Back Issue #136 Preview by TwoMorrows Publishing

BRONZE AGE COMIC STRIPS ISSUE! July 20

6 3 1 . o N 10.95

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THE COMIC STRIP HOWARD THE DUCK

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Friday STA R Foster H AW KS

ST A R TREK

GRELL’s Tarzan Sundays • DC’s World’s Greatest Super-Heroes KREMER & KAY’s Richie Rich • Charlton’s comic strip tie-ins Menomonee Falls Gazette & more!

Volume 1, Number 136 July 2022 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER David Baldy SPECIAL THANKS Mark Arnold Mike W. Barr Dewey Cassell Howard Chaykin Gerry Conway Rosie Ford Grand Comics Database Mike Grell Rich Handley Ron Harris Heritage Comics Auctions John K. Kirk Paul Kupperberg Paul Levitz Steve Lipsky Marvel Comics Val Mayerik Robert Menzies Javier Meson Ian Millsted David Moreu Dean Mullaney Bob Rozakis Alex Saviuk Jerry Sinkovec John Siuntres

Ronn Sutton Roy Thomas Steven Thompson Mike Tiefenbacher John Wells Dennis Wilcutt Marv Wolfman

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BEYOND CAPES: Friday Foster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 The pioneering adventure strip starring an African-American heroine FLASHBACK: Charlton’s Funny Papers’ Funny Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Blondie, Snuffy Smith, and other King Features stars in Bronze Age comic books BACK IN PRINT: The Menomonee Falls Gazette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 The rise and fall of the fanzine-newspaper that published strips old and new UNKNOWN MARVEL: Spider-Man and Dan Dare’s Creator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Frank Hampson’s not-so-amazing rendition of your friendly neighborhood wall-crawler PRO2PRO: Spider-Man, the Amazing Newspaper Strip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Alex Saviuk and Roy Thomas discuss the long-running feature’s final years WHAT THE?!: Howard the (Duck) Newspaper Strip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Trapped in a syndicated world he never made FLASHBACK: The World’s Greatest Superheroes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Superman and the Justice League in daily and Sunday adventures BEYOND CAPES: Star Hawks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Ron Goulart and Gil Kane’s space opera ONE-HIT WONDERS: Richie Rich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 The poor little rich boy’s blink-and-you-missed-it syndicated strip BACKSTAGE PASS: Star Trek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Boldly going from a movie reboot to your local newspaper BEYOND CAPES: Mike Grell’s Tarzan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 The fan-favorite artist’s version of the Lord of the Jungle BACK TALK: Reader Reactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 BACK ISSUE™ issue 136, July 2022 (ISSN 1932-6904) is published monthly (except Jan., March, May, and Nov.) by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 4490344. Periodicals postage pending at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Back Issue, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 112 Fairmount Way, New Bern, NC 28562. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Eight-issue subscriptions: $90 Economy US, $137 International, $39 Digital. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Spider-Man and Howard the Duck TM & © Marvel. Friday Foster © Tribune Syndicate. Star Hawks © Newspaper Enterprise Association, Inc. Star Trek © CBS Studios Inc. Other characters © their respective companies. All Rights Reserved. All editorial matter © 2022 TwoMorrows and Michael Eury. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING

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Smile! Original publicity artwork by Jorge Longarón, dated October 7, 1973, for the Friday Foster newspaper strip. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions (www.ha.com). Friday Foster © Tribune Syndicate.

If you ever think about the classic, long-running newspaper strip Friday Foster, what comes to mind is likely only its badass black reporter heroine, and that’s the problem. Since Friday Foster has never been reprinted until last year, and then only the Sundays, most who know of it at all just think of it as a pioneering feminist adventure strip with a black female heroine. Only Friday wasn’t really an adventure strip at all—more a soap-opera strip. Nor was it “long running,” lasting as it did just a touch beyond four years. Add to that the fact that Friday herself wasn’t really all that much of a badass, or even a feminist. She was, in fact, a photographer’s assistant, a photographer herself, and eventually a model, but never a reporter. So, yeah, Friday Foster isn’t who you think she is. If you actually know Friday at all, it’s most likely from the 1975 Pam Grier movie, released more than a year after the strip itself had ended, but widely seen today on streaming services. It’s a good movie, but it was a whole new Friday. We’ll talk about her in a bit but first, let’s go back to the previous Friday and take a closer look.

Steven Thompson

JUST THE FACTS, FRIDAY

“Girl Friday” is a sexist expression derived from the racist expression, “Man Friday,” which originated in Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel, Robinson Crusoe. “Girl Friday” as a job description, though, was also what African-American woman Friday Foster was to hunky Caucasian, rich, famous, globetrotting glamour photographer Shawn North. North sometimes seemed like the actual star of the strip. A strong case could be made that the entire four-year run was really the story of a white photographer slowly becoming woke. When white writer Jim Lawrence and Spanish artist Jordi “Jorge” Longarón introduced Friday Foster to the world in January of 1970, the headiest days of the Civil Rights movement were already receding into the past, and the golden age of Blaxploitation was still to come. Thus, even though it’s simple to think of Friday Foster as being strongly influenced by those two things, she was actually more independent than that. According to Lawrence in early publicity, it was 1969 when he noticed that while his native Newark, New Jersey, was 50% black,

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Daily Doses of Friday Original art to three Friday Foster dailies by Lawrence and Longarón, from the stylish strip’s first year, 1970. Courtesy of Heritage. © Tribune Syndicate.

there were no black faces anywhere in newspaper comics, which is A strip set in the world of fashion that revolved around a swinging where he worked. A hack writer in the truest sense of the word, soul sister like Luna would be colorful, with eccentric characters. Jordi “Jorge” Longarón was a Spanish comic artist with no formal Lawrence had started out writing for radio in the 1950s and wrote for many different magazines including a few Doctor Strange comic training who had begun working in the industry in the 1940s when he was still in his teens. In the early 1960s, he was one of the books for Marvel in the 1960s. Mainly, though, he ghosted series many Spanish illustrators whose work appeared in the weekly fiction for young readers including Tom Swift, Jr. and the girls’ comics in the UK, such as Valentine, often illustrating Hardy Boys. At the same time, he had developed a songs or stories of popular music artists. reputation for being able to write continuity strips. According to Longarón, in an interview with David That’s not as easy as one might suspect. The dailies Moreu, Jim Lawrence hooked up with the Spanish carry the story along, but the Sunday has to sum up agency he worked through via his writing James the previous week while showing some movement Bond. Lawrence informed them that he was looking on its own, which would then be summed up in the for an artist to draw an as yet unnamed “character following week’s dailies. Ideally, the Sundays should with an Afro style.” Longarón found his own inspiration tell the story without the dailies, as many readers in Playboy’s Miss October of 1969, Jean Bell, from would only see the Sunday paper. This can all lead whom Friday’s straight hairstyle came, and began to to pretty slow progress unless the writer is particularly draw some samples. adept at his job, like Jim Lawrence. After he was chosen, the strip quickly sold to In 1969, Lawrence was already writing several jorge longarón the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate and strips including Captain Easy and the UK-only Longarón flew to the US to meet Lawrence and sign newspaper version of James Bond, but he became Normaeditorial. contracts. Of Lawrence, Jordi said, “He was a great determined to create something uniquely his person and he also brought me to Harlem to get documentation for the own—a black newspaper strip star. In a piece on black representation in comics, Sepia magazine wrote comic strip.” He added, “I had the feeling it was a poorer neighborhood that Lawrence spotted willowy black supermodel Donyale Luna— than the rest of the city, but it had a lot of life. However, there were some perhaps best remembered today as Groucho Marx’s silent sidekick in black people who did not seem very happy when they saw me with a the infamous movie, Skidoo—on a television program and was inspired. camera.” This scene would be echoed early on in the strip itself. Bronze Age Comic Strips Issue • BACK ISSUE • 3

