Alter Ego #52 Preview

Roy Thomas’ Pugnacious Comics Fanzine

JOE GIELLA THE FELLA WHO INKED

DC’S SILVER AGE!

(AND SOME GOLDEN AGE, TOO!)

$

6.95

In the USA

No. 52 September 2005

ALSO:

JAY SCOTT PIKE &

[Art ©2005 Joe Giella; Characters TM & ©2005 DC Comics.]

MARTIN THALL

PLUS: PLUS:

Vol. 3, No. 52 / September 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 Michael T. Gilbert

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

Production Assistant Eric Nolen-Weathington

Cover Artist

Contents

Joe Giella

Cover Colorist Tom Ziuko

And Special Thanks to: Heidi Amash Michael Ambrose Ger Apeldoorn Bob Bailey Mike W. Barr Tom Batiuk Alberto Becattini Philippe Benoist Bill Black Dominic Bongo Ray Bottorff, Jr. Steve Brumbaugh Jerry K. Boyd Bob Cherry Shaun Clancy James Clink Dwight Decker Gerry Desrosiers Mark Evanier Al Dellinges Roger Dicken & Wendy Hunt Michael Feldman Shane Foley Carl Gafford John Gentil Frank Giella Joe Giella Janet Gilbert Matt Gore Ron Goulart Arnie Grieves George Hagenauer Jennifer Hamerlinck Paul Handler Mark Heike Dave Herring Jonathan Ingersoll Glen Johnson Henry R. Kajawa Sam Kujava

Thomas C. Lammers Mark Luebker Boyd Magers Dan Makara Bob Maison Joe Marek Sheldon Moldoff Matt Moring Frank Motler Mark Muller Jose Carlos Neves Jerry Ordway Jake Oster John G. Pierce Jay Scott Pike Donald A. Rex Emir Ribeiro Ethan Roberts Herb Rogoff Steven Rowe Luiz Antonio Sampaio Mark Shainblum Robin Snyder Joe Staton Marc Swayze Martin Thall Greg Theakston Dann Thomas Alex Toth Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Dr. Michael J. Vassallo Delmo Walters, Jr. Hames Ware Robert Wiener Tom Wimbish Jackie WolfEnrione Rodrigo M. Zeidan

This issue is dedicated to the memories of

Paul Cassidy & Al Kurzrok

Writer/Editorial: “For He’s A Jolly Good Giella…” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 “Joe Giella Is Like Fine Wine—He Gets Better With Age!”. . . . . . . . 3 The man who inked DC’s Silver Age, and lots more besides—interviewed by Jim Amash.

“Comic Artists Could Draw Better Than Anybody in the World!” . . . 33 1950s-70s artist Jay Scott Pike speaks with Jim A. about his years at Marvel & DC.

“I Was All Over The Place, And Enjoying Every Minute Of It!” . . . 46 Martin Thall tells Mr. A. all about drawing comics in the 1940s and ’50s.

Comic Crypt: Remembering Will – Part Three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Michael T. Gilbert’s long association with Will Eisner—and The Spirit.

“Do The Best Damn Work Possible” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Alex Toth defines the ever-shifting goals of 1940s comic book artists.

ATalkWithWriter,Educator,&ComicsFanaticGlenJohnson:PartTwo . 65 A prominent 1960s comics fan talks to Bill Schelly about Russ Manning and more.

re: [comments, correspondence, & corrections]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 In Memoriam: Al Kurzrok & Paul Cassidy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) #110 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 P.C. Hamerlinck presents Marc Swayze, some Fawcett-to-Charlton footnotes, and a Brazilian encounter between Captain Marvel & The Human Torch!

About Our Cover: Jumpin’ Joe Giella drew this brand new cover especially for this issue of Alter Ego, spotlighting the three DC super-heroes with which he’s most closely identified, and a trio of their most dastardly enemies. For the full story behind this knockout illo, see p. 19—and to learn who christened him “Jumpin’ Joe Giella,” turn to p. 28. Three guesses, and the first two don’t count! [Art ©2005 Joe Giella; characters TM & ©2005 DC Comics.]

Above: And thanks to Joe yet again, for sending us this splendid illo of the hero he says he most enjoyed drawing (or even just inking). [Art ©2005 Joe Giella; Batman TM & ©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

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“For He’s A Jolly Good Giella...”

A

ctually, despite the irresistible pun above (well, irresistible to me, anyway), this issue is a triple-decker in terms of interviews, covering a wide spectrum of comics from the 1940s through at least the 1970s.

When Jim Amash and I confer by phone about all the material that’s stacking up in our drawers and PC files for Alter Ego—a considerable portion of which, of course, consists of the great interviews he does with comic book artisans of the Golden and Silver Ages—we occasionally get just this side of depressed when we think about how long some of it has sat on the cyberspace shelf, awaiting a berth in an actual issue of the mag.

Recently we decided that, this month, along with an alreadyscheduled long interview with inking legend Joe Giella, we’d see if we could squeeze in a couple of shorter confabs, as well. Since so much of Joe’s career is bound up with DC Comics, from the Golden Age through the Silver and Bronze (whatever precisely that is), despite his earlier and later work for Marvel, we wanted to complement his interview with a pair of shorter ones, featuring folks more identified with other companies and characters.

Jay Scott Pike certainly fit the bill—for, even though he became a mainstay of DC’s romance department in the 1960s, his well-crafted work for Timely/Marvel’s adventure titles in the 1950s particularly

intrigued us. Besides which, there was that offbeat “Dolphin” one-shot he wrote and drew for DC in the late 1960s, whose circumstances are related herein.

And Martin Thall spent most of his decade in the comics field working for just about everybody except DC, and likewise has some great yarns to spin.

So settle back and enjoy a well-rounded issue. DC—Timely/Marvel— Classics Illustrated—Hillman—ACG—Lev Gleason—MikeRoss—even Fawcett (and not just in the always-fascinating FCA section, either)— you’ll learn something about all those four-color dream factories, and the artists and writers and editors who kept them humming.

All that—plus Bill Schelly talking to 1960s comics fan Glen Johnson about Russ Manning, Pete Morisi, et al.—Michael T. Gilbert’s visit with Will Eisner—and letters from talents as diverse as Alex Toth and Shelly (“Hawkman”) Moldoff—should make this issue of A/E worth any comic fan’s money.

Okay, so maybe we had to start asking you for $1 more of it per issue… but we’re determined to earn it! And the subscription price hasn’t gone up a penny!

Bestest,

COMING IN OCTOBER

#

53

DRACULA! FRANKENSTEIN! MIKE ESPOSITO! It’s Our HELLZAPOPPIN’ HALLOWEEN ISSUE!

[Art ©2005 Dick Giordano; Marvel Dracula TM & ©2005 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

• Direful all-new DICK GIORDANO Dracula cover!

• Three Decades of Dracula—and Counting! Artist DICK GIORDANO, writer ROY THOMAS, & editor MARK BEAZLEY rap about the 1974-2005 dark genesis of Marvel’s undead Halloween hit Stoker’s Dracula! With behind-the-scenes stories and art!

• DICK BRIEFER’s funny Frankenstein of the 1950s! A never-before-seen completelyillustrated story from that awesome artist’s proposed newspaper strip!

• Our Gallery of Gruesomeness! A hunk of Halloween comic art by GENE COLAN, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, MIKE MIGNOLA, FRANK BRUNNER, STEVE BISSETTE, MICHAEL W. KALUTA, RUSS HEATH, JOE MANEELY, BILL EVERETT, STEVE DITKO, ERNIE SCHROEDER, ESTEBAN MAROTO, ALFREDO ALCALA, and others!

• Fabled Golden/Silver Age inker MIKE ESPOSITO on his 1940s-50s work with peerless partner ROSS ANDRU on Mr. Mystery, Mr. Universe, Get Lost, Up Your Nose, etc.— with more amazing anecdotes than you can shake a Styx at—in the first part of a 2-tier interview by JIM AMASH! • Plus—FCA with MARC SWAYZE, JERRY DeFUCCIO, et al.—BILL SCHELLY on “1966— the Year of the Three Comicons!”—MICHAEL T. GILBERT’s Comic Crypt on Little Lulu (pretty scary, huh, kids?)—& MORE!!

Edited by ROY THOMAS

SUBSCRIBE NOW! Twelve Issues in the US: $60 Standard, $96 First Class (Canada: $120, Elsewhere: $132 Surface, $180 Airmail).

