Alter Ego #84 by TwoMorrows Publishing

Roy Thomas’ Sub-Aqueous Comics Fanzine

6.95

In the USA

No. 84

March 2009

When

STEVE SKEATES

82658 27763

Took The Silver Age Plunge! Extra! CHARLES SINCLAIR On BILL FINGER PLUS:

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Vol. 3, No. 84 / March 2009 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 Mike Friedrich

Circulation Director Bob Brodsky, Cookiesoup Productions

Cover Artist Jim Aparo

Writer/Editorial: Silver Threads Among The Golden . . . . . . . 2 The Silver Skeates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Cover Colorist Tom Ziuko

With Special Thanks to: Jack Adler Heidi Amash Michael Ambrose Sal Amendola Bob Bailey Daniel Bianchetta Dominic Bongo Jerry K. Boyd Al Bradford Nick Caputo Pierre Comtois Jon B. Cooke Bob Cosgrove Teresa R. Davidson Brenda Denzler Wendy Doniger Michael Dunne Peter Duxbury The Esalen Institute Mark Evanier Jorge Ferrer Shane Foley Ramona Fradon Joe Frank Ron Frantz Donna Freitas Janet Gilbert Martin L. Greim Lawrence P. Guidry Jennifer Hamerlinck Ron Harris Tom Hegeman Heritage Comics Archives Matt Heuston David Hufford Greg Huneryager

Contents

Robin Kirby Christopher Knowles Jeffrey J. Kripal Joe Latino Paul Levitz Mark Lewis Darrel McCann David McDonnell Bertrand Méheust Brian K. Morris Mark Muller Michael & Dulce Murphy Victoria Nelson Marc Tyler Nobleman Barry Pearl Dean Radin David Roach Bob Rozakis Arlen Schumer Alvin Schwartz John Schwirian Charles Sinclair Steve Skeates Warren Spavin Flo Steinberg Marc Swayze Walter J. Tanner Russell Targ Greg Theakston Dann Thomas Jacque Vallee Jim Vandore Lynn Walker Gregg Whitmore Marv Wolfman Alex Wright

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Will Elder & Tom Fagan

The unique voice and vision of writer Steve Skeates, interviewed by John Schwirian.

“You Two Guys Ought To Do Something Together!” . . . . . . 35 Writer Charles Sinclair tells Jim Amash about his friendship with Batman co-creator Bill Finger.

Esalen And The X-Men . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Dr. Jeffrey J. Kripal on holding a “superpowers” symposium with Fradon, Thomas, et al.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!: Twice-Told EC! . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Michael T. Gilbert on the stories Gaines & Feldstein found worth repeating.

Another Clause In The “Will” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Would you believe it? Still more artwork from the long-lost 1940s JSA adventure!

Comic Fandom Archive: Tom Fagan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Bill Schelly & Martin L. Greim pay tribute to one of early fandom’s brightest lights.

A Tribute To Will Elder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 re: [comments, correspondence, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . 74 FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #143 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 P.C. Hamerlinck’s roundup this time: Marc Swayze, C.C. Beck, Ron Frantz, & Jerry De Fuccio. On Our Cover: Several major artists have done extensive stints on the “Aquaman” series since its 1941 debut, including especially co-creator Paul Norris, Ramona Fradon, Nick Cardy—and the late Jim Aparo, who drew the final years of the DC sea king’s original solo title. Our thanks to John Schwirian for providing us with a copy of what is almost certainly Aparo’s last Aquaman illustration, done for John in 2002. There could have been, it seems to us, no more fitting art to accompany this issue’s interview by JS with longtime Aparo collaborator Steve Skeates. See it in black-&-white on p. 16. [Aquaman TM & ©2009 DC Comics.] Above: A trio of Teen Titans—Kid Flash, Speedy, and newcomer Mal Duncan—teamed up with Superman in World’s Finest Comics #205 (Sept. 1971), aided and abetted by the art of Dick Dillin (pencils) and Joe Giella (inks). More about the Titans, too, in this issue’s dynamic demi-interview with scripter Steve Skeates. Thanks to Jim Vandore for the scan. [©2009 DC Comics.] Alter EgoTM is published 8 times a year 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: $88 US, $140 Canada, $210 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.

writer/editorial

Silver Threads Among The Golden A

personal note (but then, this is an editorial, after all):

At both of the comics companies for which I worked during the summer of 1965, I was very much aware of being the second newcomer to enter their doors, at least to work on super-hero material at a staff level, in a decade. At National/DC I was preceded (by roughly a year) as Mort Weisinger’s assistant on the Superman line of comics by the estimable E. Nelson Bridwell, who was ten years older than I was—and at Marvel I found, already ensconced there for a week or two, a guy fresh out of college, who was several years younger than I. Steve Skeates may have forged most of his considerable reputation as a comics writer at other companies with names like Tower, Charlton, Warren, and DC, but that hardly lessens his achievement. He was (is) a singular talent who blazed a new trail, determined to put his own individual stamp on stories and characters—but wasn’t that exactly what comic books needed in the 1960s? Even Stan Lee and Julius Schwartz couldn’t do it all! Likewise, Jim Amash’s interview with TV/movie scribe Charles Sinclair, primarily about his partnership with Batman/Green Lantern cocreator Bill Finger, deals primarily with the same time period, which coincides with the vague outlines of the so-called Silver Age of Comics.

I’m keenly aware that, for a multiplicity of (mostly) good reasons, Alter Ego has tended to concentrate more on the Golden Age than on the Silver, nor is that likely to change greatly in the foreseeable future. At the same time, putting together the first half of John Schwirian’s interview with Steve Skeates (you can read Part II in our companion mag Back Issue #33 in a couple of weeks) has served to remind me that I shouldn’t neglect the likes of ENB himself, nor of Denny O’Neil, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Gerry Conway, and a handful of other writers who had entered the industry by 1970—nor, of course, should I ignore the artists who debuted during the same era. If I forget—you guys remind me, okay? Bestest,

P.S: We regret that, due to lack of space, we’ve had to delay Chapter 7 of Bob Rozakis’ “Secret History of All-American Comics, Inc.” till next issue.

COMING IN MAY

SHAZAM!, CENTAUR, & LILY RENÉE! A Triptych Of Titans—All In One Blockbuster Issue! • It’s Shazamer against Kryptonian in this powerful new cover by RICH BUCKLER! • Special Double-Size FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) Section! P.C. HAMERLINCK presides over a panorama of Captain Marvel vs. Superman punch-fests—featuring awesome art by BECK, BUCKLER, DILLIN, KANE, KURTZMAN, ORDWAY, SWAN, SWAYZE, WOOD, et al.! • In the Golden Age, LILY RENÉE illustrated “The Werewolf Hunter,” “Tiger Girl,” “Señorita Rio,” and “The Lost World”—but her own life has been more amazing than all those four-color fantasies put together! Hard-hitting interview by JIM AMASH! • At last! The fabled but little-known CENTAUR COMICS GROUP, put under the microscope by LEE BOYETTE! Learn about BILL EVERETT’s Amazing-Man & Skyrocket Steele—LEW GLANZMAN’s The Shark—MARTIN FILCHOCK’s Mighty Man, Fire-Man, & Owl—PAUL GUSTAVSON’s Fantom of the Fair— FRANK THOMAS’ The Eye—and that’s not all! • Plus MICHAEL T. GILBERT (& Mr. Monster’s) Comic Crypt—BILL SCHELLY’s Comic Fandom Archive—BOB ROZAKIS’ “Secret History Of All-American Comics, Inc.”— & MORE!! Edited by ROY THOMAS ics.]

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The Silver Skeates The Unique Voice And Vision Of STEVE SKEATES In The Silver Age Interview Conducted & Transcribed by John Schwirian

NTERVIEWER’S INTRO: In conjunction with my magazine The Aquaman Chronicles, I began a two-issue review of the Steve Skeates/Jim Aparo/Dick Giordano era of Aquaman by looking at the achievements of scribe Steve Skeates, who not only left a permanent mark on the history of Aquaman, but on the world of comics, with his work on titles ranging from the political The Hawk and The Dove in the late 1960s to the humorous Plop! in the early 1970s and beyond. [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: Steve’s work from the mid-’70s on will be covered in the second part of this interview, which will appear in our TwoMorrows sister magazine Back Issue #33-34, the first of which will go on sale just a couple of weeks from now.] There is no denying that a Steve Skeates tale has a distinct feel to it— an unusual and offbeat perspective that breaks the standard super-hero mold. But how did he develop that unique voice? What inspired the mind that brought us underwater Westerns and ecological disasters akin to 1950s atomic- and space-born monsters? With some prompting, Steve Skeates clears up the mystery as he tells of his (until now) secret origins….

Steve Skeates & His Pier Group (Above:) Our interviewee reacts to his and Sergio Aragonés’ story “The Poster Plague,” from House of Mystery #202 (May 1972), winning the Shazam Award for “Best Humor Story” of the year, at the 1973 ACBA Awards Banquet. “ACBA” stood for the Academy of Comic Book Arts, an organization of comics professionals that made a few waves during the first half of the ’70s. From The ACBA Newsletter, Vol. I, No. 21 (June 1973), with thanks to Flo Steinberg. (Below left:) Illustration by Matt Heuston for the limited-circulation publication The Official Biography of Comic Book Writer Steve Skeates, produced in 2007 by John Schwirian. The interview serialized in this issue of A/E and in Back Issue #33-34 was done for that edition—and Matt’s “sequel” to this drawing will be seen in the latter mag. [Aquaman & Aqualad, Supergirl, Hawk & Dove, Plastic Man, & Cain and Abel TM & ©2009 DC Comics; Two-Gun Kid & Spider-Ham TM & ©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Lightning TM & ©2009 John Carbonaro; Underdog TM & ©2009 Total Television; Dr. Graves & Thane TM & ©2009 the respective copyright holders; Steve Skeates caricature ©2009 Matt Heuston.]

“I More Wanted To Be An Artist… Than A Writer” JOHN SCHWIRIAN: While much has been written about your comic book career, little has been said about your life outside the industry. So let’s start at the beginning: you were born Stephen Lewis Skeates in a small town in western New York on January 29, 1943. But what was life like in your childhood? STEVE SKEATES: I spent my formative years near the small town of Bushnell’s Basin, where my father, an heir to the Xerox empire, owned a sporting goods store and my mother held down the position of housewife. I grew up in an area almost exactly between Bushnell’s Basin and Fairport, New York, in an area known in the 1800s as Fullam’s Basin, one of the places where travelers on the Erie Canal would get off the boat and onto a stage for the last leg of their trip to Rochester and nearby stopping points. This was an area that had (as a matter of fact) lain pretty much dormant since the late 1800s when canal and stagecoach travel starting becoming a thing of the past, with (all of a sudden!) a spurt of housing construction occurring in the late ’40s and early ’50s, right when I was a kid, so there were lots of half-built suburban houses to play around in, and lots of dirt piles from recently-dug basements providing ammo for almost daily dirt-ball fights with the other kids in the neighborhood! Sophisticated stuff like that! As a kid, I was also very into the early days of television, and living in the Rochester area was indeed great along those lines! I don’t know how things worked in other cities, but around here one of the two Rochester TV stations back there in the ’50s would borrow movies from the famed Eastman House movie library and show those classics all Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon. I was hooked on that stuff,

The Unique Voice And Vision Of Steve Skeates In The Silver Age

especially the horror movies and most especially the Val Lewton ones, undoubtedly a portion of what got me oriented toward comic book writing!

Cat On A Hot Celluloid Roof Cat People (1942) is one of the most justly celebrated of the relatively subdued “horror films” produced by Val Lewton—though directed, it must be said, by Jacques Tourneur. [©2009 the respective copyright holders.]

JS: It isn’t hard to see how those early television shows and old movies influenced your writing. Screenplays are typically split into three acts, launching right into the action (act one), filling in the background as the conflict grows (act two), and reaching climax in act three, often leaving the reader with an uneasy resolution that leaves many questions unanswered. Your comic scripts often matched the movie serial or episodic television format. But what about novels? What literature did you read as a boy?

SKEATES: Books I read as a kid? Hey, I was a terrible reader, slow as anything, and like I said, I was totally into early TV. Still, once my age reached double digits, I did start subscribing to the Mad comic book and really loved Harvey Kurtzman’s stuff! Truth be known, it wasn’t until I got into college that I started reading actual novels (for high school English class there had been a lot of Cliff Notes, etc.) and, as for doing so for my own pleasure (except for a smattering of ’50s sci-fi), it was almost exclusively detective fiction—Hammett, Chandler, Spillane, both McDonalds, Rex Stout, et al. JS: If you weren’t a heavy reader as a kid, when did you decide to become a writer? SKEATES: Like a lot of other comic book writers I’ve talked to, I more wanted to be an artist when I was a kid than a writer. Yet (unlike those others), somewhere during high school I got intrigued by mathematics, even entered college as a math major. It wasn’t long, though, before I switched over to being an English major. JS: A math major? That’s certainly a far cry from what you do now. Why math and not art? SKEATES: I gotta admit, since I was rather a math whiz in both Midvale Grade School and Minerva Deland High School, l figured that was my calling, hence my entering Alfred University as a math major. As for the art part—well, actually, I gave up on that quite early, approximately upon leaving grade school. I did not avail myself of any art instruction in high school, mainly because by then I was far more into writing than artwork. Thing is, what I wanted to write was humor—my heroes being Benchley, Thurber, Perelman, Sullivan, and even the earlier Bill Nye, the one that wasn’t a science guy! Yet, by the late ’50s/early ’60s, humor writing was rather a thing of the past. It may have still been going on, but there obviously certainly wasn’t any money in it anymore. Thanks to first radio and then dealt an even heavier blow by television, it had been supplanted by comedy—and what I wanted to do was written word stuff, not material to be spoken or acted out! A further reason why I chose to orient myself toward math! (There was also the fact that some of my favorite writers had written merely in their spare time, whereas their real jobs were in the field of mathematics!)

In any event, college-wise I did all right in math my first semester, but in my second semester I came close enough to failing myself out of the math program that I decided to voluntarily pull myself out of it before I did flunk and try instead to aim for my real love, writing, even though I still had my doubts as to there being any money in that endeavor, especially in my doing it the way I wanted to. I wrote a lot of articles for the college newspaper, many of them with a supposedly humorous slant, and ultimately wrote my own weekly column and became the feature editor. Because of all that, I even talked someone or other (can’t remember exactly whom) into letting me do a weekly 15-minute radio program—not on the college station, since the college didn’t have a station back then, but on the local town station.

“Those Mid-’60s Marvel Comics Influenced Me In A Big Way” JS: Which is about the same time you first discovered comic books? SKEATES: I first became cognizant of comic books in college when I wrote my first play. Part of that year, I worked writing snappy patter for a folk-singing group. It was around that same time that I wrote my first play; friends who read it told me it sounded more like a comic book story than a theatre piece. Thus I first developed my urge to become a comic book writer. (The play, incidentally, won second prize at the gala South Western New York State Drama Festival.) Years later, a certain editor, who shall remain nameless, tried to be nice about refusing to buy any more of my stuff. He used to say, “You’re a good writer, Steve. But I don’t think you’re right for comics. Have you ever thought of becoming a playwright?” JS: So comic books fueled your desire to be a humorist? SKEATES: You better believe that those mid-’60s Marvel comics influenced me in a big way; Stan was putting just enough humor into those stories (especially Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, even though the more dour “Iron Man” was indeed my favorite) for me to feel that, even though there no longer seemed to be any jobs extant for humorists, here was something I could indeed write. Being about to graduate from Alfred, I immediately wrote to what I figured were the four major comic book companies in the country and wound up getting a phone call from none other than Stan Lee himself, who offered me a job as assistant editor. The rest is legend! JS: So you actually went straight from college to the big time at Marvel? Was it a case of instant success, or were there still lean years to struggle through? SKEATES: Lean years? Yes, there were a few, but then again too few to men—Wait a minute! Wait a minute! That’s a song lyric (or at least a variation thereupon), whereas what I wanted to emphasize here was my youth and resilience. Yet perhaps first of all I should reach further back and into my quasi-rural youth—that four-room schoolhouse I attended, the house my father and my uncle built back in 1946 (a beautiful old place where my mother still lives), and the road out front, now a veritable super-highway and the easiest way to get to one of the largest shopping malls in the world, while back in the day it was so seldom-traveled that my dog used to safely lie around all day out in the middle of it. Back then—in fact, it seems like forever—I wanted to be a writer (although quite a bit of the time I harbored doubts about being able to make a living doing so, hence my early emphasis on math), and furthermore I somehow knew for sure that I was gonna live in New York City—I was totally entranced by the hustle and bustle of urbanity as experienced in nearby Rochester (not all that small a city) and knew positively that New York was gonna be even better, so that’s where I was gonna go! Thus, when I was in high school, and all my friends were

The Silver Skeates

Stan The (Iron) Man Stan Lee holding up a Shazam Award, also at an ACBA Awards ceremony— which may or may not be the 1973 bash. He was, of course, the writer/cocreator of Iron Man, the “dour” super-hero Steve Skeates heralds as his favorite Marvel hero of the era. The Heck/Colletta splash is from Tales of Suspense #69 (Sept. 1965), the issue which would’ve been on sale during the summer, around the time Steve went to work for Stan. Photo courtesy of Sal Amendola, who’s prepared a feature on ACBA that will appear in an early issue of A/E. [Page ©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

learning to drive and were getting their licenses, etc., I wanted no part of that, pointing out to everybody (my worried-about-me parents included) that “Hey, I won’t be driving anywhere anyway—I’ll be taking a taxi or the subway!” And what I would be doing there in the big city would be writing, although I of course had no idea back then that I would be doing a sort of writing that required one to live in the city, especially when one was just starting out, yet that’s what comics were like back when I first got immersed in them. JS: Because, back in 1965, all the major publishers were located in New York City. SKEATES: Right. Thus, in a rather big way, I was more prepared for New York City than I was for comics. Had no trouble at all with the New York way of life, figured I was finally where I had always belonged, but comics were another story entirely, seeing as I hadn’t exactly been a fan but merely a reader—hadn’t really tried my hand at producing my own comics nor learned everything I could about comics; I just found reading

Two Guns—Two Splashes— Two Typewriters The Western winner on the near left was plotted by Larry Lieber and dialogued by Steve Skeates, for Two-Gun Kid #80 (March 1966)—while the one on the right, for TGK #81 (May ’66), was plotted by Skeates and scripted by Lieber. By the way, “Bill Roman” was a pseudonym for inker Bill Everett. With thanks to Darrel McCann & Nick Caputo, respectively. [©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

The Unique Voice And Vision Of Steve Skeates In The Silver Age

them to be enjoyable. Stan Lee hired me directly out of college as an assistant editor, hired me on the strength of my letter of application which (on a whim) I had written as though it were a bunch of comic book captions. Stan, I believe, was amazed at how insecure I was, how ignorant I was of the history and mechanics of comics! My main function as an assistant editor was proofreading, and (as I demonstrate to Mike Ambrose every time I write an article for Charlton Spotlight) I’m terrible at that. And, when they asked me to do an art correction (adding a cop to the background in a panel in The Avengers), everyone there (Stan, Marie, Flo, et. al.) learned that (back then anyway) my knowledge and ability at art was absolutely nil. I lasted in that job (the assistant editor position) approximately ten days, whereupon Roy Thomas (who certainly knew about comics and definitely had confidence in his own abilities) was called in to take my place. As for me, I was demoted to being a regular Western writer—the trouble there being that there were only two Westerns available (Kid Colt and Two-Gun Kid), and they were both bimonthlies, and the lead story was only 17 pages (due to the fact that a five-page reprint was always used as a backup). Thus, as a beginning writer making beginner’s rates, I was

only making $170 a month, even back then far from enough to be able to make it in New York City.

“I Chanced Upon A Comic From This New Company Called Tower” JS: So how did you manage? You had to find other income somewhere. SKEATES: Well, to get back into the resilience I mentioned at the top of this piece, I was able to go out and get other jobs. Always having been an excellent typist (due to the fact that my mother was a typing teacher), I joined the typing pool at the American Greeting Card Company, the only guy in the pool, and (believe it or not) I even worked for a while proofreading spy reports for an industrial spy firm. I answered a want ad, and only after I landed the job did I find out I’d be working with spies, which I was quite happy about—figured I might pick up on some ideas for comic book stories, which indeed was the case! JS: Your life at this time sounds almost like a movie script—struggling writer by day, secret agent by night—doing all he can to make it alone in the Big Apple… SKEATES: No, not alone. My wife Rose, whom I had married in ’65 and who had made the leap to New York with me and subsequently presented me with a beautiful baby girl (Melissa, now an auditor for the state Health Department in Albany), also went out there and got a job (something which back then wasn’t as often done by a wife as it is today), working in a bakery. JS: You didn’t last long at Marvel. How did you wind up over at rival Tower Comics? SKEATES: While working for both American Greetings and Marvel, I went around to all the other comic book companies I could locate, applying for work, and finally became a regular writer at Tower, something Stan didn’t quite care for, although how he found out about it, I’m not sure. But, even though I lost my Marvel job, Tower (which was paying the same rate as Marvel) gave me enough work (“Lightning,” “NoMan,” “U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent,” and more!) that I was even able to quit my job at American Greeting, even as I got to work with so many of my all-time favorite artists: Wally Wood, Steve Ditko, Mike Sekowsky, Ogden Whitney, Chic Stone, Gil Kane—the list goes on and on! JS: How did you land a position at Tower? SKEATES: Tenacious, seeing no choice other than fighting back, refusing to give in, to give up—I mean, I had moved with my pregnant wife to New York City thanks to landing that assistant editor position at Marvel, only (thanks to my own incompetence and Stan Lee’s desperate need for someone who could actually do the job) to lose that position in less than two weeks. Still, I was getting some work from Marvel, some writing work, and if I could pick up other scripting jobs from other companies, I could still realize my dream of being a full-time New York writer. So I bought comics, got addresses from the indicias, showed up at Archie, tried DC, with the announced fact (by me) that I had worked previously as an assistant editor at Marvel at least getting me in the door, getting me an interview with someone or other, yet not exactly landing me any work.

The Sound Of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. After his first visit to Wally Wood’s studio, Steve wrote two stories that appeared in Tower’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #4 (April 1966): “The Synthetic Stand-In” and the “T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad” story “The Deadly Dust,” which introduced Lightning. Both were penciled by Mike Sekowsky and inked by Frank Giacoia, and art from each is repro’d here from DC’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Archives, Vol. 1. [©2009 John Carbonaro.]

That is, until I chanced upon a comic from this new company called Tower, went there, met Samm Schwartz (who was not turned off by the fact that I was an unconfident, nervous wreck of a weirdo, as obviously had been the folks at Archie and DC—Samm figuring, in my opinion, that all writers were weirdoes anyway, especially those who wanna write super-hero stuff, a genre Samm actually had very little appreciation for). Samm sent me uptown to Wally Wood’s studio (Woody being at that time far more in charge of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents book than was Samm, even though Samm was supposedly the editor), where I got to meet one of my childhood heroes—I had had a subscription to the comic book version

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Sekowsky, later by Chic Stone)—that makes 13 if you count the origin story, which technically was a “T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad” tale. I wrote six “NoMan” episodes, two “T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents” stories (those big deal adventures featuring all the agents), and the origin story for “Raven.” I also did quite a bit of work on Tower’s other super-hero book, U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent (totally Samm’s creation and a book Woody incidentally wanted nothing to do with, feeling it was doomed from the git-go)—seven stories in all, including my all-time favorite collaboration with Gil Kane, a totally over-the-top tale entitled “To Save a Monster.”

“The Most Fun Time I Ever Had Writing Comics… My Charlton Years!” JS: So things were going great at Tower—of course, until the company hit financial difficulties. How did you make the move to Charlton in 1967? SKEATES: Somewhere in the middle of all these goings-on (around about the time that T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #8 hit the stands), I attended a comic book convention, and somehow the guy who was running the convention found out that I was the only person there who worked for Tower. Therefore he asked me to represent Tower on a panel, and I wound up being seated next to Dick Giordano. I acquitted myself quite well vis-àvis that panel, was droll, witty, and even entertainingly sarcastic. Thus, subsequently, when it became common knowledge that Tower was going out of business and I was once again in need of a company to work for, I called up that Charlton editor-in-chief I had panel-wise been seated next to and said: “Remember me?” Thus began undoubtedly the most fun time I ever had writing comics… my Charlton years! JS: Was Dick Giordano the only editor you dealt with at Charlton at first? SKEATES: Yes, indeed, and in fact Dick was the only Charlton editor I ever dealt with!

“To Save A Monster!” Steve says this story from Tower’s U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent #4 (Aug. 1966) was his favorite among several collaborations with artist Gil Kane. Thank to Gregg Whitmore. [©2009 John Carbonaro.]

of Mad back when I was eleven and twelve, and if anyone had asked me back then who my favorite artists were, I wouldn’t have had to stop and think about it; I would have immediately said Elder, Wood, and Davis. Woody was busy at his drawing board, doing up a “Dynamo” story, I believe, while we talked, a fact that put me quite at ease. We discussed a number of ideas for “NoMan” (which led to my writing “The Synthetic Stand-Ins” in T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #4 and “Double for Dynamo” in #5), and the fact that Woody wanted to add a new character to the roster, a super-speedster named Lightning. Thus I wrote the “Lightning” origin story in issue 4 and went on to try to make that character mine and mine alone. JS: Was this how you worked at Tower—meet with Wally Wood and the artists to plan stories? SKEATES: Strangely, after that initial meeting, I had very little contact with Woody, mainly because he was getting sidetracked thanks to starting his own magazine witzend and therefore was leaving more and more of the editorial decisions on T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents up to Samm. I was definitely being a freelancer, working at home, going in to the Tower offices on the first and fifteenth of each month in order to pick up my check for work previously done and deliver new work (some of which would be accepted; others turned down flat). I had no contact at all with any of the artists, but I sure loved what they were doing with my stories. I wrote all but two of the “Lightning” stories (drawn at first by Mike

JS: You were living in New York at the time (where the major publishers had headquarters), but Charlton was located in Connecticut. Did you commute out into the country or did they have a New York office? SKEATES: As for the Derby, Connecticut, offices—those I never even saw! However, once a week Dick would rent an office in New York City and I would dutifully make that scene in order to deliver finished scripts, pick up assignments, talk over various ideas I had, and just plain hobnob. Strangely, the only other freelancer I ever ran into in the outer office of the NYC office was Denny O’Neil. JS: You continued to work for Charlton after Dick left for DC. Who was the editor at that point? How long did you continue with Charlton? Why did you stop sending them scripts? SKEATES: Since DC seemed to have no qualms about my continuing to work on the side for Charlton, I was quite happy to do so, enjoying certain characters and series that I had created there. I was working for Sal Gentile, who was a nice guy who seemed nonetheless to be rather in over his head. Although (as indicated) I liked Sal personally, he made a number of silly editorial decisions I totally

Burning The Candelabra At Both Ends By the time of the 1973 ACBA Awards Banquet, Dick Giordano had moved from Charlton to DC, taking Steve Skeates and several other talents with him. From the ACBA Newsletter, with thanks to Fabulous Flo.

The Unique Voice And Vision Of Steve Skeates In The Silver Age

The Many Genres Of Stephen Skeates A fabulous foursome of some of the types of stories Steve wrote during his Charlton days; all scans provided by Michael Ambrose. (Clockwise from top left:) “Sarge Steel” from Judomaster #95 (June 1967)—art by Dick Giordano; “The Cat” from The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves #4 (Nov. ’67)— art by Jim Aparo. Rocke Mastroserio’s “Captain Doom” cover for Outlaws of the West #66 (Sept. ’67). “The Time Machine” from Charlton Premiere #1 (May ’68)—art by Steve Ditko. [©2009 the respective copyright holders.]

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disagreed with—choosing Sanho Kim to be the new artist on “The Thane of Bagarth”; bunching my one-page “Abbott and Costello” gags all together rather than spreading them out throughout the issue as Dick had done; leaving the credits off “Race unto Death” rather than explaining that this had been a challenge (a story started by me that then Denny had to figure out an ending for); etc. Stuff like this tended to make working at Charlton not that much fun anymore, thus my ultimate decision to concentrate on DC. JS: How were scripts for Charlton developed? SKEATES: Usually, in my case at least, I would come up with an idea and then sit down at the typewriter and more or less let the plot work itself out as I typed along. As I recall, the only time I did a preliminary plot outline for anything at Charlton was when I was doing the first half of that story O’Neil had to finish. It was like I was working on spec (except that my scripts would never get turned down), and I’d often be working on an entire book. For example, from issue #3 to issue 12, the entirety of The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves was mine (except for the text pages; those things often seemed to have a life of their own)—so I would show up at the Charlton New York City office on whatever day Dick was there (can’t really remember if it was a Monday or a Friday or what!) with three ghostly stories that Dick knew nothing about, plus even the opening introductory page of the book. JS: At Tower, you pretty much were writing “campy” super-heroes, but Charlton had a wide range of genres. What genres did you write, and which did you enjoy most? SKEATES: Outside of romance and war stories (two genres I later cracked at DC), I worked the whole gamut at Charlton: humor (which Dick definitely felt was my long suit; at one point, while giving O’Neil a dollar raise on everything he wrote, Dick gave me a $2 raise, but only on my humor stuff!), horror, Westerns, historical stuff, contemporary superheroes (namely that “Tyro Team” one-shot, not to mention my “Question” episode), a private eye (“Sarge Steel,” drawn by Dick himself), half of a police drama (“Race unto Death”), and anything else that was handy (even sold Dick four or five text-page stories). I loved the variety, loved not being pigeonholed into one category, yet I do believe (when all is said and done) the Westerns were my favorites! JS: How did the Charlton Westerns differ from the stuff you did at Marvel? SKEATES: The Charlton Westerns seemed more adult than those produced by any of the other comic book companies—darker, brooding, good old “grim and gritty,” and with heroes that were often disillusioned and rather world-weary—all of which made those babies far, far more fun to write than “Kid Colt” and “Two-Gun Kid” had been! Meantime, moving right along and into the grim and gritty world of “Captain Doom” and the ever-popular “Kid Montana,” the former being a one-armed ex-Rebel who still rode around in his uniform—he was bitter, disillusioned, and quite obviously his greatest adventure lay behind him rather than anywhere upon those trails up ahead, or at least those were the themes I played around with in the two adventures of this overly somber character I somehow got the chance to write. I developed a rather strange style just for this particular series—a bit ponderous, heavy going at times, overly caption-laden with often those captions over-analyzing or cracking wise about what someone had said in the previous panel, all that in the service of two very strange plots riddled with irony and featuring as their titles “Homeless Bound” and “The Impending.” Actually, I have no idea what Dick’s reaction to those two stories was. Could be their utter weirdness rather freaked him out—that might be the reason he suddenly moved me over to that more typical Western hero known as (despite his graying temples) “The Kid.” I, though, I must admit, considered this movement to be more like a promotion. I had

And Just Wait Till You Meet His Sister Hannah! “Kid Montana” splash page by Pete Morisi, from Outlaws of the West #68 (Jan. 1968). Script by Steve Skeates. Thanks to Michael Ambrose. [©2009 the respective copyright holders.]

nothing against Nicholas and Alascia who drew the Captain, yet Kid Montana was a character who had long been associated with Pete Morisi (better known by his initial pen-name “PAM”), and I truly loved his stuff—the freeze-frame quality of his drawings, the seeming simplicity, that style that was really all his own though it’s often been compared to that of Toth—and I relished the chance to give this true artist some scripts he could really sink his teeth into! As to the character—Montana had far less of a backstory than that which Captain Doom obviously possessed, and that made the Kid more of an icon; not quite Everyman, but sort of something along the lines of Everygunslinger—that even despite certain physical peculiarities such as the aforementioned graying temples and the fact that his hat (which he always carried, never wore) looked way too big for his head anyway. And, within these simple primal nine-page stories (which made the scene in Outlaws of the West), obviously egged on by my own youthful hunger to write something that’d make the world sit up and take note, I pulled out all the proverbial stops, writing Western Noir, Western ghost stories, stories in which the titles worked on four or five different levels, all sorts of experimental stuff! But enough about me! Well, no, not really, yet I did wanna point out that I was not (especially back then) quite the egomaniac that previous paragraph up there may have made me seem, especially considering that those “Kid Montana” stories never did carry any credits on ’em! Morisi, as I just stated, had a very distinctive style, and thus most folks knew (if not by name, then at least by his initials) who was responsible for the art part, whereas who (outside of Pete himself, Dick, Denny, his wife, and my wife)

The Unique Voice And Vision Of Steve Skeates In The Silver Age

From Whither Came Warren Savin? Appearing in the letters page for U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent #4 is an enthusiastic missive from a certain Warren Savin of Alfred, New York. Steve Skeates elaborates on this inside joke… Ah yes, that issue of U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent in which “Warren Savin” makes a sudden appearance, even giving his address as Alfred, New York—I daresay my first wife, Rose, was even more responsible for this touch of insanity than I was! Y’see, being married to someone who had just recently gotten into the comic book business, Rose saw this as an opportunity for her as well to do something literary and creative. During that little bit of time I was working for Marvel, Rose somehow got herself the job of picking out and purchasing the photos Stan Lee would use in whatever moviemonster-photos-with-silly-balloons magazine Marvel was putting out at that time, and later on Rose would write a number of those prose piece filler pages that Charlton threw rather willy-nilly into each of their comics. In the case of Tower, she signed on to write the letters page of at least one issue of U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent, one which Samm Schwartz was too busy with other stuff to handle himself. The thing is, there were either no usable letters that came in concerning the previous issue in question, or there was but one. In either event, Rose was at a loss as to what to do, so I decided to help out by writing up a couple of phony letters for her to answer—and, as a gag (rather an inside gag, a gag that at least certain people who had attended Alfred University—were they to somehow see the comic—might well get a chuckle out of), I tossed the name Warren Savin in there! But where did the name Warren Savin come from? That of course takes us back to Alfred University, to the occasion of yours truly becoming the Feature Editor of the student newspaper. To celebrate that occasion I wrote an article that was an interview with myself. The editorin-chief liked the piece but thought the idea of me being both the interviewer and the interviewee was a bit much; thus he changed the byline and gave the writing credit to one Warren Savin. When I asked him where that name came from, all he would say was that he made it up.

knew I was doing those scripts? And, truth be told, I rather liked it like that—not having my name connected with the series added to the freedom I felt; I was able to attempt some really serious experimentation without the fear that if I fell on my face I’d be making a total fool of myself! Yep, ’tis true—I now in retrospect realize that the absence of credits quite definitely added to the relaxing pleasure I derived from writing those Charlton Westerns – not just “Doom” and “Montana,” but “The Sharpshooter,” as well, plus five or six Western tales featuring no continuing characters whatsoever! Meanwhile, within a somewhat similar sort of category, there was (as things turned out) that one story at Charlton that I wrote under a pen name. Yep, though I was pleased no end to have been chosen to script two series drawn by the one and only Steve Ditko, as the subsequent reality of things would have it (due, that is, to the sudden—and totally unexpected, as far as I was concerned—cancellation of all the Charlton action hero books). I only got to write one episode of one of those series.

“I Never Did Get To Write Blue Beetle!” JS: I take it you are talking about the “Question” tale (plotted and drawn by Steve Ditko) in Blue Beetle #4? Why did you use the name “Warrin Savin”? SKEATES: I was set to take over the writing on Blue Beetle in issue #5, which (as far as I know) never made the scene; thus I never did get to write Blue Beetle! Since I’d be writing both series in the book, it was a bit of misplaced modesty which caused me to use a pen name on the “Question” stanza—quite possibly the most controversial scripting job I ever did, and usually even Warren Savin doesn’t get credit for it—people quote from that story, then attribute said quote to Ditko, which (as a matter of fact) happened just recently in the 20th issue of Back Issue. There has been speculation, of course, that I chose to use a pen name here because I was so diametrically opposed to Ditko’s political philosophy, which was all over the place in this series. That sort of stuff never really bothered me, though! Unlike O’Neil, who simply had to transform “The Question” into a liberal series, I quite enjoy conservatives as long as they’re confined to the comic book world—as long as they don’t try to invade reality. My all-time favorite comic strip is Little Orphan Annie (back in its early days), and you can’t get more conservative than that. As for movies, I love The Fountainhead. Meanwhile, one need only check out Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward or Jack London’s The Iron Heel to note that the sort of socialism I believe in does not make for particularly worthy dramatic fiction! Hey, I could go on and on here—about how I see conservatism (especially when it’s actually practiced) as being based upon an ugly, faulty, dangerously selfrighteous, we’re-better-thanyou view of humanity, but, instead, I think I’ll simply calm down and await your Savin Grace next question.

In any event, I loved suddenly having a pen name and proceeded to write a number of interviews employing that moniker—mock-interviews, actually, with whatever celebrities or political figures (once it was even the governor), whoever would show up in town to perform or speak at the college, the running gag being that the two would wind up talking about Warren rather than saying much of anything about the supposed subject of the interview. That was indeed fun! Furthermore, later, when I suddenly wanted (for some reason or another) to use a pen name for some of my comic book work, I hardly needed A classic Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves moment from the story “The Perfect to make a name up—I Crime” in #3: the supernatural murder of Warren Savin! Art by Pat Boyette. already had a pen name! Thanks to John Schwirian. [©2009 the respective copyright holders.]

JS: On a lighter note, Dick Giordano described your

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Steverinos Of The World, Unite! Ditko plotted and drew, and Skeates dialogued, the “Question” story in Blue Beetle #4 (Dec. 1967), featuring the Ditko-created hero/anti-hero. Alas, though, Skeates never did a crack at writing a “Blue Beetle” story. For a photo of Ditko, see A/E #50. Thanks to Michael Ambrose. [The Question TM & ©2009 DC Comics.]

outlines for Abbott and Costello as some of the funniest stuff he ever read, and that the finished product never matched what you submitted. What were you doing with Abbott and Costello? SKEATES: The thing I did with Abbott and Costello that was different from all my other scripts, the thing that generally tended to crack Dick up, is that I didn’t describe what was happening. I drew my own little pictures—got quite good at drawing Abbott and (especially) Costello, and often, according to Dick, the simplistic way in which I pictured the gag would work far better than the more elaborate version the artist would develop. JS: I recently obtained a copy of Abbott and Costello #2. Funny stuff. I like it better than the Plop! material you did later. SKEATES: Hey now, first of all, I am indeed happy and pleased that you so enjoyed the second issue of Abbott and Costello. That particular issue may in fact have been the best of the lot, and, at the very least, it is among the top four, those four being the first four issues. I spoke earlier of personally quite liking Sal Gentile whilst simultaneously rather vehemently disagreeing with most of his editorial decisions, and a number of those “bad ideas” of his occurred within the pages of Abbott and Costello. In other words, in my opinion, this particular magazine (after its first four issues) suffered quite a bit from the absence of Dick Giordano. Being the only writer of this series for quite some time (up until the ninth issue or something like that), please do allow me to provide a quick rundown here. In the first issue I was trying to get my footing, trying a bit too hard to write something similar to an Abbott and Costello movie, with my first story in that issue being way too long (13 pages) and way

too silly and slapstick, whereas within the second and third story, I settled down into stuff more befitting of a comic book—more satire, more parody, and more like what was in the second issue. The third issue contains an 11-page super-hero parody dream sequence (starring Lou as Captain Costello) which isn’t bad at all; yet, in retrospect, I daresay it too is a tad too long and not quite as funny as I thought it was way back when. The big plus of the third issue was that I inaugurated there-within the use of three related one-pagers to be thrown in at various intervals throughout the magazine: “Abstraction” 1, 2, and 3 in the third issue; “Growth” 1, 2, and 3 in the fourth issue, “Sign Language” 1, 2, and 3 in the fifth issue, etc. The fourth issue remains my own personal favorite (although, as indicated above, I’m quick to concede that the second issue was quite likely a better one). What happened was: Sal had inherited from Dick a fairly large inventory of “Abbott and Costello” stories, tales that Dick (who generally quite appreciated my way-out-there outlandish sense of humor) thought were just a bit too outlandish. Sal may have disagreed about that outlandishness, or, more likely, he was mainly interested in cutting corners money-wise, but, in any event, one of the first things he did when he became the Charlton editor was to stop buying new “Abbott and Costello” stories so he could use up this inventory, shoving the best of these stories into the fourth issue while basically following Dick’s general

The Unique Voice And Vision Of Steve Skeates In The Silver Age

“My Favorite Bits At Charlton” JS: What kind of stories did you write for The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves? Did you have a style or formula you followed for this series? SKEATES: The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves was a book that often sported artistic contributions from both Steve Ditko and Jim Aparo—in fact, the only artist who drew up more of my ghostly “Dr. Graves” tales than either of those two was Pat Boyette. The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves, as I previously indicated, had been set into motion prior to yours truly getting dropped into the scene (writing two stories for the second issue, then taking over total scripting control with the third). It followed the general rules for a pseudo-horror comic that DC, Marvel, and everyone else seemed to be into: three stories, with the host (in this case Dr. Graves) introducing each of them and making several sarcastic comments at the end of each…with here the extra added winkle of on occasion Graves taking an active role in the story (as a supernaturalist, a ghost-buster, whatever). And I did indeed love what these three guys did here. Thanks of course to Dick, each of my various tales was given to whichever artist would best handle whatever I was into at that given moment: Boyette perfectly capturing the intense mystical brooding moodiness of pieces like “This Old Man,” “The Perfect Crime,” and “The Mystic Ring ”; Ditko providing his perfectly paced action-packed storytelling while making other worlds and other dimensions come alive in “The Name,” “Routine,” and “The Ultimate Evil”; Aparo’s unique self-taught artwork, his own bizarre combo of cartooniness and realism, giving certain stories a deceptive seeming lightness, perfect for such yarns as “The Cat,” “The Mist,” and “The Best of all Possible Worlds.”

format for an issue. I still feel the result (though totally off-the-wall wacky) was a minor quirky masterwork! Unfortunately, however, this left the worst of the inventory for the fifth issue, and said batch consisted of way too many one- and two-page stories, nine of ’em to be exact. Many of them weren’t bad, albeit droll and sort-of subtle, but all of those separate entities shoved together just didn’t work, making #5 a true loser. The issues after that never (in my opinion) got as bad as #5, yet there were all sorts of problems—Sal hiring new letterers who hardly even came close to being as good as Charlotte Jetter had been, giving the stories to artists nowhere near as nifty as Scarpelli, and even ultimately putting ads in the book. As to your seeing my Abbott and Costello stuff as being funnier than what I did for Plop!—I doubt I’ll ever be objective enough about either one of those series to offer anything even slightly resembling a worthy opinion concerning any of that, yet I wouldn’t be surprised at all over the former beating out the latter laugh-wise, especially considering the amount of freedom I was given on Abbott and Costello. At DC, I had to come up with a plot outline, type up said outline, talk that over with the editor, get told the page count by the editor, and then finally go write the story. And, really now, nothing kills comedy faster than belaboring it. Meantime, at Charlton, I’d come up with an idea and just start writing, to some extent allow the story to write itself, allow various jokes that weren’t part of the original idea to worm their way in there, and just keep going until I was done, making the story as long or as short as I wanted it to be. You ask me, that’s the way that sort of stuff should be done.