Mark Arnold

As longtime readers of this magazine probably already know, Charlton was a comic-book publisher that existed from 1945 to 1986 that is now best known for their publishing many superheroes that later became the basis for DC’s Watchmen title, movie, and TV series. They are also known for taking on the Hanna-Barbera titles during the 1970s when Gold Key gave up the license for older characters. [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #79 and 129, respectively, for those stories.] What is not as commonly known is that Charlton took on many of the licensed comic-strip characters from King Features after being published for many years by Dell, Gold Key, and King’s own short-lived line of King Comics. King Features Syndicate is a print syndication company that distributes about 150 different comic strips, newspaper columns, puzzles, games, and editorial cartoons to newspapers worldwide. It is owned by Hearst Communications and was founded by William Randolph Hearst and launched on November 16, 1915. The name King came from Hearst’s manager Moses Koenigsberg, who gave it his own name translated from German (Konig means king). Sylvan Byck was King Features’ comics editor from 1956 through 1978. As editor, Byck helped many King Features comic strips become adapted into both theatrical and television cartoons. He also helped many of these same strips get launched into lengthy comic-book runs initially with Dell and Gold Key, and some with Harvey. By 1966, many of these comic-book titles ended their runs with Gold Key and Harvey and were continued by the company’s own King Comics imprint. King Comics lasted two years, but the line suffered from distribution problems, partly caused by King’s content not being approved by the Comics Code Authority (CCA), according to John Wells and Keith Dallas in American Comic Book Chronicles. (Interestingly, Dell and Gold Key Comics were never CCA-approved, and never had distribution problems until the 1980s, more due to the advent of the direct market.) The King Comics line was essentially done by the end of 1967, with occasional titles appearing from 1972–1979. Charlton took over the publishing duties for many titles during 1968 and 1969, assuming publication with original numbering such as Beetle Bailey with #67, Flash Gordon with #12, Jungle Jim with #22, The Phantom with #30, and Popeye with #94 (all cover-dated Feb. 1969). Strangely, Charlton did not assume publication of Mandrake the Magician from King and the title remained cancelled. Some of these King characters have been discussed in other issues of BACK ISSUE, but here are a few King Features Syndicate characters that haven’t been mentioned, until now.

Everybody’s an Art Critic! King Features cartoonist Bob Donovan kept Charlton’s Barney Google and Snuffy Smith comic book looking true to form. Final page of “Snuffy Gets Zee Brushoff” from issue #6 (Jan. 1971). Original art courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). © King Features Syndicate.

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John Wells

Calling All Adventure Lovers! This 1970s DC Comics house ad for The Menomonee Falls Gazette attracted lots of subscribers— including ye ed. Were you one of them? Character art by Mike Tiefenbacher. Prince Valiant and Phantom © King Features Syndicate. The Spirit © Will Eisner, Inc. Batman and Superman TM & © DC Comics. Tarzan © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Buck Rogers © Dille Family Trust.

Collecting comic books in the early 1970s was easy. Distribution could be spotty, yes, but the number of outlets selling them was still large enough for any devoted fan to track down most of their favorite titles on a regular basis. Collecting newspaper comic strips was another matter entirely. The typical fan was limited to whatever strips that were carried in their local papers. Subscribing to major out-of-town papers offered the devoted collector greater selections, but it was also a far more expensive undertaking than buying comic books off the rack. How nice it would be, some fans thought, if someone published all the great current comic strips in one place. The solution had its roots in 1960s fandom, where comic-book and comic-strip collectors took it upon themselves to do what mainstream publishers were not. Canadian fan George Henderson devoted issues of his fanzine Captain George’s Comic World to reprints of vintage strips such as Little Nemo in Slumberland, Krazy Kat, and Superman in a tabloid newspaper format. Elsewhere, Ann Arbor English teacher Edwin Aprill, Jr. published two slick magazines—Great Classic Newspaper Strips (1964– 1968) and Cartoonist Showcase (1968–1972)—that collected runs of long-lost strips such as Buck Rogers and Frank Frazetta’s Johnny Comet as well as then-current fan-favorite features like Russ Manning’s Tarzan and Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson’s Secret Agent Corrigan.

Joining Aprill, Henderson, and others in their noble comics preservation agenda were Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, fans Jerry Sinkovec and Mike Tiefenbacher. “Jerry called me up in May 1970 after seeing a letter of mine that ran in Rocket’s Blast-Comicollector, we compared collections, became friends, I went to work on helping him publish his fanzine, Comics Commentary, wound up writing most of the filler material, drew all kinds of artwork for it, and we began to attend comic-cons together,” Tiefenbacher details for BACK ISSUE. During a spring 1971 drive to Chicago, it was Sinkovec who conceived the idea of a tabloid newspaper called The Menomonee Falls Gazette… as a comic-book news-zine on the order of The Comic Reader. “I talked him out of the idea for the very good reason that we had no source for the news out here in the Midwest,” Tiefenbacher explains. Instead, the conversation turned to newspaper strips, inspired by Aprill and Henderson’s pioneering work. “That newspaper idea, the newspaper name and the fact that using it enabled Jerry to write the syndicates well before we started—and they actually sent sample proofs!—coalesced, having far more to do with Jerry than it did with me. He’s five years older than me, so he naturally became the boss (I was never a partner, only an employee—albeit one who had far more input than that arrangement suggests.)

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Famous First Edition Pages 1, 9, and 16 of the 16-page Menomonee Falls Gazette (MFG) #1 (Dec. 13, 1971). Unless otherwise noted, scans accompanying this article are courtesy of John Wells. Batman TM & © DC Comics.

