Alter Ego #51 by TwoMorrows Publishing

Roy T Thomas homas’ Batty Batty Roy Comics F Fanzine anzine Comics

MARK OF (BOB) KANE! The

THE SECRET SAGA OF

LEW SAYRE SCHWARTZ BATMAN ARTIST 1946-1953!

5.95

In the the USA USA In

No. 51

--PLUS-The Golden & Silver Ages of

AUSTRALIAN SUPER-HEROES! EXTRA: DAVE BERG PLUS: PLUS:

August 2005

Vol. 3, No. 51 / August 2005

™

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

Contents

Michael T. Gilbert

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

Production Assistant

Writer/Editorial: The Mark of (Bob) Kane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Batman, Dr. Strangelove, And Everything In Between . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Lew Sayre Schwartz tells Jon B. Cooke (and us) about his multi-media career.

Eric Nolen-Weathington

Cover Artist

Shooting Stars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 The life and death of the original Australian comics industry, by Michael Baulderstone.

Lew Sayre Schwartz

“He Left This Planet Too Soon To Go To Artists’ Heaven!”. . . . . . . . 53

Cover Colorist Tom Ziuko

Dave Berg talks to Jim Amash about his days at Fawcett, Timely, Quality, and Mad.

And Special Thanks to:

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt: Remembering Will (Part Two). . . . . . . . 61

Arthur Adler Heidi Amash Manuel Auad Michael Baulderstone Alberto Becattini John Bell Dominic Bongo Roy Bottorff, Jr. Jerry K. Boyd Gary Brown Eddie Campbell Arthur Chertowsky Bob Cherry Graeme Cliffe Jon B. Cooke Howard Leroy Davis Dwight Decker Craig Delich Joe Desris Al Dellinges Jim Engel Shane Foley Ron Frantz Richard Furness Carl Gafford Janet Gilbert Tom Gill Don Glut Andreas Gottschlich

Jennifer Hamerlinck Bob Hughes Larry Ivie Peter Jones Jeffrey Kipper Henry J. Kujawa Jon Jensen Glen Johnson Stan Lee Stephen Lipson Carol Maund Brian K. Morris Kevin Patrick Robert Pincombe Dorothy Schaffenberger Lew Sayre Schwartz David Studham Marc Swayze Dann Thomas Steve Tice Alex Toth Michael Uslan Dr. Michael J. Vassallo Hames Ware Morris Weiss Paul Wheelahan Bill Wormstedt

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Ed Furness

Michael T. Gilbert has more to say about the late great Will Eisner.

“The Stuff Of Our Personal Nightmares”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Master artist Alex Toth’s further word on night, shadows, and mood in comics.

Ed Furness: “A Witty, Multi-Talented Man” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 A brief tribute by Robert Pincombe to a top artist of Canada’s Golden Age of Comics.

A Talk With Writer, Educator, And Comics Fanatic Glen Johnson . . .71 Bill Schelly goes one-on-one with an All-Star from the Golden Age of Comic Fandom.

re: [correspondence, comments, & corrections]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Stan Lee & Michael Uslan on that fabled 1961 golf game—and that’s just for starters!

FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) #110 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 P.C. Hamerlinck presents Jim Engel, Marc Swayze, Otto Binder, & C.C. Beck. On Our Cover: “Mea culpa!” Yeah, that’s Latin for “I’m guilty!”—and that’s what Ye Editor confesses re this issue’s cover. You may have noticed that, both in TwoMorrows titles and in other comics-related mags, A/E #51 was advertised with a cover showing Batman and Robin attacked in a bat-infested cave by (supposed) Native Americans. The source of that art was the splash of “The Origin of the Bat-Cave!” from Detective Comics #205 (March 1954), which presumably showcased the talents of this issue’s major interviewee, Lew Sayre Schwartz. Only thing is, while the ish was in the final stages of preparation, Roy was suddenly seized by a fear that, since Lew was superceded as Bob Kane’s personal Batman ghost sometime in 1953 by Sheldon Moldoff, the penciling might actually be Shelly’s, instead—as indeed was the case, he soon learned from art expert Craig Delich. Fortunately, a week or two earlier, Lew had mailed Roy a photocopy of a 1993 re-creation he’d done of the “Gorilla Boss” cover of Batman #75 (Feb.March 1953), so Roy and publisher John Morrow decided to bite the bullet and go to the extra trouble (and expense—sob!) of making it our cover, instead. You can read more about both projected A/E covers on pp. 8 & 18. [Art ©2005 Lew Schwartz; Batman TM & ©2005 DC Comics.] Above: A Lew Sayre Schwartz panel from p. 7 of our cover-featured story, “The Gorilla Boss of Gotham City!” Thanks to Bob Cherry for the scan. Inking by Charles Paris. [©2005 DC Comics.] Alter EgoTM is published monthly by TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: 32 Bluebird Trail, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. 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.

writer/editorial

The Mark Of (Bob) Kane T

his issue underscores, about as clearly as anything could, the ofttimes frustration of putting out a magazine devoted to the Golden and Silver Ages when one is determined not to slavishly pander month after month to fans of the same tiny “A-list” of artists, writers, companies, and characters whose names they’ll recognize. Lew Sayre Schwartz, this issue’s major interviewee, is hardly a household name—even in those rather atypical households made up of readers of comic books.

The reason is simple, yet paradoxical: Although he drew hundreds of pages of stories starring Batman and Robin between 1946 and 1953, a span of seven key years in the early life of one of the most famous fictional heroes of all time, he would never have been allowed to sign a single story, even if he’d wanted to. Instead, each splash page sported the name “Bob Kane”—and, while Kane apparently did contribute to many of these tales, it was Schwartz who was their principal artist, as the following interview will detail. (Schwartz went on to do a lot of good non-comics work in TV and film and advertising, but though we’re pleased to cover it herein, that won’t draw readers to Alter Ego #51.) So I hope TwoMorrows and I can be forgiven—by the readers and by Lew—for adding Kane’s name to this issue’s cover, since that name is well-known to comics readers and even, to a certain extent, to the general public. Yet, another irony of the situation is that, according to our publisher, John Morrow, even Kane’s name may not necessarily be a ™

big draw for today’s comic fans or even to the nostalgically- or historically-inclined, because, after all, in artistic stature he isn’t generally considered to be in the same league with Will Eisner and John Buscema and Jack Kirby and such. Well, the hell with it. From the moment Comic Book Artist editor Jon B. Cooke offered me the opportunity to run his interview with Lew Schwartz in A/E, I was sold on the idea. After all, A/E’s franchise is primarily the hero-oriented comics of the 1940s through the mid-1970s. My mission, if you want to call it that, is to put out a certain kind of magazine, not to try to figure out how to make that magazine sell the maximum number of copies. I already did that for years, at places with names like Marvel and DC. Lew Schwartz—and, yes, Bob Kane—and, for that matter, the preMad Dave Berg and Australian super-hero comics of the past and Otto Binder and Marc Swayze and Canadian artist Ed Furness—all these people and things deserve your attention, and mine. Frankly, if and when the day comes that not enough readers are interested in this type of material, then ’twill be time to fold A/E’s four-color tents and move on to other endeavors. Thankfully, that day is not yet… and I hope it will never come…but I felt I needed to get the above feelings off my chest. Thanks for indulging me. And now, enjoy the interview with Lew—and all that follows! Bestest,

COMING IN SEPTEMBER

A TERRIFIC TRIO: GIELLA, PIKE, & THALL! A Triptych Of Titanically Talented Golden/Silver Age Artists! • Brand-new color cover by JOE GIELLA, done especially for A/E! • JOE GIELLA—legendary inker of 1960s Flash, Green Lantern, & “New Look” Batman— and artist on the Batman, Phantom, Flash Gordon, & Mary Worth comic strips—talks about the Silver Age at DC, the Golden Age at Marvel, JULIE SCHWARTZ, & lots more good stuff in a great JIM AMASH interview! Featuring rare & lavish art by CARMINE INFANTINO, GIL KANE, MIKE SEKOWSKY, CURT SWAN, DICK DILLIN, SHELLY MOLDOFF, FRANK GIACOIA, DAN & SY BARRY, KURT SCHAFFENBERGER, et al.! • Artist JAY SCOTT PIKE on STAN LEE & the Timely/Marvel years (Jann of the Jungle, Black Rider, Lorna the Jungle Girl, Kid Colt, & Cold War spy comics)—on Dolphin at DC—and on CHARLIE BIRO’s Crimebuster! • MARTIN THALL on drawing comics with ROSS ANDRU & MIKE ESPOSITO (Get Lost!), GEORGE EVANS (Captain Video), WALLY WOOD, SIMON & KIRBY, AL WILLIAMSON, CHARLES SULTAN, MAURICE WHITMAN, etc.! • FCA with MARC SWAYZE & the Fawcett/Charlton Connection—MICHAEL T. GILBERT on WILL EISNER (Part 3)—BILL SCHELLY with GLEN JOHNSON (Part 2)—& MORE!! acters TM [Art ©2005 Joe Giella; char

Edited by ROY THOMAS

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Batman, Dr. Strangelove, And Everything In Between A Talk With LEW SAYRE SCHWARTZ Interview Conducted by Jon B. Cooke

OTE: From 1946 to 1953, Lew Sayre Schwartz worked for Bob Kane, as his ghost on the art to “Batman” stories for DC Comics. But that was only one phase of a career in the arts that has spanned half a century. We’ll let Jon plunge right into the interview, which was conducted more than two years ago, with Lew’s wife Barbara present and occasionally adding her own perspective —-and we’ll learn about that eventful life at the same time you do. Oh, and unless otherwise noted, all art and photos were supplied either by Lew, Jon, or —Roy.

From “Batman” To “Sherlock” A recent photo of Lew Sayre Schwartz in his studio— above two quite variant examples of his artwork. (Left:) His pencil roughs for the action-packed splash of “The Penguin’s Fabulous Fowls!” in Batman #76 (April-May 1953). (Right:) Lew writes: “I did this series of ads [for Blue Streak products] for years.” This one appeared in the Jan. 1960 issue of Motor magazine. [Batman art ©2005 DC Comics; Blue Streak art ©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

Transcribed by Steve Tice “We Piled Into Mauldin’s Jeep” JON B. COOKE: It’s the 18th of March, 2003. Saddam Hussein has 24 hours to get out of town. LEW SAYRE SCHWARTZ: [laughs] And I wish we could turn around and say the same thing to George Bush: give him 24 hours to get out of the White House. JBC: We’ll see. Where were you born? SCHWARTZ: I was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, on July 24, 1926, close to 77 years ago. I had one older sister, but she passed away a few years ago. Other than that, I have very little in the way of family. My mother and father got divorced when I was

A Talk With Lew Sayre Schwartz

ten or 11 years old, and I grew up in not a great neighborhood in New Bedford. It wasn’t bad, it wasn’t good. Then I went to art school in New Bedford. I’m not sure they’re still in operation; it was called the Swain School. There I met a very interesting young man by the name of Rodney Dutcher, whose father had been an extremely well-known columnist for NEA. He was a Washington reporter, I guess. Anyway, Rod was enormously talented. This was a kid who was reading Nietzsche when he was 12. When I thought Chic Young was a fantastic artist—I still do, by the way, in his own way—Rod was already looking at Terry and the Pirates, and he really got me into Milt Caniff and, subsequently, Noel Sickles and David Stone Martin (who was a spin-off of Ben Shahn). Really, the relationship fed itself, because we loved the same things. He certainly helped me develop an appreciation for things I might not have gotten to for another four or five years. I was 13, he was 12, at that time. Anyway, he was the guy who went to New York with me—in fall of 1946, or something like that—when Caniff invited me to come to the National Cartoonists Society dinner. That was the eventful night where we wound up shooting pool with [editorial cartoonist] Bill Mauldin until 2:00 in the morning. Mauldin offered us a ride home in his jeep. We were grateful, because it was late, thus hard to get a cab, so we piled in. None of us are feeling any pain, and Mauldin takes off down 5th Avenue, against the traffic, and there was enough traffic to make it quite an exciting ride. He went from the Illustrators Club on 63rd Street all the way down to 34th Street, to the old Prince George Hotel. Mauldin goes down to 34th Street, hangs a right at the hotel, and drives the jeep up onto the sidewalk, up the steps to the hotel, and tries to get the jeep in the revolving door. That’s when we got out. [laughter] JBC: Did you know Bill Mauldin well? SCHWARTZ: Not at all. Just from that one night. It was the last time I ever saw him, as a matter of fact. That afternoon, he told us, he had ripped out something like 15,000 dedication pages inscribed to his wife—printed pages in his latest book—because he found out she had cheated on him while he was overseas. So that was the Mauldin story. They had a dinner out in California for Mauldin some years ago, and I had told this story to Ed McGeehan, the editor of CAPS magazine. So Ed approached Mauldin, related my tale, and Mauldin said, “Well, I don’t really remember it, but it sure as hell sounds like me.”

“When I Met Bob Kane…” SCHWARTZ: [cont’d] In 1946, when I met Bob Kane, who hired me, at the time he said he and Will Eisner were doing this little baseball comic book project. Bob paid for it. I never saw a check from Eisner, and I just assumed what Bob said was accurate. It was called Dusty Diamond. But the strip didn’t sell. We did both a strip and a comic book. However, two or three years later, Eisner came out with his own baseball comic, with a character named Rube Rookie, quite similar to Dusty Diamond, without a doubt. So that reaffirmed what Kane had said to me, at least in my own mind. 2H years ago, Will Murray queried Eisner, who said, “I would remember very clearly: I never did a damned thing with Bob Kane.” Now, at that point, I hadn’t met Eisner. My first meeting with him was about two years ago, when he was a guest speaker in Connecticut, at an NCS dinner. JBC: You were there? I was there, too! SCHWARTZ: Were you really? In fact, I have a little videotape I shot. But at any event, I was so thrilled, I acted like a jerk with Eisner. [laughs] It’s funny, but even when you get as old as I am, you can meet someone from your past whom you’ve always looked to as a hero, and it becomes such a dumb, “gee-whiz” conversation. I had a much more comfortable dialogue with him at the comic con, where I could settle in and talk to him like a human being. But Eisner, right or wrong, does not remember any project, though there certainly are great similarities. I go back to the business with Jerry Robinson and Bob Kane about the origin of The Joker. I love Jerry. I think I once owned a page of the first Joker story. Of a certainty, Jerry lettered it—it looks like his work—and maybe he even inked it. But the drawing was pure Kane. Kane drew arms coming out of the hip half the time, and there it was. But that doesn’t diminish the fact that Jerry, being a very bright guy, could have contributed or solidified the whole idea of The Joker. He tells the story about bringing in the playing cards, etc., but we also have Bill Finger to consider in that character’s creation. [NOTE: See Jerry Robinson interview in A/E #39.] Anyway, Kane gave so damn little credit to Bill Finger over the years, and only reneged and confessed that he should have done more for Bill than he did not long before he [Kane] died. The more I think about Bob, it saddens me. Because he became successful as a kid. He was ten years older than I, but the facts are that, in spite of the fame and the money

“Tinkers To Evers To Chance” (Er, We Mean “Kane To Schwartz To Eisner”!) Lew tells of working on a baseball feature called Dusty Diamond with Bob Kane, who told him that Will Eisner was also involved—though Eisner later insisted he “never did a damned thing with Bob Kane.” In his magazine Egomania, comics artist Eddie Campbell (From Hell, etc.) reprinted this strip which he says “was produced for Eisner’s Tab – The Comic Weekly, of which only one issue was ever published, in 1947. Dusty Diamond presumably evolved into Rube Rookie by way of Fireball Bambino. I asked Will about this but remain none the wiser.” Neither are we—but note that the strip is signed at right by both Bob Kane—and “Lew Sayre.” [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

Batman, Dr. Strangelove, And Everything In Between

SCHWARTZ: Yes. I was being transferred to a battleship from the aircraft carrier I had landed on, and we went into the Dominican Republic, allegedly to rescue some Americans, because there were a whole bunch of dissenting Dominicans who had trained in Cuba. Maybe a hundred of them. I hitched a ride on one of the planes. I watched this little, unbelievable thing: one hundred guys coming out of these LCIs [Landing Craft Infantry] running up on the shore; half of them are only carrying machetes. I’d say maybe 20 of them got shot down, the rest disappeared into the jungle. [laughs] That was the end of the invasion of the Dominican Republic. I’ve never read anything about it, but I was on a Naval Reserve cruise here, which is what this is all about.

The Joker Is Wild Lew Sayre Schwartz’s (officially Bob Kane’s) splashes for two famous Joker stories. On the left, from Batman #53 (June-July 1949)—on the right, from the tale in Detective Comics #168 (Feb. 1951) that belatedly turned out to be The Joker’s long-delayed origin. The latter art was also used as the issue’s cover—one of the relatively few Schwartz covers. Almost all covers featuring Lew’s work were splashes which were pressed into double duty. Inks by Charles Paris & George Roussos, respectively, and the writer of Detective #168 was Batman’s (and The Joker’s) co-creator, Bill Finger—with thanks to Craig Delich & Joe Desris for numerous IDs in this piece. The writer of the “Hairpin” story is unknown. [©2005 DC Comics.]

and everything else, it only made him more and more insecure, because he couldn’t give credit to anybody. I remember in 1992 or ’93, the last time I spoke to him, he’d finally got a publisher for Batman & Me, and I said, “Bob, sign a copy and send it to me.” Then dead silence. I said, “Don’t you want to send me a copy?” He said, “Well, I’ll send you a copy, but… you’re not in the book.” I said, “Look, Bob—I only worked for you for seven years, so it’s perfectly understandable you could forget seven years. Besides that, I had another career and it doesn’t matter to me. But I wonder who else you forgot in the book.” But credit doesn’t mean anything to me, to be quite honest with you. I mean, I’ve gone on to another life, another existence.

“You’ll Be On The Flagship” SCHWARTZ: [cont’d, pointing to photo] This is me in 1947. I’m in “The Chair.” [NOTE: See next page.] JBC: Wow! Is that a destroyer?

I was working for Rod Willard on Scorchy Smith and came home for the weekend. I got off the bus and was walking home. A buddy of mine picked me up, said, “Do you want me to take you home?” I said, “Yeah, that’d be great. Where are we going, Bernie?” He said, “Well, I’m going down to the Naval Reserve office to look into this cruise they’ve got to Scandinavia.” So by a strange twist of fate, when my friend and I walked into the recruiting office, there were two guys: a boatswain’s mate with all the hash marks, who was running the place, and there was a full Navy commander. Well, my friend Bernie had been an aerial photographer, and he flew over Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, all those places. I had a much more reserved kind of career in the Navy, although I spent 90 days flying in the belly of a TPF, which is not the best duty in the world. But I had a specialist X rating, which is a journalist. Bernie had a photographer’s rating.

So the commander is standing there listening to us, comes over and says, “Listen, we could use you guys on the admiral’s staff.” Bernie was an expert on color photography; this is 1947. The fact I was a cartoonist, they all loved that. So he said, “Sign on, I’ll make all the arrangements for you, and you’ll be on the flagship, on the admiral’s staff.” Well, that turned into a Bmovie I won’t bless you with here. [laughs] But if you can imagine, the following week, all our friends threw a big farewell party, gave us some luggage, etc. “Batman & Me—And Several Other People I Don’t Mention”

Bob Kane’s 1989 autobiography Batman & Me is, in many ways, a dishonest book, starting with the fact that there’s probably as much Jerry Robinson and even George Roussos in the Batman figure on the cover as there is of Kane. Any claims made in the book by Kane (through his surprisingly-acknowledged co-writer Tom Andrae) must be taken with a ton of salt. Maybe it’s just as well that there’s no index, since names like “Schwartz, Lew” and “Moldoff, Sheldon” wouldn’t show up in it. Even so, the book is worth having for the combination of a few unalloyed facts and its monumental chutzpah. [Batman ©& TM 2005 DC Comics.]

We go down to Norfolk to sign up to go on the carrier, and they signed us onto the wrong ship. So they put us on a battlewagon. I can’t even remember the name of it now, but to make a long story short,

A Talk With Lew Sayre Schw

we come aboard wearing civvies. Everybody else was in uniform because they had signed up for this thing earlier. In those days, I was wearing brown-&-white saddle shoes. Well, the next morning, they line up 2,000 guys at 5:30, 6:30 in the morning, for inspection… and there’s one pair of brown-&white saddle shoes. We were on the wrong damn ship. [Jon laughs] They wanted to get at us because they claimed we were impersonating officers to begin with. It was hell.

Lew In “The Chair”—& Batman On A Rope Ladder! Sailor Lew being transferred from one ship to another on a Midshipmen’s Cruise, 1947—plus his semi-finished pencils for a nicely-designed “Batman” splash. [Art ©2005 DC Comics.]

By the way, this was 1947, when the Russians were beginning to crack knuckles. This was a “goodwill” mission with two Essex-class carriers, four battlewagons, and eight destroyers. It looked like an armada from World War III, you know? And away we went. Well, when we got to Annapolis to pick up the midshipmen, Bernie and I managed to get ashore. I called the commander, and he said, “You guys are on the wrong ship!” So he called the PR guy at the Naval Academy and got us transferred just in the nick of time. They’d have killed us. [Jon laughs] They hated the Reservists to begin with. There was always a breach between regular Army and the Army Reserve, regular Navy and Reserve. They didn’t look at you as being “real Navy” guys or “real Army” guys. I’m sure that condition exists right to now. By the way, speaking about the Armed Forces, I have a clipping I came upon from a 1964 or ’65 write-up that Milton Caniff did. It will surprise you, because you’re well aware that Caniff became a hawk during Vietnam—he was always supporting the military, but he was wrong and we lost that war. I was with Milton very often in those last years, and it was painful to see. Anyway, he hurt bad. He thought

Cronkite & Caniff (Above:) Lew with CBS newsman/anchor Walter Cronkite. In the magazine VideoPro, this photo is captioned: “Video Information Applications president Lew Schwartz directing Cronkite’s introduction of a video profile on Milton Caniff.” Lew stated in a recent fax to Ye Editor: “Cronkite was notorious for editing everyone and didn’t change one word of his intro (or end) of the Caniff profile. I was very flattered.” (Right:) The cover and spine of the Milton Caniff: A 75th Birthday Tribute video filmed and produced by Schwartz. [Art ©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

he was a patriot. But what is very, very interesting is the fact that, when you read this piece, it’s Caniff’s overview of any war. And it’s completely perpendicular to everything you may have thought about Caniff.

“Comic Books Were Comic Books” JBC: I was very impressed with the documentaries you produced on Norman Rockwell and Caniff. SCHWARTZ: Well, they were labors of love. I paid for the Caniff film with my own money. [laughs] I owed him, because Milt taught me so much, and basically was a good guy. I can only think of one instance in the whole relationship that shocked me a little bit. It had to do with the fact that I could have gotten Canyon back on television very easily. You know how popular [the military TV drama] JAG is today? Well, I had the right people in California who wanted to do Steve Canyon. Good old Toni Mendez, Caniff’s agent, was not part of the deal. I got Cliff Robertson and Milton together. At that time, Robertson would have made a great Steve Canyon. Mendez screwed the whole deal. The Mirish Brothers had an option, and she immediately called them and killed the whole thing. [shuffling through papers] Does that look familiar to you? JBC: That’s it! “Gorilla”! [laughs] [NOTE: Lew and Jon are referring to the much-remembered story “The Gorilla Boss of Gotham City!” in Batman #75 (Feb.-March 1953). See pp. 8-9. —Roy.] SCHWARTZ: This is one of my favorite splashes. I love that one. JBC: When you were a kid, did you read

Batman, Dr. Strangelove, And Everything In Between comic books? SCHWARTZ: Oh, yeah! I was a big “Batman” fan. Really big. JBC: What was it about him you liked? SCHWARTZ: Going back to what we were talking about before, the last time we were here, is that comic books were comic books. Think about the “Captain Marvel” comics. It was a cartoon. And Bob drew “Batman” as a cartoon. You and I have previously talked about the fact that my ambition, all along, in terms of cartooning, was to be a newspaper cartoonist. No matter how illustrative Terry and the Pirates was, or Captain Easy and [recurring villain] Bull Dawson in Wash Tubbs, you could see the toughest fight ever. Caniff was far more detailed, much more explicit, perhaps, but never quite the kind of things you saw when the comic books suddenly stopped being comic books and started being medical manuals, where every nerve end squirted blood. I’m well aware that a lot of kids love gross stuff, but somewhere in between what the comic books were when I was reading them and what they became is what Fredric Wertham probably was trying to prove, and couldn’t, in the days when he was attacking the comics. Wertham, by the way, as a matter of interest, had attacked the newspaper guys, as well. It wasn’t just the comic books. So it was a broad-range shotgun kind of thing. The guy was the Joe McCarthy of the comic books. He was a phony to begin with; he was looking for anything to fit his thesis and get him some attention. That was what that was about. But, more to the

point, the essential difference between violence in the comic strips and violence in the comic books shifted from semi-realism to the macabre. And it’s still going on.

“The Big Guns… Weren’t Defending The Industry” JBC: Did you ever talk to Caniff about the trouble? For instance, at the Senate Subcommittee hearing on juvenile delinquency, he testified basically on behalf of censorship of the comics, as did Walt Kelly of Pogo. Did you have any feelings about that? Did you think that it was wrong of him to say that? SCHWARTZ: He testified for or against? JBC: Against. Well, for censorship. Against the comic books. SCHWARTZ: I think what I was describing probably had to do with that possibility. JBC: Were you out of comics by the time of Wertham?

SCHWARTZ: In ’54, I was working for King Features. I left in ’55 to go into advertising. But, at the time, I had private reservations about the Big Guns in the newspaper strip industry— Capp, Caniff, Gould, the big names—speaking out against comic books. I think I was disappointed that they weren’t defending Easy Does It, Terry! the industry. The Big Guns didn’t fight back when the squeeze came. A photo of Roy Crane (at left) and Lew some years back. Lew says:

“You could see the toughest fight ever” in Crane’s Wash Tubbs or Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates. Below, Wash’s co-star Captain Easy mixes it up with Bull Dawson in two 1935 dailies—and Terry fells an aviator foe in 1939. The Easy/Dawson fight went on for several days’ worth of strips before the Cap’n kayoed his recurring foe. To see more, pick up NBM’s great reprint volumes of Terry and Wash Tubbs from a decade or so ago; they represent action cartooning at its apex! [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

The truth of all of this is the fact I was personally disappointed when the newspaper publishers started squeezing the dailies down to three columns so that you couldn’t see any of the artwork anymore. I think the Big Guns really should have done something. In a certain fashion, the opportunity was there. The feeling was that the National Cartoonists Society was not going to fight it. That was the [NCS president] Rube Goldberg attitude. Because Rube had it all: he was famous, had lots of money, and didn’t care too much what happened to the business. He just liked to eat and drink with all the guys. JBC: Why did the importance of newspaper comic strips diminish? Was it because television became popular? SCHWARTZ: Well, television had a very great deal to do with it, yes. When the newspaper strips had clout, they didn’t use it, so eventually, when they lost that clout, everything was taken away from them. I started a book on Roy Crane and had to do some substantial digging. I found a piece in Cartoonists PROfiles where Crane showed Buzz Sawyer as a dwarf, because there was no room for full figures anymore. And, of course, Al Capp hated it, as he stated.

A Talk With Lew Sayre Schwartz

Gorilla My Dreams! The 1952 revival of the 19-year-old film King Kong inspired many a giant-monster movie conceived by Ray Harryhausen and others—and quite a few giant-ape rampages in comic books, to boot! One of Lew’s most outrageously memorable “Batman” penciling jobs was “The Gorilla Boss of Gotham City!” in Batman #75 (Feb.-March 1953). So we consider ourselves (and you, of course) fortunate to be able to follow the splash and cover of that tale from beginning (well, not counting David Vern’s script) through the printed versions and even a latter-day re-creation! (Clockwise from top left, on this and facing page:) (Above left:) Lew’s original sketch for the splash, as taken from his sketchbook. We’ve left in indications of the notebook’s spiral, to give the proper feel. Lew’s note from the time says this “new story” was “received August 14th”—1952. (Above right:) His pencils for the splash. (Great that Lew held onto copies for all these years!) (Right:) The splash as printed in Batman #75. Inks by Charles Paris, with probably some Bob Kane in the Batman figure. (Top left, next page:) The printed cover. Another of the rare Lew Schwartz Batman covers—although this one is actually a “collaboration” of sorts. The Batman and Robin figures were penciled and inked by another prominent “Batman” artist of the era, Win Mortimer—though the rest of the art is by Schwartz & Paris, photostatted from the splash page. (Top right, next page:) Coming full circle, in 1993 Lew drew this version of the cover, substituting Batman & Robin figures he inked in place of Mortimer’s. With all these permutations of the art to choose from, the real winners are—Alter Ego’s readers! Thanks to Bob Cherry for scans of the cover and splash of Batman #75—other art courtesy of Lew Sayre Schwartz. For IDs, thanks to Craig Delich. [All art on the spread ©2005 DC Comics.]

Batman, Dr. Strangelove, And Everything In Between

I think the excitement that occurred earlier, when you could go to a Cartoonists dinner, see Hal Foster, Milton Caniff, and Alex Raymond— all these dynamite guys—is over because the Cartoonists Society is now all broken up, splattered all over the country, and almost all of the guys I loved are now dead. They’re gone. The sad part about it is, they’re maybe gone, but they should not be forgotten, because they established the roots of this industry. This is where everybody came from.

whatever paper it was.

I won’t name the names, but years ago I was talking to a president of the Cartoonists Society, who lived in Florida, and I said, “Did you ever see Roy Crane while he was alive?” And he looked at me and asked, “Roy who?” [Jon laughs] How can that happen? But it’s true!

The comic books, by and large, from the very beginning, aside from the reprints, were piecework: one guy penciled, another guy inked. There wasn’t the intimacy with the product. [“Superman” creators] Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were the exception in the beginning, as was Bob Kane with “Batman,” and so on. As that industry grew, there was not the same feeling of it being your own work. I mean, I took the trouble to literally, as you will see, pencil in the damn brushstrokes. [leafing through pages] Kane said, “Oh yeah, Lew Schwartz used to do backgrounds in the beginning. It wasn’t until I trained him that I ever let him do complete pencils.”

JBC: In their heyday, the popular comic strip artists were actually national celebrities, right? SCHWARTZ: Some of them were, yes. To a great degree. Billy DeBeck was famous. A great story about the guy who created Barney Google, DeBeck: I think he had an apartment on Central Park South, and he started throwing dollar bills on the street. DeBeck was making gobs of money in those days. Probably we wouldn’t think much of what the total was today. I just this morning read in the paper that some CEO of Putnam Investment got a $17 million bonus last year. If I were an investor in that company, I would tear that board of directors to shreds. Seventeen million! JBC: What would you say the popularity of the strip artists was akin to? Was it like a popular movie director? SCHWARTZ: The popularity, I think, had to do with focus. There was no television. A good chunk of your entertainment came off of that comic page or the sports page. Or maybe the front page, depending on

The truth is, everybody followed those daily strips. I remember Wash Tubbs being in the New Bedford Standard Times when I was a kid, and I gobbled that stuff up. You cannot believe how exciting it was to read those strips. The adventures Crane coughed up were so phenomenal and exciting. Here again, these guys were fantastic storytellers.

From Day One, I did complete pencils. So this is a good example of what I would turn in to Bob. I signed that one because I figured some years later it might be of value. That and the fact that I save everything. But you can almost see the brushstrokes.

“When I Think Back To It, I’m Very Lucky” JBC: Would you say that you had a middle-class upbringing in New Bedford, or were you poor? SCHWARTZ: I went to high school in New Bedford, and then when I was 16, they didn’t let me graduate with my regular class because I did a

A Talk With Lew Sayre Schwartz

Gorilla Warfare Lew’s thumbnails from his sketchbook for pp. 4, 5, & 11 of “The Gorilla Boss of Gotham City!”—juxtaposed with the printed Schwartz/Paris pages. Did the oversize anthropoid with George “Boss” Dyke’s transplanted brain have to take the fall from the Gotham State Building? Craig Delich tells us that he sees Bob Kane's pencil work in the Batman figures, probably over Lew's original roughs. Thanks to Bob Cherry for the scans from Batman #75. [©2005 DC Comics.]

Batman, Dr. Strangelove, And Everything In Between

was the guy who took over for [George] Bridgman, and he went on to become the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. During that period, Irwin Hasen was taking classes there and I met him. Also a gag cartoonist by the name of Eric Ericson. I also met Bob Oksner there. He was a nice man. I haven’t seen him almost since then. Since the ’50s, anyway. He was one of the guys who was in San Diego who received an Inkpot award, which was nice. It’s funny: a lot of the guys I knew at the Cartoonists Society, I had no idea what the hell they did. Carmine Infantino, Frank Frazetta, and those guys who were around, early on, I had no idea about. I mean, they weren’t important to me because they weren’t Milton Caniff, you know? But it’s funny, [my wife] Barbara just found a boxful of Christmas cards from Otto Soglow, Ronald Searle, Mort Walker. [laughs] Unbelievable. JBC: You hung out with a pretty good crowd, huh? [laughs] SCHWARTZ: Not bad, not bad. When I think back to it, I’m very lucky. JBC: Norman Rockwell was certainly transcendent when you consider the top illustrators, right? I mean, there was talent, there was timing, it was... SCHWARTZ: Luck. JBC: Luck? And it was artistry. Would you say that Rockwell’s a notch above Robert Fawcett? SCHWARTZ: Not really. Noel Sickles probably influences my opinion. The first time I met Sickles, I was carrying an illustration by him that I had bought, which he then signed for me. I’m sitting in his studio and we’re talking, and I said, “How do you feel about Robert Fawcett sortof imitating your work?” I should have known better. He went after me like a rattlesnake. And of course later, when I had more exposure, I realized what a flub that statement was.

Kane And Schwartz Meet Frankenstein With the help of Craig Delich, Joe Desris, Jerry Bails, and other art researchers, DC’s landmark Archives series identifies some of the artistic “ghosts” that haunt the “Batman” stories, even if the cover byline reads just “Bob Kane.” Most of these ghosts, like Dick Sprang, Jim Mooney, Jack Burnley, and Win Mortimer, worked directly for DC—but for years Kane always had one artist at a time who worked directly for him, and whose pencils are still often credited to Kane. From 1946-53 that artist was Lew Sayre Schwartz. In Batman Archives, Vol. 6, while a “Bob Kane and Lew Schwartz” co-credit is given for Detective Comics #124, #131, and #133, the first story whose pencils are now officially credited to Schwartz alone (with Charles Paris inking, from a clever Edmond Hamilton script) is “The True Story of Frankenstein!” from Detective #135 (May 1948). But Lew insists in the interview: “From Day One, I did complete pencils.” [©2005 DC Comics.]

caricature of my chemistry teacher [laughs] that was pretty nasty, looking back. So my punishment was that they held me over another six months. “By popular demand.” But, even at that period, from the very beginning I drew for the high school paper. Like everybody else—-they all had the same story. I used to compete in the cartoon contests, in Open Road for Boys. I think I won a prize. But then I left New Bedford and went to New York. JBC: Did you see cartooning as your ticket out? Did you want to get out of New Bedford? SCHWARTZ: Well, I wanted to study with Greg D’Allegio, and I wanted to go to the Art Students League, and I wanted to be in New York because that’s where the action was. I had a job during the daytime for $20 a week running errands for an art studio. I lived at the YMCA on West 63rd Street for a buck a night. Murphy Anderson was at the same Y, and we used to go places together. We studied with some pretty dramatic people, as a matter of fact, great painters. But the anatomy guy

JBC: So you would stay at the YMCA with Murphy Anderson? SCHWARTZ: We were going to the Art Students League together. I had a job during the day at an art studio, where I cut mattes and ran errands. That was a 9-to-5 job. But I would cut out of lunch from time to time and go over to the Daily News Building and sit and watch Milton Caniff.

“Milton [Caniff] Became A Father Figure” JBC: How did you first get in touch with Milton Caniff? SCHWARTZ: I had been so enamored with Terry and got wind that every year he came to the Boston Herald Book Fair, where he did a chalk talk. An uncle of mine had some influence in those days and he got me into Symphony Hall, and we trapped Milton in the men’s room there, believe it or not. That was the first time and place I ever met him. He was very amenable and suggested I write to him, which I did. I’d always receive an answer, and many, many times a little sketch in with the letter. Upstairs I have my scrapbook of Milton Caniff I put together as a kid. JBC: So Caniff was actually your hero, your idol? SCHWARTZ: Well, my father died when I was 12, and Milton became a father figure, in a certain way. He had all the accouterments, y’know? The more I read about him, he was what I wanted to become. The fact he hand-fed me, in answering my mail and being very nice and that I could call and he would talk to me on the phone, was exciting. Oh, I should add that Milton helped me get my job at King Features in 1948. I could fake Milt’s style, so I did his rescales. JBC: What is that?

A Talk With Lew Sayre Schwartz

Roughing It Up Three roughly-penciled vintage “Batman” pages by Lew. Note the completeness of detail on the Statue of Liberty, the helicopters, and the frogman outfits. Lew says the reason the Batman and Robin figures are lightly penciled is because, especially in the early days, Bob Kane finished the penciling on them. Directly above are the printed “frogman” panels (from "The New Crimes of Two-Face" in Batman #68, Dec. 1950-Jan. 1951), as reprinted in Michael Fleischer’s 1976 Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes, Vol. 1: Batman; inker uncertain. [©2005 DC Comics.]

Batman, Dr. Strangelove, And Everything In Between SCHWARTZ: Well, commonly in those days, when the original art would come in, they would make a Velox, which is a super-stat; but in many instances you would cut up the original art and refit as a third-page or a half-page, or, indeed, a tabloid, if it wasn’t a full-page. Now, I think Milton was doing the half-page format, but then art would have to be added on on the bottom. It was very interesting because, at a point, Milton began going past the bottom border of the panel, so everything was filled in properly.

