Back Issue #52 by TwoMorrows Publishing

MYSTERY COMICS: Charlton Anthologies • Black Orchid • Madame Xanadu • and Scooby-Doo! featuring Aragonés • Evanier Kaluta • Shoberg • Talaoc • Wrightson • and more!

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DC’s BRONZE AGE HORROR SERIES & HOSTS RISE FROM THE DEAD!

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THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

Edited by MICHAEL EURY, BACK ISSUE magazine celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through recurring (and rotating) departments like “Pro2Pro” (dialogue between professionals), “BackStage Pass” (behind-the-scenes of comicsbased media), “Greatest Stories Never Told” (spotlighting unrealized comics series or stories), and more!

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“Family!” JOHN BYRNE’s Fantastic Four, SIMONSON, BRIGMAN, and BOGDANOVE on Power Pack, LEVITZ and STATON on the Huntress, Henry Pym’s “son” Ultron, Wonder Twins, Commissioner Gordon & Batgirl’s relationship, and Return of the New Gods. With art and commentary from BUCKLER, BUSIEK, FRADON, HECK, INFANTINO, NEWTON, and WOLFMAN, and a Norman Rockwell-inspired BYRNE cover!

“April Fools”! GIFFEN and LOREN FLEMING on Ambush Bug, BYRNE’s She-Hulk, interviews with HEMBECK, ALAN KUPPERBERG, Flaming Carrot’s BOB BURDEN, and DAVID CHELSEA, Spider-Ham, Forbush-Man, Reid Fleming, MAD in the 1970s, art and commentary from DICK DeBARTOLO, TOM DeFALCO, AL FELDSTEIN, AL JAFFEE, STAN LEE, DAVE SIM, and a Spider-Ham cover by MIKE WIERINGO, inked by KARL KESEL!

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(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Red, White, and Blue” issue! Captain America and the Red Skull, CHAYKIN’s American Flagg, THOMAS and COLAN’s Wonder Woman, Freedom Fighters, and Team America! With art and commentary from JOHN BYRNE, STEVE ENGLEHART, ROGER STERN, CURT SWAN, MARK WAID, LEN WEIN, MIKE ZECK, and more. Cover by HOWARD CHAYKIN!

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(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “1970s Time Capsule”! Examines relevance in comics, Planet of the Apes, DC Salutes the Bicentennial, Richard Dragon–Kung-Fu Fighter, FOOM, Amazing World of DC, Fast Willie Jackson, Marvel Comics calendars, art and commentary from ADAMS, BRUNNER, GIORDANO, LARKIN, LEVITZ, MAGGIN, MOENCH, O’NEIL, PLOOG, STERANKO, cover by BUCKLER and BEATTY!

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Volume 1, Number 52 October 2011

The Retro Comics Experience!

Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, and Beyond! EDITOR Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow GUEST DESIGNER Jon B. Cooke COVER ARTIST Bernie Wrightson COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg

BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

PROOFREADER Rob Smentek

Alan Light Val Mayerik David Michelinie Dan Mishkin Doug Moench Bill Morrison Nightscream Dennis O’Neil Lore Orion John Ostrander Tom Peyer Carl Potts Amy Reeder Shannon E. Riley Bob Schreck Jim Simon Steve Skeates Robin Snyder Joe Staton Bryan Stroud Gerry Talaoc Cathy Ann Thiele Matt Wagner Jim Warden John Wells Bernie Wrightson Liz Wrightson

INTERVIEW: Terror in the Mysterious House of Wrightson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 When it comes to Bronze Age horror comics, nobody does it better than Bernie! INTERVIEW: The Scary/Funny Worlds of Sergio Aragonés . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 Comics’ coolest cartoonist discusses his terror toons BEYOND CAPES: You Will Believe in Ghosts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 Editor Murray Boltinoff and writer Leo Dorfman’s spook-fest was dear to their hearts INTERVIEW: Gerry Talaoc: From the Unknown to the Incredible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31 In a BACK ISSUE exclusive, the underrated Bronze Age artist looks back on his career FLASHBACK: The Many Lives of the Black Orchid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39 DC Comics’ mysterious heroine and her journey through the mainstream, Vertigo, and the Cartoon Network BEYOND CAPES: Enter Freely, Unafraid: Madame Xanadu… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47 DC’s breakout horror host Madame Xanadu with loads of Michael Kaluta artwork INTERVIEW: The Hysterical Hippy Horror Humor of Lore Shoberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 How “Cain’s Game Room” cartoonist Lore Shoberg rode into (and out of) town BEYOND CAPES: The Many Mystery Comics of Charlton Pubs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65 Chills and thrills, eight pages at a time, from the Derby, Connecticut, comics house PRO2PRO: Mark Evanier, Dan Spiegle, and a Dog Named Scooby-Doo . . . . . . . . . . .71 Scooby, Scooby-Doo, where are you? In comic books, that’s where! BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79 Reader feedback on issue #49 BACK ISSUE™ is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Eight-issue subscriptions: $70 Standard US, $105 Canada, $130 Surface International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Bernie Wrightson. House of Mystery TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2011 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. Mystery Comics Issue

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Art (from Nick Cardy’s The Witching Hour #4 cover) is TM & ©DC Comics

SPECIAL THANKS Sergio Aragonés Michael Aushenker Dick Ayers Karen Berger Howard Bender Jerry Boyd Bruce Buchanan Cary Burkett Jarrod Buttery Cain and Abel Dewey Cassell Kyle Cassidy Gary Cohn Gerry Conway Nicola Cuti Rufus Dayglo DC Comics Tony DeZuniga Scott Edelman Steve Englehart Rich J. Fowlks Carl Gafford Grand Comic-Book Database Robert Greenberger Jack C. Harris Heritage Comics Auctions Stuart Hopen Anson Jew Benton Jew Michael Kaluta Todd Klein Bill Kunkel Paul Levitz

FLASHBACK: Hosts of Horror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Cain, Abel, and company owe a deadly debt to these guys and ghouls

Michael Eury

GREETINGS, KIDDIES! I’M yOUR HOST-THE fanboy who liv es in his mother’s basement

IT’S ALSO THE HOME OF My comic book collection, EACH BOx A house of mystery OF fearsome four-color favorites!

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IT’S creepy DOwN HERE… eerie, TOO, THE AIR CHOKED WwITH DRyER LINT AND DANGERS LIKE FORGOTTEN PING-PONG BALLS LURKING UNDERFOOT.

MANy OF THOSE macabre masterpieces HAvE BEEN UNEARTHED FROM THEIR MyLAR TOMBS THIS ISSUE FOR yOUR ENJOyMENT… if you dare! Heh-hehheh-heh-heh!

Greetings, guys and programs was that ghouls. Sit back, put they were typically your feet up on the narrated by a host. nearest implement of torShows like Inner Sanctum ture, and prepare to peruse Mysteries, hosted by this penultimate prose about Raymond Edward Johnson in my kindred spirits. Being a host the early 1940s, featured talby D e w e y C a s s e l l of horror is hard work, as you will ented actors like Agnes undoubtedly deduce from the terrorMoorehead, Peter Lorre, and ific tale that follows. But fear not, kiddies, Richard Widmark. The radio horror for we horror hosts are always looking for hosts typically exhibited a distinctive perfresh meat for the grinder, so to speak... sonality that made them easily identifiable to Why do you suppose it is that horror comics seem the listener. With his morbid sense of humor and his to demand a host, while other stories leave you all on your own? ominous laugh, Raymond provided a welcome break in the tension of There always seemed to be something curiously contradictory about the story. Other radio horror hosts included Boris Karloff and the extension of hospitality in a tale meant to terrify. Then again, who Christopher Lee. The stories themselves were often violent and gory, wouldn’t want a hand to hold while walking through a haunted and the programs were eventually challenged by censors, although house? But was that the purpose behind these polite purveyors of the regulations imposed were difficult to enforce. Ironically, what fear? brought about the demise of radio horror programs was television. To answer that question, we must first turn to their origins, and the original hosts of horror were found on the radio. Starting in the GHOULS RULE 1930s, radio was the perfect forum for dramatic horror and science- One of the first, and arguably best, television horror hosts was fiction stories because it fueled the imagination of the listeners. Zacherley. In 1957, actor John Zacherle got a call from WCAU Channel Imagining in your mind the horrors you were hearing described could 10 in Philadelphia to host Shock Theater, a collection of horror films be far more powerful than actually seeing them, as evidenced by the from the 1930s and 1940s being released to television by Universal Pictures. Dressed in an undertaker’s coat and sporting ghoulish makesuccess of Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938. One of the common characteristics of the anthology radio horror up with his hair parted down the middle, Zacherle portrayed Roland, the “cool ghoul” who was host of the show and lived in a crypt. Roland introduced the late night movie, accompanied by the occaCry Uncle! sional severed head in a basket, and he also appeared in numerous “break-ins” or instances in which the cameraman would break to a (top) Creepy magazine’s host, Uncle Creepy, as shot of Roland wearing a curious expression and then back to the film illustrated by this issue’s cover artist, Bernie Wrightson. in progress. This approach to hosting the show proved to be wildly popular and gained Roland thousands of fans. Numerous imitators fol© 2011 Warren Publications.

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Certainly No Samantha! (upper right) “Ghastly” Graham Ingels’ Old Witch.

lowed, including Ghoulardi, Moona Lisa, and Marvin the Near-Sighted Madman. But by the time Zacherley and other television horror hosts made their debut, the tradition of hosting horror stories was already well entrenched in comic books. The use of a host for horror comics, however, was preceded by a comic book from another genre, Crime Does Not Pay. In 1942, starting with issue #24, editor Charles Biro introduced a host named Mr. Crime, who narrated the feature stories in Crime Does Not Pay. Mr. Crime was an ethereal host, whose top hat and flowing robe contrasted with his pointed ears and sharp teeth. In the stories in which he appeared, Mr. Crime typically popped up several times during the tale to provide a pithy commentary on the characters or their predicament. Peak circulation for Crime Does Not Pay reached over one million copies a month. When you think about the hosts of comic books in the Golden Age, though, one group comes to mind: the Old Witch, Crypt Keeper, and Vault Keeper of the EC anthology horror comics The Haunt of Fear, Tales from the Crypt, and The Vault of Horror. Arguably the most recognizable of all horror hosts even today, the EC ghouls were the brainchild of editor, writer, and artist Al Feldstein and his publisher, Bill Gaines. As for their inspiration, in an interview for issue #9 of the legendary EC fanzine Squa Tront, Feldstein explained, “We had come on to this thing of doing horror and scary stuff. Bill and I had remembered The Witch’s Tale and Lights Out from radio—this is all old hat, I know—and we tried it out in the comics … I first came up with the Crypt Keeper and the Vault Keeper, who were direct steals from the witch in The Witch’s Tale. I don’t remember the witch being as facetious, and with the puns, but she cackled.” Although originally designed by Feldstein, other artists became identified with the EC hosts. “Ghastly” Graham Ingels rendered the definitive

Uncle Creepy (right) Jack Davis’ model sheets for Creepy’s host. Courtesy of Jim Warden. © EC Publications.

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Old Witch, Johnny Craig drew the Vault Keeper, and the Crypt Keeper was most famously illustrated by Jack Davis. Craig later created an attractive assistant for the Vault Keeper named Drusilla. Craig even served as the model in full makeup and costume for photographs of the EC hosts that were sold to fans through the comics letters pages. The EC hosts appeared in house ads and EC Fan Addict fan club materials as well. The hosts contributed to the recognition and growing popularity of the EC horror comics. But the explicit violence and gore of the EC horror comics led to the unwanted attention of Dr. Fredric Wertham in his infamous treatise, Seduction of the Innocent, and the subse-

quent Senate Hearings on Juvenile Delinquency in 1954. It was in those hearings that EC publisher Bill Gaines attempted unsuccessfully to defend his horror comics, leading ultimately to the Comics Code and the demise of the horror genre in comics for years to come. The EC horror hosts were retired.

CREEPY COMEBACKS There were several attempts to revive the horror-comics genre. For example, in 1957, Harvey Comics published the comic book Man in Black, which ran for four issues, featuring the host Fate and his acquaintances Venus and Weaver. In 1959, comic-book icon Joe Simon published Weird Mysteries and Eerie Tales, black-and-white magazines not subject to the Comics Code, featuring a horror host named “Morgue’n the Morgue Keeper.” Joe’s son, Jim Simon, recalls Morgue’n well, and his father’s inspiration: “On TV, Zacherley was a very popular monster-movie host with the kids. My father knew my brother and our friends stayed up late at night just to watch Zacherley host his monster TV shows!” Unfortunately, Simon was ahead of his time. While they were well executed, both magazines only lasted one issue. The real revival of the horror host came in 1964, when Jim Warren first published Creepy magazine. Creepy was a black-and-white anthology title, with compelling horror stories by exceptional artists, many of whom were veterans of EC Comics. The magazine was hosted by “Uncle Creepy,” a tall, gaunt figure with thinning hair and dressed in a threadbare tuxedo, originally rendered by Jack Davis. Uncle Creepy was soon joined by Cousin Eerie and Vampirella in sister publications of their own. Cousin Eerie was short and stout, bearing an almost toad-like appearance, and was also illustrated by Davis. By contrast, Vampirella was tall and shapely, poured into her iconic, revealing red costume, as first depicted by Frank Frazetta and later defined by José “Pepe” Gonzalez. However, in the early days of the Warren magazines, the hosts were often drawn by whichever artist happened to be illustrating the story, leading to many different variations of the characters. Recognizing the marketing opportunity, Jim Warren ran house ads in his magazines, offering a variety of merchandise bearing the images of his horror hosts, from Halloween masks to underwear, available through his own fulfillment house, Captain Company. Each host also had their own fan club.

The Lady is a Vamp! (right) Jose Gonzalez’s classic full-figure color painting of Vampirella. This version is actually the rare promotional sticker that was given away by Warren Publishing as a subscription premium. Courtesy of Dewey Cassell. Vampirella TM & © DFI.

However, the most popular, and most enduring, of the Warren horror hosts was Vampirella. Images of Vampirella were made into a six-foot life-sized poster, stickers, calendars, a T-shirt, a jigsaw puzzle, and graced the covers of six Vampirella novels by Ron Goulart. There was even an Aurora model kit of Vampirella, and actress Barbara Leigh appeared on the cover of several issues of the magazine, wearing the famous costume. Leigh was cast to play Vampirella in a motion picture by Hammer Films that was never made. [Editor’s note: See BI #36 for a Vampirella history.] Vampirella was not, however, just a host. Stories about Vampirella appeared periodically in her title from the start, and in every issue beginning with #11 until the title’s cancellation with issue #112. The rights to Vampirella were acquired by Harris Comics in 1983 and stories featuring the character continue to appear in print today, courtesy of Dynamite Entertainment. Vampirella spawned numerous imitations, the most successful of which was Elvira, published by Claypool Comics.

DC’s HOSTS OF MYSTERY With the success of Creepy and Eerie, DC Comics decided to test the waters of horror comic books once again. House of Mystery had been a superhero book since the mid-’60s, but with issue #174, in 1968, it returned to its horror roots under the tutelage of editor Joe Orlando, another veteran of EC Comics. The following issue, Orlando introduced a host in the form of an “able caretaker” for the House of Mystery named Cain, who introduced most of the stories in the anthology series. Cain is a tall, thin character with glasses, upswept hair, and a pointed beard that give him a deliberately devilish appearance, accompanied by a pet gargoyle named Gregory. (Cain was modeled after writer Len Wein, who appeared as Cain in a photograph in issue #4 of Elvira’s House of Mystery.) A caricature of Cain also appeared in humorous one-page filler pieces in House of Mystery like “Cain’s Game Room,” illustrated by Sergio Aragonés [see interview in this issue]. Cain’s residence, the House of Mystery, is in the hills of Kentucky and the house itself is alive, containing an ever-changing array of rooms (and mysteries). House of Secrets had also been a superhero title in the mid-1960s, but was canceled with issue #80 and lay dormant for three years. A year after the debut of Cain in House of Mystery, DC Special #4 featured a new horror host devised by Orlando named Abel, who took up residence in the House of Secrets, across the cemetery from the

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DC’s Terror Trinity Cain, Abel, and Eve, on the intro page to PLOP! #1 (Sept.–Oct. 1973). Courtesy of Dewey Cassell. TM & © DC Comics.

House of Mystery. Unlike his counterpart, Abel is shorter and heavier and often stutters, frequently abused by Cain. Abel also has an imaginary girlfriend named Goldie. Abel was typically found introducing stories in House of Secrets or appearing in framing sequences between stories. The other best-known DC horror host created by Joe Orlando was Eve, introduced in 1972 in issue #6 of Secrets of Sinister House, which featured stories similar to House of Mystery and House of Secrets, with Cain and

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Abel occasionally making guest appearances. However, this house proved not to be as habitable as its companion titles, and Eve moved to Weird Mystery Tales, displacing another horror host, Destiny. In issue #6 (May–June 1975) of The Amazing World of DC Comics, an in-house fanzine published by DC in 1975, Orlando talked about the DC hosts of horror: “I’ve always been proud of the hosts in my mystery books. I tried to give them a touch of character … felt I couldn’t go wrong with the original Biblical names. Cain, of course, was my first creation. His name always stood for evil, which gave him the proper horror twinge. Originally, I used to write all his dialogue and it was all pseudo-hip. I was very surprised by the reaction it got from the readers, particularly the girls who associated him with their grandfather. Abel, I created for Dick Giordano and then inherited him back when Dick gave up editing. He was modeled after Mark Hanerfeld, who later served as my assistant for about a year. Eve was the last of the Biblical three and when I created her, I had in mind the traveling aunt who has been around the world and returned with a slightly tarnished reputation that no one talks about, because of her wealth.” The DC hosts contributed to the success of the horror comics, becoming so recognizable that they were often used in house ads, especially Cain, who also made guest appearances in comics like The Brave and the Bold and DC Comics Presents. There were other DC horror hosts, like the witches Cynthia, Mildred and Mordred in The Witching Hour, and Death in Ghosts, but they never achieved the popularity of Cain, Abel, and Eve. Scott Edelman, who wrote numerous stories for House of Mystery and House of Secrets, shares his insight into the DC horror hosts: “The reason for hosts in DC’s horror books was two-fold. The first is that it’s a multi-layered tradition. The horror comics at DC were being written by people who’d

grown up on the EC horror comics, and those comics had hosts, so DC’s should have them, too, right? And the EC horror comics were being written by people who’d grown up with the radio horror hosts of Inner Sanctum and the like, so it made sense to import them into EC Comics, too. I think it was a tradition passed on from radio to EC to DC. “But why the tradition in the first place? I think it was because we remember horror stories as being told to us, around the campfire by grown-ups, or in the dark by our friends, as they each tried to scare the heck out of us. So with horror, we’re more aware of the teller, the person who says, this really happened here in these woods on a night much like this one … I think the reason other sorts of books didn’t have hosts is that they didn’t feel the need to live up to those traditions.” The artists who have illustrated the DC horror hosts over the years have been some of the best in the business, including Bernie Wrightson, Neal Adams, Nestor Redondo, and others. The writing was held to an equally high standard. In fact, Edelman recalls once receiving a rejection slip from editor Paul Levitz, who noted, “Well thought out—solid idea—but I can’t use it. Won’t run cancer stories.” As to how he distinguished between the horror hosts in his writing, Edelman comments, “I don’t think I differentiated much between the hosts, except that I somehow felt that Abel was kinder than Cain, and Cain nastier than Abel, and so kept that in mind as I wrote. I never really thought about whether I liked one more than the other. As I wrote about the hosts, I tried not to be affected by the fact I knew the guys behind the two, and so did not attempt to emulate the vocal patterns of either Mark Hanerfeld or Len Wein.”

HUMOR IN A HORROR VEIN Beginning in 1973, Cain, Abel, and Eve appeared together in a new title, a humor anthology book in the horror vein called PLOP!, the brainchild of Orlando and DC Comics publisher Carmine Infantino. Writer Steve Skeates explains how it all got started: “I wrote ‘The Poster Plague,’ which I originally submitted to Warren Publishing for Creepy, Eerie, or Vampirella, wherever they wanted to put it. Warren turned it down, so I took it to Joe Orlando at DC, who used it in House of Mystery, illustrated by Sergio Aragonés. At some point they decided, more or less, to base PLOP! on the ‘Poster Plague’ story. They liked that combination of horror and humor, and they thought that would sell.” PLOP! featured caricatures of Cain, Abel, and Eve (as well as Cain’s pet gargoyle, Gregory, on occasion), rendered by Sergio Aragonés in framing sequences throughout the comic book. Unlike host appearances in most other comics, however, the framing sequence in PLOP! typically told a story of its own, usually involving the hosts subjecting some unwitting (or unwilling) victims to their storytelling, and inevitably ending up with the hosts getting “PLOPped” on in the end. Aragonés recalls, “We needed a mascot for the magazine or somebody to introduce the stories and it was decided that those three characters would be ideal, so I made sketches of what the characters would look like. By then, I had already created a humorous version of Cain for ‘The Poster Plague.’” PLOP! featured stories by veterans like Bernie Wrightson and Nick Cardy, as well as less-well-known artists like Lee Marrs. The PLOP! story “The Gourmet” by Wrightson won a Shazam Award for Best Humor Story, as did Steve Skeates for Best Writer (Humor Division) from the Academy of Comic Book

Arts in 1973. [Editor’s note: See BI #21 for more information about PLOP!]

OTHER HORROR HOSTS Although DC Comics made more extensive (and effective) use of horror hosts, Marvel Comics did not ignore the opportunity. In the 1940s, the Witness hosted various crime and mystery stories for Timely Comics. Later on, the anthology horror comic Tower of Shadows featured a host named Digger, a tall gravedigger bearing a slight resemblance to Frankenstein’s monster, first rendered by artist Jim Steranko in 1969. Another horror host, Headstone P. Gravely, who wore a top hat somewhat reminiscent of Mr. Crime, appeared alongside Digger in Tower of Shadows and its sister title, Chamber of Darkness. Marvel also occasionally employed a different approach to the competition, using the writers and artists themselves to host the horror comics. Gary Friedrich, Gene Colan, Wally Wood, Don Heck, and Stan Lee all appeared in caricature to host stories in Marvel horror comics. The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time of resurgence for horror comics, and their popularity was reflected in movies and television as well. Years earlier, Rod Serling hosted The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock hosted his own television show, both featur-

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Cain and Abel (above) This superb Wrightson House of Mystery splash gives you an idea the relationship between the DC horror host brothers. Reproduced from Berni Wrightson: A Look Back. TM & © DC Comics.

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ing A-list actors in memorable science fiction and horror stories. In 1972, Ralph Richardson appeared as the Crypt Keeper in a motion picture version of Tales from the Crypt, featuring adaptations of stories from the EC comics. (A subsequent film, The Vault of Horror, did not include the Vault Keeper.) In the late 1980s, cable network HBO launched an award-winning television series entitled Tales from the Crypt, with stories based on the original EC comics, and featuring the Crypt Keeper as host. Over the years, many other comic-book companies tried their hand at hosting horror comics, among them Archie, Charlton, and Gold Key, with varying degrees of success. But by the early 1980s, the popularity of horror comics had waned, and so had the need for a host. House of Mystery was canceled in 1983 with issue #321, the cover depicting a “For Sale” sign in the yard and Cain and Gregory moving out. Elvira briefly occupied the house a few years later, before the title enjoyed a resurgence under the Vertigo imprint. Cain and Abel also appeared as recurring characters in Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, Blue Devil, and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. So, back to the question at hand: What purpose do these hosts of horror serve? Well, they help to provide continuity between otherwise unrelated stories, and between issues of the horror comics. They provide an ongoing character for readers to identify with, sometimes achieving popularity of their own. They vary in appearance and demeanor— some have a wry wit and others a biting sarcasm. However, all of them break through the fourth wall to draw the reader into the story and lend an air of realism to their tales of terror, making the stories all the more compelling for it. Jim Simon puts it this way: “It was and is a good way to introduce a story and to get a reader involved. A host made a magazine more exciting, especially an anthology–type of comic/magazine. A host could also tie a series of genre stories together for a nice reading experience. A publisher could build up an audience if the kids got into the antics of a host.” Today, we still have television hosts like the Nightie Watchman to introduce Movie Underground on WGN America, but there is no one left to hold your hand in comics. While horror comics certainly haven’t gone away, and readers of The Walking Dead might argue they

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Vampirella Live (above) From the Cassell collection and unpublished until now, an autographed model photo of Barbara Leigh as Vampirella. are better than ever, we don’t have the anthology comic books that demanded a host. We are left to sit alone in the dark, hoping that sound we hear is just the floorboards creaking… I hope you enjoyed this ghastly gathering of the hosts of horror. Many of these tales of terror are available in reprinted collections, so spare a few hard earned shekels, find your favorite host (or hostess), and see if you can’t scare up some fun. Happy horrordays! DEWEY CASSELL is a frequent contributor to BACK ISSUE and author of the sold-out book The Art of George Tuska. He is currently working on a book about Marie Severin. He offers his thanks to Scott Edelman, Jim Simon, Sergio Aragonés, and Steve Skeates for the interviews, and to Jim Warden for the graphics.

Bernie Wrightson? Simply the best in the horror field from the late ’60s to the mid-’80s. Here he shares with us some recollections of the great day of DC mystery/horror and afterwards. Got the cold chills already? Good, kiddies … heehehee … good! (Most of the images provided came from Jerry Boyd and the Swamp Thing recollections were kept to a minimum due to its being covered already in BACK ISSUE #6.) – Jerry Boyd

Jerry Boyd

conducted February 3 and March 11, 2011

It’s a Weird Mystery! (left) Detail from the much-coveted 100Page SuperSpectacular #4, titled Weird Mystery Tales. While featuring just so-so ’50s mystery book stories, this poorly distributed 1971 giant remains a lusted-after collectors’ item, no doubt in part because it sports Wrightson’s (ahem) spectacular cover art. TM & © DC Comics.

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Beginnings: First sale: DC’s “Nightmaster” in Showcase #83 (June 1969) / First published art: “The Man Who Murdered Himself” in House of Mystery #179 (Mar.–Apr. 1969)

Milestones: Nightmaster in Showcase / Swamp Thing / numerous covers and title pages for House of Mystery and other DC titles / Tower of Shadows and Chamber of Darkness / Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella stories / Badtime Stories / PLOP! / Frankenstein / Creepshow / Spider-Man: Hooky and The Thing/The Hulk: The Big Change Marvel Graphic Novels / Batman: The Cult / Captain Sternn / Batman/Aliens / Toe Tags / Production designs for the film Serenity / City of Others / Dead, She Said

Cyberspace: www.wrightsonart.com

BERNIE WRIGHTSON

It’s Not Easy Being Cain (right) The proprietor of the House of Mystery ponders “The Gourmet” in the classic PLOP! #1 story written by Steve Skeates and drawn by our man Wrightson. Word is that the macabre tale was inspired by an infamous S. Gross cartoon in National Lampoon, where Bernie also contributed his artistry in the ’70s. TM & © DC Comics.

JERRY BOYD: You were at the perfect age when the EC Comics were making the rounds. Can you put into words how strong an effect Graham Ingels’ Old Witch strips had on you? BERNIE WRIGHTSON: I wouldn’t be doing this today if it weren’t for those comics … or even be the person I am, I believe. They were a huge part of my life then and shaped my artistic future. In the late ’50s, they released all the old Universal monster movies to TV and I saw them all. The time was right for horror, y’know. In Baltimore, we had a guy named Dr. Lucifer who hosted— and interrupted—the movies now and then with jokes, late at night, and that added to the fun. He was on Friday nights, 11:15. BOYD: When I look over your early fanzine work, it mostly leans toward mystery/horror. Is it safe to say that that was the only genre in comics that grabbed you, or were there others? WRIGHTSON: I wanted to get into comics. I didn’t know anything about fanzines. I went to the World Science Fiction Con in New York in 1967. A friend suggested that we take

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the train there and I met people like Jeff Jones, Mike Kaluta, and we just hung out. My first love has always been horror, graveyards, scary houses, and so on. I came into sci-fi late. The “science” part scared me! [laughs] I had the assumption that you had to be “smart” to get sci-fi. In my teens and twenties, I got over it and did some sci-fi. There’s not much science in it once you look into it! [laughter] BOYD: There really isn’t! [laughter continues] Some authors, of course, really delve into scientific theory, but a lot of the most acclaimed sci-fi is just human drama with wild scientific possibilities thrown in. WRIGHTSON: That’s it. Exactly! BOYD: How did you become a “resident” of The House of Mystery and The House of Secrets? WRIGHTSON: At that con in ’67, I also met a lot of people in comics. I met Carmine Infantino and Joe Orlando and others … like Dick Giordano. Then I went home. A few months came and went. [Michael Wm.] Kaluta called me and said, “Listen, I heard, through the grapevine and roundabout— these guys at National [DC Comics] want you to work for them.” That knocked me on the floor! At a con in 1968 that I attended with my new buddies, I met up with the DC guys again. The Baltimore Sun was the newspaper where I was working, but I hit this summer con and they told me, “If you lived here, we’d give you work.” By August, after thinking it over, I moved to New York. Shortly after that, Kaluta became my roommate. BOYD: What was Joe Orlando like to work with? What did you learn from him? WRIGHTSON: Joe was great. He was a teacher … informally. He kept a pad of tracing paper and he’d redraw panels I’d done and help me condense my storytelling. I thought my job was to draw pretty pictures one after another. Joe would say, “No, no, no … it doesn’t work like that—you can combine the action in these two panels into one” and things like that. I learned an awful lot from Joe. He was the guy I most wanted to work with. Joe edited my first stuff at DC. My strongest memory of him was us just laughing all the time! Everything we saw in those comics struck us as funny! [laughs] I read some ridiculous script and he had to clean it up, but we still laughed a lot. He’d say, “This is too bad—too funny to be in horror!” Eventually, those bad scripts ended up in PLOP! They weren’t scary enough to make the House books, but they were perfect for PLOP! [laughter] BOYD: Sergio Aragonés did horror/humor one-pagers. Did you like those? What stories of yours came out especially well to you? WRIGHTSON: I loved Sergio’s stuff! I thought those were great! Of my stuff, I liked the

Egyptian tomb goddess story in House of Mystery #181 (Aug. 1969), “The Siren of Satan”—the woman whose timeless beauty lured guys to their deaths. I was proud of that one. BOYD: Were you able to suggest story ideas to your writers back then? If so, which ideas did you come up with? WRIGHTSON: Yes, that happened a lot, depending on the writer. You’ve heard about the way Marvel worked, right? The Bullpen collaborations—it was somewhat easier for them to share ideas and bounce ideas around because the Marvel office was one big office. The artists worked board to board. At DC, things were separated. We found ways to work with writers in our age group, if that worked for them. Len [Wein] and I always collaborated on Swamp Thing. BOYD: Things went well for you at DC in the early ’70s. Neal Adams, Sergio, Alex Toth, Orlando, and you got praise for revamping the House titles and The Unexpected, and there was the happy addition of The Witching Hour. Did you ever find time to read the material done by the other guys? WRIGHTSON: Neal Adams got a closet, a tiny little room [in DC’s offices] with an overhead projector, because he was DC’s star artist. We’d steal chairs from the coffee room and hang out with Neal. We’d hang out and catch up. Wein, [Marv] Wolfman, and I would hang out and talk about story ideas. I tried to keep up with the other guys’ stuff but I got too busy … and just couldn’t. BOYD: Once established, you went to Marvel for a short period, doing covers and stories for Tower of Shadows and Chamber of Darkness in 1970. Why was it a short stay? WRIGHTSON: I preferred working at DC. Marvel was always the superhero company, in my opinion. Superheroes weren’t “real” to me. I just never bought the superpowers … that made all the difference. BOYD: The mystery/horror material was doing well, I assume. You inked Adams on a cover for DC Special #11 (Apr. 1971). Did Mr. Orlando ever talk sales figures with you? WRIGHTSON: Occasionally, he did talk about it. Joe told me after the first Swamp Thing story hit in House of Secrets #92 (July 1971), “We got more fan mail on this story than we ever got on the entire run of House of Secrets since I’ve been here!” Dick Giordano snorted after I told him that. He said, “Yeah, if we published according to fan

letters, we’d be out of business in a year!” A short while after that, however, I asked for a raise. They said, “No, you’re asking for a whole $10 a page— up from $40 a page.” I went to Marvel and they would up it to $50. Then DC would get upset and say, “Hey, you’re doing work for Marvel!” I explained the higher rate and they’d up my page rate to $55. [laughs] We’d all do that. That’s how we got our raises! Someone told me the Swamp Thing sold better than Superman—and that was something! BOYD: In 1973, you and your good friend Michael Kaluta were legitimate superstars. You teamed up on a chilling, atmospheric carnival thriller for House of Mystery #221. The local comics store in our area, sensing that one was a biggie—or “hot comic” in the verbiage of the day—put out a sign above a stack of them that said “one to a customer.” WRIGHTSON: Really? Wowww… BOYD: I have fond memories of it. Most of comicdom was in love with the O’Neil/Kaluta work on The Shadow, and you were the man on the mystery/ horror books. So when The Comic Reader

Mystery Comics Issue

Creepy Crayolas (above) The cover for the much-soughtafter The Monsters: Color the Creature Book from 1974. Courtesy of Jerry Boyd. © Bernie Wrightson.

Alienated and How! (left) E.T., 0; Earthman, 1. Nice 1970 Wrightson effort. © Bernie Wrightson.