NOTE: IF YOU PREFER A SIX-ISSUE SUB, JUST CUT THE PRICE IN HALF!

TwoMorrows. Bringing New Life To Comics Fandom.

TwoMorrows • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

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“JOE GIELLA Is Like Fine Wine – He Gets Better With Age!” The Man Who Inked DC’s Silver Age—& Part Of The Golden Age, To Boot!

Interview Conducted by Jim Amash

Transcribed by Tom Wimbish

T

his year marks Joe Giella’s 60th in the comic book industry— and we want to offer our congratulations to him (and to the industry) right up front! Joe was one of the most important inkers of DC Comics’ Silver Age. Joe’s slick, clean line graced the graphite etchings of many great pencilers, from Alex Toth to Carmine Infantino, Mike Sekowsky, Gil Kane, and beyond. Luckily for us, Joe tells us about the people he inked as well as what their pencil work was like—and the editors he worked for. From Hillman to Timely/Marvel to DC to his newspaper strip work on Flash Gordon, The Phantom, Batman, and Mary Worth, we also find out about Joe’s other non-comics work, showing just how diverse his talents run. There’s a lot to the Joe Giella story, and we’ve tried to cover the bases as best we could. Joe’s been long overdue for coverage in Alter Ego, and thanks to Berndt Toast Gang buddy Stan Goldberg (who’s helped me out more times than I can count), we’re finally able to remedy that situation. Thanks for sharing, fellas—and a special thanks to Joe for delineating some of the best DC stories of my childhood—and for being a good friend. —Jim.

“You’ll Never Make A Living Doing Artwork!”

JIM AMASH: Okay, Joe—you get to answer my usual first questions.

When and where were you born, and when did you know you wanted to be an artist?

JOE GIELLA: I was born June 27, 1928, in Manhattan, New York. I have three brothers and a sister, and I was the oldest. My love for art began in the late 1930s, when I was about 13 years old. We didn’t have any drawing pads at the time, so I’d draw on anything I could get my hands on. My mother would come home from the grocery store, and I’d tear apart the bags and draw on both sides of them. I would draw everything—I’d doodle cartoons, you name it. And of course, my teachers were constantly chastising me because I would sketch all over my books, and my parents were notified many times. I just liked to draw!

I was influenced by Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant, Tarzan, and Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon. I was also reading comic books at the time,

Joe Giella & Friends (Left:) Joe (in light jacket and dark shirt) hangs out a few years back with (l. to r.) “Archie” artist Joe Edwards, DC editor Julie Schwartz, and Joe’s son Frank.

(Right:) Joe must like these guys, too, ’cause he keeps drawing ’em! We suspect you may recognize them. [Art ©2005 Joe Giella; characters TM & ©2005 DC Comics.]

and I wish my mother had kept some of them. [laughs] The Batman was my favorite—I felt he had the best-looking costume—but I really liked the Timely Comics characters: Captain America, The Human Torch, and Sub-Mariner.

JA: Why did you prefer them?

GIELLA: As a kid, you fantasize about being The Human Torch or Sub-Mariner... you feel like you’re that character. You live within that character. I couldn’t wait for the issues to come out. I loved those characters.

JA: So who were some of your classmates at the School of Industrial Arts that we would remember today?

GIELLA: Well, Sy Barry—Tony Bennett the singer, who lived on my block—Al Scaduto—Emilio Squeglio—Paul Winchell, the ventriloquist—and Rudy LaPick. Rudy had a great sense of humor, but I didn’t

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The Man Who Inked DC’s Silver Age

The Marvel Mystery Tour “As a kid, you fantasize about being The Human Torch or Sub-Mariner,” Joe recalls. He was eleven when The Human Torch roasted a police car’s tires in Marvel Mystery Comics #2 (Dec. 1939), and when Prince Namor commandeered the Statue of Liberty in #7 (May 1940)—with art and story by creators Carl Burgos and Bill Everett, respectively. That’s what we call getting in on the ground floor! Thanks to Robert Wiener for beautiful photocopies of the former page; the latter is reproduced from photocopies of the original art. [©2005 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

hang out much with him. Tony Bennett—his real name is Anthony deBennedetto—we used to hang out with him on Ditmars Boulevard in Astoria. We used to buy him hot dogs. Ditmars was the last stop in Astoria on the IRT line, and that’s where we hung out.

I never met Paul Winchell personally. He was a few years ahead of us at the School of Industrial Arts. So were Joe Kubert and Norman Maurer. Later, in the late ’40s, I went to the Art Students League with Kubert and a fella called Mike Sekowsky.

An interesting story about Sekowsky: the instructor is going around the class, and comes to me to critique my drawing and offer his advice— then he goes to Kubert and helps him. Finally he comes to Mike Sekowsky and says, “What the heck is that?” Mike had completely ignored the model and had drawn a comic book figure. The instructor couldn’t believe it. Mike was very insulted, and never came back.

John Romita and Les Zakarin also went to the school, but they didn’t hang out with our group.

JA: Where did you get your start in comics?

GIELLA: My first job was a freelance assignment for Ed Cronin at Hillman Publications. I penciled and inked a humor feature called “Captain Codfish.” I was 17 or 18. We were having problems at home

and I was the oldest, so I left high school three months before I would have graduated.

Ed Cronin was a very nice gentleman; he spent a lot of time coaching me through my first job. I was a little nervous, but he put me at ease, and by the time I left Hillman, I felt pretty confident. I was concerned about the deadline, but he said, “Take your time, there’s no problem.” I only did that one job for Hillman, because I was really looking for a steady assignment with a weekly paycheck. Freelance assignments are sporadic, and you never know when you’re going to get your next job.

My father was not too happy about my decision to be an artist. He thought I would become a city worker like most of my family—a cop, or fireman, or sanitation worker—for security reasons, and the beautiful pensions they get. I broke the family tradition by becoming an artist, you see. He couldn’t understand that, so for a while we were on the outs: “You’ll never make a living doing artwork!” But let me tell you, I helped save that house; I really did. Eventually, he realized how serious I was about art, and then he supported me.

There was a period after Hillman Publications when I commuted by bus from Astoria to Englewood, New Jersey, to work on “Captain Marvel” with C. C. Beck and Pete Costanza, though I never met them. I did meet artist Nick Zuraw there, who I later worked with at Timely.

“Joe Giella Is Like Fine Wine––He Gets Better With Age!”

5

I also joined the Naval Reserves in 1948, when I was 17 or 18 years old. This was right before the Korean War broke out, and I can remember everybody saying, “Where the hell’s Korea?” We joined the Naval Reserves because we were crazy: we wanted to visit different countries. Each year, we’d go on a two-week trip, or a three-month trip.

Then the war broke out, and wow, everything changed. There we were doing picket duty, looking for submarines, and going crazy worrying.

We were in Puerto Rico the year before, and Cuba, when Battista was there. I was still able to do comics because, in the reserves, we’d go out on an annual cruise for two or three weeks, then come back to our regular jobs. I’d just take a sabbatical from work for the amount of time that I had to serve. I stayed in the reserves for eight years. We were on active duty during each cruise, but I never had to do any fighting.

“All Of A Sudden, Mike Sekowsky Walked Into The Room” JA: How did you get to Fawcett?

GIELLA: I didn’t work on staff at Fawcett; any work I did for them was in a freelance capacity. I recall that they were sticklers for drawing Captain Marvel in C. C. Beck’s style. I was mainly inking, but probably doing a little penciling too. You’d have the style guide right there on your desk, and that head had to be exactly the way they wanted it.

I only worked there for a short spell, maybe a couple of months,

Sekowsky By Winiarski?

Artist Mike Sekowsky was caricatured (by fellow bullpenner Ed Winiarski?) in a mid-1940s Timely humor comic. In addition to drawing virtually every 1940s genre at Timely/Marvel, in late 1959 he became the original penciler of DC’s “Justice League of America.” Thanks to Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. [©2005 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

because I wanted something closer to home. Commuting by bus to Beck and Costanza’s studio in Englewood was a trip and a half. That’s why I made an appointment at Timely Comics, which was either in 1946 or ’47.

The very first assignment that Stan gave me was a freelance job. I was looking for a staff job, but they’d test you out first to make sure they liked your work, and then they’d throw you in the bullpen. It was terrific training for a young artist, because you would do a little of everything: penciling, inking, coloring, a little lettering. It really was a great experience.