“Together, we chose the must-have lineup for the first dozen issues, contacted all the syndicates thanks to my access to editor and publisher at the UW-Milwaukee library where I was working while going there, and figured out how much we’d have to charge to pay for the reproduction rights, which of course was never enough. The criterion for inclusion at the outset was simply the ones we knew about from fandom and the recent King Comics failed comics line because we knew we would be selling to a comic-book reader/audience as distinct from comic-strip fans.” That comic-book reader/audience—essentially male—had well-known biases against the so-called “soap opera” strips. Hence, features such as Mary Worth and Rex Morgan, M.D. were disqualified, as were any that weren’t solidly classified as action/adventure. The two costumed-hero strips of 1971—Batman (by E. Nelson Bridwell, Al Plastino, and Nick Cardy) and The Phantom (by Lee Falk and Sy Barry)—each made the

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cut, as did Tarzan, Secret Agent Corrigan, Flash Gordon, Mandrake the Magician, and Rip Kirby (all of which had been published in 1960s comic books). Dateline: Danger (dropped early in its run by the Journal) and the obscure Jeff Cobb completed the list of contemporary series. Britain’s Modesty Blaise (from 1966), James Bond (1964), and Jeff Hawke (1967) were added thanks to their earlier exposure to American fans by Ed Aprill. Australia’s Air Hawk and the Flying Doctors (1967) added to the international flavor, thanks to Tiefenbacher’s familiarity with creator John Dixon from the 1960s Aussie Catman comic book. “Early in our plans,” Sinkovec tells BACK ISSUE, “the high point was when we were able to lock in the English strips. Modesty and Bond got us a lot of readers.” The vintage US science-fiction strip Drift Marlo— which had briefly had its own Dell comic book— completed the lineup. (Once Marlo reached its end, a British science-fiction series—Garth—replaced it in

Robert Menzies

When Worlds Collide In British Marvel history, there was no decade as memorable, exciting, or unpredictable as the 1970s. Having leased its characters out to a packager in the 1960s, Marvel finally took control of its own empire and relaunched the Marvel Age in late 1972. What came after would never be repeated. Stan “The Man” Lee visited Britain regularly, appearing on TV and radio, and in newspapers and magazines. “The Spider-Man Roadshow” travelled around the UK, going as far north as Clydebank in Scotland, as the Web-Spinner— usually a penurious student in a costume— dispensed free comics and vitamin pills. There was a flurry of free gifts of variable quality and sometimes-dubious safety that were never available anywhere else. Sales were such that the line was soon expanded to a book for every day of the week. It was, in short, a wonderful time to be a True Believer… assuming, of course, that you could survive the experience and didn’t suffocate while wearing your plastic Spidey mask.

These highlights in mind, to some the most audacious—and yet disappointing—act of that decade was when the most famous and respected British artist there has ever been turned his pen and brush to Marvel’s mascot. The Marvel staff in England had never before, and never again, reached out to an artist in quite this way. While it wasn’t unheard of to hire outside artists for merchandising art—the gorgeous posters painted by Lopez Espi being the high-water mark of that practice— all-new covers, posters, and bridging pages for the weeklies were created by US-based freelancers like Jeff Aclin, Ron Wilson, John Romita, Jr., Bob Layton, and Howard Bender. The rare exceptions from art director Alan Murray and artist George Mina were inserts on announcements, promotional pages, and a Merry Christmas message. At a time when almost no artists in Britain were contributing to Marvel’s British line, the London office managed to pull off the remarkable feat of tapping the man unquestionably considered the greatest and most influential artist in British comics history.

(left) Dan Dare, Digby, and the Mekon by Frank Hampson. In the years before the Space Race and actual astronauts, spacesuits were close relatives of deepsea diving suits. (right) From Super Spider-Man with the Super-Heroes #163 (Mar. 27, 1976), the introduction to the centerspread poster by Hampson. All art scans accompanying this article are courtesy of Robert Menzies. Dan Dare © Dan Dare Corporation Ltd. Spider-Man TM & © Marvel.

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Worthy of an Elton John Song Sample panels from Frank Hampson’s Dan Dare strip, originally published in 1950s issues of Eagle. Art restoration by Richard Haines and John Ridgway. Note the stunning sense of depth and the sheen of the Pilot of the Future’s spacecraft, the Anastasia, a.k.a. “Annie,” in the final image. © Dan Dare Corporation Ltd.

PILOT OF THE FUTURE

Frank Hampson (1918–1985) exploded onto the scene with the publication of Eagle in 1950. As writer and artist, Hampson’s innovative storytelling was like nothing else seen before, and Eagle’s success— it sold a million copies every week—was largely down to Hampson’s iconic creation, Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future. An overnight sensation, Colonel Daniel MacGregor Dare remained Britain’s most famous and popular comic character until 2000 AD’s Judge Dredd took his crown. (Or helmet.) Dan Dare’s footprint on British popular consciousness in the 20th Century is almost immeasurable and extends to him featuring in songs by iconic performers like David Bowie (“D.J.”), Pink Floyd (“Astronomy Domine”), and Elton John (“Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future”). In terms of cultural relations, Dare is most commonly associated with 1930s favorite Buck Rogers, although the strip was hardly a derivative rehash and Hampson expended a great deal of effort to be scientifically accurate. A conscientious researcher and consummate draftsman, Hampson’s attention to detail on functional technology and minutia like military insignia caused fans to not just read his stories, but study them. He was so scrupulous he hired advisors, including a young Arthur C. Clarke of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame, for the first Dare story arc. In the late 1970s, Dare was rebooted in the pages of the new sci-fi weekly title 2000 AD, a comic book that came out the gate calling itself “The Galaxy’s Greatest Comic,” no doubt a knowing rebuttal to the Fantastic Four’s claim to be the “World’s Greatest Comic Magazine.” Starting with the first issue in February 1977, Dare’s new adventures bore little resemblance to the original series. Set exactly 200 years in the future from the publication year, a physically and temperamentally transformed Dare was awakened from suspended animation minus his original supporting cast. While this near-complete concept overhaul did not go over well with some older fans and commentators in the press, Hampson himself was gracious about the redesign. Initially depicted by the incredible Italian stylist Massimo Belardinelli, scripts were provided by Ken Armstrong, Kelvin Gosnell, and Steve Moore, who also wrote Hulk, Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Doctor Who tales for Marvel UK. A second, perhaps better regarded and certainly less fantastical, relaunch was helmed by Scot Gerry Finley-Day and Dave (Watchmen)

Gibbons, the team who would later create future-war specialist Rogue Trooper, one of the most popular characters in the history of 2000 AD. The Dare stories were discontinued in 1979, although the character was hardly retired. He returned yet again, in the form of his greatgreat-grandson of the same name, in the relaunched Eagle from 1982 until 1994. Most recently, The Boys writer Garth Ennis and former Marvel UK artist Gary Erskine collaborated on a seven-issue Dare miniseries for Virgin Comics in 2007–2008, with Dare a wise old head rather than a swashbuckling adventurer. Even though to many he was still synonymous with his most famous creation, Hampson’s story had diverged from Dare’s decades earlier. Hampson’s final Dare strip was in 1959, and he departed Eagle in 1961. While Hampson continued to work in advertising and book illustration, by the 1970s he had fallen into partial obscurity to a new generation of comic-book fans. Inside the comics industry, and to legions of dads whose childhoods were entwined with Hampson’s tales, his reputation had not only remained intact, but grown. This was best illustrated by him being voted Prestigioso Maestro at the International Congress of Comics held in Lucca, Italy, in 1975, where a jury of his peers, including Jean (Moebius) Giraud, declared him the best writer and artist since the Second World War. So, when it was announced the following year, in a full-page article in Super Spider-Man with the Super-Heroes #162 (Mar. 20, 1976), that Hampson had accepted an invitation to produce a centerspread featuring New York’s favorite Web-Slinger, it was an incredible coup. Many fans of my generation only knew of Dan Dare indirectly, although we were always informed by our elders and better-informed fellow fans that the Eagle was the greatest comic ever to come out of the British Isles, and quite probably the world, and that Hampson was a visionary genius. In early April of 2017, Alan Murray, art director for the British office, recalled the origins of this unusual project: It was surely Denis Gifford who suggested we might commission Frank to produce something. [The late Denis Gifford was a hugely prolific and influential British comic artist, writer and historian. He also wrote the Hampson article in Super Spider-Man #162.] We used to see Denis from time to time.

