Alter Ego #70 Preview

Roy Roy T Thomas homas ’ ’70 ss---Something Something Comics Comics Fanzine anzine

YOU ASKED FOR IT— SO IT SERVES YOU RIGHT!

ROY THOMAS

ON MARVEL IN THE 1970s! $$

6.95

In In the the USA USA

No. 70

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July 2007

“ROY THE BOY” TALKS ABOUT WORKING WITH:

PLUS GOLDEN AGE GREAT

ADAMS * ANDRU * BORING * BOTH BUSCEMAS * BRUNNER * BUCKLER LILY RENÉE CHAYKIN * COCKRUM * COLAN * CONWAY * ENGLEHART * EVERETT & GERBER * GOODWIN * KANE * KIRBY * LEE * MOENCH * PÉREZ PLOOG * ROBBINS * ROMITA * THE SEVERINS * SHOOTER * SMITH THORNE * TRIMPE * TUSKA * WEIN * WOLFMAN * WRIGHTSON, & MORE!!

Human Torch, Captain America, Sub-Mariner, & The Red Skull TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Vol. 3, No. 70 / July 2007 Editor

— Contents —

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 Chris Irving

Circulation Director Bob Brodsky, Cookiesoup Periodical Distribution, LLC

Cover Artist Writer/Editorial: The Devil Made Me Do It! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 “Writing Comics Turned Out To Be What I Really Wanted To Do With My Life”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Gene Colan

Cover Colorist Tom Ziuko

With Special Thanks to:

Roy Thomas talks to Jim Amash about the 1970s at Mighty Marvel.

Dan Adkins Heidi Amash Nick Arroyo Bob Bailey Michael Baulderstone Alan Barger Allen Bellman Al Bigley Dominic Bongo Jerry K. Boyd Mike Burkey R. Dewey Cassell Larry Clay Gene & Adrienne Colan Teresa R. Davidson Jack DiMartino Chris Fama Michael Finn Gregory Fischer Shane Foley Todd Franklin Jenna Land Free Janet Gilbert Arnie Grieves George Hagenauer Jennifer Hamerlinck David G. Hamilton Heritage Comics Tom Horvitz Jay Kinney Scott Kolins

Lily Renée At Fiction House—And Beyond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Karen Kraft Bob Layton Stan Lee Bruce MacIntosh Michel Maillot Jonathan Mankuta Mark Muller Jim Murtaugh Jerry Ordway Tom Palmer Nigel Parkinson George Pérez Joe Petrilak John G. Pierce Trina Robbins Phil Schlaeffer John Severin Marie Severin Rick Shurgin Keif Simon Anthony Snyder Flo Steinberg Steve Stiles Aaron Sultan Marc Swayze Dann Thomas Frank Thorne Angelique Trouvere Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Alan Waite Hames Ware Nicholas Yutko

A far-too-brief look at a “Star Woman Cartoonist” by Trina Robbins.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! Mike Mallet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Michael T. Gilbert presents “The World’s First Adult Comic,” by Bob Powell.

re: [comments, correspondence, & corrections to >ulp!< A/E #57!] . . 74 FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #129 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 P.C. Hamerlinck showcases Marc Swayze, John G. Pierce, and Roy the [Shazam!] Boy.

FREE! Rough Stuff #5 preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 On Our Cover: “Gentleman Gene”—“Gene the Dean”—even “Adam Austin”—Stan Lee called Gene Colan all of the above during the early days of Marvel Comics. Other people have called him other things, among them “an artist’s artist” and “a painter with pencil.”

Gene and Roy Thomas never worked together on The Invaders—but English collector Michael Finn commissioned Gene to draw this powerful illo of Timely’s “Big Three” facing off with The Red Skull—so, with Gene’s blessing, nothing was gonna stop us from reproducing it as our cover, straight from Mr. C.’s pulsating pencils, with Tom Ziuko adding the colors. What’s more, you can rhapsodize over the penciled original art on p. 31! [Captain America, Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, & Red Skull TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Above: Gil Kane, who (twice!) came within an ace of becoming the first artist ever to illustrate Conan's adventures in comics form, drew the Cimmerian in this time-tossed setting for the 1976 Mighty Marvel Bicentennial Calendar. Maybe the barbarian wound up at Lexington and/or Concord because of Shamash-Shum-Ukin's fabled Well at the Center of Time from Savage Sword of Conan #7 (Aug. 1975) and What If? #13 (Feb. 1979)! Repro'd from a scan of the original art, as retrieved from the Heritage Comics Archives by Dominic Bongo. [©2007 Paradox Entertainment.]

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 US ($11.00 Canada, $16 elsewhere). Twelve-issue subscriptions: $78 US, $132 Canada, $180 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.

3

“Writing Comics Turned Out To Be What I Really Wanted To Do With My Life” ROY THOMAS Talks About Writing—And Editing— For Marvel During The 1970s

I

Interview Conducted by Jim Amash NTRODUCTION BY JIM AMASH:

Transcribed by Brian K. Morris Sol Brodsky was there—right before he left for Skywald and was succeeded by John Verpoorten. As production manager, Sol ranked me in certain ways, and I had no problem with that—but he wasn’t involved in editorial decisions except from a scheduling angle, so the three of us took care of things… well, in a sense maybe there were four of us, because Stan relied on John Romita in certain areas concerning Spider-Man and even art direction and corrections.

JA: Now, as you rise in the company, is your compensation rising that much?

THOMAS: I was doing okay. Is anybody ever really ever paid what they’d like? I was working, really, for [Marvel publisher] Martin Goodman, and he wasn’t somebody you could go to directly and say, “I’m worth more money.” Remember, Flo Steinberg quit in the late ’60s because she couldn’t get a $5 raise, because Goodman felt secretarial positions paid a certain salary and not a penny over that. But, between Goodman and Stan, I got raises from time to time, when sales were fairly good. There were sometimes Christmas bonuses, too. And, unlike back in the ’40s or ’50s, they never had to lower my salary, although back around ’68 they probably came close to doing that across the board when sales went soft, right after they turned the three anthology titles into six solo hero titles.

JA: How did other people react to your rising in the company?

THOMAS: I probably had more friends than I’d had before. [mutual laughter] JA: That’s what I figured.

“By The Middle Of 1970, I’d Been At Marvel For Five Years” JIM AMASH: All right, so it’s 1970 and you’re the second “head writer” of Marvel Comics, with Stan [Lee] being #1. And you’re editing, so you’re the #2 editor, too.

THOMAS: That’s like saying you come in second in a horse race. You don’t get nearly as much money. [mutual laughter] Actually, it was a nice situation to be in. By the middle of 1970, I’d been at Marvel for five years, just picking up whatever little tidbits or reins Stan let fall, sometimes at his direction, sometimes at my own initiative. And I just became “#2 editor”—my real title was “associate editor”—by default.

THOMAS: Well, I had more people suddenly finding excuses to hang around with me. I’m not saying they were always doing that consciously. You naturally gravitate towards somebody in a situation like that, as I’m sure I’ve done myself. I never had to work hard at that, because when I was dealing with pros earlier, it was most just writing fan letters to Julie Schwartz or Gardner Fox or Otto Binder. And, with the exception of once or twice with Julie, I wasn’t really thinking in terms of getting into the field professionally.

Some people probably accepted what you call my “rise” in the company, and some people didn’t. I wasn’t handing out assignments directly at that stage, but I had some growing influence, and Stan often listened to my suggestions. Sometimes he’d ask who should do this or that. It was a case of a gradual evolution. If I’d looked from one year to the next, I was probably handling a little more and I was having to deal with a few other writers and a bit more with the art—less with the art than with the writers. But I wouldn’t have noticed from day-to-day or week-to-week.

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Roy Thomas Talks About Writing—And Editing—For Marvel During The 1970s

a few touches here and there. I suspect he didn’t do the Kull book because, by then, he was more involved with DC. JA: Swamp Thing starts not too long after that.

THOMAS: Otherwise, I’d have been very happy to work with him on Kull. But I wound up going to Ross Andru, whose work I also loved.

But I felt his pencils needed a bit more decoration to compete with what Barry was doing, just as I later thought Buscema did, which led to my getting Alcala and Chan. For Andru’s Kull—well, you can’t get any better inker than Wally Wood. They’d have been the regular team. But there were several months between those first two Kull issues. And by that time, Andru and Wood were both gone, so by Kull the Conqueror #2—the third “Kull” outing—we wound up up with yet another team. We had three different overall “teams,” if you count Bernie, in just three issues. Three artistic looks—and all of them excellent! [laughs] A plethora of riches.

JA: Later you changed the book’s title to Kull the Destroyer.

