Alter Ego #69

Roy Thomas’ Water-Logged Comics Fanzine

THREE CHEERS FOR

RAMONA FRADON, 6.95 PAUL NORRIS, & AQUAMAN ! No. 69 $

In the USA

TM

June 2007

PLUS:

06 1

82658 27763

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Aquaman TM & ©2007 DC Comics

Vol. 3, No. 69 / June 2007

™

Editor Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck

Comic Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

Editorial Honor Roll Jerry G. Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White

Editor Emeritus Mike Friedrich

Production Assistant

Contents

Chris Irving

Circulation Director Bob Brodsky, Cookiesoup Periodical Distribution, LLC

Cover Artist

A pocket history of Aquaman, DC’s Sovereign of the Seven Seas, by John Wells.

John Watson (from a drawing by Ramona Fradon)

With Special Thanks to: Jack Adams Heidi Amash Ger Apeldoorn Paul Bach, Jr. Rodrigo Baeza Bob Bailey Jean Bails Marty Baumann Jack Bender Murray Bishoff Jerry K. Boyd Tom Bradley Gary Brown Len Brown Adam J. Brooks Zack Buchanan Mike Burkey John Cochran Teresa R. Davidson Craig Delich Shel Dorf Michael Dunne Chris Fama Michael Feldman Ed Fields Stuart Fischer Dana Fradon Ramona Fradon Todd Franklin Keif A. Fromm Bill Fugate Carl Gafford Russ Garwood Jeff Gelb Janet Gilbert Laura Gjovaag Lew Glanzman Mark Glidden Scott Goodell Arnie Grieves Jennifer Hamerlinck Matthew Hawes Allan Holtz Richard Howell Bob Hughes Richard Kyle Stan Landman Bill Leach

Writer/Editorial: Seeking Sea Kings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Maritime Passages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Alan Light Bill Lignante Jeffrey Lindenblatt Matt Lorentz Mike Machlan Joe & Nadia Mannarino Sam Maronie Bruce Mason Harry Mendryk Brian K. Morris Mark Muller Jim Murtaugh The New Yorker Paul Norris Rick Norwood Jerry Ordway Jake Oster Ken Quattro John Powell Kyle Powell Rob Powell Seth Powell Nancy Ready Hart Rieckhof Dominic von Riedemann Charlie Roberts Ethan Roberts Herb Rogoff Alex Saviuk John Schwirian Craig Shutt David Siegel Keif Simon Anthony Snyder Bhob Stewart Scott Stewart Joe Staton Marc Swayze Dann Thomas Anthony Tollin Michael Uslan Trevor Von Eeden John Watson John Wells Christopher Wheeler Robert Wiener Joseph Wise

“Take Your Foot In Hand And Come To New York!” . . . . . . 15 Artist Paul Norris took Milt Caniff’s advice! Interview by Shel Dorf.

“It Was A Daily Identity Crisis” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Ramona Fradon talks to Jim Amash about being a comic artist and a housewife & mother.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt: The Powell Family Album, Part III. 55 Michael T. Gilbert and Bob Powell’s sons revisit the life of the great Golden Age artist.

JSA: Sunset At Dawn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Roy Thomas’ letter/proposal for a Justice Society/Infinity, Inc. series that never was!

Come BECK, Little Comicon! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 The Calvin Beck Con of 1967 really did happen! Bill Schelly’s got proof!

Tributes to Joe Edwards, Jack Burnley, & Joseph R. Barbera . 71 re: [comments, correspondence, & corrections) . . . . . . . . . 75 FCA (Fawcett Collectors Of America) #128 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 P.C. Hamerlinck presents Marc Swayze, Bill Fugate, & Captain Marvel’s cities tour, Part II. On Our Cover: A couple of years ago, when she was being interviewed for A/E, Ramona Fradon sent us photocopies of a number of commission drawings she had done. One humongous pencil illo in particular immediately caught our eye as the perfect design for the cover of this issue about Aquaman and two of his greatest artists—so, through his then-agent Keif A. Fromm, we were lucky to persuade John Watson to turn that sketch into a full-color painting. Gorgeous, no? Also, for a look at Ramona’s pencil version, see p. 37. [Aquaman TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

Above: Just one of the many great pencil sketches Ramona Fradon has done in recent years.

Looks to us like she’s better than ever! [Aquaman TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

This issue is dedicated to the memory of Joe Edwards, Jack Burnley, & Joseph R. Barbera 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.

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writer/editorial

Seeking Sea Kings I

’ve never made any bones about the fact that, both as kid and adult, I always preferred Timely/Marvel’s Sub-Mariner to DC’s Aquaman. So why an issue of Alter Ego that is virtually dedicated to the latter—or at least, to a couple of artists noted for drawing him?

2. Aquaman has arguably been, up to the present, at least as successful a character as Sub-Mariner, with a part of that good fortune owing to his palling around with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, et al., in Justice League of America since 1960 and in TV cartoons beginning in the 1970s.

3. Alter Ego is, after all, more a vehicle for comics history than for pure nostalgia… and a hero like Aquaman who’s been around since 1941 and is still going strong has a lot of history.

Several reasons.

1. From a personal viewpoint: whatever my quirks and preferences, I like both characters. Aquaman always had a lot going for him—a cool costume (till recently) and his meaningful relationship with creatures of the sea. And I had/have a special fondness for the artwork of Ramona Fradon. (I came of age way too late to read Paul Norris’ early work, though I find it quite vital.)

So put on your waterwings and get set to dogpaddle up Comic Book Creek!

Bestest,

A Face-To-Fish Encounter One of the most charming of Ramona Fradon’s commission sketches, with thanks to Russ Garwood. [Aqualad TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

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ROY THOMAS ON THE 1970s AT MARVEL COMICS! • All-new Invaders cover by GENE COLAN—colored directly from his pulsating pencils!

• RASCALLY ROY talks to JIM AMASH about the sensational ’70s at Marvel—in a humongous interview studded with rare art by ADAMS, ADKINS, ANDRU, both BUSCEMAS, BRUNNER, CHAYKIN, COCKRUM, COLAN, EVERETT, KANE, KIRBY, PÉREZ, PLOOG, ROBBINS, ROMITA, the SEVERIN siblings, SMITH, THORNE, TRIMPE, WRIGHTSON, & many others—not to mention some writers named CONWAY, ENGLEHART, GERBER, GOODWIN, MOENCH, SHOOTER, WEIN, WOLFMAN, and a guy called LEE! • A special (if way too brief) celebration of Golden Age artist LILY RENÉE (The Lost World, Señorita Rio, Werewolf Hunter, etc.) by TRINA ROBBINS! • MICHAEL T. GILBERT concludes his look at BOB POWELL—FCA with C.C. BECK, MARC SWAYZE, & ROY THOMAS’ 1981 Shazam! debut—& MORE! Edited by ROY THOMAS rica, Sub-Mariner, & The Red [Human Torch, Captain Ame Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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3

Maritime Passages A Pocket History Of The Sovereign Of The Seven DC Seas

by John Wells [Abridged and edited, with emphasis on the years 1941-75, from his fanzine Destination Cool! in CAPA-alpha #500 (June 2006); ©2007 John Wells. Sorry that, because of our twin interviews, we didn’t have room to print his indexes of villains and full slate of the hero’s appearances—or even more “Aquaman” artwork!]

W

Wading Into The Water

ith a few alterations in the pages of comics history, Aquaman might well have reached a crossroads in 1963.

Published consecutively in a succession of magazines since 1941, he had survived as Golden Age heavyweights like The Flash, Green Lantern, Captain America, and others had fallen by the wayside (though most were now back in new incarnations). With his solo berth in World’s Finest Comics now gone, appearances with the Justice League of America were the most he could hope for.

That was, in fact, the fate of Green Arrow, who’d been the Sea King’s stablemate since both characters had debuted in More Fun Comics #73 (Nov. 1941). Aquaman, however, had been starring in his own comic book since 1961. The loss of the secondary feature, far from an ending, signaled the beginning of real momentum in his career.

More Fun #73 had established the basics: Aquaman thrived underwater, had command of sea life, and was strong enough to put his fist

A Sea King, A Sea Prince, And A Sea Shell Ye Editor decided to indulge himself in choosing the illustration to lead off this issue’s triple-threat coverage of Aquaman and his artists—by showcasing an original pencil drawing by Ramona Fradon from his own collection. Ramona is interviewed in depth beginning on p. 31.

[Aquaman & Aqualad TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

through a submarine. Characteristic of a number of World War II-era heroes, he also had no compunctions about dispatching Nazis, drowning or blowing them up without a second thought.

Look Homeward, Atlantean Aquaman’s first origin, from More Fun Comics #73 (Nov. 1941)—at least as per DC’s Millennium Edition reprint. Script by Mort Weisinger, art by Paul Norris— whose interview by Shel Dorf begins on p. 15. Minor query: In the 2001 reprint, the hero has green gloves. Was that as per that first story, or was it an error made by a colorist who didn’t check the original story, since the gloves were nearly always yellow till the turn of the 1960s? [©2007 DC Comics.]

At right is a circa-1940 photo of “Aquaman” original writer/co-creator Mort Weisinger, from James Gunn’s 1975 book Alternate Worlds: The Illustrated History of Science Fiction. [Photo ©the respective copyright holders.]

A minimalist three-panel origin attributed his amphibious abilities to Atlantean science, discovered by his explorer father in the ruins of the fabled city. Described as “internationally renowned,” the scientist kept himself and his son in virtual seclusion in their watertight home beneath the sea until his death. Bereft of companionship, Aquaman (so named by his dad!) ventured to the surface, altruistically vowing to seek out and punish the wrongdoers of the “upper world.” (Aquaman’s late father would be mentioned once more, in More Fun #80.)

Clad in a scaled orange shirt and green tights, Aquaman would maintain the same basic uniform for most of his first five decades. The primary alteration was the coloring of his gloves, which were yellow until the end of the 1950s. The ankle fins on his tights, also initially

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A Pocket History Of The Sovereign Of The Seven DC Seas

“The Water Is Full Of Sharks” [Clockwise from above left, in the order in which they took the plunge into comic books:] First came Bill Everett’s Sub-Mariner in 1939—seen here in a panel from Sub-Mariner #1 (Spring 1941), repro’d from a Photostat of the original art. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Not long after Namor’s debut, and actually beating him into a color comic by a few weeks, came Lew Glanzman’s The Shark. This panel is from Amazing-Man #10 (March 1940). See in-depth interviews with both Lew and Wild Bill in Alter Ego #46. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Everett’s Hydro-Man erupted out of a firehose to rescue a damsel in distress on the cover of Heroic Comics #3 (Nov. 1940). [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

The Fin, yet another Everett creation, took his third and final Golden Age swim in Comedy Comics #9 (April 1942), but was more frogman than fish-man. Repro’d from the 1999 trade paperback The Golden Age of Marvel, Vol. 2. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

yellow, eventually moved up to his calves and were changed to green.

Aquaman was evidently created in response to Bill Everett’s SubMariner. Introduced in Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1 (April 1939), the earlier aquatic hero’s origin was reprinted and expanded later in the year in Marvel Comics #1. Prince Namor, as the half-breed (half human, half undersea being) was called, made the other rough-andtumble vigilantes of the day pale in comparison. His war with the surface-dwellers spilled through the 1940 issues, leading to memorable confrontations with one of the book’s other stars, The Human Torch.

With the intervention of the Torch and a New York police officer named Betty Dean, Namor’s rage was eventually focused on Nazis.

Aquaman, by comparison, was pretty benign.

The Sub-Mariner’s success was rewarded with his own title in early 1941. Surprisingly, a fairly similar character, Lew Glanzman’s hero The Shark, who was the son of Father Neptune himself, had premiered in Centaur’s Amazing Man #6 (Oct. 1939)—one month before Marvel Comics #1 (though of course some months after MPFW #1)! Everett himself created two Namor-imitators of sorts: The Fin, who survived underwater by means of an aqualung for three Timely/Marvel issues, beginning with Daring Mystery Comics #7 (April 1941), and the earlier Hydroman, who could transform himself into water and debuted in Eastern Color’s Heroic Comics #1 (August 1940).

Hydroman ran through 1944, while The Sub-Mariner made it into 1949. After a 1953-1955 revival, by which point Namor was relatively sedate, he would remain in limbo until Fantastic Four #4 in 1962. But that’s another story.

Aquaman and Green Arrow, himself derided in later years as a knock-off of Batman, owed their continued survival to the man who created them: Mort Weisinger. Best remembered today as the legendary editor of the 1950s and 1960s “Superman” family of titles, Weisinger retained the two strips as the second bananas of Adventure Comics and World’s Finest Comics after More Fun converted its contents to humor.

The Golden Age In addition to Weisinger, other writers on the series during the 1940s included Manly Wade Wellman, Joseph Greene, Joe Samachson, Ruth Kaufman, Paul Talbot, Don Cameron, George Kashdan, Otto Binder, and Jack Miller. Initially illustrated by Paul Norris, the strip’s art chores passed on to Louis Cazeneuve (1942-47) and John Daly (194751).

The second episode of the series (More Fun #74) introduced the man who would be Aquaman’s nemesis throughout much of the Golden Age. Dressed like a pirate of old, complete with mustache and beard, a purple bandanna, and a patch over his left eye, Black Jack sailed “the raider ship Nemesis” with his crew and plundered yachts of wealthy vacationers. “Nations are at war,” he declared. “All their ships are busy sinking each other. Bold lads can go out and loot wealthy cargoes.” His pirate garb was for psychological effect. “When we jump a ship, they take a look, know what their in for—and give up easy.”

Though he managed to overpower Aquaman with a gas grenade, Black Jack was convinced that a man of his abilities would be ideal for his crew and offered the heavily shackled hero a job. The response was not in the affirmative, and, at the end of the day, Aquaman had sunk the Nemesis and left its skipper and crew to drown. But, on a distant reef, a shivering, beaten Black Jack made a promise to settle the score.

By his fourth appearance (#86), Black Jack had traded in the bandanna for a sailor’s cap, and the eyepatch was gone by Adventure Comics #107. All told, he made twenty appearances, the last of them in Adventure #151 (1950).

Maritime Passages

Let’s Play Black Jack!

Paul Norris’ splash from More Fun Comics #80 (June 1942) featured another escapade featuring the piratical Black Jack. Scripter unknown. Thanks to John Schwirian. [©2007 DC Comics.]

More Fun #75 revealed that Aquaman lived in an air-filled “seafortress” (#75), later explicitly identified as a “temple of the lost city of Atlantis” (#82) and clearly the same structure where he’d grown up (#73). By issue #84, a sinister marine biologist even determined—based on regular sightings of Aquaman—the general location of the hero’s home base; he launched a “Raid on Atlantis,” captured the hero, and put him on public display. Kept docile by a will-inhibiting gas, Aquaman found the strength to rebel and turned over the revenue from his exhibition to the Navy Relief Fund. As a consequence of his enforced public tour, though, Aquaman was now a genuine celebrity, even agreeing to a Hollywood production that followed his round-theworld tour, the profits again going to the Navy (#86).

In late 1942 (#87), a stunned Aquaman found a lost colony of Atlantis, its occupants having existed in an air-filled bell jar beneath the sea since their descendants erected it centuries earlier. Curious about the outside world, the Atlanteans quickly found themselves overwhelmed by the ferocity of the upper world’s wildlife and its modern criminals and chose to return to seclusion.

Issue #82 was notable for its climactic sequence wherein Aquaman

The In-Betweeners A pair of splashes by the two talented artists who handled “Aquaman” between Paul Norris and Ramona Fradon. Louis Cazeneuve drew the dramatic splash below, for More Fun Comics #90 (April 1943)... and John Daily did the one at bottom right, featuring the first of several "Aquagirls" in the series, for Adventure Comics #132 (Aug. 1948). Scripters unknown. Thanks again to John Schwirian. [©2007 DC Comics.]

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A Pocket History Of The Sovereign Of The Seven DC Seas

Aquaman Makes A Splash A quartet of Golden Age splash pages starring the Sea King, between the Norris and Fradon eras. (Clockwise from above left:) More Fun Comics #103 (May-June 1945), with art by Louis Cazeneuve—and three splashes by John Daly: Adventure Comics #138 (March 1949)— #142 (July ’49)—& #152 (March 1950). The first was scanned for us by Bruce Mason, the latter trio by John Schwirian. [©2007 DC Comics.]

Maritime Passages

7

sleuth” Phineas Pike (Adventure #140-141, 143). An octopus ally, Topo, was introduced in Adventure #229, named in #243, and stuck around for a considerable time. Aquaman’s Namor-esque strength was totally forgotten, in favor of stories spotlighting his aquatic prowess and command of sea life.

Any shortcomings the series might have had were mitigated by the 1951 arrival of artist Ramona Fradon (Adventure #167, after illustrating “The Shining Knight” in the two previous issues). Fradon’s “Aquaman” was as polished and inviting as the best of the era’s strips.

As illustrator of the Silver Age rewrite of Aquaman’s origin (Adventure #260), her image of the future king’s mother holding him on her lap as she stared out at the sea remains a haunting, indelible image.

Fradon left comic books for good in 1980, signing on as artist on the Brenda Starr comic strip, a feature she continued through 1995. The aforementioned Paul Norris had made a similar transition decades earlier, taking over Brick Bradford, a science-fiction strip he maintained until its demise in 1987. Fradon’s and Norris’ final officially commissioned pieces of Aquaman art appeared in the 1988 hardcover volume of History of the DC Universe.

The Silver Age As the 1960s drew near, Mort Weisinger seemed to be grooming the properties in his trust for a more competitive future. 1958 had seen a Lois Lane spin-off, as well as the introduction of The Legion of SuperHeroes, Brainiac, and the bottle city of Kandor in the “Superman” titles. A trial run for “Supergirl” bore fruit in 1959. Green Arrow and Speedy found themselves blessed (briefly) with the services of Jack Kirby, capped by a new origin late in the year.

Ramona’s A Treasure Ramona Fradon’s splash page from Adventure Comics #167 (Aug. 1951).

Although this was her first published “Aquaman” tale, it is possible that it was not the first one she drew. See p. 34. Script credited on the GCD to Jack Miller. With thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. [©2007 DC Comics.]

was tied to a sun-drenched cliff and quickly dehydrated by the sun.

“Isn’t there any help for me in the sea?” he cried. “I call on my friends from the deep to get me out of this!” In response, a swordfish swam into the vicinity, repeatedly leaping from the sea to chip away at the rocky cliff until the chunk holding Aquaman fell into the water. Once he was there, a lobster cut the ropes holding him fast. Clearly, the prodigious strength that Aquaman had exhibited in early stories, power that had enabled him to dent and burst through metal (#76) and rip open the belly of a ship (#78), was on the wane. By #85, he’d have to use another swordfish to torpedo a sailing vessel. Aquaman’s communication with sea creatures became a constant in the series from this point onward.

World War II had cast its shadow over the series from Day One, but, in More Fun #90 and 93-96, Aquaman found his full attention directed towards the war in the Pacific. Perhaps the most notable episode was #96’s team-up between the king of the seas and a former US swimming champ, Chinese-American Lun Ming. After that, though, the series settled into a state of bland, episodic fare that would persist for years to come.

Essentially treated as filler for headliners like Superboy, it was never deemed necessary to provide Aquaman with a supporting cast. Aside from Black Jack, the best the strip could muster was sea lion pal Ark (More Fun #84-85, 89, 91; Adventure #111) and the thrice-seen “sea

And Aquaman? He had to wait until 1959 for his sequence of landmarks, all scripted by Robert Bernstein. Adventure #260 offered the aforementioned new origin. Simple and haunting, it related the story of lighthouse keeper Tom Curry’s marriage to a mysterious woman from the sea. Identifying herself as an Atlantean exile as she lay on her deathbed, Atlanna believed their son Arthur was capable of greatness, a potential that Tom helped the boy realize. Glimpsed from a distance in the episode’s final panel, Atlantis would remain a tantalizing mystery for another year.

The slight parallel to The Sub-Mariner’s mixed parentage notwithstanding, the new origin was more a reflection of the environment in which Aquaman was nurtured than anything published by Marvel Comics. How could a story of a child from a lost culture being raised to use his gifts for good be evocative of anything more than the story of Superman ?

Adventure #267 offered an unusual (for the time) historic event: after nearly twenty years of working back to back, Aquaman and Green Arrow finally met in a crossover of their strips—for all of one panel. Superboy had met a pre-Green Arrow Oliver Queen earlier in the year, but the Boy of Steel would have to wait until 1970 for a meeting with Aquaboy—Aquaman as a youngster (Superboy #171).

“The Kid from Atlantis” (#269) closed out the year. Another refugee from Atlantis, the orphaned boy, who was soon christened Aqualad, had purple eyes that suggested to Aquaman that he was a throwback to pre-disaster Atlantis. Destined to lose their aquatic powers, such children were usually sent to the surface as infants. Aqualad’s problem was a fear of fish, a phobia of which Aquaman had stripped him within seven pages.

In terms of appearance, Aqualad’s red and blue costume has undergone modifications over the years but remains essentially true to the original. The maturation process (and a change in artists) resulted in

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A Pocket History Of The Sovereign Of The Seven DC Seas

It’s Still The Same Old Story… A Fight For Love And Glory Aquaman’s second origin account a “slight parallel” to that of The Sub-Mariner?

That’s sure not what Ye Editor thought, when the May 1959 Adventure Comics hit the stands! At left is a page from Bill Everett’s re-telling of Namor’s 1939 origin in Sub-Mariner #33 (April 1954), with Princess Fen a spy for her human-menaced undersea kingdom (which, however, was never called “Atlantis” till 1962’s Fantastic Four #4)—while above are equivalent scenes from the Robert Bernsteinscripted, Ramona Fradon-drawn Adventure #260, as per Showcase Presents Aquaman. Similarities aside, both are great comics heroes! Sub-Mariner’s 1939 origin is available in the hardcover Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Marvel Comics, Vol. 1, and Arthur Curry’s in the hardcover Aquaman Archives, Vol. 1.

[Sub-Mariner art ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Aquaman art ©2007 DC Comics.]

Aqualad’s hair changing from straight brown to curly black in 1963.

Bernstein laid the groundwork for Aquaman’s latter-day acquisition of a sidekick with a few trial balloons. The purple-eye premise was established with #266’s Aquagirl, whose own powers disappeared abruptly by that story’s end. The concept of a pre-teen aquatic hero took center stage in #268’s “Adventures of Aquaboy” flashback to Arthur Curry’s youth.

On the stands simultaneously with Aqualad’s origin was The Brave and the Bold #28, featuring Aquaman and every other active DC super-hero of the time (except Green Arrow) as the Justice League of America. The tryout was a booming success, and Justice League of America #1 hit the stands in the latter half of 1960. Aqualad ended up with the Teen Titans, DC’s junior JLA concept, in 1964.

Despite virtually sitting out the first Justice League adventure, Aquaman proved to be a useful member under writer Gardner Fox, who was careful to include an underwater segment in nearly every story. On occasion, Fox would simply use the character as the League’s morale officer, pulling the group back from the brink of defeat in such early issues as #7 and #13.

One of Gardner Fox’s dilemmas while writing Justice League of America was in coming up with representative Aquaman foes whenever he put together a group to oppose the JLA. In issue #5 (1961), he pulled up Electric Man (from 1958’s Adventure #254), but after that he seemed stymied. Consequently, readers found themselves faced with “old enemies” of Aquaman that we’d never seen before. The Sea Thief was a non-descript guy in a diving suit (#14), while Dagon was a more imaginative rogue, dressed like an amphibian and capable of

controlling water (#35). By the time JLA #61 rolled around in 1968, Aquaman had finally begun to develop a group of colorful adversaries that included The Fisherman (Aquaman #21, 24) and Black Manta (Aquaman #35)—and yet there was a run-of-the-mill pirate called Cutlass Charlie as that issue’s Aqua-foe. Only in 1974 did another established Aquaman villain show up in one of those anti-JLA groups, when the Ocean Master joined an assemblage put together by the Queen Bee (Action Comics #443).

DC’s other try-out comic, Showcase, offered a seven-issue aquatic bloc in 1960 and 1961. Following the newly created Sea Devils (#2729), Aquaman got his shot at the big time (#30-33). The first of this quartet, Ramona Fradon’s sole book-length Sea King adventure, presented Aquaman’s historic entrance into Atlantis, where he and Aqualad were hailed as heroes after conquering invading forces within the city.

Though Fradon would continue on the World’s Finest shorts until they were discontinued, the full-length “Aquaman” stories would, for the foreseeable future, come from the pen of Nick Cardy. A mainstay of the industry since the 1940s, Cardy had distinguished himself as a lush, inky artist on such 1950s DC titles as Gang Busters, Congo Bill, and Daniel Boone. Showcase #31-33 offered a far more sedate Cardy, obviously instructed to emulate Fradon’s own style. (Dick Dillin’s and Sheldon Moldoff’s covers for #30, 31, and 33, it must be noted, outdid Cardy in replicating the Fradon look.)

Following Robert Bernstein’s departure from scripts, the series’ primary writer became long-time contributor Jack Miller, who launched the book-length stories in Showcase and remained until the mid-1960s.

Maritime Passages

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A Couple Of Cardy Covers Nick Cardy (seen above in 2000) had a long stint on Aquaman—and as the mag’s cover artist even after he was no longer drawing the interiors. (Want proof? Check out Nick’s lavishly illustrated interview in A/E #65!) We were torn between showing you his never-published (and only halfinked) cover for Aquaman #43 (Jan.-Feb. 1969)—and the published cover of #56 (April 1971), that series’ final issue. So we printed ’em both from scans of the original art—and everybody’s a winner. The former was retrieved by Dominic Bongo from the Heritage Comics Archives; the latter was sent by Joe & Nadia Mannarino of All Star Auctions (see their ad on p. 31). Photo by Bob Bailey. [©2007 DC Comics.]

With his creation now in the editorial hands of Jack Schiff (in World’s Finest and the early book-length installments) and George Kashdan (with Aquaman #5), Mort Weisinger trotted out multiple Aquaman guest shots throughout the “Superman” family titles in 1960 and 1961, apparently in an effort to remind everyone who had created the character.

Though successfully launched into his own comic book in late 1961, Aquaman’s first ten issues were unremarkable. Prominently featured was a pixie named Quisp (a kinder, gentler Bat-Mite, if you will) and an Atlantean villain named Pomoxis (#3, 7).

Ah, but issue #11 (1963) was a different story. Miller displaced Quisp with Mera, a statuesque redhead in a green jumpsuit. A visiting queen from another dimension, Mera was able to transform water into solid masses, visually similar to some of the stunts that the Fantastic Four’s Sue Richards would eventually perform. With #13, Mera joined the cast for the duration.

In sharp contrast to the “no girls in the clubhouse” sentiment espoused by those guys in Gotham City, Aquaman and Aqualad loved Mera! Unafflicted by the angst that comes from having to protect one’s secret identity, the boys made their affection for her quite clear. By issue #18, the principals were on the horns of a dilemma. Reluctantly crowned king of Atlantis, Aquaman learned after the fact that he was required to take an Atlantean bride. Mera, meanwhile, had been stripped of her powers and stranded in Earth’s dimension. It was Aqualad who pointed out the obvious solution: as king, Aquaman could make Mera an honorary Atlantean, providing him with a wife and her with a home. Mera’s powers would return in #22.

With the entire Justice League on hand, the first delineated superhero wedding in comics history took place. Beyond so-called imaginary tales, there had been prior married heroes in comics. The Silver Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl were the first (1961), followed soon after by after-the-fact revelations that The Elongated Man had wed Sue Dearborn and the Golden Age Flash had finally married Joan Williams.

With a precedent of sorts having been established, succeeding years saw the marriages of Reed and Sue Richards (Fantastic Four, 1965), Steve

and Rita Dayton (Doom Patrol, 1966), Barry and Iris Allen (The Flash, 1966), and Hank and Janet Pym (The Avengers, 1968). The SubMariner himself married Dorma in 1971, but she didn’t live long enough to see the honeymoon.

By the mid-1960s, both of George Kashdan’s aquatic titles were putting their focus on family affairs. Any temptation writers might have had to ascribe The Sub-Mariner’s personality onto Aquaman was resolved with the creation of The Man-Fish in Sea Devils #22 (1965).

Haughty and combative in the manner of Namor, The Man-Fish engaged in a feud with Captain X (or should we say Captain Nemo ?) that intersected with the Sea Devils through four more issues (#24, 26, 28, 30). Matters were complicated further by the fact that the Captain was the father of the Devils’ leader, Dane Dorrance.

Back in Aquaman, the family portrait was expanded further with the similarly unprecedented birth of Aquababy (#23). Then there were the relatives that the Curry family didn’t talk about. Mera’s twin sister had shown up first (#22), but it was Aquaman’s step-brother who had real staying power (#29). He was the first major contribution of writer Bob Haney (who’d come aboard with #25).

The product of Tom Curry’s second marriage, Orm resented his step-brother’s aquatic prowess and increasingly ran afoul of the authorities. Stricken with amnesia, he forgot his sibling and established a career in piracy as The Ocean Master. Recognizing the bandit, Aquaman was unable to fight back or reveal the truth to Orm. Ostensibly a villain, The Ocean Master thrice joined Aquaman in defeating greater threats (#32, 35, 37), becoming quite fond of Arthur in the process.

Rounding out the cast was Tula, a spirited girlfriend for Aqualad who became known as Aquagirl (#33). Aquawomen who’d failed to make the cut over the years had included two earlier Aquagirls from Atlantis (Lisa Morel in Adventure #266 and Selena in World’s Finest #133) and Aqua-Queen (Dale Conroy in Adventure #274), who attempted to outdo Aquaman with technology in a rewrite of an earlier story (Adventure #187).

10

A Pocket History Of The Sovereign Of The Seven DC Seas

Aquaman “Skeates” On Thin Ice Writer Steve Skeates (top center, c. 1970) and artist Jim Aparo (center) became a team to remember in the latter days of the first Aquaman series.

Thanks to Jean Bails and Ed Fields for the photos.

(Left:) The Skeates/Aparo Aquaman was as ready to slug it out with his enemies as Sub-Mariner was over at Marvel—as per this great page from Aquaman #52 (July-Aug. 1970). Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, with thanks to Mike Burkey (whose ads appear on pp. 14 & 83.) [©2007 DC Comics.]

(Right:) After Aquaman was cancelled and Steve began to write for Marvel, the latter’s editor-in-chief mischievously suggested that Steve tie up a few dangling Aquaman plot threads in Sub-Mariner #72 (Sept. 1974). By sheer coincidence, alas, that turned out to be the final issue of Namor’s Silver Agespawned series, as well. Steve must’ve felt he was specializing in closing down sub-sea series! [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

An unexpected burst of fame came with 1967’s Aquaman animated cartoon, which included scripts by George Kashdan and Jack Miller (and caused a brief addition to the comic book’s cast in the form of Aqualad’s walrus Tusky). Kashdan, Haney, and Cardy weren’t feeling particularly celebratory, though. They’d all been replaced by new hires from Charlton Comics: Dick Giordano (editor), Steve Skeates (writer), and Jim Aparo (artist).

Haney and Cardy wouldn’t lack for work, of course, continuing to collaborate into the 1970s on such titles as The Brave and the Bold and Teen Titans. Still, the loss stung and they were determined to go out with a bang. Jim Aparo ruefully recalled in Comics Scene #5 (1982) that “when word came down that I was going to be on the Aquaman feature, about two or three issues before I got my first one published, [Cardy] opened up.… When I saw those books, I was sick.”

With Cardy still a presence on the book by way of a succession of stunning covers, Aparo submerged his own style in an attempt to evoke his predecessor, just as Cardy had done with Fradon. Once Aparo eased into his own voice, his vision of Aquaman became the definitive one for a generation of fans growing up in the 1970s.

The post-Aquaman years proved a breakthrough period for Cardy.

While experimenting with layouts on his interior work in books such as Teen Titans and Sergio Aragones’ classic Bat Lash, he turned out dozens of poster-style covers and was DC’s preeminent cover artist by the time he left comics for the advertising field in 1974.

Nearly three decades of self-contained stories came to an end with the new team’s launch of a ten-issue odyssey in #40 (1968) that wrapped up in the final 1969-dated issue. Aquaman embarked on that hoariest of plot devices—the quest—in search of a kidnapped Mera.

Along the way, he found lost civilizations, old enemies, and new friends: Atlantean scientist Vulko (a Haney creation from #35) and political activist Mupo (#46). A sidetrip in the Haney-scripted Brave and the Bold #82 revisited The Ocean Master, providing him with an alias, “Orm Marius,” that stuck as his real name.

Skeates, who had received the assignment by arriving at DC a day before another Charlton refugee, Dennis O’Neil, recalled in Comic Book Marketplace #45 (1997): “When I was taking over Aquaman, Dick told me to ‘make it a Western.’ I really liked the idea of Aquaman going from one little undersea community to another.”

Reversing usual quest protocol, Mera found Aquaman (#45), they tracked down Aqualad (#47). and everyone headed back to Atlantis to help Aquagirl put down a coup (#48). A subplot saw Atlantis stricken by a series of quakes that some felt presaged the city’s rise from the ocean. The implications were left for Skeates’ successors, save for his tongue-in-cheek “Is California Sinking?” (#53).

“City on the Edge of Nowhere,” involving Ocean Master’s alliance with aliens and Aquaman’s plunge into a micro-universe (#50-52), was turned on its head by Giordano’s decision to complement it with a Neal Adams-written-and-illustrated “Deadman” back-up. Adding key

Maritime Passages

plot points and amplifying others, the first installment also offered a genuine turning point. Deadman’s possession of Orm unwittingly revived all of the villain’s lost memories. Rendered unable to harm his brother, Ocean Master was still perfectly willing to take a stab at Aqualad as the story continued in Teen Titans #28-29. (#30, incidentally, cover-featured Aqualad’s first solo story, guest-starring Tula.)

The ecologically-tinged “Creature That Devoured Detroit” (#56, March-April 1971) brought the Aquaman series to a close. The story is said to have provoked an angry response from DC publisher Carmine Infantino, but Skeates never learned why. Having concluded the episode with Aquaman’s destruction of a satellite that was causing algae to run amok in Detroit, Skeates penned a direct sequel three years later in Marvel’s Sub-Mariner #72—itself the final issue of Namor’s run!

Of historical note is Aquaman #56’s two-page back-up. The first and only “Aquagirl” solo story, it introduced the cursed undersea “Cave of Death.” A similarly cryptic “Aqualad” three-pager, prepared for #57, showed up in Teen Titans #36. (The pair had been fillers initiated by Giordano in case one of Skeates’ stories ran short.)

11

Aquaman #57’s advertised lead, a contemporary team-up with Green Arrow, was never completed. A last-ditch effort at reviving the series, Super DC Giant #S-26’s Fradon-era reprint collection (with a Giordano cover and a new Skeates two-pager), struck out in the spring of 1971.

Skeates was asked to reconstruct #57’s original plot for an article in Comic Book Marketplace #83/The O’Neil Observer #2 (2000) but, understandably, couldn’t recall most of the details. Basically, it would have picked up where #56 left off, with Aquaman sustaining multiple bullet wounds as he fled from the lab. After losing and regaining consciousness a couple times, Aquaman finally made it to Lake Erie, only to discover that he’d lost his ability to breathe underwater … and his telepathic powers. Forced to resort to hitchhiking in order to reach a safe haven, Aquaman unexpectedly flagged down Green Arrow, “who [was] piloting a van (one that [looked] like a hippie-bus) returning from some sort of adventure of his own.”

Instead, Skeates created a new aquatic hero for Warren Publishing later in 1971 and eventually recycled his plot for Aquaman #57 as “The Once Powerful Prince” in Eerie #40, wherein villains stole the mystic ring that gave Prince Targo his undersea powers. The first Prince Targo script appeared in Eerie #36 (“Prototype”), and the chronologically third was in Eerie #37 (“The Other Side of Atlantis”).