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Dewey Cassell

Forty-two years is a good, long run for pretty much anything, including newspaper comic strips. True, it’s a far cry from The Katzenjammer Kids, which owns the overall record at 109 years in syndication. But 42 years is an impressive tenure for a strip based on a comic-book superhero. The closest competitor would be Superman, but the Man of Steel can only claim 27 years in his original strip, alex plus seven years in The World’s Greatest Superheroes starring Superman. The record holder for superhero newspaper comic Michael Eury. strips? The Amazing Spider-Man. Launched in 1977, after an unsuccessful attempt seven years earlier, the Amazing Spider-Man newspaper strip was originated for Marvel Comics by the legendary Stan “The Man” Lee and artist John Romita, Sr. The creative duo brought the same dynamic action and snappy dialogue to the newspaper strip that fans had enjoyed for years in the comic books, so it is no wonder the strip was a hit. Other attempts to bring Marvel superheroes to the funny pages, including Howard the Duck, The Incredible Hulk, and Conan the Barbarian, met with varying degrees of success. Over the years, there were changes in the artists who drew The Amazing Spider-Man. After almost four years, Romita left the strip and was replaced by Larry Lieber. But after less than a year, Lieber found he could not keep up with the schedule and Fred Kida took over drawing the dailies and Sundays. Fifteen months later, Floro Dery began drawing the Sunday strip. Kida continued drawing the dailies for five years, after which Dan Barry drew them for less than a year before Larry Lieber returned to draw the daily strip for the next 32 years. Dery remained on the Sunday strip for nine years, after which a series of other artists followed, including Ron Frenz, Sal Buscema, Paul Ryan, and Dave Simons. (For an account of the early years of the Amazing Spider-Man newspaper strip, pick up a copy of BACK ISSUE #44, available in a digital edition from www.twomorrows.com.)

saviuk

The Amazing Spider-Man Artist An undated Spidey specialty illo by Alex Saviuk, courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). Saviuk, the illustrator of a memorable late-’80s through mid-’90s run on Marvel’s Web of Spider-Man title, swung over to the enduring Spider-Man newspaper strip in its final years. Spider-Man TM & © Marvel.

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LISTEN TO WHAT ‘THE MAN’ SAYS

Fred Kida returned to pencil the Sunday strip in the mid-1990s, but it would not be long-term. Enter artist Alex Saviuk. Saviuk explains to BACK ISSUE how he became involved with the strip: “From what I understand, Fred only wanted to do the [Sunday] strip on a fill-in basis, but he ended up doing it for almost two years. At that point, he told Stan, ‘Look, I’ve helped you for two years and I thought it was only going to be a couple of weeks, and I don’t want to do it anymore.’ So, they were in a bind, and I was lucky enough to take up the slack. I got a call from an editor at Marvel named Ralph Macchio, and he asked me if I would be interested in doing the Sunday Spider-Man strip. Of course, I said yes. It paid about the same amount as the regular rate in comics. He said, ‘Here’s the address for Stan Lee and his offices for POW! Entertainment in California. Send him some samples, and we’ll take it from there.’ I still recall a couple of days after I sent my samples, I got a message from Stan Lee on my phone—we still had cassette tapes in those days. I came home from work and played the message from Stan Lee. He said in his inimitable voice, ‘Alex! I love your work! I’m telling you, we could have a great time doing Spider-Man together. It doesn’t pay a lot, but think of the glory!’ I was cracking up, and I said to my wife, ‘Holy mackerel! He liked what I did.’” Saviuk was not new to comics. He started at DC Comics in 1977 and moved to Marvel in 1986. He was also not new to Spider-Man. His first assignment stan lee drawing the Web-Slinger was a fill-in for Amazing Spider-Man #292 (Sept. © Marvel. 1987), noteworthy because on the last page of the story, Mary Jane Watson accepts Peter Parker’s marriage proposal. Saviuk went on to become the regular artist on Web of Spider-Man from issue #35 (Feb. 1988) to 116 (Sept. 1994). “I came in the middle of a Kingpin storyline and [Stan] sent me the scripts,” Saviuk elaborates. “I was getting them two weeks at a time. At that time, Stan was still writing and editing the scripts. It always seemed odd to me because I was working at Marvel in the so-called ‘Stan Lee/Marvel style,’ with a plot with no dialogue, and now all of a sudden, I’m getting scripted pages from Stan Lee. But I didn’t ask questions, I just did the work.” The Sundays were two-tiered, but there were several standardheader tiers available to newspapers that printed them in half-page or tabloid format. Saviuk explains how he worked from the script: “Initially, in 1997, I didn’t have a computer. I would get a FedEx pack with Xeroxes of the previous two Sundays and two weeks’ worth of scripts, every two weeks. With the advent of the computer and email attachments, I was getting those scripts from [Stan’s assistant] Michael Kelly via email. [The script] would [describe each] panel with a one-line art direction: ‘Peter is in J. Jonah Jameson’s office talking about… writing a story or pursuing a storyline. Robbie Robertson is there, just holding his pipe.’ And it’d say, ‘Panel One: Peter delivers his line, followed by JJJ delivers his line, Robbie Robertson delivers his line.’ With full script, I know that Peter should be on the left side, Jonah should be in the middle, and Robbie should be on the right. This way, you can plan out the [word] balloons for succession.”

Spider-Man Sampler Original art panels (courtesy of Heritage) from three Sunday Amazing Spider-Man strips, drawn by (top) John Romita, Sr. (Mar. 20, 1977), (2nd panel) Larry Lieber (Dec. 7, 1980), and (3rd panel) Floro Dery (Apr. 26, 1987). (bottom) Daredevil drops in on Sunday, April 25, 1993. Art by Paul Ryan and Dave Simons. Courtesy of Dewey Cassell. TM & © Marvel.

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What a Workout! Spidey mixes it up with the Kingpin on his dynamic Alex Saviuk/Joe Sinnott original art page from Sunday, March 14, 1998. Courtesy of Heritage. TM & © Marvel.