THOMAS: Stan changed it, just as Ploog came in to draw it and I wrote that one issue. Stan felt maybe the word “Conqueror” was hurting the book—it sounded too much like a king—so he changed the word to “Destroyer.” I remember the two of us were walking down the hall and I argued, “I don’t think the word ‘Conqueror’ is the problem, or that changing it will make a difference.” He got a bit teed off at me for not thinking it was a great idea. I usually did like Stan’s ideas; and in this case, it wasn’t like it was a bad idea. I just didn’t figure it would help. I think what helped sell that book then for a little while was Mike Ploog’s cover and art, plus we were doing a Robert E. Howard story, which got me all fired up. But I was just too busy to continue doing it. I think Steve Engelhart did a good job on Kull after that, but still it kind-of petered away. Maybe if Mike had kept on inking it—but we also lost Mike’s inking after that one issue, and Mike’s work never looked as good when someone else was inking.

Conqueror, Hell! I’m A Destroyer!

Mike Ploog’s cover for Kull the Destroyer #11 (Nov. 1973), as reprinted in black-&-white, with gray tones added, in FOOM #2 (Summer 1973).

See photo of Mike on p. 51. [©2007 Paradox Entertainment.]

of Tuzun Thune, and he’d wonder about who was real, him or the Serpent Men—that sort of thing.

JA: Now a couple of things: the first “Kull” story is in Creatures on the Loose #10—because I own that original art, you know. [chuckles] THOMAS: Do you? The whole story? The story that Bernie thought for a long time that I had? It got stolen from the office between when it was first printed in Creatures on the Loose and right after I reprinted it in Savage Tales so we could see the artwork better in black-&-white, and I could even print Bernie’s cover. How did you get hold of that story?

JA: It was eventually found and returned to Wrightson, who later sold it to an art dealer, and the art dealer sold it to me. Was that a test for “Kull”? So if it had done badly, you might not have done a Kull comic?

THOMAS: It was an attempt to get Kull out there, and see if we could get a second Howard comic—and because Bernie had really wanted to do Conan and that hadn’t worked out. Of course, we ended up with a Herb Trimpe cover. Stan didn’t like Bernie’s cover, which underscores the fact that, had I pushed hard earlier for Bernie to do the Conan book, it might not have worked to either my or Bernie’s advantage. The “Kull” story was months later, by which time Bernie had gotten more experience, and his “Skull of Silence” adaptation is gorgeous work. He said equally nice stuff about my adaptation at the time, because I added

JA: Why did Ploog replace the Severins?

THOMAS: I don’t remember why Marie left. Remember, the last issue she penciled wasn’t inked by John, and I think she lost interest after her brother left, plus the fact that it wasn’t selling that well, anyway. Marie would have to tell you more, if she remembers. I don’t think she was taken off Kull.

JA: Okay, Red Sonja is an immediate hit when you introduce her into the Conan series.

THOMAS: Well, in terms of reader reaction, anyway. She wasn’t even on the first cover.

JA: Right, but since she was popular with the readers almost immediately, why didn’t you use her more often in the Conan comic book?

THOMAS: Conan was a loner. So, once he met her, she had to wander off at the end of the second story [Conan the Barbarian #24]. I always knew she’d be back. But I wanted several months to go by first. I felt Conan shouldn’t be part of a regular team.

JA: So you were thinking more in terms of realism than for sales, in a sense.

THOMAS: I didn’t really think a lot about sales in terms of Conan.

And that’s probably why Stan saved our bacon [mutual chuckling] by insisting that Barry and I use more humanoid villains, starting with #8.

That probably made the upturn that saved the book. I wanted to sell the book, of course, but mostly my feeling was that, if we did the best job we could, the book would either sell or it wasn’t going to sell. And it was picking up in sales at that time, so I didn’t have to worry too

“Writing Comics Turned Out To Be What I Really Wanted To Do With My Life”

11

much. It’s not like I needed Red Sonja and other characters to sell Conan.

So I didn’t have her reappear till around #40 or 41. Actually, there’s another story we prepared that should’ve been in Conan the Barbarian a month before that second two-parter—it’s the one that became the lead story in Savage Sword of Conan #1. But, as usual, when we launched Savage Sword— “We have a new book on the schedule and it’s late!” [laughs] She could’ve come back earlier, but I was adapting a lot of Howard’s stories, and I didn’t feel like shoehorning Sonja into those, so I just kept on working. Then the chance came to bring her back, and we did.

Are we through with the Howard stuff now?

JA: [chuckles] No, you don’t get off that lucky, Roy! [mutual laughter] Because Conan was a more writer-intensive series for you, did you feel like working on this helped you grow as a writer?

THOMAS: I’m sure it did. I always thought in terms of bringing pulp-like writing into comics—even Doc Savage, which I was never wild about as writing—and there were a lot of clumsy things about Burroughs, even Howard. It was all pulp-type writing, but I felt that bringing in those characters and those concepts would elevate comics a little. It wasn’t that I didn’t like what Stan Lee, Gardner Fox, and other people had done, myself included… or that everything Howard did was better than most of what, say, Stan Lee did. It’s just that I felt that having a noncomics approach would broaden the appeal of comics and enrich it in some vague way. This is the same motivation that later made me want to bring in science-fiction and to do horror adaptations and not just new stories.

JA: You did that Worlds Unknown color comic— THOMAS: Yeah, that was a favorite. But it didn’t sell.

JA: —and I forget the name of the other one, that had that great Steranko cover with The Invisible Man. THOMAS: That was Supernatural Thrillers. Stan had the idea for that one, then turned it over to me, and I decided we should adapt some fantasy/horror classics, like Theodore Sturgeon’s “It” and “Killdozer.” H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man was Stan’s idea.

I remember some of those worked out quite well, like Howard’s “Valley of the Worm.”

Red Sales In The Sunset You can’t say Red Sonja artist Frank Thorne didn’t throw himself into his work! At top center he confronts Big Red in the flesh (and lots of it!) at the unique Red Sonja Convention held in New Jersey in 1976! Photo courtesy of “Sonja” Angelique Trouvere. The Hyrkanian’s comic sold quite well for a year or two there! Frank himself provided a scan of the original art to the cover of Red Sonja #7 (Jan. 1978).

[Art ©2007 Red Sonja Properties, Inc.]

JA: Yeah, that was a good one. Okay, now this is hindsight, [laughs] but it seems to me—and maybe I noticed this because, when I started reading comics, you were already writing—but it seems to me that this is one of your real growth periods, the turn of or the early to mid-’70s.

THOMAS: I think working with this other, non-comics material caused me to think more about the writing. I was trying to match Howard’s style, or at least write a bit differently from what I was writing in The Avengers. Challenges like that do make you grow as a writer. You don’t necessarily have to be constantly thinking, “I’m growing as a writer! I’m growing as a writer!” I get physically ill when I see actors and actresses on TV talking about how they’re “growing” all the time. I was just trying to do a good job, and as you do that, maybe you improve in certain ways.

“I Really Did Like Deepening The Marvel Universe” JA: That’s right, because in that same period you did the Kree/Skrull War in The Avengers, which was a bit different from what you’d done before in Avengers. You had like a “Women’s Lib” issue, and things like that in Avengers. In fact, I think you took the whole idea of that further than Lee and Kirby had done in Fantastic Four when they first introduced the Kree.

THOMAS: There were two factors in that. One is what you’re talking about, how working with Conan and other adaptation materials made me start thinking a little differently, so that ideas would occur to me that maybe wouldn’t have otherwise. Actually, there are another three things—I sound like Monty Python here, I know.

Another was the fact that I really did like deepening the Marvel

18

Roy Thomas Talks About Writing—And Editing—For Marvel During The 1970s

THOMAS: He didn’t give me the title “editor-in-chief” title right away. I was just supposed to be the “story editor.” I don’t know if that would’ve been the term in the books, but I suspect Stan as publisher saw himself continuing to act as editor-in-chief, because he knew that his strength really was the stories, the direction of the books. He didn’t want to give that up. There’s no reason to think I could do it as well, and he wanted to do as much of it as he could himself, and besides, he and I worked rather well as a team. I wasn’t so ambitious that I was looking to wrest it away from him.

I was quite content to be second banana. When you’re a second banana to somebody as good as Stan, you don’t mind that much.

Well, maybe somebody else would, but this wasn’t All About Eve. [mutual chuckling] This was more like Batman and Robin. While I wanted to do things on my own, I was just happy to help Stan realize what he wanted to do, because he’s the guy who’d had the vision for the company. It wasn’t me, it wasn’t Martin Goodman, it wasn’t even Jack Kirby—it was Stan. I’ll get some arguments on that, but I’m absolutely convinced. He’s the only person that did it, and maybe he’s the only person who could have done it. There’s certainly no evidence that anybody else could have. So I wasn’t looking to overthrow that. I just wanted to make my own little niche and have fun with it and do the best job that I could. Still, I didn’t like being just “story editor,” because I really wanted to be—under Stan, at least—over the art and everything else. I felt that was the only way to be efficient.

