Alter Ego #5 by TwoMorrows Publishing

Roy Thomas ’ Legendary Comics Fanzine! IN-DE IN-DEPT PTH H INT INTE ERV RVIEW IEWS SW WIT ITH H:

Mart Nodell Shelly Mayer George Roussos Gil Kane Also, Also, Rare Rare Art Art & & ARTIFACTS ARTIFACTS BY: BY:

Alfredo Alcala Murphy Anderson Bernard Baily Phil Bard Jack Burnley Dick Dillin Steve Ditko Bill Everett Creig Flessel Joe Gallagher Michael T. Gilbert Ron Harris Irwin Hasen Carmine Infantino Larry Ivie Bob Kane Bernard Krigstein Joe Kubert Harry Lampert Mort Meskin Jerry Ordway Shelly Moldoff Arthur Peddy H.G. Peter Paul Reinman Bernard Sachs Plus: Plus:

with C.C. Beck, Marc Swayze

And More!

Atom, Hawkman, Flash, Dr. Mid-Nite, Green Lantern, wonder woman & Black Canary TM & © DC COMICS

5.95

In the USA

Special Issue!

Justice Society Of America!

No. 5 Summer 2000

Volume 3, No. 5 Summer 2000 Editor

™

Roy Thomas

Associate Editor Bill Schelly

Design & Layout Janet Sanderson John Morrow Eric Nolen-Weathington

Consulting Editors

Contents And Justice for All. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 A few words (like we’ve got room for any more!) about this special issue of A/E.

Together Again for the First Time – The Justice Society of America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

John Morrow Jon B. Cooke

FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck

A condensed Cook’s Tour of all the JSAers— with more rare and unpublished artwork than you can shake a Gravity Rod at!

Contributing Editor

Shelly Mayer: Origins of The Golden Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Michael T. Gilbert

All-Star— Flash Comics— Green Lantern— Wonder Woman— he edited them all, and lived to tell the tale— in this classic 1975 interview by Anthony Tollin.

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

Cover(s) Artist

Droopy, The Drew Field Mosquito . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 More of Flash co-creator Harry Lampert’s award-winning cartoons from the Second World War.

DC vs. The Justice Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Writer/artist Larry Ivie has his say on the birth of the Silver Age... and what he says may surprise you.

Carmine Infantino Jerry Ordway Mart Nodell

The “Nuclear” Wars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Roy Thomas tells the hidden story behind All-Star Squadron #14 and #16— plus unpublished Wonder Woman art by the immortal H.G. Peter.

Cover Color Tom Ziuko

From Fan to Pro – The Gardner Fox Letters, Part IV. . . . . . . . . 31

Mailing Crew Russ Garwood, D. Hambone, Glen Musial, Ed Stelli, Pat Varker

Ye Editor had always hoped these letters had been burned, but Gardner Fox saved everything— and who’s going to say no to Michael T. Gilbert and Mr. Monster?

And Special Thanks to:

So – You Want to Collect Fanzines? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Manuel Auad Mike W. Barr Al Bigley Bill Black Randy Bower Jerry K. Boyd Jack Burnley Bill Cain Al Dellinges Steve Ditko Creig Flessel Keif Fromm Carl Gafford Jeff Gelb Martin L. Greim Gary Groth George Hagenauer David Hamilton Ron Harris Irwin Hasen Roger Hill Tom Horvitz Richard Howell Chris Irving Larry Ivie Steve Korté

Harry and Adele Lampert Paul Levitz Sheldon Moldoff Rich Morrissey Will Murray Marty and Carrie Nodell Ethan Roberts Alvin Schwartz Robin Snyder Marc Svensson Marc Swayze Joel Thingvall Anthony Tollin Dann Thomas Kim Thompson Hames Ware Marv Wolfman Ed Zeno

Bill Schelly conducts a guided tour of the great fanzines of the 1960s and ’70s— with lots of great, rare pro art!

Special Green Lantern/FCA Section. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About our cover: Actually, we don’t have to tell you about the marvelous Infantino-Ordway drawing which graces our cover(s)— ’cause we got owner Marty Greim to do that for us on our flip section’s editorial page. For once, we can just sit back and enjoy— a perfect 1948 JSA moment! [Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Atom, Black Canary, Hawkman, and Dr. Mid-Nite ©2000 DC Comics; art used by permission of Martin L. Greim, with the blessings of Carmine Infantino and Jerry Ordway.] Alter EgoTM is published quarterly by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@oburg.net. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $5.95 ($7.00 Canada, $9.00 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $20 US, $27 Canada, $37 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. Alter and Captain Ego ©2000 Roy Thomas & Bill Schelly. Air Wave, Aquaman, Binky, Black Canary, Blackhawk, Blue Beetle, Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr., Commander Steel, Cyclone Kids, Dr. fate, Dr. Mid-Nite, Dr. Sivana, Firebrand, Flash, Green Lantern, Guardian, Hawkgirl, Hawkman, Holliday Girls, Hop Harrigan, Hour-Man, Ibis, Johnny Peril, Johnny Quick, Johnny Thunder, Justice Society of America, Liberty Belle, Mary Marvel, Mechanique, Metal Men, Minute Man, Mr. Terrific, Newsboy Legion, Nuclear, Plastic Man, Red Tornado, Robotman, Rose & Thorn, Sandman, Sandy, Scribbly, Solomon Grundy, Spectre, Spy Smasher, Starman, Steve Trevor, Sugar & Spike, Superman, Uncle Marvel, Wildcat, Wonder Girl, Wonder Woman, Wotan ©DC Comics. Dan Dare, Dr. Voodoo, Golden Arrow, Lance O’Casey, Master Man, Mr. Hogan, Phantom Eagle © Fawcett Publications, , Capt. Midnight is a TM of Ovaltine. Dr. Strange, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Spider-Man, Warlock © Marvel Characters, Inc. The Fly, The Shield, The Wizard © Archie Comics. Chuck chandler, Nightro, Slugger © Lev Gleason. Green Hornet © Harvey Comics. Fighting Yank © Nedor/Better Comics. Fighting American © Joe Simon & Jack Kirby. Pillsbury Dough Boy © Pillsbury. John Carter of Mars © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Alter Ego hero art © Ron Harris, hero © Roy and Dann Thomas. Donald Duck, Huey, Dewey, and Louie © Walt Disney Productions. Golden Lad © Spark. Droopy © Harry Lampert. Opus © Berke Breathed. Voltar © Estate of Alfredo Alcala. Conan © Conan Properties, Inc. Music Master © Eastern Color Printing. Flyin’ Jenny © Bell Syndicate. The Great Guy © Marcus Swayze. Pogo and Albert © Estate of Walt Kelly. Transisto, Lunar-Man © Estate of George Roussos. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING

Writer/Editorial

2 Here’s a shocker:

It doesn’t take much to get me to devote an issue of Alter Ego to the Justice Society of America. No, it doesn’t take JSA being an allegedly hot new DC title— or having two people send me photocopies of Golden Age artwork that turns out to be from that fabled 1946 unpublished JSA story— or even being asked to write an introduction for the upcoming sixth volume of the All Star Archives. For, after all, it was the 1940s JSA and its successor, the original Justice League of America, which convinced A/E’s founder, Dr. Jerry Bails, to start Alter-Ego, the first super-hero comics fanzine, in early 1961. Not everything this issue touches on the Justice Society— e.g., there are interviews with Gil Kane and George Roussos, which I’m honored to present concerning those two recently departed titans, and a short reminiscence of my co-worker and onetime L.A. neighbor Alfredo Alcala. And these three items are at least as important as anything else in the magazine. There is also the usual great edition of FCA, and Bill Schelly’s advice on how to start a collection of 1960s70s fanzines. However, this issue otherwise revolves primarily around the Justice Society and its offshoots: (1) The starting point was having my old fan/comrade Marty Greim agree to let A/E print, for the first time ever, the beautiful JSAin-1948 drawing he commissioned from Carmine Infantino (with Jerry Ordway inking) some years back. (2) Besides, thanks to the generosity of several collectors (who are the unsung heroes of A/E), I had photocopies of so much rare and/or unpublished Golden Age art featuring JSA stalwarts that there was nothing to do but come up with an article covering them all in alphabetical order, just to utilize it! (3) I had so many questions I wanted to ask Mart Nodell, even beyond what he’s said previously about the creation of charter JSAer Green Lantern, that I talked his and wife Carrie’s collective ear off one night, just after they’d returned from the first “comics cruise.” (4) Bill Schelly’s book The Golden Age of Comic Fandom tells of longtime comics fan (and later pro) Larry Ivie’s “proposed revival of the Justice Society of America, to be called the Justice Legion of the World,” circa 1958. Larry’s remarks may prove controversial, and he made the decision on his own not to mention quite everyone involved by name; but I thought it a story that needed to be told, so comics aficionados could judge for themselves. (5) Since hinting I might do so, I’ve received many requests to begin my series on All-Star Squadron, the comic I developed for DC in the 1980s. This time I’ve sort of backed into telling its history— and found an excuse to run some never-printed H.G. Peter Wonder Woman art!

At the Orlando MegaCon on April 1, 2000, Rascally Roy Thomas shared the stage with his Silver Age compatriots Stan (The Man) Lee and Jazzy Johnny Romita— in the First Annual $5000 CrossGeneration Quiz Show, a comics trivia contest for charity— against three “young punks” whose names he forgets. (Just kidding, guys... whoever you were.) The oldsters (er, make that “legends”) won... and, for Roy the Boy’s part in things, CrossGeneration Comics chief financial officer Michael Beattie scribbled out a king-size $1000 check to Roy and wife Dann’s favorite charity: the Amazon Medical Project — which mostly consists of Wisconsinbred Dr. Linnea Smith ministering selflessly to the Indians along the Amazon River in Peru, where the Thomases journeyed in 1993. Our best wishes to CrossGeneration and to publisher Mark Alessi on the launching of their intriguing new line of comics, and our thanks for their generosity. [Photo courtesy of CrossGeneration Comics.]

None of the above is to play down, in any way, shape, or form, the brief but fine interview Chris Irving did with Gil Kane in 1998 — let alone the free-wheeling chat Bill Cain had with his friend George Roussos, only a short time before the artist’s sudden and unexpected death. In fact, George had just sent many of the photos and art pieces included therein to Bill — before he passed away. For my own part, I’m writing these words only a day after returning from a memorial tribute to Gil in New York City. I’m not ashamed to say that seeing so many of Gil’s colleagues and contemporaries there (Joe Kubert, Julie Schwartz, Dick Giordano, Tom Gill, Arnold Drake, and others), and then seeing a short documentary film on Gil, moved me to tears. I feel sad, as well, about the loss to comics— and even more so, to their friends— of George Roussos and Alfredo Alcala, and several other talented artisans who have passed away in recent months (including, just as we went to press, the great Dick Sprang).

(6) Even Michael T. Gilbert (or maybe it was Mr. Monster) got into the act, deciding to reprint my 1960-61 letters to veteran comics scripter Gardner Fox, who of course co-created both the JSA and the JLA, two decades apart. (So, going whole hog, I tossed in a few pre1960 Thomas artifacts on my own.) I only wish I’d saved Gardner’s letters back to me; they were a lot better written, I promise.

In closing, we’d also like to thank publisher (and onetime “Junior Woodchuck”) Paul Levitz and the good people at DC for making it possible to reprint the excellent 1975 interview which Anthony Tollin, then a young DC staffer (“Woodchuck”), did with the legendary artist/writer/editor Shelly Mayer. His piece deserves a new audience in this generation— and besides, it gave us an excuse to print even more rare art!

But, have we totally exhausted the subject of the Justice Society in these pages?

But, I’ve rambled on long enough. Now, as Marvel’s Beast-ly mutant Hank McCoy (but not William Shakespeare) once said:

Well, if we have, then TwoMorrows and I would have scant excuse for finally publishing our long-awaited All-Star Companion later this year. And we’ve tossed in just enough hints of what’s in store for readers thereof to whet any sane appetite.

“Lead on, Macduff!”

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• GENE COLAN & HERB TRIMPE on Marvel in the ’60s and ’70s! • MAC RABOY’s fantastic 1940s art explored by ROGER HILL! • Double-size FCA (FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA) section with C.C. BECK, MARC SWAYZE, JOE SIMON, and more! • An untold 1969 SGT. FURY tale, with unseen art (and comments) by DICK AYERS & JOHN SEVERIN, and story by GARY FRIEDRICH! • ROY THOMAS on the birth of the ALL-STAR SQUADRON — with rare and unpublished art by RICH BUCKLER and JERRY ORDWAY! • Never-before-seen GOLDEN AGE ART by CARMINE INFANTINO & others! • STAN LEE and ROBERT KANIGHER on their how-to-write-comics books of the 1940s — interviewed by MIKE W. BARR! • MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER on Superman in THE NEW YORKER in 1939—plus BILL SCHELLY on collecting fanzines—and more!!!

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Together Again For The First Time...

The Justice Society of America! A brief glimpse at the cast and crew of the first & foremost super-group of all time by Roy Thomas Our emphasis artwise this issue might be on the Green LanternFlash-Wonder Woman trio who were the most popular of the regular

JSAers. Still, we didn’t want to totally neglect any of the eighteen heroes who, at one time or another in the 1940s, passed through the meeting halls of the Justice Society, whether as full members or not. And since, as it just happens, we have access to reproductions of original, often rare or even previously unpublished art of many of those stalwarts, we thought we’d kill two birds with one stone. E.g., our lead-off panorama is a 1990s drawing by 1940s “Hawkman” artist (and later “Batman” ghost) Shelly Moldoff of most of the Golden Age membership of the JSA— excluding only Johnny Thunder, Black Canary, Wildcat, perhaps-JSAer Mr. Terrific, and one-page guest star Red Tornado— with Shelly’s co-creation The Bat-Mite thrown in just for a zane. Now, let’s take a look at our colorful cast, one by one:

...The Justice Society of America! “A” IS FOR “ATOM”: This never-published tier of panels is from a story that was “written off” by DC circa 1949 when his last solo berth, Flash Comics, was cancelled. Judging by its use of blacks, this Joe Gallagher art probably dates from 1943-44, at latest. [Atom © 2000 DC Comics; courtesy of Ethan Roberts.] BATMAN: A fine, moody Batman re-creation by Bob Kane. [Courtesy of Jerry Boyd; art © 2000 estate of Bob Kane; Batman © 2000 DC Comics]

BLACK CANARY: Three Black Canarys for the price of one! This Carmine Infantino-penciled splash is from an episode left unpublished when Flash Comics was cancelled; at one time it had been slated to appear in #101. But —notice anything unusual? That’s right: there are two Black Canarys in the drawing! Not only that, but when DC finally got around to printing this story in 100-Page Super-Spectacular, Vol. 1, #DC-20 (1973), neither of these figures was in evidence; instead, Carmine (probably back in the late ’40s) had drawn a new Canary bracing herself more dramatically in the stone gargoyle’s mouth to catch the falling Larry Lance. Inks credited to Frank Giacoia; script most likely by Robert Kanigher. [© 2000 DC Comics; repro’d from photocopies of the original art, courtesy of Ethan Roberts.]

DOCTOR FATE: By All-Star #14, this Gardner Fox-Howard Sherman hero didn’t display his original magical powers in this panel repro’d from photocopies of the original art— but he’s still one of the greatlooking super-heroes of all time. [©2000 DC Comics; courtesy of Joel Thingvall.]

Together Again For The First Time... DR. MID-NITE: This splash page (most of whose logo has fallen off) was slated for All-American Comics #105; but with #103 that monthly became All-American Western, and this story— drawn, it seems, by Arthur Peddy and Bernard Sachs— was “written off”— i.e., permanently discarded. Another page from the same tale saw print in A/E V3#2, and we’ve printed one more in our “re:” section! Repro’d from photocopies of the original art. [Dr. Mid-Nite ©2000 DC Comics; courtesy of Marv Wolfman.]

THE FLASH: Several fully-drawn adventures of the Fastest Man Alive were “written off” when Flash Comics bit the dust in ‘49. One of them, from which a few pages’ worth of art still exists, co-stars The Thinker. Repro’d from photocopies of the original art— but is it by Elias, Peddy, or Infantino? See our “re:” section for more on this. [Flash ©2000 DC Comics; courtesy of George Hagenauer.] GREEN LANTERN: Several pages and partial-pages of this unpublished story drawn by Paul Reinman still exist; and, a couple of issues down the line, we hope to put them all together in an issue of A/E to see what’s still missing. But what panel could be better than this one, which shows the Emerald Gladiator reciting his later, rhymed oath! [Green Lantern ©2000 DC Comics; courtesy of Al Dellinges.]

HAWKMAN: Remember how in V3#4 we printed, for the first time anywhere, pp. 3 and 5 of a “written-off” 1947-48 Joe Kubert “Hawkman” story? Well, collector Ethan Roberts quickly informed us that he had the art to the fight page that came in between those two— and here he kindly shares it with us, ink stains and all. Thanks, Ethan! [Hawkman and Hawkgirl ©2000 DC Comics]

...The Justice Society of America! HOUR-MAN: Copies of this very special Bernard Baily drawing were sent out in 1940 to winners of a DC contest, making it a real rarity. It, along with virtually the only known extant piece of Golden Age Baily art, was sold at auction by Sotheby’s a few years back. [Hour-Man ©2000 DC Comics; courtesy of Roger Hill, as seen in CFA-APA #35, 1994.]

JOHNNY THUNDER: Don’t you just love a man in uniform? Since we’re saving our Stan Aschmeier original art of Johnny Thunder (and Doc Mid-Nite) for first-time-ever repro in the All-Star Companion, this splash from Flash Comics #40, April 1943, will have to fill the gap. [©2000 DC Comics] RED TORNADO: The first and longtime All-Star editor, cartoonist Sheldon Mayer, drew his humorous creation for the Sept. 1986 issue of Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe. Incidentally, that’s a woman— Ma Hunkle— inside that outlandish outfit. [©2000 DC Comics]

SANDMAN: Paul Norris gave him a costume— Simon and Kirby made him into Adventure Comics’ cover star all over again— but since the 1960s it’s the pre-S&K, gasmask version that fans love best. The 1992 drawing at right is by early Sandman artist Creig Flessel. [Sandman ©2000 DC Comics; sketch courtesy of and art ©Creig Flessel.]

Together Again For The First Time... THE SPECTRE: The original art for this unfinished cover of The Brave & the Bold #62 (1965) by Murphy Anderson was offered for sale in the Sotheby’s Auction in 1996. A different version, very close to this one, appeared on the published cover. [©2000 DC Comics.]

STARMAN: Our interview with artist/co-creator Jack Burnley in A/E V3#2 spotlighted the only extant pieces of Golden Age Starman art we personally know of, but how about this Dick Dillin-Sid Greene art from a JLA-JSA teamup in Justice League of America #73 (Aug. 1969), repro’d from photocopies of the original art? [Starman ©2000 DC Comics; courtesy of Jerry G. Bails.]

SUPERMAN: Jack Burnley drew “only” Starman and the JSA itself in early-’40s issues of All-Star, but his SupermanBatman cover for the 1940 edition of World’s Fair Comics set a standard he re-created in 1992 with this figure from the latter, for a Sotheby’s auction. [Art ©2000 Jack Burnley; Superman ©2000 DC Comics]

WILDCAT: Only a few years before he illustrated several classic EC stories, Bernard Krigstein drew “Wildcat” (and “The Atom”) for DC. This splash, if previously published at all, is from a late-1940s issue of Sensation Comics— though evidently not #86, as indicated on the artwork. Sorry, but we forgot which of our munificent collector/benefactors sent us photocopies of this original art; hope he’ll let us know. [Wildcat ©2000 DC Comics]

...The Justice Society of America!

WONDER WOMAN: This unpublished H.G. Peter tier of panels must come from the unpublished mid’40s story “Queen Hepzibah’s Revenge,” whose splash first saw the light of day in A/E V3#2. That must’ve been quite a tale! Repro’d from photocopies of the original art. [Wonder Woman ©2000 DC Comics; courtesy of George Hagenauer.] And there you have it— a fast A-B-C look at the Golden Age Justice Society, as illustrated by some of their most celebrated artists, then and now! For a detailed study of all extant artwork from the

never-published 1946 JSA story titled “The Will of William Wilson”— plus still more rare and even unpublished art from the 1930s through 2000 A.D.— see the upcoming All-Star Companion!

COMING SOON! DETAILS NEXT ISSUE!

.STAR ALL C O M PA N I O N THE

★★

★

A colossal Trade Paperback edited by ROY THOMAS! In celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the JSA, we’re proud to present the ultimate, definitive guide to the JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA—from 1940-2000 A.D.! • New JSA cover by MURPHY ANDERSON! • Issue-by-issue coverage of ALL-STAR COMICS #1-57, plus the original JLA-JSA teamups & the ’70s ALL-STAR revival! • NEVER BEFORE SEEN! All known pages in existence (more than a dozen!) of an unpublished 1946 JSA story!

• Rare, often unpublished JSA-related art by JACK BURNLEY, ALEX ROSS, SHELDON MOLDOFF, JOE KUBERT, DICK DILLIN, IRWIN HASEN, JERRY ORDWAY, MART NODELL, RICH BUCKLER, CREIG FLESSEL, WALLY WOOD, JACK KIRBY, CARMINE INFANTINO, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and others, plus more insights, explorations, and conjectures than you can shake a Junior Justice Society badge at!!

TwoMorrows. Bringing New Life To Comics Fandom. TwoMorrows • 1812 Park Drive • Raleigh, NC 27605 USA • 919-833-8092 • FAX: 919-833-8023 • e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

• The four “lost” ALL-STAR issues—and others that were greatly altered—examined by Roy Thomas & Jerry Bails!

Origins of the Golden Age

Origins of the Golden Age An interview with Shelly Mayer Conducted by Anthony Tollin

[A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: The following interview was conducted for The Amazing World of DC Comics, Vol. 2, #5 (MarchApril 1975), a sort of official house fanzine of that period which deserves an entire article to itself, and not merely for the number of entry-level DC staffers who put it together as the so-called “Junior Woodchucks,” then went on to high-profile professional careers. [Sheldon Mayer (1917-1997) was a true phenomenon, both as writer/artist and as the first editor of the All-American Comics line, from 1939 through 1948. DC staffer Anthony Tollin put the pieces together skillfully, dropping his interview-style questions out entirely so Mayer could speak for himself, with Tony’s own informational and historical comments interspersed where needed. Few interviews with Mayer survive, but this article stands as probably the best, and we are grateful to Paul Levitz and DC Comics for making it available to us. The interview is ©1975, 2000 by DC Comics, and is reprinted with permission. All artwork is reproduced via “fair use.” Now, let’s let Tony introduce his subject...]

Among the top artists developed by Mayer was a teenage Joe Kubert, who rose to prominence after 1945 as the artist of “Hawkman.” This beautiful splash page from Flash Comics #72 (June 1946) is repro’d from photocopies of the original art, courtesy of Al Dellinges. [© 2000 DC Comics]

There are as many opinions in the comic book business as there are creative people and topics to argue about. Few men or concepts are held sacred, but Sheldon Mayer is. I’ve never heard anyone speak a word against his creativity, editorial prowess, or skill at training and polishing raw talent into genius. His protégés provide living evidence of his

An Interview With Shelly Mayer achievements— men like Carmine Infantino, Julie Schwartz, Alex Toth, Bob Kanigher, and Joe Kubert today keep alive a legacy they inherited from Shelly Mayer. His comic creations, including Scribbly, Sugar and Spike, Binky, and The Three Mouseketeers, give further testimony to the genius of the man who was the creative force behind DC’s All-American line of the 1940s. “Sheldon Mayer is a rara avis: one of the few creative men I’ve met in comics,” proclaims Bob Kanigher. “He ran All-American like Charlie Chaplin opening the cabinet of Dr. Caligari. He mixed plots like D.W. Griffith and Mack the Knife sharing a Catskill Mountains kitchen. He was one of the early barnstorming pilots who fearlessly flew across the unknown seas of imagination by the reckless seat of his pants.” I grew up in East Harlem. It was a rough, tough neighborhood in those days. Kids began to think about what they were going to do for a living from the day they were born, because everybody wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. You had only three choices: you could do what your father did (usually menial work), or you could run errands for the hoods that the area was full of and work your way up in the mobs, or you could learn a skill on your own that could be turned into honest money. Nobody considered college because it was unreachable... impossible. A bust of All-American publisher and future EC founder Max C. Gaines, done by Mayer. [Photo originally printed in Amazing World of DC Comics #5.]

devoting a large share of my time to doing that instead of opaquing and was promptly fired. During the next year I was working during the day and going to high school at night. I worked in a factory, as an M.C. at a night club, and at a variety of odd jobs. Meanwhile, I developed about six different daily strips and was receiving a great deal of encouragement from a guy named John Lardner, the feature editor of the Bell Syndicate. None of the strips “took,” however. I also got a lot of encouragement from [newspaper cartoonist] Milt Gross, who was very nice and did everything he possibly could to get me located somewhere, anywhere, but the Depression was on. In any case, I made $90.00 that year as an artist because I had sold six greeting cards. It took me half a day to draw ‘em and the rest of the year to collect the money. In 1933 M.C. Gaines convinced Eastern Color Publishing to package comic strip reprints as advertising premiums. The enthusiasm the booklets received convinced Gaines to release a 10-cent comic book for newsstand distribution. The magazine, Famous Funnies, became the first regularly published comic book. Soon, other publishers followed suit and many more comic books hit the newsstands, all featuring reprints of the popular newspaper comic strips of the time. Reprint rights to the more popular strips were hard to come by when Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson entered the comic book arena with New Fun Comics in February of 1935. Wheeler-Nicholson was forced to commission all-new material for New Fun (soon to be rechristened More Fun) and its companion magazine New Comics (soon to become better known as Adventure Comics). My first work in comic books was for Wheeler-Nicholson. I wandered into their office to show them my portfolio and they hired me on the spot. They were thrilled with my work and I didn’t know that the enormous amount of money they promised me was just big talk. They gave me a very involved contract. Of course, I was too young to

My dad had a small butcher shop. I hated raw meat, law-breaking didn’t appeal to me, but cartooning looked like something I could learn to do on my own. There was no such medium as comic books when I was growing up. The big thing was newspaper strips. Back in those days, the newspaper cartoonist was a sort of god. The papers had recently discovered that their circulations really depended on strong comic strip features. The news itself had become secondary. The top syndicated cartoonists were pulling in better than a thousand a week at a time when a man could support a family on a weekly salary of $28.00. Cartooning was a pretty notable ambition for a youngster in those days. By the time I was fourteen, the family had moved to Washington Heights. I was hanging around pestering a cartoonist named “Ving” Fuller who had his home and studio in the neighborhood. He’d been an assistant to Billy (Barney Google) DeBeck, done animated cartoons, and was then doing a daily semi-political comic strip for the New York Mirror. I worked as his assistant for a while until the Mirror cut back and let him go. (Two other neighborhood kids came to work for him, too: one was Harry Lampert, a lifelong buddy, who later became the first artist to draw “The Flash” and is now president and founder of the highly regarded Lampert Advertising Agency.) Luckily, I still maintained a contact with the people I’d met on the paper, and could pick up a few dollars here and there as a gofer (go fer this... go fer that). In 1934 I went to work for the Fleischer animation studio as an opaquer. I soon discovered that I could get $5.00 for suggesting an idea for a scenario or $2.50 for a series of gags for a scene. I began

The late, great Sheldon Mayer at his desk, in a 1945 publicity shot by Sol Harrison. [Photo originally printed in Amazing World of DC Comics #5.]

Origins of the Golden Age

sign a contract at the time but I didn’t know it and it didn’t seem to bother them. In reality, all the contract said was, “If at the end of six months you’re not making $25.00 a week, you can quit. If at the end of a year you’re not making $50.00 a week, you can quit. If at the end of two years you’re not making $100.00 a week, you can quit,” all the way up to $500 a week. I needed to buy some more bristol board to fill the assignments, so I asked if they could advance me some money. They wrote me a check for a dollar and one of the guys cashed it with the money they had received for a subscription that day. In the months that followed, I turned out forty or fifty pages of art and story for a half dozen issues of New Comics and New Fun. I was working days in a factory and doing the stuff for Major Nicholson at night. Prophetically (as it turned out), my mother was concerned that I was ruining my eyes “working for nothing,” and wanted me to quit with Nicholson. One day I was waiting for a light to cross Fifth Avenue. Standing beside me was a tall slender kid about my age, carrying a portfolio like mine. I looked at his portfolio. He looked at mine. I asked, “You a cartoonist?” He replied, “Yeah. You?” “Yeah.” “Who for?” “Major Nicholson!”“Me, too.”“Didja get paid yet?”“Not a dime!”“Me, neither!” The guy was Walt Kelly, and we spent the afternoon at his place. At the time, he was having a great deal of trouble telling a story in pictures because it really wasn’t something he wanted to do at all. Of course, later on he learned very well and did a great job on Pogo. I never did get paid by Nicholson, until after I was working for Gaines. They were still publishing my stuff and I asked for my material back since I hadn’t been paid. They gave me a check for $5.00 a page for the eight pages of art they had in the office and the check bounced. When M.C. Gaines learned that the McClure Syndicate had obtained a pair of two-color presses from the defunct New York Graphic [newspaper], he approached them with an offer: “You’ve got two presses doing nothing. I’ll keep them running. All I want is fifty percent of all the business I get for them.” The syndicate accepted, and, by running the presses in tandem, was soon producing a variety of four-color premiums. The man who had created Famous Funnies followed up his earlier success with Popular Comics [for Dell], featuring a number of strips licensed from the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, including Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, Terry and the Pirates, and Gasoline Alley.

I started pasting up newspaper strips in comic book format. It was agony cutting up beautiful [Milt] Caniff originals [of Terry and the Pirates]. Nobody would dream of wasting money on photostats in those days. Some of the original strip art was on heavy illustration board so I had to peel it off first. They gave me a huge conference table to work on that had belonged to As per the caption in Amazing World of Lincoln Steffens, who had DC Comics #5: “Mayer alumni Joe Kubert been the big man at the and Irwin Hasen clown on a California McClure Syndicate twenbeach, circa 1947.” That’s Joe on the left. ty-five years before. I was ecstatic to be working in a newspaper atmosphere again. Gaines was a very tough man to work for. The rabbi at his funeral described him as “a passionate man.” He was always in a state of anger: even when he wasn’t, he used it as a tool. He even whispered at the top of his voice. Later, when I first took over some of the business details with the printers and engravers, I’d be on the phone and he’d yell out, “Don’t be so nice to them! Holler! It gets better results.” Frequently in those early days, Gaines and I would work well into the night and shave in the men’s room before starting the next day’s work. One day a representative from a trucking company came up to the office after his company had botched up in some way. Gaines was out shaving when he came in. He asked if Gaines was mad and I replied without thinking, “Mad? He’s foaming at the mouth.” At that moment Gaines came charging in with bits of shaving cream still around his mouth. The guy panicked and ran out the door! On the other hand, while he was always screaming about small, unimportant things, when a really serious blunder occurred he’d get very quiet, take off his coat, and work with you all night to fix it. When the Superman strip first came in, I immediately fell in love with it. The syndicate rejected it about fifteen times. Siegel and Shuster kept sending it in and the syndicate kept sending it back. I was singing its praises so much that Gaines finally took it up to [Harry] Donenfeld [by now, co-publisher of the company that would become DC Comics]. At the time, Gaines’ main motivation was to keep his presses rolling and to get some contracts from another source than Dell.

I went to work for M.C. Gaines in January of 1936. I had been up to see him the previous summer, and half a year later he gave me a call and offered me a few days of pasteup work.

Gaines had Shelly paste the strips into a comic book format and reletter them, and the strip debuted in Action Comics #1 in 1938. The rest is history. When Harry Donenfeld first saw that cover of Superman holding that car in the air, he really got worried. He felt nobody would believe it; that it was ridiculous... crazy. It took some nutty little kid who was so into the stuff to see its potential. Of course, Superman was a runaway success and nobody wants to admit they turned it down. Who knows, maybe it would never have gone if it had started as a daily strip. All the syndicate experts thought so. Maybe it was fated to be a comic book. The thing that fascinated me about the Superman concept was the very theme that has so frequently been forgotten over the years. The thing that really sold Superman in the first place is the alter ego of the hero as contrasted to the costumed crimefighter himself. I fell

An Interview With Shelly Mayer in love with Superman for the same reason I liked The Scarlet Pimpernel, Zorro, and the movie The Desert Song. The contrast between the hero and his alter ego is the very essence of the mystery man concept. The mystery man and his alter ego are two distinct characters to be played against each other. What appeal would The Scarlet Pimpernel have had if his alter ego wasn’t scared of the sight of blood? He was a hopeless “dandy.” No one suspected he was the mysterious Pimpernel. The same goes for Zorro and Superman.

done pencils, he’d start cutting the art apart with a pair of scissors to show the artist how he wanted the penciled art rearranged. “Cut this arm out and paste it down this way,” he’d say. It never occurred to him that it’d be easier to erase it and do it over. One day E.E. Hibbard came in with a perfect cover. I picked up my scissors and said, “Now we’re going to have to cut this up.” Hibbard should have known this wasn’t my style, but he was horrified. I tipped him a wink, but he didn’t catch it. Gaines came over and asked, “Where you gonna cut? Where you

It’s been a successful pattern since the beginning of theatre. Give the audience an opportunity to say, “I know something that the people on stage don’t know” and “Boy, isn’t the bad guy gonna get it when the ‘sissy’ turns into the hero he really is,” and they’ll love you for it! Recently, in a trouble-shooting report for Carmine [Infantino, in 1975 the publisher of DC Comics], I observed that this element (the business of Clark Kent failing in everything he tries to do and then succeeding as Superman; of Clark being trapped in the role as Kent, unable to tell anyone that he’s really Superman) had been badly neglected. I notice it’s back in again. I gather, too, it’s been well received and is attracting new fans. In 1939 Max Gaines began putting out a group of comic books in partnership with Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz, the AllAmerican line. We had our own offices downtown and remained a separate entity from the SupermanDC line. Gaines liked it that way, but nevertheless he was over at the other offices a great deal of the time and I ran the outfit down below. Gaines was quite a character. Even though I was already an executive editor with my name on the door, he’d still forget and send me out for cigarettes, and this would bother me a great deal. He’d stand in front of the typewriter with a pair of scissors and cut off the copy as you typed it. He would stand behind me rattling change in his pocket while I was writing or drawing and it would drive me nuts. I developed the habit of shaking the pen behind me to clear it, as though I didn’t know he was there. He’d jump back and yell! I’d say, “Oops, sorry.” Eventually I cured him. I had a great deal more trouble curing him of another habit. When an artist would come in with carefully

This never-before-published “Green Lantern” page was penciled by Carmine Infantino and “written off,” like so many others, on Sept. 30, 1949. Because we had to put it together from two photocopies, each showing one-half of the page, there’s a slight mis-match at the middle left. [Green Lantern ©2000 DC Comics; courtesy of Marv Wolfman.]

Origins of the Golden Age

gonna cut? There’s nothing wrong with that.”

struck us and hit home as relevant today as they were thirty years ago.”

Hibbard looked at me and Gaines looked at me... I looked at Gaines and then we both looked at Hibbard, then we all laughed. Gaines realized he’d been taken. He restrained himself from cutting up artwork after that.

“Scribbly” was a thing I dreamed up during my lunch hour one day in a noisy cafeteria. That was in the days before restaurants had piped-in jukebox music. Years later, I tried to re-create that atmosphere. I wanted to find a place with a hubbub of voices which somehow sped the flow of your own private thoughts. I went to a diner for breakfast with a notebook but it didn’t work. I didn’t realize it at first, but it was because any clown with a nickel for the jukebox can interfere with your privacy.

During one summer, Max Gaines brought his son Bill down to be an office boy, and Bill hated it. He was fourteen... I was nineteen. He had no interest in the atmosphere his father created. He really wanted to be a photographer and do some things on his own. Max, like so many fathers, couldn’t think of his son as anything but a “foul-up”! Actually, Bill was very bright... but he was a very unhappy fat kid. He was actually not really all that fat... but he thought of himself as a fat kid. His father constantly reminded him that he was fat and slow-moving. Probably, it was his way of asking Bill to move faster. But Bill moved slowly and acted like a fat kid. You simply don’t disappoint your own father. Today Bill Gaines is an amazing guy. He often says his prime contribution as a publisher [of Mad magazine] is to “create an atmosphere.” It’s true! And it’s an enormous skill. I wonder if he learned it from watching his old man around the office. Bill has made a science of doing the opposite of what his father would have done in any given circumstance. And that would explain it. However, in fairness to Max, I must say this: Though Bill and I often felt like two brothers with a very tough father, if either of us got into trouble, Gaines would become a raging Papa Wildcat in our defense. And in this, Bill is like his father. He’s very protective of his people in the Mad office. The very first issue of All-American Comics [April 1939] featured the debut of “Scribbly,” about a young cartoonist trying desperately to become a professional. “Most of the young artists of the time were into the ‘Scribbly’ strip,” recalls Joe Kubert. “As a matter of fact, it told the story of most of us who wanted to get into the comic strip business. If any of the young artists who want to get into our business today could get hold of any of the old ‘Scribbly’ material, I think they’d find the same things that

“Sheldon Mayer was Scribbly,” recalls his close friend Irwin Hasen. “He was a kid in a grownup world, the boy wonder of the comic book business. Outside of the office he became a different sort of person, living in a fantasy world of his own. Shelly would walk into a bar as though he was in Carson City in 1895 and make you think the woman who owned the bar was Amanda Blake on Gunsmoke. He’d start to play the guitar or harmonica. Here was this very dynamic individual who understood every facet of the business and who chose to be Scribbly.” With “Scribbly,” I followed the old rule of writing only about what you know! What was more natural than writing about the adventures of a boy cartoonist? The strip lay on Gaines’ desk for months until George Baker, promotion manager and art director for the McClure Syndicate, finally persuaded him to read it. Max wasn’t interested in my becoming a cartoonist. We had a publishing business that was going like crazy, and he didn’t want me distracted from my editorial duties. He finally bought “Scribbly,” and became a fan of the strip. He used to read it and laugh every time. He never said anything, but laughed every time. The entire comic book business was booming, thanks to the success of the super-hero concept. Hundreds of Superman imitators hit the stands, and the man who had first seen the potential of Superman wasn’t about to be left behind. Working with writer Gardner Fox, Shelly came out with Flash Comics in 1939. The first issue showcased the premier appearances of The Flash, Hawkman, and the bumbling Johnny Thunder. It was an unqualified success. By 1944, the combined SupermanDC and All-American lines would be responsible for onethird of the 18 million comic books sold each month. In 1940 “Green Lantern” took over the lead spot in AllAmerican Comics, the flagship of the Gaines line. Artist Mart Nodell had brought a sketch of the new character to Mayer. With writer Bill Finger (co-creator of Batman), Shelly fleshed out the concept for the power-ringed crusader. Recalling the legend of Aladdin and his magic lamp, Finger suggested GL’s alter ego be named Alan Ladd. “That’s ridiculous,” proclaimed Shelly. “Who’d believe that?” The name was changed to Alan Scott, only a few years before the name Alan Ladd began appearing on movie marquees throughout the world. Nodell’s drawing was very crude. His idea for “The Green Lantern” appealed to us as a possibility, but I didn’t want to take it. I didn’t feel that Nodell was the right man to draw the feature and I knew he couldn’t write it. I preferred to invent titles and characters myself and assign them to people who were more “ready” than Nodell was at the time. Gaines liked the character, though, so we decided to give it a try. It was always a lot easier going if Max went along with it. Nodell made an intense effort to improve his drawing. I never saw a guy try harder. Crude as his efforts were, he managed to get the story across and the feature thrived.

DC’s caption in Amazing World of DC Comics #5 read: “Scribbly, the epitome of boy cartoonists, proudly submits his samples to the publishers of ‘Rational Comics’ in the first issue of his own magazine (Aug-Sept. 1948).” [© 2000 DC Comics]

In those early days, very few of the people who got into comic books aimed at it like they do today. The only artists who were available to us were former pulp illustrators and young guys who wanted to be newspaper cartoonists. While the illustrators were technically much better, the story was

An Interview With Shelly Mayer secondary to them. They thought of a comic book as a gallery for their pictures. I had much better luck with the would-be cartoonists. While they were often very crude in their drawing techniques, they would give you faces with some degree of animation to them and they had some rudiments of storytelling. E.E. Hibbard, who drew “The Flash” for many years, was an exception. He had been a commercial artist and illustrator, never a cartoonist, but he understood what I was after and accommodated me. He learned to draw the way he would have if he had started out

Gardner has never had ambitions to be another Hemingway, but he is certainly a pro and a fast one. And he is good at running with the ball, and passing it back to you. I used to go over to his house and collaborate on the stories. (It wasn’t really a collaboration in the truest sense because I always had the last word, which is an unfair advantage for a collaborator but a normal thing for an editor.) Gardner would hand me a fencing foil and somehow ideas would come while I was walking around swinging the thing. He’d sit at the typewriter, throw out an idea... or catch one of mine... and we’d turn out enormous amounts of material that couldn’t have been turned out any other way. We’d finish plotting a booklength All-Star story before I’d leave at night. Gardner was one of the few guys who could sit down, make a writing decision, or accept one, and write it fast, without wasting time trying to second-guess it. When the scripts came in, I’d sometimes edit them so heavily that the end result was as if I had written the story with a very intelligent secretary. To me, the collaborations were just a way of two guys doing more writing together than they could possibly total separately! By the time we finished a script, it was impossible to tell who wrote what. The ideas grew while we sat there. My method was very tough on writers unless we knew each other very well and really got along. I really have to give those guys credit, because I was no picnic to get along with and yet we remained good friends.