13 torpedo in the bomb bay, with the gunner next to the torpedo. [laughs] I was 17 or 18 years old. That’s where they put the radar guy and the gunner, he being the same guy. So anyway, at that time you would only get 90 days’ training, after which you would only get 90 days of “operational experience.” I got assigned to a TBF squadron that flew this sortie from Opa Locka, Florida, to Port of Spain, Trinidad, then stayed over the next day and came back. It was amazing to me. People were going on doing their business in Miami and having a good time, and in the meantime, there wasn’t once that we would go out that we wouldn’t see at least one or two of our ships— freighters—burning from a [German] U-boat attack ten miles off the coast of Miami. It was unbelievable.

JBC: Yeah, I’ve seen that on Steve Canyon originals. SCHWARTZ: The whole time I worked at King Features, I worked on Canyon. That genre of strip led them to believe I could do Brick Bradford and Secret Agent X-9, etc., so I also ghosted them for a 13-week sequence. It just was a job. [laughs] I would go down, get a bunch of originals or proofs, and just imitate the style of them.

JBC: How high were you flying when you were flying these runs? SCHWARTZ: Normally we would I guess be somewhere around 7,000 or 8,000 feet up. Depends on how clear it was. But you could see a whale. I’m sure we did a lot of damage to a lot of whales because you would get very excited, y’know. We blew up a bunch of whales, because they looked like submarines.

JBC: So as you developed as an artist, how did you assess your own talents? SCHWARTZ: [laughs] I think on the basis of what people were willing to pay me. Like everybody else.

“I Went Into The Navy In 1944” JBC: You’re working full-time 9-to-5 at the art studio, right? SCHWARTZ: I did this for about six months, and after I enlisted and went into the Navy in 1944, Milton sent a letter recommending me for any kind of journalistic work. So they sent me to the radar school. There were 20 switches to turn this mother on. It was just unbelievable. I was so sure I’d wash out I don’t think I went to classes the last three weeks. Amazingly, I was part of the group of 20 they sent on for further training up to Jacksonville, which in those days was called Yellow Water. And they had a crane for the TBF— that’s the dive bomber with a

Caniff & Colleagues Two drawings that the legendary Milt Caniff did especially for Lew—of Terry heroine Burma, and of airman Steve Canyon—beneath a photo of a quartet of reasonably talented cartoonists. (Left to right:) Lew Schwartz… Scorchy Smith artist (and early Terry ghost) Noel Sickles… Mort Walker (Beetle Bailey)… and Milt Caniff (Terry and the Pirates; Steve Canyon). [Art ©2005 Estate of Milton Caniff.]

The great story out of that particular period was, one of the planes in our squadron knocked off a U-boat—a real, live U-boat—15 miles off the coast of Miami. Then they sent out a destroyer to pick up the survivors, and they got about 20 Germans. Guess what? The captain of the U-boat—and I was virtually witness to this—

X Marks The Spy In 1954, Lew ghosted 13 weeks of the Dashiell Hammett/Alex Raymond-created newspaper strip Secret Agent X-9 for artist Mel Graff. These two panels are from the July 7 daily. [©2005 King Features Syndicate, Inc.]

A Talk With Lew Sayre Schwartz

Moby & Me A few years back, Lew scripted and fellow artist Dick Giordano drew a young-people’s abridgement of Moby-Dick for the one-time whaling city of New Bedford, Massachusetts—to celebrate the 150th anniversary of what some literary historians consider the Great American Novel. (Sorry for adding the hyphen to the title above, but that’s the way Herman Melville spelled it.) [©2001 The City of New Bedford.]

had tickets to the Miami theatre in his pockets. There was an awful lot of this happening with the German subs on the East Coast. And, on the West Coast, with Japanese boats. They found a sunken German submarine off Nantucket, did you know that? JBC: The last U-boat of the war was sunk off Black Island, in 1945. They were killing our sailors, and yet they were gallivanting, having a night life in Miami? SCHWARTZ: Yes. They must have come ashore, had people who helped them, and this captain had ticket stubs to the Miami theatre. He had gone to the movies in enemy territory in the middle of the war. JBC: You were in the Navy, right? Why the Navy? SCHWARTZ: I don’t know. I think that I was more partial to the Navy than the Army. I was in for a little over two years. JBC: Doing sorties back and forth? How long did that last? SCHWARTZ: No, you only got 90 days of that. Get a load of this: you’d be at 10,000 feet. Imagine yourself in the belly of that thing—the largest single-stick airplane in the world at that time, by the way. They were big. Anyway, they’d peel off and head straight down for the water and drop the torpedo forty, a hundred feet, whatever the hell it was, but it looked like ten feet. They dropped the fish, and away it would go. That was the routine. I saw a lot of stuff.

“A [National] Cartoonists Society Trip To Korea” SCHWARTZ: [cont’d] When I decided that I couldn’t draw another panel of “Batman”—this was in ’53—I signed on for a Cartoonists Society trip to Korea. While the Korean War was still going on. The guys I went with were Cliff Robertson (Newsday), Vernon Greene (Jiggs and Maggie), Bill Holman (Smokey Stover), Al Pasen (Sweeney and Son)—and a couple of other guys. There were 12, and the four oldest guys stayed in Japan and got the hospital tours. The next oldest went down South to the detention camps, the prison camps, and they worked with the guys there. Four of us, which included Irwin Hasen, were assigned to the 8th Army, and we went up to Seoul. Now, the first night we were in Seoul, there was a single-engine aircraft that the North Koreans—or maybe it was the Chinese—would

We Have Seen The Future—And It’s Drawn By Lew Schwartz! In his introduction to Batman Archives, Vol. 6, Bill Schelly (yes, that Bill Schelly!) writes that the “superb art job” from Detective Comics #133 (March 1948) “owes more to Schwartz than to Kane.” Indeed, Craig Delich tells us that, although there’s some Bob Kane art on that issue’s cover, the story inside is pure Schwartz and Paris, with an Edmond Hamilton script. [©2005 DC Comics.]

Batman, Dr. Strangelove, And Everything In Between

Batman & Robbins Another colorful colleague of Lew’s was Johnny Hazard creator/artist/writer Frank Robbins, who drew the caricature of Lew seen at left. The 1948 photo shows Robbins (he’s the one with muscles) with Lew at one of the big annual shindigs thrown for cartoonists by musicmeister Fred Waring (as in, Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians). Years later, Robbins would write and draw several dynamic “Batman” stories himself—like the one at right from 1972’s Detective Comics #429! [Sketch ©2005 Estate of Frank Robbins; Batman art ©2005 DC Comics.]

Playing Rough Lew says he went on the Korean tour in 1953, not long before the truce ended the three-year war there, because he was “fed up with ‘Batman’”—but he still wound up, “morning, noon, and night…drawing Batman!” Here, from his invaluable sketchbooks, are his rough thumbnails for three more splashes done that year: “The Manhunter from Mars!” (the script was “received Feb. 18th”)—“The Batman of Yesterday!” (script “received April 17th”) and “Radio Station C-R-I-M-E!” (script “received May 4th”). The finished stories appeared, respectively, in Batman #78 (Aug.-Sept. 1953), Batman #79 (Oct.-Nov. 1953), and Detective Comics #200 (Oct. 1953). Only two years later, of course, “Manhunter from Mars” would become the title of a new series in Detective, behind the “Batman” lead story. Wonder if there’s any connection…? [©2005 DC Comics.]

A Talk With Lew Sayre Schwartz

have come over with a single bomb, looking for nothing more than a nice, big red cross to drop it on.

spirits, but it didn’t. BARBARA SCHWARTZ: That’s because he was ashamed of it.

JBC: A big red target? SCHWARTZ: Absolutely. We did our first show that night, after we landed at the airport at Seoul. We put on a show for about 3,000 or 4,000. It was a Barbara and Lew Schwartz, Miami 2005. huge audience. Right in the middle of Irwin’s performance, when he’s telling a story and drawing a picture, we hear alert sounds, and here comes One-Shot Charlie (that’s what they called him) looking for a place to drop a bomb. Everything is dead silent. They didn’t even clear out the crowd. All of a sudden, you hear an explosion. I don’t know whether he hit anything or not, I never even found out. Everything was pitch black. The lights came back on three minutes later, and Irwin picks up from the last word he had said and goes on. [Jon laughs] Irwin brought the house down! It was so funny. The tension and the whole damned thing. A very funny guy. It was a rare experience to share and one worth remembering. There were nights where we’d be put up in a hotel that had no windows, but it had a manicured, perfectly-kept Chinese garden and pagoda. Now, the hotel had bullet holes all over the place. No glass in any of the windows. Which was true of the entire city of Seoul when we were there. There were no paved streets anymore. Everything was rubble, but both sides kept the hotel for their offices. They would fly us out in five small planes—four cartoonists and an escort officer. They would fly us up into where the action was, and would land us one at a time, five minutes apart, on these little strips—dragon strips. We would have a big drawing board, and you’d have to pull it out, have our chalks and everything ready to go, and run like hell, because the plane would take off and the next one would come in.

SCHWARTZ: I wasn’t ashamed, but in those days, the comic books were not held in very high esteem, and if I’m walking around with comic books as samples of my work, well… I had no idea Irwin was also working in comic books, believe it or not. For years I had no idea, until I started reading your magazine. I had no idea what Irwin had done. JBC: Was he doing Dondi at the time? SCHWARTZ: Dondi. All I remember of Irwin is Dondi. But it was not the highest level of endeavor to be working in comic books in those days. Somewhere downstairs I have a very cute sketch of Irwin sleeping in this bed… [laughs]

“[Bob Kane] Was Getting A Lot Of Attention” JBC: All right, so you went for your two-year hitch in the Navy. So you came back in ’47 or ’46? SCHWARTZ: ’46. I went to Florida. I was on the beach in Florida chasing a pretty lady when this obnoxious guy seemed to interfere with her. JBC: He was trying to get the attention of the young lady himself? SCHWARTZ: Very hard. [laughs] Bob Kane was a nice-looking guy, [to Barbara] wouldn’t you think? He always had a very aquiline look to him. JBC: But did he have a heavy tan like he always did? BARBARA: That was fake. SCHWARTZ: He didn’t have a heavy tan, he used make-up. JBC: Was he very vain? BARBARA: Very.

I remember I had a black guy for a pilot, who was incredible. Because there was no radio communication. You couldn’t make contact. And we’d be flying in formation a hundred feet above each other, or maybe 200, in-between mountains and—I mean, it was incredible. They always found their way home. At least with us they did. But it was a miracle, a miracle. I had no more right to be there than the man in the moon, with a wife and two kids at home. JBC: You were doing chalk talks? What was your gig at the time? SCHWARTZ: Well, I wanted to go because I was so fed up with “Batman” already. I couldn’t draw another damn panel, but I wound up in Korea, morning, noon, and night, in hospitals, in officers clubs, in enlisted men’s clubs, drawing Batman! [laughs] For 90 days, 120, I can’t remember. But it was some experience. And they ate it up, these guys. They were happy to see anybody from home. JBC: Were you a representative of DC Comics?

Chasin’ Hasen SCHWARTZ: Never, no. JBC: You were the Great Unknown Artist then? SCHWARTZ: The Great Unknown. [laughs] If I hadn’t gone on to another career, it might have dampened my

Lew writes that he drew this sketch of Irwin Hasen “after we put on 4 shows that day in Korea, NCS tour. May-July 1953.” Lew’s title for the drawing, though partly cut off here, reads: “Irwin in repose.” Indeed! We’ll bet they were all dead tired! In 1955, Irwin, who drew “Green Lantern,” “Justice Society of America,” “Wildcat,” et al., in the 1940s, became the co-creator and, for all of its three-decades-plus run, artist of the popular newspaper strip Dondi. A photo of Irwin appeared in A/E #44. [©2005 Lew Sayre Schwartz.]

Batman, Dr. Strangelove, And Everything In Between

Kane Was Able Lew insists that, despite the ghosting that began early in the feature, he always “associated Bob [Kane] with the things I liked during the beginning of ‘Batman,’ as a kid.” And indeed, even in this third “Batman” tale (left) from Detective Comics #29 (July 1939), the stories already displayed the grim atmosphere and cinematic storytelling we think of in connection with the hero’s early days, whether the writer was co-creator Bill Finger or (as in this case) fill-in scripter Gardner Fox. ID-er Craig Delich says Kane even lettered this story. (Above:) A July 1958 pencil sketch by Kane, which was later sold in a limited edition of 500 copies—with thanks to Jerry K. Boyd. [Detective page ©2005 DC Comics; Kane art ©2005 Estate of Bob Kane; Batman TM & ©2005 DC Comics.]

SCHWARTZ: Very, very vain.

JBC: Did you know Bill Finger at the time?

JBC: So did he fancy himself a playboy, and was he at that time? Because his money was good, right?

SCHWARTZ: I never met Bill Finger, ever. No contact with Finger. I got Bill Finger’s scripts…

SCHWARTZ: He was getting a lot of attention. I can’t speak for the females, but I didn’t find Bob very attractive. There were other types who liked the fact that he was a celebrity. So they would date him for that, I guess.

JBC: You knew they were from Finger?

JBC: Why? Just because he was the creator of “Batman”? That made him a celebrity?

JBC: Do you think he had something to do with the creation and the development of “Batman”?

SCHWARTZ: Sure.

SCHWARTZ: I can’t imagine that he did not.

JBC: [to Barbara] Did you like Bob?

JBC: But Bob would never mention him?

BARBARA: I didn’t know him well enough to dislike him. My impression was that he was the typical Jewish boy from the Bronx, and that aspect was always with him. He had that kind of an accent. He certainly did not have sex appeal. There are always women who will go for anybody who has a lot of money. He had a lot of money at that time. His first wife looked like she fit the part.

SCHWARTZ: Bob was so afraid to give anybody else any credit. The distinct difference between someone like Bob Kane and someone like Caniff… Caniff talks about Sickles’ contribution to the style of the art without hesitation, would give Sickles much, much credit for the early style of Terry. He never hesitated. Caniff wasn’t afraid. With Bob, everything happened so fast, Bob was scared to death that it would be taken away if he acknowledged people that were helping him or even drawing the strip.

SCHWARTZ: She was right out of a chorus line in Las Vegas. JBC: Every woman I’ve heard who was with him was a chorus linekind of girl. SCHWARTZ: Except the last one he married. Elizabeth was a nice lady. She was an actress. She wasn’t glitzy. But up to that point, Bob loved glitz, as it were. JBC: Would you characterize him as shallow? SCHWARTZ: I would say that he was about as deep as a thimble. [laughter] And that’s being generous.

SCHWARTZ: Oh, his name would be on them. I always thought they were the best ones that I got. In the very beginning, too.

JBC: Do you think he saw himself as a fraud? SCHWARTZ: No, never. JBC: The way I look at it, he was one of the lesser artists of the time. SCHWARTZ: Without a doubt. JBC: It’s when Jerry Robinson, George Roussos, Dick Sprang, and you came along, that you could tell it wasn’t Bob Kane doing the art anymore, it was something else that was going on there which was [continued on p. 20]

A Talk With Lew Sayre Schwartz

The Mark of Kane—Times Seven Along with Lew Schwartz, some of the best-known and ablest artists of the 1940s and ’50s whose work appeared with a “Bob Kane” signature on the splash page were (clockwise on this page and facing one): Jerry Robinson (pencils) & George Roussos (inks): The above page of original art from the story “Comedy of Tears!” in Batman #13 (Oct.-Nov. 1942), auctioned off recently via Heritage Comics, was credited there to the two above artists—but was probably laid out by Kane himself. With thanks to Dominic Bongo for retrieving the scan. Jerry Robinson did, however, pencil and ink the cover of Batman #13 on his own. (See Jim Amash’s in-depth interview with Jerry on Batman and other subjects in Alter Ego #39—still available from TwoMorrows.) Canadian-born Winslow Mortimer illustrated many Golden Age “Batman” adventures, including “The Mountain of the Moon!” in Detective Comics #107 (Jan. 1946). Script by Don Cameron. Jim Mooney likewise drew numerous “Batman” stories, such as this Penguin outing in Detective #126 (Aug. 1947). Writer unknown. Jack Burnley penciled (and Charles Paris inked) “The Isle of Yesterday!” in Detective #129 (Nov. 1947); Burnley also penciled the 1940s Batman newspaper strip for a time. Script for this one is by Bill Finger, sez Craig Delich. Dick Sprang was a major “Bob Kane ghost” for much of the 1940s-50s. Like Mortimer, Mooney, and Burnley, he always worked directly for DC—not that that meant anything to the readers, since the “Bob Kane” box-signature was slapped onto all “Batman” splashes in that era. “Two-Face Strikes Again!” from Batman #81 (Feb.-March 1954) was reprinted in the hardcover Batman from the 30’s to the 70’s, and Sprang’s career was covered in depth in Alter Ego #19. Inking by Charles Paris. Sheldon Moldoff had very briefly been Kane’s very first assistant back in 1939 before going on to draw “Hawkman,” et al. When Lew left “Batman” in 1953, Shelly became Bob Kane’s new personal ghost until DC took over full production of all “Batman” material in 1967. This splash from Detective #205 (March 1954) was scheduled—even advertised—as the cover of this issue of A/E; see our contents page for Ye Editor’s explanation. “The Origin of the Bat-Cave!” was one of Shelly’s very first stories done for Kane, drawn on the heels of Lew’s departure. Script by Bill Finger; inks by Charles Paris. Thanks to Craig Delich, Carl Gafford, & Jim Ingersoll for the IDs. [All art in this spread ©2005 DC Comics.]

Batman, Dr. Strangelove, And Everything In Between

A Talk With Lew Sayre Schwartz

[continued from p. 17] very entertaining. But when Bob did a story, it just fell flat. SCHWARTZ: I can’t honestly say that, because I always associated Bob with the things I liked during the beginning of “Batman,” as a kid. I liked that it was still a cartoon. It looked relatively easy. [laughs] Even during that period, when I was very young and beginning to draw, I used to copy “Batman.” I enjoyed the strip. I loved it! The stories had the power—and the concept, who can quarrel with the concept? I mean, it’ll be with us forever, probably. It’s interesting as hell… I know there are a lot of other great comic book heroes, but the truth of the matter is, there ain’t nothin’ like “Superman,” ain’t nothin’ like “Batman.” Only “Captain Marvel,” maybe.

“I Wasn’t Going To Throw Any Information to [Mort] Weisinger” JBC: Oddly enough, Siegel and Shuster—who started the whole super-hero bandwagon—became paupers. But Bob Kane, to the end of his days, did pretty well. Do you have any idea what the difference was between that pair and Bob Kane? Do you know anything about the deal he cut with DC? SCHWARTZ: I know a little. You know that I was at

Bob’s house the day that Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel came over and tried to talk Bob into joining their lawsuit. Which they won. They won $2 million. The lawyers split $1 million and Joe and Jerry split the other million. Now, at that particular period of time—that was ’47 or ’48— $500,000 apiece was a lot of money. But the truth of the matter is, when each of them signed the back of those checks, they wrote away any claim. The fact that they collected and won was not necessarily a victory. Bob’s original contract, as I understood it, called for the delivery of 12 stories a year, as I recall. The first year I got Bob up to 15 to 20, but I was cranking out 20 stories a year over a 7-year period, about 240 pages. Now, Bob is giving me $100 out of collecting $500. That’s what burned [DC editor] Mort Weisinger up, because Weisinger wanted to find out who the machine was that Bob was connected to that was making them pay an extra $400. Because surely they weren’t paying the guys at DC that kind of rate. JBC: Was Mort just jealous? SCHWARTZ: I never met him. My only evaluation for what I read about him and in talking to him is that he went to the trouble to find out the telephone number of the phone booth in the art department at King Features. We had a public phone. Anybody who wanted to get a private call would give out that number. How he got that number, I don’t know, but he called, asked for me, I go to the phone, he introduces himself, and I just clam up. I knew damn well I wasn’t going to throw away any information to Weisinger, but he kept calling. He would call at lunch. He did everything he could to try and expose Bob, and I just didn’t cooperate with him, so that was the end of that. JBC: Why did you have this loyalty to Bob?

Time For Batman A 1992 Batman sketch Lew did for his grandson, and a classic “Batman” splash—flanking a late-’40s selfcaricature. Apparently Lew wasn’t drawing the Caped Crusader the day he did the drawing of himself in his studio! [Batman page ©2005 DC Comics; 1992 art & caricature ©2005 Lew Sayre Schwartz; Batman TM & ©2005 DC Comics.]

SCHWARTZ: It was loyalty to myself. The money was good. I didn’t mind at all the fact that nobody knew about me. In some respects, I didn’t want Caniff or Alex Raymond to know that I was drawing “Batman,” and they were friends of mine.

Batman, Dr. Strangelove, And Everything In Between

Rube Goldberg Machine-ations Rube Goldberg, at right, in a self-portrait done for the National Cartoonists Society—and an early sports cartoon showing one of the needlessly over-complicated devices which made “a Rube Goldberg machine” a phrase used by generations which have rarely if ever seen one of his actual drawings. Both illos were reprinted in Stephen Becker’s 1959 tome Comic Art in America, one of the earliest histories of the comic strip—which featured an introduction by Rube Goldberg. [©2005 Stephen Becker or successors in interest.]

JBC: Really? You didn’t even tell Caniff that you were drawing “Batman”? SCHWARTZ: Never. Never did. BARBARA: You never told Milton? SCHWARTZ: I never told Milt.

JBC: You’re also lucid. I think your opinions about the art are just dead-on. You have the same kind of enthusiasm for the form that I have, that any number of people I know have, who really love it… and it’s cool, I guess. [laughter] SCHWARTZ: “Love” is the right word. The truth is, I love making films, and Barbara will attest to the fact that I didn’t work for money as much as I worked for the absolute glory of doing these things.

JBC: Were you ashamed? SCHWARTZ: I didn’t want to be associated with the books. At that particular time it was beneath my status… or my objectives. Let’s put it that way. Nowadays, I think that my attitude was funny, in a sense, because all of that has changed, obviously—because of the artists that have come along in the business, like Alex Toth and people like that. There were some great people doing the book. It’s not the same feeling. But in the very beginning, Murphy Anderson and I used to kid each other around. Murphy would work for people like Jerry Iger. I much preferred to make less money and work for an illustrator’s studio. The connection was an aesthetic, in a certain fashion. It wasn’t simply status as much as it was personal interest. It’s where my heart was. JBC: Do you consider it amusingly ironic that now you are recognized for your “Batman” work? SCHWARTZ: I laugh about it. You gotta remember I have had a pretty decent career as a filmmaker. I got all the acknowledgement out of the film and television businesses which I never got out of the comics. Strangely enough, everything’s turned around. By the mid-’60s, I was very well-known in the television business, nationally and internationally. I was lucky about my career taking me to where I’ve been. I’ve had that kind of creative experience that, combined, was able to amount to something. Comics, in a way, taught me how to make film. So I nursed that, didn’t feel any depression in terms of not having made it in the comic business. And for this thing to come back and swing around and make me one of the Golden Age guys, if you will, is just a hoot. [laughter] JBC: I’ll be honest and say that I certainly enjoyed your “Batman” work, but I’m no Eddie Campbell when it comes to appreciation. Eddie’s got a respect that comes from really deep inside him, about what your “Batman” stories mean to him. For me—and it’s the reason I’ve come here—I feel kindred primarily because of your devotion to Caniff, your devotion to the form, to Roy Crane, and I see that you are an artist who admires great art, and you see great art within comic strips. I connect with you because of your appreciation for the art form and its history. Certainly you’re someone who recognized early on that these guys must be remembered, because it’s our shared legacy, it’s our shared passion. SCHWARTZ: It’s so vital to do that, in my time that’s left, basically, and that’s what I want to devote myself to.

“Jack Kirby Was Jewish?” JBC: Do you sometimes wish you’d worked for money more? SCHWARTZ: I wish I’d held onto a little bit. [laughs] JBC: Are you Jewish? SCHWARTZ: Yes. JBC: Can you give any kind of insight into why the vast majority of creators in comic books were Jewish—from Siegel and Shuster… through Bob Kane? SCHWARTZ: I would have to think about that, but it occurs to me there’s an underground thing that has to do with a certain tradition. Nobody forced me to become an artist. I mean, when I started to draw, I had a lot of encouragement, my mother encouraged me, and so on. I don’t think there was ever a religious connection. I think a lot of people of Jewish extraction went into the arts because they weren’t going to become engineers…or not all that many of them did. JBC: Did you ever read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon? BARBARA: I have. JBC: Do you see that there may be a unique Jewishness perhaps of being, not the outsider so much as having more obstacles, shall we say, than maybe Anglo-Saxons did, and just plain and simple intelligence and perseverance and just get-up and gumption. This was the Great Depression. I’m talking about something that took place within American comedy. It happened in comic books with Kurtzman. It happened in TV with Sid Caesar to Woody Allen to Mel Brooks. Is there something in the water? I mean, what’s up with New York? [Schwartz laughs] You’re an exception in that you’re actually from New Bedford. Will Eisner and Bob Kane attended the same high school… Jack Kirby—Jacob Kurtzberg—was from the Lower East Side… SCHWARTZ: Jack Kirby was Jewish? JBC: Yeah! He created Captain America, the quintessential goy super-hero!

A Talk With Lew Sayre Schwartz famous Jewish actor by the name of Maurice Schwartz who is supposed to be a relative. Before him, going back to Russia, is supposed to be a very well-known Russian painter. Who knows? Do I care? Not beyond the curiosity factor. JBC: You’re not related to [DC editor] Julie Schwartz at all? SCHWARTZ: No, not at all. I’ve seen him, yes, just a couple of times. He’s never been particularly interested in sitting and talking to me for whatever reason. I don’t know why. [NOTE: This interview was recorded before Julius Schwartz’s death in February 2004. —Roy.]

“The Saint Preceded [James Bond] 007” JBC: So, seven years doing “Batman.” Did you do it on the weekends, do it at night…? SCHWARTZ: Well, I would get on the train to go to New York on Monday morning from Wilton, Connecticut... there were maybe 20 people that got on the train. Barbara and I got an apartment in Wilton for one year and then rented a house after that. We got married in… [to Barbara] …what? BARBARA: 1948. JBC: Did you two know each other as children? BARBARA: High school.

SCHWARTZ: Did I ever tell you about the day that I took some of my work to Rube Goldberg? That S.O.B. Goldberg looked at my work and said, “You’ve got a lot of talent, kid. But change your name.” Rube Goldberg was the most un-Jewish S.O.B. who ever walked the planet. [laughs] Caniff told this story on his back porch for the documentary I did: Rube’s father was a very rich man. When Rube came to New York to work for the old Chronicle or whatever, his father was convinced cartoonists couldn’t earn a living, so he bought Rube a business, and a couple of weeks later sent Rube a key and a note which had the address and said, “Look, if the thing at the Chronicle doesn’t work out, I’d like you to take this key, go down to this address, and introduce yourself, because you own this business.” So on a Saturday, he gets into a taxi cab, goes downtown into a nice section, beautiful brownstone building, goes up the steps, rings the bell, the door opens, and there’s a lady in a kimono there. His father bought him a whorehouse. [laughter] This American icon! Now, Milton told that story. I have it on tape. You were asking about the ethnic aspect. Contrary to popular belief, a lot of Jews were poor. I was one of them. The net result of that was that making a good living at something that attracted me, that I would enjoy doing, certainly had to be a stimulus. But no less so than for an Anglo-Saxon kid. I think Jewish kids were more driven toward being successful sometimes. But then again, the cultural part of it was that a lot of these families really didn’t come from very high-level status when they came over here from Europe. JBC: And those that did, their children would go on to be lawyers and doctors and… ? SCHWARTZ: Yes. Somewhere back in the family tree there was a

SCHWARTZ: Well, when I came back from that junket, the Navy Reserve cruise, in 1947, I was hired by the New York Herald Tribune to go out to California and work with Leslie Charteris on The Saint newspaper strip. I was the first artist on the strip. Charteris was a piece of work. I mean, I was 20 years old, from New Bedford, Massachusetts. Now I’m in Hollywood, walking into a guy’s office at 10:00 in the morning, and he’s got a drink in his hand. He’s a 6-foot-3 Eurasian with a monocle. [laughter] The whole nine yards. He seemed very old to me, but he was probably in his late 40s. I’m this little kid. I must say, he was very nice to me in the sense that he invited Chic Young [creator of Blondie] and his wife to dinner one night so I could meet him. That was very nice. JBC: I would assume Chic Young was rather wealthy at the time? The Blondie movie series was going strong. He was quite successful. SCHWARTZ: But Charteris was pissed because he wanted to go to New York on an expense account, and he loved the Algonquin Hotel. And instead...the guy, Buel Ware, who was the syndicate head—I don’t know why I still remember his name—had given me a small allowance. Ware was going to come out, but he booked himself into a cheap little hotel in L.A. And Charteris moved him to the Beverly Hills Hotel and ran up a bar tab before Ware ever got there. JBC: Now, The Saint was a detective character in short stories or novels? Was he from the pulps? SCHWARTZ: Novels. Charteris was big time, even then. The Saint has always been a very good property, a terrific idea. BARBARA: Wasn’t it a TV series? JBC: Yes, with Roger Moore. And wasn’t there a Saint film series in the ’40s or ’50s? SCHWARTZ: I think The Saint preceded [James Bond] 007, but it was that genre and it was quite appealing. JBC: So how long did you work on The Saint? SCHWARTZ: I got back from Europe, it’s 1947. In September I was sent out to California. I guess I worked out there for probably three

Batman, Dr. Strangelove, And Everything In Between

And You Thought That 1966 “Batman” Movie Was Bad! While Lew Schwartz was on staff at King Features, freelancing for DC, and riding that commuter train from 1948-53, one of the many comic book tales he drew was a personal favorite of Ye Editor’s: “The Batman Exposé!” in Batman #69 (Feb.-March 1952). This imaginative outing dealt with an unscrupulous screenwriter who scribes a screenplay called The Batman Story—then hires criminals to sabotage its filming so that all rights to the script will revert to him. As per Lew’s rough pencils for the comics tale’s 9th page, seen at right, the screenwriter postulates that Batman is secretly a penniless derelict who lives in a flophouse—that the Bat-Cave isn’t a cave at all, but is located in a water tower on a Gotham City rooftop—and that the hero’s famous utility belt doesn’t really house anything very special, just the usual assortment of comb, brush, toothpaste, shaving razor, et al. Well, how could the screenwriter know any different? By the way, Craig Delich tells us this comics story was written by Walter B. Gibson, author of many a Shadow pulp adventure. As for Lew’s art—doesn’t look like he left Bob Kane much to do, does it? [©2005 DC Comics.]

months or something like that. [to Barbara] But I seem to remember being at the Buzzard’s Bay Lodge, wasn’t I? Doing The Saint? BARBARA: “Batman.” SCHWARTZ: “Batman”? Because it was ’48, the year we got married. I finally quit by sending a nasty letter to Charteris because I didn’t like his critiques. [laughs] JBC: He was actually writing the strip? SCHWARTZ: I think so. Anyway, to make a long story short, that ended. Then I didn’t have a job except for the little freelance work that I was getting from Bob. My friend Rodney and I worked on a strip together and brought it to King Features, and lo and behold, in November or December of that year, I got a note from them asking me if I’d like to come on their staff. I guess it was ’48. BARBARA: It was just before we got married. SCHWARTZ: It was just before we got married. I didn’t have a job, and the wedding was in process. BARBARA: And I was young and I didn’t care. [laughter] JBC: So you guys were married in New Bedford? BARBARA: Right.

”You’ve Drawn ‘Batman’? Wow! We Want You!” SCHWARTZ: The King Features bullpen is a story unto its own. There were a lot of wonderful artists. That Argentinian artist, José-Luis Salinas, drew The Cisco Kid. I have an original somewhere down there he gave us. Anyway, then I went to work for King Features. My deal with Sylvan Byck, the comic editor, was that when I was finished with whatever work was laid out for me for the day, I could do my own freelance work. So I freelanced my “Batman” stuff. Then I did ads, some illustrations. All kinds of stuff. And rode that damn New Haven-to-New York train from 1948 to 1953. JBC: How many pages could you do in a day? SCHWARTZ: Well, in theory, a great deal. Usually, I would do close to two stories a month, so that’s 24 pages. Plus whatever else I was drawing. JBC: Would you spend an entire Sunday working? SCHWARTZ: Oh, I could, yes. Well, I would come home and have dinner and work until 12:00 at night. JBC: [to Barbara] When did you have your first child?

When The Saint Goes Marching In Leslie Charteris’ hero The Saint was an early multi-media star, first in books—then in comic strips, in 118 TV episodes, etc. Seen here are Mike Roy’s comic book cover for The Saint #6 (1950), published by Avon, and a 1963 TV-tie-in paperback cover showing a pre-James Bond Roger Moore. The stick-figure icon with the halo shown at top left of the paperback was widely used. Unfortunately, we have no examples of Lew Schwartz’s work on the newspaper strip, though some of it may have been reprinted in the comic book. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

BARBARA: 1950. SCHWARTZ: There was a lot of work, a lot of work. But it never felt that way, really. Once you get into it, then it becomes easy. Then, when I went to work for J. Walter Thompson [Advertising Agency] and I got into that art department, nobody could keep up with me. [laughs] I was doing storyboards and would work with a brush and

A Talk With Lew Sayre Schwartz

a bottle of ink. I never penciled anything. I just cranked that stuff out. JBC: There were other comic book artists in advertising. I know of Mort Meskin, another storyboard guy. SCHWARTZ: I had my first interview with the head art director at one of the big agencies. They hired me right on the spot, saying, “You’ve drawn ‘Batman’? Wow! We want you!” They put me together with an impossible guy, who was just a bad person. He just was an impossible idiot. I was hired on Monday and I walked out on Friday. Went back to King Features licking my wounds. In the meantime, apparently, the guy who ran the TV department at J. Walter Thompson saw some merit in what I’d shown him, and he called and took me to lunch. I was making maybe $100, $125 a week there, but still cranking out those comic book pages at night, so I was making a pretty good living between the two. But then Thompson offered me $12,000 or $15,000 to come in there! Wow! So I went into their art department. BARBARA: And that’s where it all began. SCHWARTZ: And that’s where everything began.

BARBARA: He was there for five years, and for the first four he was in his glory. He loved it. He loved meeting all of the celebrities at the clubs, he loved the glitz, he loved the life. He fit the mode, wore the right suits, the right shoes, smoked the right pipe, you name it. He did it all. Then he realized, after about 4H years, that it just was a lot of bull. SCHWARTZ: I came home one day and I said, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” It was the phoniness. Two years into it, I’m now in the production department. I get an assignment to produce an animated series, a cartoon, for Proctor & Gamble. So the process is to have a casting session. I had a lot of people who went on to become very wellknown. And there was one guy who was perfect for the voice of one of the characters. So I hired him. My boss called me in and he said, “Uhuh. Proctor & Gamble tells us that guy’s listed in Red Channels [the blacklist report].” I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me! I thought [Redbaiting U.S. Senator] Joe McCarthy was a dead duck two years ago!” He said, “It ain’t over yet. You’re taking a risk. You want to do it, do it. But I’m telling you…” So that was the extent of my warning. I didn’t listen to him. And the guy that I hired was the wonderful Jack Gilford. I’ll tell you, when I went into my own company, Jack always worked

“I Heard Weisinger Stories That Would Curl Your Hair” JBC: Act Two. [laughs] SCHWARTZ: They made me an art director. In three months, they insisted that I go into the film production department and become a producer. I went against my will, because I was having such a good time at the drawing board and it was easy. I was not too happy going onto sound stages, sticking around until 8:00 or 9:00 at night while they did Take #13 and Take #14. But it began to get interesting when I started getting other assignments. JBC: Comic book artists generally tend to be shy, reserved people, not very aggressive about their careers. There are exceptions, but generally speaking, they’re pretty much wallflowers. They don’t ask for too much and they’re stomped on by publishers and editors. I mean, Mort Weisinger could be horrible to his freelancers. Vicious. SCHWARTZ: I heard a story about Weisinger: Joe Shuster was running errands for a messenger service or whatever it was. He delivers a package to DC, and Weisinger comes out and says, “Look at you! You look like a bum. Pull yourself together.” He gave him some money to get some clothes or something like that. That was the story I heard. Pathetic. I heard Weisinger stories that would curl your hair. [EDITOR’S NOTE: In fairness to Mort Weisinger, this particular story may be apocryphal. At the very least, it has often been told with DC co-publisher Jack Liebowitz or someone else being the person who encountered Shuster, gave him money, and told him not to come back. —Roy.] JBC: But you don’t seem to be reserved. I’ve worked in advertising, so I’m familiar with what kind of life that is. It’s a lot different. You have to be a lot more personable. There’s pressure, but pressure is a relative thing. There can be a lot of pressure on a comic book artist. But you had to deal with people. SCHWARTZ: Well, I liken being a producer to a combination of being a rabbi, a priest, a reverend, if you will, and a Christian Scientist, all wrapped up into one. Because you had to deal with so many people…

Button, Button, Who’s Got The Button? Pages like this one from Batman #69 (Feb.-March 1952) got Lew jobs at major advertising agencies. Craig Delich says this story was "written by Walter B. Gibson (of The Shadow fame." Pencils are by Lew (perhaps with finishing on Batman & Robin figures by Bob Kane), inking by Charles Paris. [©2005 DC Comics.]

Batman, Dr. Strangelove, And Everything In Between

Lew Goes Commercial (Left:) An illo done by LSS while working for J. Walter Thompson. The information printed below it, though it breaks off in mid-sentence on the scan we have, explains the character.

25 fact. So he says, “You better come back here!” We went back early and had a meeting with Robbins, and he hired us to work on a play called Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feeling So Sad. [Jon laughs] Which was a play by Arthur Kopit. The play had not done well in London. So Robbins decided there would be no intermission, and we would do these little boutique films, off-beat, avantgarde films [in place of an intermission]. So we got hired to do that and the play was a critical success. We got written up in the New York Times theatrical section. And all kinds of business began to pour in.