Stan served as both writer and editor for the strip, ROY THE FRIENDLY GHOST so every step of the process went through him. When Roy Thomas was certainly not new to comics either. A Saviuk finished penciling the Sundays, he would send former scribe and editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics, them to Stan. Saviuk recalls, “The first two weeks I sent Thomas had long stints writing X-Men and The Avengers. him, I got a call—and this was my fault—I didn’t put He was responsible for bringing Conan the Barbarian to the balloons in pencil at the top of the panels. So, when comics and co-created a host of characters, including Stan looked at it, he didn’t think there was enough Wolverine. Thomas was also not new to newspaper comic room for the copy and he’d have to crop into my strips, having written the Conan strip in the late 1970s. artwork. I had to use a light box and bring things down Thomas recalls how he got involved with the Spiderand bring in those balloons so it would be easier for the Man strip: “Back in 2000, Stan was in the midst of that letterer to do his job.” dot-com boom with StanLee.com, and he had a huge It is a testimony to Saviuk’s art that only occasionally operation there. I wasn’t really doing that much in comics did Stan require changes. “There were only one or so I thought, well, maybe Stan would have some two instances where he asked for a little revision something. I got in touch with him—probably on something in one panel or another,” dropped him an email—and I got a call Saviuk says. “I think one time, there was back from him. He said he really pretty a Mole Man storyline and he was much had to work with people who showing up in the final panel, but he were right there on the scene for the didn’t look dynamically threatening various projects. I live in South Carolina, enough. [Stan] asked me if I could and he was in Los Angeles, so that have him hunch his shoulders and grit wouldn’t work out too well. But he his teeth, because he was waiting in the said that he did have something else wings, looking at Mary Jane on a stage. for me, though, which I hadn’t been Stan said, ‘He’s still gotta look menacing; expecting, and that was he could use he’s the Mole Man, he’s the villain.’ I a writer—a ghostwriter basically, or said, ‘You got it, Stan!’ I said, ‘Do you ‘someone to help him with’ would roy thomas want me to do the artwork separately be how he might phrase it, but I and you’ll scan it in?’ He said, ‘No, knew what that meant—with the IMDb.com. we’ll send you the artwork and you Amazing Spider-Man newspaper erase it and do it again.’” strip. He said he’d had somebody else working with Saviuk continues, “By around 1999, or late 1998, two him for the last story or two, and I guess he’d had years into it, I found out that Jim Salicrup was going to be other people before, like [Jim] Shooter said he did writing the script and Stan Lee would be editing because something. I know Jim Salicrup was working with him Stan Lee was getting pulled in too many directions with at the time, but he said he had a lot of other stuff his [other] obligations. So, Jim was writing and Stan was for Jim to do, and he asked if I would be interested in editing. Obviously, when Stan edits, it ends up sounding taking it over. And I said, ‘Oh, yeah, sure.’ Why not? like Stan. That was for about a year and a half. After that, “It’s kind of funny because I never really liked SpiderJim said to me, ‘I just feel that Stan edits my scripts so Man,” Thomas admits. “I wrote those four issues where heavily, I’m not making him happy, I’m giving him too Stan handed them in my lap [The Amazing Spider-Man much work, so I’m quitting.’ I said, ‘If you’re quitting, #101–104], and the first issue of Marvel Team-Up who’s taking over?’ He said, ‘Roy Thomas.’” because he asked me to, but otherwise I tried to avoid

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Dewey Cassell

The Howard the Duck newspaper strip debuted The 1970s were a period of radical change for the comicbook business. Cover prices increased and the direct on Monday, June 6, 1977. It included dailies and market system was started, changing how comics were Sundays with the storyline running throughout. The distributed. And less-conventional ideas abounded, Sunday strip was drawn in two tiers, with several from stories focused on drug abuse and the plight of panels retelling Howard’s origin and background available as a third tier to papers that ran the strip minorities to unusual new characters like a martial in half-page or tabloid format. artist with a fist of iron, a bikini-clad barbarian, On average, storylines ran eight to and… a talking duck. ten weeks. The first storyline in the strip Tucked into the pages of Adventure featured “Pop” Syke, who promoted the into Fear #19 (Dec. 1973) was Howard “consciousness of success” in his book the Duck, created by writer Steve Think Yourself Human. When Beverly Gerber and artist Val Mayerik. By the decides to attend a personal appearance time Howard the Duck #1 (inset) debuted of the self-help guru, Howard tags along. two years later, drawn by Frank Brunner, “Pop” hands out something resembling Howard was a hit. Gene Colan took a colander with wires and lights on it over as artist with issue #4. Colan was to attendees, and when they don the best known for drawing Tomb of Dracula “psycho-prosthetic” devices, they beand Daredevil, but he took to the new come mindless drones he commands to book like a duck to water, so to speak. steve gerber “Git me money!” Howard’s skepticism Howard was a cynical, wisecracking ends up saving the day. In style and fowl from another dimension that content, it was very consistent with the fell to Earth and landed in Cleveland. John Tighe. Wearing a suit coat, tie and hat, and chomping on a Howard the Duck comic books, full of irony and biting wit. At the beginning of the second storyline, Howard cigar, Howard was befriended by a beautiful redhead named Beverly, and lived among what he called the runs into the Kidney Lady, a Gerber/Brunner–created “hairless apes,” encountering all sorts of oddities from character that first appeared in Howard the Duck #2. a Man-Frog to Dr. Bong. Gerber used the comic book But the main protagonists were the “Cult of Entropy,” as a vehicle for social commentary through parody a group bent on the destruction of the human race to spare us the suffering that is to come when we use up and satire. As soon as the Register and Tribune Syndicate all of our natural resources. In the third storyline, Howard tries to find a job realized that The Amazing Spider-Man newspaper strip was a success, they began talking with Marvel about through the Puritan Employment Agency, only to end up other characters that could be adapted for newsprint. working for Fred Feenix, the self-made man… literally. Given his rise in popularity, Howard the Duck was a Think the Six Million Dollar Man gone loony, logical choice, using the same creative team as the convinced we would all be better off if we underwent comics. Gerber negotiated a deal that split the royalties the same procedure. This storyline is noteworthy because in the middle of it, Gene Colan left the strip. evenly between Marvel, Gerber, and Colan.

Waugh’s Up, Doc? The first Howard the Duck newspaper strip, by Steve Gerber and Gene Colan, originally published June 6, 1977. Courtesy of Dewey Cassell. TM & © Marvel.

TM & © Marvel.

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John Wells

‘A New Supercomic’ This colorful ad appearing in the March 26, 1978 New York Daily News trumpeted the upcoming World’s Greatest Superheroes comic strip, starring DC’s bravest and boldest champions. Unless otherwise noted, scans accompanying this article are courtesy of John Wells. TM & © DC Comics.