In the years leading up to the cancellation, Aquaman had been virtually exiled from Justice League of America. Dennis O’Neil, Gardner Fox’s replacement, used him only once (#68), and O’Neil’s successor, Mike Friedrich, initially brought the Sea King out only for ecological adventures (#86, 88, 90). Aqualad got similar treatment in Teen Titans, bumped in favor of Green Arrow’s partner Speedy in issue #19. As comics fandom began to make its first imprints on the industry, the departure of the aquatic heroes was justified in the name of cross-continuity: Aquaman and Aqualad dropped out because they were looking for Mera.

Now strictly confined to JLA, Aquaman received a much-needed boost courtesy of the title’s fourth regular scripter, Len Wein. Often dismissed as an also-ran when surrounded by the likes of Superman, Aquaman under Wein was once again a powerhouse, as stated explicitly in #111: “Muscles that are used to dealing with the pressures of the ocean floor... are downright super-strong here on the surface!”

Aquaman Re-surfaces Aquaman owed his return to an animated incarnation of the group.

As the only member of 1973’s Super Friends cartoon without a home, Aquaman was slotted into the back of his old stomping grounds, Adventure Comics, his return trumpeted atop the cover of #435 (1974). Continuing through #437 with Skeates on scripts, the art was the first comic book work of Mike Grell. The initial installment had been assigned within an hour of Grell’s arrival at the DC offices!

(Sandwiched on the schedule between #435 and #436 was Secret Origins #7, which cover-featured Aquaman and included a reprint of More Fun #73’s debut installment. More Fun #73 would later be reprinted in its entirety as a 2001 Millennium Edition.)

With Friends Like These…

TV’s Super Friends brought Aquaman back into the spotlight in 1973 by teaming him with DC’s best-known stars: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. The series had earned a comic book edition by 1976. This cover, penciled by longtime Super Friends (and “Aquaman”) artist Ramona Fradon and inked by Bob Smith, is from issue #39 (Dec. 1980); repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, courtesy of Richard Howell. [©2007 DC Comics.]

Though the Aquaman tagline would seem to have increased sales on #435, it’s that issue’s lead that everyone remembers, specifically the infamous scene in which The Spectre turned a killer to wood and sawed him up. Already having misgivings about the black-humored strip, DC leapt at the opportunity to replace it. The Spectre’s Jim Aparo made the transition back to “Aquaman” with #441.

Scripted by Paul Levitz through #448, the primary story arc saw Aquaman dethroned, replaced on Atlantis’ throne by Karshon. (The marriage requirement, presumably, had been abolished) By the time it was over, the entire cast, including Vulko, Mupo, and the major villains,

12

A Pocket History Of The Sovereign Of The Seven DC Seas

Aquababy (#452), a dubious plot development that provided every later writer on the series with an easy shortcut around real character development. It was at this point in the proceedings that Aquaman #57 (1977) hit the stands. Aparo bailed out with #59, followed soon after by Michelinie (#61). With cancellation looming, Paul Kupperberg (script) and Don Newton (pencils) took over.

A “Mera trilogy” (#58-60) revived Aquababy long enough to let him die again, all the better to create conflict between Mera and Aquaman in #62. The Ocean Master, now completely around the bend, showed up in #63 seeking his step-brother’s death. The issue closed with Aqualad, an eyewitness to Aquababy’s death, asking Aquaman and Mera, “How’s Arthur Jr. ?”

Bounced to back-up status again (Adventure #460-466; World’s Finest #262-264), the series continued to substitute confrontation for characterization, Vulko becoming an argumentative foil for Aquaman’s bargain-basement Sub-Mariner. New writer Bob Rozakis (#464) provided much-needed damage control, turning the volume down on Aquaman while assigning Vulko’s behavioral shift to an imposter.

Rozakis also introduced Atlena, a survivor of ancient Atlantis (World’s Finest #262) and moved Aquaman and Mera to a flooded ghost town, whose citizens had built New Venice atop its ruins (#263-264). The city dated back to 1959’s Adventure #264.

Dawn Of A Newton Day Don Newton’s debut as “Aquaman” artist came in DC Special #28 (June-July 1979), in a story inked by Dan Adkins and scripted by Gerry Conway. Its title: “A Creature of Death and Darkness!” Repro’d from a photocopy of the autographed original art, with thanks to Adam J. Brooks. [©2007 DC Comics.]

had been revisited. After Karshon was exposed as Green Lantern’s foe, The Shark, his reign gave way to Vulko’s! Aquaman, pointing out that his old friend had refused to leave Atlantis even in the face of a dictatorship (“As long as I breathe, I’ll never leave her!”), deemed Vulko far more worthy of the throne than he ever was.

The Aquaman revival proved sufficiently successful to justify a second reprint giant in DC Super-Stars #7 (1976), this one spotlighting Nick Cardy’s art. 1977 saw extracurricular solo stories appear in DC Special #28 (featuring Don Newton’s first artwork on the character) and DC Special Series #1.

On the heels of #449’s Skeates/Aparo reunion, David Michelinie picked up a thread from Levitz and reexamined the origin of Aqualad.

With the introduction of a race of purple-eyed pacifists known as the Idylists came the implication of a connection with Aqualad, explaining why he’d never lost his aquatic powers (#450-452). A Paul Kupperberg-scripted “Aqualad” trilogy in the back of #453-455 revealed the truth: Aqualad’s father had been Thar, king of the Idylists.

Inexplicably seized with a desire for war with other tribes, Thar was assassinated by the pacifists. Thar’s pregnant widow Berra was exiled to Atlantis.

The “Idylist” arc is best remembered for Black Manta’s murder of

Aquaman In Action Splash of a story from the days when Aquaman was singing backup for Superman, with lyrics by Bob Rozakis. This Alex Saviuk/Frank McLaughlin art is from Action Comics #538 (Dec. 1982). Repro’d from an autographed copy of the original art, with thanks to Mike Burkey. [©2007 DC Comics.]

Maritime Passages

13

An Aquaman For All Seasons (Left:) In recent years, DC’s Sea King has gone through some real changes, including having one hand amputated and replaced with a hook (though it seems to have grown back). Still another “era” (collect them all) was heralded as slated to commence with Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis #50 (March 2007). Us, we’re just glad to see the ol’ waterlogged wonder still kickstroking around after two-thirds of a century! [©2007 DC Comics.]

(Above:) But, to close on a lighter note—here’s a strip drawn by the ever-inventive Fred Hembeck in 2005 (at the suggestion of A/E’s ace celebrity-photog Keif Simon) for the birthday of collector Tom Bradley—who kindly shared it with us. Hope you had a good one, Tom! [Aquaman TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

Aquaman Archives, Vol. 1, released in January of 2003 as part of the promotional push for the latest relaunch. Beginning with the 1959 origin, the hardback collected the landmark run encompassing Adventure #260-282 and Showcase #30 & 31.

The 1959 origins of Aquaman and Aqualad were trotted out again in issues of DC’s digest line: DC Special Series #19 (1979) and DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest #9 (1981). They’d previously been reprinted, courtesy of Dick Giordano, in Aquaman [Vol. 1] #48 and Showcase #79 in 1968-69. The Ocean Master’s origin was rerun in The Best of DC #10. 1982-83 saw the reprinting of Aquaman #40-52 in the final digest-sized issues of Adventure Comics (#491-499, 501-503).

The late 1970s had also seen a few other landmarks. For one, Ramona Fradon returned to draw Aquaman in the Super Friends comic book. Of particular note was #27’s story set in Atlantis with guest-appearances by Mera, whom Fradon had drawn for the first time in #25, and Aqualad.

Following up on a letter column reply from late 1964’s Superman #175, E. Nelson Bridwell’s Super Friends #9 finally explained the disparity between Superman’s Atlantis (populated by mer-people such as Lori Lemaris) and Aquaman’s home. They were actually sister cities on the continent of Atlantis, with Aquaman’s named Poseidonis and Lori’s known as Tritonis. Though Aquaman and Lori occasionally appeared in the same story during the 1960s, readers didn’t see them meet face-to-face until DC Comics Presents #5 (1978).

Effective with #15 of the current series (2004), Arthur Curry was clean-shaven, back in his orange chain mail shirt, and once again approaching the original Norris design. In 2006’s Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis #40, even More Fun #73’s origin was back, applied to a brand new Aquaman who, like his 1941 counterpart, was a scientist’s son endowed with incredible aquatic abilities. It was all quite appropriate, particularly since the splash page of each issue since #7 (2003) bore the legend: “Aquaman created by Paul Norris.”

Proof that, if you wait long enough, everything always comes full circle.

JOHN WELLS is an authority on the history of DC Comics and its characters, contributing information to writers such as Kurt Busiek, Steve Gerber, Geoff Johns, Denny O'Neil, Roger Stern, and Mark Waid and acquiring the title of "official unofficial researcher" during the lifespan of Bob Rozakis' cyberspace Answer Man column. The creator of a massive private database of DC Comics character appearances from the past seven decades, John is also known by his online alter ego of Mikishawm.

Monthly! The Original First-Person History!

Lori mostly faded away after that, ultimately killed in Crisis on Infinite Earths, the same 1985 mini-series that saw Tula perish amidst the toxins of Chemo. By this point, Aquaman had seen his own solo series shift from World’s Finest to Adventure Comics to Action Comics before being abandoned altogether. Following an awkward run as leader of a revamped Justice League, the Sea King starred in a 1986 mini-series that gave him a short-lived new costume. A succession of relaunches would follow over the next twenty years, most successfully the Peter David run from 1994-1998 that replaced Aquaman’s hand with a harpoon and gave him chainmail, a beard, and a bad attitude.

By the time the sixth Aquaman #1 rolled out, the classic look was coming back, with representations on statues, action figures, and even

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

$200,000 PAID FOR ORIGINAL COMIC ART! COLLECTOR PAYING TOP DOLLAR FOR “ANY AND ALL” ORIGINAL COMIC BOOK AND COMIC STRIP ARTWORK FROM THE 1930S TO PRESENT! COVERS, PINUPS, PAGES, IT DOESN’T MATTER! 1 PAGE OR ENTIRE COLLECTIONS SOUGHT! CALL OR EMAIL ME ANYTIME!

330-221-5665 mikeburkey@aol.com OR SEND YOUR LIST TO:

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P.O. BOX 455 • RAVENNA, OH 44266 CASH IS WAITING, SO HURRY!!!!!

[Aquaman TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

[Anthem TM & ©2007 Roy & Dann Thomas.]

15

“Take Your Foot In Hand And Come To New York!”

That Was Ace Artist Milt Caniff’s Advice To Young Artist PAUL NORRIS—And He Took It! Interview Conducted by Shel Dorf

A/E

Transcribed by Brian K. Morris

EDITOR’S NOTE: Shel Dorf, one of the cofounders of the San Diego Comic-Con, had this little talk with artist Paul Norris on Sept. 1, 1992. Shel didn’t worry about where it might be published, or when. He simply held on to the tape. And, a few years ago, he and I were talking on the phone when he mentioned he had done unseen interviews with Norris, Sheldon Moldoff, and one or two other illuminiaries, and might Alter Ego be interested in transcribing the audio tapes and publishing them? We sure would!

However, one thing after another intervened—but now, 15 years after it was recorded, this cogent conversation sees the light of day at last. And you know what? That’s the great thing about doing a mag that deals with history: history’s just as valid one year, or one decade, as another! Oh, and special thanks to Paul Norris himself, for going over the transcript a year or so back and correcting a few of the unintelligible parts. If a few words or phrases remained undecipherable—well, you can fill in the blanks with your own guesses, right? —Roy.

Water And Brick Paul Norris (above right) and Shel Dorf, in January 2002—flanking art representative of both Paul’s comic book and comic strip work: the splash pages of the very first “Aquaman” story, from More Fun Comics #73 (Nov. 1941), as reprinted in the 2001 Millennium Edition—and of a “Brick Bradford” adventure from The Phantom #28 (Dec. 1967), published by King Comics. Love that Time Top! (For an example of Norris’ actual Brick Bradford comic strip work, see the following page.) Mort Weisinger scripted Aquaman’s origin— while Norris wrote, drew, and even lettered the “Bradford” 4-pager. Thanks to Shel for the photo, which was taken by Matt Lorentz, and to Hart Rieckhof for the King art. [Aquaman art ©2007 DC Comics; Brick Bradford art ©2007 King Features Syndicate.]

16

Young Artist Paul Norris Took Milt Caniff’s Advice

have, back in the ’30s; it crashed in eastern Ohio.

“The Thing That Got Me Started” SHEL DORF: This is Shel Dorf , recording from Oceanside, which is only fitting, since we’re with Paul Norris, original artist of “Aquaman,” and retired cartoonist. Paul, let’s have a quick overview of your career; then we’ll go back and go into detail.

Starting with your first printed drawing—what was that?

SD: A lot of great comic artists come of Ohio, for some reason. The part I came from had the rich, black ground which was supposed to have been the richest, the most fertile ground in a non-irrigated, agricultural area in the United States. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it.

PAUL NORRIS: My first printed drawing was a political cartoon in the “Letters to the Editor” section of the Dayton Daily News, 1932. It was promoting FDR [Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was elected President in November of that year]. He didn’t need any promotion by me, but that’s how it worked.

NORRIS: There was Clarence Gray, the original artist of [the comic strip] Brick Bradford. And Noel Sickles [artist of the strip Scorchy Smith] came from Chillicothe. I used hear a story that, when he was growing up in Chillicothe, he’d go down to the railroad yards and sit there and draw trains. That’s why he was so good at drawing tanks in World War II, and the material he did for Life magazine. He just had a natural feeling for the mechanics of those things.

SD: And the first extended run of anything, any cartoons that you did?

NORRIS: Well, Scoop Lenz was a Sunday page I wrote and drew from 1937 to 1940; it’s actually the thing that got me started. It was printed on the back page of Camerica, a magazine section of the Dayton Daily News. Scoop was a newspaper photographer, carrying around a real Graphlex camera. Back in the ’30s, that’s what all the newspaper people used.

I got into contact with Milt [Milton Caniff, creator of the strip Terry and the Pirates], who was also from Dayton, through Scoop. My wife worked with Milt’s mother in Donnenfelds, a ladies’ department store in Dayton. Mrs. Caniff was a buyer and salesperson; my wife Ann worked in the office. They became very good friends, which helped in the developing of my relationship with Caniff. I was nine years younger than Caniff. I also knew George, Milt’s cousin.

SD: What profession was your father in?

NORRIS: He worked for General Motors in Detroit, in the axel division. I didn’t really know my father. I grew up with my maternal grandparents in Palestine, a little town of about 150 people. That was an agricultural area where people did everything except sit down and draw. The only people in town who could draw were the village idiot and myself. [laughs] And he was a pretty nice guy.

SD: [laughs] But he could draw!

NORRIS: He’d do everything, if it came into his mind, I guess. I can’t attach any subject matter to it, but he was pretty good at it.

I tried to participate in every form of athletics I could, and I did, simply because, in my free time, I would sit around and draw. And I didn’t want anyone to think, “Aw, he’s a sissy.”

Artists and actors tended to be looked down on. But I had some very understanding grandparents as the best parents, and a spinster aunt that was so good to me. My mother died when I was born.

That’s why I wound up with my maternal grandparents.

SD: Maybe we should start biographically. You were born in Dayton, Ohio?

NORRIS: No, I was born in Greenville, Ohio, which is 39 miles north of Dayton, on April 26, 1914. That’s a famous place to have been born, because that’s where Annie Oakley came from, and Lowell Thomas. And a guy you’ve probably never heard of: Zachary Lansdown. He was the commander of the Shenandoah, one of the Zeppelins the Navy used to

SD: You know, it’s ironic. I once interviewed Bill Everett, the man who

A Scorch-ed Brick Two masters of the adventure strip at work: the Clarence Gray-drawn Brick Bradford Sunday for Jan. 2, 1937, repro’d from the wonderful 1995 illustrated history The Comic Strip Century, edited by Bill Blackbeard & Dale Crain—and (bel0w) Noel Sickles’ Scorchy Smith daily for June 22, 1936. [Brick Bradford art ©2007 King Features Syndicate; Scorchy Smith art ©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

“Take Your Foot in Hand And Come To New York!”

created “Sub-Mariner”... and he said his father was a seafaring man, a sailor, and a very macho guy, and here he had his son who sat around and drew pictures, and his father berated him for doing it and called him a sissy-boy. And his mother was the one who nurtured his career and encouraged him, and he had a great career as a comic book artist. You both did water characters.

But let’s get back to your youth. An incredible number of cartoonists have printers for fathers: Will Eisner’s father was a printer, and Milton Caniff’s father was a printer. And the kids used to spend some time at the print shop, drawing on scraps of paper, but this wasn’t your experience. Can you remember the earliest things you liked to draw?

NORRIS: I just always liked to draw people, characters. And to go around, drawing in the print shops, I used to get wrapping paper from the stores. Any package that would come in, my grandparents would make sure it was nice and clean. And that’s what I salvaged and drew pictures on. My grandmother had a big old cabinet, and there was a breadboard—it was about a 12-inch bread drawer under the thing—that I could pull out; it was as big as some drawing boards. I would sit at that breadboard in the kitchen when my aunt and my mother weren’t busy, and draw. It made an excellent place to work.

17

“I Wanted To Study Journalism” SD: So when you got into college—well, let’s name your high school back in Ohio.

NORRIS: Palestine High School. It was a regional high school that no longer exists. They took about three towns and put them together. I guess it was Hollansburg, New Madison, and Palestine. When I was in high school, they used to play basketball against us, because they all had their individual high schools. I was tall and gangly. As a matter of fact, I grew too fast, and in my freshman or sophomore year in high school, I decided to best all my friends. I felt awkward, I really did, to be walking around heads and shoulders above them.

And I think, at that time, it caught up with me.

I attended Midland College in Freemont, Nebraska, and that, of course, was to find a profession. The first year out of high school, I wrote to J.C. Penney in Greenville. I got a job there because I was supposed to be a card-writer and paint small price cards for small items that were on sale in the store. The reason I went to Nebraska is that I had a cousin who was head of the Journalism Department, and through his influence I got to Midland. I’d really given up hope of ever going to college. To me, it was just a dream I had to throw away.

SD: Why did you want to go to college? In those days, not a lot of people did.

SD: I like that. When you got into the school system, you were the kid that probably did the school posters and things for the yearbook, or anything like that.

NORRIS: I drew pictures, yeah. I got whipped for them. I got tattled on to the teachers—for drawing when I shouldn’t have been. [laughs] But no, we didn’t have an art department, or a yearbook when I was in high school. I didn’t get involved in that kind of thing until I got into college. I hated to paint signs, but I found I could make a little money at it, so I made signs. I mean, a barbershop window and dentistry or a sign on the hallway with a hand pointing towards his office—I did that.

SD: I was told that sign-painting is strictly American—that, in Europe, sign-painters have to be able to draw things, as well, because of all the different languages. So a store would have a hangout sign with a pair of scissors for a barbershop, or the visual image of what that business was all about. A bakery had loaves of bread; they were selling pictures as well, because they were multi-lingual.

But when you got to the United States, everything was in English, so the sign-painters did not really have to be artists.

NORRIS: That is interesting, because when you think of all the old inns and pubs and so on, in Europe, they always had a fox head or a boar’s head or some other illustration.

Forbidden Tarzan Since we don’t have any samples of Paul’s Scoop Lenz strip to show you, how about these Norris drawings of a slightly more famous character?

Here, repro’d from photocopies of the original art courtesy of Alley Oop artist Jack Bender, are a page from Norris’ Gold Key/Western adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel Tarzan and the Forbidden City in Tarzan #190 (Feb. 1970), as inked by Mike Royer—and a personalized drawing Paul sent to Jack some time back. [©2007 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.]

18

Young Artist Paul Norris Took Milt Caniff’s Advice

Got A Minute? Watch A Movie!

Ed Wheelan wrote and drew the comic strip Minute Movies beginning in the second decade of the 20th century. As reported in a cover blurb on a Hyperion Press reprint, it “brought the charm and gaucherie of the silent cinema to the daily comic strip page,” with 10 to 16 panels each day featuring “his own studio and cast of major players” taking different roles in different “movies.” Here’s a wide panel that introduced that versatile cast. Years later, Wheelan drew “Fat and Slat” and other features for DC Comics, then for EC, and he remains a cult favorite of sorts. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

NORRIS: I wanted to study journalism because I wanted to be a journalist; I wanted to be able to write my stories. I had some idea of writing it all, and that’s why I felt it was necessary to have a college background.

SD: What were some of your favorite comic strips in those days?

NORRIS: Did you ever see Ed Wheelan’s Minute Movies? To me, that was the greatest thing. I sold The Cincinnati Post on the street corner in this little town of ours, and when I picked up my bundle of papers, before I distributed them, I’d get down on the floor and read that comic strip. Of course, Wheelan did a lot of work. Instead of just one strip, he had a double strip, one on top of the other. I’m sorry I never met him. He was in New York. When I first lived in New York—I’d known Bob Dunne, who knew Ed, but nothing worked out.

And of course, I followed The Gumps [comic strip by Sidney Smith], because it was a story strip. It was the soap opera of the day, because they were just starting to have soap operas on the radio.

I had some encouragement for selling to The Cincinnati Post through an editorial cartoonist. His name was Schafer [sp?], and he’d write encouraging letters to me, which I appreciated. After the year I worked for J.C. Penney, my motivation was to get enough money to go to the Dayton Art Institute. At $10 a week, you didn’t pile up much money. Of course, it only cost you a quarter to go to a movie, but you didn’t save a great deal. Papers sold for a penny, two cents.

Well, I went into college. I was the first freshman to ever be the art editor of the college yearbook. And I was president of the college YMCA. To pay my bills, I was on the NYA Program—National Youth Administration. It was a program, like the WPA, to help students. I also painted signs for two movie theatres, and I made cards or signs for Montgomery Wards store. And on weekends, I sold shoes for Buck’s Booterie, a fine shoe store in Fremont, Nebraska—and that’s where I made my most money, because I had a commission set-up, very profitable.

SD: I sold them, too, for a couple of weeks. I don’t know why, but so many artists—you read their biographies, and they were all shoe salesmen at one time, and newspaper boys.

NORRIS: Selling shoes at Buck’s Booterie, I learned from a couple of old professional shoemen the tricks of the trade. I’ll tell you one in particular. There were many Swedish people in the community, and some of the women were very large, and they had large feet. And I recall this young daughter, Dina [sp?], coming in to buy a pair of boots for her mother, in the wintertime. And she had a string that was the length of her mother’s boots that she had. Well, I got the biggest woman’s boot I could find, and it was short of the string. So I cut the string to fit the boot. [laughs] So that’s one of the things I learned from those guys. I’m ashamed of that!

“I Drew It For Nothing” SD: So how far did you go in college?

NORRIS: Well, that’s where cartooning came in. I had a cousin who was in radio in Chicago, as a sales rep. He sold time for WCFL. His wife was Margie Hannan, an actress. She was Ma Perkins’ daughter on that top radio soap opera of the ’30s.

SD: “Oh, Effie!” That was the heyday of radio. Chicago was the zenith of radio.

NORRIS: I lived in Ohio and I hitchhiked to Nebraska, and I had a little stop in Chicago and spent some time with him. He was a graduate of the University of Cincinnati, and he came up with the idea, and I drew up the strips. Our strip was called Hobo Cupboard, based on an old subway system they started in Cincinnati in the ’20s and abandoned. And all these little tunnels were still there, and it was like an underground city. Particularly in those times. All the people that were out of work, the homeless, were occupying those tunnels for their base. That was the basis for the strip. The main character was a hobo type called Sneezy; this was before Disney came out with him and the other dwarves. That was a good strip. We did about four weeks of the strips, and during one summer I did some Sunday pages.

And so I went back in the fall for my sophomore year. Well, I’d seen an ad in Editor and Publisher for a new syndicate in Canton, Ohio, called Swan-MacDonald [sp?], and they wanted strips. So I sent information to my cousin and he sent the strips to them. They liked them, so he got all excited: “Swan [sp?] wants these right away and, gee, we’ve got to get a few more weeks of this out.”

It was at the end of the first semester break in February, so I said, “I’ll just drop out of college and I’ll go back to my grandmother’s home in Ohio and I’ll sit down and finish those strips.” Well, that was a mistake, because by the time I got back to Ohio, that syndicate had gone out of existence! And now I was out of college. And nobody else wanted the strip. This was ’35 or ’36.

SD: Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates, which started in October, ’35, was in the papers then. Did you see Terry in your town? Or had you seen Dickie Dare before? I’m bringing this in because I know Milton Caniff was a big influence in your life.

NORRIS: And is. Yeah, I’d seen Dickie Dare. I first saw Terry in the Dayton Journal. There were three papers in Dayton at that time: the Journal, the Herald, and the Daily News. And then the Journal and the Herald combined into the Journal Herald, and Terry continued in that paper. And finally, the Daily News, which was owned by James Cox, the guy that ran for President against Harding—he put an end to all of the newspapers. Now, there’s one newspaper in Dayton, and they get one political side of the story and that’s the bare facts of it.

“Take Your Foot in Hand And Come To New York!”

19

Terry—Minus The Pirates A WWII-era Milt Caniff self-caricature, spoofing his attention to military detail—and panels from a 1943 Terry and the Pirates Sunday. Allegedly, Caniff’s friend Noel Sickles designed the Terry logo and greatly influenced his art—even ghosted some of it in the early days—but nobody could write an adventure strip like Caniff! By this time, the Chinese river pirates of the feature’s first years had been pretty much relegated to ancient history… though the Dragon Lady still popped up from time to time. [Caricature ©2007 the respective copyright holders; Terry art ©2007 News Co. Syndicate, Inc., or its successors in interest.]

I’m convinced that television killed the action strips, because you can sit at the TV and get one whole episode of something and everything’s moving and it has sound. It’s a shame, really.

did you bounce, Paul? What did you do from there?

NORRIS: Well, I managed to get a job in Dayton, working in Leland

SD: That’s true, but Milt would often say the trouble with gag strips was, you don’t remember if you’d read it before. He called it “thin soup”; there’s no substance there. He felt he had a real responsibility not only to entertain, but to educate; but he said, “Don’t ever let an editor hear you say that, because they want it to be pure entertainment. They don’t want any preaching from the comic pages.”

NORRIS: If a humor strip lasted ten years, it was an exceptional strip.

Of course, the old stand-bys were exceptions. Bringing Up Father would run forever. I was telling you about influences, about how Milt fought for his position. I’ll tell you about that last daily strip I did—the last daily of Brick Bradford. When I drew that, I thought, “Now, how would Milt do this?” I really did. I thought about the shading in that last panel, and I’m just sorry he never saw it. It ran, but I’m sorry I never sent him a Xerox copy.

SD: I see the influence now, that height of theatrical drama that you put into it. It’s a matter of being a cameraman, a set designer, a lighting man. One who does an illustrative comic strip is all those things, a movie director, a script person, everything. Like Milt said, it’s the only million-dollar business you can operate out of a spare bedroom.

NORRIS: That’s right. He told me, “Remember, when you go to a movie, Milton’s scene is a long shot.” And I always felt his strips were built out of long shots. Of course, it worked out great in the Sunday pages, particularly when they were that size—although, half the time, people didn’t see that first panel because they dropped it off and only ran the bottom half of strips.

SD: That’s true. We dedicated fans used to subscribe to out-of-town papers that printed the complete Sunday page with the logo tier, the top tier. Fortunately, we’re going into an era now where there are reprint books, and a lot of the great old stuff you’ll find in bookstores. It’s not in the newspapers any more, but look at the job Denis Kitchen is doing, reprinting Li’l Abner, a year to a book. You were playing then to an audience of millions.

But let’s get you out of college first. Or, you got yourself out of college and you’re out on a limb and the limb got sawed off. So how

End Of The Brick Road Paul Norris’ last few Brick Bradford strips. When he drew the final one, he says, he asked himself, “Now, how would Milt [Caniff] do this?” The result was the shadowed final panel. Thanks to Rick Norwood for the scans; see ad on p. 54 for his invaluable comic strip-collecting magazine Comic Revue. [©2007 King Features Syndicate.]

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Young Artist Paul Norris Took Milt Caniff’s Advice

Incidentally, about Scotty—he’s the guy that created the Soapbox Derby. He left The Dayton Daily News sometime in the middle ’40s, and he had a full-time job at General Motors.

But anyway, I submitted Scoop Lenz to the New York office of the Chicago TribuneNew York News [Syndicate].

Molly Slott was the head woman there, and she sent me back a nice rejection letter, thanking me for letting her see “Scoop Terry.”

SD: Scoop Terry? [laughs] Ohh… This is the same Molly Slott who supposedly saw Milt From 1948-54, Norris drew Jungle Jim, the comic strip begun years earlier by Flash Gordon creator Alex Raymond.

Here’s Paul’s Sunday for May 11, 1952, repro’d from a beautiful black-&-white photocopy of the art sent by Ger Apeldoorn.

Caniff’s Dickie Dare and [©2007 King Features Syndicate.] brought it to the attention of Patterson and said, “My sons Electric Plant. They built electric motors for gas pumps. And I started are crazy about this guy. You should have him do a boy’s adventure drawing a strip using that “two friends” idea. I didn’t call him “Scoop.” strip for us.” She also got Dale Messick and Brenda Starr. It was a I called him “Clicker Pix.” I liked the idea of “Pix” and I just said woman thing. She championed her fellow woman cartoonists.

“Clicker” would make a good nickname. Then I met Marsh Atwell, who was the editorial director of the Dayton Daily News. He was NORRIS: She didn’t always have winners. She came up with one that from Chicago and had gone to the Chicago Art Institute. He suggested [Captain] Patterson’s daughter wrote, and it was the most horrible I go see Myron Scott, art editor of the News. And I showed him this thing. No one would buy it except the News. thing, and Scotty said, “Well, I don’t like the name. Let’s call him SD: After you were shot down by Molly Slott, did you take it over to ‘Scoop Lenz.’” I said, “That’s fine with me.” I drew it for nothing for King or United?

The Dayton Daily News.

It’s A Jungle Out There

SD: Really? You really wanted to be a cartoonist whether they got paid or not, huh?

NORRIS: No, because at that time, I got anxious. I went to Milt. Milt got me a job with Al Carreno.

NORRIS: Darn right I did. Well, I had an income, working at the plant. I would go over at night and sit in the Art Department at the Daily News and draw the strip. Incidentally, in three years it finally got to be a full page, and in color. I had a whole big box of things in the closet there. I did Scoop Lenz about three years. It was a Cox paper.

They did run it for a while in a Miami paper, and they had just bought The Atlanta Constitution and they thought about running it there. But there wasn’t any money involved with it. I got paid well for doing spots, illustrations for stories. Even the old editor had me do editorial cartoons. I really didn’t like that, because he was a stickler, and I couldn’t draw what I wanted to draw. I had to draw what he wanted me to draw.

SD: The political policy of the paper.

NORRIS: Right, but that was a good experience. Scoop Lenz was a big full page, twelve panels. There wasn’t any set limit, so I would run a story, and when I got through, I would sort of plant another one. I had a lot of freedom.

The Original Flash Of Two Worlds And, speaking of Flash Gordon: Norris wrote and drew original comic book stories starring that iconic hero for Western/Dell between 1947 and 1949. At left is a page from Four Color #173… at right the cover of Four Color #190, which he was even allowed to sign! The “Four-Color” title was only listed in the indicia. [©2007 King Features Syndicate.]

“Take Your Foot in Hand And Come To New York!”

“Name Him Paul, And He Will Be A Minister” SD: How did you meet Milton Caniff? Let’s go back to Dayton and Milton Caniff.

NORRIS: I met Milt at the Dayton Art Institute when he first came out to speak there one afternoon. It was sort-of like a tea, or something, by the Art Institute. Incidentally, while I was doing Scoop Lenz and working at the factory, I was also going to the Dayton Art Institute, and that’s where I met Ann. We met in Life Class. There’s two versions of this: mine and hers. [laughs] It was the start of the second semester at the Art Institute. In that class, I had an overcoat, a hat, a drawing board, a little charcoal paper, charcoal sticks—what else was there? Yeah, I had my hands full. And there were big old double doors, eight feet high, to the studio where the Life Class met. And I opened the door; there’s a class in session. As I opened the door, there’s this naked woman. Well, my drawing board hit the other door—and that knocked the paper loose. I dropped everything I had. I really made a grand entrance. And I picked everything up and I walked over to the one open easel that one could straddle.

Women sat side-saddle and men would put the boards right up. And the gal next to me was Ann, and immediately she wrote her name across the top of her paper. She had a very long name: Ann Elizabeth Mayenschein. And that’s how we met.

Her story is pretty much the same, except she says I was embarrassed to death when I saw that model, that the model caused it all.

I said my drawing board hitting on the door caused a lot of it. [laughs] SD: Well, that’s a charming story, whatever it is. I guess you were kindred souls from the beginning. Did she have much of a career?

NORRIS: She’s a good photographer. She ran a studio, the big old studio cameras. Ann ruined her eyes at that period of time because, being young, she used to retouch the plates. You know, the light—I guess there really wasn’t a ground glass at that time. After we were married, she never touched my art, except she would help me when I got in a rush. She filled in the blacks.

SD: What year did you meet Ann? NORRIS: It was 1937. We got married in ’39, but we were separated in—I lost my job up there at the plant, at Leland Electric. I went back to the farm where my grandparents lived; by that time, my grandfather had long gone. He passed away when I was in college, and it was just my grandma and my Aunt Minnie. They needed help on the farm.

I plowed the fields with a horse when I was young, ten years old, maybe younger. My uncle used to have a horse named Bob; he was old but he was a smart old horse. He was much smarter than I was. I remember I had us plowing a field and I got it mixed up in my own mind that we were plowing fallow, to the right, and I was yelling “Gee” all the

21

time. And we’d get to the end of the furrow to make a turn and I didn’t have the reins, the horse was that well-trained. And I’d yell and the horse would turn around and look at me: “What’s wrong with you?

What’s going on back there?” He just goes the way he’s supposed to go. I loved that old horse.

Actually, my life, in this space of time, spanned the Horse Age to the Automotive to the Jet Age. A thing I enjoyed in the wintertime was sledding, and not just sliding down the hill on a sled. I mean sleighs, riding sleighs behind a horse. And I’m old enough now that I’ve lived in that time in the winter, that we could have races with one-horse sleighs. Despite the Depression, living out in the rural area as I did, life wasn’t nearly as difficult as it was to live in the city. We grew our own food. We had to. We were never hungry. And my grandfather ran a sawmill in the wintertime. Before the turn of the century, he had been an engineer with the railroad.

SD: Your grandfather lost his daughter when you were born. So you were very precious to him, I’m sure. Did your mother dying when you were born create any problems in attitudes towards your grandparents, or your father towards you? After all, your father did move away and you were raised by your grandparents.

NORRIS: No. A psychologist can pinpoint every little disaster as a statement, what it means to a child in the future. And I felt, if anyone should ever have been hurt by anything, I should have been one of them, but I wasn’t because I did have good grandparents and I had good aunts and uncles. I had good cousins. I had a cousin who was three months younger than I. We grew up as brothers, and he had two sisters who were three and four years younger than me, and they are still my remaining relatives back in Ohio. I go see them every year, practically.

But my grandmother was very resentful, that I know. She blamed my father for all the

“Guns At Cyrano’s” Paul (on left) with his sons Reed (center) and Michael.

Thanks to Scott Stewart.

At right is a circa-1947 Norris illustration to accompany a printing of the story “Guns at Cyrano’s” by Raymond Chandler, creator of the hard-boiled private eye Philip Marlowe. A couple of faded, handwritten lines under the picture contain what is probably mostly a quotation from the story: “Chapter 3 – Blood leaked from under his chest, vivid scarlet on the white”—and the rest is cut off. Sounds like vintage Chandler, though!

Thanks to Joe & Nadia Mannarino. [©2007 King Features Syndicate.]

22

Young Artist Paul Norris Took Milt Caniff’s Advice

the day before she passed away. She named me on the advice of a minister. He said, “Name him Paul, and he will be a minister.” Well, the old guy was wrong; he sure missed it.

SD: Not really. You preached to millions of people through your comic strip.

NORRIS: I attended a Lutheran college and I got so much publicity my first year in college, I was sent back to The Greenville Advocate, a newspaper they had. Now, I wasn’t a member of the Lutheran church, but having worked in J.C. Penney’s for a year, I knew so many people in the area, which was a big Lutheran community. And when I came back between my freshman and sophomore year, they came after me.

