Alter Ego #64 by TwoMorrows Publishing

Captain Roy Thomas Jr.’s Comics Fanzine

SHAZAMIC SPOTLIGHT ON

CAPT. MARVEL (JR. & SR.)! CAPTAIN NAZI! MR. MIND’S MONSTER SOCIETY OF EVIL — & MAX SCHMELING!? PLUS: PLUS:

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In the USA

No. 64 January 2007

BONUS!

GOLDEN AGE CENTAUR ARTIST

MARTIN FILCHOCK

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82658 27763

Vol. 3, No. 64 / January 2007

™

Editor

Roy Thomas

Contents

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout

Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor

P.C. Hamerlinck

Comic Crypt Editor

Writer/Editorial: Jerry G. Bails—A Fan For All Seasons . . . . . . . 2 The Monster Society Of Evil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Michael T. Gilbert

Editors Emeritus

An issue-by-issue look at the classic Captain Marvel-Mr. Mind confrontation by Roy Thomas.

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

Say “Shazam! ”—Or Maybe “Schmeling!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Production Assistant

“They Treated Me Like I Had Talent!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Chris Irving

Centaur’s Martin Filchock talks to Jim Amash about his amazing 70 years as a pro artist!

Circulation Director

Bob Brodsky, Seastone Marketing Group

Cover Artist

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt: Twice-Told Wonder Woman & Superman . . 41 Michael T. Gilbert’s own “evil twin” episode.

The Kaler Con: Two Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Don Newton

With Special Thanks to: Heidi Amash Jean Bails Mike W. Barr John Benson Bill Black Ray Bottorff, Jr. Brett Canavan R. Dewey Cassell Frank Cwiklik Mark Daniel Craig Delich Roger Dicken & Wendy Hunt Jay Disbrow Don Ensign Rex Ferrell Martin Filchock Michael Finn Stephen Fishler & Metropolis Collectibles Shane Foley Shawn Fuller Jeff Gelb Janet Gilbert Dick Giordano Andreas Gottschlich Jennifer Hamerlinck Jack C. Harris Mark Heike

Roger Dicken wonders if Fred MacMurray was really the visual model for the World’s Mightiest Mortal.

Roger Hill Larry Ivie Jonathan G. Jensen Jeffrey Kipper Alan Kupperberg Timothy Lane Stéphane Lucien Jim Ludwig Bruce Mason Steve Morrell Brian K. Morris Jake Oster Gene Reed Francis A. Rodriguez Rich Rubenfeld Al Russell Eric Schumacher Ben Smith Emilio Squeglio Robin Snyder Marc Swayze Dann Thomas Brad Thompson Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Mike Voiles Mike Vosburg Hames Ware John Wells Andy Yanchus Vincent Zorzolo

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Mac Raboy & Bud Thompson See page 90 for a FREE preview of BACK ISSUE #20!

Bill Schelly examines Dave Kaler’s 1966 New York Comics Convention.

The Alter Ego 1943 Calendar Goes 2007! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Alex Wright re-creates a vintage collection of Timely/Marvel lovelies.

re: [comments, correspondence, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . . . 60 FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) #123 (cover) . . . . . . . . 63 We Didn’t Know… It Was The Golden Age! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Golden Age Fawcett artist Marc Swayze on his musical hero Neal Valentine.

Emilio Squeglio Adventures – Part I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 A Fawcett artist in his own words, about a certain Captain and related Marvels.

Mac’s Marvel & Mongo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Jay Disbrow writes how artist Mac Raboy went from Captain Marvel Jr. to Flash Gordon.

Bud Thompson & The Boy In Blue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 P.C. Hamerlinck on the artful inheritor of Raboy’s Captain Marvel Jr. mantle.

About Our Cover: The late and supremely talented Don Newton—who coincidentally was covered in detail in the December 2006 issue of our sister publication Back Issue—sold this exquisite painting of Captains Marvel Jr. and Nazi to editor Roy Thomas at a comics convention circa 1980—at the same time Ye Editor also purchased the Captain Marvel painting used on A/E, Vol. 3, #11. We’ve always felt that Don caught, just as he clearly intended to, much of the spirit of original CMJr illustrator Mac Raboy in the figures of the Boy in Blue and his Nazi nemesis. Actually, there’s a little more to the painting than we could squeeze onto our cover— including a newspaper photo of Captain Marvel and a mention of featured villain Mr. Mind— so remind us to show you the whole thing, at least in black-&-white, in a future issue! [Captain Marvel Jr. & Captain Nazi TM & ©2007 DC Comics.] Above: Our Australian avatar Shane Foley prepared no less than two clever Mr. Mind homages for this issue; the other one can be seen on p. 60 of this issue. This one pays tribute to C.C. Beck’s cover scene for Captain Marvel Adventures #29 (Nov. 1943), the original of which appears on p. 9, and of course features two of our “maskots,” Alter & Captain Ego, staring down the World’s Wickedest Worm. [Mr. Mind TM & ©2007 DC Comics; other art ©2007 Shane Foley; Alter & Capt. Ego TM & ©2007 Roy & Dann Thomas.] Alter EgoTM is published monthly by TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: 32 Bluebird Trail, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $9 ($11.00 outside the US). Twelve-issue subscriptions:$72 US, $132 Canada, $144 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in Canada. ISSN: 1932-6890 FIRST PRINTING.

e writer/editorial

Jerry G. Bails–A Fan For All Seasons D

expanded online version, The Who’s Who of American Comic Books (1928-1999).

uring the week wherein I write these words, I (Roy Thomas) lost a very good friend… and comics fandom lost a founding father.

Jerry Gwin Bails died in his sleep at age 73 on Thanksgiving, Nov. 23, 2006, in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. As Grand Comic Book Database manager Ray Bottorff, Jr., wrote in an e-mail release that same night: “Jerry had been suffering a serious heart condition for the past several years. In recent months the physical discomfort he had experienced had kept him mostly homebound, but his mind remained as sharp as ever, thanks to the contact he was able to continue with friends and family through the Internet.”

We plan a full-issue tribute to Jerry in Alter Ego #68 in May. Meanwhile, I feel the best way to conclude this piece is with the message from Jean, his loving wife and partner for the past three decades. Having already received, in the first 24 hours after his passing, numerous condolences from the far points of the globe, she e-mailed these words to those well-wishers:

Dr. Jerry G. Bails. Photo taken by Dann Thomas in Detroit, 2002.

Although Jerry’d been predicting his early demise for the past few years as his condition slowly deteriorated, I’d always respond by trying to jar him good-naturedly into hanging around a while longer, so he could continue to give the rest of us the benefit of his clear and cogent thinking.

Those who know anything about comics fandom as it was shaped from the early 1960s onward—whether they were “there” or simply read our 70th-birthday tribute to him in Alter Ego #26 in 2003—are aware that, while holding down a day job as a university science teacher, Jerry founded not only this magazine as the first of a wave of Silver and Golden Age-oriented comics fanzines, but also The Comicollector (the first comics adzine) and On The Drawing Board (the first comics newszine)—all three over the course of a single year, 1961. He was also the prime mover behind the 1970s Who’s Who in American Comic Books, of which he’d recently launched a greatly

I have been reading the kind words about Jerry and shared them with his sons as well. I thank you as do they. I hope to get around to sending a more personal thanks to each soon. What would Jerry say? He would probably have said, “Aw, stop—you are making me blush.”

Actually, it is my read of his involvement in fandom that it was not all about him—it was about you. Surprising as it may seem, fandom was not that much about comic characters, either, but rather it was about people discovering their potential in whatever area and developing confidence in what they could do. Also, fandom was above all good people cooperating with one another to create an entity that was greater than the sum of its parts. Looking at the size of some of the fanworks and conventions, he would sometimes joke, “A monster has been created,” but it was a monster he dearly loved. He had no misgivings about fandom going on quite well without him. It will, because of all of you. Thank you very much, Jean Bails

COMING IN FEBRUARY

NICK CARDY Is In The Cards! The Major Silver Age DC Artist—Not To Mention Golden Age Quality Star NICHOLAS VISCARDI!

• Fantabulous new cover by NICK CARDY, done especially for this issue, featuring some of the heroes most associated with the Silver Age super-star! • CARDY talks to JIM AMASH about his career in the Golden and Silver Ages, in an incredible in-depth, lushly illustrated interview—spotlighting art and artifacts by WILL EISNER, NEAL ADAMS, CARMINE INFANTINO, JIM APARO, RAMONA FRADON, CURT SWAN, JOE ORLANDO, BOB HANEY, MIKE SEKOWSKY, et al.! • Delayed from this issue—a tribute to Airboy/Heap artist ERNIE SCHROEDER! • FCA with MARC SWAYZE, EMILIO SQUEGLIO (Part 2), & others—MICHAEL T. GILBERT on “cheesy comics covers”—BILL SCHELLY on the 1967 Castle of Frankenstein comic-con—& MORE!! Edited by ROY THOMAS

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The Monster Society Of Evil An Issue-By-Issue Appreciation Of The 1943-45 Serial In Captain Marvel Adventures #22-46 by Roy Thomas

were, they couldn’t have seemed any more real to me at that time if they’d been projected on the big screen with all of today’s CIG magic, augmented by Sensurround Sound. And all those creatures were commanded by this weird little worm riding on a sea horse!

s a kid in the latter 1940s and early 1950s, I loved Saturday afternoon movie serials—a minor sub-genre of the film industry that was just winding down in local theatres all across the country. I was an adult before I even knew there’d ever been a Captain Marvel serial—but I was bowled over that memorable day in 1948 when I saw the theatrical trailer (yes!) for the first Superman serial, starring (my later acquaintance) Kirk Alyn, at a movie house. I managed, despite the usual childhood illnesses, not to miss more than a chapter or so of it, or of Atom Man vs. Superman, or Batman and Robin, Congo Bill, or Blackhawk, or even what was actually a re-release of The Secret Code, starring that World War II mystery man, The Black Commando.

Whether or not I saw, a few weeks later, the following issue, in which Mr. Mind was finally captured and met his just end, I don’t recall. But I never forgot that penultimate chapter of a comic book serial of whose beginnings I had no inkling for the next fifteen years. In 1960, Dick Lupoff lauded the “Monster Society” serial in his seminal article “The Big Red Cheese” in the first issue of his and wife Pat’s science-fiction fanzine Xero. And I was thrilled when, over the near year or three, I finally got to read all 25 whimsical yet exciting chapters during one of my visits to fellow comics fan Biljo White and the cement-block White House of Comics behind his home in Columbia, Missouri. Bill had a virtually complete collection of Captain Marvel, Whiz Comics, and The Marvel Family, among many other wonders.

But, love the two Superman serials in particular though I still do, there’s another specimen of the species “serial” that rivals them for a place in my heart—and even in my head. And I first saw it not at the Palace Theatre in Jackson, Missouri—but in the pages of a comic book. Its name: “The Monster Society of Evil!” Since I’d only turned four in November 1944, I couldn’t yet read when I perused a brand new copy of Captain Marvel Adventures #45 (April ’45)— which may well have been my initial encounter with the World’s Mightiest Mortal. I instantly fell head over sneakers in love with the red-clad hero with the lightning bolt on his chest, and I can still remember how excited I was looking at all the colorfully inventive sea monsters he battled in that issue. Cartoony as they

Five (Or Is It Six?) For Fawcett This great composite drawing of Captain Marvel, Billy Batson, and Mr. Mind was printed by the American Nostalgia Library as the full-color cover of a flyer advertising its fabulous 1989 reprint volume The Monster Society of Evil (see main text). The original comic book serial was primarily the work of (left to right at top) writer Otto O. (“Eando”) Binder… artist C.C. Beck (with his comics studio)…and editor Wendell Crowley. Binder gave RT his early-’40s photo—P.C. Hamerlinck provided the late 1940s/early 1950s shot of Beck—and the photo of Crowley at the 1968 Jack Binder comic shop reunion dinner (covered in A/E #57) is courtesy of Marc Swayze. [Art ©2007 DC Comics.]

For the past decade, I’ve championed to DC Comics the notion of abandoning for once its chronological approach to reprints in its Archives series, and of printing all 232 pages of the serial in a single hardcover volume. Such a book could almost be considered the first graphic novel—composed of material originally published more than sixty years ago! There’s even precedent for such a collection. In 1989, the American Nostalgia Library, an imprint of Hawk Books Limited of London, England, published a

An Issue-By-Issue Appreciation Of The 1943-45 Serial

one is sitting in the darkness of a neighborhood movie house in the mid-1940s, watching this tale of tales unfold up there on the silver screen. But that’s only fitting, since no doubt the ultimate inspiration for the comic book serial was the rousing success of the 1941 chapter-play The Adventures of Captain Marvel, in which stuntman Tom Tyler made an excellent World’s Mightiest Marvel—even if Republic Pictures took, as per usual, a few more liberties with a licensed property than made any sense. So let’s turn down the house lights, grab a soda pop in one hand and a box of popcorn in the other, and enjoy a chapter-by-chapter look at—

“The Monster Society of Evil” Captain Marvel Adventures #22 (March 1943) Chapter I “The Pearl Of Peril” (12 Pages) The “famous Indian princess” Dareena Rajabuti comes to the USA to donate jewels to the Allied war cause. Over his special radio hookup, Mister Mind (the “Mister” is always spelled out in the first three chapters) directs Captain Nazi to steal the jewels to “further the battle for your Axis”—i.e., Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, and imperial Japan. Mind says he’s helping the Axis “because it is evil! And thus you are a part of my great Society of Evil of the Universe.”

Let The Show Begin! The splash page of Chapter I, complete with cast listing. The blurb says there’ll be “a new chapter every third Friday,” because at this time Captain Marvel Adventures was so popular that it was published once every three weeks, rather than monthly—though each issue had a different monthly date and somehow it all worked out. (Incidentally, this odd scheduling somehow led to there being two issues labeled “Jan. 1943”—but no “May 1943”—and no “Dec. 1944”!)

The princess has actually brought only one magic black pearl the size of a croquet ball, which “can pick up scenes and voices from anywhere,” thus making it “valuable for espionage service!!” When Captain Nazi tries to grab the pearl, Billy Batson, who is interviewing the princess, shouts “Shazam!,” changes to Captain Marvel, and knocks him and his two armed thugs around. Though no match for the

The construction of the group name “The Monster Society of Evil” leads Ye Editor to believe it was inspired by DC’s “Justice Society of America,” but writer Otto Binder always denied any conscious borrowing. Anybody out there have any ideas of where else he might’ve gotten inspiration for it? [©2007 DC Comics.]

3000-copy edition of a gorgeous 14" x 10H" hardcover titled The Monster Society of Evil that collected the entire serial, plus a bit of introductory material. I’ve always assumed ANL/HBL had permission to reprint that material, since the book contains a copyright notice for DC Comics. Unless stated otherwise, all art accompanying this article is taken from that volume. (The first and last chapters of the serial, incidentally, were reprinted in black-&-white, from retouched art, in the 1977 Crown volume Shazam! from the 40’s to the 70’s.) ANL/HBL’s Monster Society is a wonderful book, which reproduces each page from copies of the printed comics. No Theakstonizing or retouching for these folks! It’s all there just as it appeared in the original 1943-45 magazines, complete with sometimes off-register coloring, but reproduced considerably larger than in the old comics, so that the color dots are often clearly visible, as if Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein had turned the serial into one of their Pop Art productions. And, in one odd touch that somehow works, the pages’ margins and “gutters” between panels—areas that were left white on the comics’ pulp paper—are rendered in solid black. The end effect is to underscore the feeling established on the splash page of Chapter I, that

“Mister Mind Calling Captain Nazi!” The first the reader encounters Mr. Mind is as a disembodied voice from outer space—but he’s already involved with Captain Nazi, though their exact relationship is unclear. Mind gives Nazi orders on the next page—but Nazi’s main loyalty seems to be primarily to “Our Fuehrer.” From Chapter I. [©2007 DC Comics.]

The Monster Society Of Evil

All On One, And One On All Pp. 2-3 of Chapter I are a two-page spread in which Cap faces many of his major villains from previous stories, as listed on the splash. The corresponding scene in the story, in which Mr. Mind sends several of the hero’s old enemies against him, was printed in the just-out All-Star Companion, Vol. 2. [©2007 DC Comics.]

hero physically, Nazi flies off with both pearl and princess. (Cap berates himself for forgetting that Captain Marvel Jr., Nazi’s regular nemesis, had told him that Nazi had recently gained the power to fly.) Dareena informs Nazi (and Mister Mind) that there are two black pearls, which must be used together; the other is still in India.

Captain Marvel Adventures #23 (April 1943) Chapter II

Having learned the location from Nazi’s thugs, Cap bursts in to confront him. Cap and Mister Mind spar verbally for the first time. The latter claims, “My organization will soon rule the universe!” Cap dares him to show his face, but Mind says he plans to remain “only a voice reaching everywhere and spinning my web of power day by day! I will hurl man after man at you, plot after plot, till even you, mighty Captain Marvel, will some day crack under the terrific strain!” At Mind’s summons, Cap faces not only Captain Nazi but also others of his former foes: Sivana, Ibac, Nippo, Mr. Banjo, and several unnamed rogues. Cap’s blows don’t stop them, because Mind has “instilled them with mental strength, which I project through the ether!”

Dropping off the princess, Captain Marvel pursues Ibac, who flees in a rocket ship provided by Mister Mind. Cap cracks open the ship over “the wastes of North Africa.” After he belts Ibac around, Mind directs the villain to hold the two black pearls together. At Ibac’s wish, they show him from which direction Cap is approaching, so he can give the hero the slip. Mister Mind says the pearls can be used to help the Axis in North Africa, but to himself he cackles that “When I’ve made the Axis win the Earth, the world is mine!”

Stalemated, Cap flies off to India with the princess and the pearl. He takes her to the giant statue of the god Siva whose remaining eye is the second black pearl. She tells him he must hold the two pearls close together and “wish for any scene you want.” Nazi and Ibac arrive and push the idol over onto them. Cap shields Dareena and kayos Nazi, but Ibac flies off with both pearls. Mister Mind’s voice taunts Cap from Captain Nazi’s belt radio. A final caption, in the style of movie serials, orders the reader not to miss “Part II,” which will be “on sale March 5th.”

“The Jungle Trap” (12 Pages)

Cap changes to Billy and enters an American Army camp. (Allied troops had invaded North Africa in November of 1942.) The troops quiz the famous young radio reporter, being eager to hear news of back home: “Yes, the Empire State Building is still standing. The girls are still pretty! No, they haven’t stopped big league baseball! Yes, jive is still popular!” Billy broadcasts to the US that “these soldier boys of ours are going to bring victory for America before you can say Adolf Shickelgruber!” At Mind’s bidding, Ibac says his own magic word (“Ibac!”), changing back to “scrawny ordinary little Stinky Printwhistle.” He sneaks into the camp by night, to plant false orders that will lead

An Issue-By-Issue Appreciation Of The 1943-45 Serial

Ibac Is Back! American troops astray into the desert, where they’ll die of heat and thirst. Billy spots Stinky—and, moments later, Captain Marvel and Ibac are at it again. Ibac stampedes some elephants, who trample Cap—not that he notices much. Ibac tricks Cap into saying “Shazam!” to impress some gullible cannibals, then grabs Billy and binds and gags him. As the cannibals prepare to cook the lad in a big pot, Mister Mind’s voice—through Ibac’s belt radio—says Ibac will now deliver the black pearls to Nippo in Tokyo, so they can help crush America in the Pacific.

Captain Marvel Adventures #24 (June 1943) Chapter III “The Second Pearl Harbor” (12 Pages) As one of the cannibals approaches Billy with a cleaver, the quickthinking boy uses it to slice off his gag. He changes to Captain Marvel and flies off. Nippo, aboard a Japanese plane, uses the black pearls to intercept the aircraft of the American commanding officer of Hawaii and shoot it down. At Mister Mind’s direction, Nippo uses a rubber face mask to take the C.O.’s place at Pearl Harbor. But his “clammy hand” and “the hiss in his voice” betray him to the C.O.’s daughter Mary, a nurse. She tosses Nippo with jiu-jitsu, then flees into Captain Marvel’s arms. Nippo gets thrashed but escapes. With Mary, Billy Batson parachutes down and finds the C.O. alive. Captain Marvel discovers Nippo and other Japanese in a volcano crater, setting up an explosive charge to cause an eruption that will bury Pearl Harbor. Cap foils that plan and retrieves the black pearls, slugging Nippo so hard that he lands in the crater. Cap addresses Mister Mind over the belt radio he took from Nippo; Mind tells him Sivana is carrying out the next phase of his plan. When Cap tunes the pearls on

Ibac, whose name was an anagram, may have gotten the power of terror from Ivan the Terrible, cunning from Borgia (Cesare, we presume), fierceness from Attila the Hun, and cruelty from the Roman emperor Caligula… but he was still no physical match for Captain Marvel. Still, he used that ol’ Borgia cunning to see that it was Billy who wound up in the cannibals’ pot. The cannibals are horrible racial stereotypes, of course, but most characters looked pretty ridiculous in Captain Marvel Adventures. From Chapter II. [©2007 DC Comics.]

Alaska, he sees a glacier about to crush a town—while a parka-clad Dr. Sivana cackles triumphantly.

Captain Marvel Adventures #25 (July 1943) Chapter IV “Glaciers Over America” (12 Pages) Captain Marvel flies to Alaska to stop “giant, towering, grinding glaciers” from “crunch[ing] through Alaska and Canada” into the United States. Mister Mind plans a new Ice Age for all of North America. Sivana figures that, “with the two great brains of Sivana and Mr. [sic] Mind against him—especially mine—what can Captain Marvel do? Heh, heh, heh!” The glacier is too big for Cap to pick up, so he bores through it till it looks like “a big Swiss cheese,” and it collapses. But, down in the States, it’s snowing during the summer—crops are withering in the cold—shipping is tied up in freezing water. Despite wartime censorship of radio weather reports, Sivana sees their scheme is working. Cap uses the black pearls to locate Sivana and chases him through a small doorway in one of the glaciers. He changes to Billy to creep inside. There the lad sees Sivana operating his huge Pole Changer, whose spin “is forcing the whole Earth to shift around on its axis! In a few weeks, the new North Pole will be… right in the heart of Texas!” Cap smashes the machine—but Sivana escapes, taunting him that, if he doesn’t put it back together, “the Earth will stay right where it is and it will always be as cold as as it is now!” So Cap must spend an hour reassembling it and starting its motor “in the opposite direction!” Cap changes to Billy to use Sivana’s radio, then crawls to the surface. There, Sivana douses Billy with water, which freezes before he can finish saying his magic word. (“Sha-blub!”) Sivana leaves him there with a marker.

Captain Marvel Adventures #26 (Aug. 1943) Chapter V “Marvel Meets Mr. Mind!” (12 Pages) Nippo’d In The Bud Nippo took his orders (via belt radio) from Mr. Mind. From Chapter III. Plus the cover of Captain Marvel Adventures #24, the first issue to feature a cover scene related to the “Monster Society” storyline, although the new serial had been mentioned on the cover of #22. Thanks to P.C. Hamerlinck for sending good scans of the five CMA covers spotlighted with this article. [©2007 DC Comics.]

This chapter’s title had to intrigue anyone who’d read the first four chapters! Billy is conveniently rescued by a hungry (brown!) polar bear, which tips over the block of ice encasing him. It

The Monster Society Of Evil

cracks open; the boy yells “Shazam!” and Captain Marvel flies off, after the bear learns his teeth won’t hurt the World’s Mightiest Mortal. With the black pearls, Cap locates Mr. Mind’s hideout on the “dark unknown world out near the Moon.” He smashes his way in through a steel door marked “Beware! Keep out!! Especially Captain Marvel!” He encounters a man-goat who speaks with Mister Mind’s voice and knocks him out—only to have Mind’s voice (coming from a radio) explain this was only one of his “minions.” Cap next faces a similarlyvoiced robot, then a human-headed octopus, but neither of them is really Mr. Mind, either. Changing to Billy to see if the lad will have better luck (as you can see, Cap didn’t always make full use of the wisdom of Solomon that was one of his powers), he’s searching the HQ when a “worm” drops on his shoulder. Billy brushes it off… but a closeup shows that the tiny creature has big round glasses, a human-like evil smile, and a radio hanging from his “neck.” The most unsophisticated reader at this point would have realized that the worm must be Mr. Mind—but Billy hasn’t paid any attention. Just then, Billy’s grabbed by a burly wrestler type, but manages to shout “Shazam!” before the guy can anesthetize him. Cap knocks him out, but learns he wasn’t really Mr. Mind, either. Mind escapes in a space ship, leaving Cap wondering if his enemy is invisible. The chapter ends with Cap pondering, “Who or what was Mr. Mind all the time?” But the readers knew!

Captain Marvel Adventures #27 (Sept. 1943) Chapter VI “Mr. Mind On Earth” (12 Pages) Cap flies to radio Station WHIZ, where Billy works. There, owner Sterling Morris suggests the lad help his friend Steamboat (an unfortunate “Negro” stereotype, though always treated as a sympathetic character) with a new rock garden on the building’s roof. Billy does, though preoccupied with thoughts of his mysterious foe. Landing at an undisclosed location on Earth, Mr. Mind quickly builds a “scientific laboratory” that resembles a castle, and fires his “cosmic brain ray” out the window. It takes control of “vast unseen

Will The Real Mr. Mind Please Stand Up? The splash page of Chapter V shows Billy’s predicament from the end of Chapter IV—and Captain Marvel facing several creatures, each of which, over the course of the ensuing dozen pages, he’ll think is Mr. Mind. [©2007 DC Comics.]

hordes of worms and termites,” who burrow under a city tower, making it sway ominously. Captain Marvel prevents the building from toppling, but sees that the termites have carved out the words: “Only the beginning! Mr. Mind!” Billy returns to work on the rock garden, “hoping to clear his baffled mind.” Looking for more rocks in a vacant lot nearby, Steamboat finds “a small castle” (he naturally doesn’t see the balloon

Steamboat ’Round The Bend— And Over The Top Billy’s friend Steamboat was depicted as a stereotype in both look and speech, though he was treated as a likable character. Reports are that he was dropped from “Captain Marvel” stories a short time later, after complaints from AfricanAmericans. I’m sure that, in later years, Otto, C.C., and Wendell were all embarrassed by the memory; but such things were sadly par for the course at the time. From Chapter VI. [©2007 DC Comics.]

An Issue-By-Issue Appreciation Of The 1943-45 Serial

“???”coming from it) and deposits it in the rock garden; but Billy fails to notice. Thus, Mr. Mind is actually right under Billy’s nose. Next, Captain Marvel saves City Hall from collapsing. He and the mayor are accosted by three members of what Mr. Mind calls for the first time “my Monster Society of Evil”—two sinister humans and a guy with a crocodile’s head. Mind’s miniature rocket flies in, and Cap finally knows he’s fighting “a tiny being of some sort!” After Cap scatters the minions and Mind escapes, Billy is doing his radio broadcast when Station Whiz itself starts to sway. Billy is

grabbed, bound, and gagged by two more minions, and left to die in the tottering building. Ants, however, are attracted to his gag by remnants of chocolate cake he’d been eating, and they quickly gnaw through his gag. Within moments, Captain Marvel is bolstering the building. He joins Steamboat—and spies the miniature castle amid the rock garden. He rips it open, but can’t find his enemy. It’s Steamboat who discovers Mr. Mind—a worm hiding inside an apple in his lunchpail! Cap chases the villain to stomp him—and the chapter ends with Mr. Mind, rather than the hero, in mortal danger!

Sidebar:

Mr. Mind On Their Minds The two dozen plus chapters of “The Monster Society of Evil” were scripted by former science-fiction writer Otto Binder, who by 1943 had been scribing “Captain Marvel” stories for a year or two, infusing the superhero action with an increasingly whimsical sense of humor. The art was by the talented C.C. Beck and his comics studio; the editor of Fawcett’s “Captain Marvel” titles by now was the estimable Wendell Crowley. In 196364, Roy Thomas began a correspondence with Binder, who was then writing memorable “Superman” tales for DC. Binder’s initial, long letter to Roy was printed in Alter Ego (Vol. 1) #7, the first issue the latter edited and published. In it, Otto wrote in part:

Mortal and the Universe’s Weakest Creature (which may have been the genetical thought that conjured up a worm). “Of course, the sheer poles-apart contrast made for a wealth of ideas (as inspirations always do), so that the serial ran for 24 chapters before we decided, perhaps wisely, that too much of a good thing is bad. “I won’t exactly say there were tears in our eyes that day we worked up the final chapter and executed Mr. Mind; but, in all honesty, I think we all felt a ‘loss’ of some kind. You can’t write about any character for a length of time—worm or warm-blooded man—without a sense of sadness at ‘killing him off.’”

The Worm Turns (Up) “Regarding Mr. Mind, the evil worm from outer space who plagued One of the most famous panels from the entire serial is the one in Captain Marvel for two years…. [he] Chapter V in which, while searching Mr. Mind’s otherworldly Through Otto, Roy soon also began headquarters, Billy casually brushes something off his shoulder— wasn’t a worm, at least not for the first a correspondence with 1944-53 and a closeup reveals to the reader (though not to Billy) the true half dozen chapters. The CMA Fawcett editor Wendell Crowley (who, form of his enemy: a spectacles-wearing, radio-sporting worm (Captain Marvel Adventures) brain passing through St. Louis on business colored green-and-black with red dots. We wonder, in retrospect, trust composed of Wendell Crowley as for his family’s lumber company in how kids reacted to the revelation. [©2007 DC Comics.] editor, Charles Clarence Beck as artist, spring of 1965, would become the first and myself as scripter, got our heads comics professional RT ever met in together to figure out just who or what Mr. Mind should be, after I person). In a letter printed around that time in Alter Ego (V1) #8, invented him as a disembodied voice. Crowley mildly disputed one of Otto’s points: “We undoubtedly went through a hundred concepts, until somebody (and, frankly, in those skull sessions, I have no idea who first thought of any particular gimmick)… somebody said, ‘Why not take the most unusual thing we can think of? Not the traditional human or galactic villain, nor robot, nor this nor that of the routine masterminds, but just the goofiest of all things—maybe a worm!’ “I vaguely recall that this was enthusiastically endorsed by us with much laughter and a tongue-in-cheek attitude; we had no idea that thing would become POPULAR!!?? We truly were amazed at the electrifying response… letters pouring in… and believe me, with a readership of over one million as we had in those days, the mail can become pretty imposing. A rousing consensus simply loved Mr. Mind! Why? We never figured it out. You figure it out, you researchers today into the mysterious hypnotic power that comic characters had on readers. “The flood of letters, as a matter of practicality, set us to dreaming up new and more outre situations between the World’s Mightiest

“I was surprised to see Otto saying that letters were pouring in on Mr. Mind. As far as I can recall, the only time letters poured in was after Mr. Mind had been electrocuted, and for some reason or other we had requested the fans to write in at that time, although what the reason for this was, I don’t remember. In any case, I do recall that one little boy wrote in and protested that the trial of Mr. Mind had been unfair in that he had not been actually tried by his peers, there having been no open-minded worms on that jury.” To see why fans were writing in to Captain Marvel Adventures just as the “Monster Society” serial ended, see p. 19. On the other hand, ’twould appear Otto was right about letters “pouring in”— though it probably happened right after the serial ended, rather than while it was going on. Hmm… maybe we should’ve attached a “spoiler warning” to this sidebar.

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under the control of Nazi Germany.) When the sun doesn’t rise on time, Captain Marvel figures out what’s happened. If this goes on, “all crops will wither away!” (Yeah, among other things!) He flies to Europe, where it’s broad daylight. Finding Hitler, he slugs him. The fleeing Mr. Mind hops down the neck of Der Führer’s shirt, tickling him. Just then, Cap hears a report of a pneumonia epidemic in the US after “30 hours of damp night,” and he flies off. His first priority must be to start the Earth’s rotation again!

Three Blind Rats Mr. Mind confers with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler (the one with the mustache, natch) and Hermann Goering in Chapter VII. Ah, if that trio could only see what’s in store for them! [©2007 DC Comics.]

Captain Marvel Adventures #28 (Oct. 1943) Chapter VII “The Lost Sunrise” (12 pp.) Mr. Mind radio-hypnotizes a pigeon overhead into flying off with him in its beak. Captain Marvel overtakes it, but when he can’t find the worm, he assumes Mind was eaten by the bird. In actuality, the pigeon had dropped him. Mind lands on a slab of black market horsemeat being carted off by Nazi agents. They send it by sub to Germany and Hermann Goering (chief of the German Luftwaffe, or Air Force), who they figure will think it’s good beef. As Marshal Goering prepares to eat the meat, he’s suddenly confronted by Mr. Mind, who’d fallen asleep inside it. Goering wants to smash the arrogant worm, but Hitler arrives and explains that Mind is their friend. Soon, Mind broadcasts over a powerful Nazi short-wave radio station that he is alive. Billy asks his listening audience to be on the lookout for “a worm just a few inches long,” and is soon bombarded with tips from everyone who’s seen a worm! “No, kids!” he tells one eager set of youngsters bearing wiggly invertebrates, “Mr. Mind wears spectacles!” Mr. Mind’s new plan is to stop the Earth’s rotation, so that “German Europe will have constant daylight! And America will be in perpetual night!” Hitler presses the button that makes “all the big guns in the Maginot Line, the Siegfried Line— and all the coast guns of Fortress Europe” fire at once, pointed East—which of course promptly stops the Earth from spinning. (At this point, nearly all of mainland Europe was

real damage there!)

