and the guy wasn’t showing up until Tuesday afternoon, then he had dead time. My father was always an absolute slave to his deadlines; they were a terrible, terrible problem for him. He found that it was more flexible to work without background men. And I don’t know if he was satisfied with the work the background men did.
man didn’t know how to do anything besides work. If he had stopped doing the strip, he wouldn’t have had any idea of what to do with himself. JA: What made your father laugh? KOTZKY: I remember hearing him laugh in his studio when he was watching TV sitcoms. He had a fairly low-key personality, so it’s not like he laughed easily. I’d say he had more ups and downs in terms of his temperament than a regular person. He was either in a distinctly good mood or a distinctly bad mood. If he was in a good mood, he could be fairly lighthearted, but he had mood swings. JA: Was his mood dependent on how the work was going?
KOTZKY: I don’t think it was. Frequently, it My father loosened up his style in the ’70s, and the Brian with daughters Brigit and Kim at a related to 3-G’s status in syndication and his show of Brian’s art in 1993. [©2004 North backgrounds had to reflect the change. The new style dealings with the North America Syndicate. He America Syndicate, Inc.] was such a personal approach that he felt he couldn’t had ten-year contracts with the syndicate. The count on achieving it with background men working situation was between him and the syndicate, him and [3-G writer] Nick on the strip. There’s less detail—but the later work had more personality. Dallis, and Dallis and the syndicate. The early stuff is very impressive in the amount of detail and it was beautiful, but a little stiffer. My dad illustrated Nick’s scripts for 30 years—from ’61 to ’91—and from time to time, while he regarded Dallis as a good writer, there were JA: Did your father ever do any other art work once he started things that bothered him about Dallis’ writing, and after 30 years, things Apartment 3-G? can build up. [laughs] Dallis would write a Sunday page with eight or nine panels of nothing but two people talking on the phone. My father KOTZKY: In the early to mid-’60s, he took on a couple of one-shot would tear his hair out trying to find ways to make that visually interadvertising jobs. He regretted it and wasn’t pleased with what he did. It esting. He would get into bad moods because of that, so actually, that proved to be a burden, time-wise, to fit it into his schedule. After that, was related to how the work was going—but it related to the broader he didn’t do any more ad work. issue of having to illustrate someone else’s script. JA: He never made art for his own pleasure, either. The syndicate was a more problematic relationship. My father felt Dallis was in his corner and looked out for his interests. Dallis was KOTZKY: He had no time. You got to believe me: he devoted all his writing three different strips, and that gave him a certain amount of waking hours, 365 days a year, to 3-G. leverage with the syndicate. JA: Your father told me that, if he ever retired, he would take up My father was not a sophisticated businessman. He had no experience painting again, but that obviously never happened. in negotiating on his own behalf. From time to time, he had to deal with KOTZKY: I always said syndicate executives, which always left him feeling as though he’d been to my wife that I could taken advantage of or that they weren’t paying enough attention to him, never see him retiring. in terms of promoting 3-G. You have to remember that 3-G started to Retire to what? The decline a long time ago, which certainly wasn’t unique to 3-G, because all story strips suffered in that way. JA: And I know your father was unhappy about how small the strip was getting printed in the papers. KOTZKY: Once the size of the strips was reduced in the newspapers, he couldn’t put in the same amount of detail. If his fine lines were reduced too much, they all bled together and the detail was lost. And he was proud of that strip. He poured his entire life—everything he had—into that strip.
“Essentially, I Was His Editor” JA: When did you start helping him?
Two paintings of Brian’s from the 1980s. [©2004 Brian Kotzky.]
KOTZKY: I was about ten years old. He had me do little things, so that I felt I was part of the team. While growing up, I used to trace off the Sunday pages on tracing paper with a pen, which he used to
“I Didn’t Want to Do Apartment 3-G !”
19 delicate situation for me, because he was getting sick, but he was a very stubborn guy who didn’t want to admit he was getting sick. I had to help him limp along with it as well as I could. Essentially, I was his editor the entire time he wrote the strip. He had never tried to write anything before, so it didn’t go smoothly at first. In terms of passing things back and forth, it wasn’t the art that was being passed back and forth so much as it was the script. He’d write a script and ask my opinion, which I gave. I’d point out that a character wasn’t making sense or a piece of dialogue needed to either be eliminated or reworded. Overall, he was willing to go along with my suggestions, but not entirely. JA: How did the syndicate treat your father once he started having health problems?
Two more paintings of Brian’s from the 1980s. [©2004 Brian Kotzky.]
make a color guide. I put in lot more detail than I needed to, but he didn’t stop me; it was like a drawing exercise for me. Dad used colored pencils and numbered the colors from a color chart for the printer. As far as doing it professionally, I started in 1979. I had been in Denver, but came back to New York to try to get work as a freelance illustrator. While I was doing that and taking illustration classes, I became his assistant, lettering and inking. It took me a little while to ease into it, to get the right feel for brush inking. We used a brush as much as possible. He was encouraging, though it took me a while to feel comfortable with a brush. At first, he had to pick and choose what he wanted me to do, but in a relatively short amount of time, he had me doing a lot more. JA: Did you like working on the strip? KOTZKY: Yeah. I enjoyed inking the strip more than lettering it. It gave me a chance to use my own creativity in terms of how I chose to render the pencils. JA: Your father told me that you two used to pass the pages back and forth. I didn’t think to ask him if that meant you were doing some penciling, too. KOTZKY: Except for a couple of periods, I didn’t pencil anything on the strip until my father stopped doing 3-G. His health declined the last couple of years of his life to the point where he had a couple of major hospitalizations. On those occasions, with no prior warning, I took over the entire production of the strip, including the writing. My father took over the writing when Nick Dallis died, and wrote it for five years. Overall, it was not a good experience. His health had already started to decline by then. His recovery from his prior problems was remarkable and he didn’t need dialysis for a long time... about 15 years. But by the early 1990s, the damage his kidneys had suffered had caught up with him again. These problems caused him to have problems writing the strip. He’d start a storyline and, when he started to get sick, he wasn’t able to continue the storyline that well, and some stories fell apart. It was a
KOTZKY: In 1978, when he first got sick, they were very understanding. I understand that they continued to pay him his whole salary, even though they had to bring in other people to draw the strip. In the ’90s, when his health started to decline, the syndicate was unaware of what was happening. He didn’t want to let them know, and I covered for him as much as I could. When he was in the hospital, I took over the strip and did it as close to his style as possible. The syndicate remained unaware of all this for several years, until I went to Florida on vacation. I was down there for about ten days, and unfortunately, my father got a kidney infection and forced himself to keep working. He mailed the work in, and it was not in publishable condition. He had to be hospitalized. The syndicate called and was very angry. My mother got on the phone and it turned into a very difficult situation. They had not been aware of my father’s medical condition. They thought he had given the work to some other person, who had done a very incompetent job, and that he had turned the work in anyway. When I got back to New York, my father was in the hospital, so I contacted the syndicate and explained the situation. My father tried to do home dialysis, but there’s a high potential for infections when one does this. It was extremely painful, and he was hospitalized several times for up to a month at a time, the last few years of his life. He was getting weaker and weaker; the life of a dialysis patient is not a happy situation. He had to give up on home dialysis after a while and go back to a dialysis clinic on a regular basis. Dialysis makes you feel very weak, and he’d come home feeling completely wiped out, so he couldn’t work on those particular days. JA: Which is pretty tough on a man who only wants to work. KOTZKY: Exactly. He always had a problem meeting his deadlines.
“I Never Regarded Myself as a Cartoonist” JA: Let’s talk about you a little bit. Tell me about your illustration career. KOTZKY: It lasted for about 12 to 13 years. I was doing 3-G around my freelance A Hardy Boys paperback cover by Brian from the work. I painted paperback covers, the 1990s. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]
20
Brian Kotzky
most prominent being those for about 120 Hardy Boys books. I also did several different series of books for teenagers... romance, sciencefiction... a little bit of horror, some adventure—mostly for the teenage market. I got out of art in 2000, went back to school to get my teacher’s certification, and I’m now a high school social studies teacher. JA: That’s some change. Why did you make the switch? KOTZKY: Briefly, the prospects for making a living as a freelancer were drying up. I have a realistic straightforward style, more of a Norman Rockwell approach. Things run in cycles, and editors were looking for different styles in the teenage market. By the mid-’90s, I had to either change my style or accept that I couldn’t make a living anymore. I tried changing my style on The Hardy Boys, which I did for nine years—one cover a month. It felt like a steady job and was a terrific source of income. But the editors felt like they had to shake things up and go for a cartoonier style. I tried doing that, but I hated it. That convinced me that it doesn’t work to change your stripes. JA: Why did you quit doing Apartment 3-G? KOTZKY: I didn’t want to do Apartment 3-G. The life of a newspaper cartoonist didn’t strike me as an attractive proposition. Being my father’s assistant was one thing, since it was a side job and certainly helped my overall income. But to take on 3-G entirely—well, that was a different thing altogether. I never regarded myself as a cartoonist, never intended to become a cartoonist or wanted to be one. I was a painter, and painting was what I enjoyed doing. I wasn’t able to do that once I took over 3-G. I saw myself stepping into my father’s shoes in a way I never wanted to. What was I supposed to look forward to? Reproducing my father’s career? That sounded horrible to me. The only reason I did it at all was due to a coincidence of timing. My dad died in 1996. At that time, my illustration income had diminished, so I had the opportunity of a dependable income with 3-G. That was the main reason I stayed on—to support my family. But the decline of 3-G in terms of reduced income, which had been going on for years, continued while I was the artist. The income I had gotten when I started on 3-G had reduced significantly by the time I gave it up three years later. My father had seen 3-G declining and tried to figure out what he could do to save it. He thought Nick Dallis’ scripts were too ponderous and needed to be more lighthearted. When he took over 3-G, he tried to make the storylines more humorous, but it wasn’t working. The problem wasn’t with Dallis’ scripts; it was just that continuity strips were dying. It was changing demographics.
tions, he did a terrific job. JA: Did your father ever go to National Cartoonists Society meetings? KOTZKY: In the 1950s, he was more involved with them than in later years. In 1968, Apartment 3-G was voted the best story strip of the year, and it was a runner-up in another year. In the early ’60s, he still went to the dinners, but by the late ’60s he was more reclusive and quit going. It’s too bad, because he lost contact with the cartoonists he had regarded as his old friends. I’d say Gill Fox and Sam Burlockoff were two of the few he kept in touch with. Later on, the strip Nick Dallis had started first—Rex Morgan, M.D.—needed a new artist. Gill Fox was the go-between. Dallis wanted to control who would become the new artist, but he was living in Scottsdale, Arizona, and was out of the loop in regard to knowing cartoonists. He called my dad, and Dad called Gill Fox, who suggested Tony DiPreta. And, for a while, my father helped Tony with Rex Morgan. My father remembered those early days, when he had worked with Gill and Tony, as his version of living away from home at college. He had very fond memories of that. He was a young man working and living with other guys, and described that as a very happy period in his life. JA: Do you still paint? KOTZKY: Yes. I paint portraits and figures in a realistic style. Actually, I think I paint better now than when I was an illustrator. Then, the editors wanted a very high degree of finish in terms of being very rendered with precise detail. Looking back on it, that style was too tight. Now, I try to be more expressive, even though I’m painting realistically. I use a much looser approach in my brush work, which I find more gratifying. JA: Tell me about your family, and how your father felt about becoming a grandfather. KOTZKY: My wife’s name is Helen. My younger daughter’s name is Kim, and the older one is Brigit. My dad was very pleased with them, and luckily lived long enough to see them grow up a little. He was a shy person, but when we had family get-togethers, he got a lot of enjoyment out of seeing his granddaughters. They added a lot of joy to his life.
When I took over 3-G, the North America Syndicate really didn’t know who I was. The editor, Jay Kennedy, had dealt with my father for many years, and I guess he knew my father had an assistant. That was the extent of it. My father got sick and I ended up explaining to the syndicate that I filled in when my dad couldn’t work. They had no idea whether or not I could do the strip. They took a chance by letting me do the art. But they weren’t going to take a chance on my writing the strip. Jay Kennedy brought in Lisa Trusiani, who’d been writing Barbie comics. I worked with Lisa for three years. I had gotten spoiled, having grown up with Dallis’ writing. He really was an excellent writer. He got very wordy, and my father thought he overwrote and that the dialogue should have been shorter and snappier. Nevertheless, in terms of developing characters and revealing their motiva-
Brian Kotzky’s Apartment 3-G Sunday strip for Nov. 15, 1998. [Apt. 3-G art ©2004 North America Syndicate, Inc.]
Quality Time-- part six
The Last Quality Editor
21
AL GRENET Talks about His Two Decades in the Comics Field—and Beyond! Interview Conducted & Transcribed by Jim Amash
Al and Belle Grenet in a 1998 photo, flanked by a pair of Quality covers—one (at left) which Al edited, and one he also penciled and inked (at right). Plastic Man #43 (Nov. 1953) reflected the growing horror trend, and may or not be by the same artist(s) who drew the #47 splash used as this issue’s Plas cover. Marmaduke Mouse was a late Quality hit, running 65 issues between 1946-56; issue #53 was from 1955. Photo & Marmaduke color proof courtesy of Al Grenet; thanks to Bob Bailey for the scan of the Plas cover. [Plastic Man TM & ©2004 DC Comics; Marmaduke art ©2004 the respective copyright holders.]
[INTRODUCTION: Over the years of Quality Comics’ existence from 1939-1956, publisher Everett “Busy” Arnold hired various people to edit his company’s books, beginning with cartoonist Johnny Devlin, and including Ed Cronin, Gill Fox, George Brenner, Harry Stein, and John Beardsley, among others. The last editor hired by Arnold was Al Grenet, who guided the books through until the end. Grenet oversaw the new trends that Quality followed amid the stormy seas of the 1950s, as Dr. Fredric Wertham’s attack on comics helped exact a final toll. But Grenet’s career is about more than just Quality Comics, though that is our primary focus here. In fact, he played an interesting part in Quality’s early days—and even in its nigh-posthumous life—though I won’t spoil the surprises for you in advance. I’ll let Al tell you about them. And about himself. —Jim.]
“I Got It Down to a System” JIM AMASH: Here’s a tough question for you: where and when were you born? AL GRENET: Budapest, Hungary, February 28, 1915. If I’d been born a day later, I’d be four years younger for every year I’ve aged. I came to America in 1920. My family were refugees because of the First World War. We settled down in New York, where I lived until 1978. Then I moved to Florida. I started out at seventeen as an errand boy in a drugstore. I got promoted to cashier and was in charge of the errand boys. I saw an ad in the newspaper—Walt Disney was looking for artists. I went up and took
the test, but they didn’t like what I did, so I did other jobs until 1938, when I saw another ad in the paper for an artist. It was Eisner & Iger. They gave me a week’s trial and I stayed there for five years, until I went into the Army. JA: Who hired you? Eisner or Iger?
GRENET: It was both of them. It was very informal. I showed them some artwork and they started me off as an apprentice at the large sum of $5 a week. I erased pages and whited out mistakes for the first year I worked there. Then they saw I had some talent, and I started lettering for them. I also did backgrounds. Eisner & Iger had a system. An artist was given a script and he drew the whole thing. Later on, I got to be the shop manager for Iger when he and Eisner split up. We had a room full of artists, who generally did the pencils and inks on their individual assignments. I changed that. I broke things down to where an artist penciled the story and then we checked it over. After that, I lettered the story and put in the backgrounds before handing it to an inker to finish. I got so fast at lettering that I was doing 16 to 20 pages a day, without guidelines. I got it down to a system. It was like handwriting to me. JA: That’s impressive. What was it like to work for Eisner & Iger? GRENET: It was very rough. Jerry Iger was a little fellow who didn’t do much in the way of artwork, but was a very strict boss. This was in the days of the Depression when we worried about our jobs. He’d come in Monday about 10:00, look around and see that some of the guys were
22
Al Grenet
Eisner & Iger—together again for the first time! Will Eisner (on left) and Jerry Iger (on right) two or three decades back— flanking the sequence from Eisner’s 1986 graphic roman à clef titled The Dreamer in which his and Iger’s transparent doppelgängers form their late-’30s partnership. Photos courtesy of Will Eisner and Jay Disbrow. [Graphic novel art ©2004 Will Eisner.]
talking and some were working. Iger spoke with a lisp. He’d say [imitating Iger], “Jesus Christ! This is Monday, tomorrow’s Tuesday, and Wednesday’s coming. Half the week’s shot to hell and nothing’s done!” That’s the way he used to talk. People used to make fun of him. He was tyrannical in that sense. When he put me in charge, he gave me the dirty work of firing people. He’d hire them on Monday and fire them on Friday. I felt very badly about doing that. I remember one woman who really needed the job. We hired her on Monday. Iger told me to fire her on Friday. What he used to do was hire people when he got a load of work in, and then fire them once it was done. There was no security with him. It wasn’t a happy time in my life. JA: That was after Eisner and Iger split up in 1939-40, of course. But earlier, what was Eisner doing while Iger was watching people? GRENET: He was a very good artist and did a lot of the work himself. He rarely bossed anyone around. He was a little bit egotistical. He was much younger than me and used big words all the time.
Rufus, “Where’s the crackers?” Rufus said there weren’t any more, and Iger said, “What do you mean there aren’t any more? You ate all the crackers?” We were embarrassed because Iger was yelling at poor Rufus, but Iger used to yell at everybody. He was lucky that he never got beaten up, because there were a few guys who wanted to beat him up. I remember one guy threatened to beat him up, and Iger was such a little guy, he was shaking in his pants. JA: When you started lettering for Eisner & Iger, how much were you paid? GRENET: I was on salary and I think I got $24 a week. I also did outside lettering for Harry Chesler; he paid $2 a page. I also lettered all the cover titles for Eisner & Iger. I created the logos, like for Blackhawk, Smash, Crack, Doll Man, Plastic Man, and the rest. And later, all the logos for the romance comics and other comics we did while I was at Quality. I also colored the covers for Quality after World War II. When Eisner split from Iger, Busy Arnold took control of the comics. Eisner was no longer packaging complete stories for him, because he was too busy doing the Spirit section.
“There Were a Few Guys Who Wanted to Beat [Iger] Up”
JA: Was “Doll Man” an Eisner creation?
JA: Was Lou Fine there?
GRENET: Yes.
GRENET: The fellow with the limp? Oh, yes. He was an excellent artist and a good-natured person. He sat there and quietly did his work. Mort Leav was there, too. Somebody’d open the window and he’d say, “I smell fresh air. Close the window.” [laughs]
JA: I’d like to ask you about some of the people at Eisner & Iger. Do you remember Alex Blum?