“Shelly wanted me to write Wonder Woman,” recalls Bob Kanigher. “The Marston family was dissatisfied with everyone but Shelly. I brought in the Numerous tiers of panels exist from this (published? unpublished?) mid-1940s Mart Nodell “Green Lantern” story, script and Shelly threw it on which featured a Pied Piper villain who called himself Pan. Repro’d from photocopies of original art, courtesy of Marv Wolfman and another generous contributor whose name we’re not certain of. [© 2000 DC Comics] the floor. He jumped up and down on it. I went home and as a cartoonist, and when good craftsmanship was needed, he could rewrote it. He repeated his feet-stomping process. I went home and provide it. Most important, he did learn to tell the story. rewrote it again. Again he committed an atrocity on my script. I told him to go (CENSORED) and left. He phoned me at home and In the beginning, I found that the smell of the hack was on the accepted the script with certain revisions and invited me to become an trained writers we hired from the pulps. I don’t want to downgrade editor. I think this was his diabolical way of getting even with me for the word “hack.” It simply means “turn out the stuff fast!” All our telling him to go (CENSORED), for I became the sole writer and ediguys had to learn to do it. A good “hack” writer must be able to take tor of Wonder Woman for more than 15 years.” the standard formula and keep giving it a fresh look month after month. Unfortunately, when I worked with guys who had been I suppose I deserve [the above comments by Kanigher]. It’s what I taught fast writing in other fields, I always got less than I wanted get for teaching these guys to think in terms of dramatic pictures. A from them. My greatest successes were with those who had never foot stomping on a script makes a better picture than a blue pencil written before. crossing out chunks of dialogue and rewriting it in the margin. Bob walked out with that script just when I had it the way I wanted it! Gardner Fox was a former lawyer, but was too gentle a guy to be a He’s right! I made him an editor to teach him a lesson!... and to get successful one. As he tells it, his career ended when, in the middle of a that script back!... because after I had fixed it, I liked it. court case, he saw the other guy’s side and said so out loud, admitting that his client was wrong. So he came to work for us. I used to have a trick for coming up with story plots. I’d take five

16 disconnected objects, things with no connection whatsoever like a ski boot and a grandfather’s clock, and by trying to connect them, you would build a story around them. Pretty soon, you’d find yourself with characters suggested by the objects, and by tying them together you had one hell of a plot.

Origins of the Golden Age clown to start using them at bottom rates and turn them into machines, but they’d never get past that stage. I felt their potential was too good to waste that way. I could see by the looks on their faces that they were both hating my guts. I offered them appointments for one year later, after they had graduated.

Carmine returned alone exactly a year later with a full sketchbook and As part of a program to develop a diploma. He had improved noticenew talent, I used to lecture once ably and I gave him a script. The fact a year at the School of Industrial that his work subsequently won so Art. Carmine Infantino and many awards is sufficient testimony another student who had heard that my advice was sound. The fact one of my lectures came down to that he is today the publisher of NPP my office a few days later to [National Periodical Publications] has show me their work. Carmine nothing to do with my advice... that was good, and so was the other he did on his own! In fact, in 1967, boy. I asked if their fathers were we had a three-day session up here in working and could afford to let my studio (in Copake, NY) when he them finish school. When they was first offered the Editorial Direcboth said, “Yes,” I said sometorship, and I tried to talk him out of thing like: “Good! You’re lucky! it! Failing that, I gave him my blessGo back to school, and come see ing and whatever moral support and me in a year.” Then I laid out a wisdom I could muster. program of sketching exercises, suggesting that they follow them The other lad, I’ve been told, in addition to their school work. started working for other publishers Their faces fell! They were good the day he left my office. I’ll say this and they knew it, but they for him. His work has improved... weren’t quite ready to start he’s done some remarkable stuff, grinding stuff out. I told ’em that both penciling and inking. But he is starting too soon would stop known primarily as one of the best their development. I admitted Again as per Amazing World of DC Comics #5: “An historic first meeting: inkers in the field, and I can’t help they could probably get work Spike Wilson learns of the existence of baby talk from Sugar Plumm (from wondering... What if...? elsewhere, but advised them to Sugar and Spike #1, April-May 1956). [© 2000 DC Comics] avoid it for another year. At this I guess I was always a little jealous stage they could become the victims of somebody’s editorial policy of my artists, because they were drawing pictures and I wasn’t. The and stop thinking for themselves. The foundation for an independent only time I was really happy was when I was drawing. If a guy was approach to drawing has to be there before you’re exposed to comgoing to hit me for a raise, he’d wait until he heard me whistling mercial pressures. “Short-cuts and speed-tricks are fine when your behind the door of my office... then he’d know that I was working on drawing skills are developed. Yours aren’t,” I remember saying, “and a Mutt and Jeff cover and I’d be more receptive. without ‘em you’re only a machine... a tool to help the guy who has got ‘em.” I knew it sounded like a brush-off, and I tried to convince If Sol Harrison’s production schedule was behind, he’d bring in some them it wasn’t, but I wasn’t sure I’d made my point. small problem, saying I could solve it by drawing a quick picture to Shelly’s recommendations to aspiring artists now are the same as then: Sketch from life while the subjects are moving. One famous caricaturist learned his craft by drawing quick sketches in his pocket of people on the subway and he wouldn’t know what he had until he took it out later. What gets down on paper isn’t important at all. What is important is what gets into your head and stays there. You can’t draw pictures until you can see ‘em! Spot the details that count! You must learn to make your eyes work for you! Anyone can get his hand to do anything he wants. Instead of thinking of it as something between your brain and hand, you should think of it as something between your eyes and brain. Do 5000 quick sketches from life and very little will “stump” you. However, you need time to reflect between sketches. TIME! Neither Carmine nor his friend had done enough life study or had enough background in his craft to start working on a professional level. Oh, they were good enough for some

Now it can be told! The “other lad” Mayer is talking about, who came to his office with Carmine Infantino, was Frank Giacoia. Though noted primarily as an inker, Giacoia did full art chores— and very well, too— on two chapters in All-Star Comics #55 (1950). [© 2000 DC Comics]

An Interview With Shelly Mayer

how you feel when you come back.” It was sound advice and I took it. I came back with a great idea for a teenage comic book which I couldn’t wait to start drawing. But Jack felt I was still making a mistake. He offered me an attractive salary arrangement as a cartoonist (much less than my editorial salary, but good enough to get by), on the condition that I turn out one more teenage comic book as an editor. He was still convinced I’d change my mind, and was trying to protect me from my own rashness.

At least one Mayer-Fox Justice Society story was never published! These two Martin Nadel panels are from the finale of the 1946 tale “The Will of William Wilson,” more than a dozen pages of which (by artists Nadel, Jon Chester Kozlak, Stan Aschmeier, and Paul Reinman) still exist. For a detailed study of this long-lost JSA adventure, see the upcoming All-Star Companion this autumn. [JSA and Psycho-Pirate © 2000 DC Comics]

fill some spot... And while I was drawing it, he’d spring his bad news. It always worked. Bad news never bothered me when I was drawing pictures. When I went off on social jaunts with some of the guys, I noticed that there were certain things that the boss wasn’t supposed to hear. That separation disturbed me a great deal because I felt more identification with them than I did with the publishers I worked for. I thought of myself as an artist, not a businessman. Unfortunately, I was in a position of making decisions of a business nature, some of which made the fellows quite uncomfortable. I really didn’t want any part of it. Who wants to make decisions that affect other people’s lives? I was editing some scripts one day when I heard two of my artists talking outside my office. “Hey, that’s a beautiful cover you have there. Have you shown it to the old man yet?” “No,” the other replied. “I’m going to show it to him now.” Then I heard a knock at my door. I was 31 years old and the artist was 47; that was the day I decided to quit. A couple of years before, I had given up “Scribbly” because I just didn’t have time to do it anymore. You really can’t be a cartoonist and an editor at the same time. They’re two separate and distinct worlds. I realized that while others were going off to the golf course, all I was doing was trying to find some way to go off in a corner and draw pictures.

Leave It to Binky was the idea I had come back with, and since he had indicated his preference that I revive Scribbly if I went back to drawing, I decided to make Binky my swan-song as an editor.

I began to seriously research teenagers, their values, lingo, etc., of that period. My wife and I spent a lot of time with the teenage offspring of our friends and neighbors, even accepting an invitation to a formal high school prom. We went along with the kids and did everything they did... (within reason)... and got home exhausted at 7 a.m. Sorrel collapsed in the bedroom while I made a ham and egg sandwich for a group of ’em who’d followed us home. It was a marvelous night and we still talk about it. I assigned Bob Oksner to do the art, Hal Seeger as scripter, and Larry Nadel, then in charge of our humor books, as editor. I wrote some of it, designed many of the characters personally, and spent a lot of time at Bob’s studio, drawing some of it right alongside him. But when we had the final penciled artwork in the office, we all felt that the dialogue still wasn’t right. Remembering the lingo I’d picked up on my jaunts with my new high school senior friends, I rewrote the dialogue on the whole 48 pages with Oksner, Seeger, and Nadel listening and laughing as we made the changes. Right then all four of us knew we had a hit... even before it was inked. Oksner’s beautiful girl drawings were a contribution I could never have made had I drawn Binky myself. And a very large part of Binky’s subsequent success was directly due to his drawing skill. I have since learned to draw girls passably well, but at that time my skills as an artist were largely undeveloped. I suspect that Jack was hoping I’d discover that while working on the Binky swan-song. I didn’t have to discover it... I’d always known it. But I was convinced that by spending full time on drawing (which I’d never been able to do before), I’d learn the thing I’d been teaching young artists to do for years. It took longer than I thought... indeed... I’m still learning more every day. But at least I’m now in a position to take my own advice. Draw! Draw! Draw!

In 1948 Shelly Mayer retired from the helm of the All-American line [which in 1945 had been purchased from M.C. Gaines and was now fully part of the Superman-DC line under the name “National Comics Publications,” later “National Periodical Publications.”]. In 1947 the “teenage” and “funny animal” books had come into vogue, and my kind of drawing was back in style. It was now or never. I told Jack Liebowitz (then president of National Comics) that I wanted to go back to drawing pictures. My staff was in good shape and things could run smoothly without me. Jack said I’d been working too hard. “Take it easy for a while and think it over!” We both knew I couldn’t hope to earn the kind of income I was being paid as Editorial Director if I went back to being a cartoonist, but it didn’t seem to matter to me. “Go visit those cowboy friends of yours again,” Jack said. “Get back on a horse for a couple of weeks. That’s all you need. Let’s see

When word got out that I was talking of leaving, other publishers contacted me with offers of partnerships, percentage deals, etc., to be an editor. But I turned ’em down. Money wasn’t the problem. Jack, finally

Origins of the Golden Age

convinced that I couldn’t be dissuaded from my “insanity,” accepted my resignation and put Whitney Ellsworth, then Editorial Director of the DC half of our company, in charge of the All-American group as well. I went to work on Scribbly in February or March of 1948. Scribbly was wrong for the teenage market at that time. It was actually nostalgia, not formula teenage stuff.... I got a lot of mail from an enthusiastic but small group of fledgling cartoonists. So we put the book to sleep after 12 issues and I did funny animal stuff until 1955. In that year, animal books had hit a low point and something was needed to give the field a fresh start. Over the years, as trends had shifted, I had been called in as editorial consultant and asked to throw in my two cents’ worth. Called upon again, I did an analysis of what was selling and what wasn’t and submitted a report in which I demonstrated that our “funny-books” had been counting too much on gags and not enough on character development or human interest. Jack said, “Okay. Go home and don’t come back till you have two books you think will work!” For a guy on salary, this is a beautiful assignment. One of the things we had discussed in the conference was an animal feature we had dropped years before. It had sprung from an idea for a possible title that Sol Harrison had submitted to me: The Three Mouseketeers. We had developed it into an animal parody of Dumas’ costume novels. It had been a lead feature in Funny Stuff for years. Now it had been suggested that we revive the title rather than sue Disney, who had recently introduced the “Mouseketeer” club on TV,

probably unaware that we had done it first. The question was, “How?” The choice was mine. I was to dream up new characters to fit the title. This was no problem.... “Fatsy,” “Patsy,” and “Minus” were three kids in our neighborhood gang back in East Harlem.... I was one of ’em... (Minus, naturally). I simply converted ‘em into mice-kids, laid the setting in the back yard of the house in Rye where I then lived and worked, and the whole thing fell neatly into place. The other book didn’t come so easily. It was to be about kids... human kids... to compete with the rash of Dennis the Menace imitations that were then flooding the market. I resisted all suggestions that it be another Dennis imitation! I remember saying, “When According to Amazing World of DC Comics #5, this photo— by DC artist Ketchum dreamed up Dennis, Jon Chester Kozlak— showed “Shelly he looked around him and with ‘Spike’— his son ‘Lanny.’” found what he was looking for in his own kid. To that degree only, I will imitate Ketchum. I, too, will look around me and see what I come up with. But it won’t be another Dennis type. It’ll be somebody else, with his own individuality. That way, it’ll have a better chance of survival when the Dennis craze ends.” Easier said than done. Ketchum had his little son. My kids were already entering their teens. I had to look elsewhere. After observing and sketching the neighboring kids for a day or two, every idea I had was just another “kid” strip. Nothing fresh seemed to show itself. Trying to recall what my own kids were like when they were smaller, I ran our old home movies of them, working my way back through the dozens of reels to the earliest shots we had of ’em. Merrily and Lanney were less than a year apart in age, so that there was a brief period during which neither of them had learned to talk yet. Watching them together as babies in their playpen (when Lanney was about nine months old, and his sister about ten months older), I observed that they seemed to be communicating with each other. On this silent film, you could swear they were having an involved conversation. And yet I knew that they had not been able to talk when I shot those films. I was so absorbed with this strange phenomenon that it was almost ten minutes before I realized I had found what I was looking for. The theme for Sugar and Spike was staring me right in the face!

Mayer’s layouts for a comic book version of the New Testament. Interview Anthony Tollin thinks this was probably the secret project he mentions near the end of his interview. [Art ©2000 the estate of Sheldon Mayer; reproduced by courtesy of Robin Snyder’s The Comics, Vol. 8, #12, Dec. 1997.]

I went right to work. In two weeks, I was back at the office with carefully worked-up “storyboard” presentations of the two new books. The first issues of The Three Mouseketeers and Sugar and Spike appeared early in 1956. Both titles did well from the start, and by 1957 went from bimonthlies to eight times a year. Sixteen issues a year was more than I could handle alone, so I turned the drawing of Mouseketeers over to my friend, the late, great Rube Grossman, continuing to write the scripts myself, and working very closely with Rube on layout, etc., for a while. Eventually I turned the writing over to Si Wright and others, concentrating entirely on Sugar and Spike. A successful comic book is something like a play on Broadway; sooner or later it completes its run and should be put to sleep... to be revived again later, perhaps, as has happened so often in our business. The Three Mouseketeers completed its run during the 1960s. An

An Interview With Shelly Mayer attempt was made some years later to revive it using reprints, but the timing was wrong and it quietly went back to rest. Sugar and Spike weathered several drops in circulation, but each time I was able to introduce a new twist, or a new character (as with Bernie the Brain), and the sales were revived. Somewhere between 1964 and 1966, Shelly began to notice that his eyesight was failing. By 1967 it was definitely diagnosed as pre-senile cataracts in both eyes. The curious thing about cataracts is that surgeons won’t operate till you’re walking into walls. By then, any restoration of vision, be it ever so slight, is an improvement. And they can’t guarantee even that. Therefore they resist “robbing” you of what might be a few more years of whatever vision you have left. The operation itself is usually successful. It’s simply a matter of removing the damaged lens that God gave you (which leaves you legally “blind”) and replacing it with specially prepared eyeglasses. And there’s the rub. There’s absolutely no way of knowing in advance whether they will work. Or to what degree. So there I was... waiting for the surgeon to operate, not knowing if I could work again when he did. I was still writing and drawing Sugar and Spike, but seeing a little less every day. It’s amazing how beautiful all the girls and women suddenly had become. For five years I never saw a wrinkle or a pimple. Just lovely, smooth faces. I was beginning to enjoy it, until their eyes and noses disappeared, too.

1973. I kept working straight through the recuperation period. Even in the hospital. But by now it was mostly notes and half-formed ideas that would carry me only partway through a script and then bog down... or run into a dead end. I was trying something new (by “open” assignment)... something that had never been done in comic books before, and I was in totally strange territory. When my vision began to return, I dropped it temporarily and completed an assignment to convert Genesis (the first book of the Old Testament) into a 64-page comic book. I rough-sketched that script rather than typed it because I needed the advice of several theologians, and it was easier for them to look at pictures than to wade through the scene descriptions. It was the first drawing I had done since 1971. Subsequently, I wrote and penciled the artwork on two giant Rudolph [the Red-Nosed Reindeer] books. Those days of working closely with Rube Grossman paid off, because now I had to adapt his style... as he had learned mine for the Mouseketeers.I was in heaven! I could see again! And I was back to drawing pictures!

Then the ideas and half-scripts I had been working on during the We hope Shelly’s shade will forgive us if, along with Sugar and Spike and maybe Scribbly, recuperation period we’re happiest that for a decade he guided the destinies of some of the greatest Golden Age (working with my left eye heroes— including “The Flash,” seen here in the splash of a never-published third “Rose and from May to August, and the Thorn” story written by Robert Kanigher, with art by Joe Kubert. This art became a cover of our previous issue, but we also wanted to print it in black-and-white, complete with orig- my right eye from September to November) inal caption. Note that it was originally intended for 1949’s Flash Comics #100. [Flash, Rose & suddenly crystalized! I Thorn ©2000 DC Comics; special thanks to Robin Snyder] asked for and got time to In 1971 Sugar and Spike work on a 13-page rough pencil presentation (with main characters sales were down again. The book needed another shot in the arm. But carefully drawn and developed, plus some ten pages of scenario typed this time I just couldn’t seem to manage it. So I stopped drawing Sugar out) of the new idea. All the missing pieces have fallen into place, and and Spike, and we dropped the book. I wrote scripts. Carmine and now I’m convinced it’s solid and sound. It’s on Carmine’s desk now. the boys were very patient while I learned to work with a tape The fact that he and the boys haven’t made a decision on it is a very recorder and a typewriter. I managed to turn out scripts of all kinds... good sign! It means they’re a little afraid of it. That’s good, because it House of Mystery stuff for Joe Orlando, some adventure stuff, some means it’s different!... Hopefully, like Superman was different. A good humor, and I also continued performing my usual trouble-shooting pro should approach it cautiously because anything that goes into a assignments as editorial consultant for Carmine. Wrote reports ananew, uncharted direction can bomb!... But if it hits, it hits big! lyzing publishing problems related to scripts, features, in our magazines, etc., making recommendations, suggestions, etc. I was relieved to be told subsequently that they were largely followed and found to be effective. (A guy’s gotta pull his weight.) Finally, both eyes were operated on between May and August of

And that’s why I quit editing to be a comic book artist. I’ve been prospecting for a new direction. This time, I think I’ve found it. If you never hear about it again, you’ll know I’m still prospecting... looking for another one!

Droopy, The Drew Field Mosquito

We Interrupt This Magazine To Present:

Droopy, The Drew Field Mosquito In last issue’s interview with the original 1940 “Flash” artist (and “Atom” artist in All-Star #34, 1947), we ran several of the comic strips Harry wrote and drew from 1942-45, while serving in the Army in Tampa, Florida. He has recently published a collection of these strips, which twice helped the Drew Field Echoes win an award in the Camp Newspaper Contest. We thought we’d run a few more, this time around....

by Harry Lampert To inquire re copies of the complete Droopy, as well as re-creations of Harry’s Golden Age work on “Flash,” “Atom,” “The King,” et al., contact Harry by mail at:

A stamped, self-addressed envelope would be welcome.

6-7 Rolling Hills Lenox, MS 01240 or 2074 S.W. 17th Dr. Deerfield Beach, FL 33442

John B U SCEMA · Dave G IBBON S · Adam H UGHES · Joe K U BERT Jim L EE · Jerry O RDWAY · Walter S IMON SON · Bruce T IM M AN D M ANY M ORE !

TWELVE PRESTIGE FORMAT SPECIALS WRITTEN BY STAN LEE & ILLUSTRATED BY THE BIGGEST NAMES IN COMICS!

THEY SAID IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN They Were Wrong!

DC Vs. The Justice Society Of America

D C vs.

by Larry Ivie “It was because we didn’t know our audience,” said Sheldon Mayer, the first editor of All-Star Comics, “that the writers and artists of the early ’40s had the greatest freedom to try everything, and most of it sold!” “And the reason,” I explained, “was that each issue had such a variety of stories, at that time, that the things of no interest to us were purchased with the same dime that got us what was!”

(Above) “Making costumes to play the best versions of the JSA characters,” Larry says, “was our second childhood attempt to save them from unpopular changes.” (Below) “After DC ended the series with AllStar #57, we tried to continue it with binders containing old solo stories [clipped] from other titles. The binders contained full-sized prints cut from two extra copies [of each comic]— 5¢ each from back-issue shops— pasted onto sheets of binder paper (on the front side only).” The “All-Star #58 cover” at left utilizes the splash of the Green Lantern/Solomon Grundy encounter from Comic Cavalcade #24 (Dec.-Jan. 1947-48); that issue was to spotlight previously-printed tales of Hop Harrigan, Aquaman, et al. The “All-Star cover” at right (which its artist/writer called “L.I. #8) was done in lightcolored pencil, never intended for reproduction. It evidently included a new, Ivie-drawn story, “The Justice Society’s Arabian Nights Adventure.” “Our single-copy issues,” Larry says, “were drawn on sheets of typing paper folded in half, making four pages per sheet.” [New art ©2000 Larry Ivie; JSA, Hop Harrigan, Aquaman ©2000 DC Comics]

was early 1959, at my desk in a classroom at New York City’s School of Visual Arts. I had had no awareness that Mayer would be the guest professional of the day, so it was by pure chance that what he spotted on my desk, which caused him to pull up a chair to begin a conversation with me, was a drawing of the very characters he had once edited!

“And we were so intoxicated with the success of the whole,” said Mayer, “we never paused to learn the secret only your generation could give us— which was which!”

I was five years old at the time I began making the first independent selections of issues for my parents to buy and read to me, with a few additional years in which the racks offered a variety to choose from that would later be gone. And, during school recesses, we had hundreds of conversations on why we were all buying the issues we were buying.

The year this revealing exchange between different generations finally took place

DC Vs. The Justice Society Of America and a half too late. And, as he looked at the other sample pages of the old JSA characters, he said, “You’ve got both the art and the knowledge that can enable DC to overcome its slump... and make enormous amounts more than it is now. Don’t wait to Larry Ivie: “Perhaps, we finish the inking. Take thought, if the costumes what you’ve got now, of our childhood creative and let them know enthusiasms were prewhat you’ve just told served, the traditions DC me about what they’ve began destroying, in a been doing wrong!” seeming war against the “I tried to,” I said.

OPPORTUNITIES MISSED #1 1956

buyers, leaving them behind in ‘51, could live again through carefullymade home movies!” Some of the JSA-related costumes and artifacts Larry made during the 1940s are depicted in the photographs on the following pages. The item at left, of course, is Starman’s Gravity Rod. [Photo ©2000 Larry Ivie.

As soon as the first issue reviving The Flash appeared, I phoned the editor to see if he’d be interested in a revival of The Justice Society. (I felt it should be done at its peak, with chapters for each character. I wanted to do Hawkman, and knew others who also could produce better art than DC was currently using.)

But he didn’t agree with my prediction that, despite its weaknesses, the new Flash was going to take off, and a JSA revival could do even better. He said he wasn’t interested in another revival until they saw how well the first one did. Why didn’t he realize what, to many, was obvious? So I produced some sample pages of both Superman and Batman, instead, as a foundation for giving those editors the secrets of what could instantly increase sales of their characters. I knew why the kids who had made them so successful had begun to loose interest in 1948, as a sudden tidal wave of bad decision-making seemed to engulf the DC titles. In the next few years, an increasing enthusiasm for re-reading the issues for the “good days,” rather than buying the new stuff, showed there was no loss of interest for the characters, as they had been. And, as long as the familiar titles kept appearing, although no longer as popular, there was hope that soon someone would dash into the classroom to shout, “There are good issues of All-Star, and Superman, and Flash Comics on sale again!” so we could all rush out, after class, to buy out everything in sight. Instead, there were only groans as word spread that our once-beloved characters were being replaced by cowboys! Even those of us who lived in the West thought of all “cowboys,” except the Lone Ranger, as third-rate next to the old Justice Society.

As I, years later, entered the office of Superman editor Mort Weisinger, it seemed strange that there was nothing of Superman in view. I had considered it rather strange, while at the receptionist’s cubicle, to see the edge of the famous painting of Superman jutting out from behind a filing cabinet behind her. Stranger still, the Superman editor didn’t have a single Superman story in his office, other than a clipping in his desk from over a decade before— one of the first under his control— which, after a quick dismissal of my samples, he pulled out to show me what a “good” Superman story was like. Before that, however, he had quickly turned a sign to face the wall. But not before I saw that it read: “Remember, we are writing for 8-yearolds!” The story he showed me was very familiar. I clearly recalled our classroom conversations about it, the day following its appearance, in which it was generally agreed to be the worst Superman story we had ever seen! “How ironic,” said Weisinger, “that Larry’s 1946-47 models of Green Lantern’s original just as we were lantern-shaped ring— and a magical railroad turning things in a lantern. [Photos ©2000 Larry Ivie.] better direction, sales would begin to fall, due to competition from... TELEVISION!” None of us had stopped buying comic books during the early years of TV. Only the titles going in the wrong direction. It was in hopes of eventually finding an editor who could understand what was needed that I finally began the samples for the Justice Society revival I had suggested in ‘56. These included scripts for three issues. The first explained the origins of the members, how they got together (never originally told), and how they were able to suddenly return with new vigor (as had been predicted and explained in an early issue of Wonder Woman). The second script tied up loose ends from the original series. The third set the foundations for a spin-off title, if wanted. It was set twenty years in the future, during a gathering of two groups— the original Justice Society members and their teenage offspring, ready to take over. Planning ahead, quickly, I re-assigned the already drawn introductory page as

DC Vs. The Justice Society Of America

page two of the third issue, with the story title, encompassing both groups, penciled as “The Justice Legion”; but the last word was not yet inked as Mayer stopped to look at it. “Use what you have now as the starting point for discussion. Once they’ve heard the insights you’ve just given me, they’d be fools not to make use of you immediately!” “But,” I said, “have you seen what DC’s been thinking could sell, and the reactions of the kids looking through the racks? The only thing I’ve seen a positive reaction to was the new Flash... which was actually sad, since it’s such an anemic variation of the original!” “Yes. DC hasn’t been up to speed for quite a while!” That clever response came so fast I wondered if it was his first use of it. “But,” he continued, “I bet the new version’s selling, because what else of interest to them have they been given?” “We’ve long had the feeling,” I said, “today’s DC editors are too old to have read comic books, leaving today’s buyers cold trying to give them the pre-superhero interests (firemen, cowboys...) of their childhood. There are no DC issues on the stands today any of my friends and I would have wanted, compared to what we had then.” “You’re the most valuable thing DC will ever have walk through its doors,” said Mayer (a bit extravagantly?). “But, you’ve got to see the right person.” He paused, and smiled, as though saying we had the wrong company for that, but finally gave me the name I would have to see. “Make an appointment immediately, and if he listens to even a hint of the awareness you’ve given me, both you and DC will have it made! But...” He paused again, and, pointing toward the uninked word “Legion,” proceeded to make the cleverest comment I’ve ever heard from an editor: “Perhaps, for him, a baseball term might be a little more in his league!” So, it was with the title “The Justice League” that it and the other pages were seen by Archie Goodwin and my other classmates; instructors Burne Hogarth (former artist of the Tarzan strip) and Tom Gill (artist of The Lone Ranger); and Jack Kirby, the next guest of the day (who had drawn “The Sandman” for DC). A total of about two dozen interested individuals before the pages began their early-’59 trek to DC. All expressed enthusiasm, as did former DC artist Leonard Starr (another SVA guest, currently doing the strip On Stage) following a chance meeting on the subway while on my way to DC. Asking to see what I had in my carrying-case to show them, he predicted, “They should love this!” Dr. Fate’s helmet and amulet, as per young Larry Ivie. The editor proved generous with his time, courteous, and generally encouraging, but also surprisingly reserved following the wide smile and “Wow!” received from Jack Kirby.

And, different from all other companies, I never saw an editor at DC smile... EVER! His first comment, upon looking at all the samples, was, “I’ve never heard of Sandman!” He then held up the “Justice League” page, but instead of discussing its ideas (were any of them consciously noted?), he said, “DC doesn’t use cross-hatching in its art... it’s too old-fashioned! And we don’t use shading dots. It confuses the color artists, and is too much like the old EC company that buyers didn’t like!” (Was he kidding? EC had been one of the most popular companies!)

In my cover sketch (which I hadn’t brought) for the story he was holding, the story title at the bottom had been “The Justice Legion of the World!” I thought The Justice Legion would have been better than The Justice Society for the revival’s title (and there would have been a precedent for the change, since the JSA had temporarily become The Justice Battalion during World War Two), but there’s a special power in what’s most familiar, and to mess with the nostalgia of tradition, as had the new Flash, would have been wrong. I had decided against calling the revival issue of All-Star Comics “#58” not only to avoid overriding the many homemade versions of that issue, but because that would have lost the enormous advantage of a #1 issue, that could be had by making it The Justice Society #1, January 1960.

OPPORTUNITIES MISSED #2 - 1959 AND 1946 Every time I tried to provide some of the awareness Mayer had been so eager to hear, the editor changed the subject, but left me with the encouraging (?) message that he needed to see how I would produce an ending as well as a beginning to a story. So, the chance to immediately launch a Justice Society revival was again delayed, as it had been in 1956. But, he seemed well-meaning, so I was certain I could try again, as soon as other work was out of the way. 1959 became one of my busiest, and most profitable, years, except at DC, where I could have been of most value. The greatest loss for us all, however, I later learned from Superman artist Joe Shuster, who contacted me upon seeing my science-fiction art, had been in 1946. Shuster’s and my philosophies on comic book potential proved to be virtually identical, in terms of story as well as art. Upon seeing the Superman pages ignored by Weisinger, he became inspired for us to work together (his failing eyesight had slowed down his drawing) on something to be vaulted away until times were better!... some new Superman stories that would tie up the loose story ends from the original era, including an expanded version of the origin, founding it more solidly in real science, unlike Weisinger’s new version, which was hated by Siegel and Shuster, which is still being used, unfortunately, in all media forms today. We were in agreement that comics should be written to help kids understand reality, not promote fantasy. And, in 1946, he had presented a package of Superman scripts to DC that would make science interesting. But editor Whitney Ellsworth responded with the same statement I heard for myself from Weisinger in early 1959: “The only purpose of comic books is to make as much money as possible from low-intellect kids.”

DC Vs. The Justice Society Of America

been thrown away, beginning with the absence of anything shouting “First Issue!” Amid the clutter of another Showcase intrusion, in fact, was the number “22”! “Buyers don’t like #1 issues,” he said, “because kids are basically unsure of themselves, and prefer to buy titles they can see are already successful. Undoubtedly, Showcase #4 sold a lot better than would have a Flash #1.” (!!!!) Should I try to inform him that the buyers, instead, like being in at the beginning of things? And most #1 issues, with adequate subjects, sold more, due to buyer collecting instincts! My childhood experiences were verified, and a distribution myth disproved, during an experiment, years later, detailed in Monster Memories #5, 1997, revealing newsstands wanting #1 issues because kids grabbed them up first. Many, including myself, were annoyed at having passed by the first EC issues because they had appeared with misleading higher cover numbers. Later, I would meet the reverse of DC’s editors in Stan Lee, who smiled, admitted he couldn’t understand buyer prefer-

The magnificent gift offered in 1946, to DC, to Superman fans, and to the human heritage, was rejected!

THE NEW GREEN LANTERN My next trip to DC in ‘59 coincided with DC’s selection of The Green Lantern for its second revival. If that had been inspired by GL’s presence in my samples (and I wasn’t convinced it was, even though the new origin idea was the same), why not the higher potential of the full Justice Society? The editor used the cover art to show me a “better” way of doing things than the samples in which I had presented the characters in the “old-fashioned” way of having them facing out at the reader. The new Green Lantern was being introduced with a back view of the character facing into the cover scene. Upon later reading the first issue, it was a pleasant surprise to find it better written than the new Flash, but that was unfortunately followed by a quick return to what seemed the DC way: “Remember, we are writing for 8-year-olds!” The idea of GL’s ring being a gift from space, although I had myself suggested it in my sample, was something I left behind when writing the scripts, because the “visitors from space” theme had become an overworked rut. It was sad to see the new GL resorting to it again. Visually, while its editor was telling me the virtues of a back view, I was noting the variety of buyer-grabbing elements that had

ences, couldn’t figure out how, by my just looking at the past year’s covers, I could tell him correctly, without knowing, which had sold the best and least... and immediately offered me a job (too time-consuming) as co-editor! The upside-down DC views were inflexible, with the comment “too old-fashioned” applied to everything characteristic of the era of peak sales— indicating a conviction that childhood tastes change. They don’t... only what they’re given to choose from.

DC Vs. The Justice Society Of America

“Too old-fashioned” was the reason, said another artist who went to the same DC editors I had, for his being turned away, even though he was a former EC artist. Although today his old work is being pointed to as some of their best, the reality is that there was no interest, when it could have been had, in obtaining new story and cover art from Frank Frazetta.

DC’S JUSTICE LEAGUE My vision for the JSA revival had been to produce issues of a quality acceptable to all ages, and with conceptual, literary, and artistic merit worthy of survival. Unfortunately, DC’s variation, produced within the year, without me, would not (due to its art and story weaknesses) possess those qualities, although all of the titles would eventually acquire a wondrous quality not dependent on merit, but the age of the readers— nostalgia! My first awareness of its appearance came when a number of those who had seen my version began asking what had happened between those “great samples” and the weak variation on the stands. Its primary result was that the better potential that had been offered had to be abandoned. But I was determined to try again, by returning with what I’m still convinced could have been DC’s second most appealing idea. There was always a chance, I convinced myself, that the title “Justice League” had been independently thought of by the first Brave and the Bold issue’s author, but I didn’t get around to asking him for years. After some thought, he concluded it had not been his. He said his thoughts had been on how much better it would have been to keep the title and traditions of the original JSA series, as it had been during the early 1940s. He said he was almost embarrassed by how silly, due to apparent company policies promoted by Mort Weisinger, all new DC stories “had” to be!

THE ATOM I later doubted that my Atom page was the inspiration for DC’s new Atom, due to a two-year delay. His mismatched inclusion into the JLA was awkward, made sadder by the fact that our childhood play had found a way for the original to become one of the most popular, upon

the discovery of an impressive shimmering material for his hood and cape— the hood left behind in DC’s unpopular changes of ’48. The major use for my Atom page came with author Ted White’s request for me to illustrate a sample script by him for the title’s revival. With a title page already on hand, I was able to proceed with work on two story pages, without using up extra time, which would have been a waste after finding DC was already doing a new version. Ted’s script was intelligent, timely, and credible, while DC was, instead, copying the old Doll Man, with scripts, once again, mired in silliness!

THE NEW HAWKMAN What’s the greatest desire of pre-teens? To be accepted on an adult level! The premise of my “Son of Hawkman” concept, originally intended for introduction in the third issue of the Justice Society title, had been that with his true age as a teen concealed by his costume and the long-standing legend of his father, young David Carter (and through him, the readers) could experience in a credible way, the ultimate REAL LIFE dream of youth! When, as requested, I finally found the time to do enough pages to show the way I would end, as well as begin, a story, I returned to be informed it had [Art ©2000 Larry Ivie; Sandbeen decided, instead, to man and Sandy ©2000 DC revive the Hawkman Comics] feature with its original [Art ©2000 Larry Ivie; The Atom writer, and one of the ©2000 DC Comics] old artists. “But,” he said, “it won’t be the same, because I’ve got a new idea for it the kids will like.” It was with seeming pride, although hard to tell without a smile, that he preceded to say: “He’s going to be a man from another planet!”

The “Nuclear” Wars

The “Nuclear” Wars A Close Look at All-Star Squadron #14 and #16— and Two Very Odd Golden Age Wonder Woman Exploits by Roy Thomas [INTRODUCTORY NOTE: It was my original intention to begin, with this issue, a chronological history of All-Star Squadron, the title I conceived and wrote for DC Comics from 1981-86— or through 1989, if you count its Young All-Stars follow-up series, which I do. However, for various reasons I won’t go into here, I decided to wait till next issue to properly initiate that series (which a number of readers have requested, not that I need much of an excuse to talk about the JSA or its pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths offshoots). This time, I decided both to jump ahead a year-and-a-half, and back nearly a third of a century, from All-Star Squadron #1. Bear with me, okay? —R.T.]

ike so many others, I’ve no idea what happened to all those many, many comic books I owned as a kid (in my case, during the latter half of the 1940s and into the 1950s). Sure, I had to donate some to a paper drive when I was in grade school (parting with as few as I could get away with, and sneaking home a couple of comics from others’ piles to assuage my loss). Also, at a very young age I used to cut up copies of some of my mags so I could make up my own adventures on rainy days (though I generally managed to find a spare dime to purchase a second copy of destroyed All-Stars). And, unlike in sad cases related by many others, my mother didn’t burn all my comics while I was away in the military or at college (for one thing, I commuted the ten miles to college— and when afterward I moved away from home I took ’em with me). Yet, somehow, most of those youthful treasures vanished along the way, some perhaps falling apart from overreading. Still, certain comics remained in my possession even when the DC “revivals” began to appear in the late ’50s, and I still had them when university prof Jerry Bails started a comic book version of what science-fiction fans called a “fanzine”— with the hyphenated name “Alter-Ego”— and invited me aboard. And one of the old comics I still owned, from the day it came out till only a few years ago, was Wonder Woman #43 (Sept.-Oct. 1950). At first glance there doesn’t seem anything unusual about WW #43. By this point Irwin Hasen and others drew the covers, but original artist H.G. Peter was still drawing all the stories in (Top) Yes, Virginia, there was an Earth-Two Aquaman— at least for this one issue! Near the end of its six-year run, Roy Thomas had penciler Arvell Jones stick virtually every DC hero who’d appeared in the series onto the cover of All-Star Squadron #59 (July 1986)— plus Mekanique, a mutation of the “Robot Maria” from Fritz Lang’s 1927 film classic Metropolis. The inker was Tony DeZuniga. (Hey, Arvell and Tony are lucky Roy didn’t ask them to squeeze on the Quality heroes, to boot!) Repro’d from the original art, from the collection of R.T. [©2000 DC Comics] (Above) The splash and first (delayed) appearance of Nuclear from Wonder Woman #43. [©2000 DC Comics]

The “Nuclear” Wars

those “52-page” issues.

Woman-Nuclear clash, which had been described in W.W. #43.

The middle story in it— “Nuclear Returns!”— always intrigued me. For one thing, the villain was a male, in a magazine which had long tended toward female villains, especially when “Charles Moulton” (really psychologist William Moulton Marston) was writing it. (By 1950, however, Marston was three years dead and the writer, I’d later learn, was editor Robert Kanigher.) Nuclear was a good-looking character in his mostly green armor— and well-named, in those early years of the Atomic Age.

Because it was a cheaper comic to collect in the 1960s and ’70s than most other comics featuring members of the Justice Society, I amassed copies of the first three dozen issues of Wonder Woman, plus a goodly pile of Sensation Comics. In fact, I still own bound volumes of Comic Cavalcade #10-29 (the last super-hero issue). Eventually, through the medium of microfilm, I was able to peruse every Golden Age adventure of Wonder Woman, as well as most other 1940s super-heroes. And, somewhere along the way, I made a most startling discovery.