Jerry Robbins saw one of our commercials on the air and found out who did it. That’s what (Above:) Art spot for an article by Lew titled “The Artist happened. So anyway, we had a great for me for scale. He came down to do The Odd and the TV Commercial.” It appeared in a correspondence experience with him, he was a Couple in Hyannis one summer, and he told me, course on cartooning produced by Gene Byrnes, artist of Reg’lar Fellers, a King Features comic strip. wonderful guy. If you manage to “Up until the time when you hired me, I hadn’t [Both ©2005 the respective copyright holders.] hang in and do your job and do it had a job in three years.” right, don’t get fired, you know JBC: I always wondered if he had been blacklisted. Because Gilford you’re pretty good. Because each one of those experiences is a very always seemed on the outside, but he was so funny and so good. exacting experience. We became very friendly with [film director] Stanley Kubrick, and at one time he considered buying up Fero, Mogubgub, & SCHWARTZ: In 1962, I was approached to work on a special for ABCSchwartz. He loved it! TV, with Zero Mostel. Another guy who was blacklisted. I had lunch with Zero twice. He eats two to three lunches. An unbelievably vulgar JBC: I’d just buy it for the name. [laughs] man. But an experience. Anyway, the outcome of all of that was, in ’62, SCHWARTZ: Everybody laughed, but the fact is, at the end of our first Zero was still blacklisted and you couldn’t touch him. Later, Mel Brooks year, we had billings of over a million dollars. In 1961 dollars. did the film The Producers with Zero. But this whole experience, the whole television experience, enabled me to meet all kinds of interesting JBC: In advertising, did you get a familiarity with animation? Did people…. you have any admiration for it prior to that?

“Ferro, Moqubqub, & Schwartz” BARBARA: Didn’t you meet Freddy and Pablo when you were producing? SCHWARTZ: Yes. There were two guys who did a lot of animated work for me. One was a guy named Pablo Ferro and the other Fred Mogubgub. When I left Thompson, I hadn’t looked for another job yet. Freddy called and Pablo called and they wanted me to have lunch with them. They showed me a flyer. They were about to start their own company, and they were with Elektra, which was the best animated company for commercials in New York. To make a long story short, we formed a company. We each put up $5,000, and started this little boutique animation company. Freddy and Pablo were well-known; they were pretty talented guys. I had the agency experience, so the balance was pretty good. Two things happen. One was that Barbie and I were in Puerto Rico and we got a phone call from Freddy. He says, “Hey, Lew!” Freddy looked like the consummate Mafioso—black string tie and a dark blue shirt—[laughter] but a darling man. And he said, “Some guy named Jerome Robbins called.” And I said, “You’re kidding me!” He said, “No. Who is he?” I said, “Did you ever see West Side Story?” He says, “Oh, that Robbins!” JBC: “Oh, that Jerome Robbins!” [laughter] SCHWARTZ: I was the guy who spoke English, okay? Pablo was a Cuban, and Freddy was from Fall River, Massachusetts, as a matter of

SCHWARTZ: I had plenty of experience doing storyboards and stuff of that nature, but most assuredly I didn’t know anything about animation, to speak of. First of all, I was totally amazed, because the first guy who hired us to do a commercial was a guy who got hired out of Thompson to run Nixon’s campaign [for Governor of California] in 1962 or whatever. This guy ran the whole Ford complex. In other words, all the Ford commercials went through him, okay? Big-time. This guy’s name was Harry Treleavan. There was a book, years ago, The Selling of the President, and that was all about Harry Treleavan. Harry never talked much to anybody. But Harry called me and said, “Would you like to do a spot for us, for Ford?” I said, “You bet!” He said, “Come on over.” From that point forward, he was very friendly. Anyway, they gave us a 90-minute spot, but we had to do it inside of maybe ten or twelve days. We did it and made enough profit to really get FMS going. The next call from him really put us on the map… a Ford “teaser” spot. We came back to Harry with a 1500- or 1200-frame storybook. First of all, the commercial went on the NFL games, which was big-time money for the agency and for the advertiser. It was a teaser commercial, the first commercial quick-cut that went on the air. But Sergei Eisenstein had done quick-cuts. And a wonderful film called Leonard Lye in the ’30s did quick-cuts. Summarily, over forty years, it has influenced the present style of American commercials. Quick-cuts are what you look at every day now, where the pictures just keep snapping by you, almost subliminal. So that kicked us off as the place to come for a lot of major agencies, both American and Canadian.

A Talk With Lew Sayre Schwartz

JBC: Did you know [photographer/art director] George Lois? SCHWARTZ: Oh yeah. In fact, I was on a panel with George for the New York Photography Association. They had a monthly meeting and I was an invited guest panelist. With George Lois, Eliot Eisenstadt— remember him? A great color expert for Life magazine—some very topnotch guys. All the photographers who were interested in going into doing commercials attended. Now, I had an old girlfriend who was working for a very good photographer in New York. Barbara will remember his name. But he did that wonderful Esquire color ad for Levy’s, with the black guy. He went on to Hollywood to become a director. It was exciting in my day. There was a lot going on. The music company I did a lot of work with, the guy who owned it and ran it… the Don Quixote thing… Man of La Mancha. There was just a whole lot going on.

bitterly about his brother’s success. But there was always this wonderful mix of very exciting, interesting people. [Comedic actor] Howie Morris and I had a lovely relationship. I did the “Emily Tip” series for J. Walter Thompson—I took over the production, actually—and “Emily Tip” was a creation of [writer/comedian] Carl Reiner. I’ll never forget walking into the studio… I hired Carl to do some work, and I’m sitting in the sound booth waiting for him to come in, and the fall guy out there… and I didn’t realize that it was him. [laughter] “Emily Tip” was Margaret Hamilton, who was the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz and in those coffee commercials. I did a film with Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon… JBC: Hubba-hubba. [laughs] SCHWARTZ: It was interesting. It was the same film: I had to do one for the night and one for the daytime. Anyway, I got very friendly with Gwen. I brought her to a Cartoonists Society Dinner. A nice lady. I knew she was a great talent, but it would be a while before I was aware of her connection to Bob Fosse. She was in Pajama Game, I think. And the lady who opened Pajama Game was Carol Channing.

JBC: I just read an article in Vanity Fair about George Lois, and he was complaining that the kids these days.… He has no legacy. He has nobody who’s basically followed him, because the world’s not politicized anymore, it’s mundane. Today’s art directors don’t have the tactile achievement of cutting and pasting…

“I Really Loved Stanley [Kubrick]”

SCHWARTZ: I’ve got to give to you a little book that Ed Sorel did for Ferro, Mogubgub, & Schwartz. It’s a gas. Milton Glaser was the greatest of the great. This was the greatest art and design from the ’60s.

JBC: How did your connection first happen with Stanley Kubrick?

JBC: Here’s George Lois doing the covers for Esquire, which featured very strong social messages about racism, etc. SCHWARTZ: They were politicized, many of them. But “I Love New York,” that’s Milton Glaser. JBC: He designed the modern DC Comics logo. SCHWARTZ: Did he really? Great artist. Anyway, it was a thrilling time.

“Just An Incredible Bunch of People”

Playboys & Picture-Drawers A pair of photos from the party Lew Schwartz chaired for the National Cartoonists Society at the Chicago Playboy Club in the early 1960s. (Top:) Hugh Hefner and Lew (in the dark glasses). (Above:) >From left to right, standing—Lew, Mel Lazarus, Al Capp. The identities of the two seated gents are unknown.

JBC: Did you go to a lot of parties? SCHWARTZ: Well, you know, my drinking pals were Harvey Kurtzman and Mel Lazarus and a guy named Joseph Heller, who wrote Catch-22. Just an incredible bunch of people. JBC: What was your take on Harvey Kurtzman? I think he was one of the few true geniuses of the form. SCHWARTZ: Harvey Kurtzman thought I was a real ladies’ man, among other things. He used to kid me about it. Harvey and I flew out to Chicago and spent five days at the Hefner Playboy Mansion, because I did the opening film for all the Playboy Theatres. I’ve got a funny letter from Hefner upstairs. I threw a party at the Playboy Club for the Cartoonists Society. Hefner was there, everybody. They were an exciting bunch of people. I sat next to a guy from the bullpen at King Features by the name of Sandy Roth, who is [novelist] Philip Roth’s brother. He complained

SCHWARTZ: After we did Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Ferro, Mogubgub, & Schwartz became entwined like a movie, in a way. An article came out in The New York Times theatrical section, in a review of our little films for Jerry Robbins, and the next thing I know, we’ve got the phone ringing, and I get a call from the William Morris Agency. This guy comes over and says, “Listen, would you be interested in working for us?” They did not have a commercial department at the Morris agency, so it was a weird request on this guy’s part. I said, “Yeah, I can’t see anything wrong with it.” (As it turns out, Stanley and I, in London one night, wrote the rules and regulations for the commercial contract that I bet you William Morris is using today.)

I really loved Stanley. He was not a guy who is going to open up everything to you, but a very interesting guy. When he likes you, you know it. One afternoon, the William Morris people, the guy who was repping us in the Morris agency, called me and said, “There’s a guy named Matt Weis, who read about you guys and wants to see a sample reel.” So we ran a sample reel of commercials. Weis called back the next day and said, “Stanley Kubrick would like you to bring your reel to London.” So Pablo and I flew to London. Around 11:00 in the morning, we went to bed dead tired, and at 12:00 the phone rang. Stanley is downstairs. And we were together there till about—well, at 5:00, Kubrick looks at his watch and he says, “Listen, it’s time for dinner.” So I said, “Well, will we see you again?” He said, “What do you mean? You’re coming with me!” So he takes us to his flat for dinner! Terry Southern [Dr. Strangelove screenwriter] is there, and all these people in Dr. Strangelove. Half of the cast are at the table. Peter Sellers took our sample reel and was

Batman, Dr. Strangelove, And Everything In Between

any contacts?” I thought of Milt Caniff, knowing that he was involved with the Air Force. So I called Milt and he called a general at the Pentagon and then had me call him. The general said, “Any friend of Milton Caniff is a friend of the Air Force. Do you need 35 mm or 16 mm?” I said 35 mm would be fantastic, but that I had to get the footage into London by Friday. He said, “Can you have someone pick it up at the London airport?” So, one week to the day that Congress had attacked the film, the United States Air Force hand-delivered the ending of Dr. Strangelove!

“That Belief Is Shared By Several Building Inspectors Interviewed Recently By The National Observer” That’s the handwritten caption that accompanied this sketch of his that Lew sent us (which seems to be signed with a 1972 date), which he says accompanied an article in The National Observer. The piece dealt with homebuying, as Lew recalls. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

showing it around, to the point where somebody borrowed it to count the frames because of the way we were editing. Anyway, there were a couple of film critics there… the art director of Strangelove, whose name I’ll remember shortly… If you ask Pablo, the titles [of Strangelove] were his concept. If you ask Kubrick, Kubrick would have told you it was his concept. Because that’s what collaborators do…. Kubrick made some comment about how he thought the titles worked out okay and Pablo made his idea work, or whatever it was. Pablo never dreamed up the idea of using the theme song “Try a Little Tenderness”; that was Kubrick. We called it the fornication. JBC: The copulating planes. [laughs] SCHWARTZ: Yeah. Stanley called me about the atomic bomb footage after he decided to throw out the pie fight as the film’s ending. That’s a whole story unto itself involving Milton Caniff. Very simply, I was in Kubrick’s office on a Friday morning when he came in with Vera Lynn’s recording of “We’ll Meet Again,” all excited, and he said, “Listen to this!” He felt the pie fight wrecked the spirit of the film. (The set was the size of two football fields.) Stanley changed the ending of the movie, and Peter Sellers would never talk to him again. There was a private screening at Columbia with the pie fight ending. Monday morning, Kubrick called and told me that a Congressman had got up in front of Congress and said that in the film Kubrick was making a mockery of the military. It went into the Congressional Record! So the Army cut off all the available stock footage we had been depending on. So we had to get the refueling from newsreels and the like. Stanley called me and said, “I’ve got to get footage of the bomb going off! Do you have

Try A Little Tenderness Monumental director Stanley Kubrick, and a poster for his classic 1964 film Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb. Lew Schwartz got Milt Caniff to line up a USAF general’s help for the movie after official cooperation had been torpedoed. [Art ©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

Stanley picked us up every morning. And we drove out to Shepperton [Studios] in the morning. He had this big, thick book. The second day I got curious and I asked him what it was. He had a complete layout of the whole studio. He knew where every electrical outlet was. He knew the name of every gaffer. He knew the name of every electrician. He knew everybody that was on that set. I mean, there were a lot of people. Big! Stanley played this production like a general. He would sit up all night sometimes, until he had worked out every shot. A most unusual guy. When we first got to London, Stanley was learning how to take three little steel balls and roll them under and around his fingers. He was still doing it six months later when we left! [laughs] He’d pretty much mastered it. But it was indicative of what he was like. I met Stanley one night in the city, because both he and FMS were not getting our expense money out of Columbia. Kubrick was pissed off and so were we. At the screening when the pie fight was still in, the projectionist had put the film in wrong, and it screwed up the screening. Kubrick had a lot of reviewers in there. He almost killed the guy. I would not have liked to have been the projectionist. He was a stickler for detail—the kind of guy you come away from knowing that you’re being dealt with professionally. Robbins… wow! Boom! Robbins would cut you down and strip you naked. A tough guy. And he loved us. The mood of the ’60s and the Vietnam thing added to the feelings and the creativity—and somehow Ferro, Mogubgub, and Schwartz fit very nicely into that, despite the fact that it was an Arab, a Cuban, and a Jew on Madison Avenue. I mean, I’m sure I was the token Jew. I got Caniff to do a Red Cross sequence in Steve Canyon, but the guy who was the senior account guy on the Red Cross had starred in every international office for J. Walter. His name was Sam Neetch. (He was not neat, I can tell you.) He was one of the people who helped found the United Nations. He was one of five guys who gave Henry Luce $25,000 to found Life magazine. Didn’t need the work. Sam was all black-&white. If he liked you, you were in; if he didn’t, you were out. And there was a treasurer there, Howard something-orother, who had a big, beautiful portrait of himself by Norman Rockwell in his office. Sam found out that this Howard was an antiSemite. So Sam would see me in the hall, put his arm around me, and

A Talk With Lew Sayre Schwartz Museum. (That Sickles tape is the only tape of Noel Sickles in this whole world.) So I managed to capture a lot of people. By the time I got through, a year later, I had 8H hours of material. I’m not sure how long this stuff is going to be good. I got in touch with Brown University, and they were thrilled. And, little by little, everything’s transferred to DVD, so it will be preserved forever. They’ve already done that. So I keep on going; I keep finding new things. I have the installation of Sickles into the Illustrators Hall of Fame. All kinds of people in the Illustrators Club—Bernie Fuchs and Harry Dublin and all those guys. Somebody sent me the retirement of Steve Canyon. There was an official ceremony out in Ohio. So I’ve got that on tape, as well. If you think about the legacy, it’s rather insane. Milton died in ’88… 15 years ago. It’s just extraordinary. Extraordinary. He went out exactly the way he had it planned. Full military guard, Air Force planes flying overhead, the whole nine yards. He got a military burial. [laughs]

With A Little Help From My Friends A gathering of comic strip talent, in a photo taken by Lew. Around the table, from the left foreground, are: Milt Caniff (Terry, Steve Canyon), Stan Drake (The Heart of Juliet Jones), Leonard Starr (On Stage, later Annie), Mort Walker (Beetle Bailey, Hi and Lois), John Cullen Murphy (Big Ben Bolt, later Prince Valiant). Wonder if anybody passed around a sketchbook!

JBC: Did you go to the funeral? SCHWARTZ: I didn’t go to the cemetery. I went to the short burial ceremony. Then I went up to the Illustrators Club memorial, and that was it.

walk me into this guy’s office and say, “Howard, you know Lew Schwartz, don’t you?” [laughter] He would keep doing that! I never realized until much later what the deal was.

JBC: Obviously, you wanted to create a film legacy of Caniff. But were you timing it so it was kind-of an anniversary or something?

Thompson was an exciting place in those days, because they were producing a lot of those live, theatrical shows, like Kraft Theatre, all live performances. There was an account executive I worked for who happened to be a Nixon advocate. Two guys, both J. Walter Thompson guys, who went to jail for Nixon were John Erlichman and Bob Haldeman. I used to sneak into Haldeman’s office and draw mustaches with a magic marker on Nixon’s photograph, on the glass. It used to drive him nuts.

SCHWARTZ: I really hadn’t planned that far ahead. I had put together a show in 1993 and ’94 on One Hundred Years of American Comics. I managed to get Stan Drake’s portraits of [Popeye creator] E.C. Segar, Al Capp, and Goldberg. I’ve got them all on video downstairs. A beautiful portrait of Alex Raymond, it’s magnificent. Then I also taped Chance Brown and Zap and Jim Berry, whose work I loved. And Howie Snyder. I put a panel together on cartoonists, which was poorly attended, unfortunately. But we did a state-of-the-art thing, and we got to talk about a lot of things. I have all of that on tape. Enough to put together an

JBC: Were you surprised when they all went down in Watergate? SCHWARTZ: It delighted me. [Jon laughs] But it’s so amazing, there’s so much between the comic thing and the cartoon and the television. They’re very parallel to each other in many respects, and such a considerable overlap in a lot of ways. Zero Mostel was a great artist. He had a pocketful of pens, and I remember one night, we had a Writers’ Night at the Cartoonists Society. I helped put it together. We had Arthur Miller and Paddy Chayefsky.

“Let Me Get Some Of This Stuff Down On Film” JBC: So what led you to do documentaries on Caniff and Norman Rockwell? SCHWARTZ: Well, Milton came in from California. He was then living in Palm Springs. So I got a call and we schmoozed for an hour and a half. I put the phone down, and had just gotten a new 16 mm camera, so I called Milton back and said, “Hey, how long are you going to be here?” He said, “Two weeks, three weeks.” I said, “Would you be a good guy and let me get some of this stuff down on film?” Now, Milton (a) never threw anything away (talk about packrats, you know?), and (b) Milton had a very deep sense about his history and perpetuity, if you will. So he was very amenable. Then I said, “I can’t possibly do this myself. I’m going to get a cameraman and a sound person and do this the proper way.” So that’s what I did. So we made a date and I did the initial filming. I invited all kinds of people, like Al Andriola and Mel Cassin. Managed to talk Sickles into coming to the Cartoon

Island In The Sun This set of character sketches was drawn from life by Lew while in the West Indies. Lew reports: “One night, Alex Raymond [creator of Flash Gordon and Rip Kirby] came to dinner with his wife and saw those sketches. He asked me if I’d part with them, and I couldn’t, because they suddenly became precious. I said I wanted to make copies of them, but didn’t send him this particular page. Later, I confessed this to Alex, who just laughed about it. He was such a lovely guy. The day he cracked up with Stan Drake’s new Corvette [Raymond was killed], they were both due for dinner at our house. I’ll never forget it!”[©2005 Lew Sayre Schwartz.]

Batman, Dr. Strangelove, And Everything In Between

hear. He’s like J.D. Salinger [author] of Catcher in the Rye. He didn’t want the notoriety.

“I Think [These Young Artists] Are Terrific” JBC: Are comic strips your passion? Are they what you love the most? SCHWARTZ: Yeah, I think so, by and large. I look at the work Billy DeBeck was doing in 1930, ’32, and the penmanship is awesome. Now, a lot of people may be put off by the big noses and all the silly stuff, but DeBeck was a consummate artist. He had the talent of a Daumier. I owned several pieces I’ve since sold that had hatchwork and pen-&-ink work that is so brilliant, you look at it and you can’t believe it, it’s so good. Fred Laswell, who took it over finally, could never compete with the master. DeBeck was one of the greats.

Lew tells us that this trade ad for his advertising company was done after Mogubgub left and the "M" initial in FMS was changed to stand for a nonexistent "Mohammed." [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

American Masters segment. So that’s my project. All my guys. I didn’t have Walt Kelly, but I can get Kelly in there. He was a tough, tough bird. What a wonderful artist! JBC: Did you ever meet Bill Watterson, who did Calvin and Hobbes? SCHWARTZ: Never. He never showed up for his two Reubens. He’s got to be a remarkable guy. He didn’t want the promotion. He made all the money he could possibly have used. His books still sell. And he goes on and on. He didn’t want to be a celebrity. He’s very hard to get to, I

JBC: We have periodic telephone conversations and you will ask me about Jaime Hernandez or Adam Hughes—whom you first saw in Comic Book Artist—and you get very enthusiastic about the work of these young artists. So it’s not just the old stuff, right? You just love good stuff? SCHWARTZ: I think they’re terrific. This guy who’s doing Wonder Woman covers, [Adam] Hughes? Oh, God. His work reminds me very much of Bob Lubbers’ work, in a way. Bob was out there in San Diego. We had a nice exchange. But I look at certain of the work that has the sensitivity… the Hernandez brothers… I’ve gotta dig out that issue again. I’ve got to tell you that I was really taken aback with how good they were. It kills me their table in [San Diego Comic-Con’s] artists alley was right across the way from me and I didn’t get to tell them in person! JBC: Well, now you can!

A Talk With Lew Sayre Schwartz

LEW SAYRE SCHWARTZ Checklist [NOTE: The following is adapted from information provided by Dr. Jerry G. Bails on his Who’s Who of 20th-Century American Comic Books. Those wishing to know when his updated version of the Who’s Who will be available should e-mail him at JerryBails@aol.com; they will be notified when it is ready. Some data has been provided by Lew Sayre Schwartz. Some names of features below, when not in italics, indicate that that feature appeared in more than one magazine, not only in one of that name. Key: (a) = full art; (p) = pencils only; (i) = inks only; (w) = writer; (S) Sunday comic strip; (d) daily comic strip.] Name: Lew Sayre Schwartz [b. 1926] (artist) Pen Names: Lew Sayre (in other media); LSS (in illegible script) Education: Art Students League; Museum School of Modern Art

plus [quoting a fax from LSS here] “many other high-profile directors and producers. Bob and Ray special for 20th-Century Fox, Soupy Sales special for NBC, and Mel Brooks for ABC 1967 lineup promo. Roy, there are just too many to mention.”

Influences: Roy Crane; Milton Caniff; Noel Sickles; Bob Kane (very early “Batman”) Member: National Academy of TV Arts & Sciences; National Cartoonists Society (since 1946); Westport (CT) Artists Group 1950s/60s Illustrations: Annapolis Class of ’47 Graduation Book; many magazines and Sunday sections & news magazines Commercial Art: J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency (art/art director/producer/animated supervisor) (1957-61)

Co-founder: Dinosaur Group 1988: marketing/consulting firm President: Video Information Applications (VIA, Inc.)

Dinosaurs And Downbeat (Above:) A 1994 Dinosaur Group comic strip done by Lew Schwartz. Lew writes: “When I began the marketing ads, etc., for the company [The Dinosaur Group, which he co-founded], it became very clear that there was a strip idea in it. I drew it Sundays for the Cape Cod Times and New Bedford Standard Times (for five years, starting in 1992). [©1994, 2005 Dinosaurs Ink.] (Below:) Lew feels that this panel from the story “The Song of Crime!” in World’s Finest Comics #48 (Oct.-Nov. 1950) is “a good example of what I did for Bob [Kane].” Bob Hughes, who supplied the scan, IDs the story as being by “Batman” co-creator Bill Finger. The inking is sometimes credited to “Aquaman” artist Ramona Fradon, but Craig Delich assures us it’s actually that of Sy Barry. [©2005 DC Comics.]

Animation studio coowner: Ferro, Mogubgub, & Schwartz, 1961-68 – shorts, commercials, TV segments, and movie titles Animation supervisor: [J. Walter Thompson] (1957-61) – commercials Founder: Cine/Graphique, Inc. 1968 Produced films for: Allied Chemical, Sesame Street, American Airlines, CBS, ABC, AT&T, United Nations (featuring Art Carney & Godfrey Cambridge) Producer/director/writer (video): Milton Caniff: 75th Birthday Tribute 1992; Norman Rockwell and the Saturday Evening Post 1986 Producer/director/writer: 1964-68 (dozens of specials for ABC, 196768) Producer: commercials; industrial films; 9 ABC-TV 1967-68; TV show segments Worked with: Barbra Streisand (Belle of 14th Street TV special, c. 1973); Jerome Robbins (Oh, Dad, Poor Dad…); Leland Hayward (That Was The Week That Was); Stanley Kubrick (Dr. Strangelove);

Teacher: School of Visual Arts (4 years); created film department Honors: Emmy Awards (4); Clios (6); many national/international film awards; represented in permanent collection of Museum of Modern Art; guest speaker, many national & international film festivals; served as judge: American TV Commercial Film Festival; served as judge: Cork Film Festival (Ireland); Toronto Film Festival Syndicated Credits: Brick Bradford (ghost a) c. 1953; The Dinosaur Group (w/a) 1992-97; Ozark Ike (S/d) (ghost a) c. 1957; The Saint (a) 1947; Secret Agent X-9 (d) (ghost a) 1954 Staff: King Features Syndicate (a) 1947-55

COMIC BOOK CREDITS (US MAINSTREAM): DC Comics & related: Batman 3-D (p) 1953 (1991 reprint); Batman (p – ghosting for Bob Kane) 1946-53; covers (p) 1948-51 [NOTE: Lew writes: “According to [comic artist] Eddie Campbell, I penciled about 115 stories for Bob Kane from 1947 to mid-1953, when I left Bob. (On average, 20 per year.) In 2002 I was honored to receive the [San Diego] Comic-Con’s lifetime achievement award (the Inkpot Award) from the great Will Eisner. I did only ‘Batman’ for the comic books, although credited with some other titles.” For that reason, we have eliminated mention of comics work for which Lew is often given credit, such as Dale Evans and Mr. District Attorney.]

Shooting Stars The Birth, Life, And Death Of The Original Australian Comics Industry by Michael Baulderstone In With The Old—In With The New!

A Local Vacuum (1900-1940)

magine if the government banned all of your favorite comic books and they disappeared off the shelves. Imagine what might spring up in their place! Imagine you are a publisher and all of the competition suddenly disappears … imagine the possibilities.

(Left:) As Michael Baulderstone relates, Australian comics in post-World War II days were divided between U.S. reprints and down-under originals. Like many of the former, Century – the 100 Page Comic Monthly #8 boasted a new, home-grown cover—and looked like a meeting of the All-Star Squadron! Here, DC heroes Superman, Batman, Robin, Green Arrow, Speedy, and Johnny Quick hail the reader. One problem with assigning dates to these Australian comics is that they often contain no year-dates whatever, though this one was probably published during the mid-1950s, since Johnny Q.’s last Golden Age US appearance occurred in 1954. Thanks to David Studham. [Art ©2005 the respective copyright holders; heroes TM & ©2005 DC Comics.]

of the local publishing industry, but this did not really include comics, as there was very little local product at the time. The act was also designed to conserve the country’s stocks of US currency, which were needed for other wartime purchases and to protect the scarce supply of paper available for printing.

By July 1940 all American magazines had disappeared from the shelves, leaving a (Right:) The Panther, one of the best of the all-original This was no totalitarian censorship heartbroken nation of comic readers. Local efforts, was written and drawn by Paul Wheelahan. But fantasy, but the birth, boom, and bust of the publishers of newspapers, books, and again—no precise dates! From Ye Editor’s personal Australian comics industry. magazines suddenly recognized the opporcollection. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.] tunity and responded with a flurry of Comics first appeared in Australia in the activity. A sudden deluge of locally-created early part of the 20th century, at a time when the country still felt a comics filled the newsstands. The new Australian publications were strong attachment to the mother land of England. Thus the early immediately noticeably different from their American predecessors Australian comics appeared in boys’ papers in the tradition of their particularly in their lack of internal color. All but a very few of the established English counterparts. The small tabloid-sized papers books of the period would be published in black-&-white. contained text stories, jokes, and competitions as well as comics. The short-lived Vumps (1908) may qualify as the first original Australian comic. At this time there were no restrictions on the importation of US comic books, and all of the major titles from the burgeoning US industry were highly popular in Australia. By the late 1930s a few local publishers had tried to produce original Australian comics but could not compete with the volume and comparatively slick production of the US product. The relatively small population of Australia could not provide the print run necessary to sustain such competition. Aside from compilation annuals of popular newspaper strips like Ginger Meggs and Fatty Finn , in essence there was no Australian comics industry in existence at the time. For local artists and writers, this was a vacuum waiting to be filled.

A Captive Market (1940-1945) The situation changed with the advent of World War II, when comics in Australia were given an unexpected boost due to the homeland politics of war. In 1940 the government evoked the Australian Industries Preservation Act, which banned the importation of all US publications. This law, a major act of tariff protectionism, was prompted by several perceived necessities. Predominantly it was intended for the preservation

What now seems a multitude of publishers entered the comic field; Frank Johnston Publications, Offset Printing Co., Larry S. Cleland, NSW Bookstall, and Henry Hoffman all experienced periods of intensive productivity. Others such as Invincible Press, KG Murray, and Atlas Publications jumped in after the war. The boom time was a bonus for creators, too. At one time Henry Hoffman of Adelaide was paying its key artist Doug Maxted a rate of 4 pounds 10 shillings a page—then the equivalent of the weekly wage. Unlike the US with its production shops such as Lloyd Jacquet, Harry “A” Chesler, or the Iger-Eisner studio, Australia had no established tradition of comic creation. Lacking this existing structure, the new Australian industry took on a very different approach. A few creative teams were formed, but in many cases one person had responsibility for all aspects of a given book: creation, story, art, and lettering. This led to distinctive products from each of the different companies, with certain individuals responsible for the look of a particular publisher. In some ways this resembles today’s small creator-controlled lines. As production boomed, titles multiplied, and schedules tightened, the necessary innovations began to develop. Alf Headley of Frank Johnston Publications favored a system where the artist would come directly to his office delivering the current issue’s pages. Alf would read through

The Birth, Life, And Death Of The Original Australian Comics Industry The Doctor Is Out—Way Out! “Dr. Mensana… has a worthy claim as Australia’s first super-powered hero.” This cover of an issue of Dr Mensana, with art by “Hub,” was featured in both the standard books about Oz comics: John Ryan’s 1979 Panel by Panel: A History of Australian Comics and Bonzer: Australian Comics 1900s-1990s, edited by Anette Shiell for the National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University. (Minor grammatical point: like the British, the Australians generally do not put a period after abbreviations such as “Dr” and “Mr” when placed before proper names.) [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

Diamonds Are Forever! If the hero Spy Breaker looks familiar on the cover of Koala Komics #6—ever hear of Spy Smasher? Wonder if Fawcett Publications knew about this…!? [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

these and confer with the artist, then immediately type up a synopsis for next issue. The artist would then take it off to break down and provide dialogue. This approach is very reminiscent of the “Marvel method” developed 20 years later by Stan Lee.

living through chemistry, Mensana would swallow an S+ pill when he needed extra strength, causing his body to swell up to Herculean proportions. Similarly, a M+ pill caused the Doc`s head to swell up ridiculously, giving him telepathic powers. Clearly, Hubble’s tongue was firmly in his cheek when he wrote Dr. Mensana: he even provided his hero with elastic-sided underwear to accommodate his growth spurts. It must be noted that the early creators had no background or tradition in the use of sequential comic art. Many came from a cartooning background and were more comfortable with a humorous depiction than a realistic one. Hubble is typical of this grouping, and Dr. Mensana is notable for its somewhat awkward wordiness and cartoonesque approach. Still, it has a worthy claim as Australia’s first super-powered hero. Typical of the early cartoon style was Kokey Coala and His Magic Button by Noel Cook. A mighty, magical marsupial, Kokey must count as Australia’s most indigenous hero. The little Koala possessed a magic

Without any competition in the market place, the previously low print runs of Australian publications boomed into high numbers. Another wartime restriction shaped the nature of the early comics: the restrictions on paper use meant that no continuing titles were allowed to be published. Thus, the Australian comics of the early1940s were all one-shots with exclamatory titles like Amazing, Slick, Victory, Champion, Triumph, Real, Zip, and Zoom. In these ostensible one-shots, stories would still carry over from issue to issue, despite the change of cover title. This made following stories difficult for readers of the day and a major headache for the modern collector. The early comics featured very few of the super-heroes so popular in the United States at the time. Instead, they tended to focus on real-life heroes, outback adventurers such as “Trent of the Territory,” reporters like “The Strata Rocketeers,” bushrangers like “Ben Barbary,” or detectives like “Dick Weston.” Although most of the comics had a truelife background, a few early super-types did appear—such as Dr. Mensana by Tom Hubble (1941). A fine example of better

It Goes With The Territory Trent of the Territory Australian Adventure Comics had a true national flavor, compared to many later comic books. “Trent” also appeared in the intriguingly-named Cooee Comics. This image, like numerous others in this article, was reprinted in Bonzer, the comics-history book named after an early Australian comic strip. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

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The Name Is Familiar, But I Can’t Place The Face! We thought you might get a kick out of seeing some early Australian comics with the same names as American comics—but with no other connection: Speed Comics (a Harvey title in the States), Zip Comics (MLJ), Atomic Comics (Green Publishing Co.), Flash Comics (DC), and Blue Star All Australian Comics. Actually, while Ultem/Centaur did publish a 1940s Star Comics in the US, the logo of the 1947 cover shown at bottom right was obviously borrowed from DC’s AllStar Comics. Hey, it was enough to get Roy T. to buy a copy while in Australia and New Zealand in September 2001. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

The Birth, Life, And Death Of The Original Australian Comics Industry

Kazanda – The Sheila Sheena Forgive the pun, but since “Sheila” is an old and no-longer-politically-correct Australian slang term for women in general, we couldn’t resist. Actually, jungle queens Kazanda and Sheena might even have met once, in between panels, since, as Michael Baulderstone relates, some “Kazanda” stories were once reprinted by Fiction House. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

Keep ’Em Flying! The late John Ryan, who was a long-distance member of early1960s US comics fandom, was a pioneer among Australian comic art historians. The 1978 caricature above appears on the dust jacket of Panel by Panel. Ye Editor and Michael B. have long been trying to reach John’s heirs, to see about the possibility of reprinting some of the text of his fine book. Many of the images accompanying this article were first reprinted therein, such as: (Left:) “The Eagle” by Carl Lyon appeared in 1942 issues of Bombshell Comics from FJP. (Right:) “Jo and Her Magic Cape” by Moira Bertram from FJP’s Modern Comics, 1945. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

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35 Australia’s favorite comic artists with his offbeat parodies “Supa Dupa Man,” “Mudrake the Magician,” and the delightful “Wocko the Beaut.” An early success with a more realistic style was Kazanda by Peter Amos and Ted Brodie Mack, which appeared in a series of one shots from 1941. A mixture of science-fiction, adventure, and fantasy, Kazanda was a jungle heroine with psychic powers. So successful was this character that in 1945 it was sold to Fiction House, where one comic, Kazanda Again, was serialised in Rangers Comics.

One of the more unusual of the new heroes was “Molo the Mighty,” created in 1943 by Syd Miller. A mighty and mysterious costumed being from space wearing a powerful headband, Molo had a most unusual sidekick in the person of an orphaned aboriginal boy who taught Tickling Funny Bones Down Under Molo to communicate in Pidgin English. Kokey Coala and The Bosun and Choclit were two popular humor comics of the day. Of course, Prior to the coming of Molo, Syd Miller the racial stereotyping of Choclit would be rightly condemned today, although Michael B. says was known as the artist of Chesty Bond, he was “the brains of the pair.” [©2005 the respective copyright holders.] an underwear-advertising icon-cumpopular newspaper strip. Chesty had a button on his jacket which, when pressed, gave him miraculous strength most unusual weakness: he lost his strength when his singlet was and the power to do just about anything. A popular companion title to removed! Kokey was The Bosun and Choclit by George Needham. The racial depiction of the black-skinned Choclit, with his exaggerated features and Not all the new titles appearing on the stands were of original dialogue, is outrageously unacceptable by today’s standards. However, it material. Reprints of syndicated US newspaper strips such as Alley Oop must be noted that Choclit was the brains of the pair, getting them out and Don Winslow, which had reached Australia before the war and thus of scrapes and even having to read to the illiterate Bosun, depicted as a avoided the import ban, were produced. Ayers and James Publications bloated bumbling Cockney. ran a series of titles reprinting US newspaper material and gave the books thematic titles such as Famous Yank, Gripping Yank, Super Also favoring a cartoon style was Emile Mercier, who became one of

The Coming—And The Comeback The Coming of Molo the Mighty was originally drawn in 1943 by artist Syd Miller. When the space alien returned in the 1946 comic at right, the art was by Paul Wheelahan. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

The Birth, Life, And Death Of The Original Australian Comics Industry

On, Comet—On, Valour! John Dixon’s Crimson Comet can be regarded as “the first Australian costumed super-hero to enjoy ongoing success”— and Tim Valour, though a contemporary adventurer in the mid-1950s, had been known earlier to fill in for Buck Rogers. But Dixon himself would go on to greater things, like Air Hawk. His self-portrait above appeared in John Ryan’s Panel by Panel. Michael Baulderstone provided the other art on this page. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

Yank, etc., designed to emphasize the US origins of the contents. The cover carried the caption “Price in Aust 6d” in a desperately devious attempt to make readers think the book had been printed offshore and to appeal to comic lovers starved for their favorite US material. Shortage of ink and newsprint meant that some early books were printed in peculiar colors on low-grade paper of various shades. Many would be later repulped and disappear forever.