JA: Did the workers socialize after hours? GRENET: A few of them did, but I don’t remember who. I remember one time when Iger invited all of us to his house—Aldo Rubano, me, and some others. Iger had a servant working for him named Rufus, who also worked in the office. Iger figured he wasn’t home during the day, so Rufus went to the office with him. We sat down for dinner and Rufus served us the soup. Iger asked
GRENET: Yes. He was in his forties and we were all in our twenties, so we looked at him like he was an aged man. He was a fairly good artist but didn’t mix with the rest of us. JA: Was Raphael Astarita there? GRENET: Yes. We used to call him the “Esther-eater.” [laughs] I don’t remember that much about him, though he worked at Iger’s, too. Later on, I was working for Arnold when Astarita came in looking for work. I knew his work, of course, and told Arnold, “This fellow wants a job.” Arnold wanted to see samples of his work, so I asked Astarita if he had
The Last Quality Editor brought anything with him. He said, “No, I got rid of all that stuff that I did for Iger.” So I asked him to do a splash page so I’d have something to show Arnold, and he said, “What do you mean? I got to do a sample?” I explained that Arnold didn’t know him and had to see an example of his work. He got mad and left. He felt he was a good artist and didn’t have to do that. I knew he was a good artist, but I had to show his work to the boss. I should have hired him anyway. JA: Getting back to Eisner & Iger, were Jack Kirby and Al Bryant there?
GRENET: I don’t think Chuck Cuidera did “The Blue Beetle.” At least, not while I was there. I remember Chuck was mainly an inker; that’s all he did for me later on. JA: Cuidera did do the complete art on the early “Blackhawk” stories, so he could pencil. GRENET: Maybe so. I wasn’t there when “Blackhawk” was created. I always thought Charles Wojtokowski created “The Blue Beetle.” You know, there were a lot of people working at those shops, and it’s hard to remember them all. I didn’t socialize with too many of them, so I didn’t get to know them personally.
GRENET: Kirby had already left, but Al Bryant worked there. Years later, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was at Pilgrim’s State Hospital on Long Island. He had a lot of problems with his wife and was a little eccentric. One day, he invited Aldo and me over to his house. We came over, and Bryant was hiding behind the curtains... we saw him. We knocked on the door, but he never answered, so I knew something was up.
JA: Did Cuidera create “Blackhawk”?
One day, Bryant escaped from the hospital and came over to Arnold’s. He was all messed-up and dirty-looking. He must have hitchhiked over. Arnold gave him $20. Bryant asked for a job, so Arnold gave him a corner to work in, but Bryant started drawing things that made no sense. I said to Arnold, “Maybe he escaped? Maybe he wasn’t released?” Arnold called the police, and sure enough, that’s what had happened. The police were there in five minutes and took him away. We never saw him again.
GRENET: I don’t remember “The Ray,” but “Black Condor” was created by Eisner.
Bob Powell was at Eisner & Iger, too. He was an okay fellow. Artie Saaf was at Iger’s, and he was a pain. He thought certain things were funny, and since I was the “straw boss,” he didn’t like me. I went out one day and he put thumbtacks in my seat. I sat on those tacks and it hurt. Saaf thought it was funny, so I figured he was the one who did it. I went over to him and put a choke lock on him; I was going to kill him. I was very angry and he never did it again. JA: Were you the only letterer at Iger’s? GRENET: No. There was another man there named Milton Cohen.
“[Eisner and Iger] Were Never on Friendly Terms” JA: Do you remember Charles Sultan? GRENET: Charlie? Oh, yeah. He was a good fellow and a good artist. He was a freelance artist; he didn’t work in the shop. He was one of my friends. He didn’t talk that much. George Tuska was also a nice guy. Charles Wojtokowski worked in the studio, too. He drew “The Blue Beetle.” JA: Right. Do you happen to know who created “The Blue Beetle”? GRENET: I thought he [Wojtokowski] did. JA: I always thought so, too. He worked under the name “Charles Nicholas.” But Chuck Cuidera told me that he created The Blue Beetle and that he used his first two names, “Charles Nicholas,” for a pen name. Cuidera said that Wojtokowski kept that pen name when he started drawing “Blue Beetle.” It’s always hard to reconcile the sad end Al Bryant came to with the many great covers he drew showcasing Doll Man (among others). This art from the cover of Feature Comics #100 (July 1946), as restored by Bill Black and his AC Comics cohorts, appears in AC’s new collection of Quality masterworks, Golden-Age Greats Spotlight, Vol. 2. See their special ad on our flip side. [Doll Man TM & ©2004 DC Comics; restored art ©2004 AC Comics.]
23
GRENET: He may have helped create “Blackhawk.” I can’t say for sure. Chuck was a nice guy, but he liked to enlarge his repertoire. He may have drawn the early stories, and Eisner could have created “Blackhawk.” JA: Do you know who created “The Ray” and “The Black Condor”?
JA: Do you remember any of the writers at the Eisner-Iger shop? GRENET: Not really. I know Harry Stein was there. Writers weren’t prominent in those days. JA: You were there when Eisner and Iger split up. Did they part on friendly terms? GRENET: They were never on friendly terms. Iger had all these sayings and he’d insult Eisner with them. Like, “You’re as popular as a hat-
24
Al Grenet GRENET: No, but I didn’t like the guy personally. I didn’t want to work for him. When I told him I wasn’t going to work in the office for him, he said, “To thine own self, be true.” I didn’t know what the hell that implied. JA: Did Eisner pay you $2 a page, too? GRENET: Yes. That was the standard pay. The only guy who paid me more than that was an advertiser in New York, who paid me $10 a page. But that work didn’t last long. Bill Eisner was a hell of a cartoonist and he wrote good stories. I don’t remember how long I lettered The Spirit. JA: Did the artists write their own stories in the Iger shop? Al Grenet may be doubtful about Chuck Cuidera’s claim to be sole creator of both Blue Beetle and Blackhawk, but he liked the late artist personally—and they produced a number of covers together, such as Quality’s Love Secrets #33 & #35 (Oct. & Dec. 1953). Pencils by Grenet; inks by Cuidera; reprinted from cover proofs provided by Al. The numbers may make it sound like a long-running title, but the first issue of Love Secrets had been #32! [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]
check girl in a synagogue.” They’d argue in front of the employees, so when Eisner had a chance to leave, he took it and did The Spirit. I stayed with Iger but I lettered The Spirit for Eisner. I became the shop manager for Iger when Eisner left. I think that was in 1940. JA: Why do you think you got that job? GRENET: I guess Iger thought I’d be the best man for the job. He’d had people who worked there long before I did, but I got the job. I wasn’t too happy about it at first, because I knew that staffers always hate the manager. For instance, we got a 15-minute break, and I had to blow a whistle to signal that the break was over. Nobody liked that. Some guys would leave and go get a hamburger and come back late. Then Jerry would get all over me about it, and I had to be stricter with those guys. They didn’t like me because of that. Another thing I remember was that we worked on lap-boards, which we leaned on orange crates. We didn’t have any tables. And we had one ruler, which we had to pass around because we didn’t have another one. JA: How much were you making as manager? GRENET: When I went into the service, I was making $60 a week. JA: That was good money then. You said you fired people. You never hired them, did you? GRENET: No. Iger hired them. JA: So you lettered The Spirit for Eisner on the side? GRENET: Yes. I lettered the first Spirit stories. I also lettered for Harry Chesler on the side. He heard I was a letterer and called me at home. I went to see him and he offered me a lettering job as well as a manager’s job. I told him I wasn’t interested in that, but that I would letter for him. JA: Chesler had a reputation for not paying people. Did you have this problem?
GRENET: They did at the beginning. I was the one who divided up the labor of writing and drawing, so people had separate jobs.
JA: When you created the logos for Quality, did you do that as an employee of Eisner & Iger? GRENET: Yes. Arnold had a letterer working for him; he was slow and a much older man. I don’t remember his name. [NOTE: The description fits Martin DeMuth. —Jim.] JA: How did you wind up doing the logos? Did Iger come to you and say, “We need logos for these books?” GRENET: Yes. It was part of the job. I didn’t get any extra money for it. Doll Man, Plastic Man, Blackhawk, Hit, Smash, Crack... all of them were my logo designs. I also did logos for Arnold’s magazines. Classic Photography was one. This was later, in the early 1950s. One day, Hugh Hefner came in to see Busy Arnold. He had an idea for a magazine with nudes in it. Arnold turned him down. I’ll never forget that. Hefner moved to Chicago, and I don’t know who backed him or how he got it going, but he immediately went into publishing Playboy. When Arnold saw that, he immediately put out his own nudist magazine, which he called Classic Photography. JA: Where were you when Pearl Harbor was attacked? GRENET: I was on 14th Street in New York. Businesses used to have the radio going, and you could hear it on the street. That’s how I found out about it. Prior to that, they had the draft. I had a high number, so after Pearl Harbor I knew I’d be going in. I was drafted in December 1942, and because they had too many people coming in, I was given a deferral. I went to Grand Central Station, which was the induction center, in March 1943. I went to Columbia, South Carolina, for training before I went overseas, in the medical battalion. I was in France in November
The Last Quality Editor
25
Al G. may not remember The Ray, but lots of other folks sure do! (Left:) The final page from the “Ray” story in Smash Comics #19 (Feb. 1941), drawn by Lou Fine, probably working with an assistant. Comic provided by Jim Amash. (Right:) A “Ray” page penciled by Fine enthusiast Gil Kane for a never-published late-1980s issue of DC’s Secret Origins, done in conjunction with writer/editor Roy Thomas. [The Ray TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
1944 and traveled by convoy all the way to the German border. We got there on December 15, just in time for the Battle of the Bulge, and were billeted in a small building next door to a bake shop. It was very quiet there and the people at the shop were very friendly. We got some of that German bread, which I didn’t realize was made out of sawdust. They used it as a filler. One day, we were sitting in the front room. An M.P. came in and said to the baker, “Turn the light off in the window. This is a blackout.” The guy didn’t understand him, so I told him what to do in German. The guy turned out the light and closed the window. The M.P. left and a minute later, the Captain of the M.P.s came in with his gun drawn and told me to stand up. I stood up and he said, “Who are you?” I told him I was with the 106th Infantry, 31st Medical Battalion next door. I was a P.F.C. at the time. The guy asked me, “Why’d you talk to him in German?” I explained that he didn’t speak English. They interviewed us and let us go. I’m just glad they didn’t come in shooting. The next night, while I was sleeping, I heard the garbage man throwing trashcans around. I looked outside and saw shelling going on. We didn’t know what the hell was going on and
“Bill Eisner was a hell of a cartoonist and he wrote good stories.” Right on, Al—and, known as Bill or Will, he’s still going strong! In 1975 he did this wraparound cover for the San Diego Comic-Con program book; nowadays, that’s where they give out the Eisner Awards. Thanks to Shel Dorf. [©2004 Will Eisner.]
26
Al Grenet The Germans were pushing us, and dead guys were lying all over the place. We had to move the dead soldiers like cords of wood in the nunnery, and the nuns prayed over them. The Americans piled the bodies up and took them to the quartermaster lines. That was real rough.
went outside. The Germans had opened up a push, and in no time at all they captured the 422nd and 423rd Infantry Regiments of the 106th Division. They were two regiments of our division. The captain, the major, and the staff and master sergeants got into a jeep weapons carrier. The colonel got into another one with a driver and yelled back to me, “Get the men into the trucks and get them to Vielsom, Belgium.” I wasn’t a sergeant, but I got the guys together with much difficulty, and told them what the colonel told me. Everybody got on the truck except for one guy, who said he didn’t want to go. I asked him what’s the matter and he said, “I’m Heinz from Tennessee. The officers know what to do. You can’t tell me what to do.” I told him to stay there and I never saw him again. We rode out and the Germans were already past us. They were dressed as American soldiers. We were riding down this road and I saw a sign that told us where Vielsom was... the sign pointed to the right. I knew that was wrong because this was a straight road and there were no turns on it. I had looked at the map before we went out and had the map with me. I said to the driver (I was assistant driver then), “Keep going straight,” and the convoy followed us. We unhitched the trailers because they made a lot of noise.
Finally we got out of there and went to a farmhouse to meet part of the 331 Battalion. I said to the farmer, “Any buzz bombs come here?” He said, “No.” A buzz bomb was a wingless plane, and when the motors were shut off, it was like a paper airplane... you didn’t know which way it was going to go. We were no sooner in the house when a buzz bomb landed close to us and blew the top of the house off. Some of the guys were sleeping on the second floor where the comfortable beds were. I slept in the basement. I came running out and ran to the first-aid station with a superficial wound. We then had to go back to France and reconstruct the division. Then we went back to Belgium.
We don’t have any photos of Al Grenet in uniform for Uncle Sam in World War II, so we hope he won’t mind if we fill this space with a great Lou Fine action page showing Uncle Sam, from National Comics #12 (June 1941). Art repro’d from The Lou Fine Comics Treasury; thanks to Greg Theakston. [Uncle Sam TM & ©2004 DC Comics; restored art ©2004 Pure Imagination.]
We came to an area where there were a bunch of G.I.s. The driver stopped to ask them if this was the right way. They didn’t answer us, and their uniforms looked too new to have been there for very long. Afterwards, we found out they were Germans but they didn’t want to start anything. They were infiltrators. Finally, we got to Vielsom, and the colonel said, “What happened to the trailers?” I told him I’d told the men to unhitch them. He said, “You did? My uniform was in one of them.” I said, “For Pete’s sake, what’s more important? The men or your uniform?” He thought about that for a moment and said, “The American flag was in there, too, and you let that be captured.”
I was in the Battle of the Bulge, too. I won a Bronze Star (which took fifty years to get mailed to me). I could tell you a lot of stories.
Because I was an artist, I used to paint the helmets. At one point, they made me take off the Red Crosses on the helmets because the Germans were using them as targets. Those helmets didn’t block anything but maybe falling rocks. The Germans always tried to kill the medics. During the Battle of the Bulge, they shot up the ambulances and all the G.I.s were scattered on the ground. I’ll never forget that scene. The Germans didn’t take prisoners. This was in Nalnady, Belgium. I was almost captured during this time. I was terrified. I wasn’t a hero, I was only a medic. I burnt all my papers and everything, just in case. I said to myself, “If I get out of this, nothing’s going to bother me again.” And you want to know something? Nothing bothers me. I don’t dwell on things.
I said, “The American flag was folded inside. It wasn’t waving so we didn’t let them capture it.” He didn’t know what to say to that but told me, “We’re going to have a summary court-martial for you.”
JA: I can understand why, after that experience. When were you discharged?
I said, “What? For your uniform?” So I had a summary courtmartial, which was a joke, because all the men thought it was funny. But they had to give me some punishment, so they had me wash windows for a week in the one-story building we were in.
GRENET: December of 1945. I went back to Jerry Iger’s shop because the law said that returning veterans got their jobs back. I came in and saw that the office was fully staffed. I asked for my old job back and Iger said, “Jesus Christ! Where am I going to put you? On the ceiling?” That was the end of that.
Since we were being overrun by the Germans, the officers left a group of us behind. We went into the basement of a nunnery. That was weird.
I remembered that we had done work for Quality Comics, so I went to see Busy Arnold. By then, Arnold had moved the offices back to
The Last Quality Editor
27 what he had to do. So Arnold went to Harry Stein and told him I had said he [Arnold] couldn’t afford to pay him. Imagine that! Harry Stein wrote a letter to Arnold and said he should have hired a janitor before he hired me. I called Harry Stein up because I was mad. I called him at six in the morning and woke him up. I was going to call him earlier but I gave him a break. [laughs] I started telling him off and told him I was going to sue him for slander. He said he was going to sue me, too, because I had cost him his job. I said, “I had nothing to do with it. I’m not the boss. How could I do anything about you losing your job?” I went to Arnold and he denied that he told Stein anything. Harry and I had been friends, but after that he became my enemy. JA: So Stein was editor for about two years. Why in the world would Arnold continue paying Stein if he wasn’t using him?
Two more romance covers by Al Grenet (pencils) and Chuck Cuidera (inks), from copies of the color cover proofs provided by Al. Love Secrets #49-50 were probably published for 1955. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]
GRENET: I don’t know. Maybe Arnold was trying to be loyal to him. But Harry was doing his job. I don’t know why he was really fired. JA: Before you were editor...
New York City. The offices were moderately big, and they had a few employees. Most of the artists were freelance, though. George Brenner was the editor. I walked in and talked to a woman in the personnel section. It just so happened that they needed someone to do the low part of the work on the comics. I was looking for any job I could get.
GRENET: I was also doing backgrounds. And I colored the covers. I penciled romance covers, and Chuck Cuidera inked them. I lettered the covers, too. Chuck was a pretty good inker. He really improved my drawings.
Arnold treated his employees fairly well. I started out doing a lot of odds and ends. I did panel borders, erased and cleaned pages, pasted up lettering... things like that. I made $45 a week and was glad to get it.
GRENET: I don’t think so.
George Brenner was a little, stocky guy... maybe five foot eight. He acted like he was really somebody big. He always talked down to people. He had a guy named Hughes working for him, but he didn’t do much... mainly production work. I remember Brenner saying he had to fire Hughes. He said, “He’s an old man and he’s liable to die on the job.” The guy was about fifty years old. Here’s the irony of it: George Brenner died before Hughes did.
JA: Did you draw any of the super-hero covers?
JA: Were you still doing production work when Harry Stein became editor? GRENET: Yes. I went from production artist to editor. As editor I made $125 a week. I had worked my way up to $75 a week when the change occurred. I worked as an editor from ’51 to ’56. I never got a raise while I was the editor.
GRENET: No. Dick Arnold, Busy’s son, used to help me. He wore a crewcut and was a kid at the time. It was tough on Dick to work for his father. His father took things out on him. He didn’t treat his son like he was heir to the company. Arnold didn’t have much confidence in his son. You see that a lot.
JA: Chuck Cuidera told me that Arnold fired Brenner. Didn’t they get along? GRENET: I didn’t know why Brenner left. JA: How did you move up to become the editor? GRENET: The same way I did at Iger’s. I was conscientious about my job. After George Brenner left, Harry Stein became the editor. Harry was a nice guy until he got fired. He was a college guy and wrote pretty adequate stories. We used to go to lunch together. I don’t know why he was fired, but I got his job. He resented me for it. In 1951 Arnold came to me and said, “I made an agreement with Harry to pay him a certain amount and he’s not working. I can’t afford him.” I told him he had to do
JA: Did you have an assistant editor?
Before creator Jack Cole left “Plastic Man,” he wrote and drew some great stories—from which these two panels were excerpted and de-ballooned for The Amazing World of DC Comics #16 (Dec. 1977), a particularly nice “Golden Age Issue” of DC Comics’ own fanzine. [©2004 DC Comics.]
28
Al Grenet
JA: When you started editing, what was the bestselling comic?
GRENET: In a way, yes.
GRENET: All of them sold well. Blackhawk and Plastic Man were the best sellers.
GRENET: So I heard. It didn’t affect the quality of his work, because I never saw any bad work from him. The only thing was, Arnold didn’t always want to talk to the artists. When there was a problem, he’d lay into me and I’d have to talk to the artist. Crandall didn’t take criticism very well. He took it personally. But I had to get production out. I had to get everything to the printer on time. I’d get the silver prints and color them and send them back.
JA: He drank a lot, didn’t he?
JA: Jack Cole gave up doing Plastic Man several years before it was canceled. Do you know why? GRENET: No. I don’t think I ever met him. He was a freelance artist who brought the work in, got his check, and went home. He was one of Arnold’s favorite cartoonists. One day, I heard he committed suicide.