They wanted me to study for the ministry on the strength of the publicity I had gotten on the paper and the fact that I was going to a Lutheran college. They said, “You’ll never have to worry about anything. We’ll pay for everything.”

SD: Wow. In those days, that was quite an offer.

NORRIS: Yeah, and I thought, “You’ve got the wrong guy. Man, I’m not cut out for that.” To get back to my father and the relationship— my grandparents were always encouraging to me. I could not have had more—yes, I could. I could have had a mother. But other than that— SD: You spoke fondly, earlier, of your maiden aunt. You were like a substitute child for her.

By Their Works Shall Ye Know Them Collector Charlie Roberts provided us with several photos, most taken in February 2007, of Paul holding up original art and bound volumes of his vintage work. We’ve made them into a montage above a splash of one of his earliest features—“Yank and Doodle”—stars of Prize Comics (published by a company that often used that name). Paul says he created that series; his byline’s on this page. From left to right, he’s pictured with that story in Prize—a “Power Nelson” tale (also from Prize)—and the original art to a Brick Bradford daily. Thanks for the comic page to Bill Lignante & Shel Dorf. [Yank & Doodle art ©2007 the respective copyright holders; photos ©2007 Charlie Roberts.]

problems that occurred. And my father—of course, he was a young man, only twenty—my mother was only twenty when I was born and she passed away seven weeks later. And she did not name me until the day before she passed away. I was supposed to have been a minister, believe it or not, because I was born on a Sunday, and she named me

NORRIS: Yeah, Aunt Minnie was very good to me; she lived until the age of 94. I had her out here in the final years of her life. And I had another uncle who also lived to be 94; he just passed away three years ago. They were all good to me. The one person I do resent is actually my father, because—when I was four years old, he came back once.

He’d remarried. As a matter of fact, he had four wives and he proceeded to lose them or divorce them. And this stepmother, his wife at that time, said, “Well, we’ll take Paul now and—” No way. They were not going to take Paul.

I never saw him again until I was seventeen. I was at the high school and somebody said, “Hey, Paul. Your dad’s in town.” He was visiting the house of my grandparents. I walked in and I was taller than he was.

SD: Did you resemble him at all, or did you take after your mother?

NORRIS: She was a very attractive young woman. When my mother was eighteen, she had my sister, who was stillborn. I really did not have any brothers and sisters. But the fact that I did not see him until I was seventeen and all those years… gee, every Christmas, I’d never get a present, and his wives were saying, “Roy, you ought to send something to your son.” Anyway, it did a lot for my son.

SD: You became even more of a father to your son.

NORRIS: Well, I don’t know, but I tried to be.

“Take Your Foot in Hand And Come To New York!”

SD: So how much of the material was written by you and drawn by you, say percentage-wise? Were you always the writer and artist?

NORRIS: Not always, no. I tried to be, but there were times when… well, I didn’t write “Aquaman.” Mort Weisinger wrote “Aquaman.” At the same time, I started a feature for Prize Comics called “Yank and Doodle,” and I wrote that. And I wrote “Power Nelson” for Prize Comics.

I had all those books, and during the war, I stored material in two places. We lived in North Bergen, New Jersey, right across the river from the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. But I stored some things in a warehouse in New Jersey—and other things I crated up and sent to Ohio; they were stored in Fairborn in a garage. In it were all the comic books I’d done. And I had art originals from artists from the NEA that I’d picked up. The box happened to be stored in a part of the garage where the eaves leaked. I lost everything. In fact, I probably had [early issues of] Superman in there. Everything I stored in New Jersey was fine… but that was mostly furniture from our apartment and some books. For some reason, all the artwork that I had collected and the comics probably went to Ohio.

“Going Out On My Own”

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told me, “You’ve got a great sense of composition,” and other people told me the same. I hope they were right. So I said, “Al, I’m going out on my own. I’m going to try.” And I had a portfolio of these big colored Sunday pages of Scoop. I felt that was my résumé. The first place I went was DC Comics, and the person I met was Whitney Ellsworth. He looked at my pages and we got to talking about Milt, because he knew Caniff was from Ohio. And I said, “Yeah, he had suggested I come up to New York.” And Whit says, “Well, you’re not going to make as much money as he’s making right now. And I can’t give you any scripts right now, but you go over to Prize Comics and you talk to a guy by the name of Reece.” This is late in the afternoon, so he said, “You better get over there. I’ll call him because I know he’s going to have to leave.”

DC Comics was in Grand Central Plaza, I think, at that time. I had to go all the way to 1700 Broadway where Prize Comics was, and I hoofed it over there and I got to the floor just as Reece is coming out of the office. And I said, “You’re Reece?” And he said, “You’re Norris?” So we went back into the office. He looked at my stuff and he said, “Well, I need somebody to draw ‘Power Nelson.’” Another guy’d been doing it, but for some reason or other he wasn’t getting the job done, so Reese said, “I need these by Monday,” and this was Friday. I said, “Okay.” I did a terrible job of it. All those things in those days

SD: Now, Paul, there’s a big gap that we have to fill, from you pitching hay to drawing “Aquaman.” [laughs] So where did you go from The Dayton Daily News?

NORRIS: Well, at the insistence of Milt—I like to put it that way, because he said, “Take your foot in hand and come to New York,” because he had lined up a job with Al Carreno, who was doing “The Blue Beetle.” I knew it was $8 a page for that, in 1940. And they paid me $30 a week to draw that. Someone else did the writing and lettering.

For $30 a week, you had to turn out a lot of pages in those days, and your target was ten pages, usually.

I worked with Al for a week in 1940 in the early part of December, and the holidays were coming up and it wasn’t working out well. And I really wasn’t good enough, that’s the whole truth. And I said, “Well, I think I’d better go back to Ohio,” because I still had some contact with The Dayton Daily News.

SD: Were you married at this time?

NORRIS: Yes, we were married in ’39 and I had a star job at Leland Electric. I had taken a sort of sabbatical from there. My boss at Leland Electric knew what was up and he said, “Yeah, we’ll see you in a few weeks.” So I got my job back and I worked until— SD: But then you left New York after “The Blue Beetle”?

NORRIS: Yeah. After February of ’41, I made contact with Al Carreno again. He always called me “Nor-r-r-res.” He’d roll the “r’s” because he was of Mexican birth. His father was the business manager for Pancho Villa, and when he was a kid, he said he could remember Pancho Villa bouncing him on his knee, because his father was very close to Pancho Villa. Well, anyway, his father had sent him to Chicago, to study law. But art was ingrained in him and he wanted to be an artist. So, instead of going to law school, his father didn’t know it but he went to the Art Institute. Al was a great character artist at one time.

Frank Engli told me once that he was rated as the best in the country.

And Al told me that Frank was one of the best letter men in the country, because he used to letter labels for liquor bottles in originals for the agencies. They were very close, but I don’t doubt either one of them.

So I went back in February and again I worked with Al. I liked him and he liked me, but it didn’t work out. We’d get into discussions on perspective, and I know I was right on some of them, but Al always

Red Roses For A Blue Beetle Frankly, we don’t know precisely what issue of Fox’s Blue Beetle this splash page comes from (except it was one that came out during World War II)— or who the artist is (not necessarily the “Charles M. Quinlan” bylined)—let alone if it was done by Al Carreno, the artist Paul Norris worked with in the early 1940s. But however Carreno drew, it probably looked a lot like this!

For more info, pick up Chris Irving’s new TwoMorrows volume The Blue Beetle Companion! [Blue Beetle TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

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Young Artist Paul Norris Took Milt Caniff’s Advice

was in February, and I remember I was staying in a place in New Jersey. I had rented a room over there from a lady I knew, and went back over a weekend and did those. But I’ll never forget walking down Broadway into Times Square, there’s a light snow coming down, and I thought, “Boy, I have a guarantee for $250 worth of work,” something like that. I did it. That’s a lot of pages. That was 25 pages. I was doing the whole thing… even writing it and lettering it. This was “Power Nelson” and “Yank and Doodle,” which we were creating—between Reece and myself.

His real name was Maurice Rosenfeld, and he was from Texas originally. We got along great. So I did more for Prize Comics than I did for DC. But in the meantime, Whit Ellsworth called me and said he had something for me, which was “The Crimson Avenger.” He gave me copies of what had been done with the character, and I produced the strips. So between the two companies, I was pretty busy. And then he asked me and a number of artists for some ideas that might be developed into their own features. I came up with an idea called “The Vigilante,” but it was an underwear character, wearing an outfit like Superman did.

Yank And Doodle Went To Town Another “Yank and Doodle” splash by Norris. “America’s Fighting Twins” ran in Prize Comics from 1941-48; beginning in 1943, they were joined by their father, who took over the mantle of another Prize headliner, and the feature often ran as “Yank and Doodle and The Black Owl.” That reminds us—they also appeared in Headline Comics #1 (Feb. 1943). That’s our subtle way of admitting that provider Bruce Mason couldn’t tell us which issue of Prize this splash came from; but Norris drew the series in 1941-42. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

I turned it in to Whit, and he said, “Gee, I like the name.” Ellsworth didn’t want another underwear character, so that’s when “Vigilante” became a Western, and he got Mort to write it. I couldn’t hold onto it, because it’s a name and I’d just mentioned it. So I think that’s what got me “Aquaman,” because Whit had this idea about a character that could breathe underwater. He had Mort Weisinger write the script.

When I read The Encyclopedia of American Comics, it lists Mort Weisinger and me as the creators of Aquaman. This was true, but I didn’t know Mort at the time... although I lived in North Bergen, New Jersey, and he lived in Fort Lee, which was the next town. He lived maybe two miles, at the most, from me. We used to ride the bus into New York. I knew him by sight, but I didn’t know he was writing the strip. We finally got acquainted, and then we’d ride back and forth on the bus together. It was down to the Lincoln Tunnel and across—no, we rode down to the Weehauken Fairy House. It might have been an hour, I don’t know. I found out, here’s the guy that’s writing the script for this thing, and we’re co-creators of “Aquaman.”

SD: You didn’t know. But how did “Aquaman” start?

NORRIS: Well, Whitney Ellsworth called me in to discuss it and told me what he had in mind. He had done a sketch of a guy, a little cartoon character with a big cigar in his mouth and fins on his feet, and I think

were terrible.

SD: So you had a weekend to do it? What was your attitude towards doing comic books?

NORRIS: Well, Milt told me one thing in the beginning, I’ll never forget it: “Put your name on it. Get it big and bold so people can read it.” That’s what he believed in, and I put it in after that. Well, actually, I used the name “Roy Paul” on “Power Nelson,” because I knew I was going to use my name on “Yank and Doodle.” Prize Comics would let me do that, but at DC Comics, you didn’t sign them.

Bob Kane was the only one, in those days, who was I Second That Emotion permitted to sign.

SD: These fly-by-night companies were hiring away these guys, because they were very much in demand. If they had a guy’s name, they could trace him down and offer him a better deal, steal him away from another company.

NORRIS: Well, once King Features got me, they stole me away from the newspaper PM. [laughs] But we’ll get to that. So anyway, I walked out of there, and this

In Sept. 1993 Paul Norris sent collector Charlie Roberts a note expressing his pleasure at meeting him and receiving an Inkpot Award at that year’s San Diego Comic-Con. According to this (color) sketch Paul drew on the missive, a certain sub-sea sovereign agreed with his assessment. [Aquaman TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

“Take Your Foot in Hand And Come To New York!”

Mr. Sandman, Bring Me A Dream A quartet of important “Sandman” splashes from 1941-42 Adventure Comics. (Clockwise, starting at top left, all ©2007 DC Comics:) Adventure Comics #68 (Nov. 1941) sported the last Golden Age story of Sandman in his gasmask and business suit. Norris is credited with penciling and inking “Sandman” in Adventure #65-68, making these some of Paul’s earliest DC assignments.

In Adventure #69 (Dec. 1941), both the new purpleand-yellow costume (complete with cape) and Sandy the Golden Boy were introduced.

Collector/DC art expert Craig Delich feels #69-71 were penciled by Norris and inked by Chad Grothkopf. At one time Paul reported that he was instructed to imitate Bob Kane on this pivotal story.

Was it perhaps because it introduced a Robin-style kid sidekick?

Adventure #70 (Jan. 1942) owes less to the Kane approach (as does the unshown #71), though the artists were still reportedly Norris and “Chad.”

Thanks to Bob Mason for this scan.

Adventure #72 (March 1942) introduced the new art-and-script team of Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, who’d just come over to DC after doing Captain America Comics #1-10 for Timely/Marvel. They dropped the heroes’ capes. Thanks to Harry Mendryk.

The scripters of #68-71 are uncertain, but Bob Hughes says that another comic expert, Jerry Bails, “lists Mort Weisinger as the writer of those pivotal ‘Sandman’ stories.” Perhaps Martin O’Hearn analyzed them? A fascinating piece by Martin on his comics-writing detective work is slated for the first available issue of A/E.

25

26

Young Artist Paul Norris Took Milt Caniff’s Advice

Aquaman At High Tide Paul drew a few more “Aquaman” stories than he remembered! At left is his splash page for More Fun Comics #79 (May 1942)—at right, one for World’s Finest Comics #6 (Summer 1942), where it was sandwiched between “Superman” and “Batman” exploits. With thanks to John Schwirian. [©2007 DC Comics.]

he had fins on his head, or something, which I didn’t use. And he said, “What about this super-hero type?” And what I did he liked, so we took it from there. The next thing, he gave me the script and I took it home and drew it up, and from there on...

SD: His sketch had the guy smoking a cigar?

NORRIS: Oh, yeah. It was just a cartoon sketch that he made. As a mater of fact, I sent it to Slice of Wry [a newsletter] once, and Dick printed every other frame, but they didn’t run the story right about it.

Anyway, from then on, I did “Aquaman” and “The Crimson Avenger” for DC. I drew all of “Aquaman” and lettered it.

NORRIS: I really don’t know, Shel. Probably four or five—no, more than that, I guess. They weren’t issues; they were stories in another magazine. He didn’t have his own magazine.

And then I got this call from the newspaper PM, and they wanted to know if I’d be interested in drawing Vic Jordan, because Elmer Wexler had enlisted in the Marine Corps, which was something out of the blue, I guess. It was co-written by Kermit Jaedicker, who was a reporter for The New York Daily News, and Milton Zerner [sp?], who was the New Jersey editor of The New York Times.

Well, around April of ’42, I got the call from the newspaper PM. Now, I had done “Aquaman” from about the middle of ’41 until April of ’42 or a little later than that. I did some after I started doing Vic Jordan for PM.

But to get back to my leaving DC Comics—Mort Weisinger never, never forgave me for that. Even after the war, when I came back and did work for DC Comics, he was never, never friendly with me again, because he was so unhappy that I would leave “Aquaman” to draw syndicated strips. Well, in those times, that’s where the money was, in syndication. And naturally, I was hoping to get more money

SD: How many pages a week of comic books did you do?

SD: That was a golden opportunity, a grab at the brass ring.

NORRIS: Well, as I say, my schedule was always trying to do ten pages a week. I got more money doing “Aquaman” than for the other strips. “Yank and Doodle,” I got $10 for those, and I think I got $13 for “Aquaman.”

NORRIS: That’s right. And there again, I have to thank Milt Caniff, because he was pointing his finger at me. The art editor of PM was Russ Countryman, who was the art editor for the Associated Press.

And Noel Sickles and all those guys were working for the AP. So he’d called Milt, and Milt suggested me, and it worked out. I signed a oneyear contract with them. During that year, King Features tried to get hold of me. I never knew it until later, but they were sending letters to PM, but they were never getting past Hannah Baker, the comics editor.

SD: How many issues did “Yank and Doodle” run?

NORRIS: Oh, it ran a long time. As a matter of fact, it ran after I got out—and they added new characters to it. I was surprised to find out in recent years what they had done to it.

“Vic Jordan Was This Young American…”

SD: How many issues of “Aquaman” did you do?

Finally King came up with this idea of contacting me through an advertising agency. So I got a letter from them, I called them, and they told me, “Call this lady at King Features who [is] the head of the Advertising Department.” I did do one piece of advertising art for her, for the Donut Company of America; it had to do with donuts given by

“Take Your Foot in Hand And Come To New York!”

27

Vic Jordan daily for July 7, 1943, by Paul Norris—with thanks to Allan Holtz, from his "Stripper's Guide": http://strippersguide.blogspot.com. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

the Red Cross to soldiers overseas.

SD: Now we were into World War II. NORRIS: Yeah, right. This was April, ’43, and my contract was coming due with PM, and they had an option clause to pick up the renewal of my contract for another year within a certain specified time.

Well, Hannah Baker had gotten ill and had gone to Miami, Florida, and I was sweating it out. You were talking earlier about Milt not doing Steve Canyon while he was still doing Terry and the Pirates—they wanted me to draw Secret Agent X-9, because at that time they were having troubles with Mel Graff being on schedule. So I started continuity, and I was still under contract to PM. But fortunately, she never picked up the option, and boy, was I happy.

get scripts that looked like Venetian blinds where she’d cut them off and paste them down. As a matter of fact, she wrote one last panel for one strip that it took up almost all the panel. I had to draw two of the characters in silhouette at the bottom in black because of that. [laughs] SD: She was a frustrated writer.

NORRIS: Yes, she was. As a matter of fact, as a result of not picking up my option, she was discharged from PM. Well, I don’t think that was the sole reason. And the amazing thing was, she was the only one that really understood how I was paid. The Accounting Department didn’t understand it, because I had the regular Chicago Tribune-New York News-type contract: a $50 guarantee plus, in our case, a quarter of the royalties, because Zerner and Jaedicker got a quarter of the

SD: That cleared the way for you to go over to King.

Before we leave Vic Jordan, could you describe how many papers you were in and what the strip was about?

NORRIS: Well, Vic Jordan was this young American who was working with the French Underground during World War II. And the number of papers we had, I think, was maybe 35 at the most. Some were fairly good papers, and some paid well and some didn’t. I thought those guys came up with a very good storyline, but Hannah Baker was such a heavy-handed editor that she’d tear the scripts apart.

Sometimes, I would

Paul Be Nimble, Paul Be Quick In the 1950s Paul drew some of the last “Johnny Quick” exploits, such as “Tubby Watts, Efficiency Expert” in Adventure Comics #174 (March 1952) and “The Impossible Deliveries” in Adventure #191 (Aug. 1953). These two eventually found their way into copies of the Australian black-&-white title Century – the 100 Page Comic Monthly, published from 1956-58—and from there to us, via Mark Muller, one of our several benefactors from Oz. [©2007 DC Comics.]

28

Young Artist Paul Norris Took Milt Caniff’s Advice

had the full-color Sunday pages, and Whitney also saw them at DC Comics.

The pay rate in comics was low, so we wanted to do at least ten a week. There were many different pay scales. In those days, I lettered comic book pages all night to get a couple of dollars more. The thing that amazed me was that Al Carreno, when I worked with him while he was doing “The Blue Beetle,” was getting something like $7-8 a page. We had to fill out a lot of pages for the two of us to make enough money for him to pay me $40 a week. That’s why I didn’t work out very well, I think, because I just never made the schedule, and the fact that I went out on my own was the best thing I could have done.

“Milt [Caniff] Did Terry And The Pirates And That’s It!” SD: You mentioned earlier a man named Charles Raab. Very little has been written about him, and, from the artwork I saw of his, he was really an excellent artist. Could you tell me a little bit about what you know about Raab?

NORRIS: Charlie was from Dayton, Ohio, the same as I was. When I first met him, I’d gone to New York in early 1941 and I was living in North Bergen, New Jersey, and I was to spend an evening up at Milt’s house when he lived up in Haverstraw, New York. I took the West Side train up to Haverstraw, and the two guys who met me were Charlie Raab and Bill Ballantine. Charlie was living at Milt’s house at the time.

Milt had several fellows that lived there and commuted to New York.

They were all in the newspaper business in one way or another.

Magnus, P.M. (“Post Manning”) Norris also drew several “Magnus” stories, including this one in Magnus, Robot Fighter #27 (Aug. 1969)—again sent us by Mark Muller from an Australian reprint. Inking by Mike Royer. [©2007 Random House, Inc., under license to Classic Media, Inc.]

royalties. And they owed me about $600 in back royalties, and I couldn’t collect it with Hannah Baker gone. So I had to go with her to arbitration and testify on her behalf to get her job back so I could collect my $600 in royalties! And that’s the way it ended up with my relationship to the newspaper PM. SD: An interesting business. Can you think back to your very first commercial job?

NORRIS: Yes, for The Dayton Daily News. I used to work for a factory in the daytime and I worked at the newspaper at night, in the Art Department. One evening, I was sitting there and two guys came in. They were representatives of Sally Rand, the famous fan dancer, who was appearing at the local RKO Colonial Theater in Dayton, and they wanted an ad to put in Variety, a two-page spread. It was just to say “Sally” on one page and “Rand” on the other. I did it with a dry brush, and I wrote “Sally,” and there goes “Rand,” and they gave me fifty bucks. And I thought, “Oh boy, this is a business I want to be in!” [laughs] But I mentioned that I gave Scoop Lenz to the News just to get it printed and get in the paper. The News covered the whole Miami Valley and actually southwestern Ohio from Columbus to Cincinnati and north over to Lima. I never knew what circulation it had. But little things like that paid off. It really got me started in New York, because I

It was a big old house, with historical value. During the Revolutionary War, it had been the campground for the British troops or American Revolutionaries; I’m not sure which side. It was back of High Tor, which is a high outcrop of rock above the Hudson River— you know, Maxwell Anderson wrote a famous play called High Tor. It wasn’t in Halverstraw; it was a new city, but you had to go up to Halverstraw and wind around to get up there. This was a big, rambling old white house, and I was only there the one time. He had two interesting neighbors: Burgess Meredith and Maxwell Anderson. It was a nice place to live. Milt showed me the site where his new house was going to be built. So it was in the works right at the start, during World War II. But to get back to Charlie—that was the first time I met him. I never knew him in Dayton, Ohio. He was a good artist. He and Ray Bailey, I think, came the closest to having Milt’s style of any of the artists that came out of the area. And of course, at that time he was doing the old Mel Graff strip for Associated Press.

SD: Patsy in Hollywood?

NORRIS: Yeah, I think that was it. Later, he married Kay Stern, who was a model for Milt at the time. Her father was a sheriff in the Nyack area. Ann and Kay and Charlie and I and Bill Ballantine socialized quite a bit before the war. Charlie really didn’t have any problems then.

If he did, it wasn’t apparent, because it seemed to me that he really had the world by the tail. He had a big Buick Roadmaster convertible, and it was great to drive up and down the streets of New York. In fact, they had double-deck buses like they did in London. You could look up and see the people looking down at you, but that’s another story.

SD: How exciting to be in New York at that time, when you were in your middle twenties!

NORRIS: Oh, I’d say it was exciting! New York—there wasn’t any other place on Earth at that time in my life—but we keep straying from Charlie. The last time I think I saw him—he went in the service before I did and was stationed at the West Point Airbase up there. He was in

“Take Your Foot in Hand And Come To New York!”

the Air Force and he spent the entire war up there, which made it very nice for him and Kay. And after the war, when I came out of the service, he wasn’t really doing anything. I was under contract to King all the time I was in the Army. I thought it good to secure the job when the war was over. And I remember returning, going in to see Bradley Kelley, comics editor at King. He said, “Gee, why don’t you try out for Terry?” And I said, “No, I don’t think so,” because I’d heard at that time that Charlie was going to get the strip.

SD: Do you know if Charlie Raab worked on any Terry and the Pirates material?

NORRIS: That I do not know. According to Frank Engli, no one ever, at that time, ever touched Terry and the Pirates.

SD: There are all kinds of theories, that Milt had all kinds of assistants, and that Sickles did most of that. Comic historians have analyzed the compositions and said, “That’s a Noel Sickles drawing,” and that, because of their friendship, Sickles never admitted how much work he did on Terry and the Pirates. Do you believe this?

What Ho, Old Top!

NORRIS: No, I don’t. I think Milt did Terry and the Pirates and that’s it!

SD: He was fast, too. He was skilled and—

We were too short on space to show more examples of Milt Caniff’s work here—or that of Alfred Andriola—but not to worry, we’ll do so in future issues. Meanwhile, here’s one final photo of interviewee Paul Norris, courtesy of Scott Stewart—and one more “Brick Bradford” comic book splash, this time from King Comics’ Mandrake the Magician #6 (July 1967). Did we mention that Ye Editor just loved the eon-hopping Time Top in that strip? [©2007 King Features Syndicate.]

NORRIS: Oh, absolutely. I’ve watched him pencil out the strip. He penciled out very rough; he wasn’t big on detailed penciling. I was impressed by his pen. That did the job. No, no… I wouldn’t buy that at all.

SD: But you were on the scene, and if anybody—I mean, it couldn’t hurt to tell if you did see Sickles working on it.

NORRIS: Well, I’ve heard stories. I know Ray Bailey worked for him [Caniff] during the war.

SD: Milt acknowledged that.

NORRIS: Yeah, and Ray was very good. And I don’t know if Charlie ever worked on the strip or not. I don’t think so.

SD: Did he work on Kerry Drake, do you know? Wasn’t Alfred Andriola [Kerry Drake artist] Milt’s secretary at that time?

NORRIS: No, not at that time. There was a good gal, and her name was Gilchrist.

SD: Oh, Adelaide.

NORRIS: She was a secretary. I did know Al Andriola. But I never saw very much of him.

29

SD: Al did it before Adelaide, so that’s why you didn’t see him.

When he landed Charlie Chan, he left Milt’s employ and had his own strip.

NORRIS: I met him when he was doing Charlie Chan. One night— this was before the war and Milt had an exhibition in an art gallery in New York City—it was an elaborate show of promotional material that Milt had done to create background scenes, where he staged his continuities. And that’s the one and only time I met Al before the war. He had a handful of daily strips all rolled up in a ball in his hand. I don’t know how he got them off to the syndicate, at that hour of the night.

That’s what he said he was doing, anyway.

SD: While you’re up at this one visit at the old white house, how long did you stay and what did you do there? Did you sort-of sit around, drawing your strip?

NORRIS: I didn’t spend that much time with Charlie, but I spent a lot of time in the studio with Milt, talking. And Milt—it’s just amazing, because here I was, a greenhorn, wet behind the ears, and he’d talk to me just as if I’d been drawing strips in New York for thirty years. His attitude was, “You do it this way,” or, “You think about it this way.” I’d say, “Yeah. Yes, that’s right,” and the conversation... well, he always made you feel like you were his equal. You were never subservient to him, and I never felt that.

To contact Paul Norris about art commissions, please send a letter or e-mail containing your address, etc., to Alter Ego and we will forward it.

30

Young Artist Paul Norris Took Milt Caniff’s Advice

PAUL NORRIS Checklist The following Checklist is adapted from information appearing in the online Who’s Who of American Comic Books (1928-1999), established

by Jerry G. Bails. See opposite page for information on how to access this invaluable website. Names of features which appeared both in comic books with that title and in other magazines, as well, are generally not italicized below. Paul Norris is the source for some of the following data. Key: (a) = full art; (p) = pencils only; (i) = inks only; (w) = writer; (l) = letterer; (d) daily newspaper comic strip; (S) Sunday newspaper comic strip; (rep) reprint.

Name: Paul Leroy Norris (1914 - ) (artist; letterer; writer) Pen Name: Roy Paul Education: Dayton Art Institute (one year); Midland College (Fremont, Nebraska, 1H years) Influences: Matt Clark; Sidney Smith; Milton Caniff Member: Comic Art Professionals Society; National Cartoonists Society; Southern California Cartoonists’ Society Print Media (Non-Comics): Artist: advertisement – early-1950s 2-page spread in Life magazine; artist: books – 1995, 1982 Underwater Sport 1955; Father Can’t Forget 1982; artist: newspapers – Dayton Daily News, late 1930; artist: promotions – Puerto Rican Rum Commission Syndicated Comic Strips: Brick Bradford (d)(ghost w)(ghost a) 1951-52; Brick Bradford (d)(w)(a) 1952-87; Brick Bradford (S)(w)(a) 1957-87 – all for King Features Syndicate; Damon Runyon (a) 1946-48; Flash Gordon (d)(ghost a) 1953 (one week), King Features Syndicate; Geriatrix (S)(a) 1977-79 panel; Jungle Jim (S)(a) 1948-54 King Features Syndicate; mystery stories (a) 1946-48; Scoop Lenz (S)(a) 1937-39; Secret Agent X-9 (d)(ghost a) 1943, 1948-59 King Features Syndicate; Vic Jordan (d)(a) 1942-43 for newspaper PM Co-Creator: Aquaman, Jungle Twins Promotional Comics: propaganda (a) c. 1942-45; various comics (a) for the Taft-Hartley Act 1947 Assisted: Al Carreno 1940-41 Comics Studio/Shop: Hanna-Barbera Studio (a)(l) 1977-78 – see Marvel credits COMIC BOOK CREDITS (Mainstream US Publishers): Better/Standard/Nedor/Pines Publications: Brick Bradford (a) 1948; covers (a) 1949; Jungle Jim (w)(a) 1949-51; Shankar the Shikari (w)(a) 1949-51 Charlton Comics: Brick Bradford (a) 1969

Aquaman, by Paul Norris—repro’d from a 1993 print sold at comics conventions by the artist a few years back. Thanks to Paul Bach, Jr. [Aquaman TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

David McKay Comics Group: Perry Mason (w)(a) 1946

King Comics: Brick Bradford (w)(a) 1967-68

DC Comics: Aquaman (a) 1941-42; Captain Compass (a) 1949-51, 1953; Crimson Avenger (a) 1941-42; Darwin Jones (p) 1950; filler (a) 1941; Johnny Quick (a) 1953; Sandman (p) 1941-42; Strange Adventures (a) 1950

Marvel Comics: covers (a) 1977-78; Dynomutt (a) 1977-78; Laff-aLympics (a) 1978 – all for Hanna-Barbera titles

Dell Publications: covers (a) 1949; Flash Gordon (w)(a) 1947-49; Jungle Jim (a) 1956-57; Shankar the Shikari (a) 1956-57 Feature Comics (a.k.a. Prize Comics): crime (w)(a) c. 1946; Power Nelson (w)(a) 1941-42; Yank and Doodle (w)(a) 1941-42 Fox Comics: Blue Beetle (asst. i) 1940-42, directly for Al Carreno

Western Publishing: Aliens (a) 1968-69; Jungle Twins (p) 1972-75; Magnus, Robot Fighter (p)(some i) 1968-69; New Adventures of Huck Finn (a) 1968; Tarzan (p)(some i) 1969-72 (inked own pencils after Mike Royer joined Jack Kirby); Woodsy Owl (a) 1974-76

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A commisioned pencil sketch by Ramona Fradon.

[Aquaman TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

32

“It Was A Daily Identity Crisis” RAMONA FRADON Talks About Being A Comic Book Artist And A Suburban Housewife & Mother In The 1950s Interview Conducted by Jim Amash

Transcribed by Brian K. Morris

R

amona Fradon is one of the true cartoon talents in comics.

From “Aquaman” to “Metamorpho” to Super Friends, mystery stories, a few Marvel tales, and more, her drawing style lent itself to a variety of genres. Ramona may not be impressed with her own work, but the rest of us certainly are! Her blend of cartooning with supposedly realistic super-hero theatrics lent a sense of fun for readers of all ages, creating its own authenticity. Ramona’s thoughts on her career and the business in which she was involved are candid and multi-dimensional. Her Hall of Fame induction in 2006 was long overdue, a fitting tribute to a great career. —Jim

“I Always Drew” JIM AMASH: Do you mind telling me when and where you were born?

RAMONA FRADON: [laughs] Why, yes! I don’t mind at all. I was born in Chicago in 1926, a long, long time ago, October 2nd.

JA: I see your father was a letterer for Elizabeth Arden.

FRADON: He [Peter Dom] was a freelance lettering man. He designed, among other things, the Elizabeth Arden, Camel, and Lord and Taylor logos—ones you still see around. And what else did he do? He designed type faces: the Dom Casual font, among others.

JA: You had a brother who was also a letterer, right?

FRADON: Jay died about seven years ago. He was a couple of years older than me. My father’s side was Armenian, and Dom is a shortening of an Armenian name. My mother’s name was Irma. She was Swiss, so I’m Swiss-Armenian.

“I Contain Multitudes” Ramona Fradon may not have particularly enjoyed drawing super-heroes, but she’s done plenty of them in the past half-centuryplus—and she still gets many requests to draw them, as per this photo taken at the 2005 Gateway Con in St. Louis. Above is a fairly recent commission sketch done for collector Bill Leach showing some of the most noteworthy of them! The quotation, of course, comes from Walt Whitman’s poem Song of Myself. [Aquaman, Metamorpho, Batman, Robin, Plastic Man, Aqualad, Superman, & Wonder Woman TM & ©2007 DC Comics; photo ©2007 Sam Maronie.]

“It Was A Daily Identity Crisis”

33

Titian. He was definitely a Renaissance guy and was interested in tone rather than color.

“Meaningless statistics were up one-point-five per cent this month over last month.”

All In The Family Dana Fradon, Ramona’s then-husband, realized his dream of becoming a regular and prominent cartoonist for the prestigious magazine The New Yorker—as per one of his most famous cartoons, from the Jan. 31, 1977, issue. Reprinted by permission; check out The New Yorker cartoons at www.cartoonbank.com/pro. Special thanks to Zack Buchanan. [©The New Yorker Collection 1977 Dana Fradon from the cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved.]

JA: Since your father and brother were artists, is that what got you interested in drawing?

FRADON: I always drew. We used to watch my father at the drawing board, so I was very familiar with the accouterments of drawing. I drew naturally, doodling figures all the time. I never thought of being an artist, I just drew, but my father wanted me to be one, so he steered me in that direction.

I didn’t take high school seriously, and by the time I graduated, I doubt if I could have gotten into a college. I started at Parsons School of Design in New York City. I went there for a year, but I found it to be superficial in terms of learning how to draw. We had life drawing once or twice a week, and the rest was all about technique and an overview of the different commercial fields. I felt I wasn’t learning anything that I needed to learn, so I switched to the New York Art Students League. I could never have been an interior decorator or a fashion artist anyway. I was drawn to the League because it was totally unstructured. You had to provide your own motivation. There were no tests, no grades, no diploma, no nothing. You just went there, and if you wanted to learn, you could learn, and that appealed to me. And we drew from a model every single day.

I also painted, but was really bad at it. Like, all the colors I mixed came out brown for some reason. Maybe it was Kenneth Miller’s influence, I’m not sure. [mutual laughter] But it just wasn’t for me. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Miller’s work. He didn’t acknowledge that there was an artist after Rubens, or maybe even

I studied Fine Art at the Art Students League and wasn’t very good at it. I had absolutely no ambition, but I found myself doing it anyway. [chuckles] And then I met Dana Fradon there, who was an aspiring cartoonist. His goal was to get into The New Yorker, and he encouraged me to try cartooning, which I thought was a total fall into degradation. [laughter] People are very snotty in art school, so it just seemed like the most degrading thing in the world. But I had a talent for it. We were broke when we got married, so Dana and a friend of ours encouraged me to make some comic book samples. I did and that’s how it started.

JA: The friend who helped get you into comics was George Ward. What can you tell me about him?

FRADON: I believe he was lettering comics at the time we knew him, and then he became Walt Kelly’s assistant on Pogo. I think he inked for him, and maybe lettered, too. Kelly had a character called “the bug from Scranton,” and I think George inspired it, because Scranton was his hometown. He loved cartooning and thought he was doing me a big favor by encouraging me. We were practically starving, and George used to tell us how much money Joe Maneely was making. I guess he was making, I don’t know, maybe $20,000 a year at that time. It was phenomenal.

JA: Stan Goldberg told me that Joe’s nickname was “Joe Money.” [mutual laughter] FRADON: I gather he was work, work, work, work, work all week, and on the weekends, he’d go out and get roaring drunk, and then go back and work some more. So I figured well, gee, if there’s money to be had, maybe I ought to try this. But I never met him.

“I Was Scared To Death That I Couldn’t Do It” JA: What comic samples did you do, and who did you do them for?