Intercepting a fleet of Allied warships, Cap borrows all their anchors. Flying them to North Africa, he imbeds them in the ground. He then flies off, pulling at the thick chains with all his might— and wouldn’t you know it, the world starts to spin again! (Whew! That was close. Could’ve been some

Meanwhile, in his new lab in Berlin, Mr. Mind awaits Cap’s return. He’s designed a trio of big “synthetic monsters” to destroy the World’s Mightiest Mortal.

Captain Marvel Adventures #29 (Nov. 1943) Chapter VIII “Battle At The China Wall” (12 pp.) Cap defeats two of the synthetic monsters: a giant lobster… Oliver (an octopus with big human hands on the ends of his tentacles)…and Ophelius, a rhino-like creature with rams’ horns. Oliphant, a flying dragon, carries Mr. Mind past the Great Wall of China. A Japanese officer takes him to three fang-toothed scientists: “Doctors Smashi— Hashi—and Peeyu.” Turns out they are already members of his Monster Society of Evil—also of the Black Dragon Society of Murder, the Tokyo Torture Temple, the Jap Jab-in-the-Back Club, etc.: “We are not lilies, please!”

Captain Marvel Plays Chopsticks The cover of Captain Marvel Adventures #29 was the second to feature a scene (even a symbolic one like this) from the “Monster Society” serial—but it was a doozy! It was, of course, the first cover to feature Mr. Mind. [©2007 DC Comics.]

An Issue-By-Issue Appreciation Of The 1943-45 Serial

Searching for Mr. Mind, Cap goes to Chinese headquarters and changes to Billy so he can do a radio broadcast from the Great Wall, which he says “keeps out the Jap invaders!” The three Japanese scientists, disguised as Chinese coolies and secretly carrying Mind, capture and gag Billy. (Anybody who ever nabbed Billy and didn’t instantly cover his mouth would’ve found himself facing Captain Marvel, of course.) Billy is left tied atop the Wall as they run ten million volts of electric current through a wire along its length. But the gag is burned through before Billy is killed, so—well, you know. The current uproots the Great Wall from the ground by charging it with “positive magnetic energy” which is repelled by the ground’s “negative magnetism,” and it moves forward against the Chinese army—with the conquering Japanese army advancing behind it! Even Captain Marvel can’t stop the 1250 miles of the rumbling Wall, but he locates the evil scientists in a stone blockhouse atop it and kayos

East Is East… Four Japanese stereotypes in a single panel. On the cover, however, pictured on the preceding page, a Chinese officer is depicted in the same non-stereotyped terms as other characters. This suggests that it was the state of war between America and Japan, more than racial prejudice, that led to Binder & Beck’s grotesque depictions of the three evil Japanese scientists. From Chapter VIII. [©2007 DC Comics.]

them. Believing Mr. Mind has fled, Cap changes back to Billy (naturally!) to announce the good news over the radio. The worm quickly swings down from hiding and “spin[s] silk around his silly tongue”—interrupting Billy in mid-“Shazam!” for the second time in the chapter. He wraps a cocoon around Billy’s entire body so that “You’ll rot here, brat! This is an old, deserted blockhouse that no one ever visits! They’ll find your white bones someday—wrapped in my silken cocoon! Farewell! Ha, ha, ho, hee, haaa!”

Captain Marvel Adventures #30 (Dec. 1943) Chapter 9 “The Web of Destruction!” (8 pages) (With this chapter, as Fawcett comics were decreased in interior page count, the “Monster Society” chapters dropped from 12 to 8 pages per issue. The chapter numbers were also henceforth written with Arabic rather than Roman numerals.) Four days later, a desperate Billy is still enwrapped when several Chinese boys playing war discover him and open enough of the cocoon for him to become Captain Marvel. Mr. Mind, meanwhile, has flown Dr. Smashi to Japan’s huge base at Rabaul, in the South Pacific, where he plots to help that Axis nation conquer Australia. He introduces Smashi to two of his minions, “Herr Phoul of Germany” and “Jorrk, of the planet Punkus.” “The three of you,” he says, “are the most depraved, soulless, black-hearted beings in existence—next to me, of course!” (Phoul and the crocodile-headed Jorrk were seen before, unnamed, in Chapter VI.)

The quartet construct a big “flying mechanical spider” (but with only six legs!) and streak toward Port Darwin, an “advance Allied post on Australia.” (Darwin had been bombed by Japan in February 1942, in what is often referred to as “Australia’s Pearl Harbor.”) The “spiderplane” captures aircraft sent against it with “silken webwork.” Learning of this 500 miles away, Captain Marvel zooms off.

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Mr. Mind shows the helpless Billy his latest weapon that will “win the war for the Axis”: Great Big Bertha,” a cannon he’s been “working on for 97 years. It’s ten miles long with a bore of 500 feet!” He imprisons Billy in a tower so that, when the nearly-finished gun “blast[s] a hole in America from coast to coast,” he’ll be tortured by the sight. Something new has been added to the caption at the end of this chapter. The title of the next installment is rendered as “GSV URIRMT LU TIVZG YRT YVIGSZ!” Members of the Captain Marvel Club could “use your code-finder to work this out.” (All future end-captions will follow this pattern.)

Captain Marvel Adventures #32 (Feb. 1944) Chapter 11 “The Firing Of Great Big Bertha” (8 pp.)

Seeing his approach, the villains release the web, and Cap must save the spiraling Allied planes and their pilots. After being congratulated by an Australian general named McWaverly, he pursues the spiderplane. The latter becomes enmeshed in its own web and falls, but Mind and company parachute to safety while Cap swoops down to try to rescue the General before he plummets to his doom.

Captain Marvel Adventures #31 (Jan. 1944) Chapter 10 “The Booby Traps of Mr. Mind!” (8 pp.)

Like virtually all chapters of the serial, this one begins with Billy reciting (allegedly for his radio audience) an account of last issue’s events. Of course, this “gives away” in advance the Big Secret that Billy will survive any current peril—but then, with segments of “The Monster Society of Evil” being only one of several tales in each issue of CMA, there always had to be an even-greater-than-usual suspension of disbelief to keep a continued story going, especially when there were cliffhanger beginnings and endings. Any, onward… The bound, gagged, and helmeted Billy watches the completion of Great Big Bertha, which is named after the “Big Bertha” cannon of World War I. By scratching an insult on a wall with the toe of his shoe, he goads one of Jorrk’s crocodile-men (who refer to their “Master Mind Race,” a mutation of the Nazis’ notion of a Germanic “Master Race”) into yanking off his helmet and gag to make him breathe the poison atmosphere. Billy manages to say “Shazam!” just in time; Captain Marvel knocks out the croc-man and escapes. Donning the preserved head of one of the ancestors of Jorrk, Cap

As the General falls, he calls out: “You can’t save me, Captain Marvel—too late! But my last orders to my soldiers are—keep driving toward Tokio!” (The latter was an alternate spelling of Tokyo.) Cap ignores the advice, of course, and rescues him. Meanwhile, Mr. Mind and his cohorts are picked up at sea by a Japanese submarine and taken to “Island Z.” By an amazing coincidence, this is just as the Allies begin a full-scale attack that isle. Cap takes a bit of time off to lead the assault, carrying an American flag (see illo). Mr. Mind grouses: “A thousand curses! Must that red gorilla always cross my path?” Cap arrives at a building labeled “Laboratory Number 11 – Proprietor, Mr. Mind.” His foe has fled, but on the wall hangs a photo of him, labeled “Mastermind of the Universe!” When Cap rips it off, it explodes. Spotting a device labeled “Cigarette Machine,” he decides to “get some out for the boys!” Instead, it squirts a deadly acid, as a sign proclaims: “Ha, ha!” When he touches a flower in a vase, a big weight labeled “8000 lbs.” falls on his head—but he hardly notices. Cap finds a note from Mr. Mind saying he’s gone to “the planetoid Punkus”—and a phonograph is activated to play a recording of Billy Batson’s voice saying “Shazam!” This, of course, changes Cap into Billy—at which point mechanical arms grab the lad, bind and gag him, and toss him into a rocket which streaks off straight to (you guessed it) the planetoid Punkus. Mr. Mind and his murderous minions await him there, most wearing helmets, for only Jorrk can breathe Punkus’ “poisonous atmosphere.”

Cap Hits The Beaches Captain Marvel could occasionally get away with being involved in Allied military action overseas—probably because, unlike the equally powerful Superman, his stories were generally more whimsical, less serious. From Chapter 10. [©2007 DC Comics.]

An Issue-By-Issue Appreciation Of The 1943-45 Serial

Captain Marvel Adventures #34 (April 1944) Chapter 13 “The Floating Terror” (8 pp.) Cap manages to make the shell miss Moscow—but it still crashes to Earth. Yet it doesn’t explode! “Whew! What a lucky break!” breathes Cap. “It’s a dud! It happens to the best of shells!” But when he removes Mr. Mind from where the worm is tied in his hair, his foe escapes into an “animal hole” on the ground. Before Cap can pursue him, Russians soldiers convince him to help repair farmhouses damaged by the shell’s impact. Days later, a British patrol plane spots a brand new island, a hundred miles north of Scotland. So Billy Batson can report on that event, Cap flies a portable radio transmitter north. Meanwhile, a British destroyer learns the island is a floating one, now fifty miles closer to Scotland. As the captain investigates in a gunboat, a camou-

sneaks into the building where they’re making milelong shells, with “a billion tons of dynamite in each shell.” He blows up the plant and most of the evil laborers, but Mr. Mind and Smashi manage to fire off one of the two remaining shells—at Russia. And they’re about to fire the other one at America!

Captain Marvel Adventures #33 (March 1944) Chapter 12 “The Bombardment Of Earth!”(8 pp.)

Shell Bent For Leather Artist C.C. Beck is generally given scant credit as an cinematic innovator, but here is a type of panel progression that you didn’t see much in 1944. Makes us wonder if the concept was also in Otto Binder’s script. From Chapter 12. [©2007 DC Comics.]

The second shell, too, is fired—but Cap outraces it down the gun’s 10-mile length and streaks into the barrel to meet it. In the resulting explosion, Great Big Bertha is demolished. Cap is blown a thousand miles toward Mars, but swiftly recovers and streaks back to Punkus. He finds Dr. Smashi dead, and manages to grab the helmeted Mr. Mind. But the worm “re-Minds” him that the other shell is heading for Russia. “Holy Moley!” exclaims the Big Red Cheese. “I did forget! Thanks for reminding me!” Instead of crushing Mr. Mind “between my fingers like an insect” as he ought to do, Cap tucks him into his belt and flies off through space to overtake the shell. With only three minutes till impact, Mind distracts Cap—by tickling him! Cap swats at his belt (“OWWWWWW!” cries Mind—who, you’d think, would actually have been crushed like a flatworm by such a slap)—and he intercepts the shell. Its momentum is so great, however, that he senses it’ll take “at least ten minutes to slow down this baby!” Cap hopes to shove the shell “clear back to the Moon”—but, under his shirt, Mr. Mind crawls up the hero’s back to “give him a de luxe tickle!” This nearly works, till the worm accidentally emerges at Cap’s neckline. Cap quickly ties him up, but now it’s only ten seconds before the shell strikes Moscow, which is seen below. (Less than a decade later, when Cap was battling Communist soldiers and villains in Korean War stories, he’d probably have let the shell hit the pictured Kremlin, but these were different times.)

A Smashing Good Time Cap frees some British seamen, in a rare late-chapter departure from the usual grid of panels. Not that that stopped Mr. Mind from having them shot to death, cartoony features and all, on the very next page! From Chapter 13. [©2007 DC Comics.]

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flaged cannon on the isle sinks the destroyer. Landing, the captain and his men are frozen solid by parka-clad Nazis under Mr. Mind. The island is being towed toward Scotland by a U-boat. Captain Marvel arrives and frees the British seamen, then (sigh) changes to Billy to make his radio broadcast. Suddenly Mind and the Nazis appear. Some murder the seamen (“Shoot them down like carrion!” yells the worm), as others stifle Billy before he can say more than “Shaz—erk!” (Given the number of times in any given month that Billy was interrupted in mid-magic word, “Shaz-erk!” was an expression he uttered nearly as often as “Shazam!” Small wonder Otto Binder used “Shaz-Urk!” as the title of a 1961 article he wrote for the Lupoffs’ fanzine Xero!) Bound/gagged Billy is strapped over the cannon, so his head will be blown off when it’s next fired.

Captain Marvel Adventures #35 (May 1944) Chapter 14 “Mr. Mind’s Blitz!” (8 pp.) When the weapon fires, “the outward rush of air from the cannon barrel, before the shell emerges, free’s Billy’s tongue” by blowing off his gag. Captain Marvel overtakes the shell and hurls it all the way to Berlin, where it explodes in Schicklegruber’s Plaza on the Unter den Linden street some time later. (“Schicklegruber,” as we should’ve mentioned earlier, was the maiden name of Hitler’s grandmother, and there was a spurious Allied rumor that it should’ve been Adolf’s legal name, as well.) Cap also sinks the U-boat towing the island. But Mr.

Mind’s heat-ray frees a mammoth from age-long hibernation inside an iceberg, and the hero loses valuable time grabbing the beast’s tusks to hurl it to the ground. Meanwhile, Panzer (German for “Panther”) tanks emerge from the docked isle onto Scotland’s shore. Cap revives the mammoth and rides it through the Scottish highlands “like Paul Revere” in reverse. (“Hoot man! Where’s ma gun?” cries one Scot. Another asks if fighting will “cost me anything,” but Cap replies, “You can shoot as many Nazis as you want, at no cost to you!”) Together, the Scots, Captain Marvel, and the mammoth swiftly defeat the invading “Huns.” One kilted Scotsman with a scythe almost captures Mr. Mind, but stops instead to pick up what turns out to be “worthless Nazi money” that is hurled at his feet. Clearly, Otto Binder and company were leaving no Scottish cliché unturned. The story ends with Mr. Mind himself delivering the next-issue teaser—in Captain Marvel Code!

Captain Marvel Adventures #36 (June 1944) Chapter 15 “The Vicious Volcano!” (8 pp.) (With this issue, perhaps to get a bit more story into the reduced 8page chapters, the format was changed so each page contained four rows of panels rather than three, with generally eight panels per page. Most panels were exactly the same size, heightening the impression of their representing a movie screen.)

Showing His Medal(s) The splash page of Chapter 14 showcases a great drawing of Mr. Mind wearing more medals that Hermann Goering—and Billy’s predicament left over from the previous month. [©2007 DC Comics.]

By this point, Mr. Mind has become a world legend. Mothers threaten their children: “You be good now, Lester, or Mr. Mind will get you!” A burly hoodlum hides behind his ladyfriend when he sees a worm, because “it might be M-Mister Mind!” But the villain, on the run, is hiding in a 96-room Scottish castle belonging to Sir William Cherrypit. Cap looks for him there, but doesn’t spot him hiding in a spider web. Soon, Billy broadcasts from the castle’s clearly labeled “Short Wave Radio Room” that he’s sure Mr. Mind is somewhere on

An Issue-By-Issue Appreciation Of The 1943-45 Serial

Batson, Meet Bat-Monster Billy faces the butler Jeepers, who is secretly a monster. The name “Jeepers” was doubtless inspired, as many comic butlers were during this period and since, by the “Jeeves” stories of English writer P.G. Wodehouse. From Chapter 15. [©2007 DC Comics.]

the premises. (When he signs off “from England,” though, he risks offending Scottish sensibilities.) Exploring, he encounters a man-sized bat-monster radioing Berlin that he’s about to help Mr. Mind put into operation “Plan 18,456, 871,” which will render England helpless. Billy tries to capture the creature and is knocked on his butt. He wakes Sir William. The only other person in the castle is Jeepers, the butler—whom Billy unmasks as the bat-monster because he’d left part of his tail sticking out of his clothing (always a dead giveaway). The creature, who’s also carrying Mind, grabs Billy in mid-“Shaz…ullgg!” and binds and gags him. Sir William is rendered unconscious when his ancient gun explodes in his hands. Below the castle, Mr. Mind has constructed a “giant driller” which will pierce the ground and unleash molten lava to shower England “like ancient Pompei.” Bill manages to snag his gag on the spinning drill, yells his magic word, and Captain Marvel slugs the bat-monster, whose name apparently really is Jeepers. Cap wrecks the drill, but it’s already reached the lava, and a gigantic new volcano is about to blow. He can only stop the eruption by sitting on the volcano’s narrow mouth—but he knows he can’t stay there forever. What to do, what to do?

Captain Marvel Adventures #37 (July 1944) Chapter 16

Left alone in the room while the leader organizes a “fuse-pulling ceremony,” Billy is captured (“Shaz-ulp!”) by Jeepers, and Mr. Mind lights the fuse. His motive: “I’m doing it to destroy all the United Nations’ hopes of hemisphere cooperation.” (“The United Nations” was the name given after the beginning of January 1942 to the Allies who fought against the Axis. Only after the war ended was the phase applied to the subsequent world organization.) Billy bites Jeepers’ fingers, and his momentarily unencumbered mouth shouts “Shazam!” Cap wastes Jeepers, but can’t chase Mr. Mind, because he must fly through the subterranean caverns after the burning fuse. He snuffs it just in time—but hot lava begins to pour in, because the stone arsenal “rests on the molten core of Earth itself.” Cap tries to stem the flow, or it will set off the huge stores of dynamite. “Hee, ho, haaa!” chuckles Mr. Mind. “Let him get out of that one!”

Captain Marvel Adventures #38 (Aug. 1944) Chapter 17 “Mr. Mind’s Movie Madness” (8 pp.) Cap can’t stop the lava from flowing past him—but there’s no explosion. The dynamite merely melts. He recalls that “high explosives are always set off by fulminate, not fire! Whew! Mr. Mind isn’t so brainy after all, or he would have remembered the same thing!” Cap

“Earth Must Die” (8 pp.) Awakening, Sir William Cherrypit is told by Cap to gather a crew of workers from the nearest town so they can plug up the volcano’s mouth—which is swiftly done. Meanwhile, Jeepers flies Mr. Mind to a vast, thousand-mile-deep cave wherein his now-dead race originated. A subterranean passage leads under the Atlantic to the USA. Pursuing them, Captain Marvel encounters an underground city inhabited by “Sub-Americans,” leprechaun-sized people who fled there when the country was first explored. As Billy, he learns they know all about the war, and even have machinery that pumps up “deep oil to your wells, so they won’t run out.” That, says Billy, is “really important work!” Their leader shows Billy a fuse that runs 1000 miles into the Earth: “At the other end is a big charge of explosive—enough to split Earth in half!” The Sub-Americans had feared the Axis powers might win in Europe and Asia, and had been prepared to split the Western Hemisphere off from the Eastern to save at least half the planet. They now intend to pull that fuse out, since they feel “the Axis is sunk.”

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Bonzo and takes his place, impressing even Mind.

almost overtakes his foe in his tiny space ship, but the worm flees into a flock of high-flying birds and hides behind a falling feather. Back in America, Billy opens a letter addressed to Captain Marvel from “R. Hitchblock” at Eastern Elephantine Studios of Coytesville, New Jersey, asking him to become technical advisor of a movie that will warn the world about Mr. Mind. (P.C. Hamerlinck notes that Coytesville is just a 5-minute drive from Englewood, NJ, where both Beck and Binder lived—where the BeckCostanza art studio produced “Captain Marvel” material starting in ’44—and where Otto’s brother Jack had his own art studio. A number of other Fawcett artists lived in that area, as well.)

As the cameras grind, the crocman use pitchforks to force the human captives into a dungeon. Mr. Mind feels his fake “Captain Marvel” can save the picture—and Cap throws himself into the part, scattering croc-men like tenpins. Realizing what’s up, Mind seeks refuge in a fallen megaphone. Cap tries to trap him there, but the worm slips out past his big fingers.

Mind next hides inside his “secret black death ray machine” which is disguised as a movie camera designed to turn anything into a puff of smoke—and fires at Captain Marvel!

Captain Marvel Adventures #40 (Oct. 1944) Chapter 19

Flying to the studio and knocking on the director’s door, he’s startled by a skeleton that drops down in front of him—a device rigged up by Hitchblock, who “just like[s] to scare the liver out of people!” (The corpulent Hitchblock, of course, resembles the already famous Alfred Hitchcock.) Hitchblock has rigged up a mechanical puppet of Mr. Mind, and has actors dressed as the worm’s minions, including crocodile-men, a human-headed octopus, etc.

“The Black Death Ray” (8 pp.) Cap vanishes amid the black glow and is thought destroyed, but in actuality the ray merely dissolved the metal floor under his feet and he sank through into the basement! He pursues Mr. Mind, who’s carried (along with the “camera”) by a crocodile-man named Sylvester. (Guess Jorkk got blown up back on Punkus.) The worm has Sylvester aim the black death ray at a passing airplane, which vanishes—and Cap must fly off to save the hurtling pilot.

Mr. Mind sneaks into the studio to see if the filmmaker is doing him justice: “Are they making me frightful and cruel enough?” He hides by taking the place of the Mr. Mind puppet. Watching the movie being made, Mind is very unhappy with it, feeling they’ve made a “sissy” out of him. Hitchblock is to film a boy being flung off Wartime Blackout! a cliff by the fake croc-men, but the lad hasn’t shown up. Cap changes to Billy to help out. The cover of CMA #39 showed the climactic scene of Chapter 18. [©2007 DC Comics.] At Mr. Mind’s command, real croc-men overcome the actors and take their place. The bound (and of course gagged) Billy is hurled off a real cliff. “Holy Moley! This wasn’t in the script!” thinks Billy as he hurtles downward toward jagged rocks.

Later, Billy is walking down the street when he sees a vendor who offers to take his photo for 10¢. The man is actually Marmaduke, another of Mr. Mind’s (fanged) minions, and the camera is really the black death ray. Realizing this at the last second, Billy shouts “Shazam!”—but he does so an

Captain Marvel Adventures #39 (Sept. 1944) Chapter 18 “Peril Behind The Camera” (8 pp.) Billy strikes the jagged rocks—and looks exceedingly dead. Mr. Mind “dances in unholy glee!” Then he and his crew take over the studio and staff. The worm intends to “make a real picture—one that will curdle the strongest man’s blood!” Waking below, Billy realizes the “rocks” he landed on are really just rubber props. Changing to Captain Marvel, he kayos a croc-man on guard outside the studios. Inside, Mind has had a hideous minion named Bonzo (“You look the most human of all!”—which isn’t saying much) to fix himself up to portray Captain Marvel. Cap knocks out

An Issue-By-Issue Appreciation Of The 1943-45 Serial

Captain Marvel Adventures #41 (Nov. 1944) Chapter 20 “Mr. Mind’s Book!” (8 pp.) No, he can’t! But, luckily, Sylvester’s first shot misses Billy— and the boy’s gag is dissolved by the ray. “Shazam!” BOOM! Cap appears, clobbers Sylvester again, while Mr. Mind escapes into a small opening labeled “Escape Chute to Laboratory 88-Z.”

instant after the ray fired. Even Captain Marvel, appearing in a burst of magic lightning, doesn’t understand what saved him. Cap belts Sylvester on a vacant lot, where Mr. Mind hides in the grass and slips his spectacles onto a real worm (a pink one). Cap grabs the wrong invertebrate. He decides not to “waste any more time with a murderous customer like you!” “?” says the puzzled worm. Cap crushes the hapless little creature in his hand (“SQUISH!”) and, happy that his foe is dead, changes back to Billy. Naturally, he’s quickly captured and gagged (with a metal plate this time!) by Mr. Mind and Sylvester. Mind still can’t figure out why his black death ray didn’t kill Billy before, so he has Sylvester aim it at two men walking in the street near his “evil den.” The ray only dissolves (metal) coins in one man’s hand—and Mind realizes that’s why, earlier, it disintegrated an airplane but left the pilot alive. The worm sobs: “My black death ray won’t kill people! It’s a failure! Boo, hoo, hoo! And I worked so hard and fiendishly on it! Sob!” So he orders Sylvester to shoot Billy Batson 45 times through the heart with a pistol—as the lad tries to move his chair into the path of the still-firing black death ray so it’ll dissolve his metal gag. Sylvester pulls the trigger. Will Billy elude the bullet now racing at him? In other words, can Captain Marvel arrive—faster than a speeding bullet?

Later, he ponders a list of all the plans he’s tried—each crossed out as a failure. He decides to write a book, because “Even Captain Marvel can’t stop a book!” Its ingenious title: Mind Kampf! Despite problems with spelling (maybe he should’ve taken lessons from archy the cockroach of earlier literary fame), Mr. Mind quickly bangs out the first chapter of a book in allcapital letters, leaping from one typewriter key to another. It begins: “WHY I, MR. MIND, SHOULD BE YOUR LEADER!” He promises to help the poor by taking all the money from the rich: “THEN YOU WILL ALL BE POOR! THAT’S EQUALITY!” His croc-men “slaves” are ordered to print up 10,587,432 H copies of Chapter I and distribute them free: “If it weren’t for the [wartime] paper shortage, I’d print up a billion copies!” Billy is horrified to read Mind’s plea to people to “join my MasterMind Race” which will “run the Earth.” He pretends to befriend a thug who’s distributing the chapter, and who takes him back to his boss’ lair to be a copy-boy. But Mr. Mind recognizes the lad and has a monstrous minion named Evil Eye hypnotize him. Mind has the mesmerized Billy make a radio broadcast extolling the worm and saying that Captain Marvel has secretly been enriching himself. But as Evil Eye leads Billy away, he snaps his fingers (“To work, slave! Snap it up!”)—waking the boy from his trance. He turns into Cap, but the hero seems likewise susceptible to super-hypnosis. Cap is put to work typesetting Chapter II, but when it’s printed, the press-proof tells the vile truth about Mr. Mind. Cap was immune to Evil Eye’s hypnosis; he says the copies of the chapters “will give the paper salvage drive a boost.” Mr. Mind himself winds up on the belt of a rolling press—and another chapter ends with a cliffhanger imperiling not the hero but the villain! The final tier on the page is a plea to kids to “save waste paper” so it can be made into wrapping paper to cover war materials sent to “our fighting men overseas.”

The Monster Society Of Evil

Three Heads Are Better Than Two Captain Marvel could get away with such grisly actions as knocking a living monster’s head off—because of the feature’s cartoony art style. From Chapter 21. [©2007 DC Comics.]

Captain Marvel Adventures #42 (Jan. 1945) Chapter 21 “The Unholy Hydra!” (8 pp.)

prisoners of the “unknown marauder.” (A final half-panel after the nextissue blurb reminds reader to “fight fuel waste” by keeping thermostats at no higher than 65 degrees.)

Mr. Mind is thought dead, but in actually Captain Marvel wrecked that press just before it would have crushed him and he escaped. Hearing rumors of a “secret weapon” being worked on by a scientist, Mind activates a “monster” “Mr. Mind Loses His Mind” The Past Is Another Caterpillar he’s been developing. It looks and acts The amnesiac Mr. Mind is horrified to see an image of his old self. like a goofy-faced blond dolt—so Mind The masked man is merely a thief Far as Ye Editor noticed, this is the first and only time in the angrily slices his head off. But now two wanting to steal some meat ration serial that the phrase “World’s Wickedest Worm” is used—but it’s heads pop up—one identical to the first, coupons. He can’t find any, so he pulls stuck with him ever since! From Chapter 22. [©2007 DC Comics.] and a second which is that of a dog. Mr. off Billy’s gag so the boy can tell him Mind has accidentally created a being “just like the nine-headed Hydra where they are. An instant later, the World’s Mightiest Mortal slugs the of Greek mythology,” which grew two new heads each time one was burglar and grabs Mr. Mind. He quickly realizes, though, that the chopped off. He orders the “Fido-head” to pick up the trail of the wicked worm now has amnesia—and remembers nothing of all the scientist. terrible things he’s done! When told of them, he wants to atone for them. Billy puts the reformed Mr. Mind on the radio, where he begs Instead, they encounter Billy—and Captain Marvel knocks the dogforgiveness of the world and promises henceforth to fight side-by-side head right off the Hydra’s shoulders. But two dog-heads grow back, with “the noble Captain Marvel” against evil. and the now-three-headed creature escapes. It finds the Mind’s croc-men, hearing the broadcast, are incensed. scientist’s lab. But the feebleUnder their new leader, Herkimer, they sneak into minded blond head sets off a Billy’s house to try to murder both of them with clubs. police alarm. Cap arrives, but But Billy becomes Cap and saves Mr. Mind’s life. The is uncertain how to kill the hero and his new buddy vow to hunt down the rest of Hydra—while Mr. Mind the croc-men together. escapes with the scientist’s plans.

Captain Marvel Adventures #43 (Feb. 1945) Chapter 22

Cap releases the Hydra, which foolishly leads him right to the worm’s hideout. The hero distracts the Hydra by tossing down a slab of raw meat. The heads fight over it and the Hydra is destroyed in the process. Cap catches Mr. Mind, but for some reason decides Billy should deliver him to the police. Right after he changes, though, Billy is slugged from behind by a masked man who’s climbed in through a window—and both (the bound and gagged) Billy and Mr. Mind become

An Issue-By-Issue Appreciation Of The 1943-45 Serial

The latter, meanwhile, vow to continue their former boss’ Sea How They Run! evil work, and carry a certain mechanical device to an astronomical lab perched high on a peak. They use the machine to Mr. Mind leads his Monster Brigade. From Chapter 24. [©2007 DC Comics.] attract a planetoid out of space to destroy America. Mr. Mind cheers on Captain Marvel as he belts the croc-men and good about finding ways to get his gags removed—well, by now, he’d then flies off to break the hurtling planetoid in two. The croc-men had a lot of practice!) Captain Marvel dispatches the other students, revive. Dodging a blow from one of them, Mr. Mind hits his head and and the School for Evil is permanently closed. He follows Mr. Mind’s regains his memory. Once more their evil leader, he flees with them, ink-stained trail (the worm had briefly hidden in an inkwell), but it leaving behind a taunting note for Cap. ends in the library. His foe escapes by hiding in a book—“I never thought I’d be a Book Worm!”—then flees through a mousehole.

Captain Marvel Adventures #44 (March 1945) Chapter 23 “Mr. Mind’s School For Evil!” Addressing his minions, Mr. Mind suddenly realizes he can’t think of what his next vile deed should be. He fears he’s lost his touch for wickedness, so he attends a School for Evil that is run “deep in a black forest” in an abandoned schoolhouse taken over by his own Monster Society. He quickly becomes its star pupil. To graduate, he and an assistant, Archibald the Satyr, must each perform an evil deed. The Satyr attacks children at a “Station WHIZ picnic” in Echo Valley, but Billy turns to Captain Marvel and knocks him into the air. This is Echo Valley, though—so the “Shazam!” cry bounces back and changes Cap back to Billy—just in time for Archibald to land hard on top of him. Bound and gagged (surprise, surprise), Billy is carried back to the school. Mr. Mind uses him to practice his gloating on, in front of the class of evil-doers. Then he orders Archibald to don spiked brass knuckles and smash Billy. Naturally, Billy manages to turn his head aside so that the blow misses and one of the spikes tears off his gag. (If Billy seems awfully

Do It Yourself—If You Can

Captain Marvel Adventures #45 (April 1945) Chapter 24 “The Undersea Monster Brigade” The fugitive worm is grabbed by a fisherman and tied to a hook to be used as bait. Underwater, he’s swallowed by a fish—though the line breaks. As one sea creature swallows another in rapid succession, Mr. Mind soon finds himself inside a whale. Flicking a clam shell out of the whale’s eyes, he makes the big mammal his friend and commands it to smash an Allied freight-ship. Captain Marvel flies to the rescue, and the whale must flee to a convenient sub-sea hideout of Mr. Mind’s. The dome, he says, is “water-proof, sound-proof, and Marvel-proof.” But Cap changes to Billy and manages to sneak in through a narrow entrance meant for man-eating sharks (!). There, he’s captured and gagged by a fanged humanoid and forced to watch as Mind leads his new Monster Brigade out of the dome. He may be defeated on Earth, Mind says, but he can still operate undersea! His Monster Brigade consists of a whale, an octopus, a hammerhead shark, and a checkered sea serpent, all of gigantic size. Wearing a diving helmet and riding a sea horse, Mind has them attack the American Navy—while, back in the dome, the tied-up Billy hooks his gag on the spikes of a small sea creature he finds stuck in his hair. Cap tackles the quartet of horrors, then—despite Mr. Mind’s earlier claims—smashes the dome. While the worm’s other minions “drown like the rats they are,” a croc-man and a short human thug flee with Mind in a sub, hiding their trail with a squid-like trail of ink.