I should point out at this point that, in the case of Jim Aparo, from the very beginning our work together seemed to gel perfectly, our respective views of reality seeming quite utterly congruent. We had the same weird (quirky?) take on reality, so that the more I worked with him, the briefer my panel descriptions would become, as I ultimately began to trust that a mere couple of words would have him seeing a scene exactly as I was visualizing it. As I said in my Charlton Spotlight tribute to Jim, beyond being the consummate professional, Jim was the perfect artist for someone like me to work with—he respected my scripts (which, unfortunately, often wasn’t the case when it came to other artists) and would often provide a scene of mine with tasty little bits of more than what I expected, but (more importantly) would never give any scene anything less than what was needed! JS: Speaking of Jim Aparo, you also worked with him on “Thane of Bagarth,” a backup series in Hercules—which looks like Prince Valiant but has Beowulf and those painful Anglo-Saxon names. Did you do a lot of research for this or did you mostly wing it? SKEATES: Research vis-à-vis the Thane? Well, yes, I did read over some stuff to refresh my memory, but mainly the gist of “Thane of Bagarth” grew out of the fact that back in those days I was not all that far removed from having received my BA in English Lit. In fact, as soon as Dick said he was looking for a continuing back-up series for the Hercules book, I immediately flashed upon Beowulf and the 40-year gap in this ancient hero’s legend, all of which I had learned about at Alfred University. I would place my series in that gap, try to fill in that gap! Anyway, that was the English Literature angle, but perhaps I should have done a bit of research into history as well, seeing as there were various historical inaccuracies in the series, the most striking of which is the captured Hrothelac being made a galley slave aboard a Viking vessel. Vikings didn’t employ galley slaves! In fact, their ships didn’t even have galleys, but were instead extremely shallow boats—something I ultimately took note of approximately twenty years after I wrote that script when a friend of mine (a history buff) finally pointed out my mistake. JS: Any other series at Charlton you want to brag about?

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The Many Collaborators Of Dr. Skeates Steve worked with a number of fine artists on stories for Charlton’s The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves. (Clockwise from top left:) With Chic Stone in #2 (July 1967)… with Pat Boyette in #3 (Sept. ’67)… with Jim Aparo in #8 (Aug. ’68)… and with Steve Ditko (two views for this one!) in #12 (Feb. ’69). Thanks to Jerry K, Boyd for p. 9 of the latter, and to Michael Ambrose for the rest of the scans. [©2009 the respective copyright holders.

The Unique Voice And Vision Of Steve Skeates In The Silver Age

came up with—Charlton Premiere, a book that was obviously similar to DC’s Showcase, yet Premiere did seem to feature works that were far more experimental than anything Showcase handled, and, as unfortunately is often the case with really fun ideas, Premiere sold abysmally. In fact, one of the first things Sal Gentile did once he took over from Dick as the Charlton editor was to unceremoniously do in Premiere. However, for the very short time that it existed, Premiere did put out five really interesting books. Well, okay, okay, one of ‘em wasn’t really an issue of Premiere, but more about that subsequently. But first, the first issue, which was subtitled “Trio” and consisted of three potential series ideas: “The Shape,” a variation on the Plastic Man theme with the hero here having the mind of a five-year-old, written by (among others) Roy Thomas (though his name wasn’t on the piece due to his being under contract with Marvel at that time); “Spookman,” a ghostly time-traveling character written and drawn by Pat Boyette (this was the series Dick had the most faith in and was hoping to give this baby its own book); and “The Tyro Team,” who (despite Dick’s leaning toward Boyette’s creation) was definitely the readers’ favorite and (had the entire actionhero line not been suddenly done in) would definitely have gotten its own book. Okay, now, the Tyros (nicely illustrated by the frequent team of Montes & Bache) were three crime-fighting college kids whose only super-power was that they could telepathically communicate with one another—where and how they got this power is never explained in this first adventure in

Come Back, Thane! Thane of Bagarth made his debut in Charlton’s Hercules #1 (Oct. 1967), with art by Jim Aparo, and he’d be around for a while. Thanks to Michael Ambrose. [©2009 the respective copyright holders.]

SKEATES: As to something else to brag about, one of my favorite bits at Charlton that I really haven’t very deeply gotten into here was “Sarge Steel,” as illustrated by my boss, Dick Giordano. I only did four episodes of the Sarge, three short backup pieces for the Judomaster book, and one 18-page epic (“The Case of the Third Hand”) for something called Secret Agent. I do wish there had been more, seeing as I was quite taken with doing all that first-person ultra-tough-guy Mickey Spillane pastiche while simultaneously devising mysteries admittedly quite definitely way too complicated for comic books. Furthermore, I loved Dick’s overly busty women and snarling gritted-teeth tough guys. One of my favorite scenes (mainly because it doesn’t work well at all yet I somehow got away with it anyhow) is page 16 of the aforementioned “Third Hand” saga, a page which consists of four panels, each containing at least three large dialogue balloons, all of them belonging to Sarge himself as he (with gun drawn) closes in on the well-endowed female villain of the piece while explaining everything that has happened in the previous 15 pages. It’s insane; it’s the antithesis of good comic book storytelling. Yet, I love it! JS: I’d like to backtrack for a moment. Earlier, you mentioned “The Tyro Team.” Who were they and where did they appear? You also hinted at a writing challenge between you and Denny O’Neil that resulted in the story “Race unto Death.” What was this challenge?

Steel This Comic!

SKEATES: Both “Race unto Death” and “The Tyro Team” came into existence due to what I figure is one of the best ideas Dick Giordano ever

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Race Unto Oblivion Artist Jim Aparo’s cover and splash panel for “Race unto Death” originally scheduled for Charlton Premiere #5 and finally published in Strange Suspense Stories #4 (Nov. 1968). As per interview, the first half of the story was scripted by Skeates, the second half by Denny O’Neil, though the story sports no scripting credits. The pair were going to reverse the order of writers in a sequel, but it was never done. Thanks to Michael Ambrose. [©2009 the respective copyright holders.]

which the three mainly use fisticuffs to thwart small-time robberies whilst arguing amongst themselves. This series is often cited as being my first attempt to show what it would be like to be a super-hero in the real world, which actually wasn’t my aim at all—I was simply trying to write something similar to a Marvel comic (and quite a lot of the pacing of this story was, in fact, based upon the way Jack Kirby would plot those great Fantastic Four stories, though the characters here were more like SpiderMan than any of the FF)! The second issue of Premiere was a full-book end-of-the-world science-fiction epic entitled “Children of Doom,” written by Denny O’Neil (using his “Sergius O’Shaugnessy” pen name because, like Roy, he was working for Marvel at the time) and drawn by Pat Boyette—a lot of experimental art stuff, much of the art in fact in black-&-white with the pastels in the dialogue and thought balloons being the only color on various pages! The third issue was a teen-oriented thing that I personally couldn’t figure out, although I didn’t try all that hard, seeing as it didn’t seem like it would be all that rewarding to figure something as silly as that out—but then I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that in this experimental book someone would come up with an experiment that didn’t appeal to me at all! The fourth issue was all mine—all mine—something called “Unlikely Tales,” an attempt to go a step beyond the usual sort of comic book pseudo-horror stories by adding an unexplained element into each of the usual (for a book like this) three stories; and it could very well be that the best thing about that issue is that the three stories (in my honest opinion, three of my best ever of this genre) were illustrated by Boyette, Aparo, and Ditko!

Tyro Power The Tyro Team made its dynamic debut in the aptly named Charlton Premiere #1 (Sept. 1967). Script by Steve Skeates; art by Bill Montes and Ernie Bache. Thanks to Michael Ambrose. [©2009 the respective copyright holders.]

The fifth issue (which actually never made the scene) was gonna be (as, in fact, advertised upon the letters-page in issue four) “Race unto Death”—a story written by myself and O’Neil and beautifully drawn up by Jim Aparo. The challenge here was that I wrote the first half of the fullbook story, then O’Neil had to figure out where the damn thing was going and of course write the ending to the tale. We were subsequently gonna reverse things, with Denny starting a story and me finishing it, but that never came about. This baby (the one that did exist) was a noirish murder mystery which I do feel turned out nifty as hell, yet Premiere bit the dust before this incredible yarn could make the scene within that comic. It was

The Unique Voice And Vision Of Steve Skeates In The Silver Age

subsequently used in an issue of Strange Suspense Stories sans either credits or any indication of how it came to be; still (even without an explanation), I’m sure I’m not exactly alone in thinking this is truly a great comic! JS: Hmmmm, take a close look at the cover for Strange Suspense Stories #4. The villain of “Race unto Death” is using an illusion-inducing machine to enslave another man’s mind. Sound a bit familiar? It reminds me of Aquaman #54 where the Thanatos device is used by mobsters to transform otherwise law-abiding citizens into zombie criminals! SKEATES: I did indeed find your comparison of “Race unto Death” to “Crime Wave” to be quite interesting, as well as a new one on me! Similarities that weren’t (I assure you) purposely put in there. Yet, I suppose, on a subconscious level, I could have been harkening back to the former while writing the latter. Thing is, the rats and the snakes (or, more accurately, the images thereof) didn’t show up storywise ’til the pulsepounding conclusion, and that was Denny’s part of the story. I had merely (toward the start of the saga) posited a ray machine that was transforming people into rather mindless slaves; it was Denny who added the scary animals as the means of effecting these transformations. Could be a faint recollection of Denny’s idea (and Denny would often freely admit that he had appropriated many of his ideas—this one, for example, mainly came from George Orwell) did form some of the basic underlying framework for what I was up to in “Crime Wave,” a platform upon which I could build what I was really into as far as that issue of Aquaman was

concerned, i.e.: employing three typical comic book story formats (a mystery tale, a rather basic by-the-numbers and sparsely-dialogued superhero yarn, and a Western) as fantasies into which our hero is projected, in an attempt by the baddies to break down his heroic stance, to make him see himself as a loser—actual scenarios, actual stories then, rather than mere images of creepy crawlers! Finally, if the Aquaman book hadn’t been cancelled a couple of issues later, I’m fairly certain I would have, at some not too distant point, written a sequel to “Crime Wave” (even discussed doing so with Dick) in which Aquaman would get projected into three other sorts of typical comic book stuff. Don’t know what plans I had for two of ‘em (funny animals? teenage comedy? war stories? film noir? sci-fi? whatever!!), but I do remember being very much into the remaining one having all the gooey gooshy flavor of a romance comic!!

“[DC] Stuffed Shirts [Were] Generally Too Embarrassed To Even Admit What They Did For A Living” JS: When Dick Giordano was hired by DC, he invited you as well as several other Charlton creators to work for him there. What was the transition like, shifting from the Charlton style to the DC way? SKEATES: I have little knowledge as to how the others making that leap—O’Neil, Aparo, Ditko, and Boyette—felt, yet I suspect their feelings were basically as mixed as mine were. On the plus side was the fact that I’d still be working for Dick, and I do mean Dick Giordano rather than any vastly more familiar slang usage of those particular words—the latter contradicted by the actuality that now I’d be making $10 a page rather than four, and looking back whilst simultaneously throwing in-appropriate modesty to the proverbial wind, I can honestly say (even back when ten bucks was hardly the chump change it is today) I definitely deserved that much and more, much more! As a matter of fact, reading over for the first time in a long time the fourth issue of The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves—a friend had come across a copy at a convention, bought it and send it along to me, and, instead of merely tossing it in amongst all my contributor’s copies, I suddenly (for whatever deep-seated and surely neurotic reason) decided to go all nostalgic, decided (that is) to actually read the darn thing—a comic for which I had written all three stories plus the introductory page, everything in there except a one-page innocuous text feature, the ads, and the indicia, beyond taking note of the fact that the three were tales any comic book company would (in my estimation) have been proud to publish, I was honestly amazed at the amount of work I had obviously put into these gems, chunks of nifty depth and raw emotion, mere examples of the truckloads of precious goodies I was (at that point) practically giving away. Don’t get me wrong, though—I may today be kicking myself all around the house for having back then worked so hard for such minuscule remuneration, yet back in the day, as long as I was making enough to cover the rent and feed and clothe myself and my family, I was too pleased o’er getting paid to do something I absolutely loved to do, something I was totally into, to even consider that I might be selling myself short. Furthermore, one of the more nifty aspects of working for Charlton was

Jim Aparo

His Last Bow—And A Good One, Even Underwater! John Schwirian, who was in touch with Jim Aparo during the latter days of his life, says that this illo, used as our cover, is almost certainly the last drawing that supreme sea-king artist did of Aquaman. Thanks to John for sharing it from his collection. Steve Skeates’ detailed commentary on his “Aquaman” scripts is on view in The Aquaman Chronicles #17 (Summer 2008), published by John Schwirian (see p. 32)—and we refer you to that engrossing magazine for an underwater rollercoaster ride. Photo of Jim Aparo courtesy of Jim Amash.[Aquaman TM & ©2009 DC Comics.]

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that you could easily obtain from these guys as much work as you could possibly handle. Often over the weekend, I would write a complete issue of Dr. Graves (three 8-page stories plus a one-page intro), be all smiles about having just made a hundred bucks, then immediately dive into a nine-page “Kid Montana” yarn or a full issue’s worth of Abbott and Costello. Thus, due to the amount of work I was taking on, I was making more at Charlton than I had at either Marvel or Tower, both of whom had been shelling out the usual ten smackers per page. Not surprising, then, that the thought did occur that bouncing on to yet another company that paid ten bucks, I might well (thanks to a limited workload) wind up making less than I had been pulling in at Charlton! JS: So you were worried about a work reduction and thus a drop in income? SKEATES: No, the big problem I saw in making this leap had nothing to do with money and everything to do with fun. I had, after all, previously visited the DC offices and even applied for work there—and, believe you me, it would be pretty freakin’ close to impossible to exaggerate the amount and degree of what I can only describe as dry rot and delusion, a sad hollow freeze-frame posing as some sort of a vibe, one that took careful aim at my solar plexus as soon as I entered that place! Sterile, unfriendly, and no fun at all—Stan Lee may have been a bit overbearing due to somehow actually seeing himself as the Shakespeare of the twentieth century, and Charlton may have been doing so much of its stuff on the cheap that not only did the writers and artists have to produce an inordinate amount of work in order to make any sort of worthwhile living, the editorial staff was so tiny that it too was way overworked, trying to edit too many books all at once and therefore allowing way too many embarrassing mistakes to slip on through. I recall one story of mine that wound up making no sense at all due to one very crucial thought balloon having been accidentally left out, and such a happenstance as that was unfortunately not exactly a rarity! Still, all of that seemed quite benign when compared to a company peopled in the main by a bunch of stuffed shirts who had no respect for the product they produced, looking more like perpetual pallbearers than editors and publishers and generally too embarrassed to even admit what they did for a living, hiding behind the name National Periodicals, with no indication, no hint, in its outer office or even beyond, even in the hallways between the various inner sanctums I visited, that those periodicals were (gasp!) comic books! JS: Okay, I’m confused. Why would the people at DC be ashamed of producing comic books, a genre their company invented? SKEATES: Undoubtedly this embarrassment factor was some sad silly holdover from the dark days of Dr. Wertham (already ten years in the past)—comic books suffering through a ’50s witch-hunt all its own, the primary focus being upon horror comics, yet even super-hero fare (seeing as the stories within those particular periodicals did feature villains) were hardly immune to the indictment, attacked by that aforementioned pious crackpot of a sawbones as well as the Reader’s Digest and the US Congress, seen as some sort of pornography of violence aimed at innocent children, and if a single comic book was found within a 20-mile radius of any teen suicide, this was seen as further proof of these publications’ utter evil. Of course, by the late ’60s, thanks to certain “advances” in music, motion picture fare, television, and even actual pornography, a majority of those who even remembered or had heard of that funny-book purge of over a decade earlier tended now to laugh about it, seeing it as the ridiculously empty overreaction and stupidly obvious case of parental buckpassing it really was. But DC wasn’t laughing. Had the people there actually bought all that ’50s hoopla? Were they still afraid that, if they owned up to what it was they were busy producing behind those locked doors, they’d immediately get labeled as “child-killers”? All I can say is,

“Heeeeeere’s WARREN!” Warren Spavin lives! Steve’s alternate persona rears his media-savvy head at DC—with his own late-night TV show, yet! From Aquaman #56 (April 1971), with script by Skeates, art by Aparo. Thanks to Mark Muller. [©2009 DC Comics.]

something was definitely amiss! Somehow, this fear (accompanied, I suppose, by a heavy dose of selfloathing) had mutated into an “I hate what I do” and “I’m better than what I do” attitude. Thus it was, during my initial visit there, that I was confronted with unfriendliness, suspicion, and an inability to figure me out, whereas, ultimately, I realized that all of that was because I had made it known that I liked comics! (Also, later I learned that the way to win these people’s respect and therefore get more work was not to write a worthwhile comic book, seeing as they had no respect for any of that, but to write and sell an article or story to some “legitimate” publication.) Did they honestly believe because I liked comics that I was evil? Could be! And now, Denny, Pat, Steve, Jim, and I were going to be working for this company! JS: Sounds a lot like what I’ve heard about Mort Weisinger [Superman group editor in the ’60s]. Still, you were going to work directly with Giordano. He had to deal with the stuffed shirts, not you. SKEATES: There was more to the downside than all that, though. And, whether or not the disrespect for comics upon the part of the people in power there had somehow stunted that company’s growth I can’t say, yet DC did seem totally mired in the past, producing the same sort of comics it had come out with ten years previously. Comic books with heavy captions that were stupidly redundant, telling you what you could already see for yourself in the pictures. Comics that were still using the word “hep” rather than “hip”! Furthermore, whenever they (the folks at DC) would try to modernize their product, they’d totally miss whatever boat was handy. Take the term “uptight,” for example—someone up at DC had

The Unique Voice And Vision Of Steve Skeates In The Silver Age

Aquaman Minus Entourage—And Dick Giordano With One! (Left:) A key page both beautifully and powerfully drawn by Jim Aparo for Aquaman #56 (March-April 1970), the final issue of the original series. Script by Steve Skeates. Thanks to Mark Muller. [©2009 DC Comics.] (Above:) A Charlton panel at a 1960s New York comics convention. Editor Dick Giordano, seen on our far right, with two of his his ace writers, Denny O’Neil (far left) and Steve Skeates, both of whom he took with him to DC when the call came. Thanks to John Schwirian.

suggestion of course being that writers were hardly in the same league as artists, that basically anyone could write a comic book. What really pissed off Denny and I (both of whom just happened to be in the audience there that day) was that both Dick and Carmine were among the others on that panel, yet neither one contradicted Gil, neither one said anything to defend writers!

obviously heard the term yet had no idea it was a putdown! Therefore, DC actually advertised (within every comic it put out during a particular month) one of its teenage-humor characters as being “cool, hep, and uptight!” JS: Oh wow! I remember that ad—I thought it was meant as sarcasm! Still, judging by the material the Charlton alumni produced, you guys did affect change, didn’t you? SKEATES: Could the six of us change any of this? Was that why we were there, to somehow drag that over-the-hill self-pitying dandy known as DC kicking and screaming, mewling and drooling, into the drug-laden ’60s and ’70s and beyond, into the real world as we knew it? Ultimately, truth be told, we certainly weren’t alone in forcing DC to face the present— Janette Kahn (in fact) was far more influential along these lines than any of us—yet it did happen and we did play a part in the process. And, though the work that Dick, Jim, Nick, and I did on Aquaman never got the publicity that (for example) Julie, Denny, and Neal received for their “socially conscious” output starring Green Lantern and Green Arrow, the SAG team was nonetheless a fairly hefty chunk of that whole crazy “facing-reality” movement, likeable characters—and not just the ones we wrote and drew, but ourselves as well, and I’m talking here about everyone, every writer and artist who climbed aboard during the late ’60s and early ’70s, everyone who helped (in his or her own way) to transform DC (for a while at least) into a much happier place! Finally, I figure I should mention something about the time that Denny and I got raises from DC simply by dressing down! Seems at a convention, during a panel discussion, the ever-acerbic Gil Kane described comic book writers as the industry’s “factory workers,” the

I believe the panel took place on a Friday, which gave Denny and I two days to grow stubble, to pick out our worst possible outfits, and to make sure they were excessively crumpled and wrinkled, prior to showing up at the DC offices Monday morning. Everyone there at relatively staid and conservative DC was downright shocked at the way we looked, and some of them even asked what was up, whereupon we replied that if we were going to be considered factory workers, we were going to dress like factory workers! Suddenly, there was a big confab in Carmine’s office, and once Carmine, Dick, and whoever else participated in that hastily convened meeting emerged from said office, Denny and I were immediately given both an apology and a $2 a page raise. On Tuesday, we had of course cleaned up our act, even shaved, yet for some reason (and we never discussed doing this; it just somehow happened) the two of us never again dressed as well as we had prior to that factory worker comment— that is to say, for but one particular aspect, neither of us ever again wore a tie! JS: You have to admit that the work you guys did on Aquaman certainly shook things up, as well… SKEATES: Yowzah, my man—what a wild fun ride we (and I suppose I’m speaking here of the readers as well as Jim and I) had, courtesy of the sea king (with Dick egging us on while simultaneously chopping my tendency toward verbosity down just a bit so that there’d be room for the pictures, and Nick Cardy providing those beautiful covers), starting right out with a huge story arc (though we didn’t call them that back then) concerning the kidnapping of Mera, lasting a year and a half, and allowing Aquaman at one point to disguise himself by wearing a trench coat and a slouch hat, looking for all the world (thanks to the art, the shadows, the dingy bar he was spying around in, those weird angle shots) like something straight out of film noir. On into trying a touch of social relevance our own selves (“As the Seas Die”), only to follow that one up with an extremely surrealistic three-parter that somehow interacted with the surprise three-part “Deadman” feature in the back of the book written and drawn by Neal Adams. After that, that tome was all ours again, making for even more experimentation (stories within stories within stories, a secret agent parody, a strange little tale about computers and the generation gap), culminating in what many feel to be the best of the lot—I do keep stumbling across various articles about this baby within various fan publications—“The

The Silver Skeates

Creature That Devoured Detroit,” an epic adventure concerning pollution, Johnny Carson, irresponsibility, and night blindness, in which (for but one thing) we introduced a brand-new superhero, The Crusader, only to kill him off but a few pages later. And then, abruptly, it was over—Dick was leaving his editorial position in order to spend more time on his own art, Aquaman was being canceled, and Jim and I basically ended up going our separate ways. JS: Do you have a personal favorite out of all those wild “Aquaman” stories?

Hawking Their Wares “The Hawk and the Dove” made their joint debut in Showcase #75 (June 1968), and were immediately awarded their own series, whose #1 cover is depicted here (for Aug.-Sept. 1968). Art by Steve Ditko. [©2009 DC Comics.]

SKEATES: It’s no secret that the last four issues of our Aquaman run are definitely my own personal favorites, and that includes the one that very seldom gets singled out for any praise, #55— the issue in which I emphasized Aquaman’s more liberal political attitudes. I was also experimenting in that one with quick cuts, jumping from one scene to another without employing the usual captions that clue the reader in on what’s happening. In fact, the rapid interchange within that tale may explain why it got over with so quickly, making for me having to come up with a second story for that issue [“The Computer Trap”], and somehow that second story (not unlike what was supposed to be the B side of a record suddenly—due to the public’s response— becoming the A side) turned out to be the one that most of our mail was about!

“The Hawk And The Wimp” JS: It is well documented how, when Dick Giordano left Charlton to go to DC (subsequently inviting over you and Denny O’Neil), you were the first to arrive at his office and got the Aquaman assignment... but “The Hawk and The Dove” (in Showcase) appeared about the same time as your first Aquaman issue hit the stands. Was “Hawk and Dove” in development originally for Charlton? SKEATES: Nope, “The Hawk and The Dove” did not have its beginnings

at Charlton. Rather, it grew out of private conversations between Dick Giordano and Carmine Infantino taking place pretty much as soon as Dick had left Charlton for DC, the two of them trying to figure out how best to utilize Ditko and ultimately deciding the best way to handle this unique talent was to give the guy a couple of new books all his own. The next step was plotting sessions in which those three (Dick, Carmine, and Steve) tried to hammer out various details, come up with character names and series titles, etc., culminating in the basic creation of Beware The Creeper and “The Hawk and The Dove.” The final step, at least as far as those bird-brained extremist brothers were concerned (I have no idea how things were worked vis-à-vis Denny and The Creeper), was (even though just about everything had already been worked out) one more plotting session, and this time even the geek who’d be scripting the book (i.e., me) was invited to attend. I made basically one contribution to the make-up of these characters. The other three had been wracking their brains, trying to come up with a magic word (something similar to “Shazam”) that these two bozos could shout in order to transform into their super-selves; I suggested that they simply shout “Hawk!” and “Dove!” respectively. Exactly why I was chosen to write these purportedly explosively political misadventures of the Hall brothers and their father, the judge, while Denny was given the Creeper book to do, I have no idea. Perhaps with my long hair, paisley poncho, and hippie demeanor I made a better token peacenik (supposedly needed to offset Ditko’s well-known Ayn Rand-style raving conservative lunacy) than the clean-cut O’Neil would have. In any event, in any argument concerning these characters and their storylines, I didn’t stand a chance, seeing as I wasn’t just up against Ditko—Dick and Carmine were nearly as conservative as Steve was, and all three of them had no idea what a dove was. Whenever I’d have Don do something brave, something gutsy (while at the same time not doing anything to compromise his anti-violence stance), I’d wind up being told by one or two or all three of these protectors of the status

The Unique Voice And Vision Of Steve Skeates In The Silver Age

quent issue, I began to build Don up into something that much more realistically resembled a dove! The same old problems were still there, though. For example, in the tale in question (#4, which was the fifth issue), I had The Dove break into the bad guy’s home, while The Hawk said, “Hey, you can’t do that; you’re breaking the law!” Despite what I considered to be the obvious fact that breaking into a house hardly goes against a peacenik’s anti-violence beliefs, Dick (as usual) decided this was out of character for The Dove, and, without consulting me about it, switched the characters here, had The Hawk do the breaking in and The Dove be the one who brought up the law! Yep, despite my attempts to change things, the book was still essentially The Hawk and The Wimp! JS: Unlike in Aquaman and Hawk and Dove, you weren’t the primary scribe on Teen Titans, which instead had a rotating roster of writers. How did you wind up as one of the Teen Titans team? SKEATES: Actually, though the Teen Titans book did seem to have a rotating roster of writers, I became (supposedly) the full-time writer of that book starting with issue #28, said book given to me as a replacement for the cancelled Hawk and Dove. I continued scripting the Teen Titans adventures through the first 14 pages of issue 32, losing this assignment due to Dick Giordano’s departure from his DC editorial position, the book then being given to Murray Boltinoff, who adroitly decided he’d much rather work with Bob Haney than with me, Haney actually scripting those last nine pages of issue 32.

Don’t Call It A Teenage Crunch! Robin and Aqualad in action in Teen Titans #28 (July-Aug. 1970), the first issue scripted by Skeates. Art by Nick Cardy. Thanks to Jim Vandore for the scan from the original comic. All TT stories depicted with this interview are on view in the trade paperback Showcase Presents: Teen Titans, Vol. 2. [©2009 DC Comics.]

quo that this was out of character for The Dove. The way those three “creative geniuses” approached this thing—a book that could have contained a truly interesting dialectical diatribe, but that was far from being what it was actually full of—this series more properly should have been called The Hawk and The Wimp!

I do consider issue 28 (“Blindspot”) to contain one of my best plots ever, and I do indeed love the way Cardy illustrated that baby, yet at the same time I can’t help but feel that that issue became a bit too fannish due to the removal by Dick of certain pieces of dialogue and captions that I purposely put in there in order to make the comic more casual-reader accessible—explanations as to who Sharon and Donna were, stuff like that. Quite definitely, my favorite of my Titans run is issue 30 with its three stories, one being an illustrated text piece. I should, I suppose, mention at this point that there was one more “Titans” piece that I wrote for DC, a “Superman/Titans” team-up I scripted for World’s Finest [#205], edited by Julie Schwartz—in which the villain of the piece, one Richard Handley (a fairly obvious parody of Bob Haney), is shown to be (via mind control) transforming the Titans from thoughtful teens into dumb-headed teenyboppers, an unfortunate change I felt (back at the Titans’ own book) was well under way even as I scripted this particular team-up. JS: Whose idea was it to bring Hawk and Dove into the Teen Titans? SKEATES: Y’know, I really don’t remember if it was Dick’s or my idea to

Ultimately, however, for me, the situation got quite a bit better once Ditko left the book. I was told this was due to Steve becoming physically ill, but I do wonder about that, seeing as there were all sorts of problems going on at that particular point: as but two, neither of Ditko’s books was selling as well as just about everyone had expected, plus the new page size for original art (one and a half up, as opposed to the old two up) which somehow made Jack Kirby’s art look approximately ten times better than ever, seemed to be having the exact opposite effect on Ditko’s stuff. In any event, replacing Steve was Gil Kane, [who was] basically an extremely liberal anti-war Democrat, thus making the situation on that book a bit more “fair and balanced”! Also, since Gil was the new guy whereas I had been with the book since its inception, I suddenly had a lot more power than I had had working with Ditko. Thus, I even attempted to address the “wimp” problem by forcing Don (in the fourth issue, which was #3, the first issue having been a Showcase book) to face, via having just about everything he tried blow up in his face, the fact that he was a wimp rather than the dove he fancied himself to be; then, in the subse-

The Teen Titans’ Nest Is Anything But Empty! The Hawk and The Dove showed up in Teen Titans #29 (Sept.-Oct., 1970), and were soon mixing it up with the bad-guys. Art by Nick Cardy. Thanks to Jim Vandore. [©2009 DC Comics.]

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toss The Hawk and The Dove into Teen Titans #29, and (for whatever it’s worth) I doubt that Dick remembers, either. I can tell you that issue 29 is my least favorite of the Titans books I worked on, so it could be that I just plain conveniently put any and all thoughts about that issue straight out of my mind—in order, one might suppose, to make more room for happier remembrances! As for bringing The Hawk and The Dove back for a solo backup appearance in issue 31, though—now, that was my idea!

“My Desperation To Make Some Sort Of A Living Writing Comics” JS: Six “Kid Flash” tales you wrote appear as back up features in The Flash. Were these tales originally intended for Teen Titans, or did Julius Schwartz assign them to you? SKEATES: “Kid Flash”? Well, in all honesty, my bunch of stories here grew out of my desperation to make some sort of a living writing comics once Dick had left his editorial position, Aquaman had been cancelled, and Titans had been given to Haney. Since I was familiar with the character (and had even written that aforementioned text piece for Teen Titans #30, in reality a Kid Flash solo adventure), I went to Julie Schwartz with the suggestion that I write “Kid Flash” back-ups for the Flash book and somehow even talked him into letting me do these usually 7-page stories on spec. This led to Julie turning a couple of my efforts down flat, yet this was still my preferred way of working, just sitting down at the typewriter with an idea half-worked-out and letting the plot develop as I went along. There was (on the other hand) one story that I had originally done as a Teen Titans piece, but it wasn’t an unsold story. I had actually already sold the script for what would turn out to be “Is This Poison Legal?” [The Flash #211] to Dick Giordano, who had put it on the back burner somewhere mainly because we had already done (in his opinion) too much socially conscious stuff, and he wanted me to come up with some pure outlandish fantasy first—hence “A Mystical Realm, a World Gone Mad” [Teen Titans #32-33]). Undoubtedly, the original version of “Poison” had been given to Murray Boltinoff once Dick departed, and Murray, being busy concocting new stuff with Haney, had probably tossed it onto some back shelf somewhere, most likely without even reading it. So I figured nobody would be the wiser if I sold the same story (albeit pared down a bit to fit into a mere seven pages) to DC all over again. However, Dick (who, as I just mentioned, had bought the original version of this story) wound up inking the new version, realized what I had done, and (from what he later told me) got quite a chuckle out of it! JS: What other books did Dick Giordano have you working on during his brief stay as an editor at DC? I think I saw your name credited in a few issues of The Witching Hour and Debbi’s Date….

”Is This Poison Legal?” So asked Steve Skeates in the “Kid Flash” story in The Flash #211 (Dec. 1971). Pencils by Dick Dillin; inks by Dick Giordano. As John Schwirian describes that issue’s main stories: “The Flash dons roller skates to capture an alien posing as a roller derby queen while Kid Flash has to deal with a poultry farmer using unhealthy chemicals to produce plumper chickens that make the local townsfolk ill upon consumption.” Thanks to Mark Muller. [©2009 DC Comics.]

JS: Some would say that the move to DC was your big break, that you’d finally made the big time. Yet, around this time, your personal life hit a major setback when you and your wife split. Did your writing help you through this rough time?

here, yet one thing I did in that farmhouse out there in the middle of nowhere (technically the place was called Howard, NY, an extremely sparsely populated depressed dirt farming community some 300 miles from New York City—and, believe it or not, I was paying $50 a month rent for that nice solid sturdy farmhouse and that ten acres which helped a lot in keeping me isolated from everything but my typewriter)—one thing that helped keep me relatively sane, is that I totally immersed myself in my work, churning out script after script after script, working for both DC and Charlton. In fact, the most recent issue of Charlton Spotlight [#5] contains an 8-page article by yours truly concerning the bizarre and revelatory nature of a certain 11-page “Dr. Graves” story I wrote while locked away in that farm house, an M.T. Graves epic which incidentally ultimately got illustrated by the aforementioned Steve Ditko. There were several other times as well when my life was pretty much a mess, yet falling back and into my writing kept me somehow halfway with-it and quite nicely productive.

SKEATES: When my wife (with my daughter in tow) left and got her own apartment in nearby Andover, NY, I was left alone in the two-story farmhouse (plus ten acres of land) that we had been renting and which I continued to rent, despite the fact that this was way too much home for just this one person! Yes, there was a bit of my life falling apart happening

Furthermore, I’ve even begun to suspect it may well be impossible to write such weirdly interesting stuff whilst one is perfectly happy, which may mainly mean that I really don’t wanna write that sort of stuff anymore, yet I am (and shall certainly remain) damn proud of what I did write during these various intense periods of my life!

SKEATES: You hit the nail directly upon its shiny head. I did a lot of work for both those books, in order to supplement my income, often on spec (i.e., simply turning in an already finished script rather than first getting plot approval) and most of it uncredited. I even did a theme issue of Witching Hour concerning the polar extremes co-existing within most members of mankind, an issue consisting of three stories with “Double” in their titles. And, for Debbie’s Dates, I even created a couple of the running characters there—Harold Highborne and Bernard Barndoor.

The Unique Voice And Vision Of Steve Skeates In The Silver Age

And The Last Shall Be… Last Art from a trio of last DC issues scripted by Steve Skeates. Thanks to Mark Muller for all three scans. [©2009 DC Comics.] (Above:) The final page of Teen Titans #32 (March-April 1971) scripted by Steve. New writer Bob Haney had to pick it up from there, next issue. Pencils by George Tuska; inks by Nick Cardy. (Top right:) Aqualad and Aquagirl face the Cave of Death on the last page of Aquaman #56. Art by Jim Aparo. (Right:) An exciting Jerry Grandenetti-Murphy Anderson page scripted by Skeates for The Spectre #8 (Jan.-Feb. 1969).

JS: Originally, you received all your DC assignments from Dick Giordano. How did his quitting DC in 1970 affect your career there? SKEATES: No doubt about it—Dick’s departure from his DC editorial position quite effectively screwed me over, not that any of us had much of an inkling that this was about to occur. Sure, we all might have guessed that once the Teen Titans were given to Murray to edit, he’d immediately remove me from the book, replacing me with Bob Haney, whom Murray felt more comfortable working with, and all of that (once it became a reality) rather put the kibosh to the thoughtful coming-of-age teens Dick had been busy (with the help of Kanigher and myself, among others) transforming those kids into (in an attempt to be one with the tempo of the times, to be a part of that crazed allconsuming youth culture of the ’70s)—a giant step backwards then, seeing as (in more than merely my own opinion) Haney had a tendency to treat these characters like some sad silly batch of brainless teenyboppers (perhaps a bit of evidence as to Haney’s dismal view of the future, although I also suspect in there an arrogant reaction to Haney himself losing work to a number of far younger writers—was he even smirking a bit seeing as in this particular case he had ever so slightly turned the tables?)! Furthermore, even though he was leaving, Dick wanted to keep the

The Silver Skeates

the nifty ghostly super-hero tome I unfortunately only got to write one issue of, and then the cancellation of even that anthology version a mere two issues later, thus drying up yet another possible market for my scripting efforts) forced me to flail about, desperately looking for work outside of DC and within that company, as well. The latter included stuff like “Kid Flash” back-ups and wild World’s Finest team-ups and then finally lots of work with Joe Orlando, whereas the non-DC material consisted not only of the occasional bit of business for Marvel and that fairly large heap of storytelling for the folks at Warren, but also an issue and a half ’s worth of humor pieces for a magazine called Blast—that’s quite a number of pages of pieces I got paid for, even though that magazine folded prior to any of my stuff getting published)! JS: You had a story published by Marvel in Tower of Shadows #6 [1970], and then nothing more for them until several years later. Why the big time gap? SKEATES: “The Scream from Beyond” in Tomb of Shadows was merely a dialoging job (the plot, as I recall, was Gene Colan’s own), and jobs like that were few and far between! Also (although my memory isn’t all that clear concerning the events surrounding this particular story), I quite likely didn’t actively pursue getting further Marvel “mystery book” work, mainly because I felt that the Marvel method (plot, then art, then script), while great for super-heroes, didn’t work at all for mystery stuff. ’Twas my opinion (and still is, actually) that these sorts of stories rather demand that the writer be in control of the flow, not the artist! Generally, to me, Marvel mystery stuff came off as too rambling, too out-of-focus, and often with too much of the action crammed onto the last page! Every once in a while I’d pick up some work for one or another of the Marvel mystery books (the color stuff and sometimes even the black-&-whites), yet, all in all, I never really enjoyed writing for those books and was very rarely pleased with the way my work there would turn out.

“Cocktails On The Balcony” JS: How did you get started at Warren Publishing?