FRADON: I bought a whole bunch of comic books, because I’d never read comics, and for about two weeks I immersed myself in all different kinds. I drew a page of Western vignettes and took it to Fox Features first. I didn’t know anything about any of the comic book companies, but I got the addresses out of the comic books. Fox

The Bear Necessities Though George Ward drew cartoons on his own, he’s best remembered for his work as Walt Kelly’s assistant on the newspaper comic strip Pogo.

Ward was particularly known for drawing the bear depicted with Howland Owl and Albert the Alligator in these panels from the June 16, 1957, Sunday strip; indeed, it’s said Kelly let Ward totally handle many Sundays, which can supposedly be identified by the presence of the bear, whom Kelly apparently never drew. (Did the bear even have a name?) [ ©2007 Selby Kelly.]

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Ramona Fradon Talks

Sagebrush And Swordsmen Ramona says her first assignment for DC was a “4-page story” drawn for editor Murray Boltinoff—then recalls, a moment later, Murray giving her a “Shining Knight” tale to draw almost immediately. Could the 4-pager be the one from Western Comics #23 (May 1951), whose splash is pictured above left—or even the 2-page “Incredible City in the Sky” from Western Comics #38 (March-April 1953), which might’ve sat on the shelf for a time? Below, as well, are the splash pages of her two tales of Sir Justin, from Adventure Comics #165 & 166 (June & July 1951). Thanks to Mark Muller down Australia way for the “Incredible City” page from a 1966 b&w reprint—to Joseph Wise for the other three pages—and to P.C. Hamerlinck for the Boltinoff photo from an early-1970s issue of The Buyer’s Guide for Comics Fandom. [Art ©2007 DC Comics; photo ©2007 Krause Publications, Inc.] When we told Ramona we were mailing her copies of two “Shining Knight” stories for confirmation as to whether she’d drawn them, she professed horror…but she had to admit, after she’d received them, that they were a bit better than she’d remembered. We think they were just fine, Ramona—holding their own in that late era when the warrior’s exploits were being drawn by the likes of Frank Frazetta and Ruben Moreira.

“It Was A Daily Identity Crisis”

35

When I went up there, a white-haired gentleman [probably Raymond Perry.

–Jim] came out and looked at my stuff. I was in a waiting room, and he said, “Just a minute,” and went shuffling inside.

Then Murray came out. He looked at my work and said [laughs] something like “This isn’t bad for a girl.” Then he said, “Well, let’s give you a try.” He gave me a “Shining Knight” story, which I did, and it was like all rubber cement and whiteout, and just horrendous.

Apparently it was okay, though, so he kept giving me stories after that.

Features gave me a 12-page script to draw, and then somebody told me they didn’t pay, so I returned the script undrawn.

I was scared to death that I couldn’t do it anyway, because I had no idea what I was doing. So I returned it, and then went to Timely to see Stan Lee, who gave me a couple of stories. The second one was a war story, which I really hated doing, so that didn’t work out. Any time I’ve ever worked for [Marvel], it never worked out.

JA: I take it the problem was that you were anti-war.

JA: I know that men, particularly in those days, had certain attitudes about women. [Ramona laughs] It surprises me that he would actually say that out loud to you. [Ramona laughs] But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

FRADON: On that occasion, yes. I don’t like drawing guns and all that kind of stuff. And then I ended up spilling ink on one of the pages. [chuckles] It was sort-of a disaster, and I had a feeling that was it. So then I took my samples up to DC. Murray Boltinoff gave me a 4-page story to do, and then kept on giving me work.

FRADON: But Murray really was a gentleman. He really was, aside from that. [laughs] I mostly worked for Murray. Well, actually, I did a couple of

Ramona Gets Her Sea Legs Although Fradon’s “Aquaman” debut occurred with Adventure Comics #167 (Aug. 1951) as seen on p.7, collector Ethan Roberts has analyzed the art and feels the first “Aquaman” story she drew is the one printed in Adventure #170 (Nov. 1951). Above is the splash page to that story; below are two pages from it, repro’d from photocopies of the original art, courtesy of Ethan. Note that Ramona autographed both pages for him. Scripter uncertain. With special thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. [©2007 DC Comics.]

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Ramona Fradon Talks

squeaky-clean business type of place.

stories for Bob Kanigher. For some reason, they decided I should do another war story. And you know, I did it, but Kanigher said that the tanks I drew looked like Toonerville trolleys. It just wasn’t my thing.

FRADON: Yes! Absolutely. It was ’50s all the way. Straight hallways with office doors on either side, and everybody sitting behind, not on, their desks, and wearing suits and ties. It was very orderly. When the ’70s came, and I did two or three jobs for Marvel, it was a culture shock. [mutual laughter] That was seven years after I’d done any drawing. The place was chaotic.

There were no recognizable offices, and there were papers and coffee cups everywhere—it was like a zoo.

I guess it came from Stan Lee’s inspiration for having artists draw from a one-paragraph synopsis. It was free form, and I couldn’t really deal with that. It made me realize that I’m, in some ways, extremely conservative, even though in other ways, I’m not.

I like organization, I like a script, I like to be able to recognize a room when I’m in one… [laughs] that kind of thing.

I thought Kanigher was scary, very businesslike, and sort of stern.

And I just didn’t feel comfortable doing the war stories. I don’t have a feeling for drawing all the buttons and gadgets and things like [Joe] Kubert or others did. They had an affinity for that stuff.

Caniff, of course, was the daddy of them all. His work was really exciting. His tanks and trucks and machine guns were works of art, even to someone like me who is averse to anything having to do with war, and his inking was spectacular.

JA: What was Murray Boltinoff like to work for?

FRADON: He was a gentleman, very reserved; a very quiet fellow. He didn’t stand out very much. Murray always wore a suit and tie; very orderly and businesslike. He was very nice to me. I needed that, because I was just a young girl in this men’s business. And the subject matter was—well, “Aquaman” was different. “Aquaman” was a very gentle strip. You see, when I got into doing super-heroes, it was like a nightmare. I always felt out of place.

You know, that I just didn’t belong there. But I was able to do it, so I did.

JA: Your DC scripts were complete.

For instance, they told you how many panels were on a page. Did you ever deviate?

Did Anybody Love This Lucy?

Though she doesn’t mention it in this interview, Ramona reportedly did a spot of work on St. John Publishing’s four-issue 1953 series Lucy, the Real Gone Gal, as per this page provided by Ken Quattro, via Michael T. Gilbert. Maybe Ken’ll tell us a bit more about this series when he covers the life and times of Archer St. John and his offbeat comics company, which is scheduled for a near-future issue of Alter Ego. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

JA: What would you like to have done?

FRADON: Looking back, I should have illustrated children’s books. I probably shouldn’t say this, because then I’ll never sell another drawing at a convention—but a lot of the drawings that I’m doing now are more like illustrations for children’s books. The figures and the style is getting softer. The fans seem to like it, but it’s just not a big, macho super-hero kind of a style at all.

FRADON: When I was doing “Aquaman,” they didn’t encourage the variety of layouts that everybody’s doing now. It was just three tiers with two or three panels on a tier. It was pretty conventional back then. But later, when I drew the mysteries and “Metamorpho,” everything had changed.

JA: Was there ever a time when you got a script and some of it didn’t make sense to you? If so, would you say anything to Murray, or did you just keep silent and do it?

FRADON: [laughs] They never made sense to me. I never said anything, no. Every once in a while, if I couldn’t fit a balloon in here or there, I’d fudge a little bit. That was about it. No, it never, ever occurred to me to question the writers.

I had a natural ability to tell a story. I understood that from the beginning. The problem I had was getting the faces to look alike, and setting the figures into a background. It was all confusing. But the drama and angles and close-ups—I just seemed to know how to do that.

FRADON: Yes, I inked “Aquaman” all the way through, and all the short features, too. I submitted the pencils, they got lettered, and then I would ink.

JA: Were you were a big movie-watcher?

JA: Would they ever ask for changes?

FRADON: Not really. Of course, I went to movies like everybody else did, and they probably did influence me. There’s a certain pacing and timing that I instinctively understood.

FRADON: No, never, except for Jack Adler, the production guy. I used to drive him crazy because I didn’t get my angles right. I tended to be pretty sloppy, and he’d freak out and lecture me. But otherwise, no, I never got any editing. I got the impression over the years that the editors were far more interested—except for Joe Orlando—in the writing than they were in the drawing.

“[DC] Was ’50s All The Way” JA: The DC offices in the ’50s, based on what people tell me, were a

JA: You started out inking your own stuff.

JA: Do you think Boltinoff might have been more reserved to you

“It Was A Daily Identity Crisis”

A Peaceable Kingdom John Watson did an excellent job of turning this full-size pencil drawing by Ramona Fradon into a painting for this issue’s cover—but we wanted you to see her original art, as well. Fabulous stuff! We’re glad DC has reprinted scads of her late-1950s art of late in the hardcover Aquaman Archives, Vol. 1, and the black-&-white Showcase Presents Aquaman; that way, rather than show you work from her last year or two on the feature, we can concentrate on her early stories and on original art, including commissions. [Aquaman TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

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Ramona Fradon Talks

because you were a woman? Did you feel like you were treated differently?

FRADON: I never knew anybody in the business. I didn’t know anything about what other people were earning, and I didn’t know how other people were treated.

There was one smart-ass nephew up there who was really fresh. He was sort-of insulting to me, and Murray was very protective in that way. So was Joe Orlando, in spite of his own roguishness. [mutual chuckling] But I was very shy and mortified whenever I had to go into the bullpen to sketch out a cover. I hated going in there for fear they’d all start teasing me or something. It was scary.

JA: Was the fear because you were the only woman?

FRADON: Yes, and there was all this repartee going back and forth, and I just didn’t feel as though I wanted to be seen. [laughs] I was very shy back then.

Rogues’ Gallery—San Diego Style Some of the “Aquaman” stories and all the “Metamorpho” tales that Ramona drew were scripted by the late Bob Haney. This photo from a banquet held at the 1998 San Diego ComicCon shows the two reunited, amid a whole cast of crazy cartoonists. (L. to r.:) Scott Shaw!, Russ Heath, Bob Haney, Ramona Fradon, John Broome, Paul S. Newman, John Severin, Roy Thomas, Joe Simon, Fred Guardineer, and just a hint of someone else. Photo taken by David Siegel.

JA: So when you say “repartee,” would they make comments to you or just each other?

FRADON: To each other, because I’d sneak in the back and they wouldn’t even see me. I tried to keep invisible, figuring they’d start in on me, and I didn’t want to deal with that.

JA: Well, there was a story you told about one guy who used to come up behind you and kiss the back of your neck.

FRADON: Yes, he was very annoying.

JA: One of the things I wanted to do, outside of talking about your career, was to get a sense of what it was like to be a woman working in what was nearly an all-male business. I figured that had to be tough for you.

FRADON: It was. It seemed so anomalous to me. I kept thinking, “What am I doing here?” I tend to be a passive person, so it would never have occurred to me to do something else. I’d been set into that groove, so that’s where I stayed. And it’s too bad, but on the other hand, I doubt if I would have done anything different, you know? And I could do it, so that was okay. The only part that I regret is that my timing was so bad in terms of money, because when I left to draw Brenda Starr, DC changed how they paid. Instead of making $75 a page for penciling and inking, they were getting $200, $300, the minute I left, almost. So I do regret that.

“Super-Heroes Were Just Like Death To Me”

JA: Did you like other genres at all?

FRADON: I loved the mysteries when I was working with Joe Orlando. That was in the ’70s. It was fun because it wasn’t superheroes. Super-heroes are all about action, and you can’t tell one superhero from the other except for their costumes, whereas with the mysteries, there were bizarre characters interacting with each other.

That’s why I liked “Metamorpho,” too, because distinctive people were interacting. I enjoyed that kind of thing. Super-heroes were just like death to me.

JA: I understand. I have a list of people who wrote “Aquaman”….

FRADON: Jack Miller’s the only one I remember, though I never met him. It was like scripts just appeared. I didn’t know who was writing them most of the time, until I started drawing “Metamorpho,” which was written by Bob Haney. I knew who the writers were when I did the mysteries for Orlando, too, because they were credited. Back in the ’50s, everybody was anonymous, so I didn’t know anybody.

JA: Were you told not to sign your stories?

FRADON: No, the issue never came up. I never thought about it, and was just as happy not to.

JA: Since your husband was a cartoonist, did it occur to you to do outside cartooning jobs?

JA: Do you happen to remember what you got paid when you started?

FRADON: I sold a spot drawing to The New Yorker, and for a little bit I tried thinking of gags, but I realized that I couldn’t do that. I wrote a couple of children’s books, too, which I never really tried to sell. I never submitted anything anywhere, except for the comics.

FRADON: I think it was $35 a page, pencils and inks. It was terrible.

JA: While drawing “Aquaman,” did you deal with Mort Weisinger?

JA: Taking a quick look at your bio—I have you listed as doing a “Zatara, Master Magician” story early on in your career. Does that sound familiar?

FRADON: Well, he was in the room that Murray was in: Jack Schiff, Mort Weisinger, George Kashdan, and Murray. George was another editor I worked with when I was drawing “Aquaman.” I was very fond of him. I know they all hated each other. [mutual laughter] At least I think they did.

FRADON: I think I did do something with a magician, but I don’t remember enough to say yes or no. I did some Gang Busters, mysteries, a couple of Westerns, I think.

JA: Romance Trail, according to Jerry Bails.

FRADON: Yes, something like that. And a couple of war stories. And then they put me on “Aquaman” after a year or so.

JA: Was it because they were in competition with each other?

FRADON: I don’t know; I think it was the business. It made everybody crazy or something. I never knew all the intrigues, but I do have a feeling there were a lot of people who didn’t like Mort Weisinger. I never heard anybody say they didn’t like Murray. What

“It Was A Daily Identity Crisis”

was there not to like? He was such a nice person.

JA: I’ve seen a photo of you in that office, and those four guys you mentioned are around you. It looked like a very austere office.

FRADON: Yes, it was, and it wasn’t that big. It was what an office was back in those days—modest. It could have been an office of a private eye or something. It didn’t have any frills. There were four desks in it and everybody was sort-of on top of each other, but they all had their suits and ties on. They had a few filing cabinets and that was it. It was a different business then—more simple, less self-conscious. And all the ideas hadn’t been exhausted then. I figure that now people are just working on, I don’t know, some sort of artificial stimulant. They’ve kept the characters going but killed all their charm, or killed them outright and brought them back to life as maimed or psychotic. My poor, wholesome Aquaman, for instance. Back in those days, they were just thinking of little stories. They were telling little stories for kids, and they had a loyal audience that they developed by the time the Superman movies came out. When comics went public, it changed the whole thing. They lost the simple innocence they once had. At least I think so.

I have a feeling that, because this was almost an underground business, that it made it easier for people to let their imaginations run loose, whereas when you’re dealing with a national medium with all of the exposure, you just can’t do that. It’s not the same thing. I think that darkness fosters inventiveness. [mutual laughter] JA: You might be right. Well, your husband was working for The

39

New Yorker and you worked in comics. Did you feel like you were working in the ghetto?

FRADON: Yes, I did. I never talked about what I did very much.

Dana was the big star, and it didn’t bother me. I never had any urge to be recognized or fussed over. I wanted people not to even think of what I was doing. I guess that’s terrible, isn’t it?

JA: You also weren’t very thrilled about your own artwork.

FRADON: No, I was really embarrassed by some of it. I thought that, by the time I drew Super Friends, I’d begun to learn how to draw.

Academically, I’d improved so I wasn’t embarrassed about it, unlike my earlier work. I was also embarrassed about the violence. I wasn’t brought up to think that girls were supposed to be that way. Superhero artists are supposed to draw violent things like monsters, and people punching each other. I mean, it just wasn’t ladylike.

JA: It sounds like you were raised rather conservatively.

FRADON: Well, I guess so. Marie Severin, on the other hand, was just totally loosey-goosey about it all. She liked cartooning. She thought it was as ridiculous as I did, but she didn’t have all of the hang-ups about it that I had and still have, actually.

JA: Since you were feeling that way, and I’m thinking particularly the ’50s here, did you try to do something else to break away from it?

FRADON: No, I didn’t. I was a completely passive person. For all those years, though, I was walking on a path that parallels what I’m doing now. I’m writing a book about Gnostic scripture and mythology, which has a lot of symbolism in common with the comics. I think that Superman is kind-of a pop version of the Gnostic hero-savior. He came down from the world of light to dispel ignorance in the world, just as Superman came down from an alien planet to fight evil. I’ve gotten very interested in this subject matter, and I think that comic books have an unconscious way of dealing with the same material.

JA: That’s an interesting thought, but to me, Superman was sortof like Moses. Moses was put in the crib and floated down the river.

In Superman’s case, the crib was a spaceship and the river was outer space.

FRADON: Well, in the end they all emerge from a mystery.

“[When] Aquaman Was Given His Own Book… My Child Was Two Years Old” JA: Because so much of “Aquaman” took place underwater, did you do a lot of research?

FRADON: I did very little research and made up a lot of the things that I drew. And they were kind of primitive-looking, I have to admit.

JA: But there was a real charm to your work.

FRADON: Well, it may be better that I didn’t do that much research.

Super Is As Super Does Ramona says, “I think Superman is kind-of a pop version of the Gnostic herosavior.” What’s more, she’s written a book on a related subject: The Gnostic Faustus: The Secret Teachings behind the Classic Text. It will be published in Dec. 2007 by Inner Traditions, International. We don’t think this commission illo she sent us will be in it, however. One dictionary we checked defines a Gnostic as “a member of any of certain sects among the early Christians who claimed to have superior knowledge of spiritual things, and explained the world as created by powers or agencies arising as emanations from the Godhead.” Thanks to RF for the art. [Superman TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

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Ramona Fradon Talks

JA: You had not kept in touch with anybody at DC Comics. It’s interesting that George called you out of the blue like that.

FRADON: I think George had some idea that, because my drawing was comic or tended toward exaggeration, it could handle a feature like “Metamorpho.” He always put me on things that were geared toward kids, because my style was simple. This series didn’t call for a simple style, necessarily, but I think he saw a quality in my drawing that he envisioned when he thought of this idea.

And I guess he was right. It just seemed to fit.

“We All Worked [“Metamorpho”] Out Together, Really” JA: You created the look of Metamorpho and all the characters. Did you have to show him character designs first?

Who Was That Mermaid We Saw You With Last Night?

Now here’s a side of the ol’ Sea King we didn’t see much of in Adventure Comics! A pencil drawing sent to us by Ramona.

[Aquaman TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

FRADON: Yes, we all sat around one day—Bob Haney, George, and I—and I did some sketches of Metamorpho, what I thought he’d look like, and at first I had him in a cape and the usual stuff, and that just didn’t seem to fit him. It was in desperation that I decided to take his clothes off. Since his body was always changing into different chemical combinations, I figured it might as well be visible. You know, naked. So that’s what we did, which worked out okay. I think we all worked it out together, really. Then I designed all the other characters and they were satisfied with what I

My work would have had a different feeling, I think.

JA: Maybe so, but you drew “Aquaman” for such a long time. Why did you quit doing “Aquaman”?

FRADON: “Aquaman” was given his own book. By then, my child was two years old, and it was getting just too much because I was at the drawing board all the time. And it would have been worse if I had started doing the whole book. I didn’t do any comics for several years while she was growing up, except for “Metamorpho.” And then, I only did four issues.

JA: Did you do any art in that time between “Aquaman” and “Metamorpho”?

FRADON: I don’t think I did, except that I wrote that children’s book, which I never sent around except for one place. I got a rejection and I never sent it anywhere else. I did maybe two children’s books after “Metamorpho,” and had little thought of going back to comics.

But then Roy Thomas called me and asked me to come and do—this was, I guess, in ’73? He asked me to do an issue of The Cat. JA: Let’s stay in the ’60s for a moment. When you came back between “Aquaman” and “Metamorpho,” you did the children’s books and no other art. What brought you back to comic books?

FRADON: George Kashdan called me up one day. He said that he had an idea for a comic that he thought I might like to draw. My first thought was, “Never.” And then he told me about it, and it sounded kind of amusing, so I said, “Well, I’ll get it started with the first four issues.”

JA: So you agreed to do four issues only from the start?

FRADON: Yeah, just to design it and get it started.

JA: Why the number four? Was this just a favor to George?

FRADON: It was sort-of a favor to George, because I really didn’t want to work. I’m very slow. It’s not like I could knock out a 17-page story in two weeks. It would usually devour the whole month, so I knew I couldn’t do it. I did agree to do four, though.

Cover Me! The cover for Ramona’s one and only full-length “Aquaman” story— for Showcase #30 (Feb. 1961)—was drawn by Howard Purcell. Thanks to John Wells. [Aqualad TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

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Metamorpho Says “Yes!”

came up with.

JA: So you had to have an approval process for, say, Java and everybody else in the case.

FRADON: I don’t know, I don’t remember that. I think they probably were just interested in the central character, because it was his gimmick that made the story. And then after I did the first story, they saw the other characters and they liked them.

George and I became friends. There’s no way I could ever have become friends with Murray Boltinoff. He was so reserved, you know.

George was reserved, too, but he was accessible. He was an intellectual.

He’d gone to an elite high school, and had a college education. I think he’d studied science, and how he ended up in comics, I have no idea, but it seemed to me that he just didn’t belong there.

JA: His brother Bernard was a comptroller for the company.

FRADON: Oh, that’s right. Maybe that’s how he got there. And then he could do it like the rest of us. If you could do it, you did it.

George was a very sensitive man who had read a great deal and was interested in intellectual matters. Apparently, he could wrap his head around the comic book field, but I don’t think that was who he was, really.

George was very protective of me. We were talking about the “neck kisser” before. One time George confronted that guy when he pulled one of those neck kisses. And it was very funny, because Joe Orlando would come in the office when I was there with George and they would get very competitive. They seemed like a couple of male animals, so territorial. [mutual laughter] It was clear that George wanted him to go away, and it was really goofy, I thought. But George had a sad

If Ramona’s “Aquaman” was a delight, “Metamorpho”—introduced in The Brave and the Bold #58 (Dec. 1964-Jan. 1965)—took her art and characterization to the next level, as per the cover at left, as reprinted in the b&w Showcase Presents Metamorpho. (Inking was by “Batman” embellisher Charles Paris; scripting inside was by Bob Haney.) Above is a penciled “family portrait” of Metamorpho, Java, Simon Stagg, and his daughter Sapphire Stagg—one of the best casts of the Silver Age of Comics—sent to us by the artist. [All characters TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

thing. He had an autistic child, and it was a terrible sadness in his life.

I’m sorry that the end of his life was so difficult, too.

George was kind-of invisible, you know? He was not an out-there kind of a person. But he was the one who knew all the science. He was the one who devised the chemical transformation ideas that were central to the feature. Bob Haney wrote the characters and plots, but George supplied the ideas they were based on.

JA: Do you think the idea for “Metamorpho” came from George?

FRADON: Yes, that was always my understanding. He gave Haney the idea, and Haney produced a script, and gave it form. And when I started working on it, I would bring in the drawings and we’d laugh over them because they were so silly. That would give Bob ideas for the next story, and the characters developed rapidly just from our bouncing ideas off of each other. I’m not sure how it would have gone if I’d stayed, because I think we were beginning to burlesque it too much, and I think that’s always a danger.

JA: Did you have some input into plot ideas, since you were sitting around talking?

FRADON: I didn’t, really. I think the way I drew the scenes gave Bob ideas about who the characters were and how they would interact.

Those characters were quite vivid, and just the way they looked at each other... I had such fun with that. That sort-of told Bob who they were, and then they got more and more bizarre.

JA: When you did the covers, did you sit around and talk cover

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Ramona Fradon Talks

ideas and do a sketch?

FRADON: Oh, yes. I used to dread that, because then I’d have to produce sketches right on the spot. That was when I went into the bullpen to draw layouts. I think George sometimes let me get away without producing anything usable, and I would go home where I could really think.

JA: George seems to have been a very accommodating editor.

had, because nobody had told me. I worked at home in Connecticut and knew little or nothing about what was happening in the business.

JA: How much were you making?

FRADON: Maybe $50 a page, something like that.

Afterwards, I sort-of regretted that I hadn’t stayed with it—for a while, anyway.

JA: Frankly, the character missed you.

FRADON: I agree. He was my character.

It was like when I started drawing Brenda: I was drawing Dale’s character, and that doesn’t ever work as well, I don’t think.

FRADON: I don’t remember him ever criticizing or asking me to change anything. But when I think about it, there wasn’t much to criticize, if I may say so. I think I did a good job on that feature.

JA: I think it’s tough to beat the creator.

At some point I may have been thinking of doing more than four issues, but then Bob Haney wrote a scene where I had to draw 10,000 roses dropping out of an airplane.

Something snapped in my brain, and I decided that was my last story. I told George I was quitting, and he offered me $100 a page to stay on. I had no idea the feature had taken off like it

FRADON: Right, because the character is the creator, for better or worse. Unfortunately, [laughs] mine happened to be this Metamorpho freak, but what can I say? And I loved Bob Haney’s scripts. I’d see him every time I came in. George and Bob and I used to go out to lunch and laugh over the material. It was just so goofy.

JA: How did you feel about other people inking your work? Charlie Paris inked you.

FRADON: I liked the job he did on “Metamorpho.” His inking really contributed to the look of that feature. He gave it a raw, angular quality and the energy that made it distinctive.

The only inker I really objected to was… [sings] duh, duh, duh, duhhh…

JA: I’ll bet I know.

FRADON: You do know.

JA: Mr. Vinnie Colletta.

FRADON: [laughs] Yes. He was terrible. Colletta’s inks took over the faces, which made me furious. Somebody told me that he would erase backgrounds because he just didn’t want to bother to ink them. Everybody dreaded having him ink their work.

JA: When you decided to take on “Metamorpho,” you knew you were going to have trouble making deadlines. Who decided that you should have an inker?

FRADON: It was George’s idea.

By then, they were doing the assembly-line thing.

JA: Your layouts on “Metamorpho” were different than

Much More Metamorpho A trio of fabulous Metamorpho sketches by Fradon, only one of which has been inked. Thanks to RF; Todd Franklin also sent us a copy of the drawing at near right, since he owns the original. [Metamorpho, Java, & Sapphire TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

“It Was A Daily Identity Crisis”

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was given. Sometimes I’d get an uninspired or dull script, and my drawing would reflect that. Scripts that were vivid made my drawing more alive. Other artists can draw well in spite of the script, but I’m more of a chameleon, I guess.

JA: You also drew a couple of Brave and Bold issues like “Metal Men and The Atom,” before leaving comics for a while. How’d they trap you?

FRADON: Yeah, I guess I did do that. Maybe that’s why I stopped, because I could see it coming, that there were going to be more and more super-heroes, and I’d never get away from them.

JA: Due to how people generally, traditionally, back then, thought of women’s roles as opposed to men’s roles, here you were, working your tail off, and you’ve got a child. How did you balance everything?

FRADON: It was a daily identity crisis. For me, it was very difficult to get into the super-hero mindset and then come out of it, and put on my other head, which was as a suburban wife and mom. It was very hard, and I was always confused and embarrassed by it. It was a wrench to get into the super-hero frame of mind, because, to me, it felt violent.

There’s even violence in the sharp angles and panel arrangements. It’s not only the subject matter; the format, itself, is very strenuous and aggressive. I’ve noticed as I get older that it’s harder and harder for me to summon that aggressive energy.

You’ve got all kinds of foreshortA Distaff Duo ening, speed lines, and impact—that’s (Below:) Ramon says she didn’t what it’s about—particularly in the care much for drawing supersuper-hero genre, where you have heroes… but how about superthe obligatory five pages of people heroines? Here’s a commission smashing each other and flying all drawing she did for collector

Meaner Than A Junkyard Dog (Above:) A chapter splash from The Brave and the Bold #58 (Feb.March 1965), as reprinted in the b&w Australian comic All Favourites #49, and sent by Mark Muller. [©2007 DC Comics.]

on “Aquaman.”

FRADON: They were. When I draw from a script, I’m so sensitive to the script that my drawing changes.

“Metamorpho” called for a different kind of drawing. It was rancorous and violent, and required a lot more energy. When I drew “Aquaman,” there wasn’t much experimenting going on with page layouts by anybody. When I came back to comics, the Marvel style was big, and their artists cut loose with new page layouts. So I think I must have absorbed some of that during the interim.

JA: How aware of Jack Kirby’s work in the ’60s were you?

FRADON: I really wasn’t aware of it, except in passing.

“Metamorpho” was a more dramatic feature than “Aquaman.” The emotions were raw and the action much more dramatic, so it called for a different kind of layout. I’m sort of an unconscious artist. Gil Kane could tell you everything he did, why he did it, and what the history of it was, and I just didn’t know any of that.

“There Were Going To Be More And More Super-Heroes” JA: You were more of an instinctual artist.

FRADON: I guess that’s what I’m saying. I responded to the scripts I

Arnie Grieves. [Batgirl & Supergirl TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

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Ramona Fradon Talks

“Roy Thomas Brought Me Back To Comics” JA: You didn’t miss the comics at all, did you?

FRADON: No, I was so happy not to have deadlines. I could never get away from them before. Deadlines always weighed on me, because drawing never came easily to me. I erase a lot, and the only time it gets easy is when the deadline is upon me. I guess everybody goes through that. When you have to do it, your ego gets out of the way, and the work has more life to it.

Couldn’t Aquaman Just Tell That Big Fish To Let The Kid Go? Maybe Ramona forgot all about drawing Aquaman and other super-heroes for several years—but she’s sure had cause to remember them in recent decades! Here’s a great commission pencil sketch she provided, with Topo the octopus (or his brother) giving Aquaman a hand (or rather, a tentacle) rescuing Aqualad.

[Aquaman & Aqualad TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

over the place. I had to experience it, because I draw viscerally, so I can’t just draw it from the outside. It comes from the inside. I think some artists just draw from their heads, don’t you? They don’t necessarily have to feel it, but I do, so it made it difficult.

JA: I think pulling work out from your gut gives you some of the best work you can get.

FRADON: I think the same way. It comes alive out of your own emotions.

JA: Right, and I think that that’s true of your work, but even so, you didn’t ignore anatomy, perspective. Your draftsmanship was still there, even though you were pulling work out from inside. Some people can’t do that.

FRADON: I guess not.

JA: Some people are just native artists, meaning they’re all instinct in their draftsmanship. And others are so clinical in their draftsmanship that there’s no passion in the work.

FRADON: I know, it can be cold or lifeless. But then there are artists whose work is so alive. To me, Will Eisner was the perfect cartoonist.

Bruno Premiani was another. His work was so relaxed, such marvelous draftsmanship, but so alive at the same time. It also had a certain comic quality to it. I wonder if he could have adapted to the lines and swirls, the kind of Art Deco work that’s going on now.

JA: I don’t know, either. I think it depends on how the muse hits you, and then if you’re a professional, you try to adapt. Whether you succeed is another matter.

FRADON: Yes, it’s true.

JA: When you left comics in the 1960s, what did you do?

FRADON: I drove my daughter around. [mutual laughter] I put on wheels and went from dancing school to—you know, that’s what you do in the suburbs. I was a full-time mother.

Roy Thomas brought me back to comics. And also, I began to feel sortof out of things. The women’s lib movement was going on in the early ’70s. I think I just had this itch to get back into some kind of action. So when Roy called, I thought, “Well, why not?

I think I’ll do it,” because my daughter was old enough then.

JA: I wonder what made Roy call you?

FRADON: That’s a good question. Ask Roy. [laughs] Well, it was The Cat. Maybe because of the women’s movement, he wanted a woman artist?

JA: The first issue was penciled by Marie Severin, and Linda Fite wrote it. Unfortunately, your issue of The Cat was not published.

FRADON: No, I think they killed it at that point. And I had no idea what I was doing. Roy called me in there and I walked into this absolutely chaotic environment. [mutual laughter] Everybody’s in cubicles, and there’s pencils and erasers flying through the air, and papers all over everything. And then he hands me this one paragraph synopsis and says, “Go draw.” I didn’t know where to start, and my mind began to wander off the script, which was just terrible. My drawing was really rusty, just bad. It was an unfortunate interlude.

JA: Did you know that you were going to have to basically do the plot because you only got one paragraph?

FRADON: I didn’t know until he handed it to me. I’d never worked that way before. The first thing that popped into my mind, being an old left-winger, was, “What am I doing? Writing this and drawing for the same price?” [laughs] JA: Some people felt that way.

FRADON: Well, that’s what it was, wasn’t it? I think somebody came along and put some balloons in here and there, but I just couldn’t work that way. There was a time when I drew Brenda Starr for a week, and I had to write the thing, since we were in between writers. That was easy for me, because I knew what the pictures should be right away. But the Marvel work was hard because there was no dialogue, and that confused me.

JA: But you also drew an issue of Fantastic Four.

FRADON: Yes, they gave me a Fantastic Four, and I think there was one other project. That was another shock to me, because here was this Thundra person—this monstrous woman who was smashing everybody in sight—and I’d never drawn anything like that before.

“It Was A Daily Identity Crisis”

This Cat Has Considerably More Than Nine Lives In this interview, Jim and Ramona ask Roy Thomas to “throw his two cents in”—so he will, starting here: “When Stan Lee decided in 1972 that we would start three new comics featuring heroines—The Cat, Shanna the She-Devil, and Night Nurse—I knew that, sooner or later, I wanted Ramona to draw one of them. I don’t recall how I got in touch with her, while Marie Severin and others were doing the first few Cat issues; but when she came up to Marvel to talk with me, she was wearing this leather-type suit, and I thought that was just fantastic. She was as colorful as her art! Alas, The Cat was canceled before her issue would’ve seen print in mid-1973. Yes, I wanted women writers and artists on those three titles where possible—but I wanted Ramona on The Cat because she was great!”

The Cat #5, however, has become one of the more famous unpublished issues—and collector Russ Garwood has kindly provided us with scans of the splash and final page of the story, which was written

by Linda Fite and inked by Jim Mooney. Russ also sent us a commission sketch Ramona drew of herself drawing the feature—while fellow collector Bill Leach provided the illo of The Cat stretching her claws.

[The Cat TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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Things had really changed in that seven years.

JA: Did it make you uncomfortable?

FRADON: Yes, because I was back into this violence thing again. It must have been something karmic. I probably knew Thundra in another life, but I didn’t want to relive it. [laughter] JA: Did you like the Fantastic Four characters?

FRADON: No, and especially the Thing, where I had to draw all those scales. Oh, my God! Why would anybody take on an assignment like that? Fortunately, [inker] Joe Sinnott had done it so much that he sortof took over and made it look like it should look. No, that was like drawing all those roses coming out of the sky in “Metamorpho.” That was work! I just didn’t enjoy doing it.

JA: Why didn’t you do any more work for Marvel?

FRADON: I don’t think they gave me any more. I had a feeling this was not working, you know? Roy may have given me one other thing, but I don’t remember it if he did. Ask Roy; I don’t remember. He doesn’t have to be polite. [mutual chuckling] I don’t think my drawing was good at all. It would be interesting to know what Roy says about that. [See art notes on this and preceding page.]

“I Really Loved [The 1970s At DC] JA: We’ll ask him to throw his two cents in. And you know how Roy is. He’ll be glad to throw his two cents in, happily. [mutual laughter] FRADON: That would be interesting. I came back after seven years of not drawing, I was very rusty, so I was lucky when I went over to DC, and Joe Orlando gave me mystery stories. I fell into that very easily.

I really loved that period, which didn’t last long enough, because I could see the handwriting on the wall, that I was going to be doing super-heroes again. But during that time, I did the mysteries and Plastic Man, and that awful Freedom Fighters. I kept begging Paul Levitz to take me off of that thing.

JA: Did they just assign you work? “Ramona, we want you to do this”?

FRADON: Yes. I guess things would suddenly get popular, and then DC would chase that market.

JA: The Freedom Fighters were a bunch of the old Quality Comics characters. Did they give you any reference?

FRADON: They must have. How would I have thought to put somebody in a top hat and stripes [Uncle Sam]? That was the one that Vince Colletta inked, which made it even more depressing. I did complain about his inks.