The Monster Society Of Evil

Only A Worm In A Guilty Cage

Eat Your Morning Serial

Billy sees Mr. Mind make a specimen of himself. At right is the captionpanel that garnered the mountains of pro-Mr. Mind mail that writer Otto Binder remembered two decades later. The favorable response led to a second serial a few months later, but that one didn’t pan out nearly as well and was cut short after a few months. From Chapter 25. [©2007 DC Comics.]

Captain Marvel Adventures #46 (May 1945) Chapter 25 “The End Of Mr. Mind!” Back on land, Mr. Mind finds himself without a single secret lab left to go to. As Billy broadcasts a look-out warning over the radio, the worm is deserted by his last two minions—the croc-man going back to “my old job at the circus,” the short man for employment in an aircraft factory, where his short stature will be a plus. But Mind is determined that he isn’t finished yet! He sneaks into Station WHIZ and uses ether to knock out Billy Batson in his office. One problem: with no minions around, Mr. Mind is so small he isn’t sure how he can kill the lad! He tries to drag a highfrequency electric wire over to him, but it takes enough time that Billy awakens and swats him away. Mind flees into a vent.

by night and strapped into an electric chair. Cap isn’t there himself; he’s reading at home when the fateful hour comes: “Lamps all over the city grow dim as the switch is closed at the prison, sending thousands of volts of deadly current through the evil Mr. Mind’s body!” The execution is only referred to, though—the actual panels merely shows Cap reading a newspaper in his chair and saying, “Eleven o’clock! Mr. Mind is dead!” In the final panel, the late worm has been stuffed and placed in a museum… and Billy Batson is seen looking at the exhibit. A final final panel asks for the readers’ help (see elsewhere on this page) above a page-wide ad exhorting readers to join the Captain Marvel Club.

Convinced Mind is still in the building, Captain Marvel sets up a police cordon around it. An exterminator is brought in to spray every room. At last, the wicked worm is driven coughing from his hiding place behind a radiator and is grabbed by the hero. Cap refuses to squash him, though, saying he must stand trial for his crimes. In court, standing atop a box placed on the witness stand, Mr. Mind denies the charge of prosecutor Marvel that he “murdered 186,744 people in cold blood.” (As Richard Lupoff pointed out in 1960, that was a pretty paltry total compared with those killed in the World War nearing an end.) When the prosecution rests, the defense attorney takes over— only to denounce his client: “I hope you get the electric chair!” Naturally, Mr. Mind is found guilty by the twelve jurors (although, as per that young reader’s letter quoted on p. XX, it must be admitted that it was not exactly a “jury of his peers,” since there were no worms on it). On the final, 232nd page of the serial, Mr. Mind is brought into the execution chamber

There never was a Mr. Mind Monster Society of Evil that kids could join. Everybody loves a winner. And so it ended. The 25-chapter serial was a masterful mix of menace and mirth, of wonder and whimsy... a story aimed at the 1940s kids who were Captain Marvel’s primary audience.

Read all at once, of course, it’s a bit repetitious… but then, no serial, and certainly not those shown in movie theatres, was ever meant to be viewed all in one sitting. I recall the night in 1966 when Marvel secretary Flo Steinberg, Topps junior exec Len Brown, and I trekked down to a Times Square movie house to a showing of all 12 chapters of The Adventures of Captain Marvel, newly released to take advantage of the popularity of the Batman TV show. We enjoyed the experience—but the repeated credits, recapped scenes, and oft-similar events did get a bit wearisome after a few hours! All in all, reading “The Monster of Evil” at one sitting was even more fun!

Say “Shazam!”— Or Maybe “Schmeling!” Maybe Fred MacMurray Wasn’t The Only Possible Model For Captain Marvel by Roger Dicken

oger Dicken, besides being a friend of Ye Editor’s since they were introduced by Don Glut in Los Angeles in the late 1970s, was a model-maker for films for some years, beginning with TV’s cult classic Thunderbirds, then for such movies as The War That Time Forgot, Warlords of Atlantis— and Alien, for which he constructed the frightening “face-hugger” and “chest-burster” versions of the title creature (see a photo of him and them on the opposite page). Roger is also a fan of old comics, and has a modest proposal to suggest about one of the Golden Age’s greatest heroes…. —Roy.

As you’ve had some movie star comic character look-alike shots in Alter Ego of late, I thought I’d drop a few lines re my all time favourite comic super-hero, Captain Marvel. Some time ago, after I watched some old newsreels, the notion came into my head that, believe it or not, the Captain looks remarkably like the late German heavyweight boxer Max Schmeling, and vice versa. Max, though not a Nazi, was Germany’s ace bruiser, and as many will know was floored by Joe Louis in 1938 (and, years later, obviously having no animosity, paid for destitute Joe’s funeral—see photo on opposite page). “Max as the Cap! Holy Moley! Preposterous!” I hear A/E readers cry (especially the vets). “This limey must be in cahoots with Dr. Sivana in some dastardly plot to stir up the Cap’s loyal stars-and-stripes fans!” I can assure you I’m not, fellas—honest. Purely for fun, I enclose a paste-up photocopy of Max. And, even though he’s a tad older, facially, there is a resemblance to the Cap. Another guy who could have been considered as a double for Captain Marvel in the 1950s was big actor Don McGowan, who

Schmeling The Roses Exhibits “A” and “B,” respectively—the World’s Mightiest Mortal and the could-have-been World Heavyweight Champion of the boxing arena. Roger’s placed Max Schmeling’s head (in a profile shot) on the Cap figure from the cover of Captain Marvel Adventures #12 (June 1942). Gotta admit, the noses, hairlines, and even chins are similar…. [Captain Marvel art ©2007 DC Comics.] For those not up on their boxing history, German Max Schmeling was the first man to hand the legendary African-American boxer Joe Louis a defeat in the ring, when Louis was an up-and-coming fighter. In 1937 Louis became world champ, but said he wouldn’t consider himself a champion until he had beaten Schmeling. Apparently against Schmeling’s wishes, Hitler and the Nazis made him their “great white hope”—so when he lost to Louis on a TKO (technical knockout) in a spectacular title bout in Yankee Stadium on June 22, 1938, Hitler, Goebbels, and company were devastated—and dropped Max like a hot potato (for which he was evidently grateful). Schmeling was drafted into the German army during World War II, serving in the paratroopers. After the war, he entertained US troops—and, despite once being reviled by many Americans, he was constantly asked by the soldiers to sign autographs. [Captain Marvel TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

Say “Shazam!”—Or Maybe “Schmeling!”

Roger Dicken & friends. Photo courtesy of RD.

also had the build and facial similarity. He started in the movie The Werewolf, and also appeared in a number of Westerns and, I am led to believe, played the Creature from the Black Lagoon (when the man-fish was on land) in the ’50s classic. Anyway, I’d be interested to hear what Cap’s fans and maestro Marc Swayze have to say about my quirky observations.

Two Of The World’s Mightiest Mortals Max Schmeling and Joe Louis (left) at a reunion in 1955. The two men had become friends… and when Louis died, destitute, Schmeling paid for his funeral. If he wasn’t the model for Captain Marvel… maybe he deserved to be.

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1) Go ahead and READ THIS DIGITAL ISSUE, and see what you think. 2) If you enjoy it enough to keep it, DO THE RIGHT THING and purchase a legal download of it from our website, or purchase the print edition at our website (which entitles you to the Digital Edition for free) or at your local comic book shop. We’d love to have you as a regular paid reader. 3) Otherwise, DELETE IT FROM YOUR COMPUTER and DO NOT SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS OR POST IT ANYWHERE. 4) Finally, DON’T KEEP DOWNLOADING OUR MATERIAL ILLEGALLY, for free. We offer one complete issue of all our magazines for free downloading at our website, which should be sufficient for you to decide if you want to purchase others. If you enjoy our publications enough to keep downloading them, support our company by paying for the material we produce. We’re not some giant corporation with deep pockets, and can absorb these losses. We’re a small company—literally a “mom and pop” shop—with dozens of hard-working freelance creators, slaving away day and night and on weekends, to make a pretty minimal amount of income for all this work. We love what we do, but our editors, authors, and your local comic shop owner, rely on income from this publication to stay in business. Please don’t rob us of the small amount of compensation we receive. Doing so will ensure there won’t be any future products like this to download. TwoMorrows publications should only be downloaded at

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While on the subject of look-alikes, how about the weird desk clerk in the wacky TV series Kingdom Hospital being a ringer for evil old Sivana? Check him out….

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“They Treated Me Like I Had Talent” Golden Age Artist MARTIN FILCHOCK Remembers Centaur Comics And Other Phenomena Interview Conducted by Jim Amash

Transcribed by Brian K. Morris

artin Filchock is a wonder of our age… and of the three before it! Born in the small town of Braznell, Pennsylvania—south of Pittsburgh—on January 6, 1912, Martin is still making money the old-fashioned way: he works for it. He’s in his 70th year of cartooning and shows no sign of slowing down—which makes me downright jealous! Though his comic book career was fairly brief, consisting of just a few years working for Bill Cook’s Funny Pages and Centaur and the Lloyd Jacquet comics shop from the mid-1930s to the early 1940s, Martin’s life is a fascinating journey from rags to what he calls “semi-riches.” When I told him how long this interview was going to be, his response was: “I didn’t do enough in my life to fill that many pages of type.” I beg to differ—and so does Hames Ware, who fed me a few Centaur-related questions to ask him—and since I get the final word in this introduction, Martin can’t argue with me! If this intro

An Amazing Man—And Amazing Man Comics When the above photo of Martin Filchock was taken in 1992, he’d already been drawing for well over five decades—and he’s still at it, 14 years afterward! His most important Golden Age feature was “Mighty Man,” seen in Centaur’s Amazing Man Comics between 1939 and 1941, and in Stars and Stripes Comics in 1941. That hero started out as a mere 12-foot giant, but this semi-complete page (issue uncertain) graphically demonstrates additional powers he gained in AMC #12. Note that he’s altered himself to look like “Fritz, a fifth columnist.” Incidentally, all art accompanying this article was provided by Martin, except where otherwise noted. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

seems a bit more casual than usual, it’s only because he’s is so full of life, and our conversations are such uproarious laughfests that I couldn’t write this without some humor. And Martin would be disappointed if I wrote it any other way. You want more laughs? Heeeeere’s Martin! —Jim.

“I Liked To Draw, Like Any Kid” JIM AMASH: What got you interested in cartooning? MARTIN FILCHOCK: Well, Highlights for Children [magazine] ran a good article on me. I told them I wasn’t as good-looking as some of my classmates, and so the only way I could get the girls—this was when I was in about 5th or 6th grade or something—to even come close to me was do something better than the rest of them. I was able to draw, so they would come over. I liked to draw, like any kid. The only difference is that I pursued it. I always had a pretty good sense of humor, and I liked to draw cowboys. I seldom got a chance to go to the movies, but I heard about guys like Big Boy Williams, Hoot Gibson, and Tom Mix, and so I would be drawing cowboys.

“They Treated Me Like I Had Talent”

The Pittsburgh newspaper ran amateur contests for children and grown-ups. I started sending in drawings and would win boxes of— you had a selection—it would be a box of candy, or a book. Although I would have preferred a book, I got candy so I could share it with my brothers and sisters. I thought, “Well, gee, this would be a good thing to do.” We used to sell newspapers, so I got a chance to look at all the daily papers and see comics like Billy DeBeck’s Barney Google and Happy Hooligan, among others. Through our whole career, every one of us in our family delivered newspapers. We used to sell the daily paper for 2¢. We’d get one penny and the newspaper company would get the other. And you won’t believe it, but we had difficulty collecting at the end of the month, which would come to a very few pennies. But the people would hide behind the durn door and didn’t want to give you your 15 or 20¢ or whatever you had coming. Money was scarce and still is—only it’s not pennies now, it’s dollars. It’s hard to collect, even now, from some. JA: I’m sure that some of those people grew up to be government officials. [mutual laughter] FILCHOCK: I’m sure. And I started copying strips, but I foolishly thought that it wasn’t fair to copy somebody else. So I would try to create my own stuff, and wasn’t doing a damn good job. I would have been better off if I would have done like what you’re doing; you know, drawing for Archie Comics or Spider-Man. Later on in life, I started doing that: I would take a nose or an eye from another artist, or a leg or an arm or a shoe or whatever, and develop my own technique. Before I started working for comic magazines, my mother got me a job working on the railroad at 17 years of age. I had to walk about five miles to work. I had that job seven days a week for two or three years, and then I was furloughed. The Depression started and the railroad wasn’t doing as much business. I was out of a job and living in this little mining town, and the manager was a fellow who had lost one of his legs by a railroad car running over it because he lived by the railroad tracks. He had a couple of brothers, and he decided to form a baseball team. And so I was furloughed in the nick of time. It was in the spring of the year, and I always liked to play baseball. I was a pitcher. I was an admirer of Paul Waner, the outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates. In no time at all, I was pitching about all of the games. But there was one time I pitched three in one week, and that’s nine innings. I was twenty. My first year record was 15 wins and five losses. I even pitched a no-hitter. If I didn’t strike out anywhere from 12 to 15 men in a nine-inning game, I thought I didn’t have it. And we beat teams that had far superior players. They had more places to get players from. The manager’s brother pitched, too, but it seems as though whenever we faced the toughest teams, I would pitch. Once, we were short of players so I was playing right field, which was a mistake, because when I ran, wearing glasses, they would bounce around and I couldn’t judge a ball. The winning run scored because of my error, and defeated the manager’s brother. He had the gall to put in the paper that his brother lost the ball game because I misjudged a fly ball. [mutual chuckling] And I quit the team! Downsville had a population of about 6000 and had a team there, and so I pitched for them and had an excellent record. Of course, later on, I had a brother who was too damned good to play baseball for us, and he even played in the Three I League. A little later on, he played professional football. He could have made it in the big leagues in baseball, but he preferred football. I went hoboing in the spring of the following year and didn’t get back till the latter part of June or something. And everybody in that town says, “Oh, we’re glad you’re back. We can’t win any ball games.”

“I Went Hoboing In The Spring Of The Following Year” So Martin knew whereof he spoke (and wrote and drew) when he used his experiences during the Great Depression of the 1930s as the basis for a “Bob Colby, Wanderer” story in an issue of Comic Magazine Co.’s Funny Picture Stories—probably #6 (April 1937), says comics historian Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., who supplied this photocopy. The “Bob Colby” feature originated in FPP #3 (Jan. ’37) and also appeared in #6-7. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Here I am, not even warming up, no spring training, no nothing, and I started pitching baseball. I think, in the next month or so, I probably pitched half a dozen or more games. I won them all but one, as I recall. And then they had what they called the CCs, so I signed up for that. The third year, I pitched in the CCs and had a record of 16 and one, and the only game I lost was the first game that I relieved somebody else. And the winning run was scored on me through an error. Then, later, I tried to join a New York hotel team, but I didn’t realize they had their own clique. Every one of these strangers playing were all buddies. I went in there and started, like a fool, throwing real hard and striking guys out, but they never did offer me a job. If I’d gotten a regular job, I would have gotten $18 a week and still played baseball. That’s all it paid! And you got $18 a week working in a hotel for like six days a week. And then, in the fall of the year, I went out on Long Island and then pitched for a town team. The next year, foolishly, I was fooling around, not warmed up, and I tore something in my shoulder, and from then on I went downhill. But I had developed a knuckleball, and if I would have just stuck with it, I would have been like Hoyt Wilhelm [Hall of Fame pitcher]. As a matter of fact, when my mom died, I went to the wake, and a half a dozen or more of the fellows who had played ball with me, and hadn’t

Martin Filchock Remembers Centaur Comics And Other Phenomena

seen me for several years, were there. I was a legend in my own time. All they wanted to talk about was me and my knuckleball.

“Bill Cook Came Out With His Comic Books” JA: How did you get to drawing comic books? FILCHOCK: I came home from hoboing, and when Bill Cook came out with his comic books, I happened to see one. I was still fooling around with drawing, though I wasn’t selling anything except when I was, whatever, fifteen or sixteen. I sold a cartoon to Tidbits magazine for $5. But then when we saw this comic magazine, my brother George said, “Why don’t you draw a comic strip? You can draw as well as some of these others.” Having a sister in New York, I went ahead, not knowing how to present the stuff—didn’t know about the scaling of them or anything—and I drew up some samples, and mailed them to Bill Cook. He wrote back, “I’d like to have this. Go ahead and draw it up.” And I said, “Well, I’m coming to New York. I’ll talk to you.” So I went in there, shy as hell, didn’t know a damn thing. I wasn’t sophisticated like I am now. [mutual laughter] Cook gave me some pointers, and then I drew this windy thing called “‘Obo Ossie.” It was about a hobo and they called him “Obo,” using the British accent, dropping the “H” ’s, because when I bummed around the country, I had a little sign-painter’s kit in order to have an “Obo Signs.” Obo Ossie was a tramp. And that was the first thing Bill Cook got interested in.

FILCHOCK: It had to be about ’36 or ’37. You probably have better records than I, when “Superman” came out. I was in New York when “Superman” first came out. JA: Superman came out in spring of ’38, so you were there by ’37 or early ’38? FILCHOCK: Okay, that’s when I started. That’s when I met George Brenner and Jack Cole and Bill Everett. JA: Okay, you went to New York and met Bill Cook. Was John Mahon his partner? FILCHOCK: No, he had a young fella—oh, hell, I can’t think of his name. He wasn’t an artist, he was just a smart guy and he was Bill Cook’s partner. JA: Bill Cook’s company was Comic Magazine Company and it started in April of 1936. His partner was a guy named John Mahon. FILCHOCK: It could have been him. This was about a couple issues after he started, when I went with him. My first story feature was called “Fisherman’s Luck.” No—before that, I drew “The CC Kid,” which is about my experience in the CCs and how this boy was living with his deprived family, and in order to help out, his dad was without a job and so he joins the CCs. JA: And “the CCs” is short for what? FILCHOCK: Civilian Conservation Corps. Just dropped one “C” and called them “CC,” instead of “CCC.”

JA: What year did you start working for him?

JA: Can you give me a visual description of John Mahon? FILCHOCK: I would say a tall, handsome—when I say “tall,” hell, my top height was five seven and a half. I would say he was about six foot tall, like some of those movie stars like Johnny Depp. He was a handsome guy. He used to brag about all of the women that chased after him. JA: Now what about Bill Cook?

Playing The Obo Alas, we don’t have copies of “Obo Ossie,” the hobo humor feature Mr. F. did circa 1936-37 for Bill Cook’s Comic Magazine Co., so we’ll split the difference. Here are a slightly later humor page drawn by “Montany Marty” Filchock—and another “hoboing” page, this one from a “C.C. Kid” story. We can’t be certain which exact comic book either strip came from, but “The C.C. Kid” debuted in The Comics Magazine Funny Pages, Vol. 1, #4 (Aug. 1936)! That early enough for you? [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

FILCHOCK: Bill Cook was a short, stocky guy, at least ten years older than me. He was like a father figure. He corrected my mistakes and showed me how to line up the pages in scale. He would help me, especially when I was in New York and I would go down and see him practically all the time. I did covers for him, and I even have the first cover I did for him, where a cop picks up a trash can and this boy has, I think, a bunch of

“They Treated Me Like I Had Talent”

Cookin’ With Cook Two of Martin’s earliest features for Cook and Mahon were “The C.C. Kid” in The Comics Magazine Funny Pages (title later changed to Funny Pages) and the “Bob Colby” series, which began with the story “Fisherman’s Luck” in Funny Picture Stories #3 (Jan. 1937). Thanks to Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., for the latter photocopy. The first page of the “C.C. Kid” story reflects Filchock’s career in semi-pro baseball. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

grapes in his hand that he had pilfered from a local fruit stand or something. I did a lot of covers for him and, later, for Centaur. JA: Did you have to learn how to use a brush or pen? FILCHOCK: I learned how to use a brush. I didn’t use a brush until I started working for Centaur with Harley and that group. And they had a fellow working for them by the name of Terry Gilkinson. He had worked for the Associated Press and he was an alcoholic. I would go in there, and he showed me how to use a #2 brush. JA: Did you write all your stuff for Bill Cook? FILCHOCK: Yes. JA: Did you do any coloring? FILCHOCK: No, no. The company took care of the coloring. JA: When you did a story for Bill Cook, did you show a script first? FILCHOCK: No. I don’t whether he even corrected any of my English, which was pretty poor.

“I Did Everything For Everybody” JA: Did you create all the features that you did for Cook? FILCHOCK: I did everything for everybody. Nobody gave me a damn thing. I created every one of them. Once, I wrote a story, or drew a story, and Bill even gave me the name for the title. It was “Fisherman’s Luck.” Just use that old adage “fisherman’s luck,” so that’s what the

Signed, Sealed, And Delivered Martin Filchock says this is the first comic book cover he ever drew. And he signed it, too! Thanks to Bruce Mason for the scan from Funny Pages #8 (Feb. 1937). [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Martin Filchock Remembers Centaur Comics And Other Phenomena

“I’ll Mow The Dirty Rats Down!” Martin’s early work, as on the page (left) from “Fisherman’s Luck,” may have been crude, but it was energetic and told the story well. The cover at right is from Keen Detective Funnies #11 (July 1939). [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

story was about: this young guy was on his ship and a bunch of these fishermen came on and they turned out to be dope smugglers or something. And they were a mob and he helped beat the hell out of them or whatever. That was my first one besides “The CC Kid.”

JA: Okay… “Copper Slug” and “Copycats.” FILCHOCK: That was Hardy. You got all of those? Do you have “The Buzzard” and “Red Blaze”? Well, they were some of my features.

JA: He would tell you he needed a story, then you would just do a story?

JA: “Dopey Kits.”

FILCHOCK: No, no, no. I would just go ahead and draw any darn thing I could and bring it down. I don’t recall ever getting rejected, whether it was a one-pager or a cover, and it went that way with Harley, too.

JA: “Electric Ray.”

JA: Now when you worked for Cook, you freelanced. You weren’t working in the office—you were working at home, right?

JA: “Headless Horseman.”

FILCHOCK: That’s right. Either in Pennsylvania or at my sister’s place in New York City. JA: Now who did you do the “Bob Colby” strip for? Do you remember that one? FILCHOCK: Bill Cook. JA: Okay, and “The Buzzard” was Bill Cook, right? FILCHOCK: No, that was for Joe Hardy at Centaur.

FILCHOCK: That was for Hardy.

FILCHOCK: They claim I did that, but I don’t recall that. If I did do that, it had to be for Hardy.

FILCHOCK: That was for Joe Hardy. That was one of my better ones. Oh, the best one that I had was called—it was about a baseball player and I even named the fellow who made the big leagues from our home town—he played for Detroit—by the name of Pat Mullin. He even caught for me when I was pitching baseball. And he was a pitcher, pitching in like the American Legion, and he was throwing his crazy ball and the umpire thought he was using a spitter or something, came out there and wondered what the hell he was using. And the kid says, “No, the reason I’m able to throw this is because one of my fingers— the index finger should have been real long. It’s short. It’s a birth defect or something.” And it turned out that the umpire was his father, because he had his hand like that. [mutual chuckling]

“They Treated Me Like I Had Talent”

The Centaur Of Attention “The Dopey Kits” displays a nice sense of kids’ dialogue, starting with “Pitches” for “Pictures” in MF’s byline. Note that, by this time, the Centaur group was pushing its identity—as on his cover for Cowboy Comics #14 (Aug. 1938), the mag that had started out as Star Ranger Funnies. We’ve also printed the top-half of a gag page of Filchock’s “Centaur Kid,” from an issue of SRF. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Headless Of The Consequences Filchock's early Western feature "The Headless Horseman" appeared in Centaur's Amazing Mystery Funnies and The Arrow. This unique hero was a predecessor of Magazine Enterprises's Ghost Rider, being in truth a young woman who wore an outfit built up to make her look like a decapitated male avenger! A 1999 issue of Robin Snyder's monthly "first-person history" publication The Comics! (see ad on p. 46) revisited that grotesque gunslinger, with homage illos by Timothy Lane and Mark Heike.[Art ©2007 the respective artists.]

Martin Filchock Remembers Centaur Comics And Other Phenomena

Let George Do It! Martin’s brother George, who passed away in 2004, worked with him on some early features, such as “Red’s Newfangled Bronc” in Western Picture Stories #4 (June 1937). George got a solo credit on “The Ermine,” an ongoing feature clearly inspired by Hawkeye, the hero of The Last of the Mohicans and four other 19th-century novels by James Fenimore Cooper. On at least one “Ermine” story, George Filchock signed himself “(Ex-Forest Ranger).” Jim V. supplied the “Red” photocopy. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

“The Only Two Outfits I Worked For Were Cook And Centaur” JA: Would it have been—no, “Homer Butts” was for Chesler. FILCHOCK: I never worked for Harry Chesler. JA: All right, let me get back to Cook. It was Cook’s company. Was he also the editor? FILCHOCK: He was the editor, he was the producer, as far as I know—a one-man show. He didn’t have anybody working for him except this guy you mentioned. JA: Well, Gilkinson was at Centaur, not at Comic Magazine Company. FILCHOCK: No, no, Gilkinson was with Hardy at Centaur. Cook was a one-man production guy. JA: What were Cook’s offices like? FILCHOCK: A couple of little rooms up in an office. I don’t even know how in the hell Bill Cook got into it, but he was a smart man. Real smart, or he wouldn’t have hired me. [mutual laughter] JA: Who did you meet while you were working for Cook? FILCHOCK: Nobody. If I did, I don’t recall any of them. JA: Okay, how long did you work for Cook? FILCHOCK: Until he sold it to Hardy. JA: Cook sold out in June of ’37. So you worked there about a year, probably. FILCHOCK: That’s about right.

JA: Okay, so you didn’t meet anybody else in the office. Did he not even have a secretary? FILCHOCK: No, I don’t recall any. You know, of course, those magazines sold for 10¢ apiece. JA: Some of your work was in Star and Star Rangers. The company was at 11 West 42nd Street. FILCHOCK: I think that’s right. I’ll interrupt you there. During the war, Joe Hardy sold stuff to Charlton. And those guys would go ahead and print it. Some of my stuff appeared during the war in magazines I had never even heard of. [Jim laughs] I was selling gags to Charlton’s magazines and I happened to run across some of my stuff that they were reprinting. I contacted them because I wanted to get paid for it. I said, “You’re using my stuff without permission.” They just laughed and said, “We don’t owe you a damn thing. We bought this whole package deal from somebody and we’re going to use it whether you like it or not.” JA: [laughs] That sounds like Charlton. [mutual laughter] So you did have some work in a couple of Chesler’s magazines, but you never worked for Chesler. FILCHOCK: Never did. Jim, I was thinking about contacting him when Hardy was no longer publishing comics. But then I was called back—that’s what they termed “call back” on the railroad, because we were building up for the war and they needed people working at the railroad, and I didn’t mind that because my hours were from eight in the morning till four in the afternoon. And then this other work at seven days a week, we could work six or seven and sometimes, if you worked on a sixth or seventh day, they would pay you time and a half. But I didn’t want to work on a Saturday and a Sunday for time and a half, which would have been $7 a day, when I could stay home, and at that time, the comics, the gag cartoons came out—Army, Lass, and all that clique—and I was going to stay home on a Saturday and a Sunday,

“They Treated Me Like I Had Talent”

Oh, here’s one thing that I thought of the other day when I was out with my dogs; this’ll show you how much of a country boy I was. I was in New York and it was just before Centaur decided to get rid of their comics and I don’t know who the hell they sold out to—they went out of the comic business. Disney had sent somebody out to New York, looking for animators. I would have been able to adapt to working for Disney. I wrote to them and they sent me a form and they wanted me to send them some samples of stuff like that. By that time, I was over 25 years of age or so, and I felt I was too old, so I never pursued that. Otherwise, I would have wound up at Disney, and after World War II, I found out that many of the guys who became freelancers in gag cartoons and editorial cartoons and things of that sort had worked and got an education working for Disney. And even when I was in the Army, there was a young woman working in one of the outfits I was in. She was an artist and she used to do the background stuff for Disney. So I could have worked for Disney, but you wouldn’t be talking to me now. I’d probably be dead. [Jim laughs] JA: Did you ever socialize with Cook at all? FILCHOCK: No, no, no, I was pretty green. I wouldn’t have known how or what to do, or how you would order anything in a restaurant.

American Injun-uity A one-page feature that Martin did for various issues of Star Rangers Funnies was “One Buck and Two Bits,” starring a pair of decidedly non-PC Native Americans. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

and I was summoned to Hardy. They put out Yoo Hoo and a bunch of other magazines, and I was selling them by the dozens for about $5 each. So, hell, I was a millionaire. [chuckles] JA: The company that Cook sold his magazines to had an umbrella name, Ultem, which was from the names of the two guys who bought him out. One guy was called Frank Temmerson. Do you remember Frank Temmerson? FILCHOCK: No, I didn’t have much dealing with him. JA: His partner was a guy named Ullman. I.W. Ullman. FILCHOCK: That name sounds familiar. No, I don’t remember that much, no. JA: So chances are they weren’t in the business, but they were the holding company. FILCHOCK: Well, you see, the reason I don’t remember some of those is because, at that time, I was also spending a lot of time in Pennsylvania and mailing things in. Even when I was working for Cook, and also for Hardy or Centaur, I spent a lot of time in Pennsylvania. JA: I have a note here that in 1935 you did “Ivanhoe” for DC Comics. Is that correct? FILCHOCK: No. The only two outfits I worked for were Bill Cook and Centaur.

Another Hot Idea Martin also created “Red Blaze” for Centaur’s Fantoman title that grew out of Amazing Adventure Funnies, not to be confused (though it probably was) with Amazing Mystery Funnies. Was the Amerindian hero fierypowered, or what? We dunno. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Martin Filchock Remembers Centaur Comics And Other Phenomena

whose initials were “A.A.” and his last name was “Wynn.” Unless both men were one and the same? FILCHOCK: I can’t understand how all of these people could be making any money if we were only selling the magazines at 10¢ a copy. JA: Well, they were doing other things, too. For a while, Lloyd Jacquet was there.

Funnybook Men, Incorporated (Left:) Lloyd Jacquet, founder of Funnies. Inc., from a 1942 newspaper photo. (Right:) Mickey Spillane scripted for Jacquet for several years before he wrote the first Mike Hammer novel, I, the Jury, and became an overnight sensation. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

“I Don’t Know Who Did What” JA: All right, so you went to work for Joe Hardy. Now there’s a little bit of confusion that maybe you can clear up for me. There was a man named Joe Harley and there was a Joe Hardy. FILCHOCK: I knew them like brothers. JA: Were they different men?

FILCHOCK: Oh, yes, I remember Lloyd very well. He was a nice guy, very handsome rascal, helped me along. I used to go down and chat with him; and later on, when Harley and the others sold out, Jacquet gave me his own office. I stopped drawing, and I found out where he was, and I dropped in there, and that’s where I met Mickey Spillane. I worked for Lloyd Jacquet, when he was like the editor for Hardy. He was very helpful; he liked my stuff and bought it. But our relationship wasn’t that long, because it was not long after that—see, when Lloyd came in there, that’s when I started dealing more with him than I was with Hardy and Harley. But when they switched over to the crossword puzzle magazines and stuff, I was still working for them on that. JA: I’m told that Joe Hardy liked to be called “Uncle Joe.” Do you remember that? FILCHOCK: [chuckles] Well, I don’t remember that, but he was an uncle to me. [mutual laughter] A rich uncle. I was getting $5 a page. He was a rich uncle. JA: You got $5 a page working for Cook, also. FILCHOCK: Yeah. I never got a raise. I even mentioned how many covers I did for him and I’d only get $5 for a cover. Of course, I didn’t do the coloring, but I did the cover. Everybody did their own stuff... Bill Everett, George Brenner, Paul Gustavson.

FILCHOCK: Different men! They were two different men and I knew them both well, very well. They were very helpful to me. They were the ones that caught Jack Cole in plagiarism.

JA: Did any of the guys color their work at all?

JA: Was Joe Hardy the editor at Centaur?

JA: Now let me ask you, what do you remember about the Centaur offices? What were they like?

FILCHOCK: Jim, I don’t know who did what. I think they were sort of like co-editors. I think they were partners, and I don’t think one was superior over the other. JA: Tell me anything you can about Joe Hardy. FILCHOCK: The only thing I can tell you is that they treated me like I had talent, and they would buy stuff from me. I never socialized with any of those people. When I got down in their office with my stuff, they would accept it.

FILCHOCK: Color? No.

FILCHOCK: I would say it was three or four times larger than Bill Cook’s, because they had a special place where they did the artwork. There was a brother and sister who did touch-ups and other production work. They may have been doing the coloring and all that. JA: So they had a bullpen there. Did Hardy and Harley have their own offices?