In the story Wonder Woman rescues the ocean liner Princess Leatrice (on which Etta Candy and the Holliday Girls just happen to be sailing) from being magnetically pulled into some cliffs by Nuclear, who’s extorting money from “Lemuel Tugboat, owner of the Lenard Shipline.” Diana is puzzled, for, as she tells the girls, “I saw Nuclear fall into a flaming furnace.” She decides to investigate, because Nuclear and a wealthy socialite named Percy Playboy (a name so deliberately corny it deserves to have been coined by Marston before his death) had “disappeared at the same time and I think they are one and the same man!” And indeed, when Wonder Woman visits the “Playboy mansion,” the flashback at right ensues: Learning more about Percy’s troubled youth, Wonder Woman does an instant psychoanalysis and opines that he has “nursed a secret hatred” of his sister since childhood because their father had named Joye, rather than himself, as his heir.

There had never been an earlier Wonder Woman-Nuclear story! But— things like that just didn’t happen! Writers, artists, and editors in the 1940s simply didn’t make up sequels to stories that had never been published!

Wonder Woman is unable to convince Joye that her brother is Nuclear, and indeed it soon looks as if the super-villain has kidnaped Percy. Back on board the Leatrice, Wonder Woman, Joye, and the Holliday Girls, joined by Steve Trevor, soon find the ship sinking after a Nuclear attack— and our heroine shoves everyone aboard to safety on a lifeboat. Meanwhile, standing underwater (!) on the deck of his submarine (see sequence at right) — well, we’ll let the pictures tell the story: There’s nothing left for Wonder Woman to do but hoist the liner up out of the sea with her bare hands, empty out all the water, and rejoin the others. Joye, naturally, fears that her dear brother was on Nuclear’s sub when it was destroyed. Diana elects not to tell her truth— not that Joye would believe her. So there you have it. Not one of the great Golden Age stories, or even one of the great “Wonder Woman” stories. For one thing, the Amazon has zilch to do with defeating Nuclear; the armored idiot does himself in by his own carelessness. Perhaps embarrassed by his own sheer ineptitude, Nuclear never appeared in another Golden Age story. Still, for years I nursed a desire to track down that first Wonder

So there had to be another Nuclear story lurking around someplace. I learned, in time, that lots of never-printed DC artwork had been destroyed when Flash Comics, AllAmerican, Green Lantern, and a number of other comics and features had been discontinued circa 1949. But it still didn’t make sense to me that a “Wonder Woman” story could have been burned in the DC incinerator. After all, Wonder Woman was an ongoing title! In late 1980 I left Marvel Comics and signed a near-exclusive three-year contract to write for DC. Since my star was fairly high at that time, I was given a certain amount of control over the comics I would write, and one of the happy results was All-Star Squadron, set on that wonderful parallel world known and loved as “Earth-Two,” in the year of our Lord 1942, during the early days of America’s participation in that little celebration of human progress known as the Second World War. More about that next ish. This time around, let’s skip to the 14th issue of All-Star Squadron, which sold quite well for the first couple of years.

My good friend and screenwriting partner Gerry Conway was then the reigning writer of Justice League of America. The two of us convinced the DC powers-that-were to let us do a back-and-forth crossover between our two related mags. The result was the five-part “Crisis on Earth-Prime!” in JLA #207-209 and All-Star Squadron #14-15. All that concerns us here is the final six pages of #14, plus #16. As enthusiasts of All-Star Squadron (bless ‘em) know, I conceived of that mag as equal parts comic book and tapestry, or perhaps mosaic. I wanted to weave together as much as I could of past DC continuity— not because I had to, but simply because it was there. Besides, ideas have to come from somewhere; and I was convinced— correctly, as it turned out— that I’d never run short of fun stories to tell in Squadron if I took my cues from the multitude of early-’40s

The “Nuclear” Wars DC comics to which I had access via microfilm, my small but select personal collection, and (albeit at long-distance, since I lived in L.A.) the well-stocked DC library. So I decided to make up for whatever oversight had robbed us 1950 Wonder Woman readers of the first meeting of Wonder Woman and Nuclear. I’d make up for that lack— with a vengeance. Thus, in issue #14 (penciled by Adrian Gonzales, inked by Jerry Ordway), as Liberty Belle, Johnny Quick, Firebrand, Robotman, and late implant Commander Steel arrive in Times Square, they find it menaced by Nuclear, “The Magnetic Marauder.” Nuclear fights them and flees, and the five All-Stars stride into the meeting rooms of the JSA, most of whose members had joined the armed services in their civilian identities. The JSA were letting the All-Stars use their headquarters. When they open the door, the quintet are confronted by a strange Superman and Hawkman— as well as by Aquaman, Firestorm, and Zatanna. In other words, an equal number of members of Earth-One’s Justice League, come back in time from that wonderful year 1982! For the next couple of months, five members each from the JLA, All-Star Squadron, and the 1982 Justice Society of Earth-Two thwart a plan concocted by one of my favorite JSA baddies, Per Degaton, to— well, more about that in a future issue, too. Suffice it to say that, at the beginning of All-Star Squadron #16 (penciled by Adrian Gonzales, inked by Rick Hoberg), the five AllStars from the end of #14 are racing through Times Square with the same dialogue as before. But this time, when Liberty Belle flings open the door of JSA-HQ, instead of a handful of time-displaced Justice Leaguers— —they behold a Wonder Woman who, in Johnny Quick’s words, looks “like a trailer truck fell on her!” After a brief Marvel-style skirmish caused by what the others consider her “delirium,” Diana— herself a charter member of the All-Star Squadron, as all DC heroes of the period were— relates a flashback which owes a strong debt to the opening scene of “Nuclear Returns!” In it, Nuclear, again on a cliff, uses his atomic-magnetic powers to attack a ship— this time a warship on which we see Captain Steve Trevor and Lt. Diana Prince. Wonder Woman saves the vessel, only to see Steve captured by Nuclear. Later, she is defeated because Nuclear’s magnetism causes her metal bracelets to stick together. Now, at the start of #14’s story, she has come to JSA-HQ, dazed, looking for help. Naturally, Wonder Woman and her All-Star comrades soon wind up at the mansion of Percy Playboy and his sister Joye, meeting them for the first time— even if it had been 32 years since Wonder Woman #43 had been published! Two H.G. Peter panels from the never-published first Nuclear story. Note the differing costumes in the two panels— and the paste-up and tape marks on the second, redrawn outfit. [Wonder Woman & Nuclear ©2000 DC Comics; courtesy of Richard Howell.]

29 Splash page of All-Star Squadron #16. In the aftermath of the “Crisis on Earth Prime!” storyline, only a bruised and battered Wonder Woman was waiting for Liberty Belle and friends in JSA-HQ. Note the photo on the wall— dated 11-22-40, clearly taken at the first dinner meeting of the JSA, and used as the cover and splash of All-Star Comics #3 in 1940. Repro’d from original art, courtesy of Jerry G. Bails. [©2000 DC Comics]

Since I was embarrassed for DC, Dr. Marston, and maybe even Bob Kanigher over that name “Percy Playboy,” I had Joye explain that the family name had originally been “Plazchek”— a nod to 1960s comics fan Billy Placzek of Chicago. However, to spite a gossip columnist who had called him “Percy Playboy,” he had legally changed his last name to Playboy. (Call it self-indulgence if you will, but my theory was always that, if I was having fun writing a comic, my readers would, too— and a generation or two of fans bringing up dog-eared copies of All-Star Squadron for me to sign at comics conventions has convinced me I was basically right.) Robotman soon stumbles into Nuclear’s secret lab beneath the mansion, where he finds a bound Steve Trevor. In the course of a terrific battle between the half dozen All-Stars and Nuclear, the villain rips up the metal floor to reveal a “raging fire” below. (Remember that “flaming furnace”/”fiery pit” WW and Joye had mentioned ‘way back in WW #43?) Naturally, Nuclear soon falls into it himself, after being winged by Steve’s pistol. Joye is disconsolate, since it seems her vanished brother is now lost forever. None of the All-Stars tries to tell her that Percy was Nuclear. And that was that. After nearly a third of a century, the “prequel” to “Nuclear Returns!” had been published at last, even if it wasn’t precisely what Marston, Kanigher, and/or DC had had in mind. All-Star Squadron #16, with its cover by Joe Kubert, proved popular enough with readers, though my instructions about the coloring of Nuclear’s costume weren’t followed and his armor wound up purple and blue instead of green. Well, at least his cape was still red. In addition, somehow that issue’s letters section— which told the background of the story— didn’t get printed. A few issues later, I used my answer to the only letter printed about “The Magnetic Marauder!” as an excuse to write a couple of sentences about my story’s genesis as a

The “Nuclear” Wars

These two panels seem to come right after the preceding pair. [From the collection of R.T.] (Below) And this is what one of those panels looks like when the paste-up of the re-designed Nuclear is removed! [Wonder Woman & Nuclear ©2000 DC Comics]

“prequel” to a 1950 issue of Wonder Woman. And there I was prepared to let the matter rest. So, naturally, that’s when some original art from the first Wonder Woman-Nuclear free-for-all turned up! Actually, I don’t recall precisely when I first got hold of photocopies of two panels from the never-published Nuclear intro. But I’m certain that, had I been in possession of them in 1982, I’d have used the scene they depicted in All-Star Squadron #16! To the best of my recollection, the photocopies were sent to me by a young fan and aspiring comic book artist I knew named Richard Howell. Yes, the same Richard Howell who, by 1984, would be penciling an issue or two of All-Star Squadron himself! As you can see from the reproductions on the preceding page, there’s an anomaly or two about those panels: For one thing, Nuclear is wearing two largely different suits of armor in them! In the first panel— the first face-to-face encounter between him and Diana— he’s wearing a tight-fitting headpiece with slits over ears and mouth, and two round holes for the eyes. The armor joints on his arms, the torso armor, boot-lines— just about everything is different from the look in WW #43. In the second panel, however, Nuclear looks exactly as he does in “Nuclear Returns!” Much of this figure is clearly a paste-on, with even the outline of transparent tape showing. In other words, the first panel depicts Nuclear’s original appearance, which was altered later— before the whole story was inexplicably scrapped. But it was nice to know for certain, for the first time, that there had been a first Wonder Woman-Nuclear story! And so matters stood, for over a decade. Then, in the mid-to-late ’90s, I was wandering around some gigantic comics convention or other— probably San Diego or the Heroes Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina— when what do I see pinned up behind a dealer’s table but a pair of H.G. Peter panels of Wonder Woman for sale for $150! This tier of panels showed Nuclear’s armored hand grasping Diana’s bracelets behind her, then trying her up with her own lasso while surmising that its “magic” is “feminine brain magnetism— right?” A weird little speech, which made me wonder if maybe that story hadn’t been written before Dr. Marston left the strip (and this world) in 1947. In both panels, the figures of Nuclear— even his armored hand

and forearm in the first one— were paste-ups. I didn’t think my wife Dann wanted me buying original art at that stage, so I asked the dealer (a friendly fellow whose name, alas, now escapes me) if he could make a photocopy of those panels for me, when he returned home. To my surprise, he handed me the artwork and told me to take it home with me, make copies, then mail it back to him— unless I decided to buy it, of course. I was struck by his generosity, since his action precluded any sale of the art at the convention, and he was loaning it to someone who might well not buy it at all. (Just so you know: Dann retroactively gave me that artwork as a present; it now resides with us in South Carolina.) Only when preparing this article did I finally get around to peeling off the redrawn Nuclear head and torso in the second panel. Underneath were the original helmet and costume. Perhaps the “correction” on the art Rich Howell owned had fallen off, somewhere along the line. I’ve reproduced both versions of that panel with this article. (I didn’t bother to peel the first panel. So sue me.) Mysteries remain, of course. Why was the original Nuclear story scrapped— and the sequel published? (Or did nobody at DC even notice?) Was the earlier story perhaps considered inferior, either in terms of script or art, to the second? (The ending of the sequel is, after all, pretty bad itself.) Were all the corrections on Nuclear’s outfit done by H.G. Peter and his “assistants”? (So ‘twould appear.) As I often say at the end of articles like this, we’ll probably never know, nor will the world stop turning if we don’t. But I suppose I should thank whatever editorial decision or quirk of fate caused that first Wonder Woman-Nuclear match-up not to be published. After all— its absence gave me a great excuse for a fun issue of All-Star Squadron! Next issue: Okay, okay— this time for sure— The Birth of the All-Star Squadron!

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt

The Gardner Fox Letters Part IV From Fan to Pro by Michael T. Gilbert Fate’s pretty funny. A few years back, I discovered a treasure trove of comic book ephemera that had been donated to the University of Oregon by legendary comics writer Gardner Fox. Buried in this collection was a box of old fan mail. I was surprised to discover that many of the eager young fans who wrote to Fox over the decades eventually went on to become comic book professionals. Marv Wolfman, Alan Weiss, and Mike Vosburg were among those who wrote Fox to praise him, or to get his professional advice.

However, the most interesting correspondence— and by far the most voluminous!— was a series of letters sent to Fox by future comics writer and Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas. All told, I uncovered no less than 26 typewritten letters that Thomas sent to Fox during a period from 1960 to 1965. Many of the letters concerned the original Alter-Ego, the fanzine which Roy helped Jerry Bails originate in the early ’60s. I sent copies of the letters to Roy— who had worked with me earlier on a series of Elric comics for Pacific and First, as well as a “Spectre” story for Secret Origins— with the vague idea of someday reprinting this rare correspondence somewhere. Roy was astonished and delighted to learn that copies of his old letters still existed, and gave me permission to reprint them if the occasion arose. But where to print them? That’s when Fate stepped in. Shortly after Roy and I exchanged letters, TwoMorrows publisher John Morrow and editor Jon B. Cooke invited Roy to revive the above-mentioned Alter Ego as a mini-fanzine attached to the then-upcoming Comic Book Artist. He, in turn, invited me to contribute a series of articles on the Fox collection to the reborn fanzine. I happily signed on, and suggested that we might eventually reprint some of his old correspondence with Fox. Roy was enthusiastic, but concerned that printing his old letters in a magazine he edited might seem slightly egotistical on his part. I assured him that these letters were fascinating and historically important. Why important? First and foremost, these letters are a valuable record of comics fandom’s earliest days. Jerry Bails, one of fandom’s founding fathers, created the original (hyphenated) Alter-Ego in 1961. After editing the first five issues, he gave up the Roy drew this self-portrait in 1964 for Alter Ego (Vol. 1) #7, and is embarrassed to admit it probably resembled him at the time. [©2000 Roy Thomas]

editing chores to cartoonist Ronn Foss. Foss edited issues #5-6, then passed the baton to Roy, who directed the final four issues of its 1960s run. Under their guidance, A/E became one of the best-loved fanzines of the ’60s— famous as a showcase for future comics talent and for its informative articles on comic book history. Unfortunately, Fox’s letters back to Roy do not survive, but Roy’s letters to Fox discuss his involvement with the creation of Alter-Ego, and provide a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of early comic book fandom. I find it incredibly ironic that these letters should see print in a revived version of that very fanzine, forty years later— with one of the original editors editing his own fan writings four decades after the fact! See? I told you Fate was funny. Equally important, these letters took place at a very crucial junction for Roy personally. The first of them was written while he was still a 19-year-old senior at Southeast Missouri State College, majoring in English and history. His Fox collection correspondence dates from late 1960, right before the creation of A/E, and end in 1965, the year he began his long tenure at Marvel. In the space of these five years, “Roy the Boy” left fandom to become Stan Lee’s invaluable right-hand man and a first-rate comics scripter. When Lee cut back his output, Roy took his mentor’s place as the company’s most prolific writer, winning numerous awards in the process. And when in 1972 he became Marvel’s editor-in-chief, Roy’s transformation— from fan to pro— was complete. But it all started here....

The Gardner Fox Letters

[ASIDE FROM R.T.: With Michael’s permission, I’ve added a few explanatory notes between these letters. Gardner’s home address was given to me— a fact pretty amazing in and of itself— by Julius Schwartz, editor of The Flash, Green Lantern, and Justice League of America— in response to what I believe were my very first letters to those comics. I say “letters” because, naive as I was, I wrote virtually identical missives to each of the three, not bothering to notice they all had the same editor— let alone the name in the indicia. [I should add that Michael has mercifully omitted certain paragraphs from my letters. He painstakingly cut apart and taped back together photocopies of the originals, from which these are reproduced. I promised him free rein, so the choice of what to print is his. Myself, I’m embarrassed by my lack of sophistication in these letters— I was a college student, after all!— but not by my admiration of Gardner F. Fox. The same can be said for the “rather intelligent friend” I mentioned in the P.S.— one Gary Friedrich, then about 16, who would later write for Charlton, Marvel, and Skywald. [And yes, by that time, I had somehow garbled in my mind the names of Solomon Grundy and Vandal Savage, recalling the villain in All-Star #33 as “Gorgon Savage.” Not a bad name, actually: At age fourteen, I’d even used it for a similar monster in typewritten tales starring a 1955 super-group I concocted of the briefly revived Ajax/Farrell heroes The Flame, Black Cobra, Wonder Boy, Samson, and Phantom Lady, which I called The Crusaders of Justice. And of course I, and others, would soon learn what Hour-Man looked like. But, onward...] An art aside from Roy T.: “Those who recall my ‘Liberty Legion’ tales in Marvel Premiere and The Invaders in 1976, and the four-issue 1993 Invaders series, may be amused to see how far back my love for that name goes. In fact, it was in the early ’50s that my first, 72-page comic, done on typewriter paper, featured a ‘Liberty Legion’ composed of my own heroes, plus Green Lantern, Spectre, and Atom (rechristened Tornado).” [Green Lantern ©2000 DC Comics; all others, including Flame Man (!), ©2000 Roy Thomas.]

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt [ASIDE FROM R.T.: Over many moving days, the letters I received from Gardner got lost or tossed, but I recall parts of them vividly. In response to my first gushing note, the co-creator of Flash, Hawkman, JSA, and Dr. Fate told me he’d only recently sold his bound All-Star volumes to one Jerry G. Bails, whose Detroit address he gave me. He thought the two of us might enjoy getting in touch with each other. He was right. Or maybe he was just trying to get me off his back.]

Art aside, cont’d: “A couple of years later, in 1955, I drew and even colored a 6”x 7-1/2”, 24-page ‘Marvel Comics #1’ whose Liberty Legion starred four companies’ surviving/revived heroes. (Over at ‘Atlas,’ Captain America and The Human Torch had already ‘died’ a second time.) Today, virtually the very same grouping I proposed could be published by DC alone, minus only Namor, Boy Illustories’ Chuck Chandler (formerly C.B./Crimebuster), and Slugger (of Daredevil’s Little Wise Guys!)” [Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Plastic Man, Blackhawk, Blue Beetle ©2000 DC Comics; Sub-Mariner ©2000 Marvel Characters Inc.; Chuck Chandler and Slugger ©2000 Lev Gleason Publications.]

[ASIDE FROM R.T.: Yes, in answer to my first letter to him, young Wayne State University associate professor Dr. Jerry Bails gifted me with near-complete copies of three of the earliest JSA stories! Perhaps I should mention I no longer have quite the enthusiasm for Johnny Thunder (except for the name)— or for that matter for the Three Dimwits from “The Flash” stories— that I once had. Even I change in some ways....]

The Gardner Fox Letters

[ASIDE FROM R.T.: I still think my “Hawkman” idea a good one, and had never forgotten it even before my old missives to Gardner surfaced like bloated carcasses. Weird that I had forgotten Brain Wave, since I’d read All-Star #30 as a kid, and he’d even been a member of the first Injustice Society in #37. [And “Copey” was short for “Copernicus,” a parrot I’d suggested as a mascot for a new six-inch version of The Atom. The latter was a concept Jerry Bails had sent to Julie via Gardner— and which I was helping Jerry develop— before the precise Silver Age incarnation of the Tiny Titan emerged from Julie and Gil Kane, as discussed in detail in A/E V3#2. [On my own, I was sending Julie and Gardner ideas for a more science-fictional revival of Dr. Fate, and I was toying around with a more psychologically-based one for The Spectre, as well. My letter betrays the fact that I had not yet learned that Gardner had created Dr. Fate back in 1940...]

In 1965, as per Roy’s (and many another’s) heartfelt requests, Solomon Grundy would return, to battle Dr. Fate and Hourman in Showcase #55, a story in which the Golden Age Green Lantern would be only a guest star. Script by Gardner Fox, art by Murphy Anderson; repro’d from photocopies of the original art, courtesy of Mike W. Barr. [©2000 DC Comics]

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt

[ASIDE FROM R.T.: ’Twould seem Gardner sent me several 1940s comics from his collection— whether on loan or to keep my letter doesn’t make clear— during this period when they weren’t worth their weight in Microsoft stock. By now I was drawing my JLA parody, “Bestest League of America,” for my own amusement; by month’s end, at Jerry Bails’ request, I would be redrawing those pages for inclusion in the first (spring 1961) issue of Alter-Ego, the “fanzine” Jerry would decide to publish after talking with Gardner and Julie in New York City in late February.]

[ASIDE FROM R.T.: Well, all good things— not to mention this unearthing of my early sins— must come to an end. And it seems appropriate, with Michael’s permission, to cut it here, after a letter in which I asked Gardner for one of his scripts. I suppose that, even then, without particularly admitting it to myself, I had my “eyes on the prize.” Now, back to Michael....]

That’s it for this installment of “The Gardner Fox Letters”— though of course it was composed of letters to Fox, not from him. Thanks for joining us— and we hope to print more of the Roy Thomas letters to Gardner in the future, as space permits. And we’re still looking for rare and unusual comic book articles and items, the older the better. If you can share any with us, please send copies to: Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, P.O. Box 11421, Eugene, OR 97440. Thanks in advance!

ATTENTION: FRANK BRUNNER ART FANS! Frank is now accepting art commissions for covers, splash panels, or pin-up re-creations! Also, your ideas for NEW art are welcome! Art can be pencils only, inked or full-color (painted) creation! Contact Frank directly for details and prices. (Minimum order: $150) Dr. Strange, Clea ©2000 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Write now (be sure to include a self-addressed stamped envelope!) and receive FREE with my reply an autographed Brunner “Star Wars Galaxy” trading card! Contact the artist at his NEW address:

FRANK BRUNNER 312 Kildare Court Myrtle Beach, SC 29575 Visit my website at: http://www.geocities.com/soho/8915 and click on “Brunner Link”

Commissioned piece featuring the Master of the Mystic Arts and his apprentice.

So – You Want To Collect Comics Fanzines?

So-You Want To Collect

Comics Fanzines? O

ne of my favorite features in the original volume of Alter Ego was #5’s article “So—You Want to Collect Comics?” in 1963. In it author Ed Lahmann blithely rattled of a list of “key issues” (Action #1, Detective #27, etc.) that would make a solid foundation for any comic book collection. (Ed’s article was reprinted in Alter Ego: The Best of the Legendary Comics Fanzine, the nearly out-of-print 1997 volume from Hamster Press.)

In recent years, with the vigorous resurgence of interest in the early days of comics fandom, fanzines from that era are increasingly sought after by collectors. As someone who has nearly as much enthusiasm for comics fanzines as I do for comic books themselves, I’ve long wanted to write a companion piece that would give the same kind of overview for fanzines that Ed did for comics. While my Comic Fandom Archive contains audio tapes, original art, correspondence, photographs, books, videos, and many other artifacts from fandom’s Golden Age in the 1960s, the anchor of the Archive is the 1800 comics fanzines that I’ve been able to amass. They have been by far the most important resource I’ve used in researching the books of fandom history that I’ve published under the aegis of Hamster Press. Fanzines, magazines published on a limited scale by and for other comics fans (the term was originally coined by science-fiction fans of the 1930s and ’40s), offer an incredible array of fascinating material that has been invaluable in documenting not only the progress of fandom, but even that of the professional comics. A good deal of comics’ history— especially the tenor of the times— is documented only in these long out-ofprint small press publications. Those who number themselves among the truest of true believers in the comics medium will want to have a selection of fanzines in their collections. Fanzines also provided a training ground for upcoming talents to gain the skills necessary to produce a professional- quality product. Many of the most prominent writers and artists from comics of the 1970s forward “got their chops” working in amateur publications. Then, too, some very talented folks produced excellent work for fanzines which is well worth enjoying in its own right, even if those folks chose to go into non-comics careers. What constitutes a well-rounded fanzine collection? What are the most essential publications of this type, either due to their quality or the uniqueness of their contents? Over the past few years I have received enough queries of this sort to tell me that the following article will be welcome in many quarters. And, if you are not now interested in this corner of the collecting universe, perhaps you will be by the time you peruse this piece, and Part Two in Alter Ego V3#6. So— you want to collect comics fanzines? Or expand your existing collection into a more or less well-rounded selection? You’ve got a challenge ahead of you! But any collector worth his salt knows that the “thrill of the hunt” is at least half the fun. The first step— perhaps the most important— is to construct a Want List. You’ll naturally accumulate others as you go, but it’s vital to have a clear idea of what you’re seeking: a “collecting goal,” as it were. We know one thing: About 2200 comics-related fanzines were published between 1960 and 1971.

by Bill Schelly All characters and publications © their respective publishers.

That is a fact, documented by John and Tom McGeehan, indexers extraordinaire. Many more arrived as the 1970s progressed. Which are the most desirable? Let’s divide them into categories by format or function, and take them one by one.

So – You Want To Collect Comics Fanzines?

I. GENERAL-INTEREST FANZINES The fannish term for general-type fanzines is “gen-zines.” The “general” application refers both to the fact that they contain any type of content item— editorials, columns, strips, fiction, articles, cartoons, trade and sales lists, and letters — as well as the fact that they are of general interest to the majority of comics fans. If there is a Holy Grail of fanzine collecting, there’s little doubt it would be Alter-Ego #1 (March 1961). Certainly there were comicsoriented fanzines before it, especially in EC fandom of the 1950s, but it was the most influential. Alter-Ego (its name was hyphenated for the first four issues) was published by Jerry G. Bails, with Roy Thomas as titular “co-editor,” as a direct response to the super-hero revivals engineered by editor Julius Schwartz at National Periodical Publications (now DC Comics). A-E editor Jerry Bails’ first issue reached a total print run of between 200 and 300 copies, some of them without Roy’s five-page “Bestest League of America” parody strip, which printed light due to being printed using black ditto masters rather than the longerrunning purple ones. A-E #1 is extremely hard to find and will command top dollar due to its historical importance. Don’t get hung up on finding it — or #2 and #3 (also ditto). In actual fact, the photo-offset issues, which have the added dimension of topquality artwork, are more fun to read. Jerry still edited #4, Ronn Foss took over for #5-6, and Roy Thomas assumed the editorship with #7 in 1964. The best of the offset issues are probably #7 and #8; but any of #5 through #10 would be good beginnings for your collection. Try to get at least two of them. (Incidentally, issues bearing a return address of “The S.F.C.A.” are authorized reprints published by G.B. Love, essentially identical to the originals printed by Foss and Thomas.) Of course, much of the material from the first 11issue volume of A/E can be found in the volume Alter Ego: The Best of the Legendary Comics Fanzine, still (just barely) available from Hamster Press. But we’re talking about collecting the original fanzines here.

For those who are primarily fans of newspaper comic strips, Don and Maggie Thompson’s Comic Art is the gen-zine for you. Beginning with their Harbinger in late 1960, announcing their intention to publish a fanzine about comics, Comic Art presented highly intelligent, ground-breaking pieces by Jerry de Fuccio, Dick Lupoff, Harlan Ellison, Larry Ivie, and Robert Coulson— and that’s just in #3 (1962)! There were seven issues published between 1961 and 1968. Forget about #1 and #2; they are next to impossible to find. Any of #3 through #7 is worth having, especially if you have a sciencefiction bent or are largely interested in the history of comic strips, as opposed to comic books. In any case, any representative fanzine collection needs at least one issue of Comic Art. As for Xero, the fanzine that influenced both Jerry Bails and the Thompsons, this basically s-f fanzine published by Dick and Pat Lupoff from 1960-63 is important because it launched the important “All in Color for a Dime” series of articles. It seems that all the top s-f fan writers contributed to Xero, including Ted White, Harlan Ellison, Don Thompson, Richard Kyle, Jim Harmon, and many others. The most desirable issue is probably Xero #3, with four comics-related features, but they are all good. Again, forget about finding Xero #1; only about ninety copies were printed, and they were handed out for free at the 1960 World ScienceFiction Convention. If you can’t find any copies of the mimeographed Xero, don’t despair. The “All in Color for a Dime” series was partly collected into a book of that title, edited by Lupoff and Thompson, currently available in an inexpensive reprint from Krause Publications (along with an allnew sequel, The Comic Book Book).

Later came Comic Crusader, in some ways the successor to Alter Ego in the late 1960s and into the mid-1970s. Martin L. Greim managed to assemble some of the top talent in fandom, Even 1997’s Alter Ego: The Best of the Legendary including writer Tom Fagan of Comics Fanzine from Hamster Press, reprinting Rutland, Vermont, who primo material from “Volume 1,” 1961-1978, penned a number of articles is almost out of print. [Alter-Ego #1 ©2000 Jerry about Airboy and other Golden Bails (art by Roy Thomas); Alter Ego #8 Age heroes. Greim also pub©2000 Roy Thomas (art by Biljo White); Blackhawk ©2000 DC Comics] lished a number of original illustrations by Jim Steranko, as well as C.C. Beck, Kurt Schaffenberger, and many others. Issue #6 (1968) and beyond are the best. Comic Crusader had one of the largest circulations for a fan-published zine, yet these dozen or so later issues are not so easy to find. Still, you’ll want to add two or three to your collection. Other top gen-zines? From about #15 onward, Bill G. Wilson’s The Collector is excellent, especially if you’re a fan of the art of John Fantucchio. #26 (1972) had a full-color wraparound cover by Steve Ditko. All three issues of Bob Schoenfeld’s Gosh Wow! (1967-1969)

So – You Want To Collect Comics Fanzines?

would be worthy additions. You should also look closely at G.B. Love’s fanzine The Golden Age (1965 through 1970). The seven or so issues vary in quality, but there’s some very good art and writing in there, including some of later pro artist Don Newton’s best fannish artwork. Okay, you’ve got a prescription for gathering the most essential gen-zines, which are the heart and soul of any fanzine collection. That’s a good start, but it’s only the beginning. Now it’s time for...

II. ADVERTISING FANZINES It might be a study in frustration, but it’s also great fun to look through ads for old comic books in the 1960s ad-zines. Batman #4 for $5.00? Amazing Spider-Man #1 for $1.50? All-Star #3 for $10.00? Whew! Make no mistake: there’s a lot more to ad-zines than comics-for-sale. They are a compendium of just about everything that was going on at the time in fandom. There

were plenty of ads for fanzines, comic clubs, conventions, preservation products, price guides— the whole nine yards. The 800-pound gorilla of the fanzines specializing in advertising was Rocket’s Blast-Comicollector, or RB-CC for short. This powerhouse ad-zine had no significant competition in the 1960s, so it’s the main focus in this category. It’s truly a time capsule of the era. Plus, the editorial matter was at least above-average, with top fan writer Rick Weingroff, Margaret Gemignani (one of fandom’s few so-called “femme-fans”), Phil Seuling (New York comicon promoter), well-known letter writer Paul Gambaccini, and a host of others over the years. In the 1970s prolific writer James Van Hise contributed many text pieces, which as the decade progressed eventually became the focus of the magazine. The other outstanding feature of RB-CC is the cover art. Cumulatively, editor G.B. Love was able to feature some of the most outstanding covers in the fanzine field. Once RB-CC went offset, around #50 (1967), many were produced by two super-talented gentlemen: Don Newton and John Fantucchio. As time went on, Love was able to recruit a large number of pros and up-and-coming talents, including Wally Wood, Gil Kane, Bernie Wrightson, John Adkins Richardson, Mike Zeck, and Vaughan Bode. Don’t bother trying to get the first fifteen issues of the solo Rocket’s Blast by G.B. Love, which are extremely crude publications. If you want to go “early,” grab hold of any of the fifteen issues of The Comicollector (published from 1961 to 1964) before it merged with RB. CC was actually the first all-comics ad-zine, and was published by a succession of editors: Jerry Bails (#1-6), Ronn Foss (#7-12), and Biljo White (#13-15). The first merged issue was RB-CC #29 (1964), which continued RB’s numbering. Copies of those early combined issues are mostly printed via ditto and tend to be rather light; however, with #35 Love moved more toward mimeograph printing, with much more readable results. I suggest you try to pick up a couple of the mimeo issues, and perhaps one issue per year of the offset RB-CC, which lasted through #153 (1981). Or, you might want to go after the ones with favorite cover artists.

Publisher Marty Greim tells us that The Comic Crusader #15 (1973), with this Kurt Schaffenberger cover, was an instant sell-out. No wonder! [Comic Crusader art ©2000 Martin L. Greim; Captain Marvel and Dr. Sivana ©DC Comics]

RB-CC was just about the only game in town until 1970, when an upstart named Alan Light launched The Buyer’s Guide for Comic Fandom. Within a few years, Light’s tabloid-format publication was the premier advertising vehicle, especially after switching to a weekly schedule, and of course would eventually metamorphose into today’s The Comics Buyer’s Guide. Like RB-CC, TBG is a great historical document of its time: fandom in the 1970s. If this is your era of

So – You Want To Collect Comics Fanzines? I would have had a much more difficult time documenting that era. For one thing, TCR (the best and most important news-zine of all time) was always dated. This might not seem like a lot, but many fan mags carried no date, or even a publishing address!

G.B. Love’s zines often had great covers by Don Newton and John Fantucchio. Watch for the imminent return of Rocket’s Blast/Comicollector, now published by James Van Hise. [©2000 G.B. Love; The Fighting Yank ©2000 Standard/Nedor.]

Anyway, depending on your level of interest in the historical side of fanzines, you will want to have The Comic Reader represented in your collection. True, the pro news is out of date, but you’ll find a surprising amount of interesting material anyway. It’s fascinating to see how the news of new titles, cancellations, and talent shuffling was presented to comics fandom at large, how these announcements were received, and how the various issues of the day were viewed.

choice, you’ll want to get at least a representative sampling for your collection.

TCR generally included fanzine reviews and letters, as well as top-notch covers and illustrations. Its first three “issues” had actually been merely a department carried in Alter-Ego #1-3, under the name “On the Drawing Board.” Even

Let’s not forget The Nostalgia Journal, which was published by a consortium of Texas fans. It gave Alan Light his most serious competition during the disco era; it was eventually taken over by Gary Groth with #27 and was soon re-titled The Comics Journal. In its new format and with an increased degree of seriousness, of course, it’s still going strong. One thing to keep in mind about ad-zines: You will have a difficult time finding them “in condition,” especially the tabloid and newsprint-style zines that came to dominate in the 1970s. When comics fans got their copies, they did not hesitate to circle the items for sale that interested them. To me, this is an enhancement of sorts. You might not agree. A word about scarcity: RB-CC, TBG, and TNJ had circulations of anywhere from 2000 to 5000. So copies are common, especially the latter two. We’ll have more to say about pricing in the next issue of A/E, but suffice it to say here that you shouldn’t pay much for these. However, some of the RB-CCs (with the best covers) can command a pretty penny.

III. NEWS FANZINES Okay, I’ll admit it: News zines are special favorites of mine, especially when they contain a significant or dominant portion of news of fandom. In fact, they are the most important source of reliable data about that halcyon era, and were invaluable to me The Comic Reader (a.k.a. On the Drawing Board— in researching my book see opposite page) featured covers by the likes of Ronn The Golden Age of Comic Foss, Gil Kane, and others. Jerry Bails’ third brainchild is Fandom. Without having a coming back soon in a new edition, from new hands. near-complete collection of [Fighting American ©2000 Joe Simon and the estate of Jack Kirby; Spider-Man ©2000 Marvel Characters Inc.] the first 75 issues of The Comic Reader, for instance,

So – You Want To Collect Comics Fanzines? the early ditto issues (#4 in 1961 through #47 in 1966) featured some nice art, such as a Captain Atom drawing by Steve Ditko that appeared in #36. The covers of subsequent offset issues were often drawn by pros, especially after Paul Levitz took the helm in the 1970s. The ditto issues are naturally harder to find, so expect to pay more for them; however, the offset issues were produced in larger numbers and are common. You’ll likely encounter various issues as a matter of course, as you look through boxes of miscellaneous zines. But The Comic Reader isn’t the only news-zine you’ll want. You should also add a smattering of issues of the several news-zines (mostly ditto or mimeo) that were mainly devoted to the doings of fandom itself, as opposed to the professional world. Some of these are Dateline: Comicdom (at least 29 issues between 1963 and 1971), Fandom Calling (beginning in 1967), and, most prominently, Newfangles. Newfangles #1 debuted in March of 1967 and continued monthly through some 54 issues, ending in 1971 only when publishers Don and Maggie Thompson began their “Beautiful Balloons” column in The Buyer’s Guide. (Maggie has told me that Newfangles actually inspired Alan Light to do a news-zine, which became TBG.) Newfangles is perhaps the most charming, personal fanzine of its day, dealing with news of the Thompsons’ large circle of fannish friends and acquaintances, as well as their contacts in the world of professional comic strips and books.

John Carter of Mars cover by Reed Crandall, and a back cover by Jeff Jones. #7 offered work by Dan Adkins, Wally Wood, George Metzger, and Mike Barrier. Plus, issues #4 through #7 carried Richard Kyle’s ground-breaking “Graphic Story Review” column, still one of the most intelligent series on the graphic story, a term coined by Kyle in 1964. The three ditto issues of Star-Studded Comics (#1 appeared in June 1963) introduced two characters who would go on to become celebrated in their own right: Doctor Weird and The Eye, Underworld Executioner. But the magazine really hit its stride when it went all photo-offset with #4 (Summer 1964). I especially recommend adding two or three issues of SSC to your collection: any between #4 and #14 will do. (#15 through #18 were not quite as good.) There’s work by Jim Starlin (his very first published work, in fact), Rich Buckler, Alan Weiss, and many more. SSC #5 (Fall 1964) featured the debut of Grass Green’s Xal-Kor, the Human Cat. SSC #17 (Summer 1971) offered a back cover and full-color centerfold to kick off an adaptation of Gardner Fox’s novel Warrior of Llarn into comics form by Roy Thomas and Sam Grainger. (Roy originally scripted it for Alter Ego, but when he turned pro, it found a home in SSC.) A couple of excellent one-shots that appeared in 1965 were The Eye #1 by Biljo White, and All-Stars #1. The latter was published by Marty Arbunich and Bill DuBay, with very good work by Ronn Foss, Roger Brand, and Biljo White. Also, don’t turn up your nose at some of the more obscure allditto strip zines. Rich Buckler’s Intrigue was very good, and G.B. Love’s Fighting Hero Comics #1 through #12 (1963-64) included excellent work by Alan Weiss, Buddy Saunders, and Howard Keltner. Of course, any of the first six issues of Biljo White’s Komix Illustrated are likewise gems; he sure knew how to make magic with a ditto master!

V. SPECIAL– INTEREST FANZINES As the decade progressed, fanzines frequently focused on specific areas of interest. In so doing, they were able to go deeper into their subject matter. Some were dedicated to a particular comics publisher; others put all their energy into dissecting the career of their publisher’s favorite character.

As far as I’m concerned, without copies of Newfangles, Dateline: Comicdom, and Fandom Calling in your collection, you’d be missing an important aspect of the time.

IV. AMATEUR COMIC-STRIP FANZINES Your collection will certainly need to reflect the fact that there were some really excellent amateur “strips” (as comic-book-style stories were often called by pros and fans alike) which were published by fans. The premier titles in this category are Fantasy Illustrated and StarStudded Comics. In the seven issues of FI, published from 1964 through 1967, you’ll find top quality strips by Jeff Jones, D. Bruce Berry, Bill DuBay, Ronn Foss, Grass Green, and Landon Chesney. #3 carried a fine adaptation of “The End of Bukawai” from Jungle Tales of Tarzan, with breakdowns by Bill Spicer and art by Harry Habblitz. #5 had a really nice

So – You Want To Collect Comics Fanzines?

Yancy Street Journal (covered in detail in my column in A/E V3#3) was the first Marvel fanzine, so you will want to add two or three issues to your collection. It began in 1963 as a mediocre gen-zine called Comic Caper. With its third issue (Aug. 1963) editors Marty Arbunich and Bill DuBay changed the title to Yancy Street Journal. All the subsequent issues beautifully capture the excitement of Marvel Comics’ great creative surge in the 1960s. YSJ #11, the final issue, is cover-dated January 1966. Gary Groth’s Fantastic Fanzine was another excellent Marvel zine, especially after its first half dozen awkward issues. By #8 (1969) the page count increased, as did the quality of its writing and art. FF featured a lot of very good art by Dave Cockrum and Robert Kline. You must have FF #11 (1971) in your collection, for its fabulous interview with Jim Steranko (and his cover, as well). Steranko had a lot of interesting things to say about the comics industry. Even if EC Comics isn’t your bag, you can’t claim to have a representative fanzine horde without an issue or three of Jerry Weist’s (and later John Benson’s) Squa Tront. You should first go after #3 (1969) and #4 (1970); and if you like what you’re seeing (who wouldn’t?), then continue through the five or so issues helmed by Benson.