The Post-War Boom (1945-1950) More original super-powered beings began to emerge in the postwar years, peaking in popularity in Australia around the same time they began to fade in the United States. Foremost among new titles was The Crimson Comet by John Dixon, which can be regarded as the first Australian costumed superhero to enjoy ongoing success. The Crimson Comet certainly had one of the most unusual origins in local comics: a brilliant surgeon is driven insane by the murder of his wife and grafts the wings of a giant eagle onto his son’s back, creating the fearsome flying crimefighter. Dressed in a garish red costume with his giant wings protruding from his back and a pistol on his belt, the Crimson Comet cut a dashing figure as he swooped in to bring justice. Interestingly, though, some early issues mostly read like a non-super-hero book, with the majority of the story featuring the character out of costume and in his secret identity as Ralph Rivers, private detective. Perhaps Dixon felt audiences were still not ready for or comfortable with the super-hero genre, which had traditionally never been a part of the local industry. In many respects, The Crimson Comet proved to be the most enduring of the Australian super-heroes, and the only one to establish any lengthy continuity, when he reappeared in the late 1980s in David deVries’ The Southern Squadron. John Dixon also drew a companion comic at the time called Tim Valour, which enjoyed a lengthy run of adventure tales during which the hero went through a number of roles and subtitles including Commander of the Tigerhawk Squadron. In keeping with the mood of the era, both The Crimson Comet and Tim Valour fought a fair share of

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Reds and other atomic-era villains. Perhaps the bestknown Australian super-hero was Captain Atom, created by Arthur Mather in 1947 for Atlas Publications (no relation to the US company). Captain Atom contained several concepts clearly derived from US super-heroes of the time. He triggered a transformation by use of the magic word “Exenor!” (which doesn’t have quite the same ring as “Shazam!” but seemed to do the job). Captain Atom was given the secret of atomic strength by the prophet of Exenor on Exenor Island. He had an alternative twin brother along the lines of Captain Triumph (in the US Quality Comics’ Crack title)

V Is For Vampire… And Vesuvius! (Left:) Mentioned on page 39 is the 1949 heroine “The Vampire,” whose strip had a Peter Chapman byline—and who eventually attracted criticism in the press for her sensuality. This art spot and the next were reprinted in John Ryan’s Panel by Panel. (Right:) 1948’s “Vesta the Vesuvian” clearly came from beneath Italy’s Mount Vesuvius, whose eruption destroyed Pompeii a couple of thousand years ago. She and the unshown “Flameman” could’ve been shoehorned into our coverage of post-Human Torch fiery heroes two issues ago! [Art ©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

and even had a girlfriend with the familiar-sounding name of Lais. Captain Atom—or Atoman, as he was sometimes known—was clearly a product of the Atomic Age. His twin brother was strangely named Bikini, in a nod to the atomic bomb testing at Bikini Atoll.

Sail On, Silver Starr! In the 1940s brothers Stanley (artist, at left) and Reginald Pitt (writer), seen here in 1999, cocreated the Australian comic strip Silver Starr, which reportedly doubled the circulation of the Sydney newspaper The Sunday Sun within three months. In 2001 Home Grown Media of Australia <www.homegrown.com.au> published The Last Silver Starr Story, with a new cover by Al Williamson, who like Pitt has long been a devotee of Flash Gordon creator Alex Raymond. Pitt, in fact, later occasionally ghosted Williamson’s strip Secret Agent Corrigan. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

The first sixteen issues of Captain Atom were published in luxurious color before switching to the standard black-&-white panorama format. At its peak Captain Atom was selling 180,000 copies an issue, and the Captain Atom Fan Club had 75,000 members, each with a glowing Captain Atom membership ring. Given that Australia’s population in 1950 was only 8 million. this was an amazing achievement.

Around the same time came “Flameman,” a genie created by the sun incarnate to protect its favorite planet, and “Vesta the Vesuvian” by Doug Maxted. One of the few women to appear as a hero in comics during this period, Vesta was a voluptuous crimefighter from flaming Mt. Vesuvius who could ignite her breath as well as perform

The Birth, Life, And Death Of The Original Australian Comics Industry

Up ’n’ Atom (Top left & directly below:) Early issues of Captain Atom were printed with a horizontal axis, as per this splash page and final page (of two different stories) sent by Michael Baulderstone. (Bottom left:) A 1952 “Atlas” page of Captain Atom, in the more standard format. (Bottom right:) A typical advertisement for the Captain Atom Club, circa 1952. [All art ©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

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Vampire,” a tightly-clad sensuous female adventurer who appeared in Gem Comics in 1949 and later attracted criticism in the press. The most lastingly significant comic debut of the era was The Phantom #1 in 1948. Lee Falk’s creation was a costumed adventurer who lived in the jungle and fought crime devoid of any super-powers. At the crux of the Phantom story is the legend of The Ghost Who Walks: “An oath was sworn by a man 400 years ago on a remote Bengal shore where he found himself safe after seeing his father killed and his ship scuttled by Singh pirates. This man became the first Phantom, and the eldest male of each generation that followed carried on the sacred trust, and as the unbroken line continued—father to son—many believed it was the same man. The Phantom’s costumes never changed, their secret was never broken. So the legend of immortality grew….” Although not an Australian original, The Phantom quickly became and still remains Australians’ favorite costumed hero, and his costume, origin, and methods heavily influenced many original heroes such as Sir Falcon, The Phantom Ranger, and The Panther. The Phantom from Frew Publications attracted an enormous following in Australia, which it has maintained to the current day. It has had a phenomenal unbroken run of publication and still appears fortnightly, having recently passed issue #1400! Masked horsemen were also very popular, with The Lone Wolf by the talented and prolific Keith Chatto, and also Captain Justice by

other mystical feats. One has to wonder if this would interfere with her chances for romance. Many genres were explored during this period of proliferation, including daring flyers like The Raven and Jet Fury, hillbilly singers like Tex Morton, an abundance of bumbling jackaroos, and as many pirates as you can name. Some fine science-fiction comics were also produced, such as Silver Starr by Stan Pitt and a series of beautifullydrawn cosmic adventures by Noel Cook with titles like Treasure Planet, Peril Planet, and more. Jungle heroes had a big place on the stands, too, with the most successful Australian creation being Yamak - Jungle King. Yarmak has been derogatorily called a Tarzan clone, and it is true in the sense that this tag could be stuck on any of the numerous vine-swingers who appeared in early pulps and comics. In execution, however, Yarmak was radically different. The adventure saga was drawn by Stanley Pitt, written by his brother Reginald and Frank Ashley. Ashley also inked the series, along with his brother Jimmy, and a young Paul Wheelahan. Yarmak set new benchmarks in layout and design. Traditional squarepaneled sequential art was abandoned in favor of radical panel formations. Often no two panels of a book would have the same size and shape, as the art swirled and danced around the page. The Pitt brothers kept the unique design of the books consistent throughout a successful run. Possibly the most scandalous new character of the period was “The

The Birth, Life, And Death Of The Original Australian Comics Industry

Phantom Of The Outback In the long run, The Phantom, which began as an American comics strip in 1936 (and whose costume probably influenced that of Superman), has proven even more popular in Australia and New Zealand than in the United States. A/E’s editor was surprised, when at comicons in both countries in 2001, to see whole tables devoted to nothing but Phantom material, both reprint and original. Above is a vintage Lee Falk/Ray Moore Phantom sequence (provided by Michael B.) as reprinted Down Under, while the other two images are an original cover and action page from Phantom material produced especially for the overseas market. [©2005 King Features Syndicate, Inc.]

Who Were Those Masked Men, Kemo Sabe? Well, the one on the left is Captain Justice—and the one on the right is The Phantom Ranger. Thanks to Michael B. There was an Australian “Ghost Rider” western hero during this period, too! [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

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World’s Finest Comics—Oz Style From 1940-1952, DC’s World’s Finest Comics featured Superman, Batman, and Robin together on covers but in solo adventures inside. Australian comics did the same in the 1950s, but often added such DC heroes from interior stories as Robotman, Green Arrow, Johnny Quick, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Roy Raymond - TV Detective, Hopalong Cassidy, and even Superboy (shades of Wonder Tot)! Who knows? Maybe one or two of the others are DC characters, as well. Could that be J. Fenimore Frog (sparring partner of Dunbar Dodo) being rescued from that rooftop by Superman and Wonder Woman? Covers courtesy of David Studham. [Art ©2005 the respective copyright holders; DC heroes ©2005 DC Comics.]

Monty Wedd. “Captain Justice” took pride in its beautifully authentic representation of a bygone era, replete with bush icons like animals and aboriginals. Dialogue utilized an abundance of distinctive slang and idiom, much of which has long since disappeared from our language. The feature began as a tale of Australia’s bushranging days drawn with exacting historic detail, but eventually, perhaps inevitably, to boost sales, his adventures were transferred to America’s Wild West. In 1948 came The Phantom Ranger. This series was originally drawn by Jeff Wilkinson, then was taken over by Peter Chapman, who continued it for many years. As his name implies, The Phantom Ranger was a blended imitation of both The Lone Ranger and The Phantom. On the surface he was just another masked cowboy, but a closer look shows he was also something of a “ghost who walks.” An introduction to one of his adventures explains: “Hundreds of years ago a white boy was rescued by the Navajo Indians…. He learned the ways of the Indians and grew up becoming a champion of justice. Some 200 years later a masked man still rode the plains fighting for justice. He is the white chief of the Navajo: The Phantom Ranger.” Beyond that, the man was a mystery. The Phantom Ranger led a party of Navajo Indians who called him Kina the Deathless One. He rode a white horse called Silver Ghost who responded to The Phantom

Ranger’s eerie whistle and lived in a fortress hidden deep within the Great Canyon in Colorado. As a calling card he left an ancient silver arrow to strike fear into the hearts of wrongdoers and to inspire the just and oppressed. He had a kid sidekick that readers could relate to in the person of Rex Barton, Junior Deputy. In a neat gimmick, readers could emulate Rex and join the Phantom Ranger Junior Deputies Club. Early story titles include such gems as “The Sheep Killers,” “The Horse Thieves,” and “The Railroad Wreckers.” The Phantom Ranger became extremely popular in its heyday, and in addition to the spin-off cowboy costumes and fan club, it was to inspire a radio serial and reprints as far away as South America.

The Reprint Peril (1950-1955) Despite such prolific activity and seeming success, the tide was about to turn on the still-fledgling industry. Already by 1945, with the war ending, some publishers began to ignore the ban on publishing continuing titles, and the restrictions on reprinting imported material began to quietly soften. Publishers found many different ways to circumvent the legislative requirements, such as by purchasing old US proofs from England and reprinting them in Australia. Although this

The Birth, Life, And Death Of The Original Australian Comics Industry Despite the growing popularity of US reprints, the creation of new Australian comics continued strongly into the mid 1950s. By now a new generation of creators had entered the field, and the old guard from the 1940s left for other artistic endeavours.

The heroes of the ’50s still fought crime in Australia, but the distinctive locations of the Outback so popular in the 1940s, populated by bushmen and aboriginals, had disappeared. The new crimefighters battled in a strangely ambiguous international land that could have been anywhere. If the landscapes in the comics seemed less distinctly Australian, so too did the language. Comics of the ’40s took pride in an often exaggerated use of a lot of Australian colloquialisms. Whether as a nod to the country’s increasing multiculThe Falcon And The Show, Man turalism, higher levels of (Above:) Two pages relate the legend of Sir Falcon—which bears a suspicious resemblance to that of a “Ghost That Walks.” education, or diminishing sense (Below:) Two pages from Sir Falcon tales. Thanks to Michael B. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.] of isolation, the distinctive use of idioms which gave early was still technically a breach of the law, there seemed little the comics so much character had soon disappeared. government could do to enforce it. In August 1947 Superman All Colour Comic #1 was published in Australia. This was to be the beginning of the end for local comics, the thin end of the wedge. Perhaps sensing the impending doom, rival publishers reacted to the relaxation of import laws and attacked the use of scarce paper stocks for US reprints instead of original material. The Australian Journalists Association and The Black And White Artists Club lobbied hard against US reprints. Comic readers were encouraged to write to Parliament. An editorial in Middy Malone’s Magazine slammed the government for allowing “valuable paper stocks to be squandered indiscriminately by publishers of cheap rehashed matter from America” To counter paper restrictions, Larry S. Cleland, publisher of Fawcett reprints, attempted a variety of papersaving layouts, including using a format of 16 panorama pages 22 cm high by 30 cm long with black-&-white reprints of two original pages printed per page. Cleland`s role as the leading publisher of US reprints abruptly ended when Fawcett closed its comic line.

One notable exception to this was Clancy of the Overflow. Set in the untamed wilds of the Northern Territory, Clancy was inspired by the classic poem by “Banjo” Patterson written in 1889. Drawn by Hal

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43 Bat, Er, Cat Got Your Tongue? (Left & below:) The cover and a splash page from The Adventures of Catman (that’s the name on the cover)—Catrock—and Catman and Kit in action against a robot, in a comic from R.T.’s shelf. AC Comics has reprinted one or two “Catman” stories. Art by John Dixon. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

The Birth, Life, And Death Of The Original Australian Comics Industry Sir Falcon provided an Arthurian twist on the favorite Phantom theme of a perpetual hero, a brave son following in his father’s footsteps: “Simple villagers in a remote island off the coast of the mainland believe Sir Falcon to be immortal. In fact, he is the eldest son of a family whose ancestors swore an oath to fight crime wherever they found it: forever! 600 years ago a young man who became the first Sir Falcon found his father murdered by raiders. He made a vow which was passed on from father to eldest son down the years. Today Sir Falcon’s name is respected and feared by criminals the world over.”

Whilst undercover in his secret identity as Mr. The Shadow Knows—Or Does He? Knight, Sir Falcon wore Y’think Lamont Cranston knows he had a namesake in Australia for years, who got by basically with just a hairnet over his face? a trenchcoat and hat Nobody ever seemed to recognize him through it. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.] pulled low to disguise his suit of chain mail, English in his finely detailed illustrative style, helmet, mask, and the ubiquitous belt pistol. it featured extensive bush scenes of birds, Art was by Peter Chapman. animals, and scrub—horses, cattle, and crocodiles. Clancy of the Overflow drew heavily Catman was originally a US character on the mysterious romance of the Outback, from 1940. Licensed by Frew, he appeared in and Hal English utilised big splashy layouts Super Yank in 1951, with art by Jeff which enhanced the feeling of wide open Wilkinson, and was later drawn by John spaces. A heroic drover and stockman, Dixon. He bore a resemblance to a blend of Clancy was surrounded by bush mates, The Phantom and a certain other caped including the inevitable mad prospector and crusader in more ways than just his name. inscrutable pigtailed Chinese immigrants. Wearing a feline mask, a fetching green-andred costume, cape, and belt pistol, Catman The book is also notable in that it featured lived in the Catcave on top of a mountain frequent aboriginal characters in the stories, called Catrock. 2000 feet high floating above ranging from friendly cheerful trackers to the clouds, Catrock was shaped like a cat’s wild spear-throwing bushmen; these were head, not unlike the Phantom’s Skull Cave. always drawn with an eye to detail and not He fought crime with an array of clever Catstereotype. Clancy would spend his stories gadgets: a Catplane could be launched from battling crocodiles and angry natives, finding the Catcave whilst a Cat-submarine waited lost explorers, and gazing philosophically in the caverns below the mountain. into the campfire, dwelling on the grandeur Although Catman hung out with a and potential of the great Australian similarly-costumed freckle-faced boy Outback. Bold, beautiful, and proudly sidekick called Kit, he also had a girlfriend parochial, Clancy of the Overflow was truly called Terry West who had a penchant for a unique book for its time. needing to be rescued. Unlike Batman, Catman had no hotline to the commisFlushed with the success of The Phantom, sioner’s office; he and Kit listened to the Frew Comics began to produce a plethora of How Green Was My Skeleton? radio to hear of new crimes! new heroes in a similar vein. In a short time Michael B. says it was nigh impossible to track audiences thrilled to new Frew characters The Shadow wore a mask but had down information about this character—and he such as Sir Falcon, Catman, The Shadow thanks Queensland, Australia, fan Graeme Cliffe for neither a costume nor powers. He was a what little he—and now we—know. Art by Peter and The Green Skeleton. debonair sleuth in the tradition of The Saint Chapman. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

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45 A Frew Choice Comics Pages (Left & below:) A pair of splashes from Grey Domino in different formats—including part of his origin. With thanks to Michael Baulderstone. (Center of page:) Cover of the first issue of Char Chapman – Phantom of the East, as seen in the Bonzer volume. [All art ©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

who fought very human underworld adversaries. The Shadow bore no relation to his pulp magazine counterpart and was really ultra-rich playboy Jimmy Gray, who had inherited a fortune from his safemanufacturer father. Jimmy had developed a passion for fighting crime (as bored millionaires often do) and favored wearing a white dinner jacket and latex rubber mask for his exploits. The mask was an ugly grey skintight thing which hid Jimmy’s dashing good looks and pencil-thin moustache. In some stories The Shadow inexplicably wore his mask fulltime, even when relaxing; this made him constantly ready for action and much easier to draw. He would battle gangsters and giant spiders, be lost in mysterious mazes in ancient temples, and would help many lovely ladies in distress. “Saving beautiful women is a hobby of mine,” he explained. During one rescue he admonishes a damsel for squeezing him too tightly and she replies ingeniously, “But Shadow, I want to...you are so brave and wonderful!” Pretty girls were disappointed when The Shadow refused to remove his mask for them. One heroine grumpily complains, “Suit yourself, but a latex rubber mask seems very uncomfortable headgear.” Despite his impractical attire, the masked sleuth proved exceedingly popular and was one of the longest-running of the new breed of Frew heroes. Art was originally by Jeff Wilkinson; Peter Chapman took over after about a dozen issues. The Green Skeleton was the most unusual of the new generation of heroes, a character so bizarre that readers were never to learn anything much about him. He (it?) was simply and inexplicably a green, crimefighting skeleton. The crucial question of whether he was a supernatural being or merely a human in a freaky costume was never to be answered. This presumably mystical figure with transparent bones and glowing emerald aura would appear from somewhere unexplained to help Captain Steve Richards solve underworld crime. The Green Skeleton represented the biggest break from the Frew formula of Phantom-

themed characters and, tellingly, would last a mere four issues. Other publishers rode on the wave of Frew success and began to create new heroes of their own. Foremost among them were Grey Domino and Char Chapman – Phantom Of The East: “To the world in general Hugh Standish is known as a racing motorist. Very few are aware that he is also the hooded Grey Domino, enemy of the under world!” The Grey Domino (Hooded Man of Mystery and Nemesis of Crime) wore a trenchcoat and a nondescript sack over his head as his crimefighting persona, an identity he adopted behind enemy lines during World War II. Like most of the new arrivals he had no special powers except his own wits, courage, and fists. Char Chapman was simply, as his subtitle proclaimed, The Phantom of the East. Donning a thin strip of a mask which inexplicably hid his identity, he wore a garish red-and-purple costume and fought crime in the steamy locales of Asia. The backs of these comics advertised a large array of merchandise in support of the new breed of heroes. At various times fans could obtain replicas of The Phantom’s Skull Ring, Captain Atom’s Atomic Ring, Catman`s ring with glowing cat’s-eyes, a Phantom Ranger cowboy costume, and, coolest of all, the Captain Atom Film Projector Gun. For the princely sum of 36/6 fans could thrill to 16 mm film of Captain Atom’s adventures. The ad proudly proclaimed, “Hey, Fellas, with this great new projector gun just introduced from America, you can run

The Birth, Life, And Death Of The Original Australian Comics Industry preying on the helpless and innocents never safe from being shot in the back. The Lone Avenger was somewhat different from other masked heroes in that he had been officially secretly sanctioned by the President of the USA to fight crime. Made marshal of Redrock County, he is saved from an ambush by an ex-boxer named Bull Brady. Bull becomes his friend and loyal deputy, but The Lone Avenger wonders, “How am I going to find a horse strong enough to hold this mountain of a man?” The Lone Avenger was a pretty scary-looking hero and wore a very sinister hood, but was still kind to his readers, treating them to big cash prizes in his regular “Find the Bullet” quiz and addressing them, “Howdy, Howdy, Junior Lone Avengers… from your sincere pal.” The character proved so enormously successful that he soon took over the title, and a follow-up comic, The Hooded Rider, was introduced in 1950. Lawson later created the characters “Peter Fury,” “Jimmy Allen,” and “Johnnie Justice, the Flying Detective.” It was all to end suddenly when comics hit newspaper headlines in an unexpected way with the sensational trial of Len Lawson. In 1954, when Lawson was one of the most successful comic artists in the country, he was charged with the abduction and rape of a number of women. He was sentenced to death but only served 7 years in prison before release. In 1962 he committed another series of abductions, rapes, and murders, resulting in the death of two teenagers. Whilst back in prison, Lawson attacked a visiting entertainer and held her hostage. The woman was freed from Lawson but subsequently committed suicide after the ordeal. He had left a trail of broken lives, and his name became synonymous in the newspapers with the depravity associated with comic books. Len

Dress For Success! You’ve already seen ads for the Captain Atom Club—now see how you can own rings just like The Phantom and Catman—and a whole Phantom Ranger cowboy outfit! Thanks to Michael B. [©2005 King Features Syndicate, Inc., & the respective copyright holders.]

your own film shows at home. Thrill your friends with the adventures of your favourite comic strip characters.” Additional films that were available separately included Grey Domino, Lone Wolf, Sergeant Pat, Flynn of the FBI, and Ghost Rider. Fifty years later, one can only excitedly speculate what these early comic movies contained. The Korean War proved a source of inspiration and subject matter for Australian artists. This was very different from WWII when, unlike their US counterparts, Australian comics tended to steer away from war topics in favor of escapist adventure tales. By 1953 patriotism was fully invoked, and wartime Asian stereotypes revived, such as in Punch Perkins of the Fighting Fleet, wherein Australia was threatened by Admiral Mongo and his Mongoloid invaders. One of the most noteworthy and certainly the most infamous comic creators of the period was Len Lawson, who had been involved in comics since he was a teenager and had introduced a masked western hero called “The Lone Avenger” into the pages of Action Comic [sic] in 1946. The series always had somewhat dark overtones, with criminals

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The Birth, Life, And Death Of The Original Australian Comics Industry

Crime Does Not Pay—At Least In Comic Books (Left:) The bloodthirsty Lone Avenger, of course, resembled The Lone Ranger, especially the movie-serial version with the full face-mask—but his creator, Len Lawson, eventually wound up on the wrong end of the law’s vengeance. (Above:) Cover of the Australian edition of Dr. Fredric Wertham’s 1954 anti-comics tome Seduction of the Innocent. [Art ©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

Lawson died in Grafton Prison in November 2003 after nearly 50 years in jail. His recent artwork still hangs there. The Lawson trial of 1954 couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Australian comic industry. Claims that comic books fostered all manner of bad things in children had begun to reverberate around the globe. Dr. Wertham’s notorious book Seduction of the Innocent had put comics books under scrutiny not just in USA but also in Europe, the UK, and Australia. Individual states began to take action against the threat of subversive publications. Perhaps the most decisive and intolerant was the Queensland Literary Board of Review, created by the Objectionable Literature Bill of 1954. This austere body quickly banned Lawson’s “The Lone Avenger,” along with other heroes such as The Scorpion and The Mask. In a pre-emptive strike, distributors such as Gordon & Gotch and Horwitz created their own self-censorship boards similar to the Comics Code in the US. These companies also carried their censorship over to US reprints, and some US war comics would appear with weapons of violence erased and words of aggression removed. These attempts to sanitize war are interesting, indeed. Many companies could not survive the rigorous atmosphere of censorship and left the field. After 15 years of triumph, the Australian comics industry was heading into a fatal nosedive.

The End Of An Industry (1955-1962) New characters still continued to emerge, such as The Twilight Ranger (1955) and The Phantom Commando (1959). The latter longrunning masked mercenary (“War is my business”) was created by John Dixon, who later turned the strip over to the equally talented Maurice Bramley. The prolific Dixon was by then busy with Air Hawk and the Flying Doctors. Air Hawk, with its Outback setting, was a return to the very Australian flavor of earlier years. The story revolved around Jim Hawk, a former fighter pilot who runs an air charter service in Alice Springs, lending special assistance to the Royal Flying Doctors. The authenticity of Dixon’s work has seen Air Hawk praised as Australia’s

The Scorpion Loses His Stinger The Ozzie censors also stepped on The Scorpion, whose own idea of “having fun, kids” was apparently to knock somebody (presumably a criminal) down a flight of stairs. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

Shooting Stars

“Good Artists” Three On this page are samples of the wares of three of Australia’s best comic artists. [Clockwise from top left:] The Twilight Ranger meets his female counterpart. Zorro, meet Zoretta! Art by Keith Chatto. Maurice Bramley drew this Phantom Commando cover and above page in the early 1960s. The latter was supplied by Michael B. Air Hawk and the Flying Doctors was a beautifully-drawn comic strip later reprinted in comic books, and originally drawn by early comic book artist John Dixon. These Sunday panels are from the late 1960s. [Art on this page ©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

The Birth, Life, And Death Of The Original Australian Comics Industry

Paul’s Peerless Panther A trio of vintage Paul Wheelahan splashes from The Panther (including the very first), as reprinted a few years back in several nice oversize issues with new covers, published in Australia by “Kevin Patrick, trading as Buzz Productions”—plus an action page sent by Michael Baulderstone. Kevin Patrick has also written a piece about Paul which we hope to print in a near-future issue. Ye Editor was privileged to meet both Paul and Kevin in 2001. You may still be able to visit The Panther Website at <www.thepanthercomic.com> [©2005 Paul Wheelahan.]

Shooting Stars

51 arrival of television to Australia in 1956.

greatest adventure strip. It was certainly one of the longest-lasting, passing from a popular newspaper strip to a comic book. It was taken over by Keith Chatto in 1977 and was to eventually run in newspapers a monumental 23 years.

Third and most fatally important was the end of the ban on the importation of new material from the US in 1959. When the import restrictions were lifted and the market was flooded by US periodicals, the majority of publishers of original material left the field almost immediately. Given the quality and quantity of US comic imports, it was an unfair contest. The newly-arrived imports also put the bite on the reprint publishers, who themselves had been making life hard for the purveyors of original material since 1947. The reprints were old stories in black-&-white on low-quality paper. They were now in competition with the exciting new stories in color between slick covers arriving by the boxful from the United States

One of the most enduringly popular new heroes was The Panther by Paul Wheelahan. Wheelahan was a self-taught young artist whose sparse style has been compared to that of Steve Ditko. “In a remote section of the vast Belgian Congo on the shores of an inland lake lies the village of the savage Keeawa natives…the chief of these wild people is the mysterious Panther.”

The Panther had been orphaned as a child in the jungle when his parents were killed by The original Australian industry was a tribesmen. Adopted by panthers and later shooting star that burned brightly and all too initiated into a native tribe, he was to grow to briefly in the comic galaxy. It would move manhood with feline skills which aided his role from non-existence to absolute domination as a crimefighter. Dressed in a sleek suit of before becoming an endangered species panther skins, he soon moved from the hunted into extinction by fiercer foreign Congo to battle wrongdoing all over the Truth, Justice, And The Australian Way predators. The passing was mourned by a world. The Panther debuted in 1957, and Even when US reprints began to crowd out the original nation of fans, but they too were moving when it folded in 1963 it was one of the last Oz product after the late 1950s, there were a few attempts on. They and their brothers and sisters were comics of locally-produced material. to make the comics look as if they were produced Down now fully immersed and addicted to the Under. You already spotted that Australian flag behind wondrous creations arriving fresh each Sales had already been dented by the the judge, right? [©2005 DC Comics.] month from the USA. The revitalized rising cost of newsprint following the Marvel Comics Group had established a chronic paper shortage. This had forced beachhead of distribution in the Southern cover prices to rise from 6d in 1951 to 1/- in 1956, Hemisphere. It would be a few more years a 100% increase in just 5 years. Beyond this there before all original output stopped completely, but were three major factors which impacted upon by 1963 the Australian comics industry was dead and finally crushed the Australian comics industry. and all but buried. For most Australian kids, First, as mentioned, was the advent of heavyhomegrown black-&-whites had gone the way of handed censorship in 1954. Second was the

Three From the ’80s Best-known in the United States of the Australian superhero comics of the 1980s Renaissance was probably The Southern Squadron (created by David de Vries)—but also impressive were artist/publisher Tad Pietrzykowski’s Dark Nebula and the anthology title Cyclone! The latter also featured characters like Southern Cross (another hero group), The Jackaroo—and even Flash Damingo, “an alien platypus.” [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

The Birth, Life, And Death Of The Original Australian Comics Industry characters with awesome powers and hang-ups to match. The wheel had turned full circle, and a generation which had once more grown up in an absence of Australian comic books, devouring US imports, had again started to create their own home-grown heroes. A new generation of comic books had begun, but the true-life characters, the staple of the Golden Age, were gone. In their place were classic spandex superheroes—but distinctly Australian super-heroes, who took pride in their cultural identity, spoke in colloquialisms, and had adventures in familiar local environments. Sadly, this revival was a short-lived flash in the pan, and the creators of the era such as David de Vries, Glenn Lumsden, and Michal Dutkiewicz have now found work which is based in the US. Will there be another revival of original comics in Australia? Or has the age of the comic book truly passed and gone? Was this short-lived industry just a cultural abnormality which stood proudly long past its time before being devoured, a shining moment in our history never to be repeated? Or is there fresh hope waiting to rise from the ashes of defeat? Only time will tell….

Skippy Come Home! But there’ll always be a special place in Australians’ hearts for Skippy, the TV equivalent of 1950s American series like Lassie and Fury! In this panel, the faithful kangaroo saves his young master from a dire villain—in an exquisite panel by Keith Chatto. [©2005 the respective copyright notice.]

the dinosaur, and the all-color Silver Age had excitingly begun.

Return To Reprints, A Brief Revival—and Tomorrow? For the greater part of the late 1960s and ’70s, virtually no original comic material was published in Australia aside from newspaper strips like Air Hawk And The Flying Doctors. The market had been flooded by the ever-increasing, ever-innovative offerings from Marvel and DC. For a time the only comic books even printed in Australia were black&-white reprints of old American material. Giant books became popular, with page numbers ranging from 100 up to 364. Some of these were compilations of old books rebound with new covers; sometimes the same cover and issue number contained different contents, depending on what the publisher had left over in the warehouse. Various publishers dominated the reprint market, and at different times Newton, Federal, Murray, and Planet Comics all had their heyday before disappearing into the publishing ether. There have been a few brave attempts at reviving an original local comics industry, notably a brief renaissance in the late 1980s when original super-heroes once more appeared Down Under. Eureka Comics debuted in 1988 with the space-hopping pin-up Verity Aloeha, Rip Rory, and the manga-influenced Hendrax. At the same time Cyclone Comics produced The Jackeroo, Dark Nebula, and The Southern Squadron. Finally super-heroes had arrived in Australia, not the gaudily-clad but powerless stars of the past but gritty, bedazzling

Michael Baulderstone first discovered comics while growing up in South Australia in the mid-1960s. Though he was weaned on Casper and Mighty Mouse, The Avengers was the super-hero discovery which trapped him for life. Like many of his contemporaries, Michael grew up with a regrettable disdain for Australian-produced comics, much preferring the slick color US influx. Oz comics have become a later-life love affair, inspiring a passion with their crude authenticity and raw grace. A former English teacher, married with three children, Michael has spent the last ten years as Education Manager at Warrawong Sanctuary for Australia's rarest and most endangered wildlife. In that time, over 100,000 kids have visited one camp, and none have brought him comic books. Michael wishes to thank Graeme Cliffe for invaluable corrections and advice re this article.

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“He Left This Planet Too Soon To Go To Artists’ Heaven!” Quality/Fawcett/Timely/Mad Writer/Artist DAVE BERG In His Own Words Interview Conducted, Transcribed, and Edited by Jim Amash

ave Berg spoke the words of the main title above about the great Lou Fine, but they could just as truly be said about Dave himself, who passed away in 2002. He was one of a handful of comic book artists who parlayed his talent into a recognizable style that made him famous. His views of the irony of life and of the “Lighter Side” of things entertained Mad magazine readers for generations. Since his comic book career is less well-known, Dave focused in this interview on that, and on his military career. This interview was conducted by mail because of Dave’s ill health at the time, but was followed up by a brief phone interview. In order to keep the style consistent, I’ve combined both the written and spoken material and eliminated my own questions, keeping the spotlight on a man whose work never failed to please. Dave, the floor is yours—just like it was in Mad for nearly half a century! —Jim.

“Will Eisner [Finding] Out I Could Write… Changed My Life” While still in art school, in 1941, I got a job with Will Eisner, doing backgrounds. Other artists there were Bob Powell, Tex Blaisdell, Chop Mazzus [Chuck Mazoujian], Al Jaffee, and Chuck Cuidera, among others. Working for Eisner was an inspiration. He was more like a teacher. It would surprise you to know that I was paid about $25 or $30 a week. It was the end of the Depression. My job before that only paid $15 a week; I also went to art school at night. A year later, at Fawcett (I did “Captain Marvel” for them), I was earning over $100 a week. My original assignment involved doing backgrounds for the Spirit feature. Will accidentally found out I could write, which changed my life. He gave me a story to illustrate and I told him it wasn’t very good. Will asked me if I could re-write it. I said I’d try. When Eisner read what I had written, he said, “You’re a writer!” I wrote and drew “Death Patrol” [in Quality’s Military Comics], and later wrote and penciled the first issue of Uncle Sam. That made me feel so proud; the rest of the staff cheered me on. On my first publication, I received fan mail. The Eisner studio at Tudor City was overcrowded, so Will rented another space and sent me there. I didn’t like it, and that’s when I transferred to Fawcett Comics. I met Jack Cole one time when he came to tell Eisner that he was going into a new line of art, and leaving comic books. He had been doing Plastic Man. Lou Fine had a studio in the same building as Eisner. Lou was one of the best artists I ever knew, and a kind gentleman. He left this planet too soon to go to artists’ heaven.

Dave Berg And His Uncle Sam Dave Berg in his later years—and a primo page from Quality’s Uncle Sam #1 (Fall 1941), on which Dave says he did most of the artwork for and with Will Eisner. Thanks to Al Dellinges for finding the Berg photo in an old issue of the magazine Reminisce. [Uncle Sam comic hero TM & ©2005 DC Comics.]

For a little while, I worked for Ed Cronin at Hillman. He was a gentleman.

“I Volunteered… But Was Still Drafted” I volunteered for the service, but was still drafted by my draft board. In the [Army] Air Force, I was sent for special education to Edgewood Arsenal (Chemical Warfare). I was given a studio where I turned out pamphlets and posters. One very special assignment sticks out in my mind... a new radio was invented for shot-down pilots. It was my job to choose the color. I got a block of wood, penciled the shape (which was an hourglass), then brought it to the camp woodworking shop, where a German P.O.W. cut it out for me. Did you know the U.S. paid these P.O.W.s who did a job? I painted it a bright yellow. They threw it into the Chesapeake Bay. An airplane flew overhead and spotted it; so the correct color was chosen. It was manufactured and distributed to all airplanes. It was called the Gibson Girl, after the artist who drew hour-glass figures on beautiful women.

Dave Berg In His Own Words I also made a comic book to teach chemical warfare, but I was sent overseas and a civilian outfit took it over. I have a dark secret and confession to make. In my Mad cartoons, I often satirize gun nuts. Yet, while in the Air Force, I was the champion marksman of Charleston Army Air Base. I had competed with thousands of other airmen. I did it using a carbine, but when I went overseas, they handed me a submachine gun—a weapon you can’t aim. You point it in a general direction, pull the trigger, and it sprays a wide area. In the Pacific, a Japanese sub attacked our troop ship. There was a powerful battle; we finally sank the sub. On Iwo Jima, we landed under sniper fire. Air raids were our biggest danger. Our P-47 pilots found take-off and landing their biggest problem. I painted various insignias on the cowlings of the fighter planes. When the war ended, I was sent as a war correspondent to Japan. That was the most exciting thing that happened to me in the war. As a section chief, I was in charge of 15 or 100 men, depending upon the situation. My biggest job was supplying water for 500 men; there was no water on Iwo Jima. The Japanese lost 21,000 soldiers on this ugly little

From Fists To Fraternization (Below:) Sgt. Berg (as artist) and Pfc. Adler (as writer) produced the mimeographed military publication Fighter Post as “a joint venture” during the early days of the Occupation of Japan, according to Arthur Adler. A bio in that issue said that, “Sgt. Berg, incidentally, in civil life was the creator of several comic strips.” Though this isn’t quite accurate, it probably referred to Berg’s pre-Army art for Fawcett, so below left, repeated from A/E V3#6, is the cover attributed to him for Captain Marvel Adventures #14 (Aug. 1942).

When The Shooting Stops The above pencil drawing was also done by Dave for Reminisce a few years ago, and reflects Berg’s days in uniform in World War II, which were also covered in Alter Ego #7. The “Private Adler” mentioned is the same Arthur Adler whose interview about his postwar comic book writing career appeared in A/E #44. Thanks to Al Dellinges. [Art & text ©2005 Estate of Dave Berg.]

There’s a startling contrast between the post-Pearl Harbor jingoism of 194142 and art drawn only a week or so after the Japanese signed the surrender document aboard the US battleship Missouri in Tokyo Harbor. When Dave drew and labeled his sketches of life in Japan, of course, the unfortunate nigh-universal epithet “Jap” was still in use, alas—but things would soon get much friendlier, and the Fighter Post cover illustrates the swift change in attitudes. Special thanks to Arthur Adler. [Capt. Marvel art ©2005 DC Comics; 1945 art ©2005 Estate of Dave Berg.]

“He Left This Planet Too Soon To Go To Artists’ Heaven!”

55 do better. Al Jaffee took the job over from me. I knew everybody who worked on staff at Timely, but that was more than fifty years ago. My memory is not that keen. Let me put it this way: I didn’t dislike any of them. Al Sulman, who edited and had a lot of power, and Al Jaffee were close personal friends. Syd Shores was kind of pitiful. He worked at Timely for 25 years and thought he should have been made a partner. It wasn’t funny.... we tried to shut him up.