Imagine that you were a DC Comics fan on March 26, 1978, flipping through the New York Sunday News’ tabloid comics section. Somewhere between Dick Tracy and Peanuts, your mind was about to be blown. It was full-page advertisement for something called The World’s Greatest Superheroes (WGSH), and the characters bursting from the page represented much of the roster of the Justice League of America… with a couple surprises thrown in. It was one thing to see marquee names like Superman, Batman, Robin, and Wonder Woman, but quite another to encounter the likes of Black Lightning, Green Arrow, and the Elongated Man in a major US newspaper. This was no simplified Super Friends cartoon, the lineup seemed to imply, but rather a legitimate comic-book adaptation. The question was whether it would succeed. Superman—ironically, a failed pitch for a comic strip— had been spun off to newspapers in 1939 after his comic-book appearances exploded. DC had followed suit with further newspaper features starring Hop Harrigan (1942), Batman and Robin (1943–1946), and Wonder Woman (1944–1945), but none had the Man of Steel’s staying power. The Superman strip itself was cancelled in 1966 even as the TV-inspired wave of Batmania resulted in a return of Batman to comics sections from 1966 into 1972. Outside of Lee Falk’s enduring Phantom, conventional wisdom said that superheroes and the funny pages were no longer a good fit. The January 1977 premiere of Stan Lee and John Romita’s Amazing Spider-Man threw convention on its ear. The comic-book spinoff caught on very quickly, with newspaper berths in most of the markets in the United States. That fact was lost on no one, certainly not in New York offices of Marvel Comics’ biggest rival. It was suddenly imperative that DC develop a newspaper strip of its own. By way of DC managing editor Joe Orlando, the publisher already had a connection to the major Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate (CTNYNS). Orlando had co-written (with Michael Fleisher) CTNYNS’ Little Orphan Annie in the latter half of 1973, and the syndicate subsequently struck a deal to repackage some of its strips as DC tabloid-sized editions (only one of which—Dick Tracy—was published). Consequently, syndicate head Bob Reed and editor Don Michel were in talks with DC personnel by mid-1977. The non-negotiables, Reed and Michel emphasized, were Superman and Wonder Woman. The former was poised for theatrical stardom in 1978, while the latter— as personified by Lynda Carter—had become a household name thanks to her ABC-TV show. For its part, DC wanted to showcase other, lesser-known characters and use the wider audience of a newspaper strip as a gateway back to comic books. “You better believe we’re going to keep those two in the strip every day,” DC publicity agent Mike Gold declared in Mediascene #26 (July–Aug. 1977), “but we’ll use the platform to allow us to showcase our other heroes as well.” Reed and Michel quickly shot down DC’s proposed Justice League of America title as something that failed to describe the strip to the masses unfamiliar with the comic book. Everyone ultimately settled on the World’s Greatest Superheroes, a phrase first used on the cover of DC 100-Page Super Spectacular #DC-6 in 1971. As a compromise, the team would still be properly referred to as the JLA in the stories themselves.

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TUSKA TAPPED BY DC

The next trick was finding a creative team to bring the fictional one to life. Drawing a newspaper strip required an artist accustomed to its unique compositional demands, so DC art director Vince Colletta reached out to someone with experience. Industry veteran George Tuska had spent years drawing the Scorchy Smith and Buck Rogers newspaper features before returning to comic books in 1967. He’d been exclusively working for Marvel for several years when the call came. Tantalized by the comic-strip pitch and the pay rate that Colletta was offering, Tuska approached Marvel’s Stan Lee. “Stan was friendly,” the artist recalled to Dewey Cassell in The Art of George Tuska (2005), “but said, ‘Don’t. Give it up.’ But somehow, I felt there was something there, so I accepted it. And I told Stan I was going to give it a try.” Colletta himself came aboard the project as Tuska’s inker. For the duration of their time on the strip, the artists worked 12 weeks ahead of publication date. Meanwhile, Justice League of America editor Julius Schwartz was assigned to its comic-strip counterpart. Impressed by the thoughtful, fresh approach that Martin Pasko had brought to Superman during 1977, Schwartz hoped to extend that bit of sensibility to the new projects on his plate for ’78, both the DC Comics Presents comic book and WGSH. “I’d never done a syndicated strip before when I landed the assignment,” Pasko told me in an April 3, 2018 Facebook post, “so I wanted to learn from the best. One of my mentors was Joe Orlando, who got me into the National Cartoonists’ Society. When I told [legendary Terry and the Pirates/Steve Canyon creator] Milton Caniff what we were trying to do, packing all these characters into a single strip, he just looked at me as if we were all out of our minds. And he was right, of course. We were.” Nonetheless, Pasko told John Siuntres in a September 2007 podcast (wordballoonblogspot.com), he threw himself into learning about the form. “Rick Marschall, who was an expert on syndicated strips, recommended a whole bunch of

It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… (top) The first installment of WGSH, which premiered April 3, 1978. By Martin Pasko, George Tuska, and Vince Colletta. (bottom) Steve Canyon creator Milton Caniff, who produced this unpublished Clark Kent/Steve Canyon illustration for 1986’s Superman #400 Portfolio, was incredulous over WGSH’s use of so many DC characters in a single comic strip. According to Heritage Comics Auctions, this print “features a demolished telephone booth and relates to the AT&T breakup of the 1980s. Unfortunately, due to objections from AT&T, the piece couldn’t be included in the final product. Most of the prints were destroyed, but Julius Schwartz managed to save a few.” John Wells provided this scan of this rarity from the fanzine Caniffites. Superman TM & © DC Comics. Steve Canyon © Field Enterprises, Inc.

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things to Mike Gold, who passed it on to me. I was steeping myself in the pacing because there’s a real art to that stuff. “You had to tell the story from Monday to Friday. You couldn’t advance the story too much on Saturday because [some] papers didn’t publish a Saturday edition. And you had to continue the story on Sunday in color, advance the story enough so there was something worthwhile to look at in color but not so much so that readers of newspapers that didn’t publish Sunday editions wouldn’t know what was going on the following Monday.”

Perhaps the greatest complication was in the Sunday strips, which were required to have panels that could be dropped by newspapers that wanted more space for ads or other strips. A complete half-page WGSH strip consisted of three rows of panels. The top row consisted of a long panel with the logo and a short second panel, both of which could be excised by papers who wished to run it as a third of a page. Other newspapers might want to restack the panels into four rows (tabloid) or two-rows (quarter-page), in which case only panel two of the original format was dropped.

martin pasko

Comic Missile Crisis (top) An unused Sunday WGSH from April 1978, featuring Tuska pencil art. Courtesy of Dewey Cassell, author of the TwoMorrows book, The Art of George Tuska. (bottom) The April 9, 1978 installment, WGSH’s first Sunday color strip, offers a Justice League primer for the benefit of the general audience. TM & © DC Comics.

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[Editor’s note: As production on this issue was nearing completion, word reached us of the passing of author-historian Ron Goulart on January 14, 2022. This article is respectfully dedicated to his memory.]

“A long way from here, a long time from now, in a system not our own…” by

Stephan Friedt

“Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes and is part of the general thematic genre science fictional space warfare with use of melodramatic risk-taking space adventures and chivalric romance. Set mainly or entirely in outer space, it features technological and social advancements (or lack thereof) in faster-than-light travel, futuristic weapons, and sophisticated technology on a backdrop of galactic empires and interstellar wars with fictional aliens often in fictional galaxies. The term has no relation to music, as in a traditional opera, but is instead a play on the terms ‘soap opera,’ a melodramatic television series, and ‘horse opera,’ which was coined during the 1930s to indicate a clichéd and formulaic Western movie. Space operas emerged in the 1930s and continue to be produced in literature, film, comics, television, and video games.” – Wikipedia Star Hawks, a swashbuckling adventure that author Ron Goulart once likened to Starsky and Hutch in space, was a newspaper adventure comic strip syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) that ran daily and Sunday from October 3, 1977 until May 2, 1981, for a total of 1252 episodes.