Alex Kotzky did the same thing Crandall did. One time, he brought in a story, and a lot of it was different from what the script called for. So I turned it down. Kotzky called me from a phone booth to tell me off. He couldn’t do that to my face.
JA: I take it that none of the writing was done on staff. Tell me how you handled the writers. GRENET: We assigned a writer to handle a story. He’d bring it in and we’d go over it. Then we’d hand it to the artist. We didn’t have story conferences, if that’s what you’re looking for. Arnold and I both read the scripts. We also had a woman proofread for spelling errors. JA: Did you consider the writer to be as important as the artist?
You have no idea what I had to put up with in dealing with temperamental artists. We also had some writers who wrote for television, but I don’t remember their names now. JA: Would one of them have been William Woolfolk? GRENET: That’s right. You know everything. Al Grenet may have had occasional run-ins with Reed Crandall, but still says, “I never saw any bad work from him!” This “Jeb Rivers” splash—from a late issue of Hit Comics, Police Comics, or even Doll Man—seems to have been penciled by Crandall, though by then (the very late ’40s or 1950s) he was often inked by others. Thanks to Roger Dicken & Wendy Hunt and those great black-&-white English boys’ annuals from the 1950s! [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]
GRENET: Yes. I’d say it was about 50-50 in regards to importance. Artists were to follow the script, but some prima donnas would change the stories. Maybe the artist couldn’t draw a certain scene so he’d change it into something else. Reed Crandall was notorious for that. He was a good artist. The only negative thing about him was that he’d sometimes change the script and do a splash that was different from what the script said.
JA: [laughs] I wish I did, but you’ve proven that I don’t. I’ve just tried to do research. Did you get to know Woolfolk? GRENET: No. He only came into the office to deliver a story and get a check. He wrote good stories. JA: Do you happen to remember what writers and artists made per page?
GRENET: Not for writers. Artists made around $25 a page for pencils. The inkers and colorists were generally on staff and got a weekly salary. There were a couple of women who colored the books. They worked in a corner by themselves and never spoke to anyone. They just worked.
There was one story where the script asked for the Blackhawks to jump from one ship to another. Crandall drew a big American flag in front with some sort of skirmish going on behind it. It had nothing to do with the story. Crandall always changed the splash pages. Busy Arnold would get annoyed and blast me for it. Then I’d have to blast Crandall and he resented me for that. Reed Crandall didn’t like me at all. JA: Was Crandall a prima donna?
Three 1950s Marmaduke Mouse covers drawn (and provided, in color proof form) by Al Grenet. Alter Ego’s editor recalls buying several issues circa 1950. #65, pictured here, was the final issue. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]
The Last Quality Editor
29
Remember Paul Gustavson? He used to come in drunk in the morning. It’d be 9:00 in the morning and you could smell the alcohol before he walked in the door. He didn’t work in the office. He’d come in to pick up a script in that condition. I don’t know how he drove home. JA: Freelancers didn’t stick around the offices for long, did they? GRENET: No. I don’t think Arnold liked the idea of people hanging around and talking to staffers. It was strictly business. JA: Another writer was Manly Wade Wellman. GRENET: Oh, he was good writer. He also wrote books. JA: Wellman was the first comic book professional I ever met. He lived in North Carolina and smoked those More cigarettes, and the darn thing always stayed at the very edge of his lower lip. I watched with great fascination, expecting that cigarette to fall from his mouth at any second. But it never did, and I couldn’t figure out how it stayed on his lower lip since the top lip never seemed to touch it. GRENET: It gets tacky from saliva and sticks like glue. All those smokers went up in smoke. I remember that Wellman wrote a lot of lead stories because his work was among the best. JA: Did you like Bill Finger’s work, too?
An “Arizona Raines” page by Paul Gustavson from Crack Western. Thanks again to Roger Dicken & Wendy Hunt. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]
The letterers also worked on staff. JA: You said you did some lettering while you were the editor. How’d you have the time? GRENET: I made time. I had to do it anyway. I was still doing production work. I drew romance covers and the covers for Marmaduke Mouse. A guy named Levin penciled the insides. That book lasted for a while. JA: You must have put in a lot of overtime. GRENET: I never put in any overtime. I just had to do a lot of work. One day, Arnold and I went out for a drink and he got a little high and said, “Al, I’m giving you a $25 raise.” I was excited about that, but at the end of the week, I got the same paycheck. I asked the paymaster, Bessie Smith, “What happened to the raise?” She asked, “What raise?” I said, “Mr. Arnold said I’m to get a $25 raise.” She said, “He didn’t tell me anything.” I went to see Arnold and he didn’t even remember it. “For the love of all that’s holy, I didn’t promise you anything.” That’s the way he used to talk. He always used that phrase, “For the love of all that’s holy.” [laughs] At times drinking affected his memory and the orders he gave out. That’s why I had him initial everything after we talked, so we couldn’t have any arguments later. JA: I’d like to ask you about a few more writers: Joe Millard, and Dick and Dave Wood. GRENET: Millard was a good writer, but I don’t remember anything about him. I barely remember the Wood brothers. No racial stereotyping here, but neither Quality Comics nor artist Reed Crandall left any doubt how they felt about the then-raging Korean War in this splendid cover for Blackhawk #55 (Aug. 1952). Collector John Yon, who owns the original art, sent us this copy. [Blackhawk TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
GRENET: You know what I remember about Bill Finger? Once, when he was working for Arnold, Finger got in trouble with a loan company. Someone from the loan company came to see Arnold because Finger owed them money. Finger was embarrassed and he laced into the loan people over that. JA: Finger always had money troubles.
30
Al Grenet
This story was originally published in Plastic Man #47 (July 1954) as “The Fiend with a Thousand Faces”; but “Fiend” was altered to “Crook” in the title of the English b&w boys’ annual from which these pages are taken. Ye Editor suspects the tale may have been previously reprinted in the U.S. circa the late 1950s/early 1960s by Israel Waldman’s Super Comics, with a title change insisted on by the Comics Code Authority. (In the story proper, though, the villain is still called “The Fiend” throughout. Go figure!) Artist uncertain, but may well be Charles Nicholas; see note on contents page. 1950s issues of Plastic Man increasingly led off with one of these more realistically-drawn stories, followed by two back-up “Plas” adventures in a lighter artistic vein. Thanks yet again to Roger Dicken & Wendy Hunt. [Plastic Man TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
GRENET: Yeah, he did. And he was always late on scripts. He’d get advances and disappear. He figured he wasn’t going to get any money for the script, because he’d already gotten and spent the money. We had to stop giving him advances. He was a decent writer, though. JA: Was it company policy that prohibited people from signing their work? GRENET: Yes. I don’t know why, unless Arnold was afraid someone might sue him later for some reason? JA: You know, before World War II, people were allowed to sign their names, but that changed. Of all the books that you were in charge of, did you have a personal favorite? GRENET: Blackhawk. It was good adventure and well-written. It was well-drawn, too, especially when Reed Crandall drew them. Dick Dillin, who took it over, just redrew Crandall’s figure work, and it wasn’t the same. JA: Originally, the Chop Chop character in Blackhawk was a stereotyped Chinese. But later on, Quality changed him from a cartoon stereotype into a more realistic character. Was there any pressure to change him? GRENET: It may have just been the temper of the times. Maybe there was a protest or something. I don’t know. We did make him more human.
JA: In the late 1940s, early 1950s, the Plastic Man lead stories were drawn more realistically than the back-up stories. Certainly, they were less cartoony than what Jack Cole had been doing. And in the 1950s, there were occasional reprints in the comic, too. Was there a reason for this? GRENET: Maybe it was because Cole had quit doing it. I don’t know why he quit doing Plastic Man. I don’t remember the names of the people who followed Cole on the book. I don’t know why we used reprints. Maybe we couldn’t get enough good people to do that feature. JA: Do you remember Gill Fox? GRENET: I do. He lived in Glendale, Long Island. We gave him the Candy comic. The guy who had been doing it died of leukemia, but I don’t remember his name. [NOTE: It was Harry Sahle. —Jim.] We gave Gill some of this artist’s pages for reference. One thing Gill Fox said about the Army: he had to go overseas on a ship and he said to himself, “Maybe I can swim back?” [laughs] I still remember that. We also had a good animation artist named Al Stahl. He got drafted and went to the draft board. Later that day, he came back because he was rejected. JA: Gill Fox told me that Stahl was inducted but figured out a way to get discharged. GRENET: Al might have told Gill that. All I remember is that he came back the same day.
The Last Quality Editor JA: What do you remember about Robin King? He inked for you. GRENET: He freelanced. He divorced and remarried. I didn’t know much about him. Bill Quackenbush inked for us, too. He used to live somewhere on Long Island. JA: You seem to remember the artists more than the writers. GRENET: That’s because the writers dealt with Arnold more than with me. JA: I’d like to ask you a little more about Chuck Cuidera.
31
wouldn’t listen to me. He’d say, “What do you know?” That kind of stuff. JA: So Crandall knew he was Arnold’s star artist and he threw his weight around? Well, you were the boss. You didn’t have to put up with that. GRENET: I didn’t. If I had, Arnold would have given me hell. JA: What happened if an artist got was sick and couldn’t do a story? Who decided what artist would take over: you or Arnold?
GRENET: Chuck was a nice guy. He came from New Jersey. I remember when he came back from the service; he was wearing his uniform. He worked in the office as an inker.
GRENET: I never made that decision. Arnold did. He was the boss. He made all the assignments and hired the creative help. I was in charge of getting the work in on time. I gave people false deadlines to insure I’d get the work to the printer on time.
JA: Chuck told me that he worked for Arnold as an art director. Do you remember that?
JA: Did you know Bill Ward, who did Torchy, Blackhawk, and other features?
GRENET: As far as I knew, he wasn’t. If he was, it happened before I was there.
GRENET: No. He worked for us but I didn’t get to know him. I remember Torchy. She was sexy but not really risque. The book attracted a readership.
JA: Do you remember Dick Dillin? He penciled Blackhawk. GRENET: He was a young guy. He was the guy who took over all the Blackhawk work when Crandall was fired. Arnold fired Crandall because he always made smart remarks. It was like insubordination. Crandall always wanted everything his way. And his drinking didn’t help. He got married, and then his wife left him. He wasn’t the same guy after that. He’d give me a hard time when I asked for changes. He
JA: Do you remember that an issue of Torchy was banned in Boston? GRENET: We always had trouble in Boston. Wertham started more trouble for us, and the Comics Code was the result of it. Judge [Charles] Murphy was in charge of it, and I always took the pages to him. He would start taking things out and censor things that were important to
Doll Man had a way of popping up in those English boys’ annuals, as well—e.g., in The Adventure Annual, published in London by Popular Press. Artists unknown—but our well-known benefactors are Roger Dicken & Wendy Hunt. [Doll Man TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
32
Al Grenet
The kind of art and story that got Quality in trouble! (Left:) A particularly sexy “Torchy” splash page from Modern Comics, probably by Bill Ward (though Gill Fox later ghosted his style). The AC Comics version in Good Girl Art Quarterly (Summer 1990) is still available; see AC’s ad in this issue. (Right:) While Busy Arnold’s horror comics were far from the most gruesome around, Jack Cole and others did some good work for them, as per this Cole page from “The Corpse That Wouldn’t Die!” in Web of Evil #2 (Jan. 1953). Thanks to Jim Amash. [©2004 the respective copyright holders; retouched “Torchy” art ©2004 AC Comics..]
the story. I always got angry with him about that. I’d say, “This is important to the story. What’s the matter with this?” It was stupid censorship, and Murphy didn’t know what to do. I went to one of the hearings. They were after Bill Gaines because he went overboard with the horror comics. People’s heads were smashed, stuff like that. JA: You must have been scared.
changes helped sales, but I wasn’t privy to the sales figures. JA: It’s my understanding that Arnold handled all the business... like talking to the distributors and such. GRENET: That’s right. I didn’t do any of that. Sometimes I dealt with the engravers and the printers. Arnold also kept an eye on what the other companies were doing. He was concerned that DC’s books were selling more than his were. JA: I always thought Quality was a good name for that company.
GRENET: Oh, yeah. I was interviewed by the Kefauver Committee; one of his aides talked to me. He asked me why we were trying to corrupt the kids... like maybe we were a plot from Russia or something. It was stupid, because we didn’t have any real violence in our stories. If we had a girl wearing a shirt without sleeves, we were forced to add sleeves. They went overboard.
GRENET: It was. Arnold tried to put out good books. JA: Did the people who worked for Arnold like working for him? GRENET: I think so. Like Chuck Cuidera. He was always a happy-go-lucky guy. JA: Near the end of Quality’s publishing days, did Busy Arnold seem to lose any interest because he felt the end was near?
JA: At one point, Arnold started changing the comics. Crack Comics became Crack Western, Kid Eternity became Buccaneers, etc. GRENET: We were just following trends. Westerns were getting popular and we went along with it. I don’t think those
Grenet and an artist for Ebony magazine, 1955. Courtesy of Al Grenet.
GRENET: Before the end came, Arnold had bought some land in Naples, Florida, and he’d go for the whole winter. Dick Arnold and I ran the place. I’d write him a few letters just to let him know we were still there. [laughs]
The Last Quality Editor JA: Did his being gone make your job any easier?
someone here... his name is Al Grenet.” I went in to talk to this guy and said, “Your name is Al Grenet?” He looked up at me and said, “Yes.” He had assumed my identity. [laughs] He got the job!
GRENET: No, because I still had to get all the work out. I had a full workload. I was the only one there who did the paste-ups; I selected the type and put it in. I really earned my money. Maybe that’s why he made me the editor. He got me cheap. Near the end, we tried magazines. One time, I had typeset the cover and pasted the blurb on. Arnold came over and ripped it off. I asked him why. He said, “I don’t like the copy.” I told him he had approved it, and he said, “I don’t like it.” Now I had to get a new writer to redo it and get it all done over again, in time for the printer. It made deadlines tough. This was when I started having Arnold initial the pages, so he’d remember our discussions.
33
JA: That’s unbelievable! He used your name to get that job! GRENET: Yeah. I don’t know what happened after that. I doubt he got away with it for very long, because he had a different Social Security number. It wasn’t a big company. JA: Didn’t you tell them what this guy had done? GRENET: No. I didn’t want to bother. But that one really got me. After that, I got a call from DC Comics. They wanted me to go to lunch with their editors. I went to lunch with four of them for four hours, and all they did was pump me for information: how did they [Quality] do this, how did they do that? Who did you send this and that to? I thought they were going to offer me a job, but I never heard from them again. Al says that, for the Arnold magazine Master Photography: “I did all the artwork, paste-ups, mechanicals, retouching, and camera-ready work. A one-man production.” There were lots of travel photos inside, also “Women of Bali” and nude shots of models such as Betty Page (spelled “Paige”). Thanks to Al Grenet. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]
Arnold hired a young lady to be assistant editor on Classic Photography and Master Photography. He sent her out to California to meet with a guy named Dedienas, who contributed nude photographs to the magazine. She went out there, met a guy, and married him. Some of the magazines Arnold published were Gusto: He-Man Adventures, Terror Detective Story Magazine, and Hit Crossword Puzzles, and a magazine called Rage, which was also a he-man magazine. Arnold’s downfall came when he lost American News Company as his distributor. He couldn’t get his magazines or comic books distributed. That’s why he got out of comics. Something happened there... I don’t know what it was. Maybe they had a falling out? Arnold finally got Charlton Press in Derby, Connecticut, to distribute his magazines. But we never saw them on the stands. I used to go to the newsstands and never saw Arnold’s books there. Before this, we had plenty of our titles on the stands. JA: Charlton had their own comic book line, so they weren’t going to push Arnold’s book over theirs. GRENET: Right. So Arnold went out of business. He didn’t tell me he was shutting down. On December 28, 1956, he called me into his office and asked if I wanted to buy his titles. He said if I gave him $28,000 and paid off his notes, the company would be mine. I said, “Forget it. I don’t have that kind of money.” So I turned him down and the next thing I knew, Arnold closed down the company. I got no real warning, no severance pay, nothing at all. I went around to a few places looking for work. I went to one comic book place—I don’t remember the name of the outfit—and talked to a young guy who was working there. He told me, “I have
Then I got a call from some guy in Derby, Connecticut. I went over to them, and this guy, who I think was an art director, showed me an oil painting and asked me what I thought about it. I didn’t know what they wanted me to say. JA: In regards to the distribution problems, was Charlton trying to hurt Quality, maybe to buy it out later?
GRENET: It could be... I can’t say for sure. After that, they came to see me about doing some comics, but nothing happened. Boy, I really had a rough time after that. Eventually, I went into sales and made five times as much money as I ever did in comics. I was selling high-dollar machinery, and I had a knack for doing it. I also worked for a time for Eastman Kodak selling Verifax copiers. I won a national sales contest in 1960. I’d demonstrate a printing press or a large vertical camera. I was good at closing sales. I worked for several companies until 1978, when I retired. JA: So you were 63 years old when you retired. GRENET: Yes. I’ll tell you a story here. I was working for a company named AGFA, selling graphic art materials. I got a lead to go to an art shop in Brooklyn. They wanted to buy a large industrial camera. I came in and there was a gray-haired, elderly guy working there. He recognized me right away and said, “Al Grenet. How are ya?” I said, “Who are you?” It was [onetime Quality artist] Johnny Cassone. Covers of other Arnold magazines: Gusto: He-Man Adventures (with a few spicy pictures, but no nudity), Hit Crossword Puzzles, and Terror Detective Story Magazine. One of the stories in the latter (from Oct. 1956) was written by Jim Harmon, noted old-radio expert who contributed the Captain Midnight article to Alter Ego #22. Noted science-fiction author Fredric Brown wrote another. Courtesy of Al Grenet. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]
34
Al Grenet
Kid Eternity, a hero introduced in Hit Comics, could conjure up famous people from history (including, once, Blackhawk!) to help him out of a jam. After Kid Eternity #18 (Nov. 1949), his own title changed to Buccaneers for the final ten issues, with features like “Black Roger” (maybe Vern Henkel?) “Eric Falcon” (Charles Tomsey, perhaps with another), “Adam Peril” (Kotzky?)—and Reed Crandall’s “Captain Daring” (see Toth essay on flip side). Thanks to Peter Hansen for the “Black Roger” scan... to Hames Ware for his tentative IDs of the art... and to Roger Dicken & Wendy Hunt for the Buccaneers art reprinted from old b&w English annuals. [©2004 the respective copyright holders; Kid Eternity TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
The Last Quality Editor He was much younger than me, but he looked older. I was amazed. Cassone worked for me at in the old days, but I hadn’t seen him in years. JA: Did you save any of the original artwork at Quality?
In recent years, in his retirement in Florida, Al keeps his hand in by painting the occasional mural, scenery for local dramatic productions (as seen above), portraiture sketches, etc.— and now and then runs into Green Lantern creator Marty Nodell and his wife in the supermarket. Photos courtesy of Al Grenet.
originals in existence today.