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was getting into a lot of fine line art. I got annoyed with the comics color, the dark color that they were laying down over the line work. Also, Warren paid a lot more than DC! I’d been getting $65 a page for Swamp Thing. [Publisher Jim] Warren had been telephoning me, even sending me a telegram at one point. I’d been blowing him off with lines like, “One day … yeah, right … I’ll see … let me get back to you…” One day, we got together. He didn’t even ask what DC was paying. He told me, “We’ll pay you $110 a page. We don’t have the Comics Code. You can do whatever you like … in the horror vein.” How could I not accept??!! [laughs] BOYD: Yeah, you did the right thing, even though it broke our hearts—the little nuts who lived for The Witching Hour, the House titles, etc.! [laughs] You had a lot of freedom there at Warren. WRIGHTSON: “Jenifer,” a weird one written by Bruce Jones, my buddy, got a lot of applause. They were all fun. I was excited. I was very free. I could do tone work. I could really have fun in black and white. I went from Poe stories to Lovecraft stories and got to write my own. BOYD: You got an all-Wrightson issue also, with Creepy #113 (Nov. 1979). That one reprinted some of your best, including Lovecraft’s “Cool Air.” It was a nice collection of your stuff. WRIGHTSON: Thanks. It was a good period for me. BOYD: In 1982, without a lot of fanfare, George Romero’s Creepshow film hit the theaters. I think it was either late spring or early summer. Around the same time of the premiere, readers were pleasantly

King in Comics Behind this graphic-novel cover by EC Comics legend Jack Kamen were Bernie’s adaptations of stories from Stephen King’s horror-fest Creepshow, directed by George A. Romero. © 1982 Laurel-Show, Inc.

House of Rejected Covers (right) This early Wrightson cover for DC’s House of Mystery went into inventory and never saw print—until now! TM & © DC Comics.

[fanzine] announced that you’d both be collaborating on that cover and story, it was … wowww!! [laughter] WRIGHTSON: It was always so much fun working with [Kaluta]. He fell behind on The Shadow once. He was very busy, doing some ERB stuff, “Spawn of Frankenstein,” also The Shadow. He asked me to come down to New York City (I was living upstate by then) and we jammed on The Shadow—the third issue. It was an intense weekend of penciling-inking-back-and-forth. We consciously tried to imitate each other at one point! To this day, we can’t tell who penciled this face or inked that figure. [laughs] BOYD: Those two stories you did for PLOP! are considered funny/scary classics. What do you think of them? WRIGHTSON: I had a lot of fun doing those—playing between horror and comedy, like two of my favorite horror comedies, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and Ghostbusters—two of my favorite movies. BOYD: Swamp Thing was the pinnacle of your gothic horror/mystery material. Then you stunned comicdom by going to Warren Publishing. How did that come about? Which of the stories you produced there were your favorites? WRIGHTSON: Basically, what happened is that I

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surprised to see a comics adaptation of the movie with your art on the stands. How did the movie comic get done by you? WRIGHTSON: One night, out of a clear blue sky, I got a phone call. “Bernie, I’m Stephen King.” I thought it was [Bruce] Jones or Jim Starlin playing a prank call, which they did at times. But after a while, I was convinced! [laughter] He was in Pittsburgh. He explained that he was working with George Romero and he wanted a comic done from the horror film they were putting together. Stephen asked me, “Can you come to Pittsburgh for a week, and hang out on the set?” “Yeah, great!” I said. They were shooting King segment, “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill,” when I showed up. Stephen was like a big kid. He starred in that portion of the movie and he was having the time of his life! That was fun. I’d never been on a movie set before. BOYD: Also, George, Stephen, and you were all EC Comics horror fans! WRIGHTSON: That’s true! BOYD: Things come full circle… WRIGHTSON: I hadn’t thought of it like that. You’re right. BOYD: How did EC legend Jack Kamen get the Creepshow cover? WRIGHTSON: They wanted Kamen’s image for the cover and that was the art they used for the promotional poster, also. Kamen’s art was put into the film’s animation images. They wanted an EC guy. I guessed they talked to him and assumed he was doing the comic-book version, also. One day, someone at Laurel Productions contacted him and asked, “How’s the comic coming along, Jack?” He said, “What comic?” They’d had some miscommunication about that, it seemed! [laughs] Time was really tight when they got to me.

Macabre Masters

More than half of the film was shot by George, but they had no comic! And they wanted it out as the movie was about to hit the theaters. I had three, four months to do this thing! I didn’t even have a comic script—I had an inch-and-a-half screenplay to work from. “Can you work from that?” Stephen asked. I said, “Yeah.” I wanted the work. [laughs] It was somewhat different because it was a movie script after all, and not a comic script. It worked out, but to this day, I don’t know how I got all 45 pages or so of that thing done! BOYD: I loved Creepshow—the film and the comic! I saw it shortly after it came to our area and though parts of it were intentionally over-the-top, it was a well-done comic book-based movie, suspenseful in all the right parts and genuinely scary where it needed to be. WRIGHTSON: I agree. It was so cool [in the film] that there was this Creepshow comic the little boy

Mystery Comics Issue

(above) A 2005 bookstore appearance featuring (left to right) Marv (Tomb of Dracula) Wolfman, Bill (Simpsons’ Treehouse of Terror) Morrison, Bernie Wrightson, and Len (Swamp Thing) Wein. Courtesy of Bill Morrison. (left) Wrightson in his studio, circa 1977.

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Do You Dare Enter … the House of Ideas? (left) One of a handful of covers Bernie drew for Marvel Comics’ fright-fests, this one for Tower of Shadows #9 (Jan. 1971). And, yup, that guy yakking is a self-caricature of the artist himself! TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

includes House of Mystery in its line-up. Mr. Wrightson has our thanks for his time and recollections and still is active in horror comics today with his regular co-plotter and writer, Steve Niles. Also, special thanks go out to Bill Morrison and Liz Wrightson for contact information. JERRY BOYD has written numerous articles for fanzines The Jack Kirby Collector, BACK ISSUE, Alter Ego, The Harveyville Fun Times!, and the Spooky Fearbook. He’s proud to have interviewed numerous professionals in the industry, as well, for those publications. Jerry is a professional schoolteacher and an aspiring screenwriter living in Southern California. As often as he can, he sends copies of rare art to BI for other readers/fans to enjoy.

enjoyed reading that provided the five stories and the framing sequence within the film itself. They did a good job. BOYD: My friends and I, all “third generation EC fanatics” since we discovered that company’s magic in the ’70s, saw it as the Haunt of Fear movie that was never made, since Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt movies had been produced in the early 1970s. WRIGHTSON: That’s an interesting way of looking at it. BOYD: How would you sum up your time at The House of Mystery and other “haunts of horror”? WRIGHTSON: I’ve had a great time. Though times have changed, of course, I’ve always been able to work. I’ve been doing this for over 40 years. And I can truthfully say that 99.99% of it has been fun. And it’s nice to know it’s been appreciated. Horror works well, it seems! [laughs] The House of Mystery went on for years and it was great to see Wrightson “return” to it in 1998 with yet another stunning cover with Cain and Abel, and new art by Sergio Aragonés. This effort came out of the Vertigo line for DC which, as of this writing, still

Back Home (right) Bernie—along with Cain, Abel, and one of Cain’s gargoyles—amble their way back into the House of Mystery on this wonderful 1998 cover. TM & © DC Comics.

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1970: It was a great time for horror. ABC-TV’s Dark Shadows was going as strong as ever, and a horrific vampire movie culled from some of its earliest, greatest storylines came out that year. Hammer Films and its British cousin, Amicus Productions, brought The Vampire Lovers and The House That Dripped Blood to audiences worldwide. Marvel Comics had jumped into the arena with Tower of Shadows and Chamber of Darkness, blowing eyeballs out with work by Steranko, Tom Sutton, Don Heck, John Romita, Neal Adams, Marie Severin, and the Buscema brothers. Charlton, Warren, and Castle of Frankenstein magazine added to the nocturnal chills. But it was DC’s revamp of House of Mystery and House of Secrets, eschewing “Dial H for Hero” and “Eclipso” (respectively), that turned a lot of heads in the publisher’s direction. I was one of those fans. DC had these two new guys, Bernie Wrightson and Neal Adams, who were doing things with a pencil I didn’t think were possible! And even more, they had Alex Toth, Jack Sparling, Gil Kane, and … Sergio Aragonés, that MAD magazine guy, who came in once in a while with those whimsical, twisted humor/horror one-pagers that none of the competition was able to mimic! His brand of hilarious black humor continued on into the ’70s, of course. Mr. Aragonés speaks to us about those great days. – Jerry Boyd JERRY BOYD: Who contacted you to do those great cartoons for House of Mystery and the other titles at DC? Was it Joe Orlando, and if so, what were his reasons for wanting humor pages between the stories? SERGIO ARAGONÉS: I just arrived from Europe in ’68. When I got back, [MAD publisher] Bill Gaines told me Joe Orlando wanted to see me. He needed two scripts for Young Romance. [DC art director] Vince Colletta was there in his office waiting for some scripts. I suggested that they go to lunch and I wrote the scripts. They went along with it. [laughs] Someone cleaned up the language because I was still learning English! [laughs] Joe

Jerry Boyd

conducted November 13, 2010 and January 19, 2011

Brotherly “Love”

came back, looked them over, and said, “I didn’t know you wrote!” “Neither did I!” I said. [laughter] It was the basic boymeets-girl, boy-loses-girl—and a little twist. BOYD: So you were thinking about writing. What made you feel you were ready? ARAGONÉS: It wasn’t that complicated. I was a fan of comics, so I didn’t really write it for Vince, I drew it out in layouts, and made it really loose. I went to the library at DC and looked over a few comics before that. One story I came up with was how I met my first wife. That was the basis. [The male story character] was a musician instead of a cartoonist, though. It was very basic, very innocent stuff—it wasn’t that difficult. Mystery Comics Issue

Cain and Abel came to half-dead life in this convention illo done for the interviewer in 2006. TM & © DC Comics.

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Beginnings: First professional art: Began selling cartoons to Mexican magazines at age 17 / First sale in United States: “A Mad Look at the U.S. Space Effort” in MAD #76 (Jan. 1963)

Milestones: Comics: MAD (including “Marginal Thinking” cartoons) / Bat Lash / Angel and the Ape / House of Mystery and House of Secrets / PLOP! / Groo the Wanderer / The Mighty Magnor / Sergio Aragonés Massacres Marvel / Sergio Aragonés Destroys DC / Sergio Aragonés Stomps Star Wars / Fanboy / Actions Speak / Louder Than Words / TV/Film Acting: Laugh-In (1977) / Speak Up, America / Norman, Is That You? / Futurama

Works in Progress: MAD / Bart Simpson / Simpsons Comics / Sergio Aragonés’ Funnies (Comic-Con 2011, Bongo Comics)

Cyberspace: www.sergioaragones.com

SERGIO ARAGONES

Lucky Page 13 At the onset of the revamped House of Mystery, editor Joe Orlando included a full-page Aragonés cartoon on “trece página,” though sometimes, as this HOM #178 (Feb. 1969) entry indicates, the stories themselves would intrude. TM & © DC Comics.

BOYD: DC was revitalizing horror/mystery in the late 1960s. You were busy at MAD at the time. Did you have the time to read the other material by Wrightson, Alex Toth, Bill Draut, Gil Kane, Neal Adams, Kaluta, and others? If you did, do you remember any stand-out favorites? ARAGONÉS: They gave me copies of the books. I took them home and I just loved Gil Kane’s and Sam Glanzman’s material. A lot of the guys who did mystery were very good. BOYD: Were you able to fraternize much with the DC mystery artists? ARAGONÉS: I met all of them in New York. I met every editor, every writer, [and] every cartoonist. I spent a lot of time in the office. Paul Levitz, Joe Orlando’s assistant at the time, was very nice and helpful. I wrote more scripts which I enjoyed. But I wanted to do humor pages. BOYD: Your “Cain’s Gargoyles” became a welcome addition to House of Mystery early on. But you wrote a serious story about gargoyles around the same time as that feature, am I correct? ARAGONÉS: Yes. Neal Adams drew a gargoyles cover during the HOM relaunch. The cover came first and they needed a story inside to match. I wrote the story for House of Mystery #175 (Aug. 1968). After a little while, I began the half-page gags. BOYD: That was the best half-page feature DC

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could have, luckily for us! [laughs] So the DC editors liked it. ARAGONÉS: They liked it. Henry Boltinoff did halfa-page cartoons for years. DC put an ad below it. I think the door was open for me because they wanted more pages. Yes, it was perfect for the 52pagers that followed and then I got full pages. [DC’s titles were published in a 52-page format from 1971–1972.] And I was happy to do full pages. BOYD: Actually, you were getting full pages during the 15¢ era, but I see what you mean. You did get more pages that were spread out in House of Secrets and HOM when the 52-pagers were going on. They were great, by the way! ARAGONÉS: Thank you. They were a pleasure to do, also. BOYD: What was your inspiration for the “Page 13” cut-ins? Did you enjoy horror movies and just say to yourself, “There’s a joke in this scene!” or what? ARAGONÉS: It was just horror humor! [laughs] I was trying to make it funny. Don’t forget Joe came from MAD magazine and EC Comics. From there, he understood humor! My interest was in publishing my own humor comics, but there were no humor comics then … or at least the type I really wanted to do. However, I did write for Jerry Lewis and Angel and the Ape. BOYD: I liked the crazy variety of things you brought to the “Page 13” cut-ins. Some were mazes or games; some were precursors of PLOP!–like situations, and so on. How closely did you work with Joe? Did he give you much advice or just let you go? ARAGONÉS: The great advantage was that my scripts were approved and that led to [the Western

written by Sergio,] Bat Lash. They gave me some pointers—Denny O’Neil was my very helpful editor. Working with Joe, I also wrote some Inferior Five stories. Those were some great days. He let me do what I wanted, overall. BOYD: “Cain’s Gargoyles” became a specialty of House of Mystery and House of Secrets. You had those hulking, winged, but often gentle gargoyles aiding old Cain on his days off as host of the funny pages. Was this a suggestion from Mr. Orlando or anyone else, or was it all yours? ARAGONÉS: I’m not sure, but I think it was my idea. It was similar to the type of things I was doing for MAD—you know, a series of gags around one concept. BOYD: Did you ever come up with another complete gargoyle story in the early ’70s or so? ARAGONÉS: I don’t remember. I just drew one or another and after a while it caught on. Others were free to use gargoyles, however! [laughs] BOYD: And other artists did contribute to the one-page gargoyles gags. Cain seemed to be the more devilish brother; Abel was kind of overwhelmed by all the monsters, ghosts, and so on around him. Did you have a preference? ARAGONÉS: Not really. [Abel] was shy, the younger brother who was mostly scared of his older brother! [laughs] BOYD: What was the mail like for you? Did you ever check in with Joe or anyone and find out how popular your material was becoming? ARAGONÉS: I was very busy with MAD—the marginal cartoons—so I wasn’t familiar with the protocol or mechanics of the business. In Mexico, we didn’t have that rapport with the readers, so I really didn’t check into it here. Naturally, I’m glad the readers liked what I was doing. BOYD: I remember “Cain’s Game Room” where all the torture devices were trotted out for laughs. Did Abel have a specialty page, or the three witches of The Witching Hour, etc.? ARAGONÉS: I don’t think so. Cain got it all. [Writer’s note: I asked Sergio about this, because I was unsure and wanted to know. Doing more research, Cain indeed got most of it, but Sergio did at least one page of Abel humor/horror gags for House of Secrets #93 (Sept. 1971) called “Abel’s Fables.” The Mad, Mod Witch of The Unexpected and the Three Witches of The Witching Hour didn’t have specialty pages.] BOYD: Let’s move on to DC’s great mystery/horror/humor title, PLOP! How did that come into being? ARAGONÉS: Well, the success of “The Poster Plague” was where it all began. I drew that story for House of Secrets #202 (May 1972). I had never drawn a DC story before! But it worked. And it led

One Lump or 2?

to PLOP! The readers really liked “The Poster Plague.” BOYD: I bought that issue when it came out. It was a great story, and really different for the mystery magazines. And you won the ACBA Award for it. So did your writer, Steve Skeates. ARAGONÉS: Yes, so it did work! [laughs] BOYD: Did you, Joe, Steve, and Carmine sit down and hash out what became PLOP!? ARAGONÉS: At the coffee house where we talked things over at times, Carmine Infantino and some of us discussed this new comic. We had troubles

Mystery Comics Issue

Sergio gets into the story in his “Wild and Wacky” special issue of DC Super-Stars, #13 (Apr. 1977). TM & © DC Comics.

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coming up with the name at first. Carmine said, “The name is important.” I answered, “The name can be whatever. As long as the comic is good, it doesn’t matter.” He said, “Yeah, like we could call it PLOP!” “Yeah, that’s a great name!” I said. [laughs] They wanted something with black humor in it. BOYD: And “Plop” rhymed with “Klop,” the sound effect and secret message from “The Poster Plague.” ARAGONÉS: Yes. BOYD: Those PLOP! comics originally came with

Sergio Stuff Plus (this page) Some Aragonés DC humor assignments and Basil Wolverton’s PLOP! #1 cover. TM & © DC Comics.

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delightful covers by Basil Wolverton. Like you, he had a unique style and was able to make very strange people quite laughable. Did you ever meet him? ARAGONÉS: Yes, I met him. Besides being a fantastic artist, he had a great sense of humor and good anecdotes! BOYD: Wally Wood also did some nice material for PLOP! Did you two ever get together? ARAGONÉS: We went out socially a few times. He was an excellent cartoonist. He could draw the seri-

ous stuff and the funny stuff. Even though he wasn’t a “big-foot cartoonist,” he could do it all. BOYD: In PLOP!, you got to do full stories told by or introduced by Cain, Abel, and a witch friend of theirs named Evie. Inside material was done by Wolverton, Wood, David Manak, and others. Was PLOP! a dream come true? ARAGONÉS: It was the beginning! It was a concept. [Alfredo] Alcala and [Bernie] Wrightson were great artists. I wanted it more humorous. These guys were more serious in their cartooning. I wanted more underground artists like Lee Marrs and others who were humorous in their approach. They, or Joe, wanted more realistic art like MAD. We compromised a little. BOYD: Occasionally, you did things at MAD like “A Mad Look at Monsters” and so forth. Did you ever take the cartoons for MAD to DC or create the same mix-up on the other end? ARAGONÉS: [laughs] No, every time I went there [DC], I had lunch with Joe so I was careful to get things right! I miss him. We had good times as coworkers. BOYD: How would you sum up your time working for Joe Orlando and with other DC mystery creators at the time? ARAGONÉS: I had the chance to maintain my own style and grow as an artist. The guys I worked with, Joe in particular, were very passionate about comics. He liked my layouts very much. I would put in notes to the artist a “guide” to how some figures should be—in my opinion. But I always added that they were free to do it as they liked. Some of them appreciated me doing the work for them! [laughs] BOYD: Did you ever get any complaints about the layouts? ARAGONÉS: No. I didn’t get any complaints. Once, I wrote three stories for The Witching Hour and Alex Toth took the credit! [laughs] He may have felt he corrected my English and that was enough for a

writing credit. We were good friends. Y’know, he always signed his work so this one read, “Written and drawn by Alex Toth!” [laughs] That’s how I knew! BOYD: Was it difficult coming up with ways to make the story characters’ situations end up in a “Plop”? ARAGONÉS: No, because when we started the book and Carmine went along with the “Plop” idea, I started drawing things going “Plop” early on to set the mood and let the others know where it was going. My sense of irony came from O. Henry and The Twilight Zone—but with PLOP! things went “Plop”! And sometimes you write the end first, so it’s easy to put in all the rest. You solve the case and then you build the rest of the case around it. BOYD: PLOP! got around to superhero satire and other things outside of mystery/horror. Did you approve of those additions/changes? ARAGONÉS: When I did an intro—I remember

Gag Orders (above) A pair of Aragonés’ amusing headers for his DC mystery/humor cartoon pages. TM & © DC Comics.

Superstar Sergio (left) The text page in DC Super-Stars #13 (Apr. 1977) describes the cartoonist’s acting career (with the title alluding to Señor Aragonés’ role in the movie Norman, Is That You?). Here’s the header illustration from same. TM & © DC Comics.

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Mr. Aragonés has our thanks for his time and consideration, along with Bill Morrison, who provided some of the photos seen here. Over time in the 1970s, Sergio got to draw three inserts with Cain introducing the (mostly reprints) stories for DC Special #11 (Apr. 1971). It didn’t matter to DC’s faithful readers. That mystery/horror issue boasted an outstanding gargoyles cover by Adams and inked by Wrightson. Inside, we got Aragonés, Jack Kirby, and others! Later, Aragonés got his own comic: DC Super Stars #13 (Sept. 1977), spotlighting his great sense of humor and weird people. PLOP! ended in 1976 after a respectable 24-issue run that included many of the alltime greats. House of Mystery continued on with his wonderful one-pagers into the late ’70s.

Our Favorite MADman (below) Various snapshots of Sergio. (directly below) At San Diego Comic-Con in 1982. Photo courtesy of Alan Light. (bottom left) Sergio signed for fans at a con in Germany in 2010. (bottom right) The artist displays his 2006 CAPS trophy/award. Bottom two photos courtesy of Bill Morrison.

Stomach-Turner (above) Aragonés drew this 1975 cartoon featuring two horror editors dining for The Amazing World of DC Comics #6. TM & © DC Comics.

Superman coming in saving the three storytellers and that worked all right with me. No, superheroes were welcome as long as they were done in a humorous context. BOYD: PLOP! was different from any other mystery/horror comic on the market in the 1970s. I’m glad you had fun with it. I really enjoyed it. ARAGONÉS: Thanks again. I worked this way— when I think of a joke, I think of a story. And scary/funny things make for great humor. I think that’s why I did so many of them over the years! [Editor’s note: Read more about PLOP! in BI #21. And an editorial shout-out to our friends at DC Comics: How about a Showcase Presents: PLOP! edition?]

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During the 1960s, Leo Dorfman regularly contributed scripts to DC Comics’ Superman family of comic books, but he often wondered if it was worth the headache. Chafing at the treatment he endured under editor Mort Weisinger, the writer dreamed of creating a new series for a more congenial editorial office. He envisioned a supernatural comic book with a very specific focus and was certain it would be a hit. Leo Dorfman believed in Ghosts, and he soon convinced Murray Boltinoff to join him. For his part, Boltinoff missed the days when he was shepherding new series like Doom Patrol and Eclipso [in House of Secrets]. The longtime DC editor remained a reliable presence who could be counted on to shore up and sustain preexisting books like The Brave and the Bold and The Unexpected, but it wasn’t the same as creating a new series from the ground up. Having lost the editorial reins on Steve Ditko’s Creeper and E. Nelson Bridwell’s Secret Six series to Dick Giordano in 1968 after only a single issue apiece, Boltinoff longed for another opportunity. In Leo Dorfman, he saw both a kindred spirit and a consummate professional. He also empathized with the writer’s discomfort at DC. “Since I shared an office with the tyrannical but talented Mort Weisinger,” Boltinoff wrote in Robin Snyder’s History of the Comics vol. 2 #3 (Mar. 1991), “I was privy to his humiliation of Leo during their story conferences plotting Superman and Superboy stories. To free himself of Mort, Leo hoped that his introduction of a new title would earn him a new editor.” [Unless otherwise noted, all Boltinoff quotes in this article are from the essay cited above.]

DORFMAN POSSESSED By 1971, Weisinger had retired, but Dorfman’s desire to launch Ghosts was undimmed. “For a long time,” Boltinoff continued, “[Dorfman] had been suggesting to me that DC publish a ghost magazine. If Dell’s Ghost Stories could

You Will Believe! by

Murray Boltinoff and Leo Dorfman’s Ghosts sported verbose covers from the very start and still cover artist Nick Cardy made some visually striking efforts. Here’s the cover of the first issue (Oct. 1971).

John Wells

flourish since 1962, it was evident that with its abundance of talent, DC could produce a better mousetrap.” Dorfman made no secret of his fascination with the supernatural, the occult, and UFOs, cited in an autobiographical sketch in 1970’s Action Comics #396. He indulged it in his scripts for Gold Key comic books like Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery, Twilight Zone, and Grimm’s Ghost Stories, and such elements were a staple of the Superman scripts he wrote for Boltinoff starting in 1970. Within a few years of Dell’s Ghost Stories #1, Charlton Comics editor Dick Giordano

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TM & © DC Comics.

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They Believed In Ghosts! With fidelity to its tagline, “True Tales of the Weird and Supernatural,” Ghosts repeatedly delved into the influence of spectral beings on real people. Here’s Tony DeZuñiga’s evocative splash page from #1, featuring two renowned authors and one of America’s greatest presidents. (opposite) Nick Cardy’s covers to issues #2 and 8. TM & © DC Comics.

launched Ghostly Tales and The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves, titles that were joined by Ghost Manor in 1969. At DC, Murray Boltinoff had revived the supernatural/suspense genre in a 1967 makeover of Tales of the Unexpected, even as his intended lead feature (“Secret Six”) was launched as a comic book of its own. With the addition of the revamped or brand-new series House of Mystery, The Witching Hour, and House of Secrets, DC believed it had the spook genre well-represented. Boltinoff and Dorfman persisted that none of those titles had the specific theme and visceral impact of Ghosts. “After a prolonged hard-sell,” Boltinoff continued, “Carmine Infantino, then-editorial director, was ultimately persuaded to add the title to DC’s roster. “For our enterprise, I was appointed editor and assigned Leo to write the entire [first] issue,” Boltinoff said. Rather than create the appearance that one writer had a monopoly of the comic book, Boltinoff had Dorfman use the pseudonyms Geoff Browne and David George on the first two stories in the issue. (The former was inspired by the writer’s son Geoff and his wife’s maiden name Brown.) Boltinoff made a point of matching up artists in that first issue to the genres that represented their strengths. Consequently, Sam Glanzman drew the World War II-based “Ghost In the Iron Coffin,” while Tony DeZuniga illustrated a Western five-pager entitled “The Spectral Coachman.” Jim Aparo, then the regular artist on The Phantom Stranger, was tapped to illustrate

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the opening story (“Death’s Bridegroom”), a gothic chiller wherein two swindlers wandered into a castle filled with a ghostly wedding party. “The whole project was unusual,” former DC Comics president and publisher Paul Levitz tells BACK ISSUE. “Murray rarely launched anything (last book before this that I think he more than nominally launched was Plastic Man, five years and a whole different DC culture before), and didn’t give over anthologies to a single writer. Leo was pretty weary-looking in those years, but he seemed to really connect with this project. He’d had success with Gold Key’s ghost anthologies, and both he and Murray put more life into this run. Murray even got some strong artists into the early issues—guys like Nick Cardy, who rarely worked on the anthologies at that time. Sales were strong— probably Murray’s bestselling mystery book, and Murray usually outsold the other editors in that genre.” Ghosts #1 (Sept.–Oct. 1971) debuted in the midst of a year-long expansion of the DC line that saw the page count of every standard title increased with an attendant price hike from 15 cents to 25 cents. The extra pages in each issue were designated for reprints and Boltinoff found himself drawing on stories originally produced in the 1950s. Tales like those, which tended to dismiss seeming supernatural incidents with plausible explanations, were at odds with Ghosts’ conviction that such things were real. Nonetheless, the editor resisted major revisions, mostly punching up the final panels with more ambiguous dialogue or newly inserted captions like, “Now do you believe in ghosts?” For all the effort invested in the interior, Boltinoff knew that a strong cover image was essential. He selected veteran artist Nick Cardy, whose simple, bold style had been increasingly put to use on DC covers since the late 1960s. On other titles like The Witching Hour or The Unexpected, Cardy’s art mostly stood on its own merits with little or no cover copy. For Ghosts, Boltinoff went to the other extreme, splashing text on the cover with the zeal of a carnival barker. At the top of the cover, the actual title of the comic book was sandwiched in a longer declaration that remained unchanged for 40 issues: “If you don’t believe in ghosts, we challenge you to read true tales of the weird and supernatural!” Meantime, the titles of every new story in the issue were run across the bottom of the cover. Thanks to Cardy’s artistic skill and the stock design that placed the words and pictures on an unrolled scroll, the cumulative effect was quite eyecatching. The scroll backdrop was finally dropped after #15 (June 1973), but Boltinoff maintained a virtual table of contents on most covers until nearly the end of his editorial tenure in 1978. From his perspective, a comic book promoting multiple story titles had greater value to prospective readers. One of the central hooks of the series was its assertion that the stories within its pages were based on real events. Indeed, its original title was “True Ghost Stories” and the indicia for issue #1 contained only the word “Ghost” with conspicuous blank spaces where “True” and “Stories” would have appeared. One presumes the change was a consequence of Gold Key regularly using the “True Ghost Stories” phrase prominently on the covers of Ripley’s Believe or Not, a series for which (not coincidentally) Dorfman also wrote.

FACT OR FICTION? Helping to create the illusion, the typical story employed an authoritative tone, dutifully citing in the

first panel the year a particular ghostly incident took place and recordDorfman and Boltinoff’s formula also included occasional appearing an update in the last, documentary style. (Stories in #73, 76, and ances by recognizable historical figures. Ghosts #1 actually opened 95 even referenced or actually depicted later writers Carl Wessler, with a Tony DeZuniga-illustrated page asserting that Abraham Lincoln, Robert Kanigher, and George Kashdan interviewing eyewitnesses.) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Mark Twain had all believed in specters. “What amused me were inquiries from readers regarding the veracity Later stories would feature the likes of Julius Caesar (#22), Napoleon of the stories, which were purportedly true,” Murray Boltinoff Bonaparte (#16), Edgar Allan Poe (#26), Jim Bowie at the remembered. “In some instances, the accounts were genAlamo (#15), Grigori Rasputin and Josef Stalin (#8), uine, and when they were not, they were written in such Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung (#34), Mata Hari (#24), a style and manner as to appear to be real. James Dean (#44), and perennial favorite Adolf Hitler “To make a story seem authentic when I edited (#16, 18, 22, 24). Gang Busters [in the 1950s], I invented a ploy: mix There was a particular fascination with ghost stofact with fiction, and the reader swallows the whole ries linked to the president of the United States, thing as genuine. For instance, a character says, including an astrological-themed text feature (#14), ‘1945 was my best year. The war ended. Hoop Jr. a page of vignettes entitled “The Haunting of the won the Derby. And I met Larry O’Toole.’ The first White House” (#37), and the tale of would-be assastwo really did occur, but the fact about O’Toole is also sin John Schrank’s attempt on Theodore Roosevelt— gulped down. I thought I’d created a clever writer’s because the ghost of President McKinley told him to trick until some time later I read that our governdo it (#61). Abraham Lincoln’s assassination held ment intelligence agents used a similar propaganda special power, with pieces focusing on both his NICK CARDY strategy in World War II.” murderer John Wilkes Booth (#4) and his death train Dorfman possessed a personal library that (#30). Perhaps the most fascinating account was inspired awe in friends and family alike. “There’s enough space for the #21’s “Shadow of Death” and its revelation that the slain leader’s son, door to swing open,” one of the writer’s sons detailed in Superman’s Robert Todd Lincoln, had been on the scene of the subsequent assasPal, Jimmy Olsen #156 (Feb. 1973). “And then you come face-to-face sinations of Presidents Garfield and McKinley. Issue #11’s “The Death with tiers of books stacked to the ceiling. Books on space travel, on Circle” documented the eerie fact that, “since 1840, every president oceanography, exploration, history, pre-history, anthropology, medi- voted into office in a year ending in zero … has died in office.” cine. You name it, he’s got it! And all those thousands of books are in [Obviously, that ghastly chain of coincidence came to an end after constant use. My dad’s always thumbing through them to verify some Ronald Reagan—elected in 1980—completed two full terms in office.] fact or scientific twist he’s planning to use in one of his story ideas.” For all the fact-based accounts like those, Boltinoff didn’t necessarMystery Comics Issue

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ily let the truth get in the way of a good story. Case in point was #29’s their brand of humor. That said, the editor agreed to abide by the rul“Haunted Lady of Death,” a tale written by the editor himself with art ing of fans, most of whom voted to keep the hosts. But he was under by E. R. Cruz. In 1946, the six-pager related, Sir Victor Goddard was no obligation to add comic relief to Ghosts (or his other supernatural approached by a stranger at a party in Shanghai and informed that he title, The Unexpected) and didn’t. “I wanted to make [them] different was destined to die in a plane crash along with the pilot, a second mil- from the others,” Boltinoff told friend and colleague Robin Snyder in itary man in brass-buttoned coat, and a woman. Goddard was chilled The Comics Journal #53 (Winter 1980). “Why put out just another myswhen he was ordered to fly to Tokyo and found himself joined by a tery book?” man wearing just such a coat. But there was no woman aboard and While the editor’s other titles included a smidgen of reader comments Goddard imagined the prophecy amounted to nothing—until in text pages liberally sprinkled with supernatural news clippings, the plane crashed. Looking up from the wreckage, the dying Ghosts was a throwback to an era before letters columns were man saw the plane’s name on its fuselage: Lady Anne. commonplace. Each issue featured a one-page ghost story Boltinoff dutifully reported that “the full story of entirely in prose. The reason, Boltinoff explained in TCJ the shocking tragedy was told in the Saturday Evening #53, was that “there simply weren’t enough letters to Post in May, 1951, and some years later was the compose a full page.” Robin Snyder observes to BACK basis for a movie starring Michael Redgrave titled ISSUE, “Boltinoff put a lot of work into his editorial The Night My Number Came Up.” What he didn’t pages and always enjoyed the assignments. He was mention was that there was a genuine female pasnever content to merely publish letters from readers.” While repeat characters were barred from senger on the fateful plane trip and, more signifiGhosts, Boltinoff eventually introduced a few recurcantly, Air Marshal Goddard’s efforts prevented their ring departments. “Tales of the Haunted and the deaths in the crash. In fact, Goddard was still alive in Damned” debuted in #20 (Nov. 1973), its concept 1974—and lecturing on flying saucers—when the revolving around “true stories of cursed castles, story in Ghosts was published! MURRAY BOLTINOFF haunted houses, [and] macabre mansions.” Three BOLTINOFF’S EDITORIAL MARK more episodes ran in #23, 24, and 27 before a new It helped that accounts like these were delivered series called “Hollywood Hauntings” bowed in #29 with a straight face. The DC mystery books cultivated by editors Joe (Aug. 1974). Detailing anecdotes involving stars like James Cagney, Orlando and Dick Giordano tended to feature dark-humored stories Olivia de Havilland, and Vincent Price, the feature returned for only with campy hosts/narrators like Cain, Abel, and the Three Witches. two installments (#36, 62). When Boltinoff succeeded Giordano as editor of The Witching Hour, he Most enduring was “Ghosts and the Supernatural,” a one-page wrestled with keeping the Witches in the book, frankly admitting in collection of historical vignettes. The feature always ran on page one issue #16’s letters column that he didn’t particularly care for them and and it might be speculated that this was Boltinoff’s lone concession to

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Historical Horrors! A plethora of panels from various Ghosts stories that focused on World War II leaders, most consistently on Herr Hitler himself, but sometimes on General Ike and Uncle Joe. (Sorry for absence of references and credits due to a lack of space, kind reader.) the format of the Orlando-edited books that always opened with a page featuring one of the mystery hosts before moving on to the full stories. First seen in #31 (Oct. 1974), it made spotty appearances over the next few years (#34, 42, 43, 45, 46, 49, 50) before it finally became a permanent fixture (#52, Mar. 1977). The artwork on “Ghosts and the Supernatural” was typically assigned to either John Calnan or E. R. Cruz, individuals that Boltinoff relied on most of all—more than 40 times apiece—during his time on Ghosts. Robin Snyder notes that the veteran editor “preferred working with [artists] who could do the complete job,” both pencils and inks. Calnan was a native New Yorker with a fulltime job at an ad agency who approached DC for extra income in 1970 and soon had all the work he could handle, including Boltinoff-edited Superman and Metamorpho stories. The artist’s work on Ghosts spanned Boltinoff’s entire editorial run, his first assignment appearing in #2 (Nov.–Dec. 1971) and his last in #73 (Jan. 1979). Like Calnan, Cruz came to DC Comics with years of art experience behind him, in his case, drawing comics in his native Philippines. In December 1971, Carmine Infantino and Joe Orlando traveled to the islands and contracted with many of its artists to work on DC’s comics. Cruz quickly established himself as one of the most prolific of their number, illustrating dozens of stories in the mystery titles and becoming the regular artist on war features like Gunner and Sarge, O.S.S., and

TM & © DC Comics.