Frankie And Johnny Were… Well…

Frank Giacoia (far right) & John Romita (right) each had a piece of the “art director” title and responsibility in the early 1970s—but by 1973 Jazzy Johnny was definitely the man!

Giacoia, of course, remained one of Marvel’s top inkers, despite his deadline problems.

Photos from FOOM #3 (Fall 1973).

Earlier, John and Frank had worked in tandem on layouts by Jack Kirby for the “Captain America” story in Tales of Suspense #77 (May 1966). Thanks to Matt Moring and Chris Fama. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

supporting characters that appear every so often, instead.

THOMAS: Like The Vision. I never really had any thought of trying to put him in his own book. He was a great character in Avengers, and that was fine. That’s what he stayed for the whole almost 50 issues that I wrote after Avengers #57.

“I Was Just Supposed To Be The ‘Story Editor’” JA: Okay, you became editor-in-chief in 1972. Now Stan moves up in the company. How do you think Stan felt about giving up being editor-in-chief? And how much did you want that job?

So Stan appointed me “story editor,” and John Verpoorten was the production manager, and Frank Giacoia got named—well, I don’t know if it was ever an official title, but I always thought of him as “assistant art director,” with Stan as the art director— although John Romita had a big role to play there, too. So who was the art director as of mid-1972?

There wasn’t one. Stan had always had that title, “Editorial and Art Director.” So Frank and I were just “promoted” to being “story editor” and “assistant art director”—and it didn’t work out. It was an unstable little triumvirate that Stan created there, and it didn’t last more than a few weeks— because Frank Giacoia, as good as he was, just wasn’t up to the job of being an art director like Romita was a little later. If Romita wasn’t offered the title, it was only because he was just too valuable, doing so many other things, including Spider-Man. Frank really wanted the job, because it was a chance to mostly to deal with covers; it gave him a chance to make money without having to do as much drawing and inking. The only thing is, we suddenly had these impasses.

Well, I’ve told that story before.

JA: Which one?

THOMAS: I just didn’t really feel the story editor thing was working out. It was just too frustrating, because I’m having to deal with Frank, but he wasn’t under me—and he wasn’t producing cover sketches as fast or as good as we needed. So unless I went to went to Stan and he talked to Frank, there was nobody to tell Frank, “Do something.” I had no such problems with Verpoorten as production manager. But, after just a few weeks, I was at my wit’s end and just thinking, “Maybe I should just get out.” I always had feelers from Carmine at DC, and sometimes they were tempting. I liked DC’s characters. Maybe it was time for a change—and that was another time when Gil Kane was so

“Writing Comics Turned Out To Be What I Really Wanted To Do With My Life”

supposed to be and what you and Stan wanted.

important in my life. I remember moaning the blues to Gil about it, the same way he did to me about other things.

THOMAS: Yeah. He and I were both good at anticipating Stan… and at turning his ideas into finished products.

Stan knew we’d take the ball and run with it. He could count on us in that way, just as, earlier, in a production situation, he’d been able to count on Sol Brodsky. I don’t think John Verpoorten and Stan had the same rapport as Stan and Sol had, although they got along well. I think Romita, Brodsky, and I were probably three of the people who were the most in tune with Stan during the period of the ’60s and ’70s, the same way Joe Maneely or a couple of people were back in the ’50s.

And Gil says, “My boy, [mutual laughter] don’t let it worry you. It’ll all come to you.” I said, “What are you talking about?” And he says, “Well, look. You’ve got these three people.”

And he just analyzed it perfectly. He says, “John Verpoorten doesn’t count.

He just wants to get the books out. He doesn’t care how it happens, as long as he can get the books out, so he’s no threat. He’s not ambitious, trying to build an empire or anything. And Frank’s a good inker, but he’s totally incompetent as an art director because he’s never really worked at being at artist. He’s always been an inker. You know he can’t make it over the long haul. So,” Gil said, “all you have to do is hang in there a little while longer, and everything will come falling to you, just like you want.” I wasn’t too sure.

And then, a few days later, maybe a week later, something came up and Stan called me in because he wasn’t happy with the stuff Frank was doing. He wanted to know why I wasn’t riding Frank, [laughs] to make him shape up. I said, “There’s a very simple reason, Stan.

It’s because Frank is not under me. You made us equals, so therefore the only person who can give him orders is you.

I can’t tell him what to do, because I’m not his boss.”

19

“Skywald And Atlas” Like, “Jolly Solly Brodsky” Didn’t Occur To Stan In 1964?

“Sparkling SOLLY BRODSKY”? Well, that’s how Stan tagged him in the photo section of 1964’s Marvel Tales Annual. While Sol isn’t primarily remembered as an artist, he was drawing (and occasionally writing?) back in the Golden Age, and once told Roy T. he had created the Holyoke hero “The Red Cross” in 1942.

Along with inking Fantastic Four #3-4, he embellished John Buscema’s pencils on the cover of Sub-Mariner #1 (May 1968) while serving as Marvel’s production manager.

Thanks to Bob Bailey. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

So Stan said, “I think maybe we’d better change that.” [chuckles] So that’s when I officially became editor-in-chief, and Frank was still assistant art director or whatever, and before long he was sort-of shunted back into being an artist and Romita finally became the official art director, as he should’ve been all along. I’ve always found it funny that Gil analyzed the situation exactly. All I had to do was sit tight and not do anything for a couple of weeks. [Jim chuckles] Once John Romita was art director, I guess I was technically his “superior”—but it was never a question. For one thing, we respected each other and John just wanted to do whatever was necessary. Of course, if John and I had gotten into a serious dispute, John would’ve had direct access to Stan in a way Frank hadn’t… but, like I said, it never came up.

Frank got to hate me, feeling I had sabotaged him… when in reality he had sabotaged himself. I suspect he felt similarly about John Romita.

Frank talked to me from the heart once, soon afterward, about how he had “busted my hump” at that job, and I didn’t know what to say except make sympathetic sounds, because it sure hadn’t looked to us like he was busting any humps. But we all liked Frank, sometimes in spite of himself, and we liked his inking.

JA: Don’t you think it worked so well between you and Romita because of John’s temperament, his willingness to be a team player, rather than to live by a title like Frank, in a certain sense, was doing? Also, John probably had a better grasp on what Marvel was

JA: Well, there’s also the fact that, frankly, Sol Brodsky wasn’t that great a comics artist.

THOMAS: He was a competent artist, but it wasn’t his major talent. He was a good inker, but he was just more of an organizer and overseer. Sol’s idea was always whatever will get the book out in time. Well, that’s good up to a point, because you need somebody like that.

Otherwise, even somebody like me who is pretty practical can worry something to death and not get it out. And guys like Sol, and Verpoorten later on, they’d be the ones riding Stan or other editors, saying, “We’ve got to get this book out.” Somebody sometimes had to stand up to Stan and say, “You can’t play around any more, or we’re going to eat a big expense on this book.”

JA: Right, because of late fees. I think your point about Sol is particularly well-illustrated by what happened when he left and started Skywald. I know that later, when Goodman started Atlas Comics, you had some discussion with some creative people, that, “Hey, if you leave here for Atlas and it doesn’t work out, don’t count on automatically being able to come back.” Why do you think Sol was able to escape that?

THOMAS: Because Stan needed him—also because Sol had left under very friendly circumstances. Besides, I don’t think Stan ever saw Sol Brodsky or Skywald as a real threat, even though Goodman got really annoyed at Skywald for various reasons. Stan knew Sol’s skills, which were as an artist in general and a production person/overseer, an expeditor. He never said this to me, but I think he probably didn’t feel that Sol Brodsky and Israel Waldman were going to come up with a company that would be much of a threat to Marvel at that stage.

Besides, he liked Sol, and I think he felt, “If Sol can make a go of it, okay.” Sol was smart to talk to Stan before leaving, the same way Stan’s

26

Roy Thomas Talks About Writing—And Editing—For Marvel During The 1970s

JA: Okay, during the hailstorm, [laughs] a lot of new people came in. Frank Brunner really starts about then, and Jim Starlin and Al Milgrom, Engelhart comes in around in ’72, I think. Did you have an accounting for why all this new—and good new—talent comes into the field at that time? Do you think you had anything to do with it? Were you looking to bring more people in?

Silver Age Among The Gold Whenever the Silver Age started or ended, these three DC guys were an integral part of it. (Left to right:) artist Carmine Infantino… editor Julius Schwartz… artist Joe Kubert. Because all three of them (and writers Robert Kanigher and John Broome) had produced the Silver Age-jumpstarting Showcase #4 in 1956, after also taking part in the Golden Age, they starred on a special “Flash” panel at the All Time Classic New York Comic Book Convention in 2000. Photo courtesy of Joe Petrilak.

THOMAS: Well, peripherally. But it would’ve happened anyway.