GRENET: I don’t have any now. We had the art stored in a room on shelves, and before we closed down, I took some covers and some pages. But I sold all that at conventions in the 1970s. I got $25 a cover. JA: Ouch! Those covers are incredibly valuable now, and from what I hear, there are no Jack Cole “Plastic Man”
GRENET: I didn’t save any Cole work. You know what Arnold did before he went out of business? He sold what art had remained to a guy who was going into the comic book business. The guy took all the original artwork. One day, the guy called me up, and I colored and drew a few humor covers for him. He paid me $25 a cover and I never heard from him again. JA: Was this Israel Waldman? GRENET: I think so; that sounds about right. He put out some comics but I don’t think he made much money.
35
JA: Didn’t the artists ever ask for the art back? GRENET: I don’t know. I just know Arnold wouldn’t return the artwork. Maybe he thought the artists would resell it. But Arnold ended up selling it himself. Around 1960 I got a call from a guy (I don’t remember his name) who wanted to restart Quality Comics. I went to meet him, Arnold, and another guy (whose name I don’t remember, either), and he offered me $25 a month until the magazines were successful, and then we’d renegotiate. I couldn’t believe it! Arnold didn’t say anything during this meeting. He was quiet and didn’t seem like the same man I had once worked for. I turned that job down—and that was the end of my comic book days. [As a five-year-old, JIM AMASH saw George (Superman) Reeves flying through the skies, bursting through walls, and getting hopeful looks from Lois Lane. Then a neighbor gave Jim his first comic books, and he was hooked. As he matured, Jim became interested in fine art but never outgrew his original fascination with comics. Even after earning a master’s degree in fine arts and exhibiting his work in galleries and museums, he still found himself managing a comic book shop and organizing comics conventions in North Carolina. Later, he broke into professional comics as an inker/finisher for Marvel, Malibu, DC, Warner Bros., Valiant, Dark Horse, and others. He currently inks for Archie Comics and Disney. [Jim’s interest in comic book history awakened when DC flooded the newsstands with reprints of classic comics in the early 1970s, and he first considered writing about comics after discovering a copy of The Steranko History of Comics at a local library. It was Roy Thomas who gave Jim the opportunity to satisfy his desire to study and celebrate the people who built the comics industry. What Jim didn’t foresee was that many of the people he interviewed would become personal friends, making his efforts even more rewarding. Without Roy Thomas, Dr. Jerry Bails, and Jim’s long-suffering wife Heidi, none of his Alter Ego work would be possible. He thanks them for what they’ve done for him.] Portrait of the interviewer as a young cigar-smoker: a self-sketch by Jim Amash, juxtaposed with one of the later comics edited by interviewee Al Grenet—the cover of Plastic Man #62 (May 1956), only two issues before Busy Arnold left the comic book business. Plas artist unknown. Thanks to Bob Bailey for the Plas scan. [Self-portrait ©2004 Jim Amash; Plastic Man TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
AL GRENET Checklist [NOTE: Thanks, once again, to Jerry Bails for this information; see other interviews in this issue for more details. Key: (a) = full art; (p)= pencils only; (e) = editor.] Full Name: Alfred Grenet (b. 1915) - editor, letterer, artist
Shop Work: Eisner & Iger c. 1939; Iger Shape (manager/letterer) 1940-42
Birthplace: Hungary
COMIC BOOK CREDITS (Mainstream U.S. Publishers)
Staff position: Quality Comics (editor) 1951-57
Charlton Comics & precursors: Lawbreakers (a) 1951
Colorist: Quality 1946-56 (covers)
Quality Comics: covers (p) 1946-56 (love titles; Marmaduke Mouse); Doll Man (a) 1951
Letterer: Quality 1946-56
38
Comic Fandom Archive
It’s the 40th Anniversary of the
Alley Tally Party!
On March 21 & 22, 1964, Exactly Four Months after the Assassination of JFK, Nearly a Score of Comics Fans Gathered for the First “Pre-Comicon”! JOIN US FOR A PHOTOGRAPHIC REMEMBRANCE OF THAT SEMINAL EVENT—WITH SOME RARE AND NEVER-BEFORE-PUBLISHED IMAGES!
by Bill Schelly A Time for Celebration Is it really possible? Can it be that forty years has passed since the Alley Tally Party was held at Jerry Bails’ house in Detroit? Can it truly be four full decades since the seeds of the first comicon were planted? The answer, O my fellow old farts, is YES! And, though it may bring intimations of our own mortality to cast our minds back to that first day of spring 1964 when the first sizable gathering of comics fans got together, it’s an opportunity to celebrate a true milestone in our history as a separate and distinct fandom—a fandom where no one need apologize for loving comic books. And that’s something worth celebrating with every fiber in our fannish beings!
What’s an Alley Tally Party?
In this issue we’ve tried to avoid printing most Alley Tally photos which can be seen in Bill’s still-available book The Golden Age of Comic Fandom. One oft-published photo from the 1964 event shows eight of the participants around a lamppost in front of Jerry Bails’ home, with Jerry crouching to squint at fan Alex Almaraz, who’s pointing at the camera. Well, here’s a different, never-before-published photo—of nine fans—gathered around said lamppost. [Standing, l. to r.:] Don Glut, Jim Rossow, Bob Butts, Dick Anderson, Mike Tuohey, Grass Green. [Crouching, l. to r.]: Jerry Bails, Alex Almaraz, Ronn Foss. Chuck Moss, who appeared in the other photo, was probably taking this one.
hero who (Roy reasoned), being a caveman, could arguably be called the “first super-hero.” The Academy of Comic Book Fans and Collectors was formed to nominate the candidates and to supervise the voting of what were never referred to as anything other than the Alley Awards... or the “Alleys.” The first Alley Awards were given out for comics published in 1961, and Roy easily counted the votes solo because of a fairly small number of ballots. But by 1963 fandom had grown, as had the number of categories on the ballot, making the tallying a job of not-insignificant proportions. Estimates are that there were about 250 ballots in that third year of the awards... and twenty categories. Even this early, Marvel Comics had made substantial in-roads into what during 1961-62 had been virtually a DC preserve. Stan Lee won “Best Writer” and “Best Editor,” and Amazing Spider-Man was voted “Best Comic Book,” with Fantastic Four right behind. In fact, Marvel won ten of the fifteen pro categories. (See full list of pro comics winners at end of article.)
With its very name, the Alley Tally’s purpose is proclaimed: a gathering for the purpose of counting the ballots cast in the 1963 Alley Awards, the original “Oscars” for comics fandom—or “comicdom,” as it was sometimes grandiosely called in that era. They had originated from a suggestion by future comics pro Roy Thomas in a letter written to Alter Ego’s founding editor/publisher, Jerry Bails, on October 25, 1961: “Your selfappointed #1 idea man was just thinking that Alter-Ego [still hyphenated at this stage] … should add a new feature: The Alter-Ego Award.” Roy’s suggested name for the award was the “Alley”… which referred as much to the first two When Ronn Foss and Grass Green picked up the South Bend Crew to drive them to Detroit, Keith Greene snapped this previously-unpublished photo of (l. to r.) letters of the fanzine’s name as it Bob Butts, Jim Rossow, and Ronn outside Jim’s house. did to Alley Oop, the comic strip
It was Maggie Thompson, now editor-in-chief of The Comics Buyer’s Guide, who dubbed the gathering the “Alley Tally,” a name that ever since has been associated with one of the most important events in the history of fandom. Still, I’ve always believed that Jerry’s clarion call for help was really just the ready excuse to gather together the first substantial group of comic book fans from a multi-state area. Fans in population centers like Chicago and New York City had probably assembled before,
Alley Tally Party
though probably not as many as nineteen at one time. But the real distinction here is that folks came together from considerable distances, and five states. Michigan yielded Jerry Bails, Mike Vosburg (future pro artist), Fred Jackson, Mike Tuohey, Larry Sorek, and Edwin Aprill, Jr. Indiana produced the South Bend Crew: Jim Rossow, Bob Butts, and Keith Greene, as well as Richard “Grass” Green from Ft. Wayne. From Ohio came Ronn Foss, Don and Maggie Thompson, Jerry Raybourne, and his friend Russ Keeler. Don Glut (another future pro), Dick Andersen, and Alex Almaraz drove up from Chicago. Farthest journey was that of Chuck Moss from Nebraska.
39
(Top left:) The process of tallying the 250-plus Alley ballots (each of which featured voting in twenty categories!) represented a substantial task, though Don Glut and Gerry Sorek (seated, center) don’t seem overly exerted. But Don Thompson’s job at the chalkboard kept him center-stage, as did Jerry Bails’ role as supervisor. (Jerry’s head is cut off in photo.) That’s Mike Vosburg at lower right. (Left:) Zeroing in: As Don tallies the votes for “Best Editor,” it’s becoming clear that Stan Lee is running well ahead of second-place (and previous two-year winner) Julius Schwartz. Neither this photo nor the preceding one has ever seen print before. (Above:) Only weeks after the Alley Tally, fan-artist Ronn Foss drew and published this cartoon of a fantasy version of the event. Interestingly, he chose not to draw either Spider-Man or the Fantastic Four, the heroes who actually fared highest in the voting. [Art ©2004 Estate of Ronn Foss; Captain America TM & ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Batman TM & ©2004 DC Comics; Alley Oop TM & ©2004 NEA.]
Adding gravitas to this occasion, nearly all attendees were wellknown in fandom because they were fanzine publishers whose publica-
The photo at left has been previously printed, but not since Bill Schelly cleaned it up via Photoshop. It’s the one snapshot which shows the only African-American besides Grass Green who attended the Tally: Mike Vosburg’s pal Fred Jackson. Leaning over Fred are bespectacled Ed Aprill, Jr., and Alex Almaraz; Voz is seated at right. Aprill would soon publish groundbreaking reprint editions of the early Buck Rogers strip, while Vosburg—who drew the Hawkman sketch above in 1963— became a pro comics artist, and got lots better! We’d have proven it, but we wanted to limit this article to vintage art. [Art ©2004 Mike Vosburg; Hawkman TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
40
Comic Fandom Archive
tions reached just about everyone active in fandom. Among the participants were the editors (past and present) of Comic Art, Alter Ego, The Comicollector, Dateline: Comicdom, The Comic Reader, Masquerader, reprint volumes of Buck Rogers in the 25st Century, Shazam! [the fanzine, not the future comic], Fan-to-Fan, Countdown, Rapport, and Super Hero.
A Prototype for Future Comicons While the first real comicon (comics convention) took place in either New York City or Detroit in 1964 (depending on how you define the term “comicon”), there are plenty of things about the Tally that make it recognizable as the first “pre-con”: fans from out-of-state, an overnight stay, a masquerade (Ronn Foss as Rocketman!), an art show (original art on Jerry Bails’ basement walls), celebrity attendees of sorts (for Foss and Green certainly had their share of fans due to their popular comics features in the fanzines of the day), plus plenty of trading and (perhaps) selling of old comic books.
And so, fellow comics aficionados, let’s lift a glass of sparkling cider to these nineteen fandom pioneers, and to the event that began the tradition of comic fans coming together to share their enthusiasm for one of the greatest and most uniquely American mediums of popular expression! [A complete account (with mostly different photos) of the Alley Tally Party—and the entire early history of what was then often called “comicdom”—can be found in Bill’s book The Golden Age of Comic Fandom, which recently went into its third printing! Copies available from Hamster Press, P.O. Box 27471, Seattle, WA 98165, for $20.00 postpaid. More info on the website www.billschelly.com. Check it out, true believers! And if you haven’t yet picked up a copy of Bill’s latest fabulous tome, Word of Wonder: The Life and Times of Otto Binder, don’t delay. See Hamster Press’ double-page ad on pp. 36–37.]
An ALLEY TALLY Photo Gallery - March 1964
(Left:) The appearance of Rocketman—Ronn Foss in a remarkably effective costume—took the gathering by surprise. (Above:) Mike Tuohey helped Bob Butts try on that groovy helmet, while Dick Anderson looks on. Hey, fellas— be careful! It’s only made of cardboard, painted silver! Ronn also did a Green Hornet sketch during this period. [Art ©2004 Estate of Ronn Foss; Green Hornet TM & ©2004 the respective copyright holders.]
In this previously-unprinted photo, Jerry (left) talks to some off-camera fans, while Bob Butts listens. For whatever reason, few photographs of Don and Maggie Thompson at the Alley Tally have survived. In this rare photo, the editors of Comic Art (and future editors of The Comics Buyer’s Guide) are speaking with Jerry Bails (right).
Alley Tally Party
41
Off Jerry Bails’ basement was what he dubbed the Reading Room, where copies of Golden Age comics intended for that purpose were available; the room ordinarily served as his office. Note Roy Thomas’ Bestest League drawing for the cover of 1961’s Alter-Ego #1, as traced and altered for spirit-duplicator printing by Jerry, on the door at right. Above the original art for the cover of Justice League of America #21 (!) with its first-ever JLA-JSA crossover is a shelf with Fredric Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent and Stephen Becker’s Comic Art in America among the selections. The comics fan in evidence is Chuck Moss.
Fans did most of their tallying in the basement recreation room, surrounded by an eye-popping wall display of original DC artwork. (L. to r.:) Alex Almaraz, Ronn Foss, Jim Rossow (back of his head), Larry Raybourne, and Grass Green, who seems puzzled about something. Ronn and Grass also did some drawings for Don Glut’s Shazam fanzine during breaks from counting votes.
Photo of Alley award statue, courtesy of current Alley Oop artist Jack Bender. [Alley Oop TM & ©2004 NEA.]
42
Comic Fandom Archive
AND THE WINNERS ARE...
As Jerry (seated) works on the totals, fans (l. to r.) Larry Raybourne, Jim Rossow, Grass Green, and Bob Butts stand around asking, “Who won?”
Academy of Comic Book Fans and Collectors Alley Awards for 1963 [NOTE: For reasons of space, only the awards to professional comics are listed here, although we should mention that Ronn Foss won for Best Fan Artists and Jerry Bails for Best Writer. But remember—the votes had been mailed in before the Talliers gathered in Detroit, so no fix was in! Only the top places in the major categories are listed below... but trust us, DC was still running Marvel a very close race!] Best Editor of a Comic Group: Stan Lee Best Script Writer: Stan Lee Best Artist: Carmine Infantino BEST COMIC BOOKS OF THE YEAR Adventure-hero: Spider-Man General Fantasy: Strange Adventures Mundane Fiction: Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos Humorous: Uncle Scrooge FAVORITE SHORT STORY “The Human Torch Meets Captain America” (Strange Tales #114) FAVORITE ANNUAL Fantastic Four Annual #1 FAVORITE NOVEL “Crisis on Earth-One” & “Crisis on Earth-Two” (Justice League of America #21-22)
Not a Justice Leaguer in sight—only three members of the Justice Society vs. The Wizard—but Justice League of America #22 (with #21) won the 1963 “Favorite Novel” award, by which was meant a story taking up a full issue or more. Art by Mike Sekowsky & Bernard Sachs; script by Gardner Fox. Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, courtesy of Mike W. Barr & Tom Horvitz. For more art, contact Tom at (818) 757-0747 or visit his website at <www.trhgallery.com>. [©2004 DC Comics.]
This rarely-seen page from The Amazing Spider-Man #1 (has it ever been reprinted anywhere?) probably wasn’t drawn by Steve Ditko, but it demonstrates writer/editor Stan Lee’s more personal approach to readers. [Art ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]
CAPTAIN GARY’S
starring:
CARLSON • LEWIS FUGATE • ROSS BEATTY MOLDOFF SWAN ANDERSON BENDER VAN BRIESEN ACERNO
No. 93 March 2004
Plus:
Marc Swayze’s
“We Didn’t Know... It Was the Golden Age!” Thunder Girl vs. Mr. Atom. Art ©2004 Bill Fugate (penciler) & P.C. Hamerlinck (inker); Thunder Girl TM & ©2004 Gary Carlson & Chris Ecker; Mr. Atom TM & ©2004 DC Comics.
44
Marc Swayze I wasn’t on the Phantom Eagle long before it became obvious that this comic book character differed distinctly from most of those with which I had become accustomed. The kid had no magic super-power. Captain Marvel was a super super-hero; he could fly, lift autos and trains, and do just about anything imaginable. And there were others… Prince Ibis, for example, who had his magic “Ibistick.” But our boy had to bring most of his adventures to a close by his only available means … his fists!
By
[Art & logo ©2004 Marc Swayze; Captain Marvel © & TM 2004 DC Comics]
[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 Marc’s drawing table, he illustrated her earliest adventures, and he wrote and drew her classic origin story, “Captain Marvel Introduces Mary Marvel (CMA #18, Dec. ’42); but he was primarily hired by Fawcett to illustrate Captain Marvel stories and covers for Whiz Comics and Captain Marvel Adventures. He also wrote many Captain Marvel scripts, and continued to do so while in the military. After leaving the service, he made an arrangement with Fawcett to produce art and stories for them on a freelance 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 Flyin’ Jenny newspaper strip for Bell Syndicate (created by his friend and mentor Russell Keaton). After the cancellation of Wow, Swayze produced artwork for Fawcett’s top-selling line of romance comics. After the company ceased publishing comics, Marc moved over to Charlton Publications, where he ended his comics career in the mid-1950s. Marc’s ongoing professional memoirs have been FCA’s most popular feature since his first column appeared in FCA #54, 1996. Last issue, Marc looked back to when he was first assigned a Phantom Eagle story. This time, he examines the daring young aviator’s use of his fists. —P.C. Hamerlinck.] The writers obviously were not expected to provide much aid to the artist when it came to those Golden Age fight scenes. A panel description in the story script was not likely to say, “The hero, countering neatly with his left, delivers a professionally maneuvered right cross to the head of his opponent, the foremost knuckle on his right hand on a direct line with his straight wrist and high elbow, for maximum power….”
Okay, for an issue or two… but as a permanent regular assignment? It conjured up visions of the rubber stamp complex… scene after similar scene of the hero flailing away wildly. It was not a pleasant thought… not for the Phantom Eagle nor for me. If fight he must, then he should go about it properly… skillfully… blow by blow… as though he knew how to fight! It took me back…way back, to when I was a kid… in the alley behind our house… in a fight. I had nothing against Ferguson. I hardly knew him. I don’t know why we were fighting and probably didn’t know then. A couple of older boys had brought him from up the street where he lived to our block, presumably, from the way they were cheering for him, to beat me up. So there we were, slugging it out… for their entertainment. Between blows, some issued, some taken, I glimpsed a face… at the top of our high board back fence. Someone was quietly watching from the yard. My brother! I have never known why… but I began to cry. My pals, O.H. and T-Bone, insisted I was ahead, but it was too late… the fight was over. And I didn’t even have a bloody nose. Ferguson had a bloody nose. But I was crying. My brother, the world’s greatest guy… except for Papa… was mad. Not at the other kids… mad at me! And disgusted! Kept calling me a snotty-nosed crybaby all the way to the house. On payday, though, he brought home a set of boxing gloves, a punching bag, and some books on selfdefense… and boxing. I heard him saying to Mama, “He may grow up to have cauliflower ears, but he’s not going to grow up to be a sissy!”