JA: Did they supply your paper or did you have to supply your own? FILCHOCK: No, I had to buy everything. I had to use all my own postage, my own ink, my own penciling, my own erasing. It was just like an author who would send stuff in. I was doing everything myself. JA: Is there anything about John Harley that you can recall? FILCHOCK: No, except what I told you. They seemed like they were just like one man with two heads. Very, very friendly. They were helpful and were very sad when they quit publishing. JA: They had a couple of business partners. You may not have known them, but I want to ask you in case you did. One of them was a guy named Raymond J. Kelly. FILCHOCK: I do remember a “Kelly.” I remember that name, but that’s about it. JA: Okay, there was a Warren A. Angel, and there was also a guy

Crazy Like A (Flying) Fox No photos, alas, of Terry Gilkinson, who figures prominently in Martin’s narrative—but here’s a panel from his “Flying Fox” aviator feature that appeared in several 1938-39 issues of DC’s More Fun Comics. Thanks to Jerry G. Bails & Hames Ware. [©2007 DC Comics.]

“They Treated Me Like I Had Talent”

A Brenner Day The title panel from a “Clock” story, and part of a “Bozo the Robot” page, both from George Brenner’s days at Quality Comics in the late 1930s/early 1940s. Thanks to Roger Dicken, who picked these up from 1950s/60s English reprints. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

FILCHOCK: Yes. JA: Who else had their own office that you recall? FILCHOCK: Well, I think when Jacquet started working for them, he had his own office, but I never went into it, because when I would go into the offices, I would go right into the place where I told you that I met this young brother and sister. It was in the art department, where they had several drawing tables, and that’s where Terry Gilkinson and I used to talk. I’d go down there many times after the office was closed, and only Terry and I were there. And because of his being an alcoholic, he would suddenly stop talking and say, “Did you hear those? You hear those voices? You hear those? You hear?” In other words, he was getting what they called “the snakes” or something, although he claimed he was no longer drinking. But he had a big job with the Associated Press. He was the headman in the art department; a touch-up man… and I think Hardy and Harley, being such nice guys, tolerated him and gave him a job because he was a terrific craftsman. They gave him a job in order to help him out.

because I was working for church publications, and a local church was printing my cartoons. And some woman says, “Isn’t that Joe Filchock wonderful? Did you see that cartoon in our church bulletin?” And my mother says, “That’s not Joe, that’s my son, Martin.” Joe was a first cousin who’s a couple of years younger. He was the brother of the fellow that we bummed around the country with. And Joe’s a very enterprising guy. He only had about a seventh grade education. He turned out to be on the school board. He could paint signs and he also worked on the railroad as a conductor on coal cars and stuff. And I even have some copies of his work here in a Slovak book that he had. And he even signed his signature somewhat similar to mine so he could capitalize on my—[mutual laughter] JA: How much did you work in those offices? FILCHOCK: I never worked in their office at all. I would bring stuff down there, and it just turned out a couple of times that I was with Terry after hours. He says, “I just happened to be there when they were closing up.”

JA: When you worked for Centaur, were you in New York or were you in Pennsylvania?

JA: Is there anything else about George Brenner that you remember?

FILCHOCK: Both places, but mostly in New York.

FILCHOCK: No, except I know that when Centaur sold out, he started working for somebody else.

“When Centaur Gave Up The Ghost…” JA: I have a list of names of people I want to ask you about and get your memories of them, okay? Let me start with George Brenner.

JA: Quality Comics. But he did “The Clock” for Quality Comics. That’s why I wondered if Brenner might have owned “The Clock,” because how else could Quality publish it?

JA: Do you know if he owned that feature?

FILCHOCK: Well, when Centaur gave up the ghost, they didn’t give a durn what you did. I mean, they didn’t have any hold on you. In those days, they didn’t care whether you switched over to somebody and took—this is my opinion—if the other magazine wants your stuff, that’s all right. They didn’t care. They were out of the business.

FILCHOCK: Whether he owned it? In those days, nobody owned anything. I mean, the doggone magazine just paid you five bucks and they owned everything.

JA: So in other words, Quality may have just hired Brenner to continue doing “The Clock,” or maybe Brenner got a job over there and took the character with him.

JA: Did you even think about ownership?

FILCHOCK: That’s exactly right, and that’s what they were doing, whether it was Chesler or any of those, if you had a good enough reputation, or they thought you were good enough, or if you went over to see them. For some reason, I never bothered going over to Chesler or anyone else. Once Harley quit the comics, I must have been called to work on the railroad.

FILCHOCK: I knew him quite well. I only met him in the office, never associated with him, and I remember his feature; it was called “The Clock.”

FILCHOCK: Oh, man, I was so tickled to death to sell them anything that I didn’t give a damn. My parents were from Slovakia and my mother, actually, she used to criticize me before I started selling and became famous—or infamous. [Jim chuckles] She used to say, “Why are you fooling around doing that stuff when you could be out there working on coal cars and getting $4 a day?” But then, later on, she became very proud of me

JA: Right, so that’s why you left. FILCHOCK: And so, like I said, I was making $5 a day, or

Martin Filchock Remembers Centaur Comics And Other Phenomena

FILCHOCK: No, I would just submit them and they would find a place for them. To my recollection, they never rejected a single thing of mine. JA: Is there anything about Paul Gustavson that you remember? FILCHOCK: Only that I talked to him when he was down there. I forget what his features were, but I thought he was a pretty damn good artist. JA: Tell me about Jack Cole. FILCHOCK: I met Jack Cole at Centaur several times. Once, we were chatting in the waiting room. And he went in to see the bosses and he was in there a long time. Of course, it could have been 15 minutes, it could have been more than that. Anyhow, when he came out, he walked past me as if there was nobody there, looking solemn and worried. When they asked me to go in, they told me what he had done. Well, what Harley and Hardy told me was that Jack had drawn a science-fiction story that was good—and he was a good artist, and later on, he became a terrific artist, especially when he was doing “Plastic Man.” They called him in because they had published the story, and someone happened to see the same story in Collier’s a month or two earlier. About the only thing he changed was the name “Johnson” to “Thompson,” and the rest of the story he followed as if a script was given to him. He said he was up against a deadline and that’s why he did it. Centaur was afraid that somebody would find it and they would be sued for plagiarism and that would have killed them.

Be The Streak Silver, Blue, or Yellow— That Boy Sure Could Run! Jack Cole is remembered today for “Plastic Man” and for his cartoons in the early Playboy, but in his early days he drew features for Centaur. Since we couldn’t score any of those, here’s a splash page by Cole (as “Ralph Johns”) from an issue of Silver Streak Comics for Your Guide/Comic House. Oddly, Silver Streak was attired in red and yellow! See A/E #25 for extensive coverage of Jack Cole. Thanks to Jonathan G. Jensen for the photocopy. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

something—maybe it was a little more. But then, when I started selling to those Army magazines, I was making more money than if I’d been in New York. And I was having fun at home. I was working during the day, working on weekends, and having fun, chasing girls. [Jim chuckles] I was single.

“They Didn’t Fire [Jack Cole’] Because They Needed Us” JA: What do you remember about Bill Everett? FILCHOCK: I remember Bill Everett. I remember his “Sub-Mariner,” and I never thought too much of it, but apparently everyone else did. I didn’t even like his style of drawing, but he was a better craftsman than me and I won’t deny that. You see, Jim, I was the kind of a guy that had ideas pumping out of my head and I was doing all kinds of stuff, covers.… JA: When you did covers, did you have to show them a cover rough? Did you discuss what the cover was going to be like? FILCHOCK: Nope! Nope! JA: Would they just say, “Martin, we need a cover,” and you’d do a cover?

Night Hawks At The Corral Paul Gustavson drew “The Night Hawk” for Super Spy (yes!) and Star Ranger Funnies. For Centaur, he also illustrated “The Fantom of the Fair,” and for Timely/Marvel, “The Angel.” [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

“They Treated Me Like I Had Talent”

Carrying A Torch (Left & below right:) The Fire-Man was a post-Human Torch fiery hero who must’ve made Timely/Marvel publisher Martin Goodman see red! In Man of War #2 (Jan. 1942), Martin Filchock’s caped hero not only acknowledges his roots, but takes on a blazing-crimson opponent who, aflame, is a dead ringer for the Torch—and who even has a similar origin! Looks like a fun story, though! Man of War was published by Comic Corporation of America, which was a mutation (or something) of Centaur. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert and Jim Ludwig for the scans. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

And they told me this because I had walked in there after he had left and they were being cute and smart by telling me that so that I wouldn’t pull the same stuff, see? That’s what Cole had done, stolen this story, word for word, picture for picture, with the exception of the names. JA: Was Cole reprimanded, or was he fired? FILCHOCK: No, it was not long afterwards that they sold out. No, no, they didn’t fire him. They didn’t fire him because they needed us, and he was good, but I’m sure they did a lot of sweating. JA: You said you met Mickey Spillane at Jacquet’s. You worked for Funnies, Inc., for a little while, didn’t you? FILCHOCK: Yeah, I worked for Jacquet. JA: Okay, what do you remember about meeting Mickey Spillane? FILCHOCK: He was a real handsome guy. I remember later on when he came out with I, the Jury and all of these books, and he became quite a hit, and even played Mike Hammer in a movie. I remember walking into the office there one time and he was typing something, and I remember conversing with him, and then Jacquet introduced me to him. And then later on, it must have been Spillane who used the name “Filchock” in a story. A mob was controlled by someone named Filchock. My brother Victor was coming home from World War II and he saw the comic magazine and he regretted the rest of his life that he never got the comic magazine from the guy until I was home. But I never saw the comic magazine.

CCC Rider—Oh, See What You Have Done! (Left:) What? You’re surprised that, in this sequence supplied by Bruce Mason, the Fire-Man gets involved (in his secret identity as Jim Reuben) fighting a fire— alongside the Civilian Conservation Corps? Hey—think maybe the CCC really was the source of the song now known as “See See Rider”? Seems logical!! [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

“I Was Ahead Of My Time” JA: Okay, I have a list of few other features that you did. I want to find out to make sure you did them. I have you in 1941, ’42, doing “The Fire-Man.” FILCHOCK: Yeah, sure. As a matter of fact, this Men of Mystery magazine has one of my “Fire-Man” stories. You ought to get it. [NOTE: Men of Mystery is published by Bill Black’s AC Comics. See ad on p. 72. —Jim.] JA: “Mighty Man.” FILCHOCK: Oh, that was my favorite, because that’s when I told you that everybody else was copying me and I was ahead of my time. Jack Cole got the “Plastic Man” idea because I had the Mighty Man doing all that before Cole did. And then Jim Carey came out with The Mask, and there’s The Incredibles, which I

Martin Filchock Remembers Centaur Comics And Other Phenomena

Stretching A Point A few years back, Martin did the retro-illo at left, which shows Mighty Man stretching as well as growing and shrinking—as if he were indeed a precursor of Plastic Man. We weren’t able to find any precise panels of Mighty Man turning into as much of a human pretzel as Plas did, but the vintage panel below shows him elongating his arm—by enlarging it, while the rest of him stays normal-size. [Art at left ©2007 Martin Filchock; Golden Age art ©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Mighty Man And Super Ann

You Never Seen Nothin’ Like The Mighty Man Mighty Man started out as a mere 12-foot giant, as per the splash panel above from Amazing Man #9 (Feb. 1940). After issue #12, he’s said to possess “super-strength and the miraculous ability to grow and shrink at will, made possible by an operation on himself by a scientistdoctor now dead!” Could the stray panel at left be from the latter tale? Thanks to Bruce Mason for the splash scan, and to Jerry G. Bails & Hames Ware for the panel. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Actually, it was onetime underground cartoonist Trina Robbins who wrote the book Martin mentions (The Great Women Super Heroes, 1996) which covered “Mighty Man and the World’s Strongest Girl,” a.k.a. Super Ann Star (above). She had super-strength, could outrace a train, and could—if not exactly fly—at least leap like the early Superman (below). Super Ann and Mighty Man weren’t so much partners as rivals. Thanks to Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., for the photocopy of art from Stars and Stripes #5 (Nov. 1941). [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

“They Treated Me Like I Had Talent”

My Night To Owl Filchock’s feature “The Owl” not only pre-dated the same-name hero in Whitman’s Crackajack Funnies by six months—but even appeared in a mag with the same cover date as Hawkman, who also sported wings and flew, beginning in Flash Comics #1! However, the DC/AA Winged Wonder soared to glory for 104 Golden Age issues, as well as in 57 issues of AllStar Comics—while Centaur’s Owl was grounded after his 6-page maiden fight in Funny Pages, Vol. 4, #1 (Jan. 1940). Hey, Martin—you gave up too soon on a great concept! Special thanks to Stephen Fishler and several nice people at Metropolis Collectibles—namely, Vincent Zorzolo, Frank Cwiklik, and Ben Smith—for arranging to send us a scan from that very rare issue, and to Jim Ludwig for cluing me in that Metropolis had a copy of it for sale! See the ad for their online show on p. 38. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

haven’t seen, but I saw a feature or an ad or something where this person sticks out a long arm, almost like Plastic Man, but I was doing that with the Mighty Man. That was my favorite feature. And one more thing—there’s a book called Women of Mystery. It features me in there with—I had a woman with Mighty Man called Mighty Ann. JA: So Mighty Man could stretch his body. Was that something you had him do just once? FILCHOCK: Oh, no, all through the stories. I must have done a dozen stories on him; his powers were created by thought suggestion. Superman came from another planet, and all these other heroes got their powers in various ways, and I had to figure out a way for Mighty Man to do what he did. The simplest way was by thought suggestion. I think the first story—and I don’t recall too much about it, and I don’t know why in the devil I didn’t keep it— is that he had met somebody in a mountain somewhere, some mystic man or whatever, who gave him the power. And he could shrink and hide in a matchbox or [become] big enough to pick up a locomotive and all that stuff. I even have parts of some of those features around here. And Mark Heike [of AC Comics] said the only reason that Mighty Man didn’t become famous is I didn’t have him wearing a cloak. JA: Do you remember doing “The Owl”? FILCHOCK: Oh, sure. And he wore a cloak. He looked like an owl. JA: I only have you on “The Owl” as an art credit. Did you write “The Owl,” also? FILCHOCK: I did anything! You see, Jim, I created a lot of those when I was in Pennsylvania. I would go out

Once Up-Pun A Time— No, Make That Twice (Right:) As per the signature in the final panel, this page from Blue Bolt, Vol. 3, #10 (March 1943), was done by Martin while he was in the Army. “Bluebolts and Nuts” was a regular one-page feature in that title, and other artists besides Filchock also took turns at it. (Far right:) “Otto Graff the Autograph Hunter”? Ouch! With puns like that, no wonder you and Jim Amash and Roy Thomas all get along so swimmingly, Martin! This page is from Funny Picture Stories, Vol. 2, #11 (Nov. 1938). Thanks to Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. for both photocopies [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Martin Filchock Remembers Centaur Comics And Other Phenomena

going into the service. [chuckles] Of course, knowing what I know now, I’d probably have been scared, too. JA: What branch of the service were you in? FILCHOCK: I was first in the [Army] Engineers. We all had gone in there for what they call training, and they would try to find out where you’d fit in. And then we were stationed in Tullahoma, Tennessee, [for] basic training, and I was in the Engineers for a couple of days. When I was in the CCs, and pitching baseball and drawing cartoons for all the guys—incidentally, I probably was the one that created all of this stuff on t-shirts and stuff because I used to get 10¢ for drawing a pretty girl on a guy’s t-shirt. And I was also drawing for the CC newspaper out of Washington, DC, but they didn’t pay anything. But I was getting publicity, so I was doing all of that stuff. JA: When did you come out of the service? FILCHOCK: Forty months later, in December of ’45. JA: Why didn’t you go back to doing comic books?

“Funnyman Filchock,” It Calls Him Since the article that accompanied this photo-and-art heading says that “Five years ago, Martin Filchock was swinging a grub hoe in a Pennsylvania CCC camp,” and “today…is sending laughs to the pages of Collier’s, The Saturday Evening Post, and other leading magazines,” it must have appeared in the early to mid-1940s. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

FILCHOCK: Because I was still thinking about how much I had to do for $5 when I could do more. When I came out of the service, my sister was still in New York. Now, when I was in G-2—that’s Intelligence, and I told everybody I was the dumbest person there. [mutual laughter] I was still selling cartoons when I was in the States and in the service, to Centaur. And as a matter of fact, I was a poor crap-shooter or card player, and I had a good buddy who hesitated about loaning me $5 because I was broke. I said, “Well, hey, I’ve got 25 coming from cartoons,” so then he would loan me five. Then later on, I got smart

with my dog and walk around out in the woods and stuff, because living in a mining town, once you got off the beaten path, you were in the woods. I would go walking around, and I was raised in the country, and liked to hunt and trap and move around. And so I would create these things and I got my education [chuckles] in this stuff when I was reading those Wild West Weeklys and “The Liberty Boys of ’76” and “Nick Carter” and all that stuff when I was just a toddler, really. So my mind was creative, and I still am! JA: I have a credit for you, a feature called “Blue Bolts and Nuts.” Does that sound familiar? This was for a company called Novelty. FILCHOCK: Well, as I told you, during World War II, Centaur sold to anybody, and they were printing them in all kinds of publications. I even had one of my features in Stars and Stripes Comics and, hell, I never even heard of Stars and Stripes Comics until I happened to run across it and there was one of my features in it.

“When We Got Into Japan, I Got Into Black Market Business” JA: Were you drafted into military service? FILCHOCK: I was drafted once and they rejected me because of my eyes. I’ve worn glasses since I was eleven years of age, and I was classified as 4-F. But then a year later, they were taking 4-Fs, and they took me from my railroad job. They even got the railroad guys, the union or the boilermakers or whatever. I was classified as a “boilermaker helper” and I would have to go into the firebox and clean. JA: When did you go into the service? FILCHOCK: I think it was in the fall of ’42. They gave me one month to straighten out my affairs, and I just took the whole damn month off. Some of those guys that had families and stuff were scared as hell about

This Picture Must’ve Had A Very Early “R” Rating Although Martin Filchock did not draw the cover of the half-legendary Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1 in 1939 as often reported (that being the first appearance of Bill Everett’s “Sub-Mariner”), our intrepid interviewee did draw (and sign) those of the undistributed #2 & #4. Here’s the cover of #2, with thanks to Robin Snyder. (P.S.: Fred Schwab drew the cover of #1.) [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

“They Treated Me Like I Had Talent”

A Man For All Seasons—And For More Than One Century

and quit gambling, but when we got into Japan, I got into Black Market business. I came home with almost $2000.

Comic Strips—gag cartoons—trade-mag covers— you name it, Martin’s drawn it! Going backward in time but clockwise from top left: a Fire-Man sketch done 11-11-06 for Belgian collector Stéphane Lucien—the Small Parts strip dates from the early 1980s—the Rental Equipment Register from 1968—a gag panel from the Sept. 1963 issue of Timely-Humorama’s Jest—the lovingly detailed Mobil Living cover from 1960— and a “Mighty Man” splash from circa 1940. And, as you can see in this 2005 photo from the Citizen Tribune of Morristown, Tennessee, he’s still enjoying it all, in his mid-90s! [Art & photo ©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

JA: What were you doing with the Black Market? FILCHOCK: When I got into Japan, they were paying you so much yen for a pack of cigarettes or a chocolate bar or something, and I was smart. When I was in the Philippines, and in G-2, I had access to a mimeograph machine, and with a stencil, I created a drawing of palm trees and maybe a kangaroo when we were in New Guinea and didn’t finish the whole thing. And soldiers get a little tired of writing home, but they still want to keep in touch, so they would come around to me and say, “Fil, how about fixing one of those things up for me? I’ll give you 50¢.” And that was lucrative. I just had to touch up something and put our name on, and I had a couple of

colored pencils and made little sketches for dear honey. And so I was making money on the side.

Once we got to Japan, I would no longer take 50¢. I wanted candy bars and cigarettes, because then I could play that into four times the same amount. With the help of a buddy from Pittsburgh—we found out that there was a silk warehouse, and some enterprising crook [chuckles] went on top of the roof, got down into another place, and there was thousands of kimonos and scarves, all of that silk stuff. So I did a stupid thing—fortunately I wasn’t caught—my buddy and I went down in there and came out. I must have had a hundred silk scarves and a dozen or more kimonos. [laughs] If I would’ve got caught, I’d have wound up in jail. But anyhow, I was still drawing these things for the guys, touching them up, and I’d get cigarettes or candy bars and go out on the street and sell them to the Japanese. I think 15 yen was a dollar, so I was getting a couple of dollars for the same thing I was getting 50¢ for before. [laughter]

JA: You’re 94 and you’re still working. How have you maintained your love for cartooning all these years?

Martin Filchock Remembers Centaur Comics And Other Phenomena

FILCHOCK: How? Because I have a good sense of humor, and I’m physically able. My daughter says I have the ability, agility, intelligence, and the up-and go of a man twice my age. [mutual laughter] My brother Frank, who played professional football for the Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Giants, and Washington Redskins, was the first coach of the Denver football team in the American Football League for two years in ’60 and ’61. He’s listed in the Guinness Book of Records for throwing the first hundred-yard touchdown pass—and then the other things he had done—and I want to be listed in the Guinness

Book of Records for being the oldest freelance cartoonist. Al Hirschfield has the record at age 99, and I intend to beat his record. When I retire, I’ll keep my promise and let you take over my features. JA: Martin, I’m not sure I’ll even be alive then! [mutual laughter] FILCHOCK: Keep eating those cookies and you won’t be! Get some exercise, like I do. Taking care of yourself is the key to a long life.

MARTIN FILCHOCK Checklist [This Checklist is adapted from information appearing on Jerry G. Bails’ Who’s Who of American Comic Books 1928-99; see below for how to access this vital website. Names of features which appeared both in comic books of that particular title and also in other titles are generally not italicized below. Reprinted material is only sporadically listed. Some data in this Checklist was provided by Martin Filchock, via Jim Amash. Key: (a) full art; (p) = pencils only; (i) = inks only; (w) = writer.] Name: Martin Filchock (b. 1912) (artist; writer)

Comics Studio (Shop): Funnies, Inc. (w)(a) c. 1940

Pen Names: Phil Chalk; Martin Chock; Frank Filchock

COMIC BOOK CREDITS (Mainstream US Publishers)

[NOTE: Martin’s brother George Filchock assisted him on some of his comic book work.] Print Media (non-comics): Advertising & magazine covers (as artist) Other Career Notes: Athlete – played semi-pro baseball before comics career Comics in Other Media: “Clairabel” (w)(a) 1946-48 in Argosy magazine; gag cartoons (w)(a) for hundreds of periodicals, including series It Never Fails, Diane and Denny, Opportunity Knocks, You Have to Believe; also gag cartoons for editorial pages (w)(a) in same period

Available Again—At Last!

The WHO’S WHO of American Comic Books (1928-1999) FREE – online searchable database – FREE http://www.bailsprojects.com No password required

A quarter of a million records, covering the careers of people who have contributed to original comic books in the US. “It’s really a very nifty site.” —Dr. Jerry G. Bails. “You can say that again!” —Roy Thomas.

Centaur Comics & precursors Comics Magazine Co., et al.: Amazing Man Comics (w)(a) 1939-41; Bob Colby (w)(a) 1936-37; The Buzzard (w)(a) 1940; The CC Kid (w)(a) 1936-37; Copper Slug (w)(a) late 1930s; Copy Cats (w)(a) late 1930s; covers (a) 1937; Dopey Kids (w)(a) no date; filler (puzzles) (w)(a) 1941-42; The Fire-Man (w)(a) 194142; Fisherman’s Luck (w)(a) late 1930s; Funny Picture Stories (a) 1937; Headless Horseman (w)(a) 1940; Homer Butts (w)(a) 1939; How to Draw Funny Cartoons (w)(a) 1930s; illustration (a) 1939; Mighty Man (w)(a) 1939-41; One Buck and Two Bits (w)(a) 1938; Star Ranger Funnies (cover)(a) c. 1938; Otto Graff (w)(a) 1938; The Owl (w)(a) 1939; Poachers (w)(a) 1939; Red’s Newfangled Bronc (w)(a) 1937; Rip Burns (w)(a) 1940; Western Picture Stories (w)(a) 1937; Windy (w)(a) 1936

Art by H.G. Peter

Pencils by Wayne Boring

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

Twice-Told Wonder Woman by Michael T. Gilbert Ever notice how DC loved using evil twins on their covers? For this installment of Twice-Told Tales, we’ve dug up some choice examples featuring two of DC’s biggest stars, Superman and Wonder Woman. Naturally, it’s “ladies first!” (and “last”—see p. 46)—so get ready for a double dose of Wonder Woman covers featuring tiny Wonder Women, giant Wonder Women, robot Wonder Women, secret Wonder Women, and even a wooden one. Watch out for splinters on that last one! Art on the cover of Wonder Woman #48 and Sensation Comics #96 is by Irwin Hasen; the other Wonder Woman covers that follow appear to all be by the team of Ross Andru & Mike Esposito.

A Double Dose Of Twice-Told Tales

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

Twice-Told Superman! Superman was no slouch in the twin department, either! In his day, he faced shrinking Supermen, blond Supermen, and substitute Supermen. Heck, once he even discovered an entire evil-twin island, for gosh sakes! Of course, it’s hard to beat the two terrific Twice-Told covers below, illustrating “The Thing From 40,000 AD!”—one drawn for a Feb. 1954 issue of Superman by Win Mortimer and Wayne Boring, and the other redrawn in May 1967 by Curt Swan. Not a “thing” wrong with either of those covers!

A Double Dose Of Twice-Told Tales

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

That’s it for this issue, readers. We hope you enjoyed this … er … Sensation-al episode! Our special thanks to Mike Voiles for providing cover scans. DC fans are strongly urged to visit Mike’s Amazing World of DC Comics website, which features virtually every DC cover from the 1930s on, plus detailed credits and story synopses for many of the issues. It truly is amazing! You’ll find it at: www.mikesamazingworld.com/index.php And, while you’re online, check out my spanking-new website! It’s at: www.michaeltgilbert.com Till next time…

Monthly! The Original First-Person History!

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

A Comic Fandom Archive Special Multi-Part Series

The Kaler Con: Two Views Bigger And Better Than The Benson Con Just Three Weeks Before??

Part VIII of “1966: The Year Of (Nearly) Three New York Comics Conventions” by Bill Schelly

Introduction

s recounted in the first part of this ongoing series (see issue #53), in 1965 David Kaler announced at the end of his first stint as comicon host that he would never organize another such convention, as it had been a highly frustrating, stressful experience. Hearing this, John Benson took the bull by the horns and began planning a 1966 New York Comicon, which he pulled off with considerable success. However, sometime in late 1965, after his jangled nerves had settled, Kaler changed his mind and began laying the groundwork for what he saw as the “official” New York Comicon, which would be sanctioned by the Academy of Comic Book Fans and Collectors. Because Benson had already announced a July date for his comicon, however, Kaler was forced to move the Academy Con to August. Could the city and outlying areas, from which most of the attendees

would come, support a second major comicon just three weeks after the first? To answer that question, we are presenting two reports, containing two different views. First, we have a lengthy (for its day) article written by Al Russell for the 1967 fanzine Men of Mystery #4, published by Jeff Gelb and Howard Brennar. Second is a brief commentary by Larry Ivie from the pages of his magazine Monsters and Heroes #5 (1969). A modicum of editing has been done, and a few italicized notes have been inserted below where deemed advisable for clarity. The accompanying artwork was mostly provided by Rich Rubenfield, who was there costumed as the Silver Age Flash; additional photos were cobbled from various sources. Thanks must go to our stalwart editorial assistant Jeffrey Kipper, who typed up Al Russell’s report when scanning it from the pages of the vintage fanzine proved problematic.

Memories Of The 1966 New York Comicon by Al Russell For 2H days, August 12-14, fans from Michigan, Maryland, Missouri, and elsewhere enjoyed the best of three-and-a-half New York Comicons. [NOTE: Al refers to the cons in 1964 and 1965, and the two non-Bensons in 1966. —Bill.] The program of this year’s con was superior to that of last year’s because, as Rick Weingroff commented, “Stan Lee alone made it better.” Also, fans who had been to the “half” convention (held in July by science-fiction fans, so-called because it was not sponsored by the Academy) were heard to remark that the Academy convention was easily the better of the two this year; it offered more pros and more activities.

Mark X’s The Spot This full-page ad for the 1966 Kaler Con ran in The Comic Reader and elsewhere; art by Mark Hanerfeld. Mark, who passed away a few years ago, was active in fandom’s early Academy, helped organize early comicons, took numerous con photos, preserved much of the unpublished JSA story “The Will of William Wilson,” and even served for a time as Joe Kubert’s assistant editor at DC. As his friend and fellow fan (and later pro colorist) Andy Yanchus says, Mark “did little in the way of actual artwork,” though he had “the enthusiasm needed to pull off a piece of art of this magnitude.” [Characters TM & ©2007 the respective trademark and copyright holders.”

When a conventioneer arrived at the finely furnished hall on the fifth floor of New York’s expensive City Squire Inn on Friday afternoon, he was, after supplying satisfactory identification— either a $5 bill or a receipt showing that he had already paid for registration—given a badge. This badge, required to be worn over the entire weekend, was to ensure that no one would “crash the party” (as had happened, unfortunately, in 1965) and to identify its wearer by name and by rank of fan, pro, or dealer. Dave Kaler alternately wore badges labeled “Chairman” or “Executive Secretary.”

Comic Fandom Archive

At this point, Stan began receiving questions from the floor. I noticed that some unscrupulous photographers have, it would seem, touched up their pictures of Mr. Lee so that Stan appears bald. He had hair when he was speaking to us.

“The Man,” “That Masked Man,” & “The Boy” We can’t be 100% sure if the photo above of Stan Lee (at podium) and con host Dave Kaler was snapped (by Mark Hanerfeld) at DK’s ’66 or ’67 comicon... probably the former. But it captures the spirit of both proceedings. (Top center:) The Charles Flanders cover of Men of Mystery #4, which featured Al Russell’s account of his experience at the 1966 Academy Con. [Art ©2006 Lone Ranger Television or successors in interest.] (Right:) Roy Thomas at the ’66 Benson Con. He hadn’t changed much in three weeks. Photo by Jack C. Harris.

Sitting in the large room and waiting for the arrival of Stan Lee— being careful not to sit in the seats reserved for pros—it was possible to talk with fans one had always wanted to meet or simply to observe the many types of people in the room. “Smiling Stan” arrived at 7:40 p.m., which was close enough to 7:30 to suit me. He was followed by a devilish-looking young man who took a seat at the right of the podium. Who else could it be but “Rascally” Roy Thomas? After Dave Kaler had set down a few ground rules governing behavior in order to preserve good conduct throughout the con, Stan began with a short speech, punctuated by puffs on his ever-present cigar. The gist of his talk was a “thank you” to fandom. Fans, explained the leader of the Marvel bullpen, “have made Marvel what it is today.” For twenty years, he recalled, Timely/Atlas had published formulatype stories, had avoided taboos, and had got little fan response along with only mediocre sales. What happened in the next five or six years is of course well known; however, Stan stressed it is not so well known that fans—just as they now guide many of Marvel’s decisions—have guided the group since Fantastic Four #1. It was hundreds of letters from fans that reversed the original decision to make the Four the first group not to wear costumes. In this, what the Marvel Madmen like to call the Marvel Age of Comics, fans have not only guided Marvel’s editorial policies, but have been responsible for the grapevine advertising that has made Marvel second only to NPP [NOTE: National Periodical Publications, a.k.a. DC Comics] in sales. Stan (the ivy-league swinger) concluded with a plea to the audience to continue to support the Marvel Comics Group. What Marvel fears now is that its now-powerful group of magazines will become so far in—that it will thus be out. Too many fans, it is feared, may at this point of Marvel’s success switch to one of the newer “underdogs” as the new in-group.