Kana. Cruz’s work on Ghosts spanned #11 (Jan. 1973) to #86 (Mar. 1980). Boltinoff enthusiastically used Cruz and other Filipino artists, describing their output as “equal to any American.” From issue #8 onward, Ghosts welcomed the work of more than two dozen illustrators from the Philippines into its pages, with Frank Redondo, Alfredo Alcala, Fred Carrillo, and Ernie Chan seen most frequently after E. R. Cruz. The editor frankly acknowledged that the artists’ page rate was lower than their American counterparts. “One of the reasons for our success was a low editorial budget,” Boltinoff explained. If there was a common denominator among the artists appearing in Ghosts, it was the fact that they each came to the book with a healthy body of previous experience. That detail contrasted sharply with DC’s other supernatural titles, which fostered a reputation as a training ground for new writers and artists. Along with Calnan, Boltinoff favored veteran DC illustrators like Bob Brown, Lee Elias, Sam Glanzman, Jerry Grandenetti, and Don Perlin as a contrast to the Filipino artists. It was only in Boltinoff’s final months on the book in 1978 that a few newcomers like Ken Landgraf (#64, 68, 71–76), Tom Yeates (#67), George Ruppert (#68), and Jerry Bingham (#72) slipped through the cracks. Carl Gafford arrived at DC in the mid-1970s, amassing credits as a colorist and editor, and was immediately taken with Boltinoff. “I loved working for him, talking Mystery Comics Issue

Adapting To the Times (opposite page top) Take a close look at these pages (left is original House of Mystery appearance, right from the Ghosts #2 reprint) and you’ll see subtle changes in the art and in dialogue made for technical and editorial considerations. TM & © DC Comics.

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Haunting Hollywood Even Tinseltown wasn’t immune to Ghosts’ investigation, as movie stars were featured in a number of tales, including James Dean (left panel), in #44, and (right panel) Olivia de Havilland, in #29. TM & © DC Comics.

Thinking Lincoln Our 16th President was continual story fodder in Ghosts. Here’s a pair of panels from #21 and 112. TM & © DC Comics.

to him about his work for Amazing World of DC Comics, and found him to be the most loyal editor to his freelancers DC ever had,” Gafford declares. “We’d call him a real mensch—a good man with a strong spine and a warm heart (who never let you see either).”

CHANGES The early years of Ghosts had been golden ones for Dorfman and Boltinoff. Launched in the midst of DC’s ill-fated expanded format, the new series actually thrived while other more established titles lost ground. Effective with issue #6, the comic book joined the rest of the line in reverting to the 32-page format with a 20cent price tag and no reprints. By #10 (Dec. 1972), it had been promoted from bimonthly to monthly. In 1974, Ghosts even followed House of Mystery as the second (and last) of the mystery titles to be featured in Limited Collectors’ Edition (LCE), the tabloid-sized series conceived as a format that could be sold outside traditional magazine markets. Compiled by a young Paul Levitz, LCE #C-32 reprinted a selection of stories from Ghosts #1–6 while other tales from those issues were rerun eight months later in Ghosts #40 (July 1975), expanded for one issue to a 50-cent special edition. “I had the fun of putting together the two Ghosts reprint books,” Levitz tells BACK ISSUE, “and even though there were fewer issues to pull from (since it was a younger title), there was good material to collect.” Meanwhile, the series was reeling from a succession of blows, none more tragic than the unexpected death of 60-year-old Leo Dorfman on July 9, 1974. Shortly

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thereafter, Nick Cardy—by now oversaturated as DC’s primary cover artist—decided to move on. With the exception of #7 (illustrated by Michael Kaluta), Cardy had drawn every cover on the series from its inception. Issue #36 (on sale in December of 1974) would be his last. Effective with Ghosts #41 (Aug. 1971), even the distinctive copy at the top of each cover was shrunk and reformatted as a consequence of the DC line’s new trade dress, which ran a bar across the top of each issue. Boltinoff endured, assigning Luis Dominguez to be the new cover artist and tapping Carl Wessler, a contributor to EC Comics’ legendary horror titles, to succeed Dorfman as the primary writer of Ghosts, effective (based on spotty credit records) with #41. George Kashdan, Robert Kanigher, and Boltinoff himself were all counted as backups. (Martin Pasko, then a newcomer at DC, also recalls being summoned to Boltinoff’s office at the time to contribute stories but declined the offer.) “Murray caught Leo’s flavor best,” Paul Levitz believes, “but the book was never the same.” Amidst this upheaval, the comic-book industry as a whole was suffering a downturn in sales. Ghosts felt its touch with #44 (Nov.–Dec. 1975) and was demoted to bimonthly frequency. Struggling back, the title upgraded its status to eight times a year with #52 (Mar. 1977) before returning to monthly with #59 (Dec. 1977). A giant Ghosts Special (officially DC Special Series #7) even appeared in September of 1977 and included a previously unpublished Dorfman tale. By this point, the 1975-era trade dress had been abandoned and Boltinoff happily reinstated his full-size cover copy effective with #55, by now revised slightly to read, “We challenge you to read Ghosts, true tales of the weird and supernatural.” Ghosts typically avoided topical references for the sake of timelessness, but two stories during that period broke with tradition. Published in Ghosts #46 in December of 1975, “The World’s Most Famous Phantom” (by

Wessler and Lee Elias) was an honest-to-goodness Christmas story that detailed the ghostly experience of a young English boy in 1821 whom the surprise ending revealed to be Charles Dickens, author of A Christmas Carol. A few issues later, Ghosts #51 acknowledged the United States’ Bicentennial celebration with the coverfeatured “Haunted Spirits of ’76.” During the summer of 1978, DC increased the page count and price of its titles on the order of the 1971–1972 expansion during which Ghosts was born (albeit with all-new material rather than reprints). The effort lasted all of three months (corresponding with Ghosts #69–71) before DC’s corporate bosses demanded that the books be restored to their 32-page format and all weaker-selling titles canceled. Ghosts survived, but multiple other comic books did not. In the aftermath, editorial assignments were shuffled and Murray Boltinoff, given no choice in the matter, saw both his beloved Ghosts and The Unexpected reassigned to Jack C. Harris. “I worked on Ghosts for quite awhile as Murray Boltinoff’s assistant before taking over the title with issue #73 (Feb. 1979) and there was quite a bit of inventory on hand,” Harris says. “In fact, there were so many stories, the only actual editorial input I had for a long time was to come up with cover concepts and juggle the stories I had for a good mix. I was thrilled to be able to work on those covers with people such as Luis Dominguez, Joe Orlando, Joe Kubert, Dick Giordano, Jimmy Janes, Don Heck, Mike Kaluta, Jim Aparo, Rich Buckler, and others.” “Since I had so many stories on file,” Harris continues, “I pretty well stuck with the title’s original concept of ‘true’ ghost stories, i.e., stories that were narrated as if taken from actual accounts of the supernatural. In the beginning, they were, but after a time, the writers made up their own, but we retained the ‘true account’ format.” Still, the cover copy was tweaked to tout “new tales of the weird and supernatural” rather than true ones. The copy leading into the logo was subsequently changed effective with #86 (Mar. 1980) to read “You will believe in Ghosts…” Harris also provided a bit of uniformity to the episodic one-page text stories by placing them under the umbrella title of “The Files of Dr. Geist” and describing them as case studies of a “renowned scholar, psychic researcher, and parapsychologist.” Paul Geist was said in #75’s origin story to have been born in Prague, Germany, in 1924 and directed toward an interest in the supernatural after he inexplicably survived a 1935 accident that took his father’s life. “The Files of Dr. Geist” converted to comics form in #96, replacing “Ghosts and the Supernatural” as the title of the first-page vignettes. Effective with #94 and 95, the text page formerly occupied by Geist was dubbed “Spirit Writing” and turned over to reader commentary. The absence of a letters column—a staple in most comic books since the 1960s—had always brought a subtly dated quality to Ghosts, and it was somehow comforting to finally see such a page there. Nestled amidst the inventory were periodic stories illustrated by artists not usually associated with the title, whether Steve Ditko (#77), Don Heck (#87), or Michael Golden (#88). Harris also embraced the role of DC’s anthology titles in nurturing new talent and found a spot for scripters such as David Allikas and Ms. Charlie Seeger along with artists like Eduardo Barreto, Tom Mandrake, Tom Yeates, and Mark Bright.

No Gentleman, He!

RECURRING CHARACTERS In June of 1980, DC revisited its efforts to increase the contents of its comic books, this time doing so in harmony with its fellow publishers. The average DC title now contained 25 pages of story versus 17 with a 50cent price tag that was soon the industry norm. Ghosts expanded with #92, and Jack C. Harris mobilized to make good use of those extra eight pages. The audience for comic books had shrunk markedly during the 1970s and the era of the casual reader was coming to an end. The influential subset of superhero fans could now make or break a title—and they were a tough sell on “off-genre” books like war and mystery comics, particularly those that lacked any sort of continuing characters. Hoping to turn sales around, Harris simultaneously added ongoing series to each of the supernatural books he edited—”Johnny Peril” in The Unexpected, “Mr. E” in Secrets of Haunted House, and “Dr. Thirteen” in Ghosts. Terry Thirteen was a so-called “Ghost-Breaker,” an investigator who’d exposed supposed supernatural

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Though Ghosts resisted the temptation to include an ongoing host, Squire Shade (a repurposed Gentleman Ghost) materialized at the end of the title’s run. Splash from #107 (Dec. 1981). TM & © DC Comics.

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There’s a Mouthful! Though pretty much a typical anthology comic featuring unconnected mystery stories, Ghosts did sport the occasional continuing series feature. Here’s a nifty header from #23. TM & © DC Comics.

happenings as hoaxes during a short-lived series in Star Spangled Comics #122–130 (1951–1952). He was later revived as a foil for the Phantom Stranger in that character’s late 1960s–early 1970s’ series and had resurfaced at intervals ever since, usually accompanied by his wife Marie. [Editor’s note: BACK ISSUE explored Dr. Thirteen’s past in issue #36.] The notion of placing him in the midst of a comic book that insisted ghosts were real was, at the very least, an inspired bit of counterprogramming. Paul Kupperberg wrote the revival with pencils by newcomer Michael R. Adams. Retired from investigating ghost cases, Dr. Thirteen was persuaded to investigate a new case in Ghosts #95 (Jan. 1981). As he’d done so often in the past, Terry proved the incident was a hoax, but was thunderstruck afterwards to learn that the man who’d drawn him out of retirement might well have been a spirit himself. The story also featured Dr. Geist, physically appearing for the first time as a wheelchair-bound colleague of Thirteen’s. “Near the end of my run, we began experimenting with my concept for the title: making Ghosts the ‘home’ for ghost characters,” Jack C. Harris explains. “We began with the natural Dr. 13 and guest-starred the Spectre in a few tales—which is how I got Jim Aparo to do the covers. My long run idea was to feature all the DC ‘ghost’ characters including maybe Deadman and perhaps even the Gentleman Ghost character from the “Hawkman” series and the Ghost Patrol from the Golden Age Flash Comics. Of course, editorial changes didn’t let me hang onto the title long enough for that to happen, but I thought I made a good start.” Kupperberg’s ambitious Dr. Thirteen/Spectre threeparter (#97–99) featured DC’s foremost Ghostly Avenger. Created in 1940, the character had most recently had a controversial run of stories by Michael Fleisher and Jim Aparo in Adventure Comics #431–440 (1973–1975) in which the character meted out grisly (if inventive) punishments to a succession of ruthless criminals. It was this version of the character that Terry met in the new story. Also appearing was Earl Crawford, a reporter from the Adventure series who’d pursued the Spectre. (Crawford, whom Aparo drew as a Clark Kent lookalike, was curiously off-model here.) After two issues of stalemates, the story climaxed with a wounded Terry Thirteen having an out-of-body experience and meeting both the Spectre and his own father’s ghost. Revived by paramedics, Dr. Thirteen couldn’t explain what had happened, but he resolved to return to ghost-breaking until he could get an

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answer. On the celestial plane, the Spectre and Terry’s father were satisfied that he’d been returned to the path set for him by fate.

THE GHOSTS HOST Even as the first continued story in the book’s history ended, another began. Elsewhere in Ghosts #99, George Kashdan and Fred Carrillo recounted the story of a mortally wounded gladiator in Pompeii named Horatio. Seeking vengeance before his death, Horatio worked with a magician to project his spirit long enough to avenge himself on the man who struck him down. He succeeded, but Pompeii was destroyed in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius before he could return to his body. Trapped as a spirit, the Ghost Gladiator returned in issue #100, drifting through the remaining three chapters of the story before finally achieving the release he craved. At a cumulative 24 pages, “The Ghost Gladiator” was evidently intended to have run as one book-length adventure—which would have been a first in the series’ history—but Harris opted to run the first part in #99 as a teaser for the celebratory Ghosts #100. “My two favorite covers were #81 and 100,” Harris declares. “I remember Joe Orlando (in his role of managing editor at the time) made Luis Dominguez redraw the cement worker’s trowel on the cover of #81. It seems that Orlando’s father was a cement worker, and Joe knew the specific design of such a trowel had to be accurate or his father would never let him hear the end of it. Of course, #100 was an ‘infinity’ cover, which gave the production team a few headaches, but it turned out spectacularly!” Harris’ further plans for the book ended with his departure from DC following Ghosts #101. Dr. Thirteen wasn’t far behind him. After acquiring an AfricanAmerican partner named Douglas “Mad Dog” Madison, Terry saw his new solo series end with #102’s installment. Dick Giordano (#102, 103) and Cary Burkett (#104) momentarily held the title of Ghosts editor before the role passed to Dave Manak for the series’ final phase. A presence at DC since 1974, Manak had actually joined the series several issues earlier, contributing onepage humor fillers in #95 and 97–100. “Dave Manak was a ball of fire,” Robin Snyder declares, “who had more ideas than you can shake a stick at.” Arriving just in time for Ghosts’ tenth anniversary issue (#105), the new editor’s run is perhaps best remembered for a character actually introduced one issue earlier. For the first time in the series’ history, Ghosts had its

own host! Squire Shade, monocle floating in midair, was the disembodied specter of a 19th-Century nobleman, dressed in a white top hat and tails. Primarily featured on the opening and closing pages of each issue, his origin was touched on in #109 with a flashback suggesting that the former ladies’ man had been killed in an explosion set by “those damnable rebels” more than a century earlier. Outside of a plumper belly, the character was also strikingly similar to the Gentleman Ghost, a Hawkman villain recently co-opted by Len Wein for use in Batman. As Cary Burkett tells BACK ISSUE, there was a reason for that: “Dick Giordano suggested that Ghosts have a regular host and that we use the character Gentleman Ghost, which seemed a natural to him. Accordingly, I scripted an opening introductory page with the Gentleman Ghost as the new host of Ghosts, and assigned the page to be penciled. I don’t remember if this was when I was assistant editor or when I took over as editor. “But when Len Wein heard about it, he hated the idea. He felt that the character had become one of Batman’s gallery of foes, and didn’t want to see him used outside of the Batman books in that fashion. I actually agreed with him, but Dick was the managing editor of the whole line and this had been his idea. Besides, script and pencils had already been paid for. Len suggested we alter the appearance of the character for Ghosts and he suggested the name Squire Shade. By this time I had become the full editor, so it was my decision, and I was happy to oblige Len.” Howard Bender, who penciled all of the Squire Shade pages, tells BACK ISSUE, “I was there every day on staff, the editor knew I wanted to draw, and we would get together and come up with these little intros [for Ghosts, Secrets of Haunted House, and The Unexpected]. I started doing them with Jack C. Harris writing and editing. When Jack left, I picked it up with

Dave Manak editing and Robin Snyder writing.” Squire Shade shuttled readers aboard his Nightmare Coach, a horse-drawn carriage undeterred by the time barrier, as evidenced by issue #104’s three Bob Kanigher–scripted stories set in the primeval past (art by Marc Silvestri and Tony DeZuniga), present-day Hollywood (art by Bender and Larry Mahlstedt), and a dystopian future (art by Keith Giffen and John Beatty). “Dick Giordano volunteered to bring me in a scale model of a stagecoach,” Bender recalls. “Dick and Sal Amendola were always accessible to share their knowledge of art, much like John Romita, Frank Giacoia, and Mike Esposito were at Marvel.” In 1980, DC had published a Halloween edition of DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest (#6) devoted almost entirely to reprints from the Boltinoff era of Ghosts. It sold well enough to justify a sequel a year later (in #17), although the latter’s contents were pulled from House of Mystery, House of Secrets, and The Witching Hour. Conforming to Ghosts’ current status quo, the original mystery hosts of those stories were replaced by Squire Shade in the reprints.

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Ghosts That Come In All Shapes and Sizes The title’s popularity was evident not only in the longevity of its run (112 issues), but in the fact it was adapted, as this puny digest and one wicked large Limited Collectors’ Editions suggest. TM & © DC Comics.

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Super-Spooks! Hey, we thought this was a “Beyond Capes” feature! Seriously, did you know the anthology title occasionally featured continuing characters, and sometimes long-running DC costumed heroes? Jim Aparo cover of #98 (Mar. 1981). TM & © DC Comics.

Gone were the days of documentary-style ghost stories with at least a whiff of credibility. There was no pretense that stories set in an apocalyptic future or involving a haunted videogame (in a Paul Levitz/Adrian Gonzales yarn in #110) were anything but fiction. Still, the break from tradition allowed for experiments like #107’s book-length “Trilogy of the Crown,” three linked Kanigher-written stories that followed a king’s cursed helm from the 13th Century to the present.

THE END OF GHOSTS Nothing could change the fact that the audience for newsstand horror comics had reached unprofitable levels. The last Secrets of Haunted House were disclosed in December of 1981 (leaving a penciled Abel/Batman team-up by Snyder and Bender in limbo) with Ghosts and The Unexpected ending their runs two months later in February. The granddaddy of the horror books— House of Mystery—endured for another 15 months before locking its doors. An era was coming to an end.

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Ghosts #112 (May 1982) displayed some of the seams of the unraveling horror line, notably its final story narrated by Abel that had been left among Secrets of Haunted House’s inventory. But there was also an affectionate text-page farewell by Robin Snyder dedicated to Boltinoff and Dorfman. And the cover—by Dave Manak himself—restored the “You will believe in…” line above the logo for the first time since #104. Retaining its fascination with presidents of the United States to the end, the series included Abraham Lincoln in its last issue just as he’d briefly been in the first. “Let the Punishment Fit the Crime” (by Robert Kanigher, Howard Bender, and Ken Landgraf) looked at assassin John Wilkes Booth’s fate in Hell. “Because of this assignment I took a weekend to visit friends in Georgetown, Washington, D.C.,” Bender reveals. “Took a tour of the Ford’s Theatre and used a copy of the program from the Our American Cousin play to paste into the story.” “Having shared in its origin, I felt its eventual demise to be a deep personal loss,” Murray Boltinoff said of Ghosts’ passing in his 1991 essay. Beyond the incongruous science-fiction elements that had worked their way into the series, the veteran editor chalked up the book’s fate to its abandonment of “the mysterioso mood it had taken me years to establish.” “Leo Dorfman and I had such plans,” he declared in 1980’s Comics Journal #53. “Ah, Leo! He was the best of the pros, and I still mourn his passing to this day.” After nearly five decades with DC, Boltinoff effectively retired when the final title he edited (Sgt. Rock) was canceled in 1988. Two years after suffering a stroke, the veteran editor died on March 6, 1994. He was 83. “I once asked Boltinoff to name his best work,” Robin Snyder recalls. “Superman? Challengers [of the Unknown]? Jerry Lewis? His screenplay? Books? What? What? Yes. He chose Ghosts. Murray was a good egg. I still miss him.” While Ghosts “wasn’t a fan favorite (then or in retrospect), it was a disproportionately good seller,” Paul Levitz remarked in the May 29, 2009, edition of Mark Evanier’s “News From Me” blog. “When Leo passed, editor Murray Boltinoff never found a satisfactory replacement, and a lot of the title’s distinctive character faded (ouch).” It’s unlikely that even Ghosts in its original form could have survived the 1980s. With mainstream outlets dwindling, the primary source for comic books was becoming specialty shops whose sales were driven by the popularity of superheroes. But at its peak, Dorfman and Boltinoff’s creation was one of the last newsstand comic-book success stories that owed nothing to hot characters or creators. It sold purely on the basis of an elegantly simple concept: Readers loved ghost stories. Believe it! JOHN WELLS, the so-called Mark Waid of Earth-Two, is a comics historian specializing in DC Comics. He’s written for a variety of publications over the past quarter-century ranging from the Comics Buyer’s Guide to Alter Ego. John recently assisted with Paul Levitz’s 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking.

Underrated Bronze Age Artist

GERRY TALAOC Raps About His Life & Career

A Tantalizing Taste of the Tremendous Talent of Talaoc! Ka-Zar and his kitty, Zabu, take on a pesky Pterosaur in this dynamic painting by our interview subject, Gerry Talaoc! Courtesy of the artist. Wow, indeed. by

Michael Aushenker

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Beginnings: Filipino “komiks” work in 1960s / First work published in US: “Phony Face!” in House of Mystery #205 (Aug. 1972)

Milestones: House of Mystery / Ghosts / The Phantom Stranger / The Unknown Soldier / G.I. Combat / Incredible Hulk / Alpha Flight / Comet Man

Works in Progress: Paintings and commissions

GERRY TALAOC

The Real Deal Filipino artist Gerry Talaoc’s US debut was in the pages of House of Mystery #205 (Aug. 1972), starting off spectacularly with this epic, suspenseful splash page depicting E. Nelson Bridwell’s tale of terror! From the collection of Benton Jew. TM & © DC Comics.

Every BACK ISSUE piece has a backstory, and the one behind finding the artist Gerry Talaoc for my article on The Unknown Soldier for BACK ISSUE #37 is a real doozy. Among the artists of the so-called “Filipino Invasion,” Talaoc was never as big a name as Alfredo Alcala, Nestor Redondo, or Tony DeZuñiga, who—with editors Joe Orlando and Carmine Infantino—led the charge to travel to the Philippines in the early 1970s and enlist the South Pacific island nation’s top talents to work for DC Comics for lower page rates than their American counterparts. And yet Talaoc, as a penciler and/or inker, created handsome art for DC Comics (and later Marvel), most notably The Phantom Stranger, various DC horror anthologies, The Incredible Hulk, and, above all, his lengthy run on The Unknown

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Soldier (originally penciling and inking, but later embellishing Dick Ayers’ breakdowns). “Gerry is a very nice guy,” recalls Tony DeZuñiga (who has not been in touch with Talaoc for decades). He tells BACK ISSUE: “Gerry’s a very good craftsman. He was very dependable. You give him a deadline and you don’t have to worry on getting the work. He’s a real pro.” I didn’t know much about Talaoc when I went on a quest to find the artist in early 2007. Even the thorough Filipino Invasion issue of Comic Book Artist, edited by Jon B. Cooke, had little to say biographically on the artist or his whereabouts. To find him, I had to travel all over the world (by Internet, of course). And so, my journey took me from the Philippines—where Elmer cartoonist Gerry Alanguilan led me to Talaoc’s son, Jeremy, who led me back to America—Alaska— where Talaoc lives today as an employee of the City of Juneau. After a phone-number mix-up, I left a voice message on Talaoc’s landline. And then––nothing… …Until several months later, on a radiant August 2007 afternoon, I was at my then-girlfriend’s house in verdant, suburban

Irvine, California (about an hour south of Los Angeles), where I received a phone call. It was Gerry Talaoc. I dropped whatever I was doing to conduct our interview on the spot. After a half-hour’s conversation on Talaoc’s Unknown Soldier experiences, without any solicitation, Gerry graciously offered to create a little something extra special for our article. Six months later, I received a jpeg of a terrific painting of an unmasked Soldier in a trench fending off some potato masher-lobbing Nazis (Talaoc was the first artist to render the Joe Kubert creation sans bandages). The piece was stunning. It was clear that, after about 12 years of

comics-industry dormancy, Gerry Talaoc still had his chops. We teased it on the cover of BACK ISSUE #37 and ran the complete image inside. After the issue came out, I soon discovered that not just myself but a circle of my cartoonist peers were smitten with the Talaoc style. Turns out my BACK ISSUE brudda, writer Jerry Boyd, owns a Talaoc original art page from House of Secrets. Meanwhile, my fellow Cartoon Art Professionals Society members, Anson and Benton Jew, informed me that they had been fans of Talaoc’s work since childhood (coincidentally, like Talaoc, the Los Angeles–based twin brothers happen to be of Filipino descent). “I know Talaoc’s work primarily through the various DC horror anthology comics stories he did in the late ’60s and early ’70s,” says Anson Jew, who has created independent comics and storyboarded the Wolverine and the X-Men cartoon. “He was very much like Alex Niño in a lot of ways, but what he seemed to do really well was sinister. For creepy, jerk characters with skulllike faces, you could do no better than Talaoc!” “My first exposure to Talaoc’s work was when I was a preteen kid,” says Benton Jew, a storyboard artist (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) who worked on Wolverine: Agent of Atlas #1. “There was a story in The Secrets of Sinister House #10 called ‘The Cards Never Lie!’ It was a ghost story set in the days of the Mob. I had also seen his work in The Unknown Soldier, as well as his work replacing Jim Aparo on The Phantom Stranger. “Although I didn’t care for his work at first,” Benton continues, “the images in ‘The Cards Never Lie!’ stuck with me. As I got older, and my tastes matured, I gave Talaoc’s work a second look and realized that I was a complete fool! This guy’s work was incredible! Just as Jordi Bernet’s work kind of looked like as if Joe Kubert inked Alex Toth, Talaoc’s work took on some of the best qualities of Frank Robbins work as if inked by Alex Niño!” Count London-based artist Rufus Dayglo (the Tank Mystery Comics Issue

Seeking Answers, Facing Reality Two iconic Talaoc panels from his most beloved DC assignments. (left) The Phantom Stranger, from PS #35 (Mar. 1975), and (above) the Unknown Soldier, from Star Spangled War Stories #183 (Dec. 1974). The latter was Gerry’s debut on that title, which shifted the character from a bandagedfaced hero to this new, grotesque, decidely more horror-inspiring visage. What chills! What thrills! TM & © DC Comics.

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Girl trade paperbacks The Royal Escape, Bad Wind Rising, and Skidmarks) among the growing cult of Talaoc. “As a very young impressionable kid,” Dayglo tells BACK ISSUE. “I was obsessed with war comics, particularly the DC ones, as they almost always had a Joe Kubert cover! In a book exchange, for the princely sum of ten pennies, I got a roll of used comics, and at the top of the pile was Star Spangled War Stories [wherein the Unknown Soldier feature originated]. Upon opening it, I was overwhelmed by the artist’s sinewy and visceral style. His dynamic layouts and extremely energetic character work … I had discovered Gerry Taloac’s art!” Once Dayglo caught onto Talaoc, “collecting any of his comics became an obsession: The Phantom Stranger, The Incredible Hulk, Alpha Flight. But most of all, The Unknown Soldier.” “Talaoc’s brushwork was more confident and free as compared some of the more heavy-handed stuff coming from his Filipino colleagues at the time,” observes Benton Jew. “He was great at spotting his blacks. He had a great way of suggesting form with shadow using just a few delicate lines and blobs. His figure work was expressive and dynamic.” “His work stood out head and shoulders above other artists,” Dayglo gushes. “His fluid line work, his incredible compositions, and his attention to detail. Most US comics had a very formulaic style, but Gerry (like many of his fellow Filipino artists) had a more vibrant and dramatic style.”

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Legendary combat comics artist Dick Ayers loved penciling Unknown. He tells BACK ISSUE that he provided “very tight contour pencils” for inker Talaoc. He considers his Unknown collaborations with Talaoc among his best war comics (which include Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, Captain Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders, and Combat Kelly and the Deadly Dozen). “I liked it very much,” Ayers says of the partnership. “It had a lot of dramatics in it.” “He is an unsung hero of comics and someone who deserves the utmost of respect, and consideration,” Dayglo says. “His influence on my own work was immense, and I often would sit and copy his art from the comics, drawing tall, spindly Germans, with MP40s blazing, pursuing the Man of a Thousand Faces! I learned a lot from his work, especially dramatic posing, good use of directional drawing (line of action), and drama.” “It’s really a shame,” adds Benton Jew, “that his work hasn’t been more appreciated by fans over the years. Not only is he probably one of the top two or three best artists to come out of the Philippines during the time, but he’s one of the best comic artists—period. Certainly the most underappreciated and best-kept secret in comics.” Until now. BACK ISSUE reconnected with the artist in March–April 2010 to bring you, dear readers, a careerspanning interview with one of the greatest treasures of the Bronze Age.

GROWING UP & BREAKING INTO THE BIZ MICHAEL AUSHENKER: Gerry, where you were born and raised? What did your parents do for a living? GERRY TALAOC: I was born in the Philippines, the province of Aklan, and raised in the countryside where rice crops are grown and produced. My parents were Leon and Leonida Talaoc. My father was a farmer and my mother, a plain housekeeper. They both passed away. AUSHENKER: How did you develop your flair for art? Who were instrumental in encouraging you to draw? TALAOC: I learned the fundamentals and basics about art-making through schooling. In 1957, I enrolled in the College of Fine Arts, majoring in painting in University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines. I graduated in 1961 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, majoring in painting. I don’t remember if I was inspired by anybody or if anyone encouraged me to draw. It just grew within me, my interest in figures and drawings. I can still remember that, at the early age of seven or eight, I could form a figure from mud clay by simply looking at a figure. AUSHENKER: How did you break into “komiks” in the Philippines? Who were your idols among Filipino comic-book artists, and who were your good friends among your peers?

TALAOC: In 1961, after graduating from school, I held down different kinds of jobs––as a factory designer, a stage background designer. I even tried applying to jobs that were not related to the arts until, finally, I went into the field of comics. My idols during my early days in comics were Francisco Coching, Alfredo Alcala, and Nestor Redondo. These guys were the best comic illustrators for me at that time. I also enjoyed the work of Alex Raymond and Frank Robbins. They inspired me a lot and I used their work as reference. I was once an assistant of Fred Carrillo for more than a year, and I was recommended to a publishing house. Through him, I learned more about the elements and fundamentals about comics’ preparations and, of course … references, research, and practice. I learned a lot from Fred Carrillo. During my time working for him, I realized that my schooling was not enough when it came to the comics medium. I began my career in 1963 in the Philippines. I worked for GMS Publications. We called it Miranda Publications. It had a sister company named Mapalad Publications, which sometimes I used to work for, too. It was owned by G. Miranda and Sons. I worked there until 1972 in only one publication. It was not as prestigious as those where artists such as Nestor Redondo, Alfredo Alcala, and Fred Carrillo worked. My work ran in one publication. I tried to submit some samples to other publishing

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Shakes on a Plane Double-truck image from The Phantom Stranger #28 (Jan. 1973). TM & © DC Comics.