That opened up a new world for me… and the neighborhood kids fell right in with it. Wooden six-guns and stick horses were laid aside, perhaps for good, and pugilism moved in… workouts, This 1940s pencil drawing by Marc Swayze was published for the first jogging, sparring. Weight divisions time in P.C. Hamerlinck’s Fawcett Companion: The Best of FCA—still were determined among us, a ring available from TwoMorrows. [Art ©2004 Marc Swayze; Phantom Eagle erected, bouts arranged, and, almost as TM & ©2004 DC Comics.] though planned to coincide, the movies began a series titled “The Leather Pushers,” starring actor Reginald Denny. Jack Dempsey, according to the newsreels, was on his way to the heavyweight championship of the Nothing like that. More like: “Continue fight.” world, and before long you could hear the big fights on the radio… if you knew anybody who had one. It was up to the artist. Woe to those who knew little or nil about the
art of self-defense… or offense. Woe, also, to the “hero.”
It was good. Good for the kids, good for the adults they were to become. In the first place, when word got around the schoolyard that
“We Didn’t Know...”
45
you were well capable of defending yourself, it was less likely that you would have to. In later life, though it is doubtful that anyone involved ever had to rely on hand-to-hand combat, except possibly in the military, benefits from such training have never been questioned. Aside from physical fitness, boxing has long been acknowledged as ideal exercise in the development of character, mental alertness, temper control, and self-assurance. And it was good for the Phantom Eagle… some twenty years later. In Wow Comics #67 (Jan. 1948), he can be seen traumatizing the San Danito heavyweight, Cecil, with a deadly overhand roundhouse right that might be envied by some of our present day prize ring wonders. In Wow Comics #45 (July 1946), he expertly deflates an enemy with a long, accurate left jab to the solar plexus. Likewise, a clever feint, followed by a driving right cross to the head, thoroughly demoralizes an unfriendly individual in Wow Comics #31 (Nov. 1944). And so they went… those fights. There were a lot of them… and a lot of panels depicting them… over a hundred when I stopped counting. And… get this, now… to the best of my ability, those scenes were drawn with sincere hope for variety and interest. As vowed, the Phantom Eagle, Flyweight Champion of the Golden Age Airways, was to fight like he meant it. Phantom Eagle’s roundhouse right, brought up from below, was successful against The Black Flamingo in Wow Comics #65 (April 1948). All descriptions of fight scenes in this article provided by artist Marc Swayze, who drew ’em way back when. [Phantom Eagle TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
Like me and Ferguson! [Marc Swayze will return next issue with more memories of the Golden Age of Comics.]
AND NOW, A BLOW-BY-BLOW ACCOUNT... [NOTE: On this page and the next, The Phantom Eagle, Mary Marvel, Commando Yank, and Mr. Scarlet & Pinky are TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]
(Left:) Two rights (which would be swiftly followed, in subsequent panels, by a hook and a roundhouse) from Wow Comics #31 (Nov. 1944).
This left hook was executed in a hot-air balloon basket, in Wow #39 (Nov.-Dec. ’45).
Two from early 1945—Wow #32 & 33 (Jan. & Feb.), to be exact.
46
Marc Swayze
A modified one-two combination adapted to more than one customer, in Wow #40 (Jan. ’46).
Young Mickey delivers a straight left to the solar plexus in Wow #45 (July ’46)—and an uppercut to the chin, same issue!
’Tis better to give than to receive—but in Wow #45 (July ’46), Phantom Eagle took on the chin... from new Fawcett hero Radar the International Policeman, who soon became an ally.
And, in the final example, Phantom Eagle’s overhand roundhouse right stops Cecil, the San Danito heavyweight, in Wow #67 (Jan. ’48). Handy with his fists, that Mickey Malone!
P.E.’s left uppercut is brought up from the floor on the cover of Wow #61 (Dec. ’47)—and again in the panel at right from Wow #57 (Aug. ’47).
Captain Gary’s Big Bang
Captain Gary’s Big Bang An Homage to Ages Golden and Silver by P.C. Hamerlinck
47
Part I: GARY CARLSON Over a decade ago, Gary Carlson’s long-time collaborator Chris Ecker showed up one day bemoaning his frustration at failing to find any comic book penciling work, and always being told by publishers and editors that you “draw like an old guy.” His simple solution: to draw some old-time comics! The duo had worked together on Carlson’s Megaton comic during the 1980s, in which an older generation of heroes were to be replaced by Megaton and his friends. Ten years later, Carlson and Ecker decided to tell some of the back stories of those older characters, and a whole mythology– to be published under the banner of Big Bang Comics—seemingly began to write itself. Many people perceive Big Bang as merely a retro comic or parody book, but a closer look reveals something more unique. Heartfelt tributes are paid to the source material, rather than satirization or injecting an “isn’t this stupid?” attitude into the stories. Also, BB does not retell or do new versions of classic old stories. “We try to write and draw ‘new old comics,’ in the styles of the creators who created the original, classic iconic characters,” says chief Big Bang writer and editor Gary Carlson. “For someone who has read all the old stories of their favorite character, it‘s like finding an issue that they’ve never read before.” Carlson has even used veteran artists for BB covers whenever possible. Shelly Moldoff and Marty Nodell each drew a cover, and Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson teamed up for another (signing it “Swanderson”). At one time Kurt Schaffenberger—and more recently Nick Cardy—were set to do covers, but had to withdraw for health reasons. Even modern masters such as Alex Ross, Rich Buckler, and Terry Beatty have rendered Big Bang covers.
Just for a zane, we’ve stuck the title of this article on this cover art for the Big Bang Comics 2003 Summer Special #1, with art by Mark Lewis and veteran artist Karl Kesel. Kinda reminds one of an old early-1940s All-Star Comics cover by E.E. Hibbard, nicht wahr? [©2004 Gary Carlson & Chris Ecker.]
Alan Moore describes Big Bang Comics as “a loving pastiche of everything good about comics.” Indeed, Big Bang brings home the love for old comic books, neatly wrapped with new characters with Golden and Silver Ages all their
48
“An Homage to Ages Golden and Silver”
Carlson and Ecker have managed to get some stellar guest-star artists to illustrate material. (Clockwise:) current super-star Alex Ross’ version of Thunder Girl for the front cover of Big Bang Comics #0, 1995... Golden Age great Shelly Moldoff’s back cover for that same mag... #4’s cover by Terry Beatty... and a house ad featuring the cover to Big Bang #6 by Curt Swan & Murphy Anderson. [©2004 Gary Carlson & Chris Ecker.]
Captain Gary’s Big Bang
49
At age five in 1962 Carlson was already discovering comics and learning to read from them, courtesy of his big brother’s comic collection. His brother found great amusement in, while other kids were drawing pictures of houses and dogs, his little brother Gary was drawing pictures of The Atom and Hawkman. The Carlson brothers traded comics with their friends, mainly older DC Comics. “My proudest acquisition by age 8,” Carlson recalled, “was a copy of World’s Finest Comics #7, even though it was missing pages. The ‘Superman’ family books were my favorites, along with Justice League of America and Batman. By the mid-’60s, Teen Titans and Legion of Super-Heroes had moved into my top spots forever. The only Marvel title I followed in those days was The Avengers.” During those same formative years, Carlson also discovered the Sunday newspaper comics and learned the history of various strips from two books at his local library: Coulton Waugh’s The Comics and Martin Sheridan’s Comics and their Creators, which introduced him to famous adventure strips like Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, Burne Hogarth’s Tarzan, and Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant. At eight years old, Carlson was completely hooked by the medium and began crafting his drawing technique, aspiring one day to become a cartoonist. In high school he became the editor and cartoonist of the school paper. When college beckoned, he was desperate to go to the
Veteran artist Howard Bender drew this visual ode to Kurt Schaffenberger’s Lois Lane as the cover of Big Bang Comics #24. [©2004 Gary Carlson & Chris Ecker.]
own. For some, that love for old comics represents a straightforward, whimsical style of storytelling; for others, the love resides with the clean, simple artwork. And then there are those little odd, random things about comics that are so memorable to many who grew up reading them… the off-registered coloring… the ads for sea monkeys, body-building courses, and X-Ray specs... even the smell of the paper… all part of the full comics reading experience from long ago. Carlson even loves the look and feel of newsprint and the halftone dot printing used back then. “I always got a kick out of it when the colorist would goof and Superman’s trunks would be yellow instead of red. Printing technology is different today; the colors just seem too garish.” Resembling a Golden Age comic book ad, Carlson advertised a fan club for the popular Big Bang character, The Knight Watchman. By clipping the coupon and sending in $3.95 BB readers could join the “Junior Watchmen of America,” consisting of a club membership card, a code, a tiny magnifying glass, and a domino mask. And remember those ads for Army Men in comics? Carlson does, and apparently so did a lot of readers. “I came across a package of 100 tiny Army Men in a dollar store and bought twenty-five packets and put an ad in Big Bang: 100 ARMY MEN FOR $1,” Carlson recalled. “I sold out in a week and couldn’t find any more sets and was sending out refunds for four months as the orders continued to come in. I often wonder who was more disappointed: those who got them or those who didn’t! I had never ordered anything like that from comics, and had always thought most people hadn’t, either.”
A Silver Age/Neal Adams-influenced cover penciled by Shawn Van Briesen and inked by Jerry Acerno. This special issue related the fictitious “History of Big Bang Comics” as if from an old issue of The Comic Reader—or Alter Ego. [©2004 Gary Carlson & Chris Ecker.]
50
“An Homage to Ages Golden and Silver” developed Big Bang Comics. Carlson developed a writing style reminiscent of classic Marvel Comics storytelling of the ’60s and ’70s, with a complete storyline tied up over three issues while introducing new subplots and advancing previous ones up to the main storyline, keying on characterization, plot, a healthy dose of action,and a hook on the last page to bring the reader back for more. While BB Comics has an obvious appeal to old comic book fans with its various homages to classic heroes and artists, has a door opened up for the modern reader to discover the charm and styles of old comics presented in BB, even if he/she doesn’t know anything beyond Lady Death? Carlson doesn’t think so.
“Our readers tend to be either very young, or old enough to remember ‘the good Mark Lewis’ cover for 1998’s Big Bang trade paperback collection compilation at left harked back to 1944’s Big All-American old days,’” says Carlson. “My Comic Book—while the “house ad” from Big Bang #27 at right suggests the name of Comic Cavalcade, and might have been inspired by any number of DC or even Fawcett covers. Note the authentic “Keep ’Em Flying!” circle from the covers of original plan was to do modern actual World War II-era comics. [©2004 Gary Carlson & Chris Ecker.] incarnations of our characters as well as the retro stuff, and try to draw modern readers to the then-new Joe Kubert School, or to the workshops that John Buscema older stuff and older readers to the newer styles. The new stuff wouldn’t was conducting in New York. Unable to afford either, Carlson attended have been homages or based on current art or storylines… just modern the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts for some cartooning classes and then stories and art that were logical progressions of the retro material. But over to Columbia College for illustration and animation courses. Just as Image Comics didn’t want us to do the modern stuff.” he was about to graduate with a BA, he won the first John Fischetti Memorial Scholarship, which they wanted to go to a political cartoonist. They built Carlson a post-graduate program for editorial cartooning, and he got to work briefly with Chicago Tribune cartoonist Dick Locher, who had just taken over Dick Tracy, and Morry Brickman, creator of the Small Society strip. However, Carlson did not (and still doesn’t) closely follow politics and current affairs and didn’t feel right about a medium where one’s influential opinions are conveyed to thousands of readers and thus did not pursue that direction. During this period Carlson met Chris Ecker, who was managing the only comic book shop within an hour of where he lived. Ecker had already been drawing for fanzines and had a stint apprenticing with Rick Fletcher on the Dick Tracy strip, before established cartoonist Locher took over the strip after Fletcher passed away. Carlson liked Ecker’s art better than his own, and the two started collaborating on comic strips. After failing to break into the syndicates, they started to work on their own comic book (Megaton) and eventually
Two covers for the Image incarnation of Big Bang Comics, both drawn by Bill Fugate... not C.C. Beck! They fronted Image issues #1 (May 1996) and #16 (Jan. 1998), respectively. [©2004 Gary Carlson & Bill Ecker.]
Captain Gary’s Big Bang Comic books have changed greatly since their Golden and Silver Ages. C.C. Beck had suggested back in the ’80s that comics were on the way out… or were in dire need of new life breathed into them. Carlson agrees with Beck’s assessment. “I think that the comics I read and enjoyed as a kid are dying a long slow death,” Carlson says. “The direct market prolonged that life by insulating comic books from the mass market and into the comic shops. Comics almost died out in the ’50s, but were reinvigorated in the ’60s. When those characters started dying out, the older readers who had grown up on and loved them as kids propped up the industry and have kept it on life-support instead of just letting it die. I think comics lost a generation or two of kids to movies and video games because the comics industry didn’t really care about them. For years creators have been saying comics aren’t being made for kids anymore. One day we all woke up and comic books’ mass audience wasn’t reading them anymore. People are still reading comics: Japanese comics! Take a look around in the mainstream bookstores; their largest selection of comics is Manga. I think that the next generation
51 of comics is already here, with interactive computer games like Tomb Raider. I’ve spoken to a number of grade school classes about comics, and the kids are always thrilled to get comic books to read. Sergio Aragonés once told Chris Ecker and me that his plan to recapture the youth audience would be to publish a series of comics aimed only at the youngest readers for a year or two, and then add some more advanced books that they could advance into while maintaining the entry level comics, until you had a line of books aimed at all ages. It still makes sense to me. The publishers say that kids just don’t read anymore and that they’d rather spend their time and money elsewhere, but the answer is that comics need to have good stories that appeal to and engage kids; then they will sell.” Big Bang’s celebration of old Fawcett heroes comes in the guise of Mighty Man and Thunder Girl. Erik Larsen created Mighty Man, and it is perhaps the best modern updating of a Captain Marvel-type of character. The Mighty Man persona has been around throughout history; the power found its way to a young boy, Bobby Berman, in the A few by Fugate! A Mighty Man pin-up from Big Bang #5 (Oct. 1996)... and splashes from Big Bang (Vol. 2) #1 (May 1996) and #35 (Feb. 2001). Writer: Gary Carlson. [©2004 Gary Carlson & Bill Ecker.]
52
“An Homage to Ages Golden and Silver”
stories set in the Golden Age. In the modern version the character’s power is accidentally transferred to a female nurse, creating plenty of story possibilities. (A modern-era mini-series was written for Gil Kane to draw, but was shelved after Kane’s death). The Mighty Man stories done in Big Bang generally follow the character’s Golden Age era. Thunder Girl is Carlson’s creation, while Chris Ecker helped flesh out her origin: Young Molly Wilson is chosen to be the champion of good by Mother Nature, in the eternal struggle between good and evil. The powers of nature and the abilities of all animals are bequeathed to Molly, who becomes Thunder Girl when she clasps her magic ring to her amulet and says the magic word, ‘Alakazam!’ “We discovered a wonderful cartoonist named Bill Fugate, who helped bring her to life,” Carlson said about Thunder Girl’s chief artist. “My original costume ideas looked more like a drum majorette’s uniform, whereas Bill pushed for the simple tunic.”
In the trade paperback collection Your Big Book of Big Bang Comics, Carlson dedicates the book to several old master creative duos from the Golden Age, including the Captain Marvel team of C.C. Beck and Otto Binder. “The Golden Age ‘Captain Marvel’ strip is just a lot of fun to read, and Cap’s costume is the best in all of comics,” says Carlson. “When DC first announced that it was going to revive the character, I actually wrote a letter to them suggesting Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams as the creative team. I still have the reply from Julie Schwartz somewhere saying that C.C. Beck was going to draw the book. I was surprised and a little disappointed when I got that first issue of Shazam! I fell in love right away with Beck’s art, but I thought the stories were really stupid. It wasn’t until DC started reprinting old stories that I could understand why it had been such a popular strip.”
Bill Fugate’s outstanding artwork on both Mighty Man and Thunder Girl captures the spirit This past summer premiered Big of C.C. Beck’s work perhaps more than any other Bang’s first 48-page special featuring artist today. Carlson first saw Fugate’s work on an Bill Fugate’s upcoming project is Super Frankenstein. the “Knights of Justice,” in which ad Bill had done in Beck style for a comic shop in [©2004 Bill Fugate.] Thunder Girl’s powers are stolen and Minnesota, which put him in touch with the artist. distributed among three Super-Nazis. Fugate had previously done advertising work, as Fugate drew some of the chapters, while the eye-catching cover was well as penciling stories for Disney comics. Among other things, he was penciled by another BB mainstay, Mark Lewis, and inked by Karl Kesel. their expert on Jessica Rabbit.
If you’re viewing a digital version of this publication, PLEASE read this plea from the publisher! his is COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL, which is NOT INTENDED FOR FREE T DOWNLOADING ANYWHERE. If you’re a print subscriber, or you paid the modest fee we charge to download it at our website, you have our sincere thanks—your support allows us to keep producing publications like this one. If instead you downloaded it for free from some other website or torrent, please know that it was absolutely 100% DONE WITHOUT OUR CONSENT, and it was an ILLEGAL POSTING OF OUR COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. If that’s the case, here’s what you should do: 1) Go ahead and READ THIS DIGITAL ISSUE, and see what you think. 2) If you enjoy it enough to keep it, DO THE RIGHT THING and purchase a legal download of it from our website, or purchase the print edition at our website (which entitles you to the Digital Edition for free) or at your local comic book shop. We’d love to have you as a regular paid reader. 3) Otherwise, DELETE IT FROM YOUR COMPUTER and DO NOT SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS OR POST IT ANYWHERE. 4) Finally, DON’T KEEP DOWNLOADING OUR MATERIAL ILLEGALLY, for free. We offer one complete issue of all our magazines for free downloading at our website, which should be sufficient for you to decide if you want to purchase others. If you enjoy our publications enough to keep downloading them, support our company by paying for the material we produce. We’re not some giant corporation with deep pockets, and can absorb these losses. We’re a small company—literally a “mom and pop” shop—with dozens of hard-working freelance creators, slaving away day and night and on weekends, to make a pretty minimal amount of income for all this work. We love what we do, but our editors, authors, and your local comic shop owner, rely on income from this publication to stay in business. Please don’t rob us of the small amount of compensation we receive. Doing so will ensure there won’t be any future products like this to download.
Carlson has even paid homage to The Steranko History of Comics, whose two influential volumes were published in the early 1970s and helped many to discover Golden Age comics material for the very first time. Aside from his prized, incomplete copy of World’s Finest Comics #7 and Jules Feiffer’s book The Great Comic Book Heroes, it was Steranko’s History that proved to be a Golden Age revelation for Carlson back when it was published, and even to this very day. The two “History of” Big Bang issues (# 24 & 27) have become Carlson’s own personal favorites of the entire run of the series. Steranko himself wrote the introduction to the first BB History volume. Carlson prefers writing to editing, and rarely draws anymore. “I got tired of my drawing style and never developed one that I liked,” he says. “Unfortunately, what I liked was Hal Foster, Alex Raymond, Frank Frazetta, and Neal Adams!” One of the greatest appeals to the Golden and Silver Age stories was that in a single issue you could have three or four varied, complete stories, with several individualistic styles of art. That’s a big part of the appeal of Big Bang. “If the reader doesn’t like one of the stories, hopefully one or two of the others will appeal to him or her,” Carlson concludes. The Silver and Golden Age material was fun, escapist reading without really worrying about its making a whole lot of sense or fitting into continuity. Read it and have fun, then roll it up and stick it in your back pocket and go trade it to a pal for another issue to read.”