The most memorable parts of the interview are here recounted: Asked about new magazines/strips, Stan replied that they will be possible only with a greater staff. So far as the writing is concerned, Dennis O’Neil is developing well as the current apprentice writer; Larry Lieber has taken over the Westerns, and Stan and his former apprentice are presently working at capacity. (Turning to Roy Thomas, Stan jestingly heckled, “You are working at capacity—aren’t you? You’d just better not be holding out on us!”) Stan added that he was amused at the constant demands to give almost every character his own magazine. New strips will come, he assured, when a large, capable staff is assembled. Knowing that Jim Steranko, who has taken over the SHIELD strip to restore the old “Severin glory,” is interested in doing Cap, one fan asked to know the exact possibility of a Captain America solo comic. Stan reminded that readers’ demands would determine which character(s) would go solo, and then he asked the audience, “Do you want a Captain America mag?” A resounding “Yes” followed. (As a sidelight, Stan told us that Cap was given a “test appearance” with the Human Torch in Strange Tales because the publisher had trepidations concerning Cap’s modern-day appeal.) When one fan criticized Captain America, the hammy Mr. Lee (who projects the same personality in person which he suggests in his lettercols) took the stance of a classic orator and, to the amusement of all, began in true melodramatic style, “Why, Captain America is the symbol of all that is good …that is fine…” Asked if the first issue of a new Captain America mag would be numbered #1, Stan told us that the matter would be the concern of the publisher. In fact, he said, he doesn’t quite understand why the publisher directed that this year’s “annuals” be called “specials.” To a fan who wanted to know the reason for Marvel’s high rates for subscriptions, Lee referred to the aborted efforts of the Brand Ecch company (pronounced “eck”—the second “c” is silent) to sell cut-rate subscriptions. Nelson Bridwell volunteered the information that National stopped this because money was being lost on the venture. Then, Stan turned to Roy and cried, “You see?! We’re being spied on by the competition!” After hearing many questions on the unique Marvel method of production (with the pencil-artist’s breaking down the plot into panels before the writer fills in the actual script), Stan offered that the best way to become part of Marvel’s staff is to endure working for Marvel’s

The Kaler Con: Two Views

What’s In A Namor? At the time of the ’66 con, Sub-Mariner creator Bill Everett had recently inked Gene Colan’s story for Tales to Astonish #85 (Nov. 1966), and would do full-art chores on the hero he sometimes called his “baby” starting in TTA #87 (Jan. 1967). True to his word, Bill altered the shape of Namor’s head back toward his own version. Mark Hanerfeld’s photo of “Wild Bill” may have been taken in either ’66 or ’67. [Art ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

competition in order to learn the ropes of the business and then to graduate to Marvel. This produced understandable laughter from Roy Thomas. [NOTE: Roy had initially moved to New York City in 1965 to become Mort Weisinger’s assistant on DC’s Superman titles, a position which lasted a rocky two weeks. —Bill.] To a query regarding Bill Everett’s taking over art chores on the Sub-Mariner strip, Stan told us this: Johnny Romita found it impossible to pencil both Daredevil and Spider-Man each month; so he has taken on the full art on Spidey. With Gene Colan (accent second syllable) [NOTE: This is incorrect; the first syllable is accented. —Bill] doing both the Daredevil and Iron Man pencils, Everett was the natural choice to take over the Sub-Mariner art. “What,” Stan asked the bespectacled gentleman standing near old-timers Leonard Darvin and Otto Binder, “do you have to say about that, ‘Wild Bill’?” Everett replied, “I beat him [Colan] over the head till I got it [the Namor strip].” Another conventioneer then asked whether Subby’s appearance would be changed. “Wild Bill” affirmed that Namor would not keep his present rounded head, but would look like he did in the Golden Age. However, his head will not be as triangular as those artists who later took over the strip pictured it. Stan was asked many times about long-past quotes and storyincidents. This prompted him to ask Roy Thomas (with delightful pseudo-dramaticism [sic]), “Did I say that, Roy?” (No answer.) “I hired you for your memory!” To that popular question “Who is Irving Forbush?” Stan explained that the name originated as part of the masthead in Snafu, Stan’s old Mad imitation, in which “I tried to get a gag between every two words.” It seems Irving was the fellow who, after another Forbush had founded the magazine, lost it. The Marvel Big Man admitted his name is fictitious: it is really Stanley-plus-a-surname. He has promised to admit his last name at next year’s con. Sometime after 9:00 p.m., Lee, who had in the middle of his interview mentioned the illusion of power he was given by being

allowed to call on people for their questions, concluded by signing autographs and appraising some amateur artwork. About half an hour later, the suite used for the meeting was locked up for the night by Chairman Kaler.

On Saturday morning, around 9:30 a.m., fans began gathering around the doorway of the suite, which was opened at 10:00. Then they entered to await the arrival of the Marvel Bullpen. The group arrived, composed of Dennis O’Neil, Bill Everett, John Romita, Roy Thomas, Flo Steinberg, and Jim Steranko. Since most questions about Marvel had already been asked Friday night, Roy, who presided, asked everyone on the panel to answer several opinion questions such as “Who are your favorite artists?,” Who are your favorite characters?,” and “What are your thoughts on EC?” Just a few observations: John Romita, to me, looks like his Captain America in the May ’66 [Tales of] Suspense, only brunet and, as Stan would have it, more “jazzy”; Bill Everett spoke only when directly spoken to; Jim Steranko is dark and serious-looking, while Flo is an effervescent girl who could rival “Millie” fashion-wise, and Denny O’Neil is a young urbane pipe-smoker; Romita, partly because he has worked in the romance mags, will be making the characters more beautiful (Aunt May, says John, will look younger because Ditko’s version always makes her look more like Peter Parker’s great-grandmother); Roy contends that the ECs only seemed so bad because their artists were so good; one of Flo’s favorite characters is Uncle Scrooge; Denny wanted us to know something that he is not allowed to forthrightly say in the Millie mags—Jill Jerold is a Negro; everyone on the panel has admiration for Kirby’s work; Bill Everett and John Romita like each other’s work. When this part of the program concluded, almost everyone went to the dealer’s room down the hall to see the thousands of dollars’ worth of comics material on sale. This was the usual activity between the entertainment portions of the con. In the dealers’ room, I spotted Jack Kirby. Let me explain that the reason Jack’s photo in Marvel Tales #1 looks like those photos of the “action king” you may have seen in 1940 magazines is that Jack himself still looks like that; he just has not visibly changed that much.

Comic Fandom Archive

This session concluded with the announcement that King has joined the Code. Bill was surprised to hear from fans who lived in the New York City area the extent to which this could affect the content of his magazines, particularly Williamson’s women; he was especially taken aback when Steve declared that one of Tower’s covers had been returned because a character’s pupils were too small. However, Bill reassured us: already the Code has given King permission to print the Seal of Approval in a smaller size, in a spot on the cover other than the upper right-hand corner. King will not remain with the Code if it proves too restrictive.

The afternoon event was a meeting at which Dave debated with the fans the future of the Academy, discussing the points he has been making in The Comic Reader/On the Drawing Board or whatever the Academy newsletter is now called.

This was followed by a showing of several episodes from the Marvel Super Heroes TV show. Three concerned a running duel between Thor and Loki (taken from very early Journey into Mystery Thor strips); another had Cap’s encounter with the first of the Sleepers (as seen in a Tales From Key To King of Suspense Captain America). They Bill Harris, former Western/Gold Key editor and in 1966 editor of the were rather cute, and, though aimed new King Comics group, speaks at either the ’66 or ’67 con. primarily at the kiddie market, should Anybody out there know whatever happened to Bill? He was a nice be more enjoyable than Batman. guy we haven’t seen around for years. Photo by Mark Hanerfeld. (Incidentally, at the Batmanians’ When the meeting hall and dealers’ room had been locked up for the meeting on Sunday, about 10% of the participants liked the Batman night, Dave—who really acted excellently as the Con’s chairman—felt show, while 90% favored that it be canceled, since it continuously some relaxation was in order, and joined by Roy, Rick (who was abuses of the dignity of this legendary character.) rooming with Dave), and me, took in a movie. The choice of the film was amusingly difficult, because Roy had seen almost every film Several pros who were present on Saturday, I missed seeing playing in Manhattan, including Arabesque, the one we finally selected. altogether. Two of these individuals were Mort Weisinger and Sal Trapani. On the way to the theatre, we were accompanied by Nelson Bridwell, who told me a funny story about the Legion of SuperOn Saturday night after 7:00 p.m., the fans were given just a few Heroes. It seems he and Mort Weisinger had really agreed to write minutes to interview Charlton editor Dick Giordano, who had to leave Superboy and Supergirl out of the Legion strip to allow better stories early for a theatre date. We learned that efforts are being made to by featuring a ring of Green Kryptonite surrounding the future improve CDC’s overall printing and distribution and that Charlton will Earth—which for some reason could not be changed to another soon be giving some work to “Grass” Green (work by former fan artist element by Element Lad. This, Irwin Donenfeld told them, is a good Bill DuBay has already appeared in CDC comics). The last question idea, provided it is only for one story; so the story’s ending was Dick heard before leaving was the one he had hoped to avoid: “Who is changed so that one of the new Legionnaires solves the problem (it PAM?” PAM, he answered, is not Pat Masulli, is not a woman, and is would be unfair to readers to reveal which one or how the trick was not permitted to have his name printed because he is presently involved managed). I suggested that the Super-Duo could still have been written in government work. out without damaging Adventure Comics’ circulation if a picture of Superboy from the chest up were added to the magazine masthead. With Bill Harris and Steve Skeates (pronounced like “skates”) on Nelson then told me that an issue which featured only a bust of hand to represent King and Tower respectively, we learned that both Superboy with a banner declaring words to the effect of “plus a great companies use short stories instead of Superboy tale” had very low sales. ten-pagers to make them more salable to the foreign market. This is also the reason King has begun producing comics with originals rather than reprints from the newspaper strips, although such reprints may appear next summer. By popular demand, Williamson will return to do regular art chores on Flash Gordon effective issue #4.

Over a snack after the movie, Dave, Rick, and I had a very interesting light conversation about the foibles of fandom. So ended the night. On Sunday morning, fewer fans congregated in the halls than the previous morning, because the dealers’ room opened very early—before 9:00am. From 10:00 to 11:00, a very disorganized Batmanians’ meeting was held, at which fans gathered in small groups to discuss bits of Batmania as well as other subjects. The reason, I assume, for the disorganization was that Biljo

Make Theirs Marvel ’66? ’67? Either way, both Marvel corresponding secretary “Fabulous Flo” Steinberg and new pro artist Jim Steranko were in attendance in the former year, as per Mark Hanerfeld’s photo at left. So, apparently were the four giants who signed the particular concatenation of signatures above: Mort Weisinger, Gardner Fox, Otto Binder, and Bill Finger. Between them, those four gents co-created and originally wrote some of the greatest characters of the Golden Age (Green Arrow, Aquaman, Vigilante, Johnny Quick, Air Wave, Flash, Hawkman, JSA, Dr. Fate, Skyman, The Face, Mr. Mind, Mr. Tawny, Batman, Green Lantern, Wildcat, et al.). Supposedly, this autograph sheet dates from’66—but the funny thing is, it could just as easily have been signed at Kaler’s ’65 con (covered in Alter Ego #20, still available from TwoMorrows), where this foursome made up the first comicon writers’ panel ever.

The Kaler Con: Two Views

Life Is A Masquerade (Left:) Ben Katcher as Robin at the 1966 costume party. Today Ben is the celebrated cartoonist-creator of Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer. This photo and the next appeared in the 5th issue of Larry Ivie’s magazine Monsters and Heroes—which was dated July 1969! [These two photos taken by and ©2007 Larry Ivie.] A very young Dave Armstrong, impressive in his Captain America costume. Dave’s now a media executive, and highly active in comic book collecting circles. His art-and-photo-studded article on early DC artist Bert Christman in Alter Ego #45 is a highlight of Vol. 3. Roy vividly remembers walking down Broadway at midday with Dave and having people stop to stare at that remarkable Captain America get-up. (Below:) Mark Hanerfeld and Dave/Cap have a playful tussle. That’s probably Roy T. in the Spidey outfit at right. The latter had been professionally sewn for Marvel for a 1964 Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade appearance that didn’t come off; longtime Magazine Management editor David George will tell you all about that in a near-future issue! Photo from the Hanerfeld collection.

White could not get to the con because of the airline strike, and Dave was too busy to attend. Biljo sent in a large poster (about six feet by five feet) in his absence. At 11:00, my favorite session of the con began: The men from National were there in person. (it is an interesting point that they do not call National “DC”). While no information worth repeating was disclosed—save the facts behind Bill Finger’s creation of the Joker, Robin, and even the Penguin (who was not at all inspired by Kool Cigarettes)—it was an unforgettable thrill for an unshakable National fan to meet the stars whose works he has long admired. The panel consisted of Murphy Anderson (who, in his very deep voice, looks and sounds like a super-hero), casual E. Nelson Bridwell, indescribable Julius Schwartz, Bill Finger (who, frankly, has the air of a gangster from the Bogart-Cagney school), and Gil Kane (who looks like an aged Hal Jordan)—plus the number one Batfan in attendance, Tom Fagan. In the audience were the jovial Murray Boltinoff and that grandest of writers, Gardner Fox. The room was full of buzzing after the break-up of the panel, as most fans tried to talk to the pros in person; meanwhile, those fans who were planning to come in costume to the masquerade later that afternoon left to get an early lunch. Two items really worth mentioning are these: (1) The popular notion that “Bob Kane” these days is really Sheldon Moldoff was confirmed by at least 3 pros. (2) One fan, who evidently had been intrigued by Giordano’s statement that the changeover to giant comics “will be the salvation of the industry,” asked Gil Kane’s opinion. The Green Lantern artist agreed that within two years, the 25¢ issue will be the rule rather than the exception, but on the question of whether this would mean decreased frequency on all titles, he stated that fewer titles, with more variety in most titles, would be more likely. (This would mean, for example, that merging The Atom into a semi-quarterly Green Lantern would be more conceivable than decelerating The Atom and Green Lantern to a three-times-ayear and a quarterly.) At the costume party (which began with slides from the new Green Hornet TV show), about 25 people appeared in costume.

The best costume, worn by Roy Thomas, was a virtually perfect Spider-Man outfit. Others included Batgirl, Batman, Robin, Catwoman (worn by Marge Gemignani), Superman, Spectre, Hourman, the original Green Lantern, Captain America, Mysterio, Speedboy, Nightshade, and The Man In Black Called Fate. Prizes of foreign comics and original art—which had been on display throughout the convention—and super-hero records and models were given, while the pros who were present acted as judges. At the conclusion of this event, the program for the evening was uncertain. It had been reported that the newspaper strip pros would not be present. Around 6:30 p.m. I left for supper, at which Roy and I discussed Tower Comics, among other subjects. He informed me that despite early predictions that the group’s efforts would be runaway hits, the latest sales figures are not as high as earlier ones. Roy himself was happy about this, because he honestly feels the Tower comics don’t deserve that much success. A few death notices for those who have not yet heard: Blazing Combat; Undersea Agents; at summer’s end, Fight the Enemy. Fly Man and Mighty Crusaders will be canceled until next year, when they will be revived in some form. When we returned from dinner (around 7:30), most of the out-oftown fans had gone. The few of us who were left made our final

Comic Fandom Archive

higher, the elevator service terrible, the general atmosphere less mature, the subjects covered of less merit, and the panel discussions a wearisome duplication of the previous con.

purchases from the dealers and sat in the meeting room, trying to finish the many conversations we had started. When the dealers’ room had closed—for the night, and for the year—the handful of us still on hand were gratified by the late appearance of Richard “Grass” Green. Grass, who brought with him some of his artwork for Charlton (a weird story and a strip for Go-Go), had been trying to find the convention hall in the big city all day. Finally, around 10:00, after Roy persuaded Grass to stay at his place instead of the “Y,” we all had to admit that the ’66 convention was indeed over, but it was the best convention ever. The lights were turned out in the large hall, leaving it more like a crypt than a public hall, last draughts were drawn from the nearly empty water-cooler in the hall’s entrance, and the fans were dispersed to the winds of fate. Dispersed—until the ’67 con, set tentatively for next July 14-16. See you there?

A Different View

Perhaps the biggest criticism was the AcademyCon’s advance publicity, which created confusion between the two conventions and tried to minimize the importance of the one to be held before it. The result was unquestionably harmful to the attendance of both affairs. Compared to the previous convention held by the same chairman [in 1965], the improvement was worthy of nothing but praise. But, compared to the efficiency and “polish” of the third comicon, AcademyCon ’66 came in a noticeable second.

What The Heck Is An “Altron”? Larry Ivie drew this sketch of his young super-hero Altron-Boy for fan Rich Rubenfeld at the 1966 convention—and Rich, who’s had it ever since, sent us a copy. Altron-Boy starred in stories in the pages of Ivie’s Monsters and Heroes magazine. [©2007 Larry Ivie.]

by Larry Ivie

by Bill Schelly In the final analysis, it’s clear that both New York comicons in 1966 were successes, and represented considerable improvement over the 1965 affair at the rundown Hotel Broadway Central.

Benson’s 1966 comicon had Jack Kirby as Guest of Honor; Kaler’s 1966 con gave that same honor to Stan Lee.

Excerpted from Monsters and Heroes #5 (1969) The first era of comic book conventions had achieved a remarkable record of improvement, and the stage seemed set for bigger and almost perfect things to come. But the third Comicon [run by John Benson in July 1966] had been deceptive. It had been so smoothly run that it had given the impression that a good convention was not really a problem at all, once there was a foundation of experience to learn from. A second 1966 convention took place shortly after the third comicon, and was called the AcademyCon (after an “academy” of fans exchanging amateur publications about comics, and voting upon their yearly choice of best professional work). Dave Kaler (chairman of the second comicon), after one year of rest, decided to give it another try.

Closing Thoughts

Benson’s had the edge in terms of the choice of hotel and the degree that it was organized, as well as the intelligence of the panel discussions. Kaler’s did better in terms of attendance, number of professionals, and by its inclusion of an extraordinary masquerade. Comparisons are odious, but sometimes necessary; here, we are glad that we have reached the conclusion that they finished in a dead heat. Each would have made fandom proud had the other not been held; both gave assurance to fandom that enthusiasm for the hobby ran high enough to support two fine efforts. And so, Alter Ego belatedly congratulates both organizers, and their helpers, for making 1966 a highly memorable, year!

This convention was also held at one of the big hotels, and was able to boast the first appearance [at a con] of editor Stan Lee. Highlight of the affair was an excellent costume parade. Most of these were elaborately prepared, and the choice of selecting the best, for prizes, was extremely difficult (and the results, unfortunately, fairly arbitrary). However, following so closely upon the heels of [Benson’s con], the attendees could not help but think of it in terms of comparison. And because of this, the criticisms that followed were perhaps unjustly harsh. The price was

Kaler Times Two We’ve proclaimed our uncertainly once or twice whether photos accompanying this article were taken at his 1966 or ’67 con, so it’s only fitting that we close with this pair of photos of Captain Atom writer David Kaler from the period when he was organizing comics conventions in New York City. They previously appeared in Bill Schelly’s Hamster Press publication The Comic Fandom Reader.

Still to come: The Castle of Frankenstein Comic-Con of early 1967! 2005 is the 10-year anniversary of the publication of Bill Schelly’s groundbreaking book on the history of comicdom, The Golden Age of Comic Fandom! The third printing is being offered at the discounted price of $14.00 per copy, through the Hamster Press website at: www.billschelly.com. Not only should every card-carrying reader of Alter Ego own a copy, but we think it would make an excellent gift to anyone who collected comics back in the day.

The Alter Ego 1943 Calendar Goes 2007! Y

ou asked for it—but we’d already done it! After digital designer Alex Wright turned Veronica Lake and other 1940s Hollywood lovelies into Liberty Belle and other Golden Age DC/Quality/Fawcett heroines in A/E #55, you asked that we have him to do same thing with Timely/Marvel super-ladies. Actually, Alex had already created a dozen such images… so all we had to do was wait a year and unleash them—though with 2007 instead of 1943 calendar pages this time, so you can actually pin them up if you wanna! All characters in this section are TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. First, though, we call your attention to this issue’s back cover, also by the talented Mr. Wright, in which he combines all twelve images into one. We wanted you to be able to see the dozen delicious damsels in dynamic color! —Roy.

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Anne Baxter as The Silver Scorpion The Oscar-winner—for her supporting title role in the 1950 film classic All Above Eve—is considerably more memorable than the super-heroine, who appeared only in three early-’40s issues of Timely/Marvel’s Daring Mystery Comics and Comedy Comics. Other great movie roles for Anne were in Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons (1944) and Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956). In 1973, she succeeded Lauren Bacall in the Bette Davis role from All about Eve in the Broadway musical version, Applause! As for The Silver Scorpion—well, at least she finally got silver armor in the mid-1990s Invaders series!

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Ava Gardner as Venus Who better to represent the month of St. Valentine’s Day—than Venus, the Roman goddess of love who had her own Timely/Marvel series from 1948-52? And who better to portray her than Ava Gardner, who was a minor actress during WWII but became a movie star and “sex goddess” after her role in The Killers in 1946. A year or so later, she even starred in the film version of the Broadway hit One Touch of Venus, playing the goddess, come to life in the 20th century. That movie was no doubt the inspiration for the comic, which was first a humorous romance mag, then a science-fiction series, and finally a horror comic exquisitely drawn by Bill Everett.

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Esther Williams as Namora A champion swimmer at age 15, Esther Williams was the only possible choice to portray The Sub-Mariner’s cousin, who had her own three-issue series in 1948. After appearing in Billy Rose’s Aquacade, and beginning with 1944’s Bathing Beauty, she starred in a string of color musical comedies from MGM—chief among them the aptly-titled Neptune’s Daughter (1949) and Million Dollar Mermaid (1952). Naturally, she swam in all of them. As for Namora, she returned prominently in the 1953-55 Timely/Marvel superhero revival, and was killed off in the late Silver Age—though not before giving birth to a daughter, Namorita.

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This sultry German-born actress became a movie star in Josef Von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel (1930)— then journeyed to Hollywood for such hits as Shanghai Express and Blonde Venus (1932), The Devil Is a Woman (1935), and Destry Rides Again (1939). Though an ardent anti-Nazi, she was occasionally cast as a “bad German” femme fatale, as in 1948’s A Foreign Affair. During World War II she entertained US troops, took part in War Bond drives, and made anti-Nazi propaganda broadcasts in German; she eventually received a Medal of Honor. Here she portrays a Nazi supervillainess—Master Man’s partner in perfidy from 1970s issues of The Invaders.

Timely/Marvel Heroines As World War II Pin-Ups

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Lucille Bremer as The Blonde Phantom Lucille WHO?, we hear you ask. Ms. Bremer made her film debut in 1944 in the hit Meet Me in St. Louis, and was Fred Astaire’s dance partner in Ziegfield Follies and Till the Clouds Roll By in 1946. But her promising career soon fizzled. Alex Wright says he ran across her in a “Hollywood Starlet” site dealing with the 1940s, and chose her because the dress she was wearing there was reminiscent of The Blonde Phantom’s garb. The comics heroine, of course, fought crime in mask, evening gown, and high heels in the latter ’40s, and starred in nearly a dozen issues of her own mag!

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Dorothy Malone as Miss America July 4th—Independence Day—and Miss America! It’s hard to beat a combo like that. She was featured for several WWII years in Marvel Mystery Comics, and was launched in her own title in 1944, only to be quickly replaced by a teenage Patsy Walker. Still, any superheroine who appeared in both 1946 “All Winners Squad” stories and was a 1970s retro member of both The Liberty Legion and The Invaders had a lot going for her! So did Dorothy Malone, who made her film debut in 1943 and finally emerged in the 1950s as a major dramatic actress, in such offerings as Written on the Wind (1956) and Too Much Too Soon (1958). She won a Supporting Actress Oscar for the former role.

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Susan Hayward as Sun Girl Susan Hayward missed a shot at playing Scarlett O’Hara in 1939’s Gone with the Wind, but eventually received no less than five Academy Award nominations, finally winning in 1958 for I Want to Live. Other major roles included SmashUp: The Story of a Woman (1947), Tap Roots (1948), David and Bathsheba (1951), With a Song in My Heart (1952), and I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1956). As for Sun Girl—despite having no super-powers or secret identity, she replaced Toro as The Human Torch’s sidekick in 1948, and had her own three-issue series.

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“Tokyo Rose” as Golden Girl

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Not to be confused with the late-1940s Golden Girl who replaced Bucky as Captain America’s sidekick, this Nisei (first-generation Japanese-American) Golden Girl was one of the wartime Kid Commandos who gueststarred in two retro issues of The Invaders in the 1970s. There being no major young actresses of Japanese descent in American films during the WWII years, Alex had her “portrayed” by “Tokyo Rose”—Iva Toguri D’Aquino, who was convicted in 1949 for being one of several women who broadcast under that name for Radio Tokyo during the war, telling servicemen in the Pacific, as the New York Times put it in her 2006 obituary, that “their cause was lost and their sweethearts back home were betraying them.” A US citizen, Ms. D’Aquino served six years in prison, though she seems to have been mostly a victim of circumstance—and she was pardoned in 1977 by President Gerald Ford, on his last day in office.

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Sherry Britton as The Black Widow The forerunner of today’s Russian heroine, the original Black Widow appeared in early-1940s issues of Mystic Comics, U.S.A., and All Select… as a supernatural entity gathering criminal souls for Satan. Which, naturally, makes her the perfect incarnation for our Halloween “heroine.” She’s seen here wearing the image of 1940s50s burlesque queen (and World War II pinup) Sherry Britton.

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Ann Sheridan as The Asbestos Lady What? Another villainess? Well, 1940s comics were short on super-heroines—and The Asbestos Lady made a colorful foe for The Human Torch, even she only appeared once, in the postwar years. She was back-dated into World War II for The Invaders in the 1970s. Despite her minor status, she’s played here by a major movie star—Ann Sheridan, who started out billed as “The Oomph Girl,” but with Kings Row (1942) proved herself a talented dramatic actress. Some of her major films: The Man Who Came to Dinner and George Washington Slept Here (1942) and I Was a Male War Bride (1948), in which she definitely did not have the title role. (Cary Grant did.)

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The Alter Ego 1943 Calendar Goes 2007!

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Greer Garson as Spitfire Spitfire, yet another retro super-heroine out of 1970s issues of Invaders, gained her speed powers from an infusion of The Human Torch’s synthetic blood. As a Britisher, she simply cried out to be portrayed in this calendar by every American’s favorite wartime Englishwoman—Greer Garson, who symbolized the quiet courage of the British housewife in her Oscar-winning title role in Mrs. Miniver (1942). Other major films: Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), Pride and Prejudice (1940), Madame Curie (1943), That Forsyte Woman (1949), The Miniver Story (1950), and Sunrise at Campobello (1960).

Next Christmas/New Year’s Season: The Super-Powered Sirens of Standard/Nedor, Fiction House, Harvey, Holyoke, Hillman, Fox, et al.! Set your calendars now!

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(2) In the Joe Giella issue (#52), while responding to a letterwriter and admitting that a sketch that was sent to President Eisenhower was indeed by Mr. Kane, Mr. Thomas admits his bias by saying words to the effect that it was good that Mr. Kane did his own drawing “…for once.” If Mr. Thomas and his staff had done the proper fact checking, they would have known that in the first four years of Batman’s publishing career, Mr. Kane (and not Jerry Robinson, as some people believe) did the majority of the penciling chores and continued to do an occasional story by himself after 1944. (3) Before launching into his assault, in his introduction to A/E #51, Mr. Thomas implied that he had Mr. Morrow’s blessing in stating that nobody really remembers Bob Kane, and that based on his skill level, he is small potatoes compared to Kirby and John Buscema (?). Such a statement ignores the obvious fact that Kane is probably one of the few cartoonists (especially when we’re talking about the Golden Age!) to benefit from his creation! That sounds like a giant to me!

hane Foley drew both the heading for this issue's contents page and the preliminary pencil drawing above—which features Mr. Mind wearing Alter Ego's trademark mask. We liked 'em both, so.... Hey, does that make the World’s Wickedest Worm another of the mag's "maskots"? Thanks again, Shane! [Mr. Mind TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

This LP deals with missives on issue #52, which featured interviews with Joe Giella, Jay Scott Pike, and Martin Thall, among other things. While we received numerous notes lauding Jim Amash’s talk with Joe G., most simply expressed how glad they were to learn more about this talented major artist of the Golden and Silver Ages, and we’ve eschewed them in favor of comments that added information on the work of Joe and others. The following note from Gene Reed deals with a piece of Gil Kane art displayed with the Joe Giella interview in A/E #52, and ID’d by some folks as being inked by Joe: Roy— The “Don Caballero” art on page 20 looks like it was inked by John Giunta [rather than Joe Giella]. Giunta inked at least one Gil Kane cover on Jimmy Wakely, plus a two-pager. Giunta was also inking Jim Mooney and Irwin Hasen around this time, and was Manny Stallman’s inker on DC’s Big Town for several years. Gene Reed Identifying inkers with any certainty is a precarious task, Gene. Should we trust your eyes—or those of whoever gave the Giella ID in the first place? Anybody else out there got any thoughts on the matter? The next note, from Rex Ferrell, related to various aspects of A/E #51-52, as well as other issues, that had to do with Bob Kane and Batman:

The bottom line is that jealousy and resentment still exist within the comic industry when it comes to Bob Kane, but that is no excuse for tabloid journalism! Anyway, I have written a rebuttal of sorts and I hope it can printed somewhere under your banner as a response to these churlish attacks. I don’t expect Mr. Thomas to print it; he’s having too much fun attacking one of the Founding Fathers of the industry that fed him for years! Rex Ferrell 31 Milk St., Box 961193, Boston, MA 02196 Because we have so much material to squeeze into this issue, Rex, I’ll have to keep this short—except to say that I’ve kept your several-page article on file, and may well find a spot for it yet, next time we do a Batman-centered mag. I repeat, though, that nothing ever said (at least by myself) in A/E is due to personal dislike of the late Bob Kane, as you seem to think; I only met the man in passing once or twice in my life, and indeed have enormous respect for him as the co-creator (though not, as your article wants me to, as sole creator) of Batman. Some of your paraphrasings above of quotations by me and others are not quite accurate, but I’ve no room to nitpick just now. Suffice it to say that, in his own way, Bob Kane definitely was a giant of the comic book field— and, though I can speak only for myself in this, I have never in my life had “fun” “attacking” him. Michael T. Gilbert dropped us a line on somewhat the same subject: Roy: I just saw Ron Goulart’s letter in A/E #52 suggesting that “Bob Kane’s” Batman/Dwight Eisenhower drawing (printed in my “Crypt” section in #44) was actually ghosted by Lew Sayre Schwartz. You replied that Lew said this one actually was drawn by Kane, then added that we should’ve sent a copy to Shelly Moldoff to see if he had ghosted it. Actually, I did send Shelly a copy before we went to press. To my great surprise, he also said that Kane drew that cartoon. Bob Kane drawing a Bob Kane-signed cartoon? Will wonders never cease!? Michael T. Gilbert

Gentlemen, It recently came to my attention that one of the magazines under your banner is perpetrating libelous attack on the memory of one of comics’ greatest creators, Bob Kane. I have sent Roy Thomas, the editor of Alter Ego, letters to show him where he and his writers were in error, yet he persists. It’s one thing if he doesn’t like the nowdeceased Mr. Kane, and I respect his right to his personal opinion, but to persist in tactics of obfuscation and misrepresentation is just plain yellow journalism!

Like, me, Michael, I’m aware that you feel Bob Kane was a good Batman artist when he wanted to be—but that he increasingly preferred simply to supervise the work of others. Glad to see that he was doing some drawing during the Eisenhower Administration!

(1) In showing a picture of Kane’s book Batman and Me, Mr. Thomas (or his assistants) implied that Mr. Kane didn’t mention any of his assistants (or ghosts). While he didn’t mention them all, he did mention his original team of Finger, Robinson, Roussos, and himself.

Hi Roy!

This next letter, from Craig Delich (who freelances as one of DC’s ace art-identifiers for its Archives volumes, peripherally involves Joe Giella, so we’re printing it here: Just wanted to point out a few things about A/E #52. First, the Green Lantern [sample] newspaper strip by Irwin Hasen: Hasen penciled it, but there is an inker involved, too! My

re:

Lisa With An “S”

estimation would be John Belfi.

Readers Jake Oster and Mark Daniels, as well as John Wells, sent information concerning the original Jay Scott Pike art we printed in A/E #52— and, since Jake also sent a scan of the cover as published, we can share it with you here. [©2007 DC Comics.]

Re the “Flash” art on p. 12 taken from Comic Cavalcade #26: Infantino penciled it, positively. But the inker is not Giacoia, but Giella. The unpublished “GL” panel, taken from “Mystery of the Marching Toys” story, was indeed penciled by Infantino and inked by Bernard Sachs.

Alan’s ID of John Costanza as the model for “Marc,” but feels that Dorothy Woolfolk was the editor. He says the “Lisa St. Claire” feature was “a comic continuing soap opera that was written by Jack Miller from an idea from me. I was the editor.”

Craig Delich Thanks, Craig. Just got rushed, or I’d have asked you. Another interviewee in #52, along with Joe Giella, was artist Jay (or J.) Scott Pike. Collector and comics historian John Wells had this to say:

Another letter about Pike—or, rather, about work identified as Pike’s that perhaps was not, comes from Brett Canavan:

Hi, Roy!

Roy—

Thank you (and Jim) so much for the Jay Scott Pike interview in A/E #52. Just a couple of supplements to the generous art samples:

Re the J. Scott Pike interview in Alter Ego #52: I’ve got a pretty good eye, and the illo on page 40 that Scott doesn’t think looks like his looks to me like the work of Art Saaf. Next to Bob Oksner, one of my favorite artists on Supergirl in the early ’70s.