“Big Mike” When I became associate editor at Timely, I came in the middle of a war. It seems one artist, whom we’ll call “Big Mike,” fell crazy in love with a staff girl. She was crazy in love with another staffer, who had no interest in her. So Big Mike got a wolf pack together and demanded that the noninterested staffer be fired. Stan settled War Is The Continuation Of Politics By Comic Book Means the problem by putting the girl on At postwar Timely, “Davy Berg” drew “everything but the super-heroes,” and one of his specialties was the freelance. Somehow, I became a victim war story. These two Korean War-era splashes run the gamut from the hammed-up heroics of Combat Kelly #21 because I was an authority figure. Big (April 1954), to the grittier approach of “Tooth and Nail” in War Comics #13 (Nov. 1952). Thanks to Dr. Michael J. Mike was angry and looked for Vassallo for both scans.[©2005 Marvel Characters, Inc.] victims. One artist spilled ink on a job of his. Big Mike named him “The island; we lost 6,000. My only wound was a sensitivity to loud noises, Blob,” and he and his wolf pack drew pictures of The Blob and placed like heavy artillery. I returned home as a staff sergeant at the end of them around the office. I saw a grown man cry like a baby from the December 1945. cruelty. As for me, they found out about my sensitivity to loud noises. They would sneak up and slam a ruler and howl with laughter at my discomfort. Big Mike’s gang had a uniform that they all wore: black turtleneck sweaters.

“I Did Everything But The Super-Heroes” Before going into the Air Force, I had sold Timely one feature called “Baldy.” It was the story of a bald eagle who does battle with Japanese beetles.

So, you ask, how did Big Mike get away with all these shenanigans? Because he was the best artist on staff.

After the war, I did everything but the superheroes. I started the series “The Ringo Kid,” but what I liked best was teenage comics. I wrote and drew Georgie. Only on very rare occasions (Combat Kelly) did someone else write a script for me. I’d submit a script to Stan Lee, written in longhand. And I was never asked to make changes in my art.

Several years later, Dave Gantz and another Timely person came to my house to apologize. Sixty years later, I got a call from the ruler-slammer. He was now old, sick, and divorced. He called to clear his soul. I pretended not to know what he was talking about.

Stan Lee was the genius kid editor and an amazing person. For one thing, he was a speed reader, and he had total recall, and was a very nice person. With his photographic memory, he kept track of everything that went on. After the war, Stan asked me to be an associate editor. I didn’t want to do it. I took the job until I could be replaced. That took about six months. As associate editor, I read scripts and talked to the writers about story ideas. I dealt with the artists, too, but not as much as I did with the writers. I was also doing my own work for the company. I wasn’t happy doing that job. I wanted to do my own work, writing and drawing my own stuff. I didn’t want to depend on others to do the work, especially when I thought I could

“Big Mike”— “Meet MIKE SEKOWSKY”

Dave Berg may have not felt like mentioning by name that his Timey bête noire “Big Mike” was actually artist Mike Sekowsky, but in 1947 he still drew this fine caricature of Sekowsky for Stan Lee's book Secrets behind the Comics. [©2005 Stan Lee.]

Forty years later, I saw Big Mike for the last time at a comic book convention in San Diego. His face was wrinkled, craggy, and full of blotches. It was as if every mean trick he had pulled was shown on his face. He was now an animator. His fellow animators told me he hadn’t changed; he was still attacking weak people. Somewhere there is a picture of Big Mike in an attic that is clean and angelic. Maybe he reversed the Picture of Dorian Gray process. Big Mike never apologized to anyone.

Dave Berg In His Own Words

“Look It Up!”

Would You Like Cheesecake With That?

Many fans come to the Mad office. One day, a woman and her son came, claiming she was my long-lost cousin. She had all the information correct, so I believed her. The Mad staff gave them much attention and many gifts. But they hung around a week and kept calling me. Finally, they asked if they could live with me. I checked with my uncle, and he said she was a phony; she was no relative. She only knew some distant relative of mine I had never met. To this day, I wonder that anyone would want to be a relative of this crazy cartoonist. She may have been a disturbed person. Months later, Nick Meglin met her at a resort. He told her how lucky she was not to be a relative of mine.

Like many another artist, Berg also did a number of “girlie” cartoons for magazines, such as these two sent by Jon Jensen. Unfortunately, we don’t have the punchline to go with ’em—but does it really matter? [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

“Harvey Kurtzman… Had A Special Genius” One man stands out over the others: Harvey Kurtzman, though he didn’t work on staff. As an editor, I dealt with him. I had vaguely known Harvey in junior high school. There was no doubt that he had a special genius. He did start Mad magazine, which became worldfamous, but he had one fault: he had to write everything himself. When he left, Al Feldstein made use of the talents of many writers, and therefore was more successful. I did some work for Harvey Kurtzman when he was editing the war books at EC. Harvey asked me about what I did in the war. I told him I was trained to work the mortar. So he wrote a story about a mortar. He’d do a lot of research. He laid the stories out for the artists and I closely followed his layouts. He was good and I had respect for him. Let me tell this one story about [Timely/Marvel publisher] Martin Goodman, who was always good to me. Periodically, Timely would overproduce and shut down. One time, I went to Archie because their publisher had sent for me. He felt that Timely’s Georgie character was stolen from their Archie character. He wanted to sue Goodman and wanted me to testify against him. I refused, so he fired me. But I didn’t go without work; the editors teamed me up with an artist. The next time I saw Goodman, I told him about it. He said, “But I have a golf game with him tomorrow.” I asked, “Are you going to keep it?” “Of course,” Goodman said. “Business is business and golf is golf.” The last thing I did for Timely Comics was Combat Kelly, which I drew for several years. But I didn’t write it. The wife of one of Stan Lee’s writers was told she had to go to Arizona or else. Stan Lee teamed us up and it lasted for several years. I also wrote stories for other artists. It was Stan Lee who tipped me off that Timely was shutting down in 1957. He said, “Look to jump elsewhere, because in a month we’re going to close down.” I wrote a script and went to Mad. I talked to Kurtzman before going, and he said, “They’ll grab you.” The rest is history.

Mortar, He Wrote This story from EC’s Two-Fisted Tales #29 (Sept.-Oct. 1952) is almost certainly the “story about a mortar” that editor Harvey Kurtzman wrote (and probably laid out) for him. [©2005 William M. Gaines Agent.]

“He Left This Planet Too Soon To Go To Artists’ Heaven!”

People often ask me, “How do you know so much?” The absolute truth is that I don’t... I just look things up. For a Mad script about time, I looked it up in the encyclopedia. It had a piece on circadian rhythm, which deals with the human inner clock. I put it in my script. Several months later, I received a fan letter from a college student, who said that the question about circadian rhythm had come up on a test. He remembered what I had written about it, and got the answer right, and he wanted to know how I knew so much. Honest, I don’t. Anybody can The Lighter Side Of “The Lighter Side Of…” look up information. People ask, For literally decades, one of the most popular features in Mad magazine at its height was Dave Berg’s feature “The Lighter “How do you know where to Side of…,” which was done in comic-strip format—often, as here, with Berg himself as the model for middle-aged look it up?” For that, I have a protagonists. As seen in the 1996 trade paperback collection Mad about the Seventies. [©2005 EC Publications, Inc.] book I look up, which tells where to look it up! mation into my own words. What’s more, it was typewritten, which was rare in the Depression. Yet my teacher failed me. I said I was going to show this to the principal, so the teacher gave me a passing grade. I can’t I was a five-time judge of the Miss America Beauty Contest at the believe what my arrogant parting shot was: “You’ll be a teacher for the state level. The last time, I arranged for Bill Gaines and Lenny Brenner rest of your working life, but I’ll be the most famous student who ever to judge, too. Most of the judging is done before the big show. The went to this school!” judges interview each girl. The three of us put our heads together and chose the winner. Out of five judges, we were a majority. Twenty years later, the school sent for me. There was a war going on between the Italians and blacks. Since I was the After the proceedings, we had a big party at a restaurant. Suddenly, alumnus the students knew, would I come make peace? I did the doors flew open and there was a tall old lady, not invited. She loudly the best I could, but I still apologize for my arrogant bad taste. announced that she was the grand-aunt, once removed, of one of the contestants. She wanted to know why her great niece, once removed, did not win. The poor girl said, “Oh, no, not my crazy aunt!,” then sank beneath the table and, crawling on all fours, disappeared off the stage. Then the old lady shouted that it was too cold in the restaurant, and demanded that the air-conditioner be shut off, which the maitre de did. On that hot, muggy night, we gradually began to wilt. Gaines, in a sweat, had Lenny and me leave and sit in his Cadillac with the air-conditioner on full blast. Eventually, the grand-niece once removed joined us in our escape. UCLA gave me a plaque which read “Chair for the Great Cartoonist.” My acceptance reply was in the form of a long talk about humor. For the price of a plaque and airfare, they got a free lecture. I’ve worked for Mad for 45 years. I think Nick Meglin’s the only guy who has been there longer than me.

When I was in high school, I carefully bound one of my high school term papers in book form, adding many different illustrations. The copy consisted of putting textbook infor-

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AE #8: (100 pgs.) Bio of WALLY WOOD, ADKINS & PEARSON intvs., KUBERT intv., FCA w/ BECK, SWAYZE, & ORDWAY, MR. MONSTER, WOOD & KUBERT covers, more! $8 US

AE #9: (100 pgs.) JOHN ROMITA intv. & gallery, plus ROY THOMAS’ dream projects! FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, & TUSKA, MR. MONSTER, ROMITA & DICK GIORDANO covers! $8 US

AE #10: (100 pgs) CARMINE INFANTINO intv. & art, neverseen FLASH story, VIN SULLIVAN & MAGAZINE ENTERPRISES, FRED GUARDINEER, AYERS, FCA, MR. MONSTER, more! $8 US

AE #11: (100 pgs) Interviews with SYD SHORES, MICKEY SPILLANE, VINCE FAGO, MAGAZINE ENTERPRISES Part Two, FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, DON NEWTON, MR. MONSTER, more! $8 US

AE #12: (100 pgs) GILL FOX on QUALITY COMICS, neverseen PAUL REINMAN Green Lantern art, origins of ALLSTAR SQUADRON, FCA, MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD, more! $8 US

AE #13 (100 pgs.) TITANS OF TIMELY/MARVEL Part Two! JOE SIMON & MURPHY ANDERSON covers, Silver Age AVENGERS section (with BUSCEMA, HECK, TUSKA, & THOMAS) & more! $8 US

AE #14 (100 pgs.) JSA FROM THE ’40s TO THE ’80s! MIKE NASSER & MICHAEL T. GILBERT covers, intvs. with ORDWAY & LEE ELIAS, neverseen 1940s JSA pgs., ’70s JSA, & more! $8 US

AE #15 (108 pgs.) JOHN BUSCEMA TRIBUTE ISSUE! BUSCEMA covers & interview, unseen art, ROY THOMAS on their collaborations, plus salute to KURT SCHAFFENBERGER, & more! $8 US

AE #16: (108 pgs.) COLAN, BUSCEMA, ROMITA, SEVERIN interviews, ALEX ROSS on Shazam!, OTTO & JACK BINDER, KURTZMAN, new ROSS & FRADON/SEVERIN covers, more! $8 US

AE #17: (108 pgs.) LOU FINE overview & art, ARNOLD DRAKE & MURPHY ANDERSON interviews, plus EISNER, CRANDALL, DAVIS & EVANS’ non-EC action comics, FCA, LOU FINE cover, more! $8 US

AE #18: (108 pgs.) STAN GOLDBERG interview & art, plus KIRBY, DITKO, HECK, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, EVERETT, WALLY WOOD’S Flash Gordon, FCA, KIRBY & SWAYZE covers, more! $8 US

AE #19: (108 pgs.) DICK SPRANG interview & art, JERRY ROBINSON on FRED RAY, BOB KANE, CARMINE INFANTINO, ALEX TOTH, WALLY WOOD, FCA, SPRANG & RAY covers, more! $8 US

AE #20: (108 pgs.) TIMELY/ MARVEL focus, INVADERS overview with KIRBY, KANE, ROBBINS, BOB DESCHAMPS intv., panel with FINGER, BINDER, FOX, & WEISINGER, FCA, rare art, more! $8 US

AE #21: (108 pgs.) IGER STUDIO with art by EISNER, FINE, MESKIN, ANDERSON, CRANDALL, CARDY, EVANS, “SHEENA” section, THOMAS on the JSA, FCA, DAVE STEVENS cover, more! $8 US

AE #22: (108 pgs.) EVERETT & KUBERT interviewed by GIL KANE & NEAL ADAMS, ROY THOMAS on Sub-Mariner, COLAN, BUSCEMA, SEVERIN, WOOD, FCA, BECK & EVERETT covers, more! $8 US

AE #23: (108 pgs.) Two unseen Golden Age WONDER WOMAN stories examined, BOB FUJITANI intv. Archie/ MLJ’s JOHN ROSENBERGER & VICTOR GORELICK intv., FCA, rare art, more! $8 US

AE #24: (108 pgs.) NEW X-MEN intvs. with STAN LEE, COCKRUM, CLAREMONT, WEIN, DRAKE, SHOOTER, THOMAS, MORT MESKIN profiled, FCA, covers by COCKRUM & MESKIN! $8 US

AE #25: (108 pgs.) JACK COLE & PLASTIC MAN! Brother DICK COLE interviewed, Cole celebrated by ALEX TOTH, THOMAS on All-Star Squadron #1, JERRY BAILS tribute, FCA, cover by TOTH! $8 US

AE #26: (108 pgs.) JOE SINNOTT interview, KIRBY and BUSCEMA art, IRWIN DONENFELD, Superman art by SHUSTER, BORING, SWAN, FCA, Mr. MONSTER, covers by SINNOTT & BORING! $8 US

AE #20: TIMELY/ #27: (108 (108pgs.) pgs.) VIN MARVEL INVADERS SULLIVAN focus, intv., “Lost” KIRBY overview with KIRBY, KANE, HULK covers, the 1948 NY ROBBINS, DESCHAMPS CON, “GreatBOB Unknown” artists, intv., panel FCA, withALEX FINGER, KURTZMAN, TOTH, BINDER, FOX, & WEISINGER, MR. MONSTER, covers by FCA, rare art, more! $8 $8 US US BURNLEY & KIRBY!

AE #28: (108 pgs.) JOE MANEELY spotlight, scarce Marvel art by EVERETT, SEVERIN, DITKO, ROMITA, extra-size FCA, LEE AMES intv., covers by MANEELY & DON NEWTON! $8 US

AE #29: (108 pgs.) FRANK BRUNNER intv., EVERETT’s Venus, Classics Illustrated adapting Lovecraft, LEE/KIRBY/ DITKO prototypes, ALEX TOTH, FCA with GENE COLAN, BRUNNER cover! $8 US

AE #30: (108 pgs.) SILVER AGE JLA special, ALEX ROSS on the JLA, MIKE SEKOWSKY, DICK DILLIN, GOLDEN AGE SIMON & KIRBY scripters speak, FRENCH HEROES, ROSS & RUDE covers! $8 US

AE #31: (108 pgs.) DICK AYERS intv., HARLAN ELLISON’S Marvel work (with Bullpen artists), LEE/KIRBY/ DITKO prototypes, Christmas cards from cartoonists, AYERS & RAY covers! $8 US

AE #32: (108 pgs.) Golden Age TIMELY ARTISTS intv., MART NODELL, MIKE GOLD on the Silver Age, art by SIMON & KIRBY, SWAN, INFANTINO, KANE, GIORDANO & GIL KANE covers! $8 US

AE #33: (108 pgs.) MIKE SEKOWSKY tribute, intvs. with wife PAT SEKOWSKY and Golden Age inker VALERIE BARCLAY, art by ANDERSON, ANDRU & ESPOSITO, INFANTINO, FRENZ covers! $8 US

AE #34: (108 pgs.) QUALITY COMICS, intvs. with ALEX KOTZKY, CHUCK CUIDERA, DICK ARNOLD, TOTH, KURTZMAN, art by FINE, EISNER, COLE, CRANDALL and NICHOLAS covers! $8 US

AE #35: #20: (108 (108pgs.) pgs.)STAN TIMELY/ LEE, MARVEL focus,DICK INVADERS JOHN ROMITA, AYERS, overview with KIRBY, KANE, ROY THOMAS, & AL JAFFEE ROBBINS, BOB DESCHAMPS on the 1940s & 1950s Golden intv., FINGER, Age at panel Timely/with Marvel, FCA, BINDER, FOX, & ROMITA WEISINGER, MR. MONSTER, and $8 US FCA, rarecovers! art, more! $8 US JAFFEE

AE #36: (108 pgs.) JOE SIMON intv. & cover, GOLDEN AGE HEROES of Canada, ELMER WEXLER, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on MR. MONSTER’S ORIGINS, FCA, ALEX TOTH, and more! $8 US

AE #37: (108 pgs.) BECK & BORING covers, SY BARRY intv., Superman “K-Metal” story, FCA with C.C. BECK, MARC SWAYZE, DON NEWTON, and Shazam!/Isis!, MR. MONSTER, and more! $8 US

AE #38: (108 pgs.) JULIUS SCHWARTZ tribute & interviews, art by INFANTINO, ANDERSON, KUBERT, KANE, TOTH, SWAN, SEKOWSKY, FCA section, INFANTINO and HASEN covers, more!! $8 US

AE #39: (108 pgs.) Full issue JERRY ROBINSON spotlight, with comprehensive interview and unseen Batman art, AL FELDSTEIN on EC, GIL FOX, MESKIN, ROUSSOS, & ROBINSON covers! $8 US

AE #40: (108 pgs.) JULIUS SCHWARTZ memorial issue with tributes by pros, GIL KANE interview, comprehensive interview and unseen art by RUSS HEATH, GIL KANE and HEATH covers! $8 US

ALTER EGO #41

ALTER EGO #42

ALTER EGO #43

ALTER EGO #44

ALTER EGO #45

Covers by WRIGHTSON & MARC SWAYZE, WRIGHTSON on his ’70s FRANKENSTEIN, art by KALUTA, BAILY, MANEELY, PLOOG, KUBERT, BRUNNER, COWAN, BORING, OKSNER, TUSKA, CRANDALL, SUTTON, and others! Plus FCA #100, ALEX TOTH, MICHAEL T. GILBERT—and more! Edited by ROY THOMAS.

Covers by FASTNER & LARSON and ERNIE SCHROEDER, a celebration of DON HECK, WERNER ROTH, and PAUL REINMAN, rare art by KIRBY, DITKO, AYERS, Hillman & Ziff-Davis remembered by SCHROEDER, HERB ROGOFF, and WALTER LITTMAN, FCA, ALEX TOTH, & more! Edited by ROY THOMAS.

Flip covers by TUSKA and STEVENS, yuletide art by SINNOTT, BRUNNER, CARDY, TOTH, NODELL, and others, interviews with Golden Age artists TOM GILL (Lone Ranger) and MORRIS WEISS, exploring 1960s Mexican comics, FCA, MR. MONSTER, ALEX TOTH, & more! Edited by ROY THOMAS.

Interviews with JOE KUBERT, IRWIN HASEN, MURPHY ANDERSON, JERRY ORDWAY, 1940s Atom writer ARTHUR ADLER, art by TOTH, SEKOWSKY, HASEN, PEDDY, MACHLAN, BUCKLER, OKSNER, INFANTINO, FCA, MR. MONSTER, cover by ORDWAY, & more! Edited by ROY THOMAS.

Interviews with Golden Age Sandman artist CREIG FLESSEL and 1940s creator BERT CHRISTMAN, MICHAEL CHABON on researching his Pulitzer-winning novel Kavalier & Clay, art by EISNER, KANE, KIRBY, & AYERS, FCA, MR. MONSTER, ALEX TOTH, & more! Edited by ROY THOMAS.

(108-page magazine) $8 US

(100-page magazine) $8 US

ALTER EGO #46

ALTER EGO #47

ALTER EGO #48

ALTER EGO #49

ALTER EGO #50

The VERY BEST of the 1960s-70s ALTER EGO! EVERETT/SEVERIN cover, classic 1969 BILL EVERETT interview, art by BURGOS, GUSTAVSON, SIMON & KIRBY, and others, 1960s gems by DITKO & E. NELSON BRIDWELL, FCA, TOTH, & more! Edited by ROY THOMAS.

MATT BAKER, Golden Age cheesecake artist of PHANTOM LADY, plus art from AL FELDSTEIN, VINCE COLLETTA, ARTHUR PEDDY, JACK KAMEN & others, FCA, BILL SCHELLY talks to BUD PLANT, MR. MONSTER, ALEX TOTH, and more! Edited by ROY THOMAS.

The late WILL EISNER discusses ’40s Quality Comics with art by FINE, CRANDALL, COLE, & CARDY! EISNER tributes by STAN LEE, GENE COLAN, & others! ’40s Quality artist VERN HENKEL interviewed, FCA, MR. MONSTER, TOTH, & more! Edited by ROY THOMAS.

Interview with CARL BURGOS’ daughter! Unused 1941 cover layouts by BURGOS and other Timely titans! The 1957 Atlas Implosion, MANNY STALLMAN, and the BLUE FLAME! Also, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER and more! Edited by ROY THOMAS.

ROY THOMAS covers his 40-YEAR career in comics, with ADAMS, BUSCEMA, COLAN, DITKO, GIL KANE, KIRBY, STAN LEE, ORDWAY, PÉREZ, ROMITA, and many others! Also, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER and more! Edited by ROY THOMAS.

(100-page magazine) $8 US

SUBSCRIBE TO ALTER EGO! 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! (The cover price of Alter Ego increases by $1 as of #52, but the subscription price remains the same.) ALTER EGO #51 (AUG.)

ALTER EGO #52 (SEPT.)

ALTER EGO #53 (OCT.)

Golden Age Batman artist/Bob Kane ghost LEW SAYRE SCHWARTZ interviewed, the Golden & Silver Ages of AUSTRALIAN SUPER-HEROES, Mad artist DAVE BERG interviewed, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on WILL EISNER, ALEX TOTH and more! Edited by ROY THOMAS.

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, MARTIN THALL, and more! Edited by ROY THOMAS.

GIORDANO and THOMAS on STOKER’S DRACULA, never-seen DICK BRIEFER Frankenstein strip, MIKE ESPOSITO on his work with ROSS ANDRU, Halloween art by COLAN, WRIGHTSON, MIGNOLA, BRUNNER, BISSETTE, KALUTA, HEATH, MANEELY, EVERETT, DITKO, and others!! Edited by ROY THOMAS.

(100-page magazine) $9 US

(100-page magazine) $8 US

NOMINATED FOR A 2004 EISNER AWARD FOR BEST COMICSRELATED MAGAZINE!

VISIT MY WEBSITE AT: www.albertmoy.com

Ken Bald Dave Bullock

Richard Corben

Mike Golden

Erik Larsen

Jim Lee

John Byrne

Jae Lee

John Cassaday

Darwyn Cooke

Sam Kieth

Jack Kirby

Bruce Timm John Severin

WANTED: Neal Adams (covers, sketches, roughs, pages, pencils, illustrations, and paintings). Other artists of interest: Art Adams, John Byrne, John Buscema, Gil Kane, Adam Hughes, Lou Fine, Reed Crandall, Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, Alex Toth, Joe Kubert, Wally Wood, Hal Foster, Alex Raymond, Charles Schultz, and many more. Interested in EC artwork, any Large Size covers, any Marvel and DC covers, large and small. Exclusive Agent For: Jae Lee, Jim Lee, Sam Kieth, John Cassaday, Ken Bald, David Bullock, Bruce Timm, Peter Snejbjerg, Darwyn Cooke, Erik Larsen, and Aron Wiesenfeld. Albert has much more art than the selection shown here. Please call him at (718) 225-3261 (8-11:30PM EST weekdays, all day weekends) if you are looking for something in particular and do not see it listed.

Peter Snejbjerg TERMS: Call to reserve art: (718) 225-3261. Will hold art for 7 days. $12 postage in U.S. $25 postage for Overseas orders. All Packages in U.S. are sent registered mail. Money Orders or Certified Checks accepted. We now also take payment via PayPal and Bidpay. Will consider trade offers — Let me know what you have to trade.

Dreams Of Milk And Honey…

began corresponding with Will Eisner in 1978. I was living in the Bay Area and drawing comics for underground and groundlevel titles like Slow Death, Star*Reach, and Quack!, which featured my first series “The Wraith,” a funny animal Spirit parody. Quack! lasted six issues. Afterwards, I mailed copies to Will, who sent me a very encouraging letter in return. Will’s approval meant a lot to me as I struggled to build a comic book career.

Michael T. Gilbert (left) and Will Eisner at Will’s Florida studio in 2001.

As it turned out, I’d contacted him at a turning point in his own career. After retiring the Spirit newspaper strip in 1952, Eisner had enjoyed great success producing educational comics for the military and other clients. But the urge to tell more personal stories again had been bubbling for years. In 1978 the pot finally boiled over, and in October he produced A Contract With God, sometimes called the first modern graphic novel. The book actually consisted of four separate stories exploring Judaism and the meaning of life. By coincidence I’d also been working on a story with a Jewish theme for Imagine, another Star*Reach title. At 32 densely-packed pages, “A Dream of Milk and Honey” was my most ambitious story to date. It described a group of Jewish settlers in the future, searching for a new homeland in space after Israel is destroyed in a nuclear holocaust. The first part of my story came out a month after Will’s book. I sent him a copy, along with my comments on his own project. To my delight, I got another note from Will, which said in part… “Congratulations! Your story ‘A Dream of Milk and Honey’ is most

of all an example of the kind of innovation and striving that is moving sequential art … out of the primordial swamp in which comic books have so long wallowed.” Whew! High praise, indeed! I didn’t know it at the time, but I’d accidentally hit upon a theme near and dear to him. Ever the teacher, Will added some constructive criticism to his note: “I have but one major critique: In future efforts I hope you will attempt a more disciplined ratio between art and text. I feel that the text in some areas overwhelms the art and in some areas the art obscures the text. There should be, I believe, a very carefully orchestrated balance between the two.” Solid advice. I may have missed taking Will’s cartooning class in the early ’70s, but his comments were a pretty nice consolation prize. And if praise from Will Eisner wasn’t enough, another dream of mine was fulfilled two years later when I finally got to draw The Spirit!

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt

On Nov. 26, 1980, I received a letter from Denis Kitchen, officially inviting me to participate in a special Spirit “Jam” issue. Denis’ Kitchen Sink Press had been publishing The Spirit since Warren had stopped in 1978. The new comics featured vintage Spirit tales and new Eisner stories. Spirit-scholar cat yronwode was co-editing this issue, to be drawn round robin-style by Eisner and dozens of cartoonists. The stellar line-up included Harvey Kurtzman, Richard Corben, Frank Miller, and Milton Caniff! I wrote and drew three very detailed pages for the book, lavishing weeks on each. As it turned out, that time was well-spent. By now, Mike Friedrich had pulled the plug on his Star*Reach comics line and was packaging comics for other publishers. Michael Moorcock’s sword-and-sorcery hero Elric of Melniboné was one title Mike was

The splash page (above) and an interior panel (below) from Michael T. Gilbert’s 1978 story “A Dream of Milk and Honey.” Eisner suggested that the tale would benefit from “a more disciplined ratio between art and text.” In other words: “Too wordy!” [©2005 Michael T. Gilbert.]

putting together for Pacific Comics. Roy Thomas had already signed on to adapt Moorcock’s novels into comic book form, and P. Craig Russell had agreed to draw it. But a second artist was needed in order to meet deadlines. As it turned out, Craig recommended me for the job on the strength of those Spirit pages. A panel from Eisner’s first graphic album, A Contract with God. [©2005 Estate of Will Eisner.]

Elric turned out to be my big break. Pacific paid decent wages, and was my first high-profile job in comics. How fitting that Will’s creation was instrumental in getting me that job.

Remembering Will – Part II

Will was genuinely interested, and asked a number of technical questions. His curiosity impressed me. After all, I was just some kid still learning the ropes and he practically invented the medium. But Will was smart enough to know he could learn something from anyone—even me! After I spoke to the class, Will treated me to lunch at a sandwich shop across the street. I spent a wonderful hour listening to stories about Will, Jack Cole, Bob Powell, and other Golden Age giants. Throughout, he was warm, enthusiastic, and very funny. In short, everything I hoped Will Eisner would be. Before I left, he gave me the address of his art representative in Spain, and told me to contact him and mention his name. That didn’t pan out, but it was an extremely generous gesture.

The Eisner Influence! In 1983, while on a break from Elric, I began developing “Mr. Monster” for Pacific Comics. Once again, Will’s influence proved invaluable. My monster-fighting hero lived in a very Eisner-esque world, drenched in deep dark shadows and endless rain. I chose Bill Loebs, another hardcore Eisner fan, to assist me on those early issues partly because his brushwork so strongly resembled Will’s. Taking another cue from The Spirit (and from Mad’s creator, Harvey Kurtzman), I made sure to add a big dose of humor to the horror. I also made sure to trademark Mr. Monster. Decades earlier, Will had demonstrated how valuable that was. At a time when Michael T. Gilbert finally gets a chance to take a crack at The Spirit in this jam page! It appeared in July 1981, in The Spirit #30, and was reprinted in 1998. [©2005 Michael T. Gilbert; The Spirit TM & ©2005 Estate of Will Eisner.]

Meeting The Master! Will and I finally met in 1982, shortly before Mike Friedrich invited me to work on Elric. Early that year, I was planning a trip to New York to see old friends and try to sell some of my work. I wrote a letter to Will suggesting we meet for lunch. Will not only accepted, but invited me to speak to his class at the School of Visual Arts. It was tremendously flattering and I happily agreed. My nerves were jangling as I met Will for the first time, but he immediately put me at ease with his warm, selfdeprecating humor. The school itself was in an old, rather run-down building. Will’s small office was equally unpretentious. He noticed the humongous portfolio I was lugging and asked to see what I‘d brought. I showed him my first full-color story, “The Circle Game!,” done in “blue-line”—in which the black art is printed on a transparent acetate sheet while the coloring is painted on a porous board beneath (with the same image printed lightly in blue as a color-guide). A very Eisner-esque page drawn in 1984 by Michael T. Gilbert and Bill Loebs. It saw print a year later in Mr. Monster #1, edited by cat yronwode, who co-edited the Spirit jam. Small world! [©2005 Michael T. Gilbert.]

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt

creator-ownership was almost unheard of, Will’s success proved it was possible. Indeed, for that alone an entire generation of creators owes Will and The Spirit a big “thanks!” While I was off drawing “Mr. Monster,” Will was busy producing critically-acclaimed graphic albums. I followed them all, and was seldom disappointed. In 1987 I finally decided to try one of my own. Mr. Monster: Origins was the result, serialized by Dark Horse over 8 issues. In 1996 Graphitti Publishing collected my story in a handsome 200-page book—complete with an introduction by Will Eisner! I was honored and thrilled when Origins subsequently received two Eisner Award nominations. Shortly after, I heard some exciting news. Denis Kitchen was planning to publish a Spirit comic book featuring all-new “Spirit” stories from different writers and artists. Naturally, I wanted in, and on September 1996 I pitched an idea for “The Missing Years,” a “what-if” story purporting to explain what may have happened to The Spirit between his disappearance from newspapers in 1952, until his reappearance in 1966 (in that Herald Tribune 5-pager). Unfortunately, my plot was rejected as being outside the timeframe of the original series. I was disappointed, but decided to try again later. (Meanwhile, if you’re so inclined, you can read the plot on the facing page.) Next: We conclude this series with a visit to Eisner’s Florida studio, and my last dinner with Will. Till next time…

Remembering Will – Part II

A Spirit-ual Sidebar: The following is my rejected plot for The New Adventures of The Spirit, sent to Kitchen Sink Press on 9/15/96. Any in-jokes are strictly intentional!

“The Missing Years” [Story idea ©2005 Michael T. Gilbert] Our splash page has a man (the Spirit) seen from behind at the entrance to Wildwood Cemetery. It’s night, and Ellen waits for him inside the windy graveyard. Both are fairly small in the picture. Looming above them is a symbolic picture of the Spirit, framed by the moon. A very large “?” floats in front of him. Caption: In 1940, criminologist Denny Colt was murdered by an insane genius named Dr. Cobra. Shortly after, the Spirit was born. For 12 years the Spirit fought crime and helped the helpless. Then on October 5, 1952, the Spirit disappeared. Caption: He was not seen again until January 9, 1966. Many stories have been told of those missing years. This is one of them. Page 2: The year is 1952. The Spirit reads a story in the newspaper about the son of Dr. Cobra who’s just escaped prison by murdering two guards. Cobra’s vowed revenge on the Spirit for the death of his father 12 years earlier. (Note: the headline of the newspaper concerns the Spirit’s recent successful trip to Outer Space). The Spirit and Ebony are in the woods near the prison, about to return to Central City. Ellen’s hosting a party celebrating his safe return and the Spirit sends Ebony on ahead. As Ebony catches a bus, an arm in the foreground (with a Cobra tattoo) picks up a large rock. Creeping behind the Spirit, Cobra Jr. smashes him brutally on the head again and again. As the Spirit lies dying, the blood-splattered Cobra sneers hatefully and walks away holding the Spirit’s mask. His parting words: “Dad gives you his regards. Rot in hell, Mr. Denny Colt.” Page 3: Meanwhile, at Ellen’s party, Dolan, Sammy, Ebony, P.S. and others are starting to get worried. Dolan looks at his watch and wonders why the Spirit isn’t back yet. “What’s taking him so long?” Dolan wonders in the background, as we focus on the eyes of a very worried Ellen in foreground. Cut to a silhouette of a ragged, bleeding man stumbling out of the woods, towards a nearby highway. In the distance a truck rumbles toward him. Inside the truck’s cab sits a gruff, smiling man and his beautiful 25 year old daughter, Ann. Suddenly they slam on the brakes, as the silhouetted figure (framed by their blinding headlights) collapses in front of their speeding truck. Page 4: Close downshot of an unconscious Spirit lying face-up on the asphalt, spotlighted by trucker’s flashlight.

The Spirit’s mask is gone and his face looks like raw hamburger. Soon, the truck continues its run, towards distant Tudor City. The Spirit is with them. Back at the party, worried Dolan talks to his daughter. “He’s not coming, Ellen,” he tells her. “He...he’s probably on some secret case. We’d better go home. We’re the last ones here.” “You go, daddy,” Ellen answers sadly. “I’ll wait...” We close-up on her sad but determined face. “...as long as I have to!” Cut to: six months later. A bandaged, nearly healed Spirit is loading a truck. He looks calm and very peaceful. Ann and her father talk about “Bill,” the man they found. We learn that his memory is completely gone, and that he’s working for them now, driving their truck. Page 5-8: Dolan searches for his missing friend to no avail. Soon the case grows cold and he fears the Spirit is dead. Ellen refuses to believe it. She’ll wait for him as long as it takes. The years pass, and the Spirit builds a new life for himself with Ann. They marry and eventually have a son, Danny. Every year Ellen goes to Wildwood cemetery, hoping that her long-lost lover will return. He never does. “Bill” is enjoying his new life, as half-owner of the Regi Trucking Co. Yet happy as he is, he still feels some important part of his life is missing. He gazes into the stars, vainly trying to remember Ellen, his first love. She, in turn, still waits for him. Despite the fact that she’s now a very successful businesswoman, she’s never gotten married, despite her father’s urging. Five years pass, then ten. We see Bill playing ball with his son, going on picnics with his family, and driving the truck. Then one night in 1966, as Bill unloads boxes at a warehouse in Central City, a vicious-looking worker with a cobra tattoo sees him. It’s the Cobra’s son, of course, and he recognizes Denny Colt, the man he thought he killed years earlier. Now he’s determined to finish the job. A battle to the death ensues, and in the course of their battle, Cobra’s son is killed and The Spirit suffers another head blow. His memory of the past 12 years is wiped out, but in a strange twist of fate, his previous memories are restored. Staggering to Wildwood Cemetery (as seen in our splash page) he finds Ellen waiting for him. “I knew you’d come. I waited,” she says with a tear in her eye. They kiss, and he tells her he doesn’t remember anything since 1952. “It doesn’t matter. As long as we’re together again!” she tells him. In our final scene, Ann and her 10-year-old son stare sadly into the distant sky. Waiting.

Missing a Back Issue? Got a hole in your Mr. Monster collection? We’ll gladly e-mail you a free Mr. Monster EEEK-Mail Catalog! Just Contact Michael T. Gilbert at:

mgilbert00@comcast.net

For a printed version, send one dollar to Michael T. Gilbert, P.O. Box 11421, Eugene OR 97440

“The Stuff Of Our Personal Nightmares” ALEX TOTH On “Deep Black Shadows Of Night”

ome issues back, Alex—noted for his virtuoso comics and animation work since the 1940s— wrote about the “mysterious” and “shadowed” in comics. At right, he adds a few more thoughts on the subject….

The Bat & The Cat

Ye Editor’s loved this Alex Toth half-page of Batman and Wildcat sketches ever since Toth-fan supreme Al Dellinges sent him a copy a couple of years ago. Alex wrote some issues back of always wanting to draw a “Wildcat” story but never being assigned one by editor Shelly Mayer. Too bad—it would’ve been the cat’s meow!

Visit the official Alex Toth website at: www.tothfans.com

The Screenplays That Time Forgot!

“R IVE R S OF TIM E”

by Roy Thomas

Read The Movies That Hollywood Never Made–But Maybe Should Have!

based on “A Gun for Dinosaur” and other stories by L. Sprague de Camp

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In Memoriam

“This Witty, MultiTalented Man” Ed Furness (1910-2005) by Robert Pincombe and “Dr. Destine” (Ed’s personal favorite). Anglo shut its doors in 1947, after the government embargo on newsprint that started the country’s indigenous comic surge was lifted.

pillar of the brief Canadian comic industry of the 1940s, artist Ed Furness, passed away on April 20th, in Mississauga, Ontario. Every conversation I shared with Ed inevitably ended with laughter and increased my respect for this witty, multitalented man. Born in 1910, Ed immigrated from Yorkshire, England, to Canada in the fall of 1920. Following the grey chill of life in Great Britain, the fiery autumn leaves of Canada’s countryside left a lasting impression on him. After attending the Ontario College of Art and working with Canadian animation pioneer Bryant Fryer, Ed married his wife of 60 years, Nell Gifford.