[NEXT ISSUE: The story of Big Bang Comics concludes, featuring the viewpoints (and more illos!) of artists Mark Lewis and Bill Fugate.]
TwoMorrows publications should only be downloaded at
www.twomorrows.com
Now—FLIP US for QUALITY TIME (Side One)!
Edited by ROY THOMAS
DIGITAL
The greatest ‘zine of the 1960s is back, ALL-NEW, and focusing on GOLDEN AND SILVER AGE comics and creators with NS EDITIO BLE ARTICLES, INTERVIEWS, A IL AVA NLY UNSEEN ART, P.C. Hamerlinck’s FOR O 5 FCA (Fawcett Collectors of $2.9 America, featuring the archives of C.C. BECK and recollections by Fawcett artist MARCUS SWAYZE), Michael T. Gilbert’s MR. MONSTER, and more!
EISNER AWARD WINNER for Best Comics-Related Periodical
Go online for an ULTIMATE BUNDLE, with issues at HALF-PRICE!
ALTER EGO #4
ALTER EGO #5
ALTER EGO #1
ALTER EGO #2
ALTER EGO #3
STAN LEE gets roasted by SCHWARTZ, CLAREMONT, DAVID, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, and SHOOTER, ORDWAY and THOMAS on INFINITY, INC., IRWIN HASEN interview, unseen H.G. PETER Wonder Woman pages, the original Captain Marvel and Human Torch teamup, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, “Mr. Monster”, plus plenty of rare and unpublished art!
Featuring a never-reprinted SPIRIT story by WILL EISNER, the genesis of the SILVER AGE ATOM (with GARDNER FOX, GIL KANE, and JULIE SCHWARTZ), interviews with LARRY LIEBER and Golden Age great JACK BURNLEY, BOB KANIGHER, a new Fawcett Collectors of America section with MARC SWAYZE, C.C. BECK, and more! GIL KANE and JACK BURNLEY flip-covers!
Unseen ALEX ROSS and JERRY ORDWAY Shazam! art, 1953 interview with OTTO BINDER, the SUPERMAN/CAPTAIN MARVEL LAWSUIT, GIL KANE on The Golden Age of TIMELY COMICS, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, and SCHAFFENBERGER, rare art by AYERS, BERG, BURNLEY, DITKO, RICO, SCHOMBURG, MARIE SEVERIN and more! ALEX ROSS & BILL EVERETT covers!
(80-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
ALTER EGO #6
ALTER EGO #7
ALTER EGO #8
Interviews with KUBERT, SHELLY MOLDOFF, and HARRY LAMPERT, BOB KANIGHER, life and times of GARDNER FOX, ROY THOMAS remembers GIL KANE, a history of Flash Comics, MOEBIUS Silver Surfer sketches, MR. MONSTER, FCA section with SWAYZE, BECK, and SCHAFFENBERGER, and lots more! Dual color covers by JOE KUBERT!
Celebrating the JSA, with interviews with MART NODELL, SHELLY MAYER, GEORGE ROUSSOS, BILL BLACK, and GIL KANE, unpublished H.G. PETER Wonder Woman art, GARDNER FOX, an FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, C.C. BECK, WENDELL CROWLEY, and more! Wraparound cover by CARMINE INFANTINO and JERRY ORDWAY!
GENE COLAN interview, 1940s books on comics by STAN LEE and ROBERT KANIGHER, AYERS, SEVERIN, and ROY THOMAS on Sgt. Fury, ROY on All-Star Squadron’s Golden Age roots, FCA section with SWAYZE, BECK, and WILLIAM WOOLFOLK, JOE SIMON interview, a definitive look at MAC RABOY’S work, and more! Covers by COLAN and RABOY!
Companion to ALL-STAR COMPANION book, with a JULIE SCHWARTZ interview, guide to JLA-JSA TEAMUPS, origins of the ALL-STAR SQUADRON, FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, C.C. BECK (on his 1970s DC conflicts), DAVE BERG, BOB ROGERS, more on MAC RABOY from his son, MR. MONSTER, and more! RICH BUCKLER and C.C. BECK covers!
WALLY WOOD biography, DAN ADKINS & BILL PEARSON on Wood, TOR section with 1963 JOE KUBERT interview, ROY THOMAS on creating the ALL-STAR SQUADRON and its 1940s forebears, FCA section with SWAYZE & BECK, MR. MONSTER, JERRY ORDWAY on Shazam!, JERRY DeFUCCIO on the Golden Age, CHIC STONE remembered! ADKINS and KUBERT covers!
(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
ALTER EGO #9
ALTER EGO #10
ALTER EGO #11
ALTER EGO #12
ALTER EGO #13
JOHN ROMITA interview by ROY THOMAS (with unseen art), Roy’s PROPOSED DREAM PROJECTS that never got published (with a host of great artists), MR. MONSTER on WAYNE BORING’S life after Superman, The Golden Age of Comic Fandom Panel, FCA section with GEORGE TUSKA, C.C. BECK, MARC SWAYZE, BILL MORRISON, & more! ROMITA and GIORDANO covers!
Who Created the Silver Age Flash? (with KANIGHER, INFANTINO, KUBERT, and SCHWARTZ), DICK AYERS interview (with unseen art), JOHN BROOME remembered, never-seen Golden Age Flash pages, VIN SULLIVAN Magazine Enterprises interview, FCA, interview with FRED GUARDINEER, and MR. MONSTER on WAYNE BORING! INFANTINO and AYERS covers!
Focuses on TIMELY/MARVEL (interviews and features on SYD SHORES, MICKEY SPILLANE, and VINCE FAGO), and MAGAZINE ENTERPRISES (including JOE CERTA, JOHN BELFI, FRANK BOLLE, BOB POWELL, and FRED MEAGHER), MR. MONSTER on JERRY SIEGEL, DON and MAGGIE THOMPSON interview, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, and DON NEWTON!
DC and QUALITY COMICS focus! Quality’s GILL FOX interview, never-seen ‘40s PAUL REINMAN Green Lantern story, ROY THOMAS talks to LEN WEIN and RICH BUCKLER about ALL-STAR SQUADRON, MR. MONSTER shows what made WALLY WOOD leave MAD, FCA section with BECK & SWAYZE, & ‘65 NEWSWEEK ARTICLE on comics! REINMAN and BILL WARD covers!
1974 panel with JOE SIMON, STAN LEE, FRANK ROBBINS, and ROY THOMAS, ROY and JOHN BUSCEMA on Avengers, 1964 STAN LEE interview, tributes to DON HECK, JOHNNY CRAIG, and GRAY MORROW, Timely alums DAVID GANTZ and DANIEL KEYES, and FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, and MIKE MANLEY! Covers by MURPHY ANDERSON and JOE SIMON!
(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
16
ALTER EGO #14
ALTER EGO #15
ALTER EGO #16
ALTER EGO #17
ALTER EGO #18
A look at the 1970s JSA revival with CONWAY, LEVITZ, ESTRADA, GIFFEN, MILGROM, and STATON, JERRY ORDWAY on All-Star Squadron, tributes to CRAIG CHASE and DAN DeCARLO, “lost” 1945 issue of All-Star, 1970 interview with LEE ELIAS, MR. MONSTER on GARDNER FOX, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, & JAY DISBROW! MIKE NASSER & MICHAEL GILBERT covers!
JOHN BUSCEMA ISSUE! BUSCEMA interview (with UNSEEN ART), reminiscences by SAL BUSCEMA, STAN LEE, INFANTINO, KUBERT, ORDWAY, FLO STEINBERG, and HERB TRIMPE, ROY THOMAS on 35 years with BIG JOHN, FCA tribute to KURT SCHAFFENBERGER, plus C.C. BECK and MARC SWAYZE, and MR. MONSTER revisits WALLY WOOD! Two BUSCEMA covers!
MARVEL BULLPEN REUNION (BUSCEMA, COLAN, ROMITA, and SEVERIN), memories of the JOHN BUSCEMA SCHOOL, FCA with ALEX ROSS, C.C. BECK, and MARC SWAYZE, tribute to CHAD GROTHKOPF, MR. MONSTER on EC COMICS with art by KURTZMAN, DAVIS, and WOOD, and more! Covers by ALEX ROSS and MARIE SEVERIN & RAMONA FRADON!
Spotlighting LOU FINE (with an overview of his career, and interviews with family members), interview with MURPHY ANDERSON about Fine, ALEX TOTH on Fine, ARNOLD DRAKE interviewed about DEADMAN and DOOM PATROL, MR. MONSTER on the non-EC work of JACK DAVIS and GEORGE EVANS, FINE and LUIS DOMINGUEZ COVERS, FCA and more!
STAN GOLDBERG interview, secrets of ‘40s Timely, art by KIRBY, DITKO, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, MANEELY, EVERETT, BURGOS, and DeCARLO, spotlight on sci-fi fanzine XERO with the LUPOFFS, OTTO BINDER, DON THOMPSON, ROY THOMAS, BILL SCHELLY, and ROGER EBERT, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD ghosting Flash Gordon! KIRBY and SWAYZE covers!
(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
ALTER EGO #19
ALTER EGO #20
ALTER EGO #21
ALTER EGO #22
ALTER EGO #23
Spotlight on DICK SPRANG (profile and interview) with unseen art, rare Batman art by BOB KANE, CHARLES PARIS, SHELLY MOLDOFF, MAX ALLAN COLLINS, JIM MOONEY, CARMINE INFANTINO, and ALEX TOTH, JERRY ROBINSON interviewed about Tomahawk and 1940s cover artist FRED RAY, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD’s Flash Gordon, Part 2!
Timely/Marvel art by SEKOWSKY, SHORES, EVERETT, and BURGOS, secrets behind THE INVADERS with ROY THOMAS, KIRBY, GIL KANE, & ROBBINS, BOB DESCHAMPS interviewed, 1965 NY Comics Con review, panel with FINGER, BINDER, FOX and WEISINGER, MR. MONSTER, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, RABOY, SCHAFFENBERGER, and more! MILGROM and SCHELLY covers!
The IGER “SHOP” examined, with art by EISNER, FINE, ANDERSON, CRANDALL, BAKER, MESKIN, CARDY, EVANS, BOB KANE, and TUSKA, “SHEENA” section with art by DAVE STEVENS & FRANK BRUNNER, ROY THOMAS on JSA & All-Star Squadron, MR. MONSTER on GARDNER FOX, UNSEEN 1946 ALL-STAR ART, FCA, and more! DAVE STEVENS and IRWIN HASEN covers!
BILL EVERETT and JOE KUBERT interviewed by NEAL ADAMS and GIL KANE in 1970, Timely art by BURGOS, SHORES, NODELL, and SEKOWSKY, RUDY LAPICK, ROY THOMAS on Sub-Mariner, with art by EVERETT, COLAN, ANDRU, BUSCEMAs, SEVERINs, and more, FCA, MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD at EC, ALEX TOTH, and CAPT. MIDNIGHT! EVERETT & BECK covers!
Unseen art from TWO “LOST” 1940s H.G. PETER WONDER WOMAN STORIES (and analysis of “CHARLES MOULTON” scripts), BOB FUJITANI and JOHN ROSENBERGER, VICTOR GORELICK discusses Archie and The Mighty Crusaders, with art by MORROW, BUCKLER, and REINMAN, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD! H.G. PETER and BOB FUJITANI covers!
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
ALTER EGO #24
ALTER EGO #25
ALTER EGO #26
ALTER EGO #27
ALTER EGO #28
X-MEN interviews with STAN LEE, DAVE COCKRUM, CHRIS CLAREMONT, ARNOLD DRAKE, JIM SHOOTER, ROY THOMAS, and LEN WEIN, MORT MESKIN profiled by his sons and ALEX TOTH, rare art by JERRY ROBINSON, FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, and WILLIAM WOOLFOLK, MR. MONSTER, and BILL SCHELLY on Comics Fandom! MESKIN and COCKRUM covers!
JACK COLE remembered by ALEX TOTH, interview with brother DICK COLE and his PLAYBOY colleagues, CHRIS CLAREMONT on the X-Men (with more never-seen art by DAVE COCKRUM), ROY THOMAS on AllStar Squadron #1 and its ‘40s roots (with art by ORDWAY, BUCKLER, MESKIN and MOLDOFF), FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more! Covers by TOTH and SCHELLY!
JOE SINNOTT interview, IRWIN DONENFELD interview by EVANIER & SCHWARTZ, art by SHUSTER, INFANTINO, ANDERSON, and SWAN, MARK WAID analyzes the first Kryptonite story, JERRY SIEGEL and HARRY DONENFELD, JERRY IGER Shop update, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, and FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, and KEN BALD! Covers by SINNOTT and WAYNE BORING!
VIN SULLIVAN interview about the early DC days with art by SHUSTER, MOLDOFF, FLESSEL, GUARDINEER, and BURNLEY, MR. MONSTER’s “Lost” KIRBY HULK covers, 1948 NEW YORK COMIC CON with STAN LEE, SIMON & KIRBY, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, HARVEY KURTZMAN, and ROY THOMAS, ALEX TOTH, FCA, and more! Covers by JACK BURNLEY and JACK KIRBY!
Spotlight on JOE MANEELY, with a career overview, remembrance by his daughter and tons of art, Timely/Atlas/Marvel art by ROMITA, EVERETT, SEVERIN, SHORES, KIRBY, and DITKO, STAN LEE on Maneely, LEE AMES interview, FCA with SWAYZE, ISIS, and STEVE SKEATES, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Covers by JOE MANEELY and DON NEWTON!
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
17
ALTER EGO #29
ALTER EGO #30
ALTER EGO #31
ALTER EGO #32
ALTER EGO #33
FRANK BRUNNER interview, BILL EVERETT’S Venus examined by TRINA ROBBINS, Classics Illustrated “What ifs”, LEE/KIRBY/DITKO Marvel prototypes, JOE MANEELY’s monsters, BILL FRACCIO interview, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, JOHN BENSON on EC, The Heap by ERNIE SCHROEDER, and FCA! Covers by FRANK BRUNNER and PETE VON SHOLLY!
ALEX ROSS on his love for the JLA, BLACKHAWK/JLA artist DICK DILLIN, the super-heroes of 1940s-1980s France (with art by STEVE RUDE, STEVE BISSETTE, LADRÖNN, and NEAL ADAMS), KIM AAMODT & WALTER GEIER on writing for SIMON & KIRBY, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, and FCA! Covers by ALEX ROSS and STEVE RUDE!
DICK AYERS on his 1950s and ‘60s work (with tons of Marvel Bullpen art), HARLAN ELLISON’s Marvel Age work examined (with art by BUCKLER, SAL BUSCEMA, and TRIMPE), STAN LEE’S Marvel Prototypes (with art by KIRBY and DITKO), Christmas cards from comics greats, MR. MONSTER, & FCA with SWAYZE and SCHAFFENBERGER! Covers by DICK AYERS and FRED RAY!
Timely artists ALLEN BELLMAN and SAM BURLOCKOFF interviewed, MART NODELL on his Timely years, rare art by BURGOS, EVERETT, and SHORES, MIKE GOLD on the Silver Age (with art by SIMON & KIRBY, SWAN, INFANTINO, KANE, and more), FCA, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and more! Covers by DICK GIORDANO and GIL KANE!
Symposium on MIKE SEKOWSKY by MARK EVANIER, SCOTT SHAW!, et al., with art by ANDERSON, INFANTINO, and others, PAT (MRS. MIKE) SEKOWSKY and inker VALERIE BARCLAY interviewed, FCA, 1950s Captain Marvel parody by ANDRU and ESPOSITO, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY, MR. MONSTER, and more! Covers by FRENZ/SINNOTT and FRENZ/BUSCEMA!
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
ALTER EGO #34
ALTER EGO #35
ALTER EGO #36
ALTER EGO #37
ALTER EGO #38
Quality Comics interviews with ALEX KOTZKY, AL GRENET, CHUCK CUIDERA, & DICK ARNOLD (son of BUSY ARNOLD), art by COLE, EISNER, FINE, WARD, DILLIN, and KANE, MICHELLE NOLAN on Blackhawk’s jump to DC, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on HARVEY KURTZMAN, & ALEX TOTH on REED CRANDALL! Covers by REED CRANDALL & CHARLES NICHOLAS!
Covers by JOHN ROMITA and AL JAFFEE! LEE, ROMITA, AYERS, HEATH, & THOMAS on the 1953-55 Timely super-hero revival, with rare art by ROMITA, AYERS, BURGOS, HEATH, EVERETT, LAWRENCE, & POWELL, AL JAFFEE on the 1940s Timely Bullpen (and MAD), FCA, ALEX TOTH on comic art, MR. MONSTER on unpublished 1950s covers, and more!
JOE SIMON on SIMON & KIRBY, CARL BURGOS, and LLOYD JACQUET, JOHN BELL on World War II Canadian heroes, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on Canadian origins of MR. MONSTER, tributes to BOB DESCHAMPS, DON LAWRENCE, & GEORGE WOODBRIDGE, FCA, ALEX TOTH, and ELMER WEXLER interview! Covers by SIMON and GILBERT & RONN SUTTON!
WILL MURRAY on the 1940 Superman “KMetal” story & PHILIP WYLIE’s GLADIATOR (with art by SHUSTER, SWAN, ADAMS, and BORING), FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, and DON NEWTON, SY BARRY interview, art by TOTH, MESKIN, INFANTINO, and ANDERSON, and MICHAEL T. GILBERT interviews AL FELDSTEIN on EC and RAY BRADBURY! Covers by C.C. BECK and WAYNE BORING!
JULIE SCHWARTZ TRIBUTE with HARLAN ELLISON, INFANTINO, ANDERSON, TOTH, KUBERT, GIELLA, GIORDANO, CARDY, LEVITZ, STAN LEE, WOLFMAN, EVANIER, & ROY THOMAS, never-seen interviews with Julie, FCA with BECK, SCHAFFENBERGER, NEWTON, COCKRUM, OKSNER, FRADON, SWAYZE, and JACKSON BOSTWICK! Covers by INFANTINO and IRWIN HASEN!
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
ALTER EGO #39
ALTER EGO #40
ALTER EGO #41
ALTER EGO #42
ALTER EGO #43
Full-issue spotlight on JERRY ROBINSON, with an interview on being BOB KANE’s Batman “ghost”, creating the JOKER and ROBIN, working on VIGILANTE, GREEN HORNET, and ATOMAN, plus never-seen art by Jerry, MESKIN, ROUSSOS, RAY, KIRBY, SPRANG, DITKO, and PARIS! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER on AL FELDSTEIN Part 2, and more! Two JERRY ROBINSON covers!