Fantastic Fradon Roy again: “Here’s a page from Fantastic Four #133 (April 1973), penciled

by Ramona and inked by Joe Sinnott. I plotted the story, but I don’t recall if my synopsis was really a one-paragraph thing like she recalls Marvel plots as being (I suspect it was a bit more than that)—and I was really looking forward to doing the dialogue. For reasons long forgotten, though, I had to ask Gerry Conway to script it. Ramona asks if I recall why she only worked for Marvel on two or three comics, and I honestly have no memory of why—but I don’t think it was because of any dissatisfaction on our part.

I’ve always felt that she just lost interest in doing work for Marvel… perhaps because she got bounced around between titles. I suspect that, over the long haul, Ramona would’ve made a terrific Marvel artist— although, of course, unlike her, I believe The Thing is one of the all-time great comic book characters.” Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, with thanks to Anthony Snyder. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

JA: What kind of response did the editor have?

it. Plastic Man made up for it for me.

FRADON: He said, [laughs] “Oh, everybody complains.” I asked him to take me off of it, which he did, so I think that was his response.

FRADON: It did for me, too. They never should have put me on super-heroes. It’s like taking schoolteachers who were gym instructors and have them teaching math. I guess they just had a stable, and they’d shift people around when they needed them, but that’s a dumb way to do it. You don’t get the best out of people.

JA: I liked your Plastic Man. It looked like you were having fun, and frankly, that was the first time since Jack Cole that somebody had drawn a decent Plastic Man. FRADON: It was fun to do. He’s such a goofy character and easy to draw. I loved the scripts because they were kind-of political and satirical, and Plastic Man was a character that I could recognize. I really liked drawing that series.

JA: It showed, because your work was really alive on that feature, as opposed to Freedom Fighters where you obviously weren’t enjoying

JA: One of the guys who inked you was Bob Smith.

FRADON: I think he had just started in the business then. I loved Bob Smith’s work when we did Super Friends. We were a good team.

You know whose inks I liked the best? He only did one issue of Plastic Man: Mike Royer. I don’t think I’ve ever been as happy with other inkers, because he understood what I was doing. He wasn’t doing

“It Was A Daily Identity Crisis”

From Stone Age To The Age of Plastic, Man Jack Cole created his iconic hero in 1941 for Quality Comics. By the time of Plastic Man #21 (Jan. 1951), he’d reached the apex of his art. The above page from one of his best tales, featuring the mind-reading villain Kra Vashnu, is repro’d here from a mid-1960s Super Comics reprint.

Cole admirer Gil Kane drew the flexible felon-fighter in DC’s Plastic Man, Vol. 2, #1 (Nov.-Dec. 1966), at top right, but it was not really his cup of tea.

Wonder if it was Gil’s idea to give him a square chin—and it was probably an editor who decreed that his legs be colored red. (Bad notions, both.) This Arnold Drake-scripted story was reprinted in Plastic Man 80-Page Giant #1 in 2003.

Ramona Fradon did perhaps the best post-Quality Plas, as per the page at right from issue #12 (April-May 1976), really the second issue of a 1970s revival. Inks by Bob Smith, script by Steve Skeates. Repro’d from a photocopy of the autographed original art, courtesy of Jack Bender. [All Plastic Man art ©2007 DC Comics.]

his thing, and I was so happy. Every time I see him, I gush over him, ten-gallon hat and all. [mutual laughter] JA: When you did the horror stuff for Orlando, I take it you didn’t do it for long because DC thought you were more valuable on the hero books.

FRADON: Maybe the mysteries weren’t doing so well then. So there came the super-heroes again. I could see them coming and I was really depressed.

JA: What made Joe Orlando such a good editor?

FRADON: First of all, he was interested in drawing. He was really interested in the artwork, not just the writing, and he was a teacher as well as an editor. He gave me some tips about inking that were just so helpful. I did better inking while working for him than I ever did

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before, or since, maybe.

He was inspiring, because he was interested and made me want to do a better job.

And he was fun. He was always looking for ways to push the envelope and get around the [Comics] Code. I think he thought the comic element in my drawing would help make that possible. Even so, we had several scenes removed from different stories and one entire story killed. I loved Joe. He was a rogue, but just in fun. He was an irrepressible flirt, but he was very comical about it. Years later, I saw him up at DC—shortly before he died, I think—and he suggested that we do a female version of Beavis and Butthead.

I thought, “My God, what would the girls’ version of that be?” Ai yi yi! [laughter]

Perp Pulverizer—or Peeping Tom? (Above:) Ramona’s art for a 1970s DC calendar. Repro’d from a scan of the original art, with thanks to Todd Franklin. (Right:) A commission drawing sent

by RF. [Plastic Man TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

He was working at Mad at that time, and I think he was feeling like a square peg in a round hole. Everybody was young, everything had changed, and I don’t think he was happy where he was. I guess he knew his end was coming, and he just didn’t fit into that world. I mean, times had changed, and Joe hadn’t or didn’t care to change with them.

I don’t know, it seems to me that all of the comics are introspective now. There’s so much angst in the stories, and it didn’t used to be that way, especially with Joe. He took the mysteries with a grain of salt.

They were melodramatic and couldn’t really be taken seriously. To me, comics are supposed to be comic. It seems so silly to get profound when you’re producing pulp.

Kids pay to just be amused. I was on a comics panel not too long ago, and everybody was talking about these characters and how

I’ve Got A Secret (Left:) Ramona loved the mystery stories she drew for editor Joe Orlando in the 1970s—as witness this page she sent us from an issue of House of Secrets. Anybody out there know the number and date—or even the name of the story? [©2007 DC Comics.]

“It Was A Daily Identity Crisis”

me. It’s better if you pencil loosely and then think with a brush, but I never did that. I was too afraid of making a mistake.

neurotic they were and all their deep implications. And this was a college where kids were the audience. I said, “I don’t understand how you kids can grow up in this kind of environment,” and a couple of kids said, “We can’t.” [mutual laughter] They’re confused. They’re buffeted with so much cynicism and edginess. You can’t just read a simple little story in a comic book any more. It’s all so contradictory, introspective, and neurotic.

JA: I know about your pencils. I was one of the guys who inked Brenda Starr dailies at San Diego one year.

FRADON: That was really a very nice thing you all did for me. It was such a horror when I arrived at the convention and got that frantic call from the syndicate, “We think you didn’t package the strips carefully, because the drawings fell out of the packet.” So I had to do a whole week of dailies in the four days I was there. If you all hadn’t inked them, I don’t know how I could have done it and gotten any sleep.

JA: And they wonder why kids don’t read them.

FRADON: I guess that’s the answer, they just don’t bother with them.

JA: It’s sort of like incest. [laughter] You get these people who grow up with comics and then they start doing that kind of comics for themselves, and they forget that the people who did the comics that they enjoyed so much did them for kids.

FRADON: Exactly. I think that’s really true. They’ve lost the audience. It’s a shame, because comics, for the most part, were a nice, innocent thing. Recently, a fan told me he became a marine biologist after reading Aquaman.

Another one became a chemist after reading Metamorpho. Our comics did sort-of inspire kids. At times, anyway.

49

JA: It was great fun. I was sitting with Paul Smith and George Freeman and Mark Schultz.

Three of the best, and then there’s me. [mutual laughter] We were all using each other’s brushes, pens, and White-Out and water. And somebody had an X-Acto that was making the rounds. [more laughter] FRADON: You know, nobody ever mentioned anything up at Tribune Media or probably even noticed the different styles.

Friendship, Friendship…

Fradon and Smith’s cover for Super Friends #14 (Oct.-Nov. 1978), repro’d from a photocopy of the original art; thanks to Anthony Snyder. Another Super Friends cover can be seen on p. 11. [©2007 DC Comics.]

When I was drawing Brenda Starr, I saw a couple of TV anchorwomen who said that Brenda inspired them to go into journalism. So now [the comics are] inspiring people to become neurotic, I guess.

“There Was My Foot On Brenda Starr” JA: Tell me about how you got the Super Friends job. Was that just another “Ramona, we want you to do this”?

FRADON: Oh, yes, absolutely. Editor E. Nelson Bridwell was such a character. He wrote the stories, and he must have been a Virgo; he was such a stickler for detail. He was so interested in his own scripts that I noticed he never printed any letters in the letter column that had to do with the artwork, ever. It was all about people analyzing his scripts. [mutual laughter] He used to insist upon drawing sketches of all the costumes that the characters wore. He was a control freak, and it was not much fun working for him.

I think, by then, I knew how to draw. I did some of my best drawing on those stories. Bob Smith’s inking was so nice and clean.

Inkers told me that they wanted to ink my work because my pencils were so tight, they didn’t have to do any thinking. That’s why I don’t like to ink, because I pencil so tightly that inking seems redundant to

JA: They didn’t? Some people didn’t stick close to you. How could they not have noticed?

FRADON: I know. They all did their own thing. The one who stuck the closest to me was Trina Robbins. She did one and she—well, women are more sensitive to other people than men are, I think.

JA: I tried to stick as close to you as I could.

FRADON: Well, maybe you were one of the sensitive ones.

JA: I hope so. [mutual laughter] FRADON: Well, I did appreciate that. It was very touching.

JA: It was an honor. Your pencils were beautiful, and most of us were fans of yours.

FRADON: By that time, I was so burned out. I just could not stand doing that strip any more, so that was not very good drawing that you inked.

JA: The pencils were very clean. I looked at them, thinking “She did all this overnight? [Ramona laughs] No, it couldn’t be!”

FRADON: I did! I did it all overnight.

JA: Mark Evanier was the one who set it up. Most cartoonists are

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good people. And people don’t mind helping somebody out.

FRADON: Oh, definitely. You know, when I went to San Diego, I had been out of comic books for 15 years, but I felt like I was home again.

The newspaper world is a completely different thing, unless you’re Charlie Schulz and the whole world is at your feet. You’re just anonymous. I mean, it was a really miserable experience. And working for Tribune Media—and anything I say horrible about them, I’m happy to have you print—they were just awful. They exploit their labor. For instance, they forced Dale Messick into retirement and gave her a pension to placate her. Then they figured out that half of her pension was to come out of my royalties. Then I began to notice when I took over the strip from Dale that the production costs would go up every month when the royalties went up and would go down when the royalties went down. So I got a lawyer, and it cost me as much to pay him as to get the compensation from the syndicate, but I did get it.

From then on, they sent me itemized production costs, and it never went up and down like that again.

I was there the day they busted the Union, and picked up stakes and went down to Florida. I’ll never forget that Irishman who was running the place, walking down the aisle with his big, toothy smile and his red face while everyone else looked like they were dying because they were losing their jobs. I guess he found a good place to play golf down there, so he took the whole operation down to Florida. It was awful. I had about two or three different editors, and the only thing they were interested in was whether I remembered to put the right clothes on Brenda from one week to the next. One time I put three arms on one of the characters just to see if they would notice—which they didn’t.

JA: Why did they want Dale Messick to retire?

FRADON: Well, her scripts were beginning to wander, and the week they fired her, she’d sent in a script where Brenda was pregnant again.

They just figured this was crazy, because it had gotten to the point where all she was doing was burning biscuits and crying, so they summarily fired Dale. We didn’t have another writer, so I had to write it for a week, which I really enjoyed doing. But I didn’t want to take on the full responsibility. Because then I’d be thinking about it 24 hours a day, you know, plots and all that, and I just didn’t want to do that. Anyway, I eventually quit the strip.

Clean Comics Ramona says that Dale Messick, the creator of Brenda Starr Reporter was “forced into retirement.” For the 1976 San Diego Comic-Con program book, Messick drew the humorous illo above. Thanks to Shel Dorf.

Fradon herself drew the commission drawing at left a few years back, and sent us a copy. [Brenda Starr TM & ©2007 Tribune Media.]

You know what I did? I waited until the last minute to tell them I was quitting, so they’d have trouble finding somebody else. [mutual laughter] I just hated them, and you know, Dale hated them so much she vowed to live forever so she could keep collecting that pension.

JA: Well, no wonder why you were so gleeful when you quit.

FRADON: You know, it’s funny. I grew up reading newspaper strips. I never read comic books, but I just loved the newspapers, the Sunday funnies and everything. I remember when I first went to the Daily News building and I looked up—I felt like Clark Kent must have felt when he arrived at The Daily Planet. You know, standing there, looking up at the Daily News building was like reaching a pinnacle of success.

“It Was A Daily Identity Crisis”

Mavens And Monsters The Brenda Starr strip for Sunday, Sept. 13, 1981, written by Dale Messick and drawn by Ramona Fradon.

Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, courtesy of RF. And, because A/E’s own Michael T. Gilbert is such a big Fradon fan, Ramona even deigned to draw him a sketch of his own super-hero, Mr. Monster!

[Brenda Starr art ©2007 Tribune Media; Mr. Monster TM & ©2007 Michael T. Gilbert.]

But then I remember the first day the strip came out, I was walking up Park Avenue South. There were newspapers blowing around, and I stepped on one and looked down, and there was my foot on Brenda Starr. And I thought, “Oh, God. How deflating!” Next, it would be wrapping up dead fish or something. [a lot of laughter] So I had a couple of weeks of giddiness and that was it. [even more laughter] JA: Gill Fox got you onto Brenda Starr.

FRADON: Yes, he called me up one day out of the blue and asked me if I wanted to draw it. He told me what they were offering, which was more than I was making in comics, but I didn’t tell him right away that I wanted to do it. I wanted to think about it, because I never liked Brenda Starr very much, and yet it seemed like an opportunity to me.

Friends of mine who did strips warned me prophetically [chuckles] that I would be on a treadmill, and I’d never get off of it, and that it was a grind. But I decided I’d give it a try. By the way, Gill had been looking—they’d been beating the bushes, trying to find somebody for about a year, because they wanted a woman to do it, and they finally bumped into me—I guess before they came upon Marie— she and I were the only women working in comics then, I think.

JA: Did you use very many assistants?

FRADON: Once in a while. There were a couple of times when I wanted to go off to Europe for six weeks or something, and I had to get ahead, so I got somebody to ink. Roy Richardson and Frank McLaughlin inked some, and there was a woman who inked for me, too. I always inked the faces or the heads, though, because that’s what made the characters who they are.

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“I Don’t Think Most Women Would Want To Draw The Kind Of Stuff That I Have Done” JA: Since you retired, what have you been doing?

FRADON: I practiced Astrology and energy healing, and I also went to NYU and got my degree in 1977. It took me eleven years to get through, but I did it. I’d always wanted to go to college and regretted that I hadn’t. When I was there, I stumbled on to something that I’ve been working on ever since. It’s a book about Faust and Gnostic scripture that’s kept me pretty busy, together with an old house that I’ve been renovating. I just sold the book, by the way, and it’s coming out in the fall.

JA: Why do you think there haven’t been more women in comics?

FRADON: I think more women would like to get in, but they don’t draw what the men are looking for. The kind of stuff they want to do is not what the boys are reading. Men and women are different, that’s all.

And I don’t think most women would want to draw the kind of stuff that I have done. I’ve been on panels with them, and they all talk about finding ways to get published, because the men aren’t looking for what they want to do. Women want to do stories that have to do with people and relationships. It’s a whole different attitude, and that’s why I think women aren’t in the business.

JA: During the Second World War, before there were romance comics, Vince Fago—who was editor-in-chief at Timely when Stan Lee was in military service—told me there were a lot of women there. Most of them were in production or they were inkers.

FRADON: And colorists. Yeah, I know. There used to be a lot up at DC, too.

JA: Fiction House in the ’40s had several women drawing the strips, penciling and inking. [Ramona chuckles] And some of them were quite good.

FRADON: And what happened to them?

The men came back from the war and everything changed.

JA: There was some of that, yes.

[Ramona laughs] And also the fact that when a recession hit the comics in the late ’40s, a lot of people left and never came back, many whom were women. The number of women in the field depleted, and never replenished.

FRADON: Yeah, and then came the age of the super-hero.

JA: Yes, but you know there was a time when romance comics and humor comics sold, and women and little girls were buying them. They’ve lost that audience totally.

FRADON: The super-heroes became predominant, and that wasn’t what women wanted to read or draw. They got squeezed out.

JA: And the companies have made only half-hearted attempts to get girls reading them again.

Sovereign Of The Seven Seas (Left:) A Fradon commission drawing, sent to us by both Ramona and collector Bill Leach. (Right:) Her splash page for Adventure Comics #190 (July 1953), as reprinted in the b&w Australian comic The Hundred Comic Monthly #4, sent by Mark Muller. [Aquaman TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

FRADON: I know. Well, they’re not even getting the kids to read any more. It’s a shame. Maybe all the talent will be going into graphic novels from now on.

JA: Maybe, but you take a big chance when you do a graphic novel.

FRADON: Ah, because there isn’t a big audience yet?

JA: It isn’t just that. Let’s say you’re going to write and draw, and maybe even letter, a 64-page graphic novel. Think of all the time that would take that you’re not getting paid to do it. And then you’ve got to find a publisher.

FRADON: Well, that’s like anybody who does a book, I guess.

Although when you’re comparing it to the predictability of drawing comic books...

JA: At least you’d have a regular income, because your book is coming out each month.

FRADON: Well, I think it would be a great way to express yourself. The format is limitless, and I wish I weren’t too lazy to try one.

Ramona Fradon is available for a limited number of art commissions— new concepts or re-creations.

She can be contacted at: ramonafradon@earthlink.net

“It Was A Daily Identity Crisis”

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RAMONA FRADON Checklist The following Checklist is adapted from information appearing in the online Who’s Who of American Comic Books (1928-1999); see p. 31 for details. Key: (a) = full art; (p) = pencils only; (i) = inks only; (w) = writer; (l) = letterer; (d) daily newspaper comic strip; (S) Sunday newspaper comic strip; (rep) reprint.

Name: Ramona Fradon (c. 1927 - ) (artist, occasional writer) Education: Parsons School of Design; Art Students League Family in Arts: Ex-husband = Dana Fradon (cartoonist for The New Yorker) Print Media (Non-Comics): Artist: dust jacket, Amazing Heroes #141 (1988); artist: juvenile books – The Story of Superman (4 tiny books in a slipcase) Syndicated Comic Strips: Brenda Starr Reporter (d)(S) (a) 1980-96 Chicago TribuneNew York News Syndicate, Inc. (1980-84), Tribune Media Service (1984-96) Comics in Other Media: Choices (a) 1990, Angry Isis Press; filler (a) 1997 in Oz Story, Hungry Tiger Press COMIC BOOK CREDITS (Mainstream US Publishers): DC Comics: Aquaman (a) 1951-64; backup feature (a) 1958 in Blackhawk; Batman and Green Lantern (p) 1965, 1974; Batman and Robin (i) 1950; Casebook Mystery (a) 1950, 1952-53; covers (p/some i) 1965-66, 1975-81; Freedom Fighters (p) 1976-77; Gang Busters (a) 1949, 1951-52, 1957; House of Mystery (a) 1974-75; House of Secrets (a) 1974-75; Metamorpho (p, some i) 1964-66, 1975, 1977; Metamorpho and Metal Men (p) 1964-65; Plastic Man (p) 1976-77; Rodeo Rick (a) 1953; Roy Raymond, TV Detective (a.k.a. Impossible but True) (a) 1951; Secrets of Haunted House (a) 1975-78, 1980; Secrets of Sinister House (a) 1974; Shining Knight (a) 1951; special crime feature (a) 1951; Star Spangled War Stories (a) 1952-53, 1975; Super Friends (p) 197781; Western Comics (a) 1951-53; Wonder Twins (p) 1980; Wonder Woman (a) 1989; Zatara (a) 1950 Marvel Comics: Fantastic Four (p) 1973; Romance Trail (a) 1950; war (a) c. 1951 St. John Publishing: Lucy, the Real Gone Gal (a) 1954

Fradon And Friends Sob! We wound up with a virtual plethora (in only the best sense of the term) of Fradon commission drawings, and could only print a relative handful of them in this issue—but stay tuned for more in the future. Meanwhile, to keep your appetite whetted, here’s a photo of Ramona, presiding over primo pencil drawings she’s done of Aquaman, Metamorpho, and Plastic Man (the latter in the kind of situation later Playboy cartoonist Jack Cole would’ve been proud of). Thanks to Ramona for the illos, and to Keif Simon & Jim Murtaugh for the photo, taken at the 2005 Big Apple Con in New York City. [Heroes TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

Photos courtesy of Robert and Kyle Powell.

Above: Bob Powell outside his studio in the mid-’60s, in the 1909 Hupmobile he and his son John restored. Bob also restored a Model-T! Top right: Grandpa Bob with Robert Powell’s son, Sean.

Bottom right: Relaxing with fellw auto-buff Austin Clark in Bob’s Laurel Hollow home.

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The Powell Family Album!

Part III

by Michael T. Gilbert

I

n August 2004, in preparation for an upcoming issue (#66) devoted to Golden Age cartoonist Bob Powell, Alter Ego editor Roy Thomas forwarded me the e-mail address of Powell’s son Seth. During Bob Powell’s incredible 30-year career, he’d illustrated numerous features, including Mr. Mystic, Doc Savage, and The Shadow in the ’40s, and “Giant-Man” and “The Incredible Hulk” for Marvel in the ’60s. But little was known about the artist’s personal life.

Sadly, he died of cancer at age 50 on October 1, 1967, leaving behind only a couple of brief interviews. Powell was an artist I’d long admired, and I was excited by the opportunity to hear Seth’s stories about his dad.

Unfortunately, my hopes were dashed when Seth Powell told me his dad had died shortly before he was born. Then Seth suggested I talk to his three older brothers, and soon a lively round-robin e-mail correspondence began, culminating in my two-part “Powell Family Album” article, published earlier this year in A/E #66 and 67.

When the articles appeared, Bob’s sons John and Robert (from his first marriage, to Florence Feustel) were well represented, as was Seth Powell (from Bob’s second marriage, to Bettina Lussier). But my inquiries to Seth’s half-brother Kyle produced only a single photo and a brief e-mail. Bob married the second Mrs. Powell on September 30, 1961, and later adopted Kyle. Today Kyle, 49, is a professional photographer.

(Above:) A young Kyle Powell in the mid-1960s proudly rides big brother John’s 1956 T110 Triumph motorcycle. This shot was taken at Bob’s house at 7 Center Drive in Roslyn, NY.

Luckily, even without Kyle’s input, we didn’t lack material. In fact, we were so blessed with a flood of rare photos, art, and personal reminisces that the 6-page article I’d originally planned expanded to two 12-page installments, spread over two issues.

Organizing the material proved to be daunting, and I sighed with relief when I finally mailed it out just before deadline. Ahhh! Finished at last!

Or was I? Days after I sent Roy my article, I received another message from Kyle. I’d sent him scans of my upcoming Alter Ego article, and his brothers’ memories had sparked some of his own, including the time he and his young buddies inspired one of his dad’s stories. Unfortunately, it was already too late to include his comments in “The Powell Family Album.”

But Kyle’s e-mail gave me the perfect excuse to add a third part to our series. What follows are mainly Kyle’s comments, as well as more Bob Powell art and photos we weren’t able to squeeze in before. So, without further ado, let’s once again open up –– The Powell Family Album!

Topps asked Bob Powell to redo the sketch at left for a 1966 Batman card, possibly penciled by another artist—though Len Brown, who was overseeing assignments for Topps at that time, feels he or his boss Woody Gelman probably just wanted different Batman and Robin figures and that the pencils are most likely Powell’s. Either way, Powell redesigned the published card (right), which was painted by Norm Saunders. According to Bob’s son John, Powell enjoyed working for Topps on sports cards and other projects: “I don’t know what the pay schedule was, but the cards were lucrative and he produced them at a prodigious rate. He churned them out and commented how they paid for a boat, a car, or any one object. While his tongue was firmly in cheek, he did indicate they were ‘easy money,’ and he never ran out of baseball players.” [©2007 DC Comics.]

The Powell Family Album! — Part III

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We’ll begin with Kyle’s e-mail from Feb. 2, 2007: Michael, thanks for sending me all the Bob Powell memorabilia.

This Batman piece brings back a lot of memories. I, unfortunately, have none of Dad’s artwork and only a couple of photos. Any artwork that is still in the family resides with the other brothers. But seeing this Batman illustration reminds me of the Topps trading cards he did during the height of the Batman TV series popularity.

It also made me think of the baseball cards he illustrated for same from probably 1964-67. They were the small cartoons on the back of the cards above the players’ stats and were distinctive because the bill of each character’s ball cap was down over his eyes. Included on each was a small blurb of baseball trivia also hand-lettered by dad.

Topps would send him boxes and boxes of them, which he would then judiciously dispense to me as a reward for chores done and other good behavior. I had a lot of them (I had six of the 1964 Sandy Koufax cards alone!) and was popular with many of the neighborhood kids.

Unfortunately the collection disappeared and I originally thought my mother might have discarded them when I went off to college in the mid-’70s. But now no one seems to know for sure. I’m certain that almost everyone has a story like that, because who knew they would be worth anything!? If only we knew then what we know now.…

Another thing that has come to mind is a comic book venture that was in the same genre as the Archie comic book series. It was about high school students and it was called Henry Brewster, and it came out when I was about seven or eight (3rd grade).

Skateboards were just coming into fashion. The things we rode were thick plywood with clay compound wheels, and my friends and I were crazy about them. We lived on a steep hill and we would open

A cover (above) and an interior page (at left) from Henry Brewster #2 (April 1966). Oddly, though the word “Brewster” doesn’t appear on the cover, the official two-word title is in the indicia. [©2007 Country Wide Publications.]

our jackets at the bottom of the run kind of like the drag chute on a dragster to slow down. Dad must have seen us doing this, because there was a story in that comic where the characters were doing the same thing. It was pretty cool, because some of the characters were based on people I knew. It never took off, really, perhaps because of his illness, but I think that at least two issues that I recall were published.

Anyway, thanks for your dedication and enthusiasm for this project. I’m looking forward to seeing the final publication. All of this has stirred up some memories that were long dormant. If I can help with anything specific at this late date, then please let me know.

Regards, Kyle If Kyle’s memories of his dad were a bit dim, it’s not surprising. He was barely ten when Bob succumbed to cancer. Kyle’s half-brother Seth was born about six weeks later. I wrote back, mentioning that I owned the very comic he’d described, bought on the stands way back in 1966.

Two days later, Kyle sent me this follow-up.

Hi Michael, I thought of another memory about my dad after I remembered thinking how cool it was that our skateboarding inspired a real comic book story. That was watching him actually try skateboarding himself! I think that he had some guests over for cocktails, and we kids were riding out on the street, when Dad and a few friends came out to see us. I remember demonstrating how to do it and then him saying that it looked easy. But when he tried it the skateboard shot out from under

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him and dropped him on his butt! I had to chase my board all the way down the hill, and I don’t recall him trying it again.

In that issue with the skateboard story, I also seem to remember that one of the stories involved Henry and the gang trying to end a feud between two men who each owned delicatessens and were competing for some luncheon contract from a big company. Was that in the same issue? It’s strange what comes back to mind, and I think it’s so great that you know about and even have some of those old Henry Brewster comics! I didn’t realize that there were more than just those two of those published. [MTG NOTE: There were seven issues in all, cover-dated Feb. 1966 through Sept. 1967.]

I don’t know if this ever came up before, but Dad illustrated two books of sports skills, one for football and one for baseball, by Frank Gifford and Yogi Berra. I remember having autographed copies of each, though I have no idea where they went. They were spiral bound editions detailing the skills and strategies of each sport, and I even took them to school for show-and-tell.

Later, John chimed in: Michael, I had the sports books (including the Gifford signed copy for Kyle) and gave them to Seth. I think I mentioned these books in earlier correspondence, because it involved meeting a real, honestto-god hero of the gridiron. My first brush w/celebrity, I guess. Have no memories of this meeting, but Dad was pretty pumped up about it since he was a HUGE Giants fan.

Best, John In the same Feb 4th letter, Kyle answered another question. I’d asked if John had assisted Bob in the studio in his new house as he had before the divorce. Kyle was only 8 or 9 at the time, but this was his recollection: In response to your question, I have to say that I can’t really recall John coming over to work on stuff for or with Dad. It’s very possible that he did but I wasn’t aware of it. Between John and Rob, I was closer to John. He would come over and visit often. He would take me outside to wrestle and play around and include me with his friends if they came, too. In the summer I remember all of us going down to Jones Beach on the south shore of Long Island to swim all day and have cook-outs around huge bonfires on the beach after dark.

Rob was off at college at U. of Penn and was very involved in the Navy ROTC. I remember once going out to Floyd Bennett Field in New York to see him and the jet he was flying (an A-4 Skyhawk, I think) while he was laid over for a day or so. He actually put me in the cockpit and explained what everything was. There was also a visit

Another expressive page from Henry Brewster #2. According to John Powell, “The butcher in the boater hat is Dad.” [©2007 Country Wide Publications.]

to the USS Intrepid prior to its deployment that was also very exciting.

I was always proud of Rob, but really never had much of a relationship with him. I think it was just where each of us was in life.

He was off in the Navy and married when I was in the first grade or so, and he made me an uncle for the first time when I was in the third.

He was away serving in Vietnam when Dad died in October 1967. I remember finding a telegram in a box years later that Rob sent him shortly before, saying all the things you might expect at a time like that. It must have been terrible for him.

While Rob was always away, John was local and, I think, really interested in photography in the mid-sixties. I have pretty distinct memories of camera bags and lenses, etc. Also, you may have seen some of the pictures of me as a little kid posing with various exotic knives and firearms. It’s funny now because, more than 40 years later, I have fairly vivid memories of them being taken. Maybe that was truly the first influence of photography on me? John and Seth both have that Powell “doodle” gene that I never developed. They can just sketch away on scrap paper or a cocktail napkin creating fun little things; something I have no talent for whatsoever. I was relieved to discover, however, that a camera could work for me where a pen or pencil wouldn’t.

Well, I must close for now. This has been fun. I’ve enjoyed it and hope we might do it again. Do you know where I could find some of those old comics? They don’t have to be original. A reproduction would be OK if just to have it. Please keep in touch.

Powell illustrated two “how-to” sports books for McGraw-Hill in 1966. One instructed kids how to play football like Frank Gifford, and another featured baseball tips by Yogi Berra. [©2007 by Yogi Berra and Sayre Ross.]

Regards, Kyle

The Powell Family Album! — Part III

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All those characters were inspired by our family. Stanley is Dad, Madelyn is my mom (that’s her middle name), and I’m Haywood (a derivative of my middle name). The big sister, Hollis, is pure fiction but uses my mother’s family name.

I actually remember this one because it came from true life. It was probably 1964 or so, and my parents acquired a real fixer-upper of a boat. A 35’ wooden hull cabin cruiser, which Dad had hauled to a boatyard near the harbor in Roslyn, NY. I just remember a lot of days spent down there all through the summer and winter with them sanding and scraping this decrepit thing. We never actually got it in the water. We moved from Roslyn to Huntington in 1966, and I think it was sold soon after Dad fell ill.

A Bob Powell illustration for Yogi Berra’s Baseball Guidebook. [©2007 by Yogi Berra and Sayre Ross.]

On Feb 6, I sent Kyle this message: Great story, Kyle! I’d have loved to see Bob give that ol’ skateboard a try. I’ve made scans of that Henry story, which I’ll send you.

Re-reading it, I was impressed again at your dad’s mastery of timing, facial expression, and body language. Even as a teenager, I thought Henry Brewster was something special! The last issue came out about a month before he passed on.

As for Jones Beach, my family sometimes took me there, too, in the ’60s. I seem to recall they had grills on the beach, where my mother used to cook chicken. Her chicken looked great on the outside—but was half raw inside! And then there was the sand seasoning. Ugh! Best wishes, Michael T. Copies of our e-mails were sent to the other brothers. Later that day I received this letter from John Powell: Michael, loved the story from Kyle and will comment to all (hopefully w/some photos) later. Once Dad was remarried and I was off to college, I very rarely did any work at the board for Dad. Kyle was a little sprout, so he wouldn’t remember the times I did get stuck in the studio at the Roslyn house. They moved to Huntington in 1966 and I never did any work in that studio. These weren’t very happy times.

Also, the Corvette that was mentioned as his “last fun car” was a 1963 split rear window version that replaced the T-Bird. It had a small rear cargo area that a six year-old boy could fit into perfectly. I remember vividly lying back there under the split window looking up and pretending I was in a Gemini space capsule. It was a real headturner in navy blue with those very cool flip-up headlights. In fact, somewhere I’m certain there is an issue of Fantastic Four that he drew where the car has a cameo appearance. I have visited many comic shops looking for it, but none of them ever had issues from that time.

It was probably in 1964, but the only issues I could find were from the 1970s.

A quick search of the fabulous Gilbert collection revealed the Corvette in a Powell-illustrated “Human Torch and Thing” story from Strange Tales #131 (April 1965). [See next page.] Kyle talked a bit more about his dad’s car in the same message: Sadly, the Corvette was stolen shortly after Dad died and about three weeks before Seth was born. When it was recovered in New York City and held as evidence in the police impound lot, it was completely stripped for parts. I think my mom got a couple of hundred dollars for it when it was sold for scrap. It was just one tragedy on top of another. Our next family car was a red 1966 Impala. How boring is that?

Regarding the photo of everyone around the Bridgehampton Racetrack sign [MTG NOTE: printed in A/E #67], I believe I first went out to Bridgehampton in 1965 for an SCCA race, and then a couple times each year until the last Trans-Am race there in 1970. They were

I also had summer jobs in construction that took me into East New York and Brooklyn, so I was busy digging instead of drawing.

Since I never was paid a dime to work for Dad, the construction work put cash in my pocket. I used to drive my 1956 Triumph motorcycle from Huntington Bay (that’s where Mom lived after she got remarried) into the big city. Ah, youth!

John On the 15th, I received this e-mail from Kyle: Hi Michael, My computer hook-up is so flakey and slow that sometimes I postpone downloading stuff because it takes way too long. It’s a wireless affair, and so some days are better than others. Anyway, I was finally downloading the Alter Ego 67 screen shots you sent me back on Jan. 20 and was pleased and surprised to see The Boatwrights.

Powell based the characters in this unpublished Boatwrights sample page on friends and family. Even Gorgeous George, Bob’s beloved dog, had a cameo! See this art bigger in A/E #67. [©2007 Estate of Bob Powell.]

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truly some of the most fun and exciting times of my life.

Thanks for sending these shots along. Most of this stuff I’m seeing for the first time, but it stirs up memories I had long forgotten. Gosh, I’m loving it!

Please keep in touch.

Regards, Kyle

“Insouciance defined!” Racing enthusiast Bob Powell poses with his peppy Porsche!

On Feb. 14th, I received another e-mail from Kyle, commenting on the scans of the Henry Brewster story I’d sent him. Though he hadn’t seen it in forty years, he said it was “exactly as I remember it and truly a blast from the past!”

And on that happy note, we close the book on this chapter of the Powell Family Album. We hope you enjoyed browsing through it—and discovering how Bob Powell’s personal life often found its way into his comics!

Our thanks to Kyle and the rest of the Powell family for helping us put this album together. We’re especially grateful to John Powell, who provided and restored many of the scans appearing throughout our three-part series, and to Seth Powell for starting it all. Thanks, too, to Joe and Nadia Mannarino for providing the scans of the Topps Batman cards this issue.

Till next time…

Next issue: One of Bob Powell’s oddest comics –– Mike Mallet!

The Powell-penciled, Dick Ayers-inked splash for the “Torch/Thing” tale in Strange Tales #131 (April 1965), in which Kyle recalled his dad’s Corvette being featured. Not a Fantastic Four issue per se, but the story does feature half of that fabulous foursome, which is why Kyle remembered it as FF. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Bob, Bettina, and Kyle Powell in the mid-’60s, with Bob’s cool Corvette—and another Powell/Ayers panel from Strange Tales #131. [Art ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Kyle Powell today! Photo

by Nancy Ready.

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JSA: Sunset At Dawn A Letter/Proposal For A Justice Society/Infinity, Inc. Series That Never Was

by Roy Thomas

W

hat follows is a concept for a limited comic book series— originally written more or less in the form of a letter— starring the Justice Society of America.