“Scream” Door This story in Tower of Shadows #6 (July 1970) could’ve been Steve’s entry back into Marvel… but it proved only a brief stopover. For one reason why penciler Gene Colan, rather than scripter Skeates, is talking to the reader, see Steve’s commentary. [©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Aquaman book going, wanted to edit it on a freelance basis. However, Carmine, who had had problems with Dick—for example, a big argument over the cover to Aquaman #43 which Carmine had designed while Dick was on a vacation and in doing so had broken one of Dick’s primary editorial rules, that the cover of a book should not emphasize a scene that isn’t even in the story itself—figured Dick would be even harder to deal with as a freelance editor, and therefore (despite sales figures that weren’t really all that bad) he cancelled the book! Thus, I had lost my two main sources of income, plus (as I later was informed by a number of usually reliable sources), in trying to decide what sort of work he might be able to nudge in my direction, Carmine actually read my last issue of Aquaman (“The Creature that Devoured Detroit!”), was confused by the whole thing, and therefore hated it! So, instead of finding me work, he let it be known to all the editors up there how he felt about that particular story, thus (obviously) making things even harder on me! All in all, then, and until I started getting some work from Joe Orlando (and started winning awards—which immediately put me back in Carmine’s good graces), more than a few decidedly lean months for this particular raconteur due to Dick’s departure. JS: This necessitated looking to sources of income outside of DC? SKEATES: Yes, indeed, Dick’s departure (plus first the transformation of the Spectre book into but another silly ghostly anthology as opposed to

SKEATES: I remember a party, cocktails on the balcony of James Warren’s New York City high-rise apartment, with Warren himself trying to woo Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams, and myself into doing some work for his magazines! Denny and Neal weren’t all that impressed—they both had extremely limited interest in horror or in short little self-contained stories of any sort, preferring super-heroes and liking to spread their stuff way out, in issue after issue after issue, which after all was a much more profitable way to work! Meantime, although I had produced a number of story arcs for a number of continuing characters (“Aquaman,” “Blackhawk,” “Lt. Larry Rock”), I often found self-contained stories featuring no continuing characters at all to be an even more satisfying means of making some sort of a statement. And I did indeed miss writing for the Dr. Graves book at Charlton. Therefore, something like a week (or so) after that cocktail party, I showed up at the offices of Warren Publishing with a couple of fully scripted horror stories in hand. JS: Wait a minute! “Lt. Larry Rock”? Sgt. Frank Rock I know, but who or what was Lt. Larry Rock? SKEATES: Ah-ha, never heard of Larry Rock, eh? Well, actually, I hadn’t heard of him, either, when all of a sudden I got asked if I’d like to write a three-part back-up feature in Unknown Soldier starring this Lieutenant dude! As I recall, Lt. Larry Rock was created some time earlier by none other than Robert Kanigher, and (this part I do know for sure) he was the brother of Sgt. Rock—Larry operating in the Pacific Theatre during WWII, whereas the Sarge, of course, was doing his thing in Europe. The gimmick: Larry had a piece of shrapnel lodged in his brain, which would make him go all kill-crazy (while seeing everything in shades of red) whenever he would get excited. I kid you not! JS: How did you get your assignments at Warren? Were they commis-

The Unique Voice And Vision Of Steve Skeates In The Silver Age

sioned or freelance? And how was it decided as to which magazine a story would appear in? SKEATES: Until early 1973, when I started doing a number of continuing series for Eerie and Vampirella (“The Mummy Walks,” “This Unholy Creation,” and “Pantha”), all my stuff for Warren was done on spec, and, though I would sometimes gear a story for a certain book (like one could generally count on—via adding a dash of sexual tension to a story—that that tale would wind up in Vampirella), otherwise I had no control over which magazine one or another of my yarns would end up in. Furthermore, even those aforementioned series were basically done on spec. Sure, the Warren honchos would know in advance what characters I’d be writing about, and they’d be well aware that my current submission would be a continuation of that series’ previous episode, yet they’d have no idea (until they actually read the said submission) where exactly I was gonna take that character (whichever character we’re talking about here) next. JS: What made the stories you wrote for Warren different from the tales you submitted to the DC, Marvel, and Charlton mystery titles? SKEATES: Well, okay, okay, to put it succinctly—the big difference (and this was rather a big deal back in the ’70s) was the lack of censorship, the fact that the Warren publications were essentially in black-&-white, that

these publications were a bit larger than your average comic book, and that they carried a heftier price tag—all of that somehow made for the Warren books being exempt from squirming beneath the watchful nit-picking heavyhanded thumb of that bluenosed organization known as the Comics Code Authority. Therefore, what got produced at Warren could actually be horror stories, rather than those watered-down variations known as “mystery stories,” The Warren Report rather weak-kneed entities Publisher James Warren in the mid-1960s. which were as far as regular This photo appeared in the 2001 book comics were allowed to go The Warren Companion, edited by David back then! In other words, Roach & Jon B. Cooke. With thanks to both, and to Gentleman Jim. story-wise at Warren we could do more sex, more violence, more death, more nudity—all sorts of nifty stuff! JS: Did you create the character of Pantha, or take over a pre-existing series? SKEATES: Mostly, in comics, one co-creates rather than being the sole creative force of any series—the writer coming up with the backstory, an artist devising the visual aspects. In this particular instance, I was handed by then-Warren editor Bill DuBay a drawing and a name—a young woman looking both kittenish and cat-like, and the title Pantha, as depicted by the artist Auraleon. Dube inquired whether or not I’d like to come up with a series based upon said material, suggesting that I could basically do with it as I wished. I still very much like what I devised here, an actuality that can’t help (I suppose) but make me overly chagrined by the manner in which this character was subsequently twisted all about in a rather untoward fashion by other writers. Only the first four episodes of this series were mine, and then not entirely mine, seeing as (after scripting the opening episode) I enlisted the uncredited aid of Mary Skrenes in order to give this series more of a feminine perspective, Mary writing the first draft of episodes 2 and 4, the idea being that Mary (who

The Pink Pantha & Friend (Left:) “Pantha” splash page from Warren’s Vampirella #13 (April 1975). Script by Skeates; art by Auraleon. Thanks to Mark Muller. [© the respective copyright holders.] (Right:) Warren Publishing presented its own Warren Awards between 1970 and 1981, honoring the best work done for the company in the previous year. Steve received one in 1974 (“coincidentally,” John Schwirian says, “following his Shazam Award for “The Poster Plague”). Skeates was, John points out, “one of the most prolific Warren writers, tying Doug Moench for 8th place.” [©2009 the respective copyright holders.]

The Silver Skeates

didn’t want her name on these stories because she didn’t want James Warren or anyone else to know she was working for him) would continue to essentially write every other chapter. Unfortunately, other forces (to be delved into within my answer to your second inquiry) intervened, and abruptly my co-creation was handed over to some other scribe, an “author” who immediately deep-sixed all the subtle ideas Mary and I had going in favor of a rather crude approach which even seemed to approve of the streak of racism that Pantha suffered from. In any event, what I liked here were the rather enigmatic aspects I set in motion within the aforementioned first episode—the main character puzzled by the persistent memories of events that had occurred before she was even born, Pantha possessing neither an understanding of nor control over her bizarre transformations (let alone any direct knowledge of what happens while she’s transformed), whereas (downright amazingly) her life has been such that she rather immediately actually likes (enjoys, even relishes) what is happening to her! Even though I’m quite proud of what I set in motion within this initial chapter, it is actually the third episode that’s my own personal favorite, and I do believe this episode contains Auraleon’s best artwork, as well! Too bad, then, that DuBay had to fool around with this chapter, even changing the order of pages and thereby making the opening scenes pretty much incomprehensible!

“Joe [Orlando] Rescued Me” JS: Why did your work stop appearing in Warren titles? SKEATES: Yes, indeed, why did I suddenly stop working for Warren? The answer of course lies within the behavior of one Bill DuBay! Dube had been a nice guy and someone it was fun to work for—back when he considered himself to be an artist. But once he realized (or perhaps merely wrongfully concluded—I really don’t wanna jump to any sort of conclusion my own self here!) that his artwork sucked and decided to concentrate instead upon writing, he somehow immediately concluded that he was greatest author the world had ever known, and became unbearable to work for! Al Milgrom, who had been writing the “Werewolf ” series, quit in disgust right when he was about to receive the 1973 Warren Award as the best writer of the year; DuBay quickly re-wrote the two-page award report that appeared in all three of Warren’s horror mags, giving the best writer award to me instead, citing “The Mummy” as the main reason why I had won that award. Then, when Warren put out a collection of all my (and Jaime Brocal’s) “Mummy” stories, DuBay took it upon himself to completely rewrite my first chapter of that series, moving the action from the Boston area to Egypt, even though much of the subsequent action took place in a forest which now apparently was strangely located somewhere in Egypt! In short, DuBay was totally out of control. The up-shot came when DuBay purchased a three-part series entitled “The Fourth Coming” from Mary and myself, and then decided it was too controversial to publish (it did deal with the fourth coming of Christ). To make up for having paid me for something Warren wasn’t going to use, he decided he wasn’t going to pay me for the three most recent chapters of “The Mummy” I had turned in! By then, I had truly had it with him; therefore, though knowing this would, in effect, totally sever my relationship with Warren, I went to ACBA—the Academy of Comic Book Art, more or less the comic book writers’ and artists’ union—and had them force Warren to pay me for those three scripts! And, since by then I was getting all sorts of work writing for Plop! and for “Supergirl” [in Adventure Comics], I was indeed quite happy (and then some!) to no longer have to put up with DuBay!

A Cup O’ Joe (Left:) DC editor Joe Orlando at the 1973 ACBA Awards Banquet. He won a Shazam that night, as well, as editor of the humor story “The Poster Plague!”—which appeared in House of Mystery rather than in a humor comic. From The ACBA Newsletter, Vol. 1, #21, with thanks to Flo Steinberg. (Above:) Steve worked with ornate Filipino artist Alfredo Alcala on several stories for DC, including this one from House of Secrets #117 (March 1974). Thanks to Mark Muller. [©2009 DC Comics.]

JS: Meanwhile, back at DC, after Infantino expressed his dislike for your work, it was editor Joe Orlando who came to your rescue? SKEATES: In other words, now you know exactly what it was that Joe rescued me from! Interestingly enough, it was a script I had written for Warren, a little something called “The Poster Plague,” a story DuBay had said “No way!” about, so I next took it to Joe, unaware that this was, in fact, just the sort of thing Joe was looking for, something that Sergio Aragonés could illustrate, something to employ as the new basis for what at that time was being called Zany but, thanks to a certain sound effect within my story, would soon be called Plop! (which, as the book of parodies of various DC comics it had originally been conceived of as, was basically just lying there, flat, uninteresting, uninspired, and going nowhere), that was extremely instrumental in reviving my career! That is to say, once “The Poster Plague” was published [in House of Mystery], and especially once it won the Shazam Award as the best humor story of the year, I was definitely back in Carmine’s good graces, was once again a DC writer in good standing, and could forget all about that insanity known as Warren Publishing (which had always been a little wacky, but at this point—as I’m sure I’ve just now sufficiently pointed out—was far, far worse than it had ever been!)!!

The Unique Voice And Vision Of Steve Skeates In The Silver Age

JS: Before we dive into Plop!, I’d like to talk about Joe Orlando a bit. He sent a lot of work your way, which appeared in Adventure Comics, House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Weird Mystery, Secrets of Haunted House, Secrets of Sinister House, Weird War, Star Spangled War, and Young Love, among others. What was Joe like to work for? How did he compare to Giordano? SKEATES: At times working with Joe could be quite a lot of fun; practically simultaneously, however, it could also be quite utterly maddening— much of both of those two extremes being due to the fact that Joe was rather in way over his head vis-à-vis being an editor. That actuality, in fact, stands firmly in place as the underlying basis of all the major differences betwixt working for Joe and working for Dick Giordano. Dick was a much better editor; he understood the characters he was working with, had great ideas as to where certain series should head, was willing to fight for his ideas, and even understood his own limitations (a rarity not just among editors but amongst everyone who worked in comics back then, and I have a sneaky suspicion that things today haven’t changed all that much, especially along those particular lines!). Within that latter category, Dick knew that he wrote terrible dialogue, stuff that in no way sounded like the way people actually talk. This is one of the main reasons Dick never tried to curb my tendency to overwrite—he’d much rather cut out large blocks of my copy than have to add anything in there himself, knowing that usually whenever he’d add in something it’d sound unnatural, grating, and just plain bad. Actually, now that I think about it, underneath it all, Joe may have understood his own limitations, as well— it’s just that he had so many more than Dick possessed, and, rather than trying to work around them, Joe was generally busy trying to cover his up.

The Misunderstood Monster Strikes Again! Of this sequence drawn by veteran Bernard Baily (artistic co-creator of Hour-Man and The Spectre back in the ’40s), Steve told John on another occasion: “I do believe [the problem I had with editor Joe Orlando concerning the “Spawn of Frankenstein” series was caused by] the chapter in which the Frankenstein Monster accidentally kills (via smashing her head into a tree) the young woman he’s trying to save. The very scene I just described may, however, not seem to be there, seeing as (as I recall) the artist had this rather happening off-panel, whereas Joe… had taken out my caption which emphatically explained what had just happened!” From Phantom Stranger #28 (Dec. 1973-Jan. 1974). [©2009 DC Comics.]

The truth of the matter, though, is that I’m having a hard time comparing and contrasting these two editors, mainly because a myriad of changes had occurred within my own self between when I worked closely with Dick (and that would be mainly my Charlton days; while working with Dick at DC, I was living out of town—some 300 miles from the city—a fact which severely limited the face-to-face contact with each other the two of us could have) and when I worked for Joe. I was young, innocent, energetic, and optimistic when I worked for Dick (and I’ve often figured that this helps explain the success of my Aquaman stories— they were written during a period when I still quite honestly believed in the possibility of there actually being super-heroes), but, by the time I started working for Joe, enough had happened to me within the wonderful world of comics itself to make me bitter and cynical (better suited, then, for writing humor and horror, rather than superdudes!). Although I do tend to see Aquaman and Teen Titans (as well as various pieces I produced for Charlton) as being the best comic book writing that ever flowed forth from this particular individual, I do find it interesting that it was during a period when I was quite disillusioned, quite cynical (i.e., while I was working for Joe) that I seemed to hit the pinnacle of my success, complete with muchos ego-massaging, winning five ACBA Shazam Awards, all mainly for work I did for Joe. And I’m talking here in large part about the phenomenal success of Plop!, a book based on a story of mine and for which I became the main writer, a book which nicely captured the cynical tempo of the early ’70s—Watergate, the hearings, the revelations, all of it leading ultimately to the resignation of a President.

“I Quite Often Quite Enjoyed Writing That Series” So says Steve of “Supergirl”—and we hope that included this splash for Adventure Comics #424 (Oct. 1972). Pencils by Tony DeZuniga, inks by Bob Oksner. Thanks to Mark Muller. [©2009 DC Comics.]

Yet, I suppose I should also mention here my work on “Supergirl,” seeing as I quite often quite enjoyed writing that series, although it could be all over the map, what with stories plotted by others (Marv Wolfman and E. Nelson Bridwell) as well as myself—fun stuff, though, with, I suspect, more than hint of a cynical edge to it, like the one in which

The Silver Skeates

Yet, on the other hand, I remember well one evening when Joe and I worked late into the night, rewriting, polishing, bouncing ideas off each other, trying to transform Mike Sekowsky’s artwork based on a way-toofannish Marv Wolfman plot outline, trying to force that thing (it became the lead story in Adventure #421) into somehow becoming an actual workable, downright readable story. That was a truly creative fun time, and (quite honestly) a memory I’ll treasure forever. JS: Seeing as how Marv Wolfman’s script for Adventure #421 was problematic, were there similar problems with his “Vigilante” story for Adventure #417 (which you scripted)? SKEATES: Nope. That “Vigilante” tale was an easy-as-pie example of what is usually referred to as the Marvel approach to comic book construction—in large part due to Gray Morrow doing such a great job of pictorially telling Marv’s story. In “Demon Spawn,” however, Sekowsky saw the potential for something in there that Marv in no way was emphasizing (i.e., all sorts of sexuality), and he decided to go for it in a big way (with the theft of Supergirl’s powers turned into an obvious rape scene, the hero of the moment saving Supergirl by replacing the villain, the rape thereby replaced with consensual sex but with this super-being’s loss of virginity still being the main thing, still going on, faster, harder, ever onward, leading to an explosive orgasm, plus lots of heavy breathing throughout!).

Vigilante Justice Splash panel of the “Vigilante” story from Adventure Comics #417 (March 1972). Plot by Marv Wolfman; script by Steve Skeates; art by Gray Morrow. Thanks to Greg Huneryager & Peter Duxbury. [©2009 DC Comics.]

Supergirl (albeit downright symbolically) loses her virginity, and (my own personal favorite) the final one I wrote, in which Linda angrily and emphatically quits her job at the TV newsroom. Anyway, since I mentioned before how maddening working for Joe could sometimes get, I suppose I should relate at least one story that’ll stand as rather a microcosm for much of what went on back during that period. This little tale aptly demonstrates how Joe’s opinions about certain things would fluctuate all over the place (depending upon the time of day or some such regulatory agency I was blissfully unaware of), and it concerns that silly back-up series in Phantom Stranger known as “Spawn of Frankenstein.” Reading over one particular episode of that series, Joe decided that I had explained within my dialogue and captions too much of what was happening—it was the old deal about, why tell the reader about something he can see for himself in the artwork? So, Joe chopped out a large chunk of what I had just labored over script-wise, whereupon, unfortunately, the artist didn’t show the reader as much as Joe had expected him to show. But somehow Joe didn’t notice how egregiously the artist had stumbled, and therefore he (Joe) allowed the story to be published even though, as things now stood, it was totally impossible to follow or otherwise make any sense out of the damn thing. And, subsequently, did Joe remember that he had cut out a large amount of my copy? Nope. Instead, he now started complaining about my writing (especially in that particular story) as being too sparse!

I personally thought where Mike had taken this story was rather a hoot, and therefore (egged on by Cary Bates, with whom I was sharing an office at that moment) I tried to make the captions and dialogue just as sexy as Sekowsky’s drawings. This caused problems for Joe, who was up against an increasingly impending deadline anyway. He wanted to tone down the sexual nature of the wordings I had employed mainly so he wouldn’t get in any trouble, and he asked me to help him do so. What we were mainly doing late into the night, then, was revamping my script, my first draft thereof, with Joe trying to dampen down the sex and me trying like anything to preserve as much of my rather joyfully sexual original as I possibly could. Sounds like we were at cross purposes here, and therefore this whole thing should never have worked as well as it did. Still, I had a great time polishing, rewriting, and even making things a tad more subtle, and I do believe Joe was as pleased with the end result as I was. JS: You said that you won five Shazam awards, but I thought you only won four. What was the fifth one? SKEATES: To adroitly attack your inquiry, let me just say: Oops! You’re right! ’Twas four, not five! And, to perhaps unnecessarily elaborate a bit further—one might well, within any case such as this, surmise, I suppose, that the subject’s memory (aided and abetted by that individual’s enormous ego in full out-of-control delusions of grandeur mode) had at one point or another taken it upon itself to play things rather fast and loose vis-à-vis whatever facts were available here—an actuality which in turn is even now causing yours truly to search the insides of this particular cranium for a couple of clues as to where this unwarranted 20% increase may have had its origins, only to recollect that in my second year of ACBA prize-winning I was nominated for three awards, whereas I only copped two of ‘em! The Shazam that didn’t quite click was for something called “Swamp-God” (illustrated by Alfredo Alcala and based on a really nifty plot idea submitted by some kid named Jacobson). I certainly had high hopes for this baby, considering that all my other awards were for humor, while this magilla was perfectly serious (featuring the death of a child, and the cute little animals responsible ultimately having their souls torn to shreds), hoping that by winning here I’d be more able to convince editors that I could (whenever needed) write something other than just another side-splitting laugh-riot. Yet our yarn was up against something produced by Goodwin and Simonson, both rather at their peak, so we really didn’t stand all that much of a chance.

The Unique Voice And Vision Of Steve Skeates In The Silver Age

“Things I Enjoyed Writing Even More Than Super-Heroes” JS: While working for Joe Orlando, most of your work was for mystery (horror) titles, with an occasional dabble into super-heroes. Was it your choice to avoid super-heroes, or did you want to write “Superman,” “Batman,” or other “big name” super-heroes?

both The Spectre and Teen Titans. I may even at that point have consciously decided never again to invest so much of myself in any one character, never again to try to make some character mine and mine alone! At least not a hero! However, I did subsequently enjoy playing around with certain anti-heroes—“The Mummy,” “Pantha,” “This Unholy Creation”—perhaps because these sorts of characters appealed to the disillusionment, the bitterness, the cynicism that experience (the annihilator of innocence) had provided me with.

SKEATES: It was Stan Lee’s mid-’60s approach to writing super-heroes that got me interested in comics in the first place, Marvel ultimately becoming the first comic book company I worked for, as Stan’s assistant. Of course, Stan wasn’t quite ready as soon as I got there to New York City (my having been hired over the phone while living in Alfred, New York) to plunk some huge pile of super-hero writing work atop my desk. Instead, my job initially consisted of proofreading (which I was relatively terrible at), doing art corrections (which I was absolutely terrible at), and writing Westerns (which, in all honesty, I wasn’t half-bad at). Still, one need only take a good look at the first Western I both had a hand in the plotting of and did all the scripting for—Kid Colt #127, “Iron Mask and His Circus of Crime,” co-plotted by Roy Thomas—to get it shouted right in your face just how much into super-heroes I at that point happened to be, trying like anything (assisted by Roy) to transform this wandering youthful owlhoot’s antics into something downright super-heroic! Unfortunately, it would be eight years before I’d actually get my chance to write a Marvel super-hero, yet I did definitely get my super-hero fix a tad prior to that, writing for Tower and even trying to make Lightning my sole property soon upon receiving my walking papers from Stan and his cohorts. It was at Charlton (where I went after the collapse of the Tower) that I learned that there were other things I enjoyed writing perhaps even more than super-heroes—ghostly stuff, humor, and Westerns that had a hard and brooding edge to them (making those Marvel sagebrush sagas I had cut my teeth on seem like kiddie Westerns in comparison). Then, finally, ultimately, I got my big fat chance to write one truly humongous load of super-hero adventures once the big leap from Charlton to DC became a reality—Aquaman, Hawk and Dove, Teen Titans, Spectre—and, in so doing, truth be told, I was quite honestly surprised by how deeply I could still get into this sort of stuff, and how utterly enjoyable (even at this late date) doing what I had originally set out to do could be! Was I setting myself up for a big fall? In retrospect, I can now quite sincerely say, “Could be!” That is to say, after three years of working on Aquaman, I had invested quite a bit (perhaps not even all that consciously) in that character. He had become at once my best friend and my imagined self. And, having that book fold (and for no good reason, and certainly no reason that involved my own self but simply because Infantino and Giordano couldn’t get along) was rather devastating, especially occurring as it did downright concurrently with the loss of

No Kid-ding Around! Ye Editor feels that, since he was involved in the little matter of Kid Colt Outlaw #127 (March 1966), which Steve mentions, it behooves him to stick his own oar in. As Roy recalls it: Only a few weeks into the comic book biz for either of them (though a week or two older for Steve than for Roy), Steve asked RT to work with him on the plot to that “Kid Colt” tale. But it didn’t turn out well, through no particular fault of artist Jack Keller’s. Roy distinctly remembers standing uneasily in Stan’s office one day in late ’65 while Marvel’s editor lambasted the story to him and production manager Sol Brodsky (Steve was apparently not there—he was off staff by then). Stan hated the opening sequence, in particular, where two minor, nondescript baddies jam into each other as they enter a saloon, then slug it out for two pages before Iron Mask (finally) makes his entrance. At one juncture, Roy felt obliged to try to defend one aspect of the story—he forgets which one. Stan turned to him with a withering glance and said icily, “And the less you say at this point, the better!” Roy clammed up. Maybe Stan was right about that tale—and its reception by him certainly didn’t do Steve any good at Marvel—but it still doesn’t seem all that bad to Roy. He’s read—and written—worse. Steve wrote RT a few months back, however, that he knew nothing about that conference. [©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Incidentally, contrary to Steve’s recollections on p. 6, Roy remembers being hired at Marvel not to replace Steve but to complement him. Stan wanted two new assistants/writers, not one—and soon hired Denny O’Neil to fill the spot vacated by Steve.

The Silver Skeates

Yea, Team! Steve did write a number of key super-heroes for DC, though. In World’s Finest Comics #203 (June 1971) he teamed up with Dick Dillin & Joe Giella to script a Superman & Aquaman co-starrer—while in Super-Team Family #3 (Feb-March 1976) he scribed a Flash & Hawkman story with Ric Estrada & Wally Wood. Thanks to Mark Muller. [©2009 DC Comics.]

There are many factors involved, of course, in one’s decision as to whether or not to pursue as the subject of one’s writings some big-name super-hero. Even one’s political beliefs play a role here, the vast number of liberals who joined the comic book industry in the ’60s (writers, mainly) being faced with the problem of chronicling in a positive manner the adventures of characters who came off as self-righteous jack-booted selfproclaimed superior beings. The very reason that Europeans, though they loved American comics, couldn’t warm up to any of our super-heroes (making for lousy European sales for those sorts of comics) is that World War II took place right there where they live, destroying their populations and making their homelands (for quite some time) all but uninhabitable. Therefore, the idea of a benevolent fascist (a rather apt description of your regular ordinary super-hero, if you ask me) was to them not merely an impossibility; it was offensive, as well! And so it was with a number of the more liberal writers who tried like hell to tone down the inherent “might makes right” aspects of the super-heroes they were writing for. To my way of thinking, the secret identity aspect of most of these characters only added to the problem here. A secret fascist, one who couldn’t own up to what he was doing but had to do it on the sly—what does that say? That, in fact, is one aspect of Aquaman I quite enjoyed— that he essentially didn’t have another identity. He may have been Arthur Curry, but not in any of my stories.

“Everything I Had In Mind for ‘Aquaman’” JS: Speaking of “Aquaman,” when he returned to Adventure Comics as a backup feature to “The Spectre,” you wrote the first two stories. Yet, when “Aquaman” was moved to the lead feature, you were replaced as the writer (even though Jim Aparo returned to the art). Why didn’t you write the new series? SKEATES: Before I make the soapbox I was up on previously my home, do allow me to point out that much of what you’re talking about here comes down to decisions made by various editors rather than any decision on my part. It’s all rather similar actually to what had happened to me and The Teen Titans—“Supergirl” changed editors, and, though I would have quite enjoyed continuing to write for that character, the new editor had other ideas. The same was true of “Aquaman”—in fact, in this instance, the editor had decided to write the series himself. He—Paul Levitz—did in fact ask me to write one fill-in issue, and I just re-read that issue (Adventure #449), thus reacquainting myself with the fact that after the experience I had writing this adventure, I no longer wanted to have anything to do with the sea king! It’s not all that bad a story—’twas in fact a variation upon the tale I had originally planned for Aquaman #57—but Paul and I just couldn’t see eye to eye on anything here. He saw my ideas as being too

The Unique Voice And Vision Of Steve Skeates In The Silver Age

clichéd; I saw his as being too fannish! It was a struggle and a half to get it done, and, though I don’t dislike it as much as I did when it was published, I do find that much of my dialogue comes off as stilted, unnatural, and confusing, and all due to various changes Paul made. In any event, I should point out that previously I had taken the job writing the “Aquaman” story that appeared in Adventure #435 in order to prove (to myself as much as anyone else) that I could still write a worthy “Aquaman” tale, and I still believe that I quite nicely accomplished what I set out to do! After that, though, with nothing more to prove, I simply could no longer get into this character. The “Aquaman” adventure in Adventure #436 was a lackluster mess, and, as I just indicated, the one in #449 wasn’t very good either. And, as things stand right now, I’d much rather work to bring back Prince Targo (that extremely sexually-active cross between Aquaman and Aqualad who made the scene in Eerie) than to ever try to write for “Aquaman” again! JS: Seems like I touched a nerve with that last question. SKEATES: Touched a nerve? Mayhaps. The lingering memory of pain and anger undoubtedly getting more than minorly exaggerated due to so many years of practice, exaggeration being rather the keynote of the voice The Comic Book Writer employs, with everything pushed out to the edge, everything being so dire, so crucial, so dramatic and even shrill, whereas, in reality, the death of the Aquaman book (and even my reaction thereto) should perhaps rise to the point of even being something I should be thankful for, providing me with (amongst other stuff) just enough bitterness and cynicism to be the perfect writer for Plop!, the book which essentially

won me all four of my ACBA awards (even though my first Shazam came prior to Plop! even existing, being for the story that was used as the model for that mag), and just in general allowing me to get back into what I had been into at Charlton—i.e., expanding my horizons—furthermore channeling my creativity into some very strange series that I really had a lot of fun writing, the already-mentioned “Mummy” and “Pantha”! Then, there was the flailing about, looking for work, which got me to go to Gold Key, where I wound up writing a veritable truckload of “Underdog” stories—talk about fun stuff to write! Here we had short little super-hero stories with the inherent shrillness thereof thankfully turned down a couple of notches, sort-of gentle tales then, in which (this definitely being the most fun part!) the main character spoke in rhyme! JS: Still, it seems like editorial ego often created problems for you. Like when Aquaman was cancelled, not due to poor sales, but because Giordano resigned and wanted to continue editing Aquaman freelance. Didn’t you get around that by presenting the last of your “Aquaman” plots in the forms of Prince Targo, the Marine Marauder, in Adventure Comics #449, and the last issue of SubMariner [#72]? SKEATES: The question then is, did I (in any event) successfully get around the unnecessary cancellation of the Aquaman book via Prince Targo, Adventure #449, and my off-the-wall Sub-Mariner saga? I would say the answer to that inquiry can’t help but be a resounding Yes and No! Yes, I was able within these various avenues to use up a number of “Aquaman” plots I had sitting there on the back burner, yet often I wasn’t all that pleased with the results, owing in large part to the absence of Jim Aparo! I like a lot of Bruce Jones’ drawings in “Prototype,” the first of my “Targo” tales (this plot having originally been for an “Aqualad” tale rather than an “Aquaman” piece), yet he made certain choices vis-à-vis the look of the characters and the often absent backgrounds that somehow tended to shove said tale (which I admit was already sitting on the edge of utter silliness) over into absolute laughability! I loved Jaime Brocal’s subsequent work on my “Mummy” series, yet his fight scenes in “The Once Powerful Prince” (which should have been my second “Targo” tale, though it somehow wound up being the third) come off as way too repetitive and more like Professional Wrestling than like the powerful (albeit perhaps out of place) fisticuff manner in which I’m sure Jim would have originally drawn this “Aquaman” ditty (had he had the chance)! And, I’ve already discussed my dislike for that Marine Marauder insanity. These last two examples, by the way, were obviously both based on my plot for Aquaman #57, yet neither even came close to working out—an actuality which in no way lessens my belief that in the

Aquaman Revisited? (Left:) Steve describes his story for the “Aquaman” tale in Adventure Comics #436 (Nov.-Dec. 1974) as “a lackluster mess.” But new artist Mike Grell was coming right along—though he’d make more of a mark with “Green Arrow” and Warlord. Thanks to Bob Bailey for the scan. [©2009 DC Comics.] (Above:) After Steve and Aquaman swam their separate ways, the writer adapted his unutilized ideas for the DC sea king into the three “Targo” stories that appeared in Warren Publishing’s Eerie #36, 37, & 40. Art by Jaime Brocal. Thanks to John Schwirian and Jerry K. Boyd. [© the respective holders.]

The Silver Skeates

…And Re-Revisited? Steve got a chance at scripting a third sea monarch when Marvel editor Roy Thomas tapped him to write an issue of Sub-Mariner, probably originally intended to spell Namor’s writer/artist/creator Bill Everett, who had returned to the series with #50. RT even impishly invited Steve to surreptitiously tie up any loose Aquaman threads he might still have floating around. Steve says there weren’t really any such, so he did an all-new story—except that: “Aquaman even makes a guest appearance therein. Of course, you can’t see his face,” but he’s in basically the same room as in the writer’s final issue of Aquaman, and that’s “Aquaman’s [green-gloved] hand as he presses the destruct button. And there’s even one of the sea king’s own balloons from page 20 of Aquaman #56 that’s repeated on page 3 of Sub-Mariner #72.” The appropriate art from Aquaman is printed at right, the Sub-Mariner panels directly below it. Thanks to Mark Muller for the Aquaman scan. The Adkins/Colletta art served the script well, and Steve even used the opportunity to do a bit more socially-conscious haranguing about the environment on page 2, in what he saw as virtually a “parody” of a Namor epic. For reasons long forgotten, alas, the tale wasn’t published for nearly three years, and eventually wound up in an issue with a Sept. 1974 cover date. But alas, by the end of #72, not only the entire population of Marvel’s version of Atlantis but even the Sub-Mariner mag itself finally died a long-lingering death—through no fault of Steve’s. And that, as they say, was that. [Aquaman art & script ©2009 DC Comics; Sub-Mariner art & story ©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

The Unique Voice And Vision Of Steve Skeates In The Silver Age

hands of Dick and Jim this baby would have really sung! On a far more positive note, I love the way “The Other Side of Atlantis” (another that was originally an “Aqualad” plot) turned out—my in-jokes about Carmine, the sexiness Jaime [Brocal] gave to my substitute for Aquagirl, the back and forth (from Aqualad to Aquagirl and back again) storytelling I employed, and the unresolved ending. I am also quite proud of my Sub-Mariner piece (which actually was a brand-new plot, rather than anything I had on that good ol’ back burner), and I was definitely pleased with the way Dan Adkins drew it, although he did take his time on those first three pages and then (as is a little too apparent) rushed the rest! In many ways, this is more a parody of a “Sub-Mariner” adventure than an actual serious saga, and, as such, isn’t that what everyone should have expected the author of Aquaman to do when given the chance to play around with the sea king’s cross-town rather-over-thetop rival? Perhaps more to the point, though, is the fact that I actually didn’t get to use up everything I had in mind for “Aquaman,” yet the way such reworkings as “Prototype,” “Powerful Prince,” and “The Marine Marauder“ turned out quite convinced me that I ought to put the rest of my “Aquaman” ideas right straight out of my mind! Wasn’t totally successful in doing so, however, seeing as I still remember fairly vividly at least two of those notions. One was a sequel to Aquaman #54, in which (instead of a horror story, a primitive super-hero saga, and a Western) I would project Aquaman into three other parodies of typical comic book fare, one being a romance story—but I’m at a loss to remember what the two others would be! My other idea is even further out of state (as we used to say in the ’60s)—an “Aquaman” adventure with enough fist fights in it to allow me to write said adventure in the form of a self-defense manual! JS: At DC, the bulk of your work was done for either Dick Giordano or Joe Orlando, but you did sell scripts to other editors—like Julius

Schwartz. Why is it that you wound up only doing a few assignments for him (Spectre, World’s Finest, “Kid Flash”)? SKEATES: As to my writing but one issue of The Spectre—hey, we’re right back at the cause of something being a book passing from the hands of one editor into the hands of another! In this case, though I had just been chosen as the new writer of The Spectre, sales figures on previous issues of that comic indicated that Julie’s version of this character wasn’t selling well at all, and therefore the book was taken from Julie and given to Dick Giordano. That would have been fine and dandy with me (seeing as I had—need I even point this out?—a long history of having an excellent working relationship with Dick), if only Dick had been able to keep going the adventures of The Spectre. However, Dick was told by his higher-ups to transform said book into but another mystery title, with The Spectre now relegated to now being but a mystery-tale narrator! Blehhh! Meantime, there are a number of factors as to why I didn’t work all that much with Julie. First, there was the initial success of Aquaman which kept me busy on that book, whereas, in the case of O’Neil (for example) who had been given Bomba the Jungle Boy at the same time I got Aquaman, his book folded almost immediately, and since Dick at that moment didn’t have any books he could give Denny to offset the loss of Bomba, the aforementioned higher-ups decided that Julie ought to be the one who’d supply Denny with a replacement! There was also the fact that, almost concurrently with getting that job at DC I had decided to move out of the city, which was fine with Dick; however, Julie tended to have a much more hands-on approach, demanding long plotting sessions between himself and his writers, something I simply wasn’t all that available to be a part of! And, perhaps most significantly, I really didn’t like this approach that Julie had! I had my own ideas and my own bunch of stuff I wanted to pursue, whereas working with Julie one rarely got to write what one wanted to write. Instead, one would wind up writing what Julie wanted you to write! And, though I readily admit that this approach often made for some damn good comics, I just wasn’t all that into that particular way of doing this job!

“Go With Plop!” JS: But, on the other hand, you eventually did land a book that sounds like it was designed around your particular way of writing comics. I’m talking, of course, about Plop! What was the genesis of this rather unique title? SKEATES: Ah yes, the title itself! There undoubtedly were four versions as to how what was originally supposed to be Zany somehow got transmogrified into Plop!, yet now that Joe has sadly passed on, I suppose there are only three versions—Carmine’s, Sergio’s, and Paul Levitz’s. I have heard Paul’s and Sergio’s, but haven’t the slightest idea what Carmine has to say. One thing is clear: these four gentlemen were having a luncheon confab, discussing the success of “The Poster Plague” and attempting to ascertain exactly how this success could and should affect the fate of their (for some time now) faltering idea for a humor comic. They were considering changing the title of the comic, and Carmine (supposedly) said something along the lines of “Well, we can’t call it something silly, like Plop!—you know, that sound effect in that story there!”—whereupon Joe pointed out that the sound effect in “Poster Plague” was “Klop” not “Plop,” causing Paul to say “No, go with Plop! I like that better!” And, of course, Paul knew whereof he spoke—“Plop!” wouldn’t have worked in “The Poster Plague” because there I needed something that wasn’t immediately identifiable as a sound effect—but for the title of a comic, Plop! was perfect. Meanwhile, just to convince Carmine that Plop! might be silly but that it’d work anyway, Sergio was busy drawing sketches of things going “Plop!”—the ice cream falling out of a kid’s cone and going “Plop!” when it hit the ground; a falling tree hitting some idiot, smashing his skull all to

The Silver Skeates

as a showcase for Sergio’s talents and I was merely along for the ride, a point of view that Joe may not have been able to put in so many words yet one he was basically nonetheless way-back-when solidly behind, actively attempting to push however he may have phrased this attitude into the consciousness of everyone within earshot, mainly because such a notion fit in quite nicely with Joe’s rather desperate desire to be seen as the sole creator of Plop!—finally, a chance for Joe to show the world that he did know what he was doing, that he was a worthwhile editor, after all! Additionally, I’d be willing to go along with that particular assessment (the showcase bit) myself, were it not for the inclusion therein of one particular word— “designed.” To me, that specific past participle sticks out like a proverbial sore thumb even as it makes that entire supposition rather utterly invalid. Consider, first of all, that Joe Orlando was in no way, shape, or form connected with the writing of this story, a heartfelt extrapolation of my own college experiences that I first submitted (on spec) to Warren for

The Coming of Klop—Or Is It “Plop!”? (Above:) To quote John Schwirian: “‘The Poster Plague’ (which appeared in House of Mystery #202), expressed an air of paranoia—one that, in the case of this particular story—was well deserved. And so did the coming of Klop wind up setting the tone for a new comic book. Plop!, at least in the beginning, held the basic attitude that all institutions were evil and that the innocent got stepped on. This feeling was not uncommon at the time, as society—still recovering from the Viet Nam War—would now be faced with the implications of Watergate.” [©2009 DC Comics.] (Top right:) At the aforementioned 1973 awards banquet, artist Sergio Aragonés shows off his Shazam Award for “The Poster Plague.” Incidentally, a story from Plop! #1, “The Gourmet,” illustrated by Bernie Wrightson (and also written by Skeates!), would win the 1974 Shazam for Best Humor Story. From The ACBA Newsletter, Vol. 1, #21, with thanks again to Flo Steinberg.

hell with a resounding “Plop!,” etc.—these sketches in fact became the basis for the introductory cartoons Sergio used in the first couple of issues of Plop! JS: Even though “Poster Plague” set the tone and identity for Plop!, is it fair to say that it was really a vehicle designed to showcase Sergio Aragonés and that you were invited along on the ride? SKEATES: You will note that missing from the aforementioned confab in which the fate of Zany/Plop! was all of a sudden decided was one fairly significant creative force vis-à-vis the insane development of this bizarre yet important piece of pop culture, and I do indeed mean my own self— my absence lending more than a dollop of weight to your suggestion that when, all was said and done, “The Poster Plague” was primarily designed

Another Froggy Night Last page of another Skeates story for Plop!—“The Make-Out Queen Of Lord Byron High,” from #16 (Sept. 1975), illustrated by Ric Estrada. With thanks to a donor whse name we unfortunatly misplaced. [©2009 DC Comics.]