Page 39: The “Marc” on that Young Love cover was a lettercol moderator, a male chauvinist deliberately designed to provoke controversy. The copy here referred to a reader poll as to whether or not he should be sent packing. He survived the voting, but a second column in Falling in Love was introduced with a Women’s Lib sympathizer named Paul who just happened to be Marc’s twin brother. (I’m embarrassed just to be describing all this.) Page 40: Is it possible that this alternate “Dolphin” cover might have been a Pike sketch that was embellished by that issue’s editor, Dick Giordano? Page 42: I have no idea what “Scarlett” might be (beyond a 1983 DC vampire series drawn by Jim Fern), but this is the cover to Young Love #68 (July-Aug. 1968). It was the first appearance of Jay’s “Life and Loves of Lisa St. Claire,” a very entertaining series that ran through #78. John Wells Thanks, John. Pro artist Alan Kupperberg informs us that the photo used for “Marc” was actually one of letterer John Costanza! Alan writes, “There is no Marc. He’s a fictional entity. You know, sort of like Stan Lee.” He adds that Jack Adler (who was interviewed in A/E #56) took the photo of Costanza: “The editor (I note the editor has an ‘F’ prefix on the story number; that’s not Dorothy Woolfolk, a ‘D’) wanted a ‘host’ for that particular running text page. John was a young, good-looking guy up at the office that day. Not too many young, good-looking guys up at National back then.” Dick Giordano, who began working for DC in the late 1960s, agreed with

Brett Canavan Big interview with Bob Oskner coming up in A/E #67, Brett! Also writing about JSP was Mike W. Barr, who was a writer and editor at DC in the 1980s and thereabouts: Dear Roy: I was glad to see the interview with Jay Scott Pike, as I have always felt he’s one of those tremendously unsung pros who deserve a wider following. However, Scott’s greatest contribution to the super-hero genre was totally overlooked—not his creation of “Dolphin” (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), but the fact that he was the model for Neal Adams’ version of the bald Green Arrow, back in the ’70s! Since the “GL/GA” series is still being reprinted, Scott’s visual influence on the strip at least merits a footnote, don’t you think? Mike W. Barr Yeah, Mike, but Alter Ego doesn’t have footnotes, so the above will have to do. Now, some thoughts on #52’s interview with artist Martin Thall from Hames Ware, who co-edited the original Who’s Who in American Comic Books with Jerry G. Bails back in the 1970s, and who has a sharp eye for an art style: Hey, Roy! Jim Amash graciously followed up with Martin Thall and ole Martin stuck by his designation of “Bob” at

Andreas Gottschlich of Germany has contributed to the “re:” section before—and this time he sent his own version of Dolphin, the short-lived underwater heroine created by Jay Scott Pike in the 1960s. Here’s Andreas’ accompanying note: “Roy! Great interview with Jay Scott Pike in issue 52! It inspired my cartoon above. I’m betting even you never thought of that concept! The fish is, of course, none other than ‘Peter, the Puffer Fish,’ star of The Brave and the Bold #28. (Oh, yeah—that issue had an appearance of some characters calling themselves the “Justice League of America,” too…!)” [Dolphin TM & ©2007 DC Comics; The Watcher & “What If” logo TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.; new artwork ©2007 Andreas Gottschlich.]

[comments, correspondence, & corrections]

Simon & Kirby being Bob Henry, and says he never heard of Bob McCarty… well, that puts him in good company… nobody remembers Bob McCarty, and it’s crazy… what’s also crazy is that nobody’s ever heard of Thall’s Bob Henry! Since McCarty signed all over the place and is one of the most distinctive artists ever to work in comics and was most definitely at S&K, I would like to ask Jim A. or Roy or whoever has a connection with Joe Simon to please ask Simon to sort out these Bobs. I mean, Joe signed the checks to somebody… Henry, McCarty, etc. It sure says something for Jim’s detecting that, after all that’s been written about the S&K shop, he was able to add via Thall to that list Steve Brodie as being at S&K. Hames Ware Jim’s a real four-color archaeologist, all right—as are you, Hames. But we’ll have to leave the “Battle of the Bobs” to others to decide. Comments will be welcomed. The next note, concerning Bill Schelly’s interview with prominent 1960s comics fan Glen Johnson, comes from regular reader (and sometime contributor) Don Ensign: Roy, Just received A/E #52 and as always it is a delight. I do have one possible correction: A note on p. 68 says: “The original Daredevil, created by Charles Biro for Lev Gleason Publications in the early 1940 [sic].” In 1940 Biro was at MLJ working on strips like “Steel Sterling” and others. According to Joe Brancatelli, “Don Rico and Jack Binder combined to create one of comic books’ most unique strips, ‘Daredevil’ (The World Encyclopedia of Comics, p. 195). This happened in Silver Streak #6 (Sept. 1940). When Daredevil reached his own book, Biro wrote and drew many of his stories. While Biro certainly had the longest-lasting influence in shaping Daredevil, he did not create the character. Don Ensign We stand corrected, Don. It was I, not Bill, who made the reference to “Charlie Biro’s Daredevil” in a caption, when I should have just written “the original Daredevil” or some such phrase. But we can’t always be so self-effacing, as witness our response to this letter from valued reader Steve Morrell: Roy— Re page 68—that’s Thunderbolt in the JSA lineup, not Daredevil. In the 1992 Peter Cannon – Thunderbolt series from DC, Mike Collins did a bit of tweaking to the characters and established that the Vagra was reincarnated like the Dalai Lama into the following gener-

ation, tapping into that Lost Horizon spirit. So Glen Johnson would be correct when he says it is Thunderbolt Peter Cannon predecessor. Steve Morrell 881 Barnsley Rd., Sheffield Lane Top Sheffield, ST 0QJ South Yorkshire, England True enough, but the hero depicted (twice) on p. 68 of A/E #52 is indeed the original Daredevil, with trademark boomerang in hand— albeit with the Morisi hero’s belt. Pete Morisi’s Thunderbolt had a costume modeled in part after Daredevil’s, but with no mask, for one thing. Anytime we mention St. John Publishing in these pages, we’re bound to get a (very welcome) communiqué from John Benson, who has researched that company for years and wrote the St.-John-related book Romance without Tears a couple of years back: Roy— More comments on the [Martin] Thall interview… Thall says he did (or tried) “Sinbad” in a Kubert style for Ray Herman at St. John, and also one-page mysteries for Wanted—Dead or Alive there. He’s confusing two things here. Though Kubert’s “Sinbad” was for St. John, Ray Herman was never at St. John but at Orbit, where one-pagers as he described did appear. Since St. John did have a female editor, Marion McDermott, perhaps that’s why he confused the two. John Benson Could be, John. We’ll see if Martin, after reading this exchange, feels that it was indeed Ray (often spelled “Rae,” but apparently not by the lady herself) Herman who handed him that assignment at St. John—or if he did indeed confuse her with another. Easy to get a few things turned around, after all these decades, of course—but we always want to correct any errors or misstatements we can. Now, a bit of info from reader Francis A. Rodriguez: Roy— The full text on the Bill Ward cartoon on p. 76 of Alter Ego #52 actually says, “But I don’t want any military secrets!” Francis A. Rodriguez Thanks Francis. As for the rest of you—keep those cards and letters coming in, even via e-mail, to: Roy Thomas 32 Bluebird Trail St. Matthews, SC 29135

e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com fax: (803) 826-6501

Next issue—a super-special starring Golden/Silver Age great Nick Cardy is, er, in the cards!

Double Dare Ya! Just to prove to sturdy Steve Morrell that Roy Thomas does too know the difference between the Golden Age Daredevil and Pete (“PAM”) Morisi’s hero Peter Cannon/Thunderbolt, here are both of them. At left, a logo from a late-1940s issue of the Lev Gleason/Charles Biro/Bob Wood comic Daredevil which shows that hero—and below, Morisi’s cover (well, all of it we could photocopy from a bound volume, anyway) for Charlton’s Thunderbolt (the “Peter Cannon” part wasn’t part of its official title in the indicia), Vol. 3, #54 (Oct. 1966). [Daredevil TM & ©2007 the respective copyright holders; Thunderbolt TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

left behind, buried with most of the Charlton facilities in the mud that followed the devastating flash flood of the Naugatuck Valley in 1955? Hey, you collectors! Some rare items out there, maybe? “Melody of Hate” came out as a 10-page lead story … and still looks and reads like first-rate comic book material … to me, that is. But the original work remains my favorite … the 12 daily strips intended for the newspapers.

FCA EDITORS NOTE: From 1941-53, Marcus D. Swayze was a top artist for Fawcett Publications. The very first Mary Marvel character sketches came from Marc’s drawing table, and he illustrated her earliest adventures, including the classic origin story “Captain Marvel Introduces Mary Marvel (Captain Marvel Adventures #18, Dec. ’42); but he was primarily hired by Fawcett Publications to illustrate Captain Marvel stories and covers for Whiz Comics and Captain Marvel Adventures. He also wrote many Captain Marvel scripts, and continued to do so while in the military. After leaving the service in 1944, he made an arrangement with Fawcett to produce material for them on a freelance basis out of his Louisiana home. There he created both art and story for The Phantom Eagle in Wow Comics, in addition to drawing the Flyin’ Jenny newspaper strip for Bell Syndicate (created by his friend and mentor Russell Keaton). After the cancellation of Wow, Swayze produced artwork for Fawcett’s top-selling line of romance comics. After the company ceased publishing comics, Marc moved over to Charlton Publications, where he ended his comics career in the mid’50s. Marc’s memoirs have appeared in every issue of FCA since 1996. Last issue he explained the importance of the“title panel.” This time, he shares with us the samples of his music-oriented strip, Neal Valentine. —P.C. Hamerlinck.

And I’d have had a ball doing it! My own musicrelated experiences … a lifetime avocation beginning in college … working in groups varying from small jazz combos to dance orchestras … even a radio country-and-western band … and performance locales from concert halls to honky-tonks. Imagine the endless source of story material! It was a long time ago. But I still believe that, had the long-term continuity comic strips remained in vogue, and had I been a better salesman, a lot of newspaper readers might have enjoyed the adventures of the piano-playing songwriter with the penchant for crime-fighting: Neal Valentine.

wanted to do a comic strip about music. But music was meant for the ears, not the eyes. That thought persisted as a barrier throughout years of change in the comic strip world. The day of the super-hero was gone, as was that of wartime action. It was the very early 1950s. Somehow, romance … human interest … had taken the stage. Why not, then, a strip with a unique identity? Like music! I called it Neal Valentine, after the lead character, a piano-playing songwriter with an interest in crime-fighting. I feel a bit guilty of betrayal when I think about it. After the usual try at the syndicates, I sold Neal to Charlton Publications. So many things happened during my stay with that company that it seems like a much longer period than the seven or so months I was there. I caught up with long-legged Ed Levy in the hallway: “I’ve got a strip I prepared as a newspaper daily …” And there in the corridor I went on about the piano player with a penchant for detective work. Co-owner Levy was not one to waste time with decisions. “Fine! Go ahead with it!” And he hadn’t even seen it! With appropriate modifications to story and art, Neal Valentine appeared in Strange Suspense Stories #27 (Oct. 1955) with the title, “Melody of Hate.” I often wonder about those books. The copy I have was probably still warm from the press when I obtained it. What about the production run? Did those issues ever reach the market? Or were they

Valentine – Phase Two Marc’s comic book treatment of his Neal Valentine material, which appeared in 1955 in Charlton’s Strange Suspense Stories #27. But his preference is for the earlier version, prepared as a newspaper comic strip. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

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

Marc Swayze’s Neal Valentine

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

Marc Swayze’s reminiscences of the Golden Age will return next issue.

Emilio Squeglio Adventures–Part I The Fawcett Artist In His Own (Never-Minced) Words Transcribed & Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

milio Squeglio worked as a production artist in the comics department at Fawcett Publications before moving to on to magazine work and book design. After graduating from Manhattan’s School of Industrial Arts, former Captain Marvel artist Chic Stone had assisted Emilio in landing a job with Fawcett in 1947, a period when its comics department was in total disarray due to ongoing litigation with National (DC)— which eventually led to Fawcett’s decision to terminate its comics line in ’53. Emilio hung on at Fawcett until ’55, when he left to become art director at American Artist magazine, and where he also began a career as a prolific book designer. From 1961-82 he handled book design at Reinhold Publishing, then freelanced until the early ’90s. After Jim Amash presented his fine interview with Emilio in Alter Ego #41 (Oct. 2004), I knew I also wanted to spend a good amount of time talking to this kind man … wherein my new friend would unfold for me more revealing memories of his career and his days with Captain Marvel’s publisher. From this point, I’ll let Emilio tell his story in his own words. His recollections will be continued in our next issue. —PCH.

School Days I had always loved drawing, starting around age seven. I still have some of the cartoons I did while attending parochial grammar school in Brooklyn, like the wartime drawing I did depicting Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo in coffins. I never had to take any art tests in grammar school. In fact, I used to help all the other students with the art lessons. We were taught by Christian brothers, and one particular teacher, Brother Joseph, took an interest in my potential as an artist. My first year of high school was at Grover Cleveland High in Queens. It was the only school we could find at the time which had an art class in its curriculum. I remember there was an Italian boy there whose father owned a pizzeria. Well, this was all my little group of friends and I had to know! We had this kid bringing in a pizza pie for us everyday. We would carry it all through the classes and it would drive the other guys crazy. During the winter we’d put the pie on the radiator, and in summer we’d put it on the shelf by the window so when the sun came out it would keep it warm! Toward the end of the year at Grover, I was getting discouraged because I felt I wasn’t getting anywhere with my artwork … even

If Ever A Whiz There Was Emilio Squeglio at Fawcett Publications in the early to middle 1950s, around the time he began working on True Police Cases magazine—and a small reproduction of a painting of Captain Marvel that the artist sent P.C. Hamerlinck after receiving a copy of P.C.’s 2001 TwoMorrows trade paperback Fawcett Companion. Hopefully, you can tell which is which! All photos & art accompanying this piece are courtesy of Emilio, unless otherwise stated. [Captain Marvel TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

though I used to draw on my own all the time. My dad, a carpenter, made me a drawing desk that we kept in the corner of our kitchen. When I’d come home from school I’d sit and draw at that table until suppertime. Just before summer break, Brother Joseph visited our house and suggested I try applying at the School of Industrial Arts in Manhattan. So I took their entry exam and was told I would be notified by mail if I was accepted. I waited for almost three weeks before the letter finally arrived. I ripped it open and read that I was accepted into SIA. I just started crying because I had wanted it so bad. My first day there was unbelievable: people everywhere were talking about art, cartoons, illustration, fashion design, and photography. They placed us into classes based on our talents and our specific goals. I told them I wanted to be a cartoonist.

Dick & Chic On the first day at SIA I was sitting next to a fellow who I soon learned lived near me in Brooklyn. His name was Richard Loesel. Dick and I became very good friends. We always rode the subway to school together, and after school we’d go to his house and draw pictures up in his room. We were into comic books: Captain Marvel, Superman, Archie, and everything else. We’d always talk about comics … who we liked, who we didn’t like, that sort of thing. One day Dick tells me that a friend of his was coming over to see us soon. “I’ve known him a long time,” Dick said. “His name is Chic Stone. He’s in the Army and home

Emilio Squeglio Adventures–Part I

ended up having lunch together. They seemed to be pretty decent guys. During our lunch they were talking about selling “Superman.” I saw them one other time after that. I later heard about DC buying their “Superman.” They screwed those guys pretty good.

Finding Fawcett

Brooklyn Boyhood (Left:) Emilio, seen on the left, met his friend Richard Loesel in high school. The pair took the subway every weekday morning from Brooklyn to Manhattan to the School of Industrial Arts. Loesel introduced Emilio to young pro artist Chic Stone; photos of Chic accompanied Jim Amash’s interview with Emilio in A/E #41. This picture was taken in 1941, when they were in the 10th grade.

on furlough. He’s a cartoonist who used to work on ‘Captain Marvel.’” I said, (Above:) In 2005, Emilio re-created C.C. Beck’s cover for the first “Great! I’ve never met a cartoonist issue of Whiz Comics, although the artist says he was “never too before!” One Saturday I went over to crazy” about this particular cover, which spotlighted the debut of Captain Marvel. [Capt. Marvel TM & ©2007 DC Comics.] Dick’s house, and sure enough Chic was there. He talked to us about cartooning and illustration, and all three of us became good friends. Chic gave me his address because he was going overseas and asked both of us to write to him and send him drawings, which he’d send back with tips and corrections. We did this back and forth for some time.

The phone rang one evening in ’47. It was Chic Stone. “Emilio, did you find anything yet?” I told him no. “Okay, Emilio, grab a piece of paper and pencil and write down this address: 67th West 44th Street. That’s where Fawcett Publications is located. I want you to go there and see a fellow by the name of Frank Taggart. Frank is a friend of mine, and he’ll introduce you to Al Allard, the art director at Fawcett. The comic book business is in trouble over there and they need more people to help them get out of the hole they’re in. This might be a good chance for you if you want it.” “If I want it? Sure!” So I called Frank Taggart and set an appointment to come in that

SIA is also where I met and hung around with Sy Barry, Joe Giella, and Johnny Romita, and we have all remained life-long friends since school. They’re all still like brothers to me. If one of us hurts, we all hurt. That’s how close we are. I graduated high school in ’47 and now had a portfolio. Chic kept in touch with me and guided me along the way. I’d see him on and off and sometimes he’d come over to my house. He loved my parents. My father was a very friendly type of guy and Chic liked him very much. My mother used to feed him big Italian meals that he loved.

Super Lunch I met Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster many years before I started working in comics. I met one of my friends for lunch at a café, when both Jerry and Joe walked in. My friend knew them and introduced them to me; they sat down with us and we all

Waiting For The Lightning To Strike (Left:) Emilio at home in Brooklyn in the summer of 1947, right after he and his dad finished making a cart for his Aunt Rose. Several weeks after this photo was taken, he received the phone call from Chic Stone which led to a job interview at Fawcett Publications with art director Al Allard, and the beginning of Emilio’s career. (Above:) By then, because Superman’s people were suing Captain Marvel’s people for copyright infringement, it must’ve seemed to Fawcett as if a curse were hanging over its comics line—and not just in the pages of The Marvel Family #17 (Nov. 1947). Art by C.C. Beck. [Marvel Family TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

The Fawcett Artist In His Own (Never Minced)

Monday morning. I’ll never forget walking through those big brass doors and heading up to the 10th floor, where I met Frank. (We would later become good friends; in fact, he and many other people from Fawcett would attend my wedding in ’53.) He brought me up to see Al Allard. Al had a secretary and a drawing table in his office. (As art director, he also designed all the title logos for Fawcett’s comics). Al was as gracious as can be, but then he gave it to me straight: “Look, Emilio, this might be temporary. I’m not sure. There’s nothing sure anymore. Our comic department is on uneven ground right now. In fact, we may even eliminate it at some point. But there’s tons of work and we need people to help finish up the books.” I said okay, and then Al continued: “The comics department is completely stuffed with people. I’m going to put you in with Al Pauly, our advertising art director. He’s got room in his department, and I’ll give you a pile of stuff to work on there. I also want you to help him out with advertising work when he needs help. And if something happens to the comics, we’ll talk about it when the time comes, assuming you’ll still want to continue working here.” So that’s when I started working on Fawcett’s comics. It was a mess! I can’t tell you how many books had to be done! Some fellows were working on just the Western comics; most of us were working on “Captain Marvel.” It was endless! I had work piled a mile high on my desk. There were pages that were half-done, pages that were done but needed art corrections by pasting white sheets over the art and redrawing the picture, lettering corrections, and so on. We had to stay creative. Working in comics really built your blood up, especially seeing what these artists could do. The work was fast-paced as we tried to get out as many books as we could. Al Jetter sat in front of me doing the same type of work. Al Pauly sat behind me. No one in the comics department ever did one whole page or story on his own. I worked on most of the comic titles. This continued on from when I started there in ’47 until ’53 when the walls caved in on the comics.

Fred MacMurray Vs. Captain Marvel Fred MacMurray wrote a letter to Fawcett Publications. It might have been forwarded on to C.C. Beck. MacMurray was pretty unhappy because he didn’t like the idea of his likeness being connected to a comic book character—not that it would necessarily hurt his acting career. Later on, he had apparently relented. His wife had seen how much Captain Marvel looked like her husband and was so pleased that she sent a follow-up letter saying everything was okay, and then requested a Captain Marvel drawing as a souvenir. Of course, it never did affect MacMurray’s career.

Superman Vs. Captain Marvel I did a lot of legwork for the trial and sometimes sat in on the proceedings. Our boys would tell me bring this or that down to the courthouse, and then I would stay a while before heading back to the

Face To Face By 1943, Captain Marvel had gained a bit of bulk, and it’s been observed that he looked more like fellow movie star Jack Oakie than like Fred MacMurray… but what do you think? The Beck panel at left is from “A Visit to Portland, Oregon” in Captain Marvel Adventures #29 (Nov. 1943)—while MacMurray romanced Rosalind Russell (as doomed aviatrix Amelia Earhart!) in that year’s RKO film Flight for Freedom. Comics readers were far kinder to the Big Red Cheese than critics were to that flick! [Captain Marvel TM & ©2007 DC Comics; movie still ©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Fawcett offices. I took advantage of the opportunity to see what was happening inside the courtroom. During the trial I created rolling charts for our attorneys. Sometimes they wanted changes made to them after I brought them in, so I would end up fixing things on the floor at the courthouse. I was also asked to create these huge life-size 72" pieced-together cardboard cut-outs of Captain Marvel and Superman. I was on the floor on my knees cutting out these damn things at Fawcett (which had all-cement floors and no rugs in their production areas), then I colored and inked them. Once completed, I had to wrap them up and hand-deliver them inside the courtroom. I remember on the way there I couldn’t even get the damn things into the cab! I finally met up with C.C. Beck, Pete Costanza, and the whole gang over there, and that’s when I first heard some of the dialogue going on inside the courtroom, including a heated exchange I’ll never forget between C.C. and DC’s attorney Louis Nizer. Nizer had C.C. on the stand and was questioning him about something when C.C interrupted him: “What the hell do you know about comic books?” Nizer muttered something and Beck, turning bright red, cut him off again: “You don’t know anything about them! Why in the hell are you asking me such stupid questions about them?” Beck was a hostile witness, and I remember at the time wanting to punch Nizer right in the nose. Sure, he was this brilliant lawyer and all, but the truth was he really didn’t know beans about comics and didn’t even know what they were. Fawcett Editorial Director Ralph Daigh hated Nizer’s guts and gave him a hard time as well, going so far as to make a remark about Nizer’s short stature by saying the attorney wore “elevated shoes.” It was a circus, believe me, and our opponents weren’t the nicest people to deal with. I did a lot of running back and forth from the office to the court. C.C. would ask me to bring in certain things, but he felt the whole thing was a big waste of time and he was growing impatient. But he still wanted to save Captain Marvel. At one point a piece of controversial artwork was brought up by the DC attorneys, but to this day I doubt that anything was ever done by anyone at Fawcett or that it even ever existed. The whole thing was a set-up, conjured up to put an end to it all. That so-called evidence was

Emilio Squeglio Adventures–Part I

Taking Arms Against A Sea Of (Legal) Troubles Unlikely as it seems to Ye Editor that Fawcett’s writers and artists were copying National/DC’s art and story in the early 1940s, once Captain Marvel was firmly established, there were bound to be, by sheer coincidence, certain similarities between the adventures of the Man of Steel and the World’s Mightiest Mortal. Compare, for example, the sea-monster-laden situation at left from “Destroyers from the Depths” in Superman #20 (Jan-Feb. 1943) with that in the penultimate chapter of the “Monster Society of Evil” serial in Captain Marvel Adventures #45 (April 1945). [Superman art ©2007 DC Comics; Captain Marvel TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

never even ever presented in court! Fawcett was being railroaded, yet nobody could even say who had supposedly created this piece of art; they only had a list of names. Throughout the entire trial, DC was never able to prove that any piece of art was ever swiped by Fawcett. I remember thinking to myself at the time how we were all working our tails off at Fawcett, and wondering who the hell would’ve had time to do something like that or who would even begin to think of doing

A Sporty Model Art editor Emilio on a photo shoot in Manhattan’s Central Park, in October 1952—juxtaposed with the magazine cover that came out of that shoot. Emilio says: “This is a cover of Sports Cars and Hot Rods, a Fawcett magazine I worked on in 1952. This particular cover was shot in Central Park [near the famed restaurant] Tavern on the Green…. It shows a new sports car that arrived from England. We shot this photo with a young celebrity by the name of Barbara Walters sitting in the car. Barbara at that time was a mere 23 years old. Just about my age at the time. She was then writing a TV show called Ask the Camera.” Hey, don’t keep us in suspense, Emilio— whatever happened to her? [Art ©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

anything underhanded? And how in God’s name would DC know what was going on in our offices, and how would we know, or care, what they were doing? There’s a name which I won’t mention from the other side who I feel was the guy really responsible for a lot of the shenanigans that went on over there. I know a lot of people, especially C.C., hated the

The Fawcett Artist In His Own (Never Minced) Words

“Speak My Name…”

guy. Ultimately, it was Captain Marvel that was stolen … stolen away from Fawcett. We couldn’t turn out “Captain Marvel” comic books fast enough, and the other side just got jealous and wanted us out of the picture. Knowing what I know about the things that went on at our competitors’, I feel they just made up everything. The two characters are very different with no true similarities.

I think if the lawsuits had never happened, and had Fawcett continued publishing comics throughout the years, I probably would’ve stayed on as a cartoonist and would’ve retired with the company, because I loved the comics that much. And Beck was the kind of man whom I admired so much. He used to draw these funny little things that made us laugh. I wanted to emulate him so much; a lot of people did. He was nice to everybody and he always shared his knowledge with everybody. I had been working on the comics in the advertising department only because of space limitations. Al Pauly had a lot of room, and there were only two other guys working with him. I had a whole corner near a window all to myself, and always with a big pile of material to work on. When advertising got buried with something, I’d help them with their stuff, too. But, if Al Allard had told us they were going to continue the comics department, I definitely would’ve stayed at Fawcett, because that was the training and experience I wanted. Comics was what I wanted to do. [Emilio’s memories of Fawcett and others will be continued next issue.]

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Mac’s Marvel & Mongo

Two Golden Age Artists Discuss Flash Gordon, Captain Marvel Jr., And MAC RABOY by Jay Disbrow

ejoicing in the release of Dark Horse Comics’ four volumes of Mac Raboy’s Flash Gordon, which reprints Raboy’s 19year tenure on the Sunday strip, fellow Golden Age artist Jay Disbrow, who drew comic books during the late 1940s and 1950s (see A/E #21) takes a look at Raboy’s version of Flash Gordon. Disbrow celebrates the superb quality which the original “Captain Marvel Jr.” artist brought to the strip, returning it to its past days of glory when under the helm of its first artist, the legendary Alex Raymond. —PCH.

edited by P.C. Hamerlinck Jay Disbrow.

glorious effect. His women were beautiful in face and figure without his resorting to a base erotic appeal. Mac’s work was suitable to all ages. In 1948, when Raboy was assigned to the Flash Gordon Sunday page, he received no credit for his work during the first 14 weeks of his labor. Then, beginning with the 15th week, he received a byline along with Don Moore, who wrote the storyline. Moore had actually written the Flash Gordon scripts since the feature’s founding in 1934, but had apparently been was content to labor in total anonymity for those 14

For the better part of a century, a mere handful of dramatic comic artists (primarily of the newspaper syndicates) have been regarded as the ultimate talents of their industry. In our day, these men are almost legendary, larger-than-life figures. Because of their extraordinary artistic ability, they occupy pinnacles of exalted grandeur. Because of their talent and the fact that such a limited number of them were practicing their craft in the same era, their names are instantly recognizable: Hal Foster, Alex Raymond, Burne Hogarth, Milton Caniff, and Ray Moore. Without a doubt others could be added, depending on personal preferences. We cannot rule out certain talented artists who, for a variety of reasons, failed to reach a similar level of achievement and notoriety. One such artist who belongs in the revered group listed above is Mac Raboy. Emanuel “Mac” Raboy was an artist of remarkable skill and ability, but it was not until he assumed his duties on the Flash Gordon Sunday newspaper page that the true depths of his artistic talent began to come forth. Prior to that time, he was merely regarded as another comic book artist … albeit a very good one. Raboy’s figures were graceful, supple, and wellconstructed. His layouts and inking were magnificent. But one of the most remarkable aspects of his work on Flash Gordon was the faces of the characters he drew. For many years, he constructed facial caricaturists that were beyond the ability of most artists associated with the comics. Even the faces of his secondary characters were distinctively defined and appeared to be practically photo-realistic. Raboy also possessed the ability to portray the female form to its full

Two Master-Ful Covers Mac Raboy at the Fawcett offices, 1940s— symbolically contemplating his cover for Master Comics #43 (Oct. 1943)—and the cover of Dark Horse’s Mac Raboy’s Flash Gordon, Vol. 1, the first of four collecting the artist’s complete run on the sciencefiction comic strip. Gorgeous stuff—but shouldn’t somebody’s feet be touching the ground on the Master cover? Photo courtesy of Roger Hill. [Captain Marvel Jr. TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

Mac’s Marvel & Mongo

years. But he and Raboy made an excellent team until mid1953, when Moore left the strip for good. For the next 14 years, Raboy proficiently carried both art and writing responsibilities. Raboy was a product of New York City, born in 1914, the son of Romanian immigrants who settled in the Bronx after the turn of the 20th century. From his early years he exhibited a propensity for art. He ultimately enrolled in New York’s famous Pratt Institute, and received the training that launched his career. As early as 1941, Raboy had found his way into the comics industry. I was still a kid when I first discovered his work for Fawcett Publications: “Bulletman,” and his vital work on “Captain Marvel Jr.” Of course, I had no way of knowing his name back then, because the work bore no signature. His post-Fawcett art for Spark Publications’ Green Lama comic book further enhanced his reputation, despite the fact that again he was given no byline. “Captain Marvel Jr.” represented the serious side of The Marvel Family. Raboy made no effort to interject humor into his art as did C.C. Beck of Captain Marvel fame. Raboy was an illustrator who took pride into his creative efforts.

Whose Work Is It, Anyway? (Top left:) Raboy’s first Flash Gordon strip, dated August 1, 1948, scripted by Don Moore, but minus all credits. Already by this time, the feature was allotted less space on the comics page than in its heyday in the 1930s. (Above:) Raboy and Moore had a byline by the strip for Nov. 7, 1948. [©2007 King Features Syndicate.]

In The Family Way DC’s hardcover Shazam! Family Archives, Vol. 1, released in 2006, includes Raboy classic wartime tales of Captain Marvel Jr. from Master Comics, the stories in Captain Marvel Jr. #1 which imitated his style, and the Marc Swayze-drawn origin of Mary Marvel. All this, plus an informative intro by FCA’s own P.C. Hamerlinck! [©2007 DC Comics.]

Flash Gordon, Captain Marvel Jr., And Mac Raboy

A Super-Hero’s Guardian Spirits Mac Raboy art from Spark’s The Green Lama #6 (Aug. 1945). In the four-panel sequence above, editor Joseph Greene and artist Raboy make an appearance. Repro’d from the pages of AC Comics’ Men of Mystery #53 (2005). See AC’s ad for its fabulous Golden Age reprints on p. 72. [Restored art ©2007 AC Comics.]

Sidebar:

Mac was temperamental and violently opinionated, for which I always admired him. But when he refused to illustrate his stories and instead made beautiful page layouts and lovely little artistic panels, I couldn’t agree with his attitude at all. His efforts to turn comic pages into works of fine art seemed wasted.

A Searcher After Beauty by C.C. Beck [From P.C. Hamerlinck’s C.C. Beck Estate files.]

He scorned the use of speed streaks and other cartoonish tricks. He used lots of shading and many very fine lines, which I pointed out wouldn’t reproduce when printed. “It’s up to the printer to reproduce ’em!” was his reply.

Mac Raboy was one of those artists who believe that the sole purpose of art is to create beauty. As such, he always seemed to me to be out of place in comics. Everything he drew, he drew beautifully: his villains were as beautiful as his heroes, and when he drew monsters or gnomes they were beautiful monsters and gnomes. His greatest appeal among comic readers was to those who love to see realistic art illustrating the highly unreal stories and plots and characters used in comic features. His Captain Marvel Jr. always seemed to me to be a cross between “Peter Pan” and Dickens’ “Tiny Tim.” Although Junior was billed as “The World’s Mightiest Boy,” he had the build of an 11-year-old girl … slim, graceful as a nymph, and always dewy-eyed and trembly-lipped.

Mac never put any humor into his panels. But, on one rare occasion, when he was helping me on some Captain Marvel pages, I heard him chuckling to himself. “What gives, Mac?” I asked. “These stories are funny!” he laughed. Evidently it had never occurred to him that comic stories could be comic.

Mac Marches On Mac Raboy continues to be celebrated for his work on both “Captain Marvel Jr.” and Flash Gordon. On the cover of FCA/SOB #8 (a.k.a. FCA #18) in 1981, “Captain Marvel” cocreator C.C. Beck re-created a Raboy figure. [Captain Marvel Jr. TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

There are many who consider Mac Raboy to have been the finest artist who ever worked in comics. He was. But he was not a good comic artist, in my opinion.