In fall of 2005, I was contacted by a major DC editor—not the regular editor of the JSA books, I should make it clear up front—and informed that, inasmuch as the company had had good luck re-teaming Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers on a Batman series (for the current All Stars series of mini-series, I take it—I never saw those comics), he thought it might be a good idea for Roy Thomas and Jerry

Ordway to re-team on a 6-issue series about the Justice Society, perhaps with Infinity, Inc. (which Jerry and I had co-created, with Mike Machlan) thrown in. Jerry was enthusiastic about the notion, as was I. Jerry soon e-mailed me that he had mentioned to that editor that a good approach might be to show how the JSA returned from that Ragnarok/Götterdämmerung Mobius strip on which artist Dave Ross and I had left them at the end of the Last Days of the Justice Society Special #1 in 1986. As I recounted in The All-Star Companion, Vol. 2, DC’s powers-that-be had intended, for a very short time, that that would be the last JSA appearance anywhere… though of course the 10issue Justice Society of America series of 1992-93 brought them back from Valhalla only a few years later.

Justice On The Run Pencil roughs for a commission drawing Jerry Ordway did of the JSA plus Johnny Quick for collector Michael Dunne, which became a cover for Alter Ego #50. In this earlier version, Hawkgirl is at far right, rather than at far left as in the finished artwork. Several of the other figures are likewise slightly different from the final version. Thanks to Jerry O. [JSA TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

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A Justice Society/Infinity, Inc. Series That Never Was

While I had other ideas I might have preferred to develop rather than revisit the Götterdämmerung thing, I was quite content to work up a concept for a 6-issue series from that angle. From that point on, I worked without further input from Jerry. (This is by way of absolving Jerry from any blame for anything in the letter/concept that follows.) I was determined that, if I were going to do a “JSA” adventure, it would be a “JSA” story handled the way I handled them in the 1980s: I wrote, and the artist drew. And, in Jerry’s case, drew very well indeed.

Spangled Kid hurled out of that dimension. As per events that officially happened between 2 to 4 years ago, Hawkman—Hawkgirl—Green Lantern—Starman—Flash—Johnny Thunder & his Thunderbolt—Wildcat— Sandman & Sandy—Dr. Mid-Nite— Atom—and Hourman remain, battling Surtur. Who can say whether these heroes-as-gods are killed and rise again to fight on one time, or 12, or a thousand thousand? We see the Waverider free them from that situation—I’m told some demons took their places (if not, we can restore the actual Teutonic gods themselves in some way)—but we don’t have the JSAers return directly to our Earth. Not that they realize that at once.

The concept I wrote didn’t find favor with the editor for whom it was intended, or apparently with his superiors, but, since DC never paid for it (not that I claim What Are You Doing After The World Ends? they should have… I didn’t bill them), At the same time, we see the heirs and since it’s really only a letter-style After Ragnarok, most of the JSAers face the towering demon Surtur, in the Last Days of the Justice Society Special #1 to the Hall fortune—if no Hector Hall ancestor of a proposal, not a story per se, I (1986). Script by Roy Thomas; art by David Ross & Mike anymore, then Lyta—or is she dead, too? figured I’d print it in this issue of Alter Gustovich. [©2007 DC Comics.]

Well, anyway, the members of Infinity, Ego. Naturally, nothing in what follows, Inc., more or less as they were at the end sent to DC in late 2005, was meant to be of the last issue of Infinity, Inc. (Star-Spangled Kid/Skyman dead, etc.) the final word on what the series might become… it was only an opening shot, so to speak. (In what follows, it’s understood that the are there—with private eye Jonni Thunder, who’d become a friend— JSA/Justice Society of America, Infinity, Inc., & all hero and secret when they see the figurines on the Hall mansion mantle quiver and identity names and concepts are trademarks of DC Comics.) I began vanish—and they wonder what that means for the JSAers who are their with a brief introduction, before I went into my usual “notes toward a relatives and mentors. They’re determined to find out—and we’ll get plot” for the proposed 6-issue series: back to them later, perhaps in between some of what follows on the next few pages, before we pick them up in earnest again later.

Before we begin, I need… not to apologize, but to explain. The situation Jerry suggested for the setting and theme of the story—what occurs to a dozen JSAers between their Götterdämmerung scenario in the 1986 Last Days of the Justice Society and the 1992 Justice Society of America #1 in which they return to Earth—means that it occurs between events in comics published by DC between 1986-92. I’ve kept things basically consistent with the DC Universe of that period, except treating those events as if they happened between 4 and 2 years ago, as per the timeline in JSA Files & Origins #1 (1999). If some details are in error, they can be adjusted at the next stage. I’ve avoided most digressions below, but in some cases I felt a need to anticipate questions by answering them at once. This concept, after the first page or so, contains only the story’s broadest strokes, since it made little sense to worry about details before the concept is approved. Later we’d have 120 pages to take care of business. Now, onward… beginning with the admission I’ve not yet read the Armageddon Inferno series, but I’m assuming any conflicts with that story can be reconciled with what follows.]

Now we CUT TO an instant a few seconds “earlier”—where the young (engaged?) couple of Carter Hall and Shiera Sanders are throwing a posh party in the very same Hall mansion; only it’s on a

JSA: NEW DAWN On Earth, we see 12 small figurines of the JSAers, which appeared (created by displaced energy) at the end of Last Days, lying on the grass at Dr. Fate’s feet on the Hall estate. (We didn’t see a figurine of Johnny Thunderbolt, but it would have been off-panel. And regretfully, a caption or two left off by an editorial assistant damaged the reading of that page somewhat.) The figurines sit on a mantle in the mansion of the vanished Carter Hall, on whose grounds they were found. In the darkness, they suddenly begin to glow.

We zero in on—and as if through them into another dimension— to see scenes depicting how the JSA wound up on their Mobius-strip Götterdämmerung to save the various worlds from the doom threatened by the Spear of Destiny, with Spectre ultimately responsible for both threat and salvation, and Dr. Fate, Power Girl, and Star-

Comin’ Right Atom Atom sketch by Alex Saviuk. Alex currently pencils the Sunday Spider-Man newspaper strip, and inks the dailies. Looks like he took his cue from a 1960s two-Atoms story by Gil Kane, in which the burst shape on the Mighty Mite’s chest was replaced by a circle. Nice illo, though! Courtesy of the artist & Michael Dunne. [Atom TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

JSA: Sunset At Dawn

different Earth—and it’s spring of 1945, a fête being held to raise money for a wartime charity cause.

They and the equally well-dressed upper crust are talking about how the war is winding down in Europe—Hitler is reported trapped like a dog in his bunker in Berlin, etc. Suddenly, to the astonishment of everyone, even themselves, the very air shimmers—and the tuxedo’d Carter and begowned Shiera are replaced by the figures of Hawkman and Hawkgirl (probably costumed as per Last Days). The costumed pair are now the same late-20s age as the Carter and Shiera they’ve displaced—but they have the memories of all the older versions that have been from childhood through the Götterdämmerung scenario—any divergent memories that the Carter and Shiera they’ve just replaced had are gone, as if they never existed… so naturally the newcomers are disoriented. (If you’ve ever read the wonderful novel Replay [by Ken Grimwood, 1987], you’ll recognize the ultimate source of this concept.) And if the Hawks are disoriented, their guests are really perplexed at their abrupt costumed appearance, and at their strange talk—they’re like the Carter and Shiera these people knew, and yet different. These people have never heard of Hawkman, Hawkgirl, the JSA… or any other heroes of the All-Star Squadron… and momentarily believe this is some elaborate party gag the couple have pulled off.

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worlds? They must find out—and avert that destiny if they can. They wonder if they’re doomed to some new kind of Götterdämmerung— but these are JSAers, and they will do what they must.

They quickly gather the others—Flash, Johnny Thunder, Hourman, Atom, Wildcat, Dr. Mid-Nite, Green Lantern. Each has had similar experiences, and is realizing they’re on a parallel Earth. Maybe a couple of them, too, are already together—though we need not see all the “moments of truth.” (Some bits: Johnny’s trauma has made him forget his “Cei-U” word again, so someone must tell him—Green Lantern wonders what’ll happen when 24 hours run out, since his magic lantern doesn’t exist in this world—Hourman has no more Miraclo, so figures his power will run out even sooner—Flash tests out his speed, and is overjoyed to see it’s back in full, now that he’s in his youthful body. They know they’re in a world under threat.

One or two of them (esp. Green Lantern, who once destroyed Japan in Brain Wave’s dream world, in All-Star Squadron #20) aren’t certain they should attack the bunker again—they can’t be sure what forces they might unleash—maybe they should just try to find a way to their own Seeing Stars Earth, even if it means they’ll all Cover art for All-Star Squadron #41 (Jan. 1985)—the first-ever origin grow old again. Others, like Flash of Starman—by Arvell Jones (pencils) & Jerry Ordway (inks). Repro’d from and Wildcat, even Atom and the a photocopy of the original art, courtesy of Jerry. [©2007 DC Comics.] others, really like the idea of being young again… of getting a second The Hawks are still puzzling over what happened—when they spy chance to live much of their lives, and use their powers for good on this another figure floating toward them over the heads of more amazed brave new Earth. Who wouldn’t like to start over, and live his life again guests from the sprawling grounds outside. It’s Starman, carrying (just a few years after his career began), knowing now what he/she Sandman and Sandy—for playboy Ted Knight and Wes Dodds with his didn’t know then? That larger group quickly persuades the others, and young ward were, understandably if coincidentally, guests at this they head for Berlin. (From this point on, the events related in this party—and now the normal Ted, Wes, and Sandy have been replaced by concept will be far sketchier, even though we’re still in the first issue or their costumed counterparts. (This gets a few of the JSAers together so—I just wanted to set up the basic situation in detail, before fast, without pushing the coincidence angle unduly, though we can have proceeding with just the broader strokes.) only Starman or Sandman/Sandy there if desired. I figure the richer This time, with the foreknowledge of what happened in Last JSAers all ran in the same social circles, so....)

Days, they avoid any JSAer being killed. Perhaps they attack the This group streak off to find privacy, away from the marveling guests—and as they converse, they quickly realize what’s happened: they were hurled not to the Earth they’d left—nor to destroyed EarthTwo—but to some “sidepocket” Earth. They’ve replaced the Carter, Shiera, et al., of that world—since that’s where they naturally gravitated. This is a world where no one ever became super-heroes or supervillains. It’s just a world at war… though that war is winding down, at least in Europe. They suddenly learn with a shock that it’s nearly the very day and hour that the JSA invaded Hitler’s bunker in Last Days as, via the Spear of Destiny, Der Führer sent waves of destruction out in all directions to infinite worlds after most of the heroes had been killed. Will it all happen over again, on this world—perhaps on all

bunker from beneath, or whatever (the details aren’t important at this point). They arrive as Hitler is about to use the Spear’s power to annihilate all the infinite Earths… and they manage to stop him and turn the Spear’s power back on itself so that it disintegrates forever.

This is achieved by the most powerful JSAers: Green Lantern with his ring, Starman with his Gravity Rod, Johnny Thunder through Thunderbolt. Hitler still manages to shoot himself and his new wife, and the JSA fly away from Berlin.

They want the world to proceed as they remember it, with the war ending in late summer of 1945 when Japan surrenders. The heroes either begin new careers in this world—though perhaps their secret IDs would’ve been exposed by the way they appeared, though we can

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long since out of power by this time. The JSA invade Nagasaki, where they’ve learned the Grailstone is, and destroy it just in time—just as the A-bomb explodes over the city. Starman and GL are particularly upset at witnessing the blast (even though they and Thunderbolt can protect the JSAers from its effects)—but some other JSAers see nothing wrong with dropping the bombs on the Allies’ enemy. (I should mention that, though utilizing the Abomb as a story device, this tale will definitely not espouse the view that the A-bomb shouldn’t have been used… nor will it try to justify its use. As a non-apologist for the use of the bomb in 1945 myself, it’s just there as an historical fact, and to motivate some of the behavior of the JSAers.)

Prescription For Power Dr. Mid-Nite and Green Lantern may have shared All-American Comics during much of the 1940s, but when it came to power levels—well, when GL sneezes, Doc catches a cold! Art by 1970s “JSA” illustrator Joe Staton, done at the Heroes Con in Charlotte, NC, 2006. Thanks to the artist and to collector Michael Dunne. [Characters TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

figure a way around that if desired—or else they abandon their superhero status and try to take up the lives of the non-hero selves they replaced. (Any preferences? Either way, of course, this Earth’s history will be different from what they “recall,” since their recollections of history include the years in which the JSA and other heroes and supervillains existed on Earth as related in Golden Age comics, All-Star Squadron, even some retro stories of the new JSA.) Certainly they resist the strong temptation to play any part in ending the ongoing war in the Pacific (just as DC’s heroes did in 1940s comics). They wait, despite misgivings, for V-J Day to arrive. Ted Knight/Starman stops all his involvement in the development of the A-bomb (as per a story in which he was apparently so involved that he suffered a nervous breakdown in 1946 as a result). Rex Tyler has time, though, to mix up a new batch of Miraclo “just in case”—and Green Lantern discovers that his power ring still works. Is it because the ring still “operates” on time as per the timeless Götterdämmerung dimension—or did being there just slow down its loss of power? Only time will tell, he knows.

They’re forced to change their minds about staying on the sidelines during the several-day interim between the A-blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki [in August 1945]. One or two of them learn somehow that the Grailstone still exists in Japan—and is just as great a threat to the world(s) as the Spear was! They know the Spear of Destiny was one of two powerful related talismans whose power could devastate the multiverse. The other was the Grailstone/Holy Grail, introduced in All-Star Squadron #4, where it and the Spear were utilized by the two major Axis powers to keep the magic-susceptible super-heroes out of their spheres of influence. Even though in this universe Germany and Japan never cooperated through the Dragon King, because there were no super-heroes to magically guard their empires against, the JSAers assemble (in costume or in civvies); and after debate and false starts and stops they decide they can’t take a chance that some fanatic in Japan may try to use the Grailstone to destroy the Earth and the multiverse, rather than see an Allied victory in the wake of Hiroshima, a period during which the Japanese were deciding what to do after the A-blasts plus the Russian declaration of war on Japan.

And indeed, that’s just what “some fanatic in Japan” is doing, as he sees the war is lost. We’ll focus this on one person—perhaps a fictitious one, certainly not the Emperor Hirohito, and General Tojo was

The JSA now return home—but whether or not they have pursued costumed careers between spring and late summer 1945, they realize things have now changed. They’ve altered history as they knew it… so they must decide if they’re now going to vanish back into obscurity, or if they need to take the bull by the horns and go pro-active, saving this Earth from its own destructive tendencies. The JSAers are strongly divided in their opinions… but the less powerful members (esp. guys like Atom, Dr. Mid-Nite, Wildcat, even Hawkman, Hawkgirl, and Hourman) realize they have little leverage, and must go along with the powerful trio of GL, Starman, and Johnny Thunder—much like the situation of the countries in the post-WWII world who found themselves caught between the USA and the USSR. Johnny, for his part, has become a big admirer of Starman in particular (I’ll figure out a reason for this), and will go along with whatever Ted Knight says.

Flash is more on the fence, since with his speed he can accomplish greater things than most JSAers… and besides, he has a special friendship with GL, so tends to side with him.

[ASIDE: As you can see, there’s plenty of room for human interaction between the JSAers in this series… as well as exploration of their heroism, its motivations, the way heroism can be subverted by the acquisition of what amounts of absolute power that corrupts absolutely, etc. This series will definitely be, as Jerry said in an e-mail to me, a drama that “focuses on who the JSAers are, and what makes them special.” If I don’t go into overmuch detail about this in the rest of this concept, it’s because we all know this can be worked out in the next stage.]

At this point, the JSA feel a responsibility for the future of this world—they don’t want to see it undergo the Cold War and all that entailed. (As an ALTERNATIVE, we move events back a little ways, and they might even find and negate the Grailstone in Hiroshima, a few days earlier—in such a way that no A-bomb ever explodes in WWII. The story works either way.) The most powerful trio (with Johnny now totally under the influence of Starman, and Flash supporting GL—other heroes divided and reacting according to individualistic ways) feel the JSA must basically take over the world for its own good… so that’s what they do, though Atom and the other lesser heroes can’t do much more than serve as bag-men at this stage, and they’re aware of their reduced status—sort of like Britain or the Soviet satellites after WWII. We can see the stage being set for a real disillusionment of the lesser heroes with the greater.

Starman, GL, Thunder/Thunderbolt, and Flash negate the power of the super-powers America and the Soviet Union… and set up the UN to administer things. Their intentions are good… to save the human race misery… but of course they’re still effectively enslaving the world and depriving men of the chance to make their own destiny, and mankind resents it. The other JSAers are caught in the middle, but most continue to support Starman, et al., for the time being… though a few already join a new underground agitating for the JSAers to “retire.”

What happens next, over the months, is first that Starman becomes corrupted by his extreme power (perhaps he’s even improved his Gravity Rod’s powers, à la the Cosmic Rod of later years), esp. since he

JSA: Sunset At Dawn

also has the Thunderbolt effectively at his disposal. GL goes along with this, and Flash with him… but with increased misgivings. (My own theory is that absolute power does not necessarily corrupt absolutely… it depends on the person. And Starman, though in his own mind he’s still doing good, is corrupted more than GL. No two people are quite alike.) Starman also locates the time machine of Prof. Zee (used in All-Star #10, 21, & 35)—zaps Zee and his assistant Degaton—and sets the machine aside in case he ever needs it.

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Now we rejoin Infinity, Inc., and Jonni Thunder. (As I said before, we’ll have kept them in cameos in between the foregoing.) They’ve been trying to find a way to reach the JSAers, but the interim cameos have revealed that the Spectre was virtually non-existent between the events of Last Days and Justice Society of America #1… Dr. Fate became several different people, and less effective (details to be worked out)… Power Girl has no power and may or may not join them… even the original Black Canary, I believe, dies in the period between the two above issues, right? But, using the inexhaustible power of Jade (or some other method), they finally brave all and manage to materialize on the other Earth, disoriented… after the defeat of the JSAers, etc. The Infinitors are defeated and scattered, perhaps some caught… but Jonni Thunder flees into Zee’s time machine (still set at the era to which Starman sent Johnny) and she vanishes before Starman can get her.

No matter, sneers Ted… she can do nothing. (Later, we’ll realize that this was probably some unconscious side of Starman, that realized what he was doing was wrong and wanted his own defeat.)

At last, a climax is reached.

Starman feels he must act against the JSAers who are opposing what they call the “dictatorship” of the Big Four (Starman, GL, Johnny/TB, & slightly lesser Flash)—he must neutralize them. GL goes along with this, until, in the heat of battle, with the other JSAers cornered, Starman realizes he can only defeat these heroes by destroying them—and he’s prepared to do that, for the Greater Good. At this point, GL rebels—he sees they’ve all been corrupted. He rebels against Starman, and they battle cosmically, with Flash perhaps “How Green Was My Victory!” knocked out of the conflict early and That was the title of the story in Infinity, Inc. #9 (Dec. 1984), wherein Johnny confused. The battle is even— Green Lantern battles his kids Obsidian and Jade on the edge of the till Starman gets Johnny to bring TThe Infinitors are found by the space. This previously unpublished (?) drawing by Mike Machlan is a Bolt in on his side. Fighting then lesser JSAers, but they know that slightly different take on that Ordway cover. Thanks to Mike and to against both of them, GL is barely even with Jade’s power they can’t collector Michael Dunne. [Characters TM & ©2007 DC Comics.] holding his own—when his power defeat the now all-powerful Starman. ring begins to give out. He realizes what’s happened… time had indeed Starman now realizes he must find these heroes and destroy them to be been passing more slowly for it since they returned, but the great safe. Like all dictators, he fears any power that isn’t his. The JSAers and expenditures of energy have caused its power finally to run out… and Infinitors will make a noble stand, though they know they’re doomed. of course there’s no lantern in this world to recharge it, even if he had Meanwhile, Jonni finds herself in the Old West, where she time. GL, now reduced to a normal human, is defeated—and only encounters the Tanes and Johnny Thunder. But she can’t get Johnny to Flash, racing off with GL and the other defeated JSAers in tow remember his magic word… and she doesn’t know it. Nor can the prevents them all from being killed. Starman’s sorry about having to do Tanes figure out any connection between Jonni and Johnny Thunder! this, as is Johnny—but Starman feels he had no choice, for the world’s There’ll be a joke or two about all the Johnnys involved… but hey, that sake. He must rule, for the Earth’s own good. happens! (Jim Amash tells me a good friend of his married a woman In fact, Starman feels he can no longer take a chance even with Johnny. What if JT changed his mind and turned his T-Bolt against him? Starman tricks Johnny into ordering the T-Bolt back into his own dimension, then kayos Johnny before he can bring him back. Starman uses Zee’s time machine to send Johnny into the past. Some last shred of decency prevented Starman from killing JT, so he’s exiling him to where he’ll be forever neutralized. We see Johnny land, confused and amnesiac, in the Old West…where he’s found by a schoolmaster named John Tane and his sheriff father. Johnny becomes a somewhat slowwitted hired hand, ID’d as “Johnny Thunder” only by a card in his wallet. Of course, the Tanes have no idea he came from the future.

Meanwhile, Starman tightens his hold on the Earth, while the JSAers lick their wounds and GL slowly recovers from his. Flash finds that the battle with Starman has sapped some of his speed, so that he can still move fast—but not fast enough to evade the power of the Cosmic Rod if he took on Starman alone. They can only hide, for the present. Flash is upset, so Hawkman must reassert himself as leader of this group, being its permanent chairman.

who has the exact same name as himself. Go figure.)

At this point, I prefer not to develop certain interim actions any further, except to say: Jerry had some good ideas about utilizing Obsidian’s potential dark side in some way, and perhaps we can do that… we can do other things with the Infinitors and JSA before we get to the showdown with Starman, who by this point is totally out of control, while the Earth’s populace trembles at the mercy of what will happen. I’ll just concentrate on the two events that climax the storyline: Back in the Old West, Jonni is around when a situation with outlaws causes Sheriff Tane to be wounded, and blond John Tane rides off determined to defeat the outlaws—disguising himself as a darkhaired Johnny Thunder and riding the horse Black Lightnin’. Desperate to save him from being killed, Jonni does something she hasn’t done before because she figured it wouldn’t accomplish anything—she becomes her own Thunderbolt self. She flies off—as, behind her, though she doesn’t realize it, that vision has shocked Johnny T. out of his amnesia, for her T-Bolt persona revives memories of his own, and

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Stealing Thunder Johnny Thunder, meet Jonni Thunder— and Johnny Thunder, a.k.a. frontier schoolteacher John Tane. Thunderbolt, meet Thunderbolt—and Black Lightnin’!

From the 1985-86 Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe and All-American Comics #100 (Aug. 1948), the first appearance of the Western hero created by writer Robert Kanigher & artist Alex Toth.

The Golden Age JT Who’s Who art is by Steve Lealoha; the Jonni T. art is by her co-creator, Dick Giordano. [©2007 DC Comics.]

he says “Cei-U.” The female T-Bolt meanwhile prevents an outlaw from shooting the cowboy JT as he mops up the rest of the gang—and they’re joined by Johnny’s T-Bolt. (It may sound confusing on paper, but of course visually there would be no confusion between the different-looking characters.) Leaving John Tane to his new life inspired by the future heroes, Jonni tells Johnny he can order his Thunderbolt to return them to the future—which he does!

who fight for Starman… and that’ll give Hourman and the others something to do, while GL & T-Bolt defeat Starman. Maybe even here, Starman has gained so much power—having nothing to do over recent months except find new ways to add to his Cosmic Rod’s power by bringing in cosmic rays from space, etc., etc.— that the battle is in doubt—when Starman suddenly realizes (maybe as some ricocheting cosmic rays are about to kill some JSAers who would die to protect even the fallen minions) what a monster he’s become.

And he quits fighting. Cold. Let the JSAers and Infinitors destroy

Around these events, Jade meanwhile decides that, though she hasn’t the power or experience to hold off Starman on her own, perhaps she can activate GL, who can. Alan is okay by now, but with no super-powers.

Either Jade siphons off her power into Alan’s ring… leaving her exhausted, nearly dead… or she might use her power to find the Starheart, which on this world hasn’t been carved yet into a lantern, and she retrieves it and that gives Green Lantern back his power. Now the JSAers and Infinitors march off to face Starman—they may not triumph or even survive, but he’ll know he’s been in a fight.

Indeed, as the battle rages, things seem evenly balanced—though it looks as if Starman may win— —when suddenly Jonni & Johnny appear, in tandem with Johnny’s Thunderbolt—and that, added to GL’s power plus Flash and the others, tips the scales.

There’d be armed minions, an army really,

Home Is The Hunter The JSA return from Götterdämmerung in this panel from Justice Society of America #1 (Aug. 1992). Script: Len Strazewski; art: Mike Parobeck (pencils) & Mike Machlan (inks). Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art; thanks to Jerry K. Boyd. [©2007 DC Comics.]

JSA: Sunset At Dawn

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enough to prime the pump. Unfortunately, as I said above, the storyline didn’t find favor with the folks in charge. I won’t go into details about precisely what suggestions were made for changes (partly because it doesn’t matter, and partly because I eventually deleted that e-mail and would have to paraphrase what was said)… but it quickly became clear to me that, even though I had been approached and invited to submit the proposal, the powers-that-be were interested not in the story I wanted to do, but in the kind of story they wanted told. I’ve written enough tales of that type in my life, and didn’t feel inclined to do another… especially not of my beloved Justice Society, or of the Infinity, Inc., group I’d co-created. I needed neither the money nor the aggro… though the former, at least, is always welcome. (I’ve got a herd of cattle to feed.)

So, after a brief sequence of events that it would serve no purpose to go into at this time, I basically allowed myself to drop out of the project.

Not long before, I wouldn’t have believed I could ever have reached the point where I would have to turn my back on the chance to write a “JSA” story… but that’s what had happened. I kept busy in 2006, thank you—two hardcover books (on Stan Lee’s greatest Marvel moments and on Conan) on sale in bookstores by fall, with a third (The Marvel Vault) finished and waiting for autumn of this year… working with Stan Lee on the Spider-Man newspaper strip… not to mention numerous issues of Alter Ego and The All-Star Companion, Vol. 2.

But I regret (to say the least) the torpedoing of my JSA/Infinity idea—so I decided I’d transfer my e-mail from cyberspace to the printed page, and dedicate it to my late great friend Dr. Jerry G. Bails, the #1 JSA fan in the universe, who had read it and was quite disappointed (but fully understood) when I felt I had to walk away.

I suspect Jerry—and maybe a few other folks—might’ve liked the series, as well.

The JSA—Plus One The Justice Society of America—and Liberty Belle, for some reason—in a dramatic illo done 2-3 years back by pro artists Trevor Von Eeden (penciler) and Scott Goodell (inks). [Characters TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

him. He figures it’s for the best.

They don’t, of course… seeing that he’s come to his senses. But now, the JSA realize they cannot remain on this world. They must return to their own Earth, and let this one find its own destiny without super-heroes (or Zee’s time machine, which they destroy). They use GL’s ring, T-Bolt, etc., even Starman’s rod, to return to their own era— even though they know they will age as they do so. They have accepted their destiny, and will face it on the world that is truly theirs.

At this point, we’ll take care to return the JSAers to the point they were at in the beginning of [the 1992] Justice Society of America #1, with the Halls returning to being archeologists, others to fighting crime as the assembled JSA. I’ll have to check that mini-series for clues (one or two issues are on the way to me by mail), but I figure Starman will retire… he wants no more to do with super-doings. We can also reconcile bits with the families they left behind, if desired…but only up to the point where things would have been by the time of Justice Society #1. (Hey, in passing, we can even take care of putting the Atom in that dumb mutation of his older costume introduced in that issue.)

The revived Justice Society, as it happens, won’t fight crime for long before deciding to retire—and I believe even Starman returned in #10 (one of the issues now on the way to me) to help them defeat Kulak—but the JSA won’t say “dead” for long!

And there I left it. The e-mail ran about 7 pages long… more than

A Comic Fandom Archive Special Addendum

69

Come BECK, Little Comicon!

The Calvin Beck Con Really Did Happen!

We’ve Got Proof!

Part X of “1966: The Year Of (Nearly) Three New York Comics Conventions”

by Bill Schelly & Roy Thomas

W

ho’d have thunk it? Only four months ago, we printed all the commentary and art we figured we’d ever be able to put together about the fabled and infamous Calvin Beck (alias Castle of Frankenstein) Convention of—well, not actually quite 1966, but early in 1967—and concluded that was pretty much the end of it. Even Bill, who’s spent well over a decade researching the early history of comics fandom, didn’t recall ever seeing a written reference to it beyond the few we pulled together in Alter Ego #65. Then, without warning, Bill stumbled across the following “review” of the BeckCon in On the Drawing Board Calvin’s Castle #58, the March 1967 issue of the Conmeister Calvin Beck—in a vintage comics newszine begun by Jerry G. photo borrowed from the accommodating Bails in 1961, then being published by website www.bmonster.com, courtesy of the Gateway Comic Art Fan Club, Marty Baumann—holds up a copy of his and edited by Bob Schoenfeld (on Castle of Frankenstein 1967 Annual. whom more at a near-future date). It Thanks again to Michael Uslan for sending had been written by Stan Landman, a us a dog-eared copy of the issue; and member of the legendary New York special thanks also to Bhob Stewart. [Art area TISOS (The Illegitimate Sons of ©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Superman) club…and Stan was amenable to its being reprinted. (It’s ©2007 by Stan Landman, by the way.)

And you wanna know what the most amazing thing is to us? In A/E #67, attendee Carole Seuling revealed the place where the BeckCon was held: the 23rd Street YMCA in Manhattan, New York City… but no one was able to pin the dates of the event down any closer than “early 1967.” Finally, Stan Landman has verified that it was held on Feb. 11-12, 1967—a pair of dates that will not live, apparently—not even in infamy! And now, here, hopefully, is the last word on the Con That Beck Spawned…!

The Calvin Beck Comicon A review by Stan Landman I suppose the first crud-comicon was an inevitable occurrence, but it still came as quite a shock to me. The thing that I found most shocking, however, was not the lack of organization nor the fact that pros scheduled to appeared didn’t, but rather the mercenary and “I don’t give a damn” attitude shown by Calvin Beck, con chairman and editor of Castle of Frankenstein.

The con was scheduled to get underway at 1:00 p.m. on February 11th [1967], but Beck himself didn’t show up till 3:00 pm! Phil Seuling was forced to take charge of admissions to the con (and did a fine job of it), because Beck was not present.

The first program was scheduled to start at 3:00, and when it had not yet begun at 4:15, I went over to Beck’s mother and asked, “When

does the program start?” Mrs. Beck referred me to the printed schedule, and when I pointed out to her that it was now 75 minutes late, she bluntly replied, “It doesn’t matter.” Perhaps it didn’t matter to Mrs. Beck, but to the fans who paid four bucks to attend it certainly did!

After this, I conferred with fellow fans Marvin Wolfman, Ron Fradkin, Len Wein, Elliot Wagner, Mark Hanerfeld, Richard Rubinfeld, and Ellen Vartanoff (who had come all the way from Maryland to participate). We agreed that a protest was in order. I went to look for Beck and was told that he was eating. Yes, while 75 fans cooled heels waiting, Beck was satisfying his stomach!! This goes to demonstrate his true concern for the fans attending the con.

When Beck returned, I led a small delegation to greet him. I patiently inquired as to when the con would begin, mentioning that, unless circumstances changed, we would ask for our money back. Beck brushed this off casually, saying the program was subject to change at his discretion, and that we were holding up the con’s progress. We were

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A Comic Fandom Archives Special Addendum

“festivities” ended at 12:30 am, when a halt was finally brought to the silent movie serials being shown, but by this hour few really cared.

True to form, Beck arrived on the scene at 2:00 pm on Sunday.

At 3:00 a program began, featuring Buster Crabbe, though it was scheduled to begin at 1:00. I might add that, for me, this was one of the highlights of the weekend, as I found it to be most interesting and Mr. Crabbe is a darn nice guy.

A feature version of Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars was shown, and this was followed by a panel discussion. On the panel were Roy Thomas, Bill Harris, Jim Steranko, and a

War Is Heck Since, as recorded in A/E #65, Roy Thomas has virtually no recollection of the BeckCon except that he was there, he frankly couldn’t believe his eyes when he read, in Stan Landman’s account, that he—Roy, that is, not Stan—“gave a talk on realism in war comics.” How could he have dared, even as the final issue he’d scripted of Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos (#41, April 1967) was just going on sale? That comic depicted the seven Howlers yakking away while charging into battle—Izzy Cohen using a mike-stand to hit a home run with a German grenade—and Percy Pinkerton, having blinded his foe with his umbrella, kicking the Nazi in the backside! Art by Dick Ayers (pencils) & John Tartaglione (inks). [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

few others, including Nelson Bridwell.

somewhat taken aback, considering he’d held up the con for two hours!

Meanwhile, Mrs. Beck suggested that police be called in, as I was likely to mug Calvin! (But more on this later.)

Economically, this con can hardly compare with the other NY events of the past year. In July, John Benson held a con at the Park Sheraton for two days at $4, and in August, Dave Kaler held a con for 2H days for $5, both at very fine hotels. But Beck charged $4 at the YMCA!

It is interesting to note that Beck could easily have begun the con much sooner than he did, as most of the pros due to appear on the first panel were present at 3:00. Nevertheless, things finally began to get underway at 5:20, when Roy Thomas gave a talk on realism in war comics. Presently, Beck came up to me saying that he hoped I wasn’t too angry with him, and that perhaps I’d be interested in copies of Castle of Frankenstein which he was selling for $1 each. I rather doubt if my previous outburst was enough to really affect him, and I can’t help but wonder if this was some sort of bridge to ease my anger.

Shortly following this incident, a policeman entered the convention room and remained for the duration of the affair. Ron Fradkin tells me that I was pointed out by Beck to the cop for particular scrutiny. Later, when Ron asked the cop a simple question about comics, the latter unleashed a torrent of profanity which would have made a longshoreman wince.

At about 8:00 on Saturday night, an auction was held by Beck, and the costume party was cancelled—the latter being due to the fact that only two fans were able to throw together a costume in the two weeks between receipt of the announcement and the con itself. The day’s

Disillusioned with most of the con, and not particularly anxious to see King of the Jungle, we previously-mentioned fans retired to an automat for supper, minus Ellen, who had to catch a train.

Beck had promised that Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Wally Wood, Frank Frazetta, and others would be present, but none were. It is interesting to note that the con flyers came out on February 1st, and that Jack Kirby first heard of it on the 5th from Mark Hanerfeld.

The event was not a total waste, however, as I made and renewed some fine acquaintances and met some interesting pros including (aside from those previously mentioned) Dick Giordano, Otto and Jack Binder, Al Williamson, and Flo Steinberg.

Lastly, I should mention that fans might want to compare this report to one scheduled to appear in an upcoming issue of Beck’s Castle of Frankenstein.

END NOTE: We’ve been unable to find such a report in any issue of Castle of Frankenstein, and its longtime co-editor Bhob Stewart assured us in A/E #65 that there was none. If we’ve all somehow missed it, we would appreciate our eagle-eyed readers bringing it to our attention. But somehow we suspect that Calvin Beck probably wanted to forget the whole affair. Even so, we at Alter Ego are happy to do what we can to document it here, for future reference of all comic art historians. —Bill.

In Memoriam

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Joe Edwards (1922-2007)

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OTE: There follow two tributes to the late Joe Edwards, by two who knew him well. —Roy.

“Joe Edwards Sure Is One Great Man”

by Jim Amash Joe Edwards started his long career in the Demby shop around the time of Superman’s first appearance. He said Demby used to laugh about how amateurish Siegel and Shuster’s work was when they offered “Superman” to him, and never thought anyone would publish it.

Demby was greatly surprised when “Superman” became a hit. So was Joe. Joe began his long association with Archie Comics (then known as MLJ) around 1940, and, despite a few brief forays at Timely/Marvel, Dell, and Eastern Color—not to mention freelance advertising—he worked for that company for the rest of his comic book career. One day, MLJ co-owner John Goldwater asked Joe and artist Bob Montana for an “Andy Hardy” type of feature. During the conversation, Goldwater asked Joe, “What do young kids want? Joe replied, “Three things. Girls, money to take girls out, and a job to make the money to take girls out.” Afterwards, Joe and Bob continued kicking around ideas for a little filler that became known as “Archie,” never dreaming how importantly that series would impact their lives and popular

culture.