Anyway, Stan gave me my first assignment, which was a crime story—probably a ten-pager—penciled by Mike Sekowsky. I took the story home, and guess what? I lost it on the train. Nobody in my family—myself, my father, mother, and brothers—nobody slept that night, because we figured that was the end of the job. The next day, I went in and told Stan about it, and he hit the ceiling. He called the IRT and BMT line subways, and no luck. Then he called in Robbie Solomon, who was the production manager, but he couldn’t help, either. And I thought that would be it for me at Timely.

All of a sudden, Mike Sekowsky walked into the room. I’d never met him before, and didn’t even know that he’d penciled the job. Mike said, “Don’t worry about it, Stan. I’ll take care of the kid.” Mike must have recognized I had an urgent need for this job, so he re-penciled the story, and I inked it. Stan accepted it and gave me a staff position. I walked up to Mike and said, “Mike, I can’t pay you back right now, but I’ll take a little bit out of my check every week to pay you back.” Mike said, “No no no, forget about it.” And I thought, “Well, I’m not going to argue with this guy—he’s 6'3".” When I didn’t get fired after losing the story, and after another crazy incident, I thought, “Well, Stan’ll never fire me after this.”

Beck And Forth Although Joe doesn’t remember specific stories, he recalls working on the World’s Mightiest Mortal for Fawcett circa 1946-47. So there’s at least a chance he may have worked with C.C. Beck and his studio on this tale from Captain Marvel Adventures #61 (May 24, 1946), one of four in the issue. [©2005 DC Comics.]

Mike and I became very good friends, right until the very end. He used to go out with an inker named Violet Barclay. She was a beautiful, voluptuous brunette—wow! But she preferred George Klein. So when Mike wasn’t with her, we would spend time going to Broadway plays together, and to bars... we just had a really good time. Now you see why I didn’t want to leave Timely Comics. I was very happy there. That was my home.

JA: Did you feel as if Mike took you under his wing?

GIELLA: Not exactly. Mike was a real tough guy, and he had a terrible temper, but he also had a heart of gold. He liked what I did to his work,

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The Man Who Inked DC’s Silver Age working on Flash Gordon then, but I couldn’t put him on that, because the styles would conflict. It was so sad.

His first wife was Joanne Latta.

When he met her, she was a writer in the magazine department at Timely. She was a tiny, goodlooking woman with glasses, blonde hair, and a nice figure. She looked like a schoolteacher or librarian.

They lived in Levittown, New York, but Mike was probably not an easy guy to live with. I wish I knew what caused their separation.

Something must have happened that was deep and penetrating to him; something very bad. When she left, she took the two kids and moved to Washington state, and he wasn’t able to see them.

I used to tell him, “Mike, I hope you’re saving your money, because at this rate, you’re going to get burned out.” And there he was, Hot Rods And Racing Artists looking for work. He had probably Both Frank Giacoia and Mike Sekowsky drew stories for Ziff-Davis’ “Hot Rod” King #1-and-only (Fall 1952). Matter of spent all his money, and he was fact, Giacoia has two signed tales therein. Since Joe says he helped Giacoia out on many of his art jobs, and also often very sick. And you know the worked with Sekowsky, could be there’s a bit of Giella in them thar panels, as well. The issue’s cover, incidentally, outcome. Toward the end of his life, was a painting by pulp master Norman Saunders. For more about Ziff-Davis’ 1950s comics line, see Jim Amash’s interview with Golden Age editor Herb Rogoff in A/E #43—still on sale wherever back issues are sold—like, on pp. he drank a lot. He used to drink 44-45 of this very issue. With thanks to Donald A. Rex for the scans. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

Jack Daniels, and he’d drink about three-quarters of a quart bottle a and we became buddies. He had a good sense of humor. However, he day. He’d have a bottle on his taboret. I think he drank because of did have a bad temper, and he drank. When I worked with him at Joanne.

Timely, he was a social drinker. I would usually drink beer when we People either liked Mike, or they didn’t like him. If you really knew went out together, but he drank the hard stuff, and I could see right him, as I did, he would do anything for you. He would do anything for away that this guy could put it away. When he got a little high, his true me. And Mike loved Frank Giacoia; he thought Frank was the greatest. feelings would come out... his opinions about people. It was a release; all the venom would come out of him.

JA: I’ve heard that Mike had a cutting, devastating sense of humor.

Does anything come to mind about that?

Many years later, I was working at DC Comics—mostly as an inker—but I also penciled and inked licensing work. One day, Dick GIELLA: We used to work at Frank Giacoia’s house, and Mike would Giordano asked me to take one of Mike’s jobs and kind of redo it, fix it always be coming up with jokes. His delivery was terrific; he knew how up. I looked at it, and thought, “Gee, there’s too much to work to do to tell a joke. We would discuss the other artists and editors, and make here; I’m going to have to re-pencil everything.” You see, Dick had gone fun of this or that guy. But Mike would never discuss his personal life to California to recruit some artists. He stopped in to see Mike, and with us. He seemed happy after he married Pat, his second wife. promised him a lot of work. When Mike sent the job in, Dick was very unhappy with it, so he gave it to me to try to salvage it. I made it clear to Mike had a heart of gold, though. I remember him lending money to him that this wasn’t an ink job, that it would have to be redrawn. Dick Frank Giacoia. Any time you were in the hole and needed help, there he said, “Ok, go ahead and do it, Joe.” I had to redraw about 75% of the was. He would never turn you down. But there were two sides to him. job. That’s how much Mike had deteriorated. He was really drinking That’s what was so sad about Mike: he wasn’t happy with himself. He then. wasn’t happy with his life. He loved the comics, really enjoyed it. He loved the scripts, and would really dig into them. Comics was his life, But that wasn’t the end of it. I delivered the job, and wouldn’t you and it’s just so sad. He was so myopic that he couldn’t see any further. know that the day I delivered it, Mike showed up at the office, all the way from California. The last guy I wanted to see that day was Mike Sekowsky, because of our previous affiliation and the debt I owed him. I said, “Mike, what are you doing here?” And Mike said, “Dick Giordano JA: Getting back to how you started at Timely: why did Stan give promised me a lot of work, but he didn’t come through, and I’m here to you an inking job? Were you looking for inking work, or just any talk to him about it.” Then he asked me what I was doing there. Well, I work? couldn’t lie to Mike; he was my friend. I said, “Mike, you’re going to be upset. They asked me to ink the job you sent in, and it was too rough. I GIELLA: I would do any work that they offered. When I joined the couldn’t just ink it; I had to rework a lot of it.” I thought he would hit Timely bullpen, I started out doing a little touch-up work, a little the ceiling, but he didn’t! After that, we just said goodbye; I don’t recall background work, a little inking, redraw this, fix this head, do whether we had dinner or drinks before we parted company. Later on, something with this panel... whatever. Later on, I assisted Syd Shores, he called me up from California, looking for work. I think I was who was drawing “Captain America” and a couple of other characters.

“Joe, Could You Pitch In On This Job?”

“Joe Giella Is Like Fine Wine––He Gets Better With Age!”

Timely’s Not-Quite-So-Big Three Joe recalls working on each of Timely’s three major super-heroes in the later 1940s, during their waning days—never doing a complete story, but inking a page here, repenciling a panel there. For that reason, we’ve repro’d last pages, rather than splashes, from one such possible “jam” issue—Marvel Mystery Comics #86 (March 1948). The “Torch” tale contains lots of nice moody blacks—and Ye Editor found himself wondering if shadowy panels on some pages didn’t betray the work of a young Gene Colan. The “Sub-Mariner” tale looks like pure Bill Everett, who often drew him wearing more than just swimming trunks. Syd Shores was the main “Captain America” artist during this era, and may have contributed to this outing. Oh, and there was a “Blonde Phantom” story in the 52-page issue, as well. [©2005 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

After about a year, I was mostly inking.

A lot of fellows like Frank Giacoia, Sy Barry, and myself went to inking for monetary reasons. None of us started out intending to become inkers; we started out penciling. I was inking two to three pages a day, but I couldn’t pencil more than one. And you know, when you need money, you kind-of lean toward the inking. I could bring home $90 a week instead of $40. And after a while, you kind-of get typecast.

To this day, I’m still slow at penciling, and I make up the time on the inking.

JA: So you did “Captain America” several times in the ’40s, right?

GIELLA: I didn’t do a complete story. I was in production at first.

They’d say, “Joe, could you ink these two pages?” Or, “Joe, can you take care of the backgrounds on this?” Or, “Could you re-pencil this?”