These were all talented people who got stirred up by what had happened in the preceding decade, especially in the latter half of the ’60s, when Stan and Jack, Ditko, and Romita all hit their stride on the Marvel books. And of course, they were also inspired by some things at DC—the coming of Neal Adams with “Deadman,” and other books here and there. DC was experimenting, after Carmine came in. DC had had an earlier experimentation stage, which had kind-of petered out by the mid-’60s. I remember how startled I was when I learned from Stan that Hawkman didn’t sell well, because I loved that character. But I shouldn’t have been surprised. It never had sold as well as even The Atom, and there are reasons for that, I think. However much we may love him, Hawkman is just a guy with a beak who can fly. And he has what I always called a “church window” costume—too many colors fighting each other. [mutual chuckling] Not that that stopped him from being my favorite Golden Age hero of all time… and one of my

JA: I always thought the Silver Age kind-of ends when Kirby goes to DC, only because that affects both companies, whereas Stan Lee stepping down as editor only affects Marvel, you see? But it’s arbitrary. For Alter Ego’s purposes, I know you count through the end of 1974—and when I’m interviewing, I often count through when Carmine Infantino stepped down at DC—at the end of 1975 or early in 1976.

THOMAS: It must’ve been around then that Jenette Kahn became DC’s publisher, because I left New York in early July of ‘76 for the West Coast, and Jenette was in at DC for several months before that.

She and I even dated a couple of times. She took me to a Patti Smith concert and a cocktail party for some prospective Democratic Presidential candidate… Morris Udall… even though I’d stopped being a Democrat the year before, when the Democratic Congress stopped President Ford from coming to the rescue of South Vietnam when the North broke the peace treaty and invaded. When that helicopter took off from the US embassy building in Saigon, it took with it my old party affiliation. In 1976, Gerald Ford became the first Republican I ever voted for.

“Talented People Who Got Stirred Up By What Had Happened In The Preceding Decade” JA: Okay, a couple of editor-in-chief questions that I didn’t ask you last time.

During your reign— THOMAS: Whatever.

JA: Yeah, and you can spell it “R-A-I-N”. [laughs] THOMAS: It was more like a drizzle.

Duo For A New Decade Steve Englehart (above, as writer) and Frank Brunner (as artist) became the cosmic caretakers of the “Dr. Strange” feature beginning in Marvel Premiere #9 (July 1973). Soon co-plotting the book, as well, they became one of the most successful “Dr. Strange” teams ever. Thanks to Bob Bailey for the scan. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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favorites of the early Silver Age, as well.

And so, between what had happened at Marvel and DC, but also at other companies, there were more and more people getting inspired by comics—and fandom was allowing those people to be in touch with each other—people who might never have met in an earlier day because they weren’t all in New York. In the old days, guys like Gil Kane and Carmine and Giacoia and Toth and Hasen all knew each other, because they all lived in New York, even if they may have come from different parts of the country. The new guys were in touch with each other even before they came to New York.

JA: How actively were you recruiting?

At all?

THOMAS: Well, off and on, yeah. By the early ’70s, we began to expand again. In mid-’72 or so, when Stan became the president and publisher, suddenly, we had not just our own president and publisher, separate from Magazine Management and the other magazines, the men’s sweat and romance and confessions and crosswords and all that.

That meant that, suddenly, Marvel had to support all that, see? Marvel suddenly had to pay a few extra salaries, and I don’t mean mine. [mutual laughter] I remember one of the first things Stan had to do was to hire a comptroller—whether they spell that with an “M” or an “N”—and there was this guy named Conway—I think it was Richard Conway, no relation to Gerry—brought in to handle the money. A great big Verpoorten-sized guy [Jim laughs] whom I don’t remember too well. He was around for a year or so. He seemed like a nice guy. I had a few dealings with him. That was one of the new salaries, and we had to expand a bit to support all this.

And, of course, only two or three years earlier, we’d gone to a different distributor [Curtis], since Marvel was now owned by Cadence, which had started out as Perfect Film (or been absorbed by them, I forget which—it didn’t matter much to those of us in the trenches). So, Marvel being a separate company, we had to add more books. And that was, coincidentally, also the period in which the Code was rewritten, liberalized. All of a sudden, the monster field opened up to us, so even without just flooding the stands with more super-heroes, pure and simple, we had another genre or two we could play around with. The Kung Fu angle, for example—we got a book or two out of that. The monster angle, we got 80 titles. [mutual chuckling] JA: Right, including a lot of reprints.

THOMAS: Yeah, but we needed more people on staff even just to handle the reprints! And to handle the mail for the extra books. All of a sudden, we had maybe another assistant editor where before just one might’ve sufficed. By the mid-’70s, Roger Stern and Roger Slifer and Dave Kraft and others were hired to answer letters, as much as anything else.

Well, like I said, we suddenly needed more people, and that was part of my job—but the thing is, all I had to do was walk out the door and stumble over some of these guys. [Jim laughs] Steve Englehart was sent

Starring Starlin Jim Starlin and his lady at the Wizard World convention in Philadelphia, June 2005—and a 1980s drawing of Mar-Vell that he did in marker for collector Phil Schlaeffer, used by courtesy of Phil and Jerry K. Boyd. Jim’s 1970s work on Captain Marvel and Strange Tales/Warlock is mostly in print, or soon will be again! Photo by Keif Simon & Jim Murtaugh. [Captain Marvel TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

up there. He was a summer replacement or some such thing for Gary Friedrich.

When Gary wanted to go away for a while, he got Steve, who was sortof a young aspiring artist when he came up to Neal’s studio, and he ended up at Marvel as a proofreader. Then he wanted to write, and I believe he wrote a few pages of a sample script. Anyway, I gave him “The Beast” to try out on, and that worked out pretty well.

JA: I think he colored before he wrote.

THOMAS: Maybe so. He’s always said he got back into reading comics by seeing that last issue Ditko did of Spider-Man, where Stan wrote this caption about the villain being “a full-time nut.”

Alan Weiss—I always liked Alan, but I don’t remember how he came up there. Frank Brunner had worked there on staff, a couple of years earlier—a talented young artist in the Frazetta vein, but “Frank Brunner” and “Marvel staff job” are not two phrases you’d think belong in the same sentence, then or now, and I think he’d agree.

Whether it’s right or wrong, some staffers had the impression he sortof wandered around all day saying how great Frazetta was. [Jim laughs] His art at that stage was like Bernie Wrightson’s. It was kind-of rough, but you knew it was going to come together one of these days.

And, my God, Barry Smith hadn’t done any work that good, really, when he wound up drawing for Marvel! Frank did this story called “What Rough Beast?”—a quote from Yeats—in one of the Warren magazines. I got in touch with him because this was his breakthrough story as far as I was concerned. In short order, he was drawing “Dr. Strange” in Marvel Premiere.

JA: Which I thought he did a great job on.

THOMAS: Right. Starlin came in by other means; I didn’t have anything to do with that. He was this guy that had a lot of the feel of Gil Kane and Kirby and others. So he started off on things like Iron Man, and then he inherited Captain Marvel. He was a dynamic artist right away, long before anybody knew he would also soon be writing and telling his own stories. So some of these artists maybe I particularly

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Roy Thomas Talks About Writing—And Editing—For Marvel During The 1970s

it with the Star Wars screenplay or Burroughs, it didn’t work as well.

Burroughs just described the action going on, and you don’t need to do that in a comic book. The pictures are there for the straight-on action.

So I feel my writing of Tarzan was partly successful, partly unsuccessful. I did love the first couple of issues, because John Buscema both penciled and inked them. We told the story of Tarzan of the Apes to get it out of the way, then went on with the first real novel after the ones Joe had adapted—not counting Tarzan and the Lion Man, a later story. We did Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, which had been adapted by Manning and Gaylord DuBois, I guess, at Gold Key, but as only three comics or so. I wanted to do it at much greater length. I had fun with it, and I threw in ape language pages, but the Marvel Tarzan was never a great success, either—not under me, or when Dave Kraft took over after I left it and went to all-new stories. The Burroughs books just never really caught on that well, even though they looked good much of the time. Warlord of Mars looked great under Gil, inked by Nebres and others.

But, all along, Gil would keep bugging me, “My boy, you’ve got to take over the writing of this book,” because he and Marv didn’t get along that terribly well. I thought it was a shame, because Marv is a very talented writer, Gil was a talented artist, but somehow they were always on different wavelengths. At least Gil felt they were. I would’ve started at a different point in John Carter’s life than Marv did—I’d have begun with A Princess of Mars and ignored the DC version of same, if I’d had my druthers—but I can’t say that would’ve made it more commercially successful. I told Gil, “Look, I’ll come in if Marv ever leaves the book, but I’m not going to try to push him off.” But I missed my chance entirely, because the book died ere long, just as Tarzan did. I suspect ERB, Inc.’s, cut of the profits didn’t help those books turn a profit, either.