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Try Finding This Little Guy a Babysitter A Talaoc painted story page (sans word balloons) from 1992’s Clive Barker’s Hellraiser Summer Special. TM & © Lost Souls.

houses, but got no chance at all. Some editors said that if there were some scripts available, it would go first to their regular artists. It was very disappointing that they didn’t give me a tryout. Or maybe that’s the way it goes. AUSHENKER: Did you socialize with any of the aforementioned artists—Ernie Chan, Alex Niño? TALAOC: I didn’t socialize much with my fellow artists. Most of us were working from home and we only met in the studio when we submitted our finished art. Among these great artists you listed, I [liked] Redondo. He [was] the guy who was easy to approach. He was humble and always ready to help you whenever you needed him.

DC COMICS AND THE “FILIPINO INVASION” AUSHENKER: How were you hired to work for DC Comics? TALAOC: In 1972, there was a recruitment [delegation] that came [to the Philippines] from DC [in New York]. The group was [artist] Tony DeZuñiga, [publisher] Carmine Infantino, and [editor] Joe Orlando. 36 • BACK ISSUE • Mystery Comics Issue

We were advised to submit samples, which most artists did. After the evaluations, almost all of the artists were given a chance to work for DC, including me. AUSHENKER: Where were you living at the time? TALAOC: I was in the Philippines during the time I worked for DC. AUSHENKER: Can you describe the process of how you would receive a script from DC and illustrate it? TALAOC: I was not working directly at DC publications. I worked for National Studio, which at first I thought was National Periodical Publications [a.k.a. DC Comics]. National Studio was operated by Tony DeZuñiga, and he had the direct contact with DC. Before we started working, we signed an [exclusivity] agreement [with] the National Studio. I was [initially] given four to eight pages of script, which were mostly mystery short stories. I worked on the artwork solo (pencils and inks) during the early ’70s. I believe that in 1974, when I worked on The Unknown Soldier, that was the beginning of my peak work. [Writer’s note: For more on The Unknown Soldier, see BI #37, “Comics Goes to War.”] But by this time, I was no longer working at National Studio. DC switched contacts, working instead with Redondo Studio because of some business-related problems with the National Studio. AUSHENKER: What are your memories of working on the early DC mystery books? TALAOC: When I started working for DC, I stopped working for my local art jobs and concentrated only for DC. There were also jobs offered through the Redondo Studio, which came from the US—Classics Illustrated … full comic mags. It was Fago Productions. When it comes to the works in DC’s House of Secrets and House of Mystery, I can’t remember much of it, I’m sorry. I don’t have even a single print or copy on those books and titles. But I worked as an inker on titles such as Comet Man and Alpha Flight, but not [as long as on] The Incredible Hulk and The Unknown Soldier. I also worked solo in two issues of Amazing High Adventure and did color paint work in Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, both for Marvel. It was in the year 1982, when The Unknown Soldier script became irregular, that it finally stopped. I really missed that title. I worked on this character for more than seven years and this guy really grew on me. It was a great loss.

ENTER THE 1980s: FROM DC TO MARVEL AUSHENKER: How did your time at DC draw to a close? TALAOC: It had something to do with [contractual] problems between DC and the Redondo Studio—the connection stopped. At this point, I had no work coming in at all until I tried to show my DC art as samples to some local publications. For around six to seven months, I was able to work in one of the publications, at the low, low rate for beginners. AUSHENKER: How did you wind up on Hulk? TALAOC: While I was working, I did some art samples for Marvel. At first, I received a negative response. Within three months, I tried again and submitted other samples. At this time, [editor-in-chief] Jim Shooter shoots my works to the editors and one of these editors was Carl Potts. He was my bridge to Marvel. He wired me: “Gerry, we will be working together … soon!” And within two weeks, I received the first script of The Incredible Hulk, issue #291. My thanks to Carl.

In the later part of 1983, I started inking Hulk. It was a great joy for me to get the chance to work with one of the great artists, Sal Buscema. Sal is a part of my memories and I won’t forget doing his pencils for years. AUSHENKER: Who were among your favorite artists to collaborate with? TALAOC: There were several artists I worked for as an inker: Dick Ayers, Sal and John Buscema, Mike Mignola, Kelley Jones, Jon Bogdanove, Hugh Haynes, David Ross, and more … I learned some pointers from each of them that helped me improve my own artwork. Among these artists, John Buscema was the best. I didn’t go far for adjustments in my inking to his pencils. I think his style was best suited for my inks. But I think you cannot compare the work of an artist to another. As Tony [DeZuñiga] said, “It depends upon to the reader’s taste,” right?

TALAOC’S MARVEL YEARS: THE POTTS PERSPECTIVE Let’s take a break from our talk with Talaoc to hear from a fan of the artist from within the industry who was instrumental in keeping Talaoc’s career going: writer, penciler, and editor Carl Potts, who brought Talaoc aboard to Marvel Comics in 1983 to ink The Incredible Hulk. “They made a good team and worked very well together for years,” Potts, Talaoc’s former editor, tells BACK ISSUE regarding the Sal Buscema/Gerry Talaoc pairing. Potts, a part of the Marvel brass from 1983 to 1996, remains a major Talaoc fan today. So when Potts came across Talaoc’s contact, he did not hesitate to call him. “I became familiar with Gerry’s work when he did Phantom Stranger and The Unknown Soldier at DC,” Potts says. “There was a very nice, flowing, and lively feel to his line work and his figures.” As distant as Talaoc was geographically, Potts really enjoyed working with him. “Gerry was the ultimate professional,” Potts recalls. “Even though he was living half a world away from me, he was never late delivering his work and often made up for time that others in the creative chain had lost. I think, due to the time difference, we rarely spoke on the phone. Mostly, we’d communicate with notes in the packages of artwork. Remember, this was before email.” Not only did Talaoc’s art stand apart from the pack, even the envelopes Talaoc’s art arrived in stood out. “Gerry’s art-package envelopes were made of paper stock that was very different in color, texture, and weight than the envelopes we used,” Potts says. “I could always tell his packages from the others when a stack came in from the mail room.” Beyond Hulk, Potts sought to showcase Talaoc as the total artist. “In order to let Gerry show what he could do all on his own,” Potts says, “I assigned him a couple of short stories for Amazing High Adventure, a short-lived anthology comic I edited … I’m not sure why, but both of the stories I assigned to Gerry were humorous tales. Gerry did a great job on both of them.” Potts also remembers that Talaoc helped the future creator of Hellboy find his footing in the business. “Until about 1983, Mike Mignola had been primarily an inker,” Potts recalls. “After his impressive series penciling debut on Rocket Raccoon, I asked him to pencil Hulk. Mike was pretty nervous about it and I believe having Gerry on inks helped ease Mike’s concerns.”

In 1985, a shakeup occurred. “After issue #313 of Hulk,” Potts explains, “I switched book assignments with editor Denny O’Neil, giving up Hulk (John Byrne took over the creative work on the title) and acquiring Alpha Flight. I put my Hulk creative crew (Mantlo, Mignola, and Talaoc) on Alpha Flight with issue #29, I believe. I can’t remember how or why Gerry stopped inking Alpha Flight.” Ultimately, Talaoc and his guardian editor enjoyed a long-distance professional relationship. “I don’t believe I ever had the pleasure of meeting Gerry in person,” Potts laments. “Despite my intentions, I never got to visit the Philippines and I don’t recall Gerry visiting New York City. “But during the years we worked together, instead of sending a simple card at Christmas, Gerry would send full paintings!”

FAMILY, FAVORITES, AND LIFE AFTER COMICS AUSHENKER: How did you meet your wife Ofelia? TALAOC: My wife and I were married 40 years ago. We were about to continue our studies in Manila when we met. She came from Iligan City, Mindanao, and I came from in the Province of Aklan in Western Visaya. We lived in the same house, which served as a boarding house. It was owned by my uncle. He was married to

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Pinoy Group In describing that label for this photo from his archives, Gerry tells us, “I have no idea why it was called Pinoy Group. It was probably because those gathering were all Filipino artists (Pinoy is a short cut word for Filipinos).” (sitting, front row, left to right): Gerry Talaoc (in black), Rico Rival, Abe Ocampo, Tony Caravana, Victor, Felimon, and Eufronio Cruz. (sitting, second row, left to right) Nestor Leonidez, Manuel Carrillo, Teny Henson, Leandro Martinez, Jess Jodloman, Nestor Redondo, J. Perez, Fred Carrillo, and Orvy Jundis. (standing, left to right) Jose Matucenio, Deonisio Roque, Ernie Guanlao, and Ernie Patricio.

my wife’s aunt. We lived together, like brothers and sisters, with other relatives and friends from both sides. Because of overcrowding in the house (there were 28 heads), I moved to Quezon City, where my cousin lived and, once in a while, I would go back to visit them. One day, I noticed a different look in Ofelia’s eyes when she stared at me. At first, it didn’t bother me until I realized that I wanted to see her frequently. I courted her, and it didn’t take long for her to say “Yes.” I lived with my cousin long enough to finish my schooling and start working, then I proposed to her. I was 30 years old and she was 29 when we got married in 1970. She was a pharmacist by profession and working for the government at the time. I still remember what my father-in-law said, which my wife told me. He was reluctant for me to be her husband because I might have difficulty in raising a family as a comic-book artist. Today, I am proof that an artist can build a family … and a good one. AUSHENKER: You have four children? TALAOC: Three boys and one girl [from oldest to youngest]: Jeremy, Jercho, Sinag, and Jerome. Sinag is our second youngest. She went to a special school and she took 38 academic and athletic medals. Jerome is presently working as a graphic artist for the television studios ABS and CBN in the Philippines. My wife works in elder-care food services. AUSHENKER: How did you arrive at your trademark semi-cartoony drawing style and what do you love most about drawing comics? TALAOC: Honestly, I didn’t realize that my work in comics was semi-cartoony. I thought it was fully realistic … or maybe it’s the influence of my idol, Frank Robbins. I always love doing comics because in every script, there is a challenge—setting up and giving life to a story. The play of panels is very interesting to me and I learned a lot by using references.

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AUSHENKER: Can you talk about life after comics? TALAOC: The years 1992–1993 were when the comics industry broke down in the Philippines. Animation work was on the rise. At this time, I didn’t have comic-book scripts to work on. So I started to learn about animation. In 1993, I began working as a layout and storyboard artist. I went from studio to studio, working in animation until 2005. While working in animation, I was also doing some artwork on the side, such as pinups, black-and-white illustrations, and acrylic paintings. AUSHENKER: What kind of paintings do you create for yourself? TALAOC: Some landscapes, portraits, figure drawings. And I still do some requested comic-book characters. AUSHENKER: It’s kind of ironic, but the entire time you were working for the American comic-book industry, you were living in the Philippines. And only after you left the American comic-book industry did you move to the United States. So when did you relocate here and why? TALAOC: In 2006, my wife and I went to Juneau. We were petitioned by our son, Jercho, who lives in San Jose, California. We moved to Alaska because we were offered a fully-furnished room for free by my brotherin-law. And from there, I started to work as a government employee. I still create art during my days off. AUSHENKER: In terms of Filipino and American comics, what do you feel is the best work of your career? TALAOC: I don’t really recall the best works in term of Filipino comics. It may be because I was in the process of making adjustments with my work. My best work came when I was working in American comics. I would consider The Unknown Soldier my best professional work. It ran longer than all of the titles I worked on and I’m very proud of it. MICHAEL AUSHENKER is a Los Angeles-based writer and cartoonist. His comic books include Cartoon Flophouse featuring Greenblatt the Great!, the El Gato, Crime Mangler series, Those Unstoppable Rogues, and Silly Goose. He is also the writer of Gumby’s Gang Starring Pokey (WildCard Ink). Visit cartoonflophouse.com and read cartoonflophouse.blogspot. com daily.

“It was midnight … a man … a good man … was in trouble … and she appeared! It was as simple as that! She showed a strength that was impossible to believe … removed the man from danger … and then vanished! Nothing more was known about her, except that everyone who saw her agreed that she looked like a huge flower—an orchid—a Black Orchid!” So began the escapades of the mysterious Black Orchid. Bob Oksner’s moody cover for Adventure Comics #428 (Aug. 1973) depicts our heroine perched on a Gothic rooftop, set against the backdrop of a full moon and a bat-filled sky. Below her, a gang of gun-toting criminals peer out a window— unaware that they are about to become her prey. While it’s prominently touted as an origin issue, the true identity of the Black Orchid would remain a puzzler for another 15 years. She was a malleable cypher, with DC seemingly content to let the character shift in and out of stories with no attempt to define her. That is, until a newcomer named Neil Gaiman turned that idea on its head and crafted a new mythology. But before Gaiman could do that—the Black Orchid would have to die.

Shannon E. Riley

TAKING ROOT IN ADVENTURE

Night Flight

Under the guidance of editor Joe Orlando, DC’s long-running Adventure Comics took a brief detour away from traditional superheroics in the early ’70s. Beginning with issue #425 (Dec. 1972), the focus shifted to fantasy and supernatural adventure tales. It likely made good business sense to Orlando, given the success of the company’s other mystery titles following the loosening of the Comics Code. Non-costumed protagonists— like Robert Kanigher’s and Alex Niño’s “Captain Fear,” and John Albano’s and Jim Aparo’s “The Adventurers’ Club”— appeared in the series through issue #427 (May 1973). Making her debut in issues #428–430 (Aug.–Dec. 1973), the Black Orchid brought the costumes back to Adventure, but with a twist of mystery: she was a master of disguise and, in effect, a blank slate. Unique in DC’s stable of characters, her powers were unexplained and even stranger, she left an aromatic orchid as her calling card. The first three stories— “Black Orchid,” “Challenge to the Black Orchid,” and “The Anger of the Black Orchid”—all followed similar arcs in that the heroine would mysteriously

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We photo manipulated the proportions of this, Gaspar Saladino’s “Black Orchid” logo and Bob Oksner’s bodacious cover image from Adventure Comics #430 (Dec. 1973). TM & © DC Comics.

A Fine Inspiration (left) Black Orchid designer Tony DeZuñiga explains that the costume was inspired by another “black” character, Quality Comics’ the Black Condor, Lou Fine’s Golden Age superhero. TM & © DC Comics.

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appear, save a protagonist, and then shake down crooks by masquerading as an assortment of dancers, waitresses, or femme fatales. As co-creator T o n y

Flower Child (above) Tony DeZuñiga recently created this lyrical image of the sublime Black Orchid

DeZuñiga relates to BACK ISSUE, the Orchid was essentially Orlando’s brainchild—and it was DeZuniga and longtime DC editor/writer/cartoonist Sheldon Mayer who executed the idea. This was the first and only collaboration between Mayer and DeZuñiga, and it was Mayer’s health issues that would indirectly lead to the partnership. Failing eyesight had forced Mayer to abandon his first love of cartooning, and begin scripting stories for DC’s mystery titles. He wrote such tales as “This Evil Demon Loves People!” for House of Mystery #207 (Oct. 1972), “Small Invasion” in House of Secrets #101 (Oct. 1972), and “Death Laughed Last!” for Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion #12 (Sept. 1973).

TM & © DC Comics.

Who’s That Girl? (right) The true identity of our hero is pondered in this nice DeZuñiga panel from Adventure Comics #428 (Aug. 1973). TM & © DC Comics.

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DeZuñiga had left his home in the Philippines in 1969 and ventured to New York City, where he began working for DC under Orlando’s guidance. His first job was as Ric Estrada’s inker on the story “For Love or Money” in Girls’ Love Stories #153 (Aug. 1970), and his first American penciling gig appeared in “Dark City of Doom” in House of Mystery #188 (Oct. 1970). DeZuñiga says, “Joe Orlando, for me—he’s the best editor DC ever had. He gave artists free rein and he recognized every artist’s [strengths].” Anyone familiar with DeZuñiga’s work knows that it exhibits a stunning realism and a strong command of the human form (as evidenced by the pen and ink commissions he did for this article). These traits would be put on full display in his visual interpretation of Mayer’s scripts. DeZuñiga found the most obvious inspiration for the Orchid’s garb from her flower namesake— Cymbidium canaliculatum sparkesii—a plant resplendent with dark black-purple petals and sepals. It was a Golden Age Quality Comics hero that would further serve as a muse for the artist. DeZuñiga tells BI that in brainstorming the design concept, he “read the character description and [recalled that] in the ’40s there was this character called the Black Condor, but [since] that was a male superhero, I took some ideas and revised [it] to a female form. I had fun working on it—I love the character because [she] was beautifully, elegantly designed.” DeZuñiga acknowledges that while the issues didn’t sell that well, she’s fondly remembered by collectors to this day. “Even now, I get a lot of commissions and people still ask me a lot of questions about Black Orchid.”

THINGS GET STRANGER While not successful enough to graduate to her own title, Black Orchid was awarded the backup feature in The Phantom Stranger, starting with issue #31 (July 1974). Mayer and DeZuñiga stayed on as the creative team for the story “Island of Fear,” but this would be their final joint effort on the character. With issue #32 (Sept. 1974), Michael Fleisher and Russell Carley took the scripting reins, with Nestor Redondo handing pencils and inks for “The Crime of the Black Orchid.” The tale sees the Orchid framed by a young couple leading a life of crime. The woman, Myrna, pulls a bank heist in

a Black Orchid costume and fakes the power of flight with a helicopter and winch (don’t ask). Our hero is on the case, though, and her mastery of disguise is on full display. In tracking down her prey, she impersonates no less than four different people: a cigarette girl in a nightclub, a vixen in a sleazy waterfront bar, an old woman selling carnations on a street corner, and finally, Myrna herself! Perhaps the most fun of all the Phantom Stranger backup tales was the three-part “The Legion of the Black Orchid!” Featuring scripts by Fleisher and Carley and artwork by Fred Carrillo, we are introduced to racecar driver and stunt pilot, Ronnie Kuhn, in issue #39 (Nov. 1975). Kuhn is fascinated by the Black Orchid and dresses up as her in a homemade costume. She is shocked to have a woman who she believes to be her idol visit her home, inducting her into the battle against evil. They fly to a secluded hideaway to meet a bevy of lavender-clad beauties—the Legion of the Black Orchid! The Legion consists of five women—Karen Jensen (molecular chemist), Stefanie Tower (astro-physicist), Barbie Henderson (Olympic gymnast and acrobat), Janet Grant (criminologist), and Lisa Patrick (psychologist and martial-arts expert)—who use their own custom inventions to emulate the powers of the Black Orchid. Kuhn is thrilled to be asked to join them and breathlessly accepts. However, as Phantom Stranger #40 (Jan. 1976) reveals, the Legion is not as altruistic as they seem— really, they are setting up Kuhn to help them steal the World Bank’s entire gold bullion reserve. They fake a story about communist agents plotting to “steal the bullion and precipitate a world economic crisis as the prelude to a series of devastating military and diplomatic blows against the United States and Western Europe!” Kuhn’s father is the World Bank president, so she has easy access to the bank blueprints. She brings them to the Legion, thinking that they are going to use the blueprints to gain access to the vaults in order to lay in wait for the communist saboteurs. Kuhn is betrayed by the Legion and bound to the World Bank vault door; a bomb is set to go off within seconds. “Will the Real Black Orchid Please Stand Up?” in issue #41 (Mar. 1976) sees the conclusion to the story as the Black Orchid intervenes, saving Kuhn from certain death. The “real” Orchid had already infiltrated the group, impersonating Lisa Patrick after she left to take a nap. She unleashes her full fury on the women, declaring, “Next time you impersonate me, it’ll have to be in the annual state prison pageant!” More confusion ensues as the police arrive to take away the Legion. An officer assumes that Ronnie Kuhn really is the Black Orchid, thanks her for her service, and vows to keep her identity a secret.

No Fear of Flying

FALSE ORIGINS The very tongue-in-cheek Blue Devil Annual #1 (1985) posited two conflicting origins for our heroine. The issue, written by Gary Cohn and Dan Mishkin and penciled by Paris Cullins, features a grab-bag of DC’s mystical and off-beat characters: Madame Xanadu, the Demon, Phantom Stranger, Felix Faust, Man-Bat, the Creeper, and of course—the Blue Devil. As Cohn remembers, “We were playing with a crew of weird and obscure characters … the Creeper was kinda languishing, so were Madame Xanadu and the rest, including Black Orchid. As I recall, we also liked the idea that Black Orchid was such an undefined character.”

Another recent Tony DeZuñiga commission of the graceful flying hero. TM & © DC Comics.

Cover Girl The heroine was a featured backup star on a run of The Phantom Stranger. TM & © DC Comics.

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similarity to those of two popular characters over at the Marvelous competition. Cohn explains that he and Mishkin weren’t concerned with ruffling any editorial feathers, either at DC or Marvel: “We were playing, having fun with the comics genre. The Marvel origins were pretty straightforward … you could parody them in a couple of panels. No one at DC was monitoring us closely except for editor Alan Gold, and he thought what we were doing was funny.” Dan Mishkin adds, “I don’t think anybody hesitated for a moment about our cribbing the Spider-Man and Daredevil origins to poke a little fun. Having fun at the expense of cherished superhero comics conventions was an established part of what we were doing in Blue Devil, and the practice of one company’s using thinly veiled stand-ins for the other company’s characters was hardly unheard of, and this seemed to be right along that line.” In addressing why they brought her into Blue Devil Annual #1, Cohn explains that the Black Orchid was “always pretty much a cypher. We felt we could play with her. That was the point of the entire book, of course. We were having fun with characters that maybe had been taken a bit too seriously.” Mishkin recollects that “she definitely had an aura of mystery. And I kind of liked the original Black Orchid stories—it might have largely been the DeZuñiga art. I was always a sucker for the no-origin man-or-womanof-mystery characters. In the ’60s, I was enthralled by the short-run TV series The Prisoner and Coronet Blue. Of course, those two shows, to greater or lesser extent, had some sense of what the solution to the mystery was (though I only found out the answer to Coronet Blue’s mystery by way of Wikipedia decades later). I don’t think anyone has ever argued that the [creators of] Black Orchid had an actual clue as to who she might be—this looks in retrospect like a situation where they went for the mystery and hoped they’d figure out what it all meant later (not that I’ve ever done anything like that).”

TASK FORCE X

Bad Orchid Filipino “artist’s artist” Nestor Redondo rendered his exquisite version of the character in question in a trio of backup tales in The Phamtom Stranger (#32, 35, and 36). Here’s the splash for his first effort (Sept. 1974). TM & © DC Comics.

In one scene, the Creeper is about to be apprehended by a demon when the Black Orchid swoops in to save him. Perplexed by her sudden appearance and incredible display of powers, the Creeper asks Madame Xanadu, “Who was that masked woman?” Xanadu relates a tale about a student named Matilda Moorcock who once saved a woman from being run down by a florist’s truck. In doing so, she was struck by an irradiated bouquet of orchids and was bestowed with “remarkable powers,” vowing to “use them only for good, battling evil as the Black Orchid!” Yet another origin is recounted by the Phantom Stranger, as he tells the Blue Devil that the Orchid was really “a brilliant science student named Paula Porter” who pricked her finger on the thorns of some irradiated orchids upon leaving a local university lab. Never mind that orchids don’t have thorns, as the Stranger refutes that “they were special!” Astute readers will note that the names and origins of Matilda Moorcock and Paula Porter bear a striking

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DC’s Suicide Squad series saw the Black Orchid appear as an operative in issues #4, 7, 11, 12, 19, and 22. Writer John Ostrander recalls, “I recently re-read the omnibus of the early stories and she just seems to show up. I don’t think we ever got into how she joined the team.” Entirely fitting, given the Black Orchid’s frequent tendency to appear and disappear as she saw fit! Ostrander made good use of the character’s subterfuge skills in a particularly amusing scene from issue #7 (Nov. 1987). Flash rogue Captain Boomerang is hiding out in New Orleans in an attempt to avoid being called back to active duty by team leader Amanda Waller. He’s brought home a stunning French woman for a little romance. As Boomerang pours some wine, his consort retires to another room to get more comfortable. The joke, however, is on him—as the woman returns and reveals herself to be the Black Orchid. The last panel of the sequence, penciled by Luke McDonnell, shows a silhouette of our heroine dragging Captain Boomerang by his ankle across the night sky. On writing the character in Suicide Squad, Ostrander notes, “She had a unique look and was underused at the time. That gave her a lot of Squad potential. However, I was limited in how much I could use her because of the Gaiman miniseries, which—if I recall correctly—was set up after we had her in the Squad. We could only use her up to a certain point and that’s when she left the Squad.” Following her stint

with Task Force X, the Black Orchid’s world would never be the same.

DEATH AND REVELATIONS By 1988, 15 years had passed without any true indication of exactly who was behind the mask or where her powers came from. Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean would change all that with their three-issue tale titled, simply, Black Orchid. Publishing the Prestige Format series was a bit of a risk for DC. Gaiman was a new writer and McKean a new artist, not to mention the fact that the main character was about as obscure as they get. So obscure, in fact, that editor Karen Berger didn’t even know who she was. As Berger explains, “Neil loves to tell the story about when he first pitched this series. He and Dave McKean were the last in a long day of meetings that I had with many UK writers and artists when I first went over to London in my initial days serving as DC’s British Liaison. I thought he said ‘Black Hawk-kid’—so, needless to say, I never heard of Black Orchid before, nor Black Hawk-kid, for that matter!” Though Gaiman and McKean had only collaborated on one graphic novel previously—1987’s Violent Cases— Berger was very impressed and confident they knew what they were doing. Book One of Black Orchid starts out with a shocker: the violent death of our titular heroine. Having infiltrat-

Bouquet of Orchids

ed a corrupt corporate empire under the guise of secretary Emma Halliwell, the Orchid is taken by surprise at the end of a board meeting. Mr. Sterling, the chairman, restrains her in titanium cords, tears off her mask, and begins to taunt her. “Hey … you know something? I’ve seen, y’know, the movies, James Bond, all that. I’ve read the comics.” He continues, “So you know what I’m not gonna do? I’m not going to lock you up in the basement before interrogating you. I’m not going to set up some kind of complicated laser beam death trap, then leave you alone to escape. That stuff is so dumb. But you know what I am going to do? I’m going to kill you. Now.” And with that, Sterling’s goon shoots the Black Orchid point-blank in the head. She is promptly doused with gasoline and set afire as the criminals make a hasty

(above) The Phantom Stranger backup three-parter featured a storyline that surmised the character was, in fact, a group of smart, curvaceous beauties! Art by yet another great from the Phillipines, Fred Carrillo! Panel from #39 (Nov. 1975). TM & © DC Comics.

Orchid in the ’80s Our mysterious subject drifted in her second decade, joining up with Super Friends (#31, Apr. 1980) and Suicide Squad (#11, Mar. 1988). TM & © DC Comics.

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The Devil You Say! If you look really, really closely, you can see the Black Orchid flying beneath The Creeper’s foot and behind Blue Devil’s shoulder! Original Blue Devil Annual #1 (1985) cover art by Paris Cullins and Gary Martin. Courtesy of Heritage. TM & © DC Comics.

retreat. Struggling amidst the flames, the heroine breaks her ties and drags herself to the window. Her escape is thwarted, however, as a bomb explodes … and the Black Orchid perishes. While such a scene might be met with a shrug by today’s comic-book readers, it was bold in 1988. “I thought killing off the main character at the beginning was a radical way to start the book, and the dark, psychological approach to the story was very much in keeping with the provocative and intense work that we were publishing at the time, all heavily influenced by Alan Moore’s work on Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, and Watchmen,” relates Berger. Veteran letterer Todd Klein, who was brought onto the project by Berger and would later work with Gaiman again on Sandman, agrees and says that the death scene and overall story “felt much more involving than many comics of the time. Part of that, I’m sure, was the pain Neil put Black Orchid through. And the way he worked her out of it was brilliant, I thought.” As the story continues, Sterling is revealed to be under the employ of Lex Luthor, whom he phones after

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detonating the bomb. “I don’t like these super-people, Mister Chairman. One less is good news,” snarls Luthor. “Keep me informed of developments.” Orchid’s lifeless body is recovered from the burned-out building—and Sterling comes to the startling realization that she’s not quite human, but plant. Elsewhere, in a greenhouse, orchids stir. From one of the blossoms emerges a tall, purple humanoid with a shock of wispy hair and penetrating eyes—looking eerily reminiscent of the Black Orchid. She is confused, awakening as if from a dream and sensing the loss of … someone. She makes her way to the adjoining house and discovers Dr. Philip Sylvian. Sylvian relates that he and Susan Linden were childhood friends with a love of flowers and plants, having formed a strong bond while Susan suffered abuse at the hands of her father. They lost touch over the years, but came back together in college and continued to explore the world of botany. Linden and Sylvian were to become “mother” and “father” to a host of humanplant hybrid “children.” Joining them in their experiments were a group of characters familiar to DC Comics readers—Dr. Jason Woodrue (the Atom’s nemesis, the Floronic Man—also known as the Plant Master), Pamela Isley (Gotham City’s femme fatale Poison Ivy), and Alec Holland (who would become the Swamp Thing). As the first issue closes, Linden’s “child”— bewildered upon learning of this history—departs. Sylvian is left with his thoughts, reeling after hearing of the Black Orchid’s death from a news report on television. A knock on door rouses him from a dream-state and he is promptly knocked unconscious by Carl Thorne, Linden’s ex-husband. Things move quickly from here, as Book Two begins with Thorne revealing to a bloodied and battered Dr. Sylvian that he killed Susan. Years earlier, Susan Linden had married and then testified against Thorne before a grand jury for dealing in illegal arms (under the employ of Luthor). Bitter, Thorne is now out of jail and intent on getting his job back with LexCorp. Thorne proceeds to destroy Sylvian’s lab and greenhouse, demolishing what he believes to be “statues” of his wife—really, her seedlings. Thorne wraps his hands around the neck of a tiny statue, who he derogatively refers to as “little Suzy.” “Hello, Carl,” Suzy utters as she opens her eyes and gives Thorne the shock of his life. She flies off as Luthor arrives with his henchmen to observe the damage. Enraged that Thorne has destroyed so much of Sylvian’s research and work—work which he could have used for his own nefarious schemes—Luthor has Thorne shackled and thrown off a pier. Though Suzy and her “sister” discover that Phil has died at Thorne’s hands, they decide to save Thorne. An encounter with the Batman then leads the elder orchid to the bayous of Louisiana, where she is greeted by Alec Holland (now the Swamp Thing)—who reveals the true story of Phil and Susan. “Phil wanted to make people out of plants … breathing in carbon dioxide … breathing out oxygen. He had dreams of sending them to the Amazon … to create a new world … to save an old world from dying.” Holland explains that Phil’s plant people were a failure—until Susan returned to him after having left Thorne and brought happiness back to his life. Shortly thereafter, Thorne killed Susan for testifying against him. Phil stole genetic material from Susan’s corpse for his human-plant hybrids and the result was the Black Orchid. The Swamp Thing reasons that she may have appointed herself a crimefighter to seek revenge for Susan’s death.

There is an undercurrent of melancholy and sadness that runs throughout Black Orchid, as lives are shattered and destroyed, and new ones are born—full of confusion and uncertainty. However, Linden’s “children” find comfort and solace in each other, much as sisters or a mother and daughter would. Between them, there is a strong sense of hope and forgiveness in the face of terrible violence. As the story closes in a lush Brazilian forest, the elder hybrid and Suzy sow orchid seedlings given to them by Swamp Thing, in order to keep Phil’s and Susan’s dream alive. They decide that this South American paradise, while beautiful, is not for them. As the two take flight to return home, the full-grown orchid says, “I am glad that this is over… The flight will be long, and tiring; but I can caress the updrafts of the wind with my form. I am alive in the colors of the leaves, and in the sunset, and in the moist tropical air. I have never been more alive. And together we soar, we climb, we ascend. Together. Into the sun.” McKean’s work is magnificent, striking a unique balance between photorealism and expressionism. Berger concurs and says, “Dave’s art was beautifully painted and designed, and his work on this book made a huge impact in comics. It was clear that this guy was talented far [beyond] his years.” She goes on to note that the miniseries “showed that [Gaiman] was a polished and skilled writer, with a deft command of character and story. It was very well-written, but there was an emotional distance to his work, which evolved later … particularly in Sandman.” Gaiman, in the foreword to the 1991 collected edition, said of the tale, “I know that some people regard this sort of writing as escapist fiction, but I think that tales of myth and horror are probably the easiest and most effective way to talk about the real world. It’s like they are the lies that tell the truth about our lives. At the same time, I think of books like … Black Orchid as optimistic works: Sometimes, bad things happen to the wrong people in my stories, and that leaves my characters realizing that they have to change or die. That choice gives you the change to remake not just yourself, but sometimes the world around you as well.”