The Unique Voice And Vision Of Steve Skeates In The Silver Age

book he was editing was veritably shouting “All institutions are corrupt; it’s the innocent who get stepped on; only the cynical survive!”—it became harder and harder to figure out what buttons to push in order to get Joe interested in a story, seeing as he was apparently pretty much in the dark as to what would make for a worthy Plop! story. The more I think about this, though—finally calming down a bit about the fact that back in the day Joe’s blindness to what I figured were obviously great ideas for stories could be quite intensely maddening— the more I realize that Joe’s inability to hear this voice may actually have been a saving grace. If he had known about it, he may well have pushed that voice too hard, pushed it too far to the forefront, making it louder still, obnoxiously loud. In other words, Joe’s missing the boat may well have worked out to be rather a restraining factor, reining the rest of us in, inadvertently giving the book a well-needed pinch of subtlety that the rest of us (the artists, the writers, etc.) were far, far from being in touch with! See more of John Schwirian’s interview with Steve Skeates in Back Issue #33, on sale a couple of weeks after this issue of Alter Ego!

possible inclusion in Eerie, Creepy, or Vampirella! Once Warren turned it down, seeing it as too much of a humor story and not enough of a horror piece, I next decided to show it to Joe, blissfully unaware at that moment that this was just what Joe was looking for, something he probably would have had his pal John Albano working on had he [Joe] been able to put what he wanted into words, the perfect piece to use as (as you say) a showcase for Sergio! Uh-oh, my often out-of-control ego is even now eager for me to add here an indication of my sincere doubt that Albano could have come up with anything as perfectly fitting as “The Poster Plague” was. Albano, after all, tended to write comedy; whereas I (who, as a rather bookish teenager who practically lived at the local library, simply couldn’t get enough of the wonderful writings of those various early heroes of mine—James Thurber, Wolcott Gibbs, Frank Sullivan, and especially Robert Benchley) was into humor, and that (far, far more than comedy) was what was needed here. JS: Was Plop! finally the vehicle that allowed you to write the types of stories you wanted to write? SKEATES: Hmmm… the sort of stuff this particular correspondent wanted to write—that could be a whole big fat essay in and of itself, rising far above merely the Plop! thing and into the realm of perception vs. reality, of content taking a back seat to form, of the serious neatly wrapped up in a parody package, not to mention (so I won’t) various other bizarre notions. As a matter of fact, though Plop! won me all those awards whilst becoming a truly important comic in that it spoke more clearly than any other graphic publication to the heavy disillusionment, frustration, and cynicism that the good ol’ U.S. of A. was caught up in at that particular moment, I very quickly found this book to be too structured for my taste. As we discussed earlier, I quite preferred working on the Abbott and Costello book where I was given lots more freedom.

(Top left:) In “The City on the Edge of Nowhere” in Aquaman #50 (March-April 1970), Skeates and Aparo depicted the sea sovereign swimming through an underwater forest made up of the names of DC artists, writers, and editors. Steve will talk about many of these—and more!—when this interview continues, in Back Issue #33. Thanks to Mark Muller. [©2009 DC Comics.]

Furthermore, once (like around the second or third issue) Plop! developed its own particular peculiar voice, which Joe somehow never even “heard”—he continued to see the whole thing as some strange and inexplicable combo of humor and horror, missing out on the fact that the

(Above:) The interviewee’s own sketch of himself as the scribe of sea kings— especially of one whose given name is Arthur Curry. For what Steve’s been up to lately, send a buck and a stamp to get two mini-comics and a catalog to: Steve Skeates, 95 Jefferson Avenue, Fairport, NY 14450. Thanks to John Schwirian. [©2009 Steve Skeates.]

Name That Tuna!

“You Two Guys Ought To Do Something Together!” CHARLES SINCLAIR On His Partnership—And Friendship—With BILL FINGER, Co-Creator of Batman Interview Conducted by Jim Amash Transcribed by Brian K. Morris

ongtime Alter Ego readers know that I never miss an opportunity to discuss Bill Finger, co-creator of Batman (as well as of Green Lantern and Wildcat), with those who had known him. A couple of years back, I was talking to Marc Tyler Nobleman about Batman for an upcoming project he was working on, when the subject came around to Mr. Finger. Marc and I both lamented the fact that our knowledge of this important creator was severely limited. Bill Finger died in 1974, giving very few interviews, leaving us with many unanswered questions.

While talking to Marc, I remembered that Finger had a writing partner named Charles Sinclair, and that he had never, so far as we knew, been interviewed on this subject. Marc subsequently found his phone number, passed it on to me, and we both ended up interviewing Mr. Sinclair for our own projects. One of Marc’s projects deals a lot with Finger, in ways this interview does not, as you can see on his website at www.noblemania.blogspot.com. And my project of course, was for Alter Ego. Now, finally, we have Charles Sinclair to tell us about the human side of the man who died without proper due or recompense for his co-creation of Batman and Robin, as well as the many side-characters and villains who populated their fictional adventures. There is more of Bill Finger‘s story yet to be told… but for now, we gratefully thank Mr. Sinclair for his insights and help in fleshing out the biography of one of the most neglected comic book creators in our history. —Jim.

“We Concocted A Script…” CHARLES SINCLAIR: I met Bill Finger around 1949, ’50. He was a friend of the lady I was then married to. Her name was Coral Nieland. She had been working as a secretary at DC Comics, and got to know Bill there. One time, we had a New Year’s Eve party. I was relatively recent to New York City and didn’t know that many people—she knew a lot of people—so she got most of the invitational lists. Coral Nieland was also a

Batman & Bat-Friends Charles Sinclair in 1966 (above) and Bill Finger (date uncertain, below)—flanking Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin from the phenomenally popular TV series of the ‘60s. Photo of Sinclair courtesy of the artist, forwarded by Jim Amash & Teresa R. Davidson. [TV still ©2009 DC Comics.]

part-time actress, and had a minor part on the Superman radio show. I think the character was “Ginger Davis,” a copygirl on The Daily Planet. At any rate, she invited Bill Finger, whom I had never previously met, and his wife. They showed up along with Jerry Robinson and the lady to whom he was married—I believe, at that time, a beautiful blonde model named Leslie. Joe Shuster came, too; it was a very pleasant evening. I got along well with Bill Finger and Portia, and with many of Cory’s friends. Bill was living in Manhattan; I think his address was 45 Grove Street, which was right smack in the middle of the Village, just off Seventh Avenue—as Villagey as you could get. He was an interesting and fun person in kind-of a pixyish way, which would kind-of flash out at you, a “Tom, the fun-loving rover” type. I liked his sense of humor and turn of phrase. I had the initial impression he was self-made and self-educated in many ways, and I think that impression proved to be correct.

Charles Sinclair On His Partnership—And Friendship—With Bill Finger

In The Nick Of Time Nick Carter, Master Detective ran on the Mutual radio network from 1943 through 1955. That’s the series from which the Internet-derived photo above shows Lon Clark voicing the title role, with either Helen Choate or Charlotte Manson as his girl Friday, Patsy Brown. The long-lived hero originated in 1891 (!) in the Nick Carter Detective Library, whose rare first cover is seen at right—while Nick Carter Magazine was a pulp mag in the mid-1930s. In recent years he’s become a “super-agent” in paperbacks. [©2009 the respective copyright holders.]

I had a background in radio. Television was in its infancy around that point, but radio was still rolling along at the time when I met Bill. Originally, I worked as an announcer in Atlanta for a major radio station. I came north to go back to college [Columbia] under the G.I. Bill, and stayed on in New York City. JA: Did you get to know any of the other DC people? SINCLAIR: Not really. I was introduced to Mort Weisinger, who was an editor, and a guy named Dick Rothman, who was the inhouse publicity guy for DC Comics and a friend of my then-wife. Bill and I were not instant buddies, but he was added to our circle of friends, and the four of us did things. We went to Broadway shows, like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. We had a lot of common interests. I don’t know who came up with the idea of “You two guys ought to do something together!“ It just sort-of grew. With the broadcast connections that I had, I turned up a show called Nick Carter, Master Detective on the Mutual Broadcasting System, produced by a guy named Jock MacGregor. Lon Clark was Nick Carter, and was as square as the corners of drugstore ice. He had this charming, very sexy girl [Charlotte Manson] playing Patsy, his right-hand girl. She had all the straight lines: “But, Nick, I don’t understand…” That kind of thing. I had a slight entrée to this show, which was a freelance radio drama show built around a central character. You were not creating a detective, he was already there. It’s like writing another Sherlock Holmes piece. So I suggested to Bill, “We might stand a chance of landing a script on this thing. Would you be interested?” And he was.

So we concocted a script for Nick Carter, Master Detective, which is probably in my files somewhere. Now this is where Bill’s gimmick book came in handy. Bill had a notebook in which he would jot down ideas that might have some use in a detective or “Batman” type of story. There were all sorts of ideas: chemistry things, when you add such-and-such to so-and-so, then you’ve got a reaction, or “often mistaken for such-and-such”type facts, little-known facts; things about artwork and painters, cookery and chemistry and medicine and criminology. Good Lord, ballistics and fingerprints and powder marks on the hand of the person who shot the gun, whatever—Bill had loads of stuff on this, and the tests for it, and what they would show. He would work these things into stories. Well, one of the things he had was some information about jade. Jade is not only found in China, but also way out in Wyoming—a big streak of fairly high quality. The Chinese symbol for “virtue” also is the symbol for “jade,” which was one of his gems that he had down in his book. So we wrote a story about jade being smuggled into New York City by a master criminal we named “Rocks” Malvern, as I remember. Rocks was very, very big on gemstones. Nick Carter finally cracked the case. The way the case was cracked—this is the idea that I added--now you begin to see a partnership forming. Bill came up with the jade subject, and I came up with a “how to locate a town in Wyoming“ idea. They go out on location, and they find this battered truck which had been used to drive around into the mining areas. The truck had a push-button radio, and the push-buttons had the designations for stations, K-something. You know, KOUF or whatever. [NOTE: With few exceptions, radio stations west of the Mississippi River begin their call letters with the letter “K” —Jim.] There were three workable push-buttons on the truck radio. That’s where I came into play, because I used a radio reference book for accuracy. It was alphabetical by states, and then stations within that by towns. I found three Mutual stations forming a triangle, and the truck radio was able to pick up, at one time or another, any one of these three stations. And so the center of the triangle would be the mining area where all this was taking place. Sure enough, we added to the crime lore, and it worked. The stations down the line were tickled to death that they were being mentioned and were instrumental in helping to crack this case. The bad guys were brought to justice, and the jades returned to its owners. JA: What year was this? SINCLAIR: It’s either ’49 or ’50. I don’t think it was ’51. That would be kind-of later on. It’s in that time frame where radio drama was fading away. By ’55, I think Bill and I, as a sometimes writing team, were off into other things that paid more. I think we were paid $300 for it; 150 for Bill, 150 for me. It might have been $600 where it was 3-and-3, I don’t remember now. That was way back. Not a hell of a lot by today’s standards, but we were tickled to death. This was found money, and we all went out to dinner on it, and listened to the broadcast. That started the partnership, and we worked together on and off after that. We did some other radio shows, and then moved over to television. JA: Do you remember what other radio shows you two did together? It would have been a detective series, right? SINCLAIR: Very likely, whatever was open for scripting. We worked on Murder by Experts. We were itching to get in on the TV side of the thing.

“You Two Guys Ought To Do Something Together!”

We were painting pictures with words, and doing our work with music and sound. Bill thought visually, but he was fine at radio writing, too. He couldn’t draw worth a hoot. He was not a trained artist, but he had a very good sense of staging. He was also a great movie fan, usually going by himself, and taking a notebook. He would go to Saturday matinees, and I think when his son Fred was born, Bill would take him to the movies. They would sit through a big double feature, and Bill was taking notes quietly. JA: Jerry Robinson told me that Bill was particularly enamored of foreign films. Do you recall that? SINCLAIR: Yes, I do. Bill was not a linguist, but he liked foreign movies. He liked British detective stories very much—the really neat serious stuff. Bulldog Drummond was a kind of a British Nick Carter. Let me think of some of the movies he liked: Green for Danger, with Alistair Sim, and The Blue Lamp with, I think, John Mills. He liked little murder mysteries with Eric Portman—is that the name I’m trying to think of? Anyway, the actor I’m trying to think of was always playing courtroom dramas where he would level a finger at the accused, and thunder in this wonderful deep Baritone voice of his, [with a British accent] “I put it to you, sir, that your entire testimony is a tissue of lies.” Whammo! [mutual laughter] He used that line in several various movies in various situations. Bill loved courtroom dramas of that ilk—and to some extent, the foreign French ones, which were sometimes pretty good: Diabolique, and movies of that type. JA: How long did you two write for radio? SINCLAIR: As briefly as possible, because we were itching to get into television. Maybe a year or two. We got in on the tail end of radio, and couldn’t wait to get into the TV thing because (A) it was more money, (B) it was more glamour.

“Our First TV Show” JA: Who’d come up with the basic plot? Would one of you fill out a structure to the other to follow? SINCLAIR: Ahh, interesting question. Usually, a TV deal went something like this: I would come up with the opportunity, sniffing it out through connections made as a journalist covering the TV scene, working with various major trade publications, including Billboard, which had a TV section then, competitive with Variety. We met with lots of people who were in the production field in TV. New shows, new things were happening, and we wanted in on it. Our first TV show was, of all things, a series called Foreign Intrigue. Foreign Intrigue was filmed by a guy named Sheldon Reynolds, a New Yorker who was operating in postwar Europe, and shooting his stuff in Sweden, which is a very bilingual country, with Swedish actors. A lot of the people who popped up in Swedish movies spoke very good English, and it was sort of post-World War II European intrigue with hints of the KGB at work. I found the Foreign Intrigue door and pushed it open a bit. Okay, they would at least read our script, so Bill and I got together and wrote an episode. It didn’t have much to revolve around, and this is where Bill’s memory for every damn movie he ever saw came up.

What the producer wanted was a show about a traveling hitman who would float around European capitals, knocking off defectors from an unnamed organization, that was pretty obviously the Russian Secret Service and/or KGB. We needed a villain who could float around, and not be recognized. The person who was being hit might see the face, but then bang, that’s the last one he’s going to see. So Bill came up with the gimmick that solved that one, and the gimmick went something like this: in 1948 or thereabouts, Cecil B. DeMille made a movie called The Greatest Show on Earth, with Betty Hutton, Jimmy Stewart and others. Jimmy Stewart, for some reason or other, was on the lam. He was wanted by police authorities for a crime he didn’t commit, and he was trying to find the evidence to clear his name and was traveling around with the circus. Now why did nobody recognize him at the circus? Because he was a clown. What does a clown wear? JA and SINCLAIR: Makeup! [mutual chuckling] SINCLAIR: Right. So we created a character named Conrad the Clown, who traveled around the European Vaudeville circuit, playing music halls, and all that stuff. He’s got this clown makeup on, and you never see his face. They hired this famous Swedish circus clown, I think, to play him, who was hilarious on stage, and shot it live in front of a big audience in a music hall setting somewhere in Sweden. Then we had some other stuff, other situations in the story where he is knocking off somebody like a professor or physicist or whoever was wavering in his admiration for the Soviet Union. In that time, you see him without his makeup and bang, he shoots the guy. Then, way late in the story, where our hero—who is like a foreign correspondent doing kind-of a detective role here—is talking to Conrad, who is a suspect, in his dressing room. Conrad is busy taking his makeup off, and this made for a very good scene. The scene was intercut, you get shots of Conrad, closeups, white going off in makeup, all that sort of thing. Finally, he turns to the camera and bang! This is the guy who is the hitman. All right, that’s straight out of the Jimmy Stewart swipe from the Greatest Show on Earth. This is our first-time venture into TV, a beautiful black-&-white filmed TV show, shot in Europe. Now the last part of this, because Bill is not the only guy who went to see movies a lot—I came up with a thing. I remembered a movie with Jack Benny and Carole Lombard, To Be or Not to Be, about a traveling troupe of players who were playing in Poland in 1939, and the War is about to break out. This Nazi type is tracked down in the theatre, right? And there is a chase in the theatre, and the guys working the spotlights are following him, running around on the stage, and then out up into the boxes, and running around in the mezzanine. A chase, gunfire, all that sort of thing, in the theater, right? It enormously impressed me. It was terrific direction in that movie by Ernst Lubitsch. So, as the tag for this Foreign Intrigue episode, Conrad the Clown bolts from the dressing room as the police come in, and now the chase is on in the theatre. He’s racing around on stage, then he’s up in the boxes, and he’s running around in the mezzanine, and this is the idea I came up with. So here were two great movie bits welded together with additional dialogue and bingo, we had a script!

Foreign Wide This is probably a still from the early TV series Foreign Intrigue, starring actor Jerome Thor. The series was reportedly filmed in Europe, and indeed was later syndicated in the US as Dateline Europe. [©2009 the respective copyright holders.]

JA: So you were both working out plot and structure, and both of you wrote dialogue? SINCLAIR: Yes, Bill was very good on dialogue because there is no

Charles Sinclair On His Partnership—And Friendship—With Bill Finger

JA: So between Foreign Intrigue and Warner Bros., were there other shows that you and Bill wrote? SINCLAIR: We wrote for a live TV series done out of New York by Goodson-Todman called The Web, and wrote [chuckles] a slightly classic murder mystery for The Web one time called “Dear Sister.” The lady who played it, Martha Scott, was a wonderful, talented, blonde actress. After that we’re moving over to Warner I’m A Semple Man Bros. and we’re getting into their TV studios. Now this was an unusual, oddball, one-of-a-kind set-up, let me Lorenzo B. Semple, Jr. (photo above), was the tell you! All the other writers—all of them—for those nemesis of Sinclair & Warner Bros. one-hour murder mystery shows were out Finger—first on The Web, on the West Coast. And all of us had to combat a story then on Batman. He also editor named Lorenzo Semple, Jr. The writers hated wrote the “classic” him for many reasons. He was not a nice person, and he screenplay for the late-’70s was like the Bob Kane of Television Script Editors. Also, Dino DeLaurentiis remake when he got the notion, he would sell himself a script, of King Kong, whose sole so you were competing with the Story Editor who saving grace, perhaps, would block out like six episodes a season he’s going to was that it served as the first film of Jessica Lange write and bing, bing, bing, down the line, he buys these (“Dwan”). [©2009 the from himself. But what can I tell you? None of the respective copyright writers liked him, and he did not like us. He didn’t like holders.] Bill and me at all, because we were not under his thumb, and there were no nice big lunches we could room for great, long Shakespearian monologues. Dialogue has to be crisp take him out to. We were the East Coast writers of this show, and the only and snappy. Bill could get the point across very quickly, and I had not had ones who cracked through. We were the envy of many other writers, let that training, except for my radio experience where things had to move me tell you, in that respect. We would write slightly to order. fast. And radio news. We had to tell the story quickly, create an image, I will give you one concrete example of this to show you as to how a and get out of it. So we worked well in that sense on dialogue. whole script grew out of gimmick book one time. We needed a gimmick JA: Was Foreign Intrigue a regular job for you? to come up with a show. We’d written one or two scripts at that point, and they asked us to write more shows. Bill gets out his gimmick book and SINCLAIR: Oh, no. That was a purely freelance effort while I was a flips around in the pages, and says, “This idea might work.” And what he’s magazine editor, and Bill was writing “Batman.“ got is that somebody somewhere, here or in Europe, had discovered that infrared photography would reveal a tattoo that had been covered over or JA: And you were a magazine editor for Billboard then? eradicated by chemical means, or surgery, or whatever. So, starting with this premise, we concocted a story which took place on the French SINCLAIR: That was just before Billboard. I was working for a magazine Riviera, aboard a yacht where a millionaire Greek type—modeled on called Sponsor, which eventually became part of Hartcourt-BraceAristotle Onassis, thank you—is hiding a German guy who had been a Jovanavich. Bill and I both more or less had regular jobs, and ran regular wanted war criminal. He had been in the SS, running Auschwitz or households, [laughs] and were parents. This was extra freelance, done at Dachau, or whatever. night and on weekends. The big hit came when Billboard cut out its TV department, and went all-music, and I stayed with them for another year There’s a big party at shore, they’re all splashing around in this or so. Then I got a job as Bureau Chief for Television Digest, which was swimming pool, and here is this photographer snapping pictures. Our then owned by Triangle Publications, and I ran their New York operation. detective says, “I don’t see any flash.” And the guy says, “Oh, I’m using My television writing was always on the side. I was never ever, ever hired flash. I’m using infrared flash.” Here are these people in the water, as a scriptwriter, never ever, and neither was Bill. However, being close to splashing away, and he takes photos of various guests, including this Nazi the industry, you could pick up a lot of things on your wavelength, if you who’s hiding out. The photographer is killed in his studio, and nobody wanted to try. quite knows why, but the detective [Stu Bailey, played by Efram Zimbalist, Jr.] is trying to find out. The infrared photography revealed the tattoo of “New Stuff Coming Along From Warner Bros.” the double lightning flashes of the SS under his right arm. The Nazi guy killed the photographer in order to cover this thing up. This was also JA: What else did you and Bill write? around the time when Adolph Eichmann, who had been hiding out in Argentina, was captured and brought back to Israel for trial. So we kindSINCLAIR: In the ’50s—I’ll cut to the chase and the big stuff—I learned of swiped that gimmick, plomp, put that into the show for the finale. of new stuff coming along from Warner Bros., way far out on the West [laughs] The Nazi comes to a bad end, having been kidnapped by my Coast. I had a connection with Warners. I co-wrote the screenplay— not Israeli commandos and whisked off to Tel Aviv to stand trial. with Bill Finger—for Chase a Crooked Shadow, a Warner Bros. movie with Anne Baxter, Richard Todd, Faith Brook, and Herbert Lom. It was a This went over very well with Warner Bros. We almost sold it as a very good suspense-melodrama that gave me an entrée to Warner Bros. movie. We came very close because we furnished the script, and then So then I tracked down Bill, and I said, “I think we might have a shot at nothing happened. We were waiting and waiting and waiting, and finally I Warner Bros. TV.” The door was open enough that they would be willing couldn’t stand it. I called the producer. “Hey, what happened?” “Well,” he to read stuff. Bill and I pitched them an idea, and it worked. We did the says, “it’s being considered by the story committee.” It had just missed script, and then we did another and another, and so forth. 77 Sunset being a movie, but definitely wound up in the TV series, and was one of Strip, at that point, had the highest audience ratings. So Bill and I wrote the most repeated shows they ever had: “The Positive Negative.” That’s for, as much as we could, several seasons of 77 in the late ’50s, early ’60s. how Bill Finger’s gimmick book created a television episode.

“You Two Guys Ought To Do Something Together!”

The next time, we talked to a wonderful guy named Jim Barnett who was the story editor for the Warner Bros. shows that we were involved with. We ran into Lorenzo Semple, Jr., later. He was at 20th Century-Fox. I would call Barnett occasionally during the day from my office at Television Digest in New York, and always got the same crap from the Warner Bros. switchboard girls. They instantly wanted to know, “Is this call paid?” Always! That’s the first thing they asked, “Is this call paid?” because God forbid you should be costing the studio anything. Anyway, so, “Yes, it is paid. Let me speak to Jim Barnett.” Well, Jim Barnett told us this tale of woe, that we had given Howie Horowitz, the producer of the show, a heart attack when he saw the budget for what we had created: this Riviera setting and all these extras, and practical swimming pool and dancing extras, and God knows what else. Jim says, “Have you got any ideas about that?” I thought for one second, click!, and it came back. I remembered that once upon a time there was a CBS radio series called The Columbia Workshop, and once upon a time Norman Corwin wrote a half-hour radio play that starred just one actor, called “A Soliloquy to Balance the Budget.” So wham, I came right back at Jim Barnett: “Jim, how would you like a one-hour show starring Efram Zimbalist, Jr., and nobody else? Nobody else! You know, one person on camera for the hour.” He says, “You’re kidding! How the hell are you going to do something like that? A murder mystery?” I said, [laughs] “We’ll send you an outline within a week.” So we shot them a script within a week, something that we had labeled “Reserved for Mr. Bailey,” which would feature Efram Zimbalist, Jr., all by himself. Most of it was going to be shot out on the Warner Bros. backlot in the Western town. They have a Western town where they filmed dozens and dozens of Westerns. We needed a couple of other voices to give him direction, like to assign him the case, and so on, so they pulled in a couple of their contract actors to talk into tape recorders and telephones, or stuff like that. So you would occasionally hear another voice in the show. We did it, and it worked! It became a kind-of cause célèbre at Warners, that we had written this one-man show. It was the most-repeated show that 77 Sunset Strip ever did because it had the lowest damn budget. [mutual laughter] Residuals for actors? Forget it! They got a little bit for the man and woman who taped their bits, and for Zimbalist. Nobody else was in the show, so we saved them a passel of money on that one, and that became famous. I mentioned the fact that many of these shows got repeated. Now recently, I learned, simply by calling and asking, that the Writers Guild of America East accumulates little residual checks on behalf of Bill Finger from sales of 77 Sunset Strip, and other stuff that we were involved with, like “Second Australian TV Rights,” and then they sold the series to Germany, dubbed in German, and things like that. We’re talking a lot of money waiting to be claimed at the Writers Guild of America East. But Bill and Portia and Fred Finger are dead, and he doesn’t have any other relatives that I know of. But at any rate, a suggestion which I had made was that the money turns into a pumpkin. After it sits there long enough, it goes to the State of New York under whatever lost property custodian into the General Fund. So I said, before it disappears, I have an idea that I’ve voiced, and I’ll voice it to you. I think that any monies coming in to Bill at the Writers Guild ought

to go toward funding the Bill Finger Award. Any award always needs a certain amount of money to cover the costs of the awards. That money might, might be pried out of the Writers Guild, and turned over to the Bill Finger Award. That sounds legit to me. JA: When you were writing the scripts for Warner Bros., you’re the one talking to them and not Bill, is that right? SINCLAIR: I’m afraid so. I think I did more of the talking than he did. Hey, I had a telephone. [laughs] I could disguise calls to the Coast, and I had the contacts. JA: How did Bill feel about doing television writing? SINCLAIR: He liked it very much. Bill never visited the West Coast during all of this. I did, but I was out there on another story. I was out there doing a feature story on Stan Freberg, and while I was out there, I stayed at Jim Barnett’s place—per his invitation--and got a tour of the Warner Bros. studio. JA: Did you guys have to do rewrites? SINCLAIR: Yes, we did rewrites. And when you got the final script, you could tell where the rewrite pages were because they were a different color. The story editor would tell us what the problem was. You know, “This character doesn’t come off well. He needs whatever kind of thing,” or, “This scene doesn’t play,” whatever, and we rewrote. JA: So your rewriting was done in much the same way as your original writing was done. SINCLAIR: Yeah, we would usually write at one typewriter, taking turns, pounding it out. JA: So while one person’s typing, you’re both brainstorming with each other. SINCLAIR: Most brainstorming, pacing up and down, making coffee, making spaghetti dinner, that sort of thing... [Jim laughs] late, late night spaghetti dinner. Bill was a very good, very simple cook. He made wonderful spaghetti dinners and meatballs, and that sort of stuff—very tasty. He could have worked as a cook in an Italian restaurant if he‘d wanted to. He’d never be able to do haute cuisine—forget it. But he was pretty good at very simple food. JA: What all did you write for Warner Bros.? You had 77 Sunset Strip…

On The Strip The three stars of the 1958-64 ABC-TV series 77 Sunset Strip. (Left to right:) Efram Zimbalist, Jr. (as Stuart Bailey), Edd Byrnes (as Kookie), and Roger Smith (Jeff Spencer). The super-popular Kookie was undoubtedly the inspiration for Snapper Carr in early issues of Justice League of America. [©2009 Warner Entertainment, Inc.]

SINCLAIR: That was enough. That was the top-rated show. That was the only one we considered doing. There were other shows like Surfside Six, which was a Miami knockoff of our show. And there was Hawaiian Eye. Yeah, these were all the same type shows. They were interchangeable and, no, we wanted to stay with the top-rated show. The balloon finally broke because Warner Bros. made a major change in their TV operations. Out went Roy Huggins who had been, I think, a son-in-law of Jack Warner or something like that, and in went Jack Webb, who had been the Dragnet guy. He came in and, man, did he clean house. Guys were fired right and left all over the place, and our big guy and protector, Howie Horowitz, was bounced out of there by Webb. He did not do good things

Charles Sinclair On His Partnership—And Friendship—With Bill Finger

for the Warner Bros. TV operation, let me tell you. He dragged it down. Howie Horowitz, unbeknownst to us, went to 20th Century-Fox because he’d heard of a new thing that was being hatched there. The next thing you know, in Daily Variety, I’d see that they’re announcing a new series based on Batman. Okay, now we cut to the real chase. And who’s the producer? Howie Horowitz! We sent a telegram—people sent telegrams in those days, you know—and it said, more or less, “Congratulations, la-da-da. Can we write for your show?” Signed our names. Bingo! Telegram comes back, “What took you so long?” [mutual laughter] So wham, we sat down and we started figuring what we could do.

“Bill Finger… Knows All About Batman”

initiated it, I found it, that sort of stuff—when it comes to the credits, it was “by Charles Sinclair and Bill Finger.” And when we got to Batman, Bill, I could see, was slightly uncomfortable about something, and then I figured out what the hell it was. He’s the guy who had the Batman connection, so I said, “Bill, I have an idea about this thing. I’d like to see your name first in the credits and mine second.” And he beamed all over the place. [Jim chuckles] He didn’t want to put it to me, but he was absolutely enchanted, and that’s the way the thing is credited. JA: How did he feel writing that Batman two-parter? SINCLAIR: He felt pretty good. He had a lore of Batman stuff behind him so that he could say, “Well, Batman would never say it like that.” He was terrific with minor characters and little situations, and Batman-y-like twists of dialogue.

JA: Was Horowitz aware that Bill had co-created Batman?

JA: Who knew the character better? Nobody!

SINCLAIR: Oh, yes! I had included that in the telegram. “Can we write for your show? Bill Finger, as you may know, knows all about Batman.” Okay, now Bill created a new villain called The Clock King, and this was to be our guy, because Howie Horowitz told us they had a verbal deal with Robert Morley to play an unnamed, undescribed new villain in Batman. Could we come up with a Robert Morley villain? Bill had seen many Robert Morley movies, as had I. We sat down and stared at pictures of Robert Morley. That’s when Bill came up with The Clock King, and I added to the concept. The idea was terrific, because clocks are everywhere. They’re universal. Everybody has a wristwatch, everybody looks at clocks, so we created The Clock King, who’s got to pull off a robbery. That’s where I came in with my gimmick where they were going to steal an atomic clock downtown which was a cesium clock, the most accurate clock there is. The Naval Observatory has one. They’re worth an enormous amount of money. They’re going to hold it for ransom and all that, so we wrote the script.

SINCLAIR: Yes, we would crack ourselves up, writing. One of the clues that pops up about The Clock King is a photograph of a big atomic clock in a tower in downtown Gotham City, looking like the Colgate Clock, which was one of the great big outdoor clocks. [chuckles] Robin looks at this thing and says something like, “Holy timepiece, Batman! That’s a well-known Gotham City landmark.” Now they’re in the Batcave, Batman says, “Robin, you’re absolutely right.” He turns around to a big file case there with a big sign on it that says, “Well-Known Gotham City Landmarks.” [mutual laughter] He pulls it open and he pulls out this particular building, and matches up the clock and blah, blah, blah— it’s all tied in with The Clock King. One of the tricks in writing this show was that we were writing it straight for kids, and humorously for adults. That was a necessary function of writing the show. Oh, last but not least, in the twilight of it all, Bill and I wrote a number of low-budget science-fiction films for a production team called Rider and Manley.

Then we found out that Robert Morley was unavailable because he was doing something else, or had previously signed with MGM to do a movie. And so they got Walter Slezak as a substitute for Robert Morley. Walter was a delightful guy who told wonderful, funny stories, and who played The Clock King very well with that wonderful Austrian-German accent. He was a very good and very accomplished actor. They got Sammy Davis, Jr., to do one of those little cameo appearances. “Hi, Batman,” the climbing-the-walls bit. [chuckles] And it’s Sammy Davis, “Hey, Batman!” “Hello, Sammy.” JA: When you wrote it, did you know that Sammy Davis was going to be the guy who comes out the window? SINCLAIR: We didn’t know who they were going to use. They were going to get Kirk Douglas or somebody else to do it, and he was not available that day. Sammy was working down the street in a nearby studio, so he popped in and did it. But, at any rate, Clock King, I’m given to understand, lives on. There’s an animated version of Batman out there somewhere on DVDs, and Clock King appears in several episodes. JA: I take it you don’t get anything for that, do you? SINCLAIR: Zero, because they bought the rights. When they reran Batman episodes, yes, we got residuals. That was a different ballgame because our names on the show. Oh, that was one other thing. Because I usually turned up the deals, like the Warner Bros. thing—I

“We Sat Down And Stared At Pictures Of Robert Morley” And this might well have been one of them! The colorful Morley (photo at left) was featured in such films as the cult classic Beat the Devil (1953), Oscar Wilde (as Oscar Wilde, 1960), A Study in Scarlet (as Myrcoft Holmes, 1965), et al.—but he was not destined to play The Clock King on the 1960s Batman TV series. Instead, that villain was played by veteran character actor Walter Slezak, who had appeared in such films as Lifeboat (1944), Bedtime for Bonzo (with future US President Ronald Reagan, 1951), and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962), among others. Slezak is seen above as The Clock King, from an image on a toy-figure package. [Clock King TM & © DC Comics.]

“You Two Guys Ought To Do Something Together!”

JA: Why did you only write the one two-parter? SINCLAIR: Oh, I don’t want you to think that we wrote Batman and then quit. I mentioned Lorenzo Semple, Jr. Lorenzo Semple, Jr., was not at all excited by having us in there as writers on this thing. He wanted to write a number of these things himself, and he did. He also had his eye on doing a movie script version with that cast, with Adam West and so forth. The movie was made. It was a very popular show with writers. We had to edge our way past other writers who were committed to write episodes. They would have a commitment to write episode eight, whatever it’s going to be in the series, and Lorenzo Semple, Jr., is in there playing games. He has his friends, and he’s got his own little scripties in there. Yeah, we only did the one. JA: I would think the co-creator of Batman would get more of a shot. SINCLAIR: Bill was not going around with “Hi, I’m the co-creator of Batman” tattooed on his forehead, I’ll tell you that. JA: They must have known it, but they didn’t really care. SINCLAIR: I don’t think they had any particular respect for it. I don’t think 20th Century-Fox gave a damn much. How can I say it? It might be like having the daughter of Mona Lisa come in as a technical expert, discussing the painting and the relationship of her mother with the artist. Forget it. They were not particularly interested in it. We did the one and we were not welcomed back in, shall we say, to do another. There were some shakeups in the production team. Lorenzo never liked us. Howie didn’t do much for us after that. I think he was out or ousted, or let off to make a feature film, or something like that.

was the type of person who gets stepped on a bit. He was not pushy like Kane was. He didn’t have that Mike Todd spark of flag-waving and glory for himself. Bill was not about to rush into court and say, “What the hell kind of billing is this? I want my name up there, too. And besides, I want to get paid for it.” JA: Did he make his frustration known to you? SINCLAIR: Occasionally. It was not the overriding thing in his life. He found other things to laugh about, or find funny, or live his own life. JA: Essentially, you’re describing a man who suffered in silence. SINCLAIR: He suffered in silence, I think, and I would know because I saw him at all odd hours and worked with him, and I’ve heard it around the edges. JA: Right, because that movie came out [the 1966 Batman film], and that would bother me if I had been Bill Finger. He gets nothing, and he doesn’t get to write any more of his character. SINCLAIR: I know. I think I had cited to you the case of [the original] Engelbert Humperdink. Engelbert Humperdink, a very talented guy, he’s not quite a schmuck, but close. A musical schmuck, working for Richard Wagner, and doing Wagner’s arrangements, adding all kinds of wonderful touches and doing all the scenes for which Richard Wagner is getting the credit, and the money and the royalties, and Engelbert Humperdink got a new light bulb for Christmas. Well, that was sort-of the Bill Finger problem. I’m sure there had been other situations in the arts over the years where some poor slob is really working on the statue or painting in all the details of the painting

JA: How did Bill feel about the idea of his character being on the TV screen? SINCLAIR: He loved it! Bill was very excited, as I am, as any writer is where something that you create like that hits big. You create a colorful, interesting character, you create The Clock King... it was all the gimmicks that come with it. JA: Did it bother him that in the credits, it said, “Batman Created by Bob Kane?“ There’s no Bill Finger mentioned and Bill didn’t, obviously, get any money from Batman being on the screen. SINCLAIR: Well, he was not thrilled. Bill

The Clock Strikes One Earlier, Bill Finger is reported to have created a precursor of King Clock—a gang boss called The Clock, who debuted in the “Robin” solo feature in Star Spangled Comics #70 (“Clocks of Doom,” July 1947), as seen in the two panels at page center & center right, in the striped suit. Amazingly, The Clock looks a lot like Walter Slezak made up as King Clock, nearly two decades later! Pencils by Winslow Mortimer; inks by Charles Paris. In “The Clock Strikes!” in Star Spangled #74 (Nov. ‘47), the villain was at It again—but this time drawn (see panels directly above) so that his face resembled a clock with the hands set at 3:40—or maybe at 8:20, as drawn by Jim Mooney. It’s not known, however, if Finger scripted this story— —or “Zero Hour,” more imaginatively called “The Tick-Tock Crimes” on the Dali-esque cover of Star Spangled #79 (April ‘48), in which the Boy Wonder stopped The Clock for the final time (bottom right). Pencils by Mooney, Inks by John Giunta. All three of these adventures are currently in print in the hardcover Robin Archives, Vol. 1. [©2009 DC Comics.]

Charles Sinclair On His Partnership—And Friendship—With Bill Finger

except for the face, and then the master comes in and does that. Rembrandt used to pull that one, by the way. DaVinci did, too. It was quite common. They had all these apprentices, some of whom were pretty good.

got himself a job there. It was not a freelance thing—he was a government employee—and commuted out to the studio out there. JA: So he was doing that full-time. Was he doing it when you wrote the Batman?

JA: Did Bill ever discuss the creation of Batman with you?

SINCLAIR: That’s a very tricky question. Batman would date it quickly because Batman’s a fixed point in time. If he was doing it then, we would know what the date was. I’m not exactly sure. He might have been. He would write movies for the military, like How to Interrogate a Prisoner and How to Disassemble a Tank. Some of it had to do with conduct, how to behave in a situation where your guys have conquered a town, the responsibilities of winning a war type of thing.

SINCLAIR: No, he never did. To this day, I would have to go and sit down and read stuff that you sent me as to how did Batman get born. I’ll be damned if I know. I never thought to ask him.

“The Cookie Was Always Crumbling For Poor Bill”

JA: Do you have any idea how long he did that?

JA: But he was still writing comic books at the time that you wrote this episode. He would have stopped around the early to mid-’60s, I believe. SINCLAIR: Early to mid-’60s, that was sort-of during the Warner Bros. years. Yes, he also got a job. He was sure enough of himself as a writer, and that he could write for the visual media and film and so forth, that all on his own, he never questioned, never consulted me in any way about it. He went out and got himself a job as a writer for something called the Army Pictorial Service. And the Army Pictorial Service is like a branch of the Signal Corps. They made movies and they had lots of civilian people working there. During the war, they had people like Colonel Frank Capra and Major George Stevens and so forth making movies, and they were making the Why We Fight series, and stuff like that. They had some huge Hollywood talents working for them. They were based out on Long Island City. There’s still studios out there called—I forget what they call it these days, but WFAN has part of the buildings out there. Bill had heard through one of his connections that they were looking for writers, and he

SINCLAIR: Maybe three or four years. Schlepping back and forth, and he enjoyed, very much, parts of it in when would go down to Washington on the train. I think, by the way, that he never flew in an aircraft in his life. [Jim chuckles] You laugh. This is true. I think Bill was never in an airplane in his life, but I couldn’t prove it. I might be wrong. At any rate, he would go down to Washington on the train, and go to the Pentagon, and meet up with Colonel Whoever. He would be assigned a technical advisor, a TA. The writer and the TA always worked together. The technical advisor knew all there was to know about gas masks but was, in an Army kind of way, illiterate. Bill was the writer, and didn’t know anything about gas masks or whatever the hell the subject was. The service was always making movies—always! They would turn out movies about the perils of everything: perils of VD, the perils of how to be in the Army and maintain a happy married household, serving overseas, whatever.

The Clock Strikes Again— Or Does He? ’Twould seem that Finger created a second villain called The Clock a decade later, for Detective Comics #265 (March 1959), with art by Sheldon Moldoff (pencils) & Charles Paris (inks). This time the scenario was backdated, and this Clock became the antagonist in “Batman’s First Case!” In the panel below, he re-introduces himself with a bang by destroying a brand new Gotham City clock being dedicated to the Caped Crusader. The story was reprinted in the giant-size Batman #187 (Dec. 1966-Jan. 1967)—just about the time King Clock was appearing on TV! Thanks to Bob Bailey. [©2009 DC Comics.]