JA: [chuckles] But didn’t you quit Tarzan over a dispute?

Warlord Of Marvel Marv Wolfman, flanked by (above) Gil Kane’s thumbnail sketches for a page from John Carter, Warlord of Mars #1 (June 1977)—and a more detailed pencil breakdown

by Gil of a page (was #10 really already in the works like the caption says?). The photo and art spots appeared in FOOM #20. [Art ©2007 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.]

THOMAS: Oh, yeah. The basic thing is, I gave John Buscema a few fill-in stories to draw when he needed a Tarzan plot and I was busy doing something else instead of working on the chapters of Jewels of Opar. I thought it’d be wonderful to adapt the stand-alone stories of Burroughs’ Jungle Tales of Tarzan, and I was told by Marvel that was all right. Jungle Tales is a collection of short stories about Tarzan in the days before he met any white people, when he mostly just interacted with animals, and I loved those stories, just as I loved Kipling’s Mowgli stories in The Jungle Books. A couple of those Jungle Tales adaptations went into an annual we did, and a couple of others were sandwiched into the main Tarzan comic. I’d give a story to John and tell him, “Just draw it in pictures.” That’s all you had to do with John. He preferred that to a synopsis.

Then I’d add the dialogue later. Actually, I think the Jungle Tales adaptations worked out better than that of Jewels of Opar.

But then, one Friday afternoon in late 1977—December, I guess—I got a phone call from Marion Burroughs. She was in Tarzana, just a few miles away, and I’m in my apartment just up the hill from the Warner Studios.

She was very upset because we’d done these Jungle Tales of Tarzan. I said, “I don’t understand.” She says, “You have no legal right to do this.” I said, “Well, you’ll have to take that up with Marvel. They told me it was okay, or I wouldn’t have done them.” Several had come out by this time, and this was the first word of complaint I’d heard. I don’t

“Writing Comics Turned Out To Be What I Really Wanted To Do With My Life”

know if she got a complaint from Burne Hogarth, or she was just worried that she might get a complaint from Burne Hogarth—but he [Tarzan comics strip artist in the late 1930s and 1940s] had come out with his second Tarzan “graphic novel,” doing new adaptations, and he’d done a couple of the Jungle Tales, including at least one of the same ones I’d adapted. I even had his books, though I’d never paid any attention to them. So I told Marion Burroughs, “Your problem is with Marvel, not with me. If we can’t do any more Jungle Tales, I won’t do any more. It’s that simple.”

But she kept riding me, like I was supposed to offer some huge apology. I couldn’t really figure out what

Jungle Tales Of Thomas Since it was a dispute concerning Marvel’s adaptation of short stories from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Jungle Tales of Tarzan that led to Roy’s leaving the book in December 1977, it’s ironic that the only typed synopsis of RT’s from that series known to still exist is the one he sent John Buscema for the two introductory pages of a framing sequence for Tarzan Annual #1 (1977)—the rest of which adapted two of those very Tales! Thanks to Michel Maillot, over in France, who somehow latched onto the original typed manuscript. Inks on the printed pages by Steve Gan. Also shown (above) are Buscema’s pencils of two panels from that sequence, as per FOOM #17 (March 1977). Roy’s always felt that this Annual, along with Tarzan #1-2 penciled and inked

by Big John himself, were the best of those he worked on in the Marvel series. The series was later ably continued by David Anthony Kraft, one of Roy’s later Marvel recruits. [©2007 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.]

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she wanted. Then she said, “A lot of the writing is even the same. A lot of the wording is the same in your version and Hogarth’s.” [Jim laughs] I said, “Well, of course it is. He and I were both adapting the same Edgar Rice Burroughs story. It’d be strange if the wording

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Roy Thomas Talks About Writing—And Editing—For Marvel During The 1970s

JA: You worked well together, but it seemed like you guys weren’t exactly similar personalities.

THOMAS: Well, no. We both liked to talk a lot. With Gil, I did tend to do more listening than talking, [Jim laughs] but I did my share. Not 50%, I’m sure, if you had a tape recorder out, but I did enough. I was intimidated by him to some extent. Gil had been around longer—he’d been the artist of Green Lantern and The Atom, for chrissake—and he’d thought more about comics. Like most people in the field, I wasn’t given to a lot of analysis. I did it more on instinct, and Gil was a selftaught guy who sometimes maybe talked himself out of things a little too much. He theorized so much that, sometimes, he’d put more work into the theory than he did into the pages, and he couldn’t quite live up to what he wanted to do. But there was never a Gil Kane job that didn’t have some interesting aspects, with an individualistic look to it.

After that first Captain Marvel story, I rarely just came to him and said, “This is what we’re going to do, and you’ll draw it.” I’d have an idea—sometimes a sketchy idea, sometimes a little firmer idea—and then Gil would become a creative part of it, and not everybody would let him do that. Even Archie Goodwin, another favorite collaborator of his, would often just write something and then Gil would draw it.

They might talk it over, but it wasn’t quite the same kind of collaboration. Gil liked working with Archie, but he liked to be a creative part of things, and I allowed him to do that. In later years, he wanted to be so much a part of it that I found that, unless whatever we did was initially his idea, I could no longer interest him in things. So I adjusted myself to that, and it worked out okay. The only exception, I suppose, was the Ring of the Nibelung adaptation we did at DC, which was something Mike Gold approached me about, because he knew I’d like to do it.

Kirby’s Krusaders Roy snagged Jack to draw as many Invaders covers as he could—since Kirby, along with Joe Simon, Bill Everett, and Carl Burgos, had been one of the four artistic pillars on which the early Timely/Marvel had been built in 1939-41. The King’s pencils for the cover of #14 (April 1977) showcase The Crusaders, the hero-villains Roy and Frank Robbins devised as an homage to Quality Comics’ WWII-era stars Uncle Sam, Black Condor, The Ray, Human Bomb, et al. Thanks to John Morrow and the Kirby Estate. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

as I’d hoped to ease the way for him to come back the previous year, when he and his family talked to me about it in San Diego—and it’s a shame he stopped himself from being as integral to the company the second time around as he’d been before, which would’ve been to his advantage as well as theirs. Even so, I felt it was good to have him back, because then Marvel had him and DC didn’t. But he soon left again anyway, when he wouldn’t sign the work-for-hire agreement, and I can’t fault him for that, even though I signed it.

“[Gil Kane And I] Both Liked To Talk A Lot” JA: I started to ask you about why you and Gil Kane worked so well together.

THOMAS: I think that we just had similar viewpoints, which Gil realized when he first saw my Captain Marvel #17 plot, the revamp of the Fawcett Captain Marvel, which was already plotted before he came aboard as artist.

Gil and I often had dinners and lunches together. We talked about work and about personalities and business and theory, a little bit of everything. Again after he moved to L.A. in the early ’80s, or whenever it was, we spent a lot of time together. We’d go out every couple of months or so with our wives and have dinner together, and a lot of the talk was not about comics, and a lot of it was. It was a wonderful, a very nice relationship. I think maybe at times I was kind-of the junior partner in it, [Jim chuckles] but it was a good relationship and I felt a real loss when—oh, God, I know how hard it was when he had cancer, and he didn’t tell me because he was just so terrified that somebody would let it slip to DC that he was ill, and they might take him off the Ring series we were working on. Nobody would’ve learned that from me, but he was understandably a bit paranoid about it. It did kind-of hurt me to be kept in the dark, but he didn’t tell many people, so I didn’t feel singled out. But going through something like that is so incredibly difficult, perhaps I’m lucky I didn’t know about it at the time.

JA: How did you feel about winning the Inkpot Award [at the San Diego Comic-Con] in 1974?

THOMAS: Well, it was an honor. The convention at that time was only four or five years old. I know I first attended in 1972, when Jeanie and I were driving south on a vacation in California. The real thrill to me in 1974 was being up on the dais between three artists I particularly esteemed. On one side of me was Milt Caniff, and on the other side, Russ Manning, and right next to him, Charlie Schulz. So I felt great about that, even though Russ and I quickly found we didn’t agree on much about how to do comics. [mutual laughter] He started asking me why the words that were bold in my Marvel scripts weren’t the ones that people speaking would actually emphasize. And I said, while there might be an occasional exception—for instance, Stan didn’t like the word “himself” lettered bold—I felt, in general, that the bold words in my scripts were exactly the words to be emphasized in speech. Russ was just reading the lines differently than I was writing them. He also

“Writing Comics Turned Out To Be What I Really Wanted To Do With My Life”

Just A Perfect Blendship (Center:) Though they never really collaborated until Captain Marvel #17 in 1969, Roy Thomas and Gil Kane first met at Dave Kaler’s New York Comicon in summer of 1965. The photo at top right shows them talking to fans [is that Rick Weingroff?], after a panel they were on together. Roy was wearing his spanking-new Fantastic Four T-shirt, just then being offered for sale; Gil was a bit more nattily attired. See A/E #20 for in-depth coverage of that “first full-service comics convention,” including a transcription of that panel. From the Jerry Bails collection, courtesy of Jean Bails.