THE VERTIGO SERIES

Orchid Ressurection

Dovetailing out of the Gaiman/McKean miniseries, the Black Orchid ongoing title debuted in 1993—running for a total of 22 issues, plus an annual. Published under the fledgling Vertigo imprint, storylines written by Dick Foreman delved further into the realm of horror and dark fantasy, as well as myth and fables—establishing the Black Orchid as “part prankster, part demigoddess.” The elder hybrid now calls herself Flora Black, as she continues to find her way in the world, while attempting to protect the delicate balance between humankind and nature. But where she may have been melancholy and naïve previously—she now begins to exhibit darker traits. Mind-control and coercion via pheromone manipulation have become her modus operandi; Flora freely and regularly exerts her will over any man (or woman) that crosses her. Tom Peyer edited the first four issues and was actively involved in the initial planning for the series with Karen Berger. He tells BI, “It was at the very beginning of Vertigo, and we needed to launch some titles. Gaiman and McKean’s Black Orchid was a recent success and a beautiful piece of work, so it wouldn’t have taken a buttload of perspicacity for me to reserve the character and solicit proposals. And Dave McKean agreed to do covers, which was reason enough in itself.” Were there any editorial edicts from DC/Vertigo about how to approach the series? Peyer responds, “The Gaiman/McKean series was so well-loved and so fresh in everyone’s minds, it occurred to no one to reboot Black Orchid at that point. There were no edicts, but if someone had been foolish enough to say ‘let’s make her a private detective with plant powers,’ I like to think there would have been.” Joining writer Dick Foreman on the series was artist Jill Thompson, who penciled the first six issues. Of working with Foreman and Thompson, Peyer says, “Dick always came to everything highly prepared, and he wrote these well-thought-out, very detailed scripts. The guy’s a real hard worker, the opposite of me. Karen Berger and I had worked with Jill before, on Wonder Woman, and the lyricism she brought to that made her

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Triptych of Dave McKean’s lovely covers for the Black Orchid miniseries, 1988–1989, scribed by Neil Gaiman, which brought the character into Karen Berger’s fledgling Vertigo fold, and a regular series to boot! TM & © DC Comics.

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everyone’s first choice to draw this. And she did a beautiful job.” Over the course of the series, Flora journeys into the unconscious mind of Alec Holland in a two-part crossover in issue #5 and Swamp Thing #139 (Jan. 1994), and discovers her true nature as a member of an ancient tribe of female Earth elementals in issue #9 (May 1994). However, it is the final storyline “A Twisted Season,” beginning in issue #17 (Jan. 1995), in which the Black Orchid—after learning of a prophecy foretelling her demise— determines that her ultimate mission is to restore nature’s balance by sowing her seeds around the world. However morally ambiguous she may have been, she now draws a line in the sand, proclaiming “…with their commerce and politics, human beings have changed our field of play. They are a virus. It’s time for an end to the sickness they bring.” Flora becomes unhinged when she learns that her seedlings have been destroyed by humans and environmental disasters. She then begins manipulating thousands into killing each other en masse. Little sister Suzy returns, after having been on her own journey of discovery, growth, and prophecy. Though fearful, Suzy tries to reason with Flora, “…there was a time when … there was just you and me. We … we meant everything to each other. You were different then. You didn’t go around making people kill each other. You said there was already enough of that.” Suzy resists Flora’s attempts to sway her, and Flora turns on her. Ultimately, Flora is defeated by a blast of liquid nitrogen and her frozen body shatters upon hitting the ground. Suzy, meanwhile, experiences a metamorphosis at the time of Flora’s death. Over womblike imagery penciled by Rebecca Guay and inked by Stan Woch, Suzy emotes, “I’m filled with the motherness that [Flora] severed herself from. I’m loaded with the memories that she no longer cared to have.” She goes on, “Identity is fluid. Prophecies make sense at last … for I am no longer just ‘Suzy’ … I am the Black Orchid.” Another death, another rebirth, and yet another identity emerges as the legend continues. Where will she be next? Who will she be? That, my friend, is something only the Black Orchid knows. A heartfelt “thank you” goes out to Tony DeZuñiga, Gary Cohn, Dan Mishkin, John Ostrander, Karen Berger, Todd Klein, and Tom Peyer for taking the time to share their thoughts and memories. SHANNON E. RILEY has been reading and collecting comics since 1978, when his dad bought him his first book, Detective Comics #475. He is an interactive producer and actor who has appeared on NBC’s Trauma and several Japanese TV shows. Find him on Facebook at facebook.com/shannoneriley.

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Animated Orchid

While always a somewhat obscure character, the Black Orchid did end up making enough of an impression on fans to expand her roots outside regular continuity and into the world of TV comics and animation. The floral fury’s first such appearance was in Super Friends #31 (Apr. 1980), which references the in-continuity “Legion of the Black Orchid” storyline from The Phantom Stranger #39–41 (Nov. 1975–Mar. 1976). Scripted by E. Nelson Bridwell and penciled by Ramona Fradon, “How to Trap an Orchid” shows that turnabout is fair play—as our heroine finds herself impersonated by Lisa Patrick, whom the Black Orchid ambushed and masqueraded as to foil a World Bank heist. The faux Orchid runs afoul of Batman and the Wonder Twins in the midst of a diamond robbery, and in her escape, drops an orchid with a moonstone inside. The Caped Crusader quickly deduces Patrick’s identity and also determines that the moonstone is a clue as to where she’ll hit next. Later, Patrick boasts to her gang, “The trap is set! When Black Orchid finds out I’ve impersonated her, she’s bound to come after me—and suffer the penalty for breaking up that World Bank robbery!” While her gang voices their fears of the Justice League getting involved, she scoffs, “With Superman involved, we can be certain he’ll contact the real Black Orchid!” Patrick then (incorrectly) assumes that the Orchid’s ability to fly, deflect bullets, and exhibit superstrength can only mean one thing: that she hails from Krypton! Patrick and her gang then go about setting a kryptonite deathtrap for the Orchid at the Gotham Space Museum. Of course, as with all Super Friends stories—there’s a tidy wrap-up as the true Black Orchid assumes the guise of a museum tour guide, learns of Patrick’s scheme, protects Superman from the kryptonite with a handy force-field, and ultimately flies the deadly stone into the stratosphere where it explodes. She leaves Superman stymied as to how she could have survived the blast. “We still know nothing about you!” the Man of Steel proclaims. “Where do you get your powers? What world do you come from?” As the Orchid departs, she turns to respond, “Would you believe—Earth?” The 2010 Gail Simone-penned “The Mask of Matches Malone!” episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold features a short teaser in which the Black Orchid makes her first full-fledged animated appearance. Batman finds himself in the clutches of the villainous Poison Ivy, about to be eaten by a giant, razor-toothed plant named Georgia. However, the Caped Crusader has an ace up his sleeve. Moments before certain doom, Batman proclaims, “We will stop you, you herbaceous hussy!” “We?” asks Ivy. Retorts Batman, “Yes, me … and the Black Orchid!” Having infiltrated Ivy’s gang of “flower children,” the Black Orchid reveals herself with a green smoke bomb. Silently, she dispatches Poison Ivy’s minions while Batman saves himself from Georgia by way of a carefully hidden explosive device. In a lastditch effort, Ivy ensnares Batman in a vine trap—but she’s knocked out cold by a powerful haymaker courtesy of the Orchid. “Thanks for the assist, Black Orchid,” Batman offers, as he frees himself from the vines. His appreciation falls on deaf ears as our heroine has already made her exit, causing Batman to declare, “Now I know how Commissioner Gordon feels!”

Jarrod Buttery

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Artist and Model Perhaps second only to The Shadow, Madame Xanadu is a character forever associated specifically with the singular artistry of one Michael William Kaluta, certainly one of the finest creators ever to share his illustrative talents with a comic-book audience. Did you know the hostess is based on a real person? Check out the sidebar near the end of this article, “The Once & Future Madame Xanadu.” The above photo portrait of the artist is by and courtesy of Kyle Cassidy.

In the 1970s it was de rigueur for each mystery comic to have a host. With its 1978 debut, Doorway to Nightmare featured a host who didn’t simply introduce the stories but participated in each tale. The issues followed a formula: each wholly independent full-length story featured lovers beset by occult forces seeking advice from an enigmatic fortune-teller—whose otherwise-locked door always seemed open for those genuinely in need. Guided by the Tarot, Madame Xanadu would advise, but allow her visitors to tread their own paths, reappearing for the denouement to ensnare that issue’s supernatural antagonist in one of her Soul Jars. Artist Michael Wm. Kaluta remembers being approached by DC editor Joe Orlando: “Joe’s exact words were, ‘We’re developing a hostess for a book called Doorway to Nightmare—she’ll act as a way to introduce the stories, though, other than appearing at the beginning, she won’t take part in the actual stories. I want a witchy, Gypsy–type woman; she’ll live in Greenwich Village where she has a fortune-telling shop.’” Somewhere in development, Madame Xanadu’s role expanded from host to participant. However, Orlando had approached the right person, for Kaluta had drawn a mystery hostess for seven issues of Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion. “I adapted the nameless hostess from FToDM into Madame Xanadu, but Joe O. never asked me to do that specifically,” recalls Kaluta. “The woman who graced the indicia page of FToDM was tall, dark, mysterious, and un-edited; I drew the pieces as evocative mood images and the editor had the words added afterward—it was as close as I’d come to self-expression at that time. The agreement between me and the editor was she’d never be named and she’d never act like the other, EC Comicsbased hosts: never putting on funny hats and acting like a carnival barker (until the final issue, where I believe Mr. Chaykin put her in a Santa suit). She naturally morphed into the template for Madame Xanadu.” [Writer’s note: This character was eventually named “Charity” in Starman #2 (Dec. 1994).] Joe Orlando edited the first two issues of Doorway

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before Jack C. Harris took over. “The title was, from the beginning, going to be a showcase for both new and established artists and writers,” reveals Harris. “The thought was to combine new writers with established artists and new artists with established writers. I don’t recall the specific incidents leading up to the creation of Doorway or Madame Xanadu, except for the Tarot cards. They were at the very heart of the idea from the beginning. The Soul Jars were added to the character and her ‘look’ was 100% the work of Mike Kaluta.”

ENTER FREELY, UNAFRAID Kaluta states, “The cover for Doorway to Nightmare #1 (Feb.–Mar. 1978) was certainly suggested by Joe O: ‘Have her holding a Tarot Card.’ Whether he asked specifically for the Death card from the Major Arcana, I don’t recall.” The debut issue was written by David Michelinie. “I do remember that I was asked to write the first Doorway to Nightmare; it wasn’t a project I brought to DC,” offers Michelinie. “I worked most closely with Paul Levitz, I believe, who was Joe Orlando’s assistant at the time. [Mr Levitz declined to answer BACK ISSUE’s questions.] I’m pretty sure that the character, names, and general concept were there before I was brought in. I think the idea was to have sort of a female Phantom Stranger, a mysterious character who was more than she appeared to be, who took a more active role than other hosts but let the individual characters from the separate stories take center stage. So I basically constructed a story that would establish things for other writers to follow, expanding on the specifics I was given.” And follow they did. Michelinie’s introductory story showed a young woman seeking to save her boyfriend from an Egyptian succubus, but also established concepts that have remained with Madame Xanadu over her 33-year history. The writer says, “I’m pretty sure Christy Street (a play on Christopher Street, an actual address in the Village), ‘Enter Freely, Unafraid’ (the sign on her door), and the bit about the door being

unlocked only to those who were genuinely in need, were bits that I came up with in the script. The Tarot cards were part of the concept that I followed. I’m not sure where the jars came from, but I hope I made them up—they’re kinda cool. “As for the artists: the Kaluta cover for Doorway #1 is nothing short of gorgeous, one of the all-time best I’ve been lucky enough to have grace a story of mine,” Michelinie continues. “And I thought Val’s [Mayerik] organic, almost ‘liquid’ style fit the tone of the story perfectly. I really don’t know how Madame Xanadu is being handled these days, but if she’s at Vertigo I have to assume she’s being done way differently than she was in 1977–1978. But that a character I had a hand in generating is still running around DC long after I myself have faded does make me grin a little. One takes one’s immortality where one can.” An appropriate choice for the interior artwork for issue #1 was Val Mayerik. “I’m not much for superheroes, and up until that time I was known mostly for fantasy and horror stuff,” details Mayerik. “They were probably vaguely aware of this at DC, and so gave me that story in lieu of a Batman or Superman. By 1976 I had been working for Marvel exclusively and wanted to take a shot at doing some work for DC. I don’t remember whom I contacted first or how it was decided that I do the Madame Xanadu story, but that was the script they sent to me. I had no prior knowledge of the character and attached no particular significance to her. “I don’t recall talking to Joe Orlando, and if I did then we had minimal contact,” Mayerik says. “Kaluta had not yet done the cover—or at least I had not yet seen that cover art. I enjoyed doing the book, but it was really just one more job and a way to get noticed at DC, although I approached that story as professionally as I did any job. Except for a Jonah Hex issue that I did in ’78, I never worked for DC again for no particular reason other than it just never worked out that way. I never was a big comics fan then or now. I just wanted to be an illustrator. I appreciate comics as a narrative form, but I don’t follow any titles or characters and

never really did. This is not to dismiss or minimize my time in the business or the many titles I worked on. I enjoyed my time in comics.” Doorway to Nightmare #2 (Apr.–May 1978) follows a young man seeking help for his girlfriend, who has been possessed. Madame Xanadu performs an exorcism, extracts the demon, and captures it in one of her Soul Jars. However, scripter Gerry Conway freely admits, “I remember absolutely nothing about Madame Xanadu. I’d like to blame it on heavy drug use in the 1970s, but I didn’t use drugs, so I guess it’s just advanced middle age. I wrote a couple dozen or more stories like those back in the late ’60s/early ’70s, and I only remember a handful (probably because only a handful are worth remembering). Most of them were pretty formulaic stuff, especially the ones I did for Joe Orlando, who seemed to prefer the traditional EC–style twist-ending tales.” Regardless, the tale again demonstrates (via gorgeous Vicente Alcazar art) that Madame Xanadu is not averse to participating in the proceedings. Bill Kunkel’s “Blood Red Tear,” in Doorway to Nightmare #3, features a tale of vampires. Kunkel remembers that he was given minimal instruction, “other than that Madame Xanadu was both a character and a sort-of host for the book. And that Kaluta could draw her really well,” Kunkel says. “Jack Harris called me into his office one day at DC, where I had mostly been writing short horror stories for Murray Boltinoff, so I guess they figured that I would be right for the new book. Based on what I was told, Madame X. was going to be primarily the book’s ‘host’—along the lines of the House of Mystery books with the imitation Crypt Keepers—but she would also be a character in the story (in fact, it appeared as if she would be the deus ex machina as well, stepping in at the end to squash the bad guy or guys). But no, I never received any further instruction than that. “I had just read Interview with the Vampire and I loved [Anne] Rice’s more realistic depiction of vampires and wanted to try my own take on that,” Kunkel con-

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Cover Girl Admit it. Good as the stories might have been in Doorway to Nightmare, many of us purchased the mystery anthology for the singular pleasure of gazing over the gorgeous Michael W. Kaluta cover art, depicting the sultry, coy, sexy, and Goth-beforethere-ever-was-Goth beauty we know as Madame Xanadu. Running across the top of this spread are most of her late ’70s and early ’80s titles. TM & © DC Comics.

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tinues. “I submitted a full script and Harris was exultant. Really. I had never had an editor react like that to something I’d submitted. He actually used the word ‘great.’ In fact, he told me that this was exactly what they wanted and he had copied my script and was handing it out to all the writers they were having do stories for the book. Not one change was requested. And editors never told you things like that, so I was pretty happy. I was, therefore, really crushed when the book came out with this bad horror-movie dialogue from Roger McKenzie. Roger was a nice guy—but none of my vampires spoke with cornball accents or any of that nonsense. “But that was overwhelmingly counterbalanced by what it did for my life. Months later I got a letter from a female fan who enjoyed the story, but was enraptured by the text page I’d written. Now, because this was the third issue, they wouldn’t have any reader letters, so Harris asked me to write up a page of something they could print in that space. So I made up the story about finding the vampire bar in the East Village—and she thought it was true! She was one of the first of what would later be called Goth chicks, and in her letter she wanted to know all about the bar and where could she find it. She also mentioned that she was coming to New York and, ‘Could we get together?’ We lived together happily for many years until I moved to Las Vegas and she stayed in New York. We kept in touch for many years, but I haven’t been able to locate her now in almost a decade and have a bad feeling about it. (Penny, are you still out there?) But, yes, I met one of the loves of my life by way of that story. One year she bought me a pill box (I collected them) on which she had delicately painted ‘Blood Red Tear.’ I still have it, though all my other pill boxes are long gone.” An ancient Chinese curse threatened young love in “Six Claws of the Dragon” (Doorway #4, July–Aug. 1978), written by Catherine B. Andrews and Stuart Hopen. “If I recall, Catherine and Stuart were a couple, a writing team who were just about to make it big,” remembers Harris. “They were a pair of ‘new’ writers included in the original concept of the title. However, like many others at the time, they were victims of the DC Implosion.” “I’m flattered that Jack Harris remembered me as an up-and-coming writer,” admits Hopen. “That was the way I viewed myself at the time, but the actuality was that I was very young, naïve, and inexperienced,

“How Much Do You Want for the Kaluta…?” (right) Scott Edelman kindly submitted this photograph of his Comic-Con 2010 discovery of the original cover for Doorway to Nightmare #5 (above sans cover copy), the issue he scripted. Not that he could afford the asking price of $30,000 (!), but at least he had this photo op. All the Kaluta art in this article, by the way, is courtesy of MWK himself. In fact, the artist went beyond the call of duty when our frantic fill-in designer suddenly found the art he wanted to use for the opening page was the wrong resolution. Michael saved the day, at 1:00 a.m.! TM & © DC Comics.

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Shuffling the Deck The details of why the tarot cards were changed from DC horror hosts to more typical fare are in the article, folks! Sketches at left are studies drawn by Michael W. Kaluta for this very cover, Madame Xanadu #1 (July 1981). TM & © DC Comics.

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Madame X Original art from Michael W. Kaluta’s depiction of MX in Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe. TM & © DC Comics.

Full House Michael shared with us this rarely seen MX cover art rendered exclusively for the July 1993 issue of Shop Talk, distributed to pros and comic store owners. TM & © DC Comics.

which combined to make me a slow and inconsistent writer. Overflowing with youthful enthusiasm, I wrote four original—unsolicited—series proposals for DC. Not surprisingly, all of them were turned down, but I think they made enough of an impression to land me a shot at the first Doorway to Nightmare assignment. I submitted two story proposals, one about a vampire hunter and the other about a Chinese mummy. They rejected the vampire proposal because they’d already had a vampire story in the pipeline. But I thought the vampire story had been the better of the two pieces, and rewrote it as a werewolf story. It would be accepted later. “My co-author, Catherine Barrett Andrews, provided an entrée to DC Comics through Ramona Fradon, who had been a longtime friend of Barrett’s parents,” Hopen says. “Barrett and I started doing short horror stories under Paul Levitz’s editorial direction. A number of those short stories predated the publication of my first issue of Doorway to Nightmare, which was a last-ditch effort to hold onto whatever audience might have had an interest in romance comics. The new title was designed to appeal to fans of the Gothic-romance paperbacks that dominated paperback sales. There was chemistry between Barrett and I, and it came out in our collaborations, but it was often the kind of chemistry that exists between nitrogen and glycerine. If anything remains classic about the early issues of Doorway to Nightmare, it is the Kaluta covers, each one a masterpiece of illustration.” A stolen artifact from Madame Xanadu’s shop imbues a young gang member with supernatural abilities in Doorway #5 (Sept.–Oct. 1978), written by Scott Edelman. “I remember very little about the creation of this story—I don’t even own a copy of the issue,” confesses Edelman. “I don’t think I saw it as much different than the stories I was writing at the time for House of Mystery and the other DC horror books, save for the fact that I had a canvas four-five times as large to play with, and that we were encouraged to have Madame Xanadu appear to have an influence on the participants. I guess I thought of her as a female equivalent of the Phantom Stranger, who also had stories for which he was the host and remained in the background of other people’s lives and adventures. So yes, Madame Xanadu was meant to be in more control than the participants ever realized. As to whether I wish I’d had the chance to write further stories featuring Madame Xanadu … yes. But then, I wish I’d had a chance to write more comics, period!” The young gang member wreaks havoc, but, all is not as it seems and Mdme X., once again, proves she was always in control of the situation. But some things are beyond anyone’s control, and the Doorway closed with issue #5. Was it a casualty of the DC Implosion? “Yes, exactly,” confirms Harris. Michael Kaluta sums up his involvement with the short-lived series: “I had no contact with any of the interior artists and was never aware of how much more involved Madame Xanadu became

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with the stories as Doorway to Nightmare developed. I was never asked for story or character input beyond whatever the editor, writer, and artist gleaned from my cover images. I was never asked to do interior art—perhaps if Doorway to Nightmare had lasted longer the opportunity would have come up. Doing the covers in my favored way, I never saw the stories—as script or art. I soldiered on doing what I do, and, luckily for me, what I did was appropriate and maybe even inspirational. I recall after Doorway to Nightmare closed there was talk of giving Madame Xanadu her own book: She’d had to have developed a lot from a simple introductory hostess for Joe Orlando/Jack Harris to be thinking she should have her own book. As we know, there was an eventual Madame Xanadu #1, but no further issues at that time.”

AN UNEXPECTED RELOCATION A few months after Doorway’s cancellation, a Madame Xanadu story appeared in The Unexpected #190 (Mar.–Apr. 1979), prefaced by a gorgeous Kaluta splash page. “All of these tales were originally commissioned for Doorway and went into inventory upon its cancellation, including the Kaluta splash/covers,” states Harris. “Tapestry of Dreams” was written by Cary Burkett, who recalls his time with Mdme. X.: “Madame Xanadu was to be the ‘hostess’ of the new Doorway to Nightmare book, but with a difference. She would not just bookend the stories with an introduction and some pithy remark at the end, but would be featured within the story itself. She would not be a main character, but would in some way serve as a catalyst to the events of the story. Her mystical ‘powers’ were never defined in any way.” Indeed, throughout the tale, Madame Xanadu assists a young man in rescuing his

girlfriend from an incubus. Burkett agrees with Stuart Hopen’s assertions: “Doorway to Nightmare was indeed supposed to be a cross between the supernatural and the romance genres. And it would differ from other supernatural books in that it would feature a single story each issue. I think Joe Orlando had a lot to do with the initial development of the book, working with writer David Michelinie. Paul Levitz certainly had some input. I was Paul’s assistant at the time, and remember being present at some of the conversations about the book. “I knew almost nothing of Madame Xanadu when I wrote my script,” Burkett continues. “I had read Michelinie’s first issue, maybe one or two other scripts for the book. She was just a plot device, and I don’t know if there were any plans by anyone to develop her character or background. Like most of the other hosts, she was to be mainly a mystery herself, I think. My recollection on how I got the assignment is a bit fuzzy— the story had been plotted, but Joe needed someone to script it. I was working every day with Paul, and he liked my work, so I think he suggested that Joe give me a crack at it. I have a very vivid memory of Joe Orlando calling me into his office after he read the script and telling me what a fine job he thought I did on it. It was one of my first fulllength stories, and his comments meant a lot to me.” The Unexpected #192 (July–Aug. 1979) brought back Madame Xanadu, wherein Bill Kelley writes about a mysterious disco, built upon the site of a demonic church. Dispelling one Internet rumor, Harris asserts, “By no stretch of the imagination is Bill Kelley [DC editor] Murray Boltinoff. I can’t think of any two people who were more different!” Hopen and Andrews returned for The Unexpected #194 (Nov.–Dec. 1979), featuring a young man who had dedicated his life to hunting werewolves, after his fiancée was taken from him. “As we started work on the script, Barrett and I broke up. It was not the first time we broke up, nor would it be the last, but it was certainly the worst of several break-ups. We poured everything that was going on between us into the cauldron of this story, striking at each other through surrogate characters, quarrelling and reconciling between page breaks, unable to stop dealing with each other until we were finished dealing with Madame Xanadu. The experience of writing it was 75% horror and 25% romance.” Hopen also reveals one final mystery: “My third Madame Xanadu story involved a charity clinic in Harlem, and a blind Haitian physician with a split personality who was equal parts saint and demon. The script was completed and sold. It was never drawn. It never saw print.” Madame Xanadu’s final Unexpected appearance was in issue #195 (Jan.–Feb. 1980). Denny O’Neil scripted a macabre tale of a US serviceman returning from Vietnam with the ability to compel the deaths of others. O’Neil admits he doesn’t remember any details about the assignment: “I’d say that probably Jack approached me about doing the story and, being a humble and obedient little freelancer, I said yes.” Madame Xanadu was supposed to be featured both inside and on the cover of The Unexpected #200, with Kaluta’s favorite portrait of the character as the cover

image: “I’m still sort of in awe of that piece: a fun, iconic cover which originally had the three witches and Abel in the Tarot Cards.” However, Harris remembers a change in plans: “I commissioned this story and edited it for the original run of Doorway, and it was in my Unexpected inventory. The powers-that-be at the time recognized how good it was and scooped it up for the Madame Xanadu one-shot.” Kaluta also remembers the change in plans: “The Three Witches and Abel were part of the The Unexpected … since the book became Madame Xanadu #1, they were no longer in the mix. I did the alternative Tarot Cards.” Recognizing the popularity of creators Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers, Madame Xanadu #1 (1981) was one of DC’s first direct-sales-only books. Englehart discussed the story in BACK ISSUE #24 (Oct. 2007), but summarizes: “Marshall and I were asked to do a one-shot Doorway to Nightmare, just to fill our time at some point—then later, when Batman [in Detective Comics] became so hot, Jack C. Harris called and said they wanted to make that one-shot the first of a three-part series. I remember saying that it was a stand-alone story, with a beginning, middle, and end,

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Showing Her Hand Cover of Vertigo’s Madame Xanadu #15 (Nov. 2009). Art by (who else?) Michael Wm. Kaluta. TM & © DC Comics.

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Wagnerian Horror In the last couple of years, DC revived Madame Xanadu, with Matt Wagner scripting. The Grendel creator also drew the first issue cover, detailed above in a promotion piece. TM & © DC Comics.

but they wanted a three-parter, so I agreed to spin it out for two more chapters.” As discussed previously, there was a disagreement about rates and Englehart took his story to another publisher [as a different character: Scorpio Rose]. “I think Jack has felt bad about this from that day forward,” Englehart says. “He’s never tried to evade the responsibility, and I commend him for that. I expect the problem was someone above him, after the fact. But I don’t really know.” Harris admits, “Yes, this is a bit of sore point for me. Regardless, I was still proud of that story.”

BEYOND THE DOORWAY, INTO THE DCU Madame Xanadu appeared in a couple more splash pages but no more stories until she was fully integrated into the DC Universe, meeting Wonder Woman (and every other DC heroine) in Wonder Woman #291–293 (May–July 1982). Two years later, Mdme. X. assisted Superman in DC Comics Presents #65 (Jan. 1984). She also got to spit a curse at the Anti-Monitor himself in Crisis on Infinite Earths #10 (Jan. 1986). The Crisis indirectly led to Madame Xanadu’s first regular series—and significant character development—in writer Doug Moench’s The Spectre. “When starting the new Spectre series, I knew I’d need a supporting cast,” remembers Moench. “Madame Xanadu suited the series’ needs perfectly. She was moody and mysterious, had great visual appeal, and possessed abilities that could either launch or advance storylines. Had she not already existed, I would have created a character very much like her. ‘Gypsy fortune-teller’ is an archetype hard to beat.” Depowered and disembodied after his consecutive failures, the Spectre’s re-merger with its human host, Jim Corrigan, was facilitated by Madame Xanadu. This led to a relationship between Mdme. X. and the Spectre—and more gorgeous Kaluta covers! “I wish I could have painted them,” laments Kaluta, “that would’ve been a lot of fun!” The relationship turned sexual in The Spectre #9 (Dec. 1987) with some lovely but controversial artwork from Gray Morrow. “There was no excuse for the nudity, literally none, and it could (and should) have been prevented multiple times,” states Moench.” While I have no objections to nudity per se, The Spectre was not marketed as an

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adult or ‘mature’ book. Indeed, as well drawn as the Madame Xanadu figures were, I was startled to see them in the penciled pages and objected to the editor, warning him we were headed for trouble. He assured me the nudity would be eliminated when the pages were colored. “The book came out with the nudity fully evident, as I predicted, and a number of parents complained to a number of comics shops, resulting in a minifirestorm,” Moench says. “The editor was removed from the book, but real damage had already been done. Fearing further complaints, the shops cut their orders some 30% overall and the numbers never did come back up. Some shops refused to stock the title at all.” Bob Greenberger was the editor at the time: “Gray Morrow added the smoky effects (a.k.a. the Spectre) on a separate layer intended to surprint over the writhing form of Madame Xanadu. We asked for blue to be used and production did not seem to think the line art beneath would show through. When the color proofs arrived, it was not as opaque as we thought, but no one raised the alarm bells. That happened once the book hit the shops and retailers complained. It was an experiment in storytelling and had the surprint done its job, we all would have been happy with this adult moment between two characters. I am disappointed it failed and my punishment was having the book reassigned to Andy Helfer.” There was an admission of love between Madame Xanadu and the Spectre, but as the series continued, the romance faded away. “I may have ended it when a dead end seemed imminent, but again my memory is not good enough to be certain,” admits Moench.

PREDATING CAMELOT Madame Xanadu had a marvelous scene with John Constantine in Books of Magic #2 (Jan. 1991), but received her most significant character development in the Spectre’s next series, courtesy of writer John Ostrander, who remarks: “I know that when Tom Mandrake and I were putting together our approach to the Spectre and Corrigan, we wanted to incorporate what we could from past continuity without being hogtied by it. “I felt that Madame Xanadu was a little too mysterious—too ill-defined to really work as a character,” Ostrander continues. “I wanted to give some backstory but in a way that would open up even more questions. It made her even more interesting as a character, I felt.” In The Spectre #7 (June 1993), Madame Xanadu all but names herself as Nimue from Arthurian legend: “I used to be a sorceress. A master wizard taught me my craft, taught me everything I know. He told me when we met that it was fated and that, in the end, I would confine him in a tree. I did, too. It was his doom.” On the same page, Madame Xanadu admits, “My age is … irrelevant. I cannot die, will not grow old. I will live forever, if I wish. I cheated Death, you see. At cards.” Issue #7 also revealed why Madame Xanadu had associated herself with the Spectre—to siphon his power. She briefly became Madame Spectre, dealing brutal punishments to those she deemed guilty, but she soon relinquished the Spectre back to Corrigan. Ostrander continued to develop Madame Xanadu, highlighting an antagonism towards another of DC’s mystery characters: “I felt her animosity towards the Phantom Stranger (another character who was a little too ill-defined for my purposes) was cool, interesting,

and a little funny. Alluded to it without explaining it.” However, after the conclusion of The Spectre, Madame Xanadu’s appearances were sparse. She had a small but instrumental role in 1999’s Day of Judgment miniseries, assisting

to corral a crazed Spectre. For her efforts, she was blinded by an (again) crazed Spectre in 2005’s Day of Vengeance miniseries. In the Day of Vengeance Infinite Crisis Special, she stated that every time she has regrown her eyes, the Spectre’s curse burns them out again.