Gary Groth’s Fantastic Fanzine boasted a Dr. Strange cover by Sal Buscema, obviously drawn circa 1969-70, when Doc was casting spells till his face turned blue. [Art ©2000 Sal Buscema; Fantastic Fanzine ©2000 Gary Groth; Dr. Strange ©2000 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

As for fanzines devoted to one particular hero, the most essential is Biljo White’s Batmania, which was the first of its kind. Sanctioned by National Periodical Publications (DC), these are among the most sought-after fanzines from the 1960s, due to the quality of both the art and writing. Lots of luck finding the first couple of issues, dated July and September 1964, respectively. Consider yourself fortunate if you can get two or three issues— but don’t pay an arm and a leg for #10 onward; those later issues, while good, definitely show evidence of publishing fatigue. (For more on “The Fanzine Especially for Batman Fans,” I’d advise you to look up my article on Batmania in the Alter Ego section of Comic Book Fantasy Illustrated #5 sported this beautiful Reed Crandall cover of John Carter of Artist #3— Mars. [Art ©2000 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.; FI ©2000 Bill Spicer.] but CBA #3 is out of print, and the new TwoMorrows compilation of #1-3 advertised in this issue doesn’t include the A/E material; for that, you’ll have to wait till we reprint all five mini-issues of Alter Ego, Vol. 2, as a unit, one of these fine days. End of plug.) Another worthwhile entry, which made its debut around the tail end of comics fandom’s

Master Man may have been threatened by DC with lawsuit spillover from the Superman-Captain Marvel case, but he and other Fawcett heroes lived again in the pages of Fawcett Collectors of America, later shortened to FCA, and continuing to this day— currently as part of Alter Ego. This panel is probably by Pete Costanza. [Captain Marvel and Billy Batson ©2000 DC Comics; Master Man ©2000 Fawcett Publications.]

So – You Want To Collect Comics Fanzines? “Golden Age,” was Fawcett Collectors of America, first published in 1973 by Bernie McCarty. Originally devoted entirely to the characters and creators of Fawcett Publications, and for a time (in the 1980s) covering Vin Sullivan’s Magazine Enterprises company as well, it has undergone several metamorphoses to survive as today’s FCA— currently published as a separate-but-equal section of Alter Ego. A few representative issues are definitely worth the effort to unearth, including those published in the early ’80s by original “Captain Marvel” artist C.C. Beck and featuring his colorful, opinionated ramblings, as are (though they technically fall outside the purview of this article) any of #54-59, published by P.C. Hamerlinck. And let’s not forget one of the best special-interest zines: Michael Barrier’s Funnyworld, which was devoted to Disney and animation. It began in 1966 in the pages of comics apa CAPA-Alpha, with the first independent issue being #8. With #12 (1970) it went offset, and is simply one of the most impressive fanzines ever, with great material on Ralph Bakshi, Bob Clampett, Carl Barks, and much more. All are superb. Even if you’re not a huge fan of animation, you’ll want one or two as examples. Assuming you’ve been following along and successfully building your want list as prescribed above, things should really be really taking shape now. You’ve got a “collecting core” of at least two dozen real gems, which will give you hours of reading pleasure. Are you ready to stop? Of course not! There are some important gaps that you’ll want to fill in.... To be concluded in Alter Ego V3#6! In the second part of “So — You Want to Collect Fanzines?” Bill Schelly will continue helping you build your want list. In addition, he’ll discuss strategies that will help you in your search, and talk a bit about fanzine prices, as well. For much more information about fanzines, consult your copy of Bill Schelly’s book The Golden Age of Comic Fandom. What? You don’t have one yet? Holy Moley! Rush $14.95 to Hamster Press, P.O. Box 27471, Seattle, WA 98125. Questions to Bill Schelly can be e-mailed to HamstrPres@aol.com. See the Hamster Press ad elsewhere in this issue for information on all books currently available.

MONTHLY! Edited and published by Robin Snyder

www.comicsfun.com/thecomics

™

Volume 3, No. 5 Summer 2000

Editor Roy Thomas

Contents

Associate Editor Bill Schelly

Design & Layout Janet Sanderson John Morrow Eric Nolen-Weathington

Consulting Editors John Morrow Jon B. Cooke

A Justice Society for the Ages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 In a guest writer/editorial, Marty Greim tells the story behind this issue’s Infantino/Ordway cover. New Light on The Green Lantern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Interview with Mart (and Carrie) Nodell about the creation of The Green Lantern— and the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

Preserving the Golden Age. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Jeff Gelb talks with publisher Bill Black about AC Comics, and its marvelous Golden Age reprints.

FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck

Gil Kane on Comics— Past, Present, and Future. . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Chris Irving presents a heavily-illustrated 1998 interview with a dynamic artist who

Contributing Editor Michael T. Gilbert

left us far too soon.

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

“George Roussos Did It All!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 And that’s an understatement, as this interview by Bill Cain will definitely demonstrate!

Cover(s) Artist

Alfredo Alcala (1925-2000) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 A reminiscence by his friend Manuel Auad of the late great Filipino comics master.

Carmine Infantino Jerry Ordway Mart Nodell

Re: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Letters from longtime pro writer Alvin Schwartz and lots of other interesting folks.

Cover Color

FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) #64 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 P.C. Hamerlinck presents another fantastic Fawcett festival.

Tom Ziuko

Mailing Crew Russ Garwood, D. Hambone, Glen Musial, Ed Stelli, Pat Varker

“We Didn’t Know... It Was the Golden Age!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Artist Marc Swayze tells about drawing Phantom Eagle and Flyin’ Jenny—

And Special Thanks to:

without getting off the ground.

A Jab in the Butt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Captain Marvel co-creator C.C. Beck had his own ideas on how to

tell a comic book story. (What? You’re surprised to learn this?)

Fond Memories of Wendell Crowley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 The longtime Fawcett editor is lovingly remembered by friends Hames Ware & John Putnam.

Special Justice Society Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About our inside cover: A beautiful re-creation drawing by Mart Nodell. Let those who worship evil’s might— get the hell out of town! Alter EgoTM is published quarterly by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@oburg.net. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $5.95 ($7.00 Canada, $9.00 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $20 US, $27 Canada, $37 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. Alter and Captain Ego ©2000 Roy Thomas & Bill Schelly. Air Wave, Aquaman, Binky, Black Canary, Blackhawk, Blue Beetle, Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr., Commander Steel, Cyclone Kids, Dr. fate, Dr. Mid-Nite, Dr. Sivana, Firebrand, Flash, Green Lantern, Guardian, Hawkgirl, Hawkman, Holliday Girls, Hop Harrigan, Hour-Man, Ibis, Johnny Peril, Johnny Quick, Johnny Thunder, Justice Society of America, Liberty Belle, Mary Marvel, Mechanique, Metal Men, Minute Man, Mr. Terrific, Newsboy Legion, Nuclear, Plastic Man, Red Tornado, Robotman, Rose & Thorn, Sandman, Sandy, Scribbly, Solomon Grundy, Spectre, Spy Smasher, Starman, Steve Trevor, Sugar & Spike, Superman, Uncle Marvel, Wildcat, Wonder Girl, Wonder Woman, Wotan ©DC Comics. Dan Dare, Dr. Voodoo, Golden Arrow, Lance O’Casey, Master Man, Mr. Hogan, Phantom Eagle © Fawcett Publications, , Capt. Midnight is a TM of Ovaltine. Dr. Strange, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Spider-Man, Warlock © Marvel Characters, Inc. The Fly, The Shield, The Wizard © Archie Comics. Chuck chandler, Nightro, Slugger © Lev Gleason. Green Hornet © Harvey Comics. Fighting Yank © Nedor/Better Comics. Fighting American © Joe Simon & Jack Kirby. Pillsbury Dough Boy © Pillsbury. John Carter of Mars © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Alter Ego hero art © Ron Harris, hero © Roy and Dann Thomas. Donald Duck, Huey, Dewey, and Louie © Walt Disney Productions. Golden Lad © Spark. Droopy © Harry Lampert. Opus © Berke Breathed. Voltar © Estate of Alfredo Alcala. Conan © Conan Properties, Inc. Music Master © Eastern Color Printing. Flyin’ Jenny © Bell Syndicate. The Great Guy © Marcus Swayze. Pogo and Albert © Estate of Walt Kelly. Transisto, Lunar-Man © Estate of George Roussos. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING

Guest Editorial

A Justice Society for the Ages A Guest Editorial by Martin L. Greim [As a special treat, both for you and for myself, I asked longtime fan and collector Martin Greim— who also created the mainstream hero Thunder Bunny some years back— to relate the full story behind the original JSA drawing by Carmine Infantino and Jerry Ordway which graces the cover of this issue of Alter Ego. In it, I also learned that Marty had once owned two pages of original art from All-Star Comics #40. Great to know such artwork still exists— and perhaps one day it will turn up, to be shared with the readers of Alter Ego. And now, here’s Marty! —R.T.]

n the late 1980s, when I was heavily into collecting original art, the only piece that eluded me was a shot of The Justice Society of America featuring my personal favorite members from a specific time in their All-Star Comics run.

At that time I did have two original All-Star pages from the issue where the JSA fight juvenile delinquency. (Both were OK pages, but they were sold in 1993 to a local art dealer.) But they didn’t show Black Canary, or Hawkman and/or The Atom in their original costumes. I was fortunate to have as a good friend the late Mark Hanerfeld (the person who served as the model for Abel in DC’s House of Secrets comic). Mark often acted as an agent for Carmine Infantino. I contacted Mark and asked him to see what he could do about having Carmine do a pencil rendering of the Justice Society for me, featuring seven members. Mark called back in a couple of days and told me that Carmine had agreed to do it and had set a price. A price I was more than happy to pay. I provided Carmine with a thumbnail sketch of what I wanted, showing where each hero was to be positioned. Within three weeks I had received a beautiful penciled page in the mail. Carmine had even put in one of his trademark backgrounds. What he also did was make the drawing horizontal instead of vertical as I had envisioned it. I’m glad he did, because it would have seemed cramped on a standard comic book page and I did want the figures to be good-sized. Now I had what was, for me, the ultimate Justice Society picture. My next step was to get it inked. Murphy Anderson came to mind, but I needed someone who would be willing to render each character exactly as he or she appeared in his/her own feature in the 1948 era. Jerry Ordway was the best and only choice.

Jerry and I go back many years, and I count him as a good friend. He and I met years ago when I did my last fan venture before going pro: Comic Crusader Storybook. He provided some fantastic work for that 196-page publication that featured all-new stories of the best of the fan-created super-heroes. I contacted Jerry and told him about the Infantino/JSA piece I wanted to have inked. I am still in his debt for his graciously agreeing to do it. Especially since each hero had to have a certain look. To this end, I provided Jerry with a batch of my Golden Age comics. The Flash had to have thick eyebrows (he and Captain Marvel must have been distant cousins) and a full lightning bolt on his chest... not the small one a lot of the artists were using. Hawkman had to have the right headpiece and wings from the right ’48 period. Green Lantern, Doctor Mid-Nite, and The Atom had to have the Alex Toth flowing capes I loved so much when he worked on these heroes. Black Canary and Wonder Woman... err... they had to look great! A few weeks went by, and I received my comics and the art back from Jerry. I was blown away! It had the look I wanted. Every hero looked the way I wanted. The art became and still is, to this day, one of my favorite pieces in my collection. Although I’ve sold off a great deal of my collection over the years, this Justice Society piece still remains framed and hung in my home’s office space. It hangs along with other great Golden Age renderings: Dick Sprang’s Batman, Wayne Boring’s and Curt Swan’s Superman pieces, and H.G. Peter’s Wonder Woman (seen in an earlier issue of Alter Ego). Carmine Infantino and Jerry Ordway provided me with a piece of art that brings me joy whenever I look at it. Now I get to share that joy with the readers of this issue. Again my thanks go out to Carmine and Jerry for this wonderful piece of art!

In This ALL– STAR Issue: Sixty Years of Green Lantern--And Counting!

New Light On The Green Lantern

New Light on The

Green Lantern The Ultimate (well, at least the Penultimate) Interview with Mart Nodell on the Emerald Gladiator — and Other Things

[NOTE: This interview has traveled a long and winding road. It had been scheduled for months by the time I saw Marty Nodell and his charming wife Carrie at the MegaCon in Orlando, Florida, and we arranged a date for me to talk to him by phone. Somehow, in the press of other work, I totally forgot that phone call till the next morning! Marty was understanding about it, but was about to leave for another convention— and then a “comics cruise,” about which more below— and wouldn’t be back for another couple of weeks. That pressed our deadline, but everything worked out in the end. [Mart Nodell, of course, is the man who came up with the concept of The Green Lantern in 1940, and was the feature’s first artist— in some ways, as this interview underscores, its first writer, as well, (This page) Marty and Carrie Nodell at home, surrounded by some of Marty’s recent Green Lantern color art commissions— plus a drawing done especially for Roy and Dann Thomas. [Photo courtesy of Marty and Carrie Nodell; art ©2000 Mart Nodell; Green Lantern ©2000 DC Comics]

Conducted and Edited by Roy Thomas Transcribed by Jon B. Knutson Profusely Illustrated Mostly by Mart Nodell although Bill Finger became involved in that very first story. Marty has also done other work in comics and in the commercial art field. This interview was intended to cover his entire career, but in particular to delve, more deeply than previous ones have done, into the little matter of the creation of “The Green Lantern.” To that end, in advance of my phone call, I sent him questions about every angle of Green Lantern’s creation I could possibly think of. Some conversational dead ends that led nowhere have been eliminated from the interview that follows. —R.T.]

Mart Nodell Interview ROY THOMAS: First, Marty, let’s hear what you’d been doing with your life before you walked into the All-American offices that fateful day in 1940. MART NODELL: Well, I went to high school in Chicago, and had a little schooling at Chicago University, and a little more at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. I decided I was interested in art, and I was interested in the theatre. Actually, my interest in the theatre comes from members of my family, so I wanted to get on the stage. I did work for community theatre in Chicago, and some theatre work where I would do art— in other word, ads— and I’d also do work on the staging and whatever else I could do. I came to New York with letters— letters from the theatre people who liked what I did, letters from the art people who thought they liked what I did. When I came to New York, the theatre people thought I should go see the art people, and the art people thought I should go see the theatre people.

operas, and I thought, “Well, if this is interesting to them, I might come up with some idea.” One of the first things I thought of was the Wagnerian Ring Cycle [of four operas]. I thought it would be something that could be used, one way or another. So, when I got to the subway station, which was four or five blocks away... RT: Where were you heading? NODELL: I was going home to Brooklyn, and I tried

RT: So they were fighting over you, huh? [Laughs] NODELL: Oh, they were fighting negatively. So I figured I should probably look in on art, which is what I did. Back in art school I had done work that would possibly lead me to comics, and I thought I could do that. RT: A list of your pre-GL comics work includes “Larry Harrigan,” “The Sands of Doom,” “Buck Steele,” “The Raven,” all for Ace. And Jerry Bails’ Who’s Who says that for Fox Comics in 1940 you did a character called “Doctor Doom.” Do you remember working for Victor Fox? NODELL: No, I don’t. RT: When you went to the All-American offices there on Lafayette Street in New York, had you seen that name in a comic book, or did someone else tell you you should try that company? NODELL: What I did was to check out the old Mom and Pop newsstands. It seemed to me that if there were these things called comic books, it might be advantageous for me to see some of them. There had been something called “Superman” for almost two years, and “Batman” was coming along for almost a year, so by 1939 I just looked up the address in the comics. There were a couple of different addresses, and the one I picked up was Lafayette Street. RT: That was M.C. Gaines’ outfit, downtown. It was affiliated with Harry Donenfeld’s National/DC, which had offices further uptown. Most readers never knew they were two companies, because they had the same DC cover symbol, and used so many of the same artists and writers, and overlapped in so many different ways. So one day you just sort of showed up on AA’s doorstep? NODELL: Ah... not quite. I came up with a number of samples, and showed them to Sheldon Mayer. I didn’t know who he was, or any of the editors or writers or people involved there at all, so I came into their offices, showed him what I had, and he said, “Well, I’ll tell you— the only thing I can think of is, if you come up with a superhero, we’re looking for another super-hero; and if you were to have that, maybe we could talk about something.” He was very vague. On my way home, ideas were popping into my head. Now, my first idea was to come up with something that I’d be familiar with, something I would know about, things I could put into some sort of storyline. I was interested in Chinese folklore... RT: How did you get interested in that? NODELL: Oh, I had been interested in it, off and on, for a number of years. I was also interested in Greek mythology. Also, I had friends who liked opera, and this is New York, so they played a lot of various

working out some ideas as I got to the station. I was writing down everything I could possibly think of. I thought, “Gee, I’ve got to do this real quick, because if I think of something, other people will, too. It might have some meaning to them, too.” As I entered the subway, there were a number of people standing around, and there was a train man in the subway station, in the trough of the tracks, and he was waving a red lantern, which meant, “Hold the train, don’t come in.” When he checked the tracks, he waved a green lantern. The green lantern meant, “Come in.” As the train would come in, he would get out of the way, get behind a pole and stay there, and that was the end of his part in “Green Lantern.” But when that green lantern meant something to me, I just wrote it down: “The Green Lantern.” A couple of 1990s sketches by Marty of Green Lantern. The original ones he did for Shelly Mayer in 1940 were probably not dissimilar—but in color. [Art ©2000 Mart Nodell; Green Lantern ©2000 DC Comics]

New Light On The Green Lantern

RT: Since “green lantern” meant “okay, everything’s all clear,” but “red lantern” meant “danger,” which of course one would associate with adventure stories, I wonder how come we got a Green Lantern instead of a Red Lantern. NODELL: Well, just simply that the green lantern appeared to me as being important. RT: Well, it obviously worked, right? Sixty years later, people still know that name. It’s oddly popular. For instance, on the old Route 66 in Missouri, there was a Green Lantern restaurant in the early 1960s. There was also a bookstore called The Green Lantern in the early’40s movie serial The Secret Code. But both are long after your character. I always wondered, “What’s with this fascination with green lanterns?” [Laughs]

together. The possibilities, to me, were a characterization, or pictures, of a meteor falling into a small Chinese town, and that became the method wherein a green lantern was built in. RT: Do you think the kind of lantern that train man used in the subway station was pretty close to the kind you drew on your hero? NODELL: Quite close. That was the only important lantern to me, and I didn’t think of any other kind of lantern at all. And then, thinking of Greek mythology, I designed a costume, and that costume seemed to me to be very important to the eye. RT: When you went in to see Shelly Mayer the second time, you’d already designed the basic costume? NODELL: Yes. A costume with a cape.

NODELL: To me, it was just a matter of how I put everything

RT: How close do you think it was to what you ended up with? NODELL: It was the costume. The movies had a lot of heroes— swordsmen and the like— and that helped me to create the costume the way it was, with billowy sleeves. RT: You’d seen Superman and Batman, with their skin-tight shirts. I’m curious why you went for the billowy effect, which worked very well— although, by the time I was reading “Green Lantern” in the midto-late 1940s, they’d gotten away from that. NODELL: It was a matter of a costume that would be like Douglas Fairbanks as a pirate, that sort of thing. RT: Most super-heroes had capes, but you gave Green Lantern’s cape the extra touch of a cowl which frames his head and makes up for the fact that he’s only wearing a small mask. NODELL: The cowl was Shelly Mayer’s idea. I felt the cape I gave him was theatrical. It seemed to have the flow of the theatre. The theatre meant so much to me in the past. I’d seen any number of plays, and that seemed to help me. As I saw it, the mask I gave him would allow him to be a hero, and would still show his features. I thought of him as being blond, and a healthy type, and all that. Oh— and the cape, from the bottom down, I felt, would flow interestingly. Eventually, I made it even more flowing. RT: Most Golden Age artists I’ve talked to said they had nothing to do with the color schemes of their characters. Did you color your art samples of Green Lantern, or did you just tell them later what colors you had in mind, if any?

Marty’s first page for the first GL story ever, in All-American #16, 1940. Early GL stories drawn by Marty and others were published a year or so back in The Golden Age Green Lantern volume of DC’s Archives series. [©2000 DC Comics]

NODELL: I colored the samples, and that was it! That’s why the colorist followed them. I did about three or four different sketches, and I drew the head, I drew the costume. The green pants, those tight, green slacks... green tights, you might say. Very theatrical. And the shoes— I had the slippers and whatever with the Greek costume.

Mart Nodell Interview

That’s what I felt was appropriate for me, so he laced them crosswise.

tell you about this, but you have something here; do something with this.”

RT: Later, those became just stripes, but in those early days they were obviously lacings. So you took all those colored drawings in to Mayer? Did you design more than one costume?

He looked at it again, and he said, “This looks good to me. Get to work.” [Laughs] RT: Do you think Gaines had made the decision before you came in, or did he make it while you were there? NODELL: He decided on what he wanted to do with it prior to my coming in. I guess he thought it’d be a good idea to just keep me in there a while.

NODELL: No, just one. I didn’t have time to do much else. I did four pages, four initial pages.

RT: At this stage, you had your handful of color drawings, and you had several pages... you’d written and drawn some pages. Now, when you wrote out that origin story with the meteor landing in China, did you write it in longhand, or on a typewriter?

RT: The origin, with the Chinese meteor and everything?

NODELL: I lettered everything on the art, and then I had a few further thoughts on it, and I lettered that out. I also lettered out an incantation. That incantation meant a great deal to me as being what the Chinese would do many, many years ago. They had this way of saying something, and being objective about it, and liking what they did. So I went ahead with that.

NODELL: Yeah, and I also added a ring. In the Wagnerian operas, the ring went from the prince to other people, and so on, and back to the prince again. It was very valuable to him, and very meaningful, and so I thought I’d use that. So that’s how I devised the ring itself. It was also very important to the whole idea, the whole scheme of things, that the ring be regenerated every 24 hours. So every 24 hours it would be getting a very valuable start again. I presented four of what I called black-and-white finished pages.

RT: When you say “incantation,” are you talking about Green Lantern’s oath, or the words that came out of the meteor?

RT: So you drew those out totally, in addition to the color sketches? NODELL: Absolutely. I also did a concept of what the whole strip would be about, for whatever The Green Lantern’s thoughts were, ideas, the concept of where he’d be going, the feeling of his doing good for people. I never included anything like guns. I designed him to be helpful to people. Now, I finished my samples in about four days, and I put the whole thing together, and I called Mayer and asked if I could show it to him. He said, “Okay, come on in, and we’ll look at it.” I showed it to him, and he said, “That might be okay, we’ll see.” Very much like that. He didn’t say very much more than that. So another week, or almost a week, passed by, and I thought it might be a good idea to call him again. So I did, and he said, “Well, we’re still looking.” Being a young fella, I didn’t know for sure just what would be the right thing to do. But a day or two later he called me and said for me to come in and talk to the boss, M.C. Gaines. I came in. Gaines had my papers and the art on his desk, and he was flipping through it, and he asked Mayer to leave. He flipped through the art and put it down. A few minutes passed by, and he said, “Well... let’s see.” Nothing more was said for a little while. [Laughs] He was quiet! I thought, “Well, what’s going on here?” From what I had heard of him, he seemed to be a very nice fellow, and he might tell me, “There is very little probably that I can

NODELL: What I had in mind was, first of all, having The Green Lantern’s incantation as an oath. Now, I had to give the character a name, so I looked through the New York telephone books, and got through “Alan,” which I held onto, and then I came onto “Scott.” So it was Alan Scott, that’s the name I gave him.

RT: You don’t remember another possible name, “Alan Ladd,” as various versions of the story relate? NODELL: No, I didn’t know anything about it. I came up with Alan Scott, and I kept that. The storyline would be about an engineer. He was a graduate of college. I didn’t know what kind of engineering it would be, but he was an engineer in that he helped build bridges and all. RT: You didn’t make him the type of “railroad engineer” who drives the train, but you made him an engineer for the railroad. Do you feel the train thing came out of the fact that you made up the idea on the subway? NODELL: It might well have been. RT: It’s always been a matter of semantics, but you basically created the concept, the look, and most everything else of The Green Lantern there at the beginning. So how did Bill Finger come in? Whether he is counted as the co-creator or not is a matter of interpretation— but, important as he may well have been, he seems to have come along later. How did he get involved with it? Did you want to write the feature? NODELL: They had asked me if I wanted to write it. I really remember this quite well— that if I wanted to write the rest of the story, and more after it, they thought it would be appropriate that I do so. But, when I gave them the synopsis of the remaining part of the story, they said, “Well, you’re going to have an awful lot of work on ‘Green Lantern.’” They thought it would be better that I continue doing the drawing. They had a lot of ideas in mind for Green Lantern.

New Light On The Green Lantern I didn’t know anything about Bill Finger at all. I knew nothing about any of the other comics, nothing about the other people involved in other comics, so I figured, they’re bringing in someone else to help out in this area. RT: Did they give you the idea from the beginning that this was something they were going to use as the cover feature? NODELL: Apparently they did, so I did the little circle on top of the Lantern logo. RT: We’re jumping ahead a bit, because the Green Lantern logo came along a bit later, but I’m curious about how it evolved. Superman and Batman soon developed regular logos, but some characters— like Hawkman— never did. NODELL: For the first story [in All-American Comics #16, cover date July 1940] I developed a logo that I thought might work out well. But after the first issue I worked out another logo. I think I must’ve worked out four or five. I didn’t appreciate having to do a different logo each time. I thought there should be one singular logo. I finally did the main one for Green Lantern #1. RT: The logo with which that eventual GL logo has the most in common is that of Batman, with Batman’s head in the middle of bat-wings, and your GL head in the middle of the flaming words “Green Lantern.” I believe Superman, Batman, and Green Lantern probably had as good logos as any characters in comics ever had. Here’s a first! In 1984 Roy Thomas wrote a 41page tale for All-Star Squadron Annual #3 in which various artists drew solo chapters (set in 1941) à la the 1940s JSA. Wayne Boring penciled the Superman section— and Marty Nodell penciled and inked the Green Lantern segment. Alas, the powers-that-were overruled Roy and had the slicker Joe Giella trace over and re-ink that three-page episode— but Roy saved photocopies of Marty’s full art, which is here printed for the first time ever! [©2000 DC Comics]

NODELL: Thank you. Green Lantern had other properties, too. He could do things, whatever he wanted to, like fly through space, if necessary. He was immune to

Mart Nodell Interview

bullets, all that sort of thing. RT: Initially, the ring’s basic power was over metals. In the early days he flies with it, and he walks through walls, and bullets won’t hurt him, and so forth. But over a couple of years, in stories you, Bill Finger, and others did, he metamorphosed into using the ring mainly in two ways: (1) to form objects he thinks of— A few years back, a New York firm called Marketing Evaluations, Inc., asked “average” Americans their ten favorite “spokescharacters”— and guess which boy made out of dough placed first— above 7-Up Spot, the California Raisins, the M&M characters, Tony the Tiger, Trix Rabbit, and even Elsie, the Borden Cow! In this illo, Mart Nodell draws the two most famous characters which he designed, a quarter of a century apart — GL in 1940, the Pillsbury Dough Boy in 1965. [Art ©2000 Mart Nodell; GL ©2000 DC Comics; Pillsbury Dough Boy is a trademark of Pillsbury.]

which he didn’t do in the early days, and (2) from having power only over metals, it gradually ended up that— because he was being hit with wood so often, I guess, that being a convenient non-metal— he wound up having not just power over metals, but over everything but wood. Do you know how that evolved? NODELL: Some of the things you said made me think of my phone calls with Bill Finger, who did most of the writing. I suggested some ideas to him, and he found them quite acceptable in working on what he did. And his ideas were appropriate with me; I found I was able to work with him easily. RT: How were you first introduced to him? NODELL: They brought him in, and said he was going to be my writer. RT: By then you had the first four pages, and the general plot for the rest? NODELL: Yeah. He liked it, and he liked to do the writing with me. There was no problem at all. He enjoyed it, and, as far as I was concerned, we worked easily together. RT: From the very beginning you both had your names on the strip. Of course, yours came first, which made sense under the circumstances. But you didn’t use your real name. You used “Mart Dellon,” which is your last name spelled sideways. [Laughs] NODELL: “Mart Dellon,” to me, was a pseudonym for doing comics. Mayer told me, “You can have your name on it; I think that’ll be fine.” And he added Bill Finger’s name, which was good. But I didn’t know whether I would work in comics for any length of time— I thought maybe one year, maybe a little more. But in those days there were various people who were against comics, completely against children reading comics. RT: Right. It didn’t all start with Fredric Wertham in the late ’40s and early ’50s. NODELL: Let’s put it this way: If I were to work on comics at all, I would never have a chance to get into advertising.

RT: You felt there’d be a prejudice against you because you’d worked in comics? NODELL: Yeah, and my main effort was to get into advertising. At first, in comics, I was getting $10 a page.... RT: And all the comics you could eat! NODELL: Eventually I got $15, after about six months, and later I got $18 to $20. At the time the average person was earning about $35 a week, whether he was a tailor or whoever! But, in my particular case, I was turning out five to seven pages a week, and then along came Green Lantern #1, and I was doing four stories, and that added to the whole mountain of work! RT: That was the point where Mayer first had E.E. Hibbard draw a GL story, then had Irwin Hasen do a number of stories for All-American, because you really couldn’t handle everything at that stage. Was this something you were happy about, or did Mayer just decide this and tell you you weren’t going to do all the “Green Lantern” work any more? NODELL: I didn’t mind. I think it was about six months after the outset of “Green Lantern” when I was asked to do Green Lantern #1. They wanted me to do a double-page spread, one for Finger and one for me, and they wrote about me, and they wrote about Finger. My face was going to be shown, so I agreed to start using my own name. RT: So that’s when “Dellon” gave way to “Nodell.” How did you feel about the fact that AA had Shelly Moldoff and later Howard Purcell draw the Green Lantern covers on books on which you did the interior art? NODELL: It didn’t make any difference to me, because there was so much work for me to do that I just continued doing the work I could. Thirteen pages per story, every quarter. RT: Also, in 1940, you did the GL stories in the first four issues of All-Star Comics. Did you get to know people like Hibbard or Hasen? NODELL: No. The only time I met Hibbard was years after the first issue. Unless I’m very wrong, he took over part of Mayer’s work... not just art, but editing. I did meet Hasen; we got together on a few stories, when he inked my pencils.

Mart Nodell Interview

RT: Did you and Bill Finger, after the first few stories, ever work together on stories, or did he just work with Mayer and give you the finished scripts? Did you maintain a story input after those first few stories?

because I didn’t really work closely with him, or with [later GL writer John] Broome.

NODELL: I had a lot of input with Bill Finger. I think he was very good to work with. I gave him ideas, he gave me some ideas; we worked on things together.

RT: Did you ever do any work for the DC part of the company uptown, as opposed to Gaines’ AllAmerican line?

RT: I noticed Finger got top credit billing on stories when you weren’t actually the artist, even though your name (or “Mart Dellon’s”) would be on those stories. Hibbard and Hasen were essentially your “ghosts,” as far as AA was concerned.

NODELL: I did some work there... not too much. I did have to go up there to deliver some of these stories that I did. Although, mainly, Carrie was the one who did the delivering up there. I’d be kind of bleary-eyed, and Carrie wouldn’t let me get on the subway. [Laughs]

Were you ever in danger of getting drafted? Everybody must have been at that time, during World War Two. NODELL: I don’t think they were interested in me, not really. I had a couple of children, so they left me alone. RT: I should have asked you before— were you married at the time you started “Green Lantern”? NODELL: I was married a little while after. As a matter of fact, a little bit after the first issue [i.e., the GL story in All-American #16]. I met Carrie just about a month or so after. RT: So that was a good year for you. When did you get married? NODELL: In January of 1942. I was earning a little bit, and so on. Into more solid citizenry, that sort of thing. RT: In the second “Green Lantern” story you and Bill Finger introduced Irene Miller, who was “the girlfriend” in those early stories. She was there for maybe a year, she was even in one of the All-Star “Green Lantern” chapters, and then she dropped out. Do you remember anything about her? NODELL: No, I don’t think I recall anything about her... except I thought Green Lantern would have a girlfriend for a while, and then they’d make changes, so we didn’t think she would be necessary. We’d go on, and if the writer wanted to put her into the story, okay; if he didn’t, we’d leave her out. RT: And eventually she vanished without a trace, unlike Lois Lane. How did it come about that Alan Scott started out as an engineer, and then quickly became a radio announcer, which is not exactly a natural jump in vocations? NODELL: No, it isn’t! In doing that, apparently, they must have felt a change was necessary. I don’t recall that. RT: Now, back to GL’s oath. You said you developed the version of the oath in the first story, right? NODELL: Yes. It was an incantation, I felt. They changed that very quickly. I think [later writer Alfred] Bester had written a change in the oath, and his seemed to hold up. But I don’t know much about it,

For the first issue of Overstreet’s Advanced Collector, in 1993, Marty drew a set of pictures asking the musical question, “In what form will Green Lantern exist in the future?” [Art ©2000 Mart Nodell; Green Lantern ©2000 DC Comics]

RT: Hey, you had some of your best ideas on subways! She should’ve been happy to let you go on them! NODELL: That may be, but she wouldn’t. Carrie also wanted to deliver so she could pick up some comics. She picked up a couple of copies of each issue I drew.

RT: So you saved them all and sold them later and got rich, right? NODELL: You tell funny stories! [Laughs] The reason we eventually tossed all those comics out was that we were getting into advertising. By 1961 we heard a lot of reasons why we should’ve kept them, but we didn’t. RT: How did you meet Carrie? Was she a New Yorker? NODELL: Yes. I met her in New York. I was born in Philadelphia, and my family moved around a good bit, and we moved from Philadelphia to Atlantic City, to Newark, and to a few other cities, and then into Chicago, where I had most of my schooling... and from there to New York, where I stayed for about seventeen years. Then, in advertising, I had the opportunity to go back to a huge ad agency in Chicago, and at that point I was an art director for Pillsbury, for Kellogg’s, for B&G... RT: That was when you worked on the Pillsbury Dough Boy? NODELL: You’re right. That’s another episode, and it lasted for years and years. RT: The advertising you got into— was that after you left comics around ’46 or ’47? NODELL: Well, I have to jump to 1948. I went to work for Stan Lee, on staff at Timely Comics. They had quite a staff there, in the Empire State Building— on the 13th floor, I think it was. RT: Who was there that you remember? NODELL: Syd Shores was one... Don Rico... it’s hard to remember off-hand. Carrie knows some of the other names.... [NOTE: At this point Carrie Nodell enters the conversation. To differentiate her from Marty, her first name will be used with her com-

New Light On The Green Lantern

ments. —R.T.] CARRIE: John Buscema, Danny DeCarlo... Sal didn’t work, but John used to come over to our house, Johnny Buscema with Sal. RT: You mean his brother Sal? CARRIE: Yeah. NODELL: Who developed The Human Torch? RT: You mean Carl Burgos? NODELL: He was on staff, too. RT: What was it like working at Timely in the late ’40s, as opposed to DC? NODELL: The difference was that, before, I had worked my own hours and I could work any way I liked and I could work into the night— which I usually did. The story was entirely different at Timely. We’d come in around the usual nine o’clock, check in, and everyone had a ball; I enjoyed it very much. Everyone was very nice about the business. But I wish I’d remember more names. RT: How did the break come with DC? You still had work coming out with 1947 copyright dates. What— no Green Lantern in this picture!? Though Marty and Carrie were too busy hopping from one comics convention to

NODELL: Well, it was another to get the whole thing photocopied, this is a tantalizing glimpse of a cover he began in the late 1940s for a story eviaround 1947 and I just wantdently titled “The Strange Story of the Talking Dragon”— starring none other than The Sub-Mariner! Too bad he never got around to finishing the face— but we’ll take what we can get! [Sub-Mariner ©2000 Marvel Characters, Inc.] ed to get into advertising. I was getting a little bit of As far as the offices were concerned, we were in a very large advertising work. I went from about ’45, getting a little bit of adverroom. That was the bullpen, and when Stan would want to get certain tising from studios, and I did some cartooning for them, and then things done— maybe Goodman wanted certain things to be sped up, into ’46, ’47, I found that I was getting along okay but I wanted more because they had early deadlines or whatever— then he would come work of that kind. So when I got into storyboards, I really became in and we’d have to hurry. We’d have a seven- or eight-page story, more involved in advertising. By ’50 I’d really gotten out of comics, and three pages would go to one person, three or four pages to another and Stan was beginning to have to get rid of some of his staff, because person, and the rest of it would go to another person. his uncle Martin said it had to be. Years later, Martin Goodman was in a rest home in our area here, before he died. I didn’t know to see him there. RT: Backing up to Timely, since you mentioned Martin Goodman— did you ever have any personal dealings with him while you were there, or with Stan, or was everything handled through other people? NODELL: I dealt with Stan all along, continually. Stan was very nice about everything, as far as I was concerned. Martin Goodman and his brother-in-law would come into the office, both very well-dressed. The two of them would come in, and look around, look the thing over, the offices, the people, and so on, and he’d just take off after a few minutes. Either he was satisfied, or he was dissatisfied. [Laughs]

RT: That’s probably why Timely Comics didn’t have much of an artistic identity back in those days. You can look at their stories now, and can’t tell who did them— because everybody did them. [Laughs] NODELL: And also, three or four inkers would work on those stories in one day. After the inkers finished the job, no one could tell who did what. RT: What kind of material did you work on at Timely in the last half of the ’40s? NODELL: “Captain America”... “Sub-Mariner”.... CARRIE: “Torch”... RT: How long did you work for Timely?

Mart Nodell Interview NODELL: Roughly two years. RT: How did you get started going to all these comics conventions? You’ve become a real fixture on the convention route now, and everybody’s happy to see you. NODELL: You know, Carrie is the one who can tell it a lot better. CARRIE: A few years ago, Marty worked on the local newspaper in the northern suburbs of Chicago doing special covers, and a young man by the name of Gary Calabuono worked for the same newspaper in the western suburbs. The newspaper put out a weekly paper for the employees, called Ink Spot. In it, I read, “Gary Calabuono, Comic Book Buff.” Later, Gary had all the Moondog comic book stores in Chicago, but at this time he was a space salesman for the newspaper. We were getting ready to move the day after I saw this piece in Ink Spot, so I said to Marty, “You’re out of advertising, we’re moving to Florida, why not call Gary up?” He calls him up. Gary had him come over to the paper, and he taped Marty for four hours! RT: That makes this interview look short! CARRIE: He said to Marty, “My gosh, everybody thought you were dead!” Well, for fifteen years we were in Chicago, and nobody knew about Marty Nodell except for Leo Burnett, the advertising agency Marty worked for. Gary said, “You’ve got to start going to shows. Come to the Chicago show and sit at the end of my table and see the reaction.” We did, and, of course, since Marty’s name was on all those old “Green Lantern” stories, the reaction was tremendous. So Gary said, “Why don’t you try something local in Florida?” We tried a show in Florida, we had a terrific response, and that’s when we met Don Thompson from The Comics Buyer’s Guide. Well, he was down at that show in Florida, and he and Marty hit it off very well. He was a wonderful man. The promoters began to call us from all over. Charlotte, Detroit, Pittsburgh... oh, and the San Diego con, at which you gave him his Inkpot Award [as presenter]. RT: Tell me about this “comics cruise” you just came back from. CARRIE: It was wonderful. Marty did a couple of panels, The Nodells have become spoke to a lot of fans. It was regulars on the comicon organized by the Comic scene, as this drawing Book Legal Defense Fund. done for a convention in Pittsburgh demonstrates. They’re planning another one next May out of New Orleans. They had over 300 people on the cruise, mostly would-be writers, would-be artists, plus artists and writers like Neal Adams, Kurt Busiek, Matt Wagner, the Hernandez Brothers... NODELL: I didn’t do any drawing, just talking. CARRIE: The last day, the fans asked me, “Do you have any of Marty’s work?” But we had just come from MegaCon in Orlando, and the Wonder Con, and we had sold out in both places. But I had prints with me, and a few originals, which they quickly bought. A lot of young people are comic books fans, and they have wonderful jobs in computers!