Both Gil and Roy admired the concepts of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard, as per these two covers and a story page they devised together. (Clockwise from right center:) Astonishing Tales #11 (April 1972) starring Ka-Zar… Creatures on the Loose #20 (Nov. 1972) featuring “Gullivar of Mars”… and “The Valley of the Worm” from Supernatural Thrillers #3 (April 1973).

Ka-Zar was a Tarzan wannabe, right down to being the son of an English lord who was reared by jungle beasts (#11 featured his origin, by Thomas & Kane)… “Gullivar,” which Roy & Gil launched together, was inspired by a novel that had actually preceded the first John Carter adventure by several years and may even have influenced ERB, so Roy and Gil gave it a decidedly ERB twist… and “Worm” adapted an REH story which postulated that tales of ancient heroes slaying dragons were distorted human-racial memories of an even more gruesome account lost in the mists of pre-history. Inking in this art montage is by Romita (“Ka-Zar”), Gil himself (“Gullivar”), and Ernie Chan (“Worms”); Gerry Conway dialogued the last half of “Worms” when Roy’s time got eaten up by legal/marital problems. “Gullivar” and “Worms” art repro’d from Australian reprints supplied by Shane Foley; thanks to Bob Bailey for the AT cover. [“Worm” art ©2007 Paradox Entertainment; covers ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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Roy Thomas Talks About Writing—And Editing—For Marvel During The 1970s

“The Swordsmen, The Damned Stupid Swordsmen, Will Win After All” Vicente Alcazar illustrated the adaptation of sf author Larry Niven’s “Not Long before the End” for Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction #2 (May 1975). For a photo of Vicente, see p. 45. As the b&w mag’s editor, Roy admired this short story despite (or perhaps because of) its anti-Conan philosophy. Larry, whom Roy got to know later in Los Angeles, felt that in sword-and-sorcery tales it was the wizard, not the brutish warrior, with whom an intelligent modern reader should empathize.

Lacking the time to script the adaptation, Roy had that ably handled by Doug Moench, seen at right in a photo taken at the 1975 Mighty Marvel Convention, as printed in FOOM #10.

Doug had been brought to New York by Roy and b&w editor Marv Wolfman a year or so earlier to fill a crying need for stories for their horror mags—and Doug was well up to the task! [Art ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.; original story ©2007 Larry Niven.]

Superman Vs. Captain Marvel—A Boring Confrontation Wayne Boring (photo at bottom right), surrounded by two super-heroes he drew from time to time: (Below:) He’d been either the second or third person ever to draw “Superman” (running neck-and-neck in that department with Paul Cassidy), and penciled the Man of Steel’s newspaper comic strip for years. When he later sold dailies that didn’t depict Superman, he sometimes drew the hero right on the original art, as per this 1982 addition to a 1960 strip. [©2007 DC Comics.]

(Right:) Boring penciled Marvel’s Captain Marvel #22-24, with inking by Ernie Chan, as per this page from #24 (Jan. 1973). Script by Marv Wolfman, who added villains like “Dr. Savannah” and “Dr. Mynde” as tips of the hat to foes of the original 1940-53 Fawcett Captain Marvel. Both pieces of art in this group repro’d from photocopies of the original art; thanks to Anthony Snyder. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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like the city in Georgia. We were always doing crazy things like that, and why not? After all, earlier, I had revamped our Captain Marvel to make him a sort of science-fictional revival of the Fawcett hero, at a time when we didn’t think the original would ever be coming back. And now he was back at DC, but Marvel had the trademark on the name “Captain Marvel,” so I figured, let’s continue doing whatever we can legally and ethically.

Wayne Boring was good, but he was a little too stiff and stylized to work out for Marvel, I guess. Yet there were certain panels I’d see, and I’d say, “Ah, that reminds me of the old Superman!” In fact, most of his panels reminded me of panels in Superman in the 40’s and 50’s. I liked that very much. We just couldn’t find a really good place for him. He was the uncle of Ralph Macchio, who became, in the late ’70s, an editor at Marvel and who’s still there.

“[Stan] Wanted To Do Some Books That Would Have Special Appeal To Girls” JA: There was a time when Marvel decided to do a few comics geared towards women. You had Night Nurse and The Claws of The Cat and tried to find women to write and draw them.

THOMAS: And don’t forget the third of that trilogy—Shanna the

Stars In Our Eyes George Pérez , as per FOOM #15 (Sept. 1976)—first with a Star Wars comicon sketch, courtesy of George and Anthony Snyder. George said in FOOM #22 (Autumn 1978): “The first color comic I did was ‘Man-Wolf’ with David Kraft. After I did ‘War Toy’ for Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction, Roy Thomas offered me what worked out to be two issues of the Fantastic Four, which were followed by two more issues as a guest artist. I had a long run as a guest artist—until I finally wound up becoming the regular penciler.”

At left is George’s splash page for “War Toy” from UWSF #2 (March 1975); inks by Rico Rival. Tony Isabella wrote the story, based on a concept of Roy’s that had been painted as a cover by Michael Kaluta.

Roy and George’s two 1976 FF issues that brought The Impossible Man back into the Marvel Universe after a 12-year absence have been reprinted recently. [Darth Vader TM & ©2007 Lucasfilm, Ltd.; “War Toy” art ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

She-Devil. I think they were all thought up the same day, basically.

JA: Oh, yeah? By whom?

THOMAS: Stan had the idea, and I think the names, for all three.

He wanted to do some books that would have special appeal to girls. We were always looking for ways to expand our franchise.

We had a lot of super-hero books. You can’t just go on putting out more and more books that are in exactly the same genre, but if you could find ways to nibble around the edges, to add on at the edges, you can maybe cover a little more territory. Conan was like that, a hero with a little different feel. The kung-fu heroes were in that vein, and the monster heroes like Dracula and Werewolf by Night, so maybe a couple of women characters might bring back a few of the female readers who’d been lost to comics over the years with the decline of humor and romance comics.

There’d been a time when women used to buy even super-hero comics. When I was back in grade school, one of the main people I traded comics with around the block from me, a few minutes walk away, was a girl named Joyce Glueck, my age or a year younger.

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Roy Thomas Talks About Writing—And Editing—For Marvel During The 1970s

Kataclysmic Kane Kovers A pair of covers penciled by Gil Kane, selected almost at random from among the many he did for editor-in-chief Roy: Supernatural Thrillers #6 (Oct 1973), inked by Ernie Chan… and The Tomb of Dracula #28 (Nov. ’74), inked by Tom Palmer. Repro’d from b&w images in various issues of FOOM. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

because Gil was such a stylized artist. If one artist was going to draw a big percentage of Marvel covers, it would’ve worked out best if it had been Jack Kirby or John Romita—or maybe John Buscema, except that he didn’t always have the kind of “poster” approach that worked best for covers.

I think Kirby or Romita figures would’ve worked a bit better for a mass of covers, but Gil drew heroes who looked like gymnasts, whereas Kirby and Romita drew these big, powerful characters. But Gil was such a good artist—and besides, Romita was too busy to do many covers and Kirby wasn’t working for Marvel when I was editor-in-chief, and John Buscema didn’t especially like doing covers anyway. In the end, I’m basically very pleased to look back on all the nice covers Gil and I did together. Of course, he did a bit more work on them than I did! [laughs]

“I’m Not Going To Sign Any Contract With Marvel That Isn’t A Writer/Editor Contract” JA: So finally, do you want to talk about why you left Marvel in 1980?

THOMAS: I can only say what I said once before. One day late in 1977 it suddenly occurred to me that Archie [Goodwin] had been editor-in-chief for a

Land Of Oz Ho! One of many covers on which Roy “collaborated” with John Romita (of course, Jazzy Johnny did a bit more of the work): JR’s pencils for that of the tabloid-size Marvel Treasury of Oz #1 (1975), which adapted L. Frank Baum’s second Oz book, The Land of Oz, as a follow-up to the Marvel/DC Wonderful Wizard of Oz tabloid earlier that year. Even when Marvel went ahead with its own Oz series, it still used, under license, the likenesses of the MGM movie versions of some characters. Alfredo Alcala drew the interior art; Roy was the scripter.

Marvel Treasury of Oz #2, adapting Baum’s book Ozma of Oz, was prepped by the same Thomas/Alcala team (again with Romita covers, front and back) but was never published due to legal problems. RT still has photocopies of that issue, which he hopes will see print one day—along with reissues of the first two! [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.; based on characters © 1939 Loew’s, Inc., renewed © 1966 MetroGoldwyn-Mayer, ©2007 MGM’s successors in interest.]