ANSWERS IN THE CARDS BACK ISSUE’s purview is the Bronze Age, but it would be churlish not to briefly mention Madame Xanadu’s recent Vertigo series by scripter Matt Wagner and penciler Amy Reeder. Editor Bob Schreck reveals, “Karen Berger actually initiated Madame Xanadu and asked me to call Matt. Amy was a wonderful find of my then-assistant, Brandon Montclare, who worked with her at Tokyo Pop.” “Yes, Bob Schreck approached me about giving the character a reimagining, helping to define her character in a way that hadn’t yet been explored,” says Wagner. “He also had Amy Reeder in mind from the very beginning as the artist on the series. I really had no particular interest in Madame Xanadu—she’d always been portrayed in a fairly obscure and mysterious fashion in the past; it left her cold and distant so far as I was concerned.” Wagner continues, “The seed that launched the whole series was when I discovered that Madame Xanadu had a well-developed distrust, verging on enmity, with the Phantom Stranger. BINGO! That was my hook. I decided that the whole gist of the initial storyline would be to examine how these

The Once & Former

Madame Xanadu When Michael Wm. Kaluta transformed the original mystery hostess from Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion into Madame Xanadu, he used his girlfriend as the model. “I asked Cathy Ann Thiele if she’d pose for the new character (I’d been drawing her face long before I met her). Cathy was a perfect subject for Madame Xanadu (though she didn’t use Tarot Cards to tell fortunes). Cathy’s hair and face were unique and would translate well, adding a difference to the character that would define the book.” Ms. Thiele kindly responded to BACK ISSUE’s queries: “Michael and I were a couple for a few years, so yes, I knew when I was referenced for a piece he was working on. I was a comics fan and still retain a good part of the collection I had from the ’70s and ’80s. Interestingly enough, I had been looking at work done by Kaluta, Wrightson, [Jeff] Jones, and [Barry Windsor-] Smith [members of the legendary “the Studio”] some time before I ever met them. However, I did not meet Michael at any comics industry event or the like. We met in a bar on the upper Westside of New York City. “I posed for Michael for this and that over time, but much was also taken either from his imagination or from photos,” Thiele says. “I am not sure but I think he mostly referenced photos of me for Xanadu. What I can say is that during the initial series run the face of Madame Xanadu was my face. Pretty exactly. To be drawn was both fun and flattering. Not just as Madame Xanadu, my features figured in quite a few pieces, but more often than not it was that Michael (or one of the other artists in the Studio) needed to get the position and proportion of a limb right and the subject of the painting had nothing to do with the model. That was fun, too. I enjoyed just being a part of things, seeing the works develop, listening to the artistic disputes/discussions (and adding my opinion, as I am not particularly shy), etc. I knew how they all felt about their work in general, what was influencing them at the time, and what influences came from the past. It was special to be ‘let inside’ that world. I still love the smell of oil paint and ink. It was a heady time and I loved every minute of it and the people in my life then are still in my heart.” Jack C. Harris was aware that Madame Xanadu was modeled after a young woman Kaluta was dating: “In fact, one startling afternoon, out of nowhere, this same young woman, dressed in Madame Xanadu regalia, struck a pose in the frame of my office door. I was amazed until I heard Mike’s laughter out in the hallway.” “When Jack H. got the surprise of Madame Xanadu being in the office, it was because Madame Xanadu dressed like Cathy Ann Thiele, not the reverse!” insists Kaluta. “During the years between Doorway to Nightmare and the Vertigo series, I came across Madame Xanadu in various books—she often appeared a touch too ‘generic’ compared to the Kaluta/Thiele character’s look. But she still wore all of Cathy’s jewelry and neck choker. I didn’t make those up. If Cathy had noted Jack’s jaw hanging open, and he’d voiced the thought that she’d dressed a part, Jack would have added the arresting effect of Cathy’s amazing Large Eye Look as seen on cover #3 (left), ‘Blood Red Tear,’ to his experience. Of course, if I’d asked Cathy to ‘appear’ to Jack as Madame Xanadu, as he relates, it goes to show what a good sport she was to give him the full Doorway to His Office, but there really was no costuming involved.” Final words from Cathy, the once and former Madame Xanadu: “I had to laugh at the ‘Large Eye Look’ comment. That look would come out when I was either extremely focused on something or really angry and ready to do battle. And I never even thought about the jewelry and neck choker! It is true. I went and looked at the #1 cover art (I have the original) and I remember those items well. I did wear them frequently as they were my favorites at the time. The choker was made of feathers and was fastened by a leather thong at the back. The earrings were hammered silver and brass from India. ‘Generous’ describes Michael, in a lot of ways and that generosity of spirit is why he does give credit to, and is supportive of, others. It is also what makes him a good and loyal friend, no matter how long ago you’ve known him or how far away you are. It has been nice to be held in Michael’s memory and to have enjoyed this short walk into the past. Thanks.”

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characters came to hate each other … which, of course, meant that at sometime in the past, they must’ve nearly loved each other. So, that was the human drama that I had been searching for. It’d been revealed that Madame X. was, in fact, Nimue, the enchantress who had seduced and locked away Merlin so long ago. I took that as my starting point and then added bits and pieces of the existing canon as I saw fit. At some point, she’d apparently played cards with Death to gain her potion-free immortality. Since we were addressing this under the Vertigo banner, it only made sense to portray Death in her incarnation as one of the Endless (and thanks to Neil Gaiman for granting us the opportunity to do so). I also knew that, at some point, I had to have her take up residence or interact with the Mongol emperor, Kublai Khan—seeing as how ‘Xanadu’ was the name of his summer palace, and I had to get her named ‘Madame Xanadu’ in some fashion! “Amy was still quite the fledgling artist when we first started this series,” Wagner says. “I set up a pretty big challenge for her, and she just hit it out the park! Truthfully, I think that many more established artists, given the many different time periods and costuming requirements that I demanded, might not have so gracefully achieved what she was able to accomplish.” Amy Reeder embraced the opportunity: “Brandon Montclare was able to sell Bob and Karen on me and Matt decided to take a chance on me! I was given permission to reinvent Madame Xanadu, especially since she worked much better back in the day as a side character. What I tried to pull from those comics was her sense of presence … the mystery and grandeur she created in her home. There are times in my issues where Xanadu is vulnerable, but whenever she is prepared, whenever someone comes to her, I made sure to make it powerful and a bit daunting. “I feel so lucky to have gotten the first stab at reinventing her, to get inside her head instead of just watching her,” Redder contends. “It was a great learning experience, and I’m very proud of the series. I think Matt created a wonderful balance between the old and new, the Vertigo and the DCU. I’m so happy I was a part of it.” When Reeder took a break, the series finally presented Kaluta with the opportunity to pencil Madame Xanadu interiors (issues #11–15, July–Nov. 2009). “My initial aim was to only stay on the book for the first story arc,” Wagner reveals, until Bob Schreck asked, “‘How about if I can get Mike Kaluta to draw the next arc?’ I mean, how could I say no to that?! Not only was Mike the character’s original designer, but I’d been a huge fan of his for years—the chance to collaborate with him like this was something of a dream come true!” Kaluta responds, “I remember a brief ‘hall meeting’ with Karen Berger where I said I was interested in doing interiors—perhaps that started thoughts percolating?” Stuart Hopen admits, “I had been wishing for a Madame Xanadu story with interior Kaluta art for over 30 years. I was not disappointed when I held it at last.” Vertigo’s Madame Xanadu lasted 29 issues before cancellation due to weak sales. “Basically, in that last issue, I cast the character back into the world of the DC Universe and I wouldn’t be surprised if you see other writers starting to use her in guest appearances,” states Wagner. “The book’s ending came off as something of a new beginning.” Kaluta praises the series: “I’m a big fan of Amy Reeder’s art and storytelling! It was a treat to sit back and just enjoy the unfolding of Madame Xanadu’s life; I was constantly surprised but never badly so, and am feeling a bit hollow knowing time will have to pass before her story continues.” The author would like to express his sincere gratitude (and apologies for having to trim so many wonderful reminiscences) to Cary Burkett, Gerry Conway, Scott Edelman, Steve Englehart, Bob Greenberger, Jack C. Harris, Stuart Hopen, Bill Kunkel, Val Mayerik, David Michelinie, Doug Moench, Denny O’Neil, John Ostrander, Amy Reeder, Bob Schreck, Matt Wagner, and, of course, Michael Wm. Kaluta and Cathy Ann Thiele. Thanks also to Pamela Mullin at DC. JARROD BUTTERY has written several articles for BACK ISSUE. He lives in Western Australia with his very own witchy, Gypsy–type woman. He apologizes for disappointing any female fans.

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Withdrawl Symptoms

Lore Shoberg, by his own description, arrived at the offices of DC Comics via a circuitous route, being referred to Joe Orlando because of his “dark” humor illustrations that he’d been providing to National Lampoon. Lore had originally gone to New York City from San Francisco to pursue publication of a children’s book, but while he was seeking that goal, began to try to get

Main image is a slightly photomanipulated page from PLOP! #7 (Oct. 1974), featuring this Lore Shoberg gag. Inset is a recent photo of the multitalented hombre, who now goes by the brand of Loren Orion, pardnah.

Bryan Stroud

any sort of work to keep body and soul together. He ultimately did get a publisher, so his time in comics was brief, beginning with a one-page gag strip for Cain’s Game Room in DC Comics’ House of Mystery #192, (May–June 1971). Lore also scripted two mystery stories during his association with DC in 1971 and 1972. – Bryan Stroud

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Purple Sage Haze (above left) Lore just might be most famous for his New Riders of the Purple Sage album covers. (above right) He originally came to New York City to pitch a children’s book. Before returning West, Lore produced three books. Here’s the cover to Machine (1973). TM & © the copyright owner.

Lore of Yore (inset) Young Master Shoberg, who still is in a rock band today. TM & © Lore Orion.

BRYAN STROUD: You’ve had quite the colorful career. You’ve gone coast to coast and points in between and done a lot of extraordinary things. Are you driven or lucky or both? LORE (SHOBERG) ORION: I’m kind of like a monkey with a shiny object. I go where the mood suits me, I guess. You know, one thing leads to another, and has led to another, and as I made the steps the first step made before led to the next one. So I guess it was luck—being in the right place at the right time and a blind determination not to work for a living. [laughter] STROUD: I wish I could say I’ve been as fortunate. I guess some of us get opportunities at an early stage and others have to wait a little longer. SHOBERG: Well, I also grew up at a point when it was okay to do that. A time when following your nose, so to speak, or to follow your own heart was not only accepted, but encouraged. It was “do your own thing,” where nobody was criticized for not getting a job and [not] being like your parents. Now, I do think we gained some bad things because of it, but also gained some good things. I think we lost a lot of things that should have been integral to the legacy of that whole time. I don’t mean “legacy” as some kind of big, important thing. “Residue” would probably be a better word. I live in Bandera, Texas, about 75 miles north of San Antonio in the Hill Country and in this little town, per capita, there has been more people successful in the music field than pretty much any other town. They don’t advertise it here. It’s the Cowboy Capital of the world. There have been seven World Champion All-

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Around Cowboys from Bandera. So that’s the big selling point for the Chamber of Commerce. Guys like Jimmy Foster, who wrote “Eight in the Middle” and some other songs for Diamond Rio and others. I’ve had my songs cut by Waylon [Jennings], Tim McGraw, and some other people and a friend of mine, Bobby Boyd, just got a Grammy a couple of years ago for “Bless the Broken Road.” There are managers, one from here who managed Pat Green. Willie [Nelson] spent his time in Bandera. So there has been a lot of people who’ve come from this town that are musicians. STROUD: I had no idea. SHOBERG: I grew up in Ramona, California, near San Diego, on a ranch my grandparents owned when it was a one-stoplight town. In fact, it didn’t even have a stoplight. We’d come down out of the hills and ride the waves at Pacific Beach and other places. So that’s some of my background. STROUD: You’re an artist in more than one sense of the word. What do you feel are your greatest strengths? SHOBERG: Songwriting, I think. Writing, generally, but songwriting in particular. It’s what I do and basically what I do best. I’ve come to that realization just in the last year or two. I’m 61 now and when I first started in the music business—which was directly related to the art business because I was doing album covers—it was just fun to do. I’d been writing songs for myself, so I figured I’d just go and write songs for somebody else. So I went up to Nashville and from there it was a natural thing to decide I wanted to be a recording artist. So I went through that whole thing and wound up on MCA Records and all this while doing the artwork at the same time. Eventually, the recording-artist thing went by the wayside and I just wanted to be a songwriter, and still at the same time trying to write books and trying to do another children’s book

and so forth. Nothing seems to call to me more than songwriting. And as luck would have it, it’s the hardest thing to get done, to get a song cut. Of all the things that I do, the hardest thing is getting songs cut. STROUD: Why is that? SHOBERG: Conservatively speaking, there’s a thousand songs written every day in Nashville. Just in Nashville. That makes 7,000 songs a week. There’s only a Top 40. There’s a finite number of records that get released on any given week in Nashville. There’s only a finite number of recording artists. So everybody’s battling for those spots on the records and a lot of recording artists do their own writing, so that narrows it down even further. STROUD: Classic supply and demand. SHOBERG: The good news and the bad news is that out of those thousand songs a day, maybe two are actually good. Maybe one could be Top Ten. So the idea is to get through—this is going to sound awful, but it’s the way it is, to get through the crap in order to get to the gold. I’ve seen producers’ desks with a thousand CDs on them that they want to get through for one artist. So the competition is fierce—the amount of bad songs that find their way to those desks is outrageous. So a really good song has to do a lot of fighting to get there. As you can see, it’s not easy at all. STROUD: Not for the faint of heart either, it sounds like. SHOBERG: Luckily, Bill Anderson has cut my songs, and Waylon, God bless him, cut one of my songs along with some other people, and I still do artwork here at the ranch, for the ranch. I do covers for various and sundry things just around Texas. So I’m not hurting. I can afford to wait [for the next gig] and I’ve got good friends in Nashville that I write with and send songs to. I feel like I can stay in the game without being desperate about it. Without waiting tables, as they say.

Hip Humor

STROUD: Good deal. Did you have any formal training in illustration or is it a natural gift? SHOBERG: It’s natural, I guess. I didn’t have much of a family, and I just reconnected with my sister in the last few months. I hadn’t seen her in 40 years. She came to the ranch and come to find out I had an aunt who was really artistic, so I guess that’s where it came from. But to answer your question, I think it was more trying to avoid work. [chuckles] I drew pictures in high school, and I’d draw Murphy the Surfer. I had my own little cartoon strip that I did about surfers and some cowboy stuff, and my art teacher thought I had some talent. So I went on just doing the odd art job here and there and found that was really an excellent way to avoid work. Then I went to Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love, in June of ’67, and fell in with some old surfer buddies on Haight Street, an apartment on 1788 Haight, and I got with one of them who wanted to be an artist. He wasn’t much of an artist, but wanted to be one because he liked the lettering—you know, the old psychedelic lettering. STROUD: Yeah, on the rock posters. SHOBERG: Yeah. So I’d draw the pictures and he would do the lettering, and we got a little studio above the street on Haight Street, doing posters. I did some posters that were printed, but the posters we did for the street were all originals that we just stuck in the windows. When they had people like Santana, Big Brother and the Holding Company … Janis [Joplin], the Charlatans, some of those guys who would come and play the Street Theater. We’d do the posters for the coming week, so we did a lot of stuff for them, which led to more artwork. I thought, “This is great for a lazy guy.” We’d get our share of the drugs, which kept us all up. STROUD: So you did the full on-the-front-lines, onthe-job training.

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Two finely rendered —and clever—gag panels by Lore that appeared in DC mystery titles in the early 1970s. Almost looks like Mort Drucker on the left, don’tcha think? TM & © DC Comics.

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Abel Storyteller Editor Joe Orlando also tapped Lore not just for his cartoons, but a pair of scripts, as well. Here’s the Tom Palmer-drawn splash to the House of Secrets #100 (Oct. 1972) effort. TM & © DC Comics.

SHOBERG: [laughs] Yeah, it was on-the-job training, all right. I learned something, too: I was too ambitious to let drugs slow me down. I realized as we were doing this stuff … we were doing speed a lot in order to stay up and draw, but we’d end up doing the same poster five different times. We’d find some little flaw and say, “Let’s do it again!” So we were off and running and missing deadlines by hours because we were just spinning our wheels. So we stopped doing that. STROUD: It’s good that you learned that lesson early. SHOBERG: Yeah. It left me in good stead. The countrymusic business is not unlike rock and roll, and is rife with things like that. When you’re on the road, there’s a lot of temptations. Everything that they say is true. It’s out there and you have to keep your wits about you. STROUD: I’m reminded of Gerry Conway, who is a comic-book writer and editor [and TV writer/producer] telling me about the Hollywood scene where so many producers and others go to parties to discuss their projects for the sole purpose of getting laid. SHOBERG: Well spoken by Mr. Conway, and that’s it exactly—but when you realize that, you can work around it. In other words, don’t walk into a situation

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thinking anyone really cares. It frees you up. Once again, you’re not desperate. You know what they’re there for, and even though they’re looking someplace else as you’re talking to them, you understand the game. STROUD: You did some children’s books during the 1970s… SHOBERG: I actually started out wanting to do children’s books while I was still in high school. I wanted to write and illustrate children’s books. That was my whole point of existence at that stage of the game. I don’t know why. Even though cartoon strips were kind of calling to me, and I made stabs at that on several occasions, but it was really children’s books that got me motivated artistically. Obviously, the times that I lived in, when I was 17 or 18 years old, were evolving at such a quick rate that it seemed like day-to-day things changed and opened up almost cataclysmically as far as societal mores were concerned. As you went along everything started opening up and everything was okay. For example, when I was 13 if you played a trumpet you were a nerd, but by the time I was 18 if you played the trumpet you were cool. STROUD: All you needed was the dark shades. SHOBERG: [laughs] The shades. Another tool to get laid. Anyway, when I went to San Francisco, I still had the idea in the back of my head to do these books. That was the ultimate goal I was after. It was actually the reason that I went from San Francisco, to New York. I wanted to get a children’s book published. STROUD: Naturally, since that was the publishing capital of the world. SHOBERG: Yeah, and there was nothing going on in the Bay Area. No publishing was going on at all. I did illustration work for educational materials; cartoon strips for educational stuff. It was maybe for The Oracle. It’s hard to remember that far back, and of course, [I was doing] the posters, but it was actually children’s books that I wanted to get involved in. I didn’t think about comic books at all. Because after all, nobody could do as good as Robert Crumb. Crumb was just the best. So I figured, why compete? I’ve never been a big competitor. STROUD: He’s still got quite the following though it appears he’s shunned it all, living almost anonymously in France. SHOBERG: He’s a real, dyed-in-the-wool eccentric. He’s not playing at it. He is an eccentric and a misanthrope. But he’s the classic misanthrope. He just does not like people at all. Period. He makes no bones about it. You have to appreciate that. I wouldn’t want to live next door to him and I wouldn’t even want to make him a friend because he’d probably just make me mad all the time, but just look at the world, particularly the hip world that made him famous. The hipsters didn’t realize that they were being mocked. It was beautiful. It was a great hit-and-run thing. He mocked the snot out of them and then left and they thought, “This is great. This is all about me and how cool I am,” then you read the books again and … they’re not that cool. [chuckles] STROUD: How did you end up connecting at DC Comics? SHOBERG: A circuitous route, as they say. My whole life has been a circuitous route, it seems. I had a friend in Haight-Ashbury. Her name was Trish Laibe and she was a free spirit. She had a little kid. She was only 18 or 19 and that was like the hip thing to have a kid when you’re 18 or 19 and dress them up

like little dolls and so forth. She was a friend of mine and her brother actually was my friend first. He was like an O.G. hipster and you could tell how much of an O.G. hipster you were back then by the length of your hair, because hair grows at a certain rate and you could tell how long you’d been a hipster by how long your hair was. He had really long hair, so he was way cool. So I met the sister and she moved back home to Connecticut. And she said, “Come to Connecticut and stay with me.” I had some partners at the time, but I thought, “Nothing is happening here. Nothing is available for publishing here on the West Coast, so I’m going to go to New York.” So we jumped in our cars, a ’69 VW Beetle for me and an old MG for this partner and his wife, and we took off for New York. We made it, oddly enough, and I just got my striped pants on and my psychedelic tie and got on a train to New York to go peddle my wares. The first place I went to was the National Lampoon. I had appointments with publishers, too, because I already had a book—a complete, illustrated and written book. So when I went I made as many appointments as I could because going from Connecticut to New York was an all-day undertaking. So I went to see Doug Kenney at National Lampoon. Somebody had told me about the magazine because I didn’t really read magazines, and I went to their offices and I think there was only something like four issues out at the time. So I went in to talk to Doug Kenney and I had my portfolio of artwork and he asked me if I wrote gags? I said, “No, I don’t really.” I was just interested in doing illustrations for the magazine. I quickly followed up with, “I probably could.” So during the following week I went back to Connecticut and wrote something like six gags. You know, the spot gags that go in the pages with the type. STROUD: Right. SHOBERG: So I went in the following week to see Doug and he bought them all. While I was there I met a famous guy whose name escapes me, but he did a lot of gag stuff for The New Yorker and The Saturday Evening Post and all these magazines and he had brought in Volume 2,400 to 2,500 in this notebook of gags that he did. He would do these pencils and then come into town and show them and they’d buy them. I think Doug bought two of his and my whole supply, so I thought, “Man, this is easy!” STROUD: Like printing money. SHOBERG: Yeah. So I went back, did some more gags and came in the next week and he bought a couple of them and said, “You know, you have a really weird sense of humor.” And I said, “Yeah. Do you want me to do something different?” “No, no, it’s a real dark sense of humor, so you need to go over and talk to Joe Orlando at DC Comics.” So I said, “Let her buck, I’ll do anything.” So I went uptown. I think they were on Madison Avenue at the time, and I went up to the office to see Joe Orlando. Doug called ahead and I got right in to see him and I sat down there, and naturally I’d been a MAD magazine freak since I was five. My favorite artist in the whole world was Mort Drucker—and, of course, Sergio Aragonés and those guys from MAD, so I knew of Joe Orlando because he used to work at MAD. He did illustrations and I think gags, too. So I went to see Joe and we sat and talked and he took this one piece of artwork from my portfolio that he really liked a lot and maybe it was him who said I had a really dark sense of humor, and the piece of artwork, at least to me, wasn’t really a dark thing. It was an illustration I did of the Lost

Boys from Peter Pan and they were all walking in a line and they were my own idea of what the Lost Boys would look like, and one was eating a leg of lamb or something. He said, “Do you do gags?” I said, “Yeah, I did some for National Lampoon.” So he said, “Look, do gags for me, and I’ll pay you.” I said, “Cool.” He asked if I wrote stories. “Yeah, I think.” So he told me how it works. He said it had to be five or seven pages and to sort of block it out and he’d put his pencilers on it and inkers and colorists and all that. I said, “Great.” I went home and I did some gags. Oh, I remember now. He said I had a dark sense of humor so he wanted me to work for The House of Mystery and the Cain[‘s Game Room] stuff. So he showed me The House of Mystery and Cain, and I thought, “I can do this.” So I went home and with that in mind I drew gags about Frankenstein and the Wolf Man and sick things. Well, they were sick at the time, but pretty lightweight now. It was only a few months that I did work for DC Comics, bringing in gags and stories and Joe would edit the stories and get them to

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Lore in Sequence Here’s a rare piece of sequential work from the cartoonist, featured in House of Mystery #193 (Aug. 1971). TM & © DC Comics.

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Fangs for the Laughs! “Cain’s Room 13” page by Lore, from House of Mystery #198 (Jan. 1972). TM & © DC Comics.

work real good. He’d bring in the pencilers and we’d talk about it and I wrote a couple of stories and then I got a children’s book published. And then, I left New York. [chuckles] I hope that was worth your phone call, because that was pretty much my New York and DC Comics experience. DC was a short time in my life, but it was a very important time. STROUD: Back then, Carmine Infantino was DC’s publisher, and Jack Kirby had recently come over to DC from Marvel. SHOBERG: Man, you know, Jack Kirby—very cool. I used to see him in the DC offices. He always looked like a movie star to me. And you mention Carmine Infantino—it brought the whole thing back: getting to the DC office in a rainstorm, walking in wet, and seeing all those artists and creative types doing their gigs. It was inspirational—or I should say, it’s inspirational now—back then, I don’t know if it even made a dent in my post–pubescent sensibilities. But it has stuck in my pre–senile memory bank. I will tell you one thing about DC Comics, though.

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One day I was in waiting for Joe while he was in with somebody else. I think it was Bernie Wrightson, and I thought Bernie Wrightson was just the best. He and Neal Adams. They were the best. I’d sometimes see Wrightson when I’d go in there and he was like a god to me. He wasn’t much older than me. He couldn’t have been more than 24 or 25 at the time. I think I was all of 20 or 21. Anyway, Joe came out and asked me to wait in this room and I went into this room and there was boxes and a drawing board and some kind of technical machines or whatever, and there was a guy over in the corner sitting at a drawing board and he had his head in his hands. I thought, “This guy’s really bummed out.” He’s over there muttering to himself. You see that kind of stuff in movies where a guy is muttering to himself and you kind of wonder what you do in that situation, and you find out you do nothing. I wanted to get up like in the movies and say, “Are you okay?” But you don’t. You just sit there and listen to him mutter. So he muttered for a while and I felt uncomfortable for awhile, and Joe came and got me and I went into his office and I said, ‘Man, that guy in there is kind of bummed out. Is he all right?” He told me the guy’s name and I can’t remember it now, but he was the guy that keeps track of all the Superman stuff. He knew all the Superman trivia. He knew where Superman was at any given time according to whatever they were getting ready to write and he knew all the history of Superman. STROUD: I bet that was Nelson Bridwell. SHOBERG: The name sounds familiar. He was an older guy at the time, but to me an older guy could have been 30. Anyway, he was bummed out and Joe told me that the issue that he was bummed out about was that Supergirl was in trouble and Superman was in the Fortress of Solitude and Krypto was out in space and he couldn’t figure out how to get help to Supergirl. How’s that for getting into your job, huh? STROUD: [laughs] SHOBERG: I thought, “Thank God I don’t have those kind of problems.” He was digging through every character in the world to try and find someone to save Supergirl. There are only a finite number of people who can save Supergirl after all. If Krypto’s on a mission to outer space you’re kind of screwed. I can empathize with that one. What amazes me is that I was really young and New York was really expensive, and when I was first submitting things to Doug over at National Lampoon and working with Joe Orlando and also doing advertising stuff, designing cigarette papers and those kind of things, I was living in a hotel at first on 10th Avenue just above Washington Square, and then I moved down to SoHo into a little railroad flat down there. It was just so expensive to live that I was really having to hustle up and down Manhattan trying to get things figured out. When I finally got the children’s book published, they threw away the one that I brought with me. They just said, “That stinks,” which bummed me out because I’d been carrying it for two years. But they took one of my illustrations out of my portfolio and said, “Write a book about that.” So I did and eventually ended up writing three for McGraw-Hill. But when I got my first one they gave me 500 bucks. And man, 500 bucks in ’72 was lots of money. I had a decision to make: stay in Manhattan for another month or drive back to California and live for three months. I was homesick for California, anyway, so I cut out and then found out when I got to California that I really preferred New York.

STROUD: Wow. SHOBERG: Well, you do things when you’ve got a kid. I didn’t want to wind up on the welfare rolls in New York. I guess I just didn’t have the confidence to think that I could go from there and just stay in New York and become part of that whole fabric. At that time Doug was still alive and of course up at National Lampoon and I wasn’t thinking clearly, I guess, because if I’d stayed I would have kept submitting to Doug and to DC Comics and writing more gags. But I tell you what; the problem was—and I think anybody who writes comedy will tell you the same thing—it ain’t funny. Comedy can get mechanical. I was trying to figure out how to write gags every day. That was my reason to exist, to write gags. That and horror stories. So imagine the dichotomy there. STROUD: [laughs] SHOBERG: I had this little dog and I was out walking the dog in Washington Square late at night, and I had this pea coat on and these guys came out of the darkness, one with a knife right in front of me. He pulled his blade out and the other guy got behind me and the dog did absolutely nothing. The guy in front goes, “Give me your money,” and in my own naiveté I said, “I don’t have any.” I didn’t think I had any. It was such a common thing not to have any money that it was a natural reaction. So he said, “Make some.” And he flipped the knife, very handily—I’ve got to give it to him, he flipped this knife like a pro, and flipped it up like a dagger now pointing down at me, and I’m sixfoot-four, so he was a pretty big guy. Or maybe he just looked big. Or the knife looked big. So I reached down into the right hand pocket of my jeans and lo, and behold, folded up down there was a ten-spot. So I pulled it out and gave it to him and they cut out. Once they left, which I thought was neighborly—I mean, they left and didn’t cut me just to show they could. Anyway, the little dog is looking up at me and we start to walk back to the hotel and all I could think of was how to make it into a gag. I wasn’t afraid. Now I’d probably be shaking in my boots after the whole thing was over, but at the time it didn’t even faze me. All I could think of all the way back to the hotel was how to make a gag out of it for Cain’s Game Room. STROUD: I’m reminded of a story Al Plastino, who drew Superman for years and years, told me. When he was doing the Ferd’nand daily, a pantomime strip, he said after awhile it got really tough and he would have given anything to use one lousy word balloon and he said, “I remember more than once sitting at that drawing board and thinking, ‘Please, God, give me an idea!’” SHOBERG: Right now, for the dude ranch I work on, I write little plays and shows for the guests and they’re comedies and each one is set up to where you have to get better. You have to keep people laughing without using the same jokes. So I found myself last winter trying to write the play we’re doing now and doing the same thing: “God, just give me one gag! One gag.” The play is about horses, so even though I’ve been a horse guy my whole life, clear back to when I was a little kid, and they’re big and they’re stupid and they’re funny, but there’s really not all that many gags about them. STROUD: Yeah, how much can you do after awhile? SHOBERG: And then what you do is you wake up in the middle of the night laughing with some gag you’ve spontaneously come up with. You’ve laid down to sleep, thinking about the play, and the gag hits you

and my wife thinks I’m insane because I’m over there suddenly laughing my brains out and I’ve got to turn the light on and write it down, nearly killing myself in the process. She’s trying to get some sleep. I’m getting a hernia laughing. I guess it has its upside. STROUD: And you never know when inspiration will strike. Or worse yet, if it ever will again. SHOBERG: [chuckles] There is that. You could go dry for years. As a songwriter I’ve literally gone dry for years. I’d write pieces of songs and geez, they’re just great, but you just can’t finish it. Then you go onto another piece of a song. I bet my computer is full of just what I call frags. You put them in there and say, “Well, some day I’ll do something with that.” Then maybe somebody from Nashville will come down to visit and we’ll finish it or whatever. But those little pieces will come and it almost seems like housecleaning. You get stuff out and then after so many of those little ones, here comes a good song all the way through. It’s like you have to get rid of these troubling little ideas that are good ideas as they come out, but they’re troubling nonetheless and then you get rid of those to come up with the bigger inspiration. I’m giving size and weight to ideas and maybe in some galaxy or parallel-universe ideas and concepts do have weight and do have volume or something, but it seems as though those ideas are smaller and the full song that comes out seems to be a bigger idea. And if you follow that one, you’re a better man than me. [laughter] STROUD: Well, having attempted on occasion to write intelligently I think I understand what you’re saying, because as you mentioned sometimes certain little things will just kind of nag at you in the quadrant and so it’s, “Okay, maybe if I write this down, it will leave me alone.” SHOBERG: Exactly. It’s like it bugs you until you write it down. Like a cat needing to be let out. I’m reminded of a story by Ray Bradbury in a collection called They Bite. It’s a short story and if you haven’t read it, find it and read it and call me back. It’s just like that. STROUD: It makes me think of something I read about Stephen King regarding the genesis of the Dark Tower series, where this line that went something like, “The Dark Man rode toward the tower,” and it wouldn’t leave him alone, so he wrote it down and it led to the series ultimately. Those little

Mystery Comics Issue

Pop Peeved At Punk Progeny Panel from Lore’s work in House of Mystery #197 (Dec. 1971). TM & © DC Comics.

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Learn About the Days of Lore Lore Shoberg/Orion is so multi-faceted, his accomplishments can’t even begin to be listed here. But do visit his website, at http://www.citizensforawilderwest.com/ (no hyphen), where a nifty promotional PDF (available for download) describes him as “Artist, author, humorist, singer, songwriter, surfer, cowboy,” which is an in-depth overview of his amazing career. © 2011 Lore Orion

ideas that will not be denied. I enjoy the way King writes, even though I’m actually not much of a horror fan. Something about the way he phrases things, I guess. I’ve joked that I’d read him if he wrote Gothic romances. SHOBERG: Exactly. It’s like Cormac McCarthy. He writes with this great, big, blazing ball of irony that just draws me in. As a matter of fact, my son, who also goes by Lore, but the old Sjoberg surname, writes some very funny stuff for Wired magazine and we have this conversation a lot, and he reads King. I think when you read Stephen King or someone like him it tends to open you up as a writer. It’s like listening to a great song. Rather than go shoot myself I feel free and more open to write my own great song. There are times for great ideas and times when they hit you right, and maybe there’s a right time for a song or a gag to be born when somebody needs to laugh or somebody needs to cry. To me that’s what the creative process is all about. STROUD: I would agree. You mentioned Sergio awhile back, and I’m either ashamed or maybe paying you a compliment, but I confess that when I first saw the reprints of the one-page gags you were doing for House of Mystery looked to me like Sergio’s work. Until I did my research and saw “Lore,” only then did I realize it was not Aragonés. SHOBERG: [laughs] That’s a compliment. STROUD: Well, I think it’s good stuff and wouldn’t hesitate to call you peers or whatever the right term may be. SHOBERG: I think maybe “sycophant.” [chuckles] I don’t belong in that same league. I was just brash enough to be there for a few months and be able to touch up against that kind of greatness. Joe Orlando was a great man and a great editor and he could see things. I’ll tell you a quick story about Joe Orlando. I was writing this story and it was a Western, oddly enough, and this guy’s cattle were being horribly mutilated by

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some sort of monster. This was for House of Mystery. I took the idea to Joe and we talked about it a little bit and I took it home and wrote it and as the story went, there was this Indian—back then we could call them “Indians”—and he was a great, big, old guy in this town and he was mute. He couldn’t speak at all. I forget now what sort of evidence came up connecting him, but it was something to do with this classic scenario of a rancher, the rancher’s daughter, the foreman, all the usual suspects and this Indian. He worked on the ranch and had been there for the father and daughter since the mother had died. Basically a member of the family. So they find this piece of evidence in the room where he lived, so they took him to town and were going to hang him. Everyone was losing cattle, so this was a big deal to the plot. So they put him on this horse and put the noose around his neck and were just about to slap the horse when here comes this outrider, riding hell for leather into town. “Wait, wait! More cattle have been killed!” So everyone gets on their horses and they ride out and corner this monster in a cave and shine their lights in and there’s the daughter with a haunch of cow in her mouth and she’s got these really long teeth and she’s the monster. The thing was, the Indian had been left on the horse and I said, “I guess we have to save the Indian somehow,” and Joe said, “No, no, no. You’ve got to hang the Indian.” “What?” “You’ve got to hang the Indian. A good hanging makes it a better story.” I said, “That’s mean.” He said, “Yeah. Hang the Indian. What you do is when the guy comes riding in, slap the horse and then the guy comes riding up.” “Oh, man.” Talk about your misanthrope. Your black sense of humor. STROUD: Must have been a leftover from his EC days. SHOBERG: That was Orlando! BRYAN STROUD is a longtime fan of DC Comics, particularly the Silver and Bronze Ages, and has been contributing to the website of his lifelong best friend, Ron Daudt, for over a decade, doing reviews of those classics. Beginning in 2007, Bryan seized an opportunity to begin interviewing the creators of the comics he’s loved and has been fortunate enough to conduct over 70 to date at www.thesilverlantern.com.