Ed worked in printing until his retirement in 1976, when he devoted himself to landscape painting, using his canvas to capture the beauty of Canada that so moved him as a child. In the late 1980s, a group of Toronto comic artists formed a collective named after Freelance. They were delighted when Ed himself agreed to be a member and passed on some of his extensive experience. After Nell died in 1998, Ed found solace in his family. Before his passing, Ed was a guest at Paradise Conventions’ Toronto Comicon in 2004 and was delighted to find himself among the first inductees into the newly-minted Shuster Awards’ Canadian Comic Book Hall of Fame.

In 1941 Ed became art director for Anglo-American Comics. Starting with reprints of writer Ted McColl’s syndicated comic strips Robin Hood and Company and Men of the Mounted, the company negotiated with Americanbased Fawcett Publications to re-draw the adventures of several of their marquee heroes, including “The Marvel Family,” “Ibis the Invincible,” and “Golden Arrow.” The popularity of Ed and Ted’s creation “Freelance” led the company to go alloriginal. A stable of costumed characters followed: “Commander Steel,” “Red Rover,” “Terry Kane,” “Purple Rider” (a favorite of future sciencefiction writer Harlan Ellison), “The Crusaders,”

A Fond Farewell To A Talented Gentleman (Top left:) Ed Furness, circa 1942, as seen in John Bell’s book Canuck Comics (and in A/E #36)—plus a page from Freelance V2#12, featuring his most celebrated World War II creation—and Ed’s “Commander Steel” splash from Grand Slam Comics V3#9. At top center is a photo of Ed at the 2004 Toronto comics convention. There he shared the stage with Fred Kelly, Gerard Lazare, and Michael T. Gilbert, in a panel moderated by Robert Pincombe, as noted in A/E #44. One of these days we hope to print a transcription of that historic panel, which featured three of Canada’s best comic book artists of the WWII period. Thanks to Robert Pincombe for the art scans, to Stephen Lipson, to Ed’s children Richard Furness and Carol Maund, and to John Bell. 2004 photo by Roy Thomas. [Art ©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

Comic Fandom Archive

A Talk With Writer, Educator, & Comics Fanatic

GLEN JOHNSON by Bill Schelly Glen Johnson—Comic Reader! This photo of Glen Johnson, looking urbane with his pipe, appeared in Alter Ego [Vol. 1] #8 in 1965. At around the same time, Glen was editing and publishing the newszine The Comic Reader—for which fandom artist Biljo White did the drawing at right of Pete Morisi’s Charlton hero, Judo Master. [Art ©2005 Estate of Biljo White; Judo Master TM & ©2005 DC Comics.]

Part One

ntroduction: In the fanzine scene in the early 1960s, there were a number of talented artists who added the visual components to break up the text—but what about the text itself? This interview with article-writer par excellence Glen D. Johnson signals an attempt to provide some parity to those selfless scribes whose words filled the pages. I had been in touch with Glen when I was researching fandom history in the early 1990s, and always wanted to talk to him at greater length. So I was delighted to be able to chat with him by phone on January 16, 2005. This long-overdue interview was transcribed by Brian K. Morris, and edited to final form by my friend and colleague Jeffrey Kipper. BILL SCHELLY: I was reading some of your past letters and pieces in some old fanzines, and noticed you referred to yourself once as “one of the older fans in the ’60s,” as opposed to the younger fans. But you were only 27 in 1964. When and where were you born? GLEN JOHNSON: I was born in Mackintosh, Minnesota, March 20, 1937. I’m the oldest of nine, quite a clan. My dad was a construction worker. He died when I was in my late teens. I grew up in Superior, Wisconsin, and went to college at University of Wisconsin there. When I went to college, [chuckles] I had no idea what I was going to do or be. I ended up with a major in Education and a minor in P.E. I played football in high school and starred on the team my senior year. I was somewhat athletic. BS: What were the first comics that you were aware of? JOHNSON: I vividly remember buying All-Star Comics #36, the issue that guest-starred Superman and Batman with the Justice Society. I had bought comics before that, but I don’t remember any as distinctly as I remember buying that one, bringing it home, and reading it. So, I started following All-Star. Since this started when I was very young, it went deeply with me.

BS: How did your comics interests develop over time? Were you buying them for yourself or were your parents buying them for you? JOHNSON: I bought them for myself and, in my neighborhood, we traded a lot. We kids would try to get the most out of our dime. When I was a kid, I was just a casual collector. I only became heavily involved in collecting and fandom as an adult. I started out mainly as a super-hero fan, and of cowboys to a lesser degree. Westerns were a big trend in the late 1940s. But I was always more interested in Western movies than the Western comics. BS: Did you write much when you were a kid?

JOHNSON: Never. I was a terrible writer. In fact, I would say that wanting to write about comic books really inspired me to become a somewhat better writer. Until I became interested in comics, I never had much interest in reading. For example, I had never read an Edgar Rice Burroughs book until I became interested in comics. Once I became interested in comics, I got the complete Burroughs series and read those. But that was much later, I think, than most people read those. I was probably between 24 and 27. BS: It seems that you’re a little different than most, in that your real fire for comics came after you became an adult. JOHNSON: Right. When I was working on the railroad in ’56, I was a relief clerk. This was around the time Showcase #4 with The Flash came out. I would be working away from home, and I’d go to the dime store to buy the current Showcase, for example. After I would read it, I would leave it in a park on a bench so some little kid could come along and get some benefit from it. I enjoyed it, but I never even thought about collecting until later. That began to change after I discovered comics fandom in the early ’60s. Jerry Bails had a letter printed in an early Brave and the Bold [“Justice League of America”] comic, and he stated he had a complete collection of All-Star Comics. I wrote him and asked if he could send me his complete All-Star collection so I could read it and I’d return it to him. [laughs] I was a bit naïve. BS: How did he respond? JOHNSON: He sent me a copy of Alter-Ego #2. BS: I see this connects up, because I have in front of me a letter that you wrote to Jerry on Sept. 19, 1961. He sent it to me some time ago. Were you working for the railroad at that time? JOHNSON: Yes, and going to college. So, my correspondence with Jerry started after Alter-Ego #2. When he sent it to me, it came with a letter. When I received that Alter-Ego, I saw The Spectre on the cover and I just flipped out. I was able to remember him from my childhood. Soon after that I ordered All-Star Comics #15 and 18 from Bill Thailing. I didn’t order a lot of old comics because I couldn’t afford them, but those were the first two. “JSA” has always been my main interest. It branched out from there. BS: That certainly explains your writing for Alter Ego when Roy was

Comic Fandom Archive thought, “This is my chance to give back something to fandom.” I did it for about two years. When I was editing The Comic Reader, I was in Crown Point, New Mexico, which is on the Navajo reservation. There is probably not a more godforsaken place in the whole country. There I was collecting comic book news to be published monthly. I don’t even know if we had television hooked up in Crown Point… BS: How did you end up going from the railroad in Wisconsin to Crown Point? JOHNSON: The railroad work was just seasonal. It was mainly just in the summer. After I graduated from college in 1963, a recruiter from the Bureau of Indian Affairs came by and offered me a job in Crown Point on the Navajo reservation. When they heard I was married and my wife had two years of experience as a teacher, they were just thrilled to get two teachers. We had a government home. In fact, where we lived in Crown Point, they had built a whole brand new community, and we were the first family that was there. We were living there all by ourselves out in the middle of nowhere—no street lights, nothing.

A Spectre Is Haunting Fanzines! Roy Thomas blushingly admits that he drew the Spectre cover of Alter-Ego [Vol. 1] #2. Hopefully, when he got the chance, Glen enjoyed the real thing, written by Jerry Siegel and illustrated by Bernard Baily, a whole lot more! It would’ve been hard for either Glen or Roy to imagine, back in 1961, that one day DC would publish a hardcover Archives edition collecting the first 19 “Spectre” stories in full color! The page at right is from the reprinting of More Fun Comics #60 (Oct. 1940). [A/E art ©2005 Roy Thomas; Spectre TM & ©2005 DC Comics.]

editor, because the JSA was always his main interest, as well.

BS: Wow. This community was built as part of some kind of an attempt to help the Indians?

JOHNSON: Yeah, I’ve always considered Jerry Bails and Roy Thomas to be the #1 and #2 JSA fans. I’m #3.

JOHNSON: It was a boarding school for Indians.

BS: [laughs] Okay, fair enough. What is it about the JSA, particularly, that appealed to you? JOHNSON: I liked the combination of all these colorfully-costumed characters together, who knew each other, and fighting one villain.

BS: Did you find comics of any interest or popular with any of the Indian kids? Or did that figure in at all?

JOHNSON: Later on, after I moved to Utah to an off-reservation boarding school, I BS: Did you also follow those characters in developed a number of items that Glen teaching in a language lab (English as a Second Language) their own titles? I used in teaching English as a through comic strips in 1969, at the Intermountain Indian School in Brigham City, Utah. Photo courtesy of Glen Johnson. JOHNSON: Not really. I followed the JSA second language, and I used comic in All-Star Comics because they were a team. books as teaching tools. I’d take Later on, I made the leap to the new comic’s era via the Justice League. photographs of individual comic strips, put them on an overhead When I first saw The Justice League, right away, I remembered reading projector, and have the kids read them, with a tape recorder running. All-Star when I was a kid. That was what led me into comic fandom. If Then I would have them describe everything in the scene: the characters there hadn’t been a JLA tryout in The Brave and the Bold, I probably and what they were doing. Then I would go to the next panel and do the never would have gotten involved in fandom. same thing. When we were done, I would show the whole thing at a faster rate and have them tell a story about it. The pictures made the BS: Your interests did eventually branch out, and you wrote articles experience a little more friendly. about other characters for other early fanzines before your Alter Ego pieces. Soon after you got involved in fandom, you got pulled in as I actually put together about a dozen books using comic strips. The the editor of The Comic Reader (1963). Given the fact that you one I liked best was the one which used two of Russ Manning’s Sunday didn’t see yourself as a writer, how in the world did you take on the strips telling the origin of Tarzan. I even got permission from Edgar Rice mantle of TCR? Burroughs, Inc. I gave them to the students. The Bureau published these. In fact, at one time, when I went to New York, Will Eisner wanted to JOHNSON: Well, Jerry Bails was going to give it up, and there didn’t see me because I had written him for permission to use a Spirit story. We seem to be anybody that was going to step up to the plate and do it. I

“Which Do You Look At First— The Words Or The Pictures?”

A Talk With Glen Johnson

got together at his office, where he created educational material for the Army. He thought he might be able to get involved in my project, so he actually let me go through all the Spirit proofs to pick out what I thought would be a good story! He paid me to do the story so he could also use it. He tried to package it and aim it more with Spanish-speaking Americans. BS: So he was going to adapt your idea to a different group. He was always interested in comics in conjunction with education, so that makes perfect sense. Getting back to comics fandom, when you first got involved, after getting Alter-Ego #2, did you begin collecting Golden Age comics? JOHNSON: Yes, but I didn’t really find too many at that time. I do remember finding one All-Star that I paid a nickel for. But I didn’t really find too many bargains. I did start buying new comic books. I no longer discarded them immediately. I started saving them. Also, I think I got almost everything that was a fanzine. I was definitely very, very interested. BS: Aside from Alter Ego, I know you contributed to other fanzines. What were some of your favorites? JOHNSON: I still have a complete run of Robert Jennings’ Comic World. I wrote articles in #5, 6, and 7. That was one of my biggest thrills. I received the 1964 Alley award for Best Fanzine Writer. The articles I wrote for Jennings were very long, which is what he wanted, with a lot of background and depth. Comic World would basically have only one major article. He used to say that, “If something is worth saying, it is worth saying at length.” BS: How could you write a long article about, say, Skyman, if you had very few Golden Age comics? JOHNSON: Skyman interested me so much that, when he asked me to write the article, I went out and I bought a lot of Big Shot Comics. I already had a few. I probably had 40 issues by the time I wrote that article. Afterward, I sold off all the “Skyman” issues—and then realized that I enjoyed them so much, I started collecting them again! I liked the Ogden Whitney artwork. He seemed to be able to convey so much with so few lines. His women wore the latest fashions, and he really drew pretty, curvy women. I liked that. One of my greatest thrills was when I actually got a letter from him. For some reason, he was very elusive. He didn’t get involved much with fandom, and he didn’t answer very many letters. Yet he answered, in quite a lengthy letter, that gave me a lot of good quotes for that Skyman article. BS: Yes. Whitney was an underrated talent. For the next issue you wrote a long article about the Seven Soldiers of Victory from Leading Comics. JOHNSON: If I’m not mistaken, I think Roy Thomas loaned me a couple of issues of Leading Comics for the article. BS: In the early days of comics fandom, people used to loan out old comics among those that they trusted. Maybe they still do.

Look! Up In The Sky, Man! Ogden Whitney (seen in a self-portrait) and his vintage art for the cover of Skyman #1 (1941), as reprinted by Ron Frantz in Return of The Skyman #1 (Sept. 1987), for his ACE Comics group. [Restored art ©2005 ACE Comics, Inc.]

JOHNSON: I was in touch with a fan named Raymond Miller, and I would write him to send me a couple of dozen comic books. He would send me anywhere from 12 to 24 Golden Age comics. All he would expect in return is that I reimburse him his postage and then send them back. To this day, I have a hard time believing that happened. BS: I met and talked to Raymond Miller in 1966. At that time, I lived in Pittsburgh and he lived in a suburb, so I got to see some of his collection in person. He was a very helpful guy to anybody who wanted to research comic books, because that was his passion, too. Did you meet him through the fanzines? JOHNSON: Yes. We became great friends. BS: Getting back to Comic World, you had an article on The Face in #7. What was it about The Face that appealed to you? JOHNSON: I liked The Face because of its simplicity. His costume was whatever he was wearing, and he would just throw on that ugly facemask. The mask was enough of an edge to momentarily frighten somebody or knock them off-balance. BS: I guess you became known as something of a specialist in writing Golden Age articles. You even did quite a few of them for minor fanzines here and there. JOHNSON: I had the time and I was willing to do it. BS: What comics of the ’60s and the Silver Age interested you? JOHNSON: The comics that Julius Schwartz edited, and Stan Lee’s Marvel Comics. I was a regular comic book buyer in the 1960s. To this day, I can recall buying Fantastic Four #1. I even know where I bought it—at a little five-and-dime store in Hibbeen, Minnesota. I was working there on the railroad. I picked up Amazing Fantasy #15 in Superior, Wisconsin, at a little drug store at Fifth and Ogden. BS: You must have examined the stands fairly closely to notice those, because they were not the flashiest comics to come along. JOHNSON: Right. In fact, when I bought Fantastic Four #1, I couldn’t see The Human Torch on the cover. The cover listed the characters that were in the book, and had such a bad drawing that I couldn’t recognize The Human Torch from the old days. I recognized his name, though. BS: And that was what caused you to buy it? What about SpiderMan? Amazing Fantasy #15 didn’t even say “Spider-Man” in the title. Were you looking for new things, too?

Comic Fandom Archive

JOHNSON: I think so, and after I read the first couple of Marvel comics, then I really looked for them. I can remember searching for “Iron Man” to come out. When I read the first 1960s Marvel comics, I thought that Stan Lee’s letter pages were as interesting as the comic book itself. I had a few letters published in there. I used a lot of pseudonyms. [laughs] I didn’t use my real name—especially when I wanted something to happen. I used to write letters to JLA all the time, trying to convince the editor to make Adam Strange a member. I had a strategy.

would do all the faces. He didn’t think anybody could do the faces except him. BS: Let’s talk a little more about The Comic Reader. Were you reluctant to take over this publication, which was even a monthly? JOHNSON: Yes. I did so out of a sense of duty. I was supposed to get financial assistance from the Academy, but I never did. I wasn’t supposed to lose any money. I don’t know what happened, but when I quit publishing it, I might have had a deficit of something under a hundred dollars. I never got paid for it. I did submit for it, but, for some reason, I never received it.

BS: [chuckles] Jerry Bails did the same thing. In fact, he used to give his letters to different people to mail from different parts of the country. JOHNSON: When I would be working away from home, out of Superior, I would mail all my letters so they weren’t all postmarked Superior, Wisconsin. BS: What did your wife think of you writing and enjoying comics, and so forth? JOHNSON: She was all for it, because she liked the fact that I was interested enough in comic books that I would try writing about them. I was a terrible writer when I first started. I was atrocious. It was just luck that my editors could make it readable.

BS: That’s too bad. Now, a lot of people would send you money for The Comic Reader.

BS: [chuckles] What was the first fanzine article that you did write? JOHNSON: A Crimebuster article for G.B. Love’s Rocket’s Blast-Comicollector. In it, my thesis was that Charles Biro started out as a big-

Boy, Oh, Boy! Joe Kubert drew some stories of “Crimebuster,” a.k.a. “C.B.,” after the hero of Boy Comics/Illustories had stopped busting crime and become an adventuring college student under his real name of Chuck Chandler. Is this perhaps one of the stories that Glen Johnson saw years ago, recognizing Kubert’s unsigned work? And did editor (and often writer) Charles Biro redraw Joe’s heads on this story from Boy Comics #115 (Sept. 1955)? [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

foot/comical-style artist and evolved to doing artwork on “Crimebuster” that looked like Joe Kubert’s work. I got a letter from Ronn Foss, and he told me that I had a good eye, and the reason I thought Biro’s work looked like Joe Kubert is that it really was Joe Kubert doing almost everything, except the heads. [Bill laughs] BS: Biro used to sign everything, and people generally thought that he did the artwork. And he did draw. JOHNSON: Even when Biro had Dan Barry working for him, Biro

JOHNSON: You should have seen the strange looks I used to get from the Postmaster. I always got cash. BS: Right. Sticky quarters in the mail. JOHNSON: Right. The Post Office probably thought I had some Ponzi scheme going on

from all this cash I got in the mail. BS: And lots of letters. JOHNSON: One of the things I don’t hear much anymore is people telling me, “You got me involved in fandom. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have even known about fandom.” I used to hear that from people. BS: You were sort-of at the heart of fandom, as a publisher of The Comics Reader. Can you tell me what your volume of incoming mail was on a typical day? JOHNSON: Ten would be pretty much average. My print run was only something like 200 or 250. Most people wouldn’t send 35¢ every month. They would do that for their first issue. Then they would send a check or cash for 12 issues. My wife did the typing on the magazine, I believe. That was a big part of it. I would get short letters from Steve Ditko and Stan Lee. They would tell me what would be in the future issues of Marvel Comics. BS: What was it like being at the center of comics fandom at that time? Did you get into the middle of any feuds or conflicting situations?

The Nukla Option Biljo White’s drawing of the 1960s Dell super-hero Nukla, done for Glen’s Comic Reader #40 (Aug. 1965). [Art ©2005 Estate of Biljo White; Nukla ©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

JOHNSON: No, I never did. It was kind-of nice to be sort-of in the center of fandom and be well-known and almost be a celebrity. BS: You did get contributions from some of the

A Talk With Glen Johnson

best artists in fandom. For example, Biljo White did a very nice Nukla drawing for one of your issues. JOHNSON: Yes. Russ Manning did a cover for me. Fred Harmon (artist of Red Ryder) lived in Albuquerque (about 130 miles from where I lived). He was a friend of mine. I watched him draw Red Ryder on a ditto master. It was amazing. He just whipped out a beautiful drawing of Red Ryder firing his six-shooter. I saw him many times. By the time I met him, he really wasn’t interested in comics or even Red Ryder any more. He had become a professional painter. Red Ryder was of the past, sort-of below him at that point. And he was an excellent painter. Here’s a story. My wife and I dropped over to see him one Saturday morning and he was doing a painting of Indians attacking a wagon train. I commented on how nice it looked and I said, “You know, Fred, I’ve never asked you this, but if I wanted to buy one of your paintings…if we didn’t go through an agent… and you just sold it directly to me… what would I have to pay you?” And he said, “For you, $500.” BS: Whoa! JOHNSON: I assumed that his paintings went for fifteen hundred dollars at that time. Today it would be thousands and thousands of dollars. Anyway, Fred next said, “I just hope you don’t want one of Indians attacking a wagon train. I got an order for Indians attacking a wagon train. I had just finished that painting, and another customer of mine came by and said, ‘Sell me that. Or do another one just like it.’ So I started #2.” [Bill laughs] Fred said, “I just finished #2 and someone else came by, ‘Sell me that. Or do another one just like it.’” Then Fred told me, “I started on #3 and the same thing happened. This is the fourth try that I’ve made of painting Indians attacking wagon trains. I’m so damn tired of drawing Indians attacking wagon trains, I want to do something different.”

When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder? This is the sketch that Glen watched Red Ryder creator Fred Harmon draw directly onto a ditto (spirit duplicator) master. What? You don’t know what a ditto machine was? Trust us—you’re better off! [Art ©2005 Estate of Fred Harmon.]

But he was very nice. And another nice thing is, about a year later, he sent me a book that had photos of most of his oil paintings, and told who owned them. One of my greatest regrets is that I never asked him to sit down and do a drawing that featured Red Ryder, Little Beaver, and Bronc Peeler together for me. He did Bronc Peeler in the newspaper strips before he did Red Ryder. Bronc Peeler was basically Red Ryder with a different costume. In fact, just before Bronc Peeler was dropped from the Sunday paper, his partner was Little Beaver! BS: So it would have been like a novelty drawing.

Glen visits with Fess Parker (TV and movies’ Davy Crockett in the 1950s) at a boarding school in Navajo Reservation, 1965. Photo courtesy of Glen Johnson.

JOHNSON: It would have been something really different because, to my knowledge, he never drew them together.

End of Part 1 Next issue, we’ll learn why Glen relinquished the editing of The Comic Reader, and how the famous 1964 fan-meet at Russ Manning’s house came about, as well as chat about his meetings with Pete (P.A.M.) Morisi, and his articles for Alter Ego’s 1960s incarnation. Look for Bill Schelly’s major multi-part coverage of all three 1966 New York Comicons, beginning soon in Alter Ego. As Robert Jennings used to say, “If something’s worth writing about, it’s worth writing about at length.” These 1966 comicons perfected the format that has stayed with us ever since. Fortunately, a number of the panel discussions (with folks like Otto Binder, Dick Giordano, Bill Harris, Ted White, Klaus Nordling, Gil Kane, and many others were audiotaped, and those precious tapes have come into our trembling hands. Talk about a sense of wonder! Stay tuned!! Also, in case you didn’t know, you can find complete info about all Bill’s books on the history of fandom, etc., at www.billschelly.com, which also includes some of his personal and fandom photos, artwork, and such-like. All his books can be ordered on-line. See ad on p. 70.

Monthly! The Original First-Person History!

Write to: Robin Snyder, 3745 Canterbury Lane #81, Bellingham, WA 98225-1186

re:

interview…and I’m still trying to figure out what mis-cue led me to add that “info.”)

Next, Dorothy Schaffenberger, whose late husband Kurt was a mainstay of the Golden and Silver Ages, dropped us this line:

Dear Roy, Spent the better part of yesterday reading the latest Alter Ego. I really enjoy the magazine, and I especially enjoyed the features on Julie Schwartz and, now, Morris Weiss. Bill Schelly did his usual great job on Julie. (I fear he thinks our misunderstanding was based on my ego, which wasn’t the case, and I regret that.) Jim Amash’s take on Morris brought back some memories I had long forgotten. There is only one Morris Weiss! Dorothy Schaffenberger Couldn’t agree more, Dorothy. But before we get to more commentary about Morris and Tom Gill, here’s an e-mail I received from Stan Lee in response to film producer (and recovering comics writer) Michael Uslan’s comments in #43 about the fabled 1961 golf game between Martin Goodman and a top executive which led to Fantastic Four #1:

ell, our letters section is back, after a forced absence last month so I could squeeze a bit more Thomas-oriented material into #50 and not have anything dripping over into this issue. This time, most missives deal with A/E #43’s featured attractions: interviews with veteran artists Tom Gill and Morris Weiss, and a look at the Mexican heroic comics of the 1960s.

Before we jump in feet-first, though, we should note that our luscious lead illo above came to us unsolicited (but not unappreciated) from Andreas Gottschlich of Freiburg, Germany. It shows Alter and Captain Ego, two of our “maskots” (even if neither of them technically wears a mask), attacking their enemy Tigris (from A/E [Vol. 1] #7 back in ’64). Danke, Andreas! [Art ©2005 Andreas Gottschlich; Alter & Capt. Ego TM & ©2005 Roy Thomas & Bill Schelly; characters created by Biljo White.] And now, a few words from #43 interviewee Tom Gill himself: Dear Roy, Many thanks to you and TwoMorrows for the very in-depth piece you did on me in the December issue of Alter Ego. Years ago, when I started in what has turned out to be the comic industry, I wondered about its values and integrity. Every issue of Alter Ego reveals its warmth and high standards. It’s like the Bible of our field. It has a muchneeded opportunity to encompass all facets of cartooning. Jim Amash is not only gifted and clever; he made our many interviews lots of fun. Tom Gill Jim always tries to have fun doing the interviews, Tom, figuring that some of that enjoyment will spill over to both the interviewee and the later audience. But we’re still confused about the Hopalong Cassidy daily comic strip we printed in #43, since Jim says you told him you didn’t draw it—yet it was attributed to you in the issue of Illustrators magazine whose earlier interview with you you’d showed me at last year’s San Diego Comic-Con—and indeed, there’s even a “Tom Gill” signature at lower right, although it didn’t show in the A/E printing. So we’ll just assume you forgot you did it—understandable, considering the length and breadth of your career. (Jim also informs me he definitely did not add Archie Andrews to the Tom Moore group shot in that

Hey, Roy— The business about who Martin Goodman was playing golf with reminds me of a quote from a famous writer (it may have been George Bernard Shaw, or maybe Mark Twain, or Hemingway—hell, I can’t recall—but I sort-of remember the quote): A student asked him how to word a certain sentence and he replied, “It doesn’t matter if you say ‘he left the room quickly’ or ‘he quickly left the room.’ The important thing is that he got the hell out of there!” My point is: it doesn’t matter to me if Liebowitz or Donenfeld (or Sampliner) was playing golf with Martin. The important thing is that one of the National Comics higher-ups told Martin about the JLA. That’s only my own take, of course. I realize that the facts are important to historians. God forbid the world shouldn’t know who Martin was playing golf with! Forgive me, ol’ friend… I’m just in one of my ever more frequent irascible moods. Although, bad as my memory is, I seem to remember Martin actually telling me that it was Liebowitz! Oh, well, maybe he just wanted me to think that he only played with the top brass. Yours till the Rhino loses his horn! Stan Lee I can readily understand, Stan, your not caring who (if anyone) your then-publisher Martin Goodman played golf with. After all, as you say, the most important thing is that he directed you to come up with a superhero group comic, and the end result was FF #1 and eventually the whole Marvel magilla. And the comics field is the better off for that, however it happened. But, on another level, Mike Uslan and I and a few other souls are passionately interested in the history of the comic book industry, in the same sense that a literary historian would want to know whether Dostoyevsky was still in prison when he wrote Crime and Punishment (he wasn’t), or the influence on Catch-22 author Joseph Heller of his bombing missions during World War II—or, on a pop-culture level, how

[correspondence, comments, & corrections]

77 Historical Footnote #1: You may know the story that, when I first went to work for DC during college in summer of 1972, my mentor into the business, [production chief] Sol Harrison, assigned me to clean out “The Closet.” It was something out of the last scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark… located between [publisher/art director] Carmine Infantino’s office and [DC advisor/original EC publisher] Bill Gaines’ office at 75 Rockefeller Plaza. Inside was the totally disorganized chaos of DC’s corporate history since Major Malcolm WheelerNicholson. It looked like a tornado had hit it.

Will Marvels Never Cease! Sometime it’s hard even to recall those long-ago days when a four-color encounter between Superman and his arch-rival Captain Marvel would’ve been the fulfillment of a reader’s dream—for the two, since the 1970s, have often co-starred in comic books, and even in a DC Justice League coloring book, with animation-style art by comic artist Mike DeCarlo! Thanks to Mike Mukulovsky for sharing this fine 1990s drawing with us to illustrate our point. [©2005 DC Comics.]

improvements in the printing press and the prices paid for various kinds of paper influenced the birth of the pulp magazine and the comic book. To us, it is interesting—yes, even important—that the old legend about Goodman playing golf with DC co-publisher Jack Liebowitz be subjected to such historical scrutiny as can be brought to bear on it. Mike’s remembrance (from conversations with people who were around at that time) that the other golfer almost certainly wasn’t Liebowitz or anyone else from DC proper, but rather an executive of Independent News, the DC-owned company that distributed both DC’s and Martin Goodman’s comics, helps make sense of: (a) Goodman’s telling Stan that he learned about the good sales of DC’s new Justice League title during a golf game; (b) Liebowitz’s later declaration that he never in his life played golf with Goodman; and (c) the unlikelihood that a canny character like Liebowitz would willingly have given even a minor competitor like Martin Goodman any hard information that could be used to generate a rival comic book. But an exec of Independent who was on friendly terms with Goodman would have had no particular reason not to boast about a new circulation success story! Which begs yet another question: Was that exec, whoever he may have been, simply crowing for crowing’s sake—or might he actually have been baiting Goodman to start a new super-hero title which might make even more money for IND? If so, he succeeded beyond his (or Goodman’s) wildest dreams—and the end is not yet. As for precisely who the other person slinging a 5-iron was, Michael Uslan e-mailed me recently to say that he’s fairly certain the Independent exec in question, about whom he was told years ago by DC’s Sol Harrison, “was either [Paul] Sampliner or [Harold] Chamberlain… and I believe it was Sampliner.” Moreover, Michael, encouraged by Ye Editor’s enthusiasm for the info he picked up while interning for DC in the early 1970s, responded with a few more fascinating tidbits concerning that company’s history. Take it away, Mike: Roy— Another great issue of Alter Ego. It’s funny how I read fewer and fewer comics books per month, while Alter Ego more and more becomes my favorite monthly read. Just a couple of historical insights to offer this issue, for whatever they are or aren’t worth:

Because Sol knew of my passion for comic book history, he allowed me to make notes of anything I came across in there for use as historical reference. That’s where I found the list of the sales figures of the first 20 or so issues of Action Comics, a slew of ashcan editions, George Reeves’ [TV Superman] suit, the scrapbooks prepared by attorney Louis Nizer and used in the Superman vs. Captain Marvel lawsuit, corporate records detailing everything from the amount Harry Donenfeld paid to acquire National from the Receiver for Nicholson to the amount the company paid Siegel & Shuster for “Superman.” I read all the cease-and-desist letters pertaining to “Wonder Man,” “Superwoman,” “Captain Marvel,” “Master Man,” and The Double Life of Private Strong.

This is a very long-winded way of simply mentioning that nowhere in those files did I ever see a letter from Philip Wylie or his attorney threatening DC with a suit of copyright infringement over Gladiator. Of course, that doesn’t mean that such a letter can’t [or didn’t] exist. But if so, it was missing from “The Closet,” and I think I organized a pretty complete file. I don’t believe it really happened, or I think I would have stumbled across it. Historical Footnote #2: Regarding the ad you reprinted with Batman congratulating Superman for appearing in Paramount’s [and the Fleischer Brothers’] cartoon shorts… the reference to congratulations to Batman, as well, was not in regard to Batman’s Columbia serial. In “The Closet,” I found an entire file on Max Fleischer’s plans and the actual budget for a series of color Batman cartoon shorts for Paramount. Apparently the war [World War II] and its shortages of material and manpower killed this series before it came to fruition. I have the budget somewhere in my files, and some time ago I gave a copy to Max’s grandson, Mark Fleischer, who did not know about the aborted Batman cartoons. Historical Footnote #3: Will Murray is one of my favorite comic book history detectives and writers. I love his work! Regarding his reference to Special Edition Comics #1 [the first comic book totally devoted to “Captain Marvel”], that came about in connection with the threatened lawsuit from DC. Fawcett was afraid that, if DC saw they were starting an ongoing comic series titled Captain Marvel, it could add lots of potential damages to DC’s claim. Being overly cautious, Fawcett decided to put out the first issue of Captain Marvel under the banner of Special Edition, so it wouldn’t appear to be an ongoing series. Legal advice finally changed their mind about this strategy, and they went forward with the publication of Captain Marvel Adventures. So I doubt DC would react to it by planning its own Special Edition-type comic book one-shot for Superman. And, in fact, the only reference I ever saw to a one-shot Superman project in “The Closet” (besides the ashcans) was Superman #1. It was absolutely originally intended as a one-shot. But, seeing numbers indicating it was selling out two huge printings, Donenfeld and Liebowitz decided to make it an ongoing series. Historical Footnote #4: Will is correct that all Superman radio

re: I was the source of the information that Tom Gill was at Fiction House, and there is no real reason he should recall being there, as he was there only for one or two issues… but it’s clearly his work… even signed with his “T-over-G” trademark signature of that period.

scripts were sent to DC in New York as part of its consultation/approval process, so if standard procedure was followed, they would have received a copy of the “K-Metal” script. And, based on my numerous conversations with so many editors and execs at DC who were there in the 1940s60s, I wouldn’t necessarily accept Mort Weisinger’s late-in-life claim that he invented kryptonite. Weisinger’s earlier statement that Robert Maxwell invented it is the logical conclusion. (Did you ever read the story of the Academy Awards ceremony the night Casablanca won as Best Picture? The Warner Brothers literally boxed producer Hal Wallis in the aisle so they could beat him to the stage to accept the Award!) Historical Footnote #5: As I mentioned above, there was, indeed, a cease-and-desist letter in the early 1940s from DC regarding a “Superwoman” character. I remember, back in my law school days, researching the DC v. Fawcett case and DC v. Burns case (“Wonder Man”). I did come across a reference to the “Superwoman” action. So some legal eagle out there might want to spend a few days in a law library and track it down specifically. But that answers the question why DC put together a Superwoman ashcan to protect that title as best it could in the short run. Now, since back then DC apparently did not have a trademark on the title, but simply registered it for copyright protection, re Will’s question “Was Action Comics #275’s story with Lois Lane becoming a Super-Woman done to keep up a trademark?”… the answer is “no.” If “Superwoman” was trademarked by DC by that time, it would have to make use of the mark, which the story in Action #275 failed to do in the title.

Wish he had talked a bit more about Oscar LeBeck, one of the unsung geniuses of comics, amassing the finest non-super-hero group of artisans ever assembled for his Fairy Tale Parade title… including the last greatest-of-allunknown-comic-artists, featured in one of Jim’s beautiful ImageS magazines. All these years I had puzzled over James O. Christiansen’s similarity to Tom Gill… also Gil Evans, Bernie Case, et al…. and now it’s finally explained: Tom Gill was a studio unto himself! Also wish Morris Weiss had shed a little more light on the oddball occurrence re Temerson’s Holyoke. At one point, Holyoke owned by Temerson is replaced by an actual publishing company in Holyoke! Its main title was Sparkling Stars, and as far as I know Temerson is never Showing His True (K-)Metal mentioned! The owner was listed And those pages from the legendary 1940 “K-Metal” story keep on popping as Mary Gallagher. President was up! The above scan of page 20 of the never-published first “Kryptonite” Sidney Cook and editor was Phil story brings to a total of nine the pages of original art thus far Steinberg. HOWEVER—Sherman acknowledged to exist: four which were reproduced smallish in Jim Bowles is listed as treasurer, and it Steranko’s History of Comics, Vol. 1, plus four more printed in A/E #26 & #37. is he Morris Weiss might recall, as The above one was sent to us by reader Peter Jones. Someday, maybe the he was brother to the famous entire tale will be reassembled… and DC will finally deign to publish what was destined, even in its unpublished state, to become one of the most Major Bowes of the Amateur influential “Superman” adventures ever. Hour radio show. (For some On this page, Clark Kent regains his faded super-powers when the fragment reason the Major dropped the “l” of Krypton goes “speeding back into space,” and prepares to save Lois in his last name.) This strange Lane—even if it means revealing that he is Superman. Surprisingly, as we aberration of a company also kept now know, on the very next page, he did so—in a sequence that, had it seen Termerson’s Captain Aero and print in 1940, would have drastically altered the future history of Siegel & Catman titles going through Shuster’s icon even more than would the introduction of Kryptonite (on the several issues, as well as Fox’s Blue radio series) a few years later. Script by Jerry Siegel, art by the Joe Shuster Beetle. Jim Vadeboncoeur and I studio. [Characters TM & ©2005 DC Comics.] have always felt that Temerson must’ve run into paper shortages or other problems and let the actual Holyoke-based printing company take over his titles for a while.

Mike Uslan Whew! We’ll leave A/E’s readers to digest all that information for an issue or three, Mike—then, hopefully, we’ll be back with more responses. But I hope that one of these days you’ll find the time to pen a more detailed story of your discoveries. I suppose we could call it: “Out of ‘The Closet’!” Tom Gill’s own revelations in #43 started another comics researcher, Hames Ware, co-editor with Jerry G. Bails of the 1970s Who’s Who in American Comic Books, off on a few speculations and mental perambulations of his own: Roy— Another fine issue! Nobody does interviews like Jim does.