Marty, near the end of the cruise, got a little wobbly, but he’s better now. RT: Carrie, Marty never did really tell me how the two of you met. CARRIE: We met in October 1941. And I was in the bridal shop, getting my wedding dress, when I heard Pearl Harbor had been attacked. RT: In other words, Sunday, December 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy”? CARRIE: Yeah. Marty and I had been married in court on December 1, and our religious ceremony was scheduled for January 4. The rumor was that submarines [i.e., German U-boats] were coming up where I lived, facing the Atlantic Ocean. After Pearl Harbor, a lot of girls cancelled their wedding plans. RT: And others sped them up, if they thought their boyfriends were going to join the armed services or get drafted. CARRIE: Marty was fortunate in that his mother was a widow, and he supported his mother and brothers at the beginning of the War. And then our children came along. We had two boys, so the draft board left us alone, so thank God for that! Most of the artists I’ve read about didn’t see service overseas. RT: No, they ended up working on camp newspapers, things like that. The services found out out they had better uses than as cannon fodder. NODELL: I wound up doing a lot of war-related work anyway. CARRIE: M.C. Gaines would get the boys to do something for the war effort. All the comics books ended up in the paper drives! RT: But yours didn’t. You said you tossed them, years later. CARRIE: Marty decided he didn’t want comic books in our home in Washington, D.C., when he went into advertising, so I gave some to my sister, who had two boys, and she put them up in the attic— and two squirrels ate them! RT: [Laughs] Million-dollar squirrels! CARRIE: You’re not kidding! I did find an old, beat-up copy of Green Lantern #1 among Marty’s papers, so I had it restored. And that’s our comics collection! RT: Carrie, Marty... thank you. I’m sorry to take so much of your time, when you just got back from that cruise.... NODELL: [Sings] “My time is your time”.... Remember Rudy Vallee? RT: Sure do. Well, good night. See you in White Plains and Charlotte this summer.

Preserving The Golden Age

Preserving the Golden Age A Profile of Bill Black’s AC Comics

by Jeff Gelb For fans of the Golden Age of Comics, this is a golden age of sorts. Even though prices for the original comics themselves continue to skyrocket, the budget-minded Golden Age fan has never had more ways to expand his collection. Hardly a month goes by when either DC or Marvel doesn’t release a trade paperback or Archive collection of prime Golden Age material. And, outside the Big Two publishers, one of the best sources for continual Golden Age reprint material is AC Comics. At the helm of AC is Bill Black, who has collected comic books for over 45 years. Black parlayed his excitement for comics into a career writing, drawing, and editing comics for his own company and for others for thirty years, including work for Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and Warren.

a couple of deals. One was ‘Nyoka.’ I was thrilled to own a real Golden Age character. Then I published a Roy Rogers movie book, and that put me in touch with Roy’s licensing agent, who in turn convinced me to publish his other clients, like Tom Mix and Hopalong Cassidy.” Since then, Black’s AC Comics has printed over 170 titles and thousands of pages of Golden Age comics reprints.

One But Bill’s primary love has been his problem for own publishing venture, which began as Black has (Top) Captain Midnight cover by Leonard Frank. (Above) Green Lama art by Al Plastino, Paragon Publications and has, over the been finding reprinted in Men of Mystery Comics #18. [©2000 AC Comics] decades, segued into AC Comics. While AC original art may be best known as the publisher of Femforce, a “good girl” artto reprint: “There is very little available. We tracked down Fiction oriented female team book, the company’s main focus these days is its House president/publisher T.T. Scott when he was in his 80s. He was various comic reprint titles. intrigued that we wanted to bring back those great old books, but did “I started the reprint comics to supplement the AC line,” Bill recalls. “Initially, the choice for what to reprint was based on availability of material. Comics were in a decline in the mid-’80s. In 1987 Charlton closed its comic book section. I had worked with Charlton earlier and knew associate editor Bill Pearson, who was instrumental in AC Comics acquiring the rights to the Charlton super-heroes in 1983. This was a big break for me and helped launch AC Comics. Robin Snyder was put in charge of selling off material from Charlton’s comics line. He contacted me and we completed negotiations on

not believe much interest could be garnered for his old line. He gave us permission in writing to reprint everything from Fiction House except ‘Sheena.’” Since then, the company has even been able to secure the rights to do a Sheena reprint volume. Black recalls, “When he gave us permission to use their material, they had neither originals nor stats. Fortunately, a collector, Pete Leavitt, came forth and volunteered to lend originals to about twenty Fiction House stories. I acquired the stats to 25 issues of Master Comics, which yielded much Nyoka and Tom Mix material.”

Bill Black’s AC Comics Usually, though, Black uses copiers and computers to “drop out” as much of the color as possible from comic book pages, and then the art is reconstructed by hand. “The goal is to reconstruct the original black-&-white line art much as it was originally done. Nobody else does this, and that is why our reproduction is superior to other reprint books.” Black also uses the “Theakstonizing” process of bleaching out color, leaving only black ink. But because the printing process used in the ’40s and ’50s was crude, much of the resulting line work is weak, requiring hours of retouching. Bill laments, “Some stories take as long or longer to reconstruct than it would to draw a new story from scratch!” AC concentrates on defunct publishers for material: “We steer clear of Marvel, DC, and Archie because they can reprint their own stories. Also, I reprint characters I remember from my own childhood because they bring back memories of stress-free times. Some material is public domain, some I have licensed, and with some I have been granted permission.” One of the pleasures of publishing reprint titles is the opportunity it has afforded Bill to communicate with many of his childhood comic-creator idols, who often have classic stories to recount of the Golden Age of Comics. Bill recounts this one from Chuck Cuidera, who lives near him: “While working for Victor Fox, whose offices were in the same building as the DC offices, the King of Comics (a former DC accountant who formed his own company) would spit out the elevator door whenever it stopped on the DC floor!” Currently, AC publishes Golden Age Men of Mystery (concentrating on masked heroes and heroines), Golden Age Greats (a series of trade paperbacks of various genres), Roy Rogers Western (showcasing the western art of John Buscema, Russ Manning, and Alex Toth), Best of the West (masked Western heroes), Haunted Horsemen (Dick Ayers art from the original Magazine Enterprises Ghost Rider, with the name altered for legal reasons), and Dale Evans Western (Russ Manning art). In the future for AC are several company retrospective books, including ones on the Ace and Centaur characters, for which Mark Heike has been interviewing surviving artists. But the harsh reality, says Black, is that “there is almost no audience for our reprint comics, at least within the comic book market. Sadly, few care about the history of the comics medium. Outside the comics market, we are able to move Western comics... not because anyone there cares about the history of comics, but because nobody else but AC does Westerns... and we do a very good job of it.” But Black is undeterred: “Our overall goal is to preserve as much of the lost characters of the past as possible. To most fans, the only Golden Age characters that existed were those of Marvel and DC. We know there were dozens of publishers who did great stuff, but because they went out of business 40-50 years ago, there is no direct line to their past. I don’t target only the finest artists or most popular characters, though we’ve reprinted many of the greats: Frazetta, Wood, Powell, Williamson, Toth. I also include rare gems that are awesome to behold, though you may not have heard of them, and many ‘diamonds in the rough,’ because that’s what comics are all about.” So, Marvel and DC aside, what’s left for Bill Black and AC Comics to reprint? “Tons of good stuff,” Bill enthuses. “Just Fiction House alone would be a fulltime job.” Which sounds great till he adds, “The comics market is dead. Never have there been fewer people buying comics... just a couple hundred thousand, if that. Do the numbers: there are over 600 comics publishers, producing over 1000 different comics each month. The tiny market is flooded with product. There are approximately 4000 comics shops still operating (I personally believe this is an exaggerated figure). If AC produces 1000 copies of Men of Mystery (remember,

the actual number distributed is lower), that means only one store in four orders one. No comics shop can carry 1000 different titles each month. About two years ago most stores decided to cut back to the top 50 or 100 best-selling comics. All others had to be specialordered. I would guess 90% of all issues of Men of Mystery are special-ordered. They go right into a customer’s subscription stash and never get on the shelves for anyone else to see, so it’s hard to survive, let alone grow.” Bill’s answer? “AC has been operating on a 5% profit margin for over 16 years. It doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out that, if you sell direct to readers, the publisher gets 100% of cover price; that will help him stay alive.” In addition to his regular titles, Black is headed toward “print on demand” titles, explaining: “This means that if you get an order for 20 copies of a book, you print 20 copies. As additional copies are ordered, additional copies are printed. I’m planning four ‘print on demand’ titles: Western Movie Heroes, Femforce, Fun Comics, and Femzine. They will be supported through Internet, mail order, and advertising sales.” Bill puts his faith in a rephrasing of that famous line from Field of Dreams: “Build it, and they will come.” We hope they will— the customers, we mean— because AC Comics deserves the support of all fans of the Golden Age of Comics.

Gil Kane On Comics

Gil Kane on Comics Past, Present, and Future

Comics Legend Gil Kane Talks about the Industry He Loved—and Loathed Interview Conducted and Transcribed by Chris Irving

[INTERVIEWER’S NOTE: Anyone who considers himself (or herself) a comics fan should know the name of the late, great Gil Kane... and anyone who has read the reincarnation of Alter Ego in the past two years certainly does. After starting out as a comic book artist in his mid-teens in the early 1940s, Gil became one of the leading artists of the Silver Age of Comics, having co-created and drawn both the Hal Jordan Green Lantern (in 1959) and the Ray Palmer Atom (in 1961) for DC. Aside from that landmark work, Gil drew just about everything else under the sun at one time or another. The following phone interview was conducted in summer of 1998.]

(Left) A Kane pencil sketch for a Green Lantern cover, courtesy of David Hamilton. [Art ©2000 estate of Gil Kane; Green Lantern ©2000 DC Comics] (Right) Gil’s groundbreaking interview in Alter Ego, Vol. 1, #10, in 1969, and later in various issues of The Comics Journal (where he even debated underground artist Robert Crumb), were a trendsetting festival of information and opinion. [Self-portrait ©2000 Estate of Gil Kane.]

CHRISTOPHER IRVING: You started working on “The Shield and Dusty” for MLJ back when you were 16, didn’t you? GIL KANE: Actually, my first strip was “Inspector Bentley of Scotland Yard.” I was working in production at MLJ, so I was doing this stuff in the evening when I’d go home. Finally, I was fired after three weeks; then I was rehired by Scott Meredith. He later became one of the biggest literary agents in the United States, for all of the big people. His name was Scott Feldman at this time. He was the associate editor and he lived near me. Three weeks after I was fired, MLJ came back and rehired me. It was at that point that I was still doing production work, and I was doing “The Shield and Dusty” at the same time.

practical jokes and learning about the business and meeting some of the people who were there. For instance, Bob Montana, who created “Archie,” was there, and Irv Novick was there and was the chief and best artist. Charlie Biro had just left with Bob Wood to start Crime Does Not Pay and Daredevil. Bob Fujitani was there, and ultimately cut his name down to Bob Fuge; he had been working with Busy Arnold and Quality Comics. He came over and started doing a strip called “The Hangman.” I was an early artist on that.

CI: What was it like at MLJ?

CI: That was related to “The Comet” strip, wasn’t it? [NOTE: The Hangman was created in Pep Comics #17 (July 1941) to avenge the original Comet when he was murdered.]

KANE: It was like going to college and being a sophomore. It was all

KANE: “The Comet” was earlier. In fact, they had a lot of existing

Past, Present and Future

strips done by a lot of the artists there. There was Sam Cooper and Lin Streeter; they did a lot of that stuff. In fact, one of their chief artists was Mort Meskin, who did “The Wizard” and a bunch of other strips for them. They had a pretty good crew, and most of them came from Harry Chesler, who had an art agency.

“Irv Novick... was the chief and best artist” at MLJ even before a very young Gil worked there. Note that the early Pep Comics covers heralded “Action Detective - Adventure”— the titles of three popular DC monthlies. From Pep #2 (Feb. 1940) courtesy of Marc Svensson. [©2000 Archie Comics Group.]

At first, Chesler packaged the books, and then the three guys who were running what ultimately would be called Archie— but in those days was called MLJ— did. They hired a bunch of these artists away and, for a couple of years, they were the central group of artists. Little by little, they started to shift, too. As the War started, a lot of them got drafted; a lot of them went over to Charlie Biro when Biro became bigger and needed more artists. He added another title called Boy Comics. A lot of the artists started to drift. By 1942, when I was sixteen, I went up to MLJ and got a job as a production assistant. I had been trying for about a year to get work in the field, and this was the first job I was able to get. I found Joe Kubert already working there as an inker. CI: So where did you go from there? KANE: I was there about six months, and had a difference of opinion with Harry Sahle, the editor, and I was fired. I drifted around the field until I was recommended by John Beardsley, who was the editor at the time at Quality Comics, when [Will] Eisner had already gone into the army. I was recommended to Jack Kirby and Joe Simon. They were both going into the army later that year, and they had a quota to meet for their contract with DC. They had a studio in the city and I went to work copying their stuff, penciling for them, and then they would do the splash page and get somebody else to ink the stuff. All I was doing at 16 was copying the material, shot for shot. Joe went into the army first, and I kept working with Jack. When Jack gave up the studio and started working at DC, I would meet him at DC. When Jack left, DC gave me one assignment to handle by myself. Of course, I was inadequate to the job, so they fired me and hired a guy named Phil Bard, who had done “Minute Man” over at Fawcett. That was it. [see page 18] After I was fired from DC, I wandered around and was finally hired by Bernie Baily for his shop, and there I met Carmine Infantino, who was my old classmate. Baily had already drawn “The Spectre” for a number of years, and was also drawing a strip called Dick Jordan. He was the second or third artist on this newspaper strip for a paper called PM. I did pencils there, and I occasionally assisted on Dick Jordan, and worked around the field. As a matter of fact, I shared a studio with Jack Sparling and Al Plastino for a while.

I was with Bernie for about eight months before I was drafted into the Army. CI: What was it like working for Simon & Kirby? KANE: They were nice guys. Since Jack was the real workhorse, he was there every day, penciling, doing the entire range of Boy Commandos and “The Guardian” [i.e., “The Newsboy Legion”] and “Manhunter.” He penciled all of that stuff, and there were eight panels to each page. They were big pages, usually 13” x 18”. He worked on illustration board. Sometimes, he would do six or seven of those pages a day; it was a miracle watching him. He was talkative. Joe was talkative, but Joe was in and out of the office a lot, so I got to know Jack better. Also, they had a letterer, Lou Ferguson, who was considered the best of that day. Later on, when Simon & Kirby were in the service, I found him working with Bernie Baily as Bernie’s letterer, too. He was a great old guy. We frisked about a bit, and it was great fun. I didn’t make much money, but it was great fun. CI: That’s all that matters sometimes. When you got back from the War, was it really hard to find work? KANE: Oh, yeah. It was a recession. You couldn’t even get clothes. You couldn’t even buy new shirts, new suits, and you couldn’t even buy new cars. Everything was on hold because the conversion [to peacetime] hadn’t started. The first people to buy were people that had a lot of dough. It took a while for the economy to loosen up. I was working at DC and did six months’ worth of work. I worked for Fox, worked for Famous Funnies, and then I was rehired again at DC, and that was for the long run. I was hired in ’49, and have worked for them to this day.

I did “Johnny Thunder,” Rex the Wonder Dog, Hopalong Cassidy. I must have done well over a thousand or fifteen hundred covers, all told.

Gil Kane On Comics

CI: Even today, does it surprise you when you hear that your old Green Lantern or Atom stuff is deemed a classic?

void, and that was to bring pictures to pulp stories. It seemed like a perfect marriage. And the quality of images that came out of comics was very original and different from the images in newspaper work. It was more flamboyant, and those images and values, even though they were very resistant to the general public at first, were ultimately assimilated and pulled into the culture.

KANE: As a matter of fact, I’ve done practically everything. I did Prince Valiant for five weeks. Tarzan I’ve done in newspaper strips. I ghosted on Flash Gordon. I’ve done practically everything over at Marvel, yet the only thing people ever associate me with is the Green Lantern book. CI: Do you have any plans for doing any comics in the future?

Now you see them everywhere: in movies, in toys, in everything. It is a total assimilation. Plus the fact that a new technology came along. A new technology always means a turn in the culture. So what happens is that, all of the values having been assimilated, and all of the media generating facsimiles of comics material (not totally but in one way or another), that makes comics somewhat irrelevant.

Also, the economics have changed in the field so that there are no more ten-cent comic books. Comic books KANE: I’m working on a Green cost $2.50 to $3.00, and that’s just a starting price. As a Lantern/Atom two-parter [for result, people don’t buy them in the millions anymore. Legends of the DC Universe], and The circulation has dropped precipitously. I’ve got a Superman graphic novel after Plus the fact that these companies are owned “[Simon and Kirby] had a quota to meet for their contract with DC.” By 1944, that. I did the last one by enormous corporations. In the early days, they met it with ghosted art behind S&K covers like this one. [©2000 DC Comics] about a year ago, the owner had a direct hand in the editorial called Distant Fire. It was my pitch. I plotted the story, and I did the same thing with this one. I’m also negotiating something else with another publishing firm. CI: How do you view the marketplace today? KANE: First of all, when comic books came out they filled an existing

(Left) Comics student Rich Morrissey says Gil penciled both “Newsboy Legion” and “Sandman” circa 1944 (see his letter in this issue’s “re:” section). So could The Guardian’s pug nose in Panel 5 of SSC #35 be Gil’s? At any rate, it certainly isn’t by Simon and Kirby. [©2000 DC Comics] (Above) After Joe and Jack were drafted, DC fired Gil and replaced him with Kirby-influenced “Minute Man” artist Phil Bard. Here’s what Bard had been doing for Fawcett before “Sandman,” repro’d from photocopies of original art, courtesy of Keif Fromm. [Minute Man ©2000 DC Comics]

Past, Present and Future

structure of the company. In other words, the people who owned the company outright were in the publishing office and oversaw the material. They oversaw the editorial, they oversaw the distribution and promotion of the material. It was their product.

[Al] Feldstein and even [Bill] Gaines were creative enough and close enough to their product that they could see potential quality in their work. They gave the writers and the artists assignments that worked to their strengths, and developed a really fresh group.

Nowadays, you have big companies that have nothing to do with the product. They have other people handle the product, so they don’t know the product as well as the hands-on owner who used to be there.

CI: And they’re still some of the most beautifully drawn comics ever done.

CI: It’s a lot more diluted now than it ever was. KANE: Lots more diluted. In their attempt to grow, they turn out 200 magazines, or each company turns out at least 50 to 60 magazines, and sometimes more, every month. It makes for redundancy. It makes for a factory/ slavish kind of thing. Of course, everything has taken over statistically. Whatever is doing the best is duplicated endlessly, until finally it looks like all the companies are turning out one book. I think that comics aren’t succeeding because they need to get more money for the book so that they can afford the increases in manufacturing. At this point, most of the companies are not making a lot of money. In fact, most of them, if they’re not heavily into licensing, are losing money. The economics of comics are constantly moving upward, so even the $2.50 to $3.00 price is no longer realistic. It seems to me the answer is a more expensive book. They’ll have fewer people, but with a more expensive book and a mature audience.

KANE: The point is that it’s very hard to find these sorts of editors, and they don’t come from fandom. They come from within the ranks of the creative field. The people who hire editors now primarily hire fandom people who come in as associate editors and they’ll rise to be editors. But they’re not part of the ranks of writing and drawing. I think you also have to deal with the new technology. I think they’ll have some serious problems for the next period, until they have a new way of distribution, and a more sophisticated product. It seems to me that the old magazine concept, on a monthly basis, is the one that’s most imperiled, and that is keeping them from further growth. It’s not economically viable; the circulation figures suggest that it isn’t. I think they’re at a real point in their development now where some real thinking has to come in. Again, I think it has to come in from rank and file; obviously, not everyone in the field is capable of rising through rank and file, but there are people in the field who have the capacity.

The field is primarily now a writer’s field; most of the people in charge editorially are writers. Also, they have to get away For a while, when Marvel came in, from the magazine format, because there was a real emphasis on the ultimately the magazine format artists, like Jack and Ditko. Even restricts them from their biggest A great 1950s “Johnny Thunder” page by Gil from All-Star Western. As we said if they didn’t write the material, distribution outlet, which would last issue: “Some of his ‘Johnny Thunder’ work bears favorable comparison with they helped plot the material, and be the legitimate bookstores. The [Alex] Toth’s own pace-setting art.” Repro’d from photocopies of original art, they had a decisive hand in the small retail shops are just dimincourtesy of Rich Donnelly. [©2000 DC Comics] construction of the material. For a ished. The fewer titles they have, while, it was favored that the writthe more they have to compensate by pulling in related or non-related ers were secondary in the relationship. items in order to stay in business. It’s changed now. I think the artist has been downgraded to an The companies need to get into the legitimate bookstores for distriillustrator, and not a dramatist. Even though they’re doing superb bution, because that would give them ten times the number of people. work, I feel there must be a fusion of the writer and the artist’s work Most people who go into legitimate bookstores are adults, so they will together absolutely as a collaboration (not as an assignment that one have to justify an increased price by giving them a more mature prodcreates and works on and then hands on to someone else to illustrate). uct. I think the emphasis lies primarily in the editing concept. I think it takes a closer collaboration. Or else it takes the work of a singular individual, which I think is the best thing in the world— for In this business the most forward steps were taken by progressive, one person to write and to draw the material. I think that writing for creative editors who genuinely came up through the ranks in their artists is the process of education. It’s not the most difficult thing in fields, like Eisner, [Harvey] Kurtzman, and other people who were the world; these guys are loaded with a million stories. It is learning able to create a balance. At the same time, they could take artists who the techniques like the regular fan guys do. were, on their own, not spectacular, but were, once they had the support of a perceptive editor who would work on their strengths. EC is the best example of artists who came out of nowhere and achieved national status, because the editors there, both Kurtzman and

The thing is that [the companies] are in the position where they need creative resolutions, not statistical ones. CI: I’ve got to agree with you on much of that. One theory that I

Gil Kane On Comics CI: But now, that’s all you can find comics in.

Super-hero meets science-fiction meets sword-and-sorcery! Three of Gil’s great loves come together in this preliminary page layout for The Sword of the Atom, circa 1983— inked, according to our generous benefactor, Jerry K. Boyd. [©2000 DC Comics

KANE: Right, mostly because of the independents. The independents supply about twice as much work as the big outfits, so they keep up the number of titles you see on the stands.

heard was that maybe, instead of four titles, there should be one all-encompassing big graphic novel.

CI: The sad thing is that most people aren’t going to go into a comic shop unless it’s to buy a comic book. At least with the newsstand, the kid at the drugstore’s parent picked him up a comic and the kid gets into comic books. That’s how it happened with me and probably a million other people.

KANE: Of course! They have to move to the graphic novel, to more space, so that they can do stories that are arresting; and they can’t do it every month. If they turn out a graphic novel, they don’t have to do it every month; they can do it once a quarter. They could do it like the European albums, which come out every six months to every year after they’ve collected a certain amount of work. Their work is much more scrupulously done so that the writing is full of greater character, and the artwork is meticulous compared to general American artwork (which is full of spontaneity, but lacks in most instances the kind of effort that the European artists can inject in their stuff). But they also have a failing market. The technology is changing everything; everything you see in these magazines you can catch on television or the movies. It has divided the audience, and unless you can start turning out volumes that are distinct, and justify an audience paying $9 or $10 or more every time they buy these things (in Europe I think they charge $10 to $15 for graphic novels), I don’t see how the business is going to survive. I think that in the beginning it’s going to be small, until they build up a readership. They definitely are going through the eye of a needle now. CI: Well, I hope they make it through the other end. [laughter] If they don’t, I don’t have much of a career ahead of me. KANE: The thing is that we’ve reached the point where print technology is beginning to run itself. I can’t imagine books not being there, and I’m sure that they will be. They’re practically putting printing companies out of business, because the new technology is developing machines that, right within your own home and office, you can practically put out a book that is printed, bound, and stapled. Distribution is the problem. How long will the comic book distributor last— there’s only one big one— if the number of titles keeps declining? That means that the retail [comic book] stores will be closing or else, more and more, they’ll be shifting to toys and paperbacks and sweaters and pin-ups. I remember when comics first started being sold at retail stores, and they’d be rusty little crack-houses with a couple of racks of comic books [Irving laughs] and they had a terrible time getting started.

KANE: But they don’t have newsstand sales any more. CI: Exactly. One reason I heard was upkeep with comics, and apparently the newsstand owners only get 50% off cover price as profit. KANE: [Comics] take up a lot of space, plus the fact that there are a lot of titles that they can’t even have; they can’t even afford to have all of the titles out. It takes an entire retail store to do that! All they can do is have a sampling. If they have Marvel and DC, all they can have is a sampling. They don’t care for their full lines. As a result, it doesn’t become a great place to shop because you don’t have a selection. It is as good as it gets, but in the end you can’t depend on it for much because the selection is unavailable. This looks like a very bad time for everybody.

[Chris Irving is currently at work on a book on the history of the various incarnations of The Blue Beetle, of all super-heroes! His thoughts on the short-lived Blue Beetle radio show of the early 1940s will appear in an upcoming issue of Alter Ego.] These conceptual drawings of hero-villain and heroine were done for a projected DC prestige-format series on which Gil and Roy worked in the late 1980s. [Art ©2000 estate of Gil Kane.]

“George Roussos Did It All!”

Interview Conducted and Transcribed by William Cain

[INTERVIEWER’S NOTE: For an amazing sixty years, the late George Roussos did it all in the comic book industry. Beginning in 1940 working with Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson on Batman #2, he worked as an artist, inker, colorist, and letterer on virtually every major comics character in the industry— and many minor ones. Also a veteran of newspaper comic strips, he drew praise from Maurice Horn in his 1966 tome 100 Years of Newspaper Comics for his work on The Phantom. Until shortly before he passed away with little warning early this year, he worked on staff at Marvel Comics as a cover colorist. An accomplished photographer, painter, scholar, international traveler, and animal lover, George was a man with tremendous heart who gave 100% effort to his work, in order to give fans the very best entertainment value possible. He was one of the few true giants in the business, one who helped put comics on the entertainment map. I spoke with George on several occasions in late 1999 and early 2000. He shared his thoughts on his many accomplishments, as transcribed below. —Bill Cain]

BC: When did you realize that you had an interest in artistic things?

BILL CAIN: George, you often refer to yourself as “the old Greek.” Where were you born?

Someone else took over the strip in the latter years of the War while Miller served in uniform. He came back afterwards and took over until he died in 1949. Sadly, Barney Baxter died with him. Still, I learned a great

GEORGE ROUSSOS: I was born in Washington, D.C., sometime around 1600. [laughs]

ROUSSOS: Very early in school. I did the logo and drawings for the school paper. I actually learned the basics of comics production from Frank Miller’s strip Barney Baxter. I would imitate Frank’s style and send him samples of my work. He’d critique my work, and I’d learn from his comments and criticisms. The Barney Baxter strip was one of my favorites from the late 1930s through the ’40s. The character was a kid who loved planes and flying. The strip began as a teaching or (Above) Two photos of instruction forum for kids, to introduce George hard at work them to flying and aeronautics. But when (and play) in 1940— World War II began, Miller developed the plus the cover of an character and strip to be more of an action issue he may be workadventure against the Axis powers. He diding on: Detective n’t hire assistants, but he told me he would Comics #45, Nov. 1940, hire me if he ever went in that direction. which he inked over Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson. All photos accompanying this interview were sent to William Cain shortly before George’s death.

“George Roussos Did It All!”

deal from Miller in all aspects of the comics creation process.

BC: What was it like working on scripts from Bill Finger?

BC: You were preparing to enter the Army at the close of World War II when you got some work from General Electric. What were you doing for them?

ROUSSOS: Bill Finger was really the mastermind. He actually developed the Batman character from Bob’s wild thoughts. Personally, I liked Bill very much. He was always very helpful to me.

ROUSSOS: I drew small pamphlets, about 16 pages each, for GE. These pamphlets were distributed throughout the country and in South America, Europe, and India. I received an extension from the local draft board in order to complete this publication. When the work was over, the [Atomic] Bomb ended my going into the Army. I was to report on a Monday morning for duty, but the Bomb ended the draft. This is a good thing for the Army... they might have lost the War! [laughs] I continued this type of freelance work for twenty years. The publications were designed to encourage and educate pupils on all the opportunities available in GE.

BC: Someone early in your career gave you the nickname “Inky.” Who gave it to you, and what’s the story behind it? ROUSSOS: Bob Wood gave it to me because I was doing so much inking at the time. He wrote a story using me as a villain named “Inky” Roussos, Cartoonist in Crime! Then Jack Kirby picked it up and he called me “Inky” every time he saw me. BC: Do people still call you “Inky” today? ROUSSOS: No. People today don’t even know of this nickname. It goes back too far, around 1943 or thereabouts. BC: You said Bob Wood gave you that nickname. When did you work with him?

ROUSSOS: Bob and I worked together for many years on different publications. I distinctly remember working with him for Lev Gleason in the late ’40s. As I mentioned earlier, he created a villain using my name for one of his stories. I believe it was in “Presto Martin,” one of the backup Example of George’s comics work for features in Silver Streak. We all got a chuckle out of a General Electric in the 1940s and ’50s. panel depicting a newspaper headline proclaiming, [©2000 General Electric.] “Roussos Does It Again!” [laughs]

BC: George, most everyone knows your work from the 1960s with Marvel. But you have quite a history of work dating back to the ’40s. How did you get your start with DC and Batman?

ROUSSOS: I answered an ad in 1940 and was among sixty or so applicants. I was hired because I already knew about comics and how they are put together. The other applicants, though good, knew little about this work. Again, I owe this comic creation understanding to my correspondence with Frank Miller on Barney Baxter. Bob [Kane] didn’t have time to break anyone in, because a deadline was always on top of him. Batman became so popular that he couldn’t produce the work fast enough. I did the backgrounds, lettering, and some inking, while Jerry Robinson would do the figures. I was lucky. My first job for him required me to draw a steam engine... right up my alley. I was actually aiming for the newspaper comic strips. Prior to Batman I was working for Ripley’s Believe It or Not, lettering and patching up drawings. These were designed for the Spanish market. The office personnel were amazed that I could letter, not knowing Spanish. My Greek came in handy. [laughs]

Bob was notoriously slow and always had trouble meeting deadlines. One night I was awakened at 3:00 a.m. by a loud knock on my door. It was a telegram delivery from Bob asking me to come right away and help him finish a job on “Target and the Targeteers.” He knew he would not make the deadline if he didn’t get help right away. It may seem strange to readers of today, but many of us had no telephone in the late 1940s, so a telegram was the most expedient way to get a message to someone. So, like an idiot, I got up and took the subway from Queens into Manhattan at 3:00 a.m. You could still do that type of thing in those days. It was not unusual for me to work 40-plus consecutive hours in those days to help my friends meet deadlines. Sadly, Bob died a tragic death that was very upsetting to me at the time. I still think about him and those events to this day. BC: Did the two of you ever provide any creative input to the titles of that period?

BC: What was it like working with Bob Kane on Batman— by which, of course, we mean including work in Detective and World’s Finest Comics? ROUSSOS: He was a nice man, very easy to work with. His father brought the pages in to the old Times Square Building. He had rented a room there, which was where Jerry Robinson and I worked for about a year. After that, we were moved to the DC offices, probably to keep an eye on us. We also received a better salary. Batman was beginning to become popular, so up went the demands for more and more art. I saw Bob only on rare occasions. BC: Did you realize at the time that Batman was a social phenomenon that would have such a lasting impact in the comics business? ROUSSOS: Yes. The demand for us to produce more made it very clear that this title was very popular.

ROUSSOS: Not on those titles that we worked on, but we would often sit around and brainstorm plot ideas. Once, Lev Gleason asked me, Bob, and Charlie Biro to develop a new character for one of his books. Charlie, now passed away, was a very talented

“George Roussos Did It All!”

editor, artist, and writer. In fact, he and Lev Gleason made quite a splash in the industry in 1942 when they published Crime Does Not Pay. It was considered very realistic and violent for the comics of its day, but it was so popular that other companies began to publish police and crime books of their own. Charlie also tried to get work on various newspaper strips, but I don’t think he ever broke into that market, except for possibly some assistant work on Flash Gordon for a time. Anyway, back to the character creation... Bob, Charlie, and I all went to work on our own creation and Lev would determine the best one. I won the competition with the character Nightro. He was a man who lost his sight and relied on his dog for help. Nightro appeared as a backup feature in several of Gleason’s early Daredevil comics. [See next page.] BC: George, you’re known for your sense of humor. I understand that you used to ink in the names of friends amid the backgrounds of Batman in the ’40s. Did you ever get in trouble for doing it? ROUSSOS: No, they never even saw it. I had all this nonsense hidden. It’s kind of silly when I think about it now. BC: You also worked on several comic strips for the newspapers. What were some of the strips on which you worked? ROUSSOS: There were so many, but a favorite was The Lone Ranger dailies and Sundays with Charles Flanders in the 1960s. He also worked in comic books. From the late ’60s through the early ’70s I worked for Dan Barry on the Flash Gordon strip, inking backgrounds and doing breakdowns; he was not a very easy guy to work for. At one time during the ’60s I also worked on The Phantom as an assistant to Sy Barry; I also did some advertising layouts with him that saw print in various magazines in the late ’60s. BC: What was it like working with Sy Barry on The Phantom? ROUSSOS: Sy was Dan Barry’s brother. I did the layouts and inked backgrounds. He is a true gentleman. I enjoyed working with him immensely, and he treated me very well. BC: Which medium did you enjoy most, the newspaper strips or comic books? ROUSSOS: Oh, the newspaper strips. A newspaper strip is completely your idea, so it’s up to you to make it or break it. This means more risk, but also more money and other benefits. As you know, comic books are done by several artists— letterer, inker, penciler, writer, etc. BC: At one point, you developed a newspaper strip of your own. What’s the story behind that?

ROUSSOS: In the late ’60s I developed a character called Transisto. Bill Finger helped me put my thoughts and ideas into a viable form to pitch to prospective publishers. In fact, it was accepted initially by an English newspaper. The editor hired me for the strip and we had a deal for publication. But several weeks into the preparation, the publisher decided he wanted something else and Transisto never made print. The English were true gentlemen about it, though. They paid me double wages for the time I’d put into the project to compensate me for my troubles. BC: What was Transisto about? ROUSSOS: It was set in the future, revolving around the relationship between modern man and modern science. Transisto was a mechanical man, but the series would expose that, beneath his harsh exterior, he went through the same pains, joys, and hardship we all endure. It would allow me to explore man’s unique world in a science-fiction or

“George Roussos Did It All!”

fantasy setting. I also envisioned ample doses of humor, but it just never found the right avenue, and I never properly pursued it to make it happen. The basis of Transisto, from my perspective, was satire. I wanted to exaggerate automation, which was just coming into its own at the time. I pictured everyone being out of work, while machines did all the labor. Bill felt it should be more of a social commentary rather than satire. He wanted to emphasize people waiting in food lines, emphasizing the social impacts of automation. I wanted to focus on the individual. In any event, I deferred to Bill because he was the superior writer and I liked him and respected him a great deal. The English publisher wanted straight humor, so we missed the point. [INTERVIEWER’S NOTE: In a later phone conversation, George explained that the English newspaper was changing its format and style from a very liberal stance to a “middle of the road” stance when he approached them with Transisto. The editor felt Transisto was very different and new, so George was given the go-ahead to work the strip out for a year. But the publisher, after several weeks (nine months of strip continuity!) he went into the Army, Whit Ellsworth, the editor at DC, George Roussos’ and Finger’s determined that the entire concept was “too asked me to take it on. When Mort Meskin, one of the top “Transisto”— the English social.” Although George never got a detailed artists, left DC over a dispute with Whit, I was also asked to comic strip that almost was! explanation as to why they backed out, the editor take over inking “Vigilante” and “Johnny Quick.” Boy, was I intimated that it was “too social” and they were scared! Still, I managed to butcher it. hoping for more humor. Thus, George felt that he and Bill Finger Eventually, when “Vigilante” was made into a film [movie serial) “missed the point” that the English publishers were looking for. —BC.] in the late ’40s, DC was asked to do a publication for promotional BC: You penciled several comic book titles in the ’40s and ’50s. Many purposes for distribution at the theaters. This was quite a task. I finally Golden Age fans recall your work on “Air Wave” and The Green convinced Whit to bring Mort to my aid. Lucky me! I have an Hornet. What were some of the other early titles you penciled? original that Mort drew about me to this day. ROUSSOS: “Air Wave” was originally created by Lee Harris. When

BC: Do you have a favorite character or title from the ’40s that you worked on?

What feature feature in in Daredevil Daredevil Comics Comics II like like best? best? What page from from life, life, aa colorful colorful picture picture of of realism, realism, aa clever clever blend blend AA page of mystery and whirlwind adventure... ‘Nigh-t-ro’ is high-caliof mystery and whirlwind adventure... ‘Nigh-t-ro’ is high-calibre reading reading that that scores scores aa beat beat on on the the whole whole comic comic feature feature field. field. bre For superiority, there’s convincing proof that it’s a genuinely For superiority, there’s convincing proof that it’s a genuinely valuable contribution contribution giving giving pleasant pleasant memory memory and and remembered remembered valuable enjoyment with with its its modern-garbed modern-garbed characters, characters, easy-read easy-read conversaconversaenjoyment tions and and smartly-delineated smartly-delineated artistry. artistry. Top-ranking Top-ranking in in achieveachievetions ment it it proves proves imitators imitators are are no no substitute substitute for for this this perfect perfect ment Daredevil Comics’ smartest feature. Daredevil Comics’ smartest feature. What feature feature II would would suggest, suggest, and and why? why? What consider practical practical and and worthwhile, worthwhile, as as well well as as interesting, interesting, II consider entertaining and and timely, timely, aa new new feature feature starring starring aa hard-boiled hard-boiled entertaining U.S. Marine with lush patriotic action, thrills and exciting U.S. Marine with lush patriotic action, thrills and exciting situations. It It would would be be unboundedly unboundedly advantageous advantageous for for children children in in situations. creating 100% 100% Americanism Americanism as as correct correct and and complete complete as as that that gained gained creating in schools schools and and other other educational educational institutions institutions and and prove prove the the perperin fect “Daredevil “Daredevil Comics” Comics” high-interest high-interest in in sustaining sustaining democracy. democracy. fect Which of of Daredevil Daredevil Comic Comic artists artists would would II prefer prefer to to draw draw it? it? Which Inky Russos. Inky Russos. From Helen Helen Rushton Rushton Age Age 13 13 From 9 Homer Square 9 Homer Square, Somerville, Mass. Somerville, Mass.

Concerning this 1940s fan letter, Bill Cain wrote: “George is convinced that this is the smartest 13-year-old in history or her Dad wrote this.” And it shows George’s creation “Nightro,” to boot! The original of this letter is very brown, so we recreated it verbatim. [Nightro © Lev Gleason]

ROUSSOS: “Air Wave.” I had so much fun with this title because I could do almost anything with the character. It was only five pages, so I could go in many directions. BC: Did you ever provide any plots or inputs on those characters? ROUSSOS: No. As they say in the Army, I was ’way back in the 10th line of defense. [laughs] BC: At what point did you leave the pencils behind to concentrate on inking? ROUSSOS: I always felt drawing was a bit tiring. Inking was much easier on my nerves. I

“George Roussos Did It All!”

always felt that I didn’t develop my drawing skills, and inking seemed a better way for me. So that’s why I concentrated on inking, and got those jobs inking Batman and Superman. The Superman was done in the early ’50s, just prior to my trip to England. BC: At some point in the ’40s, you gravitated to Timely Comics. How did that happen? ROUSSOS: DC at this time was ageing rapidly. I felt they were making many mistakes and the future there looked low. Different editors took over, lost the central direction, and made the place look like the Tower of Babel. Bernie Klein, a sports cartoonist who was later killed in the Army, got a job from Jack Kirby to do some inking on Captain America. I believe it was issue #3, and Bernie got me to do backgrounds for it. Lots of people liked my background work that I developed working for Bob Kane on Batman. BC: Was the original Captain America your first opportunity to work with Jack Kirby?

ROUSSOS: Yes. It was on the Captain America book. Jack always liked my work. BC: What were some of the Timely titles you worked on with Kirby? Did you pencil any issues there, or were you mainly an inker by then? ROUSSOS: I worked on practically all of the titles of that period, plus some covers for John Buscema. No, I didn’t pencil there. I just inked, mainly Kirby’s work. BC: You also worked with Bill Gaines at DC. When did you work there and what were some of the titles you worked on? ROUSSOS: I worked mostly on mystery stories and sciencefiction. He once compared my bold stuff to Wally Wood’s by placing my first page with lots of blacks next to Woody’s intricately detailed art, which was white and grey. When he stepped 25 feet away, mine stood out like a beacon. He didn’t understand. He knew Woody was a better artist than me, but I had the drama and very strong blacks you could see easily from your town! [laughs] Bill was a kind man, who treated artists better than they treated themselves. During lunch, he would take five to eight of us out for a terrific meal. Later, he took us (about forty of us, plus wives) to various sporting events and treated us to all kinds of goodies to eat and drink. He was a rare guy. Oh, I also did a

(Top) George hand-colored this great splash from an “Air Wave” story he drew for Detective Comics, done circa 1943-46. Repro’d from the original art. [©2000 DC Comics.] (Left) An absolutely exquisite Meskin page from Golden Lad, done circa 1945-46. “When Mort Meskin... left DC over a dispute with Whit,” he drew this comic, among other things, for the company alternately known as Spark, Ken Crossen, and Fact and Fiction. [Golden Lad ©2000 by Spark, et al.; repro’d from photocopies of the original artwork, circa 1945-46.]