JA: Because Bill knew more about Batman than you, did he take a stronger hand in the writing of those episodes than he might have normally? SINCLAIR: That’s a very good question. If it came to any kind of an artistic showdown on these things, I would be able to argue only on the basis of “It doesn’t sound right, this is not going to be comfortable in the mouth of an actor to deliver a line like this, I don’t think it gets the character across, it’s not advancing the plot, it’s not drawing a laugh, therefore we ought to rewrite the line,” blah, blah, blah. Those would be my literary criticisms on the run as we are going, as we are writing something. When it comes to “Batman would never say something like that,” there I bowed to him completely because he had it down pat. The character, to him, was a living, breathing person. Batman was somewhat stilted, I’ll put it that way. I think he still is. He’s not a fun guy, you know. He doesn’t make jokes much. JA: He’s dead serious now. How did Bill take not doing any more Batman TV shows? SINCLAIR: That was the way the cookie crumbled, and the

“You Two Guys Ought To Do Something Together!”

cookie was always crumbling for poor Bill. JA: So he just lived with it. SINCLAIR: He just lived with it. He didn’t hop on a plane to fly to California and beat on the studio door. He didn’t pull backstage things. In many ways, Bill kind-of waited on these things like the Batman show, the Warner Bros. stuff, and the little science-fiction movies we turned up. I would turn up the deal, and I was kind-of in charge of it, and Bill was the extra companionable, unargumentative guy. He didn’t fight for his place in the sun as much as he should have, as we all know. JA: Would you describe him as timid? SINCLAIR: Not quite. “Timid” is a bit different. That gets into “diffident,” and Bill could be strong. He had a temper occasionally. He’d get pissed off about one thing or another. JA: So he was more passive-aggressive. SINCLAIR: Well, he had a certain amount of vanity. He had sketchy medical/dental things back when he was growing up. Bill was ten years older than I was. Bill was a child of the Depression. He graduated from high school, I think, in 1931 or thereabouts. I graduated in 1941. I was ten years younger. He grew up in the Bronx in the depths of the Depression and Bill, when I first met him, had crooked teeth that kind-of gapped in the front a bit, sort-of like Condoleezza Rice. He was a little shy about smiling because they weren’t terribly pretty. So we’re around the point of Batman, and the job as a writer up there, commuting out to Queens—he found a good sympathetic dentist on 57th Street someplace, who did a whole number on him. Like he went right around the whole row and capped his teeth, so Bill could flash this smile. We’re not like yanking all the teeth, and putting in a denture. This is the Hollywood stuff where they’ve all capped what’s showing. He had beautiful caps on all his front teeth, upper and lower, and loved to go around smiling. [Jim chuckles] A lady to whom I was subsequently married once said of Bill, if you took a good look at him in that particular era, “He looks sort-of like a friendly wolf.” [mutual chuckling] JA: It probably gave him some self-confidence. Did he lack self-confidence or self esteem?

The Old Clockmeister Yep, there’s yet a third Bill Finger antecedent to King Clock in a Batmanrelated story: The Clockmaster, who popped up in Batman #141 (Aug. 1961). This page is pure Finger, showcasing the giant-size props that were one of Bill’s trademarks. Script by Finger (seen in circa-1960 photo taken by Jerry Bails), pencils by Moldoff, inks by Paris. Thanks to Bob Bailey. [©2009 DC Comics.]

being sued for divorce. Wonderful. I’m out on my ass with just my luggage and what I had, and Bill offered shelter. JA: What made him happy?

SINCLAIR: I don’t think his self esteem was all it could have been. I don’t think his confidence and drive was what it could have been, either. Now, whether that comes with growing up in the Bronx in a family that’s kind-of getting by in the Depression and having an education that stopped at high school, I don’t know. Bill was very well read, but that came later. I think it bothered him that he was not able to go to college. In a way, he over-compensated for his lack of higher education by being a voracious reader. When he was very young, he had harbored thoughts of being a doctor, but of course, he was never able to pursue that dream. That interest in medicine stayed with him, though, and you could see it in his stories and in his gimmick book, too. JA: You said that sometimes he had a little bit of a temper. What would upset him? SINCLAIR: What would piss him off? We didn’t have, I think, great big, huge confrontations. They would happen, sometimes over small things like whose turn it was to clean the dishes. We roomed together for a while. He had already split up with Portia, and I split with my wife, who decided that she wanted out. And when I got back from a trip to Mexico one time, having done a story there for Mexican television—wham, I’m

SINCLAIR: He had a very good sense of humor, and he responded well to funny lines and funny situations. The Marx Brothers movies would crack him up. He loved that brand of humor. What made him happy? He was always touched by generosity. I remember once, I gave him a wristwatch for Christmas because he had this clunker of a watch that didn’t work well. I bought a bargain watch at Tourneau’s, and gave it to him for Christmas. He was very touched by that. JA: Would you say he was withdrawn overall? SINCLAIR: No, I would not say he was withdrawn. He was a reasonably good mixer. He enjoyed social contact and social situations. He was good in a group. He was very courtly towards women. Women liked him. He was not the handsomest guy in the world, but he was very gracious to them and they responded. JA: Was he tall? SINCLAIR: No, he was not. He was very definitely medium height and medium build, a pleasant face: big, wide mouth, bushy eyebrows, hair combed kind of straight back. You have any pictures of Bill? I think I once saw those on the Internet and I thought, “That’s ridiculous. Is he golfing or something?” Yeah, that’s not a good picture. There is a picture of Bill in

Charles Sinclair On His Partnership—And Friendship—With Bill Finger

The Better Half—Times Two Photos of Bill Finger aside from the often-seen pair that show him in a golfing cap are few and far between, so we want to state our appreciation to author/collector Marc Tyler Nobleman for his making the following pair of pics available to us for this issue of Alter Ego. (Left:) Bill Finger and his first wife Portia at the beach in a photo probably dating from the 1940s. (Below:) A sculpture Bill made of Portia. Both photos courtesy of Marc Tyler Nobleman.

SINCLAIR: Semi. She was, as I call vaguely—or he told me—she was involved in the Henry Wallace for President campaign way back, when he was running against Harry Truman, who was the party candidate [1948]. One of the outcomes of living in the Village, maybe. [mutual chuckling] JA: I figured he had to be pretty liberal if he was living in Greenwich Village. SINCLAIR: Yes, he was right smack in the middle of it all. They were a very typical couple who would have lived in Greenwhich Village. JA: Would you say he lived a middleincome type of life?

nice dark, single-breasted suit with my former Nancy. He was the best man at our wedding in 1964. JA: Until recently, that’s about all we knew existed. He apparently didn’t take very many photos. SINCLAIR: I think he was always someplace else when they were taking pictures.

“[Bill] Was Always Borrowing Money” JA: [laughs] Were you around when he and Portia split up? SINCLAIR: Yes, but I never probed, never asked him what caused the split. JA: Did they get along okay that you could tell? SINCLAIR: Reasonably well. She supplied a certain amount of class, I would say, to his side. She was well-educated, had good taste, knew more about the decorative arts than Bill did by far, and was very much a New York-type girl. She may not have been from New York. She was a Barnard college graduate. She was fairly talkative and had a twin sister. JA: Did she take an interest in his writing? SINCLAIR: I’m sure she did, but not to the point of flag-waving for him. She was very interested in very liberal causes all over the place.

SINCLAIR: Middle income and pleasant, relatively comfortable. They had a nice, but small, apartment in Greenwich Village. It was nice to look at, nicely furnished by Portia. They went to concerts and events in the Village, and so on and so on. They finally became parents with young Freddie. JA: What kind of parent was Bill? SINCLAIR: Pretty good, I think, as parents go. They took Freddie in his little stroller on Sunday afternoons over to the big park [Washington Square Park] in the Village where NYU [New York University] is. JA: Would you say he was a doting father? SINCLAIR: Oh, no. I wouldn’t say he was doting, but I think he took it reasonably seriously. He was concerned about Freddie, what he was doing, and what he wanted to be when he grew up, and so on. He was a reasonably active parent when the three of them were together or under one roof. JA: How about later? Because I know he had some problems. Fred gave an interview a few years before he died, and he said that they sometimes didn’t get along.

JA: Was Bill?

Present At The Creation We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Bill Finger’s name should’ve been right up there with that of “Rob’t Kane” on the first “Batman” story, in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939). Bill is seen golfing above right, in an undated photo. [Panel ©2009 DC Comics.] Instead DC’s Real Fact Comics #5 (Nov.-Dec. 1946) showcased a story titled “The Real Story of Batman and Robin!” in which it’s told, as per the pair of panels at left, how young Bob Kane created the feature. Here, he gets a friend to model a costume, made by his mother, for that initial sketch. Hey, we never thought of it before—but maybe that unidentified buddy was a shoe salesman named Bill Finger? Art by Winslow Mortimer. Thanks to Arlen Schumer for the photocopies. [©2009 DC Comics.]

“You Two Guys Ought To Do Something Together!”

Batman By Bob This 1980s pen-and-ink sketch was apparently done by Bob Kane for a fan named Barry. Thanks to Jerry K. Boyd for digging it up. Whatever his faults, it can’t be denied that Kane co-created one of the most successful fictional heroes of all time. [Batman TM & ©2009 DC Comics.]

SINCLAIR: That could well have been. I would have not much knowledge of that. I wasn’t there at the time, and not privy to it. And Bill didn’t discuss it. JA: Did he discuss his personal feelings to you that often? SINCLAIR: To some limited extent, yes. He was not one who gushed on about his own personal feelings about this, that, and everything. JA: How was he when he had a problem to handle? Was he emotional about it? Would he be clinical? SINCLAIR: When you say “problem,” you mean like a literary problem? A problem of wondering where his rent is coming from? JA: Yes, something like that. I know he had money problems, because he was always borrowing money from people. SINCLAIR: He was always borrowing money. [chuckles] He shuffled off this mortal coil owing me money. [Jim laughs] How about that? He owed lots of people money. JA: Was he not a good budgeter of money, or did he just not have much coming in? SINCLAIR: It’s a combination of the two, I think. I think he never had a large income, and was always kind-of spending it before he got it. Back in the Warner Bros. days, I remember one particular time when a script had been sold and we’re waiting for a check, like the first round of checks on the thing, which was usually the largest one. Then it would be like two more payments as they proceeded into production. Bill was hung up to buy something, whatever the hell it was. He needed a new whatever, or he had to take a trip to Washington and didn’t have the price of a ticket, owed money to Portia, whatever. And I said, “Okay, how much do you need exactly?” So he tells me exactly. I sat down, wrote him a check and said, “Okay, you will owe me this out of the check that we’re going to get from Warner Bros.,“ which we knew we were going to get. He hit me up one more time for some more because he had a crisis of some kind, so I covered him on that. I had a regular income. So finally, the check came from Warner Bros, and I deposited the check. I endorsed it and plunked it in. Bam, it cleared through my account. I remember Bill saying, “Gee, don’t I get any of that?” And I said, “No, Bill, you don’t. Now let me show you why.” I pulled out my little notebook on this thing and said, “Here are the dates, here are the amounts, and your total came to exactly half of what this check was. You have already had it. It’s gone and what it is, Warner Bros. had repaid your debt to me.”

month.” Wham, I’m out with my checkbook. I knew exactly what his rent was. “Here’s a check, and you’ll notice it’s made out to So-forth-and-soforth.” And she said, “Okay. You’ll pay his rent, that’s your problem.” So just before I took off on this little holiday, I said, “Bill, Merry Christmas from me.” He said, “It’s not Christmas!“ I said, “Yes, it is, because I just paid your next month’s rent. That’s a gift from me. I don’t expect to ever see it again, but it’ll save you worrying about it.” So he was very grateful. JA: Was he generous with money? SINCLAIR: Yes, he was when he had it.

“We Did The ‘Odd Couple’ Type Of Thing” JA: I’ve heard yes and no on this next question: did he drink a lot? SINCLAIR: No, I don’t think he drank a lot like an alcoholic, really. No, I don’t think so. I wouldn’t classify it. Bill enjoyed a drink. Next question, what was his favorite drink? [Jim laughs] Right?

JA: And how would he take it?

JA: I wasn’t going to go that far, but if you want to tell me, go ahead.

SINCLAIR: He said, “Jesus Christ, nothing for me?” I think that maybe there was a difference of ten bucks. I said, “Bill, here’s ten bucks. No, you don’t have any more coming from this one check. The next one should be better.” [Jim chuckles] So I think he stopped looking toward me for money after that. I would occasionally do something generous for him. I remember, one time, I inherited part of a small estate, and suddenly I had two nickels to rub together. So I took a vacation in Bermuda with a lady I was then engaged to, but never quite got around to marrying, unfortunately. She was a wonderful woman. I thought, I’m gonna have Bill on my conscience, in a sense, because it was getting on toward the end of a month, and I didn’t know if this guy had enough money to cover his rent for the next month in this place. We were both living in the same building—not together but had apartments in the same building—so I went to the building’s landlord, who lived up on the top floor and had an office down in the basement, and I said, “I’d like to pay Bill’s rent for the

SINCLAIR: Okay, Bill’s favorite drink was a Scotch Sour, which he made with a concoction—I don’t know if it’s still on the market—but it was intended as a bar mixer called Mi-Lem, a kind of lemony syrup intended for making sours. You poured off x-amount, like a jigger of this and a jigger of Scotch with ice, and put it in a Mason jar, shook it up and poured the whole thing into a glass. Bang, a very good Scotch Sour, and Bill enjoyed that. This may have something to do with the fact that Bill grew up in Prohibition, don’t forget. He was born in 1914, graduated high school like in 1931, Prohibition’s still on, and he’s living in New York City. What does that mean? That means that the handy drink that’s around is Scotch whiskey. Ryes and bourbon have all but disappeared. Scotch, coming in off the boat or somebody’s bathtub. So Bill had a taste for Scotch. What had you heard? JA: I’d heard that one of the reasons he always needed money was because he had a drinking problem. But Jerry Robinson said, “No, he

Charles Sinclair On His Partnership—And Friendship—With Bill Finger

didn’t,” and I was just curious what the truth was.

SINCLAIR: Yes, reasonably well. We did the “Odd Couple” type of thing.

SINCLAIR: No, I think Jerry was correct. I never saw evidence of a serious drinking problem. At parties, and this and that, he never ever drank too much, never ever. He may have a couple of drinks, feeling mellow, make jokes, that sort of thing.

JA: Which of you was Felix?

JA: He’s been described to me as a slow writer. He’s legendary for missing his comic book deadlines. How was he with you? SINCLAIR: Oh, I would have to keep goosing him to maintain the output, to maintain a deadline down the road. I would have to do the slave-driver routine. JA: Was it a lack of discipline on his part? SINCLAIR: I don’t quite know. He was a slow worker, slow writer... thoughtful. The end product was frequently very polished, and that would excuse, to some extent, the problem. JA: How long did you live together? SINCLAIR: From the fall of ’63, over Christmas on into the next year, on up to about May or June, so whatever that would be, about six months— something like that. JA: Generally, you got along okay as roommates.

SINCLAIR: I don’t know. I was a pretty good cook—still am—and so was he. We would whip up stuff. Sometimes Freddie came over. Freddie was, I think, like a professional chef at that point, and he would whip up these mad dinners in the shared digs. What else can I tell you? Eventually, we wound up in the same building elsewhere, this time on the East Side on 53rd Street, in similar apartments, but not together. He had a 4th floor apartment, and I had a 6th floor apartment, same layout. Rent was $300 a month, I recall; they were studio apartments. JA: He’s also been described to me as a haunted man, partially because of Batman. He was described this way by people he worked with, and for, at DC Comics. Maybe he didn’t talk to you about it. SINCLAIR: No, he didn’t, particularly. Are you saying “haunted” in the sense that he knew he should have gotten more credit and money for it, but he was too timid to go out and demand it and fight for it? He was not the pushy chutzpah type. JA: He was also described to me at times as being a depressed sort, and I was wondering if you detected that. SINCLAIR: I’ve seen him depressed, yeah. He would feel sorry for himself occasionally, and he would date things in relation to himself, like “That was before I had my heart attack,” or “That was after I had my heart attack.” JA: So he had heart problems. SINCLAIR: He had a heart attack. I think he finally succumbed to it. I remember going down to see him in the early 1970s at Bellevue Hospital. Poor Bill had no money, so they stuck him in some goddamned ward down there. Yeah, this was a heart thing, and then he had to take it easy and take pills, et cetera, for his heart condition, which I think finally caught up with him. It did him in. JA: Did he take care of himself, physically, before that? SINCLAIR: Not as much as he should have, I think. JA: Was he a heavy smoker? SINCLAIR: No, not that I know of. I don’t think he smoked at all. I don’t think I ever saw him smoking. JA: Was he a fashionable dresser? SINCLAIR: Yes, he could dress up for an occasion, and had a small, but pretty good, wardrobe, was fond of wearing blue Oxford shirts with button-down collars. He liked that Brooks Brothers blue Oxford look: a tweed jacket and slacks.

“He Didn’t Waste Words” JA: To get back to his writing for just a moment: was he quick in coming up with ideas? What was he best at in the writing? SINCLAIR: Once we’d get rolling, he was slow at dialogue, shall we say? He was a slow writer, but he wrote very crisp, snappy dialogue. He didn’t waste words. He packed the meaning across quickly in a few well-chosen words. He had a good vocabulary.

The Moving Finger Writes… Although he wasn’t bylined as scripter on the story’s original printing, one of Finger’s most celebrated later tales starring his co-creation was the fulllength “Robin Dies at Dawn!” in Batman #156 (June 1963). Once again the art was by the team of Shelly Moldoff & Charles Paris. With thanks to Bill Schelly. [©2009 DC Comics.]

JA: Did he influence you? Did you influence him? SINCLAIR: Yes, I think so. I had a broader life experience in many ways. I was in the Army—he wasn’t. My parents, one was American and the other was British—and we traveled back and forth as a result, visiting relatives in the UK. I had a college education at Columbia, I spoke at least

“You Two Guys Ought To Do Something Together!”

one foreign language, I had traveled widely, and Bill had not. At Columbia, I was immersing myself in English lit, [chuckles] Chaucer on down through Matthew Arnold, read the Victorians and the Victorian poets, and Browning, Keats, and Shelley, and Shakespeare. JA: Well, that’s one reason why you had a lot in common. SINCLAIR: Yeah, Bill’s education was pretty good and kind-of erratic. Mine was ordered as it could only happen at the campus of Columbia. JA: Can you pinpoint any way that you influenced each other? It might have shown up in your writing, perhaps. SINCLAIR: It’s like the Ginger Rogers/Fred Astaire thing: “She gave him sex appeal, and he gave her class.” Bill had a kind-of rough-and-ready Prohibition-era street smarts, New Yorkese background and language. Mine was, I’m afraid, probably a lot more elegant. So we offset each other in that mess, don’t you think? Bill could write tough and talk tough better than I could. He could depict bad guys very well, because these were street gangs... he grew up with that stuff. I didn’t. What I could do was give him the other side of the coin, which was I traveled with my parents and brother widely in the UK and in Europe, and I could provide that kind of insight. I could describe what Paris and London were like. I could discuss great art better than he could. Bill had taught himself a great deal about music, surprise, surprise. Bill’s favorite composer was Mozart, and he was fairly fond of Beethoven, the smaller chamber works. I collected the late quartets, which was very advanced stuff. He liked Mozart, particularly Mozart chamber music. JA: So he was a big music listener. SINCLAIR: A big music listener, yes, and learned a lot from me about the electrical, mechanical, and the artistic side of recordings. I’d been one of the editors of Billboard, and part of its review panel. I had great access to that kind of stuff. I had a huge record collection. JA: Outside of the things we’ve discussed, did he have any hobbies?

frontiersy-cracking advanced liberal school, university-level, in Greenwich Village. He made a few pieces. I have one of them. It’s a small statuette of a woman kneeling, a robed figure, a short haircut and all that. [NOTE: See p. 44. —Jim.] It’s Portia, who was a very large, pleasant, plump lady with a kind of short Prince Valiant-type haircut. Bill and Portia and their son Freddie lived in Chelsea, which is like a West 20s section of New York City, of Manhattan. It was not as colorful as Greenwich Village, but it was more space and it was cheaper, so Bill and family moved there. JA: How did you end up with the sculpture? SINCLAIR: Fred Finger, who came to New York after Bill passed away, was tidying up things, spotted this thing sitting on Bill’s desk. I was there, and he said, “Would you like to have this?” I said, “Yes, I would very much like to have that.” So I have it. I wouldn’t part with it.

“We Did Five Movies Together” JA: After Batman, you say you did low-budget films. SINCLAIR: We did little projects like The Green Slime and The Snow Devils. What else did we do? Track of the Moon Beast. [mutual laughter] Oh, boy! The Green Slime is probably the best of those low-budget science-fiction films. That was an MGM film that we did, with a very international cast and a Japanese director. We did five movies together, I believe. JA: The last time you wrote with him would have been late ’60s, ’70s? SINCLAIR: I think the very last thing we ever did was a low-budget film which we originally called The Lunar Analog. That was our title. It came out with a release title of Track of the Moon Beast, dealing with moon fragments and that sort of thing, and based on an old Southwest Indian tribal legend we made up. It was shot on location in Phoenix, and I’d never been there at the time. I visited the site of it years later. JA: What happened after you and Bill quit collaborating? Did you stay in touch that much?

SINCLAIR: Yes, he took a sculpture course at the New School under a well-known sculptor, Lilly Nadelman. It was an evening course, not far from where Bill was living, originally The New School for Social Research, I think it was called then. It’s a kind of a groundbreaking

SINCLAIR: Yes, I was living elsewhere, living another kind of life, and having whatever problems I was having, trying to earn a living and all that sort of stuff. Bill was kind-of hanging

The Horror! The Horror! Latter-day art associated with three movies cowritten by Charles Sinclair and Bill Finger: The Snow Devils (1965—an image for the French translation), The Green Slime (1968), and Track of the Moon Beast (1976). The last-named was released some time after Finger’s 1974 death. [©2009 the respective copyright holders.]

Charles Sinclair On His Partnership—And Friendship—With Bill Finger

and off. I think, at some wild point in time, they met because she was taking on babysitting jobs to keep body and soul together. She was recently divorced, living in the Village, and she was babysitting for Freddie way back, and the relationship continued. Finally, she and Bill were married, and Bill moved out to Great Neck, middle or late 1960s. JA: When he married Edith, I guess he became a stepfather to her children, too. SINCLAIR: Well, automatically and legally, of course. Edith was an attractive lady in her prime, supportive of Bill. They were happier when it Present At The Creation - Part 2 wasn’t a marriage, I Thanks to artists/co-creators Mart Nodell and Irwin Hasen and All-American line editor Sheldon Mayer, Bill Finger received credit— think. There were relatively rare for a writer in those days—on two super-hero features he co-created. Seen here are splashes from Green Lantern #3 stresses and strains. I (Spring 1942) and the “Wildcat” episode from Sensation Comics #2 (Feb. 1942). Repro’d from the hardcover Golden Age Green Lantern Archives, Vol. 2, and JSA All Stars Archives, Vol. 1, respectively. [©2009 DC Comics.] guess Bill wanted to do things his way, and she in there, continued to live on East 53rd Street, and he had reached out wanted to do things her way. They hadn’t had this problem earlier, you socially here and there—church groups and stuff like that. I would say know. The marriage did not last more than two or three years. that he was edging toward being something of a hermit, a literary hermit, because people were not chasing after him to do things. DC Comics, I JA: When you’re set in your ways, sometimes it’s hard to want to change don’t think, ever rang him up and said, “Hey, how about doing a special them when you move in with someone else who’s also set in their ways. anniversary story for us?” SINCLAIR: Oh, you bet. I’ve gone through that myself. I know exactly JA: Right before he died, he wrote a couple of mystery stories for DC, but what you’re talking about. he never went back to “Batman” for whatever reason. They had books JA: Were you around him much when he died? like House of Mystery, House of Secrets, with little 5-, 7-page mystery stories. SINCLAIR: Yes. We lived in the same apartment house. I had a key to his place and he had a key to my place. SINCLAIR: Oh, in the comic format, right? When you say “wrote mystery stories,” I’m thinking like magazine pieces. He got credit for it, I JA: Were either of the ex-wives around at all? hope. SINCLAIR: No, they were advised of the situation, but Bill was living JA: Yes, he did. It was one of the few times he got credit. He also helped alone, and I had a strange presentiment, if you like, that something was co-create the original Green Lantern, and co-created a character called not quite right. During that Friday afternoon, I made it a point to come Wildcat. Early on, in the 1940s, he got a writing credit on those two, just by the building, and stop in at his apartment. And he had passed away. I for a brief while, and then his name sort-of disappeared. He wrote for was the guy who found him. He had had a massive heart attack. several companies besides DC. He worked for Quality Comics, he wrote for Timely Comics in the 1940s, before you knew him. So he did branch JA: I don’t get the impression that he took care of himself. out from that one company a little bit. In his last years of being a SINCLAIR: Not really. He had a previous heart attack, as I told you hermit, was your contact with him minimal? before. His son Fred took care of things afterwards. I kinda helped around SINCLAIR: Yes. I had remarried, I was living elsewhere, I had a family, the edges. [chuckles] kids coming through the marriage I was in then. This was JA: Then the ex-wives weren’t involved at all. keeping me busy, in addition to making a living. JA: Tell me about Bill Finger’s second wife.

SINCLAIR: Not particularly, no. Sympathetic, but not pitching in all over the place.

SINCLAIR: Her name was Edith Simmons. She lived out in Great Neck, Long Island, one of the bedroom communities of New York City. She was divorced, and had a daughter, Eve. Bill had known her for a long time, on

JA: Not all divorces are bad. I was wondering, were any of these amicable?

“You Two Guys Ought To Do Something Together!”

SINCLAIR: Relatively. I don’t think there were any big fireworks. They just didn’t quite work. JA: Well, some things don’t. But he seems like a nice enough guy. He didn’t sound like a guy you’re going to hold a grudge against. SINCLAIR: No, he was easygoing, had great sense of humor, and he was great company. You know, he was not a great big hulking Romeo, but he was attractive to women. Women liked him, he had a wonderful smile, a great sense of humor, and was very charming to the ladies.

“If Anything, [Batman] Was A Co-Creation” JA: I interviewed DC editor George Kashdan, who remembered Finger having a fight with [editor] Jack Schiff, saying, “Look, I know this character better than you do because I created him.” SINCLAIR: Bill might well have said something like that. Bob Kane claimed credit for creating [Batman]. That’s bull. If anything, it was a cocreation. Bill had been around this particular organization, and got in on the earliest days of the Batman creation. So he is co-creator in the sense of introducing maybe quite a number of subsidiary characters, like The Joker, Catwoman, and others.

Charles Sinclair, in a photo taken in 2008. Pic courtesy of the artist, forwarded by Jim Amash & Teresa R. Davidson.

JA: Not only that—he named Bruce Wayne, he redesigned Kane’s original costume design by his own admission in an interview with Jim Steranko. Frankly, I think he’s the real, major creator of Batman.

situation. By the time the Stooges were through with Harry Cohn and Columbia Pictures, they didn’t own themselves. The studio owned their image, their names, everything, and they’re out on their ass.

SINCLAIR: [chuckles once more] Look, I would tend to agree. Bill was very creative. Bob Kane was not. He was a hack. Bill Finger came up with lots and lots of stuff in connection with villains, gimmicks, situations, crimes that were committed, solved by these guys; he came up with the Batmobile, Batsignal, and so many other things. For instance, Bill told me he got the idea for the Batcave from an article in National Geographic about caves in the Southwest. He gave the article to Bob Kane, and Kane used the photos as the basis of the Batcave.

JA: When you did see him during his final years—when he was more hermit-like—how was his mood? Was he more depressed then?

JA: Did Bill ever think of suing to get some rights? SINCLAIR: It’s the same situation as with Superman. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were in the same kind of position. DC Comics was making an absolute fortune out of this thing, and the creators were paid off in peanuts. JA: Bob Kane was making big money because he had a contract with them. SINCLAIR: He had better lawyers than those guys did. Bill never had a good agent to step in and say, “Now look, this guy is the creative spark plug for something that is making you zillions of dollars.” Did they ever haul off and give him a great big payment, or take him out to dinner and give him a gold watch or $50,000? No! As far as I know, I’ve no knowledge of them ever coming through, because Bill would have lit up like a firecracker. He would have told me. Bill was always slightly broke, and living from paycheck to paycheck, and hand-to-mouth sometimes. A lot of times, I bailed him out. JA: But he never considered suing them, did he? SINCLAIR: I never heard him mention it. I don’t think he ever sat down with a lawyer and said, “Have I got any legal grounds to take these guys to court?” Because, whatever he had signed, they had all rights to it. JA: Bob Kane even had a partial ownership. SINCLAIR: Yes, and Bill did not. You get high-powered publishing organizations that come on strong and have a hot legal team. A comparable thing developed with, of all things, The Three Stooges, in a very sad

The Moving Finger Writes...

SINCLAIR: Quieter and sort-of fading away a little, I thought. It was an impression I had. JA: When you think about him now, what comes to mind? What do you remember most about him? SINCLAIR: He was a slightly sad, slightly forlorn, slightly tortured guy who had a lot of creativity skills, and lacked the commercial push that is required sometimes to make something, and make a big deal out of it. He lacked whatever drives people like Oprah—a classic example of talent. Bill was a pretty good guy and a staunch friend, and tried hard. He never knifed me in the back. Never, never ever in all the years I knew him, and he kind-of brought out a big brotherly instinct in me sometimes, like a wonderful old dog who can’t quite make it on his own, and I felt responsible about him. JA: If he had been the type to push himself, how far do you think he could have gotten? Because he had the talent to make it big, he just didn’t have the drive. SINCLAIR: Oh, Lord. That’s a difficult one, because the road to hell is paved with enormous talent. He didn’t have the drive, and he couldn’t organize it. He was a little diffident about pushing himself in situations like that. He would never just walk into a producer’s office, “Hi, I’m Bill Finger, and I’m here to solve all your problems.” That would be totally alien to him. He deserved a lot better than he got. I enjoyed knowing him, I enjoyed working with him, and I miss him. How’s that? I think you know a lot more than you did before. JA: I most certainly do, and I feel like comics owes Bill Finger something. SINCLAIR: Absolutely. He’s in that category of people like D.W. Griffith, who helped create something and was then stomped on by the very industry he helped create. The Clock King lives on. That was Bill’s bright idea one late night when we had to come up with something. And, of course, Batman will go forever.

The Human Potential Movement And Super-Hero Comics

A/E

EDITOR’S PREFACE: From June 1-6, 2008, my wife (and ofttimes collaborator) Dann and I attended a symposium sponsored by the Esalen Institute’s Center for Theory and Research. It was held at that legendary retreat located three hours south of San Francisco on California’s Big Sur peninsula, amid its natural hot springs and breathtaking view of the surging Pacific pounding the rocks beneath the cliffs. Reluctant as we generally are to leave our own little patch of paradise in South Carolina for that long, we found it impossible to turn down Dr. Jeffrey J. Kripal’s generous invitation to be a part of this first-ever Esalen event to deal with comics books and their relation to the sciences and to the human potential movement—a discussion of varying approaches, as it were, to the notion of super-powers.

emerging guest list. Subjects to be covered would include remote viewing, UFO abductions, and various psychical phenomena, but the participants were neither wild-eyed “true believers” nor professional skeptics. These folks had credentials—and we were honored to be included. At the last moment two or three invitees, including current comics writer Grant Morrison, were unable to attend for personal reasons; but the score who were on hand for its several hour-and-a-half presentations each day found it a worthwhile, perhaps even enlightening, experience—in between the relaxing hot springs baths and the full-body massages enjoyed by some, of course. (All work and no play, etc.)

As the time approached, and after helping Jeffrey contact several comicsrelated people he felt might contribute to the gathering, Dann and I were intrigued and impressed by the

What follows is Jeffrey’s account of that symposium, which was officially titled “From the Supernormal to the Superpower.” It was the first but probably not the last of its kind—and if anyone out there ever receives an invitation to such an event, I wholeheartedly recommend that he/she accept at once. —Roy.

Man And Super-Men Jeffrey J. Kripal, chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at Rice University in Houston, Texas, hosted the June 2008 Esalen symposium titled “From the Supernormal to the Superpower.” Above is a photo of Jeffrey (at right) speaking with Roy Thomas and Hall of Fame comic artist Ramona Fradon during a break. Below is the cover of Jeffrey's 2007 book Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion, about the possibilities of the “supernormal” (the human potential movement was born, or at the very least midwived, at the Esalen Institute)—flanked by the halves of a montage by X-Men co-creator Jack Kirby. The latter show the original five X-Men in two different pencil drawings, as inked by Jerry Bingham and Mike Allred, respectively, for Pure Imagination’s 1994 tome Jack Kirby’s Heroes and Villains. With thanks to Greg Theakston. [Book cover ©2009 University of Chicago Press; photo by Daniel Bianchetta; X-Men TM & ©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Esalen And The X-Men The Human Potential Movement And Super-Hero Comics by Jeffrey J. Kripal That such a person actually exists (or existed) seems plausible to me, increasingly so as the discoveries of psychology and physics continue to reveal the intertwinings of mind and the physical world. It is inevitable, I think, that pioneers like this will appear in our midst….

The potential is there, just like Obi-Wan Kenobi said it was. Remote viewer Ingo Swann in Jim Schnabel’s Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America’s Psychic Spies, chapter 19, “Obi Swann”

Michael Murphy in Jacob Atabet, 1977

Introductions

y training and profession, I am a historian of religions, a field that most people would probably better recognize as “comparative religion.” Basically, I study and compare religious systems like other people study and compare cultural systems, political philosophies, novels, or movies. More especially, I read, translate, and interpret mystical literature, that is, texts from around the world that express and enact some fundamental unity, even identity, between divinity and humanity. Put bluntly, I study how human beings come to realize that they are gods in disguise. I thus fancy myself a professional student of the first alter ego.

In the spring of 2007, I published a book on a broad spectrum of American metaphysical traditions called “the human potential movement.” I modeled much of this book on the occult novels of Michael Murphy, who in 1962 co-founded with the late Richard Price (1930-1986) something that soon came to be called the Esalen Institute. Named after a

Native American tribal group (the Esselen) that once populated the same area in Big Sur, California, Esalen quickly became both a countercultural mecca and the original home of the human potential movement. Today, about 10,000 people visit the Big Sur cliff each year for about 400 different seminars and events, ranging from folk music concerts, yoga workshops, and Buddhist meditation practicums, to seminars on greening the economy and invitational conferences on Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations or post-mortem survival (yes, that’s right). Murphy and Price adapted the idea of “human potential” from the British-American writer Aldous Huxley, who had spoken of something he called “human potentialities.” Much indebted to his famous experiments with psychedelics (another key-word which he helped coin), Huxley used the expression “human potentialities” to argue that human consciousness and the human body possess vast untapped resources of Mind and Energy. Consciousness, for example, is not something produced without remainder by the brain in Huxley’s thought. It is something filtered through or received by the brain, much as a television set or radio receives a distant signal that is not really in the box (or the brain). Mind, then, in its true nature is something to capitalize for Huxley. It is essentially transcendent, metaphysical, cosmic.

Yea, Team(s)! The originators—West and East! (Left:) A photo of Richard Price, who’s on our left, and Michael Murphy, founders of Esalen, taken shortly after their first meeting in the fall of 1960. (Right:) Marvel editor/writer Stan Lee and artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby at a 1966 meeting of the National Cartoonists Society. Thanks to Barry Pearl, who says, “It’s easier to find pictures of Joe Sinnott and Jack Kirby together than of Stan and Jack, and Joe and Jack didn’t meet for 20 years!” [Price & Murphy photo by permission of the Esalen Institute.]

Drawing on such altered states and altered words, writers like Murphy would go on to suggest that the human potential includes all sorts of extraordinary powers that are “supernormal,” from psychical abilities like clairvoyance and telepathy to extraordinary physical phenomena like dramatic healings or feats of strength, even in a few rare cases (like Teresa of Avila and Joseph of Copertino) apparent levitation or flight. All of these things, of course, have been exaggerated in religious literature, folklore, and modern fantasy as supernatural but, according to authors like Murphy, they are better understood as foreshadowings or intuitions of the hidden potentials of evolution. Murphy and his colleagues, in other words, believe that evolution has granted at least some human beings extraordinary “superpowers,” and that these have been encoded, if no doubt also exaggerated, in fantasy literature, movies, science fiction, and super-hero comic books. Seen in this light, such pop cultural genres are essentially human potential genres in disguise, genres that “might prefigure luminous knowings and powers that can be realized by the human race,” as Murphy put it in his 1992 magnum opus The Future of the Body.1 1Michael Murphy, The Future of the Body: Explorations Into the Further Evolution of Human Nature (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1992), 211-213, “Superordinary Powers in Fantasy Literature, Cartoons, Movies, and Science Fiction.”

The Human Potential Movement And Super-Hero Comics

Esalen imagined itself from the very beginning as a kind of alternative private academy for this evolving future of the body, that is, as a place where the human potentialities hinted at in psychedelic, psychical, and mystical experiences could be supported, nurtured, and developed further through consistent transformative practices and a stable institutional structure. Consider, for example, the case of George Leonard, Look magazine journalist, education reformer, and later aikido master who coined the phrase “the human potential movement” with Murphy in 1965 (after that other recently coined phrase, “the civil rights movement”). Leonard was well known in the late ’60s for his radical models of education reform. Hence one of the opening scenes of his wildly popular Education and Ecstasy (1968). Leonard enters a classroom and senses a young witch whose psychic powers, he realizes, are laced with an obvious and dangerous eroticism. He can feel his skin tingling as he exits the room and wonders about the young girl’s fate in a superficial and uncomprehending world. In Leonard’s model of ecstatic education, at least, the typical American high school classroom is a place where occult talents are first manifested (often around puberty and the appearance of the sexual powers) and then cruelly crushed under the weight of social control, disbelief, and pure neglect.2 The young woman will forget about her own human potential, about her own magico-erotic superpowers. She must forget them.

Origins If this is beginning to sound like the base mythology of The X-Men, well, then, you have some idea of where this is all going. If you imagine, however, that my story goes back to New York City in 1963 with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (or even to Big Sur in 1962 with Michael Murphy and Richard Price), you may be surprised to learn that this particular “Origins” story is significantly older and more complicated than either of these early-’60s scenarios.

Power is precisely what the members of the Society for Psychical Research had in mind when they helped introduce a new word: the “supernormal.” The idea of mystical mutations that produce various psychical and occult powers, in other words, has been in the air for at least 130 years now. It goes back to the very origins, and to one of the two historical founders, of evolutionary biology itself. It is one of our most basic cultural convictions, now more or less suppressed by official science but experiencing something of a hidden Renaissance in the human potential movement, in popular culture (think Heroes on TV), and in the superhero comics. This anyway is what I was thinking as I finished my 2007 history of Esalen. I was struck again and again by these deep resonances between the basic ideas of the human potential movement and the super-hero comics of my adolescence and youth. I still had many of those comics. I remember pulling them out of the closet in my early forties, half-embarrassed but entirely delighted. I then visited local comic book stores in Houston and discovered and rediscovered the work of writers like Grant Morrison and contemporary artists like Alex Ross and Barry WindsorSmith. I found myself returning to—okay, obsessed with—these images and ideas, until I finally allowed myself to write an Appendix entitled “Esalen and The X-Men: The Human Potential Movement and American Mythology as Practiced and Imagined Forms of an Evolutionary and Atomic Mysticism.” I never published that Appendix, not because it wasn’t good enough (or because the title was awfully long-winded), but because the book was already pushing 500 pages and I knew my editor would not be pleased with yet more pages to edit, copyedit, and print. So I stopped. I occulted my own occult appendix. But now I’m publishing the heart of it here, quite appropriately, I think, for Alter Ego, that “Other I.”

Meeting On The Cliff

But that is not the end of the story. Consider, for a moment, the following facts. Consider the great French philosopher, Henri Bergson. Bergson was profoundly involved in the data The idea of mystical-mythical resonances continued to haunt me. I and experiments of psychical research. Indeed, he was the President of the talked continuously about it with Michael Murphy, who had become both London Society for Psychical Research in 1913. In the early decades of the a mentor and a close friend. Mike began calling me “Professor X.” He also twentieth century, moreover, he wrote beautifully of what he famously began referring to himself as “Nightcaller” (an inside pun, as we first met called the élan vital, a kind of cosmic evolutionary force that reveals the universe to be, as he put it in the very last line of one of his books, “a machine for the making of gods.” Well before Bergson, though, the Canadian doctor Richard Maurice Bucke had written a rather eccentric tome about evolution as a mystical force creating spiritual, cultural, and literary geniuses—his 1901 classic, Cosmic Consciousness. Earlier still, a number of Cambridge professors, spouses, and friends had gathered together to found the London Society for Psychical Research, in the winter of 1882, to be precise. Attending one of their very first meetings was none other than Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-originator with Charles Darwin of the theory of biological evolution. Fame aside, Wallace cared little for the orthodoxies of religion or science. He attended séances, performed Mesmeric experiments on his students (as Aldous Huxley did with his family and friends), asserted the postmortem survival of our mental and spiritual natures, and speculated, with his SPR colleagues, that “there yet seems to be evidence of a Power which has guided A Bridge Too Far the action of those [evolutionary] laws in definite Magneto (portrayed by Ian McKellen) deconstructs San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge in the film directions and for special ends.” This evolutionary 2 George B. Leonard, Education and Ecstasy (New York: Dell, 1968), 4.