That was the extent of it.

JA: You were on staff at Timely for about two years. What features did you work on?

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The Man Who Inked DC’s Silver Age could you pitch in on this job?” Most of the time, I would.

JA: Who oversaw the bullpen?

GIELLA: The editor that you were working for.

There weren’t too many people in the bullpen.

There was a humor bullpen in another room, but I was in the “adventure” bullpen with Syd Shores, Vince Alascia, Al Sulman, Al Bellman, and a feisty little fella named Bill Walsh. Nobody was really in charge of the room. An editor—maybe Al Sulman—would come in and say, “Joe could you work on this?” And I’d say, “Gee, I have to finish this first,” or “I’m doing this for Syd.” I have a story about Al Sulman. Al invited me to the Yale-Harvard football game. When we sat down, I noticed there was an empty seat, which was for Al’s girlfriend. And then we heard on somebody’s portable radio that there had been an airplane crash. It turned out that Al Sulman’s girlfriend was on board the plane, and she died in the crash.

I think it was a year before Al came back to work.

JA: Al Jaffe described Al Sulman as not having much of a sense of humor. Describe him for me.

GIELLA: Yeah, he was serious. He had black hair, horn-rimmed glasses.

He was a little on the chunky side. He wasn’t interested in athletics, and he ate a little too much.

JA: At the time, Al Sulman was editing Captain America, some of the adventure comics, and maybe Westerns, too. So Stan was like the über-editor (for want of a better term), and Sulman was a full editor working under Stan, right?

The Merry Marvel Marching Society – 1947 Edition We’ve previously printed this caricature of Stan Lee, which appeared in his 1947 book Secrets behind the Comics, but since Joe mentions him so prominently, here ’tis again—alongside a page of the archetypal dumb blonde My Friend Irma, drawn by Dan DeCarlo. This 1950s TV/radio-licensed Timely title is the earliest place Roy T. recalls seeing the name “Stan Lee” as a kid.

Repo’d from an Australian black-&-white reprint mag, with thanks to Mark Muller. [Caricature ©2005 Stan Lee; Irma page ©2005 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

GIELLA: “Captain America,” “The Human Torch,” “Sub-Mariner”... among others. I also did humor work.

JA: In 1947, Stan Lee wanted to update “The Sub-Mariner,” and he asked Lee Elias to draw a couple of stories. Stan didn’t like the results, and had some bullpen guys rework the stories.

GIELLA: I probably was one of them. I don’t recall ever getting an entire story to ink, though, and I don’t remember who I might have inked on “Sub-Mariner.”

JA: What was it like to work on those characters when, just a few years before, you were buying their comic books?

GIELLA: What a feeling! I was ecstatic! I was working on these characters that I had loved, enjoyed, and fantasized about. What a dream! I think they started me at $60 a week, and then it worked up to ninety. That was a lot of money back then. I’d get one check a week from Magazine Management, and I used to give my mother $50 out of that.

JA: Was Stan Lee the only editor you worked for at Timely?

GIELLA: I worked for Al Sulman and Al Jaffee, but it would have been in the same capacity as for the other editors. They would ask me, “Joe,

GIELLA: Right. Stan very rarely asked me to do anything directly; it was usually through another editor. I’d see Stan every day, though. He’d come into the room and look at what I was doing, and maybe look at what someone else was doing. Then maybe he’d blurt to one of the artists, “Can I get Joe on this other story?” And the artist might say, “No, he’s got to finish this first, Stan.” And maybe later that day Stan would come into the room and joke about something, or critique the work being done. Other times, Stan and Syd Shores would discuss future titles they would be putting out.

Syd later became a taxi cab driver; that was so sad. I happened to see him while I was on jury duty back in the early ’70s, and he told me he was driving a cab because he couldn’t find work. Of course you know that he passed away many years ago.

JA: Bob Deschamps said you guys used to make fun of Syd’s toupee.

GIELLA: Not me, but the others used to.

“What Do You Remember About…?”

JA: What were your impressions of Stan Lee at this time?

GIELLA: I looked up to him. He had a sense of humor, and as I mentioned earlier, he didn’t fire me when he could have. We became very good friends. I went to see the first Superman movie with Stan. We were walking toward the theatre and I said, “Stan, what the heck are all these cops on horseback doing here?” And he said, “Gee, I don’t know, Joe.” So we walked into the theatre and sat down. Then Stan said to me, “Joe, y’know why all the cops were out there? Look ahead of us.” A couple of rows in front of us were Mayor Koch and Governor Carey.

I saw Stan at San Diego when they gave me the Inkpot Award, and he jokingly said, “Joe, I should have fired you that day you lost that job on the train.” [laughter] He’d never forgotten it. I also used to see him at

33

“Comic Artists Could Draw Better Than Anybody In The World!”

Artist JAY SCOTT PIKE Talks About His Days At Timely/Marvel & DC Interview Conducted & Transcribed by Jim Amash

I

f you want a story with beautiful women in it, look no further than a Jay Scott Pike tale. Scott, as he prefers to be called, delineated breathtaking women for romance comics and for titles like Lorna, the Jungle Girl and Jann of the Jungle. His attention to jungle foliage heightened the reality of their environment and was always a pleasure to look at. And, though sadly he wrote and drew his late-’60s creation “Dolphin” only once, she remains a cult favorite among comics fans. As far as we’re concerned, Jay Scott Pike ranks high on the alltime list of classic “good girl” artists; and if you want further proof of that, then check out his eBay auctions for examples of his current work, or contact Marianne Ohl Phillips at www.moppinup.com. But please wait until you’ve read our whole interview!

You’ll find plenty of evidence on view there, as well. —Jim.

“I Just Wanted To Draw” JIM AMASH: We can’t get away with not asking this question, so I’ll ask it first: when and where were you born?

JAY SCOTT PIKE: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 6, 1924.

JA: I was born in Altoona, PA. PIKE: Oh yeah, where the coal mines are. I went to the University of Pennsylvania for one semester before I went into the Marine Corps. I was on the Freshman football team, and just about all the guys on the team were from the Pennsylvania coal fields. Boy, were they tough!

JA: Oh, I know it! So you were a football player. What got you interested in cartooning?

PIKE: Like most professional cartoonists, I liked to draw and drew all the time. I remember when the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs came out. It was being played all the time, and it fascinated me.

I got so that I could draw all the characters in the movie. I just wanted to draw.

I graduated from high school in Morristown, New Jersey, and went to college, as I said. I enlisted in the Marines in December 1942.

Beauty & The Beard Jay Scott Pike (in a self-portrait done a decade or two back)—and a drawing of his heroine Dolphin which he did especially for interviewer Jim Amash. Scott’s the one on the left. [Portrait & art ©2005 Jay Scott Pike; Dolphin TM & ©2005 DC Comics.]

JA: So you volunteered. Did you have a deferment because you were in college?

said, “Awww...let him in.” [laughs] That’s how I got into the Marine Corps.

PIKE: I don’t think they had college deferments then. I actually tried eight times to get into the service before they took me. They wouldn’t take me because I’m color blind—well, not actually color blind, but I had trouble seeing colors. Finally, on my last try, the Corps man turned me down, but there was an old chief on the other side of the room, who

I got out in ’46. I was discharged in San Diego, and tried to get into college there, but they were only taking California residents. I did get into the Parsons School of Design in Manhattan. I got married in 1948, and after living in Indiana for a while, we came down to the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Florida. I went to school there for a year and a half, and

34

Artist Jay Scott Pike Talks About His Days At Timely/Marvel & DC

Hartley Working Al Hartley, a Timely/Marvel mainstay for many years on humor comics, was still drawing Patsy & Hedy in 1964 when this photo appeared in Marvel Tales Annual #1. These two “Kollege Kapers” pages are from issues #1 & #2, respectively, of B&I Publishing’s The Kilroys in 1947, an early and funny Archie imitation; they display a slightly different style of Hartley art than seen in Patsy Walker, et al. Thanks to Joe Marek, Steve Brumbaugh, and Bob Bailey for all sending copies of the photo of Al—and to Ger Apeldoorn for the comics pages. [Photo ©2005 Marvel Characters, Inc.; art ©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

learned about all they were going to teach me, so I went to Manhattan, thinking the world was waiting for me to be a straight illustrator.

“Al Hartley…Got Me Into Comics” JA: Is that where you met Al Hartley?