Mac’s Marvel & Mongo

For Comparison Purposes Only—Your Space Mileage May Vary Raboy’s two predecessors on Flash Gordon: (Left:) Alex Raymond’s final strip, for Feb. 4, 1945, repro’d from Kitchen Sink Press’ 1993 tome Flash Gordon, Volume Six: “Triumph in Tropica.” (Below:) Austin Briggs’ daily FG for Jan. 28, 1941, which ran concurrently with Raymond’s predominant Sundays. Briggs’ later work on the Sunday strips has not endeared itself to aficionados of the strip. Repro’d from Kitchen Sink’s Flash Gordon, Volume 2, the Daily Strips, also published in 1993. [All art ©2007 King Features Syndicate.]

However, Beck felt that Raboy’s lush, illustrative style of “high art” was inappropriate for comic books, believing that a simple cartoon style was the best approach for comics. I could never bring myself to share Beck’s opinion on this. Notwithstanding, Raboy produced “Captain Marvel Jr.” pages for many years, creating a vast body of work that is much sought after today. [NOTE: Some of that work can be found in DC’s recently-released Shazam! Family Archives, Volume 1 —PCH.] Finally, in 1948, Raboy’s long overdue recognition arrived. He was put under contract by King Features Syndicate to illustrate the Flash Gordon Sunday feature. When Raboy’s tenure began on the strip, it was as though the flourishing days of Alex Raymond had returned again. I’ll never forget that day—Sunday, August 1, 1948—when I turned to the comics section of the New York Journal American and saw the very first Mac Raboy Flash Gordon page. It was an electrifying experience to find that, after a four-year drought, the world of Mongo had suddenly returned to its former greatness. It indeed seemed like 1934 all over again … except for one thing: in 1948, Mac Raboy was a better artist than Alex Raymond was in 1934. Nearly all of comics fandom acknowledges Alex Raymond as one of the greatest adventure strip artists of all time, and his decade of labor on the Flash Gordon feature yielded some of the finest adventure strip art ever. By the fall of the strip’s first year, he had introduced his

famous “dry brush” technique. In 1935, his work took a quantum leap forward. His figures became the embodiment of physical symmetry. The entire atmosphere of his pages became a lush symphony of fantasy art. 1936-37 continued to reveal Raymond’s upward climb toward artistic excellence on the strip. By 1938, he reached the pinnacle of his development. At age 27, he had become the ultimate adventure strip artist. Only one other could be regarded as his equal: Hal Foster of Prince Valiant fame. From 1939-41 Raymond settled into a comfortable work pattern that enabled him to turn out high-quality work on a weekly basis. During 1942-44 he had simplified his art style. This caused many of his fans to long for his work produced during the heyday of the ’30s. In 1944, with World War II raging in full intensity, Raymond gave up the Flash Gordon feature and entered the United States Marine Corps. Meanwhile, the art chores on Flash Gordon were turned over to Austin Briggs, a commercial artist who had often assisted Raymond in the past. Briggs, an excellent slick magazine and advertising artist, apparently had little interest in producing a weekly comic page feature. His work on FG was a mere washed-out reflection of Raymond’s greatness. Briggs used very little modeling on his figures and props, and he rarely showed shadows in his work. In fact, there were virtually no

Flash Gordon, Captain Marvel Jr., And Mac Raboy

could think, plan, and communicate with humans. Mac Raboy left us a vast legacy of superb comic art and narrative. It is most fortunate that a man of his skill and ability happened to be in the right place at the right time. In 1967 he was diagnosed with abdominal cancer, but continued working on Flash Gordon even when he knew his condition was terminal. Several weeks after his death, his final Flash Gordon page was published … a fitting tribute to a man who worked so hard to satisfy the numerous fans of the feature. I recall that in the fall of 1948 I was sitting in the office of my friend, Wendell Crowley, Captain Marvel/Marvel Family editor at Fawcett Publications. I mentioned to him the “new artist” on Flash Gordon, and how great I thought he was. Wendell replied: “Several years ago that artist worked right in this building. He drew the ‘Captain Marvel Jr.’ feature.” I was stunned. To summarize Mac Raboy’s worth, perhaps Shakespeare said it best in his play Julius Caesar, when Marc Anthony said of Caesar, “Whence comes another such as he?” Indeed, they are difficult to find.

solid blacks anywhere, and little or no depth perception in any of his pages. For four long years Flash Gordon languished in a slough of mediocrity, a victim of unfortunate circumstances. World War II had ended, and Alex Raymond had returned to King Features. But he was not given back his old strip. Instead, the Syndicate wanted him to produce a new modern-day detective feature, Rip Kirby, all while Gordon continued its deep decline. In 1948 a new day dawned when Mac Raboy came thundering onto the scene. The very first Flash Gordon page he created was magnificent; thousands of fans were reminded of the glory days of Alex Raymond, and immediately took note of Raboy’s affinity for Raymond’s work. Raboy remained on the Flash Gordon Sunday page for 19 years, nearly twice as long as Raymond’s tenure on the feature. During that time Raboy created more than 980 pages of outstanding work. He was able to maximize his full talents on FG, especially when he assumed responsibility for writing the scripts. Like Raymond before him, he developed a wide variety of living creatures that inhabited Mongo, such as exotic animals and a race of giant intelligent insects who

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Bud Thompson & The Boy In Blue The Saga of The Other Major “Captain Marvel Jr.” Artist by P.C. Hamerlinck

ud Thompson brought his own unique artistic magic and vision to Captain Marvel Jr. when Fawcett ushered him in during the mid1940s to replace Mac Raboy as the World’s Mightiest Boy’s main illustrator. Bernard Horace Thompson was born in Birmingham, England, on May 24, 1905, to parents Bert and Mable Thompson. He came to America as a child when his parents left England and moved to Minnesota.

“Bud”—or “Barney,” as his friends called him—attended the University of Minnesota in the early 1920s. He majored in fine arts and also served as art editor for the U of M’s newspaper, where his published Thompson’s Talent Was illustrations came to the attention of No Mirage Minnesota-based Fawcett Publications. Bud Thompson and one of his Fawcett hired Thompson as a staff illustrator, classic covers: Captain Marvel Jr. and he began working on their various #106 (Feb. 1952). [Captain Marvel Jr. humor magazines, including the risqué publiTM & ©2007 DC Comics.] cation that had launched the company, Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang. He signed his drawings “Charles Bruno” (“Bruno” happened to be the name of his dog). Thompson would eventually enjoy a 23-year relationship with Fawcett. Thompson and his wife Evelyn lived in St. Louis Park, MN (a suburb of Minneapolis). The couple became good friends with Al Allard and his wife Garnett, as well as with Cedric Adams and his wife Neicy. (Allard was Fawcett’s art director. Adams was a popular local radio commentator and newspaper columnist; he even appeared in the “Minneapolis Mystery” story in Captain Marvel Adventures #24, May, ’43.) The Thompsons had three children, all born during the ’30s: oldest son Barney, second son Mike, and the youngest and only daughter Sharon. (Mike is the only surviving child.)

When Fawcett Publications relocated to the East Coast in the mid-’30s, Thompson headed west to Hollywood. While in California, he did various freelance studio work, and during the early ’40s he wrote and drew the nationally-syndicated features Screen Oddities and Star Flashes (under the single name pseudonym “Bruno”). Star Flashes was an illustrated panel akin to a newspaper ad, in which Hollywood studios promoted current movies and their stars. In the mid-’40s, after a brief stint at the C.C. Beck-Pete Costanza Studio, Thompson moved to Greenwich, Connecticut, which also happened to be the new hometown for the editorial offices of Fawcett Publications. He then began his memorable 8-year tenure drawing the “Captain Marvel Jr.” feature for Fawcett on a freelance basis. Picking up where the strip’s original artist Mac Raboy had left off, Thompson quickly made his mark on “Captain Marvel Jr.” with his own distinct art style. Differing from

Bud Thompson & The Boy In Blue

Portraits Of The Artist As A Young Man Young Barney Thompson (left)—juxtaposed with a photo of the Thompson kids in that era. (Left to right, below:) Mike, Sharon, and Barney. Mike is the only surviving child.

Mad About Machines “Thompson’s artwork had a whimsical, old-time storybook feel to it, and he excelled the most on the strip when Junior’s adventures dipped into fantasy….” We’d tend to agree, as per this cover for Master Comics #86 (Dec. 1947). [Captain Marvel Jr. TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

Thompson in Triplicate (Left:) Bud circa late 1930s/early ’40s. (Center:) A smoke break for Thompson and his wife Evelyn. (Right:) Bud departing Minneapolis via train in the 1930s (possibly the day he headed to the West Coast?).

The Other Major “Captain Marvel Jr.” Artist

When Juniors Clash Art by Thompson from the “Captain Marvel Jr.” chapter of Marvel Family #10 (April 1947), a classic 5-part story illustrated by C.C. Beck, Bud Thompson, and Jack Binder. The baddie CJr is facing at left, of course, is Sivana Jr.! Repro’d from the 1977 hardcover Shazam from the 40’s to the 70’s. [Capt. Marvel Jr./ Freddy Freeman TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

Raboy’s realistic and moody presentation, Thompson instead applied to the strip the fundamentals from an already-experienced and established cartoonist … in conjunction with a highly original, sketchy-yet-solid style. His figure work was flowing and expressive, and he often used vignettes and well-executed scene-establishing backgrounds in his storytelling. Thompson’s artwork had a whimsical, old-time storybook feel to it, and he excelled the most on the strip when Junior’s adventures dipped into fantasy or when themes were derived from classic literature.

Raboy’s dark and serious approach with its surroundings often those of war-worn Europe, when our hero found himself defending democracy against notorious villains like Captain Nazi and even Hitler himself.

Thompson also effectively illustrated 1940s-early ’50s small town America. The “Captain Marvel Jr.” strip had changed drastically from

Raising The Bar In between drawing stories of Cap Jr., Thompson found time to do book illustration, including Bar Nothing Ranch—and to spend Christmas with his father, Bert Thompson. The ad appeared in Book Review for Nov. 9, 1947. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Bud Thompson & The Boy In Blue

Let Us Now Praise Famous Artists (Left:) Bud T. at the Famous Artists School, Westport, Connecticut. Note the Caniff Steve Canyon art on his bulletin board. (Right:) The Famous Artists School after the flood of 1955, which also did considerable damage to Charlton Publications.

When Thompson took over the strip post-World War II, writer Otto Binder (who wrote at least 161 of Junior’s solo stories) quickly established a new setting for Freddy Freeman and his alter ego, accommodating the end of the war, in an effort to develop and expand new plot possibilities. While Freddy still sold newspapers and wrote entries in his diary, he no longer starved in a shabby attic room in the city. He now lived in suburbia and was well-fed at Mrs. Wagner’s Boarding House. Besides the sweet, motherly Mrs. W., Binder added others to the supporting cast: gas station proprietor Red O’Riley, salesman and habitual practical joker Leroy Marks, police officer Jim Bellows, and the absent-minded scientist Professor Edgewise. While perhaps not as dynamic as Captain Marvel Senior’s secondary characters, Thompson depicted all of them with flair and a sincerity to which readers with friendly and interesting characters from their own neighborhoods could relate.

During 1947, in between drawing “Captain Marvel Jr.” stories, he illustrated at least two books: Bar Nothing Ranch by Rosemary Taylor, and Man on the Half Shell by Frederick Othman.

With a penchant since the ’30s for drawing cheesecake art and pin-up girls, Thompson delighted the male members of the Fawcett staff with sketches of females he did for fun, including a character of his own creation: Aunt Fanny Marvel (who donned nothing more than the familiar Marvel cape and boots). Artist C.C. Beck would later immortalize the character in a 1980 painting which, according to Beck, he created solely for himself.

Thompson illustrated Captain Marvel Jr. story and cover art from 1945-53, in addition to illustrating covers (and some stories) featuring the boy in blue for Master Comics from 1945-48. While he often inked his own pencils on the strip, sometimes assistants were used, including Nick Zuran and brief gigs by Bob Rogers (a.k.a. Rubin Zubofsky, who had also assisted Mac Raboy), as well as Joe Certa (who soon went on to do his own “Cap Jr.” tales and a great deal of other comic book work). Highly-prolific artists Kurt Schaffenberger and Bill Ward were also major post-War “Captain Marvel Jr.” illustrators, yet Thompson remained the character’s primary artist from 1945 until the demise of Fawcett’s comic book line in 1953. (His cover for the final issue of Captain Marvel Jr. that year, with its subtitle “Condemned to Die!” and a depiction of Junior getting fried in the electric chair, is often noted for its uncharacteristic image and obvious irony.) Apart from illustrating some Tex Ritter Western stories during Taking Another Whiz 1952-53, Captain The front and back covers of the 1972 Captain Billy’s Marvel Jr. was Whiz Bang collection composed entirely of the work of Thompson’s sole comic Bud Thompson. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.] book assignment with Fawcett.

The Other Major “Captain Marvel Jr.” Artist

Editors Have To Earn Their Money, Too

As Fawcett’s comics were beginning to crumble, Thompson sought out other freelance comic book work. At Dell he worked on Gene Autry, Wild Bill Elliot, and a few filler features, but his association with Dell was short-lived. In 1953, after steadily working eight years on comic books, Thompson moved from Greenwich to Westport, CT, and helped launch the Famous Artists School, where he also became one of its instructors.

moral—or should I say immoral—equivalent of present-day Penthouse, Oui, etc.,” Thompson said prior to completing the book. “In retrospect, it seems as innocuous as a Sunday school tract …” Fawcett Publications VP and Circulation Manager Roscoe K. Fawcett would later reveal that the ’70s Whiz Bang compilation didn’t exactly produce a bang in sales. Fawcett had requested that Thompson remove the book’s more risqué jokes. As a result, the public deemed the product too tame, and it was, much to Fawcett’s regret, widely ignored.

During the next twenty years, he did mostly freelance work for magazines such as True and Motion Picture (both published by Fawcett), Playboy, and Cavalier (where his creation of a cartoon cavalier became the magazine’s trademark). In the late ’60s, still with close ties to Fawcett Publications, he illustrated the humorous Sock It to Me! by Jerry Austin. The Fawcett Gold Medal paperback book’s title capitalized on the then-popular phrase from the Laugh-In television series. The artist was credited as “Barney Thompson.” In 1972, as a compilation by the artist who had once worked on the original magazine, Fawcett released Thompson’s nostalgic Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang paperback collection. The book featured all-new cartoons by Thompson, in addition to a dozen or so vintage Whiz Bang items from the late ’20s. “Whiz Bang was the

(Left:) Clockwise from top left in this photo: Bud Thompson holding Sharon… wife Evelyn…Albert Syversen (Bud’s father-in-law)… oldest son Barney… and Mike (with his face down). (Right:) Bud’s son Mike at the old Houdini home.

Bud Thompson & The Boy In Blue

The following year, Thompson (again credited as “Barney Thompson”) wrote and illustrated the Fawcett Gold Medal paperback Typo-Goofs. Fawcett had given him a $3,000 advance for the book, which retailed for 75 cents. Typo-Goofs’ cover description claims its contents to be “Typographical terrors that actually got into print.” However, the artist later revealed that the book was “invented to make

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use of [Thompson’s] previously rejected cartoons. The book itself was really fiction. The newspapers to which the items were credited were non-existent.” For a period Thompson worked as an editorial cartoonist for the local paper, The Westport News. Brad Thompson, grandson of Bud Thompson, remembers the trips to his grandfather’s house in Westport. “We lived about ten miles away in Weston, Connecticut, and we would visit quite often,” Thompson recalled. “[He would be] sitting outside on his slate patio, smoking his pipe, and watching his goldfish swim around in the pond that he made. I remember him sitting at his drawing board (which I still have) in his small studio on the second floor of their house. He’s also the one who taught me that you could play solitaire for money, but I’m pretty sure he never actually collected from me.” Thompson’s son Mike says his father was an exceptionally intelligent, high-IQ individual. But, as with some gifted people, there were occasional lapses of common sense. For example, Thompson once had gone swimming in the ocean. When he tried to swim back to shore, he got caught in the current. Despite all his effort as he tried to get back, but decided he wasn’t going to make it. So, ready to meet his fate, he just stopped swimming. At that point he realized he was only in four feet of water, so he simply stood up and walked back to shore. Thompson had rented Harry Houdini’s house years after the escape artist’s death. Houdini had told his wife that if he died she should hold a séance and he would contact her. When Houdini’s widow asked Thompson if she could hold the proceedings in the house, he declined her request and she went off to find another venue. After 40 years of living in Connecticut, Thompson retired and moved down to Savannah, Georgia, where, at the age of 74, he passed away in 1980 after a long illness. His legacy will live on in old postwar Golden Age pages of The World’s Mightiest Boy. [Thanks to Brad Thompson for his assistance with this article, including providing photos and some of the art.]

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Edited by ROY THOMAS

The greatest ’zine of the ’60s is back, all-new, and focused on Golden & Silver Age comics and creators with articles, interviews, unseen art, plus FCA, Mr. Monster, and more!

AE #3: (100 pgs.) ALEX ROSS cover & interview, JERRY ORDWAY, BILL EVERETT, CARL BURGOS, Giant FAWCETT (FCA) section with C.C. BECK, MARC SWAYZE, & more! $9 US

AE #4: (100 pgs.) 60 years of HAWKMAN & FLASH! ROY THOMAS remembers GIL KANE, intvs. with KUBERT, MOLDOFF, LAMPERT, FOX, FCA with BECK & SWAYZE, KUBERT covers, more! $9 US

AE #5: (100 pgs.) JSA issue! Intvs. with SHELLY MAYER, GIL KANE, MART NODELL, GEORGE ROUSSOS, FCA with BECK & SWAYZE, NEW INFANTINO / ORDWAY wraparound cover, more! $9 US

AE #6: (100 pgs.) GENE COLAN intv., how-to books by STAN LEE & KANIGHER, ALLSTAR SQUADRON, MAC RABOY section, FCA with BECK & SWAYZE, COLAN & RABOY covers, more! $9 US

AE #7: (100 pgs.) Companion issue to the ALL-STAR COMPANION! J. SCHWARTZ intv., JLA-JSA teamups, MAC RABOY, FCA with BECK & SWAYZE, BUCKLER & BECK covers, more! $9 US

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

AE #10: (100 pgs) CARMINE INFANTINO intv. & art, neverseen FLASH story, VIN SULLIVAN & MAGAZINE ENTERPRISES, FRED GUARDINEER, AYERS, FCA, MR. MONSTER, more! $9 US

AE #11: (100 pgs) Interviews with SYD SHORES, MICKEY SPILLANE, VINCE FAGO, MAGAZINE ENTERPRISES Part Two, FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, DON NEWTON, MR. MONSTER, more! $9 US

AE #12: (100 pgs) GILL FOX on QUALITY COMICS, neverseen PAUL REINMAN Green Lantern art, origins of ALLSTAR SQUADRON, FCA, MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD, more! $9 US

AE #13 (100 pgs.) TITANS OF TIMELY/MARVEL Part Two! JOE SIMON & MURPHY ANDERSON covers, Silver Age AVENGERS section (with BUSCEMA, HECK, TUSKA, & THOMAS) & more! $9 US

AE #14 (100 pgs.) JSA FROM THE ’40s TO THE ’80s! MIKE NASSER & MICHAEL T. GILBERT covers, intvs. with ORDWAY & LEE ELIAS, neverseen 1940s JSA pgs., ’70s JSA, & more! $9 US

AE #15 (108 pgs.) JOHN BUSCEMA TRIBUTE ISSUE! BUSCEMA covers & interview, unseen art, ROY THOMAS on their collaborations, plus salute to KURT SCHAFFENBERGER, & more! $9 US

AE #16: (108 pgs.) COLAN, BUSCEMA, ROMITA, SEVERIN interviews, ALEX ROSS on Shazam!, OTTO & JACK BINDER, KURTZMAN, new ROSS & FRADON/SEVERIN covers, more! $9 US

AE #17: (108 pgs.) LOU FINE overview & art, ARNOLD DRAKE & MURPHY ANDERSON interviews, plus EISNER, CRANDALL, DAVIS & EVANS’ non-EC action comics, FCA, LOU FINE cover, more! $9 US

AE #18: (108 pgs.) STAN GOLDBERG interview & art, plus KIRBY, DITKO, HECK, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, EVERETT, WALLY WOOD’S Flash Gordon, FCA, KIRBY & SWAYZE covers, more! $9 US

AE #19: (108 pgs.) DICK SPRANG interview & art, JERRY ROBINSON on FRED RAY, BOB KANE, CARMINE INFANTINO, ALEX TOTH, WALLY WOOD, FCA, SPRANG & RAY covers, more! $9 US

AE #20: (108 pgs.) TIMELY/ MARVEL focus, INVADERS overview with KIRBY, KANE, ROBBINS, BOB DESCHAMPS intv., panel with FINGER, BINDER, FOX, & WEISINGER, FCA, rare art, more! $9 US

AE #21: (108 pgs.) IGER STUDIO with art by EISNER, FINE, MESKIN, ANDERSON, CRANDALL, CARDY, EVANS, “SHEENA” section, THOMAS on the JSA, FCA, DAVE STEVENS cover, more! $9 US

AE #22: (108 pgs.) EVERETT & KUBERT interviewed by GIL KANE & NEAL ADAMS, ROY THOMAS on Sub-Mariner, COLAN, BUSCEMA, SEVERIN, WOOD, FCA, BECK & EVERETT covers, more! $9 US

AE #23: (108 pgs.) Two unseen Golden Age WONDER WOMAN stories examined, BOB FUJITANI intv. Archie/ MLJ’s JOHN ROSENBERGER & VICTOR GORELICK intv., FCA, rare art, more! $9 US

AE #24: (108 pgs.) NEW X-MEN intvs. with STAN LEE, COCKRUM, CLAREMONT, WEIN, DRAKE, SHOOTER, THOMAS, MORT MESKIN profiled, FCA, covers by COCKRUM & MESKIN! $9 US

AE #25: (108 pgs.) JACK COLE & PLASTIC MAN! Brother DICK COLE interviewed, Cole celebrated by ALEX TOTH, THOMAS on All-Star Squadron #1, JERRY BAILS tribute, FCA, cover by TOTH! $9 US

AE #26: (108 pgs.) JOE SINNOTT interview, KIRBY and BUSCEMA art, IRWIN DONENFELD, Superman art by SHUSTER, BORING, SWAN, FCA, Mr. MONSTER, covers by SINNOTT & BORING! $9 US

TIMELY/ AE #20: #27: (108 (108pgs.) pgs.) VIN MARVEL focus, INVADERS SULLIVAN intv., “Lost” KIRBY overview with KIRBY, KANE, HULK covers, the 1948 NY ROBBINS, DESCHAMPS CON, “GreatBOB Unknown” artists, intv., panel FCA, withALEX FINGER, KURTZMAN, TOTH, BINDER, FOX, & WEISINGER, MR. MONSTER, covers by FCA, rare art, more! $9 $9 US US BURNLEY & KIRBY!

AE #28: (108 pgs.) JOE MANEELY spotlight, scarce Marvel art by EVERETT, SEVERIN, DITKO, ROMITA, extra-size FCA, LEE AMES intv., covers by MANEELY & DON NEWTON! $9 US

AE #29: (108 pgs.) FRANK BRUNNER intv., EVERETT’s Venus, Classics Illustrated adapting Lovecraft, LEE/KIRBY/ DITKO prototypes, ALEX TOTH, FCA with GENE COLAN, BRUNNER cover! $9 US

AE #30: (108 pgs.) SILVER AGE JLA special, ALEX ROSS on the JLA, MIKE SEKOWSKY, DICK DILLIN, GOLDEN AGE SIMON & KIRBY scripters speak, FRENCH HEROES, ROSS & RUDE covers! $9 US

AE #31: (108 pgs.) DICK AYERS intv., HARLAN ELLISON’S Marvel work (with Bullpen artists), LEE/KIRBY/ DITKO prototypes, Christmas cards from cartoonists, AYERS & RAY covers! $9 US

AE #32: (108 pgs.) Golden Age TIMELY ARTISTS intv., MART NODELL, MIKE GOLD on the Silver Age, art by SIMON & KIRBY, SWAN, INFANTINO, KANE, GIORDANO & GIL KANE covers! $9 US

AE #33: (108 pgs.) MIKE SEKOWSKY tribute, intvs. with wife PAT SEKOWSKY and Golden Age inker VALERIE BARCLAY, art by ANDERSON, ANDRU & ESPOSITO, INFANTINO, FRENZ covers! $9 US

AE #34: (108 pgs.) QUALITY COMICS, intvs. with ALEX KOTZKY, CHUCK CUIDERA, DICK ARNOLD, TOTH, KURTZMAN, art by FINE, EISNER, COLE, CRANDALL and NICHOLAS covers! $9 US

AE #35: #20: (108 (108pgs.) pgs.)STAN TIMELY/ LEE, MARVEL focus,DICK INVADERS JOHN ROMITA, AYERS, overview with KIRBY, KANE, ROY THOMAS, & AL JAFFEE ROBBINS, BOB DESCHAMPS on the 1940s & 1950s Golden intv., FINGER, Age at panel Timely/with Marvel, FCA, BINDER, FOX, & ROMITA WEISINGER, MR. MONSTER, and $9 US FCA, rarecovers! art, more! $9 US JAFFEE

AE #36: (108 pgs.) JOE SIMON intv. & cover, GOLDEN AGE HEROES of Canada, ELMER WEXLER, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on MR. MONSTER’S ORIGINS, FCA, ALEX TOTH, and more! $9 US

AE #37: (108 pgs.) BECK & BORING covers, SY BARRY intv., Superman “K-Metal” story, FCA with C.C. BECK, MARC SWAYZE, DON NEWTON, and Shazam!/Isis!, MR. MONSTER, and more! $9 US

AE #38: (108 pgs.) JULIUS SCHWARTZ tribute & interviews, art by INFANTINO, ANDERSON, KUBERT, KANE, TOTH, SWAN, SEKOWSKY, FCA section, INFANTINO and HASEN covers, more!! $9 US

AE #39: (108 pgs.) Full issue JERRY ROBINSON spotlight, with comprehensive interview and unseen Batman art, AL FELDSTEIN on EC, GIL FOX, MESKIN, ROUSSOS, & ROBINSON covers! $9 US

AE #40: (108 pgs.) JULIUS SCHWARTZ memorial issue with tributes by pros, GIL KANE interview, comprehensive interview and unseen art by RUSS HEATH, GIL KANE and HEATH covers! $9 US

AE #41: (108 pgs.) BERNIE WRIGHTSON on FRANKENSTEIN, art by KALUTA, BAILY, MANEELY, PLOOG, KUBERT, BRUNNER, CRANDALL, FCA #100, & more! WRIGHTSON, SWAYZE covers! $9 US

ALTER EGO #42 Covers by FASTNER & LARSON and ERNIE SCHROEDER, a celebration of DON HECK, WERNER ROTH, and PAUL REINMAN, rare art by KIRBY, DITKO, AYERS, Hillman & Ziff-Davis remembered by SCHROEDER, HERB ROGOFF, and WALTER LITTMAN, FCA, ALEX TOTH, & more! (108-page magazine) $9 US

ALTER EGO #43

ALTER EGO #44

ALTER EGO #45

ALTER EGO #46

Flip covers by TUSKA and JSA/All-Star Squadron/Infinity Inc. Interviews with Golden Age The VERY BEST of the 1960s-70s STEVENS, yuletide art by SINNOTT, special! Interviews with JOE Sandman artist CREIG FLESSEL and ALTER EGO! EVERETT/SEVERIN BRUNNER, CARDY, TOTH, KUBERT, IRWIN HASEN, MURPHY 1940s creator BERT CHRISTMAN, cover, classic 1969 BILL EVERETT NODELL, and others, interviews ANDERSON, JERRY ORDWAY, MICHAEL CHABON on researching interview, art by BURGOS, with Golden Age artists TOM GILL 1940s Atom writer ARTHUR his Pulitzer-winning novel Kavalier GUSTAVSON, SIMON & KIRBY, (Lone Ranger) and MORRIS WEISS, ADLER, art by TOTH, SEKOWSKY, & Clay, art by EISNER, KANE, KIRBY, and others, 1960s gems by DITKO exploring 1960s Mexican comics, HASEN, MACHLAN, OKSNER, & AYERS, FCA, MR. MONSTER, & E. NELSON BRIDWELL, FCA, FCA, MR. MONSTER, ALEX TOTH, INFANTINO, FCA, MR. MONSTER, ALEX TOTH, & more! TOTH, & more! & more! ORDWAY cover, more! (100-page magazine) $9 US (100-page magazine) $9 US (108-page magazine) $9 US (100-page magazine) $9 US

ALTER EGO #48

ALTER EGO #49

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

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

(100-page magazine) $9 US

ALTER EGO #54

ALTER EGO #55

MIKE ESPOSITO on DC and Marvel, ROBERT KANIGHER on the creation of Metal Men & Sgt. Rock (with comments by JOE KUBERT & BOB HANEY), art by ANDRU, INFANTINO, KIRBY, SEVERIN, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, GIL KANE, plus FCA with SWAYZE, ALEX TOTH, & more!

ALEX ROSS cover, JACK & OTTO BINDER, KEN BALD, VIC DOWD, and BOB BOYAJIAN interviewed, FCA with MARC SWAYZE & EMILIO SQUEGLIO, Christmas Card Art from CRANDALL, SINNOTT, HEATH, MOONEY, and CARDY, 1943 superheroine Pin-Up Calendar, and more!

(100-page magazine) $9 US

ALTER EGO #50

ALTER EGO #51

ALTER EGO #52

ALTER EGO #47 MATT BAKER, Golden Age cheesecake artist of PHANTOM LADY, plus art from AL FELDSTEIN, VINCE COLLETTA, ARTHUR PEDDY, JACK KAMEN & others, FCA, BILL SCHELLY talks to BUD PLANT, MR. MONSTER, ALEX TOTH, and more! (100-page magazine) $9 US

ALTER EGO #53

Golden Age Batman artist/Bob JOE GIELLA on the Silver Age at ROY THOMAS covers his 40-YEAR career in comics, with ADAMS, Kane ghost LEW SAYRE DC, the Golden Age at Marvel, and BUSCEMA, COLAN, DITKO, GIL SCHWARTZ interviewed, the JULIE SCHWARTZ, with rare art by KANE, KIRBY, STAN LEE, ORDWAY, Golden & Silver Ages of INFANTINO, GIL KANE, PÉREZ, ROMITA, and many others! AUSTRALIAN SUPER-HEROES, SEKOWSKY, SWAN, DILLIN, Also, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT Mad artist DAVE BERG interviewed, MOLDOFF, GIACOIA, SCHAFFENand MR. MONSTER and more! FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on BERGER, and others, JAY SCOTT WILL EISNER, ALEX TOTH and PIKE on STAN LEE, MARTIN (100-page magazine) $9 US more! THALL, and more!

Halloween issue! GIORDANO & 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, and others!

(100-page magazine) $9 US

ALTER EGO #57

ALTER EGO #58

ALTER EGO #59

ALTER EGO #56

Issue-by-issue index of Timely/Atlas GERRY CONWAY & ROY THOMAS Batman & Superman in the Golden NEAL ADAMS cover, interviews & Silver Ages, ARTHUR SUYDAM super-hero stories by MICHELLE on their ’80s “X-Men Movie That with Superman creators SIEGEL & interview, NEAL ADAMS on NOLAN, art by SIMON & KIRBY, Never Was!” with art by ADAMS, SHUSTER, Golden/Silver Age DC 1960s/70s DC, SHELLY MOLDOFF, EVERETT, BURGOS, ROMITA, COCKRUM, BUSCEMA, BYRNE, production guru JACK ADLER, AL PLASTINO, Golden Age artist AYERS, HEATH, SEKOWSKY, KANE, KIRBY, HECK, & LIEBER, NEAL ADAMS & TV iconoclast (& FRAN (Doll Man) MATERA Atlas artist VIC CARRABOTTA comics fan) HOWARD STERN on SHORES, SCHOMBURG, MANEELY, interviewed, SIEGEL & SHUSTER, Adler, art by CURT SWAN, WAYNE & SEVERIN, GENE COLAN & ALLEN interview, ALLEN BELLMAN on ’40s FCA, MR. MONSTER, SUYDAM Timely, FCA, 1966 panel on EC BORING, AL PLASTINO, plus FCA, BELLMAN on 1940s Timely heroes, cover, & more! Edited by ROY FCA, MR. MONSTER, & BILL Comics, & MR. MONSTER! Edited MR. MONSTER, & more! Edited by THOMAS ! SCHELLY! KIRBY & VON SHOLLY by ROY THOMAS. ROY THOMAS. cover! Edited by ROY THOMAS. (100-page magazine) $9 US (100-page magazine) $9 US (100-page magazine) $9 US (100-page magazine) $9 US

SUBSCRIBE! Twelve Issues in the US: $72 Standard, $108 First Class (Canada: $132, Elsewhere: $144 Surface, $192 Airmail). NOTE: IF YOU PREFER A SIX-ISSUE SUB, JUST CUT THE PRICE IN HALF!

ALTER EGO #60 Celebrates 50 years since SHOWCASE #4! FLASH interviews with SCHWARTZ, KANIGHER, INFANTINO, KUBERT, & BROOME, Golden Age artist TONY DiPRETA, 1966 panel with NORDLING, BINDER, & LARRY IVIE, FCA, MR. MONSTER, never-beforepublished full-color Flash cover by CARMINE INFANTINO, and more!