The number of features Joe wrote or drew utilized nearly every letter of the alphabet: “Ali Baba,” “Archie,” “Bumbie,” “Captain Sprocket,” Archie’s Pal, Joe Edwards “Greg,” “Madhouse,” Joe Edwards, in a photo taken in the mid“Super Duck,” 1960s, with thanks to Richard Rubenfeld— “Wilbur,” among many while below is the card he did for Jim others. Joe’s bestAmash’s friend Sam Huffine a few years known creation was ago. The latter is courtesy of Jim & Teresa R. “Li’l Jinx,” a female Davidson. [Archie characters TM & ©2007 precursor to Hank Archie Comic Publications, Inc.] Ketcham’s Dennis the Menace, based in part upon the antics of Joe’s children. Though Jinx briefly had her own comic book, she was mostly a filler feature in many different Archie comics for almost 40 years, and still lives in reprints in many of today’s various Archie digests. With the exception of one “Li’l Jinx” page, Joe wrote and drew every installment. The only reason anyone else did a “Li’l Jinx” story is that Joe’s close friend Sam Schwartz loved the character and wanted to do one himself.

Joe was a much-beloved member of the Berndt Toast chapter of the National Cartoonists Society. I knew Joe quite well, and, thankfully, we did a long interview that will eventually see print in Alter Ego. He was a marvelous storyteller and jokester; a very gentle soul whose compassion and love for people was reflected in his work and deeds.

Joe never thought of comics as work, because telling stories and making people laugh was second nature to him. The enjoyment he gave to others was his reward. Joe knew the power of a good laugh.

In the spring on 2005, we were on the telephone when Joe asked if something was bothering me: “You sound a little different today.” I told him that Sam Huffine, one of my closest friends (who erased my pages and often filled in blacks, too), was stricken with cancer. After I talked about Sam for a few minutes, Joe said, “I’d like to do a drawing for Sam. Do you think that he would like one? Maybe it would cheer him up a little?” I said, “I think that would be a great thing for you to do. Sam would love it. Are you sure you don’t mind doing one?” Joe said, “I’d be happy to do it. Just hearing you talk about Sam shows me what a good man he is. And any friend of yours is a friend of mine, and if I can do something to help him through this tough time, I’m more than willing to do it.” He went on to say, “Cartoonists have the power to make people happy, and we need to do it whenever we can. This is what we are meant to do. We exist to please others, and when we do that, we also please ourselves.” So Joe did a drawing of Archie and Jughead, and mailed it to Sam. Sam was overwhelmed by the surprise gift, showing it off to family and friends with pride. The drawing was prominently displayed on the piano in front of Sam’s favorite chair. Joe was thrilled by Sam’s reaction, always asking about his condition until Sam’s passing later that year. Sam’s comment to me the day he got the drawing serves as a fit epitaph for our departed friend: “Joe Edwards sure is one great man.”

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“Joe Was One Of The Good Guys!”

by Richard Rubenfeld Joe Edwards was the second comics professional I ever met. On a cold afternoon in December 1962, I was Harry Lucey’s guest at the annual Archie Christmas Party held in the company’s Church Street offices. Harry was my idol, and growing up down the street from him, I was a regular visitor to his studio. Though I was mostly interested in super-hero and adventure comics, Harry earned his living doing what I someday hoped to do. Looking at the comics in Harry’s studio and watching him draw “Archie,” not only did I get to know the cast of Riverdale High very well, but I also learned a great deal about Harry and the other artists who drew them.

Joe Edwards

for National Periodical Publications (DC) and Timely/Marvel before securing regular assignments at MLJ, later Archie Publications.

Working alongside Bob Montana in MLJ’s in-house studio by late 1941, Joe contributed to and drew some of the earliest “Archie” stories, later assisting and occasionally ghosting Montana on the syndicated comic strip. He drew for the “Archie” books until the later 1980s and submitted fully sketched scripts for other artists for another decade. Joe, of course, did more than draw “Archie.”

His most famous creation, “Li’l Jinx,” appeared regularly as short strips and pin-ups in many of the Archie comics and occasionally in her own book. Joe illustrated other popular features and books for Archie, including “Super Duck,” “Pat the Brat,” and “Wilbur.”

In conversation he told me he was most proud of his work on Archie’s Joke Book, which he claimed was “his baby all the way.” In addition, along with Eda, for many years he wrote for and edited the pen-pal pages and letter columns for the Archie books. In recent years, Joe’s fan base grew tremendously as a result of his work being reprinted in Archie’s comic digest line. Beyond Archie, in his later years Joe freelanced on “Richie Rich” and “Felix the Cat.” Making appearances for charity, Joe presented chalk talks for students, hospital patients, and veterans and drew Archie and Li’l Jinx to raise money for

Harry greatly admired Joe’s work for its simplicity and accessibility to young readers, believing that the appearance of “Li’l Jinx” in so many of Archie’s publications contributed greatly to their Hi-Jinx popularity. Occasionally Harry would be on the phone with Joe when I arrived A “Li’l Jinx” page drawn by Joe Edwards for Little Archie #54 (date uncertain). Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art; (the “Archie” artists were a friendly, thanks to Anthony Snyder, who buys, sells, and trades at close-knit group). Harry laughed www.anthonysnyder.com/art. [©2007 Archie Comic frequently, clearly enjoying their chats.

Publications, Inc.] So I was not surprised, when I finally met Joe, that he turned out to be such a great guy. There was nothing unapproachable or pretentious about him.

Ronald McDonald homes.

Even though I enjoyed meeting Sam Schwartz, Victor Gorelick, Dan De Carlo, and others, Joe made the strongest impression. He spent Joe was a warm, gentle man whose versatility as an artist and contritime talking to me, asking me about my family and what I enjoyed butions to the comics industry have always been undervalued. One of about comics. Two years later, when I was again Harry’s guest at the his best traits was his generosity to other artists. One of them, a annual party, Joe greeted me as if I were an old friend. teenager named Eli Katz, better known today as Gil Kane, sought out Joe’s advice in 1942 while doing production work for MLJ. Joe rememResulting from one of those coincidences that makes life interesting, bered: “He feverously would discuss 24/365 the new budding world of I renewed my interaction with Joe a decade later when I was working comic books.... His intense passion… was awesome.... I’m proud to say as an assistant manager in a local Macy’s drugs and cosmetics that I was fortunate to have known him and worked with him.” Joe department. Joe’s son Ken was assigned to me as a fill-in stock boy. We collaborated with Gil around 1950 on Heads and Tales, a daily hit it off right away and have been friends ever since. Stacking boxes of newspaper feature that unfortunately never saw print. Based on the Pampers and shelving bottles of mouthwash, we eventually started premise that every day is someone’s birthday, Joe and Gil wrote and talking about comics. Ken thought he had one over me when he drew gags in both comic strip and panel formats inspired by famous revealed that his father was an Archie cartoonist, but he nearly fell over people, including Winston Churchill, Katharine Hepburn, and when I told him I had met his father years before! Thanks to Ken, my Groucho Marx. wife Gaie and I got to know Joe and his gracious wife Eda well. Joe and Eda were very hospitable hosts, and time always went by far too Beyond my own enjoyment of his work, I’ve witnessed the appeal quickly during our visits. An animated storyteller whose experiences of Joe’s art in exhibitions of comic and cartoon art I curated at Eastern with the Archie gang and the Berndt Toast group (the Long Island Michigan University, where I also teach art history. Enthusiastic about chapter of the National Cartoonists Society) were lovingly described, my shows and a regular contributor, Joe let me borrow more work Joe openly acknowledged Eda’s contributions to his stories and gags, than I could actually show. Original pages and pin-ups of L’il Jinx were many of which were inspired by the antics of Ken, his brother Todd, particularly popular, eliciting smiles and happy memories from viewers. and sister Naomi.

Surprised by the strong graphic quality of the collaborations of Edwards and Kane, viewers of the Heads and Tales samples frequently Joe became a comic book artist in the late 1930s, when the industry asked me why no syndicate picked up the feature. was in its infancy. Producing work for Famous Funnies and collaborating with his childhood buddy Dave Berg on a rush job to adapt Joe was one of the good guys! I will miss him greatly!

Moby-Dick for Gilberton’s Classic Comics, Joe also worked briefly

In Memoriam

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Jack Burnley (1911-2006)

by Roy Thomas

H

ardin “Jack” Burnley, who passed away in December of last year at the age of 95, was one of a handful of Golden Age comic book artists whose work can truly be said to have walked that tricky tightrope between being comic art and illustration.

Perhaps that’s because, unlike many comic book men of that day, Burnley came to the field in 1940 already an accomplished artist.

During the 1930s he had been a sports cartoonist, as well as an illustrator of tales written by popular writer Damon Runyon.

In 1940 he began drawing comics for National/DC, and one of his very first assignments (if not the first) became an instant classic: the cover of New York World’s Fair Comics – 1940 Issue, the first time Superman and Batman (not to mention Robin) ever appeared together in a scene. Over the next few years he drew both heroes, both in the comics books and in the newspaper strips they spawned. He also drew covers and interior art for a handful of 1941-42 issues of All-Star Comics.

The Two Faces Of Jack Burnley Jack Burnley during his newspaper sports-cartoon days—year uncertain—juxtaposed with a 1946 Batman Sunday page, repro’d from a photocopy of the original art. Both artifacts were supplied

by Jack himself for the in-depth interview which appeared in Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #2, and which is currently on view in The Alter Ego Collection, Vol. 1. All his “Starman” work was reprinted by DC in the hardcover The Golden Age Starman Archives, Vol. 1. [Batman art ©2007 DC Comics.]

He also became, in 1941, the original artist of the “Starman” feature that ran in Adventure Comics, and maintained that he did some of the writing, or at least plotting, for that series, as well. For instance, he said that he had given the villain in Adventure #61 (April 1941—the very first “Starman” tale) the name “Dr. Doom”—but that some editor had changed the name to “Dr. Doog.” Jack was uncertain who scripted that first “Starman” story, but he was certain it was not Gardner Fox, who wrote most of the later ones he drew. “Starman” was played up by DC as a new stellar attraction—and Jack Burnley’s name was even ballyhooed in house ads, a highly unusual step in those days—but the super-hero never lived up to the company’s expectations, and after #76 Burnley left it to concentrate on more important characters—such as Superman and Batman.

Some of his comic book work was inked by his brother Depree (Ray) Burnley, and much of it was lettered by his sister Betty.

In 1947, Burnley returned to newspaper work, first for The Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, then for The San Francisco News. After retiring in 1976, he and his wife Dolores, who had been a featured dancer on Broadway in the 1930s, moved to Charlottesville, Virginia. To quote Mark Evanier’s obituary for Burnley on his www.newsfromme.com website: “Jack and Dolores were said to be inseparable in life, and their passings showed a similar sense of togetherness. Dolores died in 2003 from complications relating to a broken hip, and Jack died in the same retirement home from the same thing.”

(For an in-depth interview with Jack Burnley, see the trade paperback The Alter Ego Collection, Vol. 1.)

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In Memoriam

Joseph R. Barbera (1911-2006)

“His Characters May Just Live On Forever”

by Stuart Fischer

J

oseph Barbera, co-founder of the fabled animation studio of Hanna-Barbera, passed away on December 18, 2006, at the age of 95. He is credited as the main creative force behind the creation of such animated icons as Tom and Jerry, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, and many others, all of whom had comic book incartations at one time or another.

Born in 1911, Joe Barbera grew up in New York and found temporary work at two New York animation studios—the old Van Beuren Studio, and later Terry-Toons—before getting an offer to work in MGM’s animation studio in Culver City, California. It was at MGM that Barbera met William Hanna. One of the first fruits of their long collaboration was the highly successful Tom and Jerry series of cartoons, which won a number of Academy Awards.

craft to the new medium of television and, forming Hanna-Barbera Productions, soon sold their first show, Ruff and Reddy, to NBC in 1957. They went on to produce the many famous series listed above, as well as many others. Part of their formula for success was to come up with characters who had a ring of familiarity, instantly reminding the viewer of some person or group of persons. Hence the name “Yogi Bear”—and The Flintstones, which was essentially Jackie Gleason’s The Honeymooners in a prehistoric cartoon setting.

Bill Hanna died in 2001. After going through a few corporate takeovers, Joe Barbera was not as visible as he had been in his younger days, but he remained executive producer on such TV series as What’s New, Scooby-Doo? and Tom and Jerry Tales. In 2005 he wrote, storyboarded, co-produced, and co-directed a new Tom and Jerry short in 2005, showing that he never craved retirement.

In the late 1950s, after some 17 years at MGM, Barbera and Hanna left when MGM closed down its animation division. Joe and Bill saw tremendous opportunities to apply their

Even though Joe Barbera will be missed, his characters may just live on forever.

While The Cat’s Away…

The Dog Will Play Joe Barbera, some years back, flanked by the comic book adaptations of two of his famous co-creations. “Tom and Jerry” were mainstays in Dell’s MGMcentered Our Gang Comics beginning in 1942; seen at left is Walt Kelly’s (?) cover for issue #8 (Nov.-Dec. 1943), with Jerry facing down Barney Bear.

Today, Scooby-Doo! continues as part of DC’s line of comic books for youngsters, and God love ’em for putting out a few mags aimed at the kiddie set! Shown is Robert Pope & Scott McRae’s cover for Scooby-Doo! #111 (Oct. 2006). [Our Gang art ©2007 the respective copyright holders; Scooby-Doo! art ©2007 Hanna-Barbera.]

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No One Leaves This re: section till they’ve read all these letters! be true. Gerard admitted to me some time back that he felt he had ill-advisedly accepted the account of someone who said he’d seen it, though he couldn’t check for himself. Gerard hoped to rectify that bit of misinformation in the the paperback edition of his book.

Richard also says the book makes “a complete hash of the transfer of Wonder Stories [pulp magazine] from the Hugo Gernsback company to the Thrilling line of pulps.” True or not, we can’t go into that here.]

By the way, there’s an error in the caption at the bottom of p. 6.

As you must know, that’s Joe doing the drawing and Jerry standing behind him.

Re [longtime Comics Code administrator] Leonard Darvin [in the piece on John Benson’s 1966 comicon]: The problem with comics is that the producers defined the medium by its existent readers. Sure, most of the comic books covered by the CCA were read by eight-yearolds. That’s because they were written and drawn for eight-year-olds. If they’d been written and drawn for eighty-year-olds, then most of the readers would have been eighty-year-olds. The content defines the reader, not the reader the content. The wise thing for producers to have done would’ve been to keep their kid readers and then to publish other magazines for the demographics that had the most spending money.

Still is.

Y

eah, we know the above kind of “grabber” has been used before—but we had this great illo by Mark Glidden of our miraculous maskot Alter Ego, and we’ve been looking for a year or so now for just the right spot to use it. Guess this is it!

Thanks, Mark! [Art ©2007 Mark Glidden; Alter Ego hero TM & ©2007 Roy & Dann Thomas.]

Onward: Was it because Jack Adler is both a fascinating subject and a man who as a production head was very much at the center of things at DC for several decades? Or was it because another of our chief topics was Superman, the granddaddy of all super-heroes?

Either way, A/E #56 garnered a lot of mail, so let’s plunge right into it. We’ll start with Richard Kyle, who usually has a povocative point or two to raise: Dear Roy, Lots of interesting stuff, especially the material on Jack Adler and comic book color printing. Still, there’s a bit of tease. What was “opening up the area for the faces,” anyhow? Were all of the colors applied directly to the plates? My encyclopedia doesn’t say. I did learn, however, why the Neal Adams-published comic books were so overcolored. I had a comic book store at the time, and the coloring in them drove the customers (and me) nuts.

Adler’s explanation for Bob Kane’s partial ownership of “Batman” is not very satisfying. It covers the known facts, yes, but is it a diplomatic way of saying much the same thing Gerard Jones says in his book Men of Tomorrow, or is it an absolutely straight-forward explanation? If the latter, then that casts more doubts on the accuracy of Jones’ immensely readable but inadequately researched book.

[At this point Richard refers to a statement in the book that Jerry Siegel had published a review of Philip Wylie’s 1930 novel Gladiator in his fanzine Science Fiction, which has turned out not to

Never occurred to them. Still hasn’t.

Richard Kyle 3644 Lewis Av., Long Beach, CA 90807 Food for thought, as usual, Richard—and we hereby invite other A/Eficionados to join the banquet by responding. Meanwhile, let’s hear from Craig Shutt, who writes entertainingly and informatively as “Mr. Silver Age” in each issue of the now-monthly Comics Buyer’s Guide: Roy— I don’t have the answer to your offhand comment in a caption in A/E #56 as to why either writer Gardner Fox or editor Julius Schwartz called [production man] Ed Eisenberg “the quiet one” in Strange Adventures #140. But I do know that it was Julie who did it! I have a copy of the original script for that truly oddball story, complete with Julie’s many handwritten rewrites. Fox’s original dialogue for the story’s Julie in that panel was: “Can’t you see I’m busy?” (followed by about four more words too darkly scratched out to read). Julie scratched that out and wrote in the published line about Ed. So yet another Silver Age mystery has been solved! Well, at least we’ve discovered the culprit, but the intent remains the true puzzler.

But, let’s face it, who would know better what Julie would say in the story than Julie?

Craig Shutt For reasons that only a psychiatrist might know for sure, Craig, I’m inordinately happy to have that particular DC mystery cleared up. We were also pleased to hear from two talented guys who worked under Jack Adler for some time, beginning with Anthony Tollin, who currently publishes beautiful reissues of the vintage adventures of The Shadow and Doc Savage:

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[comments, correspondence, & corrections]

take is equally valid and may even be better than what I’d been thinking of when I designed it. Go for it!” Jack Adler had the same ability to accept a different take that worked, and to encourage each of us to bring our own individuality and creativity into the work.

Jack cared greatly about the quality of DC’s publications, and always encouraged his team to do their absolute best. And he taught us that not just by instruction but also through example. I remember working side-by-side with Jack on a counter in DC’s production department, painting 1/16-inch white halos around many of the foreground figures on the first Superman/Spider-Man crossover. Jack felt that some of Ross Andru’s panoramic scenes could be intensified if the foreground figures were slightly offset from the background…and, as usual, Jack was right. That landmark book was improved by Jack’s final “plussing.” Nobody asked Jack to put in that extra effort, and few readers even noticed why the figures in that book appeared to stand out from the background more than usual, giving an increased sense of perspective. Jack personally put in that extra effort without being asked, simply because it would make the first Marvel/DC crossover that much better.

I still remember the impact that Jack’s wash cover for Green Lantern #8 had on me when I purchased it at Carl’s Drug Store in Stephen, Minnesota, during a 1961 trip to visit my grandmother. I still remember where I was when I first saw it, because Jack’s inking and superbly-matched color separations worked hand-in-hand to create one of DC’s most memorable covers. Years later, it was my pleasure to cocolor my first comic book cover (Neal Adams’ for JLA #139) with Jack, and eventually to collaborate with Jack on the last of his thousands of comic book covers (that of Detective Comics #500, colored by Jack as a personal favor to then-editor Paul Levitz).

Color Me Black-&-White Ulp! It’s difficult, in a mostly black-&-white magazine, to illustrate points made about comic book color such as Anthony Tollin and Carl Gafford do— and besides, we printed the Kane/Adler wash cover of Green Lantern #8 in A/E #56. So, since Anthony mentions the landmark Superman vs. SpiderMan tabloid of the mid-1970s, here’s a Ross Andru/Dick Giordano page from it, repro’d from a photocopy of the original (Andru-autographed) art. The scripter was Gerry Conway. [©2007 DC Comics & Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Roy: I enjoyed Jim Amash’s interview with my former boss and mentor, Jack Adler. During the 1960s and 1970s, Jack Adler was always the strongest supporter of new talent at DC Comics. He continually encouraged the use of newer artists like Neal Adams, Berni Wrightson, Walt Simonson, and Howard Chaykin, while also recruiting a series of talented fans for production work, including Rick Bryant, Steve Mitchell, Carl Gafford, Adrienne Roy, John Workman, Bill Morse, Tom Zuiko, and Todd Klein. In addition, younger editors like Paul Levitz and Jack C. Harris had no greater booster among DC veterans than Jack.

Adler always encouraged his workers to find their own style.

Although he was probably the greatest colorist in the history of comic books, he didn’t want our color work to look like his own. While he always demanded that we clarify and tell the story through color, he didn’t want a story colored by Adrienne Roy to look as though it was colored by Jack Adler, or Carl Gafford, or Tatjana Wood. In that way he was much like Dick Giordano, an editor who also trusted and supported the creativity of the freelancers working for him. (I remember bringing in a cover to Dick and having him say: “Hmmn, I saw this being colored totally differently from what you did, but your

Less known is the added effort Jack put in to facilitate the cover color separations for Sea Devils #22. In 1965, without advance warning, artist Howard Purcell brought in a full-color painted cover of a giant alien rising from the ocean. Sol Harrison, then DC’s production manager, initially rejected the cover, explaining to Purcell that DC didn’t have facilities to do full-color separations from painted art.

However, Jack intervened and asked if he could bring the painting home and see what he could do with it. A brilliant photographer, Jack produced the color separations in his basement darkroom using his 35mm Mikon camera. He used a series of filters to create the separate cyan, magenta, and yellow plates, then enlarged and produced screened halftones to create the full separations from Purcell’s painting. Jack wasn’t paid overtime for these activities; he did it simply to push the boundaries of what was being done on DC’s covers, and in the spirit of experimentation… just to see if he could do it. That spirit of creativity and experimentation flourished during Jack’s years as DC’s vice president and production manager.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Jack was blown away by what was just beginning to be done with computer manipulation of photographs and artwork, and was enthusiastically looking forward to incorporating those new technologies into comics production. It’s a shame he never got the chance to do so. In the years that followed Jack Adler’s departure from comics, we’ve seen a tremendous increase in printing quality and color technology. Unfortunately, we’ve all too often seen the new subtleties in coloring and shading overwhelming the artwork and confusing the storytelling. It’s unfortunate that the comic book industry didn’t have Jack Adler to guide it into the proper ways to use the new technologies to enhance, rather than overwhelm, the story (which in the end is what customers are buying… stories, not enhanced paper or over-rendered clutter).

One slight correction: on p. 54, Neal Adams suggests that Sol Harrison didn’t know what a “dropout” was. Actually, what Neal was requesting was a color surprint. With a lifetime spent in production departments and engraving plants, Jack and Sol were both well aware of these and had used them in earlier years, even during the Golden

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figures. This meant a different percentage of color, not just a different color. It wasn’t enough to put a fire-engine red (YR: 100% red & 100% yellow) behind Batman’s head, because the blue in Batman’s mask and cape was also 100%. We’d fudge and maybe put a shadow across Batman’s face, or do something to lighten up the background.

Age of Comics. (A 100Y-100B surprint is prominently used on the splash page of “Earth’s First Green Lantern” in Green Lantern #16, published half a decade before Neal Adams began working for DC.) Both Jack and Sol were continually amused (and chagrined) by artists who requested things like these without knowing the correct terms actually used in engraving plants.

Around 1980 or so, Dick Giordano had returned to DC and was editing the “Batman” titles, including The Brave and the Bold.

There was a B&B team-up of Batman and the Legion of SuperHeroes, and being the fanboy walking encyclopedia of comics characters and costumes that I was in those days (this was before Handbooks and Who’s Whos), I was drafted to pinch-hit coloring that ish.

Anthony Tollin Next, a missive from Anthony’s fellow “Junior Woodchuck,” also a longtime comics pro, Carl Gafford: Roy— Got the latest A/E with the Jack Adler interview and features.

The “Junior Woodchucks” name came as an outgrowth of the “DC Junior Bullpen” that Sol [Harrison] tried to get started in 1973. Allan Asherman, Paul Levitz, and I were rather retroactively added as “Junior Bullpenners” because the plan for aspiring writers and artists to be working at DC got scaled back so much. The only one I know of who graduated from this “Junior” status to become a successful artist was Pat Broderick, who drew contents pages in the SuperSpectaculars on staff. The “Junior” name morphed into the “Junior Woodchucks” because (obviously) of the Junior Woodchucks in Carl Barks’ “Donald Duck” stories.

Who Says Distributors Have No Sense Of Humor?

This vintage cartoon is reprinted from the July-Aug. 1944 issue of Independent News, the house-organ publication of the DC-owned company that, already by that date, distributed the company’s comics and many other mags. It was reprinted there from Yank magazine, the armed services publication, as drawn by “Pvt. Johnny Bryson,” whoever he may have been. Of course, like most of us, IN couldn’t resist a bit of self-promotion in an accompanying caption: “We are told SUPERMAN is the most popular comic magazine among the boys across the seas, and his adventures and prowess instill the same open-eyed wonder and admiration among our super-fighting men as they do in the younger set.” Thanks to Michael Feldman and to longtime Independent News exec Jack Adams for the copy. [Superman TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

Couple of things: The DC production department didn’t have too many avenues for freelance work, and it was often easier for folks to freelance completely out of DC (on commercial work or even work for the competition) than to work for the DC editors and still hold down a staff job in the production department. Two avenues for freelancing were lettering and coloring. The only time I ever got paid for a lettering job was one I did for Marvel (while on staff at DC), and I could tell from that that it was much too hard a job to do if you weren’t going to dedicate yourself to it fulltime.

Coloring was easier, because your work didn’t have to be “camera-ready,” as the color guides would be separated at the engravers. Unlike pencilers and inkers, whose work would be reproduced exactly, coloring was always one step removed from the finished work. For some, that meant they could be sloppy, and I can recall many times having to clean up sloppy color guides at DC, Marvel, Disney, Topps… hey, you have to expect that. The only one who was more anal than I on doing crisply-clean color guides was Gene D’Angelo coloring at DC—his work could’ve been reproduced, it was so clean!

Jack had a bug about background colors having to be a different “weight” from the foreground

Knowing I’d get blitzed for using a solid red behind Batman, I fudged a little with some blue and cut back the yellow, and when editor Dick Giordano saw the color I’d used in the background behind Batman, he said, “That’s Y3RB2, isn’t it?” (50% yellow, 100% red, 25% blue). I said (anticipating he’d shoot it down), “Yeah… do you know the color?”

“Sure, Neal [Adams] uses it all the time!” he replied enthusiastically. Jack Adler is quite correct in saying that Dick knew color and printing, no doubt from his background working at Charlton (where the editorial offices were in the same building as the printing presses) and later his partnership with Neal.

Carl Gafford It’s always gratifying to hear from pros like Carl and Anthony—and anytime they decide to write full-scale articles about the Silver Age, we’ll be right here to print them!

One of the earliest writers to sell a freelance Silver Age script to DC editor Julie Schwartz was Mike Friedrich, who went on to found one of the first “alternative comics”: Hi, Roy, I was a fly on the wall for many of the conversations and debates that Jack Adler and Neal Adams had in the late ’60s. Jack was ahead of his time.

Rhapsodic Reunion Mike Friedrich took this recent photo of Barbara Blaisdell (left), daughter of DC artist Tex B., and veteran underground cartoonist Lee Marrs.

I also enjoyed Jack’s short remembrance of Tex Blaisdell’s daughter. By amazing coincidence, that selfsame child, Barbara Blaisdell, has been visiting her best friend and college roommate, Lee Marrs, so I figure a photo is in order. They call themselves the Mutt and Jeff of comics.

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And, sorry, Barbara may look like a model, but I’m afraid she never worked in that field. Barb has vague memories of her brief stint as the Photostat machine operator at DC the summer of 1969; she says now she remembers more about buying opal rings that summer. I can report that the numerous males in their forties who populated DC in those days had a strong reaction to the 23-year-old six-foot miniskirted braless blonde that Barb was back then. She’s still just as tall, but as a middle school counselor in Rochester, New York, her fashion choices have evolved. If Barb ever recovers her comics memories of that time, I’ll get them on tape for your readers.

paperback cover depicted on p. 71 was painted by Mort Künstler.)

Jake Oster We were about to thank you for the info about both Jack Farr and the ID of that 1960s paperback cover artist—since Mort Künstler was highlighted in #66 as painter of numerous covers for Marvel’s parent company Magazine Management in the 1950s and ’60s—when the following note came in from a fellow collector, Jeff Gelb: Roy—

Mike Friedrich We’ll hold you to that, Mike!

On a slightly sourer note, this terse email was sent by collector Chris Fama: Greetings, A/E: I’m very disappointed Alter Ego chose to print Jack Adler’s mean-spirited reminiscence of a humiliating prank played on the legendary Gil Kane.

Chris Fama

In Brightest Day, In Darkest Knight…

Maybe, as letter-writer Chris Fama feels, we “disseminated and immortalized” Jack Adler’s telling of his tasteless practical joke on “the legendary Gil Kane”—but, of course, to Roy Thomas, Gil was both a valued oft-collaborator and, more, a close friend, whose talent and reputation cannot be affected by such minor matters. We’ve always loved Gil’s work no matter where it’s printed—even in a 1964 Mexican issue of Batman (#223 in their numbering), which was given to RT by Fred Patten. For Fred’s full-bore look at 1960s Mexican super-heroes, both reprint and original, order a copy of Alter Ego #43. [©2007 DC Comics.]

I answered this e-mail, which refers to Adler’s anecdote about his playing a practical joke on Gil right after the latter had had cosmetic surgery (a so-called “nose job”), which resulted in hard feelings between them for some time, with this brief response to Chris: “I think Jack meant it as a reflection on his own error in judgment as much as anything else, so I can’t apologize for printing it. But I appreciate your feelings.”

Chris responded:

The prank was an error in judgment. Recounting the story in an interview disseminated and immortalized it. That’s what I think is “mean-spirited.” Jack Adler’s old enough to know better. I would appreciate it if you considered my letter for printing, as I’m sure many other Kane fans were appalled by Adler’s behavior.

Chris Fama Sorry, Chris. I still don’t agree with you. Jim Amash’s and my point in printing the story was to provide an extra insight to things that went on in the comics field beyond just writing, drawing, and editing—and to let readers judge Jack’s actions themselves.

Now a word on another subject, from Jake Oster: Roy, On the letters page in Alter Ego #56, Howard Leroy Davis nominates Jack Farr as a “Great Unknown.” Farr drew humor strips for DC Comics from 1943 to 1948. The other Farr-drawn strip Howard was trying to recall was “Super-Sleuth McFooey,” which appeared in Action Comics, among others. “Three-Ring Binks” ran in various issues of Detective Comics. The website Lambiek.net lists a death for Jack Farr as 1948, which would go a long way toward explaining his lack of production in subsequent years.

(By the way, the Captain America: The Great Gold Steal

Accompanying Bill Schelly’s excellent multi-part overview of the 1966 New York Comic Con, there was a repro of the cover of Ted White’s Captain America: The Great Gold Steal 1960s paperback original, with the excellent artist listed as “uncredited.”

FYI, that painting is by the incomparable Bob McGinnis, who has illustrated over 1000 paperback covers in his 50year career. His art was recently on view in the movie Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and the Captain America cover is one of two paintings he did of super-heroes for the paperbacks. The other was for the Avengers novel by Otto Binder. (The CA painting is much more satisfying than the Avengers cover, but what’s with that high-tech gun Cap is carrying?)

Jeff Gelb, Mediabase 15260 Ventura Blvd., 4th floor Sherman Oaks, CA 91403

So who’s right—Jake or Jeff—with regards to the identity of that artist? Personally, I find it hard to believe that the Captain America and Avengers paperback covers were painted by the same artist, but stranger things have happened.

In addition, Matthew Hawes, proprietor of Comics Unlimited in Evansville, Indiana, wrote in to say that he examined closely the uncredited Superman illustration we printed on p. 8, from the program book for the 1988 San Diego Comic-Con, and that he “spotted [Jerry] Ordway’s signature on Superman’s cape, above his left shoulder.” We’ll take that as proof, Matthew… thanks!

And, though we seem to have deleted his e-mail, now-film producer Michael Uslan informs us that it was he who, as noted on p. 70 of A/E #56, asked Comics Code administrator Len Darvin at John Benson’s 1966 comics convention about the censoring of a cops-and-robots panel in an issue of THUNDER Agents—and Mike complimented Ye Ed on deducing, finding, and printing exactly the panel which had been pasted over the offending one. Always nice to be validated!

Got a bouquet or a beef about Alter Ego? Send it to: Roy Thomas 32 Bluebird Trail St. Matthews, SC 29135

Fax: (803) 826-6501 E-mail: roydann@ntinet.com

Next month, the lead interviewee is some hack writer/editor whose name we forget. The issue’s got a nice Gene Colan cover, though.

Art by Bill Fugate.

[Captain Marvel & Billy Batson TM & ©2007 DC Comics. Mentor TM & © the respective copyright holders.]

Frank is now accepting art commissions for covers, splash panels, or pin-up re-creations!

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Straight Arrow: The Definitive Radio Log and Resource Guide for That Legendary Indian Figure on the Trail of Justice by former FCA editor/publisher William Harper

Art ©2007 AC Comics; heroes TM & ©2007 DC Comics.

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Ask for it by name from your local book store or contact BearManor Media at bearmanormedia.com Or snail mail [Straight Arrow TM & PO Box 71426, Albany, GA 31708 ©2007 Nabisco.]

Howard the Duck TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.; With thanks to Anthony Snyder

Previously Unpublished Parody Art by Frank Brunner

ATTENTION: FRANK BRUNNER ART FANS!

81

possibly have been doing it since the hand of man first gripped pencil or pen.

I don’t recall ever having discussed the subject with Keaton. It wasn’t necessary. The panel represented a brief interval while the characters therein spoke, or fought, or whatever the action of the story.

I went into the comics business with the conviction that you, yourself, as creator, were in command of the panel … much like the director of a theatrical performance. The panel was your stage … across which your characters strode … as did Mutt … or Jeff … or Andy Gump.

by [Art & logo ©2007 Marc Swayze; Captain Marvel © & TM 2007 DC Comics]

[FCA EDITORS NOTE: From 1941-53, Marcus D. Swayze was a top artist for Fawcett Publications. The very first Mary Marvel character sketches came from Marc’s drawing table, and he illustrated her earliest adventures, including the classic origin story, “Captain Marvel Introduces Mary Marvel (Captain Marvel Adventures #18, Dec. ’42); but he was primarily hired by Fawcett Publications to illustrate Captain Marvel stories and covers for Whiz Comics and Captain Marvel Adventures. He also wrote many Captain Marvel scripts, and continued to do so while in the military. After leaving the service in 1944, he made an arrangement with Fawcett to produce art and stories for them on a freelance basis out of his Louisiana home. There he created both art and story for The Phantom Eagle in Wow Comics, in addition to drawing the Flyin’ Jenny newspaper strip for Bell Syndicate (created by his friend and mentor Russell Keaton). After the cancellation of Wow, Swayze produced artwork for Fawcett’s top-selling line of romance comics, including Sweethearts and Life Story. After the company ceased publishing comics, Marc moved over to Charlton Publications, where he ended his comics career in the mid-’50s. Marc’s ongoing professional memoirs have been FCA’s most popular feature since his first column appeared in FCA #54, 1996. Last issue, Marc revealed the reasons behind the disappearance of the Phoenix Squadron from Wow Comics’ Phantom Eagle strip. This time, he discusses his conception of “the panel.” —P.C. Hamerlinck.]

Beck’s question brought to mind an occurrence at an amateur theater rehearsal … where, from among the vacant seats the shout of an exasperated director was heard: “Hold it!” Then, to his startled cast on stage: “Move! Be alive! Don’t just come out and recite the lines! Help the story move along! Act!”

C.C. Beck once turned to me with a question: “In a newspaper comic strip, what is the time span of each panel?”

It stopped me. I had never given it a thought. And why would Beck, a seasoned veteran with the Fawcett art department, be asking such a simple question? The answer came from my bones: “One instant … and no more. Just time for the dialogue and action in it to take place.” I might have added: “Unless there’s a caption indicating otherwise!” But I didn’t think of it.