PIKE: Actually, I grew up in Morristown, New Jersey, and when we moved back north, we lived in Morristown for a year or so. Al Hartley was living in Washington Valley, which was real close to where I lived.

He was the one who got me into comics, in 1950. My hope had been to work at home and find high paying illustration work, but I couldn’t seem to get any work. At that time, I didn’t want to commute to New York City, so a friend of mine suggested I draw comic books. I didn’t want to do that, because I thought comic books were the bottom of the barrel, and I didn’t know much about comics at all. But I was so impressed by Al Hartley’s lifestyle, because he was making a lot of money, and he was fast. He was really cranking the work out.

I penciled stuff for Al for about two weeks, but our styles were really not compatible, and we both realized that. Because of that, we sort-of got irritated with each other. By then, I had gotten to know Stan Lee. I remember the first story I did was a 3-pager about a professional golfer, though I can’t remember his name. Then Stan started feeding me Westerns, and if you’ve done Westerns, you know how long it takes to do a story. All those horses, costumes, gun belts... they take time. I did them... I did all kinds of things. At that time, I was... and I still am, I guess... pretty much against war. I did a few war stories before I decided I didn’t want to do any more of them. Stan Lee was very understanding about it. Maybe the stories I did weren’t gory. I got into doing horror stories, and drew The Black Rider for a long time.

“I Always Found [Stan Lee] Easy To Work With” JA: Did you work at home or on staff? And what do you remember about Stan Lee?

PIKE: I worked at home. I liked Stan Lee a lot and always found him very easy to work with. When my wife and I moved back to Florida, Stan always gave me two or three scripts at a time, so when I finished a story, I could jump right into another one. Personally, I hardly ever saw him, though we talked on the phone a lot.

As soon as I realized I could keep busy doing comics and live where I wanted, my wife and I moved back to Sarasota, Florida. In the second half of the 1950s, the comic book business went to hell, so I was stranded down in Florida without any visible means of support. I did all kinds of things, like portraits. I did them in pastels. I also did paintings in the bottom of swimming pools, architectural renderings...anything to make a buck. I also worked for several agencies, but two of them went belly-up, owing me about $18,000, which did us in. That was in 1960, so we moved back to the New York area so I could get some decent kind of work.

JA: Since you lived in Florida for most of your Timely career, you mainly talked to Stan by phone. I’m surprised he had the time, considering how busy he was. Was Stan the only one you talked to or was there another editor you worked with?

PIKE: No, I always talked to Stan. There was one time that I got a call from a secretary or an assistant. She said, “Do you have to wrap those pages up like you do? They’re wrapped like a bomb.”

JA: Yeah, but the first time pages came in damaged, you’d have heard about it. Now, you said you did Black Rider. You happen to remember who the writer was?

PIKE: It might have been Bob Bernstein, but I’m not positive. I don’t think Stan wrote many of the stories I worked on, but he sure did a lot of writing. Stan told me that when he was in the Army, he’d get a weekend pass, get a hotel room, and write stories. He said he could make a thousand bucks over the weekend, and I was impressed by that.

But I really don’t remember the names of the writers.

“Comic Artists Could Draw Better Than Anybody In The World!”

“I Liked Doing The Female Jungle Features” JA: You also drew Kid Colt, Lorna the Jungle Girl....

PIKE: Oh, yeah, I drew a lot of Lornas. I drew Jann of the Jungle, too.

35

“I Didn’t Feel Bad About Doing Comics” JA: Well, you weren’t particularly proud of being in comics anyway, were you? You wanted to be an illustrator.

JA: You also drew stories for the crime and adventure comics, like All-True Crime. Did you have a favorite genre?

PIKE: I did want to be an illustrator, but I knew a few, and I was making more money than they were. You don’t generally get rich doing comics, but I was doing well then.

PIKE: I really liked the romance stories because I could draw them faster. I could draw a close-up of a woman’s face with a tear coming out of her eye. That was easy.

JA: When the Senate Investigations were going on, were you embarrassed to admit you were doing comics?

JA: You really had a great gift for drawing pretty women.

PIKE: Yeah, that was my strongest point, and still is. The stuff I sell on eBay is all girly drawings. I liked doing the female jungle features—the pretty women and all that foliage. I was doing Lorna when the Comics Code came into being. That was the only time I ever got any work back.

One of the nice things about comics was that I did the work and never saw it again. There wasn’t anyone nitpicking my work.

But they sent two stories back to me. I had to reduce Lorna’s breast size. There were scenes when she was swinging on vines above the ground, with her skirt flying up. I had to redraw the skirt down around her knees, even though she was flying upwards. [laughs] JA: In a case like that, did they call you and tell you the work was coming back, or did a package just show up with a note attached to the art?

PIKE: I guess Stan called me first. I don’t remember him being upset about it. It was just the way things were. Comics got a lot of bad publicity, thanks to EC Comics. That Johnny Craig cover where the man was holding up the severed head! That was too gory and got us into trouble. Congress got involved, and that gave them a chance to be selfrighteous.

PIKE: I remember people asking me about it. I said, “Listen, the publishers I work for are pretty doggoned straightlaced.” I can’t remember either Timely or DC coming out with stuff that I thought was bad. I didn’t feel bad about doing comics.

JA: Then you didn’t feel bad about drawing horror stories.

PIKE: I wasn’t good at doing horror stories, so I got out of doing them.

Stan simply didn’t give me those, because he realized they weren’t my strongest area. Once I got into romance, that’s pretty much all I got. I did like doing Westerns, but they took me longer to do. I took little shortcuts, like when a posse’s running into town, they kick up a lot of dust, so I didn’t have to draw the feet of the horses. I did like drawing horses, though it wasn’t easy for me.

“Stan Would Call Me…Would I Take A Rate Cut?” JA: How fast an artist were you?

PIKE: Back in the ’50s, I could average $25,000 a year. I was getting about $35 to $40 a page, pencils and inks. To make 25 grand, I’d have to average $500 a week, so I had to be cranking out two pages a day.

JA: Did you letter your stories?

That Was Lorna—But She’s Only A Dream “I drew a lot of Lornas!” recalls Scott. Here, courtesy of collector Bob Cherry, are two Pike splashes and an action page (from the second story) from Lorna, the Jungle Girl #22 (Dec. 1956). Even Sheena never looked more gorgeous in a jungle setting! And, like Jim Amash says, the foliage ain’t too shabby, either.

(That’s “trees,” for you guys with dirty minds.) [©2005 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

46

“I Was All Over The Place, And Enjoying Every Minute Of It!” MARTIN THALL On Drawing Comics And Witnessing Comics History In the 1940s & ’50s Interview Conducted by Jim Amash

Transcribed by Tom Wimbish

M

artin Thall’s comic book career lasted a little less than a decade, but in that time, he managed to partner himself with guys like Wally Wood, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, and George Evans. Martin also did quite a bit of work on his own for companies like Timely, Fox Features, and St. John Publications. If he didn’t make his mark on comics the way some of his contemporaries did, he still says, “I witnessed a lot of history.” Thanks to “fellow defense attorney” and author David Hajdu, I was able to coax Martin to step into the witness box and tell us a few stories about his comic book years. Now you get to judge whether or not Martin made a good witness. This entertaining interview stands as our verdict. —Jim

“Jack Kirby Was My Mentor” JIM AMASH: When and where were you born?

MARTIN THALL: Brooklyn, New York, on November the 30th, 1930.

It was a very good year.

JA: You were born Martin Rosenthal, right? Why did you change your name?

THALL: That’s an interesting story. When my grandfather came to this country from Poland, his name was Schmael Colycka. I think that’s Yiddish: “Schmael” means sloppy, and “Colycka” means cripple. He

Thall Or Nothing At All (Left:) In May, Martin Thall sent Ye Editor a proofsheet of what he called “some recent reasonable facsimiles of myself. Pick one.” Hey, we like ’em all, Martin, so…!

(Above:) The year 1951 saw Fawcett publish 6 issues of Captain Video, based on the early TV hero, all with art credited to George Evans—so since Martin says he did inking and backgrounds for Evans on that mag, we figure this page may just show their work together. Repro’d from a black-&-white 1950s English reprint of Captain Video #2 (April 1951), courtesy of Roger Dicken & Wendy Hunt. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

came here in 1906 or 1907. At that time, there was no TV or radio, but the newspaper boys would take to the streets and yell out, “Wuxtry, wuxtry!” And the headlines were, “Herman Rosenthal captured!” Then shortly after that, “Herman Rosenthal on trial!” Then, “Herman Rosenthal convicted!” When my grandfather first came here, the first name he heard was Rosenthal, so he took it.