RUSS HEATH and GIL KANE interviews (with tons of unseen art), the JULIE SCHWARTZ Memorial Service with ELLISON, MOORE, GAIMAN, HASEN, O’NEIL, and LEVITZ, art by INFANTINO, ANDERSON, TOTH, NOVICK, DILLIN, SEKOWSKY, KUBERT, GIELLA, ARAGONÉS, FCA, MR. MONSTER and AL FELDSTEIN Part 3, and more! Covers by GIL KANE & RUSS HEATH!
Halloween issue! BERNIE WRIGHTSON on his 1970s FRANKENSTEIN, DICK BRIEFER’S monster, the campy 1960s Frankie, art by KALUTA, BAILY, MANEELY, PLOOG, KUBERT, BRUNNER, BORING, OKSNER, TUSKA, CRANDALL, and SUTTON, FCA #100, EMILIO SQUEGLIO interview, ALEX TOTH, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and more! Covers by WRIGHTSON & MARC SWAYZE!
A celebration of DON HECK, WERNER ROTH, and PAUL REINMAN, rare art by KIRBY, DITKO, and AYERS, Hillman and Ziff-Davis remembered by Heap artist ERNIE SCHROEDER, HERB ROGOFF, and WALTER LITTMAN, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and ALEX TOTH! Covers by FASTNER & LARSON and ERNIE SCHROEDER!
Yuletide art by WOOD, SINNOTT, CARDY, BRUNNER, TOTH, NODELL, and others, interviews with Golden Age artists TOM GILL (Lone Ranger) and MORRIS WEISS, exploring 1960s Mexican comics, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, MR. MONSTER, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and more! Flip covers by GEORGE TUSKA and DAVE STEVENS!
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
18
ALTER EGO #44
ALTER EGO #45
ALTER EGO #46
ALTER EGO #47
ALTER EGO #48
JSA/All-Star Squadron/Infinity Inc. special! Interviews with KUBERT, HASEN, ANDERSON, ORDWAY, BUCKLER, THOMAS, 1940s Atom writer ARTHUR ADLER, art by TOTH, SEKOWSKY, HASEN, MACHLAN, OKSNER, and INFANTINO, FCA, and MR. MONSTER’S “I Like Ike!” cartoons by BOB KANE, INFANTINO, OKSNER, and BIRO! Wraparound ORDWAY cover!
Interviews with Sandman artist CREIG FLESSEL and ‘40s creator BERT CHRISTMAN, MICHAEL CHABON on researching his Pulitzer-winning novel Kavalier & Clay, art by EISNER, KANE, KIRBY, and AYERS, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, OTTO BINDER’s “lost” Jon Jarl story, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and ALEX TOTH! CREIG FLESSEL cover!
The VERY BEST of the 1960s-70s ALTER EGO! 1969 BILL EVERETT interview, art by BURGOS, GUSTAVSON, SIMON & KIRBY, and others, 1960s gems by DITKO, E. NELSON BRIDWELL, JERRY BAILS, and ROY THOMAS, LOU GLANZMAN interview, tributes to IRV NOVICK and CHRIS REEVE, MR. MONSTER, FCA, TOTH, and more! Cover by EVERETT and MARIE SEVERIN!
Spotlights MATT BAKER, Golden Age cheesecake artist of PHANTOM LADY! Career overview, interviews with BAKER’s half-brother and nephew, art from AL FELDSTEIN, VINCE COLLETTA, ARTHUR PEDDY, JACK KAMEN and others, FCA, BILL SCHELLY talks to comic-book-seller (and fan) BUD PLANT, MR. MONSTER on missing AL WILLIAMSON art, and ALEX TOTH!
WILL EISNER discusses Eisner & Iger’s Shop and BUSY ARNOLD’s ‘40s Quality Comics, art by FINE, CRANDALL, COLE, POWELL, and CARDY, EISNER tributes by STAN LEE, GENE COLAN, & others, interviews with ‘40s Quality artist VERN HENKEL and CHUCK MAZOUJIAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER on EISNER’s Wonder Man, ALEX TOTH, and more with BUD PLANT! EISNER cover!
(100-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
ALTER EGO #49
ALTER EGO #50
ALTER EGO #51
ALTER EGO #52
ALTER EGO #53
Spotlights CARL BURGOS! Interview with daughter SUE BURGOS, art by BURGOS, BILL EVERETT, MIKE SEKOWSKY, ED ASCHE, and DICK AYERS, unused 1941 Timely cover layouts, the 1957 Atlas Implosion examined, MANNY STALLMAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER and more! New cover by MARK SPARACIO, from an unused 1941 layout by CARL BURGOS!
ROY THOMAS covers his 40-YEAR career in comics (AVENGERS, X-MEN, CONAN, ALL-STAR SQUADRON, INFINITY INC.), with ADAMS, BUSCEMA, COLAN, DITKO, GIL KANE, KIRBY, STAN LEE, ORDWAY, PÉREZ, ROMITA, and many others! Also FCA, & MR. MONSTER on ROY’s letters to GARDNER FOX! Flip-covers by BUSCEMA/ KIRBY/ALCALA and JERRY ORDWAY!
Golden Age Batman artist/BOB KANE ghost LEW SAYRE SCHWARTZ interviewed, Batman art by JERRY ROBINSON, DICK SPRANG, SHELDON MOLDOFF, WIN MORTIMER, JIM MOONEY, and others, the Golden and Silver Ages of AUSTRALIAN SUPER-HEROES, Mad artist DAVE BERG interviewed, FCA, MR. MONSTER on WILL EISNER, BILL SCHELLY, and more!
JOE GIELLA on the Silver Age at DC, the Golden Age at Marvel, and JULIE SCHWARTZ, with rare art by INFANTINO, GIL KANE, SEKOWSKY, SWAN, DILLIN, MOLDOFF, GIACOIA, SCHAFFENBERGER, and others, JAY SCOTT PIKE on STAN LEE and CHARLES BIRO, MARTIN THALL interview, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more! GIELLA cover!
GIORDANO and THOMAS on STOKER’S DRACULA, never-seen DICK BRIEFER Frankenstein strip, MIKE ESPOSITO on his work with ROSS ANDRU, art by COLAN, WRIGHTSON, MIGNOLA, BRUNNER, BISSETTE, KALUTA, HEATH, MANEELY, EVERETT, DITKO, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, BILL SCHELLY, ALEX TOTH, and MR. MONSTER! Cover by GIORDANO!
(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
ALTER EGO #54
ALTER EGO #55
ALTER EGO #56
ALTER EGO #57
ALTER EGO #58
MIKE ESPOSITO on DC and Marvel, ROBERT KANIGHER on the creation of Metal Men and Sgt. Rock (with comments by JOE KUBERT and BOB HANEY), art by ANDRU, INFANTINO, KIRBY, SEVERIN, WINDSOR-SMITH, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, TRIMPE, GIL KANE, and others, plus FCA, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY, MR. MONSTER, and more! ESPOSITO cover!
JACK and OTTO BINDER, KEN BALD, VIC DOWD, and BOB BOYAJIAN interviewed, FCA with SWAYZE and EMILIO SQUEGLIO, rare art by BECK, WARD, & SCHAFFENBERGER, Christmas Cards from CRANDALL, SINNOTT, HEATH, MOONEY, and CARDY, 1943 Pin-Up Calendar (with ‘40s movie stars as superheroines), ALEX TOTH, more! ALEX ROSS and ALEX WRIGHT covers!
Interviews with Superman creators SIEGEL & SHUSTER, Golden/Silver Age DC production guru JACK ADLER interviewed, NEAL ADAMS and radio/TV iconoclast (and comics fan) HOWARD STERN on Adler and his amazing career, art by CURT SWAN, WAYNE BORING, and AL PLASTINO, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, ALEX TOTH, and more! NEAL ADAMS cover!
Issue-by-issue index of Timely/Atlas superhero stories by MICHELLE NOLAN, art by SIMON & KIRBY, EVERETT, BURGOS, ROMITA, AYERS, HEATH, SEKOWSKY, SHORES, SCHOMBURG, MANEELY, and SEVERIN, GENE COLAN and ALLEN BELLMAN on 1940s Timely super-heroes, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and BILL SCHELLY! Cover by JACK KIRBY and PETE VON SHOLLY!
GERRY CONWAY and ROY THOMAS on their ‘80s screenplay for “The X-Men Movie That Never Was!”with art by COCKRUM, ADAMS, BUSCEMA, BYRNE, GIL KANE, KIRBY, HECK, and LIEBER, Atlas artist VIC CARRABOTTA interview, ALLEN BELLMAN on 1940s Timely bullpen, FCA, 1966 panel on 1950s EC Comics, and MR. MONSTER! MARK SPARACIO/GIL KANE cover!
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
19
ALTER EGO #59
ALTER EGO #60
ALTER EGO #61
ALTER EGO #62
ALTER EGO #63
Special issue on Batman and Superman in the Golden and Silver Ages, featuring a new ARTHUR SUYDAM interview, NEAL ADAMS on DC in the 1960s-1970s, SHELLY MOLDOFF, AL PLASTINO, Golden Age artist FRAN (Doll Man) MATERA interviewed, SIEGEL & SHUSTER, RUSS MANNING, FCA, MR. MONSTER, SUYDAM cover, and more!
Celebrates 50 years since SHOWCASE #4! FLASH interviews with SCHWARTZ, KANIGHER, INFANTINO, KUBERT, and BROOME, Golden Age artist TONY DiPRETA, 1966 panel with NORDLING, BINDER, and LARRY IVIE, FCA, MR. MONSTER, never-before-published color Flash cover by CARMINE INFANTINO, and more!
History of the AMERICAN COMICS GROUP (1946 to 1967)—including its roots in the Golden Age SANGOR ART SHOP and STANDARD/NEDOR comics! Art by MESKIN, ROBINSON, WILLIAMSON, FRAZETTA, SCHAFFENBERGER, & BUSCEMA, ACG writer/editor RICHARD HUGHES, plus AL HARTLEY interviewed, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more! GIORDANO cover!
HAPPY HAUNTED HALLOWEEN ISSUE, featuring: MIKE PLOOG and RUDY PALAIS on their horror-comics work! AL WILLIAMSON on his work for the American Comics Group—plus more on ACG horror comics! Rare DICK BRIEFER Frankenstein strips! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY on the 1966 KalerCon, a new PLOOG cover—and more!
Tribute to ALEX TOTH! Never-before-seen interview with tons of TOTH art, including sketches he sent to friends! Articles about Toth by TERRY AUSTIN, JIM AMASH, SY BARRY, JOE KUBERT, LOU SAYRE SCHWARTZ, IRWIN HASEN, JOHN WORKMAN, and others! Plus illustrated Christmas cards by comics pros, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
ALTER EGO #64
ALTER EGO #65
ALTER EGO #66
ALTER EGO #67
ALTER EGO #68
Fawcett Favorites! Issue-by-issue analysis of BINDER & BECK’s 1943-45 “The Monster Society of Evil!” serial, double-size FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, EMILIO SQUEGLIO, C.C. BECK, MAC RABOY, and others! Interview with MARTIN FILCHOCK, Golden Age artist for Centaur Comics! Plus MR. MONSTER, DON NEWTON cover, plus a FREE 1943 MARVEL CALENDAR!
NICK CARDY interviewed on his Golden & Silver Age work (with CARDY art), plus art by WILL EISNER, NEAL ADAMS, CARMINE INFANTINO, JIM APARO, RAMONA FRADON, CURT SWAN, MIKE SEKOWSKY, and others, tributes to ERNIE SCHROEDER and DAVE COCKRUM, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, new CARDY COVER, and more!
Spotlight on BOB POWELL, the artist who drew Daredevil, Sub-Mariner, Sheena, The Avenger, The Hulk, Giant-Man, and others, plus art by WALLY WOOD, HOWARD NOSTRAND, DICK AYERS, SIMON & KIRBY, MARTIN GOODMAN’s Magazine Management, and others! FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, and more!
Interview with BOB OKSNER, artist of Supergirl, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Angel and the Ape, Leave It to Binky, Shazam!, and more, plus art and artifacts by SHELLY MAYER, IRWIN HASEN, LEE ELIAS, C.C. BECK, CARMINE INFANTINO, GIL KANE, JULIE SCHWARTZ, etc., FCA with MARC SWAYZE & C.C. BECK, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on BOB POWELL Part II, and more!
Tribute to JERRY BAILS—Father of Comics Fandom and founder of Alter Ego! Cover by GEORGE PÉREZ, plus art by JOE KUBERT, CARMINE INFANTINO, GIL KANE, DICK DILLIN, MIKE SEKOWSKY, JERRY ORDWAY, JOE STATON, JACK KIRBY, and others! Plus STEVE DITKO’s notes to STAN LEE for a 1965 Dr. Strange story! And ROY reveals secrets behind Marvel’s STAR WARS comic!
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
ALTER EGO #69
ALTER EGO #70
ALTER EGO #71
ALTER EGO #72
ALTER EGO #73
PAUL NORRIS drew AQUAMAN first, in 1941—and RAMONA FRADON was the hero’s ultimate Golden Age artist. But both drew other things as well, and both are interviewed in this landmark issue—along with a pocket history of Aquaman! Plus FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and more! Cover painted by JOHN WATSON, from a breathtaking illo by RAMONA FRADON!
Spotlight on ROY THOMAS’ 1970s stint as Marvel’s editor-in-chief and major writer, plus art and reminiscences of GIL KANE, BOTH BUSCEMAS, ADAMS, ROMITA, CHAYKIN, BRUNNER, PLOOG, EVERETT, WRIGHTSON, PÉREZ, ROBBINS, BARRY SMITH, STAN LEE and others, FCA, MR. MONSTER, a new GENE COLAN cover, plus an homage to artist LILY RENÉE!
Represents THE GREAT CANADIAN COMIC BOOKS, the long out-of-print 1970s book by MICHAEL HIRSH and PATRICK LOUBERT, with rare art of such heroes as Mr. Monster, Nelvana, Thunderfist, and others, plus new INVADERS art by JOHN BYRNE, MIKE GRELL, RON LIM, and more, plus a new cover by GEORGE FREEMAN, from a layout by JACK KIRBY!
SCOTT SHAW! and ROY THOMAS on the creation of Captain Carrot, art & artifacts by RICK HOBERG, STAN GOLDBERG, MIKE SEKOWSKY, JOHN COSTANZA, E. NELSON BRIDWELL, CAROL LAY, and others, interview with DICK ROCKWELL, Golden Age artist and 36-year ghost artist on MILTON CANIFF’s Steve Canyon! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!
FRANK BRUNNER on drawing Dr. Strange, interviews with CHARLES BIRO and his daughters, interview with publisher ROBERT GERSON about his 1970s horror comic Reality, art by BERNIE WRIGHTSON, GRAHAM INGELS, HOWARD CHAYKIN, MICHAEL W. KALUTA, JEFF JONES, and others FCA, MR. MONSTER, a FREE DRAW! #15! PREVIEW, and more!
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
20
ALTER EGO #74
ALTER EGO #75
ALTER EGO #76
ALTER EGO #77
ALTER EGO #78
STAN LEE SPECIAL in honor of his 85th birthday, with a cover by JACK KIRBY, classic (and virtually unseen) interviews with Stan, tributes, and tons of rare and unseen art by KIRBY, ROMITA, the brothers BUSCEMA, DITKO, COLAN, HECK, AYERS, MANEELY, SHORES, EVERETT, BURGOS, KANE, the SEVERIN siblings—plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!
FAWCETT FESTIVAL—with an ALEX ROSS cover! Double-size FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) with P.C. HAMERLINCK on the many “Captains Marvel” over the years, unseen Shazam! proposal by ALEX ROSS, C.C. BECK on “The Death of a Legend!”, MARC SWAYZE, interview with Golden Age artist MARV LEVY, MR. MONSTER, and more!
JOE SIMON SPECIAL! In-depth SIMON interview by JIM AMASH, with neverbefore-revealed secrets behind the creation of Captain America, Fighting American, Stuntman, Adventures of The Fly, Sick magazine and more, art by JACK KIRBY, BOB POWELL, AL WILLIAMSON, JERRY GRANDENETTI, GEORGE TUSKA, and others, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!
ST. JOHN ISSUE! Golden Age Tor cover by JOE KUBERT, KEN QUATTRO relates the full legend of St. John Publishing, art by KUBERT, NORMAN MAURER, MATT BAKER, LILY RENEE, BOB LUBBERS, RUBEN MOREIRA, RALPH MAYO, AL FAGO, special reminiscences of ARNOLD DRAKE, Golden Age artist TOM SAWYER interviewed, and more!
DAVE COCKRUM TRIBUTE! Great rare XMen cover, Cockrum tributes from contemporaries and colleagues, and an interview with PATY COCKRUM on Dave’s life and legacy on The Legion of Super-Heroes, The X-Men, Star-Jammers, & more! Plus an interview with 1950s Timely/Marvel artist MARION SITTON on his own incredible career and his Golden Age contemporaries!
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
ALTER EGO #79
ALTER EGO #80
ALTER EGO #81
ALTER EGO #82
ALTER EGO #83
SUPERMAN & HIS CREATORS! New cover by MICHAEL GOLDEN, exclusive and revealing interview with JOE SHUSTER’s sister, JEAN SHUSTER PEAVEY—LOU CAMERON interview—STEVE GERBER tribute—DWIGHT DECKER on the Man of Steel & Hitler’s Third Reich—plus art by WAYNE BORING, CURT SWAN, NEAL ADAMS, GIL KANE, and others!
SWORD-AND-SORCERY COMICS! Learn about Crom the Barbarian, Viking Prince, Nightmaster, Kull, Red Sonja, Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, Beowulf, Warlord, Dagar the Invincible, and more, with art by FRAZETTA, SMITH, BUSCEMA, KANE, WRIGHTSON, PLOOG, THORNE, BRUNNER, LOU CAMERON Part II, and more! Cover by RAFAEL KAYANAN!
New FRANK BRUNNER Man-Thing cover, a look at the late-’60s horror comic WEB OF HORROR with early work by BRUNNER, WRIGHTSON, WINDSOR-SMITH, SIMONSON, & CHAYKIN, interview with comics & fine artist EVERETT RAYMOND KINTSLER, ROY THOMAS’ 1971 origin synopsis for the FIRST MAN-THING STORY, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!
MLJ ISSUE! Golden Age MLJ index illustrated with vintage images of The Shield, Hangman, Mr. Justice, Black Hood, by IRV NOVICK, JACK COLE, CHARLES BIRO, MORT MESKIN, GIL KANE, & others—behind a marvelous MLJ-heroes cover by BOB McLEOD! Plus interviews with IRV NOVICK and JOE EDWARDS, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!
SWORD & SORCERY PART 2! Cover by ARTHUR SUYDAM, with a focus on Conan the Barbarian by ROY THOMAS and WILL MURRAY, a look at WALLY WOOD’s Marvel sword-&-sorcery work, the Black Knight examined, plus JOE EDWARDS interview Part 2, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, and more!