X-Men: The Last Stand. Jeffrey Kripal, however, assures us that the structure has been fully repaired. With thanks to David McDonnell of the invaluable Starlog magazine. [Photo TM & ©2006 20th Century-Fox. All rights reserved. All X-Men character likenesses TM & ©2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Esalen And The X-Men

“This Kingdom By The Sea” The setting and cast for the Esalen symposium. (Clockwise from above left:) (a) “The Big House”—a 2006 photo by Daniel Bianchetta of the building in which the group stayed, and where most of the symposium events took place. Printed by permission of the Esalen Institute. (b) The symposium attendees, in roughly left-to-right rows: Kneeling: Dean Radin, Brenda Denzler, Bertrand Méheust. 2nd row: Michael Murphy, Wendy Doniger, Victoria Nelson, Ramona Fradon. Et al., starting behind Wendy: Arlen Schumer, Russell Targ, Walter J. Tanner, Christopher Knowles, Jorge Ferrer, David Hufford, Dann Thomas, Roy Thomas, Jacques Vallee, Donna Freitas, Jeffrey Kripal, Dulce Murphy. Though they didn’t give formal presentations, Walter (guest coordinator), Jorge (associate professor in East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco), and Dulce (executive director of Track Two: An Institute for Citizen Diplomacy) took active part in the discussions. Photo by Daniel Bianchetta. (c) Dann drinks in that breathtaking Big Sur scenery, right outside the Thomases’ bedroom. Photo by Roy.

in 1998 when he called me across the country really late one night after he finished reading my first book, Kali’s Child, “armed with a cell phone and a glass of red wine,” as he likes to say). We even once had a party on a yacht that a friend of his generously lent us for the evening so that we could float around Alcatraz and under the Golden Gate Bridge in order to check out whether the damage Magneto had wrought on the bridge in X-Men 3 had all been properly fixed. It had been. That was a relief. A few months before we checked out the bridge, Mike generously offered to host a symposium on my idea at Esalen. So I began inviting people. Richard Evans, a local Houston comic book expert and store owner, got me in touch with veteran comics writer and editor Roy Thomas, who then generously helped me with comic book industry addresses and contacts. Many kindly answered my invitations. Some couldn’t make it. Others could. And so we gathered on June 1-6, 2008, at Esalen for a five-day symposium I decided to call “From the Supernormal to the Superpower.” I had no idea if it would work, or even what “work” might mean in this case. The week began with two days dedicated to the history and nature of folklore and psychical research (Monday) and then the mind-bending problems involved in the study of UFOs and their relationship to sciencefiction (Tuesday). The basic plan was to begin with what the nineteenthcentury psychical researchers had called “the supernormal” and work from there into what the twentieth-century comic book writers called “the superpower.” David Hufford, recently retired from his position as Professor of Neural and Behavioral Science, Psychiatry, and Family & Community

Medicine at the Penn State College of Medicine, started us off with a stunning presentation on “supernatural assault traditions” from folklore around the world and from modern-day research into the phenomenon called sleep paralysis. His guardian hero here was Dr. Strange, “the most mystical of all super-heroes.” The experience of supernatural assault, it turns out, is both various and universal. You wake up but can’t move. A being enters the room and climbs on top of you. Usually it’s terrifying and traumatic. Sometimes it’s ecstatic and erotic. People report freaking out. People report leaving their bodies. Demons can do this to you. So can aliens. David explained why such experiences cannot really be reduced to biological or neurological mechanisms, why we must, in the end, take these experiences of subtle supernatural beings seriously. Psychical researcher Dean Radin, Laboratory Director at the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Petaluma, California, spoke next, with an equally mind-blowing presentation on his work on “presentiment,” his term for that largely unconscious few-seconds-or-so precognition that separates the super fighter pilot or all-star batter from the crowd. Dean began by showing us an eerie film clip of an interview with actor Alec Guinness (who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars). Guinness told the story of how he met actor James Dean at a restaurant in 1955 and warned him not to get into his new sports car lest he be dead within a week. He got in, of course. He was killed in that sports car exactly a week later. From this extreme case of precognition, Dean (Radin) then moved into the subject of what we might call micro-precognition. He explained to us the details of a simple experiment he designed involving physiological measurements, such as dilation of the pupils, and the random selection of pictures. It showed how people somehow unconsciously “know” what is

The Human Potential Movement And Super-Hero Comics

“For In That Sleep Of Death What Dreams May Come” Prof. David Hufford is visible in the background, as fellow guest Bertrand Méheust is terrorized by “Dark Spidey” during a coffee break. Hmm… Jeffrey Kripal was nowhere to be seen around that time, so some of the attendees got a bit suspicious…! Photo by Dann Thomas. (Top right:) The famed and frightening painting “The Nightmare” by Henry Fuseli (1741-1825) may have been intended to visualize the bad dream of its title, but David says it is, rather, a perfect depiction of the phenomenon known as “sleep paralysis.” It was used on the cover of his 1982 book The Terror That Comes in the Night. Even though the latter is a scientific study, David advises that it not be read at night. With thanks to Chris Day. (Right:) The very first “Dr. Strange” story, plotted and drawn by Steve Ditko (with script by Stan Lee), had the mage enter the Dream Dimension to help a tormented man. A few panels later, he’d encounter the eldritch entity called Nightmare. From Essential Dr. Strange, Vol. 1, reprinting Strange Tales #110 (July 1963). [©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

going to happen a few seconds before it actually happens. Essentially, Dean confirmed what many a Spider-Man fan has long suspected—the Spidey sense is real. Jacques Vallee, now a General Partner of Euro-America Ventures, a Silicon Valley group that invests (primarily in high technology) in North America and Europe, followed up with an historical account of how he helped develop the coordinate system for “remote viewing” in the early 1970s. Remote viewing is a psychical technique (similar to what was once called traveling clairvoyance or astral travel) that was used during the Cold War by the US government to spy on the Soviet Union (yes, that’s right). The secret programs, with names like “Stargate” and “Grill Flame,” now partly declassified, ran for 23 federally funded years. Jacques is a computer scientist and former astronomer (and award-winning science-fiction writer) who came to the States in the ’60s, where he met and worked with J. Allen Hynek, the head researcher of the Air Force’s UFO wing, Project Blue Book. It was Hynek who invented the categories of “close encounters” of the first, second, and third kind; some years later, he was a consultant for Steven Spielberg’s famous movie with a very similar name. And it was Vallee upon whom Spielberg based the character of the scientist Claude Lancombe, played in the film by French director/actor Francois Truffaut. The next day Jacques gave us a second presentation, this one on his decades-long researches on UFO sightings around the world. One of the highlights here was a painting of an immense UFO that a witness had done in France in 1998; it looked eerily like a smaller version of the mother-ship in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. What to do?

Things got even more wonderfully weird when laser physicist Russell Targ stepped up to conclude that first afternoon with a truly astonishing and often humorous presentation on the history of the phenomenon of remote viewing, in which he was involved from the very beginning at SRI (Stanford Research Institute) in Menlo Park, California. Russell showed us amazingly accurate drawings of sites remotely viewed by Ingo Swann, a painter from New York who was one of their most talented remote viewers. Russ also shared with us how he first got interested in psychical research. As a young man, he was practicing as a stage magician in New York when he realized that he was receiving information onstage quite beyond what the trick he was performing would allow—essentially, his “fraudulent” trick had gotten mixed up with accurate psychical data. He decided to travel to Duke University and study with J. B. Rhine in his parapsychology lab there. The rest is history, as we say, real superpower history. Finally, Russ taught us all how to do remote viewing through a simple demonstration. (One of our own, Wendy Doniger, drew a remarkably accurate picture of an odd object Russ had hidden in his duffel bag, which turned out to be an aluminum apple corer; I drew Flash Gordon’s ray-gun, which looked remarkably like a penis.) Silver Age comic-book legend and artist Ramona Fradon—most noted for her work on Aquaman and as the co-creator of Metamorpho—made us all laugh Monday evening with a heartfelt account of her own life-story

Esalen And The X-Men

as housewife, mother, and super-hero comic artist. She hates super-heroes. That was the funny part. She loves the history of Western Gnosticism and the legend of Faust, about which she has recently published a book. That was the profound part. She sees Superman as a modern day “pop Gnostic Savior.” That was the cool part. Ramona continued to tease me all week for my midlife regression involving super-heroes. Brenda Denzler, author The Lure of the Edge, an important 2001 book with the subtitle Scientific Passions, Religious Beliefs, and the Pursuit of UFOs, started off the next day with a full description of her interviews of UFO abductees, and her fascinating experiences in attending a number of their conventions. Brenda is also the director of the Abduction Millennium Project.

Of Psychics And Sea Kings (Top left:) Golden/Silver Age comic book artist Ramona Fradon and laser physicist Russell Targ look relaxed as they listen to a presentation. Photo by Daniel Bianchetta. (Top right:) Russell was also a co-founder of the Stanford Research Institute’s investigation into psychic abilities (remote viewing) in the 1970s and ’80s. His 2008 memoir Do You See What I See? Memoirs of a Blind Biker includes two startling images. The long-classified 1970s image on the left, an SRI remote viewer’s “drawing of his psychic impressions of a gantry crane at the secret Soviet research and development site at Semipalatinsk,” was done after he was given no information besides the location’s geographic coordinates, yet showed “remarkable similarity to a later CIA drawing based on satellite photography shown at right. Note, for example, that both cranes have eight wheels.” (When Roy T. got home and scanned his own bookshelves, he realized that in 1984 he had utilized a book Russell co-authored that year, The Mind Race: Understanding and Using Psychic Abilities, when co-writing the X-Men screenplay for Orion Pictures that was covered in A/E #58. It’s a small world, after all.) [Image ©2009 the respective copyright holders.] (Above center:) The co-creator of “Metamorpho,” Ramona is equally noted as “Aquaman” artist from 1951 through the early ’60s, as per her interview in A/E #69. As a symposium guest she was a double-threat: a respected comic book pro whose 2007 book The Gnostic Faustus: The Secret Teachings behind the Classic Text examines the hidden sources of the legend of Faust (as seen at left). This pristine Aquaman pencil drawing by Ramona was provided by Lynn Walker. [Aquaman & Aqualad TM & ©2009 DC Comics.]

The Human Potential Movement And Super-Hero Comics

Amazing—But True? The covers at left from Amazing Stories are, respectively, from issues dated Dec. 1930 and Dec. 1931. Thus, they pre-date the beginning of “flying saucer” sightings in 1947, and the alien abduction accounts which began years later… yet they could just as easily have been painted from eyewitness accounts of same. The methods of alien abduction—descending vessels, light beams from above, etc.—are foreshadowed in the old pulps. When UFOs and abductions became news, such images as these were already on the public record. In his various books (most of which, alas, have not been translated from French into English), Bertrand Méheust wonders if there may be some sort of cause-and-effect relation. [©2009 the respective copyright holders.]

Bertrand Méheust, an accomplished author and philosophy teacher who had come all the way from France, followed Brenda with a slideshow demonstrating beyond a shadow of a doubt how the “real” UFO sightings and even alien abduction scenarios of the second half of the 20th century mirror the images and even plot-lines of the science-fiction stories of the first half of the century. Bertrand warned us against any easy conclusions here, though. Many of us, I am sure, kept thinking of the painting Jacques had shown us the day before of a UFO done by a French eyewitness in the 1998, which could have flown right out of Spielberg’s movie. Later in the week, Bertrand, as “UFO-Man” now, battled a black-clad Spidey in the kitchen [see p. 54]. Tuesday afternoon we tried to “beam in” Alvin Schwartz, legendary comic book writer of “Superman” and “Batman” in the 1940s and ’50s who has recently published two

United We Stand, DVD’d We Fall Three of the symposium’s comic book contingent in a free moment. (Left to right:) Roy Thomas, Arlen Schumer, and Christopher Knowles discuss a DVD brought along by Arlen, author of the landmark tome The Silver Age of Comic Book Art. (The DVD is probably Fire and Ice, the 1982 animated film Roy co-wrote with Gerry Conway, which Arlen professes to like; Roy’s never been able to watch it a second time, because he feels the script was butchered by director Ralph Bakshi.) Chris, author of Our Gods Wear Spandex (see Joseph Michael Linser’s cover above left), has done a detailed analysis of Joe Shuster’s possible sources for the cover of Action Comics #1 which A/E plans to print in an early issue… while Arlen, back in A/E V2#5, brilliantly deconstructed Bob Kane’s cover for Detective Comics #27. Photo by Dann Thomas. (Above:) A recent sample of Arlen’s art, with a nod to Carmine Infantino, seen on the cover of a recent issue of The Washington Post Magazine. [©2009 the respective copyright holders.]

Esalen And The X-Men

Meetings Of The Minds Donna Freitas, author of the novel The Possibilities of Sainthood (2008), encouraged each attendee to re-think the whole notion of a super-power… to look for extraordinary powers and capacities in the most normal and daily of circumstances. She gave them the example of her own fictional super-powered saint who could bring people together into relationships in mysterious ways— “the patron saint of kissing,” as it were. She then asked the group to take a few minutes to “imagine, create, a character/story that is not about bridge-building toward otherness or ‘super’-humanness, but comes from the standpoint that the goal is to bring people face to face, to engender a greater reciprocity, mutuality, that is about giving one’s specialness away to empower. You can also imagine a villain… but you have to stop short of destroying that villain.” Ramona Fradon chose to draw her idea—“Mirror Girl,” a heroine who makes people (including super-villains) see themselves for who and what they truly are; she later gave the sketch to Jeffrey. Dann Thomas came up with a character called Consequences, who had the ability to make people see the consequences of their actions; others likewise responded in varied and interesting ways. [Art ©2009 Ramona Fradon.] Roy, whose mind was till the last moment as blank as it’d been during the remote viewing experiment, scribbled notes for a story set (surprise, surprise!) during World War II: “A higher-powered being brings Hitler and Stalin together in some idyllic otherworld, where the only rule is that they can’t argue or fight. They talk over their differences and amicably divide up Poland between them. That settled, they go fishing together… hiking… even play ping-pong… and are actually getting along, despite their long-standing mutual enmity… till they play chess. Hitler, enraged by one of Stalin’s moves, suddenly attacks him. After a fierce struggle, Joe kills Adolf. Stalin is triumphant…but now has nothing to do in this place except wander around. And, once in a while, when he’s feeling wistful, he goes fishing.” (Hmmm… well, at least RT only killed off one of the two villains. And no, he has no plans to turn his notion into a comic book.)

metaphysical memoirs on these iconic super-heroes, An Unlikely Prophet and A Gathering of Selves. Alas, we couldn’t get the technology to work, so Alvin kindly e-mailed us his presentation, which centered around the idea that Superman is a mythical embodiment of our own superconsciousness. Superman, in other words, is in us, is us, even if we normally remain completely unaware or unconscious of this astonishing fact. In my own terms now, Alvin argued that the supernormal has become Superman. That same night, commercial artist and comic book historian Arlen Schumer gave us a delightful multi-media show on the TV series The Twilight Zone, which he explained as a kind of “pop surrealism.” We then watched old Superman cartoons from the early ’40s. The next night Arlen did it again, this time for the entire Esalen community, when he dazzled us all with a second multi-media show, this one based on his 2003 book The Silver Age of Comic Book Art, in the Huxley Room, named after Aldous Huxley for his central role as inspirer of Esalen.

OMAC, Oh Man… Chris Knowles gave a fascinating Power Point presentation on the art (and the mind) of super-artist Jack Kirby, with special emphasis on his unique depiction of space—as in, “outer”—and on his choreographing of violence, which a few of the other attendees admitted they found “disturbing.” One particularly compelling moment came when Chris showed the above panels from OMAC #4 (March-April 1975) that showed a hiding, defeated dictator (named Kafka!) being rousted out of an underground bolt-hole in a manner that eerily foreshadowed the discovery of Saddam Hussein’s hiding-place in 2003. Of course, Hitler’s final redoubt in Berlin in spring of 1945 was doubtless the inspiration for the bunker part of the equation, and Jack himself passed away nearly a decade before the US invasion of Iraq, but still…! [Art © DC Comics.

Wednesday saw literary critic and writer Victoria Nelson delivering a rich paper on Weird Tales author H.P. Lovecraft and the various occult and even religious groups that have sprung up around his work—yet another example of how “fiction” can become “reality.” Her profound book The Secret Life of Puppets argues that we are witnessing a certain Gnostic or Hermetic Renaissance in popular culture now. Between the book and her talk, Victoria showed us how different groups are trying to gain superpowers in real life and, toward this same end, increasingly turning to fantastic literature as the scriptural bases for new religious movements. Novelist and scholar Donna Freitas, who is Assistant Professor of Religion at Boston University, then shared with us some of her own writing on modern-day saints as super-heroes. One of her main

The Human Potential Movement And Super-Hero Comics

Horrors And Hindu Gods And Heroes (In photo center:) Victoria Nelson (on left) and Wendy Doniger shared their knowledge of their own fields of study with each other and with the other symposium attendees. Photo by Daniel Bianchetta. Victoria’s presentation “Who Likes Lovecraft? The Worshipful World of Fantasy Fandom” dealt with the contemporary influence of the work of Weird Tales author H.P. Lovecraft (seen at top right in a portrait drawn by Ron Leming for Petersen’s Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters, published in 1988). Marvel’s Tower of Shadows #8 (Jan. 1971) featured an adaptation of HPL’s classic creepycrawler “Pickman’s Model.” Seen at right is its final panel, as adapted by Roy Thomas (scripter) & Tom Palmer (artist). Victoria’s study The Secret Life of Puppets (Harvard Press, 2002) won the Modern Language Association’s prize for “comparative literary studies” for that year. Its cover is depicted at top left. [HPL illo ©2009 Chaosium Inc.; Tower of Shadows panel ©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Wendy discussed, among other things, the probable influence of images of the four-armed Hindu god Vishnu (right) on the Martians of ERB’s early-20th-century science-fantasies, as depicted on Joe Kubert’s cover for DC’s Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Weird Worlds #1 (Aug.-Sept. 1972). She also contrasted Superman and the original Captain Marvel as exemplars of heroes whose powers “descend from above” (i.e., from without) and those whose powers come from “within”—as reflected by the covers of Superman #53 (Aug.-Sept. 1948) and Whiz Comics #22 (Oct. 1941), which shows Cap with his young alter ego Billy Batson. See? Golden Age fans always knew the World’s Mightiest Mortal wasn’t just a carbon copy of the Man of Steel! Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert and P.C. Hamerlinck for the comic art scans. [ERB art ©2009 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.; Superman & Captain Marvel art ©2009 DC Comics.]

Esalen And The X-Men

powers come from within, as in Buddhism) and the Superman complex (whereby superpowers descend from above, as in Christianity or the avatars of Hinduism). **** Let me close as I began, with a scene from Michael Murphy’s Jacob Atabet. Jacob, a metaphysical painter who is experiencing radical transformations of his body down to its molecular and subatomic structures, is tutoring the narrator in how to see into the occult physiology of his own “future of the body.” What the narrator discovers is more or less what I discovered, first in writing my history of Esalen, then in our subsequent symposium, “From the Supernormal to the Superpower,” namely, that there is a strange resonance between modern mythology and modern mysticism. It all looks like, well, you’ll see... “You came close,” [Jacob] said, “Tell me what you saw.” “A city,” I said. “Yes, it looked like a city. And just before that there was a sense of something shuttling back and forth behind a curtain. It reminds me of something I’ve read...”

The Way Of All Flash Jeffrey quotes a passage from Michael Murphy’s 1977 novel Jacob Atabet (cover pictured at left) referring to “the old Flash Gordon comic strips.” At right is a panel from the Flash Gordon Sunday for July 8, 1934, featuring the Hawkmen of planet Mongo, who in turn no doubt inspired the “Hawkman” feature written by Gardner Fox and drawn by Dennis Neville for DC’s tellingly named Flash Comics #1 (Jan. 1940). [Book cover reprinted courtesy of Michael Murphy; Flash Gordon panel ©2009 King Features Syndicate, Inc.]

character examples here, from her new novel The Possibilities of Sainthood, she dubbed “the patron saint of kissing.” Donna asked us to consider non-traditional superpowers, like the magic of writing or, as Ramona drew it for us, the power of relationship and reflection as embodied in “Mirror Girl.” [See figure on p. 57.] Roy and Dann Thomas, who have collaborated on numerous comics stories since the late 1970s, concluded the afternoon with an eloquent history of comic books, enriched with their own memorable anecdotes about the stories, the artists, the writers, and the industry. It was an honor and a delight to have the archivist of the comic world’s oral and written history with us.

“Now wait,” he broke in. “Don’t compare it, to science fiction or fairy tales or anything else. Try to see what it was.” “But it did look like something from science fiction stories. Remember those old Flash Gordon comic strips?”

Dr. Jeffrey J. Kripal, to quote from the dust jacket of his most recent book, “is the J. Newton Rayzor Professor and chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Rice University. He is the author of Kali’s Child; Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom; and The Serpent’s Gift, each published by the University of Chicago Press.” By his own admission, in notes he wrote for the 2008 symposium, “he thinks he may be Spider-Man.”

We concluded the symposium Thursday with two presentations. Christopher Knowles, author of the recent book Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes (as well as a merchandising artist for Marvel since 1995 and illustrator of the Random House graphic novel The X-Presidents), gave us a fascinating presentation on “synchro-mysticism” by walking us through the comic art of Jack Kirby and locating a number of panels and themes that seemed to eerily predict the various details of 9-11 and its aftermath, including Sadaam Hussein’s capture in the hole hideaway and his subsequent trial. Finally, historian of religions and scholar of Hindu mythology Wendy Doniger, who is the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago, concluded with a learned reflection on the nature of myth and reality in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Hindu images and ideas, she pointed out, were easily available to the earliest super-hero writers and artists, a fact that seems obvious to anyone who has looked at an illustration from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars series. She also identified for us two patterns, what she called the Captain Marvel complex (whereby super-

It Was A Dark And Stormy Spidey We sorta suspect Jeffrey K. “may be Spider-Man,” as well—at least in this “Dark Spidey” moment with Ramon Fradon. Photo by Dann Thomas.

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Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

Twice-Told EC — Part 1! by Michael T. Gilbert

n 1953, Joe Kubert, Norman Maurer, and Norman’s brother Leonard came up with a way to do 3-D comics, and convinced publisher Archer St. John to put out a 25¢ Mighty Mouse 3-D title. It was a phenomenal success, reportedly selling out two print runs of a million copies each! Naturally, everyone wanted to get on the gravy train, including Entertaining Comics publisher Bill Gaines.

Gaines and editor Al Feldstein set to work producing three 3-D titles. One, an EC sampler, featured stories from their horror, humor, sci-fi, and war titles, while the second was devoted to horror stories. A third was planned, devoted to science-fiction. But they had to move fast to take advantage of the fad, so they ordered their best artists to completely redraw old EC stories for 3-D. The first, Three Dimensional Classics (3-D #1) hit the stands in the spring of 1954, (see the Harvey Kurtzman cover on right), followed by Three Dimensional Tales from the Crypt of Terror (3-D #2) with the same cover-date. Many of the scripts were originally written (and sometimes illustrated) by EC editor Al Feldstein. This time, he assigned the art to artists like Wally Wood, George Evans, Bernie Krigstein, and “Ghastly” Graham Ingels. Though we only have room to print a handful of splash pages, these beautiful Twice-Told Tales provide the reader with a unique opportunity to see some of the finest artists in the field tackle the same script.

We begin with Feldstein’s “Spawn of Venus,” originally written and drawn by Feldstein for Weird Science #5 (March 1951). Here, Feldstein’s crude but powerful art pulls the reader into the story and never lets go. Wally Wood’s version, three years later (below right), is much more polished but equally creepy, breathing horrible life into Feldstein’s story about an unstoppable flesheating blob. Wood’s rendition was drawn in 1954 for EC’s never-published third EC 3-D title. A 2-D version of the story was eventually printed in 1969 in the sixth issue of Wood and Bill Pearson’s prozine, witzend.

Twice-Told EC—Part 1!

Below, we have “The Slave Ship!” drawn by “Radioactive” George Roussos for Weird Fantasy #8 (July 1951), followed by Bernie Krigstein’s more design-oriented take, intended for 3-D #2, and printed in Squa Tront #4 years later.

Above we have Al Feldstein’s haunting end-of-the-world tale, “Child of Tomorrow!” from Weird Fantasy #17 (actually #5) (Jan. 1951), followed by Reed Crandall’s version from EC’s unpublished 3-D #3,which finally saw print in 1970 in Squa Tront #4.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

Three Dimensional Tales from the Crypt of Terror was EC’s second 3-D title, with a real throat-grabbing cover (seen at right) by Al Feldstein, and gruesome art by Jack Davis, Bill Elder, Johnny Craig, and Joe Orlando. A third 3-D book, devoted to their sci-fi titles, was drawn but never published. Intended to come out in 1954, it reportedly featured an unprecedented six levels of 3-D. But the 25¢ price tag and a market flooded by other publishers doomed the fad, and the book, though fully drawn, was cancelled. However, the stories did appear in two professional fanzines, witzend and Squa Tront, in the late 1960s—though not in 3-D. To date, Russ Cochran has reprinted virtually all the classic EC stories in his Complete EC Library hardcovers, with the exception of these 3-D comics. Hopefully that omission will be rectified at some time in the near future. The books certainly deserve it.

Below left is Joe Orlando’s version of “The Planetoid!” from Weird Science #10 (Nov. 1951), followed by Al Williamson & George Evans’ later redrawing, intended for EC’s third 3-D title. It eventually appeared in 1974 in Squa Tront #5.

Twice-Told EC—Part 1!

“Bats in My Belfry!” (bottom left) first appeared in Tales from the Crypt #24 (June 1951). Johnny Craig’s redo is from the 3-D Crypt book, three years later.

Al Feldstein’s “Monster from the Fourth Dimension,” from Weird Science #7 (May 1951), lurks above, followed by Bernie Krigstein’s take, from Three Dimensional EC Classics (3-D #1) in 1954. Jack Davis’

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

And finally, here’s a Jack Davis Crypt of Terror ad from issue #1, followed by Johnny Craig’s Three Dimensional EC Classics ad from issue #2. (Both pages were rendered in two colors for 3-D, so if they seem a bit out of focus—it’s not just you!)

That’s all for now, but we’ll have more Twice-Told EC tales next issue. EC you then! Till next time…

Another Clause In The “Will” Would You Believe It? Still More Artwork From The LongLost JSA Adventure! by Roy Thomas

he truth is out there.

But, like Carl Sandburg’s famous fog, it comes sneaking in on little cat feet… one tentative paw at a time.

Over time, we’ve been lucky enough to savor, counting this latest 1/3 of a page, exactly 22 pages’ worth of that 48-page “JSA” saga, which was written by Gardner Fox sometime between 1943 and 1945 (probably in the former year) and illustrated by various artists. This latest tier, from the “Green Lantern” solo chapter drawn by Paul Reinman, was first brought to our attention in 2008 by the vigilant Dominic Bongo when it popped up in a Heritage Comics auction. Like the full “GL” page printed in The AllStar Companion, Vol. 3, it was won by collector Dan Makara, who kindly shared a hi-res scan with us:

In several earlier issues of Alter Ego, as reprinted in the first three volumes of TwoMorrows Publishing’s All-Star Companion series, various tiers (rows) of panels and even full pages from the never-published mid1940s “Justice Society” story “The Will of William Wilson” have emerged from the mist. First directly from the cache of artwork (which had mostly been sliced into thirds of pages) that was rescued circa 1969 from DC’s hungry incinerator by comics pro Marv Wolfman and distributed amongst members of The Illegitimate Sons Of Superman (TISOS) fan club, especially to the late Mark Hanerfeld—then in 2001 from Stephen Fishler,

owner of Metropolis Collectibles in New York City—and along the way as they showed up, one by one, on eBay or in Heritage Comics auctions, several other shards of the original TISOS stash.

Dan agrees with us that this pair of panels probably forms the top of page 3 of the 6-page “GL” segment, following right after the full page 2 which appeared in ASCV3—and which is likewise owned by the fortunate Mr. Makara. Of course, there’s always a slight chance that another row of panels intervenes, and that what we have is actually the middle of p. 3— not that it matters much. It’s merely a continuation of the Emerald Gladiator’s scuffle with a trio of thugs on a boat in mid-Atlantic, as he searches for a long-sunken chalice made by the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini—complete with a couple of mild quips and the misspelling of the word “occasion.” (Which would probably have been fixed, had the tale ever been printed.)

One tier of artwork. Hardly a mother lode, given the year and a half since the publication of ASCV3. If other panels of “Will” art and story still exist—let alone the totally-AWOL “Hawkman” and “Johnny Thunder” chapters—it’s unlikely we’ll ever see quite all of them. Like the fabled frog that leaps halfway to the end of a log with each hop, we’ll probably never get to the end. Still, it’s a journey that has been well worth the taking.

Comic Fandom Archive

Tom Fagan One of Early Comic Fandom’s Brightest Lights The Passing Of A Founder Of The Rutland, Vermont, Parade

by Bill Schelly

t 10:00 pm on October 21st, 2008, long-time comics fan Tom Fagan died. He was 76 years old.

A newspaper reporter and editor at the Rutland Herald for many years, Tom was best known in comicdom as the cofounder of the famous Halloween parade in Rutland, Vermont, which began in 1959 and continues to this day. He was also known as one of the finest authors of articles in the 1960s comics fanzines, from Batmania to Alter Ego to Comic Crusader (and others). Though I only met Tom Fagan once (at a Comic-Con International several years ago), I feel as if I’ve known him since the 1960s. I originally “met” Tom in the pages of Biljo White’s Batmania fanzine, shortly after I found out about comics fandom. He had contributed a wonderful article titled “The Big Parade” in issue #3 (1965), where he described the colorful Halloween parade in New England which had Batman as its Grand Marshal. Oh, how I wished I could have attended or participated in one of those parades, and not only because they sounded like so much fun! Tom’s evocative article is a classic of its kind, and as such, I chose to reprint it in my Comic Fandom Reader book in 2002. Surveying the fanzine scene of fandom’s Golden Age, I think Tom was one of the very best writers, right alongside Richard Kyle, Rick Weingroff, and a few others. Perhaps to an extent that was to be expected, given his career in journalism, but there was something about his prose that went a step further than factual reportage. His skillful writing combined intelligence with a sense of wonder about the objects of our fascination. I only wish he had written more. Roy Thomas or someone else would be better qualified to write about the now-legendary post-parade parties that Tom held in a Rutland mansion—and indeed, they were dealt with in A/E, Vol. 2, #3 (1999)—but

Fagan In Fact And Fantasy The drawing above was done for a Fagan t-shirt by Marty Greim (head) and Al Bradford (body), as repro’d by Tom Hegeman in CAPA-alpha magazine. The photo at right appeared on the Rutland [Vermont] Herald website on Oct. 13, 2008, and was supplied by Bill Schelly. For some of Tom’s best 1960s fanwriting, see his short piece “Warlock” from A/E [V1] #5, reprinted in the TwoMorrows trade paperback Alter Ego: The Best of the Legendary Comics Fanzine. [Art ©2009 Martin L. Greim & Al Bradford; photo ©2009 Rutland Herald.]

like any fan at the time, I delighted in seeing both Tom and the parade portrayed in a number of comic books in the 1970s. That made Fagan a comic book character himself, and I suspect it delighted him immensely. Tom was viewed as an eccentric in Rutland, and was loved the more for it. A great admirer of James Dean, he wore his hair slicked back in his best imitation of Dean as Jim Stark in Rebel without a Cause. He also named his daughter Deana. Having come of age during the Beat generation of the 1950s, he took to wearing all black, a preference he continued for the rest of his life. In Tom’s obituary in the Rutland Herald, Deana Fagan is quoted as saying, “In some ways, he never stopped being a child. He enjoyed having fun. He didn’t think he had to be a certain way just because of his age…. He’s one of those people who made involvement in comics more likely for an adult. He made it legitimate.” We’ll end our tribute to Tom’s passing with this passage from Joe Latino (with his permission): “I attended the funeral services at the Clifford Funeral Home in Rutland on Wednesday, October 29, 2008. It was a

Comic Fandom Archive

A Phantasmagoria Of Fagan (Clockwise from far left:) Tom working on a Halloween float in 1971—Tom as Batman in 1970, with fellow fan Sue O’Neil as Hela—and Tom with Bill Schelly at the 1998 Comic-Con International in San Diego. Batman/Tom photo provided by Al Bradford; others supplied by Bill Schelly.

dark, overcast, cold, and windy day that somehow seemed appropriate. It had actually snowed the night before. There was a crowd at the funeral home where the services were held. Tom had been cremated and the box read: “M. Thomson Fagan.” It appeared to be a black lacquer box with a silver cross at the top and a simple yet elegant appearance. It also contained the year of birth and death. There were several floral arrangements, but by far and away the best was the one from the Boston Butchers with a festive Halloween theme and Batman throughout. And no other arrangement captured the Halloween flavor that Tom loved so much!”

I Remember Tom Fagan by Martin L. Greim

om Fagan.

I first met Tom at Phil Seuling’s SCARP-Con in 1969. I had recently started doing material for my friend Bob Cosgrove’s fanzine Champion, and Bob knew him via contacts in comics fandom. I shook Tom’s hand and said, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Fagan.” To which he replied, “Call me TOM!” That event brought about a relationship that lasted for over thirty years.

Tom wrote a number of wonderful articles for my fanzine Comic Crusader, and I drew most of the art that accompanied them. I also did some of the art for articles he wrote for other fan publications. During our fan time together, Tom arranged for Bob Cosgrove, our friend Al Bradford, and myself to meet and interview the Binder brothers… Otto and Jack. Of all the interviews conducted for Comic Crusader, that was one of the best. Both of them had sharp memories of the Fawcett years and provided some wonderful original art to use with the piece. I certainly owed Tom a great deal for setting up that meeting.

Tom was also the driving force for the Rutland Halloween Parade. Many comic book professionals, myself included, went to and contributed to that event. Both Marvel and DC also did stories based in Rutland about that annual parade. When I was writing the Thunderbunny comic book, I did one, too. Brian Buniak, the artist on that series, did a wonderful likeness of Tom for that story. With pardonable pride, I think it was the best story done regarding the parade. Tom even supplied me with info about street layouts and the location of a certain statue that was the other focus of Rutland. It worked out very well. As years went by, Tom grew less enchanted with comics fandom. He became more withdrawn and was injured when he was hit by a truck on a snowy Vermont evening. As a result of that accident, he was less mobile. He still enjoyed comics, but rarely replied to most fans who tried to contact him. My fondest memory of Tom, in his later years, came about when I organized a trip to Florida so he could go to the various parks there. Our mutual friend Joe Latino, along with Bob Cosgrove and myself, did all the parks. My favorite remembrance of that trip was a picture I took of Tom with Mickey Mouse. Tom had a wonderful time. He did things that I would never dare to do. He rode on the Hulk roller-coaster. That trip was the last time I saw Tom in person. I wrote him on a regular basis, keeping him up on new products coming out about comic

Tom Fagan—One Of Early Comic Fandom’s Brightest Lights

Keeper Of Various Flames Several more aspects of Tom Fagan, repro’d with Tom Hegeman’s blessing from his k-a entry. (Clockwise from above left:) The cover of TH’s zine, drawn in ’08 by Al Bradford… a photo of Tom in his later years at James Dean’s grave, taken by Joe Latino and printed by TH…and Al Bradford’s pic of Fearless Fagan at a 1970s Rutland party garbed as Nighthawk, the Batman-homage Marvel character, in whose outfit Tom had been depicted in The Avengers #83 (Dec. 1970), the first of the comic book “Rutland stories.” [Art ©2009 Al Bradford.]

Of Mice And Men… And Rabbits (Left:) Tom’s cameo in Thunderbunny #5 (1986), with script by Marty Greim and art by Brian Buniak. When asked about the other folks on this page, Marty replied: “Gary Kato is real, but is way older than the kid on the page. Uncle Al is portrayed by Al Bradford. Bobby Caswell, a.k.a. Thunderbunny, is really Bob Cosgrove. Bobby’s last name in the comic is Caswell because one of Bob’s teacher’s in high school always messed up his last name and called him that instead of Cosgrove.” [©2009 Martin L. Greim.] (Below:) Photo of Tom (center) enjoying himself at Disney World, Florida, in 2003, with Marty Greim (left) and Bob Cosgrove. Thanks to MLG for this one, too.

characters he enjoyed. Every now and then, I’d get a phone call from him, but those became fewer as time went on. Quite a bit of information I received about Tom came from Joe Latino, who helped him out with legal problems and his life in general. The most recent message I got from Joe was about Tom’s demise. My relationship with Tom was a wonderful one. He, Bob, and I hung out with Jim Steranko at many of the New York conventions that we all attended and talked movies and comics of old. Those days, along with the trip to Florida, remain some of my fondest memories.

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In Memoriam

Will Elder (1921-2008) “A Delightful, Funny Man”

by Mark Evanier

ill Elder, a founding artist of Mad magazine, died on May 15, 2008, at the age of 86. He was born Wolf William Eisenberg on September 22, 1921, in the Bronx, and grew up there.

One of his childhood friends was Bess Myerson, who was later a beauty queen and a panelist on game shows such as I’ve Got a Secret. Elder was an inveterate practical joker (Bill Gaines, the publisher of Mad, once described him as “our only contributor who lived a life as crazy as our magazine”), and when Myerson was crowned Miss America, Elder happily bet his friends—who did not know of his connection to her—that if they went to a public event where Miss America was appearing, she would take one look at him and throw her arms around him and smother him with kisses. The friends bet, Miss America did shower Elder with kisses, and the friends paid up. Elder later called it “the most satisfying money I ever made.” He made most of the rest of his money directing his impish sense of humor onto drawing paper. At Manhattan’s High School of Music and Art, he met and bonded with a fellow student, Harvey Kurtzman, and also became friendly with several artists who would figure into his later career, including Al Jaffee and John Severin. Elder would describe his life after those days as “following Harvey wherever he went.” For a time, it was into an art business called the Charles William Harvey Studio, which the two of them formed with an artist named Charles Stern. The studio did work for Prize Comics and other companies before dissolving as Kurtzman and Elder became exclusive to the legendary EC line of comics. For EC, Kurtzman edited, wrote, and occasionally drew two war comics. Elder’s style was not particularly suited for war or anything too serious, but he gamely inked pencil art by John Severin for various EC titles, including their prestigious science-fiction line edited by Al Feldstein. Occasionally, Elder would even try drawing a horror story on his own, but that was not his genre.

His genre turned out to be Mad, launched in 1952 as a color comic book and the perfect vehicle for Elder’s talents. He was not only its lead artist, working over Kurtzman scripts and layouts, but he contributed many ideas and the general mindset of the early Mad artistry. Elder is generally given most of the credit for founding what Kurtzman described as “The Chicken Fat School of Art”—and I don’t know quite what that means, either. It has something to do with filling the panels with little background gags and signs so that you have to read each story several times to get all the jokes.

The “Mole!” Man Will Elder and (below) the splash panel of one of his most famous art jobs, from Mad #2 (Dec. 1952-Jan. 1953), over layouts by writer/editor Harvey Kurtzman. Plenty of “chicken fat” here! The photo of Elder appeared in the Fantagraphics volume Will Elder: The Mad Playboy of Art, edited by Gary Groth & Greg Sadowski. [“Mole!” splash ©2009 E.C. Publications, Inc.; photo © the respective copyright holders.]

Elder drew many of the most memorable stories in the comic book issues of Mad, including classic parodies of Archie, Wonder Woman, The Shadow, Mandrake the Magician, and many more. When Kurtzman quit EC in a financial dispute, Elder went with him, working on virtually everything Harvey did after that. The path went from a fancier version of Mad called Trump for Playboy’s Hugh Hefner, to a cheaper, self-published version of Mad called Humbug, to an even cheaper publication called Help! Eventually, Kurtzman and Elder put most of their energy into what was, at the time, the most expensive-toproduce (per page) comic strip/book ever, Little Annie Fanny for Playboy. Annie appeared intermittently in Playboy from 1962 through 1988. That and occasional advertising jobs kept Elder happily occupied, though later he and Kurtzman returned to Mad magazine for a few jobs. Several books of his work have been published in recent years, including Will Elder: The Mad Playboy of Art (a biography with art), Chicken Fat (an art and sketch book), and two volumes that reprint the entirety of Little Annie Fanny. I interviewed Will Elder twice, including at a Comic-Con International in San Diego in 2000. He arrived for it saying he was feeling poorly and not up to participating, but I persuaded him to at least sit up front with me and his fellow Mad contributors Jack Davis, Al Feldstein, and Jack Mendelsohn: “If you don’t feel like talking, you don’t have to.” All through the panel, I bypassed him in the discussions but would occasionally whisper to ask him if he felt up to saying something. He kept saying no, so the talk proceeded without him. Near the end, though, he agreed to answer one question if I made it easy. I asked him something simple. He answered it and got a big laugh. He then went on talking for about the next fifteen minutes, delighting the crowd and obviously feeling a lot better because of it. After the panel, several attendees scolded me for not involving him sooner. I never figured out if he really didn’t feel up to speaking, or if some sort of practical joke had been played on me. All I know is that Will Elder was a delightful, funny man… in person as well as (obviously) on paper. The preceding tribute appeared, in slightly different form, in Mark Evanier’s website www.newsfromme.com.