Perhaps yo u saw them at the bott local news om of a sp stand. Or ma inner rack yb e they were tu at your at your neig cked away hborhood on the bott ph armacy or om shelf comics fan grocery st in the 1970 ore. But if s and earl you were a y ’80s, chan one of Char ces are yo lton’s ghos u encounte t-story co red mics while picking up issue of Fa the latest ntastic Four If the quir or Batman. ky, off-bran d comics at actually pi tracted yo ck up a co ur attentio py, you woul n enough to d discover often work an amazing ing below th array of ta e ra da r and for lit Charlton’s lent, line of horr tle pay. Co ntributors or antholog to y books incl Jim Aparo, uded Steve Steve Ditk Skeates, o, Denny O’ Neil (writin name “Sergi g under th us O’Shaugn e pen essy”), Pat NICK CUTI, Boyette, Jo MIKE ZECK, e Gill, Joe Staton , and many more!

Bruce Buchanan

Host Ghosts Steve Ditko’s renderings of the host character icons that appeared on Charlton’s mystery comics. On the left is Haunted’s Impy o and, right, Mr. Bones of Ghost Manor. Courtesy of Heritage. © 1973 Charlton Comics.

While published under a wide range of titles—most notably The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves, Scary Tales, Haunted, and Ghost Manor—the Charlton books were largely interchangeable in format. Each issue featured two to four short stories, generally ranging from 8–12 pages each. The stories were entirely self-contained— none of the characters in these stories had appeared before, nor would they appear later. And each title generally had a unique, otherworldly host who introduced the stories and perhaps served as a narrator. Some of these hosts included Dr. Graves, Winnie the Witch (Ghostly Haunts), Baron Weirwulf (Haunted), Countess Von Bludd (Scary Tales), Mr. Bones (Ghost Manor), and Mr. Dedd (Ghostly Tales). Unlike the infamous EC horror comics of the 1950s, the Charlton titles were light on actual violence and gore. Instead, they relied on suspenseful setups and twist endings to deliver chills and thrills to readers.

THE BIRTH OF THE CHARLTON MYSTERY LINE The mystery line started in 1966, with the publication of Ghostly Tales. The first issue actually was numbered #55, taking over the numbering from a previous Charlton title [Editor’s note: oddly enough, Blue Beetle]. The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves was added the subsequent year, and Ghost Manor came on board in 1968. One of the early writers to work on the Charlton horror line was Steve Skeates. “What I liked most about working for Charlton was the vast variety of genres I had the pleasure there to work within—that and the fact that I’d get assigned as many pages as I could possibly handle,” Skeates recalls. “Sure, the pay was less than half of what the big com-

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panies (and I do mean DC and Marvel) were shelling out per page, yet those guys tended to be downright stingy as to the number of pages they’d toss in your direction; not so with Charlton! “I was writing Westerns (Captain Doom, Kid Montana, and the Sharpshooter); a forever-continuing, heavily captioned sword-and-sorcery period piece (The Thane of Bagarth); a private eye (Sarge Steel, in the back of the Judomaster comic as well as on his own in something called Secret Agent); humor pieces (“Far-Out Fairy Tales” for that teen-oriented comic called Go-Go, and the entirety of the Abbott and Costello comic book); I even got to create my own superhero group (the Tyro Team),” Skeates says. “And so it was that when editor Dick Giordano one day suddenly (seemingly out of the blue) asked if I’d like to try my hand at a bunch of spooky, ghostly, pseudo-horror-type stories, I of course leapt at the chance!” Giordano’s assignment to Skeates was the write two eight-page “slightly frightening mood pieces” for the second issue of The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves. As was the case with most Charlton stories, Skeates said he was under tight time constraints, although he was grateful for the work and the artistic freedom he had at the company. “More often than not I’d start pounding those keys with only a vague utterly bare-bones idea as to where I was going and then let the plot work itself out even as I was typing the tale up,” Skeates says. The grind-it-out schedule also made collaborating with artists impossible. Skeates said Giordano didn’t assign an artist to the story until a completed script had been turned in and, sometimes, the writer didn’t know which artist had drawn his story until he saw the finished comic on the newsstands. However, Skeates found Giordano’s choice of artists to be close to perfect. Skeates’ favorite Charlton horror collaborations include “This Old Man,” drawn by Pat Boyette for The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves #8 (Aug. 1968). Skeates particularly likes the title panel of the story: “It’s like that panel’s the very definition of ‘claustrophobic,’ while furthermore you can almost smell the mustiness!” Other Skeates favorites include “The Best of All Possible Worlds!,” with Jim Aparo in The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves #5 (Jan. 1968), and “Routine,” with Steve Ditko, in The Many Ghost of Dr. Graves #7 (July 1968). “The beauty of this genre (this ghostly anthology stuff) was that I wasn’t boxed in by the constraints of continuity—outside of the narrator, there were no continuing characters here, and therefore I could do whatever I wanted with those who were involved,” Skeates says.

MR. DITKO COMES TO DERBY After leaving Marvel Comics in 1966, as well as the Amazing Spider-Man title he helped create, artist/writer Steve Ditko returned to Charlton, where he previously had worked on a variety of titles. While he helped launch the company’s “Action Heroes” line with such superhero characters as the Blue Beetle (the Ted Kord version), the Question, and Captain Atom, he also became a regular contributor to Charlton’s line of ghost-story comics. Ditko would remain a frequent artist on these books for more than a decade. Ditko found artistic freedom at Charlton, something that had been a source of tension at Marvel. He also had the opportunity to work closely with Charlton’s workhorse writer Joe Gill. Gill and Ditko had

collaborated frequently during the artist’s earlier Charlton run, most notably on Captain Atom, Gorgo, and Konga. While Ditko famously has refused to grant any interview requests since the mid-1960s, he did write about his working relationship with Gill in the forward to the reprint collection entitled Steve Ditko’s 160-Page Package. Ditko wrote, “Joe may have been partly responsible for my long stay at Charlton. (Actually, Charlton left us and the comic field.) I know Joe’s scripts made my stay and the work more enjoyable and worthwhile. Our efforts are worth saving and still enjoyable in reviewing with a long list of favorites. The comic book story/script writer? It doesn’t matter who follows the first. That first choice is Joe Gill.” One notable Ditko/Gill collaboration is “The Heart of Jeremy Mith,” first published in The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves #31 (Apr. 1972). Baldwin Bates is a wealthy man dying of an incurable heart disease. A mysterious figure named Jeremy Mith appears to the desperate, dying man and offers him a deal. He offers his own heart to Bates, saying he will become the rich man’s houseguest and find a way to die of natural causes. Mith lives a life of luxury as Bates’ guest. As Bates is dying, Mith informs him that he intends to keep the bargain. However, he also explains a little twist. Before Bates receives Mith’s heart, Mith’s spirit possesses Bates’ body. It turns out that Jeremy Mith is a warlock who found a way to transfer his own essence to the wealthy man. Now, he will inhabit Bates’ body—with his own, healthy heart! Another frequently reprinted Ditko mystery story is “The 9th Life,” from Ghostly Tales #85 (Apr. 1971). This tale is one of the few mainstream Ditko works that overtly portrays his strongly held Objectivist views (unlike his self-published work, which strongly focuses on the Ayn Rand-created philosophy). A down-on-his luck man named Michael Hoyt encounters a stray black cat. Hoyt befriends the cat, who transforms into a beautiful witch named Felicia. She takes him back through time for a series of encounters, where he learns that man has always had to deal with injustice and hardship. He returns to his own era, determined to use his talents to improve his life. At the end of the story, he wins the love of Felicia, now that he has become a better, more self-confident, man. Much of Ditko’s Charlton work has yet to be reprinted. But in recent years, several notable stories have been republished, including a collection from the artist himself (the aforementioned Steve Ditko’s 160Page Package, published by Ditko and Robin Snyder. For more information, go to the Steve Ditko Comics Weblog at ditko.blogspot.com.) The hardcover collection titled The Art of Steve Ditko (Craig Yoe, editor) also includes several of Ditko’s Charlton mystery stories from the late 1960s and ’70s.

A NEW GENERATION OF TALENT In the 1970s, Charlton’s ghost-story comics became a proving ground for new talent, many of whom would later become superstars of the industry. One of the first new talents to come through Derby was writer Nicola “Nick” Cuti. Cuti actually began his comics career as an artist, working as an assistant to the legendary Wally Wood. “I was getting $20 a week [as Wood’s assistant],” Cuti recalls. “I loved it, but I needed more money.” So he interviewed with Charlton editor George Wildman, who offered him a job as an assistant editor

Ditko Duo

and in-house scriptwriter. At Charlton, Cuti had the chance to write in virtually every genre—horror, romance, Western, kids’ cartoon comics—“and I just loved it,” he says. Working at Charlton made for some long, hard days for staffers like Cuti. As part of his assistant editor’s job, he would plow through stacks of completed scripts. Once he found one he thought would work for a title, he took it to Wildman for approval, then sent it to the artist. “In the case of the ghost stories, we had these metal shelves, and we would stack all the ghost stories on these shelves,” Cuti says. His job also involved overseeing the coloring and printing of the completed pages, since Charlton was one of the few (perhaps the only) comics company that printed its books in the same building as the editorial offices. According to Cuti, Wildman decided to revamp the horror line in the early 1970s. “He felt they weren’t keeping up with what was on television,” says Cuti. “He wanted new characters and new concepts.” The search for new ideas led a number of talented young creators to Charlton. The Charlton ghost-story line provided a door into the comics industry for Joe Staton. Today, Staton is known for his work with such strips as the Justice Society, Green Lantern, and E-Man, his creator-owned project with writer Nick Cuti. But in the early 1970s, Staton was an aspiring artist who still was looking for a break. Then, one day, he got it. “I had just gotten married and we were heading off

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for a short honeymoon,” Staton recalls. “The Charlton Comics office (in Derby, Connecticut) was on the way and I stopped by.” That impromptu meeting led to Staton getting his first published work, a short story in Ghost Manor. From that point forward, he was a regular in the rotation of artists who drew (and often inked and lettered) the Charlton horror anthology titles. The creative process at Charlton was very much an assembly-line affair. Staff writer Joe Gill cranked out scripts on his old typewriter at an astonishing clip—as many as ten eight-page stories a day. Editor George Wildman then would get on the phone to his roster of artists and dole out the scripts to whoever could handle them. “George would just feed me stories,” Staton says. “I

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didn’t have any input into what the stories were.” Staton was living first in Brooklyn and then in central New York during that time, so he didn’t make many trips to the Charlton office. But by the same token, Staton said Gill and Wildman allowed him complete freedom to tell the stories in the way he thought best. Unlike many of today’s comics scripts, which instruct (and, some say, handcuff) the artist in minute detail, Staton could choose his own angles, panel layouts, and images. He enjoyed that creative freedom, and believes it helped him progress as an artist. “Charlton didn’t have the personnel to do a lot of editing, so they pretty much let me do what I wanted,” Staton remarks. “Since I was new, I was trying out new styles. “It was great. There was always work and you could do it any way you wanted. There wasn’t continuity from one story to another, so you could try different things. I might draw one story in a Steve Ditko style, while I might try a Bernie Wrightson style on another one. These little eight-page stories gave me plenty of room to do different things.” One of Staton’s favorite stories—and a favorite of many Charlton readers—is “No Way Out,” the cover story from Ghostly Haunts #28 (Dec. 1972). In the story, a wealthy young man named Jabez lives alone in a dusty old mansion following the deaths of his parents. He hasn’t left the house in years because, he says, there are no doors. His only human contact is with a neighbor who occasionally brings him groceries, as the neighbor can “walk through walls,” in the mind of Jabez. However, one day, a young woman comes to the house after her car breaks down on the road. She and Jabez strike up a friendship, but when her car is repaired, she must leave. Jabez begs her to stay, since he cannot leave the house. The heartbroken man looks up—and sees a door, then others. The shock of potentially losing his only friend has snapped him out of his delusion that he cannot leave his home. It seems Jabez is finally free at last—except he cannot decide which door to use. The story ends in sad irony, with a now-elderly Jabez still pondering which door he should open. For Jabez, there truly is no way out of the prison he has built in his own mind. In addition to getting Staton started in comics, the Charlton ghost anthologies also introduced him to his long-time collaborator, Nick Cuti. Cuti penned a number of Charlton mystery stories that Staton drew, including “No Way Out.” Staton adds, “Some of Nick’s stories had a real Ray Bradbury feel to them.” Staton and Cuti quickly developed a good working relationship, which ultimately led to E-Man. That book began at Charlton in 1973 and the two have teamed up off and on for more than three decades. Staton certainly hopes to work with Cuti again in the future. “My favorite artist I worked with was my buddy Joe Staton,” Cuti comments. “We developed a friendship over the years that still remains.” [Editor’s note: Read the story of E-Man in BACK ISSUE #13.] Another Cuti/Staton favorite is “The Egg” (Haunted #12, May 1971). A monstrous sea creature terrorizes a

beach, killing a man before it is shot. Unbeknownst to anyone, a young boy discovers a large, alien egg on the same beach, and takes it home to his basement. Later that day, the evil egg attempts to mentally control the boy, but when the egg threatens his sister, the embryonic creature ends up sunnyside up! Charlton’s ghost-story books also gave artist Don Newton his break into the business. Newton sent some samples to Nick Cuti, who hired Newton to work on the company’s anthology books. Newton’s first story appeared in Ghost Manor #18 (Mar. 1974). [Editor’s note: Newton’s career was covered in BI #19.] Tom Sutton, who produced many memorable horror stories for Warren Publishing’s Creepy and Eerie titles, contributed some striking painted covers for the short-lived Creepy Things anthology. Creepy Things lasted six issues in 1975–1976. Mike Zeck is another top artist who got his start in the Charlton horror books. Zeck contributed numerous stories to titles such as Monster Hunters and Scary Tales in the mid-1970s, often collaborating with Nick Cuti. One notable example of Zeck’s early work is “A Grizzly End,” the Cutiscripted cover story to Scary Tales #8 (Aug. 1976). In the story, a young girl finds friendship in a gentle bear. However, when her abusive stepfather learns of the relationship, he leaves poisoned food out for the creature. As he gleefully tells the girl that he has poisoned her friend, she explains the awful truth—the bear is actually a were-bear. The creature has no memory of his human form, nor does he remember being a bear while human. And the were-bear’s human identity? The girl’s stepfather, who realizes too late that he has poisoned himself. Zeck and Cuti also teamed on a rare book-length story for Monster Hunters #9 (Oct. 1976). The book’s host, Colonel Whiteshroud, has been summoned to a rural estate to solve a werewolf mystery—if the British gentleman (and former World War II commando) can survive the night! Six characters are introduced as suspects, and clues are introduced in the story, leading to the werewolf’s reveal on the final page. Wayne Howard was another top talent who drew for the Charlton mystery line during the early ’70s. Howard, a Wally Wood protégé, created Midnight Tales, a horror anthology that differed from the genre’s traditions in several ways. The series’ hosts, Professor Coffin and his lovely niece Arachne, were active participants in the stories. Each issue also had a theme, and each of the stories would fit that general theme. Howard also was perhaps the first comics professional to receive a “Created by…” credit on the book’s cover. Since he created the concept, drew most of the

Painted Lady

stories and all of the covers, and even scripted some tales, Charlton’s editors felt he deserved a prominent credit. Midnight Tales lasted 18 issues, cover-dated from Dec. 1972 to May 1976. Perhaps the strangest title in the Charlton horror library was Haunted Love, a short-lived series from the early 1970s. Years earlier, Charlton had published a successful line of romance comics, and marrying the romance genre with the horror genre seemingly had potential—the Gothic-horror soap opera Dark Shadows gained a cult following with precisely such a formula. The idea was that such a mix could bring in more female readers. The Cuti/Staton tale “The Curse of the Byrnwyres” from Haunted Love #5 (Sept. 1973) is a good example of approach Charlton was attempting with this series. A young woman named Susan Murphy pays a surprise

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visit to a brooding college friend, Emil Byrnwyre, who lives in a rural New England community. Emil appears to be quite nervous and ill, and explains that each member of his family is cursed, in some way. This includes his brother Nathan, who apparently is insane and kept locked away in an upstairs room. An incredulous Susan attempts to free Nathan from his cell, only to find that he is a werewolf! Emil reveals his secret—all males of his family become werewolves upon their 25th birthday, and he turns 25 the next week. However, Susan reveals a secret—Emil is adopted, and thus, is not subject to the curse. Free from his burden, he and Susan leave to pursue a happy life together. However, Haunted Love only lasted 11 issues before it was canceled. “Haunted Love was a mistake,” Cuti states. “Instead of getting the girls who read gothic novels and the boys who read ghost stories, we alienated them both.”

END OF THE LINE But much like Charlton itself, the publisher’s mystery series died a slow death in the early 1980s. By this point, Charlton no longer was commissioning new 70 • BACK ISSUE • Mystery Comics Issue

material for its anthology titles, instead reprinting stories from the company’s vast inventory. Ghostly Tales, Scary Tales, Beyond the Grave, and Haunted finally gave up the ghost in 1984. The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves limped along until 1986, when the company stopped publishing comics. But Charlton’s ghost-story comics still are readily available for a cheap price in back-issue bins and online auctions, and they continue to be reprinted in various collections. These stories also remain alive in the hearts and minds of the men who created them and the fans who enjoyed them. BRUCE BUCHANAN has been a comics fan ever since discovering Amazing Spider-Man #165 on a Kmart shelf. He now is a freelance writer living in Greensboro, NC. Contact him at brucebuc@bellsouth.net.

Mark Arnold

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INTERVIEW WITH MARK EVANIER Conducted January 4, 2011

Maynard is Shaggy Evanier explains that as The Flintstones was loosely based on The Honeymooners, so too was the popular 1959–1963 sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis the template for Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? Here’s a couple of issues of the DC comic, with cover art by Bob Oksner. © 20th Century Fox Television.

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? premiered on television in 1969, and it has arguably become the most successful Hanna-Barbera cartoon TV show of all time, with many, many various episodes and incarnations with the basic central theme of four teenagers solving mysteries with their large dog. According to Mark Evanier, “The four kids were based—in the same way The Flintstones was inspired by The Honeymooners—on the old TV show The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Fred was based on Dobie, Velma on Zelda, Daphne on Thalia, and Shaggy on Maynard.” The TV show was originally going to be called Who’s Scared?, but network powers-that-be felt that this would be too disturbing for smaller children, and that more comedy should be introduced into the show, so the resulting changes led to the addition of a Great Dane and the show to be christened Scooby-Doo. The show’s name is usually attributed to Frank Sinatra’s 1965 hit “Strangers in the Night,” in which the crooner sings “scooby-dooby-doo,” but upon closer examination, the name may actually have its origins from an old doo-wop song from 1963 called “Denise” by Randy and the Rainbows, in which the backing chorus sings “shooby-doo” over and over again. Whatever the case, Scooby-Doo has also become a mainstay on the comic-book shelves by various publishers from 1969–1979 and again from 1992 to the present day. Although many other artists and writers worked on the various Scooby-Doo comic books that have appeared over the years, it is often considered that the teaming of prolific writer Mark Evanier and premier artist Dan Spiegle produced the best stories, and a working relationship that went on to other projects and as you’ll discover, an occasional return to the dog that originally brought them together. Here, Evanier and Spiegle reminisce on the series that first brought them together. – Mark Arnold

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MARK ARNOLD: Tell me how you got involved with Gold Key Comics, the first publisher of Scooby-Doo. MARK EVANIER: One of the first people I met in comics was Mike Royer, who is still a good friend of mine. When I started working with Jack Kirby, I helped Mike get the job as Jack’s inker. Mike in turn recommended me to write comic-book stories for a department they had at Disney Studios that was producing material for foreign Disney comics … stuff that didn’t appear in the United States. At the time, the demand for Disney comics overseas was so great that it surpassed the quantity of pages that Western Publishing, a.k.a. Gold Key, was having written and drawn for the Disney comics they were publishing in America. For instance, Gold Key was not producing new Uncle Scrooge stories and the Disney publishers overseas wanted new Uncle Scrooge stories. ARNOLD: Is this similar to Egmont, the overseas representative for Disney today? EVANIER: Yeah, sort of. I started writing Disney comics there. I worked with a fellow named George Sherman, who was a very nice, bright man, but he was in failing health at the time. He wound up dying at a very young age and when I was working for him, he would be away from the studio for weeks at a time due to illness and then he would come back and find his desk piled high with Evanier scripts, which I guess was injurious to his health. One day he was talking to Chase Craig, the editor over at Western Publishing, and Chase mentioned that some of his best writers were retiring or had died, and I suppose George thought, “Here’s a chance to get Evanier off my back,” or something of the sort. For whatever his reason, he recommended me to Chase. He said, “I’ve got a young guy here who’s very prolific and very familiar with the Disney characters, and I think you’ll get along with him.” I had actually met Chase before this once but the subject of writing for the comics he was doing did not come up. This time, it did. George sent him some of the scripts he’d bought from me and Chase called me up and said, “Hey, can you write stuff like this for me?” ARNOLD: How did that transition to Scooby-Doo? Were you the “de facto” guy to go to to write all the Western/Gold Key comics? EVANIER: Chase had me on the Disney books at first and then, I don’t know … maybe he sensed that I was better suited for other characters or maybe I said something. He put me on Woody Woodpecker and then on Bugs Bunny and all the Warner Bros. comics. Oh, wait… My second or third job for him, he had me do the first issue of a new comic based on a new Hanna-Barbera show, The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan. But then it was back to the ducks and wabbits. Then one day I was in there and he asked me if I wanted to write Scooby-Doo. Dan Spiegle had taken over as artist on the book, which was unusual casting. A lot of people now think of Dan as doing that kind of book but at the time, no one did, including Dan. He was having a little problem making the transition from

being an adventure artist. It was kind of a lighter style. ARNOLD: Who did he replace? EVANIER: I believe he replaced Warren Tufts. The first couple of issues were done by Phil DeLara and then Jack Manning. Then Tufts did a few and then Dan came in and he was struggling with the cartoonier designs. He really wasn’t versed in that kind of material, but it turned out he was a fast learner. Chase asked me if I was a fan of Dan’s work, and of course I was. Dan was always one of my favorites. I’ll tell you how far back I was a fan of Dan Spiegle, and this was long before I knew his name. One of the first movies I ever saw was Don’t Give Up the Ship starring Jerry Lewis. I saw this movie and the day after I had a doctor’s appointment, and my parents bought me the Dell Don’t Give Up the Ship comic book to read while I was waiting for the appointment. That comic was drawn by Dan Spiegle. So I was sitting in the waiting room at my pediatrician’s office talking to another kid who was waiting for his father to pick him up. The kid said to me, “You see that movie?” And I said, “Yeah, it was really cool.” He pointed to Jerry on the cover and said, “That’s my dad.” Well, of course I didn’t believe him. I said, “Your father’s Jerry Lewis?” He said yes and I was just about to call him a dirty liar when the door opened and Jerry Lewis walked in to pick him up. ARNOLD: Was the kid Gary Lewis, of [the singing group] Gary Lewis and the Playboys? EVANIER: No, I think it was Ron, who was about two years older than I was. By the way, years later, I worked with Jerry and I showed him my copy of that comic which I’d saved since then and he wasn’t particularly impressed. Anyway, that’s how far back I go with Dan Spiegle. I wrote for Chase and he liked it. A week or so later, when he received the art from Spiegle, he liked me even better because he decided that Spiegle had turned the corner on Scooby. Dan had learned how to do that kind of comic and I guess I got some of the credit. I’m not sure I deserved any, but I got it. Chase decided I should write all the Scooby scripts for Dan after that and I did, except for one inventory job they had lying around. I had added to my script a couple of sketches with an explanation about how I felt the scenes should be staged, and I think Dan and I somehow connected. This has not been the case with every artist I’ve ever worked with. ARNOLD: What issue did you take over? EVANIER: I think it was #21. The first story I wrote was called “Scream Star.” ARNOLD: So, how many issues did you ultimately do with Dan for Gold Key? EVANIER: I only did about six or seven issues with him. ARNOLD: Did you also work on the Scooby-Doo TV shows at that time? EVANIER: At that time, no. ARNOLD: Were you a fan of the show, or how did you know how to write for it, or did you say that you’d seen enough similar type of general mystery stuff? EVANIER: I was not a fan of the show. I was not attracted to it, because I found it to be very much a formula show. I am more a fan of it now than I was then. Its sheer longevity has given it a certain charm and with a little more perspective, I think I like it more now than I did then. When you write that kind of story, you gain a little more appreciation for how difficult they can be to do. ARNOLD: As a child, I liked the comics, but I didn’t

know they were yours at the time. I always liked the comics, but I didn’t like the TV show. I was one of the weird kids who never liked the TV show, because everyone seemed to love Scooby-Doo. EVANIER: You run into those things occasionally. Western Publishing often would employ a guy who wrote on a TV show to write the comic book and, money aside, I think most of them preferred the comics. They didn’t have the network overseeing everything and making them change this or that. They didn’t have, in this case, the Hanna-Barbera story unit decreeing how they show would be done. They didn’t have the animation restrictions. When we did the Scooby TV show, they didn’t like to have the characters wearing different costumes because they wanted to be able to reuse all the stock drawings and run cycles. In the comic book, you could have the characters actually change their outfits if you had a good idea that would require that. There are pros and cons of both mediums. When I wrote a comic book, if Chase liked the script, that was that. On the TV show, a dozen people had to approve everything and there’d always be a few who wanted changes. ARNOLD: You basically answered my next question of how you teamed up with Dan, who seemed a rather unorthodox choice considering his background. EVANIER: He was … but, boy, he was great at it. You know, when you’re a writer you try to do your best work on every job, but if you know it’s going to be drawn by Dan Spiegle, there’s that little extra inspiration there. I’d write a sequence and then think, “Hey, wait a minute. This isn’t worthy of being drawn by Dan Spiegle,” and I’d rewrite it. He always impressed me. One time, we did a story together that for technical reasons, he had to redraw. He’d drawn it, and now he had to draw the exact same script again. I told him to just trace the first job, which is what most artists would have done. Well, Dan isn’t most artists. He drew the whole story again and every panel was from a slightly different angle. He didn’t do that for me or for the readers. He did it for himself, because it made the job more interesting and more of a challenge. ARNOLD: When the Gold Key series ended,

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Zoinks, Man! A superhero (or is it villain?) intrudes on the gang on the Spiegle-drawn cover to issue #24 (Apr. 1974). Note that earlier issues of Gold Key’s Scooby comic were titled ScoobyDoo, Where Are You? (see top of opposite page), but with issue #17 the series was retitled Scooby-Doo… Mystery Comics. © Hanna-Barbera.

were you contacted for the Charlton series? EVANIER: Not just then, which was fine by me. I didn’t care for most of Charlton’s Hanna-Barbera comics and the company paid less than half of what Gold Key did. Then a couple years later, I was at a New York Comic Convention—one of Phil Seuling’s, I think—and I met George Wildman, who was then the editor at Charlton. He asked me if I’d like to write some of their HannaBarbera comics and I really didn’t, but I mentioned that I had this one issue, two scripts that I had written for Gold Key, that had never been drawn or published. Gold Key had paid me for them but then the decision was made to stop the book. So Mr. Wildman said, “Oh, I’ll buy them! Whatever they are, send me the scripts and I’ll send you a check.” I said yes, but I never got around to sending the scripts to him. It was like, “Oh, why bother?” As it turned out, I was glad that I didn’t because years later when I became editor of the HannaBarbera comic-book department, I bought the scripts from myself then. I got a lot more money and even better, Dan Spiegle drew them. And you know what the

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funny thing was? The book they were drawn for was canceled and they didn’t get printed a second time. ARNOLD: Do you know the background as to why Hanna-Barbera would let their license go from Western Publishing to Charlton? EVANIER: Yes I do. There’s a whole story about that. In a manner not dissimilar to the Disney foreign comic-book department, Hanna-Barbera was making a lot of money selling stats overseas. Every time Gold Key had a new issue of Scooby-Doo, Hanna-Barbera would receive stats of the material and they’d sell copies of those stats to Peru to reprint, and to France to reprint, and to Mexico and Luxembourg and I don’t know where else, but it was an enormously lucrative source of income for the studio. It was all pure profit with almost no investment on their part, so they kept urging Gold Key to produce more comics. They wanted there to be more Hanna-Barbera comics in America, of course, but they especially wanted there to be more stats of stories that Gold Key paid for so the studio could sell them to all these different countries around the world. The folks at Gold Key kept saying no. They were having massive problems at the time with distribution and sales were falling and they felt they couldn’t sell any more H-B comics than what they were then publishing. There was this gentleman at Taft Broadcasting, which was then the parent company of Hanna-Barbera. When Gold Key said no to publishing more H-B comics, he went around to several other comic-book publishers and asked, “Hey, would you like to publish a whole bunch of Hanna-Barbera comics?” and Charlton said, “Yes, sure.” Charlton was willing to put out a lot of them and, of course, to have Charlton writers and artists produce all these pages. The guy at Taft thought they were going to make a fortune, and they might have except that the foreign publishers didn’t like the Charlton material and many of them refused to buy it. They felt the characters were off-model, that they didn’t look right, and they didn’t like a lot of the scripts. Many of the foreign publishers decided that for what they were being charged for this Charlton material, they could hire local artists who would do a better job and be more faithful to the cartoons, and some of them did. And then some of those publishers started selling stats of their material to other publishers to buy instead of the Charlton material. ARNOLD: Did this cause a lot of trouble? EVANIER: Yes! There was one particularly messy fight I was told about. The people at Taft were still arguing that the Charlton material was good enough and meanwhile, this one publisher in Argentina, I think, was using some of it but he was also having his own Flintstones and Yogi Bear stories drawn in his country and selling stats of them to other publishers. The moment it really hit the fan was when someone at Taft wrote a memo vetoing some artwork done in Argentina. He wrote something like, “The lead story in your new issue, drawn by the artists you believe produce better work than what we are offering you, is unacceptable. The characters are drawn incorrectly.” And then it was pointed out to him that the art he was disapproving was not Argentinean material but Charlton material. ARNOLD: So, how did it get resolved? EVANIER: Someone at H-B decided a change had to be made. They decided to set up their own foreign comics department, and they hired Chase Craig out of retirement to edit them so they could assure all the foreign publishers, “Hey, we’re going back to the standard we

had with Gold Key! We have the same editor!” They’d finally realized there was a big difference between having Hanna-Barbera comics produced out of an editorial office a mile from the H-B studio and employing a lot of writers and artists moonlighting from that studio, and having them done 3,000 miles away in Connecticut by the lowest-paying company. ARNOLD: I never knew that. I thought it was all in New York. EVANIER: No, the Gold Key offices then were on Hollywood Boulevard right across the street from the Chinese Theatre. The Hanna-Barbera offices were at 3400 Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood. Subsequently, the Gold Key offices moved and were even closer. ARNOLD: Did the discouraging output from Charlton make Hanna-Barbera make the decision to bring it to Marvel, or how did that work? EVANIER: Their initial idea was they were going to start their own comic-book company called Hanna-Barbera Comics. That’s when they hired Chase. They would make their own comics and they would control the content and have them all done in a format to serve the foreign market and for the rest of the world. They put together some mock-ups of comics they wanted to publish and they went looking for a distributor. Every distributor said no. DC said the same thing they’d said when the Edgar Rice Burroughs Company had tried to start its own comic-book line. They said, “No, we won’t distribute these, but we have this comic-book company that will license the rights from you and they’ll publish it.” They went to Curtis, which was the company distributing Marvel and which was part of the same conglomerate as Marvel, and Curtis told them the same thing: “We won’t distribute your company, but we’ll arrange for Marvel to publish the comics and then we’ll distribute them.” So they went with Marvel. ARNOLD: Now at that point, you came back with Dan to do more Scooby-Doo? EVANIER: Did you ever read about how that happened? ARNOLD: I know I’ve read it somewhere before. Do you know where it is? EVANIER: It’s on my blog, but I can tell you the story here. It happened the day after I left my job writing the Welcome Back, Kotter TV show. One Tuesday night, we taped the last episode of the season and there was a big wrap party where I said my goodbyes. I’d decided not to come back for the next season. The next morning I woke up for the first time in my career, completely unemployed with nothing to write that day. My girlfriend at the time asked me, “So if you could do anything that you wanted to, what would you like to do?” I said, “That’s too big a question to answer,” so she changed it. She asked me, “If you could back get any job you’ve ever had, what would it be?” Well, at the time that wasn’t a long list of choices. I said that I would like to do Scooby-Doo comic books with Chase Craig again with art drawn by Dan Spiegle. She said, “Well, why can’t you do that?” I explained to her that first of all, the company that had been publishing the Scooby-Doo comics didn’t publish Scooby-Doo comics any more. I hadn’t heard that Charlton had lost the license, so I told her they were now published by an outfit I didn’t want to work for. Secondly, Chase Craig had retired so I couldn’t work for him and his replacement at Gold Key was a gentleman I didn’t get along with, so I didn’t want to go back and work for them. Plus, Dan Spiegle was working for DC, so he wasn’t available. It was just scientifically impossible for me to

write new Scooby-Doo comic books that would be edited by Chase Craig and drawn by Dan Spiegle. Ten or 15 minutes later, the phone rang and it was Chase Craig calling to say, “Listen, I’m editing a new line of Scooby-Doo comics, and I just called Spiegle. He’s going to draw them, and he asked if there was any way I could get you to write them.” I kind of looked around my room to see if Rod Serling was hovering nearby and he wasn’t, but it was still very Twilight Zone-ish. I asked Chase, “How many comics are you doing?” And he said, “Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, ScoobyDoo, and Dynomutt.” I asked who would be writing the others and he said, “I don’t have anybody yet.” I said, “Okay, I’ll write Scooby-Doo if I can write the other three, and he said, “Deal! Hey, are you free for lunch?” And so, literally that afternoon I was writing Scooby-Doo comics for Chase. I did not, by the way, write the first story in the first issue at Marvel. He already had commissioned one script from a fellow named Bill Zeigler. Bill wrote the lead story in the first Marvel issue and then I did all the rest. ARNOLD: I read all those back in the day. Now, was the experience at Marvel similar to the one at Gold Key, or very different? EVANIER: I was writing scripts for Chase Craig and working with Dan Spiegle. How different could it be? ARNOLD: Well, sometimes you go back to something and think, “Hey, it’s going to be wonderful!” and then it turns out to be a disaster. EVANIER: No, it was all fine. Chase had a little office at the Hanna-Barbera Studios and I’d go in once or twice a week and turn in stuff. I got to write Yogi Bear and The Flintstones, and then they decided they wanted to have a Laff-a-Lympics comic, and Chase didn’t want to work that hard, so he asked me, “Why don’t you be the editor of this?” I said, “Okay,” and I became the writer/editor of Laff-a-Lympics. Then one day Chase and I went to lunch and he said, “Ah, I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to go back to retirement,” and then he just gave me the whole department. I took it over. ARNOLD: Those comics only lasted about a year. Was that anyone’s fault? Was it Marvel’s fault? Were the sales low? I bought all of them. I loved those books. EVANIER: There’s a huge mystery as to how they sold. They lasted a year and a half, some of them, but at the same time, H-B began doing foreign comics. It was the same premise as that Disney division I mentioned earlier. For instance, in France, they were airing Jabberjaw on TV and they were showing that cartoon every day. That was not current in America, but it was current in France. The French publisher said, “Hey, do you have any American