“I Was All Over The Place, And Enjoying Every Minute Of It!”

47

don’t pay attention to that.” When Jack drew a guy throwing a punch, his body twisted in a way that the human body couldn’t manage. He freed me up, and he showed me how he laid out his figures. When Jack Kirby laid out a page, he worked on illustration board rather than the soft board, and he blocked out his panels before doing the actual drawing.

One scene he did had a pirate ship coming alongside some kind of sea vessel, and the pirates were raiding the vessel. He had a cast of thousands in the shot. When Jack put down a line, it was there. He sort-of visualized the whole thing; he was able to see what was going on in his mind, and model that. He could do eight pages a day, and he never erased; it was incredible. It was almost like he was tracing on paper what he saw in his mind.

One Christmas, in 1945, I bought him a box of White Owl cigars— that’s the cheapest cigar in the world; no cigar smoker will go anywhere near them—and he was very touched by it. Jack chain-smoked cigars. I was on a school break, it was Christmas vacation, and he said, “Let’s have some coffee.” We went to the Waldorf-Astoria, which was only three blocks away from DC’s office at 480 Lexington Avenue. He took me to the Wedgewood Room, which was an elegant place, about fifty years old, and bought me dinner. I had my first shrimp cocktail there; he ordered it for me. Then he took me across the street on Park Avenue to an art supply store called Irving Berlin. I was just looking around while he was ordering stuff, and then he gave me this huge package. It was a drawing pad, pens, ink, brushes, all kinds of supplies. He was a really great guy to me.

I used to hang around at DC Comics. I knew everybody there, all the editors, but I never worked for the company.

JA: When you watched Jack Kirby work, was he writing the stories, too?

THALL: I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think so. I was so fixed on his boards that I don’t recall seeing a script. I should have noticed that.

That’s Quite A Stunt, Man! “When Jack [Kirby] drew a guy throwing a punch, his body twisted in a way that the human body couldn’t manage!” And he made it look good, every time—as in this Simon & Kirby-produced Stuntman page, repro’d here from Pure Imagination’s The Complete Jack Kirby – March-May 1947, and used by permission of Greg Theakston. [Retouched art ©2005 Greg Theakston; Stuntman TM Joe Simon & Estate of Jack Kirby.]

Coincidentally, about 40 years later, I got into a cab, and the cabbie’s card said that the driver’s name was Herman Rosenthal. I told him the story, and he said, “The gangster who gave your grandfather his name was my grandfather.” Small world.

I legally changed my last name to Thall in 1953. I used to be very vain, and I was thinking about signatures. “Rosenthal” just didn’t seem to go well, but “Martin Thall” seemed to be a good signature. I tried other names, such as “Emrose” and “Martin Rose,” before deciding on “Martin Thall.” Everybody had a signature: Milton Caniff, Bob Kane with a big “O.” I wanted a new signature, so I registered my name as Thall.

JA: Tell me about your experiences with Jack Kirby.

THALL: Jack Kirby was my mentor. He was wonderful; I saw him every day after school. He worked at DC Comics. This was right after 1945. At that time, all the cartoonists at DC didn’t work at home; they worked at the publisher’s. I went over to DC, and there was Jack Kirby.

Joe Simon was still in the service, and hadn’t gotten out yet. They didn’t last much longer at DC. I went to the High School of Industrial Arts in the daytime, and the Cartoonists and Illustrators School at night, and I used to visit Jack Kirby in between. He would look at my work, and say, “You’re too realistic; you draw things that any human body can do. I

I did a terrible thing to Jack once. After he left DC, he and Joe Simon had their own studio. The letterer was Howard Ferguson. Bob Henry and Steve Brodie were inkers there, but Joe Simon did most of the inking. Anyway, they would stack their pages, and were working so fast that they would pass them around. Jack would pencil it, hand it on to be inked, then another guy would rule the panel borders and letter it. They would just go in circles. They were knocking them out so fast that it was fascinating.

Anyway, the pages were stacked on end on the floor between Bob Henry’s taboret and his drafting table. Bob Henry dropped his pencil, or something like that. I reached for it, knocked over a bottle of ink that was on the taboret, and it spilled all over the pages that were done already. Jack said, “Should we lynch him?” Then he said, “You’d better go.” I had damaged three pages. They had to be done all over again. I said, “Are you gonna let me come back?” and he said yes. They were so gracious about it that it was incredible. I felt terrible.

It was fascinating watching Will Eisner pencil, and watching him ink with a Japanese brush. That was in 1950, I believe. I used to go up wherever artists were drawing. It was easy to find them after World War II, because they were all working at their publishers’ facilities. The companies had large bullpens for all of them.

JA: What do you remember about Joe Simon?

THALL: Very little. He was a nice guy, and he lived on Long Island.

Simon and Kirby had an extension line in their office, so I could talk to them at the same time. I’d call them in the evening while they were working, and they’d chat with me about everything and anything in the world. They were terrific.

48

Martin Thall On Drawing Comics And Witnessing Comics History In The 1940s & ’50s

Fiction House Favorites In the 1940s, Martin Thall reports he shared studio space with noted comic book artists Charles Sultan & Maurice Whitman.

(Left:) Fiction House collector Paul Handler ID’s this Charles Sultan-drawn splash page, repro’d from photocopies of the original art, as coming from Rangers Comics #37 (Oct. 1947). Pay no attention to that byline “R.W. Colt.” The company’s comics and pulp magazines were full of fictitious “house names”—maybe that’s why publisher T.T. Scott named it “Fiction House”!

(Right:) Maurice Whitman often drew “Kaänga” (officially always by “Frank Riddell”). This splash page was retouched by Bill Black and his merry AC Comics crew, with gray tones added, for his black-&-white collection Golden Age Greats, Vol. 14 – The Comic Book Jungle. It’s still available; check out AC’s full-page ad in this issue’s FCA section. [Retouched art ©2005 Paragon Publications/AC Comics.]

“We Met At Fiction House…”

JA: You also spent time at Fiction House. Tell me about that.

THALL: Fiction House Publications had all their artists working in the bullpen. It was one large room with Charlie Sultan, John Celardo, George Evans, Bob Lubbers, and a woman named Francis. I got to know Charlie Sultan very well, and Maurice Whitman, too. Sultan came there after the war, as did most of the other guys. Then he started working at home. In 1956, he stopped cartooning—he wasn’t doing very well as a cartoonist in the later part of his life—and went into publishing.

He called me up in 1958 and said, “Do you want to work for me?” I said, “Sure.” He was publishing a racing magazine and an adventure magazine. I was the art director. I was there for less than a year.

JA: I’ve heard that he was cross-eyed. Is that true?

THALL: Yeah. Maurice always said that he “drew crooked,” and he did.

One eye didn’t match the other eye. It was strange.

JA: What were you doing at Fiction House? Were you just visiting there?

THALL: Yeah, that was before I broke in. I never got any work from Fiction House.

JA: What can you tell me about Maurice Whitman?

THALL: He was a great artist, and a very good illustrator. He had a terrible marriage, and near the end of his life he was very fat. There was a beautiful young girl working at Fiction House, and she was in love with Maurice. I think they finally got together in the end. At that time, I was sharing space with Charlie Sultan. I wasn’t working with him, but I was sharing space with him.

JA: How large was Fiction House’s office?

THALL: They had a huge office. The artists’ room had about 20 people in there. There was an old guy named Joe Doolin, who did many of the covers. He spent about a week doing a cover; he was very methodical.

None of his covers had anything to do with what was going on inside.

My Visit With Will For as long as I can remember, I idolized Will Eisner. We began corresponding in 1978, and in 1982 I met him at the School of Visual Arts in New York, where he was teaching cartooning.

Over the years Will and I would occasionally touch base, chatting for a few minutes at comic book conventions and such. In the years since I’d first met him, Will and his wife Ann had moved from New York to sunny Florida. In January 1997, I visited my parents in West Palm Beach and made arrangements to stop by Will’s studio in West Tamarac, about an hour away.

If my wife Janet and I were expecting the great Will Eisner to work in some fancy-schmancy office complex, we were in for a rude awakening. The address Will gave us led us to a strip mall located in a working-class neighborhood. His office was in a nearby building. The area reminded me of a low-rent district in New York, the perfect spot for a no-nonsense businessman like Will.