Superman title itself, for the first time in who knows how long. We worked together right until the end; at his urging we submitted an idea to DC not long before he died. I am proud of nearly all the books we did together. As for John Verpoorten, I was actually surprised that John thought I didn’t like him. I thought John was one of the truly good people at Marvel, someone I trusted and like and respected enormously. We argued, but it was only over work and how to get things done. When I took over as editor-in-chief, Marvel was plagued by the “dreaded deadline doom,” as it was called, and I was absolutely determined to stop the late books and reprints. Which I did. But production and editorial have different needs and approaches, and we did butt heads. But, as I say, as far as I was concerned it was only over work. John the person was someone I liked an awful lot. Marv Wolfman You’ve pretty much said it all, Marv, so I’ll just add that there’s no

hanks to Shane Foley for the above Captain Ego illo, which adapts Dan Adkins’ art from Sub-Mariner #72, an issue scripted by this issue’s interviewee, Steve Skeates (see the Adkins/Colletta version on p. 31). Shane also sent a couple of nice drawings based on the Aquaman work of Nick Cardy, which we’ll use another time. You’re working too hard, lad—but don’t quit on our account! [Art ©2009 Shane Foley; Captain Ego TM & © Roy Thomas & Bill Schelly.] Now let’s dive headlong into a few missives concerning Alter Ego #70, which cover-featured my (Roy’s) writing and editing at Marvel during the 1970s… but which contained a number of other highlights, as well. First up is a letter from veteran writer and editor Marv Wolfman, who’s perhaps most noted for his work on Tomb of Dracula at Marvel and The New Teen Titans at DC, but whose accomplishments range far beyond even those two outstanding series: Roy,

A/E #70 was, as always, excellent. I do disagree with your statement that you didn’t create much at Marvel, because you did: Werewolf by Night, Warlock, Red Sonja, The Vision, Morbius, Satana, Wolverine, Iron Fist, Thundra, The Defenders, Man-Thing, Ultron, many, many villains, and dozens of other characters I can’t think of right now. It’s just that, after coming up with the ideas, names, attitudes, and sometimes even their powers and more, you often handed them off to others, myself included, to develop further. But they stemmed from you and wouldn’t have existed otherwise. Since my name came up a few times—almost always correctly—I thought I’d just comment on two small mentions I think need clarifications. You said Gil Kane and I never got along. You’re right, and I wish I knew why. Gil was my favorite DC artist while growing up—as I mentioned more than once in my old fanzines. I loved working with him but always felt he never considered me even remotely an equal. That didn’t bother me, as he was the master while I was just a newbie, but it never much changed over the years. With time, however, Gil recognized that we did good material together—or at least material that sold well enough to garner royalties—so we worked together a lot, which always thrilled me. His John Carter, Warlord of Mars art was excellent, although we disagreed mightily on who should ink it. He hated Rudy Nebres’ inking over him, while I loved it; I felt it gave Gil’s rough layouts solidity as well as a classic feel. He did like Dave Cockrum’s inking, but unfortunately, Dave couldn’t ink the book regularly. Our “Superman” stories in Action— some of the best work I think he ever did—actually sold better than the

Teen Town A page from one of the rare Marv Wolfman/Roy Thomas writing collaborations—namely, The New Teen Titans #38 (Dec. 1987), which Marv asked Roy to dialogue because of other heavy commitments. Pencils by Eduardo Barreto, inks by Romeo Tanghal. The story was then completed in Infinity, Inc. #45. [©2009 DC Comics.]

[comments, correspondence, & corrections]

accounting for personal likes and dislikes. I mentioned those things, as I know you realize, not to disparage you or Gil or John V., but to underscore how intertwined and perplexing interpersonal and professional relationships can be, in the comic book field as in the rest of life. Next up: another bundle from Britain, this one from Robin Kirby, concerning the Marvel UK publications which Stan and the gang launched in the early 1970s: Hi, Very much enjoyed the latest Roy Thomas special in #70. However, while I’m right in the middle of editing down an extract from my book on Marvel UK (covering their earlier years, which overlaps the period Roy was talking about), to be used when there’s some space in A/E, I did want to quickly address a couple of points. Firstly, that Hulk image by Happy Herb [Trimpe] wasn’t specifically done for FOOM. It’s actually a landscape-format poster from one of those wacky Landscape comics that appeared over here in 1966-67. FOOM borrowed several such images, to fill up space, during that period. Secondly, about the influx of the next wave of creative talent. This is where the “secret history” of Marvel UK becomes a lot more important than most people realize, as it directly intersects with Marvel’s expansion. In setting up the UK line in 1972, that mini Bullpen-within-a-Bullpen also needed more staff to cope with the demands of a weekly schedule, particularly as the number of comics grew (to seven different weekly books by late 1976).

As for why the re-dialoguing had to be done, maybe Marion insisted upon it, because you know Verpoorten and production schedules—he’d never have gone to the trouble and expense otherwise! I went straight from Tarzan #12 to plotting all-new stories for #15 and on. I didn’t do any dialoguing or rewriting of #13 or #14. David Anthony Kraft Hmm… so if you were called in by John, did an overnight rewrite, and turned it in to him personally, then I must’ve quit the book no later the Thursday before the weekend John died. I was only guessing, of course, when I said I might’ve been the last person to talk to him; clearly, I wasn’t… unless we spoke again over that weekend, which is possible. I’m positive he didn’t tell me that my already-lettered script had been rewritten, though. I wonder if Marion B., after I abruptly terminated our conversation, phoned Marvel and insisted that adaptation of a story from ERB’s book Jungle Tales of Tarzan be rewritten, because of the “plagiarism” of which she had absurdly accused me. Not unlikely. However, the weird thing is: you didn’t do any rewriting on #13-14—and apparently nobody else did, either—but, while you rightly received a “writer” credit on #12, with mine changed to “editor” plus “additional dialogue,” #13-14 likewise contained Jungle Tales adaptations, yet list me as “writer/editor”! Why was #12 rewritten to mollify Marion Burroughs, and not the other two? Most likely, in the hubbub over John’s tragic death, nobody thought to touch the later issues. Anyway, thanks for your time and trouble and insights, Dave!

With all the new talent trying to get into Marvel, and with work on the US reprint books dropping off as they fell out of favor, the UK Bullpen became the place where the likes of Starlin and Milgrom (who did a few pieces as “Gemini,” too), Mike Nasser, the late Marshall Rogers, Pablo Marcos, Ron Wilson, Bob Budiansky, and many others first cut their eye teeth on all the new covers, posters, and recap splash pages that were always needed yesterday! Not that this stopped the likes of Gil Kane, John Buscema, Tom Palmer, and even Frank Thorne from getting into the act, too! Robin Kirby Yeah, that’s an intriguing and under-explored episode in Marvel history, Robin… and we’re looking forward to publishing your article, to show off all that rare early work by the talented artists you mention. In the part of my interview that dealt with Marvel’s licensed Edgar Rice Burroughs properties, I related how I hung up on Marion Burroughs, widow of one of the author’s sons and head of ERB, Inc., after she called me with what I considered a wacko complaint—and how I then phoned production manager John Verpoorten in New York to tell him I was quitting the Tarzan comic, effective immediately. Since that was the last time I specifically recall speaking with John before he passed away that weekend, I was thinking perhaps I’d spoken with him at his home rather than at the office; but my old friend David Anthony Kraft, the scripter who took over the Tarzan reins, contributes this corrective info: Roy: Read your interview in Alter Ego #70 and came to the bit about your falling out with Marion Burroughs, congruent (as you recall it) with John Verpoorten’s death. Only it didn’t happen quite that way. John called me into his office and offered me the series—saying you’d quit and recommended me, as a longtime ERB enthusiast, to replace you as writer. I, of course, accepted. And had the overnight assignment of rewriting a story over your dialogue, making sure it fit the pre-existing shapes of captions and balloons that had already been lettered, but contained totally different wording to please Burroughs, Inc. One of the strangest “Mission Impossible” tasks I’ve undertaken. I stayed up all night and—voila!—Tarzan #12 resulted. I do remember the bullpen letterers busily working away to get it ready for pick-up [to the printers] that same day. John died that weekend.

Scarce Starlin Jim Starlin penciled (though he may or may not have inked it) the HulkLeader confrontation on this cover for Marvel UK’s The Mighty World of Marvel #22 (“for week ending March 3, 1973). Thanks to Stephen Mitchell. [©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

re:

Next, an e-mail from Mark Lewis, who’s done a number of fine illustrations for the FCA section over the past few years. He actually wrote it to FCA editor P.C. Hamerlinck, who forwarded it to us: Paul, Re FCA: Loved the clean, simple cover. If this is fairly recent work by Mr. Swayze, then he’s still most definitely got it. His column was quite interesting, too, examining different takes on Mary Marvel. Finally, I enjoyed reading John G. Pierce’s article on the first Superman/Marvels crossover. Somehow, I never came across those stories before. Sounds like they were fun. I agree with him that it would’ve been interesting to see these drawn by Kurt Schaffenberger. Mark Lewis Often, an interviewee in A/E learns new facts about his own career when his chin-wag appears in print. In the case of #70, I was surprised to receive the following mini-mail from Bob Brodsky—TwoMorrows Publishing’s very own circulation director—that added to my own memories of the circumstances of my resigning as Marvel’s editor-in-chief in late August of 1974: Dear Roy— Funny, I remember you talking to [then DC staffer] Paul Levitz about leaving Marvel at the ’74 San Diego Con, though the word was not yet out. I was crowding around you in worship mode—15 years old at the time! I recall you referring to some kind of “trouble” in New York. Bob Brodsky I’ve always recalled how edgy things were that summer, Bob, but since I hadn’t yet resigned by early August, the time of the Comic-Con, at which I was a guest of honor—nor did I specifically plan to—I must’ve been even more primed for it than I remembered in the interview. All it took was the spark, a few weeks later. Next, some info from Pierre Comtois about a one-time feature mentioned in passing in the interview: Roy, Was reading your interview in the latest ish of Alter Ego and came across your question regarding Barry Smith’s Western tale “The Halfbreed”: “Did that ever appear?” Answer: It did. (I know, ’cause I own it!) It appeared in Western Gunfighters #4 with Steve Parkhouse scripting. Stan is credited as the editor, which might explain why you didn’t know anything about its being published. It was a 10-page story and, according to the “Mighty Marvel Checklist” shown in that issue, seems to have appeared concurrently with Conan the Barbarian #3. The final panel contains a blurb stating: “This strip was conceived by Roy Thomas and executed by Smith and Parkhouse, nearly two years ago!” So I guess it actually pre-dated that issue of Conan by some time. Indeed, Barry’s art in the “Halfbreed” story is reminiscent of his first professional work in the X-Men book. By the way, this issue also includes “Gunhawk” and “Renegades” stories. Pierre Comtois Lowell, MA Thanks for the reminder, Pierre. I pulled my bound volume of Western Gunfighters #1-7 off the shelf, and voila! There it was, in #4, just as you describe it—except the feature’s name had been changed to “The Outcast.” That was done at Stan Lee’s “request”—though the word “Halfbreed!” in big bold letters led off the tale’s first caption. The title change was a bit ironic, since earlier I’d conceived for the mag a series called “The Outcasts”—and Stan had us rechristen that one “The Renegades”! Merry Marvel Musical Chairs, wot? Y’know, I can’t for the life of me recall if “Halfbreed” was my concept—or Stan’s—or that of original (intended) artist Bill Everett. One of us three, I think. Seems to me that’s the time Bill came into the office one day and, when asked about progress on the art, said he’d spilled ink all over the splash

Cowboys And Indians Action panels from “The Outcast” (nee “Halfbreed”) in Western Gunfighters #4 (Feb. 1971). Pencils by Barry Smith (now Windsor-Smith); inks by Sam Grainger; script by Steve Parkhouse. [©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

page, the only one he’d “finished.” Being playfully loath to let him off the hook, I told him to bring it in and I’d see if Marvel might pay him for it anyway. He declined, saying the ink had blotted out the page so totally that it was impossible to see what had been on it… which to me was code for “I didn’t really do the page, and you know it as well as I do.” So I let the matter drop and assigned Barry to the task… even if it does say “Edited by Stan Lee” on the splash. (Oh, and Jim Amash did ask me more questions about Steve Parkhouse, but alas, I didn’t remember anything… so those queries were edited out of the account to save space.) Now a comment sent by Joe Frank which actually refers to A/E #68, wherein we printed, for the first time ever in the world, several of Steve Ditko’s pages of notes for the scripter (which turned out to be Yers Truly) from a “Dr. Strange” 10-pager I dialogued in late 1965: Dear Roy, Extremely interesting, at long last, to see the sort of plotting notes Steve Ditko provided for his ’60s Marvel stories. However, they lead me to wonder about a number of topics: Considering that Steve always, at the very least, paced and designed the stories, as well as adding characters and plot points of his own, how can he be regarded as any less a co-creator than Stan? When Steve was the full plotter, as well as the artist, he didn’t provide anything which would require guesswork on Stan’s part. The art and the plot script conveyed the basic actions. Stan could and certainly did add to it, but essentially was given a fully plotted story to dialogue. Instead of feigning confusion, as he has in some interviews, he should have been grateful so much of his workload was already taken care of. If Stan truly had any questions, couldn’t he or intermediary Sol Brodsky have simply called Steve to clarify matters? I honestly don’t agree with your assessment that Steve’s pencils, which he was to ink later, were “very rough.” Based on published reproductions I’ve seen (from A/E #31 & #38), they were clear enough to simply lacking the embellishments and spotting of blacks of the finished work. The essential storytelling was there, even in the pencil stage. I happen to think the Lee/Ditko books were some of the very best ever published by Marvel, and that both men were responsible. Perhaps this next point will be addressed in your upcoming issue

[comments, correspondence, & corrections]

about ’70s Marvel: When you were editor-in-chief, did you make any effort to get Steve to return? If Stan didn’t get along with him, that didn’t mean you or other writers couldn’t have beneficially collaborated with such a talented guy. Did you ever express any interest? Or did company politics of the time prevent such an attempt? Someone eventually did. Steve returned to Marvel in 1978. Joe Frank And I honestly still feel that it’s not unreasonable (nor is it an insult) to call Steve’s pencils “very rough.” Usually there was enough on the page for the scripter to work from—but sometimes things weren’t 100% clear. I gave one example, dealing with Ditko and Lee, back in A/E #50. That’s not to fault Steve, of course; layouts were all that were needed, most of the time. As to why production manager Sol Brodsky didn’t just phone Steve to check things out—that’s simple. Stan usually only became aware of a particular problem when he was scripting the story at home—so he’d have had to phone Sol, so Sol could phone Steve—and if Steve happened to be “in” when the call came, he might’ve been able to clarify. But when Stan was rolling along on a story, he didn’t want to stop everything cold while waiting for a tidbit of information that might or might not come. So he tended to just charge ahead with his best interpretation of what he felt Steve had drawn. No, I don’t recall making any concerted effort to get Steve to return to the Marvel fold during 1972-74, though (like Stan) I’d have been delighted to see him come back. I did run into Steve from time to time, and he attended at least one party at my apartment during this general period—at which time I doubtless hinted that we’d love to see him return—but nothing ever came of it. However, there were never any “company politics” that got in the way. Never. Not from Stan, not from me, not from anybody. And I was happy when I saw he was drawing for Marvel again by the late ’70s.

This next note is written by “Comic Crypt” writer/editor Michael T. Gilbert, in answer to a missive from fellow pro artist Ron Harris. What Ron wrote will be obvious from Michael’s response:

Hi, Ron! While writing my article on Mike Mallet, I figured the art could have been drawn anywhere from 1959 to 1964 and made an educated guess—splitting the difference by saying “it was likely done in the early ’60s.” But it’s certainly possible Powell drew the strips in the late ’50s. As far as the beatniks being a deciding factor, I have a Henry Brewster comic by Powell from 1965 that also features beatniks; that stereotype was pretty common then. Not surprising, since Dobie Gillis and his beatnik pal Maynard were still showing on TV at the time. And, while your theory that Powell may have done these Mallet samples for a military paper is interesting, it seems unlikely to me. Certainly, the fear of being sued wouldn’t have been a deciding factor. As long as he called his strip Mike Mallet and not Mike Hammer, I believe he could have sold it anywhere without fear of Mickey Spillane’s lawyers knocking on his door. The fact that Mallet wears a military uniform isn’t really a factor, either, as Mike Hammer was also in the Army during the war. So the military element is in keeping with the similarities between the two characters. Ultimately, though, Ron, we’re both just taking our best educated guesses from the available facts. Michael T. Gilbert Please forgive us if we’ve mentioned this before, but re A/E #68, longtime DC production honcho Jack Adler informs us (via Jim Amash) that he did not take the photo of Bob Oksner shown on page 16. Sorry, Jack. One final item, on an unusually personal note, even for Alter Ego and Yours Truly. It deals more with the 1960s and the late great DC editor Julius Schwartz than with Marvel in the ’70s, but I couldn’t let this pass without recording it here: A few months ago, I was startled to receive in the mail, from my old colleague Paul Levitz, now President and Publisher of DC Comics, the following handwritten missive. It read: Roy— In clearing an old stack of Julie’s files I found the enclosed. As a historian, you should have the document—and as his old friend, you should know it must have touched him—nothing else of the period other than literal records survived. Hope all’s well with you and Dann— Paul Accompanying the note was an envelope with a (Saturday) July 10, 1965, postmark and the return address of the George Washington Hotel at Lexington Avenue & 23rd Street in Manhattan—the very hotel at which, in late June of ’65, my brand new boss, Superman group editor Mort Weisinger, had ensconced me when I began working as his editorial assistant at DC. Intrigued, I removed from the envelope what turned out to be three sheets of the GW’s stationery.

To my astonishment, it turned out to be a letter I’d written to Julie on the day—or the morning after—I quit DC (and Weisigner), having accepted a new job with Stan Lee at Marvel. I’d sent a similar letter to writer Gardner Fox, with whom I’d also been corresponding since late 1960. On the next page you’ll find those three sheets, which even record my long-forgotten room number at the hotel. Fully as much as some awkward phrasing, I’m embarrassed at this late date by my poor typing—caused by the fact that I had to type it while sitting on the bed, hunched over my Smith-Corona electric portable resting on a chair. It would seem, as Paul indicates, that Julie, who’d been so encouraging to me during the several years of our correspondence, felt a sentimental attachment to my letter—perhaps even to me, though we’d not been destined ever to have a really close relationship. At the time, less than 24 hours since my abrupt job switch, I’d wanted to make certain both Julie and Gardner, who meant—who mean—so much to me didn’t believe that, in leaving DC for its smaller rival without having a chance to say goodbye in person, those

re:

Maybe Roy Was The Delicate Delinquent? (Center of page:) Superman and Batman join Jimmy and Robin at a climactic moment in “The Dragon Delinquent,” from Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #91 (March 1966). As explained in A/E #50, this story, though scripted by Leo Dorfman, is the closest thing there is to a physical artifact of Roy’s two-week tenure at DC in 1965—though Roy’s earlier version of the story was done while he still lived in St. Louis. Art by Pete Costanza. [©2009 DC Comics.]

regrettable circumstances in any way represented a lack of respect or affection for them. Thankfully, as I’d later learn, both Julie and Gardner (as well as Otto Binder), being gentlemen as well as true professionals, understood. And, more than four decades later, I was touched to the quick to learn that Julie had saved my clumsy but heartfelt letter—a fact that he never, ever mentioned to me. Please send any comments on this issue to:

Roy Thomase-mail: roydann@ntinet.com 32 Bluebird Trailfax: (803) 826-6501 St. Matthews, SC 29135

And be here next issue for our Superman/Captain Marvel FCA spectacular, and a whole lot more! SPECIAL NOTICE with regard to JERRY ROBINSON, pioneer “Batman” artist: A major publisher is reprinting the entire two-year run of the dailies and Sundays of the 1950s comic strip Jet Scott, of which Jerry was co-creator and artist. The publisher is missing roughly 40 dailies from 1954-55. It would be greatly appreciated if anyone who feels he/she might be able to help fill the gaps in the strip's storyline would contact Jerry's representative, Kevin Miller, at AstonishingTale@gmail.com to receive a list of the dailies needed. Kevin adds: “Anyone whose help results in a reproducible copy of the needed Jet Scott dailies will receive a personalized special print of Batman and The Joker, signed by Jerry Robinson, and an acknowledgment in the book. Thank you!” Any help out there?

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finally coming up loudly with: “Marcus D. … er … er … Sausage?” It brought a laugh … and didn’t take long for a barracks pal to provide the “Lord Brookfield” part. The year was 1943. The senior officer at the reception center had been quite understanding at the suggestion that the regular dress uniform was unsuitable wear for the temporary studio work I was doing.

[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 stories 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 topselling 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 a vital part of FCA since his first column appeared in FCA #54, 1996. Last issue, Marc discussed the Christmas cover he drew for Captain Marvel Adventures #19. In this issue’s installment, “Lord Brookfield Sausage” looks back at the Captain Marvel scripts he wrote while serving in the army during World War II — specifically, 1943’s “Captain Marvel and the Pledge of the Gremlins.” —P.C. Hamerlinck.]

My status at the time was uncertain. The officer in charge had seen benefit in my presence as one capable of preparing signs and posters promoting military insurance and war bonds among the enlisted men, plus simplifying directions for the continuous procession of recruits being classified. That was my studio work. What I called my studio was the unused end of the barracks building that had been converted to a storage facility. “Artist,” though, was not among the civilian professions listed in the manual as acceptable for reception center permanent placement. But the officer knew how to finagle. “Ever done any personnel work?” he asked. Of course I hadn’t … but had always found it very interesting, I hastily fibbed. And, first thing you know, I’m a member of headquarters company … as a classification specialist … in the adjutant general’s department! It has been said that once you’re hooked on comic books, you stay hooked. We were a long, long way from Times Square … the Paramount Building … Fawcett Publications … but there was a comic book character that kept buzzing around in the back of my mind … getting into and out of various fictional scrapes … demanding a place on the typed sheet. You may have experienced the feeling. The character was Captain Marvel.

may have been considered the camp clown … parading around the military grounds day after day clad in the utterly informal blue jeans referred to as “fatigues”. Yet, I bore a rather distinguished title … “Lord Brookfield Sausage!” That title? It was a chilly morning outside Barracks C, the entire shivering membership awaiting mailcall … two noncoms assigned to that duty puzzling over an envelope …

“Lord Brookfield Sausage” Marcus D. Swayze, center, and a pair of Ft. Oglethorpe buddies during World War II (1943): “My assignment at the time was posters promoting the purchase of war bonds among the military.” Photo courtesy of MDS.

So I wrote. And my procedure was simple … get the hero in trouble and have him get out of it by his own powers. Of course when the hero is a superguy it’s unlikely a trouble can be found that bothers him much … so the distress must befall someone else … someone he cares about. Billy Batson … the station WHIZ radio kid? No. But Billy could be of help in getting things rolling … like bringing on the Shazam act and turning the rescue stuff over to the Big Guy. Back in the days of Ed Herron, editor of Fawcett comics, there had come to my attention the importance of having the hero on stage in Act I, that is, in our game, having Captain Marvel appear early in the story, at least briefly. Thereafter he could rest up for a while, to be brought back for that important part of a narrative the French referred to as the “denouement” … pronounced duh-noo-maw … with that last syllable sort of accented up

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

through the nose, the upper lip curled a bit. I called it the big “wrap-up”. Appearing in the newspapers while I was in the service were items about strange little dwarf-like creatures that were being blamed for various incidents of malfunctioning aircraft equipment. I wrote a story about them. (“Captain Marvel and the Pledge of the Gremlins” – Captain Marvel Adventures #27, Sept. 1943.) As usual, I found it difficult to resist a penchant for pinning unlikely names on Captain Marvel’s foes. I’m looking over that story I see, once again, the name of my grade school biking buddy, when one gremlin addresses another as “Woodrow.” It has always been interesting to me how far we would go back into our own lives for material in writing those Golden Age stories … especially dialogue. Expressions the gremlins were using, like “goody-goody” and “kootchie-koo,” I hadn’t heard since I played on my mother’s kitchen floor. Further review of the story reminds me of having rendered a rather daring pen in those days. On page 9 Captain Marvel, he of the “world’s mightiest muscles,” is seen being gouged in the ribs by the gremlins. His reaction: “Haw! Stop it! Haw-haw-haw!” Can you imagine such dialogue coming from our super-hero?!!!

Little Rascals In 1943 Captain Marvel Adventures was selling at the rate of one million copies per issue … on its way to a million and a half per issue in 1946. “Captain Marvel and the Pledge of the Gremlins,” from CMA #27 (Sept. 1943), was written by Marc Swayze and was illustrated by C.C. Beck’s studio artists. [©2009 DC Comics.]

That yarn leaves me with comfortable memories as one gremlin, in expressing his disgust, relies on an old favorite cussword from our “family vocabulary” … … “Shucks!”

Monthly! The Original First-Person History!

Baby Talk Swayze: “Sometimes it was necessary to go clear back to your childhood … to get dialogue like “goody-goody” and “kootchie-koo.” Page 9 of “The Pledge of the Gremlins” story from CMA #27. [©2009 DC Comics.]

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The De Fuccio Papers – Part III JERRY DE FUCCIO And The History Of Comics

by Ron Frantz Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

ormer Mad associate editor, the late Jerry De Fuccio, possessed a vast amount of knowledge of the Golden Age of Comics—self-proclaimed “nuggets” of which he would often share in correspondences with people such as myself and Ron Frantz, editor of the short-lived ACE Comics line from the ’80s. While my gab-fest with Jerry during the final six years of his life centered upon our mutual love of artist C.C. Beck’s work, Frantz’s letters from De Fuccio, revealed again here in the final installment of this three-part article, packed more drama and encompassed a wider variety of comic book lore and facts. We left off at the end of Part II during the mid-’80s with De Fuccio and Frantz’s ongoing, information-laden correspondence—which was destined soon to come to an unfortunate halt. We pick things up with a 1986 De Fuccio letter regarding pulp artist Harry Steeger. —PCH.

Mad Man Richard Baratz drew the above caricature of Mad magazine associate editor Jerry De Fuccio for an article which appeared in Joe Brancatelli’s delightfully caustic Inside Comics #4 (1974). [©2009 respective copyright holders.]

and The Jungle Book. Borth did a nice feature on Sabu, on and off the screen; with incredibly good inking for the 1940 comic book era. Later, he did Phantom Lady, Spider Widow, and The Raven for both Feature and Police Comics. Borth was also with Treasure Chest from 19461971. He was Reed Crandall’s art school chum, roommate in New York City, and took Crandall into his family when Reed was on the skids. Borth did some nice comics at Ziff-Davis, as well as Quality. 8/28/86: Your Robin Red and Spencer Spook #3 previews are clean and clear. Richard Hughes would envy your re-designing of Spencer. The Robin Red characters panoply is interesting, which stimulates me to do a career article on Pat Boyette for PROfiles.

Those things which now seem frivolous and slight, will be of serious consequence to you, when they have made you once ridiculous. —Earl of Roscommon

6/30/86: I once did a Harry Steeger interview, as a follow-up to my Rafael de Soto interview in [Cartoonist] PROfiles. Steeger is a dynamic Daddy Warbucks-type, still scuba-diving in his seventies. This interview would go nicely with a folio of cover gimmicks that were literally swiped by the early comic book artists. I have a list of my favorites, selected as I scanned de Soto’s scrapbook. He did some 800 pulp covers. You’ll have to disregard Steeger’s bitter accusations against Brookside Publications, to whom he entrusted so many paintings and now-rare pulp issues. During this period, Jerry was going through a rough period financially. I tried to help as much as I could. One time I sent him several hundred dollars in cash via FedEx so that he could pay for some unexpected car repairs. Although I had no particular use for it at the time, I paid Jerry for rights to publish the Steeger interview. I also bought some original artwork from Jerry by Klaus Nordling, Jack Kent, Bob Clarke, Al Jaffee, and several others. Some of it had been previously published, some not. Some, I suspect, were Mad magazine rejects. However, it was all good stuff and I certainly didn’t mind publishing it in my various ACE Comics titles, usually as fillers. I never did publish the Steeger interview, which continues to repose in my files, awaiting some future publication. 7/13/86: I’m borrowing a True Comics in which Frank Borth did a splendid Sabu story. He was the elephant boy of such films as Drums

Daredevil vs. The Claw In Cartoonist PROfiles nos. 33 and 34, Jerry De Fuccio presented Jack Cole’s classic battle between The Claw and Daredevil. The art was re-drawn by Captain Marvel chief artist C.C. Beck, whom De Fuccio commissioned in the ’70s to recreate Cole’s story. Beck lightly added his own touch to the tale while remaining true to the spirit of the original— and, according to De Fuccio, Beck had “beefed up a lot of Cole’s pen lines and lettering.” The story was reprinted in Ron Frantz’s ACE Comics Presents #1 (May 1987). [©2009 respective copyright holders.]

FCA (Fawcett Collectors Of America)

11/3/86: In Cartoonist PROfiles #33 and 34, we ran the sixteen-page battle between the Claw and Daredevil; a Jack Cole classic. The art was re-drawn by C.C. Beck, who beefed up a lot of Cole’s pen lines and lettering, without changing the character of the art. It was apparent that Cole had tired on some of the pages. You could pass them off as “A Tribute to Jack Cole,” without reference to Beck at all. 11/13/86: I suggest that “Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle” would be a good pick-up for your purposes. A Fiction House story from an early Jungle Comics, it is very unusual and fascinating artwork by Hank Fletcher, which appeared only from 1939-1941. If you can latch onto some Fantastic Comics (Fox) we can show his “Stardust, the Super Wizard,” also. A very bizarre science-fiction feature that ran for 16 issues. I have sent Michael Delle-Femine [the editor at Cracked magazine] some whimsical material, which may go over if John Severin illustrates it. I’ve asked Bill Emerson to look for the poster of Skyman by Ogden Whitney, as Delle-Femine tells me he‘ll be writing it for you. 11/25/86: I dropped Marie Severin a note, regarding John Severin’s unlisted phone number. I recall that John did the Yellow Claw for Timely, at the time of Joe Maneely’s death. Matter of fact, the E.C. terminated and out-of-work Al Feldstein wrote that issue of Yellow Claw. I think I’d have Severin do the Daredevil Battles the Claw cover. We need mood and impact, contrasting with Jack Cole’s flat work inside. Perhaps the lettering should be done on an overlay. Severin was never into lettering. Gaspar Saladino has created logos for me. He lettered your “Super Heroes Convention” by Al Jaffee. Also, “Parable,“ by J. Severin and me. I’m convinced we need Severin on the Cole cover! 1/3/87: Maybe it’s time for you to phone John Severin? I would like to deliver the Hughes scripts and the Jack Cole photographs simultaneously, in one package. That Skyman drawing didn’t turn up in Emerson’s vault. Ron Goulart must have it. If comics historian (and sf and mystery writer) Goulart had the Skyman drawing, he apparently had no intention of digging it out. My thought at the time was that he planned to use it himself at some later date. This attitude upset Jerry. I will admit that it irritated me a little, too, although I suspect that Goulart didn’t lose any sleep worrying about it. [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: On the other hand, it was only Jerry D.’s intuition that Ron Goulart had the art—and he may not have.]

Ditko In For Severin The cover to ACE Comics Presents #1 (May 1987), featuring C.C. Beck’s re-creation of Jack Cole’s Golden Age classic “Daredevil Battles The Claw” story. Jerry De Fuccio practically pleaded with ACE publisher Ron Frantz to hire John Severin to draw the cover, but Frantz instead passed the assignment over to Steve Ditko … with outstanding results. [©2009 Ron Frantz.]

At Jerry’s suggestion, I gave John Severin a phone call. Severin seemed friendly and was willing to do the job. The only problem was that he expected a fee comparable to what he was paid to illustrate covers for Cracked. This figure was about three times more than I had ever paid for a cover. The profit margin was too narrow for me to justify the expense. Severin must have had all the work he could handle, as there was no room for negotiation. I thanked him for his time and hung up the phone. I ended up passing the assignment along to Steve Ditko, who produced a magnificent cover. Jerry, however, who didn’t care much for Ditko’s art, thought I should have used Severin, no matter what the cost. Oh, well. If I have learned any one thing of lasting consequence in this life, it is that you can’t please everyone.

I immediately called Jerry to tell him what had happened. For some reason, the situation worried him. Jerry virtually pleaded with me to pay Bernhardt and keep it quiet as possible. This had something to do with the story having been published earlier in Cartoonist PROfiles. I think the bottom line is that Jerry feared it might affect his standing with PROfiles publisher Jud Hurd if he were called to testify in court.

It was a good thing I didn’t spend the extra money on Severin. Shortly after the issue was published, I got a phone call from a fellow named Arthur Bernhardt, who claimed to own the copyright on the “Daredevil Battles The Claw” story. Bernhardt had been co-owner of New Friday Publications (1941-42), before selling his share of the business to Lev Gleason. Bernhardt’s claim of ownership was nonsense. The story was clearly in the public domain, because the original copyright had not been renewed. In my mind, the whole thing smacked of extortion. Bernhardt demanded an absurd amount of money for restitution; otherwise he

Sure enough, I got a phone call from some attorney representing Bernhardt a few days later. To hear him talk, I was facing doom itself unless I agreed to pay the blood money. His threat didn’t bother me, and I gave him my attorney’s phone number. My attorney called a day or two later, telling me that I had stirred up a real hornet’s nest. He seemed to think that Bernhardt was serious about going to court and suggested that it would be less expensive to settle for a token amount than to go through all the time and expense of defending myself in a civil action. It has been my experience that lawyers are a lot like doctors. If you are not going to

threatened to sue. When I told him that I had no intention of paying him one red cent, he turned belligerent and said I would be hearing from his attorney.

The De Fuccio Papers—Part III

1/17/87: I see in my notes that Klaus Nordling wrote “The Heap” and “Buck Benson” for Ed Cronin, at Hillman, too. He was one artist who enjoyed writing. Want to show me the Jerry Siegel fantasy script? Siegel did try to sell MAD a gag for “Scenes We’d Like To See”: A western wagon train is surrounded by Indians. They keep circling and circling on horseback until they wear a rut in the ground and only the Indians heads are showing above the depression.

Double Header In 1986 Jerry De Fuccio offered another C.C. Beck re-created Golden Age story to Ron Frantz. “Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle,” an early entry from Fiction House’s Jungle Comics, was printed in its re-created form in ACE Comics’ Fantastic Adventures #1 (July 1987). De Fuccio told Frantz of “Fantomah”: “It is very unusual and [had] fascinating artwork by Hank Fletcher” –a.k.a. Fletcher Hanks. The anomalously idiosyncratic comic creator, once buried in obscurity—along with his eccentric creation “Stardust, the Super Wizard”—was the subject of Paul Karasik’s 2008 Eisner Award-winning book, I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets: The Comics of Fletcher Hanks (Fantagraphics). For info on obtaining ACE Comics reprints, contact Ron Frantz at magilla445@aol.com or at P.O. Box 1711, Mena, AR 71953. [Fantomah ©2009 respective copyright holders.]

heed their advice, what is the point in having one? So, as much as it aggravated me, I settled with Bernhardt (who acted as if I were taking advantage of his lavish generosity) for a flat $500. I remembered an old employer once telling me that, if a man were not in the position to write off a percentage of his profits, he shouldn’t be in business. No doubt this was one of those situations. Oh, well. If nothing else, it made Jerry happy. I discovered a short time later that Bernhardt had pulled the same stunt on at least one other small publisher. Then, as unbelievable as it may sound, Bernhardt had the gall to offer me “reprint rights” to other stories from early issues of Silver Streak Comics. Hah! Putting it mildly, imps would be ice-skating on the river Styx before Berhnardt got any more money out of me. 1/7/87: Isn’t this a magnificent cover by old-timer Gus Ricca? The Detective Picture Stories cover is why I fell in love with the early comic books. You could almost reproduce it as it is. And Will Eisner leads off in the book with “Muss ’Em Up,” a James Cagney-inspired cop. 1937 vintage—the comic book company that was related to Centaur and Quality. Lee Boyett, the collector in Little Rock, is an expert on the Centaur line. These would be golden “pick-ups” if we could cultivate the guy. Boy, did I get into hot water over this one! I used the stat from Detective Picture Stories as a cover for Fantastic Adventures #2. Pat Boyette (not to be confused with Lee) touched up the art and provided the necessary color. It was my understanding that Jerry provided the cover stat for me to use with no strings attached. Evidently this was not the case. A short time later, Lee Boyett wrote to complain, annoyed that he did not receive credit or a token payment. Jerry had failed to mention that little detail, which I presume was an oversight on his part. In any event, it caused a disagreement between Jerry and Lee, thus ending their friendship. It is something that I very much regret.

The unpublished Jerry Siegel script that Jerry mentioned is titled “Ookie and Zookie.“ The best description that I can offer is that it was a curious mix of elements from Doctor Strange and Dennis the Menace. I had hoped to team up Siegel with artist Steve Ditko, who thought it was the best script he had read in years. The prospect of teaming the cocreators of Superman and Spider-Man was nothing less than tantalizing. Ditko was literally chomping at the bit and submitted some marvelous preliminary sketches. However, there was a fly in the ointment. Siegel, for whatever reason, had a change of heart and wanted everything signed in blood. We were unable to agree on financial terms, and the project fell by the wayside. Needless to say, Ditko and I were both very disappointed. During the first week of July, 1987, I paid a visit to Jerry’s home in New Jersey. The visit was much too hurried, as I was on a very tight schedule. Upon arriving, Jerry anxiously wanted to show me his magnificent collection of C.C. Beck originals. These were mostly hand-colored reproductions of various Golden Age comic books covers, re-created in Beck’s unique style. I was quite weary from the long drive and unable to appreciate the art in the manner it deserved. Jerry was then kind enough to put me up for the night, and I appreciated the opportunity to get a few hours of badly needed sleep. The following morning we had a more leisurely visit. Later that afternoon, I had an appointment to meet with Steve Ditko at his New York studio, but Jerry and I still had plenty of time to talk. After breakfast, we decided to take a stroll through his quiet neighborhood. A half-hour or so later we found a park bench and sat down to chew the fat. Much to my surprise, Jerry began to tell me in glowing terms about how wonderful things had become between himself and his “friends” at Warner Bros. Regardless of how previous dealings with Mad/Warner that had left his professional career in shambles, Jerry seemed convinced that all was now sweetness and light. It was like hearing a siren call that whispered in his ear, “Come home, my son… all is forgiven.” What seemed to bring about this peculiar spirit of camaraderie is that Jerry had accrued some kind of a pension while working those long years at Mad. Jerry having reached retirement age, Warner was now prepared (out of the kindness of their hearts) to offer him a cash settlement. Their explanation was that Jerry would not have to fret about depositing that pittance of a check every month in the bank. Never mind reading the fine print on the contract. Just sign your name on the dotted-line line and we will take care of you. Don’t worry about a thing. Like every big corporation, the only reason that we are in business is to make people happy. Trust us. As mind-boggling as it seemed to me, Jerry was a heartbeat away from doing just that. Personally, I would have felt more at ease playing highstakes poker with a card shark who dealt from the bottom of the deck. My advice to Jerry was that he not sign anything until he had a long talk with a certified public accountant and a competent attorney. I felt that it was important that he completely understand all the legalities hidden in the fine print. Jerry, bless his heart, had difficulty understanding why I might have reason to question the good will of his new friends. Granted, it was a touchy situation, but I knew that the time had come for me to tell him

FCA (Fawcett Collectors Of America)

that he might have some cause for concern. Among other things, there was, in all likelihood, one person at Warner in a position of authority who hated his guts. Putting it as delicately as I could, I told Jerry that terrible story that had been related to me five years earlier by Dick Giordano. [See Part II in last issue —PCH.] Jerry looked utterly astonished as I related in detail how a moment of alcohol-induced indiscretion had probably caused him years of unspeakable grief. For a few moments, Jerry sat in silence, unmistakably shaken. Then, the shock turned into anger. His initial reaction was that, if the story was true, why had I not told him about it before? To tell the truth, I really didn’t have a sensible answer. The best I could offer is that I genuinely believed that keeping the story to myself was the right thing to do. I explained that there had been moments in my own life when someone told me something in confidence that I would have been much happier not to know. The knowledge caused me nothing but misery. Although I might have exercised poor judgment, I thought this to be one of those situations. I am not sure that Jerry understood my rationale, but he said that he would consider my advice before making a final decision. I never knew if he did or not. We never spoke of the matter again. I only know that our friendship was never quite the same.

Bakalian said: “I am sorry things didn’t work out. If it’s any conciliation, you got beat out by Steven Spielberg.” Actually, that tidbit of news didn’t make me feel the least bit better. To say that I was disappointed would be putting it mildly. Afterwards, I couldn’t help but think there may have been more to the story than what Bakalian cared to tell. I remembered Dick Giordano’s haunting prediction that I would make be making a enemy at Warner Bros. if I continued working with Jerry De Fuccio. I guess there is no way to know if my unknown antagonist had anything to do with the termination of my animation deal with RankinBass. All of this might have been a strange coincidence, although I must admit to having lingering doubts. If nothing else, it makes for intriguing speculation. Following the demise of my ACE Comics line, I didn’t hear from Jerry for a year or so. Then, from out of the blue, I received the following letter. 7/1/89: What are you up to in the line of work? I’m making a bit of money with Michael Delle-Femine [Cracked magazine]. I’d like to get an adventure book going, with his approval. Son of Two-Fisted Tales, sort of.