“George Roussos Did It All!”

special book for him, similar to the GE books I mentioned earlier. BC: So you really enjoyed working with Gaines? ROUSSOS: Yes. He was a real gem. I had many philosophical discussions with him, especially on Dianetics. BC: You worked on the regular staff of Standard Comics in the ’50s, which was a big jump for you from your freelance days. What did you do on staff there? ROUSSOS: Standard Comics was known for buying material from many different creators, so it was not unusual to get substandard material that needed much improvement. I did a great deal of the corrections to the art, inking, lettering, and coloring. I’d do just about anything you can imagine. I did some original art for them, too, mostly science-fiction and adventure stories. I also worked on “Happy Fairy Tales” for their Real Life Stories title. My old friend Mort Meskin worked there, plus Jerry Robinson and Frank Frazetta. Frank, of course, went on to become a premier fantasy painter. BC: How did you react to the public scare tactics against comics after [Dr. Frederic] Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent hit the public conscience? Were you concerned about the future of

Artist Bernie Klein, 1940. Klein was killed in World War Two.

the comics as an entertainment medium? ROUSSOS: Not too much. I was not too wise about the business, but I was confident that they would find a way out. Bob Wood and eventually Gaines were responsible for the outcome. We knew something would come out of it. BC: You also worked on mystery titles for Atlas Comics [as Timely/Marvel became known in the early ’50s, though “Atlas” was really the name of publisher Martin Goodman’s self-owned distributor, rather than of the comics line per se]. What were some of the titles and things you did for them? ROUSSOS: I worked mostly on their mystery stories, but I can’t recall the titles. BC: You worked with Jack Kirby on some of those issues, didn’t you? ROUSSOS: I don’t think so. I think Jack and Joe Simon were still working with DC, and they produced their own books for other companies. BC: I understand you are a big fan of Hal Foster’s work [on Tarzan and Prince Valiant]. Who are some of the other artists whose work you’ve admired? ROUSSOS: Also Chester Gould for his work on Dick Tracy. His art and drawing skills were ideal for that strip. There were several other illustrators from that period whose work I admired, but their names escape me now. BC: Didn’t you work with Alex Toth for a while? ROUSSOS: No, I never worked for Alex. When I was with DC, we met and went to lunch. He liked my work, and I still don’t know why. He was much, much better than me. Contrary to George’s memory, this “Air Wave” tale— from Detective #57, Sept. 1943— was seven pages long, not five. One of the hero’s neatest stunts was running along telephone wires, often accompanied by a pet parrot named Static. [©2000 DC Comics]

BC: Was there a particular artist you always wanted to work with and never got the chance?

“George Roussos Did It All!”

Leon Harvey would give us scripts to work from. We had a pretty good system going. Jerry was, and still is, a great artist, but he was slow, especially on the inking aspect. So I would do breakdowns, lettering, and background inking, allowing Jerry to concentrate on the figures. Since we knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses, we played to that end. For example, since I knew he was somewhat slow, I’d adjust the breakdowns for larger panels and bigger scenes. Then, after he’d draw and ink the figures based on these breakdowns, I’d complete the lettering and the backgrounds. We’d then split the paycheck 50/50. This process worked well during our time drawing Batman. After a time, we went our separate ways to pursue other options in different directions. I stayed on with Harvey for some time, mainly inking mysteries and Army adventures. The Green Hornet strip I

In his later years George painted as a hobby, and the subject was often trains, lovingly rendered. Interviewer Bill Cain says that this painting, which George presented him with as a gift in 1999, is one of his favorite possessions. [Painting ©2000 estate of George Roussos.]

ROUSSOS: Mostly newspaper artists. Although I was offered a job, I wasn’t good enough. One was Chic Young’s Blondie. I really pursued a position to be his assistant, but it just didn’t work out. So I worked with various other artists on other strips, as we have discussed; but Blondie was one I never worked on that I think I’d have really enjoyed. BC: You mentioned a trip to England. I know you spent some time there, working on some comic strips. When and how did that come about? ROUSSOS: I met Jack Small, who was from England, while I worked for DC in the ’40s. We became close friends, and I helped him on inking and backgrounds for the “Star-Spangled Kid” after [original SSK artist] Hal Sherman went into the Army. I went on to help him on other titles and on a strip for Western Publishing. When he returned to London, he began working on various London-based comics and began running into deadline troubles. He wrote to me and I wound up in London in 1954 doing the same work as Jack. To take money out of the country, we had to get permission from the Bank of England. At the same time, on my own, I completed a couple of western strips. BC: When did you return to the U.S., and where did you work upon your return? ROUSSOS: When I returned in 1955, I worked for DC and Harvey Comics, inking war stories and, eventually, The Green Hornet. Jerry Robinson and I were both hired as freelancers for Harvey. We were a pretty hot team, thanks to a large degree to the success of Batman.

1940s Green Hornet splash by “Inky” Roussos. The logo and part of a pasted-up figure are missing from the page. And that pose (inset) of the mummy swinging was often used in George’s “Air Wave” feature for Detective Comics. Harvey planned a Hornet newspaper strip with George in the mid-’50s, but it never came off. Repro’d from photocopies of the original art, from the collection of Roy Thomas. [©2000 Harvey Comics.]

“George Roussos Did It All!” Marvel more than others?

mentioned before was well before the TV series of the ’60s. Harvey Comics, also known as Family Comics at that time, was toying with the idea of publishing the character as a newspaper strip in the late ’50s, so I was tasked with inking and designing backgrounds for this effort. It never materialized, though, so after a short time they dropped the whole project.

ROUSSOS: Not really. I just did whatever work Stan gave me. After Roy Thomas took over as Marvel’s editor-in-chief and prior to my working on staff, he often called me in to do corrections in the art. He once commented that “When George comes in, he completes all the corrections in adequate time and the book is ready for the engraver.” Eventually, I worked directly for Roy on staff. He was a pleasure to work with. Anytime he was critical of something I did and I turned out to be correct, he’d always apologize for it. In short, he was a true gentleman, which is a rarity today. John Verpoorten was the Bullpen [production] manager. He was a gem of a guy with lots of knowledge and a good heart... well liked and respected. Unfortunately, John passed away much too soon. BC: When did you stop inking on a regular basis, and why? ROUSSOS: When I was hired by Marvel in 1972 to work on staff, I began coloring covers and working directly for Stan. His covers were extremely important to him. He realized from his experience that bright, dramatic covers catch the eye of consumers... no grays... primary colors, basically. Marie Severin had been coloring covers for Stan, but she decided to give it up and start drawing. She gave me the opportunity to try my

I penciled and inked various other strips and works on my own, but I can’t recall the specific features. BC: By the time the 1960s rolled around, were you still working as an inker at DC or were you penciling, as well?

ROUSSOS: No, by then I was strictly inking. I worked with just about all the artists of that era. As for the titles, as we discussed, I had earlier done “Air Wave” on my own. Later, I inked Batman, Superman, and at various times I inked “Vigilante,” “Johnny Quick,” “Deadman,” “Starman,” and many others that escape my memory. BC: At what point did you gravitate to Marvel? ROUSSOS: I returned to Marvel around 1964. I was getting less and less work at DC, and I saw that Jack Kirby was back with Stan at Marvel. I started asking for work from Stan. He couldn’t afford to pay much, but I inked everything... or ruined it, depending on your perspective! [laughs] By 1972 I was hired on the Marvel staff fulltime. BC: What was it like working with Stan Lee? ROUSSOS: Stan is one of the best. He’s very efficient, knowledgeable, and objective. He’s a ball of positive energy that we all fed from at the time. He created a very stimulating place to work, and I think we all need that. BC: Was that the first time you used the pseudonym “George Bell”? ROUSSOS: No, I’d always used that name when I submitted work for Stan. It was sort of a joke, but it was sort of serious, too. I didn’t want to lose any of my DC contacts or irritate the DC editors, so I used that name to protect my identity. It was a fairly common thing to do in those days. BC: You inked quite a few books regularly for Marvel in the early ’60s, many over Kirby’s pencils. Most fans remember your work on the classic “Thing vs. Hulk” battle in Fantastic Four #25. Was there a favorite title or creator you enjoyed at

A never-published (color) 1999 drawing of “Lunar-Man,” a character he created. In the original art, the hero’s shirt, tights, and helmet are red, and the lunar chest sigil white; the rest, including the goggles, a sort of light green. “It’s one of a series of titles he and I dreamed up,” says Bill Cain. [Art ©2000 by the estate of George Roussos.]

“George Roussos Did It All!”

hand at it, and, after some direction from Stan, I began coloring most of the covers. To this end, I believe I did a good job.

well. Anyway, he would critique my work and I’d go back and try to learn from his suggestions.

BC: I think we all agree with that, George. In fact, Jim Shooter at the 1995 Chicago Comics Convention commented to the audience at the “Stan Lee Roast” that you were “one of the best cover colorists in the universe.” What is your job with Marvel now?

BC: What are some of the subjects of your artwork?

ROUSSOS: Just color corrections and occasionally a cover or two. It’s different at Marvel now. All the editors make their own decisions, which, I believe, is a danger. BC: What are some of the things you look for in a good cover?

George during his days as a Marvel colorist.

ROUSSOS: It all depends on the drawing itself. My attitude is to

dramatize and to use strong coloring. BC: I understand that painting is one of your hobbies. How long have you been pursuing this? ROUSSOS: A very long time, almost from the beginning, in fact. Once a week I’d do one. I had an artist who worked with me named Stan Kaye. He worked with a famous illustrator named Dean Corn-

ROUSSOS: At that time it was ships in dramatic situations. Also snow scenes, street scenes, Egyptian tombs, railroad trains, basically real life scenes and events from my perspective. BC: George, you’ve done it all in the sixty years you’ve worked in the comics industry. What are your plans for the next sixty years? ROUSSOS: A terrific question without an answer. BC: What would you like to share with Alter Ego’s audience that we have not covered? ROUSSOS: For those who are interested in this field, find an artist whose work you like and study that work. Eventually, you’ll develop your own technique. Above all, study all aspects of how comics are drawn and put together... penciling, inking, lettering, coloring, and so on. When the opportunity knocks, be ready to fill that opportunity. Going to a good art school should give one a better background, as you will learn first-hand from life drawing. BC: George, thank you very much for sharing your time and insight with us. It’s been a great honor to meet you and to share you insights with comics fans everywhere. ROUSSOS: My pleasure, Bill. [Bill Cain has spent the past twenty years as a U.S. Army officer, serving with multiple units. Now a Lieutenant Colonel, and a Gulf War veteran, he is currently stationed at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. He grew up loving comics, especially Captain America, Thor, and Sgt. Fury. He met George Roussos through correspondence and they became immediate friends. He and George hoped to launch their own company, Victory Comics, with characters they had co-created, but George’s untimely recent death ended those plans. He says that, another time, he may be able to publish those comics “in memory of my great and good departed friend.”]

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C O L L E C T O R

Alfredo Alcala

Alfredo Alcala (1925-2000) A Memory by Manuel Auad

LFREDO ALCALA was born August 23, 1925, in Talisay, Occidental Negros, Philippines. Bent on becoming an illustrator, he dropped out of school at a tender age. Initially, he painted signs, and then turned to designing chandeliers, table lamps, and garden furniture for a wrought-iron shop. After work he would spend night to dawn studying and copying Harold Foster’s Prince Valiant and Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon. However, it was Louis K. Fine, the artist of comic book heroes “The Black Condor,” “Uncle Sam,” “The Doll Man,” etc., who most influenced him.

In October 1948 Alcala got his first professional comic book job with Bituin [Star] Komiks. A month later he was working for Ace Publications, which started with two comic books: Pilipino Komiks and Tagalog Klasiks. Later on, two more titles were added: Hiwaga Komiks and Espesyal Komiks. Alcala worked on these comic books, which were coming out simultaneously, all by himself— penciling, inking, and lettering. Because of the workload demand, there were times when he went without sleep for days. Alcala also wrote some of the stories which he drew. Among the most memorable ones are Ukala, an epic set against the background of the American Northwest, and Voltar, a Viking saga. Both were so meticulously drawn that he reaped praises from even the severest art critics of the day. He also drew a series on the German and Japanese warships that had become legends during World War II. As Alcala progressed, he studied American illustrators such as Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth, Dean Cornwell, J.C. Leyendecker, and others. One of his strongest influences was the great British muralist Frank Brangwyn. In the early 1970s DC Comics’ editor Carmine Infantino, along with Joe Orlando, traveled to the Philippines to look at some of the work being done by the Filipino artists they had heard so much about. Alcala was one of the first to be hired, on the spot. He worked, for many years, for most of the U.S. comic book publishers. Of all the Filipino artists hired, Alcala did the most work for DC, taking on any title sent to him. He could draw everything from a horror story

to a war story or a sword-and-sorcery story with such ease that he never ceased to impress his editors. In 1976 Alcala came to the U.S. and continued to do an enormous amount of work. Aside from comic books, he also did daily and Sunday strips such as Rick O’Shay and Star Wars. In 1977 he was presented with the Inkpot Award at the San Diego Comics Convention. Alcala’s work on The Savage Sword of Conan, both inking the pencils of John Buscema and later on his own, will long be remembered. In the 1980s he revived his Voltar character for Warren Publications. Because of his failing eyesight, Alcala could not continue to draw. And on April 4, 2000, he passed away. He was 74 years old. We shall not see the likes of him again. Conan ©2000 Conan Properties, Inc.; other art ©2000 Estate of Alfredo Alcala.

Alfredo Alcala [Manuel Auad, who is the editor of two acclaimed books showcasing the art of Alex Toth, was a longtime friend of Alcala’s. He will miss Alfredo— [And so will I, and so will many others. I myself still treasure a lovely painting Alfredo insisted on giving me one day, simply because I admired it; he wouldn’t take a penny for it. It appears to depict Don Quixote on horseback, facing his infamous windmills— until you look a second time, and suddenly realize that Don Q. isn’t on horseback— he’s a centaur! Tilting with windmills— yet full of fantasy— and a playful sense of mischief. [That’s how I’ll always think of the great Alfredo Alcala. —Roy Thomas]

Re:

re:

ated, but the fact that they were never created in a vacuum. “Superman” took off in the midst of two great cataclysms— the back end of the Great Depression and the beginning of World War II. Now, a lot of the creators referred to their military experience, but almost in passing. Yet if “Superman” marked the beginning of the whole super-hero world and the growth of the comic book industry, it owed much to those two cataclysms. And the regeneration, in somewhat degraded form, it’s true, of the whole messianic idea that underlies the Judaeo-Christian west (the Jews at one pole looking toward the coming of the messiah, the Christians at the other looking back on the messiah who had already come and hoping for a second visit)— so that, given war and depression, a superman of sorts already had the welcome mat out for him. And no one was more welcoming than a drafted GI in the midst of a war. In fact, as you may already know, 50% of DC’s circulation went to the armed forces during the war. I don’t want to belabor the point in this letter of thanks as much as simply point it out, and suggest that it would be more interesting if more of comics history, the kinds of stories that became popular, were explained in terms of the social context that made them successful. It would serve a better purpose than trying to figure out whether, for example, Otto Binder wrote the first “Bizarro” story or I wrote it. In fact, I wrote the first one, but it didn’t appear first because the daily strips were written far more than ten weeks in advance, and Otto, who surely wouldn’t have seen my story before it came out (or if he had would he have copied it) probably got it from Mort Weisinger, who copied and passed on and stole from everybody, including himself. Since I seem to recall Mort’s proposing to me a glimmer of an idea for a story with some kind of Superman double, although coming up with something as sophisticated as the first Bizarro story was outside the grasp of his imagination, I suppose he deserves some credit for suggesting the double. Incidentally, by the time that first Bizarro story came out, I had already left DC, deciding that there were better things in life than writing for Weisinger.

Our mascot at war! A previously-unpublished 1985 Ron Harris conceptual drawing of the super-hero called Alter Ego which he and Roy & Dann Thomas developed for First Comics. [Art © Ron Harris; Alter Ego is a trademark of Roy & Dann Thomas.]

Hi—It says on the envelope bringing me the latest issue of Alter Ego— “99 issues still remaining.” A lifetime subscription? Well, first, thank you very much. Second, I’ll admit to reading through most of the two issues I’ve received so far. A lot of nostalgic stuff for me. Especially the Spring issue. I really first got started in comics through Shelly Mayer. The way I met him has been, shall we say, immortalized in a Superman story I wrote many, many years ago, entitled “The Chef of Bohemia,” celebrating that tiny, one-arm, one-counter little village restaurant known as Alex Borscht Bowl. But I’ve told that story elsewhere. However, as I lost myself somewhat in the detailed recollections of who wrote and drew what, and how they did it, and whether this account or that account of the origin of any particular strip was accurate or not, along with some fine drawings and photographs, it struck me that in the midst of all the trivia of detail something essential was missing. Let me put it this way: You do such a fine and unsparing job of what comics fanzines usually do that I first began to notice the omission so common to all of them. Maybe I also noticed because it’s one of the things I don’t do. After working on “Superman” and “Batman” (as well as legions of other comics) for some 17 years, I never lost the sense of what I call context. Not just how the comics came to be cre-

But that’s beside the point. The real point I’m trying to suggest is—how about more material in which the context of a strip gets examined? And thanks again for the subscription. I’m anticipating years of pleasant nostalgia. Alvin Schwartz And we aim to give it to you, Mr. S.! Actually, we feel we provide a bit more context in Alter Ego than you give us credit for, but doubtless not nearly enough. Thanks for your insights on working in comics in the 1940 and ’50s, and we hope to hear from you again.

Dear Roy: A/E V3#4 was one of the best issues yet. But I’m pretty sure it was Flash Comics #4, not #3, in which Shelly Moldoff took over “Hawkman.” In #3 Shelly was still doing “Cliff Cornwall.” Wasn’t “Bentley of Scotland Yard” Gil Kane’s first solo feature? After his death, I was re-reading the last “Green Lantern” story by the original team in Green Lantern #75, and suddenly realized that John Broome seemed to be paying tribute to his long-standing collaborator... who, like Broome, was leaving the book with that issue. In “The Golden Obelisk of Qward,” Green Lantern is accompanied throughout by an idealistic and courageous young doctor who resembles Gil Kane... and his name is Eli Bently! Eli was, of course, Gil Kane’s original first name, but the last name was hard to place... until I was reminded of the MLJ strip, which makes it almost certainly more than a coincidence. Kane seems to have drawn most (though not all) of the “Sandman” stories from the late Simon and Kirby era that weren’t penciled by

Re: Kirby himself. S&K seemed to assign specific artists to their various features: Louis Cazeneuve got most of “The Boy Commandos,” and Gil Kane got “Sandman” and, I think, most of “The Newsboy Legion.” “Manhunter” seemed to be taken away from the S&K studio entirely, though he didn’t last long without them. Concerning the two “written off” tiers of “The Flash” printed on the final page of my history of Flash Comics: My impression is that the King Arthur story is indeed Infantino, but that the panels at the top of the page are by Lee Elias. (The man Flash is rescuing has a very Elias-like face, especially in the second panel. It always helps to look at the secondary characters who appear only in one story, rather than at the hero and his supporting cast. Most editors then tried to keep the latter looking consistent, sometimes even to the point of having them redrawn by other artists if they didn’t... a policy that didn’t seem to die out completely until Murray Boltinoff got pilloried in the early ’70s for having Al Plastino and later Murphy Anderson redraw Jack Kirby’s Superman faces.) My researcher friend Martin O’Hearn agrees with you, and disagrees with me; he thinks both those tiers are by Infantino. The “Black Canary” panels on that page, of course, are also by Infantino, but they aren’t unpublished; that story finally saw print in DC Special #3 in early 1969. [NOTE: Carmine has since confirmed that the disputed “Flash” tier is not his work.--R.T.]

33 story? There’s some question as to whether the strips or the comic book came first. Normally one would suspect the latter (since the comic book appeared months before the strip sequence, and in general comic books have more of a lead time than newspaper strips, especially daily strips). But several people with some inside knowledge have said the strip sequence was at least conceived first, and Alvin Schwartz himself has said that this particular sequence was prepared well in advance (he’s quite sure he was gone from DC by the time it appeared). A few details also point to the strip version being first (a DC house ad for Superboy #68 showed Bizarro’s costume with a “B” insignia, rather than the actual story “S”). Unfortunately, even the version I have is incomplete, and doesn’t include Bizarro’s actual creation or the way he got his name. In the comic book he just misunderstood when someone called him “bizarre,” but the “B” in that version could almost have been a distorted version of Superman’s “S.” Possibly someone simply thought it was a “B” and came up with a name to match, much as (in the movies and on TV) Superman’s own insignia was a Kryptonian letter or symbol and not an actual “S,” except that Lois Lane gave him a name beginning with the letter she thought it was. Of course, my chain of logic completely breaks down if Binder’s Superman strips were newspaper clippings, which he clearly couldn’t have acquired until his version was already in print. If the strip came first, then he borrowed heavily from that sequence in both the first comic book Bizarro story in Superboy and the second two-parter (wherein Bizarro fell in love with Lois Lane). Does the newspaper sequence include the actual creation of Bizarro? That’s something I’d really like to see!

I notice that [in V3#4] you rewrote my statement that Gardner Fox wrote the initial “Sandman” stories in Adventure Comics. Martin and I are still convinced he did, even if Creig Flessel (who had nothing to do with the strip until later) disagrees. Did I mention Bernard Baily’s statement, relayed by no less than Harlan Ellison, to the effect that the first-published “Sandman” story— Rich Morrissey (via e-mail) in World’s Fair #1, which Baily drew— was indeed the first one produced? HarThe several weeks’ worth of 1958 lan said Baily didn’t remember who Superman strips which writer Otto wrote it, but I suspect that may have Binder sent me circa 1964 were indeed been Fox, or even Ken Fitch (who syndicate proofs, so your “chain of logic” wrote most of Baily’s other features would seem to hold up— as per the preapart from Siegel’s “Spectre,” including ceding comments of their writer, Alvin “Tex Thomson” and “Hour-Man”). I Schwartz. Sorry about the typo or two in doubt Bert Christman would have writyour article in V3#4... but it’s almost ten a story he didn’t draw. And Marc vindicating to see that even guys who Svensson has found an early “Sandman” From what became Gil Kane’s last Green Lantern issue of his original spend a lot of time trying to identify run (#75, March 1970), writer John Broome introduced “Dr. Eli story in which there appear to be three Golden Age comic artists can disagree! Bently,” who (even more on other pages) resembled Gil. See Rich Sandmen (Wes Dodds and two of his Morrissey’s accompanying letter for reasons why. [©2000 DC Comics.] And no, alas, the actual creation of old Air Force buddies) in an aviation Bizarro is not shown in the couple of story that doesn’t read like any of the dozen dailies of which Otto sent me proofs. others. I suspect this may well have been written by Christman himself (the famed Flying Tiger who died in the War), but for that very Dear Roy— reason I doubt he wrote the others. Flash #137’s “Vengeance of the Immortal Villain” was the third I had another thought on those 1958 Bizarro Superman strips by teaming of the Golden and Silver Age Flashes, not the second (as it Alvin Schwartz and Curt Swan that you were sent by Otto Binder in says in the caption on page 25 of Alter Ego V3#4). The second team-up the 1960s (as mentioned in the letter column). If they were syndicate was #129’s “Double Danger on Earth” (June 1962 ish, on sale April proofs rather than clippings from a newspaper, that might help 1962). Nor was the page you showed [inked by Murphy] Anderson; resolve a point of discussion several of us “Superman” researchers had all the 1961-65 team-ups were inked by Joe Giella. several years ago. Could Mort Weisinger have sent them to Otto Carl Gafford (via e-mail) Binder with the suggestion that he turn them into a comic book

Re: ordered it, as he did that sort of thing with heads a number of times.

Thanks for the info, Gaff. Careless of me. (Carl, of course, spent a number of years as a professional comic book colorist, and currently draws funny-animal comics. We plan to print some of his comics-parodying cartoons at the first available opportunity. And hey, this is one, so....)

Incidentally, only inkers, not pencilers, can sometimes be identified by their ears. The reason is simple. It is something not considered to be a mark of identification of a character unless he has cauliflower ears (or “Spock” ears). The inker saves time by developing a standard 3- or 4-stroke “ear.” Few inkers will bother to follow the penciler in every ear drawn. The exception might be a tight closeup of a main character in profile, but even then, why bother? Who gets turned on by ears? Art spotters, that’s who! The Abner Sundell piece in #4 [from the 1942 Writers’ Digest Yearbook] strikes me as one of those “How to write comics” pieces of the 1940s. The writer is condescending, has preconceived and many false ideas about his young readers, and would pass on some of the most boring stories of my childhood.

Roy! I got the latest issue of Alter Ego yesterday and enjoyed your “Remembering Gil” article. However, you stated that the closest Gil and Bill came to collaborating was on a few covers. I hunted A cartoon by Carl Gafford for his apa feathrough my unorganized ture “This Month In Comics...” (Dec. collection and found 1999). [©2000 Carl Gafford.] Creatures on the Loose #16 (from 1972), the very first “Gullivar of Mars” story, on which I knew they had worked— but, to my surprise, you scripted it, too! Also, I found examples of the Giant-Size Captain Marvel from 1975 (which did reprint all the stories you and Gil did together), and your Amazing Spider-Man stories (with a new Gil cover) that you said hadn’t been reprinted.

Here’s the best data I have on Abner Sundell. I think Michael T. Gilbert was working from an earlier guess of mine that Abbie worked at Fox circa 1940. I agree with Ron Goulart that he came over to MLJ from Chesler with Lucky and Cooper: SUNDELL, ABNER (writer, editor) Shop work: CHESLER (w) 1939 Staff: FOX (editor) 1941 Staff: MLJ (editor) 1940-41 I need to see another page from “U.S. Jones” (p. 33) to be sure, but I’d say that was Ramona Patenaude on U.S. Jones. It is certainly not Louis Cazenueve, and probably not Sam Cooper. Jerry G. Bails (via e-mail) Thanks for the info, Jerry. As founder and editor emeritus of Alter Ego, the retired prof from Detroit continues to be one of A/E’s most valuable assets.

Carl Taylor Giant-Size Captain Marvel #1-and-only couldn’t have reprinted all of Gil’s and my CM stories, Carl, since its cover touts it as having “68 Big Pages,” and the stories in our five issues had a combined count of 100 pages, excluding the covers! Oddly, I don’t recall ever having a copy of that collection, but I do know that its cover wasn’t by Gil.

Dear Roy, I’ve been enjoying V3#4, but I need to let you know of one correction before I forget. The Flash drawing on the title page of “Quick as a Flash” is not by Hibbard. It’s by Lou Ferstadt, trying as much as possible to put the best face on The Flash. All the figures are definitely Lou’s. The curious thing is, he copies Flash’s face so accurately than I can tell you who the original inker was— Jon Chester Kozlak. He gave The Flash that particular shaped ear. Kozlak had nothing to do with the inking of the rest of the piece. Only Garrick’s head, which you’ll notice is slightly too large for the body, is a “steal” from Hibbard. I wouldn’t say that Ferstadt did that. I suspect Shelly Mayer

Dear Roy, I’m a comic book writer and fanzine editor here in Brazil, and am sending you a comic book (Udigrudi Especial - 1989), in which I wrote the story “Alta Voltagem” (“High Voltage”). Your fanzine Alter Ego is one of the best things that has happened in the ’90s. The article in Vol. 3, #1, by John G. Pierce (is he from Brazil?) about Captain Marvel vs. Human Torch was very good. But if you will allow me, I have two corrections: The name of the Brazilian artist is Mike Deodato, Jr. (not Deodata)... and O Guri translates as The Boy, not Oh Boy. Roberto Guedes Rua Prof. Sylas Baltazar Araujo, 219 Sao Paulo - SP Brazil 04257-010 Thanks, Roberto. A/E has devoted space to non-U.S. super-hero comics of an earlier era ever since (Vol. 1) #9 back in 1965, and we plan to continue that tradition soon. John Pierce is an American with an interest in things Brazilian. He returns soon— with a study of Captain Marvel’s many imitators.

Dear Roy: In amongst the cornucopia of A/E #2, the piece of Dr. Mid-Nite story seen on page 19 was truly worth the price of admission! Recently, at the JSA Appreciation Association, we have polled members as to their five favorite JSA members. The one consistent entry has been the

Re: good Doc. It pleases me to no end, this gushing forth of popularity for this fine character. I cannot wait for your All-Star Companion. Jim Beard “JSA Jim” Sylvania, Ohio At long last, Jim, it’s only a few months away. And in this issue you’ll find the splash of that same previously unpublished Dr. MidNite story, a page of which was featured in V3#2. By the way, any reader who wants to contact your JSA fan group should try: http://www.clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/thejsaappreciationassociation.

35 shoehorn the law, morals, and ethics of today into a situation several decades gone. Of course, in addition, it should be pointed out that only rarely am I in possession, even on loan, of original art, outside the relatively few pieces in my collection. For the most part, I work with copies sent me by collectors or gleaned from other sources. ’Twould seem to me, from the broohaha you mention, that the Internet, like oldtime comics fandom before it, contains a few users with far too much time on their hands. (“Contentious” is right!) Nor does someone’s calling an action “hypocrisy” necessarily make it so. I reject the implication, both for myself and for other persons named. If someone wants to continue the argument, he will probably have to do so without my further participation. (By the way, David Stepp, with whom I certainly have no quarrel, runs a great website devoted to the ongoing history of the Justice Society, which you can access at http://www.execpc.com/-icicle/min.html. I heartily recommend it, even if I can’t quite always agree with what it considers the “canonical” history of the JSA. Great job!)

And speaking of JSA-related groups:

I was always a great Bill Everett fan, and it’s good to see so much coverage of his work in A/E V3#3. Some thoughts, turning

through the page:

Roy, On the ever-contentious Usenet, you’ve started a small fire. The issue at hand is a comparison between your stated desire in A/E V3#1 to be given a crack at the Infinitors vs. your publication of a treasure trove of original art. The charge has been made that, if you’re using the original art, either the creator should be paid or the art returned to them when you’re done. If you [use] it without giving them or their heirs anything, then you would be guilty of hypocrisy since you have asked for consideration on your creative work (the characters) without granting same to the artist whose work you will feature. I said I would ask you for a comment, hence this note. David W. Stepp (via Internet) I’ve edited out any references in your letter to anyone besides myself, David, because I speak only for myself here: I feel I’ve nothing to hide or apologize for re the use of old original art. I don’t see the two cases you cite as analogous at all. I never claimed DC and/or Marvel had no right to have other people script heroes I’d created without my permission— only that I refuse to recognize those stories’ legitimacy, just as I don’t consider my All-Star Squadron or America vs. the JSA as legitimate JSA tales the way the 1940s ones were. If I can use a piece of rare art to further the cause of an ongoing history of comics, I fully intend to do so. A/E is not designed to make a major profit, so I believe the comparison you report collapses of its own weight. All of us are doing this magazine primarily because we like doing it, not because it’s going to make us rich. Please remember, too, that usually the artist had been paid for the pages given away by DC and Marvel, and that at the time both companies and recipients at least tacitly accepted a company’s right to do so. I don’t think anything useful will be accomplished by trying to

Perhaps some readers referred to them as Marvel Comics, but all my friends and I called them Timely. (We didn’t have a problem with Everett’s signature, either, I suspect because the Greek “E” was still in common use in day-to-day handwriting.) In the photo of Everett on page 5, lying just above his left hand, is a comp or something for The Church. It appears to be for a dust jacket or the first page of an article. Try as I would, I couldn’t make out the subtitle in script. In the center of the page is a circle containing what may be a portrayal of two steeples. Is there a well-known twin-spired church in New York? It seems possible, also, that the last two letters on the bottom line— perhaps the author credit line— were “S.J.” Since I’m not online, I asked a friend to check with the Library of Congress. Nothing written by a member of the Jesuits for that period turned up in print, however. Over Everett’s left shoulder is an apparent pulp air-war cover. The signature is unlike any by Everett I’m familiar with, and it does not look at all his style, so it suggests an art direction job. Will Murray says it could be from one of Goodman’s air-war pulps. Although he doesn’t recognize it, an air-war pulp collector ought to. To Everett’s right is what appears to be an unfinished Amazing Man splash. It has been many years since I’ve seen the Everett run of AM, but this does not look superficially like an Everett page. I’m going on about this because as an Everett fan I’d like to know if he designed book jackets during that period, or did magazine layouts, or what, in addition to his comics work. And I’d like to have a better idea of when the picture was taken— which could probably be established by the AM page and the pulp painting. Is the original photograph more readable? As you likely know by now, the cowboy on the Alter Ego #10

Re: Everett’s first thought for the Sub-Mariner and Burgos picked it up and transformed it.... Richard Kyle 3714 Lewis Ave. Long Beach, CA 90807-4120

Interesting speculations, Richard. Does anyone out there have any thoughts on that oftreprinted photo Bill Everett gave me circa 1969? And thanks for reminding me of the real name of Bill’s cowboy hero.

Roy, Re the Bill Everett page featuring Doc Doom which you mention on page 14 of A/E V3#3: The panels therein were used in the last few pages of Part One of Super-Villain TeamUp #1 (1975). Both George Tuska and Bill Everett are credited for penciling that section. The ink credit says Fred Kida. Daniel Preece (via e-mail) Sounds like a bit of that Everett job was cannibalized, Daniel; I undoubtedly knew that at one time, but had forgotten it completely until you mentioned it.

Dear Roy, The matter of Fantastic Four #1’s inker was debated at length in the UK’s Jack Kirby Quarterly a while back. The consensus was that it had been inked by a forgotten Atlas inker named Chris Rule. (I’d previously thought it must have been Art Simek.) A friend of mine queried why it is always assumed that it was the work of one person. Why couldn’t it have been a dreaded deadline doom with Brodsky, Rule, Simek, and anyone else in the office at the time who was capable of holding a brush, all piling in together? This might explain everyone’s uncertainty; they’d all been picking up elements of different artists’ styles.) Here’s a treat: A Bill Everett “Music Master” page from Reg’lar Fellers Heroic Comics in the early 1940s. Repro’d from photocopies of the original art, courtesy of Tom Horvitz. Contact him at TRH Gallery in Tarzana, CA at (818) 757-0747. [©2000 Eastern Color Printing.]

cover shown on page 8 is Bull’s-Eye Bill from Target Comics. The Everett postcards were terrific. Glad you printed all you had. It’s too bad Wendy Everett decided not to release the journals. That may be understandable, but still— Too bad. The “which came first,” the Torch or the Sub-Mariner, question is probably unanswerable. One oddity, though, is the Sub-Mariner’s name. If you spell a later Everett character’s name backward you get “NAMORdyh.” This suggests that the Sub-Mariner’s original name may have been “Hydroman,” and that Everett simply spelled it backward in an effort to come up with a (sort of) civilian identity. Then he changed Hydroman to Sub-Mariner, leaving Namor, a striking and original name, behind. (I know it’s “Roman” spelled backward, too.) I wonder if Hydroman’s ability to turn into water— which is a closer analog to the Torch’s ability to turn into fire— may not have been

By the way, I nearly met you about ten years ago at a UK Comic Art Convention. I seem to remember your appearance being somewhat curtailed due to the after-effects of your having been recently run over by a motorbike in Central Park. But what do I know? Tim Barnes 103, Tredworth Road Gloucester, Glos GL1 4QU England

Close, Tim. Here’s what actually happened back in autumn of ’85: A few days before the British con opened, my wife Dann and I were jogging in London’s Hyde Park (not New York’s Central Park). After looking both right and left, but apparently not in the correct order, I started to trot across the one narrow road running through the park.

Re: Next thing I knew, I was flying through the air, to wind up in the same hospital where, nurses were quick to inform me, Princess Di had given birth. The motorbike, I’m quietly proud to say, was a total loss; so was most of the flesh on the left side of my face, leaving me resembling Two-Face.

Roy smiles for the camera in front of a London hospital in autumn 1985. Note the blackened eye; the badlyscraped left side of his face isn’t too apparent here. Can we spell “Quasimodo,” boys and girls? [Photo by Dann Thomas.]

After two uncomfortable days I was released in a wrist-cast (for a small cracked bone), facial bandages, and the same jogging outfit I’d been wearing when hit. (See photo, which Dann took to commemorate the occasion and has been showing ever since to anyone who’ll look; she invariably compares me to Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein.) A day or so later, at the London con, fellow attendee Marv Wolfman took one look at me and said: “You know, I was at Madame Tussaud’s [Wax Museum] yesterday, and I didn’t see anything there that looked as bad as you!”

As for whether or not Chris Rule inked F.F. #1-2: could be, but consensus isn’t confirmation. The “anyone in the office” suggestion is strained, since in 1961 the only person who was there every day was Stan Lee. Mark Evanier opined a while back that the inker of #1-2 might have been George Klein, while Artie Simek’s daughter Jean recently told me she seems to recall her father inking a comic around that time. Let’s keep digging, shall we?

37 the never-published 1946 JSA story “The Will of William Wilson” exists than I had thought. Recently, Marv Wolfman sent me photocopies of still more DC art that was “written off” in 1949, and I discovered that three of those tiers (a whole page’s worth) were Atom panels from that very JSA tale— and now this! You’ll see the rest of the “William Wilson” goodies in the All-Star Companion, coming soon from TwoMorrows.

CORRECTIONS RE A/E V3#4: In addition to the errors pointed out by Alvin Schwartz, Rich Morrissey, Jerry Bails, and others above: On Page 4 of the “Hawkman” section, it was accidentally stated that Sheldon Moldoff’s work on the Winged Wonder in Flash Comics lasted from “#2-61.” Actually, Shelly’s stint on that hero began in #4, not even #3, as was reported. The error, alas, was mine, not Rich Morrissey’s. In #1-3 Moldoff drew “Cliff Cornwall.” In connection with Gardner Fox’s 1979 letter, we left off thankyous to Roger Hill (for the Moldoff “Hawkman” re-creation) and Jerry Bails (for photocopies of the page from Flash #137). We hate it when that happens! We greatly appreciate all our contributors. And of course the date of Alter Ego, Vol. 2, #1, with that Kubert “Hawkman” cover, was 1998, not 1988. Is our beak red! The date of Flash Comics #40, from which several illustrations in V3#4 were taken, was April of 1943, not 1944. On the final page of our Flash Comics history, my typo indicated that All-American Comics became All-American Western with #104; the change was actually made in #103. We feel bad that, due to two last-minute paid ads, Mike Vosburg’s beautiful drawing of his heroine Lori Lovecraft got printed smaller than we’d have liked; we also neglected to list him along with other pros on our covers. But Mike has graciously forgiven us. We’re always looking for letters of comment, and for possible contributions— of articles (especially behind-the-scenes material), artwork (both published and unpublished), and the like. Please contact:

Hi Roy— Noted your Paul Reinman unpublished All-Star Green Lantern piece in Alter Ego #3, and thought you’d like a copy of two other panels from my collection, as well as the remaining parts I have of DC (and one Quality) stories. About 100 two-panel tiers showed up at the Chicago Con in the late ’80s or early ’90s, all saved from the chopper and all $15 each from a dealer. There was a large amount of H.G. Peter Wonder Woman— I remember them lasting about eight minutes. I had only $100 to spend and have since sold or traded off a bunch of the Wonder Woman. I missed Ghost Patrol and Atom pieces I regret to this day.

ROY THOMAS Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135 Fax (803) 826-6501; e-mail roydann@oburg.net.

George Hagenauer Stop it, George— you’re making my mouth water! But seriously, it’s been wonderful to learn that even more art from

Here is the two-panel Paul Reinman tier from the unpublished All-Star, as sent to us by Alert Reader George Hagenauer. See more in the ever-increasingly-imminent All-Star Companion. [Green Lantern ©2000 DC Comics.]

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P.C. Hamerlinck’s

no. 64

Fawcett Collectors of America loved to do... draw comics. I set up shop in my father’s old home where a sun porch, with a row of north light windows, seemed to be begging for conversion into a studio. On an ancient Singer our mother had left her, my sister whipped up some curtains for the window, and a neat fitted cover of colorful denim for a bed that was already there. When it was all done I was surprised at the place. Kind of like in a movie. The studio couch, as it was called thereafter, would be great for an artist who might want to throw his tired self upon it after working into the late hours. It was common knowledge among freelancers, the importance to press on when the creative juices were flowing... to offset those dreadful spells when nothing worthwhile came forth.