Beck wasn’t talking about comic books. The company executives were considering his creation, Captain Marvel, for newspaper syndication. His question had been directed to me possibly due to our working elbow to elbow drawing the superhero. Likely, though, it may have been at the suggestion of art director Al Allard, who was aware of my apprenticeship with long-time pro Russell Keaton, of newspaper comics Buck Rogers, Sky Roads, et al.

A “Vignette” Is Not A Salad Dressing

Some people called them “frames” … but we knew them as “panels” … those orderly little rectangles that made up the comics during the Golden Age … and do so today … and

“Vignettes” were favored by at least two of the Fawcett higher-ups (see next page for explanation). This page of border-less panels by Marc Swayze appeared in “Something to Live For” in Romantic Secrets #26 (Jan. 1952). [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

82

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

…Or A Type Of Wine Another page of “vignettes” by Swayze, from Life Story #108 (Feb. 1952), without the traditional rectangular borders. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Not a bad message for those actors … or for the comic strip artist or writer. The panel frequently served as no more than an explanation of what had gone on before … and a hint or promise of that yet to come. But it had to move! Maybe it was the American spirit of competition at work, but you didn’t want your feature to be the “dead one” on the page, or in the book.

You wanted it to stand out … be appealing … interesting … perhaps a little more so than the others.

The discussion ended with Beck apparently satisfied. Over at my table there was a renewed interest in the panel … as an important step in the preparation of a comic strip.

Make it move? Help the story advance? Of course … but in what ways? There had been attempts at that in the past, and some were quite reasonable. But not all. For one, the reshaping of the traditional rectangle for no more obvious reason than “to be different” … resulting in a page of distorted patterns resembling a jigsaw puzzle.

And there were instances where the intention must have been to extend the limited duration of the panel. In the upper left, first-spoken position, would be a dialogue balloon. Then elsewhere in the panel, suggesting a passage of time, another balloon, attributed to the same character!

Editors were caught up in the urge to tamper with the traditional rectangle … our own at Fawcett no exception. Roy Ald and Will Lieberson favored the “vignette,” a fading away at the edges of each scene. Not a new concept, at all, but the proposal was that every panel and every page be vignetted. I saw that as overdoing a good thing, and drew the pages as I felt best … then explained in a letter to Ald, “to ‘steady’ the page.”

Somewhere the focus had strayed … from a sincere interest in the reader … to whatever others in the business were doing.

No longer was the aim “to do better” … but to be more unusual … to be different! Matters like perspective and viewpoint, the “camera” angle … generally considered prerogatives of the artist… were being carried to unreasonable extremes. It was as though some of the creators were participating in a game to outdo one another.

POVs From CMA “Camera” angles from above, beside, and below. The first image is from Captain Marvel Adventures #14 (Aug. 1942), “Henry’s Grandmother”—the other two panels from CMA #15 (Sept. 1942), “Klang the Killer.” All art by Marc Swayze. [©2007 DC Comics.]

Of all the doodads that had been aimed at the panel to bring the reader back into the world of your characters, there remained the caption … which had served in that capacity for generations of comics. Whatever the problem, whether within the panel or about it, it could be solved by the caption. And the panel, be its borders rigidly ruled, distorted, or tattered, the caption could put it all back together again.

It kind-of kept you on your toes … your mental toes … that comic strip game! There was always so much more to learn. About drawing! About writing!! About thinking!!!

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84

How’re You Gonna Keep Cap Down On The Farm…?–Part II More Of Captain Marvel’s American Cities Tours—1944-78 Article by John Cochran

Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

L

ast issue, John related how Fawcett writer Rod Reed inaugurated the notion of having the Big Red Cheese travel to a different US city in each issue of his own title, beginning with Captain Marvel Adventures #24 (June 1943), encountering landmarks and meeting with dignitaries (and magazine distributors!). Part I covered the first 16 stories in that series.

Without further ado, let’s pick up from there, shall we…and follow it with a note about the revival of that concept in DC’s 1970s Shazam! comic….

Boston (CMA #40, Oct. 1944) – In “Captain Marvel and the Mayor For a Day” Captain Marvel Is Full Of Beans (also without a full opening splash panel), Cap This truncated splash panel led off the Boston story in Captain Marvel Adventures #40 (Oct. 1944). sees a lot of sights during his sojourn in Boston: Presumably, all art in this section is by the C.C. Beck/Pete Costanza Studio. [©2007 DC Comics.]

North Station, City Hall, Bunker Hill Monument, Faneuil Hall, and Franklin Park … and he meets a though it’s sidetracked a bit by crooks who talk like the Three Stooges’ host of notable locals, including the owner of the university distribCurly (“Soitinly!”). uting company, the mayor, and two radio station broadcasters from WNAC and WEEI. (WEEI is still around, but WNAC eventually Dayton (CMA #41, Nov. 1944) – “The Adventure of the Two suffered the same fate as Fawcett’s comic book line!) Billy specifically Heroes in Dayton, Ohio”—one of the three cities visited in Ohio—was visited Boston to attend the “Boy-Mayor-for-a-Day” celebration—even one of the few city stories involving the Japanese, all of whom were portrayed as sneaky and sinister buck-tooth types who didn’t use any articles when they spoke and sometimes bypassed subjects. (“Americans escaped! But at rally, perhaps will not be so fortunate!”)

When Cap discovers that they’re out to sabotage a war bond rally, he becomes a one-man Homeland Security Department. (“A crowbar!

Someone is out to kill these soldiers! I’ll have to be more vigilant! But I must be careful not to send the crowd into a panic!”) While catching such sights as Main Street and the University of Dayton, the Big Red Cheese also catches a saboteur who has inadvertently set fire to himself and wants to take a war plant with him (“For the glory of the Mikado!”). In gunning down one Japanese saboteur, a soldier gloats, “This is just like shooting Japs out of Saipan cocoanut trees!” Editors of two newspapers (The Dayton Daily News and the Journal-Herald, the latter of which merged with the News in 1987) make cameos, as does the mayor (who is identified but unseen).

The Do’s And Don’ts Of Dayton (Get It?) Okay, so “Dayton” and “datin’” as a pair of homonyms is a cheap joke.

What do you want at these prices—Oscar Wilde? This splash is from CMA #41 (Nov. 1944). [©2007 DC Comics.]

St. Paul (CMA #42, Jan. 1945) - Billy finally made it back to Fawcett’s home state in “Captain Marvel in St. Paul, Minnesota.” While the story involves garden-variety crooks with such monikers as “Leadpipe Malone” and a corrupt newspaper photographer, it ends with a house ad caricature of a sweating Hirohito and the rhyming message “Hirohito’s looking mighty glum ‘cause the bonds that you are buying will soon make him a bum and send him home a-crying!”

While shuttering the shutterbug, Billy/Cap meets the mayor, the head of the St. Paul news agency, and an announcer for KSTP … and sees the Union Station (“Holy Moley! This station is big enough to be a city in itself!”), the state capitol, and the state fair super speedway.

How’re You Gonna Keep Cap Down On The Farm...? — Part II

85

The Whole Rhythm Section Was A Black Spot Gang!

The “Black Spot Gang” was probably a takeoff on Illinois’ infamous “Purple Gang”—last immortalized, perhaps, in the Lieber & Stoller/Elvis Presley song “Jailhouse Rock” in 1957, as paraphrased in our heading. From CMA #43 (Feb. 1945). [©2007 DC Comics.]

The Gospel According to St. Paul, Minnesota From CMA #42 (Jan. 1945). [©2007 DC Comics.]

Chicago (CMA #43, Feb. 1945) - The World’s Mightiest Mortal screws up a lot in “Captain Marvel Battles the Black Spot Gang of Chicago,” including letting two different criminal suspects slip through his fingers, one of whom gets away by slapping a bag on his noggin. A chagrined Marvel exclaims, “Gone! These modern gangsters are much trickier than the old ones!” Billy and his alter ego get to see a lot of “the queen city of the Midwest,” including its Union Station (where he’s greeted by the city’s periodical distributor), Michigan Boulevard, State Street, the stockyards (where Cap loses the other suspect), and the Stevens Hotel (which is now the Chicago Hilton). Billy also makes the acquaintance of a columnist for the since-defunct Herald-American. A panel of newspaper front pages shows other dearly-departed papers: The Chicago Sun (now the Sun-Times) and the Chicago Daily News.

Washington D.C. (CMA #44, March, 1945) - Hirohito’s acolytes return in “Captain Marvel and Washington’s Haunted Embassy!”

While in the nation’s capital ferreting out a secret Japanese agent (who is only pretending to be a lowly gardener so he can climb in the windows of government offices) and Admiral Yamomoto—a prime architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor—Billy and Cap get to see yet another Union Station, the Trans-Lux Building, “home of radio stations WMAL ands WRC,” “the famous Washington’s cherry trees,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s digs on Pennsylvania Avenue, and the Department of Justice. Cap also makes the acquaintance of FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, the mayor, and the periodical distributor. Cap goofs up a bit during his efforts to find the bad guys when “the gardener” waltzes off dressed as a tree in front of a flummoxed Big Red Cheese. Clever, those Japanese.

Kansas City (CMA #54, Feb. 1946) – The city stories resume with “Captain Marvel Visits Kansas City, Missouri,” where Cap faces down some bad and low-level kids, the same kind of mix he faced previously in Omaha. Naturally, he dispatches them easily and gets the bullies to straighten up and fly right. Along the way, Billy/Cap meets the owner of the local news agency, a sportscaster for KMBC, a judge, and an “executive of the Boy Scouts and American War Dads.” Landmarks include the Jackson County Court House, the Municipal Auditorium, Swope Park, the Pickwick Hotel, the General Post Office, and the Municipal Air Terminal. What—no Union Station!?

Captain Marvel Prevents A Capitol Offense Wonder if he came from a “red” state, and Superman from a “blue” state?

Anyway, this splash comes from CMA #44 (March 1945). [©2007 DC Comics.]

86

More Of Captain Marvel’s American Cities Tour — 1944-78

Goin’ To Kansas City—Kansas City, Here I Come!

From our headings, 1950s rock’n’rollers visited as many cities as Cap in the 1940s. Here’s the entry from CMA #54 (Feb.1946), after a hiatus of nearly a year. [©2007 DC Comics.]

Columbus (CMA #55, March 1, 1946) - Cap visits the third and last Ohio city of the series in “Captain Marvel and the Crime Egotist of Columbus, Ohio!”—one of the more enjoyable city stories, concerning the nefarious if megalomaniacal affairs of Vulture Vane, a two-bit crook who has fashioned himself as the man Captain Marvel couldn’t catch. A host of Columbus landmarks are featured, as are the mayor, police chief, the warden of the penitentiary, periodical distributor, a newspaper columnist, and a newspaper sports editor.

Mobile (CMA #56, March 15, 1946) - Cap faces off against a distant cousin of Swamp Thing in “Captain Marvel and the Flower Peril of Mobile, Alabama!” when he uproots giant flowers growing all over Mobile. While pruning the city, he makes the acquaintance of the local magazine distributor, the mayor, and an announcer for WMOB, and gets to see the “famous flower show” in Bellingrath Gardens, “the Charm Spot of the Deep South,” as well as the Battle House Hotel. He even gets to rescue a fair maiden from atop one of the petulant petals at “the corner of Dauphin and Royal Streets, Mobile’s busiest corner.”

Rochester (CMA #57, March 29, 1946) - The Hatfields and the McCoys show up in “Captain Marvel and the City Hermit of

From Memphis To Mobile Well, actually, Cap never got any closer to Memphis than Chattanooga (as seen last issue), but the above line from the song “Blues in the Night” fits this splash from CMA #56 (March 15, 1946). [©2007 DC Comics.]

Rochester, NY,” but the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Now they’re the Flatfields and the McCroys, and Cap’s visit to Rochester is taken up by the feud, which, as it turns out, is a feud in name only. Poor Herman Flatfield is a hermit who lives in an old beaten-up shack “between two modern buildings.” His house festooned with placards telling bystanders to leave him alone, Herman “refuses to sell his place so that a modern building could be put up.”

After Cap harangues him about being “a disgrace to humanity” and tells him his house is “an eyesore,” our hero learns that Herman refuses to leave his digs because of threatening notes he gets from a McCroy.

In a bid to win Herman over, Cap flies him all over Rochester, which, Billy notes, “seems to be filled with modern up-to-date architecture.”

The hermit gets an aerial view of a host of landmarks, and even gets to meet Frank E. Gannett, the publisher of the Rochester Times Union and the Democrat & Chronicle. (Yes, he’s the same Gannett the news

Captain Marvel On Columbus Day The World’s Mightiest Mortal in the last of the Ohio stories, from CMA #55 (March 1, 1946), during the period when the mag came out every two weeks. [©2007 DC Comics.]

If This Is Rochester, Where’s Jack Benny?

Anybody who read the above line when CMA #57 came out with a March 24, 1946, cover date would’ve understood the above gag. [©2007 DC Comics.]

How’re You Gonna Keep Cap Down On The Farm...? — Part II

87

B Flat In Baltimore Was that Maryland city famous for violinists?

This splash is from CMA #68 (Dec. 1946). [©2007 DC Comics.]

fans who line the streets and cheer as his limo passed. Alas, he is himself visited by a shyster who palms off a phony transmitting device that allegedly will duplicate objects. He sells Billy and “the director of WBAP,” the local radio station, on the device by arguing that it can give listeners free samples. Unfortunately all the listeners (who are mostly kids) get is heartache, until Cap allows himself to be transmitted into the crook’s lair. Cap doesn’t see all that much of Fort Worth, but what he does see apparently isn’t around anymore: the Media Arts Building (where WBAP broadcasted from) and Morning’s Department Store. He also meets a columnist for the Fort Worth Press, which these days is sold only in Morning’s Department Store

Have A Hartford!

Connecticut was the scene of the city-visit story in CMA #67 (Nov. 1946). [©2007 DC Comics.]

chain is named after, and the one that gave birth to USA Today. The Democrat & Chronicle is still around, but the Times Union is defunct.)

Addendum: On The Road Again

by P.C. Hamerlinck After DC’s revival of Captain Marvel in the 1970s, the old cityvisiting theme of the ’40s was unintentionally resurrected when the

Hartford (CMA #67, Nov. 1946) – After another brief hiatus, the city stories return, with Cap being presented with the key to the city of Hartford, Connecticut, in “Captain Marvel and the Key of Crime” … but a two-bit chiseler who bills himself as Slippery Sam keeps trying to steal it. In addition to putting the grip on the Slip, Cap meets the local magazine distributor and his brother, Congressman Herman Koppleman, the mayor, and his five children—who tell Billy: “But now we want to see Captain Marvel, too, Billy!” “Yes! Say your word, Billy!” (In many Golden Age stories it was often common knowledge that Billy and Cap were one in the same.) Cap also gets to see several sights in what was the nation’s insurance capital, including “the famous Rose Gardens of Elizabeth Park.”

Baltimore (CMA #68, Dec. 1946) – A stuffed shirt of a violinist tries to string Cap along in “Captain Marvel Visits Baltimore.” Upset that the World’s Mightiest Mortal is garnering more press than he is, “the famous boy violin prodigy” cooks up a hare-brained scheme to make Cap look bad and get his own name on the front page. Cap, who meets the mayor and the head of the Maryland News Company during his sojourn, discovers the plot through simple detective work and saves the day. He also saves the Stars and Stripes from collapsing at Fort McHenry.

Fort Worth (CMA #69, Feb. 1947) – Billy paid his second visit to the Lone Star State in the final Golden Age city story, “Captain Marvel and the Great Radio Hoax of Fort Worth, Texas.” He is greeted by the mayor, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, and throngs of

How Much Is This Fort Worth?

Dallas received a visit from Cap in CMA #32 (see last issue), but it took him another 37 issues to get around to its twin city of Fort Worth, in CMA #69 (Feb. 1947). [©2007 DC Comics.]

88

More Of Captain Marvel’s American Cities Tour — 1944-78

Shazam! CBS-TV series (produced by Filmation from 1974-76) had “Billy Batson and his Mentor travel the hi-ways and bi-ways of the land” (although the show was entirely filmed in Southern California) in their Open Road motor home, helping teens in trouble while seeking “justice for all” (with last-minute assistance from Captain Marvel).

tried inserting cameos of local magazine distributors; but times had changed and, while it may have been a circulation booster for Fawcett in the ’40s, the distributor appearances did absolutely nothing for DC in the ’70s. It seemed absurd for Cap to just happen to have so many local magazine distributors as old friends.

In an attempt to capitalize on the success of the TV series, writer E. Nelson Bridwell merged elements of the show into DC’s dying Shazam! title, paying homage to the old Fawcett stories in the process. Like the TV Billy, the comic book Billy would tour the country in a motor home … but, rather than being on TV’s vague “justice for all” mission, Billy was given dual tasks of taping a series of WHIZ-TV countrywide specials and pursuing his main antagonist, Dr. Sivana, from state to state as Captain Marvel. But, rather than encountering the nondescript towns of the TV series, Billy went back to visiting large cities, as he’d done in the old Fawcett tales.

Bridwell identified Captain Marvel’s native city as New York (that had only been implied during the Golden Age), so the characters route began through Northeastern cities.

Captain Marvel finally apprehended Sivana in Pittsburgh, only to have Mr. Mind take over as an ongoing adversary. Ibac, Aunt Minerva, Black Adam, Mr. Atom, and Capt. Nazi all made appearances, too; and Billy and Dudley were ready to roll on to the next city when an editorial change and a new direction put a roadblock to any further trips.

The city adventures from the 1970s, with Bridwell’s scripts and Kurt Schaffenberger’s artwork, proved to be a bright lightning-strike in Shazam!’s tumultuous history. Even when forced to mesh attributes of the TV series, the stories briefly harkened back to the quality adventures from the Fawcett era. But, ultimately, Billy and Mentor took a detour and drove back to New York City, and parked their motor home in the garage of Eternity.

Shazam! City Story Index

Bridwell wisely had the wizard Shazam bestow Uncle Dudley (the former “Uncle Marvel”) as Billy’s mentor—now Shazam! From the ’70s To The ’70s with a newly-grown, dignified And with that takeoff on the title of the 1977 Crown hardcover collection of mustache to mirror TV’s Mentor— Captain Marvel epics, we turn to TV-land: and, subsequently, giving Dudley (Top:) The great Shazam! TV cast from 1974: Les Tremayne (Mentor), some long-overdue development.

Jackson Bostwick (Captain Marvel), and Michael Gray (Billy Batson).

Bridwell retained from the TV [Characters ©2007 DC Comics.] series Billy’s communication with (Above:) Writer E. Nelson Bridwell, from an early-1970s issue of The Buyer’s “The Elders,” but it was Billy Guide to Comics Fandom. [©2007 Krause Publications, Inc.] contacting them instead of vice (Below:) Panels from Shazam! #26 (Nov.-Dec. 1976) depicting Uncle Dudley in versa, and seeking advice from the “Mentor” role, and Billy summoning Hercules, an “Elder.” Script by ENB, only one Elder at a time. art by Kurt Schaffenberger. [©2007 DC Comics.]

(Bridwell, being well-versed in mythology and the Bible, made the Elders more in character than their stiff, indistinguishable TV counterparts. (Solomon, for example, only quoted from what are traditionally considered his own writings, the Book of Proverbs.)

ENB wanted to follow the Fawcett formula by having Billy and Cap meet real-life residents of each city they visited; however, then-DC publisher Jenette Kahn vetoed the idea, deeming the cost involved in making such arrangements too high. Hence, that aspect of the concept fell flat (particularly in the Detroit story, where none of the members of the Tigers baseball team could be identified by name). Bridwell still

Washington D.C. – “The Case of the Kidnapped Congress” (Shazam! #26, Nov.-Dec. 1976) Philadelphia – “Fear in Philadelphia” (Shazam! #27, Jan.-Feb. 1977) - co-starring Kid Eternity Boston – “The Return of Black Adam” (Shazam! #28, MarchApril 1977) Buffalo – “Ibac Meets Aunt Minerva” (Shazam! #29, MayJune 1977) Pittsburgh – “Captain Marvel Fights the Man of Steel” (Shazam! #30, July-Aug. 1977) co-starring The Marvel Family and the Lieutenant Marvels Columbus – “The Rainbow Squad” (Shazam! #31, Sept.Oct. 1977) – co-starring Minute Man Detroit – “Mr. Tawny’s Big Game” (Shazam! #32, Nov.Dec. 1977) Indianapolis – “The World’s Mightiest Race” (Shazam! #33, Jan.-Feb. 1978) Chicago – “The Führer of Chicago” (Shazam! #34, MarchApril 1978)

TWOMORROWS BOOKS

by ROY THOMAS NEW FOR 2008

ALTER EGO COLLECTION, VOL. 1 Collects ALTER EGO #1-2, plus 30 pages of new material! Behind a new JLA Jam Cover by JOE KUBERT, GEORGE PÉREZ, DICK GIORDANO, GEORGE TUSKA, NICK CARDY, RAMONA FRADON, and JOE GIELLA, there’s: GIL KANE, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, and GARDNER FOX on the creation of the Silver Age Atom! “The STAN LEE Roast” with SAL BUSCEMA, JOHN ROMITA, PETER DAVID, CHRIS CLAREMONT, JIM SHOOTER, et al.! MICHAEL T. GILBERT on WILL EISNER’s 1966 Spirit story! ROY THOMAS, JERRY ORDWAY, and MIKE MACHLAN on creating Infinity, Inc.! Interviews with LARRY LIEBER, IRWIN HASEN, & JACK BURNLEY! Wonder Woman rarities, with art by H.G. PETER! Plus FCA, new sections featuring scarce art by GIL KANE, WILL EISNER, CARMINE INFANTINO, MIKE SEKOWSKY, MURPHY ANDERSON, DICK DILLIN, plus all seven of our super-star cover artists!

(192-page trade paperback) $21.95 ISBN: 9781893905597 Diamond Order Code: APR063420

ALTER EGO: THE BEST OF THE LEGENDARY COMICS FANZINE

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

JOHN ROMITA... AND ALL THAT JAZZ! “Jazzy” JOHN ROMITA talks about his life, his art, and his contemporaries! Authored by former Marvel Comics editor in chief and top writer ROY THOMAS, and noted historian JIM AMASH, it features the most definitive interview Romita’s ever given, about working with such comics legends as STAN LEE and JACK KIRBY, following Spider-Man co-creator STEVE DITKO as artist on the strip, and more!

Plus, Roy Thomas shares memories of working with Romita in the 1960s-70s, and Jim Amash examines the awesome artistry of Ring-a-Ding Romita! Lavishly illustrated with Romita art—original classic art, and unseen masterpieces—as well as illos by some of Marvel’s and DC’s finest, this is at once a career overview of a comics master, and a firsthand history of the industry by one of its leading artists! Available in Softcover and Deluxe Hardcover (with 16 extra color pages, dust jacket, and custom endleaves).

(192-page softcover) $24.95 ISBN: 9781893905757 • Diamond Order Code: APR074018 (208-page hardcover with COLOR) $44.95 ISBN: 9781893905764 • Diamond Order Code: APR074019

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ALL- STAR COMPANION VOL. 2 ROY THOMAS presents still more secrets of the Justice Society of America and ALL-STAR COMICS, from 1940 through the 1980s, featuring: A fabulous wraparound cover by CARLOS PACHECO! More amazing information and speculation on the classic ALL-STAR COMICS of 1940-1951! Never-before-seen Golden Age art by IRWIN HASEN, CARMINE INFANTINO, ALEX TOTH, MART NODELL, JOE KUBERT, H.G. PETER, and others! Art from an unpublished 1940s JSA story not seen in Volume 1! Rare art from the original JLA-JSA team-ups and the 1970s ALL-STAR COMICS REVIVAL by MIKE SEKOWSKY, DICK DILLIN, JOE STATON, WALLY WOOD, KEITH GIFFEN, and RIC ESTRADA! Full coverage of the 1980s ALL-STAR SQUADRON, and a bio of every single All-Star, plus never-seen art by JERRY ORDWAY, RICH BUCKLER, ARVELL JONES, RAFAEL KAYANAN, and special JSArelated art and features by FRANK BRUNNER, ALEX ROSS, NEAL ADAMS, GIL KANE, MIKE MIGNOLA, and RAMONA FRADON—and more!

NEW FOR 2008

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ALL- STAR COMPANION VOL. 3

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In this third volume, comics legend Roy Thomas presents still more amazing secrets behind the 1940-51 ALL-STAR COMICS and the JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA! Also, there’s an issue-by-issue survey of the JLA/JSA TEAM-UPS of 1963-85, the 1970s JSA REVIVAL, and the 1980s series THE YOUNG ALL-STARS with commentary by the artists and writers! Plus rare, often unseen art by NEAL ADAMS, DICK AYERS, MICHAEL BAIR, JOHN BUSCEMA, SEAN CHEN, DICK DILLIN, RIC ESTRADA, CREIG FLESSEL, KEITH GIFFEN, DICK GIORDANO, MIKE GRELL, TOM GRINDBERG, TOM GRUMMETT, RON HARRIS, IRWIN HASEN, DON HECK, CARMINE INFANTINO, GIL KANE, JACK KIRBY, JOE KUBERT, BOB LAYTON, SHELDON MAYER, BOB McLEOD, SHELDON MOLDOFF, BRIAN MURRAY, JERRY ORDWAY, ARTHUR PEDDY, GEORGE PÉREZ, H.G. PETER, HOWARD PURCELL, PAUL REINMAN, MIKE SEKOWSKY, HOWARD SIMPSON, JOE SINNOTT, JIM STARLIN, JOE STATON, RONN SUTTON, ALEX TOTH, JIM VALENTINO and many others! Featuring a new JLA/JSA cover by GEORGE PÉREZ! (240-page trade paperback) $26.95 ISBN: 9781893905801 • Diamond Order Code: SEP074020

Edited by ROY THOMAS The greatest ‘zine of the 1960s is back, ALL-NEW, and focusing on GOLDEN AND SILVER AGE comics and creators with ARTICLES, INTERVIEWS, UNSEEN ART, P.C. Hamerlinck’s FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America, featuring the archives of C.C. BECK and recollections by Fawcett artist MARCUS SWAYZE), Michael T. Gilbert’s MR. MONSTER, and more!

2007 EISNER AWARD WINNER Best Comics-Related Periodical

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ALTER EGO #1

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STAN LEE gets roasted by SCHWARTZ, CLAREMONT, DAVID, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, and SHOOTER, ORDWAY and THOMAS on INFINITY, INC., IRWIN HASEN interview, unseen H.G. PETER Wonder Woman pages, the original Captain Marvel and Human Torch teamup, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, “Mr. Monster”, plus plenty of rare and unpublished art!

Featuring a never-reprinted SPIRIT story by WILL EISNER, the genesis of the SILVER AGE ATOM (with GARDNER FOX, GIL KANE, and JULIE SCHWARTZ), interviews with LARRY LIEBER and Golden Age great JACK BURNLEY, BOB KANIGHER, a new Fawcett Collectors of America section with MARC SWAYZE, C.C. BECK, and more!

GIL KANE and JACK BURNLEY flip-covers!

Unseen ALEX ROSS and JERRY ORDWAY Shazam! art, 1953 interview with OTTO BINDER, the SUPERMAN/CAPTAIN MARVEL LAWSUIT, GIL KANE on The Golden Age of TIMELY COMICS, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, and SCHAFFENBERGER, rare art by AYERS, BERG, BURNLEY, DITKO, RICO, SCHOMBURG, MARIE SEVERIN and more! ALEX ROSS & BILL EVERETT covers!

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Interviews with KUBERT, SHELLY MOLDOFF, and HARRY LAMPERT, BOB KANIGHER, life and times of GARDNER FOX, ROY THOMAS remembers GIL KANE, a history of Flash Comics, MOEBIUS Silver Surfer sketches, MR. MONSTER, FCA section with SWAYZE, BECK, and SCHAFFENBERGER, and lots more! Dual color covers by JOE KUBERT!

Celebrating the JSA, with interviews with MART NODELL, SHELLY MAYER, GEORGE ROUSSOS, BILL BLACK, and GIL KANE, unpublished H.G. PETER Wonder Woman art, GARDNER FOX, an FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, C.C. BECK, WENDELL CROWLEY, and more! Wraparound cover

by CARMINE INFANTINO and JERRY ORDWAY!

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

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

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

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ALTER EGO #9

ALTER EGO #10

ALTER EGO #11

ALTER EGO #12

ALTER EGO #13

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALTER EGO #14

ALTER EGO #15

ALTER EGO #16

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

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

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

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ALTER EGO #18

ALTER EGO #19

ALTER EGO #20

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

Spotlight on DICK SPRANG (profile and interview) with unseen art, rare Batman art

by BOB KANE, CHARLES PARIS, SHELLY MOLDOFF, MAX ALLAN COLLINS, JIM MOONEY, CARMINE INFANTINO, and ALEX TOTH, JERRY ROBINSON interviewed about Tomahawk and 1940s cover artist FRED RAY, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD’s Flash Gordon, Part 2!

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

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

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ALTER EGO #22

ALTER EGO #23

ALTER EGO #24

ALTER EGO #25

ALTER EGO #26

BILL EVERETT and JOE KUBERT interviewed

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

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

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

JACK COLE remembered by ALEX TOTH, interview with brother DICK COLE and his PLAYBOY colleagues, CHRIS CLAREMONT on the X-Men (with more never-seen art

by DAVE COCKRUM), ROY THOMAS on All-Star Squadron #1 and its ’40s roots (with art by ORDWAY, BUCKLER, MESKIN and MOLDOFF), FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more! Covers by TOTH and SCHELLY!

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

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ALTER EGO #27

ALTER EGO #28

ALTER EGO #29

ALTER EGO #30

ALTER EGO #31

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

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

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

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

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

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ALTER EGO #32

ALTER EGO #33

ALTER EGO #34

ALTER EGO #35

ALTER EGO #36

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

Covers by DICK GIORDANO and GIL KANE!

Symposium on MIKE SEKOWSKY by MARK EVANIER, SCOTT SHAW!, et al., with art

by ANDERSON, INFANTINO, and others, PAT (MRS. MIKE) SEKOWSKY and inker VALERIE BARCLAY interviewed, FCA, 1950s Captain Marvel parody by ANDRU and ESPOSITO, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY, MR. MONSTER, and more! Covers by FRENZ/SINNOTT and FRENZ/BUSCEMA!

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

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

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

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ALTER EGO #37

ALTER EGO #38

ALTER EGO #39

ALTER EGO #40

ALTER EGO #41

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

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

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

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

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

Covers by WRIGHTSON & MARC SWAYZE!

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ALTER EGO #42

ALTER EGO #43

ALTER EGO #44

ALTER EGO #45

ALTER EGO #46

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

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

JSA/All-Star Squadron/Infinity Inc. special!

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

Interviews with Sandman artist CREIG FLESSEL and ’40s creator BERT CHRISTMAN, MICHAEL CHABON on researching his Pulitzer-winning novel Kavalier & Clay, art

by EISNER, KANE, KIRBY, and AYERS, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, OTTO BINDER’s “lost” Jon Jarl story, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and ALEX TOTH! CREIG FLESSEL cover!

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

Cover by EVERETT and MARIE SEVERIN!

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ALTER EGO #47

ALTER EGO #48

ALTER EGO #49

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALTER EGO #54 ALTER EGO #51

ALTER EGO #52

ALTER EGO #53

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

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

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

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MIKE ESPOSITO on DC and Marvel, ROBERT KANIGHER on the creation of Metal Men and Sgt. Rock (with comments

by JOE KUBERT and BOB HANEY), art by ANDRU, INFANTINO, KIRBY, SEVERIN, WINDSOR-SMITH, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, TRIMPE, GIL KANE, and others, plus FCA, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY, MR. MONSTER, and more! ESPOSITO cover!

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ALTER EGO #56

ALTER EGO #57

ALTER EGO #58

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

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

by JACK KIRBY and PETE VON SHOLLY!

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

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

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

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

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

ALTER EGO #60

ALTER EGO #61

ALTER EGO #62

Celebrates 50 years since SHOWCASE #4!

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

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

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

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ALTER EGO #63

ALTER EGO #64

ALTER EGO #65

ALTER EGO #66

ALTER EGO #67

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

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

NICK CARDY interviewed on his Golden & Silver Age work (with CARDY art), plus art

by WILL EISNER, NEAL ADAMS, CARMINE INFANTINO, JIM APARO, RAMONA FRADON, CURT SWAN, MIKE SEKOWSKY, and others, tributes to ERNIE SCHROEDER and DAVE COCKRUM, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, new CARDY COVER, and more!

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

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

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ALTER EGO #68

ALTER EGO #69

ALTER EGO #70

ALTER EGO #71

ALTER EGO #72

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

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

Cover painted by JOHN WATSON, from a breathtaking illo by RAMONA FRADON!

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

Represents THE GREAT CANADIAN COMIC BOOKS, the long out-of-print 1970s book

by MICHAEL HIRSH and PATRICK LOUBERT, with rare art of such heroes as Mr. Monster, Nelvana, Thunderfist, and others, plus new INVADERS art by JOHN BYRNE, MIKE GRELL, RON LIM, and more, plus a new cover by GEORGE FREEMAN, from a layout by JACK KIRBY!

SCOTT SHAW! and ROY THOMAS on the creation of Captain Carrot, art & artifacts

by RICK HOBERG, STAN GOLDBERG, MIKE SEKOWSKY, JOHN COSTANZA, E. NELSON BRIDWELL, CAROL LAY, and others, interview with DICK ROCKWELL, Golden Age artist and 36-year ghost artist on MILTON CANIFF’s Steve Canyon! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

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ALTER EGO #73

ALTER EGO #75

ALTER EGO #76

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

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

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

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

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

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

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Ships June 2008

ALTER EGO #79

ALTER EGO #80

SUPERMAN & HIS CREATORS! New cover

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

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

New cover by RAFAEL KAYANAN!

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12-ISSUE SUBSCRIPTIONS: $78 US Postpaid by Media Mail ($108 First Class, $132 Canada, $180 Surface, $216 Airmail).

For a 6-issue sub, cut the price in half!

THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

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

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

BACK ISSUE #1

BACK ISSUE #2

BACK ISSUE #3

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

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

HUGHES cover!

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

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BACK ISSUE #4

BACK ISSUE #5

BACK ISSUE #6

BACK ISSUE #7

BACK ISSUE #8

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

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

Covers by ALEX ROSS and ADAM HUGHES!

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

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

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

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BACK ISSUE #9

BACK ISSUE #10

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BACK ISSUE #12

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

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

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

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

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

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DAVE COCKRUM and MIKE GRELL go “Pro2Pro” on the Legion, pencil art gallery

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

“Weird Heroes” of the 1970s and ‘80s!

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

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

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

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

by NEAL ADAMS!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Includes a FREE DRAW! #15 PREVIEW!

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

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

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

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NEW STUFF FROM TWOMORROWS!

ROUGH STUFF #8

BACK ISSUE #28

WRITE NOW! #18

DRAW! #15

BRICKJOURNAL #2

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

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

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

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

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

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SILVER AGE SCI-FI COMPANION

BEST OF WRITE NOW!

BEST OF DRAW! VOL. 3

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

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

Compiles more of the best tutorials and interviews from DRAW! #5-7, including: Penciling by MIKE WIERINGO! Illustration

by DAN BRERETON! Design by PAUL RIVOCHE! Drawing Hands, Lighting the Figure, and Sketching by BRET BLEVINS! Cartooning by BILL WRAY! Inking by MIKE MANLEY! Comics & Animation by STEPHEN DeSTEFANO! Digital Illustration

by CELIA CALLE and ALBERTO RUIZ! Caricature by ZACH TRENHOLM, and much more! Cover by DAN BRERETON!

MODERN MASTERS VOLUME 16: MIKE ALLRED

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

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

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Features an extensive, career-spanning interview lavishly illustrated with rare art from Mike’s files, plus huge sketchbook section, including unseen and unused art!

By ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON. (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905863 Diamond Order Code: JAN083937

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

(32-page comic) FREE! at your local comics retailer on FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, May 3, 2008!

TwoMorrows. Celebrating The Art & History Of Comics.

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