Eisner’s studio was clean, neat, and efficient. It wasn’t huge, but big enough for him to work comfortably. Will introduced us to his brother Julian (known as Pete), his business manager. As I recall, Pete’s office contained a beautiful piece of original poster art from Will’s Army days.

Another wall displayed dozens of original drawings sent to Will by his admirers.

Will’s desk was at the far end of the room, surrounded by bookshelves stuffed with graphic novels, mine included. An impressive display of plaques and awards from various countries lined the walls.

Nearby was a drawing table, complete with layouts for yet another graphic novel.

Michael and Will in 2001, at Will’s studio in Tamarac, Florida. Wonder who drew all those nifty cards in the background?

After showing us around, Will drove us to a nearby golf course for lunch. At 79, Will was in great shape (he played tennis every day!), and very sharp. We reminisced about our days in New York. He chuckled as I described feeling like The Spirit every time I went down into New York’s gloomy subway system.

I reminded him of our meeting at the School of Visual Arts years earlier and he told me he loved teaching those classes. Janet and I were stunned to learn Will flew to New York each week for years to teach at the school even after he’d moved to Florida. He said it was worth the trip just to inhale that wonderfully polluted New York air!

Will also described a large mural he’d designed, painted on the side of a building in Copenhagen. It featured The Spirit and one of his favorite characters, Gerhard Shnobble, the poor schlubb who could fly like a bird (though no one knew it!). By coincidence, Janet and I were planning a trip to Copenhagen that September and made a note to look for it. Months later, we finally tracked it down after tromping through half the city. Luckily there were ample pastry shops to sustain us along the way.

After I returned, I pitched couple more ideas for The New

Title Comic Fandom Archive

65

A Talk With Writer, Educator, & Comics Fanatic

GLEN JOHNSON

by Bill Schelly

I

Part Two

ntroduction: Last issue featured the first part of my conversation with Glen, a former editor of The Comic Reader who wrote some of the better articles on comics history for the early fanzines (Comic World, Alter Ego, Heroes Illustrated, et al). Glen also pioneered the use of the sequential art format to teach English as a second language on Indian reservations in the 1960s. We spoke by telephone on January 16, 2005.

In this second half of our long-overdue talk, we discussed why Glen left his editorial/publishing post at The Comic Reader, the “fanclave” he attended at artist Russ Manning’s house in May 1964, his views on current comics, and more. Special thanks to Brian K. Morris for his usual fine transcription effort, and to my friend and colleague Jeffrey Kipper for editing the interview down to final form.

BILL SCHELLY: Getting back to the period when you were editing The Comic Reader, I understand that Ronn Foss not only did some fan art for you, but actually dropped by so you could meet in person.

Just A Society of Americans Fan-artist Ronn Foss (with his ever-present pipe) visits Glen Johnson and his wife Maizie in New Mexico in 1965—juxtaposed with Biljo White’s re-creation of the cover of All-Star Comics #24 (with Starman and Sandman replacing Green Lantern and The Flash) which accompanied Glen’s article on the JSA in Alter Ego [Vol. 1] #8 in 1965. Photo probably by Beverly Foss; all photos accompanying this interview are courtesy of Glen Johnson. [Art ©2005 Estate of Biljo White; Justice Society TM & ©2005 DC Comics.]

wasn’t really supposed to be using that machine for cranking out a comic book newsletter. I had to go to the school on Sundays or late at night to sneak the publication of my fanzine.

BS: You did it for quite a long time; then, when you passed it on to Darrell Rothermich and Jim King, they published it via photo-offset.

I’ve thought of this stuff many times when writing my columns and books on comics fandom, but you probably haven’t talked about these events in a long time.

JOHNSON: Not in a long time…

GLEN JOHNSON: Yes, he and his sister Beverly came by when we were on the reservation while they were traveling west. It was very unusual for me to have a fellow fan visit. They stayed with us for a couple nights. Beverly brought her Joy Holiday outfit and put it on for us. We got some pictures of her wearing it and then my wife tried it on. [laughs] That was really the first time I had met a Big Name Fan. Ronn was very knowledgeable, and I’ve always been surprised he never became a professional comics artist, full-time. His drawing style was a combination of Kubert and Kirby.

JOHNSON: Yes. I clipped them and saved them. I don’t think I was collecting strips when I lived in New Mexico. It was later, after I moved to Utah, in 1967. I subscribed to the Asbury Park Press and then a paper from just north of Seattle that carried Tarzan. Russ Manning started doing Tarzan, and I was lucky to save the complete run that he did for the Sunday page, along with other good strips.

BS: He did make a living off his artwork in later years, but not in the comics field, per se. I think he certainly had the ability, but I don’t think he had the drive. He was one of the most popular artists in fandom, and he loved Golden Age comics, especially those from the ’50s. What was your reason for stepping down from publishing of Comic Reader?

I spent four years on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico. At the time, there were a couple of dozen off-reservation Indian schools and the one in Brigham City, the Inner Mountain Indian School, was probably one of the largest and best known. I actually lived about 400 miles from the reservation. The school was just an abandoned government facility that was converted into an Indian school.

JOHNSON: It was a lot of monthly work. I put out about 12 pages per issue. Also, I printed it on ditto machine at the school where I worked. I

BS: On the topic of your article-writing for fanzines in 1963, you were pretty tied up with Comic Reader, and it seems like you really

BS: Were you also interested in newspaper comic strips, as well?

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Comic Fandom Archive

burst forth after that with the publication of articles for Comic World and also Alter Ego. With regard to Alter Ego, did you have a pretty good friendship and correspondence with Roy Thomas?

corresponded quite regularly. I told him I’d like to come by and visit him. And he says, “Well, if you’re going to come by, there are a number of other fans that have been wanting to come by also. I’ll just make the whole day a sort of a fan get-together.” And so that’s what happened. My wife and my son Cary joined us, too. My wife visited with Russ’ wife.

JOHNSON: I did. Roy and I started corresponding in 1961. He wanted something about the JSA in each issue, and yet he wanted a view other than his own, so he asked me to write articles about the JSA.

One of the highlights was that Russ gave everybody four pages of original artwork from a Ben-Hur comic book he’d drawn. Russ got very little artwork back from Western or Gold Key, but he did get the Ben-Hur story back.

BS: The first one you wrote was “Two Cases of Conscience,” for Alter Ego #8.

It must have been written towards the end of 1964 or early ’65. At the end of the article, there’s a photo of you looking very urbane, with a pipe.

[NOTE: See previous issue.]

Manning The Ramparts

JOHNSON: Yes, I smoked a pipe. I quit smoking about 20 years ago. In fact, I got that idea from Ronn Foss. He did that for an article. [laughs] He was holding a pipe, and he looked very distinguished.

My wife took that picture of me.

BS: It’s the “man who reads Playboy” sort of look. Did Roy suggest the specific subject for the article?

JOHNSON: He did. I think he suggested both articles, the one in #8 and the one in #9. I’ve always had like 20 or 25 really worn-out issues of All-Star to work from.

BS: Alter Ego went out to just about everybody. So, let’s face it, Glen, you were a Big Name Fan.

The “famous photo” of the fan-meet at artist Russ Manning’s home in May 1964. (Top:) Glen Johnson, Richard Kyle, Rick Durrell.

(Bottom:) John McGeehan, Bill Spicer, Russ Manning. So who snapped the picture?

JOHNSON: I really enjoyed Russ Manning. He was very friendly and open. He was almost humble over the fact that people enjoyed his artwork so much. He did have lots of fans. I enjoyed his Tarzan even more than Hogarth or Foster, because his version was so much like what Burroughs put down on paper. He also did an excellent job of incorporating science-fiction into the Tarzan comics. He just had a little studio, an outbuilding near the house. It held his comic books and reference material. He worked out there with his drawing board.

BS: The photos show you sitting outside, like on his back porch.

What was the general gist of the conversation?

JOHNSON: I was!

BS: [laughs] You published The Comic Reader, you were published in the top fanzines…

JOHNSON: We talked about our favorite artists, who Russ Manning liked, how he got his start in comic books, and things like that. We were there from 1:00 till 9:00. I felt lucky that an artist of Russ’ caliber would spend all that time with us.

JOHNSON: I was also a charter member of CAPA-Alpha. I published an apa-zine called Small Talk for years. I don’t have those CAPA-Alphas any more. After I dropped out of the apa, somebody offered me a fabulous amount of money for my collection.