[FCA EDITOR’S NOTE: From 1941-53, Marcus D. Swayze was an artist for Fawcett Publications, originally working on Captain Marvel and later designing Mary Marvel. Marc’s ongoing professional memoirs have been a feature of FCA since #54 in 1996. Last issue he told how, in 1944, after being discharged from the armed services for a knee injury, he decided to move back to his home in the South. Despite the policy of most comics companies back in those pre-FedEx days that writers and artist should live in the New York area so they could come in personally to deliver material and meet with the editors, Marc was given the okay to work long-distance. So he left the big city, taking with him the assignment of the monthly “Phantom Eagle” feature in Wow Comics— and a new job as artist of the Sunday page of the Flyin’ Jenny newspaper comic strip, on which he had previously been an assistant to originator Russell Keaton. —PCH.]

t was a good feeling. I was back in my home town where I had intended to be someday... and sort of knew I would. Although many of my old friends and schoolmates had not yet returned from the war... and some never would... it was nice exchanging daily greetings with folks I had known a lifetime... and with their children, their parents, their grandparents. Especially gratifying were the arrangements with two New York companies... regular features with Fawcett Publications and The Bell Syndicate. I would be doing what I

The couch was also a convenient place for spreading out artwork, like several pages at one time... which is what I was doing on this morning in 1944. They just about covered the surface... six original Flyin’ Jenny Sunday pages, supplied by the New York syndicate, the story leading up to where I was to take over. Near an edge were two issues of Wow Comics, each opened to a Phantom Eagle title page. Two aviation features?!! I leaned back and thought about my long career in the air... twenty minutes or so as a nervous guest in a neighbor’s Piper Cub. And already I was receiving mail from people who assumed I was an expert! I felt like an impostor. Oh, well... I’d get over it. Converting the sun porch into a studio was not the only thing my sister could do. Before leaving New York, I had called her. “Can you print?” I asked. I figured the term “lettering” was professional talk and would confuse her. “You mean operate a printing press?” she answered. “What kind?”

Marc Swayze, Fawcett offices— Paramount Building, NYC, 1942— Staff Artist.

“No,” I said. “Have you ever tried to write, like you see in printed matter? You know... like...” “Like the dialogue in Jiggs... and Blondie...?” “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” I was getting excited. “Like in Joe Palooka? And The Gumps? The answer is NO,” she said. “Look, Daisy, I’m not kidding here! I’m coming home with more work than I want to handle alone,” I said. “I need someone to do the lettering.” “I’ll give it a try,” said my sister. I knew she would. I told her where to find the T-square, lettering guide, pens, ink, emery paper... the works. “When I get there, you better be ready!” She was. Not all that great, at first, but good enough. I thought it best to wait a while with what was to be constructive criticism, for fear it might be discouraging. Criticism, I then realized, would be no more than that the lettering didn’t have the old “comic strip snap”... which meant it didn’t look like all the others. I decided to leave it alone.

A few years later that confidence was confirmed when Will Lieberson, executive editor of Fawcett Comics, wrote that at some occasion he had attended, “my” lettering was cited as the easiest to read. It was a pleasure

“We Didn’t Know… It Was the Golden Age” to advise him that the credit belonged to my sister Daisy. The two comic books on the couch appeared dejected... almost falling off an edge. I felt a little sorry for The Phantom Eagle. He had first seen the light of day in Wow Comics in the mid-forties, about the same as Mary Marvel and Commando Yank. Thereafter he had continually played second fiddle to both characters in that magazine, unheralded and unpromoted. Now, here he was, being crowded off my couch by Flyin’ Jenny. What was wrong? Why was the feature so obviously low man on the Wow totem pole? Thumbing through the issue before me, I had to conclude that the “My sister, Daisy Swayze, was the best story, though it comic strip letterer in the business in the ’40s, in my opinion... some of the borrowed heavily editors thought so too.” from a classic, was up to par in interest. The story layout was excellent, with ample closeups of the hero and his companion, Jerry. The art was well done in a clean-line-and-solid-blacks style of storytelling. In my opinion the original concept for The Phantom Eagle was absolutely tops... a vulnerable kid, about the age of our imaginary reader, who could fly in his plane to the ends of the earth... and beyond... and confront foes real or mythical. Mickey Malone, boy aviation mechanic, The Phantom Eagle, was good comic book material with limitless story possibilities.

If there still remains at least one distinction between the male and female members of our society, it has to be in the use of the word “cute.” Men just don’t say it. You may hear a “beautiful” now and then, or even a “gorgeous”... like when talking about a woman or a golf shot... but you never hear a “cute.” I don’t know why... it hasn’t acquired, as far as I know, any weird connotation, as have some of our perfectly good words that went astray. And I don’t know how we manage to avoid the word... there don’t appear to be any satisfactory substitutes. But in attempting to describe in my mind those delightful little Keaton backgrounds, the word kept cropping up. Those tiny hangars, the runways, the windsocks flying high... heck, it was all just plain cute. There! I’ve said it! And those people... often anonymous extras you never saw before and never expected to see again... who, with a turn of the head or a wave of the hand, assured you of their life and breath. He knew when to stop, did Keaton... when to abandon detail and begin to suggest. As those characters receded into the distance they lost their noses, their eyes became mere slits or dots, but they never lost their identity. It wasn’t simply that the artist knew how much to give and take in allowing for the reduction from original art to print size, but how to instill warmth into those figures... into those miniature environments.

So what was wrong? I had thought that once the feature had been analyzed, its weaknesses would stand out clearly and work to overcome them could begin, with glorious and dramatic results. Now, there appeared to be no weaknesses. A question came to mind: If I had originated the feature, what might have been done differently? The first thought was of The Phoenix Squadron, six young flyers, each representing an Axis-conquered country, who flew and fought in support of The Phantom Eagle and his causes. The idea of a gang of pals did not make comic book sense. Okay for movies, but not comics. When the movie director needed the gang on camera, all he had to do was crook a finger. In a comic strip it meant some poor guy at the drawing board had to position every individual within the panel, pencil and ink each adequately to emphasize distinct features, duplicate the various uniforms and insignia... all this within a tight panel, on a tight 6- to 9-panel page... and very likely on a tight schedule. Here’s another thing: Extra pals not only weakened a feature from the narrative standpoint, they seemed to suggest a less forceful hero. I liked to imagine that, whatever was necessary to save the day, The Phantom Eagle, young lightweight though he might be, could pull it off. And, let’s face it, no matter how dire a hero’s predicament, who’s to worry, with the ever-present possibility of the calvary riding up in the nick of time? Turning to the Flyin’ Jenny Sunday pages, my eyes went directly to the backgrounds... just as they had when I joined Russell Keaton on the strip years earlier.

Fawcett Collectors of America

It was relaxing to just sit and gaze past Jenny and her foreground companions at those miniature scenes behind them. They made you want to crawl into the panel and go back there and join the cast... talk with those people, be one of them, help them do whatever they were doing, have them help you. They made you want to dwell in their world. I thought at first it was Russell Keaton’s interest in flying... the aviation environment... that gave him such obvious pleasure in drawing the backgrounds, and that may have been the case. But he showed the same interest in other environments... neighborhoods, farms, city streets. The truth of the matter is he was a keen observer of the world around him, and he loved to draw it. And like a kid he loved assembling, with his pencil, on drawing paper, those little homes, hangars... people. Much of this came back to me some years later as I watched my children when they set up their doll houses, ranch corrals, weddings, western towns. Sometimes I couldn’t resist turning away from what I was doing and helping them. Or was I joining them? That could be the answer. Telling the story in pictures was close to acting out the story... or living it. Many of us who found ourselves in the comic book arena got there by having been blessed with the inability to grow up. Wonderful inability! Didn’t help much in school... I daydreamed an awful lot. But “acting like a 12-year-old” may have been an advantage later when you were writing and drawing for 12-year-olds. It all related to storytelling... pictorial storytelling, a topic C.C. Beck and I discussed frequently in my early days at Fawcett. But Beck and I had rarely penetrated the subject beyond when and whether to use backgrounds. The economical Captain Marvel art style did not concern itself with the reader taking part in the story. I doubt that Russell Keaton ever drew one of his backgrounds simply to establish and maintain a locale... or to fill up space. He created a welcome little world into which his young readers could enter and join the cast. This must be one of the qualities that made his work— from Buck Rogers, through Speed McCloud and Skyroads, to Flyin’ Jenny— classic. It had been fun working with him back in 1940 and ’41. Or was it 1939, only a few months out of college, that I had left my milk route? His studio was situated over a restaurant in the middle of his hometown of about 12,000, where everyone seemed to know Russell. He was the friendliest individual one can imagine, but the residents knew of his need for privacy and rarely came in just to visit. He didn’t like for people to call him “Russ”... but people did. A name he seemed to prefer had been tacked on him when he first started out, one that Dick Calkins, I believe, borrowed from a legendary comedian, “Buster.” His pals shortened that to “Bus,” and never gave it up. We laughed a lot. Not so much at jokes that came down the street or off the campus... we laughed at life. We traded stories. He was amused at the antics of some of the musicians with whom I had worked, and he told me of his early years on the Buck Rogers strip and his acquaintance with Calkins, Zack Mosley, Roy Nelson, Rick Yager, and others. “Dick Calkins got a kick out of embarrassing us to death,” said Rus-

sell. “He’d invite us to dinner at a swank restaurant, then as we left the place he’d be chewing on a slice of bread hanging from his mouth!” One of Russell’s experiences was of having been “invited” to drive Calkins and a friend from Chicago to a resort on the Gulf Coast. It was a warm, dark night, he said, he and luggage on the front seat, Calkins and friend in back. They were breezing along at a pretty good clip when he realized he hadn’t heard the conversation behind him for some time. He turned and was shocked to see the rear seat empty, both doors ajar! He pulled to the side of the highway to go look for his passengers... or their bodies... then he heard voices. Calkins and friend had silently climbed out the doors and to the top of the car trunk, and were “The people... seated there side by side, chatting warm... friendly... idly, passing a bottle back and forth. alive. They never lost their identity.” Enlarged details of Keaton Flyin’ Jenny backgrounds, where people really lived, even if not always drawn in excruciating detail. [©2000 The Bell Syndicate.]

When he learned I had been asked to speak to a group at the local high school, Russell was interested. About a week before the event was to take place, he asked, “How are you coming along with your address?” “What address is that?” “The talk you’re to make at the school. Made your notes for it?” “Oh, I won’t need notes,” I said. “I’ll be talking about comics... and that being one of my favorite subjects...” He wouldn’t let it rest. Each day he’d ask about it, and as the date drew

near he seemed to be getting uneasy. “I made a talk over there once, and I really had to rely on my notes. Wouldn’t hurt to at least have an outline,” he suggested. “I may throw one together,” I answered. But I didn’t. Shucks, I wouldn’t need an outline. I could talk about comics all day. When I showed up at the high school on the morning of the address, I wasn’t bothered to learn that once the word got out, the intended audience had grown from the original classroom to the entire student body and faculty, and the program would take place in the auditorium. I was glad I had worn my nice things. After it was all over, I didn’t go directly to the studio. I walked around town a while, then had an early lunch. That was intentional. I wanted to get to my desk while Russell was out and be very busy, too busy to talk, when he came in. It didn’t work. “How’d it go?” He hadn’t even removed his hat and coat. “Okay,” I said, not looking up... too busy. “Come on! Tell me about it! How’d it go?” There was no evading the man. Finally, I squared my chair around until I faced him. “Well, in the first place, let’s chalk up a big one on my lifetime goof chart.” With that I proceeded to give him an account of the morning: After a glowing introduction by the principal, I said, I told the audience all the things I knew about comics. Then, for fear of going overtime, I took a quick look at my watch. Must’ve stopped. I told them things I wasn’t sure I knew ’bout comics... and took a look at my watch. No, it was working. I told them things I knew I didn’t know about comics... only about twelve minutes had passed... of the forty I had suggested my

“We Didn’t Know… It Was the Golden Age” address would require. No need to panic... there was still a way. I asked the students for questions. No questions. I asked the teachers for questions. No questions... just silence... absolute silence and staring eyes. I tried to appear calm, but inside I was shouting, “Come on, dammit! Say something!” Russell’s chair was an old swivel job that sprang back when you wanted it to. At my first words, he had tossed his pencil and eraser onto his drawing board, rolled away from the table, tilted back till his face was turned toward the ceiling... and you could have heard his laughter in the restaurant downstairs. When he finally paused for air, he asked, “How did it end?”

ideas for syndicate approval, with little success other than receiving encouragement from impressive sources... and making acquaintances... some to become lifelong friendships. Although a number of the concepts I had submitted were inspired by experiences of my own, some were based on subjects with which I had had no contact. For one about a detective, for example, I had to rely on the extensive reading of detective stories as I grew up. In the first episode my cast included the night watchman of an office building. The number one prop of a night watchman would have to be one of those clocks they carry around. I don’t mind faking a subject now and then, but my time clocks looked more like hamburgers. There was a factory nearby, a plant that produced whiskey barrel staves. They probably had a time clock. I’d drive over and see.

“I died,” I said. “The principal, as though in answer to my prayer, out of pity I’m sure, came to my rescue with some special announcement obviously invented on the spur of the moment.

When I entered the front office, there was no one around but a secretary, who simply said, “Sure. There’s one right over there.”

“But let me tell you this,” I said. “If a slow freight train leaving town forever had passed by right then, you can bet your bottom dollar I’d have been on it!”

I sketched the pesky thing, pleased to have been able to accomplish it without having to explain my purpose, who I was, what I did for a living, and so on.

I have since realized that I came out ahead on that issue, because I can still see my friend with that old swivel chair tilted back, his face turned to the ceiling... and I shall forever hear that hearty laugh.

But not so fast. As I reached my car, an official of the company came running out demanding to know my purpose, who I was, what I did for a living, and so on.

Quite a bit of the time I spent in comics was devoted to my goal... a syndicated newspaper feature of my own creation. By the time I began doing Flyin’ Jenny and The Phantom Eagle, I had prepared about five

This guy was from someplace else... dark suit, necktie, starched white shirt... probably from corporate headquarters. And he was being nasty. Before I knew it, he was leaning in my car window shouting in my ear.

Flyin’ Jenny wasn’t Jane, the English comic strip whose heroine often lost her clothes during the WWII years; but this 9/15/40 Sunday page (from the period when Marc Swayze was assisting creator Russell Keaton) was perhaps as close as a U.S. “strip” heroine ever came. [©2000 The Bell Syndicate.]

Fawcett Collectors of America

“I’ll take those notes!” He was snatching my sketchbook from the car seat. It was much later that it occurred to me that the man was thinking I was there to make notes of the watchman’s routine, to return later and... I guess steal a few barrel staves. But he was being pretty ugly about it and, hey... that was my sketchbook he had! I am one of those artists who, when drawing a facial expression, assumes that expression while doing it. That is, when drawing a mean guy, you look like a mean guy. I went over in my mind some of the mean ones I had drawn. Sivana? No. Too tame. I chose Klang, the iron man (CMA #15). I’d be Klang! “What gave you the idea you could come here in the first place?” the corporate guy was demanding. I could feel my sweet disposition slipping away. “Listen, fella!” I lowered my voice a couple of keys. I was Klang! “I’m getting tired of this crap!” I curled a lip. “You wanna know who I am? See that house on the next corner? Belongs to Mrs. “It would be several years before I used Hampton. Let’s go over and ask her who I am. See the fire station those sketches...” [©2000 Marc Swayze.] at the intersection? I’ll lay a hundred bucks to your ten at least two of those guys know me. Let’s go see.” and was ushered into what appeared to be an outer office. The individual who emerged didn’t strike me as a feature editor at all... about my age, sleeves rolled, vest and collar open... this guy was a worker... probably somebody’s assistant. He went into a very familiar speech about the difficulties facing the syndicate business, then, finally, “Okay, let’s see what you have!” I don’t know that The Great Guy was the best work I’d ever done, but I was proud of it that morning. The editor (he was the editor) said nothing when I unwrapped the Sunday page originals and colored stats I carried, but I thought I saw his eyes light up, and heard an encouraging “Hmm.” After the last page, without saying anything, he started from the first and went through them again. Then he sat back. “Who did the writing?” I assured him I did the whole ball of wax. Then we talked... about comics, about syndication, about presentations, about drawing, about writing. Turned out he was an artist/writer himself, had the same goal as mine, a syndicate feature... and he and I had knocked on the same syndicate doors.

There was a pause. I jerked my sketch pad back and went on. “Here’s another option for you. If you’d prefer that I get out of my car and beat the hell out of you right now, just keep asking your stupid, insinuating questions. D’you understand?”

In the ensuing months we talked more, by correspondence. That it all led to a Star contract for The Great Guy, and that I blew it by way of my own contrary nature is immaterial at this point. The important thing is the memory of an encouraging and helpful friend... a great guy... fellow named Kelly... Walt Kelly. [Marc Swayze’s column will continue in the next issue of FCA.]

Suddenly you couldn’t have met a more courteous gentleman. We had a few more words, but on a more civil level, then parted. I gave a sigh of relief. That was a pretty big guy; he could have killed me! It all goes to show that making ugly faces while you draw can have its advantages. It would be several years before I developed a feature where I could use those sketches. I titled it The Great Guy, the adventures of Marty Guy, private eye. When I took it to the city, someone said the New York Star was assembling a stable of features and might be interested. I went to the Star unannounced, asked to see the feature editor,

“A fellow named Kelly... Walt Kelly.” Panels from a Nov. 1948 daily from the brief, pre-syndication New York Star period, repro’d from the original artwork. [©2000 The estate of Walt Kelly; from the collection of R.T.]

A Jab In the Butt

A Jab in the Butt The Best Way to Get Reaction from Comic Readers

by C.C. Beck [EDITORS NOTE: The following opinion article is taken from FCA’s C.C. Beck essay archives. It is previously unpublished, and was written in the mid1980s. There will be Beck material in each issue of FCA, all previously unpublished. —PCH]

In a recent Bloom County panel, Opus the penguin was shown being jabbed in the butt with a sharpened pencil. Actually, he wasn’t shown being jabbed in the butt, but having been jabbed in the butt. The picture showed him leaping into the air with a surprised and pained look on his face. Berke Breathed, Bloom County’s creator, knows that the moment after an action is more important than the action itself, which is better imagined than seen. If this panel had been drawn by most comic book artists, we might have been a picture, probably a closeup, of Opus’ butt with the sharpened pencil penetrating it and producing an outlandish sound effect and spurts of blood, flying feathers, and other special effects. The panel would probably have been put into a circular frame or a triangular shape, or it might have been expanded to a double-page spread and repeated on the cover and in the opening title panel. Comic book art, almost since its beginning, has put far too much emphasis on violent action of all kinds and not enough on the reaction of the characters in the stories. This is one of the reasons why comic book characters are denounced as “cardboard characters” and why the art is not considered to have much value. Comic book artists, unlike good cartoonists, don’t leave anything to the imagination. They put everything into their panels— every eyelash, every tooth, every hair, every shadow, every wrinkle, every bit of action whether important or unimportant. As a result, their pictures don’t show any action at all, for it has all been stopped and frozen in time. The panels in a comic book story are as cold and dead as so many dead fish lying side by side in a frozen food locker. All successful artists— and Berke Breathed is one of the most successful artists working today— know that the less you show in a picture, the more a viewer will imagine he sees in it. As a cartoonist, he knows that things that don’t exist in the real world, such as penguins that talk and wear neckties, make great comic strip characters, but that realistically drawn characters (human or animal) with complete sets of teeth, eyelids, eyelashes, and bulging muscles and with every hair and wrinkle brought out in detail, don’t.

He knows that to hold the reader’s attention the picture must show only the high spots of a story, not bury it in a mass of complicated and overdone detail. Good art, whether cartoon or realistic, appeals to the viewer’s imagination and causes him or her to feel the joy or the pain, the triumph or the defeat, of the characters in the picture. Paintings of landscapes and “still life” pictures of objects contain no movement or action, and no living, moving creatures. They appeal to art lovers, not to people who want pictures to appeal to their emotions. When too much landscape and too many objects are put into story illustrations, they cease to arouse emotion and become simply “art,” much like the material seen in art galleries and museums. The attempt to make story illustration into art gallery art is misguided; buyers of comic books and of newspapers containing comic strips are not looking for art, but for stories and action. When the art in a story overpowers the story itself, as it does in far too many comic books, the panels become simply a series of still-life pictures without appeal, and are quite boring and dull. “Action-packed” pictures are not exciting; imagination-packed pictures are. A good illustrator knows that his imagination is not what the reader is interested in, but the reader’s. He wants to have his own imagination stimulated, not deadened by a mass of detail and artwork which, most of the time, he can’t even understand.

Everyone needs a good jab in the butt now and then. Breathed showed Opus’ reaction to one; I hope that I have succeeded in jabbing a few butts with the sharpened pencil with which I wrote this article.

Fawcett Collectors of America

Fond Memories of

Wendell Crowley A Look Back at Fawcett’s Most Beloved Editor by Hames Ware

t may be difficult, in current times of fan conventions and other opportunities for fans and pros to commingle, to re-create what a thrill it was for a kid of the 1940s and ’50s to actually get to meet one of the comic book professionals whose name was as recognizable to him as, say, the President’s was to his parents. Wendell Crowley was just such a name to me, because of all the comic books I grew up reading and studying the art in, the Fawcett titles were predominant in my collection. They were my favorites, even though they frustrated my desire to know the artists’ names, since by the time I was reading them no art credits were given.

As if this wonderful new correspondence wasn’t enough, it turned out that Wendell, after Fawcett had folded, had taken over the family lumber business, and consequently would take trips to states with large timber resources— and Arkansas was one of those states! Thus I got to meet and visit with Wendell on several occasions as he passed through our state (nearly always dropping by to visit Fawcett friend Marc Swayze in nearby Louisiana at the same time). It’s hard to describe what a wonderful thrill it was to have the editor of my favorite comic books sitting with a pile of those same comics he’d edited years before, and pointing out artist after artist on story after story— right there— in person. Thanks to Wendell, not only was I able to finally learn to recognize the styles of up-to-then-unknown artists like Clem Weisbecker and Harry Fisk, but more importantly, Wendell added names and information galore for the fledgling Who’s Who Jerry and I were trying to make the excellent reference it has become.

But one name that stood out on most of the mastheads was that of editor Wendell Crowley. Thus, by the time I was a young adult and working with Jerry Bails as co-editor of The Who’s Who of American Comic Books, I was delighted to learn from Jerry DeFuccio, associate editor at Mad and a longtime fan of comics as well as a pro himself, that Wendell Crowley would be glad to hear from me if I wrote him. Write I did, and thus began a wonderful personal correspondence with one of the finest individuals a person could ever have hoped to know— Wendell Crowley. My early letters to him were filled with “Who drew this Spy Smasher?”— “Who drew Bob Swift?”— “Who’s the Captain Marvel Jr. artist who wound up at DC?”— and on and on and on. And Wendell, kindly and patiently, answered every single question, referring me to other Fawcett compatriots when it was one he felt they could best answer. Wendell was held in esteem by every one of them.

Titles edited by Wendell Crowley— who clearly didn’t mind seeing his heroes in ludicrous situations: Captain Marvel Adventures #142 (March 1953, cover by C.C. Beck) and The Marvel Family #88 (Kurt Schaffenberger). [©2000 DC Comics]

Fond Memories of Wendell Crowley As for Fawcett’s earliest comic years, Wendell made clear that, in many instances where Jack Binder’s shop had provided the artwork, trying to distinguish which of three to four or more artists had been involved (background art, main character artists, pencilers, Wendell Crowley at the home of Hames Ware on inkers, et al.) would one of his visits. (Photo courtesy of H.W.) be “like trying to figure out which General Motors assembly line worker put on which front fender of a 1942 Chevrolet!” But thankfully, almost simultaneously with my receiving voluminous help from Wendell, Jerry was in contact with the Binder brothers. Jerry’s efforts paid off when Jack Binder opened up his shop records and the names of his entire Fawcett period staff (Binder’s shop had also provided loads of art and story for Street and Smith and other publishers) poured forth— names including those of well-known (at the time) magazine and hardcover illustrators like Ernest Townsend, Harry Daugherty, Walter Popp, Nick Panesis, and others who to this day would never have been known to have worked in comics had Jerry not secured this information. The Binder shop also included such soon-to-be-reckoned-with greats as Gil Kane, Ken Bald, Bill Ward, Al Bare, Kurt Schaffenberger, Andre LeBlanc, John Sprang, Carmine Infantino, Dan Barry, and many more— but also oldtimers like Myson Paddock, August Froehlich, Jimmy Thompson, Charles Coll, Chris Rule, and Arnold Hick, and later standouts like Jack Hearne and David Moneypenny. Had Fawcett availed itself only of the Binder shop’s services, life for Jerry and me and the Who’s Who could have been at least focused on the tandem Fawcett staff itself and Binder’s shop. But, as Fawcett aficionados know, the Fawcett Comics line utilized at various times (and sometimes even simultaneously) the services of all four major shop operators of the 1940s: most prominently (next to Binder’s, which basically broke up with the mid-War years thinning out their ranks) the Jacquet shop. Wendell carefully pointed out the Jacquet folks— Carl Pfeufer, John Jordan, Edd Ashe, Jack Sparling, Harry Fisk, Eddie Robbins— specifically for the huge contributions their work supplied to the “Fawcett look” of heroes and heroines— superhero, western, and other. And, during the height of World War Two, when so many regulars had been drafted and were gone, Wendell told me that S.M. (Jerry) Iger’s strategy of hiring (and thus maintaining) elderly, disabled, and female artists paid off, as Iger’s shop took over some features like “Spy Smasher” and others, utilizing (draft-exempt) oldtimers like Alex Blub and Henry Kiefer. (Fawcett staffer Bill Brady would also have fallen under the “disabled” category, Wendell said, as Brady had vision limitations.) The fourth big shop of the era, the Harry “A” Chesler studio, like Binder’s had supplied artists mostly in the ’41-’42 period— Charles Sultan, George Tuska, Mark Schneider being most prominent among them. It should be mentioned that still another shop was utilized in the 1950s, especially in the romance titles: the Schuffman shop, about which little is known. (Wendell had lost interest by that time, feeling the earlier years and titles were the paradigm.)

It’s impossible to overestimate Wendell’s contributions to the early Who’s Who and to comics historians in general. I just wish Wendell might have lived longer, so that other fans might have been personal beneficiaries of this marvelous man’s wit and wisdom. How he would’ve loved to have been in the pages of FCA with friend and Fawcett compatriot Marc Swayze, and how he would have applauded the excellent job Paul and his noble predecessors have done with keeping the Fawcett spirit alive! But Wendell knew his time on Earth was both blessed and limited. He wrote me one last time, advising me he’d be stopping off in Little Rock a final time in February before returning later in that same month for heart surgery. That February, as is typical, was a cold, dark, sleety month in Arkansas, and I was wary and trying to navigate the fifty precipitous miles from my home in lower Arkansas (Pine Bluff) to the urban Little Rock; but somehow I knew that this indeed might be my last chance to visit with Wendell before what would surely be an ordeal. Even if the operation were successful, there would be a long and arduous recovery period. And so I made the trek, slipping and sliding off the icy night twolane, but making it at last to Wendell’s motel room near the airport. We had a great visit. Wendell’s wife and children were rallying ’round him as the surgery date approached, but it was clear from his demeanor

WENDELL BRADFORD CROWLEY (1921-1970) A Personal Memoir by John Putnam Yes, I’m one of the few people who knew that the big man had a middle name. And what a big man, in all the meaningful senses of the word! Tall, a real cloud-breaker at 6’8”, and a big person, Wendell had a generous sensibility to other people’s needs. He was a firm friend and a wonderful support in any and all situations. There was a wonderfully droll wit hiding inside an exterior that suggested your friendly neighborhood druggist. He was your typical old-fashioned American small-town person, with a hell of a lot of old-fashioned virtue. Virtue has come down lately to mean something stuffy and foolish: the world has left this dubious quality behind in favor of the smart ploy and the fast buck. Wendell never compromised. He was a (you’ll excuse the expression) pillar of comic wisdom. He loved his work, even though it exasperated him now and then; he set the tone for the whole Captain Marvel line over a long period— that is, until the lawyers took him off the editorial desk to make endless appearances in the never-ending suits with Superman. Finally, the endless litigation got to him, and he retired from the comics and went into the lumber business, an enterprise he had inherited from his father. He worked long and hard in this unrewarding field until it broke him. The ordeal with Wendell’s illness was long and painful, with a reprieve of some years offered by open-heart surgery. Finally, the chapter closed on Wendell, but he is still alive to many of us who knew and loved him. One of the most pleasurable memories I have of him in later years was his monthly phone call to me at the downtown offices of Mad magazine. “Lunch?” he would say, and I would answer, “You bet! But first, come up and visit the office and say hello to the guys!” Wendell always refused. He couldn’t bear to even get close to the world he had left behind. He was, he would remind me, “just another lumberman!” But to me he will always be Big Wendell, the finest, dearest friend I ever had. John Putnam, who died in 1980, was for many years the art director of Mad magazine. Years earlier he had been a writer for Fawcett Comics, and an inker on Captain Marvel.

Fawcett Collectors of America No, I told him. I just couldn’t contain a surprise we had for him. “We’re dedicating the entire Who’s Who project to you,” I proudly exclaimed.

that Wendell knew his time on Earth was possibly coming to closure. I shook his hand and thanked him profusely for all he represented to me, and to friends and fans as well. I had started back towards my car when it finally hit me that I had one last thing to say to Wendell.

Wendell beamed, truly touched and surprised. “That’s wonderful!” he proclaimed— this nearly seven-foottall giant of a man with a heart to match— and so I left again, thankful to God for allowing me to say those words, to have known this amazing man.

What Wendell hadn’t known was that, thanks in part to his contributions, Jerry I would later pen and I had readied the the dedication to Who’s Who for its first Wendell that appeared printing, and further on all of the original that we had instantly Who’s Who first edition and unanimously More titles edited by Wendell Crowley included Captain Marvel Story Book volumes. It would be a agreed to dedicate all (which combined typeset text and art; pictured is cover of #4, 1949, by C.C. Beck) and posthumous tribute, as four volumes to Captain Marvel Jr. #52 (Aug. 1947, by Bud Thompson). [©2000 DC Comics] Wendell had passed Wendell. We had away, but it was and is a living tribute to all the best things there are intended to surprise him on publication, but at that moment, standing about the comics, their fans, their creators and contributors. in the parking lot of Wendell’s motel, the dark night’s sleet pelting my cap and car, I knew I needed to return and say the words. I knew, Wendell Crowley was and is at the top of that lofty list. too, that Jerry would totally agree. So I walked back and knocked on —Hames Ware, Sept. 1998 Wendell’s door. His booming voice expressed his typically selfless concern for others: “Your car’s not iced, is it?”

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(10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION) In 1961, JERRY BAILS and ROY THOMAS launched ALTER EGO, the first fanzine devoted to comic books and their colorful history. This volume, first published in low distribution in 1997, collects the original 11 issues (published from 1961-78) of A/E, with the creative and artistic contributions of JACK KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, WALLY WOOD, JOHN BUSCEMA, MARIE SEVERIN, BILL EVERETT, RUSS MANNING, CURT SWAN, & others—and important, illustrated interviews with GIL KANE, BILL EVERETT, & JOE KUBERT! See where a generation first learned about the Golden Age of Comics—while the Silver Age was in full flower—with major articles on the JUSTICE SOCIETY, the MARVEL FAMILY, the MLJ HEROES, and more! Edited by ROY THOMAS & BILL SCHELLY with an introduction by the late JULIUS SCHWARTZ.

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GENE COLAN interview, 1940s books on comics by STAN LEE and ROBERT KANIGHER, AYERS, SEVERIN, and ROY THOMAS on Sgt. Fury, ROY on All-Star Squadron’s Golden Age roots, FCA section with SWAYZE, BECK, and WILLIAM WOOLFOLK, JOE SIMON interview, a definitive look at MAC RABOY’S work, and more! Covers by COLAN and RABOY!

Companion to ALL-STAR COMPANION book, with a JULIE SCHWARTZ interview, guide to JLA-JSA TEAMUPS, origins of the ALL-STAR SQUADRON, FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, C.C. BECK (on his 1970s DC conflicts), DAVE BERG, BOB ROGERS, more on MAC RABOY from his son, MR. MONSTER, and more! RICH BUCKLER and C.C. BECK covers!

WALLY WOOD biography, DAN ADKINS & BILL PEARSON on Wood, TOR section with 1963 JOE KUBERT interview, ROY THOMAS on creating the ALL-STAR SQUADRON and its 1940s forebears, FCA section with SWAYZE & BECK, MR. MONSTER, JERRY ORDWAY on Shazam!, JERRY DeFUCCIO on the Golden Age, CHIC STONE remembered! ADKINS and KUBERT covers!

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN001713

(100-page magazine) SOLD OUT (100-page Digital Edition) $2.95

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JUL002003

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV002267

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: FEB012215

ALTER EGO #9

ALTER EGO #10

ALTER EGO #11

ALTER EGO #12

ALTER EGO #13

JOHN ROMITA interview by ROY THOMAS (with unseen art), Roy’s PROPOSED DREAM PROJECTS that never got published (with a host of great artists), MR. MONSTER on WAYNE BORING’S life after Superman, The Golden Age of Comic Fandom Panel, FCA section with GEORGE TUSKA, C.C. BECK, MARC SWAYZE, BILL MORRISON, & more! ROMITA and GIORDANO covers!

Who Created the Silver Age Flash? (with KANIGHER, INFANTINO, KUBERT, and SCHWARTZ), DICK AYERS interview (with unseen art), JOHN BROOME remembered, never-seen Golden Age Flash pages, VIN SULLIVAN Magazine Enterprises interview, FCA, interview with FRED GUARDINEER, and MR. MONSTER on WAYNE BORING! INFANTINO and AYERS covers!

Focuses on TIMELY/MARVEL (interviews and features on SYD SHORES, MICKEY SPILLANE, and VINCE FAGO), and MAGAZINE ENTERPRISES (including JOE CERTA, JOHN BELFI, FRANK BOLLE, BOB POWELL, and FRED MEAGHER), MR. MONSTER on JERRY SIEGEL, DON and MAGGIE THOMPSON interview, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, and DON NEWTON!

DC and QUALITY COMICS focus! Quality’s GILL FOX interview, never-seen ’40s PAUL REINMAN Green Lantern story, ROY THOMAS talks to LEN WEIN and RICH BUCKLER about ALL-STAR SQUADRON, MR. MONSTER shows what made WALLY WOOD leave MAD, FCA section with BECK & SWAYZE, & ’65 NEWSWEEK ARTICLE on comics! REINMAN and BILL WARD covers!

1974 panel with JOE SIMON, STAN LEE, FRANK ROBBINS, and ROY THOMAS, ROY and JOHN BUSCEMA on Avengers, 1964 STAN LEE interview, tributes to DON HECK, JOHNNY CRAIG, and GRAY MORROW, Timely alums DAVID GANTZ and DANIEL KEYES, and FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, and MIKE MANLEY! Covers by MURPHY ANDERSON and JOE SIMON!

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY012450

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JUL012309

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: SEP012273

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV012568

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN022737

ALTER EGO #17 Spotlighting LOU FINE (with an overview of his career, and interviews with family members), interview with MURPHY ANDERSON about Fine, ALEX TOTH on Fine, ARNOLD DRAKE interviewed about DEADMAN and DOOM PATROL, MR. MONSTER on the non-EC work of JACK DAVIS and GEORGE EVANS, FINE and LUIS DOMINGUEZ COVERS, FCA and more!

ALTER EGO #14

ALTER EGO #15

ALTER EGO #16

A look at the 1970s JSA revival with CONWAY, LEVITZ, ESTRADA, GIFFEN, MILGROM, and STATON, JERRY ORDWAY on All-Star Squadron, tributes to CRAIG CHASE and DAN DeCARLO, “lost” 1945 issue of All-Star, 1970 interview with LEE ELIAS, MR. MONSTER on GARDNER FOX, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, & JAY DISBROW! MIKE NASSER & MICHAEL GILBERT covers!

JOHN BUSCEMA ISSUE! BUSCEMA interview (with UNSEEN ART), reminiscences by SAL BUSCEMA, STAN LEE, INFANTINO, KUBERT, ORDWAY, FLO STEINBERG, and HERB TRIMPE, ROY THOMAS on 35 years with BIG JOHN, FCA tribute to KURT SCHAFFENBERGER, plus C.C. BECK and MARC SWAYZE, and MR. MONSTER revisits WALLY WOOD! Two BUSCEMA covers!

MARVEL BULLPEN REUNION (BUSCEMA, COLAN, ROMITA, and SEVERIN), memories of the JOHN BUSCEMA SCHOOL, FCA with ALEX ROSS, C.C. BECK, and MARC SWAYZE, tribute to CHAD GROTHKOPF, MR. MONSTER on EC COMICS with art by KURTZMAN, DAVIS, and WOOD, and more! Covers by ALEX ROSS and MARIE SEVERIN & RAMONA FRADON!

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: FEB022730

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: APR022615

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY022386

ALTER EGO #18

ALTER EGO #19

ALTER EGO #20

STAN GOLDBERG interview, secrets of ’40s Timely, art by KIRBY, DITKO, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, MANEELY, EVERETT, BURGOS, and DeCARLO, spotlight on sci-fi fanzine XERO with the LUPOFFS, OTTO BINDER, DON THOMPSON, ROY THOMAS, BILL SCHELLY, and ROGER EBERT, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD ghosting Flash Gordon! KIRBY and SWAYZE covers!

Spotlight on DICK SPRANG (profile and interview) with unseen art, rare Batman art by BOB KANE, CHARLES PARIS, SHELLY MOLDOFF, MAX ALLAN COLLINS, JIM MOONEY, CARMINE INFANTINO, and ALEX TOTH, JERRY ROBINSON interviewed about Tomahawk and 1940s cover artist FRED RAY, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD’s Flash Gordon, Part 2!

Timely/Marvel art by SEKOWSKY, SHORES, EVERETT, and BURGOS, secrets behind THE INVADERS with ROY THOMAS, KIRBY, GIL KANE, & ROBBINS, BOB DESCHAMPS interviewed, 1965 NY Comics Con review, panel with FINGER, BINDER, FOX and WEISINGER, MR. MONSTER, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, RABOY, SCHAFFENBERGER, and more! MILGROM and SCHELLY covers!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG022420

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: OCT022884

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV022845

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JUL022370

ALTER EGO #21 The IGER “SHOP” examined, with art by EISNER, FINE, ANDERSON, CRANDALL, BAKER, MESKIN, CARDY, EVANS, BOB KANE, and TUSKA, “SHEENA” section with art by DAVE STEVENS & FRANK BRUNNER, ROY THOMAS on the JSA and All-Star Squadron, more UNSEEN 1946 ALL-STAR ART, MR. MONSTER on GARDNER FOX, FCA, and more! DAVE STEVENS and IRWIN HASEN covers! (108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC023029

ALTER EGO #22

ALTER EGO #23

ALTER EGO #24

ALTER EGO #25

ALTER EGO #26

BILL EVERETT and JOE KUBERT interviewed by NEAL ADAMS and GIL KANE in 1970, Timely art by BURGOS, SHORES, NODELL, and SEKOWSKY, RUDY LAPICK, ROY THOMAS on Sub-Mariner, with art by EVERETT, COLAN, ANDRU, BUSCEMAs, SEVERINs, and more, FCA, MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD at EC, ALEX TOTH, and CAPT. MIDNIGHT! EVERETT & BECK covers!

Unseen art from TWO “LOST” 1940s H.G. PETER WONDER WOMAN STORIES (and analysis of “CHARLES MOULTON” scripts), BOB FUJITANI and JOHN ROSENBERGER, VICTOR GORELICK discusses Archie and The Mighty Crusaders, with art by MORROW, BUCKLER, and REINMAN, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD! H.G. PETER and BOB FUJITANI covers!

X-MEN interviews with STAN LEE, DAVE COCKRUM, CHRIS CLAREMONT, ARNOLD DRAKE, JIM SHOOTER, ROY THOMAS, and LEN WEIN, MORT MESKIN profiled by his sons and ALEX TOTH, rare art by JERRY ROBINSON, FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, and WILLIAM WOOLFOLK, MR. MONSTER, and BILL SCHELLY on Comics Fandom! MESKIN and COCKRUM covers!

JACK COLE remembered by ALEX TOTH, interview with brother DICK COLE and his PLAYBOY colleagues, CHRIS CLAREMONT on the X-Men (with more never-seen art by DAVE COCKRUM), ROY THOMAS on All-Star Squadron #1 and its ’40s roots (with art by ORDWAY, BUCKLER, MESKIN and MOLDOFF), FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more! Covers by TOTH and SCHELLY!

JOE SINNOTT interview, IRWIN DONENFELD interview by EVANIER & SCHWARTZ, art by SHUSTER, INFANTINO, ANDERSON, and SWAN, MARK WAID analyzes the first Kryptonite story, JERRY SIEGEL and HARRY DONENFELD, JERRY IGER Shop update, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, and FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, and KEN BALD! Covers by SINNOTT and WAYNE BORING!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN032492

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: FEB032260

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAR032534

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: APR032553

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY032543

ALTER EGO #27

ALTER EGO #28

ALTER EGO #29

ALTER EGO #30

ALTER EGO #31

VIN SULLIVAN interview about the early DC days with art by SHUSTER, MOLDOFF, FLESSEL, GUARDINEER, and BURNLEY, MR. MONSTER’s “Lost” KIRBY HULK covers, 1948 NEW YORK COMIC CON with STAN LEE, SIMON & KIRBY, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, HARVEY KURTZMAN, and ROY THOMAS, ALEX TOTH, FCA, and more! Covers by JACK BURNLEY and JACK KIRBY!