The period that Temerson seems out of the picture runs from roughly 7/42 till 12/43, when he re-emerges as Continental and takes over his titles… yet mysteriously, the one title he was never associated with, Sparkling Stars, continues on its own—right on up to 1948, actually outlasting Temerson and any of his titles (they fade in ’46). And the only artist who appears throughout in both sets of publishers is Morris Weiss… which is why it might be interesting to hear his take on the difference in publishers of Temerson’s Holyoke and the Holyoke Ptg. Col. of Sparkling Stars! A few art notes: “Ibis” on p. 48 is by Alex Blum, and “Lance O’Casey” on the next page is Clement Weisbecker. Hames Ware

[ correspondence, comments, & corrections]

79 comic book credits listed in #33: A Treasury of Dogs (a) 1956

Thanks, Hames. While we see if Tom or someone else has anything to add to the matters you raise, from Italy comes a note from Alberto Becattini, author of #47’s lengthy essay on the career of “good girl” artist Matt Baker:

Alberto Becattini Sekowsky and Gill fans, take note! One highlight of #43 for me was the reprinting, with many added illustrations, of Fred Patten’s 1960s study “¡Supermen South!” about the Mexican super-hero comics of that period. Reader Henry R. Kujawa concurred, and sent this enthusiastic e-mail (which has been abridged for space):

Dear Roy— A few additions and corrections to the Tom Gill interview/Checklist in Alter Ego #43:

Hi Roy,

In the interview, “Jim Christensen” is often mentioned as Gill’s one-time assistant. The correct spelling of his last name is “Christiansen.” After leaving Gill, Christiansen was the first artist on the Nero Wolfe daily/Sunday strip for Columbia Features (1955-56); then he assisted Jim McArdie on the Davy Crockett, Frontiersman strip (1956-59).

Just as I enjoyed the French and Canadian features, the Mexican comics focus in #43 grabbed my attention. Sometime in the mid-1970s, my Mom spent some time in Houston and came back with a small collection of Mexican comics. It was quite a mix—Roy Rogers, Zorro, Superman, Justice League of America, Vampirella (ironically, my first-ever Vampi comic—with some really bad color instead of the original b&w), and even Lagrimas Risas (a romance comic).

Checklist Corrections:

My first exposure to masked Mexican wrestlers was El Olympico, who wrestled for Art for Juvenile Books: Around From Out Of The Past… the World in 80 Days [Golden a time in the early ’70s in the Philly area. Another classic Lone Ranger page by Tom Gill—this one from “Master of the flying drop-kick,” he was one Picture Classic 1957]; Black issue #98 (Aug. 1956). [©2005 Lone Ranger Television, Inc.] of the cleanest good-guys around, and one of Beauty [Golden Picture Classic the most stylish. 1956]; The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the Affair of the Gentle Saboteur [Whitman 1966]; Sherlock Holmes [Golden Picture Classic In more recent years, there was a short-lived Fox-TV series Los 1956] Luchadores, which featured the exploits of wrestler and super-hero COMIC BOOK CREDITS: KK/Dell (before 1962): The Story of Ruth (a) 1960 Western/Whitman/Gold Key: Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery (a) 1963/64/66/70/71 [#3, 4, 6, 15, 30, 37]; covers (a) 1967-68 [The Owl #14]; Ripley’s Believe It or Not (a) 1966/70/72/73/77/79 [#2, 21, 36, 42, 74, 90]; Twilight Zone (a) 1962/63/66/67/72 [#1, 5, 17, 23, 43] And one more addition—to Mike Sekowsky’s KK/Dell

Lobo Fuerte, his younger sidekick Turbine, and their friend Maria. It was very much like Batman, Robin, & Batgirl from’60s TV, only with much better writing and Thanks, Roy! See You At production values, and played http://www.webspawner.com/users/zodiaccomics/ more “straight,” though with healthy amounts of character humor. And, for the last 9 years, I’ve been a huge fan of Los Straitjackets—“the masked superheroes of instrumental rock & roll”! This band specializes in “surfing” music— instrumental guitar—and wear Mexican wrestling masks onstage. Although they’re from Nashville, group spokesman Danny Amis (alias “Daddy-O Grande”) speaks only in Spanish when addressing the audience.

From Mexico, With Love —And Masks Henry Kujawa sent us both this scan of an interior page from the 1970s Mexican romance comic Lagrimas Risas, and a photo of the cast of the TV series Los Luchadores. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

And yet, to this day, I’ve never seen any Santo movies… an oversight I must correct one of these days. Take care! Henry R. Kujawa 1202 Everett St. Camden, NJ 08104

A few issues back, we mentioned Henry Kujawa’s comic book Stormboy— but accidentally gave the wrong website address. Well, this time, we’ve got a picture to go with the right address. [©2005 Henry Kujawa.]

re: On another subject:

Be careful what you wish for, Henry! Those Santo movies are definitely an acquired taste. By the way, I regret to report that “¡Supermen South!” author Fred Patten suffered a stroke this past spring, from which he is slowly but surely recuperating. I know he’s happy to see his entire article collected at last, and indeed he generously traded me his collection of 1960s Mexican comics for a lifetime subscription to Alter Ego. Let’s hope you’re reading it and I’m putting it out for a good long while yet, Fred— and I rather suspect we will be.

Without wanting to open that 30-gallon drum labeled “Fancy Grade Premium Nightcrawlers—Economy Size,” something caught my eye over in Mr. Monster’s collection of the National Cartoonist Society’s Eisenhower cartoons. Charles Biro’s little bio blurb in the NCS book ran: “[Biro] is a producer of that indigenous American literature called the comic book. The comic book goes back to the early 1900s, when chapbook publishers compiled Katzenjammer Kids, Happy Hooligan, Foxy Grandpa, et al., into pamphlets for sale at 25¢ by railroad butcher boys.”

Longtime fan Dwight Decker, who has an early article upcoming in A/E about the Nazis vs. Superman (in real life) in the 1940s, had this to say about Fred’s article:

The way that blurb was written is striking both for what it says and what it doesn’t. The NCS book was published in 1956, after comic books had been through an intense period of public criticism. And the book is supposed to honor the President of the United States, where an acknowledgement of current controversies might be distracting. So Biro’s blurb says nothing about comic books at the time (like his own heavy-duty crime comics), but only refers mistily to their hallowed origins some 50 years before.

Dear Roy,

I realize the United States and Mexico have had an often contentious relationship over the years, but I found myself a little bothered by Pablo Marcos’ rather, uhm, confrontational drawing of Uncle Sam facing some threatening ¡Supercharro Rides Again! Mexican super-heroes (even while appreciating the parody of the cover of Avengers #1). I think Dwight Decker’s mention of Supercharro is all the I’d rather look at the whole thing as Uncle Sam excuse Ye Ed needed to print another of Sixto Valencia Burgos’ great covers for Criollo – El discovering some friends he didn’t know he had. Caballo Invencible, in this case #104 (Sept. 1964). Or—in comic book terms, imagine an evil interBut I have to wonder if those butcherThis time, the Mexican hero and his valiant steed national terrorist mastermind holding a tied-up boy books of strip reprints really were comic were battling aliens in flying saucers. [©2005 the Uncle Sam prisoner and about to do something respective copyright holders.] books in the modern sense. I know there’s awful to him…then the door blows open and been a campaign to recognize a so-called Supercharro and the rest burst in, shouting, “Nobody does that to our “Platinum Age” of comic books predating what we’ve always assumed amigo!” were the first comic books, but I still think it all gets back to somebody Or maybe I’m just getting too sentimental in my later years. confused on the point that a comic book is a magazine, not a book. A book of comics is not necessarily a comic book. Those early strip Anyway, I really enjoyed Fred Patten’s “¡Supermen South!” article. reprints are, rather, the great-grandfathers of books that reprint When part of it ran it in CAPA-Alpha back in 1970, a couple of fellow newspaper strips like Garfield or Beetle Bailey or whatever (and I don’t members and I discussed our regret at not being able to get hold of the think there’s been a movement to get those into the Overstreet Price Supercharro (officially Criollo) comic ourselves, since it seemed like an Guide). What we call “comic books” didn’t exist before the early 1930s, undiscovered gem, and Professor Mental one of the all-time great and comic art before that really belongs to the newspaper strip, cartoon, villains. “El Sabio Loco” may have been Dr. Sivana turned up a couple or caricature categories. That’s my two pesos’ worth, anyway. of notches, but a 98-year-old savant who considered himself in “the flower of youth” was somehow endearing. Of course, by 1970, the book Dwight Decker was two years dead, so our chances of ever seeing any copies were remote. To put it succinctly, Dwight: I’m with you on that one, although the pre-history of comic books is fascinating, as well. Dwight also forwarded When Fred originally wrote (most of) his article in 1965, American this copy (abridged here) of a letter he sent to Arthur C. Scott, who in comics fandom hadn’t been around for too long, and hadn’t even 2001 co-authored (with Dr. Wallace Maynard) a book titled The completely absorbed everything in the current US scene. Fred was one Paperback Covers of Robert McGinnis: of the first US fans to realize there were original comics in other countries with unfamiliar characters and creators. Moreover, he was probably the first fan writer to discover that foreign comics weren’t just hopelessly mysterious oddball curiosities, but something you could find out about, appreciate, even read the same way you did American comics… and to report back on what he had found—not just Mexican comics, but then French and later Japanese comics. Some of Fred’s articles nearly 35 years ago certainly changed the way I approached comics-collecting. I had crashed and burned in high school French, mostly because I had little idea of what French was good for. Then I read Fred’s articles and found out what French was good for, which was reading some pretty nifty comics, and I ended up a language major in college. So it was good to see the full-length version of “¡Supermen South!” in all its abundantly illustrated glory in A/E #43, both as a snapshot of the Mexican comics scene 40 years ago and as a nostalgic reminder of the early days of American comics fandom when everything was still fresh and new.

Dear Art: My copy of your book arrived today… and the serendipities just keep getting dippier! Paging through at random, I hit the cover painting for The Girl Who Cried Wolf on page 1929… and instantly realized I had seen the lady before. On page 17 of Alter Ego #43, there is a reproduction of issue #7 of a 1960s Mexican comic book called El Piloto Fantasma… with a line drawing of the lady from the McGinnis painting. Face and hair are just a touch different, but everything else, down to the positioning of the shoe that’s off, is just about exactly the same. Oh, the Mexican version added the edge of a bra and bra straps, I guess so she wouldn’t show quite so much bosom. Still… holy swipe-orama! Dwight Decker I’m sure you know, Dwight, that, in comic books as in most fields, swiping is the sincerest form of flattery! Next, a letter from Arthur

[ correspondence, comments, & corrections] Chertowsky:

81 a Comic Strip Party for the Dade County Autistic Society, in which for a donation you got to go to a party at the Miami Springs Country Club and get a free original comic strip, donated by dozens of artists and writers in the business. I was fortunate to get a Leonard Starr On Stage and, after the party when there were several strips remaining, Morris gave me a Leslie Turner Captain Easy. The highlight of that fundraiser was meeting Muhammed Ali, who was months away from his first fight after his suspension.

Dear Roy,

I’ve just read the Morris Weiss interview in your latest issue. The older I get (I’m 50), the more my tastes revert back to my pre-super-hero-fan days—I’m interested now in Archie, Katy Keene, and Millie the Model and their respective artists. As a 5- or 6year-old, I remember finding secondhand Patsy Walker comics drawn by Morris Weiss and noted the distinctive difference in style with Patsy’s thenartist Al Hartley. I never knew much about Mr. Weiss till now—he underI found Morris to be not just a rates himself as an artist—at least, I fountain of graphic arts history, but a enjoy his work. I recently bought a kind man who valued his profession. comic he drew that’s not in your Thanks for bringing him to the “Morris Weiss Checklist”—Hedy attention of many more fans. The Mark Of D’Arro Wolfe #1 (and only), 1957. The cover is Gary Brown by Hartley, but all the interior art is by Here’s another example (we printed the splash in A/E #43) of Morris Greenacres, FL Mr. Weiss. I’m curious—the date of this Weiss’ exquisite work on the unpublished “D’Arro” feature which he drew in the mid-1940s in the style of (and in conjunction with) the issue indicates it was published after the Your verbal picture helps round accomplished illustrator Charles Voight, artist of the 1920s humor strip time Mr. Weiss stopped drawing Patsy out our image of Morris Weiss and Betty. They couldn’t get the newsprint for their publishing venture, so Walker. Were the stories in this issue his work, Gary—so, thanks! We’ll this is the first printing ever of these panels. [©2005 Morris Weiss.] part of a backlog of stories intended for close with another comment on a one-shot comic, or was Mr. Weiss “¡Supermen South!”— from yet another longtime comics fan, Howard going to continue the Hedy Wolfe book if it had gone beyond the first Leroy Davis: issue? Hi, Roy— Arthur Chertowsky We’ll see what the likes of Dr. Michael J. Vassallo, Jim Vadeboncoeur, Tom Lammers, et al., have to say re your query, Arthur—and if and when they respond, you’ll read about it right here. Gary Brown, who was interviewed in A/E #37 about his late ’60s/early ’70s fanzine writing, sent this reminiscence of Morris Weiss: Roy, I had the pleasure of meeting Morris in the mid-1970s while living in Miami. I was a guest at his home a couple of times and was captivated not only by the many stories he had of comic strip history, but by his tales of collecting original art as a young fan in the 1930s and ’40s. He talked about visiting artists like Ernie Bushmiller, and about his working with Stan Lee. On the walls of his home were originals by Alex Raymond, Milton Caniff, Roy Crane, Hal Foster, and many others, including an original Norman Rockwell painting. Morris was writing and drawing Mickey Finn at the time, after the death of Lank Leonard.

Enjoyed the article on the Mexican Silver Age very much. I don’t speak Spanish, but I’ve studied Latin and Portuguese at one time or another, so I can sometimes get the gist of it. I have, somewhere in my collection, a Mexican comic that epitomizes the difference between US and Mexican comics. It involves a detective looking into a series of murders in a museum. It becomes apparent that there is a mummy walking around…or something equally supernatural. The detective figures out what is happening and then leaves the building, saying something like, “I don’t get paid enough to mess with this.” End of story. Maybe it was continued into the next issue, but I thought it was a great way to end the story. Would we ever see anything like that in US comics? By the way, did you ever see an Arab edition of Superman? They read right to left, so the art is reversed. That means the “S” on Superman’s chest is reversed! On the interviews… I’m struck by how much we learn about the industry from interviews with artists who see themselves as limited, like Morris Weiss and Tom Gill. Howard Leroy Davis

At one point, he organized

Not, of course, that the accomplishments of Messrs. Weiss and Gill in the comics field were ever exactly chopped liver! Now, we’ll close with one final connection re A/E #43: Namely, Craig Delich advises us that the supposed image of cartoonist Ed Wheelan we ran in A/E #43 was actually a photo of Al Jolson, famous entertainer of the 1920s and ’30s. The Jolson photo was mislabeled as Wheelan in our source, Wheelan In The Right Photo the 1977 Minute Movies collection published by Second time’s the charm! At left is Ed Wheelan, Hyperion Press—and there was no photo therein of creator/writer/artist of the 1920s strip Minute Movies and, Wheelan himself. [But see photo at left.] during the 1940s, for comics published by M.C. Gaines, first at All-American (DC), later at EC. This photo and the Wheelan sketch above graced the cover of Don & Maggie Thompson’s 1962 fanzine Comic Art #4, which featured coverage of Wheelan. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

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No. 110 August 2005

84 I don’t know where Ed Robbins was staying at the time, but I must have been at the Dixie Hotel … because it was in that vicinity that I was later stopped by a couple of M.P.s … Military Police. There followed a series of stupid, I thought, questions during which I made the mistake of smarting off. I don’t know why I did things like that! “How long you been in the Service?” I was asked. “How long you been?” I countered. I felt I had the right. He had asked me that!

[FCA EDITORS NOTE: From 1941-53, Marcus D. Swayze was a top artist for Fawcett Publications. The very first Mary Marvel character sketches came from Marc’s drawing table, and he illustrated her earliest adventures, including the classic origin story, “Captain Marvel Introduces Mary Marvel (Captain Marvel Adventures #18, Dec. ’42); but he was primarily hired by Fawcett Publications 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 in 1944, 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, including Sweethearts and Life Story. After the company ceased publishing comics, Marc moved over to Charlton Publications, where he ended his comics career in the mid-’50s. Marc’s ongoing professional memoirs have been FCA’s most popular feature since his first column appeared in FCA #54, 1996. Last issue Marc recalled some of the art techniques he used while working on Flyin’ Jenny with Russell Keaton. In this issue, he tells of a time when Captain Marvel got him out of a jam! —P.C. Hamerlinck.] A Fawcett decision in 1941 that all Captain Marvel art be prepared “in house” led to the employment of Chic Stone, Ray Harford, and Bob Boyajian. They were followed by Al Fagaly and Ed Robbins. Both Fagaly and Robbins can be remembered as having gone on to greater fame with syndicated newspaper features … Al with writer Harry Shorten on There Ought to be a Law! and Ed with Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer.

“Five years!” I responded. “And still only a Corporal?” That didn’t help matters a bit. Details of the discharge process were such that the official document accompanied the application for military pay due the serviceman. It meant that for several weeks following discharge, the individual carried at best only a photostatic copy of the original. To minimize the text here, I was standing before the M.P. on 42nd Street at some weird A.M. hour, in uniform, with no pass, no furlough, and no official discharge papers. Not good. “Hey, look at this!” the M.P. called to his companion. “A phony discharge! We’ve got one here!” With that we began our march up the street. On the way to wherever we were going, we were joined by another pair of M.P.s with several more innocent fun-lovers in uniform. When we reached our destination … that place! I’ll never forget that place! Something like an oversized second floor Manhattan apartment … done over in contemporary hoosegow! At one end were two cluttered tables behind which sat a couple of weary-looking lieutenants … busy questioning a long line of unkempt G.I.s, one by one. At the other end … hold on for this … chain link fencing stretched from wall to wall, floor to ceiling. Behind it … oh, those poor, dismal guys! I did not want to be in that cage … ever! From my place in the line I began a mental list of those who could be called to identify me. But I didn’t know where the people with whom I worked lived! The “list” rapidly dwindled to my father back home … 1500 miles away! And what could Papa tell them … that I had been a good little boy? I had to face it … there wasn’t a soul I could call to get me out of this!

I don’t recall seeing Al Fagaly much after that period … but I do remember Ed Robbins … and one particular evening in 1944! It couldn’t have been more than a week or so after my discharge. I was still in uniform. So was Ed. We were on our way to visit an artist friend, Al McLean, over on the eastern side of Manhattan. On the route we stopped at a couple of places, a bottle shop and a deli. McLean was doing a newspaper strip featuring a little girl character called Patsy. When we arrived he put it aside as we unloaded our goodies. In a short time some cordial neighbors showed up, a guitar was brought in … and we had a grand old evening.

Captain Marvel saves the day, in a Swayze-drawn panel from “Capt. Marvel Gets The Heir,” in Captain Marvel Adventures #40 (Oct. 1944)…the same year Cap got Marc Swayze himself out of a mess! [©2005 DC Comics.]

“We Didn’t Know... It Was The Golden Age!”

The lieutenant was leaning back more comfortably in his chair now, as though questioning a real criminal was more interesting than the general run. I began again, with careful explanation that it had not been an attempt to escape justice that I had worked in one state, been drafted in another, spent service time in another … and so forth. It just happened that way. “So what are you doing here in New York?” he asked. The air was clearing. Some of the poise and dignity I had counted on was returning. I continued, including the civilian experience as a commercial artist. “What kind of artwork did you do?” I was asked. “Comic book work. You know … those magazines the kids love … super-heroes and all …” He leaned forward on his elbows, his voice lower. “What super-heroes?” “Well, for one … Captain Marvel, and …” The officer was leaning farther across his desk now, his voice barely above a whisper: “You drew Captain Marvel?!! … and Billy Batson?” Quoting Marc’s note appended to this pic: “Photo originally reproduced for Fawcett promotion journal of the day. The caption at the top is misleading… it is a section of the “big” Fawcett art dept. and includes a beginning of a C.M. [Captain Marvel] “team”…(not an assembly line). The only salaried comic book artists not shown were Mac Raboy and C.C. Beck. “Pictured in upper right, next to wall, is Pete Costanza; to his right, Marc Swayze. In near foreground, next to taboret, is Ray Harford, behind whom is Bob Boyajian; to his left, Chic Stone. Partly seen against the wall is Paul Pack, and at the window, Irwin Weill, both noncomics artists of the big staff.” [Photo ©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

I managed to resist another glance across the room … at that cage! It wouldn’t do to show concern over the situation. Time now to concentrate on poise … and dignity … qualities of a good, sincere, honorable soldier …

There … you have it. The World’s Mightiest Mortal had come to the rescue once again! When I was finally escorted to the exit … by the lieutenant … the conversation had got around to the possibility of a personally autographed sketch. “Just a small one will do!” he waved. Very typical, I thought, boarding the first cab that came along. Captain Marvel … suddenly appearing … just before it was too late …

And this time without the slightest utterance of SHAZ… the magic word! [More Golden Age memories from Marc Swayze next issue.]

My thoughts were interrupted. The guy before me had begun to empty his pockets on the officer’s table. Two watches … three rings … another watch … more jewelry … hey! This fellow had spent the day stealing! He was led away toward the back of the room and the loud clank of the cage door closing behind him could have been heard in New Jersey. Very sobering! The eyes of the official behind the desk were fixed on the paper he held … presumably the M.P. report. He looked like … perhaps under more favorable conditions … he might be a fairly nice guy. Maybe he could be convinced that I, too … being a fairly nice guy, myself, was … well … had no business there … and … He did not look up as he spoke: “What’s all this about your having no furlough or pass … and carrying fake discharge papers?” It startled me. “Well, you see … I’m not actually in the military … not presently, that is … I’m really a civilian … and …” Hell! I had blown it from the very start!

From Fiction To Factual Fantasy by Otto O. Binder Edited for FCA by P.C. Hamerlinck

he following essay—written by chief Golden Age Captain Marvel/Marvel Family scribe Otto Binder—gives an overview of Otto’s staggering output during his comic book career. The piece was originally published in Don Glut’s 1963 Shazam Annual fanzine. Don himself went on to become a prolific comics and television writer; he even wrote for the 1970s live-action Shazam! TV series, and in recent years has written, produced, and directed instant cult films such as Dinosaur Valley Girls, et al. Thanks to Don for granting us permission to reprint Otto’s informative article. —P.C. Hamerlinck.

Comics Cyclone In the spring of 1941, I yelled “SHAZAM!” and changed from a normal pulp author into the Writing Fiend. Unlike the costumed characters I wrote about, I did not return to my human form for some twenty years.

Otto Binder wrote 144 “Marvel Family” stories (as well as many backup solo stories that appeared in the pages of The Marvel Family), and created Uncle Marvel. This is the C.C.Beck/Pete Costanza cover for Marvel Family #8 (Feb. 1947). The photo of Otto at right first appeared in Alter Ego [Vol. 1] #9 in 1965. [©2005 DC Comics.]

During that incredible (even to me) time from 1941 to 1960, no less than 2,465 comics scripts spewed from four worn-out typewriters. An average of about 125 stories per year, ranging from 6 to 18 pages each (18-page stories were not uncommon in the early days when the 64-page comic books flourished). “Fantastic” is perhaps the word for the total number of pages written, with 5 to 8 panels each—32,000 pages all told, equal to 1,000 full 32-page magazines of recent years. My greatest productive year was 1944 (under a 1-B plus 3-A draft classification including OWI deferment), in which 228 tales were churned out on a smoking machine that I last remember melting away completely. As to the total number of words banged down on paper—not only the visible few lettered in as captions and dialog but all the unseen-byreader descriptions to the artist—I cannot guess. Nobody would believe it—including myself. I woke out of a daze around 1960, realizing I had in effect been a one-man assembly line for stories. A Shazamivac, so to speak, more closely related to the computer than to flesh-and-blood people. I sometimes think the 7090 data processor might have broken down under the workload. Why didn’t I? I did, for a period of some eight months around 1950. I had a bad and confused time reorienting my bruised psyche. But then my rested brain circuits got to clacking again and it was back to the old grind. We consoled ourselves, whenever hurried scripters met, by calling it the “Golden Rut.” Name credit, no. Fame, no. Satisfaction, no. Pride, Otto Binder’s famous creation, the world’s most human-like talking tiger, Mr. Tawny, needs the help of his old friend Captain Marvel again. C.C. Beck once said that Otto had “the soul of Mr. Tawny.” Cover of Captain Marvel Adventures #86 (July 1948) drawn by Beck. [©2005 DC Comics.]

From Fiction To Factual Fantasy

no. Esteem, no. But money, yes. Yet to be fair, it was not Mammon worship in full. It was more like having a tiger by the tail, who wouldn’t let you let go. Or maybe some vague motivation worked within me to become the Erle Stanley Gardner of comics, namely the most prolific producer. Sometimes such twisted drives can seize you. To skip the psychoanalysis and get back to bare facts, here are further statistics for the historical pot … Scripts for Fawcett Publications Captain Marvel Captain Marvel Jr. Mary Marvel Marvel Family Total (1941 to 1953) Scripts for DC Comics Superman Jimmy Olsen Superboy Lois Lane Supergirl SF/Mystery in Space/Strange Stories [ = Strange Adventures ] Total (1953 to 1960)

529 161 152 144 986

65 123 140 022 012 221 583

Obviously, out of the grand total of all comics under my invisible byline, a total of 1569 Fawcett and DC scripts made up 2/3. Other comics characters – Captain America, Black Owl, Captain Midnight, Golden Arrow, Green Arrow, to name a few – added up to 1/3 of my total output in those 19 years from 1941 to 1960. My work appeared in about 150 different magazines and included at least 250 varied heroes, many of course for which I wrote only a few tales. If you wonder about the “Golden” part before the “Rut,” rates soared magnificently from $2.00 a page in 1941 to highs of $15.00 in the 1950s, and the average since the war was some $10.00 a page. Not knowing if Internal Revenue agents read comics fanzines, I won’t reveal my total take through those two decades. Suffice it to say that at a house-warming party in 1944 my friends saw a sign, “The House That Capt. Marvel Built” … without a mortgage. That was the heyday. The decline of the comics set in after the war. Captain Marvel and Fawcett’s comics, as is common knowledge, met their own private Waterloo in the form of a Superman suit that ended in an out-of-court settlement and the demise of the Marvel Tribe in 1953.

Invited over to DC by my old-time friend and editor of early sciencefiction pulp days (1930-1940), I re-entered the comics marathon and continued from 1953 to 1960 for Mort Weisinger. Also for Julie

Otto O. Binder

Binder’s first Captain Marvel assignment for Fawcett Publications, in 1941, was “Return of the Scorpion!” in this Dime Action Book (similar to a Big Little Book). His story served as a sequel to Republic Pictures’ movie serial The Adventures of Captain Marvel, released that year. Cover by C.C. Beck. [©2005 DC Comics.]

Schwartz and his sciencefiction comics. Sparked mainly by the superfertile mind of Weisinger (I intend no pun since it is sober fact), we “revitalized” and expanded the “Superman Empire.” Mort chose me to launch the new titles of Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane comics. We also conjured up such side characters and angles as the Bizarros, Supergirl, Brainiac, Tales of Krypton, Lois Lane’s dream life, et al.

a Marvel Triumvirate with me, out of which flowed new dimensions in plotting and storytelling. 1930 to 1940 were my science-fiction pulp days in the main. 1941 to 1960 produced the comics cloudburst. 1960 to date has seen a rather abrupt switch in my writing career—from fiction to non-fiction. Actually, I had been writing science-fact articles some 10 years previously for various magazines. Early in 1960 I was offered the editorship of a new magazine—Space World, published by Bill Woolfolk, himself an early comics writer. These heavy duties resulted in my comics scripts for DC petering away until finally Mort Weisinger understandingly let me off the hook and gave me what he loyally calls “an indefinite leave of absence” with the option of returning to the Superman fold any time I wish.

Space Is Stranger Than Fiction Since then, however, the most “fantastic” of all writing has caught me up fully—the solid facts of the Space Age. In October 1960, a syndicate panel was launched under my byline, with art by Carl Pfeufer (another old-timer of comics). Our Space Age is still going today, not making history and appearing in only about 50 USA and foreign papers, but I like it tremendously. Also since 1960 I’ve been writing hardcover books with The Moon, Planets of Our Solar System, Atomic Energy Story, Jets & Rockets, Victory in Space, and Careers in Space in print. Riddles of Astronomy will appear in spring, 1964, and three more Space Age books are under contract. Why the complete switch from fantasy fiction—both in pulps and comics—to pure science-fact writings? My own theory is that I’m a frustrated scientist or engineer, failing by one year’s credits to win my

Let me hasten to reiterate that I take no credit, beyond development of the scripts, for these colorful expansions into Supermanland. The basic ideas and ingenious plot-twists always came from Super-editor Mort. In Captain Marvel I played a more inspirational role, originating many of the villains, Uncle Marvel, Mary Marvel, the Marvel Family, and giving Sivana his wicked relatives. However, no writer works alone. Editors play a part in helping nourish new concepts. At Fawcett, both C.C. Beck, the incomparable artist, and chief editor Wendell Crowley formed

From Fiction To Factual Fantasy

degree (chemical engineering) because of the Great Depression of 1929-36 depleting both my folks and Chicago City College of funds (the college folded). A psychologist would say, I suppose, that I turned to the next best thing— fictionizing my ambitions. And it is a fact that by far the greatest portion of all my pulp and comics writing has been oriented toward science and space angles. Thus, with the advent of Sputnik and the space program, I was “home” again, psychologically speaking, able to switch to the real thing. And as far as I’m concerned, I’ll continue chronicling the space saga stretching into a limitless future far beyond my lifetime. To me, real-life astronautics events are more exciting and “imaginative” than any fictional plot I ever had, or ever could conceive. Nothing Adam Link, Anton York, or other science-fiction pulp heroes could do, nor any of the most amazing feats of Captain Marvel or Superman, can hold a candle to the supreme adventure of Astronaut John Glenn in merely leaving earth and America for the first time. Nor could all the super-brainy and super-brawny people that marched out of my mind equal a tenth of the thrill I will feel within the near future, when writing of the first men stepping out to stir up the age-old dust on the moon. The factual deed in space exploration, even the simplest first step, is infinitely more pulse-pounding than all the greatest epics of heroic fiction. The youth of today are going to live the things we wrote very pale versions about. And I’m going to be their “space reporter,” for as long as I’m privileged to be around as mankind’s venture among the stars unfolds. [For more about Otto’s life and times, seek out a copy of Bill Schelly’s acclaimed Binder biography, Words of Wonder.] The final page from Space Travel, a 1959 Golden sticker book written by Otto Binder, with art by C.C. Beck. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

These two drawings by Larry Ivie accompanied this article when it originally appeared in Don Glut’s Shazam Annual fanzine in 1963. Otto wrote occasional “Captain America” stories as well as a multitude of “Captain Marvel” tales. [Art ©2005 Larry Ivie: Capt. Marvel TM & ©2005 DC Comics; Captain America TM & ©2005 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Fiction by C.C. Beck Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck [Originally presented in FCA #23/FCA/SOB #12, Feb./Mar. 1982] Fiction is not life. Fiction shows things the way they ought to be, not the way they are.

I A

—OTTO BINDER

ccording to the dictionary, fiction is the creation of imagination and does not imply an intent to deceive. Fabrication, the dictionary says, is definitely meant to deceive. In both cases lies are being told, but the creator of fiction does not want anyone to believe him, while the inventor of fabrication does. Fairy tales are fiction, but many advertising claims, political speeches, and some religions are fabrications. Stories about Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny are not meant to be believed. Those who tell them with perfectly straight faces to little children are malicious, evil people. They do not believe the stories themselves, but they expect their listeners to believe them. Stories about the bogeyman, the devil, guardian angels, ghosts, and such are often believed by the storytellers themselves. Such storytellers are dangerous; they sometimes become the leaders of strange cults and destructive movements. There are always far more people ready to believe any kind of outrageous fabrication than there are people ready to accept the truth about anything.

In comics, as long as the art remains unrealistic, nobody will take the stories seriously. Even little children know that real people do not have pointed ears and potato noses and shoe-button eyes. In comics animals can talk and heroes can win while villains lose. Little guys can defeat big guys; honest people can triumph over dishonest ones. Even the smallest child knows that in the real world around him quite the opposite always takes place. Those who present the fictional characters and situations in comics in ultra-realistic style are fabricators and out-and-out liars, no better than political propaganda and phony religious leaders. It is doubtful that any comic producers themselves believe their material, but that they expect their readers to believe it is shown by the serious way they present it. Everyone in their comics has eyelashes and teeth and looks perfectly real (except that he usually has two or three times as many muscles as a real person). Monsters are drawn with every scale, wart, and dripping fang painstakingly depicted; fantastic machines and robots are so carefully drawn that you can count all their rivets and seams. When dwarves, hunchbacks, idiots, and old people are drawn realistically, they become repulsive. When birds and animals are drawn realistically but wearing clothes, talking, and acting like human beings, they become monstrous. Horses can’t fly; adding realistic eagle wings to a realistic horse is silly. Flying people—with or without wings—are even sillier when drawn realistically. In comics people and animals and other things do fly, but the reader will accept them if they’re obviously just fictional characters. Otto Binder’s fictional characters, from the robot Adam Link to Mr. Tawny the talking tiger and Mr. Mind the talking worm, were never meant to be accepted as real. Otto treated Captain Marvel and his offshoots Mary and Junior as people living only within the fictional world of a comic book, where anything could happen. Strangely enough, some people today are offended by this handling of comic book characters,

Ironically, Mr. Tawny, the Talking Tiger, was Otto Binder’s most human-like character. A panel from Binder and Beck’s Mr. Tawny syndicated comic strip samples. They were told it was too “comic” to be in a newspaper strip. [©2005 Estates of Otto Binder & C.C. Beck.]

The artists who illustrated Otto’s stories did so, originally, in cartoon style. People had dots for eyes, and tigers and worms had fits of

Fiction

frustration or of wild glee when they danced around with little puffs of dust behind them. Violence was shown, but not realistically. People were hit over the head with lead pipes and saw stars and little singing birds. Villains were knocked out with a single punch—a highly unrealistic method of settling scores. Both heroes and villains were often incredibly stupid and gullible, even more than real people ever are. When Otto and I tried to syndicate our Mr. Tawny newspaper strip in the early ’50s, we were told that shoe-button eyes and potato noses were old hat and unacceptable to readers. Mary Worth and such realistic soap operas were all that the syndicates wanted at that time. Today, unrealistic strips have come back in the syndicates, but in comic books they have not. In today’s comics the drawings look like the wax figures seen in museums and the backgrounds look like the sets of epic movies. While Mr. Tawny might be accepted by a syndicate today, he would not be accepted by one of today’s comic book publishers or by some of their readers, many of whom find Golden Age comics crude and childish. The readers who hold such opinions are, of course, adults who are not as open-minded as real children (and probably never were.) But without Otto Binder to write the stories, none of his wonderful characters will ever come to life again, alas. We lost a whole world of fantasy and wonderful fiction when we lost Otto. C.C. Beck wrote, in his tribute to Otto Binder in FCA/SOB #12/FCA #23: “The name Otto Binder never appeared in a Fawcett comic, hence he was completely unknown to readers until long after, when various fans started to sing his praises. This may have brought him some fans in later years, but during the Golden Age he was known only to a small circle of admirers, of whom your editor was one of the most sincere. I had admired his work ever since the ’30s.” [Mr. Mind art ©2005 DC Comics.]

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(208-page Trade Paperback) $26 US

• Covers KURT’S LIFE AND CAREER from the 1940s to his passing in 2002! • Features NEVER-SEEN PHOTOS & ILLUSTRATIONS from his files! • Includes recollections by ANDERSON, EISNER, INFANTINO, KUBERT, ALEX ROSS, MORT WALKER and others! (128-page Trade Paperback) $19 US

REVISED EDITION! T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS COMPANION The definitive book on WALLACE WOOD’s super-team of the 1960s, featuring interviews with Woody and other creators involved in the T-Agents over the years, plus rare and unseen art, including a rare 28-page story drawn by PAUL GULACY, UNPUBLISHED STORIES by GULACY, PARIS CULLINS, and others, and a JERRY ORDWAY cover. Edited by CBA’s JON B. COOKE. (192-page trade paperback) $29 US

A comprehensive look at Tuska’s personal and professional life, including early work with Eisner-Iger, crime comics of the 1950s, and his tenure with Marvel and DC Comics, as well as independent publishers. The book 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 many more! A gallery of commission artwork and a thorough index of his work are included, plus original artwork, photos, sketches, previously unpublished art, interviews and anecdotes from his peers and fans, plus George’s own words! (128-page trade paperback) $19 US

Prices Include US Postage. Outside the US, Add $2 Per Item Canada, $3 Per Item Surface, $7 Per Item Airmail

COMICS ABOVE GROUND

SEE HOW YOUR FAVORITE ARTISTS MAKE A LIVING OUTSIDE COMICS

JUSTICE LEAGUE COMPANION VOL. 1

SECRETS IN THE SHADOWS: GENE COLAN

A comprehensive examination of the Silver Age JLA written by MICHAEL EURY (author of the critically acclaimed CAPTAIN ACTION and co-author of THE SUPERHERO BOOK). It traces the JLA's development, history, imitators, and early fandom through vintage and all-new interviews with the series' creators, an issue-byissue index of the JLA's 1960-1972 adventures, classic and never-before-published artwork, and other fun and fascinating features. Contributors include DENNY O'NEIL, MURPHY ANDERSON, JOE GIELLA, MIKE FRIEDRICH, NEAL ADAMS, ALEX ROSS, CARMINE INFANTINO, NICK CARDY, and many, many others. Plus: An exclusive interview with STAN LEE, who answers the question, “Did the JLA really inspire the creation of Marvel's Fantastic Four?” With an all-new cover by BRUCE TIMM (TV's Justice League Unlimited)!

The ultimate retrospective on COLAN, with rare drawings, photos, and art from his nearly 60-year career, plus 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 the daunting task of inking Colan’s famously nuanced penciled pages! Plus there’s a NEW PORTFOLIO of never-before-seen collaborations between Gene and such masters as JOHN BYRNE, MICHAEL KALUTA and GEORGE PÉREZ, and all-new artwork created specifically for this book by Gene! Available in Softcover and Deluxe Hardcover (limited to 1000 copies, with 16 extra black-and-white pages and 8 extra color pages)!