By the late summer of 1987, my ACE Comics line came to a screeching halt. The direct sales market become insolvent, and several distributors filed for bankruptcy and disappeared into the night owing me (and many other publishers) thousands of dollars. In any event, I had no choice but to find something else to do. For a time, it appeared that I might not have to look far. In September, I signed a contract with the Rankin-Bass animation studio to produce a series of Spencer Spook cartoons for television. R-B took out a two-year option the property which, needless to say, had the potential to be very lucrative. Of course, the thousand dollars they sent me in earnest money was a step in the right direction. Despite great anticipation on my part, the first year came and went with little fanfare. My impression was that R-B was purposely keeping me unaware of what they were doing. Then, when I was about to abandon hope, I received notification that R-B would be exercising their option for a second year. Peter Bakalian, my contact at R-B, informed me that the studio had already done some preliminary animation work. He seemed optimistic that it was just a matter of time before the Spencer Spook series went into full production. Bakaian promised to keep me informed of the progress. The only problem was that there wasn’t any progress to report. The silence was almost unbearable. It was not as if I expected a brass band, but a little noise on the other end would have been appreciated. After the time limit had expired, I called Bakalian to ask what, if anything, was going on with Spencer Spook. Upon dialing the number I had been using, I was greeting by a familiar recording from the phone company telling me that the number had been changed. When dialing the new number, I was greeted with a disquieting salutation: “Thank you for calling Warner Bros. How may I direct your call?” At that moment I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that something had gone badly amiss. With great trepidation, I asked for Peter Bakalian and the operator immediately transferred the call to him. Bakalian seemed apologetic when he explained that the Spencer Spook cartoon series had been cancelled. According to Bakalian, Warner Bros. had recently bought Rankin-Bass. During the initial period following the transition of ownership, R-B had been instructed by the new owners to continue working on whatever they had on the drawing board. This included Spencer Spook. Then, without warning or explanation, came explicit instructions to kill Spencer Spook and begin production on a new series created by Steven Spielberg titled Tiny Toons.

Lovestruck Gus Ricca’s Detective Picture Stories #4 cover from 1937 became the cover of ACE Comics’ Fantastic Adventures #2 (Oct. 1987). Jerry De Fuccio informed ACE publisher Ron Frantz that the cover was “why I fell in love with the early comic books.” Frantz, as with his reproducing of the C.C. Beck-re-created Daredevil/Claw story provided by De Fuccio, reports that he also got “into hot water” from using the above cover art. [©2009 respective copyright holders.]

The De Fuccio Papers—Part III

understood that he had to follow the dictates of his own conscience. The rift between us became permanent.

Anthem We leave you with this uplifting song from Al Jaffee’s “Super Heroes Convention,” published in ACE Comics’ Fantastic Adventures #2 (Oct. 1987). Is that the Big Red Cheese I see in the center of the crowd? [©2009 Ron Frantz.]

8/11/89: Alex Toth and I were hoping Michael Delle-Femine would go for another Two Fisted Tales type of magazine, but the possibility has dimmed somewhat. As you know, Michael is an enthusiastic and ingratiating young man. The current issue of Cracked, relatively all-Batman, has attained the MAD plateau as regards the print order of 800,000. It looks like a sell-out! Apparently, Michael is getting restless or mayhap he’s out of tune with his publisher. Neither Pat Boyette nor I know the true direction of Globe Communications. I simply hope that Michael stays on. I’ve been paid a regular stipend per issue and it has been a most welcome supplement to my eviscerated Social Security. I’ve lost some nine years payment on Social Security since my dismissal from E.C. I’m mindful that you brought Michael and myself together in the first place. 12/5/89: I thought Cracked would be more adult. Though on a “kiddie level,” it’s good to have a job these days. The magazine business is poor, but we’re doing OK.

A few months later, Delle-Femine left Cracked. This worked out to Jerry’s advantage, as he became co-editor of the magazine. Knowing that I hoped to get back into the comics business in some way, Jerry suggested that I try writing some humor material for Cracked. In my spare time, I produced two finished scripts, which he summarily rejected. From here, the story took a definite turn for the worse. Much to my surprise, one of my “gags” turned up a few months later with some minor revision on the back cover of Cracked. After I brought the matter to his attention, Jerry denied any wrongdoing. For me, the timing could not have been worse, as I had recently submitted the material to a different publisher. This put me in an awkward position with the editor of that magazine, who kept a keen eye on the competition. This fellow actually accused me of “swiping” my own gag from Cracked. As you might well imagine, it eliminated any chance I might have had of selling anything to him. I am sad to say that this unfortunate situation became the basis for discord between myself and Jerry‘s publisher, Globe Communications. Somewhere in the process, Jerry and I stopped corresponding. With my plea for recompense falling on deaf ears, I filed a lawsuit against Globe Communications in 1993 for copyright infringement. By that time Jerry had left the magazine and was not directly involved in the litigation. However, my attorney informed me that he would be called to testify as a material witness if the case went to trial. Understandably, it was not the kind of situation that promotes harmony between friends. I was a little disappointed that Jerry was not more supportive of my position, but I

The lawsuit dragged on for almost five years. It has been my experience that our court system tends to be slow as a seven-year itch, especially when the opposition party does everything possible to stall the proceeding. Finally, in 1998, my attorney became ill and retired from his law practice. Lacking the financial recourses to start over with a new attorney, I had no choice but to drop the lawsuit. Although I felt I had a legitimate grievance, I discovered that battling a large publisher in Federal Court is not far removed from tilting at windmills. Call it a “no-win” scenario.

I can now look back at many of these events from a less biased perspective. Although my squabble with Jerry and his publisher seemed important at the time, I realize that it never justified any of the grief it caused. In retrospect, I realize that most of us are fallible human beings who make our fair share of mistakes. All any of us can do under extenuating circumstances is our best, and sometimes that is not enough. I have little doubt that this was the case with Jerry and me. When reminiscing upon our relationship some twenty years after the fact, I prefer to remember the good times. That, I think, is the way it should be.

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BATCAVE COMPANION

IT’S FINALLY HERE! The writer/editor of the critically acclaimed KRYPTON COMPANION and the designer of the eye-popping SPIES, VIXENS, AND MASTERS OF KUNG FU: THE ART OF PAUL GULACY team up to explore the Silver and Bronze Ages of Batman comic books in THE BATCAVE COMPANION! Two distinct sections of this book examine the Dark Knight’s progression from his campy “New Look” of the mid-1960s to his “creature of the night” reinvention of the 1970s. Features include issue-byissue indexes, interviews with CARMINE INFANTINO, JOE GIELLA, DENNIS O’NEIL, and NEAL ADAMS, and guest essays by MIKE W. BARR and WILL MURRAY. Contributors include SHELDON MOLDOFF, LEN WEIN, STEVE ENGLEHART, and TERRY AUSTIN, with a special tribute to the late MARSHALL ROGERS. With its incisive introduction by DENNIS O’NEIL and its iconic cover painting by NEAL ADAMS, THE BATCAVE COMPANION is a must-have for every comics fan! By MICHAEL EURY and MICHAEL KRONENBERG.

WHE % N YO ORD U ONL ER INE!

(224-page trade paperback) $26.95 US • ISBN: 9781893905788 • Diamond Order Code: NOV068368 • Ships April 2009

COMIC BOOK PODCAST COMPANION Comic book podcasts have taken the Internet by storm, and now TwoMorrows offers you the chance to go behind the scenes of ten of today's top comic book podcasts via all-new interviews with the casts of AROUND COMICS, WORD BALLOON, QUIET! PANELOLOGISTS AT WORK, COMIC BOOK QUEERS, iFANBOY, THE CRANKCAST, THE COLLECTED COMICS LIBRARY, THE PIPELINE PODCAST, COMIC GEEK SPEAK, and TwoMorrows’ own TUNE-IN PODCAST! Also featured are new interviews about podcasting and comics on the Internet with creators MATT FRACTION, TIM SEELEY, and GENE COLAN. You'll also find a handy guide of what you’ll need to start your own podcast, an index of more than thirty great comic book podcasts, numerous photos of your favorite podcasters, and original art from COLAN, SEELEY, DC's MIKE NORTON, and many more! By ERIC HOUSTON, with a spectacular new cover by MIKE MANLEY. (128-page trade paperback) $15.95 • ISBN: 9781605490182 • Ships May 2009

ALL-STAR COMPANION Volume 4 The epic series of ALL-STAR COMPANIONS goes out with a bang, featuring: Colossal coverage of the Golden Age ALL-STAR COMICS! Sensational secrets of the JUNIOR JUSTICE SOCIETY! An index of the complete solo adventures of all 18 original JSAers in their own features, from 1940 to 1951! The JSA's earliest imitators (Seven Soldiers of Victory, All Winners Squad, Marvel Family, and International Crime Patrol)! INFINITY, INC. on Earth-Two and after! And the 1980s SECRET ORIGINS series! With rare art by ALEX ROSS, TODD McFARLANE, JERRY ORDWAY, CARMINE INFANTINO, JOE KUBERT, ALEX TOTH, GIL KANE, MURPHY ANDERSON, IRWIN HASEN, MORT MESKIN, GENE COLAN, WAYNE BORING, GEORGE TUSKA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, GEORGE FREEMAN, DON NEWTON, JACK BURNLEY, MIKE MACHLAN, HOWARD CHAYKIN, DICK DILLIN, and others. Edited by ROY THOMAS.

CAPTAIN ACTION: THE ORIGINAL SUPERHERO ACTION FIGURE

(240-page trade paperback) $27.95 US • ISBN: 9781605490045 Ships June 2009

(Hardcover 2nd Edition)

CAPTAIN ACTION was introduced in 1966 in the wake of the Batman TV show craze, and later received his own DC comic book with art by WALLY WOOD and GIL KANE. Able to assume the identities of 13 famous super-heroes, his initial career was short-lived, but continuing interest in the hero has led to two different returns to toy-store shelves. Lavishly illustrated with over 200 toy photos, this FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER SECOND EDITION chronicles the history of this quick-changing champion, including photos of virtually EVERY CAPTAIN ACTION PRODUCT ever released, spotlights on his allies ACTION BOY and the SUPER QUEENS and his arch enemy DR. EVIL, an examination of his comic-book appearances, and “Action facts” that even the most diehard Captain Action fan won’t know! The original softcover edition has been sold out for years, but this revised, full-color hardcover second edition includes behind-the-scenes coverage of CAPTAIN ACTION’S TRIUMPHANT 2008 RETURN to comics shelves in his new series from Moonstone Books, and spotlights the new wave of Captain Action collectibles. Written by MICHAEL EURY. (176-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 US • ISBN: 9781605490175 • Ships July 2009

MARVEL COMICS IN THE 1960s: An Issue-By-Issue Field Guide

The comic book industry experienced an unexpected flowering in the early 1960s, compliments of Marvel Comics, and this book presents a step-by-step look at how a company that had the reputation of being one of the least creative in a generally moribund industry, emerged as one of the most dynamic, slightly irreverent and downright original contributions to an era when pop-culture emerged as the dominant force in the artistic life of America. In scores of handy, easy to reference entries, MARVEL COMICS IN THE 1960s takes the reader from the legendary company’s first fumbling beginnings as helmed by savvy editor/writer STAN LEE (aided by such artists as JACK KIRBY and STEVE DITKO), to the full maturity of its wild, colorful, offbeat grandiosity. With the history of Marvel Comics in the 1960s divided into four distinct phases, author PIERRE COMTOIS explains just how Lee, Kirby, Ditko, and others created a line of comic books that, while grounded in the traditional elements of panel-to-panel storytelling, broke through the juvenile mindset of a low brow industry and provided a tapestry of full blown pop culture icons. (224-page trade paperback) $27.95 US • ISBN: 9781605490168 • Ships July 2009

GRAILPAGES:

Original Comic Book Art And The Collectors GRAILPAGES brings to light the burgeoning hobby of collecting the original, hand-drawn art that is used to create comic books! Beginning more as a novelty, the hobby of collecting original comic art has expanded to a point where some of the seminal pages commonly run more than $10,000 each. Author STEVEN ALAN PAYNE lets you meet collectors from around the globe and hear their passion in their own words, as they detail collections ranging from a few key pages, to broad, encompassing collections of literally hundreds of pages of original comic art by such artists as JACK KIRBY, JOHN ROMITA SR., and others! Balancing out the narratives are incisive interviews with industry pros, including writers GERRY CONWAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, and ROY THOMAS, and exclusive perspectives from Silver Age artists DICK GIORDANO, BOB McLEOD, ERNIE CHAN, TONY DeZUNIGA, and the unparalleled great, GENE COLAN! Completing the book is a diverse sampling of breathtakingly beautiful original comic art, some lavishly presented in full-page spreads, including pages not seen publicly for decades. Fans of comic art, comic books, and pop culture will find in GRAILPAGES an appreciation for a uniquely American form of art! (128-page trade paperback) $15.95 US • ISBN: 9781605490151 Diamond Order Code: JAN094470 • Ships March 2009

MAGAZINES

DIEDGITIIOTANSL BL AVAILA

BRICKJOURNAL magazine is the ultimate resource for LEGO enthusiasts of all ages, spotlighting the LEGO Community with contributions and how-to articles by top builders worldwide, new product intros, and more. Edited by JOE MENO. ALTER EGO focuses on Golden and Silver Age comics and creators with articles, interviews and unseen art, plus FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), Mr. Monster & more. Edited by ROY THOMAS.

BRICKJOURNAL #3

BRICKJOURNAL #4

BRICKJOURNAL #5

BRICKJOURNAL #6

Event Reports from BRICKWORLD, FIRST LEGO LEAGUE WORLD FESTIVAL and PIECE OF PEACE (Japan), spotlight on our cover model builder BRYCE McGLONE, and interviews with ARTHUR GUGICK and STEVEN CANVIN of LEGO MINDSTORMS to see where LEGO ROBOTICS is going! There’s also STEP-BY-STEP BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS, TECHNIQUES, & more!

Interviews with LEGO BUILDERS including BREANN SLEDGE (BIONICLE BUILDER), Event Reports from BRICKFAIR and BRICKCON, plus reports on new MINDSTORMS PROJECTS, STEP-BY-STEP BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS and TECHNIQUES for all skill levels, NEW SET REVIEWS, and a report on constructing the Chinese Olympic Village in LEGO!

Features event reports from around the world, and the MINDSTORMS 10TH ANNIVERSARY at LEGO HEADQUARTERS! Plus an interview with the head of the LEGO GROUP’S 3D DEPARTMENT, a glimpse at the LEGO Group's past with the DIRECTOR OF LEGO'S IDEA HOUSE, instructions and spotlights on builders, and an idea section for Pirate builders!

Spotlight on CLASSIC SPACE SETS and a look at new ones with LEGO SET DESIGNERS, BRANDON GRIFFITH shows his STAR TREK MODELS, plus take a tour of the DUTCH MOONBASE with MIKE VAN LEEUWEN and MARCO BAAS. There's also coverage of BRICKFEST 2009 and FIRST LEGO LEAGUE'S WORLD FESTIVAL and photos from TOY FAIR NEW YORK!

(80-page COLOR magazine) $8.95 US Diamond Order Code: JUN084415

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(80-page COLOR magazine) $8.95 US Ships June 2009

THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

BACK ISSUE celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through a variety of recurring (and rotating) departments, plus rare and unpublished art. Edited by MICHAEL EURY. DRAW! is the professional “How-To” magazine on cartooning and animation, featuring in-depth interviews and step-bystep demonstrations from top comics professionals. Edited by MIKE MANLEY. ROUGH STUFF features never-seen pencil pages, sketches, layouts, roughs, and unused inked pages from throughout comics history, plus columns, critiques, and more! Edited by BOB McLEOD. WRITE NOW! features writing tips from pros on both sides of the desk, interviews, sample scripts, reviews, exclusive Nuts & Bolts tutorials, and more! Edited by DANNY FINGEROTH.

ALTER EGO #81

ALTER EGO #82

ALTER EGO #83

ALTER EGO #84

New FRANK BRUNNER Man-Thing cover, a look at the late-’60s horror comic WEB OF HORROR with early work by BRUNNER, WRIGHTSON, WINDSOR-SMITH, SIMONSON, & CHAYKIN, interview with comics & fine artist EVERETT RAYMOND KINTSLER, ROY THOMAS’ 1971 origin synopsis for the FIRST MAN-THING STORY, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

MLJ ISSUE! Golden Age MLJ index illustrated with vintage images of The Shield, Hangman, Mr. Justice, Black Hood, by IRV NOVICK, JACK COLE, CHARLES BIRO, MORT MESKIN, GIL KANE, & others—behind a marvelous MLJ-heroes cover by BOB McLEOD! Plus interviews with IRV NOVICK and JOE EDWARDS, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

SWORD & SORCERY PART 2! Cover by ARTHUR SUYDAM, in-depth art-filled look at Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian, DC’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Dagar the Invincible, Ironjaw & Wulf, and Arak, Son of Thunder, plus the never-seen Valda the Iron Maiden by TODD McFARLANE! Plus JOE EDWARDS (Part 2), FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

Unseen JIM APARO cover, STEVE SKEATES discusses his early comics work, art & artifacts by ADKINS, APARO, ARAGONÉS, BOYETTE, DITKO, GIORDANO, KANE, KELLER, MORISI, ORLANDO, SEKOWSKY, STONE, THOMAS, WOOD, and the great WARREN SAVIN! Plus writer CHARLES SINCLAIR on his partnership with Batman co-creator BILL FINGER, FCA, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Diamond Order Code: AUG084454

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Diamond Order Code: OCT084483

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Diamond Order Code: NOV084368

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Diamond Order Code: JAN094555 Ships March 2009

C o l l e c t o r

The JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR magazine celebrates his life and career through INTERVIEWS WITH KIRBY and his contemporaries, FEATURE ARTICLES, RARE AND UNSEEN KIRBY ART, and more. Edited by JOHN MORROW.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE PRINT EDITION, AND GET THE DIGITAL EDITION FREE, BEFORE THE PRINT ISSUE HITS STORES!

BACK ISSUE #29

BACK ISSUE #30

BACK ISSUE #31

BACK ISSUE #32

“Mutants” issue! CLAREMONT, BYRNE, SMITH, and ROMITA, JR.’s X-Men work, NOCENTI and ARTHUR ADAMS’ Longshot, McLEOD and SIENKIEWICZ’s New Mutants, the UK’s CAPTAIN BRITAIN series, lost Angel stories, Beast’s tenure with the Avengers, the return of the original X-Men in X-Factor, the revelation of Nightcrawler’s “original” father, a history of DC’s mutant, Captain Comet, and more! Cover by DAVE COCKRUM!

“Saturday Morning Heroes!” Interviews with TV Captain Marvels JACKSON BOSTWICK and JOHN DAVEY, MAGGIN and SAVIUK’s lost Superman/”Captain Thunder” sequel, Space Ghost interviews with GARY OWENS and STEVE RUDE, MARV WOLFMAN guest editorial, Super Friends, unproduced fourth wave Super Powers action figures, Astro Boy, ADAM HUGHES tribute to DAVE STEVENS, and a new cover by ALEX ROSS!

“STEVE GERBER Salute!” In-depth look at his Howard the Duck, Man-Thing, Omega the Unknown, Defenders, Metal Men, Mister Miracle, Thundarr the Barbarian, and more! Plus: Creators pay tribute to Steve Gerber, featuring art by and commentary from BRUNNER, BUCKLER, COLAN, GOLDEN, STAN LEE, LEVITZ, MAYERIK, MOONEY, PLOOG, SIMONSON, and others. Cover painting by FRANK BRUNNER!

“Tech, Data, and Hardware!” The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, WEIN, WOLFMAN, and GREENBERGER on DC’s Who’s Who, SAVIUK, STATON, and VAN SCIVER on Drawing Green Lantern, ED HANNIGAN Art Gallery, history of Rom: Spaceknight, story of BILL MANTLO, Dial H for Hero, Richie Rich’s Inventions, and a Spider-Mobile schematic cover by ELIOT BROWN and DUSTY ABELL!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Diamond Order Code: MAY084246

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DRAW! #17

DRAW! #18

ROUGH STUFF #10

ROUGH STUFF #11

ROUGH STUFF #12

Interview with Scott Pilgrim’s creator and artist BRYAN LEE O’MALLEY on how he creates the acclaimed series, plus learn how B.P.R.D.’s GUY DAVIS works on his series. Also, more Comic Art Bootcamp: Learning from The Great Cartoonists by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY, reviews, and more!

Features an in-depth interview and demo by R.M. GUERA (the artist of Vertigo’s Scalped), behind-the-scenes in the Batcave with Cartoon Network’s JAMES TUCKER on the new hit show “Batman: The Brave and the Bold,” plus product reviews by JAMAR NICHOLAS, and Comic Book Boot Camp’s “Anatomy: Part 2” by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY!

Interview with RON GARNEY, with copious examples of sketchwork and comments. Also features on ANDY SMITH, MICHAEL JASON PAZ, and MATT HALEY, showing how their work evolves, excerpts from a new book on ALEX RAYMOND, secrets of teaching comic art by pro inker BOB McLEOD, new cover by GARNEY and McLEOD, newcomer critique, and more!

New cover by GREG HORN, plus interviews with HORN and TOM YEATES on how they produce their stellar work. Also features on GENE HA, JIMMY CHEUNG, and MIKE PERKINS, showing their sketchwork and commentary, tips on collecting sketches and commissions from artists, a “Rough Critique” of a newcomer’s work, and more!

Interview and cover by comic painter CHRIS MOELLER, features on New Zealand comic artist COLIN WILSON, G.I. Joe artist JEREMY DALE, and fan favorite TERRY DODSON, plus "GOOD GIRL ART" (a new article about everyone's favorite collectible art) by ROBERT PLUNKETT, a "Rough Critique" of an aspiring artist's work, and more!

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ALTER EGO #85

ALTER EGO #86

ALTER EGO #87

ALTER EGO #88

WRITE NOW! #20

Captain Marvel and Superman’s battles explored (in cosmic space, candy stories, and in court, with art by WALLY WOOD, CURT SWAN, and GIL KANE), an in-depth interview with Golden Age great LILY RENÉE, overview of CENTAUR COMICS (home of BILL EVERETT’s Amazing-Man and others), FCA, MR. MONSTER, new RICH BUCKLER cover, and more!

Spotlighting the Frantic Four-Color MAD WANNABES of 1953-55 that copied HARVEY KURTZMAN’S EC smash (see Captain Marble, Mighty Moose, Drag-ula, Prince Scallion, and more) with art by SIMON & KIRBY, KUBERT & MAURER, ANDRU & ESPOSITO, EVERETT, COLAN, and many others, plus Part 1 of a talk with Golden/ Silver Age artist FRANK BOLLE, and more!

The sensational 1954-1963 saga of Great Britain’s MARVELMAN (decades before he metamorphosed into Miracleman), plus an interview with writer/artist/co-creator MICK ANGLO, and rare Marvelman/ Miracleman work by ALAN DAVIS, ALAN MOORE, a new RICK VEITCH cover, plus FRANK BOLLE, Part 2, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

First-ever in-depth look at National/DC’s founder MAJOR MALCOLM WHEELERNICHOLSON, and early editors WHITNEY ELLSWORTH, VIN SULLIVAN, and MORT WEISINGER, with rare art and artifacts by SIEGEL & SHUSTER, BOB KANE, CREIG FLESSEL, FRED GUARDINEER, GARDNER FOX, SHELDON MOLDOFF, and others, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

Focus on THE SPIRIT movie, showing how FRANK MILLER transformed WILL EISNER’s comics into the smash-hit film, with interviews with key players behind the making of the movie, a look at what made Eisner’s comics so special, and more. Plus: an interview with COLLEEN DORAN, writer ALEX GRECIAN on how to get a pitch green lighted, script and art examples, and more!

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BACK ISSUE #33

BACK ISSUE #34

BACK ISSUE #35

KIRBY COLLECTOR #52

KIRBY COLLECTOR #53

“Teen Heroes!” Teen Titans in the 1970s & 1980s, with CARDY, GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, PÉREZ, TUSKA, and WOLFMAN, BARON and GUICE on the Flash, interviews with TV Billy Batson MICHAEL GRAY and writer STEVE SKEATES, NICIEZA and BAGLEY’s New Warriors, Legion of Super-Heroes 1970s art gallery, James Bond Jr., and… the Archies! New Teen Titans cover by GEORGE PÉREZ and colored by GENE HA!

“New World Order!” Adam Warlock examined with JIM STARLIN and ROY THOMAS, the history of Miracleman with ALAN DAVIS & GARRY LEACH, JIM SHOOTER interview, roundtable with Marvel’s post-STAN LEE editors-in-chief on the New Universe, Logan’s Run, Star Hunters, BOB WIACEK on Star Wars and Star-Lord, DICK GIORDANO revisits Crisis on Infinite Earths and “The Post-Crisis DC Universe You Didn’t See,” and a new cover by JIM STARLIN!

“Villains!” MIKE ZECK and J.M. DeMATTEIS discuss “Kraven’s Last Hunt” in a “Pro2Pro” interview, the history of the Hobgoblin is exposed, the Joker’s short-lived series, looks back at Secret Society of Super-Villains and Kobra, a Magneto biography, Luthor and Brainiac’s malevolent makeovers, interview with Secret Society artist MIKE VOSBURG, plus contributions from BYRNE, CONWAY, FRENZ, NOVICK, ROMITA JR., STERN, WOLFMAN, and a cover by MIKE ZECK!

Spotlights Kirby’s most obscure work, like an UNUSED THOR STORY, his BRUCE LEE comic, animation work, stage play, and see original unaltered versions of pages from KAMANDI, DEMON, DESTROYER DUCK, and more, including a feature examining the last page of his final issue of various series BEFORE EDITORIAL TAMPERING (with lots of surprises)! Color Kirby covers inked by DON HECK and PAUL SMITH!

Spotlights THE MAGIC OF STAN & JACK! There’s a new interview with STAN LEE, a walking tour of New York showing where Lee & Kirby lived and worked, a re-evaluation of the “Lost” FF #108 story (including a missing page that just surfaced), “What If Jack Hadn’t Left Marvel In 1970?”, plus MARK EVANIER’s regular column, a Kirby pencil art gallery, a complete Golden Age Kirby story, and more, behind a color Kirby cover inked by GEORGE PÉREZ!

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THE ULTIMATE MAGAZINE FOR LEGO ENTHUSIASTS OF ALL AGES! TM

BRICKJOURNAL magazine (edited by Joe Meno) is the ultimate resource for LEGO enthusiasts of all ages. It spotlights all aspects of the LEGO Community, showcasing events, people, and models every issue, with contributions and how-to articles by top builders worldwide, new product intros, and more. Edited by JOE MENO. Begun as a digital-only publication in 2005, the NEW PRINT VERSION (Vol. 2) of BrickJournal launched in 2008, and is available in both print and digital form. Print subscribers get the digital version FREE!

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The ultimate resource for LEGO enthusiasts of all ages, showcasing events, people, and models! FULL-COLOR #1 features an interview with set designer and LEGO Certified Professional NATHAN SAWAYA, plus step-bystep building instructions and techniques for all skill levels, new set reviews, on-the-scene reports from LEGO community events, and other surprises!

This FULL-COLOR issue 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!

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BRICKJOURNAL #3 (Vol. 2) Our third FULL-COLOR print issue has LEGO Event reports from BRICKWORLD (Chicago), FIRST LEGO LEAGUE WORLD FESTIVAL (Atlanta) and PIECE OF PEACE (Japan). There's also a spotlight on the creation of our amazing cover model, built by BRYCE McGLONE, as well as interviews with ARTHUR GUGICK and STEVEN CANVIN of LEGO MINDSTORMS, to see where LEGO robotics is going! Plus step-by-step building instructions, techniques, and more! (80-page FULL COLOR magazine) $8.95 US (Digital Edition) $3.95 (or FREE to print subscribers) • Diamond Order Code: JUN084415

FULL-COLOR issue #4 features interviews with top LEGO BUILDERS including BREANN SLEDGE (BIONICLE BUILDER), Event Reports from LEGO gatherings including BRICKFAIR (Washington, DC) and BRICKCON (Seattle, Washington), plus reports on new MINDSTORMS PROJECTS, STEP-BY-STEP BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS and TECHNIQUES for all skill levels, NEW SET REVIEWS, and a report on the recreation of the Chinese Olympic Village in LEGO! (80-page FULL COLOR magazine) $8.95 US (Digital Edition) $3.95 (or FREE to print subscribers) Diamond Order Code: DEC084408

BRICKJOURNAL #5 (Vol. 2)

BRICKJOURNAL #6 (Vol. 2)

FULL-COLOR issue #5 features event reports from around the world, and the MINDSTORMS 10TH ANNIVERSARY at LEGO HEADQUARTERS! Plus an interview with the head of the LEGO GROUP’S 3D DEPARTMENT, a glimpse at the LEGO Group's past with the DIRECTOR OF LEGO'S IDEA HOUSE, instructions and spotlights on builders, and an idea section for PIRATE BUILDERS!

FULL-COLOR issue #6 goes into space, with a look at old LEGO CLASSIC SPACE SETS and a look toward the new with set designers! BRANDON GRIFFITH beams in with a look at his STAR TREK MODELS, and you'll take a tour of the DUTCH MOONBASE courtesy of MIKE VAN LEEUWEN and MARCO BAAS. There's also coverage of BRICKFEST 2009 and FIRST LEGO LEAGUE'S WORLD FESTIVAL as well as photos from TOY FAIR NEW YORK!

(80-page FULL COLOR magazine) $8.95 US (Digital Edition) $3.95 (or FREE to print subscribers) Diamond Order Code: DEC084408 Ships March 2009

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4-ISSUE SUBSCRIPTIONS: $38 US Postpaid by Media Mail ($48 First Class, $55 Canada • Elsewhere: $78 Surface, $85 Airmail)

PRINT SUBSCRIBERS GET THE DIGITAL EDITION FREE, BEFORE THE PRINT ISSUE HITS STORES!

NEW MODERN MASTERS VOLUMES Each book contains RARE AND UNSEEN ARTWORK direct from the artist’s files, a COMPREHENSIVE INTERVIEW, DELUXE SKETCHBOOK SECTIONS, and more!

Volume 19: MIKE PLOOG

Volume 20: KYLE BAKER

Volume 21: CHRIS SPROUSE

Volume 22: MARK BUCKINGHAM

Volume 23: DARWYN COOKE

by Eric Nolen-Weathington & Roger Ash (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781605490076 Diamond Order Code: SEP084304 Now shipping

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AGE OF TV HEROES Examines the history of the live-action television adventures of everyone’s favorite comic book heroes! FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER features the in-depth stories of the actors and behind-thescene players that made the classic super-hero television programs we all grew up with. Included are new and exclusive interviews and commentary from ADAM WEST (Batman), LYNDA CARTER (Wonder Woman), PATRICK WARBURTON (The Tick), NICHOLAS HAMMOND (Spider-Man), WILLIAM KATT (The Greatest American Hero), JACK LARSON (The Adventures of Superman), JOHN WESLEY SHIPP (The Flash), JACKSON BOSTWICK (Shazam!), and many more! Written by JASON HOFIUS and GEORGE KHOURY, with a new cover by superstar painter ALEX ROSS! (192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 US • ISBN: 9781605490106 Diamond Order Code: SEP084302 Rescheduled for July 2009

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EXTRAORDINARY WORKS KIRBY FIVE-OH! OF ALAN MOORE: LIMITED HARDCOVER Indispensable Edition Limited to 500 copies, KIRBY FIVE-OH! The definitive biography of the co-creator of WATCHMEN and V FOR VENDETTA finally returns to print in a NEW EXPANDED AND UPDATED VERSION! Features an extensive series of interviews with MOORE about his entire career, including a new interview covering his work since the sold-out 2003 edition of this book was published. Includes RARE STRIPS, SCRIPTS, ART, and private PHOTOS of the author, plus a series of tribute comic strips by many of Moore’s closest collaborators, a COLOR SECTION featuring a RARE MOORE STORY (remastered, and starring MR. MONSTER), and more! Edited by GEORGE KHOURY, with a cover by DAVE McKEAN! (240-page trade paperback) $29.95 US ISBN: 9781605490090 Diamond Order Code: OCT084400 Limited Hardcover Signed by Alan Moore (100 hardcover copies) $49.95 US Only available from TwoMorrows!

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LIMITED HARDCOVER EDITION covers the best of everything from Jack Kirby’s 50-year career in comics, including his 50 BEST STORIES, BEST COVERS, BEST EXAMPLES OF UNUSED KIRBY ART, BEST CHARACTER DESIGNS, and profiles of, and commentary by, 50 PEOPLE INFLUENCED BY KIRBY’S WORK! Plus there’s a 50-PAGE GALLERY of Kirby’s PENCIL ART, a DELUXE COLOR SECTION, a previously unseen Kirby Superman cover inked by DARWYN COOKE, and an introduction by MARK EVANIER! Includes a full-color wrapped hardcover, and an individuallynumbered extra Kirby pencil art plate not included in the softcover edition! It’s ONLY AVAILABLE FROM TWOMORROWS, and is not sold in stores! Edited by JOHN MORROW.

Reprints JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #27-30, with looks at Jack’s 1970s and ‘80s work, plus a two-part focus on how widespread Kirby’s influence is! Features rare interviews with KIRBY himself, plus Watchmen’s ALAN MOORE and DAVE GIBBONS, NEIL GAIMAN, Bone’s JEFF SMITH, MARK HAMILL, and others! See page after page of rare Kirby art, including a NEW SPECIAL SECTION with over 30 PIECES OF KIRBY ART NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED, and more! (288-page trade paperback) $29.95 US ISBN: 9781605490120 Diamond Order Code: DEC084286 Ships February 2009

(168-page Limited Edition Hardcover) (500 hardcover copies) $34.95 US Only available from TwoMorrows!

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Subscriptions will start with the next available issue, but CURRENT AND OLDER ISSUES MUST BE PURCHASED AT THE BACK ISSUE PRICE (new issues ship in bulk, and we pass the savings on in our subscription rates). In the US, we generally ship back issues and books by MEDIA MAIL.

COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR Volume 7

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

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

(192-page trade paperback) $21.95 ISBN: 9781893905887 Diamond Order Code: DEC073946

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

(240-page trade paperback) $24.95 ISBN: 9781893905375 Diamond Order Code: AUG063622

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

ALTER EGO #2

ALTER EGO #3

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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ALTER EGO #4

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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!

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

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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!

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

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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!

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

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

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

ALTER EGO #18

ALTER EGO #19

ALTER EGO #20

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

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

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

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

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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! (108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC023029

ALTER EGO #22

ALTER EGO #23

ALTER EGO #24

ALTER EGO #25

ALTER EGO #26

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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!

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

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

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

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

ALTER EGO #32

ALTER EGO #33

ALTER EGO #34

ALTER EGO #35

ALTER EGO #36

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALTER EGO #37

ALTER EGO #38

ALTER EGO #39

ALTER EGO #40

ALTER EGO #41

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALTER EGO #42

ALTER EGO #43

ALTER EGO #44

ALTER EGO #45

ALTER EGO #46

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALTER EGO #47

ALTER EGO #48

ALTER EGO #49

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALTER EGO #54 ALTER EGO #51

ALTER EGO #52

ALTER EGO #53

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALTER EGO #56

ALTER EGO #57

ALTER EGO #58

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALTER EGO #60

ALTER EGO #61

ALTER EGO #62

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

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

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

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY063496

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: JUN063522

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG063690

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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!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: OCT063800

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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

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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! (100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: OCT073927

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ALTER EGO #78 ALTER EGO #77 ST. JOHN ISSUE! Golden Age Tor cover by JOE KUBERT, KEN QUATTRO relates the full legend of St. John Publishing, art by KUBERT, NORMAN MAURER, MATT BAKER, LILY RENEE, BOB LUBBERS, RUBEN MOREIRA, RALPH MAYO, AL FAGO, special reminiscences of ARNOLD DRAKE, Golden Age artist TOM SAWYER interviewed, and more! (100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAR084108

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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 Diamond Order Code: APR084249

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 art by WAYNE BORING, CURT SWAN, NEAL ADAMS, GIL 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!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY084245

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NEW STUFF FROM TWOMORROWS!

BACK ISSUE #33

WRITE NOW! #20

ROUGH STUFF #12

DRAW! #17

BRICKJOURNAL #5

Go behind the pages of the hit series of graphic novels starring Scott Pilgrim with his creator and artist, BRYAN LEE O’MALLEY, to see how he creates the acclaimed series! Then, learn how B.P.R.D.’s GUY DAVIS works on the series, plus more Comic Art Bootcamp: Learning from The Great Cartoonists by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY, reviews, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US (Digital Edition) $2.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN094556 Now shipping!

(80-page magazine) $6.95 US (Digital Edition) $2.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC084398 FINAL ISSUE! Now shipping!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US (Digital Edition) $2.95 Diamond Order Code: FEB094564 FINAL ISSUE! Ships April 2009

(80-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 US • (Digital Edition) $2.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC084377 Ships March 2009

(80-page COLOR magazine) $8.95 US (Digital Edition) $3.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC084408 Ships March 2009

KIRBY COLLECTOR #52

EXTRAORDINARY WORKS OF ALAN MOORE:

BATCAVE COMPANION

BRICKJOURNAL COMPENDIUM 2

The definitive autobiographical book on ALAN MOORE in a NEW EXPANDED AND UPDATED VERSION! Includes new interviews covering his work since the original 2003 edition of the book. From SWAMP THING, V FOR VENDETTA, WATCHMEN, and LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN and beyond – all are discussed by Alan. Plus, there’s RARE STRIPS, SCRIPTS, ARTWORK, and PHOTOGRAPHS, tribute comic strips by NEIL GAIMAN and other of Moore’s closest collaborators, a COLOR SECTION featuring the RARE MOORE STORY “The Riddle of the Recalcitrant Refuse” (newly remastered, and starring MR. MONSTER), and more! Edited by GEORGE KHOURY, with a cover by DAVE McKEAN!

Explore the Silver and Bronze Ages of Batman comic books in THE BATCAVE COMPANION! Two distinct sections of this book examine the Dark Knight’s progression from his campy “New Look” of the mid-1960s to his “creature of the night” reinvention of the 1970s. Features include issue-by-issue indexes, interviews with CARMINE INFANTINO, JOE GIELLA, DENNIS O’NEIL, and NEAL ADAMS, and guest essays by MIKE W. BARR and WILL MURRAY. Contributors include SHELDON MOLDOFF, LEN WEIN, STEVE ENGLEHART, and TERRY AUSTIN, with a special tribute to the late MARSHALL ROGERS. With its incisive introduction by DENNIS O’NEIL and its iconic cover painting by NEAL ADAMS, THE BATCAVE COMPANION is a must-have for every comics fan! By MICHAEL EURY and MICHAEL KRONENBERG.

FULL-COLOR! BRICKJOURNAL, the ultimate magazine for LEGO enthusiasts of all ages, began as an online (PDF) magazine in 2005, and this book compiles the digital-only issues #4-5 (Vol. 1, from 2006) in print for the first time! Features interviews with: MIKE WILDER (about using a Mindstorms robot to film a 3-D documentary) and MARK LARSON (creator of the Fabuland Housewifes online comic strip), ALBAN NANTY on his LEGO-based Star Wars® film, plus features on LEGO character sculptures, tutorials on LCad software for creating projects, an examination of LEGOLand's history, behind the scenes at a LEGO factory, building big with LEGOs (from castles and rollercoasters to ships and skyscrapers), creating custom minifigures, instructions and building techniques, and more!

(240-page trade paperback) $29.95 US ISBN: 9781605490090 Diamond Order Code: JAN088702 Now shipping!

(224-page trade paperback) $26.95 US ISBN: 9781893905788 Diamond Order Code: NOV068368 Ships April 2009

Spotlights Kirby’s most obscure work, like an UNUSED THOR STORY, BRUCE LEE comic, animation work, stage play, unaltered versions of pages from KAMANDI, DEMON, & DESTROYER DUCK, a feature examining the last page of his final issue of various series BEFORE EDITORIAL TAMPERING, unseen Kirby covers & more! (84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 US Diamond Order Code: DEC084397 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Now shipping!

COLLECTED KIRBY COLLECTOR VOL. 7 Reprints KIRBY COLLECTOR #27-30 plus over 30 pieces of Kirby art never published! (288-page trade paperback) $29.95 ISBN: 9781605490120 Now shipping

Indispensable Edition

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!

2009 SUBSCRIPTION RATES:

Media Mail

(224-page FULL-COLOR trade paperback) $34.95 US ISBN: 9781605490021 Diamond Order Code: JUN084416 Now shipping

VOLUME 20: KYLE BAKER

(120-page trade paperback with COLOR) $14.95 US • ISBN: 9781605490083 Ships March 2009

VOLUME 21: CHRIS SPROUSE

(128-page trade paperback) $14.95 US • ISBN: 97801605490137 Ships April 2009 Each features an extensive, career-spanning interview lavishly illustrated with rare art from the artist’s files, plus huge sketchbook section, including unseen and unused art!

1st Class Canada 1st Class Priority US Intl. Intl.

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR (4 issues)

$50

$60

$84

$136

BACK ISSUE! (6 issues)

$44

$60

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DRAW! (4 issues)

$30

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

$88

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BRICKJOURNAL (4 issues)

$38

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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