THE CREATORS

Ron Goulart was born in Berkley, California, on January 13, 1933. He studied writing in high school with classmate Anthony Boucher, who would go on to gain fame as well. Goulart enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1951 and received a Bachelor of Arts in 1955. He spent the next years in the field of advertising as a copywriter. In 1963 he left advertising to write freelance full-time. He returned to copywriting from 1966–1968. His first published freelance work was as editor and author of introductions to The Hardboiled Dicks: An Anthology and Study of Pulp Detective Fiction (1965) and Line Up Tough Guys (1966). His first full-length fiction, The Sword Swallower (1968), was a science-fiction novel that introduced a ron goulart universe far from Earth, known as the Barnum System, where shapeshifters ThunderCats Wiki. called the Chameleon Corps operate. The Sword Swallower set the standard for the mystery/science-fiction hybrid that became Goulart’s trademark. Other Barnum System books include The Fire-Eater (1970), Shaggy Planet (1973), A Whiff of Madness (1975), and The Wicked Cyborg (1978). Ron would go on to rack up an impressive library of works including original novels in a variety of genres, novelizations of films, comics, television series,

Kane is Able Gil Kane hand-colored artwork produced for the 1980 Ace paperback reprint of his sci-fi newspaper strip, Star Hawks, created and originally written by Ron Goulart. All artwork in this article is courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). © Newspaper Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA).

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short-story collections, entries in existing series under pseudonyms (Flash Gordon and The Phantom novelizations from the world of comic strips), collaborative fictional efforts (the Tek World novels with William Shatner), and a considerable body of nonfiction. Goulart wrote the Star Hawks newspaper comic strip from the beginning through April 1979. During Ron’s run, readers meet Interplan Law Service agent Star Hawk Rex Jaxan, a Flash Gordon–style hero with a healthy mix of humor and contemporary ideas (for the time). Goulart had originally named him “Ben” Jaxan, but Star Hawks artist Gil Kane convinced him that it would sound better if he was named “Rex,” like comics’ Rex Dexter of Mars. Gil had originally imagined Rex in a “James Coburn” style. We also meet Rex’s partner Star Hawk Chavez (no first name). Kane modeled him after a bald Victor McLaughlin. Helping them out is their robot dog sidekick, Sniffer, Ron’s secret favorite character because he could imbue Sniffer with sass and wit the way you would a ventriloquist’s dummy. Also introduced is the Star Hawks’ boss, chief agent Alice K. Benyon, also Rex’s love interest, who is the commander on the floating satellite ship, the Hoosegow. Originally, Goulart had called the team of troubleshooters the “Star Corps,” but Ron and Gil decided to change it to “Hawks” as homage to one of their favorite characters, Basil Wolverton’s Space Hawk. Ron Goulart would leave Star Hawks in 1979 over a creative-differences dispute with the syndicate. After leaving the strip, Ron wrote two novels of the characters. His first was Empire 99 (Playboy Press, April 1980), which was based on a combination of two separate story arcs from the strip itself. His second was Star Hawks #2: The Cyborg King (Playboy Press, December 1981), which was an all-new story using his characters. Comics artist Gil Kane (1926–2000) supplied all the Star Hawks artwork, including spot illustrations in the novels. Born Eli Katz in Riga, Latvia, Kane’s family immigrated to America in 1929 and settled in Brooklyn, New York.

A Long Time Ago… …in a newspaper far, far away, Star Hawks premiered. Lithograph of a 1977 promo poster, signed by creators Kane and Goulart. Courtesy of Heritage. © NEA.

THE STAR HAWKS LIBRARY Strip Reprints: Star Hawks #1 (Ace/Tempo, 1979): reprints strips from 1977–1978 Star Hawks #2 (Ace/Tempo, July 1981): continues reprints from 1978 The Comic Reader #164–186 (Street Enterprises, 1979–1980) Amazing Heroes (Fantagraphics, 1980s): assorted issues Blackthorne’s Comic Strip Preserves: Star Hawks #1–4 (Blackthorne Publishing, 1985–1987)

Star Hawks #1–9 (Avalon Communications, 2000–2001) Gil Kane and Ron Goulart’s Star Hawks: The Complete Series (Hermes Press, November 2003) The Complete Star Hawks #1–3 (IDW, 2017–2018) Novels: Star Hawks #1: Empire 99 (Playboy Press, April 1980) Star Hawks #2: The Cyborg King (Playboy Press, December 1981)

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Richie Rich, the Poor Little Rich Boy, first appeared as a comic-book character in the back pages of Little Dot #1 (Sept. 1953). Most people know Richie Rich from either comic books, or three different animated series (one by HannaBarbera in 1980, one by Film Roman in 1994, and one most recently by DreamWorks Animation, in 2018), or two live-action movies (a 1994 theatrical film starring Macaulay Culkin or a 1998 direct-to-video film starring David Gallagher), or the 2015 Netflix live-action TV series starring Jake Brennan. by M a r k A r n o l d What most people don’t know is that Richie Rich was also briefly a newspaper comic strip, from approximately May through September 1979, distributed by McNaught Syndicate. It was drawn by legendary Harvey Comics artist Warren Kremer (1921–2003) and written by Harvey Comics writer and cartoon gagman Lennie Herman (1930–1984). Kremer remembered the strip in an interview he did with Bill Janocha and Brian K. Morris in June 1990, that will be printed in full in the upcoming book, Friendly Ghosts, Little Devils, Giants and Rich Kids: The Art and Creations of Warren Kremer by Mark Arnold. Kremer remembered, “We did a syndicated Richie Rich strip. We did it for six months. McNaught Syndicate put it out. Len Herman was the writer that wrote all of Richie Rich. We had other writers, but he was the best and a funny, funny guy. They didn’t push the comic strip and it never did much.” In this interview, Kremer also discussed the history of the character: “In order to get second-class entry in the comics, you couldn’t sell a comic book with only one character. You had to mix it up with a couple of other characters and you had to put in a two-page text. So, if the star was Casper the Friendly Ghost, we had to have another character to offset it in the back, and that became Spooky. If we had Little Dot, we had to get a character in the back, and that became Richie Rich. Richie was not a big character in the beginning. He was a little five-pager that padded the book for Little Dot. Finally, [publisher] Alfred Harvey felt that he was becoming popular, and he put Richie Rich in his own book. Then, of course, it took off. That character was my idea. Now, you’re going to talk to different people in the field, and you’re going to hear different stories. This happens to everybody. If I tell somebody that Joe Oriolo says he created Casper, somebody will say, ‘I created Casper!’ They all get their fingers in the pie, you know what I mean? You really don’t know who to believe.” (Writer Sy Reit, 1918– 2001, is now also credited with Casper’s creation.) Kremer continued, “In the ’50s, there used to be a show on television called The Millionaire. The guy would sit in a chair with his back to the camera. You never saw the millionaire, but he’d call in his aide, his top guy, and he’d say, ‘Here’s the envelope for the next millionaire.’ This guy, Marvin Miller, played the part. He became famous as the warren kremer guy that gave out the money. So when Harvey asked us to think up new characters, I saw this show and I said, ‘Hey, Courtesy of Bill Janocha, how about a little rich kid, a little kid, who’s the son of a via Comic Book Artist #19. millionaire with unlimited wealth? He could have anything he wants because he’s rich.’ I brought the idea in to [Harvey Comics editor] Sid Jacobson and told him. He said, ‘I think you’ve got something, Warren.’ From there, Steve Muffatti drew up a storyboard of the character, a model Special Delivery! sheet of Richie. We decided Richie would be like Little Lord Fauntleroy with Detail from the Warren Kremer–drawn cover of his black velvet jacket and bow tie.” Knocking Kremer’s memory a little bit, but The Millionaire actually Harvey Comics’ Richie Rich Success Stories #4 debuted in 1955, so this origin is a little bit offbase. Kremer is probably (Aug. 1965), with the poor little rich boy remembering the 1932 film that The Millionaire was based upon called If I Had a Million, which probably aired in the early days of television or Kremer guaranteeing a prompt delivery of the local newsremembered it from his childhood. paper. Fourteen years later, Richie would actually Kremer adds, “My first born son is named Richard Kremer (born in 1951), so I said I’ll call him Richie… Rich. Now, you know that a lot of artists name characters appear inside the paper in a short-lived comic strip that they created after their family members. For example, I would be drawing a that was seen by few and remembered by fewer! rowboat and I’d put her name on the back, Gracie [Kremer’s wife]. All artists do that. All artists draw their children in their strips. I’ve drawn my daughter in it and © Classic Media, LLC. 66 • BACK ISSUE • Bronze Age Comic Strips Issue