Spotlight on JOE MANEELY, with a career overview, remembrance by his daughter and tons of art, Timely/Atlas/Marvel art by ROMITA, EVERETT, SEVERIN, SHORES, KIRBY, and DITKO, STAN LEE on Maneely, LEE AMES interview, FCA with SWAYZE, ISIS, and STEVE SKEATES, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Covers by JOE MANEELY and DON NEWTON!

FRANK BRUNNER interview, BILL EVERETT’S Venus examined by TRINA ROBBINS, Classics Illustrated “What ifs”, LEE/KIRBY/DITKO Marvel prototypes, JOE MANEELY’s monsters, BILL FRACCIO interview, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, JOHN BENSON on EC, The Heap by ERNIE SCHROEDER, and FCA! Covers by FRANK BRUNNER and PETE VON SHOLLY!

ALEX ROSS on his love for the JLA, BLACKHAWK/JLA artist DICK DILLIN, the super-heroes of 1940s-1980s France (with art by STEVE RUDE, STEVE BISSETTE, LADRÖNN, and NEAL ADAMS), KIM AAMODT & WALTER GEIER on writing for SIMON & KIRBY, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, and FCA! Covers by ALEX ROSS and STEVE RUDE!

DICK AYERS on his 1950s and ’60s work (with tons of Marvel Bullpen art), HARLAN ELLISON’s Marvel Age work examined (with art by BUCKLER, SAL BUSCEMA, and TRIMPE), STAN LEE’S Marvel Prototypes (with art by KIRBY and DITKO), Christmas cards from comics greats, MR. MONSTER, & FCA with SWAYZE and SCHAFFENBERGER! Covers by DICK AYERS and FRED RAY!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JUN032614

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JUL032570

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG032604

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: SEP032620

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: OCT032843

ALTER EGO #32

ALTER EGO #33

ALTER EGO #34

ALTER EGO #35

ALTER EGO #36

Timely artists ALLEN BELLMAN and SAM BURLOCKOFF interviewed, MART NODELL on his Timely years, rare art by BURGOS, EVERETT, and SHORES, MIKE GOLD on the Silver Age (with art by SIMON & KIRBY, SWAN, INFANTINO, KANE, and more), FCA, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and more! Covers by DICK GIORDANO and GIL KANE!

Symposium on MIKE SEKOWSKY by MARK EVANIER, SCOTT SHAW!, et al., with art by ANDERSON, INFANTINO, and others, PAT (MRS. MIKE) SEKOWSKY and inker VALERIE BARCLAY interviewed, FCA, 1950s Captain Marvel parody by ANDRU and ESPOSITO, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY, MR. MONSTER, and more! Covers by FRENZ/SINNOTT and FRENZ/BUSCEMA!

Quality Comics interviews with ALEX KOTZKY, AL GRENET, CHUCK CUIDERA, & DICK ARNOLD (son of BUSY ARNOLD), art by COLE, EISNER, FINE, WARD, DILLIN, and KANE, MICHELLE NOLAN on Blackhawk’s jump to DC, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on HARVEY KURTZMAN, & ALEX TOTH on REED CRANDALL! Covers by REED CRANDALL & CHARLES NICHOLAS!

Covers by JOHN ROMITA and AL JAFFEE! LEE, ROMITA, AYERS, HEATH, & THOMAS on the 1953-55 Timely super-hero revival, with rare art by ROMITA, AYERS, BURGOS, HEATH, EVERETT, LAWRENCE, & POWELL, AL JAFFEE on the 1940s Timely Bullpen (and MAD), FCA, ALEX TOTH on comic art, MR. MONSTER on unpublished 1950s covers, and more!

JOE SIMON on SIMON & KIRBY, CARL BURGOS, and LLOYD JACQUET, JOHN BELL on World War II Canadian heroes, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on Canadian origins of MR. MONSTER, tributes to BOB DESCHAMPS, DON LAWRENCE, & GEORGE WOODBRIDGE, FCA, ALEX TOTH, and ELMER WEXLER interview! Covers by SIMON and GILBERT & RONN SUTTON!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV032695

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC032833

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN042879

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: FEB042796

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAR042972

ALTER EGO #37

ALTER EGO #38

ALTER EGO #39

ALTER EGO #40

ALTER EGO #41

WILL MURRAY on the 1940 Superman “KMetal” story & PHILIP WYLIE’s GLADIATOR (with art by SHUSTER, SWAN, ADAMS, and BORING), FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, and DON NEWTON, SY BARRY interview, art by TOTH, MESKIN, INFANTINO, and ANDERSON, and MICHAEL T. GILBERT interviews AL FELDSTEIN on EC and RAY BRADBURY! Covers by C.C. BECK and WAYNE BORING!

JULIE SCHWARTZ TRIBUTE with HARLAN ELLISON, INFANTINO, ANDERSON, TOTH, KUBERT, GIELLA, GIORDANO, CARDY, LEVITZ, STAN LEE, WOLFMAN, EVANIER, & ROY THOMAS, never-seen interviews with Julie, FCA with BECK, SCHAFFENBERGER, NEWTON, COCKRUM, OKSNER, FRADON, SWAYZE, and JACKSON BOSTWICK! Covers by INFANTINO and IRWIN HASEN!

Full-issue spotlight on JERRY ROBINSON, with an interview on being BOB KANE’s Batman “ghost”, creating the JOKER and ROBIN, working on VIGILANTE, GREEN HORNET, and ATOMAN, plus never-seen art by Jerry, MESKIN, ROUSSOS, RAY, KIRBY, SPRANG, DITKO, and PARIS! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER on AL FELDSTEIN Part 2, and more! Two JERRY ROBINSON covers!

RUSS HEATH and GIL KANE interviews (with tons of unseen art), the JULIE SCHWARTZ Memorial Service with ELLISON, MOORE, GAIMAN, HASEN, O’NEIL, and LEVITZ, art by INFANTINO, ANDERSON, TOTH, NOVICK, DILLIN, SEKOWSKY, KUBERT, GIELLA, ARAGONÉS, FCA, MR. MONSTER and AL FELDSTEIN Part 3, and more! Covers by GIL KANE & RUSS HEATH!

Halloween issue! BERNIE WRIGHTSON on his 1970s FRANKENSTEIN, DICK BRIEFER’S monster, the campy 1960s Frankie, art by KALUTA, BAILY, MANEELY, PLOOG, KUBERT, BRUNNER, BORING, OKSNER, TUSKA, CRANDALL, and SUTTON, FCA #100, EMILIO SQUEGLIO interview, ALEX TOTH, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and more! Covers by WRIGHTSON & MARC SWAYZE!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: APR043055

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY043050

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JUN042972

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JUL043386

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG043186

ALTER EGO #42

ALTER EGO #43

ALTER EGO #44

ALTER EGO #45

ALTER EGO #46

A celebration of DON HECK, WERNER ROTH, and PAUL REINMAN, rare art by KIRBY, DITKO, and AYERS, Hillman and Ziff-Davis remembered by Heap artist ERNIE SCHROEDER, HERB ROGOFF, and WALTER LITTMAN, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and ALEX TOTH! Covers by FASTNER & LARSON and ERNIE SCHROEDER!

Yuletide art by WOOD, SINNOTT, CARDY, BRUNNER, TOTH, NODELL, and others, interviews with Golden Age artists TOM GILL (Lone Ranger) and MORRIS WEISS, exploring 1960s Mexican comics, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, MR. MONSTER, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and more! Flip covers by GEORGE TUSKA and DAVE STEVENS!

JSA/All-Star Squadron/Infinity Inc. special! Interviews with KUBERT, HASEN, ANDERSON, ORDWAY, BUCKLER, THOMAS, 1940s Atom writer ARTHUR ADLER, art by TOTH, SEKOWSKY, HASEN, MACHLAN, OKSNER, and INFANTINO, FCA, and MR. MONSTER’S “I Like Ike!” cartoons by BOB KANE, INFANTINO, OKSNER, and BIRO! Wraparound ORDWAY cover!

Interviews with Sandman artist CREIG FLESSEL and ’40s creator BERT CHRISTMAN, MICHAEL CHABON on researching his Pulitzer-winning novel Kavalier & Clay, art by EISNER, KANE, KIRBY, and AYERS, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, OTTO BINDER’s “lost” Jon Jarl story, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and ALEX TOTH! CREIG FLESSEL cover!

The VERY BEST of the 1960s-70s ALTER EGO! 1969 BILL EVERETT interview, art by BURGOS, GUSTAVSON, SIMON & KIRBY, and others, 1960s gems by DITKO, E. NELSON BRIDWELL, JERRY BAILS, and ROY THOMAS, LOU GLANZMAN interview, tributes to IRV NOVICK and CHRIS REEVE, MR. MONSTER, FCA, TOTH, and more! Cover by EVERETT and MARIE SEVERIN!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: SEP043043

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: OCT043189

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV043080

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC042992

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN053133

ALTER EGO #47

ALTER EGO #48

ALTER EGO #49

Spotlights MATT BAKER, Golden Age cheesecake artist of PHANTOM LADY! Career overview, interviews with BAKER’s half-brother and nephew, art from AL FELDSTEIN, VINCE COLLETTA, ARTHUR PEDDY, JACK KAMEN and others, FCA, BILL SCHELLY talks to comic-book-seller (and fan) BUD PLANT, MR. MONSTER on missing AL WILLIAMSON art, and ALEX TOTH!

WILL EISNER discusses Eisner & Iger’s Shop and BUSY ARNOLD’s ’40s Quality Comics, art by FINE, CRANDALL, COLE, POWELL, and CARDY, EISNER tributes by STAN LEE, GENE COLAN, & others, interviews with ’40s Quality artist VERN HENKEL and CHUCK MAZOUJIAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER on EISNER’s Wonder Man, ALEX TOTH, and more with BUD PLANT! EISNER cover!

Spotlights CARL BURGOS! Interview with daughter SUE BURGOS, art by BURGOS, BILL EVERETT, MIKE SEKOWSKY, ED ASCHE, and DICK AYERS, unused 1941 Timely cover layouts, the 1957 Atlas Implosion examined, MANNY STALLMAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER and more! New cover by MARK SPARACIO, from an unused 1941 layout by CARL BURGOS!

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: FEB053220

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAR053331

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: APR053287

ALTER EGO #50 ROY THOMAS covers his 40-YEAR career in comics (AVENGERS, X-MEN, CONAN, ALL-STAR SQUADRON, INFINITY INC.), with ADAMS, BUSCEMA, COLAN, DITKO, GIL KANE, KIRBY, STAN LEE, ORDWAY, PÉREZ, ROMITA, and many others! Also FCA, & MR. MONSTER on ROY’s letters to GARDNER FOX! Flip-covers by BUSCEMA/ KIRBY/ALCALA and JERRY ORDWAY!

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY053172

ALTER EGO #54 ALTER EGO #51

ALTER EGO #52

ALTER EGO #53

Golden Age Batman artist/BOB KANE ghost LEW SAYRE SCHWARTZ interviewed, Batman art by JERRY ROBINSON, DICK SPRANG, SHELDON MOLDOFF, WIN MORTIMER, JIM MOONEY, and others, the Golden and Silver Ages of AUSTRALIAN SUPER-HEROES, Mad artist DAVE BERG interviewed, FCA, MR. MONSTER on WILL EISNER, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

JOE GIELLA on the Silver Age at DC, the Golden Age at Marvel, and JULIE SCHWARTZ, with rare art by INFANTINO, GIL KANE, SEKOWSKY, SWAN, DILLIN, MOLDOFF, GIACOIA, SCHAFFENBERGER, and others, JAY SCOTT PIKE on STAN LEE and CHARLES BIRO, MARTIN THALL interview, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more! GIELLA cover!

GIORDANO and THOMAS on STOKER’S DRACULA, never-seen DICK BRIEFER Frankenstein strip, MIKE ESPOSITO on his work with ROSS ANDRU, art by COLAN, WRIGHTSON, MIGNOLA, BRUNNER, BISSETTE, KALUTA, HEATH, MANEELY, EVERETT, DITKO, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, BILL SCHELLY, ALEX TOTH, and MR. MONSTER! Cover by GIORDANO!

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JUN053345

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: JUL053293

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG053328

MIKE ESPOSITO on DC and Marvel, ROBERT KANIGHER on the creation of Metal Men and Sgt. Rock (with comments by JOE KUBERT and BOB HANEY), art by ANDRU, INFANTINO, KIRBY, SEVERIN, WINDSOR-SMITH, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, TRIMPE, GIL KANE, and others, plus FCA, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY, MR. MONSTER, and more! ESPOSITO cover!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: SEP053301

ALTER EGO #56

ALTER EGO #57

ALTER EGO #58

Interviews with Superman creators SIEGEL & SHUSTER, Golden/Silver Age DC production guru JACK ADLER interviewed, NEAL ADAMS and radio/TV iconoclast (and comics fan) HOWARD STERN on Adler and his amazing career, art by CURT SWAN, WAYNE BORING, and AL PLASTINO, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, ALEX TOTH, and more! NEAL ADAMS cover!

Issue-by-issue index of Timely/Atlas superhero stories by MICHELLE NOLAN, art by SIMON & KIRBY, EVERETT, BURGOS, ROMITA, AYERS, HEATH, SEKOWSKY, SHORES, SCHOMBURG, MANEELY, and SEVERIN, GENE COLAN and ALLEN BELLMAN on 1940s Timely super-heroes, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and BILL SCHELLY! Cover by JACK KIRBY and PETE VON SHOLLY!

GERRY CONWAY and ROY THOMAS on their ’80s screenplay for “The X-Men Movie That Never Was!”with art by COCKRUM, ADAMS, BUSCEMA, BYRNE, GIL KANE, KIRBY, HECK, and LIEBER, Atlas artist VIC CARRABOTTA interview, ALLEN BELLMAN on 1940s Timely bullpen, FCA, 1966 panel on 1950s EC Comics, and MR. MONSTER! MARK SPARACIO/GIL KANE cover!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC053401

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN063429

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAR063545

ALTER EGO #55 JACK and OTTO BINDER, KEN BALD, VIC DOWD, and BOB BOYAJIAN interviewed, FCA with SWAYZE and EMILIO SQUEGLIO, rare art by BECK, WARD, & SCHAFFENBERGER, Christmas Card Art from CRANDALL, SINNOTT, HEATH, MOONEY, and CARDY, 1943 Pin-Up Calendar (with ’40s movie stars as superheroines), ALEX TOTH, and more! ALEX ROSS and ALEX WRIGHT covers!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: OCT053396

ALTER EGO #59 Special issue on Batman and Superman in the Golden and Silver Ages, ARTHUR SUYDAM interview, NEAL ADAMS on 1960s/70s DC, SHELLY MOLDOFF, AL PLASTINO, Golden Age artist FRAN (Doll Man) MATERA and VIC CARRABOTTA interviewed, SIEGEL & SHUSTER, RUSS MANNING, FCA, MR. MONSTER, SUYDAM cover, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: APR063474

ALTER EGO #60

ALTER EGO #61

ALTER EGO #62

Celebrates 50 years since SHOWCASE #4! FLASH interviews with SCHWARTZ, KANIGHER, INFANTINO, KUBERT, and BROOME, Golden Age artist TONY DiPRETA, 1966 panel with NORDLING, BINDER, and LARRY IVIE, FCA, MR. MONSTER, never-before-published color Flash cover by CARMINE INFANTINO, and more!

History of the AMERICAN COMICS GROUP (1946 to 1967)—including its roots in the Golden Age SANGOR ART SHOP and STANDARD/NEDOR comics! Art by MESKIN, ROBINSON, WILLIAMSON, FRAZETTA, SCHAFFENBERGER, & BUSCEMA, ACG writer/editor RICHARD HUGHES, plus AL HARTLEY interviewed, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more! GIORDANO cover!

HAPPY HAUNTED HALLOWEEN ISSUE, featuring: MIKE PLOOG and RUDY PALAIS on their horror-comics work! AL WILLIAMSON on his work for the American Comics Group—plus more on ACG horror comics! Rare DICK BRIEFER Frankenstein strips! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY on the 1966 KalerCon, a new PLOOG cover—and more!

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ALTER EGO #63

ALTER EGO #64

ALTER EGO #65

ALTER EGO #66

ALTER EGO #67

Tribute to ALEX TOTH! Never-before-seen interview with tons of TOTH art, including sketches he sent to friends! Articles about Toth by TERRY AUSTIN, JIM AMASH, SY BARRY, JOE KUBERT, LOU SAYRE SCHWARTZ, IRWIN HASEN, JOHN WORKMAN, and others! Plus illustrated Christmas cards by comics pros, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

Fawcett Favorites! Issue-by-issue analysis of BINDER & BECK’s 1943-45 “The Monster Society of Evil!” serial, double-size FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, EMILIO SQUEGLIO, C.C. BECK, MAC RABOY, and others! Interview with MARTIN FILCHOCK, Golden Age artist for Centaur Comics! Plus MR. MONSTER, DON NEWTON cover, plus a FREE 1943 MARVEL CALENDAR!

NICK CARDY interviewed on his Golden & Silver Age work (with CARDY art), plus art by WILL EISNER, NEAL ADAMS, CARMINE INFANTINO, JIM APARO, RAMONA FRADON, CURT SWAN, MIKE SEKOWSKY, and others, tributes to ERNIE SCHROEDER and DAVE COCKRUM, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, new CARDY COVER, and more!

Spotlight on BOB POWELL, the artist who drew Daredevil, Sub-Mariner, Sheena, The Avenger, The Hulk, Giant-Man, and others, plus art by WALLY WOOD, HOWARD NOSTRAND, DICK AYERS, SIMON & KIRBY, MARTIN GOODMAN’s Magazine Management, and others! FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, and more!

Interview with BOB OKSNER, artist of Supergirl, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Angel and the Ape, Leave It to Binky, Shazam!, and more, plus art and artifacts by SHELLY MAYER, IRWIN HASEN, LEE ELIAS, C.C. BECK, CARMINE INFANTINO, GIL KANE, JULIE SCHWARTZ, etc., FCA with MARC SWAYZE & C.C. BECK, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on BOB POWELL Part II, and more!

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ALTER EGO #68

ALTER EGO #69

ALTER EGO #70

ALTER EGO #71

ALTER EGO #72

Tribute to JERRY BAILS—Father of Comics Fandom and founder of Alter Ego! Cover by GEORGE PÉREZ, plus art by JOE KUBERT, CARMINE INFANTINO, GIL KANE, DICK DILLIN, MIKE SEKOWSKY, JERRY ORDWAY, JOE STATON, JACK KIRBY, and others! Plus STEVE DITKO’s notes to STAN LEE for a 1965 Dr. Strange story! And ROY reveals secrets behind Marvel’s STAR WARS comic!

PAUL NORRIS drew AQUAMAN first, in 1941—and RAMONA FRADON was the hero’s ultimate Golden Age artist. But both drew other things as well, and both are interviewed in this landmark issue—along with a pocket history of Aquaman! Plus FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and more! Cover painted by JOHN WATSON, from a breathtaking illo by RAMONA FRADON!

Spotlight on ROY THOMAS’ 1970s stint as Marvel’s editor-in-chief and major writer, plus art and reminiscences of GIL KANE, BOTH BUSCEMAS, ADAMS, ROMITA, CHAYKIN, BRUNNER, PLOOG, EVERETT, WRIGHTSON, PÉREZ, ROBBINS, BARRY SMITH, STAN LEE and others, FCA, MR. MONSTER, a new GENE COLAN cover, plus an homage to artist LILY RENÉE!

Represents THE GREAT CANADIAN COMIC BOOKS, the long out-of-print 1970s book by MICHAEL HIRSH and PATRICK LOUBERT, with rare art of such heroes as Mr. Monster, Nelvana, Thunderfist, and others, plus new INVADERS art by JOHN BYRNE, MIKE GRELL, RON LIM, and more, plus a new cover by GEORGE FREEMAN, from a layout by JACK KIRBY!

SCOTT SHAW! and ROY THOMAS on the creation of Captain Carrot, art & artifacts by RICK HOBERG, STAN GOLDBERG, MIKE SEKOWSKY, JOHN COSTANZA, E. NELSON BRIDWELL, CAROL LAY, and others, interview with DICK ROCKWELL, Golden Age artist and 36-year ghost artist on MILTON CANIFF’s Steve Canyon! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

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ALTER EGO #73

ALTER EGO #75

ALTER EGO #76

FRANK BRUNNER on drawing Dr. Strange, interviews with CHARLES BIRO and his daughters, interview with publisher ROBERT GERSON about his 1970s horror comic Reality, art by BERNIE WRIGHTSON, GRAHAM INGELS, HOWARD CHAYKIN, MICHAEL W. KALUTA, JEFF JONES, and others FCA, MR. MONSTER, a FREE DRAW! #15! PREVIEW, and more!

FAWCETT FESTIVAL—with an ALEX ROSS cover! Double-size FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) with P.C. HAMERLINCK on the many “Captains Marvel” over the years, unseen Shazam! proposal by ALEX ROSS, C.C. BECK on “The Death of a Legend!”, MARC SWAYZE, interview with Golden Age artist MARV LEVY, MR. MONSTER, and more!

JOE SIMON SPECIAL! In-depth SIMON interview by JIM AMASH, with neverbefore-revealed secrets behind the creation of Captain America, Fighting American, Stuntman, Adventures of The Fly, Sick magazine and more, art by JACK KIRBY, BOB POWELL, AL WILLIAMSON, JERRY GRANDENETTI, GEORGE TUSKA, and others, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

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ALTER EGO #74 STAN LEE SPECIAL in honor of his 85th birthday, with a cover by JACK KIRBY, classic (and virtually unseen) interviews with Stan, tributes, and tons of rare and unseen art by KIRBY, ROMITA, the brothers BUSCEMA, DITKO, COLAN, HECK, AYERS, MANEELY, SHORES, EVERETT, BURGOS, KANE, the SEVERIN siblings—plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

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ALTER EGO #78 ALTER EGO #77 ST. JOHN ISSUE! Golden Age Tor cover by JOE KUBERT, KEN QUATTRO relates the full legend of St. John Publishing, art by KUBERT, NORMAN MAURER, MATT BAKER, LILY RENEE, BOB LUBBERS, RUBEN MOREIRA, RALPH MAYO, AL FAGO, special reminiscences of ARNOLD DRAKE, Golden Age artist TOM SAWYER interviewed, and more! (100-page magazine) $6.95 Ships May 2008

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DAVE COCKRUM TRIBUTE! Great rare XMen cover, Cockrum tributes from contemporaries and colleagues, and an interview with PATY COCKRUM on Dave’s life and legacy on The Legion of Super-Heroes, The X-Men, Star-Jammers, & more! Plus an interview with 1950s Timely/Marvel artist MARION SITTON on his own incredible career and his Golden Age contemporaries! (100-page magazine) $6.95 Ships June 2008

ALTER EGO #79

ALTER EGO #80

SUPERMAN & HIS CREATORS! New cover by MICHAEL GOLDEN, exclusive and revealing interview with JOE SHUSTER’s sister, JEAN SHUSTER PEAVEY—MIKE W. BARR on Superman the detective— DWIGHT DECKER on the Man of Steel & Hitler’s Third Reich—plus the NEMBO KID (Italian for “Superman”), art by BORING, SWAN, ADAMS, KANE, and others!

SWORD-AND-SORCERY COMICS! Learn about Crom the Barbarian, Viking Prince, Nightmaster, Kull, Red Sonja, Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser, Beowulf, Warlord, Dagar the Invincible, and more, with art by FRAZETTA, SMITH, BUSCEMA, KANE, WRIGHTSON, PLOOG, THORNE, BRUNNER, and more! New cover by RAFAEL KAYANAN!

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12-ISSUE SUBSCRIPTIONS: $78 US Postpaid by Media Mail ($108 First Class, $132 Canada, $180 Surface, $216 Airmail). For a 6-issue sub, cut the price in half!

THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

Edited by MICHAEL EURY, BACK ISSUE magazine celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through recurring (and rotating) departments such as “Pro2Pro” (a dialogue between two professionals), “Rough Stuff” (pencil art showcases of top artists), “Greatest Stories Never Told” (spotlighting unrealized comics series or stories), and more!

Go online for an ULTIMATE BUNDLE, with all the issues at HALF-PRICE! 6-ISSUE SUBS: $40 US Postpaid by Media Mail ($54 First Class, $66 Canada, $90 Surface, $108 Airmail).

BACK ISSUE #1

BACK ISSUE #2

BACK ISSUE #3

“PRO2PRO” interview between GEORGE PÉREZ & 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 and BUSCEMA ART), “OFF MY CHEST” editorial by INFANTINO, and more! PÉREZ cover!

“PRO2PRO” between ADAM HUGHES and 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 and TWISTED TALES, “OFF MY CHEST” by MIKE W. BARR on the DC IMPLOSION, and more! HUGHES cover!

“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, details on two unknown PLASTIC MAN movies, Joker’s history with O’NEIL, ADAMS, ENGLEHART, ROGERS and BOLLAND, editorial by MARK EVANIER, and more! BOLLAND cover!

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BACK ISSUE #4

BACK ISSUE #5

BACK ISSUE #6

BACK ISSUE #7

BACK ISSUE #8

“PRO2PRO” between JOHN BYRNE and CHRIS CLAREMONT on their X-MEN WORK and WALT SIMONSON and JOE CASEY on Walter’s THOR, WOLVERINE PENCIL ART by BUSCEMA, LEE, COCKRUM, BYRNE, and GIL KANE, LEN WEIN’S TEEN WOLVERINE, PUNISHER’S 30TH and SECRET WARS’ 20TH ANNIVERSARIES (with UNSEEN ZECK ART), and more! BYRNE cover!

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

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

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

DENNY O’NEIL and 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), ISABELLA and TREVOR VON EEDEN on BLACK LIGHTNING, and more! KYLE BAKER cover!

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BACK ISSUE #9

BACK ISSUE #10

BACK ISSUE #11

BACK ISSUE #12

BACK ISSUE #13

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, and more! All-new STEVE RUDE COVER!

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 PAUL SMITH, SIENKIEWICZ, SIMONSON, BOLLAND, HANNIGAN, MAZZUCCHELLI, and others! New cover by ADAMS!

ROY THOMAS, KURT BUSIEK, and JOE JUSKO on CONAN (with art by JOHN BUSCEMA, BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH, NEAL ADAMS, JUSKO, and others), SERGIO ARAGONÉS and MARK EVANIER on GROO, DC’s never-published KING ARTHUR, pencil art gallery by KIRBY, PÉREZ, MOEBIUS, GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, BOLLAND, and others, and a new BUSCEMA/JUSKO Conan cover!

‘70s and ‘80s character revamps with DAVE GIBBONS, ROY THOMAS and KURT BUSIEK, TOM DeFALCO and RON FRENZ on Spider-Man’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 E-Man, 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), and more!

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BACK ISSUE #14

BACK ISSUE #15

BACK ISSUE #16

BACK ISSUE #17

BACK ISSUE #18

DAVE COCKRUM and MIKE GRELL go “Pro2Pro” on the Legion, pencil art gallery by BUSCEMA, BYRNE, MILLER, STARLIN, McFARLANE, ROMITA JR., SIENKIEWICZ, looks at Hercules Unbound, Hex, Killraven, Kamandi, MARS, Planet of the Apes, art and interviews with GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, KIRBY, WILLIAMSON, and more! New MIKE GRELL/BOB McLEOD cover!

“Weird Heroes” of the 1970s and ‘80s! MIKE PLOOG discusses Ghost Rider, MATT WAGNER revisits The Demon, JOE KUBERT dusts off Ragman, GENE COLAN “Rough Stuff” pencil gallery, GARCÍALÓPEZ recalls Deadman, DC’s unpublished Gorilla Grodd series, PERLIN, CONWAY, and MOENCH on Werewolf by Night, and more! New ARTHUR ADAMS cover!

“Toy Stories!” Behind the Scenes of Marvel’s G.I. JOE™ and TRANSFORMERS with PAUL LEVITZ and GEORGE TUSKA, “Rough Stuff” MIKE ZECK pencil gallery, ARTHUR ADAMS on Gumby, HE-MAN, ROM, MICRONAUTS, SUPER POWERS, SUPER-HERO CARS, art by HAMA, SAL BUSCEMA, GUICE, GOLDEN, KIRBY, TRIMPE, and new ZECK sketch cover!

“Super Girls!” Supergirl retrospective with art by STELFREEZE, HAMNER, SpiderWoman, Flare, Tigra, DC’s unused Double Comics with unseen BARRETTO and INFANTINO art, WOLFMAN and JIMENEZ on Donna Troy, female comics pros, art by SEKOWSKY, OKSNER, PÉREZ, HUGHES, GIORDANO, plus a COLOR GALLERY and COVER by BRUCE TIMM!

“Big, Green Issue!” Tour of NEAL ADAMS’ studio (with interview and art gallery), DAVE GIBBONS “Rough Stuff” pencil art spotlight, interviews with MIKE GRELL (on Green Arrow), PETER DAVID (on Incredible Hulk), a “Pro2Pro” chat between GERRY CONWAY and JOHN ROMITA, SR. (on the Green Goblin), and more. New cover by NEAL ADAMS!

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BACK ISSUE #19

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BACK ISSUE #23

“Unsung Heroes!” DON NEWTON spotlight, STEVE GERBER and GENE COLAN on Howard the Duck, MIKE CARLIN and DANNY FINGEROTH on Marvel’s Assistant Editors’ Month, the unrealized Unlimited Powers TV show, TONY ISABELLA’s aborted plans for The Champions, MARK GRUENWALD tribute, art by SAL BUSCEMA, JOHN BYRNE, and more! NEWTON/ RUBINSTEIN cover!

“Secret Identities!” Histories of characters with unusual alter egos: Firestorm, Moon Knight, the Question, and the “real-life” Human Fly! STEVE ENGLEHART and SAL BUSCEMA on Captain America, JERRY ORDWAY interview and cover, Superman roundtable with SIENKIEWICZ, NOWLAN, MOENCH, COWAN, MAGGIN, O’NEIL, MILGROM, CONWAY, ROBBINS, SWAN, plus FREE ALTER EGO #64 PREVIEW!

“The Devil You Say!” issue! A look at Daredevil in the 1980s and 1990s with interviews and art by KLAUS JANSON, JOHN ROMITA JR., and FRANK MILLER, MIKE MIGNOLA Hellboy interview, DAN MISHKIN and GARY COHN on Blue Devil, COLLEEN DORAN’s unpublished X-Men spin-off “Fallen Angels”, Son of Satan, Stig’s Inferno, DC’s Plop!, JACK KIRBY’s Devil Dinosaur, and cover by MIKE ZECK!

“Dynamic Duos!’ “Pro2Pro” interviews with Batman’s ALAN GRANT and NORM BREYFOGLE and the Legion’s PAUL LEVITZ and KEITH GIFFEN, a “Backstage Pass” to Dark Horse Comics, Robin’s history, EASTMAN and LAIRD’s Ninja Turtles, histories of duos Robin and Batgirl, Captain America and the Falcon, and Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, “Zot!” interview with SCOTT McCLOUD, and a new BREYFOGLE cover!

“Comics Go Hollywood!” Spider-Man roundtable with STAN LEE, JOHN ROMITA, SR., JIM SHOOTER, ERIK LARSEN, and others, STAR TREK comics writers’ roundtable Part 1, Gladstone’s Disney comics line, behindthe-scenes at TV’s ISIS and THE FLASH (plus an interview with Flash’s JOHN WESLEY SHIPP), TV tie-in comics, bonus 8-page color ADAM HUGHES ART GALLERY and cover, plus a FREE WRITE NOW #16 PREVIEW!

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“Magic” issue! MICHAEL GOLDEN interview, GENE COLAN, PAUL SMITH, and FRANK BRUNNER on drawing Dr. Strange, Mystic Art Gallery with CARL POTTS & KEVIN NOWLAN, BILL WILLINGHAM’s Elementals, Zatanna history, Dr. Fate’s revival, a “Greatest Stories Never Told” look at Peter Pan, tribute to the late MARSHALL ROGERS, a new GOLDEN cover, plus a FREE ROUGH STUFF #6 PREVIEW!

“Men of Steel!’ BOB LAYTON and DAVID MICHELINIE on Iron Man, RICH BUCKLER on Deathlok, MIKE GRELL on Warlord, JOHN BYRNE on ROG 2000, Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman, Machine Man, the World’s Greatest Super-Heroes comic strip, DC’s Steel, art by KIRBY, HECK, WINDSOR-SMITH, TUSKA, LAYTON cover, and bonus “Men of Steel” art gallery! Includes a FREE DRAW! #15 PREVIEW!

“Spies and Tough Guys!’ PAUL GULACY and DOUG MOENCH in an art-packed “Pro2Pro” on Master of Kung Fu and their unrealized Shang-Chi/Nick Fury crossover, Suicide Squad spotlight, Ms. Tree, CHUCK DIXON and TIM TRUMAN’s Airboy, James Bond and Mr. T in comic books, Sgt. Rock’s oddball super-hero team-ups, Nathaniel Dusk, JOE KUBERT’s unpublished The Redeemer, and a new GULACY cover!

“Comic Book Royalty!” The ’70s/’80s careers of Aquaman and the Sub-Mariner explored, BARR and BOLLAND discuss CAMELOT 3000, comics pros tell “Why JACK KIRBY Was King,” “Dr. Doom: Monarch or Menace?” DON McGREGOR’s Black Panther; an exclusive ALAN WEISS art gallery; spotlights on ARION, LORD OF ATLANTIS; NIGHT FORCE; and more! New cover by NICK CARDY!

“Heroes Behaving Badly!” Hulk vs. Thing tirades with RON WILSON, HERB TRIMPE, and JIM SHOOTER; CARY BATES and CARMINE INFANTINO on “Trial of the Flash”; JOHN BYRNE’s heroes who cross the line; Teen Titan Terra, Kid Miracleman, Mark Shaw Manhunter, and others who went bad, featuring LAYTON, MICHELINIE, WOLFMAN, and PÉREZ, and more! New cover by DARWYN COOKE!

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NEW STUFF FROM TWOMORROWS!

ROUGH STUFF #8

BACK ISSUE #28

WRITE NOW! #18

DRAW! #15

BRICKJOURNAL #2

Features an in-depth interview and cover painting by the extraordinary MIKE MAYHEW, preliminary and unpublished art by ALEX HORLEY, TONY DeZUNIGA, NICK CARDY, and RAFAEL KAYANAN (including commentary by each artist), a look at the great Belgian comic book artists, a “Rough Critique” of MIKE MURDOCK’s work, and more!

Celebration of STAN LEE’s 85th birthday, including rare examples of comics, TV, and movie scripts from the Stan Lee Archives, tributes by JOHN ROMITA, SR., JOE QUESADA, ROY THOMAS, DENNIS O’NEIL, JIMMY PALMIOTTI, JIM SALICRUP, TODD McFARLANE, LOUISE SIMONSON, MARK EVANIER, and others, plus art by KIRBY, DITKO, ROMITA, and more!

BACK TO SCHOOL ISSUE, covering major schools offering comic art as part of their curriculum, featuring faculty, student, and graduate interviews in an ultimate overview of collegiate-level comic art classes! Plus, a “how-to” demo/ interview with artist BILL REINHOLD, MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ COMIC ART BOOTCAMP series, a FREE WRITE NOW #17 PREVIEW, and more!

The ultimate resource for LEGO enthusiasts of all ages spotlights blockbuster summer movies, LEGO style! Go behind the scenes for new sets for BATMAN and INDIANA JONES, and see new models, including an SR-71 SPYPLANE and a LEGO CITY, plus MINIFIGURE CUSTOMIZATIONS, BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS, tour the ONLINE LEGO FACTORY, and more! Edited by JOE MENO.

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SILVER AGE SCI-FI COMPANION

BEST OF WRITE NOW!

BEST OF DRAW! VOL. 3

In the Silver Age of Comics, space was the place, and this book summarizes, critiques and lovingly recalls the classic science-fiction series edited by JULIUS SCHWARTZ and written by GARDNER FOX and JOHN BROOME! The pages of DC’s science-fiction magazines of the 1960s, STRANGE ADVENTURES and MYSTERY IN SPACE, are opened for you, including story-bystory reviews of complete series such as ADAM STRANGE, ATOMIC KNIGHTS, SPACE MUSEUM, STAR ROVERS, STAR HAWKINS and others! Writer/editor MIKE W. BARR tells you which series crossed over with each other, behind-the-scenes secrets, and more, including writer and artist credits for every story! Features rare art by CARMINE INFANTINO, MURPHY ANDERSON, GIL KANE, SID GREENE, MIKE SEKOWSKY, and many others, plus a glorious new cover by ALAN DAVIS and PAUL NEARY!

Features highlights from the acclaimed magazine about writing for comics, including interviews from top talents, like: BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS, WILL EISNER, JEPH LOEB, STAN LEE, J. M. STRACZYNSKI, MARK WAID, GEOFF JOHNS, TODD McFARLANE, PAUL LEVITZ, AXEL ALONSO, and others! Plus “NUTS & BOLTS” tutorials feature scripts from landmark comics and the pencil art that was drawn from them, including: CIVIL WAR #1 (MILLAR & McNIVEN), BATMAN: HUSH #1 (LOEB & LEE), ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #47 (BENDIS & BAGLEY), AMAZING SPIDERMAN #539 (STRACZYNSKI & GARNEY), SPAWN #52 (McFARLANE & CAPULO), GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH #1 (JOHNS & VAN SCRIVER), and more! Also: How-to articles by the best comics writers and editors around, professional secrets of top comics pros, and an introduction by STAN LEE! Edited by DANNY FINGEROTH.

Compiles more of the best tutorials and interviews from DRAW! #5-7, including: Penciling by MIKE WIERINGO! Illustration by DAN BRERETON! Design by PAUL RIVOCHE! Drawing Hands, Lighting the Figure, and Sketching by BRET BLEVINS! Cartooning by BILL WRAY! Inking by MIKE MANLEY! Comics & Animation by STEPHEN DeSTEFANO! Digital Illustration by CELIA CALLE and ALBERTO RUIZ! Caricature by ZACH TRENHOLM, and much more! Cover by DAN BRERETON!

MODERN MASTERS VOLUME 16: MIKE ALLRED

(144-page trade paperback) $19.95 ISBN: 9781893905818 Diamond Order Code: JUL073885

(160-page trade paperback) $19.95 ISBN: 9781893905924 Diamond Order Code: FEB084082

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Now Shipping Diamond Order Code: FEB084188

KIRBY FIVE-OH! (JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #50) The regular columnists from THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR magazine celebrate the best of everything from Jack Kirby’s 50-year career, spotlighting: The BEST KIRBY STORIES & COVERS from 19381987! Jack’s 50 BEST UNUSED PIECES OF ART! His 50 BEST CHARACTER DESIGNS! Interviews with the 50 PEOPLE MOST INFLUENCED BY KIRBY’S WORK! A 50PAGE KIRBY PENCIL ART GALLERY and DELUXE COLOR SECTION! Kirby cover inked by DARWYN COOKE, and an introduction by MARK EVANIER, making this the ultimate retrospective on the career of the “King” of comics! Edited by JOHN MORROW. (168-page tabloid-size trade paperback) $19.95 ISBN: 9781893905894 Diamond Order Code: JUL078147 Now Shipping

Go to www.twomorrows.com for FULL-COLOR downloadable PDF versions of our magazines for only $2.95! Subscribers to the print edition get the digital edition FREE, weeks before it hits stores!

SUBSCRIPTIONS:

(256-page trade paperback) $29.95 ISBN: 9781893905917 Diamond Order Code: JAN083936

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JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR (4 issues)

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1st Class Canada $56

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BACK ISSUE! (6 issues)

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DRAW!, WRITE NOW!, ROUGH STUFF (4 issues)

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ALTER EGO (12 issues) Six-issue subs are half-price!

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BRICKJOURNAL (4 issues)

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Features an extensive, career-spanning interview lavishly illustrated with rare art from Mike’s files, plus huge sketchbook section, including unseen and unused art! By ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON. (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905863 Diamond Order Code: JAN083937

COMICS GO HOLLYWOOD Unveils secrets behind your FAVORITE ONSCREEN HEROES, and how a character goes from the comics page to the big screen! It includes: Storyboards from DC’s animated hit “THE NEW FRONTIER”, JEPH LOEB on writing for Marvel Comics and the Heroes TV show, details on the UNSEEN X-MEN MOVIE, a history of the JOKER from the 1940s to the upcoming Dark Knight film, and a look at Marvel Universe co-creator JACK KIRBY’s Hollywood career, with extensive Kirby art! (32-page comic) FREE! at your local comics retailer on FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, May 3, 2008!

TwoMorrows. Celebrating The Art & History Of Comics. TwoMorrows • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com