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Lily Renée At Fiction House —And Beyond A Far-Too-Brief Look At A “Star Woman Cartoonist”

by Trina Robbins

II

NTRODUCTORY NOTE: On July 26-29, 2007, Golden Age comic book artist Lily Renée will be a special guest at the San Diego Comic-Con International. This will be her first appearance ever at any comics convention. In honor of that landmark event, Trina Robbins has granted us permission to reprint the paragraphs below, slightly edited, from her prior coverage of Ms. Renée’s career and the world in which she worked from 1943 to 1948. This material originally appeared, in a somewhat different form, in Trina’s invaluable 2001 book The Great Women Cartoonists, from Watson-Guptill Publications, and is ©2001, 2007 Trina Robbins. We’re pleased to announce, as well, that Lily Renée has consented to be interviewed at length by Jim Amash for a near-future issue of Alter Ego!) Of all the comic book companies in the 1940s, one publisher hired more women cartoonists than any of the others. That was Fiction House, a company whose comics line was launched in 1936 by Jerry Iger and Will Eisner, artist/creator of The Spirit comic strip.

The six longest-running Fiction House comic book titles—Jumbo Comics, Jungle Comics, Fight Comics, Wings Comics, Rangers Comics, and Planet Comics— specialized in luridly sensationalistic stories with strong and beautiful female protagonists. And they were likely to be drawn by women.

Señorita Renée (Top right:) Lily Renée circa 1947-49, the years when she drew for St. John Publishing—and (above) a splash page from one of her signature series, “Señorita Rio”—in this case from Fiction House’s Fight Comics #41 (Dec. 1945). Thanks to Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., for the scan.

The photo is courtesy of Trina Robbins. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Unquestionably, the star woman cartoonist on the Fiction House staff, and the only woman who ever drew a cover for them, was Lily Renée. From 1943 through 1948, her elegant art graced the pages of their books.

Although she contributed some light and cartoony filler pages, such as “Tex Taxi,” her best work could be seen in “The Lost World,” “Señorita Rio,” and “Werewolf Hunter.”

“The Lost World,” the lead feature in Planet Comics, took place in a post-apocalyptic future. Amid ruins of

All Mike Mallet material in the following six pages Š2007 Estate of Bob Powell.]

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Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt

Mike Mallet: The World’s First Adult Comic!

By Michael T. Gilbert

M

ike Mallet made his debut in Panic #11 (cover-dated Feb. 1966), in a feature billed as “The World’s First Adult Comic!” Of course, there had been other, earlier “adult” comics, from Eric Stanton’s bondage comics in the ’40s, to the so-called “Tijuana Bible” sex comics decades earlier, as well as stories with adult themes by Charles Biro, Harvey Kurtzman, and Will Eisner, among others. But Bob Powell’s Mike Mallet certainly stands as a bold early attempt to push the medium’s boundaries.

It should be noted that Panic Publications’ Panic had no connection to the earlier EC color comic of the same name. This Panic was a black-&-white humor magazine, one of many short-lived Mad imitations. It lasted six issues from July 1957 to July 1958. The creative lineup included Bob Powell (who also held an editorial position), Jack Davis, Jerry Siegel, George Tuska, Angelo Torres, and two of Powell’s old assistants, Martin Epp and Howard Nostrand.

Panic returned a few years later for a three-issue run (Vol. 2 #10- 12) from Dec. 1965 to April 1966, consisting mostly of reprints. The publisher was listed as Robert W. Farrell, and the editor was Carl Burgos, creator of The Human Torch.

I first came across a used copy of Panic #11 in the early ’70s, and discovered a feature inside that really didn’t belong there. While the rest of the magazine featured the usual ham-handed humor common to the genre, Mike Mallet was done straight. What humor it did have was subtle and very dark. In fact, someone at Panic felt that additional gags had to be pasted onto the strips in order to make them “funny” enough to see print.

That’s probably because Mike Mallet wasn’t originally intended for Panic at all. The origins of the strip have been lost to history, but the format suggests that Mike Mallet was unsuccessfully pitched as a newspaper strip, most likely in the early ’60s.

Powell patterned his detective on the popular Mike Hammer series of novels, starring Mickey Spillane’s brutal, misogynist private eye.

Like Hammer, Mallet reveled in cheap sex and brutal violence. In fact, the strip is so similar in tone, one wonders if Mike Mallet might have been Powell’s attempt to sell an actual Mike Hammer-style comic strip. If so, it was doomed to failure.

Mickey Spillane, a former comic book scripter who passed away a year or so ago, wrote his first Mike Hammer novel in 1947, and it proved immensely successful. He and cartoonist Ed Moore produced a Mike Hammer newspaper comic strip in 1953, but censorship battles killed the strip after only a year. It’s hard to imagine any paper in the early ’60s taking on such a risky strip again.

So how did Mike Mallet wind up in Panic?

The cover of Panic #11 (Feb. 1966). [©2007 Panic Publications or successors in interest.]

Powell had been one of the lead illustrators for the title during its first run in the ’50s. When the magazine was revived in 1965, Powell undoubtedly saw it as an opportunity to recycle some unsold art.

Of course, the strips had to be reworked first, and the changes were pretty extensive. The art was crudely rearranged to fit the magazine’s 8G x 11" format, leaving empty space between the strips. Panels deemed too racy were censored—with talking fingerprints! More on that later….

And, since Panic was a newsstand publication primarily aimed at teenagers, even mildly offensive words like “call girls” were removed for the printing therein. You can see examples of this on the previous page, and in the last frame of the second strip on the opposite page.

Powell also used squiggle marks in the word balloons to suggest cursing, though it’s unknown whether these were lettered that way originally.

For this printing we’ve attempted to restore Powell’s strips as closely as possible to the way he originally drew them. Strips have been rearranged, missing title lettering has been added, and thumbprint smudges removed.

And now, without further ado, here’s Mike Mallet — the selfproclaimed World’s First Adult Comic!

Mike Mallet: The World’s First Adult Comic!

Oh, the indignity! Mike Mallet—censored by a fingerprint! (The “fingerprints” have been removed, leaving white, finger-shaped forms at one point in each of the strips. We preferred not to add Powell-style art, but to leave those areas blank.)

69

Mary Marvel, by Marc Swayze [Mary Marvel TM & Š2007 DC Comics.]

80

yes, to what extent, and at what rate?

And by what criteria? Could the gender have something to do with it? I would never have hesitated to lay a year or so on the Phantom Eagle. But on his girlfriend, Jerry? Never! Nor on Flyin’ Jenny.

Or Mary Marvel! Youth, to my way of thinking, was a prime characteristic of that little super-damsel.

To imagine her growing older? Nah!

[Art & logo ©2007 Marc Swayze; Captain Marvel © & TM 2007 DC Comics]

Yet she underwent changes… that began even before she left my drawing board. No conferences had taken place following approval of the original portrait sketches, and the alterations … good or bad … that occurred before completion of her first story, were mine … the boots … the art style … even Mary’s face.

[FCA EDITORS NOTE: From 1941-53, Marcus D. Swayze was a top artist for Fawcett Publications. The very first Mary Marvel She was a new character. Not just one to play the lead role in a character sketches came from Marc’s drawing table, and he illusstory, but a major feature … meant for story after story … maybe book trated her earliest adventures, including the classic origin story, after book. She was included in a partnership fighting evil with the “Captain Marvel Introduces Mary Marvel (Captain Marvel great Captain Marvel. I saw considAdventures #18, Dec. ’42); but he was erable merit in having the newcomer primarily hired by Fawcett Publications visibly related to Fawcett’s #1 superto illustrate Captain Marvel stories and hero. Her costume was evidence of covers for Whiz Comics and Captain that. If changes in it were needed, now Marvel Adventures. He also wrote many was the time to make them.

Captain Marvel scripts, and continued to The boots were a puzzle. I had do so while in the military. After leaving never quite understood the boots worn the service in 1944, he made an

by Captain Marvel. Why those foldedarrangement with Fawcett to produce art over tops didn’t droop down around and stories for them on a freelance basis the ankles in the high action scenes … out of his Louisiana home. There he and what the heck did those miserable created both art and story for The little stitches down the front mean …

Phantom Eagle in Wow Comics, in things like that. They didn’t bother addition to drawing the Flyin’ Jenny Captain Marvel, however … so they newspaper strip for Bell Syndicate didn’t continue to bother me. (created by his friend and mentor Russell Keaton). After the cancellation of Wow, On Mary I cared. In the beginning I Swayze produced artwork for Fawcett’s had drawn her boots with notches at top-selling line of romance comics, the top. I don’t know why I did that. It including Sweethearts and Life Story. was quickly seen as a time-consuming After the company ceased publishing whim and discarded. comics, Marc moved over to Charlton Publications, where he ended his comics In her first several adventures Mary career in the mid-’50s. Marc’s ongoing shared the pages with Captain Marvel. professional memoirs have been FCA’s That meant the art style was not to be most popular feature since his first hers—as seen in the original portraits column appeared in FCA #54, 1996. Last and on the cover of Wow Comics issue Marc discussed the “panel.” In this #10—but his. Out went the finer line installment, he reflects upon the aging of and delicate shading originally deemed comic characters and the evolution of more in keeping with a young superMary Marvel. —P.C. Hamerlinck.]