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
ALTER EGO #84
ALTER EGO #85
ALTER EGO #86
ALTER EGO #87
ALTER EGO #88
Unseen JIM APARO cover, STEVE SKEATES discusses his early comics work, art & artifacts by ADKINS, APARO, ARAGONÉS, BOYETTE, DITKO, GIORDANO, KANE, KELLER, MORISI, ORLANDO, SEKOWSKY, STONE, THOMAS, WOOD, and the great WARREN SAVIN! Plus writer CHARLES SINCLAIR on his partnership with Batman co-creator BILL FINGER, FCA, and more!
Captain Marvel and Superman’s battles explored (in cosmic space, candy stores, and in court), RICH BUCKLER on Captain Marvel, plus an in-depth interview with Golden Age great LILY RENÉE, overview of CENTAUR COMICS (home of BILL EVERETT’s Amazing-Man and others), FCA, MR. MONSTER, new RICH BUCKLER cover, and more!
Spotlighting the Frantic Four-Color MAD WANNABES of 1953-55 that copied HARVEY KURTZMAN’S EC smash (see Captain Marble, Mighty Moose, Drag-ula, Prince Scallion, and more) with art by SIMON & KIRBY, KUBERT & MAURER, ANDRU & ESPOSITO, EVERETT, COLAN, and many others, plus Part 1 of a talk with Golden/ Silver Age artist FRANK BOLLE, and more!
The sensational 1954-1963 saga of Great Britain’s MARVELMAN (decades before he metamorphosed into Miracleman), plus an interview with writer/artist/co-creator MICK ANGLO, and rare Marvelman/ Miracleman work by ALAN DAVIS, ALAN MOORE, a new RICK VEITCH cover, plus FRANK BOLLE, Part 2, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!
First-ever in-depth look at National/DC’s founder MAJOR MALCOLM WHEELERNICHOLSON, and pioneers WHITNEY ELLSWORTH and CREIG FLESSEL, with rare art and artifacts by SIEGEL & SHUSTER, BOB KANE, CURT SWAN, GARDNER FOX, SHELDON MOLDOFF, and others, focus on DC advisor DR. LAURETTA BENDER, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
21
ALTER EGO #89
ALTER EGO #90
ALTER EGO #91
ALTER EGO #92
ALTER EGO #93
HARVEY COMICS’ PRE-CODE HORROR MAGS OF THE 1950s! Interviews with SID JACOBSON, WARREN KREMER, and HOWARD NOSTRAND, plus Harvey artist KEN SELIG talks to JIM AMASH! MR. MONSTER presents the wit and wisdom (and worse) of DR. FREDRIC WERTHAM, plus FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) with C.C. BECK & MARC SWAYZE, & more! SIMON & KIRBY and NOSTRAND cover!
BIG MARVEL ISSUE! Salutes to legends SINNOTT and AYERS—plus STAN LEE, TUSKA, EVERETT, MARTIN GOODMAN, and others! A look at the “Marvel SuperHeroes” TV animation of 1966! 1940s Timely writer and editor LEON LAZARUS interviewed by JIM AMASH! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, the 1960s fandom creations of STEVE GERBER, and more! JACK KIRBY holiday cover!
FAWCETT FESTIVAL! Big FCA section with Golden Age artists MARC SWAYZE & EMILIO SQUEGLIO! Plus JERRY ORDWAY on researching The Power of Shazam, Part II of “The MAD Four-Color Wannabes of the 1950s,” more on DR. LAURETTA BENDER and the teenage creations of STEVE GERBER, artist JACK KATZ spills Golden Age secrets to JIM AMASH, and more! New cover by ORDWAY and SQUEGLIO!
SWORD-AND-SORCERY, PART 3! DC’s Sword of Sorcery by O’NEIL, CHAYKIN, & SIMONSON and Claw by MICHELINIE & CHAN, Hercules by GLANZMAN, Dagar by GLUT & SANTOS, Marvel S&S art by BUSCEMA, CHAN, KAYANAN, WRIGHTSON, et al., and JACK KATZ on his classic First Kingdom! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, STEVE GERBER’s fan-creations (part 3), and more! Cover by RAFAEL KAYANAN!
(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “EarthTwo—1961 to 1985!” with rare art by INFANTINO, GIL KANE, ANDERSON, DELBO, ANDRU, BUCKLER, APARO, GRANDENETTI, and DILLIN, interview with Golden/Silver Age DC editor GEORGE KASHDAN, plus MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, STEVE GERBER, FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), and a new cover by INFANTINO and AMASH!
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
ALTER EGO #94
ALTER EGO #95
ALTER EGO #96
ALTER EGO #97
ALTER EGO #98
“Earth-Two Companion, Part II!” More on the 1963-1985 series that changed comics forever! The Huntress, Power Girl, Dr. Fate, Freedom Fighters, and more, with art by ADAMS, APARO, AYERS, BUCKLER, GIFFEN, INFANTINO, KANE, NOVICK, SCHAFFENBERGER, SIMONSON, STATON, SWAN, TUSKA, our GEORGE KASHDAN interview Part 2, FCA, and more! STATON & GIORDANO cover!
Marvel’s NOT BRAND ECHH madcap parody mag from 1967-69, examined with rare art & artifacts by ANDRU, COLAN, BUSCEMA, DRAKE, EVERETT, FRIEDRICH, KIRBY, LEE, the SEVERIN siblings, SPRINGER, SUTTON, THOMAS, TRIMPE, and more, GEORGE KASHDAN interview conclusion, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, and more! Cover by MARIE SEVERIN!
Focus on Archie’s 1960s MIGHTY CRUSADERS, with vintage art and artifacts by JERRY SIEGEL, PAUL REINMAN, SIMON & KIRBY, JOHN ROSENBERGER, tributes to the Mighty Crusaders by BOB FUJITANE, GEORGE TUSKA, BOB LAYTON, and others! Interview with MELL LAZARUS, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more! Cover by MIKE MACHLAN!
The NON-EC HORROR COMICS OF THE 1950s! From Menace and House of Mystery to The Thing!, we present vintage art and artifacts by EVERETT, BRIEFER, DITKO, MANEELY, COLAN , MESKIN, MOLDOFF, HEATH, POWELL, COLE, SIMON & KIRBY, FUJITANI, and others, plus FCA , MR. MONSTER and more, behind a creepy, eerie cover by BILL EVERETT!
Spotlight on Superman’s first editor WHITNEY ELLSWORTH, longtime Kryptoeditor MORT WEISINGER remembered by his daughter, an interview with Superman writer ALVIN SCHWARTZ, tributes to FRANK FRAZETTA and AL WILLIAMSON, art by JOE SHUSTER, WAYNE BORING, CURT SWAN, and NEAL ADAMS, plus MR. MONSTER, FCA, and a new cover by JERRY ORDWAY!
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
ALTER EGO: CENTENNIAL (AE #100)
ALTER EGO #99
GEORGE TUSKA showcase issue on his career at Lev Gleason, Marvel, and in comics strips through the early 1970s—CRIME DOES NOT PAY, BUCK ROGERS, IRON MAN, AVENGERS, HERO FOR HIRE, & more! Plus interviews with Golden Age artist BILL BOSSERT and fan-artist RUDY FRANKE, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), and more! (84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
22
ALTER EGO: CENTENNIAL is a celebration of 100 issues, and 50 years, of ALTER EGO, Roy Thomas’ legendary super-hero fanzine. It’s a double-size triple-threat BOOK, with twice as many pages as the regular magazine, plus special features just for this anniversary edition! Behind a RICH BUCKLER/JERRY ORDWAY JSA cover, ALTER EGO celebrates its 100th issue and the 50th anniversary of A/E (Vol. 1) #1 in 1961—as ROY THOMAS is interviewed by JIM AMASH about the 1980s at DC! Learn secrets behind ALL-STAR SQUADRON—INFINITY, INC.—ARAK, SON OF THUNDER—CAPTAIN CARROT—JONNI THUNDER, a.k.a. THUNDERBOLT— YOUNG ALL-STARS—SHAZAM!—RING OF THE NIBELUNG—and more! With rare art and artifacts by GEORGE PÉREZ, TODD McFARLANE, RICH BUCKLER, JERRY ORDWAY, MIKE MACHLAN, GIL KANE, GENE COLAN, DICK GIORDANO, ALFREDO ALCALA, TONY DEZUNIGA, ERNIE COLÓN, STAN GOLDBERG, SCOTT SHAW!, ROSS ANDRU, and many more! Plus special anniversary editions of Alter Ego staples MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA (FCA)—and ALEX WRIGHT’s amazing color collection of 1940s DC pinup babes! Edited by ROY THOMAS. (NOTE: This book takes the place of ALTER EGO #100, and counts as TWO issues toward your subscription.) (160-page trade paperback with COLOR) $19.95 (Digital Edition) $5.95 • ISBN: 9781605490311 Diamond Order Code: JAN111351
ALTER EGO #101
Fox Comics of the 1940s with art by FINE, BAKER, SIMON, KIRBY, TUSKA, FLETCHER HANKS, ALEX BLUM, and others! “Superman vs. Wonder Man” starring EISNER, IGER, SIEGEL, LIEBERSON, MAYER, DONENFELD, and VICTOR FOX! Plus, Part I of an interview with JACK MENDELSOHN, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and new cover by Marvel artist DAVE WILLIAMS!
NEW!
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
ALTER EGO #102
ALTER EGO #103
ALTER EGO #104
ALTER EGO: THE CBA COLLECTION
Spotlight on Green Lantern creators MART NODELL and BILL FINGER in the 1940s, and JOHN BROOME, GIL KANE, and JULIUS SCHWARTZ in 1959! Rare GL artwork by INFANTINO, REINMAN, HASEN, NEAL ADAMS, and others! Plus JACK MENDELSOHN Part II, FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and new cover by GIL KANE & TERRY AUSTIN, and MART NODELL!
The early career of comics writer STEVE ENGLEHART: Defenders, Captain America, Master of Kung Fu, The Beast, Mantis, and more, with rare art and artifacts by SAL BUSCEMA, STARLIN, SUTTON, HECK, BROWN, and others. Plus, JIM AMASH interviews early artist GEORGE MANDEL (Captain Midnight, The Woman in Red, Blue Bolt, Black Marvel, etc.), FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and more!
Celebrates the 50th anniversary of FANTASTIC FOUR #1 and the birth of Marvel Comics! New, never-before-published STAN LEE interview, art and artifacts by KIRBY, DITKO, SINNOTT, AYERS, THOMAS, and secrets behind the Marvel Mythos! Also: JIM AMASH interviews 1940s Timely editor AL SULMAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and a new cover by FRENZ and SINNOTT!
Compiles the ALTER EGO flip-sides from COMIC BOOK ARTIST #1-5, plus 30 NEW PAGES of features & art! All-new rare and previously-unpublished art by JACK KIRBY, GIL KANE, JOE KUBERT, WALLY WOOD, FRANK ROBBINS, NEAL ADAMS, & others, ROY THOMAS on X-MEN, AVENGERS/ KREE-SKRULL WAR, INVADERS, and more! Cover by JOE KUBERT!
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95
(160-page trade paperback) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $4.95
HUMOR MAGAZINES (BUNDLE ALL THREE FOR JUST $14.95)
ALTER EGO:
BEST OF THE LEGENDARY COMICS FANZINE
Collects the original 11 issues of JERRY BAILS and ROY THOMAS’ ALTER EGO fanzine (from 1961-78), with contributions from JACK KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, WALLY WOOD, JOHN BUSCEMA, MARIE SEVERIN, BILL EVERETT, RUSS MANNING, CURT SWAN, and others—and illustrated interviews with GIL KANE, BILL EVERETT, & JOE KUBERT! Plus major articles on the JUSTICE SOCIETY, the MARVEL FAMILY, the MLJ HEROES, and more! Edited by ROY THOMAS and BILL SCHELLY with an introduction by JULIE SCHWARTZ. (192-page trade paperback) $21.95 ISBN: 9781893905887 Diamond Order Code: DEC073946
COMIC BOOK NERD
PETE VON SHOLLY’s side-splitting parody of the fan press, including our own mags! Experience the magic(?) of such publications as WHIZZER, the COMICS URINAL, ULTRA EGO, COMICS BUYER’S GUISE, BAGGED ISSUE!, SCRAWL!, COMIC BOOK ARTISTE, and more, as we unabashedly poke fun at ourselves, our competitors, and you, our loyal readers! It’s a first issue, collector’s item, double-bag, slab-worthy, speculator’s special sure to rub even the thickest-skinned fanboy the wrong way! (64-page COLOR magazine) $8.95 • (Digital Edition) $2.95
CRAZY HIP GROOVY GO-GO WAY OUT MONSTERS #29 & #32
PETE VON SHOLLY’s spoofs of monster mags will have you laughing your pants off— right after you soil them from sheer terror! This RETRO MONSTER MOVIE MAGAZINE is a laugh riot lampoon of those GREAT (and absolutely abominable) mags of the 1950s and ‘60s, replete with fake letters-to-the-editor, phony ads for worthless, wacky stuff, stills from imaginary films as bad as any that were really made, interviews with their “creators,” and much more! Relive your misspent youth (and misspent allowance) as you dig the hilarious photos, ads, and articles skewering OUR FAVORITE THINGS of the past! Get our first issue (#29!), the sequel (#32!), or both!
DIEDGITIIOTANSL E
BL AVAILA
(48-page magazines) $5.95 EACH • (Digital Editions) $1.95 EACH
These sold-out books are now available again in DIGITAL EDITIONS:
NEW!
MR. MONSTER, VOL. 0
TRUE BRIT
DICK GIORDANO: CHANGING COMICS, ONE DAY AT A TIME
Collects hard-to-find Mr. Monster stories from A-1, CRACK-A-BOOM! and DARK HORSE PRESENTS (many in COLOR for the first time) plus over 30 pages of ALLNEW MR. MONSTER art and stories! Can your sanity survive our Lee/Kirby monster spoof by MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MARK MARTIN, or the long-lost 1933 Mr. Monster newspaper strip? Or the terrifying TRENCHER/MR. MONSTER slug-fest, drawn by KEITH GIFFEN and MICHAEL T. GILBERT?! Read at your own risk!
GEORGE KHOURY’s definitive book on the rich history of British Comics Artists, their influence on the US, and how they have revolutionized the way comics are seen and perceived! It features breathtaking art, intimate photographs, and in-depth interviews with BRIAN BOLLAND, ALAN DAVIS, DAVE GIBBONS, KEVIN O’NEILL, DAVID LLOYD, DAVE McKEAN, BRYAN HITCH, BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH and other fine gents! Sporting a new JUDGE DREDD cover by BRIAN BOLLAND!
MICHAEL EURY’s biography of comics’ most prominent and affable personality! It covers his career as illustrator, inker, and editor—peppered with DICK’S PERSONAL REFLECTIONS—and is illustrated with RARE AND UNSEEN comics, merchandising, and advertising art! Plus: an extensive index of his published work, comments and tributes by NEAL ADAMS, DENNIS O’NEIL, TERRY AUSTIN, PAUL LEVITZ, MARV WOLFMAN, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, JIM APARO and others, a Foreword by NEAL ADAMS, and an Afterword by PAUL LEVITZ!
(136-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $4.95
(204-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $6.95
(176-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $5.95
SECRETS IN THE SHADOWS: GENE COLAN
TOM FIELD’s amazing COLAN retrospective, with rare drawings, photos, and art from his 60-year career, and a comprehensive overview of Gene’s glory days at Marvel Comics! MARV WOLFMAN, DON McGREGOR and other writers share script samples and anecdotes of their Colan collaborations, while TOM PALMER, STEVE LEIALOHA and others show how they approached inking Colan’s famously nuanced penciled pages! Plus: a NEW PORTFOLIO of never-seen collaborations between Gene and masters such as BYRNE, KALUTA and PÉREZ, and all-new artwork created just for this book! (192-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $6.95
ART OF GEORGE TUSKA
A comprehensive look at GEORGE TUSKA’S personal and professional life, including early work at the Eisner-Iger shop, producing controversial crime comics of the 1950s, and his tenure with Marvel and DC Comics, as well as independent publishers. Includes extensive coverage of his work on IRON MAN, X-MEN, HULK, JUSTICE LEAGUE, TEEN TITANS, BATMAN, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS, and others, a gallery of commission art and a thorough index of his work, original art, photos, sketches, unpublished art, interviews and anecdotes from his peers and fans, plus the very personal and reflective words of George himself! Written by DEWEY CASSELL. (128-page Digital Edition) $4.95
23
OTHER BOOKS FROM TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING
PENCILER, PUBLISHER, PROVOCATEUR
COMICS’ FAST & FURIOUS ARTIST
THE ART OF GLAMOUR
MATT BAKER
EXTRAORDINARY WORKS OF ALAN MOORE
Shines a light on the life and career of the artistic and publishing visionary of DC Comics!
Explores the life and career of one of Marvel Comics’ most recognizable and dependable artists!
Biography of the talented master of 1940s “Good Girl” art, complete with color story reprints!
Definitive biography of the Watchmen writer, in a new, expanded edition!
(224-page trade paperback) $26.95
(176-page trade paperback with COLOR) $26.95
(192-page hardcover with COLOR) $39.95
(240-page trade paperback) $29.95
QUALITY COMPANION
BATCAVE COMPANION
ALL- STAR COMPANION
AGE OF TV HEROES
The first dedicated book about the Golden Age publisher that spawned the modern-day “Freedom Fighters”, Plastic Man, and the Blackhawks!
Unlocks the secrets of Batman’s Silver and Bronze Ages, following the Dark Knight’s progression from 1960s camp to 1970s creature of the night!
Roy Thomas has four volumes documenting the history of ALL-STAR COMICS, the JUSTICE SOCIETY, INFINITY, INC., and more!
(256-page trade paperback with COLOR) $31.95
(240-page trade paperback) $26.95
(224-page trade paperbacks) $24.95
Examining the history of the live-action television adventures of everyone’s favorite comic book heroes, featuring the in-depth stories of the shows’ actors and behind-the-scenes players!
CARMINE INFANTINO
SAL BUSCEMA
(192-page full-color hardcover) $39.95
MARVEL COMICS
MARVEL COMICS
An issue-by-issue field guide to the pop culture phenomenon of LEE, KIRBY, DITKO, and others, from the company’s fumbling beginnings to the full maturity of its wild, colorful, offbeat grandiosity!
IN THE 1960s
(224-page trade paperback) $27.95
MODERN MASTERS
HOW TO CREATE COMICS
Covers how Stan Lee went from writer to publisher, Jack Kirby left (and returned), Roy Thomas rose as editor, and a new wave of writers and artists came in!
20+ volumes with in-depth interviews, plus extensive galleries of rare and unseen art from the artist’s files!
(224-page trade paperback) $27.95
Shows step-by-step how to develop a new comic, from script and art, to printing and distribution!
(128-page trade paperbacks) $14.95 each
(108-page trade paperback) $15.95
IN THE 1970s
A BOOK SERIES DEVOTED TO THE BEST OF TODAY’S ARTISTS
FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT
FOR A FREE COLOR CATALOG, CALL, WRITE, E-MAIL, OR LOG ONTO www.twomorrows.com
TwoMorrows—A New Day For Comics Fandom! TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • Visit us on the Web at www.twomorrows.com