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Jabberjaw comic books that we could translate into French here?” There were none, so they had me hire writers and artists and we did Jabberjaw comic books that were published in France. We did hundreds of pages based on different H-B shows over the next years. So even after Marvel stopped publishing our books in America, I was running a full department producing comics for Europe and all over the world for while there. But the Marvel books, I really don’t know how they sold. The people at Marvel told us they sold terribly. I’m not sure I believed them because a couple of those folks had made it clear that they hated those comics. The first person there that told me they weren’t selling well was way too happy about that. And the second guy told me that the seventh issue of Dynomutt was their lowest seller of the month. I had to tell him that might have been because there were only six issues of Dynomutt. They kind of hated everything that wasn’t produced within their office. Later, I worked with the business folks at Hanna-Barbera when they were dickering to revive the line with another publisher, one who’d never done comics before. During those discussions, they showed me royalty figures—the actual statements and checks Marvel had sent—that indicated some pretty high sales. Was it possible that Marvel accidentally way overpaid H-B? I suppose so, but I’m more inclined to think the books sold well but someone there decided they just didn’t want to publish them. You know, Marvel was in the business of selling Hulk and SpiderMan. There have been times when they’ve snatched up the comic-book rights to some hot property they didn’t own and it’s like, “We’ll put this out so no competitor will get it.” Then after a short time they cancel it. ARNOLD: That seems logical, because I remember the same thing happened when they took over Dennis the Menace. It only lasted about a year. [Editor’s note: Marvel published 13 issues of Dennis the Menace from 1981–1982. This series will be examined in BACK ISSUE #59.] EVANIER: Yeah, Marvel’s gone through many regimes and many mindsets and there are times when they wouldn’t even look at other people’s properties. A friend of mine took a very successful property to them at one point and that week, the attitude at the company was, “Why should we publish and therefore promote a property we don’t own?” Then a year or so later, they called my friend and asked, “Hey, are the comic-book rights to that available?” I don’t know if our books at Marvel sold poorly or mixed or if we just hit a period when the company was less interested in publishing other company’s characters. This was when Marvel was getting into the animation business as a competitor to Hanna-Barbera. [Writer’s note: Marvel

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purchased DePatie-Freleng at this time.] ARNOLD: You said you did the ones for the foreign markets. Were those also published by Marvel? EVANIER: No, those were published by their respective publishers. The French editions were published by a French publisher. The Bolivian editions were published by some guy in a garage in Bolivia. Whatever. Marvel wasn’t involved at all. ARNOLD: Did you have to negotiate all those deals? EVANIER: No, someone at H-B would call me up and they’d say, “Do a bunch of Mightor stories.” And then they’d call a few weeks later and say, “No more Mightor for a while … give us Squiddly Diddly.” ARNOLD: Any chance of any of that stuff getting reprinted back here? Probably not, eh? EVANIER: Probably not. I’m not sure anyone at what’s left of HannaBarbera even knows about it or has copies of the material in English. ARNOLD: Now since this is about Scooby-Doo, did you do any Scooby-Doo stories that were only released abroad? EVANIER: For the foreign project, we did probably about 30 or 40 stories. Some of those were drawn by Dan. Some were drawn by Mike Sekowsky. Pat Boyette did a few, and there were other artists. I didn’t write any of those. I had a lot of other work at that time so I let other writers do those. Steve Gerber did a few. ARNOLD: Later on, in the ’90s, you had one last three-issue run on Scooby-Doo with Dan. Was that for Harvey or for Archie? EVANIER: [Editor] Sid Jacobson called me, and I think he was working at Archie by that time. ARNOLD: I know that the new Hanna-Barbera books were originally commissioned at Harvey, and then Harvey stopped publishing in 1994 and the material moved over to Archie. EVANIER: All I know is a call from Sid Jacobson. I was very busy at that point. I didn’t want to commit to a series but I agreed to do a few. ARNOLD: So that was Sid’s idea? EVANIER: Yes. ARNOLD: Was it just to attain some sort of continuity over the years? EVANIER: I really don’t know. ARNOLD: So at this point, did you have any desire to do any future Scooby-Doo collaborations with Dan? EVANIER: Well, I’ll collaborate with Dan on anything.

We haven’t done anything in a long time. Dan is an amazing artist and is always a joy to work with. Apart from just being so good, he’s just so fast and reliable. That’s great when you’re his editor but over the years, it was sometimes difficult to stay ahead of him. When we were doing Blackhawk or Crossfire, he would always be calling me to say, “I’m done with that one and I’m shipping it off. Send me the next script.” And that was panic time because, you know, I hadn’t written the next script. So I’d have to cancel my plans and stay home and write something. There were times when I’d try to stick in lots of crowd scenes or put 12 panels on a page so it would slow him down. Out by the airport, there was a 24-hour post office that would accept Express Mail at 2 AM and get it to Dan’s area, which is a hundred miles north of here, five hours later. I’m not kidding. If I could get it there by 2 AM, he’d have it at 7 AM, which is when he started his workday. So I’d write until 1:15 AM and then I’d print out as many pages as I’d done … and of course, the printer would jam a few times. It always jams when you have 11 seconds [before a deadline]. Anyway, I’d jump in my car and race to the airport and mail it. Then I’d drive home, stopping at Fatburger to get a Fatburger since I hadn’t eaten in twelve hours, and I’d go to bed. When I woke up in the morning, there’d be a message on my answering machine from Dan saying, “Hey, this one’s going faster than usual. I’ll need more script tomorrow.” We worked together for around 25 years and that was the only complaint I ever had about him. He was too good and too reliable and too fast. But every time I got the finished art, it was worth it. That was the main joy in doing Scooby-Doo, working with Dan.

INTERVIEW WITH DAN SPIEGLE Conducted January 26, 2011 MARK ARNOLD: Tell me a bit about yourself and how you got involved in drawing Scooby-Doo for Gold Key. DAN SPIEGLE: I was born in Cosmopolis, Washington, in 1920. Moved shortly after that to Southern California and then to Hawaii. After that I went to Northern California. I finished high school and then enlisted in the Navy. After the Navy I went to Chouinard Art School in Los Angeles, on the GI Bill. After three years there, a friend of mine saw a Want Ad in the newspaper looking for a cartoonist/writer. It was in Hollywood. They wanted someone to do Bozo the Clown. I told them I was more of an illustrator than a cartoonist. The fellow looked at my drawings of a cowboy comic strip I was working on and said his brother worked for the Hopalong Cassidy organization. He gave me the address and said to go over there and show my work. That is when I met William Boyd, who played Hoppy. He liked my work and thought the idea of a [Hopalong Cassidy] comic strip would be great. The strip lasted for five years. From there I went to Western Publishing, which became Dell Comics and then Gold Key. ARNOLD: Did you choose Scooby-Doo as a project or were you assigned it?

SPIEGLE: Scooby-Doo was a Gold Key comic and when I was asked to do Scooby, I said, “I am not a real cartoonist!” They said it was semi-cartoony and that I’d be fine. ARNOLD: Were you a fan of the TV show at the time? SPIEGLE: No. I wasn’t a fan of the TV show. ARNOLD: How did teaming up with Mark Evanier come about? SPIEGLE: I met Mark Evanier at that time. From there I did most of the comics stories that Mark wrote such as Blackhawk, Sgt. Rock, and Crossfire. ARNOLD: Since Scooby-Doo wasn’t your usual type of work, how did you adjust to work on it? SPIEGLE: The drawing technique is different. It is a simpler and cleaner style of drawing. Also, Mark’s stories inspired me, so that made it fun. ARNOLD: When the Gold Key series ended, were you contacted to work for the Charlton series? SPIEGLE: No, I didn’t work for the Charlton series. ARNOLD: You worked with Mark again on ScoobyDoo for Marvel and later at Harvey/Archie. How were those experiences? SPIEGLE: Yes, I did work with Mark, as I said he was the best of the writers because of his humor. I did one or two jobs for Harvey/Archie, but they didn’t pay as well. ARNOLD: Any future Scooby-Doo for you? SPIEGLE: No more Scooby-Doo that I know of. ARNOLD: What are you doing nowadays? SPIEGLE: Now I am doing commissions for comic-book fans of the characters I have drawn in the past.

MARK ARNOLD is a comic-book and animation historian with six books to his credit. His latest books are on the history of Cracked magazine, The Beatles, and on a history of Archie with Craig Yoe.

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JON B. COOKE TO THE RESCUE! We’re as happy as a comics reader on new-release Wednesday to have Jon B. Cooke, editor/designer of the Eisner Award-winning Comic Book Artist, on board this issue as guest designer to help us show the Dreaded Deadline Doom who’s boss. Jon pulled lots of late-nighters to produce this Mystery Issue under a tight schedule, and delivered the goods with each and every article! Thanks, Jon, for a job well done! – M.E.

BRENT ANDERSON ORIGINAL ART STOLEN IN SAN DIEGO July 2011’s San Diego Comic-Con brought one piece of bad news, as reported to us by Mark Huesman: Artist Brent Anderson, whose work many of you will know from Astro City, Ka-Zar, Somerset Holmes, and many great comics over the years, has had a large selection of his [original] art stolen from his car while he was at the San Diego Zoo. He has asked that friends help get the word out. Here’s what he had to say: “My car was broken into at the San Diego Zoo today and the following original art was stolen: 50 pages from Astro City vols. 1 and 2 and Local Heroes; AC: Dark Age Books 1 (#s 1–4), 2 (#s 1–4) and 3 (#s 1–4) (50 pages).” The local police are involved in this matter, but dealers, auction houses, and collectors should keep a lookout for this art. If art collectors or dealers among our readership discover any of these pages, please contact ye ed at euryman@gmail.com and I’ll get word to Brent. Thank you. – M.E.

POTA’S FIRST COMICS APPEARANCE DISCOVERED! Michael, really luxuriated in BI #49—Apes, FOOM, Marvel Calendars— I was like a kid at Christmas! A couple of observations. Over here in the UK, when the tragic news came in that FOOM #22 was the final issue, amidst the wailing and tearing of hair there was also a slight snag—us UK FOOMers were on a three-issue subscription schedule that finished with … #23. We were promised that Marvel UK would put together its own UK final issue but we heard no more, had no refund, and, three decades later, I still feel betrayed. Second observation is all Roy Thomas’ fault! If Roy hadn’t produced that excellent issue of Alter Ego reviewing Not Brand Echh, I would never have revisited my stash and found issue #12, featuring a story starring Medusa of the Inhumans. Cover-dated Feb. 1969 (i.e., before Gold Key and MAD visited the Planet of the Apes), the story concludes with Medusa going to the movies to see “The Planet That Went Ape” and getting Lockjaw to transport her to her new found love, an

Orang by the name of— brace yourself—“Dr. SayYes.” The story concludes with the hairy couple lying on a bed together. And who drew this literary milestone? Why, none other than Titanic Tom Sutton, who approached deification for his work on the Marvel Planet of the Apes mag six years later. Perhaps, then, to paraphrase Taylor’s speech to Dr. Zaius at the end of the movie, Marvel could truthfully tell Gold Key and MAD “We were here first … and we were better than you!!!!” Thanks for the wonderful trip down memory lane. — John Roche

John, now that’s a discovery! And while that story—“My Search for True Love,” featuring Medoozy of the Unhumans—wasn’t a full-length Apes tale and was a parody, it did, as you note, predate Gold Key’s 1970 Beneath the Planet of the Apes adaptation and MAD #173’s (Mar. 1973) “The Milking of the Planet That Went Ape”—making it the first-ever appearance of Planet of the Apes in comic books! Thanks for the info. – M.E.

BUCKLER BOOSTER I loved the Deathlok piece by Rich Buckler, John Beatty, and Charles Costas. Buckler is a talented, underrated artist. I think some people unfairly regard him as a “Kirby swiper” due to his work on Fantastic Four. But they don’t take a couple of key facts into account. One, Buckler was only the third regular penciler on FF after Kirby himself and John Buscema. There may have been pressure on Buckler, either from Marvel editorial or from the artist himself, to maintain the style established by those two giants. Two, the inker on Buckler’s FF issues was Joe Sinnott. A lot of people underestimate just how much Sinnott brought to the finished artwork on FF when inking first Kirby and then Buscema. So if Buckler’s FF work looked a lot like Kirby, one major reason was that Sinnott was inking him. Take a look at Buckler’s work on Giant-Size Fantastic Four #3, with its stunning conflict between the FF and the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. And, of course that same year, 1974, Buckler began drawing the Deathlok feature, which saw the beginning of his incorporation of surrealistic elements into his work. I was thrilled when a Marvel Masterworks edition of Deathlok was released a couple of years ago, as I was finally able to read those stories. Nowadays, Buckler is a great artist, better than he ever was. It really is a shame that Marvel and DC do not seem interested in employing him, aside from the occasional variant cover or “retro” special. He still has a lot of amazing work to offer. Michael Aushenker already profiled the Deathlok series in his excellent article in BI #25, so I understand why Buckler’s creation didn’t really get much mention in #49. But I was thrilled that you gave him the cover. The article “Relevance In Comics” was interesting and quite thorough. I personally think that it is a very fine line that creators walk when trying to address social issues in superhero stories. If you think about it for even five minutes, a genius like Tony Stark should be able to easily come up with inventions to solve such problems such as pollution, disease, and famine. There is that unstated agreement between comic-book creators and readers that we don’t bring up the question of why Reed Richards is able to travel to other galaxies and dimen-

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sions, but he hasn’t yet come up with a solar-powered automobile. In regard to Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams, I love the work they did on Batman in the 1970s. In my mind, their creation Ra’s al Ghul is tied with Darkseid for the position of greatest villain to come out of DC Comics in the 1970s. That said, I have always had a problem with the GL/GA “Hard Traveling Heroes” stories. I understand what O’Neil and Adams were attempting, that they wanted to raise awareness of crucial real-world problems plaguing society. Unfortunately, in order to achieve this, they threw Hal Jordan under the bus. Several years ago, Kurt Busiek summed this up very well when he examined the long-term impact “Hard Traveling Heroes” had on the character of Hal (he certainly articulated it much better than I ever could have): “GL/GA re-cast Hal as a foil for Ollie, turning him from the confident, visceral, instinctual hero to an unthinking conservative, a space cop who always followed orders, as opposed to a space sheriff (the original idea) who may have had superiors, but had almost complete freedom in what he did. And worse, unless you’re Black Canary, being a foil for Ollie means being wrong.” I also had a real problem with Green Arrow’s self-righteous morality in those stories. Ollie never had any particular concern for the poor and downtrodden in society when he was still a millionaire. It was only after he lost his fortune that Ollie suddenly became this militant crusader against social injustice. Nowadays, if I reread those GL/GA stories, whenever Ollie goes off on one of his ultra-leftwing rants, I cannot help hearing in my head a line from Family Guy: “Is it lonely up there on your pedestal?” Moving on to perhaps a lesspolarizing aspect of “Relevance in Comics,” Alex Boney makes mention of Gerry Conway’s work on Ms. Marvel. If I remember correctly from my copy of Essential Ms. Marvel, Conway left the book after only a few issues. It was Chris Claremont who would do an excellent job of developing and examining the character of Carol Danvers in the series over the next couple of years. Having been born in 1976, I missed out on the Planet of the Apes craze by a few years. But I certainly appreciated your article on the comic-book incarnations of the series. I was glad to see that you expanded your scope past the ’70s. I read some of the POTA comics published by Malibu in the early 1990s, including Ape City, which was a wonderfully entertaining, fun miniseries.

On concluding note, my girlfriend is a big fan of Archie comics. So she found the interview with Bertram Fitzgerald about the Fast Willie Jackson series to be a very fascinating read. Thanks again for your time, Michael. I’m looking forward to issue #50 and beyond. Keep up the great work. – Ben Herman Ben, we’ve been wanting to cover-feature Rich Buckler for some time, and the “1970s Time Capsule” theme of BI #49 finally gave us an opportunity (even though, as you note, his Deathlok series was covered back in issue #25). You will continue to see more of Mr. Buckler in these pages. Interesting insights into Green Lantern/Green Arrow and the alterations of the heroes’ personalities to provide the needed conservative/liberal counterpoint. Still, there’s no series in comics I find more re-readable than GL/GA. Alex Boney will be exploring Ms. Marvel at length in BI #54, our “Liberated Ladies” issue.

S U B M IS S IO N G U ID E L IN E S BACK ISSUE is on the lookout for the following comics-related material from the 1970s and 1980s: . Unpublished artwork and covers . Original artwork and covers . Penciled artwork . Character designs, model sheets, etc. . Original sketches and/or convention sketches . Original scripts . Photos . Little-seen fanzine material . Other rarities Creators and collectors of 1970s/1980s comics artwork are invited to share your goodies with other fans! Contributors will be acknowledged in print and receive complimentary copies (and the editor’s gratitude). Submit artwork as (listed in order of preference): . Scanned images: 300dpi TIF (preferred) or JPEG (emailed or on CD, or to our FTP site; please inquire) . Clear color or black-and-white photocopies BACK ISSUE is also open to pitches from writers for article ideas appropriate for our recurring and/or rotating departments. Request a copy of the BACK ISSUE Writers’ Bible by emailing euryman@gmail.com or by sending a SASE to the address below. Please allow 6–8 weeks for a response to your proposals. Artwork submissions and SASEs for writers’ guidelines should be sent to:

Michael Eury, Editor BACK ISSUE 118 Edgewood Ave. NE Concord, NC 28025

Advertise In BACK ISSUE! Next issue: FULL-COLOR “Gods,” issue—featuring an in-depth look at WALTER SIMONSON’s Thor! Plus more Thor: the Thunder God in the Bronze Age and a TOM DeFALCO/RON FRENZ “Pro2Pro” interview. Plus: Hercules: Prince of Power, Moondragon, Three Ways to End the New Gods Saga, and an exclusive interview with fantasy writer MICHAEL MOORCOCK. Featuring art and/or commentary by GERRY CONWAY, JACK KIRBY, BOB LAYTON, and more. Don’t ask, just BI it! See you in thirty! Michael Eury, editor

80 • BACK ISSUE • Mystery Comics Issue

FULL-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 10" Tall • $300 HALF-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 4.875" Tall • $175 QUARTER-PAGE: 3.75" Wide x 4.875" Tall • $100 Prepay for two ads in Alter Ego, DRAW!, Back Issue, or any combination and save: TWO FULL-PAGE ADS: $500 ($100 savings) TWO HALF-PAGE ADS: $300 ($50 savings) TWO QUARTER-PAGE ADS: $175 ($25 savings) These rates are for black-&-white ads, supplied on-disk (TIF, EPS, or Quark Xpress files acceptable) or as camera-ready art. Typesetting service available at 20% mark-up. Due to our already low ad rates, no agency discounts apply. Sorry, display ads not available for the Jack Kirby Collector. Send ad copy and check/money order (US funds), Visa, or Mastercard to: TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 Phone: 919/449-0344 • FAX 919/449-0327 E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com

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SUMMER 2011

WHE N YO ORD U ONL ER INE!

BACK ISSUE #51

BACK ISSUE #53

BACK ISSUE #54

• Digital Editions available: $2.95-$3.95! • Back Issue & Alter Ego now with color! • Lower international shipping rates!

(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “AllInterview Issue”! Part 2 of an exclusive STEVE ENGLEHART interview (continued from ALTER EGO #103)! “Pro2Pro” interviews between SIMONSON & LARSEN, MOENCH & WEIN, and comics letterers KLEIN & CHIANG. Plus JOHN OSTRANDER, MICHAEL USLAN, and longtime DC color artist ADRIENNE ROY! Cover by Englehart collaborator MARSHALL ROGERS!

“Gods!” Takes an in-depth look at WALTER SIMONSON’s Thor, the Thunder God in the Bronze Age, “Pro2Pro” interview with TOM DeFALCO and RON FRENZ, Hercules: Prince of Power, Moondragon, Three Ways to End the New Gods Saga, exclusive interview with fantasy writer MICHAEL MOORCOCK, art and commentary by GERRY CONWAY, JACK KIRBY, BOB LAYTON, and more, with a swingin’ Thor cover by SIMONSON!

“Liberated Ladies” eyeing female characters that broke barriers in the Bronze Age: Big Barda, Valkyrie, Ms. Marvel, Phoenix, Savage She-Hulk, and the sword-wielding Starfire. Plus a “Pro2Pro” interview with JILL THOMPSON, GAIL SIMONE, and BARBARA KESEL, art and commentary by JOHN BYRNE, GEORGE PEREZ, JACK KIRBY, MIKE VOSBURG, and more, with a new cover by BRUCE TIMM!

ORDER AT: www.twomorrows.com

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital edition) $2.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95 • Ships Nov. 2011

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95 • Ships Jan. 2012

THE BEST IN COMICS AND LEGO MAGAZINES!

ALTER EGO #105

ALTER EGO #106

ALTER EGO #107

ALTER EGO #108

DRAW! #22

See comic art and script BEFORE and AFTER the Comics Code changes, with art by SIMON & KIRBY, DITKO, BUSCEMA, SINNOTT, GOULD, COLE, STERANKO, KRIGSTEIN, O’NEIL, GLANZMAN, ORLANDO, WILLIAMSON, HEATH, and others! Plus: FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, JIM AMASH interviews Timely/Atlas artist CAL MASSEY, and a new cover by JOSH MEDORS!

DICK GIORDANO through the 1960s—from freelance years and Charlton “Action-Heroes” to his first stint at DC! Art by DITKO, APARO, BOYETTE, MORISI, McLAUGHLIN, GIL KANE, and others, Dick’s final convention panel with STEVE SKEATES and ROY THOMAS, JIM AMASH interviews Charlton artist TONY TALLARICO, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and ROY ALD, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, BILL SCHELLY, GIORDANO cover, and more!

Big BATMAN issue, with an unused Golden Age cover by DICK SPRANG! SHEL DORF interviews SPRANG and JIM MOONEY, with rare and unseen Batman art by BOB KANE, JERRY ROBINSON, WIN MORTIMER, SHELLY MOLDOFF, CHARLES PARIS, and others! Part II of the TONY TALLARICO interview by JIM AMASH! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

1970s Bullpenner WARREN REECE talks about Marvel Comics and working with EVERETT, BURGOS, ROMITA, STAN LEE, MARIE SEVERIN, ADAMS, FRIEDRICH, ROY THOMAS, and others, with rare art! DEWEY CASSELL spotlights Golden Age artist MIKE PEPPE, with art by TOTH, ANDRU, TUSKA, CELARDO, & LUBBERS, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, cover by EVERETT & BURGOS, and more!

Interview with inker SCOTT WILLIAMS from his days at Marvel and Image to his work with JIM LEE, and PATRICK OLIFFE demos how he produces Spider-Girl, Mighty Samson, and digital comics. Also, MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ “Comic Art Bootcamp”, a “Rough Critique” of a newcomer’s work by BOB McLEOD, art supply reviews by “Crusty Critic” JAMAR NICHOLAS, and more!

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95 • Ships Oct. 2011

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95 • Ships Dec. 2011

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95 • Ships Jan. 2012

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95 • Ships March 2012

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95 • Ships Feb. 2012

LEE & KIRBY: THE WONDER YEARS (KIRBY COLLECTOR #58)

Special double-size book examines the first decade of the FANTASTIC FOUR, and the events that put into motion the Marvel Age of Comics! New interviews with STAN LEE, FLO STEINBERG, MARK EVANIER, JOE SINNOTT, and others, with a wealth of historical information and Kirby artwork!

(128-page tabloid trade paperback) $19.95 (Digital Edition) $5.95 • Ships Nov. 2011 (Subscribers: counts as two issues)

KIRBY COLLECTOR #59

BRICKJOURNAL #17

BRICKJOURNAL #18

BRICKJOURNAL #19

“Kirby Vault!” Rarities from the “King” of comics: Personal correspondence, private photos, collages, rare Marvelmania art, bootleg album covers, sketches, transcript of a 1969 VISIT TO THE KIRBY HOME (where Jack answers the questions YOU’D ask in ‘69), MARK EVANIER, pencil art from the FOURTH WORLD, CAPTAIN AMERICA, MACHINE MAN, SILVER SURFER GRAPHIC NOVEL, and more!

LEGO SPACE WAR issue! A STARFIGHTER BUILDING LESSON by Peter Reid, WHY SPACE MARINES ARE SO POPULAR by Mark Stafford, a trip behind the scenes of LEGO’S NEW ALIEN CONQUEST SETS that hit store shelves earlier this year, plus JARED K. BURKS’ column on MINIFIGURE CUSTOMIZATION, building tips, event reports, our step-by-step “YOU CAN BUILD IT” INSTRUCTIONS, and more!

Go to Japan with articles on two JAPANESE LEGO FAN EVENTS, plus take a look at JAPAN’S SACRED LEGO LAND, Nasu Highland Park—the site of the BrickFan events and a pilgrimage site for many Japanese LEGO fans. Also, a feature on JAPAN’S TV CHAMPIONSHIP OF LEGO, a look at the CLICKBRICK LEGO SHOPS in Japan, plus how to get into TECHNIC BUILDING, LEGO EDUCATION, and more!

LEGO EVENTS ISSUE covering our own BRICKMAGIC FESTIVAL, BRICKWORLD, BRICKFAIR, BRICKCON, plus other events outside the US. There’s full event details, plus interviews with the winners of the BRICKMAGIC CHALLENGE competition, complete with instructions to build award winning models. Also JARED K. BURKS’ regular column on minifigure customizing, building tips, and more!

(84-page tabloid magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Feb. 2012

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Dec. 2011

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Feb. 2012

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships April 2012

SUMMER 2011 EDITION Hype and hullabaloo from the company celebrating the art & history of comics, LEGO®, and other fun stuff

Big Book Update You can always check our website for updated release dates of items you see listed in our full Catalog, but here’s some more specifics on some of our most highly anticipated new items: LOU SCHEIMER: CREATING THE FILMATION GENERATION We’re close to finished with this one, and hope to have it out by the end of 2011. Stay tuned! MODERN MASTERS: DARWYN COOKE Perhaps the most asked-about book we ever announced but haven’t yet produced, this was originally scheduled to ship a couple of years ago. We’re happy to announce that, as of this writing, we’ve just completed the last of the interviews with DARWYN for the book, and are close to announcing the new release date for it. Watch our home page for ordering info! THE QUALITY COMPANION Co-authors MIKE KOOIMAN and JIM AMASH are working feverishly to make the planned October release date for this look at the history of the classic Golden Age comics publisher! MATT BAKER: THE ART OF GLAMOUR This lavish book is progressing nicely as ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON’s schedule has cleared up, and you should see it out for the holidays! Please stay tuned to our website (www.twomorrows.com) for current release dates on all our upcoming items, and thanks for your patience.

by publisher John Morrow

THE LATEST & GREATEST!

By now you’ve seen ALTER EGO: CENTENNIAL, the 100th issue of ROY THOMAS’ acclaimed magazine, which we produced as a double-size BOOK instead of the usual magazine format (complete with extra color pages). You’ve also encountered BACK ISSUE #50, which for the first time presented all 80 pages in FULL-COLOR (with a corresponding $1 cover price increase, but no extra cost for subscribers). We’ll be adding more color pages to our mags (with some issues completely full-color) over the next year, as the subject matter (and reader preference) demands. Speaking of Roy Thomas, he and Bill Schelly are working on a follow-up to their book ALTER EGO: BEST OF THE LEGENDARY COMICS FANZINE. It’ll feature the “Best of the Rest” of the original 1960s and ‘70s run of A/E, and should be out in 2012 from TwoMorrows. KEITH VERONESE lets you get PLUGGED IN, in our new book on comics greats who work in the video game industry. It features GERRY CONWAY, ROY THOMAS (him again!), and ELLIOT S! MAGGIN candidly talking about the early days of Atari along with comics pros JIMMY PALMIOTTI, CHRIS BACHALO, MIKE DEODATO, JOSHUA ORTEGA, and RICK REMENDER discussing their work on the current generation video game hits! There are interComics Professionals Working in the Video Game Industry views with other artists and writers who made the leap to working in video games full time, including an in-depth interview with TRENT KANIUGA (CreeD) about working as one of the architects of the long awaited Diablo III! Look for PLUGGED IN in early 2012.

New (& Old) Digital Editions Coming! Back for a limited time:

We’ve made available economically-priced Digital Editions of most of the back issues of our mags, but haven’t gotten to the first 49 issues of ALTER EGO yet. Going back and recreating each issue in digital form is taking more time than we anticipated when we produced our 2011 Catalog, but we should have those final ones posted later this year, so stay tuned! Also coming soon are new and improved Digital Editions of sold-out books in our Catalog, like TRUE BRIT, MR. MONSTER VOLUME ZERO, and others. We’re working on adding additional pages and MORE COLOR than in the original print versions, and those should be up soon as well. And now available are Digital Editions of two sold-out MODERN MASTERS volumes, on ARTHUR ADAMS and WALTER SIMONSON! Stay tuned for even more in the coming months.

www.twomorrows.com has FULL-COLOR DIGITAL EDITIONS of our magazines for $2.95-3.95! Print subscribers get the digital edition FREE, before print copies hit stores!

A distributor just discovered a couple of boxes of two of our sold-out books: THE ART OF GEORGE TUSKA by DEWEY CASSELL and the acclaimed JUSTICE LEAGUE COMPANION by MICHAEL EURY. If you missed either, now’s your LAST CHANCE to order the print editions, available at www.twomorrows.com.

2012 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: (with FREE Digital Editions)

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TwoMorrows News Today

EISNER DOC ON DVD & BLU-RAY NOW! Our old buddy JON B. COOKE and his brother ANDY of Montilla Productions have produced the award-winning documentary WILL EISNER: PORTRAIT OF A SEQUENTIAL ARTIST. It’s the definitive look at the life and art of the godfather of the American comic book, which premiered at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival. It includes interviews with KURT VONNEGUT, MICHAEL CHABON, JULES FEIFFER, ART SPIEGELMAN, FRANK MILLER, STAN LEE, GIL KANE as well as the never-before-heard “Shop Talk” audio tapes featuring JACK KIRBY, HARVEY KURTZMAN, MILTON CANIFF, NEAL ADAMS, JOE KUBERT and others! It’s 96 minutes with plenty of bonus features, and TwoMorrows is proud to be able to offer it to our customers! The DVD is only $20, while the Blu-ray is $26, and both are available now at our website.

Pros@Cons! In 2011-2012, you can find us exhibiting at these conventions: COMIC-CON INTERNATIONAL (San Diego, CA, July) BRICKFAIR (Washington, DC, August) BRICKCON (Seattle, WA, October) NEW YORK COMICON (New York City, October) In 2012: WONDERCON (San Francisco, CA) HEROES CON (Charlotte, NC) BRICKMAGIC (our own event!) (in both Raleigh, NC and Orlando, FL) BRICKWORLD (Chicago, IL)

Digital Only

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR (4 issues)

$50

$68

$65

$72

$150

$15.80

BACK ISSUE! (8 issues)

$70

$90

$105

$130

$175

$23.60

DRAW! (4 issues)

$30

$40

$43

$54

$78

$11.80

ALTER EGO (8 issues)

$70

$90

$105

$130

$175

$23.60

BRICKJOURNAL (6 issues)

$57

$72

$75

$86

$128

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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