“The Mini-Skirt Had To Go!” lady.

Fear of forthcoming restrictions and a predicted rigid “Code”

The next item to come under may have had their effect on Mary’s costume… particularly the ave you ever noticed how your hem of the skirt. Marc Swayze drew the cover of Wow Comics scrutiny was Mary’s eyes. The eyes, I favorite comic strip character #10 (Feb. 10, 1943). [©2007 DC Comics.] had thought, offered another opporseems to be aging? Or how some tunity to relate Mary to Captain grow older and some don’t? Or … they don’t age at all … and you do?

Marvel by converting his squint to the laughing eyes of a pretty young

H

And there’s an unfair inconsistency about it. I couldn’t help watching the splotches of gray at my own temples grow whiter and whiter … while, in the newspapers, the head of Li’l Abner Yokum stayed black as ever.

girl. In drawing Captain Marvel I had never experienced them as a problem, those slits and dots by C.C. Beck … obviously an influence of the old cartoon strips … and perfect for the Fawcett super-hero. But the lifestyle I saw ahead for Mary called for a wider array of facial expressions. There would be no slits and dots.

Not a matter of great concern, but you had to conclude a definite decision was involved … likely made by the creator … or possibly the editor … or publisher … whether to age the character or not. And, if

The intention had been that Mary’s hair be black, like Captain Marvel’s … signified in painting by an overlay of blue. Somehow,

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Of Men And Marvels (And Some Bunny-Rabbits, Too!) The First True Team-Up Of Superman And Captain Marvel

by John G. Pierce

Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

B

ack in 1980, when I heard that Roy Thomas was about to jump ship from Marvel to DC, and that one of the features he wanted to write was “Shazam!,” I became excited. On other occasions I have written of how Roy was important in my own development as a Capfan, especially his outstanding article about The Marvel Family in “One Man’s Family” way back in Alter Ego (Vol. 1) #7, 1964. So, the logical thing when I heard the news was to write to him about it.

His reply to me, dated Oct. 10, 1980, both dismayed and excited me.

Since this article deals with the exciting part rather than the dismaying, let me dispense rather quickly with the latter. I was somewhat dismayed with Roy’s then-tentative plans (which later came to fruition, though only briefly) for a new Captain Marvel, created on Earth-One by the wizard Shazam (“I did it before and I can do it again!”). “Gone, I’m afraid, would be much of the Parker/Binder feel, except in broad outlines, if I handled the character...” I felt then, and still do, that this would be wrong for the character.

But happily, that’s not what I’m here to write about on this occasion. Instead, I’ll cover the other exciting news that letter contained, as introduced to me by Roy with these words: “Still, just to be inconsistent, I took the opportunity in DC [Comics] Presents #34 to toss Superman and Captain Marvel (whom I’m trying to forge into fast friends, since they have far more in common than Superman and Batman, say) into a funny-animal dimension, while using Hoppy the Marvel Bunny for the first time in 30 years.” (Actually, it was rather more than 30 years.)

The exciting part of this news was not so much the team-up between Superman and Captain Marvel, as that had already been done twice, first in Justice League of America #135-137 (1976), in the threepart story which brought together the JLA, JSA, and the former Fawcett heroes (then still located on Earth-S), and secondly in 1978’s All-New Collector’s Edition #C-58 (“Superman vs. Shazam!”), a Gerry Conway-authored tale in which the two heroes met, with able assistance provided by Supergirl and Mary Marvel. However, the centerpiece of both of those tales had been battles between the two characters, with the actual team-ups coming only briefly near the conclusions. It could be argued that there was actually an earlier crossover, in Superman #276, the Elliott Maggin-authored, Curt Swandrawn 1974 tale entitled “Make Way for Captain Thunder!” in which Superman met up with an alternate-Earth’s Willie Fawcett, who could magically change into Captain Thunder (which in 1939 had been Captain Marvel’s original, pre-publication name). This sort of “two steps removed” tale was done because, for legal reasons, DC could not co-utilize Cap and Superman at that time. There are many who believe that this was the best of all the crossovers, and that Captain Marvel and Superman, ideally, simply don’t belong in the same story. (It should be noted, also, that this story was a battle more than a team-up; the story I’m about to review marked the first actual team-up of the two characters.)

Of Cheeses Red And Blue The Rich Buckler/Dick Giordano cover of DC Comics Presents #33 (May 1981) was the first comic to be scripted by Roy Thomas under his new three-year contract with DC, upon leaving Marvel after 15 years. Where did he dream up this notion of Superman and Captain Marvel switching costumes?

Read on! [©2007 DC Comics.]

In any event, Roy’s brief description whetted my appetite for his forthcoming tale, not so much for the team-up aspect, but for the return of Hoppy the Marvel Bunny. Hoppy had debuted in Fawcett’s Funny Animals #1 (Dec. 1942), where he starred for a number of years, as well as appearing in 15 issues of his own title. In “real” life, he was Hoppy Rabbit, who, upon reading a Captain Marvel comic, wistfully remarked that he wished that he, too, could become strong just by

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FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

And The Hits Just Keep On Comin’!

A Marvel-ous montage of the Superman/Captain Marvel encounters that had preceded the 1981 DC Comics Presents #33—backdropped by a panel penciled by Doug Braithwaite and painted by Alex Ross for Justice #9 (2007). Like John G. Pierce says in the article: not a hearty handshake in the bunch! (Left to right:) Superman #276 (June 1974), with “Captain Thunder,” art by Nick Cardy... Justice League of America #137 (Dec. 1976), art by Ernie Chan... Superduperman meets Captain Marbles in the Harvey Kurtzman/Wally Wood parody from Mad #4 (April-May 1953)... Shazam! #30 (Aug. 1977), art by Kurt Schaffenberger... and All-New Collectors’ Edition #C-58 (1978), art by Rich Buckler & Dick Giordano. [Mad panel ©2007 EC Publications; other art ©2007 DC Comics.]

saying “Shazam!” And of course, you know what happened next, as Hoppy was changed into Captain Marvel Bunny, or just plain Marvel Bunny.

(Say those words again for us, Jimmy: “affectionately known as the ‘Big Red Cheese.’” Certain current writers seem to think this term was demeaning to Captain Marvel. But, of course, it wasn’t.)

(Note: This means that the title of the feature was actually a combination of his secret identity name and his nom de guerre, not unlike, say, the Quality Comics 1940s feature “Stormy Foster, the Great Defender,” or DC’s later “John Jones, Manhunter from Mars.” Though he is most often alluded to as Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, that was not his full name in either identity. Incidentally, unlike the other Marvels, whose secret identities were often anything but secret, it was always stated that Marvel Bunny’s secret, if revealed, would result in the loss of his powers. Just why was never specified.)

Clark then spots a potential disaster with a couple of elevated trains, and is off to the customary storeroom to change clothes. It is here that he gets his first big surprise of the story, when he doffs his mufti to find that he is instead wearing a red outfit with “this puny little cape”!

(Although Rich Buckler and Dick Giordano, the artists, are certainly competent draftsmen, Rich had a tendency to draw Cap’s cape as quite long, almost floor-length, and often with a stand-up collar which made it look more like that of the original Green Lantern. Thus, the intended humor of the line falls a little flat.)

But Hoppy’s reappearance (unheralded until it actually occurred) was not to happen until the second part of a two-part tale, the first chapter of which was seen in DC Comics Presents #33 (May 1981), under the title of “Man and Supermarvel!” officially co-authored (as would be both parts) by Gerry Conway and Roy.

In any event, with “no time to worry about it now,” Superman is off to save the trains. It is here that he encounters his next surprise, in that his X-ray vision, which had worked fine a few minutes earlier, now does not function. Still, he has his other, non-sensory powers and is able to avert a disaster. Passengers are very grateful for the rescue but mystified by his different outfit.

In an amusing opening sequence, Clark Kent chides Jimmy Olsen for reading a comic book on company time. The comic turns out to be an old issue of Captain Marvel Adventures (though the Adventures part isn’t seen on the cover of the comic book shown), about the character Jimmy gleefully proclaims as “my favorite super-hero— Captain Marvel, otherwise affectionately known as the ‘Big Red Cheese.’”

Realizing that the mix-up which has happened to him might also have occurred to Captain Marvel, Superman makes his departure for Earth-S, after which the source of the problem, Mr. Mxyzptlk, materializes in the spot Superman had vacated.

Superman utilizes the Rock of Eternity (“two fast loops around the