BS: It was certainly one of the earliest fan meetings of any significance. The first New York Comic Con, such as it was, didn’t happen for another couple of months.

Your visit with Russ was in May, so this was one of those fan-meets, probably the first significant one in California, that led up to the comicons. Did people bring things to show to each other?

BS: It’s not too surprising that you’d end up in that very famous photo with Russ Manning, Bill Spicer, Richard Kyle, John McGeehan, and Rick Durell in a meeting in May of 1964 at Manning’s house. You were the guy who kind-of sparked that meeting, weren’t you?

JOHNSON: We were going out to California, and Russ Manning and I

BS: That’s interesting, because I have one of those Ben Hur pages now. I think it was a gift to me from Howard Keltner shortly before he passed away. What was Russ like in person?

A page of Russ Manning’s art for the Dell comic adaptation of the 1959 film Ben-Hur, reproduced from the original art in Bill Schelly’s collection. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

JOHNSON: I came such a great distance, I didn’t bring anything,

[Captain Marvel, Shazam & Billy Batson TM & Š2005 DC Comics—from an original cover done for a Brazilian comic.]

85

“…And Then There Were None!”

—The Corrections The Sequel To “Charlton And The Remnants Of The Fawcett Comics Empire”

by Frank “Capitol” Motler

N

OTE: In Alter Ego #39, 40, 42, & 43, British fan Frank Motler presented a detailed study of how, in the early to mid1950s and later, Charlton Publications, often known as CDC for its Capitol Distribution arm, took over both the titles and often inventory of several comics companies which were leaving the comic book business. Chief among these was Fawcett, which folded its four-color tents in late 1953. Inevitably in a work of this scope, errors would sneak in, and additional information would become available from people who saw the article and had knowledge of particular areas or details.

Below, Frank has listed, under the heading of each of the four issues of A/E in which his piece was serialized, the corrections and additions known to date of his study. A number of these were sent by Boyd Magers, while others are based on Frank’s own researches during the past year. It is hoped that anyone else having additional information will contact Frank directly or through Alter Ego. —Roy.

A/E #39: P. 49: The last sentence of the bottom caption should read: “Cover art for Romantic Story #25 (Aug. 1954) is by Leon Winik & Ray Osrin.” The artist of Romantic Secrets #17 (Aug. 1958) remains unknown to me, but long-time collector Steven Whitaker thinks it is Dick Giordano.

The Case Of The Clueless Comics It didn’t take Scotland Yard or Sherlock Holmes—both of which starred in their own Charlton series in 1955-56, as witness these first-issue covers—to correct the handful of errors and omissions in our four-part “Fawcett-Charlton Connection” series. All it required was a bit of sleuthing by Frank Motler himself, and by Western film expert Boyd Magers. [© 2005 the respective copyright owners.]

Charlton Was A Real Sweetheart Since we showed the other Charlton romance covers covered in this mini-article in earlier issues, here’s another scan Frank sent us at the time: the cover of Sweethearts #46 (Dec. 1958), which was a continuation of the popular Fawcett romance comic for which Marc Swayze drew numerous stories. This cover spotlighted popular 1950s singer Jimmie Rodgers, whose hits “Honeycomb” and “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine” led to his longrunning “Spaghetti-Os” ad on TV and his own TV series. [©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

A/E #40: P. 46: TNT Comics (Feb. 1946) was published by “Carlton Publishing Co.,” not “Charlton Publishing Company.”

P. 47: Burton N. Levey is the name given as that of the co-owner; it was not misspelled, as the accompanying “[sic]” notation implied.

A/E #42 P. 49: There is an error in the text and accompanying caption.

Charlton published Maco Toys (1959) on behalf of the toy company; it had nothing to do with Blue Bird, a shoe-store chain, or with the comics published by Charlton on their behalf. On Dec 16, 2004, Boyd Magers was kind enough to write to Alter Ego and confirm certain facts, whilst pointing out some errors in this third installment of my article. Boyd is an acknowledged authority on Western films & their stars. He has also written several books on Western movies, consulted on many others, and hosted film celebrity panels, and is the publisher of Western Clippings magazine for more than ten years. I am happy to correct these errors here.

P. 52: “Tim Holt” did not appear in Six-Gun Heroes, or any other Charlton comic. He was a Magazine Enterprise star (later, as Red Mask) and more recently has appeared in Bill Black’s AC Comics title Best of the West. This was my error, confusing “Monte Hale” (who did appear

~

89

CAPITAO MARVEL MEETS LA TOCHA HUMANA When Titans Clashed—In Brazil Introduction by John G. Pierce

M

y discovery of Brazilian comics, in the early 1980s, remains one of the highlights of my fannish life. And among the most astounding of the Brazilian lore would have to be the continued existence, through 1968, of Captain Marvel and his Family, with the first installment of a tale reprinted here of particular note.

Inter-company crossovers were still relatively new at the time I discovered this story. The first Superman Vs. Spider-Man book had appeared only a few years earlier.

They’ve become somewhat “old hat” by now (yet one more example of how the comics field often manages to deliver too much of a good thing), but back then, they were still a novelty. So to discover that a crossover had been published in 1964 was even more amazing—and that it had featured two characters who by 1964 had been defunct for quite a few years was even more so.

It is important to remember, however, that for Brazilian readers at the time, it was not an inter-company crossover at all.

Rather, both characters, along with many other features, were appearing in comics from the same publisher. The idea of the team-up was probably a novelty—and as far as I know, there were no others in any way comparable to it—but it was not, for them, an inter-company teaming. (The exception, naturally, would be those Brazilian readers who were knowledgeable about US comics.)

early classic battles with the Sub-Mariner. As for Captain Marvel, there’s no comparison. Cap’s stories were so clever, so out of the ordinary for superheroes, that there’s no way that this particular tale can come close. Remove the Human Torch and the notion of a crossover, and it seems rather routine. But it is, I think, a fairly entertaining story, and of course, for us, the novelty more than compensates for any defects the script and art might have.

Thanks are due to many people. First of all, Dwight Decker, who first put me in touch with Brazilian collector Jose Jefferson Barbosa de Aquino, and who, incidentally, also urged me to write about my discoveries for fanzines, starting with Amazing Heroes. Brazilian correspondents, including the late “Jeff” (as he preferred to be called), along with Luiz Antonio Sampaio, Jose Carlos Neves, and Emir Ribeiro, among others, have proven invaluable, not to mention exceedingly generous, in supplying me with Brazilian comics. A/E editor Roy Thomas and FCA editor P.C. Hamerlinck are to be commended for their interest in the subject matter. Finally, a big thanks to the translator, Mark Luebker, whose knowledge of Portuguese easily surpasses my own, and whose translation is presented here.

The cover of the 100-page comic which showcased the Captain Marvel/Human Torch team-up. Among other features, it also reprinted what seems to be a Fawcett “Lash LaRue” story, and a tale starring “Aguia Negra,” who appears to be the circa-1960 Australian super-hero “Sir Falcon,” who was covered last issue. [©2005 the respective copyright holders; Captain Marvel TM & ©2005 DC Comics; Lash LaRue, Sir Falcon, Robin Hood, Billy the Kid, & Wyatt Earp TM & ©2005 the respective copyright holders.]

But, though I’ve written about that hitherto-unknown team-up of Fawcett’s original Captain Marvel and Timely’s original Human Torch before (including back in FCA #60/Alter Ego V3#1, 1999), English-speaking fans haven’t had the chance to actually read it. Now, at long last, two of its pages are being presented—translated into English—in the pages of Alter Ego/FCA. We hope to show you more such pages in the near future.

Is the story up to the standards of the two features from which it is drawn? Hard to say. I’ve read no more than a handful of stories of the original Human Torch, and based on that, I’d say that the story probably equals or surpasses many of them, except, of course, for his

All of us involved hope you enjoy this first presentation of a comic book first.

Credits for “Return of a Great Hero”: Appeared in: Almanaque do O Globo Juvenil Published in Brazil - 1964 Illustrated by Rodriguez Zelis

REPRINT CREDITS: Translation, Lettering, 1950s Fawcett Title Page Adaptation: Mark Luebker Art Restoration and Gray Tones: Matt Moring Additional Art Restoration (page 11 & up): John Gentil Special Thanks: John G. Pierce, Rodrigo M. Zeidan, Matt Gore

90

When Titans Clashed––In Brazil

[Art ©2005 the respective copyright holders; Captain Marvel TM & ©2005 DC Comics.]

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