(100-page magazine) $9 US

ALTER EGO #61

ALTER EGO #62

ALTER EGO #63

ALTER EGO #64

ALTER EGO #65

NICK CARDY interviewed on his Tribute to ALEX TOTH! NeverFawcett Favorites! Issue-by-issue History of the AMERICAN COMICS HAPPY HAUNTED HALLOWEEN work in the Golden & Silver Ages, before-seen interview with tons of analysis of OTTO BINDER & C.C. GROUP (1946 to 1967)—including ISSUE, featuring: MIKE PLOOG & with CARDY artwork from Quality & BECK’s 1943-45 “The Monster its roots in the Golden Age RUDY PALAIS on their horror-comics TOTH art, including sketches he sent DC—plus the work of EISNER, to friends! Christmas cards from Society of Evil!” serial! Double-size SANGOR ART SHOP and work! AL WILLIAMSON on his work STANDARD/NEDOR comics! for the American Comics Group— MOLDOFF, MAROTO, LEIALOHA, FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) ADAMS, INFANTINO, JIM APARO, RAMONA FRADON, CURT SWAN, section with MARC SWAYZE, Art by MESKIN, ROBINSON, plus more on ACG horror comics! FLESSEL, & others! Our annual 1943 JOE ORLANDO, BOB HANEY, MIKE pin-up calendar by ALEX WRIGHT, EMILIO SQUEGLIO, C.C. BECK, WILLIAMSON, FRAZETTA, SCHAFRare DICK BRIEFER Frankenstein SEKOWSKY, et al.! Plus FCA with with Miss America, Namora, Sun MAC RABOY, and others! Interview FENBERGER, & BUSCEMA, ACG strips! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, MARC SWAYZE and others, Girl, Venus, and others as real-life with MARTIN FILCHOCK, Golden writer/editor RICHARD HUGHES, BILL SCHELLY on the 1966 MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. ’40s starlets, FCA, MR. MONSTER, Age artist for Centaur Comics! Plus plus AL HARTLEY interviewed, FCA, KalerCon, a new PLOOG cover— MONSTER, a new CARDY COVER, and more! MR. MONSTER, an unpublished MR. MONSTER, & more! & more! and more! DON NEWTON cover, and more! GIORDANO cover! (100-page magazine) $9 US (100-page magazine) $9 US (100-page magazine) $9 US (100-page magazine) $9 US (100-page magazine) $9 US

ALL- STAR COMPANION VOL. 2

ALTER EGO COLLECTION, VOL. ONE

ROY THOMAS’ new sequel, with more secrets of the JSA and ALL-STAR COMICS, from 1940 through the 1980s, featuring: Wraparound CARLOS PACHECO cover! More amazing information, speculation, and unseen ALL-STAR COMICS art! Unpublished 1940s JSA STORY ART not printed in Volume One! Scarce & never-published art by KUBERT, FLESSEL, ORDWAY, BUCKLER, HASEN, RYAN, LARK, MIGNOLA, and others! Full coverage of the 1980s ALL-STAR SQUADRON, with unpublished and unseen art, and more!

Collects ALTER EGO #1-2, plus 30 pages of NEW MATERIAL! New JLA Jam Cover by KUBERT, PÉREZ, GIORDANO, TUSKA, CARDY, FRADON, & GIELLA, new sections featuring scarce art by GIL KANE, WILL EISNER, CARMINE INFANTINO, MIKE SEKOWSKY, MURPHY ANDERSON, DICK DILLIN, & more! (192-page trade paperback) $26 US

(240-page Trade Paperback) $29 US

OUR NEWEST MAGAZINE! Spinning off from the pages of BACK ISSUE! magazine comes ROUGH STUFF, celebrating the ART of creating comics! Edited by famed inker BOB McLEOD, each issue spotlights NEVERBEFORE PUBLISHED penciled pages, preliminary sketches, detailed layouts, and even unused inked versions from artists throughout comics history. Included is commentary on the art, discussing what went right and wrong with it, and background information to put it all into historical perspective. Plus, before-and-after comparisons let you see firsthand how an image changes from initial concept to published version. So don’t miss this amazing new magazine, featuring galleries of NEVER-BEFORE SEEN art, from some of your favorite series of all time, and the top pros in the industry!

ROUGH STUFF #1

ROUGH STUFF #2

Our debut issue features galleries of UNSEEN ART by a who’s who of Modern Masters including:

The follow-up to our smash first issue features more galleries of UNSEEN ART by top industry professionals, including:

ALAN DAVIS GEORGE PÉREZ BRUCE TIMM KEVIN NOWLAN JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍA-LÓPEZ ARTHUR ADAMS JOHN BYRNE WALTER SIMONSON Plus a KEVIN NOWLAN interview, and a new BRUCE TIMM COVER! (116-page magazine) $9 US

BRIAN APTHORP FRANK BRUNNER PAUL GULACY JERRY ORDWAY ALEX TOTH MATT WAGNER Plus a PAUL GULACY interview, a look at oddball penciler/inker combinations, and a new GULACY “HEX” COVER! (100-page magazine) $9 US

ROUGH STUFF #3 (JAN.) This third groundbreaking issue presents still more galleries of UNSEEN ART by some of the biggest names in the comics industry, including:

MIKE ALLRED JOHN BUSCEMA YANICK PAQUETTE JOHN ROMITA JR. P. CRAIG RUSSELL LEE WEEKS Plus a JOHN ROMITA JR. interview, looks at the earliest work of some of your favorite artists, and a new ROMITA JR. COVER! (100-page magazine) $9 US

MODERN MASTERS SERIES Edited by ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON, these trade paperbacks and DVDs are devoted to the BEST OF TODAY’S COMICS ARTISTS! Each book contains RARE AND UNSEEN ARTWORK direct from the artist’s files, plus a COMPREHENSIVE INTERVIEW (including influences and their views on graphic storytelling), DELUXE SKETCHBOOK SECTIONS, and more! And DVDs show the artist at work!

VOL. 1: ALAN DAVIS (128-Page Trade Paperback) $19 US

V.6: ARTHUR ADAMS

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V.11: CHARLES VESS (120-Page TPB with COLOR) $19 US

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V.5: GARCÍA-LÓPEZ

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V.3: BRUCE TIMM

V.4: KEVIN NOWLAN (120-Page TPB with COLOR) $19 US

(120-Page TPB with COLOR) $19 US

V.7: JOHN BYRNE

V.8: WALTER SIMONSON

V.9: MIKE WIERINGO

V.10: KEVIN MAGUIRE

(128-Page Trade Paperback) $19 US

V.12: MICHAEL GOLDEN

(128-Page Trade Paperback) $19 US

V.13: JERRY ORDWAY

(120-Page TPB with COLOR) $19 US

SHIPS JUNE 2007

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BACK ISSUE #20 PREVIEW! Edited by former DC and Dark Horse editor 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), “Greatest Stories Never Told” (spotlighting unrealized comics series or stories), and more! Issue #20 peeks behind the masks of your favorite heroes as we explore characters’ alter egos in our “Secret Identites Issue”! STEVE ENGLEHART and SAL BUSCEMA talk “Pro2Pro” about their Captain America collaboration, and JERRY ORDWAY is spotlighted in a career-spanning interview. Plus: a roundtable of Superman writers and artists reveal the scoop on Clark Kent, featuring artwork by and commentary from BILL SIENKIEWICZ, KEVIN NOWLAN, DOUG MOENCH, DENYS COWAN, DENNY O’NEIL, AL MILGROM, GERRY CONWAY, FRANK ROBBINS, CARY BATES, ELLIOT S! MAGGIN, PAT BRODERICK, JIM SHOOTER, and many others. BONUS: a Superman and Clark Kent COLOR art gallery, with ultra-rare art by CURT SWAN and others, and a new cover by JERRY ORDWAY! Bi-monthly! (100-page magazine) SINGLE ISSUES: $9 US SUBSCRIPTIONS: Six issues in the US: $36 Standard, $54 First Class (Canada: $66, Elsewhere: $72 Surface, $96 Airmail).

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MIKE GRELL • DAVE COCKRUM GARCÍA-LÓPEZ • JACK KIRBY

BRUCE TIMM • ADAM HUGHES CARMINE INFANTINO

NEAL ADAMS • DAVE GIBBONS JOHN ROMITA SR.

FRANK MILLER • MIKE MIGNOLA JOHN ROMITA JR. • MIKE ZECK

An Amazing Discussion About

Clark kent red

Eddy Zeno

and

Clark kent Blue

As a young reader, I always liked Superman better than Clark Kent. Didn’t we all? My favorite stories might begin with an unfolding headline event teletyped into the Daily Planet newsroom. Clark might be working at his desk or chewing the fat with Perry, Lois, and Jimmy. He would have to find an excuse to change to Superman so he could fly to wherever the threat was and deal with it. If he never appeared out of costume for the tale’s remainder, it was fine with me. Yet despite a child’s opinion that Clark was not needed except perhaps as a brief story springboard, he did not go away. That’s because the editors and writers, starting with Superman’s co-creator Jerry Siegel, were smart enough to know that without Clark Kent, Superman wouldn’t last. Denny O’Neil, interviewed in January 2006 for the book The Krypton Companion (by BACK ISSUE’s Michael Eury and published by TwoMorrows), in essence said that even those long-ago, goofy tales in which Lois or Lana schemed to prove that Clark was Superman/Superboy were necessary. They helped ground a near-invincible space alien with godlike powers in the everyday world so readers could relate to him. In current continuity Superman remains grounded by having Ma and Pa Kent alive and by Clark/Superman being married to Lois. The careers of the writers participating in the Clark Kent Roundtable span these wide gulfs in the reporter’s history and events in between. Their comments, received by email between July and October 2006, serve as reminders how each of them has added dimension to the fictional character. For contrast and clarity they are divided into pre- and post-Crisis teams—or the “Clark Kent Red” and the “Clark Kent Blue” teams, in a nod to the classic Imaginary Story. However, all Roundtable participants maintain a sharp interest in Clark as he appears today, and many of them still participate in his adventures in some form. —Eddy Zeno (Acknowledgment: Thanks to Michael Eury for helping with the following questions.)

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CLARK KENT RED TEAM ROLL CALL

RED TEAM ROUNDTABLE EDDY ZENO: From your perspective, which was the “real” and which was the “manufactured” personality, Clark or Superman? Is he primarily a simple North American type of guy or a stranger from another planet? MARTIN PASKO: Wow. This question reminds me of all the subplots and story premises I pitched that explored Superman’s identity issues. They kept being rejected by the editors I had to satisfy because they didn’t “get” them, and they didn’t conform to their purely escapist sensibility and their preference for gimmickry. I’m used to people not understanding why I find this a more complex and nuanced question than your phrasing of it implies. That’s because I’m probably unique among Superman writers in that I have firsthand experience with the sort of identity issues Kal-El would have—the kind that abandonment, early adoption, and displacement create. For me, the “truthful” way to write it is that the Kryptonian began his conscious life thinking of himself as Clark Kent, believing himself human until his powers began to manifest themselves. But from that point on, everything changed. That’s why I think that what you’re asking about differs depending on which version of the continuity you’re talking about. In the continuities in which there is no Superboy, the timeline of Clark’s self-discovery is different. The creative choice writers must make is greatly affected by where the information about Superman’s past comes from, at what point in his life he gets it, and how many years he’s been thinking of himself as a costumed vigilante (a longer period if he’s been Superboy). What I had to work with was essentially a Julie Schwartz-modified version of the Weisinger continuity of the ’60s, in which Clark learned of his Kal-El identity when he was in grade school, rather than as a young adult. So it always seemed to me, because of the way I learned of my own identity, and had to revise my self-image as new information became available to me, that once “Clark Kent” became aware of “Kal-El,” Kal-El became the “real” person, and both Clark and Superman became constructs. But, because he was, in effect, cut off from his “real” self because he had no memory of having lived as Kal-El, that real self felt less real to him—paradoxically—than either of the “manufactured” identities. I base this conclusion on the way my own history parallels the character’s: I was born in French Canada, of which I have no firsthand memory (so, for me, Canada = Krypton). In my birthplace,

CARY BATES Superman writer, 1960s–1980s

ELLIOT S! MAGGIN Superman writer, 1970s–1980s

DENNIS O’NEIL Superman writer and Superman Family editor, 1970s

MARTIN PASKO

Superman writer, 1970s–1980s; Superman Returns adaptation, 2006

LEN WEIN Superman writer, 1970s

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I was given the name Gaston Claude Rochefort (= Kal-El). I was adopted by an American couple who were a good 10–15 years older than most of my contemporaries’ parents (= the Kents) and brought to the US (= Smallville) at a very early age. My adoptive parents were completely honest with me about the fact of my adoption, and from as early as I can remember, I knew I was different from other kids in that respect. So, Gaston-Claude feels unreal to me because, to my conscious mind and memory, Martin Pasko has always been my identity. Yet I know it’s a construct because I wasn’t born with it. That condition leaves one with a sense of being two people at once, and no one at all—and I was luckier than Supes; I didn’t have yet a third identity to worry about! But that sense of being a man without a real identity—as well as a man without a homeworld, if you will—leads to a kind of alienation from others that is fairly unique. I would think that Kal-El’s awareness that he is considered human but isn’t really of humans is in the forefront of his consciousness most of the time. It’s this tragic dimension of the character that I always thought had great story potential, but nobody has ever really explored it, to my knowledge. CARY BATES: To me it was never an “either-or” question, because he could never simply be just regular-guy-Clark-Kent any more than he could “just” be Kal-El-the-Kryptonian. From the moment his rocketship reached Earth and the Kents started raising him, the way I saw it, both aspects of the character were forever entwined. LEN WEIN: The Clark Kent persona was definitely the real personality. He was raised as Clark from infancy and only became Superman (or –boy, if you’re so inclined) years later. I’ve long said that what makes Clark Kent Superman isn’t his ability to change the course of mighty rivers or bend steel in his bare hands, it’s the fact that he was raised by the two most decent people in the world, people who helped form his moral center. All the rest of it emanates from there. DENNIS O’NEIL: To me, the guy in the cape was always the real one. And though he might try to fit in by being a wholesome, Midwestern kid, that’s not who he was. ELLIOT S! MAGGIN: It is and has always been very clear to me that the character we are dealing with is Superman, not somebody named Clark who pretends to be Superman, and not Kal-El with some sort of alien consciousness who puts on Superman like a suit of clothes or a toga or something. The hero of the story is the character’s best self, given all that character’s aspects. A primary element of traditional mythology as well as contemporary mythology has always been the disguise, but the disguise is the fantasy, not the reverse—whether the hero is aware of that or not. The little kid growing up as his step-brother’s squire in the duke’s home was really King Arthur. The beggar who crashed the party thrown by Penelope’s suitors was really Odysseus. The swan that seduced Leda was really Zeus. And the strange visitor from another planet with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men— as well as the mild-mannered reporter for a great Metropolitan newspaper—is really Superman. ZENO: How come Clark could fool Lois? O’NEIL: She’s dim? Maybe she wanted to be fooled? I never answered this for myself, nor did I really try to. Clark’s fooling Lois—and everyone else—by changing clothes and putting on glasses was a convention I accepted.

editorial fiat, of a plot submitted by a fan which attempted to offer a science-fictional rationale for the glasses disguise. The story was quickly ignored because it “felt wrong” (as it did to me even as I was writing it). I think it’s better not to even ask “How can Clark fool Lois?” Every time a writer tries to answer that, no one is satisfied; the attempted rationale is eliminated from continuity; and the franchise reverts to the conceit that the Kent disguise is effective. ZENO: If the Clark Kent identity was an act, why was he hurt when she only loved Superman? O’NEIL: Because, I think, it made for better stories. MAGGIN: He wasn’t hurt. He was thrown off-track, and just a little. Hal Jordan wanted Carol Ferris to be in love with him and not the guy in the mask. Superman has a more complicated life and he’s better at finding his way around the complications. I wrote a story a thousand years ago called “Gorilla Grodd’s Grandstand Play” [Action Comics #424, June 1973], which I still like quite a bit. In the last page of the story Lois took back some things she had said earlier, in a manner that ought to have hurt Clark’s feelings, and afterward Clark walked through the hall down-in-thedumps until he was out of earshot. When he was sure he was alone he burst out laughing. A friend told me at the time it was a cruel thing for Clark to do to Lois, but I thought about it and didn’t think so. I still don’t. It hurt no one, and helped me answer this question, after all. PASKO: Was he? I remember it more as frustration and ambivalence than hurt: On the one hand, he was gratified that the disguise was working, but frustrated that at the Planet he was forced to keep playing the zhlub when he didn’t want to. I’d also suggest that he was skeptical that she really loved him, as opposed to having a romantic fantasy. I mean, how can you truly love someone—in a mature, committed way— before you know them very well? And since they weren’t close enough for her to be entrusted with the secret of his double identity,

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WEIN: I always wondered the same thing until I watched the late, much-lamented Christopher Reeve demonstrate on screen that Clark Kent looks nothing like Superman; he’s shorter, his facial structure is different. I’m telling you, they’re two entirely different guys. MAGGIN: I like Noel Neill’s answer: “To keep my job.” That’s actually not a bad answer. People see incomplete stories in the world around them. Nearly half the people in this country voted for a man unqualified to be president twice in a row. Probably the best explanation for the failure of characters to perceive “reality” is that we rarely tell ourselves the whole story either; that metaphors are a convenient way around complications. I don’t want to spend my effort explaining—or hearing—that the hero is a master of disguise and theatrics and hypnosis and misdirection or the Kryptonian glass gives off a kind of mirage effect or some damned thing. I just want to get on with the storytelling and if glasses and suit gets me there, that’s fine with me. BATES: Like explaining how the Force works (anyone remember midochlorians?), some questions are better left unanswered. A valiant but not too-successful attempt was made to address the disguise conundrum in a story Julie ran in the late ’70s (by Marty Pasko, I believe) [in Superman #330, Dec. 1978, and referenced above by Elliot as a “mirage effect or some damned thing…” caused by Clark’s special glasses]. PASKO: Because the eyeglass disguise was a simple conceit intended to suffice for small kids. Of course it’s preposterous in the eyes of an older audience, but that’s not the demo for whom the books were intended in 1938. Moreover, it was easier to go along with the conceit before the mid-’70s, when the Superman-Lois relationship was unambiguously chaste. The 15 years immediately prior to the Clark-Lois wedding, in which there was an implied sexual intimacy between them, strained credibility to the breaking point. But I’m not convinced that if the glasses were eliminated, there wouldn’t be a howl of protest— most of it from the very same people who deride the disguise as hokey. I was the reluctant scripter, by

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it’s doubtful he could regard her professed “love” as much more than an adolescent crush. Even though Clark is an artificial identity, I don’t think it’s an “act” in the sense of a deliberately fraudulent alias, such as one a con man might assume. Rather, it’s a displacement of Kal-El’s deepest emotions and vulnerabilities into a manufactured vessel. I put it that way to distinguish the process from dissociation as in multiple personality disorder, because in Kal-El’s case it’s conscious, vitally necessary, and not at all pathological. We all know that actors who work internally will draw on sense memory and facets of their own psychological makeup to make their characters as real as possible. In this process, it’s not uncommon for actors to so closely identify with their roles that they start imprinting their own personalities on their parts. As a result, the actors so closely identify with their characters that the actors start taking what happens to the characters “personally.” Often, actors in long-running

TV series will feel that they’ve come to understand their roles better than the writers, and that’s what starts the “My character wouldn’t say that” wars. From that phenomenon, I extrapolate that, if he were hurt at all, Kal-El, the actor playing Clark, was hurt by Lois’ rejection of Clark the character because that’s the way the character Clark would react. WEIN: Well, since I never believed the Clark identity was an act, I think the question answers itself. Besides, I always thought that back in the Silver Age, Lois was a bit of a starf*cker, if you’ll excuse my language. She was smitten with Superman because of what he was, not who he was. ZENO: Why didn’t previous attempts to make Clark more appealing (Superman #210, Oct. 1968, under editor Mort Weisinger, and Superman #233, Jan. 1971, under Julie Schwartz) endure? BATES: Don’t recall those particular issues, but in general … back in the ’60s and ’70s the mild-mannered schtick was the prevailing mantra of the day, and I would expect any departure from the status quo to be temporary at best. MAGGIN: I’m not sure what issues the numbers refer to, but it seems to me that #233 probably included the first “Private Life of Clark Kent” story, if my geography is right. [Actually, the series began in Superman #242, Jan. 1972, with initial story by Denny O’Neil.] I don’t think Clark is unappealing. He’s just normal, and that’s part of the point of having him around. And I’m not sure that any attempt to make him more appealing didn’t endure. In the nature of a shared universe like this, whoever is making decisions about who the character should be and where he should go, and what mood the storyteller is in, all change like life. Readers’ responses to a momentary shift in direction are only a factor in whether or not a manifest thought somehow becomes canon. There was this big editorial meeting at some point where the publisher and all the editors at DC decided that from now on, the secret identity of a major character would be homosexual. Really. It was kind of silly. And when it became clear that it was kind of silly, everybody quietly forgot about the notion. These characters have lives and dynamics of their own. The storytellers who are the most successful at creating time-worthy stories are those who best steep themselves in the characters’ histories and traditions, and then simply tell stories, letting the characters take their own natures into their own hands. PASKO: I don’t think anyone in charge at DC ever thought analytically enough to reach a conscious decision that Clark needed to be made more “appealing.” Superman #210 merely reflects editorial director Carmine Infantino’s attempts to make the books look more modern and dynamic (note that #210 has a striking Neal Adams cover). Carmine also insisted that the

Killer Kent Kauses Khaos In this Imaginary Story written by Cary Bates, penciled by Curt Swan, and inked by Dan Adkins, Clark Kent was evil and Lex Luthor was the Man of Steel. From Superman #231 (Nov. 1970), at the end of the Mort Weisinger editorial era. © 2007 DC Comics.

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older DC artists update their swipe files on fashion and prop design. That’s when we first started seeing Clark get out of the perennial blue suit and into doublebreasted jackets and colorful shirts, etc. To the extent that the stories seemed to be about a “new” Clark Kent, it was wholly superficial; merely a matter of trying to find story hooks that would account for the design changes. So it wasn’t so much that the ideas didn’t “endure” as that the following Fall brought the designers’ new collections. The experiments of #210 and the issues following it were just another flailing attempt to seem as hip as Marvel—briefly considered and discarded like the “Go-Go Checks” of 1966. As for the TV news anchor business that began under Julie, that was gradually dropped because, by 1980, it was clear to DC that the character of Clark Kent had taken on a life that was larger than its creators or owners. The company’s failure to persuade the Superman movie producers to incorporate the Galaxy Broadcasting franchise into the feature film was DC’s first inkling that, because of Superman’s long-term presence in mass media, the character had a multigenerational recognition factor that meant that the image of the “true” Clark Kent would always be that of a newspaper reporter. WB’s own research showed that DC’s efforts at “updating” Superman weren’t registering with the public. In 2006, we saw exactly the same pattern repeat itself in WB’s decision not to do a film in which Clark was courageous and virile and married to Lois. O’NEIL: Maybe because it wasn’t a great idea? The storytelling advantages of a double-identity character are pretty much lost when both identities are admirable (or equally lousy). In the current interpretation, Clark is pretty darn great—brilliant, prize-winning journalist, etc. And his nerdishness was never consistent; if memory serves, he was often played as an ace reporter. ZENO: What was the impact of the editor(s) with whom you worked when it came to the character? BATES: Weisinger was much more rigid in terms of everything from plot and dialogue to panel layouts, but since he was my first editor and I was green it worked out okay in the long run. I certainly learned a lot. Julie was a great teacher, too; he also had a lot of his own rules … but once he trusted a writer, more often than not he’d give you a much wider latitude of creative freedom. WEIN: Well, since I only really worked with Julie Schwartz as my editor on Superman, the impact was considerable. Julie taught me a bunch of simple, basic rules when it came to writing a Superman story, and I’ve never forgotten them. MAGGIN: I have generally worked with editors who were more concerned with the immediate story I was telling—whether it hung together, whether it made sense, whether it was exciting or engaging—than with where I was taking the characters. That was certainly true of Julie Schwartz. And for that matter, the characters were kind of dragging me along in that area. PASKO: Not much. Nobody ever questioned or directed me in my treatment of Clark, perhaps because none of my editors felt very sure-footed when it came to the Superman franchise. That may have resulted from the same development that made the ’70s Superman such a mess (e.g., the sons of Superman and Batman). Petty politics triumphed over both sound business judgment and creative integrity: neither Infantino nor his immediate successors wanted a single editor to wield as much power at National Periodicals as Mort Weisinger had, so the

line was split up when Weisinger resigned in 1970. It would be 15 years before all the Superman-related titles would come under a single editor’s stewardship again. Consequently, I did Supes stuff for three editors— Schwartz, O’Neil, and [Joe] Orlando—and each approached both the character and the script-writing process differently. In matters of mythology, Julie deferred to writers who knew it backward and forward, like Cary, Elliot, Len, and I did, so when we needed to shoot down an editorial suggestion because it was “off-continuity,” Julie went along. Denny was always a joy to work with in comics. He freely admitted that he was never that comfortable with the Superman property, so when called upon to edit it, he just found a writer he trusted and got out of the way. Orlando had no feel for super-heroes, and no respect for the genre conventions. I had no problems with that; I understood what he found silly and didn’t blame him for thinking so. But he’d waste hours of your time asking questions like, “Why does Superman have to crash through the wall instead of go in through the door?” And, since he was an insecure little man, he tended to be dictatorial and apt to get petulant at every imagined slight. So you could never give him the straight answer that was in your head, which was, “Look, Joe, you either get it or you don’t.” ZENO: What did you do to make Clark uniquely yours? MAGGIN: I didn’t. He wasn’t. He belonged to the ages like Lincoln, f’r heaven’s sakes, and will you stop calling him Clark? The character I worked with was Superman. Clark was the character Superman worked with. PASKO: Nothing, and I made no attempt to. It would have been inappropriate to do so, from a

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professionalism standpoint. Besides, realistically speaking, making that big an impression would’ve been impossible anyway. Any major change one writer would’ve tried to make—even if s/he had gotten away with it—would have been undone immediately by other writers and turned into what some DC fans today call “Mopee stories.” O’NEIL: Not a thing. BATES: See answer to question 1. WEIN: Strangely enough, I think the most important thing I did with Clark—aside, of course, from giving him a home life, introducing his neighbors in the apartment building he lived in, etc.—was to return the character to his basics. With rare exception, every Superman story I wrote contained that seminal moment where he would rip his shirt open and proclaim, “This looks like a job for… SUPERMAN!” It gave me chills as a kid and continues to do so to this day. ZENO: What were Kent’s most important contributions to the Superman mythos?

Clark’s Last Peaceful Moment From Alan Moore’s legendary “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”, Kent’s secret identity is about to be exposed. Story page 7 of Superman #423 (Sept. 1986), penciled by Swan and inked by George Pérez. © 2007 DC Comics.

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O’NEIL: The Clark identity gives readers someone with whom to identify, and provides story fodder. PASKO: It’s a fair question. Unfortunately. The very fact that anyone would find it necessary to ask that underscores how wrongheaded the most recent interpretation of Clark is. But, fortunately for the prospective longevity of the franchise, the fearless, macho Kent appears only in the comics, which have little influence in defining the property in the public imagination any more. Historically, Kent is the repository of the human failings Superman can’t afford to admit to himself. Whatever self-doubt, fear—indeed, any weakness—may have, he mentally relegates to Clark. Kent is Superman’s vehicle for inhabiting the human world so that he can be treated as an equal by humans (though, with delicious irony, he’s usually seen as inferior), rather than being worshiped or feared as a demi-god. But if you make Clark just as strong a personality as Superman, differing only by not wearing a costume and pretending not to have super-powers, then Kent not only has nothing to contribute, he’s virtually unnecessary. BATES: I’ve never seen that question answered or delineated more effectively than the first five years of Smallville. ZENO: Had you been given carte blanche, what would you have changed about the Silver/Bronze Age Clark? WEIN: A lot less of Lois snooping into his secret identity, I think. Other than that, not much. That’s the character I grew up with, the Superman I loved. BATES: From my perspective any answer to a question like that, some 30–40 years after the fact, would either be self-serving or b.s. PASKO: The Weisinger stuff was pretty silly, but it was age-appropriate, it worked commercially, and, operating synergistically with the media incarnations, it kept the character alive in the comics about ten years longer than his super-heroic contemporaries. So, since it wasn’t broken, I wouldn’t have tried to fix it. As for the post-Weisinger stuff, I’d have to have been the editor to make the changes I’d’ve liked to see: the writers would’ve been asked to think about the material a bit more deeply in terms of character logic, and to place more emphasis on policing the fantasy elements for believability, extrapolating more logically from known science. This would have constituted an effort to appeal to an older, slightly more sophisticated audience. Then, once a template for a new approach was established, I’d have insisted that all the writers treat the material consistently, rather than O’Neil having one take, [Bob] Haney another, Bates yet a third, and so on. MAGGIN: In retrospect—although I didn’t feel it was so at the time—I think I did have a kind of carte blanche, at least as far as I wanted to take it. What I tried to do overall with Superman was explain in my own words who this character was. I never wanted to make up a new character that I wanted everyone to call “Superman.” I wanted to demonstrate the viability of a character in whom, at the time I began writing his stories, no one was really very interested in anymore. I believe I went some distance in doing that. I think the only regret I had was the kind of regret you have when you lose someone close to you: that you wish you could have spent more time with him.

For the rest of this interview, including the Clark Kent Blue Team’s responses, don’t miss BACK ISSUE #20!

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MODERN MASTERS VOL. 9: MIKE WIERINGO BLUE BEETLE ROUGH STUFF! #3 THE KRYPTON ALL-STAR VOL. 10: KEVIN COMPANION (FEB.) COMPANION (NOW!) (JAN.) COMPANION MAGUIRE (JAN.) VOL. 2 (NOW!) Galleries of NEVER-SEEN penciled His history from 1939 to today! Unlocks the secrets of Superman’s pages, sketches, layouts, and Reprints his first appearance from Silver and Bronze Ages, when ROY THOMAS’ new sequel, with VOL. 11: CHARLES unused inks by P. CRAIG RUSSELL, MYSTERY MEN COMICS #1, plus kryptonite came in multiple colors more secrets of the JSA and ALLVESS (FEB.) MIKE ALLRED, YANICK PAQUETTE, interviews with WILL EISNER, JOE and LEE WEEKS, who contribute SIMON, JOE GILL, ROY THOMAS, commentaries on the art, plus a GEOFF JOHNS, CULLY HAMNER, retrospective art gallery on the late KEITH GIFFEN, LEN WEIN, neverJOHN BUSCEMA, a new, profusely seen Blue Beetle designs by ALEX illustrated interview with JOHN ROSS and ALAN WEISS, as well ROMITA JR., a new ROMITA JR. as artwork by EISNER, JACK cover, and more! Edited by BOB KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, KEVIN McLEOD. MAGUIRE, & more! (100-page magazine) $9 US (128-page trade paperback) $21 US

and super-pets flew the skies! Features all-new interviews with ADAMS, ANDERSON, CARDY, GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, GIFFEN, , MOONEY, O’NEIL, OKSNER, PASKO, ROZAKIS, SHOOTER, WEIN, WOLFMAN, and others, plus tons of rare and unseen art! By BACK ISSUE’S Michael Eury! (240-page trade paperback) $29 US

STAR COMICS, from 1940 Features EXTENSIVE, CAREERthrough the 1980s: Amazing SPANNING INTERVIEWS lavishly information, speculation, and illustrated with rare art from the unseen ALL-STAR COMICS art! artists’ files, plus an ENORMOUS Unpublished 1940s JSA STORY SKETCHBOOK SECTION with ART not printed in Volume One! some of their finest work, including Full coverage of the 1980s ALLUNSEEN AND UNUSED ART! STAR SQUADRON, with scarce & never-published art! Wraparound (120-page trade paperbacks with color sections) $19 US EACH CARLOS PACHECO cover, & more! (240-page Trade Paperback) $29 US

SUBSCRIPTIONS: JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: Four issues US: $40 Standard, $56 First Class (Canada: $64, Elsewhere: $68 Surface, $84 Airmail). BACK ISSUE!: Six issues US: $36 Standard, $54 First Class (Canada: $66, Elsewhere: $72 Surface, $96 Airmail). DRAW!, WRITE NOW!, ROUGH STUFF: Four issues US: $24 Standard, $36 First Class (Canada: $44, Elsewhere: $48 Surface, $64 Airmail). ALTER EGO: Twelve issues US: $72 Standard, $108 First Class (Canada: $132, Elsewhere: $144 Surface, $192 Airmail). FOR A SIX-ISSUE ALTER EGO SUBSCRIPTION, JUST CUT THE PRICE IN HALF!

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Happy New Year From Roy Thomas’ Pin-Up Comics Fanzine