(224-page trade paperback) $29 US

(168-page softcover) $26 US (192-page trade hardcover) $49 US

COMICS ABOVE GROUND features top comics pros discussing their inspirations and training, and how they apply it in “Mainstream Media,” including Conceptual Illustration, Video Game Development, Children’s Books, Novels, Design, Illustration, Fine Art, Storyboards, Animation, Movies & more! Written by DURWIN TALON (author of the top-selling PANEL DISCUSSIONS), this book features creators sharing their perspectives and their work in comics and their “other professions,” with career overviews, neverbefore-seen art, and interviews! Featuring: • BRUCE TIMM • BERNIE WRIGHTSON • ADAM HUGHES

• LOUISE SIMONSON • DAVE DORMAN • GREG RUCKA & MORE!

MR. MONSTER, HIS BOOKS OF FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE, VOLUME ZERO • 12 Tales of Mr. Monster, with 30 ALL-NEW pages by MICHAEL T. GILBERT! • Collects hard-to-find stories & the lost NEWSPAPER STRIP! • New 8-page FULL-COLOR STORY by KEITH GIFFEN & MICHAEL T. GILBERT! (136-pg. Paperback) $14 US

(168-page Trade Paperback) $24 US

CALL OR WRITE FOR OUR NEW CATALOG, OR DOWNLOAD IT NOW AT www.twomorrows.com

G-FORCE: ANIMATED

THE OFFICIAL BATTLE OF THE PLANETS GUIDEBOOK The official compendium to the Japanese animated TV program that revolutionized anime across the globe! Featuring plenty of unseen artwork and designs from the wondrous world of G-FORCE (a.k.a. Science Ninja Team Gatchaman), it presents interviews and behind-the-scenes stories of the pop culture phenomenon that captured the hearts and imagination of Generation X, and spawned the new hit comic series! Co-written by JASON HOFIUS and GEORGE KHOURY, this FULL-COLOR account is highlighted by a NEW PAINTED COVER from master artist ALEX ROSS! (96-Page Trade Paperback) $20 US

MODERN MASTERS SERIES Edited by ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON

AGAINST THE GRAIN: MAD ARTIST

WALLACE WOOD

The definitive biographical memoir on one of comics' finest artists, 20 years in the making! Former associate BHOB STEWART traces Wood's life and career, with contributions from many artists and writers who knew Wood personally, making this a remarkable compendium of art, insights and critical commentary! From childhood drawings & early samples to nearly endless comics pages (many unpublished), this is the most stunning display of Wood art ever assembled! BILL PEARSON, executor of the Wood Estate, contributed rare drawings from Wood's own files, while art collector ROGER HILL provides a wealth of obscure, previously unpublished Wood drawings and paintings. (336-Page Trade Paperback) $44 US

WALLACE WOOD CHECKLIST (68 Pages) $7 US

JACK KIRBY CHECKLIST (68 Pages) $7 US

Lists each artists’ PUBLISHED COMICS WORK, FANZINE ART, ILLUSTRATIONS, UNPUBLISHED WORK, and more. Illustrated with rare and unseen artwork!

TRUE BRIT

CELEBRATING GREAT COMIC BOOK ARTISTS OF ENGLAND A celebration of the rich history of British Comics Artists and their influence on the US with in-depth interviews and art by: • BRIAN BOLLAND • ALAN DAVIS • DAVE GIBBONS • BRYAN HITCH • DAVID LLOYD

• DAVE MCKEAN • KEVIN O’NEILL • BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH and other gents!

(204-page Trade Paperback with COLOR SECTION) $26 US

MODERN MASTERS VOL. 5: GARCÍA-LÓPEZ Latest in our series of trade paperbacks devoted to the BEST OF TODAY'S COMICS ARTISTS, this time spotlighting arguably the best draftsman in comics, JOSÉ LUÍS GARCÍA-LÓPEZ! Features RARE AND UNSEEN ARTWORK direct from the artist’s files, spotlighting his immense talent! Features a COMPREHENSIVE INTERVIEW, never-seen DC promotional and merchandising art, DELUXE SKETCHBOOK SECTION including color plates, and more! (120-Page TPB with COLOR) $19 US

MODERN MASTERS: IN THE STUDIO W/ GEORGE PÉREZ DVD A new series of trade paperbacks devoted to the BEST OF TODAY'S COMICS ARTISTS! This DVD companion to the Modern Masters book series gives you a personal tour of George Pérez’s studio, and lets you watch step-by-step as the fanfavorite artist illustrates a special issue of Top Cow’s Witchblade! Also, see George as he sketches for fans at conventions, and hear his peers and colleagues— including Marv Wolfman and Ron Marz—share their anecdotes and personal insights along the way! (120-minute DVD) $34 US

Each volume contains RARE AND UNSEEN ARTWORK direct from the artist’s files, plus a COMPREHENSIVE INTERVIEW (including influences and their views on graphic storytelling), DELUXE SKETCHBOOK SECTIONS, and more!

VOL. 1: ALAN DAVIS

VOL. 3: BRUCE TIMM

(128-Page Trade Paperback) $17 US

(120-Page TPB with COLOR) $19 US

VOL. 2: GEORGE PÉREZ

VOL. 4: KEVIN NOWLAN

(128-Page Trade Paperback) $17 US

(120-Page TPB with COLOR) $19 US

Prices Include US Postage. Outside the US, Add $2 Per Item Canada, $3 Per Item Surface, $7 Per Item Airmail

The KIRBY COLLECTOR (edited by JOHN MORROW) celebrates the life & career of the “King” of comics through interviews with Kirby & his contemporaries, feature articles, & rare & unseen Kirby artwork. Now in tabloid format, the magazine showcases Kirby’s art at even larger size.

KIRBY UNLEASHED: (60 pgs.) New, completely remastered version of the scarce 1971 portfolio/biography, with 8 extra B&W and 8 extra color pages, including Jack’s color GODS posters. $24 US

COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, VOL. ONE: (240 pgs.) Reprints TJKC #1-9, plus over 30 pieces of NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED KIRBY ART! $29 US

COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, VOL. TWO: (160 pgs.) Reprints TJKC #10-12, plus over 30 pieces of NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED KIRBY ART! $22 US

COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, VOL. THREE: (176 pgs.) Reprints TJKC #1315, plus over 30 pieces of NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED KIRBY ART! $24 US

COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, VOL. FOUR: (240 pgs.) Reprints TJKC #1619, plus over 30 pieces of NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED KIRBY ART! $29 US

CAPTAIN VICTORY: GRAPHITE EDITION (52 pgs.) Kirby’s 1975 Graphic Novel in original pencil form. Unseen art, screenplay, more! Proceeds go to preserving the 5000-page Kirby Archives! $8 US

TJKC #20: (68 pgs.) KIRBY’S WOMEN! Interviews with KIRBY, DAVE STEVENS, & LISA KIRBY, unused 10-page story, romance comics, Jack’s original CAPTAIN VICTORY screenplay, more! $8 US

TJKC #21: (68 pgs.) KIRBY, GIL KANE, & BRUCE TIMM intvs., FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE (LEE dialogue vs. KIRBY notes), SILVER STAR screenplay, TOPPS COMICS, unpublished art, more! $8 US

TJKC #22: (68 pgs.) VILLAINS! KIRBY, STEVE RUDE, & MIKE MIGNOLA interviews, FF #49 pencils, FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE, KOBRA, ATLAS MONSTERS! Kirby/Stevens cover. $8 US

TJKC #23: (68 pgs.) Interviews with KIRBY, DENNY O’NEIL & TRACY KIRBY, more FF #49 pencils, FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE, unused 10page SOUL LOVE story, more! $8 US

TJKC #24: (68 pgs.) BATTLES! KIRBY’S original art fight, JIM SHOOTER interview, NEW GODS #6 (“Glory Boat”) pencils, FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE, more! Kirby/ Mignola cover. $8 US

TJKC #25: (100 pgs.) SIMON & KIRBY! KIRBY, SIMON, & JOHN SEVERIN interviews, CAPTAIN AMERICA pencils, unused BOY EXPLORERS story, history of MAINLINE COMICS, more! $8 US

TJKC #26: (72 pgs.) GODS! COLOR NEW GODS concept drawings, KIRBY & WALTER SIMONSON interviews, FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE, BIBLE INFLUENCES, THOR, MR. MIRACLE, more! $8 US

TJKC #27: (72 pages) KIRBY INFLUENCE Part One! KIRBY and ALEX ROSS interviews, KIRBY FAMILY Roundtable, all-star lineup of pros discuss Kirby’s influence on them! Kirby / Timm cover. $8 US

TJKC #30: (68 pgs.) ’80s WORK! Interviews with ALAN MOORE & Kirby Estate’s ROBERT KATZ, HUNGER DOGS, SUPER POWERS, SILVER STAR, ANIMATION work, more! $8 US

TJKC #31: (84 pgs.) TABLOID FORMAT! Wraparound KIRBY/ ADAMS cover, KURT BUSIEK & LADRONN interviews, new MARK EVANIER column, favorite 2-PAGE SPREADS, 2001 Treasury, more! $13 US

TJKC #32: (84 pgs.) TABLOID! KIRBY interview, new MARK EVANIER column, plus Kirby’s Least Known Work: DAYS OF THE MOB #2, THE HORDE, BLACK HOLE, SOUL LOVE, PRISONER, more! $13 US

TJKC #33: (84 pgs.) TABLOID ALL-FANTASTIC FOUR issue! MARK EVANIER column, miniinterviews with everyone who worked on FF after Kirby, STAN LEE interview, 40 pgs. of FF PENCILS, more! $13 US

TJKC #34: (84 pgs.) TABLOID! JOE SIMON & CARMINE INFANTINO interviews, MARK EVANIER column, unknown 1950s concepts, CAPTAIN AMERICA pencils, KIRBY/ TOTH cover, more! $13 US

TJKC #35: (84 pgs.) TABLOID! GREAT ESCAPES with MISTER MIRACLE, comparing KIRBY & HOUDINI, Kirby Tribute Panel with EVANIER, EISNER, BUSCEMA, ROMITA, ROYER, & JOHNNY CARSON! $13 US

TJKC #36: (84 pgs.) TABLOID ALL-THOR issue! MARK EVANIER column, SINNOTT & ROMITA JR. interviews, unseen KIRBY INTV., ART GALLERY, FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE, more! $13 US

TJKC #37: (84 pgs.) TABLOID HOW TO DRAW THE KIRBY WAY issue! MARK EVANIER column, MIKE ROYER on inking, KIRBY interview, ART GALLERY, analysis of Kirby’s art techniques, more! $13 US

TJKC #38: (84 pgs.) TABLOID KIRBY: STORYTELLER! MARK EVANIER column, JOE SINNOTT on inking, SWIPES, talks with JACK DAVIS, PAUL GULACY, HERNANDEZ BROS., ART GALLERY, more! $13 US

TJKC #39: (84 pgs.) TABLOID FAN FAVORITES! EVANIER column, INHUMANS, HULK, SILVER SURFER, tribute panel with ROMITA, AYERS, LEVITZ, McFARLANE, TRIMPE, ART GALLERY, more! $13 US

TJKC #40: (84 pgs.) TABLOID “WORLD THAT’S COMING!” EVANIER column, KAMANDI, OMAC, tribute panel with CHABON, PINI, GOLDBERG, BUSCEMA, LIEBER, LEE, ART GALLERY, more! $13 US

TJKC #41: (84 pgs.) TABLOID! 1970s MARVEL, including Jack’s last year on FF, EVANIER column, GIORDANO interview, tribute panel with GIBBONS, RUDE, SIMONSON, RYAN, ART GALLERY, more! $13 US

TJKC #42: (84 pgs.) TABLOID! Spotlights Kirby at ’70s DC Comics, from Jimmy Olsen to Spirit World! Huge Kirby pencil art gallery, covers inked by KEVIN NOWLAN & MURPHY ANDERSON! $13 US

TJKC #43: (84 pgs.) TABLOID! Kirby Award winners STEVE & GARY SHERMAN intv., 1966 KIRBY intv., Kirby pencils vs. Sinnott inks from TALES OF SUSPENSE #93, Kirby cover inked by SINNOTT! $13 US

TJKC SUBSCRIPTIONS! 4 tabloid issues: $36 Standard, $52 First Class (Canada: $60, Elsewhere: $64 Surface, $80 Airmail).

1 ST SERIES BACK ISSUES! CBA is the 2000-2003 Eisner Award winner for BEST COMICSRELATED MAG! Edited by Jon B. Cooke, it features in-depth articles, interviews, and unseen art. Back issues are ONLY AVAILABLE FROM TWOMORROWS!

CBA #9: (116 pgs.) CBA #10: (116 pgs.) WALTER CBA #11: (116 pgs.) ALEX CHARLTON COMICS: PART SIMONSON, plus WOMEN OF TOTH & SHELDON MAYER! ONE! DICK GIORDANO, THE COMICS! RAMONA TOTH interviews, unseen art, PETER MORISI, JIM APARO, FRADON, MARIE SEVERIN, appreciations, checklist, & JOE GILL, MCLAUGHLIN, TRINA ROBBINS, JOHN more. Also, SHELLY MAYER’s GLANZMAN, new GIORDANO WORKMAN, new SIMONSON kids, the real life SUGAR & cover, more! $9 US SPIKE! $9 US cover, & more! $9 US

WARREN COMPANION The ultimate guide to Warren Publishing, the publisher of such mags as CREEPY, EERIE, VAMPIRELLA, BLAZING COMBAT, and others. Reprints COMIC BOOK ARTIST #4 (completely reformatted), plus nearly 200 new pages: • New painted cover by ALEX HORLEY! • A definitive WARREN CHECKLIST! • Dozens of NEW FEATURES on CORBEN, FRAZETTA, DITKO and others, and interviews with WRIGHTSON, WARREN, EISNER, ADAMS, COLAN & many more! (288-page unsigned Hardcover) $44 US

CBA #12: (116 pgs.) CBA #13: (116 pgs.) MARVEL CBA #14: (116 pgs.) TOWER CBA #15: (116 pgs.) LOVE & CHARLTON COMICS OF THE HORROR OF THE 1970s! Art/ COMICS! Art by & intvs. with ROCKETEERS! Art by & intvs. 1970s! Rare art/intvs. with interviews with WOLFMAN, WALLY WOOD, DAN ADKINS, with DAVE STEVENS, LOS STATON, BYRNE, NEWTON, COLAN, PALMER, THOMAS, LEN BROWN, STEVE BROS. HERNANDEZ, MATT SUTTON, ZECK, NICK CUTI, a ISABELLA, PERLIN, TRIMPE, SKEATES, GEORGE TUSKA, WAGNER, DEAN MOTTER, NEW E-MAN strip, new MARCOS, a new COLAN/ new WOOD & ADKINS covers, new STEVENS/HERNANDEZ STATON cover, more! $9 US PALMER cover, more! $9 US more! $9 US cover, more! $9 US

COMIC BOOK ARTIST COLLECTION, VOL. 3 Reprinting the Eisner Award-winning COMIC BOOK ARTIST #7 and #8 (’70s Marvel and ’80s independents), featuring a new MICHAEL T. GILBERT cover, plus interviews with GILBERT, RUDE, GULACY, GERBER, DON SIMPSON, CHAYKIN, SCOTT McCLOUD, BUCKLER, BYRNE, DENIS KITCHEN, plus a NEW SECTION featuring over 30 pages of previouslyunseen stuff! Edited by JON B. COOKE. (224-page trade paperback) $29 US

EXCLUSIVE BUNDLE! GET CBA #9, 12, AND 19 TOGETHER FOR $18 POSTPAID! SAVE $9!

CBA #16: (132 pgs.) ’70s CBA #17: (116 pgs.) ARTHUR CBA #18: (116 pgs.) COSMIC CBA #19: (116 pgs.) HARVEY CBA #20: (116 pgs.) FATHERS CBA #21: (116 pgs.) THE ART CBA #22: (116 pgs.) GOLD ATLAS/SEABOARD COMICS! ADAMS & CO.! ART ADAMS COMICS OF THE ’70s! Art by COMICS! Art by & intvs. with & SONS! Art by & intvs. with OF ADAM HUGHES! Art, KEY COMICS! Art by & intvs. Art by & interviews with interview & gallery, remem- & intvs. with JIM STARLIN, SIMON & KIRBY, WALLY the top father/son teams in interview & checklist with with RUSS MANNING, WALLY ERNIE CÓLON, CHAYKIN, bering GRAY MORROW, ALAN WEISS, ENGLEHART, WOOD, AL WILLIAMSON, GIL comics: ADAM, ANDY, & JOE HUGHES, plus a day in the life WOOD, JESSE SANTOS, ROVIN, AMENDOLA, HAMA, GEORGE ROUSSOS, GEORGE AL MILGROM, LEIALOHA, KANE, SID JACOBSON, FRED KUBERT & JOHN ROMITA SR. of ALEX ROSS, JOHN MARK EVANIER, DON GLUT, new CÓLON & KUPPERBERG EVANS, new ART ADAMS ’60s Bullpen reunion, new RHOADES, MITCH O’CONNELL & JR., new ROMITA & BUSCEMA tribute, new new BRUCE TIMM cover, cover, more! $9 US covers, more! $9 US STARLIN cover, more! $9 US cover, more! $9 US KUBERT covers, more! $9 US HUGHES cover, more! $9 US more! $9 US

CBA #23: (116 pgs.) MIKE CBA #24: (116 pgs.) COMICS CBA #25: (116 pgs.) ALAN MIGNOLA SPOTLIGHT, plus OF NATIONAL LAMPOON with MOORE’S ABC COMICS with JILL THOMPSON: Sandman to GAHAN WILSON, BODÉ, NEAL MOORE, KEVIN NOWLAN, Scary Godmother! Mignola ADAMS, FRANK SPRINGER, GENE HA, RICK VEITCH, J.H. INTERVIEW & ART GALLERY, ALAN KUPPERBERG, BOBBY WILLIAMS, SCOTT DUNBIER, extensive CHECKLIST, new LONDON, MICHAEL GROSS, JIM BAIKIE, and NOWLAN & cover, & more! $9 US WILLIAMS covers! $9 US more! $9 US

COMICOLOGY (edited by BRIAN SANER LAMKEN), the highlyacclaimed magazine about modern comics, recently ended its four-issue run, but back issues are available, featuring never-seen CC #2: (100 pgs.) MIKE CC #3: (100 pgs.) CARLOS CC #4: (116 pgs., final issue) art & interviews. ALLRED interview & portfolio, PACHECO interview & portfolio, ALL-BRIAN ISSUE! Interviews 60 years of THE SPIRIT, 25 ANDI WATSON interview, a look with BRIAN AZZARELLO, years of the X-MEN, PAUL at what comics predicted the BRIAN CLOPPER, BRIAN GRIST interview, FORTY future would be like, new color MICHAEL BENDIS, BRIAN WINKS, new color ALLRED & PACHECO & WATSON covers, BOLLAND, huge BOLLAND GRIST covers, & more! $8 US & more! $8 US portfolio, & more! $8 US

BACK ISSUES

Prices include US Postage. Outside the US, Add $2 Per Item Canada, $3 Per Item Surface, $7 Per Item Airmail (except Hardcover Books: add $14 Airmail)

DRAW! (edited by MIKE MANLEY) is the professional “How-To” magazine on comics, cartooning, and animation. Each issue features in-depth interviews & step-by-step demos from top comics pros on all aspects of graphic storytelling. NOTE: Contains nudity for purposes of figure drawing. Intended for Mature Readers.

DRAW! #11

BEST OF DRAW! VOL. 1

STEVE RUDE demonstrates his approach to comics & drawing! ROQUE BALLESTEROS on Flash animation! Political cartoonist JIM BORGMAN on his daily comic strip Zits! Plus DRAW!’S regular instructors BRET BLEVINS, ALEBERTO RUIZ and more! Edited by MIKE MANLEY.

Compiles material from the first two soldout issues of DRAW!, the “How-To” magazine on comics and cartooning! Tutorials by, and interviews with: DAVE GIBBONS (layout and drawing on the computer), BRET BLEVINS (drawing lovely women, painting from life, and creating figures that “feel”), JERRY ORDWAY (detailing his working methods), KLAUS JANSON and RICARDO VILLAGRAN (inking techniques), GENNDY TARTAKOVSKY (on animation and Samurai Jack), STEVE CONLEY (creating web comics and cartoons), PHIL HESTER and ANDE PARKS (penciling and inking), and more!

(96-page mag with color) $8 US

2005 EISNER NOMINEE!

(200-page trade paperback) $26 US

SUBSCRIPTION RATES:

DRAW! OR WRITE NOW! SUBS: 4 issues: $20 Standard, $32 First Class (Canada: $40, Elsewhere: $44 Surface, $60 Airmail).

HOW TO DRAW COMICS, F ROM SCRIPT TO PRINT DVD: DRAW’s MIKE MANLEY and WRITE NOW’s DANNY FINGEROTH create a new character created from scratch, and create a story drawn from script to roughs, pencils, inks, and coloring— even lettering! It’s 120 minutes of “howto” tips, tricks, and tools of the pros, plus bonus features! $34 US Bundled with WRITE NOW! #8 & DRAW! #9: $39 US

DRAW #3: (80 pgs.) “How-To” DRAW #4: (92 pgs.) “How-To” DRAW #5: (88 pgs.) “How-To” DRAW #6: (96 pgs.) “How-To” demos & interviews with DICK demos & interviews with ERIK demos/intvs. with BENDIS & demos & interviews with BILL GIORDANO, “Action” by BRET LARSEN, KEVIN NOWLAN, OEMING, MIKE WIERINGO, WRAY, STEPHEN DeSTEFANO, BLEVINS, CHRIS BAILEY, DAVE COOPER, “Figure MARK McKENNA, “Hands” by CELIA CALLE, MIKE MANLEY, MIKE MANLEY, new column Composition” by BRET BRET BLEVINS, PAUL “Light & Shadow” by BRET by PAUL RIVOCHE, reviews of BLEVINS, PAUL RIVOCHE, RIVOCHE, color section, BLEVINS, ANDE PARKS, color art supplies, more! $8 US color section, more! $8 US product reviews, more! $8 US section, and more! $8 US

DRAW #7: (96 pgs.) “How-To” DRAW #8: (96 pgs.) “How-To” DRAW #9: (96 pgs.) Pt. 2 of DRAW #10: (96 pgs.) “Howdemos & interviews with DAN demos & interviews with crossover with WRITE NOW!, To” demos & interviews with BRERETON, PAUL RIVOCHE, MATT HALEY, ALBERTO RUIZ, showing a comic created from RON GARNEY, GRAHAM ZACH TRENHOLM, MIKE TOM BANCROFT, ROB script to print (with full-color NOLAN, Lettering with TODD MANLEY, “Sketching” by CORLEY, “Drapery” by BRET comic insert), plus BRET KLEIN, step-by-step with BRET BLEVINS, color section, BLEVINS, color section, BLEVINS, ALBERTO RUIZ, ALBERTO RUIZ, BRET product reviews, more! $8 US product reviews, more! $8 US SCOTT KURTZ, & more! $8 US BLEVINS, and more! $8 US

WRITE NOW! (edited by DANNY FINGEROTH), the mag for writers of comics, animation, & sci-fi, puts you in the minds of today’s top writers and editors. Each issue features writing tips from pros on both sides of the desk, interviews, sample scripts, reviews, and more.

WN #1: (88 pgs.) MARK WN #2: (96 pgs.) ERIK WN #3: (80 pgs.) DEODATO BAGLEY cover & interview, LARSEN cover & interview, JR. Hulk cover, intvs. & articles BRIAN BENDIS & STAN LEE STAN BERKOWITZ on the by BRUCE JONES, AXEL interviews, JOE QUESADA on Justice League cartoon, TODD ALONSO, JIMMY PALMIOTTI, what editors really want, TOM ALCOTT on Samurai Jack, LEE KURT BUSIEK, FABIAN DeFALCO, J.M. DeMATTEIS, NORDLING, ANNE D. NICIEZA, STEVEN GRANT, more! $8 US BERNSTEIN, & more! $8 US DENNY O’NEIL, more! $8 US

WN #4: (80 pgs.) Interviews WN #5: (80 pgs.) Interviews WN #6: (80 pgs.) Interviews WN #7: (80 pgs.) Interviews WN #8: (80 pgs.) Pt. 1 of WN #9: (80 pgs.) NEAL WN #10: (80 pgs.) Interviews and lessons with WARREN and lessons by WILL EISNER, and lessons with BENDIS and and lessons by JEPH LOEB & crossover with DRAW!, ADAMS on his writing (with and lessons by Justice League ELLIS, HOWARD CHAYKIN, J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI, OEMING on POWERS, MARK TIM SALE, JIM LEE, CHUCK showing a comic created from lots of Adams art), plus inter- Unlimited’s DWAYNE McDUFFIE, PAUL DINI, FABIAN NICIEZA, BOB SCHRECK, FABIAN WAID on FANTASTIC FOUR, DIXON, JOHN JACKSON script to print, plus interviews views and lessons by GEOFF “Hate’s” PETER BAGGE, comics KURT BUSIEK, TOM DeFALCO, NICIEZA, PAUL DINI, JOEY BOB SCHRECK continues, MILLER, MARK WHEATLEY, and lessons by STUART JOHNS, MICHAEL OEMING, scripter/editor GERRY CONWAY, STEVEN GRANT, DENNY CAVALIERI, DIANA SCHUTZ, DIANA SCHUTZ, SCOTT M. DENNY O’NEIL, YVETTE MOORE, DON McGREGOR, & BATTON LASH, secrets of writer/editor PAUL BENJAMIN, O’NEIL, more! $8 US DENNY O’NEIL, more! $8 US ROSENBERG, more! $8 US KAPLAN, more! $8 US Indy creator secrets! $8 US pitching ideas, & more! $8 US & more! $8 US

T H E U LT I M AT E C O M I C S E X P E R I E N C E !

100 PAGES! SINGLE ISSUES: $8 US SIX ISSUE SUBSCRIPTIONS IN THE US: $30 Standard, $48 First Class (Canada: $60, Elsewhere: $66 Surface, $90 Airmail). Edited by MICHAEL EURY (former DC and Dark Horse editor/writer and author of books on CAPTAIN ACTION and DICK GIORDANO), BACK ISSUE celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through recurring (and rotating) departments.

DIAMOND’S “2004 BEST PUBLICATION ABOUT COMICS!”

#1: PÉREZ, KIRBY, BUSCEMA, KUBERT!

#2: HUGHES, RUDE, WAGNER, STEVENS!

#3: EVANIER, GIFFEN, MAGUIRE, BOLLAND!

“PRO2PRO” interview between GEORGE PÉREZ and MARV WOLFMAN (with UNSEEN PÉREZ ART), “ROUGH STUFF” featuring JACK KIRBY’s PENCIL ART, “GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD” on the first JLA/AVENGERS, “BEYOND CAPES” on DC and Marvel’s TARZAN (with KUBERT & BUSCEMA ART), “OFF MY CHEST” editorial by INFANTINO, & more!

“PRO2PRO” between ADAM HUGHES & MIKE W. BARR (with UNSEEN HUGHES ART) and MATT WAGNER and DIANA SCHUTZ, “ROUGH STUFF” HUGHES PENCIL ART, STEVE RUDE’s unseen SPACE GHOST/ HERCULOIDS team-up, Bruce Jones’ ALIEN WORLDS & TWISTED TALES, an “OFF MY CHEST” editorial by MIKE W. BARR on the DC IMPLOSION, & more!

“PRO2PRO” between KEITH GIFFEN, J.M. DeMATTEIS and KEVIN MAGUIRE on their JLA WORK, “ROUGH STUFF” PENCIL ART by ARAGONÉS, HERNANDEZ BROS., MIGNOLA, BYRNE, KIRBY, HUGHES, two unknown PLASTIC MAN movies, a look at the Joker’s history with O’NEIL, ADAMS, ENGLEHART, ROGERS & BOLLAND, an editorial by MARK EVANIER, & more!

#8: ADAMS, VON EEDEN, #4: BYRNE, CLAREMONT, #5: ROSS, HUGHES, LYNDA #6: WRIGHTSON, COLAN, #7: APARO, BYRNE, CARTER, LOU FERRIGNO! THOMAS, GODZILLA! LEE, EVANIER, & MORE! & ’70s BLACK HEROES! CASEY, SIMONSON! “PRO2PRO” between JOHN BYRNE and CHRIS CLAREMONT on their X-MEN WORK and WALT SIMONSON and JOE CASEY on Walter’s THOR WORK, WOLVERINE PENCIL ART by BUSCEMA, LEE, COCKRUM, BYRNE, & GIL KANE, LEN WEIN’S TEEN WOLVERINE, PUNISHER’S 30TH & SECRET WARS’ 20TH ANNIVERSARIES (with UNSEEN ZECK ART), & more!

Covers by ALEX ROSS & ADAM HUGHES, Wonder Woman TV series in-depth, LYNDA CARTER INTERVIEW, WONDER WOMAN TV ART GALLERY, Marvel’s TV Hulk, SpiderMan, Captain America, & Dr. Strange, LOU FERRIGNO INTERVIEW, super-hero cartoons you didn’t see, pencil gallery by JERRY ORDWAY, STAR TREK in comics, & JOHN ROMITA SR. editorial on Marvel’s movies!

#9: RUDE, TRUMAN, KANE & COSMIC HEROES!

#10: ADAMS, GRELL, KALUTA, CHAYKIN!

MIKE BARON and STEVE RUDE on NEXUS past and present, a colossal GIL KANE pencil art gallery, a look at Marvel’s STAR WARS comics, secrets of DC’s unseen CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS SEQUEL, TIM TRUMAN on his GRIMJACK SERIES, MIKE GOLD editorial, THANOS history, TIME WARP revisited, an all-new STEVE RUDE COVER, & more!

NEAL ADAMS and DENNY O’NEIL on RA’S AL GHUL’s history (with Adams art), O’Neil and MICHAEL KALUTA on THE SHADOW, MIKE GRELL on JON SABLE FREELANCE, HOWIE CHAYKIN interview, DOC SAVAGE in comics, BATMAN ART GALLERY by SIENKIEWICZ, SIMONSON, PAUL SMITH, BOLLAND, HANNIGAN, MAZZUCCHELLI, and others, and a new cover by ADAMS!

TOMB OF DRACULA revealed with GENE COLAN and MARV WOLFMAN, LEN WEIN & BERNIE WRIGHTSON on Swamp Thing’s roots, STEVE BISSETTE and RICK VEITCH on their Swamp work, pencil art by SMITH, BRUNNER, PLOOG, BISSETTE, COLAN, & WRIGHTSON, editorial by ROY THOMAS, GODZILLA comics (with TRIMPE art), CHARLTON horror, PREZ, and more!

SWAN/ANDERSON cover, history of BRAVE AND THE BOLD, JIM APARO interview, tribute to BOB HANEY, FANTASTIC FOUR ROUNDTABLE with STAN LEE, MARK WAID, and others, EVANIER & MEUGNIOT on DNAgents, pencil art by ROSS, TOTH, COCKRUM, HECK, ROBBINS, NEWTON, and BYRNE, DENNY O’NEIL editorial, a tour of METROPOLIS, IL, & more!

DENNY O’NEIL & Justice League Unlimited voice actor PHIL LaMARR discuss GL JOHN STEWART, NEW X-MEN pencil art by NEAL ADAMS, ARTHUR ADAMS, DAVID MAZZUCCHELLI, ALAN DAVIS, JIM LEE, ADAM HUGHES, STORM’s 30-year history, animated TV’s black heroes (with TOTH art), TONY ISABELLA and TREVOR VON EEDEN on BLACK LIGHTNING, & more!

#11: BUSCEMA, JUSKO, #12 (SEPT.): GIBBONS, #13 (NOV.): STATON, BOLLAND, ARAGONÉS! BYRNE, MILLER, FRENZ! CARDY, EISNER, ROMITA! ROY THOMAS, KURT BUSIEK, and JOE JUSKO on CONAN (with art by JOHN BUSCEMA, BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH, NEAL ADAMS, JUSKO, & others), SERGIO ARAGONÉS & MARK EVANIER on GROO, DC’s never-published KING ARTHUR, pencil art gallery by KIRBY, PÉREZ, MOEBIUS, GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, BOLLAND, & others, and a new BUSCEMA/JUSKO Conan cover!

’70s and ’80s character revamps with DAVE GIBBONS, ROY THOMAS & KURT BUSIEK, TOM DeFALCO & RON FRENZ on SpiderMan’s 1980s “black” costume change, DENNY O’NEIL on Superman’s 1970 revamp, JOHN BYRNE’s aborted SHAZAM! series detailed, pencil art gallery with FRANK MILLER, LEE WEEKS, DAVID MAZZUCCHELLI, CHARLES VESS, and more!

CARDY interview, ENGLEHART and MOENCH on kung-fu comics, “Pro2Pro” with STATON and CUTI on Charlton’s EMan, pencil art gallery featuring MILLER, KUBERT, GIORDANO, SWAN, GIL KANE, COLAN, COCKRUM, and others, EISNER’s A Contract with God; “The Death of Romance (Comics)” (with art by ROMITA, SR. and TOTH), & more!

COMING SOON FROM TWOMORROWS!

ALTER EGO #53 (OCT.)

BACK ISSUE #12 (SEPT.)

GIORDANO and THOMAS on STOKER’S DRACULA, never-seen BRIEFER Frankenstein strip, ESPOSITO on his work with ANDRU, art by COLAN, MIGNOLA, WRIGHTSON, BRUNNER, BISSETTE, KALUTA, HEATH, , EVERETT, DITKO, and others!! Edited by ROY THOMAS.

’70s and ’80s revamps with GIBBONS, KYLE BAKER reveals his working methods, THOMAS & BUSIEK, DeFALCO & FRENZ Machine Teen’s MIKE HAWTHORNE on on Spider-Man’s 1980s costume change, his work, Making Perspective Work For O’NEIL on Superman’s 1970 revamp, You by BLEVINS and MANLEY, Photoshop BYRNE’s aborted SHAZAM!, art gallery with techniques with ALBERTO RUIZ, Adult MILLER, WEEKS, MAZZUCCHELLI, VESS, Swim’s the VENTURE BROTHERS, and and more! Edited by MICHAEL EURY. more! Edited by MIKE MANLEY.

(100-page magazine) $8 US

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #44 (OCT.) Focuses on KIRBY’S MYTHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS, including THE DEMON, THOR, ATLAS, ETERNALS, and others! Plus, a rare interview with KIRBY, MARK EVANIER’S regular column, Kirby pencil art galleries of THE DEMON and other classic mythological characters, a never-reprinted BLACK MAGIC story, an interview with Kirby Award winner & family friend DAVID SCHWARTZ, new Kirby Demon cover inked by MATT WAGNER, & more! Edited by JOHN MORROW. (84-page Tabloid) $13 US

DRAW! #12 (OCT.)

WRITE NOW! #11 (OCT.) BENDIS, WAID, DAVID, DEMATTEIS, DeFALCO, O’NEIL, DIXON, ALONSO and 17 others tell PROFESSIONAL WRITING SECRETS, plus DeFALCO and FRENZ on working together and an all-new SPIDERGIRL cover by FRENZ and SAL BUSCEMA! Edited by DANNY FINGEROTH.

(100-page magazine) $8 US

(96-page magazine with color) $8 US

(80-page magazine) $8 US

SWAMPMEN (OCT.)

BRAVE & BOLD ART OF JIM APARO (OCT.)

TITANS COMPANION (NOV.)

Details the history of the muck monsters of the comics, including SWAMP THING, MAN-THING, IT, THE BOG BEAST, MARVIN THE DEAD THING, THE SWAMP LURKER, and THE HEAP, with unpublished artwork and interviews by ALAN MOORE, STEVE BISSETTE, STEVE GERBER, MIKE PLOOG, RICK VEITCH, JOHN TOTLEBEN, VAL MAYERIK, & more! All behind a new Swamp Thing cover by FRANK CHO! Edited by CBA’S JON B. COOKE! (200-page trade paperback) $29 US

A career-spanning biography of the A comprehensive history of the NEW TEEN definitive Batman artist, from his start at TITANS, with interviews and rare art by CHARLTON COMICS to his heyday at DC MARV WOLFMAN, GEORGE PÉREZ, JOSÉ COMICS and beyond, with rare and LUIS GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, LEN WEIN, & others, UNSEEN APARO ART, and written by a Silver Age section with NEAL ADAMS, SCOTT BEATTY (writer of Batman and The NICK CARDY, DICK GIORDANO, & more, DC Comics Encyclopedia) with ERIC plus CHRIS CLAREMONT and WALTER NOLEN-WEATHINGTON (editor/designer SIMONSON on the X-MEN/TEEN TITANS of the Modern Masters book series), and crossover, TOM GRUMMETT, PHIL JIMENEZ an introduction by artist ALAN DAVIS! & TERRY DODSON on their ’90s Titans work, a new cover by JIMENEZ, & intro by (128-page trade paperback) $20 US GEOFF JOHNS! Written by GLEN CADIGAN.

SUBSCRIPTIONS:

(224-page trade paperback) $29 US

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: Four tabloid issues in the US: $36 Standard, $52 First Class (Canada: $60, Elsewhere: $64 Surface, $80 Airmail). BACK ISSUE!: Six issues in the US: $30 Standard, $48 First Class (Canada: $60, Elsewhere: $66 Surface, $90 Airmail). DRAW! or WRITE NOW!: Four issues in the US: $20 Standard, $32 First Class (Canada: $40, Elsewhere: $44 Surface, $60 Airmail). ALTER EGO: Twelve issues in the US: $60 Standard, $96 First Class (Canada: $120, Elsewhere: $132 Surface, $180 Airmail). NOTE: IF YOU PREFER A SIX-ISSUE ALTER EGO SUBSCRIPTION, JUST CUT THE PRICE IN HALF!

TwoMorrows. Bringing New Life To Comics Fandom. TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Dr. • Raleigh, NC 27614 • 919/449-0344 • FAX 919/449-0327 • e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com