Beaming Up to a Newspaper Near You The cast of the Star Trek syndicated newspaper strip, by the feature’s original artist, Thomas Warkentin. © CBS Studios, Inc. (CBS).

To a devoted fan of the franchise, a Star Trek newspaper comic strip would be an occasion for great excitement. To its creators, who also loved the franchise’s fandom, even more so. When the L.A. Times Syndicate ran the Star Trek strip from 1979 to 1983, its premiere, which heralded the December 6, 1979 release of director Robert Wise’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture, held promise. This interpretation of Star Trek displayed a near-canonical appreciation of the franchise and a chance for readers to enjoy the work of talented writers and artists including Thomas Warkentin, Ron Harris, Larry Niven, and Sharman DiVono. However, the strip disappeared after a short life and has largely slid into obscurity.

WE’RE NOT DEAD, JIM!

The syndicate’s promotional kit for the Star Trek newspaper comic stated that it was aimed at “readers of all ages” who “love Star Trek and will follow its comic strip adventures through uncharted space with fervor.” A mass-marketing media initiative by Star Trek’s original producer Paramount Pictures cast a wide net in promoting the film, believing that the property was due for a comeback. Recent science-fiction successes like the March 30, 1979 theatrical release of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and its subsequent follow-up TV 68 • BACK ISSUE • Bronze Age Comic Strips Issue

John K. Kirk

series, and Battlestar Galactica’s 1978 television premiere— or even 1977’s box-office smash, Star Wars—signalled a promise of success for the returning Star Trek. Star Trek: The Motion Picture undeniably reenergized the cult television program. While the NBC-TV primetime series Star Trek (1966–1969)—known in fandom as Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS)—survived to a third season thanks to the 1968 grassroots letterwriting campaign led by Bjo and John Trimble, new material was needed to ensure a return of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future. Before the 1979 movie, Star Trek primarily survived in pop-culture memory thanks to television syndication. Outside of a short-lived (1973–1975) Star Trek animated series on Saturday mornings, new stories were the province of dedicated fan club publications and a series of original novels aimed at the existing fan base and not to a mass audience. These novels included Spock Must Die by James Blish (1970) and The Price of the Phoenix by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath (1976), who a year earlier also edited a collection of short stories titled The New Voyages. Other than these stories and a handful of others, most Star Trek mass-market publications were retellings in various formats. Mandala Productions was responsible for photonovelizations (“fotonovels”) that re-presented key

[Author’s note: The quotes from Mike Grell in this article were taken from a September 2014 interview by Dennis Wilcutt, who graciously agreed to their use here.]

There are some sounds that are just instantly recognizable. You may not remember where you first heard it, but you don’t have any trouble recognizing it when you hear it again. In fact, just reading the words will conjure up the sound in your head. A train riding along the railroad tracks. A horse galloping down a road. The crack of a bat hitting a baseball. Or a Tarzan yell. by D ewey Cassell Johnny Weissmuller made it famous. Carol Burnett made it funny. But if you’ve ever seen the Lord of the Jungle on film or television, odds are you’ve heard it, even if you’re not a fan of Tarzan. And if you are a fan, odds are you’ve probably tried it yourself. So has Mike Grell. In fact, one could argue that he was literally born to draw the character, as Grell recounted: “The very first novel I ever read was Tarzan the Terrible. I must have been seven or eight years old. I could speak most, if not all, of the Ape language by the time I was 12. I had climbed quite a few of the trees in the town I lived in. The area was full of old abandoned mines and hills. I had a rope that would allow me to swing across the open air over a mining mike grell pit that was maybe 100 feet across. There were some huge trees growing Dewey Cassell. all over the place, which was perfect for doing this. One giant old tree, which I nailed steps to, allowed me to climb up and tie a rope to a long, over-hanging branch. I built a rough planked platform for a launching pad, and off I would [go]. Once, I forgot IF YOU ENJOYED PREVIEW, to untie an additional extension pieceTHIS of the rope from THE me LINK ORDERmy THIS the tree and took CLICK off. It hung outTO between legs PRINT ORlucky DIGITAL FORMAT! and stood me ISSUE up like IN a flag. I was not drop from that rope. The near-end of Mike Grell.” By 1981, Grell already had a wealth of experience drawing comic books. After spending over nine months in Vietnam, Grell was discharged from the Air Force in January 1971 and went to the Chicago Academy of Fine Art. He was an assistant to Dale Messick on the newspaper strip Brenda Starr before landing a job at DC Comics. His first assignment at DC was drawing Aquaman [in Adventure Comics], but he made his mark illustrating Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes and Green Lantern/ Green Arrow, as well as his own creation, The Warlord. That’s an impressive resume. But how did he get the assignment to draw the Tarzan newspaper strip? Grell explained, “A stroke of luck. I got a phone call from Archie Goodwin, who was doing the strip BACK ISSUE #136 with Gil Kane,BRONZE and they were leaving the strip and AGE COMICS STRIPS! Spider-Man, Friday Foster, asked if I would mind doing it. I said, ‘Yes!’ andHoward he DC’s World’s Greatest Superheroes starring Superman, Duck, Star Really! Hawks, StarWould Trek, MIKEI GRELL’s recommendedthe me forRichie theRich, job. mind? Tarzan, and more! Plus Charlton’s comic strip tie-ins and the Tarzan is my favorite character.” No Trespassing MENOMONEE FALLS GAZETTE. With COLAN, GOODWIN, Like many artists andLEE, after him, GrellTUSKA, had GIL KANE,before KREMER, STAN ROMITA, THOMAS, Mike Grell’s Sunday Tarzan strip published October 3, 1982. and more. long aspired to draw a newspaper comic strip. The (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) lure was twofold—financial stability and$10.95 breadth All art accompanying this article is courtesy of Dewey Cassell, (Digital Edition) $4.99 of exposure. Years before, Grell had unsuccessfully https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_54&products_id=1668 unless otherwise noted. pitched his own idea for a strip titled Iron Mike. At the time he took over Tarzan, it was a Sunday-only TM & © Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB), Inc. Bronze Age Comic Strips Issue • BACK ISSUE • 73